Hissers

by Ryan C. Thomas

  But worse than this, worse than the sight of the giant mangled and burning plane sitting in the middle of a residential street in Castor, worse than the dead bodies with broken bones splayed at unnatural angles, were the people on fire, running around in the street. Even from the top of the hill Connor could hear their wails of agony and wanted to cry; they were burning alive.

  Firemen and police officers emerged with fire blankets and portable extinguishers and tried to spray down the victims, but there were too many to attend to at once. The lucky ones were hosed down, their skin blackened beyond recognition, the unlucky ones writhed on the hot street while their flesh melted off.

  None of the four friends made an attempt to move any closer. This was disaster on a scale they had never seen. This was more than the town of Castor was ever meant to handle. Seth finally stepped forward and said what they were all just realizing. “The plane hit Jason Drake’s house. It’s completely gone. I mean, look, it’s just gone.”

  Nicole turned to Connor but was unable to speak. There was something she needed to say, something profound, but the realization that they could have been at the party was too fresh for her. Tears welled up in her eyes and fell down her cheeks.

  Connor wanted to say something to let her know everything would be alright, but he stopped short, because as he turned back to the scene, the final puzzle piece fell in place. The people rolling on the ground on fire were their schoolmates. The plane had barreled right into them, a massive bullet burning at a thousand degrees. The flaming bodies on the street would turn out to be people he knew. The motionless ones had been lucky. What was it they always said in the movies about disasters? The lucky ones die quick.

  Amanita bent over and threw up on the street, almost falling to her knees in the process. She was crying, and somewhere in the back of Connor’s mind he realized it was the only time he’d ever seen her cry. Next to him Nicole started to shake and began tugging on his sleeve. “We have to help! We have to do something!”

  At the crash site, firemen were doing their best to shoot suppression foam on anything with flames, including the burning people. It wasn’t doing much good. The fire was so intense and so hot that it incinerated anything that got close to it. The terrified screams of pain grew louder.

  Connor felt his knees go weak but knew Nicole was right; they had to help their fellow students. “Okay, follow me.”

  He led the way down, eyeing a teenage girl rolling on the grass of a well-manicured lawn, her hair burned off, her legs still on fire. Connor broke into a run, desperately trying to ignore the blinding pain in his shin, and tore his shirt off. He slid on the grass beside her and beat the flames with his shirt. His back began to burn from the hot air surrounding the nearby burning fuselage, like standing too close to a bonfire. It was all he could do to ignore the heat and focus on the girl. As he whipped at the flames on her legs she howled in pain and flailed like a wild animal. “Stay still! I’m trying to—”

  “Get off her!” Two large arms reached around him and threw him several feet to the side. He rolled over and saw two firemen spraying the girl’s legs with foam. Their faces were streaked with soot, their eyes beet red. Even working together the two large firefighters could not control the poor girl’s kicking. He realized then it was Danny Williams’ older sister Carrie.

  He could tell from her necklace, a Sailor Jerry Sparrow tattoo. Never took it off. She worked at the pretzel stand in the mall and would be a junior this year. Boys found her attractive and stood around ordering pretzels all day just to sneak a peek at her. Right now, her lips were dangling down beneath her chin, her bald head was slick with bubbling hot blood, her cheeks were singed into strips of meat, and her left eye was nothing but a black olive. Half of her head was burned beyond repair.

  Nicole, Amanita and Seth reached down and helped Connor up.

  A police officer ran over and began shoving them off the lawn. “Get the fuck out of here now! I mean it!”

  So much for helping, thought Connor.

  “They’re still burning,” Nicole said. “Somebody needs to put them out. They’re going to die!”

  The cop started to yell at her but stopped when another burning teenager came running past them and fell, rolling to the ground.

  For a fleeting second Connor considered chasing after the cop, lending his help whether the bastard liked it or not. But something stopped him cold. It wasn’t fear of pissing off the authorities or the possibility of causing more harm than good to the victims, but rather the sight of a large man with the bloody face running full tilt at them, running so fast he looked like a blur. The slap slap slap of the man’s shoes on the pavement rattled like gunfire.

  Something about the way he ran, hunched forward like a baseball player about to slide into base—arms thrust out, fingers splayed, his mouth opened as wide as it would go—it didn’t feel right.

  He’s not screaming, Connor noted. He’s not even flailing. He’s just running at full speed, straight for us, reaching for us. He glanced quickly at Seth and saw the same kind of confusion in his friend’s eyes. Amanita and Nicole saw it, too. Everyone watched, wondering what the hell was happening, nobody could put their finger on why it was strange.

  Then it hit Connor. The man was one of the flight attendants, the dark blue dress uniform melted into his skin, and he was hissing.

  Hissing.

  “Everybody run!” He grabbed Nicole and yanked her up the lawn to the burning pile of rubble that was once a house and ducked down behind a car that was now crushed and covered with broken two-by-fours. Seth and Amanita didn’t need a second warning and hauled ass to hide beside them. They peeked out to watch.

  When the flight attendant hit the edge of the lawn he changed course, veering toward the cop and plowed into him with everything he had. The cop flew over the teenager he’d been trying to put out, rolled into a ball and came up dazed. The flight attendant, still hissing and never losing his momentum, hit the cop again and took him down like a sack of laundry.

  As they hit the ground the flight attendant tore at the cop’s eyes, sending gouts of blood into the air, and bit down on the cop’s face, frantically shaking back and forth like a shark. The blood-curdling scream that let loose from the officer as the mangled flight attendant yanked his nose off and went for his throat was all but lost in the din of the surrounding scene.

  But Connor and his friends heard it. They heard it loud and clear, they just couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  The flight attendant leapt off the cop and sat on his haunches, quickly scanned his surroundings, caught site of the firemen working on Carrie Williams, and bolted after them, now on all fours like a rabid dog.

  “Look out!” Connor yelled. But it was too late; the flight attendant tackled the two firemen and went for their faces with his teeth. All Connor and his friends saw were bursts of blood and pieces of flesh spitting into the air. It was over in seconds, both firemen lying still, and the flight attendant was off chasing another police officer.

  Amanita spoke through chattering teeth. “What the flying fuck was that shit! He ate that guy’s face! Did you see it? What the fucking hell was that! I wanna go I wanna fucking go I wanna-”

  Nicole grabbed Amanita and hugged her, the curse words still spewing into her shoulder. Seth and Connor exchanged worried glances. This was not right, not right at all.

  “Okay,” Connor said, huddling them together, “I don’t know what that was. I don’t even care right now. None of this is good to be around and I’m thinking everyone has their hands full so let’s leave this whole thing—” he pointed toward the burning plane “—to the cops and stuff. We need to get home to our parents. Then we can deal with what that crap we just saw was all about.”

  “You need to fix your leg.” Nicole put in. “We should run through the…” she stammered for a second but found her resolve. “Run through the back of the Drake’s house and get on the next street.”

  “Can’t.”

&nbs
p; “Why?”

  “Because if the plane slid into the Drake’s house that means the cockpit probably broke off and went further. The houses on the next street will be burning too. Maybe even the houses on the street after that. And we can’t get down the road here, which would be easiest, but we can head back up Union and go around the gas station—”

  “It’s gone,” Seth said. “Look.”

  “Right. I forgot. But we’ll just go that way anyway and stick together and—”

  He never finished his sentence. Over the shoulders of his friends he could see the street, the plane, distraught and curious people from the neighborhood being ushered away by angry and confused policemen, firemen maneuvering their fire hoses, and the cop who’d just been attacked at the edge of the neighboring lawn.

  The cop was standing. Just a few feet beyond the car they were hiding behind.

  Not just standing, but swiveling his head back and forth so fast it looked like he might snap his own neck, arms flexing like a television wrestler acting tough. His face had a gaping hole in the middle of it where his nose and lips had once been. His cheeks and forehead were split wide with deep gouges. What really concerned Connor was the way the cop was hissing.

  Just like the flight attendant.

  Before Connor could mention what he was seeing, the cop looked right at him, locked his bile-colored eyes with him, and burst into a sprint.

  Connor felt ice shoot through his chest. “Run run run!”

  Everybody’s eyes went wide and Seth screamed but they were all up and running in a flash, nobody looking back. Connor knocked one of the two-by-fours off the top of the car and it hit the faceless cop in the knees, taking him down.

  “This way,” Connor yelled, aiming for Union Avenue. The other three ran toward him but suddenly jumped apart as the cop tore into the middle of the group. Seth and Amanita ran back to the car, got it between them and the frenzied cop. Nicole reached Connor and yelled, “He’s gonna kill them!”

  If the cop doesn’t get them, Connor thought, those two firemen certainly will. They were standing now as well, and even at this distance he could see the way their heads swiveled and their chewed-up lips snarled in a hiss.

  What the hell is going on?

  “Seth, behind you!”

  Seth and Amanita turned, saw the two firemen running at them, screamed, and broke out toward the burning plane and firetrucks. The cop went around the back of the car and joined in the chase as well.

  Connor’s stomach lurched, knowing his friends were done for, knowing Seth was not fast enough and Amanita was handicapped by bare feet, knowing there was nothing he could do to save them, hating himself for being so worthless. Oh dear God he was about to watch them die in the most heinous way he could have ever imagined. One human being biting the flesh off of another until death.

  Seth and Amanita reached the nearest fire truck, gunning for the handful of firemen working the hose on its back, just as two more yellow-eyed, animalistic cops came out of the black smoke and swarmed the unsuspecting men.

  The pursuers—the faceless cop and two mangled firemen—saw the new attack and decided on the easier prey. Seth and Amanita leapt behind the truck as the entire pack of ravenous hissing authorities fought the firemen to the ground and bit off their faces. An eyeball flitted through the air and was quickly scrounged up and eaten. Other bits, noses and lips and chunks of gooey flesh, met the same end.

  “C’mon!” Connor shouted, waving them back over.

  Seth saw him, started to run, but stopped. He pointed at Connor. “Get out!”

  Connor turned, saw a neighborhood resident, a woman in a Disney Land sweatshirt, her neck ripped to shreds, running at them in the now familiar FUBAR sprint of the insane. She was a substitute teacher around the schools; he’d had her a few times. Running almost hand over foot next to her was Melissa Hodges, a quiet girl a grade ahead of him, her mouth agape and coated in crimson blood, face burned to a waxy slick. She must have been at the Drake’s party too. Something was spreading and it was happening damn fast.

  He grabbed Nicole and ran toward the demolished gas station, praying she could keep up. Luckily she’d worn sneakers, unlike her friend, and was lithe enough to move almost as fast as he. Were it not for her purse she might even be faster, but he didn’t think to tell her to leave it. Besides, it had a phone in it, and even though it wasn’t getting service, it was a link to reality.

  They hit the street beside the station and he glanced back, saw Melissa Hodges and the substitute teacher being halted by an EMT. The freakish teacher jumped on him, Melissa wrapping her legs and arms around him like they were lovers reuniting after years apart. They all went down to the ground and the bloodshed began.

  “Where’s Am?”

  Connor took a second to scan the insanity. “There. With Seth. Running to the backyard of that house. See them?”

  “We have to go get them.”

  The scene spread out before them and Connor finally saw the new element that had been thrust into the night’s events. Everywhere around the plane people were savagely attacking one another. Someone would bite a chunk out of someone else’s face or neck or chest or arm, and within seconds that victim would be running around hissing as well, their eyes now glassy yolks. As he stood and watched, he estimated about twenty trauma victims tearing through the streets, hissing and sinking teeth into anyone they saw.

  Residents who’d rushed out of nearby homes to gape at the crashed plane were now screaming in terror and running away from bloodthirsty police officers and firemen and even their own friends. They took off down side streets, into homes, through yards, all of them hunted and chased. It was pandemonium. Homicidal pandemonium.

  “No,” Connor said, finally answering her question. “Seth knows the neighborhood as well as anyone. He’ll get them to another street. He’ll get them home.”

  “Are you sure? This is madness!”

  Hell no, he wasn’t sure. If this were all a video game then yes, Seth would get home safely no problem, but this was something else. He had no idea if he’d ever see his best friend again. The only thing he did know was that they couldn’t go back. People were turning into these lunatic monsters so exponentially fast it would only be hours before the whole town was seized.

  He spotted the flight attendant scrabbling over a police car, completely covered in blood, his clothes torn like a caveman, jumping off the hood and sprinting down the street into the heart of the surrounding neighborhood.

  The edge of the same neighborhood where he and Nicole lived.

  “Shit. We need to go. Now.” He looked back once and prayed for his friends’ safety, then turned and ran back up the hill toward the supermarket, Nicole by his side.

  Saturday, 8:58pm

  The streetlights were off and the power was out in every house along the street. Inside some windows people could be seen lighting candles and checking flashlight batteries but they were few and far between; everyone had rushed down to the crash. Only two cars passed as Amanita and Seth emerged from the backyard of an unknown house. They had pushed through tall hedges, scrambled over one four-foot fence and were now three streets beyond the crash. The clouds overhead were still orange with the reflection of the fire, the towering flames still bright. The chorus of screams from the crash site continued to ride the night air.

  Amanita pressed herself against the side of the house’s garage, looking out at the dark, lifeless road running perpendicular before them. “What street is this?”

  “No idea. Maybe Madison? Recognize any of the houses?”

  “No. But it’s either Madison or Monroe. My house isn’t far away, maybe six more blocks. We can go left two blocks and catch Maple. That runs all the way down to my street.” Another scream echoed from behind them, on the street they’d just crossed. She turned and looked at him, her unspoken request plain as day on her face.

  “What, you want me to go with you?”

  “It’s called chivalry.”

&n
bsp; “It’s called I-don’t-care. I live that way.” He pointed to the right.

  “So you’re gonna let me run home alone in bare feet while everyone is eating each other?”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much the plan.”

  “You know, you’re not just a geek, you’re a dick.”

  “Oh, as if you’ve ever been nice to me. Like I owe you anything.”

  “Nice to you? I don’t even talk to you! How can I be mean when I don’t talk to you?”

  “You don’t talk to me because you think I’m a geek.”

  “Well, you are a geek. And a jerky one at that. Try putting down your stupid video games for a minute and joining the rest of us who have social lives. You’re really not gonna come with me?”

  Seth patted his cargo jean pockets, fished his hands around in each one and then swore. “My PSP is gone.”

  Amanita threw her hands in the air. “Oh my God, are you serious? What the hell are we gonna do now? We have no PSP. We’re totally fucked.” She paused. “What the hell is a PSP?”

  “My video game console.”

  “Seth, forget the fucking video games. I’m running down to Maple in two seconds. If you’re not with me then I hope you die.”

  Tentatively, Amanita stuck her head out and scanned the street, saw it was still empty and eased down the driveway, past the car, and began to jog into the adjacent house’s lawn. Seth banged his head lightly against the side of the garage, listening to the incessant screams coming from everywhere, whispered, “Screw it,” and followed her.

  He caught up with her and ignored her middle-finger welcome. “Whatever, I’m a jerk. I’m here aren’t I? Stick to the fronts of the houses. If we have to, we can duck in bushes.”

  Her slight nod was the only confirmation she wasn’t going to slug him.

  They moved quietly across the lawn and onto the lawn of the next house, and then the next one after that. They made it all the way to the house at the intersection of Maple without incident, stopped behind a weeping willow tree on the property. Sirens and screams were still audible here. “Okay,” Seth said, “we jet across the street to that parked car, then up the lawn and stay close to these houses until we get to yours.”