Xenopacalyps Part Two: The Xeno King

It was dusk and my hair was blinding me as we walked through the city. I haven't had a haircut in months, due to the apocalypse. People were calling it, the xenopacalyps. A fitting name if I do say so myself. I pulled my hair back over my ear and continued to walk because I wasn't able to see with my hair in the way. I had a pair of scissors that I found while scavenging in my backpack, but I wasn't thinking of my hair at the moment. I was thinking of what had happened, to Katherine. I was still beaten up about it, and the feeling wouldn't go away, no matter how hard I tried to forget. Brooke caught up to me and asked, "Hey, are you okay?" I looked at her and replied, "Yeah, I'm fine, why?" She looked at me, sceptical. "What? Really, I'm fine." She slowed down to walk with Miles, and I could hear her talking to him. I knew she didn't believe me about anything being wrong. Everything was wrong, the world was wrong, the people were wrong. Nothing was normal in this world anymore. These monsters had taken this world, and there is nothing we could do about it. I looked down at the sword that Katherine gave me, and a tear fell down my cheek. I turned away to make sure Brooke and Miles didn't see it. The M-9 was hanging from my hip and in my mind, I took it out of its holster and pointed at my head, then pulled the trigger. I wanted to end it all right then and there. I couldn't, I just couldn't. I had to keep living, for Katherine. We were walking under an overpass when I heard a sound come from the highway above. I unsheathed the sword, but the creature that I saw on the overpass, was a deer. "Stay down here, I'm gonna go kill it!" I said to Brooke and Miles. "No, don't kill it, it never did anything to you!" Brooke yelled. The deer heard her and pranced away. "Damn Brooke, we need food. That was the first deer I have seen in months." She looked to the ground, obviously feeling guilty. "Dude, Devin, chill out man, you don't need to yell." Miles said to me. "I'm not yelling, I'm just, frustrated because we could have had venison tonight. But the deer got away, and I don't want to attract any Xenomorphs to us." Brooke looked at me with guilt in her eyes. "I'm sorry Devin, I didn't mean to get you angry." I looked at her, feeling more guilty than she. Brooke was my best friend, and I know she would follow me to the end of the Earth if there was one. "No, I'm sorry I said that. I can find another deer later, but for now, let's find somewhere to hunker down. It's getting dark." Whenever it gets dark, the stalkers come out, along with the warriors. We hit the road again, and not long after, Miles spotted an abandoned grocery mart across the street. I pulled out my sword and knocked on the door to lure any aliens out of hiding. After about three minutes of waiting for something to come out, We all stepped inside. It was dark and musty, like it hadn't even been cleaned, before the apocalypse. It had been almost a year since the xenopacalyps started, but this place looked like it hadn't been cleaned in three years. When we stepped inside, I instantly wanted to leave the building. It smelled like something died in there, and the floor was covered in water. In the corner, I could see a broken water main, but it was blocked to where no more water came out of it. I climbed on top of one of the shelves and took a look around. What I saw confirmed the smell of decaying flesh. Multiple bodies floated in the water, with holes in their head and chest. I pulled out the M-9 and held it at the ready. "If you come in, stay behind me." I told them. They nodded and followed behind Miles with his machete, and Brooke with her baseball bat. The bat was almost broken, and it looked like something you would obtain in a zombie game, with barbed wire wrapped around it, and a nail coming through it. Miles and Brooke climbed up onto the shelf and followed right behind me. "Stay frosty." I whispered. I heard it in a game I once played and wanted to say it, just to say it. I jumped from the shelf I was on to the ground. I winced as the water splashed on my face like a sprinkler. "be careful!" Brooke said. I looked at her and gave her a slight nod, then continued through the water towards the bodies. I knew it was wrong, but we needed supplies, so I trudged through the water and reached to flip one of the bodies over to search it. But when I did, an alarm sounded in the grocery mart, and I yelled to Miles and Brooke, "Go! Get out now!" They ran to the exit, but the security doors slammed shut on the main entrance and all the windows. "Crap, what the hell is this?" I look around, confused. I hear a voice call out, "Drop all of your weapons and ammo, now!" As the person finished speaking, I hear multiple guns being cocked. I raise my hands and look at Brooke and Miles, and give them a slight nod. They drop their weapons, along with myself. "Now, walk towards the register, away from your weapons!" The voice yelled. "What do you want with us?" Miles asked. No one answered. Only silence filled the room. Finally, a door opens in a nearby hallway, and a tall, robust man walks out to collect our weapons and ammo. He glares at me with genuine hatred and walks away. "Now get on your knees!" We did as we were told, without hesitation. We didn't know what these people were capable of, and we didn't need to get shot in the face anytime soon. But just then, Brooke stands up, and says, "Why are you doing this?" The voice replies, "Speak only when spoken to, or you die! Now, get on your knees!" Brooke got on her knees, clearly knowing that this person was serious. The person comes out from behind a shelf and walks towards us. This person was a tall, not really big, man with an AK-47 strapped to his back. "Which one of you is the strongest?" Me and Brooke looked at Miles. He went Through military training before the apocalypse, so we all agreed that he was, in fact, the strongest. The man told Miles to get on his feet, and when he did, the man hit him in the forehead with the butt of his gun. Miles fell to his knees again, his nose bleeding. He pointed to me, "You, get up. Now!" I got up and prepared to be hit with the weapon, but just before he hit me, an ear piercing screech filled the air. Everyone was on their knees, holding their ears. I saw my chance to attack the man and kneed him in the nose. He fell backwards, writhing in pain. I grabbed Brooke and Miles and ran to the door, but completely forgot about the other people with guns in the mart and our weapons. I ran Brooke and Miles to the shutters and told them to wait there, under a fallen shelf. I ran to the door where I saw the big man take our weapons. But the man with the AK-47 came up behind me and kneed me in the back. I fell to one knee and he put his hand over my mouth. I passed out and when I woke up, I was sitting in a chair, with my hands bound behind me. "You could be useful." Said a voice from a corner behind me. The voice belonged to the man with the AK-47. "Who are you, and what do you mean, I could be useful?" The man walked towards me with a studying eye. "Assult team?" No, no, that won't be good. You're too skinny." He circled me and put his hand on my shoulder. "You can be recon, my friend," He said with a sinister looking smile. I just stared at him with confusion. "Who the hell are you!" I yelled. He slapped me square in the face, and said, "That is how you will remember me. My name is Jonathan. And you and your little friends work for me now." I looked at him and remembered Brooke and Miles. "Where are they?" He stepped behind me and cut the bindings. I massaged my wrists and looked at him. "They are, safe." He said with another smile. "You bastard, where are they!" I yelled again. He slapped me again, even harder this time. So hard, that I thought my eye was about to pop out. "Don't yell at me, or I will kill you, and your friends. I told you, they're safe." I looked up at Jonathan, and said, "Yes sir." I knew this guy wasn't messing around, so I had to tell him what he wanted to hear. "That screech. I know you're wondering what it was." He said. Actually, I completely forgot about the screeching but nodded anyway. "The screech, was that of the King alien, or Xeno King, as people are calling it." Jonathan explained. I looked at him, confused on how he knows of the creature. He must have seen that I was confused, but not for the right reason. "The Xeno King is the one responsible for this whole thing. It was created as a weapon for the military, along with several queens to make more of the 'super weapons'. They called these weapons, the Xenomorph. The perfect organism, the perfect killing machine. But The Xeno King went, rogue. That's why some call it, 'The Rogue Alien'. Me and him, haven't been seeing eye to eye lately, or ever for that matter. He doesn't like me much." He explained. "What on Earth did you do to piss him off?" He pulled a pendant from out of his shirt and showed it to me. "I got this, trying to save the one I love from his grasp. The only thing I could do was take something from him, as he did to me." The pendant, was a Xenomorph tooth, the Xeno King's tooth. Just then, we heard a loud crash and, the floor started rumbling, along with the walls, then someone came bursting through the door. It was the tall robust man that gave me a dirty eye earlier. "Sir, we have a situation." The man said. "this is Tyrese, my second in command around here." He turned to Tyrese and asked, "What is it Tyrese, speak up." Tyrese was struggling with his words, so Jonathan and I just stepped past him. When we stepped into the main room, where everyone else was gathered, we saw something completely unexpected. There was a giant hole in the side of the grocery mart, and standing in the hole was the Rogue Alien. It was just standing there, watching us. Me in particular. The creature did not like me, and from the way it seemed to be looking at me, it hated me more than it hated Jonathan. It kept staring at me and glaring with the eyeless, expressionless face of the monster. Then, I heard it, along with everyone else. Someone had shot the first shot had been fired, and after that, everyone else started firing. I snuck off to the room where I saw our weapons were taken to, and I found both Miles and Brooke there, tied up like I was. I quickly untied them and grabbed our weapons. I gave Brooke her bat, and Miles, his machete. I belted the sword to my waist and strapped the holster with the M-9 in it to my right leg. There was a small window nearby, which I pushed Brooke through quite easily. Miles was a bit harder to get through because he didn't throw his machete out the window before crawling out of it. When I was about to crawl through the window myself, but I could feel someone pulling my leg. I look down, to see Tyrese, bloody and angry. "You are not leaving, we need you!" I kicked him off of me and bolted away from the store. Once we thought we were far enough, we all took a break. "Phew, we all could have died in there." Brooke said, out of breath. We were far from safe. I could hear the "Xeno King" tearing the grocery mart to shreds. We needed to get out of there quick, without detection, by people, and aliens. As we walked down the street, I saw a street sign that said "Grand Rapids Ln" I looked at Brooke and Miles and said, "Holy crap, no way. This is my old street!" I ran down the street and went to my old house, 2903 Grand Rapids Ln. I looked at what was left of the little one story house, and ran down the street some more. "I have to see if her house is still there!" I said to myself. I was headed to a house that used to be owned by a friend of mine. "please still be there, don't be destroyed." I said to myself again. As I came to the house, a sigh of relief came out of me, like a puff of smoke in a steam engine. The house was still standing. "Thank god, I don't know what I would have done if this house was gone." Brooke and Miles caught up to me and looked at the house with disgust. "It looks like it wasn't even clean, before the apocalypse." I turned to Miles and said, "This house, belonged to a very good friend of mine, one that I will never forget." Jessica, was the best friend I ever had, and to know she might be somewhere out there, either scared, fighting, or even dead. All of those scared me to death. I hadn't been real close to Jessica, even before the apocalypse. I had gone out with her for a little while, but that ended up derailing after a while. Brooke walks up to me and says, "Devin, do you remember what we are supposed to be doing, where we were going?" To be honest, I had completely forgotten about our current objective, to get to the nest, and destroy whatever we found there. "I'm not even sure if there is more than one nest yet. How could we face off that many aliens?" I asked her. She seemed stunned at my doubt. I didn't think that we could do it, although, I felt that way ever since I lost Katherine. Brooke stared at me, and I could tell that she knew something was up. She pulled me into a nearby ally, and said to Miles, "We will be a minute." Miles just stood there with worry in his eyes. Brooke pinned me against a wall and I turned red. "Uh, Brooke? What are you doing?" She stared into my eyes, contemptuously. I didn't dare to move, in the fear that she would strike me down if I did. Her stare was icy and, frankly really scary. "What the hell is wrong Devin? Your hiding something from me, and I don't like it. You know how much I care for you damn it! Tell me, or me and Miles won't be traveling with you any longer." I froze at those last few words. In my mind, I was flipping out. I didn't want to tell her, but if I didn't, she would leave, and I would probably never see her again. "Fine, I will tell you, mainly because I don't want you and Miles to be traveling alone." She stared at me with the same icy stare as before. "Traveling alone? I'm pretty sure me and Miles can take care of ourselves." I looked at her, feeling, belittled. She was right, I was a worthless piece of crap that could barely fire a gun. "I... Lost someone very close to me recently." Brooke's icy stare, turned into sympathy. A face that said, I'm so sorry. "Her name was Katherine, I tried to protect her, but I couldn't get to her. Those damn monsters, They..." She pulled me into an embrace, and squeezed as tight as she could. Just then, some kind of sticky liquid dropped onto Brookes shoulder. She pulled away from me to inspect it. "Ew, what is this stuff?" I became worried. I looked up, and almost had a heart attack. A xenomorph was directly above me and Brooke. The creature went for Brooke, but I pushed her out of the way and it grabbed me instead. "Brooke, run, get out of here!" I yelled. I reached for my sword, but couldn't get a grip on it. The weapon fell from my belt, and I was completely defenseless. It took me away, and I knew, this might be the end of me.