Clearing Force

by Nathan Hale

three rifles barked and the monsters, still feasting on the man, were executed!

  I heard gagging behind me as someone lost their breakfast. It didn’t matter, we kept moving.

  We cleared the next intersection without incident although screams of mortal anguish rang off the walls of the buildings around us. We had just formed up again, after squeezing through the cars, when Dad said “What the hell was that?”

  I glanced to my right and, two blocks down the street, I saw two more people hurl themselves out of an upper story window onto the street below. My only comment was “Close it up and keep moving, when they are done with them, they will be after us.”

  At the next intersection there were fewer cars, so we were able to maintain our defensive formation as I swung us into the middle of the relatively clear street. A block ahead I could see our goal, the marinas main entrance. I could also see the Doyle’s yacht just clearing the edge of the pier.

  From behind me I heard my son exclaim “Over there, by that car, there’s a bunch of little things, do you see them?”

  I glanced to my right and, sure enough, a large group of the little monsters were flowing down the street, only a couple of blocks away, heading towards us. First I screamed “Shotguns and pistols kill them!” and then, after gauging our relative distances I screamed “Run, get to the main gate! There are hundreds of them!”

  Carrying my rifle in my left hand I yanked my pistol from its holster as I ran towards the gate. We had a good head start before the things were even aware we were there. Then, when they spotted us, they emitted a weird noise and began racing towards us.

  We got to the marina’s gate with about a half-block to spare. Thoughtfully, Captain Peters had left both gates propped open with bricks so the electronic locking mechanism wouldn’t engage which would have forced us to use our key card. As our loved ones crowded through the gate, Jose, Odeler, Peters and I began targeting the closest monsters. It was a drop in the bucket!

  I was the last one through the outer man gate so I dropped the lock pin into place, the one they used to secure the gate from ten in the evening until six in the morning. When I passed through the inner gate, I closed it and saw the red “locked” light flash on. That would keep the gate secured until the generator ran out of fuel.

  Then I, once again, began screaming because everyone had stopped just inside the gate “Get moving, it won’t take them long to tear through the wire rat barrier and the smaller ones will fit between the bars!” Then I slung my rifle over my back and inserted a fresh clip into my backup pistol.

  Dad got everyone moving again while the four of us, began walking backwards towards the pier, waiting for the first animals to get through the bars. The fence had been designed to keep humans out, not chicken sized hungry monsters!

  We managed to get to the head of the pier before the first of the monsters squeezed through the bars after using its razor sharp claws to tear through the heavy gauge wire rat barrier. At well over fifty yards it was a difficult pistol shot but Jose used his shotgun to good effect, leaving one monster lying on the concrete bleeding out.

  Behind us, at the end of the pier slightly over one hundred yards away, I heard the motor on the dinghy start. Then I heard Dad yelling to Jack to bring the yacht closer to the pier. As we carefully walked backwards, more and more of the little monsters were squeezing through the bars in front of us and were then hurling themselves, with their opened fanged mouth first, towards us.

  Jose used his shotgun to very good effect, taking down six of the monsters with his seven shots. Then he had to reload while the monsters quickly got closer and we began taking the animals down with our pistols.

  Even though almost every one of our shots hit an animal, there were more squeezing through the fence every second. Then my pistol was empty and even though it only took a few seconds to drop the empty clip and insert the loaded clip, those damn monsters just kept coming. Beside me I heard the roar of Jose’s shotgun resume while both Peters and Odeler were inserting new clips.

  Even though we had shot over thirty of the little monsters, they just kept coming, while totally ignoring the fresh meat they were running across. We were doing an excellent job of shooting down the closest animals, although they still just kept getting closer, even though we were still walking backward towards the end of the pier.

  Both Jose and I were once again forced to reload only by the time I had inserted the new clip and re-charged my pistol one of the monsters had almost reached me. My first shot caught the thing in its scrawny chest although the violence of its impacting my body armor caused me to miss my step backward and fall.

  That was when both Odeler and Peters fired the last bullet in their clips also! Suddenly, we were almost defenseless and the monsters surged forward sensing that their dinner was served! Then from slightly behind us I heard Dad roar “Down, get your asses on the deck!”

  I had rolled over and was attempting to regain my feet when he yelled so I joined my friends on the hard concrete of the pier. Behind us five shotguns began to roar sending their buck and ball rounds tearing into the oncoming animals at point blank range. By the time the shotguns clicked empty we had all re-loaded.

  We merely sat up and resumed firing our weapons, slaughtering the animals that were still attempting to get to us while others had finally decided to seek an easier meal and had begun running back towards the fence. But others were still passing through the fence and insanely rushing towards us in their fanatic hunger.

  Once again, within seconds, we needed to change our clips because we had run out of bullets. Behind us I heard Dad roar “Stay down, reload, when I yell again, get back here and reform your line. Jack has the yacht just a few feet off the end of the pier bumping into the tires with the engine in reverse.

  “While you four shoot, we’ll jump into the boat. Then run like hell and join us.”

  Once again, the shotguns roared as we inserted our last clips into our pistols. When they stopped firing, I heard Dad roar “Go!” so we jumped up and ran the few remaining steps to the end of the pier. We then whirled around and quickly burned through our bullets, forcing the animals to pause momentarily from the sheer violence of our attack.

  But they only paused momentarily and then they rushed forward from where they had stopped, less than fifteen feet from us. We turned and jumped for our lives onto the yacht as Jack slammed the engine into forward.

  It almost worked. Jose lost his shotgun but managed to grab onto the boat as the gap between the boat and the pier quickly widened. I landed face down but then I felt an object hit my back and one of the little monsters mouths closed on my ear, cutting and tearing most of it off. Then the thing was gone when Dad swung his shotgun like a baseball bat and hit the animal overboard.

  Brad, following his Grandfathers example, attacked the other creature with the butt of his shotgun. It squawked loudly when I kicked the damn thing in the body with my boot while Brad slammed the butt of his shotgun into its head while it was lying stunned on the deck. The head popped like a ripe watermelon, spewing stinky purplish black blood everywhere!

  Odeler and Peters were helping Jose into the boat, while I fished a bandage out of my web gear to apply to what was left of my poor ravaged ear, which was also starting to hurt like the devil! Behind us, on the pier we had done an excellent job of covering with purplish black blood, the little monsters were beginning to feast on their less fortunate brethren.

  Dad walked over to me and said “Son, I’m sorry. I should have done what you told us to do and this could all have been avoided.”

  I was shocked because throughout our twenty years of marriage he had never, not once, addressed me as “Son”. In fact I had always thought that he truly wished that his only child had found someone more in keeping with her station in life, not a poor New York City cop.

  I smiled and answered as I finally stood up “There’s nothing to be sorry about. Without your quick thinking we were dead. Is everyone okay?”

  He sm
iled warmly back at me and answered “Grandma sprained her ankle jumping into the boat. I haven’t seen the old girl move that fast since we were kids!

  “And I hate to say this, but both James and I had forgotten what it feels like to be both terrified and completely alive all at the same time! It took both of us back to when we did stupid and joined the Marines together back in ’68! We haven’t had so much fun in years!

  “I’m sorry about your ear though, but don’t worry, I know a good surgeon, he’ll fix you up.” Then something else occurred to him and he added “That is, if he’s still alive.”

  My wife sent her father to the bridge. While Jack knew the basics of running a ship this size, Dad was the skipper. Before he left he asked where we should head and all I could say was “I don’t have a clue, some island someplace where, I hope, these things aren’t.”

  Because of the bird like monsters circling in the sky above us we made sure that everyone not standing guard duty was inside the cabin. Those things were so big that I had no doubt they could easily carry away an adult, let alone a child.

  After Freida exercised her skills at patching her husband up, me, I gave her a quick kiss and went to the galley. After pouring two cups of black coffee, I then went up to the bridge and handed one of them to Dad.

  He was on the radio