Living on the Coast

The man limped his way through the back street as fast as he could, ignoring the screaming and flames all around him. His eyes locked in a tunnel vision straight ahead at the huge, devastated skyscraper. They were in there, he knew it.

Forgetting the pain in his leg with a burst of adrenaline borne from his fear of getting to the skyscraper too late, he rushed forwards into a dead run onto the city street. The street was in just as bad shape as the skyscraper. The skyscraper, an office building for the cities primary telecommunications company, had a huge amount of smoke pouring out into the sky and the man could spot a vicious gash in the building's side.

Steve rushed past a burning husk of what once was an army tank and the bodies of several people in suits and ties, probably cut down while trying to escape into the streets. He found that he didn't need to use the buildings revolving doors as the glass windows around them had been shot out. He rushed towards the elevator doors past the deserted front desk when a voice rang out around the emergency stairs door to his right.

'Steve!'

'Mary, Sue!'

'Daddy!'

Steve rushed towards his family and grabbed hold of his wife and daughter with an iron grip.

'I knew you were here, I knew it. I'm so sorry for not getting here sooner.'

'When the explosions started happening I took Mary and rushed straight here, I thought you would be in your office.'

'I was on a lunch break, it seems like it's going to be extended.'

'Oh, very funny.'

Deciding they needed to get out of the skyscraper as quickly as possible, Steve released them, Sue picked up Mary in her arms and as a group they headed back onto the street. They saw a four wheel drive racing towards them in a hurry. Steve stepped out onto the street and waved his arms around to get the drivers attention.

'Hey! Over here! Stop we need help!'

That turned out to be a big mistake.

A huge explosion slammed into the road just in front of the four-wheel drives large frame. Steve was thrown backwards and his bad leg burned in so much pain he felt dizzy. The driver lost all control and the car surged sideways up through the air for a full three seconds and landed on its back like a turtle that couldn't get up off its shell.

Steve, his eyes blurred with pain, dragged himself over the concrete towards the wreckage. Screaming for his family, he heard Mary cry out for him and was finally able to locate them. They were lying beside the wrecked vehicle, Sue was on her belly and not moving, Mary seemed to have her leg stuck under the car somehow.

'Mary! Sue! Are you ok? I'm go-, just wait, I'm going to get you out of there, ok? Just wait. Argh!'

Steve's leg and what now felt like his entire body shuddered and flared up in protest when he tried to get on his feet. Frustrated, he continued crawling and dragging himself towards the car.

'Dad mums not talking to me, something wrong with her! There's fire as well dad, I can hear it! Dad we have to go, you have to get us out of here. DAD!'

Steve woke with a start, almost sitting right up on the small, wooden bed. He was sweating again and his back ached. At least he knew the ache was because of the cheapness of the bed and not from the nightmares. He slowly got up and got dressed. It wasn't hard to choose what to wear. He had a blue shirt and another blue shirt, to go with his two blue pants. It was getting harder to wash them properly with the lack of water.

After getting dressed he stared out the small rectangular window that overlooked the area to the rear of the house. It was sand all around; the ground sloped downwards quite drastically until it finally ran into the ocean. On the house's right you could spot a pier too far away from the water to be of any use. Steve knew if you continued on from the pier you would find a beached fishing vessel that would probably never make it back onto the continually receding tide.

All the things they have taken from us. I think our water is the worst, he thought to himself.

Steve made his way out of his room, trying not to cause any creaking on the wooden floor to no avail. The house was old and in its own way, dying. On his way downstairs he passed the door to the back room, which housed a small rowboat and supplies. The back room had no rear wall and no floor, meaning once you walked in you were on the sand. Steve went into the kitchen and began to boil the kettle Brian had so luckily scrounged up.

'Hope you're not using more water, old man. We're running out fast as it is without you using it up on that damn tea you love so much.'

Francis was coming down from his room, in an outfit completely identical to Steve's. He had a cheeky smile on his face that faltered slightly as he saw Steve.

'Ah, it's you. I thought it was that crazy old man making tea again.'

'It aint' crazy drinking tea boy. What is crazy is all that sugary rubbish you young fellas were drinking before hell came crashing down on us.'

Brian had got up as well; it seemed that they had all become light sleepers from the poor beds, stress and nightmares. Francis, a young, short and somewhat stringy man gave a shrug and looked at Steve.

'Listen, Steve. I've been thinking. It's about that resistance thing. Shorepoint is like barely a day's walk away. We so easily could-'

'Dammit Francis, look I've said it before and I'll say it again. We're not going to some mass suicide group. Because that's what it is Francis, ok. The Combine won, ok. They swooped in, beat us to a pulp in the first round and we threw in the towel before the second could begin. It's over. We're going to stay right here and do what best we can.'

'Yeah and who made you boss? Your handsome face?'

'No. I'm the boss because if you were in charge our master plan for survival would involve joyriding that rowing boat down the beach.'

Brian zoned out of the argument that he knew would end with no victor and stayed silent. Until he took a glance out of the kitchen's window with his still eagle eyes and spotted something out in the distance.

'Quiet kids,' he instructed. 'There's something out there.'

The argument stopped immediately. Brian pointed the object out to them. It was a figure of what appeared to be a human being staggering out around the sand. Steve took charge.

'Let's go check this out.'


It was irritated, but not yet enraged. Like its many comrades, it could feel the creature above them. The creature was stumbling around, without any apparent purpose; perhaps the creature was sick or dying. It understood that the creature was of no threat and its small vibrations would not disturb the grubs down below. It followed its comrades into relaxation. Wait! There were more vibrations coming from the other direction. Three more creatures and moving much more purposefully with heavier footsteps. Too heavy and too many, they would disturb the grubs and the spawning down below, unacceptable. It, once again in complete concert with its comrades began tunneling upwards towards the surface.

'Damn it Steve, why are we out here? You know there's antlions all over this desert, beach or whatever you call this hell hole.'

'It is a desert that used to be a beach, Francis; the tide is so far out nowadays that this is pretty much a desert. Also, it's still at least a couple of weeks before spawning season so we'll be fine'

'Oh yeah, because it's not like spawning season came a couple of weeks early last time.'

'Shut up Francis, you're not helping. That was probably a fluke, spawnings' never been that early before. So just keep quiet, were almost there.' That was Brian, once again stopping a potential argument between the two.

Brian was right and they could all clearly see the person now. It was man; he had his back to them and was giving off some low guttural and unintelligible moans and growls. They approached cautiously. Steve spoke first.

'Hello, can you hear me? Where here to help, can you tell us your name, do you need some water or food?'

The man's continued moans were his answer.

'What's wrong with his hands?' Asked Francis, 'and there's something on his head I can sorta see it, what there hell is that?'

'Steve!' Brian called out warningly and starting to back away slowly.

The man turned around to face them.

'What the fuck is that!' Yelled Francis in panic.

'Oh, hell.' Steve muttered under his breath.

The man looked like something out of a nightmare. Both of his hands had elongated into five sharp bloody claws. His chest had been ripped open horizontally and gave everyone a clear view of his rotting innards. And lastly and most striking was the strange plump and almost rectangular creature with yellowish skin that was situated where the man's head should have been, it had four legs with sharp claws that were all well entrenched around the man's shoulders.

'Headcrab, I'll grab the rifle, stay away from it.' Brian said this as he started bounding off at great speed back to the house.

Francis looked at Steve questioningly.

'Rifle, why? He needs help he's not combine. Jesus Christ his chest, we've gotta get that thing off him, he can't see!'

'Stay away from it Francis, he's dead. Died a long time ago by the looks of it, we can't help him now.'

The headcrab zombie began to emit much louder moans and staggered towards them.

'Dead? What do you mean dead? He's walking and trying to talk to us. I'm getting that thing off him Steve it's hurting him.' Francis took a long stride and came within reach of the zombie's claws.

'Francis! No! Stay away from-!'

But it was too late, the zombie instantly drew back one of its arms for a massive swing and Francis had no time to avoid. And then the ground opened up beneath them.

An ant like creature had appeared below the zombie and had grabbed hold of its legs with two of its four legs and its small but deadly pincers. The zombie was being inexorably dragged down by the huge insect. Francis, who had fallen on his back scuttled away on all fours from the two creatures and was helped up by Steve. The ant like creature was not alone, a huge mob was appearing from the under the ground. Each one looked completely identical. They all had four sharp and peculiar legs, the back legs were very long and arched over the small front ones, which in turn went backwards. The back legs came out from the sides of a long body which sloped aggressively upwards, making the creatures look even bigger than they were. All had a yellowish skin that was tinged with blue on their bodies.

'Antlions, I guess spawning came early again after all. Run!' Shouted Steve

Steve and Francis threw themselves into a dead run, barely keeping ahead of the deceptively fast insects. The zombie's cries had stopped completely and all they could hear was the antlions low chirping as they slowly gained on the two.

'C'mon, there's the house. We're almost there.' Panted Steve with what little breath he had.

Suddenly one of the antlions gave a huge buzzing sound, revealing its small but strong wings under its carapace and half jumped half glided over Steve and Francis and landed in between the house and them. They couldn't stop their momentum and were about to crash straight into the monster when the antlions back exploded into hundreds of tiny chunks, the dead antlion dropped instantly and the two jumped over its tangled body clumsily. They looked up and saw Brian holding his rifle.

'Come on,' Brian motioned with his rifle to them. 'Get in!' Steve and Francis ran past him into the house. Brian fired another shot at the advancing horde and closed the door.

Panting Steve put a hand on the kitchen wall nearest to him to catch his breath. Francis was pacing back and forth while Brian reloaded the gun.

'These doors won't hold them forever; this place was falling apart by itself, never mind what the antlions will do to it.' Brian said.

'How many rounds have you got?' Steve asked.

Brian shook his head that everyone took as "not enough."

The antlions outside began pounding on the walls, eagerly searching for a way in.

'Any ideas?' Steve looked around at both Francis and Brian for an answer.

Brian shook his head but Francis suddenly grinned. Steve and Brian stared at him.

'What was it you said before Steve? About joyriding that boat down the beach?' Francis bounded off towards the back room.

'Francis, don't open that door they can get in through there remember? No wall.' Steve warned.

Francis shook his head.

'No, antlions can't swim remember? they won't follow us if we get to the ocean. We push the boat until we get it down the slope and let the slope carry us into the water! We can then row to Shorepoint.'

'Damn it Francis I already told you-'

'It's our only option Steve,' Brian had spoken up, for the first time entering an argument and agreeing with Francis. 'We can't stay here and there's nowhere else to go.'

Steve paused for a second and then admitting defeat, nodded his head.

'Let's do it.'

They walked over to the door to the back room and took a deep breath.

Steve reached for the handle.

'Three…..two….one Go!' He shoved the door open and they dashed for the boat.

They were lucky the antlions were still at the front of the house but they could hear them now rushing along the sides of the house towards the back.

'Get in, I'll push!' Brian yelled.

Without any time to argue Steve and Francis obeyed. Brian tucked his rifle under his armpit pushed the boat up until the edge of the slope.

'All right get in.' Steve shouted.

Brian just shook his head.

'Their fast, they are. Faster than the boat will slide, you'll need time.'

And with that he gave the boat an almighty push and it started sliding down the huge slope.

Francis and Steve barely had time to shout out and watch as Brian brought his rifle around at the advancing antlions and fired some off some shots before they were completely lost sight of him and had to hold on tight to anything on the boat they could to avoid falling out. After what felt like moments they crashed onto the water and into safety.

Francis and Steve sat in silence for a few minutes as the boat floated aimlessly. The sound of Brian's rifle and then his screams of pain had passed pretty quickly. Antlions hardly ever took their time. Finally Steve spoke up.

'We got any paddles?'

'Yeah I think their underneath me, yeah we got one set. I'll go first. Shorepoint isn't too far away by sea. He didn't…he didn't die for nothing.'

Steve nodded and gave Francis a reassuring smile.

'No he didn't. We'll be safe at Shorepoint, well as safe as one can be nowadays.'

Steve relaxed as best he could on the wooden boat as Francis slowly began to steer the boat to away from the house and the beach towards the safety of Shorepoint.