ARC1/C3 – Trapped?

Sarah was trapped – trapped with her thoughts. She had tried getting her mother up the stairs to the roof but failed repeatedly – she and her mother not being able to fit through the confined space.

That left her with the corpses – her nerves already wrung out – her mother lying there hardly moving; it was all too much and in too short a time – she sank to her knees on the kitchen floor and commenced sobbing uncontrollably. By the time Maria and Sam had arrived, she had got herself back under control and, in fact, felt better for the emotional release – she had also found there was some nice bourbon.

Sam hadn’t known it was going to be too hard for Sarah to get to the roof and worried about what he had missed all the time they had been downstairs. A top of the roof, looking out across the street towards the bay area, Sam could see the wild dogs advancing through the city - in each squad, one of the gargantuan beasts spearheaded the formation.

He watched as he saw the shelled beasts break down doors and even walls, allowing the smaller beasts access. There was sporadic gunfire every now and then, but mostly, things were deathly silent in the city. Then he noticed a small group of people heading down the road, dodging from one pile of rubble to the next, seeking cover.

What could he do? They had stopped anyone from gaining anyone access to their building, so he couldn’t offer them aid. Next, he saw the black armored beasts coming down the road, shoveling the debris out of the way like a snowplow, followed by twenty or so dogs. He thought to turn away but felt that unfair, and also, it was better to remind himself of the fate that might well befall him too.

As the dogs drew near, he saw them raise their snouts in the air as they growled at the small group of humans. Then just as quickly, they moved on – the beast heading their group now clearing glass from a shop front by swinging its powerful front arms back and forth - so that the smaller beasts could enter unharmed. How had those humans managed to evade the beasts!?

He needed to know but wasn’t given the time to ponder on that as the ground floor of their building came under attack. A colossal beast had just entered his line of sight – Should he fire?

Giving himself no time to hesitate, he fired almost at the same time as Maria also opened up – the beast was so large that the hail of bullets might as well have been at point-blank range.

Sam was gratified to see the bullets did penetrate the tank-like beast causing black droplets of blood to spray out from each hit and making the beast screech and flitch back from the barrage.

Although it seemed to be withdrawing from the fight, as Sam had seen before, the only part it took in these fights was to secure entry for the frontline troops – the dogs.

Howls could be heard from below, so Sam and Maria quickly switched tactics heading down below via the ladder to the roof.

Down below, Sarah was cradling her mother in her arms protectively, backing as far away from the door as possible near the end of the apartment’s kitchen.

They carried on down the stairs and, getting to the landing, opened fire on the dogs below, which had been clambering on top of one another to gain access to above.

***

Sarah had not been on the roof, but she had had a good enough view from the kitchen window to see the same group that Sam and Maria had. She had seen the strange behavior of the wild dog things and had decided to test out a theory of her own – as disgusting as it was.

She had opened up the kitchen window as far as she could, then went over to the couch while her mother was still propped up near the ladder where she had left her earlier – after her many unsuccessful attempts to get her to the roof.

Grabbing one of the corpses of the previous owners, a man in his early thirties, by the looks of things, wearing a blood-stained shirt and jeans.

While she was doing this, it entered her head that it was strange how her mother, who was well into her sixties, had outlasted this man so far. Shaking her head as she knew she was only delaying things, she grabbed the guy’s sneakers and dragged him across the floor – thank goodness for shiny polished floorboards, she thought. And managed to get him up onto the kitchen worktop, where she planned to tip him out of the window – as soon as she got her breath back, that is.

She lay panting and looked over at her mother, who had stopped coughing a while back. Relieved to see her mother was still breathing and just sleeping soundly, she continued her arduous task, heaving the first corpse out of the window to the pavement below.

It was at this point that she saw a large black shape come way too close for her poor heart to handle. She jerked back from the window, stifling a scream of pure terror that threatened to tear itself from her mouth.

She slowly backed away as she heard Sam and Maria open up, firing at the beast from above. It then very satisfyingly screeched and started to back off from their building – way to go, bro!

***

At first, Sam thought their plan had a chance of working – the dogs were dying. The first problem was they just kept coming. The second was that he had found one major floor (no pun intended) with the plan – the more died, the easier it became for others to get closer, to the floor above, on the backs of their fallen comrades. And they were already leaping scarily close to the remaining floorboards.

He wondered whether he should look to see how things were going with Maria.

Backing off into the first floor of the store where Maria was stationed, he saw she was not shooting directly down at the animals but was lying flat at the top of the stairs aiming at the dogs further away. Admittedly he couldn’t do that with the layout of the stairs, but that didn’t make him feel any less of a fool for having potentially killed them all.

As if by divine intervention, the dogs stopped, then just left the building. WTF?

After halting for a second, Maria and Sam headed back upstairs to check on Sarah.

“It worked.” Said Sarah, staring strangely at the both of them.

“What worked, dear,” said Sarah’s mom, in a ragged voice, from her position near the ladder.

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

***

Back on the roof, they could see the alien forces were just continuing on down the street, and they all decided there was no point staying here – Maria had seen Sam’s impressive handy work and didn’t want to try shifting the pile of oversized dead dogs from below. This meant their current location was compromised.

Once Sarah told the others what she had done, they all felt there was only one conclusion - the dogs were only looking for corpses. But why, then, had they killed the military personnel before? Unless they were dead already. It was all decidedly weird.

They raided the store for anything that might be useful, gaining sturdy rucksacks for the three of them and one spar. As his mother, now awake, had implored him to let her carry stuff too. He agreed to let her carry one, but that was all he was going to do. He figured if she fell down, it might at least cushion her fall a bit.

He, Sarah, and Maria redistributed the magazines and filled up the rest of the space with the few foodstuffs from the apartment, toiletries, a few pieces of outdoorsy equipment that weren’t too heavy, and sleeping bags. Leaving them, axes were slung on the sides of the rucksacks.

It was completely terrifying and, at the same time, dreamlike to be heading down the street with giant creatures all over the place.

Before long, they met up with another group of people; they weren’t sure if it was the group before or not, as they hadn’t been able to have that much of a good look at them.

“Hi,” Sam said lamely.

“Hello, fellow Earthlings.” Said a woman in the other group after the silence between the two groups had stretched on for a few seconds.

Sam thought they probably would have been ignored completely if it wasn’t for their rifles. The other group had equipped themselves with handguns and knives.

Fortunately, Sam and the others had already discussed what they would do if they met up with anyone who wasn’t seriously ill or injured.

“Want to join up?” said Maria, then added, “We have toilet paper and beans,” to try and lighten the mood.

“We’re more interested in where you got the rifles and rucksacks.” Said a man in the group, clearly seeing all the rucksacks were matching and shiny new.

“Store just a block down that way,” said Sam, pointing. Then deciding better of it as it was only ten minutes away. “We can show you if you like.”

“Much appreciated,” said the man, showing the first real smile since the beginning of the conversation.

They made introductions finding out that the man was called Simon and there were another two guys called Harvey and Mark, the woman being called Stephanie. Everyone in their group was in their mid-thirties, and Sam presumed they had known each other before but didn’t know for sure.

As they made their way back to the store, which seemed completely crazy, but twenty minutes wasn’t going to change anything, he found they had indeed been working colleagues, the guy Simon, with red hair being their boss.

While they were in the store, selecting things, the talk changed direction to where and what exactly they were going to do next. Sam mentioned Sarah’s idea of heading to the bay to leave the city, but the other group thought it was more likely for them to meet the military and get assistance if they went by road.

Sam didn’t really mind, he just felt they should head away from the pyramids and stick together, so it was decided to hit a food store and then head their way west out of town.

Equipping everyone with rucksacks and as much shit as they could comfortably carry from a local food store. They made their way along the main exit out of town. Thankfully the main heat of the day had subsided as it was by now about seven o’clock in the evening.

They had met a few other groups of people doing the same thing as them, and slowly a small procession of about a few hundred people of all ages stretched into the distance, making their way out of the city along the interstate. As he looked into the eyes of most of the people they came across, all he saw was shell shock and loss. After initial hellos, most of the people just drifted along silently.

Sam was perfectly fine with that and wouldn’t want to intrude on what must be a planet-wide day of mourning. He was also glad of the two miracles that had happened that day, not having been eaten and, most surprisingly, his mother, god bless her, recovering.

***

Greg hadn’t got a new level, but he hadn’t had the need to use his new ability either, which he was rather glad about as he had found something new on this mission – a new type of mob. It appeared that as you leveled up, the system or whatever it was thrown higher-level mobs at you. These seemed to be just bigger versions of the dog-like creatures he had come across before, only they were now as tall as him, at around 6 feet tall, while standing on all fours.

The first one he came across seemed to be the leader of a pack of lower-level mobs. He had no idea whether the mob was actually of an equivalent level to him as he had no way of identifying their levels; no one did. But by the way, it had managed to keep running straight at him after taking quite a few hits of automatic gunfire; he was fairly sure it was a whole lot stronger than the other beasts and, therefore, of a higher level.

He wondered why this was the first beast of this level he’d seen. Just then, a shadow fell over him, and he turned to see a giant carapaced black arm swinging down at him like a scythe. He had been forewarned by the shadow, and due to his high dexterity in his build, he avoided the swipe. However, turning, he saw there were not one but three giant beasts facing him. Rolling and laying on his back in all the gore from before, he fired straight into the nearest beast’s maw. This dropped the beast, and though he tried to roll again, he found himself pincered by its giant legs, causing it to crash down on top of him, completely knocking the wind out of him.

He heard an ominous clack, clack, clacking as the two beasts came closer then the sounds were punctuated with deafening gunfire, automatic gunfire, he was saved.

He saw fingers grasp the shell and with him pushing too, he managed to get out from under the beast. Greg was greeted by the smiling face, of Calvin.

“I didn’t know you liked them so much as to hug them. Or is that a new ability?” he said sardonically.

Then surprising Greg he passed him two orbs.

“Take them, clearly you need feeding up. You’re weak as a kitten man.” Greg was of course tempted to throw them in the idiot’s face but on second thoughts he was not wrong. He could have easily died.

The extra exp from these beasts was also confirmed when his experience bar, which had been moving as slow as the proverbial snail, actually jumped up sizeably from these beasts. He also saw he got far more intelligence from these beasts which was strange.

Half an hour later, he arrived at their designated rendezvous point, outside a café on Main Street. It was a nice wide open plaza with plenty of exits, and it was somewhere they could easily see any approaching mobs long before they got near.

The guy called Calvin approached, causing him to flinch slightly as he hadn’t heard him approaching at all. Calvin was going to tease him again he was sure, so Greg also winced a bit internally not wanting to spend too much time alone with this guy; he was kind of weird.

“So did you get a new ability? Bud” Calvin said, surprisingly politely for him, making Greg tense all the more, thinking it was just an act.

Then as Calvin said nothing else, Greg sighed. “I did get a new ability, but I don’t know what it does, I’ll find out when we get back to base but the higher-level mobs certainly gave me way more experience than usual, so that was good.”

“Exp, it’s what we live for, right!? New abilities are always cool too! Would it work against this new mob do you think?” said Calvin prompting some more.

“Hard to say” Greg didn’t mind sharing about his ability. It was protocol, after all, to divulge all information on new skills acquired and the like.

There were so many different abilities, he had no idea how whether it was even offensive or defensive. “It just says PSI path unlocked,” Greg said, hoping the guy might have some clue.

Calvin just nodded sagely, then said, “I found a load of ammo clips that I don’t need; I think they fit your weapon. Slightly higher caliber than mine.” He then threw Greg a couple of magazines that he instinctively caught, both hands out wide by his sides.

“Easy,” said Calvin, as Greg realized this was the joke, maybe? He had been anticipating as there were no magazines – they had both disappeared.

Calvin then raised his rifle and emptied a whole magazine at point-blank range into Greg’s soon-twitching body. He waited a moment, then deftly swiped a blade into the body, removing a green-tinged orb and pressing it into his own chest.

He had some interest in the skill but was more interested, in the fact that these humans gave such high intelligence stats and could be farmed so easily at a low level. A big grin spread across his face, the humans were the perfect match-up for his race, they just needed to try and keep their existence a secret from the other races for as long as possible, to reap the most benefits.