“There!” Otis pointed down at the sand.
I looked where he was pointing. “I don’t see it.”
“It was there, by the corner. The sand moved.”
Gabby called out from the other side of the playground, “What is it?”
I yelled, “Otis thinks he saw something.”
“I don’t think, I know. I saw something move right over there. Let’s head back to the others.”
“No,” I said. “Let’s stay here and keep watching.”
“Why? If those fuckers are coming for us, we’re better off in a group than split up.”
“I don’t want to be near Gabby.”
Otis groaned and said, “Are you seriously being petty like that right now?”
“I’m not being petty. I’m not trying to avoid her. I’m trying to protect her.”
“By leaving her over there with just Tony to defend her? Don’t you think she’d have a better shot if we were with her when these things attack?”
I gazed over the edge of the playground at the sand where Otis had seen movement. “It’ll come for me first.”
It took Otis a moment to process what I meant. “Is that why you dragged me over here? Because you want us to be bait?”
“I pissed that thing off. It wants me dead.”
“How do you know that?”
“I chopped its arm off, or its tentacle. And it was the same one that came after me in the tree. It could’ve killed me in a second, but it toyed with me. It was enjoying itself. If it’s still alive, then it’s going to want revenge.”
“So you did drag me out here to be bait with your dumb ass.”
I chuckled and said, “There’s no one else I’d rather be bait with.”
“Yeah, thanks, asshole. Next time, do me a favor and leave this worm off the hook.” He pretended to be mad, but he also didn’t leave me there alone. Otis stayed by my side, keeping watch.
The sand shifted near the border of the playground where the sand met the dirt. It looked like a mole was burrowing underground.
“There, there,” said Otis as he excitedly pointed.
“I saw it.” I glanced up at the slowly moving cloud covering the sun. I tried to judge how long it would take to move out of the way. My best guess was that we would have to survive for at least a few more minutes before the sun came back out.
Otis yelled over to Gabby and the others, “They’re over here on this side.”
The sandy edge of the playground was about five yards from the base of the platform we were on, and the creature seemed to be sticking to the perimeter for now.
“Then come back over here,” said Gabby. “Why are you staying over there?”
Otis said to me, “I keep asking myself the same question.”
“You can go if you want. I’m staying right here.”
“Damn it,” muttered Otis. “How’d I get stuck being friends with a dumbass like you?”
I tried to think of a pithy comeback, but before I could our attention was stolen by an apartment door opening. Tony’s apartment and the units on the west side were now mostly covered in thick gelatin, but the hive didn’t extend out over the rest of the apartments. One of the uncovered doors had just opened, and I saw the vague shape of a woman standing in the threshold.
“Run,” I shouted to the stranger, but she ignored me. “Get away from there. These things are in the…”
Another door opened, and then another.
“What the fuck?” asked Otis, and my own thoughts weren’t far from his.
One by one, the doors of apartments near the hive began to open. The residents revealed themselves, standing like statues in the thresholds, staring at us. One of them twitched, his head shaking like a Tourette’s sufferer in the midst of an attack, and then he stopped and continued to watch us.
“Oh, that’s not good,” I said.
“Are they… infected?” asked Otis. “What the hell’s wrong with them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they got better at controlling people.”
“What do you mean?” asked Otis.
“The Terrameds were busting out of people all over the place, but maybe they’re getting better at staying inside a human. At the gas station I saw a woman walking around with one of those things in her, almost like it was controlling her. There were tentacles coming out of her, but she was still walking around.”
“Like body armor, literally,” said Otis. “If they can stay inside people, then they could…”
He didn’t have to finish the thought. The people standing in the apartment doors began to walk towards us, unafraid of daylight.
“That does it,” said Otis as he grabbed my shoulder and forced me to follow. “We’re getting the hell out of here.”
“Yeah, I think we better,” I said while still dazed by the shock of seeing people walking our way. I snapped out of my momentary fog and yelled over to the others, “Start lighting torches. We’re getting the hell out of here!”
We headed to the suspension bridge between the two sections of the playground. I looked back with morbid curiosity at the people emerging from the apartments, and that’s when I saw movement near where Otis and I had just been standing. The grid of plastic blocks where kids could play tic-tac-toe began to move. The blocks in the center of the grid spun from the ‘X’ facing us to the ‘O’ as a tentacle made its way up the side of the tower.
“It’s here!” I yelled as we started across the suspension bridge.
Otis was ahead of me, and he had to slow down as he traversed the thin bridge. The plastic slats below us were connected by a nylon rope, and there was a single pipe on either side for us to hold onto as we crossed. I looked down, through the slats beneath my feet, and saw the sandy ground undulating like a stream as the tentacles revealed themselves.
All at once, the playground was beset upon by flailing, slimy tentacles. They shot up from the sand and wrapped around the plastic equipment like vines on a tree. Otis and I were in the worst possible spot, exposed on all sides. A barbed tentacle shot up along my right leg and latched itself to my pocket. I felt the sharp barb pierce the jeans and dig into my flesh. It pulled at me, nearly dragging me off my feet. I grabbed onto it and tried to pull it away, but the hook was buried deep. The unstable bridge swung back and forth, nearly toppling me.
Otis was struggling just like I was as tentacles wrapped around his legs. I saw him fall as the tentacles pulled his legs to opposite sides, and his crotch thudded down hard on the plastic slats below us. He let out a pained groan and an angry curse.
One of the larger tentacles rose up beside us and lashed at me. I ducked, and the tentacle wrapped around the handrail. It pulled hard enough to bend the resilient playground equipment, causing the entire bridge to warp and lean to the side. I had to stop myself from slipping off the side and falling to the mass of writhing shapes beneath us.
“Hold on, guys,” said Tony. “I’m coming.”
I had no idea what he was going to do, but I’d take all the help I could get as I wrestled with the multiple tentacles that were finding their way up to the bridge. Below me, a mouth emerged from the sand.
I expected to see the burned and scarred Terramed that I’d battled in the tree, but it wasn’t CD that’d caught me. This was a smaller creature, with no sign of injuries yet.
Beaver was growling and barking at the creatures, but Gabby was holding onto his harness to keep him from jumping off the playground and into the sea of tentacles. Mimi and Jerry were at the top of the spiral slide, lighting dry sticks on fire as quickly as they could.
Otis was straddling the bridge as tentacles tried to pull him down towards a mouth that’d emerged below him. The creature was getting precariously close to him, but he delivered a vicious punch that sent the Terramed slamming back down to the sand.
Tony made it to the side of the bridge, a torch in each hand. He had the best of intentions, but froze as he tried to figure out what to do. He didn’t have to come to a dec
ision, because one of the Terrameds had been waiting for him. The underside of the platform Tony was standing on had a Terramed waiting beneath it, and it sent a flurry of tentacles up over the edge. Several small tentacles sprung up from the holes in the platform at his feet, and others came at him from the sides. He swung his torches down at them as he screamed in pain and fear.
A barbed tentacle made its way to my throat, and I felt the tip pierce my skin.
This was it. I was a dead man. There was no getting out of this one. I was going to get slit open by an otherworldly squid monster on a playground in Little Mexico. Of all the ways I imagined dying, this one hadn’t been on the list. It wasn’t even in the same universe as the list.
What was it waiting for? All it had to do was slice that barb across my throat and I was as good as dead. There was nothing I could do to stop it.
A Terramed screamed from nearby, but its cry sounded weak and deeper than the others. I knew who it was immediately.
“Fucking Cum Dumpster,” I said as I saw my nemesis emerge from the sand a few yards away.
The Terramed was severely wounded. The sun had scorched its delicate skin, leaving large streaks of black and grey along its body. The once purple membrane had turned grey, splotched with seeping sores, and its pink brain was exposed, pulsing, and a darker shade than it’d previously been.
This little bastard wouldn’t let the others kill me. That’s why the one with its barb in my neck hadn’t finished the job. They were working together, and CD wanted revenge.
Otis and Tony were battling for their lives, but there was nothing I could do to help them. I had my own battle to worry about, and there didn’t seem to be any hope of surviving it.
The courtyard erupted in the screams of Terrameds. It was a deafening chorus of high pitched screeches, and it wasn’t just coming from the creatures in the playground. The Terrameds in the hive were screaming as well, as if they were scared of something.
The infected humans who were slowly walking our way had stopped, and were pointing to the side of the playground. I carefully turned my head, scared that the tentacle around my neck would slit my throat.
The cloud cover was moving, and half the courtyard was bathed in glorious, hot sunshine. I saw the light coming steadily our way, moving across the dry lawn and approaching the sandy playground an inch at a time.
CD was struggling to get to me, but its injuries hampered its speed. I saw its withered tentacles slapping at the sand and trying desperately to pull its body forward.
The other Terrameds weren’t as determined to risk their lives to finish us off. The creatures that were fighting with Otis and Tony retreated, and the one beneath me loosened its grip.
“Dave, here,” said Tony as he threw a lit torch at me.
Exactly how the hell he thought I was going to be able to catch the torch is a mystery to me. I was hanging from the side of a halfway collapsed bridge, dangling from a bent guardrail with both arms wrapped around it, and a tentacle around my throat.
For once in his life, Tony’s aim was on point. That burning branch whacked me right in the face.
The torch fell to the ground, but not before the fire singed one of my eyebrows off. The flame licked a tentacle near me as well, and caused it to swell with a pus-filled sac. The sac quickly burst, sending a splash of fetid liquid over my lips and up my nose. I damn near projectile vomited as the smell invaded me.
CD was squealing as the other Terrameds wrapped their tentacles around it and started digging their way back underground. The creatures were forcing my nemesis to retreat, even though it didn’t want to.
I wish I could’ve screamed taunts at the slimy bastard that had it in for me, but I didn’t dare open my mouth. Half my face was covered in slimy discharge, and I could feel little worms moving around on my cheeks. As Cum Dumpster was being pulled back underground, I was struggling not to vomit.
I shimmied my way over to the platform where Otis and Tony were waiting, and they helped me off the bridge. I immediately swiped the gunk of my face, and picked off as many of the worms as I could.
There were several Terrameds still squealing. The infected humans were also crying out, as if the creatures inside of them were trying to figure out how to use their new host’s voices. All of the noises melded with the sounds of the apocalypse going on around Little Mexico, beyond the walls that trapped us in. I could hear police sirens, car alarms, and horns blaring. I could only imagine what sort of hell the people out there were dealing with. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to imagine much longer, because whatever hell was waiting for us outside of Little Mexico was where we were trying to get to.
“Get ready,” said Otis. “We’ve got trouble.”
“What now?” I asked, beyond tired and, frankly, pretty damn sick of this shit.
“That’s what,” said Otis while pointing at the people standing in the courtyard.
I’d assumed the infected would flee the sun the same as the Terrameds, but instead they seemed unaffected by the exposure. The infected stood in the sunshine, staring up at the sky as if enraptured by it. They touched their cheeks, and then checked the skin of their arms, curious how their bodies would react to direct exposure to the sun. Once certain they were fine inside their new host bodies, the infected turned their attention back to us.
“Get up here,” said Gabby from above, on the highest platform of the playground.
“We’re going to have to fight them off,” I said to Tony and Otis.
The infected were heading to the playground, converging on us in the deadliest game of tag ever conceived. They were climbing up onto the equipment, but the squids inside of them were still learning how to move their new hosts. The infected were clumsy, and were tripping as they tried to maneuver on the sand and the playground equipment.
Otis handed me the sword, and then cracked his knuckles. “I’m better with my fists.”
I looked over at Tony, who was still holding one of his torches. He looked wide-eyed and scared, but resilient and brave enough to stand his ground. It was up to us to protect Mimi, Jerry, Gabby, and the baby.
Don’t get me wrong, there’re a million places I would’ve rather been at that moment, but considering the circumstances I was proud to stand there with those two guys. We’d been to hell and back, and we weren’t going down without a fight.
“Dude, you smell like a septic tank,” said Otis as he crinkled his nose at me.
“Yeah man,” said Tony. “You smell like my balls.”
I scowled, looked at Tony, and asked, “What the hell’s wrong with your balls?”
“Yeah, Tony,” said Otis. “If we make it out of this, you need to do yourself a favor and go see a doctor about your stank-ass nuts.”
“How’d you end up with balls that smell like shit?” I asked, continuing our banter as the infected shambled their way slowly toward us. “Didn’t you learn how to wipe your ass?”
“I bet he didn’t,” said Otis before Tony had a chance to respond. “I bet it’s a shit show down there.”
“Literally,” I added.
“Don’t worry, brother,” said Otis. “It’s not your fault. With all the burritos, and tamales, and refried beans you people eat, it must be like a shit sprinkler every time you hit the pot. Am I right?”
“My turd cutter’s clean as a whistle,” said Tony.
“Yeah, sure,” said Otis. “A whistle dipped in shit.”
“All right, guys,” I said as the infected drew near. “Let’s stop worrying about Tony’s brown eye and get ready for a fight.”
“Damn it, guys,” said Gabby from above. “Would you stop screwing around and get up here?”
“Don’t worry,” I said as I looked up at her. “We’re not going to let these things get to you.” Jerry was standing beside his sister, waving his crackling wand in the air.
“That’s not why…” She was so frustrated that she could barely speak. She held out her cell phone and said, “Jason’s here!”
&
nbsp; The horn! I’d heard a car’s horn earlier, but had forgotten that Jason was planning on honking once he arrived. The sound of him honking had simply blended in with the rest of the chaos, but Gabby had been waiting and listening for his arrival.
“He’s going to get us out of here,” said Gabby. “He’s going to meet us on the other side of Mimi’s place. Come on up here and let those people follow you. Then we can take off down the slide and run to the apartment.”
Tony and Otis were ecstatic, and high fived one another. I was happy as well… sort of.
I’m not proud to admit it, but there was a part of me that was disappointed Gabby’s knight in shining armor had come to save her. I was disappointed because that knight wasn’t me.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m a petty dick. Tell me something I don’t know.
11 – Battle in Little Mexico