by A.R. Wise
The Slim Jim proved a useless weapon. It snapped in half almost immediately. I imagined Macho Man Randy Savage yelling out his classic tagline with my giant Slim Jim cracking in half in his grip. I’d thrusted with the intention of hitting the side of the woman where the creature was sprouting, but three tentacles reached up to defend its face. The arms wrapped around the plastic meat stick, broke it in half, and pulled it out of my grip, leaving me staggering forward from inertia.
While my haphazard attack might’ve failed to slay the beast, it did serve to free the dog from the tentacle’s grip. The animal was loose, but wounded and scared. He whimpered at my feet, and then started to growl at the Cronenbergian body horror that’d formerly been his owner. I knew the dog would continue to fight if I let him, so I resolved to get us both out of there as soon as possible.
The dog had a harness on his back that was attached to a handle instead of a leash. I gripped the rubber handle and pulled the dog back. He tried to stand his ground, but I slid him through the gunk along with me.
The monster roared and flailed its arms as if trying to make itself look bigger than it really was. Then it crouched as if preparing to leap.
I rounded the corner near the felled energy drink cooler and was about to head for the smashed entrance when I remembered one of those tentacle monstrosities had been in the car as well. The gas station was filling with smoke, alerting me to a fire I hadn’t realized had started. I was searching for an escape route when I saw the gas station attendant on the floor nearby, reaching out at me. His eyes were wide, and his mouth was agape as he struggled for breath. The former driver of the wrecked station wagon was standing over the man. The driver’s body was bent in half, the torso leaning back as if his spine had been broken by the demonic creature that emerged from his gut. The creature got down on its knees over the gas station attendant. One of its tentacles was constricted around its victim’s throat, and I watched in stunned terror as the creature lowered its spinning jaws over the man’s balding head.
Blood spurted out as the gnashing teeth turned the man’s head into pulp that was thinner than the orange juice I’d choked down earlier. If I didn’t find a way out of there, I’d share a similar fate.
The smoke was getting dense, and I saw the orange flicker of flame coming from somewhere in the parking lot. I’m not the sharpest blade in the block, but even I know seeing a fire at a gas station is about as good as skinny dipping with piranhas.
The dog was hurt, but had recovered enough to challenge our attacker. He was barking between snarls, his lips curled to reveal his teeth as the monster made it to the end of the aisle. The creature had control of the old lady’s body, and she shambled like a zombie towards me. The only direction I could flee was to the back of the store. I pulled down a nearby candy bar display, sending a wave of chocolate bars into the syrupy mess already on the floor. When I tried to pull the dog along, he fought with me as if determined to stay and fight. He was probably trying to defend his owner from whatever had attached itself to her, but I knew that was a lost cause.
I hefted the dog into my arms and headed for the back room. He wasn’t happy with me, and whined as he tried to writhe his way out of my arms, but I held on tight as I ran through a pair of swinging doors.
“Stop fighting me,” I said as if the dog might listen.
The back room of the gas station was sparsely decorated. There was a television on a nearby table that was muted. A harried reporter was trying not to cry as she talked, and then the video switched to a live shot of a plane crashing down on a busy highway. The plane vanished in a ball of deep red flame and black smoke. It was dramatic enough to still me for a second before adrenaline snapped me back into my own fight or flight panic (that pun was insensitive, but not entirely unintended).
The swinging door behind me started to open, and I saw the creature coming through. She was shambling about, with tentacles lashing at the air from the cracks in her frame. It was as if the creature inside her had taken control of its host’s motor functions and was forcing her to cart it around. I immediately thought of Krang from the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.
The creature saw me and screeched. I kicked back at the door, slamming it into the creature and knocking it away. I let out a satisfactory yell and flipped off the monster before searching for an exit.
I kicked open the back door as smoke began to fill the air above me. For a brief second I felt like a hero firefighter, busting my way out of a burning building with a victim in my arms and flames licking my heels. Then my bravado morphed into wide-eyed cowardice when the creature made its way through the swinging door that separated us and chased after me.
The exit led to an alley, and I nearly fell flat on my face off a stoop that I hadn’t been prepared for. A curious man from the adjoining neighborhood had come through his fence to see what all the commotion was. When he saw me he asked, “Is that a fire? Oh Lord, is that a fire?”
“Get out of here,” I commanded as I headed down the alley towards the street.
“Why? What’s going on?” The portly man in the terrycloth bathrobe had no inkling of an idea what was going on. How could he? I barely understood myself.
And how exactly are you supposed to explain in a quick, concise manner that parasitic octopus monsters were sprouting from random strangers and eating people while crashing cars, starting fires, and vandalizing Slim Jim displays? That’s not the sort of information that can be easily relayed.
I did my best, “Monsters! Run!”
His profoundly exasperated expression quickly turned to abject terror as the beast chasing me emerged from the gas station’s exit. As soon as the sunlight hit the monster, it screeched and retracted, like a snail trying to pull itself back into its shell. The tentacles wrapped around the monster’s face to shield its eyes, and the host-body walked clumsily backward, out of the sunlight and into the gas station again.
“What is that?” asked the newcomer as he pulled the flaps of his robe around himself tighter. Perhaps he thought his lack of modesty might enrage the creature further, as if the sight of an errant wiener might send it into a murderous rage.
“Run,” I said as I headed the opposite direction. “It’ll fucking eat you. Run!”
He yelled after me, “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” I said as I ran the opposite direction. It’s entirely possible that a couple choice curse words snuck into my response as well.
I could hear people yelling in the distance. There was no telling why they were screaming. Was it the fire at the gas station that was about to turn the entire neighborhood into a smoldering crater? Or did the tentacle-twins reveal themselves?
That’s when another possibility came to me: What if this was going on everywhere?
I know that possibility should’ve occurred to me before. After all, the woman in the gas station had transformed in an instant, and I could only assume that the same sort of transformation had occurred to the owner of the station wagon, initiating his crash course. And then there was the plane wreck I’d seen on the muted news report. Had the same thing happened on a plane, causing it to crash? Was this going on everywhere?
Suddenly the expanse of road ahead hardly felt like a safe escape anymore.
“Where do we go, pal?” I asked the dog in my arms.
The brown and black German Shephard whined in response. I took his pained response as, ‘I don’t fucking know!’
We were both covered in the slimy goo that the monster had emitted, and I could feel it hardening on me. I wanted to wash it off as soon as possible, and dreaded the thought that one of those worms might be slithering over me, but first I had to figure out where to go.
“Back to work,” I said as I started to run down the street, back towards the job that I’d just been fired from.
The dog fought with me. He writhed in my arms and whined until I relented and agreed to set him free. I worried he was going to run back to his owner, but I couldn’t risk
wasting time wrestling with him. He was a big dog, and not easy to hold when he wanted down.
Instead of letting the dog fall, I knelt and set him down gently. “Come on, boy,” I said while slapping my thigh, hoping the dog would follow me instead of going back to the gas station.
He glanced at the station, and then at me. Sirens of all types blared in the distance as first responders struggled to figure out where to go.
“Come on, buddy.”
The fire at the gas station was raging out of control now. Old Betty Boop was a lost cause, and I knew that if she caught fire the mountain of greasy fast food wrappers in the back seat would smolder for years. I wondered if my insurance policy had lapsed due to non-payment yet. Maybe the owner of the station wagon would be found at fault, and his insurance company would pay for my lost vehicle. That made me think of trying to explain what’d happened to an insurance agent, which snapped me back into focus about just how insane my current situation was.
I discovered something odd about how human beings deal with sudden, unbelievable crises. We tend to try and equate whatever insanity is occurring with something more mundane and manageable. So when faced with a squid-filled apocalypse, we might stop and consider how we’re going to explain this to our State Farm agent. It’s our brain’s way of trying to make sense of everything. Or at least that’s the way my brain works – but before the end of all this, we’ll both be in agreement that I’m not exactly right in the head.
The dog hesitated behind me, and I could tell by the look in his big brown eyes that he wanted to go back and save his owner. I couldn’t let that happen. I grabbed the handle attached to the dog’s harness and pulled him reluctantly down the street with me. He wasn’t happy, but he fell in step while casting mournful glances backward.
A police car came screaming down the road, lights flashing as it went at least 60 in a 35. Last time I’d done that I got a nice little $200 booby prize. I didn’t envy the officer, and wished him the best of luck as he headed right into the epicenter of insanity I’d just escaped. Whoever the officer was, he or she was braver than I. Courage in the face of danger wasn’t a trait I was known for. It’s not that I’m a well-renowned coward or anything of the sort. It’s just that I generally try to avoid dangerous situations. I tip my hat to those among us who take on the tasks of first responders, but I’ve always preferred my life devoid of potentially lethal situations.
The warehouse wasn’t far from the gas station, and as I approached I saw my former boss standing by the curb. He was a pudgy, short, bald man who looked like the living embodiment of a weeble wobble, with a pin head and a fat ass that made me wonder if he could be tipped over or if, when pushed, he’d just bobble back and forth. I wanted to push him and find out, but that seemed like a wildly inappropriate thing to do under the circumstances.
Jim was near the curb, fretfully looking at his building as if terrified of it. One of the loading bay doors was open, revealing the dark interior. Jim didn’t hear me coming, and nearly jumped out of his shoes when I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Holy Lord, Jesus Christ, Mother Mary.” He put his hand over his heart as he stared wide-eyed at me. “What’re you doing here? I thought I fired you.”
“Where’s Otis and Tony?” I wasn’t there for Jim. Frankly, the quicker I got away from him the better. Even in the midst of a Lovecraftian apocalypse, I still managed to feel petty and bitter about being fired.
“They’re in there.”
“Why are you out here?”
“There was a fight in the breakroom,” said Jim, but his usual smug, self-assured demeanor had been replaced by fear. I could see it in the way his normally squinting eyes were now wide and bugging out of his head. They looked like a pair of googly eyes on an Easter egg.
“What sort of fight?” I asked, wondering if the same thing was going on here that’d happened at the gas station.
“I… I don’t know,” said Jim, shaking his pinhead and blubbering with that fat lower lip of his that was always glistening with spittle as if he’d just finished sucking on a stick of butter. “I was in my office and I heard people shouting. I saw… blood and a… a monster or something. I’m not sure what happened. I tried to call the police, but…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t get through. Otis and Tony were in there. That’s when I saw… Jesus, Dave. I’m not even sure what I saw. A monster or something.”
“And you left them?”
“What was I supposed to do?” asked Jim, and his characteristically sanctimonious tone returned. “I was going to get a… What are you doing here anyways?” He glanced down at the dog by my side. “Did you steal someone’s dog?”
“No, I went blind from jerking off in your coffee every morning. Hold him for me.” I gave the dog’s handle to Jim and headed towards the warehouse.
“Where’re you going?” asked Jim.
“Disneyland.”
The dog barked at me, and then pulled away from Jim’s toddler-strong grip. The animal came running up behind me as if determined to stand by my side no matter what we were about to head into.
“You don’t want to stay with Humpty Dumpty?” I asked the dog. “Can’t say I blame you.”
He responded with a sound that was a mix of a snort and a bark.
Remember a few seconds ago when I was talking about how I don’t like to walk into the middle of danger? Well, here I am doing exactly that. Back at the gas station I couldn’t wait to flee the danger without a second thought about anyone else stuck there. Yet here at the warehouse, I was willing to walk right into whatever danger awaited. The difference this time is that my friends were inside, and while I’m the first to admit to occasional cowardice, I’m also a loyal friend. If Tony and Otis were in trouble, then I had to do whatever I could to get them out.
I went up the steps to the dock’s landing and through the wide-open door. There was no one inside the work area. The warehouse was filled with several rows of metal shelves packed with boxes of various material. Jim’s business was a hub-point warehouse for a variety of other companies based on either coast. Having a location on the east side of the Rockies allowed quicker shipping to the Midwest. Our job was to take orders, process them, and get them out as soon as possible. Jim didn’t have to purchase a single item, and instead allowed other companies to stock his shelves with their products. All he had to do was get orders sent out in a timely manner while providing space to stock the goods. It was a pretty smart business plan, and profitable enough to afford Jim and his family a nice lifestyle, especially when you consider the pauper’s wages he handed down to the grunts like me.
I got down low and looked under the shelves to see if anyone was standing in the aisles. There was no one in sight, so I chanced a yell, “Otis, you here? Tony?”
“They’re in the breakroom,” said Jim from the parking lot.
The breakroom door was to my right, and the door was closed. There was no window to peer through. If I wanted to find out what was going on in there, I’d have to go inside.
I knocked on the door and asked, “Everything all right in there?”
Something on the other side reacted to my voice by slamming itself against the door. I heard water slosh, and then saw the familiar brown fluid seep out from under the door as the handle began to violently shake. I backed away, and was prepared to run when I heard frightened pleas for help from within the break room. I had an idea what was going on. I assumed that one of my former coworkers had sprouted a squid, and at least one other coworker had survived the attack by hiding in the adjoining bathroom.
The location of that bathroom, and the weak ventilation, had always been a point of contention amongst the staff. The bathroom was attached to the break room, which meant that whenever one of the guys had to take a crap, they were doing it within a few feet of where everyone else was eating. The fan only served to stir up the stink of feces, and the single window in the bathroom was tiny and useless. I can’t count the number of half-eaten microwave bur
ritos that ended up in the trash after I lost my appetite following someone else’s turd deposit.
“Dave, help!” Otis’s plea was muffled by the walls separating us.
My attention was focused on that door handle as the creature tried to figure out how to use it. The handle turned, and the door pushed open, but it halted after barely an inch. There was something blocking it from opening all the way.
I glanced down and saw there was a stopper wedged between the bottom of the door and the concrete floor. Brown, syrupy fluid oozed out around the stopper as the creature trapped within screamed in frustration.
“That son of a bitch,” I said as I looked in Jim’s direction. My former boss had fled, and was nowhere to be seen. He didn’t want to face the repercussions of trapping his employees in the break room with that monster.
“Dave,” said Otis, his patience waning. “Kill that thing and get me out of here, man.”
“Are you in the bathroom?”
“Yeah. Me and Tony. Kyle turned into… He turned into some sort of…” His statement was cut short by a shrill shriek from the squid-monster that used to be our co-worker.
“Stay there,” I said. “I’ll get you out.”
I had no clue how I was going to do that, but it felt like the right thing to say.
Perhaps a more heroic man than me would’ve searched for a weapon and steeled himself for a fight with an otherworldly LSD-and-hentai inspired beastie. I’m not that man. There was no way in hell I was going to square off against one of those squids unless I absolutely had to. If you’ll remember, the last time I went toe-to-toe with a tentacle-nasty, its pus sac popped and flooded the area with worm-ridden baby diarrhea. That’s not the sort of encounter I care to repeat.
I snapped my fingers and said to the dog at my side, “I can try to break down the wall from the outside.” The dog again let out a sound that was a mix of a snort and a bark. It was a noise that he seemed fond of, and one I’d eventually refer to as a ‘snark’. “Come on…” I slapped my thigh to get the dog to follow, and then realized that I didn’t know his name. I checked his collar. “Beaver? Is that really your name?”
The dog barked.
“Who names their dog Beaver?”
He barked again.
“Fine then, Beaver,” I said with a mocking tone. “Let’s go get my friends out of the shitter.” I wish I could say that was the first time that phrase has ever slipped my lips, but I’m fairly certain I’ve said that during at least one college party gone awry.
For some reason I thought there was a fireman’s axe in a glass case on the wall in the warehouse, but it was just a fire extinguisher that hadn’t been inspected since Clinton was staining dresses in the oval office. I used the metal bar that was attached to a chain on the extinguisher’s box to break the glass. The extinguisher would have to serve as a sledge hammer for the time being.
The warehouse was neighbored by a storage shed company, and there was a tall wire fence in a strip of rocks between the two properties. I ran through the weed-filled rocks and found the tiny vent that was connected to the bathroom. I stood on the tips of my toes and yelled up at it, “Stand back, I’m going to bust the wall down.”
“You’re gonna what?” asked Otis, certain he’d misheard me.
I cracked the bottom of the extinguisher against the wall, expecting to take a massive chunk out of the adobe-style stucco. I was disappointed by the meager damage I’d inflicted. Only a smattering of dust fell away from the wall. I tried again, and managed to get a slightly larger chunk to break free, revealing a metal mesh layer beneath.
“How’re you going to break down the wall?” asked Otis.
“I’ve got a…” I knew he was going to make relentless fun of me if I finished that sentence.
“You’ve got a what?” he asked.
“A fire extinguisher.”
His pregnant pause was all the mocking he needed to do, but of course he couldn’t leave it at that. His tone was laced with derision as he said, “A fucking fire extinguisher. Are you for real right now?”
I heard Tony curse, “Son of a bitch.” I could imagine him in there shaking his head in judgmental disappointment.
“The wall’s tougher than I thought it’d be,” I said in my own defense.
Otis continued his ungrateful response to my rescue effort, “Yeah, it’s the Fort Knox of shitters.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yeah, a toddler could come up with a better idea,” he shouted at me through the vent. “Get up in the attic and you can come in through the ceiling. The ceiling’s thinner than the wall. Bust a hole in the ceiling and throw us a rope.”
“A rope?” I asked. “Where the hell am I supposed to get a rope?”
I heard the squid start screaming again. Otis lost his patience with me and shouted, “Motherfucker, get me out of this bathroom!”
I gave the wall another good hit with the extinguisher, hoping for a miracle. Instead of divine intervention, my effort was rewarded with calamity as the nozzle of the extinguisher cracked off in my hand. Freezing white powder spewed from the canister, painting my surroundings as I haphazardly spun and nearly lost my balance on the stones. I threw the extinguisher down and ran like a teenage drinker with a belly full of Boone’s Farm when the cops show up.
I rounded the corner and got back to the warehouse. I was shocked to see someone standing near the door to breakroom. I halted and stared.
“Jim?” I asked as the egg-shaped blur became more defined once my eyes adjusted to the dim warehouse light.
Jim voiced words I never expected of a squat little coward like him. “I’ll save them.” He had one hand on the door knob and the other on a pistol.
3 – Bird Bombs