Not So Simple ~Part 1
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Not So Simple
Part 1: Night Terrors
I watched him through my rifle's scope, more out of curiosity than anything else. He was a tiger, it looked like. Black with green stripes. That was certainly a curious combination, though I didn't have very much room to talk given my own combination. Still, it was rare we saw one of our own wandering around anymore. They were either all dead, or part of some gathering or another. Or so we hoped, we really had no idea if we were the last of our kind or not.
I'd first seen him an hour before. He was stalking the same group of humans we had been. He had hunkered down behind a burned out car as the sun slowly set, waiting until night to make his move. Smart. Humans had always been short sighted, and that hadn't seemed to have changed even after the war. He knew, like I did, that the humans would start a fire, and there goes any hope of seeing him before he was on them. They deserved to die for that stupidity, if nothing else. I'd told the rest of my team to bunker down and wait. Kerros watched through a pair of binocs. The range from the building we were positioned in to the human camp wasn't very far, a short jog at most, and my rifle had more than enough range. If things got hairy for the tiger, I'd help out. Otherwise, we decided, let's see what he can do. We weren't just going to let him walk away, regardless. Unless of course he wanted to. They never did.
I allowed my mind to briefly think back to before everything. Back to the facilities. I wondered which one he had been created in, what role he played in the destruction of civilization. Maybe he'd been bred at the same one I had. I doubted it though. He was likely a first generation. They tried to stick with what they knew back then. Third gens like me were a little bit more bizarre. I'd heard rumours during my time in the facilities about the humans trying to create a kraken for naval warfare, but didn't know if they were anything more then rumours. I certainly hoped they were; that would not be a pleasant existence. Well, no existence was pleasant anymore. Not since the bombs fell and nuked everything into oblivion.
"Z, I think he's about ready to move. I'm moving up, you gonna stay here?" Kerros asked me.
I blinked and looked around for a moment. Had so many hours really passed without me realizing it? I fluttered my wings in agitation for a moment. That was a bad sign. If I'd been on my own, that easily could have meant death. Staying focused was the difference between life and death anymore.
"Yea, I'll come with. It shouldn't be too challenging for him, and we don't wanna let him get too far ahead of us," I replied, moving slowly to get up and stretch.
We broke our makeshift camp in a few moments, something that had been hardwired into us in the past five years. You never knew when you'd have to get up and run. And it's never a good idea to leave anything behind. We jumped out of the shattered windows, the ground wasn't that far down, and moved silently towards the human's camp. I gave a quick signal to disperse, and we disappeared into the dark. I watched the tiger make his approach to the camp, the chill wind masking any sound he might make and making the humans cluster closer to their fire.
He was efficient, I'll give him that. Barely having entered their camp, two of the humans were dead, their throats slashed. The knife flew through the air to bury itself in a third, and the rest were shot, no more than three rounds per target. He reloaded, sticking the half empty clip back into his pack, and looted all he could from the camp. I was willing to bet that was ammo and water, maybe a little food. The tiger slowly left the camp, the meager fire still sputtering and burning, and the scent of fresh blood strong in the air. I crossed and followed behind him, picking out Myla almost straight ahead of us, her lithe form not quite completely blending in with the darkness. The tiger must have noticed her too, because he stopped. He slowly raised his rifle to take aim at her. I crossed the distance between us in two long steps, drawing my blade. I slid it up against his neck. His limbs froze.
"That would not be a good idea, brother," I hissed softly, using the language we had created before the war instead of the human's one.
It was taking a slight risk calling him brother. Maybe he hated anthros as much as humans. Maybe he was insane. I had no way of knowing. The gun, however, slowly lowered, and his limbs relaxed. I took the knife away from his throat and backed away a few steps. He turned to regard me, the biohazard symbol in his eye flashing a light blue. That was a good sign at least. Meant he wasn't about to attack me. Regardless, I kept my knife out, ready to move if need be. He regarded me for a moment, his eyes lingering on my horns and wings. I knew what he was thinking. The same thing everyone always thought first time they saw me.
"Come if you want, your wanderings are over," I said.
"How did you find me?" the tiger asked.
"Those humans you killed. We were hunting them. You got to them before we could. Very nice job, by the way. I was impressed with the way you handled it." I smiled and continued, "I would imagine you're tired. Come with me, if you like. We can offer you a home."
The others came up around us while I was talking. Kerros noticed something about the tiger's uniform and nodded to him, touching the chain of dog-tags around his neck. I guessed it had something to do with Kerros' history. Maybe the two were alike. The tiger looked at each of us, relief crossing his face.
"It would be a welcome change," he said.
I smiled and nodded.
"Right then, follow me. My name is Zyrin. Zyrin Kain. This is Talde, Myla, and Kerros," I said, pointing to each of them in turn.
"It's very nice to meet you all, after s long. My name is Keildpar Valius, Kippy for short."
We nodded to him. I looked back and listened for a moment. A slight scraping sound was coming from the ruins. It could be nothing, or it could be something. There were enough sightings of strange things to cause worry. I unslung my rifle and cradled it, ready.
"We have to move. Talde, take point. Let's get back to the community, probably best to take him back there anyway. Spread out, stay low."
Kippy jumped immediately into action with the rest of them, falling out exactly as I'd instructed. Well, at least he was a good listener. I had noticed the necklace with the dog tags he had, same as Kerros. Must be another sole-survivor from a combat unit in the war. It would explain the efficiency, but surviving for five years in an environment that only wanted to kill you tended to harden you. Get sloppy, you probably weren't going to be alive for much longer.
Five years. Seems like a long time, on paper. Longer when each and every day might very well be your last. Ruins were unstable, there were still enough humans to be a threat to us, and frankly, they hated us. Go figure, we pretty much destroyed their civilization. There were undoubtedly places where it persisted much the same way as before the world, or maybe even better off because of it. I didn't know. All I knew was I was here, in what remained of America. Once, this country had apparently been the best. Everyone wanted to be like America. Then time caught up with it and it started slipping away. And then we came into the picture, bred to be mindless soldiers to make their lives easier. Didn't quite work out that way, as we weren't as mindless as they thought. We struck back, violently, and apparently decided when it turned against us to waste the planet. Which was all well and fine, except now we were stuck living in that same wasted planet. Good thing we had radiation resistance. Another key design feature they built into us, just so we could run into battle after a nuclear attack. Or maybe it was just a natural thing that had happened. Either way, radiation wasn't much of a problem. Oh, go around a nuke crater and hang around for a while, we will get sick. But dispersed, even ingested, the radiation wasn't a big problem. Humans, on the other hand, needed a lot of medication to counter the effects. And maybe future generations would develop a resistance to it. I doubted it.
The moon had fully risen by the time we moved away from the camp, bathing the world in a pale, bleaching white. It was only half full, but it was enough. For most anthros, that would make it about as bright as noon. Humans would be struggling to see. The skittering of rocks again reached my ears, and I noted Kerros stop and turn towards the sound. He waited for a moment, and then moved over to me.
"I have a bad feeling about this."
"The skittering, I know. It doesn't seem like something caused by the wind. Maybe we're being paranoid, but I doubt it. Pull them in a bit and stay on your toes."
The last part was rather pointless; I knew Kerros expected danger to erupt with every step. It was a side effect of going through the hell of the war, I suppose. Us third generations were still in the facilities when the war broke out. There wasn't a whole lot we could do to help out at the time it started. The facilities weren't exactly stocked with a fully functional armoury. A few automatic weapons for the guards, but for the most part they were non-lethal rounds. We were far too expensive to just wantonly gun down, I guess. When our facility was fully liberated and we were able to join the fighting, the war was well under way. I remember the push across the Rocky Mountains particularly clearly, largely for the fact it was my first combat action. I'd joined up with the unit that'd come through and supplied us. We weren't formally organized like the humans, having clearly defined units like the 4th Infantry Division or 22nd Mechanized. We just grouped together and followed whoever stepped up to lead us, generally one of the first gens. We didn't fight among ourselves for position, we were all pretty equal. Guess it was like communism in a way. Or maybe more like a pack. And we actually listened to each other and used specialties to our advantage. The humans just seemed to throw everyone into a meat grinder.
The push through the Rockies was fierce. Lots of ambushes. It was heavily forested for the most part, lots of hills and valleys. Go figure, it's the damn mountains. We were pushing in to assist in taking out a place called NORAD. Apparently the humans were fighting tooth and nail to hold it. That was one of the few places we hadn't replaced the guards. I have to say though, ambushing their reinforcements on the road was fun. I'd discovered I'm a very good long range shot, so I got a sniper rifle. Same one I still carry. We'd blocked the road with a few trees and rocks after a pretty fierce storm, making it look like a rock slide. The troop convoy had rolled up to stop, and of course all the soldiers got out stretching, or getting to work clearing the road. It's kinda funny how they never got rid of the habit of saluting officers, or how the officer always had to look fancier then the soldier. Made them stand out more. Boom, there goes a major, his head a pulp. Boom, there's the sergeant trying to get everyone moving. Boom, guy trying to get into a chaingun. Boom, last vehicle disabled. And while this is happening, the soldier panic and forget simple combat disciplines. Then, from the trees, a sustained barrage of shots cutting everyone down. Quick check to make sure everyone's dead, any useful items salvaged, the trucks disabled, and the road effectively blocked off. We'd set up traps in the area in case anyone else decided to try to move through the area. Other anthros knew enough to avoid scenes like that, and if they did venture into them, they'd either know what to look for to find the traps and avoid them.
By the time we finally got up to the mountain, though, the defenses had been cracked and we weren't needed. So we decided to move west. A few stayed behind with the NORAD group, and some went east, and the rest went west. I stayed with them for a while. There were a lot of holdouts in the mountains, and a lot of furs died clearing them. I'm still not even sure they're as clear as a lot of us thought. Lots of caves and valleys, and most of the humans there had lived there for a while, maybe generations, and knew the region a lot better than we did. Still, we cleared out a lot. It was around the crest in the range when I decided to break off and head back east. The mountains really weren't suited to long range shots. Too many changes in elevation and weather, and the trees tended to screw my sightlines.
My back tingled and my wings fluttered slightly. There was something behind us, watching our group progress. I spun around and looked through my scope, the image enhance automatically activating to accompany the low light setting. I panned the rifle around, looking for anything that was out of place. Lots of shadows gave plenty of places to hide. Kippy slid up next to me silently.
"What do you see?" he asked.
I remained silent and continued scoping the area. There was nothing down the street as far as I could see, but still my spine crawled. Whatever was out there wasn't friendly. That much I knew.
"Nothing, but there's something back there. We need to get out of here quickly. If something is hunting us, it must be very confident of itself, or very stupid. I'm ruling out the latter just because of how hard it is to find," I said quietly before raising my voice enough for the rest to hear "Stealth is taking a back seat to speed now. Move it out, fast."
I turned and started jogging, the rest of us falling in. Our packs made the most noise, bouncing around, always moving opposite to the steps we were taking. It wasn't that far from here to where we'd set up our community, but knowing we were being hunted made that distance seem unbearably far away.
"Hang left, back into the ruins, go to 81st. There's a good place to hole up for a little bit there. I don't wanna lead whatever is behind us home," Kerros said.
We turned at the next intersection and kept our pace up. Two blocks and we'd be at one of many bolt holes we'd established around the city. It was on the 7th floor of one of the office buildings. Very defensible, and with a few secluded interior rooms only accessible if you knew how to find the openings. I didn't know how many of the bolt holes there were in the city. I'm not sure anyone really did. There were signs to where one was, stuff only we could really recognize. Some we'd made, some we found. Who made the others we weren't sure. Other anthros wondering the city I guess. It was a damn big city, so there very well may be another community or two out there.
A shrill, keening wail pierced the cool night, freezing my blood in my veins. That was not an earthly sound. And it was right behind us. Kerros and I stopped and spun around, hunting. There was a flash of light back at the intersection. Two small pinpricks. I scoped down and hunted. There, a shadow in the shadows. And two pinpricks of light. Eyes. Glowing. Very brightly. Not normal. The screech sounded again and another form moved forward. Same glowing eyes. They looked hungry. And I guess we were dinner.
"What do you see?"
"Nothing good. Get your guns up!"
The rest took firing positions in the street while I backed up, keeping the glowing eyes in the rifle sights. Come forward, and lose your head. Four shadows suddenly started running forward. They were like nothing I'd ever seen before. They had long arms ending in a tri-claw, each claw as long as my forearm. They were hunched, with oblong heads and a large spine ridge down their back and tail. The tail itself was nearly as long as the creature itself. Their legs had two knee joints, looking almost like a z. And they were thin. There seemed to be very little in the way of mass on the creatures. I swear I could see the outlines of their bones in the skin. The moonlight really didn't allow for colours to show, but they looked like a burnt brown. And they were fast.
I fired, the round striking cleanly in the middle of the creatures head. Its head jerked back and it shuddered, but then started running forward again. I fired again, striking a different spot, to the same result. Twice more I fired; hitting that spot again, and finally the creature twitch and went limp. These things didn't like dying. The others had opened fire on the remaining creatures. As the creatures drew closer, shots were less and less timed, eventually just going into full auto. At such range, not many would miss. I swung around and put two rounds into one, firing from the hip. It dropped. I emptied the last shots into the third, which staggered it long enough for Kippy to get a good burst through its eye. The last one leapt the remaining distance to our group before I could finish reloading and landed on top of Talde, the claws easily ripping through him, body armour and all. He fell back, blood pouring from the claw wounds. The creature turned and looked at me, opening its mouth and releasing the keening wail again, despite the bullet holes filling its weird frame. Myla took that moment and shoved her shotgun into its mouth, pulling the trigger and blowing the back of its head off. She cocked it and slung it back over her pack in its holder. She knelt next to Talde's body and closed his eyes.
"What the hell were those things?" Kippy asked, looking at me with a bewildered expression on his face.
I shrugged. That wasn't anything I'd ever seen before. Guess some of the rumours of strange creatures were true. It made me think of all the bolt holes that seemed to have no owner. Maybe they'd run afoul of these things. If there were more of them out there, the city just became a hell of a lot more dangerous. Myla took her shotgun back down and walked down the street with Kerros, putting a round through each of the creature's heads to make sure they wouldn't be getting back up. After the final shot, the silence was unsettling and thick. Kippy was jumpy, Kerros was on edge. My blood still hadn't thawed from the first wail.
"Some kind of other experiment?" Kerros suggested, leaning over the one that had eviscerated Talde.
"I wouldn't put it past the humans. This seems like something they'd make. Some kind of shock weapon. Flip it over," I said.
Myla and Kerros grunted and struggled, but eventually flipped it. Apparently it was heavy in addition to hard to kill, though it really didn't look like it should be. I looked at the eyes, still glowing as they had been when I first saw the creatures. It was rather creepy staring into them, almost like despite being full of bullets and missing half its head, it was still alive. There, left eye. Biohazard symbol.
"Yea, this is one of their. Nothing like anything I've ever heard about though. Fuck it, we'll let others decide what that means. Get his back, salvage what you can. Fast as you can. I don't want to be out here any longer then we absolutely have to be," I said.
Yea, most would probably see it as mean to loot the dead, especially an ally, but Talde wasn't going to be needing any of his equipment, and stuff was too precious to waste. We split the equipment among the four of us and left the scene, moving quickly back down the street. Every shift in the ruins from wind or animals made us jump and prepare to shoot, always expecting more of those things. Funny how the night tends to play up simple fears, isn't it?