by Matt Wallace
As Marcus racks the shotgun and sets his sights on the next, Cindy lets loose a blood-curdling battle cry and leaps over the reception desk at the throng of meat puppets shambling from the windows on the other side of the room. She quickly spins like a discus thrower and impales the closest one through the center of its chest with her dagger’s blade. The meat puppet doesn’t fall; it simply stops moving, slumping forward on its feet like a powered-down automaton. At the same time, Cindy swings her tomahawk into the chest of another one.
Behind the reception desk, Ritter reaches inside his pocket and then holds his balled fist in front of his face. Opening his fingers, he reveals five small multicolored thumbtacks, like the kind you’d purchase at any ordinary office supply store. Ritter whispers several inaudible words to the tacks in a language that no longer exists. When he’s finished, he very gently blows into his palm.
The thumbtacks immediately fly from his hand as if they were bullets leaving the barrel of a pistol. Each one finds its way into the center of a different meat puppet’s chest, burrowing deeply there and finding the gremlins driving the POTUS clones.
“Fucking show-off,” Marcus mutters, racking the slide and blasting one of the last targets still standing in the lobby.
“Go with what you know,” Ritter says.
Marcus discharges another spent shell. “Hey! You know what I just realized, man?”
Ritter is already reaching for more tacks. “What’s that?”
His brother sights his fourth and final meat puppet with a grin. “This is the closest I’ve ever come to voting!”
Ritter actually cracks a grin of his own, which is rare enough for him, but it’s even more short-lived than his brother would’ve expected.
“What?” Marcus asks, his mirth quickly fading as he follows Ritter’s dark gaze.
“That was just the first wave,” Cindy calmly announces.
Sure enough, twice as many presidential meat puppets are swarming from the caravan outside and lumbering toward the broken windows and battered-down doors of the lobby, their identical faces seeming even redder and more bloated than usual.
Marcus racks his shotgun and checks the ammo bag attached to his belt, realizing he’ll be depleted faster than they’ll run out of racist rhetoric–spouting, bird’s nest–haired enemy clones.
Ritter watches him, then looks back at the descending horde.
“It’s time to fall back,” he says.
CHANGED
The thing under the large stained canvas tarp smells so foul, Moon actually considers asking Ryland for one of his cigarettes just so he can taste something else.
The two of them stand outside Sin du Jour’s service entrance, looking like the least qualified sentries ever tasked with guarding a portal.
“Explain to me once more why I’ve agreed to this,” Ryland says around the butt of his unfiltered Camel.
“Because . . . uh . . . all of the tires on your crap mobile home are busted and you can’t drive away?”
“There is a certain rationale to that, admittedly.”
“Listen . . . you’ve been a good teacher. I’ve been meaning to thank you.”
“Please, spare me the threat of a bonding moment. I haven’t the facilities to internalize such things. It’s very much like when I ingest Mexican cuisine.”
Moon can’t help but grin. “All right, whatever. Thanks, though.”
Ryland takes a long drag of his cigarette and blows enough smoke to populate a cock-rock music video from the 1980s.
“You’ve proven an adequate pupil,” he says a moment later. “Far better than I was in your position.”
“Wow. Thanks, man.”
“It’s hardly high praise, just so you know.”
“Yeah, I get it. Still, thank you.”
The lights of the armored carrier are blinding as it turns and barrels down the alley towards the service entrance.
“Is all that necessary?” Ryland complains, shielding his raw, red eyes with his forearm.
“Shit, dude, they’re coming!”
The carrier accelerates to top speed and Ryland, still hiding his eyes, is spared the sight of the vehicle smashing into his booted RV. The old and decrepit Winnebago is practically ripped in half by the military transport, each section being knocked off its inert wheels and toppled to the cement. The carrier screeches to a halt upon impact. It appears totally unharmed after the collision, despite being parked amidst the smoking debris of what’s no longer recognizable as a recreational vehicle.
Ryland slowly lowers his arm, hungover eyes blinking at the scene of the wreck.
“Fuck, dude, I’m sorry,” Moon says.
“I suppose it was inevitable. Even overdue, dependent upon your perception of our ongoing circumstance.”
A dozen humans clad in black flak jackets, helmets, and face masks deploy from the carrier with trained and uniform efficiency. They’re all carrying assault rifles, and in the next moment, all of those assault rifles are pointing at Moon and Ryland.
“Stand aside from the door and lie down on the cement!” one of the faceless shock troops orders them both.
“And who are you to marshal me about?” Ryland demands as if they aren’t all cradling fully automatic weapons. “This is precisely why I rejected military service, I’ll have you know. You’re bloody brimming with unearned grandeur, the lot of you.”
As he talks, both he and Moon deftly grasp the changing medallions hung from chains around their necks; the one Ryland wears is the same one fashioned by his father and donned in his beloved Polaroid.
“Down on the ground or we’ll light you up right now!” the armed operator repeats.
“Suck my ass, ya goon!” Moon fires back at him.
“Not entirely eloquent, but the sentiment is right,” Ryland mutters.
A dozen fingers tighten around a dozen triggers, but before they can squeeze out a single round, four of the armed men are seized by a thousand micro-convulsions that wrack their bodies, causing them to lose their grips on their rifles. The others turn toward them, surprised and confused. Through their armor it’s difficult to see the life being drained from the bodies of the four men, but the sight of their eyes sinking back into their skulls is unmistakable.
As they drop to the pavement, the large shape beneath the tarp in front of Ryland and Moon begins to stir. The mercenaries are so focused on their comrades, they don’t notice until a jarring growl pulls their attention to the commotion just in time to watch the canvas flung back by the enraged grizzly that is now rising to full height.
The bear is enormous, still marred by a nasty head wound that should be and was fatal, and it appears to be incredibly pissed off.
“Fire!” the lead operator shouts, but by the time the first round has entered the bear’s body, the monstrous creature is already on top of them.
“You’ll have to forgive him!” Ryland shouts at the shock troops amiably. “He was killed by a hunter, so I imagine he’s still quite cross at men with large rifles. You’ll all understand, of course.”
The reanimated creature given new life that was drained from those four shock troops shreds through the body armor and helmets of the rest of the men like gift-wrapping, absorbing every bullet fired at its body. Each shot only seems to further feed its fury. By the time only one of the operators is left standing, the bear is bleeding from countless wounds and the lone gunman has run out of ammo.
The grizzly doesn’t make it quick, and the mercenary isn’t quiet about his feelings on the matter.
“That is not a fit sight for decent people,” Ryland says, looking away.
“You never been to a horror movie?” Moon asks him.
“You aren’t allowed to consume alcohol in most modern American theaters.”
The screaming finally ceases. As the bear rears back and growls triumphantly at the night, an equally circular shape momentarily blots out the moon. When the shape descends, the rays of the exposed moon perfectly illuminate a solid meta
l sphere the size of a giant beach ball obliterating the bear’s head. The sphere cracks the cement as it lands atop the pavement, splashing Ryland and Moon with bloody entrails upon impact.
“What the fuck?” Moon exclaims.
The sphere breaks apart into several dozen tiny pieces. Squinting, Moon and Ryland see the pieces are actually miniscule bipedal creatures wearing sleek, curved armor designed to fit together. Moon immediately recalls the kitchen staff’s tales about the Japanese businessmen from the elemental banquet who were actually composed of dozens upon dozens of disguised . . .
“Gnomes,” Moon says.
“I take it these miniature fellows are not on our side, then?” Ryland asks.
As if in answer to his question, Ryland yelps around his cigarette, his shoulders involuntarily jumping as he’s struck in the chest by an unseen object. Blinking rapidly, he reaches a hand inside his shirt and feels around for a moment before retrieving a slender sprig of metal the size and shape of a toothpick. Ryland inspects it closely with a drunken, curious expression on his face, not noticing the blood beginning to seep through his breast pocket.
“I appear . . . it appears I’ve been . . . impaled . . . by a very, very tiny sword. Funny, that.”
“Dude, no” is all Moon manages before Ryland collapses in a heap of rumpled clothes and mussed hair.
Moon looks down at his motionless form. The cigarette is still perched perilously between Ryland’s lips. It remains there, tendrils of smoke curling into the night air, the only spark still present in the man’s body.
Even Ryland’s death proved to be a pratfall.
Moon turns his tear-stung eyes to the gnomes, breath coming in shallow, angry bursts.
“You motherfuckers!”
The gnomes respond by rushing and leaping at each other, interlocking their armor and forming up into a single bipedal shape, like a slender clockwork knight. The warrior made of gnomish bodies advances on Moon, who backs up futilely until he realizes there’s nowhere to go. A metal arm composed of armored gnomes rises threateningly above Moon’s head.
“Fuckin’ fine,” he says in a ragged, desperate voice. “Do it. I did what I could. I tried. I’m ready. Fuckin’ do it! See if I even care, you little butt plugs!”
Moon shuts his eyes tight, waiting.
He opens them when he hears the sound of a car crash directly in front of his face. What he glimpses is his gnomish would-be killers being flung in every direction after another large sphere has run through their interlocked form like a cannonball.
Moon has to duck and curl into a ball to avoid being hit by flying, screaming gnome shrapnel. He peers out of the corner of his eye, watching the new sphere bounce off the alley wall, hit the pavement, and roll to a halt. This metallic ball isn’t made of sleek, clean, perfect curves like the steel one that re-killed their bear. This new sphere is rusted, battered, and misshapen. When it collapses into a hundred tiny bodies, Moon recognizes the shaggy beard tufts and banged-up armor.
“Hey, it’s you guys!” he shouts jubilantly. “Dude, how’d you get here from Ireland? Do they let you fly commercial?”
Fortunately for Moon, the normally subterranean gnomes are too preoccupied to answer him. In the next moment, an all-out gnomish war has erupted in the alley of Sin du Jour, the faction of old-school elemental gnomes who refused to leave the earthen caverns they love battling the gnomes that have integrated into human society, forging themselves into perfect replica constructs of businessmen to enjoy aboveground luxuries.
Moon tucks himself into the archway of the service entrance and watches the fracas unfold, only one thought dominating his mind.
I am not eating one of these things. Not again. I don’t care which way it goes. Never again.
UNLOADING
A white-smock battalion has massed on the platform of the Sin du Jour loading dock. In truth, they look rather absurd, like a poorly themed gang from the movie The Warriors, but every single one of them is willing to fight and die to protect the others and their surrogate home. The entire kitchen staff, led by Dorsky and Nikki, has armed themselves for combat—Rollo with his medieval meat cleaver the size of a battleaxe, Tenryu wielding matched tsuba knives, Chevet two meat mallets, and James the same pitchfork he used to bale gourmet hay for their Taurus clientele.
Beside him, Darren has wrapped his fists the way Ritter taught him. His taped hands are choking the handle of a shovel.
“I really wish you’d take off,” Dorsky says to Nikki, nervously shifting the grip of a gargantuan butcher’s knife from one hand to the other. “At least go chill out with Boosha in her hole. It’s probably the safest place in the building, not that that means much.”
Nikki finishes pulling on a large reflective glove, three times the size of a standard oven mitt.
She pats him on the chest with it. “Tag, you’ve come so far in such a short time. Don’t revert back to a misogynistic pig now.”
“It’s not because you’re a girl!” he insists. “A woman, I mean. It’s not because of that. It’s because I—”
He quickly stops himself because that part of him hasn’t yet changed enough to allow such words to flow freely.
Nikki smiles sympathetically. “It’s tough feeling things, huh?”
Dorsky drops his chin to his chest. “Yeah.”
She reaches up with both mitt-covered hands and grips the sides of his face, tilting his head back to look into his eyes.
“Me, too,” she says.
“Will you two get room?” Rollo fires at them.
“Leave them alone,” James chides Dorsky’s second-in-command.
“I understand, Rollo,” Nikki says. “He was yours before he was mine.”
The entire line laughs at that.
Even Rollo cracks a grin beneath his grizzly beard.
They hear the crash emanating from the front of the building through the exit to the delivery bay. It kills any lingering laughter immediately.
“All right, cowboy up, everybody!” Dorsky instructs them.
Nikki clears her throat sharply.
“Or cowgirl,” Dorsky corrects himself. “Whatever. They’re coming. Get ready.”
As the chefs tighten their ranks, renewing their grips on their various armaments, they see the lights shining outside the entrance to the loading dock. A moment later, they hear one of the troop carriers turn into the bay, cutting a sharp right, its tires screeching across the pavement as it angles the side of the vehicle in front of the dock. The carrier’s reinforced armored plating opens up, and every muscle on the platform tenses.
Rather than a squadron of heavily armed mercenaries or mystical monsters, however, one lone figure emerges from the vehicle.
Dorsky vocalizes their collective confusion. “What the hell is this?”
The woman is of middle age, draped in sheer black silk with a leather bodice visible underneath.
Several of the line cooks who were there recognize her from Enzo Consoné’s disastrous inauguration. She was representing the witch covens, some kind of presiding elder among that group.
There is no coven with her now, however. She appears to be completely alone.
The witch takes in the sight of them clinging to each other and their makeshift weapons of war. She looks them over and she laughs, just a little, and just for a moment.
“Well, now,” she says, resting her fists against her hips. “You are the rebels causing Allensworth so much bother? How quaint and thoroughly unbelievable.”
“You’re not welcome here,” Nikki says. “We don’t want any trouble, and no one here wants to hurt you. You can just go.”
The witch stares up at her atop the loading dock with the bemused gaze of a parent being talked down to by an overenthusiastic child.
“I see,” she says. “You don’t want to hurt me . . . with what? Those sharp things in your hands?”
She raises her arms in front of her, wrists pressed together as if bound. The witch spreads her arms; every handle g
rasped in their hands flies loose from their fingers. Every blade sails from their grip, twirling across the space and either bouncing off the cement walls or embedding their edges in its surface. In one motion, the witch has disarmed the entire kitchen staff.
“Sad little creatures,” she says. “Know your betters, and bow to them.”
The witch drops her arm, and as she does, each one of their bodies is crushed to the deck of the loading dock. It’s as if gravity has increased by half. Several of the chefs are knocked unconscious by the fall, and all of them have the wind belted from their lungs.
The witch points a talon-nailed finger at Dorsky.
“Let’s begin with you.”
SEND IN THE CLOWNS
“It’s probably a shit time for sentimentality,” Marcus says, panting, “but I missed running and gunning with you, man.”
He punctuates the statement by leveling his shotgun behind them with one hand and unleashing a blind blast into the pursuing meat puppets.
Ritter only grunts a reply as they continue beating feet through the corridors of Sin du Jour with a legion of the worst President in United States history shambling after them.
“Y’all are precious,” Cindy remarks, her breathing less taxed than either of them. “Truly. You need to work on your cardio, though.”
“I do better when I’m not being chased, but that’s just the way when you roll with this guy,” Marcus assures her. “This one time, we were zip-lining away from these nasty-ass tree sprites and our line broke—”
“Save it!” Ritter orders him.
“I’ll tell you later,” Marcus whispers to Cindy.
She can’t suppress a grin. “Can’t wait.”
The trio rounds the next corner and collectively spots two diminutive figures awaiting them at the center of the corridor. Jett, sans her usual war mask of perfect makeup and hair bound in a tight bun, is dressed down in her sharpest cage-fighter gear complete with the same fingerless mixed martial arts gloves she used to rain down punishment upon the succubus who infiltrated Sin du Jour and attempted to usurp her position. The only vestige of her typical work ensemble is the fleshy, growth-looking appendage affixed to her ear like a Bluetooth device that allows her to control her undead (or as Jett insists, “living-challenged”) event workforce.
