Cascade box set 2, p.63
Cascade Box Set 2, page 63
Sean nodded.
“We’re going to split you into groups of about four, and embed you with squads of soldiers or justice force people. Each group will have a different task. But it’s highly likely you will come up against the aliens, and when you do, you’re going to have to do what you need to, to put them down.”
More murmuring swept around the room.
“I should say, this is a choice. Nobody will be forced to go up top, if they don’t want too.”
Fiona moved closer to Zach. “I don’t remember the ‘choice’ part in our discussions,” she whispered. Zach subtly nodded in reply.
“So when we doing this? Me and my family got a home to get back to,” said Sean.
Zach smiled. “How soon can you be ready?”
“Semper Paratus.”
“Coastie eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where were you stationed?”
“The eighth district, down in New Orleans.”
“What rank?”
“O-3. I was a first Lieutenant.”
“Why didn’t you sign up for the justice force, or the military units?”
“I had to look after my family,” he said sternly.
Zach nodded. “I can understand that. They’re safe?”
“Yes, sir. In this bunker.”
“It’s good to have you with us. The sergeant will get you kitted out—” Zach looked at the others. “— And assign each of you to your squad.” He pointed at a soldier near the door, who beckoned them towards him.
CHAPTER NINE
Abbey secured the door to the first story apartment, jamming the back of a chair up against the old style handle. It would probably only withstand a few impacts from a man as big as Clovis, but it might be all she needed to escape out of the fire escape.
Twenty minutes earlier as they pulled into the town, her first choice had been the old courthouse with the Victorian clock tower, but he grumbled something making it clear that was off the table. When an old four story block of apartments with shops at its base appeared shortly after, she realized that the maze like interior would be good cover, in case she had to get away in a hurry.
As they left the vehicle she expected him to demand she hand over the car keys, but instead he walked forward, kicked in the door to the upstairs and disappeared into the shadowy stairwell.
Momentarily she looked back at the pickup. Wondering if she could get back in the driver’s seat and pull away before he reappeared, but the fact that he never asked for the keys, troubled her.
Shortly afterwards she was in the pleasant looking apartment, which resided at the back corner of the building.
She pressed her ear to the door and on not hearing any creaking floorboards outside in the hallway, switched her flashlight on and walked quickly to the window with the fire escape outside. Pulling the latch to the side, she pushed the window upwards and peered outside.
Mo squawked then landed on a nearby rooftop.
I could go. Jump from this window and get Mo to catch me, and be gone into the evening, before he knew I had even left.
She lifted one leg over the window seal, into the gap, but then paused looking into the shadows behind the building.
Why is he with me? What does he have to gain?
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was missing something.
She briefly waved at Mo, breathed in a lung full of freedom, then pulled her leg back, closing the window as quietly as she opened it.
She shone her flashlight around the room she was in. It was a living room, with an expensive television, gaming console, a stack of dvd’s and a few bookshelves. Getting up she walked back into the hallway and then followed a trail of forgotten clothes, which led her to a single bedroom. Drawers had been left pulled out, underwear and t-shirts hanging from them, while an open suitcase sat on the mess of blankets on the bed. On a nearby stack of shelves, a few picture frames sat. A young man, handsome, smiled in most of them with various women.
“Bit of a player eh,” she said under her breath.
She walked back to the kitchen, pulling the chunkiest knife she could find from a rack of them and walked back to the bedroom, where she pushed the door closed, locking it by rotating a small metal knob below the handle and fell onto the bed. She kicked the suitcase to the ground, slid the knife under the pillow then closed her eyes.
*****
Michael tapped the corridor wall impatiently. He looked at the plain door in front of him, pleading for it in his mind to open. And then it did. A red faced young woman left, keeping her head down.
He immediately went inside the comms room and closed the door behind him.
The middle-aged officer stationed there, looked up at him. “You again?”
“Listen man, I just been queuing for three hours. You need to help me find them. A woman and a little girl—”
“Yeah, I got it the first time when you were in here last night. Hannah and Megan right? And you still don’t know what bunker they are in? If any?”
“I’m just wondering if you knew if they had checked in at any of the bunkers since last night.”
The officer turned and typed away at the keyboard. “Hmm… nope, no new arrivals. Whereabouts did they live in the camp again?”
“They had an apartment on thirty-second. On the outskirts of downtown.”
The soldier looked up in the air. “So that would make bunker nine the closest.” He typed away at the keyboard. “No, no one matching those names there. Wish I could give you better news, son.”
Michael nodded solemnly. “Are there any feeds that cover that street? The Apartments there?”
The man typed again, bringing up darkness on one of the monitors. “As you can see, or rather can’t see. It’s dark up there, and with no power from the station at the dam we can’t see diddly squat on the surface. If it helps any I don’t think that area was hit too hard. Most of the fighting was more central and the industrial areas.”
Michael nodded. “Okay thanks.”
He opened the door and a soldier pushed past him desperate for their turn.
He walked down the corridor trying to form a plan. The drugs they gave him for his sprained elbow the day before, knocked him out for most of that day, but now they were wearing off and his brain wasn’t letting up. He had to find them.
Instead of going back to his quarters he detoured to main operations and then on getting directions, eventually ended up outside another plain white door. Although this one had a guard stationed outside, and had ‘General’ written with marker pen on it.
“Need to see Z… I mean the general.”
The soldier nodded and knocked. Soon Michael was inside.
The room that Zach had commandeered to be his private office was barely large enough to fit a small car inside of. It didn’t help that there were already two people apart from Zach sitting down inside it.
“Is everything okay?” Said Zach.
“I need to go up top.”
A brief look passed between Fiona, Sam and Zach.
“Are Hannah and Megan okay? They’re in a bunker?”
Michael shook his head. “I’ve checked a few times with comms, they’re not on any record of turning up at any of the bunkers. I gotta go Zach. I need to make sure they’re okay, and then lead them back to a bunker. Nine is meant to be the closest.”
Fiona looked at Zach, who nodded. She then looked up at Michael. “Just so happens, a few of us are making a trip to the surface.”
CHAPTER TEN
The dust stuck to the back of Abbey’s throat and tasted of dead things. She blinked into the mist around her, trying to get a better look of the devastation and then realized she was dreaming again.
I get it. The camps in danger. Now maybe I can dream of a warm beach in the Bahamas…
She sensed a presence in the shell of a room she was in. She turned. Elcher was sitting in a contraption of some kind. He seemed to be melted into it.
“Abbey…” His voice floated with the particles that filled the air.
She coughed. “Elcher?”
He suddenly looked at her, his eyes fierce. “I’m sorry I had to leave, but it was for all of your benefits.”
She stepped closer to the strange machine, that was part mechanical and part organic. “It’s okay…”
“Did you make the toxin?”
Abbey went to tell him that she had it on her, but then for some unknown reason, stopped. “Umm no…”
Elcher’s face remained calm. “That is unfortunate for your species…” He started to shake, the whole device rattling.
Abbey stepped back when she saw that it was increasing in size, new parts seemingly growing on it. “What’s happening?”
Sections which seemed metallic but flowed and morphed sprouted across Elcher until he was lost inside the artificial beast, which was forming in front of her. She turned, looking for a way out. There wasn’t any, other than the gaping hole where the buildings window’s used to be. She ran forward and jumped from the edge.
She awoke with a start. A boom rattled the nearby door. She fumbled around for her backpack, grabbing the flashlight from it and switching it on.
As her light illuminated a circular patch on the bedroom door, she waited. She tried swallowing to give moisture to her dry throat.
Another boom rattled her door, making her jump, but it also made her realize it wasn’t that door that was being knocked on.
She reached into her pack again, grappled to find her water bottle then took a sip.
The front door. Clovis trying to get in?
She reached under her pillow for her knife. Then unlocked the bedroom door and walked into the hallway.
“You awake!” Shouted Clovis through the door.
“I am now. What is it?”
“They’re here!”
How could Erin find us here?
“Another helicopter?” She strained her hearing to listen beyond the building, but couldn’t hear anything above her own heartbeat.
“The aliens!”
She went to grab the chair away from the door, then wondered if this was a ploy to get her to open it. “What aliens? Where?”
“In the sky! Go look for yourself!”
She ran back to the living room, feeling the walls as she went, and looked upwards out of the back and side living room windows. At first she couldn’t see anything, but then she saw it. A light, flitted across the sky. If she had blinked she would have missed it.
They’re here.
She immediately switched off her flashlight.
Clovis shouted again. Something about if she was okay? Which she immediately dismissed as her still being half asleep and hearing things.
She went to walk back into the hallway when a bolt of fear ran through her and she remembered Mo was out there. Closing her eyes, she searched the air and sky around her, looking for her friend in her mind, and eventually far off she caught a glimpse of a sensation that she recognized as Mo. She sighed, then went back to the front door. “The best thing we can do is just stay here for a few hours, and then get back on the road.”
“Fine.”
She listened close to the door, waiting for the sound of his boots to fade into the distance. Switching her light back on, she leaned down and made sure the chair was still secure under the handle, then walked into the small kitchen. She immediately regretted opening the fridge, closing it shut quickly, but managed to find some tins of olives in one of the cupboards.
Sitting on the tiled floor with the flashlight illuminating the cupboards by her side, she pulled back the metal ring on the can, sniffed, then tentatively started munching on one of the black olives inside.
Her mind returned to her dream.
Was that Elcher? Or something pretending to be him?
It struck her as too much of a coincidence that just as she was having that dream, the aliens were above the town.
She soon grew tired of the olives, and was too awake to sleep again. Also the idea of her dream state somehow being used as a beacon made her uneasy about resting again. She went back into the bedroom, got her things together and was soon back at the front door of the apartment. Pulling the chair away, she walked out into the hallway and let her Cascader senses tell her where Clovis was.
She looked at the end of the hall, her light showing a smart but dusty corridor.
A door opened and the big man appeared. “We leaving?”
“Yup, get your shit together, we’re back on the road in five.”
As she sat in the pickup glancing at the sky, she almost laughed at the absurdity of her sitting there waiting for Clovis to finish whatever he was doing in the apartment and come down and join her.
“The odd couple,” she whispered and promptly let out a laugh. A sound came from her left and she started the engine. After he was inside, she pulled away and smiled to herself. She knew there was a reason why he was with her, now all she needed to do was find out what it was.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Fiona kneeled next to a wide concrete pillar. Her NVG’s were pulled down over her eyes, and the world in front of her was a vague mix of dark green shapes.
“How much further?” she said to Michael behind her.
“Not far, just a mile along this road, behind the buildings we can see from here.”
She clicked on her radio. “Sam, what’s the situation like where you are? Over.”
After a few seconds Sam’s voice came from her radio. “All clear so far. We’re moving along Tomkins road, east bound. About fifteen minutes out. Over.”
She looked up at the night sky. Bright pinpoints of light looked back at her, but thankfully none were moving.
Looking back to the street she listened for any noises, but there was only deathly silence. She eyed her next point to run too, then ran along the sidewalk keeping close to the building to her left.
Michael, along with Stan, Cynthia and three soldiers ran behind her.
Soon a set of apartments loomed over them.
Fiona glanced up for any signs that they were still inhabited but no drapes were moving, and each window just contained darkness. She coughed. There was dust in the air.
Michael cleared his throat, the look of concern being clear on his face, even behind the green hues of her night vision.
He took off running along the sidewalk.
“Michael!” she shouted after him.
He was already twenty yards ahead when she noticed he had stopped on the corner, and then sprinted forward across the street. When she arrived at the same spot, she coughed again for the air was thick with dust from fallen masonry. They all looked up at a five-story apartment block that was now four stories. Walls and windows were missing from the other floors, and the remains of people’s lives were now lying across the street.
By the time she looked towards the entrance lobby, Michael was disappearing into it. She clicked on her radio. “Michael, hold on. We’re right behind you. Over.”
Taking a brief look around her, she raced forward, weaving around the pieces of building and quickly got to the main door. She caught a glow from a flashlight disappear around a corner, and turned on her own. Running inside she was soon inside a stairwell, climbing the stairs as quickly as she could. Looking up she could see Michael’s light bouncing off the walls above her. “Michael! Wait,” she shouted up.
Then his light was gone and the stairwell above her plunged back into darkness. She ran up the steps, stopping on the fourth floor. The stairs leading any further were completely blocked by falling masonry.
She heard the others enter the bottom of the stairwell. “Up here!” she shouted, then pulled open the door to the fourth floor. A wall of dust hit her and the sound of a child crying. She staggered forward into a hallway, trying to keep her arm across her mouth, but stopping every few steps to cough. “Where are you?” she shouted into the mist around her.
A faint breeze washed across her face giving her lungs some respite and she pushed towards its source, the child’s anguished cries getting louder.
The beam of a flashlight flashed across a nearby wall from an open doorway. Fiona walked towards it, flipping her NVG’s to her forehead. As she made it to the entrance to the apartment, she stopped and held onto the doorframe. The entire far two walls of what appeared to once be a living room were missing, and the street outside was visible. Part of the floor and apartment above had collapsed into this apartment, and in the center, kneeling with a child in his arms was Michael looking into the rubble.
Fiona walked slowly forward not being sure of how secure the floor was below her feet. “Michael. Who is that? Is that Megan? Where is—” She followed Michael’s gaze into the pile of rubble, finally resting on Hannah’s lifeless eyes looking up at the open sky above them. She went to move in Hannah’s direction.
“She’s dead,” said Michael.
“Okay. How is Megan? Is she injured?”
“No… I don’t think so.”
Noise came from the hallway, and Stan, Cynthia and one of the soldier’s faces appeared. Fiona put her hand up to them, then kneeled next to Michael, glancing over Megan. She appeared unhurt, but was covered in dust.
She put her hand on Michael’s shoulder. “We have to go. It’s dangerous here. It could all come crashing down.”
Michael nodded then slowly got to his feet, his eyes not leaving Hannah’s body.
“When it’s safer, we’re come back for her, I promise.”
He turned and walked out of the apartment’s entrance, past the others that were standing silent.
*****
The pickup that Sam, Sean and two other Cascaders were in bumped along a dirt road. Sam pushed down on the gas pedal. “It still up there?”
Sean strained to see into the night sky above them. A glowing light pulsed amongst the stars. “Yup.”
“We’re not going to make it!” Said a nervous young man in the rear seat, his hands between his legs.
“We’ll make it,” said Sean. He glanced at a woman also in the rear, who seemed lost in a daydream. She seemed oblivious to their situation and was looking out the side window. “Agatha, you alright?”
