Chapter CII: The All Hallows Eve Massacre
31 Oct 2322 KST
Gangseo District, Seoul, South Korea
A quiet stillness persisted in the night over the hardware store where many of the survivors of Flight 1437 still resided. While most of the people inside were sleeping inside the breakroom, offices, at the back of the store or in between the aisles two of the teenage boys that had been relocated here were standing guard at the front of the store behind the palisade wall of sharpened wood and rebar pikes. Williams and another stout lad were on guard by the back door as well. In nearly a month they had faced no danger when they were inside these four walls so the survivors understandably felt a sense of complacency here though they knew all too well the dangers roving about outside. The teenagers who had arrived here later were more astute to the threats the outside world presented than the adults who had been here since the invasion began.
The night started like any other, a mediocre cold meal followed by people setting down to sleep for the night. One by one the candle lights went out until only the flickering flame within glass lantern on the stool beside Williams and the light of the moon outside remained. The night grew deeper, the people inside unaware they were being watched from above. The boys on guard relaxed seeing everyone sleeping peacefully amidst the occasional snoring on an otherwise serene October night. It wasn't until that recognizable groaning foghorn sound of the mechs was heard that the senses of the two boys on watch were heightened. Williams' ears also perked up when he heard the sound as well. The sound seemed to be too loud to be coming from across the river. "It couldn't be too close by could it?" Williams wondered. They had traps and pipe bombs positioned on all the approaches to this block right? Unless they had forgotten to reset the triggers for the traps the last time they had come back from making a run. Williams tried to think back on what they had done or failed to do two days ago; he was positive they reset the traps.
His concern elevated as the stammering steps of mechs also began to draw near to their location. In a few minutes time the two boys up front watched as ominous light beams from a trio of mechs scanned the street in front of the hardware store. They seemed to be just passing by, the boys thought as they crouched down below the level of the storefront windows, peeking up ever so slightly to observe what was going on outside. Their cautious curiosity turned to fear when the mechs stopped outside and appeared to be looking around. The mechs' searchlights then turned towards the front door and windows of the store where the survivors were seeking refuge. The boys laid down flat behind the wall and remained completely still as the searchlights passed over them. In the back of the store Williams noticed the light beaming in through the storefront windows. He carefully leaned forward off his stool and crawled along the ground to quietly wake the people lying on the ground out of view from the front. When he woke the first woman up he placed his hand over her mouth to muffle her speech.
"Shh.. there might be trouble outside. We need to be ready." Williams whispered in as comforting a manner as he could.
He then proceeded to wake more people up, slowly and carefully, trying not to make any sounds if at all possible. The boys at the front of the store waited on edge with baited breath for the mechs to turn away. Williams too hoped that the danger would pass and quietly told all the people he roused from their slumber to stay down, stay alert and keep quiet. His hope this would be nothing more than a drill was dashed when he heard the nail bombs at the perimeter go off thereby signaling an impending attack. The explosions drew the attention of the mechs outside. If they hadn't already detected the humans inside the detonation of their traps certainly keyed them into their presence in the vicinity. The mechs backed away from the store and faced towards the afterglow of the explosion down one of the narrow streets to the south. From that street came a procession of skitters heading towards the mechs. Some of the skitters had minor wounds and others had nails lodged into their flesh; these were the lucky ones that were far enough away not to be killed by the human booby traps when they were triggered. Another series of explosions went off towards the west pulling the creatures' attention in that direction. Four skitters appeared on a nearby rooftop and made motions to the others that appeared as if they were communicating outside the range of human hearing.
Afterwards the mechs started to move off along with the gathering platoons of skitters. It was just a feint however because once the mechs reached the far side of the street they turned back around "staring" directly at the front of the hardware store. One of the mechs then launched a rocket into the store shattering the front window as it detonated near the inner defensive perimeter. A row of sharpened wooden stakes and rebar was blasted apart hurling the pieces of splintered pikes back into the store. Bits of wood and metal embedded themselves in the shelves and pierced the products contained in them. Paint oozed out of cans that had been punctured and items were jostled off the shelves and onto the people still sleeping between the aisles, startling them into awakedness and confirming without a doubt the enemy's suspicion of their presence.
Before the mechs could open fire on the spooked people inside that stood up the mech rocket triggered an unintended side effect by igniting and or bursting the gas cylinders set up as missiles aimed out the doorway. Several of these cylinders flew out with tremendous force towards the enemy that had fired first. One of the inert gas cylinders smashed into one of the mechs while another cylinder struck the side of the second of the three mechs tearing off its gun arm, one of its legs and ripping open a huge gash through the side of its main body. An argon cylinder flew off to the side and snatched up a skitter which it splattered against the wall of the building across from the store. Another cylinder filled with acetylene gas missed the mechs and exploded when it struck the opposing wall consuming several skitters in the detonation and leaving many more covered in burning debris which they brushed off their flame resistant exoskeletons. A few skitters were also dislodged from the rooftop of the building across the street and fell down onto the tarnished pavement below.
The third mech opened fire into the store tearing through the displays within and set off two more gas cylinders which haphazardly sprang through the blasted open window into the outside. This time the aliens kept out of their projected paths and the cylinders harmlessly smashed through the walls of nearby buildings where they eventually came to rest somewhere inside these buildings. The mech homed in and fired a precise burst to detonate the remaining acetylene cylinder set up on the other side of the storefront. The cylinder burst apart in a fireball swelling out into the store spewing jets of flame that shot out and arched through the air landing in various places around the front of the store. The force of the detonation further broke up a new gap in the row of pikes hurtling a large cloud of sharp debris inward. The fireballs and bits of burning debris looked like irregularly scattered candles when they came to rest. Some of the nearby wooden pikes that survived the explosion were set alight by the resultant flames.
Amidst the storm of flying debris one of the fractured fragments of the rebar pikes flew backwards between an aisle and struck Alice Newburgh, one of the two British women, in the side of the neck. The force of the impact which pierced her throat slammed her backwards and pinned her against the steel framed shelf behind her. Her partner, Jenny ran to her side as she slid down from a standing to a seated position. As Jenny grabbed the upper arms of her mate the mech outside fired through the shattered window frames gunning down several of the newly awoken adults who made haste to arm themselves to repel the attack or flee. Seeing the life drain from her beloved Alice's body Jenny's eyes overflowed with tears. Her peach toned cheeks went to red and her voice cracked and whimpered as she looked upon what she refused to believe.
"Alice? Alice!" sobbed Jenny.
Alice could not even give as much as a set of last words before her eyes went cold and her last breath escaped from both her mouth and the puncture wound upon her throat. Jenny shook Alice vigorously hoping to wake her up so that she could at least say goodbye. When that failed Jenny pulled away from Alice and slapped herself repeatedly hoping to wake herself up in the far off chances that this was some terrible dream. She bruised herself with the force of the slaps against her own face and when she knocked one of her back teeth out she knew that there was no way what she was experiencing wasn't real. With that realization she wrapped her arms around Alice and buried her face into her blood soaked nightshirt and bawled.
As Jenny was overcome by grief and regret the other survivors inside the store had just begun to return fire against the aliens outside. The bullets harmlessly nicked off the mech's armor as the mech rotated and sprayed bullets in a fan shaped pattern, tearing through walls and store displays to cut down several more of the defenders as they scurried to arm themselves and take the fight to the enemy. The skitters cautiously now crept out in front of the mechs and peered into the open gash at the front of the store. The mech sprayed a wide swath of bullets into the store piercing through cans, boxes and containers on the shelves as it shot up the aisles. Liquid seeping from ruptured cans of varnish flowed over to a burning chunk of wood and quickly ignited spawning a stream of fire as the flames combined with other flammable liquids leaking out onto the ground and down from the aisles. The fire illuminated the darkness of the store enough to banish the shadows which the humans were hiding in. This sudden change in luminosity caused the skitters outside to briefly shield their eyes and back away. The continued barrage of mech bullets burst cans of spray paint which exploded and even in places ignited when they burst too close to the flames. A young man standing too close to the paint display soon found himself engulfed in flames and ran down the aisle screaming until he dove onto the open floor and rolled around on the ground in an attempt to extinguish the flames. The man rolled about only long enough to perish; his efforts were ineffective in quenching the fire that had consumed him. As his flesh burned away the defenders refocused the whole of their retaliatory fire towards the mech. The bullets nicked off the armor leaving little more than a scratch on the machine's finish; each shot was as useless as the one that preceded it.
"Shoot roaches not robot you idiots!" screamed Petrikovich from the back of the room as he gathered up his rifle.
While the defenders redirected their fire at the skitters Melissa came upon Alice and Jenny as she passed between two of the aisles in the front where Alice had been slain.
"Oh my God. . ." gasped Melissa inaudible over the raging gunfire going in and out of the store.
A stream of mech bullets ripped through the air behind Melissa and burst through the rack on the next aisle over followed by a rocket which landed a couple aisles down in the other direction, fracturing the display frame and causing part of the aisle to collapse.
"Jenny, we've got to get out of here" Melissa said in a loud assertive voice.
Jenny did not respond she only clung tighter to her departed Alice. Melissa ran over next to her and knelt down.
"I know this can't be easy for you but if you don't leave you're going to end up the same as her." Melissa calmly implored her.
"It'd be better that way." Jenny quietly sniffled through much louder wailing tears.
"That's not what Alice would want. Please, you've got to get up." Melissa insisted.
There was no response as the fight raged on. Outside a few skitters had been struck down and others had been wounded by the human gunfire as they slowly crept towards the store. The mech paused between bursts allowing the skitters to proceed before again laying down another stream of suppressive fire to pin down the defenders.
"We got to go!" Melissa urged as she tried to pull Jenny off her partner.
Jenny pushed Melissa off her with enough force to shove her backwards down the aisle.
"Go! Go away!" she cried loudly.
As mech bullets flew past her and crashed through the aisles Melissa looked at her, sadly watching her cling to the body of her lost love as the last residual traces of warmth flowed out of it. She started to speak, as if to command Jenny to get up and go but in her heart Melissa knew that would be ineffective. She held her piece, watched and waited while the fighting continued to intensify around her. A round of gunshots followed by and explosion drew her attention to the right. She then looked back at Jenny, still clinging to Alice and sobbing and hesitated. Then reluctantly Melissa ran away, leaving Jenny to the same fate as her partner.
Melissa ran towards the back of the store taking with her a host of unarmed youngsters while the adult men and women formed two lines ahead of them behind what cover they could find. One of the last mech bullets struck a man in the chest near Melissa who fell backwards. Melissa sent the kids on ahead of her and crouched down beside the dying man.
"You're going to be alright." Melissa assured the man lifting him up to groans and grimaces.
"Take this." gasped the man, handing Melissa his gun.
Melissa took the gun and left the man to the care of a woman and an older teenage girl who came to tend to his wound. She then ran back, ushering all the kids she could find out of hiding and moving them away from the firefight.
Outside, the skitters vanguard had stopped its advance and for a moment allowed the gunshots to pepper their own ranks as they held their arms over their face to negate some of the damage. Regardless of this futile act several aliens fell wounded or slain in this brief halt to their advance. Some of the defenders still carelessly shot at the mech to no effect as if the next bullet might actually succeed where all others had failed as if the armor was being worn down by repeated attacks. As good a theory as any but as of yet one that would remain unproven. The mech seemed unfazed by the gunfire no matter how much it had received.
The lone mech then retreated down the street away from the store. It ceased firing once it slinked back around the corner out of the view of the humans inside thereby making way for the skitters to storm through the front of the store. The humans inside refocused their fire towards the skitters as they charged in with unconstrained speed. As the aliens hopped inside and poured through the gaps in the wall the defenders quickly shifted to melee combat using whatever they could find. Along the still intact portions of the row of pikes at the front of the store several skitters accidentally impaled themselves leading those which followed them to jump over the improvised pikes to avoid the same fate. A few of the skitters were shot and wounded in midair fell down onto the pikes and were skewered upon them as well.
Nazar Banin was near one of the skitters that fell upon the palisade. The sight of the rebar piercing through the skitter's lower jaw, through its mouth and out through the creature's right eye while the rest of its chest and legs were impaled in multiple other places startled him. Banin fell backwards and dropped his gun as the skitter in its death throes lashed out at him but struck nothing but air. Another skitter leapt and cleared the pikes to land in front of Banin. A husky Russian man brandishing a steel fencepost wrapped in barbed wire came to Banin's aid repeatedly bashing the skitter across the side of the head and straight on into the face until it's armor caved in and it's brains came gushing out. The burly man now spattered with iridium rich skitter blood cast aside his dented bludgeon and helped Banin get up. As he was doing so another skitter came from behind and shoved it's clawed hand into his back and out his chest, ripping out the man's heart along with a few vertebrae in the process. The skitter used the dead man as a shield against the gunshots from Banin and several others as the humans were forced back from the center of the palisade wall. A teenage boy with an improvised spear made of sharpened rebar speared that skitter from the side inciting the wounded skitter to backhand the youth with the body of the dead man. The teen was launched into the air and slammed into a busted down aisle where he was impaled through the chest by one of the dislodged steel support members. Having removed his shield of flesh momentarily the skitter found itself gunned down only to be replaced by two more skitters rushing to the front line. The center had broken and the enemy was breaking through.
The left side of the wall was soon abandoned as well when skitters smashed through the openings left by the mechs attack, widening them and carving out a path of slaughter amidst the defenders. Two of the Korean passengers of Flight 1437 were struck dead by a single skitter breaking through the barricade; one of the two had his neck snapped backward with a powerful backhand from the alien the other's head was seized by in the very same hand on the return swing and crushed by its grip. This particularly strong skitter was then took four bullets to the chest from nearby fighters who then were scattered into the interior of the store by other skitters. This seemingly invincible skitter bucked back on its hind legs and with its front legs knocked over one of the shelves pinning several teenage boys between two aisles. It then seized a Korean man who was swinging his gun like a club towards another skitter by the throat and hefted him up. Blood oozed out of the man's neck around where the skitter's fingers wrapped around it as the man gasped and choked until he drew his last breath. A Russian man with a pickaxe slammed it down on this stalwart skitter's back, lodging the bit in its hard shell. The skitter swung around and smacked the Russian with the body of the slain man in its hand, knocking him aside. The skitter then discarded the corpse and advanced towards his next victim. Before this alien champion claimed its next kill it was shot in the side of the head twice with a .45 magnum in the hands of Dr. Klauss.
"Good shot fearless leader." Petrikovich chuckled as he fired repeatedly at other skitters to give cover for the fighters in the front to withdraw deeper into the store.
"I was wondering when you would do something. Ha! ha!" Petrikovich laughed.
At that time Melissa led a group of young boys and girls past him who took shelter underneath the table and behind boxes in the back of the room.
"You got room for one more?" Melissa asked readying her gun.
"Get bullets out of box and join in." Petrikovich instructed her.
Melissa turned back towards the box Petrikovich was referencing and filled her pockets and pouch with bullets for her gun and went back to the firing line to assist the others picking off skitters to support the fighters holding the skitters back in the middle of the store.
Though they fought valiantly and suffered greatly the defenders had been pushed back, now fighting the skitters within the aisles and slowly retreating to the rear exit of the store. Klauss was not ready to issue a full retreat just yet though; there was still a chance they could repel this attack and relocate on their own terms. Now as they were mostly engaged in close combat the fighters on the front line exchanged their guns for hammers, pipes, axes, shovels and whatever other piercing or bludgeoning item they could take off the store shelves and turn it into a weapon. A boy was tossing circular saw blades as if they were shurikens into the hide of several skitters. Another man jabbed a skitter in the eye with a spade after it was stunned by a woman slamming a shovel onto the back of its head. Banin took a sledgehammer and crushed the armored skull of a skitter while he and another man aided a group of teenage girls in their flight to the back of the store. Not all of the teens were so keen to flee however; one 15 year old boy made a strong showing by shooting one skitter then taking up a garden hoe when another skitter snapped his gun in half. He used the hoe to cleave off the jaw of the skitter and then jammed it through its open maw to kill the creature as it was retracted raking out its brains. He then snapped the hoe on the shoulder of another skitter and used the sharpened wooden stick left behind to pierce the neck of the same skitter before the skitter twisted back, grabbed the side of his head and slammed it hard onto the floor. The boy's friend came to his aid and shot the skitter dead but it was too late to save him. Banin then took the second boy to the back as the skitters widened their hold on the store.
Once the initial shock troops had broken through the tough outer defenses of the hardware store a second round of skitters wielding single handed staff weapons followed behind them. While the first wave had focused on killing adults the second wave was targeting children. They held out the stubby staffs and squeezed down on them. This caused the staff to emit a short flash of purplish white light followed by an invisible pulse which struck several young boys thereby causing their bodies to fall limp to the floor. Immobilized but unharmed these boys were then snatched up by other skitters and carried away.
"Protect the children!" Dr. Klauss shouted upon seeing what the aliens were doing.
He then turned his .45 caliber revolver towards one of the staff wielding skitters and fired. The skitter being freakishly quickly raised its hand which absorbed the bullet within its flesh thus turning a potentially fatal gunshot into a flesh wound. Klauss then had to see to protecting his own person as two skitters scampered towards him, Svetlana, Melissa and Petrikovich at the back of the store.
The skitter's wielding stun sticks fired pulses which made a couple more teenager's bodies fall limp while their fellow warriors spread the human fighters through the aisles and towards the walls. The alien raiders continued to drop teens and youngsters along with a handful of adult women and even a few men as well. One of the stunned teenage girls was rescued by two men who killed the skitter sent to retrieve her. One of the men used a hacksaw to block the skitter's arm at the wrist while the other man snapped a 2x4 studded with nails on the creature's face. The nails stuck into the skitter's face causing it to reel backwards and allow the first man to take his gun off his back and shoot the creature in the throat to slay it. The second man discarded the broken 2x4 and scooped up the girl. The first man attempted to rescue a 7 yr old boy nearby but was knocked away by a skitter who then snatched up the unconscious child. The girl was brought to the back behind the firing line and laid up against the wall until she regained consciousness. The man then reached into a box he could now see the bottom of and grabbed handful of bullets to assist the other shooters.
"Get the kids into the restrooms in the back!" Svetlana shouted as she shot dead one of the wand wielding skitters.
A 13 year old boy near the recently deceased skitter got the bright idea to take the wand from the skitter and try it out against its former masters. He had seen it used before; all the aliens did was squeeze so it couldn't be that tough. When he retrieved the device from the skitter's cold dead hands it was a bit larger than he thought. What was like a wand in the hands of a skitter was more like a baseball ball in human hands. Nonetheless a magic wand or a magic staff it was a weapon that could turn the tide in this battle.
"Expelliarmus!" shouted the boy as he used the skitter's disabling wand against them causing one of the creatures to fall limp into a pile in front of him.
The boy whirled around and did the same thing to another skitter coming around for him from the side.
"Stupefy!" the boy repeated another spell phrase from the Harry Potter novels as he stunned a third skitter who was about to stun a group of small children racing towards the restrooms.
As the boy continued stunning skitters the melee fighters capitalize on their chances and easily slayed the immobilized creatures before they could get back up. The boy's luck would eventually run out. The skitter's recognized the boy as a danger and ensured he was the next one to be stunned. His last act was to stun the skitter that stunner him before slumping over against the wall to be soon carried away by the aliens.
"Get the kids to the back!" Klauss shouted
They couldn't leave the kids amidst the fighting nor could they send them out the back door for undoubtedly the skitters would be waiting there to seize them. They had to protect their youth at all costs. Williams held open the restroom door and fired his shotgun at the oncoming skitters while Petrikovich, Svetlana, Klauss and the Turks, Semet and Fatima provided suppressive fire to aid the melee fighters towards the front and allow the kids to retreat into what was essentially the most secure location in the store. Yulia meanwhile went out and escorted the children to safety shooting skitters or impaling them with a sharpened reciprocating saw blade that had been spot welded under the barrel of her gun like a bayonet. Melissa ran towards the breakroom with her gun and a claw hammer with another man wielding a large pipe wrench and fended off skitters long enough to rescue most of the children that were hiding in the breakroom. The younger children were given flashlights to see inside the dark restroom once the doors closed. The adults fortified the rear of the store and handed the older children weapons in case they failed. The teenage boys trapped within the aisle fell victim to the skitters as did a few others who were too slow to withdraw to the back. Once the remaining children were inside the restroom the door was locked and the survivors of Flight 1437 and their Korean allies prepared to make their last stand.
Petrikovich ran out of bullets holding back the swarm of skitters. Disgruntled and with nothing left to reload with he snatched a gas powered chainsaw off the wall. Petrikovich yanked the cord and started up the chainsaw just in time for him to bring it down on a charging skitter's forehead. Petrikovich pushed mightily against the skitter as the chainsaw sparked against the skitter's armored skull plate before it sliced through the softer facial skin and continued to dig into the armor. With time and effort Petrikovich cut split open the creature's head and sprayed out it's innards with the cycling of the chainsaw blade. Petrikovich removed the chainsaw and let the skitter fall forward in front of him only to swing the chainsaw sideways into the side of another nearby skitter. Once that one was dispatched he ducked one swiping hand coming for him from the other direction then sawed off the next hand before coming from below with the chainsaw to rip open the neck and chin of his third victim. The fourth skitter he had the misfortune to duel with while wielding the chainsaw swung at Petrikovich, lightly scratching his right cheek as he wasn't fast enough evading the attack before he could swing the chainsaw into the underarm of the skitter and cut off the limb which attacked him. Petrikovich yanked off the skitter's arm and used it to beat the creature back while jabbing at its chest with the chainsaw. Next to him Petrikovich saw another skitter knocking the gun out of Semet's hand.
"Be you needing a hand?" Petrikovich asked tossing a severed skitter's arm over to Semet
Semet took the skitter's hand and beat the creature senseless with it. As the skitter staggered backwards knocking over another aisle on top of a couple of its fellows Semet was able to retrieve his gun. He cast aside the severed skitter arm, picked up his gun and shot the skitter dead.
Yulia having completed her task with the children was now fighting alongside Williams, aiding him as he tried to reload with one hand. They formed the last line of defense outside the restroom door. They were doing good until a swarm of skitters enabled three of their kid to break past Petrikovich and Klauss and head for the restroom door. Williams shot one of them dead but then had to deal with the slow task of one handed reloading. Yulia speared one skitter in the chest but before she could retract her weapon the skitter hunched back and with her gun still stuck via the jury rigged bayonet in its chest Yulia was disarmed. Before she could think the third skitter grabbed her by the shoulders and flung her against the wall. Yulia slammed against the wall hard, knocking down packaged circular saw blades on top of her. Meanwhile the second skitter plucked Yulia's gun out of its chest like a man removing a thorn from his finger and advanced on Williams. Williams frantically finished a partial reload and shot the skitter twice but was knocked back over a chair in the process leaving Svetlana and Semet to cover for him against the swelling swarm. The third skitter made its way swiftly to Yulia before she could even start to pick herself up. The skitter stomped down on Yulia's chest with one of its front legs and while holding her in place it proceeded to grab her wrists and rip both of her arms off. The gaping bleeding holes where her limbs were yanked from her shoulder sockets quickly drained the former flight attendant of blood. Her eyes glazed over and rolled back and her screams faded leaving her opened mouth silent with her tongue limp inside.
"No!" Williams screamed as he tore the cheek off a skitter with his hooked hand and fired his sawed off shotgun at the skitter which killed Yulia.
The blast burst through one side of the creature's head and out the other painting the wall with its blood. Still fueled with rage Williams fired his last shot at a distant skitter, bringing it down but not killing it. Meanwhile their lines were buckling, their ranks thinning and breaking. The survivors, bloodied and increasingly hurt had been forced into a narrow arc between the restroom and the back door. Around the time Svetlana was killed and torn apart it became obvious to Klauss and the others that they were not going to hold onto this location anymore. They had to flee; sadly Klauss knew they would lose some of the kids but it was better than losing all of them if they were overrun in here.
"We can't hold them!" screamed Melissa as she retreated behind the water fountain in the hall around the corner from the restroom leading towards the small loading dock and the back door.
Skitters closed in and disemboweled another man covering her escape. Melissa returned fire along with Zheng who was behind a stack of pallets in front of the loading dock.
"Damn it! Get the kids out of here! We have to run!" Klauss commanded.
Williams was too embroiled in hand to hand combat to get to the door so the task was left to the Turks.
"Fatima, get the door. I will cover you!" Semet ordered his wife.
Fatima knocked on the door and explained to the children that they had to leave now. The door opened and the armed teenagers joined the fight allowing the youngsters passage towards the back door. Klauss and Banin retreated with the children while the others held back the tide of alien attackers.
Semet and Fatima had become separated following the latest surge of skitters. The each then found themselves surrounded and outnumbered. Semet fired into the chest of a skitter as it barreled through a display rack towards him. The rack fell upon Semet's legs and pinned him to the ground. The wounded skitter batted his gun out of his hands before he had a chance to use it. Meanwhile Semet reached for an axe that had been knocked down from the rack when the display fell. As he took a sharp blow to his right cheek which peeled off a sizeable chunk of skin his fingers managed to work the axe towards his hand. When the skitter's second blow came Semet took hold of the axe and used the sharp end of the axe bit to block the attack. The force of the skitter's own strike caused the axe to pierce through its wrist and nearly sever the limb. Semet forcefully yanked back the axe and struck the skitter in the side of the face driving the bit through the jaw before the handle snapped off. The skitter twisted and recoiled from the strike. In its throes of agony the creature threw one last vicious strike into the opened flesh on Semet's face hooking it's clawed fingers upward and gouging out Semet's right eye from the inside before retracting it's hand and falling to the side to perish with a clump of the contents on Semet's skull in its hand. As blood soaked into the fluid and delicate nervous tissue of Semet's brain his vision through his remaining eye blurred, distorted and went black. He began making all manner of inhuman sounds while gasping and crying in pain. His writhing beneath the display case did not last long for his death came swift soon after.
His wife, Fatima had seen his demise though she could do nothing to stop it as several skitters stood between her and her husband. She fought for her life and struggled to reach him to no avail. The shot she fired intended to end the skitter before its mortal strike could land instead struck another skitter in the shoulder as it was chasing down an immobilized boy that had fallen at the back of the store. She then had to turn to her own defense as another creature came at her from the side. With an assist from Nazar Banin taking a sledgehammer to the back of the skitter's neck Fatima was able to lance the stunned creature through the throat with her improvised bayonet fashioned from a sharpened drill bit duct taped under the barrel of her gun. She retracted her gun thus leaving the drill bit embedded in the creature as the duct tape failed to hold it in place. She then returned focus to her husband only to see that all hope for his rescue had been lost.
Fatima wailed at the loss of her husband and blindly fired at the skitters all around her. Two skitters were knocked back from the errant gunfire, one of which was slain the other after taking a shot to the abdomen lurched back and brushed the wound with one of its hands before charging forward again. Fatima's gun clicked as she realized she was out of bullets. She raised the gun up to club the monster in futility and prepared to join her husband in the afterlife.
When it seemed Fatima was done for Williams came out of nowhere and slammed his gun onto the side of the advancing skitter's head and pulled the trigger. With the barrel pressed against the skitter's skull the sawed off shotgun blast tore through the creature's hard shelled skull and out the other end spraying the skitter's brains and spattering patches of dark blood onto a nearby wall, sullying the items on display there.
"Get out of here!" Williams told her.
Crying, Fatima obeyed and ran towards the exit with Banin. Melissa was waiting there at the door for them and fired two shots at a skitter that had taken up pursuit. Zheng opened fire to take out a pair of skitters breaking away from Williams' futile assault to give chase. His gun clicked empty when he tried to aid Williams in his struggle. Grumbling Zheng reached into his pocket and loaded the last of his bullets into his rifle. Klauss and the other survivors that had clustered at the door took a deep breath and ran outside leaving Zheng and Melissa to cover them.
"Are you coming?" Banin shouted back to Williams as the remaining survivors began to make a hasty retreat.
Williams did not answer, he only fought harder. He was prepared to die today. One could say he wanted to die today. His survivor's guilt was acting up again it seemed. In spite of a clear defeat Williams would not leave the store. He continued to fight the skitters hopelessly against mounting odds. He could not live with himself if he ran while others died around him. His one handed shotgun proved effective at dispatching the skitters but for now he did not have time to reload it so it was merely a club to aid his hook in fighting the monsters hand to hand. Though it might have been what Williams wanted it fate would have it that Williams would not perish tonight. Banin opened fire on the skitters and drove them back from Williams. He then sprinted to Williams and took hold of his one natural hand and pulled Williams along with him as another Korean man was slain in the retreat. They were among the last few people to escape the store with their lives.
Meanwhile Klauss ran out into the street with the three oldest teens at his side. He was soon followed by Zheng and several of the other survivors who went out to make sure it was safe before the children made their escape. It was quiet on the back side of the store, all the violent chaos was effecting only the other side and within. Seeing that the coast was clear Klauss motioned for the children to be sent out. Zheng darted inside and sent out the rest of the kids into the stillness of the back alley. The stillness was deceiving however, once the children were outside five skitters dropped down from the roof of the hardware store with stun sticks to ambush the children. Acting fast, Klauss killed one of them and wounded another but it did not stop them. Other survivors left Klauss and the three teens with him to rescue the younger children. To counter them a band of three skitters ran around from the side of the building. Klauss unloaded the last of his ammo into two of these skitters before he could do no further good. In the end they couldn't save all of them. During the melee several more children were stunned and left to be taken away as the remaining fighters could not get close enough to them once the skitters closed in on them. The back lot became quiet as they were left with four dead skitters, and having rescued only two young boys, two teenage girls and a teenage boy.
The rest of the fighters exited the building soon afterwards with Melissa, Williams, Banin and Fatima being the last of them.
"It that everybody?" Klauss asked in disbelief upon seeing his sparse band of survivors gathered before him.
There were so few of them now; they lost so many more than they saved. Williams loaded a couple more shells into his gun and nodded. Banin took two homemade pipe bombs out from his backpack. He lit them as Melissa opened the door, allowing Williams to blast apart the head of a skitter trying to barge through then giving way for Banin to toss the bombs inside. Williams then braced the door shut as the bombs went off while Banin, Zheng and two other men pushed the dumpster in front of the door in order to slow the advance of the aliens. The remaining survivors then ran out into the back lot quickly catching up with Klauss and the others.
"Get to the truck!" Klauss shouted urging the group to get into the tow truck.
One of the flight's survivors, a Filipino man ran ahead of them, hopped into the driver's seat and started up the tow truck. As the group ran towards the tow truck a newly arrived mech launched a rocket into the front of the vehicle blasting apart the engine block and igniting the fuel tanks in a secondary explosion which completely destroyed the vehicle. The new mech was joined by the hidden original mech which opened fire on the group, scattering them as they ran for cover around the burning building and into an adjacent cross street.
After they were scattered the mechs ceased fire and allowed a squad of skitters to come running down the street. The skitters snatched up the two young boys and retreated while the rest of the group fled, unable to help them.
Petrikovich and Melissa led the youths into one of the nearby buildings while Williams took Fatima, Zheng and some of the other adults into another building across the street. Klauss, Banin and two Korean riflemen remained in the middle of the cross street and watched as several of the adults straggling behind were cut down in a hail of gunfire from the mechs. Those that escaped into the side street were directed into the two buildings and told to run down to the opposite side of the building and go down the fire escape to re-emerge into the street further down behind them.
"Do you still have one of those bombs?" Klauss asked Banin.
"Yes but it won't be enough to. ." Banin started to say but was interrupted.
"It will work." Klaus said holding out his hand and allowing Banin to hand him the bomb and a lighter.
Sure enough one of the mechs entered into the side street just as Banin handed off the bomb. Klauss tipped his head to the side motioning for the rest of the people with him to flee into the building and follow the others down to the fire escape on the far end.
"Looking for me?" Klauss taunted the mech before he ran into the building after Banin and the others.
The mech ran down the side street and fired through the wall of the building as Klauss and the others ascended to the second floor and ran down a long hallway inside. Mech bullets ripped through the floor and the walls behind them as they bolted down the hall. Klauss slowed down to light the fuse on the bomb and was struck by one of the bullets from the next barrage in the center of his lower back. As the bullet burst out of his abdomen and continued on to pound into the ceiling tiles above them Klauss tossed the bomb through an open window onto the street below. Banin stopped and ran back to Klauss as he fell face down onto the ground. The other two men looked at him but Banin waved them on before one of the two was cut to pieces by a subsequent barrage of mech rounds. Banin knelt down and carefully lifted Klauss onto his knees. Klauss grunted and clenched his teeth in pain.
"Can you stand?" asked Banin.
"I don't think so. I can't feel my legs." Klauss groaned in response.
Banin discarded his weapon and hefted Klauss up onto his shoulder. He felt the warm blood leaking out of Klauss' wound onto his shoulder, slowly seeping down to his chest. When he started to run Banin heard an explosion outside and felt the building reverberate as the pipe bomb detonated. As Klauss had planned it set off a previously untapped booby trap resulting in several bombs going off which collapsed weakened portion of one of the buildings into the street thus sealing off the way back to the hardware store. After that there were no further shots fired from the mech that had been badly damaged by the repeated detonations. Banin caught up to the others and was helped down the fire escape with Klauss.
"We need peroxide and bandages before I bleed out all over you." Klauss gasped.
"There's a pharmacy to the southeast, it's not far from here. I went there a couple teams when we we're scavenging for supplies. It was still pretty well stocked last time I was there." commented Zheng.
"That's where we'll go then." Williams stated.
The adults looked over each other and made sure everyone was accounted for and started off in the direction which Lei Zheng led them. Williams, Melissa and Fatima waited at the intersection of the sealed off street and the alley while Banin carried Klauss past them. The fragmentary remnants of the skitter's raiding party allowed the rest of them to go as they saw to taking the children towards the river were a transport craft landed to pick them up. The remaining mech as well stood guard over their movement of captured children and did not bother to give chase to a relatively small number of humans fleeing towards the south. As the last man took up the rear guard behind Banin, Melissa joined in with the retreat leaving Williams and Fatima alone staring back in the direction of the store they had called home. The glow of still burning fires left a pulsating shifting mass of reddish orange light above the rooftops. Williams tugged at Fatima's hand as she was welling up with self-pity and sorrow and bade her to follow him after the others. When the fear induced adrenaline had flushed itself out of Williams' system he too would be feeling the weight of her loss and hating himself for surviving yet another engagement in which he deserved to die. With one last despondent glance the two of them looked back at the smoke weaving through the afterglow into the night and withdrew, walking at first and later picking up the pace to a slow jog. As the first hours of November greeted them with remorse, tonight had been nothing short of a slaughter.
