At the End - a post-apocalyptic novel (The Road to Extinction, Book 1) (25 page)

Tortilla and I smiled at each other,
probably with the biggest grins anyone could ever have. “We had
aluminum foil above our beds. We thought that’s why we survived,”
Tortilla informed the corporal.

Burnhammer laughed. “Well I’ll be damned.
Maybe it’s true then.”

“I guess so,” I said, laughing.

“Well anyway, our brigade was stationed at
Tooga’s Training Facility, a military base outside Rockcreek.” She
must have seen the confusion written on my face. “Rockcreek lies
about twenty klicks west of Portland, so that’s why we were able to
rescue survivors in the area. We survived because we got lucky,
just like you.”

“That’s certain,” Tortilla said. “Do you
think we can exterminate them like you said?”

“So far it’s been a losing battle, but once
we regroup, organize, and make some plans of attack, yes, I think
we’ll have a chance. The problem was when they started taking
people, we didn’t know what was going on, it was all done so fast .
. . the alions made sure our reactions were panic and confusion,
and because of that, we didn’t regroup to strategize our next
moves.” Her voice was sad and mournful, yet a hope traced her heavy
words.

“Do you know anything about other countries,
what they are doing to combat the alions?”

“I haven’t heard anything as of yet. I
suppose they are scrambling like us.”

Suddenly, loud, thick roars boomed through
the convoy and drowned out her voice. They came from all
directions, a circle of calls, instilling fear. The alions had us
surrounded with what sounded like thousands of soldiers.

Burnhammer spun around, searching the tree
line. The grass grew tall before the trees, tall enough to hide a
crouching alion. The unending roars never faltered. Deep, powerful,
and shocking, they rattled my body, shaking the ground beneath my
feet.

Voices yelled down and up the column. Most
were commands, but screams of panic mixed in, shrills thick with
fear. The roaring was unimaginable: it was a sea of horrific calls
that knelled our death sentence. I had watched animal shows about
lions before, groups of 30 or 40, all crying to each other, singing
songs in the night. But this was different. These roars were filled
with pure malice. And they were crawling toward us, creeping upon
our position, slow and threatening. They wanted us to piss our
pants, and I did. I soaked my thighs. The warmth quickly turned
cool.

Burnhammer grabbed my shirt collar and threw
me into the back of the jeep. I had no idea she possessed such
strength. She handled my body like a toy. She jumped onto the bed
and opened up a weapon case stacked against the middle right wall
of the box-bed. She threw out the foam padding and jerked out a
sleek black and tan submachine gun. She punched it against my
chest.

I took it with both my hands. “What is it?”
I yelled, trembling from the constant roars.

“The KRISS VP55. It’s the best submachine
gun on the planet, slower than the OMP2, but there’s no recoil and
no muzzle climb; it shoots straight and true every time, even on
full auto.” She picked up four magazines and placed them in my
pockets. “You’ll need these.” She leaned in close to my ear so that
no one else could overhear. “I think this will be our last stand,
Maggy. You protect the little ones with every ounce you have left,
you hear me?”

I stared up at her, tears oozing from my
eyes. I nodded slowly.

She rushed back to the case and found
another one for Tortilla. He accepted it with a bruise to his
chest. She stooped down and snatched up her assault rifle resting
against the jeep’s bed. Floodlights flashed on, shining across the
grass, scanning the border where the tall evergreens stood. I
peeked out into the darkness and saw nothing but grass and
trees.

The roars continued to quake the Earth.
Gunfire exploded down the convoy. Rockets ignited by the trees. The
forest lit up in a giant blaze. An alion swooshed out of the grass
and ran past a soldier who carried the rocket launcher, snapping
its jaws around the soldier’s ankle, hauling him off into the grass
on the other side of the road.

It all happened in a bat of the eye. The man
screamed and pulled the trigger. A spray of saltwater jetted out
the back of the launcher. The rocket burst from the tube, zoomed
through the air, then exploded as it impacted a nearby tank. A
single soldier jumped out of the burning tank, afire and running
wildly into the grass, until death found the soldier in the
forest.

Another alion zipped through the convoy.
Soldiers shot their heavy assault rounds, huge shotgun cartridges,
and speeding machinegun bullets. For all the projectiles of death
thrown at the alions, I didn’t see one dying or dead.

An ear-splitting scream rent the air to the
side of the jeep. Burnhammer poked her head around in a flash. Her
breathing remained calm. “Ready?” she asked us. Amanda had her gun
raised, sitting on the bench, hunched over Jane.

Tortilla nodded.

My vision remained glued to the square view
of the jeep’s tail. I kept my finger off the trigger; I didn’t want
to accidentally shoot a friendly if they rushed by, and I knew I
would clamp the trigger the moment I saw anything. My fingers
twitched and twitched.

A man ran by, another civilian, screaming:
“THE END! THE END!” He ran into the grass where streams of bullets
sought to kill the advancing alions.

When I glanced around the corner, I didn’t
see any alions coming, just grass. Gunfire and alion roars rattled
my head.

“They’re toying with us,” Burnhammer yelled.
She knelt down on one knee. Fear was starting to shake her. The
longer we waited, the more our nerves broke down: it was
inevitable.

In a blink, an alion sprung from the tank
behind us, landing before the jeep’s bed. A roar washed over me, a
wave so intense that I dropped the submachine gun, and I stood
there unarmed and unhinged.

It pounced up at us, claws out, ready to
tear us to shreds.

“DIE! DIE! DIE!” I heard Burnhammer holler.
Her bullets punctured the alion’s skull and chest, flying through
its body and into the tank behind. The carcass slipped from the
jeep’s bed. She stepped to the edge and sunk a dozen deathly rounds
into the body. Blood gushed out.

Tortilla had dropped his gun as well. Amanda
stood there quivering, unable to shoot.

The corporal jumped down, alive with
adrenaline, a murderous glint in her hungry eyes. She joined the
mindless firing into the woods, seeking to find an enemy target,
hoping that the bullets hit a furry mark. A world of bloodlust
swept in. Soldiers all around bore the same glint in their
eyes.

The scene lasted for an hour or so, bullets
and roars crossing, but not more visible deaths. The forest fire
burned for long hours after, but there was nothing to be done about
it, except hope that it didn’t spread near the road, and thanks to
the good graces of the wind, it stayed far from us.

Early light powered up the solar panels.
Soldiers went out searching for carcasses, to see the damage they
had inflicted in the blind night.

Burnhammer approached, bearing an armload of
sandwiches. She sat down on a bench. “Five, five carcasses . . .
that’s all we found. It sounded like thousands, but they had
these.” She dropped a box that resembled a speaker. “They really
were playing with us . . . vile tricks.” She ground her teeth in
anger. “All those roars, made from these. So far, we’ve found
dozens of them scattered all over, in bushes and trees, some of
them melted down to a pile of whatever it’s made of, some plastic
it feels like.” She stopped and caught a whiff of the sickening
smell. Instantly she recognized the scent. “I’ll have someone bring
you all a change of clothes. Hopefully we can find some spares for
the young ones.”

At that, the corporal left us, and another
guard took over. Corporal Gardner, a thin, short black woman,
talked us through the traumatizing events of last night. She had
been training as a counselor before the alions came. Her hair was
matted and unwashed, but so was mine. She spoke with a gentle
voice, soothing, repairing our shattered spirits. She helped Jane
most of all, who took a strong liking to Gardner the instant she
stepped foot onto the jeep’s bed.

A sour, grim-faced man brought us a change
of clothes, dropping them off and almost running away, as if afraid
of children.

By midmorning the convoy turned on their gas
engines and electric motors and pressed on. The day passed without
horrors or atrocities. We reached Mount Baldy at twilight. The
compound was heavily fortified, with guards posted everywhere. The
walls that surrounded the mountain entrance were three meters thick
at least. Automatic turrets shifted atop the walls in a row, with
the smallest gap between each to allow them to move around;
otherwise, they stood side by side. Remote-controlled toy
helicopters patrolled the area close to the perimeter walls,
circling the woods.

We stopped at checkpoints until we finally
rolled into a garage the size of three of four football fields. The
building was crawling with soldiers, mechanics, and other
personnel, along with tanks, jeeps, four-wheelers, and several
vehicles I had never seen before. They gathered us up with other
civilians at the far right end of the space. Officers barked orders
for all to remain calm.

I counted up all the civilians: 47. That was
all they had rescued from Portland. 47. Four of us weren’t even
from Portland, and at that moment, I wondered if the others were
from different areas too. Before I could ask anybody, they scooted
us off into several elevators. Down and down and down we shot. The
elevator stopped at level 41. A woman soldier with bright red hair
asked us to go left, so we did, walking through a long corridor
into a big open room like a gym, with yellow hardwood floors. Five
white booths were set up with banners hanging above them displaying
groups of letters: A-E, F-K, L-P, Q-U, and V-Z.

“I think they were expecting a bigger
crowd,” I said to Tortilla.

“Yeah . . .” he rasped, his voice weak and
grating.

We walked over to the L-P line; three people
stood in front of us. Jane and Amanda followed our heels. “What are
your last names?” I asked Jane.

“Whitestone,” Amanda blurted out.

“She asked me, not you.” Jane pinched her
sister.

“Not here,” I commanded.

They ceased immediately. Amanda slipped
between Tortilla and me.

“We’ll get you signed in once we’re done,” I
promised. I could see the impatience growing in their eyes. Their
bodies became antsy and squirmy, fidgeting with their hands as they
stood.

The civilian man speaking with the soldier
behind the table moved out of line and we took a step forward.
Tortilla went first when our turn came. He answered the woman’s
questions in a shy, reserved voice. “Félix Portillo. Seventeen.
Bellingham, Washington. It’s by the border of Canada. Single child.
Both were taken . . .”

After they were done, I stepped forward.

The woman eyed me with distaste. It was
evident the soldier hated her menial task. “Your name?”

“Maggy Li.”

“Age?”

“Sixteen. No wait, what day is it?”

“It’s April Fool’s Day, hon,” she
answered.

I gawked at her for a second. I turned
around and found Tortilla’s eyes. “Today is my birthday. I
completely forgot . . .”

He frowned. “I did too. I’m sorry.”

The soldier hustled me along. “So you’re 17
then?”

I nodded at her. “Yes. What a birthday,
huh?”

“Better than if you had it a week ago,” she
replied curtly. “City and State of origin?”

I answered the rest of her questions, and
she gave me a temporary I.D. card, so that I could move around the
facility, otherwise we were restricted to our quarters. Jane and
Amanda received their I.D. cards, and then they shuffled us off to
another level, where apartments lined the corridor. I estimated two
hundred or more. A soldier led us to our apartment: 49. It was a
three bedroom: one for the twins, one for me, and one for Tortilla.
Tortilla and I were each given a key. We unlocked the door and it
swung wide.

“Thanks,” I said to the soldier as he walked
away.

He turned. “Someone will be by shortly to
see that you’re all settled.” With a smile, he spun on his heels
and left us.

The walls around felt sturdy, as if they
could withstand a massive blast. A furnished living room was all
set up with a TV and movies to watch. A kitchenette lay to the
right of the entrance, stocked with cookware, silverware, and
everything else we needed. With all the electricity flowing through
the compound, it was evident that the base did not rely on the
solar stations for energy.

Jane ran to the couch and switched on the
TV. A network of old shows came up, an archive of 90 years or
more.

A young soldier stopped in to check on how
we fared a short while later. “You look like you’re adjusting to
the apartment,” she commented.

“I guess so,” I replied. Though I’m not sure
how she gauged her observation; we had only been there a few hours,
and we didn’t have much to put away.

“I brought some fresh clothes, based on the
sizes you gave us when you signed in. I hope they all fit well
enough.”

I nodded at her. “Do you know how I can
contact Corporal Burnhammer?”

“Who was that?”

“Corporal Burnhammer. She’s in the 56th
Infantry Division.”

“Hon, almost everyone here is in the 56th.
I’m sure I can track her down, though. Is there a message you want
relayed?” She placed the bag full of clothes on the dining
table.

“Just tell her our apartment number, and ask
her to stop by when she can,” I said.

She wrinkled her brow. “Sure, I can do that,
but I can’t make any promises she’ll come. Most likely she’s got
her hands full, as you can probably guess from the chaos
above.”