Pel crossed the carpet in a hurry, with Rayph skittering along behind her. She put her hand on the glass as she stepped up to the window. The glass quivered beneath her finger in accented pulses.

Thmmm. Thmmm.

Like the Norms, the creature lumbering down Angeltoe Street shouldn’t have been possible. It was one story tall and vaguely quadrupedal, and was covered in quills, like a pin-cushion, or an urchin. Its limbs looked like they were made from the pads of prickly pear cactuses, though with sagging skin stretched between the legs. Though it was moving away from Seacrest Avenue behind it, the creature had no clear front or back ends. Instead, its body was amalgamated from trees ripped from the earth. Fungal growth held it together, serving as both stitching and skin.

Hearing gunshots, Pel flinched. “By the Angel…” she muttered. Her body went stiff. Wanting to get a look, Rayph stuck his head in by her hip, only to scream and tumble back as he got what he wanted.

Pel slid the curtain to the side as more gunshots rang out. She saw sparks bounce off the monster’s hide. A moment later, a thin beam of crackling red energy blasted into the monster’s flank, igniting the bits of wood and pine needles on the creature’s body.

“Holy shit!” Jules cursed.

Both the bullets and the heat ray were coming from a group of soldiers riding in an open-backed military transport that was approaching the creature from the side. The heat ray was mounted on the transport, in the middle of its bed, and was manned by one of the soldiers.

Rayph, too, had squeezed in to look. “What the heck…?” he said, his jaws hanging slack.

The monster responded to the attack by rearing up like a horse and flailing its prickly pad legs. Green spore plumes puffed out from its burning flanks, which trickled down black ooze as it charred and cracked. The flames smoldered as they contacted the ooze, making the stuff sizzle and pop as dark smoke wafted high.

The soldiers kept firing as they leapt over the transport’s guard rails and onto the pavement, and then spread out to the left and right.

They were trying to surround it.

No, Pel realized, they’re trying to distract it.

While the monster was busy swiping its legs at the soldiers on the ground, the transport pulled away and turned to the side, giving the heat ray’s operator a clean, near-point-blank shot at the abomination.

For a moment, Pel actually had hope, but then she heard the sounds of shattering glass and a rush of screams and snarls.

Zombies spilled out onto the lawns of nearby homes. Pel thought she saw the Ahmansons—our next door neighbors—among the figures scrambling onto the streets.

She staggered back in horror.

The soldiers turned and opened fire, heat ray and all. The bullets turned the front row of zombies to an oily pulp, but it didn’t matter, because the heat ray operator’s body stopped obeying him. He let out a scream as his body pushed off the heat ray, throwing himself onto the ground. The laser was still firing as the thrust spun it around half a turn, though it petered out a moment later, but by then, the operator had gotten onto all fours and tackled his nearest comrade, biting and clawing like a wild animal.

Pel lunged forward and closed the curtains as quickly as she could.

“Get back!” she told the kids. “Get back! Get back! Get back!”

Outside, screams and roars rocked earth and air.

“Mom!” Rayph cried.

Pel pulled him into her arms and pressed her finger to his mouth, begging him, “Please, be quiet.”

Jules looked her brother in the eye. “It’s alright,” she whispered, “it’s not the first time. There were zombies here last night, remember?”

“But those zombies went away!” Rayph hissed.

“And so will these,” Pel said. “The Angel is protecting us.”

But then why did her heart feel like it was about to leap out of her chest?

The three of them stayed very, very quiet and very, very still, Pel counting the seconds in her head as she waited and prayed. Rayph tried to be brave, but he couldn’t keep himself from whimpering in terror.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Over the next minute or so, the sounds of gunfire gradually waned. They didn’t get closer, nor did they move away. They just grew less and less frequent, until they finally stopped, cut off mid-fire. Soon, the only sounds Pel could hear were her breaths and her children’s breaths, and the rattling of the window panes from the monster’s earth-drum steps as it tromped down the street, until everything was still.

Rayph sniffled.

“See,” Pel whispered, “they went away.”

She could hardly believe her own words.

But then Rayph raised his head and looked up at his mother. “Mom, do you smell that?”

“Smell wh—”

—Brrreen!

The alarm shrieked, loud and shrill.

Brrreen! Brrreen! Brrreen!

For a second, Pel froze, totally overwhelmed.

“Mom?” Jules yelped. “Mom!?”

“I thought we were supposed to stay quiet…” Rayph said.

“That’s the smoke alarm,” Pel muttered.

It took a second for the implications to link up in her mind.

Smoke. Fire.

Then the adrenaline came screaming through Pel’s veins.

“Fire!” she yelled, as she scrambled to her feet and ran into the kitchen.

She gasped.

The cypresses were on fire. She saw it through the window over the sink. The cypresses on the property line between the house and the Ahmansons’ place were up in flames. For a split second, Pel feared the horrors could spit fire like dragons, but then she remembered the heat ray.

Suddenly, one of the cypresses toppled over. The flaming trunk crashed through the roof of our master bedroom. As Pel’s gaze swept out, she noticed twitching figures near the base of the hill our house was on.

“They’re climbing up the hill!” Pel yelled. “Kids, put on your shoes, now! Rayph, get the consoles on the dining room table. Jules, come here to the kitchen!”

“What!?” Jules cried.

“Just do it!” Pel yelled. “We’ve got to get as much dry food as we can carry!”

Panicked feet scampered across the floor.

Pel ran into the dining room to pick her purse off the dining room table and sling it over her shoulder. Jules rushed into the kitchen as Pel exited the kitchen, and then let out a big “Oh shit!” as she saw what her mother had seen.

“What’s going on!?” Rayph yelled.

“The house is on fire!” Jules roared. “Zombies are coming!”

Pel ran in to help our daughter. The two of them threw open the shelves and took things out, starting with the cereal boxes.

“What do I do!?” Rayph cried. “What do I do!?”

“Take the consoles to my car! And unhook the car from the charging station!”

The next minute or so was a mad dash all around. Pel ran over to the door to the garage and flung it open, unlocking her pink Pirouette-13 with a swipe of her hand over the door handle, opened the trunk in back, and then darted back into the house and into the kitchen to help Jules while yelling at Rayph for a third time to get in the car.

Together, Pel and Jules ran into the garage and threw the dry goods into the trunk while Rayph clambered into the back seats.

“What about our stuff?” he cried.

Pel glanced at the trunk. There was still plenty of room left, and still plenty of food in the kitchen.

She looked at Jules. “C’mon, let’s go.”

The two women rushed into the house, but then glass shattered.

They screamed.

The big curtain in the living room billowed and then fell forward as a figure burst through, flailing against the fabric. In seconds, the curtain rod was ripped from out of the wall, sending a flood of daylight in through the broken window. Pel saw three or four zombies rushing across the lawn, drawn by fire and the keening smoke alarm.

Pel spun around on her heels. “Car!” she yelled. “Car! Car! Car!”

Her and Jules’ shoes clicked on the garage’s concrete floor as they ran to opposite sides of the car—Jules on the passenger’s side, Pel on the driver’s—flung the car doors open, and then slammed them shut just as quickly. Pel nearly shut the driver’s side door, but then scrambled out of the car with a yell, slammed the trunk shut, and then darted back to the driver’s seat.

She slammed the door shut—this time, for good. She turned to Jules and yelled, “Open the garage door!” as she swiped her hand over the ignition scanner.

She didn’t bother with the seatbelt.

The car hummed to life. The console in the dashboard lit up, wide awake.

Jules pushed the button on the garage control overhead. The garage door rose up behind them.

Rayph pointed and screamed. Pel’s gaze shot to the door to the house.

Fear ran up her spine like lightning.

The zombies were clambering through!

Grabbing the steering wheel, Pel jerked the stick shift back, setting the car to reverse. The dashboard console showed the view from the cameras on the back side of the car.

“Shit!” Pel hissed.

More zombies were charging up the street behind them. The Ahmansons were lumbering up the driveway.

“Hold on!” Pel yelled.

She turned the wheel to line up the indicator on the dashboard’s rear camera view, and then slammed her foot on the accelerator. The car careened backwards and the kids screamed. There was a screech as the car nicked the edge of the still-rising garage door, and then a thump as what had once been Mrs. Ahmanson got a face-full of license plate.

The zombies snarled, turning their heads in unison as they followed Pel pulling the car out onto the street.

Pel looked to the left and right as she made the split-second decision of what route to take. But the sight of the prickly pad creature lumbering down Angeltoe Street at her left made the decision for her.

“Seatbelt!” she yelled.

Then she pushed the stick shift all the way forward—full drive!—and made a hard right turn, down Angletoe Street, toward Seacrest Avenue.

Jules and Rayph’s eyes were glued to the rear-view windows, watching as the car left the zombies in the dust. Meanwhile, Pel’s eyes were glued to the rear-view mirror, watching her life go up in flames behind her.

She tried her best not to cry. She needed to be brave, for her family’s sake.

The kids looked forward as the car turned off Angeltoe Street.

“Mom,” Rayph said, softly, “what now?”

It took all of two seconds for Jules to figure out the answer. It wasn’t a likable answer. But what other choice did she have?

Pel sighed. “I guess we’re going to grandma’s house.”

Jules just stared.