Two more marines fell before they left the first chamber, victims of their own enthusiasm for the kill. They stood their ground, refusing to retreat as the attackers filled the area ahead of them. They were still firing as the fighters swarmed over them.
Even as the remaining soldiers lined up in the second chamber the aliens filled the entranceway. Despite the combined firepower from the marines the mass of attacking bodies crept steadily towards them.
We can’t hold our position.
“Back to the Prof,” Hiscock shouted. “We need to protect him as long as we can.”
They fell back.
The aliens kept coming.
***
The pilot had the chopper on full power but they were still under the shadow of the mother craft when it started to glow.
We won’t be far enough away.
The alien mind seemed to surge within her at that thought, as if it knew the importance of it.
Alice remembered the alien craft back on the island, and how she had made it falter.
Maybe I can buy some more time.
She reached with her mind and pushed with everything she had. She felt the presence in her mind waver. Once again she seemed to be hovering over the black pyramid. And this time she knew she was looking at the presence that studied her. The pyramid itself was the source.
And it knows me.
It had the Uranium at the front of its mind. She filled hers with the first thing she could think of – hockey and beer, the sound of skates on ice and the thwack of stick on puck. Simple pleasures, but enough focus to give her strength… for a while.
She sensed the presence’s confusion and pushed harder. The alien pushed back.
Alice held it at bay. She felt something give and blood flowed from her nose but she paid it no attention.
I need to give us enough time as possible.
The alien pushed harder.
I can’t hold it long.
***
Hiscock and the remaining marines fell back into the last chamber. The Professor sat by the open case. The old man’s head was on his chest, and at first Hiscock thought he might already be dead, but when he looked up he had a smile on his face.
“Good to see you again lad. But it seems I can forget about my statue.”
Hiscock had no time to reply… the aliens were already thronging at the entrance. The cave rang with echoing gunshot and the rattle of flying casings. Soon they were completely surrounded, like being encased in a hollow ball of writhing alien flesh.
Hiscock’s head buzzed and his arms ached but he kept firing until the magazine ran out. Several other marines had their guns go dry at the same time. He saw the Professor reach into the belt of the nearest soldier and pull out a grenade.
They looked each other in the eye and nodded.
The Professor pulled the pin and Hiscock counted down the seconds… Three…Two…
***
Alice could take it no longer.
She let go, slumping forward in her seat. The chopper banked in one final turn, just in time to see a blast of orange flame and black smoke from the area where they had been.
They were now several miles from the craft. It still loomed large in the front screen, but the chopper was well out of its shadow as the glow intensified and it sent out a beam to the ground below.
Even above the rotor noise Alice heard the roar of the weapon, and felt the vibration thrum through her as it started to eat at the soil of the Caldera floor.
The volcano went up without warning, the shock wave coming straight at the chopper as boiling lava shot upwards. A fissure ran across the whole plateau below the craft. At first it seemed that the alien vessel would just soak everything up. The lava flowed upwards in waves, sheets of flame washing over the hull, but seemed to be having no effect.
We’ve failed.
But just as another shock wave hit the chopper and the pilot had to fight for control, she saw the huge craft start to wobble. Another blast rocked Yellowstone. Lave and ash washed over the craft like a wave and it fell sideways, losing altitude fast.
The last thing Alice saw before the chopper turned tail and fled before the approaching blast wave was the alien craft crumple into to the ground. Fresh lava bubbled and burst. A hole grew in the craft’s hull.
Alice felt a scream in her mind, then the alien presence went quiet.
She was smiling and crying at the same time as the chopper fled from Yellowstone.
They almost didn’t make it.
The chopper bucked and twisted in the wind raised by the blast. The air was already full of hot ash and cinders, obscuring most of the view. The pilot needed all his concentration just to keep the bird in the air. After ten heart-stopping seconds they emerged into clearer air. The pilot banked again, looking for the second chopper.
It never appeared out of the maelstrom.
A cloud of ash already rose in a huge serpentine plume high into the sky. And although they were now miles from the source, a wide fissure -- glowing and spurting lava -- already snaked across the land towards them. The pilot gave it two more minutes, then turned and fled once more.
By the time they arrived at the airfield an hour later the whole expanse of the sky had grown dark and loomed over them like a vast black wall.
Ash had already started to fall.
They had to spend twenty minutes clearing rubble before they finally found the entrance to the bunker. By then the air was almost too hot to breathe and ash drew searing burns on their exposed flesh. The three of them fell inside the bunker and sealed it tight behind them. Even then they could hear the rattling drumbeat of ash pattering down above.
In those first hours they did little more than sit, dull-eyed, staring into space and waiting for the world to crash in around them.
It didn’t happen.
The air got hot for a while, then the best air-recycling system that American tax dollars could buy kicked in. Soon they breathed clear, sweet air.
After a while Alice realized she was hungry and went in search of the food.
That was the start of their domestication.
***
She got to know the two marines very well over the coming months. At least twice a day they scanned the airwaves but got nothing in return but static, both from the radio and their bank of monitors. They settled in to a routine of reading, DVD watching and playing board games. The bunker also had a huge supply of booze, and that took a big hit in those early days.
Six months in the marines surprised her. For her birthday she was led into the television room and sat in from of a series of recordings of old hockey matches, beer in hand.
Beer and hockey -- simple pleasures.
That brought back memories of holding off the alien presence. In the early months she’d been on edge, waiting for a new tickle in her mind. But none came. After that birthday night she tried reaching, looking for contact, but there was nothing there. Her gift, such as it was, seemed to be gone.
***
It was a full year before they realized they were not alone in the world. The first sign came from one of the television feeds. It flickered into life one March afternoon. They didn’t get any sound, but the pictures seemed to come from a Far East city. A small group of people, around twenty of them, wandered in a field of frozen ash under a dead gray sky from which a steady blanket of snow fell.
Alice waved at the screen.
We’re not alone!
In the months after that, more screens came alive, and soon they were getting sound, and the first news reports from a changed world. They quickly learned that North America was still too hot on the ground for anyone to venture outside, and that other parts of the world had suffered almost a full year of Winter, with unprecedented snowfall all across the Northern Hemisphere. No news had come out of the US or Canada, nor from Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries.
They also learned that no aliens had been sighted since the explosion. Any drones left on the ground had quickly di
ed, either boiling under the ash or freezing in the cold. Their bodies lay all over the New World.
It was sixteen months into their captivity before they spoke to another person. Their comms sparked into life one afternoon, and they were soon talking to a Commander Jackson, aboard a battle cruiser in the South Pacific. They were informed that they were the only known survivors in North America.
***
And still that wasn’t the end. Not quite. Eighteen months after their incarceration Alice woke with a pounding headache. She staggered to the washroom and headed for the medicine cabinet where the Ibuprofen waited. She looked up into the mirror over the sink... and screamed.
An alien face looked back at her through large oval eyes. Once again the grip took hold in her mind and in the blink of an eye she was back on the barren planet under a purple sky, hovering above the huge black pyramid.
She was drawn down into the darkness.
The further down she went, the more her eyes adjusted. Everything was bathed in a thin green dancing light. Ten of the aliens grew from the slime and stood, stock still.
As one, they lifted their heads and stared straight at the point where Alice hung.
She felt them tickle in her mind.
Instinctively she knew what was happening.
They want to know if it’s safe to come back.
Alice concentrated hard and drew pictures forward in her mind, of volcanoes in Hawaii, Iceland, Japan and New Zealand. In these pictures the huge spaceships hovered above Caldera... and were consumed in flame and lava as the magma chambers were exploded beneath them.
Alice sent one last message.
Stay away.
It sounded in her mind like a shout, a chant as if a stadium full of voices had been raised as one. As she rose up away from the pyramid she felt others with her, others like her, sharing the telepathic link that the aliens had provided... the same link they had now used to deliver the Earth’s message.
Alice blinked.
And was back in the washroom.
Her headache had gone, and she smiled at her reflection in the mirror.
We sent them away.
And I’m not alone.
***
A chopper came for them in September, nearly twenty months after they’d entered the bunker. They were taken to Acapulco, where the remnants of the US and Canadian governments were starting to regroup and rebuild.
Alice and the two marines were treated like heroes.
***
Five hard years passed.
Television pictures from around the world showed clearing skies and fresh, green shoots growing through the decomposing bed of slime. Alice knew that the planet was on the way back when she saw a chopper’s-eye view across the Amazon basin. Everywhere the camera pointed they saw new growth spurting under thin cloud that was now threatening to break up completely.
The invasion came to its final end on the cooled lava bed where Yellowstone Park had once been.
The sun rose slowly, casting the sky awash in a deep orange glow that slowly faded to yellow. All of the politicians in the world who had survived were gathered together for the first time since the attack. A band of marines led them away from a fleet of choppers. Half of the huge crashed alien craft jutted up from a snowfield – the rest of it lying embedded in cooled lava.
Teams of scientists had pored over the craft, learning its secrets. Alice had also learned that her early tissue sample results had indeed got through to some laboratories, and had since been used to good effect. They didn’t know whether the aliens would ever return. If they did, they would now find the remnants of mankind also possessed biological weapons that would slow, and maybe even stop any future incursions.
And if that fails, I have some new friends I can call on. We gave them cause to retreat once before. We can do it again.
A television crew captured the final event for posterity as Alice and the two marines were presented with their medals and the statues were unveiled.
She looked up at a rendition of a group of marines standing in a circle. In the center two men stood over a large sealed case. They hadn’t quite caught Hiscock right, but the sight of the Professor’s face looking down at her brought a tear to her eye.
A ray of sunshine broke through the cloud as the band started to play.
About the Author
William Meikle is a Scottish genre writer who has been called the “Master of Pulp Fiction.” He has had more than 130 short stories and 10 novels published and has graced the Number One spot on Amazon’s bestseller list several times.
Other Exciting Titles
from Generation Next Publications
MOSTLY HUMAN
by William Meikle, Steven Savile,
Scott Nicholson & Steve Lockley
The English Lake District is a haven of tranquility, a place for hill walkers, mountain climbers and those in search of solitude. But when the rains arrive it becomes a desolate landscape where malevolence rises up from the depths and death is not far behind. It has struck before and this time it has to be stopped.
From the imaginations of four authors working as one comes a menace that is Mostly Human.
PAGES OF PROMISES
by Stephen James Price
“Pages of Promises is a perfect title for this page-turning collection of short stories, for Stephen James Price is a very promising writer indeed.”--Bentley Little, author of THE BURNING and HIS FATHER'S SON
Pages of Promises is a collection of 14 dark, speculative fiction stories straight out of the twisted imagination of Stephen James Price. From a paean to Stephen King to the child of a serial killer, Price explores dark corners of the human heart with wit and skill. At the end of the volume, Price allows the reader to glimpse the insights and incidents that gave birth to each story.
Price is a Writers of the Future contest finalist and his work also appears in GRAVE CONDITIONS and THE OUTSIDERS.
THE INVASION (Extended Version)
by William Meikle
It started during a winter storm on the North Eastern Seaboard which brought with it a strange green rain. Where it fell, everything withered, dies and was consumed. The residents of remote outposts in Maritime Canada escaped the worst of the early damage, but that was a blessing in disguise, for they were left to watch as first North America, then the world was subsumed in the creeping green carpet of terror.
THE ROADHOLE BUNKER MYSTERY
by William Meikle
It is a routine case for Scottish private investigator John Royle-until a body turns up in the Road Hole Bunker at the 17th on the Old Course at St Andrews. Soon he's up to his ears in bodies and red herrings as the trail takes him through the social strata of town and gown, and the case grows to encompass the history, and the very future, of the old course itself.
Scottish writer William Meikle is author of more than 200 works of mystery, horror, and fantasy. Look for more Meikle books from Ghostwriter Publications.
THE ICE MAIDEN
by Steve Lockley & Paul Lewis
“a young girl disappears, a teacher dreams, a killer waits…”
Nominated for a British Fantasy Award.
ISLAND LIFE
by William Meikle
An archaeological expedition is intent on opening an old barrow on a remote island in the Scottish Hebrides despite the reservations of the locals, who all know and fear the old stories. The scientists unleash a colony of murderous monsters from deep under the earth. As the released creatures swamp the island, slaughtering livestock and people alike, the humans must band together to combat it with few resources save their courage and wits.
CONJURE
by Mark West
Newly pregnant, stuck in a job she doesn’t like and mourning the death of her cousin, Beth Hammond’s life isn’t working out the way she thought it would. So when her boyfriend wins a weekend away, at the east coast seaside resort of Heyton, Beth thinks this could be just what they need - some time to themselves, to get
away and relax and make their plans for the future.
Unfortunately, as they begin their weekend, there's an accident at the beach and a centuries old memorial is damaged. Something escapes - a presence that was buried beneath the memorial, sealed in a stone tomb, that now wants desperately to get its revenge on the residents of Heyton.
ETERNAL SUNSET
by Sephera Giron
Vanessa moves away to college after an extended break of hard living, casual sex, and dabbling in the occult. But little does she know what fate has in store for her where she accepts a gift from her new friend: an ancient book that holds the secret to eternal life...
Want free eBooks and daily eBook recommendations? Join the Kindle in the Wind blogpost. Subscribe today. It’s free.
Cheap thrills from Scott Nicholson
Do you enjoy Kindle thrillers? Sample Disintegration, The Red Church, crime, supernatural, and suspense novels and collections from bestselling author Scott Nicholson at Amazon US or Amazon UK.
The Invasion (Extended Version) Page 12