25 Hour Watch

Ch. 1 – Roar

Ch. 2 -Growl

Ch. 3 – Pant

Ch. 4 – Hunt

The wooden locker room benches were not built for comfort.  Light wood panels stretched the length of the room, tall metal lockers stood to one side, their horizontal metal slats bent in places where hormonal teens had banged and pounded over the years.  The opposite side of the bench gave way to space.  An open isle ran the direction of the wood grain, providing passage to the cold tile communal shower, athlete’s foot running amuck.

David sat with his back to the locked metal boxes, facing the showers like an audience member.  A waist level tile wall opened in three spots, lending access to the lime stained shower heads.  From where he sat he could make out the corner of the metal cage which stood under the grouping of spouts.  An occasional yip or howl shook the metal frame.

They hadn’t come up with a name for them yet.  As a species, it was hard to name.  Part parasite, part mammal, they weren’t “like” anything science had seen before.  The three young were born five days ago, birthed by science and Dr. Smith’s historic C-Section.  The mother had been too dangerous to not keep under sedation.  Her water broke and Dr. Smith’s scalpel carved three young animals from her womb.  No doctor or scientist had ever seen one of these animals alive, so operating blind had been the only option.  Once the third creature had been freed and caged, Dr. Smith’s scalpel continued to explore.  The mother never woke up.

David, Eric, Detective Ford, Detective Anderson, and the army of government staff had spent the last five days sequestered in the High School.  After the last attack, an entire church wiped out, the government had quarantined the entire town.  No one left and no one came in without government clearance.  David split his free time between the library and the locker room.

They had put the three young in a large metal cage, deciding the men’s locker room would be the safest place for it: no windows at least.  They were like puppies, hairy balls of fur rolling and pulling on each other.  Four legs, the back two bent backwards at the knee joint like a dog’s.  Each foot had three toes, stubby black nails beginning to protrude.  They were covered in thick black fur, it had a matted look but, as David had found out, was relatively soft to the touch.  Only the pads of their feet, insides of their ears, tips of their noses and piercing eyes were free of hair.  Their long muzzles showed stark white teeth which rested against their lips and peeked through fur.  The small ones were almost cute, if you could ignore the larger beast clearly visible in every move and noise, waiting patiently to grow.

“You figured ‘em out yet?”  Eric leant against the lockers to David’s right, peering into the shower at the cages.

Dr. Smith and Detective Ford stood by Eric’s side, a group of uniformed men behind them.

“We need to take one of them.  They’re growing faster then we expected, and we need to run some tests.”  Dr. Smith said.  The three uniformed men followed him onto the dry tile of the soap stained prison.

David almost felt bad for them.  Trapped in a cage, motherless.  But he also knew how dangerous they could be.  He’d become something of a legend among the invading officials.  The only civilian to survive an attack.

Dr. Smith’s lackeys had opened the top of the metal cage, sophisticated looking cattle prods at the ready as Dr. Smith reached his leather gloved hands into the cage, a chain looped and ready for the neck of one of the young.  They became agitated.  Snaps of electricity mixing with yelps and snaps of jaws.

“aaaAAAAAAAlllp!  aaaaAAlp!  aaAlp!”  The animal with a chain now around it’s neck began to call.  It’s cry echoing around the room, bouncing from locker to locker.  The two in the cage began to echo their brother’s cry, static fur clinging to the metal bars of their now emptier cage.

“This… this isn’t a good idea.”  David said standing from his bench and moving toward the exit where Eric stood.

“We have no other choice.  We have to study them if we’re ever going to–”

“We have to?  Or you want to?”  David asked, interrupting Dr. Smith who stuffed the frightened and angry pup into a portable crate.

Eric looked at David confused, but no one replied.

“aaaAAAllp!  aAlp!  aAlp!”

“I want to leave.”  David turned to Eric.  “I want to go home, I don’t want to be here anymore.  Please?  Let’s just go… We can’t be here.”

Dr. Smith and his men carried the crying crate from the room, Detective Ford lingered behind.  “David, we need you here.  We–we can’t let you leave.”

David looked at Eric confused.  He looked at Detective Ford, and then toward the crying tile.  “You think something’s gonna happen to me?  You think something’s wrong?  That I’m… infected.”  David didn’t ask.

“I’m sorry David.”  Detective Ford left, following the echoes of the animal being carried down the empty school hallway.

“aAlp! aAlp! aAlp!”

*************************************************************************************************

The school had several large fields around it.  One for baseball, one for football, a course for track, and a soccer field.  Lengths of grass typically obscured by the morning and evening fogs.  Six dark shapes moved on all fours through the early evening’s thick fog, invisible to the men with guns who patrolled the perimeter of the school.

*************************************************************************************************

“Are you okay?”  Eric walked silently through the empty library toward the table where David sat by the window.  A brilliant orange sunset filling the pane.

“No.”  David said quietly.

Eric took a seat across from him, facing the bright hue across the school athletic fields.  “I’m sorry.  I know this hasn’t been easy for you.”

“Look.  It’s okay.  You got a lot going on right now.  Don’t worry about me.”

“David–”

“You should probably go.  I don’t want to infect you or anything.”

Eric leant across the table, staring at David until David’s focus moved from the window pane.  “I’m not worried.”

Blam!  Blam!  Blam!  Blam!

The men’s attentions turned to the field outside their window.  “Gunshots?”  David asked.  When he turned from the window Eric was on his feet, the holster on his hip empty, gun drawn.

“Come on.”

Eric lead the way to the west library entrance.

“Wait.”  David stopped.  “No.  This way.”

*************************************************************************************************

“Dr. Smith.  I’m sorry to interrupt Sir.”

Dr. Smith glared through his surgical mask at the young man standing in the open doorway, contaminating his surgical field.  They’d dedicated the school cafeteria to Dr. Smith’s projects.  Plenty of steel tables and an industrial freezer for whatever was left over.

“Sir.  We think we have a perimeter breech.”

“You think?  Why don’t you go find out, and don’t bother me until you know for sure.”

The man reluctantly returned through the doorway, leaving Dr. Smith and his staff to the project at hand.

“Doctor.  He’s… he’s not sedated.  The sedatives don’t seem to be working on this one.”  His anesthesiologist said.

Dr. Smith looked down at the creature.  It’s eyes were open, peering panicked around the brightly lit room.  It’s breaths were heavy and strained through the muzzle they’d fit it with.

“Did it’s eyes just change color?”  A scrub nurse asked.

“What?”

“There.  Look.  His eyes.  They were green a second ago.”

The medical team peered down into the creature’s face.  Blue.  Green.  Yellow.  Hazel.  It’s eyes were cycling through colors with each deep breath.

“Fascinating.  We’ll have to remove them.”  Dr. Smith said to himself.

“Sir.”  The anesthesiologist said reluctantly.  “The anesthetic?”

“Scalpel.”  Dr. Smith’s hand called.

*************************************************************************************************

“We shouldn’t be here.”  Eric had enough sense to know that enclosed space and emergencies didn’t go well together.  “We shouldn’t be here.”  He said to the walls of the locker room.

“Shhhh.  Listen.”  David said.  “The gunshots.  They’ve stopped.  That’s good, right?”

“Maybe.  Maybe not.”

“aAlp!  aAlp!  aAlp!”

David moved toward the showers slowly, Eric moved with him, gun drawn as he walked slowly backwards and still facing the door.

Ssssmmp.  Ssssssmp.  Sssmp.  Ssmp!

Heavy breaths pulled through the crack at the bottom of the door.

“aAlp!”

“Get back.”  Eric whispered.  He turned an nodded toward the other door on the far end of the locker room.  It lead to the pool.  “Go.  Now.”

David shook his head.  “No.  Come on.”  David waved his hand over, beckoning Eric to follow him toward the pool door.

BAM!

The front door of the locker room fell from it’s hinges, two creatures stood in the frame, red stains from their claws marking the floor beneath them.

Blam!  Blam!  Blam!  COOSH!

Eric fired three shots before the first creature pounced, pushing Eric into the metal lockers and into silence.  A moment later it pulled itself from the crease they’d created in the stack of metal lockers.  It looked dazed, several of Eric’s bullets disorienting it.

David could make out one of Eric’s legs stiffly protruding from the pile of metal.

“aAlp! aAlp! aAlp!”

The second creature turned to David, who stood just outside the tile shower.  It leapt and so did David.  He landed inside the shower on the far side of the cage.  It landed in the waist high title wall, sending chucks of porcelain and concrete flying across the shower.

David pushed his back against the far wall of the shower, propped his feet against the metal cage and pushed.  As the cage lifted and toppled, he could see the creature with it’s head momentarily stuck in the tile wall clearly.  It’s eyes were a bright red.  For a moment,  David just stared at the creature, and the creature stared back.

The cage spilled it’s contents onto the shower floor, the two pups rolling from the clanging metal.

David ran.  He leaped over the half wall and toward the pool door.  He could hear the scratch of nails against tile behind him.  He flung the door open and pushed it closed behind him as he ran.  A moment later it slammed open again.  They were too close…

He dove.  Water rushed past him.  His head broke the surface, and he began his strokes across the pool.  He dug his arms in and pushed.  With each breath, each time his head broke the surface, he could hear thrashing behind him.  It was an unpracticed trashing.  They weren’t built for water.

At the other end of the pool David pulled himself into a soggy run.  There was a door, and behind it a parking lot.  David pushed through the door, the thrashing slowing, getting closer to the edge of the pool.

“Don’t shoot!”  David recognized Detective Ford’s voice.  He ran toward it, the crash of the door behind him flying off it’s hinges pushed his muscles.

Blam!  Blam!  Blam!  Blam!  Blam!  Blam!  Blam!  Blam!

David lunged into the open door of McDowell’s truck, weaving through the remaining officers and their guns.  The gunshots filled his ears, but not his mind.  He slid onto the floor of the truck, his back against the passenger door and left arm resting on the seat.  In front of him through the open driver’s side door flashes sent out by barrels of guns filled the night.  The firing squad at work.  David didn’t see any of it.  His wet chlorinated clothes, Eric entombed in a high school locker room, David collapsed into a singular soggy heap.