Sons of Chaos

by Jerry Hart

  He looked in the backseat and saw a pump. He looked at the balloons, stretching one of them to read what was stenciled on them. “Happy Birthday” in white on the pink balloons and in pink on the white ones.

  Setting the bag in the passenger’s seat, he gripped the steering wheel and pretended he was driving it. The truck was very nice and very clean. He wanted it for himself. And wouldn’t you know it, the keys were still in the ignition.

  He started the truck, admiring the soft purr of the engine. He drove it back to the house and parked it next to the Kamens’ old beat-up red truck. He still felt frustrated about the orb when he went inside the house, but not as much as earlier now that he had a shiny new truck.

  As soon as he stepped into the foyer, he noticed the robot in the living room on the right. He’d completely forgotten about it, with its brown trench coat and fedora.

  And its backpack.

  Jason walked over to it and took the pack off the robot. He sat down in a nearby chair and looked inside. What he saw made him grin ear to ear.

  * * *

  Doug opened his eyes, and the moment he did, he regretted it. First, he noticed the pain in his head, which caused him to vomit right there and then. Next, he felt the pain in his left shoulder, and he threw up again. Once he was done, he took in his surroundings. He was in a dark, cold room. There was a little light coming from a massive hole in the wall next to a closed door. He could see a kitchen through the hole.

  Suddenly he remembered where he was and why he was in so much pain. He was in the old folks’ garage. The basketball Jason had beaten him with had felt like a cannonball. Doug should have been dead after the hit to the head. And for a moment, he had a feeling that he had been. But now he was alive. And in horrible pain.

  He tried to stand, but couldn’t at first. He succeeded on his second try, but as soon as he took a step, his foot came into contact with something. Doug almost yelled out in surprise. He knew instantly that it was a body.

  He stood in silence for a whole minute, his heart beating in his ears. Finally, he knelt down and touched the body. Then he dragged it to where the light was plentiful and saw that it was Curtis. And he was alive.

  He slapped Curtis’s face to wake him up. Curtis groaned, then opened his eyes and looked at Doug.

  “Why are you hitting me?” Curtis asked groggily.

  “Because you were unconscious, stupid.”

  Curtis looked around and said, “Where are we?”

  “We’re in a garage,” Doug said. “How did you get in here?”

  “I don’t know,” Curtis said uneasily. “I saw Jason take you into the house, so I doubled back. When I finally reached you guys, I saw you on the floor....” Curtis looked Doug in the eyes. “I thought you were dead.”

  “I should be,” Doug said. “I think I was. I remember a dream I had where I was in some bright room...and then my brother came to me and told me it wasn’t my time.”

  Curtis started at that. “Me too, except it was girl. Jason punched me in the chest; I think it killed me. That’s where that came from.” He gestured toward the hole in the wall. “The girl said the same thing to me. Next thing I remember is waking up just now. Jason must have thought I was dead and dumped me in here with you.”

  They both laughed, and then cringed at their respective wounds. Doug helped Curtis to his feet.

  “I know this is going to sound crazy,” Doug said uneasily, “but I think the girl you saw was Alyssa.”

  “Owen’s friend?”

  Doug nodded.

  “Not so crazy,” Curtis said reassuringly. “If you saw your brother.”

  “Really?” Doug asked, his face lighting up.

  “Yes. I guess they’re watching over us.”

  They stood in silence for a while, then Doug said, “I saw D in the living room.”

  “Me too, but I don’t think Owen’s here. Jason asked me where he was.”

  “Where do you think he is?”

  “I have no idea.”

  They stared at each other for a moment, then Curtis walked over to the hole and looked through.

  “Coast is clear,” he said over his shoulder. He went to grab the doorknob when Doug stopped him.

  “We should get some weapons,” he said as he turned to the tool rack on the other side of the garage. Curtis followed him, making sure not to block the light. Doug grabbed a screwdriver as Curtis grabbed a hammer. They compared weapons.

  “A screwdriver?” Curtis scoffed. “Seriously?”

  “It’s good for stabbing.” Doug demonstrated by stabbing the air. Curtis shook his head and went back to the door. Doug followed.

  * * *

  Curtis heard a noise but had no idea what was making it. To him, it sounded like someone hammering something. Whatever the noise was, it was coming from a room up ahead on the right.

  Doug and Curtis stood in front of a dark room, and though Curtis had ignored it the first time he passed it, he couldn’t help looking into it now. He couldn’t see anything in the room, but he could feel someone (something) watching him. He shivered and moved away from the room, eager to be out of sight of whatever was in there.

  They came up on the noisy room. It was brightly lit. Curtis leaned up against the wall and peeked in. He saw Jason sitting on the floor, in front of a desk, with his back to the door. He was hunched over, tinkering with something. Curtis studied the contents near Jason. He saw Owen’s backpack to the left of the blonde, with dozens of those little red bombs spilling out. Some of them had their casings removed, though.

  To the right of Jason was the bag of pink and white balloons Curtis had seen in Collin’s truck. On the floor in front of the desk was the pump.

  What is Jason doing? Curtis wondered. Doug patted him lightly on the back and asked what was going on. Curtis shrugged. Whatever Jason was doing, he wasn’t going to get a chance to finish because Curtis was going to bash his brains in.

  He stepped quietly into the study, holding his breath as he did so. He feared his racing heart would give him away, but so far, Jason remained ignorant to his presence. Curtis hoped it stayed that way; Jason was way too strong to take on face to face. Curtis needed to surprise him.

  As he drew closer, he noticed that some of the bombs had been placed inside the balloons and piled up next to the pump, waiting to be inflated. He stepped closer so that now he was only a few feet from Jason. Curtis raised the hammer, preparing to strike, when a hand reached from behind him and covered his mouth. He was about to yell, but then he saw that it was only Doug.

  He slowly pulled Curtis back out to the hall. Now they were standing in front of the screen door, feeling the breeze from outside. Doug released Curtis.

  “What are you doing?” Curtis asked quietly but furiously.

  Doug pointed out the screen door. Curtis saw immediately what Doug had noticed. Silver was coming.

  The two boys crept out the door quietly and ran around to the side of the house. They weren’t too surprised to see Collin’s truck parked there. They hid on the side of the truck (the doors were locked) as the giant approached the house. Nearly twenty zombies followed in its wake.

  “I guess they succeeded,” Doug whispered. Curtis nodded, never taking his eyes off the scene.

  The tremors Silver produced had alerted Jason to his arrival. He came out of the house and stood in front of the giant.

  “Well done,” Jason said to Silver. “Bow to me.”

  On command, the giant knelt down on one knee and dipped its head close to the ground.

  “Open up,” Jason said. The seam that ran along Silver’s head split apart with a loud bang. The skull opened to reveal a cockpit similar to that of an airplane. Three of Jason’s minions were at the helm. There were three chairs, one next to each ear, and one in the front between the eyes.

  Doug and Curtis stared with their jaws dropped.

  “Very good,” Jason said. “I’m almost ready. When I’m done, you are to take this giant into the middle of tha
t field”—he pointed to a big open patch of land far away—“and signal the mothership. Tell them you have the orb. Then they will retrieve you.”

  Doug and Curtis exchanged nervous glances. “What is he planning?” Doug asked.

  Curtis thought for a second, then his face changed as realization dawned on him. “You know that cop friend of yours? The one we saw on the news? Call him and tell him to stop those zombies from taking control of Blue.”

  * * *

  Patrick felt his phone vibrate. “Hello?”

  “Officer Fisher. It’s Doug Hudson.”

  “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

  “I don’t have time to explain. I need you to believe me when I tell you this: There are some people on their way downtown right now to take control of the blue giant. You have to stop them.”

  “People? What people?”

  Patrick looked around nervously. He was standing behind the barricades a few yards away from the giant. Lindsay stood next to him, her face wary.

  “Some really bad people,” Doug said. “They’re really strong and very dangerous. They might already be there. You have to stop them by any means necessary. They already got the silver one.”

  “The silver one? How do you know that?”

  “Because we saw it happen. Trust me when I tell you that you can’t let these people get that giant.”

  Patrick looked to the end of the street. The sky was clear, but the sun was setting and everything was dark blue. If there were people coming for the giant, Patrick would have a hard time seeing them.

  “Where are you, Mr. Hudson?”

  “I’m in Birch.”

  “What are you doing there?”

  “It’s a long story and I’ll explain later. Like I said, though: Keep those people away from the giant.”

  Patrick, who had his back to the blue giant, said, “Look, Mr. Hudson, I don’t get what’s going on here, but—”

  There was a loud groan behind him. He spun and saw the giant stumbling around, swatting at its legs. It fell backward onto the building behind it, shattering even more glass than it did earlier. Pieces of the building rained down to the street.

  “What the hell is going on?” Lindsay asked. Patrick shook his head and stared at the giant’s legs to see what it was swatting at. He gasped when he saw that it was people, crawling up the giant’s body like bugs.

  * * *

  Silver’s head snapped shut as the giant stood up to its full height.

  “Now go,” Jason ordered it. Silver turned and made his way to the field designated earlier. Then Jason said to his minions standing around in the yard, “Go, as fast as you can, to downtown San Sebastian. Help the others retrieve the blue giant.”

  The zombies darted down the country road in the same direction as Silver. Doug and Curtis watched as Chris went with them.

  “What now?” Doug asked quietly as Jason went back into the house.

  “We have to stop that giant before it reaches that field and gets picked up by the mothership. Wow, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Doug asked hopelessly.

  “We’ll trip him.” Curtis patted Collin’s truck.

  “We don’t have the keys, and I’m not going back in that house.” Doug hugged himself and shivered, and Curtis knew it had nothing to do with the cold air.

  “You should’ve let me brain Jason when I had the chance. Then I could’ve gotten the keys from him.”

  Doug shrugged. “I know; I panicked when I saw Silver coming. Sorry.”

  Curtis stared at the truck for a second, then down at the hammer in his hand. He didn’t want to go back in the house either, and he now felt doubtful that the hammer would make much of a difference to Jason considering Curtis had put all he could behind his punches earlier, and they had done nothing to the blonde.

  “Forgive me, Collin,” Curtis said a second before smashing in the driver’s-side window.

  “What are you doing?” Doug asked.

  “Hotwiring it.”

  * * *

  Patrick continued to watch the strangers climb the blue giant. They climbed with a grace that normal people couldn’t possibly possess. Those have to be the ones Doug warned me about, Patrick told himself.

  “Freeze!” he shouted to the strangers, knowing it would do no good. He drew his firearm and aimed it at the frantic giant as it continued to destroy the buildings around it in its effort to get the bug-people off of its body.

  Glass spilled down to the streets. Patrick, Lindsay and the other officers shielded themselves as best they could. When the glass shower was over, Patrick looked up to see the strangers prying open the giant’s head at the seam. The head opened with the sound of grinding gears. The left side stood open at an awkward angle as the strangers piled into the giant’s cranium.

  The blue creature staggered for a few seconds, then stood absolutely still. The officers watched from the street, weapons drawn. Suddenly the giant was on the move again, no longer staggering but walking with its usual motion.

  Patrick saw something fall from the still-open head. It looked like a body. Perhaps one of the insect-people had fallen out. Then two more bodies fell to the street. Patrick ran over to them and was stunned by what he saw when he got there.

  All three bodies were dressed in silver-blue jumpsuits and helmets with copper-colored visors, which were cracked a little. They looked like astronauts, almost.

  Aliens!

  Patrick couldn’t see into the helmets and very much wanted to take them off to get a better look at these mysterious bodies. Just then, he remembered the hijacked giant. He looked up and saw it messing with one of the four scepters it had planted earlier. A few of the strange hijackers were standing on the giant’s shoulders.

  * * *

  Curtis was followed Silver as fast as he could, trying to ignore the glass that was cutting his butt. After breaking the window, he had swept as much of the glass off the seat as he could, but it clearly hadn’t been enough.

  Silver had gotten a hell of a head start, and with the time it took Curtis to hotwire the truck, he and Doug weren’t sure if they were going to make it in time.

  But they had to make it. Curtis had never wavered in his belief that these invaders were the good guys, and that the orb needed to be returned to them. And now the good guys were about to be destroyed if Silver made it back up to that mothership. Curtis didn’t know the exact details of Jason’s plan, but he’d seen enough to guess what the blond maniac had in store. Owen’s bombs; birthday balloons. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out.

  Curtis and Doug were pulling up on Silver now, each of his footsteps causing the steering wheel to jerk in Curtis’s hands.

  “Do you really think we can stop Silver with this truck?” Doug asked.

  “We can sure as hell try.” Curtis drove between the giant’s legs. Silver’s right foot skimmed the passenger’s side, denting the door. Doug leaned away from it as much as possible. “We may have to bail if things get really ugly,” Curtis added.

  They were a few feet in front of Silver now, so Curtis slowed down a little. The giant kicked the driver’s side, lifting the truck on its right side for a second. Curtis righted the truck again as Silver passed over them. Flooring the gas pedal, he caught up with the monster once again.

  “Why is it going all the way out here to get picked up?” Doug asked. “Why doesn’t it just send the signal now?”

  “Because Jason doesn’t want the mothership too close to the house, I guess,” Curtis responded. He tried a different tactic this time by weaving in and out between Silver’s feet. “I wish we had some rope or something—”

  Just then, Silver kicked the truck sidelong, flipping it over completely. Curtis and Doug were tossed around the cab as the truck rolled to a stop upside down. Dazed though they were, they were able to see Silver stumble and fall a few yards away. The impact shook the truc
k.

  “You think that’ll work?” Doug asked wearily, his forehead bleeding.

  “No,” Curtis said. “But it’s a start.” He crawled out through his broken window, hammer in hand. He slowly walked toward Silver, the hammer raised over his head. The giant was lying facedown in the grass, completely still. Curtis didn’t let that fool him, though. He was so focused on what he was about to do that he didn’t notice the sky growing darker.

  The seam in Silver’s scalp was barely visible. Curtis knew he had little to no chance of opening the head and taking out the three minions inside. He thought of beating at the scalp to open it, but then realized that was foolish.

  Just then, Silver’s head lifted off the ground so that his eyes were staring into Curtis’s. The minions must have been getting back up. But then Curtis realized the giant wasn’t using its arms to raise itself. The entire upper half lifted off the ground while its legs and feet stayed earthbound.

  Curtis looked up to the sky and saw a dark vortex in the gray clouds. The mothership!

  “No! Stop!” Curtis shouted, though he knew they wouldn’t hear him.

  Now Silver’s lower half lifted off the ground. Curtis dove out of the way as the giant’s feet pendulumed past him. He watched as the Trojan horse disappeared into the vortex above.

  * * *

  Things were frantic as everyone on the ship prepared for the scout’s arrival. Owen and the twins approached the guardrail as the airlock opened at the bottom of the hangar. The familiar silver head rose up from the floor.

  Owen looked above him to where the rest of the crew was staring down. Clearly they were excited about having completed their task. Owen noticed Claude and Calvin were smiling.

  “After we make sure the orb is intact,” Claude told Owen, “we can send you back so you can help us capture Armenus.”

  Owen nodded. Finding Armenus would not be an easy task. Owen had no idea where to even start looking. However, he knew that wherever Armenus was, Nikki would also be.