She did not wait for a reply. She could not be sure the handlers even heard her orders but it did not matter; they needed to destroy the Stone Soldiers with the anti-tank rockets or the monsters would kill every human and dog in the museum.
One by one, the rescuers opened the crates holding forty-inch long tubes decorated with all manner of warning labels. Nina and the two men grabbed one each and followed the giant, muddy footsteps into the backyard and over flattened hedgerows as well as the equally flattened bodies of three Rottweilers.
They passed a historical plaque detailing Lord Cornwallis’ stay at the home during the Revolutionary War and stopped thirty feet behind the walking statues that systematically tore apart the outer wall of the museum, exposing the rooms inside and making it resemble a child’s open dollhouse.
Nina saw movement among the collapsed walls. She heard shouts; she heard barks. At least some of J-5 Delta remained, but they would not last much longer.
“Clear behind!” She yelled and then fired with the weapon propped on her shoulder.
While a smoky fire ejected from the back end, a deadly projectile shot forward, aimed only by her eye but aimed well nonetheless. The missile hit one of the Stone Soldiers in its block-shaped ass, sending chunks of rock everywhere. The creature-with no apparent innards other than chalky rock-collapsed into a pile of gravel.
The driver and the navigator fired in succession, each of their shots hit true turning those targets into similar piles.
Nina dropped the now-useless tube and fell to a knee with both hands on her ears. The vibration and the roar disorientated her senses and made her body feel like quivering Jell-O for several seconds. The driver stumbled around and the navigator hunched over with hands on his knees.
As the trio of rescuers regained their composure, a pair of black-clad Hunter-Killer handlers stumbled from the ruins of the museum as well as a bunch of German shepherds and Rottweilers.
“I hate things like that,” Nina’s driver said as he wiggled a finger in his ear to clear away the ringing bell.
“Things like what?” The navigator asked.
“They don’t serve no purpose, it’s not like they’re animals,” the driver answered as he took to stretching his mouth in a series of yawns in another attempt to clear the ringing. “The Sloths and the Stumphides…they’re just animals. But things like those statues, they don’t eat, they don’t shit, they just walk around trying to clobber us.”
Nina added her two cents: “I guess all monsters aren’t created equal.”
The rescued HK squad offered their thanks but a radio call interrupted.
“Overwatch to Boss, you copy?”
Nina unclipped the walkie-talkie from her belt.
“Boss here, go ahead, Overwatch.”
“You know that Stumphide you were looking for…”
…Islands of grass and trees separated the east and west bound lanes of Market Street as it ran spine-like through Wilmington.
A Stumphide straddled one of those islands as it moved along in search of unlucky prey.
The “Stump” came from four legs as thick as trees capable of pulverizing a car-let alone a man-into a pile of scrap. The “Hide” referred to the thick, green leathery skin stretched over a cylinder shaped body.
Two yellow eyes sat menacingly above a crescent maw filled by sharp teeth with wiry fir atop a football-shaped skull. Making matters worse, a dozen short tendrils sprouted from what might be its ‘cheeks’ to grasp prey.
Judging by the tub of fat dangling from this one’s belly, it had enjoyed thinning the heard of Sloths infesting Wilmington.
Nina stood fifty yards from the big monster, watching and waiting for the thing to take notice of her. The creature grabbed a rusting motorcycle with its tendrils, crunched down on the chrome, decided it did not like the taste, and threw the bike aside. At that moment, its yellow eyes looked ahead and saw.
Flanking Nina stood a wall of K9s staring and panting.
The monster and the dog army eyed one another like gunfighters in the old west waiting to draw.
Nina heard the Rottweilers, Dobermans, and Shepherds growl and snarl, their paws scraping the pavement in an anticipation held in check only by the invisible fence of their obedience; waiting for the command.
She gave it.
“Swarm.”
The army of canines ran at full gallop toward the hideous creature capable of splattering any single one of the dogs with a step. Their paws clattered off the pavement as they rolled forward like a flood of claws and fangs. No hesitation. No fear. Nothing other than the desire to follow the master’s command to kill.
They smashed into the Stumphide, first a dozen snouts grabbing and biting, then twenty, then thirty, then more.
It stomped its legs and grabbed with its tendrils, throwing dogs off like rag dolls, their bodies crashed into buildings, the sidewalk, fences, and abandoned cars.
Nevertheless, the dogs charged.
That hideous mouth swallowed a Shepherd whole.
Yet the K9s did not falter.
Its short tendrils strangled a Rottweiler while its massive feet crushed two more.
The Grenadiers concentrated on the tree-trunk-like legs, tearing at them until the flesh cracked and splintered, laying bare muscle and bone.
A gargled howl came from the beast and it stomped with its wounded leg, killing three K9s and crippling another. The dogs tore into the wound, gnawing, tearing, chewing, and clawing.
A mound of Grenadiers-alive and dead-formed around the Stumphide with some actually climbing on their comrades to rip into the face of the monster.
It threw more off, smashed others, but its legs stamped with less power, less enthusiasm.
Finally, as two dozen Grenadiers lay dead on Market Street, the monstrosity collapsed to its side.
With its belly exposed, the creature was doomed.
The K9s enveloped the animal as if they were a school of piranha, ripping and tearing with a ferocity that even gave Nina a chill…
…For the rest of the day, the helicopter circled above relaying information. Human hunters used more heavy weapons to dispatch several larger hostiles including a giant turtle with an insect head, but the K9s were the shock troops.
Battering rams knocked open doors and Grenadiers poured in. They moved along the boulevards and alleyways relentlessly. No battle fatigue, no hesitation, no second thoughts.
Elements of the second column reached and cleared the college campus at the center of town by late afternoon while other elements pushed east toward the coast.
By nightfall, sixty K9s from the first column and half that number from the second died in the invasion, but an untold number of hostiles also met their fate.
Darkness did not stop the hunt.
Human fighters used night vision while the dogs relied on their acute hearing and smell to track prey.
Several of the humanoid-like Mutants-with their oversized mouths and forked tongues-were found and killed while others made at least a temporary escape on hoverbikes.
Grenadiers shredded a pack of Ghouls and both types of Sloths fell by the hundreds.
As morning neared, the intensity of the fighting waned as hostiles disappeared from the street, retreating to hiding spots. Extermination changed from massed attacks to smaller units tracking and cornering alien creatures.
Not long after dawn, Captain Nina Forest traveled by helicopter to the eastern part of the city in response to a civilian request for emergency assistance.
The helicopter landed on a stretch of gorgeous beach near a row of fancy condominiums and ocean view homes in an area known as Wrightsville Beach.
She exited her ride and moved out from under the whirring blades that spawned a miniature sandstorm. There she found a small gathering of Hunter-Killer units among a group of human survivors.
One of those people-dressed in patchwork clothes but in decent physical shape-approached her in an urgent gait. The older man with white hair and a permanent tan offered his hand but Nina felt it a gesture born of impulse, not thought.