by J. N. Chaney
A great lumbering beast charged toward us from the jungle. I knew the creature well. It was the same giant rhinoceros-looking son of a gun that had been taken down by the infected. We’d run into him while we made our run from the jungle a week before.
He galloped over the terrain, closing on the wall fast.
Stacy appeared next to me a moment later. Since Captain Ezra Harold never returned from his expedition, she had taken charge of the Civil Authority Officers.
“All civilians off the catwalk now and reinforce the gate!” Stacy barked, bringing her own rifle to bear on the creature that was now no more than half a kilometer away from the wall. “I need every officer to the north wall immediately.”
Those officers already on the wall on watch opened up along with Stacy. They aimed their pulse rifles at the beast, who was close enough now for us to see black liquid streaming from his eyes and mouth.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Blaster rounds peppered the beast, who seemed largely unaffected. The rounds bit through the creature’s hide, but he didn’t stop. If anything, they only enraged him even more.
The monster charged forward, possessed of one mind.
I looked at Stacy, then Boss Creed, helpless. I wasn’t an officer. The only time I carried a weapon was when I was going outside the wall.
“What’s happening?” Arun joined us, brandishing the hand-blaster she always wore on her belt.
“It’s infected.” I grimaced.
The creature was seconds away from ramming head first into our newly constructed wall. We were about to see how sturdy our defenses really were as each of us braced for the impact. At the last second, the creature pulled a hard right, hugging the wall.
Stacy looked up at us, confused.
That was when I realized what was going on. “The gate!” I shouted, already shoving my way back down the stairs. “Reinforce the gate!”
I couldn’t say how I knew for sure, but I remembered my run-in with the infected earlier. I remembered how they’d exhibited intelligence instead of just attacking wildly.
The gate, although locked, would be an easier entry point than a solid steel wall.
I broke into a sprint when I reached the ground, and adrenaline coursed through me, making my heart pound in my chest. Everyone was shouting, making it impossible to hear any distinct voice. Weapons’ fire added to the chaos on the wall along with the roars of the creature as it wailed a garbled battle cry.
The alien beast hit the gates to the west so hard that the entire wall shuddered. An officer too close to the point of impact on the catwalk screamed as she fell, landing hard on the ground inside.
Her left leg crumpled underneath her weight, sticking out at an odd angle. Part of me wanted to stop and help the fallen woman, but the cold truth was if the beast got past the wall, we were all screwed. Other survivors raced to her side to offer aid, solving the dilemma for me.
I finally reached the gates, assessing the damage and figuring out how we could secure the point of entry. The wall had absorbed the impact well, but how many hits like that it could take was anyone’s guess.
I couldn’t see the beast, but I could sure hear it. Another mad roar echoed into the air.
“I need you and Boss Creed to make sure it doesn’t get through,” Stacy shouted from her position on the catwalk. “We’ll keep firing at it from up here!”
I nodded, racking my mind for an effective way to brace the gate.
SHADOOM!
The creature slammed itself into the gates again. This time, those on the catwalk held on when the creature battered the wall, causing a steel-rending tear as the gate on the right groaned. An indention a foot long and roughly the size of the creature’s head penetrated the outside of the wall. A single horn poked through before it was forced back, leaving a hole the size of my head.
I took the opportunity to see what was happening on the other side of the wall. The creature’s hide was tougher than I first thought. Yes, some blaster rounds had gotten through and wounded the beast, but far too few. From what I could see, two spots on the creature’s back and left shoulder were bleeding.
“Aim for the eyes!” Arun shouted from above.
“Those steel beams we were using before,” I shouted over to Boss Creed and anyone who would listen.
A handful of the bravest survivors, Ricky and Elon among them, joined us at the gates to see if there was anything they could do to help.
“Here!” Boss Creed shouted as we ran with him to the pile of heavy steel beams meant for the watch towers.
I grabbed one, as did Elon and Ricky. We hefted one of the pieces that had to be three meters long and weigh at least four hundred pounds and moved toward the gates.
“Hurry, before he hits us again!” Elon bellowed.
We stuck one end of the beam into the dirt ground a few meters from the gates. The other end wedged against the gate itself.
“We need anchors on top of the beams!” Ricky yelled.
“Too late, here it comes again!” Stacy shouted from the wall.
I looked through the hole in the gate. She was right; we had seconds.
“Brace the beams!” I yelled, throwing the weight of my own body on top of the beam we’d just erected. It was better than nothing. Everyone who was working to secure the gate did the same. Some hung off the beams; others pressed their bodies onto it, while the rest pushed with all their weight against the gate itself.
“No!” I screamed as well-intentioned survivors pressed against the steel frame.
SHADOOM!
My entire frame rattled, from the bones in my spine to my teeth. The beam in my arms bounced despite the pressure of me, Elon, and Ricky all pushing it down, and those who forced their bodies against the gate itself where thrown back violently.
The bottom of the gate groaned before shaking loose from the rest of the wall. It hung more than stood now, supported on one end by the corner anchor against the wall. The other end of the gate was secured to its left counterpart with a heavy chain.
“This isn’t going to work,” Ricky said, wheezing.
“One more blow and it’ll be through,” Elon agreed.
“No.” I was surprised to hear the ferocity in my own voice. “No, not today. We’ve worked too hard. We’ve come too far.”
A reckless idea entered my mind. Instead of talking myself off the ledge, I decided to go with it.
“Get everyone away from the gates,” I said as I took off at a sprint. “Get back from the gates.”
I heard them yelling after me, asking questions, but there wasn’t time to explain. The alien battering ram was going to be back in seconds and the gate would fall if it took another hit. I ran like the hounds of hell were at my heels. The encampment was in pandemonium. People were yelling and crying and more than a few walked in a daze.
During the madness, Mutt had found me, adding his own bark to the chaos around us. When he saw me take off back into the encampment, he joined me. His light eyes looked at me for direction, as if to say, “I don’t know what you have planned, but count me in.”
I ignored it all, making for the opposite side of the wall where the crawler was parked. It was our only mode of transportation and I was taking a huge risk using it now. Still, no one would be alive to use it at all if the alien creature was allowed inside.
I reached the crawler, jumped inside the driver seat, and slammed my hand on the digital reader. It recognized me and gunned to life just as the beast hit the gates for the third time.
SHADOOM!
The left gate shuddered and crumpled inward.
Thanks to Stacy’s and Arun’s efforts, and the efforts of those on the wall, two more chunks of raw meat had been opened up on its hide. Its right eye was missing now. Blood gushed from its body, leaving small streams of dark liquid in its wake.
The right gate came down and the animal stumbled inside.
“Bad idea, bad, idea, bad idea,” I said, and slammed my foot onto the gas pedal
. The beast was as large as a small bus, but the crawler itself was no joke either. It was built to haul things, not necessarily made for speed but pure power.
“Mr. Slade,” Iris sounded in my earpiece. “I need to advise you against this course of action. The odds of you surviving a head-on impact with the alien beast are—”
“Never tell me the odds,” I yelled, ripping the earpiece out of my ear. The crawler jerked to life and took off.
The creature, having broken through the gates, stopped for a moment as if it were looking and studying the inside of the compound. The act looked unnatural, as if the creature were nothing more than a puppet being used by its true master. When it swung its one eye toward me, a snarl lifted its lip.
I raced across the compound. I had to be travelling at least fifty miles an hour when the beast started its charge in my direction. Like two titans, we sprinted toward one another.
I roared as the creature let out another bellow of its own. His sounded more impressive, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
It was so close now, I could see the madness in the creature’s eye. It’s funny how in times like this the clock seems to move at a crawl. The world travels in slow motion. I’d experienced this before during fights. My senses were so cued up, every single detail struck me individually.
I saw the black orb it called an iris, the virus that was Legion spreading from its eyes and mouth in thick, inky lines. The ebony streaks looked like veins just under the skin.
I saw the impossible damage the beast had already taken from multiple blaster rounds. For all intents and purposes, the creature should be dead. There was no way with the amount of blood it had already lost it should be on its feet.
There were entire sections of the creature that were missing. Its skin was charred, and smoke drifted from its many wounds. The stench of its ruined skin touched my nose and reminded me of burning garbage.
I saw all of this in the space of a few seconds. Then time sped up.
4
Just stay in the crawler, a voice in the back of my mind itched. Stay in the crawler. You’ll die a hero. You’ll save all these people and you’ll get what you want. You’ll get to be with Natalie and your baby. Just stay in the crawler.
I had to make the decision now. My time was up. If I stayed in the driver’s seat of the crawler—now traveling seventy miles per hour—I might die in the collision. Or I could bail out and take my chances rolling on the ground.
Both options sucked, but jumping out instead of going head to head with the beast seemed like the better choice. The Dean I had been on Earth would have stayed in the crawler. The Dean today couldn’t. The reasons piled one on top of each other. There were too many people that needed me. Natalie wouldn’t approve, and heck, what if I survived the collision but got seriously hurt in the process?
I bailed.
Jumping from a moving vehicle traveling that quickly wasn’t exactly something I practiced in a day-to-day setting. I threw myself as far away from the open crawler door as I could. When I hit the ground, I rolled with the momentum. The air rushed out of my lungs when I struck the ground. Multiple bruises and scratches covered my face and exposed hands and arms.
The beast struck the crawler head-on with a sickening crunch. It sounded like a giant sledgehammer hitting a piece of raw meat.
When I stopped rolling, I got a chance to look behind me. The crawler was still in one piece, its front frame bent inward and smoking. Sparks shot out from underneath the hood.
The dazed alien creature stumbled backward before falling to the ground and writhing in some kind of serious pain. Stacy appeared by the creature a moment later, a cross between empathy and wrath in her eyes.
She unloaded on its one good eye. Gore and brain matter flew up in every direction. Stacy stood so close, some got on her shirt and pants. It didn’t seem to bother her.
As if a spell had fallen over the yard, everyone remained still. I think our brains were still trying to process what we had seen.
I was torn away from the grasp of the moment as Mutt bounded up to me. He stuck his snout in my face, sniffing me all over as if he were searching me for any serious wounds.
“I’m good.” I placed a hand on his face and gave him a scratch and then a playful push. “Don’t put that thing in my face. I’ve seen what you do with it.”
Mutt’s tail wagged, then he looked like he was about to nuzzle me again. Instead, he lifted his head to the air, taking in a big sniff. Worry crossed his face. The dog ran from his position next to me toward the broken gates, barking like a hellhound.
I knew Mutt well enough now to tell when something was seriously wrong. This wasn’t his happy bark or the one he used when he wanted me to scratch his belly. This one was laced with aggression.
“There!” one of the suits on the catwalk shouted. “In the tree line. There are hundreds of them!”
I struggled to my feet. More shouting ripped through the courtyard as if we were all woken from the spell by Mutt’s barking.
“Are you okay, Dean?” Elon asked, making it to my side and pulling me to my feet.
“I think ‘okay’ is a stretch, but I’ll live,” I said, dusting myself off.
“You’re bleeding,” he said, looking down to a long cut on the palm of my right hand. I’d used my hands to soften the fall and, as a result, paid the price.
“I’m fine,” I told the concerned Eternal. “It’s a long way from my heart.”
Elon looked confused at first. Apparently, that wasn’t a saying where he came from.
Instead of trying to explain it to him, I turned and made my way over to the gate with everyone else. Boss Creed, Ricky, Arun, Stacy, and others were already there.
“This can’t be good,” I said under my breath as I joined them.
I was right.
The suit on the wall was the first to notice people coming out from the tree line to the north. I shaded my eyes from the suns overhead and squinted.
There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands. All survivors from the crash. Unlike the survivors inside of our own walls, these people were already taken by Legion. Their eyes stared without seeing. The blackness dripped from their mouths and ears.
“What are they doing?” Ricky wondered. “What are they waiting for?”
“Orders?” someone asked from atop the catwalk.
“Don’t shoot,” Stacy said.
I agreed with her decision; not only was the group too far away, but there were a lot of them. If they charged our open gates right now, we might be overrun.
“What do you say about getting inside and fixing this gate?” I asked everyone around me.
“I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Arun said, turning to address the crowd gathering at the gate. “Everyone, we need to keep you inside. Our mechanics will fix the gate.”
“But those are our people,” someone in the throng shouted.
“They need help,” someone else said.
“They’re infected,” Elon said, raising his voice in a very unlike Elon way. Usually, he left the directing and orders to his sister.
I could see why. Arun looked tired again. The mask of leadership she wore on her brow could fool most, but I knew her better.
“We deserve to know everything you know,” a strong voice called out from the crowd. “We have that right, you know.”
I looked over to see the same large man who I’d run across in the cafeteria when Captain Harold asked for volunteers. His size and girth struck me again. He couldn’t be more than six feet tall, but he was built like a refrigerator. A gleam in his eyes told me he knew how to use his weight to his advantage.
Shouts of agreement from the crowd egged him on.
“You’ve been keeping information from us and we need to know everything,” he said again. “We have rights, too!”
More cheers and yells of affirmation erupted from the group.
“Officer John Bower, that’s enough,” Stacy co
mmanded, stepping toward the much larger man. “There’s a time and place for this. Right now is not it.”
“If not now, when?” John asked, not to be outdone. “Our leadership is keeping us in the dark.”
“Not your leadership,” Arun said, stepping forward. “Me. I made the decision to hold back information until we knew more. To protect our people.”
“Our people?” John asked. “You’re an Eternal. I have no problem with that. If I did, I would have never come on this journey to begin with. What I do have a problem with is you deciding we need protection. We don’t; more than that, we need the truth.”
“Enough!” Stacy yelled, getting into John’s face. “Officer Bower, stand down.”
John ran a thick tongue over his wide teeth. For a moment, he looked down at Stacy as if he was going to throw his blaster to the ground and resign right there and then. Instead, he shook his head and took a step back.
“You know everything we know now,” Arun said. “If you have questions, so do we. We’re trying to figure out exactly how to combat this virus. The alien species we discovered on the planet is helping us with that now.”
A stunned silence fell on the group. They hadn’t had the time to properly digest the fact that aliens were real.
“How many aliens are there?” someone asked, their voice in awe.
“One woke from a kind of cryogenic sleep and there are others still sleeping,” Arun answered. “He is working with us and friendly to our cause.”
“What do they look like?” another voice asked.
“Can we see them?” still someone else asked.
The questions poured out like a dam long overdue to burst.
I still hadn’t forgotten about the horde of infected staring at us from the jungle tree line. When I turned back to look, they were gone. The logical part of my mind told me they pulled back into the jungle, but it felt off and I wondered how they’d disappeared so quickly and silently.
Arun noticed the same thing. She ushered people further inside, along with Elon and Stacy’s help. They moved them away from the gate and began answering all of their questions.