The Mind Hack Page 5

  “Sorry, sir,” Tolbert responded. “I just wanted to see the monsters.” At least he has found a way to kill the monsters, but how can I use this information to my advantage?

  “Well, you have now, so you better get moving. It’s not safe for you here.” His face was inscrutable. He turned and marched back to the barricade and instructed one of the men on the barricade to escort Tolbert to a safe distance.

  As Tolbert turned, he heard a sound that made his face go white with terror.

  ‘Tap, tap, tap’ came the slow sound.

  The soldier arrives at Tolbert’s back and asked him to move along.

  ‘Tap, tap, tap’ it came again, this time quicker and from further away. Tolbert’s head snapped around, looking into the direction of the last sound, barely audible above the sounds of the soldiers at the Kennedy Bridge. The beetles as well? It can’t be. They can’t be here at the same time. It’s not possible. How can I get out? I want out… There is no place like home… there is no place like home… there is no place like home.

  The soldier grabbed Tolbert’s arm and started to move him roughly away from the barricade. As he did so he saw the look of abject fear on Tolbert’s face as the beetles swarmed out of the trees from along the road.

  Tolbert raised his hand and pointed; the soldier’s eyes followed as a swarm of beetles led six huge slugs.

  A roar reverberated from across the bridge.

  “Lieutenant Briggs!” shouted the soldier at Tolbert’s arm.

  Lieutenant Briggs turned and faced the soldier.

  The soldier shouts. “We have hostiles coming in from the east.”

  Briggs turned to face the east as the beetles enveloped the tank, giant slugs coming up from behind them. “No one told me about insects,” he cursed.

  The crackle of gunfire from the other soldiers came as the trolls and raptors poured across the bridge and race towards the men stationed at the barricade. The tank tried to fire but a slug slithered on to the top and bit the hatch off. A troll hit the barricade first sending soldiers flying in all directions.

  “Retreat,” Briggs bellowed.

  The soldiers abandoned their positions and ran away from the two clashing nightmares.

  Tolbert turned as a slug slithered out of the bushes and wrapped a long tongue around both Tolbert and the soldier and pulled them into the cavernous maw that was its mouth.

  Oh no, not again. How can little me defeat this game?

  Striker wandered around Mott Haven checking in with hotels and asked if they had seen Tolbert. Showing them a picture didn’t help him. In his wanderings, he turned down a street and instead of the teeming mass of humanity, he came upon a barricade being built by the army.

  He frowned as he watched the soldiers setting up the barricade. Beyond them he saw a tank in position pointing down the bridge.

  A loud roar resonated from across the bridge, startling the soldiers. They paused looking down across the bridge. A quick command reanimated them.

  A troll lumbered down the bridge.

  The tank let of a round that wiped out the troll in a shower of blood and flesh.

  Another roar echoed from the bridge as two hulking trolls rushed over it. Nipping at their ankles were a horde of raptors. Striker froze as he watched the contents of the Dragon Hunt game charge across the bridge.

  The tank fired off a hasty round, the boom of it resounding in Striker’s ears. It missed the troll and cratered into the road. The soldiers dropped their sandbags and fired at the oncoming raptors. The gunfire brought down the raptors but bounced off the trolls.

  “Keep firing,” ordered the officer, standing behind his soldiers, firing his pistol.

  The tank fired again, hitting one of the trolls, smearing several of its arms on the bridge.

  Roaring louder the troll continued charging towards them. Then the wave of monsters hit the soldiers. Jumping over the sandbags, they bit and ate the soldiers.

  The soldiers, panicked ran.

  The trolls attacked the tank, beating it with their fists, each impact creating a clashing ringing sound as the trolls made fist-sized dents in the tanks armour.

  A raptor jumped up on top of the tank and noticed that the hatch was open. Chirping, it jumped inside. Screams echoed from inside the tank as the men inside were eaten alive.

  Once the soldiers were routed, the raptors and trolls continued to pour onto the streets, killing and eating.

  Striker turned and ran from the oncoming invasion. Searching for a place to hide, he rounded the corner. He bumped into an armoured knight and he skidded to a stop. His mouth opened in shock, he looked up and noticed that the knight was not alone. Filling the street was a large group of knight’s, with lances and pennants flying in the wind.

  “Out of the way peasant!” boomed a voice from inside a visored helm.

  Striker didn’t argue. He stepped into the doorway on his right, a shop called ‘Swords, Knives and Daggers,’ and watched as the knights moved forward, towards the troll and raptor army.

  The knights moved forward, not breaking formation. They rounded the corner and Striker followed them along with several other people, all wide-eyed in amazement.

  The knight’s leader raised a fist, and the front three ranks of lances lowered. The leader swung his arm forward and the whole regiment moved forward as a single entity. They quickly built up speed and charged straight at the teeming monsters. The lancers punched through the raptors with ease neatly eviscerating them. The knights hit the trolls the lancers puncture and split their flesh and they died from several lances ripping into them.

  With the trolls all dead, the knights’ broke formation to hunt down the remaining raptors. Once the raptors were all dealt with, the knights reformed ranks and marched over the bridge and out of sight.

  A pale woman dressed in a simple shift, blended in with the crowd. Instead of watching the knights, she watched Striker, a smile forming on her lips, before she faded away.

  Chapter 8

  Tolbert sat up with a jolt smacking his head into an overhanging piece of rubble. OW, that hurt. Coming fully awake from the pain tearing through his head, he surveyed the area. Where am I? He lay under a slab of concrete; his rifle sat out in the sun three metres from him. Where is the soldier? Why is this only happening to me?

  He began sliding out to get the gun when he heard a chirp. He froze… his face as white as a sheet. Reptilian legs came into view; a happy chirping sound followed.

  Not them again. I have to find a way out of this. I need help.

  The reptile stopped and looked at the rifle. After nuzzling it, checking to see if it was food, it moved on.

  Tolbert waited while he counted out a minute in his head and then gingerly slid out from under the concrete slab. Arising, he dusted off his leather getup and realigned his Stetson. As he took a step towards the rifle, his spurs jangled.

  Tolbert froze. He looked around for any sign of a returning raptor. Then he carefully lowered himself down and removed the spurs from each of his boots and set them aside. Quietly, he tiptoed across to the rifle and picked it up.

  Tolbert then set off down the narrow avenue cautiously listening for every sound that he made. Rounding a corner Tolbert discovered a body of a woman lying against a wall. A plain longsword rested on her knees.

  Tolbert chuckled at the corpse. Surely that sword did her no good. Then he noticed that sitting next to the corpse was a decapitated head of a troll, sitting in a small pool of dried blood. She killed a troll?

  Tolbert picked up the sword and scabbard in disbelief and attached it to his belt. Hitching the rifle to his back, he drew the sword and swung it around, getting a feel for the blade. It was a simple blade and well balanced, from what he could tell. If guns don’t work, then maybe a sword will help. What can I lose?

  A roar came from down the road. Tolbert froze in mid-swing and turned his head to look at the source of the roar.

  Standing under a broken streetlight was a dragon, ten feet tall
, and covered from head to toe in black scales. It stood on four squat legs with the dragon’s diamond head at the end of a long neck.

  Beside the black creature were three green trolls. One of the trolls had spotted Tolbert, and had sounded the alarm. As the echo of the roar died down, the other trolls turned.

  The dragon lazily turned its head and gazed at Tolbert. The dragon’s eyes were enormous orbs that swirled with colour.

  As the dragon turned its body to face Tolbert, a warm sense of welcome flowed in to Tolbert’s mind. The colours in the dragon’s eyes changed from a dominate blue to a yellow in colour. Tolbert remained fixed in place, his hands going limp at his side and a smile of wonder alighting his face. Gazing at the dragon he sighed contentedly.

  The dragon ambled up to where Tolbert stood, never taking his eyes off him. Once upon him, the dragon opened its mouth and swallowed Tolbert whole. The dragon allure hadn’t given Tolbert a chance to fight a dragon head on.

  A pale lady stood under an unbroken door, her face creased into a gleeful smile as she winked out of existence.

  Did subject alpha even know what hit him?

  Striker returned and looked at the shop door he had been stepped into. It was ‘Swords Knives and Daggers’.

  If the lances worked on the trolls I think a sword of my own would be helpful.

  Entering into the shop, he spied an old Asian man sitting behind the display counter reading, but who looked up at Striker’s entrance. The shop was covered from wall to wall in various sizes of everything from a paring knife to a great bastard sword hanging in an ornate case behind the man sitting at the counter.

  “Welcome,” the man smiled. “You buy?”

  Striker smiled back, looking over the selection of swords. Striker looked up. The bastard sword was the only thing that was close to what he had used in Dragon Hunt.

  The old man noticed his gaze and reflected, “Very beautiful sword.”

  “Yes, it is,” responded Striker. “Can I hold it, please?”

  “Sure, sure,” he agreed, lowering the sword for Striker.

  The heft of the blade was perfect. Testing the edge, he found it blunt.

  “I need it sharpened,” Striker muttered to himself.

  “I can. You pay extra?”

  Striker grabbed the tag hanging at the hilt. His eyes widened, it was cheaper than he had expected.

  “Deal,” Striker agreed, returning the sword.

  The shop owner took it and stepped out back to sharpen the blade.

  Upon his return, Striker payed the man and carried the sword on his back, in a scabbard provided by the shop.

  Striker returned to the bridge and crossed. On the other side the destruction was obvious. The remains of the lightning strikes had created huge craters in the roads. Buildings had collapsed into each other, creating road blocks and dead ends. The empty streets were eerily quiet, only broken by the occasional scream and roar. Not everyone had completely turned, it seemed. Striker pulled out the address he had for Tolbert and checked the map on his smartphone. He still had to cover several blocks.

  A rumble of a car engine, down the street alerted him to the presence of people. He rushed off to investigate.

  Striker turned at the next street to find several people were piling into a car that was overloaded with possessions. A grizzled man in a grey suit and a two-day growth of black beard on his face pointed a shotgun at him. Striker raised his hands to show he was non-threatening.

  The man laughed when he saw the sword on Striker’s back and lowered the gun.

  “You guys running or looting?” Striker questioned.

  The grizzled man stopped laughing suddenly. “What you going to do about it?” he growled, raising the gun at Striker again.

  “Nothing,” Striker placated. “Just wondering if I have to keep an eye out for you again. I am looking for someone that used to live around here.”

  “Did your friend live here?” the grizzled man asked, again lowering the gun.

  “No,” Striker answered. “A couple of blocks to the south.”

  “Well, everyone here is either dead or turned.”

  “Oh, okay. Would you know how I can get south? All the roads so far have been blocked off,” Striker queried.

  “No,” returned the grizzled man. “I checked them all, and they are all blocked. You might try the subways. A mate of mine said that some of the subways were working even after the big storm,” he offered.

  “Is the nearest one still open?”

  “Last I checked,” he reflected as he climbed into the overloaded sedan. “Hope you find your friend, and I hope she is worth it.”

  His comment elicited a cackle of laughter from the others in the car. Striker took his first look at them. They were all a little rough looking and all in high spirits. Two women and one man. A lithe woman with black hair tied into a neat pony tail sat behind the steering wheel. The two in the back, looked to Tolbert to be younger.

  “The last time anyone went into the subways, they were never heard from again,” cackled the woman in the front seat.

  “Thanks for your vote of confidence,” called Striker as they drove away.

  He stared off down the road. His map on his smartphone informed him that the subway entrance was at the next intersection. Striker weighed the stranger’s words as he ambled down the street.

  A loud roar to his left broke the quiet. Standing above the entrance to the subway tunnel were two trolls. Milling around them, a pack of raptors scratched at the rubble.

  Striker drew his huge sword and swung it before him. The sound of horses to his right attracted Striker’s attention. Striker stepped into a broken doorway and watched as the knights formed up.

  The trolls and the raptors all turned and faced the assembling knights.

  The knights lowered their lances as they formed up. At a signal from the commander, they charged. As they closed on the monsters, the monsters charged back. The knight’s momentum drove them over the raptors. The raptors ran forward and were either impaled on the knights lowered lances or crushed under the hooves of the horses.

  The two trolls then collided into the knights.

  The knights dropped their broken lances and drew their broadswords. The knights wheeled and split up.

  The trolls skidded to a stop.

  The knights formed a circle around the trolls, swords at the ready.

  The trolls stood back to back, facing the knights.

  The commander of the knights raised his sword, and the knights moved towards the trolls.

  Roaring the trolls counterattacked. They unseated two knights and started pummelling the downed knights.

  The other knights converged on the trolls and started slashing, cutting off limbs.

  The overwhelming blood loss forced the trolls to turn and face the other knights. The trolls had run out of blood, they keeled over, dead.

  The knights’ commander dismounted and checked the knights who had been unhorsed. He raised the visor of each in turn, confirming they were dead. After saying a short prayer for the fallen, he mounted his horse, and the knights reformed and moved away down the avenue.

  Striker smiled at the disappearing column of knights and silently thanked them for clearing the way to the subway. He hefted the bastard sword and dashed for the subway entrance. The subway awaited, and the adventure therein.

  Striker crept down the stairs, the darkness broken by the flickering of an overhead light. Sword in hand, Striker moved down the stairs, not making a sound. The stairs levelled out to a bend in the stair-well. He pressed his back against the wall and peered around the corner.

  The subway station was empty. The flickering of the light gave Striker a glimpse of the layout; the station started at a ticket point at the bottom of the small flight of stairs. Striker pulled out his phone, turned on the flashlight function, and proceeded down the stairs. He stepped through the turnstile and jumped down onto the track, his flashlight playing across the walls.

&nbs
p; He continued to walk along the tracks until he came to the next station. Halfway along the next station a subway train lay crushed under a collapsed roof. In the driver’s cab, a skeleton sat wedged under the door that had crumpled under the weight of the collapsed roof. A warble came from further down the subway station and was followed by the skittering of rocks.

  Striker’s flashlight swept across the station strewn with human bones, all chewed and gnawed, and landed on a raptor looking at him from up on the platform. Its eyes glinted in the light as it jumped at Striker.

  Striker stepped back and the raptor landed a metre from him. The raptor dashed at Striker, and he blocked with the sword.

  Dazed the raptor stepped back.

  Striker stepped forward closing the distance, and stabbed with the sword.

  The raptor ducked at the last second, causing the sword to pass over its head.

  Sweat broke out on Striker’s brow as the raptor stepped forward and head-butted him in his bulging belly. Striker landed on his back.

  The raptor stepped up to him and placed a foot on Strikers chest. It looked down at him and opened its mouth exposing rows of razor-sharp teeth.

  I am not going to let you kill me. Striker brought up his hand and hit the raptor in the side of the head, sending it flying across the tracks. Striker arose as the raptor attacked again. Sword collided with head as Striker tried to block. The sword cut through the raptor’s mouth and sheared off its head, killing the creature. Striker a little shaken up, left the bleeding remains of the raptor behind, scrambled up to the platform and then up to daylight.

  Tolbert woke up in his bed. The familiar surroundings would have been a comfort if not for the devastation. Okay try to avoid the notice of a dragon. They don’t play fair. The room was a complete disaster, clothes and belongings were scattered all across the floor. A large piece of concrete had crashed through the north facing wall creating an unexpected exit. A cold wind blew in through the impromptu door.

  Tolbert got up and dressed, elated at the first time in several days that he could wear something other than his boxer shorts. He chose black jeans and a t-shirt. I need to find someone who can help me. Who would be able to help me? Is this a real-world issue? Am I able to survive any type of death? If this is a huge game played on me, then how do I get out? Why is this even happening to me? All I know is that creatures from the games Dragon Hunt and Space Traders seem to have invaded New York. Or is this yet another game? But first I need a weapon.