Night of the Crane | By @WendyyWolfe

29. As Real As It Gets

"Admiral. Brew Town is completely overrun. Taken over. Our drone footage shows the entire town is surrounded by those mechanical monsters we watched burn complete counties to the ground."

Reese's group had reached the agreed upon location to meet not long before Basinger and his buses had also arrived having pulled out of the old airbase shortly after learning Reese had evacuated early.

A dank stillness covered the area along with the remnants of heavy acrid smoke from fires that were left to burn unchecked.

Now, citizens who had escaped the initial invasion milled around, covering their faces with their shirts to block the throat burning smell, while National Guardsmen kept point watch as Reese with his men convened to discuss their options after hearing the unbelievable intel provided by drone footage of the area they needed to move through to reach the coast.

"Terraforming," Silas Fisher interjected. "That's what's happening."

"That will be enough from you Fisher," Basinger snapped giving Silas a look which said his comments weren't appreciated. "Let's have a look at the footage."

Admiral Basinger and Sargeant Reese bent close to the Lieutenant Commander to view what the drone had caught overhead. The monstrous machines that had wreaked havoc just weeks earlier stood silent on the outer perimeters of town. There were six of them, but it was the many motionless people standing still, robotic like in grid formation that had Basinger frowning and Reese whistling through his teeth.

Reese looked up. His expression was stark. "Would you look at that. We won't get through that, Admiral. Not with four busses of civvies in diapers. I can't believe we made it to the rendezvous point, frankly."

"Can't we just change our route? Head east around town and take back roads," Silas pondered out loud.

Both Basinger and Reese looked at Silas begrudgingly.

"We had a designated time frame Silas," Reese reminded him.

"We did, but we won't make it. Either choice still ends with us not making it in time," Silas argued. "And has anybody bothered to realize we may not have the gas to make it the entire way. There are no gas stations available, in case you forgot."

Reese looked at Basinger. Neither had a good answer.

"Exactly what I thought. Even without this little problem we' d have ended up on foot little more than thirty miles outside Brew Town. We aren't going to make it to the coast any sooner. I figure, we can go around and end up on foot or we can just head out on foot right now."

Reese was speechless. He stared hard at Silas. "Are you out of your mind Silas? Look, I know you've been out of the loop for awhile but, we won't make it one hour on foot much less get past those fire breathing dragons!"

Silas smirked, just slightly though. "Who said anything about going through Reese? How about going, under."

"Under?" Reese and Basinger both said at the same time.

"Yes, under. Living on the streets, as I was, well let's just say I know a thing or two about the underbelly of Brew Town. There is a way to the other side of town that, not many know about but I do."

"Man Silas. Do you see how many people we have to take to the coast? We can't be crawling through tunnels, holy shit," Reese said tightly.

"I don't see you have much choice."

"Dammit. Silas. We are going to load these civvies up and go as far as we can. Then when we get as far as we can, we'll figure something out."

Silas merely shook his head. "It's your call. But either way, we don't make it on time."

Basinger and Reese stepped away from Silas. They walked to the front of the parking lot of the Zion Hill Baptist Church and looked toward the town.

In the distance, surrounding Brew Town, their home and hearth, a blue hazy hue hung in the air being generated by the towering blue beams of light which reached into the night skies above them.

The blue beams that witnesses in Texas had described seeing reanimated people disappearing into them.

Dylan quietly followed them over, spoke up and told Reese about how he had seen Deputy Thibodaux go into one of them but at the time was too afraid to tell anyone. Especially Lacy.

Reese had heard enough. He grabbed Dylan. "Come on. Get Mac and the others. It's time to gear up." He caught James' attention with a wave and kept walking.

Dylan took off to find Macallan.

"Sargeant! Just what do you think you're about to do?" Basinger yelled after him.

Reese turned on his heel and faced the Admiral, his eyes shining with purpose. "I'm getting us, the hell out of here. Now you can hem-haw around all you want but we are getting the fuck on the road before our new neighbors drop by for an introduction."

A knee jerking shout from behind them both halted their rhetoric as the Lieutenant Commander ran up.

Basinger took a deep breath and turned.

Reese stood frozen on the spot.

"Admiral. We're about to have company," he panted gasping for air. He thrust the tablet in Basinger's face and stood there trembling, his hand resting on the pistol at his hip.

Basinger's expression told Reese all he needed to know. With a tight lipped frown he snapped into action with a desperate yell.

"Tilley! Dingo! Front and center! Get the fuck geared up! There's a shit storm coming!"

Macallan, Lacy and Dylan ran up and followed Reese to one of the Humvees where Carolyn and Krisslyn waited with the rest of Reese's men.

Dingo and Tilley along with Murfee started unloading the weapons they'd managed to bring from the black site, tossing rifles around like they were toys.

Dingo looked at Lacy, hesitating only a second before tossing one her way.

She caught it by the barrel, threw it up to her shoulder for a site-in and hollered for a magazine. Macallan handed her one of his and she slammed the 30 round mag in and racked one into the chamber as Macallan was doing the same.

Within those few moments of preparation they started hearing the screams.