EnEmE: Fall Of Man

by R. G. Beckwith

  Chapter 15 – Oh, Brother

  I had fired a full power energy blast directly into the fleshy, groaning mouth of the creature leading the attack on me and my friends.

  The lifeless mass of yellow flesh wobbled on its perch, and then slumped forward and oozed down the front of the tank, slamming into the ground at my feet. I just missed being crushed.

  The Tenachai forces were startled, and then plunged into utter confusion.

  I hoisted the energy rifle above my head in a whole-body signal of triumph, and then turned to face my friends.

  They looked at me wide-eyed for a moment, shocked at how the battle dynamic had changed with one simple action. They watched me closely, as if waiting for a respected leader to give them the order, to call them into valiant battle. Yeah, right.

  “Go! Run!” I yelled, as I broke into a full sprint.

  I ran hard, away from the Tenachai soldiers. Taking out the Gamma commander had been lucky. The handful of us left could not expect to hold firm and take on a platoon of bloodthirsty ETs.

  The rest of them clued in as they saw me bearing down on them.

  The group scrambled, heading from the street to the cover of the nearby brush. When I reached it, Braden was staring at me and still holding Wendy.

  “That…was amazing,” he said, struggling to speak and regain his breath at the same time.

  “We can debate who the bigger hero is later,” I replied. “Right now we need to move toward that tree line over there and get back to the hospital.”

  The group had been huddled around listening. They began to slowly work toward the cover and safety of the tree line, trying not to attract any more attention from the Tenachai, who were starting to regroup and form a new plan of attack.

  I brought up the rear, and just as I was about to cross a small clearing that bordered the trees, there was a rustling from the yard behind us.

  We all swirled to face the noise in unison with weapons drawn. (Tense? Who, us?)

  Over the top of my alien energy rifle I stared into the frightened face of a young woman with the largest afro I’d ever seen. Her skin was as dark as the scowling expression she gave me. She was just tired and scared enough to be pissed off. The threat of being fired upon didn’t seem to faze her. Her eyes were normal though, so I knew she wasn’t a threat, at least not of the alien kind.

  The sound of the energy rifle charging in my hands slowly rose and pushed away the silence. Startled, I lowered the rifle and removed my finger from the trigger mechanism, disengaging the charging process. The gun wound down, the charge lowering with a dull hum, dissipating until it was no longer audible.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  A goateed man with an olive complexion and a young boy stepped up next to her, smiling nervously. The man was slim, but his muscles were cut like steel cable. The boy was dirty, but had a bright light to his eyes. His hair was short and curled tightly, and his complexion was coffee-colored, the perfect mixture of his mother and father.

  “It’s okay,” said the man nervously.

  The man moved forward tentatively, putting himself between his woman and me.

  “I’m Brian,” he said. “This is my wife Alex.” He gestured to the very irritated looking woman, and then nodded toward the boy, “And this is Levon, our son.

  We all stared back at them, not sure what to say or do. Our minds were a little more occupied with getting out of here and surviving than with introductions to new people.

  “We saw what you did,” Brian said. “It was amazing.”

  I realized that I’d have to make an exception to my flight instincts momentarily, and I extended my hand for a shake.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m Jace, and it was more survival than skill . . . listen . . . if you guys want to survive with us we’ve got to get going, Brian. We’ve got a shelter that we can go back to.”

  With that Brian hastily ushered his family forward, Alex moving forward reluctantly, still glaring.

  “Sure, sure. Sorry, let’s go,” he responded.

  We worked our way into the tree line, so we couldn’t be seen easily from the road. We scoped out the area ahead, stopping every few hundred feet to look ahead. Every time we heard an explosion or an unidentified sound in the distance, we fell flat to the ground behind the tree trunks.

  It was a much slower hike back to the drainage tunnel with this rag-tag group than it had taken for Alvarez and me to hike there. For a moment I felt a tinge of anguish for the loss of the man who I had considered a comrade. I only allowed myself to think about it for a moment; we didn’t have time for any long goodbyes. The sun was half set behind the L.A. skyline by the time we reached the tunnel.

  Thick black smoke was still rising from Albright’s Surplus Store. Albright -- another comrade sacrificed in such a short time. We could smell it before we exited the forested area next to the drainage tunnel.

  Flames licked the darkening sky.

  We all stood staring at the tunnel. About ten feet in we could clearly see where the tunnel had collapsed, filled with a wall of broken concrete and dead host soldiers.

  I wracked my brain, trying to come up with a plan of action to get us to the hospital.

  Just as the plan started to form and I started to speak, we heard the click of several firearms cocking. A series of rifles pointed out over the edge of the grassy embankment above the tunnel.

  The men behind them slowly stepped forward into the light so that we could see them.

  There was Freeman, a guy with frosted tips in his hair, Hauer, and a skinny guy with short red hair. I was so stunned that I couldn’t force out many syllables. As I looked back at the man with the frosted tips, my voice caught twice before I managed to speak.

  “Max?”

  Chapter 16 – The Coliseum

  The street exploded in dust and debris.

  Bill and Unus choked on dust. Then the screams cut the air. Unus panicked as she realized that her daughter Wendy wasn’t hanging onto her hand. They had been separated by the explosion.

  Wendy stood in the distance, crying in the middle of the street, surrounded by a cloud of dust.

  Unus surged forward, arms outstretched, intent on bolting forward to grab her child. The air exploded again, directly in front of her.

  The only thing that saved her from being killed by flying debris was Bill grabbing her firmly and pulling her backward.

  “I’m sorry,” Bill yelled. “She’s gone!”

  “No!” screamed Unus.

  As the smoke cleared they saw the group of survivors that they had left behind rushing into the street, firing their weapons. Unus’s breath caught in her throat, and Bill watched in stunned silence as Braden clobbered a host soldier and scooped up Wendy before running away.

  More explosions, kicking up more dust and smoke. Bill grabbed Unus and spoke, looking directly into Unus’s eyes.

  “She’ll be okay with Braden,” he said. He sounded almost pleading, as if he were convincing himself as well. “You have to trust that she’s going to be fine. Once we’re out of danger we’ll go with a group to that hospital they talked about. We’ll toss out those aliens and…and you’ll be with her again. We just need to get to the arena and get some back-up first.”

  Reluctantly Unus conceded, as much from a sense of her own self-preservation as any effect that Bill’s words had.

  With the sounds of fighting fading in the distance and the focus of the fighting back in that battle zone, the two simply walked down the street. They were armed, dirty, and dishevelled. Bill held his gun in his hand, ready to use it at a moment’s notice.

  A couple of blocks later, he got his chance.

  There was a scuffling noise behind them. His nerves frazzled, Bill whirled and fired without so much as aiming. The bullet hit the side of a home, burrowing a deep bullet hole into the vinyl siding and plywood.

  A frightened family hit the deck, ducking down flat onto the grass. They were slowly looking at the hole made by the bullet tha
t narrowly missed their father, and then back at Bill.

  “You…you shouldn’t sneak up like that!” Bill yelled.

  The family was Asian. Bill wondered if he had died and been reincarnated as a character in a bad, 70s martial arts film. The leader of the group, the father, was dressed in a white karate gi, complete with a red bandana tied around his forehead.

  “We’re sorry,” the Bruce Lee look-a-like said. “We didn’t mean to startle you. We’re just trying to find a safe place away from all this craziness and you didn’t look like you were one of them, so we wanted to find out if you had heard anything.”

  The man stood, closely followed by his family -- two girls and a boy, a middle-aged woman who must have been their mother, and an elderly lady.

  “My name is Tsu,” said the man in the gi. “These are my children, my wife, and my mother-in-law.”

  Each family member gave a slight bow as they were mentioned. Tsu extended his hand to Bill.

  Bill fumbled awkwardly with his gun, eventually sliding it into his pocket so he could accept the handshake.

  “I’m Bill, and this is Unus. We’ve heard there are survivors gathered at Memorial Coliseum. We’re on our way there,” said Bill.

  Tsu’s face brightened up.

  “That makes sense. I’ve been to all kinds of events there. It’s the perfect place to gather.”

  Tsu and his family followed along with Bill and Unus. The feeling of strength in numbers lent comfort to the group.

  The feeling increased as the group picked up five more survivors before they arrived at the coliseum.

  No one mentioned the alien ships that hovered over the skyline and near the coliseum, until Bill looked up as he stood outside the gates.

  “Why are they here now, of all times and places they could be?”

  Nobody answered, just exchanged looks.

  There had been no obstacles on the way. The gates were open. No one was in the parking lot. The doors were unlocked. The foyer was empty. The group cautiously crept through the corridor leading into the stadium.

  “I guess we made it,” said Bill with relief.

  “It’s so quiet,” said Unus uneasily.

  “It was almost too easy,” said Tsu.

  To their relief the door at the end of the corridor opened into the bright stadium. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust. Inside the stands and field were full of fellow survivors. Their faces began to light up.

  Then they heard an odd humming sound.

  Everybody in the building stood up, turned and looked directly at them, speaking in unison.

  “Welcome, friends.”

  The smiles faded from Bill and Unus’s faces, as well as the rest of the group. It was creepy and just plain wrong.

  Before anyone could react, the entire group was wracked with a sudden pain in their right sides, doubling them over in extreme pain, bringing them to their knees. The empty stares of the people in the arena were the last thing every single one of them would ever see before their vision faded to black.

  Chapter 17 - Bro

  “Yeah it’s me, bro,” Max said, looking down from the culvert, projecting a more down-to-Earth attitude than I’d seen from him since we were kids.

  “H…how did you find us here?” I managed to stammer in disbelief.

  “It was an accident…” Max started.

  “Your brother here saved my bacon from a pack of those alien infected soldiers, Bradley,” Hauer interrupted appreciatively.

  Max looked modest for the first time in years.

  “It was nothing,” said Max. “I heard a ruckus; I clocked the guy that looked weird.”

  “I’d be dead if it weren’t for him,” Hauer added matter-of-factly.

  I was silent. My mind just needed a minute to process it all. My douche bag of a brother was suddenly a life-saving hero. I guess it’s true what they say-- an intergalactic alien invasion can bring out the best in people, or something like that.

  “I’m sorry, Jace,” Max said flatly, pulling my attention to him.

  “Why?” was all I could manage. The new Max was causing my head to spin.

  “For all the years we didn’t talk,” Max said. “For being a dick. For judging you and pushing you away and bickering over petty shit that doesn’t matter. We should have been brothers. We should have been there together for Dad.”

  The fact that my brother would talk about these deeply personal things in front of strangers shook me.

  “It’s okay,” I managed. “We should have tried to be more understanding with each other. I’m sorry, too.”

  With that Max hopped down from the top of the culvert. Smiling, he stepped forward and extended his hand.

  “Let’s not waste any more time on the past. We’re moving forward as new men,” he said.

  I shook his hand, which he immediately used to pull me in for a tight one-armed hug. I didn’t fight it. We both fought to hold back tears welling in our eyes, not wanting to look unmanly in front of all our new military buddies.

  After the quick embrace I stepped away from my brother and looked up at Hauer.

  “So how do we get into the hospital?” I asked.

  “Oh, you sure have missed a lot, Detective.” Hauer replied. “Get on up here; we got something to show you.”

  Max only looked at me and grinned, refusing to give away any intel on what Hauer was referring to. My rag-tag band of survivors and I climbed up the steep grassy embankment that the culvert jutted out of.

  As we crested the top I was speechless with confusion at what I saw. Again. Twice in almost as many minutes.

  People. Hundreds of them. All huddled together in groups outside the hospital entrance and parking garage. And vehicles. Buses, cars, campers. Motorcycles. And for some reason, a lot of people that looked like Elvis.

  Chapter 18 – Elvis and Other Surprises

  “Elvises?” I muttered the query.

  “Yeah, a whole tour bus full of ‘em that were headed to Burbank for some festival,” Hauer explained with a chuckle. “Elvis impersonators and fans. We got at least two from every era of the King and even a couple of female ones to boot.”

  “What?” I replied, unable to hide the fact that the craziness of the day was about to make my head explode.

  Hauer finally gave it to me simply, likely worried that if he didn’t my brain would blow out all over his uniform.

  “Kiebler and I were able to find an old comm radio in the hospital and got it working. We’ve been broadcasting intermittent messages on the CB signals just in case someone could hear us, telling any survivors out there where they could gather and build a resistance.”

  Kiebler stood nervously in the background as she listened to Hauer explain. When she heard her name, she gave a nervous, half-hearted wave. Despite the horrible situation the world was now in, she was proud of herself for being able to help. It was cute.

  Then she saw Lacy, who she still knew as only her receptionist. “Oh my God! Oh my God! Lacy!” she exclaimed, rushing forward and grabbing the red-headed host in a strong embrace. “I’m so happy you’re alive. I’m so glad you made it!”

  Lacy looked at me nervously, and then awkwardly toward Kiebler as she pulled away.

  “Thank you,” she said, almost robot-like. “You as well.”

  Kiebler picked up on the difference in Lacy right away – she was a psychiatrist, after all. They looked at each other and then at me awkwardly. That was something I was going to have to explain soon, but right now I needed to focus on talking with Hauer.

  “What are we going to do with these people? How are we going to organize?” I asked.

  Hauer slapped a hand on my shoulder.

  “Glad you asked,” he said with a demented grin. “I need you to gather these folks and get them out of open view. Move them and their vehicles to the parking garage. That’s where we’re going to begin organizing as a group and figure out the pecking order. Freeman and I are going to take a small group and start camouflag
ing this place using some of the debris, so that the building looks uninhabitable.”

  “That’s a great idea…” I stammered, “but I really need to fill you in on what happened while we were away. The people with me…and Alvarez…”

  “Was a good man and irreplaceable,” Hauer responded firmly. “He was a hero and will be remembered that way. Right now, I need you to stand up and be a good soldier; you can debrief me on your mission after we get this done.”