by Greg Dragon
“Do you live here, Alysia?” the officer asked.
“No, but I go to Ellen Lok. Look, I sprained my ankle pretty badly and I need that pipe to help me walk. Can you please point the gun somewhere else?”
“Do you have some ID?” the cop asked, determined to stick to procedure despite the world going to hell.
“Yes, here,” Alysia said as she took out her wallet and held it up for the police officer.
When the woman came over to take it from her, Alysia noticed her injury. The creature had bitten her badly, and the blood stained her light blue shirt to the point where it looked as if she had been dipped into purple ink.
“Okay, Alysia. Sorry about that. Let me help you up.”
“Help yourself, you look like you’re about to bleed to death. Are you okay?”
“Officer McLeay…Tracy, just call me Tracy.”
“Tracy, thank you for saving my life, but we need to get you some help,” Alysia said as she retrieved her spear and limped over to the officer.
“Car’s busted and no one’s picking up on the radio, Alysia.”
“CeeCee. My friends call me CeeCee.”
“CeeCee. I like that,” Tracy said, sounding tired and out of breath.
“My friend, Stella, lives here, but she’s gone—just like everyone else. Is it breaking and entering if the world is gone to hell and you desperately need supplies?” Alysia asked, smiling at the notion of asking a cop’s permission to break into a friend’s house.
“Desperate times breed desperate measures,” Tracy said, and Alysia was happy to hear it.
The two women walked over to the back of the house and jimmied open the lock. When they got inside, the place was still in order, but it looked as if someone had left in a hurry. Alysia helped Tracy to the bed and removed her top, then went to the bathroom to look for medical supplies. When she came back and saw the officer laying their topless, she thought she looked like a John William Waterhouse painting.
“Found a box full of Band-Aids and medicine,” Alysia said, and Tracy nodded with a smile.
“I feel so tired,” she said as Alysia began to clean out her wound. “Are you a premed major?” she asked.
“Marketing actually, but my mom is a pediatrician. She’s shown me how to treat minor cuts and injuries.”
“So how do I look, doc?” Tracy joked, and Alysia thought she looked good despite the situation.
“It could have been worse, considering that thing was gnawing at you for so long. The bites aren’t deep and you have some bruising from the accident, but I think meds and a night’s rest will make you better by tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you, CeeCee,” she said meekly, and Alysia nodded with a smile and handed her some pain pills.
Once she was finished helping Tracy, she went into the kitchen and dumped ice into a grocery bag. She secured it with a twisty-tie and then went back into the room. She sat on the chair next to Tracy and removed her shoes, and then elevated her leg onto the TV stand and placed the ice on her throbbing ankle.
“Wow, that looks bad,” Tracy said when she saw the swelling.
“Yeah, I know, and it’s not like I’ve been trying to stay off of it, either,” Alysia replied. She turned on the television and there was an emergency broadcast telling people to stay inside their homes. “I don’t know if that’s good advice considering what I saw at the school.”
“What did you see?” Tracy asked, propping herself up on an elbow, trying in vain to get more comfortable.
“I saw giants.”
“Giants! What sort of giants?”
“Oh, the kind that can step on this house and crush us both. Pick us up and bite our heads off; use a whole lake as a bathtub. You know … giants,” Alysia replied, as if the question was absurd.
“I don’t know what the hell is going on; dinosaurs, flying dragons, and now giants? Is this a really messed up dream or what?”
“I don’t think it’s a dream, but I have no explanation for any of it. I just know that today went from me having a chance to meet a celebrity, to me sitting here, nursing a leg after escaping death. All I know is that the sooner it ends, the better. I keep wondering if when I close my eyes and fall asleep, I’ll wake up with everything back to normal.” She thought then on her friend and a slight panic washed over her. “Everyone at the school ran to the beach. I wonder if they are doing okay. I left my friend Lisa … I can’t even—”
“Don’t blame yourself for things that you have no control over, Alysia. It’s during these tough times that we really get to see what we’re made of, you know? A monster attacked you, and you made a spear and killed it. That says a lot about you; most people would have stayed down and died.”
“Thank you,” Alysia said, and Tracy gave her a wink. It was odd seeing the older police officer, lying on her friend’s bed below posters of different bands and movie stars. As Alysia thought on the whereabouts of Lisa, the throbbing pain distracted her. She looked over at Tracy, who had fallen asleep, so she turned the volume on the television down and closed her eyes. Did I secure the doors? she thought to herself as she felt sleep coming on.
Quietly she got up and limped to the kitchen to see if there was a bolt on the back door. Of course not, she thought; it was the same broken door they had entered through. She found a chair, jammed it under the handle, and moved a table to reinforce it. That was really stupid, she thought.
They had almost fallen asleep in a house that was open to any threat. She turned out the lights and checked the front door, almost tripping over a pair of high-heeled pumps as she limped along. The front door was locked, but it wasn’t bolted, so she made it secure and jammed another chair under the handle.
Alysia’s mind went into overdrive. The dinosaur things had the strength to knock over hover-cars, so what would stop them from breaking down a door or smashing in a window? She was tired, weak, and hungry, but—hungry. In all of her fighting for survival, she had forgotten about the pain in her stomach from the hunger. She limped over to Stella’s refrigerator and pulled it open, hoping to find food. A half-eaten submarine sandwich sat on a plate in the middle of the tray, and there was a small carton of eggs, and some batteries.
“Dammit, Stella. Just this once I wish you wouldn’t be the living stereotype of a girl with her first house,” she whined.
She got a knife, cut a quarter of the unbitten side of the sub, and scarfed it down. The cold meat tasted like heaven, and she washed it down quickly with some tap water. I wonder how long before electricity and water become scarce? she thought to herself, and then cut off the rest of the lights.
She pulled out her phone and called her parents to let them know the situation, but it kept on ringing and took her to voicemail. She did it again a few more times, trying not to panic with every call, before giving up and leaving them a message. Mom is okay, she has dad, she told herself, and sent her father a text message to let him know that she was safe and off the rooftop.
Once she was finished, Alysia fumbled around and found the bedroom. When she got inside, she grabbed a comforter and was asleep almost as soon as she pulled it over her shivering body.
Chapter Two
Alysia felt crashing, crunching, shaking, and then light as she opened her eyes. The sun was up, she was sweating, and the plastic bag full of water – formerly ice – sat precariously on her swollen, brown ankle. She noticed that Tracy was up with her gun drawn, and she looked madder than a gorilla with a back itch.
“What is that noise?” Alysia asked, and Tracy motioned for her to be quiet.
She stood up and tested her weight on the sore ankle but it felt no better than it did the day before. The earthquake – or whatever it was – stopped, but the sound of gunshots resumed the symphony of fear that had woken her up. Tracy slipped to the side of the bedroom window and peered out before looking back at Alysia as if she had seen a ghost.
“Y-you said that you saw giants, right, CeeCee?�
�
“Yes … a few of them fighting ships off the coast. Wait—that sound! Is it—?”
Before she could finish her question, an area of the house exploded with rubble as the arm of a giant crashed into it. The sun poured down on them now as they sat on the ground, exposed, and unaware of how they had managed to fall so fast.
“Alysia … RUN!” Tracy managed, and Alysia scrambled to her feet and pushed through the busted up wall to gain the streets. She felt as if she had a spike in her ankle, the pain being so immense and raw, but as she looked back to see if Tracy was behind her, she saw helicopters hovering above the fallen giant.
Tracy caught up to her and lifted her off the ground. The officer was a muscular woman, but with the injury, it was amazing that she could do this. She threw Alysia over her shoulder and raced down the road towards the woods. “There is a trail here,” she said between breaths, and Alysia tapped her rapidly on the back to put her down.
“We won’t make it if you’re carrying me. Look, we’re out of harm’s way. I can walk with you to the trail.”
“You mean limp,” Tracy joked.
“Not funny, but what do you expect to find there?”
“The giants are coming from the East, like you said. They came from the water, probably wading in from overseas. We can use the trail to get to Salter County. I’ve run it many times back when I was training for my 5K races. It opens up to a main road and if we’re lucky, we can hitch a ride.”
“Okay girl, lead the way. I’ll try to keep up, but you don’t need to carry me.”
“You’ll need to get off of that leg for a few days, Cee, or it’s going to get worse. We'll get to the main road, and then I’ll see if I can get someone from the station to come pick us up.”
They pushed through the woods towards the trail and walked along it for an hour or so. Alysia tried to take her mind off the pain by concentrating on nature, but it was futile. The walk took them through a few hills that made the pain unbearable, and over a bridge that spanned a tiny brook.
Alysia gave Tracy a long look of admiration as the officer helped her along. She was pretty, which was strange since she never thought that pretty girls would join the police force. She had long, curly red hair, large hands, and a demeanor that was all business.
Alysia found her easy to like; she was like the big sister that would cook you dinner and help you with your homework. In a way, it made sense that she would be a cop or some other position of authority. She could see Tracy being the eldest daughter of a whole clan, the responsible one that had to protect the others.
“Are you from around here?” Alysia asked.
“No, not exactly. I’m originally from Dallas.”
“That’s funny, you don’t have an accent.”
“Oh, you expected me to sound like a cowgirl?”
“Heh, well, now that you mention it…”
“Girl, please, I came here when I was much younger than you. I may sound like one of you Yankee girls, but I’m a Texan through and through. What about you? You grow up here?”
Alysia moved to catch up and winced when she stepped down a little too hard on the sore ankle. “Yeah, I’m from here. We haven’t left the city much in the last few years but my dad used to take me on trips and stuff.”
“You talk about your dad a lot, you know that? You must really love him.”
“I do, but I love my mom, too. It’s just that, well, this is the sort of thing he prepared me for.”
“What? He prepped you to fight dinosaurs and giants?” Tracy teased, making sure to look back at her and smile as she said it.
“Sorta. He always said that the human race was due for a humbling. When it came, he wanted me ready.”
“Our dads would get along,” Tracy said. “Mine taught me how to shoot when I was little. We had guns all around the house but he taught me to respect them. Never played around the way a lot of these kids do nowadays, but when I did need to use one ... I was pretty good.”
“I can tell. The way you shot that thing that came after me was pretty badass.”
“Well, thank you, ma’am. You were pretty badass yourself with that spear.”
“You’re quite welcome, Cowgirl Tracy,” Alysia said, finding herself liking the cop even more.
They continued their talk until the trail brought them out of the woods and onto a strip of road. Alysia was exhausted and the familiar rumbling of her stomach came out in the loudest fashion.
“I’m hungry, too,” Tracy said when she heard Alysia’s stomach, and then she took out her radio to call her department.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing. It’s as if the whole department just turned off their radios and went home,” she said, frustrated.
“I hope that’s what they did and not—”
“Don’t say it,” Tracy said, snapping her head around, her cold blue eyes staring into Alysia’s large brown ones. “We were all trained to protect and serve. I think there is something going on with the signal and it's cutting us off from communicating for some reason. Let’s stop here so you can rest your ankle. This is the road I was talking about and if we’re lucky, someone will pick us up and give us a ride.”
Alysia didn’t like the idea of getting into a hover-car with strangers, but she could barely walk and it wasn’t up to her. As they waited and talked more about their parents, Tracy broke off two pieces of wood from a rotted fence that ran along the road. She took off her jacket, pulled some straps from it, and fashioned a splint for the young girl’s leg. Once she finished, she motioned for Alysia to get up and walk to test it out.
“Feels great, Tracy. Thank you,” she said after limping around for a bit to see if it made a difference.
“Like I said, CeeCee, you’re a tough girl. Just … take better care of yourself out here. I’m sure that your dad has told you how it can go from bad to worse if you don’t plug a leak.”
“Sorry, I don’t get it,” Alysia said.
“Forget it; bad analogy. You need to take care of the minor things, like your sprain, or they turn into big problems. What if I get hurt and you have to carry me?”
“Yeah, I need to be on my toes. I get it.”
An hour passed and the girls thought they would end up having to walk back into town. They felt the familiar tremor of the giant from before and they both looked at each other as if they shared the same thought.
“We need to go,” Tracy said, and she reached down for Alysia to bring her back to her feet.
“Where IS everybody?” Alysia asked, frustrated. It was as if the people around the University had simply vanished. Tracy quickly picked up a large branch that had fallen and cut the limbs off to fashion a walking stick for Alysia. They began to walk north along the road, hoping that the further they went, the more the tremors would decline.
When they got to the first intersection, the light was out and there were several vehicles piled up from a collision. There was a parked car to the side and as they looked around to see if its owner was nearby, several of the dinosaur creatures came running at them from the road.
Tracy pulled out her handgun and fired off several rounds. Two of the creatures went down screaming, prompting the others to stop and investigate the fallen. She dropped the spent clip and began fumbling for another, but Alysia didn't wait to see what would happen. She jumped into the driver’s seat of the car and popped the passenger door open.
“Wait, we can’t steal this car!” Tracy said to her as soon as she was in.
“Bad time for a joke, Tracy. This is life or death,” Alysia said, and she triggered the manual override and grabbed the steering wheel to control the car. The owner’s starter code was still in the console, so it obeyed her command and lifted into the air, ready to drive.
Tracy jumped in and slammed the door, and Alysia gunned it away from the creatures. She steered them towards the city, focusing only on the situation and not the “what if’s” that kept trying to invade he
r mind. Tracy relaxed in the passenger seat and reloaded her gun before putting it away.
“Pity these things can only hover and not fly,” she said.
“But then we’d have to deal with the flying monsters up there,” Alysia said, pointing her chin up at the numerous shadows that circled the skies above the city.
“What do you think is behind all of this?” Tracy asked as they cruised down the narrow two-lane road.
“I don’t know. I was trying to think of what the dino-things reminded me of, but the only thing that comes to mind is a video game.”
“Which one?”
Alysia looked over at Tracy, happy and surprised. She couldn’t believe that she, too, was a gamer.
“Uhm, Blue Fantasy… part six, Soula’s Blessing. When you run around gaining your experience on the game, you have these annoying little lizard things that charge you.”
“The kreples!” Tracy said as she thought on it, and it dawned on her that Alysia was correct. “Wait, those things look exactly like kreples!”
“Yeah, so technically you should have leveled up by now.” Alysia giggled. “Being that you killed like four of them back there.”
“That’s because I’m the high level archer of the group and you’re an injured monk class.”
“Call me a lowbie and I swear I will crash this car,” Alysia mumbled under her breath.
“No girl, you aren’t a lowbie. Just unlucky, but we’ll get you healed so you can level up, too.”
The banter was silly but necessary for their morale as they began to see more of the flying creatures circling the city in the distance. Periodically, there would be a giant’s head poking above the buildings, but it seemed like the military was trying to hold them off.
“The kreples are mutants,” Alysia finally said after there had been a block of silence between the two of them. “I think these are mutants too, considering their skin reminds me of a snake and they only have two legs. They’re so freaky looking.”
“I can accept that those little monsters are the results of an experiment gone wrong, but if you look over there, we have giant men walking around.”
