“Vampires are real, my ass. Those are just dickheads on PCP or some shit. Or fucking terrorists,” Sagan’s ex-boyfriend shouted abuse in Lucy’s face against the backdrop of the football field.

Justin’s stark white skin flared red with anger. Unfortunately, that was an all too familiar sight, and every day until six months ago he’d directed that fury at Sagan.

Even the teachers cowed and looked away, dipping off to smoke with the students at the other end of the field.

Cecily tried a calm and even voice, “People are dead. We have to stay here. Rayne was the only—”

“Since when in the fuck do you listen to Rayne, huh?! Or any of those freaks she hangs out with? They’re probably in on this. Don’t you know the freaks are the ones that shoot up schools for being bullied and shit?”

Another football player, Michael, shouted, “Yeah, man, what are we doing sitting around here?!” He joined Justin on the edge of campus, just beyond the football field. “Those assholes will slaughter y’all and y’all are just gonna let them do it. Starting with Rayne.”

“Rayne has never been one to stand for bullying. That’s something you should know pretty well, Justin.”

Matt noticed everyone looking at him as he walked onto the bleachers.

He pulled the battery out of his Nokia and replaced it while he spoke. “You’ll get in Cecily’s face and Lucy’s face, but you won’t get in Rayne’s. Not after what she did to you at the end of football season. If she says she knows what’s happening in the school and that I need to sit my ass in this football field and wait for her, then fine. That’s what I’ll do. But I won’t sit here and listen to you bitch and call her shit you wouldn’t say to her face while I wait.” He never even spared a glance at Justin, but he knew what would come next.

Justin lunged forward like he meant to haul up the bleachers and beat Matt’s ass. Michael made a show of holding Justin back. More importantly, Justin let him while he squealed, “You don’t know a fucking thing, Anderson. You wanna talk about saying shit to people’s faces, you get down here and say all that to mine.” And he said many more lines to that effect.

Meanwhile, Matt powered on his cellphone and tried to find a signal.

Michael calmed Justin down while Lucy and Cecily approached Matt. The latter asked, “Did you get anything?”

“Naw, I don’t think there’s any signal to get. Did you notice the smoke plumes around us?” He nodded in various directions.

They followed his line of sight, and dread filled their eyes.

“I think this is bigger than our school.”

Stacia screamed, “Hey, where are you going?!”

Justin and Michael had bolted to the student parking lot. Matt jumped up and raced the girls to the edge of the football field. Other students gathered to watch the spectacle.

While Matt trusted Rayne implicitly with their safety after she explained some things, he had wondered what would happen if someone tried to leave the school. “Justin! Michael! Get your asses back here!” Ah, fuck it. Why should he care what happened to a girlfriend abuser and his crony?

The guys climbed into Justin’s truck—lifted, of course, thanks to his daddy’s money. The ignition started fine, but for a brief second the fellas froze. They looked like they were thinking long and hard about this decision. They seemed too scared to move. Then Justin said something and hit the gas in reverse. They pulled out of the parking spot and drove along the pavement to the only exit on campus.

Matt, Lucy, Cecily, and the others watched them stop the truck at the bottom of the hill leading out of the parking lot. He debated if he wanted to see them turn back or press on while the truck eased up the hill toward the open gate.

That’s when Matt heard a sound he would never forget if he lived through this.

A keening howl echoed through the trees and buildings comprising the campus. It raised the hair on his arms and gave him goosebumps. If that noise wasn’t disturbing enough, he heard something too loud to describe as a rustle but definitely sounded like vegetation moving around by heavy force.

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A tree fell over close to the truck and a giant monster, for lack of a better word, thundered out of the tree line heading straight for Justin’s vehicle. A massive thing and all wrong—Its skin looked charred red and black, like a lit coal. It had horns on its head, and a snout like a big lizard. So many teeth—more than he wanted to count. Each one was longer than Matt’s arm. The creature’s wing span spread wider than Justin’s extended cab with claws at the tip of each wing.

It bounded up to the truck on all six of its taloned feet. Every muscle honed on its twelve-foot mass strained as it rammed into the vehicle. The truck flipped once on its side, then stopped upside-down.

The girls next to Matt screamed as if they’d just found the air to do so.

His lungs refused to draw air. He stood frozen to the spot and filled with a mixture of fright and anticipation.

The beast stomped on the truck’s undercarriage with its front four claws. The truck flattened with ease.

Lucy sank to her knees beside Matt as they watched the spectacle in horror.

Surely Justin and Michael were already dead. Unfortunately, as soon as he thought it, a pale hand stretched out of the driver’s side window.

“No,” Matt muttered. While he had no love for the two trapped inside, he didn’t wish this demise on his worst enemy.

Cecily shrieked, “Save them!”

The gargoyle snatched onto the hand with its immensely large teeth and pulled. They heard Justin scream all the way across campus when the beast ripped his arm from its socket. A few people behind them retched, and at least one or two followed from the sounds and smells.

Matt searched internally for a response. He was numb. Desensitized. Nothing.

A howl pierced the air, followed by another and another. A chorus of beasts sang to each other inside the tree line bordering the entire school.

Cecily sobbed hysterically, “We’re all gonna die!!”

Lucy went catatonic beside Matt.

More tears and desperate cries filled the air. Children. All of them were frightened children who were worried about their families and friends.

Although only eighteen himself, Matt shared little in common with the surrounding people, emotionally. People he liked and cared about were inside and nearby, but he didn’t want them to know how much fun he was having.

“I won’t tell you we’ll be all right, but I will say that they warned us not to leave the perimeter. Now we know why. We need to stick together, wait this out, and help anyone who makes it out of that building alive,” Matt said as he pointed to their high school. “As crazy as it is, we’ve always known Rayne, Sagan, Kyle, and them were different. They’re inside there, now, trying to save us. We have to believe they’re gonna make it.”

He looked down the hill at the student parking lot to his Chevrolet Malibu and then turned back to his captive audience of terrified teenagers. Matt said, “I’ll go down there to get my car.”

This was met with many cries of “No” and “You can’t.”

Matt talked through it. “I’m just driving it back up here and seeing if I can get any kind of news on the radio. Does that sound like a plan?”

Students and teachers glanced at each other with nervous eyes, and he understood their reservations. But Matt had watched Justin and Michael closely. The monster didn’t make a move on them until they attempted to drive through the gate. He had no intention of doing that.

“I’ll go with you,” Cecily announced.

A thrill of panic crawled up Matt’s spine. “No!”

At the hurt look on her face, he raked a hand through his auburn hair.

In a calm voice, he reasoned, “No. In case something goes wrong, I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else getting hurt.”

That seemed to smooth things over.

Matt walked toward his car, offering over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back.” As he approached the student lot, he felt nothing. He hypothesized that the beasts were meant to keep the students within school grounds. He wasn’t technically violating that rule.

The white interior of his little sedan was immaculate. The machete he kept under the passenger seat was the only thing dirty inside. He pulled it out for good measure. The Malibu crept back up the hill to the football field.

As Matt made his way up, he wondered if his kit in the trunk contained anything useful for this situation. He shook his head at the notion. Although he could explain the machete away as protection, there was no way he could explain the rest.

At the top of the hill, the students gathered around Matt’s car. He winced, uncomfortable with their proximity to his dirty secrets, but there were bigger issues to deal with here.

“Turn it on.” Stacia always came across as too bossy for his liking.

Matt turned on the radio, anyway. The sound of static filled the air. He said, “I’ll try another station,” as he turned the knob. More static.

“Try AM,” someone in the crowd offered.

He obeyed with a deep frown on his face. They listened to the static for a moment, and then a beeping came through the airwaves.

The crowd murmured in response.

Matt leaned in closer to the speaker. “Shh, quiet.”

The static cleared and the beeping droned into a message. The most terrifying message they would ever hear.

“Earthlings, humans, homo sapiens, we have weapons capable of destruction you cannot imagine. As you can see. We demand surrender from your leaders. The sooner they deliver it, the sooner we can begin administering mercy. Not a moment before. If you resist, we have no choice but to provide another demonstration and another. If you surrender, the populace will suffer almost no casualties. We want the human race to live. Surrender.”