The Beginning: Edge of War by R.Malak
February 23rd 2051, Alaska. Time - 6:00 am
*Video Recording* A smartly-dressed woman wearing a light grey business dress with dark brown eyes and raven black hair appears on screen, her perfect white teeth framed against her light tan skin. “This is investigative reporter Danielle Evans reporting from BBC News. I’ve been sent here to Canada with a team of scientists and reporters to investigate the anomalies caused by the appearance of what is now being called Luna 2, or Moon 2.
“We will be traveling with the 89th United Expeditionary Force under the command of Captain Raymond to investigate these disturbances and report our findings from Eielson Air Force Base.”
The camera pans around to show dozens of soldiers in full military battle armor marching onto a Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, carrying an assortment of hi-tech weaponry.
February 24th 2051, Time - 3:00 pm
*Video Recording* The reporter appears on screen again, this time in a darkened hangar bay. “We’ve just landed at Eielson Air Force Base, which for some reason looks to be deserted with not a single military personnel in sight. I’ve spoken with Captain Raymond and he has assured me that this is not in the least bit unusual as all nonessential personnel have probably been evacuated until the situation here has been resolved. Until then he has ordered that we keep the noise level to a minimum and to follow wherever he goes.”
Time – 5:30 pm
*Video Recording* The reporter’s eyes nervously dart left and right as she whispers in a hushed voice, “We still haven’t seen anyone here at the airport, so Captain Raymond has sent a few men out to take a look around the hangar bay, but they still haven’t--”*Echoes of gunfire break the silence.*
“--Contact! Contact! Enemy hostiles inbound!”
The camera swings side to side as the cameraman and soldiers begin running, followed by a loud, deafening roar that reverberates through the air.
Time- 9:15 pm
*Video Recording* The young journalist, covered in sweat stains, stares off into the distance, her mouth working up and down trying to speak, while ahead of her a handful of soldiers take up defensive positions around the hangar bay door. The grim silence only broken by the wounded crying out for help and the occasional crackle of gunfire that rattles off from inside the military airbase until at last she finally speaks her voice quiet and quavering, “…If you’re watching this recording, please listen to me. Captain Raymond’s team has been attacked by strange creatures in black armor. They appeared out of nowhere…all around us and just…blood everywhere…We managed to escape back to the hangar bay, but the plane isn’t working. Something tore through one of the turbines. We’ve sent out distress calls, but no one has replied. Please, if you get this message, send help!”
In the distance, high in the sky, a black dot appears, rapidly growing larger and larger in size. The soldiers, reacting swiftly to the new threat, fire their weapons before turning tail and backing away, a fireball hurtles towards them...then nothing.
~ * ~
Location: Great Falls, Montana. Year 2051
Samuel, having only recently returned home from his tour of duty out of Europe, had decided to spend the next few days relaxing with his family, lounging on a worn out couch well past its prime, and drinking bourbon while watching the Philadelphia Eagles play the New York Jets. Both teams’ performances were fairly underwhelming, but it helped keep his mind off of his friends still serving overseas.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Hearing his little girl call out for him, Samuel quickly stood up, switched off the plasma screen and headed down the hallway towards his daughter’s bedroom, where he found Annabel sitting up in bed, tears in her hazel brown eyes, shivering uncontrollably, her curly dark hair a complete mess.
Smiling gently, he walked over to her bedside and sat down beside her, wrapping an arm around her incredibly thin shoulders. “What’s wrong, my little princess?”
She pressed her face into his chest and mumbled, “Monsters were chasing me and I couldn’t find you. Promise, promise, you won’t leave me again.”
Samuel brushed his calloused fingers through her hair, and bent down to kiss her on the top of her head. “I’m sorry sweetie, but I can’t make you that promise.”
She looked up at him with tear-stained cheeks and asked, “Why? Why can’t you stay with me?”
Samuel felt his heart ache at her softly spoken words, his mind conjuring up images of his friends laughing and playfully joking with each other, telling each other stories to help lift their spirits, while gunfire echoed off in the distance.
He looked down into her watery brown eyes and wiped her tears away with his sleeve. “It’s daddy’s job honey, so I might have to leave sometimes but know this. No matter what happens, I will always come back to you and one day in the future, I’ll never leave. I promise. Now get some sleep sweetie, we have a big day tomorrow.”
It took a few seconds for Annabel to remember the plans they’d laid out for next day before her face scrunched up in excitement, grinning and lying back down in the bed.
Samuel tucked the bed sheets in around her tiny frame and kissed her forehead, Annabel crinkling up her nose as his beard brushed against her cheek. He stood up to leave glancing back over his shoulder to see if she was still awake, and smiled as he saw that she had already nodded back off to sleep. The teddy bear she had so fondly named Squishy Pants lying on the bedroom floor beside her, a sad reminder of how fast she was growing up, and how little time he had gotten to spend with her.
He slowly closed the door behind him so as to not wake her and walked towards his bedroom to get some sleep. Tomorrow would be a big day for them both. He would be meeting up with Miranda to hopefully to discuss the idea of him spending a little more time with Annabel, a discussion he was not exactly looking forward to.
~ * ~
Used to waking up early in the morning, Samuel rolled out of bed at 4:00 am, made up his bed and went down the hall to the bathroom to brush his teeth. Butterflies fluttered through his stomach as he pictured seeing Miranda again.
They had split up almost two years ago, when she had given up all hope that he would ever quit the army, claiming that he loved the military more than he loved them. A sad, but familiar tale for many young men and women who had spent their entire lives serving in the armed forces. He’d tried explaining to her why he had to keep going back but she could never really understand. There were just some bonds that could not and should not be broken.
In the end, though, Samuel didn’t really blame her for leaving him. She had taken care of Annabel for years without a single complaint, but years apart had strained their relationship to the point they felt like they were complete strangers. All those wonderful memories they had shared together had been pushed back to the furthest recesses of their minds to scab over, before being ripped back open again each time he saw her.
Simply being near her…seeing her again…was usually enough to bring up memories from the past and make him wonder if he should have tried harder to keep her in his life. But that thought always circled back to the reason they had separated in the first place. Turning his back on the army had never really been an option for him. He’d spent most of his childhood and adult life moving from one army base to the next. It made him feel like he had an extended family, one he had known for many years.
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Shaking his head, Samuel picked up the toothbrush and went back to work brushing his teeth, spat and rinsed out his mouth with water, before going to check on Annabel, when he heard the phone ring.
Skin prickling with a sudden sense of dread, Samuel left the bathroom and slowly walked back towards the kitchen door. The phone still braying loudly as he thrust open the door. His eyes immediately going to the red blinking light at the other end of the room, where the XV series intercom was attached to the wall, displaying the words "private number" across the small screen in bold black letters. Moving across the room, he stretched out his hand to tap the screen.
“Hello.”
“Samuel listen we have a--” The phone line cut out to be replaced with a message.
"This is an emergency broadcast from the United States Government. For your own safety, all civilians living in Washington, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota must immediately evacuate. This is for your own safety. This message will repeat.
This is an emergency broadcast from the United States Government. For your own safety, all civilians living in Washington, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota must immediately evacuate. This is for your own safety. This message will repeat...”
Stunned, he stood there listening to the message yet again when the television switched on by itself, a warning siren began to ring and the same message from the phone appeared on screen with a robotic voice repeating the message.
Quick-stepping it into the lounge room, Samuel picked up the remote and switched it to the news channel where a clearly frightened news reporter stood in front of a busy intersection packed full of cars, their horns blaring repeatedly with mobs of people rioting in the streets behind her, smashing glass windows and burning cars.
His mind raced with possibilities from a terrorist attack to a full-blown invasion but neither seemed really possible to him, it just didn’t make any sense. He collected his thoughts, thinking on his next move when the earth shook beneath him and a roar full of primal rage blasted through the air, sending shivers down his spine.
Trembling a little, he looked out the window to search the street below him for the source of the roar and saw fire raining down from above, engulfing houses, and causing cars to explode in a thunderous blasts of heat that spread the flames.
“DADDY!”
Jerked back by the sound of his daughter’s panicked voice crying out for him, Samuel sprinted towards the bookshelf where he kept his Beretta M9 hidden, fed the magazine into the slot and raced down the corridor.
Cocking the weapon as he ran, he flung open the door to Annabel’s room and was confronted by the sight of a massive gaping hole in the side of her bedroom wall. Through it he saw an immense shadowy form high above, winging its way across the clouds. Annabel was curled up into a tight little ball in the corner of the room and was crying into her arm, whimpering with each thunderous explosion that rocked the ground, rocking herself back and forth.
Heart in his throat at the thought of her being injured, he crossed the room in two strides and bent down in front of her, checking her for any cuts or wounds from the explosion that had torn through the building. He gave an inward sigh of relief upon seeing that she was completely unharmed.
Picking her up in his arms, he hugged her to his chest. “It’s okay honey. Daddy, won’t let --" Annabel let out a high piercing shriek, which deafened his ears.
He whipped his head around to see why she had screamed. Scrawny green skinned creatures in brown robes clambered in through the gaping hole in the wall. Their long, pointed ears twitched. Drool dripped from mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth and hungry, yellow eyes stared at them with a savage desire.
Military training kicked into gear. He raised his Beretta and fired, knocking back one of the green-skinned creatures with a shot to the chest and retreated back towards the corridor with his daughter crying in his arms. The creatures, startled at first by the gunfire, became agitated by the death of one of their kin and sent spears flying through the air towards him forcing Samuel to backpedal quickly and spin on his heels. Jagged spearheads punching into the walls and door behind him.
Filled with a rush of adrenaline and fear for his daughter’s safety, he tore through the corridor, looking back over his shoulder in case the creatures were following him and raced out into the street barefoot where he was met with scenes of utter mayhem. People bleeding from wounds ran through the streets, chased by huge green skinned monsters while fireballs careened overhead to destroy homes and burn people alive. The thick stench of death and smoke permeated the air, and braying of sirens deafened the ears.
Jonathan, his long time friend and next door neighbour, burst out of his home looking utterly dazed, a spear embedded deep in his chest, clutching the bloody stump where his left hand had used to be. Blood spurted into the air with each step he took, before he collapsed in a pool of his own blood, seconds later the same creature he’d seen in his home erupted out of the doorway behind Jonathon to sink its teeth into his neck and tear out a chunk of his flesh into it’s bloody maw.
Heart pumping, with no time to think on the nightmarish events unfolding around him, Samuel hurried over to the side of the Rhino GX, a vehicle made to appear much like a military Humvee, pressed his thumb to the key lock and jumped inside, slamming the car door shut just as more spears flew toward him, chipping away at the black paint.
Popping his daughter down in the seat beside him, he tapped the ignition on and felt the engine rumble to life. He quickly switched gears and stamped his foot down on the gas pedal.
He swung the car out of the driveway and sped into the street, dodging and weaving around burnt-out wreckages on the road, and made a swift right turn into a quiet side street. There he slowed down to a halt and turned to Annabel who was shaking uncontrollably. Her shoulders moving up and down. He tried to think of something to say to her but for some reason the right words would not come to him.
He brushed the hair out of her eyes, and leaned over to strap her in, whispering a prayer to keep them both safe before starting back up again when suddenly he was confronted by the image of his ex-wife alone surrounded by those creatures.
Palms sweating and mouth dry with fear, Samuel increased his speed and made another right turn to head in the direction of Black Eagle and tapped on the dashboard screen to activate voice commands. “Call Miranda.” An animation of a phone ringing shook on the screen with no answer.
Terrified something might have happened to her, he accelerated even faster. “Call Miranda!” The phone began ringing again before Miranda appeared on screen without makeup, her long brown hair in complete disarray, her face pinched with worry.
“Samuel is that you! What the hell is going on?! Is Annabel okay?! Please tell me she’s okay!”
“Calm down Mira, Annabel is fine. Where are you right now?”
“Oh thank goodness! Annabel sweetie, can you hear me? It’s mommy. Are you okay?”
Samuel repositioned the dashboard screen, so Miranda could see her daughter in the passenger seat beside him.
Releasing an audible sigh of relief at the sight of her, Miranda continued, "It’s going to be okay, sweetie. Everything is going to be okay. Daddy is going to keep you safe and bring you home to me. So you have to listen to whatever he tells you to do. Will you do that for me sweetie?”
Annabel nodded her head up and down, filling him with pride.
Miranda smiled warmly. “That’s my tough little cookie. I’ll see you both soon. Sam, I’m sending you the address. Please hurry.”
He nodded his head. “Stay safe, Miranda and don’t go outside. I’ll be over there as soon as I can.” With that final word, he disconnected the call and decided to call Fort Harrison to get some news.
“Call Durkins.” The phone rang for a few seconds, before it was answered by a tired soldier in full military uniform with short black hair and a hook-shaped nose. After blearily blinking repeatedly, his eyes widened in surprise. “Samuel is that you! We thought we’d lost you. Thompson has been trying to get into contact with you for hours now. Are you hurt?”
Smiling slightly at his friend’s lack of military protocol, he shook his head. “I’m fine, Durkins, although I would like an explanation of what the hell is going on?”
Durkins rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “I wish I knew Sam, I wish I knew. All I know is that Alaska went dark a couple of hours after the appearance of Luna 2. Then, next thing we knew, we had reports all along the US-Canadian border of creatures attacking towns and cities. Whatever these things are, it looks like they have taken Canada.”
Samuel stunned, tried to think of another question to ask his friend when abruptly the phone line went dead. The dashboard screen darkened and the words “connection lost” popped up. Tapping the screen, he tried to switch it back on, but without success.
Grunting in annoyance, Samuel turned his attention back towards the road and had to swerve aside as an old man materialized right in front of him. Dazed and bleeding from a wicked headwound, the old man wandered through the streets carrying a shotgun, tears flowing freely from his tired red eyes.
Familiar with such pain and loss, Sam bowed his head and kept driving, entering another side street.
More people appeared ahead of him, trying to salvage what was left of their burning homes, still unaware of the monsters that were stalking the streets. The sky blackened by swirling smoke that seemed to writhe in the air.
Forced to slow down because of all the debris on the road, Samuel found himself almost face to face with a woman in a badly-singed nightgown, hammering at his window. “Please! You’ve got to help me! My baby is inside! Please! Please! I’m begging you! Save my baby!”
Heart clenching in his chest at the sound of her voice, he shook his head slightly to stop himself from getting out of vehicle and swung the car around her to keep going.
“Fuck you! Fuck you heartless bastard! Fuck youuuuuu!” she shrieked, wildly punching and kicking the side door.
Annabel, terrified by the desperate woman, began crying softly again.
“It’s okay honey. Everything is going to be okay,” he said. Whether that was more for his sake or hers, he didn’t really know anymore. All he knew was that he couldn’t take any risks with her life.