CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Time passed easily behind the concrete and steel walls of the shelter.
Although there was no communication, no telephone, no television, and no leaving the building, people still mostly remained optimistic.
The information that was given to the group was updated daily, always reassuring that the situation was being handled, and the lingering promise that all would return home 'soon' kept some optimistic; others uncertain.
Cassandra and Kyle made their own little corner into home after a day or two. They did not put up curtains for privacy, but they would explore the entire building, and were chased out of many off limit areas many times.
"You know," Kyle started as they walked down a fairly empty hallway towards a double set of doors they had not been to before. Cassandra assumed the doors led to a stock room, or a loading bay possibly.
"We could definitely be here a while. This could be home. Maybe for months."
"There is no way we are going be living here for months Kyle. They said this will all be over soon. They're killing the animals."
Kyle rolled his eyes and sneered. "Whatever. That's what they tell us anyway."
"Shh!" Cassandra interrupted and spied the doors before them. "Did you hear that?"
They both listened, but heard nothing.
"Let's check it out," Kyle said in a curious whisper.
He edged the door open slightly and stuck his head through, peering around before he entered the space ahead of him and waved Cassandra in behind him.
The doorways led into another smaller warehouse, which was dark. Another set of double doors lingered on the back wall and Kyle quickly inspected it, seeing rows and rows of trailers backed into loading bay doors and military officers patrolling.
"What's back there?" Cassandra whispered, sure they weren't supposed to be where they were.
"Loading bay. Lots of military. I see a bunch of weapons. I think they're empty."
Cassandra pressed her face to the window and watched. There was a large pile of rifles strewn into a corner, far beyond the doorway, past boxes and containers and shipping crates and skid loaders.
No one seemed to really care about them. Cassandra's gut suddenly felt heavy with the thought that all those guns lay empty.
She turned her head sideways and eyed a single door on the adjacent wall, with a set of stairs just visible beyond the window.
"What's up there?"
Kyle smiled sideways at her and grabbed her arm.
They headed up the stairs quickly, but quietly and found themselves in an empty office, strewn with papers on the walls and desk; the comings and goings of the trucks for the facility.
A pile of bedsheets sat in the corner and a single candle lit the room. Cassandra's eyes glazed past the logistics schedules and sticky notes, passed the bed sheets, and her eyes set on a map on the desk, with red circles with X's through them over New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Charlotte that she could see.
She reached her hand forward to pull off some papers off the rest of the map.
"Do you see this? Who's is this? What does this mean?" Cassandra eyed Kyle, who was inches away from her face.
He seemed uninterested. He grasped her firmly with his hands and turned her slightly towards him. He pushed her softly backwards, backing her up to the wall of the office while he kept a tight clutch on her arms.
"No, Kyle, I don't think we sh…" she whispered.
"Come on Cassy," he held her tighter, pressing his body firmly into hers, kissing his way down her neck as his hands wrapped around her and up the back of her shirt to her bra.
"Think about all we've been through already. We need this." He said softly between kisses. "You don't want to be a virgin forever, do you?"
"Kyle, stop. I can't do this." She spoke firmly and pushed him away, shaking her head, staring at her feet.
He sighed forcefully, annoyed.
"Whatever. See ya downstairs."
He stormed off and reach for the door right as it opened from the outside and two military officers squared off with him. Cassandra and Kyle both jumped.
"What the hell are you kids doing in here?"
"Uhhh…" Kyle stammered. "We were just…."
The bristle faced officer glared at them.
"Leaving, we were just leaving!" Cassandra said quickly, darting for the door around both Kyle and the officer.
She thundered down the stairs without waiting for Kyle, and headed back to the common areas as Kyle called for her from behind.
"Wait, Ok, just wait…" He said as he jogged up to her and grabbed her by the arm again.
"Come on, Cassy. What's wrong with you? I didn't do anything!"
She turned and glared at him in silence with a gaze just as capable of burning a hole as the acid blood of the alien animals.
"Just…. Just don't…. OK." Cassandra squealed, stammering. "I'm not…"
"Everything OK here?" A voice said abruptly from a short distance away.
Cassandra turned to see Lewis Sans standing before her and smiled with relief. Lewis gripped his rifle firmly while eyeing down Kyle warily.
Kyle shook his head slowly and clucked his lips. "Nah, man. All good here."
Cassandra used the awkward silence of the moment as an opportunity to completely change subjects. The map with the red circles flickered into her mind.
"Hey, uh, Lewis, do you have any news about what's going on out there?"
He looked thoughtfully at her for a moment and glanced around to check his surroundings. Kyle stalked away and Lewis tipped his head for Cassandra to follow away from the main common areas
"They're trying hard to get things under control." He said with certainty. "On one hand I wish I was out there, because I want to kill those bastards for all they've done..." his voice trailed off for a moment, but he looked back at her.
"But I'm glad I'm here, too, you know?" He smiled.
Cassandra formed a half of a smile. "Are we going home soon?"
The look in his eyes answered her question. He sighed deeply.
"I don't know much, but I can tell you that from what I hear those things are ruling the roost out there. Look, don't tell anybody I told you, okay, but I want you to know."
"Oh God," Cassandra whispered as she dipped her head down and stared at her feet.
"Don't... it'll be okay."
Tears started to flow from her eyes. "How safe are we here?"
"Pretty darned safe, really. Nothing's getting through here."
Cassandra shook her head quickly, "But I saw loads of empty weapons. Are they running out of ammo?"
Lewis seemed to halfway want to run away and evade the question all together, but he fell silent for a moment and glanced around to make sure no one could over hear.
"We still have plenty of weapons. We'll be fine."
Cassandra wasn't sure if Lewis really believed what he was saying, but he seemed sincere.
"Do you know what they're doing to kill them out there?"
Sans shook his head quickly. "I've heard things, but I'm not in the loop. I just get told what to do."
"What have you heard?"
"Well, I've heard they've found hives in a dozen major cities, and around the world. They're supposed to be bombing cities once they've been cleared."
"Hives?"
"Yeah, don't you know?"
Cassandra frowned.
"I've been in one," Sans informed her and the two sat on the ground. "I was deployed to Philly. I was in this big damned hive under the city. It was unreal... It was horrible. The things they do to us..."
"I know. I've seen," Cassandra whispered solemnly.
"A hive?" Sans asked sounding shocked.
"Well... I don't know about a hive, but I've seen people die from these things. What's the hive all about?"
"Eggs, hundreds of them, and hundreds of those...bugs. That's what we call 'em. Bugs, they're like some kind of insect or … I don't know."
"Yeah, some insect." Cassandra said sarcastically. "Where are they bombing?"
"I don't know for sure," Sans shrugged wishing he sounded more important to Cassandra. "But I've heard they've dropped bombs on parts of... New York, Georgia, anywhere they've confirmed hives... massive breeding grounds."
"New York City?" Cassandra questioned.
Sans shrugged. "I think so."
He eyed the look on her face and tipped his head towards her. "Look, a lot of what I know is just rumors. I shouldn't even have said anything. Everyone's talking, but I really don't think anyone really knows."
"Right," Cassandra nodded, trying hard to imagine that Lewis was wrong and misinformed, but it was a hard thing to believe.
"Are you from New York?"
"I was going to school there. I have an aunt and uncle and my cousin I was living with …my Mom and Dad are in Sacramento."
"Oh," Sans said plainly.
"What? What is it?"
"I don't about California at all," he said apologetically. "I'm sorry, Cassandra, I wish I knew more."
"Well, the phones still don't work right." Cassandra said quietly. "So what held you up?"
"What?" Sans questioned.
"You said you got held up getting here or something, to Dr. Murray..."
"Oh, yea... well... it's just that..." he stopped for a moment and thought back. "We met in Philly, I was deployed there with a bunch of troops to go into the hospital that got shut down... we knew there was something under the city, but we had no idea..." his voice tapered off again.
"Anyway, I met Carlos there, and when the city started to get mass evacuations, people just started going nuts, it was crazy. We got orders to come here, and get this place ready for mass evacuees.
So, Carlos came along we set this place up a bit and then I was deployed. Our orders were just to find survivors. We already tried the whole 'let's go find the ones underground and bring them back routine', and that didn't work out well at all.
So, we were sent out to help evacuate New York . Well, it's like a five hour drive normally from here. It took us two days to get there. We got attacked en route. We were tryin' to go through the cities to find people, but they just swarmed us. We held them off okay, but they got one entire vehicle. There were thousands of them, Cassy, thousands."
Cassandra stayed quiet and listened to his words. She couldn't help but think of the inevitable, with swarms that large of the deadly animals.
"Do you really think we're safe here, Lewis?"
He paused again, revealing his answer in the silence.
"Listen, you'll be safe. If you get worried about anything, just come find me." He smiled softly at her and pulled himself to his feet and helped her up.
"I better get going."
Cassandra felt more relaxed, but still concerned about what would happen next. She eventually headed back to her spot in the community complex and scanned the massive area for Kyle. She didn't see him, and felt somehow relieved by that. As night fell, Cassandra drifted off to sleep.
Sometime in the middle of the night the sounds of massive gunfire echoed through the wide open space. Most of the community was wide awake standing on pins and needles, staring all around, listening to the shrill voices that filled the night air and the whirring of large machine guns at all ends of the building firing non stop for over an hour.
The citizens simply stood in silence, staring at the walls, listening to the sounds of shouting, gunfire, and massive explosions beyond the walls. Cassandra wondered how thick the walls were, how secure they would be, or what would happen if the swarm beyond managed to get inside.
She glanced around at all the people around her. Some of them were dropped on their knees praying, while others held their hands up to their faces and held their breaths. Startled children and unsettled babies wailed out through the open complex.
The gun fire continued from machine guns and tanks. Loud explosions that could only be from grenades rang out every minute. Men shouted to one other from the outer corridors over the sounds of their handheld automatic weapons.
The wary group listened intently until the shooting finally came to a stop. Distant yells of soldiers through the corridors of the massive complex echoed around, their voices muffled and difficult to understand. Suddenly an over intercom squeaked itself into life and a loud voice filled the large room.
"Clear."
The community came alive with howls and cheers through smiling faces. Cassandra smiled as she looked around the room. She saw Kyle coming over to her with a look of relief on his face.
"Hey! Where were you?"
"Ah, nowhere," Kyle responded.
The remainder of the night was played out in silence. In the morning Cassandra found herself looking for Lewis, looking for news on what had happened. She listened to the people she passed by talking.
Whispers from behind the sea of bed sheets all conflicted with every other whisper she overheard. People assumed they were safe while other assumed they were not going to survive the next night.
People talked about massive swarms running rampant in the very cities the next group of people said were perfectly clear. Cassandra hoped perhaps Lewis would have more definitive answers.
She did not find him until nearly midday. He was in the hospital; a grim look on his face as he talked to Carlos.
She eyed him warily as she approached. Carlos smiled and nodded thoughtfully. Lewis looked bloody and tired.
"I'm OK," he said to her before she even said a word.
"What happened out there?"
Lewis reassured her. "It was just a small attack."
Cassandra suddenly felt far less than reassured. Lewis had no updates about what was happening anywhere beyond the parking lot of the warehouse. The 'small attack' he described left fifteen people dead in a matter of minutes.
Cassandra didn't even think about the depletion of ammunition. She was just grateful, as many others were, to be alive.
By the time the third week had come and passed, Cassandra had a daily routine down to science.
She would start in the morning with a meal. She showered at her allotted time of 9:50am for exactly five minutes. She would walk the community areas of the complex and eavesdrop on anyone she could find for tidbits of information.
She talked to Carlos every day around the noon hour and then got lunch before she met up with Lewis around mid-afternoon, exactly when his guard rotation ended so she get filled in on the details of the day, from the weather to new survivors to any word from any patrols.
In the late afternoon, she got dinner, and worked a four hour rotation in the kitchen, serving meals.
She would see Kyle from time to time during her days, but he spent his nights elsewhere. Cassandra did not even bother to pretend she did not know he was spending most of him time with a group of guys and girls that preferred to keep to private areas for private activities. She wasn't interested and did not care.
She could not even imagine how anyone could think about sex during a time like that. She noticed Kyle with at least five different girls over the weeks, and so long as that kept him happy and away from her, she kept to herself.
She did notice how with each passing day the menu options got distinctly less and the food servings became distinctly smaller.
She served dinner, and had her own, but she was not allowed into the section of the warehouse where the food was stocked up.
Every few days, small pockets of rescued citizens would arrive to the cheers of those established within the building.
In the weeks that passed, nearly a dozen babies were born, and Cassandra vaguely wondered how many more were created.
Fights broke out, and guards would step in. Sometimes a person wielding a shiv would cause an injury.
Suicides seemed to be almost a daily thing. Hanging seemed to be the popular choice for that, but a rash of death by poisoning seemed to be the most recent plague, and Cassandra suddenly felt uncomfortable drinking from anything she did not the full history on. Carlos was always kept busy, with three other doctors and a small army of nurses, too.
Cassandra eyed her morning meal one day, which consisted of one small slice of ham and one small scrambled egg accompanied by one slice of buttered toast and a cup of orange juice.
She glanced around at the giant building around her and tried her best to estimate how many people were being sheltered within its walls.
At a quick guess, she supposed there were two thousand people with somewhere just short of four hundred additional troops.
The space, which she once thought was so large, which once seemed to her to be like a massive social party or camp, was now beginning to seem very cramped and managed more like a prison. She could not help but wonder how much longer the walls around here would support the people within.
Some of those people had been in the building for a full month already. Cassandra and the group she came in with were now into the beginning of their fourth week.
The weapons that guarded the building were now being shot so routinely no one even looked up anymore. It was like white noise in the background of their homely little lives inside the walls, behind their bed sheet curtains.
From time to time there was a distant sound of explosions, which many in the group suspected were the sounds of bombs dropping. Cassandra recalled what Lewis had told her about the underground hive breeding grounds and the bombings. Over the last several days, the explosions sounded like they were getting ever closer.
"Hey, Cassandra?" Lewis' voice called to her late one afternoon, after her kitchen shift had ended.
He caught her on the way back to her sleeping area. She was tired and wanted to do nothing more than sleep. Several fights broke out that afternoon over the depleting rations. Men disagreed with giving more food to pregnant or nursing women. Obscenities and insults about keeping their legs crosses turned to punches and started an all-out brawl.
"What's wrong?" He asked, realizing how foolish of a question that was.
She shut her eyes gently and shook her head slowly.
"Listen...uh... I... I was wondering..." he paused as he moved in close to her, pressing his body against hers.
He leaned forward and put his lips close to her ear. Cassandra felt herself holding her breath. She tried not to imagine what he was about to ask her. For some reason she felt a brief wave of anger welling up while she contemplated exactly how she was going to respond.
"Um…." He interrupted her thought. "Do you know how to shoot a gun?"
That was definitely not what she expected. She looked at him with a puzzled glance.
"Uhhh…." She stammered.
He scratched his head and nodded. "Ok, well... will you come with me?"
She followed him to the back of the massive main floor, past the hospital, where Murray was sleeping on a cot under the red hospital sign. The two walked through a back door and descended down a well-lit stair well to the lowest level of the building, where she had once been chased out of while exploring with Kyle.
They walked together through a door and headed down a corridor, around a corner, and through a set of double doors and into a long large truck bay on a banked side of the building.
"What are we doing down here?"
Cassandra asked as she walked alongside Lewis down the long receiving dock, past the dozens of big rig trailers that were lined up against the concrete dock inside the huge garage.
"Target practice," he said.
He propped up a mannequin that had obviously been used for target practice before. It had hundreds of holes in it and someone had duct taped rolled up newspapers to the pathetic looking thing's head and butt to form a makeshift banana head and a very short, stubby tail, but a tail none the less. Cassandra laughed slightly at the comical sight.
"This is Barry the Bug. He's a little beat up," Lewis said, but glanced down at the mannequin's chest. "Well, she..."
"What am I supposed to do?" Cassandra said with a smile as she watched Lewis prop the thing upright.
"You're going to shoot it." He pulled out a gun and handed it, butt end to her.
Cassandra shook her head, "I'm not..."
"Just do it," Lewis insisted with an unquestioning tone in his voice.
"If the shit hits the fan you need to know how to shoot a gun."
She couldn't help but to think that he meant 'when', not 'if'.
"What's happening, Lewis?"
He did not answer, instead he forced the gun at her again and she reluctantly grabbed it. He slid to her side and began his lesson.
"This is called a Baby Desert Eagle..."
"What?" Cassandra interrupted.
"Look this is for real, alright. I want you to have this gun. Hide it. Keep in on you. Do not let anyone know you have it, and don't let them take it from you. Now listen, it's loaded. Here's the safety," he pointed to a small area near the trigger.
"This is a big damned gun for you. It's powerful and loud, but not so bad as its full size sister. It's got a big kick back, so you need to practice with it, get used to its weight. Fire it a bunch."
He reached down and pulled out a small case from a pile of clutter near the shooting range.
"Bullets." He said, taking one out of the case and holding it up for her to see.
"Those are big bullets," she said quietly, in a whisper, as though her voice might alert someone to her presence, but the shooting of the gun wouldn't.
"Yea, well, not big enough…" Lewis muttered.
Cassandra wasn't sure if he meant for her to hear or not, but she did and she suddenly swallowed and cleared her throat.
Lewis continued on.
"Make sure you know what you're shooting at before you pull the trigger. And remember, these things have acid for blood, so you don't want to get back sprayed with their blood. We have not found anything yet that can stop their acid blood from eating through you... your clothes, nothing, doesn't matter if you have Kevlar on, or layers two feet thick. The blood burns a hole through anything. Steel, concrete, your skull. Doesn't matter. Understand?"
Cassandra nodded her head. Her jaw was locked tight and her eyes were growing wider by the moment.
"Now, this bullet will stop one of those face hugger guys flat out. But his big brothers; not so much. The best way to kill them, short of an automatic machine gun at your hip, is with rounds through its mouth. You know what that means, Cassy?"
She stared at him blankly.
"You need to practice. If one of those things comes charging at you full speed, you'll need to be able to aim for its mouth, fire, and do it from a safe distance so you don't get acid sprayed… and don't drop the gun because of all the power it has."
She swallowed. "What's a safe distance?"
Lewis looked behind her and nodded towards the floor.
"See that blue line there, that's ten meters from this here bad ass."
Cassandra looked to the blue line. "That's really far. Does it need to be that far?"
Lewis nodded, "The power of the gun will splash acid in all directions. You need to be far enough away. It'll be hard as hell to judge when they're charging at you, but you need to learn to fire from that distance. Trust me, I know. I've been there." He watched her stare at him.
He added after a quick pause. "Alright, let's do it."
They strode back to the blue firing line and he positioned her hands, head and body into the best firing position, talked her through a few points once again and reiterated the power of the weapon she was holding before she pulled the trigger.
The blast was far more intense than she expected. Her hand jolted back and she nearly lost her grip on the gun. The bullet she had fired zoomed to the far right of the bug mannequin and struck dead into the long side of one of the trailers parked in the bay. She sighed deeply and tried again after some prompting by Lewis.
Close to two hours later and a myriad of bullets later, Cassandra was feeling more comfortable with the weapon. Although it was hard to hold the gun still to fire and even harder yet to keep her whole body from shifting backwards after the blast, she was getting more able to actually shoot the mannequin.
Her aim was nowhere near the creature's newspaper head, however, so she silently hoped that if she ever needed to shoot one of the things, a chest shot would just magically work for her.
On the way back up to the main area, Cassandra walked slowly, contemplating the gun, and Lewis' insisting that she should learn how to use it. She could feel the weight of the thing pulling her jeans down in the back, where Lewis had tucked it into for the best hiding place.
"Lewis?" She stopped.
He turned to face her, but found himself unable to lift his eyes to hers.
"What is really going on?"
He smirked and kicked some dirt with his shoes. "I think we're losing."
Cassandra asked no more questions. She did not want to know. Lewis' tone said enough and the answer he gave was clearly understood.
She spent the majority of the next few days keeping well to herself as much as she could. She broke from her usual routine and even skipped showering so she did not have to worry about undressing and having the gun discovered by the female guards who patrolled the showers and kept watch over the time limits on the water consumption.
Over the next three days, she only emerged from her resting area one time per day, for her kitchen shift and meal. Whenever Lewis came to get her, she would go off with him and target practice.
Any other time she would sit with on her sleeping blankets, her fingers idly stroke the steel shaft of the weapon she hid in her clothes and she evaluated her own desire to live.
She had not even noticed as the days passed that the gun emplacements, which had been firing frequently for more than a week, protecting those inside from the attacking hordes, had stopped. One morning, she found herself alarmed, not by the sounds of war, but by the sounds of nothing.
An eerie silence filled the walls beyond the building and she couldn't help but to wonder why the guns weren't firing, why there were no voices echoing, why there was no hum of a tank engine or whirring of a turret.
She quietly headed out of the community areas and slowly treaded towards the two outer corridors. Nervously listening and looking warily all around her, she was not sure what she was so afraid of. The hallways led to offices, nothing remotely foreboding, although they were off limit areas for civilians.
Cassandra listened ahead of where she moved, waiting for any voices chasing her away from the forbidden areas. She turned left down the first corridor she came to.
She walked past unlit offices, some with frosted glass doors, others with solid wood doors and nameplates. There was no sound from any of the rooms at all. She tiptoed her way to the end of the long corridor and thought she perceived a change in temperature in the hallway.
She felt her hand suddenly sliding its way towards the handle of the gun in the back of her pants, as though it did so without her guidance.
When she rounded a corner she stopped in her tracks and felt her heart skip several beats. There was a massive hole in the side of the building and a large pile of bug carcasses filled the opening and some of the hallway.
A strong breeze blew in from the outside and Cassandra realized she was suddenly smelling the outside air for the first time in a month. The air did not smell the way she remembered it. A heavy stench of gunpowder and acid lingered sourly in her nostrils as she backed away from the corridor.
It was hard for her to believe a swarm of bugs had breached the secure walls of the shelter installation and were just a few hundred feet from a massive unarmed community within the building's walls.
She had seen with her own eyes what one of the monsters could do, and she knew what an attacking horde could do. She crept over to the hole in the wall and peered out into the clearly deserted and unprotected parking lot beyond.
She watched with bated breath, listened intently, but saw and heard nothing as her eyes scanned back and forth around her surrounds.
Seeing nothing, and wondering where Lewis was, she headed back on heightened alert, down the corridor she had just come through.
When she reached the intersection back to the hallway towards the community area, she stopped and contemplated her options.
Instead of turning left, back into the main room, she took off slowly to the right, down an adjacent hallway that circumvented the community areas and headed to the main doors of the warehouse. Once she hit an outer corridor, she found a row of window offices.
Oddly, the halls were all quiet as well, though she knew they were off limits and utilized by the highest ranking officers.
She popped into the first office she found and did not hesitate to pull on the string to raise the blinds that covered the window and her view of the morning sights. The parking lot looked less like a war zone and far more like a slaughter house.
Hundreds of tattered animal corpses lay strewn in all directions as far as she could see. They were piled on top of one another, as though one attacking swarm simply walked over the tops of a previously fallen horde.
Cassandra felt nauseous as she stared out the window. She sat down on the desk and still faced the outside. The bright sun was shining down from a clear blue sky onto the cadaver field.
Though it should have been a relief to not see a single human body dead amongst the piles of gigantic animals, Cassandra could not focus on anything but the death and destruction she could see beyond the acidic graveyard of the bugs.
Far in the distance Cassandra could see smoke billowing up from the woods miles in the distance. Nothing was visible over the tree line far beyond, only smoke. All around the warehouse complex, there was no hint of civilization.
Only dead bugs, trees, and smoke from a massive fire somewhere in the distance were visible. She suddenly felt lost and trapped in the middle of the desolate area; contained inside an island of concrete surrounded by nothing but death, stench, acid, and destruction.
Her eyes settled onto the thick black smoke that rose up over the trees in the distance as she stared quietly outside.
"Cassy?"
She turned around quickly to see Lewis and Carlos Murray side by side, staring at her.
"You shouldn't be here," Lewis whispered to her as he walked into the room.
"Are you alright?" Murray asked, frowning as he looked at her tormented face.
Lewis came over to her and placed his hand on her shoulder. She looked him in the eye and saw a fearful gaze looking back at her. She glanced to Murray, who seemed equally frightened.
"I'm fine," She answered him directly. "What's happening?"
"Come on, we need to go." Lewis said softly.
"Go? Where? What do you mean go?" Cassandra questioned with a worried tone.
Lewis smiled softly, "Go back to the common area. Get away from these windows. It isn't safe here."
They walked back through the corridor silently. Cassandra heard the sounds of gunfire start back up again. For a moment, the trio stopped and considered the sound as they exchanged glances. Cassandra was certain the situation had spun out of control by the looks on their faces.
"Lewis..." she started quietly.
"Just go inside," Lewis said as he dismissed her and trotted off down the adjacent corridor, leaving her behind with Carlos, who directed her towards the innermost portion of the building where the common area was set up.
Cassandra looked around, stunned, for a moment. She halfway expected to see a complete panic.
She had a few short seconds to mentally prepare herself before walking to within visual distance of the community of children, adults, and elderly, and brace herself for a certain panic, a fight, and chaos as people tried to flee or fight for their lives.
The community area was fairly quiet, but no one looked alarmed at all. Instead, people did what they had been doing for the last few weeks; they mingled, they played, they read books, they wrote in their journals, they smiled, they laughed, they shouted to their friends, they held each other tight; they waited for the announcement that they could all go home.
Not one of them, Cassandra realized suddenly, was aware of what was going on outside. None of them realized there was a sea of death and destruction beyond the complex walls.
No one knew that the horde had punched, blown, melted, or chewed, a hole through the heavy walls expected to keep them safe. She felt her heart sink and Carlos felt her tremble slightly as she stepped with him into the common area.
"Don't go far," Carlos warned.
"Cassy!" Kyle called from across the common area as soon as she walked onto the great floor.
He came bolting over to her, followed by a group of his new friends, each who looked utterly terrified.
"There's a huge swarm of them coming in! We got to go! Come on!"
Kyle spoke loudly to her, and the people sheltered in the area that were within earshot suddenly lifted their heads. The place fell silent as all heads began to look to the walls that surrounded them.
The sounds of the renewed battle outside echoed up in the morning air, and this time, they sounded different.
Over the sounds of the gunfire, the loud shrieks of the horde outside echoed through the great chamber of the industrial complex. Cassandra stepped closer to Carlos and eyed him warily. He looked lost, uncertain.
"Come on!" Kyle urged again.
Cassandra looked silently, with wide eyes, at Carlos who said and did nothing, merely shook his head slowly as if to tell her not to leave. Kyle yanked on her arm hard and spun her away.
"Where!?" She asked quickly, planting her feet to the ground while Kyle tried to drag her off.
"We've got to leave! Listen, they've broken the walls down. The army isn't gonna be able to protect us much longer, we've got to go."
"I know," she said pointing in the direction of the wall breach she had seen this morning. "I saw the wall over there, but they're all dead."
Kyle paused and followed her finger. He shook his head and pointed in a different direction. "No Cassy, they're coming in from over there right now and they're all alive. They're in the building!"
His words seemed to echo even louder than that of the gunfire and the shrieking voices of the bugs that invaded. People all around them began to murmur, a slow panic filling the tension in the room.
Some people jumped up and gathered their belongings from the ground and fled for the main exit at the front of the building just at hearing Kyle's words. Cassandra took a deep breath and watched the swarm of people start running to the outside. Kyle tugged at her arm once again.
"Come on!"
She turned and headed towards the outer corridor just behind the mass of panicked people. She tried to look back to see where Carlos was, but he quickly was lost in the shuffle.
She noticed out of the corner of her eye armed officers galloping down hallway of the second floor corridor, clearly running towards the community area.
They were yelling, though it was hard to make out what each officer was shouting about over the terrified screams of the people who all suddenly decided to evacuate the building at exactly the same time. Cassandra watched as several of the men dropped to their knees, readied their weapons and opened fire within the massive community area.
The loud shots caused an even greater stir than the people were in already. The frightened citizens that were simply trying to flee at the very words of the animals being inside the building suddenly had their attention drawn to the upper corner of the main floor which they had called home for several long weeks now.
A flood was appeared from the upper corridor and inside the massive open space. Shots rang out non-stop from the high powered hand held automatic weapons the officers carried, but it was barely making a dent into the sheer numbers.
The bug drones ran full speed like a swarm of angry wasps, along the floor, walls, and upside down on the ceilings. Within seconds, the upper walkway sizzled away and collapsed, sending with a massive crack and thud.
The animals fell and leapt off the walls into the sea of bed sheet houses and blood curdling screams soon topped the sounds of the weapon fire and alien shrieking.
Unarmed and frightened, those who could run, tried to do so and began to shove one another through the opening to the outer hallways, which was far too small to accommodate a panicked mob.
Cassandra could not pull her eyes away from the opposite end of the massive room. The animals, too many to count, continued to pour in, clearly undisturbed by the weapon fire at them, and obviously unafraid.
The entire corner where the animals entered from was pitch black and glistening with the creatures' shiny bodies. A sea of a teeth and claws and tails rushed into the open space and the gunfire dam that the officers tried to create barely thinned the herd.
"Oh God!" Cassandra whispered with tears in her eyes.
"We'll never get out of here!" Kyle yelled.
They were getting pushed and shoved by the people all around them and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to hold their ground.
Kyle and Cassandra and the group of friends that followed him shoved off as best they could to the side wall of the room, trying to avoid being trampled.
Cassandra watched for a moment as some people in the back of the mob pushed and shoved those in front of them, knocking them down, clambering over those who had fallen.
The soldiers fired until their guns had gone dry and they called out for reloads from their ammunition runner. They shot desperately at the horde of creatures while the animals killed with ease and ran rampant. Cassandra tried to fall back, against the mass of people all trying to evacuate through the same doors that lead to the same corridor.
She pushed her away against the crowd, back braced up against a side wall, trying desperately to make it to the opposite end of the room and into a corridor that led towards the back of the building instead.
"We can get out through the back!" Cassandra said to Kyle loudly, nodding in the direction of the back exit, on the other side of the far end of the room.
"We've got to try! Let's go!" Kyle yanked her arm and the two barged forward forcefully, followed by a few stunned teen-aged friends who ran to catch up.
The shots continued to ring out. It was almost impossible to hear anything above the sounds of weapons fire and screaming. Cassandra saw Carlos in the sea of bed sheets and heads before her, but he did not hear her call to her. He appeared to be trying to help people that had been pushed, punched, trampled.
"Cassy!" Lewis called to her suddenly, from the same corridor she was trying to get to.
She watched him run towards Carlos and grab him, forcing him back through the corridor. He flagged for her to follow and she tried to make it to him against the screaming people around her. More shots began to ring out into the crowd, from civilians who had grabbed fallen weapons from dead soldiers.
Above the sounds of panic and shrieking, Cassandra was quite sure she heard a bullet whiz past her head.
Lewis yelled to her to keep moving as he fired his weapon at the approaching animals. The gunfire into the group caused people to splay in every direction.
Cassandra just noticed half a dozen or so people, terrified looks etched into their faces, run away from one man who had started firing a gun into the air. They fell into and pulled down a series of bed sheets hanging on clothesline, knocking down a whole row of what had once been private sleeping areas.
As the sheets came down, the monstrous heads of the deadly animals became visible right on top of the fleeing people. The animals jumped into action, impaling them with their tails, claws, and second set of jaws.
Cassandra and the others finally joined Lewis and Carlo, a dozen other armed officers, and twice as many more citizens.
They all bolted through the back exit door and thundered down a corridor, past the hole in the wall that Cassandra had found earlier, down flight of stairs and through the loading bay that had served as a target practice range.
Cassandra barely noticed the newspaper and duct-tape mannequin alien animal that lay on the ground, riddled with practice holes.
The frightened people ran ahead while Lewis doubled back towards the doors behind the group. Cassandra followed him and pulled her gun out, aiming at the doors with Lewis and several other officers as they watched the remaining few citizens run past them.
They waited a moment, Cassandra's weapon shaking furiously. She held her breath and listened to the screams and shrieks barely audible from the far away upper level, as she tried to steady her hands.
"Let's go," Lewis said quickly, when it seemed no animals had taken off after them.
They turned and ran quickly back to the front of the group, Cassandra stopping just behind Kyle, at the front of the group, when they came to a set of opposing hallways.
"Which way?" Cassandra gasped.
"Left!" Lewis yelled, startling her as he joined her.
Without a second to consider, Kyle lunged off to the left and the group followed, tearing off down the hallway towards the red 'EXIT' sign that glowed at the end, just above a set of doors.
Kyle bolted towards the doors, out running the officers who were leading the group. He reached his hand out to depress the bar to the door as he approached. It was locked and he slammed into the door hard.
"Kyle!" Cassandra shouted as she slid to a halt.
She helped him up while Lewis turned the dual deadbolt locks on the door. Looking agitated and humiliated by his mistake, Kyle slammed the bar down hard and flung the door open without a word to Cassandra.
He hopped outside, but pulled to a quick halt as the view filled his eyes between the running stream of blood that dripped over his lashes from the wound on his forehead.
The back parking lot, where the transport vehicles sat looked as much like a slaughter field as what Cassandra had seen of the front parking area. The vehicles were chewed apart both by bullets and acid blood, and none looked suitable for driving.
Lewis wasted no time. He quickly ran from vehicle to vehicle, searching for one that seemed close to drivable. He found one that had no acid burns on it and quickly leapt into the cab.
The engine roared to life and the group hurried over to the vehicle, filing into the back as quickly as they could. Kyle darted through two parked vehicles. Cassandra ran with the group around the fronts of both of the large transport vehicles.
A terrible series of yells filled the air. Cassandra looked back between the vehicles and saw Kyle's twisted body dangling like a wet towel off the tail of one of the black monsters that sat upon the top of the truck.
She howled as someone grabbed her and carried her off toward the vehicle that was running and ready to escape.
One officer lifted his weapon and fired it wildly at the sadistic black monster. The thing squealed in agony for a moment before its head exploded into several chunks and the acidic shower from its bloody brains rained down off the roof of the vehicle.
Another creature darted out of the doorway from which the group had just exited and launched itself onto two of the last soldiers still trying to make their way to the vehicle. Both men were knocked to the ground.
One stopped moving immediately, while the other pulled himself up in time to point his gun. He screamed as he fired while the animal launched onto him. Both man and beast thumped to the ground, covered in acid blood as the last of the fleeing group slammed the back door to the transport closed and Lewis floored the gas pedal.
"Oh God!" Cassandra whimpered.
Lewis stayed silent as he egged the vehicle on to its fastest capable speeds and sped out of the industrial park's entrance. He took a turn so sharply the vehicle lost its traction on the right side and tipped upwards for a moment.
It slammed back down hard to the ground. The people in the back screamed and shouted. Murray popped his head into the front and quickly evaluated Lewis and Cassandra, instinctively looking them both over for injuries before turning his head to Lewis.
"Where are you gonna go?"
Lewis gritted his teeth. Cassandra looked at him through wide teary eyes. He glanced down at the dash, automatically checking the vehicle's fuel gauge. He shook his head quickly.
"I don't know, I don't know!"
"Look out!" Murray screamed, pointing through the windshield.
Cassandra shrieked and Lewis slammed on the brakes as he swerved the vehicle sideways, trying to avoid slamming into one of the creatures that was facing off with the vehicle in the middle of the road.
He failed to miss the animal and the thing slammed into the front bumper with a sickly thud. The force of the impact sent the thing clattering onto the hood. It clawed its way over the top of the cab and onto the top of the back of the truck.
It banged around on the metal roof, causing a panic in the back. One armed soldier reached for the door and opened it, halfway leaning out. He tried to eye the creature on the roof.
Shouts and yelling voices filled the back of the vehicle for him to close the door, for Lewis to drive on quickly, for everyone to get down. Cassandra and Murray turned to look at the passengers and watched as one person pulled the solider back into the crowd and another slammed the door closed as he yelled hysterically at the gunman.
"Keep it closed!" He shouted.
Cursing, the man sat back down. The monster on the roof stopped banging for a moment and a hush filled the back of the truck. Each person held their breath, listening for the slightest sound that could give away the animal's position.
Suddenly a tail tore through the side of the vehicle, slicing one of the passengers through the shoulder. The woman fell forward crying in pain as everyone leapt to the opposite side of the truck.
"Jesus," Murray whispered.
The vehicle swayed under the force of all the people jumping to one side and gunfire from within the truck rang out loudly as one frightened solider shot at the tail of the animal before it pulled loose.
A loud squeal resonated off the walls and a tiny drop of acid burned a narrow section of the side of the truck away clean down to the frame. The vehicle whined as Lewis lost control for a moment when the frame between the front and back sets of tires gave way.
The truck swayed furiously, sending its passengers rattling on top of each other. Cassandra gripped the side of the door and braced for a crash, but after a moment, Lewis was able to bring the vehicle under control and he continued straight onto his uncertain destination.
Someone tried to peer out through the strip of side wall that was now missing. He eyed the roof and sides of the vehicle for a moment before declaring that he no longer thought the creature was attached to the vehicle.
He turned back to the group inside and shifted away from the hole to the outside. Suddenly, long clawed fingers gripped the inside of the truck through the hole in the side. People shouted out again and one solider raised a pistol to the wall.
He shot several times. Whether he intentionally meant to miss the animal's ghastly fingers in order to avoid any more acid spray or not, the creature did let go.
A very loud clattering and thumping faintly echoed into the truck. Cassandra glanced out her side view mirror and saw the black creature's body flipping over and rolling down to the shoulder of the road as the vehicle sped on down the highway.
"It's gone," she whispered.
"Lewis?"
He did not answer. His teeth were clenched too tightly closed to speak. His body was tense and he kept his eyes locked on the road in front of him.
His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly, Cassandra could see his dark knuckles turning ghastly white. Unlike other areas closer to larger cities, the roadways along the quiet small towns were mostly devoid of vehicles.
There were no people to be seen in the vacant small towns that they passed through. A fire was still visible, burning far in the distance.
Lewis remained silent as he piloted the vehicle away from the horrors they had escaped. Murray never asked again where they were headed and Cassandra occupied her time with trying to force her mind to get rid of the images she kept seeing replayed before her eyes of all the people dying in the industrial building, of Kyle's body getting dropped to the ground covered in blood, and of Stephanie, David, her family, New York City.
She squeezed her eyes shut to try to chase the flashes of bloody images away.