Peter called to us from the front window, Ashley tangled in his arms. We rushed to them both and I looked out to where Peter was pointing. I felt my stomach sink. The figures from the first tower were walking toward the house, their bodies leaning forward as if it took considerable effort.
I looked at Charlie and his eyes met mine. Neither of us had a plan.
Suddenly, we all jumped as something crashed upstairs. It sounded like something falling from the ceiling, an eruption of wood and splinter.
“Oh no,” I whispered, feeling my skin go cold. I ran to the counter and picked up the shotgun, chambering a round. I instructed Charlie and the kids to go into the living room as we heard heavy feet thump across the ceiling toward the stairs. The figures had climbed the roof and smashed their way in.
As Charlie herded the children into the other room, I flinched, a large silver arm crashing through the back door. I turned the shotgun toward the hole and pulled the trigger as a large smoking head peered inside. I was rewarded by a long howling horn, a sure sign I had seriously hurt it.
I swung around, a sudden noise catching my attention.
Two of the creatures were at the top of the stairs, silver fumes leaking from their heads and drifting along the ceiling toward me.
I raised my gun and blasted one of them in the knees. Immediately, the volume of smoke increased drastically as it fell, tumbling down the stairs. I tried to jump out of the way, but its wide head thumped into my legs and I went sprawling. My face bounced against the hard floor and I saw stars.
I could hear the thing squirming and moaning behind me and I grit my teeth.
Get up, get up!
I heaved myself to my feet, vision swimming, and heard the front door begin to shake with heavy blows.
We’re never getting out of here, I thought.
And then another part of me ignited, a defiance to the impossible situation I was in, a fire in my chest that spread and boiled my blood.
This would not be our end.
Something swung into my legs again and I caught myself on the counter, breaking my fall. The figure with the blown-out knees was swinging its silver nubs at me. I coughed and felt my eyes water as the kitchen filled with smoke. I scrambled, looking for the shotgun, knowing I had seconds before the second one was on me.
The creature swatted at my legs again, but I jumped aside, grabbing onto a kitchen chair.
Enough was enough.
I grabbed the chair and hoisted it over my head, screaming, and brought it crashing down into the chrome being. Wood exploded across the floor as the chair shattered and I grabbed a fragmented leg. Howling, eyes wild, I drove it down into the thing’s face.
My ears creaked as a dying howl erupted from the figure and smoke immediately ceased pouring from its head.
Without stopping, I snapped my eyes up and saw that the second one had reached the foot of the stairs. Its sudden appearance startled me and I stumbled back, falling on my ass. I felt something hard against my hand; I saw that it was the shotgun, shoved along the side of the counter.
I snatched it up and pointed it at the advancing silver statue.
I blew the bastard to hell and back again, the roar of the shotgun cracking in the thick air. As it fell, I watched as the bodies slowly evaporated, disappearing back into whatever substance they were birthed from.
Charlie was screaming from the living room. I swung around and saw him and Pete shoving the couch against the front door as the figures beat against it from outside. It wasn’t going to hold out much longer. A noise behind me drew my attention and I swung the barrel of the shotgun toward the back door just as it gave way. The kitchen table was pushed aside as the silver-skinned monsters crowded the doorway, all pushing to get in.
I emptied the shotgun into them, yelling for Charlie, and when the gun clicked dry, I flipped it around and began to beat them with the stock. Three went down, blasted apart by the shells, and another two staggered back against my onslaught. I was sweating, screaming, my muscles tight as I brought the gun around and smashed it into one of their smoking heads. It fell to the side, crashing into the doorframe before sliding to its knees. I swung the gun like a baseball bat, crushing its featureless face.
The howling horn of death followed.
Charlie was at my side gripping a leg from the broken chair. He battered the beings as they continued to pour into the house, a desperate energy igniting us. He stabbed one in the face like I had earlier, and it fell back, leaving a splash of wet silver on the sharp wood.
Ashley was screaming behind us and I heard the front door start to give. My heart hammered in my chest as I listened to the wood splinter. I shot a look over my shoulder and Peter was standing on the couch, pressed against the door, trying to slow their progress.
I heard heavy footsteps from upstairs.
More were coming.
“Charlie, I need more shells!” I screamed, swinging the gun around and crushing another one in the face. It stumbled backward into another two and fell, stunned.
“They’re upstairs in my bedroom!” Charlie yelled, running behind me to help Peter. Ashley was in the corner, crying and clutching her knees to her chest, wet tears flowing down her distraught face.
No good, I thought. They’ll be all over me.
I whipped around, ready to help Peter at the door, and froze as two more came walking down the stairs in front of me. Smoke filled the air as they turned away from me and toward Ashley.
Screaming, I charged them. One of them spun, brought its arm up, and swung at me. Surprised, I tried to duck but the blow caught me across the nose. It was like getting hit with cold iron and my nose erupted in a fountain of blood as I fell back, dazed. They turned away from me and kept walking toward Ashley.
I blinked back darkness, gritting my teeth.
Not the kids, I thought, hauling myself up.
I charged again and slammed into one of them, tackling it to the ground with a heavy crash. Its body was ice cold under me as I rolled up on top of it. I laced my fingers together to form a giant fist and brought it down into the thing’s face. As I made contact, I heard Charlie rocket into the second one, smashing it against the wall, screaming for Ashley to get away.
The creature under me swung at me, clearly slowed by my blow, and I grunted as its silver nub plowed into my ribs. I thought I heard something crack, and the wind was robbed from my lungs.
I didn’t stop beating it, though, bringing my now-bleeding fists into its face over and over again. I took another shot to the ribs, but I managed to twist away in time so that my shoulder took the brunt.
Suddenly, Peter was looming over us and I jumped back as he brought a lamp down into the thing’s face. It howled and I rolled away as he did it again, silencing the monster. Without stopping, I scrambled to my feet and went to help Charlie who was pinned under the creature and taking a beating. His face was bloody, but I saw fire in his eyes.
I took a giant step and punted the thing under its face, cracking its head up and tumbling it off of Charlie. I pulled him to his feet and then stood over the stunned creature.
Panting, roaring, I stomped on its face until the horn of death sounded.
The front door exploded inward.
Six of the creatures pushed their way inside, turning to face us.
Footsteps thundered above us as more piled in from upstairs.
My ribs hurt and blood ran down my face. I was gasping, holding my side, exhausted. I looked at Charlie and we looked behind us at the kids.
We charged the figures, roaring.
I wrapped my arms around the front two as I plowed into them, bringing them down with me. Charlie soared over me, slamming his body into the other four like a human cannonball.
Sucking in hungry lungfuls of smoky air, I hammered my fists into anything that glowed silver. I winced as something thudded into my back, but I kept focused on the one beneath me. My knuckles were bloody lumps of mangled bone and flesh, but I never stopped beating on the
m.
Suddenly, something crashed into me, sending me airborne. I thudded into the far wall, air forced from my body in an agonized exhale of blood and sweat. I slid to the floor and fought a blackout. My head ached, my back screamed, and red dripped into my eyes.
I blinked, vision swimming, and looked up.
Two of the figures tore Charlie in half at the waist.
My body hitched in disbelief as blood pooled onto the floor and my brother’s guts spilled around his ripped body.
No.
Please God, no.
The two creatures dropped the halves of my brother and advanced on Ashley.
Peter crashed into them, screaming, tears running down his face.
I tried standing, darkness filling my vision.
The two creatures battered Peter away and then stood over him.
“YOU LEAVE HIM ALONE, YOU GODLESS FUCKS!” I screamed, spitting out a mouthful of blood, crawling to them. My hands left bloody prints on the floor as I inched my way toward them.
The two creatures looked at me and then at each other. For the first time, they seemed to communicate with one another, exchanging sound and smoke in short bursts of what I could only assume was their language.
Then they knelt in front of Peter, pinning him to the ground.
“DON’T YOU FUCKING TOUCH HIM!” I howled, hacking up a mouthful of blood. I couldn’t move, my body giving up. My mutilated hands shook as I begged them to pull me closer, but I was completely expended.
The two creatures placed their nubs over Peter’s splayed-out body. In unison, they emitted a new sound, a low ping that deafened me. I squeezed my eyes shut as the sound continued, blasting through my skull like sharp knives hammered in through my ears.
I coughed as smoke crawled down my throat, felt my eyes water, and blood drip from my chin. I blinked through the haze, trying to see what they were doing.
What I saw brought a scream blasting up my throat.
Peter was covered in their silver liquid, his body cocooned in the chrome substance. But it was sliding off of him, pulling itself up his body from his feet like a curtain being raised.
And what it left behind ripped horror from my chest.
Peter was slowly being turned into a tangled mass of working machinery.
As the silver substance rose up his legs, it left behind coiled wires and humming steel. His legs were not legs anymore, but instead, one long block of thrumming, blinking machinery. Red and blue lights flashed from the twisted construction, hundreds of parts shifting and adjusting to lightning-quick calculations and adjustments.
I watched helpless as Peter screamed, the chrome liquid pulling up his waist to his chest. It left in its wake the same impossible apparatus, a contorted engine of unknown workings. The automaton purred with life, using Peter’s body as a vessel.
And then it covered his face, leaving in its wake a still screaming child, his features covered by the living machine.
The creatures stood, looking down at their work. Peter’s body was barely recognizable, a heap of steel and smoke, blinking lights and throbbing parts, all moving and working to the heartbeat of their own making.
And yet, Peter was still screaming, his voice cutting though the hum of machinery.
He was still alive.
I fought to move, fought to do something, but I could feel my body shutting down. Everything ached in severe pain, but there was nothing to be done. I dragged my face across the floor to look at Ashley, who was curled up in the corner, eyes wide, face deathly pale.
She wasn’t screaming anymore, her mind trapped in shock. I could see her blue lips moving, but no sound came out. Her eyes slowly altered between her dead father and her screaming, metal brother.
The figures filling the house looked down at the two of us, their eyeless heads puffing hot smoke. Slowly, they turned away and began to leave.
I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t accept it. Why were they leaving, what had been the point of all this? What had they done to Peter? Why weren’t they killing me?!
As they walked back through the front door, I turned my head to look out the front window, into the night.
The towering column of chrome was blinking with light, a steady throb of pulsing white. The creatures walked back to it, their bodies leaning forward as thick plumes of smoke darkened the night.
The tower was pulsing in rhythm with the lights on Peter’s body.
As I opened my mouth to call out to Ashley, darkness rushed in on me and swept away my consciousness.
I fell into it.
The empty arms of the great black.
* * *
When I woke up, I was in the hospital. I was confused, distorted, and immediately asked where Ashley was. The doctors told me she was being taken care of and she was OK.
When I asked for Peter, they didn’t answer, instead shooting one another a knowing look. My whole body was killing me, a mass of knotted pain. I tried to get up, screaming, roaring for answers, asking where my nephew was, but I was quickly silenced as a nurse jabbed a needle into my arm.
That was…three months ago.
Apparently at some point that night, Ashley had called 911. I don’t remember any of that—the police, the ambulance, the paramedics, nothing. I can’t imagine what they thought when they walked into that house. When they saw Charlie.
When they found Peter, still screaming.
Recovering from that night hasn’t been easy, both mentally and physically. I’m doing physical therapy, each day a painful reminder of the horror I’ve seen. Ashley is doing better, but I know there are parts of her that will never heal. Going through something like that at such a young age opens bloody wounds that will never close.
I was questioned about the events that night. Over and over again I was questioned…
No one really believes me, no one really understands what we’ve been through. No one believes in the possibility of horrors from another plane of existence splicing into our world. After all, there was no evidence of them besides the wreckage of the house. Their bodies just…evaporated back into that fucking tower. And then the tower evaporated into the night sky.
They didn’t completely discredit my story, though.
Apparently, others had seen the two silver pillars rising into the sky.
They’re calling it a Chrome Sunset, a never-before-seen natural phenomenon.
They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.
But I believe that deep down, they know I’m telling the truth. They know that something inhuman invaded our little house in the country. They know because they won’t let me see Peter.
I don’t know where they took him, what has happened to him, but I bet you he’s still screaming around that mass of machinery.
It doesn’t matter. None of it does.
You see…I think I know what those monsters did to my dear nephew.
And if I’m right, we’re all fucked.
Because I think they created a living, breathing, tracking device.
I think they marked him so they know where to come back.
14
My Father, My Monster
I had a hard childhood. I had a really hard childhood. Each day felt like survival. Thinking back, I’m surprised I’m alive. There are some things no one should have to go through. There are some things that are better left in the past.
But here I am. Writing this all out. Why? I don’t know…I feel like by doing this, by telling you all this, I can finally purge my mind of these memories. I know they will always be there, lurking behind my most lonely days…but they won’t have the bite they do now. By telling you this, I hope to take their fangs away.
So let me start with some things you need to understand.
My mother died when I was two. I’m still not entirely sure how, but I think it had to do with drugs. I was her only child, leaving me in the care of my father, Richard. I don’t remember my mother at all. Not even her face. I’ve never seen a picture of h
er, never heard a story told about her…nothing. My father just told me she died when I was two.
My father, Richard, was the hardest of men. He worked construction and I didn’t see him much. I grew up in a two-bedroom apartment, fending for myself, mostly abandoned. I had to find ways to feed myself, wash, and survive. I didn’t go out much for the first couple years. I just stayed in my room or wandered around the filthy space, hoping my dad left something for me to eat.
It wasn’t abuse at that point, at least not compared to what came later. It was neglect. He didn’t harm me, he didn’t yell at me, he just hardly acknowledged my existence. He went to work and then came home, maybe muttering a few drunken words to me as he went to collapse in his bed.
At that point, I wasn’t unhappy. It was my life, it was all I knew. I thought that’s what everybody’s lives were like. Thinking about that now makes me sick, but then? Then it was just the way it was.
But you spend all that time alone…it does things to you.
When I was six, I created Ryan. Ryan was older than me by a couple years. He was my friend. I talked to him, confided in him, cried to him. He was my imaginary buddy. He was a part of me. He was a projection of a strength I longed for.
And Ryan hated my father.
I tried not to talk to Ryan when my dad was home. It was hard, though, because the more I invested into the fantasy, the more real he became. Even now, I can picture exactly what Ryan looked like.
When my father started catching on that I had an imaginary friend, that Ryan existed, that’s when things became…bad. If he caught me talking to Ryan he would hit me, tell me to “stop being such a little faggot.”
He was worse when he drank, like all fathers are.
He’d bring women home and tell me to stay hidden in my room while he had sex with them. Sometimes, though, he’d drink too much and couldn’t perform…and when that happened he would get furious. That’s when the beatings were the worst. He’d kick out whatever unlucky woman he had convinced to go home with him and then come stumbling into my room. The stink of rum on his breath, the dark silhouette, the deep rumbling in his chest.
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