by Mark Tufo
“Rut, you might want to look at where we’re going,” I said, looking at the side view mirrors. A bend in the road was up ahead with a healthy drop off if he stayed his present course. I was fairly confident we wouldn’t die down at the bottom of the gulley but it didn’t look like a fun ride either. Plus, if we lost our wheels the odds we could escape the nuke had gone to virtually zero.
“Right,” he said without looking.
“Rut, man, the friggen mirrors man, use the mirrors!” BT was getting in on it.
The rear of the truck swung to the right as Rut somehow managed to turn with the road. I was still wondering how he’d managed to do that, when the ticking became more of a knocking. It literally sounded like someone was hitting the engine with a tire iron. In the span of a few seconds we went from loud hammering to near silence as the engine sputtered and ceased.
“Out!” I ordered. We hadn’t put more than a quarter mile between the Dirty Dozen and us, my guess once they realized we were out of commission was they were going to come and check it out.
“I can fix her,” Rut said sadly.
“I’m sure you can, Rut, but not in three hours,” Tracy put her hand on his shoulder.
Three hours? I kept the thought to myself but she was being pretty liberal with that precious commodity. We had three minutes.
“The gully…come on,” I told the group. It offered the best protection for what we had on hand. There was a small copse of woods behind us with some scrub brush to our exposed side. We’d no sooner got into our positions than we saw them coming. This time it looked like the whole unkempt lot of them was heading our way.
“Warn them, she says. We’ve got a duty, she says.”
“You do know you’re talking out loud?” BT said.
“This isn’t the time, Mike,” Tracy said.
“Who knows when I might have another? Dumbasses to our front, radioactive destructive fireball to our rear.”
The men to our front fanned out. Apparently our spot was not so secret.
“Before you start shooting, hear me out!” I yelled after making sure I didn’t expose any part of me.
“You’re kidding right? You kilt...
“Kilt?” I mouthed.
“...five of us.”
“In all fairness they shot at us first.”
“True ‘nuff. Say your piece fors we start the killing.”
“We came here to warn you.”
“Funny way of showing it.”
“Again, man, they fired on us first.”
“I’m still lissnun.”
“There’s a nuclear bomb at the fighter facility not more than fifteen miles from here. It’s set to go off anytime within the next...(I am almost said ‘couple of hours’ but that would have given them enough time to kill us and still vacate the area) ...few minutes.”
“Seems mighty convenient, now that we gotcha surrounded.”
“I’ll admit it does. That doesn’t change the fact that if we all stay here we’re going to become crispy critters.”
“They probably like crispy critters,” BT said.
“Not helping.”
“Movement to our right,” Tracy said softly.
“Listen man, we need to...we all need to get out of here as soon as possible.”
“Why would someone want to blow that place up? Been nuttin’ there for months.”
“There’s nothing there now, but soon enough there will be an entire hostile Genogerian army in the parking lot. It was set up as a trap for them.” And for us I guess as well, I thought. But why? This made about as much sense as Cherry Pop-Tarts, which basically meant not at all.
“Bullshit. Them ugly bastards are holed up in ‘Zona.”
“Not anymore.”
“Tell you what, as soon as we’re finished here, we’ll go check it out, I promise.”
“Well, that makes me feel better,” I yelled to him. “You got a shot on whoever is trying to come up on our nine?” I asked Tracy.
“I think I’ll smell him before I can see him.”
“BT, anything?”
“They’re pretty stealthy for a bunch of hick looking motherfuckers.”
“No, really, don’t hold back on my account.”
“You of all people, Talbot,” he said, looking over.
“There’s a house back there.” Rut was looking through the small woods.
When I looked I saw what he did, but the thing had to have been five hundred yards away and a good three quarters of that was in the wide open. Still, it was something to keep in mind if we made it through the next few minutes. If it had a basement that would offer some measure of protection against the blast and the assholes.
A lone shot kicked up dirt right above my head. It was safe to say he had a pretty good bead on me. He should have just waited and I would have popped up eventually, like a prairie dog. He should know how to hunt those—odds were they were a large part of his diet.
“You planning on shooting any time soon?” I asked BT.
“Why don’t you get your ass up here and help?” BT grumbled.
I heard movement on our left. It seemed they were going to cross the road and strike from three sides. I was able to take one out but at least two more had gotten across. Now it would just be a matter of time until they got into position.
“It’s fallback time,” I said.
“Mike, we haven’t even begun to fight,” Tracy said.
“Yup, aware of that, pulling a tactical retreat while the opportunity is still afforded.”
“I’ll stay for a few seconds and lay down some suppressive fire. Rut, you keep an eye on our front, Tracy your right and BT your left. This isn’t a discussion, it’s an order. Well, I mean except for BT—he can do whatever the hell he wants.”
“Come on, ma’am.” Rut got up into a crouch, as did Tracy.
“This one time I’ll let you tell me what to do. But no more.” BT stuck his meaty finger in my face.
“Fair enough.” As soon as he stood I blew all manner of shit up—trees, old cars, squirrels (no on the squirrels, it just sounded funny). Fire, sparks, and splintering objects needed to be big enough distractions so we would be able to get away clean. Tracy and BT started firing, whoever was on our sides quickly became privy to our plan and I guess they weren’t on board with it. We had the element of surprise for a second anyway.
Rut had spun to help Tracy. I was shooting and pulling back, constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure I didn’t fall and trying to see where I was in relation to everyone else. What happened next went by so fast, it looked like one of those damn targets that pops up on a shooting range. The bad guy was right in front of Rut, could have poked him with a stick if he’d wanted to. Blood sprayed from the exit wound in Rut’s back. He barely had enough time to register the fact he’d been shot and turn to see his killer before he fell over. I turned completely, firing and walking my shots right into the assailant. He had little time to savor his victory as I pretty much cooked him alive.
Rut was still. I don’t think Tracy even knew he was down yet, as she was fighting to hold her position and not get overrun. Bullets were whining around. I could feel the displacement of air around my head.
“BT, Tracy, run!” An orderly withdrawal was not going to be possible. BT swung, still firing to his side but running towards the house. I saw Tracy take a quick look to her left. She saw that Rut was down and was moving towards him.
“Too late, let’s go!” I was almost running into her.
She knew enough to trust my assessment. I’d never leave a wounded person behind no matter the diminished chance of survival, even if it had meant I had to sling him over my shoulder. War came down to two principles: survive being the first and make sure the enemy doesn’t being the other. It was really that easy. Now doing those two things, well, that’s the difficult part. Watching those you care about or are in command of die around you…that’s why they say war is hell. The men who created the mythos revolving ar
ound hell had never been on a battlefield. If they had, they would have realized they didn’t need to make up a place to torture the souls of the damned because we’d done a good enough job all on our own. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the defect in man that makes us want to kill each other. If God truly made us in his own image, he missed a couple of brush strokes or he’s a really pissed off being. Rut, if I can bury you, I will, I thought as I stepped over his prone form. Chances were he was going to get one hell of a Viking funeral in a little bit anyway. We all were.
BT yelled. I saw a flap of his pants flutter to the ground. A bullet had caught him in the thigh. He was either pumping on adrenaline or it had passed through a meaty portion because he barely slowed. I did my best to shield Tracy’s back with my own. My left foot nearly flew out from under me as a round caught me in the heel. It felt like I was stepping on hot coals as I brought my foot back down. I think it had hit my boot and scraped across the bottom of my sole. I felt a squishing sensation as I ran. I was bleeding but not terminally. Tracy’s head whipped violently to the left. I thought my heart was going to burst. I damn near tossed my rifle thinking I was going to have to grab her body as it fell.
Her helmet spun to the ground. A round had carved a crevice in the top, ripping it from her head. I turned back towards our attackers. I’m pretty sure I was yelling all manner of expletives. My mouth open, I blanketed the entire area in rounds. I’d caught two of the fuckers completely unawares. They’d been in full on chase mode when I’d spun around.
“Mike, come on!” Tracy was urging.
I turned back to see BT staggering. I think he’d taken another hit. We were still a couple of hundred yards from the house. I garnered us a second or two reprieve as the assailants regrouped but even at world class speed, we were twenty seconds away. And at the rate we were moving that travel time was much closer to a minute. What a strange place to die, went through my head. My biggest hope was that I would go first. That way I wouldn’t have to watch the love of my life fall. Selfish, I know, never said I was perfect. I’d wait for her on the other side though, if such a thing existed.
Then I heard it in the base of my skull, like a low level hum, something you might hear if you were close to an electricity transformer or something. My short hair was rising like I’d rubbed a balloon on it. Static electricity. I mistakenly assumed it was the forerunner of the bomb. I could only wonder what a wave of heat hot enough to evaporate me would feel like. Would I still be screaming as I crossed over? Would I in perpetuity think I was frying? Someday there would once again be living beings in this clearing and they would hear my haunted hollow screams. I was going to turn and drape my body over Tracy’s to protect her, maybe if we were that close when we died we’d be forever inseparable.
“What is going on?” She was about ten yards closer to the house but had turned and was coming back.
The men that had been trying to kill us were now hauling ass away from us. I shot one of them in the back before he could get clear. I did not feel guilt. He’d been trying desperately to do the same to us. I may have just saved someone else that might unluckily stumble across his path. I lined up another shot.
“Mike,” Tracy said, trying to put the voice of reason into me.
Fuck reason, I shot him. Ended up in his buttocks. You might think getting shot in the rear end is funny, like what they show in the movies. It’s actually a very serious wound and more painful than people could imagine. The chances for complications are extremely high, not that the guy I’d shot was going to have any of those. I hadn’t shot him with a traditional round. His right leg was almost severed clean from his body. He fell over, gouts of blood pouring from the seven-inch long trauma I’d administered.
I heard a grunt near me. BT was attempting to sit without falling. That got me moving. Tracy and I helped him as best we could to get down without any more damage.
“I think my leg is broken.” He pulled his hands away from the injury. They were covered in blood.
I ripped open his pants and saw three holes. Two from where a bullet had gone in and out and a third that must have struck bone. If his femur was indeed broken, of which I had no doubt, then he was one of the strongest individuals I’d ever come across or possibly shock was setting in, because he should have been screaming.
“Tracy, you got a knife on you?”
“What are you going to do with it?” Both could have asked that question but ultimately it was BT as Tracy handed me her Ka-Bar.
“I need to get that bullet out.”
“You need to do no such thing!” BT moved his hands to his leg, where I’m positive if I had strayed within his grasp he would have crushed the encroaching body part. “You a doctor?”
I shook my head.
“Medic?”
I shook my head again.
“Ever done this before?”
“Not so much.”
“Come on, man! Throw me some sort of bone.”
“Got nothing for you.”
“Then just let me be. I’ll say my goodbyes and just wait.”
I sat down next to him.
“You two get to know each other, I’m going to see if there’s a car at that house.”
BT and I looked at each other. “I probably should have thought of that,” I said.
“No, you were too busy wanting to carve me up like a Thanksgiving turkey.”
“I don’t like dark meat.” And then we both started laughing. It was wrong but it felt right. We had barely escaped death and even now it was probably circling back around to finish, but right now, RIGHT FUCKING NOW, we were still alive and I would laugh in its face right up until I began to cry. I turned to look at Tracy and saw she was half way between the house and us. She had stopped moving, her rifle down by her side, her right hand shielding her eyes as she looked up. I followed her line of sight.
A shuttle! Hope surged within me until I realized it was like no shuttle I’d ever seen before, like no ship I’d ever seen. “What the hell?” I asked as I stood. BT was now looking. He was quiet but I didn’t take note of it then. The flying object looked like a hockey puck; it was round and thick all the way across. The edges did not taper like I expected an alien spaceship did, at least back before I knew better.
Dread quickly replaced hope. I think Tracy felt it too because I saw her trying to decide in which way she was going to run. I would not have held it against her in the least if she chose the house. I’ll admit I was happy though, when she started booking it my way. When my mind was working correctly again I thought the ship was from the Progerian Destroyer, even if the design made absolutely no sense. There was a chance it was new technology, a probe or some sort of devastating weapon. None were great options. Who knew? The next option would be worse.
The ship hovered over our location for a moment then moved a bit south to land. Tracy had reached me just as the machine came to a rest. The grip I had on my rifle was about as tight as I could manage without melding to the thing.
“Put it down,” BT said, with no small amount of resignation.
“You crazy, man? Thing is probably full of a hundred Devastators,” I retorted.
“It isn’t.”
Part of the ship turned from the matte black it was, to more opaque looking. It was roughly the size of a double door. And then something stepped out of a nightmare I’d not even dared to have yet.
‘We are Stryvians and we mean you no harm.’ The words entered my head as easily as if I’d made the thought. I began to experience a sense of well-being but I knew this for the falsehood it was. Whatever that creature was, it was messing with my brain juices. I’d done enough drugs to know I was being altered.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I muttered over and over. I was about as close to babbling as I’d ever been. “What do you want?” I shouted. It seemed to recoil from my words as if they were too harsh or loud. Or maybe the thing was just getting ready to spring like those damn jumping spiders. I think I would have been too petrifi
ed to even shoot.
‘We cannot process sound through the airwaves. All communication must be done through telepathy. Do not kill us, Michael Talbot.’ The voice sounded like rocks rolling on the bottom of a fast moving murky river, watery and full of death for anything that resided there.
I was about to ask how it knew my name but what was the point? I didn’t want to think that those things had been watching me. I’d thought that BT’s description of them might be slightly distorted and embellished. He’d done nothing to capture the hideousness of the creature. I was going to tell it to go the fuck away and then my mind started to get crowded. That’s as accurate a description as I could muster. I heard multiple voices now. For ease of reading this journal I will highlight the text I think I was supposed to be hearing.
‘Does it not understand us?’
‘Is it injured?’
‘The reptiles are nearly in place, we must go.’
‘Get at least him aboard, Inruk. The rest kill if he will not comply.’
I got the distinct feeling I was not supposed to be hearing all the layers and depths of their conversations. I got the sensation that they had a particular frequency (for lack of a better term) that they used to communicate with humans and then a variety of others that they used to communicate amongst themselves. So not only was I hearing what Inruk had to say, I was also getting the side conversations that were going on all around him. Some private between individuals and some meant to be heard by their shared oscillation.
“Mike what...what is that thing?” I’d never seen Tracy that scared in my entire life.
“That’s a Stryver,” I managed to choke out.
“It says it means no harm, do you believe that?” Her gun was coming up. She might be scared but not too scared to act, unlike her husband.
‘We can help the injured one.’ Another spoke. ‘Yes, we can make him better.’
‘Kill the injured male, kill the female.’
“They say they can help BT. Can you hear them?” Tracy asked.
“I can, and...” I was trying to see if Tracy heard the others talking without letting the Stryvians know, just because they said they couldn’t ‘hear’ communication, didn’t mean they weren’t lying. For all I knew they could maybe read lips.