Invasion(Jake Barnhart) Invasion

I guess this day was as normal as any. Nineteen year old me leaving my modest apartment and driving an old, beat half to hell Ford Ranger to where I work at the auto parts store. Driving past the bland scenery of the tiny Texas town of 700 people I lived in had become a practiced routine. The radio blared about hostile countries, troop movements, military buildups. Why can’t the world go a few years without the possibility of blowing up? Anyway, I pulled into my normal spot in the parking lot, and walked into the small, blue and white shop that has pretty much been my home for the last three years of my life. Dean, the 6’5, bearded, 270 pound mountain of man who was a former Green Beret and my boss, was already at the counter. I looked at the clock. 9 A.M. sharp. He had probably been there the last couple hours.

“Morning sir.” I said.
“Hey Ryan. Fritz is in the back, he needs help.” He replied in his gravelly voice. Work time. I walked to the back room where we store spare parts and take our lunch breaks, or just play cards on a slow day, and found Fritz, who not only didn’t need any help with anything, but was eating a fast food burger while sitting on a large empty shelf.
“Hey Ryan!” he grinned at me.
“Idiot...” I said in reply, shaking my head. Days went by like this, and he only got away with it because there were only three of us working the place. Just myself, Dean, and my high school friend Rick, who goes by the name of Fritz for some odd reason. I met Fritz in the third grade, and he has stuck with me ever since. Jet black, shaggy mop of hair, and a tall, gangly, skinny mess of a kid, but he doesn’t know it, or pretends not to anyway.

On this particular day, business was slow, a customer hadn’t walked in the shop since 10:30. It was noon. No calls, nothing. From what I could see, there wasn’t even hardly any traffic out on the street. This isn’t a very shocking occurrence, it happens from time to time, but since we are the closest auto parts store in a five mile radius from the closest neighborhood, people have to get maintenance and parts somewhere. I was currently laying down on an empty shelf near the front door, which probably wasn’t a smart thing to do seeing as the first thing a customer would notice was an employee lounging on a shelf, tossing a nut into the air and catching it over and over. From my vantage point on the shelf, Dean appeared half asleep at the counter. I could tell because he had this glazed look in his eyes as he read the same page on the gun magazine he was reading eight times now. Nine. I had no idea where Fritz was, he probably managed to sneak in another burger in the back room. Small town work days.

Suddenly we heard the sirens. Tornado sirens. I looked outside the glass doors of the entrance. There wasn’t a cloud in the Texas sky. Only what looked like a huge flock of birds out in the distance.
“Hey Dean, do you have any idea if they are testing the sirens?” I asked.
“No, they do that on Wednesdays. It’s Thursday.” He replied. However, when he moved to the front of the shop and looked out the window at the flock of birds, his face went white as snow.
“Fritz, get in here now!!” He yelled in the general direction of the back room.
“Dean, what is it?” I asked. I had never seen the man in this state before.
He looked at me and with a hard look in his eyes he said, “We have to go. Ryan, I want you to call your family, and tell them to meet us at Big Thicket National Reserve. Only pack the minimum amount of essentials.”
“What’s going on?” I asked again. I looked out the window again, and the flock of what I thought were birds was much bigger, but still very far away. They weren’t birds. They were planes. Unmarked planes. From what I could tell they were dropping out parachutes by the dozen.
“Invasion.” Replied Dean. Fritz finally showed up. Dean told him the same thing he told me. I was already dialing my dad. I relayed the same information Dean told us. After a quick conversation that lasted no more than 30 seconds, I was about to hang up.
“I’ll see you in Big Thicket.” My dad said to me.
“Don’t be late. I gotta go. Love you, keep mom and April safe.” I said in return, and hung up. Dean went into his office, and came out ten minutes later carrying a long duffel bag.
“I called some of my Green Beret buddies, we are leaving towards a safe location in Big Thicket National Reserve,” Dean started.
“That’s like seven hours away right?” I asked.
“So?” Dean said, eyeing me down. “I also called some Rangers, they should be here soon.”
“Are you just spitballing here, or was this premeditated?” I ask.
“We’ve been preparing for this ever since North Korea tried to launch that missile at us three years ago.” He replied. He then tossed me the duffel bag. I didn’t expect it, and it made solid contact with my chest with a resounding WHOOMPH. It was heavy. Way heavier than I had previously thought. It knocked the air from my lungs. At this point Fritz came back into the room running his fingers through his hair nervously.
“What’s that?” He asked me, when he saw I was holding the duffel bag. I shrugged my shoulders, as I was unable to talk.
“Well open it up numbnuts!” Shouts Dean in his drill instructor voice. I shakily opened the bag. Inside was a huge assortment of weapons. Only from a quick glance I could tell there were assault rifles, actual assault rifles mind you, not guns that looked like them, several shotguns, pistols, grenades, and a whole mess of other stuff that looked like they did their job well.
“Where did you get this stuff?” I asked without thinking. Dean just looked at me like I was insane.
“Right.” I said sheepishly.

Now we heard the squealing of tires and the rumbling of engines. We walked outside the front door and saw Dean’s extended family for the first time. Around 20 guys were waiting in several military humvees.
“Boys, stay on us alright? Always keep my humvee in your windshield, and Derek’s in your rearview.” Dean said, pointing to another bearded chunk of solid granite that was a man. He and I nodded silently at each other.
“Okay,” I said, “Let’s go.” Fritz and I jumped in my truck, and all the other guys piled into their humvees and we headed off on the road. We picked up several scared families and more and more cars trickled into our column. Fritz and I sat in silence. We were each on our own train of thought. Focusing on what was happening, and what would happen in the future. Regular text messages kept me updated on my family. My parents and my sister were already out of town, on their way to where we would meet them. Fritz hadn’t received a message in over half an hour. The last that he heard his parents were just leaving their house. We both knew that by now our attackers would be crawling all over that area of town. They lived on almost the very edge of town, just a few miles away from where we first saw the planes. Neither one of us said anything about it though. Fritz’s knuckles were white with gripping his phone. I looked at his face. He had his other fist balled up and resting on his mouth, with his eyes closed. His kept bouncing his leg, tapping his foot on the floorboards.
“They’re alright man. They have to be.” I told him, knowing that it wouldn’t really comfort him and knowing that it probably wasn’t true. Dead or captured. Those were most likely the only two possibilities.
“You know that isn’t true.” Fritz replied, after a few moments of silence. I looked back at the humvee in front of me, and we didn’t speak after that. At least we were moving away from the danger. Or so we had thought.

As soon as we turned on the highway towards Big Thicket, monumental planes lumbered into view, a few hundred yards ahead of us. Three were flying in a loose V looking formation, and began dropping bombs. Big ones. Explosions rocked the road ahead of us. We couldn’t see any way out of the situation. Cars were careening off of the road or into other cars. Fireballs whooshed into the sky, and the noise was quickly becoming deafening. They were getting closer. Suddenly our column of vehicles swerved onto an old dirt road off the highway before they could pinpoint our vehicles. Although there were much less vehicles on that dirt road than there had been on the highway. Good thing roads like that are common around here, or there wouldn’t be any. This also meant that we had to spend more time travelling, as we had to avoid any major roads after that. The more time we spent on the road the more vulnerable we became.

I called Dean on a walkie-talkie he had given me before we left.
“They’re trying to destroy the highways specifically aren’t they?” I asked, not really wanting the answer I knew was coming.
“Exactly kid,” Came the terrifying reply. “No one gets in, no one gets out. They are locking down the town.”
“But why here? This town only has like a few hundred people!” I said feverishly.
“A few hundred Texans kid. Ha, they knew which targets to go for. A small town like us is probably more dangerous than most big cities in this country. Of course, they can only get the big small towns, not all of them. And most military guys I knew desperately wanted to retire to Texas, or at least someplace like it. There are more of us out here. We plan on trickling more people in our little group and creating a community, and fighting back. We are on our own here, and we gotta play the cards we’re dealt.” Dean said.

About here was when chaos erupted. A muffled explosion rumbled at the head of the column. Everything stopped. I heard constant chatter on the walkie-talkie. The front vehicle had been hit by some sort of mine. No casualties, but it was close. These humvees were designed to take a hit like that. Then gunfire erupted.
Bullets were flying through the air, tearing into my truck and narrowly missing Fritz and I. These were mainly small arms fire, from what I could tell, and then suddenly I saw what was shooting at us. Plain red uniforms, black boots, a whole assortment of weapons, and on their left shoulder, a symbol. This would represent the symbol of our attackers, our oppressors, our enemies. A black skull, with a red star imprinted on the forehead, and purple fire in the background. A symbol that represented pure evil. I had no idea what this symbol meant at the time, however, and I had to focus on the current situation. That was the only thing I managed to see when I peeked through the window though, because more bullets tore through the door. But it soon stopped when Derek’s humvee pulled out in front of my truck, and stopped the torrential downpour of lead from shredding my truck, and it’s occupants. That’s when the .50 gunner on top of the humvee opened up and didn’t stop. I couldn’t see past the humvee, but I could see pink mist floating up from the top and changing the color of the trees behind them. Constant chatter blared on the walkie talkie, and I had no idea what any of it meant. Although I could definitely tell we were going to have to fight our way out.

“Ryan, Fritz, you still got the bag I gave you?” I spun around, and there was Dean on the passenger side with the door wide open.
“Yeah I’ve got it here!” I replied.
“Good, you don’t lose that. Now I want you to listen to me very carefully, grab a couple of pistols out of that bag and start making your way up to the lead humvee. Once you’re there get in and stay there alright, I gotta go get these other civilians. Keep. Your. Heads. Down.” He gestured with his thumb behind us at the other humvees and civilian vehicles.
“Got it? Go!” He didn’t even wait for confirmation. But Fritz and I knew what was expected of us and sprang to action. Fritz zipped open the bag and pulled out two 9 millimeters. He handed one to me, and he opened his door and jumped out. I crawled over the seats and joined him outside. Gunfire was still raging, and now that we were outside, it was all the more louder. My ears quickly started ringing. Directly in front of us, a couple of Dean’s Ranger buddies were crouched behind the humvee, firing round after round into the trees. One of them saw us and yelled something. I couldn’t tell what he said. I couldn’t hear him. I just looked at him blankly. He gestured towards us then pointed to the front of the column. Suddenly Fritz grabbed my arm and shoved me ahead of him. I started crouch-walking towards the front, and looked to my side where Fritz now was. He changed in that moment. In his eyes was the look of someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. Understandable of course, he currently had no idea where his parents were. He looked back at me. I nodded at him. He nodded at me. Suddenly a burst of bullets whizzed over our heads. Our heads snapped back to the front and we crouched lower. We had to focus.

When we got to the front humvee, a Green Beret looked at me and said,
“We are moving out in a few minutes, when I give the word pile in and hold on tight. We are waiting for Dean to get back with more people. Keep your heads down yeah?”
“Yeah.” I replied. Fritz and I crouched somewhat behind them, so as not to get in their way. The gunfire seemed to be slacking off, but not by much. All along the line of vehicles, the military guys spaced themselves out, and I just realized what an incredibly thin green line this was. But they hadn’t broken through it yet. We were giving it everything we had, and we weren’t going to give up an inch of ground. The fighting was fierce. The enemy seemed to not be coordinating. Which was the main reason they hadn’t overrun us before now. They outnumbered us at least three to one. But our guys fought as one cohesive unit, a machine of ruthless efficiency. Shoot, move, communicate. Shoot, move, communicate. A simple, yet flawless pattern. The individual ambushers seemed to act of their own accord. Right then Dean showed up with a few groups of people. He waved his hand in an circular overhead motion.
“Right boys, let’s go!” The Green Beret shouted at us. We quickly bounded into the humvee, and waited for everyone else.

A man, two women, and a small child joined us in the back. The man was relatively calm, but he still looked worried. He nodded at Fritz and I. We nodded back. Men seem to do that a lot. The two women however, looked terrified out of their wits. But they kept their poise, and just shut their eyes while rocking back and forth. One of them was rocking the small child, a girl, in her lap, and whispering in her ear. The girl was naturally almost in hysterics. She only looked to be about four or five years old. Actually, maybe seven. She looked small for her age. I smiled at her, hoping to give her a sense of calm, and she smiled weakly back. You could hear the pinging sounds of bullets ricocheting off of the side armor of the humvee. I’ll say this now, I’ve never felt so utterly useless in my entire life. Sitting there doing nothing, anxiously looking around for nothing, waiting for Dean to tell us we were leaving. I know that Fritz felt the same, but he never told me. Rather, he never admitted it to me. Every sound that occurred outside the humvee was muffled inside it. We could hear everything. The woman covered the ears of the little girl. Just as she should. The screaming and moaning of the wounded, the yells and shouts of the living. The never ceasing gunfire. The endless pinging. I covered my head and slumped forward. I didn’t know where my family was either. Who knows how many other ambushes were set up on the road?

Suddenly, as I was brooding, Dean came up to the humvee and opened the door.
“We’re leaving! Now! You guys better hang on tight, cause we’re going to have to punch through the roadblock of cars on our path. Ryan, Fritz, you take care of these people all right?” It took me a second to register the fact that he had addressed us.
“Uh, yeah Dean, sorry, we’ll do it.” I said. Fritz nodded beside me. He nodded again, then disappeared, closing the door behind him. A few moments later, our humvee started, roaring back to life, and we lurched forward like a ship at sea. We hurled around turns, while the gunners on top of the other humvees held down the triggers. Out of the window, I briefly glimpsed several cars, which looked like they had been swept off to the side like crumbs left on a table. We were through. The gunfire ceased. Silence ensued. I looked around at the other people in the humvee again. The man looked very relieved, and had his arm around one of the women while he whispered into her ear. Words of comfort I assume. The woman with the little girl was doing the same.

The walkie-talkie crackled to life.
“All right boys, we’re out of it for now. We’re still a few hours away from Big Thicket. Good job keeping your cool. Dean out.” And silence reigned again. It was time to meet the occupants.
“Folks, I’m Ryan, and this is Fritz.” I said, jerking my thumb in Fritz’s direction.
“Cody.” Said the man.
“Vanessa.” Said the woman at his arm. They both looked to be in their late 20’s.
“Rachel.” Said the woman cradling the girl. I smiled again at the girl.
“And what’s your name?” I asked her, still smiling.
“Allie,” she said, looking up at me frightfully. She had a long brunette ponytail, a tee shirt, jeans, and a miniature set of cowgirl boots.
“Well, Allie, can you keep a secret?” I asked her, narrowing my eyes and leaning in a bit closer to her. She nodded. Enthusiastically. Not so frightened anymore. I cupped one of my hands against my mouth so the other adults in the vehicle couldn’t tell what I was saying.
“These guys in the uniforms with us? They’re super-heroes.” I whispered mysteriously. Her eyes went wide. Her mouth shaped into a little “O” of surprise. I held one finger up to my mouth and looked at her accusingly with my eyes. She nodded once more. I winked at her and turned back to Fritz. I gave him the thumbs up in the universal “Are you good?” gesture. He gave me his thumbs up and returned to look out the window.
“We’ll be at our destination in a few more hours hopefully,” I said to the people. “So you better get some rest while you can.” They were already hunkering down in their seats and trying to get comfortable. I looked at Fritz, who was staring out the window, with a hard look in his eyes. I closed my eyes, and went to sleep.

I woke up with someone hammering on the door of the humvee. It was Dean. I opened it up to see a small clearing in what looked like the middle of a forest. It looked to be almost evening. It hardly felt like it. All the things that happened, all in one day.
“Welcome to Big Thicket,” Dean said. I looked back at the other passengers. Fritz was groggily rubbing his eyes. The others were doing the same. Then I saw my family. My father, mother, and sister. I ran up to them and hugged all three of them. A few words of relief and love, later however, I heard from Dean, “No time for that I’m afraid Ryan, we’ve got to get some stuff done. Ryan, Fritz, help us out with getting some stuff unloaded.” We followed him out to another humvee. Opening the back, we saw a bunch of boxes. So we started unloading. For the next hour or so, we unloaded them from the back of the humvee and unpacked them. Inside was a large variety of camping supplies. Tents, pans, cups, silverware, the “bear necessities” as Allie kept calling it. We then started to set up the tents, make some fires. Food was brought out towards evening... Simple stuff, sausages, eggs, water. Dean approached Fritz and I as we were eating.
“Ryan, Fritz, we need your help one more time tonight,” he said. “We lost three guys to that ambush. We want you to be there for the burying. They’re still in one of the humvees though, we didn’t want to unload them in front of the others.” We stood up to follow him. We approached the humvee, which had been moved away from the main camp. We saw three body bags on the grass in front of three graves. Along with dried blood on the floorboards of the humvee. A knot grew in my stomach. These guys gave their lives trying to defend ours. I had a feeling that I could never do enough to repay that kind of debt. I was right. I closed my eyes tightly for a brief second then focused back to reality again.

The burial was simple, yet elegant, and I’ve truly never felt anything like what I felt that night. The men were lowered into the ground, gently, and Dean spoke, “These men died today trying to defend our lives. They died trying to defend the lives of the unknown people with us tonight. They paid the ultimate sacrifice, and it can never be repaid. They were soldiers. They were warriors. They were Americans. And we must never forget them. We must never forget their sacrifice. When we fight this unknown enemy, we will remember that they were the ones that killed these men. We will remember. And we will mete out justice. We will make them pay. We will make them regret attacking us. We will make them regret every life they’ve ever taken. For these are the wolves, attacking the sheep, and we are the sheepdogs. We are the only thing that stands between order and chaos. For if we stop fighting, who will take our place?” The speech was over. He stepped down. The graves were filled. The War for America had begun.

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