by Chris Lowry
He thought she had been hit as he crawled toward an overturned sapling that provided minimal cover. But she scrambled after him, hunched down next to him.
“Where are the others?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back.
Jake wondered why the humans were shooting at them, when the woods would soon be full of Lick Soldiers.
The tall lizard faced aliens would trail them like bloodhounds, run them down, and he didn’t have time for some tree hugging militia man to trap them in the forest.
He didn’t see the black shadow drop from the sky. But he felt the wave wham into him, slamming Steph across his lap and sending both of them into darkness.
He woke at twilight. At least that’s how it looked. A fog of smoke filled the woods, filtering between the trees and giving everything an otherworldly ghost like appearance.
He stretched one hand first, then the next. Every muscle was sore from the energy wave pounding into him, and his legs were asleep because of the heavy body laying over them.
He shoved Steph by the shoulder.
“Wake up,” he said.
The woods around them were silent. The battle must be over he thought.
Steph stirred and lifted off of him with a grimace of pain.
“What was that?” she worked out the kinks in her neck.
He shrugged and tried to stand, then remembered the man in the trees shooting at them.
“Think he’s gone?” he whispered.
“Who?”
“The sniper?” Jake pointed over his shoulder.
“If that bomb or whatever it was got us, it got him too. Maybe he fell out of the tree.”
They helped each other stand, fighting for balance on wobbly legs for a few moments until the pins and needles in his thighs subsided. Then they lurched through the leaves away from the direction of the fort.
Now that they were standing, Jake could hear the rumble of hover jets moving on the road.
“We need to put some miles between us,” he said.
Steph nodded, dark circles under her eyes.
“Head hurts,” she told him.
“Mine too. Ears?”
She shook her head.
“Ringing. Sore. All of me is sore. What was that?”
He shrugged again.
The found the sniper hanging upside down from a sling in the tree branch. The man had flipped as he lost consciousness, twisted over, and strangled himself with the rifle strap wrapped around his neck.
“He couldn’t have done that if he tried,” said Jake.
He reached up, undid the strap and armed himself. He took a lock blade knife and pistol from a holster on his waist and passed them to Steph.
She checked the clip in the pistol, and slammed it back home with the neat efficiency of someone familiar with it. She clicked the safety and slid it into the waist of her pants, and slipped the lock blade in her pocket.
“I feel better now,” she told him as she glanced around. “Do you think they’ll come this way?”
Jake listened to the rumble of the hover craft for a moment.
“They sound stationary. They make a whining sound when they move, right?”
“I think so. Do you think we’re the only ones who made it?”
He shook his head.
“I think the woods are full,” he said. “That first guy we ran into is still out here. I don’t want to be here when he wakes up.”
“Where are we going to go?” she asked. “I want to go see what the aliens are doing.”
“If they’re not shooting, they’re taking prisoners,” said Jake. “That’s the only thing they do.”
She shuddered.
“How did you end up with them?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
She shivered again.
“I do. They came to town and took everyone. There weren’t many of us, but the aliens got us all.”
“What did they do with you?” he started walking slow through the woods, careful of where he put his feet.
She followed in his footsteps.
“Workers,” she said. “Slave labor. You?”
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s right, you said that,” she massaged her head. “That explosion made me a little loopy.”
They continued on in silence for four hundred yards. Jake glanced up sharply, and she bumped into the back of him before she could stop.
“What is it?” she whispered as his head darted around.
She reached for the pistol in her pants.
“Stop,” said Babe. “Don’t.”
Her hand froze over the butt of the gun, then she lifted it in surrender.
Babe stepped out from behind an oak. Danish, Crockett, Waldo and Doc surrounded them.
“You made it,” said Doc.
“So, did you.”
“Not without them,” he pointed to Crockett and Waldo. “They dragged me off.”
“Are we far enough away?” Jake grunted.
He eyed the group of soldiers. Their weapons were different, like they had picked up new ones on the flight through the forest.
Maybe they round more hanged men in the trees like him.
“What about the other one?” he grunted again.
“Lt?” said Waldo. “He made it.”
“Where?”
They looked around the woods.
“He’s out there,” Crockett answered. “Sent us to get you.”
“How did he know where we were?”
“I told him,” Sherill said from behind them.
Jake turned to face the big man from their first encounter.
“How did you know?”
“I was further out,” Sherill explained. “I don’t think I was out as long as anyone closer to the blast radius.”
“You seen that before?” Babe asked. “We haven’t. We haven’t seen them use that weapon before.”
“Like a giant concussive grenade,” Doc explained. He tugged on his earlobe like he was trying to clear it of an obstruction.
“My ears are ringing,” Steph confessed.
“All of ours,” said Waldo. “Muscles too?”
She nodded.
“We’ll feel like that for days,” said Doc.
“We ain’t got days,” Lt marched out of the dappled shadows between the trees.
He stopped at the edge of the clearing and squinted at what was left of his squad, the newcomers and the sniper.
“They got Lutz,” he growled. “Leroy’s dead.”
Babe and Waldo cursed under their breaths.
“Fucking Licks are picking up the bodies and stacking ‘em in hover jets,” Lt continued. “Planning on taking ‘em back to their base I suppose.”
Sherill shifted his rifle in his arms.
“We gonna harass and dash?”
“No, I suppose not,” said Lt. “Ain’t none of them awake to fight back if the Licks start a wholesale slaughter and dump the bodies. I figure they’re going to take them somewhere and use ‘em.”
“Slaves,” said Steph. “What we were.”
She indicated Jake and the Doc.
“Well they got Lutz and as far as I know, he didn’t sign on to be nobodies slave. So, we’re going to go get him.”
“We’ll need better guns, Lt,” said Babe. “And I lost my bat.”
“Damn Babe, how you gonna hit any homeruns if you ain’t got a bat.”
“I grew up playing stickball, I could just get a right size branch.”
“I seen a dead guy in a tree,” said Lt, his eyes stopping on the weapon in Jake’s hand. “That where you got that?”
Jake nodded.
“We’ll need to hunt up some more. Sherill, you know anybody else survived?”
“Not without looking. I don’t have my ESP on.”
“Then go take a look around why don’t you, see who you can round up.”
Sherill nodded and melted into the shadows under the trees.
“May I make a suggestion?” Doc asked.
“I’m all ears, Doc.”
“I may know where weapons are cached.”
Lt squinted at him with a glint to his glower.
“You have my interest.”
“It’s a long walk,” said the bespectacled man.
“Then tell me on the way.”
CHAPTER
“That it?”
Doc nodded.
“Shit Doc, that don’t look like much.”
They were on top of a ridge staring down at an industrial park built on the edge of a river port. The buildings looked like cheap metal construction, tall twenty four foot arched roofs plopped in a sea of concrete parking lots.
A hurricane fence surrounded some buildings, twelve feet of rusting metal swaying in the wind, an spooky silence blanketing the area.
“It’s not supposed to look like much,” Doc said as he stared down at the abandoned buildings. “By design.”
“You ain’t pulling my leg are you Doc? Cause that kind of fooling is really gonna piss me off. Pissing me off makes my trigger finger itch.”
Babe slapped a thin branch on his shoulder with a meaty thwack.
“Makes me want to play ball,” he said.
Doc licked his licks and adjusted his glasses.
“I know, it doesn’t look like what you expected. But there were plain clothes security officers stationed outside when I worked there, as well as redundant systems inside. The idea was we would be overlooked if anyone was interested in our research.”
He indicated the area below.
“And it seems to have worked. The invaders didn’t destroy this place as they have so many others. That gives me reason to believe that what we want may still be inside.”
“You said cached. Like you knew it was there.”
He shrugged with a sheepish half grin.
“I suspect they are still there. But it’s been three years.”
Lt glared at him again, then around at the others.
“Alright,” he said after a moment. “We’re gonna go down there and take us a look. Ya’ll get moving and I’ll catch up.”
Danish took point and led the group down in a staggered line. Babe brought up the rear, eyes drilling holes into the back of the Doc’s head.
“Sherill, hold up,” Lt said in a soft voice. “I need overwatch up here.”
Bonney’s eyes flickered to the long rifle strapped to Sherill’s back. The big man didn’t argue or say a word.
He just dropped to a kneeled position and rested the rifle on his knee.
“You see anything looks out of place, pop it.”
“Got it, Lt.”
“And keep an eye on that kid with the rifle. He makes a move to aim it at one of us, stop him.”
Sherill squinted up at him with one eye open.
“You don’t trust him.”
“Shit Sherill, I don’t trust any of them.”
“You think this is a trap?”
“Or a long con,” said Lt as he started through the grass to catch up with the group. “Either way, stay eyes up and keep my boys safe.”
Sherill turned his eye back to the scope locked to the top of his rifle. He danced across the back of Doc, Steph and Jake’s head, then swept the fence line searching for threats.
Lt caught up with Babe and fell in step behind him.
“I don’t like this Lt.”
“What’s not to like. We got open ground, unknown entrenchment up ahead. Lots of corners, dark places and limited ammo and weapons. Hell Babe, we’re bushwhacking the shit out of this fight.”
“I got a stick,” Babe grumbled in a half hearted attempt to joke.
“Then that’s all we need,” Lt grunted back. “You can shove it up the ass of anyone who tries to stop us.”
“That Doc if this is another ambush.”
“I don’t think he had anything to do with that last place. He almost got killed with us.”
“Maybe that was the plan? He kamikazed it.”
Lt was quiet for a while, mulling it over in his head.
“I don’t see it like that. Too many chances of it going wrong.”
“Then what tipped off the Licks? Why did they attack when we got there?”
“I don’t know Babe.”
“I don’t like not knowing Lt.
“Me neither.”
Danish reached the fence and turned toward the entrance several hundred yards further away.
Lt stopped in the path and readied his rifle as he studied the exterior of the buildings.
He didn’t see anything. No glint of sun on moving glass, no shadows flickering where they weren’t supposed to be. It looked like a giant derelict storehouse.
Danish made the entry and slipped inside. He pulled up behind a guard shack and waited for the others to join him.
When Lt arrived, he locked eyes with Doc.
“Which one?”
“Last building on the left.”
Lt peeked around the corner. A small brown door was on one side of the building, with a row of four roll up doors lined up beside it.
“I don’t like it,” Waldo said.
“Single point of entry,” Lt muttered. “It’s a damn barrel shoot for whoever goes in.”
“You think someone’s in there?” Jake asked.
“I always plan like someone’s in there.”
“They couldn’t get in,” Doc said in an exaggerated whisper. “The codes wouldn’t work once the back up power supplies went down.”
“What’s it look like inside?”
“There is a second structure inside the building, with more sealed rooms inside of that.”
Lt stared at the still intact windows at the top. They were covered with grime, smog and grit from years of exposure.
It meant not much light inside. As far as he could tell from the approach, there weren’t any windows on the exterior walls, just the row at the top of the structure.
“Skylights on the roof?” he asked.
Doc startled.
“Yes. Our part of the green imitative.”
Lt gave Waldo a look.
“We get in, and work up one of the roll up doors, spread more light in the place. Then we see what we’ve got.”
“Crockett,” Waldo answered.
The two men slid around the side of the building and ran in a crouch toward the door.
Lt watched and worried. He knew Sherill would have eyes on them, but once the door was open, the man would have no shot. That meant his two men would be exposed to anyone shooting inside, like firing at silhouettes on a range.
He wanted to run with them, provide additional cover when the door opened, but held back.
“Danish,” he ordered. “Get in front of that first roll up and get ready to kill anything that moves in there that ain’t one of ours.”
Danish pounded across the concrete and set up outside of the door.
“Babe, other side.”
Babe slipped around the other side of the guard shack and trained his weapon on the roll up door too.
“What about me?” Jake asked.
Lt gave the rifle in his hand a look.
“Be ready to run,” he advised and turned back to the warehouse.
Waldo and Crockett reached the door and grabbed the handle. He jerked on it, but he door didn’t move.
He tried again, harder, with the same results.
“Locked,” he called out.
“Well shit Doc, why didn’t you say something?”
“I didn’t know to say anything.”
“Code won’t work on an electronic lock?”
The Doc shook his head.
“Break it!” Lt shouted back to Waldo.