What the Hell Did I Just Read

  John

  If John and his attacker had fallen on the downstream side of the sinking school bus, he’d no doubt have been whisked down the river, on his way to the Gulf of Mexico. Instead they fell upstream, meaning the current was now crushing their bodies against the side of the bus. There was no ground under John’s feet—the only thing keeping his head above the surface was the current pinning him to the white metal wall and the grip of his left hand, which was clutching a grating next to the bus’s wheel well.

  John had lost track of the cloak that had tumbled into the river with him and he had hoped maybe it’d gotten swept away. But then a hand erupted out of the water and clutched John around the throat. The fingers felt thin and sinewy, like the talons on a bird.

  Up from the water came the baby-face mask, only blackness behind the blank eye holes.

  In a voice that sounded like a colon tumor that had grown a mouth, the cloak said, “Even now, you do not believe you can die. Do you know what awaits you, once you have been plunged into the black swarm? A most profound penetration that will split you wide, a violation without end, your shock their narcotic, your despair their aphrodisiac. How can you not already hear their lustful howls, you who bear the mark of Min?”

  The bony hand forced John’s head under water. He struggled to grasp the side of the bus, to pull himself up, but his fingers peeled loose and he was drowning, the crush of the water an incomprehensible force, pushing the last air out of his lungs.

  John clawed helplessly at the talons around his neck. Feeling his own numb fingers growing weaker.

  Then there was a shape in the water above him, visible only as a shadow in the rippling reflection of the headlights from the shore. Something floating toward him, carried by the current.

  Whatever it was, the cloak was distracted by it, turning away from his prey. John seized the opportunity and wrenched free of the claw, pulling himself up out of the water, sputtering and spitting. John wiped water out of his eyes and saw what was bobbing his way:

  A pink silicone ass.

  Ted’s pickup was now fully submerged upstream and the truck’s rubber ass cargo had spilled into the rushing water. The cloak stared in wonderment as one ass after another flowed its way, two dozen of them, bobbing along majestically.

  The cloak screamed in despair, “The prophecy! It is true!” It turned its vacant eyes upward, rainwater filling the holes of the mask and dribbling out like tears. “You have summoned him!”

  A pale blur whipped down from the sky. It snatched the cloak, whisking it from the water. It carried the struggling figure up, then flung it off into the distance, the cloaked thing landing soundlessly somewhere downstream.

  John climbed up the side of the bus, shook wet hair from his face, and yelled, “HEY PUSSNADO, IT LOOKS LIKE YOUR SHIP JUST HIT AN ASSBERG! BECAUSE YOUR MAN JUST GOT ASSASSINATED! HEY, DO YOU MIND IF I ASS YOU SOMETH—”

  Amy

  No one could hear what John was yelling from the water.

  “You know what really gets me?” said the agent behind the gun. “The sheer arrogance of it all. You’ve convinced yourself you’re taking some kind of moral stand, but you don’t care that you’re putting the whole world at risk for it. You’re so sure you’re right. I bet you win every argument with your boys. The little nerd girl? Bitch, your ego could blot out the sun.”

  Ted was shouting now, joining the chorus of shouts from almost everyone in the vicinity. He was standing over the defeated black cloak, looking up at something, mouth agape.

  He screamed, “GET DOWN!”

  Amy didn’t even have time to obey. She and the agent both looked up in time to see a pale blur whoosh down from the sky.

  The BATMANTIS??? landed heavily on one of the NON trucks.

  Gunshots rang out—the female agent was unloading on the beast with her brimstone shotgun. The monster leaped off the truck and pinned her to the street, water breaking and splattering around her shoulders.

  The agent didn’t drop the gun. She worked the barrel around and pressed it right to the BATMANTIS???’s face.

  The creature made a quick swipe with one of its serrated claws and something went rolling away, splashing through the standing water at the side of the road.

  It was the agent’s severed head.

  “AMY!”

  It was David, running toward them, hands and shirt covered in blood, carrying some kind of pole. He frantically looked back and forth from Amy to the winged beast.

  Amy screamed, “I think it’s helping us! That’s why it kept turning up! It’s trying to help!”

  But the BATMANTIS??? chose that moment to lunge at her, swiping a claw and missing only because it clumsily stumbled over its own misshapen feet.

  David yelled, “No! It’s an asshole! Get away!”

  The beast lurched in her direction. Amy dove and rolled away. She sprinted toward David.

  He brandished the object she now realized was a spear from Marconi’s collection, putting himself between Amy and the monster.

  The beast spun around to face them. Instead of teeth, it had a ragged kind of beak. Powerful jaws. It was no herbivore.

  David yelled, “NO! We did not survive all this shit just to get eaten by your stupid ass. Just go away!”

  Amy said to it, “We’re the good guys! It’s okay!”

  The thing snatched at David. He thrust the spear at it, backing it off.

  “NO!” he screamed at it. “No! Don’t you see, you dumb son of a bitch? We don’t want to kill you! Can you even hear me, you fucking animal? I will put this through your goddamned neck!”

  The thing just looked confused. Not evil, Amy thought—just scared and hungry and lashing out blindly at a world it didn’t understand.

  The BATMANTIS??? lunged again—not at David, but past him. It was going for Amy.

  David growled, “NO!”

  He jabbed at it with the spear as it passed. He got it, right in the side.

  It recoiled. Dark blood oozed. The thing screeched.

  And then the monster … smiled.

  Amy was sure of it. As if it finally had a fight, like this was what it had come for.

  The BATMANTIS??? whipped a claw through the air with a pale blur, and David’s spear went flying.

  David, in a blind rage, did not back down.

  “COME ON! Come over here and die, you fucking animal! I’ve fought shit that would keep you for a pet!” He turned quickly toward Amy. “Run! I’ll keep it busy!”

  She didn’t. The BATMANTIS??? swung a claw, bashing David to the ground. Effortless.

  It jumped on him, pinning him just as it had done to the agent moments ago. Amy screamed.

  David yelled again for her to go. She stayed.

  He clawed at the thing’s face, yelling, “LOOK AT YOU! YOU ARE A MISTAKE! A MALFUNCTION! YOU EAT ME, I WILL FUCK YOU FROM THE INSIDE!”

  The thing raised a claw, meaning to lop off David’s head.

  Amy suddenly remembered the Taser. She yanked it out of her back pocket, ran up and pressed it against the monster’s neck, the blue flashes of electricity popping against its skin.

  It didn’t paralyze it, but it did cause it to recoil again, to stagger backward.

  Amy stabbed a finger at it. “Last chance! You have to go. You understand? We have been more than patient.”

  The monster snarled, then yelped and stumbled forward. Something had slammed into it from behind.

  John

  There were now six of the huge, squealing maggots clinging to the top of the bus and more were crawling out, crowding each other. John was thus having trouble finding purchase on the upturned rear and thought it would look bad to Amy if he just started shoving children off into the water to make room.

  John heard someone from shore tell everyone to get down, then the BATMANTIS??? swooped overhead, landing on a vehicle nearby. There were gunshots and then the shots abruptly ended.

  Then it looked like the beast was confronting someone, its jumbled limbs
and wings thrashing around in the silhouette of the RV’s headlights. John heard enraged and panicked cries through the rain. Dave and Amy were confronting the monster, and from the sound of it, losing.

  Frantic, John awkwardly climbed around to the rear bumper of the bus and tried to get his feet over the pavement—only a small corner of the bus still overhung solid land. He managed to drop onto the street. Two of the maggots were already there, having crawled off the bus.

  John turned …

  A man was running past him.

  It was Ted.

  Running with purpose and rage.

  Running to confront the beast he believed had taken his child.

  He was carrying the backpack containing the brimstone bomb.

  Ted jumped onto the back of the BATMANTIS???, getting it in a chokehold, a muscled arm wrapped around what passed for the thing’s neck. The creature thrashed and tried to reach back for him, its clumsy mismatched limbs badly failing at the task.

  Frustrated, the winged beast jumped and took to the air, Ted still on its back, as if the BATMANTIS??? intended to get him up high and shake him off. Up the two of them went, up and up, a flash of lightning illuminating the pair for just a split second, revealing a glimpse of tiny flapping wings and a desperate, thrashing struggle in midair.

  Then it was dark again. John lost sight of them in the starless sky.

  He stared, squinting against the raindrops that were dive-bombing his face.

  And then, a flash of light, like a new sun being born. Bright enough to blind.

  The boom hit two seconds later.

  Down came a spectacular rain of brilliant, sizzling particles, filling the sky, landing in the floodwaters around them with a soft hiss.

  It only took John a moment to put together what had happened, that Ted had known the creature would try to take off with him attached, that flight was its only advantage. Ted was a soldier, a good one, and a hell of a lot smarter than the beast had been. He had just needed the BATMANTIS??? to get high enough, away from the innocents below.

  The last of the falling embers burned themselves out and it was dark once more. No remains of either man or beast fell from the sky.

  For a moment it was just silence, and the rain.

  Then, the rain stopped.

  Amy

  The rescue effort was an awkward disaster at first. The combined efforts of the three of them managed to get a whole two additional kids off the bus—the children were terrified of the rushing water and didn’t want to jump off onto the jagged ledge of partially submerged pavement for fear of slipping off and getting swept away. Amy couldn’t blame them.

  But soon there was a rumble of motorcycle mufflers and a flock of headlights, the rest of the biker gang showing up late to the party. They formed a human chain from the street up to the wobbling bus, handing the children down to safety one at a time. Rather than get in the way, Amy, John, and David trudged back toward the RV.

  Amy had been so overwhelmed by events that it didn’t occur to her until she stepped inside that she was bringing with her news that Loretta was now a widow and that Maggie was now fatherless. She made her way back to the lounge and sucked in a breath when she saw the blood. It covered mother and daughter, Marconi, the little sofa, and the floor. Loretta sat there, cradling Maggie’s head in her lap, and Amy wasn’t sure which one looked more exhausted.

  Loretta said, “What blew up?”

  Amy started to reply, but found she couldn’t.

  John said, “Ted blew up the monster. It’s gone. But he died in the process. I’m, uh, sorry. He sacrificed himself, to save Maggie. And you, and all of us. Maybe the world. If anybody ever tries to say otherwise, you can tell them to come find me. Because I saw it myself.”

  Loretta closed her eyes and leaned back against the window behind her—the corner was shattered where a pair of bullets had punched through at some point. She pressed her lips together and swallowed. Amy sensed the woman was cutting off the grief, like crimping a hose. Her daughter needed her, and there would be time to grieve for her husband later.

  Amy said, “How is Maggie?”

  From behind her, Marconi said, “From what I can ascertain, the four pellets perforated her small intestine. I have stopped the bleeding and given her something for the pain. But she needs a hospital.”

  David said, “She … does?”

  Amy glanced out at the huddle of kids standing on the pavement outside, being tended to by their parents. The bus driver was among them. Amy had written her off for dead, and she now imagined her at the bottom of the bus, down where it was filling with water, lifting up the children one at a time so they could breathe. A hero.

  With a tortured squeal of scraping metal, the empty school bus was wrenched free from the shore and went rolling down the river, colliding with the wreckage of the bridge. Several of the kids cheered.

  Marconi fixed his gaze on David and in a lowered voice, said, “What I observe, with my five senses, is a child that has a very survivable wound, but that needs medical attention or else loss of blood or sepsis will finish the job. That is what I observe.”

  From the driver’s seat, Joy said, “Hang on!” They were already moving before she finished the second syllable. Taking them to the hospital. How did she even know where it was?

  David said, “Guys, we can’t just leave. We have to … watch them, out there. Contain them. Figure out a way to, you know. Take care of them. The right way.”

  Marconi said, “What do you propose?”

  David started to answer, but the words never came.

  Me

  I sat there and stared out of the bullet-riddled rear window, watching the RV shit a stream of wet highway, the biker kids shrinking in the distance. The farther away we got, the less I cared. I was so tired, and so cold, and so wet. Above all else, I just wanted to be dry again. Then maybe to sit down with a beer and hug Amy while she watched some terrible Japanese cartoon about magical girls learning the power of friendship.

  No. I wouldn’t do any of those things.

  I would see this through. This, and whatever came after.

  I turned my back on the window and watched the Maggie larva carefully. Then I blinked, and there was Maggie, the little girl. Bloody hair matted to her face, pale cheeks, a little gap in her front teeth. The Sauce was wearing off.

  So small, so fragile, chest barely rising and falling as she clung to life.

  Maggie opened her eyes with what seemed like a monumental effort. Looking right at me.

  With all her strength, she raised one tiny hand, extended it toward me, and gave me the finger.

  31. THE UNDISCLOSED HOSPITAL WAS RECENTLY RENOVATED AND IS NOW A PRETTY NICE FACILITY

  After all that, we wound up spending the next few hours sitting quietly in a hospital waiting room, damp as dishrags, eating snacks and sodas out of their vending machine.

  Why were we there? To see if “Maggie” recovered? To try to contain her if she erupted into a towering shadow of doom? Fuck if I knew. John eventually fell asleep, sprawled across five chairs and snoring loudly. Amy leaned on me and rested her wet head on my shoulder. Joy—who was completely dry—casually filed her nails. Marconi mostly stayed out on the sidewalk to smoke his pipe and talk on his cell—he apparently had people he could reach out to for advice in situations like this. That must be nice.

  Eventually, Loretta came shuffling down the hall and I noted she looked whole again—no longer appearing to have been attacked by a great white. It wasn’t because she was whole, necessarily, but that the Soy Sauce was wearing off and I was now starting to see what everyone else saw. I no doubt could have seen through the illusion with some concentration, but I had no concentration juice left in my brain. Besides, I knew the truth.

  Loretta said, “The doctor says she’s going to be okay.”

  John blinked sleep from his eyes and raised himself up on one elbow. “That’s … good. She appears, uh, normal, and everything?”

  “She’s bee
n through a lot.”

  Amy said, “I’m so sorry about Ted.”

  Loretta sighed and sat in one of the chairs across from us.

  “This is going to sound awful, but Ted … he never really came back home. From Iraq, I mean. We were high school sweethearts and … well, you don’t want to hear our life story. It just seemed like he never forgave himself for what happened over there. It’s like he felt like he owed a life, somehow, like it was an overdue bill he’d shirked. He kept moving us, from place to place, paranoid about the government, about everything, sure that someone was going to come and make him pay what he owed. When Maggie got taken, it was strange, because I swear it’s like that’s what he had been waiting for, all that time. I don’t want to say he wasn’t upset, don’t take it that way—but in those hours and days after, he was so alive. I hadn’t seen him like that since right before he shipped out. He finally had another damned war to fight.”

  Loretta wiped her eyes.

  Amy said, “I just hope that wherever he is, he’s at peace.”

  Loretta said, “If he is, well, I guess that would make one of us. The son of a bitch got just what he wanted. A big, heroic sacrifice. Now the rest of us are left to clean up the mess. He probably thought he was being selfless or something. But look what he left behind. What he did, that’s the most selfish thing you can do. I want to find the jerk who convinced males that martyrdom is cool and kick him in the teeth.”

  Loretta closed her eyes and pressed her lips together again. Reestablishing control. Then she quietly excused herself and went back to see her child.

  Joy looked up from her nails and said, “I wonder if Waffle House is still open.”

  I said, “Do you even eat?”

  “Don’t be a dick.”

  Amy sat up, my hand sliding off of her shoulder. She was watching Loretta as she plodded her way back to her monster baby.

  She said, “We were wrong, weren’t we? We said the bug things dig up your worst fear to use against you, but it’s not that. Ted got his war. John, well, he got his car chase, right? It’s like…”