by Maxey, Phil
He gently shook her hand, then realized that it had suddenly got very dark around him. Arching his head around, the dinosaur looking E.L.F was leering over both of them.
“Mr. Teeth likes you, but he is in pain.”
Zach noticed the dark streaks across the massive scales on the creature’s torso. He looked back at the girl. “If I go to pick you up, he’s not going to try to eat me, is he?”
She giggled. “You’re funny.”
Zach swept the girl up and ran with her back to the plaza.
Sam was already on the other side stepping over the large blocks of steel and glass that was what was left, of the front wall of the fifth floor.
Fisher stepped warily out from the lobby of the building, bloodied but alive. Sam walked to her and helped her across the street.
They all converged near the rear of the fuselage.
Fiona emerged from the dark of the plane, holding onto it with a bandage across her head. Then Michael appeared, himself with one arm in a sling, helping Boe carry Wyatt out who was strapped to a few planks that formerly belonged to a bench.
“Cool dinosaur,” said Wyatt to Emily who smiled in reply.
Sam clicked on his radio. “Jenkins and Flores, get your butts back over here, we’re heading to the bunker on eleventh.”
CHAPTER TWO
Abbey stood in the CIC her mind frozen in the moment. She had been standing there for an hour hearing the reports coming in from the Camp, each one worse than the previous. The hand on her shoulder broke her from the dream.
“There is nothing we can do for them,” said Erin.
Usually his words soothed her, but not this time. “Our Cascaders could help them,” she said without removing her eyes from the soldiers manning the comms.
“And how are we meant to get there? I doubt we will all fit in your friend’s spaceship, and I presume an overland attempt would take at least a week.”
Abbey went to reply when the door to the cramped space swung open and Mitchell appeared.
“You still here?” Said the General.
Abbey nodded.
“I think your time would be better spent with the alien, don’t you think?” Said Mitchell looking at the various pieces of paper strewn across the brightly lit table in the center of the room.
Erin leaned in closer. “She’s right Abbey.”
Since Zach had left she was finding it increasingly difficult to resist whenever the man next to her made a request. And her hatred for him was increasing proportionately. Maybe he wasn’t really controlling her before, and now her boyfriend was almost two thousand miles away, he was. Or maybe the bond she had with the man she loved was thinner because of their separation. She wasn’t sure, she just knew that she wanted to be out of this bunker, and going back to the camp near Austin seemed as good as a reason as any other.
But will it still be there tomorrow? Or the week after?
It was a question she refused to give a sensible answer too.
“You’re probably right,” she said to the general, ignoring the man next to her. She went to leave when Mitchell spoke up.
“How are things going with the alien, any progress on the toxin?”
Abbey shook her head. “None that I’m aware of.”
Mitchell frowned and looked back down to her paperwork.
Abbey turned and quickly left the busy room, with Erin trying to keep up with her.
“What’s the rush?” He said walking quickly with her.
“Stop!” The word came out with such force that Erin looked genuinely shocked. She immediately shook her head. “Look, I’m sorry, but I need some space. It’s just with what’s happening in Texas, and everything up here. I need some time alone.” She looked at him and smiled. “You understand right?”
He smiled back, but his eyes betrayed his thoughts. “Of course. We all need time alone to contemplate our place in the greater order of things.” He walked past her. “I’ll be in the Cascader quarters if you need me.”
Abbey watched him disappear around one of the tight corners of the corridor, and swore to herself. She had let anger get the better of her, it couldn’t happen again.
She made her way along the corridor, away from the direction Erin had just gone and towards the large storage bay that the alien she regarded as a friend, was staying in.
Her pace and heart rate quickened, hoping that perhaps Elcher could take her to the camp, when a hand grabbed her around the mouth and pulled her into the shadows.
The smell of the skin that was pushed up against her nose meant she knew instantly who it was. Clovis had her trapped against the wall of a small alcove. The light above made his withered features look even more deathly than usual.
She was too afraid to scream, instead she just looked into his large bloodshot eyes and wondered what fate was about to befall her.
“Don’t scream,” he growled.
She shook her head, fully intending to break that promise the first chance she got.
“I want to talk about that Hispanic fuck. You gonna scream?”
She shook her head again, this time she meant it.
He released his sweaty hand from her mouth, and backed away.
Now there was some space between them, strength returned to her legs and she looked definitely up at the man she still hated, but mostly had come to pity.
“What about him?”
“You know about him?”
“Know what?”
The large man frowned as if something was making him feel queasy. “He can make you do things.”
“Yeah I saw you had become his little bitch,” she said, fully expecting him to hit her, but instead after a flash of anger in his eyes, his demeanor returned to one of a desperate man.
“I know you gonna be leaving. I want to go with you.”
Laughter erupted from somewhere deep within her and burst out uncontrollably.
This time the anger in Clovis’s eyes was real, but instead of lashing out his face contorted and he went to walk away.
“Wait…” She composed herself.
One problem at a time Abbey.
He stopped then slowly turned to face her again.
“Erin follows me everywhere, he’ll want to come with me if I return to the camp.” It was a lie, she fully expected to leave the leader of the Cascaders behind, if she could.
Clovis’s eyes grew wide and for the first time the big man’s fear actually struck the same emotion into her. “He can’t be allowed to go back there!” He stepped in closer to keep his scratchy voice low and his tone became sarcastic. “You think he has not been controlling you? I bet he has got you doing shit you don’t even know you’re doing.”
Now it was her turn to feel queasy. “I’m not being controlled.” She was losing count how many lies had passed her lips within the last few moments.
“Whatever you think girly, but even if you’re right, you will start to do his bidding soon enough.” His face changed to a smirk which made her skin crawl. She wanted to walk away, leave this horror of a man to his fate as a slave, but a distant voice inside her mind shouted that would be a mistake.
He could be useful.
*****
Bower looked down at the newly dug hole with Harper’s body wrapped in a sheet in the bottom of it. The sun was on its downward path, and he and Hayes cast long shadows across the grave.
The younger man cleared his throat, then lent forward and threw in a number of food rations onto the dirt. “I owe you these…” He sighed. “And a lot more. I couldn’t have asked for a finer partner through all this shit.” He turned painfully, then limped back a few steps.
Bower picked up the shovel and started shoveling the dirt.
Hayes looked surprised. “No words?”
“She knew what I thought of her when she was alive,” he said continuing to pile the brown bits of mud into the hole. Hayes nodded then leaned back on the fence.
Bower had carried her remains back to the top of the hill
a few miles from the bunker entrance, found a spot in the middle of the forest which overlooked the town, and dug the hole. Hayes followed.
After thirty or so minutes the hole was filled and Bower picked up a cross, which he had fashioned from two pieces of what remained from the house which used to stand nearby, and pushed it firmly into the dirt. In the gloom they both stood to attention and saluted.
They then both turned and looked down at the dark shapes of the buildings below them.
“If they come back, we’ll be digging more of these holes up here,” said Hayes.
“Not if I have anything to do with it.”
They both slowly walked away while switching on a flashlight and holding it facing down.
It wasn’t long before they were back in the tunnels and then back inside the relative safety of the bunker network.
Hayes returned to his quarters to rest, while Bower entered the laboratory which had been set up under Raj’s instructions.
A glass beaker smashed up against the quarantine window just as Bower entered. A young girl in a hazmat suit scrambled to clean it up, but Raj waved her off, doing the task himself.
Bower banged on the glass partition.
Raj saw the Captain and nodded, not doing a good job of hiding his shame. The second of the sealed doors then opened and Raj emerged in his hazmat suit. He took his helmet off and laid it on a nearby table.
“I came here hoping for good news, but I guess I already have the state of things,” said Bower.
Raj shook his head and went to speak when Bower held his hand up. “In English, not scientist talk, doctor.”
“We’re trying to re-engineer a flu virus with alien DNA, so the virus only targets the Hulathen. It won’t kill them, but it will definitely affect their ability to rage war on us, and—”
“And make them think twice about hanging around.”
“Exactly.”
The door that Bower had just entered from, opened again. Abbey stepped inside, her face slightly flushed.
“Everything alright?” Said Bower.
She walked further forward to allow the large figure of Clovis into the room.
Bower sneered. “What the fuck is he doing here? Shouldn’t he be running errands for your esteemed leader?”
Clovis’s eyes narrowed.
Abbey quickly closed the door behind him. “I need your help to get us out of the bunker. I need to return to the Camp and he needs to go wherever he needs too.”
“Yeah,” growled Clovis.
“Why would you help him?” said Raj.
“I have my reasons,” said Abbey.
Bower took a deep sigh and rubbed his chin. “And you don’t want Erin to know?”
“No,” said Clovis again.
“More than one syllable a challenge right?” said Bower to the taller man.
Clovis sneered.
“You can’t leave yet,” said Raj. “Not until we have perfected the toxin. If you’re leaving you might be our best chance yet to get it to Austin.”
“If you go, I’ll be going with you,” said Bower.
Clovis scowled. “She don’t need no pussy boy human to help her.”
Bower went to move forward when Abbey stepped in his way. “I hate to say this Cole, but I’m better off alone. The E.L.F’s are no threat to me and I’ll stay off of the alien’s radar.”
Bower went to reply when the single old-fashioned landline phone on the wall, started to ring.
Raj walked over and picked up the receiver. Listened for a few seconds then looked at the others in the room.
“What?” said Abbey.
“He’s gone,” said Raj.
Abbey went to reply but then a feeling washed over her and she knew who was missing.
CHAPTER THREE
Zach studied General Trow’s pixelated face. She had been relaying to him the loses, not just in people, but in machinery and defenses that the Hulathen had inflicted on them in a few short hours during the day, and he could tell she was a woman struggling.
He cut her short. “How is Anthony?”
She blinked as if waking from a dream. “Umm he’s okay, he’s in the second bunker not far from the one you’re in. Thank you for asking.” She went to continue, but her lip quivered.
“You’re doing a hell of a job Elizabeth, I have no doubt the camp would have been overrun if it weren’t for you in charge down here.”
She briefly smiled then pulled the drawer open in her office, produced a small bottle and poured a small dose of the golden liquid into a glass.
“You might want to saver that, we might all be underground for a while.”
She took a deep breath. “It’s just… I thought we had gotten over the worse of it. Finally.”
“When we send these aliens packing, back to whatever hell hole they crawled out of, it will be it. They’ll know not to return.”
She nodded and took another sip. Zach could see conviction was starting to wash back into her. “Got any ideas on how to actually accomplish that?”
“We need the Toxin they’re working on up near Boston, although how they get it down here, is going to need some planning. Until then we play a game called, ‘don’t become extinct.’”
“What’s stopping the Hulathen from just blasting down into the bunkers?”
“They never seem to want to get in the middle of a fight unless they absolutely have too. They know there’s a few hundred Cascaders underground, but they are probably just going to wait until we go back up top.”
“So it’s a waiting game.”
“Until there’s a better game to be played, yeah.”
A knock came at the door of the small space which was the bunker’s comms room.
“Come in.”
Fiona minus her bandage, but with a small trickle of dried blood above her brow appeared. “Sam’s going back out, he says they haven’t heard from Isaiah in any of the other bunkers.”
Zach shook his head then looked back at Trow. “I have to go. Check back in an hour.”
She nodded and the screen went black. He got up and they both left, Zach nodding at the usual comms officer who had stayed outside for the duration of the private chat between generals.
They quickly walked along the corridor to a junction with the words. “Officer’s lounge” and “Infirmary plus routes to section B” on the wall. They chose the left route and were soon walking along a gantry with stairs leading down to one of the main entrances to the bunker system.
Sam was already in full combat gear, his squad minus Fisher was alongside him checking their equipment.
“Sam! What are you doing?” shouted Zach.
Sam continued looking over his gun, briefly inspecting the magazine. “Don’t try and stop me Zach. You got no jurisdiction over the justice force.”
“Actually I have, but I’m not going to try to stop you. But you’re risking yourself and four others on this mission. I want Isaiah found as much as you—”
Sam turned lifting a finger. “I’m going Zach.”
“We all are,” said Joan wiggling her nose so her glasses were on correctly.
“Then you need a Cascader.” He looked back at Fiona, who nodded and quickly left the way they came in.
Sam reluctantly nodded. “Fine.”
A silence descended upon the room.
Zach looked at Sam, who was impatient to leave. “I haven’t said this, but I need to. Thanks for putting your ass—” He looked around the others. “— All your asses on the line to come and get us.”
Sam smiled and slapped Zach on the shoulder. “You’re the head honcho, what else we gonna do?”
A noise came from the gantry and Miles appeared with Fiona, hastily putting his flak jacket and helmet on. Zach handed him his rifle then looked at the rest of the group. “Stay on comms!”
Sam nodded then looked at Miles. “You sure you up for this?”
Miles nodded.
“Okay then, let’s move out.”
The
door to the surface was unlatched, and Sam, Miles and the others walked through.
*****
Sam leaned against the smooth but cold concrete wall of the towering building above him. “I do love me a good set of NVG’s.” He peered around the corner onto the dark street which ran a good way through the downtown area. Faint glows of green amidst the shapes of wreckage, slid across his view. He shook his head. “Not seeing anything moving, alien or otherwise. Flores, you seeing anything on the east side? Over.”
A brief ‘negative’ came back through his radio.
“Okay, stay sharp. Isaiah’s squad was last heard of, about three blocks over to the northeast. Let’s move to the next junction. Over.”
The small group of six were divided into two parts, on opposite sides of the wide street. They ran forward with their guns leading the way. Everyone but Miles had night vision goggles on.
“Shit,” he said under his breath as he walked on and then slipped off a piece of fallen masonry.
“You okay?” said Sam looking back.
“I’m fine,” he said rubbing his ankle.
“You sensing any E.L.F’s?”
“Other than the huge lizard thing back near the bunker, no…” He squinted. “Actually there might be something, but I can’t pinpoint it.”
Sam nodded. “We’ll keep alert.”
They all continued running forward, using what obstacles they could for cover.
“What’s that?” said Miles looking up at one of the smaller skyscrapers above them.
“Looks like some civilians are still in there. Damn it,” said Sam.
“Just leave them to it,” said Boe.
“We can’t, they’re like a beacon to any of those little green men flying around. Someone has to go up there and get them to kill the lights. We’ll pick them up on the way back.”
“I’ll go,” said Miles.
“Hell you will,” said Sam. “You’ll leave us exposed out here. What if more giant lizard things pop out of the drains of something?”
“And what if one of you go into the building and run into an E.L.F.?”