by Laura Watson
Kevin heard the sounds of a scuffle and muffled screams. He didn't know what to do. He nearly pissed himself when he heard the next gunshot. It was just outside of the office door. Kevin drew in his breath and steeled himself to open the door. The door suddenly burst inward and Harry tumbled into the room. His face was gone. In it's place was a gaping bloody hole with blood spurting out. Kevin gaped at what was left of Harry's faced and staggered against the wall of the office.
Blood pooled around Harry's head and ran in rivulets under the old metal desk. Harry's arms and legs twitched spasmodically as his life spilled out of him onto the cool tiled floor of the store's office. Kevin held his hand over his mouth, stifling a horrified scream.
Kevin looked timidly out from behind the office door. He didn't immediately see the two men that stood in the store. He heard them talking as they moved around to see what they could scavenge. They walked to the counter where the supplies had been neatly piled and Kevin saw them from the store's corner security mirror.
Two young men, probably not much older than he was, Kevin thought to himself, were eagerly inspecting the food supply. They each carried a large revolver that hung loosely from their hands as they stood in front of it, picking up some of the snack cakes with their other hands and ripping the plastic off with their teeth before cramming the cakes in their mouths.
Kevin eased past the dying Harry and edged his way as carefully and as quietly as he could to the back door. He pushed the door open as quietly as he could, but the door's locking mechanism clicked loudly. Kevin shoved it open as the two men came plowing to the back of the store to find him. He heard four more shots ring out as they fired their guns after him.
Kevin bolted towards the alley behind Starters.
He didn't know why he chose that route, he wasn't thinking very rationally and he knew it, but his feet stubbornly insisted on moving him towards that alley.
A Gray hovering horror appeared from the sky directly in front of him. Kevin only had time to register that it was holding it's tail, and the tail had some sort of wicked point on it, when the Gray swooped down at him and stung his arm with the point of it's tail. Fiery hot pain sped to his heart and he vomited as he ran into the alley.
Rats from the sewers underneath the city poured out of an open manhole beside of Kevin at the mouth of the alley. They surrounded him. Their eyes were beady and black and full of playful, mischievous intelligence.
They stared at him with their intense little eyes, their whiskers twitching.
Kevin hesitated only a moment before diving into the alley behind them. He leapt over the defensive line they had formed and lost consciousness.
The Gray hovered at the mouth of the alley, just out of striking distance from the rats. It stared in at them apprehensively. The line of rats that blocked the alley's entrance held it's ground. Charlie bared his long pointed teeth at the Gray. “Come get some,” Charlie squealed with fury at the Gray demon. “Come get some!” the other rats screamed in unison. They hissed and bore their sharp poisonous teeth for the Gray to consider.
The Gray hovered just above them, just out of their reach, and slowly climbed higher in the air to cross their defensive line from above. It swooped quickly down behind of the rat line to scoop the unconscious Kevin up.
Charlie charged towards Kevin, baring his teeth, the others followed closely on his heels. The rat brigade surrounded Kevin and then covered his limp body in a living, breathing, toxic shield that the Gray did not dare to strike at. The Gray shot straight up into the sky, and disappeared behind of The Journal building's imposing bulk.
Kevin woke up, under a blanket of rats, the swelled lump in his arm was quickly receding. He sat up carefully, gently dislodging the rats from his clothes, pulling the small slender paws gently away from where they had sunk their claws in soundly to protect him.
“Thanks guys,” Kevin said shakily as he stood up. The rats climbed down his legs and stood protectively around him in a circle. Kevin reached in his pockets, out of habit, to find a treat for them, finding only a few pieces of candy he had shoved in his pockets earlier that morning.“Sorry fellas,” he said softly, “It's all I have today,” The rats held their slim paws out as he divided the spoil between them.
Kevin knew he had to get back inside
somewhere. He peered out of the mouth of the alley, looking very much like one of the rats that had just saved his life. His nerves were taut and he felt the adrenaline pumping into his limbs.
The Gray that had pierced him hovered in the sky. It's back was turned away from Kevin as it surveyed a small group of people being pulled up into the sky. Kevin sucked in a huge gulp of air and began the sprint across the street to the mall's entrance. He took eight long strides and jumped the chain that stretched across the median and sprinted the last ten yards to the mall's entrance.
Kevin burst through the glass side entrance to Acco Mac Mall. There was no need to stand outside pounding the glass, waiting for anyone to open it, he knew no one would. The glass had been cracked sometime before, and Kevin knew it wouldn't take a lot to break it free from the frame. He stood at the entrance looking outside. The Gray hovered just beyond it, only inches from the ground facing him now. Kevin shuddered in revulsion, the pain from the barb still fresh in his mind. If it hadn't been for those rats at the alley, he would've been toast.
Kevin instinctively backed up a few steps, although the Gray only hovered there, not advancing and not retreating. Kevin saw something he couldn't quite believe behind the Gray. The lawn of the mall was moving. He squinted, what the hell is that? He wondered. The grass rippled and moved.
The Gray, unaware of the platoon of rats
advancing from behind, hovered motionlessly, staring at Kevin with it's cold horror eyes. It's tail was held in both hands , the barbed end pointing skyward, dripping it's nasty yellow poison.
The moving lawn, teaming with rats, advanced quickly on the unsuspecting Gray. They climbed on top of each other as they reached the hovering horror, who heedlessly hovered only inches from the ground, it's concentration riveted by the human who had escaped him.
The moving mound of rats bit at his bird like feet, ripping them open with their razor sharp teeth. “Didn't see that coming, did you, you fucker? Kevin screamed in delirious delight.
He held his fist up at the Gray who had collapsed as the first set of razor sharp teeth broke the skin of his clawed foot. It lay on the grass limp and dead, as the rats continued to bite and scratch him, sinking their teeth in as far as they could into the horrid Gray demon.
The glider was still strapped to the Gray's feet and hovered upside down, barely visible underneath the mound of rats that covered it.
Another Gray appeared in the sky above the rat mound, watching his kin's demise indifferently. “You want some?”, Kevin screamed at it from inside of the Mall's entrance, “Come get some!” he screamed in savage delight.
The Gray hovered momentarily, high above the mound, not daring to come any closer. After a quick look at the situation, he shot straight up in the air and banked left for one of the overhead crafts.
Day 27—
The day dawned quietly, but it didn't stay that way for long. Leslie was jolted awake by the screeching sound of metal scraping against metal. It sounded like it was directly over her house. She sat bolt upright on her pallet of quilts and slammed her back hard against the wall. She sat ram rod straight, petrified to move from where she was. She held her hands pressed tightly to her ears as the screeching, scraping, metallic sound reverberated through her body. Her nose started bleeding. She watched the blood drip onto her yellow blouse and then splatter onto her slacks but she held her hands firmly pressed against her ears. Her hands soon became slick with the sickening, warm, wet, blood that was filling her ear canals and running out, as first one eardrum and then the other ruptured. Her hands started to slide slowly towards the back of her head and she wiped them hurriedly on one of the quilts and jammed them back over her ears as t
he torturous, thundering noise seemed to go on forever.
With a final thunderous crashing sound, the metallic screeching ended. Leslie looked wildly around her for her cats. They had been crouched under the bed, wary and unsure of what to do. Now they lay still, blood was pooled up around each of their heads, and still running slowly from their ears and noses. Leslie found a towel and quickly soaked it with water. She cleaned their small faces and ears, sobbing as they lay there motionless. They were all that she had left. She laid their bodies on the quilt beside of her and covered them with a towel. She couldn't even take them outside for a decent burial, she thought miserably. At least they're out of their misery, she thought, but it brought her no consolation.
She decided she would put them in the Pantry, wrapped in a blanket and placed inside of something that would keep the smell of their decay to a minimum.
Leslie had to wait until it got dark outside to be sure she wouldn't be heard, so she lay down beside of her three cats, and stroked their warm soft fur. Warm? She started and sat upright. Warm?
Leslie pulled the towel back and looked at her cats again. They were breathing! How the fuck?! What the fuck?! She laughed and cried at the same time. She grabbed her wet towel, now a pinkish red from its'
former duty, and swabbed at Bootsie's nose and mouth.
His whiskers twitched as she cleaned his face and ears again but he didn't open his eyes. Leslie cleaned each of her cats in turn and got the same reaction from each one, their whiskers twitched but nothing else.
She covered them, only up to their necks this time, with the towel and waited. She dabbed at their noses and ears often, and watched them. The blood had stopped oozing out hours before, but Leslie couldn't think of anything else to do to revive them. Their noses and ears are the most sensitive areas of their faces, and she thought if she could stimulate those areas with the cold wet towel, then maybe they would regain consciousness. It was several hours later before Bene opened his eyes. Leslie wanted to shout at the top of her lungs, with relief, to see Bene cat was alive and responding to her. The other two came around shortly afterwards, each slowly opening their eyes and switching their tails with annoyance as she dabbed the cold wet towel at their noses , their faces, and their ears.
They didn't fully recover right away, and Bootsie never fully recovered. He was permanently deafened by the thunderous ship's noise. Bene, Bootsie and Mystery recovered after three days of sleeping, being held and being comforted. Leslie's own ears healed slowly. She kept cotton balls stuffed in them to keep any air from getting in. The pain was excruciating at first, settling down to a dull ache as the days passed, and finally subsided after a few weeks.
Leslie had a little less than half of a bottle of Ibuprofen in her medicine cabinet, and she used them sparingly. I might need them for something worse than an earache, she thought grimly, longing to take three or four of the glorious little orange pills to dull the fiery ache in her ears. No, she told herself, save them. She shook out one and swallowed it dry. It wasn't like she could just run out to the drug store if she ran out of them now. She had a precious few first aid supplies, and who knew what would happen next?
Kevin wandered around inside of the mall. The Acco Mac Mall wasn't a place he normally frequented for his scant retail therapy. The prices in the mall were way beyond his meager means. Even the sodas from the mall kiosks were three or four dollars, for a friggin twenty ounce, Kevin often lamented, a fortune for Kevin, who had to scrape by on minimum wages and the the tips that bitch Janet never shared with him.
Their manager, Jeff Bryant, had already told her that half of the table's tips were for the busboy, but she selfishly grabbed them up and stuffed them into her apron before Kevin had a chance to take his share of them. She never shared the tips afterwards either. The fucking worst part of it though was that she came from a wealthy family.
Janet only worked part time at Starters to keep her parents off of her back. She didn't even need the money. They gave her a monthly allowance for school and clothes and anything else that she wanted.
Kevin had heard her brag to the other waitresses about how her parents gave her anything she wanted.
Kevin always wanted to just punch that rotten fucking bitch in the mouth when she bragged like that.
The other waitresses at Starters were some of Kevin's friends. They, like him, were dirt poor, working students at the city college. They barely got by on what they made. They studied all night, and worked all day.
He watched Janet one day about a week before the Gray's arrival. She was showing off the new shoes she had just bought at the mall. “I just spent a whole month's allowance on them, she bragged, “but when I saw them, I just had to have them.”
Carla and Renee, his poor friends, had looked at their own worn shoes in embarrassment as she held the pricey new pumps up for them to admire.
Janet made him want to puke. Carla told him that Janet had whispered to her that he'd been stealing her tips too. What a fucking lieing whore, he thought miserably, but he said, instead “Yeah, that's pretty much the opposite. She takes all of the tips and won't share them.”
“I know Kevin. I've been watching her,” Carla confided. “I told the manager about it, in case she tries to get you fired.” “Thanks Carla, you're alright sometimes, you know that?” Kevin playfully nudged her arm with his elbow. “Yeah, I know,” Carla replied, smiling shyly at him.
Kevin thought about Carla now, as he walked around the deserted mall. Her curly brown hair, her eyes that always seemed to have a smile that played and danced around in them, and her smile.
Her smile, he missed that most of all. He could be having the crappiest day at work, bussing those never ending tables of dirty dishes, and Carla would walk by and smile at him. Instantly, his day seemed better, the work not quite as bad, his life, not quite as bad.
Kevin looked in the store windows. Some of the gates had been pulled down to prevent looting, ha, Kevin thought, that's a good one. who's left to loot anything? Well..., he thought again, maybe there is someone left.
Kevin saw his reflection in the glass of the store window. Man, I look like crap, he thought. His hair was caked with the filth from the last three weeks. Gross, matted, clumps of grease and dirt hung in clumps from his hair, and clothes.
His clothes were beyond recognition. Not usually the most fastidious of men to begin with, now he looked like something that had crawled straight out of the sewer, no offense my rat bros he quickly added.
The store he stood in front of sold shoes. That's a start, he thought as he pried the door open. There wasn't any need to worry about an alarm going off now. The power had gone out weeks ago.
Kevin found a good pair of running shoes in his size. He placed a note on the counter after rummaging around behind of the cash register for a pen and paper.
It read : I owe Goodness Knows shoes $85.99 for a pair of size 10 running shoes, signed Kevin D. Hartness.
Kevin walked to the upper level department stores to KB Kable to find some pants and clean underwear, maybe a coat if they had any out this time of year and a new shirt, most definitely a new shirt, he added.
He walked past the neatly arranged men's suits, touching the sleeve of a dark blue blazer. “Whew”, he whistled, “pricey stuff.”
The blazer's price tag was $200.00. That was more than he made in a week of slaving over tables at Starters.
Kevin took it off the hangar and tried it on. It hung almost to his knees. He grinned and put it back on the hangar. He looked until he found one in his size and tried it on.
The well made blazer snugged to his frame as if it were made for him. “You are coming with me,” he stated matter of factly, his deep voice echoing in the empty store.
So this is what it feels like to be rich, he thought.
To be able to just pick up and take anything you wanted, regardless of the price. Kevin decided he liked it.
He found a good polo shirt and some jeans
further back
in the men's section of KB Kable. With his selections made, he walked to the counter where a cashier would normally have been.
“I'll take all of this,” Kevin said cheerfully to the cash register. “Charge you ask?” He looked at the cash register with his eyebrows raised,“No,” he laughed in delight, “I'll just take them.”
Kevin scrounged around behind of the register but couldn't find a scrap of paper or pen anywhere. He felt in his pocket, hoping his old habit of pocketing ink pens was still with him. It was. Smiling, Kevin pulled a piece of the register tape out and jotted down another IOU for the blazer, pants, underwear, polo and socks he had selected.
With his haul piled into a large KB Kable bag he had found beside of the register, Kevin walked happily in search of a bathroom to change in.
Day 33—
Leslie woke up before dawn. She had been
sleeping for only two hours at a time for the last few weeks now. The earaches weren't helping much either.
Each time she drifted off to sleep, she imagined she heard something either brushing against the side of her house or the snapping of twigs and the crunch of gravel in the small courtyard beside of her bedroom.
Leslie always looked at the cats, to gauge their reactions, when she thought she heard something. They were the best indicator as to what was going on outside.
If they noticed, she noticed. If they didn't react, she knew it was only her imagination. Hers was an imagination that had been kicked up into high gear and was stuck there, fueled by the Grays, by the harvest.
As the morning wore on and the soft new day appeared, Leslie heard the distant shouts from several people, and then the metallic screeching started again, this time the sound came from the direction of the shouting, several blocks away, as best as she could tell.
