2021 (23 page)

They then set off on what seemed like a very long trek
, before they finally saw some lights in the distance.

When the
y reached a point where the lights worked again, Stuart nodded his head.

‘Well I make that just over five hundred yards, a long way for just one creature to prevent any electricity or anything else from working’ he commented. ‘Any further and we would have had to move the entire camp further back.’

Now in some light again
, the soldier went to light up a cigarette, but his lighter still wouldn’t work.

‘Damn a
nd I could kill someone for a smoke’ he cursed.

‘You’ll
have to pack it in’ smiled his sergeant, putting his arm around him. ‘Well done, Soldier, well make a man of you yet’ he smiled.

‘Thanks, Sergeant’ the soldier nodded back
‘but I don’t fancy meeting those things again.’

‘Curious’ nodded Stuart
as they continued walking towards the camp ‘then electricity is definitely restored before the natural flame is.’

‘By the way’ uttered Stuart
, as they finally arrived closer to the lights and were able to see a little more ‘well done, you three, you may have just saved the whole human race for all we know.’

‘God, that light hurts my eyes
now’ moaned Jack as he held his arm up to cover his face.

‘Don’t
start bloody moaning or we’ll send you back there, so you can spend the night with old ugly face down in the pit’ Stuart grinned.

‘No thanks
, I think I’ll pass on that invitation’ smiled Jack.

Eventually, they made it to where everything
actually did work again and Stuart smiled as the soldier lit a cigarette and then closed his eyes as he took a long deep drag.

‘This makes you appreciate
simple pleasures doesn’t it?’ he smiled.

‘I feel sorry
for those poor soldiers having to sit there all night in the dark, just listening to that thing growl’ uttered Jenny, now looking quite scared.

All around the pit
, soldiers were doing just that in a night many of them admitted afterwards easily seemed the longest one of their lives.

T
he very ground under their feet shuddered every time the creature suddenly smashed itself against the walls of the pit, as it snarled angrily and tried to escape.

It didn’t stop all night long.

Back at the camp
the soldier and his sergeant were finally able to rest again.

‘This is
the part I hate the most’ the sergeant uttered quietly as he sat next to Jack.

‘What this? I would have thought this would be great after wha
t you’ve just been through’ smiled Jack.

‘No
, this is great’ the sergeant commented. ‘No, I mean, having to clean your comrade’s blood from your boots’ he added as Jack just looked down at his own and then grimly nodded his head in agreement.

Day Seven:

13
^th
January 2021

First Light in Eugene,

Oregon, U.S.A.

A
t first light, General O’Dowd arrived at the new army camp in Eugene and immediately made his way towards the pit to look upon the creature for the very first time.

The sheer savagery of the insect/animal shocked them all as upon seeing them gazing down at it, it jumped up and screamed and spat at them!

‘My God!’ uttered General O’Dowd ‘what the hell is that damn thing?’

‘We don’t rightly know, General’ admitted Stuart truthfully ‘but it appears more insect than animal.’

‘Well I don’t care what it is, how the hell do w
e kill it is all I want to know’ the General stated forcefully.

‘It’s not going to be easy’ admitted Joan
‘the creature on its own, seems able to disable our electricity and prevent any flame being lit around it’ she explained.

‘
I damn well know that much already, I’ve just had to walk a mile just to get here as our Jeep just stopped working’ the General replied angrily.

‘I just thought they ha
d some kind of equipment to do all these things, but now it seems it’s the creatures themselves that are somehow able to do them’ commented Jack thoughtfully.

‘Well never mind that
, let’s try shooting the God awful thing’ uttered the General.

‘How
do we do that exactly? When none of our guns work around it?’ shrugged Jack.

‘But that can’t be right’ the General shook his head.

Then he turned to a young soldier just behind him.

‘Give me your weapon, son’ he ordered.

The General then aimed the semi automatic rifle at the creature’s head and then pulled the trigger.

‘Click!’ it went.

‘God damn it! Then how can we kill these things
?’ General O’Dowd asked angrily.

‘We’re not sure
, General’ shrugged Stuart.

‘Someone set up some high powered rifles to shoot this thing dead from
a distance, somewhere where they
will
work!’ insisted the General.

‘Already on it, Sir
’ a soldier saluted him as he then ran off to do just as he had ordered.

‘Oh
and you’d better enforce a no fly zone too’ added Joan.

‘What for?’ asked another officer.

‘Because if you
don’t
, without electricity or flame working around this thing, things may soon start dropping out the sky all around us’ she insisted urgently.

‘But how will we know the range?’ the soldier then asked.

‘Have you a cigarette lighter?’ Joan asked.

‘Yes?’ replied the officer looking puzzled.

‘Try lighting it then’ she suggested.

He did and then
he looked quite shocked.

‘Well I’ll be…’ he just uttered.

‘Where your
lighter won’t light, will dictate the area around the creature where no aircraft should attempt to fly’ she instructed.

‘I’ll get onto that right away’ he told her as he saluted
her and then ran off.

An hour later, General O’Dowd’s crack t
roop of sharp shooters began taking pot shots at the creature using high powered rifles with telescopic sights from helicopter gunships flying just outside the creature’s own dead zone area.

Everyone took cover as a barrage of b
ullets now rained in!

After which, they all ran forwards to stare into the pit to see if the creature was still alive or not.

‘Bloody hell!’ uttered St
uart in disappointment ‘it doesn’t even look to be scratched.’

‘What the hell?’ uttered General O’Dowd in dismay ‘bombard it with some damn rockets we’ll see how it likes
that
!’

‘We have to be careful, General’ insisted Stuart in alarm ‘we don’t want to damage the pit by
mistake and allow it to escape.’

‘I’ll order just a few
then, smaller missiles’ nodded an officer as he cycled away on a bicycle to pass on the order.

‘We’d better all take cover
again’ suggested Jack as everyone began running away from the pit.

Some forty minutes later
, a small salvo of rockets flew into the pit fired from a rocket launcher back at the camp, but all the rockets failed to explode. Instead they just impacted onto the pit floor.

General O’Dowd
now just stared into the pit in disappointment as the creature seemed completely unmarked. Worse still, it began picking up what remained of the rockets and throwing them at people all around the edge of the pit!

‘This damn creature
is the ultimate fighting machine. No firearms or rockets work in its presence, it can jump thirty feet into the air, run at God knows how many miles an hour, and it is seemingly invincible to any attack we can launch against it’ the General uttered in defeat.

‘You almost sound like you admire it, General?’ commented Jenny.

‘Well I do, young lady’ he replied ‘
why it’s the ultimate soldier. I wish I had an army of them on
our
side’ the General admitted.

‘What about chemical weapo
ns?’ a scientist nearby then suggested.

‘We could try I suppose, as long as they don’t endanger
us
that is’ nodded Stuart and for the next hour various things were thrown into the pit whilst they all wore protective gas masks, but the creature still remained completely unaffected.

‘I think he l
ikes them’ smiled Jack afterwards.

‘T
his is no laughing matter, Professor’ criticised the General ‘remember, people are dying out there’ General O’Dowd told him angrily.

‘I’m sorry, General
O’Dowd, I didn’t think’ nodded Jack as he immediately apologised.

‘Apparently so
’ the General nodded back.

‘General
, we’ll have to forget all our hi-tech weaponry as clearly nothing will work anywhere near these things’ Stuart insisted.

‘Then what do
you suggest we do then, Professor?’ asked the General ‘surrender to them?’

‘We could try one of
these
’ suggested Joan, suddenly shoving a small drawing in the General’s hand.

‘What is it?’
he asked as he looked down at the rough sketch Joan had drawn.

Then as he studied it, he just exploded.

‘A CATAPULT, WHAT IS THIS, SOME SORT OF SICK JOKE OR SOMETHING? IS THIS THE BEST ALL YOU SCIENTISTS CAN COME UP WITH?’ the General shouted angrily as he screwed the piece of paper up and just threw it onto the ground!

‘No, Gener
al, this is not just a catapult’ insisted Joan, picking up the paper and straightening it out again ‘in large enough quantities it could become an artillery barrage’ she insisted ‘something completely unaffected by any lack of electricity or flame!’

The General was now interested.

‘But would it work?’ he asked curiously.

‘I have them building
a rough prototype right now’ Joan smiled.

‘Then when will it be ready for testing?’
the General asked eagerly.

‘In around an hour
s’ time, we hope’ Joan explained.

‘
OK, we’ll come back here again when it’s ready for testing and see how it works’ agreed the General as he immediately marched off.

Stuart
meanwhile, just stood staring down at the creature.

‘Can we do this though, Joan, reall
y kill this thing?’ he pondered ‘after all, it’s a new form of life to us?’

‘
You’re thinking with your heart and not your scientific head, Stuart’ replied Joan. ‘You’ve got to start thinking what might happen if we
can’t
kill these things. Then it’s the end of all mankind as far as I can see. Remember, this is just
one
of these creatures, and nothing we’ve tried yet has come even close to killing it. Don’t forget, Stuart, these things are out there possibly killing thousands of people right now even as we speak’ insisted Joan forcefully.

‘
I’m sorry, of course you’re right, Joan’ Stuart nodded.

‘
The General’s right too isn’t he?’ commented Jack thoughtfully. ‘This creature
is
the ultimate killing machine, it’s pretty much invincible. It has clearly adapted itself for warfare. It has the best form of defence ever devised. A built in ability to block all our communication systems and render all our weapons obsolete’ nodded Jack. ‘The American government would give its eye teeth for an army even a fraction as well equipped as these.’

‘Don’t give the General
ideas, Jack or he’ll be trying to recruit them into the American army next’ Stuart joked.

‘Yes, but both you and the General have missed out one i
mportant point’ added Joan. ‘If it is a pure killing machine made only for war, then it has no conscience or concept of morality. That means unlike you, Stuart, this is a creature that will kill indiscriminately and as far as I can see, if it isn’t stopped, it will keep on killing
us
until we have been wiped off the face of the Earth!’

‘Either that or will farm us for food’ commented Jack.

‘Oh, Jack, you don’t really think it could contemplate that do you?’ uttered Joan
, now looking quite shocked at the very suggestion.

‘Why not, w
e farm animals for food we think are way below
us
, so why should we think this animal should act any different towards us? It’s clearly way more advanced than we are.’