Canals

by Everett Powers

  Three police cars came speeding up the street, lights flashing and sirens wailing. They screeched to a stop in front of Pennyworth’s house and policemen jumped out and took up defensive positions behind their vehicles. Delbert saw shotguns and pistols, and at least one rifle with a scope.

  “Oh, Delbert! What’s going on?”

  “Somebody must have gone crazy in Pennyworth’s house. Stand back, Suzie!”

  She didn’t move, frozen by the drama unfolding in front of their neighbor’s house.

  “The screaming stopped —” Delbert started to say, when they heard glass break and saw something jump through their neighbor’s picture window and land on the lawn; a big dinosaur, twenty feet long, with three sets of legs. It’s thick tail flicked back and forth as it stared at the police. Its mouth opened, as if hissing or snarling, revealing teeth that reflected the red and blue revolving lights coming from the police vehicles. Delbert expected it to roar or growl, but it made no sound.

  Susan screamed as the policemen opened fire; shotgun blasts roared into the night, followed by the reports of handguns and a loud distinctive clap from the rifle. Bullets and pellets hit the thing’s teeth and ricocheted off, throwing sparks that lit the lawn with yellow light, and hit its body and plopped to the ground, bouncing on the grass.

  It ran at the policemen, covering the thirty feet to the street in seconds, its mouth open, jaws impossibly wide. It jumped on top of a guest’s car, then onto the closest police vehicle. The top half of a policeman disappeared. It spat and lunged at the next policeman, taking his head, then lunged again.

  The man with the rifle fired several shots into the thing’s body from no more than twelve feet, but the rounds had no effect. Four policemen died in ten seconds.

  The three still alive jumped into a car and took off. The thing leapt and grabbed the car with its powerful jaws, and Delbert and Susan watched it throw the police car thirty feet through the air toward Pennyworth’s house. The car hit nose-first on the lawn and flipped over, coming to rest on the roof.

  Running and leaping, it landed on the upside-down vehicle, pinning it, then jumped up and down, flattening the roof. Arms waved through the windows, followed by the head of a man trying to escape.

  Susan screamed and fainted.

  Delbert watched the thing look at Pennyworth’s house and turn its head a little, then felt something pass through his house, and then him, vibrating the window pane and thrumming through his bones.

  A few seconds later several miniature versions of the creature came crawling out of Pennyworth’s house, slithering across the lawn like giant snakes, their teeth glinting in the night. He counted six as they attacked the car.

  They tore into it with their metal teeth, ripping through the door and pulling out parts of the trapped policemen, going back for more. In thirty seconds Delbert was sure all three men must have been completely devoured, but the things continued to shred the vehicle.

  Thinking the nightmare was nearly over, Delbert looked at the big one with the legs, to see what it was doing: his heart nearly stopped and his breath caught in his throat.

  It stood on Pennyworth’s lawn, staring up at Delbert’s window with its three yellow eyes.

  The vibration passed through him and his house again. The smaller things stopped shredding the police car and turned to look at him.

  They were coming for him, with their long bloody terrible teeth.

  Then, a loud whipping, thumping sound, beating through his rib cage. Delbert grabbed his chest and gasped, thinking he was having a hear attact.

  A ray of light — from heaven? — lit up the night like an August afternoon. Delbert shielded his eyes from the light but did not take his eyes off the things on the lawn. It was clear the bright light bothered them; they closed their eyes and ducked their heads, his window and bones throbbed with their vibrations.

  The smaller monsters made a beeline for Pennyworth’s house, seeking refuge from the light. Delbert became giddy, thinking he and Susan had been saved by God himself. He smiled at his good fortune, then screamed when he saw the big thing leap at his house.

  The walls shuddered when it hit and the house shook rhythmically until a silver spike pierced the wall of his second story bedroom.

  Delbert turned and ran and was halfway across the room when a window shattered and wood splintered and there was a sudden sharp pain in his legs. He fell to the floor with fiery agony and struggled to turn over, made it just in time to see it rip into Susan with its silver teeth, now red with her blood. It tore out her stomach, swallowed, and bit off her head.

  Delbert screamed and it looked at him, turning its head; in the madness of his last few living moments he almost thought it smiled at him.

  It jumped, landed on Delbert with a foot and jabbed a long silver claw through his abdomen, pinning him to the floor. He gasped and grabbed at the thing’s foot. The pain was unbearable.

  Bright light filled the room and the monster whipped its head around, snarled, turned back and bit Delbert twice, taking his head and most of his chest, pulled out its claw and tore open his abdomen, shredding his intestines.

  Returning to the window, it shut its eyes and leapt out into the light, soaring through the air and landing on Pennyworth’s lawn. It ran through the house to the back, exited the yard, the smaller ones trailing behind, and disappeared into the canal that snaked its way through the neighborhood.

  The light from the helicopter followed it to the canal but lost it once it went into the water.

  Pandemonium broke out on the street. Dozens of neighbors, awakened by the sirens or the screams, watched the terrible events from their windows. Five minutes after the monsters disappeared, they threw their kids in their cars and left.

  Photo albums and jewelry were left behind. No one bothered grabbing a gun; they’d seen what little good guns did against the creatures with silver teeth. They took whatever dogs and cats lived indoors but left their outside pets, not willing to risk the time it took to fetch them. They left their clothes and their computers and their video games and their file drawers full of tax returns and stock listings. They left their briefcases and their backpacks and their library books and movie rentals.

  They left with their kids and whatever clothes they had on their backs. They took their wallets and their purses and their cell phones, if the cell phone happened to be sitting by the door they exited through.

  They threw their kids in their cars and they left.

  When they hit 99, some went south and some went north, depending on which direction the nearest relative lived. Those that didn’t have relatives in California took whichever on-ramp was most convenient.

  They just threw their kids in their cars and they left.

  They left Modesto: it wasn’t safe anymore. There were monsters in Modesto, they saw them with their own eyes, things that cut through cars made of steel and bit off heads and threw cars around like Tonka trucks and crawled up the sides of houses to get at the people inside and could jump twenty or thirty feet and couldn’t be stopped or even slowed down by bullets and shotguns and high-powered rifles.

  They threw their kids in their cars and they left. They ran away from the monsters and never returned to Modesto.

  Chapter 18

  Baskel was talking to Captain Bozeman on his cell phone in the kitchen; Bozeman had insisted they talk in private.

  “Right. I understand,” Baskel said as he clicked off.

  “Everyone’s in shock,” he said, moving into the living room and resuming his place on the couch. “We lost seven good people, men with wives and families. We don’t have an accurate body count inside the house because no one will go in. Can’t say I blame them. Guy who called it in said there were six or seven guys, plus the stripper. Must have been inside himself, maybe came with the stripper.”

  Then he added, “Pretty nasty way to die.”

  (“I’m sorry.”) Jensen’s voice said inside his head.

  “Yeah, you’re sorry,
I’m sorry, we’re all sorry. Now there’s more people sorry.”

  (“I know you’re frustrated but there was nothing you or anyone else could have done. You cannot kill them.”)

  All the failures, all the dashed hopes, all the frustrations, all the guilt, all the shock, all the grief, and all the fear came to a head for Dave Baskel, and he exploded.

  “Bullshit! Bullshit!” He leapt off the couch, a lamp crashed to the floor. “I’m sick of your psychic bullshit! You don’t know anything!”

  He was in her face now, shouting and spraying her with spittle.

  “You don’t know jackshit! Don’t tell me we can’t kill them! We can kill anything! We can walk on the moon, dammit, take pictures of Mars! We can shoot a missile from a silo in North Dakota and guide it up the nose of a raghead in Iran if we want! You’re telling me the most powerful nation in the history of this planet can’t kill a few snakes? Go to hell, or wherever it was you came from. What good have you done, anyway? None! You haven’t done a goddamn thing except scare the shit out of everyone.”

  He got out of her face and started yelling at Lawless.

  “And you, you goodfornothing crazy sonofabitch, what good have you done? All you and your girlfriend here do is lay around holding hands, spouting spacey bullshit like ‘We gotta become.’ Tell me one good thing you’ve done. You don’t do shit!”

  (“Come and see.”) Lawless’s voice said in his head.

  “What?” Baskel shouted.

  Lawless, who hadn’t said anything unrelated to what he was seeing through another person’s, or thing’s, eyes in some time, raised his left hand, Jensen still held his right, and said,

  (“Come and see.”)

  His voice had changed, he had changed, and it gave Baskel the creeps. Still, he was fuming and would not allow himself to be mollified so easily.

  “Come and see what?” he shouted, though not as loud.

  (“Come and see what would happen to your planet if we had not been prepared and sent.”)

  He held his hand higher, reaching for Baskel.

  “Hell no. I’m not gonna see nothin’. You’re not gonna suck me in with your psycho bullshit.”

  (“We need you to see. We will need your help soon.”)

  “Need my help? What the hell are you talking about, you crazy-ass sonofabitch?”

  (“Take my hand and see. Please.”)

  Baskel looked at Jensen, who didn’t even seem to be aware of his presence anymore, and he thought, They’ve both finally gone completely mad.

  But he took Lawless’s hand.

  And he saw...

  Baskel found himself being drawn through a tunnel of images and sounds that flashed and streaked by. He stared in wonder, rotating his head, trying to see it all, searching for something familiar. Disoriented, he thought he might fall, though he didn’t think he could; there didn’t seem to be any up or down in the tunnel. For all he knew he could be upside-down.

  He traveled like this for some time, how long or how far he couldn’t tell. Then, just as he thought he was getting used to the stream of color and sound, it stopped.

  He found himself on a hill overlooking a valley, of sorts. In the valley, he saw threads of images and sounds, moving from left to right. There were hundreds, thousands of them, so many he found it impossible to concentrate on any one. To his left and behind him, he saw more, many more, all around, surrounding him. Underfoot, more threads of light and sound. He tried to turn around but couldn’t; someone was holding his hand. It was Lawless.

  (“Where are we?”) he asked with his mind.

  (“We are here.”)

  This was exactly the type of answer he was tired of hearing, the very thing he had been complaining about back in Jensen’s living room. But here, in this place of light, sound, and motion, it seemed right. They were here, and it didn’t really matter where here was because it was where they were.

  (“Place is a matter of reference,”) he heard Lawless say in his mind.

  (“What are all these images?”)

  (“They are the threads of existence, past, present, and future.”)

  (“For Earth?”)

  (“For the universe.”)

  (“There are so many.”)

  (“They cannot be counted.”)

  Baskel looked again and was enlightened, discerning one stream of images from another. He saw strange things, things he would never have imagined; he saw them but could not understand them, and he knew he wasn’t meant to.

  (“What have you brought me here to see?”)

  (“Look.”)

  Baskel looked: one of the streams of images separated itself from the others and moved toward them. Or were they moving toward it? He couldn’t tell, and then thought, in this place, it didn’t matter.

  (“This thread is the future of your planet if the Evil Species is not killed before it leaves your place of dwelling.”)

  (“How can this be if it hasn’t happened?”)

  (“All things exist in time and space, even the future. One needs only to know how to view them.”)

  (“Someone taught you how to do this?”)

  (“It’s not a matter of teaching and learning; it’s a matter of knowing. Only Seers can know, and I am a Seer. I was made to see, to look into the threads of time.”)

  (“How many futures are there?”)

  (“Too many to be numbered.”)

  (“Then how do you know which one is the real future?”)

  (“I don’t. Which future becomes the present, and then the past, depends on our actions.”)

  Baskel’s mind couldn’t grasp what Lawless had just said.

  (“Look.”)

  Baskel looked: another thread came to the forefront, images he recognized from his own past. He saw himself, younger and thinner, with fewer lines on his face and no gray in his full head of hair, at the hospital in San Antonio where his first child was born. He looked worried, scared; there had been complications, a lot of bleeding.

  (“This is your past, but if you had married Ruth Johnson instead of Johanna Robertson, this past would not exist. It would have been replaced by the future you made when you chose to marry Ruth. There are infinite versions of the future, all dependent on the choices we make and what we do, but there is only one past. Look.”)

  Baskel’s attention was returned to the thread of time that would be the Earth’s future if the creatures were allowed to leave Modesto.

  He saw the seven snake monsters grow wings by Tuesday and take flight, each to a different destination on the North American continent: three to Canada and four in the United States. The creatures chose areas similar to Modesto, with many rivers or canals running through or adjacent to the populated areas.

  Modesto recovered and life returned to normal for those who hadn’t lost loved ones. Another sensational story hit the news and everyone forgot about the days of terror wrought by the monsters.

  He observed the creatures, now winged, no longer limited to hunting from waterways, repeat the pattern they began in Modesto, except there was no learning curve; they already knew how best to kill and eat people. They spawned and the young grew rapidly because the mother creatures were expert hunters and could feed them well.

  They adapted to their environments within days. If they needed to fly greater distances to hunt, their wings grew larger. If the hunting was good from the water, they remade their bodies to be better swimmers. If they lived in areas like Modesto, with canals or rivers that ran through subdivisions, they grew legs so they could travel short distances on land and go into buildings to feed.

  The new colonies dispersed in ten days, each leaving the same night. Seven colonies became forty-five and there were creatures spawning in Central America and Alaska. The Modesto pattern was repeated, as it would for months and years to come.

  It was after the second dispersal that the more sophisticated law enforcement agencies, the fbi and Interpol, began to suspect something big was happening. Their computers and analysts saw
patterns: dozens of communities reported similar gruesome murders; people missing large portions of their bodies, people cut in half, people without heads, and hundreds gone missing. Task groups were formed, data was collected and analyzed.

  While they were meeting, arguing, and collecting even more data, the third dispersal took place. Forty-five colonies became one hundred and fifty, with more than twelve hundred creatures. The United States was now infested and there were colonies in South America as far south as the Straight of Magellan. Several creatures flew across the Bering Straight into Siberia, then to North and South Korea.

  Any u.s. agency associated with national security got involved and a new bureaucracy was created, with predicable results: meetings were conducted but little was done. The military was called home, ordered to drop whatever busybody task the president had them doing.

  While the military was organizing, the fourth dispersal occurred. One hundred and fifty colonies became eight hundred and thirty-three, with more than six thousand creatures.

  Colonies were established in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, India and Vietnam. Island countries stopped all flights from outside destinations, thinking they could keep their people safe from the spreading ruin.

  Modesto was recolonized.

  The full might of the United States military was unleashed. Sophisticated technologies were used to locate the lairs where the creatures hid during the day. They succeeded in finding some but failed to kill any of the creatures, so at best it slowed their rate of breeding for a while. The creatures adapted by changing the energy they emitted and varying their body temperature, rendering man’s technology worthless.

  Baskel watched the creatures disperse for the fifth time, and knew it was over. There were now more than seven thousand colonies, covering almost every country, and over fifty thousand creatures. The only populated areas not infested were remote islands like Tonga and Samoa. New Zealand received its first colony.

  Countries entered into a debate over the use of nuclear weapons, thinking it was the only way to kill the monsters. Small, tactical nuclear bombs were tried, but when they searched the blast areas they found no evidence they had killed any of the creatures. When it was clear that as nuclear weapons had unknown effects on the monsters, but well-known effects on humans, they were dismantled.