by Jesse Wilson
“Great, alright, but still I don’t think this is very smart considering—” Bruce was cut off as someone screamed and started running in their direction. In the chaos, Terra had bitten a middle-aged man who was now turned into a weapon.
“Kill it!” Bruce screamed as Xule aimed and fired. The red beam missed as the infected man dodged to the right. The beam slammed into a car and it burst into flames.
“Snoz,” Xule said and fired again at the same time Bruce did. The bullet hit the man in the chest, stunning it while Xule’s beam started the body on fire. It hit the street and laid there.
“It burns because it was infected. Weaker bodies will just turn to ash on contact at full power like this,” Xule said and watched the body burn.
“We’re not getting out of here alive, are we?” Bruce asked him, and Xule didn’t know what to say.
“Sippy, scan for Xeloid DNA; we’ll track this thing down before it can hurt anyone else,” Xule said to his computer.
“Already on it. Narbosaurus DNA is straight ahead,” Sippy said to them.
“Alright, let’s fry ourselves an alien dinosaur,” Bruce said, and the two of them started in that direction.
Randall, Madison, and Janine climbed into the back of the truck, and Randall closed the door behind him.
“Now we wait I guess,” Janine said. Madison was still too furious for words at the rejection of the deal.
“Yeah, or we could go get my body back,” the uninvited voice said, shocking them as they all jumped back. In the dark, no one could see Terra sitting in there.
“That guy knows where it is. I hijacked his DNA and—” Madison finally remembered.
“He was the one from the station, I knew I remembered him. It’s been a bad day,” Madison said, upset with herself that she had forgotten so soon.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. My offer still stands. I could do it myself, sure, but what fun is that? I can get the driver of this truck out of the way, and you can ride shotgun with me until I get where I need to go,” she said to them. There was silence for a few seconds.
“Listen, that distraction won’t last forever, so you need to decide now if you’re going or not,” Terra said and looked at them.
“Why do you even need us to go?” Madison asked her straight out.
“I just wanted someone to talk to. It’s a long drive, and I like company. Besides, when are you going to get to drive with an alien terrorist dinosaur again in your lives? It could be fun,” The three of them looked at one another.
“Come on, guys, you can trust me on this. I won’t kill you, and anyone who’s infected and not dead by the time we get my body back will be uninfected. It’s a good deal after all,” she said to them.
“What the hell. Old age is overrated anyway. Let’s go,” Randall finally said and the other two didn’t want to part ways just yet.
“Great, it’s a road trip. Alright, now the truck is more than big enough for all of us to fit in the front. Let’s get out of here,” Terra said and walked to the door, opened it, and hopped out. The others followed her right out and walked around the other side of the truck. Terra walked to the driver’s side, opening the door.
“What the hell?” the driver said as the woman reached up, grabbed him, and with ease, threw him out of the truck all with one hand. On the other side, the three were getting in as well.
“Alright friends, we are going to Colorado,” Terra said, smiling as she started the truck and started to drive out of Ashwind. In the chaos of hunting for an alien, surprisingly, no one noticed the truck leaving town.
The helicopter pilots figured someone was taking the truck out of harm’s way and didn’t say a word about it due to the situation. Inside the truck, the four of them were uncomfortably tense.
“So, what do we call you?” Randall asked Terra, trying to break the ice.
“You heard old scale face; they call me Narbosaurus. I never really had a name, and that’s really the most accepted one I guess. You can just call me Terra, since I am in her body and all. I don’t care really,” she replied but never took her eyes off the road.
“Terra it is, because Narbosaurus is a lot to say each time,” Randall said and Madison’s eyes flashed.
“Why did you use my son as a sleeper cell to spread your disease?” she was angry.
“Trust me, at the time, I just wanted to take over your little planet, but things have changed. Patrick is fine, and I’ll make sure that he gets back to you in one piece,” Terra said with a hint of regret in her voice. Madison was filled with mixed emotions as she was now less than a few feet away from the thing they were once running from, apparently just because it wanted company for the ride.
Neither she nor any of the others trusted the thing, but right now, it was being almost nice.
“Anyways, who wants to tell a story? It’s a long drive, and there isn’t anything but bad news on the radio,” Terra said with a smile and shifted gears, leaving Ashwind behind them.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“Run,” Xule said and noticed that there was more screaming going on than anything in the distance. Bruce got on the radio.
“Unit One, this is an ambush. That thing set a trap. We don’t know how many are infected, but we need to regroup to make an exit strategy,” he said into the radio and there was no response for a second.
“Yeah, we have a problem. I just iced three people, but more are breaking through the walls. Joe just got bit, and I’ll meet you back on the street,” a man replied with the sound of angry hissing and growling that was in the background.
Cory was still standing in the street, abandoned by the ones he helped but still in shock as to the sudden chaos that had broken out. Xule ran to him and grabbed him by the shoulders. He realized there was no way to win here.
“Human, what’s the fastest way out of this place?” he asked him when he realized the truck was gone. Cory looked deep into the alien’s eyes and finally started screaming.
All of this at once, and now being so close to an alien was too much for him to handle right now. Xule looked to the left and saw someone through the window, but the glare of the sun made it impossible to see if they were infected or not.
“Kid, please, snap out of it and answer me,” Xule screamed again. It was enough to get Cory out of his manic state of panic, but he was drawing a blank.
“Sir, we need to fall back. Joe just tried to ice me, he was slow, but it was close. The rest of us are one minute from your spot. Do we have a plan to get out of here?” the radio chirped to life again, and Bruce looked back to where the truck was only to see it was missing. He sighed and figured that he should have expected something like that to happen.
“Abandon that plan. Get to the roof of any structure and have one of the helicopters pick you up. The alien and I will try to make it, but don’t wait for us,” Bruce said and couldn’t believe how fast the situation had deteriorated. Bruce changed the channels on his radio.
“Pilots, I instructed the unit to get to the roofs. When you see them, collect them,” Bruce said into the radio.
“And how will we know if they are infected or not?” one pilot asked him.
“We knew the job was dangerous when we took it. Good luck,” Bruce replied to him, and that was the only thing he could think of to say.
“Xule, we need to get to Xy; that thing knows where its body is and stole the truck. Anyone who tries to stop it without knowing how is going to be slaughtered,” Bruce said as an infected man walked out of the door of the post office and jumped at him.
Bruce dodged to the left, and Xule turned and blasted him in the side. The infected man rolled to the ground on fire. The infected one, despite being on fire, stood back up and screamed, its flesh melting. It half-charged at them again. Xule fired again and blew a gaping hole through the man’s chest. It fell dead and the body burned.
“Come on, we can go to my house; we’ll be safe there,” Cory said and turned around as he began running reck
lessly in a straight line, oblivious to the danger around him.
“Come on, human, let’s follow the kid. It’s better than staying here,” Xule said and started to run after Cory, not knowing where this was going to lead. He followed the two of them and was hoping that one of the infected wasn’t going to pop out of a building to take a bite out of them.
Xule was naturally much faster than Cory, but because he didn’t know where he was going, he held back his speed to frustrating levels. Cory was running as fast as he could, straight to his house. He didn’t have a plan beyond that, or beyond any of this.
His parents were in Vegas for the weekend, and he was sure they were both dead now; all that mattered was that he got to be useful somehow. To be needed at the very least. The three of them got off of Main Street and managed to make it to Cory’s house. He opened the door as he ran up the steps.
“We will be safe in here, I think,” he said without smiling, still stunned. Xule and Bruce walked through the door and Cory locked it behind them.
“Nice place, kid, but we won’t be safe here. Those things are going to swarm us within the hour, and I am sure they’ll search every house in this small town until they find us and anyone else who hasn’t left,” Bruce said and took the chance to relax, sitting on the couch.
Both of them were extremely tired due to being on the job for this many hours, and in a period of calm, it was finally catching up to them.
“It’ll take the horde at least a few hours to search all the houses. I think we should get some rest while we can,” Xule suggested to Bruce, but he was already sleeping on the couch.
“Well, I’ll take first watch then, I guess,” Xule said and put his blaster away.
“Are you real?” Cory finally asked him, the shock wearing off.
“Yeah, I’m real. It’s been a heck of a day for this planet. My name is Xule, what’s yours?” he asked him.
“I’m Cory. I always knew aliens were real, I just didn’t think they would be like all the movies, so destructive and stuff,” Cory replied to him and opened the fridge to pull out a pitcher of water.
“Movies, like what kind of movies?” Xule said curiously.
“Stories are all the same. Alien comes from outer space and wants to destroy earth or invade it. Aliens are almost always bad. I just didn’t want to believe it,” Cory said and poured himself a glass, and another glass for Xule.
“Well, I don’t think any of the races would want to invade this planet; we really don’t do that sort of thing. Narbosaurus is a different kind of alien. The kind no one likes because it eats and infects everything it gets its hands on,” Xule said and took the glass, lifted it up and inspected it a bit.
“Yeah, it looks like the water on my planet. Sippy, scan and sterilize this for me, would you?” Xule said and a blue beam shot into the water from the computer on his wrist.
“Woah, that’s one cool thing you have there. I like it,” Cory said, not really understanding what it was entirely.
“Thank you, human,” Sippy replied to him and Cory smiled.
“So, this alien dinosaur seems pretty smart. Have you ever tried to talk to it? Make a deal with it somehow, you know? Anything like that in the past?” Cory asked him as Sippy finished scanning the water. Xule drank it all in one go.
“We talked to it. We tried that a couple of times, but all it saw was a free meal ticket. After that, we just tried to capture it,” Xule said as he set his glass down. Cory refilled it. “But at the same time, this monster is strange. I mean, as mean and powerful as it is, it always has a sense of nobility to it. If things were slightly different, you could see it as a great leader or protector, but it was made to consume everything, and that’s all it seems to ever want to do,” Xule replied to him and stared into the glass of water as if all of life’s secrets were right there.
“It made an offer. It seems willing to change, but Mister passed-out-on-the-couch over there shot her down. Everything starts somewhere, doesn’t it?” Cory said and took a sip.
“You must have heard us mention Garmonbozia, right? It’s coming to this planet, and it might take a month to get here, depending on where it is right now. That’s why it was eager to make a deal,” Xule said and preempted Cory’s next question.
“It’s a weapon, long, bloody story that I’ll spare you the details with, but all you need to know is that it’s coming here and nothing is going to end well. All of this stuff we are doing right now, it’s just damage control. Sorry, kid.” Xule truly was sorry all of this was coming to this planet and blamed himself for it; it was all his fault and he knew it.
“How are we going to get out of here? If there is a way to save the world, we won’t do it from my house. We need transportation, and soon,” Cory said, and Xule started to think about it.
“I have literally no idea what we are going to do from this point forward,” Xule said and drank the water again in one shot.
“Well, we could always see where Mobstar is and maybe we could go there. It’s a start,” Cory suggested and Xule looked at the kid.
“Mob who now?” He was confused.
“It’s who I contacted to get you guys here; not that it mattered, because it looked like you got beaten pretty bad out there,” Cory explained to him.
“Well, we better go find out while we still can. I’m sure he’ll be fine on the couch for a little while,” Xule said and stood up.
“Lead the way, Cory,” he said and Cory started walking towards the back. The two of them made their way outside and listened for any movement, but didn’t hear anything.
“I think it’s safe,” Xule said, and the two of them made their way to the shack. Cory immediately sat down in that chair and turned on the radio again.
“Coldblade calling Mobstar; come in, Mobstar, you out there?” Cory said into the radio and waited for a response.
***
“Coldblade calling Mobstar, are you out there?” Cory’s voice came over the radio. Heather jumped at the sudden noise breaking the silence. Bob and Alex, Phil, and even the cameraman were sleeping in various places. Heather had too much on her mind to sleep, and every time she tried, horrible thoughts of giant beasts rampaging through a city flooded her thoughts. Gordon was in his bedroom, and Rose hadn’t come out of there either.
She didn’t even let her mind go in that direction. Heather stood up and walked to the radio.
“Gordon’s sleeping right now; what can I do for you, Blade?” Heather asked into the radio.
“Ashwind is being taken over, and I have two important people here who need a place to go. I was wondering if I could get your location so we could get them there?” Cory asked her.
“Uh, who are these people?” Heather asked him right away.
“You’re not going to believe this. One of them is an alien, a man-lizard thing. The other one is some kind of a general and they are both at my house. They are safe for now, but that’s not going to last very long,” Cory replied.
“Xule’s at your place. Let me talk to him to make sure you’re not lying,” Heather replied with words Cory was obviously not expecting to hear.
“Sure, okay, it’s like everyone knows all about this stuff but me,” Cory said and there was short rustling sound on the other end.
“Heather, is that you? I am glad to know you’re still alive,” Xule said into the machine.
“Yeah, we’re fine, holding up at the Culver Ranch a couple hours outside of Vegas, and we have a helicopter you can use if you want,” Heather replied to him and she smiled. It was good to know he was still alive in all of this mess.
“Thank you, I’ll be seeing you as soon as I can. Sippy can guide us to where you are. You guys stay safe, over and out,” Xule said and Heather broke contact. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the barrel of a gun pointed at the side of her head. A very angry Gordon had heard everything.
“You told the government where we were. How could you do that? I trusted you,” Gordon’s voice shook with an
ger as he said this. Heather didn’t move.
“There is more going on than you know. Please don’t kill me,” she said to him as calmly as she could. Gordon was glaring at her, and everyone else was still sleeping. Despite his anger, he managed to keep his voice down. Gordon, as mad as he was, lowered the gun. He couldn’t bring himself to actually do it.
“Get away from the radio,” he said and she got up and got away from it. “When your government friends get here, you and all of your friends are leaving with them. If I see you again on my land, you’ll be dead, do you understand me?” Gordon said with a creepy amount of calm in his voice, even now.
“Yes, I understand you perfectly,” she replied, and to be honest, she didn’t want to spend any more time down here than was needed. Now all she could do is wait for their ride to show up or however it was going to go, but at least time felt like it was moving forward again, however slowly.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The three of them walked down the street, and everything around them was on fire or smoldering. The smoke was so thick that they couldn’t see more than twenty feet ahead at best at any given time.
“Come on, just a little further,” James said, and with each step Tina took, the pain was increasing. The longer they walked, the more Logan had to support her as they moved. Tina, despite the burns on her legs, refused to quit moving forward or complain about it.
“How much farther? You’ve said that six times now, I think, and we’re not getting anywhere,” Logan replied, trying not to inhale too much smoke as he did.
“I know, but I think I’m right this time. We can’t stop here unless you want to die,” James replied back to him, but the idea of death wasn’t seeming too bad right about now.
Then Tina thought she had finally lost her mind. In all of this blazing heat, she felt a cold drop of water hit her in the back of the neck.
