Savage Species

by Jonathan Janz

  Yes. She realized that she believed this, that the monsters that had authored this blood-soaked horror show had only recently awakened. How else to explain the sudden attacks? There had likely been some catalyst, but that hardly mattered now. Whether it was the Indian Trails subdivision or the construction of the campground or something else entirely, what mattered was the plight they were in.

  Jesse hugged the inside of the curve, doing a nice job of it, holding the pickup steady as it scuffled through the loose rock and puddled potholes. The gravel under their tires crunched and pinged against the rocker panels as though they were being strafed with machine-gun fire.

  “You see anything?” Jesse asked. He was leaning over the wheel, his eyes darting from the pitted road to the open patch of sky. Their brightened headlamps showed everything ahead of them, yet the sky remained a mystery. If the Night Flyers attacked, it would come without warning.

  The road straightened out and Jesse depressed the accelerator. They reached the open stretch.

  And the Night Flyers fell on them.

  Two struck the Chevy like torpedoes, one smashing into the front corner of the bumper and crunching like a broken kite under the wheel, the other crashing into Charly’s window, spraying glass over her body. Its mangled face shot up, snarling, and Charly drove the heels of her shoes into the creature’s face. Its head snapped backward, and Charly kicked again, this time propelling the Night Flyer clear out of the opening. She saw it tumbling end over end, squalling in fury, but in the same moment a new beast swooped down and fastened onto the roof. It swung its head low and stared at them upside down through the starred windshield. Jesse pumped the brakes and it tumbled off, its vicious talons ripping grooves through the metal until it disappeared, screeching over the hood. The crunching sound came again. The Chevy jounced, fishtailed, then caught and motored toward the enclosing forest. A Night Flyer ventured to beat them there and impaled itself on an oak branch, the wood punching through its belly and holding it like a baited hook twenty feet off the ground.

  The road jagged a sharp left, but before the open splotch of sky disappeared, Charly watched several winged forms swoop into the tunnel of trees.

  “Mommy?” Olivia called from the backseat.

  Charly eyed the side mirror with dread. “Not now, honey.”

  “I think Jake filled his pants.”

  “I think I did too,” Jesse said.

  Charly spotted them against the tapestry of arched boughs, their tenebrous wings whipping them closer and closer, their crimson eyes like tiny, bobbing reflectors.

  The Chevy trundled up a rise, then its front end dipped as it shot over a sudden declivity, the tires actually leaving the road for one stomach-fluttering moment. The pickup crunched down roughly, the top of Charly’s head bouncing off the ceiling. Jesse braked to avoid a spinout, but that allowed a Night Flyer to lunge forward and clatter down into the bed. Without bothering to right itself, the winged beast dove through the open back window. Its upper body half in, half out of the cab, the Night Flyer snapped at them with teeth as sharp as rapiers, missing Charly’s face by inches.

  Retracting its head, it discovered Charly’s children.

  Its face transformed from unthinking ferocity to a sadistic species of cunning, the jaws unhinging in a hissing drip of saliva. Kate howled in terror, Olivia too horrified to do anything but gape. The creature’s muscled shoulders tensed as it prepared to dart at them.

  With a strangled cry, Charly leapt over the seatback and clawed at its eyes. The nail of her index finger scooped out a glob of red tissue. The Night Flyer screeched in rage. She backhanded it, but the demonic face scarcely jolted at all.

  Its untouched eye remained fastened on Charly.

  The Night Flyer plunged toward her.

  Charly collapsed on the floor, covering her children. The back of her hand brushed something on the Chevy’s carpet, and she recalled Sam’s words:

  There’s a crowbar under my seat.

  Charly shot a hand under the vinyl seatback and groped for it. Her fingers spidered over a pencil, what felt like a crumpled fast food container, then she touched something cool and hard. She got her fingers around it, slid it out, but when she turned to smash the creature’s hideous face with it, she was aghast to find it climbing into the cab.

  Its face and shoulders had wriggled inside, but its wings impeded it. Charly glanced down at the crowbar, saw its chiseled end, and flipped it around.

  The Night Flyer had nearly gotten far enough inside to have its way with them. It was already close enough to snatch the children from the floor, to decapitate Charly or Jesse with one lethal swipe of its claws. Charly gripped the crowbar, got on her knees. A couple feet above her, the Night Flyer’s head scraped the mangled ceiling. The straining creature’s neck was exposed.

  Charly drove the chisel into its throat.

  The Night Flyer squealed and began thrashing in agony. The black lifeblood sluiced down over Charly’s hands. She yanked the sharp end of the crowbar out with a meaty zlip and thrust it up again, this time just under the chin.

  The creature gave off fighting and thrashed to escape through the back window. Charly longed to bludgeon its hideous face until it was a pulpy stew, but the crying of her daughters drew her attention to the shadowed floor.

  Olivia was lathered with the foul black fluid, her face pinched by soundless tears. Baby Jake was pushing against Kate, whimpering. Kate only stared at her mom through eyes that were doing their best to stay brave.

  The Night Flyer finally backed its way out of the window and fluttered away, but there was another winged creature touching down on the bouncing pickup gate and a couple more closing in. Jesse had just about gotten them out of the forest, which meant the first stretch of gravel would end soon. But that didn’t matter if the Night Flyers were riding along in the bed with them. What if one of them got smart enough to puncture the tires?

  The thought doused Charly with icy terror. She clambered through the back window. The Night Flyer that had landed moments earlier was stepping forward with spider-like delicacy, its wings furled behind it. The other Night Flyers were keeping pace with the shivering Chevy, their infernal red eyes concentrating on landing on its side panels.

  The Night Flyer crouched nearer, its face level with Charly now, grinning in anticipation.

  Charly cocked the crowbar like a big-league hitter and cut loose with everything she had.

  The crowbar smashed the Night Flyer’s underjaw, knocking it clear to the side of its face, the thin flesh that bound its jaws together tearing like paper.

  The creature’s expression switched to wide-eyed bewilderment. Charly lifted the crowbar above her head and chopped down at its face. The turned corner of the bar crushed the bridge of its nose as easily as a boot heel crushes an egg. This time it staggered back, and Charly went with it, swinging again. She knocked it off-balance and sent it tumbling off the open tailgate in a stunned flurry of black wings.

  Immediately another Night Flyer took its place, this one landing on the rocker panel to Charly’s right. The way the creature’s hind leg talons punctured the hard steel wasn’t lost on Charly. If it kicked at her…

  Charly swung the crowbar, but as she did the Chevy jounced over a pothole, throwing her off-kilter. The crowbar glanced harmlessly off the creature’s shoulder, and what was worse, the beast was lowering into the bed, moving with infinite patience, apparently intent on not making the same mistakes its comrades had made.

  She swept the crowbar back up at the Night Flyer in a desperate backhand, but it feinted the blow, the swing carrying Charly forward into its willowy black arms. The great wings enfolded her. The demonic face loomed closer.

  The Chevy braked, and they both slammed into the back of the cab. The impact hurt Charly—her shoulder felt like it had been dislocated—but the Night Flyer got the worst of it, its left wing snapping under its weight.

  The creature shrieked in demented fury. Charly reeled away, landed against the
opposite rocker panel. The Night Flyer stepped sideways toward the back of the bed so it could examine its crumpled wing. Charly lunged forward, planted her hands on the thing’s rear end and shoved. The long, swooshing tail slapped the skin of her leg as the creature stumbled toward the bouncing back gate. The Night Flyer ran out of room, stepped into open space, its other wing crushed beneath it as it pounded the gravel road and rolled forward in a ruined ball.

  More Night Flyers winged down at the bed of the Chevy, their extended talons grasping for purchase. She knew she couldn’t hold them off any longer, knew she must get back inside. Head down, Charly waded toward the open back window, plopped into the back seat. Climbing over the seatback, she reminded her daughters to stay down, but she knew she needn’t have. They were as close to the floor as they could possibly get, Kate lying on her side with baby Jake curled up in front of her.

  Jesse was swerving back and forth across the road to deter the screeching Night Flyers, driving skillfully enough that Emma would have been proud. But he couldn’t hold them off much longer. Behind them, the corridor of trees was choked with the winged monsters, all of them hungering for human flesh.

  Especially the flesh of children.

  Charly glanced down at Emma’s body, which had lolled to the floor. With a disconsolate moan, Charly slid forward, straddled the corpse and dragged it toward the door.

  This time Jesse didn’t protest.

  Charly got the door open, the weeds along the road thwacking against the metal. Jesse angled toward the left side of the lane so Charly’s door would be centered. She lifted Emma’s body toward the gap. Charly held the door ajar, while with her free hand she seized the waistband of Emma’s shorts and dragged her farther into the opening. The dead girl’s hands bounced off the lane, her bloody hair hanging down over her face. Charly felt a wave of guilt for desecrating Emma’s body. Grimacing, she grasped one of Emma’s smooth calves and lifted. Gravity and speed did the rest, Emma slithering out the open door, then rolling over several times in their dusty wake.

  The Night Flyers darted toward the body.

  Charly suppressed a cry of relief. Nearly all the creatures had been diverted by the corpse, were now ranged around it scratching and snarling to get at the fresh meat.

  The gravel ended, and smooth black asphalt took its place. Like a bucking stallion unleashed from its pen, the Chevy bolted forward, rapidly putting distance between them and the remaining Night Flyers. The forest gave way to cornfields.

  Jesse’s pale face was runnelled with dirt and sweat. He looked like he might throw up. But he was doing a fine job of moving them away from the creatures.

  Charly said, “We can keep going toward town if you want. Just get us away from them.”

  “I thought you wanted to take 65.”

  Charly regarded him, a chill coursing down her arms. His voice had been raspy, lifeless.

  He’s been through a lot, she reminded herself. And just like you, he’s parched. When’s the last time he had a drink of water?

  Still, she couldn’t shake the worm of worry wriggling through her.

  “The turn-off is up here,” she said. “It’s up to you.”

  Without further comment, he slowed the dually and veered left onto the gravel road. Charly glanced back. As she’d expected, the Night Flyers immediately set off over the cornfield in an attempt to cut them off. But this stretch of gravel was much shorter than the last one. They’d gain County Road 1200 before the Night Flyers could catch them. She’d begun to believe they’d make it to the highway without any more problems when she turned back to the road and saw the Old One waiting for them ahead.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Run him over,” Charly said.

  The Old One stood a football field away, its lean, alabaster body limned by the black sky beyond. The telephone-pole legs were poised just far enough apart that the Chevy could neither split them nor sneak around either side of them without mowing down cornstalks. The drop-off into the field was only a foot or so, but what ground she could see among the stalks glittered with undrained rainfall. If they did chance it and set off through the fields, they’d likely get bogged down, this field in worse shape than the one through which they’d traveled earlier.

  “Hit him,” Charly said, gripping the crowbar tighter. “It’s the only way through.”

  Jesse said nothing, but despite the treacherous gravel, the Chevy was accelerating, making its unswerving way toward the creature’s ghostly shins. Charly glanced down behind the seat, saw that Olivia had taken a turn holding Jake.

  Nearly there. As before, the Old One’s pitiless face watched them; it seemed neither enraged nor ravenous for their flesh. Was it patience she saw in its unblinking eyes? Or doubt that they’d go through with it?

  They rocketed toward the Old One’s legs. The ghastly, staring face tracked them, its skin taking on a pearlescent sheen in the moonlight. Go, Charly thought. Go faster and rip the monster’s legs off. She knew the beast was strong, appallingly strong, but there was no way it could withstand three-and-a-half tons of hurtling steel.

  They drew closer, closer, the Chevy up to eighty now. Jesse hunched over the wheel, his face grim and cold. Whatever happened, she knew he wouldn’t relent, knew the collision was inevitable.

  “Hang on girls!” she called over her shoulder. “Hold Jake tight!”

  Only a few seconds left. Charly squeezed the crowbar.

  The Old One stared at them, the huge green eyes unblinking.

  Three seconds, she thought. Two…

  The Old One stepped aside.

  The Chevy swept by in a chalky cloud.

  “What?” Charly said. She spun in her seat and peered into the darkness and saw the jade effulgence of the Old One’s eyes painted red in the Chevy’s taillights. On the Old One’s staring face she thought she glimpsed a triumphant jack-o-lantern grin. She turned to Jesse…

  …and saw the same ghastly grin on his face. He leered at her, his face stretched and white, his teeth splotched with brown, the tips hooked and sharp. He leaned toward her, sighing rancid breath, one hand on the wheel but not even minding the road.

  With a sob, Charly jammed the chisel into his left eye.

  There came a wet, ripping noise, and he shrieked and the truck veered toward the shoulder. Charly jabbed him again, caught only his collarbone this time. The pickup coasted toward the cornfield, and the Jesse-thing slapped a hand over her forearm and drew her closer. Dimly, Charly heard her daughters screaming.

  Leering at her with its one good eye, the Jesse-thing slithered its attenuated tongue toward her, the pink darkening to black. Charly swung the crowbar at the Jesse-thing’s head, but he caught it, squeezed her wrist until something within popped. Charly moaned, felt the Jesse-thing fondle one of her breasts through her tank top. The Chevy bounced over the grassy shoulder and into the cornfield, the stalks thunking like helpless pedestrians.

  The pickup ground to a halt in the flooded field.

  She pushed against the Jesse-thing’s chest, but its strength was too great, and God, those glowing green eyes now beamed at her, laughing, the tongue drawing a sticky line along her jaw, the stench—

  There was a flurry of movement to her left. The Jesse-thing jerked away and covered its face, and when Charly glanced that way she saw, illuminated by the greenish-blue light of the dashboard, her oldest daughter shaking the Jesse-thing by its curly brown hair. Kate’s face was wet with tears, her nose bubbling snot, but she was wrenching the Jesse-thing’s head back and forth and shouting incoherent threats at him. Charly realized her own wrist was free. She drew the crowbar back and swung with everything she had at the Jesse-thing’s temple. There was a cracking sound as it smashed through the skull. The Jesse-thing cried out, shoved away from Kate and flailed its hand at the crowbar, but Charly jabbed the hard chisel into its face again, this time shattering its front teeth. Its hands clapped over its spewing mouth, and Charly aimed another blow at its remaining eye. She cried out as the blow
struck home, blinding the Jesse-thing. It howled, thrusting its head back into the open window, but Charly was on her knees after it, straddling it, swinging the turned end of the crowbar like an axe and striking the monster squarely in the forehead. The iron bar staved in the Jesse-thing’s skull, but she raised it and struck, harder this time, snapping the fingers it had thrown up for protection and bashing its skull. She brought the crowbar down again and again, screaming now, all the pent-up fear and rage gushing out at the Jesse-thing, and she no longer cared that this monster had been an ally only moments before, no longer cared about the pain she was inflicting. She smashed down, down, the black blood spraying the interior of the Chevy, the frothing ruin of a face no longer reacting to the blows. The arms had fallen to its sides, its body convulsing in a twitching dance, and Charly smashed and smashed, heedless of her daughters’ screaming, Olivia saying something about the monster, and Charly thought, Yes, I’m killing the monster, until Kate’s frantic cries broke through the haze of fury.

  In the silence that followed, Charly heard the Old One’s approaching footfalls, turned and saw the Chevy’s engine light blaring an angry red. Sitting on the Jesse-thing’s twitching legs, Charly keyed the engine, but it was stalled, and through the shattered windows she heard the monster’s feet splashing into the pooled cornfield. She moved the gearshift to Park, thinking that would help, but it didn’t. Charly twisted the key again, but the engine only sputtered and stalled, the livid red light telling her it was over, over, she and her children were going to be eaten right here in the cornfield. All but Jake, who would be taken away, who would be…

  NO! her mind screamed.

  Charly turned the key. The engine coughed to life.

  “Oh God,” Charly whimpered. She threw the truck into gear and jammed her foot on the accelerator. The Chevy’s tires vomited muddy gouts of water, but the back end only slid sideways, and she knew the Old One was nearly upon them now. Sweat dripped from her greasy hair into her eyes. She thought she smelled the creature coming, the very air tainted by its noxious odor.