Part 1: Character Creation / Chapter 9
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From 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. things were pretty quiet.
Robbie napped and I passed the time by watching TV. There was a reality show called “My Two Muts,” about a guy living with a rescued puma and bear like they were his dogs. Then there was some news coverage of the city council election Lela had been obsessing over. (The clown had won.) And that was followed by reports on the war in the Ukraine, civil protests in Shanghai, forest fires in California, and floods in Missouri. It occurred to me that the world really had spun out of control, but most people hadn’t noticed—like the proverbial frog in the pot, not sensing the water around it slowly heating to a boil. Alas, even when we did occasionally notice how far off course everything had gotten, most of us were prone to back-burner the revelation to focus on our own crap. Was that simply because we were all too self-involved? Or was it because we felt too powerless to do anything about the multiplying global threats? Whichever it was, I wasn’t immune to the phenomena. Because the moment Robbie opened his eyes, the world’s hastening demise faded to the background.
9 p.m. was actually his bedtime, but he’d been in and out of naps all day, and his internal clock had gone haywire. So, for the next hour or so, we played Connect Four. He beat me in every game—and I wasn’t going easy on him. I couldn’t help but think the kid was smarter than I was. He was smarter than most people. And not just smarter. He was kinder, more genuine, more imaginative. He deserved to live more than anybody I knew. Of course, that thought opened the way to a downward spiral of wishing it could be me lying in the hospital bed instead of him. A wave of preemptive survivor’s guilt washed over me. It wasn’t fair that I’d be kicking around the planet after he was gone. But fate had nothing to do with what was fair or right. I supposed that was just one more corollary of the world going wrong. The fact was everything was horrible and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it. I wondered why anybody bothered to get up in the morning anymore.
No question, my train of thought was well on the way to becoming a train wreck when Robbie interrupted it by looking past the Connect Four grid and asking, “How the heck did they get up here?”
I was unsettled even before I turned my head to look out the window. Said window was fourteen stories up. So, not a place you’d expect to see a ferret, let alone six. But there they were, balanced on the ledge outside, their little faces pressed against the glass, their tiny hands furiously exploring the window frame, presumably seeking a means of ingress.
As their eyes met mine, they bared their teeth. One of them made a fist with one hand and punched it into the palm of its other hand. Another pointed a finger at me, then drew the finger back and dragged it across its throat.
“Did that weasel just threaten to kill you?” Robbie asked, incredulously.
“It’s a ferret,” I answered. “And yes. Yes, it did.”
I guessed the loner Kimberly and I had spotted that morning had been a scout of some kind, picking up my trail so he could gather the troops. Given my recent experience, I had no doubt about where this was headed—and I had cause for concern.
I’d had trouble with the three dolls. Could I take six ferrets? Obviously, neither the dolls nor the ferrets could compare to Marty Malomar. But my performance against him was irrelevant, considering how little I’d actually had to do with his demise.
Then I realized my battle prowess didn’t really matter, as long as the ferrets were outside and I was inside. What could they do to me from out there?
I just hoped they didn’t spot the window that was slightly ajar several feet to the . . . my stupid eyes flickered toward the opening. Two of the ferrets followed my gaze. Then they looked back at me as I looked at them. There was a moment of hesitation before we all lunged for the window. But I was way too slow. Before I’d gotten half way there, one them had wedged its body through the opening and wrenched the thing open as far as it would go. Safety regulations precluded an opening large enough for a person to get through. But they weren’t people. The diabolical little jerks flooded in like furry water through a cracked dam.
As they hit the floor, they spread out around me and started pacing back and forth, staring me down.
The door to the hallway whooshed shut inexplicably, as if a poltergeist had just blown in.
“Uncle Hank?” Robbie called out, his voice cracking. “What is happening right now?”
“It’s hard to explain,” I answered him.
Considering the seemingly magical way the door had swung shut, I didn’t know if I’d be able to open it. And even if I could, I wouldn’t be able to get Robbie and myself out of the room before the ferrets pounced.
Most of the ferrets would probably follow me if I bolted solo, but not necessarily all of them. A lightning strike memory of holding Robbie as a baby flashed through my mind, and I knew I wasn’t going to take a chance on what any stragglers might do to him—not after what had happened to Dwight. I didn’t see any two ways about it. There wasn’t going to be any running. Or hiding. There was going to be blood—ferret blood. And maybe some of mine.
The first ferret leapt up and ricocheted off Robbie’s tray table, headed for my face. But to my surprise, I wasn’t surprised. I saw what was coming well before the creature was anywhere near landing the attack and shot out a backhand that sent it crashing into the wall. It was as if my speed and strength were ever-so-unnaturally enhanced. Apparently, my boosted stats were more than just numbers printed on my arm.
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Emboldened by my feat of battle prowess, I charged forward and grabbed up two more lunging ferrets and swung them into each other. Their little heads knocked together and as I dropped them, the strange intuition I’d experienced that morning surged through me, reporting that my first three attackers were indeed dead.
I know what you ferret-lovers are thinking. “Oh, no! Not dead ferrets!” But if Charles Manson busted in and went for my throat and I took him down, would you be all, “Oh, no! Not dead Charles Manson?” No, you wouldn’t. A murderous a-hole is a murderous a-hole. And some ferrets are murderous a-holes. Just ask my Beagle, Bilbo.
Suffice it to say, I wasn’t exactly celebrating conking the lanky rats’ heads together and sending them to their maker, but I wasn’t too broken up about it.
The survivors didn’t miss a beat crying over their fallen comrades. They pounced on me in a furry fury. One clamped onto the back of my right thigh, another onto my left shoulder, and a third onto the back of my freaking head. I stumbled around the room, knocking over everything in my path.
“Ferret sons of bitches!” I growled.
As my gaze passed by the bed, I noticed Robbie was gone. I wondered if he’d made a run for it. I hoped he’d made a run for it. But he hadn’t.
“Clear!” I heard him yell from behind me, then turned to see him holding up the defibrillator paddles from the crash cart.
“No, wait!” I cried.
But I was too late. As he attempted to make contact with the ferret on my leg, it dodged out of the way. I felt the paddles connect with my thigh, then every muscle in my body wrenched taught as sizzling paralysis radiated out from the contact site, my jaw clenching like a vice.
As it happens, the shock from a defibrillator is localized enough not to harm anyone making physical contact with the person being defibrillated. That’s usually a good thing, but in this case, it ensured the ferrets ferociously clawing and gnawing at my head and shoulders could keep on clawing and gnawing as Robbie imprudently continued attempting to connect with his target as it scuddled back and forth and up and down my leg.
“Clear!” Zap.
“Clear!” Zap.
“Clear!” Zap.
Finally, the ferret he was aiming for leaped from my shock-addled body onto the bed, as I dropped to my knees and crashed to the floor like a falling tree.
“Sorry,” I heard Robbie mumble, as the third ferret leaped back onto my chest and chomped into my clavicle.
It wasn’t the best.
But then again, none of it hurt nearly as much as I’d expected. And despite the many wounds I’d sustained, I sensed I was a mere three-twentieths dead. That had to be my Skin Thickness stat at work. Or maybe these ferrets were just wimps compared to the Cutie Pants gang. Whatever the case, I felt a swell of confidence that I could come out on top here—and with that came a sense of calm. But as Robbie tried to pull one of the psychotic mustelids off of me, it turned on him. A flash of claws tore through his flimsy hospital gown and I saw a crimson stain blossom across the fabric. It didn’t seem like a mortal wound, but as his heart rate spiked and I heard the EKG machine to which he was still connected start beeping frantically, I suddenly realized I could sense his life increments. The ferret’s attack and his heart’s backlash had sapped a tenth of his Life-O-Meter. That was all it took to send me into a blind rage.
I rolled into a sitting position and lunged up with my right hand, grabbing the creature still clinging to Robbie’s gown. Then I yanked the thing away and smashed it down on the floor again and again as it chittered and snarled and squealed in shock. While I was at it, I grabbed hold of the one on my shoulder with my other hand, ripped it loose, and slammed it down on the floor to my left. As I bashed them down over and over, I must have looked like a deranged heavy metal drummer, playing a solo with ferret drumsticks.
But I wasn’t done setting a new bar for crazy. Looking down at the ferret chomping on my collar bone, I bellowed, “Two can play at that game!” and bit into its neck. Blood spurted out all over my face and chest as the thing let fly with an ear-piercing screech that transitioned seamlessly into a death rattle as I finished my drum solo and came to rest, chest heaving, pupils still dilated.
For a moment, Robbie just stood there, staring. And then he said, “Uncle Hank?”
He seemed pretty shaken up. I thought it was probably the dead ferrets still dangling from my mouth and hands.
I let them all plop to the floor.
“Everything’s okay, pal,” I said reassuringly, because I’d strangled and/or torn the throats out of all the woodland critters that had scaled fourteen stories to murder me. And in my new life that qualified as “okay.”
“I’m not . . . feeling great,” Robbie said.
He took an unsteady step toward the bed and I scrambled up to grab him.
“Nurse!” I yelled. “Somebody!”
Scooping him up, I laid him in the bed. I heard the EKG’s beeping slow and saw the read-out fall to a steady 65 bpm. My own pulse slowed as I sensed he was out of the danger zone. But I still grabbed the call button hanging from his headboard and hit it several times.
Robbie caught his breath and looked around at the ferret bodies littering the floor. Then he looked at me. There were a lot of questions he could ask. Where had they come from? Why had they attacked me? Why hadn’t I been particularly surprised? But the only question he had was, “Are you gonna get rabies?”
Somehow, he’d taken everything else in stride enough to focus on his concern for me and the practical danger my various bites represented.
“Oh,” I answered him. “Probably not.”
I actually knew ferrets were a low risk for rabies. The vet had said as much after my dog had been attacked by the filthy things years ago. So, getting bitten by a ferret wasn’t cause for panic. As for biting a ferret? Well, it probably wasn’t the greatest idea anyone had ever had. But I decided I wasn’t going to worry about that at the moment.
Inspecting the claw mark on Robbie’s abdomen, I saw it was indeed very superficial. Just a scratch, really. The problem was, as always, his heart. “Ferret attack” is definitely not the prescribed treatment for cardiomyopathy.
“I’ll be okay,” he assured me as his face relaxed and he caught his breath. I guess he’d read the look of worry in my eyes.
“I’m going to get a nurse,” I said. I didn’t know what was keeping them, but I wanted Robbie checked out sooner rather than later. While the dead ferrets were bound to raise some questions, I hoped they’d just up and disappear by the time I returned. If not, oh well. Robbie was priority #1.
But as I stepped over and around the furry corpses and reached out for the door knob, Nancy’s mom popped up in front of me, wearing white scrubs.
“Did someone call for a nurse?”