by Doug Goodman
“Do you know any of the constellations?” Colt asked. He tossed the skull and gas mask aside.
“Well, there’s Orion up there. Then there’s uh, well…Aidan, did you print out any constellation information back at the house?”
“Even if I did, I lost all that back at Bridgetown.” Aidan turned on his side, pulled his sleeping bag close to him, and closed his eyes, but he did not sleep.
“I think I see one,” Jax said. “It’s the constellation X-box.”
“X-box? Really?” Colt searched the skies.
“Yeah, right up there. That box with the wire hanging out. See it? And over there is the constellation Tyrion, sitting on a crooked chair. I’m sure if you look closely you’ll see all the great ones up there: Gandalf, Wolverine, Victoria’s Secret models….”
“I bet Mike’s up there. And so is Kirk. Probably playing guitar to that girl he liked,” Colt said.
“You know what? I bet he is, too.”
Jax pulled up his hecho en Mexico wool blanket. They were all huddled as close as they could get in toppled airline seats to help keep each other warm. The weather was turning colder. They didn’t know if it was still November or if December had snuck into their lives, but the chill was setting on them like an ugly tattoo that wouldn’t let go. Before he turned in, Aidan had built a shallow coal fire that wouldn’t attract much attention but still give off warmth.
“Hey, guess what I got,” Peter said. He pulled some cellphones out of his sleeping bag and handed them around. “I found them in a store in that town with the upside-down name sign.”
“You mean the one with the 20-foot rattlesnake?” Jax said, smiling. Mockingly, he crowed, “Oh, c’mon, let’s go check it out. It’ll be fun.”
“Well, at least now we know what an upside down name sign means.”
“Yeah, it means everybody who would be there knows it is no longer a place where anyone should be and only a dumbass would enter.”
“Point being,” Peter said as sternly as he could, “We don’t have phone service or texting or Internet, but we got everything else.”
“Oooh, I can take selfies again!” Riley cooed. She climbed partially out of her sleeping bag, held the phone away from her, beamed wildly, snapped a photo of herself, and passed it around.
“When cells are up running again, I’ll tag you all in it. Then I will post it online as ‘my first extended camping trip.’”
“Wait,” Jax said, “This is your first?”
“Well, yeah. I wasn’t a girl scout. When I was a kid and my family camped, we did overnight stuff. This is my first camping trip that’s gone on for like, two or three months now.”
Jax pulled her in for a kiss, but she stopped him. “If you want it, you’re going to have to chase it, bucko.”
“Now I’m a bucko.”
“Welcome to the friend zone, dude,” Peter said.
Jax pulled an imaginary knife out of his chest and scooted his bag away from hers. She grabbed his leg and said, “Hell, no. As a friend, you’re still keeping me warm tonight. It’s cold!”
“I wish there were more of us,” Colt said. “I miss Kirk and Alyssa.” He inhaled sharply.
“Me, too, Bucko,” Riley said.
The cold night air seemed closer then, so they all lay down around each other and went to sleep. Aidan stayed up.
Downtown Austin lay over a river and in the hills. A windstorm had come through the night before, so a thin layer of crackling red and yellow leaves covered the roadways.
“Are you sure about this? We should keep going,” Jax said.
“I was going to go to school here,” Aidan said. “I want to at least go check it out.”
Slowly, the fire truck drove off the freeway and entered the town. The roads were clear. All the pick-ups, sedans, and jeeps had been pushed to the side, some under overhanging rust and sand-colored bedrock where the streets had been carved out of the hillside.
Peter took the family rifle and climbed on top of the fire truck.
In the downtown area, the streets were empty of flesh and steel. It was as if God had called every Ford and Ford-loving cowboy up to Heaven right before the rapture.
Peter pulled the bandana down from over his mouth and yelled, “There’s some creepy old guy sitting in the middle of the road!”
The creepy old guy was sitting on a plastic chair – the kind found in classrooms – and smoking a cigarette. The cigarette was almost down to the butt.
“I think he’s lost his mind.”
The fire truck rolled to a stop, and the lost boys got out. Jax said to the others, “Be careful, and remember what happened the last time we came across a person who wouldn’t talk.”
To the old man, Jax yelled, “Speak up, grandpa, or we’ll shoot you!”
“Don’t shoot!” the man said. His voice trembled in the air.
Jax walked up to him while the others waited by the truck. “What happened here?” he demanded to the man sitting on the plastic chair. It was crayon-red. “Who cleared all the roads? Are there any others like you?”
The man didn’t say anything more. He had a comb-over and large old man’s glasses, though he couldn’t have been a day over 45, and he was wearing a scoutmaster’s shirt. Hence, the creep-factor. Jax played it cool.
“You a scoutmaster, huh? Hey, we’ve got an Eagle Scout with us. Maybe you can brighten him up a bit? He’s been down in the dumps since we left Bridgetown.”
As he was talking, Jax noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Somebody was running up towards them from the alleyway. Slowly it occurred to him that the runner was a soldier. Had to be a soldier because otherwise, it was Alyssa dressed in a ghillie suit like a soldier, and why would she be here in Austin wearing a soldier’s outfit? And why was she waving her hands and shouting?
“No! Don’t say anything!” she yelled.
But it was too late. At the mention of Bridgetown, the man cocked his face towards Jax.
“You came all the way from Bridgetown? Really?” The man asked. His eyes seemed to roll towards Aidan like the eyes on one of those plastic clown toys. The ones that are always coming alive in horror movies.
Jax looked at Alyssa for a second, not sure what she was talking about or why she was wearing camouflage. This all made no sense, so he answered the man. He could hear the words coming out of his mouth as he tried to reach out and grab them. Alyssa’s warning was seeping into him. He trusted her. He shouldn’t say anything to the creepy old Scoutmaster, and yet the words were coming out all the same.
“Yes. There’s not much left of it, though. People are going to need to find a new commuter route to work, you know?”
“You’re them,” the man said, bewildered. “You’re really them. I can’t believe it. You’re just kids. Not a one of you twenty. You’re them. You’re them! It’s them! They’re here! It’s them!” He started shouting louder and louder until his face turned purple and the veins on his neck stood out.
“How do you know us?” Jax asked, but the man didn’t answer. He kept yelling, “It’s them!” over and over.
Alyssa ran up behind the man and hit him with a steel tray girder. Blood splattered across Jax’s shirt. The man fell down convulsing.
“What are you doing?” Jax tried to understand. “Have you lost your freaking mind? You just killed a man.”
“We’ve got to go. It isn’t safe anymore out here. They’ve been warned.”
“Who’s been warned?”
“If you thought the grackles were bad, you have no idea. Now run. We haven’t much time.”
At that moment, Jax felt a shadow passing over him. He looked up and saw the sky darkening, like a thunderhead approaching from the river. It wasn’t a storm he was seeing, though. Something else. He felt he should now this, should know why the sky was turning from day to night, but the explanation was escaping him. As his senses sharpened, his body hit the fight or flight response, with an emphasis on getting the hell out.
Peter looked up at the
black cloud. “What the flip do we do now?”
“Run!” Jax shouted. He ran for the fire truck.
“Not that way!” Alyssa grabbed Jax by the hand and jerked him towards the alley.
The others followed Alyssa into the backdoor of a restaurant with tall ceiling-to-floor windows across the front. “Hidalgo’s” was painted in white and green letters across the front windows of the restaurant. Val held the door open while everyone rushed inside. He took the steel tray girder and jammed it in the door’s handle. They sat down below the restaurant’s windows, partially covered by the tables, and studied the outside road.
“Be very quiet,” Alyssa mouthed.
At first, Jax thought the dark cloud was grackles or insects because the creatures were chittering. He had seen those before. A tentacle-like tornado funneled down towards the scoutmaster, who was no longer convulsing. They swarmed and surrounded the old man, and then they spread out across the road and between the buildings. That’s when Jax got a close enough view to recognize them. Hundreds of thousands of small, leathery wings. They were crying out and chittering to each other, and then one of the bats landed on the brick wall of the restaurant. It was maybe a foot long, most of it tail, and it had ears almost a quarter the size of its body. Its body quivered and pulsated as it pulled itself along the window’s edge with its claws. The bat screamed at the window, then crawled a little farther and screamed again.
Eyes froze wide or shut. Nobody moved. It was like they were back in the house on Vicksburg surrounded by bats and grackles that would locate them if they barely moved or made a noise.
The bat crawled right up to where Alyssa’s face should be and screamed again. But while everyone had been staring at the bats, she had donned a ghillie suit helmet. The bat flew away. A few minutes later, after the bats had swarmed through every side street and back alley in the downtown area, the bats left, and the sky turned sunny again.
Alyssa stood up. She looked out of place in the downtown restaurant wearing her camouflaged ghillie suit. She found herself wrapped in Colt’s arms. She hugged him back.
“I know,” she said. “It’s okay.” Then Peter and Jax and Riley were all suddenly holding her, too.
“We thought we’d lost you,” Colt said.
“I missed you guys, too,” she said. She smiled and dropped her chin into their embrace. When they let go, she wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Val found more ghillie suits. You will all need to wear one when you’re outside. There aren’t many wargs here. We think it’s cause of the bats. They run the city.”
“Bats? Where are they coming from?” Peter asked.
“Get this,” Val said. “Before Black Friday, Austin was known for having the largest urban bat population in America. These bats lived under the bridges, but we went exploring once and didn’t find any.”
“Of course, with the city pretty much dead, they could be roosting in a building somewhere for all we know,” Alyssa added. “We are pretty safe so long as we stay inside. They are still using echolocation to find us.”
“What about the people?” Aidan asked. “It sounded almost like that guy was waiting for us.”
Alyssa looked to Val.
“He was. Remember how in Bridgetown, we had made a deal with Malifax? And remember how Malifax could talk to our minds? I still hear him. And he is talking to the people who live here, too, except there is no bargain like my father made, just a demand for the kids who escaped Bridgetown.”
“Great,” Peter glowered. “So it’s not just animals after us, it’s people, too?”
“Afraid so,” Val said. “The good news is the bats are still using echolocation and not their sense of smell. And it’s too cold for them to stay much longer. They will have to migrate south if they are going to survive the winter.”
“And the insects are leaving, too,” Peter said.
“Right,” Val agreed. “I can’t look up on the Internet how many insects a bat eats, but it’s got to take a lot, so again, they can’t stay here much longer.”
“Well, neither can I,” Aidan said, and he started to leave.
“No, wait!” Alyssa shouted. All social mores were ripped out of their foundation. In front of everyone, she ran up to Aidan and slammed the door shut. The other boys dismissed themselves.
Outside, the door slammed shut. The sound bounced off the alley wall and entered the street. A lone bat hanging from the lamppost turned its head towards the sound, then dropped from the lamppost and flew away.
“Why did you leave us?” Alyssa tried not to yell at him, but she couldn’t help it.
“I didn’t leave you, you left me!”
“Aidan Kerry Fannin, I haven’t left you since Black Friday, so why would you think that I would leave you in Bridgetown?”
“Don’t try to put this on me. I saw how you were with him.”
“Him?”
“Don’t try to deny it. Him. Val. You and he have had eyes for each other ever since we got to Bridgetown.”
“You need to stop right there,” Alyssa warned him. “I’ve known Val for a long time now. Since middle school. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think I do. I’m not blind.”
“I won’t stop my friendship with him for you.”
“Fine, cause you don’t have to. I will just take myself out of the equation.”
“Stop being such an asshole!”
“I’m the asshole? I saw you and him. He had his shirt off and you were running your hands all over his giant pecs and whatever. You’re so gross! And you kissed him!”
Alyssa’s mouth dropped, completely mortified.
“You think that…? Val! Val!”
Aidan looked back towards the kitchen. Val was buttoning his shirt. The boys were all looking at Val and back to Aidan. Their eyes were wide with something that looked like a world upended, which was saying a lot. They receded farther back into the kitchen while Val finished buttoning his shirt and walked out.
“Val, get your butt over here right now!”
Val half-trotted to Aidan and Alyssa.
“Show him,” she said.
He hesitated. “I already showed the others. How many times do I have to take my shirt off today?”
“Please, just one more time. I don’t like asking you to do this, and I know it’s kinda demeaning, but I really need you to do this for me. I don’t think he’ll believe me unless he sees.”
Val took a deep breath and unbuttoned his shirt. Aidan looked at two beautifully formed breasts with wide, dark aureoles.
Aidan looked at the breasts, to Val, then to Alyssa, then briefly back to the breasts. Val buttoned his shirt back up.
“Say something,” Alyssa said.
“What the fuck?” came out of Aidan’s mouth.
Val’s eyes twisted, Alyssa’s rolled. That’s when the giant bat flung itself headfirst through the front window.
Glass burst across the room. The giant bat flung itself around the ceiling, knocked out a light, and landed. It was almost five feet tall, had an ugly, serrated mouth, and bright green phosphorescent patterns that waved across its wings and body.
The rifle was fired several times, and Jax stabbed at the giant bat, but it was hard to pinpoint its location with all the dazzling lights flailing around.
It knocked Riley over, and as it flew back towards the vaulted ceiling, its feet cut Peter across the forehead.
Alyssa grabbed a candlestick from one of the tables and ran back towards the kitchen while everyone else fought the giant bat. She could not see well in the dark. The bat’s bioluminescence was as dismaying as a flash bomb. Not able to see well, she ran right into a food prep table, nearly knocking the wind out of herself. She doubled over and clutched her stomach.
“Stop firing! Aidan yelled. “You’re just wasting bullets!”
Peter dropped the Winchester and wondered how he was going to fight off a giant bat with just his fists. Then he remembered something, and he,
too, ran to the kitchen. Like Alyssa, he couldn’t see well. He couldn’t hear well, either, because the bat was screeching constantly. So he never saw Alyssa trying to stand in one corner. He waved his hands out until he found the hanging butcher’s knives.
Alyssa’s hands groped around the back of the oven until she felt the gas line in her fingers. She jerked hard, popping the line. The nauseating smell filled her lungs. She wondered for a second whether or not gas was still pumping through the lines or if what she was smelling the small bit that was left in the line. If it was still pumping, how did it do it? Was it machine operated or did a person somewhere have to pull a switch, or was she lucky enough that this gas line went directly to a large propane tank out back? She had no idea, just the hope that this worked. They had used Molotov cocktails on wargs, so animals were still flammable.
She ran back towards the far end of the kitchen with an unused candle in one hand and a lighter in the other, when something cut across the air in front of her. She ducked, then felt the blade cut into her.
Peter grabbed a couple of chef’s knives and a cleaver for himself. He was about to run when he heard something approaching hard and fast from the back of the kitchen. He tried squinting his eyes to see the creature better, but he couldn’t make out anything. He put the other knives down except for one chef’s knife and one cleaver. Then he prepared for whatever this world was going to throw at him next.
A shape appeared out of the darkness, and he swiped at it with the cleaver. It ducked, and he realized it was somebody, but his other arm was already shooting out at one of his friends. Misery stabbed him as he felt the blade connect with flesh.
Alyssa screamed.
Peter dropped the knives.
“I’m sorry! Where did I get you?”
“Shut up and keep moving!” She pushed him forward. He grabbed the knives and ran.
With her good hand, Alyssa placed the candle on the kitchen table, lit it, and followed Peter back out into the chaos.
The radiating lights had moved beyond brightness flashing in their eyes. It was like trying to fight with strobe lights going off inside their heads. They were no longer looking at the bat while they tried to punch, stab, or grab it. The bat was winning. Already Colt was climbing underneath a table to try to escape the bright whirling green lights. In between flashes, he caught glimpses of his friends. They were being cut up like ribbons of cloth, and he didn’t know how much longer they could fight. Jax had the worst of it. With the parang, he posed the biggest threat. He had even gotten a cut of good leathery wing. However, the giant bat had paid him back for that cut with a deep cut to his side.
