Duck and cover

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 4^th 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.