In the woods, Maggie ran. Night was falling and the only advice she was given was run and hide, hope they don’t find you. Evolution had found a home in the Bone Snappers. A large, wolf-like beast covered in thick skin instead of hair, with a turtle’s jaw that snapped through bone, even trees if it wanted you bad enough. With an amazing sense of smell and superb ears and night vision humans didn’t stand a chance. The Bone Snappers were taking over, slowly, invading, but only at night. Their food source was scarce, birds didn’t sing and if you heard something shifting in the bushes odds are it will be the last thing you hear.
Maggie had crashed landed back on Earth. She and her crew stopped receiving messages from Earth and assumed the worst. They spent 5 years in space, exploring everything within a reasonable distance. Searching for anything besides Earth being the only hospitable planet. Unmanned vessels brought back only shoddy footage and inconclusive samples. They needed something that knew what to look for, what to collect, how to interpret things. Hence the Life Mission was born.
When they circled Earth, it didn’t look like anything was amiss, it was still green and blue, no nuclear weapons, no war they began their descent with no connection to Earth. Two of the 5-man crew died on impact. Maggie, Jeff and Vanessa were the survivors for now.
Maggie ran, fear welling up in her like the sweat that poured from her. When they landed they crashed in the Appalachian Mountains during the day. No clue where other than that. A few people had seen the crash and rushed to see if maybe it could get airborne again. There must be some place on Earth without Bone Snappers and this was the first thing in the sky they had seen in months. When Maggie and what was left of her crew awoke, the sun was starting to set. A man told her the Earth had an affliction. The Bone Snappers are new predators that emerged liked some dormant dinosaur a few months ago and have almost wiped out life on earth. He told her there were few defenses against them. Some houses have survived by utilizing a type of ray the government handed out before being cutoff and overrun. It was essentially a shrink ray.
“The sun is setting,” the stranger said. “You need to run and hide, but they’ll find you. Do what you can to survive.”
“How have you survived?” Maggie ventured.
“No time, sun’s gone, run.”
What sounded like laughter amplified boomed and reverberated off the trees. The stranger had disappeared. Maggie, Jeff and Vanessa took to heart the advice. They covered themselves in dirt and ran, in the dark, the laughter chasing them.
She could smell herself, which meant the Bone Snappers could smell her. There was a clearing in the woods, just ahead. Vanessa tripped and screamed.
“Shhh,” Maggie quickly rushed to her and covered her mouth. Vanessa tripped over a rope. They followed the rope. Together they pulled and revealed a grass covered thick metal door, which opened to a staircase underground. Entering and quickly shutting the door, behind them they felt trapped, following the only path there was. They came to a door and knocked. They waited and knocked again. They felt around the door, there was a button, they pushed it. Amazingly the door opened.
“Bone Snappers don’t ring doorbells,” said the child who opened the door.
“Who are you?” Said the adult standing behind him.
“I’m Maggie and this is Jeff and Vanessa,” Maggie paused to see if that would be enough. “We were astronauts for the Life Mission several years ago. We crash landed. We lost 2 crew members. “ Maggie brushed the dirt away from her uniform patches.
“Life Mission? How long have you been in space?”
“About 5 years.”
“You’ve got a lot to catch up on, I’m Mark and this is Charles.” Mark smiled and grabbed Maggie in a hug. “Come in, come in, let’s get you some food, maybe a shower and get you caught up on the Bone Snappers. It’s so nice to meet other survivors sometimes. We’re so used to it just being the 6 of us.”
“What is this place,” Vanessa asked.
“We built this when the Bone Snappers were first discovered. Sometimes it helps to be a nut job that lives in the woods. There’s the door entrance and we kind of scale down this hill towards to lake so we can have access to water.“ Mark discussed everything so light and easily like we were expected for a dinner party.
They followed him down a narrow hallway and then it opened up to a well-done, elegant kitchen. With his back to the astronauts, Mark said,
“These are some astronauts that crash landed and are only finding out about the Bone Snappers now.” He turned to face them,
“This is our family. My wife, Sandy.” She waved. “Our former neighbors Jim, Beth and Tiffany.” They all waved.
“Hello, I’m Maggie and this is Vanessa and Jeff. We were with the Live Mission that launched 5 years ago. Could someone please tell us what is happening."
“It’s a long story,” Sandy said. “Best you sit down and eat while we tell you, I’m sure you’re hungry.”
“Would it be possible,” piped up Jeff, “to use any kind of shower?”
“My goodness, of course!” Said Sandy. “You all must need one. How about we do that first?”
“Thank you, very much for your kindness and for letting us into your home,” Maggie said.
They settled in, took some showers let the truth of the world permeate. When they all converged back in the kitchen, the got the whole story:
“The things just showed up about 6 months ago. They’re unstoppable, insatiable and they only hunt at night," Sandy said.
“Why at night?” Maggie asked.
“No one knows, no one who encounters them can stay alive long enough to figure it out and even if they did, they’ve taken over the world. They can swim long distances. We have no way of communicating with the outside world. Or being communicated by the outside world…”
“Unless they trip over your rope while running,” Vanessa said.
It lightened the mood, soft giggles.
“We’re just surviving. We can only go so far during the day for wood and food. None of us have even seen them up close we’ve just heard the laughing, the noises they make when they’re on the hunt and we can’t even hear that down here,” Sandy finished drank some water and stared at her son. “We were lucky. We even got one of the shrink rays and set it up at our most vulnerable point, where our compound meets the water. Well at the doorwaythat leads down to where our compound meets the water.”
“A shrink ray seems like an odd way to combat these things,” Jeff said.
“Yes, everyone thought that too but nothing kills them: guns, knives, anti-artillery, fire or electrocution. At least when they’re small they’re weaker. We can’t crush them or burn them, but we can collect them, let them starve out. They die in captivity after 3 days. I hate it, a slow, cowards’ death,” Mark answered.
“Can I see your vulnerable point?” Maggie asked.
“Sure.”
They walked down a series of zig zagged stairs. Floors and floors. The floor gave away to dirt and there were some pillars one had to wiggle through to get to the water. Maggie made her way through the pillars and stared out over the lake. It was beautiful. The moon reflected off the still waters. It was strange to see the moon from earth again.
Ripples formed on the surface of the lake. Maggie turned toward Mark, who had remained behind the pillars.
“We don’t come down here at night; you really should get back behind the pillars.”
It was too late. A Bone Snapper rose from the serene lake scene. Mark bolted up the stairs. Maggie ran to the pillars. It pursued. It laughed. She squeezed her way through the pillars and the Bone Snapper slammed itself into them. Put its entire weight and force into bringing down the pillars.
“You’re so scared.”
The Bone Snappers could talk.
“I want your marrow.”
“What are you?” Maggie gasped as she backed away towards the stairs.
“Your bones crunch so deliciously. Your blood is the best marinade.”
Maggie ran up the stairs but could hear the Bone Snapper laughing and breaking through the pillars. She struggled to climb fast enough when she was almost at the top she screamed,
“It’s behind me!”
She flew into the kitchen and before she could turn around Sandy activated the shrink ray and soon the Bone Snapper was the size of mouse.
“They can still snap at you, draw blood, you have to pick them up a certain way,” said Sandy as she grabbed it by its neck and walked it over to a dry aquarium tank. The tank held some weak and dying mini bone Snappers.
“We bury them once they die around our compound, they don’t like the smell it usually keeps them away. They must be starving,” Mark said.
Maggie caught her breath,
“They talk.” She got out between breaths. “It taunted me.”
“They don’t talk, that’s impossible,” said Beth. It’s the first time one of the neighbors have said a word to the astronauts.
“It talked.” Everyone started at the tank of Bone Snappers. They didn’t make a sound.
There was a deep bellowing laughing that ricocheted from the stairwell. It moved slowly but was coming closer. Beth gasped,
“We took her mate.”
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