Ted couldn’t believe such a thing had happened without him knowing—a massive battle involving thousands of people. The world was a different place without daily news, phones, or internet. Used to be a shot fired in Glasgow echoed in London thirty-seconds later. Now the world could explode, and you’d have no way of knowing until you were staring into the blast wave. It reminded Ted of those Japanese snipers still guarding their rural outposts years after the war had ended. He’d always assumed those types of stories were urban legends, but now he could see how easily they could become a reality.
“I had no idea,” Ted admitted. “I thought the fight was over before it got started. Most of our forces were abroad, I assumed.”
Hannah nodded. “A majority, but not all. There were soldiers on leave, reserves, and the token forces left to provide security on our stockpiles and camps. We had police officers with us too. Not a massive army, but enough to make a go of things—or so we thought.
At first, things went well. We found the dees gathered near one of their gates in Nottingham, like they were trying to assemble an army of their own or something. We rolled in our tanks and sent them into a panic, blasting them to pieces with flechette rounds and anti-personnel rockets. Then our two choppers battered them with Hellfires while our planes surveyed the area. It looked like a sure thing. We moved in our troops to clean up, tearing the dees apart with small arms fire. We must have dropped a thousand in less than an hour. Hit ‘em harder than anything’s ever been hit.”
“So what happened?” Ted couldn’t see how this tale could turn bloody.
“It was a trap.” Her jaw tightened, upper lip curling. “The dees we found were just cannon fodder to draw us in. We had pushed through into a cramped industrial estate, full of long factory buildings and chain-link fencing. We assumed it was an enemy base camp, but really, it was a container for our army. The tanks got wedged in alleyways, and our troops bunched together so much that the choppers couldn’t recognise us from them. The second wave of dees came from behind, spilling out of a supermarket depot at the front of the estate. A thousand of ‘em right at our backs. We opened fire, but we were so squashed together that we shot as many of our own as we did the dees. A few hundred of us retreated to a car lot, taking cover behind the vehicles and trying to build a barrier between us and them. But there was no chance of us coming out of that fight alive. The dees were everywhere, and we were running low on ammo. We held out for a whole day, but when I saw the enemy general coming, I knew our time was up.”
“The demons have generals?” Ted had assumed they were more swarming wasps than organised invasion force. It was their sheer, mindless ferocity that had given them such swift victory.
Hannah nodded, her eyes haunted by the things she was sharing. “We never found out fully, but the demons have some sort of hierarchy. You saw the videos of the giants, right?”
Ted nodded. The massive beings stomping around London on the news had been one of the last things he’d witnessed before the broadcasts ceased. It hadn’t seemed real then, and hearing about it now didn’t completely register either. Giants? Bollocks, surely?
Hannah continued. “The giants are at the top of the demon food chain, but there are other leaders too. The one that turned up that day to finish us wasn’t a giant compared to the ones in London, but it was eight feet tall at least, and more skeleton than it was man. If I ever doubted the dees came straight from Hell, this creature confirmed it for me. Watching it approach put a fear in me I thought would stop my heart.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and sniffed. “I ran. Made it out through a back door and hopped a fence. There were dees everywhere, but somehow, they didn’t spot me, too focused on their leader coming down the hill. They aren’t just monsters, you know? They had respect for this thing. It was like they were standing at attention or something.”
Ted commented on another part of the story. “You made it out of there in one piece though? What about the others with you? You said there were hundreds.”
Hannah swallowed and looked away, glancing towards the trees. She gave no answer to the question, which left Ted picturing her running away while her colleagues stayed to fight. Did that make her a coward, or just smart? If she hadn’t run, she would have just died with everybody else. And the dead didn’t care about loyalty or courage. In the grand scheme of things, it probably didn’t matter. If you counted the death toll in the United Kingdom alone, you were looking at tens of millions. A couple hundred soldiers was insignificant when you thought of it that way.
With no more words spoken, they carried on along the road in silence. Hannah bowed her head solemnly like she hoped Ted might offer words of advice or solace. That wasn’t his duty. Let the soldier make peace with herself.
The road widened ahead, with a listing burger van parked in a lay-by off to the left. Ted was parched from the walk, and the near-death experience he had just had at the hands of the demons—or dees, apparently, in military speak—so he quickened his pace and made a beeline for the van.
“Don’t be so hasty,” warned Hannah.
“It’s a burger van, not an unexploded bomb. How have you been surviving?”
“Hunting mostly. I took down a deer a few days ago and camped out by a stream. Learnt a bit
