The Mulligan Planet (21 page)

We all turned and started back
toward the truck, I felt good, back on a track that I could
understand and another step closer toward finding the rest of our
team. S was standing in front of the truck, his men loading into
the back, “Will you be needing weapons?” I heard Marcus shaking the
duffel bag, the contents rattling around, “We could use some ammo,
maybe a few of those M4s your boys have.” he gestured to the truck,
“Knew you'd say that, everything you could need is loaded in the
back, get out there, try to bring the truck back in one piece.”
Steve barged past S, “I'm driving.” S, without turning, raised his
hand, “For every scratch on that truck I cut off a finger!” a rock
flew through the air and hit him in the back of the head, “Hey! Was
that necessary?” Harry and I had a quiet chuckle while Marcus
stared on in complete silence, barely masking his fear, “Don't
Steve, come on guys, let's go.” S turned back to face him, “See,
your friend here understands.” Mark adjusted the duffel and walked
toward the truck with his head down, Harry and I in close tow but
as I passed him S caught my arm which drew a snarl from me. I
snapped my head to face him, staring him down, my fists clenching
and quickly loosening once I saw his finger wagging then pointing
to Harry's back, a red-dot resting right where his heart was, “You
go along Harry, be there in a minute.” S tightened his grip as
Harry walked off, “Get a hold of your dog John, you know what
happens to pets that bite?” he brought his fore-finger to his
temple and pulled a mock trigger, my nostrils began flaring
involuntarily, “You threaten my men again and I'l-” he twisted my
arm slightly to silence me, “What? What will you do? You aren't
exactly in a position to negotiate.” I snarled again, shook myself
from his grip and started back toward the truck, “You can do what
you want S, but it doesn't stop you from getting bitten.” I reached
the truck and as I climbed into the passenger seat, next to a
visibly proud Steve, slammed the door, “Oh come on, it was funny.”
we started to pull away and drive toward the gates, “No it wasn't
Steve, he was seconds from dropping all of us, he has a thin
thread.” the gates opened and we drove out onto the street, “I
know, that's why it's funny.” I tried to keep my serious face but
failed miserably, “Yeah yeah, just get us to the crash site.” S was
right about that, we were very alike.
The streets had been cleared a fair bit compared to when I first
tried to get out with Harry, most of the cars had been shifted out
of the way and the ones that weren't had short work made of them
with the plough. When crossing into the lower suburbs the path of
destruction became clearer, not just from the ship, but the rain as
well, most of the streets were covered in deep water, drains
overflowing, chunks of burning metal wedged deep in the road, the
dead flattened against the ground, and it only got worse the closer
we got, roofs had been ripped off, the grass scorched, trees
uprooted and burning hundreds of metres from where they originally
sat. “This is the first time I've been glad about all this rain.” I
looked over at Steve who was surveying the area, “The water will
have cooled down the road enough for us to drive through without
burning through the tires.” My eyes widened, I hadn't thought of
that, we could've died because I didn't think of an apparently very
obvious element, “Yeah, blessed be the rain.” The amount of debris
surrounding us was increasing while the monolithic ship came into
view, bursts of flame shooting out from time to time. It had
obliterated most of the shopping complex while the surrounding area
that wasn't crushed burned. “You already back there?” the window
separating the cabin from the rest of the truck slid open and
Harry's head appeared between Steve and I, “Yeah, the guys are
actually pretty cool, and I'm looking forward to putting these guns
to good use.” a heavy black barrel slid through the window and onto
my lap causing me to pull my hands back and sit as far away from
the heavy black weapon now sitting across my legs, “You want to
tell me why you just threw a grenade launcher on me?” Steve looked
over at me, his eyes opening fully as he retreated to his door,
“What the Hell Harry!?” his hand came back through the window and
pulled the launcher back away, “Oh don't be such a baby, it's not
loaded.” Steve slammed the window shut and locked it, “You stay
back there until we're getting out!” there were some muffled
complaints that I really didn't care to listen for, I was much more
interested in how close we were getting, less than five minutes out
and I still hadn't formulated a complete plan. How were we going to
get into the ship? How were we going to make this all work?

“You've got this John.” I looked
over to Steven, “Pardon?” he smiled, “You always make this face
when you're stressing about something, I saw it first on base. So
I'm telling you right now, you got this. We've had our differences,
but we all trust you, we'll get through this and then we'll find
the team.” I really needed someone to say that, but I never thought
it would be him, “Thank you. Alright, the plan is we get to the
ship's touch down point, I'm guessing that the blast I saw as we
were coming down tore a fairly sizable hole in that thing, from
there we just search the ship for whatever is jamming Lucy, then we
blast it, get out and regroup with the rest of the team.” I gave
myself a little mental pat on the back, “Sounds solid to me.” I
nodded, “I thought so, really simple.” I started fiddling with my
gun, psyching myself up, watching my feet, trying to regulate my
breathing, then my head smashed into the dashboard as the brakes
were suddenly applied. “What are you doing, why are we stopped?” I
looked over at Steven who was staring out at the road, “Did you not
see that?” I looked out the windscreen, nothing but a few zeds
wandering around in their aimless sense, “What?” I felt the truck
start to rev back up as I rubbed my head, “I don't know, something
ran across the road, probably nothi- there!” he slammed the brakes
once more and I looked, “What!? I see nothing.” he put my hand up
to shut me up, “Just watch.” I peered around, waiting, then I saw
one, maybe two hundred metres ahead of us, not much bigger than a
child and jet black, scramble across the road on all fours, they
were creepy enough, why did they have to scramble as well? Anyway,
another darted across in its disturbing fashion, then another, and
another and another, becoming more and more frequent before one
cluster stopped, taking in their surroundings, some with massive
eyes and no other recognisable facial features, others with mouths
that encompassed the majority of the centre of their head's while
two slits sat on either side of the mouths. I checked my gun's clip
and went to raise it, Steven's hand stopping me, I looked over to
him shaking his head with his finger on his lips. I silently agreed
and continued to watch what was happening ahead of us, eventually a
group of soldiers in red and white armour joined the creature's
ranks armed with rifles I'd never seen before, increasing the
struggle to remain silent. I took a moment to regard their armour,
helmets that joined halfway between the neck and their shoulders,
covering their faces, the chest-pieces somewhat curved and bulbous,
suggesting females based on my years of watching sci-fi and playing
video games, the rest of the armour was rounded, seemed reflective
and looked like it wouldn't stop a bullet if I threw it, so if it
wasn't anti-ballistic, what was the use of it? One of the zeds
finally made a move on one, its hands and teeth sliding off, the
soldier rotated her gun and wedged it deep inside the flailing
zombie, a blade erupting from its back before being lifted through
the head, spraying the black creatures in deep red.

She shook her gun off, “Neysor!
Caflun il kikson!” a large, caped man appeared, surveying the
butchered remains of the zed, he let out a slight growl and kicked
it aside, “Hey guys! Why've we stopped!?” my eyes widened as the
man I guessed as the commander looked at us. He definitely wasn't a
man, no discernible nose, though two nostrils were present, a white
braid ran from the front of his head and down his back, but his
teeth, now visible as he bared them at us, all intensely sharp and
white, “That's not good.” his nostrils flared, “Shenim! Batur
felcom vel!” the soldiers raised their guns while the black
creatures darted toward us, “Definitely not good!” we started
reversing, the creatures gaining while green bolts were fired,
grazing the truck, “What's going on out there!?” we spun backward
down the street we came from and started toward the ship through
backyards, “You have lost your speaking rights Harry!” The truck
tore through an above ground swimming pool, coating us in water and
turning our view from chaos to blue, “Get that out of my way!” I
unwound the window, grabbed the blue pool plating and tore it
aside, we were back on a road and it looked like we'd lost our
tail. Steve drifted around a corner, the ship now ten feet from the
front of us, a hole into what appeared to be a hall looked
promising as we ground to a halt about a metre from the ship, “What
the Hell was that!? With the teeth and the... ah.” I rubbed my
temples, I figured that there was a crew from the ship, but I had
not quite expected that. Steven had not lost his terrified
expression since we'd seen the black things, until it was replaced
with a slight grin as I watched him raise his foot off the brake
and let the truck roll into the ship, a crunching sound greeting us
as the bonnet bent inward.

I exhaled sharply, “I hate you
so much.” we climbed out of the truck, “No you don't, I'm the only
one you really relate to.” I laughed, “That's true.” S's men jumped
out of the truck bearing arms, immediately lining up against the
truck, Harry and Marcus close behind, tossing Steven and I M4s,
“What happened back there?” Harry passed me my backpack from the
duffel, “I'll explain more once we're out of here.” he nodded,
“Alright, there's some extra ammo in your bag as well.” I let the
M4 swing at my side idly as I slipped my backpack on, “Thanks.”
Marcus was checking out the hole, a shotgun hugged firmly to his
chest while Steven patted him on the back, “This is going to be a
breeze Mark.” Mark shook his head, “That's not it, this hole is
pretty fresh, see these scorch marks on the road, someone from the
ground on the outside blew this open.” they walked back over to us,
“Do you think it could be the team?” he nodded, “It's certainly
possible, I mean, they wouldn't have gone far after losing you, not
in that chopper.” I pushed past them, dropping my gun behind me,
“Kate!” the guys joined me at the hole, “Wolf! Greg! Are you in
there!?” I waited a few more seconds, “KATE!” more seconds that
felt like hours, “John?” My heart swelled, her voice echoing out
through the ship, then there was a bang, the left side of my face
got sprayed with warm liquid and I looked to my side to see Steven
swaying on the spot, a hole where his eye should have been. It took
a few seconds for either of us to realise what had happened before
he fell to his knees as I was pushed to mine, a mix of rage and
anguish pouring into my heart, “S sends his regards, now stay down
or the others get it!”