Clearing Force

by Nathan Hale

but moving. Faintly, in the distance, the naval shells exploding could be heard and that was providing an impetuous that kept folks moving.

  It didn’t take very long to run four blocks and we were at our destination. The entranceway had a double security door surrounded by bullet proof glass and the security detail was still working. Unbelievably there weren’t many people fleeing the building because most of the owners probably felt reasonably safe. After all, the building wasn’t that old and one of the builder’s biggest sales tools had been how safe and secure the building was.

  The building was safe and secure, against gang bangers or other human thugs. From what we had seen it was a death trap against the huge monsters, they had collapsed far larger and taller buildings than this. Worse, that sound of theirs would probably even shatter the bullet proof glass. So far it had seemed to work on everything the monsters had encountered!

  We crowded into the area between the security doors and were immediately buzzed through. That was when I realized that the building even had backup generators. Well at least we didn’t have to worry about the elevators! No wonder the owners were feeling a false sense of security, in their world nothing had changed, or so they thought.

  The management company had twenty-four armed security people that worked here. Normally the men, and women, were armed strictly with pistols. Now they were armed with twelve gauge shotguns along with their pistols. Once again, effective against gang bangers, a death sentence against even the medium sized monsters.

  Once inside I asked the head of the security team to call upstairs to the penthouse suite, number 2601. Sure enough, my father-in-law answered the phone! They hadn’t even left yet.

  I simply told him that we would be right up! We walked to the special elevator, and on the way up, I struggled to bring my temper back under control. By the time the elevator door slid open on the 26th floor I had almost regained complete control. We walked into the suite with our blood splattered clothes on only to find them finishing breakfast! I lost it!

  “Dad, just what the hell are you people doing?” I almost screamed.

  Norman, my father in law, looked at our clothing with that shrewd, penetrating gaze of his and answered “It’s my fault, when Freida told me what you had said I thought you were overreacting. Obviously, judging by what I see now, you weren’t.”

  He looked at the always impeccably dressed older man that had worked for him, and was his closest friend for well over forty years, and said “James, you and Helen had better gather your stuff. I’m afraid my son-in-law wasn’t overreacting, we need to go. Travel light, your weapons and body armor will do. Everything else is on the yacht.”

  He looked at me and asked “How long do we have?”

  “I’m surprised they haven’t gotten this far yet” was all I could answer.

  He stood and said “Okay, follow me. What weapons will be best?”

  His straight forward, ho-hum, no big deal attitude, like this was just another minor turn of events in an otherwise boring day at the office was amazing. I was so surprised that, at first, I couldn’t answer.

  My wife, Freida, spoke up and said “Dad, I told you what he told me earlier. Stop putting him on, I know you have everything all set to go!”

  Dad smiled and said “It was just too good to pass up. Everything is set to go, so we’d better get going.” With that he walked to his office and began passing out weapons. I watched with approval as my son, Brad, carefully checked the 12 gauge Wilson Combat Standard pump action shotgun his grandfather had handed him.

  Dad asked “Buck and ball rounds? I’m assuming we need maximum takedown since you want me to carry that Gibbs cannon of mine.” With that he checked, loaded and then handed each of the women a shotgun, after re-assuring himself that the safety was on.

  Odeler’s wife, Susan, at first refused to accept the shotgun offered her. He had remarked in that past about her serious pacifist feelings, but now he simply told her “You are endangering our kids, we will need every bit of firepower we can get when the monsters get here, and they will get here.”

  She took the shotgun and, amazingly, did a thorough job of checking it out. Her husband looked at me and said “She knows how to use it, she just doesn’t want to” with a grin that told me that at the first sight of the monsters her pacifism would abruptly disappear.

  It took less than ten minutes, although it felt far longer than that, and we were ready to go. New York’s progressive mayor would have had a heart attack if he had seen us when we stepped onto the elevator because we were armed to the teeth. Dad even had on his hunting clothes, hat, and boots, the gear he had worn when over fifteen years ago he took down a Cape Buffalo with the Gibbs .505 he was carrying, just a couple of years after his oldest grandson, Brad, had been born.

  We had just exited the building when, from not more than a few blocks north of us, the weird deep bass sound was emitted by one of the huge monsters. While we couldn’t see the thing from where we were standing the results could be seen. Within minutes another huge cloud of dust came barreling down the street as yet another building collapsed.

  When we had gone into the building there were still people everywhere. Now we were almost the only people on the street which felt weird because, even in the early morning, it seemed like there was always someone around.

  It wasn’t quiet however. There was a steady background of screams and an occasional gunshot that could be heard over the intermittent blasts of artillery shells bursting and the omnipresent sound of helicopter blades forcing their way through the air. Also, echoing throughout the area, were the sounds of victory as the monsters discovered yet another group of cowering human victims!

  Once again we formed our square only this time with our loved ones inside the square. As much as I wanted to jog it wouldn’t be wise, anyone falling would disrupt the square and you cannot watch the terrain around you as well when running. However, there was no problem with a brisk walk because, after all, we only had to go a few blocks to get back to the marina.

  I would have vastly preferred walking down the center of the street because it would have given us at least a little more reaction time when a monster appeared but the street was clogged bumper to bumper with abandoned cars. Worse than that the cars were useless for any type of defense because the little monsters could easily move under or around them while the large monsters could easily jump over them and the huge ones would simply crush them. The only animal slowed down by them was us!

  We had gone less than a half a city block when, from around the corner of the building, a roar of victory rang out from two or three of the large monsters. It sounded like they were just around the corner of the building so I moved our group as close to the cars as we could get while covering the area in question with my rifle.

  When we cleared the edge of the building we could see three of the monsters attacking a car and we could hear the muffled screams of fear coming from inside the vehicle. Without hesitation I stopped, aimed my rifle at the creature’s head that was busily clawing its way through the roof of that car and fired. Seconds later two other rifles spoke and two of the monsters were down, while the one on top of the car looked momentarily stunned.

  Then, with a roar of rage, the creature turned towards us and began running towards us across the roofs of the abandoned line of cars. I reacquired the targets head but, before I could fire, I heard the roar of Dad’s Gibbs .505 and the creature was knocked sideways by the impact of the heavy caliber bullet, falling between the two rows of abandoned cars.

  Only it wasn’t dead! With another roar of pain, hate and rage the monster regained its feet, this time running between the rows of vehicles towards us. Once again I reacquired my target, its weaving and bobbing head, centered the crosshairs on the upper portion of its open mouth, and shot.

  At only slightly over twenty feet the impact of my bullet tore through the creatures mouth and exited the back of its head, tearing a fist sized hole that sprayed blood, brains and gore behi
nd it. The creature staggered another step towards us and then fell. Even though it was clearly dead, it wasn’t, because the claws on its rear legs were still tearing through the side of the car it was lying beside.

  Two frightened people, a young man and girl, got out of the car they had tried hiding in. Despite Odeler’s screaming at them to join up with us the young man did stupid, he pulled a pistol out of his waistband and, while doing a cock walk, shot the corpse of the monster lying beside the car.

  Only the monster wasn’t entirely dead. The things tail moved at an unbelievable speed hurling the girl into the brick wall of a building over thirty feet away and catching the man’s head with its tip splattering his brains everywhere!

  Odeler began to move towards the girl when three more of the monsters appeared from around the far corner of the building only a block away from us, far less than half that to her. Except for joining her in dying there wasn’t anything we could do. The monsters paused for a second to tear her body apart and then paused for another few seconds to feast on the man.

  This gave us the time we needed to squeeze through the abandoned cars and form up again on the far sidewalk where we stopped. Odeler, Peters and I called our shots so we would not take the same animal. Within seconds of each other all