The Swarm

I keep a constant vigil out my driver's side window. There are no other cars on this road and I spend more time peering out the side window than at the road. The creatures were everywhere in this part of Outside. My own brother had been a victim to their savagery, I wouldn't let myself drop my guard, I knew the consequences all to well. Hans gazed out the passenger window not really looking at anything. He was foolish enough to think that if we just kept moving, a car was protection enough. Most thought that way, but I wasn't so sure. Call me paranoid but I wanted fate to be in my own hands and not give it up to everybody else's speculations. 

I watched a group of about a hundred of them standing together as we passed by. Hans turned to look at them with me and muttered that they must be having a meeting.  I didn't know if they were sentient enough to do such a thing, but the way they flew together in formation, almost as if all of them were one creature, made me think twice about dismissing Hans' thought. Just earlier I had seen them swirling in a tornado pattern around a single man's stationary vehicle in synchronization. I made myself look away before I saw what happened... I knew how that scenario ended. 

We pulled up alongside the remnants of a once great structure and got out of the truck. I told Hans the story of what happened to my brother as we unloaded our cargo. I didn't want to scare him, but I wasn't going to let him end up like my brother because he was ignorant of these creatures capabilities. That was why Jake had been hit. He only took one shot, but that was enough. He had been a fool to dismiss them as he had. I looked away from Hans not wanting him to see the moisture in my eyes. Truth was my brother was a hero and not a fool. I was trying to avoid grief by embracing bitterness. Bitterness is an easier pill to swallow.

Hans and I hurriedly unloaded the wreckage. We just didn't have room for it in the colony and so we risked taking it out here. We were nearly finished unloading when I heard a sound coming over the ridge to the west. "Echo targeting!" I exclaimed to him, "That's how they drop on you!" We scrambled to get back in the car. As soon as we had I put the truck in gear and slammed the gas pedal. We tore off through the mud. I saw the creature fly overhead as we hastened down the road. "Just one," I thought, as I fishtailed back and forth through the mud after coming around a corner.

Then I saw them.

They rose up before us like a cloud. I picked one out overhead and noticed it's beady black eyes seeming to stare into my soul before it was lost in the swarm. They flew right above us at the same speed as our vehicle despite our haste. None of them were approaching the vehicle beyond a couple of feet. I prayed that continued motion really was enough to keep them at bay. 

And then they were gone. They lost interest and flew away, taking my fear with them. We made it without them firing so much as a single shot. We were lucky this time. I don't believe in fate, but luck? That's something different entirely. Why else was I the one who had been spared? It was just random, senseless, cursed luck.