by Maxey, Phil
Raj took it, pinning it to his jacket. “Err… no.”
He got up and they all headed back to where Stokes and the soldier emerged from.
“I understand all of this must be somewhat of an overwhelming experience. What with the agents coming to your apartment, but I’m afraid speed is of the essence as they say. Things appear to be accelerating.”
They arrived at the door. The soldier waved his card over a small black box, and the door sprung open. He opened it fuller allowing the other two through.
Raj was in another corridor, except this one had walls where only the lower half was solid. The top half were clear windows, allowing a view into a huge room, full of worktops, scientific equipment, computer screens, and scientists in their trademark white coats. Dotted amongst them were others, jacket-less and some in military uniform.
Raj spotted computer 3D models of cells and compounds on various displays, but they kept on walking. They arrived at another door, which was opened for them, and they entered another corridor, but this had solid walls with secure doors containing small glass windows.
Raj tried seeing inside them but instead had to follow Stokes and the soldier to a final door, which opened to an elevator. They all stepped inside and the soldier tapped a lower floor number. Raj couldn’t tell if he was at the top of some skyscraper or if they were diving deeper into the ground.
Stokes looked at him. “I could tell you what has been happening, but I think it would best serve our purpose if I showed you first.”
Raj’s confusion deepened.
The doors opened to an even more impressive space, broken up by large, clear-sided boxes that stood twelve feet high at least, he guessed.
Stokes held his hand out, suggesting Raj explore.
Raj looked at him and walked forward, into what felt like an aquarium, although only some of the tanks were filled with water.
More scientists milled around them, taking notes on computer tablets.
Raj suddenly realized the closest tank to him was not just full of branches, leaves, and a sandy floor but also contained a creature, but a being that he had never seen or imagined could exist.
He walked closer to the glass. Looking back at him was a rodent of some kind, roughly a foot in size, but with six spiderlike legs, allowing it to rotate on the spot. It jumped across the ground in small hops, then smashed up against the side wall, then jumped back around.
“What… what is that?”
Before Stokes could answer, Raj walked quickly to the next tank, standing in front of the scientists who frowned and walked away.
The thing in this tank was even weirder than the last. It was full of water, rocks, and some coral, but the thing floating around inside was anything but normal. At first, he thought it was a kind of starfish, but then he saw that at each end of the five appendages were tiny claws, which gripped the rocks. At its center were a myriad of eyes, all closely grouped.
He looked back to Stokes who was standing behind him smiling. “What are these things? Aliens?”
“Ha, no, well, we don’t think so. No, they are earth-based life-forms, we are certain of that. They are just… new.”
“New?”
Raj stepped to the side of the tank and looked into the hundred foot square area, and the other tanks contained within.
“How many are there?”
“What you see here, are the ones we have been able to capture so far…”
“So far? There are more out there?”
“Many more, yes…”
“But… new? What do you mean, new? Mutations?”
“That is our current thinking, yes. But what is causing the mutations, we have no idea.”
Raj looked back at the creature, which was now gracefully moving around the tank. “At what stage is the mutation happening? Conception? Embryonic? Fetal? Later?”
“We believe it’s happening to fully grown animals…”
Raj looked confused. “But that’s not possible… these are not creatures that have been slightly altered, learned to live with an extra limb or eye, these are—”
“Completely new species… yes.”
Raj looked at the spider starfish with claws. “And you’re sure they’re not aliens…”
*****
As each mile passed, the path rose higher until the lights of the city were visible behind the small group trying to escape the mystery of what was happening in LA. After a while, Galo pointed to another dark shape of a small hill ahead. “That is the top. We start down after that and will find a small road which passes beneath the 241 freeway.”
Grant nodded, which made his face hurt. In the dark, he touched the bandage on his face, then quickly retracted his fingers. The impact of his touch spread out in cycles of pain across the side of his head. He thought about reaching into his backpack and grabbing some painkillers, but felt they were close to resting, so would hold off for now. He was also severely regretting not hitting the gym as he had always planned to do. As a detective he had a regular appointment at ‘Connor’s gym’ a few evenings a week, but that all fell away with his marriage ending. Sitting ten hours a day at his writing desk, quickly gave him the kind of stomach he always judged others for having.
They reached the top of the hill and immediately crouched. Grant switched off his bike’s lamp.
A wide concrete freeway bridge, which spanned the gaps between the hills, contained a group of police vehicles, their lights bathing the road around them in red and blue hues.
Even from a mile away they could see snipers on the bridge looking down to the narrow road which ran underneath. He could also see the strange goggles that they were wearing.
Night vision.
He placed a sleepy Ben down on the grass.
“Now what do we do!” said Luciana.
The sound of an engine was quickly followed by a police car moving along the freeway.
Estella looked nervously at her husband.
Grant looked down into the shadows of the valley. The thin gray strip that was the country road, was just visible. “They’re patrolling the freeway, they must know it’s a crossing point for people to get out.”
“Maybe we can find another place to cross?” said Estella.
Galo shook his head. “This is the deepest valley. The other parts would be easier for them to see us.”
“They have night vision? Can they see us if we go down there?” said Sofia.
“It’s unlikely…” said Grant. “But we will have to move in complete darkness, and one slip could alert them.”
Galo looked at the bikes. “No more bikes.”
“Nope,” said Grant. He looked into the shadows at the bottom of the slope in front of them. “We’ll use the road down there as our guide. We’ll walk down here until we’re about twenty yards from it, then we follow it under the freeway.” He looked at the others. They looked scared. “If we want to get out of LA, this is what we need to do.”
They all nodded.
“I suggest we all hold hands and form a chain. It will help us to keep going in the same direction and stop anyone from completely falling.”
They agreed again.
“I’ll take the lead and carry Ben. Luciana, you take the rear.”
She said something about always being at the back, in Spanish.
Grant picked Ben back up and stepped forward.
Luciana took Ben’s backpack and held her hand out to Sofia, who held onto her mother. Galo held her hand and Grant’s. They slowly moved over the edge of the hill and balanced best they could as they descended down the other side.
Each of them slipped slightly on the grass and loose stones but quickly recovered.
Grant watched the bridge get higher above them, focusing on the police snipers that were pacing along the wall at its edge. He was waiting for the slightest change in their behavior.
They moved lower and lower until the bridge was towering above them and they could see the road, despite how dark it was.
>
He then started to move parallel with it, and those behind him followed, walking carefully and slowly. Luckily, the bushes were only small and easily stepped through or over, and they made good progress along the hillside.
The concrete pillars of the bridge soared skywards, and they started to hear conversations of the officers above, the sound echoing around the hills and bridge supports.
Sofia was the first to see it. High up, on the underside of the bridge. Something quivering.
She tugged on her mother's arm but was ignored.
As they started to pass under the bridge, her eyes remained fixed on the mass that was darker than the shadows around it. There was something alive, forty feet above their heads, something the size of a small car.
She wanted to shout to her mother to stop, to turn back, but vocalizing her fear was not an option. Her eyes looked up, and her head tilted as far back as it could until she had to look down. She felt Luciana’s hand tighten around her own, but they kept moving forward regardless.
The other side of the bridge and the road beyond looked impossibly far, and she was sure the thing was going to drop and smother her in its fleshy hide. Her throat tightened, as she did all she could to stop a scream from breaking from her mouth.
Grant walked out into the relatively lighter area beneath the bridge and looked back. Four dark shapes walked with him.
He looked up to the bridge, he couldn’t see any snipers or rifle barrels leaning over the edge and he pushed forward, concentrating on keeping his foothold on the slope.
Soon he felt the ground change orientation, and the further forward he walked, the more his view of the bridge and freeway behind became obscured by the hillside. After a few more steps he stopped, out of breath, and put Ben down. They were across.
CHAPTER NINE
Brad hit play on the video again. It already had half a million views, at least ten were his. It was camera phone footage from what happened at the airport. Most of it was blurs of bodies, arms, legs, heads, and general commotion, as the person carrying the phone ran for their lives.
Brad hit pause at 4:34 seconds. Another blur, but this one had wings and looked like a giant mosquito. It appeared to be attacking the woman in front of the man. He clicked play again, and the woman’s head became covered in blood. Luckily, the image was only on screen for a fraction of a second, but it was long enough to make him feel queasy.
He stopped the video and scrolled down to look at the comments.
Highflyer249 “Obviously fake.”
CornishPretzel “She dead bruh.”
HappySnowman23 “This a trailer for a movie. Viral marketing.”
KingOrQueen04 “Did anyone else see the giant bug?!”
The messages he was getting on his website and through email were telling him the footage was real. A swarm of insects the like of which he couldn’t find in any online database had attacked the unfortunate crowd at the airport. This wasn’t the imagination of the press or a freak event, this was real, and was happening in his own country.
He took a sip of the bourbon in his glass and looked back at his wall of ‘strange.’ It was now covered in other reports from around the world, including what one of his contacts told him was another strange insect attack that occurred in southern Spain some months earlier. The authorities in the region said it was a chemical leak that killed most of the small town, but his contact said he knew otherwise, and that it was similar to what happened in LA.
He picked up his cell phone. There were no more calls from Grant or messages.
He clicked the screen once again and it changed to show one of the many continuous rolling news reports of what was happening in LA. The numbers of the dead and injured slid across the bottom of the screen. White text on a blood-red strip.
“Still sticking to the weather idea, eh…” said Brad to the screen.
He had spent the day collating all the information, trying to see the bigger picture. Taking his glass with him, he stood in front of his wall of strange.
His eyes darted from one sensational piece of journalism to another, from one sighting of an exotic creature to another. Initially, he thought the planet was being visited by aliens, but these weren’t intelligent creatures being witnessed, they were insects, strange fish, things that went bump in the night, and appeared to have no other purpose than to just survive. They were like any of the other life to be found around the globe, except they were new…
“New…”
He rushed back to his desk, spilling some of the remaining liquor and sat, quickly bringing up the recording of his live show from the morning. He forwarded to the woman whose dog found the cocoons in the woods near her property…
“And next up we have a Mrs. Claythorn from Idaho, who says she’s found some strange cocoons at the back of her property. Please go ahead Mrs. Claythorn.”
“Hello, Brad… umm thank you for having me on.”
“You’re welcome. Please tell the audience what you found.”
“Well I was out back, umm I should explain, we have a few acres here, but beyond our boundary fence there’s a whole lot of forest. We walk Janie there—”
“That’s your dog?”
“Yes, so we were walking there just the other morning when Janie starts sniffing the air and then runs off! I had such trouble keeping up with her. But then I smelt it too. Smelt like… you know when you burn your hair? It was like that, but anyway, I found Janie, and she’s jumping up and down at these things that were in the branches of the trees. I first thought something had fallen from a plane, maybe some cargo or something. You hear these stories about people throwing their drugs out. Anyway, I throw a stick up at one and it fell to the ground, and well… it was such a strange thing. It looked like a shell of some kind, but covered in these strings—”
“Like a web?”
“Yes, a bit like that. I took some pictures with my phone; would you like me to send them to you?”
At the time he politely refused. On the screen was a list of callers, and Mrs. Claythorn’s cell number was next to her name.
He picked his phone up and started typing in the digits.
*****
“Señor, you are not looking good,” said Galo to Grant.
Grant waved him away and staggered forward. Something was not right. He was unfit, but not this unfit. All of his joints cried out in pain with each new step, and he was sure Ben was not as heavy as he felt. He wondered if he had picked up a bug of some kind.
He sniggered to himself.
Bug… ha…
Galo ran forward, catching Grant before he toppled over, and taking Ben from his arms. Grant laid on his back, his eyes drooping, while his arms tried to push himself back up. Each movement was lacking in any strength.
“What’s wrong with him?” said Luciana to those around her.
Estella walked forward and knelt next to him. “Shine your light on him,” she said to Galo in Spanish. When he did, her eyes widened in surprise. In the dark, they hadn’t been able to see Grant’s face, but one half of it was a rainbow of blue and purple, with red streaks emanating from under his bandage.
“What’s wrong with him!” said Ben, who was now wide awake.
Estella looked back at him. “I am a nurse, but I do not know exactly. Was he bitten by something on his cheek? This looks like a snake bite.”
“This morning, there was this weird insect that attacked everyone at my party, and it got him.”
Estella looked at Galo. “If the bite was deadly he probably would have died by now—” She noticed Ben’s intake of breath. “— But he is still with us, so that is good. This must be something which is acting slowly in his system. More like an infection, or an allergic reaction. If we can find some penicillin as well as antihistamines, he should feel better.”
Galo looked out into the darkness. They had been walking for almost an hour since the highway.
Groups of light peppered the landscape to their east.
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�You have to help him!” said Ben. Sofia put her arm around his shoulder.
Galo nodded. “We will. But if we go back onto the highway we might be seen.” He looked at the closest group of lights. He figured they belonged to one of the large ranches that peppered the landscape. It was a long shot, but maybe they might have some medicine. “We should head towards the road nearby, then to the ranch. Maybe they can help. Help me get him up.”
He, together with Estella and Luciana, lifted Grant, who winced. He mumbled something towards them. They grinned and smiled without understanding his words.
They all awkwardly covered the remaining piece of land, down to the road, which ran north to south.
“Over there!” said Galo, pointing towards what he thought was an entrance with another road behind it. He looked at his daughter. “Go look to see if that is an entrance to a ranch.”
She nodded and ran out into the darkness.
She quickly returned. “Si, there is a road that runs up a hill to a house.”
Galo nodded and they all shuffled across the road, carrying Grant best they could. Finally, they arrived at the entrance. Stone pillars sat on both sides of a track, which disappeared into the darkness.
Galo shone his torch at the left pillar. A green wooden sign pronounced, ‘Rancho Reyes.’ He then slid his touch to another sign, close by. ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY - NO THROUGH ROAD.’
He looked back at the others. “There is no gate. It will be fine.”
They all looked up at the twinkling lights just visible between the trees.
“Let’s go,” said Galo.
Luciana held back. “Maybe only one of us should go?”
Galo frowned while taking Grant’s weight. “Why would they give medicine to one of us? No, we all go.”
They traipsed forward. The road quickly became steeper and wound around a hill. The points of light became brighter and the shadows behind them started to melt away to form a view of a large Spanish Colonial Revival style house.