by Doug Goodman
“Quick – we’ve got to barricade the other side as well!” Aidan shouted.
Jaxon lofted a few towards the back door, but they hit the bottom of the roof instead.
“Problem!” Jaxon shouted back at Aidan.
Then Black Fang jumped at them. His paws caught the first-floor gutter, but his weight ripped it off and he fell back down on his back.
“We need to use the bitch urine!” Kirk shouted.
“No way! It would be a waste at this point!” Aidan shouted back. “We need to escape. It’s time to run for the basement.”
“What if Peter and Colt aren’t finished?”
“Then we won’t have to run very far.”
A crash of glass broke out. The wargs were inside!
“Chang of plans,” Aidan said, and he raised the vent.
“Are you crazy? Why are you doing that?” Jaxon said.
“Cause we got to find another way out. We can’t go to Peter and Colt. They will have to make it on their own.”
“You can’t abandon them!” Alyssa yelled. “They’re your brothers.”
“The rendezvous point is still the Dodge Viper outside the subdivision. Besides, they are safer than us. No way can a warg crawl into that hole they made without crushing itself.”
With the ridge vent fully raised, Aidan climbed out onto the roof. For a second, he scanned the skies looking for low clouds. The ceiling was high today. He gave Alyssa a hand up while Kirk and Jaxon climbed out onto the roof. Except for Kirk, they were each carrying an additional backpack. Alyssa and Jaxon carried Colt and Peter’s packs while Aidan carried the bag of urine.
Black Fang lunged again, and this time, he hit the side of the wall with enough force to almost knock them off balance and off the two-story roof. The only thing down there was broken bones and a really pissed off warg.
“Now where?” Alyssa asked. Flames were coming up from the front porch and the backyard.
Suddenly, Aidan felt the eyes on him. Just like Mr. Whittenberg two days ago, today they were the ones being watched by the hiders, the people who hid in crawlspaces and attics and basements of the neighborhood. Only this time, they weren’t going to be assisted suicides. They were going to be hunted down and murdered.
Aidan dropped to the roof tile and slid down towards the tip-off. At the bottom, he kicked off, dived, and rolled onto the first-floor house. Jaxon followed him next. Once he was safely aside, Kirk told Alyssa it was her time.
“I’m no athlete. I can’t make that jump.”
“Aidan will help you across. Look – he’s waiting for you.”
“That’s good and all, but I still can’t make that jump.”
“Then we’ll do it together.”
On the count of three, they slid down the rooftop, both of them screaming. Alyssa just knew she wasn’t going to be able to stop in time. She saw her body going over the edge of the slanted roof and crumpling on the ground.
“Now!” Kirk yelled, and they both kicked off together.
As their feet left the building, Alyssa looked to Aidan. She saw great fear in his eyes, but there was more to it than just the jump.
From underneath her, a giant maw full of gnarled black fangs reached up to bite her foot off. Narrowly, Kirk and Alyssa avoided the warg as they crashed into the side of the house. Jaxon and Aidan pulled them up as the warg jumped again, this time catching on the side of the house and pulling himself up.
They all jumped into some bushes and trees on the far side of the house and sprinted across the street. They moved fast, their speed fueled by adrenaline.
“Where the hell are we going?” Alyssa yelled.
“I don’t know, but follow me!” Aidan yelled. It was as good a suggestion as any. Alyssa looked behind her. Black Fang had disappeared. Maybe he returned to the house.
Colt traded turns with Peter for the broken hammer. Coughing in the dust, Peter examined his bloody hand. There were three large cuts that would probably require stitches – assuming they could ever get to a doctor. The pain was electricity jolting through his hand and searing up his forearm.
“Think that’ll need stitches if we can ever find a doctor?” Peter asked.
“Don’t be a pussy,” Colt shot back.
“I’m serious!”
“I think that’s a running gag with us.”
Behind him, wargs growling stopped any chance to humor the moment for Peter. He ran back to the tunnel’s turn and straight into the eyes of one of the beasts. The creature jabbed its head at the tunnel, but the tunnel was barely large enough to fit Peter – there was no way the warg could get anything more than its head inside. The warg knew it, too. It ducked out of view. Peter smiled. Maybe this would work out after all. In the blank area where a warg’s ugly face used to be, Peter could see smoke. The house was on fire. Then he saw something remarkable and truly terrifying. Something he never thought he would see. The warg reappeared, but this time it raised and lowered its paw. It did this two times, three times, then stopped and looked into the hole. Was this really happening?
“We got trouble!” Peter yelled down to Colt as he ran back to the concrete.
“What is it?” Colt stopped hammering. They just weren’t making the progress they needed.
“They’re smoking us out.”
Aidan, Alyssa, Jaxon, and Kirk rounded Vicksburg and headed towards the Lakewood entrance. Aidan thought of the last time he saw the entrance to Lakewood. There was a herd of demon longhorns playing the role of centurion guard there. He hoped they weren’t still there.
Up ahead, Aidan saw what he was after. Giant metal animals with climbing ribs, and behind them, big metal beams jutted out of the ground. A narrow, grated staircase led five feet up to the first tier. Insect-like climbing arches, fireman’s poles, and smaller slides formed the legs of the play structure. Rock-climbing walls were the spider’s sides. Almost 30 feet in the air, the corkscrew slide was like giant spider’s teeth. This was where they had some high ground. If they could make it here, they could make a stand.
Then Black Fang leaped over the red-brick walls and jumped across the boulevard. The monster came out on the far side of the playground.
They raced the warg to the spider play set. The warg toppled the happy-faced yellow dog with the hanging jowls and jumped at the spider play set. From the opposite side, Aidan lit a Molotov. Aidan used the first level of the playground set as a leaping ground and lunged at Black Fang. In mid-air, he slammed the Molotov on the monster’s face.
Black Fang collided with the rock wall, screaming. The creature fell down and shook his flaming head while the others climbed up the playground. Aidan rolled on the mulch, then ascended the climbing wall back to the narrow barred corridor that was the spider’s spine. Jaxon pulled his shotgun, but before he could shoot, something mindboggling happened. Suddenly, a group of six or eight high school kids – he assumed they were all jocks and cheerleaders based on their letterman jackets and outfits – burst out from underneath the playground. Yelling, they scattered. Black Fang, most of the flames vanished from its now hairless head, was enraged and confused. It took advantage of the fleeing teens like a wolf landing in the middle of a chicken shack. Jaws snapped and head lunged. Black Fang slammed one of the jocks into one of the playground set’s metal beams so hard that his massive paw caved in the kid’s chest. He turned and ripped the head off a cheerleader, then plunged into the escaping kids, throwing bodies from side to side.
Jaxon aimed the shotgun and fired. With only birdshot, the blast did no harm to the warg, but it was enough to keep the alpha from finishing its massacre.
“Thanks!” Aidan yelled. “You just reminded the damned thing why it was here in the first place!”
Aidan pulled out the Winchester while Kirk, Jaxon, and Alyssa crowded the very top of the corkscrew slide.
Black Fang walked over to the equipment, ignoring the carnage in front of him. He lifted one paw up on the grate, and then his toe seemed to pop out of socket and wrap ar
ound the grate. The boys and Alyssa stared in shock at the new evolution in the wargs. Black Fang pulled himself up on the set, his enormous form ridiculously perched on the narrow equipment.
The warg growled low and long. Snapped his giant serrated teeth. His disfigured face sneered at the impudent humans. At this close range, the more dog-like features of the beast surfaced. The wedge-shaped muzzle, the stout neck, and the slight black and tan markings told Aidan that, on the other side of reality, Black Fang had been somebody’s German Shepherd.
Aidan leveled the barrel. There was no reason to take aim. The creature was too close to miss.
He fired. The creature didn’t yelp. The bullet glanced off his shoulder.
Black Fang crouched for the pounce. Aidan leaned into the cool walnut stock while Jaxon aimed his shotgun. Then an explosion ripped the playground into a hundred pieces.
The black smoke was reducing visibility in the tunnel, even with the headlamps on the highest setting. Colt was coughing. Peter’s lungs felt like they were on fire. He slammed the hammer down on the concrete and cussed.
“Just more nicks.”
“We gotta keep trying,” Colt said. “It’s our only way out.”
Peter looked around. Unless they dug up into the lawn, this was their only way out. He considered pushing through the dirt and emerging that way. They would probably come out somewhere next to the sidewalk. Assuming the wargs didn’t pick up on it, maybe they could escape…
“No chance,” Peter said. “We just don’t have the strength to go zombie here. Besides, the roof would probably cave in on us, which, if it didn’t bury us alive, would make enough commotion to attract the wargs.”
Colt coughed again. “My lungs ache.”
“Mine, too. Let’s not give up yet, though. There are people in worse places than us. I mean, just think about it. There are some people living in starving countries or living in other countries where they are running from their overlords. Oh, wait…” He smiled, and Colt did, too.
He hammered again. This time, the concrete broke. Rotten, stale air billowed into the tunnel.
“Yep, we made it!” He coughed. “Not sure this is an improvement in air quality, though.”
Trying not to use his bleeding hand, Peter pushed through the concrete. With all the stress fractures, it had broken into pieces. Peter crawled first into the sewer. Colt followed.
“Now we only have about a hundred yards to crawl through lemonade and mud,” Peter said.
“You mean…”
“Lemonade and Mud!” Peter reiterated.
Peter and Colt crawled through a hundred yards of the kind of unimaginable foulness that nobody wants to talk about. For almost twenty yards, Peter held his breath, but the smell was so fetid it really didn’t help. After a hundred yards, they slithered out of a blue tube like two turds from the subdivision’s rectum. They landed in the ditch. They were free.
Lying on his side, Black Fang pawed at the air like a spinning tire on an overturned car.
“I know you. You’re Riley Overstreet, cheerleader. And Charlie Tate, linebacker,” Jaxon said.
Riley and Charlie looked at the dead bodies, the devastated play gym, the fallen warg, then back to them.
“Who are you?” Riley asked.
“We went to high school together. We were in the same English class.”
Riley looked at Jaxon as if from years away. Some slight recognition crept into her blue eyes.
“You were dating Wendy, right?”
“Listen, guys, I’m not against the icebreaker, but we still got wargs back there. We gotta run,” Aidan said.
“Wait. First, just tell me what happened,” Kirk said. “We were all waiting to turn into warg cheeseburger, then there was this explosion.”
“Oh, that,” Riley said, still a little shell-shocked. “I threw a grenade.”
“Oh. Well, thanks for that. Let’s go. There’s a Viper with our name on it.”
They started running for the subdivision’s entrance. Jaxon looked back, and neither Riley nor Charlie was moving.
“You coming?” Jaxon said.
When they didn’t respond, he went back to Riley, took her by the hand, and led her away. Charlie followed from afar. His legs didn’t seem to be capable of running at linebacker speeds yet.
Aidan said a silent thank you that there were no psychotic longhorns out in the open. There were cars everywhere, though, and a few bodies that died months ago, their remains scattered by animals. A huge chunk of barbwire fencing was missing from the pasture across the street. The Viper lay as it died, with twin curls of burnt rubber arching away from it. They didn’t know what had happened to the owner, but from the vent ridge on Vicksburg, they had seen that it still had its keys in the ignition.
From across the road, Aidan saw Peter and Colt running. They looked like black smudges.
“You made it!” he cheered, and then, “You stink.”
“Quien se pelló?” Alyssa said while waving her hand over her head.
Aidan held the seat back.
“Shotgun!” Kirk called out.
While Kirk went to the passenger-side door, Alyssa, Jaxon, Riley, and Charlie climbed in the back. There was barely enough room to fit Peter in the back, too. Colt had to sit up front under the dashboard.
“Oh, man, that is awful,” Charlie moaned.
“Sweet ride, though,” Kirk said. “If you’re gonna drive around the apocalypse, you might as well do it in style.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not crammed in the back like a damn clown car,” Alyssa said. “I’m not sure I can breathe.”
Aidan turned the ignition. The Viper popped forward and stopped.
“What the hell!” Alyssa yelled.
“Hang on,” Aidan said, as he tried again, with the same effect.
“Don’t you know how to drive a clutch?” Alyssa said.
“No. I said I didn’t know. I said I would try, but I didn’t know.”
“Good God,” Alyssa said. “If you don’t know how to drive a stick shift, somebody else drive.”
But nobody moved.
“Does nobody know how to drive a stick?” Alyssa asked everyone.
Again, no answer.
“Hell, no! I am not going to die in some high-end sports car cramped up with a bunch of stupid white people and two that stink like a landfill just because you want to drive through the apocalypse in style. Get me out of here! Now!”
Everybody jumped out of the car. Just then, the two remaining wargs ran out into the road. Everybody looked to Aidan.
“Quick, try every car, and we’ll take the one that’s working, even if it’s a bike,” he said.
They fanned out into the road, but every sedan and SUV they tried either had no keys or the battery was dead. The wargs were closing in fast. And impossibly, now Black Fang was back with them.
Aidan looked at the dead body ripped to pieces in front of the mini-van. He scrunched his nose and looked away as he reached into the pocket of the unattached leg. He pulled out the keys and pressed the unlock button on the car’s remote. The car lights blinked, and the buttons on the doors unlocked.
“I think I’ve got a live one here!” He yelled as he jumped into the van. He turned the ignition, and the engine hummed mercifully to life.
“Come on!”
“A mini-van?” Kirk chided. “Really?”
“No time to make fun of my ride, Kirk. We gotta go.”
All eight poured into the van. Kirk didn’t call shotgun this time, so Alyssa rode up front. Only Colt had to sit on the floor. Kirk looked back at the Viper and moaned. “You’d think the one good thing about surviving the apocalypse is you’d be able to choose whatever car you wanted to drive, and you’d be able to drive it.”
The wargs didn’t catch up for a long time.
Part Two: The Long Bridge
Chapter Five – Courteous
The first night on the road was by far the scariest. In contradiction, the first day h
ad been their best. Their world was no longer closed in by the subdivision’s walls. They were free to explore the new and terrifying world. For Peter, Aidan, and Colt who had lost their brother, a silent pact had been made, to find their parents.
The seven drove a state road northward out of town. They were shocked by how much distance they could make. Within an hour, they were outside of the metro area. By their first bathroom break (a funny picture of seven people forming a circle around the mini-van, too scared of the outside world to be any farther away from each other than the distance needed to not urinate on the next person’s shoes), they had entered the long-limbed pine forests.
“It looks like somebody drove a bulldozer through here,” Jaxon said. All the cars lined the sides of the road like the wake in mechanical waters. Aidan wondered what kind of boat drove through a scrap metal lake.
“What are you thinking about?” Alyssa asked him.
Aidan pointed to the crossroads signs. “I’m wondering which way to go.”
“Well, where do you want to go?”
“Vegas, baby!” Peter shouted.
“Chicago!”
“Atlanta!”
“Hell, no! Have you seen The Walking Dead? No way we’re going to Atlanta!”
“Hollywood!”
“I want to go as far north as I can,” Aidan told Alyssa. “So far north that nothing lives there except lichen and moss.”
“I could go with that right now,” she said.
Nobody else disagreed, so Aidan took the northbound lane. They drove for hours deeper into the forest.
As night fell, they stopped in the middle of the state road. The engine stopped, and Aidan reached for the lights.
“No. Not yet. I need just a minute,” Alyssa said.
After a few seconds, the lights went out on their own. Suddenly, the trees on both sides of the road felt a lot closer than they had when the sun was up. The line of pines was like giant walls pressing against them. Their tops were like the teeth of a giant saw blade striking at the sky. A sense of dread crept into the backs of all their minds. For the past two months, they had lived safely in an attic surrounded by barriers to keep them protected from animals. But sleeping in the minivan, they were almost completely defenseless. No high ground, no soundproofing, no scent proofing.
