 
Clearing Force

By Nathan Hale

A Short Story by Nathan Hale

Copyright 2012 Nathan Hale

Smashwords Edition

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Monday, June 14

Sergeant Harris, NYPD, SWAT Team 1

When the huge, cigar shaped, vessel landed in Central Park it appeared to float the last few hundred feet straight down out of the sky almost like a balloon settling to earth. Although it had appeared to be lighter than air, the far end of the over two mile long, 200 foot diameter, prolate-spheroid vessel had crushed, without difficulty, several of the buildings it had contacted while it was landing.

Even at 03:00 Central Park had a scattering of individuals inside it and anyone that hadn't moved fast enough had been crushed under the weight of the towering vessel as it settled to earth. By 03:05 my SWAT team, along with all our other teams, had been alerted and we were on our way to the scene along with a flood of emergency workers and uniformed police.

Once my team and I had gotten into position on the roof of one of the buildings surrounding the park; I attempted to call my wife and tell her what I had seen. Several weeks ago I had insisted that she take our kids and stay with her parents in their expensive Battery Park City Condominium. At that time the civil unrest had made the city virtually a combat area. We were being involved in firefights with both criminals and citizens on an almost daily basis. Over the past month the cell phone service had gone from intermittent to virtually non-existent. My attempt to call her was useless, the cell phones were still dead, and, at the rate it was going, so was this city. That was why a bunch of us had decided to quit the force at the end of this shift and leave the city. Seeing the huge spheroid vessel below me I knew that quitting was probably no longer an option.

I was doing pretty much the same job for the New York City Police Department that I had done in the Marines, I was a sniper. My weapon of choice was a .416 caliber, semi-automatic Barrett with a Leupold Mark 4 ER/T M5 scope. After eighteen years on the force, twelve of which were in SWAT, I had thought this city couldn't possibly throw anything at me I hadn't seen before. I had been wrong, very wrong.

Two months ago, as the economy faltered, no, let's say it correctly, as the dollar went into a tailspin and the entire world's economy began to fail, the situation in New York City began to quickly degenerate. With prices on goods, especially food, almost doubling on a weekly basis because the value of the dollar was falling like a stone, and almost 60% of the city's residents dependent upon government assistance for survival, the rioting began shortly after the citizens realized that their welfare income would no longer cover even their most basic need, food.

Then, as the situation outside of New York City also fell apart, the transportation system had virtually ceased to function, creating a shortage of everything from energy to food, everywhere across the world. If there is no system of exchange available the world abruptly dropped back into a barter economy except where our Federal Government felt it had sufficient force to require that people continue to accept worthless paper for real goods and services. Even then, it didn't work, because the citizens that had anything of value were loath to surrender it for worthless paper, even when the government thought it could enforce such an exchange.

Their attempt at micro-managing the cities was part of the problem especially since the Federal Government no longer had the force it thought it had. As the economy had unwound they had downsized our military, including the National Guard, until it was a mere shadow of what it had once been. Most of that shadow was also still overseas, continuing the nearly two decade long war on terror. America just didn't have any real military forces available inside the country, at least not enough to restore sanity inside every city across the country, and the forces of sanity, us, were losing.

Hungry citizens had been rioting. Criminals had remained quiet at first, but for the last three weeks, they had been using the weapons that only they had to establish their own fiefdom inside the city. At first the city government had attempted to regain the areas lost to the criminals. Now they were simply trying to slow down the criminals as they worked to gain complete hegemony over the city. With the landing of this huge vessel, I somehow doubted that the criminals would be our main problem any longer.

I had an excellent position although, even though I was twenty-two stories up, the top of the spherical vessel wasn't more than one floor below my position. Whatever this thing is, it is huge! I could see fire trucks already attempting to extinguish some of the fires caused by flammable objects touching the still extremely hot, slightly glowing, surface of the object.

From what I could see and hear, it was obvious that the vast majority of our available officers had been vectored to this area. That worried me slightly because it had taken an all-out war to re-secure the bridges and tunnels coming into Manhattan from the gangs that controlled a large portion of the surrounding area, but that decision was also far above the pay grade of a Sergeant.

Over the radio Police Chief Harahan ordered everyone to "stand down" because the Mayor wanted to present a friendly face to our obviously alien visitors. That made me question if I had missed something because this huge ship had collapsed several large buildings, killing an untold number of people, across the park from my position. I, for one, certainly wondered just how peaceful they could be or if they even considered us to be intelligent, because they had so far demonstrated only a blatant disregard for human life. It really didn't matter what I thought, he was still my boss.

Two of our police helicopters were circling overhead shining their spotlights on the object and undoubtedly searching for life with their FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-Red) cameras. They were trying to keep the space over the thing clear while also attempting to keep the three news helicopters away from the area directly over the object. Frankly I was surprised, for over a week none of these helicopters were anywhere to be seen because the fuel they guzzled was both difficult to obtain and prohibitively expensive!

We waited for over an hour as the massive ship slowly cooled. From my vantage point I could clearly see the Mayor and police chief, surrounded by both uniformed officers and two swat teams, drinking coffee and talking, in the doorway of a building twenty two stories down and 400 yards away from my position. There were so many portable lights shining on the silvery object that it was lit up almost as well as daylight. Other than that the only excitement was when two of the circling helicopters almost hit each other.

My brother officers had set up a police line that appeared to encircle the huge vessel. Standing behind that line was a mass of New York's citizens, obviously the word had gotten out about what we had here and they were flocking to the site in droves. I saw where several people attempted to rush the vehicle and my brother officers struggled to stop them.

One of the news helicopters must have gotten low on fuel, or perhaps the station just didn't want to pay the fortune required to purchase more fuel, and had flown away. Down below, every news team in the city had to be standing there with the color announcers trying desperately to generate some interest in a huge, silvery, prolate spheroid sitting in what had been Central Park that was doing absolutely nothing!

Suddenly, a series of large doors in the side of the object facing me slid open. More doors appeared in the top of the huge machine and, from the reaction of the crowd, another set of doors must have slid open on the side facing away from me also. When the lower doors opened I could see an exposed latticework of small rectangular openings, maybe twelve inches wide by not more than eighteen inches tall.

The roof also had a latticework of openings, but these were far larger. My estimate of their size was something like 10 by 12 feet. I had resumed my shooting position although there was simply nothing to be seen, so far.

The remaining news helicopter, probably ignoring police commands, zoomed in and hovered several hundred feet directly over the top of the closest open grid on top of the object. The police helicopters had also begun to move closer when one of them desperately attempted to veer away from the object.

I was mesmerized as I saw huge creatures flying upward out of the top of the object. At least one of the creatures was struck by the hovering helicopters blades and dismembered although the impact also severed the blades causing them to hurl into the surrounding buildings while the helicopter itself fell like a rock, hitting the upper side of the craft and crashing into the ground on the side I couldn't see. The loud explosion, when the helicopters ruptured fuel tank ignited, was only overwhelmed by the screams of pain and fear along with sounds of shooting from below.

I finally dragged my eyes from the huge, man sized bodies with a wingspread that had to be at least twelve feet, leathery looking flying monsters that also had a large extended beak full of teeth, and looked below. It looked like the Jurassic Park from hell!

Thousands of small creatures, about the size of a medium sized dog, were still exiting the craft. They all had long skinny necks, moved on two legs and were obviously using their tail to balance with. The head had some kind of bright red crest running from just over its eyes to the back of its head. Through my scope I saw something else. Their somewhat oversized heads also featured an extended snout, similar to a dog, filled with sharp teeth. Its two tiny arms ended in two large claws obviously intended to allow the creature to hold its prey.

The sheer volume and suddenness of the creatures attack was quickly overwhelming the police down below. While the officers pistols were effective against the monsters there were so many of them that, as soon as the officer ran out of bullets, they were overwhelming him before he could even insert another clip! Like the citizens behind them the remaining policemen began fleeing from the pursuing creatures, without too much success.

It didn't help. The creatures quickly tore into the fleeing humans and began by hampering their movement by simply closing their jaws on one of the fleeing people's legs. With a quick twist of its head the creature tore off a chunk of flesh while at the same time bringing its body forward so it could sink one or both of its shorter limbs claws into the tormented person's torso. Then it began feeding, rapidly tearing off more chunks of bloody flesh as its victim screamed with pain and fell to the ground.

Once the person fell down, additional animals closed in and began tearing off more flesh, especially from the still very alive and screaming person's abdomen. Then they began feeding on the interior of the quickly dying person's body, tearing out bloody chunks of intestines and fighting over them between themselves.

As soon as the dead human was reduced to a bloody bunch of scattered bones the creatures moved on, seeking their next victim. Within seconds they were busily feeding on another screaming citizen, then another and another. Anyone that had tried to simply run away was quickly chased down and devoured.

The SWAT teams around the Mayor, Police Chief and politicians, attempted to hold off the oncoming horde while the VIP's desperately attempted to get inside the building behind them. It almost worked. Briefly, the circled officers held the advancing creatures at bay, until the small monsters flowed around them, or leapt over them, to quickly dispose of the retreating VIP's. Seconds later, the SWAT team's defensive circle collapsed as they were also overwhelmed by the small monsters.

A loud noise came from the huge vessel, almost like a shrill steam whistle, and a new group of animals began to exit, while the first group scurried away, literally outrunning what a few seconds before had been their intended victims. Even before the first of the new creatures presented themselves it was obvious that the smaller ones were more terrified of what was coming than the humans they were outrunning.

I saw that the grid inside the vessel had changed, and then I saw why. The new monsters were far larger than the first ones, between five and six feet tall with a total length of at least ten feet from the tip of their nose to the end of their tail. They were covered in bright yellow feathers, from the top of their head, just below their bright red crest, to the tip of their tail, walked on two large legs with three large prominent claws on the end of their toes, like the smaller ones they used their tails for balance and had two short forearms, ending in two three digit hands tipped with very nasty looking claws. Their short, thick, neck was topped by a head with an extended face while their mouths also held long, sharp teeth, plainly displayed as they emitted a primordial scream of victory when they killed their prey.

They were fast and almost supernaturally strong! When they leapt off the side of their ship they landed almost twenty feet away. Then, within seconds, they had caught up to the fleeing crowd and were lost to my view.

Others, seeing panicked humans that thought they were safe behind the large plate glass windows of the buildings they were attempting to hide in, raced to those buildings and crashed through the plate glass in their desire to feed. The larger creatures tore far larger chunks of raw, bloody meat from their victims, usually after they used their three toed clawed feet to partially dismember their intended dinner first.

I saw one officer fire his pistol time after time into the oncoming monster without effect. The officer finally threw his pistol at the beast as he began to turn and run away but it was far too late for that. The monster leapt forward, tearing bloody gashes into the man's back, exposing his spine and ribs as he fell forward in shock. The monster then leapt on top of him and extinguished his anguished screams by tearing his head off!

I finally shook myself out of my shock at what was happening and began shooting. The large creatures all paused for a second before they hurled themselves away from their ship, so I began using that brief pause to target and shoot. With the first two creatures I aimed for the center of mass and saw both of them stagger back slightly when my bullet hit but they leapt off the vessel seemingly unharmed.

With the next one I attempted a head shot, which was fairly easy because they all seemed to pause in the same place. This time the results were far more satisfactory, as the creature was slammed backward, disappearing inside the ship. After a few seconds, when nothing else appeared in that rectangle, I shifted to the next and repeated my shot. This time the creature staggered backward but fell forward tumbling to the ground just below its former perch.

Almost immediately another creature appeared with its head conveniently in exactly the same spot as its predecessors had been. My finger gently caressed my trigger and it also staggered backward but then fell forward directly onto the body of its predecessor. As the next creature moved into place for killing, I saw the legs of the first two creatures still slashing with their claws, tearing huge gashes into each other while splattering purplish black blood everywhere. In the back of my mind I stored the realization that even when they should be dead, these creatures weren't.

As I targeted and fired I dimly heard the sounds of pain and terror from the people below abruptly stopping. When I inserted my next clip I risked a look at the terrain below where the lights clearly showed that the only things still moving were the monsters. There was blood everywhere, some was the dark purplish black blood the monsters had, but most was the bright red blood I had seen my entire life, the remnants of humans killed and eaten by these things. I had seen hundreds of the little monsters killed by officers as they attempted to quell the oncoming horde, but there was not one body left laying there, the larger ones had disposed of them as well as any remaining human beings.

Next to me, Jeffrey Jones, JJ was his nickname, was also switching his clip. He looked at me and said "Sergeant, I think we are in deep shit. Those flying things took down the other choppers and they are circling around up there, you can see them when they pass in front of the moon. How are we going to get out of here?"

Even though I heard the hard edge of panic in his voice there was only one possible answer "We'll leave carefully, very carefully. Just like we did when we were in hostile territory, okay?"

He was also a veteran of America's overseas adventures. Although he had only been on the force a couple of years, and had joined my SWAT team less than a month ago, I had taken him under my wing. He was a tough, no-nonsense guy, with an adorable two year old daughter. He and his wife were separated, although they hadn't divorced yet. His wife and their daughter were living with her parents in, of all god-forsaken places, Greybull, Wyoming! We had razzed him endlessly about her taking their daughter to become a cowgirl only to have him admit that he was also originally from Greybull where they had been High School sweethearts. Over beers one evening he admitted that he was also thinking of quitting and going home, his wife had left because she simply detested what she called "The Anthill" otherwise known as New York City. He was one of the men that had intended to quit this evening so we could attempt to flee what we had been afraid was about to happen. That was all completely irrelevant now.

I asked "How many clips do you have left for your rifle?"

Without hesitation he answered "Three, including the full one I just inserted. Should we continue shooting, thirty bullets certainly won't go far against what we are facing, will they?"

The two guys further down the wall from us quickly ran over to where we were. Force of habit and training had obviously clicked in as they ran crouched over, as if we were under enemy fire. Well, at least so far, that was one thing we didn't have to contend with.

When Peters and Odeler got to our position their question was the same one we had been discussing, what should we do now? Peters was single, but Odeler was, like me, married with kids in a city that had just become far more dangerous than anything we could possibly have imagined only a few hours ago. They had also decided that it was time to flee the city and had planned on leaving with us this morning. At least Odeler's wife and kids were relatively safe, with my wife and kids in her parent's condominium.

We were doing an ammunition check when, from below us, the same shrill steam whistle type noise we had heard before sounded. Carefully, we all peered over the short wall to see what was coming next. Like before, the few remaining creatures we could see began rapidly scurrying away from the area. When I saw that there were no longer dividers in what had formerly been the grid just inside the vessel all I could think of was how big could one of these things be?

Then the first of the new creatures leapt out of the ship. It re-defined the word huge! Each opening in the side of the ship had to be close to forty feet wide and twenty tall. This creature almost completely filled the opening! It was completely covered in startlingly bright blue and silver feathers, and when it leapt off the vessel we could clearly see six short, stubby legs on the side facing us. After it landed, two heads popped out of concealment inside its body and both emitted a roar of challenge, or perhaps pleasure that sounded like the largest, loudest, deepest bass ever heard on Earth throughout its history.

Then it began moving. You would expect a creature this large to be slow and you would be wrong, dead wrong! With deliberate intention the first creature quickly ran across the street and rammed into the heavy brick wall of the building it had chosen. When it didn't penetrate the first time, it backed up and then rammed the same, exact, position again!

The thick brick wall had begun to crumble under the massive creature's assault when it suddenly appeared to change tactics. It turned and began to slowly walk with its side brushing the buildings wall while generating a horrendous amount of noise. When it moved far enough forward so I could see the results of this strange tactic the tactic wasn't so strange after all. The wall appeared to have exploded inward and there was now a wide open pathway into the building!

Through my scope I could see people scattered all over the floor. Some were struggling to move but most appeared to be either unconscious or dazed by whatever this creature had done. Then, out of the rear of the creature, another head appeared along with several long, slender, highly flexible, tentacle like appendages. The tentacles flowed into the building, grabbed a victim with their opposed two fingered clawed pincer by simply transfixing the victim like a butterfly pinned to a display board!

Then the tentacle withdrew taking its bleeding, screaming, victim with it, placed the victim in the rearmost heads large mouth, and went back into the building for another as the mouth quickly chewed and swallowed its meal. By the time the next tentacle arrived at the creature's mouth with another screaming meal, it was ready to receive it.

I had seen heavy objects falling onto the creatures back as it demolished the wall without apparently hurting it at all but I wanted to see if I could kill this creature with a head shot. I carefully aligned my shot at the rearmost head since that was the one I had the best view of. Even though the head was constantly moving it kept moving in the same pattern so I waited patiently until I had identified its pattern and gently caressed my trigger.

According to my laser rangefinder the distance was 436 yards, which was pretty close to point blank for the rifle I was firing. Through my scope I saw where the bullet impacted the things head, there was a puff of crushed brick and mortar dust when it hit, but the bullet merely bounced off!

For whatever reason, I decided to try again, only this time at a far harder target, the beast's eye! I carefully aligned my shot, after all I was attempting to shoot at a moving target less than two inches wide at over 400 yards, and, after saying a short prayer, felt the butt stock of my rifle impact my shoulder. It was obvious that I had hit my target when the creature seemed to explode with noise, an incredibly horrible, unbelievably loud, noise that had glass shattering everywhere around the area. Even twenty-two stories up, the noise was so loud that we were temporarily deafened by it, despite the hearing protection we were all wearing.

Then, across the street, the building it had been standing next to, began to collapse straight down, as if it's supporting structure on the first floor was no longer there! At the first motion of the collapse all of the creature's heads and appendages disappeared inside its body, including its legs! Seconds after the collapse was complete, even before the dust had settled enough so you could see, we could hear another loud discharge of noise, once again rendering us temporarily deaf.

The results were spectacular. We could feel thuds as heavy objects impacted the building below us. We also saw, in the early light of dawn, massive chunks of brick and concrete flying over the roof of the building we were on and crashing into the buildings behind us! All I knew for certain was that I might have injured that monster, but I certainly hadn't killed it and, judging by its reaction, all I had done was piss it off!

The dust was settling and being blown away by the gentle breeze, but it was almost ten minutes before I could see the ground below us and my hearing had come back. Down below the ship had continued unloading more of these huge monsters and they quickly spread out choosing a building of their own to begin doing what the first creature had done.

JJ looked over the wall and said "We have one of those things headed to our building so we need to get out of here, now!"

I glanced down and yelled "Let's go, leave the stairway at twenty one, we'll have to risk the elevator, otherwise we don't have a prayer!" With that, I began running with my friends to the maintenance door we had gotten onto the roof through.

It was rapidly becoming brighter as the sun continued to rise out of the ocean and, for whatever reason, I glanced upward and saw one of those huge flying things rapidly dropping claws first towards me. Without thinking I stopped, raised my rifle to my shoulder, and fired at the creature's leathery abdomen, all in one swift motion.

The creature emitted a loud scream of protest as it continued its drop towards me, only adjusting its descent because I had stopped running. I could see purplish black blood starting to pour out of where my first shot had hit the animal, as I calmly adjusted my aim upward and sent another bullet hurling towards the creatures open needle tooth filled mouth.

My bullet tore through the creatures head spraying blood, brains and gore everywhere as it passed through the creature and exited while tearing a large chunk of bone and flesh off the top of its head. I dove away from where I had stopped as the creature slammed lifelessly onto the roof behind me. As I got up I thought to myself that at least these things can be killed and then I glanced upward.

Two more of the huge monsters were silently dropping claws first towards me. This time I did the only sane thing, I ran like all the furies of hell were after me toward the maintenance door, because they were!

I dove through the open door using my body to protect my rifle when I landed. Behind me I heard a loud, infuriated shriek as the two animals attacked the roof over my head. Unlike the heavy reinforced concrete floor below my feet, the maintenance shed had only thin metal underneath the tarred asphalt roofing material, and these animals were rapidly tearing through it.

I quickly got off the floor and ran down the stairs. My men were patiently standing and waiting for the elevator to arrive when I slammed the door shut behind me and joined them. I glanced through the glass window behind the receptionist's desk into the law office that surrounded the elevators, and could see that the exterior windows were all shattered and glass was strewn everywhere throughout the outer part of the building.

My attention was rapidly drawn back to the elevator as we all moved our rifles towards the door as the "Dinging" noise announced the elevators arrival. As the doors opened we were all pleased to see that it was indeed empty. I think we had all pictured a mass of the little creatures swarming out looking to make us dinner.

As we entered we all knew that we were taking one hell of a chance. The other huge creature had collapsed that building in less than five minutes, if the one attacking the front of this building did the same thing, we had no chance of running down forty-four flights of stairs in that amount of time, so our only hope of survival was to take the elevator to the basement where we had at least some chance of finding a tunnel to another building.

We didn't even consider trying to exit through the door opposite the front door. After seeing thousands of very deadly monsters exit the ship and spreading out, moving on the surface would be worse than dangerous, it would be suicidal. Personally if I was going to die, having a large building collapse on top of me was preferable to being eaten by those things, but I had no intention of letting either happen if I had anything to say about it.

Unexpectedly the elevator stopped at floor ten and, as the elevator "Dinged" its warning signal, we all faced the doors with our rifles ready. I felt my finger inadvertently tightening on my trigger when the doors began to slide open exposing a somewhat disheveled man staring in horror at the men in the elevator with their rifles all pointed at him.

He managed to stutter out "I'll take the next one" as he stepped back, away from the elevator.

"No, get on, there won't be another one. Is there anyone else on this floor?" I inquired.

In broken English he said "No, senor, I'm the night maintenance man and am all alone" as he stepped into the elevator with us.

Just in case the elevator decided to make another unscheduled stop, at least a stop unscheduled by us, we put the unarmed man behind us so we could shoot without interference if necessary. As we descended he asked why we weren't stopping at the first floor.

JJ answered "Because we don't want to be one of those monsters breakfast, that's why!"

Jose answered "What are those things? That terrible noise knocked me out and I can't believe I wasn't shredded by the glass like Jesus was!"

As the elevator again "Dinged" JJ answered "You were lucky, let's hope you stay that way. You're maintenance, is there a tunnel down here?"

As the doors silently slid open the lights flickered for a few seconds and then remained on. As we got off the elevator, each man searching his quadrant for anything non-human, we had Jose get inside our circle. He answered "Yes, there is a tunnel, but the doors locked on this side, I'll have to go to the maintenance office to get the key."

I briskly answered "Which way, we have keys, so don't worry about that."

He may not have understood what I meant, but he guided us to where we wanted to go. When I saw the large, supposedly unbreakable, security lock I smiled as I removed my pistol from its holster. For years I had been razzed to death about my non-department issued .44 magnum Smith and Wesson revolver, or cannon, as most of my friends referred to it. Finally, after almost eighteen years on the force, I was going to get a chance to use it, on that lock!

Unbelievably, it took two shots to finally destroy that damn lock! Before we swung the door open I replaced my two empty brass with bullets and re-holstered my pistol. We had Jose swing the door open, into the room, while we aimed our rifles, looking for trouble. Just before he opened the door Jose had flipped the tunnels light switch on so the only thing we saw was a rather large rat temporarily dazzled by the sudden light.

We all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the empty tunnel. That was when Jose said he needed to go to the maintenance office before we went any further. I looked at him and asked "Why?"

He looked sheepish and, at first, wouldn't answer. Finally we pried the reason out of him. He had a shotgun and ammunition in his office, an unlicensed shotgun. Telling SWAT team guys about an unlicensed gun in New York was probably scaring him almost as much as the monsters. JJ went with him to retrieve his weapon, while inquiring if he had any others. This morning the rules had changed forever.

They weren't gone long, but before they got back the entire building shook from one of the huge monsters ramming into it. They were almost to us when the building reverberated from the beasts second ramming into the structure and we could hear the sounds of heavy objects impacting the floor above us. I was the last man into the tunnel and, after pulling the door shut behind me, I began chasing after my friends.

Behind us I could faintly hear the monster when it rammed that building a third time. The tunnel passed underneath the street and was more than wide enough to move either people or freight between buildings safely. The island was riddled with tunnels like this, ostensibly for that purpose, but all too often they had originally been used for somewhat more nefarious purposes.

I caught up to my men just before we reached the end of this tunnel blocked by a large steel door, probably locked on the opposite side. Peters and Odeler began attempting to break the door down with their shoulders when I asked if they had tried the obvious, the door knob. Peters grabbed the door knob and turned, the heavy door began opening into the new buildings basement when I quietly said "Wait, we don't know if anything's in there."

I heard Jose jack a shell into his shotgun while I slung my rifle over my shoulder and removed my revolver. With two heavy caliber rifles ready to take on the larger creatures, while Jose's shotgun and my revolver were ready to handle the smaller ones; we were as ready as possible. Peters cracked the door a little and quietly said "The lights on, I'll throw it open on three. One, two, three" and he threw the door wide open.

The entry door banged off the basement wall and bounced back slightly while Peters moved out of our way, exposing two surprised little monsters eating a very dead woman less than ten feet from us. Their heads popped out of the woman's abdomen and turned towards us. With a roar Jose's shotgun went off and one of the creature's heads exploded! The bucket of chlorine laden water the woman had been cleaning the floor with began to leak as several of his pellets punched through the plastic bucket on wheels she had been using to clean the floor when the monsters had surprised her.

Its companion turned toward us as I aimed and shot my revolver. My "cannon" barked and my bullet hit the thing where its neck attached to its feathered body. With a squawk it hurled backward and died while its purplish black blood began to drip onto the floor where it appeared to seethe and pop when it touched the still wet tile.

Despite the risk, JJ and Odeler ran across the basement and slammed the wedged open stairway door shut only moments before several thuds hit the door. We looked around the basement area just in case another of the small monsters was hiding somewhere. They weren't.

While we were searching the basement for more monsters, Jose was searching for an entrance to another tunnel. He started to yell something when a loud rumble came from the tunnel we had just left because the oversized monster had collapsed that building.

Jose shouted "Give me a hand please, there is a la puerta here!"

"A what?" I asked.

Frustrated Jose said "A la puerta, senor, uhh, a door!"

With a smile on my face I yelled "He's found it, let's get moving. Good work Jose, do you have any idea where it goes?"

He shook his head "no" as he moved a bunch of empty boxes from in front of the door. The door didn't even have a padlock on it.

There wasn't a light switch on the wall this time, so, if there were lights at all, the switch was inside the tunnel. We prepared to open the door the same way we had last time, two with their rifles ready to fire, the other two with the shotgun and my pistol. Peters was in control of the door, which opened into the basement. Because it would be dark in the tunnel we all turned our flashlights on, some light was far better than no light.

Once again, Peters gave us his three count and swung the door open. Hurriedly we moved our flashlights around while searching for targets, while one of us found and flipped on the light switch. The light erupted down the tunnel showing that it was empty, except for carefully stacked boxes along one side. They must have been using the tunnel for storage and whoever had been in charge of maintenance must have been in love with chlorine because there must have been twenty or thirty boxes full of bleach carefully stored just inside the doorway. Most of the rest of the boxes were marked "toilet paper" and "tampons". As JJ took point I joked that maintenance was storing enough toilet paper to supply the city only to have Jose become somewhat angry and tell us that a large hotel like this one used tons of toilet paper.

Once again, I was the last person into the tunnel, so, as I began closing the door behind me, I heard the elevator across the room "Ding" its arrival warning. I waited for the doors to slide open, hoping that some people were trying to escape through the basement, like us.

When the doors slid open it wasn't people that leapt off the elevator but three of the second wave of monsters. Without hesitation I slammed the door shut behind me as I saw one of the monsters running directly towards me. As I ran I yelled "Three of the large ones just got off the elevator!"

Behind me I heard a heavy thud as the beast attempted to ram its way through the closed door, while shrieking a loud noise. When that didn't work, I heard it begin to use its claws on the thin skinned metal door. I glanced backward and saw the first of the monsters force its way through the shredded door into the tunnel behind us so I yelled, as I armed my rifle "They're through, I saw three of them come out of the elevator, remember to shoot for theirs heads." I dropped to my knee and chose as my target the first one through the door.

Even though I had hearing protection in my ears, the roar of Jose's shotgun, deafened me. He had whirled around and fired with the muzzle of his shotgun just slightly behind, and to the right of, my head so the full blast of sound hit me like a club. Unfortunately, the bird shot he was using, only bounced off the creatures feathers shredding a bunch of the boxes of liquid chlorine the maintenance crews had used and releasing a heavy concentration of chlorine gas into the tunnel.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts and vision as I swore softly and sensed, more than heard, Jose jack another round into his shotgun. I did hear him screaming in fear when Odeler shouted "My shot" and, a second later, his rifle barked, temporarily destroying the hearing in my other ear. If we lived through this I fully intended to upgrade my hearing protection and to avoid shooting big guns inside small brick tunnels ever again!

But the beast no longer cared. Odeler's .50 caliber bullet, fired at a distance of only fifty to sixty feet from the beast, tore through its head, splattering blood, brains, and gore everywhere! The impact of the bullet hurled the beast backward slightly and it came to rest half inside the ripped open door while its legs and tail whipped around looking for victims but instead only crushing and tearing open even more of the chlorine filled boxes.

Jose was going to shoot again when I hit his shotgun up and screamed "Run, the chlorine is more deadly that the animals!" As soon as he got moving I was hot on his heels while, behind me, I faintly heard the sounds of the heavy beast being dragged through the door clearing the way for its friends to resume their chase.

It felt like it took us at least an hour to reach the end of the tunnel, but it was really not more than a couple of minutes. The smell of chlorine was still faint in the air, similar to using the stuff when you were washing clothes or sanitizing a floor, when JJ turned the knob on the door at the end of the tunnel and threw it open. Behind us we could hear the rapidly approaching sound of claws on concrete so I turned and leveled my rifle waiting for the creature to appear around the slight bend in the tunnel.

Behind me I heard JJ yell "Clear" just as the first beast became visible. I centered my crosshairs and squeezed the trigger. It certainly was far from the best shot I had ever made, but it was good enough! The beast seemed to do a back flip and fell to the ground with a huge hole now in the back of its head that was pouring blood onto the concrete floor. It did not attempt to get back up but its legs and tail were still whipping around and attempting to kill something.

I could smell both the chlorine and the disgusting smell of what must have been the creature's blood in the close confines of the tunnel while I waited the two or three seconds it took for the third one to come into view.

At fifty feet, the animal was an easy shot. When it appeared, I centered my crosshairs and squeezed the trigger, only to have my target disappear from the scope just as my rifle barked! The dying animal's tail had smashed into the onrushing monster and slammed it against the tunnels brick wall, turning my easy shot into a clear miss!

Calmly, I once again aimed at the monsters head and squeezed my trigger. This time the bullet did its job, punching through the heavy bone just below the monsters nose slits. Surprisingly the bullet didn't exit! Instead it just bounced around inside the beasts head destroying anything and everything it touched. Not that it mattered much, the creature dropped almost straight down obviously dead, although its tail was whipping around while the claws on its legs were trying to tear through the first animals feathered armor.

I turned and ran the few remaining steps into the new basement, passing Peters as I went through the door. He lowered his rifle and slammed the door behind me. This door had two large angle iron bars inside the basement that he then dropped into their cradles to prevent the door from being opened. I sincerely thanked God that they hadn't been in place because, if they had, we would certainly have died if we had to attempt to go through the last building again.

From inside the tunnel a sound similar to a failed explosion erupted. Then another and finally what sounded like an actual explosion. The final one actually warped the door and forced some chlorine gas into the basement we were in. Peters looked at me and asked "Sergeant, what the hell caused that?"

I couldn't resist "Maybe one of the monsters cut a fart?" and began laughing.

Even though it was grim humor at best, everyone but Jose began laughing, and after JJ repeated my joke to him, he also began laughing. I doubted if any of us actually thought we would survive this morning so it really wasn't grim humor but more like gallows humor.

Then, seriously, I said "In the other basement the little monsters blood was reacting strangely to the water that poor woman had been scrubbing the floor with. Maybe it reacts more violently to pure chlorine. If we get out of this mess, it might help in the future, okay, did anyone find another tunnel?"

We were in the basement of one of the boutique hotels that were very popular close to Central Park. Even though we searched diligently, there was no other tunnel. We had to go up to street level. This place was quiet as a morgue, no sounds of water being used, or anything else, so there were probably monsters up there.

We weren't too far from 1 Police Plaza so I tried my radio hoping that someone, anyone, would answer. The only answer I received was silence, only silence! Okay, so it was all on me. So, what's new, it had always been on me ever seen we got that new lieutenant who was related to the Mayor. When we had been sent out tonight he did what he always did, found a reason not to go with us. After all, since he was in SWAT only as a stepping stone to bigger things, he couldn't risk his precious hide!

I discussed our options with the other guys and they ranged from bad to worse. We had to go to the ground floor and we needed transportation because we had absolutely no chance on foot. On foot we would stay alive until our ammunition ran out, then we would be some monsters breakfast. With transportation we might be able to get to where our families were before the monsters spread that far. Then we could convoy our vehicles and attempt to make it to the marina where my father in law kept his boat, a five year old 70 foot Hylas center cockpit cruiser that he had picked up for only slightly over two million.

Even though we still weren't certain exactly where we would go, right now, anyplace was better than here! The boat was fully fitted out and ready to go while my father in law was more than capable of skippering it, he and his wife had been all over the world since he purchased it. We even had a guard on it, one of my friends, with his wife and son, were already aboard. Both Jack and Carol had been police officers until yesterday now they were two of the "men" going with us.

Just for the hell of it I once again attempted to call my wife on the cell phone. It began ringing and she answered on the second ring! Since I had no idea just how long the signal would last I said "Honey, tell your folks it's time to go, now! We will meet all of you at the dock but when you get there get that boat away from the dock whether we are there yet or not."

My wife sounded confused, or perhaps she thought I was playing some kind of practical joke on her so she answered "We'll just wait here, your shift is done so you are on your way here anyway, right?"

"Wrong, don't you have the television on? There's some real bad stuff happening right now, so get moving. Stay away from shore, at least a hundred yards, and if we aren't there in an hour, from now, leave. We won't ever get there, understand?" I asked.

In the background I heard the television come on, but all I heard was static. Then, finally, I could hear an announcer talking some nonsense about the glories of aliens coming to visit us here on Earth. Upon hearing that I screamed "Glories of aliens visiting, they are eating us! Literally eating us! Tell your dad to give one of his shotguns to you and Brad (my 17 year old son). He should take that big Gibbs .505 elephant gun he bought years ago, he'll need it! And, whatever you do, grab every bit of ammo he has for those guns, okay?"

Frieda answered "Okay, we'll be there. What are they and why are they eating us?"

I quickly answered "Good, get going, outside of the guns, leave everything else! They really are eating us and, remember the movie "Jurassic Park", well they look like dinosaurs, but they aren't. The little ones can be killed easily with the shotguns, the medium sized ones your dads Gibbs might be able to handle, the real large ones, just run like hell! Oh yeah, tell your dad that only a head shot kills those bastards, kind of. Even when they should be dead they aren't."

I heard her voice, but the signal was going. I moved a bit and, when her voice was a little stronger I said "Honey, I love you guys, now get..." and the signal was gone! I cursed like the pissed off former Marine I was.

JJ said "Chill, you got ahold of them, are they going to the marina?"

Grimly, I nodded my head "Yes" as I checked my rifle again. I then pulled my revolver out, flipped the cylinder open to make sure I had bullets in all the chambers and then snapped it shut before I re-holstered it. I must have had my war face on, because Jose stuttered when he asked "Please, could Maria and I go with you?"

"Where do you and your wife live? We have the room because both Casey and Dave were part of the SWAT team that died trying to save the Mayors life. The only problem would be getting her and then back to the marina in time" I answered.

He answered "She not home, like me, work all night, mi Maria trabaja en 3 World Financial Center!"

I had no idea what he had just said but, before I could say anything, JJ quietly laughed and said "His wife works all night at 3 World Financial Center and we will go almost directly past there on our way to the marina. You've lived in this city most of your life and you still don't speak anything but English!"

"Kids, do you have any bambinos?" I asked.

Jose looked at me strangely while, in between guffaws, JJ said "He means Niño's, kids, do you have any kids? Sergeant, it's not bambinos but bambini and that's Italian, not Spanish!"

Jose shook his head "no" and looked upset when he answered "No, not yet, we try, but no!"

That time I understood what he was saying, we had tried for years before God had finally seen fit to bless us. I looked at the guys and they all nodded their heads in agreement so I said "Welcome aboard, check your shotgun and make sure it's fully loaded. When we move out, don't fire until you're told to, the last thing we want to do is draw those critters to us." JJ translated everything I had just said into Spanish, the last thing we needed was someone to screw up.

The lights kept flickering, while they didn't go completely off, it was enough to make me think they would. I walked to the stairway door, cracked it slightly after looking through the tiny reinforced glass window, and strained to hear anything moving inside the stairwell. After a few minutes of hearing nothing I motioned and we quickly went through the door.

Like we had trained to do, we went up the stairway as quietly as it was humanly possible to do so. Outside of the tiny amount of noise we had made, the stairway remained quiet. At the ground floor I looked through the tiny window and saw the remnants of a slaughterhouse!

Blood and bones were strewn everywhere! I could see only a portion of the lobby but it didn't matter, blood was splattered on the walls and ceiling, while the floor looked like it had been bathed in the stuff! It was obvious that the monsters had been here, but were they gone?

I waited quietly, with the door only slightly cracked, so I could hear better. JJ whispered "Do you see what's missing, no flies?"

We had all been at murder sites and this time of year was when the flies showed up well before we did. That was weird, but having dinosaurs roaming around beat that all to hell for weirdness!

After a few minutes I whispered "Okay, we have no choice, so let's do this" as I quietly moved the door open and moved far enough forward so everyone could form around me. With a whispered "Go" from Odeler, we began moving forward into the entrance foyer, close to the reception area.

As we moved together as a unit each of us was watching his quadrant, basically protecting the backs of his teammates. Jose was in the center of our square ostensibly as backup in case anyone went down, in reality he was supercargo.

It was obvious how the monsters had gotten in, all of the atriums large plate glass windows were now little pieces of shattered glass strewn everywhere. Even the shattered glass hadn't either slowed the monsters down or hurt them! It was all tempered glass and had broken as advertised, into millions of non-sharp clumps and shards.

Across the room one of the two elevators was jammed open by a bag cart. Inside the elevator were a jumble of bones and blood was splattered everywhere! They must have tried using the cart to slow down the attacking monster, or monsters. That obviously hadn't worked very well.

My eyes were drawn to the floor lights above the other elevator. They had just changed from fourteen to fifteen, the top floor. As stupid as even I thought it to be, I said "There might be people up there, we need to find out."

JJ whispered "If we go up the steps we will miss the boat. Our only shot is the elevator."

Then the lights started to descend. I said "It's coming down. The larger animals seem to know how to use elevators, although they seem to have trouble with doors. Swing around slightly, JJ if it's a large one, take it!" We didn't have enough time to get back to the "safety" of our stairway.

I said a quick prayer because if we were forced to shoot the noise would undoubtedly bring more of the monsters, kind of like a dinner bell calling the cowboys to chow. Finally, the elevator "pinged" on one and the doors slid open to reveal a very scared little girl not more than six or seven years old cradling a small dog in her arms. Behind her in the elevator were the remnants of former passengers while the elevator itself was painted in its new paint scheme; human blood!

Her eyes went wide when she saw the four of us standing in the lobby with SWAT written all over our gear. Amazingly she didn't scream, instead she looked warily around, then bent over, and grabbed a bloody white femur bone. She laid the bone down, so the elevator door could no longer close, and then ran towards us. Her little dog began softly growling just a few steps from us and her head jerked to the right, while her eyes grew wider and a scream was beginning to form on her lips.

From outside the building one of the little monsters jumped through the shattered window only to lose its footing on the shattered glass lying on top of the granite floor. Calmly Peters said "This one's mine" as he quickly stepped forward and kicked the back of the creatures head with his heavy boot, hurling it across the glass covered floor, to lie still with its head at a right angle to its neck.

JJ asked the girl, as he made her get next to Jose in the pocket we created "Is anyone else up there?"

Strangely calm she answered "No, only those things!"

Frankly, I think she is in shock, but as long as she was still functioning, we needed to move. Just in front of the hotel, at the curb, was a taxi, one of those twelve passenger airport specials, with the side door open and the engine running. At this point, the blood splattered all over the side of it, and the bones scattered around it hardly attracted my attention, door open with the engine running were all I really cared about, provided none of the little monsters was hiding inside of it.

As she moved inside our circle, still carrying her little dog, I asked "You're parents?"

She calmly answered "Dead, FiFi and I hid in the laundry room. FiFi always tells me when one of those things is nearby, she growls."

She was either the toughest seven year old I had ever met, or in shock. My bet was shock, but the last thing we needed right now was a crying, screaming and terrified little girl unable to help herself to survive. Terrified was okay, heck we were all terrified!

I quickly laid out my plan to get to the vehicle and try to escape by driving away. Normally it was at least a half-hour trip to the marina from here, usually longer because of early morning traffic. While traffic wouldn't be much of a problem, abandoned cars certainly would. I was informed that I was driving, mainly because I knew the route best.

We moved forward as a group and exited via the double wide main door. It slid open smoothly when we approached just as it probably had for the first monster. Shreds of blood soaked clothing were scattered among the bones in the entryway, all that was left of the doorman.

When we got beside the empty vehicle, a quick glance was all it took to confirm that it was indeed empty. Now it was time to do the dangerous evolution, get inside. We had no problem until I turned to enter, then the dog began softly growling. I glanced to my right, out the front window, and saw several of the little monsters running into view down the street.

I slid into my seat and slammed the door shut. Frankly, I didn't see where the little monsters could be much of a problem because I couldn't conceive of how a creature little taller than a chicken could conceivably break through a vehicles safety glass. Then I saw why they were running, they were being chased by a pair of the medium sized monsters!

As I stomped on the gas pedal to get us moving I knew without a doubt that those creatures would easily destroy the safety glass in their haste to get at the meal inside the van. Behind me I heard JJ yell "Two large ones, with a pair of small ones" and the sounds of him attempting to kick out the large glass panel. Then I heard "Some escape panel" and the sharp bark of his handgun as he finally shattered the tough safety glass with a pair of bullets.

The van lurched as I ran over one of the small monsters that were running towards us in the road. I then shouted "Hold on" as I jumped the curb to use the sidewalk because the road ahead was blocked with vehicles. They weren't necessarily abandoned since most of the people inside the cars had stayed there thinking that they were safe from the monsters. They had all paid for that bad decision with their lives.

One of the oncoming medium sized monsters jumped over a car and landed on the sidewalk not more than fifty feet in front of me. Its friend had circled to the right and was now closing on that side of our van. Since I had no choice, I put the gas pedal to the floor and the Mercedes passenger van responded by roaring forward, directly into the monster ahead of us!

Before I had gotten in I had noticed that the front of the van had a jury rigged heavy bumper, more than capable of moving cars out of the way, attached to its front. It served well now, preventing damage to the front of our vehicle as we smashed into the monster at almost forty miles an hour! We almost escaped unscathed except the monsters head impacted the windshield and, suddenly, it became a maze of cracked glass that was difficult to see through.

The impact of our hitting the monster head on had knocked everyone from their seats although it hadn't slowed our forward momentum very much. The monster coming at us from the side, seeing that its quarry was getting away, attempted to jump on top of our van and landed only slightly behind us. I heard a roar of rage but I was far more concerned about the monster attempting to get through the weakened windshield directly in front of me, especially when that windshield began to crumble under its onslaught!

Since I couldn't see where I was going I eased off the gas pedal and slammed on the brake! That gave me my desired result as the monster flew off the front of the van, landing on its side just a few feet in front of my truck. As it struggled to get back up I re-applied the gas and the van lurched nicely when I drove over the animal.

Unfortunately when I slammed on the brakes the creature behind us attempted to smash through one of the rear windows and get inside the van. Even though its body was way too large to fit through that window it was able to smash its way through the glass while its claws were ripping through the metal. From less than five feet away JJ shot his rifle directly into the creatures face, destroying one of its eyes, and tearing off a mass of bone in the back of its head.

Instead of falling off the van, dead, the creature redoubled its efforts to tear through the skin of our vehicle and get inside. JJ's second shot hit the creature directly below its remaining eye, only this time he hit the animal's brain. It briefly hung onto the rear of the van until I left the sidewalk, bumped over the curb, and was back onto the road. When I glanced into my rear view mirror I saw its body sliding along the pavement behind us, but its legs were still moving and attempting to kill something.

FiFi was growling steadily and with good reason. There were little monsters everywhere, but most of them appeared to be busy feeding and the rest weren't attacking the van probably because of its size. Frankly, it didn't matter because there were more than enough of the larger monsters to keep us terrified!

The street ahead of me was clear for several blocks so I stomped on the gas. Behind us a deep bass roar sounded and, as I glanced into the rear view mirror, I saw that the other monsters, large or small, were running in the same general direction we were going. Then I saw why, as one of the huge monsters came into view, less than two blocks behind us!

Ahead of me the intersection was jammed with cars, most of which were still idling. All of the cars had windows that were smashed in and it was obvious what had happened to the car's occupants since there was blood splattered everywhere. Once again, I jumped the curb, only this time I clipped a light post doing so, ripping off my right side mirror.

I had slowed down tremendously so I could jump the curb without damaging the vans suspension and that saved our lives. Earlier I had seen just how fast those huge creatures actually were when we were twenty stories up, they are even faster than I had thought when seen from the ground. We were not more than five hundred feet from the intersection when the loud, deep bass sound from hell erupted from just around the corner of the building we were in front of, and then the huge creature rumpled into view, stopped and began to turn.

We weren't moving that fast, not even twenty miles per hour, and even though I slammed the brakes on as soon as the creature came into view, by the time we stopped we were less than twenty feet from the thing. As I slipped the transmission into reverse I could see that we were in serious trouble when one lone head popped out of the creature's body followed by several long, slender, tentacles with the pincer like claws on their ends.

The tentacles whipped in our direction as I, once again, jammed the gas pedal to the floor. It was too late because two of the tentacles pincers smashed through the top of the already weakened windshield, spraying shards of safety glass everywhere, and closed, piercing the metal roof of the van. Immediately our rearward motion ceased and the rapidly spinning tires began to shriek in protest as they sought to move our vehicle away from the monster but were unable to as the tentacles began to slowly draw the van towards the monster.

From behind me I heard Jose yell something and then, with the end of his shotgun less than a foot from the hooked claw, he fired. Briefly it appeared that his shot had been totally ineffective, except for generating a mass of small holes in the sheet metal roof of the van all around the claw. Then the van slewed sideways, impacting the short wall surrounding one of New York's many subway entrances, as the claw tore through the roof, freeing the right side of the vehicle.

The sudden movement had hurled Jose into one of the front seats but, with a scream of rage, he jumped back up, aimed the barrel of his shotgun at the claw over my head, and fired! Deafened by the noise I felt the van begin to lurch backwards as the claw began to rip through the weakened sheet metal while I saw another claw flashing forward directly at me.

Dimly I heard Jose's shotgun roar once again and Jose was almost thrown through the front window as the claw tore through the sheet metal freeing our vehicle and allowing the tires to finally grasp the concrete sidewalk they had been slipping on. Our van shot backwards as JJ managed to grab one of Jose's feet before he would have disappeared through the front windshield onto the sidewalk.

I felt and heard the screech of tortured metal as the van scraped alongside the brick wall as it picked up speed. The claws were all coming towards us with their pincers open so I jerked the wheel slightly to the right, moving us away from the wall we were scraping which allowed us to gain speed faster. The claw headed towards me suddenly snapped shut missing me by inches as I felt the rear tires of the van bump over the curb, back onto the road.

As I backed down the street, towards the other huge monster sitting only a block and a half away behind us, JJ pulled a stunned Jose back into the van. Somehow, despite almost being hurled from our van, Jose had managed to keep his shotgun. Calmly he sat down and began re-loading.

I saw what I was looking for, an alleyway off to our left, which would take us away from the two huge monsters that were in front of and behind us. As I slammed on the brakes I saw the monster in front of us suddenly ram the wall of the building it was next to. By the time we were rolling forward and beginning to turn into the alleyway, snapping off a car's open driver's side door in the process, that monster had rammed the building for the second time.

We were barreling through the alleyway, just barely missing several garbage dumpsters, when an unbelievably deep, powerful noise, came chasing after us, shattering the glass windows facing the alleyway while raining glass everywhere! I was forced to hit the brakes because I had thrown my arms over my face in an attempt to protect my eyes from the rain of sharp glass. The sound was so powerful that the still intact safety glass windows in our vehicle all crazed, while the little girl, Jose and FiFi, her dog, appeared to be dazed by the noise.

Even partially deafened by Jose's shotgun, with top quality hearing protection in my ears, I could feel the power of the sound being generated by that monster. It was no wonder at all when the building it was adjacent to collapsed, virtually straight down, as if an explosives expert had spent months setting up demolition charges to implode that structure. Added to the still raining glass was a sudden rush of wind and choking dust from the collapsed building. Sitting still in the alley I knew we were a target, but the thick, heavy filth in the air was impossible to see through, while the still falling tiny bits of glass would quickly make it so you would never see again.

It felt like we sat there for hours, but it wasn't really more than five minutes before the dust had settled enough so I could see, at least as well as you could see in a heavy fog. My hearing had cleared somewhat and from the street behind us I could hear occasional screams of mortal anguish as one of the creatures discovered another human snack. As much as I wanted to, I knew that there was absolutely nothing we could do since our weapons were less than ineffective against those things. Even Jose's shotgun, at point blank range, had only torn open the vans metal skin. It hadn't even scratched the creature's claw.

When I had seen the on-rushing wall of dirt approaching I had shut the engine off because I was worried about what that dust would do to the engine, especially the air filter. If that had become clogged we would have been walking, and that was a death sentence. Since the dust had settled considerably I restarted the van and put the transmission into drive.

We had moved not more than thirty feet when, directly ahead of us, the lid on one of the garbage containers banged open, and a pair of heads popped up, human heads! I hit the brakes and screamed "Get the hell in here" as I slammed opened the vans entrance door, while stopping the van directly in front of the garbage container.

Behind me, and to the right, I heard the butt of Jose's shotgun slam into the badly cracked window, causing it to shatter outward, after sitting down he reversed his shotgun and began searching for targets. The other guys were all doing the same thing because the weakened windows were useless for protection while preventing anyone from effectively seeing anything outside of the van. At least now they could see, and shoot.

Two filthy, disheveled, people slid out of the garbage container. The middle aged man had the remnants of a very expensive business suit on while the younger woman looked like what she had probably been, a street hooker. Maybe yesterday it would have mattered, but it certainly didn't matter today. They were both human, and alive, that was enough!

The man charged through the door, saw the word SWAT on our clothes, and began almost insanely screaming at me! I could care less about what he was saying. He had stopped in the doorway, preventing the woman from getting aboard so we could get rolling again. Over his stupid screeching I yelled "Get your ass moving, or else, asshole!" I must admit, I think I had always wanted to say that to some of the idiots that were just that; assholes!

He moved forward into the bus slightly, just enough for the woman to get in, when he turned to resume berating me. I began moving the bus forward when Jose's shotgun roared! One of the little creatures had jumped onto the cover of the garbage container next to the one the people had been hiding in, so Jose had shot it. I punched the gas pedal, hard, causing the vehicle to lurch forward, knocking the man down to the floor while the woman fell out of the way of the door. I slammed the door shut behind her as several more of the little creatures appeared.

I heard Jose's shotgun roar again along with the quick blasts from several of the guy's pistols as our van quickly picked up speed. For every one of the little monsters they shot down it looked like two more appeared. At the corner I turned going the wrong way down a one way street, without even slowing down. The little monsters were quickly closing on us and, since all the windows were now missing, I had no doubt they knew that they could get inside our vehicle.

I swerved around a couple of abandoned cars and the little monsters seemed to lose interest in us as we picked up speed and left them behind. The road was clear for several blocks, only the occasional abandoned car was in the way, and it seemed that every time I had to swerve to miss one of those cars, the irate suit was slammed around inside the van. What a shame!

FiFi had been quiet, probably because of the noise the huge monster had made, but as we approached the partially blocked intersection where we had to turn right, she resumed her growling. I slowed down to move through the scattered vehicles and turn, when I saw why, not too far down the street from the intersection one of the huge monsters had just rammed into a building. I forgot about turning, instead I, once again, jumped the curb and drove on the sidewalk, only hitting a few small things, mainly bones.

The woman we had picked up had managed to get into a seat and was softly crying. The suit had made the mistake of attempting to berate JJ and was currently bleeding profusely from his broken noise while screaming something about a lawsuit. I smiled grimly while I wondered just why I had picked him up but I knew that my impulse to throw him out the door wasn't something I could do since he would probably give whatever monster ate him an upset stomach!

Two blocks further on, I slowed down and finally turned right, ignoring the still working traffic light. As I passed through the intersection I saw the flash of light from the traffic cameras in their remorseless attempt to generate revenue, oh yeah, I forgot, in their remorseless attempt to protect the public. Frankly, it would be nice to be alive to pay the ticket but I wasn't worried about it, our luck was bound to run out.

After several more turns I could see across the Hudson River the world's biggest traffic jam! The word had obviously gotten out so anyone with a car had gotten into it and was now attempting to flee the area. I wondered how far the creature's had spread and if anyone had flooded the tunnels to try and stop them. Somehow I just knew that the tunnels were still open and a chill went down my back at the thought of being stuck inside a car, in a traffic jam inside one of those tunnels, just waiting for the ugly death that was approaching.

We hadn't seen any creatures for the past few minutes and people were everywhere! The streets were clogged with vehicles and were totally impassible. When I stopped my blood splattered van so we could exit people didn't even glance towards us in their almost panicky flight.

Jose was off the van first because his wife was standing almost directly across the street from where we had stopped so he ran over to her, ignoring the people around him. I was the last to exit, directly behind the jerk in the suit. I told him that he was welcome to come with us but his answer was "Fuck you, you assholes will hear from my attorney!" Then he briskly walked away, still holding a handkerchief to his broken nose. Somehow, his attorney didn't worry me, with luck he had already been eaten, although maybe the monsters believed in professional courtesy.

As Jose and his wife crossed the street to join us the hooker asked "Can I stay with you people?"

I asked "What's your name and where are you from?" She had a mid-western accent not a New York accent.

"I'm Doris and I came from Topeka, Kansas. I thought I'd be on the stage by now, instead I'm turning tricks. I'm clean, so don't ask. I don't do drugs, I don't even smoke, but if I don't go with you people I'm dead and I know it!" She answered.

Underneath the filth covering her she looked like she might be sixteen or seventeen, probably a run-away that discovered the only way she could support herself was by selling herself. I had seen a lifetime's worth of that crap when I had been in vice which was why I had applied for SWAT.

Young girls also couldn't work alone, at least not for long, so I asked "Who's your pimp, and where is he?"

She didn't hesitate "Jimmy "O", and I have no idea. He was probably eaten by those things because he was supposed to pick me up at 6:30 this morning. All I can say is good riddance" and with that she spat towards the ground.

I had to smile because Jimmy "O" was nothing but a thug, but a very well connected thug. He worked for, or perhaps I should say paid, one of the many made men that New York was riddled with, Tony the Plumber, a Mafiosi suspected of being one of the mobs top hit men. Tony the Plumber was suspected in at least fifty mob style executions, although the key word was suspected. He was one of the most protected gangsters in New York City and even the Mayor was reputed to be a friend of his, or at least on his payroll.

I glanced at JJ, who had heard everything, and saw him shake his head "Yes" so I said "Okay, but you'd better not be on drugs, understand?"

She nodded her head "yes". I had never seen a hooker yet that would say she, or he, was on drugs although they usually were. I had little doubt that if she was my father-in-law would chuck her over the side, he detested the stuff and the people addicted to it.

Jose introduced Maria to everyone and we began moving west towards Battery Park City and the dock. If we could have I would have vastly preferred to jog, but there were far too many panicky people all moving away from the direction we were heading. They were probably trying for either the Brooklyn Bridge or the Manhattan Bridge because there weren't any bridges on the Battery Park side of the Island below Central Park, only tunnels.

There were a few men carrying shotguns or, in a few cases, rifles. After decades of rigorous enforcement of the most draconian anti-gun laws in the country New Yorkers, at least the average citizens, were pretty close to being totally disarmed, while I saw several notorious drug gangs, armed to the teeth with fully automatic weapons, also headed towards the bridges. Somehow it didn't seem right when Mr. Joe Average Citizen didn't have a prayer in hell against those monsters, while some of our human monsters would probably survive to fight another day. Well, as my father used to say, "Life sucks and then you die", may his soul rest in peace!

Then, from the Hudson River less than a quarter mile ahead of us, came the sound of cannons firing followed closely by explosions further up town. As we finally saw the private yacht club's entrance, where my father-in-laws boat was moored, we could also see the U.S. Coast Guard ship as it fired shell after shell into the city. Further out, another ship, from the color scheme, probably a US Navy Destroyer, also began firing into the city.

At first I thought the shots were indiscriminate, but then the steady "Thump, Thump, Thump" of helicopter blades could be heard above the gun fire and a pair of navy helicopters flew over, headed east, but beginning to turn for another pass over the city. They were probably spotting the accuracy of the cannon's fire for the ships.

Then, as they headed back into the city from over the Hudson River, a group of huge objects dropped from the low clouds striking the blades of both helicopters virtually simultaneously! The "birds" we had seen leaving that huge ship had struck and even though the blades quickly chopped them into sushi before they disintegrated, the helicopters dropped like stones into the river once their blades were gone. It was all over in seconds, both helicopters, along with their crews, were gone.

The birds quickly diverted their attack towards the two ships, but the destroyer opened up with one of its Phalanx Close-In Weapons System (CIWS) a relatively short range gun system designed to destroy incoming objects, like missiles or aircraft. The creatures didn't stand a chance. Within seconds all three surviving "birds" were destroyed. What could be the only possible problem was that the cannon shells were fired towards the city and somewhere they would land, hopefully on the monsters.

The river was busy, everything from large container ships to row boats, were out there and all heading in the same direction, out to the perceived safety of the sea. At least half the boats that were docked in the marina were already gone, while the rest were being quickly loaded in preparation for leaving. The heavy ten foot chain link fence topped with razor wire was intended to discourage entry except at the gates while the large gate was chained shut and the tire shredder located fifty feet outside the gate was deployed.

Normally, before the riots had started, the marina had employed two retired New York City Policemen as security guards on each shift. They had seriously beefed up security two months ago and they now had six security guards per shift equipped with automatic rifles. Even in New York City, the rich play by a far different set of rules than the average citizen, and anyone who had a boat in this marina was definitely rich. By the standards my father-in-law lived by, his two plus million dollar sailboat was one of the smaller craft in this exclusive club.

The outer man gate was closed and locked, usually, during the day the outer gate was open while the inner gate was kept electronically locked. Next to the gate was the security center, a small brick building that was actually a brick veneer surrounding a thick reinforced concrete wall with new bullet proof windows made of something called clear aluminum.

They had even put a dome like structure over the flat roof made of the same clear aluminum so guards would have a clear sight picture of the entire marina and surrounding areas. When I had talked to the day shift supervisor, Captain Ralph Peters, Ret., a former SWAT team officer, over a month ago, he had bragged endlessly about the new material and how it was going to revolutionize security precautions everywhere. According to the manufacturer, this clear aluminum stuff could, and would, stop a .50 caliber machine gun bullet cold!

When we stopped in front of the gate Captain Peters left the guard room to talk with me while one of his associates buzzed us through. He had known I was also in SWAT although he had never seen me show up at the marina in anything but nice clothes and definitely not in blood splattered SWAT gear with a bunch of friends, also in blood splattered SWAT garb.

The Captain asked "What's going on out there? The cities in a panic, the radios aren't working, the television isn't working either, what's going on?

"Earlier the television was showing pictures of some huge alien spaceship landing in Central Park and was blathering on about inter-galactic harmony. Now there is nothing, except a couple of ships firing cannons into the city and panicky people everywhere. So what do we have here, the War of the Worlds or something?"

I had talked to the Captain for years, ever since he had taken the position here. He always seemed to be a straight shooting no nonsense type of guy so I didn't mince any words. "Captain, you and your men need to get your families and flee this city. We were there and it was a slaughter, only they are slaughtering us. That ship was full of creatures that mostly look like dinosaurs only they can't be. We saw four different animals, with that I pointed upward, at a group of circling objects high above the river, those are some kind of leathery looking bird with big claws and a mouth full of sharp teeth. They can be killed with a rifle, provided you shoot the head, remember, it's always the head, kind of like a zombie, otherwise they don't seem to die.

"Then there are the little ones, slightly larger than a chicken, only with a mouth full of teeth and hook like claws on what passes for arms. They walk upright while using their tails to balance. These can be killed with a shotgun or a pistol. They are exceptionally dangerous because they always seem to be in packs.

"The medium sized creatures are bastards to kill. The feathers are actually some kind of body armor and they are covered in feathers. Even though our heavy rifles penetrated the body it didn't seem to hurt them. Only a head shot can take one down while even then the brain must be so small you might not hit it. When they attacked off the ship we saw that pistols and shotguns were useless against these things.

"Then there are the huge ones, the ones that destroy buildings. Nothing we have will hurt them, maybe the military has heavy enough weapons, but we sure don't.

"Have the Doyle's gotten back yet?"

Captain Peters asked "Why?"

Emerson Doyle made my father in law seem poor! Every year he added a billion or two to his fortune mainly through his mining businesses. He had taken his family, three months ago, to cruise on his larger yacht in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. His smaller yacht was tied up at the pier with no one getting it ready to leave.

I answered "If they aren't back yet, they won't be. Those creatures will be here soon and if you're here you will all die, that's why. Get your people and their families on that boat and get the hell out of here!"

"You're telling me to steal that yacht? Don't you think these things can be stopped?" the Captain asked.

"I know you monitor the police band, what have you heard in the last couple of hours?" I asked.

The Captain answered "Nothing, absolutely nothing. A few cops asking for instructions, but no answers from any of the precincts around here. Some of the ones on the other end of the island answer, but they don't seem to know what's going on either."

I had suspected as much because our radios had only had other cops trying to find out what was happening. In every case we told them to get their families and flee. Hopefully that was what they were doing otherwise they would be making a useless sacrifice of both their life and their families lives. This was the time to live to fight another day, when we were better armed and could take down these things.

I answered "Captain, yes I'm telling you to take that boat. There are far too many of those things and we aren't properly armed to mess with them. Even our high powered sniper rifles don't always kill those creatures and I'm not talking about the huge ones.

"Have my in-laws gotten here yet?" I asked as I fished my cell phone out of its pocket.

Captain Peters shook his head "no" as he asked "Are you positive that the situation isn't recoverable, after all, stealing that yacht would cause us to be thrown into prison for forever?"

As I flipped open my cell phone I saw that I had absolutely no signal, nevertheless I hit the send button in the odd chance that it just might work. I told the Captain "If every New Yorker had a gun, maybe. Right now 95% of the citizens are nothing but a meal and most of the rest don't have anything large enough to stop those monsters. The ones that are well armed are the bad guys, but we both already know that, don't we?

"Take the yacht, if I'm wrong, at least your people will be alive to work out a deal. Besides, since Doyle isn't around, what difference does it make?

"Is your land line working?"

The Captain nodded his head in agreement while saying "That lines been down for over a week, someone bombed a central terminal or something. Thanks and good luck. We'll keep the guard up until we're ready to leave, maybe a half hour or so, everyone's families are already in the security center because it is the safest place in the city." With that he walked back into the security building while giving orders on his personal radio.

I looked at my men and ordered "JJ take Jose, his wife and Doris to the boat. Help Jack and Carol get it ready to go, okay? At the first sight of those creatures get the boat away from shore but float the dinghy. If I make it back, bring it into shore to pick us up. If we're not back in two hours, we're dead."

I knew better than to order Peters and Odeler to go with JJ, their families were with my family and they would have simply told me to go to hell. Besides, ours odds of survival were better with three shooters.

Jose started to protest, he wanted to come with us and help. My first inclination was to say no, then I thought about just how useful that shotgun of his could be and that he hadn't panicked, in fact his reaction had been the exact opposite. I remembered that years ago a drill instructor had once told me that some men were just natural born warriors, while others weren't. So far he had come across as one of the former, not the latter.

I asked "How many more shells do you have for that shotgun?"

He smiled and answered, in excellent English, "One in the barrel, six in the magazine and at least thirty more buck and ball rounds in my pockets."

I looked at him with what must have been a questioning expression on my face when I asked "What happened to your accent, and the crappy English?"

His smile grew larger when he answered "Sergeant, playing the ignorant peasant works well, but I'm not what you thought I was. I was trained by your Special Forces and was working undercover to bring down another drug gang operating out of that office building where we met. My full name is Colonel Jose Peppes of the Columbian Army and I was on loan to your DEA. My wife is a senior financial analyst who was working directly for your military. She was tracking down who, or what, was responsible for the shambles your countries finances are currently in."

No wonder he hadn't panicked! He was probably better trained than we were and, considering what he had been doing, braver than us also. I said "Okay, let's get moving, the monsters are getting closer every second we fart around."

Before we could move JJ said "Wait a second" and began removing his body armor. He handed it to Jose to put on while saying "It might not help, but then again it might. Good luck!"

Once we were outside the gate we began jogging the four blocks towards the twenty-six story building where my in-laws owned the Penthouse Suite. When I saw the first traffic light I became even more worried because the power was off. All the red lights were flashing continuously which meant that they were working on their battery back-up. If our people had been using the elevator when the power failed they could very well be stuck inside it.

There were still a lot of people fleeing towards the bridges, but not like earlier. Now the volume of foot traffic was similar to a normal workday, crowded, but moving. Faintly, in the distance, the naval shells exploding could be heard and that was providing an impetuous that kept folks moving.

It didn't take very long to run four blocks and we were at our destination. The entranceway had a double security door surrounded by bullet proof glass and the security detail was still working. Unbelievably there weren't many people fleeing the building because most of the owners probably felt reasonably safe. After all, the building wasn't that old and one of the builder's biggest sales tools had been how safe and secure the building was.

The building was safe and secure, against gang bangers or other human thugs. From what we had seen it was a death trap against the huge monsters, they had collapsed far larger and taller buildings than this. Worse, that sound of theirs would probably even shatter the bullet proof glass. So far it had seemed to work on everything the monsters had encountered!

We crowded into the area between the security doors and were immediately buzzed through. That was when I realized that the building even had backup generators. Well at least we didn't have to worry about the elevators! No wonder the owners were feeling a false sense of security, in their world nothing had changed, or so they thought.

The management company had twenty-four armed security people that worked here. Normally the men, and women, were armed strictly with pistols. Now they were armed with twelve gauge shotguns along with their pistols. Once again, effective against gang bangers, a death sentence against even the medium sized monsters.

Once inside I asked the head of the security team to call upstairs to the penthouse suite, number 2601. Sure enough, my father-in-law answered the phone! They hadn't even left yet.

I simply told him that we would be right up! We walked to the special elevator, and on the way up, I struggled to bring my temper back under control. By the time the elevator door slid open on the 26th floor I had almost regained complete control. We walked into the suite with our blood splattered clothes on only to find them finishing breakfast! I lost it!

"Dad, just what the hell are you people doing?" I almost screamed.

Norman, my father in law, looked at our clothing with that shrewd, penetrating gaze of his and answered "It's my fault, when Freida told me what you had said I thought you were overreacting. Obviously, judging by what I see now, you weren't."

He looked at the always impeccably dressed older man that had worked for him, and was his closest friend for well over forty years, and said "James, you and Helen had better gather your stuff. I'm afraid my son-in-law wasn't overreacting, we need to go. Travel light, your weapons and body armor will do. Everything else is on the yacht."

He looked at me and asked "How long do we have?"

"I'm surprised they haven't gotten this far yet" was all I could answer.

He stood and said "Okay, follow me. What weapons will be best?"

His straight forward, ho-hum, no big deal attitude, like this was just another minor turn of events in an otherwise boring day at the office was amazing. I was so surprised that, at first, I couldn't answer.

My wife, Freida, spoke up and said "Dad, I told you what he told me earlier. Stop putting him on, I know you have everything all set to go!"

Dad smiled and said "It was just too good to pass up. Everything is set to go, so we'd better get going." With that he walked to his office and began passing out weapons. I watched with approval as my son, Brad, carefully checked the 12 gauge Wilson Combat Standard pump action shotgun his grandfather had handed him.

Dad asked "Buck and ball rounds? I'm assuming we need maximum takedown since you want me to carry that Gibbs cannon of mine." With that he checked, loaded and then handed each of the women a shotgun, after re-assuring himself that the safety was on.

Odeler's wife, Susan, at first refused to accept the shotgun offered her. He had remarked in that past about her serious pacifist feelings, but now he simply told her "You are endangering our kids, we will need every bit of firepower we can get when the monsters get here, and they will get here."

She took the shotgun and, amazingly, did a thorough job of checking it out. Her husband looked at me and said "She knows how to use it, she just doesn't want to" with a grin that told me that at the first sight of the monsters her pacifism would abruptly disappear.

It took less than ten minutes, although it felt far longer than that, and we were ready to go. New York's progressive mayor would have had a heart attack if he had seen us when we stepped onto the elevator because we were armed to the teeth. Dad even had on his hunting clothes, hat, and boots, the gear he had worn when over fifteen years ago he took down a Cape Buffalo with the Gibbs .505 he was carrying, just a couple of years after his oldest grandson, Brad, had been born.

We had just exited the building when, from not more than a few blocks north of us, the weird deep bass sound was emitted by one of the huge monsters. While we couldn't see the thing from where we were standing the results could be seen. Within minutes another huge cloud of dust came barreling down the street as yet another building collapsed.

When we had gone into the building there were still people everywhere. Now we were almost the only people on the street which felt weird because, even in the early morning, it seemed like there was always someone around.

It wasn't quiet however. There was a steady background of screams and an occasional gunshot that could be heard over the intermittent blasts of artillery shells bursting and the omnipresent sound of helicopter blades forcing their way through the air. Also, echoing throughout the area, were the sounds of victory as the monsters discovered yet another group of cowering human victims!

Once again we formed our square only this time with our loved ones inside the square. As much as I wanted to jog it wouldn't be wise, anyone falling would disrupt the square and you cannot watch the terrain around you as well when running. However, there was no problem with a brisk walk because, after all, we only had to go a few blocks to get back to the marina.

I would have vastly preferred walking down the center of the street because it would have given us at least a little more reaction time when a monster appeared but the street was clogged bumper to bumper with abandoned cars. Worse than that the cars were useless for any type of defense because the little monsters could easily move under or around them while the large monsters could easily jump over them and the huge ones would simply crush them. The only animal slowed down by them was us!

We had gone less than a half a city block when, from around the corner of the building, a roar of victory rang out from two or three of the large monsters. It sounded like they were just around the corner of the building so I moved our group as close to the cars as we could get while covering the area in question with my rifle.

When we cleared the edge of the building we could see three of the monsters attacking a car and we could hear the muffled screams of fear coming from inside the vehicle. Without hesitation I stopped, aimed my rifle at the creature's head that was busily clawing its way through the roof of that car and fired. Seconds later two other rifles spoke and two of the monsters were down, while the one on top of the car looked momentarily stunned.

Then, with a roar of rage, the creature turned towards us and began running towards us across the roofs of the abandoned line of cars. I reacquired the targets head but, before I could fire, I heard the roar of Dad's Gibbs .505 and the creature was knocked sideways by the impact of the heavy caliber bullet, falling between the two rows of abandoned cars.

Only it wasn't dead! With another roar of pain, hate and rage the monster regained its feet, this time running between the rows of vehicles towards us. Once again I reacquired my target, its weaving and bobbing head, centered the crosshairs on the upper portion of its open mouth, and shot.

At only slightly over twenty feet the impact of my bullet tore through the creatures mouth and exited the back of its head, tearing a fist sized hole that sprayed blood, brains and gore behind it. The creature staggered another step towards us and then fell. Even though it was clearly dead, it wasn't, because the claws on its rear legs were still tearing through the side of the car it was lying beside.

Two frightened people, a young man and girl, got out of the car they had tried hiding in. Despite Odeler's screaming at them to join up with us the young man did stupid, he pulled a pistol out of his waistband and, while doing a cock walk, shot the corpse of the monster lying beside the car.

Only the monster wasn't entirely dead. The things tail moved at an unbelievable speed hurling the girl into the brick wall of a building over thirty feet away and catching the man's head with its tip splattering his brains everywhere!

Odeler began to move towards the girl when three more of the monsters appeared from around the far corner of the building only a block away from us, far less than half that to her. Except for joining her in dying there wasn't anything we could do. The monsters paused for a second to tear her body apart and then paused for another few seconds to feast on the man.

This gave us the time we needed to squeeze through the abandoned cars and form up again on the far sidewalk where we stopped. Odeler, Peters and I called our shots so we would not take the same animal. Within seconds of each other all three rifles barked and the monsters, still feasting on the man, were executed!

I heard gagging behind me as someone lost their breakfast. It didn't matter, we kept moving.

We cleared the next intersection without incident although screams of mortal anguish rang off the walls of the buildings around us. We had just formed up again, after squeezing through the cars, when Dad said "What the hell was that?"

I glanced to my right and, two blocks down the street, I saw two more people hurl themselves out of an upper story window onto the street below. My only comment was "Close it up and keep moving, when they are done with them, they will be after us."

At the next intersection there were fewer cars, so we were able to maintain our defensive formation as I swung us into the middle of the relatively clear street. A block ahead I could see our goal, the marinas main entrance. I could also see the Doyle's yacht just clearing the edge of the pier.

From behind me I heard my son exclaim "Over there, by that car, there's a bunch of little things, do you see them?"

I glanced to my right and, sure enough, a large group of the little monsters were flowing down the street, only a couple of blocks away, heading towards us. First I screamed "Shotguns and pistols kill them!" and then, after gauging our relative distances I screamed "Run, get to the main gate! There are hundreds of them!"

Carrying my rifle in my left hand I yanked my pistol from its holster as I ran towards the gate. We had a good head start before the things were even aware we were there. Then, when they spotted us, they emitted a weird noise and began racing towards us.

We got to the marina's gate with about a half-block to spare. Thoughtfully, Captain Peters had left both gates propped open with bricks so the electronic locking mechanism wouldn't engage which would have forced us to use our key card. As our loved ones crowded through the gate, Jose, Odeler, Peters and I began targeting the closest monsters. It was a drop in the bucket!

I was the last one through the outer man gate so I dropped the lock pin into place, the one they used to secure the gate from ten in the evening until six in the morning. When I passed through the inner gate, I closed it and saw the red "locked" light flash on. That would keep the gate secured until the generator ran out of fuel.

Then I, once again, began screaming because everyone had stopped just inside the gate "Get moving, it won't take them long to tear through the wire rat barrier and the smaller ones will fit between the bars!" Then I slung my rifle over my back and inserted a fresh clip into my backup pistol.

Dad got everyone moving again while the four of us, began walking backwards towards the pier, waiting for the first animals to get through the bars. The fence had been designed to keep humans out, not chicken sized hungry monsters!

We managed to get to the head of the pier before the first of the monsters squeezed through the bars after using its razor sharp claws to tear through the heavy gauge wire rat barrier. At well over fifty yards it was a difficult pistol shot but Jose used his shotgun to good effect, leaving one monster lying on the concrete bleeding out.

Behind us, at the end of the pier slightly over one hundred yards away, I heard the motor on the dinghy start. Then I heard Dad yelling to Jack to bring the yacht closer to the pier. As we carefully walked backwards, more and more of the little monsters were squeezing through the bars in front of us and were then hurling themselves, with their opened fanged mouth first, towards us.

Jose used his shotgun to very good effect, taking down six of the monsters with his seven shots. Then he had to reload while the monsters quickly got closer and we began taking the animals down with our pistols.

Even though almost every one of our shots hit an animal, there were more squeezing through the fence every second. Then my pistol was empty and even though it only took a few seconds to drop the empty clip and insert the loaded clip, those damn monsters just kept coming. Beside me I heard the roar of Jose's shotgun resume while both Peters and Odeler were inserting new clips.

Even though we had shot over thirty of the little monsters, they just kept coming, while totally ignoring the fresh meat they were running across. We were doing an excellent job of shooting down the closest animals, although they still just kept getting closer, even though we were still walking backward towards the end of the pier.

Both Jose and I were once again forced to reload only by the time I had inserted the new clip and re-charged my pistol one of the monsters had almost reached me. My first shot caught the thing in its scrawny chest although the violence of its impacting my body armor caused me to miss my step backward and fall.

That was when both Odeler and Peters fired the last bullet in their clips also! Suddenly, we were almost defenseless and the monsters surged forward sensing that their dinner was served! Then from slightly behind us I heard Dad roar "Down, get your asses on the deck!"

I had rolled over and was attempting to regain my feet when he yelled so I joined my friends on the hard concrete of the pier. Behind us five shotguns began to roar sending their buck and ball rounds tearing into the oncoming animals at point blank range. By the time the shotguns clicked empty we had all re-loaded.

We merely sat up and resumed firing our weapons, slaughtering the animals that were still attempting to get to us while others had finally decided to seek an easier meal and had begun running back towards the fence. But others were still passing through the fence and insanely rushing towards us in their fanatic hunger.

Once again, within seconds, we needed to change our clips because we had run out of bullets. Behind us I heard Dad roar "Stay down, reload, when I yell again, get back here and reform your line. Jack has the yacht just a few feet off the end of the pier bumping into the tires with the engine in reverse.

"While you four shoot, we'll jump into the boat. Then run like hell and join us."

Once again, the shotguns roared as we inserted our last clips into our pistols. When they stopped firing, I heard Dad roar "Go!" so we jumped up and ran the few remaining steps to the end of the pier. We then whirled around and quickly burned through our bullets, forcing the animals to pause momentarily from the sheer violence of our attack.

But they only paused momentarily and then they rushed forward from where they had stopped, less than fifteen feet from us. We turned and jumped for our lives onto the yacht as Jack slammed the engine into forward.

It almost worked. Jose lost his shotgun but managed to grab onto the boat as the gap between the boat and the pier quickly widened. I landed face down but then I felt an object hit my back and one of the little monsters mouths closed on my ear, cutting and tearing most of it off. Then the thing was gone when Dad swung his shotgun like a baseball bat and hit the animal overboard.

Brad, following his Grandfathers example, attacked the other creature with the butt of his shotgun. It squawked loudly when I kicked the damn thing in the body with my boot while Brad slammed the butt of his shotgun into its head while it was lying stunned on the deck. The head popped like a ripe watermelon, spewing stinky purplish black blood everywhere!

Odeler and Peters were helping Jose into the boat, while I fished a bandage out of my web gear to apply to what was left of my poor ravaged ear, which was also starting to hurt like the devil! Behind us, on the pier we had done an excellent job of covering with purplish black blood, the little monsters were beginning to feast on their less fortunate brethren.

Dad walked over to me and said "Son, I'm sorry. I should have done what you told us to do and this could all have been avoided."

I was shocked because throughout our twenty years of marriage he had never, not once, addressed me as "Son". In fact I had always thought that he truly wished that his only child had found someone more in keeping with her station in life, not a poor New York City cop.

I smiled and answered as I finally stood up "There's nothing to be sorry about. Without your quick thinking we were dead. Is everyone okay?"

He smiled warmly back at me and answered "Grandma sprained her ankle jumping into the boat. I haven't seen the old girl move that fast since we were kids!

"And I hate to say this, but both James and I had forgotten what it feels like to be both terrified and completely alive all at the same time! It took both of us back to when we did stupid and joined the Marines together back in '68! We haven't had so much fun in years!

"I'm sorry about your ear though, but don't worry, I know a good surgeon, he'll fix you up." Then something else occurred to him and he added "That is, if he's still alive."

My wife sent her father to the bridge. While Jack knew the basics of running a ship this size, Dad was the skipper. Before he left he asked where we should head and all I could say was "I don't have a clue, some island someplace where, I hope, these things aren't."

Because of the bird like monsters circling in the sky above us we made sure that everyone not standing guard duty was inside the cabin. Those things were so big that I had no doubt they could easily carry away an adult, let alone a child.

After Freida exercised her skills at patching her husband up, me, I gave her a quick kiss and went to the galley. After pouring two cups of black coffee, I then went up to the bridge and handed one of them to Dad.

He was on the radio with the Coast Guard ship that had been bombarding the city. The news was bad, actually far worse than bad. The animals were quickly spreading throughout the island and the navy had teams of men on shore hastily rigging all the bridges with explosives. The tunnels had all been flooded in an attempt to keep the animals contained. They had been shelling the alien ship without effect and were now targeting the huge creatures in an attempt to stop their destruction of the city.

But worse was coming. There were bombers on their way to drop air fuel explosives on the creatures regardless of the amount of damage that would do to the city. They should be here in about a half hour. A carrier task force would be close enough to launch its planes in just over two hours while the states surrounding New York had called up the remnant of their National Guard.

Then the Coast Guard officer that Dad was talking with told him the bad news. One of these alien ships had landed just a few miles outside the West Point Military Academy in New York, in Washington DC, Orlando, Florida, Mexico City, and twenty one other places throughout North America. But that was just the tip of the iceberg because they knew that over six hundred of the vessels had landed around the world. This was some kind of an invasion although they were uncertain who, or what, was actually invading and what their object was.

Dad then burst the Coast Guard Officers bubble when he told him that the little monster he had batted into the water hadn't sunk, but had swam back to shore. Taking down the bridges would slow them down, but when they ran out of food on Manhattan Island, they would merely swim to the next source of food.

The river was crowded with boats and ships of every size, all of them fleeing what was happening in New York City. Although the exodus was reasonably orderly the Coast Guard was enforcing order literally through the barrels of their guns. Several times they issued an order to one of the large cargo ships to slow down because they were endangering the small boats also attempting to flee.

Right on schedule, almost a half hour later, the sounds of explosions coming from the city behind us could be heard and shortly after that it appeared that a large part of the city was on fire. The column of smoke was massive, so large that the only thing that appeared to be missing was the mushroom cloud generated by a nuclear explosion.

Once we cleared the final breakwater the full force of the oceans waves could be felt and, even though they were running at six to eight feet, they weren't a problem for our yacht. Unfortunately, some of the smaller boats were in serious difficulty and even though the Coast Guard had several cutters out rescuing folks, the scope of the problem was beyond their current capabilities to manage. There were simply too many boats out here that shouldn't be.

One of the small boats near us had been rolled by the waves and there were three people clinging to it screaming for help. Dad maneuvered as close as possible to them and the guys threw them ropes with floats attached so we could bring them aboard.

After the man and two women were aboard one of the shivering people told Odeler that there was another man thrown from their boat when it rolled over. Even though the man had a life vest on, we couldn't see him anywhere. After looking for almost an hour, Dad decided it was time to go especially when the Coast Guard Cutter could be seen steaming past the break wall, headed into the Ocean doing at least fifteen knots.

Over the radio the Coast Guard was ordering all ships to steam away from New York City at maximum possible speed. So with our sails set, in only a few minutes we were at our maximum speed of slightly over eight knots sailing in a brisk wind. Almost everybody aboard was already suffering from sea sickness while the yacht moved briskly through the ocean under a cloudless sky.

Distantly we could hear the sounds of large explosions as the bombers dropped their load onto the city not quite fifteen miles behind us. Above us we could see the contrails streaming behind the bombers as they turned back towards shore, although we couldn't hear anything. I wondered how the battle was going but the only thing we knew for certain was that New York City was burning. The huge column of smoke was being blown inland on the morning wind, but was clearly visible to us.

Less than an hour later, over the horizon, there were a series of brilliant flashes, six in all. Within minutes it was obvious what had happened as six large columns rose into the sky behind us with their tops quickly spreading into the distinctive mushroom cloud. Even though we were almost twenty five miles away from the city the rush of wind coming from the explosions almost caused us to capsize.

There was nothing we could say, someone had decided to cauterize the infection before it could spread. New York City, and the surrounding area, had ceased to exist. God help the millions of people caught up in the nuclear hell unleashed by our politicians because they would need every bit of help they could get.

Dad set a course for Bermuda. Even if one of those ships had landed there, the area had thousands of islands so there had to be someplace safe for us to stop, we hoped!

From the author;

I hope you enjoyed this short story which is actually Chapter 7 of my latest book _Extinction Earth!_

Thank you for taking your time and reading my work. I hope you had as much enjoyment reading it as I had in writing it.

Nathan Hale
