Earth Tactics Advance: Volume 1

by Scottie Futch

  “Dale, Dale Hardin,” said the older man. They shook hands then nodded. It was all the introduction that they needed.

  He then continued, “My daughter lives about a mile down river, but on the other side.”

  “Can’t take the bridge. That place is swarming with hungry assholes,” said Scott.

  “We’ll have to risk it with the raft, and hope that lizard thing you ran from isn’t nearby,” said Dale.

  “Sounds good," said Scott. "Got anything we can use for a weapon? Even if they don’t stay down, slowing them up a bit would be worth it.”

  Dale nodded his head and said, “Yeah, I got a rifle, but not much ammo. I’ll take that, though. You can use something from the basement.”

  “What you got down there?” asked Scott. He would rather have the rifle, but it wasn’t like he had a lot of experience with using one.

  Dale gestured toward a nearby door. “Come and see. We need to get the raft and get moving anyway.”

  They went down to Dale’s basement and unpacked his raft. It was a yellow inflatable vessel that did not give Scott much hope for success. Still, he felt like he owed Dale at least that much just for filling him in on a few basic things. If he died, then that would suck, but how long was he going to survive in this situation anyway? The city was overrun by invincible monsters that gleefully shouted, “Meat!” whenever they spotted anything human.

  Scott looked around the basement for a moment. He saw various tools and a sledge hammer. Each of them seemed like a useful weapon. His gaze soon crossed something a bit more interesting, and his eyes widened gleefully. It wasn’t a gun, but it would do.

  He gripped the plastic handled bush axe and gave it an experimental swing. It had a long slightly curved blade that looked to be quite solid. It was basically like a thick-bladed machete with a curved hook on the end, or a bill as some called it. Said blade was attached to a long light-weight plastic handle. He was well-versed in their normal use as he had used them often to help his grandma and for doing part-time yard work. “Fuck yeah.”

  Dale chuckled. “Don’t blame you. If I was out of ammo, I’d want that one myself.”

  Scott also spied an actual machete and grabbed it as well. “Might want that one too.”

  “Right. We ready?” asked Dale.

  “About as ready as we’re going to get.” said Scott.

  They snatched up a few more supplies, some batteries and flash lights, along with a few other things, and stashed them in a pillow case. Scott carried that while he helped Dale get the raft upstairs. They checked around the house by peeking out the windows and did not see any monsters.

  Soon, they were down at the river, the raft inflated and ready. The walk had taken longer than either of them would have liked since the weight of what they were carrying wore them out quickly. Still, they made it. They hopped on and used their oars to push out into the river.

  Several tense minutes passed as they moved with the current. They paddled as swiftly as they could toward the far shore, as they did not want to be caught on the water of a lizard man attacked. Dying was probably inevitable. But on land they would have a fighting chance, at least when it came to running away. In the water they might as well swallow enough of the river to put them out of their misery.

  Surprisingly, no river monsters attacked and they reached the shore. The current even carried them a good way toward their goal.

  “My daughter’s house is just up ahead, about two roads down,” said Dale.

  They gripped the raft and set out at a steady walk toward their goal. Everything went smoothly, despite the constant breaks they took, until they reached the first road. They were greeted by a loud cry of, “Meat!”

  They dropped the raft and moved off as quickly as they could. They could always come back for it if they had to, after all. If someone took it, then hopefully they would make good use of it. Trying to take it with them now would be tantamount to committing suicide.

  Six shark-toothed people stumbled down the hill and landed on the riverbank in a jumble of limbs. Several of them had obviously injured themselves, but it was not long before their bodies shimmered and they were perfectly fine.

  “Keep going. We’re almost there,” said Dale.

  Scott did not say anything, but he did try to pick up the pace. He slowed down enough to keep in step with Dale, however, once he started to out-distance him. He didn’t know exactly where they were going, and he did not want to leave the old guy behind.

  “Up there!” exclaimed Dale as he panted for air. They clambered up the steep hill that led to the second road mentioned earlier.

  It was a difficult climb filled with loose rocks and near-falls. The monsters below had trouble navigating it, and howled whenever they slid back down. However, luck was in favor of the living as no blue light flared out to ensnare them. Scott and Dale made it to the road. Exhausted, both men panted heavily upon reaching the summit of the relatively small hill.

  Dale coughed twice then pointed down the road. “See that fifth house down there, the one with the hedge?”

  “Yeah?” asked Scott.

  “That’s it,” said Dale.

  “Right,” said Scott. There was little else to say, really. They were almost to their goal, even if they were both bone-tired.

  They set out again, while moving as quickly as they could. The house was relatively close and no other monsters popped up to bar their path. They reached the privacy hedge, and Dale trotted forward excited to see his family. However, he slowed to a confused walk shortly thereafter, and not due to his need for a rest.

  “What is it?” asked Scott.

  “No…” said Dale in a soft disbelieving tone.

  Scott caught up with the man and then looked toward the house. From out of the front door staggered a teenage boy, his face had been badly bitten and it looked like half of his neck was missing. Another Ghoul staggered jerkily toward them from the side of the house. This one was a woman who might have been in her thirties.

  “Dale…” said Scott.

  “No,” said the man. He fell to his knees.

  “Come on man, we have to go,” said Scott.

  “Go?” asked Dale quietly. He looked up at Scott then his eyes narrowed and red-rimmed. “Go?! Where the hell is there to go?”

  The old man pushed him away then staggered back. He panted heavily and gripped his rifle in hand. “This is my family!”

  “They’re dead! We need to leave,” said Scott.

  “I’m not leaving them! You leave!” snapped the man. He made a threatening gesture with his rifle.

  “Dale, come on man. Don’t do this,” said Scott while he backed away slowly.

  “Go to hell!” snapped Dale. He fired off a round into the air. “What’s there left to go on for?”

  The moment the rifle was fired dozens of unholy voices cried out from all around the area. If the monsters did not know that they were there before, they knew it now.

  “Dammit, Dale!” snapped Scott. Whatever he owed the man had already been paid back, but the idea that he would lose it this quickly when he seemed to have such a strong mentality only a few minutes before was ridiculous. Of course, if it had been his grandmother he might have understood the situation better.

  “Go!” snarled Dale before pointing the rifle at Scott, tears streaming down his aged face. "Just go!"

  Scott took a step back then nodded. He wanted that rifle at the least if Dale was going to just off himself, but he did not feel like being shot while trying to get it. “Fine, if you want to die here then that’s your business. At least give me the gun.”

  “The hell I am! I have to protect my family!” snapped the man. His eyes had gone wild, crazed. Strangely, they also seemed to have begun to change colors. Scott was close enough to see that his sclera were now tinged with red. He was changing without having died! Scott was certain of it.

  “Alright, best of luck,” said Scott before moving away from the man slowly. He wasn't about to argue
with a crazed gun man.

  Dale lowered his rifle then began to cry a little as his grandson came within range of him from behind. The man turned the rifle around and pointed the barrel into his mouth just as two things occurred. A red light flared outward to encompass the area, and Scott turned a corner around a house on the opposite side of the road. The gun went off and another round of loud howls and moans echoed through the area.

  Scott finished rounding the corner then stepped back quickly. Over a dozen of the shark-toothed ghouls were trotting down a side path. Any lingering thoughts of going back after the gun were ignored. The place would be swarming with hungry bastards soon, and it might not even be that useful. Ammo would be limited, and it would not even kill the monsters.

  He waited a moment till the monsters moved on then continued on his way. He had to duck and dodge around or behind buildings frequently, but he somehow managed to slip past the monsters that were heading toward the broken remnants of Dale’s sad end.

  There was a serious problem that he had to attend to, now. Where did he go, and how did he get there? His house was not terribly far away, but was it still a good idea to go there?

  In the end, he chose to go home. Scott had no other ideas at the moment, and at least the doors were reinforced. It was the former home of a self-styled drug-lord. Though, the man was actually just a paranoid meth dealer.

  The meth lord's house had a cross bar to lock the door, and was made out of reinforced concrete. The wood paneling and vinyl siding attached to the outside was just to match the aesthetics of the neighborhood. It would take a tank to knock it down, something that Scott considered a major bonus at the moment.

  He had gotten a good deal on his house, though it would not be paid off for another eleven years through his rent to own plan. However, he was certain that would not matter anymore.

  Soon, he reached a crossroad then took a deep breath. Scott recognized the area well. He was about two miles from home. There were no more convenient hills between here and his place. He would have to move carefully and time those movements so that he was not forced to rest in the open.

  Scott felt weird for a moment and looked down. His right hand was shaking a little. He did his best to will it to stop, but he was only partially successful. “Damn," he said after a much needed cleansing breath, "I need to get home before I lose my shit out here.”

  Running on little more than desperation and adrenaline, the effects of his flight were beginning to take a heavy toll on his mind and body. Briefly, he wondered if Dale was right before. Why even bother going on? His girlfriend ditched him in a brutal and decisive fashion that day. There was not even an inkling of desire to go find her and her bull-dyke lover.

  If anyone asked, Scott would readily claim that the flannel-clad woman was more man than he would ever be. It was a shame really, since he generally approved of lesbian relationships, especially when the lesbians were hot.

  Cheating lesbian girlfriends aside, he had no family to speak of, nowhere to really go, and the world was filled with immortal shark-toothed assholes that ate people. Why should he struggle so hard to stay alive?

  His eyes closed tight, Scott forced his shaking hand into a fist and gritted his teeth. A low growl escaped his lips as he whispered, "Thinking shit like that... It's a good thing I didn't get that gun."

  The end was near, one way or the other. That was the only thought that kept him sane enough to continue forward. Get to the house and decide whether he would live or die afterward. That was the only goal that he could work toward at the moment.

  He made it to the road that his house was on before the next issue cropped up. That issue came in the form of a four legged beast with the upper body of a man, and the fanged head of a wolf. It was like a centaur, but with the lower body of a wolf instead of a horse.

  It raced out of a side street while chasing after his neighbor’s Chihuahua. “Gyahaha! Puppy! Puppy!” shouted the beast as it chased its would-be meal. Both monster and Chihuahua actually ran and neither seemed tired by the action.

  Scott stared in wild horror as they crossed the road and kept going. The beast never even seemed to notice him. It was entirely fixated on its fleeing meal.

  He abandoned the road altogether and slipped over to the alleyway between several houses. He was closed off, but as long as nothing saw him he would be fine. He needed to be certain that nothing saw him when he entered his house, especially the monster that he had just seen. Shark-toothed people were bad enough, but there were clearly worse things in the world at the moment.

  Scott made it home, surprisingly. His house was the last one on the road. It was small and blocky, it looked ordinary and a bit boring. It was the perfect place to hide from the world for a while.

  Once inside, he immediately locked and barred his door. He lowered the steel shutters over the windows and locked them in place. The former owner had placed both steel bars over the windows on the outside, and steel shutters inside. It was the sort of security one might find in a bad neighborhood, except that it was a nice suburban area.

  The first thing he did was check the house thoroughly for intruders. After seeing no sign of man or monster, he stripped down then took a shower. Thankfully the water was still running. He doubted that would be the case much longer. The power was still on as well, but he knew that it would go out before the water did. After he showered and changed into clean clothes, he turned on his TV and checked for news.

  Several stations were off the air, but there were others that were still broadcasting. The fact that a few stations were down was quite telling, however.

  “Confirmed monster sightings have occurred all over the world. These creatures are known to be aggressive, highly dangerous, and predatory. They will attack anything that is not of their own kind, some will even attack other monsters.”

  “Monsters?” asked Scott. Is that really what they were calling them? He turned the volume down and moved closer. He did not want to risk something outside hearing the TV.

  The news caster continued to give wild reports of strange beasts roaming the land. Images and video of various attacks appeared on screen. Lizard men, flying eyeballs, hordes of shark-toothed people, and more were shown.

  Several hours passed while Scott made the most of them. He had set about the task of cooking whatever food that he could. He had a freezer full of meat, but little else in the way of supplies. He had enough canned goods to last a day or two, and dried food like rice to last a week. If the power went out he would not be able to cook anything else quickly.

  While his TV quietly played in the background he gorged on sausage and ate several raw eggs. He also boiled chicken, baked chicken, and fried chicken. He had a lot of chicken stored up in his freezer.

  “If the power went out now, the freezer would probably keep everything edible till early tomorrow morning.” mumbled Scott. The meat had to be eaten before his other groceries or it would go to waste. He drank milk instead of water or soda. There was half a jug of milk left in his fridge, and it would not keep as well as the other two options.

  While the chicken cooked, and after is sausage and eggs, he went about gathering up every conceivable item in the house that he could which might hold water. It might not be safe to drink it due to the monsters roaming about in the water supply, but he could probably boil it for safety. He quickly cleaned every sink in the house, and his bath tub, and then filled them all with water.

  “Filter, filter…” muttered Scott. He thought about it for a moment then nodded. His ex-girlfriend was a coffee drinker. He was not much for it unless there was hot cocoa mixed in with it, but it did not matter. Some of her stuff was still here, and that included her coffee filters.

  Scott went to the kitchen and changed out some of the food that was cooking. The fried stuff seemed to be done already, or done enough to suit his emergency needs. He re-used the pans with the same cooking oil and started the process of frying fish. Most of the chicken was baking in the oven already. He
had a bit of hamburger, a pack of pork chops, and a sack of tilapia fillets to finish cooking.

  He put the fried chicken on the table atop several paper towels. Now was not the time for niceties, he could clean the table easier that a lot of different plates. He would already have many pots and pans to clean as it was.

  As soon as the meat preparation was done, Scott went to his shower and started cleaning his dishes. He had a separate shower from his bath tub, another perk to his little meth-bought love nest.

  In this manner, time passed quickly. He did not pay attention to the terror outside his door. He focused him mind on the tasks at hand to maintain sanity. Whatever hell might lie outside, as long as he remained busy he could manage to live a little longer.

  A clean shirt and a full pack of paper filters were used up in the process of boiling and storing as much water as Scott could manage. It was the best he could do. He could only hope that the water was purified enough that he would not get sick drinking it.

  He ate meat till he was full. Chicken, fish, and pork chops. He did not skimp. It could be his last meal, and it would not last long if the power did go out. He knew that the scent of cooked food would possibly draw monsters, but his house was like a tomb in some respects. Very little of the odor would escape, but the combined smells were slightly nauseating.

  The long day now over, Scott rested on his couch and watched the few remaining channels that were on. He did not have cable or satellite television, so he was totally beholden to local stations.

  Most of what he saw was more of the same. The world had changed without warning. Monsters roamed the land, and refused to die. People were eaten alive and many returned to life as a monstrosity. Some were devoured too completely for even that semblance of life.

  Reports came in from all across the country, as the rest of the world did not respond as readily anymore. It was then, as he listened to the ever-dwindling number of channels on his television that Scott closed his eyes. Hot tears formed then slid down his cheeks. He did not sob, or show any other outward sign of the turmoil within.