The Flipside
Page 1
THE FLIPSIDE
Jake Bible
www.severedpress.com
Copyright 2018 by Jake Bible
One
“Do not move.”
The tour group huddled close to each other, their terrified eyes staring into the black void of the chasm that had opened up in front of them, behind them, all around them. They were cut off; an island of land only fifty feet square, barely enough to hold the thirteen members of the tour that were left.
The rest, including the tour guides and security guards, were somewhere down inside the chasm.
A pair of the terrified eyes shifted and squinted against the glaring sun that was slowly sinking toward the horizon. The eyes spotted something across the chasm. Something familiar.
“What is that?” the owner of the eyes asked, tapping the shoulder of the woman next to him. “Do you see that? Is that someone?”
The woman that belonged to the shoulder that had been tapped roused herself from her traumatized stupor. “Huh?”
“There. See that?” the man asked, trying to shield his eyes from the sun that refused to relent even as it began to set. Not a cloud in the sky to relieve them from the heat and glare. “Look!”
A few of the survivors turned their heads in the direction the man was pointing. All struggled to see what he was talking about.
“I don’t see anything,” the woman whispered then closed her eyes and curled in on herself as she lay down in the dirt and grass that was the only comfort on their horrible little island.
“No, no, I see someone!” the man exclaimed. He stood and waved his arms over his head. “Hey! Hey! Over here! Help us!”
The man squinted harder and was sure there was someone standing on the opposite side of the chasm; a side that was at least a quarter mile, probably more, away from the island.
The figure raised its arms and waved back. There may have been shouting, but the man couldn’t hear over the wind that was whipping around the chasm.
“Get help!” the man shouted. “Go get help!”
The figure stopped waving its arms. The man smiled as it looked like the figure was backing away. Then the figure turned and ran. Fast.
“Oh no…” someone whined. “Oh, God no!”
The man reluctantly looked away from the retreating figure and glanced over his shoulder. All he saw were the other survivors standing up and grabbing at each other. Then complete panic.
“What?” the man asked, trying to stand his ground as everyone pushed back against him. “What is it?”
Then he saw what was coming. What he’d thought was a far-off dark cloud in the sky, possibly some relief finally from the unrelenting sun, was not a cloud. Not at all. Clouds don’t break into several individual clouds. Individual clouds with wings. Individual clouds with wings and teeth.
Wings and teeth and claws.
The man screamed as the pterosaurs—he had no idea what species they were and didn’t really care—got closer and closer. He wasn’t the only one screaming.
A hand reached out and grabbed his arm, knocking him off balance. His right foot slipped and he tried to keep from falling, but the ground was too unstable for him to maintain his footing. Even with the excellent tread of his brand new hiking boots, his feet slid on the loose dirt and shifting grass. The man’s arms pinwheeled, smacking against others that were similarly distressed about their sudden lack of stability.
Then the man was in open air, falling backward into the chasm. His scream grew, as did the screams of those that tumbled off the edge of the island with him. He watched in utter terror as the sky diminished, the chasm closing in around him the further he fell.
The man’s horror grew to a level that almost drove him insane as the horror of the day grew worse. So much worse.
One, two, three people were plucked from their freefalls by the massive claws of the pterosaurs that swooped down into the chasm to catch some easy prey. Men and women he knew, colleagues from the school he taught at, shrieked in pain and fear as their bodies were pierced by talons longer than his forearms.
He watched, physically unable to turn away as his body continued to plummet, as more people died. Those still up on the island were next, helpless to keep from being snagged by more of those claws and talons.
He thought of closing his eyes and simply praying for it all to end, but a shadow fell across the man and his eyes flicked to the source. A pterosaur was diving right for him, legs and claws extended, ready for the grab. The man’s vocal cords strained to breaking as he screamed harder and louder than he thought physically possible for any human being.
The claws reached him and the talons dug in, impaling his torso. The man coughed up half a gallon of blood. Then it was all over when his neck snapped back and his spine was severed as the flying dinosaur suddenly went from diving with wings tucked to climbing with wings outstretched.
The man had a brief second of realization that he couldn’t feel anything anymore. The lack of pain came with a strange sense of relief. But the relief was short-lived, just like the man. Spinal cord severed, the last image he saw was of leathery wings and the underside of a nightmare.
***
Olivia Herndon had trained most of her life to run.
In 2029, her senior year of high school, she took State in Cross Country, as well as both the 5,000m and 10,000m races. Her relay team lost only because Olivia had slipped in the last ten meters. Even with a severely damaged knee, which would require three surgeries to fix, she managed to come in second.
She ran track in college and continued to compete in local and national 5Ks and marathons, taking third in her age group in the Boston Marathon in 2036.
But that was sport; healthy competition between human beings.
The running Olivia was currently being forced to do was a full-on sprint away from incoming nightmares with wings. If there was any sport happening, then she was it as five pterosaurs split off from the main flock and competed to see which one could get to her fleeing form first.
Olivia had thought watching her friends and colleagues fall into a sudden hole in the ground, then having the survivors become trapped on that island of land as the ground continued to shake, shudder, then fall away further, was the worst thing she’d ever experienced. But suddenly becoming prey for creatures that had been dead for millions upon millions of years pretty much knocked the previous trauma off the top of the list of worst things in her life.
Yet, even with the horror flying toward her, Olivia’s training as a teacher created a little voice in the back of her head that said, “They have not been dead for millions and millions of years. You are the one that won’t be born for millions and millions of years. This is their time, not yours.” She was the visitor from another time, not them.
She cursed her internal debate over semantics. It was a flaw she’d been fighting longer than she’d been training to run. Her many coaches had always told her that she could be the best in the world if she’d only learn to stop competing with herself. Olivia felt she finally had the motivation needed to end the internal dialogue once and for all.
Being hunted by flying carnivorous monsters tended to put things into perspective.
The hiking boots Olivia wore dug into the flesh above her ankles, rubbing the skin raw even through the unbelievably expensive socks she’d splurged on before the retreat. Like the socks, the boots were meant for hiking, not for sprinting over an open field in an attempt to escape certain death at the claws and teeth of pterosaurs.
The monsters called out in the pursuit of Olivia and she forced herself not to scream in response. Not that she was sure she could scream. It felt like her breath and voice were stuck in her throat as she pushed her body to limits it hadn’t seen since she was a teenager.
***
His knees were shattered. There was no other way to describe the damage to his legs. Shattered.
As Trevon Cash sat wedged onto a ledge barely wide enough to hold his six foot five, two hundred and fifty-pound frame, and waited for a response to his calls over comms, he couldn’t help but stare at the swollen masses beneath his uniform where his knees should have been. It was like balloons had been inserted inside his pants, stuffed between his thighs and his shins. If it weren’t for the excruciating pain, he would have thought the damage had happened to someone else.
“Cash? You still there, buddy?” a voice called over the comm in his left ear. “Talk to me, Cash. Tell me you’re still there.”
“Still here, Raff,” Cash responded. “Now, this is where you tell me people are on the way.”
“Dispatched as soon as you called in,” Raphael “Raff” Bellows replied. “ETA is ten minutes. You got lucky shit went south so close to FOB.”
“Yeah. Lucky,” Cash said as he stared out at the walls of the chasm that he was trapped in.
“Any updates on the situation?” Raff asked.
“Wingers,” Cash stated.
“Pterosaurs?”
“Yeah.”
“Species?”
“Hungry.”
“Fuck…”
“Yeah.” Cash sighed. “They picked off everyone above. I haven’t heard a scream in several minutes.”
“Anyone survive with you down in the hole?” Raff asked.
“Hold,” Cash said and muted the comm. “Hey! Sound off, people!”
A couple of seconds passed before a few voices replied weakly from various locations below and above him. There were a lucky few that had found themselves trapped on similar ledges to the one Cash rested upon.
“I count a dozen survivors,” Cash replied into the comm. “Injury status unknown. When are shredhawks coming to blast the wingers out of the sky?”
“Uh, Brain is working on that. For now, just the team.”
“Who’d you send?”
“Margoles’ team,” Raff replied. “She was geared and ready. She’s bringing three crawlers and a speed roller. Fifteen operators plus four medics. Hope that’s enough because that’s all we got right now. Everyone else was prepping for the turn.”
“How much time do we have?” Cash asked. Raff didn’t respond. “Raff? You still there?”
“Six hours, Cash,” Raff said reluctantly.
“What? Not possible!” Cash snapped. “We should have at least forty-eight hours before the turn!”
“Yeah, we know,” Raff replied. “Whatever caused the earthquake has affected the timeline. Lakshmi is working on why with Brain, but that doesn’t change the situation. Brain calculates six hours.”
“And Brain is never wrong,” Cash muttered. “Shit…”
“Ten minutes, Cash,” Raff said with fake cheer in his voice. “Focus on that. Ten minutes until rescue. Only takes forty minutes to return to Flipside FOB.”
“And another two hours to get out of the bubble and back Topside,” Cash said. “Doesn’t leave much time for triage for the wounded.”
“Triage is an on-the-go op now,” Raff said. “The medics are well aware of the timeline. Everyone is.”
Cash rested his head against the cold granite of the chasm wall. Granite. Whatever forces had caused the quake and shattered the land around the tour group had been so powerful that it split granite in a matter of seconds. Cash had witnessed a lot of strange occurrences since retiring from Special Forces duty with the U.S. military and joining Topside Industries security, but he’d never seen the Earth tear itself apart like he’d witnessed only a few hours earlier.
Beyond the immediate prayers for rescue, and the safety of the few tourists alive that were technically still under his protection, Cash prayed that Lakshmi figured out what the hell went wrong before something worse occurred. Being Head of Security for Flipside Command meant witnessing a lot of strange occurrences, but he’d never watched as the land below his feet fell out from under him with barely any warning.
Cash had assumed that dealing with prehistoric animals of gargantuan proportions would be his biggest challenge. That assumption had always factored in the stability of the earth beneath his feet. He silently cursed himself, and all the others, that knew better than to operate under assumptions.
“Cash? You still there, buddy?” Raff called. “Cash?”
“Here. Just thinking,” Cash replied.
“Well, knock it off, you’ll strain something you need,” Raff said with a weak laugh.
There was a scream then Cash jumped as a woman tumbled past him. In the split second she was visible, Cash saw the terror in her eyes. That image would be burned into his memory forever.
“Fuck!” Cash shouted.
“Cash? You alright?” Raff asked.
“Lost another one,” Cash said.
“Shit,” Raff said. “Rescue is on the way, buddy. Hang tight.”
***
Suspended upside down by her left leg, Olivia screamed as the pterosaur lifted her higher into the air. The world below grew smaller and smaller with every wing flap. The pain grew worse as the pterosaur’s talons destroyed the muscles and tendons in the lower part of her leg. Wing flap, more distance from the ground, more flesh torn.
Screaming was all Olivia could do.
Except fall. She could do that. And she suddenly was.
Her body twisted as it plummeted toward the open ground below.
But the ground wasn’t as empty as it had been only minutes before. With every twist she caught a glimpse of vehicles arriving. Then vehicles passing. Except for one which slid to a stop in the grass and began to produce a high-pitched whine from a disc bolted to its roof.
Olivia’s screaming turned to weeping as she realized the disc was going to produce an energy net. Then the weeping became a shout of triumph and joy as that energy net materialized seconds before she was about to impact with the ground.
Her body tingled with electricity as voices yelled at her to roll to the edge. Olivia tried to comply, but the pain in her leg was excruciating and every slight movement produced pure agony.
Then gloved hands were on her and she was being pulled across the net to the edge where she fell into a foam stretcher that was ready and waiting. Security guards swarmed around her as medics checked her, stabilized her leg, then gave the thumbs up for her to be moved. In only a matter of a couple minutes, Olivia went from being a potential pterosaur meal flying through the air to a rescued survivor being loaded into a medical roller.
“It can be repaired,” a medic said as Olivia struggled to sit up and see the damage to her leg. “The company will cover all costs. Don’t worry.”
Olivia’s hand shot out and grabbed the medic by the arm.
“I don’t care about my fucking leg!” she snapped. “My wife was back there! Is she okay? Did any of the others make it back before the quake?”
The medic shook his head. “I have no idea, ma’am. I only just arrived at the FOB. I’m part of the relief crew.”
Olivia wanted to ask more questions, to get as much information as possible, to be ready for the bad news if it came. But the medic pressed an injector to her bicep and pulled the trigger, sending Olivia into dreamland before any of her questions could pass her lips.
***
“Get off!” Cash yelled as two medics tried to argue with him. “I stay until they’re all out of there!”
The medics glanced at each other then shrugged and rushed away to attend to a tourist being rescued from the chasm, leaving Cash suspended in a foam stretcher about fifty yards from the chasm’s edge.
All around him security personnel were firing stun thumpers up at the circling pterosaurs. Winged bodies were lit up by the shockrounds, electricity swarming across their reptilian bodies as the
y fell to earth.
“Talk to me, Raff,” Cash said into his comm.
“Cash? You should be in sleepy land, buddy,” Raff responded.
“Refused treatment until everyone is up safe and sound,” Cash said.
“Of course you did,” Raff replied. “Sorry, but you’re witnessing everything in real time. I’m not seeing anything you aren’t.”
“I can’t see everyone, Raff. You have full comms. Medics are reporting in. How many tourists have made it?” Cash asked.
“Four, so far,” Raff said. “No, five. They saved a woman that was being flown off by one of the wingers.”
“Five…” Cash leaned his head back into the foam. “Jesus Christ…”
“Hey, this isn’t your fault, buddy,” Raff said.
“Doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Didn’t say it would, but still, not your fault.”
“What’s the countdown?”
“Four and change.”
“Lakshmi talking to Brain?”
“She’s been helmeted since the quake.”
“Anything?”
“Neither Lakshmi nor Brain know what happened or why it screwed up the timeline. She’s talking to me from inside the system and is pretty pissed off.”
“She’ll figure it out,” Cash said.
There was shouting from all around and Cash struggled to get a view of the scene. The stretcher’s foam clung to him and made it hard to move, but he shoved against it until he was sitting upright. The pain that radiated from his knees made it hard to focus, but he bit down on the inside of his cheek and grunted as he studied the chaos.
“Shit. Buddy, I got to go,” Raff said. “You have a pack of teeth coming straight for you. And with the shredhawks offline, I have to coordinate—”
“Go,” Cash said as he saw the far-off line of carnivores sprinting at the rescue party. They were about half a click away to the east, but Cash knew that distance wouldn’t hold for long.
“We’re out of here!” a medic shouted as he ran up to Cash’s stretcher and shoved it back toward a roller.