SURVIVE FROM THE ALIEN ATTACK

Dolphins always push drowning people to the shore, we know this since the time of Aesop. All dolphins rescued at sea testify to the same thing. But does this mean that dolphins really always help people in trouble? Or are we simply unable to learn the stories of those who were pushed offshore by dolphins? The given example with dolphins resembles a well-known joke: "All 100% of the population of our planet have access to the Internet, this is eloquently evidenced by the results of a survey on the Google website."

Now, digressing from dolphins and the Internet, let's look at existing fantasy novels. More precisely, not even on the novels themselves, but on their main characters, especially on the "fallen" into other worlds and survivors of all kinds of Apocalypses. The typical male protagonist is necessarily muscular, like Conan the Barbarian. A woman is certainly so divinely attractive that no normal man can resist the sight of her. Both of them know how to shoot with two hands, they understand all types of modern weapons, and with medieval small arms and cold ones they even go for a walk with the dog and a picnic with work colleagues. In addition to all of the above, the hero must have a third at least a black belt in any martial art, almost always a scientific degree from a doctor of science and above, and there is always a close friend, who is well versed in exactly what will be needed further in the story: from knowledge of a long-extinct language to the construction of a thermonuclear reactor. And if the hero suddenly does not have any of the above, then he will certainly compensate for this lack of experience in all the hot spots of our time, an abundance of money or acquaintance with the coolest bosses of the criminal world.

How many of your acquaintances do you know who possess at least half of the traits described? Hardly. So, is it really impossible for a hero of a science fiction novel to exist without all the burden it is not clear where, it is not clear when and for the sake of what goals he has learned the skills of killing his own kind and surviving in extreme conditions? Can't the hero really be an ordinary person – a boring manager-consultant in a store or an ordinary programmer, and not at all a super-genius?

Of course, certain conditions will be required for our character to stop being an uninteresting, clogged gray shadow, and become a real hero in the eyes of someone. Firstly, we need weaker ones so that our character feels the need to become a leader and protect others in conditions where all the "real heroes" suddenly died or are in an incomprehensible place. Secondly, our character must be sure to remain a man in the conditions of chaos reigning around, not succumbing to the temptations of lawlessness. Otherwise, it will not be a hero at all, but a petty despot parasitizing on the weak and defenseless. It is unlikely that such a type will be of interest to the reader, and in the author it will only cause disgust and disgust.

Thus, the starting conditions are determined: a normal person with his possible weaknesses and shortcomings, in critical conditions, is ready to take responsibility for the lives of the weaker ones. So, let's begin!

"Whoever is able to understand women is able to govern the state"

Honore de Balzac

I was lying on the hot asphalt, pressing my cheek against the wheel of a flaming minibus. There was a strong stench of burnt rubber, the right hand was swollen, the palm was raw from numerous cuts. But the vile smell, the heat coming from above, the broken fists in the blood and the shard of glass stuck in the right palm could be tolerated. Much worse was that the molten plastic from somewhere above occasionally dripped directly onto my back, each time making me wince in pain. I thought with annoyance that the brand-new jacket seemed to be completely burned out on the back. A little more, and the thin white shirt will also burn out, and hot plastic will drip right onto my living skin. It became more and more difficult to endure every minute, but it was impossible to move – death hung right above the road.

Is my back on fire? I asked an elderly man lying on the pavement nearby.

The pensioner, without turning his head, squinted his eyes and answered with his lips:

- The flame is not visible. But your clothes smoke a little.

So, it does not burn, only slowly smolders. This is good. I immediately felt a surge of strength and, clenching my teeth, was going to endure further. He looked at his neighbor, who also had a hard time – the pensioner's left arm looked unnaturally twisted at the elbow, like a dislocation or even a fracture. The wound obviously caused the old man suffering, but he endured and did not lose his head from the pain.

We need to crawl away from the burning car. I'm afraid that her gas tank would explode, – whispered my neighbor in misfortune.

"You'll crawl away, how ..." I grumbled, looking at the charred corpses lying everywhere on the pavement. - Just move and become the same as all of them.

"We'll have to take a chance, otherwise death is all the same," the old man whispered, barely perceptibly, by a millimeter, turning his head to the side. Looks like their ship is moving. Yes exactly! Goes off to the right. In a minute or two it will be closed from us by the high building of the hotel. This is our chance, boy.

From my place, the wheel, and skeleton of the burning minibus blocked the damned alien aircraft, but I believed my brother in misfortune. Yes, and there was no longer any strength to endure the plastic hardening on clothes. Another burning drop just fell on my back, forcing me to clench my teeth to a crunch. It is urgent to change the place, otherwise I simply can not stand such torture.

I turned my head and scanned the road. The minibus was blown up in the city of Shchelkovo near Moscow at the very beginning of the bridge across the Klyazma River. Where is there to run? Nearby were only mangled skeletons of cars and corpses lying on the pavement. There is absolutely no way out to change one unreliable shelter for another exactly the same. The fences of the bridge are thin, there is no way to hide behind them from a ruthless and such a well-aimed shooter. Actually, this section of the road could not yet be called a bridge. There was no high slope here, no empty space under the road deck, much less water from below. Just a fenced off stretch of highway that has become a death trap for so many people today.

- Ready? Let's run! Shouted the pensioner and, jumping up, rushed straight down the road towards the river.

Still not deciding where I would move from this burning minibus, I also got up. I quickly looked around and decided that I would run behind that gray Volkswagen lying on its side. And he had already taken the first step, when suddenly the body of an old man who had run away about ten meters was torn to pieces. Burning fragments of the body and splashes of blood flew in all directions, next to me a torn off foot flopped onto the road. I fell sharply on the pavement and rolled under the bottom of the minibus.

My heart was pounding in fear. I almost died! Just half a second, and he would have jumped out from behind a burning minibus right under alien bullets. But why bullets? Maybe the enemy fired some kind of beam or energy pulse. I saw only that the unknown shooter does not miss, and each of his shots means someone's death.

It's a pity for the pensioner, he was a good man. He was the first to orient himself in that morning nightmare and knocked me down, completely mad with fear, thereby saving my life. With annoyance and shame, I belatedly realized that for all the time that we had lain side by side on the hot asphalt, I had not bothered to ask the old man's name.

From above there was a strong heat, the body of the machine hissed and crackled. How can you not be roasted alive! I involuntarily imagined myself as a goose roasted in the oven. It became difficult to breathe, I had to unbutton the buttons of my burnt jacket and loosen the collar of my shirt. The tie, which in calmer times felt like a nasty noose, flew to hell. I breathed heavily and often. It was difficult to endure the heat, but still possible, but I was terribly thirsty.

While I was lying near the minibus, I didn't feel thirsty at all, because there were much more serious reasons for concern: hot asphalt, flames around, burning bodies and plastic dripping on my back. Now, when it was possible to hide from the threat of instant death, both the rough dryness of the tongue and the disgusting metallic-bitter taste in the mouth, which could not be got rid of, began to irritate. In addition, his head ached badly, his temples seemed to be squeezed by a metal hoop. All this together strongly looked like symptoms of poisoning by combustion products.

Perhaps it is poor health that has now become the number one problem. There was, of course, still the threat of an explosion of the gas tank. But I rightly judged that everything that could explode had already exploded in the past hours. Under the bottom of the car, I calmed down a little, pulled out a fragment stuck in my palm, and in a calmer atmosphere began to think about what kind of nightmare was going on around?

***

I frankly overslept the beginning of the attack. The habit of dozing in a minibus, barely crawling through morning traffic jams, appeared back in the student years. At first, I rested like this on the way to the institute, and in the last two years already on the way to work. And today, as soon as I took a seat by the window and handed the driver the due fare, I immediately leaned back in my chair and dozed off. I just wanted to sleep terribly - the sleepless night at Aslan's birthday had an effect, where there was a lot of drunk alcohol and smoked cigarettes, splashed out emotions and spent energy. I fell asleep already in the morning, when the last girls left. And already at the beginning of the ninth Aslan woke me up, who needed to go to work. Barely tearing my eyes from fatigue, I splashed water on my swollen face and trudged to the bus station, where I got on a minibus going to Moscow and was going to sleep for an hour and a half,

I was awakened by the alarmed cry of a neighbor on the minibus, which was immediately joined by several other frightened voices. Waking up, I did not immediately understand the cause of the excitement, but then I looked ahead and through the windshield I saw everything with my own eyes. Slowly crawling across the bridge in a traffic jam, cars exploded one after another! They flew up, engulfed in flames, somersaulted and fell on other cars. Here, a dark gray jeep exploded, flying high into the air and falling off the bridge into the river. Here, a car was torn to pieces. The explosions were getting closer and closer every second. Panic broke out in the minibus, the women squealed in horror. Here with a roar exploded, flying off somewhere to the side from the road, a cargo "Gazelle" right in front of our car. I looked ahead at the approaching death, unable to move from horror. For a moment it seemed to me that the bridge ahead collapsed right under the big bus. But then it was the turn of our minibus. A brutal blow fell on the front of the Ford, a hot flame swept through the cabin in a wave, the dying passengers squealed heart-rendingly.

I was sitting at the very back of the cabin, and that was the only thing that saved me. With difficulty tearing my eyes away from the aunt burning alive, trying to open the jammed door, I noticed that the side glass next to me cracked. It was a chance to save! With all my might, I slammed my fist against the glass, breaking my knuckles into blood. Another hit! More! More! Add an elbow! It became difficult to breathe in the burning cabin, there was a catastrophic lack of oxygen. I greedily caught the remnants of air in my mouth and thought that another half a minute, and I would die - either burn or suffocate. A few more times, with all his might, he slammed his fists and elbow on the cursed glass, but it only became covered with a network of cracks, but did not crumble. In desperation, I jumped up on the seat and hit the network of cracks with my boot several times. Happened! Glass shattered, shards rained out. Here is the way to salvation!

But before I had time to rejoice at my luck, a guy pushed me sharply aside and jumped out into the hole that had opened up first. I fell on a screaming bloody aunt in the next seat. For some reason, she tightly grabbed my hands, not allowing me to break away and escape.

- Get off you! I shouted, but my aunt seemed to have lost her mind and clung to me like a tick.

It was very stuffy and impossibly hot, the flame quickly spread throughout the cabin. With horror, I realized that because of this crazy woman, I would now burn alive on the bus. Despair gave me strength, I managed to wrest my left hand from the grasping fingers of the madwoman and hit the woman hard several times. The unfortunate groaned in pain and let me go. Her gaze became more meaningful.

- Stupid! Get out the window! I shouted to the woman and set an example myself by jumping through the broken bus window.

It didn't work out properly. I caught my foot on something, or maybe that crazy aunt tried to grab me again. Because of this hold, I unsuccessfully fell head down onto the asphalt, barely having time to put my hands out and slightly softening the fall. From hitting the ground for a few moments, I "floated", but when I tried to get up, someone's strong hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to the ground. It was the same pensioner.

Don't get up, you'll die! he hissed at me, and for some reason I immediately believed him.

There was a real hell all around. Dozens of cars were burning, people were screaming, new explosions continued. Right in front of my eyes, a bloodied young girl crawled out of an overturned passenger car, straightened up and ... turned into a flaming torch!

"Don't move, boy, if you want to live," the pensioner whispered.

I was too shocked to argue. Just at first he tried to believe his savior, and then he himself saw the source of the threat. Directly above the road at a height of about thirty meters above the ground floated a strange large dark object like an elongated isosceles triangle with an acute angle turned downwards. It was not possible to determine the dimensions of this aircraft, but it was large and clearly made of metal. And he sowed death - located on the sides of this flying contraption, several small turrets rotated and periodically lit up with flashes of shots. With each shot, an unusual sound was heard, similar to the whistle of water evaporating from the surface of a hot frying pan: "pssssshshsh". On the advice of the wise old man, I pressed myself to the ground and froze, pretending to be dead.

***

New shots were heard less and less often, but the strange flying ship still circled over the road in search of new victims. Several times I even saw his shadow on the ground. Somewhat belatedly came the fear that this terrible hunter of people could notice the disappearance of my body and guess that the prey had taken refuge somewhere. On the other hand, it's too late to worry about what has already happened. And most importantly, there was no molten plastic dripping onto the back. And the car was no longer on fire, the heat emanating from it gradually faded away. Lots of questions were running through my head. How to explain what is happening? What to do next? How long will this ship hang over the road? And what if the fearsome hunter never flies away?

I took out my mobile phone from the inside pocket of my jacket. My boss gave me a smartphone last New Year as a bonus for fulfilling the sales plan. It is even surprising that with all the upheavals of this morning, the phone survived. The time was displayed on the screen of the mobile phone: ten hours twenty-eight minutes. I did not pinpoint the exact time of the start of the attack. I could only estimate that it all started somewhere between nine o'clock and half past ten in the morning. So it's only been an hour, maybe an hour and a half.

Oddly, in my own sense, much more time has passed since the attack.

The good news was that the cellular connection was picked up. In the Moscow region along the Shchelkovsky and Fryanovsky highways, there were many local sections where the signal became unstable or disappeared altogether. But here, in fact, on the main avenue of the regional center, the mobile phone caught well, despite all the shocks. The only thing that scared me was the low battery level of the phone, less than forty percent. Actually, I regularly put my mobile phone on charge every evening, but today I didn't spend the night in my rented apartment in Shchelkovo, but I didn't "shine" once again with my expensive phone visiting Aslan. The risk of waking up without a phone at all was too great. I saw some guests for the first time, and they absolutely did not inspire confidence in me.

By the way, about a rented apartment. I lived not far from the place where I now had to hide from the hunter. Only two bus stops, less than a kilometer walk. A two-room apartment, I lived in one room, Zhenya Oparev, my colleague, lived in the next room. We paid the apartment equally for two. Zhenya spent the night alone in the apartment today. Interestingly, did my friend manage to get to Moscow normally or did he also come under fire?

I tried to call Zhenya. The call went on, long beeps passed, but no one answered the call. Then I called my work, but that number did not answer either. Who else to call? Sister? Despite the rather strained relationship, Lenka and I occasionally talked on the phone. When was the last time we met in person? It seems like the previous New Year, a year and a half ago. Or even the year before? Yes, it seems so. Then, I remember, I was still a student and came from Moscow with New Year's gifts for my sister, her husband, and my little niece Irishka.

Of course, they let me in and accepted the gifts with words of gratitude, but I quickly realized that my sister had not counted on my arrival. There was no free place at the festive table, the guests were completely unfamiliar colleagues of Lenka's husband or sister's girlfriends with their gentlemen. Those who gathered talked on topics that were understandable only to them, everyone turned out to be noticeably older than me in age and treated the visiting student with condescension. Half an hour later I bowed and went back to the institute's dormitory, barely having time to get to the chiming clock. Then he vowed to go to visit his sister.

This time, Lenka almost instantly answered the call, as if she was already holding the phone in her hand. There was noticeable excitement in her voice.

- Vitya, is that you? Thank God you're alive! Are you all right?

- Yes, I'm alive. Around a lot of burning cars, a lot of corpses. Can you explain what happened?

"Brother, don't you watch TV?! Breaking news is broadcast on all channels. My husband just called from the military unit and said that the Americans attacked our country!

What other Americans? There's an alien ship!

"I'm giving you what my husband told me. All our cities were attacked at the same time, a lot of people died! So don't stick your head out, stay at home, don't go outside. Sorry bro, my husband is calling me. Bye! Take care of yourself!

The conversation was interrupted. I put my phone away and cursed softly through my teeth. Well, what a fool! His brother almost died and now lies on the pavement, escaping under the bottom of a burning car, and his sister turns it off to chat with her husband!

After calming down a bit, I thought. It turns out that not only here in the modest Shchyolkovo near Moscow, God knows what was going on. This happened in every city in the country. I reactivated the blacked-out phone screen and opened the Internet. News sites loaded very slowly. When the pages did load, what they saw frankly frightened: entirely reports of fires, disasters and deaths. I read the disparate panic-soaked news, trying to understand for myself the big picture of what was happening.

Firstly, I was convinced that my sister was wrong. It was clearly not the Americans behind the attack, and not only Russian cities were attacked. Behind the flurry of Russian emergency messages, there were news about fires in Tokyo, about the mass appearance of UFOs over the Philippines and Malaysia, about the fall of civilian aircraft in Germany and Austria. I also found reports of an air attack in Los Angeles, Detroit, New Jersey. About the alarmed American Air Force and fierce battles in the sky over America. I also immediately drew attention to the message about the failure of all satellite television channels and the GPS navigation system that was turned off all over the Earth. It seems that at the very initial stage of the invasion, and I had less and less doubt that an invasion was taking place, unknown aggressors destroyed all earthly communication satellites.

But where is the reaction of the authorities to what is happening? Where is the president's appeal to the people? Where are the speeches of high army officials with brave speeches that the enemy will be defeated? More than two hours have passed since the start of the war, and there has been no official response. Strange...

The phone beeped in alarm, announcing that the battery had less than twenty percent charge left. I turned on the power saving mode and tried to connect to foreign news sites. But the pages didn't load. And then I got an SMS message that the money in the account had run out. Once again, I swore quietly. After all, I regretted the money for unlimited Internet ... It was not possible to use the service of temporary replenishment of the account with a zero balance, so the phone had to be removed, now it could only perform the function of a clock.

***

It was a hot summer afternoon. I wanted to drink more and more - the "dry" after yesterday's booze, and the sunny weather, and the vile bitter taste in my mouth from the caustic smoke affected. The tongue was completely numb, and felt dry and rough to the touch. The minibus, under which I was hiding, definitely did not burn anymore and, on the contrary, gradually cooled down. I looked back at the place where I lay before. There was a large puddle of hardened brown plastic on the pavement. It was terrible to even imagine what would have happened if I had stayed in that place.

The flying ship had not been heard for a long time, and I ventured to look out of my shelter. He crawled to the wheel, looked out of the corner of his eye and ... froze in horror. The flying hunter hasn't gone anywhere. He only rose higher and now hovered motionless near a high-rise hotel on the banks of the Klyazma River. Against the background of a thirty-story building, it was finally possible to examine the alien ship in all its details and estimate its size. A triangular silhouette tapering downwards, five stories high, without any portholes or windows. Metal body with numerous rectangular and square blotches, several well-marked turrets.

Cold with horror, I slowly pulled my phone out of my pocket and carefully took several pictures of the terrible ship with different zooms. I managed to take three pictures, after which the phone beeped angrily about the lack of battery power and turned off. But even this single signal of a mobile phone made me shudder and roll back under the bottom. You need to turn your phone back on! Firmly squeezing the device with both hands and leaning on it with my whole body so that the melody at startup did not sound so loud, I felt like a reconnaissance officer at an enemy facility. Yes, it is deadly, but what if these materials of mine will help earthlings in the war against aliens?

***

Time stopped. The minutes of this endless day dragged on like hours. The thirst was getting stronger, there was no longer any strength to endure it. The head did not want to think about anything but the proximity of the river and the saving moisture. It seemed to me that I could even hear the murmur of water flowing under the bridge. The water was close, but at the same time inaccessible. It drove me crazy.

The flying hunter behaved unpredictably. He could hang at one point for more than an hour, then suddenly take off abruptly and, rapidly picking up speed, walk along the avenue from the railway bridge to the very end of the city to the turn to neighboring Fryazino. The ship almost never turned into secondary streets, trying to control the central avenue of the city.

Only in the evening, after nineteen hours, the flying death suddenly changed its behavior. The alien ship began to visit other areas of the city of Shchelkovo for a long time, only for five to ten minutes, from there the sounds of distant shots and explosions could be heard. I tried to understand the new logic of the hunter's behavior, but I couldn't. The flying ship then went away from the prospect for ten whole minutes, then only for a couple of minutes. And invariably returned to the main street, hovering motionless near the high-rise hotel. Something attracted the flying hunter to this hotel. Maybe because it's the tallest building in the entire area? Or the fact that people were hiding inside? Several times I noticed how a hunter fired at the windows of a high-rise hotel.

Already at dusk, the triangular hunter again flew over the railroad and completely disappeared from view. I waited for his return for more than forty minutes, but the alien ship did not show up. And then I decided to risk running to the river. It was twenty-two hours eleven minutes when I crawled out from under the burned-out minibus, straightened up and looked around at the former minibus. It was completely burned out, the front part was actually missing. In the darkened shapeless heaps in the cabin, the remains of burnt people were guessed. The aunt who grabbed me also couldn't get out of the burning car and died along with the others. I hurriedly turned away to calm myself and drive away the ensuing nausea.

Every second looking around and looking at the sky, I cautiously moved towards the river. I had to climb over the blockage from the cars, where a jeep and a passenger car that was burnt beyond recognition fell on top of an ambulance that had been knocked down on its side. The ambulance and the jeep did not burn down, but inside I saw only corpses and puddles of clotted blood.

The automobile bridge across the Klyazma River was completely destroyed, as were the pedestrian bridges on the right and left. The apotheosis of the destruction was a large intercity bus that had fallen off the bridge and was now sticking upright in a shallow river. The front of the long bus was in the water, while the back was caught on the reinforcement pins on the collapsed bridge. A little further on the bank of the river lay a traffic police car torn to pieces and a couple of mangled cars. Inside all the cars I saw only corpses.

I was very thirsty, but it was scary to go down to the river. From here, from the height of the bridge, at least I could control the sky and hide in case of danger. If you go down to the water, then a silent hunter could suddenly appear unexpectedly. But there was nothing to do, thirst forced to take risks. Cautiously descending to the bank of the river along an inclined reinforced concrete slab, I found myself near the water. He listened for the sound of shots and explosions, but everything was calm. But I thought I heard some sounds coming from a broken bus. However, turning in that direction and frozen in anticipation, I heard nothing.