by Dalton Wolf
The petite Asian-blooded girl she danced in circles around sat demurely on a low stone post. She wore a light blue sun dress with a wide, round yellow hat and looked remarkably beautiful without any makeup other than a light dusting of shadow around her angular, almond eyes and soft pink lipstick accenting her perfect, thin lips. Neither girl wore sunglasses as they both felt their eyes were their best features, and both were entirely correct in that belief. Lola flashed her emerald orbs at her friend as she danced. Sometimes she just hated Lucy. Her best friend could roll out of bed and comb her fingers through her straight, jet-black hair and be ready to go, while Lola had to primp her golden curls for an hour to get them to sit in the right place. But today seemed special; for once she felt like the most beautiful girl around, even with Lucy by her side.
“That’s the fourth guy to ask for my number in the last half-hour.”
Lucy rolled her exotic, almond-shaped brown eyes and tilted her head as her friend danced another circle around her.
“You may be getting proposals, but they won’t even come near me. Do I smell or something?” she pouted.
“You smell like the Garden of Eden, Lucy. Any guy would be lucky to sniff your pedals. It’s because you’re too intimidating. You have to smile. Guys love your smile.”
“I can’t smile unless it’s natural.”
“Well, no guy is going to approach you when you’re frowning. You’re too beautiful for them to get the courage when you’ve got the shields up.”
“I try to give them signs that it’s ok.”
“No you don’t. You just stare at them.”
“But I’m trying to stare in a ‘come-hither’ way.”
“It’s not working. Your ‘come-hither’ looks more like ‘I need medication’. We’ll have to work on that again.”
“I guess I’m just not very sociable.”
“It’s because you spent so much time alone in foster homes and stuck in the Juvie system. You never learned how to open up.”
“You open up in the system and people take advantage of you,” Lucy mumbled, turning away.
“Hey,” Lola cooed quietly. “I’m sorry. I know what happened to you and your brother. I’m so sorry. But you’re out now. You made it. You’re safe and you have a bunch of friends who are never going to let anything bad happen to you again.”
But that wasn’t true. No one could guarantee protection for someone against things they hadn’t yet even fathomed could exist.
Lola noticed a man lumbering towards them, a drunken six-footer dressed in light khakis and a Royals jersey, but wrinkled and slovenly. The man had spilled an entire chili dog on his lap and hadn’t cleaned it up. She was all set to shut him down when she saw his face…and let out a startled scream.
Lucy casually glanced up, but could only see the man’s approaching legs from her current seat. Probably another old guy hitting on her, she thought. “Back off, you skeevy stoner,” she bellowed, stepping up to help her friend.
But Lola wasn’t trying to deflect a pass. She was trying to process the reality of what her eyes had seen. Pasty white dry skin, eyes wide and staring, but so cloudy with blindness they surely couldn’t see anything and for a mouth, nothing but bared teeth, gnashing and dripping Bar-B-Q sauce all over his jersey.
Wait…Is that Bar-B-Q sauce?
Part of the chili dog still hung out of his mouth.
Wait, that’s not a chili dog. That’s…that’s a baby’s arm!
Even were she not a stunningly attractive woman, Lola’s blood-curdling scream would have pulled the full attention of several nearby gentlemen. Three men were between her and the approaching creep in an instant. “Back off, pal,” ordered one older man with an old Royals shirt two sizes too small over his pot belly. He held out his arm to stop the stumbling freak.
Lucy leaned around her friend, curiosity demanding she get a better look. The freak no longer seemed interested in Lola and instead grabbed her protector’s arm and bit deeply into it. Two other men started pounding on the lecher, but he ignored them and took another bite out of the first man’s arm, who yelled and tried unsuccessfully to pull away. Soon there were a dozen men gathered around yelling directions to each other and beating on the crazed psycho. The first man finally pulled away and ran screaming into a building to seek medical attention for his arm. But the drunk did not pursue. He simply grabbed another sports-clad man, pulled him close and voraciously bit him in the throat. The bitten man stumbled away, pressing both hands to his neck and failing to stop the spray of blood. He only managed to stumble a few steps before collapsing onto the pavement, a red pool quickly forming around his body and trickling across the sidewalk to flow into the gutter like rain runoff.
Lucy stared, brow furrowed in dazed incomprehension. Is this a joke? It’s not very funny. The feral man turned and twisted, trying to bite anyone who came close while the defenders knocked each other down as they jumped out of his path to avoid the gnashing teeth. One of the young men who had been knocked down jumped up and screamed, “Zombie! Oh my god! It’s here! It’s the apocalypse!” His wild eyes took in the anarchy that had enveloped the streets. With another scream, he bolted into the crowd.
Lucy heard his screams abruptly cut-off a few feet down the road, but couldn’t see through the crowd to the cause of his silence. Her attention was pulled back to the men struggling with Lola’s attacker. The man was clearly on some drug, because he fought everyone off successfully for some time. Then Lucy noticed the man who had been bitten in the throat, who surely must be dead by now, start convulsing, his dark skin turning a pasty grey. Her eyes locked in fascination as he rolled over, face muscles becoming spastic, pulling the skin tighter and tighter until his face was a rigid, maddened snarl. And then the man she’d thought was dead pushed himself from the sidewalk and leaped onto a tiny Latino man who had been standing to the side shielding his children, a boy and girl of roughly five or six. The dead guy repeatedly ripped hunks of flesh from the man with his teeth while digging into his torso with his fingers, using them like talons to rip flesh and pull out innards, shoving intestines into his mouth like he was eating sausage links at a picnic. The Latino man’s children screamed and kicked at the pale attacker, who ignored them until their father fell in a lifeless lump. The attacker then picked up the feisty little boy and bit deeply into his chest until blood sprayed in all directions and he screamed a scream Lucy knew she would never forget if she somehow lived past this day. The little girl ran away screaming.
Lola shrieked. Several parade-goers shouted in outrage and attacked the grey man, driving it away from the dead boy and his father. As Lola continued to scream, Lucy raised her hands to either side of her head, gripping her dark hair as if it were her sanity and all of the forces in the universe were trying to rip it from her grasp, because that was exactly how she felt. She would have screamed, but her brain was not working right. She could not send the proper pulses to the desired receptors. In some small way Lola’s screaming actually helped to calm her, to center her, to distract her horrified mind just enough to allow some instinct to take over.
“C’mon!” she yelled, grabbing Lola’s limp hands and pulling.
“What are you doing?” Lola asked, pulling back.
“We have to hide!”
“We need to help those guys!” Lola shouted, pulling away.
“No. Let the men fight. We need to go.”
“We can help them!” Lola insisted.
“We’re girly-girls, Lola. Let girls like Athena and Sarah help the boys. You and I hide and wait for rescue. It’s what we do.”
Lola let herself be pulled across the street, where they witnessed three little girls beating on a little boy who had the gray-tinged skin and skeleton-face thing going. Their parents were too busy dealing with adult attackers to notice one of their kids ripping flesh from its sister and chewing with relish before taking another chunk, all the while disregarding the blows it received from the other children. Lola and Lucy sobbed and b
oth could feel their sanity slipping away. Angry shouts and horrified screams filled the streets and gunshots rang out from several directions, one ricochet taking out a chunk of brick from the building the girls ran towards.
“In there!” Lucy pointed to the doors of their favorite coffee shop.
“I don’t think coffee is what we need right now.”
“No, we’re going up there,” she pointed to the tower that sat at the east end of the Plaza.
“There are steps up to there through the coffee house.”
They yelped and jumped back as a pair of muscular men dragged one of the ‘changed’ individuals past them and dashed its head against a wall.
“Oh my god!” Lola screamed.
“Let’s go!” Lucy shouted and they laced fingers and ran into the shop.
“Give me the key to the back,” she yelled at her friend Jason.
Jason always gave her free drinks when she wanted to do her homework or just hang out in the shop. He smoothed back his wavy brown hair and shot her a huge white-toothed smile, effortlessly tossing her the key. It was Jason who had shown her the tower and hadn’t even tried to kiss her, even though she’d wanted him to. Instead, they’d just sat talking for hours and now he let her up there whenever she wanted. She liked sitting at a table by the window doing her homework and watching the traffic and tourists pass by below. Jason was always nice to her, even when she looked like absolute hell. Sometimes he’d join her for lunch and they would talk about the future. She liked Jason.
He was still fondly returning her grateful smile when the big black woman in a red and white jersey jumped on him, forced him up against the counter and ripped out his throat with her pearly teeth. Lucy’s dazed mind could clearly see the surprise in his eyes replaced by a desperate fear as the horror of his situation sank in with the next incision of the woman’s teeth. Unable to scream for help, one hand reaching out to her, trying to say so many things he’d clearly wanted to say for so long, feeling his life force draining from his body, by force of will he held her stare until his eyes began to glaze over. And then both orbs rolled back into his skull and his body went limp. Jason was gone.
“Jason!” She screamed. “Oh my God. What’s happening?” she demanded. “Not Jason! Oh God no!” He was gone, but Lucy had a feeling he would be back. Because that’s what was happening around her; people were being killed, and then they were coming back to life. With a sob, she yanked her friend to the door at the back of the shop that was cunningly disguised as a floor to ceiling mirror. Her shaking hands fumbled to get the key in the tiny lock, but finally it clicked.
“C’mon,” she said and pulled her friend inside and shut it again.
The pair of frightened girls dashed down the painted cinder block hallway to a locked gate on a set of caged-in stairs halfway between two doors. This time Lucy deftly worked the lock, knowing every second might matter. She pulled the tall gate firmly closed behind them, because sometimes it would stick and not shut. A dozen steps later and they were in the viewing rooms looking down on the chaos unfolding below.
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my fucking God!” Lucy cried. “What the fuck is going on?”
“What do we do now?” Lola asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on. Oh my God, those guys hit that thing with everything they could pick up and it kept coming.”
“What do we do?” Lola repeated.
“Call Scooter!” Lucy cried. “He’ll know what to do.”
They both hit Scooter’s number, but he didn’t answer, and it didn’t go to voice.
“Try Athena.” Lucy suggested.
Again, both dialed without an answer.
“We are experiencing high cell tower traffic,” Lucy grimaced and cussed. “Damnit!”
“Oh my God. It doesn’t matter anyway.”
“Why not?”
“They’re on their special Valentines date. It’s Valentine’s Day Again, remember? They have the ‘no phones on rule’. Oh my god. How are they going to know to get away if their phones are off?”
“But they’ll check them every once in while, won’t they?”
“Ok, I’ll text Athena while you call Scooter. One of them will eventually answer.”
“What about your dad, Lola?”
“Right, I need to call him.”
Her dad answered right away.
“Hello, honey. What’s up?”
“Daddy?” she started to cry.
“What is it, baby?”
“Is mom there?”
“Sure, but if you wanted to talk to her, she has her own phone, Sweetie.”
“No. I just wanted to make sure she’s there.”
“Ok. What’s wrong?”
“You remember that crazy plan Scooter had for the end of the world?”
“Of course. He gave us a ten page handbook on it and made me memorize it and put it in the safe.”
“Right. That’s it,” she sniffled. “No questions. There’s no time. You need to get that handbook and follow it right now.”
“What?”
“It’s happening. You have to get out of town right now. Grab mom and get all the things he says in the pamphlet to get. But don’t waste time. Just grab anything you can get from the house. Don’t stop anywhere and don’t delay for anything or anyone. Fill up your tank when you get fifty miles away. Just get on the highway and keep going.”
Her dad laughed. “Oh, honey. Is this another of Tripper’s little jokes? You know I don’t like that guy.”
“It’s not a joke, Dad.”
“Look, honey, I can’t just take off, I have work—”
“—you’re a writer. You’re self-employed.”
“True, but I still have to stay on a schedule.”
“You were just saying yesterday that you wanted to take some time off before you edit this last book.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“—go daddy. Get out! Get out! Get out!” she screeched, before Lucy put her hand over her mouth to shush her.
“They might hear you,” she cautioned quietly in her ear.
Lola nodded and returned to the conversation with her dad. “I have to know that you and mom are safe,” she whispered.
“You’re really serious.”
“Yes. If you and mom don’t get out of town now, you’re going to die. Please believe me.”
“Ok. Ok. We can take a few days off to humor you. But what about you? You don’t think I’m going to leave my little girl here while I go hide somewhere, do you?”
“It’s too late for me,” she blubbered. “It’s all around me. I’m already in the middle of it. I wish I wasn’t. Oh God, I wish I was there with you, but I’m not. I’m here, right in the middle of the end of everything.”
“The middle of what, honey?”
“I told you there’s no time, Daddy! You have to go.”
“Tell me where you are and I’ll come pick you up.”
“What part of ‘in the middle of it’ don’t you understand? You can’t come here. You can’t save me this time. It’s happening right here and will be coming your way.”
“Lolita Letitia Jones, you tell me what’s going on right now,” demanded her father forcefully.
“It’s bad, daddy. I can’t. I can’t even explain it. I don’t understand it. But it’s happening.”
“Just tell me.”
“You’d never believe me.”
“I’ll believe you. I promise.”
“Do you love me?”
“Of course I love you, baby, but—”
“—do you trust me?”
“You know your mother and I both trust you.”
“Then go. I’ll be ok. Scooter’s nearby and he’s coming to get me. He’s already in this too. Just get in the car and go!” she screeched. “Promise me you’ll go?” she pleaded, holding back her tears.
“Ok. If Calvin is going to be there, we’ll do as you say. We’ll get in the car and go. I’m sure you
just want to have a party here or something—”
“—you know that’s not it. You’re wasting time, Daddy. Get out. Get as far away as you can as fast as you can. You have to go now, before it’s too late. I love you. And tell mom I love her, too.”
“We love you too, honey.” “I love you, sweetie!” she heard her mom yell. She must have stuck her head up to her father’s ear when she heard the tenseness in his voice.
“I love you, Mom! Make him go! You have to get out of town now. No delays.”
“Fine,” her father said after some whispered discussion between the two of them off the phone. “But when you or Scooter get to a radio, I want you to tell me exactly what’s going on. I’ll send a radio transmission when we get to Calvin’s uncle’s. I forget his name.”
“Thank you, daddy.”
“For what, baby?”
“For believing me,” she whispered.
“Always, honey. Always. Besides. I needed a reason to get out of the house and your mom has had the car packed for a week and we have an open invitation to the castle. I’ve always wanted to check it out.”
She tried to laugh through her tears but only ended up choking. “Bye daddy.”
“Bye honey.”
She clicked the red ‘end’ button and let the tears burst forth.
“What did you do that for?” Lucy demanded in as loud a hissed whisper as she could manage. “Scooter’s not coming. Why didn’t you tell him what’s going on and where we are?”
“Because…he…he would have come…to get us,” Lola cried between sobs.
“I know!” Lucy hissed. “We need someone to come and get us!”
“Not my dad.”
“Why not? You said your dad can get you out of anything.”
“Those guys were big and muscular and every one of them died trying to save us,” Lola whimpered. “I don’t want my daddy trying to come through that. He has to get out. Scooter or Athena will answer eventually, and they’ll come get us.”
“So you want Scooter dead?”
“No. Scooter will find a way to get us out. He’s the best.”
