The Invasive_Pulse

by Michael Hodges

  Robert opened the half-screen, half-metal door and tried to leave, but the door only budged partway.

  Damn, he thought.

  He gave the door a good shove, but always mindful of making too much noise. This time the door gave way, at least a little bit. Something was obstructing it on the other side.

  A single, bulbous eye stared back at him and Vermillion, as a claw tried to jab its way into Schumers through the door crack.

  Robert slammed the door shut.

  The spider-like creature squealed as its leg lopped off at the joint.

  Robert backed away, unable to take his eyes off the flopping leg until it ceased its crooked dance.

  Vermillion followed his lead, softly growling with each step back. A strange clicking and scraping came from the patio as a half-dozen of the spiders tried to crawl their way through the broken screens.

  Robert turned and ran through the kitchen, towards the employee restrooms. A voice cried out from the ladies room, the wooden door covered with nicks, the brass handle hanging off.

  Robert swung open the door. A pair of feet were briefly visible behind the warped metal stall, then disappeared.

  “Go away,” Tara said. “Leave me alone. I did nothing wrong.”

  Robert almost cried, and lowered his gun.

  “Hey,” he said. “It’s me, Robert. The guy you’re not sure about.”

  The sobbing ceased. The metal latch clicked.

  Tara swung the door open, her mascara streaking down her cheeks.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “We don’t have time for that,” Robert said.

  Behind him, Vermillion growled at the bathroom exit. Off in the bar, glasses tumbled to the ground and shattered. Then the light scrape scrape of claws on carpet, almost silent. Almost.

  Robert shut the bathroom door and thumbed the lock. Then he promptly kicked out the bathroom window at its rotting frame. The entire window thudded and splintered onto the gravel lot.

  Tara climbed through, then reached back inside to take Vermillion.

  The spider creatures battered the exit door, as cracks of light broke through the frame with each scrape and stab. A second later, the door swung wildly open. Three bulbous eyes stared back.

  “Hurry!” Tara said.

  Robert struggled through the window hole, and found himself in the parking lot. One of the spiders just missed his ankle, then squealed in agitation.

  “Come on,” Tara said. “This place is infested.”

  “Where’s Tim?” Robert asked as they ran through the lot.

  “Don’t know,” Tara said. “He took off when the flier came.”

  Robert leapt a hedgerow that belonged to First Avenue Bank, then slipped and fell on his ass. His world swam on him, the ATM screen jittering in and out of focus along with his hearing. Vermillion stood above him as Tara knelt and grabbed his arm.

  “Shit,” she said. “Wake up, Robert!”

  Robert wobbled to his feet, wondering when his moment of death would come. Tara took his hand. “The spiders are tracking us,” she said.

  Robert looked back, just in time to see a spider scramble over the hedgerow, its blinking red light at fifty beats-per-minute.

  Vermillion sprinted at the hedgerow and tore into the creature’s limb, just as it raised its other foreleg and slammed it into the pooch. Vermillion let go and howled in pain.

  Robert raised his .357 and fired.

  At first he didn’t quite grasp what he’d done. His ears rang, and the pungent scent of gunpowder filled the air. The whole thing felt like a slow motion warning-a warning they better get out of there before their ears stopped ringing. Or face death. Robert heeded the warning.

  The spider he’d shot died in a heap across the hedgerow. Vermillion came running back to him, his fur mottled red from where the thing had stabbed him.

  “He’s okay,” Tara said as she took Robert’s hand.

  Robert wondered for a brief moment what happened to the Tara from earlier in the night.

  People change, he thought.

  Sometimes in minutes.

  They made their way adjacent to Main Street, behind Culney’s Café and The Forever Seamstress. The backdoors to both businesses were open, the lights still on inside.

  “Where’d they go?” Tara asked.

  “Away,” Robert said. “The back lot has no cars or trucks.”

  Engine sound roared down Main Street, followed by the chalky screech of brakes.

  Robert hurried around the building, just in time to see a Toyota 4-Runner flip over on Main Street. Sparks shot out in a dissipating trail as the metal roof grinded on asphalt. A man screamed from inside.

  At last the 4-Runner stopped. But not before sliding into a burning sedan that lay up on two wheels.

  Robert sprinted for the 4-Runner, fighting back the heat. He tugged at the driver’s side door as the man pounded his fists against the glass from upside down. A garish cut ran the length of the man’s forehead, and he pounded the window hard enough to make his wrists bleed.

  Robert yanked the door as flames from the sedan licked their way towards the 4-Runner’s chrome bumper.

  “Oh my god,” Tara said.

  Finally the door gave way. Robert pulled the man out from the wreck.

  Robert didn’t care for the look in the man’s eyes. His eyes conveyed more than just the car wreck. Much more.

  The man sat up, groggily, then pointed behind him. “Something’s chasing me,” he said.

  Robert turned, just as a flier drummed its wings above them. He watched, stunned as the enormous creature circled around Jenson’s hardware. Robert tried to run, wanted to run, but his legs wouldn’t conform. Instead he found himself staring right into the flier’s triplicate pupils as it let out a near-perfect replica of the 4-Runner’s engine revving.

  Robert grabbed Tara and slammed her to the asphalt. Vermillion barked and squeezed himself between the two of them.

  Wind buffeted Robert’s head, followed by heat from the advancing flames. But the flier had missed them all, thanks to the cover provided by the flipped over 4-Runner.

  That was about to change.

  The flames at last caught the lip of the 4-Runner’s hood, making odd sizzling noises as liquids heated and combusted.

  The man whom they’d saved reached down and took Robert’s arm. “Run,” he said.

  They did.

  The 4-Runner exploded, sending a mad array of shrapnel in all directions. The man whom they’d saved collapsed onto the sidewalk and cracked his front teeth on a fire hydrant.

  Robert winced.

  He kneeled at the man’s side, wondering what had happened, searching for a wound with his hands. Finally, his hands touched a sharp metal object on the back of the man’s skull. A chunk of engine metal had lodged itself in his cranium, partly covered by bloody hair.

  “Robert,” Tara said. “It’s coming back.”

  “I’m sorry,” Robert said to the man. Then he grabbed Vermillion and headed around the building, back to the lot. Tara led them inside Forever Seamstress as a gust of wind, and wing beats came from outside.

  “Shut the door,” Tara said.

  Robert did.

  Cloth, drapes, pins, needles, and numerous materials lined the walls and shelves. The ceilings were high, with no second floor apartments like his place. The windows loomed tall, crossed with elegant wood lattices. The store would provide a good vantage point. At least for now.

  Robert paused.

  But that didn’t explain why the owners, Mr. and Mrs. Grover had left, or, being the hour it was, at least the janitorial crew. He knew Stu Helms worked nights here occasionally, and so did Rebecca, their daughter (who also served as their accountant).

  Robert figured Stu had left like everyone else: in a panic.

  That wasn’t the way to go-at least no from what he’d seen so far. Still, something in him tugged at him, a panicky nonsensical urge to find another car and speed the hell out of here
towards Spargus.

  As if to justify his indecision, something landed on the roof.

  Robert had a pretty good idea what it was.

  “Fuck,” Tara said. “The things follow us everywhere.”

  “They can hear everything,” Robert said as he peered out a window near a stand of lush fabric.

  “Even us whispering?” Tara said.

  “I think so,” Robert said.

  Vermillion pattered around the store, only the tip of his tail occasionally showing itself above the fabric rolls.

  The flier on the roof shifted as splinters and dust crumbled from the rafters.

  Tara pointed up. “Did it just hear that?” she whispered.

  Robert nodded. “Think so.”

  And for Robert, that was the problem with stealing a car and speeding away. The roads were literally runways of meat for these fliers. And if a person was to travel off the road? Well, they had the frequency seals to contend with. And whatever other strange species creeped and crawled.

  Robert tried his phone again. No luck. He headed into the back office and tried ancient land line. Again, no luck. Just a slight variation on the sweeping frequency emitting from his cell phone.

  Far off in the distance, sirens wailed. As the sirens faded out, a helicopter thundered its way above Elmore.

  “Oh hell yes,” Tara said. “They finally pulled their heads out of their asses.”

  Robert and Tara peered out the huge store windows as a spotlight fastened to a helicopter swept over Main Street.

  The noise, Robert thought. To loud. Way too loud.

  The spotlight found its way to the windows, revealing Robert and Tara in clinical light. Vermillion backed away into the rows of fabric.

  As the blade-vortex interaction of the helicopter pounded Main Street, a creature entered the spotlight. Robert hadn’t seen this one before. It consisted of a transparent material and undulated like one of those glass catfishes you see in aquariums.

  Except this one had the jaws of a moray eel.

  “What the fuck is that?” Tara asked.

  Robert shook his head.

  The thing snapped its jaws, then undulated towards the windows.

  “Go,” Robert said.

  The group stepped backwards from the glass. Robert watched in disbelief as the thing repeatedly smashed into the window, expanding the crack with each thrust.

  Shots rang out from the helicopter. The bullets missed the eel-like creature, and instead shattered the lower windows. In the commotion the eel slipped away, just beyond the cone of the spotlight.

  The thwap-thwap of another helicopter moved closer to the first-yet both remained well out of view.

  “That makes two now,” Robert said.

  Gunfire erupted once more, and the sound of the second helicopter faded. A cold breeze filtered between glass shards, rustling the fabric and lace.

  A moment later, the noises the helicopter made… changed. The steady thwap-thwap had been replaced by a less precise rhythm, and the engine dropped an octave.

  A fireball, the likes of which Robert had never seen in his life arced three blocks behind Jansen’s Hardware. For several seconds darkness became light as flames licked the sky. But soon the orange blooming light was blocked by massive wings. Two fliers swooped down near the flames, the insides of their wings revealing spidery veins in the harsh fire light. The biggest flier jabbed its beak into the burning cockpit. The impaled pilot screamed in pain as flames engulfed him.

  Robert turned away.

  “Holy shit,” Tara said.

  Vermillion whimpered at the back door. Robert nodded at the pooch.

  All three of them exited the store and sprinted through the parking lot, zig-zagging between abandoned cars. Robert wanted to find a better place to hole up, a place with a second floor and a roof.

  9.

  They ran through Elmore, chests heaving, teetering and scraping their knees on gravel.

  The night smelled of death to Robert. Heavy with it, sick with it.

  Along Main Street, cars and trucks lay parked haphazardly, doors flung open next to pools of blood that glistened in cones of street light.

  Every so often, Vermillion sprinted ahead and growled at the trees along the road.

  Unseen wings beat the air, followed by various audio mimicry. Robert grabbed Tara by the arm and yanked her into a tool shed, with Vermillion right behind.

  Robert shut the door quietly, careful not to make any noise. He left open a tiny crack.

  A loud thud came from outside the shed, rattling the spades and shovels hung on the flimsy walls.

  Tara went to speak, and Robert covered her mouth with his hand. Vermillion stuck his nose in the door crack, and growled.

  Something stepped towards the shed - something huge. The tools rattled along the wall.

  Vermillion backed up and nestled under Robert’s legs.

  Good boy, Robert thought.

  Robert felt a tinge of pain as Tara bit into his palm. The thing outside stomped closer, the wings scraping up into the adjacent tree and rattling the branches like dried bones.

  Robert tried to stifle the pounding of his heart. He strained and fought to listen. And then he heard it: a whining, guttural sound that at first sounding like an animal being strangled. It rose up in the flier, growing louder as it reached the thing’s mouth:

  DON’T KILL ME PLEASE DON’T KILL ME.

  Robert recoiled at the mimicked woman’s voice, the sheer pain and agony contained in her screams.

  He squeezed Tara tighter and squeezing his legs around Vermillion.

  The tools rattled.

  DON’T KILL ME PLEASE DON’T KILL ME the woman’s mimicked voice boomed into the shed.

  STOP, PLEASE GOD STOP. GOD. GOD PLEASE HELP.

  GOD. GOD. HELP. STOP. STOP. GOD.

  Robert took a deep, slow breath. The mimicry stopped. Tara trembled in his arms. Robert began to tremble too, deep in his limbs and radiating up his spine. Vermillion remained calm, pointed precisely at the door crack as the flier’s giant green eyeball inched past. A hot blast of its breath wafted into the shed, followed by specks of phlegm.

  Robert closed his eyes.

  In the blackness he thought of his father. And Minnesota, and all the events that conspired to make him come here to Elmore to “get away from it all”. He wondered if everyone back across the Mississippi was experiencing this too. Or maybe the entire planet.

  The flier’s wings rattled the branches once more, followed by a series of concussive steps.

  Slowly, Robert nudged the door open and peered outside.

  The northern portion of Main Street unfolded in front of him, beset on either side by dense forest. A white ranchette loomed to his right.

  “There’s shelter,” he whispered.

  Tara’s hands shook and she tried to get them under control. Robert embraced her, smoothed out the back of her shirt with his hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Come on, there’s a house close by.”

  Vermillion exited the shed. Robert followed closer behind, his arm draped around Tara.

  They passed under a massive aspen, it’s branches reaching out in a wide arcs. Vermillion trotted up the ranch’s porch steps, pawed at the front door, then juked to the side.

  A blast erupted from behind the door. Robert recoiled and teetered on the steps. He crashed into the ground as bits of wood flecked the air around him. Tara landed with a thump next to him as his ears rang with the sting of violence.

  A moment later, Vermillion was licking his face.

  Slowly the ringing in his ears faded. As he propped himself up on his elbows, a man stood over him.

  “Sorry,” the man said as he extended his hand. “Thought you were one of them.”

  Robert took the man’s hand. His grip was strong, his shoulders bulging out his red-checkered flannel. The man wore a pair of spectacles, with a camping headlamp stretched over his head.

  Once Robert’s sensed phased back
, he offered a hand to Tara, but she’d already pulled herself up. Robert bent over and checked on Vermillion, feeling in his fur for wounds.

  “I’m sorry again,” the man said as he looked beyond the group and into the dark night. “Come on, get inside, quick.”

  The man opened the tattered wooden door, then locked the glass screen door behind him.

  “Name’s Adir,” the man said.

  “Are you sure it’s not Captain Dumbass?” Tara said.

  Robert nudged her in the arm.

  “You almost killed us,” she said.

  Adir turned a corner and disappeared behind a door. When he returned, he was holding two red cans of Coca-Cola. Robert was surprised at how small the cans looked in Adir’s hands.

  Robert took the sodas and offered one to Tara.

  “This is Tara,” Robert said before taking a gulp of cola. “And that fella down at your shins is Vermillion.”

  Adir bent over and patted Vermillion on the head.

  “He’s a smart boy,” Adir said.

  “Uh…yeah,” Tara said. “Smart enough to dodge your shotgun pellets.”

  “I’m awfully sorry about that,” Adir said.

  Robert took a sip of his drink. “No worries.”

  Adir reached into a foyer closer, and retrieved two rifles.

  “Both .22’s,” he said. “Not as powerful as I’d like, but they’ll sting.”

  Tara seized a rifle, then slammed the chamber open and shut.

  “We don’t know a thing,” she said. “How widespread.”

  Adir nodded. “I think it’s just the valley,” he said.

  Robert pointed at the TV.

  Adir shook his head. “Everything is down. The interior lighting is on backup battery.”

  “What about the street lamps?” Tara asked.

  “Those are on backups too in emergencies,” Adir said.

  Vermillion trotted over to a front window and placed his paws upon the sill.

  “They tried to come at the house,” Adir said as he pointed towards Vermillion. “A pack of them, looked like apes on two legs in a way.”