by Maxey, Phil
He could hear his heart beating so loud in his ears he wasn’t sure it couldn’t be heard by the creatures outside. Even large singular E.L.F’s could be handled with enough firepower, but these things, he wasn’t sure what would stop them. Even Abbey wasn’t able to affect them.
The dark form moved to the bottom of the stone steps, with parts reaching out from the overall shape and then recombining with it, almost as if it was searching.
Zach watched. Keep moving. Nothing to see here.
Something slammed against the wooden boards and all light from outside was extinguished.
Zach jumped back.
The boards creaked and strained, and an incessant scratching and scraping noise played out across the whole building.
The creatures were just a few feet away from him, on the other side of the flimsy pieces of wood, barely held to the wall with nails and screws.
He stood, not wanting to breath or move. His mind flashed to those downstairs, and hoped they had enough sense to do the same. Every few seconds the room around him would become visible again, as the creatures jostled against the building, and the light would be enough to seep through the gaps. Then the void would return.
Zach thought the noise would never stop, and then it did. His eyes had adjusted now and he could see he was standing in a kind of large meeting room, with a long table and chairs alongside it. He tentatively stepped forward and looked through the same gap he had a moment before. The creatures had gone. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.
There was a noise behind him.
“Diaz say’s they’re moving away,” said Bower. “Did you see what they were?”
“I’ve come across them a few times, too many times.”
“What are they?”
“Something to be avoided. This building might have a basement, might be a good place to hold up for the night. Right now though I’m going to see how high I can get within this building.”
“I’ll come with you.” Bower then clicked on his radio and told the others to explore the building and keep a lookout for a basement.
Keeping their flashlights mostly pointing to the floor, so not to alert anyone or thing outside of their presence they ascended the wide staircase until they came out to the top floor. A sign on the wall mentioned a clock tower, with an arrow. Following it they came to an open door with a small set of stairs which they quickly moved up, coming out into a small room. Inside were some rifles, and boxes of ammo.
Bower picked up one of the rifles. “There might be a lot more supplies around this place. In the daylight we should see what we can find.”
Zach spotted another door and what looked like beyond, another set of stairs. He moved into the stairwell and looked up. A spiral staircase ascended upwards into shadows. He gripped the railing and walked up eventually stepping out onto wooden boards. In front of him was an intricate mechanism, which linked to the large clock face on the outside. There were also two small windows. Bower appeared behind him, and they both walked forward and looked through each of them.
“Can’t really see much of anything out there, even with the moon it’s just darkness,” said Bower.
There was silence from Zach.
Bower looked across to him. “See anything?”
“Yeah.”
Bower walked towards him. “What?”
“Lights. There are lights in the sky.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Abbey’s eyes flickered open. She thought she heard a noise. She lay huddled up in a corner of an office, waiting for it to repeat itself. It didn’t. Her head throbbed. She could feel them. The E.L.F’s, large and small, some alone, some in packs all around the huge lumber yard she had found refuge in for the night.
Mo wasn’t able to fly for long after they jumped off the rooftop, so in short bursts of flight, they made it a short distance further on until the sun was too low to provide any light for navigation. They were in the middle of nowhere, with not even a small town in sight, but eventually came across a large clearing, with piles of cut wood in the middle of the expanse of forests. It was the only place she could sense that wasn’t full of creatures. On landing, she spotted the office buildings where the business of the place would have happened, and hoped it would provide shelter.
She reached into her pack, and pulled out the bottled water, undoing it and taking a sip. The pain continued between her temples. Looking back at her pack, the box of painkiller tablets peeked out of one of the side pockets. Pulling them out, she realized how light they felt, and didn’t bother opening the cardboard flap to discover what she already knew. She threw the box away.
Light was coming through the blinds but she had no idea what time it was. She felt drained. Maybe her E.L.F senses had increased or maybe there were just more creatures in the area she was in, but most of her night had been one of headaches and the constant sensation of things nearby.
She pulled herself up by leaning on a chair and stretched. The noise happened again and she froze with her arms spread out above her head. Outside?
She walked to the blinds and carefully pulled one of the slats down, more light flooded into her room making her squint. Once her vision cleared, her heart missed a beat. In the parking lot outside the building she was in were ape like creatures, standing on two legs. They seemed to be searching. There was also something strange about them, something she had not seen on any other E.L.F. Are some of them wearing armor?
One of them looked up at the window and she quickly let the slat drop and pulled back.
She also suddenly felt Mo circling high above. He was watching those beings as well.
Grunts and clicking noises emanated from outside, each with a different tone and inflection. Are they communicating to each other?
She wasn’t sure to feel fear or fascination, but she knew she wanted to know more about the strange creatures outside. She closed her eyes and let her mind relax despite the pain from the headache, and projected herself into the world beyond the room she was in, searching for the minds of the creatures.
Sights, sounds and images flashed through her mind. Whoa.
This was new. These E.L.F’s had a sense of themselves that she had not felt in other creatures, even Mo.
A noise came from the room below her, making her freeze. Objects were being tossed around and falling off desks.
There was no point running, and she probably wouldn’t be able to shoot her way out, so she needed another option.
She grabbed the string for the blind and tugged it down, within a few pulls the blind was all the way to the top. She then unlatched the window and pushed it open as wide as it would go. The noise outside increased and a cool breeze brushed over her.
The creatures looked up and pointed.
That’s also new.
She then closed her eyes, and tried again to project her mind outwards, focusing on portraying herself as not a threat.
A noise came from behind her, making her turn around. One of the creatures was standing in the open doorway. In some ways it looked like Mo, large eyes and an ape like body but this creature’s skin was more lizard like with patches of scales. It also had no wings and she was fairly sure its head was larger than her pets.
She looked at her rifle lying on the ground. The creature’s eyes followed her gaze and it then grunted in her direction.
Surely it can’t know what that is?
Again she allowed positive calming thoughts to flow through her. The creature’s head nodded a few times, and again it grunted, but this time it backed out of the doorway, keeping its large eyes fixed on her.
“You want me to follow you?” She had to stop herself from laughing at the absurdity of what she just said, but after getting used to talking to Mo, talking to this creature even if it had no idea what she was saying wasn’t so insane.
The creature stamped its feet, continuing its grunting.
“Okay, I’m coming.” She leaned down picking up her pack and went t
o reach for her rifle, when the creature screeched at her, almost making her fall over backwards. Luckily a side unit was close enough behind her for her to lean on.
“Guess I’ll leave that here then.”
The idea that the strange being in front of her had any concept of a weapon was crazy, but then she had seen Mo play around with objects like he was trying to understand what they were, maybe just maybe these E.L.F’s learned the hard way that what was lying on the floor was capable of hurting them.
The creature backed away, keeping a good few feet of distance between it and her as she followed it along the corridor and then into the stairwell. Watching it slap away at the handle to open the stairwell door was surreal, but it happened. She then followed it down the stairs and finally it moved out into the parking lot. She half expected it to hold the door open for her, but it slammed shut behind it instead.
As she stood facing the closed door, the overwhelming feeling to turn and run back upstairs was almost too much to resist, but something told her to keep moving forward. This was a mystery, one she wanted to know more of.
She held the handle down and pulled the door open, as she did grunts and screeches echoed around the large space outside the building.
Some of the creatures jumped up and down on the spot, while others ducked their heads and others, although she couldn’t quite believe this when her eyes saw it, were holding metal poles and waving them around. These were also the ones whose bodies were clad in twisted metal, made from large cans that were around their arms and legs. These creatures weren’t something she or anyone she knew, had encountered before.
“Umm hello?” she posed to the E.L.F’s in front of her.
Their vocal noises calmed and one of them started walking forward from the middle of the pack. As it started to emerge she could see it also had items hanging from its torso but these looked more decorative. This is insane.
She watched as this particular creature, which was slightly larger than the rest stepped clear of the others, and slowly moved towards her. Then came a loud squawk from above their heads, Mo was hovering about a hundred feet up, just above the roof of the building behind her.
The screeches increased from the obviously agitated creatures, and some started throwing their poles at Mo.
“No! No! He’s with me!” Shouted Abbey. She then tried to make her pet feel at home, and he quickly ascended landing just to her side and spread his wings out. The other creatures continued their screeching and Mo replied with hissing and stamping his feet.
One of the armored creatures sprung forward holding one of its solid looking metallic clubs aloft.
No… this is all going wrong!
She jumped in front of Mo just as the club swiped through the air, catching the side of her face and knocking her unconscious.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Zach and Bower looked at the room full of ammo crates. They found them in a room inside the courthouse, the door being behind a small wall of sandbags.
Bower flipped the lid on one crate and pulled out a concussion grenade. “They had everything they needed to fight a small war.”
Zach walked to another open crate which contained rifles. “Everything other than enough people. Nobody was prepared for a war against monsters.”
“We should try and take as much of this stuff with us.”
“Agreed. Also when we get back to Brads, it might be worth some trips back out here to ferry the rest back.”
Bower looked at the wall to ceiling dark green boxes. “Yeah.”
Diaz entered the room. “I’m sensing E.L.F’s, different types in different directions.”
“Any coming this way?” said Bower.
“Not yet…”
Bower ignored Diaz’s implication. “Find Harper and Freeman, get them to take a crate of each type of grenade. I’m counting three types here. Also that looks like a shoulder-mounted launcher in that crate. We’re going to want that, and as many of its missiles as we can pile into the back of the Humvees.”
Diaz left.
Zach smiled. “Next you’ll be telling me you want to take the tank too.”
“If I knew how to get the thing started I would. You can never have too much firepower.”
Fiona appeared at the doorway. “How long until we move out?”
“Not long. We’ll just take some of this ordnance with us, and then we will be on our way. You got a route worked out?” said Zach.
“Yeah, you still want to take a look at Pittsburgh?”
“From a distance yeah, there must be some reason why there were lights in the sky in that direction. Maybe there’s a community around here, and they have access to helicopters or drones.”
Fiona nodded and left as Freeman and Harper entered the room.
It wasn’t long before they were back in the Humvees. What spare room they had before was now taken up by the crates.
They quickly left the small town, and were back on the highway, passing signs which indicated that Pittsburgh was fifty-five miles away.
“Shouldn’t take us longer than about an hour to reach the outskirts,” said Fiona. Zach nodded.
In the other Humvee, Diaz looked concerned in the passenger’s seat next to Bower. “There’s lots of E.L.F activity around us, and before you ask, I can’t sense any of it taking an interest in us, yet…”
Bower sensed Diaz wanted to say more. “Spit it out private.”
She looked out of the window at the overcast day. “It’s not my place to say, sir.”
“I’m asking you to tell me what’s on your mind.”
The others in the back adjusted their seating positions slightly.
She sighed. “What are we doing? Sir.”
“This is a recon mission. We don’t know squat about what’s developed up here, so we’re taking a look.”
“And we’re not just out here looking for the head mans lady?”
Now it was Bowers turn to sigh, but his was more out of frustration. “I’m going to ignore that you just referred to your commanding officer as something other than Brigadier General. I’ve given you our mission terms private, all I need you to do is do your job. That’s all you have to do.”
“They’re everywhere! The E.L.F’s, all around us! I can maybe control a small bunch of them at a time, but if we get pegged by multiple creatures, that’s it, game over.”
Bower slammed on the brakes, sending all of them surging forward with their equipment. He then turned and looked at a flustered Diaz. “Do you want to get out and walk back? I will discharge you right now.”
Diaz’s face contorted but she remained silent.
Zach’s voice came through Bowers radio. “Everything alright back there?”
“I’m waiting for an answer private? But if you stay in that seat, then that tells me you’re going to carry out my orders to the best of your abilities.”
“Yes, sir,” she meekly said while looking out the window.
Bower put the Humvee back in gear, and accelerated forward quickly catching up with the other Humvee which had slowed.
The planned one-hour journey turned into two, due to frequent stops caused by creatures crossing the highway up ahead of them. Eventually they turned off and were into the outskirts of the city.
“Pittsburgh sure is hilly,” said Fiona driving them up a steep incline. Smart looking single and double story homes lined both sides of the streets, many of which were overgrown with plants and vines.
Zach’s radio came to life. “Diaz is saying we need to stop again. Over.”
Fiona heard and quickly came to a halt.
They heard the sound of masonry and rubble collapsing before they saw any creatures.
“Look,” said Fiona nodding to the right of them.
A four-legged creature looking like a giant salamander lumbered across the remains of a backyard, and onto the road. Three more followed closely behind, each one twice as big as the vehicles their watchers were sitting in.
One
of the creatures paused for a moment glancing in their direction, but then moved on, following the others into another yard and then beyond a house.
“Would be good if we could find a place to hold up, Diaz is getting tired. Over,” said Bower. Diaz could be heard protesting before the message ended.
“We’ll find a good place to see the city from, and then we’ll find a place to take a break. Over.”
Fiona pulled off and they drove along undulating roads, which contained more office buildings and fewer homes. Organic growth of various kinds of plants, some of which looked like they had escaped from a greenhouse covered the spaces in-between.
“Nature really has taken a hold in this part,” said Fiona. Branches of unknown trees slapped the windscreen as they drove forward.
Eventually the road they were on ended at a ridge and Fiona stopped, the other Humvee pulled up beside them.
They all sat mouth agape at what they could see across the river.
Fiona pulled the map out from near her feet and looked down at it then back up at the scene a few miles from them.
Zach’s radio came to life with Bower’s voice. “That’s not Pittsburgh.”
What used to be the skyscrapers of the downtown area were now columns of green, with creatures buzzing around them. From that point, spreading out in all directions was a forest, which stretched to both sides of the river, all of which was a hive of movement of various creatures, all seemingly living harmoniously.
Shrieks came from above and huge winged creatures flew past the front of them, only tens of feet away, snapping them all out of their fixation with the view.
“It’s okay, Diaz says she’s cloaking us from the creatures around us, but there are lots and she can’t keep it up for long. Over,” said Bower.
Zach looked to his left at the massive apartment towers that were masked in vines that twisted across their sides, but not nearly as much as the explosion of nature that existed in the center of the city. “Let’s check out those blocks. Over.”
