Clearing Force

by Nathan Hale

with automatic rifles. Even in New York City, the rich play by a far different set of rules than the average citizen, and anyone who had a boat in this marina was definitely rich. By the standards my father-in-law lived by, his two plus million dollar sailboat was one of the smaller craft in this exclusive club.

  The outer man gate was closed and locked, usually, during the day the outer gate was open while the inner gate was kept electronically locked. Next to the gate was the security center, a small brick building that was actually a brick veneer surrounding a thick reinforced concrete wall with new bullet proof windows made of something called clear aluminum.

  They had even put a dome like structure over the flat roof made of the same clear aluminum so guards would have a clear sight picture of the entire marina and surrounding areas. When I had talked to the day shift supervisor, Captain Ralph Peters, Ret., a former SWAT team officer, over a month ago, he had bragged endlessly about the new material and how it was going to revolutionize security precautions everywhere. According to the manufacturer, this clear aluminum stuff could, and would, stop a .50 caliber machine gun bullet cold!

  When we stopped in front of the gate Captain Peters left the guard room to talk with me while one of his associates buzzed us through. He had known I was also in SWAT although he had never seen me show up at the marina in anything but nice clothes and definitely not in blood splattered SWAT gear with a bunch of friends, also in blood splattered SWAT garb.

  The Captain asked “What’s going on out there? The cities in a panic, the radios aren’t working, the television isn’t working either, what’s going on?

  “Earlier the television was showing pictures of some huge alien spaceship landing in Central Park and was blathering on about inter-galactic harmony. Now there is nothing, except a couple of ships firing cannons into the city and panicky people everywhere. So what do we have here, the War of the Worlds or something?”

  I had talked to the Captain for years, ever since he had taken the position here. He always seemed to be a straight shooting no nonsense type of guy so I didn’t mince any words. “Captain, you and your men need to get your families and flee this city. We were there and it was a slaughter, only they are slaughtering us. That ship was full of creatures that mostly look like dinosaurs only they can’t be. We saw four different animals, with that I pointed upward, at a group of circling objects high above the river, those are some kind of leathery looking bird with big claws and a mouth full of sharp teeth. They can be killed with a rifle, provided you shoot the head, remember, it’s always the head, kind of like a zombie, otherwise they don’t seem to die.

  “Then there are the little ones, slightly larger than a chicken, only with a mouth full of teeth and hook like claws on what passes for arms. They walk upright while using their tails to balance. These can be killed with a shotgun or a pistol. They are exceptionally dangerous because they always seem to be in packs.

  “The medium sized creatures are bastards to kill. The feathers are actually some kind of body armor and they are covered in feathers. Even though our heavy rifles penetrated the body it didn’t seem to hurt them. Only a head shot can take one down while even then the brain must be so small you might not hit it. When they attacked off the ship we saw that pistols and shotguns were useless against these things.

  “Then there are the huge ones, the ones that destroy buildings. Nothing we have will hurt them, maybe the military has heavy enough weapons, but we sure don’t.

  “Have the Doyle’s gotten back yet?”

  Captain Peters asked “Why?”

  Emerson Doyle made my father in law seem poor! Every year he added a billion or two to his fortune mainly through his mining businesses. He had taken his family, three months ago, to cruise on his larger yacht in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. His smaller yacht was tied up at the pier with no one getting it ready to leave.

  I answered “If they aren’t back yet, they won’t be. Those creatures will be here soon and if you’re here you will all die, that’s why. Get your people and their families on that boat and get the hell out of here!”

  “You’re telling me to steal that yacht? Don’t you think these things can be stopped?” the Captain asked.

  “I know you monitor the police band, what have you heard in the last couple of hours?” I asked.

  The Captain answered “Nothing, absolutely nothing. A few cops asking for instructions, but no answers from any of the precincts around here. Some of the ones on the other end of the island answer, but they don’t seem to know what’s going on either.”

  I had suspected as much because our radios had only had other cops trying to find out what was happening. In every case we told them to get their families and flee. Hopefully that was what they were doing otherwise they would be making a useless sacrifice of both their life and their families lives. This was the time to live to fight another day, when we were better armed and could take down these things.

  I answered “Captain, yes I’m telling you to take that boat. There are far too many of those things and we aren’t properly armed to mess with them. Even our high powered sniper rifles don’t always kill those creatures and I’m not talking about the huge ones.

  “Have my in-laws gotten here yet?” I asked as I fished my cell phone out of its pocket.

  Captain Peters shook his head “no” as he asked “Are you positive that the situation isn’t recoverable, after all, stealing that yacht would cause us to be thrown into prison for forever?”

  As I flipped open my cell phone I saw that I had absolutely no signal, nevertheless I hit the send button in the odd chance that it just might work. I told the Captain “If every New Yorker had a gun, maybe. Right now 95% of the citizens are nothing but a meal and most of the rest don’t have anything large enough to stop those monsters. The ones that are well armed are the bad guys, but we both already know that, don’t we?

  “Take the yacht, if I’m wrong, at least your people will be alive to work out a deal. Besides, since Doyle isn’t around, what difference does it make?

  “Is your land line working?”

  The Captain nodded his head in agreement while saying “That lines been down for over a week, someone bombed a central terminal or something. Thanks and good luck. We’ll keep the guard up until we’re ready to leave, maybe a half hour or so, everyone’s families are already in the security center because it is the safest place in the city.” With that he walked back into the security building while giving orders on his personal radio.

  I looked at my men and ordered “JJ take Jose, his wife and Doris to the boat. Help Jack and Carol get it ready to go, okay? At the first sight of those creatures get the boat away from shore but float the dinghy. If I make it back, bring it into shore to pick us up. If we’re not back in two hours, we’re dead.”

  I knew better than to order Peters and Odeler to go with JJ, their families were with my family and they would have simply told me to go to hell. Besides, ours odds of survival were better with three shooters.

  Jose started to protest, he wanted to come with us and help. My first inclination was to say no, then I thought about just how useful that shotgun of his could be and that he hadn’t panicked, in fact his reaction had been the exact opposite. I remembered that years ago a drill instructor had once told me that some men were just natural born warriors, while others weren’t. So far he had come across as one of the former, not the latter.

  I asked “How many more shells do you have for that shotgun?”

  He smiled and answered, in excellent English, “One in the barrel, six in the magazine and at least thirty more buck and ball rounds in my pockets.”

  I looked at him with what must have been a questioning expression on my face when I asked “What happened to your accent, and the crappy English?”

  His smile grew larger when he answered “Sergeant, playing the ignorant peasant works well, but I’m not what you thought I was. I was trained by your Special Forces and was working undercover to bring down another
drug gang operating out of that office building where we met. My full name is Colonel Jose Peppes of the Columbian Army and I was on loan to your DEA. My wife is a senior financial analyst who was working directly for your military. She was tracking down who, or what, was responsible for the shambles your countries finances are currently in.”

  No wonder he hadn’t panicked! He was probably better trained than we were and, considering what he had been doing, braver than us also. I said “Okay, let’s get moving, the monsters are getting closer every second we fart around.”

  Before we could move JJ said “Wait a second” and began removing his body armor. He handed it to Jose to put on while saying “It might not help, but then again it might. Good luck!”

  Once we were outside the gate we began jogging the four blocks towards the twenty-six story building where my in-laws owned the Penthouse Suite. When I saw the first traffic light I became even more worried because the power was off. All the red lights were flashing continuously which meant that they were working on their battery back-up. If our people had been using the elevator when the power failed they could very well be stuck inside it.

  There were still a lot of people fleeing towards the bridges, but not like earlier. Now the volume of foot traffic was similar to a normal workday, crowded,