He ran, infinitely aware that each thundering step was closing on him. That he was about to die. That—
With a mighty kick, Copernicus sprang free from Nate’s arms and flew off to the right.
“No!” Nate cried, veering after the dog, reaching desperately to catch him. Too late. Copernicus hit the ground running—just as something enormous smacked down right where Copernicus and Nate had been running. Nate whirled around and damn near fell over at the monstrosity towering over him.
It didn’t compute. Couldn’t be real.
The thing was at least eight feet tall, and it looked like a mad scientist’s failed attempt to cross breed a rhinoceros and a tree. It looked like a freaking ogre. And it was stalking toward Nate, clearly looking down at him, even if it was too dark to see the thing’s eyes.
“Gar’jougo,” it rumbled in a voice that left Nate frozen, insides shriveling and outsides shuddering at the sheer size and power of the thing. Then the creature growled and reached one massive ogre hand for him, and the panic took over.
He leapt backward, half falling over, then scrambled into a turn and nearly ran straight into the waist-high wire fence that lined the side of the park’s baseball field. He saw the shadowy lines in the dark just in time to clumsily vault over. He hit the ground off balance, scraped knees and palms on the dirt, and kept running, not giving one fractional shit about the burning pains in his hands, knees, and ribs.
Behind him, he heard the thing break into a lumbering run. It tore through the fence like a runner’s finish line and thundered after him across the field. Nate ran for everything he was worth. But it wasn’t enough. He could feel the thing closing on him. Nowhere to go. Something hit his back, and the next thing he knew he was smashing face first into the baseball field dirt. He gasped for breath and got half a lungful of the gritty stuff instead.
“Gar’jougo deh jrak ith net,” the thing growled right above his head, as he reached forward to keep crawling. For a second, Nate couldn’t move for the terror, couldn’t think anything but that this was the end. Then the creature growled something else and prodded at Nate’s back with one huge finger.
Choking on dust and fear, Nate rolled over and raised his hands in surrender. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“Jougo,” it replied, a massive mountain of head and shoulders hovering over him, clearly expecting something more. They were close enough to the lights now that he could just make out the glint of its beady eyes staring down at him. “Jougo!”
Nate flinched as the thing raised its huge fist, but then it straightened, looking around confusedly. That’s when Nate noticed the growling, and realized Copernicus had reappeared to sink his little corgi teeth into the thing’s gargantuan ankle.
The beast let loose with a burst of guttural language, shaking its leg to kick the laughably small dog away. But Copernicus was faster. The corgi danced back, darting left and right, barking all the way. The bipedal tree of a rhino turned to stomp after Nate’s furry little rescuer, and Nate scrambled to hands and knees, looking desperately around for something—anything—to stop the beast and save Copernicus.
He looked to home base, hoping against hope for a baseball bat or something, but there was nothing. Christ, even if he’d had a freaking machine gun, he wasn’t sure it would’ve done more than irritate the hulking monster. But for some reason, when his hand slipped into his pocket and closed around the bag of rice therein, he didn’t dwell on the fact. Not with the lumbering giant stomping after Copernicus, doing his hulking damnedest to stomp the corgi dead.
He just plucked the bag from his pocket and threw.
Nate was no athlete. He was no Todd. But damn if that bag of rice didn’t hit the monstrous rhino tree dead in the back of its fat head. Nate had a fraction of a second to feel victorious. Another to remember his phone had been in that bag. One last instant to register he’d just made a huge mistake. Then the creature rounded on him with a chest-shaking growl, and he realized his plan hadn’t included a Step Two.
The giant lunged forward, raising one mighty fist on high, clearly done with talking, clearly ready to make with the smashing. Nate fell straight on his ass, petrified by the raw ferocity.
This was it. Nothing to be done. He was already dead.
And somehow, the only thing that flicked through his head as his brutish end came stomping home was what a shitty injustice it was that there’d be no one left to tell Gwen what an asshole her boyfriend was after Nate was gone and pasted into the dirt as a fine meat jelly.
What a crock of shit this whole damn universe was, he thought.
Then there was a flash of azure light, and the ogre jerked in mid-step, teetering like its strings had been cut. Teetering, and tipping. Straight toward him.
In a blind panic, Nate clawed his way backward, distantly aware that someone was screaming, even more distantly aware that it was him. The giant crashed to the dirt at his feet, its raised fist smacking down just shy of his left leg. Nate coughed through a lungful of dust, choking on the sharp burn of ozone in the air and feebly scrambling further back, not trusting for one second that it was actually over. Copernicus came padding around the giant’s body, pausing to sniff delicately at the thing’s lumpy, noseless face before turning to Nate, visibly trembling.
Then there was a sharp crack out in the darkness of the park, and Nate was running with Copernicus in his arms almost before he knew it, clutching the trembling dog tight, running for the lights as fast as he could. Not looking back. Running for his goddamn life.
Straight into traffic.
Lights flashed. A horn blared its indignant call, tires screeching. Nate felt his center of balance going and kept pumping his legs anyway. No time. No time to do anything else.
He hit the sidewalk alive, straight on his bad rib side, and heard himself cry out as if it were another person. He scrambled back to his feet, the world a confusing blur around him, and kept moving. He didn’t look back. Couldn’t look back. He kept running, ignoring his body’s screaming protests—ignoring the whirlwind of impossible thoughts, and the tiny voice that said he should go back, warn that driver, make sure no one wandered into that park.
He kept running until the house came into view.
Then he kept running some more.
8
Only in Dreams
Nate stumbled into the house, heaving for breath, body burning with a thousand different hurts, screaming mind not giving one single damn about any of them. He was too busy pushing the door shut behind him, collapsing against its feeble wooden promise of safety, and trying to piece together any part of what in all of the unholy hells had just happened. Copernicus, still trembling in his arms, seemed to be in a similar state after his diversionary heroics back in the park.
It was only after several seconds of hyperventilating and questioning reality in general that Nate realized that one of the TVs was on, and that he wasn’t alone.
Kyle and Zach had fallen asleep on the couch watching Firefly on the top left quadrant of the Mother Gaming Shrine, Zach’s sleeping head having drifted down onto Kyle’s sleeping shoulder. On any other night, Nate might’ve snapped a picture, or at least cracked a heartfelt smile. But tonight he couldn’t. Because he’d just thrown his phone at a motherfucking giant ogre in the park.
Somehow, Kyle and Zach’s napping arrangement didn’t seem all that important in light of that little fact.
“Someone ever tries to kill you,” Mal Reynolds was saying on the TV, “you try to kill ’em right back!”
Easy for him to say.
Copernicus was squirming in Nate’s arms now, like he wanted to go check the coast over at the wide paneled windows. Which, Nate decided, wasn’t such a bad idea. Until Kyle stirred, muttering something in his sleep, and Nate felt a surge of defensive panic at the thought of having to explain himself right then.
Because what the hell could he say that wouldn’t sound twelve different kinds of bat shit crazy? Not much. Not even to Conspiracy The
ory Kyle, who’d been ranting for three weeks now about how the aliens were…
Nate’s eyes widened.
No way. It was ridiculous. That thing couldn’t have been an alien. Of course, it also clearly couldn’t have even been real to begin with, so maybe the couldn’ts and shouldn’ts were out the window. Or maybe Balls Brad had tagged him with a patch of LSD back at Iota Nu Nu. Or maybe he’d just hit his head—or had it kicked—far harder than he’d realized and was tripping balls the old fashioned way.
Nate gathered Copernicus tighter and crept across the faux wood floor, sure of nothing but the fact that he couldn’t explain himself right now. Or maybe ever. Jesus.
Somehow, the sneaking only made his abused heart pound that much harder. What if that thing had friends?
It couldn’t have been real.
What if they followed him here?
Stop it.
By the time Nate had padded down the short hallway to his bedroom door, he was hyperventilating again. He grabbed the doorknob with a shaking hand, desperate for the safety—or, at least the privacy—of his room, then flinched when Marty’s door creaked open, flooding the dim hallway with the soft blue glow of LEDs.
“Nate?” his roommate’s silhouette quietly asked, reaching for his main light switch. “Dude, where have you—”
“Not now,” Nate hissed. It came out sounding harsh, but he slipped into his room and closed the door before Marty could say anything. Time enough for apologies later, assuming he was still alive.
With that cheerful thought in mind, Nate skipped the light switch and went straight to the windows to look out front.
Not a soul in sight. Nothing but dead, dark street. And certainly no rampaging rhino trees.
Closing his eyes and depositing Copernicus on his bed, Nate let out a long breath… Then tensed as the door opened behind him, and the room lights flicked on.
Marty was watching him from the doorway, his hand still on the switch.
“Nate, oh my god, your face. What happened? What—Is that Copernicus? What the—”
His friend sputtered on like that for a few seconds, then fell silent as Nate crossed the room. Nate yanked his roommate into the room with an authority that neither of them expected, then closed the door behind them and stepped over to have a look in the slender wall mirror beside his closet.
Marty had a point. Nate’s face was a dirty, bloody mess, and the rest of him wasn’t in much better shape. His unruly black hair was soaked with sweat and caked with dirt from the baseball field, his clothes were sullied with much of the same, and he barely recognized his own eyes. They were too wild, practically screaming out loud with the violent fight or flight reflex still racing through his every nerve to the tune of oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit-oh-shit.
“Nate…” Marty was frightened. “Nate, what the hell happened? Where were you? Why are you bleeding?”
For some reason, Nate looked to Copernicus for guidance, but the corgi was too busy on guard duty, stretching up to his full length on his hind legs to peer out the window. Marty watched them both, his expression growing more confused and concerned by the second.
Nate waved him to sit, trying to gather his thoughts—or at least stop breathing so damn hard. He went and looked out the window again instead.
“Nate,” Marty said, not sitting, only nervously gripping the back of Nate’s computer chair. “Please, tell me what’s…”
He trailed off as Nate held up a hand for silence. “I will. I’m just… not exactly sure where to start.”
“How about with why you’re bleeding, and why Emily Atherton’s dog is in your room?”
“Goddamn Todd,” Nate muttered, crossing over and flicking the lights back off.
“Todd?” Marty asked as Nate went to rejoin Copernicus at the window. “What does Todd have to do with this? And why are you two are acting like you have the Yakuza after you? What’s with the lights? Should we be calling the cops?”
Cops.
For a second, cops sounded like a damn good idea. Then Nate remembered just how big and brutally strong that beast had been, and he couldn’t help but give a nervous huff of laughter at the thought of what it could’ve done to a police cruiser. But it was dead, wasn’t it?
Sure. Maybe. Dead because of whatever had caused that flash of light. Whatever had been crackling after them as they’d fled the park.
“Nate…”
He let out his pent up breath in an explosive huff. “Okay, okay. Jesus. I—we got chased. Chased by… by something.”
“Something?”
“A big something. Over in the park, past the square. I don’t really know how to describe this without sounding like a crazy person.”
He felt Marty work through several starts and stops, obviously struggling to find the best tact here, probably still thinking rational thoughts.
“Okay,” he finally said. “Okay. So what happened? The thing chased you out of the park?”
“Sort of. I mean, it was chasing us, but… I think something killed it.”
“Another something?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Marty bobbed his head in the dim light, clearly trying to be calm and collected. “Okay. That’s a lot of somethings.”
“Dude”—Nate turned from the window long enough to shoot him a look—“if you knew the night I just had…”
“Yeah, I uh, kinda gathered as much after…”
Nate frowned at something in his friend’s voice—something outside of the obvious my best friend just stumbled home bloodied and carrying a dog that isn’t his.
“After what?”
“Oh, well…” Marty shook his head, starting to look like he had a hint of the secondhand shock creeping in now. “I mean, it seems kind of unimportant now, with all this… whatever this is. But Gwen stopped by looking for you.”
“What?”
“Yeah, we were all pretty surprised too. And worried.” He glanced out the window. “You just missed her by like ten minutes.” There was just enough ambient light to make out his frown as he turned back to Nate. “Why weren’t you answering your phone, by the way?”
“I, uh…” Threw it at a goddamn alien ogre’s head along with a bag of rice. “… lost it. Long story.”
“Right. Okay.”
“What did Gwen want?”
“She didn’t really say, but…” Marty’s frown deepened. “I dunno, dude, is this really important right now? I don’t understand what happened out there, and you’re kinda freaking me—”
“Please, Marty, I just…” He squeezed his eyes shut, searching for a handhold in his own mind. “I just need a single normal thought in my head right now, okay?”
“Okay. Okay, man. She just… said something had happened at the party and that she wanted to talk to you about it, make sure you were okay, that kind of thing. When we asked, she just said it was no big deal. She did stay and have a beer with us, though. I tried to call you a few times, but yeah. She just watched us play a round and then we all watched a little Firefly, shooting the breeze like old times. It was actually kinda nice. Even Kyle admitted it. Then she said she should get going, and that she’d text you.”
Nate thought about his almost certainly dead phone, lying in a heap of rice in the cold dirt. Next to a freaking dead ogre, no less.
“Great. That’s just… great.”
Some squirrelly part of him couldn’t help but wonder what it was she’d wanted to say to him—not to mention if Todd had in fact buggered over to Emily Atherton’s tonight because Gwen had walked out on him. The rest of his mind was busy wondering how the hell he could even be thinking about his college drama mere minutes after having nearly been stomped to meat paste by a giant… whatever the hell that thing had been. And that part probably had a damned fine point.
“I don’t know what to do, Marty.”
Marty considered that for a stretch. “About Gwen? Or about the rest of it.”
“All of the above,” Nate said, scratching
Copernicus behind the ears. The corgi started to wag his tail, leaning into the affection, then shook himself off and shot Nate a look that said, Come on, man, we’ve got serious stuff to worry about here!
“Why don’t you just tell me what happened from the beginning,” Marty said. “Unless you’d rather get cleaned up first?”
Nate opened his mouth to point out that his personal cleanliness was the last thing on his mind right now. As soon as the thought entered his mind, though, he couldn’t ignore how battered and grimy he felt—dried blood on his face, caked dirt there and pretty much everywhere else. Maybe a hot shower wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. Just to settle his nerves.
He glanced out at the silent street once more for confirmation that they were indeed not about to be besieged by another monster, then he nodded.
“Yeah, good call. I’ll just be a minute.”
Once Nate was actually under the glorious jets of hot water, though, feeling the grime and muck sluicing from his body, he decided to take two, just to enjoy the simple pleasure. It took a few more minutes to actually get himself clean—partly out of the necessity of cleaning tenderly around his scrapes and bruises, and partly because the orangish brown dirt from the baseball field seemed to have found its way into every nook and cranny he possessed.
It was kind of amazing how much more normal everything felt once he’d finished toweling off and slid into a fresh pair of sweats. Almost like all that wild shit in the park had just been a product of three or four too many head traumas, and some suspect Iota Nu Nu jungle juice.
Hearing Kyle and Zach moving around out in the kitchen, Nate padded quickly back into his room, dreading the thought of bringing anyone else into this already loopy conversation. Marty was waiting there in the light of Nate’s desk lamp with a glass of water and a few ibuprofen tablets. On the floor beside Nate’s bed, Copernicus was happily lapping up his own water from a bowl, having already apparently licked clean a small plate of something.
The Eighth Excalibur Page 7