Chapter 18
SMILE, YOU SON OF A BI—
Blake ducked his head, closing his eyes against the spray of debris.
It stung, but he blindly kept moving forward.
He heaved a hot breath into his lungs and tried not to cough.
The stitch in his side was agonizing, a sharp pain like a knife pressing between his ribs.
With his arm around Victoria, he was trying to support her as best he could.
Her breathing was harsh in his ears, face nearly white from pain and exertion.
They didn’t even know where they were running.
All around them, the world had shifted from a dystopian hellscape into a warzone.
The zappy balls were still falling from the sky.
They moved in such a strange pattern, with electricity arcing far beyond the impact zone, it was impossible to dodge.
Even with their greater mobility, the FUDs and drones were still struck down, their bodies collapsing from electricity or exploding out into a giant ball of shrapnel if the zappy balls hit them directly.
The Handlers were worse, bigger, and slower moving; they had no hope of dodging the firestorm
It was like participating in the world’s highest stakes three-legged race, and they were losing.
Ahead of them, Judd was doing his best to clear the way. With his gun up, he wasn’t even bothering to shoot anymore. There was nothing to hit—the aliens weren’t looking at them. His job was mostly to keep them from running directly into fire or falling into craters.
Sweat dripping down his face, Blake stopped when Judd held up a hand. His wound had reopened, and blood was running down his arm. He didn’t seem to notice as he helped Victoria lean up against the wall.
“What do we do?” she asked stiffly, trying not to show just how much pain she was in. Her hair had partially fallen out of its severe bun and was hanging around her face, lank from the remnants of hair gel. Her flight suit was ripped and wet from sweat.
Judd didn’t answer, just desperately tried his radio. He only got static. “I don’t get it! I thought the shield came down?”
Blake shook his head, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. They only guessed that the shield was keeping out communications. He had no idea if it affected their radios at all, and even if it didn’t, what’s to say the receiving radio wasn’t broken?
Or they were dead.
The thought made his throat close up. Blake couldn’t help but imagine the station in a heap of rubble. Tommy crushed, Phin, no doubt nearby. Scott probably wouldn't have even been able to get off the couch. And Gabriel.
Gabriel, with his changing eyes and soft secretive smiles. His big hands that were calloused from work, but so soft when they held him. His protectiveness which wasn’t suffocating, but somehow full of pride and trust.
He tried not to think about it, but he couldn’t help it. The zappy balls were falling hard and fast. What was left of DC was being decimated. They could all be dead.
And it would be all his fault.
Biting the side of his cheek, he refused to think that way. He couldn’t. Blake walked onto every scene with the expectation that he could save that patient, and it would be the same here.
The power of positive fucking thinking.
When he looked up, Judd had foregone the radio and was busy checking his gun and ammo.
Blake didn’t need to know about guns to know he was low.
That left them with his and Victoria’s handguns.
The small caliber was probably useless against the aliens, and that was if Blake could even hit them.
Which was questionable at best, despite his bravado with Gabriel earlier.
Still, he reached over and touched the gun digging into his back. Just touching it helped a little.
Judd cursed and then told them to stay there while he jogged down the street. Blake took the chance to lean up against the wall with Victoria. “You doing okay?”
“Fine,” she said through clenched teeth.
“Want me to look at your leg?”
“It’s still broken.” She didn’t look at him, her blue eyes narrowed under lashes thick with dirt, avoiding eye contact.
Blake didn’t take her tone to heart. He knew what pain did to people.
Especially people like her. Victoria was tough, and he bet she’d had to prove herself every day; she didn’t want to accept his help to run.
Judd came back. “Sounds like there’s a pretty big fight toward the river.”
Blake’s head snapped up. He took a minute to try and picture DC as he knew it. Where the river was in relation to his station and where they were now. “That’s where we should go.”
“You want to run toward the fighting?” Victoria asked him incredulously.
“That’s where Gabriel will be,” Blake said. “A—and the others. We should join up with them.” He stumbled out.
It didn’t make any sense, but in a world that was rapidly giving him the middle finger, he didn’t care much about making sense. He wanted to get back to Gabriel. That felt right. And he wasn’t about to question it.
Judd rolled his eyes. “Commander must really have some charisma.” Then he took off jogging.
Blake grabbed Victoria, wrapping his arm snugly around her waist so she could take some of the weight off her broken leg.
She hesitated again, but after two steps she whined through her teeth and let him take her weight.
It took about twenty minutes before he realized the zappy balls had stopped falling.
In fact, everything seemed to have quieted.
There were fewer and fewer aliens, which had Judd constantly muttering under his breath.
Even Blake was beginning to realize he liked the enemy he could see and hear a whole lot better.
Every time they passed a car, Judd would wrench the door open and test it.
See if he could get it started. Some of the cars had keys in the ignition.
Those were mostly dead. Their previous drivers having taken off, leaving the engine running.
Some of them, Judd was able to hot-wire, but they wouldn’t start.
“I don’t get it,” Blake muttered as Judd kicked the tire of a late model sedan. “They were working before?”
“Who knows what the fuck is going on!” Judd shouted, throwing his hands up in the air.
Blake adjusted his grip on Victoria, trying to come up with a rational answer, but he was too damn tired. Every bone in his body ached and sweat poured down his back in buckets. It felt like his brain couldn’t get enough oxygen.
He was about to say as much when they heard a high-pitched scream.
They immediately tensed, looking toward the river.
The scream didn’t sound like anything Blake had ever heard before—and he’d told a lot of people their loved ones had died.
There was one memorable church lady who collapsed onto him when he’d told her the truth, that her husband’s second heart attack would be his last. Her red nails had gouged into Blake’s skin through his uniform, and her screeching had nearly shattered his eardrums.
This was worse.
It was a combination of ripping metal and nails on a chalkboard. Giant, horrible goblin nails.
Judd was running before any of them could ask what was going on. Blake and Victoria limped after him, the noises getting louder with every hobbling step. They rounded a burnt-out hardware store into a scene of total chaos.
On a wide avenue, butted up against the river, the aliens were fighting.
Not other humans, but more aliens. At least, Blake thought they were aliens.
He wasn’t sure what he was seeing. The Handlers were firing, feet braced.
Their incendiary rounds struck the new aliens.
They screeched as they were hit, flying back.
Then there was another, striking the FUDs with physical blows. It was a lot like watching a nature documentary—two wild cats battling for dominance. Except, instead of tigers or lions, it was a big mechanized alien versus a biological one.
Like shirts and skins, Blake thought somewhat hysterically.
For every biologic struck down by a Handler or ripped apart by a FUD, two more seemed to take its place.
They moved strangely, in controlled bursts, occasionally pausing with their beetle-like faces lifted and big ears twitching.
The left one had a longer tuft of hair sticking up. It quivered whenever they stood still.
“Hairy fucking bitches,” Judd swore, watching the fight through his scope. He wasn’t firing—maybe because he didn’t know where to hit. Or who. But he looked like he wanted to, finger itching on the trigger.
“Are they…?” Victoria shouted over the clamor, her hand dug into Blake’s arm. Half the street was on fire; they could feel the heat from where they were standing.
“The Monkey Cat things? Yeah, pretty sure they’re extra-fucking-terrestrial.”
“I thought we told you to stop naming things!?” She screamed, pulling away from Blake to rest her hip against a tire, leveling her handgun. Like Judd, she waited to shoot, just analyzing the situation.
Her shouting seemed to draw one of the outliers’ attention. It slammed to a halt, its four claws digging into the asphalt. It turned and paused, like it was assessing them, and then its hind end bunched as it leapt for them.
Judd and Victoria’s guns barked as they fired. Their hits clustered around its face and neck, but it didn’t even seem to notice. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the plates on its skin.
One of the bullets got lucky, striking the creature’s eye. It didn’t make a noise, but it veered off. Skittering back blindly until it was hit by a Handler round. Its body flipped with the force, landing dead in the center of the street.
Blake’s knees nearly gave out. He grabbed his chest and pressed his heels into the ground, desperate to stay upright. He hadn’t even reacted. That thing was coming right for them, and he’d just stared. Didn’t grab his gun. Didn’t even take a step back.