by Maxey, Phil
The soldier walked around to the passenger's side, Bass already had the window down.
“You got any ID on you?” she said.
“No, my ID was lost when the thing with the razor tentacles was slicing my jacket!”
“What regiment?”
“Twelfth infantry.”
The soldier nodded, then waved to the others behind her. One of the Humvees reversed back enough to clear one lane, and she started to walk away.
“Hey, soldier!” shouted Bass. She stopped and looked back at him. “How’s it been over the past twenty-four hours.”
“You’ll see when you get to HQ.” She carried on walking.
Grant drove through and they were soon making a good speed. The highway traveled at rooftop level to most of the city allowing them all to see the chaos. Plumes of smoke rose, near and far, in all directions. Amongst the dark smudges were dots, hovering and sliding across the sky.
An explosion rocked the pickup and a small mushroom cloud rose ten or so miles to the west, towards the coast.
“I guess the monsters are in the city,” said Bass. He shook his head and slid his hand across the stubble on his chin. “I gotta get back. Need to push them out.”
Grant looked across to him. “You think you can do that?”
Bass continued looking out over the homes and buildings of San Diego. “We got no choice.”
They drove deeper into the city, amongst palm trees, blocklike buildings which advertised their names in five-foot high lettering on the side of them, and streets with abandoned vehicles.
Grant caught something out of the corner of his eye. Below the highway, a mile off to their right a woman was running across a huge expanse of parking lot, one of the many attached to the shopping malls of the area.
“Stop!” shouted Sofia.
Grant hit the brakes and they shuddered to a halt. They all jumped out and waved to her over the small wall which contained the four-lane road.
She didn’t see them, for her eyes were fixed on a lone sedan, parked almost directly below them.
“Look…” said Ben.
Four-legged things scampered across the concrete towards her. At first, they looked like a pack of large cats, lions, cheetahs, something of that ilk, but as they bore down on their prey, it was obvious they were of no relation to those species.
Grant looked at the beasts and the woman. “She’s not going to make it.”
Bass looked down the barrel of the shotgun which he had retrieved from the pickup, but then lowered the gun in frustration. “They’re too far.”
Grant and he looked along the wall of the highway for any indication of a way to the ground some twenty feet below, but the exit was at least a few miles ahead of them.
The woman pumped the air with her fists, not bothering to look back.
“Come on…” said Grant under his breath.
“She’s gonna do it!” said Sofia.
The sound of crumpling steel made the woman skid to a halt, her eyes wide in terror.
Everyone looked over the wall at the creature, similar to those that were almost on her, that was scowling on top of the car, growling in the woman’s direction.
A boom filled the air as Bass fired the shotgun directly down at the orange-colored beast with the angular head of a snake. It jolted as the shot hit it and jumped down, moving out of range, as another blast from the shotgun tried to reach it.
“No… no…” said Bass as the beasts were mere breaths from the woman who had already begun screaming.
Grant covered Ben’s eyes while turning him away and opening the rear door to the pickup.
The noises from the woman only lasted a second and were soon covered by the pickup's engine as they drove away.
The cabin was silent when they arrived at their second roadblock. Ahead of them were more vehicles, all waiting to move inside the protective cordon that had been set up around the university complex.
Ten and more story buildings beckoned in the distance just a few miles away. Salvation.
After a few minutes, the pickup was at the checkpoint, and after a short exchange, they were let through into a sea of vehicles and people. Pools of humanity, some standing, others sitting, were scattered between cars, trucks, and the occasional armored personnel carrier. The largest groupings were out front of the main university building.
A soldier walked up to Grant. “You new here?”
Grant nodded.
The soldier pointed. “Then, you see the line in front of you, that stretches to the big entrance of that building?”
Grant nodded again.
“That’s registration. Park your car over to your left, anywhere you can, then get in the line.”
Grant went to drive to the left when he realized Bass was already half out of the driver's door. The sergeant looked back into the cabin. “I have to find my CO, but get registered and I’ll find you all later.”
*****
Brad bent down and wrote his cell phone number on a piece of paper attached to a clipboard. He had already written his name, address, and social security number.
Doug handed him a badge, a Glock, a box of ammo, and a leather shoulder holster.
“Congratulations, you’re now a member of the Roswell police department, at least temporarily.”
Brad smiled. “I won’t ask if this is legal.”
“Yeah, don’t.”
They were both standing in Doug’s office in the department building.
“How many new sign-ups have you had?”
“Nowhere near as many as I wanted. After earlier…” he sighed. “Chris didn’t deserve what happened. He was a fine officer… It’s just these things, they move quicker than any animal I’ve seen. And for their size… it’s just…”
“How many dogs did you say were released?”
“Twenty-five…”
“So there could still be over twenty more of those things?”
“Yup… and any that might be stray…”
A moment of silence passed between them as they contemplated what could be outside waiting for them, in the night.
Doug stood up straight and patted Brad on the shoulder. “You ready to patrol?”
Brad wasn’t but nodded anyway.
They walked downstairs, past the emergency call center and to the front lobby. Eleven men and five women stood huddled in small groups, half of them in police uniforms. Fear was evident on most of their faces.
“As I previously told you, we’re going to split into eight teams of two. One driver, one passenger. One officer from before, one volunteer. You all got that?”
They nodded they did.
“For the newcomers, I know you all have already had some firearm training, but are your weapons on safety? I don’t want you shooting each other.”
Some of the crowd checked their weapons, then confirmed their weapons were safe.
“Good. We’ve only got seven vehicles, so one of you will have to use your own.”
“I’m fine in my pickup,” said Brad.
Doug nodded, and they all filed outside into the night air.
As each small group walked to their vehicles, Doug and Brad looked at each other and laughed.
“Guess you're my dance partner,” said Doug.
“Looks like that.”
They both walked to Brad’s pickup.
Before opening the passenger's door, Doug looked at the desolate buildings around them.
“What?”
“The town’s struggling. I can feel it.”
“It ain’t dead yet,” said Brad, getting in the driver’s seat.
Soon they were driving along Main Street, heading out to the north of the town. It was the zone that Doug had given himself and Brad to patrol.
They arrived at a junction and stopped. A few lights twinkled amongst the blanket of darkness around them.
Doug wound his window down and they both listened into the black.
“I used to drive out here in a p
atrol car before and just sit,” said Doug. “Listen as the trains passed through in the distance. Sometimes a coyote would walk under the lights at the junction here… and in the distance, you could hear the town, still not quite down for the night. There was always a part of it which was still there, in the dark.”
The silence around them became louder.
“Let’s—”
Brad held his hand up.
Doug went to ask what the issue was, but stopped, hearing the same sounds in the distance that Brad had.
“Could be a freight train…” said Doug.
The thundering noise increased in volume.
Brad reached behind the front seats and pulled forward an odd-looking pair of binoculars, with a head strap attached to them.
“Thought these might come in handy,” said Brad.
Doug nodded. “The whole department could do with some. Take a look, see what’s out there.”
Brad opened the driver’s door and placed the night-vision goggles on his head, then leaned his elbow on the top of the door.
“Hold on, I need to adjust…”
“What can you see?”
Brad rotated the dial at the side of the device.
Amongst the black, green shapes shuddered on the horizon.
“There’s something out there… can’t rightly tell…”
Doug reached forward for his twelve-gauge.
The shapes wavered but were growing in size. The thundering sound was beginning to take on an extra layer of rushed breaths being pushed out into the night.
Doug picked up his radio. “Todd, Luis, Jean, you out there? Over.”
“I’m here boss,” said Jean. The others replied as well.
Doug opened his door and stood, looking into the same wall of darkness that Brad was looking in to.
“Any of you report anything? Over.”
“Nope, all quiet on Grange street. Over,” said Luis.
The other two repeated the same for their areas.
Brad squinted into the eyecups. When he first saw the shapes he thought they couldn’t be what they were searching for. There were too many dark green smudges set against the black, but as he watched, the forms became angular and lines suggested limbs.
“I think we found our missing dogs… and they ain’t what they used to be…”
The vibrations were now emanating through the metal frame of the pickup.
“How many?” said Doug.
“All of them… we need to go!”
Brad sat back down, immediately turning the ignition key and putting the pickup into reverse. Doug just had time to sit back down and close his door when the pickup surged backwards, then spun around to face towards the town.
The wheels spun, then gripped and they accelerated forward.
“How close are they!” shouted Brad, trying to concentrate on the road ahead as he pushed all the way down on the gas.
Doug looked out the small, rear, cabin window. At first, the scene was the same, then his eyes widened as dozens of the beasts that had killed his deputy hours earlier scampered across the junction, momentarily becoming lit by the street lights, then being plunged back into shadow.
“Not far!”
He raised the radio back to his mouth. “Listen up, everyone. There’s a whole heap of those beasts that killed Chris on our tail, coming in from the north. I want you all over here. We need to keep them restricted to Main Street if we can. We’re coming through there now! Over.”
“Are they gaining?” shouted Brad as neon roadside signs, promoting the stores a few yards back from the street, flew past.
Doug watched in horror as the creatures crashed into civilization. Some broke from the pack, attacking the few vehicles remaining in the parking lots, while others smashed through the store windows being lost in the gloom. The main pack though, over ten of the creatures, was still pounding the concrete, getting closer to the pickup.
He looked at Brad. “What speed we doing?”
“I’ve got her up to sixty! Are they gaining?”
Doug thought they were finally leaving them behind, when one of the things, a vision of claw and teeth surged forward, leaping and clipping the back of the pickup. They were both momentarily thrown forward, Brad’s ribs slamming into the steering wheel, but the tailgate gave way, tumbling to the ground and the pickup quickly regained its momentum. In the beams of the rear headlights, the creature slashed and crumpled the stretch of metal that used to belong to the pickup.
The other wolf-creatures also lost interest in their original prey and dispersed into the shadows.
“They’ve moved away… Into the side streets!” said Doug.
Brad stopped the pickup.
Headlights appeared in the distance and quickly grew in size. Two police sedans skidded to halt in front of the pickup.
Brad’s heart pounded in his chest.
So, now I’m a monster hunter? Better to be the hunter than the hunted.
Screams rang out in the distance.
“Turn us around!” said Doug.
Brad reversed the pickup, turned around and, with the other cars, they took a right and headed into a suburban road with single-story dwellings.
They moved slowly along the narrow two-lane street, Doug with his shotgun out of the passenger’s side window, trying to see into the darkness. Many of the properties only had the slightest of lights on, deep within them, while others had orange glows emanating through the gaps in boards nailed across their fronts.
Nothing looked out of place, and the night was as still and silent as if they were within the dead of winter.
“Stop,” said Doug.
The three-vehicle convoy quickly did and Doug jumped out.
“What you see?” said Brad. He quickly pulled his NVGs back down over his eyes and looked at the same property that the sheriff was watching. There were no green pixels within his view, just an absolute void.
The doors to the other cars behind opened and four people, three men, and one woman walked across the sidewalk then the lawn, following Doug around the side of the property. Each had their weapons held high.
Brad sat alone in his pickup, in the middle of the street. He waited for gunshots or shouts, but only the silence endured.
A sound came from his left, he whipped around to try to see its source, but there was nothing there. Just the front yard of another residence.
“There’s nothing back there,” said Doug, scaring the life out of Brad. The sheriff looked at him through the open passenger’s window.
“Hell, Doug, give a man some warning,” he breathed heavily, trying to slow his heart. “No sign of them?”
Doug stood and looked into the dark of the streets and homes around him. “Nope. Where the hell have they gone?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Raj placed his dinner tray on the table and sat. It was his usual spot in the mess hall, back right, near the fake Turner, at least he presumed it was fake. He would get lost in its orange and mauve swirls, while different arrangements of molecules would take shape in his mind. It also helped him feel not so alone. The other scientists in the underground facility shunned him from the moment Stokes told them he was to be included on the team.
It was fine. He was just happy to be safe from what was developing above ground.
He looked down at his piece of chicken on the end of his fork and went to put it in his mouth but stopped.
‘Chicken.’
He wondered how long it would be until what he was about to eat would be consigned to the history books. The whole world was shortly going to have to be vegetarian, whether they liked it or not.
“… but what about the bird attack last June?” The words almost fully drifted past Raj until his brain latched on to them.
“Ssshhh…” was the reply from whoever was sitting behind him.
He turned around to faces that were looking down and taking bites from their own soon-to-be extinct animals.
“What was that?�
�� he said to the dark-haired man with glasses, just a few feet away from him.
The man pretended he wasn’t the one being targeted by Raj’s enquiry.
Raj reached out and touched his arm. “What was that about last June? There were Cascade attacks last year?”
A woman sitting across the table, but directly behind him looked at him. “We can’t talk about it.”
“What do you mean, you can’t talk about it? We’re all on the same team. Just tell me what happened.”
The man with glasses glanced back at Raj. “Even we shouldn’t know about it. It’s just rumors. All of us were brought in early this year, but we heard the project began over a year ago…”
An unexpected anger began to swell inside Raj. He pushed his tray forward then got up. “Don’t steal my food, I’ll be back for it.”
He quickly left the large square room and made his way along the wide hallways, passing the labs, then the administration section, until he arrived at Stokes’ personal office. He briefly held his ID up to the soldier at the door, then knocked.
Stokes said whoever was knocking could enter.
Raj walked inside, forgetting to close the door, and up to Stokes’ desk. The older man was sitting behind it, his face lit by a single reading lamp.
The soldier closed the office door.
“Something bothering you, Raj?”
“How long have you known about the Cascade?”
The director looked down and sighed, then took his glasses off and placed them down. He got up and moved to the cabinet behind and took a bottle from a drawer. “You want a drink?”
“I thought we weren’t allowed to drink.”
“Yeah well, times change.”
“So the government knew about the Cascade a year ago? There were earlier attacks? Mutated creatures?”
Stokes poured himself a drink then returned to his chair, where he typed some words into his laptop, then swiveled it around to face Raj.
Raj looked at a newspaper report of school children being chased by a flock of crazed birds. “What’s this?”
“One of the first reports that was due to the Cascade. What they reported as birds, were in fact bird-lizard hybrids. It was almost impossible to spot unless you had one in your hand, but most of their bodies were covered in dark scales, not feathers. One of them hit a power line and was found by a farmer. Perplexed by what he had, he called the authorities, and, well, almost a year later, here we are.”