Hostseeker: Survive Demonic Apocalypse Read online

  Tom felt weak, his eyes were closing, and pain in his side and the arm was getting too much to handle. He lowered his heavy head on the frozen ground.

  "Betty... don't do it.... see who it is first." Tom was using up all his remaining strength to speak as clearly as he could.

  "I'm not doing anything. I think they are friendly." Betty now sounded almost too human for a piece of electronics.

  The darkness closed in around him. Tom was unconscious.

  Chapter 5

  "Check his backpack for bandages." Michelle said getting closer to unconscious Tom on the ground.

  She has seen enough blood over the last few days, and the sight of the mauled body dressed in what looked like DPF field agent uniform didn't phase her. Jason was doing as his was told, trying to be as helpful as a 13 year old could be, given the circumstances.

  "Let's try and stop the bleeding, before we move him," she told her son.

  The man was badly injured. She could tell even without taking his jacket off to examine the wounds properly. Michelle couldn't just let Jason watch a human get eaten by raptors right in front of them a few minutes ago, but now she was facing a different problem of dealing with added responsibility to keep this guy alive as much as she could. It was not clear what she could do for him, in the middle of a frozen forest, having just killed a bunch of demons.

  "What if they come back, mum?" Jason looked at Michelle.

  He was a sensible boy, who had also been through a lot for a child of his age. His face still had that little kid look in many ways, but the dark circles around the eyes and tint of sadness gave him suddenly much older appearance - especially when he spoke. He was holding up very well, but did look scared, making Michelle want to drop everything, grab her son and run without looking back.

  "They won't, honey," she was looking inside man's backpack, trying to see anything resembling a medical kit, or anything she could use to stop the bleeding with, "and if they do, I'll shoot every last one of them."

  Their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a female voice, coming from somewhere really close, like she was invisible and standing right next to them the whole time.

  "Speaker mode on: please don't be alarmed."

  Jason let out barely audible shriek and hugged his mother, while Michelle almost lost balance because of the shock. Her knees gave way and she lowered herself and Jason on the cold ground, looking around for the owner of the voice. It didn't take her a few seconds to realise that it was coming from the bloodied body in front of them.

  "I am Tactical Assistant of Demonic Purge Force field agent you are helping - these heroic actions are highly rewarded by DPF - thank you." Betty was reading standard crowd control script every ETA had built-in for rare cases of similar emergencies.

  "We need to stop bleeding and retreat to a safer position until the agent recovers," Betty continued, "I need you to follow my instructions and do exactly as I tell you. We don't have much time."

  "Okay, what do we do?" Said Jason to the invisible woman.

  Michelle was still in shock, clutching handle of the industrial nail thrower she used to dispatch the raptors, trying to suppress her shaking inside and looking around, as if expecting more demons to appear.

  "Please retrieve pistol-looking device from agent's backpack, and be very careful not to press any buttons or trigger on it until I tell you."

  Betty's instructions were crystal clear, and Jason quickly found what she was talking about - a strange object that looked like an awkward plastic toy-gun, with shiny cylinder in its handle, and protruding shiny metal barrel.

  "Got it!" he shouted.

  "Give it to me," Michelle said.

  She was back on her feet, shaken off the initial shock and now being worried that Jason is going to hurt himself, following instructions of someone whose intentions were not clear. She took the plastic pistol from Jason's hands, looking at the unconscious man on the ground.

  "This is field cauteriser." Betty explained further. "We have no time, and location is sub-optimal to try and bandage him right now, so you will need to cauterise the wounds through the clothing, precisely where I tell you, before trying to move the body."

  Michelle nodded. She had no idea if invisible Tactical Assistant could see around itself as well as hear what was going on, but it didn't really matter right now.

  "First cauterisation point - left shoulder. Press the barrel of the cauteriser firmly against the spot right in the middle of where his deltoid should be, then pull the trigger once. Internal safety won't let you burn him too much, don't worry." Betty was putting a lot of faith in a random stranger, but fortunately couldn't feel emotions being a piece of advanced electronic equipment, so just proceeded to the next point of her script.

  "Do it now," she added.

  Michelle felt like she was in a haze, proceeding to do as she was told, as if on autopilot. She held the device as firmly as she could in her right hand, pressed it against man's shoulder and squeezed the trigger while squinting her eyes.

  PSHHHHH sound followed, mixed with strong smell of smoke from the burnt jacket and flesh under it. It was disgusting and horrifying, but Michelle had to see this through. Invisible voice told her to do the same in 3 more spots, and she followed the instructions. She could see that the bleeding had stopped, and the man didn't wake up even from the pain of the burns she just inflicted.

  "I'm suppressing his nervous system so that he doesn't wake up," It was like the invisible woman had read Michelle's thoughts, "now wipe the blood off his clothing as much as you can and retreat to the safe position. We will speak again shortly."

  It was dead silent around her and Jason again. Not a thing was moving in the cold forest, she could hear Jason's breathing and her own rapid heart beat. The whole event still felt unreal, like they accidentally stepped into a scene of a war movie and now got trapped inside of it.

  They had to move. Michelle looked around.

  "Grab his backpack. Put his gun and all the other stuff back into it, quickly, honey!" She didn't want to stress Jason out but didn't see any other choice. He didn't say a word and was already on it. A couple of minutes later, they were on the move.

  Michelle was in front, with heavy nail thrower and agent's rifle both thrown on her back, dragging heavy unconscious man's body behind her by the collar of his jacket. Her son was following closely behind, carrying their own supplies bag and clearly struggling under the weight of the man's backpack he fitted on his back. Jason was a tall and strong boy for his age.

  Luckily their journey was mostly downhill from there, and the camp wasn't far.

  They've finally gotten to the bottom of the long hill, turned left, and into a little cave under the red rock, now covered by snow. The cave was not deep but offered decent protection from the wind and snowfall. It was dry inside.

  Michelle was completely out of breath and only now realised how tired she was pulling the heavy immobile body all the way down the hill through the snow.

  "We made it, honey, I'm so proud of you," she said, "stay with him, I'll go brush off the trail."

  She wasn't a hunter or any kind of an educated wilderness survivor, but she did make what seemed to be a logical effort not to leave really obvious tracks behind, especially when her and Jason found their next little shelter for the night.

  She walked out, staying off the snow and on top of the solid rocks protruding above the white disturbed surface of the ground. Using a short leafy tree branch she swept the snow around, as far as she could go without leaving new footprints, making the snow look as intact as possible.

  She didn't know if it did anything for random holos that might be flying over, or raptors passing by. But so far it worked and they've survived for the good part of the week, by just being careful and doing as much as they could to stay invisible.

  Michelle returned into the cave, seeing Jason looking closely at the face and wounds of the man lying on the cave floor.

  "He has some robot parts, mum." Jas
on was old enough to know about human augmentations being common practice among military personnel these days, he just never saw one before.

  Guards stationed at Katoomba were not plentiful, as the lumber mill mostly relied on static and automated protection methods - gun turrets, homing bots, drones, and such. None of them were augs. The man in front of him was still unconscious, faintly breathing, cauterised wounds visible through the holes burnt through his jacket.

  They both had to push the body from one side to lift Tom enough to get his arms out of the jacket sleeves, finally exposing the actual damage.

  "Do you want to go back to the cave entrance and keep watch on what's outside?" Michelle said.

  She wasn't sure if Jason noticed her little gasp as they both saw bloodied steel parts showing through the torn overalls the man was wearing. She has no idea how to stop the bleeding or otherwise help someone who was only part human.

  This one was heavily augmented - not just internal organs and "bits and pieces", as people used to refer to that kind of thing these days - but looking like fully replaced body parts. Definitely the whole left arm and the shoulder, possibly more that she couldn't see yet.

  "I'm fine mum, I really am," Jason sounded calm and didn't move, staring at the most unusual sight he's seen in ages, "do you think he will live?"

  "I don't know, honey, I'm not a doctor." Michelle caught herself sounding impatient. She was stressed and felt like she just volunteered them both into more of an adventure than they both really needed.

  "Let's wait till that lady speaks again and tells us what's going on," she said.

  Betty didn't make them wait.

  "There should be conserved food packs inside the backpack, you can use those. They are made of shiny white metal, with a hook-opener built in. Should be easy to find," she sounded uninvolved and calm.

  Michelle thought that it probably was normal, as they were talking to a computer program of sorts. Jason already found and opened one of the tins, digging into tightly packed mix of proteins and vegetables.

  "I've finished diagnostic," Betty continued, "and sense foreign toxic components present in agent's blood. We need to neutralise them before I try and boot him up."

  Michelle didn't fully get what the invisible woman was talking about, but understood enough to expect further instructions.

  "There should be another square plastic container inside the backpack. Seal is on the side, slide your finger to open," Betty tried to keep the instructions as short and clear as possible, "syringes will be inside".

  Jason was following her with his eyes silently, as Michelle went through the insides of the backpack yet again, finding what the computer voice was talking about. Her fingers slid the seal open, revealing 5 injection-ready syringes inside.

  "Take the cap off one of the syringes, and inject into agent's damaged leg, above the cauterised wound." Betty said. Michelle didn't say anything in response, partly because she didn't know if any acknowledgment was actually required.

  Syringe was large, made of some sort of hard plastic and glass, with a long needle designed to penetrate deep tissue. With a swing harder than probably was required, Michelle stabbed the man's thigh with the syringe, pressing in as hard as she could, letting whatever was inside into agent's blood stream. Once the contents were out, she retracted the needle, backing off a bit to where Jason was sitting.

  "Thank you. Please stand by while I try and jump-start him." Betty started her silent internal countdown, allowing extremely potent concoction properly mix into Tom's bloodstream, before giving him a wake-up surge. A minute later, she did it.

  "Arrrrrgggghhhhhh!" Tom spat out regaining conscience with a start. He could only move his right hand, now grasping air looking for his rifle that was not there anymore, "what happened?"

  "Calm down Thomas," Betty said in his ear. Loudspeaker was now off, "these civilians saved your life."

  Chapter 6

  Michelle couldn't believe that Katoomba mill Operations Lead actually approved her to join the camp in the wilds, along with her son, even though neither of them were augmented. She was a great mechanic though, and not many workers would have probably volunteered to step into the enemy territory, putting that much faith in the protective perimeter and good luck.

  The decision was not easy for her though, and risk she was clearly taking was calculated.

  Her and Jason were alone in the world, after her husband died during the onslaught of the first invasions, and from that moment Michelle's whole life became about analysing hard facts and choosing the lesser of usually many evils.

  Regardless of being away from immediate cover of Sydney walls, Katoomba was reported to be a very quiet and well protected outpost. Possessing demons have not been seen anywhere close to the area for many months, and woodland scavengers didn't pose any real threat as long as her and Jason stayed inside the perimeter and minded their own business.

  Devastation that Plague One brought upon densely populated areas of the country was not something one could ignore or easily forget either. The idea of being trapped inside overpopulated city under siege, behind solid 15 meter tall walls, with no relatives or other help to protect what was left of her family didn't appeal to her at all.

  Getting a job in the dead mountain region of Katoomba, looking after lumber-harvesting machinery, felt like a golden ticket to her back then. Servicing the main supply of firewood and coal for Sydney seemed crazy for a single woman with a child, among the death and destruction of the Old World. But it was what she was trained to do as a mechanic, and until a week ago Michelle thought that it was the best choice she could make for Jason's safety.

  Horror stories of what people had to deal with behind the protection of city walls, sealed within that tightly filled can of people that Old Sydney became, didn't apply to them out here. Battles have been fought and lost long ago, the area was abandoned and unoccupied by demons, who have rushed through the area, crumbled over Sydney's defenses and retreated beyond the far mountain ridges.

  Reports indicated presence of lower forms of scavenging demons in the wilds, and strictly instructed to not leave the outpost. Michelle wasn't planning to do that anyway. Those demons were no threat to them in here, behind all that protective machinery and guard towers erected to defend one of the main chances Sydney had to survive this cold winter.

  Geographically her and Jason were closer to the old war front line, but in reality Katoomba became a dead quiet place, where lumber-harvesting and mining operations could be resumed after some hesitation from Australian authorities. Whole Sydney region needed the heat, and alternative supply was disrupted for months if not years. Solar batteries weren't charged in months, clouds were low, and one had already forgotten what good old electric lines used to be.

  Sydney had to rely on slowly depleting fuel supplies, which were now used to power motor pumps and electricity generators. For majority of the city and its population it was a trip back in time - to the proven old methods that worked for centuries - mining coal, cutting down and burning wood.

  Katoomba region was well equipped for providing those materials, and meant only a short flight for armored cargo helicopter convoys. Getting up in the air seemed like insanity, but with sufficient protection, very low flight pattern, and keeping the trip short - this risk was considered calculated.

  So for a few months now, once a week a low-flying convoy of heavily armored helicopters arrived over Katoomba lumber mill, dropping off supplies and picking up containers with wood and coal. Holos tried to attack those a few times, but the convoys were specially built to withstand such light assault, shooting grey balloons out of thin mountain air before they were able to do any real damage.

  Michelle thought that one day demons might send something bigger to hit the convoy, or worse--their actual outpost--but that never happened. As risky as it was to stay out there and keep working, while being close to her son, it appeared to be lesser evil compared to all her other options.

  All in all
, It was a quiet place, with a job that she really needed during the crazy times her and Jason were caught in. Lumber-harvesting perimeter was heavily protected by deployed DPF and robotic militia units, almost fully automated, working like clockwork.

  Jason was home-schooled by an electronic tutor, and was doing very well for a 13 year old.

  He never complained about life in the woods being too boring or scary, and seemed to prefer it to any other options that Michelle tried to lay out in front of him one day. She didn't want to feel like her son didn't have any say in their decisions, but suspected that Jason was simply trying to be supportive of his mother. He had to grow up early, and if it was up to her - she'd choose it all to be different, but she couldn't.

  Last Friday they both woke up in their living quarters by the WHOOP-WHOOP alarm that they've never heard before, but were trained to interpret the signal as perimeter breach. Michelle looked out of the narrow window, seeing people running around, shouting something to each other, some of them carrying their bags while others just looking up and at the outpost wall in the distance. She had to open the door and look outside to better see what it was.

  Jason was wide awake too, and on his feet, getting dressed up without asking his mum any questions. They've discussed that this day might come, and he clearly was more mentally accepting of this possibility than Michelle. Their emergency backpacks were ready within a weeks after their arrival at the outpost, few months ago. Machinery servicing personnel of the lumber mill was not issued any weapons, but Michelle knew that she needed one.

  After reviewing what gear she realistically had access to without resorting to trying to steal one of those DPF guard guns, her choice fell on a spare industrial perforator. The device more commonly known as a "nail thrower" was loaded with steel spikes that workmen used to stitch together metal plates, pieces of rail for reinforcement of the walls, and anything else that one couldn't just screw a bolt into.