by Wyatt Savage
“Has the game started?”
“No,” Sue replied.
“Can this thing be killed?”
“Does it bleed?”
“I think so!” I said.
“Then it can be killed,” she said flatly.
That was good enough for me.
My internal HUD flashed and suddenly there was an illuminated path in front of me. An elongated grid that directed me on the shortest path toward my present position and a weapon, a shotgun dropped on the ground by a dead police officer.
Guided by the HUD, I set out on a dead run as the monster turned its attention from the smoking armored machine to me.
Slashing past the dead and dying, I executed a beautiful drift-slide and grabbed the shotgun while coming up on the balls of my feet.
I didn’t think; I reacted. Bringing the weapon up, snugging it against my shoulder and then my vision suddenly shut off.
Not only did my SecondSight disappear, but I couldn’t see anything.
I was literally blind.
I could hear what was happening however, could feel the ground shake as the monster moved toward me.
There was an odor from the beast for which there are no polite words, a funk that caused my eyes to water.
I backed up and fell over something, what felt like a body.
You don’t know what true terror is until you’re being chased by something out of a nightmare and you can’t see a fucking thing.
Rolling over, I lost my grip on the shotgun and heard a sound, a note that resembled laughter coming from the thing.
“Sue!” I shouted. “What the hell’s going on?!”
“This is all part of the mirroring process,” Sue replied.
“What?!”
“It’s testing you.”
“I don’t want to be tested!”
“It’s seeing how you’ll acquit yourself.”
Fuck that.
I groped around and found the shotgun and stood.
And promptly fell again.
This time I hit my head on something metallic as the ground shuddered and I levered myself up.
Wheeling around, I threw caution to the wind and fired a shot that nearly knocked me back on my ass.
The monster howled like an animal being branded and I fired again.
WONK!
My SecondSight popped back up. I could see. I could see that the construct was thirty feet away from me. Neither of my shots appeared to have struck it.
Reflexively I aimed and fired again and the round from my gun punched a hole through one of the thing’s legs.
I held the shotgun up and shrieked at the monster. “Come get me!”
I didn’t have to wait long.
The construct threw itself at me and I fired.
Once, twice, three times.
My SecondSight boxes were flashing, changing, even as the bullets bounced off the monster.
Shit!
I swung around and broke into a ragged duck-and-run, watching as the beast unleashed another blizzard of worm-needles at me.
There’s a huge difference between being fast and being quick. Fast is just a God-given burst of speed whereas quick means you run with very little wasted energy. Back when I played ball, I was always quick when running the bases, but for some reason, my reaction time had improved. In fact, it was off the charts.
Looking back, I caught sight of the worm-needles and instinctively dipped under the first batch before diving under a bus as the remaining needles slammed into it, chewing great divots of metal from the side panels. The worms dropped to the ground and began wriggling toward me as I belly-crawled in the other direction.
Exiting the safety of the bus, I galloped toward Jefferson Drive, realizing that I was completely out in the open on the National Mall.
Exposed.
The construct gave chase and I prayed I’d be able to reach the safety of some trees before it cut me down.
I took shelter under the trees as the monster began swinging its sharpened legs, ripping through the trees, turning the trunks into matchsticks. I high-stepped it across the street toward an office building that was under construction, the edifice ringed by scaffolding and a titanic construction crane.
The construct rampaged down the street, tossing aside cars, uprooting trees. Scrambling back, I checked my shotgun. There was a single shell left.
Best save the last one for yourself, an inner voice whispered.
I brought the gun up and aimed at the thing’s eye when a form streaked out of nowhere.
It was Dwayne!
He was wild-eyed and waving his arms.
“What the hell are you doing?!” I shouted.
“You didn’t think I was gonna let the white people have all the fun, did you?”
“You can’t even run!” I replied.
A strange smile gripped his face. “Watch me.”
Before I could say anything in response, he bolted down the street. When I say bolted I mean the guy was a blur. I’d never seen anybody run that fast before and his movements startled the construct, which twisted itself up trying to attack him.
But then the monster’s gaze turned sideways to something I hadn’t noticed before.
There was a person hiding behind one of the few, still-standing trees.
It was Lish!
The thing made a move for her.
“GET AWAY FROM HER!” I yelled.
The monster turned back to me and I fired my last shot. It was a godawful shot. The bullet ricocheted off the top of the beast’s head. My heart sank because the slug had failed to find its mark.
But then, out of the pit of despair, came a flash of light as the bullet struck a section of the massive construction crane.
Two things happened at once: the monster reared up, readying to attack Lish or me (or both), and something on the crane, a chain struck by my bullet, snapped off.
The monster heaved itself forward and the top of the crane, a long, heavy metal section shaped like the end of a shovel, fell straight down like one of those blades on a guillotine.
Lish screamed and the monster neared her and then the crane struck the beast’s head and obliterated it.
Twenty thousand pounds of American-made steel slammed through that alien freakshow with enough force to shear the upper portion of its body, what I imagine that cephalothorax thing was, clean off.
I watched the rest of the thing flop to the road, twitching, its body leaking a smoking, green blood that caused the blacktop to bubble and hiss.
Dwayne and Lish appeared, hands on their hips, everyone out of breath.
They pointed and I looked over a shoulder to see a gaggle of tourists and onlookers emerging from their hiding places.
A bunch of them were holding phones up.
What the hell is wrong with people that in the worst of situations their first instinct was to take a fucking picture? I know that makes me sound like an old geezer, but I just don’t understand it.
Anyway, Dwayne and Lish joined me and we stood silently, watching helicopters circle the city as a phalanx of black sedans and military-style vehicles drove toward us.
10
On the ninth day after the alien arrival I became a social-media star.
I was apprised of this one sunny morning as I powered up my iPad and saw an email from a stranger named [email protected] to my account at [email protected].
Mamakarma: I knew there was something special about u...
I yawned, not recognizing the name, ready to delete it.
Me: Wrong person.
Mamakarma: Is wrong person the sexiest man to ever walk down a dollar store aisle?
Me: Who r u?
Mamakarma: Lish, fool.
Here I typed in one of those silly emoji things:
Me:
