by Jake Bible
***
“Satellite fifty-eight is lost,” a tech announces. “The sonic waves took it out almost immediately. New satellite being re-routed now.”
“We still have plenty of eyes on the thing,” Director Miles says as he hands VanderVoort a tall glass. “Those probes are handy.”
“What’s this?” VanderVoort asks, sniffing the drink. “A mojito? Really? I’m pregnant, Gordon.”
“The kid isn’t going to turn into a lush from one cocktail,” Director Miles says. “And I have a feeling mommy needs a drink.”
“Mommy does, but not right now,” VanderVoort says, setting the cocktail down on the workstation closest to her. The tech sitting there flinches and quickly moves it away from the equipment and down onto the floor. VanderVoort rolls her eyes and looks over at Dr. Hall and Alvarez. “Thoughts, boys?”
“The smaller one, the Icelandic monster, looked as if it knew how to attack the larger one,” Dr. Hall says. “But it wasn’t prepared enough to take it down.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know,” VanderVoort frowned. “Was it just me, or was the Yellowstone monster unfamiliar with the Iceland one?”
“It wasn’t just you,” Alvarez replies. “The big one didn’t know about the tail or the tongue until after the attacks. That says it hasn’t come in contact with a monster like the Icelandic one before.”
“Of course it hasn’t come in contact with a monster like that before!” Secretary of Defense Jeremy Borland snaps. “How could it? These things have just now come crawling out of the ground!”
“Jeremy,” President Nance says. “Calm yourself.”
“Mr. President, this is ridiculous,” Borland responds. “These people talk like they are observing wildlife on the Serengeti. As if these monsters are part of some natural way. They are not! These are abominations from Hell and they need to be sent back there! Now!”
There are more than a few voices that respond in agreement, all eyes turning to President Nance for his input.
“Ms. VanderVoort is handling the situation,” President Nance says. “She is the expert in this type of crisis and we will defer to her. Mainly because we have no choice and an international directive prohibits any of us from stopping her.”
“Loving the vote of confidence, Charles,” VanderVoort says. “I’ll have to remember to get you a thank you gift basket when this is all done.”
“You have my confidence,” President Nance replies. “In fact, I am glad it’s you in charge and not me. I have a distinct feeling this war of monsters will not go our way.”
“Come on, Mr. President,” Director Miles says. “That’s not exactly the team spirit.”
“It’s okay, Gordon,” VanderVoort says. “I knew what I was getting into when I took this crap ass job. The bright side is if I fail then I probably won’t live to know it. No one will.”
Director Miles downs his drink and clinks the ice against the side of the glass. “Nice bright side.”
“Ma’am?” a tech calls out. “The French monster should reach Yellowstone within the next hour.”
“That soon?” VanderVoort replies. “What about the others?”
“The Italian monster is resting in Georgia,” the tech says and shakes his head. “Or waiting. Hard to tell. It does look like the advance troops from both the French and Italian regions are making it across the Atlantic. That should make things interesting.”
“Yes, it should,” VanderVoort says. She walks to an empty chair and sits heavily, her hands rubbing at her belly. “I’m going to close my eyes for a few minutes. Wake me when the interesting happens.”
People look about uneasily as VanderVoort closes her eyes. The noise in the room diminishes considerably.
“You all can keep talking,” VanderVoort says. “I can cat nap through an earthquake, a hurricane, and Dorothy’s twister.”
It takes a while for the volume to build back up, no one quite sure if she’s kidding or not.
***
The store is in ruins, but stable enough that both Bolton and Holt feel confident to venture inside. They let their eyes adjust to the gloom before they begin their hunt for supplies.
“I’ll look for bike parts and ammo,” Holt says. “You hunt for food and drink.”
Bolton looks about the demolished sporting goods store and frowns. “If there’s anything left. Most of this country was looking for freeze dried food and sports drinks just before it all went to shit. Despite evacuation orders, a lot of people decided to hunker down in place.”
“Find what you can,” Holt says, nodding. “I’ll do the same.”
Bolton gives a thumbs up, and with M4 up to his shoulder, hurries off to the left of the store while Holt moves off to the right.
It takes Holt a few minutes to navigate the mounds of junk and broken shelving. He steps over piles of workout clothes that will take a century to breakdown due to their synthetic fibers and recycled plastics materials. He tucks a shoulder and shoves a leaning display of Nike merchandise out of the way so he can then scramble over the hill of running shoes only a meter beyond.
He tries to be as quiet as possible, but gives up after the racks of empty sports bottles comes clattering down on top of him after he is forced to shift an end cap of tennis rackets to the left to squeeze past the bin of deflated basketballs.
It isn’t until the last sports bottle stops bouncing on the concrete floor that Holt hears the scraping sound coming from the far corner of the store. His MK14 is up and aiming at the shadows, the flashlight under the barrel barely making a dent in the darkness of the big box store. He sweeps his rifle back and forth, eyes straining to make out a shape, a threat, anything that could be a danger to him or Bolton. After a minute of seeing nothing, Holt relaxes, slightly, and continues his trek to the bike section up against the far wall.
Another noise, more scraping, and a quiet thunk.
“Hello?” Holt calls. “Who’s there?”
He’s greeted with silence.
“Show yourself,” Holt orders, moving away from the direction of the bikes and towards the direction of the noise. “I will shoot if you don’t respond. I’ll give you to the count of five.”
He starts and finishes his count then sighs, not liking the situation at all. He walks a few feet, stops. Listens, walks some more, stops, listens, continuing that way for a while. Holt could call out to Bolton, but he’s fairly certain the man is making his way over if he’s even half the professional Holt knows him to be, so Holt remains quiet. A few more feet, stop, listen, wait. Nothing.
“Shit,” Holt mutters as he gets to the corner and sees a door with the words “Employees Only” stenciled on it. His instinct is to forget about the door, let whatever is creating the noise stay undisturbed. But his training is to clear the area, making 100% sure nothing can come up on his six while he’s hunting down needed bike parts for his and Bolton’s journey. “Fucking shit.”
He glances around, double checking the immediate area, looking for any threats he hasn’t caught. No movement, no sounds except for the scraping coming from behind the door. Holt reaches out with his left hand while his right maintains a solid grip on his rifle. Carefully, slowly, he tests the door handle, pushing down on it until the audible click of the latch releasing echoes into the store.
Before he can get the door open even an inch, it is yanked free from his hand and he has to lean back on his heels to keep from toppling forward. Hands, all glowing green, push between the door and the jamb, their fingers made of dripping ooze.
“Shit!” Holt cries out, knowing exactly what he’s unleashed. He makes a grab for the door handle, hoping he can slam it shut, but the hands push harder and the door is lost from his reach as a dozen ooze creatures try to get out of the storeroom at the same time.
Holt backs away quickly then turns and runs, almost colliding with Bolton.
“Holy crap,” Bolton says, seeing the ooze creatures. “Looks like the employee meeting is over.”
; “You find anything?” Holt asks as the two men rush around the debris to get back to the front entrance.
“No,” Bolton says. “The place has been picked clean. I saw that right away and came over to help you. I’m guessing you didn’t get to the parts.”
“Heard the noise and went to investigate,” Holt replies. He glances over at the wall of mountain bikes and the collapsed rows of shelving that hold the parts they need. “Should we risk it?”
Bolton shakes his head, pointing is chin back towards the storeroom. “We won’t have time.”
“Next town then,” Holt says.
“Next town then,” Bolton agrees.
They climb over shoes, clothes, around bins, between shelves, until they are at the front of the sporting goods store once again. Then they both freeze.
“They must have followed us,” Holt says, his eyes doing a quick tally of the ooze creatures that shamble across the cracked and buckled parking lot.
“Or were called by their friends in back,” Bolton says.
“Can they do that?” Holt asks.
“I have no idea,” Bolton says. “But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
At least a hundred human-shaped ooze monsters converge on the store, the front wave less than twenty yards away from where Holt and Bolton parked their bikes.
“Make a break?” Bolton asks.
“Do we have much of a choice?” Holt responds.
“Nope,” Bolton sighs.
Holt pulls a smoke canister from his pack, yanks the pin, and tosses it out into the parking lot just in front of the mob of ooze creatures. The two soldiers use the cover to run to their bikes, get on, and pedal parallel with the things. They are almost to the edge of the mob when they both hit their brakes, swerving to avoid the crowd of creatures coming from around the side of the building.
Another smoke canister, a change of direction, and they are biking along the side of the parking lot mob, both very aware of their proximity to the ooze creatures and the insecurity of their position. Holt points to the edge of the parking lot where several skeletons of dead hedges stand, their dried out branches vibrating in the slight wind that kicks up. Bolton nods and they take aim.
Holt hits the curb first, lifts up on his bike, and pedals over the border that used to be brown mulch but is now grey ash. His front tire wants to sink into the soft earth, but he pulls up more and keeps it from getting stuck.
“Careful!” he shouts at Bolton over his shoulder. “It’s soft!”
“Thanks!” Bolton yells back, right on his tail.
Holt bounces his bike over the far side and down into the feeder road that connects the sporting goods store with the big box electronics store right next door. Holt has to laugh as he sees the fire scorched front of the electronics store, shaking his head at the fact people took the time to loot it when none of the equipment stolen even works anymore.
There are some loud hisses and Holt glances back to see the ooze mob shifting directions, turning to pursue the two men. He doesn’t panic, knowing the bikes will outrun the ooze creatures easily.
“Fuck!” Bolton yells and slams on his brakes.
Holt turns back and nearly shits himself as he sees what’s coming towards them.
“No fucking way,” Holt says, his head turning left and right, his eyes trying to find shelter, somewhere the men can get to safety. “Diesels.”
A herd of the four-legged, silver tongued, 75-foot-tall monsters -diesels- is rushing right at them. Close to twenty of the things thump and thud forward with their segmented, independently jointed legs, covering the distance in seconds.
Holt is about to unsling his rifle and take aim, but Bolton grabs him first and yanks him off his bike. They stumble over to the corner of the road and down into a shallow culvert. Then Holt sees what Bolton sees and he smiles, tightening the strap on his rifle as he crawls inside the large metal drainage pipe half buried by muddy ash. They are both inside and turned around when the large monsters begin to roar.
The metal of the drainage pipe vibrates with the sounds of the nightmare herd and Holt winces. He looks over at Bolton and can see the man is in just as much discomfort as he is. Their view is obscured by the culvert’s edges, so they just hunker down and wait.
More roars, more vibrations, then a loud hissing sound, as if a basket of snakes is shaken and upended. The roars become more urgent and the metal pipe is no longer vibrating from just the sounds, but also from the impacts of the giants’ footfalls. The things are rushing past the culvert and Holt and Bolton tuck themselves into balls, heads between legs, arms over heads, both waiting for the world to collapse on them.
It takes all of Holt’s self-control to keep from screaming as his whole body shakes. He tries to wedge himself against the pipe, but the curved sides are so coated with ashy mud that he just slides down to the center, piling up against Bolton and storm debris.
The men lie there, back to back, their bodies shuddering from the impacts above, their ears ringing from the roars and thuds. To Holt it feels like eternity before things begin to quiet down. He can hardly believe it when the last thuds shake him and the roars become far off echoes, not ear-bursting immediacy.
Neither man moves for a very long time, both making sure the threat has passed.
Cautiously, Holt uncurls from his fetal position of safety and glances at the opening to the pipe. A few feet of mud and dirt have collapsed over the opening, but sunlight can be seen. Holt and Bolton crawl forward, both feeling that now is the time to move. They quickly dig enough space to squeeze through and pull themselves free, clambering up out of the culvert as soon as they are clear of the pipe.
The outlines of the monster herd can be seen far, far off. What they see immediately before them is what holds their attention.
The parking lot is nothing but rubble, pocked with steaming spots where ooze creatures met their demise. Many look like they have been stomped into the ground so hard their very molecules have come undone. A few ooze creatures slither about, trying to reform into something mobile after their encounter with the large beasts.
“Do those look they have been bitten in half or is it just me?” Holt asks.
“That’s exactly what they look like,” Bolton says. “And what’s that smell?”
“Ammonia? No, something else,” Holt says.
They stand there, their senses alert, waiting until they feel confident to move on.
“Store is still there,” Bolton says.
“Yes, it is,” Holt agrees. “Worth another try.”
“Maybe some of the ooze things retreated back inside,” Bolton suggests.
“Maybe,” Holt says. “But I doubt it.”
“Me too,” Bolton responds. “Don’t know why, but I do.”
They walk over to their bikes and frown. Both are mangled into useless scrap.
“Don’t really have a choice,” Holt says, nodding to the sporting goods store. “We won’t get far without wheels.”
“Full bikes only,” Bolton says as they slowly step around giant cracks in the asphalt. “We’ll deal with parts later. Right now we get up and get going.”
“Agreed,” Holt says.
They traverse the destroyed parking lot, keeping well away from any remains of the ooze monsters. They get halfway across the lot when Bolton pulls up, his hand over his nose and mouth. He points with his M4 at a pile of steaming something.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Holt replies, his hand up as well. “That’s monster shit.”
“Jesus,” Bolton says, nearly gagging from the fumes coming off the giant pile of excrement. “I almost miss nearly choking on ammonia gas. Never thought I’d smell something worse.”
“It’s now a world of firsts and surprises,” Holt says, fumbling his gas mask from his belt. He shakes out the mud and ash then slips it over his head. “It’ll make seeing inside a bitch, but better than sucking in the fumes from that.”
“No shit,” Bolt
on says, doing the same with his gas mask. “Actually, a lot of shit. Way too much shit.”
The men hurry back into the sporting goods store, ready for a second try at outfitting their impossible journey.
***
She clears her throat and sees him stiffen at the noise. She pats at the fresh bandages on her face.
“Hey,” Krissy says, finally going to look in on the young man like Terrie has pestered her to do for hours. “Listen—”
“I am sorry I didn’t let you in,” Tony says. “I am sorry I killed people. I am very sorry. Please leave me alone now.”
“Uh…okay,” Krissy replies and starts to turn, but stops halfway and spins back. “You know what? Not okay. I know Terrie says you are working on a way to make a radio so we can call for help, but that doesn’t mean you get to hide in here by yourself.”
“This is my room. This is my area,” Tony says. “This area is where I can work and think and not have to worry about interruptions. So far there have been interruptions. Due to those interruptions, there is no way you could extrapolate that I am hiding. To hide, I would have to be hidden, and I would have to not be in an area designated as mine. If anything, I am in plain sight, right where I should be.”
“It’s just an expression,” Krissy says.
“Stupid expression,” Tony replies.
Krissy thinks for a second. “Yeah, it is. My mom used to say it to me all the time when I’d go up to my room to be alone. That was my area. My room. Can’t really hide in your own room, can you?”
“Not without being very clever,” Tony says. “You do not strike me as that clever.”
“Hey!” Krissy snaps. “Fuck you too!”
She turns again then just as before she whips back around, angry.
“We’re going up top to look for Linda and your grandfather,” Krissy says, “That’s really why I am in here. There is a gun locker in one of the other wings and we need to get into it so we can be armed up there.”
“Won’t make much difference,” Tony says. “The ratio of size of the creatures to the firepower of the rifles in that gun locker is horribly off. You would be killed and eaten before doing any significant damage.”
