In no more than fifteen minutes they had two pickups filled with enough weapons and ammo to arm a very eclectic company of infantry, and a convoy of half a dozen battered pickups, cars and SUVs was headed down the road to Jules Court.

They ran into the first monster nearly a block away. It was savaging a little girl's bike, said little girl being up a tree, screaming.

Jim was in the back of Bob's pickup truck and he let the monster have it in the side with a burst of 185-grain rounds from the vintage BAR he had laid across the roof. Even driving along at fifteen miles an hour he managed to put three rounds in the side of the thing, which dropped in its tracks.

"Time to unass," Bob yelled.

"No," Jim yelled back. "Drive closer. Less distance to hump this shit!"

But by the time Jules Court was in view, they could see that they were going to have to go tactical.

Monsters were spilling onto the street. Some of them were like the first, the size of large dogs and covered in spikes. Others were bipedal and seemed to be firing something out of their snouts. Jim shot one of them with the BAR and then held on as Bob slammed to a stop.

"I've got just the thing for those bastards," Jim said, clambering over the tailgate and picking up the 20mm. He managed to get it set up on the roof and then slid in a magazine. "Eat Finnish hot-lead you alien freaks!"

The rounds from the 20mm were not, in fact, lead bullets but exploding shells. As each of them punched into one of the larger beasts it exploded sending bits of the monsters in every direction and covering the area in green gore.

The rest of the ad hoc militiamen had unloaded from the trucks and were laying down a base of fire, engaging the smaller beasts and letting the heavy weapons handle the larger ones. One of the requirements to be a "regular" at Big Bob's Bait, Tackle and Armaments was that you had to "know what you were doing." That meant you couldn't just argue the relative merits of a Sharps Buffalo gun, you had to know what it was used for. Bob preferred people like Jim, somebody with real military experience.

Cops were okay, but only if they knew how to shoot for shit and most cops, in Bob's experience, didn'tmeasure up to his criterion.

Most of the regulars, therefore, had a more than adequate idea of what to do in a situation where demons were invading the earth through a gate into hell. That is: lay down as much lead as necessary to push them back.

Jim emptied the BAR magazine and reached back only to have another shoved into his hand. He slipped that one in and engaged another of the bipedal beasts, ripping a three-round burst into its torso that nearly severed it. There seemed to be about one of them for every ten or twenty of the smaller beasts.

And the guys on either side with rifles and shotguns were clearing up the smaller ones.

It was only when the last of the bipedal beasts in view were down that he noticed there was firing from the second story of one of the houses. And at the far end of the road there was a group of soldiers in desert camouflage who had been holding a fall-back line.

"Bob, we got to move it in," he said. "Push them back to that gate, wherever it is."

"Yeah," the gunshop owner said, reflectively. He waved at an arm that had been thrust out of the second story window. There was firing from inside the house, too. "Everybody head for the house!" he yelled.

"Get in and drive, I'm going to stay on the 20mm."

Jim got in and put the truck in gear, slowly rolling it forward as the infantry on either side kept pace.

Twice he stopped as more waves of the monsters came out, one time ducking down as a line of something like thorns stitched the truck. They were tough and hard, though, he noticed, prodding at one that was shoved through the driver's side door. Sharp, too. He pricked a finger and hoped like hell they weren't poisoned.

Finally they made it up to the house and Bob called a halt. They'd left two bodies behind, both of them from getting hit by the thorn-throwers. As they pulled to a halt in the driveway the Lake County SWAT team came barrel assing out of the house and guardsmen started filtering out from other houses in the area.

"Glad you could make it," VanGelder said.

"Where's this gate?" Bob answered, sliding off the side of the pickup, then taking the 20mm that was handed down to him. The weapon was nearly two meters long and weighed right at fifty pounds, so it wasn't like you could fire it off-hand. But he slung it over one shoulder and grabbed a box of ammunition for it.

"Behind the house," the SWAT lieutenant replied. "The backyard is crawling with these things."

"I'll get up in the house and cover the advance," the gunshop owner said.

"Right," VanGelder nodded. "Get the thorn-throwers, we'll handle the dogs."

"Our cavalry is a group of rednecks in pickup trucks," Sanson said, dryly.

"Don't knock it," the command master chief said, spitting on the floor. "That's more firepower than I've seen outside Ashkanistan."

More of the locals had moved into the downstairs and a big man carrying an absolutely huge gunshouldered past Weaver into a back bedroom. Another of the locals wearing a Lynyrd Skynyrd T-shirt was following him carrying three large boxes of ammunition. More flooded up carrying a motley assortment of onlyvery large guns. The last was carrying the largest "normal" rifle Weaver had ever seen.

It had a bolt action and looked like what his friends back home used for deer hunting, but it was about twice as large.

"What's that?" he asked Miller.

"Is that what I think it is?" the chief said to the local at the same time.

"If you think it's a T. Rex, it is," the local said, smiling.

"Damn," the SEAL muttered. "I've got to move to Central Florida. They're death on those things in Virginia."

Firing had started up again from the back of the house and rose to a crescendo that was unbelievably loud. There was an occasional scream but the progress of the attack seemed to be steady. He could hear the firing from downstairs moving forward and thought about the gate. They couldn't stop the things by just shooting at them; they had to close the gate somehow.

"We gotta close the gate," Miller said, looking at him as if reading his mind.

"I don't know how to turn it off," Weaver said. "But what if we took one of the bulldozers and parked it in front of it? At the very least it would give us some warning that they're coming through."

"Well, I don't know how to drive a bulldozer," the command master chief admitted, sounding ashamed.

"Do you?"

"No," Weaver said. "But I bet one of these locals will."

Sanson came back a moment later with the guy carrying the big "T. Rex" rifle.

"We want to block the gate with a bulldozer," Weaver said.

"So he told me," the local replied. "Makes sense. Where's the dozer?"

"There was one over to the left," the physicist noted. "But it's more or less behind the gate. I don't know if the monsters have spread that way or not."

"They seem to be heading for the houses," Miller pointed out. "They don't seem to be goingbehind the gate at all, yet."

"We could drive around back," the local said. "Try to drive right up to it."

"That might attract their attention," the chief pointed out. "So far we have a one-axis threat. That would make it multi-axis. And that would really suck."

"Hey, you're a SEAL, right?" the local replied, chuckling through his beard. "You wanna live forever?"

"Preferably," Miller answered. "But let's go see if you know what you're doing." By the time they got to the pickup truck the locals and what was left of the National Guard company had retaken the fighting positions and, with the support of heavy weapons in the houses overlooking the gate, were holding the monsters in a small perimeter right at the gate itself. The monsters were still attempting to pour through but the additional firepower of the locals had them pinned at the entrance. As they crowded into the front seat of the pickup Weaver noticed some things that looked like the alien "mosquitoes" hovering near the gate now. He dreaded those more than the thorn-throwers or the "dogs"

but it turned out that these were not the semiparasitic mosquitoes. What they were became apparent as a television helicopter drifted too close to the battle.

One of the things flapped its wings harder and began to ascend. When it got to about ten meters above the ground the wings dropped off and a jet of fire shot out of its rear. It accelerated fast on what appeared to be a rocket engine and then slammed into the helicopter. The helicopter exploded in midair sending flaming pieces far and wide.

"Jesus," the local said, putting the pickup in gear and backing out of the driveway.

"Great," the chief said. "They've got antiair capability. What next? Antitank? Organic tanks?"

"That room you were in," Weaver said. "It looked like a giant organism, right? So it's conceivable that they could grow something as large as a tank."

"That won't be good," Miller noted.

"No," Weaver said with a chuckle.

"Where are they, then?" Sanson asked.

"Probably the same place ours are," Weaver replied in a distracted tone. "Not near the gate. Okay, they form a gate. And maybe they're getting ready for an invasion. But that room was more or less empty, right?"

"Right," Miller replied.

"So . . . the mosquito thing that got your SEAL was something like a sentry, maybe an antibody. It was designed just to defend the hole and maybe send out an alarm. Although I'd guess getting a couple of satchel charges in the gut probably sent enough of an alarm through that thing anyway."

"Ouch," Miller said. "You're saying we caused this?"

"No," Weaver replied. "But you might have sped up their timetable. So they're throwing everything they have nearby into the gate. And, presumably, their real heavies aren't right there. Or, maybe, they haven't even produced them yet but will soon. Or are producing them now and they'll be here momentarily."

"We'd better block the gate pretty quick, then," the local noted, putting the truck in gear.

"Oh, yeah," Weaver said as his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and turned it on distractedly.

"William Weaver."

"Doctor Weaver, this is the NSA. SOCOM reports they've lost contact with their SEAL team, the National Guard is out of contact with their company and the last news chopper to get into the area was shot down by something. I presume you've moved out of the area? I wasn't sure if you'd be there toanswer, frankly."

"No, I'm still in the area," Weaver replied as the pickup took a corner on two wheels. "We're going to try to block the gate with a bulldozer. And I don't know what happened to Lieutenant Glasser but the last two members of the team are with me in the pickup truck."

"Pickup truck?"

"Some of the locals have rendered assistance," Weaver said. "I'd make a redneck joke but I are one.

Anyway, they've got the monsters pushed back to the gate and we're going to try to close it, or at least block it, with one of the bulldozers that was clearing the area. But we've been discussing it and we think there are probably heavier monsters that haven't arrived yet. I think you need to get some really heavy forces down here."

"We will," the NSA answered. "There's a battalion on the way from Benning at the moment but they can't be there until tomorrow at the earliest."

"Well, in that case I suggest that you get whatever youcan get here as fast as possible," Weaver said.

"These guys seem to mean business. And so far I think we've only seen their equivalent of infantry. I don't want to think about what might be on the way. I'd say, ma'am, that it's a race to see who can . . ." he paused. He'd heard the term before. Oh, yeah. "Who can get here the fustest with the mostest."

There was a pause and he could almost see the NSA nod. "I see. I'll point that out, with underlining, to the Pentagon."

"Yes, ma'am," Weaver said as the pickup braked to a stop by the bulldozer. "I've got to go now. Talk to you later. Bye."

"You know," Weaver said to the air. "This is almost as exciting as defending a scientific paper."

"You're joking," the chief replied, climbing out of the truck and scanning for monsters. There was one of the dogs on the bulldozer and he shot it off but that seemed to be the only one in the area.

"Sort of," Weaver said. "But you'd be surprised how brutal it can get." He hefted the shotgun and felt in his pocket for the remaining rounds. The pistol, on safe as he'd been shown, was shoved in the front of his pants, his last magazine shoved in his back pocket. "And they don't let you shoot people who are attacking you for no reason."

The four of them clambered on the bulldozer and the local got it started. It lurched into motion and headed right for the gate.

"I'm gonna pull it up to the side and pivot it," the local said. "That's gonna be the bad time; nobody will be able to fire because we'll be in the way."

"Well, I'll do what I can," Miller said. He had grabbed the T. Rex and had his M-4 slung over his back.

"Sanson, take the dogs, I'll handle the thorns, Doc, you handle anything that gets on the dozer."

The local picked up the dozer blade as one of the thorn-throwers that had just exited the gate fired at them. Most of the thorns were caught by the blade but a few pinged onto the canopy over the driver's seat. Miller leaned against the support of the canopy and fired the T. Rex, the recoil almost knocking him off his feet.

"Yowza!" he yelled, working the bolt and then rotating his shoulder.

"Got a kick, don't it?" the local said.

Sanson was picking off dogs on either side and Doc realized he should be watching for threats, not watching the chief. He looked around and, sure enough, one of the dogs had managed to jump up on the back of the dozer. He gave it a mouthful of buckshot which, if it didn't kill it, certainly knocked it off the dozer. Another was trying to get past the spinning treads on his side and he shot it in the back. It lost the use of its back legs but still tried to crawl forward.

Just then the local pivoted the dozer, incidentally crushing the wounded dog monster, and lowered the blade slightly, lining it up with the hole. There was a mound of injured and dead monsters by the gate and the dozer pushed them back into the hole along with a thorn-thrower that had just come through. The mound shrank as it was pushed back and then the dozer blades, which were wider than the opening, reached the gate. And stopped.

All four of them were thrown forward as the bulldozer lurched to a halt. The local geared down, but the treads just spun in place.

"Damn," Miller said. "That's weird."

"Very," Weaver admitted. He hadn't been certain what would happen since the blade was wider than the opening but if he had been willing to make a guess is was that the dozer would have gone forward as if the gate didn't exist, leaving the gate in the middle of the dozer. However, it appeared that the gate had a very real physical presence. It was, however, at least partially blocked. As he watched, though, a dog monster crawled out from under the blade, only to be shot by Sanson.

"Lower the blade a little," the chief said.

The local lowered it to the ground, leaving the top half of the gate open. A thorn-thrower clambered over the obstacle but was hit by fire from three separate machine guns and fell back into the gate.

"Let's dig a berm," Sanson said. "Push dirt up to cover it completely."

"They'd just dig through it," Miller said. "No, leave it this way. We'll realign the machine guns to cover it.

I'm sure they'll figure out a way through but it will do for now."

The four of them clambered off the dozer and headed for the lines at a weary trot. They were halfway there when an explosion behind them threw them off their feet.

Weaver rolled onto his back and looked towards the gate where the smoking bulldozer still lay, half its blade blown off.

"I thought they'd think of something," Miller said, angrily. "But notthat fast!"

"Come on!" Weaver shouted, springing to his feet and hurrying back to the hole they had occupied at the first attack. Behind them there was another explosion and then another. He jumped into the hole, realized that he'd left his shotgun behind, and started to go back for it just as the smoking bulldozer shuddered and was shoved out of the way.

What came through the hole was impossible, a beast about the size of a rhinoceros, covered in scaly plates and strong enough, apparently, to move a D-9 by shoving with six stumpy legs. It let out a high-pitched bellow that shook the ground, then turned its head and launched a ball of green lightning from between two horns. The lightning seemed to float through the air but it must have been going fast because at almost the same instant it was fired it hit the trench line and exploded, blowing one of the machine gun posts into the air.