This is the 54th a series of 365 Flash Fiction stories I’m writing. You can find out more about the challenge here.
The Killing Ghosts, by Jonathan L. Lawrence, 24th January 2012
Word count: 697
Theme: alien invasion, resistance, war, survival, humanity, myth, legend
The story:
I got so scared, I felt I was alone facing things that shouldn’t even exist, never mind being in a relatively unimportant city in England. Whether they should be there or not, it was irrelevant.
The day had been going so well, I had a date that night, my job was going well, everything in life was grand. A few months earlier I’d Peru much had nothing to lose, but the day they came, I lost everything important, except my life.
It was mid-September when astronomers first saw the objects in the night sky, they were a wonder, unexplainable, mysterious globes of compressed liquid. Of course we didn’t just assume they were peaceful – though we didn’t even know about brains then. When it was obvious that they were on a collision course with the Blue Planet the US military took control of all efforts in regard. to the strange phenomena. They’re best efforts didn’t even cause the globes of liquid to waver, they kept coming.
Still life went on, the world split into three types of people. First off the were your traditional end of world types, (most figured them for loons, including me at first), then there were eager and excitable scientist types, lastly there was everyone else who couldn’t conceptualise what was happening, it was just this thing in the news. Sure it was the topic of many conversations but we didn’t understand, and it was years away.
So it was quite a shock when the center of Leeds was rocked by an immense exclusion as a globe crashed right into it. I’m told this was only a small one, but I was within five miles of impact it never felt small. It was the advanced unit, there to probe and test how we’d react, the rest of their armada arrived a month later, with sporadic advanced drops in medium cities around the world in between.
And you know how War of the Worlds the aliens take an age to come out of their craft, these things didn’t.
We didn’t know what they were, we didn’t have names for them. They came out thick and fast, and immediately spread out across the city. Of course the military didn’t take this lying down, they committed nobly to Leeds’ defence, but most of what they were facing were Ants, not literal Ants, but they were heavily armoured and the aliens used them exclusively for soldiering or seemed. Any way with that armour they’re hard to kill, you have to get up close and personal, slip a long blade through gaps in armour.
I know this, it’s my specialty, I’m The Ghost now. I work for the resistance, with a number of other Ghosts. The Ants don’t like dying, not by an enemy they can’t see to fight. We get in close, we strike from darkness, and they hate it. The brains can’t seem to control the Ants when they’re afraid.
Ants really don’t like Ghosts, slip in kill, slip away. Intelligence tells us that we have near mythical status among them, they tell stories of us, not that I know how the things talk. I only care how they die.
We’re in constant competition with the snipers, but they are at a disadvantage to hit the Ants in those oh so special sweet spots they need to be below. They mostly focus on the Brains. Brains might look frail, and unsteady, but when they choose to fight. Ghosts aren’t much good against an enemy that hears and sees with every part of it’s body.
Intelligence tells us there’s another type of alien we’ve not seen yet. That’s why we’re about to March on Leeds again, rumour has it, there is a gathering meeting there. We’re going to kill as many as we can, I’m hoping that these new aliens die just as well as Ants. All of the Ghosts are prepared to do their duty, we will take back this city, this country, and this world.
Whatever it is the aliens came for, we’ll make sure they go back with a pile of corpses. It’s the least we can do for all the loved ones we’ve lost.
Aspiring 