I was awakened to a loud rumbling that trembles the table. I opened my eyes to see a bright surrounding around me that showed me a clear view of the whole dining room and the kitchen.
When I looked at my watch, it showed me the current time 07.30 a.m. and date December 30th 2032. It was already morning.
I looked again to see Jonathan and Ryan, both of whom already awake and were preparing to move to the Catholic Church. Jonathan was watching outside through a window nearby and Ryan was checking the contents of his medical kit pouch.
"Morning, Travis." said Ryan with a smile while stuffing his medical kit pouch with a pair of full small water bottles.
Apparently, he was already awakened earlier and decided to fill the empty water bottles full to take with us. I walked up to him and gave him the flashlight that I borrowed before, to which he said that I should keep it with me for a while. I nodded to him, and looked at Jonathan who seemed to be scouting the road that we had to take to the church.
"I believe that last night it was not snowing, was it?" he said.
"No." I responded as I shook my head, still confused with the reason he asked.
"Then, I guess we had to proceed along with this fog…" he continued, gesturing his head towards outside through the window.
As he finished his sentence, I walked fast towards the window to see what was going on, and just like he said, the street outside was engulfed in heavy fog.
"But… the church is not too far from here, right?" asked Ryan.
"It is around ten minutes of walking from here, if this fog is not of a problem to us." Jonathan replied.
It was indeed strange, as usually even though a fog is to occur in the winter, it would not be as dense as the one we were seeing. What was more was that the current winter was not as cold as it was compared to the winters in the past few years, as a denser fog is usually accompanied by a colder temperature.
Nevertheless, due to the fog, we had to walk to the church with caution as fog in winter may tend to freeze on the road surfaces and therefore, making it slick. All three of us headed back to the locker room where we came in from, and exit through the window to the street outside.
As I stepped my feet outside, I felt an immediate immense cold running through my body as if I was being watered down by an almost below freezing point temperature water, and I immediately knew it must be caused by none other than the dense fog that enveloped the whole area. The ground where I stepped was also very slick, unlike the night before.
"You guys feel that?" asked Ryan.
"Extremely." Jonathan responded while standing on guard with his fire axe.
We then proceeded along with a slow and cautious pace towards the intersection just ahead of us, and headed to the lines of house ruins next to the intersection. It was not long before we started to hear a deep unrecognizable rumbling noise again. It was similar to the flying noise that I heard the day from inside the military base barracks, only this time the noise was lighter. As the noise was getting more vivid, we decided to hide for the time being.
"Heads down!" Jonathan said lightly.
I rushed for the shallow wide hole that was formed right in front of me and hid there, as Ryan laid down behind a pile of bricks behind me, and Jonathan crouched behind a brick wall belonging to a house ruin before that was still standing on my left side.
The noise was getting more vivid, until I began to feel the ground was also vibrating, and looked at Jonathan who seemed to have his eyes locked on something above the direction of my right side. It was when I finally saw the source of the sound, an oval-shaped flying tusked object hovering very close to our position.
If I were to describe the flying object, it reminded me of a narwhal with about 60 feet in length, without any fins, tail, and with a shorter tusk. Although it was quite hard to see through the dense fog, I could see the pitch black overall color of the flying object. Even though there was still quite some distance between the object, it had to be flying quite close enough to the ground resulting a mild quake along it.
The quake, however did not seem to subside, and instead it was getting more severe. I also noticed that the flying object seemed to get closer to the ground, suggesting that it might in fact be trying to land nearby. Jonathan gestured to move away quickly from our position towards the partially destroyed house with a big garden across the T-junction on our left side.
As we rushed to the designated location, another obstacle befell upon us. The road was so slick that when Jonathan rushed in front of us, he slipped and fell down to the road, sliding uncontrollably. It happened so fast that I had no time to slow my pace down in order to avoid the same incident, and so I also slipped and slid quite far away from him. What was worse was my glasses also fell down and slid further away from me. Fortunately, Ryan managed to get across without the same incident.
He immediately took up my glasses right after he made it across and helped me and Jonathan got up.
"Thanks." I said as I took my glasses and put it on with me again.
"Yeah, come on." he responded.
It only took us several steps before finally stepped inside the garden. At first, we were to get inside the house, but then I spotted what seemed to be an entrance to a basement at one corner of the garden. It was then that I suggested to Jonathan and Ryan that we hid in the basement instead.
"Hey, you see that door? Should we get inside there instead?" I asked as I run towards a large hole in the house wall.
"Better there, than this destroyed house I guess." Jonathan responded as he turned to the basement door instead, with me and Ryan following him.
We entered through the narrow basement door one by one, but with a quick pace, going down the wooden stairs, and finally got to see the interior of the basement.
I guess I should not expect a basement to be wide in the first place, if the door itself is rather narrow. If I was to estimate the area of the basement, it would not be more than around 16 feet by 13 feet.
The height of the basement is also quite low, probably only around 8 feet from the ceiling to the ground. Aside from that, there was also a small space under the stairs.
A small light bulb was installed at the center of the ceiling, and alongside one of the walls, was a shelf storing hand shovels and rusty claw hammer. Next to the shelf, was an old but seemingly still working boiler. A three-pronged long garden fork was also rested on the wall at the opposite side of the shelf, which was rather still in a good condition.
Jonathan also saw the garden fork, and he took it as he said that it might be useful after all, before handing the fire ax that he was previously equipped with to me. He also turned to the old boiler, and turning it on.
"Are you thinking of something?" I asked spontaneously.
"Maybe. At least I am going to find out whether or not this may prove to be a good emergency alternative." Jonathan responded.
Ryan, as confused as I was to what Jonathan was doing, suddenly got our attention stolen by a loud and heavy thudding sound, except for Jonathan who either was expecting a similar brief event to occur, or was too focused on turning the boiler on. The thudding sound kept on getting louder and nearer, with every each thud seemed to have fewer intervals when Jonathan finally approached us again.
"Travis, on my mark, use your fire ax to break the pressure relief valve." he said.
"Are you planning to blow the boiler? I responded to make sure.
"Hopefully, when whatever that thing is that is coming after us get inside here, and not before we somehow managed to get out first." he said while standing on guard with the garden fork pointed towards the door.
Apparently, Jonathan might already be starting to plan on creating a diversion right after he saw that there was a boiler present inside the basement. However, it took him a little while to decide since if he was also the one to break the boiler pressure relief valve, then we would all have nothing to defend ourselves with should another alien found the basement and suddenly came in and found us.
That was why he immediately rushed to the boiler right after he saw the garden fork. The thudding sound also seemed to be a supporting factor for him to decide since if it was indeed an alien coming down to the basement, the explosion from the blow might at least injure it.
"Ryan, you better hide under the stairs first. And stay on guard with your knife." I said to Ryan as he immediately rushed there and crouched before equipping his folding knife.
"Now." Jonathan said
I swung the ax towards the valve 3 times, as the thudding sound kept on getting louder and nearer.
After the third swing, I was starting to hear a hissing sound. Just then, Jonathan grabbed me by my right arm backwards towards under the stairs.
"What about the pressure?" Ryan asked with a soft voice.
"Maximum." Jonathan responded as he gestured to be quiet with his right hand.
Just as he finished talking, the hissing sound from the boiler was getting louder. At almost the same time, we could all felt a presence of a large creature right above us. I looked up very slowly, and saw a shadow coming towards the stairs. It kept getting nearer, until it stepped the wooden stairs, resulting a loud creaking noise.
It slowly went down the stairs until it finally reached the basement ground. Based from what I could see, the alien was taller than the height of the basement since it slightly bent itself and was not standing straight, which led me to assume that this alien was most likely the same kind as the one I previously encountered in the sewers.
The alien did not seem to notice the boiler noise at first, as it stood still for a little while when it had completely entered the basement. That was, until the boiler suddenly gave out a couple of loud cracking noise, which put all of us surprised. The alien also had its attention suddenly pointed towards the boiler and approached it slowly.
During that time, Jonathan gestured us both to get out first, to which I let Ryan to get out before me. Just then, another rumbling sound was heard together with a more violent quake on the ground, suggesting that the black flying object from before landed not far from us. However, it was also because of the noise and quake that the alien changed its attention towards the direction of the door, and ended up knowing our presence.
"Ryan! Get out, quick!" screamed Jonathan as he faced the alien who was aiming its beam rifle towards Ryan.
Right after that, Jonathan swung his garden fork towards the rifle, hitting it, and making the alien miss its beam shot. The shot still hit the stairs however, which made a hole about half the size of the stairs. Fortunately, Ryan was unharmed.
Jonathan swung his garden fork again, and this time the hit made the alien dropped its rifle to the ground. It was also after the second hit too, that it retaliated by kicking Jonathan hard enough to push him to the wall behind him. It then turned its attention to me, and attempted to plummet me using its mace-like left hand.
It swung its mace hand towards me, and I evaded it by rolling towards my left side. The moment gave an opening for Jonathan to successfully stab it on its torso area, pushing it backwards for a few steps before he kicked the alien down hard right in front of the boiler.
As the alien fell down, both me and Jonathan rushed towards the door and ran as fast as our lungs could away from the house. The next thing we knew, was that a very loud explosion could be heard from behind us. None of us could bring ourselves to look at the direction behind.
"Do not look back! Just keep running!" I yelled, spontaneously.
Sure enough, the explosion was immediately followed by various loud noises in the air. Those noises would most likely came from many flying objects rushing to the scene. The next thing that I realize was that we could not keep on running in the open since the other aliens would get a clear shot of us.
"There! We can already see the church!" said Ryan as he pointed the direction of our destination at our left side.
The church was only 2 buildings away from us, and we were just under the second building, when suddenly when we heard and felt a very loud noise and heavy quake, followed by the emerging of the black flying object from earlier, and hovering slowly passing us while spewing what seemed to be a white smoke from a hole right underneath it.
It was at this time that we realized the dense fog that covered the whole area was in fact some sort of white smoke spewed out by the aliens' aircraft. If it was not for Ryan who suddenly stopped his steps and stood still perhaps due to his surprise, I might not realized it immediately. I rushed to him and pat him to get on his feet again as the church was already very near to us.
When we finally arrived at the church, I felt like I was almost out of breath. I took a peek towards Ryan and Jonathan, and saw they too were fatigued as well.
"Let us try the back entrance instead of the main one." I said as I was still running towards my suggested destination.
We were all panting heavily as we reached the back entrance, and opened it slowly to enter the church. I felt a slight feeling of relieve as we enter the church, and the thought of successfully found another place to shelter into put my mind at ease for a bit. Once we all entered the church, we were all saved for the time being. Or so it would seem…