"Dai Klavven" is my Nanowrimo story from 2014. At the end of last year, I took it out and dusted it off. Then I started crowd-sourcing crits via the great folks at wewriwa.com and at Snippet Sunday on facebook.
A compilation of Weekend Writing Warriors postings of
Dai Klavven:
Chapter 1
Blue light corkscrewed above Lily. A sound like a giant piece of paper tearing
sliced through the air over her head, the only warning of their helix weapon
discharge. A split second later, the old sandstone
foundation behind her exploded. Bits of rubble
pelted her in her forward position, but the collapsing stone wall in the
rear buried the few
remaining fighters in her group.
She
blinked, grasping for bearings. Around her, the lack of sound matched the lack
of movement. No cries, no moans, just dust mingling with smoke in the hot breeze. More
humans forever silenced. She was it--the last defense before the bunker
sheltering a dozen children and the two old women caring for them was attacked.
She lay motionless, watching them advance through piles of collapsed yesterday, crumbled yesteryear. Seemingly fearless
and walking tall, they suddenly halted, then raised their arms in what looked like a salute. They faced an approaching
alien, it's armor so blue it looked black.
Her heart pounded and her mind raced. Could she be that lucky--had
they just given away rank? A
startling and sickening discovery followed; seven-foot-something of blue-black
evil spoke in stilted Earth English. How long had they been
watching us before the invasion? Another round sliced through the air above her.
Blue-black shouted, “Stop weapons. We need live ones.”
It was too late for that. Assholes. They were dead, all but her and the group of
innocent, terrified children. Crunching
footsteps closed in; she had no choice.
Her hands, bloody and broken, fumbled with a clip on her belt, finally striking pay dirt. She pulled out
the object and raised it to her mouth. Spitting the pin from her teeth, she
stood and screamed at the stunned creatures, “You want a live one? If you live
through it, come and get me, you murdering bastards!”
Locking eyes with indigo hatred, she lobbed the grenade at
him then fled-- leading them away from the bunker. The explosion nearly knocked her
off her feet. She stumbled, but found her balance and kept running.
Moving at a good clip, she jumped over and around shattered
remains, vestiges of buildings, trees, humans. Even with her focus on evade and
escape, the carnage registered in freeze-frames—what the end of the world must
look like.
A glance over her shoulder was motivation to give it her all. They’d
taken the bait and were running after her. They should have sounded like a stampeding herd of wildebeests,
but their pursuit was nearly silent. Her quick estimate was that at least a dozen of the ruthless killers were on her heels and they were gaining.
As she ran, her words came out in nearly soundless prayer. "Please dear
God, let the rest of them be dead, not behind me searching
through
the rubble for survivors--or for hidden bunkers full of kids."
A patch of green woods beckoned just
beyond the battlefield. Battlefield? For God’s sake, it was
the parking lot for Buzzy Bill’s Superfoods. Well, where Buzzy’s used to
be.
She raced to the cover of the wooded ravine, then stumbled down the steep
slope. Slogging through ankle deep muck at the bottom, and clawing her
way up the other side felt like it took forever. Her muscles burned,
but she pushed on through thick brush and brambles. After clearing the worst of it, she stopped
and leaned forward placing her hands on her knees, and tried to catch her breath.
Desperate
for air, her body nearly rebelled when she stopped breathing long
enough to listen. They were already slopping through the mud in the
ravine behind her.
Breaking
into open sunshine—and in
plain sight of any alien scum patrolling the area, she pushed
herself to run faster. Empty swings made an eerie squeak as she
sprinted past, sending pin-prickles down her spine. The wind gusted,
pushing the chains harder.
Lily’s heart lurched when movement caught her
eye; black and white fur appeared. She made little more than a hoarse
sound when she tried to call, “Jobe, come puppy—time to get out of sight.”
The Border Collie raced to her, his head
dropped low and his tail half-tucked. Even the dog knew the world was being
turned upside down.
As they ran, Lilly kept thinking--one
street over and she’d be on her block. One street over and she’d have a cubbyhole to hide in. One street over and
she’d be in what was left of her home, of her whole world.
Jobo stayed beside her, mere inches
separating them. She turned the corner at the end of her street and dared a
glance over her shoulder. Nothing.
She knew better. No one had said it, but she guessed that these aliens had
better noses than Jobe did. She might not see them, but they were on her trail.
The
splintered and broken walls of her
house sagged where the collapsed roof pushed at odd angles against
them. Crouching, she worked her way into what was left of the utility
room,
quietly coaxing the dog to stay close. The ironing board pressed
against the front of
the washer, its long metal legs bent every which way, forcing her to
squeeze past it. Panic simmered just under the surface now that
she was this close to her hiding spot.
She sucked in her breath and shimmied
through the opening where the crimped furnace stood. Then, back behind it where
the old hot water tank had been, she pulled aside a small section of false wall
Damen installed to hide the empty and mostly inaccessible space. She grabbed
Jobe’s collar. Tucking him in next to her, she squeezed inside then put the
wall back into place. And she waited.
Passing time was a haze. Slow, fast, it
was nothing she could tell with any certainty. She and
Jobe fell asleep against each other, and then she was awakened by noise next to the
house. They were sniffing, probably trying to find her by scent. Jobe’s ears pricked up and he cocked his
head, but she immediately gave him the signal for silence.
Night
fell; she knew from the lack of
light peeking through cracks in the false wall. And then she heard them
start
to sing. It wasn’t a big group, not many individual voices keening in
the dark, but it was a good sign that they were done for the night.
The
last six weeks--since
the alien invasion started, had been telling for the invaders' behavior
patterns. Hunt through the day, sing just after sundown, and then settle
for
the night. Any time after sunrise was a sure bet they were up and on the hunt
again, though. So she felt relatively safe when she slid the wall aside and started to crawl out.
Jobe growled. It was deep in his throat, a low rumble. She tried to signal him to be silent, but it was too late.
She’d
barely poked her head through the
opening in the wall when a ruckus set her heart pounding.
There was no time to react. Something grabbed her hair and dragged her
out of the cubbyhole. Anger overrode fear. “Let go of me!” Jobe
yelped behind her.
Bright
light shining in her eyes all but blinded her, and pain took away any
kind of reason. Unnerving laughter broke
out all around, deep, throaty chortles punctuated with teeth clicking.
The light flickered across her captor's face, enough that she could see
it was the blue-black alien who was holding her off the ground by her
hair. All that was left
was for him to gut her like a rabbit and toss her aside.
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see
Jobe, held by his neck, his legs kicking –desperately seeking solid footing.
Lily’s reached up and grasped the arms holding her by her hair,
taking some of her weight. It was almost
impossible to make a sound, but shear rage drove her to rasp out,
“Put him down, you son of a bitch.”
His eyes narrowed and the corners of
his over-sized mouth turned up, making him look like a clown, an evil one. His laughter was punctuated by more teeth-clicking.
She inhaled hard through her nose, cleared her throat, then spat her mouthful of saliva and snot in his face. He dropped her.
Landing on her feet, she
reached out and grabbed Jobe. The gut-punch she got for her effort nearly doubled her over, but Jobe was free
from his captor. She held his collar while she drooled bloody spit and tried to
breath.
Copyright 2016 by Teresa K Cypher
No part of this may be copied or reproduced in any way without explicit, written permission of the Copyright holder.
