Where she had naturally expected day, it never came. Marceline pulled her jacket tight about her and pushed closer to the dirt wall of the hollowed copse. The fires along the convoy, although yards away, lit the muted forest. She hadn't seen a lighted sky for two days.
The convoy was lost almost as soon as it started. The mood in the trucks held no more hope. Even mild discussion gave way to panicked silence. The drivers didn't sleep. They pushed the 2.5 ton military trucks onward, putting distance between them and Vladivostok. "There are is no more petrol for us." The spires of the Zolotoy Bridge receding and melting into the black smudge of ocean and the dark city.
"It is the end," many said plainly.
"Did you see one?"
"Yes. They stole sound and light. No bullets no buffets could penetrate them."
"They steal your energy. That is what I saw! But there is no sound, no screams. The bodies reduced like a crumpled piece of paper. No pity. Nothing said from it."
"Hush Nikolay. The children."
Nikolay was right about silence. In a single night, the whole of Vladivostok was taken. It's lights extinguished. No alarms, no sirens. The creatures quelled the very chaos they created. Those on the periphery of the town, mostly military and their families, were able to gather at the west gate of Chuguyevka. There were 12 large trucks and half as many jeeps. Everyone was told not to bring only what they wore.
They loaded the convoy unto the A-370, traveled north and then west.
One truck almost instantly broke down. The rest of convoy blew past it. We avoided their eyes as we passed. They drove for a full day.
"The sky. It's not normal. Even the glow of the sun should be seen." The person stared at the clock on their phone, "It is 10 am."
Marceline succumbed to sleep. She awoke tumbling out of the vehicle as others ran past her into the dark forest. One of the trucks were on fire and it quickly spread from one truck's canvas covering to another. Jeeps continued down the road, west. None of them even looked back.
She scrambled to her feet, instinctively running from the open road and into the forest. She did not look behind.
She made her way up a steep embankment to the top of small cliff. There was a small indentation under the roots of a malformed larch. It sunk below the lip of the cliff where she could see below and hope that all would become safe again. Marceline covered her mouth to avoid her breath from being seen.
The fires dwindled and the forest gave its way to the irregular darkness.
Against the back-drop of the shells of the convoy, she could make out a body of her comrades floating from the road. It was relatively lifeless, but she could make out its arms flailing. There was no sound.
To the body's right, a large dark mass shifted back and forth, as if exerting energy. It appeared much like a spider, but with a human torso. It's head was obscured, but she thought she could see a dull blue light coming from it. It had a rectangular shape to it.
The body's mass changed, as was described by Nikolay. It crumbled to a shape three times smaller, and, if she hadn't seen it as a body before, would only resemble an amorphous lump now. It was lightly lowered to the road without a sound.
The blue glow, where it was moving it's 'head' before, now because more defined. It's looking in this direction. Surely, it cannot see me.
Marceline had no power to run. She instead melted into the depression of the cliff and hoped it would not see her. She had never prayed in her life and didn't know what to say, but, "Rод" over and again. God.
...