The leaf lifted off the road using tiny, industrial legs and scuttled off to the grassy embankment. As soon as it reached the grass, Bishop aimed the shotgun.
“Wait,” Angela said. “Is killing this worth attracting the fliers?”
“Yes.”
The leaf emitted a high-pitched whistle that tingled the hairs on the back of Bishop’s neck. Yutu tilted his head at an obscene angle and stuck his tongue out.
The shotgun roared, shredding the rotten leaf into dozens of fragments.
“Gotcha,” he said.
“Good job,” Angela said. “And good riddance.”
Full of themselves, they high-fived like basketball teammates who just completed an alley-oop.
Yutu barked, for the pooch was happier than anyone to see that awful leaf no more.
“Let’s get out of here,” Bishop said, looking into the canyon, remembering his father working a fine fourteen-inch cutthroat in the pool below. He missed him so much. But in a way, he was glad his father wasn’t around to see what was happening to his beloved valley. Bishop thought of an old Townes Van Zandt song and hummed the sober melody as if a second funeral hymn for his father.
“Are you humming?” Angela asked.
“Yes.”
“What song?”
“My Proud Mountains.”
“Good one.”
Behind tree line, on the northern side of the road, came a cacophonic symphony that clashed with his humming. Bishop shuddered. “Get in the truck,” he said.
The whistle symphony arose once more, like unbalanced and irritated crickets. But instead of the semi-unison of crickets, each voice shrieked with its own frequency and tone.
“Uh…not good,” Angela said, pointing out the window. “Bishop, the slope.”
Crawling down the embankment were dozens of rotten leaves.
“I’ve had enough of this shit,” Bishop said. He jammed the gas and yanked the wheel, turning the truck onto the embankment. The tires slipped on the grass but the truck ran true, squishing the rotten leaves, each one dying with a squeal. One of the rotten leaves managed to cling to the windshield. Bishop’s stomach churned when he saw the stingray mouth, razor teeth, and pink tongue with a spoon-like formation at the tip. He flipped the wipers, and the leaf flew off to the side. Yutu barked.
“I hope we killed them all,” Angela said.
“You know what? I think we did,” he said, erupting in laughter.
“You did good, hon.”
“We did good.”
They swerved onto the road, tires screeching as they transitioned from grass to asphalt. Back to Highway 18 it was, passing the endless cedars and ferns, and who knew what lurked in the shady hollows and glades. For now, the road was free of such things, and that meant they were free, however fleeting.
*
Main Street, Trout Road, and smoke.
“Now where?”
“Not the mountains. And we can’t go east. The northern and southern routes are blocked. We could head back north—”
“Colbrick,” Angela said. “I miss him.”
“So do I,” Bishop said. “I hope he’s alright.”
“We could try him on the radio.”
“Nah. The range is too far.”
“We need to find a place to spend the night.”
“What about Sue’s?”
“No freaking way.”
“OK, bad idea.”
“What about Fulton’s Clothing?”
Bishop looked north down Main Street at the two-level department store with brick façade.
“Sure, why not. We’ve got good elevated sightlines to the west, north, and south, and we can watch the street through the storefront.”
They parked behind the department store in a gravel alley with a green dumpster. A brown metal door with no external handle was the sole means of entrance.
Bishop grasped the edge of the door with his fingertips and pried it open.
The Fultons must have left in a hurry, he thought. He waved to Angela who was secure inside the truck with Yutu. She smiled a rare smile and then the love of his life greeted him at the door with the second love of his life, Yutu. He patted the dog on the head, and for a beaming moment, he was prouder than a mountain.
*
The bottom level of Fultons consisted of mannequins, racks of clothing, and shelving piled with shoe boxes. It wasn’t at all like your modern, clinical clothing store. There was a dim mustiness to the structure. Leather belts hung from an antique coat rack, and two large windows framed the glass door. A dusty cash register and glass counter occupied the southeast corner, and next to this, a row of stairs ascended to darker portions of the building.
Bishop and Angela tiptoed, only the creaky floorboards giving them away. They held their weapons out, waiting for the inevitable.
Yutu followed.
“We need to check upstairs,” Bishop whispered.
Angela nodded.
Bishop turned to Angela and pointed to his head. Then he returned to the truck and retrieved the headlamp they’d stashed in the glove box. He also took two Vicodin and swallowed them dry.
He met Angela back in the store, looking like an apocalyptic fashion victim with his garish headlamp and shotgun. Bishop inched towards the stairs and poked his head up into the darkness. The violet-tinted light caught the flimsy-looking railing and a brick wall on the second floor. He paused, waiting for rustling or movement, but there was none. Then he worked his way up the stairs to a narrow hallway with one door on the eastern side and two doors on the western. At the end of the hallway was a window with murky glass. This pleased him. Bishop waved for Angela to follow, and she did, with Yutu right behind.
“I’m going to check each room,” he whispered, putting a finger to his lips.
The storage room on the left was clear, and since it was windowless, nothing could have entered, waiting to ambush them. They turned near the discolored window, and Bishop grabbed the doorknob to the first street-facing room. Locked. They crept to the next door and Bishop slowly turned the knob.
Yutu watched him, head tilting.
With the door two-thirds open, Bishop reached his arm across and pushed it all the way, stepping into the frame, allowing one eye to scan the room with his right arm angled in with the shotgun. The room smelled of junk food and alcohol. A disheveled bed, an Xbox, and a computer monitor occupied the southern wall. A few books were strewn about, and a sink and countertop held dirty dishes. The windows were shut and there was no sign of broken glass. To the right was a small bathroom, complete with shower.
“This looks as good as anything,” he said.
They entered, with Yutu pattering behind.
Bishop shut the door and locked it.
“Home sweet home,” he said.
Angela laid upon the bed and dozed off—the .357 dropping out of her hands onto the blue bedspread. Yutu tilted his head and joined her, curling up at her thigh.
Bishop raised the cheap window shades and scouted Main Street and the peaks of the southern Apex Range. This was an excellent vantage point and a good place for defensive purposes. He was never in the military, but in some ways, he’d become a soldier. He walked into the bathroom and flushed the toilet, shocked that it worked. He tried the shower. It worked, even producing warm water. Must be a power source in the basement, he thought. Angela will love this. The showers at Big J were unmercifully cold and intermittent.
As Bishop showered, he thought of the curmudgeon back at Big J. His skin broke out in goosebumps when he remembered Colbrick picking them up in his truck, saving their lives again by knowing the route to Big J, and saving them yet again by killing the frequency seals. He wished Colbrick wasn’t such a stubborn asshole and that he’d come with.
Bishop took one of the grungy towels from the wall rack and walked downstairs with his shotgun. The new pair of jeans, underwear, and long-sleeved shirt were leagues more comfortable than his old, crusty clothes. He sort of felt human again
.
The apartment grew dark as the sun set behind the mountains, and he laid in bed with Angela and Yutu, smashing himself against the wall so as not to disturb them. He placed his left hand upon her waist and his chin on her neck. Her hair tickled his nose the way it always did, and he scratched it.
*
Bishop woke to a fuzzy haze, punctuated with the cadence of dripping water. Steam drifted from the bathroom and he realized Angela was taking a shower.
Yutu sat on the edge of the bed, staring at him. Behind the pooch, dark sky.
Angela stepped out in a skimpy towel that barely covered her curves, wiping her wet hair and pulling it back.
“How long was I out?” he asked.
“A couple hours,” she said. “We should get food from the truck.”
“There has to be some here.”
“I didn’t find any. I think the tenant got lots of take out.”
Bishop went to the sink and washed his face with cool water, then headed to the truck, shotgun in hand. Yutu watched him walk down the dark stairway, then trotted back to Angela and the safety of the room.
Bishop only used the headlamp inside the store, not wanting to send any beams into the woods that bordered the once popular tourist town.
Dinner consisted of peanut butter and bread, with Yutu scarfing down the crusts. They tried to give Yutu peanut butter, but he seemed to hate it, sneezing and backing away from the can.
Movement caught Bishop’s eye, and he went to the windows.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“Come look.”
Angela hesitated, then crept towards the windows.
What they saw made them shiver. The sky around the mangled precipices was peppered with numerous green orbs. The haphazard collection merged into formation, the big, green orbs followed by smaller ones. Here and there tiny red lights blinked.
“They’re heading north,” Angela said. “What if they’re going to Big J?”
“I doubt it. They have so much other ground to cover. Plus, there have to be targets here. We can’t be the only ones alive in the valley.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“It’s not possible. This place fills with tourists and part-time residents in the summer. They can’t all be dead.”
“How many people have we seen?”
“The policemen. And I saw a person before Colbrick, who I told you was killed by the secapod.”
“OK, so counting Colbrick, that’s six other people.”
“Yes.”
“That’s pathetic. There’s no reason to believe there’s anyone else left at this point.”
“That’s a terrible outlook,” Bishop said.
“Look at the facts, hon. The northern and southern exits are blocked by dams. The woods are teeming with pigras, seals, and other creatures and the fliers pluck humans like pigeons to bread crumbs. Don’t you see what’s going on? Those creatures are hungry and their young are even hungrier. Now that the easy pickings are gone, they’re going to get more aggressive. There’s no one here, Bishop. No one. If there were people, this is where they’d be.”
Bishop looked down to the street and grimaced.
“These animals know how to work with each other. I do think the leaf creatures are letting the others know where a meal is, so they can scavenge the leftovers,” Angela said. “The frequency seals are doing what they do by design and building their nurseries with the pigras. These creatures aren’t entirely stupid, and are at least intelligent enough to wipe out most of this valley, and who knows where else.”
“Different species working together.”
Bishop reached down and patted Yutu on the head.
“Well, you’re working with us, aren’t you, boy,” he said.
*
They sat on the bed, crunching on Doritos. Angela tossed a few Yutu’s way and he relished the zesty chips.
“I wonder where all these things came from,” he said. “Every creature has a mother. You, I, even Colbrick.”
Angela chuckled.
“Even these monsters have to come from somewhere. And how did they appear so fast like they did?”
“Someone must have sent the first ones,” Angela said, wiping her hair from her face with a svelte hand. “Also, this is a remote valley, Bishop. These new arrivals could have been living for who knows how long in the forest, especially if they came from the wilderness area.”
“Right. With that in mind, what if they were always here, buried in this valley somewhere and all it took to trigger the invasion or outbreak was a small change in the environment?
“You mean climate change.”
“Maybe.”
“Doesn’t there have to be some actual place where it all started, where the ship or however they came here is located?”
“That would explain why only some have the flashing tags. Because they came straight from the source, while the others without the tags are their offspring. It’s just like those shows you love to watch on National Geographic and Animal Planet where the researchers tag animals so they can monitor their every move. Remember the one where they tagged a great white shark? The scientists didn’t even need to be anywhere near the animal after it was tagged as long as the signal was being sent. There’s either someone or something putting on the tags and keeping track of them.”
Bishop looked out the window and sighed. “That is the million dollar question,” he said.
Angela caressed Yutu’s head. “Well, I’m not going to let them get Yutu,” she said, sniffling.
Bishop reached out and embraced her. “I won’t let them get you two.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because I meant you two, as in y-o-u t-w-o, not Yutu singular as in the dog.”
Angela chuckled and eased her shoulders.
Bishop tossed Yutu more of the spicy chips.
“How do we fight them?” Angela asked. “We can’t wait them out forever.”
“Remember what we talked about back at Big J and which you stated so clearly? We accomplished that goal. We needed to find more information, and we have. I believe it’s been and will be valuable to us.”
Bishop patted Yutu and grabbed a handful of chips. “Now we know where the fliers come from. We know that Main Street is a ghost town, and there are few, if any survivors. And we absolutely know that the worst fucking place to be is in the woods without shelter.”
“Colbrick should be OK,” she said.
“I think so. I’m sure he’s got that place more fortified than most bunkers at this point.”
“We also know one more thing,” Angela said.
“What?”
“Loud noise is not good. Not good at all.”
“Oh yes.”
They tossed more chips Yutu’s way and he gobbled them down.
“Geeze,” Bishop said. “You’d think he hadn’t eaten in weeks.”
They dumped the rest of the bag on the floor and watched the frenetic dog scoop up and crunch every last chip.
“I hope he’s full now,” Angela said.
Yutu jumped on the bed, curled in a ball and licked the cheesy flavoring from his snout.
Angela’s eyes met Bishop’s.
“We’re going back to get Colbrick tomorrow, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely fucking right,” he said.
She hugged him again and smiled. “I hope he’s OK.”
“Is a rock OK?”
“Of course. A rock is always OK. You can’t do anything to it.”
“Well, there you go.”
Medora, North Dakota Text Feed
Stormchazer Michael Clemens
@PaulFreeze Dude Come out to I-90 at Ranch8 exit ASAP
PaulFreeze NDakota Native
@Stormchazer Now what have you gotten into
Stormchazer Michael Clemens
@PaulFreeze Weird birds, dude. No storm. All over the telephone wires. They mimic everything like parrots. Getting video.
PaulFreeze NDakota Native
@Stormchazer So what? Just birds, man.
PAULFREEZE, YOU HAVE PHOTO MESSAGE. DOWNLOAD?
DOWNLOAD PROCEEDING….
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE
PaulFreeze NDakota Native
@Stormchazer WTF?????
Stormchazer Michael Clemens
@PaulFreeze Do not come. Birds aggressive. Leaving now.
Unwelcome Tenants
Mornings felt different. Before the attack, they contained a nurturing magic that fed the spirit. They were always a wonder in the country. Now they felt like someone pointing a flashlight into a dark basement where things of unknown origin crept just out of light’s reach. Night was almost a relief in the Apex Valley, for sometimes the light was best left off. Denial was comfort, and procrastination was ideal. Every corner, every turn could be the end.
*
Morning brought strange light.
Angela yawned and stretched, and her teeth chattered when she noticed a green tint to her hands and the blanket. She raised her eyes from the blanket to the windows. The glowing eye of an enormous flier pressed against the glass, its lethal beak pointed towards the roof. The eye glared into their room, and the beast opened and closed its colossal beak, letting out a steamy breath into the cold morning air. Angela gripped the blanket and a whimper escaped her throat when she realized the flier was standing on the sidewalk. It balanced against the building with wings that covered the upper two-thirds of both windows like gothic drapes. Yutu huddled next to Angela and kept quiet.
“What’s wrong, baby?” Bishop asked as he massaged his temples with his eyes still closed.
“Don’t move,” she whispered.
Bishop stopped rubbing his temples and looked up.
“Holy—”
The Invasive Page 15