by Phil Maxey
Elijah slowly got to his feet, just as the large man in a dark jacket walked past him, moving fast towards the end of the street.
“They never learn,” said Elijah under his breath.
Twenty minutes later he walked into his building, up the creaking stairs and into his small apartment. The light from the one street lamp in the area dissipated the gloom just enough as he walked into his modest kitchen and put the slightly scuffed box of canned goods and bottled drinks down on a small table.
It had been a another long night and he just wanted to sink into his bed, when he spotted something on the floor near the door he just closed. Walking over the naked floorboards, he bent down, groaning doing so and picked up the white envelope, with “For Elijah Drake,” on the front.
Opening it revealed a letter, with the Central Operations address and stamp at the top.
“You’re presence is required at Central Operations tomorrow at 10 am.”
Elijah sighed. Hand delivered. He then turned it over, the other side was blank. It felt good to leave behind the Jacob persona even if it meant losing the few friends he gained during his escape from the prison in New Mexico and he had no intention of working for the military ever again. But then, they also provided him with his apartment which even though it had damp and he could hear his neighbors like they were in the same room with him, was still his. As he put the letter down next to the box the street lamp outside flickered one last time and went out.
* * * * *
Elijah sat in one of five smart but simple chairs along the glossy wall in the main entrance lobby at the Core. Men and woman in uniform busily ran about him. He had been waiting twenty four minutes and his patience was just about gone when a soldier walked up to him.
“This way Major Drake.”
“I’m long retired son, Mr Drake will do.”
Elijah followed the soldier into the elevator. Soon he was sitting again, this time in a cramped waiting area outside Amanda Hollands council office. Luckily he didn’t have to wait as long, and a young man showed him inside.
“Take a seat Major.”
“Mr Drake, or Elijah, either will do.”
“With your pardon, you still get to use Major if you want.”
Elijah smiled.
“How’s the leg?”
“As expected.”
“And how’s the apartment? I understand you have been using those maths skills of yours to earn extra money.”
Elijah expected they were keeping an eye on him and wasn’t surprised by her admission. “Man’s gotta make a living, and manual labor is no longer an option.”
Holland poured herself some water. “Water? Or maybe you would like some coffee? Tea?”
“I would rather just know what you want to ask of me, so I can say no and be on my way.”
Holland smiled and sat back down in her chair.
“I presume you heard of Colonels escape a few days ago.”
“I don’t watch the news, but yeah I heard.”
“Well, he’s now dead.”
“Good, what’s that got to do with me?”
“A small squad went after him, and with some help he was killed. But they also came up against a much larger group that are based in Atlanta. A group you may of heard of called the Hell Fire gang.”
“Still not seeing what this has to do with me.”
Holland, breathed out with a little frustration. “This gang numbers at least six hundred, and is well armed. They are also responsible we think for the deaths of people at a number of our stations.”
Elijah looked down. “Yeah I remember.”
“This gang, has a leader by the name of…”
“Geneva, I know.”
“Now we could send a force out to Atlanta, but between the new attacks from the E.L.F’s and not knowing how many people he really does have, we think there’s another way to solve the problem.”
Elijah looked confused for a moment and then realised why he was there. “You want me to cut the head off the snake.”
She opened a folder in front of her. “Most of your record is redacted, but there’s enough still here that tells me you were once very good at that.”
Elijah leaned forward. “Councillor Holland. I’m seventy six years old, if you hadn’t guessed that means I’m not exactly in my prime, what use can I be for you?”
“If you can win every time at Texas Hold ‘em you got all I need, and that’s that mind of yours. I think General Trow was premature in benching you.”
Elijah looked reluctant. “It ain’t much, but I like my life. I get to play some cards, take money from young fools, I sleep when I want and do what I want.”
Holland leaned forward. “Elijah, I’m sure you have been hearing what has been happening these past few weeks. This whole camp is constantly hanging from a thread. Every day something happens which eats away at us, and each day we try to repair the damage. If this Geneva comes at us, or even if he tours the country taking out all the stations we have, it makes it more likely that one day that thread will snap, and then there’s no going back. We are it, the last camp on this continent. That life of yours that isn’t much? It’s still better then being out there, beyond the walls.”
He sighed. “I want a better apartment, and an income.”
“Done and done.”
“Okay, tell me what you know about him.”
CHAPTER 28
Abbey sat in the small enclosed space, with the electrodes strapped to her skull and other places over her body. The smell of bleach still invaded her senses, but on this third day of visiting the cell she had gotten used to it. On the other side of the clear partition sat a thing. That’s about as good of a description as she could give to it. It was about four feet high and consisted of hundreds of inch long white spikes, spread out over an oval shaped torso. If it had eyes or a nose or anything she had she didn’t know, and she had long stopped caring.
“Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll get on with it,” she said quietly.
A neutral male voice emanated from a speaker somewhere in the wall behind her. “As before Abbey, try to command the creature to do something.”
Each session was an hour, and consisted of her using her special abilities to make an E.L.F do something. Sometimes it would and sometimes it wouldn’t. She didn’t understand what the different was, and after talking to some other others in the detention centre, found she wasn’t alone in that. Sometimes she would get a glimpse of Raj, looking agitated and talking angrily to those around him, but never would he acknowledge her presence.
This time the creature reacted to her closing her eyes, and sinking inside herself. She found that if she let the tingling build it became something else, a feeling of being released from her own mind. And when she was in that state, sometimes, but not always, commanding the creatures in front of her would make them do just such a command.
The things spikes all protracted and it shrunk a few inches in size. It then moved away from her, slumping in the corner. It was then she noticed it’s eyes, which looked cat like and sorrowful.
“Good, Abbey, very good. That will be all for today, the guard will be in shortly to take you back.”
As she walked back, limping and barefoot over the cold concrete, she held onto the one good thing she still had, something which got her through each day, the short conversation she would have with Zach on the radio. He and Fiona smuggled it in three days earlier along with a handgun which Cal kept hidden in a rusty pipe in the main hall, where they slept. It might not be enough to allow them to escape but it was nice knowing it was there.
Ant ran up to her. “What was it this time?”
She smiled. “Some kind of giant porcupine.”
“Did you talk to it?” said the boy excitedly.
Abbey laughed. “You know that’s not how it works, do you talk to yours?”
The boy looked thoughtful. “I’m not sure. I do in my head, but not out loud.”
A large e
xplosion sounding like it was just outside made the building shudder, and Ant looked concerned.
Fiona put her hand on his shoulder. “Hey why don’t we see if we can find any food.”
* * * * *
The attacks on the camp had increased. What was once a few attacks during the early hours, was now multiple attacks throughout the day and night.
Zach stood on a segment of the eastern wall during the late morning. The wind made if feel even colder than it looked. He scanned the largely flat partially frozen landscape he had passed through a number of times with a scope. Hundreds of E.L.F’s meandered across the distant fields and hills in the walls direction.
“That’s a whole lot of nasty,” said Bass standing by him.
“The strange thing is that there are different species but they’re mostly not attacking each other, they are just attacking the wall once they get here.”
“Like there’s something inside the walls that bugs them.”
“Yup. Raj mentioned something about maybe there’s a link between the increase in attacks and those affected, but they didn’t know what the connection was.”
“How is Abbey?”
Zach wanted to be honest and tell him that she’s getting by, but he didn’t know who he could trust with the knowledge that they had been talking daily, even someone like Bass, who in any other situation he would trust with his life. “They don’t tell me much, but the last time they did they said she’s okay.”
“Any idea how long she’s going to be in there?”
“No idea.”
Bass glanced at Zach. “Must be hard.”
“I’m not the only person in this situation, everyone in that factory has family on the outside.”
“It’s not right. Those people didn’t do anything, Abbey and Cal saved our asses.”
Zach nodded.
“I better get back to the Core, they got me doing some training of new recruits. I’ll see if I can put a good word in and get you off this wall duty.”
“Honestly, I kind of like it up here. I can see what’s coming. Give my best to Sophia.”
Bass smiled, patted Zach on the back and left walking along the wall and through the door to one of the gun emplacements.
Zach looked back out towards the east. I’m sure there’s more every time I look.
By the early afternoon there had been a major attack on the south wall, and a number of minor events along the others. By late afternoon his shift had finished and he was walking back into his silent house near the lake. Even in the light of the setting sun it was impossible not to see the clothes and empty boxes strewn across the hardwood floor. Picking his way through the clutter, he picked up a small paint chipped alarm clock, set it to 10 pm, put his radio and keys down on the table next to it, and collapsed on the sofa.
A loud crash woke him. He sat up in complete darkness, his forehead damp with sweat. A flash lit up the kitchen windows from across the lake in the metropolitan area. Then another Flash. The sounds of the camps sirens could be heard intermingled with the sound of battle. Blinking a few times he got to his feet and started walking towards the light show that was being put on in the distance. Tripping over a box, he stepped into the kitchen and watched the multiple lines of crimson kris-crossing the skyscrapers. He could also just about make out the dark shapes, swooping in and amongst them. Another loud crash came from the front of the house. Like being snapped out of a dream, he whirled around to face the living room. Picking up his M4 as he passed the sofa, he moved closer to the windows, pulled the curtains carefully back a few inches and looked out into blackness.
His radio on the table crackled, making him jump. “Captain Felton, you are urgently required at the Core, please come immediately. Over,” he went to move to the radio, when the sound of planks of wood being moved came from his workshop to the left of the house.
He picked up his radio and whispered. “This is Captain Felton. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Over.”
Placing his radio in his jacket pocket, he stepped back into the kitchen and picked up his flashlight. More planks of wood moved coupled with the sound of something sliding came from the right of the house. Opening the exterior door, he raised his flashlight and gun towards his workshop, except it wasn’t there anymore. A heap of splintered wood at sharp angles lay on the concrete floor. He sensed he wasn’t alone outside, and slowly swept the beam across the yard, across trees, his fence and finally towards the lake shore. Then he heard it. A shuffling, and swiping of something large. Pointing the flashlight upwards, he just caught the large shadow take off into the air. He took aim and fired into the darkness above him, but it was no good the creature had already become one with the night sky above him.
Just as he realised his heart was beating out of his chest, the alarm he set in the living room went off and he almost fired the gun off again. Fuck.
Quickly turning the alarm off, he grabbed his keys and jumped in his pickup.
As he turned on his pickups main beams, he thought he saw something scurrying behind the trees near the lake, but chose to ignore it. Soon he was on the road towards the Core. He clicked on his radio. “This is Captain Felton. What’s going on? Over.”
There was a short pause, before an anxious voice replied. “We have multiple breaches of the walls. Both ground and air based E.L.F’s are inside the camp at various locations. Evacuations have begun in most of the major towns. Over.”
Dark shapes became more visibly lit by the explosions and bullets strafing the night sky as Zach drove into the Core’s parking lot. On his way he had seen a number of E.L.F’s on the ground, some without wings, and various platoons of soldiers fighting them. He quickly ran from the pickup, into the Core’s lobby, past people also running and entered the elevator with a number of others. The conversation was of creatures, and the walls being breached.
Soon he was entering the noise of the central operations hall. He half expected to see the red hair of the General, but instead Amanda Holland waved him over. Standing next to her was Raj, and a number of other people he didn’t recognise. Most looked afraid.
“Captain, as you may have noticed the camp is experiencing an onslaught, and a number of E.L.F’s have made it over the walls. Our rail guns are only partially working due to the generator at the dam malfunctioning. Dr. Joshi thinks you might be of some use in stopping the creatures.”
Zach’s instinct was to tell her to go to hell, but his better judgement stopped him. “How can I help?” she looked at Raj.
“A lot of the units out there, don’t have much experience fighting E.L.F’s especially not in open terrain as in the camp. I suggested to Ms Holland that you should be put in charge of the defensive operations within the camp.”
“Show me the current situation.”
Holland briefly said something to someone nearby, and the large screens at the front of the hall changed, one showing a plan view and hundreds of red dots and another a similar top down perspective but this time showing the four walls of the camp. The dots were clearly in higher number around the detention centre.
Zach took a few steps towards the screens. “Raj, do you have any idea yet as to why they are drawn to the people affected?”
“There’s a link between them obviously, but the information carrier is not of any type of radiation that we know of. It must be form of subatomic particle we haven’t discovered yet.”
“Well whatever is causing it, we might be able to use it to our advantage.”
“What do you mean?” said Holland.
“I have a plan of how we’re going to save the camp, but you’re not going to like it.”
CHAPTER 29
Abbey stood on the north wall, the wind buffeting her face. The smell of burning oil and metal wafted through the air, as the closest gun turret had to stop from firing due to overheating. Amongst the automatic gun fire, she could hear them out there, a multitude of shadows moving in the darkness. Things that crawled, slithered and flew.
She spotted a dark form rise up from the tree line and fly straight towards a group of soldiers desperately trying to stop anything from breaching their part of the wall. In their panic their bullets mostly missed the creature, which bore down on them, talons stretched out in front. Abbey squinted thrusting her hand out in front of her towards the creature, concentrating her mind. Stop. Stop. The creature continued surging forward, grabbing one of the soldiers and taking itself and the soldier off the camp side of the wall. The soldier screamed in agony.
“No…” She closed her eyes and forced her will outwards. “Stop!” when she opened them, the large monkey-bird hybrid was hovering just past the wall, clenching the terrified soldier who was looking down at the drop to the ground below. Keeping her concentration focused, she moved her hand back across to the wall. The flying creature duly followed her direction, moving to just above the wall. The other soldiers had stopped firing, and were now watching in amazement.
“Leave,” Abbey almost whispered the command, but it was enough for the creature to drop the soldier, and fly off into the night. She took a deep breath. The soldier lay on the ground, clutching his shoulder as a medic ran up to him. The other soldiers looked at Abbey eyes wide, then as if coming out of a dream, switched their attention back to the things that were still attacking.
Her radio came to life and she could just about hear Zach’s voice through the melee around her. “How’s it looking? Over.”
“We’re just holding this part of the wall. How are the others doing? Over.”
“They’re learning on the job. I’ll be with you as soon as I can. Over.”
On a part of the eastern wall siblings Gerik and Martha Jankowski both held hands, and closed their eyes. The tingling surged up their necks into their heads making their minds stretch out into the fury of noise and motion a few hundred yards in front of them. They had already done this countless times at the detention center, and were now used to the weird sensations and the feeling of otherness when linking their minds to each other and E.L.F’s. Slowly the orgy of creatures staggering towards the wall came to a stop. The soldiers on the wall stopped firing into the dark and raised their barrels, then turned their attention to the elderly brother and sister who were both smiling.