Before the cities were built and many families continued to stay in the metros and bunkers for safety, my father was part of a small elite unit known as ‘Vultures’ whose job was to scavenge the surface and bring back supplies to continue life down in the underground districts. One day though my father made a large discovery, he had found an intact fort on the surface where the families of the metro could escape to surface and create their city as a beacon for others to follow. Unfortunately, there was something already inside the building, something evil, bloodthirsty, hungry. When we arrived the feeling of an impending danger made the air twitch and turn over with anticipation. I was almost nineteen at this point and had just begun to train with my father so I could join his unit; as I entered the residential sector of the fort my gut began to wrench and twist telling me that I should not stay here longer than necessary. I made my way back to my father who was standing on a repaired catwalk overlooking the field in front of the large doors leading into the complex. Dark bodies shifted through the darkness, teasing the eyes and tricking the senses into believing what truly isn’t there. The stern look on my father’s face told me that the danger was all too real; he brought up his arm flare in hand and struck the end as he threw it in a long arc into the middle of the shadowy mass. The light ripped apart the illusions these creatures relied on and revealed the ugly maws dripping with juices and crusted with dried blood. The creatures retreated to their shadows, trying to hide from the magnesium flare, rearing their heads and howling into the blackened sky making the families within the walls clasp their ears in pain and fall to the ground trying to block out the noise. As the flare died out and the howling stopped, my father raised his rifle pulling back on the cocking lever as I did the same, he looked back towards the others rising from the dirt as they retrieved their arms and took positions along the catwalks. Lasers erupted from the accessories attached to the barrels held by the soldiers, giving a pinpoint idea of where their rounds would go and all stood still… the soldier’s breath misting through their masks as their chest falls became the only movement within the shadows. My father turned to me and looked into my eyes past the scarred and frosted mask and said in a tone colder than the air, to go protect the others near the center of the fort and get them to safety. My second objective would be to get the lights back online from the engineering wing of the fort. I would have argued that I could be useful in the fight, but knowing that he was not the leader of our soldiers for nothing I followed his orders to the letter. I brought the families to the vault and gave those who could fight weapons and had them lock the door from the inside, I grabbed my brother who was sixteen at the time; flares, a repair kit, and a couple of rifles and headed towards the engineering wing to repair the circuits for the overhead spotlights.

The halls were dark but clear as we made our way towards the rusted maintenance hatch, our breathing echoing inside our ears due to the masks we wear, we grabbed the holds on the hatch and began to pry it open as the loud screeching of metal filled the still air. As we forced the door back on its hinges and made our way into the wing, we popped flares and lined the halls so that we would not get ambushed by anything lying in wait. We loaded the rifles and unlatched the circuit box so I could begin the repairs while my brother kept watching and kept communications with the perimeter where our father was. The radio in his hand crackled to life and echoed throughout the hall as he began talking to the front line to keep them up to date on our progress. A roar interrupted the conversation, followed by crackles of gunfire as yells from the men echoed down the hallways of the complex. My brother became anxious as he could hear his father yelling orders and keeping the gunfire concentrated on the targets they could see in the dark. I worked faster as the wires sparked and momentarily lit up the corridor with their attempt to breathe life into the complex, as I tried to reroute power to the lights and they began to flicker from their comatose state, my brother began to move towards the door. I tried to yell after him from the rusted fuse box but when I turned my eyes back towards the door to see if he was there, he had already disappeared. I imagined that he had run back towards the line to help the others fight, I will be pissed at him later after I had fixed the lights or we would all be slaughtered before we could escape. I spliced the final set of wires and the lights buzzed to life in succession down the fort’s corridors and outside to the stadium-sized spotlights on the exterior of the complex. I picked myself up and placed the repair kit in my bag, as I grabbed my shotgun from the floor and made my way towards the hatch an ear-shattering roar erupted from deeper inside the engineering wing. I turned with the weapon raised, shaking slightly from the adrenaline being pumped into my system to see a set of red glowing eyes deep in the dark corner of the corridor. I began to slowly step backward towards the hatch trying to make it into open ground, but as I stepped heavy thuds sounded from the direction of the eyes as it moved into the light. As I stepped through the hole and put one hand on the hatch so I could close it, the creature suddenly quickened its pace and I could see the magnitude of its full size. In a panic, I slammed the rusted gateway shut jamming the lock system in the process, and began to run down the hall away from the grotesque creature that had begun to chase me. As the creature ran shoulder-first into the wall and collided with the reinforced titanium alloy, the kinetic shock shook the foundation of the complex to the point that some of the lights fell from the ceiling and crashed into the cement floor in front of me as I tried to keep my pace. I continued running to find that the lights had sparked to life outside and the number of creatures we were facing numbered in the hundreds.

Gunfire continued to erupt from the catwalks as the death shrieks of the creatures would pierce the night air for a moment in between shots. Some of the men had begun to drag the wounded off of the catwalks and down to the ground to keep them stable as they care for their wounds, while others had begun to raid the armory and were bringing weapons and ammo from the deep storage to aid the front line. Though we only had about thirty to forty people in the unit and the enemy greatly outnumbered us, my father kept their morale intact as he stood on the edge, two rifles in hand releasing death onto the monsters trying to hurt his family. As their numbers dwindled so did our ammunition, some soldiers had resorted to clubbing the enemy with their rifles or using makeshift swords and spears from the wreckage. In the middle of the carnage, my father stood against the coming tide of creatures, their howls, and taunts falling against the unflinching focus of the man amid the hellish carnage, but as he fought the unrelenting tide of claws and teeth, one of the creatures leaped off the corpses of others and aimed itself for my father. As it flew closer he turned his eyes towards its open maw, turning his weapons to face the creature but before he could pull the triggers, the monster’s head erupted into mush and blood as a slug ripped through its flesh. He followed the path of the round to see me standing there on the platform with a smoking gun in my hand. He nodded his approval and went back to slaughtering the enemy as a scream was heard from the far catwalk as my brother was attacked by one of the creatures, in the light one could see these monsters stood similar to a jaguar and were trying to rip out his throat. I ran towards the creature knife drawn and tackled the beast jamming the blade into its neck repeatedly until it went limp, I picked up my brother and told him to go back to the vault and protect those inside. The creatures began to take their toll on our soldiers, our numbers dropping faster than we could kill them. As it seemed that we might have the upper hand once again, an ear-shattering roar erupted from the complex as the unsettling quaking thuds followed, quickening in pace as the noise grew in volume. The largest of the monsters ripped through the walls of the interior complex, covered in its blood and extremely angered, the smaller ones seemed to fall back away from the wall as the monolith walked slowly forward looking at the small men with guns. Then in an instant it charged towards the far left part of the catwalk and rammed full speed into the men and structures there, killing seven men and opening a large hole in the rusted wall. All the remaining soldiers turned on the berserker, firing into its exposed bleeding and fleshy parts, trying to put the creature down before it could kill again. The bullets seemed to do nothing but anger it further as it swung its legs crushing those beneath them, grenades and rockets seemed to only slow it down as the blasts were reflected by its scaly armored skin, one of the soldiers got a lucky shot off and hit the thirty-foot monolith in the back of one of its rear legs dropping its front down low enough for me to see a slightly glowing spot on the back of its neck. I ran towards the creature, blade in hand, and lunged off the edge of the platform onto the creature’s flank thrusting my blade into its exposed and wounded flesh allowing me to climb towards the glowing spot. The monolith began to thrash violently as I got closer to its weak spot, as held firmly and I reached the peak of its neck and pushed the muzzle of the shotgun into its flesh, and pulled the trigger blowing a portion off large enough to place an explosive into. I slung the gun over my shoulder and pushed the grenade into the bleeding hole and armed it as I released my grip on the blade and jumped away from the monster, but as I flew down the beast thrashed its head and threw me into the complex’s wreckage as its head exploded off its shoulders and knocking me unconscious. I do not know what happened next, but all I remember is hearing the howling of the creatures circling the complex waiting for their moment as I struggled to maintain consciousness.

I woke up sometime later in pain and aching in all the wrong places, the sun had begun to crest so the nightmarish creatures had dispersed, but as I picked myself up and winced in pain, I saw that they had already done the damage they had aimed to do. Blood and body parts lay around the grounds of the courtyard near the headless monolith which lay in the center. Streaks of blood-soaked dirt led into the complex and towards the piles of jaguar-like corpses surrounded by bullet casings. I began to move out of the wreckage to see if there were any survivors, but what I saw dropped my heart inches into my chest. I kicked a half-loaded rifle and slung it over my bruised shoulder as I moved down the large blood-stained corridor. Sandbags lined the hall to act as a makeshift wall as rifles and limbs laid upon it where noble soldiers once stood, next to it the vault door had been ripped apart leaving it ajar and broken. I limped slowly towards the carnage, tears welling up in my eyes as I began to see friends massacred where they stood and my family slaughtered inside the vault which was flooded with entrails and fluids. The women and children lay strewn across the ground, helpless to fight against the merciless creatures which broke into the small room, as I walked further in, I collapsed in despair as my brother’s corpse lay against the wall his rib cage a hollow cavity and his arms gnarled and broken, as tears flowed down my face, I raised my hand and closed my brother’s eyes and took the tags off his neck. I collected what I could of the tags of the fallen and began to make my way towards the exit of the complex, my boots sloshing through the death that flooded into the halls, as I opened the hatch to the outside the sun was bright and burned my eyes as I stepped onto the ash-ridden dirt and towards the ruins of the road that laid beyond the complex. As I limped my way towards the only path left to take, a sign stood slanted on its post reading “Detroit-13 mi.” I now had my objective I had to make it to the city, maybe I could get help. I held back the pain and the fear, as the tears rolled down my face as I realized that I had nothing left to live for, the last Vulture, the last of a home, of a family. My tears dried as the winds picked up, and my sadness turned to rage as I started to realize what had occurred over the past day and the pain began to set in. As I made it to the city a couple of passersby helped me to the hospital where they patched my wounds and dulled the pain, once I was settled in, they asked for my story and so I told them. One of the people who helped me into the city was a recruiter for the Global Defense Force, once I was healed he brought me to the station and got me into officer school and that is when I became someone as I began to execute my vengeance on the creatures that went bump in the night.

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That’s why I fear the skeletons in my closet, not because I am fearful but that I may fall into what had vexed me in the beginning, the fear of failure and the encompassing rage that follows. But that’s how I got here to this apartment, by horrible chance and a lot of pain. As I slowly flowed back to reality, I realized that I had finished the entire bottle of whiskey and had been sitting in my chair with an empty glass for quite some time. Although I was numb and didn’t want to move from my apathetic spot, I peeled myself from my chair and got up, and walked towards the tilted cabinet in my kitchen. I sloppily opened the doors and removed the black case from beneath the other bottles of whiskey, I opened the rubberized case and grabbed the pressure syringe loaded it with my dosage for the day, and pressed it against my arm as a loud hiss sounded and the needle drove itself down into the veins beneath my skin. The injections had begun to hurt less, but it’s the sound that always gets me. I put the equipment away and cleaned up where I had binged on my whiskey, stumbling slightly as I walked to my cot and collapsed onto the canvas bed, and turned off the lights as I drifted off into a heavily drunken slumber.

I was shaken awake by a loud thumping against the pinewood door. My covers lay strewn across the floor and the apartment was ransacked, though my clock lay near my chair blinking its digits showing it was 3:15 am. The noise repeated itself but this time was followed by a loud gruff voice, “Briar come on out! We know you’re in there! I will break down this goddamn door!” I got up shaking my head to clear my vision and my mind, grabbing my boots and my pants as I approached the thumping door. A layer of cold sweat still sat on my skin from the nightmares of that slumber as fear began to wrench its dark fingers around my stomach. I reached out for the handle, the thumping continually increasing in volume and frequency, I unhooked the locks and opened the door to come face to face with a Glock 17 held by a man with obedience issues and four MP’s that stood menacingly with it. The large man in the tan inspector’s jacket held the gun pointed at my face, the pistol carrying marks and scuffs from years of use, I looked past the handgun and into the darkened face of the inspector with a quizzical look. After a moment of inefficiently staring me down, the man lowered his arm and raised his brow as if confused that I did not flee from the small pistol in his hand. The MP’s traveling with the inspector also seemed to lower their guard in confusion as well, happy to see that we were going to act like civilized adults I straightened my posture and asked the only question on my mind. “What is the name of sweet Mary and Joseph, do you want an inspector?” My voice dragged the agitation across the air between me and the soldiers showing them just how much I cared about this early morning wake-up call. Their faces still stuck in a quizzical state seemed to not hear or understand my response to their intrusion into my complex and my apartment. The inspector seemed to snap himself out of his idiocy for a moment, raising his arm back to point the handgun at my face as his posse followed suit. I asked the inspector again why he was at my door, as my hand followed the line of my pants to the sheathed knife on my belt. As I undid the latch that kept the knife in its sheath, the inspector seemed to suddenly grow a pair and announce that I was under arrest. My hand stopped moving, surprise gripping my synapses and trying to make sense of why this man was trying to put me into custody. As I regained control of my body and forced my hand to grip the handle of the large knife, I asked what the charge was. As I waited for their response the MP seemed to move closer to the doorway, trying to close off my routes of possible movement. The inspector spoke up again, gripping his pistol tighter in his gloved hand, that the charge was first-degree murder against Sergeant Benjamin Grimly. The inspector raised his other hand, a pair of shining handcuffs hanging from his fingers; I stepped back from the men at the door as the shock ripped through my mind. Sergeant Grimly was one of my trusted squad commanders during the ten years we were placed together in the badlands surrounding the city, I would never harm one of my own. I was confused as I was shocked, I told him that I had seen him alive earlier yesterday and I had spent the day in my apartment, the man laughed as he explained that he’s been dead for three days and that no one has seen me or Sgt. Grimly for those days, leaving me out of an alibi or an explanation. I stood there, unable to speak as I tried to make sense of what has happened, as I finally brought myself around I figured that if I didn’t do it then they wouldn’t be able to prove it. I told the man I would go quietly only if he showed me, my former sergeant, the man reluctantly nodded and held out the handcuffs for me to put on. I drew the knife and plunged it into the door, disarming myself as I placed the ratcheting cuffs on my wrists. The inspector seemed to be shocked by my actions and told the guards to lead me upstairs to the crime scene and then bring me to the patrol car outside the complex. As they walked me up the stairs, the rest of my soldiers standing behind the railing, looking shocked and disturbed by the unfolding events that were occurring within their home. As my steps moved closer to the open door, I could see that it was forced open and broken by whoever made their way inside. The hinges completely ripped out of the wall, as the shattered door lay on the ground, beyond that sat a reclining chair in front of a small TV set surrounded by scattered movie cases. A figure sat in the chair, its body unnaturally relaxed in posture, its head is thrown forward to a sickening angle. As the MP’s released their grip and I was able to step inside, the scene became whole as my eyes darted from corner to corner, details printing themselves into my mind. My focus changed to the figure on the chair, its skin already showing signs of decomposition, its head was twisted and deformed as a large cavity had formed itself from the back of the skull where the bullet had penetrated the victim. A large spray of blood and brain matter laid upon the TV set and the wall behind it giving a general idea of where the shooter must have been when the man was killed. The floor was a mess, items strewn in every direction giving me no sense of what could have occurred, I walked back towards the chair bringing my eyes to the uniform the corpse was wearing and found only a space where a nametag would be pinned to the material. A chill ran down my spine, thoughts shooting across the synapses inside my head running the details through algorithms and scenarios, I had my doubts about the identity of the dead man in the chair but the fact that he was missing the front part of his skull made it impossible to be sure otherwise. I breathed a heavy sigh, knowing that I could do no good here I turned back towards the broken door and walked back into the open hands of the MP’s waiting for my return. The guards walked me to the elevator, bringing me to the bottom floor where the Inspector stood talking to the delegate in charge of the complex trying to explain the situation to him, but the delegate stood stiff pushing the man’s demands back towards him and responding with bureaucratic jargon. As we passed the argument and the guards placed me into the patrol car and locked my cuffs to the frame, the Inspector was trying to leave the building while the delegate walked stiffly after him yelling policy numbers and articles from signed agreements. The man jumped into the car and slammed onto the gas, screeching out of the parking lot for the complex and flying towards the police station in the center of the city. As the car made its way onto the main streets and the streetlights blended into singular lines of light, I began to review the events of the past few days trying to uncover the empty patch that lay in my mind. I knew in my gut that something was wrong and I was going to find out what.

As the lights flashed and the patrol car came to a screeching halt followed by the rumbling Humvee, the door opened up on the car as the Inspector stepped out grabbing the chains linking my cuffs and yanking me into the choking air outside of the station. The man continued to drag me up the steps, my boots clacking against the cement and tiles as the doors on the facade of the buildings opened up into a high-lit corridor lined with doors and busy officers of the law. His pace quickened as his grip tightened and the force of his pull began to tear at my wrists. He brought me in front of a worn-down holding cell, a simple cot and toilet lying inside the cage, standing me in front of the door and having me wait as he yelled at the man behind the glass controlling the cells. As the door screeched open, a boot landed on my lower back throwing me into the corner of the cell as the door slammed shut. The cuffs on my wrists loosened and dropped off onto the cement, clacking as they came to rest. The next few hours were filled with forced paperwork and identification as the gathering of information became the new interest of the officers in the station. Finally, the lights died down and the noises left the station as I was left alone to sleep in my corner of hell. As I let the darkness flow inward, bringing me to a blessed sleep, a sharp clanging noise awakened me as I turned to see a large shadowy figure standing in front of my cell, a silver cup in his hand. The dimmed lights hid the man’s face but his voice carried a deep heavy tone ringing the steel that framed the cell. Steam bellowed from the cup, wafting through the air towards the man’s face, he tried to talk to me again his voice carrying across the cement corners I tried to block out the noise, tried to let myself fall back asleep as I tried to contemplate the events that have transpired in the last few hours. The man’s tone did not change as his words fell on deaf ears but instead he continued to look into the darkness that surrounded me and raised his cup to his lips, the slurping sound echoing in my head. He then spoke again, though this time his words tugged on my mind, pulling at the angst that I have been feeling after they locked me in this goddamn cell, “So they put you in the box… that seems pretty lenient for someone who killed their sergeant.” My head snapped towards the bastard, my mouth spewing curses in his direction as I stepped towards the steel bars separating the man from my hands. “Temper, temper Mr. Briar, now we wouldn’t want you to tire yourself out so early, there is still so much work to be done.” This man continued to taunt me like a child, demeaning me and insulting my work and my choices, I began to lose my patience, my strewn hands grabbing the bars of the cage and trying to rip them from their hinges. “Now that I have your attention, captain, I would like to explain to you why I am here in this shithole precinct. I am here to help restore the balance to this accursed city and the only man I can trust is currently being framed for a murder he didn’t commit.” At this point I had let go of the bars, my rage turning to curiosity as I tried to examine the man and find out his game that he is trying to play. He raised his cup to his mouth again, the harsh slurping noise echoing in the corridor, “You see Mr. Briar, I am a watcher of events, an observer if you will, and these events within the past few hours are not only odd but seem to be targeting a certain group of people in this city that have nothing to make them a threat. The City Security Council has decided that returning veterans are a menace to society, specifically ones that were stationed on the outskirts of this particular city, now a lot of these veterans have simply ‘disappeared’ or committed suicide to shy away prying eyes, but your case in particular… is very interesting. Not only have they sprinted you through ‘due process’…” the man stops momentarily to chuckle at his joke, “but they have you locked in a cell, completely bona fide charged with a murder that couldn’t have been committed in that timeframe, which brings me back to my original point of why I am here Mr. Briar, I am here to let you help prove not only your innocence but reset the balance in this city. But if you want to accept this little deal of ours, you must tell me everything your unit has done, because this is not just happening here but all over the country. Now captain are you ready to wage a war?” The man put his gloved hand through the bars, opening his palm to me as to show my acceptance of his ‘deal’, knowing that I could not refuse something like this I shook the man’s calloused hand sealing our agreement. No sooner had the man’s hand returned through the bars, did a loud set of metallic thumps tell me that the door was open. I pushed the metal cage door to the side as the man gestured for me to follow, so I did, but no longer as the man who entered that station, but as a tool for an unknown conductor in their symphony of destruction.