Meteor Soldiers - Episode 1-3

Corey lay bedridden, pretending to sleep. In the dull light, it would be hard to tell he wasn’t. Though he tried slowing his breathing, it still sounded of a broken soldier’s rasps. And rightly so; his fear churned into hatred as the monster’s presence passed his room. Peering through slitted eyes, he saw the hunchbacked being lumber past the barely-opened door. He was practically safe - and his Swiss army knife was within arm’s length. Cunningly, bravely, he could end that fiend’s life in seconds. He didn’t care what it was, or about any other mystery pulsating in his head. He could end things now. Play the hero.

            But something held him back. Every potential flaw of what should have been an impulsive action became visible at once. Somehow, he thought ‘Now isn’t the time’. Perhaps it was cowardice, but it was so disguised that he was spared any shame. So he lay still as the footsteps faded and the minutes vanished.

          Once enough time had been wasted, he let reality bite him. His best friend was dead. Seemingly, Dave had uncovered a secret about the army base. But all that mattered was that he was gone forever. Never again would he laugh at the word ‘Woodpecker’, or refer to a musical coda as a ‘Cumshot’. Never again would he steal a girl’s camera phone, photograph his sack, save it as the wallpaper and sneak it back into their schoolbag. Corey crept to the door, gathering his bag first. Time to leave this hell.

            Bursts of moonlight from the barred windows illuminated the hallway just enough to guide him. The creature had lurked off to the left, and to the right... He stepped tensely towards Dave’s body, which lay uncomfortably against the wall. His face was a blank page, and his legs had locked before he fell, holding him awkwardly upwards even when dead. He had died the way he lived: inappropriately erect.

           A first tear was ready to break from Corey’s eye when he felt someone swiftly approach from behind. He spun clockwise with a full-forced backhand, which was blocked by a raised arm - thankfully so, for he almost hit innocent classmate Burt Taylor.

            “Whoa, it’s just me. Who’s that on the...”

            “It’s Dave,” said Corey, quickly emptying his voice of feelings.

            “Damn... You saw what did this?”

            Corey nodded. The fact that Burt said ‘what did this’ instead of ‘who’ indicated he’d seen the monster too. He sounded wise to the incident, which was comforting in this chaotic instant.

            “Listen, we gotta get out of here,” said Burt. “I got a glimpse of that creature and it’s freaking horrific. It looks like the cast of Sex and the City without their masks on.” He paused to breathe, lowering his tone. “There’s something else. This whole place is suss. The sergeant, the routines.... Nothing sits right.”

            “Really?”

            “Definitely. I feel like something’s hiding around every corner, waiting to feast on my liver. And since coming to this base, that feeling’s only intensified.”

            Though Corey hadn’t noticed anything else wrong with the place, Burt’s short army haircut suggested he’d been here for weeks longer. Worry was evident in the guy’s pear-shaped face as his cheeks wobbled with exclamation. Burt may have been big, but you never had to dig deep to see what he was feeling. In a time of crisis, that was even more so.

            “So what’ll we do?” Corey asked.

            “The guards at the entrance change shifts in ten minutes. That should give us a fleeting chance to escape. Then, by staying off the road we should go undetected til morning. Grab your stuff and be ready to run.”

---

The shorter of the two guards clutched his gut with laughter as the taller guard recited his anecdote.

            “I swear to God, it was all over the table! Us guys were just totally wasted, and the barkeeper looked like he was gonna kill us!”

            “Bet you’ll never perform another abortion,” said the other guard between chuckles. He checked his watch. “Well, let’s go. I'm sleepy. And grumpy. And at least three other dwarves.”

            They strutted from their post with rifles slung over shoulders. Corey waited until they were out of site, then he and Burt emerged from behind a demountable. They then sprinted wordlessly between the large concrete pylons of the front gate; the only gap in the kilometres of barbed wire.

            Between the base and the impenetrable wall of gumtrees, a dirt road stretched in both directions. The pair darted left, opposite to where the guards had headed. Though running full pelt, Corey tried to gallop with ballerina toes to reduce noise. Burt, however, contradicted this with his heaviness and lack of grace. He looked like a cup-and-ball toy in action, with a giant flabby beanbag in place of a ball. Corey slowed his pace out of loyalty to match Burt’s, though it probably wouldn’t have mattered. There was an air of calmness, like they were already safe. They slowed their pace.

            “Monsters or not,” Burt panted, “I’ll be glad to ditch those drill sessions. Having the same lines screamed at me over and over - It was like watching a Fatman Scoop video.”

            “Hey! Stop!” came the voice of the shorter guard from behind.

            Corey’s adrenaline spiked, and the fear of death returned. He and Burt quickened their pace along the dirt road.

            “I said halt!” yelled the guard. “Run twenty or thirty more metres and I’ll be forced to fire a warning shot into the air!”

            It’s no use, thought Corey. We can’t run forever.

            Something roared out of the bushes and onto the road behind them. By the time Corey realised it was a van, it had come to a stop. Two shades of grey speckled the beaten vehicle - one shade was painted, whereas the other was the underlying metal from where the paint had worn away. Orange rust and tinted black windows added to the van’s dangerous impression. Before either kid could figure whether or not to stop, the driver’s door opened.

            “Get in,” said a man in a grey trench coat as the back panel slid open.

            “Who are you?”

            “No time, just get in!” In what time Corey allowed himself to study the man, he looked to be in his late forties. His spiky hair ranged from black to light grey, depending on the individual strand, and the man had definite Asian ancestry. Distrustfully, Corey turned to Burt.

            “I dunno,” said Burt, “something about the van and the trench coat... He could be a paedophile.”

            “I’m no such thing,” said the man, “now hurry! You’re in danger!”

            “I know,” said Burt. “It’s just...... You could be a child molester.”

            “There’s no time for this! Get in and I’ll explain things later.”

            “But look at yourself. Van. Coat. Molest. Catch my drift?”

            “I’m here to help. Trust me, or we’ll all wind up dead!”

            A pregnant pause ensued while Burt, Corey, and the man exchanged glances.

            Finally, the man said “I have candy and video games at my house...”

            Corey and Burt faced each other with cautious eyes.

            “Now, I’m pretty sure he wants to rape us,” whispered Burt. “But he might at least have the decency to give us the candy afterwards.”

            “Or beforehand,” said Corey. “They say candy stops tasting good after you’ve been raped.”

            “And what about the video games?”

            “Dude, you could rape me as I was playing Castlevania and I’d be having a great time.”

            Their bargaining huddle was interrupted by a bullet shot from one of the guards. Corey’s heart jumped back into place, and he pushed Burt through the van’s door before jumping in himself. Before they could even shut the door, the driver hit the pedal and they were off.

            “Whoa, you guys too?” said a familiar voice.

            Aside from the single dim light bulb on the ceiling, the first thing Corey noticed was the kid already in the van. Chester Seabell, or Chess to those that knew him, played guitar back in Corey’s Music class. He was scrawny in the limbs, with a longish face draped by pitch black hair on either side. No matter how he sat, he always appeared to be slouching, even when in the back of a van being tailed by evil militants.

            “Chess?” said Burt in amusement. “You joined the army? You?”

            “I don’t suppose you guys have a clue what’s going on either,” he replied. Chess’ dress sense and persona were equally hard to describe; he was Goth, emo, punk, metalhead, and none of the above. Whatever he was trying to look like, he pulled it off better than anyone Corey knew. “All I know is something smells fishy here.”

            “Don’t look at me,” said Burt. “I clean mine out every morning.” Following a disturbed silence, he quickly asked “How’d you get here?”

            “I overheard two officers talking about this army being a ruse,” Chess said as snippets of the camp rolled by through the partially opened van door. “So I waited til night then crept out. When this van pulled up beside me I though I’d been caught, but the driver-”

            “Hey! HEY!”

            A shrill female voice rang from outside. Peering out the door, Corey saw Gina rush towards them with arms flailing. He also saw sparks fly as a bullet grazed the fence beside her. Chess extended his arm and linked onto hers as she approached. Then, digging his feet into the floor, he reeled her in as Corey slid the door shut behind her.

            “Thafter me!” she gasped. “Danyone else smonster!?” She looked frantically between the boys. “Samonster!”

            “Slow down,” said Burt, “your words are running together again. Remember that creative writing presentation, when you tried saying ‘I pounded the Covenant Grunt with my fission mace’?”

            She breathed deeply twice, then said “Did anyone else see that monster!?” Corey nodded. “It was nightmarish! It was entirely mechanical, and had this long, horrid snout!”

            “Um, Gina?” said Corey. “You sure it wasn’t an army tank?”

            “Oh...”

            Corey rolled his eyes. The last thing the van needed was to be slowed down, and Gina was slowing down their overall IQ by about 80 points. Still, she had every right to salvation that he did. And frankly, he was grateful for each familiar face he saw.

            “You don’t think they’ll catch us, do you?” Burt asked, trepidation visible on his face.

            “No,” said Chess.

            “Well then goodnight.” At that, Burt fell backwards into an instantaneous slumber.

            “He’s sleeping!?” Gina cried over Burt’s snoring. “At a time like this!?”

            “Hey Gina,” said Corey: “What’s one plus green?”

            Her eyes rolled upwards as she contemplated the flawed riddle. Moments later, her jaw dropped as she exhausted the last of her consciousness and fell limp upon Burt.

            “Meh, whatever works,” said Chess apathetically.

---

A long hour passed, in which Corey and Chess remained mostly silent as they sped along a bumpy road. Neither looked out the door or tried talking to the driver, not being panicked enough to warrant it. Corey spent most of the time arranging his damaged thoughts; Dave was still gone, forever, but things were shaping up. Perhaps their safety was the greatest comfort they’d see that night.

            The van slowed to a stop, reigniting a sense of happening. Burt and Gina slowly returned to the waking world as the driver slid the door open.

            “We need to refuel,” he said flatly as he reached into the van. Chess just then seemed to notice the rusty petrol container in the corner, and handed it to him. “You may as well stretch your legs. We leave once we’ve gassed up.”

            Burt half rolled out of the vehicle, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Corey was next, followed by the other two. He noticed how starry the sky was before even noticing that they were in a vast field, surrounded by barky trees. The van was still on a dirt road, the closest reminder of civilization in the area. This normality was suddenly welcomed by Corey, who followed his band of former schoolmates into the planes.

            “Well, this sucks,” said Gina. “I could be at home right now, spending my weeks allowance on wallpapers for my phone.”

            “Any idea where he’s taking us?” Burt asked tiredly. “He looks trustworthy.”

            “Especially after what I’ve seen,” replied Corey, shuddering at the memory of that grim being that mutilated his friend.

            “Anyone recognise this dirt road?” asked Chess, flicking back a lock of hair. “That might give us a hint where the van’s headed.”

            “No.”

            “Nup.”

            “No clue.”

            “So none of us have any idea where we’re taking this thing? Great, we’ve turned into the writers of Heroes.”

            “That’s the answer!” Burt exclaimed. “We could form unlikely alliances with the villains with no clearly defined intention!”

            Corey sighed angrily. They were getting nowhere. He turned and marched over to where the aging man was feeding petrol into his car.

            “Look, thanks right up for saving us,” he said. “But I think we all need to know where we’re going.”

            “You’re going,” said the man, “to have an epiphany about the state of your planet.” He faced Corey, who then noticed that his eyes looked too milky for a middle aged man. “The Australian military has been compromised by forces you could never grasp the extent of. You can call me Mr. Tokusatsu. I’ve been fighting this enemy for generations, and that’s all you need to know about me until we reach HQ.”

            “Which will be when?”

            A flurry of gunshots answered his question as his friends stampeded towards the vehicle. Mr. Tokusatsu grabbed Corey by the collar and pulled him behind the van. Burt, Chess and Gina soon joined them. Once again Corey desperately awaited instructions on how to survive.