Easy Pickings

There had been an invasion. Some foreign country had placed sleeper agents in the White House who had slowly weakened our defense systems. Strategically placed clusters of Electromagnetic pulse bombs had disrupted the entire infrastructure wiping out all of our defensive capability. Telecommunication problems had forced our military to hunker down in place until word from other commands would coordinate a defense. Trains came to a stop. Airplanes sat on runways unable to take off. Navy ships lay adrift in the oceans unable to get under way. The ground attack devastated the country and foreign troops were systematically taking control of towns and cities with remarkable speed. Not, however, in more rural areas that existed mostly on their own efforts.

For the first month our town, Wolf Crossing, remained untouched. The EM Pulses had occurred many miles away which left the community unscathed and functioning. Everything remained the same as before. There were school buses roaming the streets every morning and afternoon. The movie theater changed its line-up on Tuesdays and the basketball teams from the schools all played games on the weekends. The Daily Special at Mabel’s Café still had meat loaf on Monday, Chicken and Dumplings on Wednesday and All-you-can-eat Catfish every Friday.

The Mayor was walking around shaking hands and kissing babies and his opponent in the upcoming election was busily knocking on every door in the town to campaign for his “Need for Change” platform. There were some high school kids walking around with sandwich signs for the candidate they supported while passing out red or blue balloons with the appropriate name on them. The Whole Earth Party was set up in the little park on the Town Square and was attempting to get people to commit to vote for them and plant a tree. They had a pick-up on the lawn next to them with a for sale sign on the side. They raised a ruckus when the police chief came and told them to move on because the park was city property and ordinance did not allow campaigning without a permit. They argued and tried to stage a sit-in until the lead candidate sat down and was not, being eighty years old and three hundred pounds, able to get back up. The local ambulance had to come put her on a stretcher and haul her to the hospital because her heart began to palpitate and it would not look too good for her to die while trying to get elected mayor.

In reality, due to the distance from the rest of the country, very few folks in town even had the least clue that there had been anything of real importance happening in the world outside the city limits of their small hamlet. They had no idea that there had been a major invasion from another country. Come the first of the month that all changed.

The first of the military vehicles rolled in about 8:00 AM with a detachment of infantry soldiers. They had strange uniforms and had a look about them that seemed to suggest that they were not from around there. They all spoke a sort of broken English and began spreading out around town in strategic spots. The commander of the group walked around asking for the leader of the town and the mayor came and held his hand out to shakes hands, as he had been doing all day and the entire month before. The commander took his hand and, holding it firmly, took out a pistol, and shot the mayor between the eyes. He ordered his men to drag the body to the park and leave it there.

The force of men then began to round up people and usher them into the movie theater. They went from street to street and stopped when the theater got full. They moved to the school and rounded up all the kids and made them sit in the assembly theater and the gym at the high school. This was not a difficult task overall. The town only had around six hundred residents including the kids. There were some difficulties. The police chief and his three patrol officers were all shot and deposited in the park. Then there was the elderly Post Commander of the local VFW who got shot when he came after the invaders with a German Lugar and a pineapple grenade. The grenade turned out to be a cigarette light and the German Luger fired caps. A few farmers with shotgun racks in their pickups were added to the growing pile of bodies in the park. The raiders sustained several casualties along the way before the town was properly incarcerated and the violence curtailed.

The commander had a bullhorn he used to address the adults in the theater and his second in command went to the school and gave the same speech to the kids. There would be safe and secure treatment for those who cooperated and helped the occupiers set up a defensive perimeter around the town. There would be rewards of food and privileges to those who voluntarily cooperated. There would be harsh consequences for those who did not. Up to and including being deposited, dead, at the park.

No one spoke a word. Neither did any of them volunteer nor show the least bit of interest in cooperating. There were three more deaths when the owner of the theater, the school principal, and the gym teacher acted as leader in their respective location and informed the marauders that they should go to hell. The pile of bodies in the park had reached a dozen by the time the sun set. The commander told his men to lock everyone in where they were and walked into the command tent that had been set up in the park with the dead bodies. He had the dead men moved to the edge of the park furthest from the tent and set about developing a night perimeter of men to guard things until the morning. He figured when the townsfolks got thirsty, hungry, or needed the restroom the level of collaboration would vastly increase.

He ordered his men to get Mabel’s Café open and to cook a meal for the invaders. He thought about forcing Mabel to do it, but chose to just use the café and have his men do the cooking. The food was there even if the cooperation was not. He went to the back of the tent to lie down for a while detailing for his aide to wake him when the food was ready. He lay down and went to sleep.

It was sometime later when he woke. The tent was dark except for a small kerosene lamp in the front. He stood up and found a washing station that had been set up with water, soap, and a towel for him. He cleansed himself, put on a fresh shirt, and inspected his pistol. He took it apart, cleaned it, placed a fresh clip in it, worked the slide to cock it, and let the hammer down with his thumb. He walked out of the tent with the intention of getting something to eat…maybe a steak.

Once outside he noticed that the street lights were not glowing but that it was still bright enough to see even though it was late enough for stars to be shining. He looked up and saw the largest, brightest full moon he had ever imagined. He turned to look for the bodies wondering if they had started to smell. They were not there. He walked all the way around the park and found nothing. He walked around the square finding nothing, not even his own men. He went to the theater which was to his shock and surprise, empty. He went back to the tent and tried the radio only to get nothing but static. He walked outside and found the mayor and the police chief waiting for him. They were alive and had no injuries showing where they had been shot. There was blood on their clothes, but no marks of any sign that, several hours earlier, each of these men had been shot in the face with a military issue 9mm pistol.

He reached for his sidearm and the police chief; moving faster than he could see, grabbed him, and relieved him of his gun. They proceeded to march/drag him to the high school where the rest of his men were sitting back to back on the ground and tied up at the fifty yard line. The mayor explained that he had either chose, or was ordered to invade the wrong town. Behind him walked up the remaining group of people who, also had been shot earlier that day.

The commander watched the mayor begin to shake and tremble. He started to swirl his head around and wave his arms about. The police chief and the rest of the recently dead all began to do the same thing. Their bodies grew and their clothes ripped off their chests and arms. They grew huge fangs and claws at their hands. Not werewolf like, but something much more horrifying. Something grotesque and hideous When the transformation was complete, the commander could see others flowing in from all the exits on the football field. It seemed to be the townspeople with their children. All of them looked the same as the dead men. All of them were grotesque and ghastly. There was no snarling or roaring or howling. They were all dreadfully quiet. The mayor looked back at the crowd of his neighbors, and then at the commander before shouting:

“Soup’s up!”