War pt1

The air raid sirens sounded again. They were meant to indicate that everyone was supposed to take cover in the nearest bunker. But since they had sounded at least once a day for the last two months without any kind of destruction following, most people ignored them and went about their business as usual. Most people now believed that they were safe and that the war front wouldn't reach their little town. After all, the war had been raging for almost two years and no one had seen any of it except what filtered through to them in the sparse news reports.

But they were still constantly reminded that there was a fierce battle raging across the country by the constant fuel, power and food rations, not to mention that the army had set up a base on the outskirts of town to train the constant stream of new recruits, all of whom were getting younger or more elderly each day. Everyone had at least one family member serving in the army, many of whom hadn't been heard from since they were sent to the front line.

The sirens lasted for fifteen minutes, and then everything went silent again. This happened so frequently even the soldiers had stopped reacting whenever the sirens sounded. But this time, when the sirens had finished wailing, something was different. It was a subtle difference. It was the silence. It was a different kind of silence today, and only those with extra keen hearing were able to pick up on it. But they just shrugged it off as paranoia.
So it came as a massive surprise to everyone when an extremely old woman strode up to a soldier and tore a huge chunk from the side if his neck with her teeth. The soldier screamed in agony and futilely tried to stop the flow of blood pouring from the wound. The old woman hissed and bit his arm. The soldier would've screamed as she tore part of his arm away, but he was already dead.

Civilians screamed and scrambled to get away from the creature, while soldiers rushed forward, their weapons aimed at her. The creature turned and faced the soldiers, baring her blood stained pointy yellow teeth as she hissed again. She crouched down, ready to attack. The soldiers consisted of new recruits still being trained and veterans who had seen too much action in the war. All of them were terrified of the creature and fired wildly at her.

The creature shuddered with the impact of the bullets, and dark blood oozed from the wounds. She stumbled backwards and fell over the body of her victim. The shouts of a commanding officer could be heard over the gunfire but no one could make out what she was shouting.

Gradually the soldiers stopped firing and looked apprehensively at the prone body of the creature. One of the bolder recruits cautiously crept towards her.

"Sanders, fall back!" The commanding officer shouted in alarm, hurrying forward to pull him back. But she was too late. With a shriek of rage, the creature threw herself from the ground at Sanders, who screamed in agonised terror before his throat was torn out.

The creature looked up at the soldiers through slitted eyes, Sanders' blood dripping off her face, and hissed something in articulate at them before turning and running away from them with inhuman speed.

"What she say?" A heavily scarred one eyes veteran asked the group at large.

"Something about losing, I think." A recruit answered uncertainly. "My Faerie isn't all that crash hot. But I'm certain she said something about losing."

"Does anyone speak fluent Faerie?" The commanding officer demanded.

Everyone shook their heads.

"Shit! I hope somebody caught this on camera."

Most of the recruits looked sheepishly down at their feet. None of them had thought of bringing their cameras with them when they had left the base. But all of the veterans responded that they had.

"Good. All of you back to base now. Those of you idiots who don't have your cameras I want you to report to Thompson in full gear." She pulled out a small transistor radio from her belt. "This is Major Fielding. There's been an attack in town. I'm declaring a code red curfew be enforced immediately."

"What is that?" A recruit pointed towards the nearby hills. Everyone else looked in the direction he was pointing. It took a couple of minutes before they were able to see the faint black cloud that was rapidly growing darker and larger. As they stared at the growing cloud, sirens, slightly different to the air raid siren, started to sound all around them.

"THIS IS NOT A DRILL. A CODE RED CURFEW IS NOW IN PLACE. EVERYONE IS IMMEDIATELY GO INSIDE AND STAY INSIDE UNTIL FURTHER ADVISED." A deep robotic voice intoned over the siren.

All across town, everyone hurried into the nearest buildings. They all knew that code red meant that they weren't even allowed to go home. They just had to get inside or face a military tribunal for civil disobedience, which often ended with the culprit being forced to join the army before being sent off to the front lines. It was better to our up with a small amount of discomfort for a short time than facing the tribunal.

"Back to base, everyone!" Major Fielding barked.

The soldiers fell into formation and marched back to base on the other side of town. Many of them, including Major Fielding, kept stealing uneasy glances back at the still rapidly growing cloud behind them. They passed more soldiers hurrying to position themselves around town to keep look out for anyone breaking curfew and any foes. Although no one expected to face any Faeries. They still believed themselves to be safe in the relatively sleepy town.