Afraid of the Dark

by Chris Hechtl

  Kyle reported in that Javelin and other weapons were only marginally effective against aliens from media reports he had watched. The top down attack was shrugged off by aliens. The spine had hard armor that was like diamond, crystallizing when impacted, but then softening when in movement. Or at least that was the running hypothesis. Of course the attacks would chew up the animal's soft tissue, like its crests, but that only wounded it, it didn't kill it.

  The best attack was from below, something the military wasn't geared to handle well. The tough rhino skin on the underside was a problem as well. Mines were suggested but only an anti-tank mine was a guarantee of a kill.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Shane negotiated with a bitter warehouse group on Cactus. They wanted weapons and food, but didn't think they had anything to trade. Apparently they had been shut out from the others and their haul from the base. When he uploaded the list to the mall Sheila who was with him got a call and pulled him aside.

  “Boss, Kyle wants the soap.”

  “Soap?” He asked amused. “Why? I thought we had enough. Doesn't Jayne have enough?”

  “Its not her boss, its Kyle and the chemists.”

  “Why?” he asked. She touched her earwig. “Um...” She mumbled a little and then nodded. “Done?” he asked.

  She looked up. “Boss they said to trade what we can for it. All of it. They can make explosives with it,” she answered.

  “Explosives?” he asked wrinkling his nose.

  “I have no idea. Something about Glycol and Glycerin,” she said and then her eyes widened.

  “What?” he asked eyes narrowed. He was starting to remember something, something about when Kyle had made explosives... something in the meetings. Oh yes, something about him appropriating over half the stock piled soap...

  Her eyes shifted back and forth. After a moment they widened again and then she nodded. “That's it. NCIS. I remember now.”

  “Um... Still not following. I'm usually working in the evenings Sheila,” he said.

  “It's… okay in 2011 there was an episode, um... in October if I remember right. There was this Lebanese family that came into the US with a boat load of soap. It turns out the father and one of the sons were turning the soap into explosives.”

  “Ah...” He glanced at her as she grinned. After a moment he shrugged. “You say so,” he said dubiously.

  “I remember now boss, its ingenious. They've got a couple of hundred tons of soap cluttering up the place. We've got chemists who can turn it into ammunition and explosives. Winning combination,” she said. She nodded to the warehouse leader coming over.

  Shane turned and nodded, suddenly catching on. Kyle had said they had been limited on the amount of warheads and C-4 they could make. “Well Mitch, it seems you do have something we can trade for,” he said.

  “We do?” he asked.

  “Soap.”

  “Soap? Seriously? You stink that much?”

  “No,” Shane chuckled as Sheila smirked. “I'll be frank with you. No, we've got a couple of people back home who are mad scientists with chemicals. They think we can whip up some explosives and ordinance with it.”

  The man paused and then looked a little concerned. “Seriously? With soap?” he turned to his second in command. The man just shrugged.

  “Don't look at me boss, I flunked science.”

  “Yeah me too,” the other guy said.

  “I'll leave it up to them on how to do it. I just want the end product. So, here's the deal. We'll give you oh.... two pallets of food, a couple of thousand rounds of light ammo, some medical kits, three generators, and a couple of barrels of gas for the lot.”

  “Um...” he looked at the second in command. The guy pulled him aside and whispered in his ear urgently. He nodded a few times.

  “This is going to get expensive,” Shane sing songed to Sheila quietly.

  “That's what you get for being honest before a negotiation boss,” she said quietly back.

  “Duly noted,” he grumped.

  “We've got a counter offer,” Mitch said turning. “We'll give you oh a quarter; no make that a third of the lot for all that. If you want the rest you can double or triple your end. Oh and you move it and pay the freight,” he said smugly. His eyes were gleaming a little with greed. He had thought he was in desperate straits. Now he thought he had the mall people, stuck up pricks, over a barrel. He was going to squeeze everything he could out of it.

  “Crap,” Shane said grimacing. This was going to get expensive. Unfortunately he knew, and they now knew he needed it.

  “Plus we get a share of whatever you make. The final product I mean,” Mitch added. “Say a tenth of the end product.”

  Sheila shook her head, looking at the ground and scowling. Yeah, this was going to get expensive.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Jen read more reports about citrus. Her eyes flicked back and forth as she scanned and digested this. Eventually she came up for air and grabbed a guy by the arm and ordered him to get more of each citrus fruit. Startled he obeyed.

  She ordered a kid to get Eric and Eric, replant the beds in the outer perimeter with the incoming citrus plants.

  She ran a quick test with plants. She found out it was true, the animals ate it but then spat it out and barfed. They then wobbled away bleating. After that other animals in the herd avoid the plants and the area.

  Jen got them to replant the outer perimeter with citrus plants and ordered the harvest teams to bring in more.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  Nick was amused when his mother recruited him to find a squirt gun. She got a few kids to squeeze lemons and then run the entire mess through a food processor, pith, skin and all. She set up a spray of lemonade to test on animals. Nick came through with a squirt gun.

  Wayne was amused when she kidnapped him for the project. They drove out beyond the perimeter to find the nearest herd of Hell deer.

  Before he could object she climbed into the back and out the sunroof. She used a super soaker water gun, spraying the nearest animal.

  The animal shied away and bawled as the citrus smell reached its nostrils. It worked well; other animals downwind immediately turned and ran away. Jen grinned. “The smell will drive them off. It acts like pepper spray.” she told him triumphantly.

  “Well I'll be damned,” he muttered.

  “I wonder if it's the vitamin C or the citric acid?” She mused as she climbed back into the truck. The herd was stampeding South East.

  “Who cares, it works!” He grinned excited.

  Word of the discovery quickly worked its way through the base. Citrus smelling products were stockpiled.

  Jen insisted on another test at night. They dosed a carcass with cleaner that had a citrus base. They left it out, away from the wall and rigged a remote night vision camera to watch.

  The test had mixed results. The Hellcat that came to scavenge the carcass wrinkled his nose and seemed disgusted, but he still took a few bites out of the carcass before turning away in disgust.

  A scavenger came by a few hours later and finished it off. “Since they don't eat it, its not a big thing for them apparently,” Jen sighed, clearly disappointed. “Still it is some advance to driving off the alien herbivores,” she said. Jill made sure word was spread on the net.

  Chapter 35

  Hernandez grimaced as he went through the daily feed. Apparently someone had discovered that even with changed camo the aliens could still see some movement via ultrasonic or smell. Hell, probably smell, they were all pretty rank right about now despite the occasional shower. They had cut back on showers to conserve water. A quick wash with a wash cloth sucked.

  Jen's team had theorized that the enlarged sinus cavity was also some sort of dolphin echo location melon. Some of the aliens were known to make clicking sounds; it was theorized that they did it in higher frequencies as well. Some reports suggested the screeches could stun people the way a dolphin could stun a fish. He wasn't sure about that, i
f it was it would suck, but it could be combat lock as well. There was plenty of that going around.

  Jen had also passed along that some of the aliens had what looked like ampullae of Lorenzini along their muzzles much like a shark. They didn't have lateral lines on their backs though. He shook the thought of alien senses off and tried to focus on the positive.

  Trading was going well with some of the groups. A few had their hands out, and some were starting to get desperate. They'd had some reports of raiders and rapists. That was the last thing they needed, gangs hitting the convoys. He'd already put a guard on them. Doing so had sucked; it had cut into their limited ammunition and weapon supply.

  Fortunately Shane had come up with a solution. Instead of giving the guards heavy weapons they'd issued them the lighter weapons. They might suck against an alien, but they would do enough damage against a human.

  Herds of aliens were all over the place now. Most wandered into the city then out, realizing that there wasn't enough food to go around they moved onto greener, or at least bluer pastures. Jen had each convoy truck carry a super soaker filled with citrus smelling liquid. A one or two pump spray was all it took to drive a herd off the road and out of the way.

  Yesterday he'd accessed a report of something called a hopper. He was freaked by that. A lot of people were. He'd heard the early stories, and some of the stuff that had happened when the base fell still had many people up at night. He checked. No, no new information. The damn things were even worse than a rampaging Hellcat. At least with a Hellcat you had a big enough target. With a swarm of locusts the size of a small cat there wasn't anything you could do. Raid came to mind, or a damn big fly swatter. They were like airborne piranha. Fortunately there weren't a lot of them in this area. Yet.

  There were also more reports of strange gorilla sized aliens. He'd heard that more aliens were showing signs of intelligence, not a good thing. Aliens that were playing with things, or taking them apart. There was even one report of an alien firing a gun. Gremlin from the sound of the story. He wasn't sure though, it had been translated from Farsi.

  He'd gotten a report of aliens in their trash earlier in the day. Shane had set up a mandatory recycling program right from the beginning. That guy was on the ball, Hernandez mused. He saw immediately what was going to be needed a week or a month or even a year or two down the road and put them on the path to solve the problem before it cropped up. Definitely officer material.

  They were currently recycling paper and plastic. Other things were sorted and stored outside, which had led to the emergency this morning. Someone had left the lid off over night and an alien had climbed in and nested. Fortunately for all concerned it had turned out to be some sort of long legged herbivore with double trunks and a mess of spines for a butt. It had honked and then stepped daintily out of the trash and wandered off. It had left a mess though, something he was glad he didn't have to clean up.

  The paper they were using for wadding and insulation. The plastics were being sorted; the thermoplastics were handed over to a cohort of Gabe's who had set up some sort of DIY printer. Something called a Reprap. They were printing all sorts of plastic bits. Most of them little more than toys, but when they printed a few plastic stocks for rifles he'd been impressed. He was curious about how well they would work out. Apparently they had a bank of printers now, each churning out bits for various projects.

  He looked over to a work crew coming in with additional dishwashers. They had rigged dishwashers and appliances from the stores as a temporary thing. Now that they were getting better organized they were swapping the home appliances for better commercial ones. The commercial ones could handle the constant use and abuse that the home appliances couldn't.

  He nodded to a crew and moved his chair out of their way. “Thanks man,” the guy pushing the dolly said.

  “Sure, good luck with that,” he said with a nod.

  It was starting to sink into people that they were in this for the long haul. The utilities had been cut off now for a couple of weeks. It wasn't even November yet and people were already spooked by not having any natural gas for heating. In California that wasn't such a hardship. But up North or on the East coast... he didn't want to think about what they were about to go through.

  “Man, you know when we're going to get some pork?” A guy at a nearby table asked. His dinner companion looked up and over to Mateo as well when he realized who his partner was talking to.

  “I'll let you know. I heard a woman brought in some pigs. I don't know much beyond that, sorry.”

  “Its okay man,” the guy said. He cradled his cup of coffee. “Hell, I thought I wouldn't get another cup of Joe either. Not till they found that coffee store.” Coffee like a lot of things was now strictly rationed. One cup per customer per day.

  “They're working on it. Word is they've got some of the pigs, the rabbits, and some 4H kid brought in a couple of wounded goats yesterday. That's almost as good as the miniature cows and that bull they picked up in Canyon Springs Monday.”

  The guy smiled. “Hey all right! Fresh milk!”

  “Milk hell, I want a burger.”

  “Well, we've got to breed them. Right now every animal is precious.”

  “True.”

  “I heard at the briefing this morning that the female goats can produce about a half gallon a day. Which is cool.”

  “Cool. Every little bit helps,” the guy said with a nod.

  “Amen.”

  “Wait, what meeting?” The first guy asked.

  “Morning council session. My team took casualties so we were down to reorganize. I managed to attend.”

  “Oh. Sorry man,” the guy said looking at his partner.

  “It sucks, I know. I hate losing people. The aliens are getting tougher every day.”

  “Is it really so bad out there? I mean we see it outside but... well, I don't go beyond the walls.”

  “It is and it isn't. Some houses and buildings were empty. Others... are what we call nests. Some are full nests.” He grimaced.

  “So um, if the aliens are all out there, where are we finding all the animals?”

  “Some we picked up from animal control. The boss's wife took a crew over there the first or second day and cleaned it out. She picked up a lot there. We've also found a few survivors from farms here and there. Most were killed and eaten though.”

  “What about the animals around the county hospital? You know, the ones down Alessandro? Just before um... the Staters mall... um...”

  “Yeah,” Mateo waved. “I know what you mean. Some of the people fled with their animals and ended up with us. The rest...” he shrugged helplessly. His audience grimaced.

  “I still think the animals should be slaughtered. Waste of food.”

  “And then what will we eat down the road man?” The first guy asked. “Boss is right. His wife too. We're going to need them, all of them soon. We don't have enough as it is. You have any idea how many it takes to make a burger for everyone in this place?”

  “A lot.”

  “Yeah, you're telling me, a lot. Which means breeding. You can't breed something that's dead.”

  “What about the aliens? Can't we eat them?” the guy asked. Others around him stopped what they were doing and looked at him.

  “I... don't know,” Mateo said honestly. For some it made them squeamish. He was a soldier; he'd eat just about anything that didn't run away fast enough. Well, almost anything. He'd heard about sloth... “I'm not sure I want to find out. Doc said something about poisons and stuff, but they can eat us just fine so we'll have to find out. I think the eggheads are working on that.”

  “Hey man, is it true that they like, decompose real fast?”

  “Yes,” Mateo said with another grimace. “In minutes sometimes. Oh I don't mean right down to ashes, but you can see their stomachs swell up with gas and fluid then they just blah!” he made an explosion shape with his hands. “We've learned the hard way to kill and get the hell out fast. Otherwise y
ou get splattered.”

  “Oh.”

  “Now I know why you guys need showers so often when you come back,” a woman muttered.

  “Definitely,” Mateo said with a snort. “It’s not all happy sweat and holy shit I'm lucky to be alive sweat.”

  “I saw the gang banger chicks and that leader guy bringing in chickens a week or so ago. Most of them were roosters. Must have been a fight club or something,” a girl said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh. Well, maybe we'll have chicken for Sunday supper sometime. If we're lucky.”

  ...*...*...*...*...

  A pair of teens giggled as the boy led the girl by the hand to the theater. “Are you sure its okay?” she asked. It had taken them two days to get some time to themselves. Usually just before dark, like now was a terrible time. The teams were coming in and the mall was packed. But this end had a lot of people who were on the night shift and they were either up or still in bed.

  “Are you kidding me? No one goes in there since the roof is messed up. We're fine. No one will disturb us.” He grinned playfully at her.

  “No...” She paused and he pulled her hand.

  “Come on Chelsie, don't be a wuss,” he said, turning and kissing her. She froze and then started to giggle. “I'll be your protector,” he mocked.

  “My hero,” she giggled. He pushed the door open and pulled her inside. She had just a moment to see a rush and flutter of flesh around them but not enough time to scream.

  ...*...*...*...*...

  “What the hell was that?” Nick said, looking up. He looked around and felt for the first time something was wrong. Like something was going to happen. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up. He felt goosebumps. “Anyone seen Fred and Chelsie?”

  “They ah, stepped out man. Quiet time if you know what I mean?” Jake said, giving a leering smile.

  “Where?” Nick asked.

  “I don't know. Its pretty crowded here. Fred said he had a place out of the way that no one went to.”

  “They couldn't have gotten far. I just saw them a minute ago,” Nick said looking around. They were supposed to be converting the space for more barracks. One of the things they were supposed to do was take the gate down. Instead Jake had been playing with the damn thing, locking people out.