Angela helped Bishop into the passenger seat and opened the back door for the pooch.
“Come on, boy,” she said. “Do you want to come with us?”
The funny-looking dog tilted his head, his wary eyes shifting to eagerness, and he leaped into the back of the vehicle.
“Good boy,” Angela said.
“Get us out of here,” Bishop said.
Angela hit the gas and sped back onto Main Street, heading south on Highway 18.
“Where to?” she asked.
“The hell out of this valley,” Bishop said.
The dog spun around in the back seat, sniffing everything.
“I think he’s hungry,” Angela said. She pulled to the side of the road and grabbed a box of crackers, tossing a few at the desperate pooch. The dog gobbled them and licked his chops. Angela poured bottled water into one of the plastic bowls they took from Sue’s. The dog lapped for at least a minute.
“Wow,” Bishop said, starting to feel a tad better. “Poor fella needed nourishment.”
They drove south along the twisting highway, and the southernmost portion of the Apex Valley appeared ahead. Once on the other side of the hill, the highway would take them out of the valley to the windy plains and Great Prairie Air Force Base. Visions of shiny bunkers with men in laboratory coats who had all the answers swirled in Bishop’s mind like candy to a child. They might find their way out of this mess after all. The first thing they would do after making contact would be to return and find Colbrick, that’s for certain. Surely this incident was contained within the Apex Valley? One could hope. The thought of the new arrivals spreading across the U.S. was not something to entertain.
Bishop turned to Angela and took her hand.
“I think we’re on our way out of this,” he said.
The hum of the wheels lulled their exhausted minds into reduced alertness, the ever-present forest blurred and verdant.
Then Bishop bolted upright in his seat and jabbed his finger at the windshield.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Stop now!”
The truck screeched to a halt, and the poor dog slammed into the backseat with a grunt, then recovered as if nothing happened the way dogs do. The pooch maneuvered himself between Angela and Bishop so he too could observe the action in front of them.
“No,” Bishop said. “Please no.”
Angela stared out the windshield, craning her neck.
A hundred yards down the road loomed a wall of haze, with numerous dangling roots and branches emerging from the top.
“Road dam,” Bishop said.
Jammed up in front of the re-arranged landscape was a tangle of vehicles—an ambulance with flashing lights, a police car, several SUV’s. Four officers discharged their firearms at a group of pigras that shambled from the tree line.
Bishop raised the binoculars for a closer look.
Muzzle flash lit the roadway and the officers scrambled.
A breeze shifted a cloud of silt, and the officers tried to find their sight lines in the partial murk. The pigras paid no mind as they crept along on their worn, bloody knuckles. Their matted fur blossomed grotesque red medallions as the pistol rounds found their targets. More pigras lurched out of the woods, replacing the fallen and injured. One of the pigras had a pulsing rectangle on its backside. Bishop counted forty-four beats per minute.
“We need to help them,” Angela said.
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” Bishop said, turning to Angela and putting a hand on her knee. “If we go up there, we’re dead meat.”
*
Angela bit her nails as her mind flashed with choices that made her feel cold and uncomfortable. She wanted to run out there and kill the monkeys—as many as she could. She wanted them all dead. She couldn’t just sit back and let those men die. That wasn’t her. But she couldn’t help but think of Sue, her unseen body rotting on the other side of that wall. And the smell—she didn’t want to be that smell.
The lead pigra succumbed to the bullets, and Bishop pumped his fist.
A dust cloud swirled towards the truck, carrying with it the scent of moist wood and pungent soil.
“We can help them, “Angela said. “We have to.”
A sneaking shadow glided across the road next to them, as if the sun was being eclipsed by the moon. The shadow elongated across the dashboard and then over the hood.
More shadows followed.
Another shadow blocked what was left of the sun and then another. The air filled with whooshing gusts, looped gunfire, and the rhythmic beat of wings.
The day went from milky afternoon translucence to thunderstorm dusk. Glowing eyes dotted the sky, followed by smaller eyes attached to the backs of the giant fliers, like penguins waiting to dive-bomb in formation to targets of their choosing.
The pooch tilted his head and whimpered, for he had seen these things from the apartment window at night.
“Shhh,” Bishop whispered. “Not a sound.”
“Oh my God,” Angela said. “The officers, Bishop.”
There was nothing they could do unless they wanted to experience the wrath of the fliers.
The looping gunfire mimicry spooked the officers, and they turned to fire at the truck. “Idiots!” Bishop said, moving with lightning reflexes and jamming Angela’s head down with his left hand. Bullets peppered the windshield and hood, the safety glass crackling like thin ice. They cowered in the footwells, listening to the looped mimicry of the small fliers and the fading reports.
“Stay down,” Bishop said. “No need to see this.”
Real shots rang out into the sky, mixing with the leathery flapping of a thousand wings and shrieks. Air whistled through the bullet holes in the windshield, propelled by the army of wings. The real gunfire receded into sporadic bursts, and finally into one meek and desperate shot. The officer’s screamed, piercing the frenetic mimicry like a psychedelic trumpet in the center of a wide stereo spectrum.
Bishop didn’t want to look, but they needed information. Maybe he could find a weakness.
He raised his head above the dashboard.
The small fliers buzzed around the gigantic ones, which appeared to be at least thirty feet long with a wingspan of eighty feet. They were not at all dragon-like, as the darkness at Big J suggested, instead leaning more towards a pterodactyl. Their wicked eyes revealed intelligence beyond the average bird. Two of the giant birds had flashing tags on their long necks.
Bishop counted forty-eight beats per minute.
Four huge fliers each gripped an officer in their immense talons, the yellowish hooks dismembering the men where they were held. Gushes of blood and organs slithered out as they tried to remove themselves from their impaler like worms on a hook. It was pointless. The flier’s monolithic, oblong heads and sharp beaks jabbed down to the men, causing mortal injuries with every stab. The faces of the officers contorted in ways Bishop had never seen.
“What do you see?” Angela whispered from the footwell.
“Things you never want to see.”
The screams of the four officers dissipated until they were nothing more than mumbles and air-sucking gasps. Then they were hoisted into the sky amidst the rhythmic thunder of wings. The small fliers maneuvered atop the backs of the large ones, and at once, their looped mimicry ceased. But their eyes still glowed, and the legion glared back down the road at the idling truck. Away they went, beating higher into the sky, the glowing eyes fading, the last scream of a man rendered silent under a beat of wing. Bishop watched as the fliers became shadows, soaring and flapping towards the mangled precipices and ever-present clouds of the southern Apex Mountains.
He waited until the fliers were specs and then sat up all the way. A group of pigras lapped at the pools of blood and innards, two of the foul things even pulling on a section of intestine like a game of tug-o-war. As the pigras huddled in front of the road dam, the tiny primate creatures emerged between cracks in the vegetation, and they too joined in the unsavory feast, paw
ing and shrieking at the other pigras. One of them sat up and used it forelimbs to wipe the blood from its face.
“Can I come up now?” Angela asked.
“Yes. And please drive us the hell out of here.”
Angela sat up, her eyes glistening as she witnessed the scene.
“Don’t look,” Bishop said.
The movement of Angela’s head caught the attention of a pigra, and the gathering shambled towards the truck on crooked limbs. The tiny primate creatures—which Bishop thought must be baby pigras—followed their parents, their crimson eyes shining, their fur stained with blood and other slop, which the adults licked off. The young emitted harsh, chirping vocalizations. The older pigras remained silent.
“Great,” Bishop said. “So those things are pigra babies.”
“They’re all having babies,” Angela said. “Not a surprise.”
“Unbelievable,” Bishop said, pointing to the eastern side of the road about fifty yards from their truck.
A dozen small, chubby creatures appeared from a patch of ferns. They had six limbs, four of which grasped sticks and branches. Five of the creatures worked in unison to carry a rather hefty branch towards the road dam. Two pigras appeared behind the seals, also holding sticks.
“Baby frequency seals,” Bishop said. “Get us out of here.”
Angela turned the truck around and headed back to Elmore, leaving the new arrivals in a state of disappointment, if they could even feel such a thing. Bishop doubted it.
“Where to?” she asked.
“We take a left on Trout Road and head away from the mountains, that’s where fucking to.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s not where the fliers went.”
“So now we know,” Angela said. “The paper was right.”
The dog whimpered behind them, and Bishop tossed the pooch a few crackers.
*
The burning hardware store appeared through the battered windshield, although the intensity of the flames had diminished. The apartment building across the street where they rescued the dog produced billowing, dense smoke. Flames rippled out of the windows and blackened the bricks.
Angela turned left onto Trout Road and followed the winding asphalt past mossy cedars and tamarack. After climbing a steep hill, they swooshed down towards Trout Creek and its famous, picturesque bridge.
What they saw churned their stomachs.
The affable dog looked on with brown, curious eyes.
Trucks and cars crowded the narrow bridge, and it seemed disjointed from the weight. The truck rolled to a quiet stop before the pileup, and the cause of the jumble became clear. A fuel tanker had jack-knifed on the eastern side of the bridge, blocking passage in both directions. Vehicles that fled the chaos of Elmore piled up on the western side, but there were no vehicles on the eastern half. An abject unease washed over Bishop as he pondered the absence of eastbound vehicles.
Fifty feet below them, Trout Creek tumbled down slick boulder falls. Moist canyon walls rose on both sides of the clear stream. Patches of moss and abandoned, twiggy nests adorned the nooks where uneven rocks formed ledges.
“I’d say this is a dead end,” Bishop said. He got out of the vehicle, and Angela followed. The dog stayed in the truck and watched them through the glass. They approached a red Subaru Outback that had smashed into a king-size pickup, which in turn buckled under the tanker.
“Hear that?” Bishop asked.
“All I hear is the creek,” Angela said.
“Yes, there’s that. But there’s something else. I think it’s the tanker.”
“I can smell fuel,” Angela said. “But I can’t tell if it’s from the tanker or one of the smaller trucks.”
“Oh shit,” Bishop said, staring at several haphazard streaks of blood that trailed from the jumble to the grassy embankment. “Bodies were dragged from here into the woods. Stay on your toes, sweetheart.”
The pooch watched them from the truck, head tilting, mouth agape, tongue lolling.
Bishop studied a blood trail that lead up the grassy slope into the cedars and bracken ferns. He aimed his gun at the forest shadows, daring one of them to come out. None did.
Angela backed away from the bridge, her eyes scanning the tree line and her arms shaking.
“Uh… I don’t like this place,” she said.
“Neither do I. But we might be able to get gas.”
The dog put his paws on the driver’s window and stared, trying to understand what the humans were doing the ways dogs sometimes do.
“Whatever fed on these people is gone,” he said. “I think this was a day or two ago.”
“Can we drive the tanker out of the way?”
Bishop went back to the bridge. Both ends of the tanker were smashed in place against the north and south rails.
“It’s not going anywhere,” he said. “We’re not getting across unless we want to walk.”
Angela crossed her feet. “Bishop?”
“Yeah?”
“Why aren’t there any cars on the other side of the tanker?”
“Good question,” he said, staring down into Trout Creek. A chilly breeze rose up to him.
Angela started snuffling behind him. He turned and embraced her.
“Is the whole world like this? Did they get it all?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. All I know is that you and I are alive, and we’re going to stay alive. And so is that nutty dog in the truck.”
“I don’t think Nutty Dog is a very good name,” she said, snuffling.
“What’s wrong with Nutty?”
“OK, maybe he’s a little nuts. But let’s think of something better.” Angela used her sleeve to wipe tears from her cheeks. “He’s a survivor. He’s tough. And he’s quite handsome.” She looked back at the truck and saw the goofy dog gazing at her with his floppy ears and protruding tongue.
“How about…how about Yutu?” Angela asked.
“What’s Yutu?”
“It’s Miwok Indian for coyote on the hunt.”
“I like it,” he said.
They hugged once more, high above the tumbling, cool river that Bishop had fished with his father as a child.
*
They opened the truck doors quietly and reached in to pet the dog.
“Hey Yutu,” Angela said, her eyes sparkling.
Bishop pet Yutu on the scruff. “I don’t know what your name was before, buddy, or if you even had one, but you have one now. I hope you like it.”
The dog looked up with appreciative eyes, then licked his chops. Angela got the hint and tossed him a few more crackers.
“We need to get Yutu some real food,” Bishop said. “But first, we need to see if there are any goodies in those vehicles. You got my back?”
“Always. How about it, Yutu? Do you want to come out and get my back?”
The scrappy dog reluctantly climbed out of the vehicle and pattered along the pavement.
Bishop searched the bloodstained interior of the Subaru, finding loose change and fishing gear that was piled in the back. He took the fishing gear and stashed it in the truck. His spirits grew dim when he realized he had no idea what sort of thing a fishermen might pull out of these waters. He had to assume everything was tainted, for their safety.
The Cadillac Escalade with the smashed front-end contained a switchblade in the glove box. He winced when he found two bloody teeth on the driver’s seat along with chunks of scalp and hair. He pictured one of the pigras reaching in to grab the driver by the hair and knocking the unfortunate soul into unconsciousness with those disjointed arms.
The Escalade also contained a designer purse, a small baggie of cocaine, and a newfangled sugar-free sports drink. Bishop tossed the cocaine into the street.
“Doesn’t that have some sort of use?” Angela asked from behind.
“No.”
Bishop checked the other cars and noticed deep scratches and dents on the roofs, without question the work of fliers.
Then Bishop crawled under the tanker to the eastern side of the bridge. “Be right back,” he said. “Just going to look around the bend.”
There has to be a car or two on the other side, he thought. Why would there be no traffic this way? He knew the answer, but was too stubborn and afraid to accept it. Bishop jogged along the roadside, trying to get a better eastbound view. Ahead was nothing but empty roadway framed by the dominant cedar, maidenhair ferns, and roadside grasses. But far ahead, he glimpsed a cloud of haze topped by a dark, jagged line.
Road dam.
Bishop sighed. He returned to the tanker and climbed into the cab. There was no blood and no signs of struggle inside the cab at least. Bishop figured the driver fled into the woods, and as they had all figured out, the woods are not where you want to be in the Apex Valley, oh not at all. He pictured the lost and confused driver stumbling in the brush, and all the scenarios ended with a battered and half-eaten body covered by wet leaves in some musty glade.
Angela screamed.
Bishop leaped out of the cab, the shotgun stock slamming into the ground and ripping from his hand. He recovered the gun and sprinted towards Angela who was tending to a yelping Yutu.
“What’s going on?”
Angela pointed a shaking finger at Yutu. A rotten leaf clung to the right side of Yutu’s face, and the poor dog shook his head in an effort to detach the creature.
“We saw one of these back at the cabin,” Bishop said, stepping towards Yutu. “Come on boy, be still, OK?”
Yutu inched backward, still jerking his head about.
“I’m trying to help you. Stay still, boy, you hear? Stay still.”
They heard a crunch, and Yutu whimpered.
“Jesus, it’s biting him,” Angela said.
The leaf squealed, and Bishop noticed a faint whistling as the squeal subsided.
Yutu yelped. Angela leaped at Yutu and pried the rotten leaf off the dog’s face. Yutu yipped again, paws clacking on the asphalt. He tucked behind Angela and peered around her legs as the leaf flopped on the ground.
“Holy hell, I hate these fucking things,” Bishop said. “I swear they’re calling out to their buddies.” He wanted to blow it to pieces, but firing the shotgun onto the asphalt wouldn’t be the brightest move—especially with the nagging odor of gasoline that permeated the area.
The Invasive Page 14
