Glowing red eyes some twenty-stories in the sky grabbed the onlookers’ attention first. As floodlights splashed on the creature, more details came into focus.
It wore a scaly, tinny skin that could have been flesh or possibly a kind of metal armor. It stood on two muscular, thick legs that, again, could have been organic or could have been manufactured struts. Ram horns wrapped its head on either side of those raging red eyes and it pushed aside mighty evergreens as easily as parting curtains using arms ending in cloven hooves.
A Goat-Walker.
Jon knew that Trevor encountered a goat walker for the first time during an expedition to the alien gateway in Binghamton, New York, five years ago. It had stepped into the world from some hellish dimension just as a truck bomb detonated. According to the story, a vortex formed when that gate collapsed, sucking the creature-and many of Trevor’s expedition including his friend Danny Washburn-to some unknown, but certainly horrid, fate.
While rare, they proved one of the most dangerous hostiles. Unlike the majority of alien monsters that could be categorized as predator or prey, a Goat-Walker did not conform to any logical law of nature. No nests or dens were ever found, the walkers did not appear to feed on their victims and their physical characteristics-particularly the hoof-like cloven appendages where hands should be-seemed ill suited to long-term survival.
They behaved more like an elemental force than a living animal; a walking tornado bent on destruction. As if natural selection on whatever nightmare world they hailed from favored fear and chaos in some warped version of Darwinian evolution.
“Javelins! Get the Javelins!” Brewer shouted at the soldiers assigned to the two transports still refueling. “There should be some onboard Eagle 2!”
The K9s mustered their courage and bound toward the walking skyscraper as it stepped into the heart of the camp. They stood no chance, of course, but instinctively knew they needed to buy time.
One after another, sliding ramps closed and airships took to the sky in haste. Reverend Johnny’s cargo Eagle shot up in a rapid ascent.
Meanwhile, small arms fire from the thirty-men not onboard fleeing ships pelted the creature like pebbles thrown at a battleship, while the dogs yapped and snarled.
It hovered over the camp as if considering what to stomp first. A transport parked at the outer rim of the camp took off right at the giant’s feet, drawing the creature’s attention. The pilot went to full acceleration at the same moment the monster swung a hoof-like hand. The blow missed by less than two feet.
With one potential victim out of reach, it returned its attention to the ground and stepped toward a crowd of men. They managed to scatter clear of the impact but the tremor knocked them off balance. The beast brought one of its warped ‘hands’ to the ground aiming to crush one of the men who escaped the first blow. A Grenadier dashed in front of the fallen soldier, grabbing the monster’s attention at the last second and averting the strike.
Jon raised his carbine and fired, aiming for the inferno-red eyes. His bullets either missed or did nothing; it seemed this animal offered no weak spots, no quick solutions. Nonetheless, he would try to distract and confuse the monster while the transports escaped.
Two bolts of energy blasted from Johnny’s airborne cargo Eagle via a turret mounted below the nose cone. Like the airships themselves, those energy weapons had been captured from the ‘Redcoat’ aliens following the Battle for Wilkes-Barre.
One massive leg and the hoof at the end of it kicked, sending a broken dog flying and a pair of soldiers tumbling. A second kick smashed the side of a transport Eagle. The side door crumpled in and vehicle nearly toppled as it took to the air.
Another stream of energy from the cargo Eagle rippled across the beast’s snout, scorching its goat face and eliciting a roar that echoed through the wilderness. The very sound felt like an assault; Jon instinctively cowered for the briefest of moments. There was something about this entity that made it feel even more alien than the extraterrestrials that had invaded Earth: as if even among the invaders, this thing was an abomination.
A cloven hoof where a hand should be swung at a flying Eagle, glancing a landing pod and sending it into a flat spin. The engines screamed as the plane spiraled toward the treetops, grazing branches before regaining control.
The Goat-Walker turned again to the humans and dogs scurrying around its feet. With a grunt that sounded like an explosion of compressed air, it leaned over and struck with both arms, pounding one into the backbone of a refueling transport and crushing two men and a dog with the other.
Two contrails raced skyward and a pair of anti-tank missiles walloped the gargantuan in the neck. Pieces of what might have been either flesh or building materials poured down as well as a muddy red liquid.
The creature stood to full height and howled.
“Keep firing! Keep firing!” Jon ordered even as he cursed the waste of precious ordnance.
A hand grabbed his shoulder from behind; he nearly jumped out of his skin.
Casey Fink shouted in his ear, “They’re done refueling! We can bug out!”
“Do it!” Jon shouted as the creature swung and missed at the two soldiers who had launched the missiles. “Take off! Everyone get onboard and get the hell out of here!”
Troops hurried for the two remaining transports while the two tankers retracted hoses from the lake.
“Withdraw!” Brewer shouted, this time directing his order at the K9s. The dogs wasted no time in scampering onboard Eagle 2.
Into his radio Jon transmitted, “We need covering fire to take off. Blast the damn thing!”
A swarm of Eagles fired potshots at the beast from energy turrets.
Jon slung his rifle and raced onboard Eagle 3 where Casey Fink shouted orders of his own into his radio: “Tankers, get out of here!”
A voice answered, “Retracting pumps now, Sir.”
“Just friggin’ go. We’re out of time!”
Eagle 2 blasted away from the surface. The sound drew the attention of the snarling monster.
Jon, standing at Eagle 3’s open side door, saw two of his soldiers-one man helping a limping woman-emerge from cover at the edge of the forest and hurry toward his transport. He waved encouragement to them but the wounded woman could only move at half-speed.
The Goat-Walker apparently realized most of its prey had escaped and aimed for the three ships remaining on the ground: Jon’s ship number 3 and the two tankers.
“Come on!” Jon shouted at the limping soldiers. “Haul ass!”
One of the hideous legs of the massive creature thudded to the ground just ten yards from the transport’s side door, half as close as the fleeing soldiers.
Jon raised his hand to wave again, but the sliding door slammed shut in front of his face. He turned to see Casey Fink pressing the ‘lock’ switch. The pilot must have reacted to the ‘sealed’ indicator on his console and the Eagle took to the air with such acceleration that Jon and Casey fell to the floor.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jon shouted with the faces of the abandoned personnel etched in his mind.
“Saving our asses, General,” Fink answered.
The transport shuddered as if absorbing a glancing blow. The fifteen men buckled into seats groaned a collective gasp.
Jon scrambled to his feet, opened the cockpit bulkhead, and staggered into the nose cone where a solitary pilot wearing bulky navigation goggles struggled with the controls.
Through the windshield, Jon saw the red eyes of the Goat-Walker. He felt them look right at him; regard him.
“This was no accident,” he muttered but the pilot could not hear; he grunted and growled as he tried to control the rapidly ascending craft. “That thing was sent to stop us.”
Streaks of energy slammed into the monster’s head. It roared again.