~ XI ~
William woke with a jerk, staring around in the pitch darkness and then, remembering, reached for Rosie. But she was gone.
He lay still for a few moments, then pushed himself carefully upright, sitting with his back against what he assumed was the cool, damp side of the concrete pipe. He quickly realized that he must have fallen asleep, and somehow laid down in a halfway comfortable position. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he couldn't hear anything over its thundering. His nose was filled with the smell of damp brick and mold.
Though he wanted to bolt William sat frozen, trying to force his heart into calming down. He had a small penlight in his pocket but being unable to tell what woke him, he was afraid to turn it on. And he didn't dare move until he could see; he could feel piles of tumbled and broken bricks around him and knew that if he tried to crawl he'd probably hurt himself, or make a loud enough noise to bring every invader around at a run. Or crawl, or whatever.
He began to take deep breaths in through his nose and out his mouth, a calming technique that a friend of his with asthma had used. Gradually his heart slowed, and eventually he was able to hear beyond his own pulse in his ears.
There was absolutely nothing. No sound at all, not so much as the chirping of night insects. Nor was there any light, not even the faint eerie green glow they'd seen nearby.
Finally, after what seemed like forever sitting in the pitch dark, William realized that he had no choice but to use the light. Besides being just about totally freaked, he really had to pee. But to be safe, he put the small Husky penlight behind the bottom of his black t-shirt before turning it on. To his relief, it gave enough light to see by but wasn't the bright white LED glow that could probably be visible from miles away.
Carefully he crept out of the pipe, moving slowly and deliberately so he didn't knock over any of the piled bricks. A few did slide, but there was no loud noise so he didn't worry about it. When he finally crouched on the blacktop of the road next to the broken chimney, he clicked the flashlight off and looked around.
It was pitch-dark in every direction except across the street, where the ruins for some distance were lit with the eerie lime-colored glow from the group of large factories. Apparently his hiding place was still solid enough that it hadn't been able to penetrate inside. But now he could see at least a few feet in every direction, which looked even more dismal and ghastly in the green-tinted dark than in bright sunlight.
Place looks worse than it had during the Civil War, he thought. At least in those blurry old photos he'd seen in history class most of the buildings had been standing, if damaged.
What had happened to his parents and Rosie, he wondered uneasily. He hadn't meant to fall asleep, but why hadn't the dog stayed with him or, if she'd wandered off, found his parents and led them back to him? His mind shied away from the most obvious answer and he decided that it was up to him to find them.
After relieving himself, William scooted to the larger end of the chimney half bent over. He paused to look around, and caught the brief flare of a dim whitish light in the distance past the piles of rubble beyond the chimney. Though he had no idea if it was his parents or a trap, he figured it was better than sitting there all night.
Since it was dark he guessed he had less chance of being seen, and hurried along what was left of the streets without hiding or bending over and made much better time. But when he reached the outskirts of the city, where heaps of broken buildings gave way to encroaching forest, there was nothing in sight. He paused, looking around, between what appeared to be the remains of a wooden house and a stand of saplings only a few yards away.
He didn't want to go into the woods and get lost, but on the other hand it wasn't a good idea to be out in the open when morning came. Though William had a decent sense of direction and a pretty good idea of where he was in relation to the first campsite, he didn't have a compass. His dad usually carried it. If he was wrong and went west instead of east he could end up wandering even further from the farm.
Then he turned and looked back at the city. The wide, faint but clear bar of pale green light still glimmered upwards from some distance away on his left. If he calculated correctly, he needed to turn right to head back to the campsite. And if he hadn't found it by morning, he made himself a deal, he would head for home. He knew he was south of the farm, at least.
It was then he realized that he'd left his pack, which had water, food, and a change of clothes, in the chimney pipe. That was one thing he'd never had to deal with before; even the times he'd run from the refugee camps he'd had supplies with him. Outside of going back into Richmond, he had no idea where to forage for food and water. There was a small stream not far from their first campsite… if he could find it.
William began to walk along the outskirts in what he thought was an eastern direction, trying to stay in the shadow of the rubble and out of the trees. The sky was clear and speckled with twinkling stars, but the moon wasn't up to shed additional light. Also having paid more attention in astronomy class would be a bonus right now, he thought glumly. The positions of the stars meant nothing to him.
He had been walking for an indeterminate amount of time when he thought he saw the faint flash of light again to his right, which was in the forest. Taking a chance, he whistled the sequence they used to call Rosie, but as low as he could. He knew how much better a dog's hearing was than a human's. Then he moved into the rubble, finding a half-wall he could hide behind, flashlight off, and looked towards the forest to see if anyone—or thing—came to find him.
Only a few minutes later he heard a crashing in the woods. He sank lower behind the wall so that his eyes barely peered over. Something was moving in the dark, but he couldn't tell what it was. More figures joined it and he almost bolted, unable to make out if they were human or alien and assuming the worst.
Then what was unmistakably a dog's whine drifted to his ears. "Ssssh!" one of the other amorphous forms hissed, but as he watched the smallest one detached from the others and ran straight at him. He knew that shape. William stepped over the low wall, crouched, and put his arms out.
And promptly got knocked over by a large body. For one horrified moment he thought he'd been mistaken and it was an alien like the black beetle-armored thing he'd seen in the drugstore. Then came the unmistakable feel of a dog's large, wet tongue licking his face . "Rosie!" he breathed with relief, trying to see the dog in the dark so he could hug her as he got to his feet. But she was wriggling around with happiness and all he could feel was an occasional bump from her wagging tail, and her soft fur as she brushed by him.
"William?" The whisper came from nearby, but the figures had disappeared and he didn't see anyone.
He froze, then did the whistle again. It was returned from a short distance away, but behind him instead of in front. He heard Rosie's nails clicking on cement as she moved away, and took the chance of turning on his light beneath the t-shirt, pointing it at the ground.
Moments later two dark figures loomed out of the dimness and enfolded him in their arms. "Thank God, William, where were you?" His mother sobbed softly in his ear. "We couldn't get Rosie to lead us to you."
"We thought they'd caught you." Mulder's low voice was anguished.
He clung to them, struggling not to cry. "I thought the same about you," he choked out. "I went inside the pipe af-after you left. I—I didn't mean to fall asleep, but—but—"
"It's all right, William, shhhh," his mother murmured into his ear, tousling his hair with one hand, both of them still holding him tightly. He realized then that he was crying and blubbering, and tried to get himself under control.
"Suh-suh-sorry," he hiccupped, stepping back reluctantly. "Didn't mean to be such a crybaby."
"God, don't—don't worry about it, son," Mulder whispered, and he heard the hitch in his father's voice which helped calm his embarrassment. "Let's get the hell out of here."
"I left my pack in the pipe—should we go back and get it?"
"No, I don't think we need it," Scully said as they started out. "I've got extras of everything."
"Then can I have some water? I left my canteen in there and I'm really thirsty."
As they hurried along the grassy berm William followed, taking swallows from his mother's water bottle until satisfied, Rosie padding by his side. Every so often his parents stopped and checked the compass, then continued on. "Aren't we going to get Ping?" he whispered.
"We already got him, he's back at the campsite." Scully slowed to walk next to him, Mulder and the dog leading the way since there wasn't room for all of them to walk abreast. "We found Rosie after we left the factory area, and told her to lead us to you, but she whined and shied back every time we tried to get her to go near that area."
"I was sleeping in the pipe," William said, surprised. "I just woke up a while ago."
"I don't know what was with her, but she was determined not to go back there," Mulder whispered over his shoulder.
William thought about it as they walked in silence, but couldn't figure out why Rosie couldn't or wouldn't take them to him. Had there been an invader nearby whose visit he'd slept through?
It wasn't long before they were back at the campsite. Ping neighed as they walked into the clearing and the boy hurried over to quiet him. Hugging the gelding around the neck, William finally felt as safe as he could be until they got back home. Though he would never tell his parents, he had totally changed his mind about being allowed to come along.
# # #
The next morning they packed up and harnessed the horse quickly so they could leave before it got fully light. While Ping clopped along on the empty highway that led back to their farm Scully passed out the last of the jerky and fry bread. They hadn't picked up any foodstuffs so they kept any eye out for buildings they could search for supplies, though they didn't see anything that was worth stopping for. Every town and building, including and until they were past Hanover, had been destroyed, and after that there wasn't much but trees and abandoned fields.
Had they known they'd be staying an extra day plus giving food to Lee, Scully thought, they would have brought more or at least tried to scavenge some.
The Richmond Turnpike, which led almost all the way back to their home, was a blacktop two-lane road with thick forest crowding up on both sides for most of the journey. Several times they flushed deer that bounded away crashing into the brush with flipping white tails, having to call Rosie back each time so she wouldn't chase them out of voice range. Mulder mentioned out loud that he wouldn't have minded taking an overnight break and bagging one of the deer. Scully then pointed out rather acerbically that there were plenty of deer around their farm and that they wouldn't starve to death in the hours it would take them to get home.
In late afternoon William spotted a thorny tangle of berry bushes off to one side and they stopped, taking the time to forage for wild food. They managed to make a meal consisting of blackberries, wizened apples from an ancient tree, some small puffball mushrooms, and the raw, starchy roots of a few cattails. The tall plants grew beside a small stream that burbled through the culvert that ran beneath the road; had it been spring, they could have added the flowers and roots from the common orange daylily. They filled their water bottles and canteens from the stream before moving on. Scully was very glad that one of the books they'd gotten from the library on their first trip there the previous year had been Wild Edible Plants of the Chesapeake Bay Woodlands.
They kept going through the night, having Ping trot for as long as they felt it was safe for him, walking or stopping to rest when William thought he needed to. They were making much better time going back than they had when heading for Richmond. After one break around three a.m. Scully and William switched places so he could find out from Mulder exactly what they'd discovered in the factories. Though she hadn't been on a horse in years, it wasn't long before Scully got used to the horse's easy, rocking gait and then had to keep herself from dozing off with an effort as the night wore on.
She could just barely hear the murmur of their voices behind her. To help keep herself awake Scully remembered what she and Mulder had found in the largest factory, though her mind shied away from the horror. Still, they all had to face it.
It was, Mulder said, something like the spaceship he'd found her in in Antarctica, minus the refrigerated units. To her, it looked more like the scenes in Alien and Aliens where the mother alien had people stuck in goo while the baby aliens gestated inside them, and she supposed it wasn't that much different if more… efficient.
Everything in the factory had been lit by that eerie green glow though there was no apparent source. Inside the door with the hanging black rubber strips they found row upon row of what appeared to be large, tan plastic T-shaped hangers stacked against the walls, sizable enough to hold an adult human body. There was a big bay door at the other end of the room, more green light streaming through it. This was where they found the real atrocities.
She choked out a low sob, remembering, and clapped a hand over her mouth.
But Mulder heard it. His low, murmuring voice paused and then, louder, "You okay, Scully?"
"I'm fine, Mulder." In her mind's eye Scully saw his disbelieving, questioning look to her usual answer, and added, "I mean it, I'm okay. Just tired and hungry like you guys. And don't you say one word about those deer we saw."
A low chuckle was her answer, and the low drone of his voice resumed.
Conveyor belts, she thought despite trying to block the memory. They had human beings on conveyor belts.
Whatever the factory had previously been used for, it appeared that the invaders had appropriated its existing conveyor belt for a totally different purpose. Instead of steer carcasses or car parts, human beings had been hung on the T-shaped plastic hangers which were suspended from large hooks and dangled just a few feet from the stained cement floor. The bodies stuck to the hangars like flies to flypaper, with no visible straps or bindings. From what they were able to see, most of the people were emaciated, partly translucent, and covered in some sort of slime—just like the body that Scully had examined at Bethesda Naval Hospital. A sickly-looking, stringy white tube ran from their mouths to disappear into the dark ceiling overhead. While they watched from the doorway, a wet black alien dropped from among the hundreds of hanging bodies at the far end of the room. It splatted to the floor with a crackling yet squishy sound, made a strange loud chittering noise, then got up and skittered off into one of the black doorways in the back of the room.
The assembly line grumbled into creaking life, moving exactly one foot with a grating of old, rusted metal, then slid to a stop. The suspended bodies swayed slightly, but soon were still again. The only sound was a faint, echoing drip of water somewhere in the distance. Then, without warning, something else fell with a faint splat at the far end of the room and they both stared in that direction.
Though it was at least a couple of hundred yards away, Scully realized that what she'd taken for mounds of old rags against the far wall were actually piles of decaying human bodies. They were too far away to make out any details other than the occasional hand or foot sticking out, but unmistakable once recognized.
It was then that she'd realized the newly-infected bodies were closest to where they stood, and at the other end of the room were the ones which were fully gestated and ready to be "born". Apparently the humans just got dropped and left to rot after the alien clawed its way out.
That also explained the low disgusting stink of the place, which she was just then becoming aware of.
Though she had thought she couldn't feel any more horrified after seeing the laborers in the other factory, Scully felt her head swim and stomach lurch at the realization. She reached out and braced one hand against the cool, slimy wall despite not wanting to touch anything. She glanced beside her and Mulder didn't seem to be in much better shape. His face was pale and tinted veridian, which she didn't think was solely from the light.
When she glanced over at the wall she was leaning on, she saw a group of greasy, wriggling black-oil slugs slithering towards her hand.
That was it. Even though Scully knew she was immune, she simply couldn't handle any more. She bolted without thinking. Her only memory was of running, racing, speeding away from it all as fast as she could. Though she had always prided herself on being strong and resilient, Scully supposed that there was only so much any human being could take before snapping. Unless they were total sociopaths, of course.
Mulder had stayed with her when she ran; when she finally stumbled to a stop in the fields outside the city, gasping for breath and digging one hand into her side where a cramp bloomed, he was right next to her. He threw an arm around her shoulders, his chest heaving and hair damp with sweat. "I—I can't believe it," he gasped. "Did we really just see that?"
Scully nodded, unable to stop herself from crying with anguish at the horrific sight. Despite how hot and sweaty she was, she turned and threw her arms around Mulder, feeling him sobbing as well. They sank to the ground to weep in each other's arms until they got the primary shock out, then just sat resting, holding each other for a time in the quiet warmth and sunlight of the verdant field.
"We'd better find William and get the hell out of here," she finally said, using the bottom of her blouse to wipe her eyes as they reluctantly moved apart. "Goddamn it, where are we?"
By the time they found their way back to the glowing green factories it was late afternoon, and they couldn't seem to find the street where the chimney had fallen across it. Though only a few factories were glowing, there were a lot of streets around them and the rubble often looked like the broken pile of bricks they were searching for only to find that it wasn't when they got there. Rosie found them after they'd been searching for a couple of hours, clearly happy and proud to have done so.
But when they told her to find William, she tucked her tail and ears and slunk around, whining. Neither had any idea what the dog was trying to tell them. Rosie knew "find person" and usually did it well, but this time she seemed upset. Though Mulder mentioned it, Scully was pretty sure that it wasn't because she didn't have her tennis ball to be rewarded with. At the time she was terrified that Rosie hadn't been able to go to William because invaders had gotten him, though she now knew they hadn't.
They got out of the city before full darkness fell and went to where they'd left Ping, leading him back to the campsite while discussing what to do. The worst scenario was that William had been captured, which Scully refused to entertain for more than a moment. Mulder thought he had gone back to where they'd hidden the horse, so they agreed to try there before reentering the city if need be.
They were taking a short break and looking at the compass with a hooded flashlight when suddenly Rosie jumped to her feet, ears going straight up, and whined low. That was when they'd found William, and Scully had reaffirmed her promise to God that if nothing happened to him, He could do whatever He wanted with her.
Just then she felt the horse slow and jerk his head back, then shake it. The reins flopped where they went over her thighs. "Ping must smell or hear something." She turned and called back low. "He's shaking his head."
The reins went taut momentarily then the horse stopped, bobbing his head and snorting. William came to her side and helped her down over the harness shafts, then the three of them paused by the front of the horse and looked around warily. Rosie stood just in front of Ping, turning her head and sniffing the air with her large ears swiveling.
Scully noticed that there was a faint lightening in the eastern sky; morning wasn't far away. Birds were beginning to chirp, but there was an almost hushed stillness in the air.
Suddenly William stiffened and then stepped back jerkily, bumping into the horse who sidestepped nervously but didn't spook. "We need to get back—now," he said in a curiously flat, dull voice, his eyes faraway. "Something bad's happened at the farm."