The Invasive

by Michael Hodges

  Ten minutes up trail, Erickson reached a rock outcropping with a clear view of the lowlands he’d just crossed. Barrier 2 was engulfed by flames, and so was the forest for a mile around it. The flames reached hundreds of feet into the air, and numerous explosions emitted from the core fire—probably the munitions of Outpost 2 and maybe even Outpost 3. In-between explosions, he heard something rustling on the trail below and turned to look. One of the humongous elephant-like things bellowed fifty yards to his south and disappeared behind the trees.

  Shit, he thought. He put his goggles back on and sprinted up the mountain, desperate to lose his tail. Five minutes into the run he stopped and listened. The noises behind him were gone. He took a drink from his canteen, and as he swallowed the water, a new noise thundered above him. It was the sound of helicopter blades.

  Thwap Thwap Thwap.

  Erickson raced to another outcropping thirty yards uphill and prepared his flare.

  Thwap Thwap Thwap.

  He reached the outcropping, gazed into the sky with his night optics and saw a shape hurtling towards him. Erickson pocketed his flare and dashed into a short clump of trees, the branches and needles rough on this face. He watched from a hole in the vegetation as one of the huge fliers swooped over the outcropping and into the valley, its eyes reflecting the hellfire below.

  Erickson watched the burning valley and listened. The option of waiting this out was starting to appeal to him. Maybe the fire would remain low and not creep up the mountainside. Maybe it was best if he remained in place, reducing the odds of running into one of the creatures.

  The green eyes of the flying thing disappeared into the night, and he remained in his hiding spot. As he gazed into the valley, he swore he saw the edges of the fire expanding, and in a way that seemed too fast. Erickson snapped a twig off the tree. Way too easy. These woods were dry as tinder. If he remained in this location, the flames would arrive sooner or later.

  Erickson proceeded west up the trail, into a forest and occasional meadows. Slabs of rock punctuated the forest openings, and the air was colder than anything below. Eric thought of his wife, Cindy, of her gentle brown eyes and smile. Things hadn’t been as good as they could be with them, and when he got back, he was going to fix that. Oh hell yes he was. Roses, attention, showering her with praise, whatever was necessary, he’d do it.

  Erickson stopped and listened. A branch cracked to the south. He turned and scanned the woods. The night vision goggles revealed movement to the south. The head of a creature.

  Shit!

  He tried to run, but his balance was poor, and he hobbled instead. His left eye twitched towards his forehead and so did the left side of his mouth. He drooled for the first time since kindergarten as his left leg trembled and gave way. He fell to his knees and dropped his weapon, the shapes closing in on him in the periphery of his night vision optics. He screamed, and as he did, one of the frequency seals screamed too—a baby mocking him in its delight. The parent of the baby followed with its own scream, overjoyed that its precious baby was helping cripple their dinner.

  Erickson tried to move, but was only able to watch as his legs and arms shook. The seals closed in on him, their screams joyous at a fresh meal.

  He screamed at the top of his lung. “F-f-fucking h-h-help me!” His teeth chattered and he bit his tongue, moistening his twitching lips with coppery crimson. One of the baby frequency seals clamped onto his boot and tore at it, and its parent gripped his arm and pulled away a patch of skin in one bite. Erickson screamed again.

  The creatures wailed and bit him.

  Erickson tried to reach for his sidearm, but it was no use. As he tried to look away from the seals, movement came from behind vegetation uphill. A massive head emerged from the ferns, and two big glowing eyes stared back at him.

  Then another head emerged, similar to the other.

  And then another. Round ears. Dished face. Powerful jaws and gnashing teeth.

  Two smaller heads emerged below the bigger ones. Babies. No, not babies, he thought. Cubs.

  Erickson screamed again as a frequency seal gnawed on his hand.

  In the blink of an eye, the creatures stormed downhill, the ground shaking under their paws. The frequency seals turned to the attackers—who were running at forty-five miles per hour—and were immediately pummeled to the ground, the incredible paws of one gargantuan grizzly knocking a frequency seal’s head clear off, sending it tumbling downhill. One of the bear cubs chomped onto a baby frequency seal and thrashed it as it squealed and shook. Erickson moved his limbs as the effects of the frequencies abated, but thought better about running as he’d read that it was best to play dead this close to grizzly bears. Oh how badly he wanted to scream, wanted to flee as the carnage unfolded around him. The noises emitting from the fight were beyond anything he’d ever heard, or wanted to hear again. The grizzlies’ fur ruffled and quaked as their powerful forelegs pinned the frequency seals and tore at their innards. Every time a seal tried to fend off a bear with a limb, the bear would rip it off and maim their face. All of the frequency effects vacated Erickson’s body, but there was no way in hell he was moving an inch as the grizzlies and their cubs decimated the hapless frequency seals. Erickson wondered if the seals never had time to engage the grizzlies as they were so fast, and maybe panicked as they were overtaken with such brute force. The grizzly cubs picked off the babies like a wolf to chickens. The cubs swallowed the babies in big chunks, their appetite so voracious they gagged from eating too fast. Some of the bears stumbled, no doubt affected by the frequencies, but not incapacitated by them. The growling and squealing turned into the slapping of paws on dirt, huffing, and the tearing of meat as the grizzlies feasted.

  Erickson waited, still, silent.

  Deep, slow breaths.

  He watched the stars above him, letting deep space calm him, get his mind right.

  What star is that, Daddy? Abby had asked him last week, pointing to the north. He wasn’t able to provide a correct answer, and after he put her to bed, he’d researched it online.

  “That’s Alkaid, honey,” he whispered. “And it’s part of the Big Dipper.”

  More slow, deep breaths as the grizzlies ate.

  He heard the shuffling of paws near his head and felt the hot stink of breath as a mother grizzly studied him. It took every ounce of energy he had not to get up and run. The sow’s two playful cubs approached him, but the mother nudged them away from Erickson and to their dinner.

  The constellations shifted in the night sky and explosions rocked the land far below. Erickson heard digging and scratching to his right. The grizzlies were burying their meat and sniffing the air.

  The largest of the bears stood on hind legs and gazed at the burning valley, then ran off to tree line, for this animal did not care to be seen in the open, not after years of persecution by humans. Another grizzly followed, and this one’s belly was swollen and its fur bloody from nonstop feeding. They all ran into the shadows and disappeared, making their way towards the alpine realms and high meadows where man did not care to roam and where the strong winds had their backs. And as they ran one by one, grunting and huffing through the eerily-lit night, the stars from a certain northeast constellation blinked down to them in a form of communication no man could understand, for only the truly wild can understand the stars.

  *

  Bishop and Angela watched as the sky spasmed with light. The ground quaked and lurched, knocking them off balance. The mega-explosions and fire shimmered in the valley below.

  “Fucking government is torching the valley,” Bishop said.

  The fliers weaved and bobbed in confusion, not sure whether to focus on the paltry group hidden in the fog or to investigate the mayhem that thundered below them from the east.

  Seeing an opening, Bishop took Angela by the hand and led her to the crevasse. When they looked down, Colbrick was sinking into the pulsating, red foam at the pod entrance. Colbrick’s face was contorted and sweaty, and he was trying n
ot to scream. The scent of burning human hair wafted up the hole.

  What was left of Bishop’s heart blew into a thousand pieces. “You alright, buddy?” Bishop asked, his voice trembling.

  Angela gripped his hand and let out a heaving sob.

  Their talking went unnoticed by the confused fliers, some of which flew to the edge of the cirque, ogling down into the chaotic valley.

  “I’m fine, slick,” Colbrick lied from below, wincing as his feet sunk deeper into the foam. “I’m just going to hang out a bit with our seed friend here.”

  “Hold on,” Bishop said. “I’m coming down to get you.”

  The vapor condensed and swirled above them, shielding them from the fliers.

  “Like hell you’re coming down!” Colbrick snapped back. “Like I said before, get gone! You and the misses need to work on helping the valley. Ole’ Colbrick will be just fine.”

  “Stop being so stubborn and get back up here now,” Angela said, sobbing.

  “And then what?” Colbrick asked, his steel blue eyes flickering and wincing. “I need to make sure this here seed gets a proper serving of explosives.”

  “Stop it, Colbrick. Please, please stop it…get up here now,” she said, crying.

  Colbrick gasped and sunk to his knees in the burning foam. “I’m afraid I won’t be doing much walking,” he said sarcastically in that Colbrick kind of way. His contorted face and grimace betrayed the sarcasm.

  “No!” Angela cried, reaching for Bishop and weeping onto his chest. “Don’t let him do it! Don’t you dare let him!”

  Bishop embraced her and gazed upon his good friend—the one who plucked them from certain death on Highway 18 on that fateful day, the man who’d saved their lives numerous times since the invasion. “Please don’t do this. Get up here now!”

  “I’m afraid I can’t feel my feet, slick,” he said, turning a shade of red. Colbrick sunk even further into the foam and let out another hoarse gasp. Grimacing in pain, he still managed to hold the eight sticks of dynamite that he’d bundled with a bungee cord from his pack, interweaving the wicks so they could be lit with one match.

  “Not yet!” Angela screamed. “Don’t you freaking do it, Colbrick! Don’t you freaking do it. Get out of there first!”

  Colbrick met the long, waterproof wick with the match he’d shown them earlier at Big J. Then he ignited the match with his thumbnail and grinned at the flame, sweat pouring from his face. He sunk further into the foam, and fizzing arose from the portion of the seed-mother Colbrick was mired in. The earth rumbled, knocking flecks of mica and granite from the rocks into the pod, almost throwing them off balance. Colbrick’s hands trembled as he tried to meet flame to wick. He teetered in place and at last joined the two elements. A white-hot spark consumed the end, burning with the intensity of a police dog on a suspect.

  “I’ll see you guys in another life,” Colbrick said, grinning up at his dear friends and saluting them. “I ain’t had much luck with friends—too stubborn I suppose.” The wick crackled and spit sparks near his face. “I’m doing this for you, for the valley—”

  Before Colbrick could finish his farewell speech, Bishop started working his way down the hole with the assistance of Angela who’d tied the rope around a boulder at the crevasse entrance.

  “What are you doing?” he shouted back at them. “We’ll all die. The Apex Valley needs you fools!”

  As sparks reflected in Colbrick’s eyes, Bishop rappelled down the damp hole with the rope around his waist.

  “Go back, go back! God damn it! You’ll die, Bishop! Let me alone! Let me die a hero like my father and his father before him! I seen this coming for a long time!”

  Bishop grunted his way down the hole towards the pod, careful not to step on the foam. He stuck his hand out and reached for his injured friend, grabbing onto his shirt.

  “Shit don’t work like that,” Bishop said

  His strong hand now gripping the even stronger Colbrick, he nodded to Angela, and she assisted in pulling them up as he worked the crevasse walls with his feet and free arm.

  Speechless, Colbrick dropped the dynamite onto the pod floor. He used his feet and arms to push and climb. Free of the burning foam, his legs exhibited red lacerations.

  “Hang in there, buddy,” Bishop said, concentrating everything he had on removing them from the hole.

  The dynamite sunk into the foam, and a gleam appeared in Colbrick’s eyes when he saw the fuse was still sparking, the white-hot light reaching ever closer to the final meeting place of dangerous, packed powder. Colbrick used his hands to push and grasp along the walls while Bishop pulled, and the two of them collapsed in a heap at the entrance. The dense vapor swirled above them as explosions lingered in the valley.

  “Thank you,” Colbrick said, turning to them.

  “Consider us even,” Bishop said, patting the old timer on the back.

  “My legs. I can’t feel ‘em,” Colbrick said.

  “Ever go swimming in real cold water?” Angela asked, whispering. “Well, imagine this is the same thing—that your legs are there, they’re just real cold right now, and if you move enough, the feeling will come back.”

  The earth heaved again, and the vapor lit with vibrant reds, greens, and oranges. Explosions pounded the valley, sending up collages of sound that ricocheted off the spires. Heat and light filled the sky.

  The survivors crouched and scrambled through the fog.

  “Keep going,” Bishop whispered.

  “Hold up,” Angela whispered. “I forgot to do something.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Just hold up.”

  Angela took something out of her pocket, turned it on, placed it next to the nursery crevasse, and ran back to them in the swirling mists.

  “Go,” she mouthed to them. “Go.”

  They scrambled through the fog across the cirque, and an amplified voice came from behind them in the haze.

  It was Sue Grafferton’s voice.

  HALF CUP SUGAR…TWO TABLESPOONS OF BUTTER…FOUR CUPS OF HUCKLEBERRIES…ONE-THIRD CUP OF FLOUR…NINE INCH CRUST PASTRY.

  “What the hell did you do?” Bishop asked, trudging along with Colbrick, keeping his head down.

  “Something I’ve been planning since back at Big J,” Angela said. “A diversion tactic.”

  “A what?” Bishop asked.

  “A recording with my voice in case we needed a diversion from the fliers.”

  HALF TEASPOON OF CINNAMON…

  Suddenly, the world became still again, the tremors ceasing. The last assault of light faded to the horizon like a dying campfire.

  The voice changed from Sue’s to Angela’s.

  They scurried through the haze, their shoeless feet whisper-quiet on the punishing surface. Behind them, Angela’s recorded voice rang across the foggy cirque. The recorder was pushed to its limits, the speech clipping, distorting.

  No longer confused by the mayhem in the valley, the fliers turned their full attention to the tape recorder, their mimicry now playing back Angela’s voice. Her booming voice was everywhere as they worked their way to the northern spires, hunched over and gasping.

  MY NAME IS ANGELA. I HAVE SURVIVED THE ATTACK, AND I AM HERE TO TELL YOU THAT YOU WILL NOT WIN. YOU KILLED MY FRIEND SUE AND MOST OF THE APEX VALLEY. I AM HERE TO TELL YOU THAT YOU WILL NOT WIN.

  DESPITE NUMEROUS OBSTACLES SINCE THE FIRST DAY OF THE ATTACK, WE SURVIVE AND ACT AS A DECENT SPECIES. WE WILL SURVIVE, WE WILL OUTLAST YOU. MARK MY WORDS. AND IN CASE YOU NEED TO KNOW, THIS IS A RECORDING.

  SEE, I CAN RECORD JUST LIKE YOU DO. BUT THE FUNNY THING ABOUT A NOISE IS THAT YOU HAVE TO BE SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW IF IT’S REAL. AND I’M BETTING THAT YOU FLIERS CAN’T TELL THE FREAKING DIFFERENCE. IN FACT, I’M BETTING EVERYTHING ON IT BECAUSE I JUST DON’T THINK YOU’RE VERY SMART. HOW’S THAT FOR MIMICRY? HOW’S THAT FOR A PLAYBACK DEVICE? I DON’T KNOW WHEN I WILL USE THIS TAPE, OR EVEN IF I EVER WILL. BUT YOU CAN BE SURE THAT IF IT IS USED, IT WILL BE A VERY BAD DAY FOR YOU
. THERE ISN’T ROOM ENOUGH FOR BOTH OF US.

  The fliers swarmed the recorder, two of the huge ones following the horde of the smaller pests. They clouded over the recorder like a virus attacking a cell, wings beating away puffs of vapor. One of the big fliers landed clumsily, knocking the recorder into the nursery crevasse. Enraged by the retreating voice, the flier stuck its oblong head into the hole, knocking bits of debris from the walls. The recorder landed on a ledge, and as the flier opened its deadly beak, its searching, grotesque eye reflected the last spark from the dynamite, manufactured in Hobart, Indiana.

  A blinding flash of yellow shot up to the sky. Through the disorienting rumble, the fliers shrieked and panicked.

  “Keep going!” Bishop shouted.

  “Colbrick, how you doing?” Angela asked, huffing.

  “Better. I can feel my legs now, they hurt like hell but at least I can feel ‘em.”

  “Good sign,” she said. “Can you keep moving?”

  “What God damned choice do I have?” he asked.

  Angela said nothing.

  They worked over the rugged terrain, wincing and grunting. The fliers wailed and thrashed behind them.

  “Oh my God,” Angela said, looking back. “Keep freaking going. Do not stop, do not stop!”

  Bishop glanced behind and saw even more fliers gathering above the nursery crevasse. The swarm was so thick that smaller fliers were batted down by the wings of the larger ones as the birds panicked. A few of the giant fliers ghosted as high as the tips of the Hoodoo spires in the chilling night sky.

  Colbrick looked back, eyes wide. “If they see us, we’re fertilizer!”

  “Thanks for the play-by-play,” Angela shot back, panting. “Get moving!”

  Colbrick stumbled and Angela and Bishop stopped to help him up.

  “Keep moving!” Bishop shouted. “We have to get over the mini-saddle.”