by Alan Spencer
Finding enough strength to move his sore body, Vic kicked out his legs to paddle to the shallow end. He dragged the chest onto the concrete patio and sat on it.
“You okay?” Jimmy asked.
Vic rubbed his face in his hands. “My body feels like it had a long session with a beating stick. But I’m alive. You?”
“I’ll survive. I guess. I remember the plane spinning, then crashing. And then I was upside down in that pool. I somehow found my way out. The way things happened, I thought you were dead.”
“How about our friend?”
“Not a peep.”
Now what do we do?
Vic left the chest and sat next to Jimmy in a beach chair. “Without him, I have no idea where to go. We’re taking the chest with us. That’s about all the plan I got from him. Someone’s going to use it, but who?”
“But who?” Jimmy repeated the question. “Someone in New Jersey.”
Vic didn’t mean to be snappy, but every muscle in his body ached to the point he thought he was feverish. “We are in New Jersey. There are a lot of places in New Jersey. A lot of people too.”
“I have no idea where to start,” was all Jimmy said.
Vic’s attention wandered to the locked up indoor area that read TIKI SNACK BAR. “We need food. We’re tired, hungry and really confused. Food will get the ideas rolling. I hope.”
Vic was already walking toward the TIKI BAR. The door was unlocked. Vic took three steps inside when Jimmy flipped on the light switch. Startled, Vic turned it off. “You don’t know who might be out there watching. The lights will give us away.”
“But how will see the food?”
“Just,” Vic stammered, “just, make do. There’s scary shit out there, and I don’t want them coming for us.”
Jimmy had already wandered out ahead of him, passing tables with chairs stacked on top of them. There was an ice cream bar, and behind that, a fridge stocked with microwave burgers, burritos and pizza. Like a pro, Jimmy shoved a handful of frozen food into the microwave. A square of orange light gave detail to the food court. Beach balls and umbrellas were painted on the cinder block walls. The smell of chlorine floated everywhere, including off of them.
“Hurry up, I’m starving.” Jimmy was pacing in front of the microwave. “Come on.”
He watched the fat guy who was in his early thirties acting like he was fifteen and couldn’t help but laugh. Jimmy didn’t care. The guy wanted food, and the hell with the rest of the world.
After the timer went off, they ate their junk food. Once they had it down, Vic had one idea to decide their next step. When Jimmy polished off his third microwave burrito and third slice of pizza, Vic prevented him from helping himself to a pretzel with nacho cheese.
“Come outside with me. I can’t have you crapping your pants by eating too much of that shit. I’ve got an idea.”
Vic led Jimmy outside. They went around the pool and stopped at where he had left the chest. Vic eyed the corpse pilot. Niles remained motionless on the beach chair.
“So what’s your idea?” Jimmy kept eying the food court. He clearly had unfinished business in there. “You going to save us by using your street smarts?”
Vic was tempted to slug him. “Stop giving me shit. I’d bust you in the jaw if you hadn’t just lost your father. We’re here to save other people from losing their families and loved ones, and our own asses, so keep things in perspective, Jimmy. I’m only trying to survive this shit.”
Jimmy breathed hard out his nostrils, placed his hands on his hips, rolled his neck and then shook his head twice. “Okay, yeah, you’re right. We work together. I’m sorry, man. I’m upset. It’s been rough for us both.”
“You got that, pal. But forget it. We’ll do better if we work together instead of acting like an old married couple.”
Jimmy was listening. “So what’s the plan?”
Vic bent down in front of the chest and placed his fingers in front of the locks. “We open this thing and see what the big deal is.”
Before Vic could unlock the latches on the chest, Niles from across the pool released the most harrowing voice. “No, you can’t open it! Take it with you. Keep it closed. Just walk out the front entrance. The way to go will be obvious, but get moving. You’re wasting time. Do as I say, or nobody will survive!”
They watched as the corpse crackled, the bones becoming petrified, then breaking into millions of pieces as the breeze carried the particles up and away.
“Whoa,” Jimmy gasped. “We better do as he says.”
“Got that right. I knew that would work. Nobody wants me looking inside this thing. Okay, then we walk out the front door. We keep our eyes glued for what’s obvious.”
Jimmy rushed back to the food court, then came right back with an energy drink in each hand. He tossed one to Vic. “This got me through college finals. Life saver. Sweet adrenaline and caffeine.”
Vic sucked his down in four drinks, and Jimmy did the same. After Jimmy burped, Vic pointed at the handle on the other side of the chest, and together they lifted it up. They lugged the heavy burden through the front entrance. The parking lot was full of cars. They stared in horror as they made the connection. This event had started in broad daylight. People were swimming and living their lives and something attacked them.
The realization gave them both the creeps.
They walked up the street, Vic’s arm and shoulders killing him. Jimmy was feeling the same fatigue.
“We can’t carry this thing very far. If something does attack, it’s not like we can run.”
Jimmy’s words were verging on whining, but Vic agreed their approach wasn’t practical.
Vic turned back to the parking lot. So many cars to choose from. A mini-van might be nice, he thought. They would have to drive with the lights off. Keep it slow and quiet.
“Okay, come with me. We’re picking up a set of wheels.”
Vic already had his eye on the black mini-van closest to the exit. But that car didn’t have keys. After viewing several cars, they selected a Camry with its keys in the ignition and the window rolled down.
“Nice and easy,” Vic muttered. “Let’s hope this thing’s got enough gas to get us somewhere.”
He turned to catch Jimmy sucked down into the ground. He was chest deep in a puddle of water. Hands and arms were outstretched in horror. The arms grabbing Jimmy were covered in gangly veins and purple bleeding muscle tissue. Jimmy was neck deep in the puddle now. Vic dropped to the ground and grabbed him in the only place he could think of. Using his strength, he yanked on Jimmy’s ears and forced him back onto the pavement. They both fell backward, tumbling awkwardly over each other.
“Ahhhmyfuckingears!”
Vic let go as Jimmy rubbed his ears. Another puddle of water at Vic’s feet, a reverse-skinned arm grabbed his ankle. Through yet another puddle, another seized Vic’s arm, and another set of wet-with-blood hands clasped his neck. Gasping for breath, every limb held down, being pulled down by every aggressor, Vic was helpless to the assault.
“Fuck you, Grabbers!”
The Glock in Jimmy’s hand barked, each bullet severing a hold over Vic. Vic stood up and found a place that was as far from a puddle of water as possible. The arms retracted back into the puddles.
“The hell was that?”
Jimmy’s hard face was softened by his know-it-all explanation. “They’re from the movie called Grabbers. From any puddle of water, their arms can reach for you. These microorganisms are born in puddles. They grab you and take your flesh. There’s a funny scene in the movie where a person’s taking a shit, and the monster rips off his junk. Classic.”
“This isn’t a goddamn movie!”
“But it is, Vic, it REALLY is. My brother died in Chicago fighting the same monsters. He knew every villain coming after them, and Nelson and his friends prevented ma
ny deaths. The dead are using me, because I know these films. I’m sure there are other geeks out there doing the same as me, but we’re not street tough like you. I’m a fat pug, and you’re a pit bull.”
“Pit bulls aren’t an aggressive breed, it’s the people who—”
“Okay, PETA, I get it. Whatever. I’m saying the dead planned for us to team up. We are equipped to take this on. Let’s get in this car and look for the signs that point the way. I understand it now. I can anticipate the monsters, and you can take them out.”
Together, they placed the wooden chest into the Camry’s trunk. Closing it, Vic treaded carefully around the puddle of water by the driver’s side door. Then he slipped inside the Camry, turned on the engine and kept the headlights off. Jimmy eased into the passenger seat. Vic backed up, then drove out of the parking lot. Right when the wheels touched the main street that directed them to a suburban neighborhood, the sign for what to do next appeared.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Vic clutched the wheel and questioned the validity of what could be a sign, or what could just as easily be a trap. “I guess our pilot said the signs would be obvious. You ever see this in one of your movies?”
Jimmy shook his head. He leered at the road ahead of them. “No. Unless it’s a movie I haven’t seen. But that wouldn’t be from a movie. At least, I don’t think so.”
Vic growled. “Well, I feel better about the whole thing now.”
The green glow-in-the-dark arrow pointed to turn left onto the main road.
“I wouldn’t know where to go anyway,” Vic said. “I’m not from New Jersey. I say we go with it until something scary pops out at us.”
Jimmy didn’t argue, so Vic made the left turn. After driving along a block of houses that had their doors and windows boarded up, or their roofs completely missing, another neon green arrow told them to take a right through a residential street. Houses surrounded both sides of them, equally as empty, barricaded, or destroyed as if a twister had devastated them. Pieces of choppers, from the military and National Guard, were destroyed hunks of metal.
Vic couldn’t help but think their efforts were too late.
Odd items stole their attention as Vic made the appropriate turns through the neighborhood. In several yards, empty caskets stood abandoned set in a semi-circle. He wasn’t sure what they were being used for. Connected to four houses, the body of a black anaconda was crawling from window-to-window. He caught the shape of bodies pressing up against the anaconda’s skin from inside its body trying to escape. Another yard, corpse heads stuck up out of the ground, buried to the neck, their faces picked clean as if by birds.
“That’s from Hungry Crows. You see, the birds become mutated from pollution. A town’s nuclear power plant, to be exact, and—”
“Save it,” Vic said. “I don’t need to hear the plots. Just tell me where they are and help me kill them.”
A man in a business suit was hammering a FOR SALE sign in the front yard as a pile of bodies, what looked to be a family, were burning behind him.
“Dead Estates. Real estate broker finds unethical ways of procuring the homes of desired houses when the owners don’t want to sell.”
“Enough, okay? I know it might be your coping mechanism, but you’ve got to get your head out of your ass and pay attention. You’re all I’ve got. I can’t do it alone, and I wouldn’t expect you to go it solo either.”
Jimmy agreed with the assessment. “I’m a nerd. People have lives, friends, fun things to talk about, and these movies are all I’ve got.”
“Then let’s talk about something else.”
“Like what?”
“You date any girls?”
“No. I’m a loser, remember.”
“You’ve wanted a girlfriend. Tell me who you’ve wanted to bone. Real people, Jimmy. And tell me why. Details.”
Vic was struggling to keep Jimmy’s head in the game. The talk of girls seemed to be the perfect distraction. Vic kept following the arrows in the streets. They were now on a series of back roads. They had just passed a steeple church. In the distant field, it looked like a group of monks were setting fire to a naked woman on a cross.
Christ, I can smell her skin burning.
The screaming, the burning flesh, it went over Jimmy’s head as his cheeks reddened thinking about girls.
“Tell me something interesting,” Vic begged. “You’ve got a dick, for fuck’s sake. I don’t care if the chick didn’t want anything to do with you. You can’t tell me any of the chicks in gym class didn’t get you going. It’s okay to be a horn dog around your friends, man. Stuff the polite shit. Be a man. Let me have it. Be nasty.”
Vic braked.
The words written in neon spray-painted letters in the road read:
TAKE THE CHEST
GET OUT OF THE CAR
RIGHT NOW
Scrambling to pull the chest out of the trunk right then, the two ran to the shoulder of the road for cover. The shadow of the giant eclipsed the whole neighborhood. Roaring screeches, the concussions of a tromping ten-ton beast closed in. Smashing houses, ripping up the street, each of its steps were a sonic boom. Then the sharp elephant-trunk scream shook them to the core and lifted them off the ground, the rumbling so intense.
Together, clutching the chest, they charged forward. The house in front of them was sucked up, ripped from its very foundation, and came apart mid-air as it vanished hundreds and hundreds of feet high. Seconds later, the Camry was sucked into the unknown force, the windows shattering the moment it took liftoff.
On the undamaged part of the road, Vic caught the neon green message in dripping letters:
RUN STRAIGHT DOWN
ROBBINS STREET
DON’T STOP
FOLLOW THE ARROWS
Houses on both sides of them were suctioned up high with deafening crashes of broken panels. Once sturdy structures were reduced to brittle splinters. Vic gasped seeing people sucked up with their houses, flailing and spinning madly as they fought a pointless battle. Their screams faded the higher they climbed. Just how far was the thing sucking them up, Vic thought.
They hurried down Robbins Street as fast as the wooden chest in their hands allowed them to move.
THOOOM THOOOM THOOOM.
The creature’s hooves stomped down onto the earth, threatening to topple them over like pieces on a game board. Keeping their footing secure, matching each other’s strides, anticipating turns, stopping and ducking when large pieces of debris were coming down at them.
THOOOM THOOOM THOOOM.
Vic had no concept of where they were running. Every building, road and intersection was reduced to holes in the ground or broken rubble from previous conquests. Through the dust of debris they caught another neon green arrow. It told them to make a right and keep right. Just as they pivoted and completed a quarter of a mile, a trailer attached to a truck slammed nose-first and exploded. The rush of flames, the push of air, they both ended up thrown forward and hitting the turf belly first.
Vic’s ears rang from the blast. His mind demanded he get right back up, find Jimmy and run the hell away, but his body refused to do anything. He turned his head and caught Jimmy unconscious. A line of blood was going down his face. The wooden chest was right beside him, undamaged.
A hand grabbed Vic and hoisted him to his feet. The corpse was dressed as a police officer. His ears were both eaten down to the bone, leaving upturned pinkish meat and congealing blood. The cop put two hands on his head to indicate to protect his head and then bent down in demonstration to get to his knees. Then the corpse mouthed with a devilish smile, “BOOM.”
Vic didn’t understand what the dead officer was trying to communicate until he balled up his hands together, then separated them, opening his fingers to indicate a great explosion. The cop pointed at an ambulance down the street. Several other corpses were appr
oaching it with a limp gait clutching gas cans. Then a set of corpses shoved a lit rag into the gas tank. Seconds later, the corpses were sucked upwards, their skin leaving their bodies first, then their bones dismantling mid-air as they vanished into the night sky.
THOOOM THOOOM THOOOM.
The ambulance was shot up with split-second speed. Then there was a great explosion. BOOOOOOOOOOM!
Vic rushed back to Jimmy and covered his body with his own, knowing the guy was unconscious and defenseless. Closing his eyes tight, Vic waited for the worst to come.
After the explosion, there was a short moment of calm. Jimmy returned to consciousness. Vic helped him back to his feet. Streams of blood flowed in all directions. So strange. Vic couldn’t put it together. Across from them, the partially intact billboard propped a block away from their standpoint glowed with more instructions.
FOLLOW THE TUNNEL
TO THE END
BRING THE CHEST
Between what appeared to be a lone-standing tunnel just ahead of them and a series of buildings smashed to their roots, was the strangest creature they had seen yet. Vic imagined the shape of a skunk, but with very long legs, and covered in black and white fur. Its face was turned to pulp, the edges still sizzling from the fires that burned in its vacant sockets and hollowed out skull. Out of every orifice, it exuded reeking brain smoke. Vic had no idea what the creature could be, but it was as tall as the empire state building.
Jimmy eyed the felled creature with a sneer. A gleam of recognition played on his face. He gave Vic a glance, leery of setting his partner off, but saying it anyway. “I recognize this from a movie. It’s a giant anteater. I won’t trouble you with the plot.”
“An anteater?” Vic let out a groan, what turned into a shutter as he watched cooked brains ooze out of the monster’s ruined face. “Forget it. It’s a waste of time wrapping my mind around this shit. Let’s get it over with so I can give my body a rest before something else tries to obliterate us.”
“Good plan.”
They lugged the chest toward the tunnel. As they grew closer, they realized it wasn’t exactly a tunnel. It was a long leathery tube. The edge facing them was wet with gristle and blood. The anteater’s snout was as long as two football fields.
