by Jesse Wilson
“What’s a zombie?” Xule asked them.
“It is…well…it’s when the dead come back to life. They eat people, but anyone they bite turns into a zombie; all fictional stuff,” Bob replied to him.
“No, that’s it, that’s the monster; we need to get there now while there is still time,” Xule said and his eyes got big.
“Zombies are a far cry from the giant monster like you described,” Rose replied to him, but there was no way she was going to miss out on two stories like this on the same night.
“Yeah, I know, but if you want to see your monster, go to where these so-called zombies are causing the trouble, and you’ll find it. But no one is safe. It may be already too late to do anything,” Xule paused and shook his head. “Pilot guy, can you get into contact with these SWAT people?” he asked him.
“I can but it’s highly illegal to interfere on police bands. Why? Also, my name is Phil, not pilot guy,” Phil replied to him, still completely cool that he had an alien in the back and not quite sure why.
“You need to tell the SWAT team to use fire, or chemical weapons. Narbosaurus is impossible to kill, but the infected can be beaten back at least,” Xule replied to him in a hurried voice.
“Fire is bad, who would have guessed that would be a universal concept?” Heather said but didn’t smile.
“It makes sense, but I have a feeling we’re all doomed as it is,” Alex replied to her, regretting ever finding this thing in the ice.
Phil picked up the radio and dialed in the police frequency. “This is WTNV TV News Chopper Number 5. I know you can hear this, so I have some information. The enemies you’re facing on the ground are infected by something called a Narbosaurus. Our source says if you use anything other than fire or chemical-based weapons, you’re screwed.” Phil didn’t have time to be polite.
“I don’t know who this is, but clear this frequency immediately; this is for official use only,” the police responded.
“No, you listen to me. My source is a six-foot-tall lizard from outer space. He says you’re all going to die if you don’t burn everyone who’s infected right now,” Phil replied and knew how insane that sounded as soon as he said it.
“Uh, come again?” the police officer responded the only way they knew how.
Phil looked ahead, and they were coming up on the scene. “Guys, look. SWAT is just now pulling up, and they look ready to engage the enemy,” Phil said. The cameraman broke contact with Xule and rushed to the side window where he zoomed in on the unfolding situation.
Rose’s cellphone rang and she picked it up. “Yeah, we just came over the scene. Okay. Going live and cutting into primetime, got it, I’m ready to go live,” she said and hung up. “Alright people, we’re going live in five minutes,” Rose said as she put the headset on and activated it.
“The whole world is going to see your monster,” Rose said to them. Xule cringed. Knowing that panic was the last thing that was needed, but it wasn’t his planet. All he could do was watch.
“Oh, look at this. The people send in the big guns just in time to add to my collection. I like it,” Bruce said to himself and smiled as he watched the police in body armor jump out of the van and quickly take up defensive places behind the now-empty remaining cop cars. The sirens were off, but the lights still continued to flash. The infected did not attack as the SWAT team took their places.
“What in the hell is going on?” Sgt. Farwell said as he looked at the scene before them. Cops had joined the ranks of the growing horde, and they all had long black teeth and yellow eyes with skin appeared to be painted with thick black lines.
“John, Wally, are you two alright?” Farwell attempted to ask the ones he knew but neither one of them responded.
“Sorry, friend, your people are now my people, and you seem to be extremely outclassed here, so let’s make this quick,” Bruce replied to him with a smile and motioned in their direction.
The horde began to shamble in the direction of the team, as if they were remembering how to walk. That didn’t last long as they bolted into a dead run.
“Fire, kill them all!” Farwell yelled and the automatic rifles opened up. The infected ones made no attempt to dodge and bullets riddled their bodies. They fell to the street and black fluid pooled around their bodies. It wasn’t blood, Farwell could see that from here, and he felt really bad about doing this.
“Oh no, you broke all my toys, what I am going to do now?” Bruce asked in a feigned sense of worry, putting his left hand over his mouth, pretending to be shocked.
“I don’t know who or what you are, but you’re not getting any older than tonight,” Farwell said in response and was about to order his men to fire on him, but it was then he noticed that the black liquid was moving back into the infected bodies and the bullets were being pushed out.
“What in the hell?” Farwell asked himself what his team was thinking as the panic was beginning to rise.
“Looks like round two is going to be mine after all. Isn’t that how you people say it?” Bruce said, but Farwell’s attention wasn’t on him, it was on the radio.
“Uh, someone from a news chopper says that the infected need to be burned to be stopped. It’s my first week on the job, so I don’t know what the protocol is for this. I thought I’d pass that information along,” the unsure dispatcher said through the radio.
“Guys, keep these freaks busy, headshots only. I have a plan,” Farwell ordered his men and they opened fire again. The infected made it easy to make headshots because the only tactic they had so far was walking straight into the bullets. Farwell ran back to the van and climbed in the back and threw up the bench seat.
“Thank God for terrorism,” Farwell said as he pulled out the ‘door breaker’ as the men called it and flipped the switch on the side of the thing.
The police had been more like a military now than ever before, and just in case the bad guys had some big guns, they would too. The door breaker was nothing short of a bazooka made for tactical strikes against soft targets; if you needed more than this, it was a bad day. He walked back around the van and took aim.
“Fire in the hole!” Farwell screamed and shot at a nearby car as the men all ducked. The rocket hit the car and it exploded, the wave of fire engulfing most of the infected cops on the left side. Six of them were caught on fire, and now they were screaming, running around in pain before falling dead to the street.
These were people they all knew and to watch this was a horrible thing. The rest were all knocked back to the ground again and their flesh was melting. Bruce stood there in the fire, shocked.
“What did you do to them? They were perfect. They only wanted you to join them and you burn them, how could you?” Bruce asked Farwell, looking around at the destruction in disbelief.
“Fire,” Falwell said, and with all the pawns out of the way, the men could concentrate on Bruce. All of their bullets slammed into him, only to bounce off as he walked forward. His calm and sarcastic personality was now giving into rage.
Bruce knelt down to one of the burned infected.
“Don’t worry. I’ll make them all pay for this, I promise,” he said as if they were longtime friends, and then he stood up. His eyes burned yellow and his entire form began to grow darker one shade at a time.
“Let me introduce myself, officially. I am not human. I am a monster of the likes you’ve never seen, and I was going to go easy on this city, make my arrival as gentle as possible. But no, you just couldn’t have that, could you? No, of course not. Now let me show you just how screwed you really are,” Bruce said with a growl and started walking towards the line of SWAT team members. Each step he took, he started to grow, and the pavement started to crack under his feet. It was now his men started to flee on their own accord. Farwell didn’t blame them for it.
Chapter Twenty
“This is Rose from WTNV News reporting live as the police appear to be in an armed conflict with some kind of terrorist faction. We just arrived on the sce
ne ourselves and are reporting details straight to you as we see them,” Rose said as the cameraman kept his lens on the action on the street. “Oh my God, it looks like the SWAT team is opening fire on the mob. This is horrible. I would have given a graphic violence warning, but I didn’t know this was going to happen. I am sorry for that but—” Rose was cut off as the unthinkable happened: the infected began to stand up.
“You are as in the know as I am. It appears as if the infected can’t be killed with weapons. They have been riddled with bullets but just stood up,” Rose said in a hurried voice. Xule, just off camera. knew how this was going to go and how pointless it was. The police opened fire again. and once more. the infected fell down.
“Oh my God, this is impossible,” Rose could only say as she watched what happened.
“No, it’s really not. I am pretty sure I explained all of this. Invasion, remember?” Xule asked her, but she wasn’t paying attention.
While she was focused on the impossible, she missed the man run to the back of the van. She and the rest of them watched as the bazooka fired and the explosion took place. Xule wondered in hindsight if his advice didn’t make things worse.
“Pilot guy, you’ve got to get me down there, now,” Xule said to him as he started pushing buttons on his wrist computer.
“You couldn’t pay me enough to go down there. It’s a war zone,” Phil replied to him.
“If you don’t, this whole city is going to be destroyed; just get me above a building so I can land,” Xule said back to him.
“What do you plan to do that they couldn’t?” Heather asked him, then worried that this was a suicide mission.
“I’m going to talk to him,” Xule replied, swallowing his fear as the chopper began to descend.
“What are you going to say?” Bob asked him. “I have no idea, but I’m sure I’ll think of something. We know one another. I’m sure I can buy some time. You guys need to issue an evacuation order either way. This city will be destroyed,” Xule said as the chopper lowered close enough to a building. Now they could see who they were shooting at much more clearly.
“That’s Bruce. Didn’t he die back there?” Alex asked, as he was the first to recognize him, but his form was changing as he walked towards the cops. Nobody was sure if he had actually died or not, but him living through that explosion seemed like it was impossible.
Xule pulled the door open and jumped out, landing on the roof. Sippy provided him with a shield that flashed green as he landed on the roof. Narbosaurus was about fifteen feet tall now and looking much like his normal self.
“Snoz,” Xule said, lifted his blaster, and fired, not knowing what else to do. The red beam hit the monster in the back of the head but did no visible damage at all.
“Hey, slimy, we need to talk a minute,” Xule said and had no idea what he was doing.
Narbosaurus froze and turned around on impact. Losing his anger at once, his entire body liquefied and flowed in an arch to the roof Xule was standing on. He reformed into Bruce’s body.
“A Nuridian, here on this planet. Well, that’s a surprise,” Bruce said to him and crossed his arms. “Oh yes, I remember you. We were frozen together. I saw you in the ice sometimes almost like a dream. I wished it was a dream, but I never can escape you, can I?” Bruce asked him, almost annoyed.
“Narbosaurus, I know you and I have never really gotten along, I get that, but do you think that just this once that we could come to a truce? This planet has nothing to do with you or me. We could end this here,” Xule pleaded with him.
“Yeah, not getting along is one way to put it, but a thousand years of being hunted for no reason other than being alive is just a bit beyond not getting along, don’t you think? Did you tell the humans what you did to me, or tried to do? Of course not. Far be it from a noble hunter race to justify why it tried to hunt and kill me for a thousand years. No, Nuridian, this planet will be my new home. I could infect you right here, but I want you to watch and see what I have planned for your home world,” Bruce said. He took one step and was inches from Xule’s face in less than a second.
Xule didn’t even have time to register the movement.
“Think of it this way; you’ll have a front-row seat to the end of this world. It might not be yours, but this will do,” Bruce said and smiled, but the smile briefly opened up from one ear to the other. A smile filled with black razor sharp teeth. Xule turned his head to do his best not to look at it.
“But why? This world has done nothing to you. They are just scared. You don’t have to do this, really,” Xule said again to him.
“You’re right, I don’t have to, but I want to. Don’t you understand, lizard? I was made to be a literal god. I am going to bring this chaotic world to an end and forge a new one. One way or another,” Bruce said and turned to look at the Vegas skyline in the distance. “It’s a brand new day on planet Earth,” he continued, and Xule pulled the creature around and punched Bruce right in the face as hard as he could.
Bruce stumbled to the left and started to laugh, then in one fluid motion, he returned the favor. Xule was hit so hard in the chest that he flew off the building and came to a rolling stop on another rooftop.
Sippy’s shield protected him from most of the impact, but it still knocked the wind out of him. Xule was coughing, trying to stand up, when a hand grasped the back of his neck and picked up as if he were a toy. He was face to face with the monster again.
“Now that you’ve found your new place in the world, at the bottom, maybe you can show me the respect I deserve?” Bruce said to him and dropped him before he could answer and turned his attention back on to the city.
“Respect? You’re a snoz, you know that? You might as well kill me now because I’ll never stop trying to kill you,” Xule said in defiance. Bruce heard him but looked up off into the distance. There were lights in the sky coming in their direction. Bruce smiled.
“The army has been called. I want you to watch what happens next,” he said. Xule looked up and he was already gone.
“It looks like we’re finished. The humans have doomed their own world and we helped it,” Sippy said to him as Xule stood up.
“We’ll think of something, but right now, I bought enough time for the humans to defend themselves,” Xule replied as the sound of the helicopter came from behind him. The people he came with were coming down for a landing.
“We can’t stay here,” Sippy said to him and Xule sighed, then turned back towards the approaching helicopter. The side door slid open.
“Are you alright?” Heather screamed at him over the sound of the blades.
“Yeah, I’m fine. He said he wanted me to watch, have front row seats to the end of this world,” Xule screamed back as he ran towards the chopper. He jumped to make it back inside the chopper.
“This night has been the biggest one in world history. Aliens, zombies, and giant monsters all in the span of forty-five minutes is a record,” Rose said mostly to herself, still not used to the idea.
“Giant…oh you mean mister slimy down there. He can get up to two hundred Eljects tall. That was nothing,” Xule said, and it sent a chill down his spine.
“What’s an Elject in English?” Bob asked, worried about that number as they all were.
“The closest measurement I can find is something called a meter on your planet, so about two hundred meters tall, maybe a little more,” Sippy replied to him. Everyone in the chopper besides Rose, the cameraman, and Phil went pale at this information.
“Dear God, how is that even possible?” Heather asked as her voice almost left. Rose didn’t get the metric system; she didn’t think it was a big deal.
“Will you explain to the audience what that means?” She reverted right back into reporter mode and pointed the camera at Xule and the others.
Chapter Twenty-One
Logan and Dodd pulled up to Logan’s house first. The two of them got out. All up and down the street, people were packing up things in a hurry and loading t
hem into their cars too.
“Alright, you get your girlfriend, and I’ll go for your emergency kits. We’re out of here in five minutes. Hit my house, get the supplies, and go. Deal?” James asked Logan the obvious question.
“Yeah, I got you. Supplies are in the garage behind the tool box,” Logan replied and ran inside. The television was on. A Latina woman was sitting on the couch watching it all unfold as likely a lot of people were.
“Will you explain to the audience what that means?” she asked the strange-looking lizard person and two other people who were in the shot on the helicopter.
“Yes, the Stratosphere Tower is 350 meters tall, or about 1200 feet. This means the monster is about 660 feet tall or more; we don’t know for sure. But anyone who can hear my voice, listen to me. Get out of Vegas now while you still can. Run for your lives,” Bob said with a growing panic in his voice.
“Alright, we are going live into the studio for a live update with Mayor Goodman, back to you,” Rose said and the screen flipped to the news desk. Logan ran into the living room, out of breath.
“We have got to leave like, yesterday.” She jumped at his sudden entrance.
“I watched it all on the news. Was it really zombies like they said and did you see the aliens? What in the hell is going on out there, Phoenix?” she asked and stood up.
“I don’t know, Tina, but we have to get out of here. No one is safe here. James is loading up the bug-out bags, and we are gone when he’s finished,” Logan replied to her as calmly as he could, but he was panicking on the inside.
“Hey, are you guys ready to go? I have the bags packed,” Dodd screamed into the door.
“Yeah but the mayor is coming on, and I want to see what she has to say about this mess first,” Logan said as he turned up the television. James came walking into the room and they all watched as the mayor walked up to the podium.