Sanctuary

by Pauline Creeden

  “No, I’m not. If one of those lions comes back, it could kill him, and right now he’s just injured.”

  “If one of those lions comes back, it could kill me.”

  Even though the guy was right, he didn’t think he could conscience it if the man outside died. The manager, Steve’s cowardice, only solidified Brad’s resolve. “Look. Help is already on the way. He’s only six feet from the door. We have to go get him.”

  “If help is on the way, they can go get him.”

  Anger welled up, and Brad clenched his jaw. He was a full six inches taller than the manager. He stepped closer using his six foot two bulk for intimidation. “I said...we need to get him inside.”

  The manager cowered and rubbed his hands through his greasy black hair, mussing it up. “I can’t go out there, man. I know I’ll piss myself.”

  Shaking his head, exasperated, Brad finally succumbed. “All right. I’ll go get him. You just unlock this door,” he said, as he grabbed the table.

  Steve nodded.

  As a second thought, Brad added, “And if you decide not to let me back in, I promise you that I will throw that metal trashcan out there into the window. I’d like to see you keep the lions out then.”

  Swallowing hard, Steve nodded and grew pale. Brad could tell that locking him out was exactly what Steve considered. The table leg scraped against the tile floor and set his teeth on edge. Brad looked up at Clarissa whose mascara made trails down her face. She’d never looked as unattractive to him as right now.

  The bolt clicked as Steve turned it. Brad took a couple deep breaths and psyched himself. Nothing chases away fear as fast as anger. He tightened his fists until his trimmed fingernails bit into his palms. Whatever those lion things were, they were in his way. His mouth felt dry. When his eyes rested on Steve, he channeled his anger at the manager, too. He felt the urge to punch the mousy manager but nodded his head instead. Steve pulled the door open, and Brad bolted out.

  THE WIND PICKED UP THE moment he stepped outside. The fear caused sweat to trickle between his shoulder blades. His heart raced in his chest, and he measured the distance between the door and the man lying on the ground by the metal trashcan on the sidewalk.

  Papers danced in the wind above the open briefcase. The man’s pale fingers gripped the handle tighter than necessary. The man sobbed and moaned but didn’t move from the awkward position the monster had left him in.

  “Sir?” Brad called out as he approached.

  No answer; the man continued to sob.

  The adrenaline raced through Brad’s bloodstream, making him lightheaded. His ears rang as they strained to hear if the drone of the monsters grew any louder. If they returned, he’d have to barrel back into the Starbucks. Like a coward.

  He felt like he stood at second base and needed to steal third. If he pressed himself out toward the man, he’d lengthen the space between himself and safety. Only he wouldn’t be tagged out; he’d be in the same condition as the man on the ground, bloody and broken.

  Swinging his neck back and forth until he heard a crack, Brad hopped up and down, psyching himself up to make the run. He looked back at Steve and saw the slimy Starbuck’s manager attentive and gripping the glass-door’s handle. He pushed the door open and called out, “Well, are you gonna get him or what?”

  Brad cracked his knuckles and narrowed his eyes at the jerk. “Shut up, or come out and help me.”

  Steve retracted himself into the door and took a step back once it shut.

  With a nod, Brad shook out his hands and darted toward the businessman. The left arm of the man’s brown-striped suit was torn just above the elbow. Blood soaked the area into a darker color. The coppery scent of fresh blood filled his nostrils. It gagged him. He gripped the victim under each armpit and hauled himself in a backward scramble.

  “Open the door!” he yelled without looking back.

  He could hear the rumbling of thunder before the monster rounded the corner. It came from the same direction it had left. Its large eyes swirled between an iridescent green and gold, shining in the half-light of the sun. A long, thin tail swung back and forth behind it like an irritated cat’s.

  Brad froze for a moment, staring into the eyes of the baseman that would call him out. It snarled, revealing a row of jagged, triangle-shaped shark teeth, and crouched.

  “Leave him!” Steve’s voice called from the door. “Save yourself!”

  Shaking his head, Brad inwardly thanked the coward for snapping him out of the hypnotic stare. Instead of dropping the injured businessman on the ground, Brad smiled at the monster and ran backwards, trusting the glass door would be open.

  The alien rushed them.

  Brad’s elbow rammed the threshold, as he made it to the door. He’d hit it so hard, he saw stars and felt pins and needles rushing up and down his forearm. Ignoring the pain and sudden weakness in the limb, he gripped the victim harder and dragged him in the café. The moment the man’s loafers cleared the door, Steve pulled it shut and flicked the lock.

  With a roar, the beast slammed itself against the Plexiglas, shaking the frame and hinges. Both women screamed. Steve ran toward the box on his left and stuck in a key. As he turned it, a metal cage began dropping down from the ceiling just within the glass. After backing itself up a step or two, the monster crashed against the glass again, forcing a two-foot crack where its head had been.

  As the cage finished its descent and locked shut at the bottom, the monster roared in defeat. Through the bars, the brown blur darted to the north and headed back the way it had come. Brad let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. His shoulders relaxed, and he looked around at the now darkened interior.

  Clarissa sobbed and blabbered into the phone at the operator on the other end. The other girl now hid behind the counter, judging by the location of her wails. Sweat beaded on Steve’s forehead, but he smiled victoriously and flicked off the exiting monster. “Yeah! I thought so! Just try to get in my store now!”

  Brad shook his head. He didn’t want to tempt fate by asking for another round. Part of him wanted to slam a fist down Steve’s throat so that the slimy manager wouldn’t tempt fate either. The man on the floor moaned again and pulled himself into a fetal position. His empty briefcase remained clenched in one of his manicured hands.

  IT HAD BEEN A HALF hour since they lost the phone signal. Clarissa rocked herself in the chair, mumbling and staring at her phone. Her thumbs incessantly moved along the mini keys, texting message after message into the ether. She whispered Hugh's name a few times, to Brad's disgust.

  Brad watched the empty street through the bars on the window. He half expected a tumbleweed to hop along the road. The rumbling of the monsters had faded and grown distant over the past hour. He held his smart phone in the air trying to catch any social media update from Facebook or Twitter, but he couldn't connect.

  The girls had finally stopped sobbing, but the man in the brown suit still moaned on occasion. With no knowledge of any kind of first aid, they had left the man on the floor, bleeding, and in pain. What were they supposed to do? The ambulance should have arrived before the phone went out, but the 911 operator told them they were clogged with emergencies and would come as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the man had started to look bloated and swollen, and he’d just begun pulling at his hair.

  The barista rocked herself on the floor, humming and occasionally singing Tomorrow from the musical, Annie.

  "Shut up, Carrie. Just shut up." Slimy Steve pleaded with the girl, but she ignored them. He eventually gave up and paced the floor, mumbling with the occasional obscenity peppered in.

  It was enough to drive a guy crazy.

  “Oh, yeah!” Steve’s face lit up and he smiled, skipping off to the backroom. When he returned, he had a cigarette stuck to his bottom lip and was striking the flint on his lighter, trying to catch a flame.

  "Hey!" Carrie, the barista, pulled herself partway from the floor. "You're not supposed to smoke in here!"
>
  After a long pull on the cigarette, Steve held it in for a full three seconds before blowing two rings of smoke. "Who's gonna stop me? The world is going to hell out there. I doubt this place is going to be open tomorrow."

  Carrie stood, approached Steve, and held out her hand. "Let me have one."

  Steve smiled. "I thought you quit."

  "What’s the point? If one of those monsters doesn't kill me, I'm sure the next alien out of the ship will."

  Steve pulled a pack of Newports from his pocket and shook out an unfiltered cigarette. "Tell you what. You quit that singing, and I'll split the pack with you." He looked over at Brad and said, "Unless you want one?"

  Brad shook his head. Both of his parents smoked until he was thirteen, but he never saw the point in spending so much money on the habit. The two co-workers sat on the floor by the bar while they laughed and shared their smokes. Two lines of black eye-makeup made dried tracks down Clarissa's cheeks. She stared out the window. Brad stepped over and put a hand on her shoulder. She let it stay for a moment then shrugged it off, stood, and walked over to the window on the other side of the cafe. Fresh tears followed the tracks down her face as she folded her arms across her chest.

  He clenched and unclenched his jaw. What was this? The going gets tough and the chick cries out for Hugh? Blood rose up the back of Brad's neck. Hugh had won again.

  His knuckles cracked as he pulled his fingers into a fist. He drew his hand back to his shoulder and slammed it into the table. With a crash, the table tipped and crashed to the floor, skidding a few feet before the legs tangled in the bars over the window. He flared his nostrils as his looked around the room, daring someone to start a fight with him.

  Clarissa flinched but didn't turn in his direction. Her eyes focused on the empty street outside, entranced. The barista stared, open-mouthed and wide-eyed at Brad, her cigarette forgotten between her fingers for the moment. With a huff, Brad looked hopefully at Steve. How he'd love to smash the slime ball's teeth in, but Steve just smiled with the cigarette between his lips and gave Brad a double thumbs up.

  A chuckle burst from him at the sight, and Brad found himself doubled over. He shook out his right hand. His knuckles pulsed in pain, and the temporary numbness of adrenaline passed.

  Steve stood and came over to him, patting his shoulder. "We all deal with our impending doom differently, I suppose. Some people punch things while others sing tunes from Annie." He winked at Carrie, and she flipped him off.

  It all seemed so funny. Brad couldn't stop laughing and had to wipe the tears from his eye before someone got the wrong idea about it.

  On the floor, the brown-suited man's moaning grew in crescendo. It became a wail that put an end to the laughter. Was it a death scream? After about two minutes, Brad wished the man would go ahead and die already.

  Clarissa had turned around and gaped at the man with a gross contortion on her face. What did Brad ever see in the girl? He'd dated prettier and richer.

  Carrie rose from the floor and covered her ears. Steve stepped over and nudged the guy with his white Sketchers and said, "Hey mister, what's wrong with you? Shut up, will ya?" Steve looked up at Brad with a smile, looking for encouragement, but his face turned to a sudden scowl when the man on the floor grabbed Steve's leg and bit down on his calf muscle.

  "What the—" Steve struggled, trying to pull the leg from the injured man's grasp, but the brown-suited businessman clung to his ankle.

  With a kick in the jaw, Steve finally got the guy to let him go. He lifted up his khaki pants leg and pointed at his calf. “Look at this! I’m freakin’ bleeding!” In frustration, he kicked the man again. Grunting in response to the kick, the man clutched at the offending foot, trying to catch the leg in motion.

  Steve went crazy. His repetitive kicks came one after another, and the cigarette fell from his mouth and landed on the brown suit. A sickening crack proceeded from one of the kicks, but the sound of the rib breaking didn’t end Steve’s frenzy. The wailing from the man on the floor continued even after Steve finally began to slow in his assault. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped from his chin.

  The wailing continued from the man on the floor, now pulling out hair by the chunks in bloody, puss-covered patches. Steve spit at the guy and went over behind the bar to wash off his leg. After a moment, the man on the floor turned himself over. He used a nearby chair to help him stand. His eyes were bloodshot in his swollen face, and red foam dribbled from his chin.

  Brad gripped the chair in front of him, preparing to take a swing at the guy if he stepped in his direction. Instead, the man in the brown suit fixed his gaze on Clarissa.

  THE ELEVATOR DOORS PULLED OPEN, and Jennie’s eyes widened as she took in the third floor of the hospital. Screams came from the nurse who had stopped the sick man earlier. Both the injured man and the woman that Jennie had met with on that floor were attacking the large black nurse who attempted to beat them off with her fists. The Snoopy-covered scrubs were red with blood.

  Pastor Billy broke from the elevator and ran to them yelling, “HEY!”

  Jennie stepped forward, and the elevator doors shut immediately behind. She’d never taken Pastor Billy for a violent man, but as he stepped toward the tussle, he punched the woman biting the nurse’s arm in the jaw. A sickening crack rang through the air, proving that Pastor Billy did not pull his punch. The injured woman stumbled away from the nurse, her lips and chin bloody. Her broken jaw drooped in an odd angle.

  Billy ignored her. He grabbed the man by the shoulders and muscled him off the nurse. With the nurse’s right arm free of the woman’s grasp, she punched the sick man in the face and yelled in triumph, “That’s right!”

  The man grew slack in Billy’s arms, so the pastor let him drop to the floor. The nurse stood up and kicked the sick man three times in the stomach. A dark stain blackened the front of Pastor Billy’s baby blue shirt. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. The sick woman came for the nurse again but was answered with a massive shove and a scream of, “Oh, HELL NO!”

  The woman fell to the floor, sprawling down the hallway. Her head struck the tiles with full force and blood splattered against the white drywall. The woman’s yellow flowery dress pulled up mid-thigh, exposing the shark-like bite just above her left knee. Jennie shuddered.

  “Are you all right?” Pastor Billy laid a hand on the nurse’s shoulder.

  The moaning from both bodies continued. Both attackers appeared unconscious but continued to squirm.

  The nurse nodded, her hands on her knees, while she tried to catch her breath. “What on earth is going on? This is the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  Pastor Billy patted her back. “We don’t know, either, but it seems that the alien-attack victims have become violent.”

  “I don’t need this!” The nurse threw up her hands and rushed past Jennie for the elevator and pressed the button. Sweat beaded on the nurse’s face. Her bun had fallen, giving her a disheveled appearance. The elevator doors popped open, and the nurse stepped in, turned, and pressed a button. Her dark eyes brimmed with tears as they met Jennie’s. Without a word, the nurse looked away, and the elevator doors closed.

  Jennie jumped as Pastor Billy rested a hand on her shoulder. “Which room did you say your mother was in?” he asked.

  “I don’t remember.” Tears welled in her eyes, and she shook her head. The doors down the hallway seemed endless in both directions.

  “No clue at all?”

  Jennie closed her eyes and tried to remember. “I think it was 306 or 309? I remember the nurse at the desk saying both those numbers.”

  “At least that narrows it down to two rooms.”

  She felt comforted when Pastor Billy took her hand again and led her in the direction the arrow pointed. All the doors down the hall were shut. Screaming and moaning came from behind each blue door.

  When they reached 306, Pastor Billy released her hand to knock just below the number. He didn’t wait fo
r an answer before pressing the lever to open the door. He began calling in a cheery voice before they entered. “Hello, Mrs. Ransom?”

  A gurgling noise greeted them in response. On the floor of the room, a woman in a mint green hospital gown blew red bubbles from her throat. Her arms and legs hung uselessly at her sides as she attempted to use her head to move her body in their direction. Her cloudy blue eyes fixed on Jennie’s.

  Pastor Billy held out an arm and started backing up, pushing Jennie toward the door. “Well, this room is definitely not the right one. Sorry to bother you, Miss.”

  Jennie nearly tripped over the threshold as she backed from the room. She glanced down the hallway and saw a familiar silhouette heading from the other direction. “DAD!”

  Pastor Billy forgotten, Jennie ran for her father. As she approached, he looked up at her and blinked hard. He started for her in a jog. “Jennie?”

  She felt as though she were five years old again. All she wanted to do was hug her daddy. The tears she’d been holding back broke through her defenses and blurred her vision. She slammed into her father with such force that his breath came out with a swoosh. With her face buried in his chest, she blubbered, “Daddy, I’m so scared. I was so worried that you…and Mom.”

  “Have you seen her? Have you seen your mother?” He grabbed her shoulders and pulled Jennie away from him to look in her face.

  It broke her heart for him to push her away. She blinked through her tears and looked up into his lined face. A look of worry filled his brown eyes. Wrinkles contorted on his forehead like she’d never seen before. She shook her head, suddenly worried. “Weren’t you with her?”

  He peered over her shoulder as if searching the hallway. His eyes passed over Pastor Billy without seeing him. Then, he did a double-take. “Billy?”

  “Hi, Jack.” Pastor Billy reached out his hand, and Jennie’s father took it, the ritual a necessity of habit.