Survivors

It was three days later when they finally decided they were ready to leave. Bretnel hadn’t seemed to mind that they didn’t want their coco, but it was so hard to work Bretnel out that they decided not risk another night of refusal. They waited till Bretnel had gone off to do whatever it was he did before rushing back to their room to collect all the stuff. They grabbed their packs and the rest of their kit and dashed for the long corridor. It seemed an age since they had come down that long passage and first met Bretnel, in truth it had only been a few weeks but it felt so much longer. As they got closer to the exit they could feel the coldness outside, that was something they were going to have to get used to again.

As they emerged into the pale daylight the cold really hit them. There wasn’t any snow on the ground but it was hard and icy. They pulled their coats tight around their shoulders and crunched off towards the road.

“What way now?” Asked Holly.

“I suppose it’s back to the original plan” said Luke “Up to the mountains, to see if we can find any other survivors”

They stared up into the mountains, they looked extremely dark and unwelcoming. The very thought of trudging up into the cold mountain air made them shiver. Almost as one they dragged their hats further down onto their heads and pulled their scarves up over their mouths. Peering through the narrow slit between hat and scarf they trudged along the road in single file following it further into the mountains.

The first day was dreary and the camp they made in a small valley was miserable and cheerless. They crawled into their sleeping bags early and fully clothed. Still the cold bit deep into their bones making them ache. The night dragged as they tossed and turned never able to get into a really deep sleep. Stiffly they got up in the morning tired and gloomy after their restless night.

Day two and three passed with pretty much the same dreary boredom. On the fourth morning Joe was first awake, he had gathered some snow to boil and had made some hot sweet tea for all of them that they now sipped out of their tin mugs. They cupped the mugs in their hands trying to get some warmth into their frozen fingers. Suddenly Holly looked up her eyes wide with fear.

“Shhhh” she said.

“What?” Whispered Luke.

“Listen can you hear that. Can you feel...”

And then all of a sudden they knew what she meant and they could all hear and feel it. The slight but distinct droning hum of the Aliens. In all honesty it was more feeling than hearing. It was the prickling sensation across your skin and the tingling in every hair on your body that made you think you could hear something even when you couldn’t. Suddenly from out of the trees came a six unit Alien patrol. They came in staggered pairs from three sides so they could cover each other with their lasers. There were five scouts and a patrol captain. The kids had seen this type of grouping a hundred times before . It was a brutal efficient set up designed to herd and control packs of humans. The Aliens didn’t use much imagination in the way they dealt with people, but then again they didn’t need to with the fire power they had. This group certainly wouldn’t need much imagination, all they had to do was keep the lasers trained on their three captives and none of them would have any chance of escape.

“Shit” hissed Joe “Shit, shit, shit”

“Silence” boomed the metallic processed voice of the captain “Lay down your weapons and step away from the dwelling”

“It’s not a weapon you idiot” snapped Luke “It’s tea”

“Lay down your.. Tea .. And step away from the dwelling.

In spite of himself Joe sniggered. The snigger only lasted for a second, partly because he recognised the seriousness of the situation they found themselves in, but mostly because three of the Alien lasers swivelled towards him and began to glow just a little brighter.

“You will raise your hands and follow us” said the Captain.

The kids looked at each other in despair.

“Now!” Barked the Captain.

“Okay, okay” said Luke raising his hands.

Then without any warning at all it seemed as if all hell was let loose.

The scout to Luke’s right was suddenly thrown backwards as it exploded into flames and belched black smoke from it’s fractured body with a deafening roar. Something inside the SCOUT was still functioning, or at least malfunctioning because is careered off through the wood like a flaming pin ball, snapping saplings and hitting the trunks of the bigger trees so hard that they shook to the very top leaves in the highest branches. The remaining scouts and the Captain spun on their axis scanning speedily and efficiently to find the target on which to lock their lasers. Speed and efficient their scanning may have been but effective it wasn’t! They couldn’t lock on, they couldn’t acquire their targets, in fact they couldn’t register anything at all.

For a split second or two all the units stopped moving and the only sound was the stricken SCOUT still bouncing round the forest leaving a trail of thick acrid smoke behind it. Then without warning the SCOUT closest to Holly seemed to detonate like a massive firework and screamed off into the air with a ear splitting screech. It disappeared off over the tree tops leaving an impressive sparking smoky trail behind it. This time even the Aliens seemed to lose their cool, if a Alien can ever be described as cool. They blazed away with their lasers scything off branches and setting fire to the trees around the clearing, but whether they knew what they were firing at or if they were hitting anything was debatable. They may have indiscriminately roasted the odd squirrel and lightly toasted a fox but they certainly didn’t hit anything that could have taken out two fully armed scouts in a matter of seconds.

During the particular seconds in question Luke, Joe and Holly had been huddled on the floor in three little balls trying to be as small and as much like nothing at all as possible. It was hard to work out what was going on with your head tucked as close into your chest as possible and your hands up over your ears. The fact that whatever was happening was bad for the Aliens was in the short term very positive, but if any of the Aliens did survive the medium term likelihood of them staying alive was not on the whole good. Luke sneaked a glance up and just for a moment he thought he saw a figure in the smoke. It was roughly human shaped, but only very very roughly. It’s legs were far too long and bulky especially up where the thighs would have been. It’s arms also looked hugely muscled and a little too numerous, in fact it looked like it had six arms, which was pretty alarming. Even more alarming, if this was possible, was the fact that at the end of four of the arms seemed to be a very big gun. Then suddenly it was gone. Luke couldn’t be sure but he thought he saw the figure crouch slightly as if coiling the power into those massive thighs, then it sprung and literally took off vertically. It shot up so fast that it was almost as if it had instantaneously disappeared.

A third scout exploded in a shower of sparks while the others still blazed away with their lasers doing even more damage to the local fauna and flora – and possibly more small furry animals! The loss of its third trooper seemed to trip some sort of logic circuit in the Captain’s mind. It ominously lowered it laser and advanced towards the three children on the floor.

“You have participated in an attack on Alien forces” boomed the rasping electronic voice “You will be executed for your crimes”.

It took careful aim, the laser began to glow bright white. Holly and Joe hugged each other and buried their faces in each others’ shoulders. Luke stared at the laser in horror and then closed his eyes not wanting to see the means of his own death. He waited, nothing happened, he opened one eye. The Captain was sparking all over with bright blue electric light. It looked like a whole storms worth of lightning was crackling over its body work as it shuddered and convulsed. There seemed to be some sort of spike sticking out the top of the Captain’s head. Luke looked at the spike and realised that is wasn’t a spike at all, it was a tail. His eyes followed the tail up into the air where it joined the body of what he thought was the figure he’d seen earlier. He assumed it was the same figure but now he saw it closer the legs didn’t look quite so long and he could only see four arms, oh and a couple of massive wings that were beating so fast that they were a blur. He watched it hover about ten feet above the ground, again only for a second or two before it whipped it’s spiked tail out of the Alien and shot off. The Captain was obviously short circuiting badly and began to spin wildly in an alarming manner. Even more alarmingly it began to blaze away with its laser. One of these blasts sliced into one of the remaining scouts practically chopping it in half.

The last scout realised it was the only survivor of it’s patrol so did what all good soldiers do in situations like this it legged it! Smoke still billowed and swirled all around the clearing making it hard to see exactly what was going on so for a little while neither Luke, Joe or Holly were sure if what they saw next really happened or not. Out of the smoke came a tall thin figure it had wild hair a big shaggy beard and was swathed in bandoleers, holsters and very big nasty looking guns. It was Bretnel.

“In which direction did the last of our foes extricate itself from this scene of the recent hostilities?” He asked.

Whether it was delayed shock of the battle or just the shock of seeing Bretnel none of them replied, they just stared blankly. The best any of them could manage was a “Huh?” from Joe.

“Which way did it go?” Asked Bretnel again hoisting one of the guns onto his shoulder.

Holly pointed in the direction the scout had fled.

“Fear not I will return once the hostile unit has been eradicated” said Bretnel. He began to jog after the scout and to all the kids it seemed that with every stride he took, he grew taller more muscled and most bizarrely of all sprouted a huge pair of leathery wings.