to the ‘things going awry’ category.
“J-5 Delta, requesting immediate heavy assistance.”
“Juliet Command to five-Delta, what is the nature-”
“Those damn statue things! Jesus, small arms barely chipping them!”
She radioed, “Boss here, J-5 Delta report your position.”
“Most of my K9s are dead and we’ve-”
“REPORT your position, J-5 Delta.”
“We, um-shit, look out! Back in the house! Get inside! Um, J-5 Delta here, we’re hiding out in this museum house or some old shit, on Market Street, ah, on the corner with Third. Need heavies-”
A loud crash cut off the transmission.
Nina patted the driver on his black baseball cap and pointed forward. He did not need further instruction, the Humvee surged south at a fast pace, slowing only to swerve around toppled cars and fallen shade trees.
“Juliet One,” Nina radioed, “send your K9s south to Third and Market.”
A sound of chewing gum garbled the, “Roger that,” reply.
The Humvee turned hard left on to Market Street and raced east. Pops of gunfire and the clap of a grenade explosion helped direct them to the battle. Nina ignored a ball of eel-things sliding out from an old nightclub as well as a big hairy ‘Type A’ Sloth eating tree leaves outside a bank building as they hurried to help the endangered Hunter-Killer team.
Smoke from skidding tires erupted from the front of the vehicle and Nina nearly fell over forward as the driver brought them to a sudden stop.
Big, muddy tracks led across Market Street, over a pulverized white picket fence, and between the cracked and broken remains of a pair of trees creating an easy-to-follow trail on to the rear grounds of a Colonial-era homestead.
Three fifteen-foot tall giants attacked the rear of that home, swinging swords in slow but powerful strikes. To Nina’s eye, the attackers resembled Roman Legionnaires or a similar warrior from the ancient past. However, these warriors were made entirely of stone, like statues come to life.
Nina, the driver, and the navigator jumped from the car.
“One each,” Nina said as she slid crates from the Humvee’s open-air cargo hold. “Don’t waste them; you’ve got one shot and these things are like gold these days.”
CRASH. A nice chunk of the museum fell. Dogs barked. Bullets ricocheted off the Stone Soldiers as the HK team hiding in the house tried in vain to wound their assailants.
Nina raised her radio and transmitted, “J-5 Delta, get your heads down. We’re hitting these things with AT4s in about three seconds.”
She did not wait for a reply. She could not be sure the handlers even heard her orders but it did not matter; they needed to destroy the Stone Soldiers with the anti-tank rockets or the monsters would kill every human and dog in the museum.
One by one, the rescuers opened the crates holding forty-inch long tubes decorated with all manner of warning labels. Nina and the two men grabbed one each and followed the giant, muddy footsteps into the backyard and over flattened hedgerows as well as the equally flattened bodies of three Rottweilers.
They passed a historical plaque detailing Lord Cornwallis’ stay at the home during the Revolutionary War and stopped thirty feet behind the walking statues that systematically tore apart the outer wall of the museum, exposing the rooms inside and making it resemble a child’s open dollhouse.
Nina saw movement among the collapsed walls. She heard shouts; she heard barks. At least some of J-5 Delta remained, but they would not last much longer.
“Clear behind!” She yelled and then fired with the weapon propped on her shoulder.
While a smoky fire ejected from the back end, a deadly projectile shot forward, aimed only by her eye but aimed well nonetheless. The missile hit one of the Stone Soldiers in its block-shaped ass, sending chunks of rock everywhere. The creature-with no apparent innards other than chalky rock-collapsed into a pile of gravel.
The driver and the navigator fired in succession, each of their shots hit true turning those targets into similar piles.
Nina dropped the now-useless tube and fell to a knee with both hands on her ears. The vibration and the roar disorientated her senses and made her body feel like quivering Jell-O for several seconds. The driver stumbled around and the navigator hunched over with hands on his knees.
As the trio of rescuers regained their composure, a pair of black-clad Hunter-Killer handlers stumbled from the ruins of the museum as well as a bunch of German shepherds and Rottweilers.
“I hate things like that,” Nina’s driver said as he wiggled a finger in his ear to clear away the ringing bell.
“Things like what?” The navigator asked.
“They don’t serve no purpose, it’s not like they’re animals,” the driver answered as he took to stretching his mouth in a series of yawns in another attempt to clear the ringing. “The Sloths and the Stumphides…they’re just animals. But things like those statues, they don’t eat, they don’t shit, they just walk around trying to clobber us.”
Nina added her two cents: “I guess all monsters aren’t created equal.”
The rescued HK squad offered their thanks but a radio call interrupted.
“Overwatch to Boss, you copy?”
Nina unclipped the walkie-talkie from her belt.
“Boss here, go ahead, Overwatch.”
“You know that Stumphide you were looking for…”
…Islands of grass and trees separated the east and west bound lanes of Market Street as it ran spine-like through Wilmington.
A Stumphide straddled one of those islands as it moved along in search of unlucky prey.
The “Stump” came from four legs as thick as trees capable of pulverizing a car-let alone a man-into a pile of scrap. The “Hide” referred to the thick, green leathery skin stretched over a cylinder shaped body.
Two yellow eyes sat menacingly above a crescent maw filled by sharp teeth with wiry fir atop a football- shaped skull. Making matters worse, a dozen short tendrils sprouted from what might be its ‘cheeks’ to grasp prey.
Judging by the tub of fat dangling from this one’s belly, it had enjoyed thinning the heard of Sloths infesting Wilmington.
Nina stood fifty yards from the big monster, watching and waiting for the thing to take notice of her. The creature grabbed a rusting motorcycle with its tendrils, crunched down on the chrome, decided it did not like the taste, and threw the bike aside. At that moment, its yellow eyes looked ahead and saw.
Flanking Nina stood a wall of K9s staring and panting.
The monster and the dog army eyed one another like gunfighters in the old west waiting to draw.
Nina heard the Rottweilers, Dobermans, and Shepherds growl and snarl, their paws scraping the pavement in an anticipation held in check only by the invisible fence of their obedience; waiting for the command.
She gave it.
“Swarm.”
The army of canines ran at full gallop toward the hideous creature capable of splattering any single one of the dogs with a step. Their paws clattered off the pavement as they rolled forward like a flood of claws and fangs. No hesitation. No fear. Nothing other than the desire to follow the master’s command to kill.
They smashed into the Stumphide, first a dozen snouts grabbing and biting, then twenty, then thirty, then more.
It stomped its legs and grabbed with its tendrils, throwing dogs off like rag dolls, their bodies crashed into buildings, the sidewalk, fences, and abandoned cars.
Nevertheless, the dogs charged.
That hideous mouth swallowed a Shepherd whole.
Yet the K9s did not falter.
Its short tendrils strangled a Rottweiler while its massive feet crushed two more.
The Grenadiers concentrated on the tree-trunk-like legs, tearing at them until the flesh cracked and
