The Invasive

by Michael Hodges

  Bishop glanced back and noticed the fliers crying and weaving above the nursery crevasse like seabirds to whale guts, their frantic, glowing eyes darting and uncertain.

  The survivors reached the northern mini-saddle and climbed over, assisted by an incline which they ran across like a ramp to safety. They collapsed on the other side of the northern Hoodoo spires, catching their breath and watching with anxious eyes.

  “I can’t move anymore,” Angela said, her chest heaving.

  “No choice,” Bishop said. “Come on!”

  They ran down the lengthy saddle, fearful of glancing back, always expecting the worst. But sometimes curiosity outweighs fear, and another wail was enough to force Bishop to see what the hell was going on behind them. He stopped, and so did the others.

  They watched. They could not help but watch.

  The fliers massed in the uneven light between the deformed Hoodoo spires, their eyes wild and their beaks opening and closing as if automated. Perhaps they realized the nursery was their mother.

  Bishop noticed a sound down in the valley, one he’d become familiar with in Chicago during construction season. It was the sound of helicopters. Goosebumps rose on his limbs.

  “Choppers,” he said to Angela. “From the east!”

  Angela turned as three Apache Gunships roared up the saddle, their 30-millimeter M230 chain guns and Hydra 70 rockets firing away at the fliers. Numerous Hydra 70’s screamed through the night, emitting flames and trails of smoke. The swarm of fliers within the cirque dispersed as the rockets and bullets devastated them. Some of the fliers shrieked and fell to the ground, bullets ripping apart their wings while others imitated the death calls of their peers. Other fliers mimicked the helicopters and bolted towards them at full speed. The Apaches moved closer, and Bishop wondered why the hell they’d initiate such a maneuver. When the helicopters approached to within a quarter mile, they launched a coordinated round of Hydra 70’s that traced across the night sky. Before the rockets could reach their targets, five gigantic fliers shot from the darkness above and attacked all three Apaches, fouling the main rotor blades as they were sliced apart. The Apache helicopters tried to turn away, but it was clear to Bishop they were in trouble. Then the roar of a jet engine pierced the night. An A10 Thunderbolt raced in from the north, firing its heavy-duty GAU-8 Avenger rotary canon. As it cut apart a group of fliers inside the cirque, its rear engine intakes sparked and smoked. Bishop watched in disgust as he realized the small fliers were being sucked into the intakes. The A10 Thunderbolt smashed into one of the Hoodoo Spires and exploded, illuminating the cirque with fire glow. As burning jet fuel dripped down the Hoodoo spire, countless shadows of small fliers ghosted past. Bishop turned to the Apaches and watched as one retreated to the valley. The other two Apaches spun in the sky as the rotors emitted grinding sounds. Flames burst from one Apache as it disappeared to the east. The last visible Apache spun to the alpine rock at speeds Bishop knew no man could recover from. The impact explosion irradiated their faces as they watched helplessly. In the orange glow, injured fliers shrieked and flopped to the rocks, while others swooped down into the valley where the other two choppers had gone.

  Silence filled the Apex Mountains.

  “Unbelievable,” Angela whispered in awe.

  “I have nothing to add,” Bishop said, shaking his head.

  Angela, Bishop, and Colbrick turned to the south, sore and almost broken. Before they could take a step, the sound of a helicopter came from the direction of the Hoodoo’s. They stopped and turned.

  Thwap thwap thwap.

  Angela met Bishop’s eyes. “I think one of the helicopters may have made—”

  “Move!” Bishop shouted as he ushered Angela and Colbrick on.

  The three survivors scrambled across the saddle, trying to outrun the thing behind them in the darkness.

  Thwap thwap thwap.

  Bishop turned and saw the green eyes of a big flier, and its pulsing red tag. The tag beat much slower now, almost as if it was about to stop altogether. The big flier streaked towards them, its long beak opening and closing, its eyes mirrors of rage and hunger.

  Forty yards now.

  “Keep going!” Bishop shouted.

  “Jesus,” Angela said, crying.

  Bishop and Angela heard a thud and watched as Colbrick collapsed to the ground. Angela stopped and reached for him. Bishop stopped and turned. They were in this together. They would not leave their friend to the flier. Never.

  Twenty yards now.

  “I love you, Angela,” he said.

  “I love you too,” she said, sobbing.

  Ten yards.

  Bishop felt the breath of the big flier on his face, the hot stink of it. He looked deep into its triplicate pupil eyes. The giant flier’s body showed the scars and blackened, nonsensical writing of burning branches from the valley below.

  Here lies their end. Colbrick was right. As Bishop prepared to sacrifice himself for Angela and Colbrick, the left side of his body was hit with a gust of wind. Something massive moved through the air to his left—something with wild, violent eyes. The thing in the air came down upon the big flier’s neck, pinning it to the ground as the flier’s enormous wings flapped above it. The four-legged animal flashed its dangerous teeth and bit into the flier’s neck. The flier screamed and ceased its mimicry of the helicopters. It opened its beak and tried to jab at the animal on its neck, but the beast would not relent, and it used its powerful forelegs and sharp claws to keep the flier’s vulnerable neck pinned to the ground. It bit again and again, and the flier’s shrieks grew quiet, and its elephantine lungs relaxed and heaved no more. The gigantic grizzly bear stood on its hind legs, opened its jaws, and released a bone-chilling roar into the mountain night. Saliva dripped down its bloody muzzle. The great bear roared again and slammed its forelegs onto the dead flier. Once more, the bear stood on its hind legs, and Bishop saw only three toes on its right front paw.

  Old Three Toes is a bear you don’t mess with, his father had told him on one of their recent Apex trips. So the legend was true. Here stood mighty Three Toes, the evasive and cantankerous bear that haunted these rugged mountains. This was his home, his land.

  The bear glared at them, huffed, and slammed his paws onto the flier again. They backed away slowly, and when they were seventy yards away, they turned and moved downhill, listening for any movement behind them.

  *

  Colbrick winced. “Let’s go home,” he said.

  “Where’s home?” Angela asked.

  Colbrick stuck out a finger and made the shape of a “J” in the air.

  Angela smiled.

  “Colbrick, where’s your pack? What are you doing in these rugged mountains so poorly equipped?” Angela teased.

  Bishop laughed.

  “Kick a guy when he’s down, eh?” Colbrick asked.

  They limped across the saddle into the glow of raging fires, and from the valley came the screams of dozens of strange creatures who had lost their way, who had lost their mother.

  The survivors headed in the direction of Big J, gearless, but with the confidence of grizzly bears.

  They walked towards home.

  Return of the Sons of Nothing

  Bishop, Colbrick, and Angela gasped and swore over every last step, limping down the trail.

  “Nice shoes,” Colbrick said to Angela, pointing at her silver-studded biker boots.

  “Why thank you,” she said. “I got them for twenty percent off at Talus Hell. Great store. Highly recommended.”

  The fires had spared Big J country, and a hint of dew gleamed about the meadow. Curling tails of smoke weaved in and out of tree line. So did something else.

  “Look,” Bishop said, pointing to the southeast corner of the meadow.

  A white-tailed deer foraged on the lush grass. The deer lifted its head, and a small bird flew near it with a beautiful, orange breast.

  “A robin and a deer,” Angela said, her eyes watering. She hugged Bis
hop.

  They hobbled towards Big J, trying not to swear or moan so as not to frighten the deer. The rare ungulate watched them approach the lodge and resumed feeding.

  “I bet it hasn’t seen humans in quite some time,” Bishop said.

  The battered front door had held its ground while they were gone, and Colbrick opened it with great care, almost caressing it. “It’s good to be home,” he said.

  Angela smiled. Bishop put his arm around her.

  Big J was Big J, and the warmly decorated lodge seemed to welcome them.

  “Still lots of food in the pantry,” Colbrick said.

  Colbrick and Angela shuffled over to devour whatever they could find, but Bishop angled down the narrow hall to the master bedroom. He entered the room and no longer felt any strange sensations. It was now just a room.

  He went to the medicine cabinet, then reached into his pocket and retrieved the bottle of Vicodin. “I don’t need these,” he said, setting the bottle on the shelf.

  Bishop went into the bathroom closet for a towel to wash his face and discovered a framed picture resting upon the towels. The picture was black and white and showed a young ranch crew from who knows how many years ago. On the backside was a list of names written in cursive. Bishop stopped halfway through the list and took a deep breath. In the middle of the names was John T. Gallatin, his father. Bishop flipped the picture over and studied the faces. There in the back row, with the Apex Mountains behind him was his father, no more than eighteen years old.

  “I did it, Dad,” he said.

  *

  They sat at the kitchen table, pride and accomplishment beaming across their faces.

  “So what are you going to do without your sawed-off?” Angela asked. “It’s like you’re naked without it.”

  “I dunno,” Colbrick muttered. “I suppose I’ll just take Bishop’s and cut it down.”

  “I don’t think so, buddy.”

  “Worth a try,” Colbrick said.

  The kitchen filled with the sound of chewing. Bishop took a hunk of stale bread and devoured it.

  “Slick, Angela tells me your old man used to work at Big J?”

  “Yes, he did, although I didn’t know it until recently,” Bishop said. “Funny coincidence, right?”

  “Yeah. Funny how life sometimes throws you a surprise,” Colbrick said. “But to tell you the truth, slick, I’m tired of surprises.”

  Angela laughed.

  Bishop turned to Colbrick, admiring the man who’d saved their lives and risked his own at the Hoodoos. But there was something he wanted to ask.

  “Colbrick…are we…are we really still ‘slicks’? I thought ‘slicks’ meant idiots or fools?”

  “I’m afraid you read me all wrong, partner. My old man called me slick, and me him. And my old man called his old man that, before he died in the first world war.”

  Bishop froze, his eyes watering. Angela grabbed his hand under the table and squeezed.

  “Ah, OK, I didn’t know—”

  “That’s alright,” Colbrick said. “That’s alright.”

  They feasted on the meager pantry items throughout the day and drank from the good Big J water. Outside, the sun streaked across the meadow, filtering through the smoke haze. The deer was joined by another.

  *

  “You coming, Colbrick?” Angela asked as they walked to the maimed truck in the driveway.

  “Nah, you folks go on ahead. I’m wiped. But do please find me a shotgun, and do your best to get some chow.”

  “10-4,” Angela said, saluting Colbrick with bandage-free hands and walking to the truck with verve.

  Bishop emerged from the lodge, tan and fit and hopeful. Yet great sadness ate at the hope like a disease.

  “Let’s roll,” he said, hopping in the driver’s seat.

  “Elmore?” Angela asked.

  “Yes.”

  They reached Highway 18 in good time and parked. Angela glassed to the north. The road damn lay blackened and burned.

  Towering flames and ethereal reds dominated the eastern horizon. Mushroom clouds the size of nuclear detonations filled the sky, casting a pall across the landscape, but also inferring cleansing.

  Each mile towards Elmore brought a deeper sense of blackened sorrow that seized their hearts. I should be happy, Bishop thought. He took Angela’s hand and she squeezed, and both of them held back tears as they remembered the frantic, helpless barks of Yutu coming from the burning apartment building.

  “There’s nothing we could have done,” Angela said.

  “I could’ve shot the fliers is what I could’ve done.”

  “I think you’re suffering from Testosterone Overdose Syndrome. You shoot at that moment, and the seed-mother is still here, and this place is still under siege, and we’re dead.”

  Bishop gripped the wheel. He wanted to punch something, anything.

  “There it is,” Angela said, pointing to Denson’s General Store which preceded downtown Elmore by several miles.

  They parked in the back. Bishop got out of the truck and noticed a bright-red piece of clothing laying twenty yards into the cedar forest. They approached the object, guns out.

  It was a human. A man.

  His right side had been chewed off, but the left portion of his frame was intact. He wore spectacles, a red rain jacket, and an Elmore Grizzlies football t-shirt. There was something about this body that intrigued Bishop, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. He felt compelled to bury the man, exposed as he was, half-eaten. There were atrocious marks and cuts around his neck—likely the work of an eel.

  “Watch my back,” Bishop said. He bent down to search the man, thinking he may have the keys to a gun closet or maybe the General Store. Instead, Bishop’s fingers touched upon a folded piece of paper in the man’s breast jacket pocket. Bishop unfolded it.

  “What does it say?” Angela asked, curious as ever.

  Bishop cleared his throat. “To whom it may concern—if you are reading this, I am likely dead, and my plan did not work. I need to make a food run for both myself and my dog as we’ve been stuck in our apartment—”

  Bishop paused. Angela looked at him, her eyes gushing, pleading.

  “Keep going,” she said, her lips quivering.

  “I need to make a food run for both myself and my dog as we’ve been stuck in our apartment since the attacks began. The few neighbors I had went to their cars when the creatures pounded on the roof and windows. But my dog and I stayed put. I never saw my neighbors again.”

  “Oh no,” Angela cried.

  Bishop paused once more, his eyes dripping, his fingers gripping the note and shaking.

  “My dog—his name is Vermillion—is at Geldon’s apartments on Main Street, building address 2265, room 8. He likes milk bone biscuits, to be pet on his belly, and he loves to play Frisbee. He’s a great dog and very smart. I told him how to do many tricks, and if you point your finger at him in the shape of a gun, he will lay on his side, paw his face and play dead. I think it’s his favorite trick. Also, please do not let him eat lettuce, it upsets his stomach.”

  Bishop stopped reading when his sobs made his speech too erratic.

  “Keep going,” Angela said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Please keep going.”

  Bishop wiped at his eyes and held the paper to his face.

  “Although I have left out numerous bowls of water and some food, please retrieve him immediately from the apartment upon reading this note. I locked the door so those things could not harm him. I don’t know what I would do if I lost him. Please tell Vermillion I love him, and please attach my class ring to his collar so he can still have my scent, which I know he will miss because he has the best nose I’ve ever seen on an animal. Please pat him on the belly for me and tell him I will see him again someday. Thank you for taking care of my beloved Vermillion. Sincerely, Robert Jenkins.”

  Bishop crumpled the paper and tossed it to the ground, then walked towards the store.

  “What are
you doing?” Angela asked, wiping her eyes and cheekbones.

  “I’m going to get some food,” Bishop muttered.

  Angela reached down to the man and took his class ring from his finger, then put it in her pocket.

  They gathered as many groceries as they could, loading the truck with colorful boxes of carbohydrates and silver cans of meaty stew, then started towards Big J. Angela had taken something else from the store, putting it in her pocket with the ring. She watched the countryside with wary eyes and took the ring from her pocket, rubbing a finger on it like it was magic.

  “What if…what if things sort of repeat themselves sometimes?” she asked, turning to him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if Yutu is still alive?”

  “Come on,” Bishop said, punching his fist into the steering wheel, pain shooting up his arm.

  “Jesus,” Angela said, recoiling.

  Stillness grew between them, and Angela snapped it in half.

  “Go back,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Go back to Elmore.”

  “Why?”

  “I could use some clothes,” she said.

  “Yeah, OK, makes sense to get as much as we can in one trip.”

  Bishop turned the truck around.

  Soon, they reached Fulton’s on Main Street. Dense smoke wafted from the alleys.

  “Keep going to the next intersection,” Angela said, pointing with a shaking arm.

  “Any reason why?” Bishop asked, his eyes darting. He did not want to go back there, ever. The scene haunted him, even worse than the creatures. You knew the creatures were evil. They did what they did. But what kind of God or creator allows a lovable dog to possibly burn in an apartment or get chewed apart by monsters?

  “I want to see the building Yutu was in.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes. Please, Bishop?”

  The apartment building was burnt to a crisp on top, but the brick seemed OK save for the black stains and broken windows. They entered through the burnt door frame, and the odor of charred, moldy wood fanned towards them. Waves of panic grasped Bishop, and his vision blurred.