Battle in the Barn

Susan led her team towards the abandoned barn at a full run. They were easy targets, crossing empty fields under a full moon. There was no time to waste. Even one extra second could mean a swift end. Something was coming.

She was running point and reached the barn first; she took a few steps into the barn, careful to stay in the moonlight. Susan pulled a flashlight off of belt and turned it on, it’s light pushing back the darkness inside. The barn seemed empty; it was lined with stalls, probably for horses. She couldn’t see any equipment anywhere.

Signaling the all-clear, the rest of her team approached. Three of them ran in to finish securing the barn, the other three were facing out and stepping back in slowly, weapons ready. inside she sighed with relief. It was a risk crossing those fields, but now their pursuer faced the same risk, and they would be ready.

“Argyle! Samuels! Up top!” Susan ordered. Two dark figures stepped back out and jumped up. She heard two loud thumps as they landed on the roof, it was thirty feet to the roof, but with the stealth suits the distance was easy.

“Ha! Stealth indeed!” she thought bitterly. It was more of an affection than an official term, anyway. They were black and with nano-fibers weaved into the suit’s fabric, making fighters stronger and faster. Sadly, not enough to stop the extraction flying south.

“Jones! Smith! The door! Murray! Jameson! The stalls!”

The remaining fighters moved, one on each side of the door, the others each took a stall, all readying their weapons. There wasn’t much to work with, but Susan was sure they wouldn’t find anything more defensible before the creature caught up.

She stepped into a stall, then she raised her hand to her chest, feeling the locket hanging from her neck through the suit. That was her way of steadying herself in tense situations. The locket reminded her of Lucy, her best friend, rescuer, and the woman whose memory she fought for.

For a second, the explosion that claimed Lucy’s life replayed in her mind. They had held Susan in a Crishat detention center, waiting to be taken to a dimensional portal, and sent to their home dimension to be some alien’s dinner. Somehow, Lucy had found her and released her and the other prisoners.

Not without cost. Just as they were about to make their escape, a Crishat hovercraft appeared. It would have recaptured her, but Lucy leaped up to the hovercraft with her own stealth suit and tossed a grenade in. That was the last she saw of her friend. More than her friend, something she realized too late, as people usually do.

“At least we got the gate.”

The team leader shook her head, bringing herself back to the present. “Quiet” she whispered.

Humans lacked the technology to fight the aliens on a massive scale, but they still had resources to slow the Crishat down. Destroying the dimensional portals made transporting people to their home more difficult. Every bit helped in this losing battle.

Everything had gone by the numbers. Fewer guards than expected made the mission quick and smooth. Too smooth. Instead of feeling relief when the portal exploded, Susan became more anxious.

The whole team seemed to share her concern, and they withdrew with all speed. It wasn’t long before they slowed down, though, watching and listening carefully. There was no pursuit. Whenever a Crishat facility was attacked, reinforcements were always quick to appear. Not this time. Why?

From behind her came a horrified scream and a wet, ripping sound. She whirled back to see another member of her team get pulled back into the dark, and the sound of bones breaking, cutting off another scream.

“Ambush!” someone yelled and fired in a panic. The night lit up with quick flashes as everyone else joined in, firing behind them. Through the flashes, Susan could see a figure darting away quickly behind a small building.

“Cease fire! Dammit, cease fire!” Susan ordered, and the guns stopped as quickly as they began.

“What the hell was that?” someone asked in a frightened voice.

“I don’t know, but we can’t fight it here! It’s too fast and quarters too tight. Move!”

They ran to the extraction point, a sports field at a nearby school where a helicopter would pick them up. She kept looking back, but could see no signs of pursuit. “I wish,” she thought. They reached the school in a few minutes and could see the helicopter approaching. She had disliked the necessity of a helicopter, but the location of this gate made it the best chance of leaving. Now she was happy to see it.

That good feeling didn’t last. She saw a figure leap from the roof of the school and land on the front of the chopper. It looked human! It raised an arm and punched through the windshield. The helicopter started spinning out of control, and Susan saw the figure leap off the copter and land easily. The helicopter smashed into the ground with a loud grinding crash.

No time to waste “Grenade” Susan shouted, grabbing one from her belt before she heard “Ready!” from everyone.

“Throw!” Seven grenades flew towards the crash and the figure approaching them. It must have seen them because it veered away, running fast, but the explosions still sent it flying. Susan lost track of it, blinking quickly from the bright flashes.

There was a backup plan. There was a locked garage, a mile away, in a building that was still undamaged, were four fully fueled vehicles. It was a last resort. Those vehicles were placed before the alien’s control had become so total, and in other sites around the city. This one should be intact.

Her team followed her down the street at a dead run. They made it to the office building where the cars waited in moments. There was no sign of the dark figure, but they assumed it was still alive, and still after them. Susan didn’t understand. The Crishats didn’t operate like this. The few times the humans hurt them, they quickly cut their losses and set up shop elsewhere. If they wasted time on pursuit, they would’ve sent their thrice-damned hovercraft.

This was something new, and it made Susan’s blood run cold.

Jones and Argyle forced the door to the parking garage open, and they ran down the stairs to the basement, flashlights illuminating the stairwell. Susan wouldn’t admit it, but the shadows cast by the stairs as they ran fueled her fear.

They crossed the garage to a large door in the rear. At the bottom of the door were two padlocks. Susan didn’t have the keys, but two gunshots solved that problem. There was a van and 3 smaller cars. Susan didn’t want them all together, and motioned towards one vehicle as she moved to another.

The cars had keys, and soon the two cars were driving out of the city. Again, there was no hovercraft, and ten minutes later they were approaching a suburb with a scattering of dairy farms. Samuels reported no signs of pursuit, and Susan wondered if they had actually made it.

As if summoned by those thoughts, something exploded in front of her car, sending it tumbling. After hours of rolling that was actually only seconds, the car stopped upside down. She grunted as she undid her seat belt and tumbled out of the car. The car was toast, but everyone seemed unharmed. The other car was still on its wheels, but the front end was a twisted heap of metal. Somehow, they were okay, too.

So now they waited in a barn. “We’re being toyed with.” Susan thought. She had this sinking feeling that whoever chased them could have caught them anytime it pleased, and now the game was ending. This would end in a nameless barn.

There was a loud thump on the roof. “It’s here! It’s arrrrghh!'' The sound of gunfire drowned the cry out. The gunfire stopped, and the silence was stark in contrast, terrifying even. Susan looked up at the roof. Suddenly a body smashed through the ceiling, landing with a wet noise. The figure stalking them landed on top of the body. The light was dim but Susan could see it was a woman.

Without a word, the woman moved to the door. Almost faster than the eye could follow, she ran by Jones and Smith, hand outstretched, and they went down, clutching their throats. She leaped back and grabbed Murray, snapping her neck with one blow, lifting her up and throwing her across the barn into Jameson. As Jameson struggled to get Murray’s corpse off of her, their attacker chuckled. Her eyes glowed red, and two bolts of energy flew out, hitting both of them. Trapped beneath Murray, Jameson could only flail and scream as she burned alive.

Susan lifted her gun. “No!” she screamed and fired at the monster who just murdered her team, her friends.

In a blur the woman easily sidestepped the bullets and reached Susan, knocking the gun out of her hand as the woman lifted her up by the throat. Finally, Susan could see her attacker’s face. She tried to gasp, but those crushing fingers prevented it. The woman grimaced, and Susan was flying in the air. She landed hard on her shoulder, crying out in pain.

Susan slowly got up. The woman was just standing there, glaring at Susan.

Tears welled up in Susan’s eyes, “Oh Lucy, what have they done to you.”

Lucy still glared at her, recognizable, barely. Her hair was gone, the top half of her head down to her eyes was grey with faint scales, at least they looked like scales. The rest of her was chalky white, and not a healthy white. She was defiled.

“You left me to die! Abandoned me!” came this grating voice.

Susan stepped back, raising a hand imploringly, “No! I saw you die! You couldn’t have survived that! We had to get those people out!”

“Shut up!” the abomination screamed, a mouth filled with sharp teeth. Lucy blurred forward and grabbed Susan again. “Look what they did to me!” and Susan went flying again.

Her head hit the wall before the rest of her. She was seeing stars when Lucy grabbed her again by her collar. Growling, Lucy ripped the front of the stealth suit open, exposing Susan’s shirt. Lucy dragged her arm back. Susan knew Lucy was going for her heart. Susan could see Lucy’s eyes. They were mad, gripped with pain. Those eyes fell on her chest and widened at the sight of the locket resting on Susan’s shirt.

The abomination stopped, shaking her head. “No,” Lucy muttered, pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead. She moaned and removed her hand, a mad fire in her eyes. They glowed again as she glared at the locket. “No!” she screamed again, this time in agony.

Susan fell to the ground as Lucy staggered back, her hand covering her glowing eyes. “No!” she shouted a third time and looked up. Pulling her hands away, two scarlet beams erupted from her eyes, punching a hole through the roof as they shot into the sky. Lucy screamed in rage and fell to her knees, the beams slowly fading out.

“No.” Lucy sobbed. She looked up at Susan, tears leaking from her eyes, then she shook her head and ran.

“Lucy,” Susan called out after her, but she was nowhere in sight.

Susan looked around at the destruction in the barn and her fallen friends. Her mind felt shockingly clear, but she knew the emotions were waiting their turn.

“The monster did this.” Susan said aloud, “but my friend is in there.”

Susan picked up her gun, ejecting the clip.

“I promise you Lucy, either I will save you.”

Susan slapped another clip into the gun.

“Or I will save you.”