I was on 4th and Main Street when it happened, it was cold
out and I had just lit my last cigarette. Picture the sun falling from its
usual spot, except its night, and the sun is leaking a trail of fire. It grows
bigger as it descends; breaking clouds and then it disappears behind buildings
miles away, then the blast. The beautiful- blinding- boiling- blaring blast,
the kind of thing you expect to see and then die.
But I didn’t.
That night the city nearly fell. I braced to be blown away
by a shockwave, anticipated being incinerated by the blast, but all I felt was
a gentle quake beneath my feet. That moment was when I knew that whatever just
hit the city was not something Bert the turtle told me about.
If you haven’t seen Bert the turtle, you are probably too
young or didn’t have the cool history teacher I did. He was a cartoon drawn to
re-assure the American masses that there are ways to live through a nuclear
blast. He is all I thought about in the dark moments between when I was sure I
would die to when I didn’t. Bert the turtle taught me how to live – duck and
cover . . . hide under your desk. . . Burt the turtle has kept me alive through
three years of war, ten years on the beat, and now this . . . whatever this is.
I was a detective before that night; I solved murder cases
because that is what I was good at. I had a nose for evil, and I usually
followed it. I shouldn’t have followed it that night, but I did. I could see
the buildings burning from miles away, hear the sirens of the cruisers and fire
engines, and feel my right hand twitch. I felt it was my civic duty to head towards
the crash and help any way I could. I climbed into my car and headed toward the
glow.
The first mile was full of people fleeing the other
direction, in cars packed with supplies, on bicycles, or with shopping carts
filled with loot. After that mile of slow panic the streets were empty except
for me, I figured most of the other emergency vehicles had beaten me there. What
bugged me was the radio silence; I figured the impact must have messed with the
radio waves or something. I’ve never been a tech guy at all so I didn’t fret
too much.
I finally arrived at the impact site, or the outside of it.
The boys in blue were there waiting tape up and everything, fire men packing up
their hoses, and three EMT’s loading body bags into the car. I then spied my
asshole captain angrily waving me over. He is the kind of old school hard ass
that has been around since the dawn of time- bald white and taking out his
insecurity on everyone else. Most of the bystanders left sat staring out at the
glowing ball that fell from the sky, others stood in circles and whispered. As
I drew close to the captain and the police line, I saw them, the black suits,
the black suburbans, the black glasses, Ghosts.
“Ghosts”, is a
nickname I have given them. They arrive before you know they are there and
leave before you know they are gone, sometimes leaving you dazed and with a
headache. The FBI doesn’t talk about them; neither does the CIA, so no one
does. To the public they are myth and smoke, Hollywood bullshit, but they are
there, they have been around. First they show up at your crime scene and steal
your case then you are told to not mention it or lose your job or worse.
I approached Captain Ecklend near his cruiser, “What’s up
Chief? Some fireworks show tonight huh”. Ecklend, a man of large stature, stood
a head taller than me, and preferred to amplify that by always looking down on
me when he barks,
“JESUS CHRIST! Where
the fuck have you been Flynn, the Whole Damn city is falling apart and you are
nowhere to be found. A God damn meteor has dropped from space; half our units
are out trying to crack down on looters and for some damn reason our radios are
out. Then of course the fucking Suits showed up so we have been sitting here
like a bunch of God Damn boy scouts sitting around a campfire waiting for the
forest to burn down.”
He finally shouts himself breathless and leans against the
cruiser to catch himself. His big red nose always shakes his cliché cop-stache
when he is in an exasperated rage. I
take pleasure in his tantrums so I wait a beat before responding, “I was on 4th
and Main Street, smoking my last cigarette on a stakeout you had me start three
weeks ago . . . what are the Ghosts up to?” He glared at me, just like he
always did when he knew I was lying about something, “No one can tell for sure,
they brought in some professor looking types not too long ago. They went down
into the crater . . . fuck; there is a god damn crater in my city. . Surprised
it didn’t do more damage, Jesus . . . the thing was like a damn missile. Of
course the water boys had to put out some of the fire, but those suits showed
up fast made us tape the whole area off and form a damn perimeter. ‘No one gets
through’ they said. Fucking Spooks.”
I get tired of listening to him quickly, “cap, I got it. . .
I am going to go find out more” He grumbles something beneath his mustache,
telling me not to stir up to much trouble.
I headed for the closest Ghost, a stocky clean cut marine type posed
close to the tape between two suburbans. “Hey ace got a cig?” I ask, staring
into those creepy dark lenses. He cocked his head slightly “No, Sir, please
step back, no one is allowed beyond the perimeter.” Feeling shut down I prod a
little more, “come on buddy I am just asking for one cigarette, can’t you hook
me up?” he looks annoyed, but before he has a chance to talk shouts echo from
his earpiece, and we hear gunshots fire down in the crater.
The guy spins around and I peak over his shoulder to see the
side of the Asteroid open like a strange mouth-like door, and out from it was
pouring . . . tiny red creatures. From where I stood they appeared to have 4
legs and some kind of upper claw arms, they made strange squealing sounds, like
dying pigs. We watched as several Ghosts
were overrun by the beasts, killing only a few, then screaming loud enough all
could hear. We watched in horror as the things collected the bodies, dragging
them back inside their . . . ship.
Their “ship” was still partially on fire but I could see
parts of it . . . It is best described as most definitely not fucking made in
china, let alone on this planet.
The guy I was just
talking to shouted into his wrist watch, “Hostiles have made contact, we have a
lot of bystanders here, what do I do?” then drew some kind of high caliber
pistol from within his suit. All of us
on the perimeter including Cap had our guns out and trained down on the side of
the rock as one of the things stared up at us and the several surviving suits
stumbled up the side of the mini crater. I felt my heart pounding in my chest, my hand
twitched like mad; I knew that thing was evil.
I swear that little bastard looked right at me and grinned, but that
doesn’t matter now.
Shouts echoed from
the ghost’s ear bud, he shouted back into his wristwatch, “I don’t know sir! I
haven’t seen this kind before; we need a Task team and a Bio team down here now!
They got Hendrix, Jackson, and Beck and several more wounded . . . uh huh,
contain, yes Sir. I have the Local PD with me guarding the perimeter, what
should I do? Ugh. . Yes Sir! You can Count on me Sir, I’ll take care of the
problem.”
He turned to look at me, then everyone behind me, and spoke,
“As you all just saw this is no normal threat. I am Agent Silva, of an unnamed
Taskforce assigned to deal with threats like this one; unfortunately half of my
men just got taken into that hell-pit! I am going back in to get them, so I
need some volunteers who can shoot straight, and aint afraid of little Red
Space guys.” He stared blankly at our mob of coppers all frozen by fear. Then
for what reason I did it, I don’t know, but I Raised my hand.
In my head Burt the turtle shook his
head furiously at me then withdrew into his shell.
Two minutes later and I have a riot vest strapped to my
chest and a gun like agent Silva. Four other cops joined our little hero squad,
including the Captain. He explained that the gun shoots like any other, except
you don’t need to reload. I felt like every twelve year olds dream, a super cop
about to take on an Alien threat to the world. Silva told us we had to moved
fast so he didn’t brief us much, he explained that they didn’t know much about
this kind of alien, seemed to be hive like, oh and of course that we might all
die a painful brutal death.
The Six of us, armed to the teeth with guns, grenades, and
high-tech glasses, advanced towards the smoking rock. We couldn’t see anything
inside, but I had that gut feeling that you get when you know somebody or
something is watching you. I could feel their lightless eyes deep within the
darkness ahead. Silva whispers to us, “night vision on”. I press a button and
the world turns green.
What happened in the next few seconds is a blur. They were
waiting there in the dark, lots of them. Some clinged to the ceiling like bats
and others just stuck on the wall, maybe two dozen of them. Silva then whispered again, “ready. . . Fire!” We all opened fire, blasting open their
carapaces and creepy soulless faces, their fried bacon screams blaring in my
head. We felt successful, they underestimated our firepower, and we made it inside
the rock. The living aliens retreated flailing their arms and panicking.
The entrance was short and split into two corridors, the
smell was awful enough that it made one of the others hurl. We took a short
breather. No aliens were in sight in either direction, Silva examined the
remains of one of the goblin faced – four legged –iguana crabs. Upon further inspection
the things were nothing like any single creature on earth, more like hybrids. “Okay
guys they have no armor, but our guys are in here somewhere, hopefully alive. Form
two groups and track them down if you can. Group 1 come with me, and Captain Ecklend
will be in charge of group two. Meet back outside in 5 minutes and stay in
radio contact.” We all nodded, there was no time to ask this man questions. I
looked at Cap and the other cop with us and nodded towards the right corridor.
The thing I remember most about the inside of the ship is
the walls. Covered in a strange almost living substance, like something you
would find in a petri dish. I determined that it was the source of the
prevalent odor.
With the cap on point we only proceeded down the hallway so
far before we heard the screams, not the alien screams, but men. We turned a
corner and witnessed a horrible sight, 3 of the men they took were tied down to
a little alter, and in front of them was a monster different than anything I have
ever seen, more hideous than any nightmare. It loomed over them with its giant gaping
mouth grinning and dripping red wall slime onto them. The beast was around 11
feet tall, had 6 massive legs and a long dragon like tail, its long furry fat
rat face wriggled and writhed over the fallen agents who screamed for help. It had a strange arm with long fingers and
another arm with a huge lobster claw that scraped the floor.
Burt the turtle danced in my mind shouting, RUN, RUN, RUN,
you cannot hope to hide or duck from this. And my hand shook so hard my arm
quivered and my body shook.
I whispered into the radio, “Hey a Silva . . . we got a
situation here, a very big one.” He quickly replied, “We have found the egg
pods, setting bombs. Be there in five, hold tight” and I told him, “I hope you’re
talking seconds because we ain’t got that long”
Cap looked over his shoulder at me and motioned to open fire,
I shook my head a pointed to the group of alien minions that massed near the
large one, clicking and purring, all their dark eyes focused on it, their
master. There had to be about 50 of them all together, the toys agent Silva
gave us are strong but I had no idea how to use them. Cap grimaced but nodded,
we needed time . . . but time was something our endangered agents had little
left of.
The beast grumbled and reached quickly for one of the
agents, ripping him off the alter with its long scaly digits and rapidly
cramming the man into his mouth, his screams muffled briefly before they ended.
Cap couldn’t stand the waiting and opened fire on the gigantic creature. Blood rained
down onto the crowd of furry critters who began rushing towards us. I tossed a
grenade into their midst and began firing at them. Cap, fearless and gritting
his teach in his rage was blasting the massive alien in the face causing it to
howl. In one swipe of frustration it landed its huge claw on top of the other
two agents, crushing them entirely, destroying all hope of saving them. In the middle
of the fray and just as the other cop with us was overrun by four of the red
furry abominations Silva arrived shouting, “holy fuck boys, we need to get the
hell out of here now . . . what is that? Oh god.” And he grabbed me by the back
to pull me into the corridor.
He only had one guy with him so I assumed the other was
lost. Agent Silva looked up at the massive creature that Cap was keeping at
bay. The captain in a glorious blaze of laser fire and a cloud of obscenities such
as, “you giant fucking piece of shit, people gobbling raspberry jelly
slobbering…” and so on as he bashed every red critter that came at him. The confused
beast finally charged and swung his giant claw barely missing the cap and
denting the wall me and Silva hid behind.
I shouted, “Cap we need to get the hell out of here now” as
agent Silva showed me 30 seconds and counting on his wrist. Although there weren’t
a lot of alien forces left the hefty creature staggered towards us and we flew
down the hall. 15 seconds left when we reached the entrance. Cap was wounded by
some shrapnel in his leg and hobbled, the massive rat dragon gaining and
minions in tow, our 4th companion fell beneath the horde, devoured
in one gulp by the monster.
10 seconds and nowhere to run but out, the bombs would blow
soon incinerating everything inside the rock and some outside. Silva halted and
fired, shouting, “Primary mission is the destruction of hostile species, we
have to hold them here!” he was asking us to die. Cap looked at me, with the
kind of look that says, ‘I have lived long enough, it’s your time now’ the
corny kind of look that counts as the ceremonial, silent passing of an
invisible torch. I nodded at him and grabbed Silva rushing the both of us out
the opening, 3. I looked back for a moment to watch Cap unpin a grenade and ram
his arm right down the razor-jaws of the chimera 1. I leaped with Silva just like in a Hollywood movie,
and did exactly what Bert the turtle taught me to do.
Unfortunately the blast and the
rocky earth knocked me out. . .
When I woke up I was in the back of a black suburban, I had
been hooked up to a few machines and I felt like I had been hit by a piano. “Don’t
move” a voice said, “not yet, just listen”. It was Silva, but I remained
silent. “I have a choice to make, either I erase your brain and you spend the
next 9 to 13 months in a mental hospital, OR, I recruit you into our
organization. I am hesitant to do the former, I don’t like scrabbling gray
matter and you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. So slick, what do
you think, would you like to get to play with top secret toys, never pay taxes
again, and be on the alien greeting committee ?” I sat in silence for a second
and then sat up and looked at Silva, “I’m in, but I have one question.” He stared
at me blankly, “what?” And I asked, “Do I have to give up smoking?” Agent Silva
only laughed, he then handed me 3 things- a pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and
a pair of dark glasses. “Hey pal put those on quick, they are about to start
the lightshow” and everything went white.
Officially on that night I saw and heard nothing. Officially
I am dead- just a Ghost. Before that night, when the city nearly fell, I was a
detective - I solved murder cases because that is what I was good at. Now I just
kill aliens.
