Clearing Force, Page 2

itself fell like a rock, hitting the upper side of the craft and crashing into the ground on the side I couldn’t see. The loud explosion, when the helicopters ruptured fuel tank ignited, was only overwhelmed by the screams of pain and fear along with sounds of shooting from below.

  I finally dragged my eyes from the huge, man sized bodies with a wingspread that had to be at least twelve feet, leathery looking flying monsters that also had a large extended beak full of teeth, and looked below. It looked like the Jurassic Park from hell!

  Thousands of small creatures, about the size of a medium sized dog, were still exiting the craft. They all had long skinny necks, moved on two legs and were obviously using their tail to balance with. The head had some kind of bright red crest running from just over its eyes to the back of its head. Through my scope I saw something else. Their somewhat oversized heads also featured an extended snout, similar to a dog, filled with sharp teeth. Its two tiny arms ended in two large claws obviously intended to allow the creature to hold its prey.

  The sheer volume and suddenness of the creatures attack was quickly overwhelming the police down below. While the officers pistols were effective against the monsters there were so many of them that, as soon as the officer ran out of bullets, they were overwhelming him before he could even insert another clip! Like the citizens behind them the remaining policemen began fleeing from the pursuing creatures, without too much success.

  It didn’t help. The creatures quickly tore into the fleeing humans and began by hampering their movement by simply closing their jaws on one of the fleeing people’s legs. With a quick twist of its head the creature tore off a chunk of flesh while at the same time bringing its body forward so it could sink one or both of its shorter limbs claws into the tormented person’s torso. Then it began feeding, rapidly tearing off more chunks of bloody flesh as its victim screamed with pain and fell to the ground.

  Once the person fell down, additional animals closed in and began tearing off more flesh, especially from the still very alive and screaming person’s abdomen. Then they began feeding on the interior of the quickly dying person’s body, tearing out bloody chunks of intestines and fighting over them between themselves.

  As soon as the dead human was reduced to a bloody bunch of scattered bones the creatures moved on, seeking their next victim. Within seconds they were busily feeding on another screaming citizen, then another and another. Anyone that had tried to simply run away was quickly chased down and devoured.

  The SWAT teams around the Mayor, Police Chief and politicians, attempted to hold off the oncoming horde while the VIP’s desperately attempted to get inside the building behind them. It almost worked. Briefly, the circled officers held the advancing creatures at bay, until the small monsters flowed around them, or leapt over them, to quickly dispose of the retreating VIP’s. Seconds later, the SWAT team’s defensive circle collapsed as they were also overwhelmed by the small monsters.

  A loud noise came from the huge vessel, almost like a shrill steam whistle, and a new group of animals began to exit, while the first group scurried away, literally outrunning what a few seconds before had been their intended victims. Even before the first of the new creatures presented themselves it was obvious that the smaller ones were more terrified of what was coming than the humans they were outrunning.

  I saw that the grid inside the vessel had changed, and then I saw why. The new monsters were far larger than the first ones, between five and six feet tall with a total length of at least ten feet from the tip of their nose to the end of their tail. They were covered in bright yellow feathers, from the top of their head, just below their bright red crest, to the tip of their tail, walked on two large legs with three large prominent claws on the end of their toes, like the smaller ones they used their tails for balance and had two short forearms, ending in two three digit hands tipped with very nasty looking claws. Their short, thick, neck was topped by a head with an extended face while their mouths also held long, sharp teeth, plainly displayed as they emitted a primordial scream of victory when they killed their prey.

  They were fast and almost supernaturally strong! When they leapt off the side of their ship they landed almost twenty feet away. Then, within seconds, they had caught up to the fleeing crowd and were lost to my view.

  Others, seeing panicked humans that thought they were safe behind the large plate glass windows of the buildings they were attempting to hide in, raced to those buildings and crashed through the plate glass in their desire to feed. The larger creatures tore far larger chunks of raw, bloody meat from their victims, usually after they used their three toed clawed feet to partially dismember their intended dinner first.

  I saw one officer fire his pistol time after time into the oncoming monster without effect. The officer finally threw his pistol at the beast as he began to turn and run away but it was far too late for that. The monster leapt forward, tearing bloody gashes into the man’s back, exposing his spine and ribs as he fell forward in shock. The monster then leapt on top of him and extinguished his anguished screams by tearing his head off!

  I finally shook myself out of my shock at what was happening and began shooting. The large creatures all paused for a second before they hurled themselves away from their ship, so I began using that brief pause to target and shoot. With the first two creatures I aimed for the center of mass and saw both of them stagger back slightly when my bullet hit but they leapt off the vessel seemingly unharmed.

  With the next one I attempted a head shot, which was fairly easy because they all seemed to pause in the same place. This time the results were far more satisfactory, as the creature was slammed backward, disappearing inside the ship. After a few seconds, when nothing else appeared in that rectangle, I shifted to the next and repeated my shot. This time the creature staggered backward but fell forward tumbling to the ground just below its former perch.

  Almost immediately another creature appeared with its head conveniently in exactly the same spot as its predecessors had been. My finger gently caressed my trigger and it also staggered backward but then fell forward directly onto the body of its predecessor. As the next creature moved into place for killing, I saw the legs of the first two creatures still slashing with their claws, tearing huge gashes into each other while splattering purplish black blood everywhere. In the back of my mind I stored the realization that even when they should be dead, these creatures weren’t.

  As I targeted and fired I dimly heard the sounds of pain and terror from the people below abruptly stopping. When I inserted my next clip I risked a look at the terrain below where the lights clearly showed that the only things still moving were the monsters. There was blood everywhere, some was the dark purplish black blood the monsters had, but most was the bright red blood I had seen my entire life, the remnants of humans killed and eaten by these things. I had seen hundreds of the little monsters killed by officers as they attempted to quell the oncoming horde, but there was not one body left laying there, the larger ones had disposed of them as well as any remaining human beings.

  Next to me, Jeffrey Jones, JJ was his nickname, was also switching his clip. He looked at me and said “Sergeant, I think we are in deep shit. Those flying things took down the other choppers and they are circling around up there, you can see them when they pass in front of the moon. How are we going to get out of here?”

  Even though I heard the hard edge of panic in his voice there was only one possible answer “We’ll leave carefully, very carefully. Just like we did when we were in hostile territory, okay?”

  He was also a veteran of America’s overseas adventures. Although he had only been on the force a couple of years, and had joined my SWAT team less than a month ago, I had taken him under my wing. He was a tough, no-nonsense guy, with an adorable two year old daughter. He and his wife were separated, although they hadn’t divorced yet. His wife and their daughter were living with her parents in, of all god-forsaken places, Greybull, Wyoming! We had razzed him endlessly about her taking their
daughter to become a cowgirl only to have him admit that he was also originally from Greybull where they had been High School sweethearts. Over beers one evening he admitted that he was also thinking of quitting and going home, his wife had left because she simply detested what she called “The Anthill” otherwise known as New York City. He was one of the men that had intended to quit this evening so we could attempt to flee what we had been afraid was about to happen. That was all completely irrelevant now.

  I asked “How many clips do you have left for your rifle?”

  Without hesitation he answered “Three, including the full one I just inserted. Should we continue shooting, thirty bullets certainly won’t go far against what we are facing, will they?”

  The two guys further down the wall from us quickly ran over to where we were. Force of habit and training had obviously clicked in as they ran crouched over, as if we were under enemy fire. Well, at least so far, that was one thing we didn’t have to contend with.

  When Peters and Odeler got to our position their question was the same one we had been discussing, what should we do now? Peters was single, but Odeler was, like me, married with kids in