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We had a bottle of '56 Pinot the day we went on that picnic down by the lake. I'd heard a lot about how it was still early and that we were crazy to open that bottle, but shit. You only live once, right?
It was from Alder Hills, an Oregon winery we visited a couple times in the early days of our marriage. Beautiful place with the nicest little bed and breakfast next door. We loved that place. The sun rises there like no other place on earth; like God himself takes a minute of his time each morning to look in on it. You wake up, take a step outside your cabin, and you might as well be in heaven. Sun shining, birds singing, and the most beautiful woman in the world naked, in your bed, calling you to come back. Those were good days.
We used to do a lot of traveling all up and down the west coast; visiting wineries, climbing mountains, and eating fresh seafood in cozy coastal restaurants. Then the kids came and things changed. When the squirts show up, you give up a lot of the travel, a lot of the drinking, and all of the sleeping in. If you told me ten years ago I'd be trading all that for something that shits itself daily, I would have called you a lunatic. Of course, that's probably because ten years ago I had no idea what it meant to love another person. I've learned since then.
I love my wife. I've been told she's kind, beautiful, and strong. I would agree with all that. She used to dance around the house naked on Saturday mornings with the stereo cranked. I'd try to pull her close and give her a kiss, but she'd just laugh, push me away, spin, and spin. She also had this habit of never hanging the goddamned toilet paper on the holder once she'd used up a roll. I can't tell you how crazy that would drive me. Now, I just think back on it and smile.
I also love my kids. I don't even know if love is the right word to describe how I feel about them. Love is the right idea for sure, but it doesn't truly convey the magnitude of the emotion. When you first see their new faces, it's like a hammer to the back of the skull. Like 18 years of joy, responsibility, hope, apprehension, pride, and stone cold fear is dropped into your lap in an instant. I've never felt anything so pure, so animal, and so wonderful in my life. Kids don't change things for you, they make you want to change for them.
I treasure those three people, my family, above everything.
Both of the kids were with Claire and I at the picnic. I remember that Will had just started walking and that Rose was wearing the spring dress her grandmother had bought her for Easter. I'll always remember her sprinting around the grass, looking for ladybugs. Will would toddle along behind her, trying to get her attention. She'd catch one and squeal with pleasure, then show it to her baby brother. He'd never fail to smile and point. They'd both wait raptly for it to take flight, then clap and cheer when it finally did.
It was near the beginning of June, if I remember correctly. The little details get fuzzier as time goes by. What I do remember though, was that it was three weeks after I'd enlisted in the GDF and one week away from basic. Claire still wasn't very happy about the situation, but we'd both seen the pictures in the newspaper. We'd both heard the horrific details from the front. The protein reclamation facilities in Australia. The infantry manufacturing plants in Argentina. The orphan grinders in China. We could both see the inevitable coming. We both knew that I had to help try to push it back. We didn't have much hope, but there was still some.
On that day though, we'd consciously decided to put it all out of our minds. The picnic was going to be our time. We were going to relish the simple things that make life on Earth so compelling; sun, the lake, our sandwiches, our best bottle of wine, and each other's company. No talking about basic. No talking about the war. Certainly no talking about the Strogg. I will remember that picnic for as long as I live. That fucking picnic.
Rose was the first to notice. I could see her trying to get my attention and pointing at the sky. I figured she was trying to show me her latest capture and went back to my BLT. I had made the sandwiches that morning and they were delicious; thick with mayo, heirloom tomatoes, and six strips of crispy bacon. I remember taking a bite of that sandwich and looking at Claire. My beautiful Claire, who had brown hair and blue eyes. She was laughing and reaching out with a napkin, to wipe away the mayo I likely had on my face. I smiled and prepped myself to bat her hand away.
I reached up and then she was gone; torn apart by a Lacerator wielded by an abomination in an Icarus. I remember no emotion, just a second of profound confusion before I was on my feet. It was already too late, though. Like locusts, their twisted bodies filled the sky. Rose lay at the crest of a hill twenty feet away. Little Will was already in the air. The vultures dropped to the ground to reclaim my family, brandishing their alien weaponry. I had nothing, so I ran. I don't know how I got away. I just remember running. Running and running until my legs felt as broken as my heart.
Evidently that lake was the only unfluoridated freshwater supply within a 500 mile radius. I guess that has some special significance to the Strogg, but even our best intelligence guys have yet to figure out why. Whatever the reason, it's now the largest infantry manufacturing facility on the west coast of the United States. Three hundred poor sons of bitches go in and three hundred depraved nightmares come out of it every fucking day of the year.
Until today, that is.
Today I'm leading a battalion of cold blooded exterminators down to that pit and wiping it off the face of the Earth. We're counting on a small squad to bring down the shield generator before we begin the primary assault, but I'm confident they'll do their job. We've all lost something, so we're motivated. No small number has lost literally everything. Families, homes, and friends; all gone. We let up for one minute and we're all in that club. So, we're going to fight and we're going to obliterate every monstrosity we come across. We're going to crush their inhuman skulls under our boots and bathe in their blood. We will cut them down and make them pay for every tear shed in their presence.
The Strogg may not know fear, but today they will know revenge.
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