by Maxey, Phil
She angrily shook her head. “The only person dying today is him.”
More bear creatures sprinted towards them. Raj pointed at them.
“Yeah I know, I see them.”
She could feel Clovis’s mind probing again at hers, but her anger was acting as a shield. She focused her thoughts into the jungle and found what she was looking for. “Now it’s my turn.”
The ground started shaking again, but this time it was more pronounced. Even the bus was hopping with each new thunderous boom.
Clovis’s creatures skidded to a stop and looked around them as did their master.
Trees parted and splinted and a huge ape like creature, with a row of spiked plates running down its back bounded into the square. Standing at least twenty feet high it ran to the first of Clovis’s E.L.F’s and smashed it dead with one blow.
“Yeah!” shouted Raj.
Abbey looked back at Clovis. “Why isn’t he running?”
Instead the man wearing the faded blue jacket, was standing with his eyes closed.
“What’s he doing?” shouted Raj trying to be heard over the roars and growls, as Abbey’s E.L.F fought with the other six-legged bear creatures.
Suddenly the air filled with a booming roar, which made even the creatures fighting hesitate and look to the sky then continue tussling.
A flock of reptilian creatures took to the skies about half a mile from them.
“What the hell is that?” shouted Raj between the screeches and growls.
“Nothing good…” She looked across to Clovis, he was smiling again.
The ground shook so violently that Abbey and Raj fell to the ground, and a creature made of tentacles, each twice as thick as the bus Raj was hiding in, rose up from the forest, slamming into a nearby building and removing a chunk of rooms. A cloud of masonry and dust filled the air near the creature.
Abbey’s ape like creature finished throttling the life from the last of Clovis’s six legged bears and staggered back to her, blood pouring from multiple wounds.
As the trees collapsed behind Clovis, he stood motionless, grinning.
The tentacle creature crashed forward, somehow avoiding trampling Clovis and smashed down on the far end of the plaza sending a shock wave of cracks exploding outwards.
Raj went to say something but realized Abbey had her eyes closed. Clovis’s land octopus stormed forward eating up the ground and leaving an impact crater with each new movement.
The ape creature beat its chest then surged forward, but as it neared the creature coming towards them, was swatted like a fly, sending it spiraling through the air.
Raj’s eyes switched between the vision of impending death and Abbey’s expression of concentration.
“We have to—” Before he could finish the plaza filled with shadows, cross-shaped ones. He looked up to see a sky filled with winged creatures.
Abbey’s eyes opened and with a steely look she pointed both of her hands towards the thing almost on them.
Mo’s compatriots descended upon the flailing tentacles, tearing and biting at it. The scene was reminiscent of a nest of ants attacking a predator.
A crunch noise made Raj turn around, Mo was on top of the bus, hissing at the creature.
The leviathan staggered around the center of the square, swiping at the air, while trying to move towards Abbey and Raj.
“We need to relocate!” he shouted.
Abbey thrust her arms into the air, and she was immediately taken aloft by Mo. Raj did the same and another Simivem grabbed his arms as well and soon both were ascending away from the battle.
Abbey looked back down to where Clovis had been standing but he was gone.
Carcasses of the monkey bird E.L.F’s started to fill up the ground around the giant creature, which itself was slowing as green blood oozed from multiple wounds.
Mo and the other Simivem dropped Raj and Abbey onto a nearby roof, which stood just above the nearby trees.
They both ran to the wall to look down upon the plaza. Clovis’s creature was laid out, its limbs stretching across most of the concrete area while hundreds of the bodies of its attackers lay over it.
It was a scene of devastation that shocked Raj, but Abbey’s face was emotionless as her eyes searched.
“Can you sense him?”
She closed her eyes and looked with her mind. “There’s something, but I can’t tell where. I think he’s moving away.”
“He didn’t seem the running away kind…”
Abbey opened her eyes and looked into the distance as if a thought was forming in her mind. “He’s not running from us, he’s running back from where he came.” Turning, she searched the sky for Mo. “We need to collect our things then return to the Boston camp.”
Far above in the crystal blue sky a demonic looking creature hovered watching. Its huge wings keeping it aloft. It then turned and ascended even higher moving through a circular opening, into a block like craft.
*****
Burt ran through the tunnel as dust and small pieces of concrete fell from the wall above him. Even though he had been here a few days now, he still found himself getting lost in the maze of tunnels that made up the bunkers. This time was no different, apart from the incessant siren and flashing red warning lights. He arrived at a junction and looked both ways trying to ascertain where the medical rooms were. The bag of supplies over his back were badly needed.
The tunnel shook once again. They are almost inside.
A soldier appeared at the end of the left tunnel.
“Hey, which way to the medical rooms?” Burt Shouted.
The soldier pointed to Burt’s right. “End of this tunnel, then take a left, you should see a sign.” The soldier then kept on running. As Burt took off down the left tunnel he could hear more soldiers’ boots following the soldier he just saw.
As described painted words on the curved tunnel wall, indicted he was going in the right direction and he kept on running, until skidding to a stop and then opening a final door to another tunnel, the end of which was a hive of activity. People in white and blue gowns with splatters of red across them, ran left and right, disappearing and reappearing from doors.
“I got the supplies!” shouted Burt trying to catch one of them. A woman with short blonde hair looked back at him. He ran up to her out of breath, then took the backpack from his back. “Got what you wanted.”
She took the pack, opening and looking inside, then disappeared into a door in front of them. He walked up to the small glass windows in it and looked at the bodies of people writhing in agony in beds. Some proper hospital ones, others makeshift camping beds only a few inches off the ground.
He saw someone coming towards the door and backed away. The man opened the door and looked at him. “You the guy who brought the supplies?”
Burt nodded.
“You’re needed at section five. There’s been another breach.” Burt went to ask where that was, but the man had already moved off through another door.
Burt took his assault rifle from his shoulder and checked the magazine for the amount of ammo. Seeing it was full, he snapped it back in and ran back to the outside corridor.
Section five… section five. He looked left and right at both ends of the tunnel. And randomly chose the right one.
Running through the tunnels, he came across a woman running in the opposite direction who gave him the directions he needed.
As he grew nearer his destination, the ground shook more violently and the clatter of gunfire filled the air.
He careered around a corner, and immediately ducked to the ground as the body of a soldier flew over his head. A creature looking like a giant scorpion with no stinger but at least four pincers railed against the tunnel walls as bullets bounced off its armored torso.
Burt got to his knees and started firing as the other dozen or so soldiers on both sides of the creature were also doing.
He shook his head. Not working. He then reached into his pocket and pulle
d out something which had saved his life on more than more occasion, a flash bang grenade. He had brought a few with him from home.
The creature lunged forward and swiped through the confined space scything through a soldier, instantly killing him.
Burt pulled the pin and threw the nade along the tunnel. “Cover your ears and eyes!” he shouted, doing just that.
A blinding flash, together with an explosive noise filled the tunnel. Burt was the first back to his feet and started firing again at the creature that was staggering against the tunnel walls, swiping at the air.
“Everyone move in!”
The solders focused their fire on the creature, as they did Burt realized the creature’s underside was oozing a dark brown liquid. He dived to the ground and fired again, hitting the creature and making it let out a piercing screech.
“Everyone shoot its belly!”
As they did the creature fell backwards while more of the liquid burst from it. After a few seconds of sustained fire, it slumped to the ground with its limbs twitching.
He ran beside the creature and looked up into the gaping twelve-foot square hole in the ceiling. Pieces of soil started to fall on him.
He looked at the soldiers around him. “Quick, we need to barricade this area, there’s more coming!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Abbey and Raj stood on a roof of a shopping mall, looking across what was once a huge parking area, but during the Cascade had become a shantytown of sorts. Multi-storey wooden buildings sat half destroyed amongst the refuse of small constructions, and between them rags and a myriad of items which had long since been of any use.
“It must have been chaos here. Makes you realize just how lucky we were in our camp,” said Raj.
“Yeah…” She was beginning to feel the pines of longing for the home she and Zach left near the lake.
He looked towards the hills and forests in the distance. “How much further until we get to where the bunkers are?”
“Not far, maybe another ten miles. You ready?”
He rubbed his arms, then took out a rag he had found and wrapped it around his mouth. “Yup.” He then raised his arms into the air and was almost instantly grabbed and took aloft. Abbey did the same.
From high above the destruction of the Boston camp was even more obvious. Huge swathes of trees laid flat in forests, created by E.L.F’s making their own roads, while only a handful of buildings beyond a few stories remained upright, and everywhere in-between crumpled vehicles of all size and color lay. The monsters had clearly made the camp their own.
As they neared where she had fled from a few days earlier, an inner alarm fired off in her brain and she could sense a large number of Cascaders. She strained her eyes to see a few miles further ahead, but it was impossible to see anything amongst the ruined buildings and creatures lumbering inside the wreckage. Mo started descending, as did Raj’s creature.
They landed on a road lined with broken 1950s wooden homes.
“What is it?” said Raj looking around them.
“There’s something weird up ahead. I thought it better we went the last bit on foot.”
A striped yellow snake like creature but with four legs stopped a hundred yards away and looked at them.
“Weirder than that?” said Raj.
Abbey started walking. “Come on. I need a better view of what’s happening over there.”
He ran after her. Soon they were walking up a road of a steep hill, bounded by a dense forest, although driveways could be seen weaving inside.
Raj tried to ignore the movement between the burgeoning green of the trees. “You know there’s—”
“Yes, I know. They won’t harm us.” She said charging up the sidewalk.
As they neared the top the road sloped back down the other side and into the center of what used to be the small town. Even from this distance they could see a swell of creatures standing at various points, at the back of buildings and in the streets.
Raj walked forward slightly. “Is that—”
“Yup. People or more accurately Cascaders.”
“They seem to be using the E.L.F’s to dig into the ground…”
“They’re trying to get to the bunkers.” She turned around and looked at the sky from where they came. The sun was just a few degrees from the horizon and the shadows were growing long. “Let’s find a place to hold up and see how things play out. Mitchell won’t be letting anyone in with that going on.”
“Can we help them?”
“There’s a lot of Cascaders down there, I couldn’t fight that many.” She looked at a nearby path which led further up the hill. “Let’s see what’s up there.”
*****
As the green of the spring forests mingled with other more exotic flashes of color in the setting sun, Hayes in the back of the second Humvee sighed. He had lost count how many packets of cookies he now owed Harper next to him. He dropped his cards onto the seat. “That’s me done. I’m going to have to start baking to give you all that I owe you now.”
“Maybe you can start a baking business?”
“His options are going to be limited without any eggs around,” said Diaz in the passenger’s seat in front of them.
“Have we found any E.L.F’s that lay egg’s yet?” Said Bower driving.
“Hell no am I eating them,” said Harper.
The others laughed.
“Hey, I like eggs, there’s got to be one of these damn creatures that can lay a proper egg!” Said Bower.
His radio then crackled and Zach’s voice came from it. “Think it’s time we found a place to hold up for the night, there’s a town coming up. Over.”
“Sounds good,” replied Bower. He briefly looked to his right. “Play time over, we’ll need to recon a location that won’t have our Cascaders up all night doing their thing.”
Diaz looked out at the multiple lanes of the highway which was moving towards a river crossing. “I hear that. There’s a lot of activity up ahead of us. We’re going to have to move through it, if we want to get into the town.”
Before she had finished talking, the convoy had already started slowing. Pot marks littered the concrete of the bridge along with military vehicles, including crumpled tanks and more than a few Humvee’s in various states of decay.
As the convoy slowly crept forward weaving left and right, squawks and roars echoed all around them.
In the first Humvee Wyatt and Miles concentrated best they could, trying to get a lock on any of the E.L.F’s tens of yards below them that were noticing the vibrations and noise above.
“Almost across,” said Fiona.
Zach went to say something looking back over his shoulder, but stopped the words from coming out of his mouth when seeing the concentration on the faces of those behind him.
They quickly sped up once free from the bridge and warehouses, and office buildings soon appeared on both sides of the highway.
Wyatt and Miles both breathed heavily.
“That was tough, I must be out of practice,” said Miles looking across Michael to Wyatt. “How you find it?”
Wyatt shrugged. “There were a lot of them.”
Zach pointed to the top of slopes to their right. “Let’s take the next turn off and see if we can find somewhere up there.”
Further down the highway a small group of heavy looking creatures lumbered across the road, but Fiona took the turning before and soon they were traveling up a slope towards an industrial park of stores. Weaving around some abandoned vehicles, she pulled the Humvee into a large parking lot, eventually pulling up in front of some monolithic looking buildings.
Zach had a quick look at the skies then looked back at the two Cascaders. “Anything?”
“Nothing we need to be concerned with,” said Miles.
They all started getting out, Bower and the others did the same.
“Good line of sight,” said Bower walking up to Zach. They both looked out over the highway they just traveled up and
the forest covered hills in the distance. The tops of a number of the trees could be seen moving in the gloom, despite the lack of wind around them.
Soldiers starting piling out of the truck which Bower walked towards. “Recon the area. Find me some good places to post lookouts.” The soldiers nodded and started fanning out. He then turned and followed Zach who was approaching the nearby building with Harper, Hayes and the others.
A huge handmade sign stretched above the doors. “NO MORE FOOD.” It mostly covered another sign which mentioned being a restaurant of some kind.
Zach pointed towards the building next to it that was even more block-like and three times as high.
Harper and Michael approached the glass doors which seemed undamaged, and pushed on them, they rattled but didn’t open.
“They’re chained from the inside,” said Michael.
“This is the one,” said Zach looking at Bower who nodded.
“Harper, Diaz get around back, find another way in,” said Bower. They nodded and took off.
“I can shoot through the glass?” said Michael.
Zach shook his head. “Too noisy.” He noticed Wyatt was looking uneasy. “What’s wrong?”
“Just lots of E.L.F’s around us,” he noticed Zach’s reaction. “But it’s okay, I… we can handle it.”
“If you can’t, you need to tell us, okay?”
The younger man briefly nodded.
Shadows moved beyond the glass doors and Harper appeared holding her radio up to her mouth. “There’s a way in around back. Over,” came from Bower’s radio.
“Let’s get inside and find somewhere to sleep for the night,” said Zach.
Soon most were walking in the side entrance to the cinema and a guard was posted at the door to go with the others that were already on the roof acting as lookouts.
Zach, Fiona, Bower and the others walked into a grand foyer and swung their flashlight beams over the clean looking walls and movie posters.
“Doesn’t look like this place saw fighting,” said Fiona walking up to the long counter. “Ha, there’s still popcorn back here.”
Michael climbed over the counter and grabbed a paper bag from the shelf and pulled it open, his expression immediately changed and he dropped it to the ground.
