Midnight Squad: The Ties That Bind

by J. L. M. Visada

  Niki and Danika stepped in first, followed by Samuel and Cassie. Jes walked in nervously. Olli had given a few of the zombies some nasty wounds, but they were slowly overtaking him.

  “Fuck this! I’ll try option B.” He said and ran into The Black.

  That just left Grim, Penny, and me. Grim looked terrified, but determined. Penny and I each took one of his hands. Grim kissed Penny, “I love you, and I’m sorry that this is how it ends.”

  Penny smiled, “If this is how it ends, then at least I’m with my family. I love you.” Then she looked at me and said, “I love you to. I just wish we could have spent more time together.”

  “Hey, let’s not give up just yet.” I said, but one look into the millions and maybe even billions of red eyes staring out from The Black told me otherwise. Finally, I just stepped around to give Penny and Grim both goodbye kisses. “I love you both. Now let’s go.” We started moving into The Black. Whatever those eyes were attached to began hissing as we got closer, and then, as we finally were all the way inside, they began screeching with…joy?

  To be continued…

  (Don’t you just hate when some jerk does this!)

  On the very next page!

  (Haha, I couldn’t help myself. I’ve always wanted to do that!)

  Chapter 32

  Red eyes surrounded us, but other than the eyes, we couldn’t see anything. So Grim held onto us both tightly. Whatever creatures were out there were screeching and screaming. I knew we were in pretty serious trouble when I felt Grim’s hand start to shake. Sure my hands, feet, and knees were shaking, and my teeth were chattering like they were windup toys, but that’s me. I’m a big cluck-cluck chicken. When Grim is scared, it’s time to run and hide.

  “Would you guys stop it, you’re scaring our new friends.” A voice etched through the din of screeches. “And turn the light back on before someone trips and falls. After thousands of years, you’d think at least one of you would learn about hospitality.”

  The screeches and screams stopped, and The Black dissipated. As it went away we could see things. We were standing in the center of a village. Everywhere we looked we saw reptilian creatures. They had quills like a hedgehog running down their backs. Their faces were definitely canine in shape, and they kept hopping around. It was almost as if a mad scientist combined a lizard, a dog, a kangaroo, and a hedgehog in a lab. They were about three foot tall.

  “What are they?” Danika whispered.

  “My great-grandfather never gave them a name. They were never allowed onto earth when he was alive, but since then, a few have gotten loose. They usually get called chupacabras now.” The man stepped out of the crowd. He was short, dark skinned, with short black hair and a dark black beard and mustache. He kept everything well-trimmed, and was actually surprisingly handsome in a tiny but rugged sort of way. He wore a flannel shirt, some old looking blue jeans, and heavy work boots. He was like a tiny lumberjack.

  “Your great-grandfather?” Grim questioned.

  “Adam.” The man answered.

  “Adam who?” Niki questioned.

  “Well, at the time there was only one, so they didn’t really worry about having last names. It just seemed kind of redundant. I mean when you are the only man on earth, then do you really need a last name?” The man smiled.

  Grim stood there in shock, “Adam…your great-grandfather was The Adam.”

  The man shrugged, “I don’t know that he would really want to be known as The Adam, but yeah. He was my great-grandfather.”

  “And, you are?” Penny asked nervously.

  “Enoch, and before you ask, no, I don’t have a last name, either. That didn’t come around for quite a while.” He answered calmly.

  “Wait a minute, you can’t be Enoch. Enoch went to heaven with God.” Grim sputtered.

  “I think I know my own name, and for the record, the bible didn’t say I went to heaven with God. It only says that I was no more because God took me away, and he did. He took me here to look after these guys. I’ve been here ever since.” Enoch answered.

  “What? Why?” Grim questioned. He was still having a little trouble accepting what he was hearing.

  “Well, when your predecessor was here, he wasn’t exactly the kind and caring type. So God asked me if I’d be willing to care for some of his creations that really needed it. It was an honor that I certainly couldn’t turn down. So he took me and brought me here.”

  Grim walked closer. The big man seemed beside himself. Grim loved God, and he loved the bible. So now he was standing across from someone from the bible. He was on the verge of having a serious fan boy man crush on Enoch. Luckily, Penny stepped in before Grim started to embarrass himself. He was seriously awestruck.

  Penny smiled, “Not to be rude, but these…chupacabras…are they dangerous? They tried to attack us earlier.”

  Enoch smiled and shook his head, “Sorry, they just get overexcited sometimes. They’re pretty high-strung. They’re more partial to dead bodies, or if it is alive, they prefer animal blood. You’re safe. They were pretty scared of you all. You can’t really blame them, though. I mean, your predecessor was Death, and he loved to torment the poor guys. So they’ve been kind of trying to hide from you so that you wouldn’t make them do stuff they didn’t want to. I told them you weren’t like the old guy, but they were nervous. Plus, once you knew about them, then they would have to do whatever you wanted, so they were scared. Then you started feeding them those bodies. Once you did that, they all wanted to meet the new Death. What can I say? They are easily won over by food.”

  “Meet me? They clawed me to ribbons.” Grim said nervously.

  “Don’t take it personally, they just panicked. They didn’t know you’d tied a rope to that body. When they pulled you in they thought you were going to fall and so they sort of panicked a bit while trying to keep you from falling.” Enoch smiled.

  “So they’re chupacabras, and why exactly are they here?” Penny asked.

  “William Shakespeare said all the world is a play, and blah blah blah. To be honest, I was never a big fan of Billy’s work. Give me a Star Trek movie over Shakespeare any day, but the point is that if the world is a stage, then the chupacabra are like stagehands. They work behind the scenes to make sure everything works like it should. They are like maintenance men for the whole universe.” Enoch smiled.

  “What does that mean?” I said nervously. I felt like I was about to get a behind the scenes tour of a slaughterhouse. A steak is a beautifully delicious thing until you see how it is made. Then you seriously consider vegetarianism.

  Enoch shrugged, “The universe is unstable. It has to be in order to encourage life and change. Given time, the instability would destroy the whole universe. The chupacabra keep the universe from destroying itself by reinforcing areas that are weak, and helping to relieve pressure on the universe in areas where it is about to pop. They’ve wanted to meet you, so could you please say hello to them before some of them start having panic attacks?”

  Grim sheepishly waved his hand, “Hi, guys.”

  Shrieks of excitement tore from all directions. They started bouncing around like really scary looking kangaroos. Their eyes began flashing red and The Black kept manifesting in little spots everywhere. Occasionally, their eyes turned to us when they were glowing red and a slight wave of nausea would sweep through us all.

  Enoch laughed, “Okay, calm down. He just said hello, not unleash the Kracken.”

  The chupacabras stopped hopping and then proceeded to just bounce up and down like they were on a spring. They were all clearly waiting in anticipation of Grim’s next word. They were like devoted puppy dogs, except they were scaly, had big fangs, a forked tongue and looked like at any second, they might just eat you.

  “So let me get this straight, you got put here to be their caretaker? These guys don’t really look much like they need care-taking.” Grim said nervously.

  “You’d be surprised, and don’t let their appearance fool you.
They just look this way because your predecessor wanted them to be scary and intimidating when he finally unleashed them on the world.” Enoch said with a smile.

  “What? Unleash? You mean he was going to use these things to attack people?” Penny asked.

  Enoch shrugged, “They’re extremely loyal to their master. So if you say jump, then they’ll say how high. Well, they won’t actually say it, but they’ll think it. These poor guys are so eager to please that they do pretty much anything you ask them. You know, they didn’t originally look like this, but your predecessor demanded they change.”

  “What did they look like before?” Olli asked.

  “Well, they were kind of formless. Jell-O would be a pretty good description, and let’s be honest, who is going to be afraid of Jell-O?” Enoch smirked.

  “So they’re trapped like this?” Grim asked.

  “No, if you want they can pretty much look like anything. Tell them you want them to look like a Swedish bikini team, and you’ll have bouncing breasts everywhere. Tell them you want George Clooney dressed up like Batman with the rubberized bat nipples and then get ready for thousands of oddly oversized codpieces everywhere. They can be anything, but they kept this form because it was what their master wanted. They live to make their master happy. Which means congratulations; you’ve just inherited a horde of severely codependent monsters that want your love and affection.” Enoch smiled.

  Grim turned a little green as all that began to sink in. “So, what do I do with them?”

  Enoch laughed, “Do whatever you want. When I say they live to serve, I mean it. These guys just want you happy. Just please treat these guys a little better than your predecessor did. He’d torment them just for fun, and they were just so glad to do what he wanted, that a lot of them got really hurt because of it.”

  Grim thought about it, and then gave a nod. “I’ll have to think about this. It isn’t exactly something I was prepared for.”

  Enoch laughed, “Tell me about it. The last thing I expected was to be taking care of these guys forever or until God finally decides to wipe everything out for judgment day.”

  “Don’t you get lonely?” I asked.

  Enoch smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile, “I try not to think about it. Sometimes angels drop by to keep me company and God shows up once in a while to make sure I have everything I need. We’ll play some ping pong or maybe play some golf.”

  “God plays golf?” Olli snorted, “What other crap are you going to tell us? Maybe the devil likes to collect dolls, or Santa enjoys fishing.”

  Enoch stared at Olli as if he was trying to make his head explode, but eventually Enoch sighed and said, “Great, just what my day needed. Couldn’t you have left this one with the zombies? He’s already as dead inside as they are.”

  “Hey, fuck you. Like I’m going to believe God comes down here to play games and shoot the shit with you. Why? What possible reason could God have for wasting time with you?” Olli said it as sarcastically as possible. In fact, when he said God, it turned into a fifteen syllable version of gawd. To say he was a skeptic was an understatement. Olli wasn’t just a skeptic; he was an almost militant skeptic.

  “I’m not going to waste any more time on you little boy.” Enoch turned towards Grim, “Is there anything I can do? I’m here to assist you as much as the chupacabra are.” Olli was still sputtering and trying to find a comeback. I guess being called little boy so dismissively had kind of broken him a little.

  “I don’t suppose you know how to save the world, fight off a zombie apocalypse, rescue a bunch of people, and somehow get a friend of ours back into her body, do you?” Grim asked hopefully.

  “Not a clue.” Enoch shrugged.

  “Well…shit. I’m out of ideas. Anyone got anything?” Grim asked, and for the longest time we all just stood there, staring at him. Olli was the exception; he was still glaring at Enoch and trying to form a coherent thought.

  Janine’s voice crackled out over my phone, “Guys, were are you? I only get a very faint signal. Hello?”

  I lifted the phone up and realized that I honestly didn’t know how to answer that question. Grim took the phone from my hand, “We’re inside The Black. We’re okay. How are you guys handling everything?”

  Janine’s voice crackled to life again, “I’m fine, but everyone else is in a pretty bad way. The zombies are outside our doors trying to beat their way in. We’ve got it barricaded, but it won’t hold forever. Even if the barricade holds, the news sites are already reporting that the President has authorized a bombing to prevent the spread of the biological agent causing this. Guys, I’m sorry, but it looks like this is it for us.”

  Grim white-knuckled the phone, “It isn’t over. We’ll figure something out. Just hold on as long as you can.”

  Janine crackled back to life, “I-I’ll try. God bless you all. I love you.” Then she was gone.

  “We’re outside time and space, how was she even able to transmit here?” I asked nervously.

  “We’re at a thin part between this place and the universe. Energy can transmit through it.” Enoch answered.

  My eyes shot open and terror flooded into my already overfull heart, “Guys, if energy can get through, then what happens when they bomb the hotel and all that energy is suddenly released?”

  Enoch looked visibly shaken, “Sometimes when they test nuclear bombs, the energy seeps through and forms a crack between there and here. A lot of chupacabras have gotten hurt or killed by the blast waves, and then, of course, many of them died trying to fix the cracks. If this hotel is going to blow up like you say, then the energy wave might kill us all.”

  “So we can either be blown to bits here, or eaten by zombies there. What a really fucked up situation this has turned into.” Grim said darkly.

  Samuel held onto his daughter, “Please, I know I don’t deserve your help, but save my daughter. She deserves better than this.”

  “I don’t know what to do.” Grim said numbly.

  Enoch interrupted, “Have you tried talking to God about it?”

  Olli snorted, “There is no God.”

  Enoch glared, “One more word out of you mister, and I’ll let these chupacabras take turns swinging you around by your hair.”

  Olli shut his mouth and just glared at Enoch hatefully.

  Samuel fell to his knees, “Lord, I’ve been wrong. I’ve been hateful, and I didn’t appreciate my wife for the woman she was until you took her from me. I don’t deserve any help at all, but please save my daughter. Let her grow up to be the woman her mother always thought she could be. Please don’t let her die.” Then he fell forward and began sobbing.

  His daughter knelt beside him and tried to comfort the man. Meanwhile, Grim and Penny both had gone to their knees and were praying silently. Enoch walked over and joined them. Niki and Danika stepped up and then went to their knees. Samuel saw them in prayer, and moved with his daughter to join them. The only two left out were Olli and me. I took a look at him. He was actually angry that they were praying. There was so much hatred in him, and I realized there was a lot of it in me, too. So much that the thought of praying right now grated against a pride I didn’t even know I had, until now. I stepped to the others, and then went to my knees.

  We joined hands, and we were all praying. I don’t know what the others were praying, but I was begging for a miracle. We were going to die. I’d never see my sisters again. I’d never get to make love to Grim and Penny again. Everything was just going to end, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I just wasn’t able to make it on my own. I felt tears running down my face. I couldn’t even think about what to pray for, and in the end all I could do was beg for God to save us.

  “You people are pathetic. You think God listens to this? There is no God! If there was, he’s long dead.” Olli kept screaming at us, but our only response was to pray harder.

  He kept making fun of us, and laughing at us. It was hard to pray and not just start screaming at the jerkwa
d. As annoying as he was, I still kept praying, but now I was praying for forgiveness. For some reason I just had to ask him to forgive me for all the hate and all the blame I had sent towards God. I still had questions, and stuff still didn’t make sense to me, but it just seemed important that if these were my last few moments, that I would get myself right with God. I begged his forgiveness for everything I could think of, from stealing a stick of gum from the store when I was a kid to betraying my friends. Tears kept running down my face. The longer my list grew, the more I realized that I’d done some really terrible things. People died because of my involvement with Elizabeth Mann, and that was like a knife to my heart. If anyone here deserved to die and burn in hell, then it had to be me. I’d either actively assisted Elizabeth, or turned a blind eye to some of the monstrous things they did. I was guilty, and I deserved to be damned for it. My mother would have been so ashamed if she knew how badly I’ve messed up. Then I realized that if Grim was right, and if there was a God, that Mom was in heaven, and she knew all this. That just broke me. I cried, “Oh God, please forgive me.”

  “I already have.” A kind voice broke through my prayers, and my eyes snapped open.

  Standing in front of me was a fairly average looking man. He had long, curly hair pulled back into a ponytail, very dark skin, with brown eyes that were kind, but strong. He had kind eyes, but they weren’t gentle. No, this man looked like he didn’t mind it when things got a little rowdy. He wasn’t necessarily a brawler, but he didn’t look like anyone ever pushed him around, either. It was hard to explain because he wasn't really tall, or heavily muscled, but you just sensed power from him. When Grim hopped up and gave the man a hug my stomach dropped. I just stayed there, frozen. This was God? I didn’t have the slightest idea what I should do.

  He smiled at me, “You might try hello, and I have to warn you. I am a hugger.”