Apex 3: Shaylo Attacks Read online

  The empathic ability rose up in him. He let it do its thing. He hadn’t figured out how to direct it yet so he just let it wash over his surroundings.

  He felt sorrow, mixed with desperation but those feelings were overshadowed by a healthy dose of giddy pleasure. But he felt something else from Melanie that troubled him: a cold sense of duty and selflessness. She was doing this for him. She thought it was what he wanted and she wanted to make him happy.

  He pulled away from her. He considered opening some type of dialogue regarding what he felt from her but that conversation could get weird in a hurry.

  Instead, he said, “Thank you. I do appreciate it but we should stay friends.”

  She looked into his eyes. “We can be more than friends, even if just for today.”

  “I’m looking for more than that. You’re my best friend. Let’s keep things that way.”

  She smiled sadly and looked at her feet. “I’m sorry I’m sending you mixed signals.”

  “You’re not. I know exactly how you feel now, and I’m sorry you felt you had to do something you didn’t want to do just to make me happy. You’ve got me all wrong. I’m already happy with our relationship.” He knew that last part was a lie but the last thing he wanted was for her to feel obligated to give more of herself to him than she wanted to.

  She gave him a peck on the cheek. “You’re a good person, Jack. Don’t forget that.”

  He smiled wryly. He might have even believed her except that he couldn’t get the image of her naked body out of his head. He was the same pig he’d always been. He just had more information than before.

  He pushed the thoughts away. He gave substance to his decision by convincing himself that it was idiotic and irresponsible to explore such personal distractions when humanity was about to be wiped from the face of the Earth any day now.

  He walked around the shed and she followed after him.

  The empathic ability was still working its magic. He felt a deep sense of relief from her that nearly broke his heart, and a sense of shame that made him angry at himself but at her too for putting herself through something she wasn’t comfortable with.

  He realized he’d never understand girls. He wished more than anything that he could go back in time and stop that awkward moment from ever happening.

  Phase

  They ate with Molly and Dan and then teleported back to town.

  Before they parted, Melanie said, “I’m going out to Scott’s grave tomorrow morning if you’d like to join me?”

  Scott was Melanie’s first and only boyfriend and Jack’s best friend. He’d died during the first alien invasion.

  Jack shook his head. “I want to spend some time at home with my mom. Who knows how much time we have left, you know?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about that too. That’s probably why I decided to kiss you. I don’t want to die with any regrets.”

  He knew that was at least partly a lie, but he didn’t correct her. He decided against telling her that all he had left were regrets. It would depress her. He’d saved the world yet he felt empty inside. He thought he’d found a girlfriend in Melanie, but that was a lie he’d told himself. He’d lost his best friend just a month ago. He’d seen people killed on a massive scale and in some of the worst ways imaginable. The future was no longer uncertain and full of hope. Their end was written in stone and hope was for people who didn’t know any better.

  He mustered up a smile that he hoped looked genuine and he walked away, a little more somber than before.

  As he walked, he realized how much better off he’d be if his new empathic ability had never sprung forth. Sure, he’d be living a lie if he hooked up with Melanie, but ignorance was bliss.

  Before he made it up the path to his front door, he started to feel dizzy. He stopped in his tracks. He knew what was about to happen; he was about to phase out against his will. It had been happening to him lately. He’d start to feel funny and then he’d vanish and reappear somewhere else. His destination was always a surprise and rarely a welcome one.

  He was tired of it though. He wanted nothing more than to gain control of his abilities but they were too enormous for him to contain.

  He sighed as he felt his body vibrate, phasing in and out rapidly. He closed his eyes and waited. When he opened them again he prayed he’d be staring at his house still but he was in the damn desert again.

  For some reason, he nearly always ended up in the desert during the day, with the sun directly overhead. Maybe he was subconsciously punishing himself for the terrible things he’d done; his teleportation powers forcing him to suffer against his conscious will. Maybe this was a form of retribution or a way to burn the evil from his body. But he could think of about a million better ways to cleanse his soul.

  He looked around to be sure he was truly stranded. He saw no signs of life besides brown weeds and a single, distant tumbleweed. He plopped his butt down on a rock and scoured the ground for nearby snakes and scorpions. Even those jerks were too smart to be out in the middle of nowhere.

  He tried to teleport back home but he knew it was a futile effort. He had to wait for his powers to strengthen before they’d be of any use to him.

  In a way, he was glad he’d been dumped in the desert again because there were many alternatives that scared him half to death. What if he found himself on the moon, or in the corona of the sun? What if he ended up stuck hundreds of miles beneath the surface of the Earth, or in outer space? The only other place he’d been deposited against his will was the ocean and the desert sure beat the hell out of being stuck, treading water until his powers returned.

  He couldn’t help but wonder how it would end for him. Then again, that hardly mattered when the second wave arrived. He probably wouldn’t live long enough to see his powers get so far out of hand that they killed him.

  Super Soldiers

  Jack felt his strength return. He was burning up beneath the desert sun, his scalp was tight and his nose felt like it might fall right off. Because he healed quickly, the sunburn would settle into a tan as soon as he got out of the sun, and then fade away altogether within an hour.

  He teleported back home and his cell phone immediately vibrated. He reluctantly checked his messages. He had three and they were all from Smith. He sighed and returned the call.

  Smith picked up on the first ring. “We have contact in Nevada at Creech Air force base. How soon can you pick up the super soldiers and be there?”

  Jack wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed for awhile. It had been a long day, the heat from the desert had sapped all the life out of him, and he’d already fought those same Greys earlier in the morning. He felt like he deserved a break but he had to help if he could.

  “I’m heading to Cheyenne now. Sally and Hank can debrief me further when I get there.”

  He hung up. In a way he felt for the Greys because they were still trying to liberate their brethren even though they had all been executed earlier in the day. He wondered how they’d take the news. But then he remembered all the death and destruction they’d caused and he decided he was wasting his sympathy on them. They all deserved a fate worse than death for what they’d done to the Earth.

  He made his mind up that he was going to eliminate them if only so he’d stop having to chase them around.

  He focused on his stinking, sweaty body, and vanished.

  He arrived at the Wyoming Mountains in the same moment. Standing before him was Watson, Hank, and Sally, and they looked pissed.

  Hank sneered and said, “We’ve been waiting for over an hour for you. Were you too busy getting a pedicure or something?”

  Sally jumped in before he could respond. “He was probably too busy buying tampons to worry about us.”

  Watson said, “Shut the hell up, you two. Without Jack, both of you are almost completely worthless. You can’t get to Nevada in time to stop the Greys without him teleporting you there.”

  Hank muttered under his breath, “We’re pro
bably already too late.”

  Watson ignored him and said to Jack, “Where were you? Your handler said you’d gone off the grid.”

  Jack moved closer so that the super soldiers couldn’t hear him and whispered, “I phased out again against my will. I got stuck in the desert.”

  Watson nodded slowly. He’d seen Jack lose control once and vanish without warning so he knew he was telling the truth. “You actually do look like you’ve spent the past hour in a desert, son. Are you sure you’re up for this?”

  “I’m fine.” He looked over Watson’s shoulder to the other two and said, “Let’s get going.”

  They stepped forward and Jack grabbed each of them by the sleeve before teleporting to Nevada.

  Just like always, even though he’d never been to his destination before, he was able to find it almost psychically. He wished he could find the Grey ships in space in the same way, but he just couldn’t.

  Once they arrived in Nevada, Hank tried to free himself from Jack’s grasp but Sally stopped him. “We’re not there yet. He has to get close enough to feel where the action is.”

  Hank asked Jack, “You can do that?”

  “Yeah, it’s a newer ability.” Then he felt the anguishing despair of loss of life and fear of death and pinpointed its source before vanishing again.

  When they appeared, high up above the ground, all around them was chaos. Plumes of smoke dotted the landscape. Distant screams split the air. Laser fire and the sounds of explosive armaments were all around them.

  Jack looked at Hank. “Can you fly?”

  Hank guffawed. “No I can’t,” he said as he held onto Jack’s arm with a death grip.

  “Then I need to put you down so I can get to work.”

  Sally said to Hank as a reminder, “Remember what Watson said, don’t engage unless you’re sure no people will be hurt by your eruptions.”

  Jack put them down gently and then got into the thick of things. Sally rushed forward too. She’d been experimenting with hovering inside the protection of her force field. She’d erect it and then move the bubble around with her inside of it. She floated upwards slowly and then moved towards the fray. Hank crept forward cautiously; more afraid of what he might do than of what might be done to him.

  Stragglers

  The First Mate turned to Shaylo and said urgently, “Sir, I just received several signal pings from armored suits on the surface of the planet.”

  Shaylo cocked his head to the side. “Did the humans hack the armor open? I didn’t think they had the intelligence to do that.”

  “No. The biometrics driving them are ours. Our people from the first wave are still alive down there.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “I’ll open a visual.” She dialed in on the armored suit locations and zoomed in through the cloud layer. They were all clustered close together. There were several dozen suits in flight and they were battling humans.

  There were three humans there too, giving off unusual biological signatures that messed with the sensors. It took her a moment to realize that they were three of the four super humans she’d been keeping tabs on. How was that possible? She’d just checked on their locations and they were nowhere near the skirmish moments ago.

  Shaylo interpreted the readouts before she had a chance to explain them.

  He said, “Keep this screen up. I want to see what those humans are capable of.”

  “Should I send a detachment to assist our people?”

  “Nope. If those men perish fighting, then justice will be served for their failure.”

  “I understand.”

  A light flashed on her console. It was a distress call from below. She patched in and listened to it. A Captain had survived as a prisoner of the humans. She’d recently escaped with a small detachment of men and was fighting back. She was asking for reinforcements. The Captain rambled on about prisoners and super humans and bloody victory so much so that the First Mate had to disengage if only to save her sanity. The Captain had gone slightly mad during her captivity on the Earth.

  She thought about telling Shaylo about the distress call the Captain of the first wave had sent but she knew how he would respond to that. It would infuriate him and he would tell her to cut the link and let them all die like warriors.

  To avoid his ire she cut the link without mentioning it to him.

  Bloody Fight

  Jack used his teleportation power to separate a Grey’s body in half. He simply teleported one half away from the other half. He knew it was cruel, but it was the quickest, easiest way to take them out.

  He turned his attention to the next closest Grey and did the same thing. The upper torso fell slowly to meet the trunk Jack had already teleported to the ground.

  With that, the Greys finally noticed him and regrouped. The human ground troops took the opportunity to fall back to safety.

  Jack scanned the bodies that littered the ground. There were dozens of them and all but two were human. It had been a total bloodbath.

  He watched with an odd detachment as the Greys flew up to meet him. He knew he might die, but a part of him didn’t care much anymore. On rare occasions he found himself immune to fear and this was one such occasion.

  He noticed the taller spindly Grey wave its arms at the other Greys, giving them orders. Jack focused on that one and teleported it a mile to the west. Removing the leader would throw the others into disarray, he hoped. Then he vanished too, to join it. He barely knew what he was doing, but he just thought there had to be a better way to figure this out than to continue killing each other.

  Because he’d teleported it from a distance, it wasn’t exactly where he thought it would be. He had much better control when he was touching the object to be teleported so it didn’t surprise him to find his aim was way off.

  The armored Grey looked around bewildered as he flashed towards it across the ground. He held his hands up when it raised its laser rifle in his direction.

  It was about to squeeze the trigger when he was a foot away but Jack grabbed the barrel and lowered it forcefully.

  He spoke very slowly, hoping it would understand him. “Your people have all been executed because of what you’ve been doing. All the captives are already dead. There’s no one left to liberate.”

  The Grey stopped struggling to lift its rifle and then it took off its armored face shield. Jack couldn’t be sure, but something about the thing’s features suggested that it was a female.

  It held the head shield up to its mouth and pressed a button concealed on the inside. It spoke a guttural alien language into it. A moment later, the shield itself translated for it.

  It said, “I understand. But it changes nothing. Shaylo is coming and you’re all going to suffer.”

  Jack had heard the name before. Molly had dreamt of a monster named Shaylo who was coming to finish off the Earth.

  He nodded sadly. “Spread the word to your men. People are dying needlessly while you try to rescue the dead.”

  The Grey put its face shield back on and stood stock still, waiting for Jack to do something.

  He awkwardly said, “Oh yeah,” before grabbing its skinny arm and teleporting them both back to the base.

  Sally was crying, screaming, and slaughtering Greys from within her floating bubble. Even though she was protected by her force field, she’d somehow managed to get covered in copious amounts of their blood.

  Hank had already destroyed most of his own clothes from a previous blast. He let a burst of energy escape his body, knocking some of the Greys out of the sky, damaging the armor of some others.

  As soon as Jack reappeared, the other Greys turned their way and Hank and Sally took a breather. That was when the Grey leader took the opportunity to blast Jack point blank in the chest with her laser rifle. It was a total surprise and an unnecessary betrayal that shocked him.

  He felt the impact. It felt like his chest had been caved in. He started to feel wind on his face but it wasn’t the wind that
was moving; he was falling out of the sky and there was nothing he could do to stop it. He hit the ground with a thud, his vision flickering and his senses failing him.

  He heard Sally yell out and then he saw a blood spattered body part of a Grey hit the ground near where he lay. She was cutting them down for what they’d done to him.

  Hank ran to him and crouched down. “Are you alright, Jack?”

  He tried to respond but his mouth just opened and closed noiselessly, like a fish.

  Hank said, “I don’t know what you said to the leader, but it worked. They’re retreating.”

  Jack shook his head angrily. He knew his talk with the leader hadn’t had the desired effect. They would never stop killing people. Liberating their brethren was just a convenient excuse to slaughter human beings.

  He got to his feet but he collapsed right away. He got back up with Hank’s help and managed to say, “Don’t let them go. They’ll never stop trying to kill us.”

  Hank raised his eyebrows. “I can’t stop them from this far away.” He yelled to Sally, “Hey, stop them. Jack says we have to stop them.”

  Sally yelled back, “I can’t. They’re too fast for me to keep up and too far away for me to project a force field their way.”

  Jack said to Hank, “Hold me still. I’m going to try something.” Then he pivoted towards the rapidly diminishing Greys as Hank kept him steady on his feet.

  Sally floated to the ground inside her force field and joined them. She took Jack under the other arm and held him up on his feet.

  He focused on the retreating Grey forms. The pain in his chest lessened the harder he concentrated which made it much easier to focus since there was a physical payoff. His vision became crystal clear as it zoomed in on them.

  His anger at the needless betrayal fueled his resolve. And then he tried something he’d never done before. He took in each individual figure and concentrated on all of them as though they were one. He teleported them and his vision turned black. The last thing he saw was the Grey’s vanish from the skies.