by Lorne Dixon
The door opened. Aldridge was a squat little troll with a sharp beak and a thick pair of glasses. He held his hands in a ball in front of his rumpled shirt as he shuffled out, bug eyes popping. His voice could have passed for silence, except silence said more. “Mr. Marek … I’m sorry … I was doing the … paperwork for today—”
The taller of the two bikers at the door ran two fingers across his lips: zip it. Aldridge shut up and stared at the pointed tips of his orthopedic shoes.
“I’m gonna need you to close up a few minutes early tonight. You and Bella take the night off. You’ll still pay here for her shift, right?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said.
Marek patted the manager between his shoulder blades. He jerked forward with each touch. The bikers laughed. “You got any more customers in here? Anyone from town?”
“No,” he said. “Been … a slow night.”
Marek cocked his head towards the door. “Right. Then you and sweetheart get on home. I’ll lock up for you after we take care of the outsiders.”
Aldridge nodded. “Okay.”
Marek pushed him to the door and mimicked, “Ohh-kay.”
The shorter biker leaned in and barked, “Run.”
Aldridge ran out the exit door to his SUV, jumped inside, and sped off. Watching him, the bikers let loose a chorus of black-toothed laughter.
Marek turned to Bella. “Your turn. Fly away, butterfly.”
She looked over at Chev, then over to Ross, and then down at David. “Marek, you can’t. It was just an accident. He didn’t mean—”
“Lew Daudelin is dead,” Marek said.
The bikers’ laughter died.
“He was old and dumb and mostly blind and all crazy, but he was one of us. Blood demands blood. You’ve got nothing to fear, girl. We honor the pact with the town. We won’t touch you unless you try to stop us from making things right.”
Tears flowed down Bella’s face. “But the old man and the boy, they didn’t do nothing. They’re just here asking for directions, just got lost and pulled over looking for some help.”
“Can’t be helped,” Marek grumbled.
“He’s just a boy, a little boy …”
Marek bared his teeth and roared. Chev didn’t see any change in the biker’s face, but Bella must have. She sunk away, nearly falling to the floor before finding her balance. Standing over her, Marek pointed to the door. “If you leave now, I swear to you we won’t kill the kid.”
David wrapped his arms around his grandfather and wept.
“What about the old man?” she asked.
“Like I said, can’t be helped.”
She backslid to the register and stood in front of Ross and David. When she spoke, her voice crackled like radio static. “I can’t let you do this.”
Marek sniffed the air. “Then tonight is the night when the pact gets broken. We’ll go door to door, looking for little pigs, blowing houses down.”
Chev sidestepped to the open office door. In the corner of his eye he spotted a fire extinguisher mounted on the far wall.
“Boys,” Marek said, “invite the Brothers to the party.”
Jozef, the shorter biker, stepped on the exit door’s rubber mat. The door opened. They howled. Their voices were inseparable and their song was unmistakable. It was a war cry.
Chev caught a glimpse of motion from the tree line across the highway. Dozens of dark forms and glowing eyes leaped out of the foliage. He yelled to Bella, Ross, and David. “Run.”
They ran into the store and disappeared into a canned goods aisle. Jiri and Jozef took off after them, hurdling through the checkout lanes. Chev sprinted into the office and yanked the fire extinguisher off its cradle. Turning, he saw Marek rush into the office. There was no time to pull the trigger guard out of place, so he raised the canister over his head and swung it.
Marek dodged to the right, crashing into Aldridge’s desk, spilling paperwork, photo frames, and a pair of tension balls to the floor. Chev raised the fire extinguisher again and swung it down. This time it connected, cracking down on Marek’s skull, sending him careening over the desk into the mini-fridge in the corner. Marek roared, righted himself, and pounced.
Chev didn’t have time to swing again. Marek rammed into his chest and sent him flailing back, colliding with the wall. Framed achievement awards dropped from their wall mountings. The fire extinguisher fell to the floor at his feet. Marek pulled back one arm and extended his fingers except Chev didn’t see a hand—he saw claws.
Stomping down with one foot, Chev knocked the guard off the extinguisher and pounded down on its trigger. A stream of white foam exploded between them, driving Marek back. Chev bolted for the office door, fell, and scrambled out onto the sales floor.
Marek swung out behind him and held the extinguisher above his head. Chev rolled onto his back and held up his hands to ward off the blow. But Marek didn’t bring the canister down on him; he threw it across the store, into the display windows. They shattered.
And the beasts dove through four at a time.
Chev sprang to his feet, heard his knees pop and threaten to buckle, and ran to the canned goods aisle. Marek didn’t chase after him, but a dozen beasts did, sharp claws tapping and scratching against the tile floor. They overturned cardboard displays and spilled shelves of vegetables cans.
At the end of the aisle Bella was prodding Ross to move faster. David led the way, guided by Bella’s instructions. She screamed, “C’mon Chev, move.”
He caught up with them as they ducked through a doorway marked employees only and cut to their left into the meat department’s butcher shop. The beasts panted and huffed, their voices growing louder until the chorus seemed right on his heels. He spun inside and slammed the door. The beasts collided headlong into the wood. Bella skid across the floor, freed two long-handled butcher knives from the wall rack, and returned to his side.
Handing him one of the knives, she said, “You run pretty fast for an older guy.”
He pushed his shoulder against the door and felt a volley of impacts from the other side. The beasts tore at the door with frantic, digging claws. “And you seem pretty tough for a girl.”
“I grew up with two brothers,” she said. “They taught me how to fight before they took off. It’s not a bad thing for a girl to know how to fight in Easter Glen.”
He cringed as the door shook. “I can see that.”
One of the beasts launched itself through the customer service window. Two hands on the hilt, Bella drove her blade straight up, through the creature’s jaw and into its skull. She twisted the blade and the beast collapsed to the floor. Its chest still heaved as she put her sneaker against the side of its head and tore her knife free. “Safe to say the pact is broken now.”
She pointed to a metal door at the rear of the department. She eyed Ross. “Take the boy and go. We’ll be right behind you.”
Without hesitation, they went.
“We will?” Chev mumbled. The pounding on the other side of the door was becoming stronger than he could handle.
Another of the beasts appeared in the order window, standing on its rear legs. Bella motioned towards it with the knife. It retreated back and let out a string of angry barks.
“On three,” she told Chev.
He curled his fist around the handle of the knife. The door started to break apart as both paws and fists pounded at it.
“One,” she said.
A jagged triangle of wood burst free from the door at its base. A naked human foot stood on the other side. Chev thrust the knife out, stabbing the ankle, and saw the creature leap back with a yelp. A long snout filled the gap in the door, closing its teeth around the blade, and tore it out of his hand.
“Twothree,” she blurted and ran for the metal door.
Chev launched himself off the door as it buckled inward and disintegrated into pieces. Beasts rushed in, a flurry of black and gray hair filling the doorway. Chev sprinted through the metal door.
Bella slammed it closed. A beast shrieked as its paw was crushed between door and frame.
It was cold. The air seemed filled with invisible ice crystals. They were in a walk-in meat freezer the size of a small room. It was dark. “The light in here doesn’t always work.”
“We trapped in here?” Ross asked.
“No.”
The overhead light flickered. In the flashes of light, Chev saw another door at the far end. Bella was already on her way there. He rushed to join her with Ross and David close behind.
She said, “The loading bay is on the other side of this door. They can get back there through the back hallway, so we have to move now. We open the loading bay door. The employee parking lot is right outside. My car’s the green bug.”
The door to the meat department opened and slammed against the freezer wall. Jiri stood in the doorway, his clothes reduced to dangling scraps, surrounded by beasts. His foot was covered in blood. He held Chev’s butcher knife in his oversized hand.
“Go. Now.”
Chev threw open the rear door and pushed David through. Ross followed close behind, one hand on the boy’s back. The sound of a dozen paws on frozen concrete echoed throughout the freezer. Bella thrust herself through the door and Chev was right behind her. They ran for the loading dock’s door. Ross reached it first, took hold of the handle, and slid it up like a garage door. David and Bella jumped first, landed on their feet, and extended their hands to help Ross down. Chev reached up for the door and forced it down as he leaped. He held on too long and lost his balance. The door slammed shut as he fell to the pavement on his side. He screamed.
Shaking off the pain, he pulled himself up and ran to Bella’s car. She was already behind the wheel as he jumped into the passenger seat and pulled the door closed. Ross reached from the back seat and locked the door.
Bella hit the accelerator and the Beetle kicked up a storm of loose gravel. They sped around the Food Cabinet and out onto the highway.
“No, not left, my truck’s blocking the road.”
“All of it?” Bella screamed. “It’s blocking all of the road?”
Catching his breath, Chev said, “Yeah.”
“That’s not good,” Bella moaned as she swung the Beetle around and headed west. “’Cause we’re running on gas fumes and the only gas station in this direction is Gus’s.”
Holding his grandson, Ross asked, “That’s bad?”
“Somehow I doubt the townies are going to be happy to see us.”
Chapter Four
The Volkswagen coughed and sputtered as Bella steered it off the highway onto a local road. Chev knew the sound of an engine sucking the last slosh of fuel from an empty tank. “How far to the station?”
“Couple miles,” Bella said.
Ross wiggled up between the front seats. “Miss … Miss Bella, I wanted to thank you for what you did back there for David and I. I don’t—”
She bit down on her bottom lip.
“Why did you do it?” Chev asked.
She kept her eyes on the road. “If it had just been you, Chev, I probably wouldn’t have done nothing. No offense, but there’s an agreement between us townies and the Brothers, the pact. They don’t hunt us and we don’t interfere with them. Not even when they’re hunting outsiders.”
“So why?”
The tears from earlier reappeared. Her eyes flicked up to the rear view mirror. She allowed herself only a quick glance at David. “Because I’m pregnant.”
The engine rumbled out a sound somewhere between a death rattle and an apology. Ross drew in a deep breath and held it. The gas station appeared like a magician out from behind a curtain of crooked jack pine trees. The car rolled a final few feet as the engine grumbled and died.
Looking at his watch, Ross said, “Merry Christmas.”
Chev opened the passenger side door and helped Ross out. They rounded the Beetle, put their hands on its bumper, and leaned in. As they pushed the car into the service station, Chev asked, “How’d you two end up out here in the middle of this mess?”
“There was a traffic jam on the interstate, so I took a detour. That little dirt road took us in circles for hours before we spilled out onto this state highway. We’ve been driving for hours. The supermarket was the first building we saw.”
Bella steered her car next to the station’s single gas pump and called for them to stop pushing. Both men moaned as they straightened up.
Chev said, “Getting old.”
“Got old,” Ross said, but rather than smile at his joke, his eyes narrowed. “Chev, I don’t think it was a good idea for us to come here.”
“What’s wrong?” He studied the older man’s face and found him as serious as a mourner at a funeral.
Pointing to a row of used cars under a For Sale sign, Ross said, “I didn’t find the shortcut. I followed a car that took it. He was speeding and I didn’t even try to keep up. Thing is, that blue Honda over there is the car that brought us here.”
Chev led Ross over to the car. “You sure?”
Its windows and windshield were gone. There were dents and claw marks on the driver’s side door. Looking inside, he saw glass pebbles scattered on the upholstery. Glass and blood. Plenty of blood.
Bella and David stepped out of the bug behind them.
“It’s still wet in places,” Chev said.
Bella called, “Pump’s off. I’ll have to knock on the house door and wake Gus.”
Chev clutched Ross’s shirt and drew him in close. “Listen, she saved us back there and I believe her about why. But things can change quickly when times are desperate. She knows these people. We don’t. Keep your eyes on her.”
“I will.”
The look in Ross’s eyes told Chev that the old man preferred his world black and white, cut and dry. Maybe Bella was what she appeared, but maybe not. Chev hadn’t figured out her shade of gray.
David waited by the pump, eyes still bulging. Seeing him alone, Ross hurried over and took his hand. Chev didn’t listen to the small talk between the grandfather and grandson. He knew all about petty assurances that everything would be alright. He could hear his own father saying those words even as his mother stumbled away with a bruised lip. The dog wasn’t the only thing that got kicked around in his father’s house.
Chev watched Bella bounce up the front stairs of the house behind the service station. Her body was trim and athletic. Either she wasn’t far into her pregnancy or it was a lie. But why help them escape from the supermarket if it wasn’t the truth? Did she have some other reason? Or did they—the beasts she called The Brothers—have another reason?
He joined her on the porch as she knocked.
“The lights are out. How well will he take us waking him up?” he asked, keeping an eye on Ross and David. “He isn’t going to rush out here with a shotgun or anything, will he?”
She knocked again. “I’ve known Gus all my life. His late wife was my second grade teacher. He’ll understand.”
“Sorry,” he said, “but I don’t know any of this small town, hey-neighbor-can-I-borrow-a-cup-of-sugar stuff. Where I grew up, you didn’t knock on doors in the middle of the night unless you wanted to wake up face down in a storm drain without your teeth.”
Chev edged his face up to the door’s small diamond window. A light flickered on and he stepped back. A series of metal latches clicked; multiple locks. The door cracked open and a crooked corn stalk of a man stepped out wearing a robe over pajamas. He sized up Chev. “Everything okay, Bella?”
“Everything’s fine, Gus. But, well, bug’s out of gas and my pa’s gonna have a cow, a conniption and an eviction letter for me if he finds out.”
Chev watched her face as she lied. He would have believed her, no question. She was a good liar. That didn’t reassure him.
“Who’s your friends?” Gus asked, pointing his thumb towards Chev, then at Ross and David. “Don’t think I recognize them. Are they—”
He froze. Terror spread across hi
s face. “Bella, are you sure there’s nothing wrong? You ain’t had any trouble with the Brothers tonight, now, have you? I told you before: it’s best to give them what they want and not fight them—”
“No, Gus, no. Everything’s okay.”
Gus took a step back inside his home. “I dunno, girl, I want to believe you, but these people are outsiders and it’s a hunt night. I can’t get messed up in anything—”
“We just need some gas, man,” Chev said, cutting him off. He put his foot in the door jam. “Just turn on the pumps and let us buy a few gallons. Then we’re gone. Gone.”
Gus spat on Chev’s boot. “They’ll kill me for helping you. Helping you is breaking the pact. Helping you would bring hell down on—”
A phone rang inside the house.
“Gus, please,” she said. “Please.”
“Sorry, Bella,” he said and fled inside.
Chev looked back at Ross and David, then turned and faced Bella. “Go back to the car. I’ll go inside and talk to Gus. I’ll get the gas key.”
Her face paled. “Don’t you hurt him.”
“Just gonna talk.”
Her expression told him that she didn’t believe him. Fair enough; she shouldn’t have. He clearly wasn’t as good a liar as her. If it meant the difference between him seeing his daughters again or dying where he stood, he would beat Gus within an inch of his life and then start counting down the centimeters. She stared into his eyes for a moment then climbed down the porch steps. “Don’t do something stupid in there and make things worse.”
His eyes never strayed from her as she walked back to the Beetle. Swinging the door open, he marched inside. He followed the sound of Gus’s murmurings into the kitchen. Gus sat at a small, round dining table. He lifted a phone receiver from his ear and hung it on its cradle on the wall. “Have a seat.”
Chev sat and inhaled the rich, swirling scent of fuel oil. Outside, in the open air, he hadn’t smelled anything, but in the small, dank house the odor was unmistakable.