- First Contact –
"Hey man, get your ass back in here and take your turn!" I yelled into the kitchen.
"Oh shut up, I'm bringing food!" Paul called back, coming back into the living room and sitting down. He carefully set the bowls of ramen on the table, making sure to keep them away from the board.
Paul and I had known each other since High School. When we graduated, we decided to go to the same college, as we were both majoring in the same field. We rented a small apartment a few blocks away from the school, and had been living there for a few months now. First semester had passed quickly, and we were moving into summer faster than either one of us cared to think about. Soon, the cool Wisconsin days would be getting much hotter. But, in May, we still had enough that we kept the window open most of the time.
I had started examining the board in front of me again when Paul sat down. I took an absent minded bite of the ramen that was there, too busy focusing on what his next move would be. Two player games of Risk can be boring, unless you're modified the game to the extent we did. He was stuck in a bad position, and we both knew it. One wrong move…
He finished his turn, choosing not to attack. I was taking another bite of my food, preparing my reinforcements, when I heard the program on the TV shift suddenly. It had been some boring documentary neither one of us had been watching. Now, it sounded like one of those live reports that sometimes cut in when something big happens.
I had set my reinforcements up, and was preparing my attack, when Paul turned the sound up. Getting annoyed, I turned to see what was so important.
"…we're getting reports that a nuclear explosion has occurred in New Mexico. White House officials claim that a warhead detonated while being disarmed at an abandoned missile complex known as 'Black Mesa'. How this occurred has not been clarified, though conspiracy…"
I looked at Paul, my eyebrow raised. A nuclear detonation? Some abandoned facility gone? Didn't seem like news to me. I mean, anything involving a nuclear detonation is news, but it was in the desert. Who knew what kind of stuff the government was working on out there…
"We have also received unsubstantiated rumors that strange creatures have begun appearing and attacking travelers on the highways. The White House declined to respond to this."
XXX
It had been a few days since that news broadcast. School had been canceled the second day after, and we were told to stay home due to "security concerns". Whatever the hell that meant…
The storms in the desert had slowly been getting worse. We had decided around the fourth day that we were going to stay holed up in our apartment till either the storms disappeared, or we ran out of food. We had barricaded most of the windows and doors, leaving only the front one free to be opened.
We were camped out in front of the TV, having pulled most of our important possessions into the living room. We only ever left to use the bathroom, or to make something to eat. Our TV had been programed to ignore everything but the news channels, and we flipped through them every couple of hours.
The general consensus? The government had fucked up somehow. Reports of military deployments, secret research, teleporters… Anything and everything was being reported on. Whatever had happened, they had tried to nuke the problem away, and only made things worse.
Now the human race seemed to be under attack. At least, that's what the scattered reports coming out of New Mexico, and neighboring states, were saying. Aliens, or some kind of monsters, were attacking people left and right. They would appear out of thin air, and then rip a dozen people apart before someone took it down. Panic was already spreading. People were leaving the city by the hundreds, trying to get back to family.
We stayed put. When a tower suddenly appeared, we watched in numb horror. When the military started barricading cities, we decided it was finally time to move. We needed to get the hell out of the city. The general plan was to take the backroads and get back to Pineville, the town we grew up in. We had friends there. Those friends had guns, ammo, food…
We needed a plan. Grabbing a road map I kept meaning to put in the car I was planning to get, I pulled out a red marker and started looking for roots.
"Here" I said, indicating one of the many roads. I traced it across to another backroad.
"If we follow this, it should take us straight there. With traffic the way it is, I don't want to risk the roads till we get out of the city."
Paul nodded. He had resorted to the cold, callous thinker he was when we played chess.
"What have we got to work with?"
"A couple weeks' worth of food. I got my military gear in my footlocker, and an extra backpack. Also…" I trailed off, walking into my room. I pulled out my olive drab footlocker, throwing the lid back. I pulled out a hunting knife I kept in there. Technically, we weren't supposed to have weapons, but…
"I have this" I said, showing Paul the serrated edge on it.
He looked at it for a few seconds, and then pulled out an equally dangerous looking one. We nodded to each other. Neither one of us had been big on following rules.
We had our things together within the next ten minutes. Neither one of us said a word as we packed. There really wasn't anything TO say.
XXX
I took one final look around the apartment. This was where my life was supposed to begin, where I was supposed to step into the world. Now we were leaving with only the essentials.
The news had relayed the evacuation message as we were getting ready. Local National Guard units would be helping to evac us to Madison, which seemed to be the local rally point for survivors and the military. They were going to fortify the place, then hold off the aliens till humanity got its shit together.
With a final nod, we stepped out into the hallway. I closed the door behind us, and then locked it. You never knew…
The streets were a scene of chaos. Anyone who might have been planning to wait it out was getting out of dodge. They were trying to take their cars, only to find the road clogged with abandoned vehicles. It looked like something out of a zombie movie. The plans we had made went out the window, and we decided to just make it to the nearest overpass and follow the highway.
Suddenly, a Humvee roared past, using the sidewalk to get around the cars in the road. When the second one came past, I flagged it down. They slowed down to a running speed.
"Where should we go?" I asked, pointing in the direction they were headed.
"Anywhere but here kid!" the soldier perched on the roof said.
"Yes sir!"
He looked at me like I had grown a third eye, and then shook his head. I couldn't help myself. I had planned to join the army after finishing out my second year, now it looked like I was part of it…
The Humvees left us behind. They had better things to do then help a couple of civilians.
We ran along, trying to stay out of the way while still moving at a decent pace.
Suddenly, we heard a high pitched whining noise. Then it stopped. Looking behind us, I saw something lumber out from behind a building. It was bigger than a two story house! It spouted fire from its claws, and I did my best to run even faster. The thing seemed to notice us, and started running at a speed I wouldn't have thought possible for something that big.
There was a loud roar, followed by a whistling sound. An explosion rocked the creature, sending it reeling into the building it had appeared from behind.
A tank lumbered into view. It crushed anything that got in its way, intent on destroying whatever that thing was. I saw the turret rotate towards us, aiming at the creature.
"Down…" I whispered.
"Wha…?" Paul tried to ask, before I threw him to the ground.
"GET DOWN!"
The tank lurched, sending another round over us. It impacted the creature, which crashed into a building. Roaring, it ran at the tank, which fired again. As the creature closed, the hatch on top of the tank opened, a soldier starting to fire the .50 cal. on the turret. The bullets did little to slow the massive behemoth down.
The tank fired another round, almost point-blank. Finally, the creature stopped. It moaned, and then started to stretch out. With a number of small explosions, a massive roar ripped from its throat. Finally, it exploded, showering the street with gore.
The soldier on the turret wiped his eyes clear, and then lowered himself back into the tank. After a moment, the tank rolled forward, crushing anything that got in its way.
Paul and I stood up, absently brushing ourselves off and staring after the tank.
"Jesus…" he said, turning to me.
I was busy looking at where the creature had been. Turning back to look at the tank, I shook my head.
"We need to get out of here…" I said, trying to draw on my military knowledge.
"Well, yeah…"
"No, you don't get it. The military doesn't give a shit. This place is expendable. If I know them, they're probably already preparing to blow this place off the map if it means slowing the aliens down. Hell, the Air Force is probably already on the way."
Paul looked at me with something bordering on terror. I just patted his shoulder, and then motioned towards the nearest overpass. With a shake of his head, and a quick nod, we took off running. Running up the on rap, we looked both ways, and then headed in the direction that would take us out of town the fastest.
We followed the highway out of town. The traffic had stalled; leaving me to assume it had either jammed up, or had been stopped. When we got further out of town, we ran across a military check point, which gave me an answer to that question.
The soldiers there were grim looking. None of them looked like they had gotten much sleep in the past week. With aliens appearing, that wasn't really surprising. We strode up to the checkpoint, and then were pointed toward a line that was already at least a hundred deep. We stepped in, and then slowly shuffled forward. I was actually impressed by the amount of order here. Normally, these were slapdash, panicked endeavors…
Suddenly, someone seemed to get impatient. They started shouting, demanding to be let through. I knew that this wasn't going to end well. But, the idiot was the one that actually started it. He was arguing with some scared looking soldier, who couldn't have been much older than I was. The way he clutched his rifle made me more nervous than the moron yelling at him.
The man must have pulled something. A gun, a knife, I don't know. All I do know is that he had about six guns pointed at him when he did. He still swung at the kid, and was promptly cut down in a hail of rifle fire.
The panic began to start, till a soldier fired his sidearm in the air.
"All right, that's enough!" He yelled, looking at both the other soldiers, than at the people waiting to be evacuated.
"Take this man's fate as a lesson. We have been authorized to shoot any who try to impede this operation. If you all stay quiet, you will all be evacuated."
The crowd was silent then. I was glad someone had stepped up, because I sure as hell wasn't. I had always imagined myself to be a leader, but was always the one trying to avoid attention. As long as people ignored me, I was fine.
Another whining split the air. No one really panicked; I think we were all too shocked for that. The whine dissipated, leaving the air still. Suddenly, a creature that looked like a cross between Cthulhu and a bull burst over the edge of the road, quickly followed by three more.
They ripped into the checkpoint. The soldiers tried to fight back, but the people who began to flee kept getting in the way. Suddenly, it was madness. Soldiers trying to attack the enemy, people trying to flee the road, and people fighting each other for, seemingly, no reason.
To my credit, I sprinted toward the checkpoint. I think, at least subconsciously, I wanted to help, to offer any assistance I could. I was a pretty decent shot. All I needed was for someone to give me a gun.
Instead, I leapt over the sandbags that had been set up. I sprinted forward, leaving the checkpoint behind me. I wasn't going to die for people I didn't know! I heard Paul stamping behind me, trying to keep up. When we finally ran past an off ramp, and hit more stalled traffic, we finally collapsed onto the roadway.
XXX
We lay there for a long time, neither one of us wanting to move. We were alive, which was good, but we had just fled from almost certain death. I didn't hear any gunshots coming from south of us, so either the soldiers had handled things or, more likely, they were dead.
I started at that callous outlook on the events that had just happened. Where was the compassion that had been drilled into me from my earliest memories? I didn't feel guilty for it, I just felt sort of lost.
Finally, we both rose. As we were getting our bearings, we heard what sounded like wind. However, this was getting louder, moving closer to us. Looking out, we saw what appeared to be a wall moving towards us. Beyond that, what looked like a huge orb was hanging over the city we had just left.
The wall passed us by, knocking us both over. What followed in its wake was a series of small, what I assumed were, portals opening, depositing more aliens onto the earth. One of them immediately began to moving it's, what looked like hands, in a gesture that I couldn't really describe. Suddenly, green lightning shot out and killed one of the other aliens.
Well, that was enough for me! I started sprinting again.
XXX
That was the first time I head the phrase "Portal Storm". Paul made it up, seemingly out of the blue. When I asked him about it, he mentioned the random teleportation that seemed to follow the first one.
I just grunted my approval, seemed like as good a name as any. And it was very apt. Except that it seemed to only touch on the destruction they seemed to create.
We were walking along, taking a breather from all the running. We were approaching an overpass when we heard wind.
We both looked at each other, than turned to watch the wall head towards us. Paul opened his mouth looking like he was about to yell something. I already knew what he was going to say…
A/N: Well, first attempt at writing something like this. I hope you all enjoyed it, or at least tolerated it. Please review, and let me know what you think! Any tips on writing better are greatly appreciated!