Marcus

Half a mile more to go, Marcus muttered to himself, beads of sweat running down his face, snapped cool into the freezing air.

They ran through the streets, mostly following Easton’s lead as he remembered the most where his father-in-law’s address was, being that Andy and Gloria had moved to a new house a couple of years ago, and Marcus had only been there three times. They had to avoid certain roads that had some major flooding on them from the storm, now layered by a thin sheet of ice due to the cold weather. Some were inaccessible due to the fallen debris from the buildings littered the road, and a few lanes were gone as if it were uprooted.

Marcus spared a glance over his shoulder, saw Easton crossing the pedestrian at a limping trot, clearly exhausted as he heaved for more air. Cursing underneath his breath, he pushed himself to relax, matching Easton’s pace.

No one gets left behind again, Marcus grumbled, gripping hard on Jacob’s wrist as he dragged the boy along the sidewalk. Easton noticed him, realized the hint, and kicked his legs to run faster.

“Dad, my feet—” Jacob said, though his words were cut off as the poor boy tripped over his own ankle, skidded on the pavement, and scraped his knees. “Ow! Shit—”

“Language,” Marcus pointed out, gave him an amused glare as the other boy cowered from his gaze—knelt down to pick him back up.

“Sorry,” mumbled the boy.

Marcus gave a little shrug, patted the boy on the head. “Hey, we need to keep moving, bud,” he urged him.

Jacob clamored on his lower arm, wrapped his tiny hands around it to haul himself up, only to fail and fell again on his knees. “I can’t. I’m so tired. We’ve been running for more than half an hour now,” Jacob said between shallowed breaths, wiped the sweat on his forehead, looked up with eyes watering.

Marcus sighed, found himself curl into a smile. ‘Hey, hey, no need to beat yourself up. Here,” putting his arm underneath his armpit, Marcus heaved him up to his feet, not letting go in case he fell back again.

He scoped the street, saw a few trickles of people running past them, though not like the crowd they had earlier, splitting up into other parts of the city as they desperately tried to find a safe place to hide from the destruction up north.

Like us, he thought. However, the people hiding closer to the Marina was a bad idea to be within the vicinity of the creatures. But they’ll make their way down south of the city soon.

Another glance and the street emptied.

They’re all alone now.

He patted Jacob’s back and ruffled his hair, trying to reassure the young boy that it was okay to take a rest. Jacob had always been the only one of his kids who despised anything that had to do with physical activity, shutting himself off from everyone and would rather spend his time with his books, video games, and computers. Marcus squinted ahead, hollered for Easton and Connor to stop. He led Jacob to a nearby bus stop, which still had an intact glass roof and a bench—but sadly, no ride out of this hell-hole. Marcus thought, wishing for a Magic School Bus to whisk them away was within the realm of possibility, especially with what he saw back in the Marina.

Snow started falling from the sky for the first time since they arrived in God-knows-where, landing a stinging kiss on Marcus’s cheek. Beyond the tall skyscrapers, the flying creature flapped its wings like a jet engine had sex with a blowdryer, roared in the darkness. However, it wasn’t the only noise. There were blood-curdling screams, some never-ending, others went in bouts cut short as if their vocal cords got ripped off, followed by the occasional gunfire. Yet, the creatures’ howls persisted. Dozens of them.

I’ll be damned. Still alive, Marcus surmised.

He knew they were not of this earth. It didn’t take a science graduate like Easton to realize that there were no single twenty-foot creatures in the wild that murdered humans or were there flying lizard bats that breathed a fucking blizzard, freezing everything it touched. If there were, and Marcus and the others were the first ones to come across it, he’d gladly name them Gigantus Uglymaximus—for the giants, and maybe Dragonus Coldbitch—for the dragon-like beast.

Marcus recognized a tank, a couple of Saw Automatic, and several of the carbines in the cacophony of gunfire and explosions reverberating across the city.

The army, he thought, grinning, fighting back fucking finally, where the hell have they been?

Earlier, he doubted the army was still alive and kicking even with the cops telling him they were, but now that their firepower was at full display somewhere beyond the skyscrapers and the neighborhoods, fighting those abominable monsters, well, it put a wide fucking smile on his face. He tried to make out where they were coming from, guessing correctly that it came from the Presidio, on top of the hill, which dropped his grin into a deep frown. Marcus saw, from the enormous billows of smoke on top of the hill, that the battle was lost.

Well, shit, Marcus cursed.

“They’re fighting back,” Connor said beside him. “Should we head toward them? Maybe we can help?”

Marcus gritted his teeth, lowered his head, and sighed. “Bad idea.”

“How is it bad? They are the United States Army—”

Easton rested his hand on Connor’s shoulder. “They’re drawing those things to them,” Easton said, flicking his gaze to Marcus—a knowing look. “Am I right?”

Marcus didn’t hesitate to nod, earning a frown from Connor and a simple understanding nod from Easton, though he let his expression drop to a grim placidity. He told them, “if there are civilians up there, they’re giving them a hell of a time to cover them. Which means...”

“They’re not going to make it,” Connor finished. The boy mumbled a curse under his breath as he walked away, kicked up some loose stone on the pavement—slunk back down next to the bench in a huff.

Deep down in Marcus’s gut, he wanted to run up that hill and help his fellow soldiers, fight by their side shoulder-to-shoulder—men who he knew serving as a reservist for the past three years in San Bruno who know doubt battled for their lives up in the Presidio. Marcus was like them once for almost two decades before he hung up his uniform for good to focus on rebuilding his family, torn between his service to his country, lumbering with the desert sun of the Middle East, and his duty as a father to five children and an unhappy wife. It had only been a month, missed the touch of the trigger on his fingertips, the smell of gunpowder under a hundred-degree heat, orders that must be met, and the chaos of battle behind his back. He chuckled to himself at the irony of his situation. He had thought civilian life would be boring, taking up a contractor job as his new leaf in life, only to be thrown into a curveball at the madness in front of him—fire, death, destruction once again forming around his periphery as it did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trouble and death seemed to follow him wherever he went.

Marcus frowned at the latter, gazed upon his family huddled underneath a ramshackle bus stop, lost in the sea of madness that surrounded them, like a boulder in the middle of a raging river, lashed by its current until its surface was unrecognizable. His children had seen death on the face—the one thing he promised himself that he would shield them from, but now it had found its way to the forefront when the least he expected it when he had left his warring days behind him. Had he led that war, that reek of chaos and of maddening brood to his children? It made his stomach slacked, bubbled butterflies out of his guts, nauseating. Soldiers like him who had dodged bullets under Al-Qaeda or from the Taliban, and had fired shots at them could never escape the grim reality of war. Marcus had to think about his family’s safety now. He had left that life behind. No matter how he wanted to take up arms and ran up that hill to join his brothers, many of whom he had served alongside with for many years, he had to make sure his family—what’s left of his children—were safe.

Oh, Claire, where the hell are you? Marcus thought. His mind wandered to Amelia and Lucy, his two daughters, how young they were, and hoped that Claire took good care of them wherever they were. She was a strong woman, the strongest he’d ever known, and she would fight to the death to protect those girls. For that, he found himself smile, found himself comforted at the thought.

It was all he could do right now.

He saw Jacob shuddered, the boy brought his arms across his chest to hug himself. Jacob had a thin jacket on when Marcus firmly told him earlier before they left the house to grab the bigger, warmer ones, but sometimes, kids refused to listen. In the past thirty-eight years of his life, it was easier to discipline his recruits than his own kids. Except for Connor, who would gladly stand in front of a bullet whenever that reckless head off his wanted it.

Marcus took off his coat, which was a ski insulation jacket that he bought for the Mount Shasta trip with his college buddies a few years back, wrapped it around Jacob’s, saw the boy swallowed by the large clothing, and found himself chuckling. Then, the cold seeped into his skin, like ants suddenly found an entryway, crawled around your skin and stabbed and bit your body at every opportune, every millisecond. Without his jacket, Marcus was only wearing a white thin-fitted henley long-sleeved shirt.

Marcus brought his hands close to his mouth, breathed warm air, and rubbed them together. Cold, Marcus hissed, God, why does it have to be so fucking cold?

“Hey, Marcus, over here,” Easton called out from the alley.

Marcus paused, turned to look where Easton was and found him standing next to a police cruiser sitting between an office building and a coffee shop. The vehicle’s entire front had caved in, a large slab of a wall from the building next to it fell right on top of the driver’s seat, no doubt killing the officer sitting behind the wheel. Marcus jogged to the vehicle before telling Connor to watch over his brother and to stay where they were. All he heard was a grumble, though, at the back of his mind, Marcus noted he would have a word with Connor about forming proper responses.

“I see a gun in there,” Easton said, pointing toward the dashboard.

Marcus peeked in, narrowed his eyes between the gaps of the rubble, and saw a shotgun sticking out of its magnetic bolt on the dashboard. Unfortunately, no one could fit on the driver or the passenger’s side. The dashboard was in ruins, the windshield caved in, and the roof almost down to the headrest.

But the shotgun was intact.

Blood covered the entire driver’s seat, but what was strange was that there was no body. From all the blood alone, no one could survive a large chunk of a wall on top of them. If the officer was alive, it was hard to believe that they would abandon a weapon sitting right there in the open.

Easton bent over toward the open driver’s door, picked something off the floor; an ID badge. Easton glanced at it, eyes widening. He gave the card to Marcus.

“That’s interesting,” Easton said.

Marcus eyed the card, not sure whether he wanted to know who it belonged to, but human curiosity was a powerful obstacle to jump over, requiring the strongest of will to resist. Marcus took the card off of Easton’s hands, read the name on it.

There was a picture of a brunette, maybe in her mid-thirties, unsmiling, eyes glared right at the camera in the usual professional portrait of a police officer. This must be her cruiser, though blood and guts covered half of the card’s surface, no doubt it belonged to her.

But her body was nowhere to be found.

He remembered Easton’s words: There are no women in the city.

Marcus couldn’t think of what use he had with the card, so he placed it back on where Easton found it, suppressing the shiver that ran down his spine.

“Add that to what’s fucking wrong with this place,” Marcus said.

“I saw something else on the park,” Easton started saying, “I don’t know what it was, who it was.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The thing that started the wall of fire. He was in front of me.”

“You saw—?”

Easton nodded. “And Connor, too.”

“Did you take a good look?”

Easton nodded again. “The thing is: I don’t think—I mean, this sounds bat-shit crazy—”

“After all we’ve seen, I think crazy is an understatement.”

“I—I guess.”

“So, what—I mean, who was it?”

“That’s the thing, Marcus. I don’t think it was human. It had red scales for skin and had weird snake eyes, and it fucking smiled at me. Sharp teeth, four arms—just the freakiest thing you can ever imagine, except it was real. He, she, I don’t know—It made me think I am going a little insane. He—or she—pulled out this glowing ball out of its pocket, and just used it to create, well, what we saw.”

Marcus shrugged, felt another shudder down his spine and rode through the feeling, letting it subside. “Well, that might be something we have to deal with later.”

Eaton scoffed. “Yeah, you think?”

“But right now, let’s think of ways not to get killed first. For example, we can use that,” Marcus said, pointing at the shotgun. Better have a weapon than not have one, Marcus thought.

Marcus saw what the shotgun was bolted to, and he frowned. “But it’ll be hard for us to get it out of that lock.”

“That looks magnetic. Can’t we just yank it out? It looks loose enough.”

Marcus shook his head. “No. You are right that it is a magnetic lock, but if you yank it out without the key, it will destroy the weapon. Or you could lock it in place forever until you get a master key, which we don’t have.”

“Well, what kind of key is it?”

Taking a closer look, Marcus didn’t see any numbered combination to unlock the gun or a fingerprint pad, which meant one thing.: “It’s a fob key,” Marcus said. He saw the small pinhole-sized red LED light at the side of the mount.

Easton sighed. “Is it safe to reckon that the fob is with the body? The same body that is not here?”

“Shit, yeah, it’ll be nice to have it—”

Something caught the corner of his eye. There, underneath the wheel, Marcus saw the car keys dangling from the ignition and the unmistakable shape of a fob key hanging from the key chain.

Marcus grinned.

“Well, I’ll be fucking damned, about time luck finally rears its ass up.”

“What?”

Marcus reached into the driver’s seat, pulled the keys out of the ignition. He swung it around for Easton to see.

Easton looked like he was about to split open from the wide grin forming on his face, almost giddy like a schoolgirl.

“Now we’re talking!” Easton exclaimed.

Marcus took the fob out of the key chain and handed it to Easton. The latter glared at him with confusion.

Marcus chuckled. “Dude, you have skinnier arms than me.”

“I’m not skinny,” Easton said as if offended.

“Well,” Marcus gulped, “You have a better chance at reaching the release lock than me. See?” Marcus extended his arm out on the gap toward the magnetic lock, could barely fit his forearm and elbow through, the roof pressing against his arm tight.

Easton huffed, grabbed his arm, and pulled it out of the way. “Fine, fine, I see your point.”

Easton stared at the blood-covered driver’s seat, knowing full well that he had to sit on it to reach the shotgun. Swallowing hard, Easton took a seat, slipped his arm in the gap without a struggle. The simple releasing click of the latch and the red LED turning green made Marcus’s heart leaped out of his throat.

“Okay. What now?” Easton asked, already holding the middle of the shotgun’s heat-shield.

Marcus took a quick look at the roof of the vehicle, found a hole big enough to raise the gun through. “Okay, Easton. See that hole a little to the left of the gun? No. The gun’s left. Yeah, right there. Sweet. Now, just push it up, and I’ll pull it out from above.”

“Fuck, this thing’s heavy.”

“Well, it’s loaded.”

Easton’s eyes bulged out. “Shit, you didn’t tell me that before.”

“Well, now that you mentioned it—”

“Fuck, okay, okay. Just grab it, will you?”

Marcus hopped onto the hood of the vehicle, almost flailing when his shoe slipped on the tires he used for footing.

“Jesus, careful, Marc. You’re going to shift the wall on top of me. I don’t want to get crushed to death,” Easton said, followed by a shallowed, nervous chuckle.

“Sorry. I’ll be careful.”

Marcus waited a few seconds before he saw the barrel of the gun peeked out of the narrow gap on the roof. It took quite a few tries before he could pull out the weapon, managing to completely take it out on the third try. Marcus beamed a smile as he held the gun. It was a Mossberg 500 Compact Stock pump-action shotgun. Being a Mossberg, it could hold six shots, and it already came equipped with an angle-shot slide saddle with a spring-loaded cartridge magazine of six on the side, bringing the total of twelve shells.

Twelve extra firepower if one of those things came after his family.

Twelve shells that could be the difference between life or death.

“You know, those things, the giants, doesn’t get hurt by bullets,” Easton said, “I saw those cops shooting at it, and it didn’t do a thing. More annoyed that he was shot at.”

Marcus hopped off the hood of the car and sauntered back to the driver’s seat. “Well, what kind of gun were they using?”

Easton paused, thinking it over. “I don’t know. A normal gun? Handgun, er, of police? Is that a proper term?”

“They’re probably using a Glock. Standard-issued. This, however, is a shotgun. Cops either use a Remington or a Mossberg, and this one is the latter: 12 gauge tactical and dual extractors, twin action bars, and a sweet anti-jam elevator. If I want to carve a hole in someone, this would very well do the job.”

“I think it will take more than that.”

“Let’s hope this would be enough. Grab the keys and unlock the trunk.”

“Wait, why?” Easton asked.

“It’s a police cruiser. They are going to have weapons stashed at the trunk. Ever since the riots back in the sixties and the seventies, the police were required to have backup weapons and riot gears against heavily armed suspects. Good news for us, it’s now ours. And they may have an extra first-aid kit. Aren’t you running out of that?”

Easton smiled. “Yeah, duly noted.”

Easton trudged toward the back of the vehicle, sidling past through a few debris on his way. Marcus heard the trunk’s latch unlocked, and saw the door whistled open upward. Fortunately, out of the entire cruiser, the back half was the only thing that remained intact.

The ground shuddered beneath their feet. Marcus grabbed hold of the hood of the car to steady himself, but the shaking soon subsided after a few seconds.

“Christ, what the hell is that?” Easton yelped from the back.

“Must be those things,” Marcus answered.

Easton peeked his head out. “Um, are you saying they’re—”

“Yeah. They might be close, so hurry up, will you?”

“I’m getting there. There’s another fob lock here, so let me handle this. Some kind of locker chest. Hold on—” Easton said, pausing, “—Got it opened. There are two duffel bags. Oh! Found the first-aid kit.”

“Good. Grab all you can.”

“Riot gears, too?”

“Yes. Everything.”

“Well, I need a little hand here. These are quite heavy, and I only have two skinny arms.” Marcus heard Easton chuckle at the end.

Marcus smirked. “Alright, hold on. I’ll ask the boys.”

He whirled around to call out for Connor and Jacob, swung the shotgun’s sling around his shoulder, but as he laid eyes upon the bus stop, both his children were gone. Panic seized him like a freight train shooting through at sixty miles per hour, and on pure instinct, he swung the shotgun back to the front, held tight onto the grip, and placed his finger close to the trigger.

Marcus stomped out of the alley, heart-pumping against his ribcage, and caught sight of his two children standing in the middle of the road, gawking at something up the road where they came from. Marcus tried to suppress his blood from boiling, remembering clearly that he had explicitly told them not to move and for Connor to watch over his little brother. Maybe he had to twist their ears to get these boys to listen to him properly.

“Connor,” Marcus hissed, “What exactly did I just say—?”

“Dad, look!” Connor shushed him, pointing at something up the rise.

Marcus let out a quiet huff, rolled his eyes as he followed where Connor was pointing at, which made him hold onto his shotgun’s grip tighter at what lay before him.

A tree.

No, not just any other tree, but the exact towering pines of evergreen found in the forest surrounding the city. Marcus guessed it reached up to two hundred feet or so, rivaling the skyscrapers behind it, standing three blocks up the hill.

Marcus had to blink several times to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. It seemed the tree grew out on the middle of the intersection, the trunk taking up the entire area, destroying the traffic lights and the street signs, with the STOP sign now fused to the pine’s trunk. To grow that big and full, the tree had to be ancient.

The only problem was that it wasn’t there when Marcus and the others ran through the intersection a few minutes ago.

Marcus realized what caused the shaking.

It was the thing in front of them, sprouting.

The pine tree swayed against the gentle breeze, though it sounded like it moaned at every move, made Marcus’s skin crawl as if he could feel it was aware of their presence down below, the same feeling he got back in the park, of eyes watching out from the forest. Eyes that now belonged to the giants rampaging the city.

Marcus slowly clasped his hands on both Connor’s and Jacob’s shoulders and led them back to the alley where Easton hauled two black duffel bags out of the narrow gap and dropped them at the foot of the driver’s door. Easton was about to say a retort, but Marcus beat him to it by bringing up his finger to shush him. Easton took a step back and was about to make another attempt when he suddenly caught sight of the tree. His mouth hung open.

“You got everything?” Marcus asked in a whisper.

Easton nodded. “I have yet to get the riot gears and the toolbox.”

“Okay. Go. We’ll be right here. Connor, grab a bag, I’ll carry the other.”

“Yes, sir,” said Connor. He took one of the duffel bags without taking his eyes off of the tree. Marcus took the other bag.

Jacob grabbed the first-aid kit, which was more of a small red mesh bag with the standard white cross on the middle. Easton came back with another duffel bag slung around his shoulders, and hooked around his forearm was a standard riot shield with the word POLICE written at the front.

“Everything I can find is all here,” Easton said.

“Good. Let’s get going.”

Marcus felt a tug at the hem of his shirt. “Dad,” Jacob was saying, “The tree…”

Marcus narrowed his gaze back on the tree. It had stopped swaying from the wind, now bathed in moonlight from the two moons above. Then, Marcus caught it.

Shadows flicked off from the branches, too faint and small for Marcus to notice at a passing glance, but as he focused his attention to one of the branches, a creature perched itself at the edge, sniffing the air. They looked like capuchin monkey, only twice as large, shrouded in black and white fur, dancing like spiders. It had the head of a goat—or what looked like a goat with two deviled horns—and a rattlesnake tail. From below, Marcus could hear it jangle, sounding like a metallic chain coming loose, falling onto the ground; a melody familiar yet menacing to the ears. It didn’t come alone. On the other branches of the pine, more of this hideous creature emerged, and they soon made their way down onto the ground.

A few came into a coffee shop nearest to the pine. The tree’s massive roots managed to shoot out of the sidewalk and right into the front doors of the establishment. With the windows already busted, the monkey-like critters went inside, and not too long after, the screams followed.

They were like piranhas. The first scream was like a dinner bell, causing the other remaining critters—hundreds of them—to pour out of the pine’s shadows, and leaped into the shop in a stampede of blood and anarchy. Whoever decided that a broken down shop was an excellent place to hide must be an idiot.

They’re busy, Marcus suddenly realized. Time to move.

Marcus pushed Connor toward the opposite direction of the pine tree. Getting the hint, Connor started sprinting, followed his heels as Jacob and Easton trailed behind them.

At the corner of his eye, as they turn a curve toward the road leading to Andy’s house, another pine tree had sprouted, rose out of the rooftops from five blocks down, and Marcus already knew the horrors it brought with it.

It’s spreading through the city, Marcus figured out. The city is going to be swallowed by the woods.

Marcus didn’t like the sound of that.

Half a mile to go, Marcus muttered too himself, but this time, with more desperation.