Alien Apocalypse - Payback Copyright Š 2014 by Dean Giles All rights reserved. No part of this story (e-book) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or book reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidences are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Edited by Terry Wright Cover Art by Terry Wright ISBN: 978-1-936991-78-5
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By Dean Giles The M-25 motorway stretched before me. Piles of abandoned vehicles lay ruined on either side of the road. Their red, white, black and blue paint jobs were dented and rusted when bulldozer-sized plows had smashed them aside like rubbish. I wondered if creating walls of debris was Blackbeard’s intention when he cleared the motorway, a further barrier against the encroaching acid-moss. Or was his interest simply in domination over the survivors he found? I could see where the moss had burned through windscreens and wing-mirrors, eaten holes in the steel, and dissolved tyres, now dripping green acid onto the hot asphalt. How long before the moss finds a way to knit itself together across the roads? How long can we really hope to survive in this alien’s environment? These were the questions that repeated in my mind, questions I dared not voice to the others. Isabel, Harry, and Elliott trudged forward in front of me, feet scuffling on the blacktop, eyes constantly scanning the area for unwanted company, both human and alien alike.
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Sweat leaked into my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a shower. My oil-soaked clothes and skin reeked, but without coating ourselves with the slime, the moss would’ve already eaten us. Elliott turned around but kept walking, backwards. “How long before we reach the refinery, Dad?” I looked at him. Cheekbones cut with sharp edges defined my boy's expression. All the horror he'd seen had subtly told its story through his dark, unblinking eyes. Not the face that belonged to a twelve-year-old, at least not in the old world. He held the oil-sprayer nozzle at his side. The hose ran up to his fire-fighter backpack and its pressurized canister of oil, our only defence against the moss. He never once complained about carrying that much weight on his back. “We're about six miles out, should make it before dark.” Through all of this, I still had Elliott, and for that, I felt blessed. Harry had lost an arm to Blackbeard. Isabel was a replicate of her former self, thanks to the alien. Just the same, they too were blessed, happy to be alive. Elliott had grown from a boy to a young man, the hard way. I smiled. His lips lifted in reply, tearing down some of the hardness in his face. “I’m hungry.” A hint of the child behind his oily mask. I stepped up to him and ruffled his hair but stopped short of telling him everything was going be okay. I could only hope the people at the refinery had food to spare. My task was simple, in theory, but practically impossible in execution. I’d have to convince the refinery people to help me fight
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the alien. In order to do that, they would probably die, and of course, they’d have to hand over their oil reserves to the cause. That was the only thing protecting them from the invading moss. I didn’t even have a detailed plan how we might use all that oil to kill the alien creature. One step at a time. Get the oil first. The refinery was our only hope. And those people needed to be told about the supposed safe place, the prisoners there, and how we’d need to rescue them as soon as possible. Harry’s words from when we first met echoed in my head, and he was right. My idea of the right thing to do might not align with others’. I did not intend to take the refinery from them by force. If I couldn’t convince them to help then my plan would fail. The refinery processed eleven million tons of crude oil each year. I reckoned two-hundred and fifty-thousand tonnes were stored in the tank farm. Should be enough oil there to stain the English Channel black. Surely we had enough to piss off an over grown alien plant intent on destroying the earth. Up ahead Harry and Isabel walked side by side. Harry’s empty t-shirt sleeve flapped as he walked. He had allowed me to strap his severed stub tightly to his chest. The tough old bastard had lost a lot of blood, but as far as I could see, he was cast from iron. Antibiotics in my medical pack were running low, and I silently prayed there’d be enough to stave off any infection. Isabel looked hot. I mean, she was hot, in more ways than one. She’d slung her leather jacket over her shoulder. Just looking at her
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legs took some of the sting out of my predicament. It had been years since I’d felt this kind of pull from a woman, electric, like silk ribbons tickling my insides. I knew with all my heart that I still loved Claire, probably would for the rest of my life. Her life, her death, and her memory were so much a part of me, I didn’t think there was room inside my heart to love anyone else, at least not until Isabel came along. Was it possible for me to love them both and be all right with that? I had no idea. The M-25 motorway curved left then right. A large green sign confirmed we’d reached the A-13 junction. This was where our situation got interesting. One road led to the refinery, so there’d be no surprise entrance for us. I’d considered walking a hell of lot longer, in a roundabout direction, to double back across the A-127, which would have brought us in from behind the refinery and taken another day. That wasn’t going to happen. I didn’t think the refinery people would be expecting anyone, not yet. With Blackbeard and his henchmen out the way, the remaining survivors were probably trying to reorganise themselves. A community without a leader was, generally, a disorganised community, at least for a while. Under Blackbeard’s autocratic leadership, I’d bet there were already roots of a rebellion growing amongst the others. They either had some form of hierarchy in place, or perhaps they would call for votes to pick a new leader. Considering their circumstances, they may or may not have quickly found order. So I’d have to move in fast, if I wasn’t already too late. The
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community may have become entrenched in their new leader and be less obliging to outsiders like us. Up ahead, the road ran under a bridge. Thick moss on either side glistened in the afternoon heat. The deadly blanket rose up the roadway banks to the upper level. I noticed this because there seemed to be something under the bridge, blocking our way. “What in God’s name is that?” Harry shouted back to me. Suspended from the bridge, the moss had joined together like a giant green spider’s web. It sagged under its own weight, resembling a tarpaulin filled with heavy rainwater. “That’s new,” Elliott said. I’d never seen the moss grow across a gap like this, rooted in the mossy banks on both sides of the bridge. The ingenuity required to pull off such a feat made me aware of an intelligence at work here. I figured that either the moss was getting smart, or it was under the control of the alien’s mind. The question I asked myself was why. Why go through all this trouble? “Don’t get any closer,” I shouted ahead to Harry and Isabel. Elliott raised the oil-sprayer nozzle, ready to do battle. The web of green crisscrossed the underside of the bridge. Its bulk sagged and undulated, a living organism under great physical stress. The air around it was sharp with the smell of acetone, vaguely reminded me of nail polish remover. I thought of Claire curled up in her chair, doing her nails, her bathrobe barely covering her knees...then I thought of death. The web of moss reeked of death.
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In the past, if someone got in the way of the encroaching moss, or simply stepped on it, acids in the moss began to digest the person, animal, bird, whatever had been so unfortunate. What if the moss had learned to attack its prey instead of lying in wait? It was a theory that needed testing, but how? I approached a nearby car discarded weeks ago by a panicked driver. Inside, I spotted a leather handbag on the passenger seat. Its contents: make-up, mobile phone, bottled water, and coin purse, filled me with silent regret. Something so normal, so familiar to the old world, seemed so out of place now, so worthless. “What have you got there, Dad?” “Bait.” I took out the water bottle and stood as close to the bridge as I dared. “Dad, be careful.” Elliott stood next to Isabel, who had her arm looped around Harry. He held his shotgun steady in his good hand. My plan was to make contact with the underside of the moss and see if it reacted. I threw the bottle up into the belly of the web. As my hand shot out, before I had time to pull it back, before I had time to register the movement, a mossy tentacle whipped down from the web and snatched the airborne water bottle. Another prickly tentacle wrapped around my wrist. The fact that I was soaked in protective oil had no repelling effect on the creature. A grip like steel handcuffs sent a shockwave up my arm. My stomach lurched and my boots scraped on the ground as the
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moss pulled me toward the web. The sun, warm on my bare arms, turned to a chill as I was yanked into the shadow of the bridge. I had been right about the moss’s new tactic to feed. Why did I have to be right? But I wasn’t dead yet. With my free hand, I grabbed for the knife on my belt. A second tentacle shot down, snaring my wrist just before my hand made contact with the handle. “Damn!” A third mossy vine gripped my waist, a fourth...a fifth. I lost all sense of direction as it pulled me off my feet. Sharp pain ricocheted through the back of my head. The conscious side of my brain told me I’d taken a knock, while the unconscious side drew up like a tsunami and took me under. ***
To find out what happens next go to www.twbpress.com/alienapocalypsepayback.html to find the links to download the entire story.
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About the Author
Dean lives with his wife and two young children in Surrey, UK. He owns a business jointly with his father, developing and manufacturing fibre optic components and instruments for the telecommunications, sensing, and data industries. His day job consists largely of shining light through fragile glass fibres, and trying to glue very small things to even smaller things. Dean is a 2nd Dan Black Belt in Kickboxing and has won national and international titles in the sport. In 2003 he spent a few months living and training at a Shaolin Kung Fu academy in Northern China. Now he writes science fiction and horror, and his short stories have appeared in webzines in the UK and US. A love of reading, gaming, and watching SF/F has given him the motivation to put his ideas onto paper.
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Enjoy more short stories from Dean Giles
Alien Apocalypse – The Hunger, (Prequel to The Storm) (TWB Press, 2011) A sci-fi short story by Dean Giles - FREE from TWBPress.com http://www.twbpress.com/alienapocalypsethehunger.html
Alien Apocalypse – The Storm (TWB Press, 2011) A sci-fi short story by Dean Giles http://www.twbpress.com/alienapocalypsethestorm.html
Alien Apocalypse – Genesis (TWB Press, 2012) A sci-fi short story by Dean Giles http://www.twbpress.com/alienapocalypsiegenesis.html
The Tournaent (TWB Press, 2012) A sci-fi futuristic short story by Dean Giles http://www.twbpress.com/thetournament.html
Ghost in the Machine (TWB Press, 2011) A horror short story by Dean Giles http://www.twbpress.com/ghostinthemachine.html
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