The Invasive 2: Remnants Page 15

  A boulder, the size of a house.

  “Shit,” Bishop said as she shoved Angela to the west. “Move, move.”

  The boulder imploded two Jeeps, killing all inside and pancaking the engine compartment.

  Gunfire erupted again, wild flashes of vivid light and men shouting. Another Jeep pulled up. Four soldiers emerged, and promptly set up a surface to air missile. One of the soldiers regarded Angela and Bishop. “Get the hell out of here,” he said. “Or you’ll get the back thrust.”

  Within seconds, the missile system was enabled, and a guard holding the front end looked through an electronic guide, then fired.

  A long plume of smoke and fire trailed the missile as it snaked towards a billowing dust cloud a hundred feet tall.

  “Ranger1 en route to target,” a soldier said into his radio.

  “Where the hell is Vastus?” Angela asked as she ducked and held Bishop’s hand. “I don’t see it. Just a big debris cloud.”

  “Where we’re not going,” Bishop said.

  As soldiers emptied their rifles and reloaded the missile system, Bishop and Angela crawled into an idling Jeep, and backed out of the gravel lot. Bishop slammed the gas pedal, shooting up rocks and dirt from the rear wheels. He watched as the soldiers continued to fire at a gigantic dust cloud of soil and forest debris to the west.

  “Oh. My. God,” Angela said.

  Another red pine hurled towards the soldiers, and exploded onto an SUV.

  “Floor it!” Angela said.

  Bishop did. The towering cloud of dust and debris blossomed, and for a moment, Bishop thought he saw Vastus within that cloud, lumbering bigger than any dinosaur that ever existed.

  “Go!” Angela shouted as the debris cloud twisted closer to the road, and their only path out.

  Bishop slammed the gas pedal again. An object flew out of the swirling dust cloud, towards their Jeep. Like some comet, it grew bigger and bigger until Bishop was certain he and Angela were going to be smashed into oblivion. The boulder impacted the ground behind them, forcing the Jeep’s two back wheels up into the air as the engine revved wildly. The Jeep slammed down as forest debris rained down on them. For a moment, Bishop couldn’t see a thing. He kept his foot on the pedal, and powered through lighter and lighter layers of dust until daylight appeared. Up ahead, he glimpsed Forest Road 319, and swerved left.

  Dozens of military vehicles raced down the road towards Vastus in the opposite direction. A pair of Apache helicopters thundered overhead, in support.

  Angela took his hand as the wind battered their filthy hair.

  Quadrant 6 (60 BPM)

  Bishop turned right on a logging road that connected to Forest Road 312. After several minutes, he came upon his pickup truck at the initial drop-off point.

  Colbrick was inside the pickup bed, holding his side.

  “’took you so long?” he asked.

  “What happened?” Angela asked.

  “One of those rammers came out of nowhere after you left,” Colbrick said, “and got me good. I think it broke my ribs. Where’s Dr. Avery?”

  “He didn’t make it,” Bishop said.

  Colbrick said nothing; instead, he stared into the woods.

  Angela’s voice raised in pitch. “Colbrick, where’s Yutu?”

  Darkness overcame Bishop, much like the trees and boulders of Vastus blocking the sun.

  “I think the rammer got him,” Colbrick said.

  “Wait, what?” Angela said, as tears streamed down her face. “Yutu is dead?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Colbrick said. “He tangled with the rammer; that was the last I saw of him.”

  Bishop shed his uniform and put on his normal clothes. “We’re going to look for him,” he said.

  “Already tried, partner,” Colbrick said. “And I think I need to get to the hospital.”

  Angela hugged Bishop. “Poor Yutu,” she said. “I’ll get Colbrick to the ER, then come back for you. I’m so sorry, baby.”

  Bishop hugged and kissed his wife on the cheek, then headed into the woods.

  The mix of alive trees and dead trees seemed to mock him as he hurried through the forest, searching for his pooch. Harsh shadows darkened his mood. There had been a lot of death today. He wasn’t going to let Yutu be one of the victims. Not now, not ever if he could help it.

  A half hour in, Bishop caught a glimmer upon the ground. It was Yutu’s collar, and ID tag. Bishop held up the collar and clenched his teeth.

  In the night, Bishop called out his pooch’s name over and over as his headlamp cone dissected the Montana forest. But Yutu never came back.

  Big J, two days later, (40 BPM)

  Colbrick was at home healing, while Angela and Bishop had spent days in the woods searching for Yutu. The section of the Apex valley between Highway 81 and Forest Routes 312 and 319 had been closed for the foreseeable future. There was talk from the mayor that the military had begun preparations to pull out. With the lab invasive infected and some escapees, it was likely that ER18 had been spread to the remaining invasives, or was about to. No one had any information on Vastus, whether the invasive had lived or died.

  Perhaps, just maybe, Bishop’s valley would get back to normal. Except for one important thing: There would never be a normal without Yutu, ever.

  After returning from a twenty-hour search in the woods, Bishop and Angela laid on the couch, exhausted. He embraced her and kissed her and she cried in his arms.

  Bishop thought of the burning apartment, and how the poor pooch had endured. He thought of Yutu’s bravery, acting as a decoy for the fliers before he and Angela destroyed the clone ship.

  But most of all he thought of the cute little bugger’s face, looking up at him eagerly, tongue lolling.

  Bishop drifted off to sleep, holding Angela tight. The last thing he heard was her soft voice.

  “I love you,” she said. “We will get him back.”

  END

  Read on for a free sample of Horror In The Clouds

  Prologue

  Two Hundred and Three Years Ago

  Northwest Arizona

  The worn out, rickety old wagon came to a stop as the horses let out a snort. The Harkshore family took in the sights around them. Coming from the East coast, the family had never seen a landscape like this. Seemingly endless mountain ranges surrounded them and made them feel small and insignificant. There was also a thick fog that encased the tops of the mountains. For all the Harkshores knew, those mountains reached into the sky forever.

  It was the time of the day where the sun had begun to set and shadows danced across the mountains and the large open fields. Full clouds glided overhead and took on a more ominous appearance as the fading light of the sun seemed to make them dance with life.

  Lemuel Harkshore walked around the wagon and wondered what the hell he was doing out here. The land Lemuel now stood on was uncharted territory, and, according to some of the guys in the Virginia colony he used to call home, also dangerous. Both Natives and wild animals roamed these parts, and Lemuel was in no rush to run into either.

  Lemuel’s oldest son, Isaac, jumped from the wagon and joined his father.

  “Is this the place, Pa?” Isaac asked his father.

  Lemuel stood in the field and let his head fall back. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose. “Yes, Isaac,” Lemuel finally answered, “I believe we are home.”

  Lemuel opened his eyes and looked into the sky. His eyes widened as he thought he saw something move. He gasped as what looked like a large tentacle retracted into the thick, full clouds.

  “What is it, Pa?” Isaac asked.

  “Nothing, son,” Lemuel said as he patted his son on the shoulders. “I’m just exhausted from the journey. I think my eyes are playing tricks on me. Let’s set up so your mom and sisters can start the evening meal.”

  Lemuel watched as his wife, Henrietta, and daughters, Clara and Abigail, worked together to make supper. Lemuel had never shared the truth with He
nrietta about why he had wanted to journey out west into such dangerous territory. He had told her it was so the Harkshores would be seen as trailblazers.

  Someone needs to explore and tame this country, he had said to Henrietta. We could be the first family out west, maybe have a town named after us.

  Henrietta was a good woman and a dedicated wife. She never questioned Lemuel. A month after their discussion they had begun their journey westward.

  But Lemuel knew the truth. He had hated lying to his wife, but knew that if he told her the real reason for the journey that he’d be branded soft in the head.

  Adventure wasn’t what Lemuel had been after. It was the dreams—the visions. They had started two years before and at first Lemuel had written them off as byproducts of a fever. But the dreams had become more frequent and more detailed. Although he was a pious, religious man, Lemuel didn't believe that God or the Devil spoke to people in their dreams. Even as the dreams had become more like visions of a place far away, and he had started hearing The Voice beckoning him to journey west, he had never once believed he’d spoken to the Divine.

  The nameless thing that had spoken to Lemuel in his dreams had whispered strange words into his head.

  Derleth.

  R’lyeh.

  N’Xabez.

  In the vision that had finally persuaded Lemuel to go west, the thing had shown him a stygian, alien landscape where hideous, tentacled creatures lived in the clouds-where large, slimy-scaled worm-things slithered under the ground; where enormous, indescribable horrors lived in the turbulent oceans-horrors that could have only been described as other-worldly.

  Lemuel had known that the visions would never stop until he went to the tenebrous location that the thing in his head repeatedly showed him. Throughout the trek, the eldritch thing had guided him to the location on which he now stood, visiting him in his dreams and directing him to this particular piece of land. Lemuel often wondered if he was the only person that had those nightly visions.

  Am I the only accursed one on Earth to have such vivid and ghastly visions? he often wondered.

  Lemuel returned his gaze to the clouds and watched as they hurried across the sky. He couldn’t help but feel as though something was watching him, and he was certain it wasn’t the Lord keeping him in His sights.

  Later, during the evening meal, the Harkshore family ate in silence and enjoyed the weather, as the weather would start to get cold at this time of year in Virginia. They ate in silence and enjoyed the warm nighttime breeze.

  Lemuel had decided it was time to tell his family the truth of what had really brought them out to this location. The secret he held had made him distant from his family over the last several years. He figured that, now that they were here, he may as well share the reason for the journey.

  “Family,” Lemuel started to say when he was interrupted by his Abigail.

  “Pa!” Abigail almost screamed. “Pa! Somebody is coming!”

  Lemuel jumped up and grabbed the Springfield Musket from the wagon’s rear. His family gathered around him as they listened to what sounded like footsteps.

  Footsteps and creaky wagon wheels.

  “We come in peace and mean you no harm!” a voice shouted from the darkness.

  Lemuel lowered his weapon. He knew nothing about the Natives in this area, but had imagined that they didn’t speak English.

  As Lemuel and his family huddled closer together, they watched as five wagons came into view.

  “We saw your fire, kind Sir,” said one of the newcomers. The man looked to be around Lemuel’s age and approached with his palms extended.

  “What are you all doing out here?” Lemuel asked the man as his gaze went back and forth between the five wagons.

  “I suspect we are here for the very same reason you are here,” said an older, bearded man from a different wagon. “The five of us met up a few days ago when we realized we were all headed to the same place.”

  “We all had the same dreams,” the man whose palms were still extended said. “The same visions.”

  “What are they talking about, Lemuel?” Henrietta asked.

  Lemuel stood and continued to look at the new arrivals. He finally turned and looked at his family. “Come, family,” he finally said. “Let us welcome the new arrivals.”

  Something inside Lemuel clicked. He felt as though the final piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle had fallen into place. He now knew why he was given those visions, and he knew what must be done.

  Later, as the six families sat around the fire and ate, Lemuel had never been more certain about what must be done.

  “This is to be our first night in this strange yet familiar land,” Lemuel said as he looked at all the families. “Gentlemen,” he said as he looked at the patriarchs of each family. “We all know why we are here, and we know what we are to do. We have been given this territory, and tomorrow we begin the task of taming this land and founding a town.”

  The other patriarchs nodded in agreement. They’d all had the same visions of the land they now occupied—of the clouds above them.

  “We are all here for a particular reason,” Lemuel continued, “and it is of the greatest importance that we fulfill our destiny.”

  Lemuel and the other patriarchs knew the women and children were confused and didn’t understand his words.

  “Women, children,” Lemuel said as he addressed all the confused looks. “Fear not. The time has come to tell you what brought us here and for what reason. All will be understood soon enough. Tonight we shall share our stories with you, and tomorrow begins the founding of the town of Derleth.”

  Upon saying ‘Derleth,’ everyone heard something in the clouds above. It sounded like something had grunted a sound of approval.

  The men then proceeded to tell the women and children their individual experiences of the dreams and visions they’d each had. The stories lasted long into the night, and the women accepted everything they were told.

  After the final man told his tale, Henrietta looked at Lemuel.

  “Husband,” she said in an even tone, “tell us now about Derleth.”

  The conversation continued into the night, and unbeknownst to the families, the indescribable thing in the clouds listened to every word.

  Horror In The Clouds is available from Amazon here.