by Matt James
Another shrill cry stumbles me a little.
Ugh, I think and chance a glance as I come up to the next street. As I turn left I take a peek behind me, seeing what I feared. It’s a siren, and she steps out from the corner like a general leading a troop of soldiers. Confidence radiates from her evil form.
It’s the same one from outside Harvey’s too. What’s left of a skirt and the long dangling necklace are a dead giveaway.
She takes her first step in my direction as I disappear around the corner. I’m back on 66th, and mercifully it’s less congested than 65th was by a mile. Sustaining a steady pace shouldn’t be a problem now.
I’m only a dozen or so steps into the next leg of my escape when the siren’s ear-piercing call sounds from behind.
No way.
I look back and see her around the corner at a full sprint, her soiled and ripped skirt, snapping tight around her thighs as she continues forward. Her momentum carries her too far around the sharp turn, but unfortunately for me it doesn’t slow her down a bit. She just leaps onto the wall of the nearest building, takes three steps, and pushes off. It’s all one motion and perfectly executed. Any other human would’ve stumbled or slammed into the brick facing of the apartment complex, but not the siren. She just runs sideways on the brick wall for a split-second.
Damn you Spiderwoman!
Knowing that I can’t outrun her, I skid to a stop and pivot. I aim down the sights of my gun and pull the trigger twice. The twin projectiles hit home, finding the flesh of her muscular shoulder. She stumbles a little, and I’m about to unload the rest of my clip into her if I have too.
I compress the trigger but release it as she slips and goes down, slamming face-first into an overturned hotdog cart. The impact of the bullets must have just been enough to throw off her balance at that speed.
Breathing heavy, I turn and run once more. I depress the release button to my gun’s clip and check my ammo situation.
Damn. Only six more in this one.
A chorus of growls snaps me out of my two-second long respite as I load the nearly spent clip back into my Glock. Twenty-ish goblins come around the corner tripping each other up as they continue their pursuit of me. Once more they show their less nimble side as half of them go down under the feet of the other half, slipping on the cold icy, blood-covered ground.
I turn to flee and do something I haven’t done in a while. I smile. I see something that might just save my life leaning upright, chained to a street sign. Unfortunately, I can feel my legs tightening up from having to stand still. The cold is quickly attacking my legs and a pulled muscle or cramp could end me.
What a way to die. Death by ‘Charlie horse’ isn’t something I want engraved on my tombstone.
Taking off at a near sprint, I slide to a halt next to my saving grace. It’s a bicycle and both its tires are in perfect working order. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for. It’s the first I’ve come across and it couldn’t have come at a better time. If I’d have known what I’d be facing before I left my place, I would have looked for one as soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk.
I put a bullet through the cheap chain and jump on, taking off as fast as my jellified legs can pedal. Allowing myself another smile, I relax a bit, quickly outpacing the creatures. After losing them around another pileup, I turn south back towards 65th, distancing myself even further. I slow for a second and breathe, wide-eyed at the near-fatal encounter I just escaped. Luck seems to be in my favor today.
For now, I think, not giving myself a chance to completely let my guard down.
I smoothly steer past wreck after wreck, weary of the possibility of another goblin jumping out and startling me like it did behind the library. I really don’t want to draw any more attention to myself. This is bad enough—the worst situation so far for sure.
And boy I’ve had a lot of them in what…less than two days?
Gotta’ be a record or something for near-death experiences in less than forty-eight hours.
I continue traveling south and I’m about to pop back out onto 65th. Knowing what I just survived, I slow, but don’t get off the bike. I roll forward far enough to see around the corner and look east, back towards Harvey’s. My stomach sinks as I see dozens of the Unseen. They range from siren to goblin, all in different sizes and conditions. Some are in perfect working order and some are limping heavy. Some even have pieces or limbs missing. It’s a congress of death on a scale that isn’t measurable.
The only good news is that most are facing away from me, and let’s be real for a moment, it’s not like they can see me. I inch out and roll forward slowly, doing my best to crouch low on the mountain bike’s high seat. Halfway across the intersection I get what I was hoping to avoid. A goblin shambles out from behind a car, its leg broken, making it lag behind the rest. The only reason it’s here is because of dumb luck.
Luck. Ugh. Damn you.
I pedal by as fast as I can and swing the pry bar across the thing’s head, connecting with a solid blow. The steel teeth embed into its skull and I lose my grip on the improvised weapon. It clangs to the ground, reverberating against the hard, icy ground. I cringe at the echo, but also at the combined grunt the goblin let out just before I connected. Knowing the way these things can hear, I’m pretty sure I’m screwed.
I slide to a stop in the middle of the intersection, seeing another group of goblins coming my way, no doubt coming to investigate the noise. Reacting on instinct, I abandon the idea of using the north/south running roads and turn west, continuing my flight down 65th. It’s the most direct route to my goal. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do next though. Getting there has always been Number One on my to-do list. I’ll revamp it once I get there.
If I get there.
16
Continuing my twisting commute is trickier than I thought it would be. While my newly found transportation is making it much easier to move forward, it’s also making it tougher from an agility standpoint.
Like now, instead of leapfrogging the mass of bodies littering the streets, I have to run over them. A grade school bunny hop is my only other option, unless I want to slow down, which let’s face it, isn’t really an option.
What I wouldn’t give for a BMX bike right now.
Whenever I bunny hop to avoid one mass of gore, I land right in another. It’s a never-ending battle of give-or-take when it comes to the choice. Do I just run it over and potentially lose traction and fall, or do I leap and land in it, and then maybe slide and take a header? Most of the time I just react on instinct and leave logic out of it. Impulse has helped keep me alive so far, why not now?
As I leap over a larger body, barely clearing the person’s girthy waistline with my back tire, I land and see a straight-away. I hold back another grin of satisfaction, shelving any-and-all excitement until I reach some sort of safety, and put on a little more speed. Not having to dodge anything for a few seconds, I stand to check my surroundings, and quickly go from grin…to groan. Another massive group of goblins is coming straight towards me from the west, ready to intercept their next meal. Me.
I’m about to shout a curse at them for making me change direction again but stop when I read the sign for the cross street, Madison Avenue. This brings a genuine smile to my face as I happily veer left and hurry around the next corner. Vinny, my cousin who owns the gun shop, is just a little further down this way. Hopefully, he’s still around, or that at the very least his store’s front door is open.
Gotta’ get there first. Then I can—
Suddenly, one of the creatures leaps out from a darkened doorway and attempts to yank me from my bike. Instead of fighting back, I just simply lean into the blow, and hip check the prick away, sending him into and through the storefront’s large window obliterating it with a resounding crash of glass. The only problem with my bold attack is that I’m thrown off course.
My rear tire finds a slick of grossness and loses traction on the asphalt, sliding out from underneath
me. I bail from my ride and decide the impending impact with an overturned SUV would be better without getting tangled up with the mountain bike too. I half-fall to the ground and slide like I was on a frozen pond. Between the partially ice-covered street and the massive amounts of blood, it certainly feels like it. I go flying feet first into the rear hatch of the upside-down four-door. Luckily—if you want to call it that—its back window was already punched out, inviting me in for a cup of tea and a crumpet.
Bouncing as I enter, I slam into the backs of the front seats, doing my best impersonation of a floppy ragdoll merged with an accordion. My knees buckle, and my spine screams in agony, but I don’t verbally say a word—minus the incoherent growl that slips from my clenched teeth. My mind does all the cursing for me, and boy would my mother be horrified.
Feeling like an overturned turtle, I tilt my head back, seeing the upside-down world behind me. I count eight of the Unseen coming my way, sniffing the air.
Decided on my next course of action, but not at all happy about it, I quietly draw my gun, easing it out of my shoulder holster. Then, as smoothly as I can, I lift it over my head, trying to aim down the flipped sights. Next, I point it out the shattered back window frame and wait for the right opportunity. I’m not sure I can take enough of them out, but I’m sure as hell going to try. Either way, I really don’t have a choice in the matter. If I try to climb out, I’d make too much noise. The crunching of glass would be easy to detect, not to mention the obscenities I’d most likely mumble while cutting myself on the glass. Even if I do get out in time, the effort will slow me down before I could get my legs moving fast enough to escape.
“Shit, shit, shit,” I whisper to myself. “Here we go.”
I’m about to pull the trigger, but a squealing sound stops me. It’s so out of place in the quiet of the cold, dead city that it takes a second for me to recognize what it is. It’s not until my shelter is struck violently that I put two-and-two together.
“Son of a…” The SUV spins—me with it—slammed into by the behemoth. We slide forward too, straight into the mob of Unseen, smearing a few of them into paste as the car rolls atop them. Then, thankfully, it—me—we stop, landing upright on the still intact wheels.
It’s gotta be what it feels like to be in a clothes dryer, I think through wobbling eyes.
I see that five of the goblins survived and are crouched on all fours. If they had working eyes, they’d be able to see me sprawled across the backseat, looking right at them. I snap my gun up and erase the first one’s face with a well-placed bullet. I caught it right in the throat but was actually aiming for its head. I shake my own head, still dazed from the impact, and open up on the rest of them. One more goes down before the last three attack, but they don’t get far.
The booming of a larger weapon erupts from over my head as I cup my hands over my ears, giving myself a much-needed respite from the concussive force. Just for good measure I flip over the now right-side-up rear-seat and fall headfirst into the cramped trunk of the Range Rover, landing in a heap atop the tire jack.
Five shots later, the unknown assailant, or in my case, savior, ends their assault. The shooter’s heavy feet clunk on the roof of my impromptu hideout, raising the hairs on my arms. The sound of bodies hitting the pavement could just be made out in between shots.
I counted three thuds.
Regardless if this person actually intended on helping me or not, I raise my Glock, finger ready on the trigger. Whoever it is, may not be overly friendly to others nowadays. And I’d completely understand. It wouldn’t surprise me to see another gun-toting lunatic roaming the streets of Manhattan, killing everything he or she sees. Like the gang back near the library. People have gone crazy for lesser things before, but the mass extermination that this island has seen would be the cherry on top for most. Seeing so much death could cause any normal human being to go mad.
The hefty aggressor drops down from the roof above me landing with his back to me, facing the creatures we dispatched.
“Don’t move!” I shout, my ears ringing a little. “NYPD!”
The unknown man doesn’t drop the weapon but instead lowers the barrel towards the ground in as non-threatening as a way possible. As he slowly turns around, he whips his long untamed black hair away to the side, revealing a filthy, but very familiar face. His eyes give him away the most. They’re the same as Jill’s, so dark brown that they almost look black.
“Dammit, Vinny,” I say, sitting back into the tight space, leaning my head against the seat. “You nearly made me shit myself.”
He grins and tries to pop the hatch, but it’s jammed and won’t open. Instead, he offers me his hand, pulling me out of the oversized sardine can. The bigger man actually half-drags me out of the vehicle and props me up, steadying me with one of his meaty hands.
Vincente D’Angelo—the last name is also Jill’s maiden name—is a large individual. He’s not what you would call a beast or a mountain, mind you. He could fit the profile of a Vegas pit boss, or maybe something closer to a member of the mob. At six feet in height, he’s only slightly taller than me, but he easily outweighs me by sixty or seventy pounds. He isn’t really fat either. Vinny would definitely classify as big-boned—like how a construction worker is portrayed in most movies. Thick and strong.
He hands me his shotgun and quickly pulls his shoulder-length curls into a tight ponytail, exposing a nasty scar from when he got into a scrum as a teen. The other guy actually broke a bottle on a bar top and slashed Vinny with it, leaving a wickedly jagged wound. The story—which was embellished some when I heard it—sounded like it was straight out of an episode of The Sopranos.
The real story, however, was that Vinny—who could pass for thirty when he was eighteen—was sloshed, and got caught hitting on some guy’s girlfriend. The funniest part is that the girl was actually interested in him. She tried to call off the watchdog boyfriend and when he, also drunk, reacted, so did Vinny.
The kid from Brooklyn took the bottle like a champ and slammed the same meaty fist that just helped me out of the car into the brute’s face. I heard the guy went down with the single punch. What really puts this story above the rest is that Carla, the girl, left that night with Vinny, and the two of them married a few years later and are still together now.
Love at first smite.
I teeter for a second and take in the scene. Vinny’s truck is massive and white but smeared bumper-to-bumper in blood. It has a huge push bar up front so when it needs to shove things out of the way, like me, it can without destroying itself.
My hiding spot is a ruin, its front end, crumpled like a tin can. Vinny must have hit us going pretty fast. However, it happened, it worked, and I have zero complaints about it. The end result could have been a lot worse than a headache if Vinny hadn’t shown up when he did.
I kneel and see three bodies tangled underneath the vehicle. Bowling for Bad guys, I think.
Something groans and reaches for me as I launch myself back, quickly rolling to my feet. One of the things is still alive and almost caught me with a wild swipe of its claws.
“Ma' va te ne a fanculo!” Vinny yells, cursing in Italian. Then he stomps on the creature’s head, putting every pound he has to offer into it. After the third blow, the goblin’s gnarled hand falls limp.
He readjusts his jacket and cracks his neck with a quick tilt of his head, looking very mobish at the moment.
“What did you say?” I ask, brushing grime away from my jeans.
“I’d rather not say,” he replies with a smile.
“Why not?”
“Because, I do not wish for my mother—God rest her soul—to hear me say that twice.”
“In two different languages, nonetheless.”
Our reunion is cut short by a series of growls and grunts, and we quickly make for the truck. We don’t need to chance our good fortune again in such a short period of time.
17
Bodies cover the ground around his shop, looking l
ike the street itself is wearing a mask of death. There are so many that we literally have to tiptoe through them. From the looks of it, Vinny has been a very busy man these last two days.
“Not the kind of crowd I’m accustomed to,” he said when he saw my mouth hanging open as we pulled up and parked.
His truck is truly a monster of a machine. It sits just outside the front door, locked tight, but ready. It’s blacked out windows, and crimson stained exterior add to its menacing look.
Not that there’s anyone to intimidate.
“What the hell are you doing here, Frances? I was hoping that you and Jillian would be long gone by now.” The bigger man unlocks the barred door to his shop, letting me in.
“First off, stop calling me Frances—it’s Frank—now is not the time to bust my balls…and we didn’t make it out of town in time.”
He’s called me by my birth name since the day we met, and I’ve corrected him ever since. My parents named me after the revered Catholic friar. Francis would become the patron saint of animals. When I was a kid, we had a statue of the saint in our front yard. After my childhood dog, Maggie, died, I asked my parents if we could bury her ashes under Francis for protection and love in the afterlife. Mom and Dad were animal lovers too, so naming me Frances fit. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.
“I’ve spent the better part of that last few days trying to reach the museum. Jill called me from there right before we lost power. She said people were dying. I promised her I’d get there ASAP. Needless to say, that it’s turned out to be a lot rougher than I anticipated.”
At the mentioning of the deaths at the museum, I see Vinny’s face fall flat. An uncustomary look of worry sweeps over his customarily hard, impassive façade.
“What?” I ask.
“It is Carla,” he says, dipping his head. His already robust Italian accent comes out even thicker with the added emotion. “She too is at the museum with Jillian. I had hoped the two of them had fled together.”
