EnEmE: Fall Of Man (10 page)

Buildings crumbled as a platoon of Tenachai soldiers -- REAL Tenachai soldiers, not host drones -- levelled everything in its path. The group marched in a column twice as wide as the street, oblivious to the strict and orderly confines implied by the asphalt borders. Homes, gardens, picket fences . . . they all folded like paper as the heavily armed aliens advanced, heralded by a cacophony of weapons fire. Dirt and brick and dust and concrete rained down in small fragments, pelting my face, while plumes of white dust and grey smoke floated in the air.

A large tank-like vehicle rolled down the middle of the street, the alien metal reflecting the sun like polished silver. It was flanked on either side by foot soldiers armed with energy rifles, firing indiscriminately at everything, both animate and inanimate. Atop the shining war machine was what must have been a Gamma class Tenachai. Lacy’s description hadn’t done it justice. It was a huge, wrinkly, yellow, worm-like creature. The huge head and torso with tiny arms and legs would have seemed comical in a less dire situation. It could have been Jabba the Hut’s cousin.

The Gamma warmonger scowled, staring ahead with huge green eyeballs that blinked with wrinkled leathery lids so thin that they were almost transparent. Its mouth was a large open circle rimmed with razor sharp teeth like a great white shark. Its throat muscles convulsed inside its maw, uttering loud groans either meant as commands or just to intimidate the human ants fleeing for cover ahead of his death squad. A large sonic cannon stood next to the tank, looking just as I had imagined it from Lacy’s description. One blast from that and some of our comrades would become our enemies.

Alvarez was already returning fire while the rest of us tried to find protection from the advancing war machine. Earl, Lacy, Braden, and I huddled for cover under some nearby shrubs. Alvarez released another volley of gunfire before tucking into a military roll toward the rest of our group in our futile green sanctuary.

That’s when the air was split with a scream. Wendy was standing in the middle of the street, dirty and confused, and separated from her mother by the chaos.

Alvarez and I looked at each other in instant understanding. He pulled a gun from his belt and handed it to Earl. I pulled a Glock from one of my weapons pouches and handed it to Braden. I pulled a Beretta from one of my shoulder holsters and looked into Lacy’s dark eyes. I didn’t know if I really, REALLY, trusted her, but I didn’t have time to debate it with myself now. I would have to take the risk. I reluctantly placed the deadly weapon in her hands. She accepted the weapon in a reassuringly somber way, before exchanging looks with the entire group.

We moved into the street in unison. A squad with a sample mission -- create cover fire long enough to save Wendy, if nothing else. We opened fire on the mob of armoured aliens as their weapons continued to disintegrate the world around us.

As if to crush our foolish glimmer of hope, a platoon of fifty host drone soldiers poured into the battle zone from the side streets, increasing the flanks around the gamma.

The house next to us exploded, and the entire exterior wall collapsed toward us. Alvarez and Earl disappeared in a pile of brick rubble and a cloud of mortar dust.

I felt the bitter realization of defeat in the pit of my gut. All seemed to be lost.

And then I saw Braden. He was out of ammo, face to face with an angry host soldier. The young man fought with the spirit of a demon. He smashed in the face of the soldier in front of him with a loose brick and ran toward Wendy. He scooped her up, wrapping his arms around her, and ran for dear life toward the patch of brush nearby. The same one that Alvarez and I had used for cover on the way here.

Lacy and I released a volley of gunfire with renewed vigor. We managed to take out several more drones and foot soldiers.

An energy rifle once held by a deceased foot soldier lay in the middle of the street, ignored by both the Tenachai soldiers and the Gamma who commanded them. The tank moved forward, rolling on until the weapon lay directly in its path. The sonic cannon began to glow with a charge, and the Gamma excitedly prepared to turn its enemies into allies.

Through the fog of smoke and dust, a lone combatant strode forward, kneeling and wrapping his hand around the gun. With mild interest the Gamma looked down at the combatant with no concern. He recognized the dark black eyes of a host soldier-- one of his minions.

The hand was my hand. The rifle began to hum with a charge; I levelled it toward the behemoth bearing down on me.

I guess those few moments in the operating room with that Tenachai parasite’s blood mixing with mine mutated me enough to pass for one of their own. Stupid toads!

Seconds later the back of the alien monster’s head exploded, spraying a fine read mist and chunks of flesh over the combatants in the street.

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?”

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 that 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.