by Doug Goodman
“What’s so funny?” Jaxon asked.
“Chew toy,” Alyssa said, “Peter called Colt ‘Cthulhu’s Chew Toy.’”
Jaxon and Kirk rolled their eyes and handed Mike a wet washcloth as well as the bandages and peroxide.
Mike wiped off the arm as Colt moaned. “This is for your own good, so quit bitching.”
He poured the bottle of peroxide out on his arm, splashing away the rest of the blood. Colt’s arm was already turning the color of the evening sky. Fizz seethed on the big puncture marks in his upper arm.
“He’s going to need stitches,” Aidan said. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
Peter pulled out the keys in his pocket. “Let’s go.”
Mike and Jaxon helped Colt up. “I can walk,” he told them.
Immediately, phones started going off. Jaxon checked a text message from his parents. “They say everything is fine, but Toby went into seizures. What is going on?”
Kirk lowered his phone from his ear and said, “My dad was attacked by our cat.”
Aidan looked to his brothers. They were shrugging. “I can’t reach them,” Mike said as he put his phone away.
As everybody headed to the cars, Alyssa pulled on Aidan’s arm. He leaned down to her, and she whispered something in his ear. He looked into her face and saw what was buried underneath.
“Okay,” he announced. “New plan! You guys get Colt to the hospital. I’m taking Alyssa to her parents’ house since she can’t reach them. Once I’m done there, I’ll call you. You take the van; I’ll get in the Bimmer.”
“I don’t think so,” Jaxon said.
“We’ve got some crazy guy running down the alley and every pet in the city going insane. I’m not driving a crap car halfway across the city with that kind of ‘all hell’ breaking loose. You’ve only got two blocks to your parents house, right? You take everybody there, but be careful. I’ll take your car cause it has the re-inflating tires, the suspension, and the acceleration should anything happen.” Aidan lowered his voice as he spoke, hoping Alyssa didn’t hear. He didn’t want her to be any more concerned about her parents because of something he said.
Jaxon looked from Alyssa to Aidan, then sighed. “Fine, but bring her back with a full tank of gas,” Jaxon said, handing over the keys.
“Of course.”
The boys climbed into the van. Aidan stopped Peter. “This is the part where Dad usually tells me I’m in charge, but I won’t be there, you know?”
Peter gave him a “get to the point” look.
“Make sure everybody gets home safe, Peter.”
“Gotcha, Captain Obvious.”
Two minutes later, the Bimmer turned right and the van turned left, heading towards opposite ends of the subdivision.
As the van entered Lakewood Boulevard, a car came blazing up past them, lights flashing and horn blaring. The van slammed to a stop and the car swerved into the other lane, then disappeared down another road. Several plumes of smoke rose up in the sky. Jaxon, who was driving because like hell was he not driving the van if a Fannin was driving his Bimmer, turned away from the direction of the subdivision exit.
“The exit is the other way,” Peter said. “Where you going?”
“There’s no reason to go all the way to the hospital. We don’t know what’s out there or what’s going on except that the whole world’s freaking out. My doctor parents are just a few blocks away. They can stitch up Colt’s arm.”
The brothers looked at each other and nodded.
Something furry and thick ran across the road. It hit the Bimmer and kept on running, like a linebacker bursting through the offensive line on his way to the quarterback. The Bimmer swerved, and Aidan turned into the swerve. The car popped up on the curve. Alyssa screamed and grabbed the dashboard until the car was roadside again.
“You sure about this?” Alyssa asked. “Am I just being really irrational right now?”
“We’ll see how far this road takes us,” was Aidan’s only response as he pressed the accelerator and the Bimmer throttled down the Boulevard. As it turned out, the road didn’t take them very far at all. Aidan hit the brakes as soon as the subdivision’s entrance came into view. Like so many other subdivisions, the entrance roadway to Lakewood was buttressed by two stonewalls, much taller than the rest of the subdivision’s outer walls. From the outside looking in, each wall curved inward, with “Lakewood” ensconced in a central stone. Away from the entrance and in the middle of the boulevard’s median stood a giant playground, its long jungle gym arms stretching like tendrils across the median. It was the largest playground in town, and stood almost three stories high at the top of the spiral slide. Besides the size of the playground, it was also probably best known for the tall climbing arches built to look like the metal skeletons of animals. A happy yellow dog with hanging cheeks playfully pawed at a scared cat with an arched monkey bars back.
Spread across the front of the boulevard stood dozens of longhorns. Bloody lines crisscrossed their chests and legs where they had broken through the fencing. Some of the creatures still had barbwire wrapped around their bodies and horns, which now had little spikes growing along ridges. The beasts moved without emotion or drive, as if some cowboy or field hand had herded them to the boulevard entrance, then left them there. They did not move away from the entrance either. Some picked at the grass. Others ripped out the cultivated pansies and azaleas from the entrance. If it had been any other day, nothing would have seemed so dangerous, but tonight was different.
“Maybe there’s another way out,” Alyssa suggested.
“This is the quickest route back to the Sixth Ward.”
“Quickest doesn’t necessarily mean safest.”
“The other entrances are probably blocked, too, if you are going to believe that these cows are blocking our way.”
Alyssa started to say that this was impossible, that there was no way that the cattle, like the dog, had gone through some kind of a change. But she remembered when she was little and her brother was very sick. In addition to the sickness, he was having visions. Her mother brought in a curandera who prayed over him and gave him a special tea that made him feel better. For better or worse, Alyssa came from a world where mal de ojo and susto was very much alive. She was definitely not the girl freaking out over the impossible.
“Turn around.”
“You sure?”
She hated not knowing the fate of her family, but she was just as certain not to die trying to find out. Alyssa closed her eyes and prayed. Then she said, “Yes, I’m sure. Those cattle won’t let you out. The same thing that got to Cthulhu got to them.”
“You want me to run from cows? Cows? Look at them. They’ll scatter as soon as I approach.”
“If they’re just cows, then why are you holding the gun?”
Aidan felt the weight of the rifle in his hands. He had picked it up as soon as they stopped. He hated to concede her point because it meant the world was a much darker place, but he had no choice but to agree with her. There were too many coincidences occurring at the same time. “Okay, so let’s say the world is seriously messed up. What now?”
“Get the boys and find a place to hide. At least until we can make sense of all this and contact our parents.”
Jaxon applied the brakes, slowing down to turn off the boulevard and onto Shiloh. He could not wait to get home. As much time as he had spent at the Fannins, no place felt as safe as home. He wanted to see his parents and know they were safe and everything was going to be alright. They were doctors. They would fix Colt’s arm just as easily as they had fixed all Jaxon’s broken bones growing up.
Suddenly, the road turned perpendicular to the world. Mailboxes jutted from the side, and the horizon unfolded vertically. Glass splintered and rained down on the world. CDs rose up in the air, then struck the side of the van. The boys screamed, but not like on a joy park ride. These were uncontrolled summonings from the roots of their spines.
Jaxon looked out at the si
deways street, vaguely aware of two shapes sprinting towards the van. He looked to his left. Giant dents were caved inward along the driver’s side of the van. He pushed against the door, but the door wouldn’t budge.
“C’mon,” he yelled to the brothers and Kirk. “We gotta get out of here!”
“What happened?” Kirk asked, his words groggy, lazy.
“We’ve been hit by something, but we gotta get out of here fast. Something’s coming at us.”
They looked down the street at two creatures. Could almost hear them panting as the panther-like creatures ran at them. Jaxon and Kirk unbuckled and crawled towards the back of the van. Mike, Peter, and Colt were already back there. They kicked out the doors as something large shoved up against the side of the van again.
They scrambled out and ran for the nearest house. Peter looked back and saw the dog-like monster butting against the van. The monster was built like a cross between a St. Bernard and a battering ram. The creature frothed at its mouth. A curl of blood oozed from an opening in its head as it struck the van’s axle repeatedly. The sound of the skull smashing against the metal was wet and sickening.
They checked the front door, but it was locked, so they ran to the fence. Jaxon was the first to reach the fence. He turned around, folded his hands together, and lifted Kirk’s foot as it pressed against his hands. Kirk flew over the fence, then Mike. Colt was too weak, so together, Peter and Mike lifted Colt up, and Kirk stood on a fence rail and helped him down.
“C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” Jaxon urged them. The two creatures, which definitely looked feline, like panthers, raced around the car and turned towards them. He booted Peter over, and then jumped himself.
As Jaxon landed on the soft grass in the backyard, the two panthers flew over the fence. The creatures turned in mid-flight to face their prey, but as they landed, a giant wolf-like creature snapped its jaws around the cat closest to its doghouse. The creature had been chained by its owners and could not escape yet, but it could unleash its anger on anything that got close enough for it to wrap its jaws around its neck. The other feline attacked the wolf, and the wolf mauled it, too.
They boys did not press their luck. They leaped into the next backyard. This yard was empty except for the moon glowing on the grass. Behind them, they heard the death throes of the panthers, then the backyard went silent.
“Okay,” Jaxon whispered. “The plan is we can still make it to my mom and dad’s. They are two houses down and across the street. What we’ll do is make a run for it. I didn’t see anything else out there, and the St. Bernard is busy head-butting your van…”
A low growl made Jaxon’s voice falter and die. Behind them, he saw the giant wolf-like creature with its head leaning over the fence, its mouth contorted into a ruinous smile. The chain dangled broken from around its massive neck. In a single bound, the dog crossed the fence, but the chain caught between the fence rails. While the dog ripped the chain out of the fence, the boys scattered like herd animals when a predator leaps into their midst.
More screaming, and the boys came back together for the next fence line. This time, they leaped it without any assistance. Only Colt would need help. Peter stopped on the far side of the fence, Mike on the near side. Colt felt Mike pushing him up, then felt Mike fall away from him. There was another scream, and Peter ordered Colt to keep running, keep running.
They didn’t make it to Jaxon’s home. They got out into the street and saw more people flushed from their homes. They were screaming like victims in an old monster movie. One of those black and white movies where everyone is running pell-mell and without direction. From behind, wolf-like monsters dragged them down.
The sounds in Peter’s ears came at him as if from far away, like his cellphone sometimes did. Before he could look around, Jaxon had shoved him twice. He followed the voice, followed it back to the corner house. The van was still turned over in the middle of the road, but the St. Bernard was gone. Only blood from the dog remained, pooling at the side of the van like leaked transmission fuel.
Then they were inside a house Peter was not familiar with. He wondered how long he had lived in this neighborhood, and yet he had never been in this house. He had only been in a few of the houses. He wondered how many people were home in their houses and dealing with similar calamities.
Jaxon disappeared, then reappeared with a gallon jug of gas, which he dumped on the walkway. Kirk lit a cigarette and flicked it, and the whole world went up in fire. Peter heard Kirk growl, “This’ll keep them from following us,” as he flicked the cigarette. Peter did not know he was crying until he heard the sounds gushing from his throat, but they were echoed by Colt, whose face was twisted into an ugly frown. Jaxon and Kirk led them upstairs, and closed the stairwell door and locked it. With all the lights off, they entered a corner bedroom, crawled along the bed, and looked outside to watch the carnage and hope that it didn’t consume them, too.
Aidan held the phone to his ear, but none of his brothers was answering.
“Are they not answering, or is there no service?” Alyssa asked.
“I’m getting bars and a ring, so there’s still service. Nobody’s picking up.”
He understood Alyssa’s underlying concern. She was always quick to pick up on things, much faster than he did. If Lakewood was under this much devastation, what about the rest of the city or the state? How big was this? These were questions he would have to answer, but not until later when everybody was safe. Right now, he just wanted to find his friends and family.
Another car ramrodded down the boulevard. It took out a brick-enclosed mailbox, and then a small tree on the opposite side of the street as it bounced down the road like a pinball ricocheting from target to target. Aidan veered far to the left to avoid being pulverized by the out-of-control juggernaut, but the car came towards them. The two cars rubbed sides. Aidan looked across and into the car. He saw a lot of blood and fear in the passengers, and for a second, it looked like the driver had no hands. Everybody in the car was screaming as it continued for another block or two before finally coming to a conclusion into one of the subdivision’s brick walls. Only the passenger’s side doors opened. As people ran out, creatures appeared from the shadows to hunt them.
“We’ve got to get off the roads, Alyssa. They’re too dangerous.”
She nodded her agreement, and Aidan popped the curb and drove the Bimmer onto the wide boulevard’s median. The freshly mowed median was full of pine trees and wood-and-steel-bar workout stations, like a balancing bar, a sit-ups bar, and a platform for working calves.
The Bimmer skidded on the pine needles and came to a stop behind the wooden platform. Aidan turned off the headlights as he heard another car in the distance swerving out of control.
Aidan tried his brothers and Jaxon again, and cussed when nobody answered. He texted them.
“I’m sure they’re okay, Aidan,” Alyssa said.
Aidan said nothing. Didn’t have to. She knew his thoughts were as much on his family as hers were on her parents and siblings. She watched his eyes dart from people to the creatures, to cars and back again.
“They’re attacking without purpose,” he said. “Whatever crosses their path, they rip at it, even if it’s another one of them.”
“So?”
“So we just need to stay out of sight and out of mind.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“I’m thinking.”
Aidan opened the car door and leaned down to touch the dirt. The pine needles had kept the ground moist, relatively speaking for a hot night in the middle of July.
He took the moist dirt and rubbed it on his face.
“Are you serious?” Alyssa wanted to laugh.
“Out of sight, Alyssa.”
He took her hand and slapped some mud on it.
She rolled her eyes. “Gee, thanks. You shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t get sentimental on me.” He rubbed more of the dirt on his shaved head, then his legs and fore
arms. Alyssa did the same. When they were as covered as possible, Aidan grabbed the Winchester, and they both crawled on the ground to the nearest tree. Aidan leaned into the riflescope and scanned the boulevard. The scope’s night vision showed the subdivision crawling with these strange new creatures. And out of the shadows, one of the wolf-like creatures, one with long, crooked legs like Cthulhu, raced towards them.
“Be very quiet,” Aidan barely breathed into Alyssa’s ear. “There’s one coming towards us.”
He lay with the gun pointed in the general direction that the creature came from. He could not see the thing until it was almost in front of them. The boulevard had no lights, allowing the creatures to move between the shadows. All across Lakewood, lights were going out. Power was shutting off.
The creature did not so much as snort in their direction. It continued loping towards the crashed car, eagerness and hunger in its eyes.
Aidan and Alyssa army-crawled across the boulevard, and then waited for two cars to pass before they dashed for the other side. A small compact car came at them from the other direction, but it was too far away to be a threat.
They leaned against a brick wall and caught their breath.
“What now? I’m not going door-to-door. Besides, they’re probably at the hospital by now.”
“I don’t think they made it out,” Aidan said between huffs. “I think Jaxon took them to his house. His parents are doctors.”
“And if they didn’t?”
“I don’t know. His parents are still doctors, right?”
As they passed in the shadows and among the shrubs from house to house and block to block, they saw many horrible and terrible deeds. All the animals in the neighborhood were reacting violently, as if taken over by some rabid disease. The ones who had escaped ran half-crazed through the streets, seeking out blood and death. The pets not fortunate enough to escape waited for unknowing owners to return home for the night. A bulldog with a toad-like grin of razor-sharp teeth barked from behind the glass door of one house. As it barked, its whole body hopped against the screen, as if the dog could no longer contain any of the kinetic energy building up inside. Perched on the inside windowsill of another house a large black cat with a twitching tail and lambent eyes watched them as they passed. One time at the zoo, Aidan and Alyssa had seen a tiger sitting in its cage glaring at them the same way. It was an expression that spoke to them from the days when man ran from animals. They knew who was predator and prey, and only a single-pane glass window separated life and lunch.