The sun was low in the horizon, setting the sky on fire with a blaze of violet purple streaks burning through a deep orange canvas beneath sparse smoky clouds. I felt like if I stuck a pole out far enough, I could roast a marshmallow under it. Thoughts of food came easily as the day eased steadfastly into night, but I knew I wouldn't be able to eat a bite in peace until I knew for sure my father was safe. As the hours wore on, my certainty of that eroded. Anxiously I checked the clock again. The time on it was never close to accurate, and it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise. But I had grown so used to looking at it that it served just as well as any clock ever did at helping me find my temporal place in this dusty, ageless wasteland.
5:14 it said. Another twenty minutes and I'd have to turn on the floodlights, and I never had to do that while I was alone. Nervousness started sweeping over me. Come on, Dad, where are you? I dared not question whether or not he was alive. I could not face the thought. Not yet.
Suddenly, my breath caught in my throat as a tall stick of a shadow emerged from behind the wall in the distance. It paused for a moment to brace itself against the edge of the entrance, before shining the familiar three-flash signal to alert me that he was friendly. Hurriedly I jumped up and flung myself at the release lever to open the gate. My father was home.
He left his flashlight on to find his way between the mountains of debris covering the wide open yard spread out below me. It was getting very dark and behind the thick wall and piles of junk, shadow had covered and obscured almost everything. I waited for the beam of light to reach the base of the tower directly below me and the sound of two taps against metal before winding the crank to lift the rickety elevator up to our lookout. As he raised closer and closer to the opening in the floor, the soft light of the room gradually shown on his tired and worn face, gazing up towards me and looking anxious to reach me. Minutes later, and his head, shoulders, chest, waist, and finally his legs peaked past the floor until a loud clang announced the end of his ascent. He opened the metal grated door and stepped off.
"I'm surprised you didn't turn on the floodlights already," he said as he removed the straps of his oversized backpack from his shoulders.
I looked at the clock again. "There's still four minutes left," I said, smiling.
He set his pack down on the floor on his way to the control panel. "What do you say we make this an early night?" he said, glancing towards me. He flipped a couple switches and a loud echoing grumble erupted in the distance, followed by a deep humming noise that persisted thereafter. A third, larger switch was flipped, and the entire lot below was suddenly blanketed with white, blinding light, purging the darkness in an instant. From this height, you could see every corner of the perimeter, with hardly a shadow left large enough to conceal the approach of danger. There was a time I would have thought it outrageous to live in a junk yard, but these days, I was more than happy to have a place so safe as this to call home.
"So what did you find out?" I asked.
"I'll tell you, but first, let's eat something." I felt no need to argue with the suggestion.
A large wooden crate served as a table. A dim halogen lamp sitting in the center was our light. After several satisfying mouthfuls, I thought it was as good a time as any to ask him again.
"So is it true? Are they really moving west?"
Father chewed a few more times contemplating before giving an answer. "Yes."
"All of them?" I asked.
"Most of them. A few straggling groups headed back towards the river. Back the way they came."
My eyes moved to the aluminum bowl in front of me. After a moment, I responded. "So then, we're safe." It was almost a question as much as a statement of fact.
"For now. I'd wager we can stay here a few more months. Possibly a year."
I thought about it for a few minutes. Another year spent here was a dismal prospect. As safe as it was here, it was not the homeliest place to be. I could venture down into the yard for most of the day, but during the evening, and even with the floodlights, I had to stay in the lookout. It was a boxed crow's nest with only the most essential living accommodations: the bare wire frame of a spring mattress with a thick foam sheet on top for a bed, a makeshift stove that burned oil for fuel, a few old leather trunks to store food in, and a place set in the middle to eat at. All around us were windows, most with glass, one without, and during the night the floodlights would illuminate the room just as well as daylight. It was a small space for the two of us to live in, smaller than my bedroom, back when I had a real home. Some days though, I had it all to myself, while my dad went out in search of food or anything else we might need. I had begged a few times for him to let me tag along, but he never budged. "This isn't another hunting trip like the old days," he once said. Waiting for him to return was the hardest part of living here, and after a year of it, I was eager to move on. "Where would we go if we left this place?"
He continued chewing, scraping his bowl with his spoon. "Over the border. There's a settlement there."
The news caught me by surprise. "A human settlement? Is it big?"
"One of the biggest. If we can make it there, we can survive there indefinitely. It's like a huge, fortified city. As long as we follow the mountain range, and stay out in the open, we should make it."
"How did you find out about this?"
He swallowed, and paused for a moment, fiddling with his spoon contemplatively. "I found someone."
I almost jumped to my feet. "You did? Where?!"
"Out in the open, by the side of the road. He was just lying there, not moving. I figured he was dead. I rolled him over to check for a leech, but didn't see one."
"No marks either?"
"None. When I let go of him, he rolled back over and then started moving, and coughing. I helped prop him up a bit, and he started mumbling something. It sounded like 'water'. So I gave him some of my canteen, and after a few sips he thanked me. He told me he didn't have much time left, but that he had been heading for a city in Mexico, where people have lived for years in safety from Subjugates. He didn't know much else, except that it was nestled at the base of a large mountain surrounded by an open desert, with a big flag hoisted over a tall tower that's black with a yellow star in the center. We'll take the van, load it up with lights and a generator, and drive in shifts. If we leave tomorrow morning, we should be there in a few day's time."
"We're not leaving Scrap behind," I insisted.
"No, of course not. I wouldn't dream of it." Dad looked at me with a glint in his eyes and small upturn of his mouth. It was a familiar look, one that threw me right back into my childhood. The warm interior of our dining room, the flower-patterned table cloth and tan-colored curtains on the windows, and Dad sitting at the end of the table next to me, with that same smile. "You ever wonder what sawdust tastes like?" he'd ask. Then he'd point to the mashed potatoes sitting on my plate in front of me. "Well, that's it!" he said before mussing my hair.
I felt something cold and wet touch my leg, and looked down. Scrap was standing there, smelling me, before he looked up to meet my glance. "You heard us say your name, boy?" I scratched behind his ear, but he didn't seem to take much notice. He was a small, quiet dog, and strangely intelligent at times. He lived here before we did, as I'm sure no junkyard can go without a guard dog, but then, what good is a guard dog that never barks? He'd been shy at first, hiding amongst the piles of twisted metal most of the time before eventually learning to trust us. In the last several months, we hadn't been apart.
That night, Scrap was curled up next to me as I laid on my back staring at the ceiling. Sleep was interrupted by restless thoughts attempting to grasp at the strangeness of what life had become. We'd be leaving this place, finally, for a new home where we could live in peace. It would be a hard journey, and there was no telling if we might make it. New hordes of Subjugates were being discovered all the time. But it was a journey worth making if it meant we could truly be safe again. That was something I hadn't known in a long time.
It was strange to think back on how this all began. Leeches, as they're now known, were discovered in Central America by some scientists exploring a new cave system. They were essentially frozen inside giant salt crystal formations, and when broken free, eventually resuscitated and continued living, much to the amazement of scientists everywhere. They were a new breed, and in fact a new class of species never known before. They were about the size of a human fist, with six stubby digits flanking the sides of its oval-shaped body, and barely any indication of sensory organs of any sort. It was theorized they were an extremely primitive, early form of land animal that had somehow been preserved for millions of years. They reproduced asexually via splitting, unheard of in an organism that large or complex.
They were kept in large glass containers because it was feared new germs and viruses in the contemporary world would kill them if they were exposed to outside elements for too long. But eventually, one scientist got careless. A creature latched onto the back of his neck and instantly paralyzed him. It couldn't be removed because it was feared it had tapped into major blood vessels in the man's body through tube-like barbs on the ends of its stubbed legs. When he finally reawakened, he was neither living nor dead. He moved with unseeing eyes, and ran, sometimes on all fours, with inhuman animation. His body heat was said to be so great, he could burn you just with his touch. If he did touch you, you likely wouldn't live through it. His hands grasped at the necks of his victims, fingers digging into the skin, barbs shooting out of his fingertips and absorbing their bodily fluids and nutrients till they were shriveled like raisins. Each time he did this, his body would swell bigger and bigger, his flesh puffed like a water balloon, until eventually it burst, revealing some hideous new form underneath, even more perverse and grotesque than it was before.
The more he shed his skin, the further transformed he became, quicker, deadlier, and less human with each phase. He was evolving, faster than any type of evolution seen on Earth, a sort of hyper-evolution. He became smarter, larger, and eventually helped free the other leeches so they might proliferate and spread the infection to victims all over the world. The rate of their reproduction was too fast to quell. Entire cities were quarantined and bombed, but if even a single leech survived, it could spread to a hundred more hosts, and it didn't matter what species it was. It sought out only the fittest and strongest hosts it could find, detecting the worthy ones through some unknown means. Some have seen infected gorillas, chimpanzees, even cougars or wolves. All would evolve into unrecognizable shapes, and once they reached a certain point, they were unstoppable.
Creatures would develop different characteristics. Some would specialize in speed or strength, sometimes growing armor or some sort of offensive ability. Some developed huge horns on their heads, like giant human-like rhinoceros. Some could jump over a hundred feet in the air, and some even developed wings. At least one basic trait was inherit in even early evolved Subjugates, but the more advanced creatures, called Primes, were much larger, with at least two abilities at their disposal. The more basic forms, Spawns, were everywhere. Primes were much rarer, but in a large enough group, at least one could be seen among them. There were rumors of even larger creatures though, as big as buildings, stronger and more powerful than all other Subjugates. Those were called Seraphs. But whatever type of creature it was, all Subjugates had one trait in common: utter intolerance of light. If you caught one in a bright enough light, it would immediately try to escape, and in the best case, become paralyzed and completely vulnerable.
The day started off early as we hastened to finish modifying the utility van with light fixtures and a gas-powered generator in its storage compartment. Two seats would be all we'd need for the journey, and other supplies could be secured in nets fastened to the walls of the vehicle. Any room left over would be taken up by tanks of fuel.
By the time we were ready to ride off, Scrap looked a sight nervous, seemingly reluctant to leave his home behind. But he was strangely understanding of what a human said, and some words of encouragement seemed all that was necessary to coax him on.
"It'll be alright Scrap. We'll be safer in the city, and you don't want to be here by yourself again, do you?"
He turned to look behind at the tower where we had stayed for so many months. It might have been even longer, we couldn't be sure, and to a dog, it must have seemed an eternity. He slowly turned back towards me and trotted towards the van. As soon as I shut the door, he was looking out of the window, back at the junkyard where we had found him.
The sun was just starting to show in full by the time we pass through the gateway and onto the road outside the walls. The road was rough, mostly a worn pathway etched out of the hard desert sand. Desert comprised most of the world at that point. The leeches would feed on anything organic to nourish their reproductive process, and the result left the planet devoid of most trees and a natural means of renewing itself. A good reason why the junkyard was such a safe place to be. Without anything organic, there wasn't much to attract the leeches.
A short while later I saw what looked to be a rusty, bent road sign up ahead of us, floundering in a rippling sea of heat waves along the horizon. As we urged closer, there was something else near its base, a dark mass of some sort. It wasn't long before I realized I was looking at a body. We were within several feet of it when I could see it was as thin and shriveled as an old mummy, bereft of any substance beneath its wrinkled, paper skin. I wondered if this was the man Father had seen the day before. I turned to ask, but then realized it was pointless. Whoever he was, it certainly didn't matter now.
***
A hard bump in the road woke me up. When I had fallen asleep I couldn't say. It was immediately apparent that the sun was much lower in the sky than I last remembered. This area was much less flat than before, much more uneven and hilly. To my right in the distance, there were mountains; an endless range of them, full of hunches and peaks of all shapes and sizes. It was day three of our journey, and while I had done a portion of the driving, Dad had carried us most of the way. At one point, I remembered passing an area that had once been a lush forest, now just a devastation of dried, fallen tree trunks and colorless scenery. I had not seen a sign of civilization once thus far; no man-made structures, no rusted cars, not even bones. All just a barren wasteland as far as the eye could reach.
"Want me to take over?"
"I'll be alright for a little while longer," Dad replied.
Some time went by. It was quiet, just the two of us in the van. Once we had been a family, with my mom and dad, and another sibling on the way. It would have been only a few months before she would have been born. The day the leeches spread to our city and we had evacuated, we had lost each other in the crowds. I had found my dad, but we never found mother. We were rushed into buses and driven to a shelter. We only stayed there a month. That was three years ago.
It was getting darker outside. Clouds were gathering. It was a strange sight, since I had not seen rainfall in over a year. "You don't think it's going to storm, do you?"
"I can't imagine. It doesn't rain over these parts but once a..." His words were interrupted by a sudden bang just outside the vehicle, and immediately the van was sent swerving wildly from side to side, throwing me around in my seat. Then I saw the ground outside lift and cover the sky, as the gravity shifted to the right and slammed me against the door. I felt my dad land on top of me, and when I opened my eyes again, the world was sideways through the cracked windshield.
Dad lifted himself off of me. "You alright?"
I groaned. "Uh, yeah, I think so."
He tried to pull himself up to his seat, and reached for the door handle up above. He pulled on it and gave a hard push, but it wouldn't budge. He turned back to look at me.
"Cover your face, I'm going to break the window." He gave the window a hard slam with his elbow, then another, and it was broken, dropping little pieces of glass on top of me. He found a towel and wrapped it around his hand, using it to remove the remaining pieces around the edges. Then with a heave, he pulled himself upward. I unfastened my seatbelt and followed him out of the van.
"What did we hit?" I asked when we were standing by the van.
"A pit." He pointed at a hole some feet away. The sky was getting very cloudy, covering everything in dim light. Suddenly I heard barking from behind us.
"Scrap!" I ran back to the van and heaved myself partly over the side of it, desperately trying to look in. Scrap was there, standing beside the passenger seat, amazingly unharmed. "It's going to be alright, boy!" I worked my way back inside, when suddenly I felt a rumbling in the ground. Dad leapt in over the window, reaching for the shotgun and ripping it out of its Velcro straps in the ceiling.
"Get me the shotgun shells," he said, sounding alarmed.
"What's going on?" I asked, reaching under the driver's seat for a bag with the shells in it.
"Spawn! Crawlers coming out of the hole! Just stay inside while I fight 'em off." I handed him the bag, and with that he was gone.
I poked my head out of the window. Dad fired a shot, startling me at first. A spawn was running for him, a thing with six limbs covered in a pitch-black carapace and a face that looked so wide and stretched it no longer resembled the human it evolved from. It was fast but another shot caught it dead-center and it busted with a disgusting crunching noise and a splattering of fluid. More were following behind it.
Before we knew it, the spawns were on us by the dozens. Every time we burst one open, more seemed to be drawn out. It was like the blood alerted more of the ongoing attack. I lowered back down and turned to look in the back. Scrap was hiding behind one of the barrels.
"Coward," I called to him. But in truth, I was not one to talk. I could only do what Dad told me, but I grew restless sitting within this protection while my father was out there fighting off the crawlers. If only there was some way I could help. Maybe if I could get the generator running again, I could get the lamps on. We'd be safe behind a shield of light. It was the only thing left to do.
I squeezed myself through the two front seats and made my way towards the rear of the van. The generator laid on its side, knocked loose of its bolts that had secured it to the floor. Unfortunately, the side it laid on was the side that had the starter rope. It was large and heavy, and moving it wouldn't be easy. I looked around for a solution.
One of the wooden planks that had been attached to the generator's feet was still intact. The other one, running parallel to it, had snapped in two, with a piece of it still stuck on the floor of van. They were fairly long boards, and if I could use the one that was intact as leverage using one of the barrels as a fulcrum, I might be able to get it right-side up.
I grabbed at the plank on one end and yanked hard on it, trying to pull it free from one end. It wouldn't budge at first. I repositioned my feet and used more leg power. As hard as I could, I pulled on it, heaving repeatedly until I felt it wiggle. The wood was old, and it chafed around the hole as I worked at it. Suddenly it broke free, with such force that I lost my footing and fell on my seat, onto something less than comfortable. I grimaced in pain, and when I looked at the plank in my hands, I realized I had pulled it off completely. I looked up at the feet of the generator from where I had been screwed onto. One side still had a piece of wood on it. The plank had broken. This wasn't going to work.
I leaned forward and tried to get back on my feet, when I was startled by a loud BOOM coming from outside. I dropped the plank and rushed towards the front of the van. A cloud of dust rolled overhead. I stood on my toes and poked my head out of the open window. The cloud covered a large area around the van, coming from the open valley facing the exposed underside of the vehicle. The smell was incredibly foul, enough to nearly churn my stomach. I wanted to cough, but I held my breath as I focused intently on trying to see if I could spot my dad. I called out for him--one time, then another. The smoke drifted further over the van, in my face and attacking my throat. I coughed.
Suddenly a loud thud came from my left. I turned to look, and saw someone with his arms draped over the side of the vehicle, charred on one side with smoke emitting from his arm and shoulder. In his hand was a shotgun.
"Dad!" I shouted. I heaved myself as quickly as I could out of the window, jumped down off the vehicle, and ran to my father. He looked to be in bad shape. He was only just holding himself up, coughing and breathing heavily. His face was covered in scuffs and dirt.
"Stay in the van!" He said in a wheezing voice.
"Are you alri--" My words were interrupted by another loud explosion. I heard what sounded like screaming from overhead. I looked up. Above us were the dark silhouettes of flying spawn, screeching as they circled around, spitting explosive fireballs down on us. The screeches were quickly growing in chorus, and I felt my dad shove at my arm, pushing me towards the door.
"Go! Get in!"
"Come with me!" I yelled back. I felt the ground under us rumbling again. I felt a cold dread as I realized another wave of crawlers would be on us soon.
"No! Stay in the car! I'll keep fighting them off!" Another explosion went off, this time only several feet away. I shielded my face from the flying debris. Dad pushed on me again. "They'll only blow us up if I don't shoot them down! Hurry up and get in!"
He then turned and walked over to the rear of the van. I pulled myself up onto the side and watched as he yanked on the rear door. He stooped down and reached inside, emerging a moment later with another cloth bag, this time with a strap. He opened it and pulled out a couple shotgun shells, loading them into the bullet chamber of his gun. I eased my feet into the window, when another explosion went off, this time really close. The blast sent me lunging forward, over the side of the van and onto the ground next to the roof.
I slowly pushed myself up. I could hear barking coming from inside the van. Smoke and wretched smelling air were all around. I heard more shots go off. A screeching spawn fell from the sky and landed several feet away from me. I stood up and tried to see my dad, but the dust was too thick. The ground was rumbling even more than before, and this time I could hear it. Crawlers would be busting out of the ground any minute now, and Dad couldn't hold them off forever.
Just then, I saw a shadow moving up ahead. It was my father. I ran over to him, and grabbed him by the arm.
"We're going to be overrun with crawlers soon! You have to get in the van with me!"
Dad shook his head. "It's no use. We have to run for it! Grab the flashlights out of the back!"
I turned towards the van with the rear doors still open. Quickly, I ran over towards it. A shot rang out from behind me, and not two feet away did a flying spawn land lifeless on the ground. I did not pause to give it much notice, and a few moments later I was at the van, grabbing at bags and containers, until I found the one I needed. I took two large flashlights from inside, and turned to run them back to my dad, but I saw he was already making his way towards me. Then, a loud cracking sound exploded from behind him, and crawlers erupted from the ground only several feet away. I quickly grabbed one of the flashlights and shown it in Dad's direction. It was so bright it nearly blinded my father, and washed out his skin, but the crawlers immediately halted and recoiled away form the light. I reached out with a flashlight towards him, when a sudden gust of wind blew more of the cloudy dust at us, causing us to have to shield our faces. He grabbed the flashlight and immediately switched it on.
We both swung the beams around in half circles, sweeping the area around us defensively. Unfortunately, as high-powered as the flashlights were, the cloud of dust was impeding their effectiveness, and we had to move quick and get out of there before the spawn found an opening. As we started to run, I noticed a brown mass inching towards my feet, and I jammed the light right at it as fast as I could. It was Scrap. He barked at me and I pulled the light away from the poor dog's face, in case he had any sight left.
We escaped the cloud of dust, only to run head-long into another one. The place looked like a war zone, with larges clumps of earth, broken rocks, and pools of blood sprinkled over the ground, with the occasional spawn corpse threatening to trip us if we didn't watch our step. A couple times a flying spawn or a crawler would get within a few feet of us, but our swinging flashlights did much to keep them at bay. The flashlights were heavy, and our arms were tiring, but at least they did their job.
At last we were clear of the dust clouds. We focused the beams behind us, but once we got about twenty feet away, an enormous swarm of crawlers emerged from the brown murkiness, fast on our trail. A dozen flying spawn soon followed, moving at pace with them.
"Oh my god!" I exclaimed. Their running seemed to cause the ground to rumble, but right then another explosion from the earth burst out in front of us, and a second swarm surfaced to try to flank us, a seemingly endless supply of them. I suddenly realized the rumbling of the ground was still the tunneling crawlers beneath our feet. At any moment another eruption of them might occur anywhere around us.
"This is hopeless!" I shouted breathlessly.
"Keep running!" My father shouted back.
But just then, as I had feared, another swarm burst out of the ground. Then another. In seconds they were closing in all around us. We stood there, frantically flailing our flashlights in all directions, while Scrap barked maniacally. We could barely keep them away, as any second without a light shining at them meant they were rushing towards us. We could not keep this up forever, and our lives were hanging on how long our arms hold out.
The ground started to shake violently. The screeching of the spawns grew louder, and their movements were becoming erratic. A great seismic event was causing them to stir and shrink away. In a sudden rush, they were dispersing, running away in the direction they came. The quaking was so forceful it nearly caused us to lose balance. I had to drop one hand to the ground to hold myself up.
And then, the very mountains we had been following began to move. They slid along the shaking horizon like massive turtles, at least seven of them of varying sizes. They positioned themselves in front of us, spreading out evenly. Before long, the ground settled, and the mountains ceased their movement. All was quiet. We stood their motionless, perhaps out of fear or perhaps out of sheer awe.
Then, a deafening, thunderous sound echoed from the distant masses. Large cracks and fissures formed over their peaks, spreading down their slopes and emitting light from beneath. The mountains started opening, their cracks oozing streams of glowing lava, like blood seeping out of wounds. The sound was like that of a massive avalanche; a rumbling like rocks cascading down large hills. As the openings widened, there was something underneath, like giant stony faces, almost infantile in appearance. The heads rose, and the enormous flaps that had once formed mountain peaks were curling back on themselves, rolling and spreading open like giant earthen flowers blooming before us. The creatures within were larger than I could have imagined. One had arms like a human, fat and round at the body like a gargantuan Buddhist statue. Another had long appendages spreading out from below the head, and hanging in the air like the tentacles of a giant sea anemone. A third was like a coiled snake, each fold squeezing and sliding against another. All were different shapes and sizes, but all had similar faces; heads like that of human newborns, round and plump, frowning such that you could not see their eyes beneath the shadow of their brows. They were Seraphs.
Then, each gave out of a deep, horrendous roar, bellowing like enormous raging horns calling out for war. From their mouths spewed dark smoke that rose to the sky, covering all hint of light peeking out from behind the clouds. The smoke spread at incredible speed over our heads, like the coming of a terrible storm. When they were finished, it was almost as dark as night, with the only illumination coming from the furthest reaches of the horizon. The giant infant faces were lit by a soft orange glow coming from the base of their bodies, like luminous nectar from the center of giant craggily flora.
Then, from that base rose innumerable swarms of flying spawn, screeching like a shrill wind piercing the air across the desert. They were so abundant it was like a second cloud sweeping the sky. Behind us there was a rumbling, and we turned to see the crawlers had returned, and were closing in again.
I gave a sigh. "We're fucked." Dad didn't reply.
Then, a loud clap of thunder ripped through the sky, and exploded against the face of one of the Seraphs, giving out a bright flash and causing the massive creature to roar and cry. The flying spawn shied from the explosion, when another one rang out, hitting one of the leaf-like flaps of another Seraph. More rang out, streaking the sky like glowing arrows. Each explosion lit the world around us like a star, and their numbers seemed to be increasing.
In the distance I could see another bright light cresting over the horizon. It grew in length and before long, it seemed like it spread for a mile across. The volley of fire seemed to be coming from this spot. The light seemed to draw closer, and soon it became clear it was a whole string of smaller lights, incredibly bright and reaching for miles. The crawlers behind us stopped their pursuit, and were slowly creeping away from us, shrieking in confusion.
As the lights drew closer, I could hear rumbling between the explosions, but not like before with the spawns. It was more mechanical, and as I listened I realized it was a motorized sound, like thousands of vehicles rolling into the desert.
"It's...an army!" I couldn't believe it. Help was here!
Dad just stood there, unmoving, staring at the approaching group with an expressionless face. More shots rang out, this time not from rockets, but from what I could only guess were tank rounds. They landed some ways away from us into the swarm of crawlers, causing them disperse and scatter. More shots were fired, and some of the explosions were getting frightfully close. Did they not see us?
"We have to move!" I shouted, grabbing my dad by the sleeve. We ran in the general direction of the Seraphs, who were now slowly backing away. Shots blew up all around us, and soon we could hear machinegun fire. A bright light burst overhead, and we had to shield our eyes. It lasted for what seemed like a whole minute before it started to die down. I looked up to see where it was coming from. Glowing flares were being shot into the sky, luminous as the sun. The flying spawn were all but vanquished from the area, fleeing the from the assault en masse. The crawlers were leaving too, burrowing back into their holes or simply running away in various directions. The rumbling motors were getting louder, and then I saw hundreds of men carrying rifles with light attachments running towards us. They pointed their lights at us, and again we shielded our eyes. Soon they were only maybe fifteen feet away, and some were coming around to surround us. A voice over a megaphone called out something in Spanish. It repeated a couple times before I shouted a reply.
"No habla español! No habla español!" It was all I knew to say. After some seconds a reply came back, this time in English.
"Stay where you are and keep your hands up!" We did as requested. A man in uniform approached us.
"Drop your weapon!" Dad did as he asked, tossing the shotgun to the ground. The man came closer. "Are you injured?"
"No", I answered. I looked up at my father. He still said nothing. I spoke for him. "This is my dad, he's been burned but I think he's OK."
"You guys have to be nuts to travel the desert like this. What are you doing out here?"
"We're looking for the city of Masada," I responded.
"You're lucky we found you. We're the defense battalion of the city of Masada. It's not far from here. You can ride with us back, but we have to leave now. Those are Seraphs out there."
"I know." I couldn't believe it. The city of Masada came out to meet us. Finally our fortunes had turned.
"Come. Follow me."
We followed the troops back to their vehicles. "I'm Sergeant Grant Reynolds, by the way," the soldier said.
"I'm Joseph, this is my dad Paul."
"Who's the little guy?" Sergeant Reynolds said, smiling and pointing at the dog.
"He's Scrap. He's been with us the whole way."
"He's pretty lucky. Animals are very scarce around here. They're usually the first to get picked off."
"Well, Scrap's pretty smart."
"He must be," he said, smiling again.
A minute went by before anyone said anything else. "So, how did you know we were there?"
"We didn't," the Sergeant replied. "We headed for the swarm when we saw you through the binoculars. Anything that doesn't run away from our floodlights is usually safe to assume isn't infected."
"How close is the city?" I asked.
"Just a couple miles over the ridge. We saw the Seraphs come out and immediately mobilized. I've only seen one other Seraph in my entire life, and I was just a boy. It destroyed my entire town and I was only one of two other survivors. To see several of them must mean that hell is descending on Earth."
"You guys did some damage to them at least!"
"Hardly," Reynolds answered grimly. "The bright flash is what scares them off. They're just like any other spawn, at their core, but next to nothing hurts them. I don't know what drew them out like that but we're not safe so long as they remain within several miles of our settlement."
We were close to the armored troop when the sergeant stopped to bark a few orders. He then turned to us. "A medical truck is right over there. They'll see to your injuries. You'll ride with them once we're ready to--AHHHHHH!!!" The Sergeant screamed suddenly, his eyes wide and his back arched. His voice started gurgling as blood began to pour out of his mouth. A nearby soldier started yelling, a few others ran towards us.
"That will not be necessary," a familiar voice from behind him said. Scrap started barking loudly. Something was pulled from the sergeant's back, and he dropped to the ground, dead. There, standing over his body, was my dad, fingers outstretched with long bloody barbs extending out of them. "Thank you for leading us to Masada, human."
"DAD!!" I screamed frantically.
"Sorry boy. You were never meant to make it to the city." His eyes were white and featureless. His face was completely blank and emotionless.
"Dad! What are you..." I started to cry.
"Your father died some days ago. I am a guardian. An elite prime, by human terminology. My name is Ferseverin. This is where your journey ends, and the fall of humanity begins."
A nearby soldier screamed. "SPAWN!" He fired his weapon at the creature, and the bullets penetrated its skin, but it did not shudder or even seem to take much notice. It turned its blank stare away from me and towards the soldier, and reached out his hand. Long, tentacle-like barbs shot out and plunged into the soldier's body. In seconds the man was sucked dry of nutrients. More soldiers fired their weapons at the creature. I dunked and ran away to find some cover, Scrap following close behind.
The bullets riddled Ferseverin from all sides, causing its skin to bleed and tear, but it remained standing, unheeding to the damage. More tentacles grew out of his back, long and jointed like spider legs. He absorbed one soldier after another, taking his time as he moved to each one, indifferent to the efforts of the men to kill him. Someone threw a grenade. In an instant, Ferseverin was engulfed in smoke. Floodlights were aimed at where he stood. As the smoke cleared, half his skin was missing, particularly around his legs. Underneath were revealed snakelike growths. They spread and unwrapped themselves, lifting the creature some twenty feet in the air. The appendages on his back shot out, stretching and piercing more men and sucking them empty. He speared as many as five at a time, draining them in several seconds before moving to the next victims, but he never grew bigger, or puffed out like most spawns would. The only change was small dangling growths over his body, like smaller tentacles, many focused on top of his head. Soon they were forming a long skirt from top to bottom, like a flowing garment made up of fleshy ropes hanging from his body. More lights were shown on him, but he paid them no mind.
The larger tentacles from his back grew suddenly larger. He started moving forward, loops of serpentine tails hanging from where his legs once were providing locomotion. The large tentacles, some ten of them that there were, flung out and grabbed whole cars, lifting them off the ground and tossing them like old garbage. More and more vehicles were picked up and tossed, all the while his movement forward unrelenting. From his fingers thinner tentacles impaled more victims. Soldiers were running around, shouting, shooting their rifles or throwing grenades. One of them picked up a rocket launcher and hit a clean, direct shot. The dress of fleshy ropes billowed from the explosion but almost seemed to absorb it. All the while he continued forward unimpeded, his eyes fixed in front of him taking no notice of his surroundings.
I had to get out of there. I started to run, but it was only a few steps before something grabbed around my chest tightly. I was lifted off the ground, high above the chaos and commotion before being brought before the face of Ferseverin, a face human and yet pale and expressionless. It was only a faint shadow of who my father had been.
"Running will not help you, little one," said a slow, solemn voice. It was different than before, more ominous and callous sounding.
"If you're going to kill me, just do it!" I yelled, my voice stifled from the compression of my chest.
"I offer you the chance at metamorphosis. A rebirth. What I kill will be your human form. You can ascend to the higher plane of immortality, becoming a being of greater strength beyond the understanding of man."
"Why the FUCK would I want that?!" I yelled angrily.
"Your desires hold no dominion over your fate. You will follow your father into the order of the Elite, commanding great legions of spawn across this planet. Then we will build a new civilization, a power incontrovertible by any that inhabits the Earth."
"Why me?" I asked.
"Because your father chose you. He exists within me, a spirit that brings to bear this life form you see before you. Just as he was chosen by the guardian prime before him, he has chosen you. A fortuitous chance for you to lead over the spawn without the need to evolve."
Suddenly, a tremendous blast exploded in front of me, covering my vision in piercing light. My eyes throbbed and burned, and as I clinched them shut, I felt the hold over my torso loosen, and I fell for some distance before landing hard on the ground. I heard more blasts sound overhead, pounding me with tremendous pressure waves.
I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn't. They hurt worse than I had ever felt before. I tried as hard as I could to open them, and still to no avail. I touched my fingers to my eyes and tried to force them open.....they were open. And yet the world around me was covered in utter blackness.
"I...I can't see!" I exclaimed. Something warm licked my face. "Scrap?" I reached out and touched his fur. Something grabbed me by the arm, pulling me up.
"Come on, son! We have to get you out of here!" a stranger's voice said. He tried to help me to my feet, but I felt a sharp pain in my leg, and fell back down. Another set of arms grabbed me by the chest, and the two men helped me back up. We walked an unknown distance forward before I was lifted into the back of some sort of vehicle, and felt a furry animal being set down beside my face. A few more footsteps went inside, and I heard people shouting all around. The vehicle started moving, and the explosions behind me grew more and more distant. I tried to lift my head, but it only grew heavier.
The next thing I knew, I was laying in a bed. I felt around me. Everything was still dark. I started to panic. "Hello?" I called out. My voice echoed against walls, but there were no other sounds.
"It's alright, boy. You're safe now," said a woman's voice.
"Who are you? Wh-Where am I" I asked, shuddering.
"My name is Fiona, I'm a nurse here at the hospital. You were brought here last night. Although it's hard for you to tell, it's about noon now. Unfortunately you suffered permanent loss of vision during the battle, due to burned retinas."
"You mean, I'm blind?"
"I'm sorry," she said softly. "Try to relax now, you need your rest. You won't be able to move your leg for a while. If you need anything, let us know."
"Wait, can you tell me where I am?"
"Masada," she said a little further away. "Welcome."
Something licked my hand. I moved it up and felt Scrap's soft warm head. "Well boy, we're home."
It was a night I'll never forget.
