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  “Low-yield tactical nukes. Quite far but still packed a wallop. Three of them. Probably rocket or cruise-missile launched. The rule of triple redundancy,” he said, brushing off the dirt from himself.

  “We have nuclear-tipped cruise missiles?” I asked, doing the same. Jen had also sat up and was trying her best to clean herself.

  “Yep. And a lot more toys they don’t tell civvies,” he answered.

  “How far away was that?” I continued.

  “Probably near the state boundary. I am surprised it reached that far. Possibly ceramic coated, but the weapons still degraded as they passed through the cloud. The others approached from different directions. That only means the cloud has nearly reached New York and DC. They wouldn’t be that desperate otherwise.”

  “Nuclear weapons on American soil?” I said, more to myself. But my voice was louder than usual. My mind couldn’t accept what had happened.

  “You can’t imagine what the shirts are capable of,” replied Henry in a tone indicating familiarity with the experience. “Say goodbye to large tracts of good farmland and forest. Include a few towns and any survivors still hiding. Those weapons didn’t reach the ground, but rather exploded in the air. Personally, I doubt if radioactivity will have any effect on the supernatural. A radioactive beast, on the other hand, will affect humans. Talk about adding fuel to the fire. Now, that means we have to find a Geiger counter. Those were small warheads, but we don’t know where the fallout areas are or their coverage. Airbursts would mean the wind might have brought the contamination anywhere.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you when you start glowing in the dark,” I joked.

  Henry chuckled. “Some other time, that joke might be deemed out of place. But now? We’ll take what laughter we can, while we can. And you’re not far from the truth. We can still hazard our original route. Hopefully, the fallout area isn’t widespread. But then again, if I made a mistaken assumption, it wouldn’t matter anyway; we’d all be contaminated already.”

  I carefully looked at the highway again. One good news was that its barriers were gone. I guessed they had weakened already and the blasts were the last straw. The bad news was some areas on the other side had been flattened. Trees were knocked down, and the portions of undergrowth uprooted. The tall grass was lying flat, in a direction away from the explosions. That didn’t bode well for our chances in availing of cover.

  “Now, that’s a fucking situation,” said Henry. He’d evidently come to the same conclusion.

  “What now? We wait for the night?” I asked.

  “I guess so. We can’t cross now. All eyes would be directed toward what just happened. To move now is to be in their crosshairs,” replied the man.

  “We hide and wait,” said Jen. “If anything, those explosions could have stopped the war going on behind us, and their leaders would be waiting for further instructions. Or they could be moving toward what happened.”

  “She’s right,” said Henry. “Let’s find our hiding nook in this place.”

  We wound up at the bottom of the gully, at its far end, where a slight depression enabled us to use natural dug-in cover. We hid the front with downed branches and bushes. We didn’t dare cut new ones. The human-made notches would be a dead giveaway. As a result, we rested, ate, and got some time to clean ourselves further—a slightly moist towelette goes a long way if you want to know. But even then, silence was the rule.

  Sometime in the late afternoon, the ground started to shake. I looked at Henry.

  “Earthquake?” I asked. He shook his head.

  “Too regular,” he answered. “Something mighty peculiar is going on. Chances are it’s happening on the highway. We haven't seen any of the creatures crossing the gully. Wait here. I’ll check.”

  The man slowly crept out of our covered hideout. I was surprised at how he did it. He carefully crawled, avoiding disturbing our foliage cover. After about ten minutes, I heard my name being called in a whisper. Signaling to Jen to wait inside, I crawled out the same way he went out. I admit it was difficult though it looked easy when he did it.

  “What’s up?” I whispered when I finally got out.

  “I think you should see for yourself,” Henry replied tersely.

  We crawled up the side of the gully, watching our surroundings for any surprises. When the top was reached, we kept our heads down and hid behind some bushes. Darkness was starting to arrive, but there was still plenty of light to see what was going on. And before us, in endless lines, were creatures, beasts, and things I really couldn’t recognize or categorize—all shapes, sizes, and colors, mainly dark and slimy in hue, of course. They were all headed toward the town. Farther away, on the road which led to our subdivision, a steady stream of the same weird carnival rejects was joining the fucking parade. In the open, the sound of marching claws, feet, paws, or whatever appendage they used was thunderous and literally ground-shaking.

  “The town is fucked,” Henry whispered in a sad voice. I merely nodded. There was no way the settlement’s defenses could hold against that horde. Even a small part of that force would give the town’s defenders apoplexy.

  We were in that hidden position for some time. If it was a parade, then it was a long one.

  The long march of creatures finally ended sometime during the late afternoon. Toward the end, only small parties of the bizarre beings could be observed, hurrying to catch up with the main body.

  Still, we kept our position. We had to be absolutely sure that we wouldn’t be encountering any stragglers when we attempted the crossing. The number eventually died down to a trickle—only a few could now be observed, in groups of twos and threes. But we didn’t move yet. We had to be cautious. Even a single foot-dragger was a dangerous proposition. A solitary shouted alarm could see us being chased to Hell and back by hordes of those bastards—though I doubted if we could come back from an expedited trip to Hell or hopefully, the Pearly Gates.

  Unfortunately, our watch was accompanied by the sound of distant explosions. Fighting was going on in the town. But at the distance involved, we could only hear the heavy ordnance. I could just imagine the hopeless desperation of the defenders. It was not a good image. I prayed Stan and Cooper didn’t reach the town and instead deviated from their original plan. The chances of surviving an assault by that monster carnival were nil.

  The highway in front of us had been empty for some time. I looked at Henry. Despite the evening gloom, I could see the pain in his eyes.

  “A lot of good men are dying right now,” he whispered. His voice was calm, but some of the anguish came out. It must have been terrible for him to hear the fighting and yet be unable to do anything about it.

  “What do we do?” I asked. “Assuming the town is overrun, we’ll just run into those beasts.”

  “I thought about that. But I doubt they'll be there long after they've taken the town. They're cleaning the region of humans. Probably to set up a buffer or defense zone against rivals,” he replied with anger.

  “Why do we have to get into town? It would be highly dangerous at this time,” Jen's voice sounded. She had joined us. Henry didn’t look surprised, though I was startled. The man probably observed her coming up to join us.

  “Good question. But we're in the middle of nowhere. Our only option is the town for supplies and such. I really would like to get a Geiger counter. If the military doesn’t have it, or what they have are already rusted, the hardware stores in town may have some,” the professor observed.

  “And the monsters?” I asked, following up on Jen's comment.

  “I believe that at this point, they’re acting like a locust swarm. They attack an area, clean it out, then move on. I don’t think they have sufficient forces in this area yet. With other factions vying for control, they won’t split their forces into smaller groups. From what I observed, it has something to do with claiming and marking an area as yours. Any rival coming in would probably result in a signal to them that a hostile force has entered the territory.
But those are assumptions. Might have some basis, but not yet facts. Logically, they will also have a substantial force stationed at the transference point. But I don’t think they can afford leaving such a sizeable force yet. That gives us a chance at what I suggest,” explained Henry.

  “And we need information. I hope there's some available in town. The location of safe zones, contaminated areas, radioactive territory. Things like that,” added the professor. “Right now, we don’t know which direction to go. The cloud would have reached both coasts by now and a greater part of Canada. I wouldn’t be surprised if the northern parts of Mexico are already affected by that massive fog bank.”

  “The rest of the world?” I asked.

  “That’s a question I really would like to be answered. If reality is fracturing, it stands to reason that other countries are being affected by now. Probably not on the scale of the Pines Valley intrusion, but as we saw, larger openings could be made by the proper subordinate leaders among the hosts we are facing. Planet-wide intrusions could be happening as we speak, not to mention the use of tactical nukes,” reflected the man. “I do have to admit the more I think about it, the more alarmed and discouraged I become.”

  “Well, as you said, let’s survive first. Time to cross?” I asked. I really didn’t want to hear such talk from Henry. He had been the solid wall at our backs, our bedrock of confidence. He had this calm assurance that everything would turn out fine for us, that we’d survive the madness. To hear him talk that way seriously shook what little confidence I had. We had to focus on immediate goals, that I knew. But I guessed I couldn’t stop the man from thinking the way he was trained to analyze matters.

  I really hoped things in town would turn out the way he expected them to be. I believed he needed the morale boost more than I did. Faced with such a devastating and unknown enemy, his mind must be scrambling to find facts and loopholes in the mass of information we had so far gathered. And for all our sakes, I prayed he would find them sooner, not later.

  ***

  Keeping low and moving fast, we got past the highway without incident. Henry, as usual, took point. We continued to keep our profile low as we made our way to the woods. As we neared the tree line, the welcome hoot of an owl greeted us. I never thought I would be so relieved to hear such a sound. It meant no dangerous alien beasts in our immediate vicinity.

  Several feet inside the forest, Henry gestured for us to stop and take cover behind some trees. He whispered to me that he intended to check the path that we took. I understood that. A stealthy stalker or pursuers following us without our knowledge would definitely ruin our night.

  Jen and I sat on the ground with our backs against a tree, each of us guarding a flank. We didn’t talk. Fear of death by unnatural means brought out common sense instincts on how to hide and reduce our chances of discovery. Sound carries a long way at night, despite what one sees in the movies where the survival instinct of lying low and keeping quiet seemed mysteriously absent.

  After a while, Henry suddenly popped out a few feet away and gave a thumbs-up. He continued walking with care in the direction of the town followed by our baggage carrier, namely Jen, and then me. The explosions we could hear were now few and far between. I knew what it presaged—the town was on its last legs. Another prayer for Stan and Cooper followed, though deep inside, I feared the worse already.

  I had no idea if the troops and civilians in town were able to withdraw. If not, then I expected to see mounds of flesh and rusted hulks. Many buildings would have been destroyed in the fighting. I hoped a hardware store or two was still standing, or at least had its inventory intact. From what I understood from the professor, he intended to stay in the town, or at least in its close vicinity, for a while as we gathered information and supplies—not a very encouraging nor safe course of action.

  Surprisingly, we made good time, even with the frequent rest breaks. But Henry usually took the opportunity to scout ahead while Jen and I were resting. I guessed that sped up our pace. For a change, our luck held and we didn’t encounter any hostiles. They were probably all concentrated on the other side of the road, near the transference point.

  Around midnight, we neared the outskirts of the town, and slowed down. Crouching, we followed Henry to a small mound covered with trees but which overlooked part of the town, trying to be as stealthy as possible. By now, I could see fires engulfing sections of it, illuminating destroyed buildings and wrecked vehicles. Unfortunately, the flames also revealed shapes running toward the other side of the settlement. The sound of heavy ordnance had ceased completely, only the distant ripple of small arms fire remaining.

  Even those were few and far between. The town was dead and gone.

  3

  Dead Town

  “Let’s wait a while. There’s still a number of those creatures in the town proper, though they’re moving toward the last pockets of resistance,” said Henry.

  Then I realized that the man wanted to find a base nearby. In town. I admit that bold plan took balls to come up with, though in my case it shriveled mine.

  “Uh. There? In town?” came my stupefied response.

  “Of course. We’ll be nearer the places we want to check, easier hiding places, and I don’t have that much confidence in continuing to hide in the woods. Too many avenues of possible surprises. In there, we can choose our base of operations, the access points, and prepare the backdoor exit in case things go apeshit.”

  I nodded my head. Henry was the one with the experience, after all.

  We kept observing the town and true enough, the number of creatures we could glimpse through the flames was becoming fewer. No returning beasts could be seen, which meant their egress was through another route. And I guessed the ritual claiming of territory was already performed. But it was a long wait.

  I looked up at the night sky. The stars and the moon were dimmed, a casualty of the strange cloud which now had extended as far as I could see. Where before I saw the clear twinkle of stars beyond the reach of the miasma, now, everything appeared muted, nor could I even perceive the sparkle of the familiar dots in the sky.

  Then something strange happened.

  Here and there, small bright flares appeared, flickered brightly, then faded. I nudged Henry and nodded in the direction of the night sky. The phenomena continued, though the frequency lessened after a while. The new flashes were like stars, but the objects shone with a brighter light.

  “Not some new devilry, I hope,” muttered the man. I wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment. This world had enough supernatural problems on its hands.

  Within an hour or so, the sound of resistance completely stopped. The intermittent sound of small arms fire was gone. We gave it another hour even if we didn’t see any of the monsters passing through the town. Then Henry moved.

  “Time to go,” he whispered. “We’ll stay in that structure for now and assess the situation. We can’t be caught out here during the day.” Henry pointed out a dark building in the distance. It was impossible to miss, standing out from the ruins of its shattered neighbors.

  He was right. I could already see the false dawn peeking over the horizon. We moved carefully through what cover was available and finally reached the two-story structure. As we crouched behind the remains of a rusted Humvee, I could see it was the only undamaged building on our side of the street. The rest were either destroyed or severely damaged. The remnant of a wall lined the back of the row of structures.

  As far as I could tell, only a few sections of the concrete fence were left standing, though I could see the outlines of sandbagged gun emplacements and firing positions to my sides. Large wrecks also decorated the scene. I deduced they must be tanks or other such vehicles. The darkness thankfully hid any evidence of what the creatures had done to human defenders. But the smell was terrible. It was indescribably nauseating, the smell of flesh and blood tinged with the aroma of smoke, gasoline, and the metallic tang of rust.

  Henry moved to the back door. I could
see him try the entrance, and then the man crouched and turned his full attention to it. Must be locked, I guessed. After a few seconds, the door opened. Henry turned and waved us forward. We quickly moved inside the building. It was a pastry shop. He gestured for us to close the door and stay where we were, and then quickly moved forward, spear at the ready. After a while, I could sense him going upstairs. A few more minutes, and he was back with us.

  “Clear. This must not have been chosen as a strong point. Not solid enough walls. Though I noticed the iron grilles on the windows were rusted so don’t rely on them.”

  “We stay upstairs then?” I whispered.

  “Yes. If the worse happens, the windows on the second floor will be our exits. The grilles are only present on the windows of this level. They may be rusted but might be difficult to remove in an emergency.”

  There were two rooms on the second floor. One was obviously used as a storage area and the other as a bedroom, probably as a rest area for the owner or the employees. Henry insisted Jen and I take the bedroom, saying the other room was perfect for him as he had to check it out for supplies. Well, who was I to disagree? He did emphasize that our emergency egress would be in the direction of the forest. The town would be a dangerous proposition as, if the worst happened, any attacking creatures would be coming from its environs.