Anything But Zombies (13 page)

Of course
, she thought.
The damn thing came through the gas tank. Ha!

Within the flames burned bright, beautiful colors—purple, green, and yellow. Despite the fire and the charring of its scales, the creature tried desperately to resume its journey, crawling toward her, inch by inch . . .

Callie began to drift in and out of consciousness, blood loss and acute pain making her woozy, dreamy. The smell of burning stirred up a sea of memories.

One memory in particular . . .

Not a good one.

Burning
 . . .

She remembers looking down at the smoldering shirt. The bowl of water she poured on it didn't save it. As the steam and smoke billowed up into her face, the sight of the blackened shirt struck her heart like a poisonous arrow. That hot, sick feeling in her gut spread quickly, climbing up into her throat, her face.

Oh no
 . . .

The steam iron on the sideboard behind her hissed like a treacherous snake.

“CALLIE?”

His voice. Oh God. He's going to see. He's going to be cross.

She looked round, praying she might have a few seconds to hide her mistake, but he was already standing in the kitchen doorway, silhouetted against the hall light. She didn't need to see his face to know what was in his eyes. That angry, cold expression. Oh how she hated it, feared it. She couldn't even look at him.

Oh God, she didn't want to have this memory, not now. Why was she seeing this now?

“What the hell have you done, girl?” His voice so big, like thunder.

She kept her eyes down, fixed on the smoldering shirt. “I—I just left the iron for a second, and . . .”

“A
second
?” he growled. “You think I'm friggin' stupid, girl?” He took a few lurching steps into the kitchen, the beer bottle dangling from his fingers swinging like a club. He stared down at the ruined shirt. “That . . . that was the only decent shirt I had.”

“I'm sorry, Daddy,” she said, fighting tears. But they were not tears of sorrow. They were tears of dread. She knew what would come next, what always came next.

“You're sorry?” he said, shaking his head. “Well, you will be sorry, girl.” He craned his neck and shouted over his shoulder: “Stevie!”

Her little brother's silhouette appeared down the hall. “Yes, Daddy?”

“Get me the strap from the barn.”

The burning sensation in her chest suddenly turned icy cold.

“Daddy?” Stevie said. “I don't want to—”

“Do it! Do it now or you'll get the same.”

Callie met her brother's gaze and saw the mixture of emotions in his eyes. She nodded to him, just a small movement to let him know it was okay, that it was not his fault.

Face creased in misery, Stevie slipped out the side door and returned half a minute later with the leather strap. Slowly, reluctantly, he brought it to his father, who snatched it from him and gripped it tight.

Callie pressed her back against the mahogany sideboard, the steam iron bubbling quietly behind her. As her father approached, she let the fear in, welcomed it and accepted it. This was not her father. This was not the man who had raised her through infancy into young womanhood, the man who had taught her how to fish, how to hunt, how to drive a tractor when she was eleven. The man before her was a silhouette, just an outline of the man he used to be—the man he was before Mom died, before everything changed. But the pain he inflicted was real. The beatings did not fade.

“Why are you so clumsy, girl?” he said, flexing his fingers around the handle of the whip. “You got rocks in your head?”

That's what he always said; those little phrases designed to wear her down, break her spirit bit by bit. Everything he did was designed to make her feel stupid, worthless, as though she deserved it.

But you don't
, a voice said.
You don't deserve any of this.

Then another voice appeared, her true voice:

I won't be a victim anymore.

No more.

NO

MORE

“No, Daddy,” she said, surprised at the calm in her voice. “No rocks in
my
head.”

He stopped, only a few feet away from her, fixing her with those red-rimmed, tired eyes. He swayed slightly as he tried to gauge her meaning. Then, slowly, he raised the whip.

At the same time her hand gripped the handle of the iron, and she brought it round in a wide arc. The metal plate struck her father in the temple. His face twisted hard to the right. He stayed like that for a few frozen seconds, stunned, hardly comprehending what had happened. Then he slowly turned his head back toward her even as blood began spilling from the gash in his forehead.

His face twisted, lips curling. “You stupid, little—”

She lunged forward again, pressing the iron against the twisted, distorted features of the man who used to be her father, the face that had smiled down at her all through her childhood, her teacher, her parent, her
daddy
.

He screamed as the hot iron seared his skin. He fell backward, hitting the kitchen floor hard. Standing over him, Callie watched the strap skid across the floor as he clawed at his ruined face.

She was lost in a whirlwind now, beyond rational thinking. Before she knew it, the strap was in her hand and she was striking him, beating the screaming man on the floor. Anger and resentment flooded through her like fire, urging her on.

“Stop!” he screamed.

But she didn't stop. Again and again she brought that leather strap down, harder than he had ever done to them.

“Where's my daddy?” she had cried. “Where is he? Where's . . . my . . .
daddy
?”

Callie came out of the reverie suddenly as the pain in her broken leg suddenly spiked. She screamed into the air. When the scream faded, a new sound filled the silence. The sound she now dreaded more than anything else . . .

The buzz of the shoal. Getting closer.

WHY? Why did I have to see that memory now?

Just to remind me that “Life's a bitch and then you die”?

No . . .

“No,” she said, lifting her head off the road. She looked to her right and found the still-burning body of the creature less than two feet away, still alive, still twitching, still searching for her flesh. Then she looked down the highway and saw the cloud of swarming bodies approaching fast. Hovering several feet off the blacktop, they rose up in her vision like a specter. Needle-like teeth glinted in the sunlight. Alien eyes bulged at the sight of their latest meal.

“No.”

She sat up, biting back the spike of agony coming from her fractured leg. The shoal reached her, but instead of attacking her they spread out in a fan around her. Before long, she was surrounded by them on all sides. They hovered, undulating in the air, hissing and spitting and eyeing her with those horrible alien eyes.

“What?” she said. “What are you waiting for?”

She studied them for a long time, waiting for an answer she knew would not come. Maybe she already knew the answer.

“You want to eat me?” She looked around. “Well?”

The shoal didn't move.

She looked down at their charred comrade and slowly reached for it. Its body was hot against the skin of her palms, but it was nothing like the pain in her leg. She raised it up, holding it just a few inches from her face. She stared into its ovoid eyes, its hideous, scaly face. The body was plump, like the trout they used to fish for in the lake. The creature hissed at her, reminding her of its alien nature.

Before she could question herself she sank her teeth into the creature's side. The scales were crunchy, the flesh beneath surprisingly soft and juicy. The creature squirmed in her grip, but she didn't let go. She was not done yet. She bit down again, chewing into its flesh. She must have hit something vital as the beast suddenly stopped fighting. Limp in her hands, she continued to devour it. The taste was not unpleasant, and the sensation of it sliding down her throat, extremely pleasurable.

As she ate, she looked at the other creatures. They had stopped hissing. They watched her in eerie silence.

A vision filled her mind, the blurry image of an alien landscape. Rocks and dust hung suspended in the air all around. The sky above was purple and full of ominous, lightning-filled clouds. A shoal hove into view, gliding high above the planet's rocky surface. Then a new shape appeared on the horizon, a huge, monstrous shape like a blue whale only a hundred times its size. The giant alien beast swam through the landscape, opening its huge maw to devour the entire shoal in one swoop. The behemoth swam on, disappearing out of sight.

Food
, Callie thought as the vision faded.
That's all they are. Food.

They want to be eaten.

Smiling, she finished her meal.

Through the heat haze, a dozen tanks appeared. The rumble of their approach could be felt half a mile away.

Summoning herself from sleep, Callie sat up, wincing against the pain in her leg. She peered at the approaching garrison. The lead vehicle rumbled to a stop several feet from the burned-out husk of the upside-down Trans Am. Callie raised her arm, shielding her eyes from the sun's glare.

Two men appeared from the turret of the tank, a soldier and her baby brother. Their expressions transmuted from concern to absolute astonishment.

“Howdy, boys,” Callie said. “What took ya?”

The shoal swam around her in a beautiful constellation, swooping, diving, swirling. Obedient.

Callie grinned. “So . . . who's hungry?”

I had known Jack Talent all my life, so it didn't come as a surprise to me when he called me in the middle of the night demanding that I come over right away with no explanation. Or that the invasion of the human race was slated to start with him. Both of these things made perfect sense when you knew Jack personally. I mean, sure, I would've loved for him to just explain what he needed over the phone, but no, I had to haul my ass over to his place at almost midnight to deal with his crap. And some crap it was.

The driveway was full of cars already, as was the yard and most of the street. I parked my Bug on the side of the road a few doors down and stalked across the wet grass toward the full house. Music thumped out of the open windows, accompanied by peals of zealous laughter and all the sounds of party-going antics. It dawned on me that Jack was having a birthday party for Tammy after all, and didn't invite me, his best friend. Of course, Tammy didn't like me so there was that. But still, calling me over during a party I wasn't invited to was pretty low.

It was also something Jack would do without a second thought.

I stormed to the front door with every intention of beating it down with my insulted rage. But before I could reach it, someone grabbed me by the collar of my jacket and yanked me down into the zinnias. The person pressed me to the ground under his weight, facedown, wrapping a thick hand around my mouth. I was just beginning to wonder how the stranger planned on killing me when I felt his hot breath on my ear.

“Rob,” Jack said. “It's me.”

Of course it was Jack. The lunatic!

“Are you one of them?” he asked, hissing his words with an angry slur.

“Om om moo?” I mumbled under his hand.

He released his grip and rolled me over to face him. In the thin light streaming down from the kitchen window, Jack looked like shit. Well, shittier than usual. I never understood what a girl like Tammy saw in him. His unkempt beard poked out at odd angles from his grimy face. Heavy, dark half circles lay under his bloodshot eyes. He smelled deeply of garbage and beer, most of it flowing from his filthy clothes. On this assessment, it struck me that I hadn't seen him in a few days. Not since the night we had a few too many at the Silver Dollar, and Jack was thrown out for trying to grope a waitress's ass. Again.

“How do I know you're not one of them?” he asked.

“Get off me,” I said in a wheeze. I tried to push him away. “I can't breathe.”

He ignored my struggling and repeated, “Answer me. Are you one of them?”

“One of who?”

“Them,” he said in a slow drawl, narrowing his eyes at me.

“Who are ‘them'?”

Jack frowned and drew closer, bringing his face inches from mine. He reached out, pried one of my eyes wide, and stared hard into it. Something in there seemed to satisfy him because he let me go and gave me a firm nod. I pushed him off me, finally, and gulped air into my aching lungs as I sprawled out on the lawn behind the bushes.

“Jesus, man,” I said. “What was that about? You nearly squeezed the life out of me.”

To my surprise, Jack grinned. “Good. That's good.”

I sat up and stared at him. “It's good that you almost smothered me to death?”

“Yes. That means you're still breathing air. You're not one of them.” He crawled forward to peer out of the bushes, making a quick scan of the porch before glancing back at me. “Unless they also need to breathe air. Do plants breathe?”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“Plants. Plants! Do plants need to breathe?”

“I . . . I guess so. In a certain way. I mean they need air to survive, but not really the same kind we do—wait up. Why are we crouched in the bushes talking about plants needing to breathe?”

Jack turned around again, his wild eyes and wide smile almost unnerving. He looked maniacal. He still looked like shit too, but now there was an overwhelming touch of madness in his eyes. Shitty and maniacal. Shiniacal. That's how he looked. So there I was, crouching in the bushes with shiniacal Jack, when he opened his mouth and said something I never expected to hear him say.