Christmas Tales Part 4

Another christmas story I wrote and now you can shove into your eyeholes. Alan isn't on the internet but he looks like Cillian Murphy and lives in Chelmsford... pester him if possible.

Alan Powell

in

Stuff Blows Up!

As the remains of the tower rocked and swayed Alan crouched below the window clutching his M4. Every couple of seconds there would be another crash and a deep tremor would be sent through the building, pouring another handful of dust on to his girly face, less regularly but not infrequently entire sections of the ceiling would fall down, usually with a significant amount of the wreckage from the many floors above him. He risked another peak out of the window. There were still at least twenty of the alien tanks across the river, maintaining a steady bombardment of the human positions. Above the sky was an indecipherable mass of plasma and ordinance, below the river was nearly entirely hidden by the vast swathes of laser and tracer fire. He felt the impact before he heard it, a vast explosion ripped across the bridge turning the barricade and those who manned it into so much shrapnel. Within seconds the invaders had started to pour across.

Alan turned and ran across what remained of the offices he'd holed up in. The assorted wreckage made crossing the room no easy feat and on more than one occasion it was only good fortune that stopped him from being flattened. He reached the stairwell door and kicked it open, because that's how you're supposed to open doors when your holding an awesome gun and you have to take these opportunities when life presents them. He got only two steps through the door before he heard the door at the base of the staircase slam open followed by the horrifying snarl of one of the creatures. Alan stepped back from the door taking aim at the opening as he did so. The creatures were fast but not faster than bullets. He knew he'd only been standing there a few seconds but adrenalin had a strange way of turning time to treacle, he was sweating profusely, making him look exceptionally like Cillan Murphy in the movie 'Sunshine'. Suddenly the door was filled with the skeletal shape of one of the creatures and Alan had his finger on the trigger, the creature let out an ethereal shriek as the bullets ripped through it's dark skin. As the creature toppled backwards, Alan heard a series of satisfying clunks that indicated the creatures corpse had not descended the staircase elegantly. He lowered his gun and readjusted his stance. There was a loud creaking noise.

A second later Alan was falling through the floor, surrounded by wreckage and confusion. Seconds later he was slamming into the floor, below but something wasn't right about the angle and before he could stop himself he was sliding along the half collapsed floor towards a huge hole in the wall. Without thinking he reached for his belt and pulled loose one of equipment clips, he snapped onto an extruding piece of re-bar and found himself dangling out the side of the building still a good ten floors clear of the ground. He stopped for a moment in the relative safety. However the enemy had other ideas and seconds later several plasma shots slapped into the wall around him. Frantically Alan reached for his pack and pulled loose a length of rope, it was the work of a few seconds to get himself tethered of and he soon found himself repelling down the side of, what by now, could only charitably be described a building while enemy fire sizzled through the air around him. Fortunately the alien invaders were bad-guys and therefore missed constantly while still shooting close enough to maintain an air of tension.

Alan had descended to exactly the height that he'd be largely unharmed if his chord broke when a stray shot ripped through the chord. Alan fell the remaining distance only to land on a pile of rubble that left him miraculously unharmed. After a moment or two of dramatically groaning and holding on to injuries that would heal as soon as something interesting started to happen Alan pulled himself to his feet and pulled his gun to the ready position, as he looked up he saw he'd actually landed a level below the main roadway and that the vast mass of the enemy troops were swarming by overhead, heedless of his presence. Alan jogged under the roadway and found a set of stairs leading up.

Huddled behind a recent attempt to make the city look nice through the aggressive use of shrubs Alan surveyed the situation, the main mass of the troops, including the tanks and larger weaponry were still on the bridge but would be at his present location within a few minutes. Alan reached into the pockets on the straps of his pack to check his C4, two loads, remained, not enough to destroy the bridge. Alan glanced around under the main road way looking for something more explosive. Then he saw the car park.

It took no time at all to hot-wire the cars because it never does and by the time the main bulk of the enemy force where close to his position he'd parked up three cars around each of the pillars supporting this section of the roadway and had put a tiny amount of C4 on the gas tank of each car. He knew that the cars would explode but he wasn't sure of how big the explosion would be. Detonator in hand he retreated as far as he could without being seen from overhead and hoped that the vehicles didn't go full Michael Bay on him. He wouldn't be able to see when the tanks were in position but he could see the dust falling from the base of the roadway as they moved closer and closer. Finally when the dust was falling about six foot three past the makeshift demolition kits Alan clicked the switch. The explosion was huge but Alan was far enough away to not feel even the slightest shock-wave. He glanced out from behind his cover in time to see the supports start to twist and buckle, and then almost instantly the entire section of bridge came slamming into the ground bringing with it one the invaders tanks. It was reduced to a crippled mess by the force of the impact. As Alan looked at his handy work, he started to hear a faint whining sound, it was difficult to place at first but then he realised it was the sound of hugely advanced technology makes just before it explodes.

“That's not a good sound...” Alan said before turning on his heel and running as fast as he could from the remains of the tank. As he ran everything seemed to go into slow motion, that's when he knew he was in trouble. Then the tank exploded, unleashing and unholy sea of blue fire that chased Alan down the street like an small explosion would chase a man down a corridor in a lamer story. As he ran he couldn't help but feel he was going to make it to safety, if he could just make it to the inlet up ahead and dive, dramatically, through the air and into the water just after the explosion engulfed him. When he got close enough to the inlet he dove dramatically through the air and was engulfed by the explosion... moments later he slammed into the water.

A few moments later Alan pulled himself out of the the water on the other side of the inlet to find himself face to face with one of the creatures. As he looked up at he reached for his gun but the creature kicked the gun to one side. It then decided to utterly ignore the vast array of highly advanced weaponry it had at it's disposal and grabbed Alan by the neck and lifted him up in the air. No-one knows why vastly powerful alien warriors do this, it must be included in basic training for some reason. As he held Alan in the air with his legs flailing, it tilted it's head from side to side to examine his face almost as if he was studying him, which, again, is really weird when you think about it because there's no way you launch a full-scale interplanetary invasion without gathering a lot of intel about, and briefing your troops on, what the enemy looks like. Alan consulted his own training and tried to decide which of the standard “I'm about to kill an alien” lines to use as he reached for his combat knife.

“Stay away from her you bitch!” He shouted as he rammed the knife into the creatures face. The creatures grip loosened as life oozed from the gash in its face. Alan stopped for a moment to catch his breath and was shot in the face by a sniper.

***

“Fuck!” The control pad shattered into pieces as it slammed into the wall leaving Alan slouched bereft on the sofa covered in a fine dusting of cheesy snacks. He reached for his beer and drank the dregs that remained still consumed by frustration. “Vik!” He shouted.

“Yeah!” She called back from the kitchen.

“I'm going to buy another controller, do you need anything from the shops?”