Thank you to the reviewers of my previous chapter!
Anything you recognize belongs to its rightful owner. Anything you don't might still belong to someone else, but I made it up.
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Time: 1:01
What was I going to do? My son had been battered to death. To death. I had no idea what to do with the body, or what I could do. I definitely wouldn't sink as low as looting, but I would try to find whoever did this and give them a piece of my mind. And a taste of lead.
I stood up. The only thing driving me now was anger. I didn't bother to check the rest of the house. My son was dead, my other son was probably dead, along with my wife. I thanked God that my third son was serving in the Army, and wasn't here, with all this madness.
--
I stepped back out of the door. I checked my handgun's ammo and turned back around. To my surprise, two somber, muscular men dressed in white coats were standing in he driveway with a sleek white Lexus. One looked very young, as if he had just graduated from college. The other looked older, at about thirty-five. The younger man had short, curly hair and a few dimples in his cheek.
The older man was bald, with a goatee poking out of his chin. They both carried large assault rifles. The bald man approached me. "Is your name Robert?" He had a slight Spanish accent. I nodded. "Last name?" I told him. He smiled at me. "Welcome to the White Eagles, Robert."
--
"The what?"
"We saw this attack coming. And we are going to rebel. We were watching you ever since you stepped out of that bar, we followed you home, and we had other people watching your house, even before your sons were killed and your wife taken away. They were the aliens, Robert. They came to your house and killed your kids and took your wife."
"Y-you mean you saw them kill my kids? And take my wife?"
One of the men nodded.
"Then why didn't you stop them!?" I screamed in his face. The other man pointed his rifle at my head.
"Listen, you want us to kill you or do you want us to explain everything first? God, at least let me tell you our names. I am Gunther, my comrade here is Carter." He motioned for Carter to put down his gun. "And we are part of a rebellion group known as the White Eagles. As I said earlier, we saw this thing coming, we prepared. We began stockpiling, we began to horde weapons and other resources."
"Then why didn't you-" Gunther held up his hand.
"You have the same motivation as many other White Eagle members. You have suffered great loss. And I verified your credibility to be a White Eagle when you stepped out of your house. Your expression was black anger, Robert. That is the motivation you need to get something done. Revenge. Anger. So if you want to make a difference instead of being annihilated by this alien race, join us." The man held out his hand.
I didn't know what to do! "Robert, you have no other choice. You will most likely be killed without proper training and help." Carter tried to reason with me. He had a perfect American accent.
"Well...oh, fine."
Both Gunther and Carter grinned and stepped aside. Gunther held up the key to their car, and pressed a button. The doors automatically opened and I was instructed to sit in the back seat. Carter jumped into the driver's seat, and to my surprise, Gunther hopped on top of the car and used a strange strap up there to hold him in place. He cocked his rifle and hit the ceiling of the car to signal Carter to start driving.
Carter stepped on the gas and the car sped away from my house. As we merged onto the freeway, which had flaming, wrecked cars everywhere, Carter started talking.
"Listen. It is impossible for Gunther up there to spot everything that is a threat. You gotta back him up." Carter handed me his assault rifle from the seat next to him. He then returned his eyes to the road. "It has a silencer. Don't use your handgun, stealth is key right now."
I didn't feel like asking why, if they wanted to be stealthy, they were taking a freeway in a white vehicle.
"You ready?" Carter asked. I nodded and cocked the gun. He rolled down the windows to the car and yelled to Gunther over the scream of the wind rushing through the car.
"GUNTHER! ROBERT IS GONNA HELP YOU FIGHT OFF WHATEVER YOU NEED TO FIGHT OFF!"
Gunther answered back. "I'LL TAKE ALL THE HELP I CAN GET!"
With that, he fired at a crowd of soldiers on the other side of the freeway. They were all dead before I had fired off two bullets.
I saw another soldier directly behind the car, and probably even before Gunther, but my aim was so off that I had missed him by twenty feet. Gunther, however, was able to shoot and kill him even when the car drove farther and farther away.
"ROBERT! THE IDEA IS TO AIM AT THE ENEMY!" Gunther yelled down to me, trying hard not to laugh at my gun skills. I ignored him and shot a soldier who had ran right over the guardrail on the freeway in front of our car. He had even discharged a few bullets into the windshield, which remained resilient to the gunfire.
Finally, Carter exited the freeway onto a main street. There were groups of soldiers and police men trying to keep the civil unrest under control. They ignored us as we drove by.
Carter turned onto a quieter street and accelerated again. This time, I heard a "THUD" on top of the car. I heard Gunther swearing in Spanish as he threw an alien soldier off the top of the car. I shot him right as he hit the ground.
The houses began to get a
little more unkempt and a little more abandoned. This part of town
was affectionately known as "The Pits".
"Did you set up
shop in The Pits?" I asked Carter.
"What of it?"
"Why here?"
"Because the aliens probably wouldn't suspect an underground rebel movement to be in the worst part of town!"
"Actually-"
"Be quiet and keep watch." Carter waved his hand around.
Fortunately, there were no more alien soldiers after Carter told me to "be quiet and keep watch". Carter pulled up to a small shack with its white paint peeling off. The door looked weak enough that a fly would knock it over if it landed on it. Carter and I hopped out of the car and I gave him back his rifle while Gunther was undoing his straps. He hopped off the car as well and led us to the side of the house. A metal gate guarded the back yard. A thick chain was wrapped around the gate. Gunther simply pulled the chain off of the fence and opened the gate. We walked down a narrow alleyway alongside the house until we arrived at a small tool shed.
Gunther pulled a walkie-talkie out of his pocket. He pushed a small button, held the walkie talkie to his mouth, and said, "Gunther and Carter at front gate, with new recruit. Over."
He replaced the walkie talkie and waited for a few seconds, whistling a tune. Finally, the tool shed's door clicked. He pulled open the door to reveal...the inside of a tool shed.
"So where's the secret base?" I asked.
Gunther dusted off a small portion of the floor with his foot to reveal a trapdoor. He lifted it with a small metal ring. The trapdoor itself was about half a foot thick. I could see a set of very steep stairs descending into the darkness.
"Close the trapdoor behind you when you come down." Carter instructed me.
Gunther began climbing down, followed by Carter and then a very hesitant me. As the trapdoor shut, it made a huge "BANG" that reverberated through the entire chamber. Now, I couldn't see where I was going. I climbed down about twenty feet until my feet felt hard ground. I could see a dimly lit hallway stretching out in front of me for a few more feet, until it was abruptly cut off by an enormous steel door. Gunther and Carter were already waiting there for me, guns in hand. Gunther produced a small key card, as did Carter. They scanned the cards in two little slots in the door.
"Carter A. Milton, checking in." Carter spoke into a microphone.
"Gunther Ortiz, checking in." Gunther spoke into the same microphone.
A voice replied through that microphone. "Welcome back, boys. Come on in." The door made an enormous groaning sound as it slid forward and upwards. A small service lift was visible at the end of another short, well lit hallway. Gunther pressed a button by the lift.
An automated voice said, "Five...Four..." Gunther, Carter, and I stepped onto the lift as the voice finished the countdown. The lift descended faster than I expected. We probably went down about one hundred feet.
As the lift slowed to a stop, I saw a man in a brown suit waiting expectantly in what looked like the lobby of the White Eagles. The symbol for the organization was an eagle, in entirely white feathers. The eagle had a disembodied head in its talons and had a peace sign burned into its beak. The symbol was stamped on the floor of the lobby.
The man greeted us. "Hello, Gunther, Carter. This must be the new recruit. Glad to meet you." He held out his hand, which I shook firmly.
"Robert, allow me to introduce you to the head honcho around here." Carter gestured to the man. "His name is Wallace Breen."