by Eddie Patin
Just as quickly as she lunged in for another hug, Mrs. Jackson pushed the two children out again to conversation range, keeping her hands on their shoulders. She sniffed and seemed to shake the emotion off of her, trying to contain herself. When she looked Tommy in the eyes again, the boy knew that something was wrong. There was a wildness in her eyes that made Tommy very uncomfortable, and the awkward vibes he felt coming off of his sister told him that Jody was on edge, too...
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jackson,” Tommy said. “We lost our mom and dad, too...”
“I know, babies,” she replied, pulling them in for a hug again. “I know...”
Mrs. Jackson cried and snuffled into Tommy’s shoulder, into Jody’s hair, then pulled herself away again, donning a more serious look with a friendly—but fragile—smile.
“We’re looking for—” Tommy started, not quite knowing what to say. He was going to tell her about why they were walking around...
“Well I’ll help you, babies,” she said. “I’ll take care of you kids. Stick with me. What have you got in your bags? Let me make sure you’ve got enough clothes and stuff you need...”
As the boy opened his mouth to protest, Mrs. Jackson immediately shucked his backpack straps from his shoulders, then, she did the same to Jody. In a moment, she was holding both of their bags. Jody darted in to be closer to her brother as the woman pulled open Tommy’s bag with a loud zip.
“It’s okay,” he stammered, trying to speak up. “We don’t need—”
She started pulling out his clothes and stacking it roughly onto the gym floor. There went his extra pants, shirts; Tommy felt a flush of embarrassment when she pulled out and unfurled a piece of underwear...
Then she pulled out his robot shirt. The pistol that was wrapped up in it unfurled under its own weight and fell to the floor with a clatter.
Tommy gasped.
Mrs. Jackson paused, her eyes darted up to the boy, then back down to his six-shooter, then, she swept up the pistol with one hand. While she was stunned, looking at the weapon his dad gave him, Tommy reached out and snatched his backpack out of her other hand.
“We don’t need you to look through our stuff,” he said quietly. “Can I have that back, please?”
Mrs. Jackson furrowed her brow and glared at him. “What are you doing with a gun? Guns are dangerous!”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Jackson!” Tommy replied, tripping over his words. “I know how to ... my dad—”
The woman stood, dropping Jody’s backpack. “I’m going to give this to the police for safe-keeping. You shouldn’t be running around with a gun! Not in times like this.”
Tommy felt his face turn hot. His chest was choked with fear. He couldn’t lose his pistol—it was a gift from Dad!
“No!” he stammered. “Please, give it back! My dad gave it to me, and told me to—”
Mrs. Jackson turned and started walking away, scanning around the edges of the gym, presumably for the nearest officer.
Tommy stood in shock. He looked down at Jody, who was staring back at him with wide eyes and an open mouth.
“Come on!” he said to his sister. The boy snatched up the clothes Mrs. Jackson put out on the floor, stuffed them back into his pack, zipped it up, and threw the bag back onto his shoulders. Jody put her bag back on as well and followed, as Tommy chased after the woman who took his gun. He grasped Jody’s little hand and led her through the chaotic throngs of refugees and their makeshift camps, scanning...
Up ahead, he saw Mrs. Jackson’s back, stalking briskly ahead. Tommy followed her gaze, and saw that she was making a bee-line for ... Terry the cop?
Officer, Tommy thought.
A glimmer of hope sparked in his heart, and the boy followed, mostly smothered by feelings of fear and violation.
They approached a scene of Mrs. Jackson speaking excitedly at Officer Terry, putting the pistol into the man’s uncertain hand. The woman and the policeman watched the kids approach.
“It’s just not safe!” Mrs. Jackson was saying. “He could hurt himself or his sister or others accidentally!”
“I understand, ma’am,” the policeman replied. “Thank you for your concern. I’ll take it from here...”
Tommy’s heart sank. He gave Jody’s hand a squeeze, as if to make sure she was still with him. She squeezed back.
“Sir,” Tommy said, struggling to make words louder than a murmur. He knew what to say; he just couldn’t seem to articulate his thoughts in front of the grown-ups. “I ... my dad ... that’s my pistol, sir...”
Officer Terry cocked an eyebrow. Tommy noticed how pronounced the man’s wrinkles were—deep like crevices in rocks. His moustache twitched as he smirked, then, the policeman looked down at the boy with a dour expression.
Mrs. Jackson looked down at Tommy as well and spoke up. “Tommy, now there’s just no cause for having a weapon like that in a place like this. It’s just ... reckless! This is for your own good, baby...”
The policeman looked back up at her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, ma’am. These are hard times—I know you’re trying to help. Why don’t you let me have a talk with these kids while you head back to your space, okay? I’ll steer them in the right direction...”
Mrs. Jackson straightened up and smirked.
“Alright,” she said. “Thank you, officer. Tommy, Jody, please come and see me when you’re done, okay?”
Tommy looked up at her sheepishly and gave her a subtle nod. Her eyes were full of a weird energy he didn’t understand...
Mrs. Jackson walked off with a couple of glances back. Tommy and his sister watched her go, then, looked back up at Officer Terry.
The man crouched down.
“Officer,” Tommy said, “that’s my pistol. My dad gave it to—”
“I know, son,” the man replied. “What in the world were you thinking pulling it out in here? I know your dad trained you better than that...”
“I didn’t!” the boy replied. “Mrs. Jackson just took our backpacks and started going through my stuff. She took it out!”
“It’s true!” Jody said, piping in with her little voice. “That lady took my bag, too!”
The officer frowned. His eyes glanced up and away, as if scanning for the woman. Opening the loading gate and pulling the hammer back to half-cock, Officer Terry spun through the cylinder, looking inside. The boy figured that he was checking to see if the gun was loaded or not. Tommy knew that it wasn’t. The big man pressed the pistol back into Tommy’s hands.
“Okay, you two. Tommy, put that away. Realize that you’ve got to be careful, okay? A lot of people here have lost loved ones.” He softened suddenly, and his hard eyes became sad. “I know you did, too. A lot of these folks will be on edge and acting a little off. Mrs. Jackson sure is, right?”
“Thanks,” Tommy said, looking down at the pistol and the man’s large hands.
“You and your sister might want to stay away from her, okay, Tommy?”
Tommy nodded, and Jody sidled up alongside him with a hug.
In the afternoon, Tommy decided to get out of the uncertain and chaotic atmosphere of the gym to get some air.
After saying goodbye to Officer Terry, Tommy had wrapped up his pistol into his robot shirt once again, and set everything in his backpack the way it was before, and the kids managed to avoid Mrs. Jackson for the rest of the day. But the stress of it was getting to him, and too many families around them were reminding the boy that his mom and dad were gone...
The air outside was smoky and very dark to the southeast.
Still, the oppressive scent of burning buildings wasn’t as bad as the thick smells of crowded gym, at least for the moment...
Tommy and Jody sat on the short cobblestone wall a small distance away from the asphalt of the school’s drop-off/pick-up area. Several men were stationed in different areas outside—a couple of them police officers, but most of them were just normal men dressed in hunting and work clothes. The grownups guarding the school watch
ed the fire, mostly, with hunting rifles strapped to their shoulders. Some had binoculars resting on their chests with neck straps.
When the children first went outside, the nearest man to where they were sitting encouraged them to go back in, but he didn’t make them...
As Tommy scanned the hazy horizon, he saw two more plumes of smoke to the east, in the direction of the park and the army place.
“Did you dream anymore about the ... what did you call them?” he asked his sister.
“Call what?”
“The monsters.”
“The Zahnan.”
“Oh,” Tommy replied. “Did you dream any more about the Zahnan? Or Dream Mommy?”
“I don’t remember now, Tommy,” Jody said, looking up at him. She watched the street ahead of them. “I can see our street, Tommy—where we came from. But from here I can’t see dead Mommy and Daddy...”
It felt like a punch in the gut. Tommy gave her a small hug.
“That’s a good thing,” he said. “That we can’t see them.”
“Yeah,” Jody replied, pensive. “I don’t ever want to see them.”
“I know, Jody,” Tommy replied.
They were sitting in front of the school in a place that was just a little offset from Sitgreaves, so from their vantage, they couldn’t see more than half a block down the little neighborhood street that probably still held the bodies of Dad, Mom, and Zack, and Mr. Jackson—assuming that the monsters, the Zahnan, didn’t eat them all up...
As the boy peered through the smoke, contemplating this, a bit of movement caught his eye near the red roof of the building across the street. He focused, and saw the whip of a thin tail lashing back and forth through the air, like a cat’s, but bigger!
The creature moved, and Tommy could see clearly that it was one of the monsters, perched on the ridgeline of the building, looking at who knows what, its grey skin subdued in the smoky air, and its long head swiveling around. The boy could barely make out the black dots of the multiple eyes lining its upper lip.
Shit, he thought.
“What is it, Tommy?” Jody asked, looking up at him.
They were holding hands, and she must have sensed him tightening up.
“Monster...” he whispered, not taking his eyes off of the beast in the distance.
Suddenly, through his butt and legs, resting on the cobblestone, the boy felt a thump through the ground!
Tommy gasped, breaking his focus and looking around.
The men stationed with hunting rifles still watched the fire and talked amongst themselves.
Thump. Tommy felt it again through the cobblestone—he definitely wasn’t imagining it! The boy looked back to the red roof. The single Zahnan there was gone. Tommy scanned all around, and his eyes paused on what he thought at first was a moving tree on Elm Ave, to the east...
But trees don’t move in the middle of the street, he thought, then, he looked harder. What he thought was a big mass of waving leaves became a large, moving form of grey and pale tan, hard to make out in the smoke that was filling the air over there...
Thump. Tommy hopped off of the wall, down to the pavement. He beckoned his sister to join him, and helped her down. Looking to the east again, he strained against the smoke until he could clearly make out a long, thick arm, then a massive leg moving forward!
Thump.
A huge head that moved in the same way as the smaller Zahnans’ pivoted toward the school. It was the size of a small car, with a wide mouth topped with several dark eyes the size of baseballs, rimming its upper lip. Tommy could suddenly make out the full shape of the monster, like the creatures that killed his parents in every way—but bigger!
Much bigger...
It was the giant monster! The one that set the business district on fire...
“Holy shit!” one of the men to Tommy’s left cried suddenly. “It’s the big one!”
“Where the fuck is the guard?!” another man exclaimed. “You—tell Riggs inside that we’re under attack!”
As if noticing the sudden alarm, the massive Zahnan stopped its casual stroll through the street, stared at the high school, and roared!
Its cry was ear-splitting and made the air shake. Tommy immediately clamped his hands over his ears, and looked down to see Jody doing the same. When the heavy, vibrating assault on their eardrums finally stopped, Tommy could hear the long, high-pitched scream of his sister extending a few seconds after...
The beast looked down and picked up a small white car as easily as Tommy picking up his backpack, lifting it over a dozen feet into the air toward its mouth. When the monster opened its maw, Tommy felt like he was looking into hell—even from this far away. Its throat was deep black with a red glow blazing out from somewhere deep inside. And with a metallic shriek that made Tommy gasp and several of the grownups cry out, the massive Zahnan bit the car in half as if it was a giant, metal sandwich! The front half of the little, while vehicle disappeared down its massive gullet...
“Oh my god!” Tommy muttered.
It ate the rest of the car in another bite, then, turned back to the school with slow ease, bearing down, pulling its long, stony arms in until huge gouts of red and yellow flame suddenly burst from its back, shooting off behind it like huge flamethrowers, setting all of the trees and part of the nearest house on fire!
“Shoot it!” a man cried. “Kill it before it sets the school on fire!”
A sudden boom sounded next to the children, making Tommy jump.
“That thing’s like twenty feet tall!” another man exclaimed. “We can’t kill it with rifles!”
Tommy grabbed Jody’s hand in a tight grip.
They would have to run again...
As if on cue, the boy could see the flashing, wiry forms of the smaller Zahnan suddenly appearing from the streets and in between houses all around the giant monster, their long heads tilted down and the tails whipping around—all racing toward the school!
The monstrous Zahnan, less than a block away to the east and wreathed in red flames, stared at the school again with black alien eyes reflecting fiery destruction. The alien beast opened its huge, hellish maw again, and roared...
Tommy cried out and held his ears tightly as the air shook around them...
6 - Kayleen Lugo
Portland, OR
The soldiers were coming...
Kayleen and Hannah ran across the slime-covered pavement, their shoes squelching and squishing on ropy, gelatinous growths that stretched across the ground.
The park’s trees, slithering and alive with translucent alien tumors, writhed and bustled with weird activity over them. Kayleen struggled to avoid slipping on the strange ground as they dashed for the stand-alone bathroom structure sitting in the middle of the walkway.
The girls pressed their bodies up against the metal wall, then recoiled away from the slippery, goo-coated surface.
“Gross!” Hannah exclaimed with a sneer, made more exuberant by her thick, dark lipstick.
“Do you think they saw us??” Kayleen asked.
Hannah slowly stretched out and peered around the side of the cylindrical structure, looking for the alien soldiers to the north. Kayleen noted the ‘trans’ tattoo on her roommate’s pale neck—a circle with a female gender cross on the bottom, a male arrow on the right, and something in between on the left. Hannah looked back.
“Don’t think so,” she said. “Not yet. But they’ll be here any second!”
There was a city poster on the door, protected under Plexiglas, hardly readable because of all of the slime and milky white tentacles spreading across the surface. Kayleen reached down for the door handle, and grimaced in anticipation of touching the nasty stuff...
It was locked.
“Shit,” she said.
Kayleen heard the click of Hannah deploying her switchblade. She looked down, and saw her roommate’s knife gleam in the pale light of the strangely changing world.
“Move,” Hannah said, shoving Kayleen out of t
he way of the door handle.
Kayleen backed away, being careful not to step out into sight of the approaching soldiers, and watched as Hannah dropped down to one knee to fiddle with the door’s latch with the blade of her weapon.
Standing still, Kayleen realized that she was holding her breath, and she could suddenly hear the creatures’ footsteps approaching in their direction on the other side of the bathroom...
“Are you getting it?”
“Shut up!”
Hannah grunted and groaned in frustration before finally jumping to her feet. Kayleen saw the knee of her roommate’s pants pull a string of clear slime away from the ground as she stood.
The two girls stared at each other for a moment, and could now easily hear the aliens approaching.
“Run?” Kayleen asked.
“Run,” Hannah said. “To the store—it’s just over there!” She pointed to the west with her knife, and Kayleen knew that she was right. One more block past the trees, beyond the red brick apartment building and the church, and they’d reach the Safeway!
They’d probably just get shot...
Kayleen leaned out just enough to peek at the approaching soldiers, and gasped when she did! The alien creatures reacted immediately to seeing the top of her head from around the bathroom. They didn’t shout, didn’t make any sound—they only broke into a run, raising their weapons! The creature with the spear lowered the blade to charge, and the other two aliens raised what looked like long guns.
“Shit!!” Kayleen cried. “Go! Go!!”
Hannah broke into a sprint to the west, holding her switchblade open in her right hand. Kayleen followed, tripped, and stumbled over a fat, corrugated rope of milky alien plant-flesh on the ground. She barely managed to recover.
“Come on!” Hannah shouted back at her.
They ran.
When the two of them were back on the normal city block again, out of the trees, Kayleen dashed along the huge, brick church on the wide sidewalk, taking care not to trip on the translucent and slimy alien growths again.
