When Darkness Reigns

by Preston L. Marshall

  The bunker was a huge squared 'U' shape a story and a half tall about the size of a city block. There were four entrances. They'd come through the one on the center of the inside of the 'U' shape. On the left and right, half way to the end of the arms of the bunker were two more entrances. They had the same thick metal doors they'd just come through. The last was the one Lumar came in through when he arrived. It was on the opposite side of the bunker from the door they'd just come through. On all four corners were towers four stories tall with mounted guns and riflemen in them.

  The trench they were heading towards was dug in about twenty yards from the ends of the arms. The ground between them and the trench was nearly empty save for a few dead aliens. When Radcliff got halfway through the yard he slung his gun off of his back, put the butt of the rifle into his shoulder, and fired three precise shots. Lumar watched an alien fly back end-over-end in mid-jump over the heads of the soldiers in the trench. Somehow he knew that was Radcliff's target.

  A few moments later they were at the trench. There were only four Sarsaul left alive when Radcliff jumped down into the trench. The aliens were dead by the time Lumar and Nate jumped in after him. The trench was a little above chest deep for Lumar and Nate, but it only came half way up Radcliff's stomach. He had to walk on his knees to be covered, which hardly seemed to slow him down. His stride on his knees was almost as long as Lumar's normal stride.

  The trench ran the whole length between the two arms of the bunker and was wide enough for two people to walk side by side. There were pits dug out in the dead center and halfway between the center and the wall on either side of them. The pits had mounted machineguns set up facing out with four or five soldiers huddling around them. The middle pit was bigger and deeper than the rest of the trench with sandbags piled up on the outer side. There were about a dozen soldiers hunkered down there with gunners pushing their rifles through gaps in the sandbag wall watching the field ahead. The rest of the trenches had soldiers standing ten to fifteen feet apart from each other.

  There were dozens of bodies thrown back over the inside edge of the trenches to make room for the living. None of the bodies were whole. Lumar and Nate found themselves to the right of the central pit. On their right, only a few yards down, was a corpse torn in half. Intestines were spilled out on the ground in the floor of the trench. The top half of the body had been dragged fifteen feet out of the trench with a long red tail on the ground. The legs had been thrown out of the way behind them. To Lumar, it almost looked like they were sitting up.

  “Stay here,” Radcliff ordered. “Take out your guns and keep your eyes up.”

  Nate looked like he was going to be sick from looking at the body. He barely managed. Lumar gave a quick tilt of his head. Radcliff made his way to the center of the formation where the biggest pit was. Lumar could still see him over the heads of the other soldiers, but he couldn't see who he was talking to or hear what they were saying. All he could see was Radcliff's head shaking slowly. That was all Lumar needed to know the gist of what was being said. Things were going badly. The number of corpses told him that.

  “More over there!” one of the soldiers yelled.

  “Damn, there’s more each time,” said another.

  “Fire! Fire! Damnit man! Fire!” yelled the someone from the center.

  Gunfire blazed out all around them. All Lumar could see was the flashes all around him. He couldn't tell what anyone was shooting at. Then his eyes adjusted. Black shapes were coming through the gaps in the outer wall. Tracer rounds lit them up for a split second showing orange and yellow alien shapes before the light buried into alien flesh. Lumar put his arms over the side of the trench with his gun gripped tightly in his hands. He could feel his hands sweating into the gloves. He started pulling the trigger. He had no idea where his bullets were going. He didn't care. There were so many Sarsaul coming through the gaps. There had to have been hundreds.

  Nate was up against the wall of dirt beside Lumar shooting just like he was. Lumar wished he could see Nate's face. He was terrified. He hoped he wasn't the only one, but everyone's face was covered. One of the aliens got within ten feet of the trench in front of Lumar as he let the last round in his first magazine fly. He fell back against the inner wall of the trench when he heard the clicking of the hammer hitting nothing in the chamber and covered his head with his arms. He closed his eyes for what felt like several minutes expecting to feel blades tearing through his flesh, but when he opened them the alien was cut open from left hip to right shoulder from a saw of bullets from one of the towers. The legs remained standing in front of him on their own until a soldier to the left knocked it over with the butt of his rifle to clear his field of vision.

  Lumar took a deep breath and pulled the empty magazine out of his gun. He put it in one of the pouches on his belt and slid a new one into the gun. When his eyes and the barrel were up again there was nothing left for him to shoot at. A few stray guns were firing in the line, but all Lumar could see in front of him were bodies. He let out a sigh of relief.

  “Hornet still up!” one of the soldiers on the left yelled.

  Lumar's eyes followed the yelling soldier's gaze to one of the human sized aliens laying on the ground trying to stand back up. It was the same kind Lumar saw in his apartment building with wings, scythe blade arms, and a long barbed tail trailing behind it. In a blink of an eye half a dozen barrels burned. The hornet never made it to its knees. The bullets ripped through its legs. One shot caught it in the head, taking it clean off as it fell.

  The hornets weren't the only things Lumar saw charging the line. There were smaller ones too. The hornets were up on two legs and stood around six feet tall, but with them were smaller aliens with four legs and an upright torso making them look like chest-high bug-faced centaurs. Lumar heard one of the other soldiers call them ants. That was about what they looked like, four-foot-tall ants. Just like the hornets, they all had scythes on the ends of their arms. The hornet's blades were three feet long. The one's on the ants' arms were about half that length since they didn’t stand so tall.

  Another wave started coming through the wall.

  “Don't look away,” Lumar told himself.

  The shapes of the hornets and ants became clearer as the tracers lit them up. Lumar raised his pistol, took a deep breath, and started firing. He singled out an ant coming at him and squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit the creature square in the chest. Lumar threw his hands up cheering. He couldn't believe he hit it right where he was aiming. The ant staggered back. Lumar thought it would go down from a shot in the chest, but the bullet only slowed it for a second. Lumar panicked and fired three more bullets into it. The ant collapsed and got trampled by another in the next row.

  Lumar saw the trampling ant take two bullets in the neck. Its head fell over limply to the side and spun one-eighty as the dead weight of its head pulled it to the ground. He looked over and saw a tiny trail of smoke coming up from the barrel of Nate's pistol. It looked like Nate was a better shot. Nate pointed with his left hand back out into the wall of aliens charging at them.

  Lumar’s eyes went wide. He spun back around and emptied the rest of the twelve bullet clip into an ant less than ten feet away. He wasted most of those bullets. He wished he could have taken them back the moment he pulled the trigger. He was down to one clip. He had to make the next twelve bullets count.

  Lumar watched as three soldiers on his right let loose a stream of continuous fire from their machineguns to take down a hornet. It took all three of them to bring the thing down before it reached the line. Lumar looked down at the pistol in his hands. It didn’t have the firepower to take even one of those hornets down even if he put the whole clip into it. Lumar decided all he was going to be able to do was take a few more ants down before he ran out of bullets.

  “Should have asked for more bullets instead of bigger guns,” Lumar groaned.

  The Sarsaul wave petered out before Lumar could find another target. The attack didn't seem t
o be getting the Sarsaul anywhere. They were just charging a line of machinegun fire like they didn't care about their lives at all. None of the aliens had any kind of guns. They were built for close quarters combat. All they had for weapons were their arm blades and their teeth. Things seemed to be going well. None of the Sarsaul were reaching the line. The mounted machineguns and the gunners in the towers were holding most of them off. What they didn't, the men in the trench were picking off easily, but there was no end to them. Even if they were holding them off for now, Lumar knew he couldn't be the only one running out of bullets.

  “This is Sergeant Mallard,” a voice announced through the radio. “I am making my approach on the bunker. I have ten of my men with me and four civilians. Some of my boys and one of the civilians is injured. I need cover fire to bring them. They're all over the streets. I'm going to have to come through the front door. Does anyone read me?”

  “This is Sergeant Miller,” Radcliff's replied. “We cannot provide you a window. We are under continuous attack. The Sarsaul aren't giving us much breathing room. Do you copy Mallard?”

  “Miller, I've got wounded here and I can't wait long. They're everywhere out here,” Mallard replied.

  “You come through here and you're going to be torn to pieces,” Radcliff urged.

  “If I stay here my chances are no better,” Mallard said. “We're coming around the north end now. Give us whatever cover fire you can.”

  “Stay as far from the outer wall as you can,” Radcliff said. “That's where they've been hitting us from.”

  “Will do,” Mallard replied. “We'll see you in a minute Miller.”

  “Covering fire everyone!” Radcliff ordered. “Nobody fire without my order!”

  It felt like everything went silent. Nobody fired a shot, nobody breathed. All eyes were on the corner where Mallard was going to come around. Lumar saw movement out of the corner of his eye and turned back to the broken wall. Whatever he saw was gone when he turned his full vision there. Lumar turned to Nate. It looked like he'd seen it too. Lumar squinted his eyes at the wall. He saw it again. It was like a glint of metal along one of the broken edges.

  Lumar thought about asking Nate about it, but then he saw what was causing the pinpoints of light on the wall. There were dozens of hornets perched up on the top. They were climbing up the sides. It was their claws shining like metal as they made their way up. Lumar reached for the talk button on his helmet.

  Mallard came running around the corner of the bunker and stopped to wave on his people. Lumar's eyes bounced back to the wall. The hornets threw themselves down from the wall with their wings spread wide. Mallard didn't see them.

  “The hornets are in the air!” Lumar yelled without holding down the talk button. He realized nobody but Nate could have heard that. He groped along the right side of his head until he found the talk button. “Hornets in the air!” he transmitted.

  Mallard's people were just coming around the corner. Mallard was waving his arm in a wide circle trying to push two of his men to move faster while they carried someone who had been injured between them. Lumar’s voice reached them too late. Mallard's head turned up with his gun following close behind. The hornet's feet landed on his shoulders. Mallard went straight to the ground. Another hornet landed on his body. All Lumar could see were flashes of claws and teeth ripping through flesh, bone, and armor.

  The rest of the hornets crashed to the ground all at once. Mallard's men ran as hard as they could. The two trying to carry their wounded were the next the hornet's caught. A scythe claw took the man on the left's leg out from under him. The injured person they were carrying spilled out onto the ground. Another hornet dove into his back and started ripping him apart with a bloodied maw. The other carrier tried to run after the others fell, but was thrown to the ground when the others were pulled away from him. He tried to crawl away, but a taloned hornet's foot caught his leg. The hornet raised its claw and plunged the blade through the man's back.

  Lumar couldn't look away. There was nothing they could do. If they started firing they'd end up shooting their own people. All that could be done was hope some of them were fast enough to sprint into the trenches. The hornets were gorging themselves on the human meat and bathing themselves in blood. Six more of the runners, all of the civilians and two of the soldiers, were torn apart before the order came.

  “Fire,” Radcliff said without emotion.

  There was only one of them that looked like he stood a chance of making it. He was skinny and tall with long legs. Lumar started shooting at one of the hornets tailing the one guy he thought was going to make it. He saw one of his bullets whiz past the runner and clip the hornet in the leg. He shot again and the bullet took the hornet in the knee. It collapsed to the ground. Lumar saved the last runner. He turned his gaze at the others. All he could see was bloody claws shooting up into the air and slamming down into the ground before machinegun fire turned hornet and human bodies into indistinguishable bloody mush.

  Lumar looked up. There were more hornets gliding through the air. Gun fire turned upward at the new wave of airborne enemies, but not before one of them fell to the ground behind the runner and wrapped its arms around him in a hug of blades. He had been running right at where Lumar was standing in the trenches. He was only fifteen feet away when the hornet embraced him and buried its teeth into his neck on their way down to the ground together. It was so close Lumar could see the blood seeping out around the hornet's teeth. He raised his pistol and emptied the last of his bullets into the hornet. Some of the bullets buried into the dying man's body, Lumar saw that. He just hoped they went all the way through and hit the hornet too.

  The hornet collapsed and another trampled it as it fell. Lumar raised his pistol and squeezed the trigger. The click of an empty chamber shrieked into his ear. He dove to the ground behind the wall of earth. He heard the heavy guns on the towers hammer at the ground in front of him. He felt dirt shower him. Nate was by his feet. Lumar turned his head back over his shoulder to see if he was still there. Nate was crouched down pushing the last magazine into his gun. Lumar turned his head back around. He saw another soldier three men down cut to pieces as an ant dove into him, throwing him back against the inner wall of the trench. A hornet landed in the trench right behind the ant. Its scythes plunged into the soldier’s stomach like it was digging through him. Soldiers on either side of the two aliens spun around firing. Two soldiers further down were climbing up out of the trench to make a break for the bunker.

  “Hold!” Radcliff roared. “Hold your ground!”

  It didn't stop the two runners. Lumar looked back the other way towards Nate and saw others making a break for it. The Sarsaul were on top of them. Behind the hornets that glided down was another wave of Sarsaul charging along the ground. The two aliens in the trench to the right of him were shot to pieces. Lumar crawled on his hands and knees towards the soldier that died. Nobody had picked up his gun. The other soldiers had already turned back out on the new wave. There was just enough room for him to crawl by the feet of the other soldiers. They didn't even look down at him when he bumped into the backs of their legs.

  The gun was only a few feet away. There was only one more soldier to crawl past when another ant dropped down into the trench right between him and the prize. The ant came barreling straight at Lumar and the soldier he was at the feet of. The soldier turned and opened fire. The ant took three steps and got within inches of the barrel of the gun when it fell. Its pointed nose landed on Lumar’s hand. He recoiled his arm and sat up. He dove at the gun resting in the dead man's hands. Lumar was surprised how tightly a dead man could hold on to something. He had to twist the handle out of the dead man's fingers. He ran his hands over the man's belt and pulled out all of the magazines stored there. Lumar threw them into his belt as quickly as he could.

  He looked out over the trench and saw a hornet charging for the line. He shoved one last magazine into his belt and raised the gun. The soldier next to him, the one who
killed the ant, opened fire on the hornet. Lumar stood up and squeezed the trigger on his new machinegun. The recoil almost knocked him over. His shots went wide, missing completely. Bullets buried into the hornet's body, but it made it to the line. It threw its body down over the side with its right claw plunging into the shoulder of the soldier. Lumar flexed every muscle he had in his upper body and squeezed the trigger again. From point blank range the bullets cracked the armor over the hornet's ribs just below the arm. It died on top of the other soldier with its dark gray blood pouring over him.

  Lumar fired the rest of the bullets in the clip into the hornet just to make sure it was dead. He crouched down and slammed another magazine into the machinegun. When he stood back up and pointed the barrel out over the field there were no aliens left standing. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He turned back and forth making sure there were no more Sarsaul in the trench with him. There were just humans and aliens’ bodies huddled together in the trench.

  Lumar could see Nate sitting down in the trench with his back against the outer wall. He waved back at him so Lumar knew he was still alive. Nate had to be out of bullets too by now. Lumar prodded the hornet's corpse off the soldier next to him and took his gun. It was identical to the one he'd already claimed. He scooped it up and all the bullets he could find on the body. Lumar climbed over the corpses back to where he and Nate had been in the line.

  There was only one living soldier between him and Nate. Lumar looked back towards the bunker and saw the other guy running for the bunker. Maybe the runners were cowards, but Lumar almost wanted to join them.

  “Here,” Lumar said offering the second machinegun to Nate. “Just be careful. It's got a lot of kick.”

  “Thanks,” Nate said between heavy breaths.