by Jesse Wilson
“Don’t you come any closer. You could be infected, we saw it on TV,” another man Quinn didn’t know said.
“Goldfield is lost. Those things are there, and believe it or not, they can drive. I don’t know how, but those lights behind us have got to be them coming here,” Quinn pleaded with them. All the eyes looked down the road and there were headlights coming their direction.
“Phil didn’t go that way when he left,” the man said and seemed to be worried now.
“If we were infected, we’d attack by now. We’d have no reason to keep it a secret,” Madison added finally and straight-up lied, too. Bill sighed.
“Get this barrier out of the way and let them in,” he said, never taking his eyes off of those headlights that kept getting closer.
“But Bill, are you—?” Bill cut him off right then.
“You’re damn right I’m sure. We don’t have much time, now move, kid,” he ordered again, and the other two got in the cars and backed them out of the way.
“Hurry up and get into town. We have a gathering point at the church. No one in and out of the town until this is all settled. We don’t expect the heavy guns to come this far out; we’re on our own,” Bill said to them.
“Janine, get Madison inside. I’ll meet you soon,” Quinn said. Janine and Madison got back inside the squad car.
“Just don’t take very long, Randall,” Janine said back to him as they pulled inside the town. The two cars that made the barrier were quickly pulled back into place.
“Bill, it’s bad. I don’t know what you saw on television, but this isn’t a virus; it’s something else. You’re going to need more than bullets and cars in the road to stop these things,” Randall said to him, worried.
“Those soldier boys shot at a few of them on television, but it didn’t do anything. But doing nothing is worse. All the people in town are terrified. Doing this is better than sitting around. At least now they have something to focus on,” Bill replied but neither of them could take their eyes off of the growing speck of lights in the distance.
“Fire is real,” the kid that Quinn didn’t know said as he got out of the barrier car. “What’d you say?” Bill heard him; he wanted an explanation.
“Bullets might not work, but we can burn those alien bastards. Fire; it always works in the movies. We might not be able to shoot them, but I’m willing to bet we can burn them up,” he said and smiled in such a way that the firelight reflected off of his teeth.
“We’ll know these people. We don’t know if they can be cured or not, but there isn’t any coming back from being burned alive,” Quinn said, picturing the horrible scene of people being burned alive in his mind.
Madison and Janine found a place to park and got out. The town of Ashwind was, at four in the morning, a busy place. People were out going in all directions as if they were getting ready for a war. Everyone they could see was armed. Soon, a voice could be heard in the distance. Someone was either a preacher or pretending to be at least.
“There is always one of these types in these situations,” Madison said as she realized what was going on.
“Yeah, nutjobs come out of the woodwork in times of crisis,” Janine replied to her.
“Unless we have anything better to do, we can go get some cheap entertainment at least,” Madison said, and the two of them walked over to the source of the public speaking. The words got clearer as they got closer to them.
“This has been long foretold; the ancient Pasan text has predicted this scourge, warning us of the black slime that destroys our souls,” the woman literally standing on a crate said. She looked just as insane as she sounded. Dressed in some green robe, wearing a crown that looked like it was plastic painted up to be gold. Her eyes were wild and bright blue.
“Terra, will you please shut up about your stupid cult business already?” someone said as they passed by.
“We are all going to die here, you know; we’ve been warned and done nothing, and now we are all going to die!” she only screamed in response. It was clear that a few people in the crowd had already believed her crazy words.
“Pasan text? No way.” Madison couldn’t help but fight back a laugh. Janine caught it and was sure that she had finally broke under pressure.
“You okay?” she asked her. “Yeah, it’s just that I know what this lady is talking about. The Pasan text is something one of my exes was obsessed about, but it wasn’t real. It was part of a story from almost eighty years ago,” Madison said and shook her head.
Janine wasn’t the only one who heard that. The woman stopped her preaching and looked directly at Madison.
“You. Do you doubt my words and warnings?” she asked her in the same annoyingly loud voice.
“Yeah, I do. You’re a fangirl for a series of stories that were meant to scare people. Get off your rant here and leave these people alone,” Madison said to her and the people that surrounded them turned to look at her.
It was clear they didn’t know anything of the Pasan text or anything else related to it. Madison herself was no expert, but she knew enough that there was no truth to it other than it being an invention of someone who died broke and forgotten like so many others of that era did.
The woman narrowed her eyes and got off her pedestal to walk towards her. She was surprisingly pretty tall, even without being on her box.
“What’s your name stranger? I’ve never seen you before,” she almost hissed at Madison.
“Madison is my name, who are you?” she asked right back, not willing to back down to crazy.
“I am Terra Mae Meier. I am in tune with the energies of the cosmic keys, to me you are nothing more than a—” Madison was done listening to the screech of the cosmic prophet and punched her in the side of the head. She’d had a bad day, and this screaming and ranting made her snap somewhere along the line. After seeing monsters, doing this was no trouble at all.
Terra fell to the ground with one hit. As everyone else just looked at her, by the looks in their eyes, it was clear that some of them had wanted to do that for quite some time. Others had the look of rage, and Madison was oblivious to all of it.
Janine, however, was aware and shocked at how fast this escalated into what it had.
“If you start screaming about cosmic energy or fictional stories again and try to scare people any more than they need to be about things that don’t exist, I’ll find you again, do you hear me?” Madison was screaming at her now, furious. All of the night’s bottled-up emotions were starting to show themselves.
Terra didn’t respond or bother getting back up as her head was still ringing from the attack. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” Janine pulled on Madison’s shoulder and led them away from the half-scared mob.
“Everyone, you should go home to your families while you can. The alien threat is real. This cosmic horror story nonsense is stuff you don’t need,” Madison said to them as she was led away from the crowd who seemed content to let her go.
“I don’t know what the hell you were thinking, but that was really stupid,” Janine said to her as they walked.
“Stupid would be to let that insane woman make a mob of crazed people start believing what she was telling them; that’s the last thing you need,” she replied to her and took her arm back from her.
“We didn’t plan on staying here for long you know, just enough to get some gas and get out,” Janine replied to here and continued. “So what difference does it make?” she finished.
“I guess we’ll never know. In a hundred years when the human race is fighting an ocean of black slime and doesn’t have to contend with a crazy cult too, they can thank me for today,” she replied as she noticed a bunch of people were gathered around the glow of a television set.
“Let’s see what’s going on,” she said to Janine, and the two of them walked in the direction of the glow.
The crowd around the television in the window of the electronics store was just as shocked as the ones Terra was preaching t
o, but these people had a legitimate reason to be afraid. Madison and Janine’s eyes widened in shock once they saw and heard what the announcer was saying.
“We are in a helicopter just over Las Vegas and the scene here is one of absolute chaos. The city, as you can see, is burning. But take a look at this,” the reporter said, and the camera swung down to the streets below. The glow of the fire illuminated it enough for the night vision to pick up hundreds of people marching down the street. Janine and Madison knew at first glance that these people were infected. Their movements, even from this distance, were too stiff.
“I can’t describe it, folks; this river of infected people is being joined by literally hundreds more from all parts of the city. They are all heading in an easterly direction. So far, they’ve broken through seven barricades the military has set up to try and stop them. The massive beast that started hasn’t been seen for two hours now, but this threat appears to be—” the reporter paused.
“Uh, I can’t believe what I am hearing. The city of Vegas has been decided to be a total loss. You can see the president’s speech live on our sister channel if you want to turn there, but we are staying live,” he said to the camera.
“Long story short, Vegas is considered to be over seventy-five percent infected with whatever this is. We are being ordered to leave the area as the bombs are going to start falling in ten minutes,” the reporter said into the camera, and a horrible thought came across their minds.
Madison backed away from the crowd and leaned against a car. Janine followed her.
“He…that thing…used me. I’m responsible for the destruction of the whole human race because I didn’t stay in Vegas.” Madison realized why she was let go now; maybe she always had, but now it was starting to become clear to her. Randall must have known but didn’t come out and say it.
“Hey, listen, anyone else would have done the same thing. Just be thankful that Randall came along when he did or you’d be infected for sure by now. We just need to find a way to get a message out to people who can help,” Janine said as she pulled out her phone, only to realize there was no signal.
She wasn’t sure if it had something to do with martial law being declared or if they were just farther out in the middle of nowhere than usual. Then, an idea hit her.
“Phones aren’t going to work, but I’ll bet someone in this town has a short-wave radio. Let’s go find one and do something useful instead of just moping around here,” Janine said. Madison regained her composure and took a deep breath. She stood up and looked towards the crowd.
“Yeah, I’m not going to waste time looking for one; I’ll just ask these people. Small town, everyone knows everyone, right?” Madison said and walked back towards them.
“Hey, do any of you know who might have a short-wave radio around here? We need to get a message out and all the phones are down,” Madison asked to all of them, breaking their attention from the television horror unfolding in front of them.
“I have one that works, but I don’t know how useful it’s going to be in getting a message to anyone. No one really uses that kind of stuff these days besides the old timers,” some teenager came out of the crowd. Janine thought it was odd that a teenager would have a radio; if that were the case, she wouldn’t comment on the strangeness of the situation.
“We have to try,” Madison replied to him and did her best to smile. The teen smiled, and right at the second, he wasn’t thinking about radios and messages.
“Sure, follow me, I don’t live too far from here,” he said to them and began to walk.
“See? Sometimes we get lucky,” Janine said with a smile. Madison didn’t feel lucky by a long shot and started to walk after the kid.
The two of them walked a short distance until they came to an old house. It wasn’t in disrepair; it just looked and felt old.
“I have a little workshop around back where I keep all of my equipment,” he said to them and started to walk around the house. Sure enough, there was a wooden shed in the backyard. He opened the door and turned on the light. It wasn’t as small as he made it sound, but the shelves were filled with all kinds of electrical equipment, vacuum tubes, wires of all kinds, and meters to measure electric currents.
“Here it is. What’s the message you want to send? I’ll do it because I don’t want you to get fried,” he said and sat down in a chair that didn’t look safe to sit in.
“Tell whoever is listening that the infection has gotten out of Vegas. It’s infected the town of Goldfield, and it’s heading this way. We need help immediately,” Janine said to him and the teen froze instantly.
“What do you mean coming this way?” he asked and Madison stopped him.
“Trust us, kid, you need to get on the radio and tell anyone who can hear us that we need help. No one knows it yet, but this town is about to become a warzone, and we’re going to lose,” she said to him, and he quickly turned the radio on. It only took a few seconds for it to warm up.
“Hello, anyone out there, this is Coldblade X coming at you from Ashwind. Anyone out there, come back,” he said into the radio.
“Coldblade X?” Janine asked him, confused.
“I used to play World of Warcraft. That’s what I called myself for like three months,” he replied to her. The radio was silent.
“I don’t think anyone is listening out there tonight,” he said to them.
“Turn the dial, see if anyone else is out there,” Madison said, trying to be helpful. “I could, I suppose,” he said and did so.
The first three channels he came to were all the same, nothing but silence; no replies after he talked into the mic. He sighed and clicked the dial over one more time. “Anyone out there, we have an important message, over,” he said into the mic.
“Uh, who’s this, and how did you get on this channel?” a man’s voice replied, and immediately everyone perked up.
“I’m Coldblade X and I have a message. I turned the dial until I found it, that’s how. You need to relay that the Vegas infection is not contained. I repeat, it is on its way to Ashwind, Nevada as we speak, over,” the teen said in one long breath it felt like to them.
“How can you be sure it’s not contained? Is this a prank?” the man replied with a careful voice. Janine stepped forward and took the mic away.
“Sir, this is not a prank. I am a police dispatcher out of Goldfield. My name is Janine. Two others and I escaped with our lives and made it to Ashwind. You’ve got to get this message out to the military to get down here so they can help us or we’re all going to be infected,” she said to him. It was followed by silence.
“Alright, stick on this channel. My call sign is Mobstar; nice to meet you, Coldblade X and Janine. I will spread the word as much as I can, but I don’t know how I’ll contact the military from here. No promises, but I’d suggest that you should get out of town as soon as you can, alright? Mobstar out,” he replied and the radio went dead.
“All we can do now is wait,” the teen said.
“What’s your name?” Madison asked him.
“Cory is my name, thanks for asking,” he said with a smile and now a sense of accomplishment, despite knowing his and all of their time was running short.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Gordon sat at his radio. “Coldblade X. What is this kid, stuck in the dark age of comics?” Alex said as he heard the name and almost laughed.
“It’s a silly name, but it’s not too bad. I like it,” Bob replied to him and nodded, thinking of plenty of places the name could work.
“Can you get a message out to anyone who can make a difference from here?” Heather asked him and Gordon just sighed.
“I can try. They have listening posts all over, but right now, I’d assume that everyone has their hands full with the disaster taking place,” Gordon replied and started to turn the dial to a channel he knew was his first, best chance. “But, listening posts are weird. MOLOK station might be paying attention, but the problem with that is no one is supposed
to know it exists,” Gordon said and the others looked at one another.
“Mind sharing what you know?” Rose asked him straight out.
“MOLOK is some creepy stuff. Sometimes, I just listen; all they transmit is numbers. Endless numbers followed by strange rhythms of static. Once, for a whole year, I tried to write the numbers down and see if there was some kind of pattern; all I got was random nonsense,” he replied to them as he dialed in.
Sure enough, there was an electronic voice speaking out numbers that had no meaning to them or order. Something about the less-than-human voice gave them chills just listening to it. Then they found out how it got its name. The last number came out, and the static started. Every one of them could have sworn the static sounded like MOLOK. Three times the static made the rhythmic sound, and then went back to meaningless numbers.
“That is creepy, I don’t like it,” Jeff said and shivered.
“No one likes it; none of us have ever tried to contact it either but here goes,” Gordon said and pressed the transmit button.
“Hello, Numbers Station. I don’t know if you can hear me, but we have a report that the Vegas infection has not been contained and is at Goldfield, heading towards Ashwind, please respond,” Gordon said into the speaker. For a few seconds, the static stopped and so did the numbers. Everyone waited with anticipation as to what would happen next.
“6, 21, 3, 1, 9, 14, 7, 8, 5, 12, 12,” the voice replied to them then the station went dead.
“I think you killed it. Maybe we should have mentioned that we know Bruce to help our chances of being taken seriously?” Heather said to him and shook her head.
“No, I think the message got through. I mean, it’s never gone quiet before; whoever is listening heard it, but I don’t think they are happy. I’m guessing they changed frequency too, because as you can see, there isn’t even a signal on here anymore either,” Gordon replied to her, having no idea who Bruce was, and spun the dial back to Coldblade’s channel.
“Kid, I sent the message to our best shot in someone listening to it; all you can do now is wait or get out of town. You’re welcome, Mobstar out,” Gordon said and put his speaker down.