Automatic Garage Door

“I don’t know what I expected. I really don’t.”

“You said it was an automatic door!”

“Garage door! You have to push the button on the opener! Good lord, I hope you flunk driver’s education, for my own sake!”

“Fine, you can give Tommy rides to soccer when summer gets here.”

Empire Statesman and Empire Girl, shortly after the younger crashed the supercar through the base garage door.

“Oh…. shit.” Emilia said. “He killed Miss Manors. “

"I've had enough of your unwanted advances, madame. I do not like women, and I care not for men. I have no romantic desires at all, you deviant diva." The voice continued, a slow, measured report. Somewhere in the distance, something mechanical started to hiss.

"Oh shit, push the bikes and get in. I think it's time to leave." Ryan said, considering dropping the bikes, but they were already right there.

“Damn it, Ryan. This is just like Detroit, all over again.” Emilia pushed two of the bikes into the lift, Ryan and a slightly panicking Lisa pushed two more. Juicy, on Ryan’s shoulder, stood up, her blue green color becoming more vibrant looking around. Puffing up, she seemed to chirp in anger at the hissing sound.

"Okay, Juicy doesn't like that sound. That's making me very nervous.” Ryan said.

Lisa nodded, tugging on Davy's harness, the little Crocker looking concerned, somehow, himself. "Neither does Davy."

From the distance came a high-pitched chorus, almost words but not from human throats. “Grrr..toooookkkkaaay….tokaaaaay.”

The super criminals recording continued. "To that end, I find myself needing to guarantee you stop harassing me. May I introduce the Tokay Gecko. Well, an enhanced version at least." In the distance, they saw small lizards, about the size of the mummies in the pod, hopping onto some of the items in the distance. "While small and brightly colored, they aren't toxic, they aren't poison, but they are basically just the most psychotic little bastards, gifted with horribly strong bites. Enjoy them making you bleed and die, you mewling bitch."

"Push up, push up, push up." Lisa yelled.

“I’m pushing! I’m pushing!” Carl cried back.

“Toookaaaay! tooookay!”

Juicy hissed as some of the bright blue and red lizards zeroed in on the closing doors, jumping with terrifyingly impressive leaps. While each animal might only weigh a half pound each, maximum, the fact that they were drooling and their unblinking eyes made them look maddened, with the number of lizards coming for the team, the Tokays became very intimidating in spite of their size.

"Oh hell!" Ryan brought his arm up as two of the lizards, the fastest of the horde, dove at him. He gasped in pain, their shockingly strong jaws piercing the armored cloth sleeve like knives, the bites burning as they tore at his skin. With a grunt of pain, he ripped them off and threw them into a tight group still running towards them, bowling a double handful over.

Carl’s shotgun rang out, and a pair of knives skittered off the concrete floor, thrown to trip tiny legs instead of cutting into the animal’s flesh. The door was closing but so very slowly. “We have to keep them out!”

“And how are we supposed to do that?” Ryan said, trying to take precise, measured shots with his Glocks, but missing as often as he hit anything. “There are dozens of them. Hundreds!”

Juicy was dancing in either fear or rage on his shoulder, Ryan couldn’t tell which. Finally, incensed, she plucked off and tossed her tail at another group getting ready to follow those first two, the flash bang like explosion going off as the tail hit the ground, stunning the lizards and leaving ears ringing.

Lisa pulled her taser out, shocking a lizard that jumped onto the motorcycle next to her, letting out a shriek as another lizard bit into her leg. Davy let out a deep growl, snapping at the lizard attacking his person, devouring the tiny demon in two bites.

The odd reptile then spun to face the charging mass, a deep humming going through his bones, his white back spines starting to glow blue in his rage.

"Davy's glowing. Why is Davy Glowing?" Carl asked, having fired all three of his shotgun’s shells, loading shorter shells with odd, blue beads in the oddly clear shells.

Lisa grabbed the gecko on her leg and forced it off, throwing it away, it hit the door as it continued to inch closed. "I don't know!” she dove behind the bike. “And I don’t think I want to!"

“Tokaaaay,tooooookkkaay!” The lizards shouted with rage.

Juicy hissed. She hated these assholes, before the long alone time, only the warm one kept them from attacking her. She wished she had another tail to throw at another group of lizards.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The glow continued up Davys back, following his spine, his eyes changing from gold and black to blue and silver.

"Now his eyes are weird!" Carl yelled, scooting back, away from all the reptiles, his shotgun coughing, less loud but now firing rat-shot, the tiny balls, smaller than bird shot, more than enough to destroy the mad red-and-blue monsters. As a bonus, the half-sized shells let him have six instead of just three shots.

They all got the answer a moment later as Davy's tail lifted, his head cocking, jaws opening wide. A whirling maelstrom of electricity filled his maw, then fired out as a coruscating beam, sending dozens of the small lizards into twitching piles as he tracked the actinic lightning across the charging crowd, though its power was only enough to scorch the door.

With the door shut, the elevator jerked, moving into the tunnel and continuing to move horizontally at what felt like a distressingly slow rate.

“Good boy Davy!” Lisa said “show off those baby kaiju powers. Do it again!” She added, noticing that about half the lizards were getting back up. “How long is this damn elevator! Davy yawned, his ridge going back to white. He sleepily snapped at the lizards fighting to stay awake. As the geckos threw themselves at him trying to bite through armored scales. One tiny lizard ended up getting snapped up by the little Crocker spaniel, who sneezed as it crunched up the tiny form and swallowed.

"Davy?" Emilia said, just as the lizard collapsed. The fact that he started to snore was as surprising as the fact that the geckos piled up on him couldn't seem to do enough to make him notice they were gnawing on him. Those second facts were comforting, though Lisa found herself envying her pet.”

"Well, he's not going to be helping much after this." Carl said, blasting another group of the geckos, ignoring the one that was trying to chew through his steel toed boot. If a caiman couldn’t do it, that tiny mouth wasn’t going to manage.

"Well, he's young yet. That was a lot of work for a little mutant destruction machine." Emilia said, cutting a Gecko in half, the beast about to jump at Lisa's ass.

“He’s still distracting some of them!” Lisa said tasing another lizard as it ripped into Carl’s good leg.

"Yeah, but I'm out of ammo!" Ryan said, punching a Gecko in the face, shaking his hand in pain when the creature counted with its own face, and the teeth that dominated it. "Ouch, fuck!'

“Anyone’s input on a solution would be greatly appreciated!” Ryan said, pulling a survival knife to fend off lizards with.

Suddenly there was a sound of hissing, this time coming from all around them, and the temperature started dropping quickly as mist roiled in at the floor level. Juicy slid under Ryan's collar at the sound, while the warm-blooded Crocker just kept snoozing. Slowly, however, as the room dropped in temp, the Gecko's started getting sluggish, then stop moving.

"What in the fresh hell is this?" Emilia cursed.

Ryan turned to ask Carl, but his friend was looking dizzy. "Oh... wow... that's nitrogen. Probably liquid. Real cold... but kind of not good for the oxygen content in the air."

Emilia nodded as she dropped to a knee. Lisa was slumped and shaking her head, propped against one of the motorcycles.

Lisa reached down trying weakly to get Davy off the floor, wanting to get her courageous pet to air, she collapsed not being as athletic as the rest of the team.

Ryan, his power already shaking off the effects of the nitrogen dense air, moved towards Carl, scooping up his shorty shotgun. He ratcheted the pump, sending the last of the rat shot spinning into the air, then scooped three green shells, slugs he knew Carl carried, to load into the shotgun, keeping three more in the palm of his hand.

Two more long steps carried him towards the door, and with a soft prayer he wasn't going to expose them to the lake and drown everyone, he put the barrel almost directly against the wall and fired. Each slug blew a hole through the barrier, a hiss filling the air as the pressure began to stabilize, venting the nitrogen Three more shotgun blasts, and the others began to shake off the effects as oxygen filled their lungs, looking around blearily. About that time, there was a sound of gears, and the elevator started going up instead of back.

Emilia coughed. “Fuck now that is the kind of death trap, I expect from someone called Mister Lizard.” She stumbled towards Lisa, wanting to move the real estate agent to the fresher air.

He scanned the small, mobile room, seeing no moving geckos, other than the one he felt hiding in his jacket. He also didn't see any climbing in. "Yeah, that was premium. As in we almost died, so hurray? After all, she did." he said, gesturing at the former Miss Manors.

“Yeah, and she died ugly,” Carl said. All of them were bleeding from gecko bites. “I wonder what she did to piss him off to that level. Or was she really that pushy about trying to get in his pants?” He shook his head. “It was super dumb of her to invade his base though, that’s a special level of no-no for Tailors. Are Lisa and Davy, okay?” He spoke louder, over the less muffled sound of the mechanisms lifting them up, head clearing as the cleaner air cleared his head

"Davy is sleeping and didn't notice the little lizards attacking him once he fell asleep." Lisa reported having hefted him up onto the cart they'd had Carl on.

Ryan nodded. "And Juicy went into my jacket when things got grim. She's still moving in there."

Emilia nodded. "Good. That being said..." She smacked Ryan on the head. "I know this trip sucked, and you wanted the bikes, but next time we survive, and only then do we loot."

Carl nodded. "Again!"

Lisa had a feeling this conversation had happened before.

Juicy stuck her head out hearing her name and licked her eye. Looking around the jerk lizards were dead. She squeaked tiredly, since she’d thrown a lot of tails the last two days.

“Where do you think we are going?” Lisa said coughing

"Up, at this point. It's slower than the other one, but I think it’s older."

“Apparently it’s also more reliable, and murderous too.”

The elevator made a thunking sound that made Lisa flinch, the roof and sides began to slowly open, dropping several house geckos down on them. “Oh, thank god it’s the garage!”

"Yep. Everyone out." he said, pushing Carl and Davy, then motorcycles, off the lift, finding the lock and pulling the garage door open to reveal their RV where they'd left it, and a sun drifting low in the sky. "Oh yes, smell that fresh air."

"Screw fresh air. Get on the bus and get us to the hospital." Carl demanded. “I hurt.”

Lisa gave a rough laugh nodding, “Yes, the hospital and then dinner. Then, a hotel.” Her phone began beeping with messages as it reconnected. She glanced at it, saw they were mostly from Hannah, and ignored them for now.

"Why a hotel?" Ryan asked, Em shrugging. The bus was pretty comfy, or so they thought. Everyone trooped on, for the trip to the nearest ER."

“Because I am going to take a long hot shower, Eat a dinner I didn’t have to cook, and isn’t under seasoned Rhea, then and then lay down and spread out on a king sized bed, with my new pet and sleep without the fear of being eaten by a monster!

"Okay. Hotel. No problem."