Jeremy tossed the bags and his jacket into the back seat. Moira had all the windows down and her feet propped on the side mirror again. Sweat stuck her hair to her neck. Why she did not stand outside of the car was beyond Jeremy’s comprehension. The soupy humidity felt a thousand times worse against his skin after the scorching, dry heat from the fires. He pinched his shirt to flap the fabric against his skin and downed an entire water bottle.
“Save anybody?” Moira asked.
Jeremy looked askance at the pileup of crunched cars out on the road. People shouted and ran around, pulling others out of cars and away from the wreckage. Smoke rose to join the growing haze, fed by several fires all over town.
“Maybe,” he said. Moira rifled through the bag of granola bars and picked one to unwrap. The line of cars moved. Jeremy kicked her out of the driver’s seat so he could take the keys back and move the car forward. She stood under a tree that shaded the curb. Jeremy turned the car off and joined her.
“Look what I learned to do.” She cupped her hands and furrowed her brow. A moment later, a symbol materialized, and her hands filled with cool water. She laughed and dumped it over her head.
Jeremy tilted his head. “Do it again.”
He looked closely at the symbol. It was the same upside down triangle he’d seen above the man’s hands back at the gas station fire before he materialized water. Moira tossed the water in his face. He wiped it from his eyes and appreciated the moment of relief that the cool water brought from the muggy heat. The line moved again, so he got back into the car.
Instead of getting back out, he reached into the back seat and pawed around in the bag with the maps. He pulled out a pocket travel notebook. The pen he normally kept in the glove compartment was missing, but he found the backup stored in the center console. The first page had a watermark of a compass near the top. He wrote the date, then began recording an account of everything he could remember from last night and this morning.
By the time they reached the gas pump, he’d moved on to drawing all the strange symbols he’d seen floating around. He labeled them with ‘summon water’ and ‘fire extinguish.’ As the tank filled, he wrote ‘symbols’ across the top of the page, then frowned and scratched it out. Instead, he wrote, ‘runes.’ It seemed more appropriate given that they appeared to symbolize not only individual effects, such as summoning water but also components of more complex spells, like the one on the stone pillar beneath the pond.
The pump clicked off. Jeremy flipped the notebook shut and shoved it and the pen into his pocket. Moira bounced over.
“He said they are all out of extra gas cans.” She announced. They climbed into the car and looked toward the main road, where the accident blocked all traffic. He pulled out of the unblocked exit, which led into a residential neighborhood.
“I picked up some maps,” Jeremy said. “We can probably find our way to the highway entrance by backroads.”
“That was smart.” Moira unfolded the county map over the dash and leaned over to peer at the small writing. She directed him through the neighborhoods’ four-way stops and occasional one-way streets.
“It’s probably better if we stick to back roads anyway.” She mused, “I’m sure there’s a bunch more accidents.”
Jeremy hummed in agreement. He stared at every gnarled old tree as they passed. A few blocks back, he’d noticed that they had an overlay of dark red and runes, just like people and animals. That would make sense if creatures like dryads existed. He wondered if certain trees produced dryads or if they all did. Thinking along this line, he concentrated on looking for differences in the runes associated with each tree.
His eyes slid to a hulking oak, and his heart skipped a beat. A face stared at him from the furrowed bark. Upon closer inspection, it was a cheap plastic face people sometimes stick on their trees. Jeremy blew out a breath.
“Watch out!” Moira cried.
Something darted in front of the car. Jeremy slammed on the brakes, and they lurched forward in their seats. Moira’s hands crumpled the paper as they slammed onto the dash. They glanced at each other, then peered through the windshield.
A creature popped up over the hood. It had a sharp, narrow face and beady little eyes. Its claws screeched through the hood’s paint as it climbed toward them. Jeremy grimaced.
“Oh my god.” Moira’s eyes popped open wide. “Is that a goblin?”
“I don’t know what that is.” Jeremy said, “But I don’t want it on my car.”
He glanced in the rear-view mirror, threw the car in reverse, then slammed on the gas. The goblin dug into the sheet metal and hung on. Jeremy’s eyes narrowed as he looked between the mirror and the goblin. It not only hung on but started to claw toward them again.
“Hang on,” Jeremy muttered. Moira scrambled for the oh-shit handle on the ceiling above the passenger window and clung so tight that her knuckles turned white. They jerked to the side as Jeremy slammed on the brakes and spun the wheel. The tires made an awful squeal. The smell of burning rubber filled the air. The goblin paused to hang on. Then, it resumed its approach.
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Jeremy stopped the car and stared as it tilted its head and peered through the windshield. Then, it lifted its fists and brought them down on the glass. Moira screamed. A spiderweb of fractures shot across the windshield.
“Fuck this.” Jeremy slammed the car in park and threw open the door. The goblin looked about the size of a chihuahua. It probably weighed the same amount. He rounded the car door, grabbed it by the foot, then flung it as hard as he could. A shrill noise, akin to the screech of its nails across the sheet metal, burst out as it sailed through the air. It landed spread-eagle against a tree and flopped to the ground.
Then started to get back up.
“Get back in the car!” Moira shrieked, “Hurry, hurry!”
Jeremy looked around for something to smash the goblin with like it had cracked his windshield. A group of kids rounded the side of a nearby house, brandishing baseball bats and golf clubs. They spotted the goblin and started hollering and running toward it. The goblin sneered at them. It held up its claws, which were strong enough to puncture the hood of Jeremy’s car. They did not do much against the golf club, however.
One of the kids took a wicked swing that caught the goblin under its jaw with a horrifying crunch. It flew into the air with a splat of green blood. This time, it did not get back up. The kid knocked his golf club against his shoulder and grinned at the rest of the group while they cheered him on. Jeremy watched as the kids' overlays lightened in color until they were nearly orange. In fact, Jeremy realized as he gaped at them, nearly all the kids had overlays that were a lighter color red than anyone else he had seen. One of them looked over at Jeremy and the destruction to his car.
“You should have run him over!” She yelled.
“Yeah!” One of the other kids chimed in, “That would be awesome.”
Jeremy was speechless. A man rounded the same corner where the kids had come from. He scanned the group of kids while lifting his ball cap to scratch his head. When he spotted Jeremy, his eyebrows shot up, and he put the cap back on. There was a sleek, black hunting rifle slung over one of his shoulders.
“Hi there.” He came up to Jeremy. He looked at the car, the tire skids, the goblin corpse. “We heard your tires squealing. Came over to see if someone might be in trouble. You okay?”
Jeremy cleared his throat, “Uh…we’re fine now.”
“Nasty little shits.” The man grimaced at the dead goblin, “Which one of you got him?”
“Drew did!” One of the kids held up the boy’s hand.
“Nice job, kid.” The man turned back to Jeremy, “Don’t know what these things are, but they keep coming out of the state park over there. They ate my kid’s puppy.”
“One of them ate my mom’s cat!” Drew chimed in.
“And my bunnies!” A girl said.
“There’s another one over there!” Another kid yelled. The group took off across the street. A woman poked her head out her front door and watched them charge through her yard. She waved to the man in the ballcap.
“Hi, Jerry!”
“Liz.” Jerry nodded at her.
They all watched one of the kids knock out the tiny goblin skulking in Liz’s rose bushes. The colors overlaying the kid holding the bat flashed as he landed the hit. The kids all cheered.
“Doing the neighborhood a service, I see.” Liz commented, “Tom should be back soon. I’ll have him bring over the list of stuff Nancy asked us to pick up for her.”
“We appreciate that.” Jerry said, “Thank you.”
Liz nodded and went back inside.
“It did a number on your car.” Jerry ran a hand over the dented and punctured hood.
“They have strong claws.” Jeremy said, “You know what they are?”
“Goblins, right?” Moira called from inside the car.
“I don’t think so.” Jerry leaned down to look at her, “The news is calling those creatures coming through the gate goblins. They are all much bigger than these things.”
“Creatures coming through the gate?” Jeremy asked.
“Yeah. Haven’t you watched the news?” Jerry looked back over to where the kids had disappeared. He cursed, then took a deep breath and bellowed. “Kids, stop running off where I can’t see you. Your mothers will kill me!”
“Sorry.” He said over his shoulder as he trotted after them. Jeremy watched him go, still rooted to the same spot in surprise.
“Holy shit. Jeremy, come look at this.” Moira said. He climbed back into the car. She turned her phone to show him a news clip. A huge structure similar to the arch in one of the videos from earlier stood in the center of a ring of boxy, armored military vehicles and a crowd of soldiers. In the foreground stood a reporter in Kevlar.
The National Guard is still coordinating a complete mandatory evacuation within a five-mile radius of what is now being called ‘Gate Zero’ here in the Chicago suburbs. This does not include the over 2.5 million residents of the city of Chicago, for whom the governor has issued a voluntary evacuation.
He stepped back to allow viewers to see the boxy, armored military vehicles scattered in a circle around the gate, from which several squat, green creatures emerged through thin air.
This is due to the air strikes scheduled to begin in about two hours to deal with the increasing density of goblins coming through the gate. So far, aside from the initial thirteen civilians killed at the hands of the goblins, no other casualties have occurred.
He stepped fully into the frame, and the peppering of gunfire played in the background. After a few more statements about the evacuation orders and quoted assurances from governors and military representatives, he signed off, and the video returned to the news anchors. They shuffled their papers and shook their heads in shock.
Thank you, Todd. All other gates are being monitored. There are no further reports of creatures passing through, but the president urges all those living or working within five miles of any gate to prepare in case they are ordered to evacuate. Now, we turn our attention to the strain these so-called ‘disaster zones,’ as well as the phenomena of extended distances observed all over the country, and the run on gas, food, and household items has impacted supply routes to replenish the quickly emptying shelves.
Moira took the phone back and paused the video.
“Okay,” She stared at the phone, “So those are goblins. It takes a tank to blast through one of them, not just a kid with a baseball bat. Got it.”
A car honked behind them. Jeremy nearly jumped out of his skin. He spun around to see a jeep in the road behind where he haphazardly stopped. The guy in the driver’s seat threw his hands in the air and honked again. Jeremy glanced through the windshield. Most spiderweb cracks were on the passenger side, so he could still see well enough. He put the car in drive. Moira spread out the map and started giving him directions again.