Chapter 7: In His Power

The runt must face the alpha...

Mack’s phone sat unconnected in its car holster. He tapped the screen as his car was flying. Zero bars. He thought about an old train track that ran through the middle of town. It was overgrown and ran along a state bike trail. He smoked weed there in high school, walking along the cold steel rails that pushed up through the dirt.

If there was one place that the police and army would forget to block off where his car could drive, he figured it would be there. He tapped his phone again and looked up as a large black van flew out from behind a building. The glossy side panel reflected his headlights. He had time to lay on the horn, stomp the brakes, and brace himself before the collision. The small car swerved.

Screeching, then a bang.

His passenger side door hit the van, the metal and plastic crumpling against the large flat side panel.

Mack climbed out of the wreck. His hands and knees throbbed against the cool road. They were covered in white powder. He looked back at the car. Its front was burrowed beneath the van. The other car was spinning its tires.

“Hey!” Mack said, lifting an arm at the car. “What the fuck was that?”

He approached. The window was tinted solid black. He cupped his hands over his eyes and put them to the glass. He stumbled back. The man at the wheel was limp, covered in white dust from the airbags. He looked like a ghost.

His foot must be stuck on the gas, Mack thought, stepping back from the window.

He walked around the back so that if the van slipped free, it wouldn’t hit him. The rear doors were hanging open. The other side of the van was falling in on itself, peppered with bullet holes and deep gouges that cut through the metal sides. The door was missing from the passenger’s seat, and blood pooled on the floor mats. A thin white man lay crumpled in the rear compartment.

“Over here!” a woman’s tenor voice shouted across the street. He looked in the direction that the van had come from. From behind a store’s door, a hand reached out. Mack ran and slipped into the dark room.

“What’s-”

“Quiet,” the woman whispered. Her hand extended past his face. He turned to where she pointed.

Huddled in a brick alley between two buildings, the pale monster’s chest rose and fell. The beast was alone. Its mouth was a dark oval. It was half squatting, scanning the street. Mack watched as its nostrils flared. He reached for his phone but found his pockets empty.

“Dolores,” a voice groaned from behind them.

“Quiet, Delude.”

“Dolores, it got me,” the man said. Mack turned. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. In the far back of the store, a small group of people huddled behind a counter. On the floor in front of them, between shelves of chips and pop, a larger, older man dressed in black was bleeding onto the linoleum. He held a gun in his hand, the handle facing outward. “Take my gun.”

“You settle down, honey,” Dolores said, “you’ve done enough tonight.”

“I’m dying,” the man said. There was no wavering in his declaration. “Take this.”

“No,” Dolores said, “you saw what those bullets did to that thing. He was hit square on and acted like it was a bee sting.”

“This gun is different,” Delude whispered, “its ammo is special made.”

“Give it to him,” Dolores said, tilting her head at Mack. “I can’t hold it.” She lifted her right hand. It was bruised and swollen from the fingers to the wrist.

“Me?” Mack said. His head was still spinning from the crash. His wrist hurt from hitting the horn.

“Take it, boy,” Delude said, “take it before it takes you.”

Mack took the gun.

“I’m not… familiar with these,” Mack said. He held it away from his body.

“Point and pull the trigger,” Delude said. He coughed and spat blood. “If I don’t die soon, shoot me,” he whispered.

“What?”

“If I don’t die, shoot me. That thing-” Delude shook his head. “But I don’t think its blood got me. I was wearing the mask,” the man said. He took a hand from his side, and Mack noticed he was missing a soccer-ball-sized portion of his abdomen. The blood that rushed out where his hand had been would have filled a large bucket. Then Delude fell back, his head smacking against the ground.

“Oh, you idiot,” Dolores said. Mack could hear her swallow.

“We’ll be okay,” Mack said. “We’ll be alright. The army’s here.”

“They won't help,” Dolores said. The people in the back of the store groaned.

“What?”

“They’ll be no help. We heard over Delude’s radio. They are not to advance. They’ve put the county under siege.”

“In siege?” This is a strange nightmare, he thought.

“They’re just watching,” Dolores said. “They want to see what it can do.”

The weight of the gun in his hand seemed to triple. He held it out towards the old woman, and she put both hands up and stepped away.

“I can’t hold it,” Dolores said.

“You can’t expect me to do anything with it,” Mack said, “I deliver pizzas.”

“I don’t expect anything. But I’ve got to get these people out of here. Just watch the front. Make sure it doesn’t see us leaving.”

“Leaving? Shouldn’t you stay put?”

“We can’t be near that thing. They take potshots at it with everything they have. They’ve blown up half a street trying to get it.”

“I thought they were just watching.”

“They say one thing and do another. I don’t think the group Delude was with was working with the others… but who gives a damn, pizza man? One of them’s a baby. It can’t stay here.”

“A baby?” Mack whispered. He looked over the counter, studying the shadows. A woman had a bundle in her arms. She was rocking back and forth.

“Shhhh,” she whispered.

Mack wasn’t sure. There was a flaw in the logic, but he could not put his finger on what it was. He saw the old woman getting the people behind the counter to stand. There was a young man who looked more capable than Mack. Then he noticed the darkness on the young man’s pants. The shivering in his hands. Mack was the flaw in the logic. He saw his lifeless body in the mouth of the beast.

Yet Mack found himself steady. His arms and hands felt dry from more than just the powder of the airbag.

When Dolores got the people out the back door of the store, he went out the front. He heard the helicopter above, flying low. A spotlight illuminated him and made him half-blind.

“Yo!” He yelled at the creature. It turned and looked at him. It didn’t sniff or blink.

Mack raised the gun and fired when he crossed the double yellow line. The concussion blasted off the powder from his body. The shot rang out and hit a gutter. The beast walked out of the alley. It spread its shoulders back. It stood straight up. Its head slipped just below the power lines.

It reminded Mack of the large skeletons people had been buying like crazy for Halloween. But this thing was more muscle than bone, more sinew than skin. He raised the gun again and fired. The bullet seemed to lag as it flew. It hit the beast in the shoulder and knocked the thing back a step. Its mirrored eyes flashed at the helicopter, then at Mack. Dark red blood spotted with black chunks began to spill from its shoulder.

“Looks like you’re not so tough!” Mack shouted. He pressed his lips together. He looked over his shoulder and saw the small group running across a back street. The monster noticed the group of people. It turned from Mack, lowered to all fours, and jumped off the curb.

Mack’s third bullet hit it in the side and sent it spinning and rolling down the street.

“Hey!” Mack yelled, “I’m over here!”

#

Dolores heard the shots and tried to speed up the people from her building. There was an apartment building across the street. They were low, only three stories high, and the lobby was behind big glass doors. They were unlocked. There was nobody inside, and the reception desk was empty. A trail of blood led to a door for the stairs.

“We can’t stay here,” the young black woman said. “Looks like its been here.”

“It’s better than out on the street,” Dolores said. She pushed open the door. The blood trail continued beyond it. “Maybe it was someone else getting to safety,” she said, trying to convince herself. She walked into the dark stairwell first. She found the railing and made her way up. The stench of blood grew stronger as she climbed.

They went through the door at the top of the stairs, and Dolores’s heart dropped when the trail of blood continued. They spilled out into a hallway lit by the moon, coming through a window on the far side of the hall.

“Wait here,” Dolores said.

“You’re not going to follow it,” the woman said.

“Someone might be hurt.”

She followed the trail to a door that had been knocked off its hinges. Inside was an apartment the same as her own, other than the lack of furniture and the body of a girl lying on the floor.

“Someone’s hurt!” she cried out.

“Ramone is a nurse,” the Mexican mother yelled.

“I’m not going in there,” the man said.

“Have some balls, Ramone. He’s out there.”

Ramone sighed. He came to the room and tiptoed to Dolores, who was kneeling over the body. The girl with blonde, springy hair was fighting for every breath.

“Give me some space. See if you can find a towel or a blanket,” he said.

Dolores turned down the hall, heading for the linen closet.

She looked out the window as she passed it, her fingers reaching out for plants that were not there. There were a million stars in the sky. She could see the intersection of the two streets and the man fighting the beast.

#

Mack was bleeding, and his right arm hung limply from his shoulder. The gun was awkward in his left hand, and he felt the weird angle of his wrist as he tried to aim. He’d broken his wrist as a child at a baseball game, and it never had set quite right.

Still, the trigger worked the same, and he managed to get a shot into the beast’s gut as its hand came down on his shoulder and snapped through his collarbone. He didn’t know how many shots the gun held and had lost track of how many times he had fired. The thing knocked him onto his back and pinned his hands down. Its claws tore into his skin. Mack didn’t feel anything from his right arm. But his left arm erupted in an explosion of pain. Its foot claws clamped around Mack’s legs, and it began to pull him apart. Blood from the monster’s shoulder dripped onto his mouth and eyes. He was drowning in the warm, thick, salty liquid. He tried to wretch, but it came faster, forcing its way into his throat.

He looked at the beast’s face.

The eyes. There were the large and glossy reflectors that looked like they should have been on a bug. But below them, trapped in the folds of skin above the thing’s snout, a second pair lay. They would be invisible to anyone who wasn’t as close as he was. They were crying, red. He felt the beast’s teeth close around his neck, and he came eye to eye with the man below the beast. They looked at him, begging.

He raised the gun, feeling his bones crackle beneath the monster’s grip. He tried to turn his head away from the pouring blood, and it released his left arm to grab his hair. He felt the rows of teeth tear flesh as he put the gun on the thing’s temple. Then the teeth stopped. The human eyes were open wide, hoping.

Then Mack pulled the trigger until the gun clicked empty.

The beast collapsed onto him, three holes in the side of its head arranged in a perfect triangle.