The Grinding (8 page)

They believed some crazy shit, stuff about planets
and ancient aliens creating Jesus from monkey DNA mixed with their own. Our
life was nothing but a 2-D hologram projected on something-or-other. The
reverend was a dude named Cornelius Snow, a paunchy, albino Elvis look-alike with
oversized prescription sunglasses he wore even in the dark. He talked a lot
about taxes and the government. But the overwhelming theme of the one sermon I
attended was redemption. If you made a mistake, committed a sin, when you died,
you weren’t just forgiven your sins, you were taken to an alternate universe
where your sins never occurred in the first place. But only if you had the key.

I never found out what this metaphorical key was
or what was required to obtain it, but I assumed it involved blowing up IRS
buildings and providing oral sex to the good reverend Snow.

The service scared the crap out of me.

I was afraid to tell Nif what I’d thought of it.
She seemed finally at peace. At night, she slept more soundly. No nightmares. I
feared if she felt I worked against her newfound faith, she’d push me away, and
then there’d be nobody to protect her if this church went south.

Luckily, Nif’s enamor of the church lightened up
over the next month. They tried to get her to leave me, and to take her money. Something
about a land purchase out in the middle of nowhere. Whatever hold they had on
her thankfully gave way to reason.

Still, she was different after that. Before she
slit her wrists, she had desperately been looking for a spiritual way out from
her nightmares and whatever else was going on with her. None of the solutions
she sought worked. Deep down, I suspected she thought all the religions she
tried were bullshit. Till this one church, the craziest of them all. I never
understood how they were any different than any other church she tried. But
after she left, all the crazy cult stuff went away, and the inner peace she had
found appeared to remain.

What also remained was a deep faith in a higher
power. It wasn’t the Christian or Muslim or Mormon or Wiccan or any other god
of an organized religion. Whatever it was, it helped her, and for that, I was
happy.

But now, as I ran through the traffic jam on my
way downtown, I wondered about the night I found her in the tub. I had assumed
it was the dark depression that had fallen over her, and
that
had been caused by the nightmares and other post drug
addiction baggage. It never occurred to me that her problem wasn’t that I
hadn’t been able to save her. That it was just…me.

But if
I
was her problem, why didn’t she say anything? She acted like she loved me. She
left me notes in my lunch for work. Usually they were stupid little sayings or
quotes from a Ramones song, but they made me laugh. We had a whole lot of sex.
When we slept, she wrapped her arms and her legs around me. She told me all the
time I was her best friend, and that I was the only person who kept her sane.

I didn’t understand.

Above, the earlier rain clouds had dissipated and
were replaced by a red, smoky haze, and the acrid stench of something that
shouldn’t be burning. It was 1:30 AM, and if I wasn’t jogging, I’d be half
frozen to death. It’d been in the 80’s earlier in the day, which was warm, but
not unheard of for November. But the early-evening rain was strange, and even
though it’d been hot during the day, it was now freezing.

Plenty of cars were available to me, but they were
useless at this point. The closer I got to the university, the more jam-packed
they were. It appeared the survivors of the attack on the stadium had tried to
flee this way, and the narrow street had ended in disaster and utter gridlock.
It was eerie, seeing so many cars and so few people.

I didn’t have the sense of being alone, however.
Noise rose from every direction. Car engines revved on side streets. Loud
whispering erupted as I passed a few houses. (“
Look, it’s a cop.” “No. That’s just a douchebag with a gun
.”) I
heard hammering as I passed one house, like the person inside was blockading
himself in. Gunfire crackled from all directions, and I don’t think it was
aimed at the monster. I tightened my grip on the bag and the shotgun as jets
and helicopters and whooshing missiles and distant explosions continued to
echo, starting and stopping in waves.

And dogs. I never heard so many dogs in my life.
Every single dog in the city howled. The sound had been rising in volume over
the past twenty minutes, and now they were letting the terrified city have it.
It was unlike anything I had ever heard.

Above, a huge shadow moved across the night sky.
At first I thought it was a secret stealth airplane or maybe a fast-moving
cloud, but the rustle of wings and squawking gave it away. It was a tumultuous,
shuddering flock of birds. They angled southeast, purposely toward the Grinder.

As the cloud grew and the din rose, I stopped on
the sidewalk to stare. They were headed into the monster, like moths into a bug
zapper. From how far away were these birds coming? Were other animals on the
way to the beast also?

The dogs of Tucson continued to howl.

While the city and county weren’t all that dense
with people, the Sonoran Desert was the place to be if you were a coyote or
javelina or mountain lion or one of a million other critters who called the
outskirts of Tucson home.

In fact, I realized right then and there, if I was
a monster that could get stronger and larger by collecting living things, and I
wanted a bit of variety, Tucson was the perfect place to start my rampage.

If I was going to save Nif, I was going to have to
do it fast.

I decided I was being a pussy about stealing a
car. The main road was too blocked to traverse, but the side streets were more
or less clear. I stopped jogging, and I looked into a car sitting on the
sidewalk with the window down. It was a newer VW bug, white with pink trim.
Greek letters were embroidered into the car seats, maybe for some sorority. The
keys were still in the ignition, and voices rose from the car’s speakers. She
had satellite radio, I realized. I opened the door to step in.

A blazing spotlight focused on me from above. I
looked up, startled as a helicopter came to hover over me.

“
Do not
move. Put down your weapon
,” an amplified voice yelled over a loudspeaker.
“
We will shoot you if you don’t comply
.”

“What the hell?” I said, dropping the shotgun on
the sidewalk. I also dropped the bag, tossing it onto the hedge next to me.

“Let me see those hands, son,” the voice boomed.
The helicopter lowered, kicking up debris and rocks from the street. Instead of
raising my hands, I shielded my eyes, but the voice in the sky didn’t protest.

Two lines dropped from the helicopter, and a pair
of soldiers in all black slid down the line. One landed behind me, and the
other landed on top of the VW’s roof, smashing it in. Both pointed their
weapons at me.

I looked between the two soldiers. They were
decked out like twin, Special Forces Rambos. Helmets with dark visors and
built-in respirators protected their faces, and each wore black chemical suits
with heavy-looking overalls with tons of pockets and knives and grenades and
other things that were just as deadly.

The helicopter lifted and zoomed off toward
another neighborhood, its spotlight searching the ground.

Once the roar of the chopper faded, the soldier on
the roof of the car said, “Is this your vehicle?”

I looked between the two and lowered my arms.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I said. “A monster
is trashing the city, and you’re going to jump on my back for stealing a car?”

“Answer the question, sir,” the car-roof soldier
said.

“No, this isn’t my car,” I said.

“Where did you obtain the vest and weapon, sir?”

I could understand a normal cop on a normal day
having issues with a guy in a Kevlar vest and an automatic shotgun breaking
into a car in the middle of the night, but now? It didn’t make any sense.

“Houston,” I said.

“Have you had any physical contact with either the
creature or someone who has been in contact with the creature?”

I realized then why he was asking me so many questions.
They knew about the monster’s drones—and they thought I might be one.

Was it possible to “catch” whatever it was just by
touching a drone? That gave me pause. I tried to think if I had touched someone
after they’d been in contact with the Grinder. Maybe the Mexican kid? But I
couldn’t remember if I had contact with him or not. I didn’t think so. And what
about the guys I’d just shot? Had any of their blood gotten on me? I’d touched
Royce and Randy after
they’d
been
touched by the drones, and their blood was all over me. That would probably
count as “contact,” but I wasn’t going to tell these guys. Hell, if the Grinder
had walked up and licked me I wouldn’t have told them that either. Not with
those guns pointed at me. For all I knew, they had orders to shoot anyone who
so much as walked funny.

“No. I’m just trying to make it to my girlfriend’s
house,” I lied.

Both of them lowered their guns slightly. The one
on the roof jumped onto the hood, almost slid off it, and jumped down. He was
tall, like 6’8” or so. Even through his chemical suit, I could tell he was rail
thin. Like a beanstalk.

“You can’t be out here,” the beanstalk said. “For
the past several hours, the emergency broadcast system has been reading off the
evacuation points across the city. Make your way to a point to receive
transport out of here. Otherwise, you need to remain indoors.”

“Look,” I said. “I’m all about getting off the
streets. I just want to get to my girlfriend.”

“Hey,” the other one said. “He’s got blood all
over his pants.”

Both the weapons came back up.

“Sir,” the soldier said. “We’re going to have to
ask you to come with us. Please place your hands behind your back.”

The other soldier talked into a radio while the
beanstalk produced a pair of those plastic zip-tie handcuffs. If I didn’t fear
a bullet in the back of my skull, I would’ve tried to run. Instead, I was
pushed against the car while the too-tight handcuffs were placed on my wrists.

“He’s got a wedding ring on,” the not-so-tall one
said. “Girlfriend’s house, huh?”

I grimaced. “I have a very complex relationship
with my wife.” I did my best to act calm, but on the inside, I kicked and
screamed and fought. Panic washed over me. I was blowing it. I had to find
Clementine. I had to save Nif. I didn’t have time for this.

“Look,” I said after a moment. “I really do have
to get out of here. Where are you taking me?”

“You’re going to stay put until our ride arrives,”
not-so-tall soldier said. “We’re taking you someplace safe to run some tests,
and if you check out, you’ll be put on a transport out of town.”

“What sort of tests?”

Neither answered.

They don’t
have a test
. How could they, so quickly?

As I leaned against the car, I realized the voices
were still talking on the radio. As the soldiers whispered amongst themselves,
I leaned in to hear the newscaster. The volume was too low to follow the
conversation, but it was something about a mass exodus on I-10 both east and
west out of town. The words “quarantine” and “riot” were kicked around quite a
bit.

That’s just
wonderful
.

The soldier’s radio crackled, sounded like some
sort of orders. “Let’s go,” the beanstalk said, grabbing me by the wrists. The
other one grabbed the shotgun, but he missed the duffel bag on the hedge. I
debated whether or not to point it out. I decided against it, figuring my odds
of seeing it again were higher by leaving it here. I didn’t know what the twins
had put in the package for their baby mama, but knowing them, it was explosives
or something equally illegal.

We walked down the street into a neighborhood
filled with smaller houses. Candlelight danced in several windows, lighting
people’s faces as they watched us from inside their homes.

“How come you guys are picking on me,” I said.
“Look at all these people. They’re just smart enough to stay inside.”

“We’re not picking on you, sir,” the beanstalk
said. “We’re taking you to safety.”

“I doubt that,” I muttered.

A couple minutes later, we stopped at a corner on
a side street just as a Hummer pulled up. They opened the doors, shoved me in
the back, and got in. The driver was decked out with the mask like the other
two. “We got another pickup a quarter mile away,” the driver said, revealing
herself as a woman. “Then we’ll head back.”

The beanstalk got in the front passenger seat, and
the other guy sat in the back part on the outside. I was alone in the backseat.

“What’s this guy’s story?” the woman asked.

“He’s neither C-1 or 2,” the beanstalk said. “Just
a Civ. Taking him in to be sure.”

“What’s a C-1?” I asked.

“You don’t want to know,” the driver said, pulling
away from the curb. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. I wasn’t sure
where I was anymore. This was a residential neighborhood somewhere between
Broadway and 5th street, but I didn’t know where. At least we were headed in
the direction I wanted to go.

“How did you guys get here so fast?” I asked.

The driver was much more talkative than the other
two guys.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, a monster is stomping
through some of the United States’ most valuable assets. That has a tendency to
light a fire under the military’s ass. We’re from Ft. Huachuca,” she said,
which I knew was about an hour and a half drive south of Tucson. “We were
fixing to deploy overseas when we heard about Arizona Stadium. I’m a Wildcat
myself, and I was listening to the game on my iPod when it happened. A bunch of
us flew in on helicopters just in time to watch DM get obliterated. The whole
thing rolled through the boneyard, destroying billions of dollars worth of
stored aircraft. I didn’t see any of that, though. I drove straight up in this
thing. I got here an hour or so ago.”

“I saw it from above,” the beanstalk said. “It
threw a horse at us.”

“It doesn’t seem like we’re doing so hot,” I said,
leaning back against the uncomfortable seat. “That thing is kicking our ass,
and it’s sucking animals into it now, too. Did you see those birds?” The zip
ties burned my wrists, and I shifted uncomfortably.

“I saw the birds,” she said.

We pushed our way through two cars jammed together
at an intersection. A couple blocks over, flames shot thirty feet into the sky
from a row of townhouses.

“I used to live a couple blocks from here,” the
driver said. “I can’t believe this.”

She spoke into her radio and turned away from the
fire, heading down an alley. We turned another corner and pulled up on two more
soldiers with a guy in handcuffs laying on the ground. The guy twitched, and
his leg was bent in the wrong direction.

“You’re not putting that dude next to me,” I said.

They stopped, opened up the side—and put the
dude next to me. One of the other soldiers slid into the back seat so the
twitchy guy was in the middle, leaning up against me, and the other soldier
jumped in the back with the tall guy’s partner. This new soldier also wore the
respirator mask, but his uniform was camouflaged.

“We got a C-2,” the new soldier said. “Found him
trying to break into a car, walking on that leg. We had to subdue him.”

The twitchy guy stank like oil and wore a Circle K
uniform. He was passed out, which was good for him because that leg looked like
it hurt. It got caught on the seat when they shoved him in, and it bent at an
unnatural angle, like the only thing keeping it attached was the skin around
the outside. The guy was older, with a beard. Every couple seconds or so, his
whole body would twitch, like he was being jolted awake.

“He just passed out when you stuck him?” the
driver asked. We made a U-turn and headed south.

“Yeah,” the soldier said. “Like a bag of bricks.”

“I hope this shit isn’t contagious,” the beanstalk
said.

The twitchy guy groaned and fell over a little,
pushing me hard against the door of the Hummer.

“Guys,” I said. “If I have to sit with this freak
drooling all over me, the least you can do is tell me what all this C-1 and C-2
shit is.”

The driver looked at the beanstalk, who shrugged.

“I don’t know what the ‘C’ stands for,” the driver
said. “But we’re collecting people on the street and giving them designators. A
C-2 is someone like this guy. They’re people who’ve fallen off the monster and
lived. He’s injured but not combative, or at least not aggressive toward us, and
all he wants to do is to get back to the creature. It’s all he’ll talk about,
and he cares more about that than his injuries. A C-1 is someone like you. They
just started popping up a couple hours ago. He looks normal, but he’s also been
attached to the monster. They attack us when we get close. They’re usually
close to the monster when they appear, but we’re not taking any chances.”