CHAPTER ELEVEN
The sounds of the animals' shrieks and squeals did not cease until after the morning light had broken through the clouds. Cassandra and Kyle had opened their eyes just before dawn and they listened to the shrill voices rising up through the vacant streets below.
It was clear to them, as they stayed quiet and still behind the kitchen counter, occasionally glancing over at the pile of sheets that covered the body of their friend, that the creatures had claimed the streets and ruled the neighborhood.
No longer were there sounds of screaming fearful people from the streets, no gunfire was heard throughout the night, no sirens nor alarms, nor squealing tires echoed up to their ears at all. Only the shrieks of the animals as they passed through the streets and climbed on the buildings resonated in the early morning light.
If there were any people still around, Cassandra assumed they must be hiding in very much the same fashion as she and Kyle were; too afraid to make a noise, simply hiding in darkness and hoping against hope that the animals did not sense their presence.
Cassandra wondered if the man in apartment three was still there, clutching his shotgun and hiding in fear. Perhaps he was sitting in a rocking chair with the gun in his lap casually looking out the window, calmly awaiting his chance to kill just one more monster, or perhaps he was simply contemplating his own demise.
There was no noise offered in the apartment building throughout the entire night to offer any clue as to anyone's presence.
Her thoughts bounced from wondering if there were any survivors still in the building to wondering where the military presence was, as she thought about the new reports that assured everyone rescue was on the way.
She thought about the stadium full of people and the hissing and shrieking sounds of the alien beasts. She wondered if any of those people on television made it through the night, or if they all ended up like Stephanie and David.
As the dawn light began to peek through the blinds on the large front window, Cassandra and Kyle still sat frozen with fear. The sounds of the creature's vile calls to one another did not die down. The animals still stalked the morning streets, fearless and confident that they claimed this world.
At first Cassandra had found herself figuring that these creatures were nocturnal, and that was why they had disappeared into the tunnels below ground as yesterday morning had arisen. Now, however, she decided either she was wrong about that, or it was just simply a matter of dominance.
The animals had no enemies, so they did not need to vacate the streets.
It was not until well after morning light that the streets fell quiet finally. Kyle slowly untwined himself from Cassandra's grip and cautiously and quietly slid across the floor, crouching low, until he reached the window. Cassandra stayed put and watched with wide eyed anticipation.
Kyle gently peered out of the blinds, trying hard not to rattle the plastic strips together so as not to make any noise at all. He held his breath and studied the outside scenery.
The street outside looked incredibly similar to the way it looked the last time he laid eyes on it the afternoon before.
The same cars were still in the same spots, several still smashed together, one still abandoned halfway on the street and halfway on the sidewalk on the other side of the block.
David's body still lay slumped on the sidewalk in front of the building next door, an eerie reminder of yesterday's events.
Many of the cars still were covered in two day old blood smears, still riddled with bullets, windows still broken. Some of the apartments across the street had broken windows and a flickering orange light from somewhere in the near distance told Kyle something large was on fire.
Nothing was moving. There did not even appear to be a breath of wind in the hot July morning. Not even a leaf on a tree shook. There was not even a distant echo of any activity in the streets far beyond the windows. Even through the sealed window, Kyle felt the hairs on the back on his neck stand on end as he sensed the nothingness outside.
"Creepy," he whispered.
Cassandra stared at him with fearful eyes. "What?"
Kyle faced her and propped his back against the wall below the window. He kept his voice low. "There's just nothing out there. It's so quiet. It's weird."
"Are those things out there?" Cassandra whispered slowly.
"No," Kyle shook his head. "There's nothing."
Cassandra frowned and slowly began to creep forward until she had reached the window as well. She gazed out onto the streets, somewhat expecting to see literally nothing. No cars, no trees, nothing at all. But when she looked out she understood what Kyle had meant.
It was such an unusual thing. To have been so used to seeing people out at all hours of the day and night, especially in a morning during pre-work commuting hours.
This was the time of the day, perhaps more so than any other day, that the streets would normally be jam packed with yellow cabs and vehicles of all makes and models trying hard to push themselves an extra inch closer to the next intersection and that much closer to their destinations.
The sidewalks would normally be crammed with large crowds walking hurriedly to their jobs. It was so strange to see no activity at all.
She watched a while longer, letting the still and quiet of the morning sick in. She stared until she was shaking with fear from the lack of any life on the outside and she pulled herself away from the window as quickly as she could manage.
"What should we do?" She asked quietly.
She had no real desire to leave the apartment. Even with the corpse of her dead friend on the ground not far from her, she still felt safer in the apartment than out on the streets.
She did not even want to attempt to get to her aunt and uncle's house; it was simply too far away. Not only that, but she did not even know if they were home.
Part of her feared being in the large crowded area of a government handled shelter, because she knew the creatures were out stalking the streets looking for living hosts to breed in. Being in a large room full of potential hosts did not seem like the safest of choices to Cassandra. Still, she knew she would not be able to hold up with Kyle in the apartment for much longer.
It would be only a matter of time before the monsters did find them, or their food ran out. Cassandra and Stephanie were very much 'go-outers', so they had little food at all in their apartment.
Although it was hard for Cassandra, who had seemed to lose her appetite days ago and had not eaten since, to imagine even wanting food, she still realized she would need to eat at some point.
"I don't know." Kyle said softly as he started to crawl to the television. He clicked it on and immediately punched the volume button to turn the volume all the way down. There was no image on the monitor, just black and white fuzz.
"That's weird," he muttered.
When the volume was as low as it could get he tapped the channel button and flicked through the stations. The next channel had the same snowy fuzz. The next station was working, but the image was a little sketchy.
"Something must be wrong with the…" He whispered as Cassandra crawled near.
They watched the images quietly, trying to read the reporter's lips, too afraid to turn the volume up any higher. The man on the screen was standing in the front lobby of another packed arena, but Cassandra and Kyle did not recognize the place.
"Turn it up a little," she whispered.
Kyle carefully turned the volume up just enough that if they held their breath and strained their ears just enough they could hear the man's voice. The reporter was speaking more about evacuated areas and a possible planned military strike. It did not take long to realize that they were watching a broadcast from Atlanta.
He flicked through the channels again. The few stations that were broadcasting were not covering anything to do with New York.
As he pressed the button and sifted through the networks, all the images on every channel became one and the same once again. Another Presidential address was about to be given. They stopped and watched.
The man who took to the podium was not the President, rather it was the Secretary of Defense. Kyle and Cassandra listened as the man on the stage announced that the military had identified what they were calling a 'hive' in a mountainous region of Southern California.
The man informed his viewers that the entire southern regions of California and Nevada had been completely evacuated, offering the military a casualty free one hundred fifty mile radius from the confirmed nesting grounds.
The plan, as the man described, was to have two phases. The first would be drop several bombs on the area and the second would be an armored expedition into the hive grounds to eliminate any remaining threat.
The plan sounded fool proof, and the man promised that citizens that had been disheveled from their homes would be allowed back into the evacuated area as soon as possible. He also indicated that following a confirmed annihilation of that particular hive, a massive search and destroy effort for any other hives would commence across the country.
"How do they know that can get them all," Kyle whispered.
"What if that's not the only hive?" Cassandra wondered softly. "You know, there could be all these breeding grounds right under our noses and we don't even know."
"Well, hopefully that will be it," Kyle said quickly.
"Madison Square Garden." Cassandra said suddenly.
"What?"
"It's a big place, it's probably a shelter area, do you think?"
Kyle thought for a moment and nodded, "Let's do it."
Courtesy of Stephanie's father, the apartment the girls had lived in, if only for a very short time period, was fairly close to everything. It was only about seventeen blocks to Madison Square Garden, which seemed like the most likely place for a shelter of any sort.
Normally, walk from their home to the Garden might take about thirty minutes, considering traffic and other pedestrians.
Kyle and Cassandra talked for a moment, plotting their route for speediness. Cassandra packed up some bottled water into an oversized back and after a few minutes, they were as ready as they could be to head out into the empty morning streets.
Kyle reached for the handle of the apartment door hesitantly, but pulled the door open all the same. He took a deep breath as he walked over the threshold, Cassandra following, gripping his hand tightly.
They stopped for a moment at the top of the stairs and listened to the nothingness all around them. After a moment of considering staying indoors, the pair slowly and carefully stepped down onto the top stair softly.
The old wooden stairwell creaked and groaned under their weight, despite their efforts to tiptoe down them. They both paused, holding their breath, waiting to see if anyone responded or anything moved.
It was a slow descent as they walked as quietly as possible, and avoided the hole in the stairwell that had been shot into it by the man in number three. Cassandra glanced at his door as they passed, quietly wondering what he was doing inside and halfway expecting him to thrust the door open and shoot them. She was grateful when they had passed the door and reached the second floor with no incident.
When they reached the bottom of the stairwell, they both gave a little sigh of relief to be off the creaking steps. Cassandra found herself staring into the first floor unit, the door was wide open, but there was no sign of movement.
They made no sounds as Kyle opened the door to the outside slowly, after trying hard to glance through the textured glass doors to discern any movement in the streets.
The front door unlatched and popped open with a little click that seemed as loud as gunfire compared to the silent hallway and outdoor streets. Slowly, the pair stepped out onto the city sidewalk.
They tried hard not to look at the corpse still on the ground just outside the door. Cassandra still felt her eyes fall upon David's body and tears welled up in her eyes when the thought of both he and Stephanie, still laying upstairs filled her mind.
She felt like she was abandoning them, the apartment she so strongly wanted, and her life that she had hoped to lead. Somehow she felt as she stepped carefully down the sidewalk, watching the ground warily as though it might attack and carefully avoiding the cracks in the cement with more efficiency than the most obsessive compulsive she could imagine, that her life was indeed over.
She could not help but to feel that somehow, the moment she left the apartment, that she signed a waiver, erasing her former life and binding her to a new, uncertain future. The thought made her sick to her stomach.
It could have also been the wretched smell that could only be made from death that was making her nauseous, but the idea of never going back to the life she wanted weighed hard on her mind and stomach. She couldn't imagine what was to come in the next minute, the next month; the next years.
They reached the end of the block and both craned their necks around the corner of the building, glancing to the north, then south waiting for signs of any movement. Again, there was nothing. Not a soul in sight on the streets or anywhere as far as either's eye could see.
Everywhere they looked, they saw sights similar to the street just outside the apartment building's door. Vacated cars, open doors to buildings that would have normally been barred closed and locked, smashed windows, empty bullet casings.
There was not a breath of wind, nor a sound in the air. Manhattan was like a ghost town as far as they could see. They continued on quietly.
They passed one block, then two, effortlessly. Eventually, they were far enough away from their familiar surroundings of the empty streets that the sights around them changed completely.
They stopped and stared, sickly pale and nauseous as they looked around. They had gone from ghost town to warzone in the span of just a few blocks. The streets before them were lined with bodies, so tightly packed together, they were piled two or three on top of each other.
The bodies were mangled, from what Cassandra could see through her teary eyes, but they did not appear to have been hosts; many of the people she saw did not have blown out chests.
The street ran red with blood and the faces of the dead were permanently etched with looks of shock, fear, and pain, but none looked as though they had suffered the fate of being a breeding host.
Cassandra tried hard not to break down into hysterics seeing the many tortured bodies on the street. Kyle slowly and cautiously approached the first one he came to and followed the dried trickle of blood from the sidewalk to the man's torso, where a large gash was ripped out of his side.
It looked like he was bit by one of the massive black creatures. The next body they saw was that of an elderly woman, slammed onto the hood of a car, her head torn clean open from the eye socket to the skull, with definite scratch marks from taloned claws.
Kyle felt sick looking at the ghastly sight and Cassandra began to whimper and cry.
They walked quickly through the wretched scene, trying hard not to look too intently at any more bodies. They crossed the street and found even more bodies scattered throughout the next block and they picked up their pace.
As they crossed onto another block, they both came to a stunned halt outside a bakery. The streets until then were ripe with the stench of death and decay as well as a fading scent of gunpowder, but as they crossed the intersection the air turned sweet and pleasing.
A wonderful and unexpected smell of fresh baked treats permeated the streets. The smell was overwhelming, clashing drastically with the scent of blood, sulfur, and death. Cassandra turned and looked through the bakery window, which had several bullet holes in it and a very large splattering of blood.
Behind the counter, an old man, scrawny thin and wrinkled with time, was tending to his ovens and wiping the counter tops and display cases. Cassandra exchanged a stunned glance with Kyle and they both entered the shop quietly and apprehensively.
The man was talking softly, a thin smile on his face as he wiped the counter with a bloody rag, streaking the surface red. Though his words were foreign and his accent was thick, Cassandra could tell beyond a doubt that what he was going on about.
He has tears in his deep bloodshot eyes, and he too looked as though he had not slept in days. He was hysterical, disoriented, but he was aware that they had walked in and he glanced at them, beaming widely as his voice lifted and he extended a hand towards them, welcoming them into his store.
There was a gun on the counter near the cash register, which Cassandra spotted Kyle eyeing and she shook her head, worried he might set the man off if he reached for it.
Cassandra turned back to the man, who had turned around and pulled open the door to a bread oven. He slipped on a hot pad over his hand and pulled out a tray full of steaming hot bread and began to slice it up with a knife covered in blood as he started to hum.
"Sir?" Cassandra asked slowly in calm, comforting, but shaky, voice.
The man behind the counter jumped. He turned on his heels and began screaming hysterically in a language Cassandra did not understand. The two jumped and the man started over to the counter, in the direction of the gun lying there.
Cassandra and Kyle bolted for the door and they ran as fast as they could as far away as they could, and did not come to a halt until they were just about a block from Madison Square Garden.
They pulled to a halt and caught their breath for a moment, glancing around at the empty streets around them.
"There's no army here," Kyle said.
They looked around again. The streets were packed with some abandoned cars, parked cars, and some emergency vehicles, and occasional bodies, which they simply ignored, but there was no sign of military activity or any activity at all.
They scanned the streets looking for any evidence that the Garden was being used for shelter, but saw none. A rattling sound from a dark crevice between two buildings next to them got their attention and they both jumped, shouting, into the street, putting some distance between the noise and themselves as they watched with wide eyes as a ragged looking dog, dragging a chain attached to its collar appeared from an open cellar door.
"Huh," Cassandra grunted with a deep sigh.
They turned around to face the Garden once again and a man they did not see before was standing right in front of them. Both jumped with a start and watched him as they backed slightly away.
"Where are you going?" He said suspiciously.
Cassandra found herself habitually eyeing what he wore. The man looked like a homeless man in a business suit. He had a wide eyed mad look to his face and his once expensive suit was ripped and tattered, dirty, and splattered with blood.
"M...mm...Madison Square..." Kyle started slowly.
"Why?" The man snapped cutting him off.
"We're looking for help," Cassandra said from halfway hidden behind Kyle's shoulder.
"No help here kids, no help here." The man said, falling back from his overbearing position as he waved his palms at them.
"I've got to get to the airport! I have a flight at five. S'posed to be in Dallas for a corporate meeting tomorrow. I can't give you any money. I need a cab…" the man looked around and ran his fingers through his messy, dirty, blood encrusted hair.
He looked at them once again as though he had never seen Cassandra of Kyle before. "You goin' to the airport? Can I get a ride?"
"Uh...no," Kyle said as he and Cassandra began to shuffle off. "Good luck."
As they hustled off without another word exchanged to the man, Cassandra gripped tightly onto Kyle's arm.
"What did he mean 'no help here'?" She whispered.
"I don't know, Cassy. It doesn't look like there's anybody around, does it?" Kyle responded.
They approached the building and without hesitation, pulled the front door open and stepped inside. The place was brightly lit, but deserted.
The lobby was clean and empty, the concessions stands all had their gates locked down. The corridors were organized and neat, the garbage cans had clean bags, and the floor was shining. Other little kiosks in the wide aisleway around the building were still draped over, their trinkets protected.
Kyle opened a door to the arena itself and Cassandra braced herself for some horrible nightmare vision to greet them as they stepped into the massive area.
Every seat was empty, not a sign at all that anyone had even sought shelter inside was present. The floors were as shiny and clean as they could be and every seat was folded up.
Kyle and Cassandra walked clean around the arena area, through all the corridors, into the unauthorized areas, looking for anyone at all, but there was no one to be found. Oddly, all the doors were unlocked and the pair was able to access everything from managers' offices to VIP boxes and broadcasting booths, but there was no hint of a person.
Kyle took a deep sigh and thumped onto a desk in an announcer's booth.
"Great, now what?"
"I'm sorry, I just thought that this..." Cassandra started but stopped short and shook her head.
"It's okay, I thought so too. Where else do you think we should try? Where else would help be?"
They fell quiet as they both thought of other areas to seek shelter. They began to rattle off a list of possibilities.
"Definitely not anywhere more south of here, that's the area that got attacked first." Kyle thought aloud.
"Maybe in...a mall or something?" Cassandra wondered, halfway hoping she would never go into a mall again.
"It's got to be somewhere big, obvious."
"Any of the police stations?" Cassandra said with a shrug.
"Maybe." Kyle nodded, "Maybe Grand Central Station?"
"A train station? I don't want to go in a train station either. I haven't had good experiences with malls and subways lately."
Kyle smiled and nodded. "What about the Port Authority?"
"I guess we should have gone there first, it's closer than this was." Cassandra said with a shrug.
"What if there is no one?" Kyle said with a drifting tone to his voice.
"What do you mean?" Cassandra questioned.
"What if they're all dead."
"No," Cassandra shook her head. "That's not possible. A lot of people fled that's why no one's here. They could be in JFK or …or…something we just need to find them. We find people then it'll be OK, we'll have help. If our numbers are big enough maybe we can defend ourselves until the military strike and kill them all."
"I just..." Kyle started.
"No, Kyle, come on." Cassandra cut him off.
He nodded and the two got up and headed out of the arena and back out onto the streets. It had taken them close to an hour to stalk slowly down the streets of the city and find themselves at Madison Square.
By the time they had searched the building high and low and considered the possibilities of where to find shelter and more people nearly two hours had passed. The morning was moving on, but there was no activity immediately outside the arena doors.
They walked about a block and a half away from the Garden, past the abandoned cars, the bodies in the streets and the bloods stains and bullet holes to which they were now becoming desensitized to.
They talked softly to one another, each fearful that perhaps too loud of a voice might spark something evil to emerge from the streets, or the grounds below.
"Look!" Cassandra suddenly called out loudly with great excitement.
Kyle looked down the block to where she was pointing and a smile cracked his lips as well. The two darted down the street calling out.
"Hey! Hey!"
A small group of people were filing into the streets from some of the buildings, many carrying bags and belongings. They all looked lost, many had tears in their eyes.
People of all ages clamored around the cars simply left in the streets and many, shocked by the sights of the blood and the bodies started to weep while others offered consoling words to them.
"Hi, can you help us?" Kyle said as they approached one of the men in the group.
"Can't help you kids, but you can come with us."
The pair smiled widely. "Where are you going?" They asked almost simultaneously.
The man raised his eyebrows as three other men joined him.
"We were just talking about that, actually," one of the men said.
"We...we were thinking the Port Authority." Kyle added in.
Cassandra watched warily the others in the streets as they grouped together and supported each other.
Kyle and the other men considered the Port Authority Terminal for a moment.
"Nah, the Garden, we should go to…" one man started.
"We just came from there!" Cassandra said sharply.
"It's a ghost town, there's no one there."
The men gazed at the two teenagers and contemplated their words.
"What do you think?" One man said to the other.
He shrugged then nodded. "Better than sitting here."
He turned to the people in the street, making sure everyone was ready to move. "Ok, let's go!"
The group started off at a slow pace, making certain that all were able to keep up. Some of the people were injured, some young, some old, so even though no one wanted to be caught out on the streets when the monsters attacked again, there was little choice but to travel slowly to be sure no one got left behind.
"Name's Cliff," the leader of the group said, extending a hand towards Kyle.
"Kyle," he said shaking the man's hand. "This is Cassandra."
"Hi," Cliff said.
"Hi," Cassandra replied.
As the group walked, they discussed with each other what each had been through. Their stories were all very similar. Cliff told of the last two nights they had spent huddled in the buildings. The group that followed them were all strangers or neighbors brought together by the need to survive, be near other people, and seek shelter and safety.
"We had the T.V. on all night, the local channels went off at about two or three in the morning." Cliff said.
"We didn't turn it on, they were right outside the whole night." Cassandra whispered.
"Yeah, then we tried to figure out where to go, so we went to the Garden," Kyle added.
"I'm amazed you kids got there by yourself in one piece."
Cassandra gritted her teeth. She was sick of being referred to as a kid.
"Yeah," Kyle said with a slight questioning tone.
They walked slowly and cautiously through a rather indirect route. Besides the scattered corpses in the road, each one of which seemed more gruesome than the last one, nothing else was encountered en route.
No other people, nor ragged looking dogs, nor any other life form seemed to be stalking the streets that morning. Cassandra glanced from time to time at the people behind her.
She did not take a head count, but thought there were at least fifty in the group. However, the little pack of people seemed very small compared to the vast empty streets totally devoid of life of any kind.
When they finally reached the Port Authority Terminal they slowed the group to a halt to evaluate the area. If there was a military shelter there, there were no vehicles outside to identify the building as such. There were no sounds or signs of anyone else other than the small group.
After a brief moment of warily eyeing their surroundings, Cliff reached for one of the many entrance doors into the large structure and walked through.
Kyle and Cassandra headed inside a moment later. The walkways past the small shops and kiosks were vacant, but blood covered. There was obvious signs of a struggle in the building, unlike the Garden that seemed totally oblivious to all that was going on outside.
The Port Authority had seen a fight. Several of the small shops had windows broken and bullet riddled, one kiosk that sold City memorabilia was knocked over, its display contents strewn across the aisle.
The very large display case in the center of the lobby, not far from the escalators, which featured an interesting 'cat and mouse' clock, with many winding tracks for the little golf balls inside that would drop down their chutes as the clock operated, was completely shattered.
The glass housing added glitter to the bloody floor and all the carefully designed pieces of the clock were shattered and crushed.
The group stared at the wreckage quietly and shifted over the broken glass trying hard not to make noise. The escalators were running and one by one, the group stepped onto them, up to the second level.
"Hold!" Someone yelled, aiming a gun at the group.
Everyone threw their hands up in the air as they reached the top of the escalator. Three men dressed in bloody army fatigues took a moment to consider the group before lowering their weapons and indicating towards the area around a corner behind them.
Kyle and Cassandra made the turn to find what they had been looking for. A jam packed food court full of people unable to return to their homes. There were probably twenty or so men and women in military uniforms bearing automatic weapons intermingled with the group, or on guard around it.
Some of the civilians in the group also held guns. The group of civilians probably reached over two hundred in the food court. The people Cassandra had traveled with moved into the group like they had all known each other for years.
Some reached out to help the injured, while others came to bring the children to a small group of kids on the farthest end of the court.
"Oh thank God." Cassandra whispered as she eyed the people in the large area.
They moved into the group and were offered a spot on the ground along one wall, which they gladly accepted. The woman who waved them over greeted them with a warm and friendly smile.
Her eyes reflected the miseries she had been witness to, but she still conveyed friendliness and warmth. She began to tell them her story before either Kyle or Cassandra were able to ask.
"We've been here for two days. The officers there, they're all very nice, they said they are waiting reinforcements, they are on their way they told us. They've been doing a good job holding them back. The creatures are right below us all the time, they're in the tunnels. But there's more men down there, protecting us. The animals come out at night mostly. They've managed to shoot so many of them already. We're okay, you'll be okay too, kids, don't you worry."
The woman rattled on a bit more with a kind tone in her voice, but she still gave the effect of a woman who was losing her mind. She bounced from one subject to another and occasionally talked to the floor or wall before looking back at Kyle and Cassandra and changing back to her original topic. The two listened but said nothing.
Cassandra glanced around at the people in the room, many of whom had a look of despair on their faces. They seemed lost, like they had known that they should be at work this morning, living their life, earning their money, but instead here they were held up in a food court, however far they were from home, and with no real certainty about whether or not they might ever see their homes or families again.
She could tell by looking at them that they felt the same thing she felt that morning when she left her home and stepped out onto the war torn city streets.
At least for now the group was comfortable. Several people cooked meals in the various shops of the court as the evening rolled in. Though all tried hard to keep their voices quiet, they still offered jokes and storytelling and mingled with each other like they were at a quiet party.
The children played on the far side of the food court like they were in the strangest sleep over they had ever been in. As long as the adults around them seemed content the children were readily able to form a genuine smile and laugh innocently.
Though many of the adults did the same, it was obviously forced and uncertain to those who looked on.
"Alright guys," one of the military officers called out quietly and the room fell silent just after the group had finished a variety meal courtesy of the vacated fast food outlets around them. "It's eight thirty."
Cassandra and Kyle glanced around. The woman had said this in such a way it suggested that everyone knew what they were to do at this hour. The woman who sat with them whispered to them.
"No sounds unless you have to. If you need to use the rest rooms, bring someone with you."
It was basically lights out. Darkness was setting and the animals' hunting hours were drawing near. Cassandra sat and watched the officers, too frightened to think about sleeping, as many of the people in the group were beginning to settle down to do.
Throughout the night the guards, both military and civilian paced around, quietly listening for any sounds of movement from the depths below. It seemed they had their routine down to a science, as every so often one officer would radio to another squadron somewhere else in the building. After many long tense hours, Cassandra shut her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
"Hey, Cassy, wake up." Kyle was softly shaking her shoulder.
"Huh, what?"
"Breakfast, time to eat." He said to her with a smile.
She opened her eyes and looked around. The large group was getting up for breakfast which consisted of very much the same foods that dinner did. She was not hungry so she sipped slowly on a drink but did not take a plate of food.
"Did anything happen last night?" She asked aloud to anyone who had an answer.
"Around three," one man responded, "the things took off to the North and East out from under the building. I don't know, maybe they've figured out that they can't get us."
"Oh, how do they know which way they went?" Kyle asked.
The man gestured to the building around him. "This place is secure. There's like fifty guys guarding it. And more are on their way."
"Hey! Hey! I've got a signal!" Someone shouted from the center of the room.
He had on the table in front of him a small television and a local network suddenly popped onto the screen.
"The news is back on!" Someone else said softly.
The group piled around the small television, many standing on chairs and tables to get a better view. Once again a reporter came on the screen.
He stated that he was broadcasting live from Brooklyn, where he had spent the last two days and nights in a library with a large group, attempting to broadcast, but the stations had been down. He admitted to not being sure how the news was getting through now, but he reported all the same.
He described with horrific detail, attacks from the giant creatures that had occurred over the last few nights. It was disturbing listening to his report, and oddly enough, although Cassandra herself had lived through very much the same thing it sounded so much more horrible listening to the rattled reporter tell his tale to all that could see and hear him. As he went on though, what he continued to describe was even more disturbing.
Where he was at, there was no one left. Those who were able had evacuated, and if they were lucky enough to escape to a safe area, the reporter hoped for their success.
However as his cameraman and he strolled over to the window on the second floor of the library, and the camera panned outside, the reporter questioned live on the air their own chances of survival. What came next was a sad and terrible plea for help that brought tears to many people's eyes.
The camera revealed a massive horde of the serpent beasts swarming the streets. They were crawling into homes, through cars, into buildings, searching, according to the reporter, for anyone alive that they could bring into the dark depths they claimed below the city.
The reporter admitted that no one in his group had any weapons, besides for a few makeshift hand held weapons like table legs and baseball bats. By the time the man had stopped talking, he had begun to sound like he was reporting his own funeral. Cassandra figured that he was.
The animals were just outside. With no way to defend themselves, it was only a matter of time before the group in the library, one hundred and fourteen according to the reporter, found themselves within the grasps of the satanic monsters. One by one, people came onto the camera, quickly and tearfully saying goodbye to their loved ones.
The group in the food court all fell silent. The military officers seemed anxious and rattled by the broadcast they had just witnessed as they silently wondered when their long since requested help would actually arrive.
The camera in the library continued to broadcast like a grisly reality show, but the group on the screen simply sat quietly, watching and waiting. When the screams of the inevitable starting shrieking through the small speaker in the tablet, a woman in the group, grabbed it and turned off the broadcast.
"We don't need to watch that. Let's see if anyone else has something to report."
No one made a sound. A sea of heads and eyes lowered to the ground while the woman scrolled through other viewing options and propped the tablet back up for all to see.
The President took to the podium in the empty room and issued his orders to the American people, commanding that those that were in hiding to simply await assistance, assuring his viewers that help was indeed on the way.
He talked for quite a while about the many cities throughout most of the middle of the country that were now being overloaded with evacuees from the affected Southern, and Western and Eastern seaboard areas.
He explained how those that had fled their homes would be dealt with in the cities both large and small that could not handle the millions of additional residents.
Not a word was mentioned about the success of the attempted bombing of the hive that had been located in Southern California. There was no mention of any military effort to find any other hives and attempt to destroy them, nor was there enough attention given to those that were indeed in hiding, a fact that rattled the group listening.
"What is really going on?" One spoke up after the President was finished.
"Are they really coming for us?" Another questioned to no one in particular.
"No..." one disgruntled man said sharply from the opposite end of the court. "They're not coming for us, they can't. They're outnumbered, the roads are jammed up, people are dying everywhere. Their guns aren't powerful enough to stop all of these damned things and with every person they take, they add one more and we lose one."
"Oh stop, you're cheering us up too much," someone else called out.
"No, he's right," another interjected. "We have to at least consider the fact that they can't get to us."
"They are coming," one of the officers shouted. "Now that's enough. They have their hands full, that is true, but they are coming."
"We'll be okay here," another officer added. "We have food, we have weapons..."
"There's over two hundred people here," the negative man added in again. "Food's gonna run out soon unless there's a delivery coming that we don't know about. Your guns will run out of ammo, how much extra do you have?"
Cassandra glanced to the officers, whose looks on their faces gave away the answer. Suddenly she began to feel that she was part of a lost cause.
"Great." The man whispered.
"Well, we have better chances here than other places. At least here, we're in a group. If we were still in our homes we'd be at a higher chance of getting taken away." One woman said.
"Yeah well, I've got news for ya' lady, with no weapons to kill those suckers, I don't think it's gonna matter that we're in a big group. I don't think they're scared of crowds."
"Alright!" One officer shouted harshly and stomped towards the man who was sitting along the wall. He reached down and tore the man to his feet by the collar of his shirt. "That's enough! We're doing the best we can! If you want to go on it alone, go I won't stop you! Otherwise keep your mouth shut!"
Several other officers zoomed in to separate the two men. Both men fell quiet, and a lull fell over the group, each considering both sides of the story. Each man was right. The group did not stand a chance with no weapons, but at the same time it did feel better to be in a group than alone huddled in a house that didn't feel like home anymore, surrounded by dead bodies.
Hours passed slowly in the subsequent quiet. There was nothing to do, no way to occupy your time, other than trying to come with a fall back plan.
Some of the group muttered about leaving the Authority building and heading off to a more secure location, while others ridiculed that idea for how unsafe it was, but could not offer any other suggestion. Others in the group thought it might be a good idea to try to find guns.
The thought of heading out to arm up and gather needed supplies from relatively close areas came up and was tossed around the group. Someone took out a pen and started making a list of needed supplies and possible places to find them along with the distances to each destination.
Others mentioned the need to find a way to block up the entrances into the terminal, both from the outside streets but mostly and more importantly from the subway terminals below. Having something, anything in place would be better than having men standing in the darkness keeping a watch for the creatures that hunted them.
Many officers joined in on the plans, all brainstorming their ideas and by the time the late evening had arrived, the group had a fairly complete plan of who would go where and get what, who would stay behind, and when it would be done.
"It's too late now, we'll never make it in time. We have to go in the morning."
Those that had volunteered for the run nodded their heads in agreement. There were ten groups of ten. Each group would be led by two armed chaperones. The civilians and officers that had weapons were distributed amongst each group to try to keep the weapon numbers even.
Cassandra and Kyle volunteered for a group and were assigned to one of the three food supply groups. There were many delis and shops very close to the Authority, so there was a high chance of success. Other groups, geared towards weapons supply had a harder time ahead of them.
There were gun shops, and even rifles out of sporting good stores, but those places were rather far away and the group agreed to find vehicles and drive to them as best they could through the streets whenever possible. Other groups were assigned the tasks of finding clothing, medicines, and first aide supplies.
Those that remained in the Authority were to help with the barricading. Once the other subjects and plans were discussed, all that remained was trying to decide the best way to help at least partially block the entrances as best they could.
"We need bricks and mortar," someone who looked very much liked a construction worker said.
"Well, we can't get that," another added, "but... we've got to block up those entrances. We need to make this place secure as possible to have the best chance. If those things decide to get inside, maybe we can at least slow them down and give our bullets a chance to work."
Many suggestions were tossed around, everything from piling crates in the entrances to tearing off doors from the other buildings around them and using them for barricades. Cassandra paced around listening to the groups' discussions. She glanced from time down to the lobby and evaluated the doors they were planning on blocking. Suddenly it occurred to her and she turned to the group.
"What about the cars?"
The discussions stopped and they turned to Cassandra, who paused for a moment, then glanced back outside and started again.
"We can get the cars through those double doors. If we at least use them at the entrances up from the subway, it could help. We can use them to block the outside doors too."
"And we could tear out the car seats to fill in the gaps," someone suggested.
"We can siphon the gas out of them, and use it for defense."
Another plan was created and the group, somewhat excited about the prospects of making their shelter more secure discussed every minutia of it. Suddenly any enthusiasm the group shared dwindled away as someone flicked the tablet back to the news channel that was still sending its library camera broadcast.
The squealing of the black monsters could be heard through the tiny speakers and they echoed loudly through the ears of those that piled around to watch. There was no human activity.
Through the dead silence, only the shrieks of the black monsters echoed, combined with shuffling and scratching sounds out of the eye of the camera, doubtless coming from people being dragged off, still alive.
"Jesus," someone in the group whispered. "They're all dead."
"No, they're not." Cassandra said with certainty.
"Not yet, but they will be," Kyle added.
"How do you know?" A shocked woman in the crowd asked.
"We've seen it already. Too many times," Kyle replied.
"Oh," the woman said with a soft tone.
"They take you alive, they need you alive. To breed. To impregnate you or whatever. Then you die." Cassandra said morbidly.
A quick glare from Kyle made her fall silent. She stalked away from the group and collapsed along the wall next to the questionably sane woman.
"Maybe...maybe we should get those cars now." Someone in the group suggested.
The masses agreed and dozens of people took off down the escalator and out into the streets. Many of the vehicles had just been abandoned during the initial panic from the first attack, so it was not difficult to find vehicles with keys still dangling from their ignitions, and gas in their tanks.
In a well-coordinated effort, a stream of cars filed into the building, blocking up part of the two subway entrances, and the remaining vehicles were parked in front of all but one door to the building from the streets outside. Even the entrances out into the parking garage were partially blocked up with vehicles.
All the doors were glass, and the cars only blocked off less than half of them, but it was better than nothing. The effort also gave the people inside a chance to focus on something other than their own impending deaths, or the news broadcasts of other peoples' deaths. It offered a moment of hope and a chance to lengthen their survival until any help could arrive.
It took almost till night fall to finish ripping out the seats of many of the vehicles in order to strap them up the cars' roofs in an attempt to fill in some of the spaces, just to try to slow down the anticipated hordes of attacking monsters.
"Eight thirty everybody," an officer called out and the group fell quiet and sat down, all watching with anticipation.
It seemed no one was able to sleep at all. Close to ten o'clock, the hisses and shrieks of the evil black monsters filled the night air. The large group of officers shifted their weapons and craned their necks to see what they could.
As they crawled out of the three sided food court area and into the open space between the escalators, the officers clicked off their flashlights and fell silent as their eyes settled on the streets outside the glass doors.
"Oh God," one officer whispered so softly.
Several people tried to creep forward to see what the men were looking at, but they were held back by the officers holding their hands up to them, indicating for them to stop their advance. No one spoke. Cassandra slid slowly against the wall, little by little.
She peered around the edge of the corner and allowed her eyes to focus onto the streets outside.
Under the lights from the street lamps and between the windows of the vehicles now parked along the doors inside and outside the Authority, she could clearly make out the outlines of many black creatures stalking the sidewalks on all four legs, their long, spiked tails following behind the sadistic animals.
Very slowly, the officers began to creep forward, keeping their weapons trained on the creatures outside. There was even more movement outside than just the black monsters of the dark.
Cassandra squinted her eyes to try to make out what she was seeing and her jaw dropped in horror when she realized what it was that she saw.
Hundreds and hundreds, perhaps more in number than the black monsters themselves, of the spider like 'face huggers' crawled along the ground, weaving in and out of the legs of their larger brothers.
"Oh my God, they're hunting us down," someone in the crowd whispered.
"No," another fear struck person whispered, "they're taking over."
"Shh," another person scowled harshly.
Some of the officers kept guarding eyes on the other end of the terminal, where they could hear the scratching sounds of the creatures' claws striking the ground as they walked the subway terminals directly below.
A gentle soft clattering noise filled the ears of the people in the group and they started to look around for the source of the noise. It was not coming from outside, nor was it near the escalators.
The children, huddled together in the back end of the food court, furthest away from the glass doors for safety, shouted out high pitched frightened shrieks and everyone turned.
One of the children thudded backwards and hit the ground, one of the spidery monsters attached firmly to his head. Several women screamed hysterically and attempted to lunge forward for the fallen boy while the other children ran away from him.
One woman who tried to get the fallen boy stopped screaming suddenly as she, too, dropped to the ground. The thing that was now attached to her face had leapt over the counter top and landed perfectly square onto her skull, secured itself into place with its tail and gagged the woman with its protrusion into her throat.
Officers filed towards the counter tops and opened fire, trying hard to shoot the fast moving little monsters as the group fell back, screaming.
Attracted by the noises from within, the large monsters that had been skulking by in their massive numbers turned and lunged for the doors. They easily broke the glass and clambered over the vehicles and the makeshift blockades while the officers opened fire as the panicked group huddled in the center between two lines of intense shooting.
The gunfire was nearly deafening. Cassandra and many others threw their hands up to their ears as they huddled together unable to defend themselves.
From behind the group, where some officers shot at the crab like egg hatchlings, one of the men shot into one of the fast food shops and ignited an oven. An intense fire quickly consumed the shop and the squealing face huggers retreated.
One seemed to burn slightly as it got in the initial flames, its acid blood burned through the counter top it was on before it disappeared onto the floor behind the counter.
The face hugging hatchlings caught in the flames sizzled as the floor below them melted. Someone grabbed a canister of gasoline and threw it into the fire in a panic, despite half a dozen people around him trying hard to stop him. The kitchen area erupted, forcing the group away, towards the horde of the serpents.
The animals pressed in, outnumber the humans, and nearly unaffected by the constant stream of weapon fire. Gun shots echoed out from behind Cassandra, but they were not directed at the swarm of ever approaching animals.
Cassandra turned to see one woman, stone cold in her expression, shoot and kill three children that cowered and cried nearby. Cassandra screamed and spun around as the woman turned the gun towards her.
"NO!" She ducked out of the line of fire, and grabbed at the woman's ankles.
Kyle noticed what was happening and lunged forward, tacking the woman's weapon and the gun went off two more times. Kyle leapt back, grazed by the bullet in his arm, and pulled Cassandra away as two more men ran over. Before they were able to disarm the panic stricken woman, she turned the gun to herself and squeezed the trigger.
"Jesus," one man muttered.
Cassandra broke down in tears. Kyle leapt to his feet, following in the footsteps of several men he noticed who were grabbing chair legs, wrapping them in clothing, and lighting them in the burning fire.
They turned towards the animals, shoving flaming torches towards the creatures while others set up a flaming perimeter to help slow the approach of the skittering facehuggers.
Slowly, it seemed as though the battle was coming to a close, after nearly the entire night. The few hold outs still in the food court were surrounded by two, still flaming perimeters and a dozen armed guards served as the only other defense against the sea of creatures that had attacked.
The sting of burning acid burned their eyes, and the flames and smoke choked the surviving group, but they had made it through the night. Cassandra shook with fear, exhaustion, shock, and disbelief. She still clung to a now burnt out torch, her tight grip around it making her knuckles white.
It wasn't until morning when attention was turned to the living hosts that were being parasitized by the face huggers.
Once the animals had stopped their attack, heads turned towards those trying desperately to get the long tailed spidery animals off the faces of the two people they had attacked.
"You can't remove them," someone shouted.
"We'll see about that!" Another man said loudly.
He tried hard to pull the thing off the face of the child it seemed to be smothering. Many members of the group sobbed hysterically, certain that the young boy was dead. Several women hustled the remaining children away from the ghastly sight.
Three men argued with each other as they tried to pull the animal off the boy's face. They attempted the same tactics on the woman, whose husband was crying unstoppably as he cradled her limp body.
"Cut the god damned thing off, man!" Someone suggested from the crowd.
One man pulled a large knife out of his heavy boot and knelt over the child.
"Don't cut the boy," one officer whispered as he watched.
"I won't," the man said.
He took his knife and wasted no time. He quickly sliced at the animal's leg, just where it attached to the creature's body. The man howled wildly as he fell backward and dropped the knife. He clenched his hand tightly and cried aloud in agony.
The man's hand was bleeding, and the knife that had clattered to the ground was sizzling. Cassandra glanced down at it. The blade was dissolving. A strange smell filled the air.
"JESUS!" Someone yelled.
All eyes fell back to the boy. The animal had unlatched itself from the boy's head. A large puddle of blood was oozing along the floor. The animal, with all legs nearly intact clattered away, aiming directly at the first person it was nearest to. A police officer howled loudly as he raised his weapon.
"Clear!" he shouted and everyone jumped back.
He pulled the trigger and the spider animal stopped in its tracks, a hole burned into its body. The stench of acid overtook the group as they stared in silence at the carcass that was burning a large hole through the tiled floor. In a moment, the floor gave in completely around the creature and the remaining scraps of tile and concrete and metal, along with the tattered corpse fell through to the next floor.
Another person in the group yelled a blood curdling shriek of unimaginable pain, all eyes looked back at the hysterical woman who slumped back to the ground and fell over, unconscious. The group's eyes filtered over to the young boy next to the fainted woman.
"Oh my God, what did we do?" Someone whispered in shock as he stared at the boy.
The young child was missing a large chunk of his face and skull. Acid from where the man had tried to cut the creature's leg off had eaten through the boy's right eye, through his skull, and through the floor underneath as well.
As sickened hush fell over those that did not break down and cry or run off to vomit. The man holding his wife, still with the creature attached to her face sobbed even louder, certain that his wife would soon die.
"We were tryin' to help," someone whispered.
The woman who had passed out was carried off. When she had regained herself, her wild sobs filled the lobby. It was her son, the last thing that she had on the planet, that lie dead under sheets down the hallway in another room now.
The group lowered their heads in mourning. Cassandra's eyes filled with tears and she tucked her head into Kyle's shoulder. The husband swayed back and forth, clutching his wife, seeming oblivious to all around him.