by Daniel Pyle
“The hell I can’t. You saw what it did. It’s dangerous.”
“Look out!”
Instinctively, David ducked to the ground. A large rock flew over his head. Tracey tried to avoid the projectile, but it struck her in the shoulder and knocked her to the ground. Without checking on his deputy, David whirled around. The beast was preparing to throw another rock. He fired again. The bullet struck a neighboring tree and sent splinters into the air. The creature, maybe rethinking its rocks-beat-guns offensive, dropped the stone and ran.
You’re not getting away! David thought as he pursued once more. Wonder how much money I can get for the carcass? Indisputable proof an urban legend exists, I could rake in a fortune.
He realized his greed was superseding his sense of justice and duty, and he didn’t care. As he chased the beast, he couldn’t help but wonder what other myths might be real; unicorns, leprechauns, the Loch Ness monster, all of them? Then his mind changed gears as he thought about all the things he could buy with the tabloid money. A new car. Beachfront property. Hell, maybe he couldn’t satisfy Lisa the way a twenty-something could, but he’d be able to buy her enough toys to compensate.
She’ll come crawling back, he thought and grinned.
He could only imagine how the devilish smile on his face must have looked when he neared the beast and fired two more rounds at it.
Both missed.
The creature zigzagged through the woods and then stopped suddenly, as if it had lost its bearings. David skidded to a halt as it whirled around and stared down at him. Its large arms dangled at its waist. Its chest rose and fell with each gasping breath. David took that moment to catch his own breath, keeping a safe distance. His arms trembled as he raised his gun. He was afraid any shot he fired would go wild.
The beastly almost-man broke the stare with David and glanced over its shoulder. David seized the opportunity and fired a single shot. The hot lead hit its mark, dead center of the thing’s throat. The creature howled as blood gushed out of the bullet hole and cascaded down its chest. It clutched its throat with its sausage-like fingers and dropped to its knees.
As David approached, he kept his gun aimed at the creature’s head. The thing looked at him with large, pleading eyes. Shallow pools of tears threatened to spill down its hairy face. The beast looked over its shoulder once more. Blood gushed from its throat. Curious, David followed the beast’s line of sight and noticed a cave barely visible among the trees.
It’s trying to get home.
And then he had another, much more exciting thought: Are there more of them?
As if reading David’s thoughts, the beast released its grip on the wound and let loose a gurgly roar. When it reached out for him, David shot it point blank in the center of its forehead. The creature collapsed, blood spraying out behind it and soaking the ground. David stood there and watched the body quiver.
Seconds became minutes. David exhaled and stepped over the behemoth.
He looked toward the cave.
It must’ve been protecting something.
The sun’s rays penetrated deep into the cave’s opening, but revealed none of its mysteries. David walked away from the corpse and through the trees.
As he stepped into the cave, he heard a faint sound. He stopped and listened.
Is that…crying?
He moved deeper into the beast’s den, clutching his gun, finger wrapped around the trigger. Ten yards in, or maybe twenty, just as he was starting to think he would run out of light, he stumbled over a rock and almost stepped on two small creatures. They huddled together in a large nest of dried grass and torn litter, weeping. They were the size of human toddlers, but otherwise similar to the giant he had gunned down. Their eyes were closed and their gums toothless. Just babies.
He looked around for another adult. If there was one parent, there could be more.
But if there was, it wasn’t nearby. He didn’t see or hear anything besides the babies.
He stared at them for a long time. The adult’s corpse was going to make him a fortune, and he wondered what he could get for one of the babies. Or for both of them. He raised his gun, pointed it at the pair of crying infants, and pulled the trigger halfway back.
He hesitated and finally took his finger off the trigger.
Don’t think about it, just do it. Never mind the money. They’re monsters, wild creatures, future killers. I have to do this. It’s my duty.
He cocked the gun’s hammer.
A gunshot echoed in the tight quarters, and David felt searing pain in his lower back. Blood poured down his side and leg. His grip on his pistol faltered, and the weapon fell to the ground as he turned around to face his assailant.
“I can’t let you hurt them, David. I’m sorry.”
“You…why?” he managed to say.
She shook her head. “They’re not monsters. The mother might have killed those men, might have thought they were trying to burn her out, but she was only doing what I thought I’d never get the chance to do…until now.”
Her finger tightened around the trigger, and David was consumed by darkness.
WHITEOUT
* * *
DANIELLE BOURDON
“…whiteout conditions continue for the twenty-fourth straight day…”
Jeremy Buckle fiddled with the knob on his shortwave radio, trying to get better reception. The hiss of static made it difficult to hear any news.
“Any luck?” Jo asked from the office doorway. She had changed into pajamas and pulled her hair back for the night.
“Not really. It’s the same thing they’ve been reporting for a week.” He sat back in his chair and raked a hand through his hair. Tension made his shoulders tight.
“Well there has to be something—”
“Jo, there’s not. No news about any deliveries. No news about how they’re going to clear the god-forsaken roads. No news, period.”
“They can’t expect us to starve to death,” she hissed, glancing over her shoulder to the living room where the kids were playing.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said, spreading his hands in the air for emphasis. “I’m sure they didn’t expect some freak series of storms to obliterate the entire country, either.”
“This is Los Angeles. Surely they’re better prepared—”
“Anaheim Hills, baby, if you want to get technical. And how the hell are they supposed to be prepared for this? It barely rains here, much less snows.” Even to his own ears, the caustic words sounded harsh. When she pinched the bridge of her nose—a clear indication a rant was forthcoming—Jeremy got up and crossed the room. He squeezed her shoulder, trying to head off another argument.
“We only have enough food for maybe three more days, Jeremy.”
To hear it put in plain words drove the pressure to provide for his family to new heights. “I know, I know—”
“I mean, you and I haven’t had a decent meal in more than a week. All the stores have been cleaned out, and no trucks can get through with supplies. What the hell are we going to do? Ask the neighbors to give us supplies we’ve already shared and divided between us?”
“They have kids to feed, too. If we’re running low, so are the rest of them.”
“Maybe we should have kept what we had to ourselves.” Jo seemed torn between fear and bitterness.
“You wouldn’t be able to see the other kids go hungry anymore than you would let ours go hungry,” he said, kneading her shoulders with gentle pressure. “I’ll tell you what. Since it’s already so late, I’ll go see Ed in the morning. We’ll figure out what to do.”
“Are you sure it’s safe? We couldn’t even see the end of our driveway this morning.”
“I’ll use the rope. If I have something to follow back to our porch, I’ll be fine. Ed only lives right next door.”
Relenting, Jo said, “All right.”
“At least we still have power. Things would be a lot worse if we—”
As if Fate were l
istening, the lights blinked out.
“…shit.” Jeremy released her. “I’ll get the flashlights.”
“And a few candles,” she said, turning to cross into the living room.
Jeremy felt his way like a blind man over to a cabinet in the office that held their supplies. He fished out a pair of flashlights, stuck one in his pocket, and thumbed the button on the other. A spear of illumination cut through the shadows. Already he could hear Lila, his middle child, start to fret and worry. She’d always been afraid of the dark.
“Daddy’s got the flashlights, Lila.”
“Hurry, there’s monsters in the corner!” Lila shouted.
“Monsters aren’t real.” Haley, four years old going on ten, set her sister straight.
“Hey Mom, I’ve got that old werewolf mask from Halloween. I could—”
“No honey, not now.” Jo dissuaded Andrew, their eight-year-old son, from freaking Lila out completely.
Any other time, Jeremy might have smiled. If they weren’t almost out of food, if there wasn’t a radical storm blanketing the country, and if they hadn’t just lost power, he might have found their typical banter amusing. All he could manage to feel was a fresh surge of fear. With no heat, they were going to struggle to stay warm on top of everything else.
He picked up a fat candle and was just about to tuck it under his arm when the front door crashed inward with a thunderous bang.
Lila and Haley screamed.
Startled, Jeremy whirled out of the office and ran toward the living room. Three dark silhouettes blurred through the flashlight beam. With the pistol locked upstairs in the master closet and no time to retrieve it, Jeremy cocked his arm back to pitch the candle like a missile. Before he could release it, he found himself staring down the menacing barrel of a shotgun.
“Don’t make me do it,” the intruder said, tightening his grip on the gun. “Don’t be stupid enough to think you’re faster than my finger is on the trigger. Drop whatever’s in your hand.”
The candle hit the floor with a thud. Jeremy saw that the two other men had guns trained on his terrified children.
“What do you want?” Jeremy asked.
“Just your food. Now give me your flashlight.”
He handed it over. Slowly.
“Go stand over there.” The gunman jerked his head toward Jo and the children.
“C’mon. You have to leave something for my kids.” As dangerous as the situation was, Jeremy couldn’t just let them walk out of the house with the last of the food. Crossing the room, he put himself between the shooters and his family. The kids huddled behind him, whimpering into the back of his jeans, hiding from the violent confrontation taking place in their living room.
“Got kids of my own, mister.”
Outside, past the open door, a hellish snowstorm of biblical strength howled through the night. Bursts of frigid air poured inside, reducing the temperature with startling swiftness.
The two other men retreated and searched the house. Jeremy could hear them going through closets and drawers, looking for a hidden stash. They hit the kitchen last, shoving food into backpacks.
Incensed, Jeremy could only stand there and watch.
“They didn’t have very much,” one of the men complained.
“Better than nothing.” The lead shooter, gun and flashlight trained straight on Jeremy, backed out after his companions. The men covered their heads and faces and disappeared into the monster storm.
The second they were gone, Jeremy rushed over to slam the door shut. Broken, the locks rattled in their fittings. The room was pitch black.
“Oh my God,” Jo said. She sounded panicked. Shocked.
Shaken by the event, Jeremy nevertheless kept his cool in front of the kids. He pulled the second flashlight from his pocket, turned it on, and met Jo’s eyes. “They’re gone. It’s okay. Grab a few towels and a chair from the kitchen?” He offered her the flashlight.
Jo, understanding his intent, took the flashlight. She went into the kitchen, leaving them in the dark, and then came back with a box of matches to light the candle Jeremy had dropped on the floor. That done, she headed upstairs.
“They had g…guns, Daddy,” Lila whispered. She started crying. Little wrenching sobs that tore at Jeremy’s heart.
“Shh. It’ll be okay, baby.” He crouched down and swept her up against his chest. Andrew and Haley latched on, clinging like barnacles to his arms.
“They took all our food.”
“I know. They’re as hungry as we are and they didn’t know I would have shared if they’d just asked me to.” He felt a perverse desire to lessen the threat of the intruders somehow, to make the experience less traumatic. Even if it meant lying about the food.
“I wouldn’t have shared,” Andrew said with shaky defiance. Candlelight reflected in his eyes. Jeremy understood the false bravado and squeezed his son tight.
Lila leaned her head back and fixed him with a round-eyed stare. Pixie-faced, dark hair in a girlish bob, she was the epitome of innocence. She said, “But what are we gonna eat?”
“Don’t you worry about it, pumpkin. Daddy’ll figure it out in the morning.” He kissed her brow.
“I rechecked all the windows and braced the door to the garage,” Jo said when she returned. She had an armful of towels, another flashlight, and a chair dragging behind her.
“Good. Why don’t you take the kids upstairs, get them settled and ready for bed?”
“Aren’t you coming up?” Jo asked, strain evident in her voice.
“In a little while.” After being married for fifteen years, Jo was able to read the glance he sent her over the kids’ heads: I won’t be sleeping tonight.
Understanding, she nodded and herded the kids up the stairs.
When they were out of sight, he pressed his hands against his face and took a deep breath.
Jesus.
He spent the next five minutes stuffing towels into the shredded crevice between the frame and the door. Turning the chair around, he butted the back up under the loose knob and braced it. At least it would give him warning if anyone else tried to break in.
Making a quick trip upstairs, he collected the pistol and extra rounds of ammunition. In the office, he set the weapon on the desk next to the shortwave. Hovering over the radio, he twisted the knob slowly, searching for a clear signal. Praying for news. Waiting to hear that the cavalry had arrived with a shipment of food.
All he got was static.
• • •
In the morning, after an entire night of nervous pacing, Jeremy prepared to leave the house. When the snow first became an obstacle instead of a novelty, he and his neighbor Ed had fashioned makeshift snowshoes out of old tennis rackets. He strapped a pair onto his boots, tucked the gun into the deep pocket of his jacket, and put on the safety glasses he used for woodworking. It might have looked ridiculous, but it kept the stinging sleet out of his eyes. Grabbing a coil of rope, he waited for Jo to come down before he stepped out onto the porch. He wanted to make sure she braced the door after he left.
After tying the rope around a support column, he tied the other end around his wrist and gave it an experimental tug. Satisfied, he grabbed a shovel where it leaned against the wall and started down the walkway.
Like most of his neighbors, he cleared the path daily so they had access in and out of their house. Veering right, he used the shovel to help him climb the six foot drift in his front yard. Even when he crested the top and panned to look across the street, he had trouble seeing the houses. The landscape looked foreign, snow in every direction, the majestic homesteads seeming to sag under the weight of their white burden. It felt like being enclosed in a snow globe, like a bubble of perpetual fog and wind-whipped flurries cut them off from the rest of the world.
It was the most disorienting, freaky thing he’d ever experienced.
As an employee of Anaheim Hills, Jeremy had access to trucks outfitted with plows usually used for mudslides on highways. One sa
t at the curb. He’d used it every day back when the snow was still manageable; now it was a barely discernible lump, as useless as all the other vehicles.
He grunted and trudged on, tugging the rope every few feet to make sure he was still tethered to his house. Arriving at Ed’s porch after what seemed like an hour, he unhooked the rope, set down the shovel and raised a hand to knock.
The ex-marine opened the door with a startling yank and a grim smile. “They get your food, too?”
Jeremy lowered his hand. He noticed a lump on Ed’s forehead. “Yes. All of it.”
“Come on in out of the cold.” Ed, twenty years his senior and in fighting good shape, didn’t appear bothered by his injury.
Jeremy undid the straps on the snowshoes and stepped inside. “Thanks. How do you think they were able to move through the storm like that?”
Ed closed the door. “Well, they knew the neighborhood. Probably used markers to find their way. Louise is sleeping,” he said, explaining her absence. “She didn’t get much after the bastards came in.”
“They didn’t hurt her, did they?”
“No, she’s fine. Everyone all right at your house?”
“Yeah. I came over hoping you and Louise might have something to spare,” Jeremy admitted. He hated the position he was in, but these were desperate times and men did desperate things to feed their hungry children. He paced a circle in Ed’s living room.
“They even found my stash, or I’d split what was left,” Ed said, sitting on the arm of the sofa.
“I know.” Jeremy gave Ed a tight smile. “I couldn’t raise any news reports on the shortwave last night. Not one report of supplies or deliveries. Nothing.”
“Don’t think we’re gonna see any relief, Jer. They can’t fly in with the weather like this and even if the National Guard is deployed, they’re probably overwhelmed. I mean, imagine it. Every city, every state. We need to make a plan.”
“What kind of a plan? We shared all our food with the neighbors back in the first few weeks. They might have a couple things left—if those thugs didn’t get to them—but who’s going to be willing to give up food when the rations are low and they have their own families to feed?” Jeremy experienced a pang of desperation unlike anything he’d felt before.
