Ch. 2 -Growl

Ch. 3 – Pant

Ch. 4 – Hunt

Ch. 5 – Cry

Ch. 6 – Fever

The white halogens that had not been broken or killed were scattered.  As if in hiding, a fear that a mass of their numbers together would bring out the attackers again.  Down the hallway they shone like spotlights, tiny squares of tile lit beneath them, the blackness of the school hallway pressed against them ready to spill over the bright edges.  David moved carefully, his feet brushing against dirt, metal, sliding on almost dried crimson liquid.  Each step gave him away.  They knew he was there.  They’d smelt him, tasted him on the air.  Their eyes saw no darkness, their paws pushed no sound.

David’s hands were moist.  His warmth beat against the metal in his hand, building warmer and warmer.  Ready to shoot.  He turned slowly, peered down side hallways and into open classroom doors, his eyes adjusting to the dark.  He walked in a slow spiral, each end of the hallway taking his focus in turn.  Clear.  Quiet.  Dark.  Clear.  Quiet.  Dark.  Each turn revealing an empty end.

Thu-bump. Thu-Bump. THU-Bump.  THU-BUMP. THU-Bump.  Thu-Bump. Thu-bump.

Something ran through the ceiling above him.  His gun drawn, he followed it from where he stood, pointing the way to the farthest end of the hall.  The end that lead to the gym and locker rooms.

When he lowered his firearm from the ceiling, turning toward where the noise fled, something waited and watched.  All fours slightly hunched, David could see the shadow was ready to charge.  Its eyes glowed, the only distinguishing feature of the dark creature’s head in the unlit end of the hallway.  It stared at him.David stared back, unmoving.

It struck him.  He wasn’t sure how.  It had never moved.  He took a few steps back, staggering.  He was sure it had never moved.  Its eyes, its head.  They hadn’t even shifted.  The glowing yellow had left and was replaced by a vibrant blue.  But the animal had never moved.

David lowered his gun slightly, bringing his fist to his abdomen.  He spat blood and propped a hand against the white painted brick wall.  He panted, fueled by fear.  He turned again to the far end of the hall.  The creature met his gaze with its now yellow eyes, turned and left.  Several others called to it in the distance.

From behind where it had stood, David saw the inside of the men’s locker room, the door no longer on its hinges.  Down the hallway, David stepped through the open door and over some pieces of wall that were scattered across the floor.  A shower was running, stuck by a creature during David’s escape.  The hot water poured undisturbed down the drain, spilling puffs of steam across the floor.  The steam tendrils reached out toward the broken lockers, vanishing against the cool surface of the tile floor.  David rounded on the first row of lockers, pressed a hand to his lip and dabbed an unnoticed spot of blood.

The end of the row closest to him was crumpled.  Like a house of cards blown over by a casual breeze.  A pair of legs stuck out from the crumpled foundation.

“Eric?”  David moved to the stack of metal boxes pining the legs.

“David… David?”  The legs moved slightly, fidgeting in their small metal cave.

“Hold still, I’m gonna get you out…” David grunted, lifting pieces of metal as he unburied Eric.  Piece by piece David slowly, and loudly, freed the man beneath the rubble.  Together they shifted Eric’s body, planting him on the tile floor panting and wincing.

“Are you okay?  Are you– Are… I mean…”  David shook his head.

“I’m alright.  I think my arm’s broken.”  Eric pulled his arm close to his chest.  “What’s wrong with you?  Your lip… David you’re bleeding.”

“I’m– I… My head hurts… I can’t…”

“Bet cha’ can’t!”  Lee Meyer stood like Peter Pan, hands in fists against his waits.  His tousled blonde hair waving in the midnight breeze.  “I bet you’re too scared.”

“Am not!”

“Then do it!  Break it David!”  Lee whispered sharply.

David turned to the car in front of him, the smooth metal baseball bat in his hand.  The night stars reflected off the windshield, little light pollution from their small town to block out the celestial target points.

David leveled the bat with his waist.  “Won’t we get in trouble?”

“Chicken!”

CRASH.

Hundreds of shards of glass spilled onto the previously covered car seats, others spilt onto the pavement and bounced across the black asphalt in rhythm with the startled car alarm.

Dee-voo.  Dee-voo.  Dee-voo.

“David?  David?”  Eric looked worried, his arm clasped to his chest, a dried gash glowing pink on his forehead.  “What do you mean your head hurts?”

David looked around at the dilapidated locker room.  “How long was I out?”

“What do you mean?  David… You didn’t– you weren’t out.  You just said your head hurts.”

“I… I dunno.”  David shook his head and took a deep breath.  “Come on.  We gotta get outta here.  There’s not much time left.”  The clock on the wall still ticked off the seconds.  They had just over an hour.  “Can you walk?”

Eric took a moment, wiggling his toes inside his shoes and turning his ankles.  He nodded and David pulled him gently to his feet.  He staggered and leaned into David for support.  This was going to take time.

Together they hobbled to the door.  David peered down the hallway.  It suddenly looked very long.  “Come on.  It’ll be faster if we cut through the gym.”

One hand around Eric’s shoulders, the other pressed against the gym door and pushed.

David stopped.  Stared in shock.

“Oh my God!  You–you’re early.  I wasn’t expecting you ‘til later…Baby, this isn’t what it looks like.”

Stared.

A hushed tone whispered in the dark, “you have to go.  …Go!”

Stared at the other man, a strange naked form pulling out of the linens and groping across the floor.  A sock.  Printed shorts.  Jeans.

“We were… we were just… Baby, say something.”

A half naked figure brushed past David, moving through the darkness, a whorish grin stuck to his face as he left.

David stared.

“Damn it.  If you’re not even going to talk to me how do you expect to make a relationship work?”  The other dark figure stood from the bed and pulled on a shirt.  “You have the communication skills of gnat.”  It pulled on a pair of shorts from the chair next to the bed.  “I don’t know why I even bother.  You’re such a child… I really don’t think this is going to work anymore.”  It stood.  “Look, this last year has been fun, but I’m looking for something a little more serious.  I don’t think there’s anything else for us to talk about.  You should go.”

It moved to the doorway, directing David’s departure.

David had never felt this way before.  It wasn’t sadness.  It wasn’t anger.

David’s hand connected with a jaw.

Not anger.  Not sadness.  “I hate you.”  It welled inside of David.

“Holy shit!  You little freak!  What’s wrong with you?!”

“David, what’s wrong?  David!”  Eric lay on the floor of the gym next to David.

The hatred welled up inside of David.  He couldn’t see.  His breaths were fast.  Eric’s voice called to him.  Brought him back.  Back to his pounding head.

“Are you okay?”  David rolled to his side, faced Eric on the floor.

“You just collapsed… Are you okay?”  Eric propped himself up with his good arm.

“Yeah… I’m– we need to go.”  David rolled to his feet, wrapped an arm around Eric’s waist and pulled him across the gym.  David felt grateful that schools were designed with so many clocks.  At least one in every room.

“Wait.  David, wait.  Slow down, you need to take it easy.”

“We can’t Eric!  We can’t stop we can’t slow down!  They’re gonna blow up the entire town in forty-five minutes and you can’t be here when that happens!”

Eric’s eyes turned to a deeper concern.  “What do you mean?”

“They’re gonna blow us up.  One last ditch effort to stop these creatures.”

“No, David.  What do you mean?  What do you mean: I can’t be here?  What about you?  You can’t be here either.”  Eric let emotion pour across his face uncharacteristically.

“Look.”  David pulled Eric along again, pressing through the far gym door and clenching his jaw out of pain.  “If something happens you have to go.  You have to get out of here.”

Eric choked, a warmth building behind his eyes and temporarily blocking his throat.

They moved down the hallway, the animals calling in the distance.  Joyously running up and down empty upstairs hallways and letting their claws clank against tile.

David could see the open doorway to the parking lot in the distance.  Flickering lights above them.  They pressed on from shadow to shadow.

A fluorescent went.  It burst, its life of stress ending in one brilliant flash of sparks that rained down from the sky.

Blues.  Reds.  Whites.  Stars and streamers.

“David!  Pie!”  David’s mom called over from the picnic table full of food, the lingering scent of barbecue clinging to the tablecloth.

Reluctantly he pulled himself from the blanket laid across the grassy hill beneath the fireworks.  David had never been a holiday person.  He seldom felt like he had much to celebrate.  This holiday was the worst.

“How big a piece do you want?”  His mom asked cheerfully.

“I don’t care.”

She silently cut an average sized piece and slid it neatly onto a festive paper plate.  “Ice cream?”

David pushed at the plastic forks on the table absently.  “I don’t care.”  He said, quieter this time.

She sat the plate down gently on the picnic table, pulled a paper napkin from the stack beside the pie and wiped her hands of cherry red goop.  She picked up the ice cream scoop and went to work in the bucket of vanilla.  “I miss him too.”

Identical balls of vanilla hugged each other, inching slowly toward the pie sharing their space.  “It’s been three years.  And every year is a different type of difficult.”  She reached for the napkin again.  “But, no one blames you David.”  She said evenly.

“I blame me.”  David picked one fork from amongst the many.

“You know how stubborn your brother was.  If he put his mind to something–”

“I know…”  David took his plate and pushed at the shifting ice cream with his fork.  “Pie looks good.  Thanks mom.”  David turned back toward his blanket, one anniversary weighing more on his mind then the other.  Twins in date but not in meaning.

“David,” his mother called, focusing on her son through the crowd of family ohing and awing under the early evening fireworks.

“I love you.”

Tears dripped down Eric’s cheeks.  The pain.  He pulled David through the doors and onto the parking lot ground.

“AAaaah!”  David moaned, pawing at his temples.

“Hang on.  We’re almost there.”  Eric heaved with both hands, broken or otherwise.  “Stay with me…”  Eric pleaded.

David was dazed.  “How long?  How much time.”  He staggered.

“I’m not sure I want to know.”

“You have to go… it’s–it’s coming.  I don’t want it to hurt you.”  David pressed his hands against his forehead again, a silent scream filling the vastly empty parking lot.

They both dropped to their knees, Eric bringing his hands to David temples.  “Listen to me David, you can fight this.  You’re gonna be ok.  You just have to hang in there.  Stay with me.”  Eric pressed against Davids hand which pushed against his chest, “I’m not leaving.”

“I’m leaving!  I hate you and I don’t want to live here anymore!”  David screamed through the front door of his house, his father sitting within view down the short hallway at the kitchen table.

Hate filled David’s head.  Pounding.

“David!  Listen to me!  Listen to my voice.”  Eric spoke calmly.  “I need you to listen to me.  I need you–need you here.”

“We don’t need you here anymore.”  Suzy Eve’s red pigtails bounced as she cocked her head.  “We’ve discussed it, and we all think you’re doing a terrible job.  Michael will be a better Treasurer.”  She peeked slyly at the dark haired boy in the corner of the classroom.  “Don’t bother coming to club anymore.  We don’t need your negativity.”

Jealousy.  Throbbing.

“Remember… remember when we met?”  Eric shifted to the ground, David shaking against his hands.

“Remember the student loan you have to pay off?”  David’s mom rarely got angry.  She was furious.  “How do you plan on doing that without a job?  Of all the– fired?  You had to go and get fired!  What?  You expect your father and I to be able to bail you out?  On our budget?  We’re barely getting by as it is!”

Shame.  It pulsed with every rapid heartbeat.

“You came in with some–God awful–cookies.  You wanted to say thank you to the officers who found your piece of crap bike after it was stolen?”  Eric laughed sadly.

“Really, I appreciate it, but I really had nothing to do with finding your bike.”  Eric smiled, reluctantly eyeing the plate.

“Oh, that’s okay.  I made plenty.  You don’t understand, I am broke.  That bike is my life.”

David breathed.

“I must have ate…ten of those awful things.  Spent what, half an hour talking?”

The low steady rumble of large plane engines called down from the sky.

“What was it you called those cookies?”  Eric rested, settling onto the pavement peacefully.  “They were chocolate.  With coffee or something…”

“I’m pretty much a cookie master.”  David joked, leaning against the police station counter.

“Cookie master?  Are they the ones with the different colored belts?  Or do you get a badge?”  Eric slyly picked another cookie from the plate.

“What did you call them?”  Eric looked across to the open pickup door.  His arm twinged.  Behind him he could just hear the howls of the animals being overshadowed by the roar of the plane above.  “What did you call them?”  Eric asked himself, accepting the ground below him and gazing absently at the world around him.

“Espresso my Thanks Cookies.”  David muttered weakly.

Eric pulled his gaze down.  David had stopped shaking.  Eric let out a laugh.

“Were they really that bad?”  David asked.

The parking lot blurred in Eric’s vision, moisture building up.  “No.  No, they were great.”

***

“Thank you for coming on such short notice Detective Ford.”  The man bowed politely, taking his seat again across the table as the Detective seated herself quietly.

“As you know, we’re all saddened by the tragic… Earthquake that ravaged several towns in the Midwest earlier this week.”  The man lowered his balding head to examine the stack of papers on the table in front of him.

“We’re very concerned that the few survivors are being–cared for properly?”

Ford glanced down at her tidy, short fingernails.  “They’ve been examined an successfully made it through the quarantine process.  I feel confident that they pose no threat–”

The man interjected, “Detective Ford, all I need is for the record to show that the survivors were not mistreated.  Any speculation on the cause or effects of the natural disaster should remain speculation and are officially of no interest.”

Ford nodded her head.  “Proper care was show to all remaining survivors.”

The man collected his papers, nodding.  He stood, rounded the table, his hand on the door knob.  “Detective Ford.  Off the record: we have intelligence that suggests a small town on the Eastern coast may be in danger of another catastrophic earthquake.  I believe Lewis has the details and travel arrangements for you.”  The man pulled the door open.  “I do hope we’ve seen the last of the earthquakes for a while.”

“Sir?”  Ford turned in her chair.  “Any word on the new team members I put in for approval?”

The man turned in the open doorway, the large high rise widows behind him looked out on clear blue skies.  “A civilian with no military training, and a cop?”

“They’re survivors sir.”  Ford stood from her seat.  “I insist.”

The man eyed her for a moment, glanced at some of the papers in his hands.  Slowly he nodded, and exited down the hallway.

Ford moved into the hallway, her slim figure reflecting off the glass panel in front of her.  She looked down at the city below her.  Thousands of people.  Millions of cars.  Trillions of emotions, thoughts, fears.  All clashing with each other.  The stress, aggression, hatred, shame, sadness.

The different walks of life.  Contrasting beliefs.  Opposing views.  Supposed different sides of the same fence.

The creatures were out there.  They couldn’t ever be truly stopped, and they would destroy more towns.  There was no helping it.

Somewhere in Detective Ford’s reflection was a smile.  Despite the odds, despite the hopelessness, she had at least two men on her side.  Two people who knew the stakes, and knew how to combat the creatures lurking inside any one of the everyday people walking the streets below.  Only three people who really understood.  Not much compared to the city beyond.

There is always power in numbers.

Ch. 2 -Growl

Ch. 3 – Pant

Ch. 4 – Hunt

Ch. 5 – Cry

It had never occurred to David how small his town was.  The school taken over, they needed someplace else to set up.  The police station was out, they hadn’t even gotten a chance to start the clean up.  It just lay there in a shamble of broken class and flickering florescent lights.  Detective Ford and her remaining team all looked to David for an answer.  Never mind that he was seconds into his confused and guilty grief.  He must have stammered out “the fire station,” because that’s where they were.  The two story brink building full of lost looking men in suits and holsters.

Detective Ford had been quick to set up an armada of computer monitors and keyboards, after which she’d been locked to her cell phone for the past twenty-three minutes.  David had nothing better to do than watch them tick away, cheering them on.  It was the only distraction he could find, everyone else distracted with their various important looking tasks.

There were eleven, including David.  Detective Ford, McDowell, and eight of their men.  One lay upstairs on a cot, grasping a battered arm to his chest and muttering through his fever.  Two men with guns stood watch, just in case.
The other five men were busy typing on computers and pouring onto maps.  They tried to plan, to prepare.  It seemed incredibly useless to David.  Eric was dead.  His parents were stuck in their house, terrified  and sequestered like the rest of the town.  He marveled at it all.  These eleven government officials controlled everything, the whole time as panicked and confused as the housewives they protected.

David felt antsy.  He was responsible for Eric’s death.  He was a survivor twice over.  He was a bomb the men around him expected to go off, another monster born from his inevitable destruction.  He was alone, his family huddled in their home on the other side of town from the fire house.  He was tired.  He was full of coffee.  His thoughts raced and he muttered like the wounded man upstairs.

“Stop.”  Detective Ford’s authoritative voice cut through the activity of the room.  She waited for eye contact, her cell phone still held partially to her ear.  Her face looked slightly flushed, the usual calm assertiveness slightly disturbed.  “Everyone pack up.  We’re leaving.”

A few men looked puzzled.  The more seasoned ones began without question.  One man stood and looked out the window to his right, fingering the gun strapped to his hip.  David simply sat, eyes calmly focused on Detective Ford.  She kept his gaze, muttering a few last words into her phone before sliding it closed and latching it to her hip.  She made her way to David, her team busy around her.

“You need a hand?”  Ford asked.

David took a second, watched the men pack their things around him.  Most of it had never been unpacked.  “I don’t have anything.  It’s just me.  No packing necessary.”

“Did you want to–”  Ford paused, her hand unconsciously moving toward the phone on her hip.  “Do you need to get anything from your house?”

Another moment of David weighing the Detective with his eyes.  “We’re not coming back, are we?”

Ford gave a look that implied she was breaking a rule.  Sharing information she shouldn’t share.  “David, we can take you with us… because of what’s happened, what you’ve been through.  We have to take you with us.”

“What about the rest of the town?  My family?  How are you going to stop these creatures?”

“We– we can’t let everyone leave.  There’s too big a risk of infection.  We’re just not set up to quarantine every single person here.  And if someone were to… if the creatures were to get out–well we’re not set up for that either.”

“I don’t understand.  If we leave they’re just gonna get out eventually anyways.  If they haven’t already.  How will us leaving help the town?”

Ford unclipped her phone and glance at the digital numbers on the front.  “In three hours there won’t be a town left to help.”

David let the bomb drop, absorbing the impact of her words.

“I’m sorry David.”

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

“Mom?!  Dad?!”  David shouted down the hallway to his parent’s bedroom.  The lights were off.  It was quiet and dark through his house.  His parents had the be there.  He needed them to be there.  He didn’t have time.  “MOM?!  DAD?!”  He moved down the hallway loudly.  He felt like he lumbered through the stillness.  After all he’d been through in the last few days, the loudness scared him.  He was giving himself away.

“David?”  An eye peeked through a crack in his parent’s bedroom door.  “It’s David!”  The door flew open to reveal his mother, 9mm in hand.  David’s father stood in the distance, a shotgun pointed at the far window.  They looked older then David remembered.  Frightened and tired.  Bloodshot eyes, lean and hungry figures, gray brows and frown lines.

“We have to leave.  Fifteen minutes tops.  There’s a truck parked outside.  I’ll meet you out there.”  He gave his mom a firm but quick hug, and made for the stairs to his bedroom.

“What’s going on?  David?”  His mom moved to the bottom of the stairs.

“We have to hurry mom.  They’re gonna blow the entire town up.  You can’t be here when that happens.”

“We can’t be here?  What about you?”  David’s father asked, his wife pale next to him.

“We all need to get out of here.  Fifteen minutes!”  David yelled down the stairs.

He pushed his way through his bedroom door, grabbed an old backpack from the hook on the wall inside and started rummaging through his dresser.  Some clothes.  A wad of cash he kept tucked with his socks.  None of it felt vital to his existence.

Dweedle.  Dweedle.

David peered out of his backpack toward the phone on the table next to his bed.  The small screen lit in green with the phone number incoming.  His throat closed and his eyes moistened.

Dweedle.  Dweedle.

He pulled the phone into his hand and sat on the edge of his bed, pressing the button to connect.  He held it for a minute before placing it next to his ear.

“….Eric?”

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

They drove in silence.  David’s mother staring out the truck window from the back seat.  At last look at the town, the life about to vanish before her.  The town already felt dead.  It’s people afraid of each other, boarded up in their houses on guard.

McDowell drove unaware of speed limits and stop signs.  There was no traffic and they had a schedule to keep.  They rounded the corner, the fire station in view, and saw the team of nondescript black vehicles loading up to speed away.

Once parked at the curb, David’s parents were ushered towards a car with the wounded man from the upper level of the fire house.  Straight to sequestering for them all.

“Computer equipment in the SUV.  I want guns and ammunition divided equally between all five cars.”  Ford directed her men, nodding absentmindedly to McDowell.

“We’ve got the boy’s folks.”  McDowell pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the car the two parents were climbing into.  “How we on time?”

Ford glanced at the phone on her belt, angling it up and tapping a button on the side.  “Just over two hours.”

“Here I was worried we’d be rushed.”  McDowell said casually.  The thirty minute drive from town to the safety zone well within reach.

“David with his parents?”  Ford asked looking down the curb to the open door of the SUV.

“He was right behind–”  McDowell shot his gaze from one end of the curbside to the other.  “…My truck’s gone.”

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

The school looked like the bomb had a already dropped on it.  Windows and doors missing.  Chunks of brick wall torn through like building blocks pushed over by bored children.  The exposed hallways were dark.

McDowell’s truck stood catawampus on yellow parking lines, the driver’s side door left open and the cab light glowing.  David stood at the tailgate, checking ammo and strapping metal to his back and hips.  He’d never had to use a gun before.  At least not like this.  Part of him still hoped for a clean record.

Some sort of large rifle David couldn’t name strapped to his back, handguns at both hips.  David didn’t feel antsy anymore.  He wasn’t tired.  His mind was calm, the feverish race lifted and left him focused.  Focused on the task ahead, on the ticking clock flipping numbers in his head.  Slowly counting down to zero.

“Okay,” David switched on a flashlight, checking the bulb and battery.  “Third time’s a charm.”

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.

Ch. 2 -Growl

Ch. 3 – Pant

Fog cannot be cut.  It cannot be sliced, parted, or moved.  The solid wall of mist and condensation retreated in front of Frank, always one step ahead, still snaking around to close in from behind.

Branches heavy with condensation sagged and bobbed, the forest around him alive with movement and silent to the life of the early morning hour.  Each footfall carefully placed, as Frank landed and listened, step by slow step.

It was a smell, a feeling, that alerted Frank.  Something was off.  The smell of blood and decay, a tinge of saliva and feces.  The fog shifted forward, revealing bones.  Most were gnawed clean, some broken for the marrow.  There were piles, Frank guessed just under a hundred, mostly animals.  Most, but not all.

Frank moved through them, his feet tracing marks clawed into the soil.  Long lines of three tearing the turf and straining the ground with red.

“REET! REET! REET!” The tree to his right called to him, a shriek Frank had never heard before, from any creature.

“Tttk.  Tkkk. Tkkkkkkk.”  A tree to his left clicked at him from around it’s stump.

He heard the breaking of branches to his right; panting that slowly moved down the tree and toward the sliver of prated fog and bone where Frank stood.  It was rhythmic.  Bark was peeled, ripped, from the base of the massive pine to his left, the dull scratching of claws joining in song with the pants and snapping branches.

The next measure of the song simply held a rest.  Quiet.  Frank felt his heartbeat interject into the symphony.  A metronome.  The crescendos, subitos, and  decrescendos of the song he was now writing with these animals in the forest waiting to be called on by the conductor.

Two sets of eyes leered at Frank from both sides, studying the man through matted brows.  They hunched on all fours, ready, waiting.

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

He wasn’t even hungry, so if he ate them it would just be out of boredom.  David was usually a fan of doughnuts, especially the kind with sprinkles that Eric called “little kid doughnuts.”  His appetite had been non existent recently.  Mixed with the fact that he didn’t appreciate being locked in a room by himself, left to wait with his thoughts occupying the empty chairs across the unremarkable wooden table where he sat, and there the doughnuts sat untouched and exposed in their cardboard box.

There was something cliché about it all.  David thought he’d seen a movie, maybe a few movies, where the bad guy sat apprehended in an empty room, a box of doughnuts on the table as the authorities contemplated what to do, how to break him.  Put him in a room and lock the door, the doughnuts will keep him busy enough.

But David wasn’t the bad guy.  Which made him resent the frosted pastries.

David diverted his attention to the room around him.  He hadn’t been in this building for years, and he wasn’t sure he’d even gone in this room.  The police department destroyed, they’d rushed to the high school, set up in the library with David tucked away in and old  microform room, a large wooden table centered on the tile floor.  The room had no windows and one door that locked.  David was asked to stay here while they sorted things out.  He hadn’t bothered to check and see if the door was locked.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

The door handle heard his thoughts and began to turn, dipping toward the floor.  A tall, dark haired woman in a suit lead the way into the room, followed by Eric and a  bald man with a holster.

“David, I’m detective Ford.”  The woman extended her hand to David, who took it politely, standing slightly.  David had seen her briefly when he arrived at the library.  She had been ordering people around authoritatively.  David blamed her for his seclusion.

“You didn’t eat any doughnuts?”  Eric asked, concern on his brow.

“I’m not really hungry.”  David mumbled, crossing his arms and leaning against the back of his chair.  Detective Ford moved to a seat across from David, the man with the holster sitting next to her while Eric moved to the chair beside David.

“This is Detective Anderson,” the woman gestured to the bald gun-toting man, “we’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened last night.”

Last night?  David hadn’t realized it was daytime already.  He’d given statements, written, verbal, and dictated, to three different officers, not including his slightly emotional recount to Eric.  He relived it in the hours tucked inside the microform room, archiving it in his mind.  He was not in the mood to go through it again, especially to the authority figures who had brushed him aside.  “Can you people not read?”

“David…”  Eric sounded concerned in his admonition.

“I’ve given you guys my statement.  I’ve been patient, considering that I just witnessed a monster clawing itself from a man’s scalp, and in return I’m schluffed off to sit alone with some old, forgotten newspapers.  I’m done answering questions right now.”

Detective Ford looked genuinely apologetic, she was either a good faker or a good sympathizer.  “David, I’m sorry.  We’ve had a lot to sort out.  I’ve read your statements and spoke with Lieutenant Mills,” she nodded toward Eric, “there are just specific details that we’re still curious about.”

“Like what?”  David asked in his best cooperative tone.

“How did you escape?  And where did the beast go?”

“I had a bit of a head start.  I didn’t freeze completely anyways… It got my shoe, tore it off my foot and I guess that distracted it long enough for me to get to the bathroom and lock the door.”

“And it didn’t break through the door?”  Detective Anderson asked.

“It sounded like it started in on the lockers.  The noise must have attracted someone.  Probably Jim.  I just heard a lot of gunshots.  I guess that was enough of a distraction.  I just waited.  Until I heard Eric…”

“Then you didn’t see where it went?”  Ford asked.

“No.  I didn’t see much of anything.  At least nothing helpful.”  David sleepily poked at a doughnut, sending sprinkles falling to the bottom of the paper lined box.  He picked it up and began to chew, realizing how hungry he was.  “Why aren’t you asking me about it?  I mean, I saw it.  I saw how it… What it did to Jason…”

“We know.”  Anderson looked at Ford, unsure what to say and how to proceed.

“David, this may be hard to understand, but following these creatures–it’s what we do.”  Detective Ford adjusted her suit jacket needlessly.

“You mean… this, what’s happening to us–our town… it’s happened before?  Other places?”  David asked.

Detective Ford let her silence greet David’s question.  There were certain things she could not disclose, even to and eye witness.

“So, you can stop them?  Whatever they are.  You can right?  I mean if you’ve seen it before…”

“Our success rate is–less then perfect.  We’ve learned a lot about them, but we need to capture one–”

“You mean, you haven’t?  Ever?  And this is ‘what you do’ for a living?”

“David, you have to understand: these creatures are very intelligent.  They’re hard to track, their attacks are difficult to predict.”

“Difficult?  But not impossible?”

“There is a possible demographic associated with the victims, but it’s hard to explain or judge who the targets are or will be.”  Anderson explained.

“Ford, this is McDowell.” The radio clipped to Anderson’s hip cut into the fluorescently lit room.  “I’m coming in… I have something you’re gonna want to see…”

Anderson stood and made his way out of the room, “Copy Frank, we’re set up in the school library–”  the door closed leaving the three remaining.

Eric turned his attention from the door, and back toward David and Detective Ford.  “So it does target people though.  What type of people are we talking about?”

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

“SINNERS!  HEATHENS!”  Reverend Michael stood before his congregation, the midday light cutting through the large arched windows behind the stage where he stood.  “We are being judged here my friends.  These demons that have invaded our town are not here to hurt us… They are here for THEM!”  He shouted, finger pointed to the wall outside the walls of his church.

A chorus of applause and shouts of affirmation spattered through the pews.

“The fornicators.  The evolutionists.  The scientists!  The homo-sexuals!  The NON-believers!  ATHIESTS!  MUSLIMS!”

The congregation erupted again.  Their Pastor’s words didn’t apply to any of them.

Mrs. Michael sat in the front row, beaming at her husband through her bursting headache.

“Those of us who have not deviated, have not wavered, we will be rewarded.  We shall inherit the kingdom of the Lord.  The rest shall face the consequences for their actions.  Their CHOICES.  Their DEVIANCE!  The path to salvation has not been an easy one my friends.  But our vigilance, our dedication, our efforts shall be judged as well!”

The congregation exploded.  Mrs. Michael’s head pounded.  Their cheers, their leering, their shouts fed her headache.  It’s appetite would not be quenched.

“Let us pray for the sinners in our community.  Let us pray that they meet the judgment they so deserve.”  Reverend Michael said with an impassioned hush.  “Let us pray that they know of God’s will as they meet the destinies they’ve been working so hard for.  Let these creatures find them as suddenly and mercilessly as the sin they were so quick to invite into their lives.”

The congregation began to clap.  Mrs. Michael shot up from her pew, hands claps against the sides of the head, pushing.  Her fingers white from the pressure exhibited.  Her mouth opened into a scream the rose above all noise, “AAAAAAAHHHHHH–RIT–RIT–RIKK–HHHHHHHHHH!”  Something called through her scream, leaving her voice to gurgle away into quick, panicked breaths.

The light pouring into the building became obscured in five of the massive windows.  Five dark shapes crashed through the glass, glittering splinters flying into the wood pews as five hairy, matted animals clawed their way across the unkempt church floors.

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

They made their way through the school hallways, Frank McDowell leading the way back to the parking lot.  Ford and Anderson walked directly behind him, the Lieutenant he’d met the night before, along with the boy walking in the back, listening carefully.  The boy intrigued Frank.  David was the only person Frank knew of that these creatures had let live.  Until today.

“You’re serious?”  Ford asked, they were all practically sprinting.

Frank gave her a look as they walked, of course he was serious.

“No den, nothing.  They were just in the middle of some clearing.  Guess there’s no other predators to worry about…”

“They?”  David asked walking closer to Eric’s side.  “You found more then one.”

“There were two.  I had to kill the one.  But the other,” Frank opened the front door to the school, leading to where his pickup was parked, “I guess I managed to get the right amount of tranq in it.”

The cage in the back of Frank’s truck shook slightly, rocking the entire vehicle with it.  It was starting to wake up.

“This is amazing Frank!  It’s– it’s wonderful!”  Ford smiled.

“That’s not even the best part,” Frank smiled back, “There were two of ‘em, right?  Well, I think they’ve been mating.  Let’s go say hello to Momma, shall we?”

Ch. 2- Growl

David pressed the small triangular bump of plastic with his right thumb, the images on the television suddenly frozen.   The door at the top of the stairs opened, light stretched down each step and across the wall like a deformed, three digit hand.  “David?”  David’s mother called down into the darkness, “Eric’s here.”  Shadows filled and obstructed the light which poured into the lowest level of the house, Eric’s figure joining his mother’s at the top of the stairs.  “Don’t stay too late, dear.  I don’t want you driving home late, with everything that’s be going on…”

The light was replaced by footsteps as the door closed and Eric made his way down to the red hued room, a large television illuminated David relaxed on the couch, video game controller waiting on the carpet within reach.  A giant orange and red explosion danced across the screen, it’s last billow of flame frozen behind the word “Pause.”  Whenever Eric came over, David was always more aware of the fact that he lived at home with his parents.  His twenty-six year old life paused in the front of his mind to focus on.

Eric’s familiar figure moved from the dark stairs and across the room, David tucked his feet in, making room for Eric next to him on the couch.  “So?”

“The Gibbson’s, Mr. McKinney, and now Mr. O’Reilly and two of his staff members.”  Eric slumped into his palms, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing his eyes.

“Mr. O’Reilly?  Wow…”  David never liked Mr. O’Reilly, or his angry radio broadcast, an opinion that didn’t feel appropriate at the moment.  “And it was that–thing again?”

“As far as we can tell.  It never leaves any trail, no–no clue that’s even remotely helpful.”  Eric stopped rubbing his eyes, and looked over at David, “Jason’s been acting weird.”

Jason had been teamed up with Eric only a few months earlier.  The two men came from very different walks of life, and had managed a professional relationship.  If Eric hadn’t outranked him, things might not even be as cordial as they were.

Eric leaned his neck against the padded back of the couch.  David looked on unsure.  “Well,” Eric said after a moment, “do you need help blowing anything up?”

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

The days passed tensely through the town.  Each man with his own dread, each woman with her own suspicion, and every child with their own, slightly unique, fear.  Free roaming cats, dogs left alone outside in the still night air, and the occasional livestock all began to disappear.

The evenings were worse.  Three attacks, only one of which happened in the early morning daylight.  The darkness made people nervous.

David moved through the fog like a boat on water, leaving a wake as he went.  He couldn’t put it into words, but he wasn’t afraid.  Not any more then usual.  Plus, he couldn’t think of a safer place to be going then a police station.

The fog unwrapped itself from around him as he approached the glass front doors of the station, green fluorescent lights shone through, illuminating from the front desk and outside to the first squares of cement.  David pulled the door open, and caught the friendly look of Jim, who peered from behind important looking papers at the front counter.

“Evening David.  You just missed Eric.”

“I’m looking for Jason actually.  I was hoping to catch him before he went home.”

“Think he’s still here, said he was gonna grab something from his locker.  Haven’t seen him leave yet.”  Jim motioned toward the wooden swinging door to his right, “go ahead an poke your head in.”

“Thanks Jim.”  David moved along the tile, the silence of the building feeling slightly unusual.  He pressed his hand against the wooden grains of the door, “Jason?”  David slipped through the small opening he created, and made his way into the dark locker room.  He reached for the switch on the wall to his left.

“Don’t!”  Jason’s figure was barely visible on the bench in front of him.  He leaned into his hands, knees to elbows, the scattered fluorescent emergency lights spilling over only parts of the room lined with rows of metal lockers.  Like search lights.

“Jason?  Are you okay?”  David moved slowly toward him, an end of the wooden bench coming to his side and pointing it’s slats at the only other man in the room.

“My head…”

David slowed, unsure.  “Can I get you anything?”

Jason muttered something, David could only make out the fierceness of his tone.

“Look, I just wanted to talk to you about Eric… maybe now’s not a good time.”  David turned, half wanting to leave and half wanting to help.  “Should I call someone for you?”

Jason shook his head, hands still attacked to his temples.  David stood still for a moment longer, before turning to leave.  “Okay, take care of–”

“GAAAH!”  Jason yelped, slipped from the bench and slammed his knees against the tile floor.

David turned again, and rushed up the bench to the man on the floor.  “Jason?!”

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!”

“What’s going on?”  Jim had come into the doorway, unnoticed by Jason or David.

“Call an ambulance, something’s wrong.”  David let a tiny bit of panic enter his voice.

Jim was suddenly gone, and Jason suddenly wasn’t screaming.  Jason breathed.  He panted.  Saliva dripped from his tongue and onto a square, black tile.  Something cracked, making David jump and Jason whimper.  Some more pops filled the empty room.  David looked around, they sounded close.  Like they were coming from–

A deep red line suddenly pushed it’s way along Jason’s scalp as his limbs began to twitch.

“Jason?!  Jason!”  David looked around, the wound on Jason’s head had begun to bleed, to pour, he needed to apply pressure.  David flung open the closest locker and began to rummage.  A t-shirt, anything…

“Rrrrreeeeeeeeett. TTK. TKK. TKK.”

David froze, stopping his search inside the locker and slowly pulling his torso out of the metal coffin.  He carefully pushed the door closed, hearing the click of the simple latch, and the chirps coming from the growing gap.  He turned back to his right, Jason was now lying motionless on the floor.  The top of his head pointed toward David, and the blood was very dark.  A deep red that mated with his short hair, giving a matted look.

Something moved.

It pulled itself, slowly toward David.  Slapping, wet against the tile.  A single, three clawed foot.  Deep in color and covered in hair.

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

Eric pulled his car against the Gibbson’s curb.  He sat for a moment, looking at the broken window, the torn up front lawn, and the yellow tape that lined the house.  He stepped out of his car, locked the door and made his way up the driveway to his right.  David’s light wasn’t on, but the front living room curtain was lit.  He knocked politely on the door, and waited for an answer.

“Oh, Eric.”  Mrs. White said, opening the door slowly.  “Where’s David?”

Eric looked confused.  “I was coming to see him.”

“What do you mean?  He said he went to meet you at work…”

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

Eric’s car sat in the dark lot, driver’s side door open, and tires defiantly ignoring the yellow painted lines on the asphalt.

The glass front doors of the station had been shattered, Eric stepped though the empty metal frame, gun drawn and safety off, a flashlight held in line with the barrel.  Down the hall the halogens sparked and flickered, the front counter was missing a giant piece of itself, the jagged design gave the look of a giant bite mark.  Desks were overturned, and papers fluttered on the smell of gunpowder, drifting back down to a rest on the floor.  Whatever had happened, it happened recently.

Eric moved around the front counter, the locker room door had been torn from it’s hinges.  Part of the door still hung on the frame, while most of it lay across the hallway.  A dark hand stuck out from under the remains of the wooden panel.  Jim.  He knelt for a pulse and stopped for a prayer.

Through the partly exposed doorframe, Eric could see rows of lockers overturned like dominos.  A bench had been shoved through the far back wall.  Eric made his way through the door.  There were only so many places David would have been able to go, the locker room and the empty front waiting room being the most likely.

Up the aisle in front of him, Eric made out Jason’s body.  The top of his head was just like all the others.  Mrs. Gibbson, Mr. McKinney, and Mr. O’Reilly.  Deep red slashes were painted on the tiles, sets of three running parallel in stripes that came from Jason’s body and moved along the floor and around the corner to the far end of the lockers.  Claw marks.

Eric followed them, slowly.  He came to a row of broken mirrors and split porcelain sinks at the far end of the room.  On the floor sat a single tennis shoe, a jagged chunk of rubber bit from the heel. It had been David’s shoe.

“David?  DAVID?”

A small strip of light flashed on, peering along the bottom of the bathroom door on the far end of the wall beyond the mangled sinks.  Water gushed from the farthest sink, spilt across the floor and to the lit crack beneath the bathroom door.  The metal handle turned, and slowly a socked foot spilled out onto the wet tile.  “Eric?”

A quarter-eaten sandwich laid on the desk in the corner, the halogens giving the remains of the triangle cut pieces of bread a blue hue.  Mr. Michaels was not expecting to get back to his dinner anytime soon.  Eleven years as a Medical Examiner and he still could never bring himself to eat after a particularly gruesome autopsy.

“Where do you want the first one?”  the EMT push a single stretcher through the stainless steel door at the end of the room.  A white plastic, zipped body bag gliding silently past rows of examination tables toward Mr. Michaels, his appetite waning.

“Right here.  They said on the phone… Is it really that bad?”

The EMT stopped by the selected table, his pale face looking silently at the M.E.  “Whatever it was, it got the whole family.  And it’s still out there somewhere.”

Together they shifted the bag from the stretcher and onto the exam table.  “Don’t you mean ‘whoever?’”  Mr. Michaels asked.  “You said ‘whatever.’  Don’t you mean ‘whoever?’”

The EMT rested his hands on the cool metal of the stretcher’s bars, his pale face again fixed seriously on the M.E. with more poignant silence.  “Sure.”

The wheels of the stretcher, empty of the weight that brought them into the room, squeaked their high-pitched farewell as the  EMT pushed them from the room.  More men with more bags made their way into the room and Mr. Michaels absentmindedly directed them to tables.  His full focus turned to the zipped metal teeth in front of him, sealing both side of the bag rigor-mortised along the table.

His cold thumb and index finger grasped the colder metal and pulled, letting the darkness inside spill out against the white vinyl, a long dark line running the length of the bag.  Mr. Michael’s hands spread the open sides of the bag.  Widening the gap.

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

David sat in the back row of the church.  Churches made him nervous.  The hard pews, the overly thin paper of their Bibles.  The rules and traditions.  Everyone moving in unison.  The stares.

A single, giant, family portrait of the Gibbsons stood on an easel at the front next to large vases of arranged flowers.  The Gibbsons being prominent members of the church, the turnout was favorable.  Black cotton clothing filled pew after pew, the appropriate amount of sniffles and heads hung low joining the fabric in their statements of mourning.

David watched them.  They gnawed on bread and knelt on folding benches.  Moved their hands and sung their hymns.  They dabbed their tissues and held their children.  Stared at the photo, and at the five wooden caskets arraigned behind the man who chanted.  Together they mourned appropriately, asking no questions and thinking only of the happy lives that lead up to the events of today.  It was a closed casket ceremony.

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

“Eric,” David picked up his pace, moving across the green lawn and loosening his tie.  The church behind him spewing out mourners.  “I didn’t see you inside?”

Eric stood next to his squad car, ready but reluctant to leave.  “I was in the front lobby.  I never know if it’s appropriate for me to come to these things.”

David sent a knowing look.  “Did you guys find out anything?  I mean, with the autopsy?”

“Look, David–”

“I know, you’re the one with the badge.”  David unbuttoned his collar.  “Eric.  It’s me.”

Eric thought for a moment.

“Did you guys at least find it?  Whatever it was?”

“There’s been no other attacks.  There was no trails.  No solid evidence in the house.”

“What about the autopsy?”

Eric paused again, watching the mourners mill about the lawn, the white steeple stuck against the green grass.  “Give you a ride home?”

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

Ever since the colored people had made this town their home, Russell McKinney had become an angry man.  Not long after that, the Asians and Mexicans came, and purely by coincidence, Russell’s anger grew.

From the stool where he sat, this town was all downhill.

“What’s she doing here?”  Russell asked, sulking into his coffee.  His head began to ache.

“I work here Mr. McKinney, you know that.”  Jennifer’s dark mouth moved politely, as her hands tied an apron around her waist.

Russell pushed the mug away, sliding it across the counter.  “Keep the change.”  He placed a five dollar bill on the laminate countertop, swiveled his stool around and pushed his way through the glass door with an abrupt dong.

His head thumped.  The stress or the coffee.  He could never tell.

Shuffling his feet along the broken asphalt, he made his way up the alley beside the small diner.  The last of few places in town he didn’t mind spending money.  His pickup truck was parked a few feet away, cool in the shadows of the space between buildings.  With each step the pound of his headache became more and more intense.  His truck multiplied, as he grasped his temples and staggered.

“rrrrrrrrrrrrr….”

Russell staggered around, looking for the source of the growl.  Probably some stupid animal.  It sounded close.  If he was lucky, he thought he could hit it with his truck.  Despite his sudden delirium.  He’d driven with worse.

The entrance of the alley was empty.  Brick to brick from left to right.

“RRRRRRRRR!”

Russell turned again, facing his truck.  The pain grew.  Veins pumped and his breaths shortened, teeth clenched.  He pressed on his head, tears streamed from his eyes as mucus pulsed from his nose and mouth.  He couldn’t sob, couldn’t yell.  He tasted blood.  He fell to his knees, hard against the cement.  Another low, firm growl filled his ears.  It was close.

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

Eric and David sat in the police car outside David’s home.  The chaos at the Gibbson’s house a memory.

“Clawed?”

“The whole family.  The kids.  Mr. Gibbson.  All… mauled.  Claw marks and teeth marks.  We had a hard enough time just figuring out who was who.  They were all…attacked.  Everyone except Mrs. Gibbson.”  Eric looked into his hands, folded into each other.

“What happened to Mrs. Gibbson?”  David reluctantly let the words slip from his lips.

“Her head.  It… It–was torn open.”

The two men looked at each other, searching for understanding.

“Whatever it was–whatever killed that family, it’s like it came from her.  Inside of her.”

David turned, processing the sentence sitting in the front seat with them.  He stared at the open window of the Gibbson’s house.  “Lovely.”

The late semi-darkness of the neighborhood peeked through his window, the curtain lazily still drawn open.  Strong stars and weak lamp posts shining though and dancing with the lamplight.  From where David lay, he could just make out a few of the celestial figures peaking over the Gibbson’s roof, angled down into his music filled bedroom.  He liked constellations.  He did not like the Gibbsons.

Not only did their roof partially bar Orion from David’s floor concerts, but everything the Gibbsons stood for was backwards to David.  Home schooling, right winged, impatient.  It was more then their roof, it was their poor choice in music, their sheltered existence.  Their beige cloths hanging to dry on the line.  Their minivan.  Their picket signs and protests around town.  The Gibbsons were more then just the family who occupied the space next to his parent’s house, the Gibbsons were everything that was wrong with this town.

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

“That boy’s music is too loud.”  Sue peered out of the ground floor kitchen window, up to the neighboring window.  “And so help me, if he forgets to close his curtain I’ll call the cops again.”  Calmly pretending to wash the dishes, her gaze fixed.  “We don’t need to see him parading around his room in his underwear.  There are children in this house.  It’s indecent.”

Greg scowled at the newsprint in front of him, setting it on the table, ignoring his wife’s comments and focusing on her soapy hands.  “I’m going to shower quick before bed, don’t take all the hot water.”  He got up and moved to the doorway, stopping before exiting.  “A wife should take these things into account.  You need to set a good example for our daughters.”

As Greg made his way down the hallway, Sue nudged the sink, setting cool water through the pipes and bringing most of her focus from the neighbor’s upstairs window and back down to the pan in front of her.  As the water poured, she took the kitchen towel, wiped the counter in front of her, dried her hands and massaged her temples.  She was almost finished.

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

He remembered underwear.  It had been a conscious choice lately, since Mrs. Gibbson had taken to calling the cops on him every time he got out of the shower without closing his curtain.  David thought it would be easier to close the curtain altogether, but something in that felt like admitting defeat.  He wasn’t naked, but he wasn’t dressed.  His subtle protest.  Walking by his bed David caught a glimpse at the Gibbson’s front yard.  Parked at the curb was a single cop car, Lieutenant Eric and Officer Jason making their way to the Gibbson’s front door.

As the lamp light caught David’s body, standing in observation by the window, Lieutenant Eric sent a friendly wave his way.  They all knew what was going on.

“Shit.”

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

“Well, at least he’s dressed.  That’s a start.”
“You know Mrs. Gibbson, it won’t be enough.”  Lieutenant Eric said moving up the sidewalk with Officer Jason.  “I tell you, I’m getting close to erecting a giant partition myself, right down the middle of–”

Officer Jason looked at the Lieutenant , confused, before following his gaze to the front window of the family room.  House lights shone through a giant gash in the glass, sparkling splinters scattered into and around the yard outside.

“What exactly did the dispatcher say Mrs. Gibbson was complaining about?”  Officer Jason asked the broken window.
“It was Mr. Gibbson who called.  They think.  Just a bunch of screaming before he hung up.  They traced the call before it got disconnected…”  Lieutenant Eric reached to his shoulder, clicking on his radio.  “Possible break in at 1586 Musgrave St.  Request immediate backup.”
“You think it’s a break in?”  The Officer asked.
“No.  Not a break in.”

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

David made his way down the driveway, the hedge to his right blocking his view of the Gibbson’s house.  Three cops cars, and ambulance, fire truck, and several nondescript black cars were parked in the street.  Fairly certain he wasn’t in trouble, David wanted to know what was so interesting.  Even without the flashing lights and people talking, David’s curiosity would have been enough to keep him awake.

He made his way around the edge of the hedge and peered cautiously around at the house.  The front window was broken, and multiple stretchers were being ushered from the house, zipped white bags occupying each one.

David made his way across the lawn, forgetting about the police and activity around him.  His bare feet bringing him closer to the open window as he tried to peer in, the kitchen light illuminating the jagged corners of the glass still attached to the house.

Is that, blood? David thought, spotting a red stain on the kitchen floor in the distance.

“Stop!”

David turned around suddenly,  Eric behind him, a slightly panicked look on his face.

“There’s broken glass all over.  You didn’t think to put on shoes before coming outside?”
“I put on pants.”  David sarcastically displayed his jeans.  “What happened?”
“You need to go home, stay inside.”  Eric gestured with his hands, motioning David to come with him back toward the other end of the lawn, closer to home.
“Were the doors locked?”  David asked, moving slowly down the lawn toward Eric.
“What?”
“Were the doors all locked?”  Eric didn’t answer, so David slowed his pace.  “Listen, every night Mrs. Gibbson checks all the doors and windows at least three times.  After dinner that place is hermetically sealed.”  Eric remained silent as they made their way around the end of the hedge and onto the driveway.  “The glass, in the yard?”  David continued, “means that, the way the glass fell: something wasn’t breaking in.  It was breaking out.”

The two men stared at each other for a second, Eric taking a cautious look around.
“Look, we don’t know what happened, but it’s our job to figure it out, not yours.  Just…stay inside ok?”
David stood, stubbornly on the cement.
“If you’re right, if something did break out, then it’s still out here somewhere.  Stay inside.  We can talk later.”

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

Back in the Gibbson’s front yard, Officer Jason was patrolling the broken glass in the grass, his MagLight scanning each blade.  Lieutenant Eric came to his side, studying the hole in the window.

“What do you think did that?”  Officer Jason asked, peering down .
Lieutenant Eric took a look at the end of the flashlight’s beam.  Three parallel five inch long lines were carved into the grass.  The flashlight moved along the blades, another set dug in a few feet down the lawn, toward the street.

“Are those claw marks?”  Lieutenant Eric asked rhetorically.

The two men followed the sets with their eyes, their bodies turned toward the street busy with their coworkers.  Dark, sleepy houses lining the asphalt.  Houses almost identical to the broken one behind them.  The claw marks reached the asphalt and disappeared, leaving no mark, indication, or trail for the two men to follow.

“Well, Lieutenant.  Now what?”

There are players.  There are the type of players who play by the rules, and then there are the players who refuse.  Playing by the rules is safe.  The game goes as planned; the result is rarely a surprise.  The risk these players, the rule abiding athletes, face: is to themselves.  A predictable life.  A safe game.  The end result can often times be underwhelming, making them wish maybe just once they’d played dirty or even warmed the bench.  If only they’d taken a moment–just watched for one second.

The rule breakers don’t have it much better.  What is there to gain by abstaining from play?  Sure, make your own rules, face the consequences for breaking their rules, refuse to play once in a while.  But eventually the game will go on without you.  It passes you by, oblivious.  And even if you stay in the game, you take the chance that the other players won’t like to play by your rules.It’s getting to be that time of year.  February 14th, and the joy that it brings.  That last sentence was written in sarcasm, for those of you who don’t read it fluently.  This year I’ve been thinking a lot about the game.  The rules.

To some people, it’s a Hallmark holiday at best.  Why should one day out of the year be any different?  You can show the people you care about, well, that you care about them all year, every day, any day you choose.  But these people probably don’t.  They’re playing by their own rules, however admirable they may be.  If you’re team doesn’t know your rules, you’re finished.

Some people go all out.  Flowers and chocolates and stuffed animals and dinner.  And dessert.  They’re playing by the rules.  The rules of clichés, and obligatory romance.  But, lets face it: who doesn’t want to be picked to play on that team?  At the very least, for the dessert.  Try and convince me you couldn’t go for a cookie right this second.

For others, it’s a day to drink the feelings.  Eat the absence.  Even the kid who’s picked last knows the rules of the game.  Knows what it means to be picked last.  Sometimes we forget just to turn our heads to the side, and realize there’s half the team benched right along side us.

But sometimes it can be nice to sit it out.  No pressure.  Playing the game, either by the rules or against them, can be a lot of work.  Take that moment to get your head back in the game.  How do you want to play?  What rules can you break?  What rules will you follow?  It doesn’t have to be black or white.  Sometimes it’s nice in the gray.

At the end of it all, when the pitch is quiet and the wounds are wrapped, it doesn’t really matter.  Scores are just numbers.  Trophies will be handed out all over again next year.  Players are traded, and others retire altogether.  What’s going to do you the most good, isn’t winning.  Loosing sucks, but you learn.  In truth, it really is how you play the game.

Ch. 2 – Blue

Happy hour at Johnny Appleseed’s ended at 7pm, so by the time Rick arrived full charges were back on the booze.  Rick wasn’t planning on drinking a lot, this was a date after all.  The bar itself was typically unremarkable.  Pool tables, neon lighting, dart boards and electronic jukebox.  They typical lighting, the typical menu, and the typical seats.  Booth or stool.

Rick hated open seating.  It was an excuse for the wait staff to not notice you, not bring you your food, and not come back for refills.  Rick always went unnoticed, and always tipped too much.  He slid into a booth facing the door, and fidgeted with a greasy menu.  So many choices.  He flipped the single laminated sheet over and glimpsed the back.  A ketchup stain had turned all the ‘Soft Drinks’ into ‘So inks.’  None of them sounded very refreshing.
“What’ll it be?”
“Oh, um, actually I’m still waiting for someone.”
The waitress eyed Rick disinterested, waiting for his order.
“I guess a cheese pizza?”
She took his order, dragging it with labored steps back into the kitchen to be born.

As the waitress disappeared through the swinging kitchen door a new song filled the bar speakers, racing across the wood floor to Rick’s booth as the front door opened.  Rick’s barista entered with some coworkers.  Rick nervously waved.  Nothing.  He waved again.  A smile.  He waved again.

Rick’s barista spoke to the coworkers before turning and heading over to Rick.  The coworkers took up stools at the bar.
“Hi.”  The barista said, a friendly apprehension mixed inside the tone like tequila mixes with crushed ice.
“I got a booth, I hope that’s okay.”
The barista looked back over a shoulder at the other barista coworkers, who in turn sent confused looks back.  “I’m sure that’s fine.”
Rick waited for his barista to take a seat.
“Well, enjoy the pizza, okay?”
“Can I buy you a drink?”  Rick looked up, confused.  “Aren’t you gonna sit?”
“Look, I think you might have misunderstood…”

Rick’s coffee was gone, the scone devoured, the paper cup and wrapper deposited in the trash.  His barista was busy filling the crème, sugars, straws and napkins on the counter by the door.  Rick stared into the trash at his deposit for a minute before making his way over.
“Hey.  Um, thanks for the latte.”
“Oh, no problem!”
“It was…it was good.”  Rick eyed the sugar packets.
“I’m glad you liked it.” A smile.
Rick fidgeted with his coat.  “Hey, do you know–is there anywhere around here good.  I mean like to go, for food or something?”
“Yeah, actually there’s a bar just up the road on the left,” a straw pointed the way, “in that shopping center with the Screen-o-Plex.”
“It’s good?”
“Great pizza.  A bunch of us from work go there a lot.  We’re actually headed over tonight.  You should check it out.”

Rick wanted to pay his bill as fast as possible.  He told the waitress to show his pizza a to-go box the second it came out of the oven, and handed her his credit card.  His barista had regrouped with the others, who turned occasionally to stare at Rick sitting alone.  They whispered.  Rick didn’t even have a name for his barista.  He’d always been too shy to find a nametag.  He always hated nametags.  He felt awkward staring, and he read slow.

Rick’s waitress, along with her own taunting nametag, brought his box and receipts.  He tipped her too much and took his dinner.  The box was hot and he had to keep shifting it between hands as the bar music ushered him away.  Rick realized he’d need to find a new place to get his coffee.

The to-go box playing copilot, Rick drove home for an early night.  It was dark enough for the usual constellations to pose for him.  Hunger, sleep, and humiliation dominated his mind as the ignored radio beat on along with the turns of his tires.

Rick thought through it all again.  He knew he could be oblivious, dense, awkward, but he still didn’t see where he went wrong.  None of this had ever come easy to him.  A star fell on the horizon, brushing gently against the atmosphere.  It hugged it’s small spot in the sky for a moment, it’s tail pointing downward.  It was the type of star people wished on.  People other than Rick.  Rick stared out at the blank spot in the sky that had just lit, knowing his seconds were ticking away.  Rick though for a moment.  Coming up with nothing to wish for, Rick let the opportunity pass on to someone else.  He was sure they needed it more.

It would be an empty planet, long dark grains running forward, fleeing as you journeyed toward them.  With them.  Rick didn’t mind being alone.  He worked alone.  He lived alone.  He ate alone.  He dreamed alone.  He fell asleep on his desk alone.

He closed his eyes and tried to cement his planet into his memory, maybe he could visit it later.  Maybe it wouldn’t prove to be as solitary as it appeared, if he looked in the right place.  He opened his eyes, one long and slow motion, realizing he was too tired to go back to sleep.  He brought his hands up beside his head on the desk and began to push, lifting his head slowly.  6:02 P.M.  About a six minute nap.  It was worth it.  Unplanned, but worth it.  A fifteen hour day, and at least six more hours to go.  Running on two hours of sleep and one cup of coffee.  And it’d only been a Grande.

His six minute nap felt like a pitiful paperclip in a battle against the dragon of his sleep.  What good does that do, really?

Rick rubbed his eyes and turned from the glowing monitor in front of him.  It’s blue hue casting the only light across his room, the shadow of his head blocking out a portion of the glow.  He needed to be there by 7, not enough time to find his armor and face the beast.  Hopefully the paperclip would hold him together.

Moving across the room in the dark, he flung open his closet door, lifted the front neck of his shirt to his nose and inhaled.  Rick was sure he’d showered.  He pulled a new shirt from a hanger, letting it slam back and forth, empty.  He pulled the old shirt off over his head and let it fall to his feet.  As he opened the head hole and positioned the arms, he saw himself in the mirror across the room.  The blue glow of the computer cast across his torso, painting his flesh.  He was sure the people on his orange, wooden planet would be blue.  That would make them easier to find.

He slipped the shirt over his head and grabbed his keys.  Coat, cell phone, wallet.  He’d never taken off his shoes after work.  He flicked on the overhead light and stopped in the mirror one more time, the blue cleared away.  Jeans, a simple shirt.  He hoped it would be enough.  You only get one first date.