by Phil Maxey
Reaching into his pack, he pulled out a small notebook. It wasn’t as fancy as Dr. Joshi’s, but it still enabled him to keep a diary of what had happened, including rough drawings of some of the creatures they had encountered. Who knows maybe one day he could also be a scientist, like Raj.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Raj sat back in the crumpled Humvee. He felt his face. The area around his noise felt warm and sticky, and a burning sensation was starting to take hold. The soldier in the front was only partially in his driving position, being that his helmeted head was lodged within the glass of the windscreen. For a moment only ringing and a distant muffled drone was all that Raj could hear, and then in a flash all the sounds of the battle ranging around him rushed in.
They had started their journey leaving by the south gate with confidence. They had two battle tanks, lots of troops and even an attack helicopter. They even had a rudimentary system to take advantage of Raj’s sonic device. But it wasn’t long while traveling through the heavily built up cities on the west coast, in southern Oregon that they started to be attacked with an intensity that even Raj, traveling the arduous route to the camp he had just traveled found hard to believe.
Tinley had transferred himself to a battle tank after the first attack, deeming the Humvee, not ‘appropriate’ for him.
The initial thrust by multiple E.L.F’s happened around the city of Eugene, roughly fifty miles south of the Portland camp. They had lost around one hundred people in that attack, but within a day Raj stopped counting the losses in terns of individual people, and instead just recorded it as numbers of vehicles lost. A coach equaled roughly forty people, a bus similar, a motor home around twelve and so on.
Raj resented Tinley more now, than even that first morning. There was a kind of insidiousness about the Colonel. He was nowhere to be seen when the shit hit the fan, but was quick to take credit for anything that went right. Raj felt like he was strapped to the front of a rocket that was heading full tilt into the sun, and there wasn’t much he could do to stop it. He had tried a few times to tell Tinley that they should split the convoy up into smaller parts, and that it’s size is making it an easy target, but Tinley would just act as if he did not hear the request.
By time they reached the mountains of northern California, they had lost twenty-one vehicles, or eight hundred and forty men, women and children, reducing their cargo to around seventeen thousand people. Raj was resigned to the fact that most of them would not make it to Bravo. If only he could get a message to General Trow, or even Zach. Tinley needed to be relieved of command if these people had any hope of survival.
“Dr. Joshi! You need to come with me,” said the soldier with blood trickling down his cheek, and his helmet sitting at an ungainly angle.
Raj’s hand instinctively reached down and unbuckled the seat belt. He went to move and instantly winced as a pain shot through his shoulder.
The soldier looked concerned. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know, I think I’m okay, just my shoulders bruised,” Raj rotated, resisting the pain and placed his feet down on the smooth white ground outside the wall of the store they had just driven into. Luckily the six-foot high mound of snow along the wall had softened the impact, otherwise Raj was sure he would be dead, like his driver.
They were in a small town, and the decision had been made to investigate this area to gather more supplies before heading deeper into the wilderness. The main convoy was still on the highway, which curved around the town to the south. Raj now regretted asking to go on this resupply mission.
“I need to get you into the APC. Tinley will have my ass if anything happens to you.”
“It’s okay Captain, I’m not dead yet.”
The automatic fire had died down, and whatever had attacked them had retreated back into the snow-covered forests.
Raj stood uneasily, and looked back one last time at the soldier he had spent a number of hours chatting too. “I’m sorry about your man, he…” Raj wasn’t sure what to say, he hardly knew the man, but felt that he should say something positive. “He was a good driver,” inside he cringed at the insufficient accolade, but his mind was still trying to absorb what had just happened.
As his vehicle, and three more, including an army truck entered the small picturesque town all seemed quiet. But just as they were slowing to find buildings to politely ransack, creatures emerged. Raj had not seen these types of E.L.F before, six-legged and each the size of a large car. Initially he thought they were normal bears, larger than a grizzly but still bears, and then within the fraction of a second that he realized they couldn’t be, he spotted the extra limbs. They jumped down from the roofs, slamming into the vehicles. His driver, accelerated, but one landed directly in front of them, and he turned to avoid the collision sending them into the building. While he was unconscious soldiers piled out of the APC, and took down the three creatures that had attacked them.
As the Captain half dragged him towards the APC, looking anxiously at the roofs around them, Raj stopped, looking at the fallen carcass of the bear looking E.L.F.
“Wait, I need to do something.”
Walking across to the mound of warm, fur and teeth, he took out a vial from his backpack, and a syringe and plunged the needle into what looked like a soft area of tissue, extracting deep red blood.
“Quickly, doctor,” the Captain’s anxiety took form in white mist from his mouth.
Raj placed the sample and syringe away and climbed into the APC.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The ride through the forested areas took longer than Fiona predicted, but was surprisingly uneventful. A few times, there had been movement in the high pines around them, but nothing that made them alter their course. Soon the forests and peaks were behind them and flat white plains stretched out for as far as the eye could see.
“I wonder what they grew here,” Abbey looked sad watching the barren square patches of forgotten farmland pass by.
“Potatoes, onions, sweet corn and similar,” said Jacob.
“You know a lot for a small town sheriff,” replied Abbey, her words sounding more inquisitorial than intended.
Jacob smiled, even though he was sitting behind Abbey and she wouldn’t have seen. “Not a lot of crime in a small town, so I got the chance to read a lot.”
Irene walked carefully up the central aisle of the bus, trying not to clip anyone’s feet, until she got to the silent seats. She then bent over slightly, and held her hand out. Faith looked up from the blanket that covered her head and her daughter who was sleeping stretched out with her feet up against the side of the bus.
Irene waved the candy bar. “I thought you could do with this.”
Faith cautiously took the bar. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, I’m Irene. I hear that you have a little one, called Gracie?”
Faith went to nod, not being sure if Irene was completely blind or not, then stopped. “Yes, she’s sleeping.”
“I know, I can hear her breathing, shallow and regular.”
Irene sat down on the seat opposite. “There are a few kids her age on the bus, Mary and I, look after them. It’s not been easy, but as you can see, and hear they are doing okay.”
Faith looked down the bus at the kids playing games. One was leaning over the back of his seat and playing with the nose of a large man, who was sleeping. The man’s head propped up by a prosthetic hand. Every now and again, his other hand would flap across his face as if trying to swap a fly away in his dreams. A blond haired man sitting next to him was egging the young boy on. They seemed good people, but she couldn’t be sure, not after what happened.
Irene got to her feet. “Okay well, if you need anything, just let me or Mary know.”
Again Faith went to nod and stopped herself. “I will, thank you.”
Irene started to move off down the aisle when Faith spoke again. “If you don’t mind me asking, have you always been blind, or were you injured during the Cascade?”
Zach glanced at the Map. “We are just past the halfway point.”
It was coming up to 2 pm and they still had three hours of daylight left. Progress was good now they were on wider roads, although they had to zigzag around abandoned vehicles more often. In one town they drove through, hundreds of wooden crates lay scattered for over a mile across the road, causing them to slow to a crawl as they drove over or around them. In another, a graffiti covered freight train sat motionless next to the road. Eventually small walls grew up around their route, and they were on a traditional highway, which passed through the outskirts of a city. Every few hundred yards, once proud tall neon advertising boards, leaned at awkward angles. These were almost as frequent as the snow covered semi trucks, glinting in the afternoon sun. Since they had entered Idaho, there seemed to be more of these types of vehicles than any other. Each time they drove by one, Abbey caught Zach paying more attention to it than the countless cars they had passed.
At one point the highway opened up to six lanes just in the direction they were traveling, but the freedom to drive was curtailed by the number of cars and trucks they had to weave around. Equally difficult for Zach was resisting the temptation to drive down one of the off ramps and explore the multitude of superstores and warehouses, which lined their route. But he knew that E.L.F’s loved civilization, so they had to stay away from them.
After a short time the landscape returned to its white-beige complexion.
“Driving through those towns and cities, it almost felt like life hadn’t changed there,” said Zach to no particular person in the cab. As he finished vocalizing he realized that everyone could be asleep, but Fiona responded.
“Yeah, it’s strange, not much destruction in these areas. I don’t think I’ve seen one E.L.F since, those flying creatures in the small town.”
Cal stirred in his sleep, Jacob and Abbey lay still.
As the sun threatened to move unwelcomingly low on the horizon, hills and peaks once again grew close to the highway. At one point the highway rose to give a view of a river a few miles to their north. There was lots of movement from the twinkling blue water and on its banks, but it was so far off Zach couldn’t make out any details. He was the only person that saw them in the Humvee, everyone else was asleep. As the miles melted away he found himself seeing Tinley in his old family home, standing over the bodies of his… Stop. He drew his hand over his face, which was clammy, stopping before it touched the area around his eye. He couldn’t think about those things, if he allowed himself to fall into that, he would be no good for those that depended on him.
Soon the sun hovered over the horizon and the shadows grew long. Zach clicked on his radio. “This is Captain Felton from Bravo Camp, we are coming from the Portland Camp with survivors, is there anyone out there. Over.”
A green exit sign pointed to the right, and Zach took the off ramp to head south into the town of Helier. After a few more miles, Abbey started waking up. To their right, and all around them the ground fell away into an impressive canyon with a river at the bottom. Luckily the lanes going into the town were reasonably free of obstruction, for the exiting lanes were full of vehicles, some hanging precariously off the side of the bridge they were now all passing over. Zach and Abbey looked at the holes in the bridge walls and it wasn’t hard to imagine the panic there must have been when the people of this city made a mad dash across the bridge to escape whatever variety of creature decided to attack them. Abbey looked away, nor did she want to know what resided in the depths below them.
The gloom now overtook the light, and Zach stopped the convoy at a junction with bent traffic light poles, to look at the old map he was given from General Trow.
He clicked on his flashlight, pointing it down at the crumpled pages, when his radio came to life.
“This is Caroline Decker of the southern Idaho outpost, what’s your location Captain. Over.”
Zach quickly clicked on his radio. “We have just come over the bridge from the north, and we are at the first junction. Over.”
“Keep heading south, for a few miles, I’ll meet you at the junction where there’s a sign for Millie’s hotel. Over.”
The convoy pulled off, and drove a short distance through what must have been a thriving business and shopping area but was now cold, broken and deserted. Most of the vertical poles, whether they where for phones or electricity supply where now lying along the powder white ground. Vehicles, some with their roofs flattened, sat at angles at odds with the direction of the road and dark stains and streaks lay scattered over the sidewalks.
Zach pulled up in front of a modern white pickup with more than a few dents in its paneling. A medium height dark haired woman, in her early forties sat in the driver’s seat. Her voice once again came from Zach’s radio.
“Nice to meet you Captain, we need to get back to the outpost, follow me. Over.”
She backed the pickup up a few yards, then turned in a tight arch driving down the road that was originally behind her. The convoy followed. After a distance of a few hundred yards, they drove past an impressive two story building, with a domed roof and hardly any windows. The pickup took a left and they drove along a flat park area with the occasional tree, until she slowed near where the sidewalk widened and headed for the building’s entrance. She then drove up the curb, over the patchy snow covered grass and stopped just outside a semi-circle of impressive pillars. A wooden sign with a corner missing, sat on the grass a few yards in front of the boarded up entrance.
“Helier Science Museum.”
Caroline got out, taking a backpack and shotgun with her. Zach got out and walked up to her with his hand out. She briefly shook it.
“We need to get everyone inside as quickly as possible, we have maybe eight minutes of light left.”
Zach nodded, then waved everyone to get out of their vehicles. “Do you have supplies? We have a good amount with us.”
Caroline looked anxiously at the deep orange and mauves of the sky around her, her cheeks looking flushed. “We don’t have time, just grab light things, we can come back for the rest in the morning.”
Abbey looked up at the stone clad mausoleum of a building. The light brickwork had pot marks and scrapes, but looked as secure as any place they had stayed in.
Caroline waved her arm. “Quickly now, everyone inside,” her radio cracked, and she held it to her ear. “Yes, we’re coming in now. Over,” she ran up to the large wooden boards covering the entrance doors, and they opened without her pulling on them. In the gloom beyond a bearded man with glasses could be seen.
Everyone filed off the vehicles and joined Caroline at the doors, then followed her inside. Once everyone was inside the bearded man pushed the large door closed, and then with some difficulty placed a large wooden beam across it. Makeshift metal clasps dyed black through welding held the beam in place. He then picked up a large candle and lit it.
The bearded man then walked up to Caroline. “See any of them out there?”
“No.”
“Hmm, strange.”
Everyone, including Zach, Abbey, Fiona and Cal who were at the head of the small crowd, waited to be led.
Caroline held her arms up and addressed everyone in a manner of a teacher. “Everyone, please follow me.”
Abbey looked up at the high ceiling and at the walls with elaborate murals on.
Passing openings with held treasures, Caroline and the bearded man took them swiftly through galleries of ancient objects, until finally they reached a door with the words “Staff only.” Above it.
“Are we all here?” said Caroline, trying to see if anyone was still left behind in the encroaching darkness of the rooms.
Megan stood looking up at the monolithic monster. It’s tusks rising above her like the buildings her mother loved when they traveled through a busy city on the east coast. This monster wasn’t like
the others though, this one had no skin or muscle and was rooted to its artificial home. She took a step forward to try to touch it’s glossy stone like bones when her mothers call rang out from behind her.
“Megan! Megan, Stop hiding! Come out right now!”
Turning she emerged from the shadow, and was grabbed by Hanna. The rest of the group watched briefly then looked back to Caroline.
“Oh, that’s Ivan, don’t mind him. Okay we are all here, we will now descend into the basement,” she then pushed on the door and opened it wide, standing back to allow the bearded man to lead everyone down a gray dark concrete staircase. When the last person has passed her, she took one more look into the silent solemn creatures of the natural history galleries and closed the door.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
As Caroline led them down a gray corridor with a string of Christmas lights providing illumination, Abbey couldn’t help but feel she was in a bunker of some sort. Eventually, the corridor ended in a door, which Caroline opened to reveal a large room. The basement of the museum had a low ceiling but was impressive in its size. It appeared to cover most of the area above, and was now home to a small group of people.
Various pieces of furniture were arranged into living areas, and a few other doors resided along the walls. A woman in her thirties with curly blonde hair, sat reading on a red sofa, while an older man, with a large cream knitted cardigan sat behind a desk. Both of their heads rose as the new group shuffled into the space.
The older man and woman, stood up, joining the bearded man and Caroline standing in front of everyone.
“The man with the candle is Corey,” said Caroline.
Corey pushed his glasses up on his nose and briefly smiled and raised his hand.
