by Alan Spencer
“Fired, huh?”
A long moment passed between them in silence.
The two doctors didn’t see the 9 millimeter pistol tucked under his blanket or the six faces of patients staring into the room from the hallway.
2
Sheriff O’Malley limped into Black Hill Woods, bombarded by threats in the sky. He had to turn back the way he’d come whenever the winged creatures threatened to swoop down at him. He’d counted four of them so far, but there could be more, he thought.
He ducked underneath an oak tree and caught his breath. He clutched the 12 gauge, wheezing, trying to compose himself. The air was colder, the leaves and bark on the trees frost-covered. He shivered, his breath visible.
“This town is going to shit,” he whispered, looking around but only catching new strings of fog uncurling from the sky. Visibility was limited to a few yards. He tried to walkie the station, and again, nobody answered. Dread crawled up his stomach and tensed his guts.
The two men at Walter Smalls’ garage raised serious questions. One was decades behind the times with bellbottoms and muttonchops fit for a porn star. The other had white hair, but he was a mutant in the skin and eyes: blue-black corpse skin, arms glittering with frost, and eyes that were a baby blue like robins’ eggs. And going by the way the young man swung his hammer and broke his deputy in half, they were both equally a threat. Mix in the flying red-eyed demons, and Anderson Mills was in extreme danger.
What if no one else knows about these people?
How many are going to die?
How many have already died?
“Shraaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhh!”
He jerked his head upward to catch the black-scaled creature careen from the sky toward him. Its wings were outspread, cartilage and bones and veins jutting out from the leathery material. He fired his gun twice without aiming.
He ducked and rolled into a lilac bush, and when he worked to his knees with the shotgun ready to blast again, two pieces of the creature thudded against the ground. The torso had been blown from the legs. On the ground, the legs remained limp, but the top-half refused to die. The woman’s demon eyes appeared to melt, a phosphorous burning of a road flare. A devilish grin spread across her blood-slathered lips. It crawled toward him, propelled by its arms as it closed in.
The sheriff pulled the trigger and watched the demon’s head evaporate into a mist heavy with skull bits. “Bitch,” he gasped, out-of-breath and covered in cold sweat. “Stay dead.”
Red eyes flashed in the darkened sky again, and it was his cue to race further into the woods. He dared to cross the icy fog blind to what lurked in there, hidden. The sheriff’s goal was to locate shelter and a phone, or any means of communication. That possibility dimmed when he saw the electrical pole spitting out sparks onto the road. If the town didn’t have power, he was seriously out of luck. His cell phone was in his vehicle, but it had blown up.
I can’t catch a break.
His confidence had doubled after he killed another one of the flying creatures, and he clung onto that bold feeling. Plated breasts were a strange sight, and the straw-like patch of pubic hair made his feel ill; it was the farthest thing from erotic. The whores on the outskirts of Green County were beauty queens compared to the winged creatures.
The sheriff chugged full-force down hill and prayed he didn’t slip or turn his ankle along the rugged terrain. He continued to brave the fog until it was slippery underfoot, and before he could slow down, he spilled onto his back with a grunt and curse. After recovering from the fall, he realized this was Silver Lake, and it was frozen over.
“How in blue fuck is it possible? It’s summer!”
Their cries rang out like those of pterodactyls. “Shraaaaaaaaggggghhhh!”
“Shit!” He struggled to his feet and trudged slowly across the iced-over surface. He looked up and caught three shadows circling the lake. He raised the 12 gauge and emptied another round into the sky. “Stay the hell away from me!”
A whoosh of air inches from the back of his head sent him reeling forward. He crashed against the ice again, looked up and howled in shock as the head of a mallet was raised and about to come down onto his head.
He’d lost his shotgun.
“Put the weapon down,” he threatened without a way to enforce it. “You’re under arrest. Put your hands behind your back right now.”
The statements were ridiculous, his voice cracking from the strain and dried out from the wintry air. The attacker loomed in the dark, his face contorted into a maniac’s. The sky was swallowed up by billowing fog, thick as soot from a leveled building. Red streams of light streaked in the sky in tandem; the flying demons would soon swoop down and attack.
He rolled to the side, and the mallet struck the ice, just missing him. Shards were kicked up and struck his face, sharp and so cold.
WHUP-WHAM!
The mallet’s force came again, fast, this time connecting with his shoulder. Bitter-sharp agony coursed down his collarbone and arm. The sheriff shouted, “You’re going to play like that, huh? You piece of shit!”
He unhooked the Maglite strapped to his holster and hurled it at the young man’s face. A sharp crack, and his nose oozed blood. It wasn’t just his nose, his mouth spilt open and one of his eyes had popped; it was as if the man’s face wasn’t complete, the structure weak.
Just like Jorg’s body.
He searched the ice for his 12 gauge, and after miraculously recovering it, he opened fire in a staccato burst of shots. Ba-Boom! Ba-Boom! Ba-Boom! The man flew backward from the ice, his feet leaving the ground. The figure slammed into the ice, his chest and face rendered into pink pulp.
A razor-sharp shard of ice the size of a cigarette jutted from the sheriff’s foot; it couldn’t break through the steel toe. Another set of shards went thack, thack, thack against the lake’s surface, all of them meant for him.
He whipped around on the defense, aiming the gun at the shape six yards out, but the weapon clicked empty. He moved to reload it, fumbling with quaking hands, and reaching into his front pocket for the shells. Then he remembered they’d spilled out along the ice after the last fall. He back-pedaled and his heel bumped into the handle of the mallet. The wood was cold, the mallet at least thirty pounds, but he cradled the weapon anyway, his only option.
The figure across from him was from Walter’s shop, the man with blue skin and eyes. He didn’t bother to read the man his Miranda rights when another series of ice shards were hurled at him with bullet speed. Two of them missed, whizzing past him, but the other two tore into his right bicep and forearm. The sight of his own blood trickling between his fingers enraged him.
Growling a primordial war cry, the sheriff raced across the ice and swung the mallet, connecting with the man’s head. The blue man buckled onto his knees in an awkward pile of limbs. The man’s head was dented inward at the top. Blood mushroomed out of his ears, nose, and mouth.
The sheriff was about to swing again when something from above him stole the mallet and carried it into the air. The winged creature cawed in delight.
“Son of a bitch!”
He stepped on two shells. He picked them up and raced back the way he’d come. The fog billowed over the ice and obscured the surface, making everything invisible. He plunged his hands blindly to scavenge for the much-needed shotgun but came up empty.
Red eyes glowed yards out from him, and one of the creatures touched down. Now it wasn’t a creature, but instead a beautiful woman. The wings disappeared, sucked back into her shoulder blades, and the blackened scales were replaced by milky-white skin. Bare breasts were pert and large, the abdomen washboard tight, hips voluptuously curved, and the pubic hair shaved in a perfect v-shape to disguise the prize between her legs. The woman extended her arms out to him, speaking softly. “Hold me close…please.”
He was drawn to her pink lipstick and magenta hair. He wanted to touch her everywhere—even kiss those full lips—but the ache in his smashed collarbone and the ice sha
rds that were still lodged in his arm reminded him what he was up against.
The back of his boot struck the shotgun’s barrel.
“Kiss me now.” The woman’s voice was smooth, a rose petal falling onto a pillow. Both her arms were outstretched, and she wrapped herself around him. “Hold me tight…hold me now. It’s so cold, but I’ll make you warm.” Purring into his ear, she whispered, “Will you make me warm?”
Her flesh was burning hot, and he was relieved to be against her. Her breasts were mashed into his chest, but she backed up a bit, urging him to cup them. She kissed him along his neck, soft pecks that breathed more warmth into his body. The sheriff didn’t move. Couldn’t move. The woman placed his hand between her legs for him, and he combed the bush of her hair with his fingers, searching. She was open and wet, ready for him.
“Stick your fingers inside.” The woman stuck her tongue in his ear and whispered, “I give you permission.”
His fingers were swallowed up with no effort. He simply touched her labia and they entered with a wet smack.
“Ah, that’s nice,” she moaned in ecstasy. She ran her tongue up and down his neck and behind his ear, the saliva trails hot as steam. It stung his skin, but he couldn’t resist what occurred naturally. Blood rushed to his cock and he was hard. “That’s a good boy.”
The front of his police trousers was unzipped, and she cradled him. “How do you like your foreplay, huh cop? I know you don’t like to get straight to it. A bit of cross-examining, maybe? You’re an old dog, but you’re never tired of young tricks.”
She spat on his dick and stroked him. “You shot at me a moment ago and look at you now. You’re submissive. You’re all mine, aren’t you?”
He couldn’t deny the pleasure she was giving him. He was already close to shooting all over her despite everything, the awkward location on the frozen lake, the wounds in his body, and the people that had been murdered in town in just over twenty-four hours. The depth of the fog stole the present reality. Nothing existed outside of her and her sexual touch. She licked along his neck, the same circle over and over so many times he memorized the texture of her tongue. He fingered her harder, each thrust making her wetter.
“I’m almost there,” she shuddered, verging on climax. “Are you almost there too?”
“Y-yeah.” A quiver ran up his spine “Keep going.”
Without warning, she squeezed his cock so hard he thought she’d broken it.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
Her mouth snaked down upon his cheek, and she chewed a mouthful of flesh off, snagging it when she reared back her head. Electric pain flooded up and down his face, and in that instant, he wasn’t sure whether it was an unconscious instinct to fight back or the malicious ache in his crotch that was a heartbeat from an orgasm, that urged him to retaliate. He head-butted her, the woman buckling to the side with a feminine gasp, but she immediately rose back up with eyes raging and burning.
He lowered to his haunches—awkward since his zipper was undone and he was hanging limp—and scanned the ice’s surface for the shotgun. He located it in a second, loaded one of the two shells from his front pocket, and when he raised the muzzle, the black-plated face appeared before his with an ear-piercing hiss.
The blast removed her head.
He stood in place and absorbed the shock. It was freezing cold. He zipped his pants back up. He ripped the two ice shards from his arm and angrily tossed them away.
He loaded his last cartridge into the chamber.
Let’s leave this fucking place.
The shifting on the ice drew him to alert mode again. The sheriff traipsed the ice and finally arrived where the blue eyed man had fallen. The man was on his feet again, but he stood awkwardly, as if dizzy. The blue eyes in their mashed sockets focused on the sheriff and drove deeper the fear that was already brewing inside of him.
I can’t take any more punishment.
He darted through the fog and kept running. The blue-eyed man pursued him for minutes, but the fog was too thick and the sheriff randomly changed directions to throw the stranger off course. The slick surface of the lake changed to earth again without him seeing it before it happened. Frost covered leaves crunched underfoot, breaking under his weight. He charged up a hill, and through the trees, he located the edge of a road. He eyed the darkness in both directions. The area was clear. The green aluminum sign yards up from him read “Black Hill Woods and Recreational Center.”
“Thank God,” he laughed. “Thank you, God!”
The police station was a mile north up the hill. He sprinted without a conscious effort, encouraged by a shred of hope. He pedaled harder, and when he arrived at the parking lot, the anticipated relief backfired into horrid astonishment. The two police cruisers in the parking lot were left in shambles; every window was shattered, the chrome dented and eaten through, and the paint chipped along every inch. The windows of headquarters were also broken, the blinds bent and defiled.
He forced open the ravaged wooden door, see-through in sections where the wood had splintered. Inside, the walls were corroded, the dry wall flaking apart from numerous punctures. Lynn Morgan, the dispatcher, sat behind her desk face down. He shrank at the sight. The half of her face not against the wood had been stripped of flesh, the bone glistening red. She was practically a skull with her eyeballs intact and her scalp in pieces, her curly blond hair somehow still in place.
This can’t be.
He hurried down the short corridor of offices, desperate to find something to help him. Officers Edward Bilks’ and Owen Wilkinson’s bodies were strewn in the hallway, their bodies picked of skin down to the bone. He only recognized Edward’s face from the bloodied mustache curled at the ends with handlebars. The sheriff pictured that horrid face smoking a cigar and puffing smoke rings and glaring back at him through the eyeless gummy sockets and laughing, “Smoke ’em if you got ’em, and I’ve got plenty of ’em.” Owen was the newest member on the force, two years and closing in on his third. In his hand, stripped bare of flesh, he clutched a Glock pistol.
“They didn’t stand a chance,” he muttered. But what did this?
He leaped through the hall when he saw his office door was open. He kept it locked, and the only person with access to it was Tabitha. It wasn’t uncommon for his wife to drop in, often to bring him a homemade lunch: chipped beef sandwiches, coleslaw, and baked beans were his favorite.
He feared the worst, entering his office. The edge of her penny loafer shoes drew him into the room. The red summer dress was torn into shreds, her stockings mere strands of fabric, the same as the flesh beneath them. The tiles were slick with a wide pool of blood. He hunkered into himself at the sight of Tabitha’s face. There were simply no features, even the sockets and sinuses had been evacuated.
“I’m so sorry, Tabitha,” he cried, knowing the words were useless to her. It was too late to save her. He stepped over her body and tried the phone at his desk. No dial tone. He tried the radio near the dispatcher’s corpse, but the machine was destroyed, the circuit boards gutted and eaten through. He caught the body of an insect next to Lynn Morgan’s Reebok shoe. He plucked it from the ground between two fingers, and it broke apart. The thorax crunched, the inside hollow, but a spurt of green fluid ejected out of the insect with an oversized mandible. It appeared to be a locust, but he hadn’t seen one so brittle and green before. It couldn’t be native to Anderson Mills.
He struggled to decide how to approach the situation. First, he armed himself by storming into the weapons storage and looking over the glass display of three 12 gauge shotguns, a 22. Remington Rangefinder, a Walter PPK pistol, a Derringer automatic rifle, and a collection of Desert Eagle handguns. He strapped the Remington Rangefinder complete with a night scope on one shoulder, loaded his holster with a Desert Eagle, and carried a fully-loaded 12 gauge in his left hand.
“I’m armed, now what the hell do I do?”
He wasn’t used to this kind of action, not even armed robbery or aggravated assau
lt. Petty theft and drunken brawls were the brunt of what he faced, not flying demons, blue-skinned men who could make everything freeze and hurl ice shards at you, or a mallet-toting madman, and now, flesh-eating locusts to boot! The phones were down, his cell phone blown up, and now that nobody pursued him, it was deadly silent.
Then he recalled Tabitha carried a cell phone. He barreled back into the room, picked it up, and tried Kyle Redding’s personal number, but the phone’s battery was dead.
The sheriff hurled the phone against the wall, and it shattered. “What the fuck am I supposed to do now? Goddamn it!”
Was he alone against the strange monsters cavorting about Black Hill Woods? The sight of Tabitha’s exposed skull dug into his mind, repeating and breaking his heart over and over again. He covered her body with his police coat and stepped out of the room, guilt and repugnance colliding in his head. The sheriff cleaned up his cheek wound. He bandaged it with gauze and tape from the first aid kit. Underneath the peroxide he stored a fifth of Jim Beam, and he swigged it to dull the pain from his battle wounds.
Tabitha was dead and so was anybody else that could help him fight whatever had poked its ugly head into Anderson Mills. Deciding his next move, he snatched Officer Wilkinson’s patrol car keys. He believed that was the only car left somewhat undamaged in the parking lot. Then he collected his weaponry and drove back to Silver Lake.
The fog had lifted in small patches along the road, and he kept his brights on in search of anything else that would cross his path.
3
Andy rubbed his hands up and down his arms, trying to warm himself. “Are you cold? That last wind was freezing cold.”
Mary-Sue failed to reply before the clap and shatter of wood resounded near the front yard. They skirted from the front steps of the farmhouse. “That came from the cattle pens, didn’t it?”
Andy sucked in a nervous breath, believing they were under attack again. The swarm of neon locusts was gone, but had he wrongly assumed they were out of danger? There were no lights on in Mary-Sue’s house or the stables, pitch dark everywhere, leaving any potential enemy disguised. Leaves blew up from the ground blown by invisible gusts and their bodies circled overhead until they lost their momentum and collapsed one-by-one.
