The Invasive

by Michael Hodges

Colbrick chuckled and crawled into his tent, then zippers and a light cough in the empty night.

  *

  An ice-cold wind tumbled down the dim peaks while Bishop huddled with Angela in the glow of millions of stars.

  “All the lights,” she said, looking down at the valley. “They’re gone.”

  Bishop put his hand under her chin and gently tilted her gaze to the sky.

  “They’ve always been on,” he said.

  She smiled and her heart warmed. He always had a knack for saying the right things when it counted. Heck, that was how he seduced her to begin with. His charm had receded a bit over the years as time sometimes rubs off the shine, but she was glad to see it emerge once more. It was still there, deep inside him, just like there were still a few native animals in the Apex Mountains. And as long as something was left, it could be built upon. That much she knew.

  “Who needs those fake lights when we have these,” Bishop said, gesturing his hand out before them.

  Angela rested her head on Bishop’s chest.

  “What are the chances we make it?” she asked, more for comfort than for an honest answer.

  Bishop paused. “Our chances are as good as anyone’s,” he said, taking her hand. “With Yutu and Colbrick, we’re a lethal, unstoppable squad.”

  Angela smiled. “It’s just us up in these mountains, isn’t it? The valley…it’s in our hands.”

  “I don’t think we can expect an army to come up here and save us,” Bishop said. Then he lowered his voice and gave it a crusty inflection. “Shit don’t work like that, slick.”

  Angela put a hand to her mouth and busted with laughter. “Shhh…you’re going to wake him up.”

  “I heard that,” Colbrick said from his tent. “You should look into doing some stand-up.”

  “Goodnight, Colbrick,” Angela said. “Get some rest.”

  “Yeah I guess. ‘night.”

  Yutu laid his muzzle upon Angela’s right leg and glanced up at her with his soft eyes. She patted him on the head and scratched his scruff, and Yutu thumped his tail.

  “You’re such a good boy,” she said in baby talk. “You don’t deserve any of this mess. I’m so glad we found you.”

  “Here, here,” Bishop said, framed by glittering eternity and the atrophic woods below.

  The three of them sat there, making contact with each other in one way or another, silhouetted on the mountain in front of the universe. To the west, a shooting star streaked across the brilliance.

  Angela made a wish. She kept it to herself.

  There was still hope.

  Idea Man

  Pvt. Lance Berkman was getting sick of the fuckers—sick of their scurrying and building, sick of how they put his buddies in the infirmary. The hospitalization of his good friend, Robertson, was the tipping point. Sure, they’d approached Barrier 1 when they weren’t supposed to and that had triggered the attack, but who gives a shit? They should’ve shot the things to begin with and not bothered studying them. All the creatures wanted to do was build and eat, and any available human seemed to be the preferred meat.

  Berkman’s platoon had strategic placement four hundred yards from Barrier 1. Their job was to maintain the status quo and escort civilian scientists to retrieve samples when applicable. These civilians studied Barrier 1 and its inhabitants with a range of expensive monitoring gear such as 800 millimeter Canon image-stabilized telephoto lenses with HD video-enabled camera bodies, thermal imaging scopes, and night vision optics. Of course, most of the time they couldn’t see the Stunners and their monkey pals unless the wind shifted. Something in the barriers created haze, and Berkman had overheard one of the civilians telling another that it might be caused by excretions from the Stunners, but couldn’t be sure. They did know that the Stunners kept their disgusting babies in the tangle of trees and vegetation, along with the babies of their monkey pals. Anyone who approached these nesting areas in daylight was immediately attacked by the Stunners, and the monkeys, too, if they were in range.

  Eight klicks to the north of Barrier 1 was the second platoon, and they were responsible for making sure no civilians approached Barrier 1. Two point five klicks to the north of Barrier 1 was another platoon.

  Pvt. Berkman spit. The time for waiting was over. Yesterday afternoon, the Stunners had incapacitated Robertson and then swarmed on him, taking out a chunk of his abdomen. The dual, sandbagged M240’s on either embankment had saved him. But that wasn’t enough, at least not for Berkman. He wanted Barrier 1 gone. It had to be gone, for Robertson was unconscious with tubes sticking out of him and fed by IV. Robertson was a smart guy. He’d joined the Army to help pay for college, as had Berkman. They were going to both major in business and start an online recreational equipment store. Robertson was the numbers man. Berkman was the idea man. He always had that role, it seemed.

  At dark, Pvt. Berkman removed the crucifix necklace from under his shirt and kissed it. Earlier in the day, he’d stashed a gasoline can on the eastern side of the road, back in the tree line. He’d also observed a game trail that must’ve been used by deer that ran parallel along the road to the eastern side of Barrier 1. He’d informed Olson and Louris, the platoon’s M240 operators of his plan, and they agreed to look the other way. Had he not gained permission, there’s no way he’d pull this off. A few snapping twigs inside the tree line, and they’d have lit him up, or at least spotlighted him.

  Berkman hoisted his M16A2 rifle, hunched over, and trotted into the woods. In a few steps, the forest swallowed him. Sure he was clear of outpost sightlines, he approached the downed tree where he’d hidden the can of fuel. Still there. Berkman grabbed the can and followed the trail east, the stars bright above him, offering just enough light to reveal obstacles in his path. After a hundred yards, he entered the Devastation Zone, the area where the Stunners had cleared huge portions of forest for the construction of Barrier 1. Stumps and forest litter surrounded him. Here and there a few trees remained, unsought by the Stunners for whatever reason. Each tree in the darkness was like a human figure, and he swore he saw his mother in one, and his sister in another, the tree limbs like their arms reaching out to him. Berkman’s heart raced. Sure this was dangerous, but he had a good idea he’d figured these things out by now. They weren’t as active at night, like humans. He’d also heard the civilians mentioning no sign of other creatures in Quadrant Five, meaning the Stunners and their monkey friends were the only things here. That increased his odds. The monkeys didn’t show up all that often. When they did, it was to help the Stunners carry sticks and trees to Barrier 1, and in one instance, to assist them in an attack.

  Two hundred yards from Barrier 1 now.

  Berkman paused and kissed the crucifix again. He picked up speed, ghosting past the few remaining spruce and aspen, lone sentinels under the Milky Way. Soon, the jagged outline of Barrier 1 appeared in the sky before him, blocking out the bottom third of the southern horizon. Berkman paused every twenty yards and listened. He thought he heard chittering from one of the baby things coming from Barrier 1, but that was OK as long as it wasn’t coming up the game trail he was on. As Berkman ran, the fuel sloshed in the can. He tried to keep it as quiet as possible.

  Twenty yards now from Barrier 1.

  Ten.

  The Stunner babies chittered to the west, deep in the nooks and crannies of Barrier 1.

  At last, he stood at its base, where it sloped to the east into what was left of the forest like a lumbering dinosaur.

  “For you, Robertson,” he whispered to the structure. Berkman put his rifle down and popped the lid on the can, making a loud thock!

  Something rustled to his west.

  Berkman climbed Barrier 1 and emptied the can as he went. His boot caught in a snag and he jerked it out, sending a stick to the ground.

  A series of dull cries emitted from the west, some of the cries deadened by woody debris. They’d been alerted to his presence.

  Fuck, he thought.

  Berkman thought of
Robertson and of his own mother and father, but most of all his sister, how they’d learned the monkey bars together, how she’d given him money for college after she’d married a doctor. He wanted to see her again so bad, tell her thanks for all she’d done. He knew he would. He was the idea man, and he’d come up with a plan out of this mess, too.

  With the can emptied, Berkman set it down carefully in a cradle of branches so it wouldn’t make noise. Then Berkman climbed down and reached into his pocket and took out the box of Strike Tip Matches he and the boys used for their smokes and cigars. Lighters were not cool enough, not when The Man with No Name in the Spaghetti Westerns used matches for his smokes. He held the match in his hand and listened. The cries stopped. Maybe the things went back to sleep, or whatever they did at night.

  Berkman lit the match, and the orange flame revealed a dozen eyeless faces, all of them encircling him in the penumbra. The Stunners gnawed at the air and clenched and unclenched the claws on their six limbs.

  “Shit,” Berkman said.

  The left side of his mouth twitched up to his cheek, and his left eyeball tried to pull to his forehead. He collapsed to the ground and dropped the match. Flames purred along the fuel route and climbed Barrier 1. The Stunners retreated into the darkness, away from the flames. Berkman rose to his feet, then realized his right pant leg was on fire. Before he could swat it out, one of the Stunners returned and shocked him with the frequencies. Then another Stunner came back. And another. They blasted him, and he convulsed like a beached dolphin as the flames seared his legs. A moment later, the convulsing stopped, and the Stunners retreated into the darkness as their eyes brightened with flame. Berkman staggered to his feet and swatted at his pants while running west along the front of Barrier 1. As he ran, the flames grew, and soon they gravitated to his shirt. Berkman screamed, hoping his platoon would hear him.

  The flames reached his hair, causing excruciating scalp pain. Flames dried out his right eye, and then a harsh pop as he lost vision there. He slumped in the fog in front of Barrier 1 as spotlights from his platoon penetrated the haze. He screamed again.

  On his knees and swatting at his head, Berkman noticed several of the Stunner babies approaching him as the bigger ones stayed behind and watched. The baby Stunners squealed and aimed their bulbous heads at him, and he felt the pinprick shocks of their weak sonic blasts.

  Squeaaaaaaal!

  One of the baby stunners chewed at his burnt and smoking boot. In one last surge, Berkman got to his feet and dove into a burrow. The last thing he saw in the wooded rookery was a horde of vicious baby Stunners squealing and crying at him, and then their mouths gnawing at his loosening skin.

  Louris and Olson aimed their M240’s across Barrier 1 as the spotlights lit it up. A flash of orange came from the eastern portion of the Devastation Zone.

  “Fire!” Olson shouted. “It’s on fire!”

  Numerous blazing objects emerged from the haze, and then many more.

  “What the hell,” Louris said, reaching for his radio.

  He wanted to get the message to his platoon commander, but the burning Stunners were too close. The M240’s roared across the night, muzzle flash illuminating the six-limbed monstrosities within meters of their sandbag bunkers. From behind the burning freaks came unburned animals, kinds Olson had never seen before. One of them was the size of a God damned elephant, and behind it came what he could only describe as floating snakes. These were a hundred yards away. He kept his finger on the trigger, relishing each instance of a bullet finding its mark. Then Olson heard four other M240’s. Impossible, he thought. There were just two here. Before he could ponder the source, a gush of air beat upon him and he was taken into the air. He looked down and saw Louris convulsing on his machine gun as a horde of Stunners moved in on him. As Olson was carried into the night sky, he saw rippling flames consuming the eastern portion of Barrier 1. Furious blasts from the M240’s came from somewhere above him, interrupted by the beat of impossible wings.

  No Quarter

  The early morning storm rained down from the peaks like a furious God. Gust after gust slammed into them as snake-tongued lightning slithered across the sky. Fat, cold drops of rain battered their tents—the first rain they’d seen since the invasion.

  “Stay in the tents!” Colbrick shouted from his, the words almost like a song. “You’re the only thing keeping them from flying away!”

  Yutu paced in Angela and Bishop’s two-man tent, a growl preceding each turn.

  “It’s OK, boy,” Angela said, petting him.

  “The scent,” Bishop said. “The storm could scrub it clean.”

  Yutu clawed at the tent zipper.

  “No, boy,” Angela said. “You’ll blow away out there.”

  “I think he’s worried about the scent,” Bishop said.

  “We can’t let him out,” Angela said. “We’ll lose him.”

  “Come on, Yutu,”’ Bishop said, grabbing at his scruff.

  Yutu gave in and calmed, but continued staring at the tent flap and tilting his head, waiting for someone to open the damn thing so he could get that scent again—the big, red, flashing trail which only he could see. Yutu turned to Bishop, pleading, whimpering.

  The frightening gusts whipped into dangerous gusts, hammering the tents without mercy. Bishop thought he heard unusual utterances from certain howls, like prophetic old men who’d been disturbed in their sleep speaking in raspy tones. In one particular gust, Bishop thought he heard his name. His nerves tightened, and he looked to Angela for comfort. That was a mistake.

  “Bring it on,” Angela said, her teeth clenched. She glanced at Bishop, then at Yutu’s manic eyes and the relentless, flapping tent. She was tired of waiting, tired of detours and these vile creatures. “Is that all you got, cruel bitch?” she shouted back at the gusts, a nasty jab of wind shaking the tent as she spoke. “Is that it?” she asked, punching the tent wall. “That all you got? You already fucked us over, and now you want to kill us with a storm? Well, I have news for you, you aren’t shit.”

  Bishop backed away, mouth open.

  Her nostrils flared, and her eyes turned glassy like a spooky doll.

  Another blast of wind shellacked the left side of the tent.

  “That’s it?” she asked, almost growling.

  Even Yutu looked on with bewilderment, taking a few steps back.

  “You call yourself mother nature? You’re nothing but a two-bit whore!”

  Another blast of wind rattled the tent. Streaks of lightning illuminated the blue fabric and were followed by unusually long rolls of thunder, as if the earth was cleansing itself, retching to get out poison.

  “You can’t wash us away!” Angela said.

  Something was trying to scrub them off the mountain, like a camper cleaning the last sticky parts of a pan.

  “We’re not done here yet! Do you hear me?” Angela shouted, turning to Bishop with watery, bloodshot eyes.

  Bishop went to grab her, but pulled his hand back. Sometimes people needed to vent. Beats hitting the bottle every night.

  Angela collapsed into a corner of the tent and punched the stony ground with her bony fists. “I’m so sick of this,” she said.

  “It’s OK,” Bishop said, speaking in a soothing tone but still careful not to touch her. “Maybe this was all a mistake. Maybe this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Is anything supposed to happen? You never believed in that.”

  The tent walls flexed, creating their own turbulence. The western wall was the worst, playing principle victim to the storm’s violence.

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” he said. “After that dream with my father, my perspective has been thrown into chaos.”

  “What happened in that room, Bishop?”

  “That room—”

  An earsplitting barrage of thunder shook the mountain, and the rocks they were camped upon prickled with a discombobulating electrical sensation.

  “—is calling to me,” Bish
op said. “The first day there, I thought I saw my father standing behind me in the sink mirror. The room pulled at me, sort of beckoning me to go back there, like I was supposed to. And when I finally went back into the room and fell asleep, he spoke to me in my dream.”

  Angela blinked and said nothing. She knew Bishop was no tale-teller. Perhaps, when he would return from a fishing trip to Apex country, he would exaggerate the size of a trout. She’d learned to knock it down by about two inches—a rule that applied to other men things, too.

  “He told me we were meant to do this, and that in his own bizarre way, he helped us.”

  Yutu rested his muzzle on Angela’s lap.

  “And he told me the source of the creatures was in these mountains,” Bishop said.

  A surge of wind rattled the tent, and the walls became concave and convex in a fast, repetitious pattern. Unsettling tones swirled in the gusts, as if the groaning and mumbling of ancient and all-knowing sentinels. Angela’s arms and backside lit afire with the actual sensation of electricity underneath them, and the electricity of fear.

  “What gets me about that encounter was not seeing my father in my dream as if he were real,” Bishop said. “But this feeling that saving the valley would save him as well. I know he’s dead, but he told me that he lives on here. I guess he meant his spirit lives here.”

  “And then?”

  “He was gone.”

  “And then I showed up.”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish I could see my mother.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bishop said.

  “I wonder if she knows your father, wherever he came from.”

  “Maybe.”

  “And my father, Bishop. We weren’t close, but I hope these things don’t spread and hurt him.”

  “I bet he’s fine,” Bishop said.

  “I hope,” she said. “We saw the video of the small fliers in North Dakota. I don’t see why the large ones couldn’t go farther.”

  “Only guesses,” he said. “Your father’s fine, and so is my mother. Chicago is a long way away.”