Page 6 of The General’s Captive (The Rift #1)

Creature Unknown. Gryphon

Appearance - A huge, winged creature with the body, tail, and back legs of a lion, and the head and wings of an eagle. Blood red eyes and scaled feathers.

Mythology - Greek

Strengths - Large talons, powerful wings used to knock prey off their feet. A strange black smoke that seeps from between its scaled feathers which can be used to confuse and disorientate.

How to Kill – Unknown, but bullets are non-effective.

We learned this the hard way.

Notes – One of the bastards killed my uncle!

I stared down at the charcoal-smudged page that brought back painful memories from the day before.

A creature surrounded by dark smoke drawn with charcoal.

This used to be a journal, my second one of the year, so far, because before the world had gone to shit, I had loved to document my days, even adding sketches if there was anything interesting to draw.

I had bought a brand new one before this trip, knowing there would be so much to fill it.

Now I wished I had been wrong.

Because there was a lot to fill it alright, just not with the beautiful nature I had hoped, nor with stories of the good times spent with my uncle.

And now I would never get the chance to do any of that.

My sadness had followed me like a dark shroud over my head.

My tears blurring the road to the point that, as soon as it was safe to do so, I pulled over and allowed myself to cry in earnest.

Sometime later, my new reality kicked in, along with the survival mode I didn’t realize I had until it was forced upon me. Which brought me to my first night…

I crossed the border into Montana and found the nearest town of West Yellowstone already abandoned. It made sense, seeing as it had been one of the closest to where the Rift had first shaken the Earth. I wondered if officials had also feared the Volcano was erupting.

This made me question how many people knew the truth, because it was more like an invasion from another world.

I had no answers, and no one to ask either because it was now a ghost town. At least, for me, it served a purpose because it gave me a random bed to sleep in for the night.

Although I had to say, it went against my nature when I was forced to smash out a glass panel in a back door to a farmhouse on the outskirts of town.

Even more so when breaking and entering.

I walked through the small, modest home with the flashlight my uncle had packed in my shaky hand, like I was waiting for someone to jump out and scare the shit out of me at any moment.

But then, when the evidence showed someone who had packed in a hurry, I started to relax enough to trust this wouldn’t happen.

So, I raided the kitchen for anything I could eat, finding leftovers in the fridge.

The plate of meatloaf, mash potatoes, and gravy were, thankfully, kept cool, thanks to the inline generator that must have kicked in when the town’s power went down.

I knew it wouldn’t last but it kept on the essentials for the time being.

I was so hungry by this point, I ate the whole plate cold. Afterward, I sat at the kitchen table and pulled out my journal.

I skipped past the five pages I had already written in and started a new page.

Because if there was anything my dad had taught me, it was that information was your greatest weapon.

Of course, he had been talking about business at the time, not mythical style creatures that had seemingly popped up from a great tear in the Earth.

The Rift.

That had been the first thing I had written in this new field guide of mine.

I felt as if keeping a documentation of everything I saw would, one day, help someone when it came to fighting them.

Because I knew that I would have no hope.

I couldn’t even shoot a gun, for fuck sake, and I had been useless in trying to save my uncle.

The thought brought on a fresh round of tears and instead of crying over spilt milk, I was crying into it as I had poured myself a glass from what was left over in the fridge. But the once comforting past time now left a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.

One named guilt.

Because it wasn’t the milk at all. It was the self-loathing, knowing how I might have saved him, had I just stayed to fight.

Had I grabbed that knife in the truck bed and chased after them into the forest. The rational part of my brain tried to tell me that this would have most likely just gotten me killed.

But the guilty part of my brain, that called me a coward.

Which meant that, in the end, I cried myself to sleep.

************************

It had only been about four days since the appearance of the Rift, but I was shocked at the effect left on the world already. Shocked at how much my surroundings already looked like we were two years into a zombie apocalypse.

The thought made me shiver, because I had always had a phobia of zombies.

A strange phobia, to be sure, considering they weren’t real.

But well, after witnessing that creature attack my uncle, I now knew that anything was possible, zombies and all.

And to be honest, I would rather face a zombie any day of the week than that eagle-headed lion!

At least a zombie was easier to outrun… or at least they were in the movies.

But it did make me wonder more about what that dark entity had been in the woods?

It was as if it was there with the sole purpose to aid the creature.

And if that was so, had it materialized into a man once I had managed to escape?

The one who had been standing outside of my uncle’s cabin, like the leader of them all?

That same figure has haunted my dreams since that day.

I naturally labelled him as being the bad guy and told myself this was why I couldn’t help it when my mind went back there every night.

Because I needed someone to blame for it all.

Someone to blame for taking my uncle from me and for fracturing the world.

Of course, I still had hope. Hope that my parents would hear the news and send the authorities to come looking for me.

That’s why, for the first few days, I had stayed in the town closest to my uncle’s cabin.

My prayers that the cavalry would turn up grew less and less as the time passed.

Until eventually, I had no choice but to move on.

Because the second I spotted them, the army of creatures marching across the land, I freaked.

I grabbed my bag from the bedroom and ran down the stairs.

I was thankful that I had listened to my uncle’s advice, to always be ready for anything.

Which was why I had already stocked up on supplies from the house I had been staying in, keeping them in the truck ready to run.

Because it was clear now that the army wasn’t about to roll on through here and save me.

They had evacuated these places for a reason, so now all I had to do was find out where all the people were.

It had been a solid plan, until I finally found the town of St. Anthony, one that still had power and therefore, I could see on the news how much of a shit show this actually was.

The Rift, which unsurprisingly, was what people were calling it, hadn’t just affected the state of Wyoming but also Montana, Idaho, and parts of Utah too.

The Rift had travelled up past three state lines, meaning evacuations closest to the Rift were taking place.

At first, the officials had counted it as a blessing, the fact that most of the Rift had cut through national parks or less populated areas. But as more reports emerged about the Rift, widespread panic gripped the states, and swarms of these creatures started attacking.

The Rift started where I had been at Lamar valley, it had then travelled across the land and into the lower parts of Montana before arching over into Idaho.

Eventually, it ended somewhere in Boise National Forest. Which foolishly meant that instead of heading away from it, like I’d hoped, I had been heading closer.

That was why on day six I found myself walking down the abandoned street of a small town I didn’t know the name of. That was because the welcome sign had been spraypainted to say welcome to Hell, Population-0 . Which I didn’t exactly take as a good sign.

I had also learned a lot more in these last six days, seeing as now the name of the game was survival of the fittest. Each man was out for themselves, no one wanted to help, and it was obvious that people would sooner rob you than give you directions.

I wasn’t sure exactly when the looting started, but for those that hadn’t managed to evacuate in time, it was the only way to survive. As for the evacuations, the news on this kept changing, making out that they had saved hundreds of thousands. When in reality, the death toll continued to rise.

Originally, I had wanted to make my way to where the people were, but that was before I saw on the news about the mass panic.

About the highway into Salt Lake City being completely blocked after the national guard had put up roadblocks.

It seemed more like the government were working to keep other states protected from the threat, concentrating their efforts on putting up roadblocks and fences rather than trying to save the ones still trapped inside the danger zones.

Videos going viral backed up this theory, and people became collateral damage as the army tried, in vain, to fight back against the threat.

People were getting shot, gassed, or pushed off armored vehicles so the army could escape the swarms, leaving helpless civilians behind.

It was heartbreaking.

But more than anything, it made me lose hope for humanity.

Thousands were dying in the heavily populated areas, because these were places the creatures targeted first. So, people soon grew savvy to this and started spreading out.

Their trust in the government to protect them was near non-existent and that was only in six days.

So, seeing as I was eager to survive, I kept on the back roads and headed to smaller towns. And I did so in hopes there would be a more permanent solution put into place and that the government had a plan to fight back… and soon!

Because I had literally seen videos of creatures tearing into tanks!

Creatures of all different shapes and sizes, each deadly, and usually cloaked in the same black smoke, with burning crimson eyes.

Honestly, the videos on social media were the hardest to watch.

People were literally getting ripped apart or outright eaten.

It had gotten so bad that social media was eventually cut off from certain areas, preventing the survivors from uploading content.

But not before college professors or anyone high up in the field of mythology started being interviewed.

Names for these creatures came to light and were being circulated around the world.

Fantastical creatures that had only ever been known to us in story books or movies about Greek Gods.

Many called it the apocalypse, others called it…

The Takeover.

A Rift into another dimension that used to be linked to ours.

But then there were some who called it an alien invasion, so really, who the hell knew the truth? All anyone did know was that if they saw a creature, to fucking run from it! Because it was more than likely going to try and kill you.

And that was the rule I lived by.

Which brought me to now, and why every move I made came with caution in mind.

It was difficult and slow going, but I always kept one side of me to the walls of any building I walked past. At least then, I only had three unprotected sides to keep an eye out for any monsters.

Monsters was a word I started to use after the first video was released that showed a pack of demonic looking dogs ripping apart a college student.

A poor unsuspecting girl who had been loading her car ready to leave the University of Utah after Salt Lake City ordered its evacuation.

So yeah, now they were monsters to me.

Abandoned cars line the roads, most with their windows smashed and fuel caps pried open.

When my truck had finally given up, I would have looked up on YouTube on how to cypher fuel from another vehicle if my phone had any battery.

But the problem with the smaller towns I was choosing meant the chances of them having power were becoming less and less.

So, in the end, I had no choice but to start making my way on foot.

I had checked every single car I had come across for a set of keys, having no idea how to hotwire a vehicle at all.

Now though, as I walked past these abandoned cars, I knew there was no point wasting my time.

Smashed windows indicated there were no keys, and the dangling fuel caps showed there was likely no fuel left in them anyway.

Noticing a general store across the street, I debated with myself on whether to risk crossing the road or not.

I didn’t like to chance being seen by God only knew what unless I had no choice.

My backpack wasn’t empty because I was always picking things up along the way, but I also knew that finding food wouldn’t always be so easy, which was why I thought it wise to always keep stocked up on food.

I edged away from the wall and glimpsed each way down the long street. It was eerily quiet, and as expected, I couldn’t see anyone or anything.

A headache was forming, and it was reaching behind my left ear, making my scar itch.

I scratched at it and cursed under my breath.

I hated the scar as well as the ones on my wrists, because they were a constant reminder of the day my uncle died.

That, and the itching drove me absolutely insane.

Thankfully, the ones on my thighs and lower back didn’t bother me as much, but I think it was because they were covered.

Eventually, my looming headache made the decision for me. So, I ran across the street, making sure to keep my footsteps relatively quiet on the concrete. Then as soon as I could, I hid behind a car that had seen better days, even before the vandals had picked at it like vultures.

My heart raced, not from the exertion but from the situation, and I allowed my body to calm as I rested my back against the cool metal of the car.

Then I got to my feet and my heart stopped as an almighty roar tore through the eerie silence.

My headache was soon forgotten, a thing of the past as pure dread filled my veins when realizing…

I had been caught.