She stands alone on a small hill with sand stretching endlessly around her and turns around confused as to how she arrived there or what she is supposed to be doing. Her mind tells her that she is supposed to accomplish some important errand but can’t remember what it is. A panicky feeling comes upon her as she feels something bad will happen if she can’t remember what it is or the errand goes undone. A hint of movement out of the corner of her eye to the right causes her to look in that direction.
About twenty feet away, a turtle slowly makes its way across the sand, pulling itself along with great effort. What in the fuck is a turtle doing in the middle of the desert? She thinks as her vision zooms in close and she can see in the turtle’s eye that it is not in great pain nor worried about its situation but is merely doing its thing. No destination or plan; just one step after another. It has accepted its lot in life and is just doing it with no thought to anything else. A gust of wind suddenly whips by shaking her.
She looks away from the turtle and in the direction the wind came from. Where before there was an endless blue sky, there is now a towering mass of clouds billowing upward. The clouds are building quickly, far quicker than anything she had ever seen before and turning the cloud mass into a dark, greenish gray color. The gusts continue to radiate outward from the mass, each one shaking her and rocking her backward on her heels.
The storm continues to build and creates a gigantic wave of sand that begins rushing towards her. Lightning stabs out from the clouds striking the ground in all directions. The wave closes in quickly, gaining momentum with gusts that continue to rock her. They carry a new sound along with the booming crash of thunder as if the thunder is speaking words. With each lightning bolt the words come to her; ‘Sergeant;’ lightning flash, ‘Sergeant’; lightning flash……
Feeling panicked, her eyes spring open to see the face of the Private on guard hovering close to hers lit by the cupped flashlight in his hand. “Sergeant,” he says rocking her shoulder slightly with his other hand.
“I’m awake, Private. What is it?” Lynn asks sitting up and rubs the sleep from her eyes. She looks at her watch and notices it is 0330. Two hours until sunrise.
“You asked me to wake you if any of the creatures came close. There are several of them milling around outside the fence.”
“Did they notice you?” Lynn asks grabbing for her weapon lying on the ground next to her.
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay, let’s take a look. Absolute silence,” Lynn says rising and stepping on the first rung of the roof stairs.
On the roof, Lynn settles down on her belly and crawls slowly to the roof’s edge. Peering down onto the ramp, she sees five of the creatures close to the fence milling aimlessly. A couple of them seem interested in the Humvees parked a short distance away; looking in the windows. One even climbs onto the hood of one and seems to want to pull the windshield open using the windshield wipers. Two of them closest to the fence occasionally put their noses in the air.
“Are they sniffing?” The Private asks in a quiet whisper next to her.
Lynn turns slowly toward him and puts her finger to her lips. The Private nods. She looks back down at them and, to her; it does seem like they are sniffing at the air around them. Every minute or so, one will seem to catch a scent of something and hold a sniffing stance with a greater intensity as if trying to identify some scent or retrieve something that momentarily came to it. With a suddenness that is startling with its quickness and intensity, given the apparent aimless milling a moment before, one sniffing creature turns its head sharply in their direction and gazes intently up at them.
Lynn knows they are in the darkness above and the glaring lights shining down on the creature have to be blinding it as to their location, but it is staring very intently and directly at them. Its body turns to orient it in their direction without ever moving its gaze from them one iota. Lynn senses more than hears, given the sound of the generator, growls emitting from the creature only fifty feet below. The growling attracts the attention of the others and they wander over to it and look upwards. Suddenly, all five of them stiffen and begin to emit loud, rumbling growls of their own and stare directly at the two of them perched high on the roof above.
“Go wake Sergeant Drescoll,” Lynn tells the Private, “Go quietly and slowly. Fill the Sergeant in and then the both of you come here.”
“What about the major?”
“Forget him! Do as I ask!” Lynn says quietly but with authority.
Without a sound, the Private slides backwards away from the edge. Lynn hears his footsteps ring lightly on the stairs as he descends but keeps her focus on the creatures as they continue to have a stare off. The situation and coolness of the night air sends a shiver along her body. The light goes off in her head; the cool air is sinking bringing their scent along with it. These things can hunt and detect by scent!?
She edges away from the roof edge losing sight of the creatures. As she edges away, she turns her head toward the remaining soldier on the roof and whispers loud enough for him to hear, “Private, off the roof NOW!”
In the darkness, she hears a rustling and sees his shadow move from his position facing the runway to the trap door. She descends quietly down the stairs after he has stepped off, shuts the trap door, and meets Sergeant Drescoll and the other Private at the bottom. She relates her discovery and sighting to all of them in whispered tones.
A shriek rises from outside and the small group steps over the sleeping bodies toward the window facing the creatures outside. Several of those sleeping sit up quickly as the shriek penetrates their various dreams. Looking out of the window, Lynn sees that the creatures are now attempting to scale the wire fence.
Without taking her eyes from outside, she says, “Sergeant Drescoll, wake the others.”
She watches as the group of five creatures climbs the chain link fence and become entangled in the razor wire running along the top. From her position, she sees blood immediately spurt in a multitude of locations from the figures. All of them howl and shriek from the intrusion and decimation of their bodies but they continue on; all of them eventually fall to the perimeter inside in heaps. They do not move from where they have fallen but they have taken the razor wire in that section of fence down with them.
The soldiers within the tower have all awakened either from the sounds outside or by Drescoll and crowd the interior of the control room attracted by the shrieking. Other creatures head in their direction in the night under the lights.
Lynn turns from the window and addresses the group, “Five have knocked the razor wire down and others are heading this way. Everyone out on the walkway. Four to a side with two facing the runway and two facing towards camp. Sergeant Drescoll and I will be on the roof directing. You two,” Lynn says pointing at a Private and a Corporal nearby, “cover the flight of stairs.”
She then turns to Major Bannerman, “If that is alright with you, sir.”
“Carry on, Sergeant,” he responds with a nod.
“Guns only. No grenades unless I say different. We don’t’ want to blow the fence down. Now move,” she says as her and Drescoll start for the steps leading up to the roof amid the sound of soldiers shuffling to and out of the door. The sound of magazines being inserted into weapons, clicks of safeties being switched off, and the ringing clatter of boots on the metal walkway momentarily fills the top of the tower.
Helmets line the walkway just below her feet as Lynn stands on the roof looking out to the ramp below. Looking down over the tops of the helmets, she sees several creatures emerge out of the darkness in the middle of the ramp and into the light spilling from the tower. The things, which had been on the run, come to a stop once they step into the light. Some peer around them both into the shadows from which they emerged and around the tower base itself. Others peer into the bright lights streaming down; blinded by the intensity. Lynn knows the creatures are unable to see the soldiers and her on the roof and walkway due to them having to look through the lights. She kneels and whispers to the soldiers to hold their fire until she initiates or calls for it.