by Maxey, Phil
He went to push down on the gas when he noticed a segment of fence to the side of the property was laying on the ground. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for him to turn the engine off and get out with his rifle in hand.
He looked again through the binoculars. A few hundred yards beyond the farmhouse a windmill turned slowly, swiveling left and right.
He stepped off the dirt track and onto the faded grass and dirt and made his way across the field. The closer he got the more he became convinced the property was abandoned, but then he noticed the gleaming metal of a light gray car sticking out from the parking garage at the back of the house, and ruts in the dry ground running up to it.
He approached the front door of the small home carefully, his rifle at the ready. He lifted his hand to knock on the warped looking wood when a noise to his right distracted him. That’s also when he saw the torn books, broken pottery, and other household items lying on the ground.
He tried seeing inside through the single window but a heavy drape laid across it. He then walked to the edge of the building, as he did the distracting noise became clearer.
When he turned the corner, he stopped. His jaw and rifle dropped. Most of the side of the home had been torn away. The ground outside was covered in what used to belong to the owners, pieces of broken furniture, torn clothes, an old radio with its circuits exposed, all lay across the dirt. Inside was worse. The noise happened again, making him jump. He quickly raised the barrel of the rifle upwards to a broken plastic pipe that swayed in the light wind, occasionally knocking against the splintered beams.
Letting out a deep breath, he walked between the pieces of the owner's life and into the living room. What was a glass coffee table, now existed on two legs, laying on shards of glass.
He stepped deeper inside. The wallpaper of the hallway had foot wide slices, which on closer inspection he saw went into the wood beyond.
A high-pitch squeak made him jump again, this time he raised his rifle quicker and fell back against the wall of the narrow space. He lifted his boot from a squeezy toy.
Owners had a dog.
A feint stagnant odor wafted by him.
Two doors were visible in the gloom. He stood close to the nearest, the one to his right and listened against the wood. There was silence on the other side. Holding the brass handle with his left hand, he slowly turned it and opened the door. A few inches was enough for him to step back and cover his nose and mouth. The stench of death flooded out from the room.
He pushed the door the rest of the way with his boot.
Sheets of crimson covered the walls, floorboards, and the bed, which was where the human remains were. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew through the hallway and the door slammed shut. He had no intention of opening it again.
He looked at the other door. He wanted to turn and run back to the pickup, but there was a chance someone was injured. Not that the monsters he had seen had ever shown any sign of mercy.
He walked forward, regretting each creak that the boards below him were making, and listened again. On hearing nothing on the other side, he pulled the handle down and opened the door to a small kitchen. It was empty, but the air felt warm. Too warm. He stood, listening, trying to hear past his own heartbeat when he heard the faintest of sounds. Breathing was coming from the cupboard beneath the sink.
He crept across the checkered floor, his rifle raised towards the green wooden doors, and quickly opened them.
The scream from the child almost made him fire, and he fell back against a chair. The girl of maybe five years tried to push herself even further into the cobwebs of the cupboard.
Brad placed the rifle on the ground and held his hand out. “It’s okay, the monsters have gone.”
*****
Sergeant Bass opened his eyes and immediately winced. His head was throbbing and his body felt like it had been through a marathon. Then the panic and confusion rushed back in and he sat up from the white sofa, quicker than he should have.
“Where—”
“You might want to take it easy,” said a man from behind him.
Bass quickly turned, again regretting the movement. A man in his early forties, with short, straggly, dark brown hair, was sitting on the edge of a desk looking back at him. He was more silhouette than person due to the gloom.
In a moment of awareness, Bass grabbed at his head. “Where’s my helmet? It’s got my comms.”
“No helmet with you that I know of. My name’s Grant, and you are Sergeant Bass?”
“Yeah…” He looked down at his leg, it felt tight.
“We bandaged your right thigh, it had a pretty deep cut, but luckily seemed to miss anything important, otherwise… I guess you’d be dead.”
Bass went to stand but gave up with a grimace and a groan. He looked about the room that was part office, part casual space. “Where is this place?” The words scratched against his throat. “You got any water?”
Grant stood and moved around the desk to a number of shelves holding bottles. He picked one up. “Yeah, but I’ve been drinking this. Think it’s a soda of some kind.”
“That’s fine.”
Grant unscrewed the lid and brought it over to the sergeant. “As for where this is. We’re in an agricultural building, it’s a few miles out, northeast of the city.”
Bass gulped a few mouthfuls then stopped. “I don’t suppose you got any painkillers.”
“Actually, I have. I thought you might need them.” Grant pulled a small box from his pocket, removed a silver rack of tablets from it, and popped two from the packaging. He handed them to the sergeant who swallowed them down, then looked confused again.
“There was a young woman, dark hair… I pulled her away from two older people. The things killed them. We got some way to a…” He searched for the memory against the waves of pain. “A white pickup, then something hit me from behind and I went down. Don’t remember anything after that.”
“That was Sofia. She saved you. Somehow got you into the back of my pickup just as I was getting the hell out of there.”
“You got a phone? I need to contact my base.”
Grant held up his cell phone. “Won’t connect to any networks. And there’s no landline here as far as I know.”
“You own this place?”
“No.”
“Where’s the owner?”
“I—”
The door opened and in walked Sofia and Ben. They both looked at the injured soldier on the sofa.
“How do you feel?” said Sofia.
“Alive. I got you to thank for that.”
Sofia nodded then looked down.
“Find anything?” Grant said to Ben and Sofia.
Ben shook his head.
“We got three days of food and water for all of us, but I was thinking of exploring the local area, see what else is out here,” said Grant.
Sofia looked concerned. “You think it’s a good idea to be outside in the dark?”
“What time is it? How long was I out?” said Bass.
“It’s early evening. We got here around noon,” said Grant.
Bass leaned back on the sofa. “I just gotta…” His words faded. “I’ll rest a bit more, then I gotta be going.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Brad hammered the nail into the final plank of wood across the backroom window. The daylight behind him was almost extinguished, and he would prefer not to be fifteen feet up a ladder, outside, in the dark.
From his elevation, he could see into some of the other backyards and the street that ran along his property. The grass was a vibrant green, and the bushes and trees full of leaves and flowers, but without the sounds of nature, of people enjoying a summer evening, the scene looked fake. A stage with no actors.
A scream, somewhere in the streets around, quickened his heart. He started down the ladder.
Earlier in the day, he took the child to Roswell medical center, where she was found to be in good health although in shock. What he saw
in the bedroom of the house kept leaping back into his mind when he least wanted it to, making him jump. He shuddered to think the effect the ordeal must have had on the kid. He had the uncanny feeling that there would be many such children over the coming months.
But his mission to find the missing dogs was a failure. There were no signs of the canines. A part of him hoped that meant they had just run off into the desert, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that wasn’t the case. They were still out there.
He retracted the ladder, then walked with it across the yard to the first large shed and dropped it down inside. The space was now full of large and small containers, canned and dry goods. There was also gallon bottles of water, stacked neatly against the wall. The other shack was for hardware, candles, gasoline, and generators.
He looked at his supplies and sighed. Despite watching the weirdness of the world daily and telling his audience about it through his radio show, he never truly believed anything could happen that would threaten humanity’s grip on the planet. He was used to dealing with the weird around the fringes, not global events.
He closed the door and slid the bolt into the padlock, then jogged back to the basement entrance. It was now one of the only access points to the house, although he still planned to replace the wooden entrance with a metal one. As he made his way down the steps, something rustled the tree ten yards away near the sidewalk, but he didn’t bother to look back, instead, he unlocked the door, walked inside, and locked it back up behind him. Taking a deep breath, he blew out his cheeks, then placed a large block of wood up against the door.
The basement was becoming the space he spent the most time in. In the bowels of the earth beneath the house above, he felt the safest. He had dusted off the old ham radio set and fired it up to make sure it turned on, but the antenna had come down in a storm the year before. Another thing he was going to have to fix.
There were now a few computer monitors, and his shelves were full of a series of old computers which he had networked to form a rudimentary intranet. He had already spent a few hours downloading as much as he could to them. He avoided videos if possible and only took the most instructive ones he found. He already had a large collection of films and TV shows, so there was no need to get anymore. The space on his hard drives needed to contain important information. Maps, guides, history, as much about the world as he could cram into the limited gigabytes of space he had. His internet was still on, but who knew how long that would last.
He turned his monitor back on and looked at the chaos that was playing out across the country. Exotic creatures were now a common sight in most towns, and each day there were more deaths from encounters with them. The worst affected areas were still the outlying cities around the coast as the stream of things emerging from the watery depths was now a daily occurrence. The Navy had built a floating protective wall a mile off the west coast, but as soon as the huge floating pontoons slipped off the back of a ship, the mesh beneath them, which sunk to the sea floor, was being destroyed by things that sliced through on their way to the land. There were now rumors on his chat boards that the government was planning to build walls around a number of areas. People needed to be protected.
The world was at war with these new species, it’s just nobody had declared it yet.
*****
Sofia stood in the center of the huge cage which was the main attraction of their refuge. The light from her single candle only lit a small space around her, but it was enough to illuminate the creature’s bloodstains which were painted across the concrete floor.
Blood…
She looked down at her hand. It was mostly clean, but dried crimson still remained stubbornly around her nails. Images of what happened kept worming their way into her vision and played out on a continuous loop until she pinched her arm and let the pain bring her back to her new reality.
There was a noise behind her, but she remained fixed in place, looking at the red splashed beneath her.
“Here you are,” said Grant.
She slowly turned, her face devoid of expression. “Is he still asleep?”
“Yeah, he’s out pretty good.” Grant looked down at the mess impressed across the ground. “Maybe we should go back upstairs.”
“This is where they fought?”
“The monsters?”
She nodded.
“Yeah. Last time I was here, this place was packed with people.”
She knelt, her hand tracing across the cold stained ground. “I couldn’t save them…”
He immediately knew she wasn’t talking about the creatures that died there.
“The thing, it just tore… into…”
She wavered and Grant stepped forward, placing his hand on her shoulder to steady her. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have done more. The creatures moved too quick, and me and Ben were pushed along by the crowd. We were lucky we ended up at the pickup.”
He helped her to her feet.
“There’s nothing you could have done… I saw soldiers trying to kill the things, but… they were so quick. Just blurs. I think they shot some of the people there by accident, then the things got them too… but I tried to pull Papa and Mama with me, towards the… but then… I looked back, and… they were on the ground… and…”
Sofia screamed, dropping the candle. She almost collapsed but Grant grabbed her, stopping the fall. In the glow from the flickering flame, he hugged her as tears rolled down her cheeks.
The door to the office upstairs opened and Sofia pulled away. Grant picked up the candle.
A limping scraping sound came from the darkness.
“Thanks for wrapping me up and all, but I got to get back to my platoon,” said Bass, emerging from the shadows.
Grant nodded, handing the candle back to Sofia. “I’ll go get Ben,” he looked back at Sofia. “You okay looking after him for a bit?”
She nodded, and Grant walked into the gloom.
Bass looked at the thick iron bars. “What the hell is this place?”
“They fight the monsters against monsters here.”
Bass looked confused. “For real?”
“That’s what Grant says.”
Bass took another awkward step forward, ignoring the cage around them. “Umm… I just want to say thank you for pulling my ass out of that hot zone.”
“You… saved me first.”
“I did? My mind's kind of foggy as to what happened. I saw you standing over some dead people, and…” Bass realized the importance of the people from Sofia’s expression. “Oh damn. Sorry, you knew them?”
“It’s… okay. If you hadn’t pulled me away, I would be dead too… Maybe that would have been better…”
He took a step forward and put his hand on her shoulder. “Nah, you shouldn’t think like that. I’m sorry I couldn’t save those people—”
“They were my parents…”
“That’s tough…”
Grant reappeared with Ben by his side. “You’re going to stay here with Sofia. I won’t be long, okay?” he said to his son.
Ben nodded.
Grant handed Sofia the shotgun. She looked at him, surprised. “It’s already loaded. Just point and aim,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Umm… where would I reach you?” said Bass to her.
She looked down. “I have no home. I don’t know.”
“Well, there’s a base of operations been established at the city university building. They got lots of accommodation. They’re already taking in people. Why don’t you come with me?”
She looked at Grant, as did Ben.
Grant sighed. He was reluctant to move back into an area with lots of people. They might be out in the middle of nowhere, but at least they could see any threats coming.
Bass looked at Grant. “You can’t stay here. There’s no source of water. I don’t think there’s any heating. Have you thought any of this shit through?”
Bass was right, he hadn’t. So far the plan
had been ‘Run from the monsters.’
“The city university?”
“Yeah, it’s maybe thirty minutes’ drive from here.”
Grant sighed, then nodded. “Wait here, I'll get our stuff.”
A short while later, they were all standing near the external door that, just ten hours earlier, Grant had broken open. He pulled the latch up and pushed it open. A rush of cool air wafted past all of them. A feeling of returning back to normality briefly came to Sofia before melting away. She steadied herself, preparing to follow the others outside.
Grant took a few steps forward then immediately stopped. Something was shuffling amongst the nearby dirt and sand. He flicked the flashlight in the direction of the disturbance. A small plume of dust hung in the air.
Sofia sunk backwards inside, away from the entrance.
“What is that?” said Bass, straining to make sense of the shadows around them.
Another scuffling noise came from their left. This one was accompanied by a thud.
“Hello?” shouted Ben into the darkness.
“I don’t think people,” said Grant.
They all started to back up.
Something heavy slammed into the pickup. Grant switched the beam to focus on his vehicle. It rocked gently back and forth.
“Everyone back inside.”
Grant closed the door and pulled the latch back across. “Let’s leave in the morning.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Grant sat up, pushing his back against the wall near the office desk. A whisper of pain moved through his cheek but quickly faded.
The few candles that were still burning added to the smoky aroma and the flames flickered in a haze.
After giving up on going out into the night and facing whatever was lurking outside, they made sure the other entrances to the building were secure and retreated to the relative safety of the upstairs office.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a small bottle of water as well as a candy bar. As he unwrapped it, his mind reached into the events of the past few days. The world had gone a kind of crazy he had no reference for. In his twenty years, he had seen drug dealers kill their competition, wives kill their cheating husbands, and the occasional serial killer. But even the most demented of minds had a connection to the reality that everyone was part of. But land octopi? Six-legged bears? And whatever the hell killed Sofia’s parents? He felt like he had fallen into a computer game or a horror movie. Nothing felt real.