Stalker

"Fucking right!" Cray shouted as he unloaded with the assault rifle in automatic fire mode. The stubby black rifle coughed out another 20 or so rounds before choking on the emptied magazine. The former soldier, now fighting for his life again in a different type of battlefield, hurriedly dropped the spent metal box. He fumbled for another fresh mag, getting it in place due to his shaking hands.

The older man, who didn't really have a military bearing anymore thanks to his medium graying hair and almost totally gray beard, pulled the charging bolt just in time to fire again at another of the fucking monsters. It's brown, tan, and black hide exploded as the large caliber bullets tore apart its large head and chest cavity. The green and yellow viscous which erupted from its body spattered all over the ground and trees just ten or so feet away.

I stared amazed that the old man who'd complained so much about his bad knees from his time at war had managed to run and gun as much as he had. And that he was so remarkably accurate with the weapon; probably why he'd lived this long.

After that little one had been killed he turned to me, motioning for me to keep running. I had to help him up a slight hill and we scrambled behind some trees hoping these distinctly alien organisms would lose us in the night. We hadn't been so lucky so far.

"Cray are you alright?!" I said louder than I should have through panting breaths. I didn't know it was this possible to be so tired and so awake at once. All I did was curate an art museum!

"Keep running you little fuck! They ain't gonna let us go so easily!" he shouted, pushing me forward with the butt of the rifle.

I couldn't tell you how much farther we'd run. The ground leveled out and a nearby river, a pretty small river by some peoples' standards. The water was noisy enough to make listening to our surroundings difficult.

"The river!" I shouted back at Cray. A firm hand jerked me to the ground just then.

"Shut the fuck up!" he hissed at me.

"Sorry, sorry! I'll be-" The old man clapped a hand over my mouth. I could barely see his eyes in the rising moonlight but they weren't looking at me in anger or rage. His eyes were stalking about the trees, searching for something I hadn't seen.

A low-toned rumble but loud enough to be heard over the gurgling river noise intoned more trouble. Cray turned around and jerked his rifle up. Coming out from behind a large piece of brush was some alien we hadn't seen yet. It had a similar coloration to the smaller variety. Its head was longer, with sharp triangular plates laid back in a row like overlapping armor. It had no eyes. Its body had extremities where you might expect, although I had learned quickly with the little ones that the front pair of legs could easily be used as hands with its sharp grasping claws. In addition to that it had something that was a mix between a tail, a spear-tip, and a scythe sticking out from its back.

Cray spoke to me one last time then, "Get the fuck out of here kid!" He didn't wait for a reply as he began unloading again with the rifle's automatic fire.

I don't know if you've ever heard bullets bouncing off of a thick steel or titanium alloy wall at a firing range, but that's what the bullets hitting this thing's hide sounded like. It meant the armor-piercing rounds were not living up to their name in this instance. The monster darted forward and skewered Cray's frame on the end of its scythe-spear tail. The man screamed and gurgling cray as blood flooded his lungs. His finger held the trigger as the rifle continued to expend ammo without purpose.

I bolted upright toward the river. I recklessly splashed my way into its troubled waters. I lost my footing and went face down into the freezing liquid. Coming up and gasping for air I briefly looked around, saw nothing, and darted onward. For some reason I thought about dogs being able to track people and thought that, perhaps because it had no visible eyes then it couldn't see me; that it might have to smell me out. So I changed direction to bolt along with the current of the river to further down before crossing.

I must've run for a couple minutes, daring to look back to see if the monster was still pursuing me or of Cray had sated its appetite. It was. I could see its strange dog-like gallop kicking the water around its legs in the pale moonlight. Not too far away were some mid-sized boulders. The water was much deeper there so I got down low, only my head and the tip of my nose free to breathe. The rocks formed a semi-private enclosure for me.

Then it was was upon me again. The large creature had scaled the rocks, its body elongated between two of the boulders as it slowly moved from one to the next. Somehow it had tracked me to this location but it couldn't seem to find me now. It definitely had no eyes. The beast worked its head around slowly, however as if... listening? Was it echo-location? It's possible the noise from the water splashing against the rocks and then reverberating around between the stony surfaces was confusing the beast.

It stalked me there, no more than two or three feet away, jerking its head from side to side. i forced my breathing to be calm and steady. I considered pulling out my sidearm and giving off a shot. Maybe doing so would deafen it and scare it away. Or maybe it was more sound-tolerant that humans and that would only verify my location to the monster. It would probably deafen me. Besides shooting it was no good. If Cray's assault rifle didn't do any damage then my 9mm rounds would be even less effective.

I did take the opportunity to look the alien over. Where it wasn't armored were thin slashes of malleable flesh. But it looked to be thick like elephant hide so even then, assuming I'd ever get lucky enough to shoot it in one of these jointed locations the small round wouldn't do any harm. Somewhat paralyzed with fear, somewhat feeling impotent to defend myself I stayed hidden between the trio of rocks.

Eventually the monster moved off. It stalked around the river a while. I kept just my eyes and nose above the water - just enough to breathe. I kept my back to the rocks as well, hoping the noise would continue to muffle my tentative travel around the edge of the stony wall. Watching it closely, sometimes barely able to perceive its dark form in the moonlight, it would stop and back track. At one point I thought it was heading right for me. Its eye-less face moving left to right.

I've heard it said that the eyes are the doorway to one's soul. This demon obviously had nothing even approaching such a concept as a soul. It was all murderous intent. It wasn't a lion or tiger or bear that killed to protect its young or to eat. No it killed for sport. Its very shape seemed to indicate that was its only purpose. And its armored hide was clearly designed, almost manufactured, to be near indestructible to anything short of anti-vehicle weaponry.

Long, long minutes passed. I could even see how the moon had shifted in the sky. I had to have been there an hour or more. If it hadn't been for the sound of the rushing water I might've sworn this was just another cool, relaxing evening. And if it weren't for the large sickly yellow, brown, and black tendril-like cloud which was invading our atmosphere. Occasional ground-to-space missiles detonated somewhere near its edges, the various nations trying their best to ward off the alien invaders. In fact it wasn't a cloud at all but hundreds of millions - perhaps billions - of these monsters which had been travelling through space consuming entire worlds within their path. They could literally fall out of the sky on top of us. We were just unlucky to be in the way.

Finally after a while more of not seeing my stalker I cautiously moved down the river, staying in as deep of water as I could. Sometimes that was up to my chest, others it was so shallow I had to crawl through it to remain partly submerged. I wasn't sure how it perceived its surroundings via echo-location but if I stood up then I might reflect sound in a way that also made me stand out.

I hit a quandary, however. The river flowed south, back into and right through the middle of town. It was overrun entirely. Local law enforcement and the paltry guard services we had were undermanned and under armed. There's no way I'd survive. My only option was to get out of the river further down, perhaps along the plains and go east as far as I could into the mountains. Maybe I could hold up there, do a little hunting to survive. Maybe, maybe, then I could meet up with some army or military unit. Get evacuated to a safe zone. If there were safe zones...

I walked, floated, crawled, and hustled my way down the river for at least a mile, maybe two. I scrambled out of the water and onto dry land. I could hear a few staccatos of gunfire from the direction of my home town. I'd never see that place again, I was sure. Someone was still fighting and I briefly wondered if I should try to help. Looking at the water logged pistol in my hand I knew that was a fool's errand.

Instead I made my way across the low grasslands toward the "nearby" mountains. They had to be 15 or 20 miles away at least. I started second guessing myself but one look back at the river told me all I needed to think about. It was so much quieter out here. The fact that no owls were hooting was pretty normal but this invasion made it seem like they were silent because of the invasion. Shit it was an alien life form attacking the ecosystem. Maybe the animals of our world knew how dangerous it was. How unnatural it was.

Just as my adrenaline was wearing out, as the moon was hitting midnight and starting to be obscured by this alien... fleet or swarm in space, I heard it. It had somehow spotted me or sniffed me out or had never truly lost sight of me. Hell maybe it wasn't even the same one. Yet it was there, behind me. Maybe 50 yards.

I bolted finding energy where there should've been none left. It trotted after me, wearing me down. Running me down without sprinting. I kept running looking back to see it slowly - intentionally slowly! - chasing me.

Something in me snapped. Seeing it eternally hunting me until it killed me. I saw Cray go out fighting for something, for someone - me. I was going to fight for me too. I was going to die but fuck this son of a bitch. I die on my terms.

I spun, leveling the cold black pistol with both hands and began walking towards it firing shots. No idea if I was hitting the bastard but I was defying the thing. That's all that mattered to me now. It howled in rage at my defiance, I like to think. It charged me. The movement so quick my body jerked. I simultaneously tried to hesitate, correct my aim, and run at the same time. All I did was fall on my ass.

It came barreling on at me. The four inch knives that were its teeth opened in murderous glee. The bladed tail on its back shot up, ready to impale me. Everything kind of hit me in a movement of time measured in a heartbeat: I knew I wasn't going to survive. This planet wasn't going to survive. The multi-millions of the monsters would hunt down others like me all over. And we'd all die. It was hopeless. What kind of life was it to live as a rabid man in the mountains, always running from an alien horde?

I pulled my pistol up to my temple and placed it there, squeezing the trigger. As I did so the monster suddenly stopped as might a dog trying to avoid a sudden danger. It looked graceless and it staggered trying to impede its own momentum. It came to a halt maybe five or six yards away. Fifteen feet was all I had between myself and murder.

The realization - the understanding was that thing, this demon, had to kill. It needed to kill me. I was stealing that away from it. In this last final act I would rob it of this one simple pleasure.

I smiled wickedly. "I die on my terms," I said to the hideous motherfucker. I didn't hear the gun go off.