Master of Violence
by AJ Marks
Part 9
Angie slowly came to with a headache and groaned slightly. Opening her eyes she looked around seeing sunlight overhead and the sight of trees. Sitting up quickly in a panic was a bad idea as her head felt like it exploded and quickly laid back down.
“You’re awake, good,” a voice said. “I was worried.”
Angie opened her eyes again to see Jack now over her. She looked at him, then where they were and her mind raced at what might have happened. Had he kidnapped her? What had he done to her? Quickly feeling down she noticed she still had her clothes on, so either he dressed her, or nothing happened.
“What happened?” she asked, her voice a bit raspy.
“Here,” he replied, handing her some water. “How’s your head?”
“Hurts, what did you do?” she asked, eyeing him and taking a drink of water before handing it back to him.
“You don’t remember?” he asked.
“What should I remember?” Angie said, her head still hurting. “I was walking home and you were coming from the opposite direction. Still not over that I didn’t accept your invitation to prom?”
She noticed him flinch slightly but didn’t care. She wouldn’t be a victim here.
“You don’t recall what happened next?” Jack asked. “The explosions?”
“What explosions,” she said but her voice died off as she seemed to recall something. “Lights in the sky?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Some sort of attack.”
“Attack?” Angie stated wondering what Jack had smoked. Who would attack them?
“Yeah, not sure who they are,” Jack said. “Shuttles came down after the explosions, or bombardment. I picked you up and headed into the forest. That was almost twenty-four hours ago.”
“I’ve been out for twenty-four hours?” she asked.
“Yeah, good thing, they swept through the forest looking for survivors,” Jack said. “I’m used to hiding.”
She thought he smiled a bit at that. What had happened here? It all sounded so unreal to her.
“What of the city?” she asked.
“Haven’t been there, didn’t want to leave you,” Jack said. “One of the explosions knocked you out. You hit a tree, I hit the grass instead, skinned my elbow.”
He held up the elbow and she noticed the scabs and blood on the shirt.
“You were lucky, it only seemed to knock you out, probably have a concussion,” Jack stated. “I figure you have it, but don’t know how to actually treat it, other than being cautious and avoiding any more knocks to the head.”
Angie realized she didn’t know how to treat a concussion as well. The one thing she felt grateful for was the fact her headache had lessened a lot allowing her to sit up a bit as Jack moved off a bit to sit close by.
“How far away are we?” she asked.
“About an hour’s walking time,” Jack replied.
“An hour?”
“Didn’t want to be too close to the explosions,” Jack said. “And the screams, they were awful.”
She noticed he had a faraway look in his eye as he said that.
If they really had been attacked then who and why had they done it. How many were left and what would happen to them next?
“So, what’s your plan?” she asked him.
“Didn’t really have one,” Jack said. “My first thought was to get away from the explosions, then away from the invaders. Guess we’ll try to find other survivors and see what is actually going on out there. Someone had to know something.”
Angie nodded wondering what they might be able to do, if anything. If this was an invasion then the alien race probably held the entire planet.
“So, what do we do for food?” she asked.
“I know some hunting, and there’s a stream close by that I used to fish at. Has some good trout from Earth,” Jack replied. “I’m not so good at starting fires.”
“Would this help?” Angie asked, pulling out a lighter.
“Not going to ask why you’ve got a lighter,” Jack finally said causing Angie’s eyebrows to rise. She figured if anyone had a lighter or something like that it would be Jack and his group.
He lit a small fire and continued to work until she noticed he placed a fish on a stick to cook.
“A regular boy scout,” Angie said.
“Dad forced me into it, never thought I’d actually use of it,” Jack replied.
Angie fell silent for a few seconds wondering what might happen next. Pulling out her phone she realized she had no service but went ahead and sent a text to her mother in a vain hope it might go though. In a wild reckless thought she also sent one to her uncle, knowing he probably would never get it.
“Does your phone work?” Jack asked causing her to look up in shock.
“No service,” she replied.
“Yeah, must have knocked out the service towers, or power,” Jack said.
“Can we go down and see what’s happening?” Angie asked watching as he seemed apprehensive about that and made her wonder if he perhaps kidnapped her.
“We can, but we have to be careful,” he finally said. “Not sure what to find, or how much destruction is going on.”
“So these aliens, what are they?” Angie asked.
“Never seen anything like them before,” Jack finally said. “About our height, green skin, humanoid in shape with a bone mohawk. Not very good at spotting us in the forest though. They also seemed to be caught off guard by the wildlife here.”
That statement caught Angie off guard. “What do you mean?”
“Ah, saw one group disturb a bee hive. They freaked out,” Jack said. “In fact the bees probably saved us from being discovered as they were headed right towards us.”
“How did they disturb it?” Angis asked, now trying to figure out how aliens disturbed a beehive.
“They tossed a stone at it, not sure what they were expecting,” Jack said. “Thankfully we were far enough away that the bees didn’t disturb us.”
“Good, I’m allergic to bee stings.”
“Don’t go that direction then,” Jack said, pointing off in a direction she felt sure she’d forget.
“What do we do next?” Angie asked.
“If you want to go, we’ll go when it gets dark, beyond that, I don’t know.”
*****
Angie felt unsure if heading out at night was a good idea, as the moon was out and providing their only light. She couldn’t even see the glow of the city in the distance, or any lights at all.
“Power must still be down,” Jack said as they continued on. They had been walking for a while now when he suddenly stopped.
Angie remained quiet and waited to see what might happen next before they continued moving forward and reaching a road. They looked at it for a moment but saw no cars or anything. In the distance she saw a shimmering light which could be a car, or a building.
“Come on, we’ll go this way,” Jack said, moving towards the light.
They stayed in the bushes and off the road and continued to move forwards when Jack stopped and motioned for her to get down. She crouched and waited before seeing a couple of figures heading down the road.
She couldn’t quite make out their features, but while they looked human there were some differences, like the weapons they held as she was able to get a better view of them. Also, they didn’t have any hair, but a bony protrusion like a Mohawk making them look a bit strange.
Some weird grunts floated on the wind and she wondered if they were speaking to each other. If so they seemed at ease with everything. There was some rustling causing both of them to jump, and they turned on a light to peer at the other side of the road. Even as she watched one had his weapon ready when the light seemed to shine on some fast moving object which Angie realized was a cat.
The alien took a few shots but missed as the cat ran off into the brush and disappeared. More grunts as the two seemed to calm down and headed down the road again. When they were far enough away they continued on down before coming to a large clearing which Angie finally recognized, the shopping center where she worked. It had been demolished. She had not been expecting that at all.
Everywhere she looked the building appeared destroyed. Even as she looked around she noticed a few areas in the wreckage seemed to be lit, as if they were still powered. Moving forward she wanted to see what it might be. Jack was cautious she noticed, looking around but moved forward as well.
“What’s that light?” she whispered.
“Don’t know,” he replied back.
They moved forward when Jack suddenly moved back and took Angie with him. Angie remained quiet unsure if the strange aliens were back or not as they moved back into the forest.
“Sorry, but saw a body, wasn’t pretty,” Jack said to her once they were further away.
She wasn’t sure if she was relieved or not and really didn’t want to encounter a body today.
Heading back she wondered about everything. “I take it that was an alien?”
“Looked like it, didn’t seem much of them, but their weapon wasn’t something I’m familiar with,” Jack replied back.
“You know weapons?” she asked.
“Collect them, or did, probably a wasted pile of scrape by now,” Jack replied.
Angie now felt unsure about Jack if he was one of those people. However, something had happened and it did appear an alien race had invaded the planet. Sure, he could have had a couple of his friends dressed up as aliens, but the destruction of an entire building, seemed highly illogical. For now she was tired and wanted to sleep a bit more.
*****
Mark made his way back to his quarters, it had been a long day that much was for sure. Moving in the he quickly looked at the computer, seeing no messages before moving to the bunk and collapsing into it turning off the lights.
His mind went over everything which happened in the last couple of days. They had lost touch with Sierra, and now they were either preparing for war, or going to meet some more aliens depending on who you spoke to.
The announcement had been made about what happened, and the news of this Dark race, whoever they were. Mark had no idea even as he tried to close his eyes. He thought he was drifting off when he heard a familiar vibrating sound. Looking in the direction of his phone he realized he forgot to turn it off earlier and it was showing some sort of message came in.
He wondered who might be texting him now. His friends had been bothering him for a while trying to gain some information, especially once this Dark Race information came out.
The phone buzzed several more times and he realized if he wanted to get any sleep he’d have to turn it off.
Getting up he moved over to the phone and went about cancelling the notifications and stopped.
“What the hell?” he said seeing a very familiar name. In a rush he pulled up the text.
Hey Uncle Mark, I’m fine, no idea what happened, in forest.
His niece had managed to send him a message from Sierra!
He raced out of his quarters and headed to the bridge. He passed a few people who seemed to do a double take as he passed, but he ignored them as he raced to the bridge. Arriving he noticed more than a few people staring at him but he moved right to Joaquin who was currently on duty at the communications station.
“Um, sir?” Joaquin asked looking unsure.
“Can you trace a text message from a cell phone?” Mark asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“Good, this text, find out where it came from,” Mark said pushing the phone into Joaquin’s hands and showing him the text waiting until he understood which one.
“Sir?” Hans’ voice said confused by the turn of events.
“The message might be from Sierra, my niece,” Mark said.
“While he’s doing that, perhaps you can get dressed?” Hans said causing Mark to look down at his underwear.
“Get to work on it, I’ll be right back.”
End part 9