Chapter 2: Fight to Survive

Oona thought long and hard before eating a light lunch from a bagel shop. Depending on what disaster had befallen, she expected that taking even rotting food from a private shop would be considered looting. But as she had already been attacked by some kind of prehistoric lizard bird, a sandwich seller with a baseball bat might be considered normal, might even be welcome. She consumed the dry baked goods and a bottled water, leaving the notes and coins from her pockets as moral payment.

Once again she tried to switch on every means of communication that she could find in the shop, trying the television set behind the counter, a small radio set under the counter and a chunky old computer in the back office. Everything was dead.

There was a copy of the 'New York Post' crumpled in the desk along with a nearly full soft-pack of cigarettes. Oona thought twice then put the pack in her back pocket. "Who knows?" she thought. "This might be an excellent time to take up smoking again."

She spread out the paper, but the edition was at least two days old and referred only to a sensational trade of baseball players centred around the Yankees. There was no suggestion of an imminent or emerging disaster. She recalled the urgency of her friends' departure. Something had literally happened overnight. Perhaps in the blink of an eye?

Whatever had happened, she resolved to get herself discovered as quickly as possible and rescued from whatever mess she had found herself in.

"Where's the best place to go?" she thought. "Move down the boardwalk until the shops get busier. There's more chance of a tourist office, or a boat jetty, or a bus stop."

Having decided, she left the bagel shop and turned right, what she perceived from the Sun as being south, and plodded carefully down the wooden decking of the boardwalk. She tried to stay in the shadows where possible, not sure how much she would dehydrate in the sunlight, and keeping an eye at roof level in case any of those things returned.

After about twenty long minutes, she was reassured of her sense of direction as the shop fronts became closer and closer together and there was a general feel of approaching the main town. Although there was still evidence everywhere of a massive near-panicked departure, there was no repeat of the remains of the surfer. She thought briefly of what horrors might be waiting, but this seemed a less claustrophobic walk and she felt less scared. She felt less like she was being watched and realized how quiet and lonely everything was around her.

The giant shopping mall, like a beached ocean liner, was several storeys tall and glistened in the sunlight. Seagulls were circling the lower half of the mall where is was lashed by the sea. Thru the crash of the waves, Oona could hear a muffled banging noise. At first it seemed to be like wooden doors being slammed, but then it became clear, even to her from her quiet countryside background, that these were the single spaced-out cracks of a little rifle. Someone was shooting from the mall. There was no whizz of bullets or bursts of dirt around her, so she assumed, quite confidently, that, whoever it was, they were not shooting at her.

"At least someone else is alive," she thought. "But what's with all the shooting?"

It took another good ten minutes for her to reach the pier. The mall appeared silent, but there were a half-dozen golf-carts of random types arranged neatly outside the main entrance. There seemed to be no panic associated with their presence there. She squatted behind a child's police-car ride looking for activity, but there was none. She took a swig from the near-empty water bottle and ran over to the golf-carts, crouching unconvincingly as she tried to keep as low as possible.

"Let's take a look," she resolved, planning to run forward to the main glass doors to discover what was happening inside. But as she stepped out, the roar of a heavy car engine fired up nearby, and then more noise as other vehicles sprang into life. She ran back to her cover behind the golf-carts. The noise got louder, but there was no sign of the vehicles. Then she realized the engines were revving up underneath her; somewhere under the pier that the mall was built on. She squeezed herself down smaller and tried to stay still between the carts and the wall of the mall. First a big modern pickup truck mounted one of the many ramps that gave access from the beach to the boardwalk. Then, as if racing each other, two bulky quad bikes made the noisy ascent. Without further delay, all three vehicles roared past the front of the mall. They turned sharply off the boardwalk and headed onto the dusty tarmac of the town's main road system. After several more seconds the roar and whine of the combined engines trailed off south, somewhere into the distance.

"That looked nasty," thought Oona. She had glimpsed the riders briefly, their faces swathed in heavy scarves and wearing goggles, the very archetype of bandits. If they had been on horses she could have assumed, quite naturally, that they were hurrying off to rob a steam train. The pickup was equally menacing with around a dozen men sitting carelessly on the benches on the back. Although ominous in their own right, each carried a rifle or shotgun, held pointed upward as they drove off.

Now she realized that she was dealing with some serious people. If they had looked like regular police officers or recognizably American soldiers, she might have stepped out and waved, asked for help. But these people? They didn't look like the 'helping' kind.

Oona pushed open the glass doors and walked into the mall. She thought, at first, that it would probably be safe now that the men with the guns had gone. (At least she had assumed they were all men.) But as she crept carefully into the entrance corridor, it did seem possible that there might be a lot more of them to contend with.

"Hopefully," she whispered to herself. "They'll all be as noisy as that lot."

She made her way carefully around the lower level of shops taking in the range of shiny services and consumable goods available. The air conditioning was thankfully working and it was almost pleasant to walk around alone in this empty place.

"Why does this place have electricity, when the rest of the town has no power at all?" she asked herself.

"Why don't I show you?" whispered a voice behind her.

:::

"I think we crashed, " said Diana. She was lying awkwardly on the turf of the quadrangle. The grass was bleached, trampled and grazed-upon so the soil was loose and dusty and had left a big smear on her face. Her suit was equally blemished. She stood up and dusted herself down in a very cursory attempt to remain dignified.

Martinez was already standing up, alert, seemingly unaffected by the fall of her aircraft. She looked at the partial wreckage, ready to fix up any part of the chopper that might help get them off the ground again. But it was no good. The blades of the main rotor were broken, the tail was bent and the stink of kerosene warned her that the helicopter was gone as a method of escape.

""We have to leave this pile of scrap. Before we catch fire." She remained staring at the heap of near-junk that, until this morning, had been her main focus in life.

"I'm all for staying un-combusted," Diana agreed. She looked around earnestly for her briefcase.

Now more decisive, Martinez grabbed Goddard by the arm. "Leave your paperwork. You can get faxes at the copy-shop when we get back to civilization."

Diana turned, smiling. "I'm not an office girl and I don't 'do' paperwork," she warned. "Now..." She shook Martinez's hand from her arm. "You go ahead... I'll catch you up." Goddard winked and stepped back toward the crooked tail section. The black case was only a few feet from the metal.

Martinez sighed and looked up at the surrounding buildings. The small grazing lizards had scattered during the crash, but only out of instinct, not, apparently, out of fear. Dozens were still nibbling at the weeds and overgrowing vegetation. They were oblivious to the conflict they had been a minor part of. The bigger creature, its head battered more than it would have expected by the descending helicopter, had disappeared. But Martinez was no fool. Its attack had been defensive, to protect the smaller creatures. If it came back now, while they were out in the open, the two women were little more than buffet snacks. The more immediate problem, having survived the fall of the aircraft onto the ground, was that of being incinerated by the spilling flight-fuel or being pierced by a piece of spinning shrapnel.

"There's a guard-house over there." She shouted to Goddard, gesturing with her arm. "We need to take refuge in there." But Goddard was already sprinting past her, the rescued briefcase in her hand.

"I don't need to be told twice," said Diana, smiling. They both ran up the small whitewashed steps into the clean reception area. A sturdy desk and some heavy cabinets gave an air of calm authority.

"Do you think we'll be able to radio from here?" asked Diana.

"There's no power, Special Agent," said Teresa. "And - before you point it out - even a battery-powered set will have problems."

"How do you mean?" asked Diana. "Like a Brownout? We've got some kit that can overcome that." She went to open her oh-so-valuable briefcase.

"It's more like EMP. We first noticed it when we were flying around the mess. The radio comms dip when you reach the creeks along the edge of the islands. It extends even further out to sea. The Navy are working on it now."

"Electromagnetic Pulse? We didn't know that. There's no sign of nuclear release." Goddard took a small piece of bakelite encased equipment from the case. It was a light grey all over with a small rectangular dial at the top. A sharp red needle lay limp at the side of an unmarked scale. "No," she confirmed. "No radiation at all. Not even a little background."

Martinez looked at the needle wryly. "Really? Stick that in the sea out there and it'll pop with all the particles from the reactors upstate. Anyway, we are where we are and we have what we have." She started to rummage systematically thru the desk drawers. "What were those things out there? Do you know?"

Goddard thought carefully before answering. "They looked like little lizards to me. I guess they were - well - little lizards. Weird ones though." She thought carefully. Martinez had retrieved a cardboard box which contained shotgun cartridges. "What do you think that big thing was?" Diana asked quietly.

Martinez looked up from the desk. "There might be a shotgun around here. That will be useful. Unless they ran off with it." She paused to think. "The other fly-guys just saw shapes in the water. What's wrong with calling them 'monsters'?" she reached under the desk and tore away at the paper tape underneath. She slapped a short fat billy-club on the desk.

Goddard cocked her head to challenge this meagre answer. "I suppose if you're into old maps and witchcraft, then 'monsters' would do. But I get paid to look a little deeper than that." She sat on the desk and pondered the situation, frowning. She rubbed her ankles, bruised from the fall, pleased that she had worn non-regulation baseball boots that morning.

Martinez rocked the first of the filing cabinets and looked behind it. "I get paid to fly over that sort of thing. And occasionally, I shoot at them."

Goddard tilted her head again. "You know, this is a civilian Coast Guard station. Not a gangsters speakeasy. Any guns they have will be locked away and properly accounted for. You should look for an armory."

Martinez smiled as she looked behind the second cabinet. "Sure, those little officers you push around with your Federal badge and your big smile are all just boy scouts. But there's always one guy sitting in a back office somewhere, waiting for a civil disturbance or armageddon; making sure he doesn't get caught out." She emerged with a short shotgun wrapped in thick, clean fabric. "And the end-of-the-world is here." She looked very pleased with it. "Excellent. South African MAG. Great at close range."

"Your faith in human nature is touching," said Diana wrinkling her nose.

"Take the sap from the table. We need to look after ourselves as a team," said Teresa. It was hardly a suggestion, but Goddard thought carefully about it beforehand. She rocked the little club in the palm of her hand, her long fingers closing comfortably around it. She opened her briefcase and dropped it in carelessly.

"Maybe we'll need it to wedge open a door," she smiled.

:::

The motorized group made their way swiftly down New Jersey Avenue heading straight towards the Coast Guard Station. At the moment there were only two quad bikes to escort the Chevy pick-up, but the leader of the group was confident that they would have more vehicles available soon.

"We need more Silverados," said his wing-man, Lister, scratching his stubbly chin. "Those bikes are just toys for show-offs."

"Just be patient, Lister," said Graves hold the steering-wheel steady at the top. "We need a few mobile types for the early encounters. And those two 'show-offs' can deal with anything human much faster than you or I could. Guns or no guns."

Lister scowled. He disliked being compared to the other fighters, particularly when it was as second class. He preferred to be seen as the man who got to sit in the cab of the Chevy with the boss, while ten other guys had to sit in the back of the pick-up scowling at each other.

"There's nothing those guys can do with their mangy fingers that I can't deal with quicker using one my grenades," he grumbled. His hands stroked the sash of ordinance strapped around his shoulder and waist.

Graves laughed, thumping the dashboard. "Ha. A bit of professional jealousy. I like it. That's what keeps you 'grunts' keen," he mocked.

Lister scowled and half-laughed, half-sneered. "This hog does more than grunt."

"That's more like it," Graves laughed. He punched Lister's cheek with no attempt at subtlety or lame camaraderie.

The quad bikes slowed to a stop ahead. The riders lifted their goggles and turned their heads for instruction. Graves flattened the little paper map and confirmed that they had stopped just one block from the main entrance. A light gray curl of smoke over the rooftops of the seaside villas agreed with their intelligence report.

Graves opened the little square driver window of the Chevy. He gestured off to their left. "You guys sweep back from the beach. Stay on the bikes. Make some noise. We'll bust the gates in ten minutes, round up anyone who you flush out."

The quad riders nodded, reset their goggles and face scarves and roared off to the side street that led to the beach.

Graves turned back to Lister, more casual. "It looks like something fell into the coastguard station, so it's probably an aircraft."

"Yeah," agreed Lister, picking up the discussion. "Probably a chopper. Going down the way. Even a Cessna would have trashed the building if it had hit side on."

Graves nodded. He preferred Lister in his thinking mode. "So, if we're lucky our intruders are just the cold remains of a Texas barbecue about now. Any bits of body can be left to the creatures, but any effects, papers, bags, tags. We need to pick that up and bring it back for inspection. We need to get up to speed with what the government is sending in here after us."

Lister smiled cruelly. "Feds," he sneered. "Bring 'em all. Our best shot is better than theirs."

Graves shooked his head. "Enough of that, Lister. Get back to the operation at hand. If that was anything like a Blackhawk, then we could have dozens of Marines already deployed on the ground."

Lister nodded. That would be his favorite end to the day; a firefight with the agents of the state.

"We could take up to twenty," he thought aloud. "Probably thirty if we get the drop on them."

Graves nodded, then slapped the dashboard. "Plan. You recce the station. I'll deploy the desperadoes out back. Bring back the intel on their numbers before the quads start their sweep. Only engage the intruders if necessary."

"On it." Lister smoothly left the vehicle, pulled his rifle from behind the seat, and slammed the door closed. He started a firm, low run to the corner of the street and looked briefly around the corner. The entrance to the coast-guard station was at the end of the next street. No-one was there. As expected. He looked back to the pick-up.

Graves was already out of the cab, organizing the men off the back. "El techo! Elevado!" He pointed the two figures carrying the longest rifles toward the highest motel block. Graves looked over his shoulder and saw Lister with his thumb pointed up in the air. He acknowledged it briefly with a curt raise of the flat palm his own hand. Lister disappeared around the corner.

After a twenty-second dash, Lister reached the gate-house and inspected the barrier gate. Normally open during the day and only blocked by a low wooden barrier arm, it had been heavily chained together as part of the hasty evacuation. The padlock was on the inside, but Lister knew it would take very little to crack it open. He stepped over to the plastic glass booth which was the easiest way for a person to enter, forced the flimsy lock of the single door and walked thru into the entrance yard.

This yard was an inspection area for deliveries and there was a similar wooden barrier at the other end leading thru to the main quadrangle. Lister could already tell from the light smoke and smell that that was where the crash had taken place. He turned to the padlock on the giant gate and wrapped a small sliver of plastic explosive around the thinnest part of the bolt. Then, casually, he jabbed in a short wire fuse. "That'll take thirty seconds," he thought. "When we need it."

Leaving the gate and the padlock he then jogged quietly over to the entrance to the quadrangle taking in the whole vista as quickly as possible. A small helicopter was lying in burning pieces on the scorched grass of the quad. Little lizards were casually grazing everywhere.

"Okay," he thought. "That's six at the most. If they survived. Let's see who's here."

On the far side was the low wall leading to the beach. Any second now, the bikes would emerge. To the right were a series of low barrack buildings, to the left a small guard-house and some small storage huts.

He checked his knife in his shoe and the ammunition in his rifle.

"Time to stand up and be counted."