Afraid of the Dark

by Chris Hechtl

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Nothing's happening,” she said looking at the gun.

  “Hold it steady. Its just a pointer. An oversized laser pen. We're just guiding them in.”

  “Okay,” she said softly. She looked around nervously. Fliers were out and about, but none in their area. Most were over the Arnold Heights area. They could just make them out in the distance.

  Shane keyed his mike. “Six to Sparks we're set.”

  “Roger. Spooky spotted your mark and is coming in on along the 60. Keep your ears covered its going to get loud.”

  “Yeah, watch that,” he said to Jolie. He pulled out earplugs and put a set in his ears. Then he handed her a set to put in hers. She looked at them then when he pointed to his own ears grimaced and placed them in carefully, tilting her head as she brushed her hair aside to get them in.

  “What?” she asked reaching up with her free hand.

  “Stay still. Keep pointing. The ship is coming in,” he said, pointing to where he wanted the laser to go.

  They could just hear and feel the rumble of the airship. He turned, expecting it to come from the East but Jolie pulled on his pant leg. He looked at her and she pointed the other way. He turned and looked to see. He could just make out the gunship in the moonlight. It got to the 215 split and then opened up. Cannon fire and what looked like laser fire streamed down into the Canyon lake area.

  “What the hell, a laser?” Jolie asked. She tugged on his pant leg to repeat the question. He looked down and read her lips.

  He leaned close and yelled in her ear. “Gatling gun. Its firing tracers,” he said, watching the show. The tracers were chewing something up. Fire blossomed in the lake area.

  “Is that a cannon?” Jolie asked, staring. The gunship passed overhead. They instinctively ducked as it kept moving, tearing into the lake area. It made a turn over the Perris Blvd exit and then banked to its left, forming a circle.

  “Damn,” Jolie breathed softly.

  The gunship did two orbits and then flew directly overhead. It waggled its wings. Jolie grinned, teeth flashing in the moonlight.

  He patted the girl's shoulder and waved to the aircraft.

  “Good show Puffy, thanks for the turn and burn,” Hernandez said over the radio net. “Hope to see you soon. Beer's on us.”

  “We'll remember that, Dragon Four Five out,” the pilot said.

  Shane grinned as he and Jolie made their way back to the ladder.

  “What the hell was that?” People asked, milling about inside. He snorted pushing the door open. People stepped aside. Many looked scared, some were rubbing their eyes. He came out then looked at the taboo.

  “That ladies and gentlemen was a gunship,” he said raising his voice. Jen fortunately wasn't there. Hopefully she and the kids had slept through it.

  “A gunship?” Wayne asked, shouldering his uniform shirt on. He paused in confusion. “Here?”

  “C-130 out of Nevada. They came to do some weeding. They hit the lakes then, we directed them to hit Canyon lake.”

  “Cool!” A kid said eyes wide.

  “About freakin' time,” a guy said shaking his head.

  “They couldn't do much to clear more than that area. We'll assess the damage and radio in a report tomorrow. We've got a couple more hours before daylight people. I suggest you get some rest,” he said.

  Slowly the crowd broke up into smaller and smaller knots of people. A few were a little too excited about what had happened. He shook his head, seeing Jolie talking excitedly to a teenage boy. She was bouncing like she'd just had a hit of sugar. He shook his head in amusement. He made his way to the radio room.

  “It went well I take it?” Kyle said as he entered the room. He snorted and picked up his coffee and put the laser away.

  “About as expected. We need to work on protocol for that. Get our targets and directions sorted out. Maybe mark them on the roof for people.”

  “Huh.”

  “Any idea why they were doing it here through?” Sparks asked. They looked at the radio operator. “I mean, why here? Why not San Diego, or LA?”

  “Um... good question,” Hernandez said, clearly puzzled.

  “It's the base,” Shane said after a moment. They looked at him. “Think about it. Camp Pendleton got overrun the first week despite the marines' best efforts. They've got it back, but its still touch and go. March is a perfect place for the air force to sortie from. They can send out bombers or fighters or gunships to hit targets all over the coast, not to mention us, the inland empire.”

  “But...”

  “LA is a mad house,” Sparks said, slowly nodding. “San Diego too. It makes sense. I bet they want what's left of the equipment and facilities on the ground too.”

  “And we're doing a nice job of securing one of the base's flanks,” Kyle said with a nod. “I see where you're going with this,” he said. “It explains why we've been getting an ever increasing amount of support. We're doing their job for them.”

  “They scratch our back, hopefully we'll stay alive long enough to do the same when they move back into the area. Which we will if we can,” he said and then stretched. He put his empty cup down. “I'm for bed. I shouldn't have had that coffee,” he said yawning.

  “Boss, two and a half hours until daybreak,” Sparks said and then yawned himself.

  “Yeah. I think we need to crash now. Hernandez get some down time. We're going to send a scouting team to that lake before noon.”

  “You want me on it boss?” the private asked and then nodded. “Yeah, cool. I'll get it done,” he said getting up and gathering his gear. He was looking forward to seeing what that spooky had done to the damn aliens.

  “Night fellas, tomorrow is going to be an interesting day,” Shane said waving and walking out with Hernandez following.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Trina scowled at her new friend Hailey. The girl was a bit off; a flake, more interested in her phone or staying clean than in getting things done. It drove her nuts when the girl would bitch about getting her hands dirty. She seemed obsessive compulsive about cleaning them. She absolutely hated getting hair on her. Which was funny, seeing her having a fit about it.

  “What are you watching?” she asked. She glanced at the class. There were a few dozen kids their age, most were either working on a project or doing a good job of looking busy. Hailey was ten, but a good ten, not a snooty. Or at least not all the time. Only sometimes. Okay, only when other kids were around.

  “Television broadcast of alien walruses showing up on a beach,” Hailey muttered after a moment.

  “Really?” Trina asked. She craned her neck around to see.

  “They are weird. Bet your mom would love to see them.”

  “They have four flippers, and a massive chest.” Trina blinked at it. It reminded her of something... not a walrus, but something her dad had said, a poke a something or other. Some monster cartoon thing. They were ugly, with heads built into their chest, with lip tentacles, and four to six tusks. Four beady black eyes. They even acted like walruses, sparring and honking.

  “What are they doing?” she asked.

  “Apparently a news crew is filming them,” Hailey said. The crew was talking in a foreign language, one Trina wasn't sure about but they sounded mad about the aliens. She sucked in her breath as something exploded out of the surf. Water sprayed everywhere as something, long giant heads, rose up.

  “Oh crap,” Trina said, eyes wide.

  A pair of Eborsyk attacked the beach, the walrus animals humped in terror in a full stampede, everywhere. The view from the camera shifted as the cameraman backed away. Not fast enough however. They saw him trip and go down and then the mass of a terrified animal loomed. The cameraman was trampled, screaming.

  Somehow the camera had gotten free of his hands and rolled away. It rolled to show the sky. An Eborsyk's massive head could be seen in the corner of the image. It bent and they could hear crunches. Trina gulped as they saw the beast tossi
ng the leg of the audio man through the air. Then it cocked its head at the camera and bent again. They could hear distant screaming. The signal was cut off.

  “Good god,” Hailey said shivering uncontrollably. Trina rubbed her shoulders. The girl started to cry a little. Trina took the phone.

  “What are you doing?” Hailey asked.

  “Sending the link to my mom. I think though maybe we shouldn't watch stuff like that anymore.”

  “I... God, I think I'm going to have nightmares again. I am aren't I?” she said, clutching at Trina. Trina sighed. She was pretty sure she was at least. She decided to be honest about it.

  “I know I will. Just be glad we don't live near the ocean,” Trina said. She hugged the girl and then handed the phone back. “Come on let's get busy,” she said. She knew of only one way to get that out of their minds. To work. To do something so involved they would have to concentrate on it and the horror would fade.

  “Yeah,” Hailey said dashing her tears. “Yeah let's do that.”

  ...*...*...*...*...

  “You serious about this?” a guy asked Shane, shaking his head.

  “You have a better idea?” Shane asked wrinkling his nose. He had to admit, it wasn't a very bright idea, just the only one they had available. Water was getting to be a problem.

  Not just potable water, but the sewer system. They say all pipes lead to the sea, but not in this case. They had to go through a series of check points to take the pollutants out. Hence their present occupation.

  The security team was out on perimeter, or at least half of it. The site was secure, they knew that. The other half of the security group was making a final sweep through the complex, just to be sure.

  “March man...”

  “What about it?” Shane asked.

  “Any truth to the rumor that we're moving in here?”

  Shane looked at him with amusement. “Not anytime soon. I think we've got a pretty good set up at the mall right now.”

  “Yeah man, but this is a base. They have like, guns and shit. The perimeter...”

  “Exactly. The perimeter is too big. This base is huge. Big as a small town. No way can we secure it. Not even a tenth of it. Even with the trenches and security fencing. No way. And the aliens are already inside. They are all over the place. We talked to the survivors, that's one of the reasons they were in lock down. They couldn't keep up with them, even inside the perimeter!”

  “Aw man, I mean...” the guy rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, taking his cap off and wiping his brow. Shane looked around the water treatment plant and nodded. It wasn't in bad shape; the aliens had left the equipment alone once the power ran out.

  “We're going to set this place up to run. It'll be a daytime only set up, run for seven or eight hours, and then shut down and run back to the base.”

  “Not much time man,” the guy said.

  “Tell me about it,” Shane said with a scowl. They'd tried to get the Cactus warehouse people to do this little chore, but no one had bit. No one wanted to stick their neck out of their nice safe concrete bunker. Even if they were up to their eyebrows in shit. Stupid.

  Then again, some of them had gone out and snatched up the MRE warehouses and some of the vehicles and weapons that had been abandoned. He'd heard that from Hernandez. He wasn't sure which group had done it, he'd love to talk to them, but they had all closed ranks on them.

  “We're going to have to give our people time to get back and forth from this place. Time for the vehicles to cool off when they get back too,” he said.

  “Ah,” the guy said nodding. “Name's Frank. Frank Todd, I'm a, well, I was a system engineer here.”

  “I know. Jayne scared you up when I called her,” Shane said with a nod. They shook hands briefly. “You're in charge of this mess once we're secure.”

  “Me?” the guy asked in disbelief.

  “Sure. No one else knows the systems. I've got about six people for you. Another dozen engineers, but they are on loan. They are going to set up solar panels and wind turbines and generators for your equipment to run. We've got a security system to set up too.”

  “Really?”

  “We don't want things going missing. People being people they might come in and strip the place in our absence. We're going to set up as much of this place to run by remote as we can.”

  “Oh, I was going to ask that.”

  Shane smiled and nodded. “You'll probably be limited on power, so you'll have to work that out carefully.”

  “Ah. Any chance of opening up other stuff in the area? I mean the commissary is right over there,” he said pointing.

  “And restaurants and other things,” Shane shook his head. “The military people told us they were stripped clean the first week. Nothing left. I'm not going to stick my people in the lion's den for one or two cans of spam and TP.”

  “Gotcha,” Frank said with a nod. “Can we find a building nearby to shack up in? I mean work on it and well...”

  “Just in case of an emergency?” Shane asked with a nod. “We'll look into it.”

  “Yeah,” Frank said with a sigh. “I'd like a place close by to go to ground if anything happens. Shit like an eclipse has an entirely new meaning if you know what I mean.”

  Shane nodded. “Hell, try a good storm. That's got people worried. If we can't find anything local and you're cut off from getting to base the best bet is to hit up one of the warehouses. See if anyone can take you in. Make it clear we'll make it worth their while if they do.”

  “Roger,” Frank said. He went to the truck and pulled out a hard hat. It was red. “I think that intel building might work. Right next to the hospital complex.”

  “Possibly,” Shane said. He wasn't at all sure about it, but it did have layers of defenses. Layers they could of course improve upon. He nodded as he thought about it.

  “I'd like a site survey of course. Plus a survey of the hospital. We've been told its gutted, I can see the fire damage from this side but still, we might find something. Using this place as a nucleus might work.”

  “Whoever said sewage didn't attract people...” Frank let that odd thought die a natural death and then looked over to the door. “I ah, gotta get going. Burning daylight.”

  “By all means,” Shane said with a wave of his free hand, his other not leaving the butt of his MP-5. “Go to it.” He turned without a backwards glance and headed to the check post nearby.

  Chapter 34

  He nodded to the rest of the council as he came in. It had been a busy month so far, three weeks into the month and things were finally settling down.

  Not everything was going well though. A group of people had left the mall to join other people, some of them family in various storage depots around town. He wasn't sure why they'd done it; there was no food there and only one bathroom. Independence, at a guess. That and to get awazy from the crowding here. The storage depots had been trading plastic containers and contents of the storage centers for materials. They had become small forts. Some however had been overrun. It was a bitter learning experience for the survivors.

  “Spotter tower is up. I'll have the other cistern done by the end of the week. Or Jesse's crews will. I'm just supplying the crew with the crane,” Walt said as he pulled his chair out.

  “Good to know,” Bill said with a nod.

  The Mall sign had been turned into a combination water tower/spotter tower. The weight of the water however had been too much for the support, something the tower was not designed to handle, despite removing the signs. They were now separating the two functions. Unfortunately in doing so it had made the tower unusable for the duration of the project.

  Not that they had a whole lot to see. Burnt city, and more and more alien plants and herds of animals. The streets were still littered with debris and vehicles.

  The road crews were still at work clearing the roads of cars and debris. They would probably be at it for months. The good news was every major street had been at least partially cleare
d for one or two lanes of transit. The bad news was the crews had been moving some of the vehicles into side streets which unfortunately blocked them off from the scavengers and field teams sometimes. They didn't have a choice really; the crews there in Towngate had been swamped with cars. Part of the fields around Sam's had turned into a parking lot.

  They had also worked with construction crews to dig up areas for fortifications. The outer curtain wall design had finally gelled and they were hard at work on it. It was going to take months to complete. Possibly years if they started running low on fuel and materials. A few utility lines had been broken in the digging but fortunately there were no injuries. Mainly because the utilities were dead and drained.

  “See that vid?”

  “Which one?” Tamara asked.

  “The buildings one. Riverside.”

  “Um...”

  “You don't want to see it. Trust me,” Jen said with a shiver as she set her cup of tea down. “Trust me,” she said again.

  “Bad?”

  “Bad enough. A couple of buildings fell. One of the medical complexes. They tried to evacuate at night of all times, from the roofs.”

  Tamara's eyes went wide. Everyone stopped to look at Jen. She winced. “It was... bad.” She took another sip of tea and held her cup. Shane rubbed her arm gently.

  “I think the worst thing was watching people screaming as the aliens climbed or jumped onto the roofs and tore them apart. There was nothing anyone could do. I feel so, so sorry for the people who survived it.”

  “We all do Jen,” Shane said softly, rubbing her shoulders. She reached up and patted his hand gently.

  “Are we getting anywhere with clothing?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “A little,” Tamara said with a scowl. “Some people can be stupid in their looting.” Just about everyone had to laugh at that.

  When they had cleaned out stores the smart people had grabbed sensible clothing or materials that they or their families could use later. But there were some who were downright stupid. Instead of doing as they had been told they had grabbed bling and crap that they now regretted.