by A. J. Allan
Instead, as much as he wanted to hold Irons, to feel comforted, to know that they would get through it together, he knew her time would go to Jordan until he died or until he got into recovery, only one of which seemed like a realistic outcome. So instead, Lopez laid down next to Irons. He eventually fell asleep, but it took several minutes of overreacting to every sound and ignoring his paranoid mind.
***
Lopez was back at the Gallatin River Lodge. He had moved up a floor. It was him and Irons watching a movie, some silly superhero movie from the 21st century that Lopez couldn’t name.
But then he heard the boom.
He looked outside the window. It was the xenoroaches.
But not just a few of them. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. They swarmed the building. They swarmed the city. The state. The country. The globe. The universe.
Everywhere Lopez looked, those ugly black bodies, capable of killing anything on Earth, moved like a stampede. Lopez only had a knife. Irons had nothing.
They were going to die in here.
At least they had each other.
But then the aliens’ scampering could be heard downstairs. God, why wasn’t there any help? Why was it just the two of them? Had the rest of humanity gone extinct? Why the fuck was it just them?!?
Lopez and Irons backed up to a closet. They heard pounding and wood shattering at their front door. Irons curled up close to Lopez. Lopez swallowed. Everyone talked tough about death until it stared you in the face. And now it wasn’t just death, it was hell about to slaughter.
Something wrapped around Irons’ leg. It dragged her. She screamed, her high-pitch wails haunting Lopez. He tried to reach for her, but she disappeared. Her voice got cut off moments later. He saw her blood splatter on the bed in front of him.
Then the xenoroach dropped from the ceiling directly in front of him. It bore its ugly teeth, its drool from the mouth, its four arms ready to tear all of Lopez’s limbs from his core. Where the fuck was its eyes?!? How could a creature like this get worse by the moment!
It grabbed Lopez, it’s four hands lifting the soldier in the air. Its hands had massive strength, and the oily scales scarred his arms and skin. It burned. He begged to be free, to end it quickly, but the xenoroach just roared in his face.
It tilted its head back, and Lopez closed his eyes.
***
“Shh! Shh!”
Lopez awoke with a startle, his mouth covered by Irons. She had her rifle in her other hand. Around them, the entire crew stood alert, ready to fire. Even Jordan, though on one knee, had a gun, prepared to fire if necessary.
“Get into position,” Irons whispered. “Lake ran down here about twenty seconds ago. She said she spotted a hostile coming here. I think they tracked us here.”
“Fucking hell,” Lopez muttered, his gun at the ready before he got to the “-ing” in “fucking.”
Lopez took up a firing spot near Lt. Andrews and held his gun steady.
“What time is it?” Lopez asked.
“Near sunrise,” Lt. Andrews responded, his voice barely audible. “But that’s not going to help us in here. We have to fight our way out.”
The nightmare that Lopez had awoken from only moderately prepared Lopez for what lay ahead. Perhaps, on the one hand, having seen the xenoroaches come for him and his best friend meant he could visualize it.
But he was awake. That was fake. This was real.
Several minutes passed. Every creak, every spark, every switch, every door opening put a pit in Lopez’s stomach. Somewhere in the casino, that ugly brute was walking around, searching for Apocalypse Squad. Whenever the noise got louder, Lopez cringed and tightened his grip on his rifle. When the noises got quieter, he relaxed, but then his mind had freedom to wonder what would come next.
The sliding of a door.
The thump of a heavy footstep.
The crash of something falling over.
The silence of not knowing what would come next.
It all was enough to drive a man insane when the enemy was human. When the enemy was a monster unlike anything on Earth, it could drive an entire squad insane.
More than half an hour passed. Nothing happened still.
“I think it’s toying with us,” Lake said. “Trying to draw us out. It knows we’re here.”
“What makes you say that?” Lt. Andrews said.
Lopez admired the lack of fear in the CO’s voice. How much of it was acting didn’t much matter. Lopez was still terrified, still on the brink of insanity… but slowly, with each passing moment of survival, he was becoming more… he wouldn’t say comfortable, but familiar with the current reality. And his CO’s steady demeanor only helped.
“It’s passed us by numerous times without coming to us,” Lake said. “I think it knows we’re in here and it can’t attack us head on with seven guns. So it’s waiting for us to make a break for it and then pick us off one by one.”
Lopez hated to admit that what Lake said made sense.
“And I don’t want to wait on the chance more of them come and then they feel comfortable rushing us,” Lt. Andrews said. “To say nothing of our dwindling clock to get to Nellis. Damn! Give me a moment, privates, I’ll think of something.”
“Are there any flashlights or beams in here?”
Li’s question prompted many a surprised look.
“What? I’ve got my mind back! I’m just saying if these guys hate light, maybe it’ll work. Blind them if you get it on.”
Not bad. Not bad for the first guy who broke.
“If it’s like most kitchens, the light won’t be more than a personal flashlight,” Kowalski said. “Even my grandmother’s shop, which often got robbed, did not have anything big. We need a new idea.”
“Hey, come on, Fred, I—”
“Shut it, both of you,” Lt. Andrews said. “It’s not the worst idea. But if Kowalski is right, that thing would barely work on a normal roach. But let’s at least look.”
The soldiers dispersed through the kitchen, examining every drawer, closet, pan, plate, even the ovens themselves.
Nothing turned up. They reconvened.
“So then what’s the strategy, commander?” Li asked.
Lt. Andrews sighed.
“We run for it.”
33
“Here’s the deal, it’s about a hundred yards from here to the entrance,” Lt. Andrews said. “If you see a place to escape into daylight, make a break for it. I don’t care if you wind up on the other side of the building outside. I’m more concerned about you getting the chance to enjoy a tan than where you enjoy it. But don’t be stupid. Don’t run fifty yards out. Don’t even run five yards out until you make sure the coast is clear. Understood?”
Everyone nodded in acknowledgment. Strangely, the nerves and the fear had largely disappeared, replaced by a heavy dose of adrenaline. Lopez was amped and still a bit scared, but not as he was the night before.
“Kowalski, Li, you two take point. Lake and Lopez, guard the flanks. Irons and Jordan, stay in the middle, we move at your pace. I’ll cover the rear. Now then.”
He paused, as if needing to psych himself up, and nodded with a thunderous roar, “Let’s move!”
No one pretended that the alien didn’t know their whereabouts. The question now remained if they would escape before the xenoroach got to them.
Kowalski took the initial lead, pushing his gun out the door and examining the area. As best as he could see, he did not see the alien. Li went to shut the lights off, but in a move that looked foolish at first but genius the next, Lt. Andrews stopped him. They wanted more, not less, light to blind the aliens.
They turned west at nine o’clock and moved forward, their guns on a constant swivel, their steps careful, quiet, and soft. The only thing anyone could hear was their own breathing, their heartbeats, and a disquieting dripping sound that came from far away. Unlike before, when the alien audibly moved, it had now become silent.
Almost as if it’s no
t here. But it has to be.
They turned another corner. Li swept the area. He signaled all clear, and the soldiers moved forward. Jordan breathed heavily, and it took a significant amount of effort for him just to stay upright, even with Irons supporting him.
There it was. The literal light at the end of the tunnel. The light that promised them safety and protection from the xenoroach scum from within. By Lopez’s best guess, they had another hundred feet to go. A hundred feet which never felt so dangerous, so deadly, and with so many outcomes, most of them dangerous.
So be it. Let’s go kill—
A loud shriek filled the air. The soldiers froze, scanning the room. No one saw a thing. Even the few remaining machines did not light up. Alien probably cut them. Smart. Very smart.
Lt. Andrews motioned them forward. They only got about fifteen feet before they heard alien footsteps and another growl, this time from the rear. Everyone turned. There was nothing.
Lopez, seeing nothing, turned back around.
“Kowalski!”
The Pole had only ducked his head about half a foot when Lopez unloaded his weapon into the xenoroach behind him, mere tenths of a second away from beheading or impaling the hardened soldier. The creature shrieked as all of the other soldiers turned, taking positions to fire upon the enemy. With a cascade of lasers, they tore the creature apart.
Not, however, before some of its acidic blood got onto Kowalski. The Pole cursed in many different languages, but he got the cloth torn off.
More roars came.
“GO! GO! GO! GO!”
Lopez didn’t know who had shouted. Andrews, Li, Kowalski, even possibly Jordan—some guy had yelled. But everyone broke out in a sprint. Lopez turned around just once to see one of the aliens bounding toward Irons, still tugging Jordan. He provided suppressive fire, and though he struck the enemy, it escaped.
Irons and Jordan, though, were safe.
“C’mon! Get the fuck out of here!” Lopez screamed as he laid down more fire. Alien shrieks, human roars, and gunfire filled the air as Lopez continued to step back. It wasn’t until he saw that Irons had made it out that he laid one more round of cover fire and made a dash for the exit, maybe twenty feet out.
“LOPEZ!”
Kowalski and Andrews appeared at opposite sides of the door. Lopez had to pray they had the marksmanship of a computer, because their aim looked awfully close to his shoulders.
When they fired, he could feel the whoosh of the lasers past his skin. It burned and created a searing sensation. But he didn’t notice that to the degree he would have without deadly aliens just mere feet behind him.
He rolled out the door, got to his knees, and held his gun out as Andrews and Kowalski backed away, laying out more fire at the screeching monsters. The monsters lunged outside, and Lopez got to see them in broad daylight—damn, they were even uglier than he thought. They were mostly black, but with some brown scales on the belly. Their wings fluttered like a hummingbird, as if more for excitement than for flight. Their tails whipped, coming dangerously close to capturing one of the retreating men of Apocalypse Squad.
But true to their expectations, the monsters hated the sunlight and retreated, choosing to growl and taunt the soldiers from within the confines of the darkness of the casino.
“Try that shit again, motherfuckers!” Kowalski shouted. “I’ll snap your wings and break your limbs off, assholes!”
Kowalski then lined up his rifle and fired two rounds at the creatures, which hissed and snarled back, but did not advance.
“Private Kowalski!” Lt. Andrews shouted. “Save your ammo! These roaches won’t be seeing us again. Let’s not worry about them.”
“I… yes, sir,” Kowalski replied.
“Nicely done, soldiers,” Lt. Andrews said. “But now the crux of the mission is at hand. We have to go down old I-15, past the Strip, past downtown, and hit Nellis. Essentially, we have to hike a marathon and do it by sunset. I got us at zero seven hundred hours right now, so we got until about twenty hundred hours to get there. Let’s move! I don’t wanna see another one of these assholes up close on Earth!”
34
Unlike last hike, when everyone wondered if they’d even make it to a casino before the night had ended, the soldiers of Apocalypse Squad rode the high of killing an alien without the element of surprise and having escaped a horde.
“Man, did you see the way Matt just fired without blinking? Cold blooded!” Li shouted. “I’m voting you as MVP of this trip so far! You know what I’m saying!”
“I’m just glad Firestone decided he didn’t want to become Fire Soup when he ducked.”
“You think I’d let myself die without taking down at least a hundred of these bastards?” Kowalski said with a prideful laugh. “I know I can kill a man. I want to kill an alien. Let me show them what I got!”
“Then maybe, Firestone, you should do a better job of not getting ambushed,” Lake added.
Everyone burst out laughing. Even Kowalski let slip a small smile. Irons, in fact, laughed the hardest. Jordan, too, joined in on the laughter.
“Holy hell, who would’ve thought Firestone would be the one that needed help?” Lake teased.
“You would think a guy named Firestone wouldn’t have that problem,” Li asked. “Actually, I am curious, Fred, where did you get that call sign?”
The atmosphere was so loose at the moment that Kowalski didn’t even mind the lack of formality from Li as he usually did.
“You really wanna know?”
Suddenly, everyone tensed, nervous what the volcano of a man would have to say. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he just laughed and waved his hand dismissively.
“It came from two places. One, I used to be a car mechanic. Two, I used to love writing fantasy novels.”
Kowalski could have admitted he was an alien and everyone would have been less surprised.
“It’s true. I’ve always been a hot-tempered guy, so I figured if I’m going to have rage issues, I should channel my anger into safe things. You know, like hitting cars and writing violent stories similar to Game of Thrones. Then, when I joined the military, I decided that if I got hard and acted hard, I’d become hard.”
“Weirdly enough, I’d say it worked,” Li said.
“Damn straight,” Kowalski said. “I still write from time to time. I had my files transferred to Churchill before all this shit went down. If nothing else, I’m going to squash that fucking race for preventing me from finishing Dark Sabers.”
If ever anyone would become a typical drill sergeant among the group, it would easily be Kowalski. And yet he was the type to write fantasy novels?
“Nice,” Li said, more at a loss of words than anything else. “Why don’t we go over all our call signs then to pass the time? Might be fun. We’ll forget how far this walk is.”
“What, this three mile walk?” Lake said teasingly.
“Exactly. So, I’ll go. I got called Loose. Officially, it’s because I’m relaxed and easy going and am not uptight like some.”
Never a moment away from tension between him and Firestone, is there?
“But unofficially, well… might as well say it… when I got here, I was so skinny that they had trouble finding pants that would fit. So in basic, my pants kept sliding down because they were too loose. So they called me loose.”
“How is that different from today?” Lake said, and laughter filled the area. Lopez glanced over to see the remains of McCarran Airport, a decommissioned military port ten years ago and now likely a hive for the noctura.
“Hey now, I did eat a lot of American food to get here.”
“Nice try, I’m Canadian,” Lake said.
“Oh, is that where Monster is from?”
“I’ll… get to that later. Have the others go.”
“OK. Let’s see. Jenna! You got Lifts.”
“Everyone knows that one,” she said with an eye roll. “Got stuck on a lift, people thought I was British, so they call it that, ha,
ha, I tell new people it’s because I work out a lot, the end.”
But Lopez knew there was more to the story. More that she wasn’t willing to let on. And if everyone was going to spill some secrets here, well, might as well die with no good personal story untold.
“Tell ‘em why you got stuck on the lift, Irons.”
The look Irons shot Lopez could not have carried more venom if she was a snake. Lopez started laughing. Everyone else became too curious for Irons not to share.
“OK, fine, I wanted to have elevator sex and I got caught because I didn’t jam the lift in the right spot, happy?”
Everyone else joined Lopez in the laughter. Everyone except Lt. Andrews, who looked like he wanted to be on the other side of the highway at that point. The CO just pretended not to hear about the exploits of his niece and walked further ahead of the group.
“Oh, Irons, c’mon, we’ve all done stupid shit like that,” Lopez said. “Don’t be ashamed about it. If anything, now we get to call you something like Steamy Lifts!”
The laughter intensified, and finally, Irons allowed a small smile. Still, her face blushed red. When she caught Lopez’s eyes, she said, “You’re dead,” leading Lopez to just laugh. She’d get him, all right. But not in a truly bad way.
“Oh, shit, OK, that was good. Let’s see. Silencer! Jordan! Tell me about it!”
The laughter subsided. Lopez was curious. Jordan had talked so much to Irons last night. Now here he was, put in a position to speak to a group like he never had before.
“Cuz I’m quiet,” Jordan said.
“Oh come on, there has to be more to it than that!” Li said, his loud, boisterous voice a startling contrast to Jordan’s.
“Negative,” Jordan said. “I only speak when spoken to. You learn more by using your ears rather than your tongue.”
That right there, Lopez thought, was far more than Jordan had spoken. What is it about Irons that gets him to speak more?