Paws

by Stefan Petrucha

  As if in a trance, Al starts moving. Her right arm goes straight out in front of her, palm down, then her left. She flips her right palm over, then her left, all the while gently bouncing her hips. Right hand to left shoulder, left hand to right.

  And then, at last, I remember. “That’s not Jane! This is the “Macarena” video! That son of a bitch!”

  Al keeps dancing. “Look at the bright side. At least you thought he was telling the truth. That’s got to count for something, right? You idiot.”

  “Geez. The voices in my head never call me an idiot.”

  Sure we do.

  And worse.

  I yank the drive out, but Al keeps up the steps even as the thumping disco beat fades into silence. “Oh, come on, lighten up! Put it back on! It’s my new jam!”

  Before I can refuse, we get a whole new soundtrack: flashing alarms and wailing klaxons.

  “You got a disco ball in here? I can’t tell, so I wouldn’t mind if you lied to me about it. Wade, tell me there’s a disco ball.”

  I look around. Control panels light up. Devices crackle to life. A massive thud shakes the lab. I catch Al before she falls.

  “Wade, tell me that was the disco ball falling.”

  I look at the screen. “That video wasn’t the only thing on the drive.”

  “You didn’t scan it for viruses? Can you tell what it’s doing?”

  “It’s not like there’s a button on this thing that says, ‘Tell me what the virus is doing’!” My eyes dance across the screen. “No wait, there is. You know, this is one helluva great operating system.” I click it. “It’s rerouting all the power, trying to cause some kind of overload. But where?” I bring up an energy-management floor plan and breathe a sigh of relief. “Whew. The kennel’s okay.”

  Another clattering thud puts Al in my lap. “Then what’s making all the ruckus?”

  “Can’t tell. The surges are headed toward a blind spot, like it’s something hidden, or…”

  “What?”

  “Something installed too recently for the system to recognize.” I shoot to my feet, dumping Al on the floor. “Like that containment tank!”

  Yep. As I watch, the three-ton thing shakes like a big-ass metal baby trying to take its first steps. The pressure monitors are so far past the red, they’re into some new color that indicates a level of imminent danger so high it hasn’t even been named yet.

  “I knew that thing was a bad idea.”

  This isn’t steampunk, so no popping bolts or rending seams— just a shimmy-shimmy shake-shake warning me it’s about to blow. Not like I can do anything about it, other than watch.

  A bump—a kind of blister—rises on its smooth, sleek form.

  I look at the screen, hoping there’s a button that reads, “Stop virus.”

  There isn’t.

  “Al, we’ve got to move!”

  She tries to get up, but she has trouble, what with all the quaking going on. Right before the tank ruptures, I jump on her, shielding her with my body. I’m expecting a huge explosion, a major blast, a kaboom that’ll take us all out. Instead, there’s a sound more akin to Galactus, Eater of Worlds, having a bad case of explosive diarrhea.

  The pink goo of five (five, right?) giant monsters squirts out in a single stream, drenching the place with a thick coat of gross, writhing, liquidy fleshness.

  Remember way back when I said I wasn’t killing anything, since all that stuff is technically still alive? Don’t know how, or why, or what could possibly be producing the sound, but an undeniable voice rises out of the icky puddle. It’s angry, aching, and hollow all at once—as if simply being is causing it indescribable pain, and speaking only makes it worse. At the same time, it has no choice— it has to be, it must make itself known, and it says:

  “We…live…”

  CHAPTER 25

  WE’RE surrounded by a distilled essence of life. It howls against a dark nothingness from which it is nearly indistinguishable. There, but barely. The amorphous, boundless, bubbling blob of confusion slushes around like an ocean tide, filling open spaces, slapping against walls and doors. Al and I are already drenched in the stuff and seem no worse for wear, but I really don’t like the look of those undulating waves. Before they can touch us, I hoist Al onto what I hope is a table. Once I’m sure it’s not another death-ray platform, I hop up by her side.

  In a rare moment of vulnerability, she clings to me. “Wade, what is it?”

  Like prisoners suddenly granted parole, words escape me. “Uh…hmm. Let’s see. Uh…I’m going to go with an octopus the size of New Jersey trying to put itself together after being in a blender.”

  Good a start as any. It’s pink, all pink. You already know that, but this isn’t the kind of pink you’d want for a bow on a birthday gift for a three-year-old girl. This is more like the pink you’d see in the lighter parts of a gore pile. Oily pustules rise and burst, releasing more of the same, but in a slightly darker pink. The dimmer parts try to form shapes along the surface. Pulpy tentacles briefly form, only to vanish with a hideous plop. A few manage distorted, complex squiggles, like a series of membranes trying to keep their shape, but failing. Somehow the hissing, bubbling, croaking, popping, and baying coalesces into a single voice:

  “Father…father…”

  Al grips my shoulder. “It must mean you.”

  I whisper back. “That’s a leap. It’s probably speaking metaphorically, like to its creator, rather than to a literal, physically present father. I mean, we don’t even know if it can hear us.”

  “Father…is that you?”

  Smart-ass goo.

  Al nudges me. “Go on. Talk to it.”

  I shake my head. “I dunno. I just went on a very awkward date where I put myself out there, and things didn’t work out. Besides, what do you say to something that’s loony-bird crazy?”

  “You’re asking me?” She raps her knuckles on my forehead like she’s knocking on a door. “You’re the one with the experience. How do you talk to all those voices in your head?”

  Yeah, Wade. How do you?

  Tell us! Please, Wade!

  Inches beneath the platform, the viscous putrescence wobbles. “Father? Father?”

  What the hell. “Yes…uh…son?”

  “Father…why…are…we?”

  Sure, start with the easy ones.

  “Forgot…to use…protection…?”

  “Does…our being…have…purpose?”

  “Do…you…mean…?”

  Al slaps me. “Stop imitating it! If it figures out you’re making fun of it, it might decide to eat us.”

  I clear my throat. “Well, son, do you mean all beings, or just you?”

  “Is…there…a difference?”

  “Well, duh. You’re a big pile of goop made from melted monsters. Al’s a typical human being, and me—well, if you want that answer, you’re going to have to go back to the start and read the book.”

  “Why?”

  Kids reach an age where they love asking questions. Why’s the sky blue? Why this? Why that? Why did Mommy leave us for that guy with the beard? It’s a game. They don’t want to know the answer—they just figured out that no matter what you say, they can always ask, “Why?”

  Luckily, there’s a standard answer my old man used on me all the time.

  “Because I said so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…I said so.”

  The liquid splashes against the platform. The voice gets louder.

  “Say…something…else!”

  Yeah, that used to drive me crazy, too. I know what Dad would do, but it’s not like I can use my belt on a big puddle. Before I can come up with a more satisfactory explanation for the existential nature of being (like, Why not?), it yowls piteously:

  “Aghh! I…will…destroy…you!”

  Al’s fingers tighten on my shoulder. “Wade, what’s it doing?”

  “Not much.
Really, Al, it’s a bunch of goo. It lurched up maybe half an inch, then fell back to bubbling. What can goo do to you other than get you gooey?”

  “Rarrr!”

  “But it sounds so…hurt and angry. What did it do that time?”

  “Rarr!”

  “The same, but it’s a little lower now. Basically, it’s draining away.”

  I kneel down and put my face closer. “Who’s a big bad pile of goo? Come on. Who’s a big bad pile of goo?”

  Al sighs. “Wade, don’t taunt the big bad pile of goo.”

  I pull back. “Why not?”

  “It’s just tacky.”

  (That last one was for you Joss Whedon fans—paraphrased, of course, but what series, who said it, and can you name the episode?)

  Al and I sit, and watch, and wait. Light from the globular ceiling lamps plays across the goo, forming weird crisscross lines on the rippling surface that almost remind me of sunset at a lake. It gets lower and lower until all that’s left is a series of puddles.

  “Hm. Seven maids, seven mops, maybe half a year.”

  Lewis Carroll?

  Is he a maid?

  All but gone, it gives itself one more go. “Must…hurt…you…”

  I try not to laugh. “You’re staying pissed all the way down to the last drop, ain’t ya? Face facts: The only way you can hurt anyone is if they accidentally slip on you.”

  “You’re…wrong…father…”

  I want to chalk that up to a dramatic flourish from a dying life-form, but the bright lights that flash on one of the soggier consoles make it tough. The screen is way across the room, but even from here, I see monitor bars rising.

  “Did you do that?” I ask.

  No answer. Unless you call that farting noise from some of the remaining bubbles an answer.

  I hop to the floor. As I slosh through the lingering goo for a better look at the terminal, it speaks in a diminishing whisper: “Ow….ow…ow…”

  The closer I get to the console, the more I realize the puddles on it aren’t so random. They’re covering the controls. Somehow, it got itself together enough to drip onto the right keys and enter a few commands.

  “What does this control, anyway? Crap!”

  I get a gander at the screen: images of little doghouses, thirty occupied. Their biometrics are monitored, and about half are skyrocketing. The canine icons above them warp and grow.

  “No! No, no, no! It’s the kennel!”

  I thought they were sealed off. I thought they were safe. But I was wrong, terribly wrong. A dreadful din erupts from beyond the kennel doors.

  “I am Xemnu!”

  “I am Grogg!

  “I am Zzutak!”

  “I am the Titan!”

  “I am Shzzzllzzzthzz!”

  “I am Orrgo!”

  “I am Rombu!”

  “I am Fangu!”

  “I am Droom!”

  “I am Sserpo!”

  “I am Monsteroso!”

  There’s like four more, but I figure you get the idea.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE HEAVY drumming of creatures on the loose echoes from beyond the twin white doors. The kennel—secure, comfortable home of joy and innocence—is now a place where monsters dwell. Infuriated, I stomp on the remaining droplets of sentient goo. I kick at them. I squish them. I grind them under my toe.

  “Damn you! You had to go and do it, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”

  “Ha….ha…ha…”

  The pounding intensifies. The doors, two-feet thick and made of a composite that I assume has been designed to withstand a small nuclear blast, begin to bend.

  I rush toward them. “I’ve got to get in there!”

  Al calls out. “You just said there are fifteen monsters in there!”

  “Which means there are fourteen real puppies. Fourteen, Al! And Mr. Snuffles! I have to save them.”

  “Them? What about me?”

  “Oh yeah, you. Well, it looks like that goop fried the only elevator I know about, and my ’porter can’t handle you and the puppies at once. See if you can find another way out of here. An emergency exit, or an escape pod, or a really big ant tunnel.”

  Al screams something about teleporting her out, then coming back for the puppies, but I can’t quite make out what it is. Like I said before, the DP would never use my ’porter to ruin a good, tense action scene. So I’m declaring the transporter broken, kids. Unless another option turns up, we’re here for the duration.

  Why? Because I said so.

  I hit the kennel access panel. The doors hiss open, they really do. The servos groan like the sex scenes in a cheap romance, but the doors are too bent to slide more than half a foot.

  As the behemoths within continue to introduce themselves to one another, I find myself staring at a huge, orange, hairy thing wedged in the door crack. It’s definitely a giant orifice of some sort. Hope it’s a monster mouth, or nose, or ear canal. After that, the choices get dicey.

  Whatever it is, it smells awful. Holding my breath, I force my hands against the doors and try to pry them apart. I strain, I grunt, I pull. When I adjust my grip for more leverage, I pinch a bit of monster mucous membrane.

  “I am Rorrgg, King of the….YEOW!”

  “Sorry!”

  I try again. The doors won’t slide, but between all my prying and the hammering from the other side, they bend out enough to flop onto the floor with a grand, ineloquent CRUNK.

  What do I see inside? Picture fifteen monsters, each between twenty-five and thirty-five feet tall, crammed into the same space, and all too big to fit through the door. It’s like a hairy, scaly, exoskeleton, robotic, extraterrestrial, cryptid game of Twister.

  And nobody’s wearing socks.

  They’re all in there, trying to stretch. They punch and kick, gnash their teeth, mince their mandibles, and click their pincers. Meanwhile, the whole underground base has become a deathtrap, shuddering like it’s ready to collapse.

  But above the howling din of things from here, there, and everywhere, a chorus of youthful yips reaches my ears.

  “Puppies!”

  They’re still in there, still alive!

  The moment Rorrgg moves his whatever out of my face, I dive in. Can’t use the ADD. No telling what I might accidentally turn to goo. I shimmy under Orrgo, the Fiend With Two R’s. I get up close with Shzzzllzzzthzz, the Creature With Eight Z’s. I see a lot more than I need to of Xemnu the Titan. I nearly get my head stuck beneath the mossy armpit of Chalo, the Beast from the Bog, scramble through a tiny gap between the feet of Oog, the Frozen Terror, and barely escape the burning crotch of Dragoom, the Flaming Intruder.

  All the while, I’m grabbing puppies, starting with the esteemed Mr. Snuffles (because he’s special!). I snatch up shepherds and beagles, Rottweilers and poodles. Soon enough, I realize I can’t hold more than three without dropping some, so I wait for a gap among the colossal limbs and toss them out the space where the door used to be. Three out of four times, I make the shot. When I miss, well, I have to try again.

  And the smell. Oh, the smell! The smell, smell, smell, smell!

  I thought Rorrgg’s whatever was bad. But these things from space, from within the Earth, from other dimensions—all of them are sweating like crazy in the tight space, each in its own special biochemical way. The Bronx Zoo on a humid day, a fertilizer plant, a meat-packing factory, the hampers of the world’s largest diaper service?

  Perfume, all of it.

  Can’t take it much longer. I’m dizzy, losing it. I’ve got scores of dogs to go before I sleep, but the world doesn’t care. It spins on me, and it’s not like it was easy to orient myself in this mess to begin with. I’m ready to do a cross between puking and passing out when, out of nowhere, I feel something shoved under my nostrils.

  It’s strawberry, crazy sweet.

  Sophie says, “Do you like it?”

  It’s a breezy morning outside school. We’re with all the other kids, waiting for the bell to toll the be
ginning of our classless classes. I’m holding her books, she’s holding her wrist under my nose. It smells so much like candy I want to bite it.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I like it.”

  “I tried calling back around 7:30, but the phone company said your line was out of order.”

  Desperate though I was to tell her something, I shrug. “Oh, that’s okay.”

  “How’s your puppy, Wade?”

  My…?

  Then I remember.

  Near as our senses can tell, life plays out in time, one event after another. This total recall gives it to me all at once, and it takes my brain a while to sort all the images into a sequence. When I do, it goes something like this:

  The dog. My dog. Mixed breed. I’m putting her down on the porch, holding her collar as she squirms and twists and I try to get the leash on. Then I’m letting go for half a second and watching the cheery white-and-tan blur shoot across the sidewalk, her colors so much like the cement that she’s almost invisible. But when that blur hits the street’s black asphalt, I see her oh, so clearly. I hear the squealing breaks, see the silvery bumper slowing, but not nearly enough to keep from making contact with the flesh and fur.

  Then she’s a blur again, flying sideways, soundless.

  I wanted to tell Sophie about it last night, but now I don’t want to cry in front of her, so I look down at my feet. “She…she…”

  My dog. Mine.

  The school bell rings. I look up. Sophie’s gone, and all of a sudden, I’m not sure she was ever there. Now that I think about it, I can’t seem to remember anyone else ever talking to Sophie.

  The student mob wants to haul ass inside, and I’m in its way. They push me, pull me, shove me, and suffocate me. Furious, I push back.

  But it isn’t middle-school clothes or flesh I feel. It’s alien hide, scales, and orange hair.

  Whoa! Hallucinations like that really make a fellow wonder what’s real—especially when I come back to a creature-packed underground kennel. Still reeling from the stench, I go back to scooping up puppies. I’m more determined than ever, like I’m gathering a furry bouquet on the puppy farm. I hurl them yipping and yapping through the monster maze, hoping to get them all out before everything everywhere comes crashing down.