by Jesse Wilson
“All we can do now is wait to see what happens,” he said and hoped he made a difference. Alex was expecting a special operations unit to come get them at any time. There were only so many times they could get lucky with the government before it came back to bite them.
“Thanks for getting the message out, but something is going on outside. I don’t think they are going to get here in time,” Coldblade replied to them, and a creepy feeling came over all of them as he said these words. There really was nothing they could do from here. “Stay safe, Janine and Blade,” Gordon replied the only thing he knew to say.
“Is our whole planet finished?” Alex asked as he turned back to the television just in time to watch the warplanes drop air-fuel explosives over the city, sixteen of them as far as any of them could see, but there were likely many more. “Oh my God, you guys need to see this. Something is happening,” Alex said as his eyes went wide and he turned up the volume.
The others who were doing their best to ignore the current events, at least for a little while, were forced back to the screen to witness one of the greatest acts of self-preservation in American history.
“This is it, folks. These bombs are the strongest explosives the military has that are a non-nuclear option. Sin City is going to burn, God forgive us,” the reporter said as the camera watched the things float down for just a moment. Then, just as it was intended, everything on the screen went white, and the sound of thunder tore through the speakers before it all went dead. All of them watched grim history in the making, and everyone in that bunker knew that this was likely all in vain.
How many uninfected died in the blast, no one would likely ever know. The screen switched to a live desk anchor that was across the country. He was just as stunned as anyone else watching and said nothing. Something off camera snapped him out of it.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Las Vegas has been destroyed in an attempt to stop something we didn’t fully understand, and we won’t know if it worked for several hours. Right now, we know just as much as you do. Stand by,” he said into the screen in the most shocked, monotone voice any of them had ever seen any newsperson have in their entire lives.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The three of them heard the planes in the air long before they could see them. James turned the television back on just in time to see what was going on.
“Las Vegas is considered lost, and in one of the most extreme emergency situations of all time in recorded history, the American government has decided to destroy the city with the strongest non-nuclear weapons the military has to offer,” the person on the television said.
“We need to get to the basement right now,” James said, and the other two were too busy still looking outside they didn’t hear him.
“Guys, hey, we need to get to the basement right now,” he screamed at them and got their attention as the droning of the planes grew louder.
“Uh, the basement is this way, why do we need to—?” Tina looked at the screen to see the planes just dropping their payloads over the city.
“Never mind, let’s go,” she said to them and rushed in the direction of the basement door as fast as she could. Logan and James were right behind her as she threw the door open and ran down the steps. Logan shut the door behind them.
“They are using FAEs to wipe out the city to stop this infection. I don’t know if this will be enough to live through it, but it’s all I could think of doing,” James said, terror in his voice was evident.
“We’re all going to die down here,” Logan said to himself. He’d watched enough internet videos to know what was coming next.
“At least I’m dying with you,” Tina said with a smile towards Logan as James was grabbing everything he could think to use as cover from the impending blast off the shelves.
“Will you two shut up and help me already? Find blankets, towels, or anything else that might help us live. Hurry up,” James said as he pulled a heavy blue blanket off a shelf and covered himself with it. Logan grabbed a few towels and wrapped them around his arms as she did the same thing.
Suddenly, in the distance, a crack of thunder broke the silence, and soon another followed. This time, it was even closer than the last one. The three of them dropped to the floor as soon as they could. The shallow windows of the basement shattered as the explosives went off. The fire mixed with the blast wave obliterated everything on the surface in seconds.
All the infected on the street caught in the blast were consumed by the intense wave of fire. Houses were shattered and infernos raged. As designed, most of the flames created by the explosion died out once the chemicals were burned away. The heat was intense, but due to James’ quick thinking, they survived the intense wave of it unharmed. “Everyone okay?” Logan asked, surprised that he was still alive.
“I’m alive,” James replied, shocked to still be alive.
“I’m alive too,” Tina said as she rubbed her eyes.
“We won’t be for long if we don’t get out of here,” Logan said as he stood up, looking around for a way out of the basement.
“We should stay here for a little while; the fire upstairs will kill us if we go out now,” Tina suggested as she tried to look out the small window. All she could see was fire in all directions.
James looked up and saw smoke already starting to pour from the cracks in the ceiling.
“I don’t think we are going to get to stay here for very long, so we’d better decide what to do in a hurry,” James said to them but had no idea of what to do either.
“Fine. We wrap up in anything we can, go right up the stairs, and get out of here. Sure, we might burn to death in the process, but you know what? This has been a bad experience, and I have other plans than dying in a basement,” James said to them.
The other two weren’t so sure about this approach, but it was true; it was better than waiting to die here.
“Alright, fearless leader, let’s get out of this hole,” Logan said, and there was a part to this that made him laugh. It was a ridiculous situation that he thought would have been funny if it were on a movie.
The three of them wrapped themselves up with everything they could find. Within minutes, they looked like really badly made robots from the forties with multicolored coatings of blankets, towels, and a random assortment of tape colors to hold them all together.
“I can’t breathe,” Tina said with a muffled voice.
“Breathe shallow, control it. Any exposed skin will be burned out there in a hurry, so we’ll have to suffer,” Logan replied in an equally muffled voice. Tina didn’t respond, and he wondered if anyone understood him at all or not. James signaled to them that it was time to go and started his way up the stairs. The basement was filling up with smoke by the second as the three of them traveled up.
James almost grabbed the doorknob but stopped. First rule of fire safety is to never grab on to a doorknob. He kicked the door, and to his surprise, the door swung open. Flames shot out in his direction, and he ducked to avoid them. All he could see out of the door was fire, and before running blindly into it, he tried to see a clear path to the outside.
Through the fire on the opposite side of the house, there was a hole in the wall. James was sure they could make it.
“Okay, follow me, and don’t stop for anything. I don’t know how stable the floors are, but I see a way out,” James said to them in a voice he hoped they could all understand. Logan gave him a thumbs up with his left hand, and Tina seemed ready to go too.
“Alright, let’s do this,” James said to himself under his coverings. He took a deep breath and charged out into the inferno. He would have rather have had a rope to tie them together so no one could get lost, but he didn’t see one and didn’t think of it until right after the heat of the fire seemed to pass right through the towels he had covering himself.
He almost decided to go back into the basement, but he knew it was too late. He took wide steps, counting in his head to keep his mind off the heat. The hol
e in the wall appeared much farther away now than it was before. About half way through the perilous journey, James tripped on a piece of the roof and fell face first into the floor. He tried to get up, but his burning clothes and the smoke was getting the better of him. His arms didn’t respond as he tried to pull himself up.
“Damn it,” he said to himself and knew this was it. At least he thought it was until Tina and Logan reached down and pulled him up with great effort. With no time to lose, the three of them made it the rest of the way out of the house, only to find what was left of the lawn was black, smoking, and extremely hot.
“Get to the street,” Logan said as he started to tear off the burning towels as the other two were doing. James’ arms were burned, but they had gotten the covering off in time to prevent it from being worse. Logan was alright, but Tina’s legs had seen better days as the flesh on her outer thighs were beginning to turn deep red and blister despite the covering. She either didn’t feel it or was in too much shock to notice. They hobbled to the street, and it wasn’t much cooler to stand on, but something about the material seemed to be better to stand on than charred grass.
They watched the house they were in collapse, and looked around to see most of the houses were in the same shape.
“Come on, let’s get out of here; maybe we’ll catch some kind of convoy coming in before we die,” James said to them. He was still sure that he made the right choices up to this point.
“My legs hurt,” Tina said, but she still couldn’t fully process the pain.
“Come on, we can keep going for a little while,” Logan said as he turned, held Tina’s hand, and started to walk down the road with her.
James wasn’t far behind them. As threatening as the fire was, they all knew that some of the infected ones had to have survived the attack, and meeting up with one of them was the last thing they wanted to do right now.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Bruce just got done telling Xule about Site Xy.
“So, it’s basically a garbage dump for all the dangerous stuff. Why so cryptic with all your names?” Xule asked him.
“We just don’t want anyone going to look for it. In the average hands of Mister Joe Public, it could cause a disaster there isn’t any fix to and—” Bruce was cut off by the radio coming to life.
“Sir, Station 21 just got a message. We’d just ignore it, but it’s related to the alien infection,” a voice came out of the speaker. Bruce pressed the button on the radio.
“What is it?” he asked, hating these question games and wishing more people would just get to the point already.
“They said that the infection has spread, and it’s consumed a town called Goldfield, heading towards Ashwind, Nevada. What should we do?” the man asked him.
“It’s never easy, is it? Alright, get a Dragon Unit to Ashwind as soon as possible. The rest of you get the core package back to Xy; we’re taking a detour,” Bruce said to the man on the radio. Xule felt the truck come to a stop and start turning around.
“Sippy, can you do a scan of Ashwind and see if there is any Xeloid DNA there or not? It’ll save us a lot of time,” Xule said to her.
“No, I mean I could, but I don’t really know where Ashwind is. If I knew where it was, I would be able to do it, but since I don’t, I can’t,” she replied to him.
Bruce rolled his eyes, took out his phone, and threw it to Xule. He caught it and didn’t know what to do with the thing.
“Have your computer download Google Maps or something from it if it can,” Bruce said to him and Sippy shot a thin blue line into the phone.
“Downloading in progress,” she said to them in her electronic voice.
“I guess she can do that. Thanks for the upgrade, human,” Xule said to him and smiled. Bruce just shook his head and couldn’t help but laugh at it.
“Download complete, scan in progress,” Sippy said to them and the line disappeared.
Xule tossed the phone back and he caught it, putting it away.
“Xeloid DNA detected in the area of Goldfield, spreading to the west, and a small group of infected will arrive at Ashwind in five minutes,” she said to them in a hurry.
“God damn it, I knew it was too good to be true,” Bruce said and got back on his radio.
“Alert everyone on the west coast that the containment wasn’t effective and is heading in their direction. Set up roadblocks leaving Goldfield. Do it now,” Bruce commanded into the radio.
“Roadblocks? Really?” Xule asked him in disbelief.
“Yeah, I know it’s too late to do anything, but they don’t know that, so action is better than doing nothing. It keeps up the morale, if anything,” Bruce replied to him and Xule shook his head. He knew he was right, no matter how useless it felt to him.
“Your planet might already be finished no matter what you do,” Xule said and could only think of the thing coming from deep space. Maybe he’d get lucky and it was so old by now that Garmonbozia didn’t work anymore, but he didn’t feel lucky today.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ll keep fighting until we can’t; it’s just how we do things,” Bruce replied, and Xule understood that completely.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The sun was just beginning to light up the sky as the pair of headlights that were down the road pulled to a stop just outside of the roadblock. It was a large white van that no one could see inside from here due to the natural light coming from the east.
The people standing guard began to show signs of unease, but Randall Quinn was sweating, despite how cool the air was. As terrifying as this was, the strange situation they were in only built the tension.
Was this some kind of a trick or did the monsters inside the van want them to be afraid? This was unlike anything he’d ever known. Most stories and television shows that had an infected horde that was mindless. This was a different beast; there was no telling what it would end up doing.
“Light the fire,” Bill screamed to the others. As he did, they ignited the rest of the steel barrels. Randall could feel the heat immediately, despite being a good distance away. The doors opened at the same time, and a small group of six got out; two from the front and four from the back. When he saw their faces, Randall knew who all of them were. The men at the blockade saw their yellow eyes and black fangs with their infected blood showing through their skin.
“We need to get them now, Bill; we won’t get another chance,” someone yelled out, picking up a torch.
“I agree, torch them,” Bill said and picked up a torch as well.
“Shoot them down and burn them up,” Bill said and they aimed their weapons. Still, the infected didn’t move.
“Bill, I think they want us to do this. Are you sure this is the right move?” Randall asked him and was nervous about all of it.
“It has to be done and—” Bill was cut off as a shrieking woman ran past all of them.
“Stop! Don’t do this! I can talk to them!” Terra screamed as she came to a stop, facing the infected in the middle.
“I know who you are. You are the black soul of the universe come to punish humanity for its wickedness. It was foretold in the Pasan texts that you would come. I know you need a sacrifice. I offer myself as that sacrifice to the human race,” Terra said and fell to her knees in front of the infected group.
“Terra, get out of there,” Bill screamed at her but it was no use. The infected woman in the middle, with speed that surprised everyone, reached down and grabbed Terra by her neck, lifting her up off the ground. Then she sunk her teeth into Terra’s neck and threw her down.
With that, the men at the blockade opened fire with their guns. The infected were hit in several places; the black blood sprayed on the road, but they didn’t fall down.
“Use the fire now! Use it!” Bill screamed and threw a torch from the fire barrel at the infected. Randall thought this plan was really bad from the beginning as he watched the fire hit the street, sending a shower of sparks in all directions, falling short
of hitting anything.
“Bill, that was the worst throw I’ve ever seen,” Randall said as the infected began to walk forward the first and last line of defense for the town.
“Sorry, they didn’t have torch throwing school in college,” Bill replied and took a step back as he and Randall took aim.
“Stop this right now. The situation has changed,” Terra said in a voice that was shockingly calm to anyone who’d ever known her.
The infected stopped in their tracks as the woman in green joined their ranks. “Hello, boys. I see you’ve got yourself a line of defense,” Terra said and looked to her left and right.
“But the rest of the town is wide open. Seems like a design flaw in your plan if you ask me,” she said with a smile, picking up the torch and throwing it. The flaming stick landed in the barrel.
“What do you want?” Randall took charge, his hand never leaving his weapon for all the good he knew it would do him in the end.
“I want my core body back. Your people took it from me, and I am very upset about that,” she replied to him, and nobody knew what she was talking about.
“We can’t help you with that problem; nobody here even knows what you mean,” Randall replied to her, and Terra rolled her yellow eyes and sighed.
“Yes, little man, I know. I am well aware of your uselessness; however, I assume you have communications to get me in touch with someone who does. I have an offer to make with them,” she said, and Bill and Randall looked at one another, unsure of what to do next.
“The memories of this woman tell me that your name is Bill; so Billy, what do you say? Let me in so we can talk about old times,” she said to them.
“Keep your goons outside,” Bill said, unsure of what to do, but he knew he didn’t want them inside the town; not that there was much he could do if she said no. She cocked her head slightly and smiled at him.