by M. O. McLeod
Kurma turned to leave the room and stopped abruptly when the old man snored loudly, viciously coughed, and repositioned himself in his seat. She had never stood so still trying to blend in with the background. As she waited for him to get settled she noticed a flash of red in the camera. Kurma eyes squinted and she saw Rimselda pass a camera’s line of view. Her friend was walking by herself down a hallway with black and brown carpet. Kurma tried to get a sense of where in the tower Rimselda could be. Kurma let her body thaw out and she neared the door preparing to go. She saw her friend last by the elevators as she turned to leave. Racing out of the control room Kurma headed for the nearest exit out of the basement. The same way the security guard went Kurma went as well. Before Kurma knew it she was in the interior of the tower, but the carpet was beige with a dark orange flower pattern. Kurma hurriedly pressed the button for the elevator, hoping to catch up with Rimselda. To Kurma’s surprise, the lobby level was five floors up. In haste, Kurma walked pass the blonde who had been checking names earlier in the night. There were no guards around the girl so Kurma let herself in, even though she could hear the girl screaming for her to stop.
Back in the party, Kurma squeezed through people and walked over drunken guest until she came upon her friend, Rimselda.
“Everything’s a go,” Rimselda rushed and said.
This took Kurma by surprise. She didn’t doubt Rimselda as much, but she never expected her to rise to the occasion like this. “What do you mean?”
Rimselda pulled Kurma aside and found an empty high table overlooking the balcony doors. She said in a hushed voice, “We have two people who know how to get into the security room, they know how to work the controls, all that.”
This was good news for Kurma, but she had figured all that out on her own. She didn’t feel the need to burst Rimselda’s bubble, at least the girls were trying. “So they’re on our side?”
Rimselda nodded her head. “One of them wants to bring his family to stay though.”
Kurma shook her head at this. Quickly, Rimselda spoke up on his behalf but Kurma stopped her mid-sentence. “Once we get everybody out then there is no coming in and out. If he makes it back in time then the more power to him.”
“But Kurma,” Rimselda interjected.
“I have to get to the greenhouse,” Kurma interrupted the girl. “Where is Jackie and Chelsea?”
“They’re around somewhere,” she said in a sad voice.
“Look Rimselda,” Kurma started, “I want this to be our place–for the Raptors. The more humans stay in here the more there is a chance that something could go wrong. They can become Phantoms, they can turn on us. Who knows? All I know is that I protect my own, and I am a Raptor. And so are you; that is who I want in here and not out there.”
“I know, it’s just that it’s snowing and cold outside, and I know it can be a scary place.”
Rimselda was still her sweet self. But Kurma didn’t have time to wait on someone coming to the tower. Kurma knew what was at stake. “Find the girls and meet me on the top floor in ten minutes.”
“Top floor, copy. Should I find O’bellaDonna?” Rimselda asked.
Kurma nodded. “I’m going to put something in the ventilation system that I don’t think you guys should be breathing in.”
Rimselda eyes grew wide, “You’re going to gas everybody out!”
“I’m damn sure going to try,” Kurma sneered.
“They will open their windows.”
“I know how to regulate the windows, I found the control room.”
“The doors in the lobby are being opened and closed all night.”
“They have to go to sleep sometime, they can’t party forever.”
Rimselda shook her head at Kurma in disbelief.
“Find the girls and meet me in ten minutes.” Kurma walked away in search of the missing link, something toxic. First she would have to wait out the final hour of the party, and then it was lights out for the Olivares Tower.
Chapter 6:
The Plan
Hours after midnight it was snowing heavy outside when the group clustered in a circle around Kurma who was holding two big tanks of propane gas. Rimselda could see the hazardous sign on the front of the silver tanks.
“Where did you get those?” she asked.
Kurma shrugged her shoulders, “The greenhouse up on the twelfth floor. It’s nice inside of there too.”
Rimselda noticed Michale agreeing with the comment and wondered why anybody would want a greenhouse in a building. She turned back to Kurma who was giving out instructions, but her mind was still on Tommy who had not made it back to the tower yet.
“Is it Michael or Michale?” Kurma asked.
“Michale,” corrected Michale.
“Right,” Kurma began. “You go down to the control room and close all the windows and lock all the doors from the inside. I have already opened the vents so this propane should work just fine.”
“No one is going to die from this?” asked Chelsea.
“No, they shouldn’t,” Kurma simply said. “Once the gas gets into the air then everyone should either wake up coughing or find it hard to breathe. This will make them want to open the windows, close the vents…not going to happen.”
Rimselda liked the plan so far. “What about us, where will we be?”
“We will be inside making sure everyone gets up and out.”
“What about Michale and Tommy?” Rimselda asked concerned.
“Michale will go up to the roof and Tommy is still not here.”
The whole room became quiet for a bit. Kurma dropped the heavy tanks and walked to a nearby vent on the wall. She laced her fingers through the holes and pulled the grate away hard, exposing the gut of the building. She opened the propane tanks and placed them both in the vent shaft and then placed the grate back in place.
“I have already done this to a couple of vents in the tower. The middle floors and basement have been taken care of; it’s just the first couple of floors to be finished.”
“But will we be smelling this stuff too?” proclaimed Jackie.
Rimselda could tell Kurma was beginning to become annoyed. She was the one who used to ask all the questions, but she had found that once Kurma put her mind to something then it was as good as hers.
Kurma disappeared for a bit and came back with four black gas masks. She handed each girl one. Rimselda looked at hers and tried it on. It was tight and bulky but figured it would do the job of keeping the gas out.
“Michale, control room, then I think it’s time for you to make a trip upstairs.”
“I want to wait a little longer for Tommy. I promised him I would wait.”
Kurma said, “We don’t have time for that. You smell that gas coming from the vents. It will be hard for you to breathe soon and there are only four masks.”
“I have the keys to the control room. You need me down here working everything for you. I will do that as I wait for Tommy…everybody wins.”
“Chelsea dear,” Kurma instigated.
Chelsea came forward and looked so sweet and innocent as she reached in her pockets and brought forth a set of keys for the group to see.
Michale patted his back pocket and yelled, “Are those my keys? How did you take them?”
“Those are our keys now,” Jackie piped up. She was definitely the shit-stirrer of the group.
“I’m really sorry about this Michale,” Chelsea said in a small voice.
Chelsea the kleptomaniac has struck again, Rimselda thought to herself. Rimselda could tell that Michale was upset but hoped he didn’t do anything stupid. But she was wrong. Michale started to hurry for his keys but was stopped by Kurma who started to transmute into a Raptor before their very eyes.
Rimselda watched as Kurma’s skin started to smoke and change from smooth to hairy. Her body doubled in size and her black dress ripped at the seams. The legs and arms of Kurma’s body thinned out in some places and became hard and rigid in others. T
here were now shiny scales on the girl’s face and Kurma’s eyes were a piercing steel grey and glowed deadly. The last of the transformation came with her wings. Kurma’s arms now had baby blue-colored wings with spots of powder white. She looked completely different from the regular girl Rimselda knew. That was the exact reason Rimselda loved being a Raptor; it physically changed everything about a person and made anything possible.
Michale had already fallen to the ground, shielding his face with his arms. Rimselda noticed that Chelsea had tried to help him up but Michale had refused her.
Kurma spread her wings wide for the room to see, it seemed that they had gotten bigger since her first seven days of being a Raptor. “I’ve changed my mind about the basement. I’m only going to tell you once; please, go to the roof of the tower and wait for us there.”
“What are you?” asked Michale out of fear.
“I’m a Raptor of course.”
“Duh,” interjected Jackie who rolled her eyes.
Michale scrambled to his feet and ran for the nearest exit.
Kurma placed her gas masks on her massive Raptor head and fixed her wavy, brown hair. In a muffled voice she said, “I don’t look scary, do I?”
Rimselda chuckled and put her own masks own as she began to feel faint from the fumes of the gas. Kurma walked from the room in her Raptor state, wings dragging behind her. The girls followed and they all changed from human to Raptor in seconds.
***
And so it had begun. There was confusion and shock as the tenants of the tower choked and vomited on the fumes in the air. Things were knocked over as people tried to pry open windows but were unsuccessful. Hysteria was at an all-time high as the Raptors went floor to floor, kicking doors in and dragging people out. The residents had never seen anything like the girls’ before. The traffic flowed downward to the first floors as people burst from the building, coughing and sputtering about hideous creatures inside. From the camera room, Kurma watched through the thick goggles of her gas mask. She couldn’t participate in the fiasco because she was highly contagious. Whatever had turned her in to a Raptor could be passed from her hands to another and unlike her nemesis, the Phantoms–she didn’t want to make hundreds of Raptors. She wanted it to be more selective. So, Kurma watched the commotion and listened to the sirens of the building, which she turned off. She couldn’t have the fire department coming to save the day. The distress calls that came from the homes were disconnected with a flick of a button. She even saw scuffles. One man had brought a gun to a knife fight; only Jackie really had nine-inch daggers inside her Raptor arms that were very effective when used. The man left his house with two gashes across his face and his family in tow. Kurma saw Jackie daggers recede as she headed to another floor, kicking everyone out as she moved.
In a matter of hours the Olivares Tower was Kurma’s. The RAID had finally come, but Kurma didn’t care. The police and fire department hammered the front entrances, but Kurma only initiated the inner core doors of the tower that were impenetrable. She watched as the RAID came from the back and set off small bombs on the docks of the tower. Nothing worked and the tower still stood. Bullets ricocheted off the windows but nothing could crack the defense of the building. For hours more news helicopters flew around the tower and caught the scene on camera.
Kurma and her Raptors had all eyes on the cameras, as well, down in the basement and knew that it was real. They had taken the Olivares Tower. Most importantly, Kurma had attained her very own panic tower in the middle of Alexandria…she was safe from the Phantoms of the city and safe from Santino.
Chapter 7:
Quinn & the Rosales Family
Inis was tired of hearing his Aunt Prissy’s voice. She was a complainer and a nagger, and most of all, a hater. She hated everything; if she didn’t hate something then she would find something wrong with it. He didn’t know how his mother, Fae, dealt with her growing up.
Aunt Prissy and her two kids had moved in with Inis and his mom right after the Phantom attacks had begun and soon after the south side of Alexandria had gone black. Everything was shut down, stores, restaurants, grocery outlets. Nobody moved in the south during the night time. The screams woke you up. Aunty Prissy’s kids slept with Inis, afraid of the outside and afraid of the Phantoms. Inis felt bad for them. There were really monsters in the city of Alexandria; they were not just bed time stories anymore.
“We cannot stay here,” Inis argued.
Fae sat in the small kitchen and smoked her slim cigarette. The ashtray was filled with butts. Through it all, Fae had her cigarettes; even sending Inis out during the day to stock up more for her. “There is nothing on the other side of the desert for us. No job, no house, nothing Inis. Be reasonable.”
“You don’t know that, do you?” He asked his mother. “What we do know is that there is a chance that a Phantom could get in, kill you, kill Prissy, or even take the kids and do God knows what.”
“No way I’m taking these kids out of this house and putting them in the streets with those Phantoms,” Prissy hissed the last words.
“Inis please,” Fae begged.
“We just got here!” yelled Prissy. “If I had known that the south side would have gotten shut down then I would have never come. I could have stayed in my studio, though we were bursting at the seams, it would be better than living in the dark…twiddling our thumbs all night.”
“You can always go back aunty,” Inis threw his remark back at Prissy. He never knew why she was such a smart ass. Inis looked to his mother once again and pleaded his case. “We cannot go on buying food at insane prices in the markets, its extortion. We cannot continue to live in an apartment complex that has no electricity; we never know when they will turn the gas off. We cannot allow the kids to grow up where they can’t walk down the streets in fear that down some dark alley a Phantom awaits. This situation is not going to get any better.” Inis paused. “Look what has happened to Allie!”
Fae had had enough. She pulled on her cigarette long and hard so that she wouldn’t cry. The smoke burned her lungs but she didn’t care. It hurt less to smoke then to think about Allie, the youngest of her kids. The pair to her twin boys was broken and she didn’t know how to fix it. Fae began to cry silently.
“Look what you made her do, Inis,” said Prissy. “You see that, men are so insensitive.” Prissy crossed the living room and went to hold her oldest sister. She knew best of all how Fae could be fragile at times.
“I’m sorry, but it is the truth. We will have to leave the city.”
“The Bluff is the better place to be, small, and quiet–I haven’t heard the Phantoms reaching there yet,” Fae said through sniffs.
“L’bluff, Manor?” questioned Prissy. “The district of the Bluff is so far behind the city of Alexandria. It would be like going back to the stone ages. The pay rate is the lowest in the Manor.”
“So what, there are no Phantoms there,” Inis cut in. “We can live without fear, without worry. We should have been pooled the money together and gotten the family tickets when this shit started happening!”
“Is it me, Inis? Is it because we take up too much space in this tiny apartment? Do you just want to throw me and my kids, your cousins, out onto the streets?” Prissy said in an accusing tone.
“You know that’s not what I want.”
“Where do you think we will be once we get to the Bluff? Me, you, the kids, your mom will all be on the streets once there. Everybody is trying to leave the city; they are even going through that god forsaken desert to get to the other side. Have you ever been in the desert? Bones come from the ground from all the people who have been too poor to fly around the damn thing.”
“Then we get plane tickets,” Inis said simply.
“Right,” Prissy nodded her head. “Take all your savings, my savings, your mothers, then we just leave everything behind, forget these four walls, forget the stove that works, and the food in the cabinets, we just go,” she wavered. Her face was grim when
she dealt her last remark. “And we go down to the airport and ask for tickets that cost more than my life and your life put together, and we wait and wait for our names to be called because we have to be placed in a raffle since we can’t afford everyone’s way aboard…clearly. Then after that, yes, the Bluff should welcome the new peasants that rain upon its district. We just might end up in the red light section and you can be me and your mothers pimp!”
A knock came at the door and the room quieted down instantly. Inis moved behind the door and listened through the walls. The knock came again, this time louder. Prissy signaled for Inis to look through the peep hole. For once, he listened to his Aunt Prissy and glanced through the small hole in the door. He saw a small statue of a woman, very petite with dark hair.
“It’s Santino’s mom from downstairs,” Inis whispered to the women in the room.
