2560 AD- 200 years after The Landing

A desperate moment in the far future. The world has long been colonized by a giant alien race, and humans are now like vermin to them.

I LIE WITH my face pressed into corn husks, eyes shut against the overcast dawn. My breath, all but held, puffs into the frosted mulch; wisps of steam from my thundering heart.

    The crack of the giant rifle far behind me echoes into the dreary sky, the bullet trilling into the soil like a drop of molten steel into water. Dirt pummels my mouth and nose, but I'm alive for another second; one more God-blessed second. I open my eyes and ignore the cold dirt in my lashes. I see my hand, that was half buried when I sprawled and prayed that some small rise in the field would hide me. The slug must be buried under my palm. 

    The next sound is a click, as sharp as a knife. The crows, the never-ending laugh of a thousand voices, take wing at this of all sounds, circling up and silent but for the thumping of their wings. I see them and panic seizes me again, knowing I must run soon; For my naked, tender life, I must run.

    I hear, two-hundred yards behind me, the grunt of the huge and not human. A bored sound, frustrated by the monotony of repetition. I hear giant boots sandpaper against frosty concrete. I must run, but not a second too long; not a single second. It's a game, and I mustn't puke, or scream. It's a game, and the Monster has gone to get another toy. 

    I wait for the short step -the one that means the Thing must be behind the silo- and I push off with my arms and legs, so hard that I think my muscles tear. My feet thrash in the corn husks, my hands hover to pedal the ground if I stumble. I race wildly across the field, nothing but the Monster coursing through my mind. It's reaching down now, leaning the empty rifle against the wall of the concrete barn. It's reaching for the other, the second of three; the ones I saw, dumbly, just before I saw the Monster and ran like a rabbit.

I see It in my mind -time it- lift the gun, look it over. My feet pedal harder, but it's as if time and distance favor the Thing. 

    I hear the boots again, one two steps, and I plow facedown into the dirt. My heart knows that I'm visible, like a child playing hide and seek in a room with no furniture. I feel It's eyes rest on my exposed back, but I push the thought from my head and imagine that I'm buried deep, and tiny imperfections in the field's level hide me from the Monster’s view. I sink my hands a little deeper into the soil, imagining the dirt drawing me in. I want to press my boots deeper, to squirm my body farther down, but every breath and twitch of mine sound as though they must echo from the concrete walls around the Thing, and I dare not move.

    The first report of the new rifle snatches away my dreams of camouflage, and I feel Its eyes on me again, boring into me as if the field were a marble floor. I don't hear where the slug hits, but the shot is followed by another, then another three in quick succession, too quick I think, and it’s as if my nakedness is being looked at by God, and the torrent of bullets comes and I can't move. I want to ball up tight and sink down, down into the black earth until the very weight of it gives me comfort. The slugs pelt like hail, and I open my eyes long enough to see the dirt popping up like a thousand buried fire crackers, all exploding nearer and nearer until I slam my eyes shut and feel the dirt sprinkle my legs and arms and shoot up my nose and all I can think about is how naked I feel, and how fragile. It goes on, stopping only to start again, and I know that I'll be dead soon. 

    There is a sudden change in the sound. It turns much weaker and faster, clicks even smaller than the one from the last gun. In my mad fear I raise my head and look back, and I see the thing's back "that might have been algae green" as it walks back to the wall, and I'm up and running again. I see something as I stumble forward; a car, or what used to be one, on the border between the harvested field around me and another field full of crumbling stalks still standing in rows. Paint-less and rusted, but every window intact, it looks infinitely closer than the field of stalks its back windows are hidden by. I run for it, glancing wildly behind me once and seeing nothing. The Thing must be leaning the empty rifle against the wall now, hand leaving the hot barrel and grasping the cold one. 

The last one. 

    The ground blurs under me and the car is closer. The tires are flat and dry-rotted; it must have been out here for decades, like some border marker. The door handle is frosted, I pray the lock button isn't frozen as I grab the handle and jam it with my thumb. The long cylinder of button creaks down but doesn't click. The Thing must be walking back by now. Pain shoots under my thumbnail where my other thumb hits it, and there's a pop.  The door opens and I jump in and slam it shut. I don't hear if it echoed "although it must have" Because I'm wrapped in the dumb silence of the cab. My ears scream in the closeness of it, and I'm pressed back into the driver's seat, a thousand thoughts running circles in my brain. 

Why didn't I duck into the field? 

Do I still have time to get out and into the stalks, where I can race away unseen? 

Did he hear me get in? Oh God, did he hear me?

    The smell of mildew and old car gives part of my mind leave to explore memories of comfort, but I don't follow it. I stay with my heart that beats my ears like a helicopter, and with the screaming silence that erases any knowledge of the outside. I wait, but only seconds before I look. I must look. 

His eyes, a hundred yards away, regard mine for the second they meet; blank, round eyes, white goat-pupils and black where the white should have been. It’s thirty feet tall, at least. The face of a frog, or a dog; Hair or maybe quills. Big boots with thick silver soles and shiny buckles. It's eyes reflected no thought; curiosity perhaps, but almost surely no thought at all but to kill.

    I throw my head back into what's left of the cushion and hear the SHLICK-SHLICK of a giant pump shotgun.

    

    When the blast comes, the world spins. The car recoils up onto its side, then rolls over on its top. All of the glass bursts at the shot and the white light of an overcast day pops through a dozen triangles in the driver's door.

I feel the buckshot rip through me, but as the car turns on its side, all I can think as I watch the dash pass and I crunch onto the passenger door below me is how alive I am. when the car rolls to its top, I fall to the roof and the bench seat falls with me, unfolding itself onto my back and pressing my cheek into the glass cubes from the passenger window, and I'm alive. 

I look out through a bleary eye, and can't see high enough to see the Thing. I see the glass piled and strewn from the hole where it had been, and see how the blood in it shines and sparkles red in the white daylight, and my only thought is joy, that there are such signs of death. 

He can see the sparkling red of blood, surely. The monster will think I'm dead. 

He'll think I'm dead, and he wouldn't waste more shells from his last gun on a corpse, would he? He wouldn't come out to check, to lift and squeeze his prize, with those new shiny boots on, surely. 

He mustn't get mud all over those new boots, no he mustn't.

He must think I'm dead.

He must.

And I think he does.

Author's Note

All feedback greatly appreciated!