Sniffers
It was freezing, Cara’s legs would’ve been numb from the cold if they hadn’t gone to sleep hours ago. She wriggled her frozen fingers, before wrapping them back around her bow. There would be no hope of getting relieved before sunrise, there just wasn’t enough of them.
The sound of someone shuffling around in the tunnel to her left made Cara swear under her breath, Peter was making far too much noise he was going to give them away. Rubbing her sleeve across her eyes, Cara forced them to stay open, she needed to keep watching the mouth of the cave.
Five days of walking was taking its toll and they were all suffering, their numbers had dwindled from twelve down to eight. The sniffers were always close behind, but their eyes being too sensitive to see in daylight meant they only came at night. If they could just get far enough away from the city and out into the wilderness, if they could just survive the nights.
The invaders were only interested in the cities, in harvesting the buildings. Their enormous ships had descended from the skies, oblivious to mans futile attempts to stop them. Hovering over any major cities they came across, decimating every structure with laser blasts. Next came the bulldozer ships, massive, empty cargo ships, shovelling the rubble into their holds. Nothing was sacred, nothing escaped.
No one had seen an invader but there were plenty of rumours about what they looked like, little green men, four eyed six foot monsters or even the predator from the film of the same name. The sniffers were different though, every survivor had seen enough of them, for most it was the last thing they did see. Named because of the noise they made, sniffers resembled ten foot high ants. Almost impossible to kill due to their impenetrable exoskeletons, only armoured warheads seemed to have any affect and as the armed forces had been almost completely decimated, there was very little to stop them. The invaders had released the sniffers to wipe out any life form that got in the way of their harvesting of earths building materials.
It was believed that the sniffers stayed close to the bulldozer ships, so it made sense to head for the wilderness, to keep as far away from any man-made structures as you possible could. To that end, Cara had joined a group of survivors who were heading north to the Green Wood National Park. Hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness with very few buildings of any description, it was also home to Cara’s parents, her dad being a park ranger.
Cara wriggled her fingers again, she needed to keep the circulation going. Her only hope if a sniffer found them would come at the last moment as it opened its two pincers to grab her. Its most vulnerable spot was the roof of its mouth. If you could pierce straight up through the soft fleshy skin you had direct access to its brain causing instant death. A well placed arrow or spear would do the trick. The down side was you had to wait till it reared up in front of you with its mouth open.
A snuffling sound outside of the cave successfully drove any tiredness from Cara’s eyes. Her heart started racing, pumping adrenalin through her body and clammy sweat ran down her back and across her palms. A sweet sticky sent drifted back down the cave making her want to gag as a dark shadow passed across the entrance. Holding her breath she tried to steady her trembling hands.
The shadow passed away to the left. ‘Peter,’ Cara thought, ‘Peter, please don’t make a sound.’ Peter was guarding the cave entrance to her left, but he wasn’t holding up well. Living as they were had shattered his nerves, training as a computer analyst hadn’t prepared him for a life on the run.
Cara heard Peter gasp and shuffle backwards towards the cavern behind them. The snuffling noise grew louder as the sniffer entered his cave and Cara turned to listen. She could hear Peter scrabbling frantically into the cavern with the sniffer following. A torch and a box of matches lay at her side. Grabbing the matches she wasted two before her trembling fingers managed to strike one. The torch flared to life filing the cave with soft orange light. Peter’s only hope would be if she managed to momentarily blind the sniffer with the light. Up ahead she could see Peter backed up against the cavern wall.
“Peter! Over here, quick,” it was too late the sniffer was on him already. Cara looked away as Peter’s scream cut through the damp cave air.
The return of the snuffling sound made Cara look back. The sniffer was turning around in the cramped space of the cavern, Peter’s blood dripping from its pincers. Four large shiny black discs on its head section fixed on Cara as it started heading towards her. Cara slowly lowered the torch to the ground and drew her bow, an arrow already fixed in place. She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly forcing herself to stay calm. The sniffer filled the cave, its back pressing against the ceiling. It hesitated, shaking its head at the light from the torch, but already the light was dimming. As it continued forwards with its pincers wide open, Cara could just make out the red flesh of the inside of its mouth.
‘Not too soon,’ she thought taking aim. The rank smell of its breath making her stomach heave. Just as its pincers passed either side of her body she loosed her arrow. With a loud groan the sniffer plunged forward knocking Cara skidding backwards across the damp stone floor towards the cave entrance. She lay still listening for sounds that would tell her the sniffer was still alive, but the sounds never came.
Then slowly, creeping in from the cave mouth came long tendrils of sunlight, dawn had arrived she had survived another night.
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