by Maxey, Phil
“How’s the leg holding up? I apologize for dragging you out on this little ride with me, but I thought you would appreciate getting out from the Core for a while.”
“You weren’t wrong about that, I do appreciate it,” he then turned to face Zach. “I just want to say thank you for giving me this chance. On the way back from Atlanta, all I could think was that I’m going to lose my leg and I won’t be of any use to anyone anymore,” he stepped back with one hand on his walking stick and smiled. “But here I am with two legs still in my combat fatigues, being useful.”
Zach smiled. “I would have enlisted your help even if you only had one leg,” he then looked back out into the building gloom towards the north with a high-powered scope. “Still nothing. They’re out there I’m sure of it. We should increase the patrols on the walls.”
“Already sent the order out this morning.”
Zach glanced at the sergeant and smiled, he then turned and looked back into the camp. Just a mile away the large metal plated roofs and chimneys of the camps industrial area stood out as the setting sun gave them all tinges of pink. Amongst the football field sized buildings new structures were taking shape. “Those new walls and emplacements can’t be up soon enough, at least they completed the bunkers some time ago.”
“We’re diverting as much as we can from residential building sites around the camp. We got the materials and manpower isn’t a problem, it’s just if we run out of time or not before they arrive.”
As they were both looking south, two dots grew in the sky in front of them and quickly became recognizable as Apache helicopters. The repeating sound of their rotors grew louder until the two aircraft roared overhead heading out to patrol behind the walls.
They both watched them disappear into the coming night.
*****
“Joining us tonight is Brigadier General Zachariah Felton, the new head of the military of camp Bravo. Thank you for coming tonight.”
Zach sat under the harsh lights on a stone colored sofa. Facing him from across a desk was a shiny looking woman that looked like she wanted to sell him a house.
“Brigadier General Felton if I could start with, what made you want to come on my show tonight and talk to the citizens of the camp?”
“Well, first let me say thank you for inviting me Eleanor. I was something of a fan of yours before the Cascade, many years ago, and I’m glad you were able to make it out of the Portland camp and could find a place here.”
The golden haired woman blinked without responding.
“But to get to your point. There have been a lot of changes recently that have impacted on a lot of peoples lives, and I felt it important that I come here tonight to try and put people’s mind at ease.”
“You’re referring to the horrible incident at Coral?“
“That, the recent aerial attack and the E.L.F attack which did so much damage on our infrastructure.”
“But about the attack at Coral. Five of our most distinguished citizens, men and women that went bravely to meet with a delegation from the group calling themselves the ‘Hell Fire’ gang, were killed even though the military was meant to be protecting them, is that correct?”
“I wasn’t in charge of that mission. In fact—”
“But you where there correct?”
“Yes, I was there, but—”
“And you were the most senior military officer at the location, correct?”
“Yes, but that’s what I’m trying to say, we, the military were there to try and protect the councilors—”
Eleanor Hart looked at the camera. “Well obviously you failed in your duty!”
Standing in the wings about twenty feet from the sofa and desk, Jennifer Grove cringed and shook her head. After Amanda Holland died she had felt at a loss as to what purpose she would serve in the camp. Then the host of ‘Bravo Today’ got in contact with her asking if she could get the new head of the military on the show, as their attempts to contact him had been blown off. She managed to get a meeting with the new Brigadier General and a few hours later here they were. She just hoped Zach wouldn’t fire her from her new position as head of media relations as soon as the interview finished.
“Amanda Holland fired the one person who was keeping this camp going, General Elizabeth Trow.” Zach’s words had force behind them making the small studio audience grow quiet. “The General has been reinstated and is now helping me keep everyone safe. Because that’s what we all want right?”
Jennifer watched and nodded. Good, but don’t push it too far Zach.
“Of course that’s what we want Brigadier General, but there’s—”
The studio lights faded to black, then came back up.
Eleanor looked at her producer. “Are we still on?” He gave her the thumbs up.
Zach instinctively reached into his side pocket and pulled his radio out, placing it on the sofa next to him.
“As I was saying Brigadier General, the people of this camp don’t just want to be kept safe, they expect to be able to choose who runs the camp!”
“And that is something we can address in the future, but unfortunately—”
The distant sounds of booms rang around the high ceiling of the studio space, and Zach’s radio came to life with voices. He immediately pulled his microphone off his top and got up. “We’ll have to finish this some other time.”
Eleanor looked concerned. “Err, yes of course Brigadier General, that was…”
Zach walked away while clicking on his radio and collecting Jennifer. They walked into the stairwell of the newly constructed building. “What’s going on? Over,” he said into his radio.
“Brigadier General, please return to the Core as soon as you can, there—” the young woman voice was replaced with General Trows.
“We got E.L.F’s coming at us from all sides Zach, including flying ones. Over.”
“Aren’t the Cascaders stationed at the walls, pushing them back? Over.”
“They’re telling me they are trying but something’s wrong, the creatures aren’t responding. Over.”
Zach and Jennifer came out of the building into a side alley where a Humvee was waiting. The nearby gun emplacement ten stories above them boomed out making the ground shake around them.
He turned to her. “I’m going back to the Core. You should get home. Thanks for setting this up, just bad timing.”
She nodded and started walking the short journey back to her apartment.
Zach jumped into the Humvee. “Back to the Core private, as quickly as you can.”
As the Humvee skidded around corners trying to escape the downtown area, Zach looked up at searchlights following shadows around the night sky.
Streams of neon metal from rail guns focused in on one of the dark forms knocking it out of the sky, but others descended on a gun tower. Pieces of metal and masonry fell to the ground crushing some vehicles, while people watched from lit apartment windows close by.
Zach clicked on his radio again. “They seem to be attacking the gun emplacements. Over.”
“We’re seeing the same here on the video feeds. Over.”
“Did they do that before? Over.”
“No.”
Zach lowered his radio, placing his hand to the side to balance himself as the car leaped onto the main highway back to the Core. He knew this was the gang’s doing. “Find me Dr. Joshi, I want a way to combat the influence the gang are having on the E.L.F’s.”
Trow acknowledged.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Zach looked at the large screen in the main operations hall. A plan view image showing multiple red dots jostling and moving towards black lines which represented the camp walls, was displayed.
“That’s a lot of red dots,” said Bass standing nearby with Elijah.
“We’ve dealt with that many before, we can again,” said Zach.
One of the side doors opened and Raj appeared with another older man in glasses.
“What you got for me
Raj?” said Zach as the doctor approached him.
“Okay, well as we suspected the E.L.F’s are being controlled or a better way to explain it is, imprinted with targets, which our Cascaders are having a hard time affecting.”
“I thought we had a lot more Cascaders than the gang has?” said Bass.
“Well we don’t know how many they have, but that’s not the problem. Once a Cascader links to an E.L.F the creature will then pretty much do whatever the Cascader wants it to do. Other Cascaders can influence the creature sure, but not to a greater degree than the original contactee,” he pointed to the screen. “Our Cascaders are keeping some of the creatures back, but most are simply ignoring them and attacking anyway, and worse than that they are attacking specific targets.”
Bass sighed and sat on the desk near him. “Just when we thought we got a handle on all of this.”
“And they are just gonna keep on coming. The reason we haven’t seen the gang knocking on our walls is they were probably out there scooping up as many E.L.F’s as they could find and like an asteroid, aiming them at this camp. Hell they don’t have to fire a single bullet they just gotta keep doing what they’re doing,” said Elijah.
Zach sighed with his arms folded. “Then there’s only one thing we can do. Find their Cascaders and kill them.”
A few seconds of hush past between them.
“I don’t think your woman is going to be happy about that,” said Elijah.
“That’s not your concern,” Zach then looked at the young officer at the console in front of him. “Find me Captain Bower, I want to talk to him.”
*****
Zach pushed his chair back and put his feet up on the former General’s desk. He wasn’t sure what part of the night it was. In these rooms that were once a popular cave tourist attraction it was easy to lose track of time. He leaned back and looked at an old clock on the wall. 10 pm the sharp black tin hands said, but he thought it said that an hour ago when he last looked.
The last few hours the rail guns had been running nearly continuously, shooting down an endless supply of E.L.F’s that made it over the walls. Most of the land based creatures were kept back by a combination of the guns at the walls and a multitude of Cascaders pushing themselves to their limits to hold back the mounting tide that was out there.
Luckily the dam repairs had been completed a few days before, but even with the increased power they had, enough E.L.F’s were getting through to destroy or damage some of their crucial defenses. It was death by a thousand cuts.
He looked down at sheets of paper on his desk. They contained plans and backup plans that he and the war council had come up with. Some of which he knew he was going to have to implement in the coming days and others he hoped he never would.
A knock came at his office door and Ava appeared in the gap. “I’m off home now, would you like anything before I leave?”
“No, I’m good Ava, thank you. Have a good night. Stay safe.”
She produced a faltering smile and closed the door.
His eyes felt heavy. Leaning back into the chair, the world around him started to fall away, but was replaced with the sound of rain, screams and tank shells exploding.
“Uh what?” he opened his eyes.
A third knock reverberated through the door.
“Come in.”
General Trow appeared. “Oh, you’re sleeping I’ll come back.”
Zach took his feet off the desk. “No, no. Come in, just resting my eyes.”
She walked in and pulled up a nearby chair, but instead of sitting in it, she moved around to where he was sitting and opened the bottom drawer. She then pulled out a bottle of Whiskey.
“I guess you haven’t looked in these drawers yet then,” she said holding the bottle up.
Zach laughed. “No. I did wonder what was in them. I’ll take a shot.”
She walked to where the water jug was and poured the golden liquor into two cups, handing one to Zach who immediately sipped from it.
“Good quality,” he took another small sip.
She looked down at the sheets of paper on the desk. “How are things looking?”
“Do you want the long or short answer?”
“Considering I’ve had a few mouthfuls of this stuff, probably the short.”
He smiled. “The camp has done well over the past six months, it’s built accommodation, it’s staved off attacks from the E.L.F’s and it’s even given people a semblance of their former lives. But the truth is, we relied upon gathering supplies from outside to survive. Fuel is a big one. If the E.L.F’s keep attacking and if Troy and his people do blockade us, then we’re going to have a problem.”
“How long we got?”
“A week before everyone will have to start riding bicycles. Two weeks before our food stocks fall to critical levels. And you don’t want to know what happens after a month. And that’s without any unrest within the camp.”
Trow looked down while taking a sip of her drink. “I guess some of that is on me. I thought we should do things the old way, with a civilian authority taking the helm.”
“I know you did you’re best. How’s your grandson, Anthony was his name?”
“He’s doing well, I’ve been home schooling him. He’s with some neighbors while I’m here.” She got to her feet. “Right I better be getting back. I hope you don’t mind if I take this with me?” She held up the half empty bottle.
Zach smiled. “It is yours. How you going to get home?”
She put her hand up. “Oh don’t mind that, I’ve got a driver to take me back. The last thing I want after surviving the Cascade is to run my car off the road! I’ll bid you good night.”
Zach lifted his glass in her direction and the general left. Putting it back down he looked back at the charts and graphs projecting dwindling resources, and could understand why Garland ditched her post when she did.
His radio crackled and Bower’s voice came from it. “We’re ready. Over.”
“Good luck Captain. Over.”
“Just keep the lights on so we can find our way back. Over.”
“I’ll do my best. Over.”
Zach put his radio down on the top of the white printed sheets and pondered that he had just used the same words for General Trow.
Finishing his drink, he leaned back and closed his eyes. Sleep came quickly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Captain Bower looked into the wall of writhing bodies made up of scales and leathery hides with his night scope. “I’m going to need both of you to make me a tunnel through that.”
Private Diaz and newly appointed private Wyatt Collier sat beside and behind him.
Diaz looked back at Wyatt and smiled. “We got this right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Wyatt pushing the side of his combat helmet up.
“Okay, do your thing,” said Bower.
The Humvee they were in was one of two, including an army truck parked between them that contained sixteen more soldiers. All of Bowers squad were in the Humvees.
Diaz opened the passenger’s door and got out, as did Wyatt. They both walked forward into the headlights from the vehicles behind them, and looked along the road to the E.L.F’s that were shuffling and walking across it.
Diaz held her hand out, then looked at Wyatt at her side. “Sometimes it helps to hold hands, I have no idea why.”
He clasped her hand in his, and they both closed their eyes. Ahead of them two E.L.F’s that looked like giant wingless birds, except with arms with claws at the ends scrambled to their feet and ran towards them.
Bower grabbed his rifle and stepped outside of the Humvee, raising it in the direction of the oncoming creatures. Other creatures, larger, on four legs also started walking towards the convoy while growling.
The Captain clicked on his radio. “Platoon get your butts out here, we might have to do this the old fashioned way. Over.”
The rear gate of the truck dropped and soldiers started jumping down and runnin
g towards the front vehicle.
“How’s it looking Diaz?” said Bower now standing next to the two Cascaders as the bird-like creatures were scampering towards them.
Wyatt and Diaz’s faces were contorted as they both strained to focus their thoughts on the creatures they could feel were ahead of them.
“They don’t seem to be hearing us, Captain,” said Diaz.
Soldiers ran to their sides, some of which had heavier weapons.
“Okay screw this,” said Bower as the bird like E.L.F’s were only twenty yards away. “Light them up!”
The soldiers started firing. Multiple streams of red tore through the creatures knocking them off into the roadside ditches. Wyatt and Diaz fell back onto the Humvee’s hood breathing heavily.
Bower did a circle motion with his hand above his head. “Let’s move forward slowly until these other things are dead or moving away!”
Diaz and Wyatt took their rifles off their shoulders and joined the others as the convoy of soldiers and vehicles slowly rolled forward.
A rocket propelled grenade landed close to the larger creatures making them squeal and turn away. The soldiers continued firing until ahead of them was only broken trees and empty road.
“Everyone back in the vehicles!” shouted Bower.
Everyone did as ordered.
As Bower stepped back to the Humvee, he looked at the dark shadow of the walls of the camp, and the explosions and tracer fire illuminating them. Shaking his head he jumped back into the driver’s seat.
Diaz and Wyatt next to him were both silent.
“You did your best,” said Bower as he revved the Humvee’s engine and pulled away.
*****
A cool breeze momentarily dissipated the heat which Abbey felt on her face and arms. She looked at the vines that were covering the cars and buildings and smiled. She was back in her dream world of a Boston that had become something else.
Making her way along the path she remembered from last time, she was soon at the same stone arch entrance. She looked up at the skyscraper that had now become a kind of artificial tree reaching into the clouds and pushed forward ducking under branches with vibrant blue flowers hanging from them.
