Raptor Apocalypse

by Steve R. Yeager

As he’d feared, it was much closer to the breach than he was.

  He continued to traverse the stampeding masses. People ricocheted off him, knocking him left and right. He pulled against others, grabbing shoulders and arms to propel himself faster and faster through the mob, paying little attention to those around him. The camp was cordoned off into sectors and secured individually to contain any breaches in the walls. His family lived in section Bravo. As he approached the checkpoint that led into his home sector, he saw that no one was currently guarding it, so he sprinted for the gap and squeezed past the people coming the other way. Once inside, it became easier to maneuver, allowing him access to the path leading to his tent. No one else blocked his way, but a couple of the creatures went running past. The tiny raptors seemed too consumed by bloodlust and chasing weaker prey to bother with him. Even so, he drew his Beretta and held it ready to fire.

  By the time he arrived at his family’s tent, his heart was rattling in his ribcage. He could feel his pulse in his throat. Snatching open the tent flap, he rushed inside. A lantern, hanging from the central pole holding up the tent, swung back and forth like a pendulum. It created moving shadows that temporarily disoriented him. He rapidly picked through the shifting forms, hoping to find one he recognized. He found one, but it wasn’t one he’d wanted to see.

  Perched on a folding table was a gleaming white shape. It made a hissing noise, like air escaping a tire. Before he could blink, the thing leapt from the table and flew straight at him. The creature’s claws were outstretched and its mouth was wide open, showing rows of spiky teeth. Having no time to think, working only on pure instinct, he twisted, swinging the Beretta in an arc in front of him, squeezing the trigger the moment the shot felt right.

  The first shot missed. He quickly fired again. The second bullet tore through the creature’s jaw, sending pieces of the raptor’s head spiraling away, and spraying the tent wall behind it with blood. Inertia carried the body forward. Jesse’s own sideways momentum moved him out of its path. The thing flew past him and crashed into a propane cook stove before coming to rest on the hard-packed dirt floor. Blowing air out through his nose, he pushed himself to his feet and went over and slammed his boot down on the creature’s skull, crushing what little remained of it. The thing continued to twitch and spasm, but he was sure it was now dead.

  “Cheryl! Hannah!” he yelled.

  No one answered.

  His wife and daughter were gone. Where? Where could they have gone? He scolded himself for abandoning them. He should have been with them. Banging the pistol against the side of his head in frustration, he kicked the raptor’s corpse and stomped on its body, listening to the cracking and breaking of the creature’s bones. It didn’t help. Any willfulness to remain calm was gone. He was beyond angry. As he stumbled outside the tent, he blinked away the salty sweat that stung his eyes. He stood there huffing.

  On the dirt path between the tents, a gray-haired man clawed his way forward. His bent and crooked fingers were scraping at the ground. Pull. Reach. Pull. Repeat. The man’s entire right side had been torn open. A flap of bloody, detached skin trailed behind him. Jesse cringed, seeing the whiteness of exposed ribs where the man’s skin had been flayed away by the frantic digging of small claws. Raptors bounced nearby, pushing and shoving at each other, each wanting to be the first to bury its head deeper into the bloody hole they’d made in the man’s abdomen. Jesse’s breathing slowed. He was completely absorbed by the scene. The raptors continued to ignore him while they bored greedily into the man’s flesh. One suddenly plunged its head inside the hole. Shuddering with effort, it pulled at something and started running. A silvery rope of gut spooled out. The gray-haired man didn’t scream. He twitched instead as if he was having a fit of palsy, and a dry, mewling rasp dribbled from his lips. Jesse stared at the man, horrified. But it only took a few seconds before images of his missing wife and daughter returned, snapping him from his daze. He shook his head and tried to push all other thoughts aside.

  The man continued to moan in agony. Jesse knew there was a simple kindness he could do, one thing that would help. He raised the Beretta and pointed it at the back of old man’s head, choosing the perfect spot that would kill him instantly. This was mercy, he told himself. He was certain he could do it this time. He would pull the trigger.

  His hand began to tremble. Then it shook violently.

  Just squeeze.

  Only, he couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself do it even to end the old man’s suffering. The gun dropped to his side, and he took off running, slowly at first, not knowing where he was going. As he got farther away, his eyes began to tear up, and not entirely from the salty sweat flowing down his forehead.

  -6-

  THE THIN VENEER

  JESSE KEPT MOVING toward the edge of the camp, holding out his Beretta with one hand and firing randomly, killing any raptors that came too close. He had been slaughtering them for months now without the least bit of regret or hesitation. But, even though he’d had plenty of opportunities to do so, he’d not been able to bring himself to shoot and kill another person. As he rounded a corner, a lone raptor sprung off a nearby tent and landed directly in front of him, blocking his path. Not stopping, he kicked it hard, savoring the feeling his steel-toed boot made when it bit into the creature’s flesh and crushed its vitals. The blow launched the raptor into the air like a kicked football. When it landed, it slammed into a pole holding up a string of extinguished lights, causing them to quiver and clank.

  Ahead, he spotted a lone group of soldiers near the gap in the fence where the creatures were pouring through. They were struggling to control the inflow and had already killed scores of the things, but they were paying a heavy price for it. More than a few dead soldiers lay among the scattered bodies of dead and dying raptors. He stopped to watch. Soldiers fired. Creatures exploded. Muzzles flashed. It was complete chaos, red and loud. He stepped forward, joining them, and adding his firepower to the mix. He emptied one magazine at the oncoming swarm, reached for a second, slammed it home, and fired until the gun’s slide locked open.

  A young Army PFC in sand-colored fatigues moved next to him, mouth opened wide. He was howling over the deafening crack of weapon fire and shooting indiscriminately into the breach. Muzzle flashes lit up the area, bathing everything in a fiery-orange glow. One creature slipped past the suppressing fire. It came directly for the man next to Jesse and prepared to leap. A split second before the howling soldier took notice of the approaching threat, Jesse finished reloading. He fired. His shot hit the creature, slowing it but not stopping it. The soldier trained his assault rifle on the dying raptor. In a burst of rounds, he shredded it into nothingness then kept firing until his weapon ran out of ammunition. Jesse turned back to the creatures pouring through the breach and fired until his gun also clicked empty.

  Others arrived and quickly assembled. They joined with those already there and directed a concentrated fire into the narrow hole the raptors had created in the fence. A line of flashing muzzles formed, dealing out a wall of lead to whatever dared to come through the gap. Bodies of dead raptors stacked up near the breach. Most of the movement in the pile came from the impact of the hundreds of bullets slamming into it, but a few raptors miraculously survived, though they didn’t survive for long.

  Someone yelled for a ceasefire. Jesse turned, holding his gun up in the air. Briggs, the camp commander, had arrived. He started barking orders at the soldiers. Once the shooting had stopped, a few soldiers rushed forward, wading through the pile of corpses to begin packing the breach and sealing it off. Blankets, cardboard, mattresses, pieces of wood, and broken supply crates, all were thrown into the gap in the steel fence until it sealed.

  Hundreds of small bodies convulsed on the ground in a macabre dance of death. Any that still moved were repeatedly shot to make sure what was dead, stayed dead. Trembling from the after effects of an adrenaline spike, Jesse reached for a fresh magazine and discovered he was out. He’d been too caught u
p in the excitement and had held nothing in reserve. Around him were plenty of bodies and dropped guns, so he searched the fallen soldiers until finding one who carried a similar weapon.

  “Thank you, whoever you were,” he said to the man. He then pried the gun from the dead guy’s hand and ejected the magazine. When he checked it, he found it had only one round left. He swapped it into his own gun and clicked the slide release.

  Make it count.

  A discarded AR-15 assault rifle rested beside its former owner. Jesse was intimately familiar with that particular weapon. He picked it up and shook it. The weight felt right for a loaded weapon, so he holstered the Beretta and checked the magazine on the AR. He was right. It was almost full. Around him, the halide lights, the same kind used by nighttime road crews, flickered and pinged as they attempted to re-strike. The area was flooded with intermittent flashes of blue-white light. Blood covered everything. Blood occasionally made black by the nearby red emergency lamps. When the halide lights finally clicked on and stayed on, a cheer arose from the crowd. At first it was tentative. Then it grew in volume. Jesse slapped the man standing next to him on the shoulder, but did not return the offered smile. He still had things to worry about. He turned to leave. But before he could, a hand landed on his shoulder and attempted to hold him in place. He spun, raising the AR-15 and pointing it at the person who had grabbed him.

  Briggs.

  “Get that thing outta my face,” Briggs said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Helping.”

  Briggs stared at him, unblinking.

  “Sir,” Jesse added.

  “Take that gun, soldier,” Briggs ordered.

  A soldier next to Briggs ripped away the AR-15. Jesse did not resist.

  “You are not part of my army. And if I recall, you were assigned to guard my wellhead. Now I find you here? Away from your post? I could have you shot.”

  Jesse said nothing.

  “It is your duty to protect this camp, not go off running around and getting in the way of my soldiers. Now, get the hell back where I sent you before some brown squirt comes along and screws up my wellhead. We need that wellhead, understand?” Briggs bounced his finger on Jesse’s chest. “Are we clear?” He waited, chomping on the butt of a well-chewed cigar.

  “Yes. Sir,” Jesse finally said. Asshole, was what he really wanted to add, but didn’t. Without saying another word, Jesse left the line of soldiers behind and headed up the dirt path between the tents. He passed by numerous twisted and contorted bodies, both raptors and people. He had an almost singular desire to find his family, regardless of what Briggs had ordered him to do. He also occasionally stopped to check others for signs of life. Most were dead, more soon would be, and there was not a damn thing he could do about it.

  When he arrived back at the tent he shared with his family, he hovered outside, calling their names while pacing back and forth, hoping they might have returned. He quickly realized that pacing simply wasn’t going to be enough. He had to do something. Anything. He entered the tent and dragged the carcass of the creature he had shot earlier outside and tossed it in the dirt. He gave it a swift, hard kick then shook the gore off his hands and returned inside to straighten up the mess it had caused. Under the overturned table, he found his daughter’s teddy bear, Poochy. He stared at it numbly. She never left it behind.

  His family had been in the camp for a little over a month now. In that time, none of them had made any friends. Unlike him, his wife did not have a medical or law enforcement background, so she and Hannah depended solely on him for their survival. Envy over his position kept others away, and even though it was Texas, many people still hated cops. Plus, most of the people they had met were too consumed by their own basic survival needs. To go from living day-to-day, worrying about stupid shit, to a life of not knowing where your next meal was coming from. Or if you were going to die horribly. Well, that changed people. And not for the better.

  Jesse put the teddy bear down on his daughter’s cot and sat beside it. He inspected his gun. He removed the magazine, checked it. Empty. He reinserted it, and then did it again, and again. One bullet left. He pulled on the slide to eject the single bullet onto the blanket next to him. The copper-jacketed round rolled into a depression on the blanket. Before it could settle, he snatched it up and began squeezing it between his fingers. They had to be alive. If they weren’t, he’d already decided what he would do. He would only need a single bullet for that.

  After waiting in the tent for what seemed like hours, he loaded the bullet back in the magazine and slid the magazine into the gun. He cocked it and set the safety then stared at the M9 for a few minutes more, turning it over in his hands. His knees began bouncing up and down in nervous anticipation, and he tried not to think of Cheryl and Hannah. But that was impossible. He had to go look.

  Leaving the tent behind, he rejoined the remnants of chaos and destruction. All around him were dusty body parts and tattered corpses. The coppery smell of blood and the stench of loosened bowels hung oppressively in the thick air. While repulsed by the foulness, he forced himself to trudge onward. Along the way, he scanned the hollow faces of others, hoping for some hint of familiarity, a simple sign of recognition that might lead him to his family, or maybe a stranger who could point out where they had hidden. But, none of the faces brought him any comfort. To his right, a dazed woman limped past. A raptor leapt from the shadows and landed squarely on her back, almost knocking her over. She spun and immediately fell into a fit of screaming. Her arms flailed at the thing as it fought to grab hold of her. It sunk its claws deep into her back and started ripping and pecking at her head and neck from behind, tearing out tangled clumps of her dark hair.

  In one practiced motion born of reflex more than thought, he drew, thumbed the safety, and fired his weapon. The bullet slammed into the raptor and went completely through its torso, sending out a streamer of blood on the other side. The raptor tumbled off the woman and fell to the dirt. Her mouth froze open in a hysterical scream, and she lurched forward and disappeared behind a tent. Immediately, a sinking feeling enveloped him. It consumed him, narrowing his vision. His arms dropped to his sides. He drew in a deep breath and looked skyward.

  He’d just used his last round.

  -7-

  AFTERMATH

  A LARGE COMMAND center and a hospital tent sat on a slight rise near the middle of the encampment. The twin structures lorded over the rows of smaller, white canvas tents that filled most of the sprawl. The mad rush to safety had kicked up enough dust to coat everything, and it still lingered in the air, causing many to choke and cough as they made their way to whatever shelter they could find. Jesse approached the command center tent, hoping his family might have gone there. An American flag hung limply on a tall pole next to the olive-drab tent. Below it rested the flag of the Republic of Texas. It had wound itself tight around the flagpole. Walking beneath the flags, he silently questioned if those symbols would ever hold meaning again.

  Near the hospital tent, a steady stream of the injured arrived. Some came carried in on stretchers, some on foot. Others were clearly beyond help. The area directly in front had become a triage zone, stuffed well-past capacity. Medics waded through the suffering flesh, moving from one patient to the next, offering what little help they could. Those crying the loudest seemed to be the ones treated first. Many more were simply ignored. A shirtless man with a white bandage wrapped around the stump of his own arm waited silently on a plywood box. He had a serene look on his face. A calm Jesse found unsettling. He also seemed to be quietly humming a tune that only he could hear while he swayed his head back and forth. Another, a woman with messy blonde hair and glazed, milky-white eyes, clutched a child bundled tightly in a filthy blanket. The child in her arms was silent and unmoving. Others sat on the ground and held makeshift bandages against their broken bodies. Still others were reduced to shambling zombies, moaning and staggering, their clothing saturated in their own bodily fluids.

>   Jesse stopped to watch, wondering how in the hell he would find anyone he knew in the shifting chaos.

  “Damn shammm,” a hissing, detached voice said.

  For the moment, Jesse ignored the voice, instead continuing to scan the carnage and mayhem filling the triage zone, looking for signs of familiarity.

  “Los my brother lass week.”

  “Sorry,” Jesse said absently, still absorbed in his search. His wife and daughter were not here, or at least not in the main triage zone. They must have gone elsewhere to seek shelter.

  But where?

  “Don know how we ar’ gethin’ out of thosss.”

  The accent seemed odd, like nothing Jesse had heard before. He turned toward the voice and recoiled in horror. It was a man, or most of one. The guy’s entire left cheek had been shredded into thin strips of flesh. The bottom of his eye socket was exposed, all the way down to the bone. Teeth showed through the stringy flesh, and bloodied, red-brown torn muscle marred what once might have once been a handsome face. A strange, gurgling hiss accompanied each intake of breath the man took. And on every exhale, blood and spittle ran from his wounded face, dribbling down and soaking into the fabric of a white, button-up cotton shirt.

  “You ssseen my wife?” the man said with a hiss.

  Jesse fought back momentary revulsion. He didn’t have time to deal with this, but with a sigh, he took the faceless man by the arm and led him into the triage zone. There, he bumped into a woman dressed in a set of powder-blue hospital scrubs and white latex gloves stained red with blood. She spun around abruptly. A look of barely repressed anger filled her face. Noticing the man Jesse held, she blinked a few times, as if considering what to do. Then she grabbed the faceless man by the arm and led him away. Jesse exhaled a long, slow breath and looked around. He saw nobody he recognized. Nobody at all. So he waded deeper into the triage zone, trying to ignore the wailing cries of others while seemingly disembodied hands, attached to battered and bloodied strangers, reached out to him with their spindly fingers, each trying to grasp him, seeking his help or comfort. He passed by with a lump in his throat, doing his best not to look too hard. His mind struggled to block out the worst of the horrors, searching instead for signs that would lead him to his own loved ones. He did find others he knew by sight, having seen them around the camp, but all the eyes he met returned nothing beyond a passing familiarity. All were no better than strangers to him.