by Scott Shoyer
He wanted everything to have been a dream.
From the moment he’d woken up in that hotel room, his life had changed. His family was gone, his friends were gone, his entire life was gone. He rubbed the spot on his chest where he remembered the beam of light had hit him. There was no scar or burned flesh around the area.
It healed.
As much as he tried to ignore it, the man knew there was a power within him. The creatures, the aliens that now roamed the Earth, avoided him. Those cocoon things on the ground withered and died whenever he walked around them. He was able to pass through the wall of energy.
He was powerful, but had no idea where that power came from, why he had it, or how he could or was supposed to use it. He wasn’t a religious man, and knew the power hadn’t come from a god. God had abandoned Earth a long time ago.
He was, though, sure that he was being pulled in a particular direction. He looked up at the large sign across the road from where he stood.
Schoepke Springs, One Mile.
That was where his power was taking him.
That was where he continued to walk.
5
Sub-Facility, Schoepke Springs
The Butsko-alien made its way through the hatch and to the lower bunker. As it walked through the first security door, it was impressed with the sheer power and strength it must have taken to tear that door from the wall.
The creature suddenly stopped as something flashed through its head--the image of a building with huge trucks parked out front, surrounded by a lot of land with a lake nearby.
Golf.
The creature didn’t know what that meant, but it knew that building and the land had something to do with golf.
Another image flashed before its eyes. This was of two men inside that building. They stood side-by-side as they fought off some kind of yellow-eyed creatures. The Butsko-alien knew it should’ve recognized both men, and part of it did.
Some kind of memory tried to forcefully make itself known. It pushed itself to the front of the Butsko-creature’s mind, but the alien side of the creature tried to keep the memory buried.
The alien shook its head and tried to refocus on the job at hand. The last security door was almost down, and then it could recover the stolen vials.
And then it could eliminate the humans.
The images of the two men fighting side-by-side faded from his memory, and as the Butsko-alien approached the second security door, hell broke loose. Everything around the alien shook violently and a deafening noise filled the underground bunker. Rock and reinforced steel and concrete along the walls cracked and turned to dust as the shockwave of the explosion in front of the creature shot through the facility.
The alien tried to look through the dust and pulverized rock that clouded the air. It walked forward, but found that the corridor was blocked.
A cave-in had cut off the only way to get to the human’s bunker. The creature was halfway between the first and second security doors and assumed the cave-in stretched from where it stood all the way through to the third and final security door.
The humans had set a trap.
*
The Fi-alien remained with the recently awoken aliens aboard the craft when they all felt the ground shake. The aliens had previously studied this planet’s earthquakes and knew there weren’t any fault lines anywhere near this facility. This was something else.
Something man-made.
The ground shook for a few seconds and then it was over. A loud explosion had been heard right before everything shook, and the Fi-alien knew this was something the humans had caused. The alien attempted to contact the aliens that worked on the third security door, but couldn’t find their minds in The Consciousness.
The Fi-alien found the Butsko-alien’s mind. It was close to the explosion, but it’d managed to escape the damage. It told the Fi-alien that the entire corridor had caved in and it would take weeks to dig through the rubble. It also relayed to the Fi-alien that an explosion that big had probably harmed the human’s bunker as well and that most of the remaining humans were most likely dead as well.
No, the Fi-alien thought. The humans are no longer in their bunker. It then sent a thought to all the aliens outside the facility and all around the property that the humans had escaped and were traveling with the vials.
The Fi-alien didn’t need to give the order to stop the humans and secure those vials. Some of the aliens had already reported locating the humans in large, armored vehicles.
This will be easier than I thought, the Fi-alien thought as it smiled.
6
Schoepke Springs Property
Riker opened his eyes and saw Teagan looking down at him. She gently slapped his cheeks in an attempt to wake him up.
“I’m awake, I’m awake,” Riker growled. “What the hell happened? Where are we?”
“We’re in armored vehicles, Riker,” Teagan explained. “They found us as we ran away from the aliens.”
Riker bolted upright. “Braden was injured,” Riker said, but by the look on Teagan’s face, he knew the young man hadn’t made it. “How long was I out?”
“Maybe ten minutes,” Teagan said. She introduced Riker to Wilder, Jennie, and Howard and then had them tell Riker the same story they’d told her just minutes before.
Riker sat there and listened to their story about spaceships and aliens and how the virus had been engineered to continually mutate until the things that emerged from the cocoons were made.
Riker listened to them as they explained that the creatures that’d attacked them now were aliens and were no longer human.
“Aliens?” Riker asked. “So we really are fighting aliens? Are you sure I don’t have a massive concussion or anything?”
“There is some good news though,” Howard said. He told them about the four vials they’d taken from part of the craft. “Stefan in the vehicle behind us has the vials and is studying them as we speak.”
“So what’s the plan here?” Kimberly asked.
“The plan is to hit the open road and head west!” Wilder shouted from the driver’s seat. “There’s a lot of old military bases between here and California. We visit them and see if any of them are still standing and if there’s any more survivors.”
“Good luck with that plan,” Riker said.
“What the hell does that mean?” Howard asked. “You have a better plan?”
“I don’t,” Riker said, “but you’re not gonna make it very far.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Jennie asked.
“That,” Wilder said as he brought the armored car to a halt. They all looked out the windshield at the wall of energy in front of them. The wall rose miles up and extended for miles in both directions.
“I’m going to grab the remaining C-4 and blow a hole in that fucker,” Wilder said.
“The only thing that’ll accomplish is wasting your remaining C-4,” Riker said. “See that bus over there?” Riker asked as he pointed to the vehicle sheered in half. “That was our ride. We were parked there when the wall came slamming down on us. Cut through the bus like a laser beam through butter.”
“I wonder where the spaceship went,” Kimberly said.
“Wait,” Jennie said. “There was a spaceship out here? You saw it?”
“Yup,” Riker answered. “This big ass ship floated down and created the energy wall. I guess it did its job and now it’s gone.”
“Something has to be keeping the energy wall up,” Howard said.
“Wilder, come in,” said a voice over the direct communication link between the armored vehicles. “What the hell is that thing in front of us, and is there any way through it?”
“Negative,” Wilder answered. “Our new passengers tell us it is a wall of energy and nothing is getting through it.” Wilder told the other vehicle about the large spaceship they’d seen and how it had created the wall.
“Something needs to be supplying energy to keep the wall up,” th
e voice said.
“We were just talking about that,” Wilder replied.
“Oh shit,” the voice on the speaker said. “I know where the energy is coming from.”
“Why do I get the feeling I don’t want to know?” Wilder asked as he leaned his head against the headrest.
“It’s the other ship,” the voice said. “The object you and Stefan and the others were inside was just a piece of a larger ship. The rest of it is sitting in a warehouse right off the garage.”
“You mean the garage we just escaped from that was filling up with aliens that were trying to kill us, right?” Wilder said.
“Yes,” was all the voice said.
Riker, Kimberly, and Teagan looked at each other in confusion.
“What garage?” Riker asked. “What warehouse? What the hell are they talking about?”
Howard and Jennie told them about the underground bunker they’d lived in for the last few years and about the spaceship that was kept there.
“This is crazy,” Riker finally said. “This is off-the-wall, over-the-rainbow, through-the-looking-glass fucking bonkers.”
“You’ve fought them,” Wilder said as he turned around in his seat. “You’ve seen them face-to-face. Do they look even remotely human? Now I know how fucked up this situation is, but we need to keep our shit together and do whatever we need to do in order to survive. It is no longer just our own asses on the line, but the ass of the entire Earth.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Kimberly asked. Wilder explained the aliens’ final goal to the others. Kimberly, Teagan, and Riker sat there and listened.
And turned pale.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Kimberly said.
“And this asshole, Rickard, knew about this for, like, thirty, forty years, and did nothing but make a deal to save his own ass?” Riker asked.
“‘Fraid so,” Wilder said.
“Did I lose you, Wilder?” the voice over the intercom asked.
“No, Josef, we’re still here,” Wilder said. “We were just catching our new friends up on everything that’s been going on.”
“How are they taking it?” Josef asked.
“Like a huge punch to the balls,” Wilder said.
“I don’t mean to push,” Josef said, “but we are sitting ducks out here. What are we going to do now?”
“We’re going to go back to the garage, we’re going to find that fucking space ship, and we’re going to blow it up,” Wilder said. “If we’re lucky, that will destroy the source of the energy wall, and then we can get the hell out of Dodge.”
“What if it doesn’t work?” Josef asked hesitantly.
“Well, I figured that the garage is as good a place as any to die,” Wilder answered with no hint of sarcasm in his voice.
Chapter Thirteen
1
Sub-Facility, Schoepke Springs
The Fi-alien left the engineers in The Discovery. They had something important to discuss amongst themselves and separated from The Consciousness.
The tallest of the aliens turned to the others and spoke in a tongue not previously heard on Earth. The closest Earthly language in comparison would be the Khoisan language spoken among a few tribes in Africa, which incorporated clicks as consonants. The alien addressed the others, but with far more foreign-sounding noises.
The alien looked at the other four and stated its case. There was an accusatory tone to its speech. After it spoke, all the aliens then looked at the oldest among them as if waiting for a response. Instead, the elder alien being accused of something ran off down the corridor. It was quicker than the other aliens, but the others had already anticipated this reaction.
Standing outside The Discovery, the Fi-alien waited. It heard the commotion inside the craft and waited until the older alien appeared. The Fi-alien grabbed the rogue alien as it tried to exit the ship and slammed it against the side of the craft. It held it there until the others joined them.
The tallest alien again began its tirade of clicks and other foreign noises, but this time it was directed at the older alien that’d attempted to run away. When it was done chastising the alien the Fi-alien held, it looked at the other four and they all nodded in agreement.
The tall alien looked at the Fi-alien and passed some kind of judgement that only they understood. The Fi-alien leaned in and tore the throat out of the older alien. The others looked on as the thick, clear fluid gushed from its throat and took no pleasure in this business. Their companion who bled out in front of them had once been a valued member of the scout team and was, in fact, one of the principle engineers of the virus designed to wipe out humanity.
But the older alien went against its four shipmates and its entire race. It no longer believed in the policy of genocide. After it’d studied the planet and all the various lifeforms on it, the elder alien had understood how rare and special Earth was. It’d gotten tired of watching life be exterminated time and again on endless planets throughout the universe. It sickened him that his species regarded itself as more important than all other lifeforms in the universe.
For hundreds of years, they’d searched the universe for life and then wiped it out. It was time to stop its species practice of genocide. They’d recklessly ruined their home world, and it wanted to put a stop to the genocidal campaign throughout the universe.
The elder alien wanted to live on Earth. It had everything its species needed to live, but it didn’t want to wipe out all the indigenous life to do so. It thought there was a chance to live peacefully amongst all the indigenous species on the planet.
That was why the elder alien, before it’d entered its slumber in the pod, had uploaded a weapon onto the mothership without The Consciousness’ knowledge. The weapon was set to trigger if and when the scout ship on Earth was reactivated. Its plan had worked, and the beam of light had shot from the mothership and found a target on Earth. The elder alien knew that the receiver of the weapon was inside the energy wall and strained to keep that knowledge to itself.
As the alien slowly died, it managed to smile at the others. It smiled because it knew the life it’d given up was worth the planet it’d saved. It may have been too late to save all the lifeforms on Earth, but the planet would ultimately survive and start all over again.
It would start over without the presence of it or its fellow brethren.
A darkness crept across its eyes and it smiled.
The weapon it created, the man, was unstoppable.
2
Schoepke Springs Property
The two Wisent 8x8 armored vehicles slowly made their way back to the garage entrance at Schoepke Springs. Everyone in both trucks was silent and lost in their own thoughts. They all knew this was a wildly dangerous plan, but they also knew there was little else they could do.
Nothing was going to pass through that wall of energy.
Not alive, at least.
Around the wall there were a few aliens. Wilder thought they acted more like scouts on a recon mission. They didn’t attack and the Wilder didn’t engage them. The closer they got to Schoepke Springs, though, the denser the aliens became.
“Shit,” Wilder said as he brought the armored vehicle to a stop.
“What’s going on?” Riker asked as he walked into the driver’s pod.
Wilder, though, didn’t need to answer. Riker saw the huge tree that blocked the path. He looked out the window and saw that the tree had been pushed down, its large roots jutting out of the ground.
“Fuck me,” Riker said softly. “Do you know how strong those bastards must be to be able to push that tree over?”
“We should be focused on how the hell we’re going to get around the tree,” Jennie said.
“I don’t think we can,” Riker said.
The woods around the path were dense with trees and other brush, and Wilder didn’t think that even the nearly thirty-ton vehicle would get very far. The trees were too close together to navigate through.
“Every
thing okay up there?” the voice over the intercom asked.
“No,” Wilder answered. “Not really. We have a huge tree blocking the path back to the garage.”
“Do you think the truck can push it out of the way?” Teagan asked.
“We’re sure as hell gonna try,” Wilder said as he put the truck in drive. “Josef, stay where you are. Don’t follow us yet. I may need some room to maneuver.”
“Copy that,” Josef said.
Just as the armored vehicle lurched forward, ten aliens dropped from the trees around them. As they landed, ten more appeared from the dense woods.
“Oh my God,” Kimberly whispered. “They’re everywhere.”
“I don’t think they want us to move the tree out of the way,” Riker said as he and Wilder looked at each other. Wilder went to grab the microphone.
That was when they heard the unmistakable sound of two fifty-caliber machine guns barking from the vehicle behind them.
That was also when all hell broke loose.
3
238,900 Miles from Earth
Around the Moon
Out of seemingly nowhere, four jagged-looking holes appeared in the darkness of space. The holes grew larger until they looked as though they would swallow up all of space. Out of the holes, four motherships arrived at the moon simultaneously. They gathered around the moon as the wormholes they’d traveled through collapsed in on themselves.
Through The Consciousness, the occupants of the large ships were aware of what was happening on Earth. The planet was all but theirs. There were pockets of human beings that still remained, but that just meant more food. The aliens on the motherships were more concerned with the small group of human beings that still had the four vials in their possession, but they also knew they were being dealt with.
There was a considerable amount of excitement on all the motherships as they looked at the Earth. They had searched so far and wide and for so long for a place exactly like Earth. Not only did the aliens eagerly anticipate getting off the spaceships on which they’d lived for so long, but they were also eager to meet the new versions of their species that the virus had created. These improved aliens would ensure the survival of their species for eons to come.
