After a short screaming meltdown, I got Frank to pull into an empty gas station and park in the garage.
“I’m so sorry, guys,” Frank said as we got out. “I fucked up.”
I said, “Forget it. Let’s change the tire and keep looking for a way out of town.”
The limo was so heavy that it needed a special jack to raise it high enough to get the tire off. We finally got it working and wrestled the bad tire off and got the new one on, but it took us half an hour. Amped sat his skinny ass on a tall tool chest and smoked a spliff the whole time. We’d just gotten the wheel on and the jack stowed when my throat went dry and I smelled chalk. That’s when Amped screamed and the rest of us got our first good look at a Stinger up close and personal.
The thing we didn’t know at the time was that Stingers were the most dangerous freaks.
Shapeshifters.
The tool chest had unfolded around Amped and dug its barbed tentacles deep into his body. Then it began absorbing him. His body went soft, like a deflating balloon as the Stinger liquified him and sucked him down.
Frank, Mike, and me scrambled back into the limo. I had to elbow Frank in the gut to keep him from getting in the driver’s seat, but he took it pretty well all things considered.
We needed to rethink the situation. I shot us out of the garage and back to Frank’s place fast. The folks who stayed behind opened the blast shields on the front door when we got back.
Macy was the first one outside, a fist over her mouth as she stared at the torn-up car. When she saw me, she ran over and cried as she hugged me tight. I’ll admit it: It was a tender moment, one of the nicest between us in a long time.
I let Frank explain what had happened to Amped. No one really knew the kid, so no one was too brokenhearted. They were a lot more interested in hearing about the Stinger.
It was another two hours before I could be alone with Alex. Once we found ourselves alone together, we crazy fucked in the room that had belonged to the ODed couple. They didn’t need it anymore, and god knows we did.
Afterwards, we lay in bed and she said, “I thought I’d lost you today.”
“No way, baby.”
“How’s Macy taking things?”
“She’s fine. Let’s not talk about her.”
Alex got up and started putting on her clothes. “It’s the end of the fucking world and we still have to sneak around.”
“Don’t talk like that. We’ll figure a way out of this. Just you and me.”
She didn’t look at me as she left, just mumbled, “Sure.”
Macy was at the bottom of the stairs when I came out of the room. She was looking the other way, so I don’t think she saw Alex leave but we were going to have to be more careful in the future.
Everyone’s phone was dropping calls so that night Frank got on a shortwave radio and started talking to people, trying to see if anyone knew a way out of town. I went into the kitchen for some food and when I got back, he’d drawn a route on a paper map from the limo’s glovebox. We decided to go out again the next day.
Two more people died that night. A nice couple. Liz and Cassandra. A murder-suicide with one of Frank’s guns. I checked the scene and didn’t let people into their room. There was nothing anyone could do and no one else needed to see the mess. But it was clear that we needed to get out of this fucking house before we all ended up the same way.
Frank tossed me the limo keys when we went out the next day. He knew I’d never let him drive again. Two other people came with us. A couple. I couldn’t remember their names and didn’t ask.
We got a little over a mile from Frank’s place, heading east when a shadow settled over us. I could hardly breathe, the air was so heavy with the chalk smell. And before we knew it, long serrated tendrils shot down from the sky and wrapped around the limo.
Then they lifted us into the air.
Everyone was yelling by then, even me. We knew Floaters sometimes went for cars, but none of them had ever encountered Frank’s tank. We were about ten feet off the ground when a few of the tendrils snapped. It must have hurt because the Floater did its foghorn bellow and dropped us. We landed at a funny angle and ended up flipping over onto the roof. But the limo was tough enough that it held together and everybody was more or less fine and able to scramble out of the car.
The first to die was the woman whose name I didn’t know.
The moment we were outside, a tendril dropped down and grabbed her in the bear trap grippers the fuckers had at the end of their appendages. A second later, she was gone. Her husband, boyfriend, or whatever he was, ran to the exact spot where she was pulled up. I tried to grab him, but another tendril hauled his dumb ass into the air a second later.
Me and Frank, we started to run.
Frank was a desk czar who paid other people to do his running for him. Between hiding and stopping to let Frank puke from exertion, it took us a couple of hours to make it back the mile or so to his house. When we got there, Alex ran out and grabbed me in a trembling hug.
“I shouldn’t have let you go. I knew something bad would happen.”
Macy was standing in the doorway. She just turned and went inside. I looked for her for maybe twenty minutes, but the damn mansion was the size of Houston. I couldn’t find her anywhere.
I tried texting her, but it wouldn’t go through. On the off chance she’d sent me a Dear John note, I checked my email, but I couldn’t get into the site. I clicked some sites on Frank’s computer and got the same results. The mansion’s wifi was working, but it was like the whole goddamn net was down.
I went back to the living room and saw that the screen of the giant TV had gone black. Frank scrolled through the channels, but no one was broadcasting anymore. That with the net situation? Bad fucking signs. Still, we left the TV on in case something started up again.
About an hour later, I saw Macy. She opened the blast shields on the back door and went out. It was a stupid move after what had just happened with the Floater, so I went after her.
She was standing over the bodies of the ODed couple when I found her. We’d wrapped them in plastic garbage bags and duct tape, but by now in the L.A. heat they’d still gone pretty ripe.
“Are we going to end up like them?” she said.
More out of guilt than anything I said, “No way. I’ll take care of you.”
She scowled at me. “How, when you’re so busy taking care of Alexandra?”
I didn’t want to have this argument now. I didn’t want to have it ever. I guess I’m a little slow. I never really had a plan on how to deal with the situation. I just hoped that things would work themselves out. But even at the end of the world, here Macy and me were, having the same old arguments.
“Come inside,” I said. “It’s dangerous out here.”
“What do you care?”
I took a couple of steps toward her. “I care.”
“Liar.”
“Not now.”
Macy gave me a look that somehow was wasn’t all spite. She wanted to believe that we could work through this. “You mean it?” she said.
“I swear.” And in that moment I did. But while I still cared about Macy, we were stuck in this endless goddamn cycle of hurt feelings and guilt. I just wanted it to be over.
I guess that’s why, when one of the chaise lounges by the pool began to move, I hesitated for a fraction of a second before I said anything.
She gave me a hopeful half-smile just before the Stinger grabbed her leg. I remember it was the left one. Macy didn’t scream. There was just a gasping intake of breath. She reached out for me.
“Paul?”
On TV they’d said that Stingers secreted a liquid that numbed things so they wouldn’t fight and would be easier to absorb. I remembered what happened to Amped. After the initial shock of being grabbed, he didn’t yell much but just sort of let it happen.