The Fifth Day On

“The Four Day War happened enough months ago that I’ve lost count of how long it’s been. Four days was all it had taken though, and humanity was done. They came from the skies with such fury casting fire so pure many thought it was the rapture. Their ships blotted out the sun, casting shadows over landscapes filled with the terrified apex predators of the planet. Big dumb apes that thought they were so in control of the world around them. In just one moment that all changed. No one is quite sure what they wanted, or what they took, they were here and gone too quickly

On the first night we noticed the Nightlights. An airborne parasite that infected all people just before the attack started, only known by the small two inch patch of discolored skin on the back of the neck. When a person died that patch came alive. It glowed through the skin, a bright orange that pulsed in time with the electrical signals it sent. They took over the brainstem designed with one goal, to kill humans and increase their own number. When they caught the scent or sound of a living person the light would flash frantically as they chased and mauled. Between the ordinance and the attacking corpses, over a billion died. Impervious to pain, fear, or exhaustion, Nightlights drove us to the brink of our sanity in the first twenty four hours. But they weren’t all that was brought down from the sky.

The second day we met The Stranded. Whatever race was conquering us from their perch in the air must’ve brought them from another planet they had taken. They lowered sections of the crust of an alien world onto our own. An extraterrestrial environment completely foreign to us, and with it, its inhabitants. Creatures roughly seven feet in height, with natural armored plating that could bend and shift around vents on their chest. Powerful hind legs that allowed them to run and jump faster than any man ever could. With faces that would burn a hole in your mind, beady eyes and mobile triangular plates covering two mouths with small razor-like teeth that could grind through stone and bone like butter. They were industrious, able to take our technology and work it into their own creations almost instantly. Ingenious creatures that communicate through scent and displays of color from beneath the plates on their bodies. Covered in improvised protective gear taken from any source they could find. True hunters, be it by blade or by bomb, or the plasma weaponry they manufactured from our own components, they’re relentless predators. We never stood a chance, even with the home field advantage. The fact that they had been conquered before us didn’t bode well. They slowly took over towns and cities, expanding their territory from the sections of their planet that were dropped here.

On the third day the rolling blackouts started. The EMP clouds the conquerors distributed would sap energy from anything they passed over, creating constant deadly bursts of lightning that pierced the air wherever the wind carried them, day or night. When the clouds rolled in you had no choice but to take cover. Humans were sent back to damn near the dark ages within seventy two hours.

By the fourth day, there was no hope. We hid and fought and tried to survive, knowing we were at their mercy. Unable to do anything to protect those we loved from these god-like beings that brought down destruction on a level that couldn’t be fathomed. But on the fourth day, they left.

Whatever they wanted they had gotten. But the horrors didn’t stop, they would never stop. Everything they had unleashed on us they left. People found outposts and facilities left by the visitors, abandoned with no discernable purpose.

For the most part people banded together out of desperation and a lack of any other option. But, as it often is with humanity, there were plenty that looked out for their own best interests above all others. The last horror we had to face was the reckoning of human nature in the face of our own apocalypse.

But that wasn’t how everyone lived. Some of us were lucky enough to thrive in the new world, and to find those that made survival worth fighting for.”

She put down her journal and looked up at him across the rooftop as she sipped her beer, he was staring off into the city looking for signs of movement. She passively stroked the heart shaped locket that he had given her when they first met. She had been hiding in a car as a Stranded tried to pry the door open with a large blade made from a T post. She was blocking the window with a stop sign as it battered its way inside the car when she heard a gunshot. The creature screeched and she looked up to see this tall dark man bring down a monkey wrench into the Stranded’s head. He bashed and beat until its bioluminescent blood leaked across the pavement. She had only been able to stare in awe as he reached down and searched it, pulling the trinket from its bag and offering it to her with a grin.

“You look like you’re having a heart attack, take this as a backup.” he had said with a wink.

She still smiled thinking about it, her lunatic and his smooth talk.

“What’re you smirkin’ at Binnie?” he walked over to her and brushed her hair back.

Her name was Elena Binsted, but he was the first to call her Binnie, and it just stuck after that.

“The only thing I have to smile at, dummy, you.” she held her beer up to him.

He took it and finished it off before crouching down and filling the bottle with gasoline, stuffing a rag into the top. “Well I’m smilin’ cause we have company, li’l miss.”

Binnie sat up and grabbed the rifle laying across her lap. “Nightlights?”

“Better, we got three Stranded waltzing into the building under us.” he checked his pistol and the large knife in his belt. “Whaddya say to a little friendly greeting?”

Her adrenaline started pumping. If these things wanted their planet, their supplies, and the meat off their bones they weren’t going to get it easy. They headed down the stairs and crept through the large department store sales floor, listening carefully and minding the traps they had set earlier.

They saw the Stranded, in a hardware section looting tools. They glowed different warm colors as they silently conversed about their take. Two carried improvised metallic rifles with an orange and black glowing core that churned angrily, emanating a low hum. The last and largest held a long metal spear and each carried various small blades with handles wrapped in leather. They would be enough to petrify the people that had first seen them, back on that distant second day. But the only people left now were not so easily cowed.

Binnie felt his hand on her shoulder as he kissed the back of her head, he gave her butt a squeeze before silently moving around to the Stranded’s side. He looked her in the eye and winked as he lit the molotov and hurled it directly onto the closest creature.

It screeched angrily as it slammed into the shelves and spun wildly in its pain and confusion. Binnie fired her rifle and blasted a hole right between the chitin plates on another’s back. It slammed forward into the flaming one and spun, firing recklessly in her direction.

The spheres of plasma burned perfect softball sized holes through the aisle she was hiding in, splashing behind her. They shot a wave of blazing energy out from their point of impact, scorching the walls and floor black in an instant. Binnie could smell her own hair, singed by the heat that enveloped her. She ran from her spot, staying low enough that they couldn’t see her. Balls of arcing orange lit up the dark store as they blasted in all directions from the wounded Stranded. She heard a few pistol shots go off as he fired back at them.

Binnie took cover in a new location and carefully slid the bolt on her rifle, racking a new round into the chamber as the whole store went quiet besides the low hum of the plasma cannon somewhere nearby. She peaked over the aisle and could see the still burning corpse of the first monster, crackling and giving off the only real light besides the dim cloudy sunbeams streaming in through one wall of windows. She couldn’t see her partner or the other two. She stepped silently over a tripwire she had set hours ago and snuck along, checking every corner before she rounded it. Then she saw him, a finger to his mouth silently bidding her to keep quiet. She could see the Stranded with its glowing rifle sneaking along, just on the opposite side of the thin metal shelves from him. He pulled his knife and aimed his gun as he approached the corner.

Binnie set her arm on a shelf and angled her rifle just around the edge, barely enough to see the Stranded as it approached the corner he was at. She fired a round and struck it in the stomach, driving it backwards onto the checkered tile floor. She watched as her man bolted around the corner and buried his knife in its shoulder, keeping its rifle pointed away. He jammed his pistol between its mouth plates and fired three rounds quickly, spraying it across the floor. He ran off, keeping low, and slid around another corner away from the last noises he’d made.

Binnie leaned back and quietly slid the bolt again. The explosion from behind startled her as the entire shelf she was leaning against rocked backwards. Cans and boxes of food fell on her, knocking her to the ground. She grabbed her rifle and rolled onto her back.

The final Stranded towered over her, clutching its large jagged spear, shrapnel from the trap embedded in the armored plates along its torso and legs. Little bits stuck in its flesh, but not enough to slow it down. It held its head in confusion, shocked from the blast, but came at her as soon as it saw her.

Heavy steps thudded the ground towards her as she pushed off the floor, sliding backwards on the dusty tile. She fired the rifle as the creature gained ground on her, but the round bounced off its plating, barely scraping it. The Stranded lifted its spear and stabbed down at her. Binnie turned the rifle sideways and deflected the point into the tile, it cracked the surface and ripped back instantly. The beast reached out with its leg and slammed her rifle to her chest as it lifted the spear again to strike.

He came out of nowhere blasting every round from his clip into the creature, hitting mostly plates but knocking it off balance as he ran towards it. The Stranded hurled its spear at him, forcing him to dive to the ground.

Binnie pulled the small revolver from her hip and fired upwards under the chitin plates and put six rounds in its chest. The creature fell back and landed motionless. She looked back and saw him staring at her, with that same big dumb grin.

“You really are fucking crazy.” she said in disbelief.

“Crazy about you.” he said back, as he helped her to her feet. “Three down, who knows how many to go.”

The humans that died in the war had been soft. The only ones left, the ones that survived, weren’t easy prey and they wanted their world back. Binnie looked him in the eyes and smiled. They were the hunter’s, basking in their kill, as they always had from the fifth day on.