The Invasive_Pulse Page 5
Of course, the flipside of that could be taking place, too. Grizzly bears might be eating the seals. Or black bears the crab-like animals. Robert grinned.
This gave him a little hope.
Just a little.
Up ahead, a dome of light formed over the horizon, representing Elmore. The sound of firecrackers popped from far away, but Robert quickly understood the noises were not firecrackers. They were the snappy reports of .22 rifles followed by thunderous bass booms, which were shotguns.
He ran faster and followed a bend, where he came upon a pair of blinking red lights. But these were the tail lights of a car that had smashed into a group of cedars. He recognized the car as the one he and Tara had seen earlier. The flier had taken the man to who-knows-where, leaving a dead woman inside the car, a puncture wound in her chest the size of a softball. The beak had stabbed all the way through the seat, and had pulled white cotton stuffing back through the woman’s cracked rib bones, where they bloomed crimson.
Robert wondered if he could get the car running.
Fearing what the law might think if he was caught driving around with the dead woman, Robert had no choice but to drag her from her seat and onto the embankment. This was the second dead person he’d touched in his life, and he wasn’t getting used to it. A horrible thought sprung on him as he placed her gently onto the ground: her body felt like meat, nothing more. Whatever spark or soul or character had been inside her had fled someplace else-or simply dissipated. It was an awful feeling, one he hoped to never feel again.
But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Not tonight.
Robert got inside the car and turned the keys, his fingers slipping on the blood-slicked metal.
Damn, he thought.
Then the engine turned. He was able to clear away what was left of the indented and shattered windshield with a jacket from the back seat. As he finished peeling the glass back, he wondered about the flier.
If human speech could be heard and targeted by the fliers, then a car engine must be especially easy to hear.
Robert almost turned the keys to the OFF position, but instead shifted the car into reverse. The metal hood and fiberglass bumper creaked and groaned as he pulled away.
Way too loud, he thought.
The sedan jostled over the embankment, then hit the asphalt.
A moment later he was speeding towards Elmore. The light pollution dome grew bigger as he approached. Sporadic gunfire rocked the woods.
A pair of swerving headlights raced towards him, and Robert swerved to avoid the pickup truck. He didn’t get a good look, but for the briefest of moments he thought he glimpsed a six limbed animal clutching to the side. More gunshots erupted, as a group of people gathered ahead of him in the downtown district.
Except they really weren’t gathering, more like running. And they ran towards him in a staggered pattern underneath the last street light. More than anything he wanted them to be Vermillion and Tara, but none of the people resembled her, and no pets.
A man trailed behind the group as he limped. His mouth hung agape, his eyes wide as he stumbled around the corner of Anderson’s Big and Tall shop.
Robert hit the gas, hoping to scoop up a couple passengers and get them to safety. When he reached the group, they mobbed his car, shouting and pleading. Some of them were bleeding- an older, bigger lady, an elderly man whom Robert recognized as Tom Lang, a local fly-fishing guide.
Robert felt horrible for what he was about to say.
“I only have room for a few,” he said as they pried open his doors.
Men and women fought each other for a spot. Elbows were thrown into faces, nails used as weapons on eyes. And then the screaming started.
“Keep it down” Robert said quietly while still trying to be heard. “And please keep calm.”
The car rocked as more townspeople surrounded him.
In the commotion, a strange sensation throbbed inside him. His left lip ticked upwards towards his eyeball, and his eyeball towards his forehead. He wanted to shout, to warn the others, but they’d been hit by the frequency too. Tom Lang spasmed at the passenger door and collapsed. Soon the others followed, muttering gibberish as the stumbled. Robert watched as his leg repeatedly kicked into the dashboard. His hands shook and gripped the wheel involuntarily.
Robert tried to look for the frequency seals, but his ability to control his own head movement had been impaired.
Finally, the seals appeared in his peripheral vision, their six limbs quivering in unison, their triplicate eyes alight with deranged enthusiasm at having corralled a potential meal.
No one moved-at least voluntarily. Robert thought of Vermillion, wondering if the creatures had taken his beloved pooch. He thought of his mother, wondering if he’d be joining her soon in the great gig in the sky.
A pair of headlights bore down on him. A v8 engine roared. A black SUV barreled into the seals as they scampered across the road. Two seals splattered onto the embankment, while the rest snagged onto the SUV’s undercarriage.
Robert’s muscles relaxed and in seconds he was able to function, albeit with discomfort. He wiped drool from his chin and turned to his window. A sound came from below, a mealy, eating kind of sound.
A man got out of the black SUV and aimed a sawed-off shotgun towards Robert, or at least what Robert thought was him in his altered state.
“Wait,” Robert said. “I didn’t-”
The shotgun fired twice, filling the night with muzzle flash and bullying the air with artificial thunder. As the sound echo-faded in unison with the gunpowder scent, the man approached him. Robert recognized the face.
“Hey, you okay partner?” Colbrick asked.
Robert had to take a moment. “I think so,” he said, as he tried to open his door. When Robert realized he couldn’t, he lowered his window all the way peered down. Two spider-like things with the single eye laid there, on top of the townspeople.
“Must’ve gotten to ‘em” before the seals did,” Colbrick said. “Looks like the spiders are immune to the frequencies, might be their natural predator wherever these thigns come from.”
Robert leaned over and checked the other side of his car. Tom Lang and a couple more people lay there, dead.
It had happened so fast, Robert thought. Had he been under attack from the seals longer than it seemed?
Robert shook his head, trying to let it all sink in. Or trying to shake it all off.
“What are you doing out here?” Colbrick asked as he looked around and gripped his sawed-off.
“Looking for Tara, and my dog.”
“Right,” Colbrick said. “Don’t go back into town. It’s infested.”
“Have you seen police?” Robert asked.
“No,” Colbrick said.
Robert nodded. “What are you going to do?”
“I have to help out some folks,” Colbrick said. “On my way there now. They did me a favor once long ago, and now I gotta kind of look out for them.”
“I get it,” Robert said. “Did you happen to see a blonde woman, maybe 5’6, and a mixed breed dog?”
“No,” Colbrick said. “But I plan to come back this way. Until then, partner.”
Colbrick turned to his SUV, reached into the driver’s seat, then returned to Robert. In the dim light, he handed him a pistol.
“Almost forgot,” Colbrick said. “You’re going to need it.”
Robert had never been a gun person, really. He held the hefty weapon in his hand as he marveled at it.
“I can tell by the way you’re holding it, you don’t shoot much,” Colbrick said as he reached in and gently nudged the barrel away. “First, never point the barrel at anyone, or yourself. Second, the safety is on the left side, just above the trigger. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Robert said. “And thank you.”
“No time for that shit,” Colbrick said as he hurried back to his SUV.
The engine roared alive, and in a steady thrum of pistons, Colbrick was gone.
Ahead lay the town, and whatever the people had been running from.
Behind him, wherever the hell Colbrick had gone, and the dead-end known as Trout Bridge.
Robert knew what he needed to do.
8.
Main Street was littered with abandoned cars and trucks. Some were on fire, some flipped over. But all with at least one door hanging open.
Robert drove around each one, careful to avoid the flames and various pools of expelled liquid. He searched for Tim and Raul’s Buick amongst the carnage, but no luck.
A few bodies lay in the street, as several spider creatures picked away at them. A red tag blinked on a spider at forty-five beats per minute.
Robert pretended not to notice, as if this was a game, or a nightmare, and the images would have no repercussions on his mental state, ever. Instead he tried to focus on finding Tara and Vermillion. And he focused on his father back in his sober days. How proud his smile was, and how meticulous his father was.
But the shock of it all-the god damn the shock of it all.
As he slowed through the carnage, Jenson’s Hardware came into view. One of the ramming creatures appeared from an alley. It bellowed and charged with hesitation.
Shit, Robert thought as he cranked the wheel to the right. The rammer caught the tail end of his sedan, and spun the car in a mad circle. He tried to recover, to get a hold of the wheel. At last the car stopped spinning, the stench of burning rubber and gasoline wafting into the vehicle. The rammer tried to shove its long snout into the driver’s side window and clocked Robert in the face. Robert crawled across the center console and passenger seat as his world swam on him. At the last second he managed to open the far door. He seized the .357 as he stumbled out and ran for his apartment building. Once he caught his stride, he turned to look as the sedan burst into flames. The rammer continued to punish the driver’s side, unaware that Robert had slipped free. As he rounded the corner into the back parking lot to his apartment complex, Robert wondered if he’d live another day.
Robert sprinted for the door, and was caught off guard. Vermillion was waiting for him at the back door patiently. The pooch bounded towards Robert and jumped into his arms.
“Alrighty boy,” Robert said as he ruffled the dog’s left ear. “Glad to see you too.”
That was a severe understatement.
“What happened to Tara, and the others?” Robert said.
Vermillion cocked his head, then trotted off across the back lot towards Jasper Avenue. Robert followed the pooch as he checked the sky, wondering when the next flier would swoop down and finally end this.
Vermillion trotted down Jasper, then hung a left past a trailer and onto Cummings Street. Here the street lights were relegated to a scant few, and they buzzed and flickered in disrepair. Up ahead, something crossed the road-something long and fast. Robert tried to put a species type to the shape. He hoped it wasn’t something new. Vermillion stopped and growled, then proceeded once more as the thing disappeared into an overgrown lot formerly known as Terry’s Auto Repair. Robert quickly realized the thing had come from Schumer’s Bar and Grill.
And that’s right where Vermillion stopped.
A lone cone of flickering light from a buzzing street lamp cast the gravel lot in an artificial haze. The white doors on the screened patio of Schumers lay open at grotesque angles. Much of the screens were torn out and frayed. Bloody handprints appeared on the white doors, some perfectly imprinted, other’s caught in long drags of crimson. A neon Coors beer sign blinked off and on.
Vermillion growled.
Robert checked the weed lot behind him, then walked slowly towards Schumers. Robert hadn’t noticed it before, but Raul’s Buick was parked in a corner by a storage shed. Robert made his way over, and peered into the car.
No sign of anyone.
Weird, he thought. Tara must’ve convinced Raul and Tim to come back and look for Amy. Also, someone must’ve picked up Vermillion and taken him into their car, because the pooch never would’ve left him on his own accord.
A gunshot echoed across town, coming from the north. Then another.
Robert let the blasts fade into the night, then carefully entered Schumers. The place smelled like a normal backwoods bar-stale alcohol, lingering puke aroma, mixed with shitty cooking. But another scent came to Robert, a bright, raw scent that offended the nostrils-a scent he wasn’t accustomed to. When he entered the gaming area and pool table section, he almost stumbled onto the source.
A body.
Raul’s body.
He’d been eviscerated by something, his intestines spilling from him wildly. The old carpet was saturated with his blood in an oblong circle, his face pale.
Robert aimed the .357 into the darker corners of Schumers. He flicked on his headlamp and illuminated a young blonde woman who lay slumped over in a booth, her face obscured by her hair.
Robert hurried over to her, Vermillion at his heels. He gently raised her head off the table to see if she might respond, but she did not.
Had to be Amy, Robert thought. He’d never met her, but he’d heard she was a great person.
As he searched Schumers, another body lay in the kitchen, amidst a mess of pots and pans. The dead man was eyeless, his face pale. Robert’s hands shook and he tried to get them in line. Vermillion gazed up at him with a concerned look.
Robert shook his head.
Atop a grease filled fryer, came movement. Robert swung his .357, pointing it directly at a bizarre leaf-like creature. The creature regarded him with condescension, then proceeded to shiver, as if throwing a fit. It’s flank pulsed with a deep red and orange. When Robert moved closer, it pulsed harder and more vibrantly.
Robert lowered the gun. The leaf creature let up.
What the? Robert thought.
The creature scurried across the stove top, and Robert raised his .357 again. The creature stopped at once and pulsed the vivid colors.
“Give me one good reason not to pull the trigger,” Robert said.
The leaf’s turbulent colors deepened, and it almost shivered itself off the stove.
A booming noise came from the roof, sending down bits of dust and wood.
Vermillion growled.
The thing on the roof stepped once, then twice, causing the beams to creak and groan.
GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON, a mimic voice boomed back at him through the roof. GIVE ME ONE GOOD REASON.
Robert stood there, numb. He lowered his .357, and the leaf relaxed.
Had it called out to the flier? He wondered. Were these leaves a sort of ecosystem alert mechanism?
It was entirely possible. Disturbing, but possible. Maybe the flier sent out alarms to other invasive creatures, too.
Robert stood there, not moving. Vermillion followed his lead.
The leaf creature scurried over to a storage bin next to the stove, then nipped at a loaf of bread.
The flier shifted above him, again.
Robert pictured Tara, smiling at him, how she was on her first date. Then he pictured her dead, half-eaten by one of these things. In the stillness, in the awfulness of that kitchen, he figured he’d never see her again.
He stood still, unseen pressure squeezing him. Robert balled his fingers into a fist and took a slow breath. There was nothing he could do for anyone, maybe not even himself. If he went outside, he was dead. If he tried to fight the thing off, he was dead. He could shoot it as he tried to leave Schumers, but the flier was simply too big, and the gunshots would draw more of them.
And that was the rub.
If he fought, more would come. Hell, if Vermillion barked, more would come.
He wondered how many of the leaf creatures were in the woods, watching the town, just waiting to send out alarms to the other invasives.
Robert remained still as the leaf creature dragged a slice of bread as big as its body across the stove, and then out of sight around the corner.
Vermillion
started after it, but Robert grabbed him by the collar.
The flier shifted on the roof as its wings buffeted the air in dull throbs.
He had to do something. He couldn’t wait in here all night. Tara needed him.
A sliver of bitterness caught Robert off guard.
They’d left him to die.
It hadn’t really hit him until now, just what had happened. The way a man doesn’t quite realize he’s been rejected by a woman until the moment has passed. True, he told Tim to run, but the kid wasn’t supposed to take Vermillion and leave.
Anger rose up in him-a bit of ego too. But ego was no good for survival. Things were too chaotic to let non-priority emotions take over. In regards to Tim, Raul, and Tara, people didn’t think clearly in such situations, so how could he hold it against them? They seemed like decent people, and heck, hadn’t Tim and Raul even picked them up?
Robert could, and would let it go.
If he escaped Schumers alive.
Vermillion arched his head up at Robert and whimpered.
Technically, they didn’t have to go anywhere. Not yet, anyway. Robert doubted the massive flier could enter Schumers…unless it tore through the roof.
Seconds ticked away in Robert’s mind, each one brining a freeze-frame vision: Tara smiling at him on their first date. His mother, chastising him for not keeping his emotions centered. His father, slurring his word and trying to straighten them out to no avail.
Outside, gunfire shots cracked far away. And then the panic-screech of car brakes engaging.
Robert hurried over to the patio and peered out the torn screens. A pickup truck with one taillight sped past and disappeared. He wondered if Tara had been a passenger.
The flier shifted on the roof and shrieked out a near-perfect mimicry of the truck engine revving. Bits of dust and wood crumbled from the rafters as the ceiling beams groaned. A moment later, far up the street the flier’s wings blocked the fragile light from lone street lamp.