Voltaic (Interference: Book 1)

Chapter 10: Vindictive

Chapter 10: Vindictive

Pamela slowly pushed herself up, wincing quietly as she got into a kneeling position. She looked down at her hands, which had been cut by the cracks in the glass. As a result, she began screaming, more affected and terrified by the deep cuts in her palms than the actual pain itself and the fact that the aliens were still coming after us. As Pamela continued bawling, the shrieks of the alien creatures got considerably louder too.

I bent down and pat her shoulder, trying to comfort her and calm her down. "Pamela, it's okay, it's okay," I whispered in a reassuring tone as tapped her. "Pamela, we have to go now. The aliens... they're coming for us," I warned her, although I maintained my calm tone to prevent her from freaking out any further.

Thus, she stopped yelling for a moment, and all I could hear was her heavy breathing afterwards, and the aliens shrieking all over, of course. She got up on her feet with the help of her injured hands. Blood leaked down from her open wounds, but she seemed to have gained the confidence to escape.

I turned around to estimate to location of the aliens by listening to where the noises were coming from. Then again, there was no need to. Instead, I could see a quartet of them ramming through one of the stairway doors, spotting us and dashing towards our direction messily but predatorily, like they were ready to eat our eyes out.

Instinctively, I held my rifle up, ready to blast at them so that they wouldn't be on our tail when we escape. I laid my finger on the trigger, squeezing it as I prepared to fire. As the aliens were still rather far, I put my eye to the scope as my hands secured the gun tightly. Just as with my other shots earlier on, I wasn't that precise, as I wasn't exactly a frequent firearm user.

As I pulled the trigger back, a shot fired, but it missed by an inch, shaving past one of the aliens and hitting one of the remaining unshattered glass panels, which then shattered upon contact with the bullet I fired. Meanwhile, the sound of the gunfire provoked the creatures even more, prompting them to charge at more agitatedly than ever.

"Adam! You can't afford to miss anymore," Jake chided, as if his life were on the line. Of course, all of ours were, but all of the desperate remarks and whimpers coming from didn't quite help with my attempts to concentrate and stabilise my grip on the gun. "Aim properly, please!" he added on.

I pulled the sliding bolt as I prepared to fire a second shot at the herd of aliens. I placed my finger back on the trigger and positioned my eye at the scope once more. Gripping more tightly this time, I aimed for the same alien's head before firing a shot at it. And this time, I was more fortunate to land a direct hit.

"Great, one down and three more to go," Zoe cheered in a shaky voice, nervous as all of us were.

I repeated the positioning of my eye, finger, and hands once again. This time, the creatures were getting awfully close, so much so that the scope was about to become impractical to use. I took another shot at one of the other alien's head, landing another accurate hit as I stayed focused on the fact that we had to survive.

As the creatures dangerously neared us, I brought my eye away from the scope, preparing to shoot at one, or both, of them since it was getting pointless to zoom into them just to fire a bullet accurately. I could hear my friends nervously quivering behind me. I tried to aim as precisely as I could without the scope, something that I had never attempted before at the gun ranges that I had been to.

Preparing to fire a shot, I mustered up my courage, standing rooted to the ground. With sturdy hands, I continued to grip onto the gun. I began increasing the pressure on the trigger as I aimed for one of the alien's head or body. However, before I could release a bullet, Pamela began to panic, muttering something in fear as I heard her hopping away, over the glass, towards the exit of the building.