by Phil Maxey
Brad walked up to Zach’s open window. “Weather looks good, clearer than usual for this time of the year I’d say.”
Zach nodded.
“Make sure you give me regular updates and bring our girl back.”
“Will do.”
Brad backed off and gestured for the gates to be opened.
Zach clicked on his radio. “We all good back there? Over.”
“Sure are. Over,” said Bower driving the other Humvee.
Zach took one final look at Brad, smiled and nodded. Then Fiona pulled off and through the gates to the country road. Wyatt, Michael and Miles sat behind them.
“Any E.L.F’s we should be concerned about?” Said Zach over his shoulder.
“There’s a few creatures around us, but they are ignoring us so far,” said Miles. Wyatt nodded in agreement.
Zach glanced at the outpost in the side mirror, and the new walls and buildings that were springing up and wondered if next time he saw it, Abbey would be with him.
They quickly made progress through the town and then onto the highway, passing the airfield which Zach wanted to forget.
Fiona looked at the burgeoning green hills and slopes of what used to be farmland flowing by. The whole scene reminded her of the thousands of miles she had driven with the man she still loved. Since he died she had to push the idea of him away. Push it down deep with all the other things she hated thinking about. But from time to time memories bubbled up and she had to take a moment to compose herself and put her mind back into autopilot. She wondered how Zach was coping with a different kind of loss, maybe it was worse for him. The person he loved chose to leave, for some harebrained journey to a place only a Cascader could go. She couldn’t understand why Abbey left, but then she wasn’t like her anymore, she was still human. When she found Zach in the cell in space or wherever they were, he was not the man she had spent the last few months with, his mind had obviously lost whatever battle it was fighting. If he didn’t find Abbey she didn’t know what kind of man would emerge afterwards.
After an hour the landscape flattened out and sun broke above the horizon. There had been a few pauses to allow E.L.F’s to cross their path, but nothing had tried to attack them and it wasn’t long before they were moving through the city where Miles had been imprisoned.
“Must be strange being back here,” said Wyatt vocalizing what the other three were thinking.
Miles looked at him and smiled. “It’s just another place where bad things happened.” He returned to looking out the window. “Just like every other city.”
The young man nodded and looked out the window on his side. For a long time after his grandmother died he wanted to be away from people, but it was Abbey that convinced him to get involved initially because of his abilities and he generally thought it was the right decision. If his grandma could see him now, as a soldier going on missions she would smile. “You’re going to go a lot further than your dad!” She would say, even though he could just about hold down a job at the local store. It had been just about seven months since she died of a heart attack while they were getting used to their new home at the camp, and he was approaching the stage where the pain of her passing was not blocking the happier memories.
Michael sat with his eyes closed between the two Cascaders. He had heard the young man just make a vain attempt of conversation with his colleague, and usually that would be a good time to make a joke to ease the tension, but he was tired. He felt like he was coming to the end of a journey which began the moment they stepped out of the elevator in New Mexico, and all he could do now was accept whatever fate awaited all of them. He hoped he would make it back to Hannah and Megan, but he knew even if he didn’t, she was a strong woman, they would survive. He felt in this new world, if you weren’t one of the ‘chosen’ just surviving was about the best you could hope for.
Didn’t help Cal though did it.
He sighed, then tried harder to catch up on the sleep which he couldn’t get a few hours earlier.
* * * * *
Raj opened his eyes. Blinking a few times his brain was trying to tell him that the weight on the sofa he was on felt different. He looked to his side. Abbey was no longer there. He immediately stood awkwardly, his back feeling the strain of not moving for most of the night and looked around in the gloom of the hotel lobby. He went to shout then realized if he really was alone alerting all the altered life around him might not be the wisest thing to do.
An ear shattering screeching came from above him, making him duck and look up at the same time. Mo was diving towards him at a thunderous pace.
“What? No! It’s me, Abbey’s friend!” He shouted, but the Simivem kept descending, his head seemingly the target. Raj turned and ran, but before he got to his second step the monkey bird, grabbed him from under his shoulders, making him raise his hands. The creature then held his forearms securely and took flight back into the air taking Raj with him.
“Put me down!” Panicking, Raj looked around as the floor of the lobby moved further and further away. “Abbey! Abbey!”
Mo rose higher, his human cargo no problem for his powerful wings to lift. Soon they were at the ceiling of the lobby, and then as they slipped through a twelve foot square tear in the floor higher still, moving through the hole which seemed to pierce all the floors of this thirty three floor building.
This is it. I’m going to die. I survived space and met an alien, only to be dropped like an eagle wanting to kill its prey.
Mo and Raj burst out onto the topmost level, where the E.L.F dumped Raj onto the floor. Raj immediately scrambled to his feet and went to run for the nearest piece of furniture that could provide him some protection, when a distant voice shouted out to him.
“Abbey? That you? Where are you?” He looked around the restaurant that once had breathtaking views of the city, but couldn’t see her anywhere.
“Come outside!” said Abbey.
He looked around and noticed one of the glass doors to the balcony was open. Carefully walking around the shattered tables and chairs he walked out into the fresh air, and the banquet of noise that was the wildness of the city.
“Up here!”
He turned and looked up. Evidently there was another floor still, a rooftop viewing platform. He quickly spotted the set of metal stairs and walked up, trying not to look out beyond the next step in front of him. As he got to the top the wind buffeted him. A few yards away Abbey sat, with her feet dangling off the wall and nothing between her and the ground, six hundred feet below.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” She said.
Raj resisted the urge to continue looking at the ground and looked out across the city. It wasn’t the tallest building in the vicinity, but it was one of them and he walked forward mouth agape looking out at the green forest a few hundred feet below. His scientific mind knew that what he was looking at wasn’t possible. The sheer volume of trees, similar to the Amazon could not have grown in the time since the Cascade started, but there it was in front of him. A flock of lizard like flying creatures flew from east to west, while just visible poking above some trees were the arms or tentacles of something else. What he couldn’t see, his ears could sense, as a cacophony of bestial sounds played out around them.
“Err, yeah it is.” And he wasn’t lying despite his fear. He looked at Abbey. “Why are we up here?”
“I needed a place to think. This seemed appropriate.”
“I’m sorry.” He looked down.
She turned and looked at him. “Why?”
“If it were just up to me I wouldn’t have laid it all on you so quickly, but Elcher said it was important that I told you everything now.”
She turned back to looking at the transformed city. “I’m sure he had his reasons.”
“So…how do you feel?”
She breathed in a deep breath. “You would have thought finding out you are responsible for the death of most of humanity would…well, it would be hard to deal with.” She looked at him ag
ain and smiled. “But the way I felt before you told me what you did was worse. I sort of knew, but didn’t. And now I know it wasn’t completely my thought. It was a hundred different things that had to come together the way they did, to get all of this—” She held her arms out wide. “—Like Elcher said, this virus was already ingrained inside some of us, something we were born with, like our ancestors before us.” She briefly looked at him again and then looked down. “Elcher tried to tell me in my dreams. He showed me my parents and grandparents. I guess that was his way of saying, they were like me too, it was just my bad luck that I would be the one to trigger everything.”
Raj put his hand on her shoulder gently. She smiled back at him, briefly placing her hand on his. “So what do we do now?” He said.
“Now, we prepare.”
He looked confused. “For what? To find more Cascaders?”
“Oh, there is one we don’t have to go looking for. He’s already on his way here. And he means to kill me.”
CHAPTER 20
Abbey stood in the middle of what was once a plaza, the sun beaming down above her. It was one of the few places in the jungle around her which remained relatively clear of vines and trees. She found it a few hours earlier and realized straight away it would be a suitable arena.
Just at the edge was a bus that had long since stopped being of any mechanical use, but was a useful place for Raj to watch from. The ground shuddered and he ducked down, but kept his eyes fixed on the twisted bark and leaves just a hundred yards away.
The sound of trees breaking echoed around the square and the bus rocked slightly.
Abbey looked to her right, just as the top part of an eighty-foot high tree bent over and a long necked beast with a small head appeared. It swung around and looked at her. She smiled and the rest of the creature emerged from the undergrowth, its hulking torso keeping the thing upright and moving. Raj watched fascinated.
Abbey raised her hand and the creature approached closer still, then stopped. She then took a deep breath and looked to her left. The creature looked in the same direction and moved off into forest.
Mo landed on the roof of the bus, making Raj jump. As soon as he heard the squawking of Abbey’s pet he breathed in relief. He went to walk towards the bus’s exit when the undergrowth moved once again and out burst a small group of four-legged egg shaped things. ‘Things’ were all that Raj could think of calling them even with all the E.L.F’s he had catalogued.
Abbey looked at them and they all skidded to a stop just a few feet from her. One of the creatures had two antennae which probed the air ahead of it, close to her. She smiled and went to walk towards the creature when she stopped and looked towards the west. The creatures turned and scampered back into the forest.
Abbey ran back to the bus, pulling the doors open and ran up the small set of stairs.
“What is it?” Said Raj.
“He’s close.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes! His signature is unmistakable…It’s like I can smell him.”
Raj looked anxiously out into the thicket of trees around them. “Do you think he’s watching us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She briefly closed her eyes and Mo took off from the roof above them. “Remember what we agreed. You stay in here no matter what happens. I’ll try and protect you best I can, but the best thing you can do is stay hidden.”
He nodded. “Good luck.”
She smiled. “Yeah I haven’t had much of that.” She sighed and stepped back outside. “Here goes nothing.”
The sound of more branches snapping rang out around her and she slowly walked forward from the bus.
All at once howls and growls came from all around her. She secured her footing and searched in her mind for him. Then came laughing.
Clovis stepped out of the gloom and onto what remained of the concrete slabs that used to make up the sidewalks and roads surrounding the square. He walked forward a few more yards and stopped. Through his straggly hair which hung down across his face, she could see a smirk.
“I’ve come a long way for this,” he shouted across the square.
“It’s going to be a wasted journey!” She shouted back. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed movement. Leaves and plants shaking. She knew his creatures were there, ready to pounce and she was ready.
He started walking towards her again and his bear like creatures started doing the same, emerging from the jungle in a ring all around her.
She focused her thoughts and went to control one of the E.L.F’s she had earlier came across, when she staggered.
Clovis started laughing again. “It’s not going to be that easy, girly. I know how to get into your mind…”
The world around her stated to sway and she collapsed to her knees. From her blurred vision she could see his beasts moving towards her, just a hundred yards away.
She tried to get to her feet, but her body felt five times as heavy, even lifting her arms was beyond her effort. She fell further to the ground.
“There’s no one here to save you this time. Don’t worry my beasts won’t kill you today. I need my time with you first.”
She rolled over on the ground and caught a glimpse of the bus behind her. Raj was looking through the window. “No, stay there…” She whispered.
The bus door slid open and Raj walked down the steps confidently. “So you’re the big bad Clovis? I thought you’d be taller!”
The tall man stopped, as did his creatures. “And who are you?” Clovis looked around himself at the jungle and then upwards towards the vine covered skyscrapers.
Raj continued walking forward, stopping only when he was alongside Abbey who was now back on her knees.
“You’re not like us, are you human?” Clovis’s head whipped towards one of the bear creatures, which then bounded forward towards Raj and Abbey.
Abbey saw the danger and closed her eyes. A swarm of dog sized beetles swept from the trees and chased after Clovis’s pet as it bore down on them. Just as it was about to leap the insects piled into it, making it howl with pain and swipe at the air.
“Get back in the bus!” Said Abbey to Raj.
He hesitated. “He’s going to kill you! We should run!”
She angrily shook her head. “The only person dying today is him.”
More bear creatures sprinted towards them. Raj pointed at them.
“Yeah I know, I see them.”
She could feel Clovis’s mind probing again at hers, but her anger was acting as a shield. She focused her thoughts into the jungle and found what she was looking for. “Now it’s my turn.”
The ground started shaking again, but this time it was more pronounced. Even the bus was hopping with each new thunderous boom.
Clovis’s creatures skidded to a stop and looked around them as did their master.
Trees parted and splinted and a huge ape like creature, with a row of spiked plates running down its back bounded into the square. Standing at least twenty feet high it ran to the first of Clovis’s E.L.F’s and smashed it dead with one blow.
“Yeah!” Shouted Raj.
Abbey looked back at Clovis. “Why isn’t he running?”
Instead the man wearing the faded blue jacket, was standing with his eyes closed.
“What’s he doing?” Shouted Raj trying to be heard over the roars and growls, as Abbey’s E.L.F fought with the other six-legged bear creatures.
Suddenly the air filled with a booming roar, which made even the creatures fighting hesitate and look to the sky then continue tussling.
A flock of reptilian creatures took to the skies about half a mile from them.
“What the hell is that?” Shouted Raj between the screeches and growls.
“Nothing good…” She looked across to Clovis, he was smiling again.
The ground shook so violently that Abbey and Raj fell to the ground, and a creature made of tentacles, each twice as thick as the bus Raj was hiding in, rose up from the forest, slamm
ing into a nearby building and removing a chunk of rooms. A cloud of masonry and dust filled the air near the creature.
Abbey’s ape like creature finished throttling the life from the last of Clovis’s six legged bears and staggered back to her, blood pouring from multiple wounds.
As the trees collapsed behind Clovis, he stood motionless, grinning.
The tentacle creature crashed forward, somehow avoiding trampling Clovis and smashed down on the far end of the plaza sending a shock wave of cracks exploding outwards.
Raj went to say something but realized Abbey had her eyes closed. Clovis’s land octopus stormed forward eating up the ground and leaving an impact crater with each new movement.
The ape creature beat its chest then surged forward, but as it neared the creature coming towards them, was swatted like a fly, sending it spiraling through the air.
Raj’s eyes switched between the vision of impending death and Abbey’s expression of concentration.
“We have to—” Before he could finish the plaza filled with shadows, cross-shaped ones. He looked up to see a sky filled with winged creatures.
Abbey’s eyes opened and with a steely look she pointed both of her hands towards the thing almost on them.
Mo’s compatriots descended upon the flailing tentacles, tearing and biting at it. The scene was reminiscent of a nest of ants attacking a predator.
A crunch noise made Raj turn around, Mo was on top of the bus, hissing at the creature.
The leviathan staggered around the center of the square, swiping at the air, while trying to move towards Abbey and Raj.
“We need to relocate!” He shouted.
Abbey thrust her arms into the air, and she was immediately taken aloft by Mo. Raj did the same and another Simivem grabbed his arms as well and soon both were ascending away from the battle.
Abbey looked back down to where Clovis had been standing but he was gone.
Carcasses of the monkey bird E.L.F’s started to fill up the ground around the giant creature, which itself was slowing as green blood oozed from multiple wounds.
