ALIEN INVASION (29 page)

That soldier was on the floor, on his back. Cynthia dropped a foot on his groin. He grabbed at his cock and coiled into the fetal position. Cynthia gave him another kick, this one to his face, before she grabbed his rifle from the wall.

She aimed it at him. He raised his hands. She was shaking. Tears were running down her face. I went and stood next to her, not knowing what to do. I didn’t know if I should tell her to lower the weapon or just let her get revenge.

“You dumb bitch,” the soldier on the floor screamed. “Go on, shoot! It will be the biggest mistake of your life. Do you think this nigger can protect you?”

Cynthia compressed the trigger on her rifle. The stream of bullets ran up the soldier’s body, from his crotch to his face, volcanoes erupting blood. I swallowed. Her rifle had run dry. She still had her finger holding down the trigger, her eyes locked on the dead body, smoke rising from the end of the barrel. Her teeth were grinding. Her face was crumpled. Tears were still running.

A roar came from down the corridor, from around the curve. The alien had obviously finished chowing down. I left Cynthia where she was and ran to the soldier I’d killed. I removed a belt from his webbing that held spare magazines for the rifle and fastened it around my waist.

I did the same with the soldier she’d killed, but fastened the belt around her. She was still standing in the same position. I slowly placed my hand on the top of her weapon and pushed it to her side.

She turned to me. “Thank you,” I said. I wasn’t sure if that was the right response to what she’d just done. She sniffled, her eyes locked on mine. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot. She looked to be in shock. We didn’t have time for that though. I could hear the alien’s clawed feet on the corridor’s floor as it ran.

“Are you okay to move?” I asked. She nodded. “There’s an alien on its way. Let’s keep heading in the direction these guys were taking us, get ourselves in that base.”

“I don’t want to be around anymore soldiers.”

“I understand why you wouldn’t, but you’ve got to understand, these guys are an exception. These sick fuckers were out for themselves. The ones in the base will be different.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.” I started running and she followed. “Watch what I do to release the magazine.” I let the mag in my rifle drop to the floor. “Now you do the same.” She did, but had a little trouble at first. “Good. Now load one in, take it from your belt, and watch how I do it.” I loaded in a new mag and she followed my example to the letter. “Good, girl.”

“How do you know how to do this kinda stuff?”

“COD.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Call of Duty.”

“Is that a rifle organization?”

I had to laugh. “No. A video game.” The smile vanished from my face when I heard the shrieking of the alien behind us. “This corridor seems never-ending. I’m not sure we’ll make it to the base before that thing makes it to us.”

“What do we do then?”

“Copy me.” I stopped running and turned around. I got to one knee and Cynthia did the same. “Hold the butt of the rifle to your shoulder, place your other hand under here. When the alien gets close enough, fire in short controlled bursts, make sure it’s lined up between your sights. The rifle will kick, so keep that shoulder tight to the weapon.” She nodded and swallowed. She positioned the rifle as I’d told her. “Don’t fire until I tell you. We’re going to let the alien get close, so we won’t miss.”

The alien charged around the curve in the corridor. It was so tall the top of its head was scraping on the roof, leaving a trail of dark blood. It didn’t seem to be fazed by the wounds it was causing itself, it was far too focused on its targets, us.

Cynthia looked to me. Her eyes were wide again. “Not yet,” I said. “Just get it in your sights. Shoot when I give the order.” I saw her nod from the corner of my eye as I tucked my own rifle to my shoulder and locked the alien in the sights.

It was almost close enough. It roared, opening all its mouths, showing its teeth, and the blood that was on them. It held its hands out in front.

“Not yet,” I shouted to Cynthia.

“When?”

“NOW!”

I fired my first burst and my second quickly followed. I could hear Cynthia doing the same. Some of our shots missed but others hit. Black blood was popping from its body as it continued its run.

I fired again. Cynthia did too. One of its eyes exploded. The blood landed a few inches in front of us. It was getting closer, too close. I fired another burst. Another one came from Cynthia. Its torso was sloppy, but it was almost on us.

“Die!” Cynthia screamed.

“Compress the trigger fully.” I did. She did.

The last of our mags’ rounds assaulted the alien. It took most of the barrage then dropped to one knee; if the bumpy sections on its leg could be called that. My gun had run dry, Cynthia’s too.

The alien fell forward, its head almost touching my foot, dead. I swallowed, let out a long breath and turned to Cynthia. Her chest was rising and falling. “That was …”

“Intense?”

“Yeah.” I stood and expelled the empty mag from my rifle. Cynthia watched the procedure again and then performed the same action on her rifle. Once we both had the weapons loaded we started to run down the corridor toward the direction of the base.

We ran for what seemed like an hour or so. My legs were burning. Sweat was pouring off me. The stupid oversized football uniform wasn’t helping either. Cynthia looked just as exhausted as me when we made it to the end of the corridor and the open doors to the base.

I stopped and she ran into the back of me. I held the rifle to my side and rested my other hand on a knee. It was as if I was choking on the air. Cynthia placed her hand on my back; it only took her a few moments to control her breathing.

I looked up at her. “I run every night.” She smiled.

I tried to smile, but it was stopped by a coughing fit. She rubbed my back with her hand. I finally managed to straighten myself up. The doors were open; inside I could see another corridor, one that was thank-fuckery not as long as the one we’d just traveled down. It ended in a T, two corridors traveling opposite each other.

I raised my rifle to my shoulder; Cynthia did the same with hers. I nodded at her and slowly walked through the doors into the new corridor. I stopped when I was a few steps inside and kept my rifle trained on the T.

Cynthia closed the doors. “I don’t think I can lock them. There’s a bashed in computer thingy on the wall next to them, I think that might have been the lock.”

“Shit, that means the aliens have a way in.”

“What should we do?” she asked, as she came to stand next to me, her rifle aimed at the T too.

“We find somewhere we can lock ourselves in, or someone that can help, a soldier that isn’t like the ones we just dealt with.” I heard her sniffle. “You, okay?”

“I’m okay.” She didn’t sound too sure.

“How are you holding up? Do you want to talk about what happened back there?”

“Not really.”

“When you do, I’m ready to listen.”

“Thank you.”

I started to walk forward. Cynthia did the same. We soon reached the end of the corridor. I leaned around the wall and scanned my eyes and rifle down each side of the T.

“Which way?”

“To the right,” I said. “There is a door down that way, we’ll see if we can open it.”

“Okay.”

I took the corner, my rifle leading the way. I stopped at the first door we came too. That one had the same computer lock as Cynthia had seen at the others. I pushed a neon green button that was under it. The screen lit up, a fingerprint reader.

“We’re not going to get in any of these doors, they read fingerprints.”

“Zack,” Cynthia said. She motioned with her chin when I turned to face her. She had her rifle locked on an arm that was on the floor, sticking out from around a corner farther down the corridor.

“Stay here,” I told her. “Watch where we just came from. I’ll go and check out that guy.” I didn’t wait for a response. I just tucked the rifle to my shoulder again and moved to the arm.

Once I was at the arm, I gave the hand a kick. It rolled around the corner. I peeked my rifle around the wall first, then my head. It was another corridor. I looked down toward the body. There was no body, just a hand. It was attached to a forearm, a bone sticking out of the end, blood and veins trailing behind it.

My first thought was that aliens must be in the base. My second was that we now had a key. I bent down and picked up the hand, and ran back to Cynthia.

“Fuck me,” she said when she saw the hand.

I placed one of the fingers to the computer screen and the door opened inward. I stepped in the room, knelt, placed the hand on the floor and raised my rifle. Cynthia stepped in and closed the door with the hand, quickly dropping it and wiping her own on her skirt, pulling a disgusted face as she did.

We were in some kinda high-tech science lab. It was full of computers and machines. I had no fucking clue what most of the other stuff was. It looked expensive and clean, sterile. Toward the rear of the room was a glass wall that had a glass door that led to a glass corridor.

“What is this place?” Cynthia asked.

“I’m not sure, but it doesn’t look military to me.”

“It looks like a hospital almost.”

“Yeah, but I don’t think they treat people here.”

“What then?”

“I think they might operate, but not to heal.”

“Experiments?”

“Yeah, like a student dissecting a frog in a science class.”

I stood and walked around a few tables that had computers sitting on top. I went to the glass wall and took a look inside. My mouth hung open at the sight. Cynthia walked to stand next to me.

“Holy shit,” she said. “Is it alive?”

“I’m not sure, maybe, maybe not.” There was a large tube-like container filled with a clear liquid. Inside was one of the aliens. Its stomach was cut open, the flesh pinned to some kinda wires that were attached to the roof of the tube. There was nothing inside the alien’s open chest. No internal organs of any kind.

“They caught one,” Cynthia said.

“I’m not too sure if that's how it came to be here.”

“I doubt it volunteered for it.”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I think they might have had this thing before the others showed up. They wouldn’t have had time to capture one, cut it up, and place it in that tube. So, it must have been here awhile.”

“You mean they knew this invasion was going to happen?”

“Maybe not the invasion, but they knew these monsters existed, that's for damn sure.”

“What do we do now?”

“I think we should have a rest. I don’t know about you but I’m exhausted. Once I have my energy back, we’ll go looking for some food. There’s got to be some on the base.”

“I want to have a look around in here, you sit, have a rest.” Cynthia walked from the glass. I sat and leaned my back on it.

“Don’t touch anything you’re not sure of, just in case.”

“In case what?”

“I’ve no idea. But don’t touch anything.”

“Okay … dad.” Cynthia walked to some white lockers at the side of the room. She eyed the padlocks on them. She poked the barrel of her rifle into one, and it just fell off. “At least we don’t need a severed hand to open these.” She opened the door of that locker and leaned in.

She pulled out some clothes and placed her rifle on one of the computer desks. She undid the belt with the mags then and placed it next to the rifle. She picked up a black shirt from the clothes. She held it to her body then removed the cheerleader top and got dressed.

“A little tight, but not as bad as that stupid cheerleader top.” She smiled as she removed the skirt and pulled on some black trousers. “Same again, but at least they’re dry.” She went back to the locker and leaned in once more.

She pulled out some black boots. She held one of the boots to the bottom of her right foot. It was at least two sizes too big. “This scientist might have been skinnier than me, but fuck me, she had big feet.”

I laughed as she put the boots on. Once she had the laces fastened she clipped the belt back in place and got her rifle. She sat down next to me. “Should we see if one of the other lockers has a broken padlock, or maybe we could shoot one off. There might be some clothes you could fit in, you look like an idiot in that football uniform.”

“We can’t risk shooting, someone or something might hear the shots. I’m fine for now.” I held into her but she pulled away. “You okay?”

“Yeah, hold on.” She walked to a cabinet, which was also white. She opened up the door. “Here you go.” She removed a lab coat. She threw me the coat and rummaged inside again. She pulled some kinda white pumps from inside. “I’m not sure what these are, but they should fit … There’s some white pants too, they’re made of a strange material though.”

I’d removed my clothes and had the lab coat on when she walked back to me. She handed me the pants and pumps. Once I was in them she asked, “what do you think the material is, the coat and pants feel funny, the shoes too?”