With those interested gathered in the church's little meeting room they started planning. Someone had even managed to grab a local map from town hall to help with organizing supply gathering, and it was now pulling double duty.

Oliver asked Melody to introduce what was known and himself to minimize wasteful backlash.

She agreed and informed him that the police chief had died early, leaving the rest on the back foot.

As everyone bumped elbows in the meeting room, Melody marched in and announced without preamble: “Based on their actions, their intentions are to keep us isolated here in town to prevent news of their impending invasion”

The officers all seemed to give her a questioning look, but one that showed trust of an answer soon.

The respect that even the police gave Melody made Oliver wonder. She was rather young to have earned that much respect. Random townsfolk was one thing, but she was roughly his age. About twenty five or so. But such staunch respect from the whole police department, including those much older? His pondering was interrupted quickly however.

“How could you possibly know what the demon's intentions are unless you're in cahoots with ‘em?”

Most of the police officers gave condescending looks at the aggressor. But he was clearly too passionate about his current brand of entitlement to notice something as minor as a room full of cops giving him the evil eye. Melody proceeded unfluttered.

“Mr. Oliver and I reviewed our own experiences in addition to the eye witness of their portal. Our conclusion is that this is more accurately viewed as a beachhead for an alien invasion.”

Heads snapped up at that.

It took bull head a moment to recover before he inevitably followed with: “Ridiculous! Just look at the things, or ask anyone here. They are clearly demons, come to punish us before the rapture! This is the end times! Anyone trying to pretend otherwise is a sinner in denial!”

Oliver took this opportunity to step up. He found his throat pinched shut, his mouth parched and without voice.

“I woke- ahm- excuse me -hm woke up this morning about 5:45, got ready, kissed my wife and wished her a good day. Jumped in my car, played music and drove into town. When I got here my phone went awol. As I went to leave I got attacked and was forced to scramble for my life. That would have been roughly 6:10. By the end of my scramble my truck was upside down, the Ape had shrugged off two .357 rounds and was appropriately pissed. Finally we found ourselves with it staring at me sitting on the edge of a roof”

He gave a look around meeting eyes.

“It walked away.”

He reiterated

“With nothing more than a frustrated kick, It. Walked. Away. Back towards the edge of town, presumably to continue vigil.

That. Is not the action of some mindless beast, come to punish the wicked.

When Mrs. Melody and I talked to the eye witness they described it as ‘looked like a clone army in neat rows, waiting’ on this side they described an orb with ‘a couple of priestly types running back and forth between it and the portal’ if anyone has a better explanation for that series of information I'm all ears”

Inevitably the thick skulled individual had to speak up at this

“Better explanation, Yeah. They. Are. Demons. Even a fool could see that.” responded the Boisterous One

“What is your name?” Oliver asked

“What?”

“If I'm going to insult someone as much as you for being useless, I should at least know their name before I make a point to refuse to use it. What is yours?”

“Fuck you, you don’t even believe.”

“Well, Unnamed Knuckledragger, I gave supporting evidence for my viewpoint. You however have only given insults.”

“You’ll not get my name deceiver”

“Convenient, then how about you prove your faith if that's so relevant. We will need a distraction, and you seem sure the cross will provide protection. If you're not just lip service, then you’ll be a valiant hero I’m sure.”

“More hero than you’ll ever be”

Oliver sighed, and gave a look of ‘help me’ to a cop near the belligerent man.

Following that he said “Then I’ll aspire to be as brave as you.”

The cop jumped in at that. “Don’t worry Jeff, we’ll keep an eye on him. You get yourself ready. We’ll need everyone we can get when we fight the demons.”

He then shot a look at another officer as he shepherded the man to the door.

The other officer joined him. “You know we’ll keep an eye on trouble for you Jeff. Lord wills proper justice.”

‘Jeff’ grumbled a bit at this but let them lead him out.

Once the door was closed behind him and they were headed back to the table Oliver showed his relief.

“Thank you, and my apologies for being so confrontational. Its been a stressful morning, and I didn’t expect to be called a liar to my face. Bit of a trigger for me. Still, thank you” he nodded at the officers who escorted ‘Jeff’ “and sorry for being so troublesome”

That earned a few fast-but-short nods of acknowledgement, smiles and a round of supportive comments. Though one stood out.

“Jeff’s always stirred up the worst in people, without actually doing anything truly criminal. Arguing with him is almost right of passage for anyone of decent standing”

“Well then. Anyone else want to more reasonably argue the origin of our troubles, or if it is especially relevant to how we deal with it?”

A round of head-shakes and ‘nopes’ concluded that bit and the brainstorming resumed in another direction

“So objective and plans for dealing with them then?”

“We can’t kill ‘em. Run?”

“To the city? We'd need to get past them first?”

“Call for help?”

“Lines are still down, radio, and cell too.”

“Probably some kind of EMP or jamming”

“Right, so we'd need to go in person”

“You said they are keeping us surrounded?” One asked Oliver

“Makes sense” replied another “I think most if not all roads out have had deaths by this point, though they mostly drag the evidence away.”

“That's why I didn’t see anything on the way in then, and likely their intentions. Points to more experience and better organization than I initially thought” Oliver responded “They may be experienced with this. Raiders maybe?”

“So we have to go through them then? Do we have anything that can even hurt them?”

“Standard issue these days is 9mm, that won’t do against these things. I don’t even want to know how thick their bones must be.”

“Plus the mussel density, I’m not sure bullets would even make it to their skulls”

“It’ll need to be larger than .357 is out too, .308 might have enough powder behind it? Anyone have a proper hunting rifle or stronger?” Oliver asked

“Mostly 12 gauge shotguns with beanbag or triple-ought buckshot. We have a few slugs at the department though”

“Slug might be enough, a lot of oomph. Might be too broad a round though? Would it pierce or just stagger ‘em?”

“I’ve got a few rifles at home, but I doubt they would be powerful enough for those things though.”

“Same”

“Same”

“Standard issue colts chambered in 5.56, it won’t be of much help.”

“So we grab some shotguns and the higher caliber rifles. Will that be enough to put them down before we are overrun?”

“I doubt it.”

“We’ll need to avoid a full frontal then.” Oliver said. “A distraction, and stealth. They are spread fairly thin.”

There were some nods.

“So we distract them then what? No way we can get the whole town out with just a distraction. A small team to alert the city?

“Sounds good, and get word to the military, tell them to get here as quick as they can. Large calibers, infrared and air support of some kind.” Oliver followed up “They should keep eyes on the area, if the portal closes and some survive they might rampage through a city or lurk around the countryside until they’re stopped. Out of spite if nothing else.”

A few faces paled at that.

“How long will it take for the military to get here? Hours? A full day?”

“Probably only a few hours from when they get the alert. Will we be able to get a car past them though, or have to run all the way there?”

“If the distraction is big enough maybe a quiet car? It would speed up getting help. Does anyone in town have an electric or hybrid?”

“Definitely no electric. There’s no place to charge one except downtown”

“The Jenkins should have a hybrid.”

“They tried to run early in their car. Didn’t make it.”

“Damn”

“The Tomsons have one. Saw Frank in church too.”

“Well that's something at least.”

“Should cut an hour or more off getting help”

“How soon do they come through the portal”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Oliver inserted “But if ‘them seeming like they have experience’, means anything. Probably not long. Probably.”

“You think the portal will be stable and troops pouring through before the military arrives?”

“I don’t have any clue, but I am not comfortable with the chance that they are.”

Some solemn looks at that

“Risky to try to close it ourselves”

“No need to risk everything on us closing it.” Oliver pointed out “Two groups could leave with the distraction. One to alert the military, and one to try to close the portal ourselves.”

There were some hesitant, and some thoughtful nods at this.

“So are we shooting them for a distraction? Blowing something up, or just yelling at them all?”

There were some chuckles at this.

“I can’t see shooting at demons going well for the shooters, and probably could result in collateral.”

“Probably not, but I don’t think shouting or blowing something up will be distracting enough. Maybe multiple explosions?”

“Explosions in our own town in an attempt to save lives? Calm down Tony. Maybe explosions on the portal?”

“Do we have any high yield explosives?” Oliver asked. “And do we trust explosions to destabilize the portal? Or to be able to do anything if they increase security around the portal if the explosions don’t destabilize it.”

He paused a moment in thought before he back pedaled

“Or would pulling them back to the portal be advantageous for the military?”

“Do we know how they opened the portal?”

“The eye witness said there was some kind of orb with some priestly looking types going back and forth between it and the portal. Since nothing else of note was mentioned in the area, I think we can assume the orb is responsible.” Oliver informed, then frowned. “Which means if they keep the orb somehow, they could potentially come back anywhere on earth without warning. Probably? And we would have to hope we can catch them then too”

“So we need to destroy or otherwise deny them the orb thing? Separate them from it, or kill them before they can get away with it.”

Many were starting to pale at the difficulty of such a task, and the terrible potential outcomes of failure.

“If we could capture it, the scientists would study it, and they might be able to figure out how to protect or at least sound an alert at any other portals. For all we know there are other portals open elsewhere” Oliver posited “Or we leave it for the military to capture when they get here.”

“What if instead of immediately trying to do something with the orb, we just sent a team to get into position in case the portal starts doing something? Then we don’t have to throw ourselves into their jaws to maybe save Earth or maybe start a game of whack-a-demon-alien unless necessary”

“Still a problem if they get caught.”

“Less chance of getting caught if they might not need to act.”

“Sounds like the start of a plan” Oliver set the stage “So let's get to the specifics. This is the road to the metroplex. Where is the Thomsons’ car?”

“Here, in their garage, so manually pull the door open, then down to main street and out” He traced his finger across the suggested route.

“So. . .here for the distraction then?”

“Hmm. One on either side? Or find the nearest and pull the nearest two’s attention away from mainstreet”

“One should be assigned TO main street though right? So we would need to pull it away, without pulling either side in. Right?”

“We should scout it first, but that is probably the case.”

“What about the second team?”

“They could ride with, and jump out once they’re past them.”

“Should work.”

“Then they circle around the outside of town to the portal. . . where exactly?”

“Should be near George Guthrey’s house” Oliver supplied

“George was the witness?”

Oliver gave a pursed frown, but nodded

“Should be about here then” the man pointed to a section of woods near an edge of town, nearly opposite where main street entered town.

There was quite for a bit

“Then I suppose we should scout and decide who goes where, and distribute arms.”

Nods around the table, as they turned to face the man who had spoken

“I guess, I am overdue to step up properly. Chief would be ashamed of me.” He mournfully laughed looking over at another “wouldn’t he.”

“But even more proud, William” Came the answer, followed by cheers from the others.

From there ‘William’ took proper command appointing resources and people from the police and volunteers.

One of the first things he did was release a thief to advise on sneaking and distracting the Apes. The thief was quite reluctant and bemoaned ‘common thief’ not being qualified to sneak past aliens. But also was quick to get the scouts to act like they were retrieving something from wherever they were scouting.

“Drop it if your seen, but it's better point their suspicions then to have them guess at your intentions” he had said, before muttering about it being better ‘being so terribly obvious about when they’re trying to be sneaky’

When the scouts came back, they reported the positions of the Apes near main street, and at Oliver’s suggestion opened up several doors near where the distraction teams would be working, to make retreat more reasonable.

While the officers and volunteers were scouting their city, Oliver took a moment to grab some food and thank Melody.

“Thank you for the introduction. That went better than I hoped,”Oliver said. “Though I'm not sure who invited Jeff, that almost fell apart”

She gave him a smirk. “Not really, the officers have developed a habit of showing Jeff support to keep him placid while trusting whoever he argues with. As they said, ‘arguing with Jeff’ is a show of good character. Your reaction to lashing out cemented this.

I would say that having both my support and introduction and Jeff's opposition Earned trust faster than anything else I could have set up. You of course did wonderfully, reminding them of their duty and galvanizing them into action with your own. I had been puzzling how best to get them to pull their heads out of the sand before you came. I can think of no way that could have possibly gone better”

Oliver stared at her, mouth slightly agape before he recovered. “I-- Thank you for your trust-- And manipulations.”

She nodded but waited for him to finish articulating “It's been a while since I’ve seen anyone benevolently manipulate others. I-”

He burst out laughing “I think that's exactly what I needed as well. To be reminded. Thank you.”

She gave a pleased smile and went back about keeping the people in the church

Oliver and a hunter were the only ones to volunteer for the flank on the portal. Neither was particularly eager about it, but saw it as necessary to make sure there would be protection against such portals in the future.

Two officers would continue to the nearest police office, and use their upstanding reputation to get the military to come quickly.