by Dave Lacey
“But I’m wasted at the rear. Everybody knows that. I should be at the front. I have great hearing and eyesight. You know it’s true, Toby. You put me in the rearguard, because I’m a girl.” The other voice wasn’t giving up at all. Jack smiled as he recognized both voices, feeling most of the tension go out of his body.
“No, smart arse, there are many reasons I put you where I did, and none of them are because you’re a girl. And, let’s be honest, at the moment, the fairer sex you ain’t!” The male voice rose again, frustration floating to the top like champagne bubbles.
“Oh, kiss my arse! Your track record with women shows how much you know about the opposite sex. How they put you in charge of Bravo Company is beyond me!” They finally came into view, and, as they did, Jes saw the leader of Bravo Company, Toby, whirl round to face his accuser. He paused, glaring at his female companion.
“Does this mean you’re sleeping on the couch tonight?” he asked innocently. It was a metaphor only; there were few couches below ground. Jes fought back a laugh as he leaned against the tunnel wall, arms folded and one leg half crossed over the other, relaxed now. The woman glanced at him briefly before looking back at her accuser and commanding officer. But her first response was to Jes.
“Don’t even think about smiling, over there. Your little friend here is not funny.” Then she addressed Toby directly. “And don’t think your smart little mouth is going to get you out of this one either, Toby. I’m not done with you. You’re a sexist pig, and I’m going to the top with a request to be moved, or to have you relieved of command. And, if anyone is sleeping on the ‘couch’,” she put the air commas around the word couch as she said it, “tonight, it’s going to be you. Arsehole!” She pushed past him into the main Hub. As she went, she threw an ‘if looks could kill’ glance at Jes.
Toby turned and smiled at Jes, before shouting down the tunnel. “Come on, Millie, you know you can’t resist me.” Her response was indecipherable, but they both could have guessed at what it was.
“You’re a class act, Toby, such a way with the ladies. So smooth,” said Jes.
“Yeah, well, your sister has a terrific attitude. She’s an absolute pleasure to have around.” Toby shook his head, hands on hips. “She has not shut up all night. Bitching about this, carping about that. It’s like having a pretty version of you around.” He raised his eyebrows and gave a tired shrug.
“Yeah, well, lucky for us all, there are no other versions of you in here, pretty or otherwise,” said Jes, then continued, his tone serious. “Everything okay tonight? Anything out there give you problems?” Jes stood away from the wall, and turned to fall in with his friend as they walked into the Hub.
“Nothing too bad, no. We ran into a couple of Destroyers, but we saw them in plenty of time and took ‘em down.” Destroyers were the fighting version of the Combers; their name was self evident. “Funny night, though. I just had a bad feeling all night. And we got next to nothing in terms of supplies.” Toby sighed, tired and a little pissed.
“Yeah I know what you mean,” replied Jes. He ran a hand through his dark hair, which was beginning to show a little grey at the temples. “It was a funny night. We took a hit.” Toby’s eyes widened. They all lived with the danger of losing members of their teams, but it didn’t lessen the pain. Jes hurried to comfort his friend. “No, it’s okay, not a fatality. Just a bad leg wound, claws. It was the newbie though, made it feel worse.”
“But he’s okay? He’s not going to lose the leg is he?” Toby was frowning, his eyes revealing his concern. They had seen so many things in these last eight years.
“I don’t think so, no. It’s not that bad. He’ll be fine. But we got next to nothing either. We’d only just reached our target when we had contact. Looks like we’ll have to make another run tomorrow night.” He said it matter of factly. It was no big deal; in fact, there was invariably a sense of excitement that came with a sortie; it was addictive.
“Yeah, I guess. I just hope your sister calms down by then. What is it with her anyway? She never gives me a friggin’ break.” They sat down opposite one of the food stands.
“Hey, that was your decision,” Jes laughed. “You knew what you were getting yourself into.” Jes caught the attention of one of the food servers. God, he was hungry.
“I know, but Christ she’s got the worst temper of anybody I know. She hit me the other day. And I don’t just mean a slap. She punched me full in the stomach.” Toby paused, his face a mask of incredulity as he stared at the ground. Jes couldn’t help but snort with laughter. He put his hands over his face, trying to lessen its impact, but failed.
“It’s not fucking funny, she left a bruise!” But that just caused Jes to laugh harder. “I swear to God, if she wasn’t a girl...”
Jes stopped laughing long enough to cut in. “Oh, I can’t warn you enough. Don’t even think about hitting her back. She’ll really lose it then!”
“I’m not that stupid, I’ve been there before–” Jes looked up sharply. Toby held up a hand. “Not hit her, but I grabbed her to stop her from hitting me. She very calmly told me to take my hands off her, before I lost them.” He held out his hands in supplication, “Now I ask you, is that any way for a lady to behave?” He looked at Jes, expecting support.
“Look, chuckles, you pursued her with great determination...”
The food arrived before he could go on. Stew: potatoes, carrots, onions, with rabbit and herbs. Things they could either grow or catch quite easily. They got other stuff, the occasional cow or sheep, now and again a stray pig. They could grow a surprising amount underground, now that they’d rigged up an ultra violet light system in a few of the smaller caverns, and adopted a hydroponic system that kept them well stocked with vegetables and some fruit. The animals survived, at their best guess, on weeds.
“This is good,” Toby muttered through mouthfuls.
“Aye, it is,” Jes agreed. “Gillette came over to me earlier,” he said, stuffing his food into his mouth.
“Oh, and what did he want?” Toby was no great fan of Gillette either.
“It was to console me after the injury we took tonight. He offered to go comfort Wilkinson’s family too. Prick.”
Toby nodded while he chewed. “Yeah, he really is a prick. And he’s always working the angles too. You think he felt any pity or concern for the kid or his family, or do you think he’s just building on his position?” Toby scooped up the last of his stew and chewed through it.
“I don’t think he gives a shit about anything or anybody. Nothing matters to him except his own standing in here. But I don’t get it. What does he think it will lead to? Prime Minister of the underground? Of what exactly? He’d get eaten alive if we integrated with any other communities. He’s not clever enough.” Jes finished off his own food while Toby considered his words.
“In time, I guess we’ll find out what he has in mind. And it seems to me we might just regret not knowing what it is until that point.” His heavy words sat in the air, a malignant presence.
Chapter 3
Diary entry, January 2013.
It started on the day we were told it would. December 21st 2012. Some people knew a long time before; others, like myself, had only known for a year. And, like the brittle fools we are, some of us chose to believe it would not, could not, happen. But it did. I’d told a few people before the day came, swore them to secrecy. I’m not sure if the government had no knowledge of my indiscretions, or decided it made no real difference any longer.
Some of the people I told thought I was mad. Maybe I was. The knowledge had driven me mad if anything, but I knew my story wasn’t contrived. Then again, until it came true I had no idea whether it would happen or not.
Some of the people I confided in simply unravelled within days, others broke down over the course of time. So they were not prepared when it came.
The cover up had done its job; to most people, the news that we were to be invaded came as a great shock. People had been dying sin
ce the 1960s, dying to keep a secret. Since that breakthrough discovery in Mexico, governments around the world had been doing what they were best at. Keeping the public in the dark. I don’t know if they were right or wrong. I don’t know if it was what I would have done.
It started in Germany. Not long before it spread everywhere else, but long enough for the fear and the name to spread. The Auslanders. The foreigners. It was not the true word, aliens, but a gut reaction to something a German journalist saw at the site of a plane crash. That was the first sign, when planes started to drop from the skies. EMPs, Electro Magnetic Pulses, took out most things high up. Some of our infrastructure lasted just long enough for TV pictures and radio to carry on broadcasting.
That first footage was shocking. The burning wreckage, buildings being struck by Auslander artillery, and then the creatures themselves. The Auslanders: long limbed and voracious; attacking buildings and the population with terrifying aggression; firing weapons, and ripping and tearing with hands and teeth. We were caught so cold that in that first onslaught they killed hundreds of millions of unprepared people. Our own weapons were, for the greater part, useless. But we had no idea what to shoot at anyway.
When it began here, in the UK, it was stunning in its brutality. I remember looking out of a window and seeing the first signs. Flashes and explosions high in the sky, huge lumps of metal falling to the ground, crushing houses, cars and people. Gas mains ruptured, causing explosions and fires that killed thousands, maybe millions. Pods landed, hard. We didn’t know what they were, but we learned. They hit the ground like meteors sending up clouds of debris and dust; they were the size of houses and shaped like rugby balls.
Then, somehow surviving the impact, out came the “Destroyers”, soldiers that swarmed over the sides of the impact craters like ants from an anthill. There was no mercy, nothing stayed their hands. They cut everybody down. Women, children, old, young. Everyone. I was a policeman in a previous life, and I saw things. But this, this was different. The horror of it all was unimaginable. We tried to fight back, but we’d never fought anything like it before. They were animals, but bigger and stronger, with better weapons.
Anybody that offered resistance was swiftly brushed aside. And you weren’t safe indoors either. I watched as landing pods smashed through apartment blocks and houses, killing or maiming the occupants, and as aircraft plummeted from the skies, flattening homes with devastating effect. The invaders were using small asteroids as weapons too, using some sort of sling shot system to launch them at us, softening the enemy for the assault. It worked. We were powerless to respond. Crumpled and beaten.
The series of tunnels and caverns that the government told us about were useable, but getting to them safely was another matter. Some had believed the announcement when it came. They had believed, and had made their way to the tunnel entrances, even before the attack began. But there were too many people and not enough room to accommodate them. Soon there was fighting, and then riots. Society broke down quicker than you could imagine. In a normal scenario, the police and the armed services would have been called in.
But they were people too, with families of their own. Why should they patrol the streets, stopping people from being human? Soon, they were part of the mob, trying to save their families. The politicians left. Most of them had gone a few months before. But the remainder just disappeared, leaving us to our own devices. And that was when it really began to break down.
My family refused to take to the tunnels. My uncle had built a house a few years before, and he’d already built an underground living area beneath it. After hanging around for a while, watching it unfold, I decided to move. Only the horrid fascination of it had kept me there to that point. I left the house, keeping to the shadows cast by the raging fires. It wasn’t hard to do. We’d lost all power, so the street lamps and house lights were snuffed out. I’d never seen such darkness before, and it was winter too. Cold, alone and creeping through the dark, over bodies and rubble, I set out. It was a journey fraught with danger.
Twice in the first fifteen minutes I was almost discovered, somehow managing to scuttle under a car in one instance and a partially intact wall in the other. I needed to be more careful, so I went slower. It took me eight hours to reach my parents’ estate and it was just ten miles away, so slow was my progress. All I’d wanted for the previous eight hours was to get there, and now that I was, I was terrified of what I might find. All through that time, I’d come across people huddled in groups, or alone and gibbering to themselves, their eyes wide and full of the horrors they had seen.
But I couldn’t help them. I had my own to look after. I stood outside the large house for a few minutes, bracing myself for what I’d find. There was damage to the house, so I knew something had happened. Eventually, I pushed open the unlocked door and went in. There they were, safe. And to my relief my estranged wife and son had also found their way there. My relief was tempered though, as I realized that I now had four others to worry about. We had to get to my uncle’s house.
I figured we had a better chance of going unnoticed if we stayed away from the densely populated areas and stuck to the open spaces. I was right, to a point. After we’d been walking for around two hours, we had an encounter. I’d armed myself a few weeks before the attack started. I’d broken into the evidence enclosure at Police HQ and stolen two guns. They were tucked against my back when the attack came. And the attack wasn’t from the Auslanders.
It was just good old fashioned scumbags. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly some people embrace the darkness when the authorities are no longer evident. They came like malevolent shadows as we crept towards the dawn. Hugging the ground and moving quickly, confident in their numbers and willingness to do anything. I was carrying little Jack, but quickly put him down and shoved him behind me. I don’t even know what they wanted, but they were grim and smug as they stopped us.
“Morning, folks. Where you off to?” The leader greeted us as he put a hand to my father’s chest, stopping him.
“You should go now, while you still can,” I told him, equally grim. He smiled at me, and spoke again.
“Really? And you should worry about what we’ll do to your women if you don’t do just what we say.” And he moved towards Selena, my wife. It happened so quickly, we were all powerless to do anything about it. His hand flicked out, just a blur of flesh and the glint of steel in the early light.
Then, a crimson arc of arterial blood as it sprayed across the sky like a sinister rainbow. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion then. Almost unconsciously, the gun was out of the waistband of my jeans before Selena was dead. I shot each of them in the chest, training taking over. As the last of Selena’s life blood soaked into my clothes, I held my young wife as she slipped into a better world than the one she left behind.
Chapter 4
After eating supper and chewing over what remained of the Hub’s political fat, Jes and Toby went back to their separate quarters. Jes was tired, even though their night had been short. He lay on his bunk and closed his eyes for a moment. He could easily have fallen asleep, but then Junior burst into his consciousness.
“Hey, Dad, what happened tonight? Some of the other kids reckon one of your guys got killed. They saw him come in on a stretcher and they said there was blood everywhere!” Junior’s ghoulish little face was inches from his. Why do kids delight in such horror? His son was eleven now, and growing all the time.
“He didn’t die, you bloodthirsty little sod. He just got a few cuts on his leg. But, more importantly, where have you been, and why aren’t you with Nan and Granddad?” His son blew air out of his cheeks and up past his button nose so that it ruffled his dark brown fringe. His dark eyes stared into the middle distance as he struggled for an answer that would keep him out of trouble. Jes arched an eyebrow, waiting for a reply.
“I also heard,” continued Junior, “that Aunt Millie is in trouble and was swearing in the tunnel earlier?” It was a nice try, but Jes was
n’t going to let that one wash.
“Get cleaned up, and then it’s time for bed.” Junior’s angelic face was already twisting into one of displeasure. “Now, Junior. And I will find out where you’ve been,” he said as he patted his son on the backside and sent him scuttling over to the half barrel they used to bathe.
Jes’s face twisted slightly as he placed his hands on his hips. He was right to be concerned. Some of the kids had been sneaking away from their guardians, and there was a fear that they had been finding a way to the surface.
Two children had gone missing in the last three months, and this only emphasized the concern felt by all in their community. If they were finding a way to the surface, then they were in terrible danger of being killed or taken as a resource. As he stood thinking about it, his sister entered the dugout.
“Evening, bro. Sorry about earlier,” she said as she breezed past him, one hand in her pocket, the other running along a shelf.
“It’s not me you should be apologizing to, sis.” He raised his eyebrows and shook his head in a ‘you’re in the wrong’ kind of way. Millie’s expression hardened.
“If you’re talking about your knob of a best friend, then save it. He’s beyond words. And he’s a coward.” She blew air through clenched teeth, folding her arms across her chest.
“How so?” Jes asked, leaning back against the rough-hewn wall. Millie looked at him from the corner of her eye, pondering how best to proceed.
“We were arguing, because there’s a rumour that there’s a huge cash and carry that sits outside of our travel range. Untapped, and intact.” Jes had heard the rumour too, it was a ways off, and it might have already been emptied. Eight years is a long time. She paused, and Jes spoke into the gap.
“And you wanted to go there?” he said.
She nodded. “Yes, I did. You bet your arse I did. That much food and supplies could last us a long, long time, Jes. Think of what it could do for us. It would take the pressure off for quite a while. The night sorties could taper off a little. We could take a well-earned break.” Millie said, colour returning to her cheeks.
