The Dance Eternal

ch. 3-6

3

“… roads are unsafe to travel, even in the day. People are afraid to leave their homes, afraid of getting shot on the street by Chinese and Arab troops, and now you’re talking about some space rock, trying to incite more paranoia. This country is in a war, and more…”

Static replaced the man’s voice as the radio signal gave out when John’s car passed into a tunnel. The inside lights of the concrete tube repeated their muted glow across his face as he passed, but he really didn’t notice them. He had been on the road for several hours, now, and was getting tired. At one point, as the strobe of the passing lights lulled him, he thought he heard – and felt – a slight thump, but dismissed it as fatigue, or maybe a rock under the tires.

His mind wandered, the tunnel lights reminding him of emergency lights, and misshapen blonde girls with a red glow, and twisted firemen in the headlights…

“s**t, I’m tired,” he said aloud, as the radio suddenly sprung back to life when he emerged from the other end of the tunnel, an annoying little jingle for a fast food restaurant bringing him out of the melancholy trance. He shook his head and slowed, pulling into small roadside rest area – really just a gravel parking area overlooking a small river – and put his car into park. As he turned the key off, silencing the last few bars of the stupid tune, and slowly sank back into the seat, he noticed the growing light of dawn over the surrounding mountains. The river babbled below, and a few morning birds gave occasional calls.

The scene was a little relaxing, as John rubbed at his temples, trying to work through what he’d seen, trying desperately to make some sense of it.

What the hell is going on, he thought. It felt like the world had gone insane. For nearly a decade, there was a lot of sword-rattling and small-scale skirmishes between the U.S. and China and the Middle Eastern Union, but only in the last year had it come to open blows. Now, several of the major cities near the coasts - New York City, D.C. and Seattle to name a few - were gutted ghost towns. Other cities, like Los Angeles and Miami, were open warzones.

Now, there is… something… else. What the hell had happened last night, and what was that thing in his headlights at Lacy’s house?

The sun had cleared the horizon, as the orange of early dawn brightened to muted daylight, and he made the decision to go.

John started the car, taking one last look at the river below, and left the overlook, heading toward Tom’s family’s cabin. He hoped that the others had made it – he was not liking the idea of being alone in the woods.

4

Chaos.

Never had Tommy thought he would see such chaos in his life… or as much blood.

He stuffed his phone into his pocket after talking with John, his best friend since third grade, and ran for cover as bullets ripped through the tents set up by the military personnel who had basically taken over the northern side of Flagstaff.

Upon leaving the convenience store, he had made a beeline for his home, hoping to find his parents and brother. Halfway there, he drove right into a gunfight, almost hit a couple soldiers, and got his car shot up beyond drivability – a bullet had struck the gas tank, and another set off the spark that caused the coolest (indeed, the only) explosion he’d seen in person.

The soldiers shuffled him along with them, several times shoving him against a wall or to the ground, and he ended up at their temporary encampment inside the city offices. Several of the soldiers apologized then for the manhandling, but he waved it off with a smile, “You were saving my ass, thanks.”

Now, they were all evacuating, as the – things – that showed up last night were beginning to overrun the building. They had all had a moment of relief when, an hour ago, they received a report that the Chinese were also having difficulty handling these new enemies, but it hadn’t slowed their advance by too much.

Outside, he was directed toward a transport truck with several other civvies they’d picked up along the way. He climbed in and sat next to a pretty brunette he recognized from his trip to the DMV to pay a speeding ticket last month.

She had obviously been crying - she had clean streaks in the dirt on her face from the tears - and as soon as he sat, she leaned on him and rested her head on his shoulder, simply content in the non-aggressive human contact.

The last of a group of soldiers climbed in and the flap dropped, and the cab doors could be heard opening and closing. Quiet conversation had started, only momentarily interrupted by the truck lurched forward; several of the civvies gasped, which elicited snickers from a couple of the soldiers.

One of the civilians, a middle-aged man in a rumpled and heavily soiled suit, sporting unkempt hair and a pair of expensive sunglasses with a broken lens, glared at the amused soldiers; one of the men raised an eyebrow, still slightly smirking.

“Problem, sir,” the soldier asked plainly.

“What’s so damned funny? You think people being scared is something to laugh at? Is that what you guys learned when the government had you stomping around the Middle East all these years?”

The truck shifted to the left as it went around a right turn, causing the suit to lean forward as if accentuating his accusation, and as the man ranted, the soldiers grin slid from his face. At the mention of the Middle East, the entire cargo area of the truck went silent, and two faces appeared in the window to the cab bearing flat expressions as the truck itself slowed to a stop.

“You think that’s what this is about,” the soldier said, leaning forward enough that his comrade leaned toward him, quietly trying to talk him down; though he continued, he did not get any closer. “You think we’re laughing at you being afraid? We’re afraid, you d**k. When was the last time you wore your friend’s brains ‘cause a sniper round shattered his skull? When did you get to see some whacked-out creatures tear almost your entire squad to shreds? Tell me that, Mr.-fuckin’-Fearless.

“And by the way, we snickered because we all did the same thing when we were in a transport for the first time… dick.” Almost on cue, the truck swung around a left turn, causing a shift to the right, and lurching the soldier toward the man as the last word came out.

As the soldier returned verbal-fire, the businessman slowly sank back into his seat, so that, by time the other was done, he looked like a polyester seat cover topped with an impetuous pouty face.

The last twenty minutes of the ride were mostly quiet; eventually muted conversations resumed, and a couple of jokes caused some nervous but genuine laughter. All the while, Tommy sat quietly with a cute brunette softly snoozing on his shoulder.

5

Tommy snapped awake as the truck lurched to a stop, and the back flap was whipped open. Low light came in, as if distant and to the right side of the truck, causing him to blink a few times. The soldiers filed out first, an officer outside giving directions as they jumped down and sent them in different directions.

He wiped the saliva from the corners of his mouth, noticing that the brunette still snoozed against his arm. He gently touched the girl’s hand, “Hey, we’ve stopped.”

She stirred and smacked her lips a little, wiping away her own trail of sleep-drool, “What?”

He repeated, adding, “We’re getting out, I think.”

“Not yet,” an officer said, climbing into the truck and taking a seat near the middle, facing the civilians, “we’re just stopped at a rendezvous point. Shouldn’t be a few minutes.”

“Then what,” an older woman asked in a nasally tone, “where are we going?”

The officer hesitated, and was rescued by a subordinate.

“Sir, you’ll… you need to see this,” he stammered, and thrust a tablet, screen-down, toward the officer from the bumper of the truck. The other leaned over and took the item, and turned it over.

The screen was paused on an apparent surveillance video, the scene a view of couple city blocks from the air, cast in night vision. When the officer tapped the ‘play’ icon, he could make more out; to the right, a squad of soldiers were in cover, unloading gunfire at a second group.

The second set of figures on the screen advanced on the soldiers, not returning fire. About ten seconds in, the camera zooms closer to the entrenched troops as the first of the opposition reaches them, still not returning fire. In fact, at this magnification it becomes clear that the shooters have scored multiple hits on their targets, to no obvious effect. The attacker physically lashes toward one of the soldiers, and he falls amid a spray. Within seconds, the entire squad is shredded, with no opposing casualties.

“Sir, that was twenty minutes ago, a Chinese military special unit we’d been tracking for about three hours by drone. The… attackers… continued on, moving in a wandering path toward Pulliam Airport. More bad news; their numbers shift, so we don’t know how many there are total.”

The officer looked away from the green-tinted c*****e, “What do you mean, ‘shift’?”

“It is odd, sir; there have been reports of members of the group… melding… with others, as well as splitting apart. They also seem somewhat unfocused, with occasional stragglers wandering off.”

“Any word on the Chinese response to these… things?”

“None, sir. They’ve been radio-silent for two hours. Monitors on their camp have reported activity, but I am not sure what to believe at this point.”

“What sort of activity?”

A distant boom cut off the soldier’s response, followed by a flash that lit up the world for a moment. The officer was climbing out when the ground shook, knocking him to the ground.

“What was that,” the brunette asked Tommy, and everything went upside down.

6

John drove for another hour after his stop at the tunnel, then turned onto a gravel road that wound through some dense woods in a smallish valley below Humphrey’s Peak. The idyllic location had been a fantastic find by Lacy’s grandfather in the 1960’s, and he’d gotten the land rights to the whole valley, about two square miles, for less than a car these days, and had built the cabin over the years after.

The access road entered the valley from the east; this opening created a view of the lands below framed by the hills that made the valley. At this point in the morning, the sun shone into the valley, igniting the trees in fiery dawn-light, as Lacy’s granddad would say, “as if God his ‘self was lightin’ m’ way.”

He began to slow the car when the cabin came into view through the trees; that little spot in the back of his mind began nagging at him again, just at the edge of his consciousness, an oddly comforting pile of goo nestled in some dark mental corner.

Rounding the last bend, the front of the cabin was in full view, and he breathed a sigh of relief to see two vehicles parked there; Tommy’s brother, Aaron, drove the full-sized Econoline, spray-can black with tinted windows, which his friends called the “Stalkermobile”. John didn’t recognize the old beater pickup, or the neon-blue Cadillac with 19” rims, but didn’t care at this point.

The two-story lodge stood amid tall pines close enough to reach from the upper windows, and was spacious without being pretentiously huge. A screened porch ran the length of the front of the place, and a path led around the left side to the back.

Parking and turning off the ignition, he waited before rolling up the windows, listening, and heard… nothing. That nagging got a little stronger.

He got out of his car, looking about the clearing that served as the parking area. Near the back of the cabin, up the path on the left side, John thought he caught sight of something moving, but when he looked and saw nothing, he started toward the cabin.

Halfway across the gravel parking area, he stopped; a breeze from the east, unusually warm for this time of day, kicked up a little dust. An odd sensation began to creep over him, warm yet oily, that seemed to come from that pile in the back of his mind.

The screen door slapped against the front porch in a second gust, drawing John’s gaze, and a scent hit his nose hard; rotten smelling, the stench was the foulest he’d ever had pass through his nostrils, and it threatened to cause his stomach to go into reverse, even though he hadn’t eaten since yesterday.

A sickly groan reached him, and movement on the porch had his eyes straining to see clearly through the screen as someone… he hoped it was someone… walked… no, limped… toward the doorway from the right.

He stood, paralyzed by a combination of fear, morbid curiosity and concern for the people he hoped were inside, watching the figure as it suddenly filled the doorway.

A gasp escaped his lips upon seeing the thing in full; looking much like the amorphous figure that he had seen in his headlights the night before, this one was wearing the face of Tommy’s brother, but in what seemed to be its torso, a small tuft of dark hair sticking out above widened eyes, and a mouth twisted in a rictus of agony and utter terror.

It paused in the doorway, its greenish flesh oozing a substance that occasionally dripped off in globs, then it … stepped? … down from the porch; the appendage that seemed to serve as a leg extended outward and to the ground, skipping the steps completely, then the rest of the being slid down the stairs, using the appendage as balance, locomotion and braking.

The entire action took only moments, and as the ‘leg’ moved, it made noises like bones being slowly cracked and twisted. As the body slid downward, there was a wet, slurping sound, as one would imagine a slug would sound as it slid along the ground.

John tried to move, desperately willing his feet to take action. That warm-oily feeling was getting stronger, and for the second time tonight, it spoke in that long-sustained hiss; GOOOooooo. It was the motivation his feet needed to move.

He took a step back, then another as the thing reached the bottom of the porch steps, reaching into his pocket for the keys. He slid a little on the gravel as he got to the driver’s door, and slammed his knee into the fender of his car, fumbling the keys as they cleared the lip of his pocket.

“s**t,” he growled, and began to reach for them. Before he bent, they jiggled, then rose to his hand. He stared at the keys, agape, when the slurp of the thing’s advance reminded him of what to do with them. He jerked the door open and nearly jumped into the driver’s seat. Slamming the key into the ignition and giving a turn, the Honda sprang to life.

Not bothering with the pretense of reversing, he shifted to drive, pulled the e-brake handle up, cranked the wheel to the right and punched the gas. Gravel instantly plumed outward as the car shimmied, then pivoted when the front tires finally caught solid ground; the momentum threw the door shut. Pebbles shot like bullets through the trees, through every window on the front side of the cabin, through the facing windows on the parked vehicles. Several bounced from the being’s hide, and seemed to cause some sort of bleeding; a gross, brown substance began weeping from the impact points.

When he faced the road, he dropped the brake and righted the wheel, and the little car launched forward, the front tires spraying a bit more gravel-shot before getting traction. The rear fishtailed a little, but John handled it easily, and drifted around the bend at the edge of the valley.

As he flew along the gravel road, his mind flew in twenty directions at once; what the hell are those things? Did anyone survive in there – I hope I haven’t abandoned anyone. Did Tommy make it out alive? Is this the real apocalypse?

“And what the damn-hell is that in my head,” he shouted at the windshield. He glared at the road ahead, navigating the last few shallow curves before the highway, waiting for some sort of response, but got none, not really. He still had that oily little lump in his mind, which seemed to seethe with calm, its presence cloying with its warmth.

He shook it off, rounding the last bend of the gravel road, “s**t, it’s finally happened. The Earth has become a plane of Hell.

“What the fu-” He slammed on the brakes as he approached the highway; the tires skipped across the gravel, then caught in screeching protest as they hit the pavement, the car jerking to a stop inches from going under the driver’s side front tire of a military transport truck.

A helmeted soldier leaned out the window, looking a bit rattled. “You okay, man? You just kind of appeared from around the bend,” he shouted, gesturing up the road.

John opened the door and stood, right foot still on the brake, “Do NOT go up that road,” he shouted back, waving his arms for emphasis.

“We weren’t,” the soldier replied with less volume, then pointed forward up the highway, “headed that way. There’s a facility about thirty miles that has shelter.”

“Where are you coming from, Flagstaff?”

“Yeah,” the soldier replied, suddenly very solemn.

“What happened there?”

“Its… gone.”

Both were silent for a moment, John struggling with the news.

“Gone? Like, the whole city?”

The soldier nodded, “Some kind of explosion. Maybe a nuke, I don’t know.”

John shivered, “A nuke?! When? What about the civilians?”

“There are some in the back,” the soldier was speaking low now, “along with about a quarter of my squad. The civvies we’ve picked up along the way; most of ‘em are pretty shook up.”

“Got a guy in there named Tommy? Early 20’s, tall, with dark curly hair, goofy face,” Johnathan asked, somewhat hopeful.

“Don’t know, sorry. Maybe if you had a picture…” he trailed off, figuring the rest should be obvious.

John dug his phone out, but when he turned it over, the screen was dark, the earlier damage having finally taken its toll. He stared at it for a moment, then grumbled and hurled it across the road and over the guardrail – he never heard it hit anything.

After a moment of awkward silence, the soldier asked, “You want to ride along?”

John pondered a moment, looking back up the access road.

“I’ll follow, but yeah.”

The soldier nodded and started the truck, rolling ahead to allow John onto the road.

The flap on the back of the truck lifted, and a mess of faces floated in the darkness within. John thought he may have recognized a couple, but couldn’t be sure. Another soldier awkwardly climbed out and limp- jogged toward his car; John rolled the window down, looking at the favored leg. The pants were shredded from the knee down, and bleeding scratches covered his leg.

“Yancy said to give you this,” he said, and offered John a walkie-talkie that was already trying to communicate with someone.

John took the radio, and the soldier pointed to the button on the side, smiled and nodded and turned to head back to the truck.

“Hey,” John said, “can I ask what happened?”

The soldier half turned, the early morning light stark on his face, “I got attacked by… one of those…”

Johnathan could tell by the soldier’s eyes that they’d seen the same thing, nodded and offered his hand as the radio squawked in his hand, a tinny “Are you there?”

The soldier smiled a little and gave a survivor’s handshake; solid and dangerous, but with the warmth of heart.

As the soldier headed back to the truck, John pushed the button on the side of the radio, “I’m here.”

“Alright,” the driver said, eagerness to get moving in his tone, “Just give a shout if you need to stop. We’ve been taking breaks every couple of hours, should be there in four if we keep a good pace - Truck’s kinda slow on the hills.”