Charger the Soldier (13 page)

The two couples huddled in the darkness, one
on either side of the dead fire, hearing snapping and scraping
sounds far off in the distance. Danny held Suzie close but they
both shivered all night long. At dawn, a faint light from the
tunnel entrance brought some hope that the terror was over. Danny
looked over at Bobby and asked, "Do we go out and look?"

Bobby just sat there with the oddest smile on
his stupid-looking face.

"I better not be pregnant," Bambi
snapped.

"Ah, geez, what the hell, man?" Danny said to
Bobby.

Bobby got up and the two of them walked
quietly to the entrance, slowly and cautiously, wanting to see what
lay outside. As they peered out at the dull gray day beyond the
entrance, Bobby turned to Danny and said, "Scored!"

Danny replied, "Shut the hell up, man, I
don't wanna know!"

Nothing looked out of the ordinary; the sky
was a dull gray, but it was still there. The two of them ventured
out further, eventually reaching the top of the hill and looking
toward the town off in the distance. It was gone. All they could
see was a gigantic pit, with some type of red stuff at the
edges.

Bobby stood up and said, "Well, guess that's
all over, so what do we do now?"

Danny continued to lie on his belly, staring
at the pit where the town had been, and said quietly, "I really
don't know."

From the ring of destruction, something
stirred. Dirt flew up into the air in puffs, and then a snaking
ridge of soil seemed to be moving rapidly from the pit toward the
two friends.

"Bobby," Danny said cautiously, "Uh, Bobby,
maybe you should lay down again." The snaking ridge of soil was
drawing closer.

Bobby pointed at the moving soil and said,
"What the fuck?"

Danny stood up and started back down the hill
to the cave entrance, calling back over his shoulder, "I ain't
stayin' to find out. C'mon!"

Bobby decided his best bet was to run, too,
but as he turned to follow Danny, the ground beneath his feet
opened up, and a white hot spear of burning light shot up, slicing
him in two. Danny saw it happen as he hurried into the cave
entrance.

As he bolted down the tunnels, chunks of rock
broke off the walls and floor and flashes of light slashed out at
him as he ducked and dodged. He yelled for the girls, but it was
too late. As he approached, dust filled the cave. Through the dust
came wicked flashes of light and screams. For a moment, what looked
like blinking gold-colored eyes stared at Danny.

A sudden violent explosion blasted the inside
of the cave. It blew Danny several feet and broke off a portion of
the wall next to where he landed in a hurricane of dust and wind
and heat, revealing another tunnel slicing off in a downward angle.
Danny struggled to his feet. A dim figure materialized out of the
dust, and terror sucked the air out of Danny's chest. It was twice
as large as a man, with long, wild hair, and two fangs sticking out
either side of its mouth.

For a second, Danny stood frozen with fear.
Then the floor beneath his feet gave way. He tumbled down into the
darkness, screaming, "Wendigo! Wendigo!"

Unconsciousness took him for several hours.
When he came to, he was cut, bruised and stuck. And it was dark.
With no idea of what day it was and little idea of where he was,
Danny sobbed in frustration. But not for long.

It took two days for him to reach the surface
again, fighting the rock debris and the dust. This time he was far
more cautious. He decided to go back to the truck and get the hell
away from the cave. He was alone, hungry, and very angry. This
fight was over for now, but he was alive and he'd be able to fight
tomorrow. As he drove the old truck down the road, not knowing
where he was heading, he could think only one thought. He would
raise an army and drive these alien things from his land even if it
killed him.

Danny drove his old pickup well into the
night, thinking of the way he'd lost Suzie, Bobby, and Bambi to the
alien attack. The cave they had hidden in and the destruction the
aliens had wrought was fresh in his memory, a nightmare that
wouldn't go away. Then the old pickup began to sputter and surge,
bringing Danny out of his dazed sorrow to realize it must be almost
out of gas. As luck would have it, just ahead of him was an
all-night gas station. From inside the station, a tall, thin, young
man who looked like a farm boy walked out into the night to gas up
Danny's truck.

>>>

"Fill the tank with regular?" Henry didn't
really expect an answer. Anybody driving a beat-up pickup like this
one wouldn't want to pay extra for unleaded.

"Yeah." The young guy driving glanced around
and added quietly, "It's so peaceful here, hard to believe the
world is burning all around us."

"What's that?" Either he hadn't heard right
or the guy wasn't making sense.

"I was just commenting on the quiet here.
Guess the aliens haven't got this far yet." The guy lifted his head
from the steering wheel and turned to look at Henry.

"Aliens? We don't get many Mexicans this far
north. This isn't market garden country, it's mostly wheat and
corn," Henry replied as the pump handle discharged, showing the
truck's tank had reached full.

The driver spoke again. "No, I meant the real
aliens, not illegal aliens."

"Sorry, I don't follow you, what aliens?"
Henry was beginning to think the guy was drunk. Or on some kind of
drugs. Stupid.

"You don't know? There's been an invasion, I
just watched my home town get burned to the ground and three of my
friends die." The man sounded sad.

"Okay. Guess you're a little tired tonight.
Might want to pull the truck over to the parking lot and catch a
few winks." It would be bad if the guy drove away and fell asleep
at the wheel. He was either dead tired or drunk. Or maybe on drugs,
since there was no smell of booze on him.

The guy went still, then stared straight into
Henry's eyes. "Hey, what's your name?"

"Henry. But most people call me Charger. I
been working on my Dodge Charger for a long time. It's close to
perfect now." Just a little more work on the leather upholstery and
he'd take it out for a drive.

"Well, Henry alias Charger, there was an
alien invasion happened about three days ago. You might want to buy
a radio, or a TV, and tune in, because people in America are
fucking dying everywhere, and I'm guessing that, in a few days,
this backwater will be a battle zone. Or you can just go on
thinking I'm some shit-for-brains kook, and go bury your melon in
the dirt till you get your fucking ass shot off! How much for the
fuel?"

Henry couldn't help staring. Something was
wrong with the guy. Probably best not to challenge him. On the
other hand, he hadn't listened to the radio or the TV for days
because he'd been busy with the Dodge. "It's on the house, friend,
it's all good, I can see you're tired, you're welcome to crash
round back." He backed away from the truck.

"Fuck, whatever. Which way to town?" The man
tossed a fifty on the ground.

"Follow this road till you get to a stop
sign, then go left. That takes you toward the city, but you really
shouldn't drive."

The old truck surged to life.

"Hey, wait!" Henry said. "I owe you three
dollars and fourteen cents!"

Dust and exhaust sprayed into the air as the
man floored the gas pedal and shot out onto the road. In a moment,
the truck disappeared around a curve.

Henry went into the garage and turned on the
radio. There wouldn't be any news about aliens on it, but the guy
had seemed too serious to be making it up. Maybe he should listen
to the news sometimes anyway, even if it was never interesting.

He was stunned by what he heard. The guy had
been right. America was at war. With aliens. He could barely
believe it.

When seven in the morning rolled around,
Henry walked to the house behind the garage. He stopped on the
front step and stared at his father's field of corn before he went
in. The green leaves were beautiful in the slanting early sunlight.
He nodded. Yeah, there was only one thing to do.

When he looked into his dad's room, the old
man was sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, his
gray hair sticking up in all directions.

"You feeling any better, Dad?"

Steve raised his head. "Some. Figured I
should get up and at least go watch TV for a while. Haven't seen
any news for days." He'd gone down with the 'flu five days ago.

"That's good. You have to look after the
garage now."

His father sat up straight and stared at him.
"How come? Where're you going?"

"I'm joining the army. We're at war."

"What? Are you crazy?"

"Go turn on the TV, Dad. I'm going to say
goodbye to Beth." He knew she'd be back now from a week's camping
trip into the mountains with her folks.

Beth was his girl. People said she was
pretty, with her long, blonde hair and the ice-blue eyes, but what
he liked was how gentle and sweet she acted. She always seemed to
know when he needed space and she never gave him a rough time about
being different.

"Hey, Charger!" she said, when she opened the
door to him. "What's happening? I gotta go to work in twenty
minutes."

He told her what was happening. She looked
stunned.

"We got home late last night. We never even
turned on the TV." A smile replaced her frown. "Are you teasing me?
Was that a joke?"

"No joke," Henry said. "I'm gonna get Dal in
a little while, and we'll join up. Those aliens better start
running right now!"

He put his arms around her for a couple of
minutes, his fingers tangled in her silken hair. Then held her away
from him. "You take care, okay? I'll be back."

She put her face against his chest, then
straightened. "You, too."

He didn't turn around to look back. He knew
she was watching him go, that her face would be solemn and sad. He
didn't want to see the sadness, didn't want it weighing on him. He
didn't want to leave her, sure, but he had to go. It was wrong for
these aliens to attack innocent people.

Back home, Henry shoved a few things in an
overnight bag. Steve was shaved and dressed and making toast.

"You sure you should be doing this?" Steve
asked.

Henry nodded. "It's okay. I'm good at
math."

His dad sighed. "Yeah, I know you are." He
looked like he wanted to say more, but Henry didn't give him the
chance.

"I'll call Dal now and get his ass moving."
Dal was short for Delaware. His folks had been halfway there for a
vacation when he was born.

Dal sounded like he was barely awake. Or deep
into a computer game. But that changed fast.

"Shit, you're crazy, Charger. Ain't no such
thing as aliens," Dal said.

"I'm not shitting you, Dal. A bunch of aliens
have picked a fight with us, and we gotta fight back. We gotta go
enlist! They're calling for troops on the radio, go listen!"

"I ain't gonna go listen to no radio. God
made only us humans, never nobody else. Ain't no such thing as
aliens, 'cept for Mexicans," Dal said grumpily.

"Turn your goddam computer game off and go
listen!" Henry snapped. Dal didn't have a clue when it came to
aliens. He was one himself, come to that; his folks came from
Delhi.

"Shit," Dal muttered.

Henry heard Dal's chair creak as he got up.
Then he sat and waited and waited, until nearly ten minutes had
gone by. Then he hung up the phone, drove the tow truck over to
Dal's house, and walked into the kitchen. "What the hell, why
didn't you come back to the phone?"

Dal sat sideways on a kitchen chair. His
brown eyes had a stunned deer-in-the-headlights look. Henry tapped
Dal's head with a finger. "Hey, you still alive in there?"

"I don't believe it, they said New York was
gone, I mean just gone. The whole city just wiped out, that's like
over a million people!" Dal stuttered.

"Way more than that. There are nine million,
two hundred and twenty-six thousand, seven hundred and forty-nine
people in New York."

Dal stared at him. "You sure about that?"

"Well, give or take a few, I guess. People
never seem to stay still."

"I can't understand how so many people got
killed so fast," Dal said. He looked scared. "How can we win
against that kind of stuff?" He was almost whispering. "The radio
guy said the army was fighting these things, and we should all join
up now."

They were quiet for a moment, then Henry put
his hand on Dal's shoulder and said firmly, "I'm heading back to
the station. I'm gonna take wheels from the shop and put them on
the Dodge, and I'm gonna ride to the army base and join up."

And, he thought, from now on I'll be Charger,
not Henry. Cause that's what I'm gonna do, is charge into battle,
I'm gonna move just like the Dodge. "You can stay here and die, or
you can come with me. We get some guns and we fight back. Hell,
maybe they'll even give us a tank. I can drive pretty good now, my
dad says."

Dal looked up to meet Charger's gaze and
replied, "You really think they'd give us a tank?"

"Sure, why not? They ain't gonna just let
those things lay around and rust."

Dal left a note on the table for his mom and
dad. Then he went back to the shop with Charger and helped him put
new wheels on the Dodge.

Before they left, Charger stood back for a
minute to admire the paint job on the car. He'd sprayed it purple
himself, his favorite color. He gave a last-minute rub to the
leather upholstery while Dal fidgeted in the background. It wasn't
perfect, but fighting the aliens was more important.

>>>

Charger and Dal stayed in a motel the first
night on the road and watched TV as well as having the radio on.
These first days of the war sounded like pure chaos. All the
newscasters were looking for answers nobody could give them. What
were these things attacking all the cities? And why were they doing
it? Why was so much happening all at once? While the newscasters
talked, jets screamed overhead.