Humankind_Saga 1

by Mic Shannon

  The march was long, tiresome, and discomforting. They were already tired before they reached the city. Michael’s heart pounded in his chest, seeing the bright mist in the distance, a greenish-yellow color that he had never seen before. It frightened him. What were they entering? Would he make it home alive? He looked up to see the commander of the tank next to him, standing up out of the top hatch with binoculars, looking for enemies.

  All were quiet as they approached the mist. “This is it, boys!” yelled Sergeant Lewis, maintaining his warrior spirit. Michael felt as if his heart might pound out of his chest. He bit his oxygen valve, inhaling deeply as he passed through the greenish-yellow cloud.

  They quickly noticed body parts in the streets, with blood smeared and spattered all over the sidewalks and the roads. An arm here, a leg there, a torso with no head. Michael felt himself getting queasy.

  “Hey, you alright?” asked Tee, raising his hand to place it on his shoulder.

  “Yeah…I’m just…hold up…”

  He ran over to the side of the road and threw his hands onto his knees. Popping the oxygen valve out of his mouth he threw up directly into his facemask, and it leaked down onto his chest and groin. Tee broke formation and ran up to him, rubbing his back.

  “You’re fine, man. Don’t worry, I gotcha.”

  His words gave him comfort, something that only two other people in his life had been able to do. In that moment, he knew that Tee was his best friend, and nothing would be able to break their bond.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Michael said, coughing and spitting into his suit.

  “Let’s go cherry,” screamed Sgt. Lewis, “back in formation!”

  They both ran back over to their spot in formation and continued to walk with the rest of the infantry. Their company was at the front of the Ground Force, spearheading the operation. There were two tanks on opposite sides of them as they traveled up the wide highway. Even walking next to a tank, Michael’s naivety about the gruesome reality of death faded into nervous terror with each smeared body part lying in the road.

  “Command Center, Eagle One, radio check, over,” said the radio operator, attempting to contact Captain Yi at the command post back in the rear. There was silence.

  “Command Center, Eagle One, gimme a radio check, over.”

  The reply was broken up by static, and barely audible.

  “Eag---C---ra---check---o.”

  “Command, this is Eagle One, say again your last…”

  “C---Ea---,“ The transmission turned to static.

  “Shit,” said the radio operator, reaching into his pocket. He grabbed for his flares and lit them, waving it in the air signaling to the rest of the troops behind them that his radio signal connecting them to the C.O.C. had stopped working.

  “That’s it, no more Command Center.” said Sergeant Lewis through his headset, “from here on out, we’re on our own. So keep your shit tight!”

  Tee tapped Michael, pointing to two steaming piles of green excrement with holes in them.

  “…the hell is that?!” mumbled Sergeant Lewis over the radio’s ad-hoc network to his team, “Hey, you two new guys, keep your eyes open! And don’t go far, the ad-hoc signal only works at about twenty-meters.”

  They continued into the city, noticing more and more body parts lining the streets. Michael popped his drinking straw into his mouth and took a sip to prevent himself from vomiting again. The fires in the distance lit up the night sky as they made their approach. He looked up at the buildings, almost completely undisturbed. It didn’t look like how he figured a war zone would look based on the documentaries, with dilapidated structures and rubble piled up everywhere. The eeriness of the undisturbed edifices sent a chill through his body.

  As they continued up the long highway, a large silhouette in the distance came into view. It was facing them, standing about three hundred meters away.

  “Hey, Sergeant Lewis,” Michael said over the headset, his eyes wide with urgency, “do you see that?”

  “What do you see, cherry?” replied the Sergeant, “talk to me!”

  “Ahead of us, I see something. Like, a person.”

  “I don’t see it,” said the Sergeant, pointing his rifle downrange, “how far?”

  “Umm, I dunno,” said Michael, confused, “like umm, a few hundred meters. Right there next to the fire!”

  “Alright, let’s hold up,” commanded Sergeant Lewis.

  The tank came to a halt, with Sergeant Lewis signaling with his hand and arm for everyone to freeze. The Company halted in its tracks. Sgt. Lewis ran over and jumped up onto the tank, speaking to the commander as he pointed into the distance.

  “Contact, three…maybe three-twenty-five meters. Light up that bonfire.”

  Hopping back down off the tank, he pushed his men away from the tracked vehicle then put his hands over his ears.

  “Three…two…one…and, fire,” said the tank commander.

  *BOOM*

  The deafening noise of the tank firing surprised and rattled Michael to his core. He had never heard something so loud in his life! It was like a surprise earthquake, kicking up dust and shaking the buildings. And, just as quickly as it came, the earthquake was gone. His ears rang like church bells. He closed his eyes and shook his head, attempting to recover.

  When his hearing finally returned after a few moments, he heard the muffled sounds of Sgt. Lewis.

  “What do you see, cherry?” he yelled over the ad-hoc network to Michael, his AR glasses still scanning unsuccessfully for an enemy signature.

  “I don’t see anything except smoke, Sergeant,” replied Michael.

  “Good,” yelled Sgt. Lewis, turning to his fireteam, “now, let’s get up there and check it out. Here’s what we’re gonna do…”

  Michael, standing face to face with Sgt. Lewis and hanging onto his every word, was so aghast by what he saw that he completely locked up, unable to get a word of warning out of his mouth as he saw the large silhouette dropping from the rooftop. Before finishing his orders, the silhouette landed directly on top of Sgt. Lewis mid-sentence, crushing him underneath its massive weight while the razor-sharp claws on its feet pierced through his body like a samurai sword through flesh. And that was it. He was another smeared body in the streets.

  Michael jumped backward in fear and slipped, falling onto his back as the frightening creature darted away with breakneck speed and began slicing up more victims. He collided onto his back in surprise, hitting the back of his head on the street. Looking up, with no time to process the pain of bumping his head, he saw a roof full of horrifying silhouettes plunging one-by-one into the street.

  Gunfire erupted from every angle. The machine gunners on top of the vehicles began firing aimlessly as the creatures moved about unnoticed, tearing them to bits. Michael froze, eyes wide in horror, then rolled over onto his stomach and began low crawling away.

  “Mike…Mike!” he heard over the headset, “to your left!”

  He turned to look and saw Tee with his back pressed up against the tank, waving and yelling in his direction between firing shots. Michael slowly began to crawl in his direction as Tee continued waving for him to come get behind the cover of the large vehicle.

  The sounds of battle suddenly went silent. Michael continued crawling, stopping to pat his head, wondering if he had gone deaf from the fall. It was just another thirty-five feet until he reached the safety of the tank. He looked up toward Tee, hoping to survive just another few moments until he could get to a safe spot and compose himself. Suddenly, he felt pressure in his head and a ringing in his ears, like a pounding migraine on steroids. Then, when he feared he might scream from the pain, his AR glasses went dark and he slid backward away from the tank, and then toward it, rolling along the blacktop.

  Thinking he was dead, he used his sleeve to try and wipe the large burn mark away from his glasses. His suit felt as if it were on fire, and the ‘oxygen low’ alarm sounded in his ears. He couldn’t breathe. He gasped, cl
awing at the zipper by the neck. He desperately struggled with it, fearing that he wasn’t dead, but instead suffocating in darkness waiting for one of those silhouettes to come turn him into a dismembered body.

  He tore off the helmet of the hazmat suit and snatched off his AR Glasses, gasping for air and then throwing a hand over his mouth to keep from inhaling the greenish-yellow mist. Looking up toward the tank, he dropped his hand from his face in shock. Tee was on his butt, legs extended away from the tank. His ears were bleeding as he convulsed. The top of the tank slowly started imploding inward, Tee’s chin sinking into his chest and melting away like warm ice cream as his upper body disintegrated into a pile of blood and flesh. The only thing that remained were his pelvis and legs, untouched, next to a steaming hole in the asphalt.

  Michael crawled backward in fear then stood up, dazed, and began running with bewilderment. He ran toward the other tank for cover and nervously slipped as he changed direction, realizing that wasn’t the best decision. The gunfire was deafening, and the chaos was frightening. He kept his head down, jumping at every shot. He kept running, just hoping to get to cover as he was taught so that he could pull himself together. He ran out of the street toward a small restaurant facing the highway, next to a downed power line. Looking for a good spot to shoot from, he approached the front of the restaurant. Suddenly, he heard the thud of something land on the ground behind him. He stopped immediately in his tracks and turned around. The dark outline of the creature stood there staring at him, teeth exposed. Michael, instinctively, raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger.

  He missed.

  The creature dodged to its left with amazing reflexes and lunged forward at him. Michael jumped back and started to fall onto his butt, his rifle still in hand. As he fell, the creature swiped at him ferociously, its claws barely missing his hands and slicing right through the rifle, cutting it into four pieces.

  Getting a good look at the frightening silhouette in front of him, Michael was petrified. Above all, the creature was massive. Almost unimaginably massive, hovering at least eight feet in height. It frightened the soul from his body. And that’s when he noticed it. The dark symbol, emblazoned on the front of the enemy’s chest:

  He stared at the torso of the beast, his mind racing with questions of how and why. This was what his mother had drawn. Death itself. That’s when it occurred to him, there was more to that book than he had previously thought. ‘Decipher and you will have the keys to survive death’. He had to get that book back.

  When the creature stepped forward to swipe again, there was a loud pop and flash as the creature’s claw stepped on the downed electrical wire. It stiffened instantly and turned crisp white, falling to the ground with a thud.

  “Oh my God, Tee!” yelled Michael, throwing both hands over his mouth, finally coming to the realization that his best friend was gone just that fast.

  He sat and looked across the battlefield, the sights so grotesque that he just stared in shock and didn’t move, panting furiously. The chaos was catastrophic, everyone scattered in fear as they were overrun by brute force. One shadowy creature ran over to the remaining tank, gripping the side of it with both claws and tearing away a four-foot hole in the thick metal. It reached in and grabbed one of the occupants, pulling the driver out through the hole by his torso and breaking his back. The sounds of his screams and the audible pop and crunch of his spine could still be heard through the sporadic burst of gunfire. It made the hair on the back of Michael’s neck stand up straight. And just as fast as the victim’s screams began, they were silenced as the vicious beast raised the tank driver up to his face and bit into his forehead, tearing away skull and brain matter.

  Overhead, Michael could hear two AH-64 Apache helicopters approaching the battlefield. The rotors whisked through the greenish mist, disappearing from the view of the C.O.C. in the rear desperately struggling for answers. They came to a low hover over the buildings, shocked to see the steaming hole in the ground where the tank once was, and the slaughtered masses being torn apart and dismembered by invisible forces. With no idea of what was happening, they tried desperately to radio back to the C.O.C. to no avail, anxious to help, but not at the expense of firing blindly toward their own men.

  Suddenly, one of the Apache’s lit up with a flash and melted, falling out of the sky with gurgling screams of horror onto the concrete in a metallic puddle of sludge. The other broke away and cut to its right. As it passed over the rooftop a silhouette jumped up and latched onto it, climbing up to the cockpit with claw marks piercing the exterior. The pilot in the front seat panicked at the extra drag weighing down his bird, immediately noticing the claw marks in the helicopter getting closer. He pulled his sidearm and began firing in front of him, but the.45 caliber spitballs ricocheted off the creature. It reached in and gripped him with its claws, tossing him out of the aircraft violently with mortal chest wounds. Before long, the aircraft was spiraling toward the ground. Its rotors hit two soldiers before impact, shredding them to pieces before it finally impacted the concrete, sending bits of the rotor flying in all directions.

  Other soldiers ran in fear. Michael, still sitting outside of the restaurant paralyzed, gasped when he saw one particular soldier. The Mexican soldier that had provided the guitar for Tee, the one who had comforted them all with his songs, ran for his life but was snatched up. The creature swiped at his ribs, lodging his claws into his body and lifting him into the air as he screamed in horror, blood from his internal organs spilling onto the traffic lines and pouring out of the corners of his mouth. With its other claw, the creature impaled him through the center of his chest, and then raised him up above its head and pulled him apart, separating him into two pieces.

  Michael felt his crotch get warm. It ran down the inside of his legs and collected in a puddle underneath him. He crawled backwards, pulling himself with his arms and then rolling over and scrambling to his feet. He opened the door of the restaurant frantically and ran inside, mortified.

  Making his way anxiously into the back where the kitchen was located, he busted through the double doors and stood in the opening for a moment in panic. Looking to his right, he ran over and opened a small cabinet, throwing out all the pots and pans. He got inside of the cabinet, brought his knees into his chest, and closed it.

  Sitting there in the dark cabinet, unable to move or breathe, he could hear the racing of his heartbeat in his ears. He shook uncontrollably, shutting his eyes and trying to breathe deeply, but instead sobbing. The tears ran down his face while the fabric of his mind shattered with the realization that a horribly gruesome death was immediately imminent; survival being a non-factor.

  As he cried, his brain raced through the possibilities. There was no way out. He was going to die there. He thought of Tee, sniffling between sobs as he shook to the sounds of gunfire, explosions, and screams outside. What if he had had been able to save him? Why didn’t he die honorably with him instead of running like a coward? Why was he alive and not Tee? He thought of his mother, thinking of all the lessons she had taught him about bravery. He hadn’t made her proud. He hadn’t made Tee or Cynthia or Manny proud. He had failed as a soldier. He cried at his cowardice. He cried.

  SUN, JULY 9th, 2034

  Headquarters Building, El Paso, Tx, USA

  12:33 am

  “E agle One, this is HQ, report,” said the Colonel over his radio, contacting Captain Yi for the status of the battle.

  "HQ, this is Eagle One, we’ve been ambushed, multiple casualties, request fire mission, coordinates one, five...”

  The coordinates from Captain Yi were suddenly interrupted by a few curse words, a thud, and a blood curdling gurgle. Then, the transmission turned to static.

  “Shit,” said the Colonel, “where’s our drone feed?”

  “We lost signal as it approached the battlefield,” yelled one of the Airmen controlling the drone, “I don’t have a signal. Not even sure if it’s in the air anymore.”

  "Eagle Two, this i
s HQ. We need you to double-time it west toward Eagle One's position," said the General. There was silence.

  "Eagle Two, report.”

  A few more moments of silence.

  “Eagle Two?”

  --- 12:41 am ---

  Torreón, Mexico

  “I say we go out there and help, they need us,” said the Chief to the three Marines huddled in the room.

  “Too risky,” said the Staff Sergeant nervously, “we won’t survive. Let’s wait until the gunfire stops and then go look for friendly units.”

  “Bullshit!” said the Chief, spitting a dark wad onto the concrete floor of the dingy storage room, “our best chance at finding friendlies is out there right now! We can’t just sit in here and let our brothers die out there! Where’s your balls, Marine?”

  “Chief,” said the Lance Corporal, his eyes soft with persuasion, “this is all we have between us and death. Let’s stick to the plan and move out at one am.”

  “We move out now,” said the Chief authoritatively, moving toward the door with James close behind, and that’s an order Marine!”

  “Hey Chief!” yelled the Master Sergeant, quieting the room as he grit his teeth, “These are my Marines, not yours! They are under my command. You got that?”

  The Chief stopped at the doorway, turning around and looking at the Master Sergeant with a piercing stare. He said nothing, just took a few steps toward him until they were almost face to face. After a few moments, he snorted then spit his dip spit onto the ground in front of his feet, showing his disgust.

  “Don’t you get it,” he said, staring into his eyes, “we’re all under the same command now.”

  --- 1:12 am ---

  The battlefield had been mostly silent for almost an hour. There were still a few screams in the distance, but they were all being snuffed out one by one. Michael sat in the cabinet in fear, afraid to make too much noise. In his hand, he held Cynthia’s corsage, rubbing the petals with his thumb. It comforted him, and it was a vivid reminder that no matter the circumstances, he had a responsibility to return to her. Manny too. He quietly cracked the cabinet door and peeked out. He closed it back and looked at his watch. 01:15 am.