Chapter 46 Change of Plans

After I grabbed the few remaining Tanks we decided it was time to call it a night and headed for the lodge. It was a building like a motel, that housed military personal who were transitioning to the base and needed a temporary place to stay.

With no power, cooking was out and only rations would be available for now. Before headed to bed we were in the lounge area, and sitting, a battery operated lantern lit up the room as we ate the rations.

I was explaining events and professions to Eddie, as he almost went nuts when I put the first tank into my inventory. There were not many at all, as if they rest had been driven off. He listened to my story and nodded here and there. Laughing when I got married and whistled when I met Ki'Diera, and her father gave me her hand for marriage. Then he went silent at the monster army and my decision to come here. Ki'Diera listened and observed Eddie, evaluating.

“So there you have it, I can store almost anything that is not nailed down into inventory.” I say to him.

“Advanced Marine huh? You always were a true Marine thru and thru Gunny.” He laughed.

“So what about you Eddie you have yet to tell me anything, like how you survived, or how you got initiated.” I say to him

“Sigh not much to tell really, freaked me out when I saw the first creature appear in my house” He then sits back takes a drink from his beer, which was warm by the way, since the there was no power here. ”Lets see, the thing appeared and I ran like hell for my guns in the room, got it loaded when it came crashing thru the door chasing me.”

“I unloaded everything I had into the damn thing and even reloaded and shot it some more after it was dead. While I was shooting it, some message popped up in front of me and told me welcome blah bah, then the pain hit me. God damn gunny the pain was bad.” he says drinking his beer again, finishes it and pops open another.

“When the pain went away, more messages appeared, something about my first kill and so on. Sounds like you got the same ones I did. So I heard lots of screaming and crying outside. I went to the window and saw people being chased all over by these damn things. Gunny the thing scared the shit out of me, A giant super wolf. Thank god it took a few seconds to react or I would have been fodder.” He continues.

“ I grabbed my guns and ammo, and from the window started to pick the things off one by one, getting messages about levels and such, but mostly ignored them and learned to dismiss them before long. People were being torn to pieces everywhere.” He stares straight ahead at nothing now.

“I was running out of ammo fast, and a few had spotted me, but I put them down as well. I honestly could not save them gunny. There were just too many of them and it took several shots to kill them, had I had my sniper rifle, I probably could have taken them down faster”. He drinks”well spilled milk right, go with the flow you always said?”

“So I saved what ammo I had left, geared up and left out the back door of my place moving quickly while they were distracted or eating. It was one of the hardest decisions I ever made to leave those people behind.” Eddie says staring again.

“I found an abandoned vehicle and made my way here, saw that the chaos had hit here as well, It was pretty much over when I arrived. The soldiers here killed all the creatures, but they took heavy losses from the looks of it. Then they were ordered to mobilize. The whole base, but being a Saturday not many were here, and of those almost half died in the initial wave.” He drinks again recalling the events.

“I saw them driving off towards Colorado Springs, so I entered the base to see if I could report for duty. I got turned away saying they had it under control, but I helped with the wounded and clearing the dead with the rest of the base staff.”

“I stayed the night, one of the guys let me have a room. The next morning, the next wave hit, and that was all she wrote for this base. I killed a few more and went into hiding, there was nothing I could do to save anyone anymore, I went into survival mode. I stayed hidden for three days waiting, in that time more waves came and the creatures multiplied. Then the creatures all started leaving as there was no food here, before I knew it they were gone, but I waited another day in hiding. No more waves came.”

“When I could take the hunger no more I decided to move, and found the base empty. First thing I did was grab some weapons off the ground I found and geared up. Then I went and raided the BX for food. I checked all over, and found no survivors.” He pauses and sighs.

“I then started to gather the rest of the weapons laying around, even cleaned up bodies which took almost two days to do alone, like hell if I was going to let them rot like that. After I gathered all the dog tags I poured gasoline over them all and lit them on fire burning them all., I then scouted around the base in one of the Hum-Vees.”

“I then decided to head for Colorado Springs where the base deployed to. Gunny it was a mess. The tanks drove over cars and trucks, I guess they ran out of fuel at some point and abandoned the tanks. I saw some tanks at the gas stations where they could fit, but the soldiers were dead there or what was left of them from what I could tell.” He drinks again.

“I did not stick around long, seeing Colorado Springs was a lost cause, I came back here hoping some made it, and would come back, but you are the first to show up” He says,”I went out hunting the creature even saw different ones at times and sniped them. I found my sniping skills were a little rusty so decided to spruce them up a bit. Then the 7th day message came and I could find no more creatures about. On the 8th day those fuckers all came back out of thin air again.”

“Thankfully I was not out in the open at the time and hid right away. Eventually they all left again, but I waited a full day and no more waves came again before I moved. And there you have it “he finally says.

“So Colorado Springs fell?” I ask.

“From the looks of it yeah, but I did not stick around to check for survivors, I saw creatures all over, different kinds in different places. Little green ones, Big green ones, and grey ones, some hairy ones, the super wolves and even some bears with freaking bird beaks.” He replies.

“So the bigger cities got hit harder, New York City had Bugbears as well.” I say thinking back.

“Bug who?” asks not understanding the term.

“Bugbears are the creatures you saw, part bear part bird I guess you could say.” I reply

“Well then, about those creatures of yours, how do you plan to take them out with a bunch of civies and I guess we can call them off worlders?” He begins to ask “ none of them can drive or shoot with a tank, from what you told me so far, and the best you can do on short notice is show them how to use the mortar system. I get the idea behind the guns, but why the tanks?”

“Simple, once you have a profession, you have an inventory, no one has to drive them, they can just pull them out, get in turn the turret as needed and fire the gun, get our and put the thing away again” I smile

“I just have to teach them how to shoot” I continue after a pause and his eyes show understanding.

"You think that will work? There is a little more to it than that gunny” He says with a grim expression.

“Look, if the military can trust an 18 year old out of High School to do it, can we not trust some civies?” I ask back “ and we only got 6 tanks so it is far less than I wanted, but we got the Artillery.”

We talked some more into the night before finally calling it. I head to my room, Ki'Diera is with me, silent the whole time. We enter and get into bed, she lays next to me in the nude.

“Scott you need to pay attention to me when you talk to people. You now that I can read them.” She says finally breaking the silence.

“Yes, I know princess, but I know this man, trust him with my life.” I tell her.

“He is deceiving you Scott”. She says bluntly “ all his talk was half truths”

“Maybe so, many things we say are half truths to some degree,” I say to her “ It is not that I do not trust your judgement, but I will trust him” I say with a final tone. If he is hiding something he will eventually tell me, that was how he was. We spent 14 years together in the Marines, I could tell he was not telling me everything, but I will not dwell on it..

"Very well Scott, I will leave it in your hands then, he is your friend” with that she turns and snuggles up to me and closes her eyes. I lay there thinking, my thoughts drift to Cindy and Julie, I hope they calmed down by now, I will contact them in the morning and let them know what is going on then, maybe they will have seen the inventory by then and figured it out. I drift off to sleep with that thought in mind.

I awaken and it is morning, I look and see Ki'Diera's beautiful face still sleeping, still holding onto me. I remove myself from her slowly, trying not to wake her, but she awakens quickly. We both get out of bed and get dressed. We head for the lounge, the sun is up so the place is lighted thru the windows. Eddie is already there waiting.

We have a quick bite, rations again.While eating, I turn on the mind link to Julie and Cindy.

....not know Cindy, maybe we should overpower the guards.

This is ridiculous to lock us up like this.

The Sheriff said it was for our own good till Scott gets back, you did try to burn down the front gate, when they did not let you pass after all.

I am still pissed he left us behind like this. We are not invalids because we are pregnant. When I get my ha...

Good morning my loves.....

Scott!!

Scott where the hell are you?

Well check your inventories and you will kind of see my loves.

Open inventory They both think at the same time

What is all this? Tanks? Guns ammo?

Yes my loves I am at a military base getting us some firepower....

fufufufufu lets take the tank Julie, lets see if they can stop that

Cindy wait!!! Please listen to me honey!

No Cindy I think that grenade launcher will do the trick on the front gate.

Julie kitten please listen!!!

Alright I am listening.....

Yeah Scott go on....

Look, we needed firepower, this was the fastest way. You are not invalids, you are my wives, I love you both, and you both carry my children, which is beyond precious to me right now, and I will do everything to keep you safe, do you understand?

Then why did you not tell us and why did you take Ki'Diera with you?

Umm about that, she followed me against my will.

...............

Look I will be back in a few days, in the meatime have the Sheriff mount those 50 cals in the watch towers please my loves. Patterson should know how to set up the mortar systems and show people how to use them. Can I count on you to to do that please?

Fine Scott, but when you get back...

I know honey, I know, dog house for me...

Scott you have to understand, we love you and want to be there not only with you but for you. You are going to have to trust us at some point you know?

It is not that I do not trust you sweetheart, it is because I love you that I do this.

I get it Scott, really I do but this one hurt you know. You left us.....no word...

I did Honey, but if I had not, I would still be there explaining and trying to stop both of you and none of this would be in the inventory my loves.

We are not that unreasonable Scott..

You just tried to take the tank and grenade launcher Julie, to bust your way out.

...................

Look a few days, I will keep in touch I promise. I have to go now, I love you my loves.

Sco... I break the link.

"You look troubled Scott,", Ki'Diera says sitting next to me.

“I just spoke to Cindy and Julie....” I sigh.

She does not reply but instead take my hand in hers and smiles.

We gather our stuff up and head for the Hum-Vee after eating our meager meals.

“Eddie change of plans, I want to check on Colorado Springs, you drive ok?” I say to him

“Sure thing gunny, but there is not much to see except the creatures roaming the streets.” He replies with a saddened face.

“Maybe so, but something tells me we need to check it out anyways” I insist to him

We get in and drive off towards Colorado Springs. It does not take long to get there, in the mean time I was infusing mana into the cartridges I had with me to see if it remained when I put them back. Upon inspecting them it did, for a short time before it wore off.

We got to within a few Km of Colorado City, “ this is close enough the rest of the way we go on foot.” I said

We began scouting and headed for the city, staying quiet and using hand signals to move. We got to within the outskirts of the city when we saw the first signs of danger. Spider webs were everywhere, not the normal kinds, but big huge nets spread from house to house, building to building, crisscrossing here and there.

I motion to stop as soon as we saw that and pulled out the binoculars. Scanning the area slowly, I then saw it. It was a huge looking creature, eight legs attached to a body like that of a spider, all black, but had the torso of a man, thick muscled arms, broad bare chest, darkened skin and long silver hair. He carried a long spear spear with him, or was that a halberd?

What the fuck is that?