Chapter 5: Savaged

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Mack got out of his car at a gym. It was early evening. He carried four extra-large vegetable pizzas and checked the address on the receipt.

He sighed and went to the door.

His interview with Ms. Fallwise was everywhere for an hour. The Sun got a few more subscriptions out of it, but the story fell flat. It was missing a critical piece, Sonny, Dickhead to Dewy, and a lead reporter for the Sun told him. It lacked emotion. It was sad that the woman died, Sonny had said, but people can’t get too worked up about a loose dog. They can’t hate a dog like that. The Tribune and the police had gotten to the boyfriend before the sun. He was cleared and sent on his way.

What had happened was orders at Romello’s picked up. The garlic bread bag on the table seemed to have made a lot of people hungry. Mack’s manager clapped him on the back when he came to work that next morning, handed him twenty dollars, and gave him a pizza that had been stacked upside down, the cheese stuck to the cardboard.

The guys who worked at the shop started calling him Newsboy.

It was fucking shit.

Mack went into the gym and twisted his nose. It smelled of dirty shoes. There was a women’s yoga class taking place. Half of the women looked like it was their first class, and the other half looked like it would be the last thing they ever did.

“Hold it right there, ladies,” the one leading the group said. She was on the thicker side, but shaped well. She wore a turban of some kind, a dusty pink swirl on her head. She stood up from her mat, and each woman she passed by fell to their knees and looked over their shoulder. Mack saw their nostrils flair. One woman didn’t seem to fit in, a thin middle-aged blonde woman on the far side of the front row. She stayed in position and didn’t look back at the food. Mack swallowed at the shape of her legs and jumped when the instructor grabbed the boxes from his hand.

“Card is okay, right?” she asked. He nodded. She handed him a metal card. He had a card reader on a lanyard around his neck and drew the card through it. It chimed on his phone. He held it out for a tip. As she was thinking about what to give, Mack looked at the thin blonde woman again. Seeing her in that room was like seeing a lion amongst fat house cats. It seemed like while the other women were trying to improve themselves by coming to Pizza Yoga, that woman was sliding downward.

“Thanks,” the instructor said. “Now, ladies, keep it up! Only three more poses and our gratitude reflection left!”

A woman groaned as she lifted herself off her knees and stomach.

“Bye,” Mack said, hoping the blonde woman would hear. She didn’t.

“See you,” the instructor said, turning back to the class. Mack turned to the door and watched a white deer run across the street. It was twilight and deer season, but something seemed strange. Cars veered away from it, laying on their horns. A woman got out of her car and stood in front of an oncoming lane, trying to get the cars to stop. She spread her arms wide. She was hit hard by a truck. And then the deer ran into the parking lot. It stopped by a gray bug beneath a streetlight. It looked at the gym. It was not a deer. It was something completely else, something that defiled existence. He took out his phone. He lifted it to record as the strange thing stood on its hind legs to sniff the air.

“Okay, ladies, we are going to work our way down to yallahuta,” the instructor chanted. “Move your left knee below your waist. Take your right arm, and reach it towards the sky-”

The beast dropped to all fours and ran towards the gym door. Mack took a step back. The thing picked up more speed and launched itself off the front of a Jeep, cracking the grill.

“Breathe-”

The beast smashed through the glass. The woman turned to look and screamed as the thing came into the gym. They collapsed from their poses, crawled, and ran past it, hurling themselves towards the door. Their socks tread on broken glass. The instructor flattened herself against the far wall and was trying to put on her shoes. Her head wrap was coming loose and exposing bright blue hair.

The blonde woman was still holding her pose, her yoga mat glistening with glass.

“Hey!” Mack yelled at the woman. But she was frozen as she had been when he delivered the pizza. Her eyes were still shut. Her chest rose and fell.

“Run!” the instructor yelled. Then the blonde woman put her hand down and yelped. Then the beast was on top of her, clawing at her outfit. Its claws cut the thin, tight fabric of her torso and legs. Her pale skin showed through like beacons, then red blood began to color the skin. She shrieked, and Mack crouched down, zooming in with his phone. Some of the other women were recording outside the shattered window.

The beast turned around and howled at the people watching. It leaned over, its mouth distending and its teeth jutting out from its lips. It grasped her neck in its teeth. It looked at the cameras, then its glowing eyes settled on Mack. The beast growled. Mack zoomed out and looked around. The front door was still closed. He backed towards it. The beast thrashed its prey at him. Mack looked at the woman’s body. She was alive, twitching, grabbing at its pointed ears. The beast barked, muffled by the woman in its mouth, and then ran to the window. Muddied streamers of some kind hung off its ankles. The woman panicked as it jumped over the low sill. The monster ran into the parking lot, carrying the limp body of the blonde woman with curly hair. The beast ran the way it had come. It must have been nine feet tall, he guessed, from how high off the ground the woman was while the thing carried her.

Mack ended the video, out of breath. He went to his text chain with Dewy and sent the video. He stood up, wobbling, smelled the pizza, and threw up on the welcome mat of the gym.

#

Mack’s car revved, its engine heating into the red, as he flew down Route 34. He’d keep going until he reached the mountains of Colorado. He couldn’t shake the image of the beast from his head, the blonde woman in its mouth. She was older, but Mack could picture both of them enjoying each other regardless of age.

Lights appeared on the horizon. Mack slowed down. He approached the light, licking his lips. It looked like the kind of stops the police did on New Year’s, to randomly check if drivers were drunk.

He rolled down his window. He noticed that the vehicles were not standard squad cars. They were massive armored carriers. NATIONAL GUARD was written boldly across the side. A helicopter flew overhead.

“What’s going on?” Mack yelled out his window. He stuck his head out. He noticed the men and women in all black, with large rifles pointed at his head, their eyes to the scopes that shimmered as they reflected his headlights. They reminded him of the beast’s eyes.

“What’s going on!?” he repeated. “I’m trying to get through!”

“Turn around, citizen,” a voice on a megaphone said. “DuFlock County is under quarantine. There was a small radioactive leak at the particle accelerator. No need to be alarmed. Return to your home and stay sheltered until the all clear is given.”

“I need to get through!”

“Turn around. The whole country is quarantined. I repeat, the whole county is quarantined-”

“Does it have to do with the monster?” Mack yelled. He stuck his phone out the window with the video playing on it. “Does it have to do with the monster!?”

“We do not acknowledge the existence of any monster. There was a small radiation leak. It is being contained. For your safety, return home and shelter in place. Repeat: Return home and shelter in place.”

Mack threw his phone on his seat, whipped the wheel around, and peeled off back towards town. He watched in his rearview mirror as the police line followed him. He slowed as he came to a road in the corn and looked down the long flat stretch. Another set of police lights was miles in the distance. He thought about turning and finding a path through the field, but then a line of people dressed in black, with high-powered rifles, walked out of the corn and onto the road. He hit the gas, and his car coughed as it picked up speed. He saw headlights coming his way, stretching as far as he could see.

His phone jumped, vibrating in the seat. He picked it up.

“Dewy.”

“Mackathon, Mackinator, what’s up, little man?”

“Was going to get the hell out of DuFlock. Just got turned around by the army.”

“Your video is a sensation! They’re playing it on every channel, man, every damn channel! I’m getting calls from the fucking Gray Lady! When can you come in? We’ll have a call with them, you and me.”

“Dewy, I need to get out. That thing… was unreal.”

“I saw the video. I shit my pants. Did you get someone to touch that up for you? I don’t understand how you got all the other angles out so quickly. There are ten, twelve women online who posted their versions. It’s a fucking way to set some news up, Macky.”

“Nothing was set up, Dewy! That thing is real!”

“Sure, it is, I get it. Gotta stick to the script, right?”

“Dewy, listen. The county is under quarantine. You think they’d do that for some fake video?”

“Quarantine? Yeah, that’s from the radioactive spill-”

“It’s not, Dewy, use your fucking brain. What do your other sources say?”

“Other sources? We cover the Blackberry festival, Mack. We cover the bands coming into town. The high school football teams.”

“Someone’s got to have heard something.”

“Maybe I could call Chief-”

The line went dead. Mack looked at his phone. Dead zone, he thought. Fucking dead zone.