The Blood Will Dry

by Mary, Kate L.

  I kept my eyes straight ahead, focusing on where I put my feet in hopes that it would help drown out the buzzing at my back. Daisy reached the door first and ripped it open. Her gaze darted past me just before she ran in, and her eyes grew even wider than they’d been before. I was right behind her, panting and desperate to get inside, and I told myself not to look. I told myself to get into the building and focus on helping people evacuate. Only, I couldn’t stop my gaze from moving in the same direction that Daisy’s just had.

  The street we’d just fled was alive with movement. Even the areas that looked like nothing more than vine-covered buildings seemed to move. The aliens had been around long enough for me to know that they were there, blending in so they were nearly imperceptible to the human eye. But the number of aliens I couldn’t see didn’t matter at the moment, not when there were so many brave enough to be out in the open the way they were now. They were everywhere, their shiny, black exoskeletons standing out against the greenery that had taken over the city, their wings flapping faster than I’d ever seen. Their claws clicked as they scurried across the ground and up the sides of buildings, moving so fast that it reminded me of the bugs that had long ago been killed off by the invasive new species.

  “Diana!” Daisy screamed, drawing my attention away from the creatures.

  She waved for me to come inside and I did, pulling the door shut behind me. The buzz from the aliens’ wings had already reached the first floor, and people were either rushing around as they prepared for the inevitable invasion or standing frozen in place, scared or shocked or a little of both.

  “What’s going on?” Anderson seemed to materialize out of the crowd.

  “They’re everywhere,” Daisy said.

  “How many?”

  I swallowed. “Too many.”

  Anderson nodded and turned away. The crowd had now reached a point of chaos, and it swallowed him up in seconds. I didn’t need to see where he’d gone to know what he was doing, though. He was headed to the second floor so he could get the families out. Only, I didn’t think it would matter. If the street in front of us was crawling with the creatures, the one behind us would probably be just as bad.

  “Maybe we’d be better off staying inside,” I said to Daisy.

  We were still standing in the lobby as people ran past us, yelling orders or questions, or even sobbing. I didn’t know where to go or what to do, but I knew this chaos wasn’t going to help anyone survive. We weren’t prepared. We’d gotten too complacent, even after the current skirmish, and now we were sitting ducks.

  Not that it mattered. We already knew our weapons were worthless against these things. So what if we put up a fight? What did it matter? We’d fire guns that didn’t make a dent and the aliens would rip us to shreds with their claws or, if Bryan’s theory was correct, grab us and drag us back to their hive. I shivered when my brain conjured up the images I’d created of what the inside of the hive looked like. The bodies attached to the wall, their mouths agape and red vines that looked nothing like the candies I used to crave as a child protruding from their mouths. I didn’t know if their eyes were open or closed, but in my head they were wide and blank, yet somehow exuded the sense of terror these people had felt. Their fingers were curled into claws that proved they had put up a fight even though they’d known it was hopeless.

  As hopeless as the fight we were facing now.

  I needed to find Bryan.

  I turned and shoved my way through the crowd.

  “Diana?” Daisy called after me.

  “Come on!”

  I heard her swear as she hurried after me.

  People were going nuts and the buzzing from the street seemed to have reached a crescendo. It penetrated the walls, making it seem like the building was humming with it. I didn’t know if it was all in my head, if my ears were still buzzing from when Daisy and I were outside, or if those things were on the building now. I could almost picture it, their shiny black bodies covering all four sides of the building, their wings flapping as fast as hummingbirds’ as they formulated their plan. Soon they would dig their way through the vines that had grown up the walls and break through the boards we’d put over the windows. They’d crawl in and attack, and the world around us would transform into a whirl of blood and screams and hums.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  I reached the edge of the crowd and burst through, ending up in front of the strategy room. Anderson was there, which I hadn’t expected. I’d thought he would be on the second floor preparing the evacuation, but maybe he’d come to the same conclusion I had. Maybe he’d realized that there was nowhere to go.

  “What’s the plan?” I gasped as I came to a stop in front of him.

  The men and women from the two platoons were gathered around, many of them still looking a little worse for wear thanks to their last confrontation with the aliens. I spied Bryan on the other side of the table with Tyler at his side. I was shocked to see the big man up, but he looked surprisingly hardy for someone who had been coughing up blood only a few days ago. Alex was in the crowd as well, so I could only assume that every able bodied person in the infirmary had come running when the buzzing started. The lanterns hanging around the room only cast dim beams of light across the people gathered around, but it was enough to illuminate the expressions of determination each person wore.

  “Are you evacuating?” Daisy asked.

  Anderson looked up from his blueprint of the street. “It’s too dangerous. Those bugs are everywhere.”

  So he’d reached the same conclusion I had.

  “What then?” Bryan asked.

  I noticed he was on the move, his eyes on Anderson as he slinked his way through the crowd of people stuffed into the room. It wasn’t until I bumped into Daisy that I realized I was moving too. She shot me a look, but I didn’t care. I felt like I needed to be close to Bryan right now. Why, I couldn’t say, but I did.

  When he reached my side he didn’t even look at me. He stopped with his arm touching mine and we stood like that, side by side while Anderson explained that he’d sequestered the families on the second floor. What that would do I didn’t know, but it had to be better than sending them out to be slaughtered.

  “What do we do?” someone asked.

  Anderson’s expression was grave when he looked us over. “We have to fight.”

  “Bullets don’t do shit and you know it,” Daisy said.

  The sergeant nodded in response. “We have to try anyway. We have a cache of Kevlar vests, so the first thing I suggest we do is get them on and pray they stop the bastards’ claws.”

  “And then?” Bryan asked, and I swear he moved a quarter of an inch closer to me.

  “We need to draw them away from the building.” Anderson dragged his gaze across the room, studying those of us crowded around. “You know what that could mean, so I’m not going to pretend it isn’t true.”

  “Suicide,” Alex muttered.

  “A sacrifice,” I corrected him.

  He pressed his lips together, but nodded once like he knew I was right even though he wasn’t wrong.

  The walls around us shook and I reached out to steady myself by grabbing Bryan’s arm. It felt like an earthquake, except the ground didn’t shake, just the building. The buzz seemed to grow louder, penetrating the brick that surrounded us. We didn’t have much time. If we didn’t move soon the aliens would bust through the walls and rip everyone to shreds.

  “What do we do once we’re out?” I asked.

  Anderson turned and nodded to a couple guys from Bryan’s group, and a second later two boxes were on the table in front of us. Grenades. Dozens of them. They had to be all we had left and even though the thought of using them all scared the shit out of me, I knew it was our only chance.

  “Suit up and load up,” Anderson said as the walls vibrated again.

  His gaze moved to the ceiling like he expected the roof to be torn away. He wasn’t alone.

  The Kevlar vests were
passed around and somehow Bryan and I ended up with a couple. I slipped mine on and he helped me secure it, his eyes holding mine as the room around us buzzed with chatter and the vibrations from the aliens’ wings. His expression swam with regret, and I knew how he felt. We were about to leave this building and head off to certain doom, and for the first time in five years I was actually terrified of the idea.

  “You stay by my side out there,” he said as he slipped his own vest on.

  I helped him secure it, pulling the Velcro tight enough that I was surprised it didn’t cut off his air supply. “Funny, I was going to tell you the same thing.”

  He smiled. “You know you’re a smart ass, right?”

  “It’s my favorite form of armor.”

  Tyler stopped at our sides, a box of grenades in his hands. Bryan took two without saying anything and I watched with a slight quiver in my belly as he attached them to my belt. He did the same to himself, and then, almost as an afterthought, attached two more to me.

  Daisy was just as decked out as I was when she stopped next to me, and the pain inside me intensified when I thought about her going out there. She seemed to be unable to hold still as she ran her fingers through her blond hair, pulling it back so it was tied into a knot on the top of her head. A few tendrils fell down around her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her gaze bounced around the room as if trying to take in everything at once. The people around her, the weapons and grenades, the now quivering walls.

  We were running out of time.

  “Okay, people!” Anderson’s voice rose above the chatter and noise in the room. “Let’s do our best to draw these bugs away from the building.” His gaze swept across us and my stomach buzzed like the wings of the aliens’ currently trying to break through the walls. “Remember, we don’t want to set off any grenades too close to the building, so when you get out there you need to run. Also, make sure you know who’s around you before you toss one.”

  I shivered at the implication and my own gaze traced the faces of the people around me. The energy in the room hummed with fear and trepidation, and the grenades attached to everyone’s belts seemed to scream at me. I just hoped people could hold onto a level head once we got out there or it was going to be chaos.

  “Let’s head out,” Anderson called as he led the charge to the door.

  Bryan’s fingers wrapped around my wrist like he was trying to hold me in place, and I found myself wanting to do the same thing with Daisy. That’s when it hit me that everyone who was currently headed to the door was doing the same thing, putting their own lives on the line in order to protect others. What did it say about us as a whole if we were more concerned about others than ourselves? Did it make us more or less vulnerable?

  The people at the front of the group began to pour out onto the street and within seconds the sound of buzzing had been replaced by the pop of gunfire. I checked my own weapon over as we got closer, which meant prying my arm from Bryan’s grasp. He looked stricken by the knowledge that we were no longer touching, but he took the chance to check his own weapon. At my other side Daisy was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, her fingers wrapped so tightly around her gun that her knuckles had turned white. I almost told her to relax, but then I realized that my grip was just as tight, and instead focused on breathing in hopes of getting my body to relax. It was the most futile thing I’d ever done.

  The crowd in front of us slowed as we neared the door and people began to squeeze their way out. I could now see into the street, could witness the chaos that was already underway. Men and women were firing up at the buildings and down the street as they ran, their shouts ringing out nearly as loudly as the buzz of the aliens’ wings. I watched in horror as one of the creatures pounced, its front legs outstretched and claws ready. It landed on a man I didn’t know and swept its legs forward just as it made contact. The claws pierced the man’s sides, cutting through the Kevlar vest like it was no thicker than paper, and he let out a scream. He still had his gun, and a spray of bullets pinged against the pavement, barely missing a couple other soldiers, before falling from his grasp. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t struggling against the alien’s hold either. The creature didn’t dig the claws in deeper, didn’t open its jaws and move to bite the man’s head off like I’d seen happen before. Instead, it turned and took off down the street, the man still held in its grasp.

  Bryan had been right.

  Daisy was in front of me when I burst outside, and Bryan was at my back. My weapon was already up, but I didn’t fire. There were too many people around and I was terrified that I’d accidentally hit one of them. Plus, I wanted to save my bullets.

  “This way!” Daisy yelled as she took off across the street.

  I followed her, jumping over vines in the process. There hadn’t been enough ponchos to go around, and as a result the light drizzle that fell from the sky had my hair and clothes dripping before I’d even cleared the building. I looked over my shoulder only to find dozens of aliens crawling all over the walls. Even as I watched they were descending. Dropping to the street, drawn away by the promise of people they didn’t have to break through walls to get at. Our diversion was working, so I turned back to face the front and ran faster, firing here and there when I had a clear shot. I actually heard one of my bullets ping off the exoskeleton of the closest alien, and I told myself that if our weapons had any real effect on them it would have been a kill shot. The thought was less comforting than I’d hoped it would be.

  Daisy reached the other side of the street and darted down an alley. Through the light rain I spotted someone in front of us, only fifteen feet away, but he was the only other person in sight. The people who’d fled the building had fanned out, run in every possible direction in hopes that the chaos would confuse or distract the aliens. So far, it seemed to be working.

  At my back Bryan’s heavy breathing let me know he was right behind me, but I still had the urge to look over my shoulder and check on him. I didn’t though, but instead kept my focus on the street in front of me, on traversing the debris left over from before the invasion and the vines that had grown over our old world. There were twice as many now as there had been only a few days ago, and that combined with the continuous rain made the road treacherous, especially traveling at such a fast pace.

  Daisy was only four feet in front of me when a bug dropped to the ground, cutting off the man in front of her. He screamed and I watched in horror as he pulled a grenade. The pin was out in seconds and he was tossing it forward. It hit the ground with a ping and rolled a few inches before coming to stop next to a vine. The man turned as if to run, but the creature’s claws pierced his torso before he could take two steps. His whole body arched and a scream ripped its way out of him, but I was too focused on the grenade to see what happened next.

  Daisy had already turned back, and her eyes were wide as she waved for us to do the same. “Run!”

  I spun around but had only taken one step when the explosion ripped through the alley. It sent me flying, heat singeing my back as debris pinged into me and pierced my skin. I landed on my stomach with a thud that knocked the air out of my lungs and scraped up my elbows.

  My ears were ringing when I rolled onto my back. I was gasping for air, but at first all I got was rainwater. The Kevlar vest made the tightness in my chest more intense and it took a few tries before I was finally able to fill my lungs. The air was gritty with smoke and dirt, and it burned my throat on the way down, but at least I didn’t feel like I was suffocating anymore.

  Above me the gray clouds seemed thicker than ever before, and the ringing in my ears was loud and persistent, so I closed my eyes and inhaled a few more times, hoping to ease the sound. Rain pinged against my face and the ringing in my ears continued. When I opened my eyes again I found the clouds closer and thicker. Heat bit at my calf and I suddenly realized that the clouds weren’t clouds at all, but smoke. My pant leg was on fire.

  Bryan was at my side before I could make myse
lf sit up. He beat at the flames that now threatened to swallow me whole, and between that and the rain he managed to staunch the flames. A second later a ripping sound slashed through the ringing in my ears as Bryan sliced his knife up the singed fabric and cut the leg of my pants away.

  He tossed it aside before turning back to me. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded even though my head pounded so hard I wasn’t sure if it was the sound of a million aliens’ footfalls or a result of the blast. “I think so.”

  The alley was thick with smoke and the explosion had chipped away at the vines climbing the walls around us. There was also a spray of red and black along the ground that I knew had once been the man and the alien, both of them now nothing more than a splatter.

  But the rest of the alley was empty.

  “Daisy?” I did my best to ignore the throbbing in my leg as I climbed to my feet. Rubble dotted the ground but my friend was nowhere in sight. I spun to face Bryan. “Where is she?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. She was right here when the grenade went off.”

  When he pressed his lips together I knew what he was doing. He was trying to stop the words from coming out. Trying to stop from telling me that those alien bastards had gotten her.

  “Shit,” I said, but it didn’t even come close to conveying the pain that ripped through me at that moment. I wanted to kick the wall at my side, or maybe even punch it. I wanted to spit on the remains of the alien at the end of the alley, to gun them all down and dance on their bodies. I wanted to rip my hair out and scream.

  There was a buzz from somewhere over our heads and Bryan grabbed my elbow. “We have to keep moving.”

  I knew he was right. In the alley we ran the risk of getting cornered and ending up like the man who’d blown himself up. Or like Daisy: gone. Both sounded horrible to me.