I have a habit of putting my feet up on the dash when I'm in the car. The position is terrible for my posture, but there's something incredibly comfortable about feeling the car's fan blow on my feet as I prop up my phone on my thighs. My mom hates it and has tried earnestly over the years to dissuade me from it, but, alas, I am a slave to comfort. Now she just makes that funny scrunched face whenever she sees me doing it and wipes the dash down with Clorox wipes when I'm gone.
When I was younger, I found her obsession with germs to be annoying, but I suppose I'd prefer her to be a germaphobe rather than freak out about the various horrors of today, as everyone else seems to. I look out the window; the surrounding city is as boisterous and cramped as I'm used to, but nowadays, the spiraling and sharp architecture is a far cry from the square and boxy cityscapes I saw as a kid. I'm sure some Vanguard's weird aesthetics had something to do with that, though it's not like we'd have rebuilt, let alone survived, without them. Well, so far as those of us who did survive, that is. There's not much the military could do against the eldritch hordes, so I can forgive the strange taste of the few Vanguards who held them off in their stead.
Shuddering involuntarily, I blink away the images that the subject brings to mind. Repression of one’s emotions is pretty common nowadays, and life is really only as normal as it is because of the Vanguard. Somehow, all of them seem to have a mile-long altruistic streak and decided, unexpectedly, that with unfathomable power comes societal reforms and free healthcare. There was political resistance at first, but when the woman in a frilly black dress hangs you over her car-sized lizard's mouth and promises a permanent solution to your energy and housing problems, arguing tends to be the last thing on your mind. Banishing that train of thought before it sucks me in again, I turn to my mother's understanding gaze, who clearly knows what I’m about to ask.
"We're gonna pass Benny's on the way home; it would be a crime not to pick any up,” I say, like it being on the way home makes any difference.
Even with our so-called "optimally designed roads,” you need to make a U-turn to get into Benny's parking lot. My mom purses her lips and twists them, supposedly thinking hard about something she’d already decided before I even asked.
"Hmm, we'll see. It's such a hassle pulling into there. Besides, Brooke, don't we have pickles and peanut butter at home?"
She responds, making an exaggerated gag face to make fun of my snack of choice, like it isn't the greatest food combo in the world.
"Heathens who haven't tried the great ambrosia of Pickle'Butter hath no right disrespecting its blessed flavor! And no, we are out; I ate all of the pickles yesterday." I shout back defiantly, not an ounce of shame in my tone.
Her grimace almost makes me break character and giggle, but I keep my chest puffed up and my arms crossed.
"Alright, fine. We can drop by Benny's on the way back from the bank, but you have to go in and get it and text your brother and father to see if they want any. Your father is the pettiest man on the planet when we don’t bring back snacks, I swear."
"WHOOO!" I cheer enthusiastically, despite fully knowing she’d cave.
I give her a side hug, careful not to jostle her while she's driving, before I pull out my phone to text my dad and brother. My background is a picture of my mom and me from about a month ago when we dropped by the mall. We look relatively alike, though her brown hair is starting to give way to gray near the base, and she keeps it shorter than mine. I type in my password and pull up my messenger app to text in the family chat rather than individually messaging them.
'Convinced the Ice cream warden to part with her treasures, I know you want butterscotch dad, want anything, Victor?' I send, seeing my father's ominously fast and cryptic response:
'Acquire the cream'
And my brother’s slightly after:
'Sorbet for me, and hurry home. I refuse to be stuck in a house alone with Dad when he's expecting ice cream.'
My father’s single frog emoji response is as confusing as it is telling, and I tell my mom what they said, frog and all. She laughs, and I can’t help but feel thankful for my dad.
Things have been tough for everyone for a long time now, and he's always kept us together. Even though he’s a little embarrassing sometimes, he's been there for us despite it being just as tough on him too. When the city got run down about a decade ago, he lost the most out of all of us, and not just financially. He apparently used to have a few friends on the police force—the good ones, if what he told me is true.
When the Fathom first arrived and before the Vanguard set up shop, the cops were our first and only line of defense. They took heavy losses in those first few hours and still haven’t recovered fully since then. My dad hides it well, but I know it eats at him sometimes, no matter how goofy he is. I reapply my faltering smile and blink quickly a few times, banishing that train of thought as I hear my mom curse softly at the traffic.
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"You'd think people would drive better with these new fancy roads, but no, it's somehow even worse. And bless the shield, but goddamn it, it’s only worsening this headache."
Upon hearing her complaint, I look past her at the transparent dome of energy encircling our city and the admittedly frustrating saturation it applies to everything. Especially when I'm taking pictures, it's almost impossible to get good lighting, though I certainly won't be heard complaining about it.
Not just because it literally keeps the Fathom out, but some people can get a little touchy when it comes to the Vanguard. Our defenders have a cult following of sorts, and a lot of the religious types, when confronted with their mortality, decided that their fervor needed a more “down to earth” outlet...
I sway slightly; the turn into the bank parking lot is at a slight incline, and even with my mom's slow driving I can't help but lean onto the center console.
The small plaza where we have our bank is similar to the rest of the city, the obsidian-smooth roads and tall, pointed shops twisting like conch shells on a black-glass beach. She smoothly pulls into a shaded parking space opposite the bank and unlocks the car.
"You can stay in the car if you'd like; I won't be gone but a few minutes to cash these checks," she says, stepping out onto the curb.
"Yeah, the bank’s too stuffy, and they stopped offering Jolly Ranchers, so it’s a hard pass."
"Alright, I'll leave the keys in the cup holder in case you need the AC, and don't open the car for anyone."
"Mom, I'm twenty, Just go to the bank. I'm not gonna get kidnapped."
"Yeah, I suppose they’d just return you anyway." She jabs, sticking her tongue out as she closes the door.
I huff and lay back down in my seat, the consolation that my restraint will be rewarded with ice cream bolstering my attitude. No sass-satisfaction is worth the risk of missing out on Benny's.
A squirrel lands on the hood of the car, making me jump slightly as it starts collecting the acorns trapped under our windshield wipers and shoving them into its cheeks. Quickly, I pull up my phone's photo app, not wanting to miss out on a shot like that. He struggles to fit a particularly large acorn in his mouth as I line up the shot, trying to adjust the filter for the dome’s saturation, but it keeps changing. Wait… why would it be fluctuating?
I lower my phone and open the car door, looking to the sky as I watch the shield dissolve before my eyes. The saturation is visibly fading, and I can see particles falling from the dome.
Horror grips my heart, and every nightmare I've ever had since the first invasion plays through my head. My breathing hitches, and I look toward the bank. I have to get to my mom. We have to get to safety.
I close the car door behind me as I run towards the bank but already know I'm too late. The thin buzzing field surrounding it blocks my hands from grabbing the handles. I start hyperventilating, looking through the glass, I see my mom sprint towards the door.
She tries to push it open, but I hear the bolt click behind the barrier keeping it locked. She's yelling; I can faintly hear it as she grabs the security guard's shirt and begs him to undo the barrier, but I know he can't and she does too. All the shields are moderated by Vanguards to avoid tampering. My vision's fuzzy, and I can just barely hear her screaming for me to get to a bunker. I nod and back up, but my mind’s full of images of the corpses of those who didn't make it to the shelters last time.
Vision swimming, I turn and run to the car, pulling the handle of the driver's side door noticing all too late that it's locked with its keys still sitting in the cup holder where my mom left them. "Shit, shit, shit!"
I frantically slam my elbow into the window to break it but wince as I instead hurt myself and set off the car alarm. The blaring of the alarm jolts me out of my fugue slightly, as I force myself to think rationally. I have to get inside. Preferably not one of the bunkers, but all the other buildings are going to be locked up tight.
As I zero in on my surroundings, I notice my phone has been beeping in my pocket this whole time. When I pull it out, a map of the city with arrows guiding me to shelters takes over the screen. I gloss over the fact that a Vanguard somewhere has the ability to take control of my cell phone and start following the closest arrow toward a bunker beneath one of the parks about half a mile away.
I see smoke rising in the distance, but I know, thankfully, that none of the creatures are causing it. There shouldn't be too many Fathom in the city if the shield only just fell, and I'm at least a few miles from the sea where they usually come from. As long as I'm fast, I should get there before they have to close the blast doors. I cut through a gas station, shaving precious seconds off my time, when I hear a whimpering voice call out from across the street.
“Help! Please, something bit me! I can’t use my leg anymore!”
I immediately crouch behind a car parked on the side of the road, its driver nowhere to be seen. Heart pounding in my chest, I peek out over the trunk towards where I heard the voice and see a woman crawling out from behind a building, her dress bloody and hands dirty from dragging herself along with them.
I hear a skid on concrete and turn to see a man approaching her while crouching, his head swiveling, looking for what could have gotten her. He reaches her and whispers something I can't hear before extending a hand out to her. She smiles brightly before wrapping her arms around his torso and squeezing; the snapping of his bones audible from here as he’s lifted off the ground, and she reveals herself to be the end of a long tail attached to a car-sized monstrosity that hangs him above its gaping maw.
My body freezes, unable to comprehend what just happened as I watch him drop into the Fathom's mouth. I hear an involuntary whimper from my traitorous body and I shut my mouth while covering it with my hand. How am I supposed to get past that thing? The woman on its tail almost killed him on her own.
“Horrifying, isn’t it.”
I hear from behind. I turn, and the expected human head is there, but the rest of the body is missing altogether. Instead, his neck keeps going, extending like a rubbery hose until the other side connects to the sewer drain next to me.
“We made that one by hand. We think we’ve finally gotten the voice right for the puppet. It’s only smart enough to say the one thing, though we all have our faults.”
I can’t scream. I swear, I try. All that I manage is a crack of my voice. Despite the fact that my body is screaming "flight," I simply cannot bring myself to move. My legs wobble, stop holding me up, and tears stream down my face.
“Excellent reaction. We cannot wait to see what sort of beautiful art we can make of you, our clay.” It shudders, its far-too-wide grin shifting its other features like a poorly fitting rubber mask
As his sobering threat makes its way to my ears, I regain control of my limbs and scramble to gather myself. I stumble over my feet as I try to run, knocking myself into the car and just barely staying upright. As soon as I recover, it shoots ahead of me, wrapping its hose-like neck around my legs and sending me tumbling onto the glossy street.
I reach down to pry it off, but it pulls me towards the storm drain and I panic further, my fingers and nails finding no purchase on these accursedly smooth streets. My knees and elbows scrape against the storm drain I barely fit in, and my forehead slams against it as everything goes dark.