Bad Things

by Jasper Tripp

  The alien horde gets within a foot of the Cougar. Hands grab, swipe and claw. Their fingers graze and slip, barely missing the bumper. The Cougar pulls away. The horde pushes harder. Their eyes zeroed in. Slobber strings from their lips. They are focused beyond reason.

  Dibs scoots up then back in his seat, as if he’s trying to coax a horse to ride faster. "Push 'em back, Walter,” Dibs screams. "Don't just stand there looking pretty."

  Walter mutters something under his breath. He opens up the Hog. A blast cuts down a Grey One in the middle of the rampaging horde, bursting it into a piñata of goo and meat.

  Carol comes into view. She's running full throttle while wiping some orange slime from her face. She bobs. She weaves. Another blast tears apart a guy behind her. Carol finds another gear, fueled by newly discovered alien bloodlust and perhaps some previously suppressed hostility toward the people inside the Cougar. Dibs to be precise. Carol strains. Pushes harder. She puts a foot on the bumper of the Cougar and grabs a handle. She smiles huge and waves her new friends behind her to come on.

  The black Caddy skids to a stop inside the compound’s hidden elevator entrance.

  Stella flings open the door and she and the twins fly out from their new family Cadillac. A whirling storm of legs, arms and racing feet. Stella shuts the door, then shoos the boys up and into the house. Once inside, she stops them with a hard tug. Stella gets down on her knees. Wants to get eye level as she talks with her little monsters. Makes sure she has their limited attention. “There’s much to do. You know what to do, right?”

  They nod with a psychotic glow.

  “Good.” She lowers her head with her eyes locked on theirs. “Every move has a purpose. Every breath has an assignment. We have seconds, not minutes.”

  They nod harder, psycho energy rising.

  Stella nods. “All right, boys, let’s do this thing.”

  The twins take off like they were shot from a gun.

  Stella pulls her cell and texts Walter and Mara.

  TEOTWAWKI.

  Mara’s phone buzzes.

  She smiles upon seeing the message from her mom, then shows it to Kate.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Kate asks, her head on a swivel. She’s shifting back and forth between the windshield and the side mirror, keeping an eye on the horde outside.

  “Mom’s at the house.” Mara pockets her phone. Looks to Dibs. “Get us to the house. We’re going full-on Alamo with this shit.”

  "You got all that from that text?" Kate asks. "What the hell does TE… whatever mean?"

  “It’s T-E-O-T-W-A-W-K-I. The End Of The World As We Know It.”

  “You see the text from your mother?” Walter yells between Hog blasts.

  "Yes," Mara says, rolling her eyes as if he'd asked her about her homework.

  There's a thud on the back of the Cougar. Then another, and another. Eyes dance among Mara, Kate and Dibs. A thump on the roof is followed by the pat pat of a spattering of footsteps.

  "Well, shit," Dibs says, pulling his gun.

  Mara and Kate ready theirs.

  "Hey, guys," Walter calls out from his gun perch. "I think they're on the—"

  A hand slaps the window next to Kate, grey fingers spread wide across the glass. Kate almost jumps out of her skin. A new hand plants itself on the window next to Dibs. The thumps and thuds grow louder and louder.

  Dibs looks down at the speedometer. "We're slowing down,” he says, getting more pissed off. He pushes the pedal down as hard as he can. "These assholes are weighing us down."

  Walter sticks his head between Kate and Dibs. “There’s nothing out there to shoot at.”

  Dibs’s eyes go big. “The wives? King?” Dibs asks.

  “Don’t see them out there anymore.” Walter shrugs.

  Kate gasps, thinking the unthinkable. "Oh God. We can't let them get in here."

  "Get us to our house," Walter says.

  “How far are we?” Dibs asks.

  “About a mile or so.”

  Dibs looks down to the needle fighting to move in a positive direction. Carol’s face appears outside the driver’s window. Dibs thinks of blowing it off with his Glock. Another thump lands hard. This time it’s on the hood. They all look up.

  King stands on the hood, his long hair blowing in the wind like a Norse God.

  Dibs’s face drops, then turns to stone. Disbelief washes over him. Something inside comes unhinged. “Shit.”

  King blows him a kiss.

  Dibs swallows hard and raises his Glock toward the windshield. His hand anger-shakes. “Fuuuuuuck you, Louis Cody.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Walter grabs Dibs’s gun hand, holding it back from opening fire on the windshield.

  "You can't," Walter says, straining to get the words out while fighting Dibs’s strength. “It's TRAPP armored glass. That won't penetrate it. A bullet might just bounce back and kill one of us."

  King/Cody locks eyes with Dibs. Dibs feels his entire body burn, heat spreading throughout every molecule. Veins pop along his neck. Every fiber of his being wants to kill this guy. This thing. This whatever he is.

  The thumping and pounding from the outside continues, growing in intensity. The Cougar slows down more with every passing second.

  “I know him,” Dibs spits out, his face now red. He lowers his gun. “I know that piece of shit.”

  “Who?” Kate points. “Him?”

  “You know King?” Mara scratches her head with her gun. “That’s kinda weird, right?”

  Kate nods.

  Walter checks their speed. They are barely above thirty-five miles per hour.

  “I’m why he’s here. Is that possible?” Dibs works things through in his head while he speaks, unsure he understands the words even as they leave his lips. “He came here for me for some reason. Maybe they got to him in New York, I guess. Maybe—”

  Walter slaps the hell out of him. “Forget all that crap.”

  Dibs thinks about shooting Walter.

  “Sorry, but you needed a reset.” Walter leans back and holds the back of the seat. “Lock up the brakes. We need to—”

  Dibs gets it before Walter can finish the sentence. He stands on the brakes, pulling the emergency at the same time.

  King/Cody jolts then flips free from the hood. Carol's face peels off the driver's window. The Cougar skids-slides, turning sideways as it shudders to a stop. Grey Ones are thrown off the roof and sides, flung in multiple directions along the street. A few still cling to the edges of the Cougar, but are shaken like hell.

  "Blast the strays off of us," Walter calls out to Dibs and Kate.

  They both open the doors, hanging out with guns in hand. Dibs and Kate fire away with constant force at the few that still fight to hang on the sides. Their gooey heads slide from the steel of the Cougar, then slop down to the street. Dibs and Kate pull back inside.

  "Punch it," Mara screams.

  Dibs jams down the pedal. The tires crush the skull of a donut maker as they pull away.

  "You just bought us some time," Dibs says to Walter. "Thank you for slapping the shit out of me." He hates to say it, but he feels he needs to.

  “No problem.” Walter puts a comforting hand on Dibs’s shoulder. “We’ll take care of King. Cody, I guess you said. Don’t wor—”

  “Don’t touch me,” Dibs barks.

  Walter pulls his hand away.

  Kate has so many questions. She's heard Dibs say little things here and there about his time in New York. Things have slipped out. Things Dibs probably never intended to say to her. She doesn't recall the name Louis Cody, but she knows some bad things happened, especially toward the end. Things bad enough to make him leave the city he loves so much.

  In the side mirror, from the corner of her eye, she sees the horde is not giving up. They are up, back on their feet, and running like hell toward them again.

  "They're back," Kate says.

  "That's fine," Walter says, checking his guns. "Stella will
have the house ready. All we gotta do is get inside without getting killed or eaten."

  Dibs and Kate are all ears.

  Mara knows what’s coming, but has forgotten some of it.

  “Just be ready,” Walter continues, “and run like hell when I say.”

  Heads nod.

  Dibs holds up a hand. “Question. What’re the odds we can get some Zeppelin up in here?”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  The Cougar hits Walter’s land like a hammer dropped down by the Gods.

  Zeppelin shreds and wails inside the cabin.

  A rampaging alien horde of Grey Ones is not far behind.

  “Come on, baby.” Walter closes his eyes, thinks of Stella. Will the house be ready? Yes, she’ll be ready. “Please, baby. We need you to be the best Stella you’ve ever been.”

  Dibs cranks the Zeppelin up from eight to ten, trying to find fifteen. Checking his mirrors, he sees they’re still a solid twenty-five yards or so behind them, but it’s going to be close. Walter’s compound of a home is not far ahead, but far enough. Dibs sees that some of the Grey Ones now have—

  “Guns,” Dibs says. “They’ve got goddamn guns.”

  “What?” Kate asks.

  A bullet zips past the Cougar.

  “OK. Focus. Nothing has changed.” Walter ducks as a series of gunshots rip above and around the Cougar. “Get us home, Chief.”

  “Going to come in hot,” Dibs singsongs.

  “Let off the gas and glide up through that patch of foliage over there.” Walter points out were the hidden elevator waits. “Hit the brakes when I say. Got it?”

  “Where?”

  “There.”

  Bullets clank off the metal shell of the Cougar.

  “I don’t see shit.” Dibs squints hard. “Oh, there? That bushy shit?”

  “Yes. Yes. A thousand times yes.” Walter puts an arm around Mara and holds on tight.

  Kate digs her fingernails into the dashboard and grinds her teeth.

  Dibs takes his foot off the gas, letting momentum take them the rest of the way. Walter’s secret foliage entrance is coming up at blinding speed. The world is a blur of flickers of light amongst the dark and sounds of war. Holding the wheel as steady as he can, he desperately wants to close his eyes. Instead, he checks his side mirror. A barrage of bullets blows it off.

  “Steady,” Walter says, scrunching down.

  “They’re getting real damn close, Walter,” Kate says, one eye open, checking her side mirror.

  Walter eyes a small, gunmetal-grey pole that sticks up from the ground. Thin and sleek with an ever so slight shine of red at the top. Walter grins. Come on, Stella.

  The Cougar screams past the pole. Lights flood the area, bright as the sun. Dibs covers his eyes. As he does, Walter grabs the wheel and winces, knowing what’s coming. Explosions boom behind them one after the other like a series of hippo-sized firecrackers were set off under the dirt.

  Walter pumps his free fist in victory.

  Mara smiles big. Mom is awesome.

  Grey Ones lift up into the air as they separate into pieces. Geysers of alien goo spray out, spreading over the land like galactic gore fertilizer. There’s a long row of pops of fire and exploding dirt in front of the family compound. A string of explosives that have been lying in wait for the right time. Walter can’t help but think, even at a moment like this, about when Mara helped him install the system. He snaps out of it. The hidden entrance is coming up way too fast.

  “Hit the brakes, brutha!” Walter yelps.

  Dibs slams the brake to the floor with both feet. The Cougar tears through what’s left of the leafy covering, landing in the elevator with a screech and BAM of steel colliding with steel. Walter holds his breath. Opens one eye. Nothing of this size has come through the family estate, but it seems the place has held together.

  “Move!” Walter barks.

  Dibs and Kate can’t open their doors. The walls are too close. They slow-turn their heads to Walter.

  “Move! Out the back!” Walter restates the order.

  Everybody crawls over the seats, hauling ass out the back doors of the Cougar, grabbing whatever weapons they can. Outside the door to the elevator’s entrance, they can see the onslaught that’s headed their way.

  “Damn,” Dibs says.

  A fifty-cal rifle erupts from the roof. A Grey One is blown to bits. Arrows rain down, pinning another one to the ground through its mouth.

  “Arrows?” Dibs asks, leaning toward Mara.

  “Psycho twins,” Mara says. “They like sharp things.”

  Walter slams his palm on the wall unit, shutting the door. It seals with a metal clank. “Go! Go! Go!” Walter screams.

  Dibs realizes this is a moment Walter has been waiting for most of his adult life, but Dibs still wishes Walter would dial it down a bit. Dibs is the chief of police after all. He decides to let it go as he climbs up into the house along with the others.

  Another explosion booms outside. Gunfire has erupted into a full-on ballistic shitfit.

  Dibs races through the house behind Kate, Mara and Walter. Bullets thump and thud from all sides of the house. A hailstorm from hell. Above him, Dibs is certain he can hear those crazy as hell twins laughing. Through the windows, flashes of light can be seen popping in quick bursts out in the dark field.

  “We’ll take them head-on. Push those demons back to hell,” Walter says, climbing up to the roof.

  Once up top, they get a full view of what’s really going on.

  The aliens have completely surrounded the compound, circling, covering all sides with guns blazing. The Stagstone Seven is severely outmatched. One twin throws a spear. The other lights a Molotov cocktail and heaves it over the side. Stella thunders away at the intruders with the fifty-cal the best she can, but they are too fast. The Grey Ones, King’s Cult of Crazy, are adapting. Learning. Moving in military-like patterns. Crisscrossing. Zigzagging as they push forward.

  Dibs looks to everyone. They all know the situation is grim. Only a matter of time before they overrun the place.

  “Sweetheart.” Walter grabs Mara’s shoulders. “Take your brothers down to the Life Raft.”

  “Not a chance in hell,” she says.

  “I’m not asking.”

  Dibs and Kate pull guns, joining the fight waging below.

  “Get your brothers now and go,” Walter says with his eyes filling fast. “Get down there and seal the door.”

  “No!”

  “You have to.” Stella puts her hand on Mara’s shoulder. “The family must keep going.”

  Mara can see it in her parents’ eyes. This has been discussed. Many times. None of them ever thought it was a possibility, but when the moment of defeat is presented and there’s a chance for some of the family to survive, the family must, at all costs, keep going.

  “No matter what,” Mara says, repeating what she’s been taught her whole life.

  Walter and Stella nod, faces red. They tremble while holding back tears.

  Dibs and Kate blast away, each with Glocks in both hands. They duck and bounce up returning fire with the Grey Ones surrounding the compound. They share eyes. It’s only a matter of time.

  Mara stares into her parents’ eyes. A tear rolls down her cheek. She wipes it away fast, pissed that it fell in the first place, then runs over to her brothers. She grabs them by the hair, yanking them from their war mode. Their legs and arms swing and flail in every direction. Primal noises grunt and gurgle from their angry little mouths.

  Walter and Stella hold one another. They try to be as strong as they can in a moment like this, but strength is hard to come by. Even for them. They’ve prepared for this day for years, but they never knew it would be this damn hard.

  Mara looks away, she just can’t, as she closes the hatch to the roof with a loud clank.

  Walter turns to Stella. “Did you get it ready?” Walter asks.

  Stella pulls a handheld device with a red trigger on it. It’s held togethe
r with thick, black electrical tape and has a cartoon sticker of a mushroom cloud.

  Walter nods, then kisses her forehead.

  Dibs runs over, out of breath as he reloads. “There are too many. They must’ve gotten to other towns close by. There’re not this many people in all of Stagstone, even with the post.”

  “How did the wives turn that many so fast?” Kate asks. “When did they have time?”

  “Don’t know.” Dibs shakes his head. “They’re a sneaky, resourceful bag of dicks.”

  Kate checks her guns, then takes notice of the device Stella holds in her hand. The relentless force of the alien horde continues to pound away at what’s left of the compound. Kate can guess what it is given the sticker, but asks the question anyway.

  “What’s that do?”

  “It’s a fail-safe,” Walter says. “The kids are in the Life Raft. They’ll be safe. I can’t ask you to stay up here, but the longer we stay up here gives those aliens longer to infest the house. The more that get in the house—”

  “The more of them we can take out,” Stella says, patting the device.

  “We stay up here as bait?” Dibs asks.

  Walter and Stella nod.

  “That sucks.”

  Walter and Stella nod. Walter places his hand with Stella’s on top of the device.

  “I can’t let Louis Cody win,” Dibs says. “Not again.”

  “Then let’s draw him in.” Kate smiles.

  Dibs looks into her frightened but determined eyes. Kate places her hand with Stella’s and Walter’s on the device. She’s not going anywhere.

  And neither is Dibs. He places his hand on the device with theirs.

  “What do we do?” Dibs asks.

  “We fight ‘til we can’t anymore,” Walter says. “Then one of us pulls the trigger and this place will blow us all up into space.”

  A Grey One sticks its head up above the side of the roof. Walter puts three in its head bursting it like a melon. “Didn’t know they could climb like that,” Walter says. “This might be quicker than I thought.”