by Greg Ramsay
A small patch in the centre of the giant crater caved in, allowing sunlight to stream in gently; the birds circled closer. A viscous black substance pooled beneath a pyramid of burnt steel pillars. It pulsed as it quivered. The vibrating gelatine mass grew excitedly, reaching out from the opening towards the light, like a demon reaching out from hell to pollute the light. Thin tendrils emerged from it instantly, ensnaring the frightened birds brave enough to fly lower, then it tore into them bonding itself within their bodies. The frightened birds suddenly calmed as they flew into the air, brushing close to their brethren allowing the black substance to infect other birds. The more of them that became infected, the more organized organised they became, like a hive mind.
Flying straight from the site the original birds took the lead, increasing their numbers as they began their search. The alpha of the swarm had sharply focused beady eyes with a light yellowed tinge. The birds converged in the sky behind their possessed alpha, killing shifted in barrages, then eating their innards. The birds continued to devour their targets, ripping them apart with their razor beaks, each time becoming more volatile. They didn’t attack the alpha of their swarm; his alluring eyes seemed to sway their small brains. Their infected bodies moved with his mentally transferred commands. The more shifted they attacked, the stronger they became, and the more their alpha would consume, devouring his flock’s catches until his strength began to return. The alpha bird continued to search as his followers trailed along behind him, forming a black screaming blade in the sky.
The birds flew past Colorado into Nebraska where their searching paid off for their leader at last. A little brown-haired girl in a white dress played joyfully inside a military hangar, the last bastion of military control. Alarms began to sound within the hangar as scanners warned the occupants of an incoming attack. Men and women snatched up their armaments and set up perimeters around the hangar, leaving the young girl alone in the safety of the hangar’s walls. A woman, the girl’s mother, stayed with her, hiding with her in a small office built into the side of the hangar. Prepared for the worst, the soldiers stood their ground, waiting for the shifted to make the first move. They could never have prepared for what met them instead.
A piercing scream ripped down to assault them from the sky as the birds dove en masse to overwhelm the soldiers. The disoriented soldiers fired wildly with their weapons, trying in vain to kill the insane birds. The birds’ numbers were too great, seeming to envelop their targets like a feathered tornado descending on them. One by one, they ripped the humans apart with their razor beaks before they ate their flesh. All that remained of the resilient survivors were desecrated corpses while the few fallen birds lay entangled in their entrails, before those were also consumed by their brethren. In the chaos below, the alpha bird saw the few threats destroyed, then cawing his piercing murder cry, he summoned his followers.
A smaller group broke off from the swarm. The rest of the black swarm were left to devour their victims while waiting for their alpha to emerge anew, their new strength allowing them to easily devour every body part. The invading murder of crows all wailed a frighteningly piercing cry as the alpha bird crashed through a window into the hangar. The little girl clung scared to her mother, not crying. She didn’t want to alert the unseen monsters that caused her friends to scream in scary ways while they made even worse sounds themselves. She silently squeezed her mother’s hand as she heard the window at the front of the hangar crash open, followed by the hangar filling with the sound of flapping wings. The little girl looked up at her shaking mother with fearful curiosity in her eyes.
“Mommy, is that a helicopter?”
“I don’t know honey, but I’m sure it is,” her mom replied, trying hard not to frighten her daughter.
The sound of flapping wings beating the air was all that could be heard; it drowned out thought as the other birds flew into the hangar to join their alpha. The alpha bird flew from his flock to slam his beak on the door. The mother inside yelped, despite herself, quietly restraining wracking sobs as more birds began to assault the door. She began pushing filing cabinets in front of the door as it began to shake with the impacts. The birds easily penetrated the metal door, their keen blackened beaks jabbing repetitively. The alpha bird cawed menacingly; more birds flooded around the door until it was completely covered. The exterior of the door looked like it was immersed in a black flood, feathers flung in the wind lining the floor below as the birds madly attacked the door. They pecked hundreds of thousands of times until they had almost enough room to push through, then tore away loose chunks with their beaks. They flew into the filing cabinets, pushing into each other using their mass to shake the cabinets.
The little girl began to cry softly as the cabinets’ violent shaking grew worse. The girl’s mother hid her under an office desk then put her weight against the cabinets hoping it would stop the birds. The birds quickly penetrated the thin metal at the back of the cabinets then pushed forward into the drawers. They pushed the light cabinets apart despite the mother’s best efforts to hold them in place, then pushed out drawers slowly as they started to break in. The little girl’s mother cried hysterically as she tried to push the cabinets back in place as more and more of them shifted about. The little girl could hear her mother’s fear, so she began to cry for her.
The mother yelled, “Don’t cry my angel, don’t cry!” as she smiled weakly towards her daughter, thinking of her as the birds broke in, screaming out their war cries, and beating their wings. The little girl wiped her tears as her mother bid, unable to see or hear her anymore. The child waited to hear her mother walk up beside her, to tell her they were safe, that the monsters were gone... but she didn’t. She was overwhelmed by birds. Neither her painful death cries nor final goodbye to her child could be heard over the madly beating wings. The alpha bird flew through the swarming birds as they ripped the flesh from the crying mother, slowly killing her. He landed with a scratching thump on the desk under which the little girl hid.
The alpha bird slowly walked in his awkward gait across the metal surface of the desk. His talons clacked and scraped the desk, creating high pitch sounds that unnerved the little girl. The curved tip of his beak slowly appeared over the side of the desk as he leaned down to glare at the child. As he started to open his beak the little girl panicked, running from under the desk toward the pushed apart cabinets. The alpha bird cawed a piercing cry once more as the girl ran for the door, suddenly tripping painfully. The girl screamed as she opened her eyes, finding herself staring into the blank expressionless eyes of her mother.
The swarm that had been slowly tightening around her scattered into the air. She quickly got to her feet, frightened out of her mind, her dress now smeared with her mother’s blood. She ran through the small gap the birds had created into the middle of the hangar as the birds streamed out of the office behind her. They flew in tight circles around her surrounding her. The little girl could no longer hold back her fear of the frightening birds, nor could she shake the image of her mother’s eyes staring empty of life into hers.
The surrounding birds began to close in. Their leader broke away from the flock to violently latch its talons into her little neck as a tear fell from the eyes of the child. The alpha bird stabbed its beak into the back of her head. The black gelatinous substance within him seeped from the wound into the little girl’s flesh, then worked its way to her spine. Once the substance had migrated from its previous host, the bird collapsed from the girl’s body, abruptly falling drained on the ground. One by one, each of the birds ripped into the flesh of the girl, passing on their portion of the substance to her body. Each one fell to the ground drained as the alpha bird had done. The girl’s shrill screaming drew caws from the remaining birds as they waited to rip their beaks into her flesh. The substance began taking over her body, raging through her veins as more of it was forced into her. The girl’s blood began to pour from her throat, eyes, mouth, even lower orifices. The disgusting mess joined with her mo
ther’s blood on her dress before it dripped from her pooling on the floor. Once each of the birds had passed on their infectious host fragments, they lay around the girl unconscious, wallowing in her life blood. The pink tone of her young skin turned completely black as the last drops of her blood were forced from her body.
The corpse of the young girl fell rigidly to the ground, landing in her blood, sprawled among the unconscious birds. Suddenly her body began to violently quiver, her eyelids shot open, her glazed over brown eyes began to change. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head as it violently swung from side to side. The black substance appeared beneath her skin, fusing with the body’s nerves and muscles. Having already fused with her mind, the changes slowed as she lay still for a moment. Then her eyes slowly reset, focusing in, blinking, then finally opened revealing a stark grey gold colour. The girl stood, now entirely under the control of the substance, then looked around her at the birds that lay there surrounded in blood. She reached her hands out. Lightning fast tendrils shot from her finger tips, then dragged the countless birds into her, consuming them. The little girl raised her hands bursting into uncontrollable laughter.
Chapter 11 – Uncertain Allies
Lia and her new group of potential allies sat in their little base apartment. Lia waited to see what they would say following her strange story. They all sat silent, as they had for a while, still sceptical and none of them knew what to say. Captain Steele considered all she had said and shown them. She looked around to her troop, looking for any signs that any one of them wanted to say anything. Then she looked at Lia.
“If all you say is true, I’m amazed. I’ve seen many people consumed by the shifted, seen their bodies completely destroyed, seen people change, but I’ve never heard of the infection bonding with a human. Not to mention all you claim to have accomplished.” Though she was amazed by Lia’s tale, even the horrifying abilities she exhibited; as she spoke of those lost, she became immediately distraught.
“You’ve seen people change, as in get infected?” Lia asked quietly. Steele looked up at her.
“Yes, when the shifted first infiltrated our base they were still small in numbers. Whenever more invaded, we would stage a counter offensive on them; they in turn would attack small recon parties as they searched the base for hostiles. The recon groups would suddenly report in that men had been ghosted. Some eventually reappeared with various wounds but seemed okay. One thing they all shared were groupings of jagged scars in their midsections that splayed like flexed fingers throughout their bodies, always the same on each victim. Of course we’d heard of civilian cases beforehand, so we weren’t completely in the dark...” She grimaced briefly. “No one could imagine the horrors they were about to experience...”
Steele paused for a moment; a grim expression passed over her face. Lia waited patiently, eventually resuming her story. “The wounded soldiers would be brought to the infirmaries, watched by doctors who couldn’t do anything for them. Randomly their bodies would seem to implode or explode at the same time as they began to violently convulse. Dark black serrated vines of some type would rip from their midsections, then start building armour similar to yours over their flesh or from it I don’t know... As their bodies expanded their muscles would be jacked beyond human capacity; their fingers would turn into claws, then their heads would warp into deadly fanged monstrosities that destroyed any semblance of the human there once was.” A pure expression of sadness briefly emerged through her grim façade.
Delicately Lia asked, “How do you know so much about how the changes happen?”
Steele looked at her sadly for a few minutes, then eventually replied, “I was in one of the infirmaries with a minor sprain; at the time my friend, another captain came in, with those marks in him... I watched helpless as he turned into one of them. He started attacking the doctors... other soldiers... Throwing them around like nothing, ripping them apart as easy as paper. Thankfully I still had my assault rifle; small arms don’t seem to faze them.”
Steele stopped abruptly, turning away from everyone as a tear fell from her eye. Lia looked at the increasingly grim looks that formed on everyone’s faces. She asked each of them in turn if they had also lost someone. They all acknowledged with small nods.
“My brother,” Private Grant said.
Sergeant Marks looked over at her, a small hint of something in his eyes when he said, “My girlfriend.” They looked at each other for a while until Lia broke eye contact with him.
“My boyfriend,” Gunnery Sergeant Black said bluntly, “his name was Michael. We’d commandeered the base Humvee for a little road trip. He had this...” She gestured to the katana on her back before continuing, “ridiculous thing on the dashboard as he did with every vehicle because he thought it brought him luck ever since I got it for him from Japan. Ultimately, we were ambushed...one of them... killed him. I only survived because of the openings in its armour his rounds created. The monstrosity knocked my gun away, throwing me like a ragdoll into the vehicle. When it advanced, I rammed the blade in deep. The shifted fell, but not before coating the blade in its... slime.” She struggled to maintain her composure clearly lost in memories, then continued with a cold look in her eyes. “The one saving grace is once that hardened, I had a weapon capable of killing shifted easy.” She ended her sentence bluntly while looking into Lia’s eyes coldly, like a warning.
Marks tried to divert her energy. “You haven’t told that story in a while,” he said.
She scoffed, “Most of the monstrosities we encounter wouldn’t get the point.”
“That being?” Lia asked with a hint of challenge in her tone.
“If you do decide to threaten the few friends I have left I will end you!” Lia calmly stepped forward ready to face the fight brewing in her stance. Steele stood abruptly between them.
“What about you?” Steele asked Lia. Distorted images of people raged through her mind faster than she could grasp while Barton repeatedly taunted, “Remember...” Shaking off the pain in her mind Lia changed the subject.
“So you guys just hold this place from the shifted? Do you not have any plans to move on?”
“What do you mean? Like search for a place free of them?” Steele asked. Lia nodded.
Scoffing, she replied, “We’ve done that before, exploring through Mexico on a rumour it was free of them, it wasn’t. The other southern states are the same story; I have no doubt the rest of the country is as well.”
John looked at her, then said, “Before the base was infested, I heard a rumour that Northern Canada was shifted free. We never attempted to travel that far because we found no success in the other rumours, plus we didn’t have enough supplies.”
“How did you guys manage to travel as far as you did?” Lia asked.
“We had a convoy of sorts going for a bit.” Steele said. “You wanna see it?” Steele asked.
“Sure,” Lia said. Steele glanced around the room as the others retrieved their weapons.
“Come on,” Steele said to Lia as they descended out of the apartment building.
Chapter 12 – Show of Force
Wanderer took the lead from Steele as he scanned ahead for shifted, the others kept pace with him. They walked four blocks, turned left continuing for three more, before stopping at a large storage facility. Steele pushed its tall steel gate open then walked up to one of the huge buildings; the other soldiers each stood in front of a building. Lia stayed on the sidewalk to watch as each of them grabbed handles on the massive garage style doors, easily pushing them upwards.
The doors gave displeased sounding squeals as their steel castors drew them into the building. Sunlight streamed into the cavernous buildings as the breeze whirled dust into them in little wisps. Two of the buildings contained an army Hummer identical to the one Lia had driven; one of them even had claw marks. The garage sheltered a large tanker clearly labelled “GAS” on the tank. It had huge steel collision bars welded to the front of it. The fourth contained a military Je
ep with a turret protruding from an opening in its roof, and a metal covered trailer mounted to its hitch. Lia walked into the garage with the Jeep, with Steele following.
Lia remarked, “That’s quite the convoy.” Steele smiled.
“That’s not all, look at this,” she said as she walked over to the heavily reinforced door on the back of the trailer; she pushed its big latch out of its clasp. Then she pulled another two latches free so she could wrench the door open.
Stale air seeped from the trailer as its door opened to reveal its contents –– twenty large gas containers, hundreds of cans of preserved food, as well as a large assortment of weapons: combat shotguns, twelve-gauge shotguns, various assault rifles, two sniper rifles, two rocket launchers, even a small turret mounted to the inside of the trailer’s door. There were a couple of kilograms of what Lia recognized as putty explosive, separated into three chunks, wired to physical timers sitting in the back of the trailer. Three fragmentation grenades sat in a box beside the that.
Lia turned to Steele. “That’s quite the stockpile. If you have all of this why can’t you head to Canada?”
Steele said, “See those gas containers? Most of them are empty, we can never get enough gas to extend out that far. Since more alphas have been evolving out of the lesser shifted they’re becoming more organized. Any gas stations we encounter get swarmed; they’re attracted by the vehicles. We were lucky to get out alive from the last station just down the road there.” She pointed to her left to indicate direction. “There is a group of alphas that prowl around there no doubt hoping for survivor snacks. If we could get past them, that would be one more step. We’re just not strong enough to do that so we remain here under the radar, armed and ready.