by K. B. Draper
“Cool. Well, alrighty then. I’m going to book,” he hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “I need some fresh air,” Trevor tried for the suggestive eyebrow wiggle, but the left brow wasn’t having any of it. “Feel free to join me, I’ve got plenty of …” he lowered his voice to a whisper, “… fresh air, if you know what I’m saying.”
“Maybe later,” I said. “But thanks. It was good to see you again.”
“Totally.”
From there, it was a steady stream of “Hey, nice to see you agains. A few were bold enough or clueless enough to mention Erika during their meet and greets, while others chose to swing wide and divert eye contact all together. Which was totally fine by me, as my smile muscles were starting to send WTF signals to the rest of my face. I was just opening my mouth to suggest that we blow this joint, as I thought I deserved an early release for good—fine, fairly decent, especially for me—behavior, when a commotion started at the stage end of the gym. “Fuck me,” I mumbled instead. Lilly was smiling and prom queen waving herself across the stage to take up residence behind a solo “look at me” podium. She tapped the mic with a finger, sending a crackle and pop through the overhead speakers. Her bobbleheaded coven took up the flying V formation behind her, two on her right, two on her left.
“Can I have your attention, please?” Lilly said, into the mic.
“Nope.” My attention auto-sent via its Out of Office reply as my feet started turning toward their pre-planned escape route.
Ashlyn looped an arm through mine, anchoring me in place.
“As your class president and chairman of tonight’s festivities, I would like to welcome you all …” Blah di blah, blah … I don’t know what else she said as again me and my attention were back to playing I Spy With My Little Eye. I see something red and white and exity. Add to that, there was something starting to tango in my intestines. It could be the third or fourth refill of Mia’s spiked punch or … and it totally was, ’cause this was my life, some kind of shit was about to get too real.
Eyes back up front, I tuned into Lilly’s words. “And now I would like for us all to take a moment to remember our lost friends and classmates.” A projector screen began to drop side stage, and some sap-crap music started to be piped throughout the room. My guts moaned as Erika’s smiling face filled the screen. I pulled out of Ashlyn’s hold. “I’m going with Trevor to get some air.”
“I’ll go with you,” Ashlyn said. Mia and Danny dittoed the statement.
I didn’t breathe again until the cool night air punched me in the face. I was down the four steps and not stopping until I felt Norm slither up my backside. Norm didn’t come front and center for emotional girlie breakdowns so I three-sixtyed it, my hand already inside my jacket and wrapped around Barbra, who was a still a little itchy after being tossed in the river during her last solo performance.
Ashlyn mimicked my actions, shifting gears quickly from girlfriend support system to “bring it” mode. Danny did his own merry-go-round threat assessment, tucking Mia in behind him. Mia landed an elbow in his gut for his efforts. I might have high-fived her, but I was otherwise occupied watching as Trevor came run-stumbling from around the backside of the building. “Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!”
I met him halfway, catching him by the arm as he tried to run past. “Trev, what the hell? What’s going on?”
“There’s …” he bent over to catch his breath. “Big …” He pointed at the space he’d just vacated. “… dark …”
“Big dark what?” I asked, pulling him up by the back of his shirt collar so his eyeballs were back to normal eyeball height.
“Flying grasshoppers,” he panted.
“Flying grasshoppers?” I snorted. “You might need to slow your roll there, Cheech.”
“Ummm, AJ,” Mia said. “I think he’s talking about those.”
Nope. Nopey. Nope. I don’t want to play with flying grasshoppers. I released Trevor, who dropped to all fours, crawled a couple of yards before getting his feet back under him, and sprinted toward the gym doors. I took the extra few seconds to watch Trevor go before turning to face what I could only assume was going to be something super-duper sucky. Trevor safely tucked back inside, I sighed, shifted, and tracked my eyes up to see what Mia and crew were watching so intently. Rolling black clouds … yeah, sorry, not clouds because you know that would be too easy, with a couple dozen fans set on high and donesy. This mass was doing icky, swarming things. Buggy things. And not the fun horse and buggy, take forever to get anywhere, kind of things … These buggy things were more into super-fast, dive bomb your head so they can fly into your ear hole and eat your brain kind of things. I’m just speculating on that last bit, but they totally seemed the type.
“Locusts,” Danny yelled over the now ear-deafening sound of millions, give or take a million, wings beating.
“Back inside!” I grabbed Ashlyn as I passed, pushing her ahead of me.
Danny already had Mia by the hand, and they were running. They got to the door first, Danny wrenching it open and pushing Mia through as he held it open for Ashlyn and me; pulling it closed as soon as my boots cleared the threshold.
“Make sure all the other doors are shut. I got the windows. Don’t let anyone leave,” I ordered as I sprinted back into the gym. I paused only momentarily to take a quick scan. Everyone was still eyes up front, as Lilly intro’ed a slide show of pictures from the good ol’ days, of which she and I have very different opinions. As confirmed by Exhibit A. The first slide was a pic of her and her bumbleheaded minions all posing like a bad Kardashian family photo; only each of these wannabes were in nineties prom wear. With an eye roll I pushed forward, weaving my way through the tables and chairs. I left gasps in my wake, or maybe that was from the pictures; either way, I didn’t care. I needed to get to the top of the built-in stadium seats to the large windows that lined the top row because in grand custodial tradition the current custodian had cracked open each one of them for tonight’s event in an effort to free the years of built-up sweaty gym smells.
I swung in behind the safety rail and Rocky’ed it up the nearly two flights of stairs, then left turned it into the last row where of course some jackhole had left the butt-holding part of the seats down and in their most annoying and non-upright position. I started that awkward side shuffle, shuffle, slide routine, you know the one, only in this particular version the “excuse me, sorry, excuse me”s were replaced by various and more colorful compound phrases that included “fuck “you,” “annoying,” and “piece of shit.” I shut windows and flipped latches as I went.
There were seven windows total and of course, because it wouldn’t be a good campfire tale for later otherwise, I’d just flipped the latch on number six with my hand on number seven when a single locust slipped in. It did a quick loop-de-loo before coming eye level to stare at me.
This is probably going to sound a little pre-judgy but, I’m pretty confident when I say I didn’t much like the locust. We did the wild west showdown stare for a second before I quick-drew both hands and double bitch slapped it on both earholes; that is, if locust have earholes. Whatever, it worked, as it hit the floor with an unceremonious single bounce and then nada, not so much as a wing flutter. I ground it into the floor with the toe of my boot ’cause, well, that was my current mood and I wasn’t taking any chances. “And a big fuck you to you, sir,” I said, triumphantly as I reached for the window again. Spoiler alert: Hive mentality is a thing.
The side of the gym shuddered under the force of a gazillion, give or take a few, locusts slamming into it. The jolt sent me ankles over ass. My legs and boots landed seven rows down; Righty and Tighty, shoulders, and head were in the eight-ish row. Holy mother truck stop. Yeah, sorry for the gear change on the cussing thing. It was probably the knock to the head, but I just realized I’d F-bombed a few dozen times and, well, I’m influencing a kid now as Michael so kindly pointed out after Apoc had asked for “f’ing” fries at McD’s. He didn’t have the tone or the passio
n right but the constants and vowels were in the right order—so I am trying to be more aware. Aware that cussing kind of fits me and most of my life choices.
Like this current one, shit. I got myself peeled off the back of the seats, upright and moving toward the window, which was now letting in a few hundred dozen locusts. Per. Millisecond. As for the others, the ones who didn’t want to wait in line, they continued to slam themselves against the side of building.
Oh and PS, the mounting screams from my classmates below mixed with the buzzing of a billion sets of wings was uber fun especially when you have super hearing. And not for the first time or the one hundred and twenty-third time, I questioned my life choices. I swatted and swung as the gaggle … flock … legions … I’d stop and Google what a double Kim Kardashian assload of locusts were called, but I was a little busy so for now we’ll go with legion ’cause they kind of looked like all the mad dudes in the 300 movie right before they attacked. Which they were now doing. I ducked and swatted as they started to divebomb me like little bitch-ass bullets. I missed more than I hit, but did manage to slam and lock the window back into place.
I didn’t take time for a victory dance, but smiled as I bolted back down the stairs and saw a ball of flame light up the gym sky. Mia had a lighter in one hand, an aerosol can in the other. The small embers of burnt-up locusts were pretty for the second it took them to flame out and fall from the sky. For his part, Danny was herding a good portion of my screaming “class of days past” into the large windowless locker room. Ashlyn was closing the door behind another twenty or so in the equipment room on the other side.
Which meant I needed to grab—son of a bitch. My feet were moving and so was my brain, using my travel time to ponder my options. Save the little smokies? Save Lilly and her minions? Smokies? Lilly and her minions? I was leaning toward the little smokies even if they were veggie because, well, they were still little smokies. Whereas Lilly and crew, they were the worst. Like they were number three on my all-time worst list. I swatted at a locust trying to enter stage right though my earhole. Fine, make that number four on my all-time “worst list” right after demons, cookies with nuts in them, and the very recent addition of locusts diving at your earholes.
I leapt over the safety rail, landing back on the gym floor, and really wanting to go the way of the food table, but instead heading toward the five-pack of bad hair and badder attitudes that were frozen on stage, their mouths agape, and all bug-eyed—appropriate, I guess, given our current sitch.
“Lilly, move!” I figured if I could get the leader stirring, the rest of the crew would follow. “Locker room! Get in the locker room!” Nada. Nothing. Not so much as a toe twitch. Super. Mia merged into my traffic lane halfway through the upturned tables and chairs. “We’ve got to get them in the locker room,” I said, booting a centerpiece out of our path.
“Little things are creepy, but they seem like they can only annoy you to death, not eat your face,” Mia said as she swatted at one locust and backhanded another.
No sooner than her words were translated and settled into my brain did we both come to a skidding stop. A swarm of locusts dropped front and center between us and the stage. They writhed and twisted before they tornado’ed themselves into a tight cone formation. I grabbed Mia’s forearm, ready for a quick retreat, but instead of coming at us, they bee-lined or I guess locust-lined it, if we’re going for accuracy, straight for Lilly and her posse.
Lilly for her part of the party, didn’t blink, didn’t move, didn’t close her mouth, which turned out to be really, really super unfortunate for her, as the locusts straight up freight-trained it into her pie hole.
I turned to Mia and held a finger to her face. “First rule of fight club is you don’t curse the fight club.”
Mia nodded. “Duly noted.”
The one positive thing about this current shit-uation was it got the other women moving. They, minus Lilly, scattered. Ashlyn caught two screaming streaks of women, Danny the other pair. And with no small amount of effort got them all safely tucked away with the rest of the classmates before coming center aisle to join Mia and my “What the fuck now?” social gathering.
Nothing happened for a beat. Two. Three. FYI, I’ll forever look back fondly on those moments, because on beat four, Lilly’s skin crawled. Just a little ripple at first. Then a wave. Then a tsunami of jittery, wiggly, undulating swells under her skin suit.
“I can confidently say this just became the worst reunion ever,” I stated as Lilly’s eyes went black.
“Agreed,” my three amigos chimed in.
Lilly fixed her eyes on me and cracked her neck right, then left. I took the action as she’d just selected my dance card and we were about to tango. “Danny, you got any bright ideas?”
“One of the signs of the apocalypse. Maybe plague. Or petulance. Could also be a lead-in for one of the four horsemen. Or I guess it could be all of the horsemen. Or Lucifer’s—”
“So, in short, there’s a huge probability that we’re dealing with something super sucky?”
“Definitely,” Danny confirmed.
Lilly, or the asshole formerly known as, now more accurately and very recently rebranded Lil’ Locust Face—Lil’ LF for short—screamed. Like a metal skewer straight up your nostril to kabob your brain screamed. And if that wasn’t ass-puckering enough for you, when she stopped, everything stopped. Not my heart; it was a total rebel, but her skin stopped skittering, the incessant pounding of the locusts slamming into the outside walls all halted; the muffled cries from my classmates from their respective bunkers … silent. The sole sound left in our ear space was the flipping of crêpe paper that was getting tossed about by the industrial fan in the back corner.
Lil’ LF’s black eyes went double-barrel shotgun on me and my gang. I went bazooka back on her. FYI, bazooka like rocket launcher not the five-second flavor lasting gum, which honestly, I could’ve used at the moment ’cause, wow, that one bite of spin dip is poppin’. I’m thinking someone might have gone a little extra on the green onion.
Lil’ LF raised her hands in a Wicked Witch kind of a move, waiting a beat. Geez, she was dramatic AF. I was about to throw a “get on with it already” hand sign, but with a whoosh, she dropped them as if she was a flag girl at a back-alley streetcar race. The remaining tables and chairs that had been separating us slammed against the sides of the gym.
I took Barbra from the back of my belt and handed her to Mia. “Good?” I asked, not taking my eyes from Lil’ LF.
“Good,” Mia confirmed, as I heard her check the chamber and clip for a bullet count.
“Danny, we’ll buy you time; you need to get to Michael and Apoc.”
Danny’s feet shuffled—torn, I’m sure, but knowing Michael and Apoc were the real end game here, he quickly ended the war with himself. “I got them.” Then he was gone.
Lil’ LF smiled and, yeah, it was next-level creepy. I wasn’t a fan. Double down on that statement, as Lil’ LF’s body went the way of a Cirque du Soleil contortionist. Fun fact: a little bendy, I’m totally cool with, but back of your head touching your own ass crack—that would be a big “no thank you.”
“Mia, you sure you wanna—”
“Valet this bitch’s attitude at the curb? Totally,” Mia growled.
I spared a glance at her. “Really?”
“You judging my smack talk?”
“Nope. You do you.”
She waved her non-gun toting hand at my face. “You didn’t mention your glowy eyeball thing.”
“Just Norm’s open for business sign.” I turned back to the stage as I brought David Bowie out from where he’d been tucked. I adjusted my grip on his handle as Lil’ LF leapt. “Here we go!”
Or not. Instead of impact, a flash of brilliant white buzzed our brain caps. And before I could register WTH, Lil’ LF slammed against the back of the stage with a not-so-gentle thud.
Sammy held Lil’ LF by the throat with one hand and brandished a golden, bling-blingy sword w
ith the other, which he proceeded, none too ceremoniously, to plunge directly into Lil’ LF’s gut holding area. Lil’ LF’s eyes bugged, which I have to say was totally in line with her new image.
Sammy pulled the blade out as fast as he’d inserted it, letting Lil’ LF’s now limp body come to rest on the floor. He re-sheathed his blade, which, if I failed to mention this in all the excitement was between the two really big, really white, wings that he now sported. He took several steps back, giving a wide birth to the mass evac of locusts that were now exiting the same way they entered, only to flame out into nothingness, two, sometimes three, beats of their wings later.
When the show was over, Sammy turned to us. My eyes ping-ponged it between Lilly and my childhood friend. “You couldn’t have just thrown her over your shoulder and burped her or something?”
Sammy and his don’t-stare-directly-at-them-or-you’ll -go-blind white wings took flight, landing before us two beats later.
I shielded my eyes. “Dang, Lite Brite, do you have a dimmer switch?”
“Sorry. Better?”
I blinked. Blinked again. “Sammy?”
He bowed, “To you, always, but to others I’m better known as Samuel.”
“And you’re an …” Mia started.
“An angel,” he supplied, doing a little flap of his wings as if I needed proof.
“Holy shit,” Mia offered, as sideline commentary.
“What she said,” I added.
“This a new thing or a very old thing?” Mia asked.
“Old thing, a very old thing.”
A second angel, because apparently this is my life now, dropped her landing gear next to us. And let’s just say Capital w, little o, Capital w, z, and a. WoWZA. I mean, there is only one woman that trips my heart switch, but this woman was; well, simply stated she was triple snap plus one, bea-u-ti-ful.
