by Maxey, Phil
Raj’s face contorted with confusion. “You couldn’t have warned the world? Told them what was coming?”
“We had no idea! The government thought it was an anomaly, a freak occurrence—”
“But there were other events? That couldn’t have been the only one… if you knew, why not do something sooner?”
Stokes took a sip from his glass, then looked at Raj directly. “We thought we had more time…”
Raj sat heavily on the single chair in front of the desk. “Maybe I will take that drink.”
*****
The sound in the large dorm room never fell to a level which allowed Grant to get into a deep sleep, so most of the night he had spent, restless, turning from one side to another, never finding the right position. When he eventually saw the white wall turn from black to dark gray he decided to wake up properly.
He reached for the water bottle on the floor next to him, one of five they had been rationed, and took a few sips before returning it.
In the bunk above, slept Ben. He looked to his left, into the shadows of the nearby bunk. Sofia’s breathing was slow and steady.
They had queued in the midday sun for a few hours until finally making it inside the huge lobby of the university building, now designated as the place where people registered to be given shelter, food and water, within the boundaries which had been hastily thrown up around the university complex. They hadn’t seen Bass since he said his farewell, and by the time it grew dark and they were shown their spot in building E, near the freeway which ran along the back of the safe zone, they all just wanted to sleep. That was ten hours ago.
Grant laid trying to overhear the hushed conversations and the pockets of light brought about by candles amongst the other beds.
I’m a refugee.
The thought made him silently laugh, then the weight of the reality of his situation seeped back in, pushing what humor there was to the far reaches of his mind. Images of the luxurious home that he had loved and lived in for over a decade until a court deemed he had to give it up, flashed through his mind. He was carrying a very pregnant Iona over the threshold. Her eyes were closed. He placed her softly down on the rust-colored tiles, then told her to look. The memory of her smile, and then embrace, quickly turned from a warm feeling in his stomach to an ache in his chest.
Raised voices came from outside in the corridor. Grant opened his eyes and sat up. He waited to see if the anger would continue. It did. He was already fully dressed and stood, walking slowly with his arms spread out so not to hit any bunks. He stopped near the door and listened. Two men were arguing.
He opened the door and looked out.
“Ya kidding me…” said Grant under his breath.
About ten yards away, Mason Hendricks was in the face of another individual who Grant didn’t recognize. Mason was wearing the same shirt he had the last time Grant saw him, except now it had a few rips across the arms and on the back. He also had the beginnings of a beard.
Grant thought about returning to the dorm room as he had not been spotted by the FBI agent yet but, instead, stepped out into the hallway.
Mason looked down the hallway at Grant. “You,” he said.
Grant walked up to him. “Yeah, me. What’s going on here.”
“This don’t concern you,” said Mason.
“I keep telling him, I ain’t got the medicine for his friend.”
Grant looked at Mason who frowned then started to walk away, shaking his head.
Grant caught up with him. “Who you need medicine for? How you even end up here? I thought you was leaving?”
Mason stopped at the entrance to the stairwell. “Luci with you?”
Grant shook his head. “There was an attack at the apartment block. Myself, my boy, some others managed to get away, but I didn’t see Luciana or her brother.”
Mason nodded, then opened the door to the stairs. With his hand on it, he stopped in the doorway, then looked back. “You want a drink?”
Not many words passed between them as Mason led Grant outside through a series of alleyways, and then finally to a door which led into the bowels of a multistory parking garage.
Mason opened and went inside. Grant reluctantly did the same.
They walked down a dimly lit corridor, stained with greasy substances, until emerging into the fumes of liquor.
Grant looked around at small round tables, chairs, and steel barrels. The back wall had a series of connected desks, which bored-looking individuals were seated behind. Mason looked back at Grant and waved for him to follow.
A short while after, Grant and Mason sat with their beers.
Grant continued looking around the pretend bar and the few people who were slumped over a table or two. “How long has this place been here?”
Mason cracked the cap off his bottle and drunk some of the warm beverage. “No idea. I got here a few days ago. But it comes in handy.”
“Why are you even here? I thought you left the city?”
Mason smiled to himself. “We were almost out when we were told to stay in San Diego. That the bureau needs more representation here. Of course, we didn’t know what was about to happen… that monsters would fall from the sky… or wherever the hell those things come from.” He looked at Grant. “So, you really don’t know where Luci went?”
“I thought she gave you what you wanted?”
Mason briefly pulled the thumb drive, which was now back where it belonged, on a small piece of chain around his neck. “For this information to be of any use, you kind of need for there to be… like a society… but… I just wondered if she was okay?”
Grant knocked the cap off his beer and took a sip. “Even if I did know where she was, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“She had a pretty good black eye when I met her.”
“And you think I did that? I’ve never laid a hand on her!”
Grant was confused.
Mason laughed. “Man, she played you good.”
Grant frowned, realizing that she had used her appearance to get what she wanted from him.
“How’s your kid?”
“Got shot—”
“Got shot?”
“It winged him. He was wearing a vest. Bruised his ribs pretty bad, but he’s doing alright… What was all that about your partner and medicine?”
“David… Hoang… we were working with local law, we had reports that some crazy SOB was holding cage fights between these things… the monsters… yeah, people never change… anyway… we were on the way to this place out in the middle of nowhere when this… I don’t know how to describe it… it didn’t seem to have legs or arms, it was just this mass that rolled in the middle of the road. I swerved to avoid it, went down a bank, and the car flipped, skidded for what seemed forever. When I came to, I had some cuts and bruises but Hoang had a broken leg. Emergency services were already stretched, so we came to the new place they were setting up. This place. So, right now, he’s in building B, hasn’t slept in days, the pain’s too much. I heard about this guy in your building, has ‘supplies’ … and that’s where you saw me.”
“He didn’t have any?”
Mason shook his head and drunk some more beer, as did Grant.
“I might be able to help you out,” said Grant.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The UFO alarm clock flashed in time with its siren, which flowed in pitch, up and down. Brad reached across to hit the top of it, instead just pushing it off the end of the bedside table and onto the rug where it kept on vibrating.
He sat up angrily and leaned out, slapping the top of the small clock, stopping the infuriating noise. It was then his mind properly remembered the night before.
The horde that had chased the pickup into the town had vanished into the night. They kept up the search until sunrise, but there were no tracks or sounds of the apex predators. By the time he arrived back at his home, he had just enough energy to walk to the top of t
he stairs, into the main bedroom, set the alarm, then fall onto the bed.
That was seven hours ago, but as he sat on the plush red sheet, he had no perception of having slept. The sliver of light which got through the gaps in the wooden boards, carved up the good-sized bedroom, and he watched the dust particles dance in the rays.
He wondered what new horrors were on the menu for the day. They needed to find the beasts, that much he knew.
He blinked a few times to clear his eyes then picked up his cell phone, expecting the screen to light up, but instead, only his own reflection looked back at him.
Forgot to charge it…
A bang reverberated through the house and his brain. Then another.
Someone’s at the door.
He had to repeat the words to himself for his tired limbs to start to work. He walked onto the landing, then down the stairs, and stood in front of the entrance which was boarded up.
“Go around the side!” he shouted to whoever was outside.
The sound of footsteps faded, and he turned and made his way into the basement, then to the side door, opening it, and taking in a lungful of air.
The stout legs of officer Jean Wheeler came down the stone steps slowly as if being afraid to move too quickly.
“Ya got your cell turned off? We tried reaching you on it,” she said in a strong southern accent. “There’s been an attack over on the south side of town. Family of four are missing. Doug asked me to come and get you.” She noticed the shadows which hung from his eyes. “You just wake up?”
“Yup. I would say I’ll get a coffee on the way, but we both know nowhere’s going to be open.”
“I’m to take you straight to the scene…”
“Okay, hold on I need to grab the gun.”
He went back to his room, grabbing the shoulder holster which he had somehow removed during the night, then returned to an impatient officer Wheeler.
He closed and locked the basement door. “Let’s go.”
They were soon moving through the same suburban streets he had cruised through only a few hours before.
His tired eyes kept wanting to lose focus, but he looked best he could at the homes passing by. Were there any broken windows? Splinters from fallen fences? Scars of claws across walls? If there were he couldn’t see any. These beasts weren’t just grade-A killing machines, they were also experts at not being seen. That made it worse… far worse.
“How much sleep you get?” he said to Jean.
“Some. Jed woke me at six as usual with my morning coffee.”
“He’s your husband?”
“Sure is. Been that way for fourteen years.”
“What’s he do?”
“He’s a carpenter. Work’s been pretty good of late, what with helping people board up their places.”
Brad wondered if Jean and Jed would be able to enjoy the newfound increase in income.
“You got your coupons for food and stuff?” he said.
“Yeah, got them yesterday…”
“You think it’s going to work with them?”
“I guess it’s going to have to. There’s not been any food deliveries to the stores in town for a week now… You hear the rumors of the camps?”
Brad hadn’t been back on his computer for a day. “No?”
“Those on the radio were saying, people have seen a whole lot of construction going on in certain areas around the big cities. They’re saying that they are building walls, trying to make areas safe, to keep the things out.”
It sounded like a sensible idea to Brad, but it had one obvious flaw, which Jean then articulated.
“I guess those of us outside those areas are screwed,” she said.
“Well, that’s what the army is for.”
The single-story homes were soon replaced with fields, and they turned off onto a dirt track.
After bumping along for half a mile, flies started to bump into the windscreen.
“What’s with the flies?” said Brad.
“You’ll soon see.”
The track went up a slight incline and revealed the source of the pestilence.
“What the hell,” said Brad.
The fields on both sides of the track were covered in slaughtered cattle, and the air was thick with flies. They kept on driving.
Brad looked at the farm buildings they were approaching. “Who called this in?”
“One of the farm hands got here this morning and found the cattle, then… the other thing.”
They passed mailboxes which lay scattered across the side of the path and Jean pulled up alongside two other police vehicles, and a mortician’s van. They were all packed in front of the impressive double-story farmhouse. Some baskets of flowers lay on the front porch while others swung gently, still attached to the wooden frame.
The front door was already open when Brad walked inside. The smell of death was enough to allow him to navigate his way to the rear of the property. He stood in a large country kitchen looking at the lack of a rear window. The room looked as if a tornado had torn through it. Fragments of wood and plastic hinted at what furniture and personal items there might have been, and what were light brown wooden cupboards appeared to have been painted in red camouflage streaks.
Brad carefully walked where he could find a space and stepped out through the hole where the door to the rear garden used to be. Two police officers were thirty or so yards away examining some out-buildings, but Doug was closer. He was hunched over, kneeling.
Brad approached him and he stood. In Doug’s red-stained hand was a fabric doll, half of which was crimson in color.
“The Gilberts were good people. The family has been in this area since the late fifties.”
“I think my father knew Jay Gilbert, the grandfather… I never knew the family who lived here though…”
“Nancy, Will, Ada, and Flinn. Ada was eight, Flinn fourteen…” Doug opened his mouth to say more, but quickly closed it back up and sighed, looking into the fields surrounding them. “These things are picking us off. They come right into our homes and take what they want.”
“When we were going through the town last night I was thinking about that. They might look like werewolves, but they’re still acting like dogs or wolves. Hunting in packs. You notice they wouldn’t come all the way into town? They reached a certain point and dispersed. They’re still mostly attacking the properties on the outskirts. The places more isolated.”
“That’s still a lot of buildings, Brad. How does that help us?”
“We just have to make one of those places look more appealing than the rest, then wait for them to show up.”
“And if they all show up at once?”
“I got an idea about that too.”
*****
Sofia sat on the edge of her bed and flicked through the glossy magazine she had found in one of the mazelike corridors. The dorm was bustling with noise as it always was but that was okay. As soon as the horror of a few days before started to seep into her thoughts, she would look to the world around her for distraction. Anything would do. Right now, it was an argument between two men six beds down who were having a heated exchange as to who was the best shortstop during the 1970s. In this new world everyone needed distractions, she thought.
The crinkled pages between her fingers seemed faker than ever. Ten-thousand-dollar smiles fought for space amongst hundred-thousand-dollar cars and million-dollar homes, all of it now worthless because of creatures which were never meant to be.
Still, it was a distraction. She went to lie back when she felt a presence walking towards her.
Bass got to the end of the bed. In his hand was a bag. “Hey,” he said with a smile.
“Hi.” She was surprised to see him again but pleased nonetheless.
“Hi,” he said to Ben who was reading a comic on the top bunk next to hers.
Ben pulled the comic down slightly, smiled, then put it back up.
Bass offered the bag to Sofia, which she took. �
��I managed to get you some things. There’s some food in there, a few bottles of water, and some books… I didn’t know what exactly—”
“Fruit!” she screamed.
“Sshhh,” said Bass, trying to ignore those around them that were watching.
“Oh… sorry.”
He sat at the end of the bed next to her. “Yeah, I kinda had to take that stuff without the exact right kind of permission if you get what I mean.”
She smiled. “Thank you… How’s your leg?”
“It’s working, that’s all that matters… Where’s Grant?”
She frowned. “He’s out… with his new friend…”
Outside, Grant looked out at a sea of people in the streets between the multistory halls of residences which made up the university complex. Beyond them, he could see the entrance of the base, and then the bridge over the highway beyond that.
“They just keep coming,” said Mason, standing behind him.
They both pushed their way forward, buffeted by arms and shoulders until they arrived at a side door to the main building.
They quickly entered and followed the signs best they could to the administration floor of the building. After climbing three floors, they were stopped as they left the stairwell by two soldiers.
“Civilians are not allowed up here, please—”
“Hey, buddy, I’m Mason Hendricks, special agent of the FBI, I’m—”
“Only military personnel are allowed up here, sir, please return—”
A balding man in uniform and a number of motifs across his jacket emerged from another of the secure-looking doors into the corridor, he approached the soldiers, who both saluted. “At ease, Privates. What’s going on here?”
“These men were just returning to—”
“We want to help,” said Grant.
The middle-aged officer looked away. “Thank you for your offer, but—”
“I’m an ex-detective, Hollywood division, and Mason here is an active FBI special agent…”