Ash Kickers

by Sean Grigsby

  “It’ll be alright,” I said. “Just be careful and stick with us.”

  Renfro eased down the hole and hopped over the pool of ink to stand beside us. “Big Boy here jumped before I had a chance to tell him what you’d said.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know you had supersonic hearing, too!” Afu mocked.

  “Shhh!” I said. “Therma-goggles and Renfro’s eyes only. Scan every inch as we go. The trapped kids are what we’re here for. I don’t give a fuck if the phoenix escapes again. But on that note, don’t do anything to spook it either. I’d like to kill two birds with one stone.”

  “That still leaves the Code J,” Afu said. “And it’s not a bird.”

  I shook my head and moved deeper into the tunnel, hunching low and taking care with each step.

  Several times the debris above us shifted and my heart almost flew out of my throat. You can’t run from a structural collapse. All you can do is accept your future as a bloody pancake. We had to squeeze through a tight opening to enter what we discovered to be one of the locker rooms. It still somehow smelled like sweaty balls.

  We took a break here and Renfro decided it was the best time to coat Afu’s back with foam. “This might help a little,” he said. “But act like you’re covered in highly-flammable ink.”

  “I am covered in highly-flammable ink.” Afu took a seat against the wall with his legs bunched against his chest.

  If he was going to be down on himself this early, the operation was already fucked. Taking a seat beside him, I moved to put an arm around him, but dropped back when I remembered the ink.

  He looked over at me and sighed. “I’m sorry, Cap.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” I asked. “Where’s happy-go-lucky Afu?”

  “This is serious business. I have to step up and be serious, too. I don’t want any more bad shit to happen.” This would normally have been where Naveena or Brannigan would have said that the job is always dangerous and serious, and that bad things happen even if you nail everything correctly.

  But I didn’t fucking feel like saying that.

  So, instead I asked, “Where are you taking me on our date?”

  Afu’s face instantly morphed from defeat into surprise. “Date? But–”

  “Don’t ruin this for yourself, motherfucker. Tell me where we’re going.”

  “Um.” Afu blinked a couple times. “I was thinking about that new seafood place. They grow their own tilapia and shrimp in these huge aquariums. They even let you catch the ones you’re going to eat if you want.”

  My change in subject was working a little, getting his mind out of the shitter. I didn’t even care if it was giving him any grand ideas about rekindling our relationship. If we made it out of the fucking stadium alive, I would gladly have given Afu another shot and wouldn’t feel weird about it at all.

  “Shut up, y’all,” Renfro hissed, raising his hand. “Do you hear that?”

  Afu and I both stood, staying still and listening to the darkness. I wasn’t sure whether we were listening for a teenager screaming for help, or the phoenix screeching from deeper down, or…

  Ooh… ooh… ungh…

  Even stuffed inside my power suit, my skin went icy. It sounded like a pervert stroking one out while he watched us in the dark. Hushed but biting at the same time, goblinish.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I put my back against Renfro’s and waved for Afu to stand beside us.

  “I don’t know,” said Renfro. “But I don’t like it.”

  Ooh… ungh, ungh… ooh.

  We turned in a circle, a tri-sided reverse huddle. I scanned the walls and floor and even the hole we’d crawled through for heat signatures.

  “I can’t see anything,” Renfro said.

  Afu flicked his head from left to right. Moisture flew off of him and splattered against my cheek. I hoped it was sweat and not ink. “Where’s it coming from?”

  Something hit my shoulder. At first, I thought it might have been Afu gripping me for added courage, but the sound had been too wet and the accompanying smell was like a sewer rat that’d gone on a week-long booze bender.

  Touching fingers to my shoulder, I drew up long, sticky streams of black sludge. I lifted my head but the jabberwock was already on us.

  I shoved the others out of the way and my ink coated boots slipped on the tile as I ran toward the toilets.

  Renfro started to say, “What’d you do that for?” but he stopped short, seeing all seven feet of why I’d done it. “Holy shit, it’s on two legs!”

  I’m not sure why Renfro had found that particular aspect of the jabberwock to be so crazy-weird, or why he had to say it out loud.

  But, yeah, the jabberwock was standing on two legs and flexing long-fingered claws at the ends of its arms. That’s where the human similarity ended. With no nose, and tendrils rising from four points out its head, it had protruding, bucktoothed teeth that reminded me of a rat. Its eyes had no irises, just dingy white balls stuck in its head. Standing crooked and bent on the jabberwock’s back were two disgusting looking wings that wouldn’t have helped an ant fly. Ink dripped from every pore on its body like rotten sweat.

  Ungh, the jabberwock moaned. Ooh… ungh.

  Seriously, was it trying to eat us or molest us?

  “Watch its mouth,” I said. “Afu stay back!”

  The jabberwock jerked its head in my direction, drawn by my voice. Its pervy grunting grew louder as it pounded its feet against the locker room tile in a dead run.

  Afu slid and kicked the dragon in one of its knobby knees.

  “No laser weapons,” I shouted. “We don’t want to ignite the ink.”

  And all I had left was foam. The Impulse gun might have done a little damage to the jabberwock, but not enough to kill it, and just the right amount to piss it off. Plus, I was saving it for the phoenix.

  Renfro jumped at the dragon as if to tackle him, hitting his power jump to put some extra force behind the punch he was about to deliver to the jabberwock’s head, but the scaly spun around and caught Renfro by the forearm. My engineer cried out in pain as the metal of his suit whined under the pressure of the jabberwock’s grip. The dragon lifted Renfro off the ground and held him there to hang in front of its face.

  Ooh…

  Renfro squirmed in the monster’s claw. “Let go of me, you ugly, cold-kickin-breath motherfucker!”

  Renfro brought his other arm up and hit his foam gun’s button. The white stream filled the jabberwock’s mouth, covering its soulless eyes. It kept making that terrible grunting sound, but was now gargled against the wad of fire-prevention dripping from its maw.

  “Run,” I said. “We need Naveena’s crew.”

  “It’ll just follow us,” Afu said, slamming a fist into the jabberwock’s gut.

  The punch made the dragon spew up the foam, and when it rose again to its full height it was not a happy camper.

  “We need to end this here and now,” said Afu, preparing for another go at the scaly.

  The jabberwock slashed toward Afu. He ducked the claw, but then the dragon reared back, a hissing sound escaping from its throat, past its buckteeth.

  “Afu, get away!” I ran and slammed into Afu as the jabberwock shot a loogie that looked like a piece of flaming coal. It bounced off the wall and I sat up in time to see it rolling toward my boots. My inkcoated, highly flammable boots. On contact the coal ignited my feet and I leapt up, dancing a horrible two step as I tried to stomp out the fire.

  “Give me your hands,” Afu said.

  In the chaos, I did what he asked, not thinking about what he was planning to do. With his two huge hands, Afu grabbed my arms and swung me. My flaming boots plowed into the side of the jabberwock’s head, sending it crashing into the nearby lockers.

  After he set me down, I punched Afu in the chest. “What the hell was that?”

  My boots still on fire, Renfro ran over and dumped a couple gallons of foam to put out the flames.

  “Seriously,” I
said, flicking away the last of the foam. “Let’s move.”

  “Help!” a cry came from somewhere in the dark. “We’re down here.”

  “The kids,” Renfro said, turning toward the hole we’d crawled through.

  I was exhausted, and fear urged me to piss myself. My hair probably smelled like ink and smoke, and I’d promised Afu a date. And now the teenagers wanted to call out for help.

  Groaning, I said, “Looks like we’re going back the way we came.”

  CHAPTER 24

  “Ow!”

  I’d bumped into Calvinson on our way out. Naveena and her crew stood there, blocking our way.

  “Move, move, move!” I shouted.

  Harribow and the others turned and booked it back down the dark tunnel. You get used to springing into action when another smoke eater tells you to haul ass. It could mean the few seconds needed to avoid getting torched.

  “Y’all run into the Code J?” Naveena asked as we all filed along at a steady jog.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “What?” Harribow screeched. “Oh shit.”

  “Help!” came the disembodied cry again.

  Renfro whistled for a halt. “Where is that coming from?”

  Both crews stopped and listened. Harribow shook and swayed on both feet like he was considering crawling back to the surface.

  “We came in the same way you did,” said Naveena. “Was there another passage in that room you just left?”

  “No,” I said. “Locker room. Enclosed.”

  “What about this?” Calvinson shined his light ahead, illuminating a small gap between two dilapidated walls.

  “That wasn’t there before,” Naveena said.

  I nodded. “Which means this shit is shifting.”

  “Or another dragon made that hole,” Afu said.

  “We have to hurry up and get the fuck out of here,” I said.

  “Somebody, please!” It was two of them now, shouting in chorus. And the voices were coming from behind the small gap Calvinson had discovered.

  “We’re going to have to break this apart,” said Renfro.

  The jabberwock’s creepy grunting trickled through the passage behind us.

  “That might weaken the top,” Naveena said. Then, turning to me, “It’s your call, Tamerica.”

  I checked behind us and then the crack. If we left now, those kids were as good as dead.

  “Let’s breach the wall,” I said. “Carefully as all fuck.”

  Afu got on one side of the crack while Calvinson took the other. They were doing well to take it easy and work through the groan of debris above them, the splatter of dust that rained onto their helmets as they pried and punched. We normally would have used laser swords for this sort of thing, but Afu would have lit up like a Christmas tree.

  Ooh… ooh… ungh.

  “Hurry it up, y’all,” said Renfro.

  “They got this,” I said. “Let them focus.”

  Afu yanked one final section of the wall away and crawled through without asking the rest of us if we thought it was big enough. If it was big enough for Afu…

  I was the last to go through, right after Naveena. On the other side of that wall, waited a void. My steps echoed on forever into the dark. Dust trickled down, down, but I didn’t know where. So I extended my therma-goggles.

  We were standing in the arena. All of the football field and most of the seats were covered with rubble, but I could tell where we were from the warped field goal reaching out from under chunks of rock, about fifty feet down a steep decline.

  A teenage girl stood midway between us and the field. She held a flashlight and began flapping her arms, urging us to come quick. Behind her there was a bent piece of railing, and below that, a faint yellow glow danced off the surrounding slabs of concrete.

  “T!” Afu whispered. “The phoenix is down there.”

  The jabberwock’s inappropriate groans sounded from the hole behind me. “Everyone, help me cover this up.”

  “That’s our only way out of here,” said Harribow. The yellow phoenix light glistened off of his sweatsoaked face.

  “Yeah,” I said. “But it’s also an easy way for the Code J to get in. This will slow it down.”

  We didn’t make it pretty. All I wanted was to block the passage. The teenager bitched at us the whole time, first thinking we hadn’t seen her, then whispershouting that we were taking too long.

  She obviously didn’t know what was hunting for blood on the other side. But we did hurry down to her.

  “His leg,” the girl pointed toward the ground as I slid along the last bit of rock.

  A boy lay there, pinned under a broken electric sign. He wasn’t saying anything, and it looked like his eyes were closed.

  “Hey, kid.” I rubbed his chest, but it only produced groans.

  At least he was alive.

  “What’s his name?” I asked the girl.

  “Chris,” she said. “And I’m Rachel. You have to get us out of here. That thing is down there.”

  “Shh!” I patted her arm until she shut up.

  Rachel was erratic and that’s not a good thing to be when you’re trapped between two monsters.

  “Renfro,” I whispered, pointing at him.

  He squatted beside me.

  “You have the eyes for this. Get ready to put on a rapid tourniquet. I can’t tell if he’s bleeding. Unresponsive, but he’s getting air. Afu and the two rookies, you lift this shit off as best you can so Renfro can pull him out. Rachel you go over there with Captain Jendal.”

  “I can’t see anything.” The girl’s voice shook in the dark.

  Naveena saved her the trouble by grabbing her hand and leading her away so the other smokies could work.

  “Please help him!” Rachel said a little too loudly.

  Lord, kid, calm down, I thought. It’s your damn fault we’re in this mess.

  I turned toward the yellow glow on the other side of the railing, hoping Rachel’s loud ass hadn’t stirred up the firebird. Stepping to the railing, I peered over to snag a look.

  The phoenix was asleep.

  Its yellow fire crackled low and almost calmly, its head tucked under a wing and wrapped nice and cozy like a blazing avian burrito.

  We could kill this fucker right now!

  Boom… boom.

  The concrete we’d used to cover the hole shook, sending pebbles of loose debris to roll down the slope. The jabberwock was trying to break through.

  I chanced a look back over the railing and came face to face with the fiery eye of the phoenix.

  “Guys…” I said.

  The phoenix shrieked into my face, pelting my cheeks and nose with heat, blasting out my eardrums. I lowered my head so my helmet took the brunt of it.

  As I slung the Impulse shotgun from my shoulder, the phoenix flapped its giant wings. Its yellow flames grew bigger, hotter like a small sun, revealing more of the surrounding arena.

  I didn’t waste time shouting some wise-crack, I just pulled the trigger. The foam projectile slammed into the phoenix, dead center. It tumbled through the air as its flames died down. But the fire was still there, and the bird still flew.

  A crash of rocks came from behind me.

  The jabberwock slithered out of the hole at the top of the stadium. Calvinson met it with a power jump and a flashing laser, but the dragon spewed a gallon of ink into his face before slapping him with a whip of its tail. The rookie flew over the squished seats and concrete, coming to a stop just in front of his captain.

  “I’m fine,” Calvinson croaked.

  Someone’s voice blipped and sizzled in my helmet. Whoever was trying to radio me wasn’t getting through. We must have been deeper under the wreckage than I thought.

  The jabberwock roared; no more of the oohing and grunting. Now it had the space and the proximity to the phoenix to really lose its shit. With its long fingers and toes, it skittered down the rocks. Renfro and I began shooting our lasers at it, although I was taking a
glance over my shoulder to see what the phoenix was doing.

  But the phoenix wasn’t where I had left it twisting in the air, and I didn’t have the time to go searching.

  Zigging and zagging, the jabberwock dodged every one of our shots. Afu swung at it with his laser axe, but it slid under the blade, using its ink-soaked back to glide over the debris. The dragon didn’t stop to attack Afu or even Naveena, who ran for it with her own axe. The jabberwock was coming right for me.

  When it leapt into the air, it was so sudden and goddamned terrifying I didn’t raise my laser in time. But the scaly sailed right over my head, dripping plods of ink onto my helmet.

  I turned, following the jabberwock’s trajectory and there, the phoenix hovered on the other side of the railing. It had been ready to snatch me into its fiery beak before the jabberwock clawed into its face. Both of them fell to the arena floor.

  The jabberwock caught fire instantly but refused to let go of the phoenix’s head, even when the bird took flight again and spiraled around the arena like a comet.

  “Get the kids out of here!” I shouted, running toward the other smokies.

  Renfro lifted the boy into his arms while Harribow hurried Rachel along. Calvinson, who was still spitting out wads of ink, had to grab Naveena’s arm since he couldn’t see. I ran past Afu. He’d dug in where he stood and kept his eyes on the battling monsters.

  I skidded to a stop and turned back. “Let’s go, Afu.”

  The phoenix twirled in the air, fast enough to shake the flaming jabberwock from its face, fast enough to throw it in Afu’s direction. I saw what would happen in a flash. The jabberwock plowing into Afu, both of them going up in flames for the phoenix to feast on, seeing the only man I ever loved die in front of me.

  Shit. I guess that cat came out of the bag. I honestly didn’t know which thought was scarier.

  Afu swung his laser axe at the incoming jabberwock and buried the sparking blade into its face, splitting the dragon’s head and burying the blade into its throat. The jabberwock wasn’t dropping off the axe, and it spun Afu around and around with it.

  With a shriek, the phoenix righted itself and dove toward Afu.

  “Drop it!” I ran toward him, about to power jump into the phoenix if I had to.