Shatterbones Read online

  Robert watched it happening, and he still doesn’t believe what he is seeing. Still, worse than their daughter transforming into a young adult in front of them, is the look in her eyes. There is a fierceness in them, and she seems to be looking at them not as her family, but as something else. What that something else is becomes apparent when she opens her mouth to scream at them and they see her teeth. Her canine teeth have reformed with the growth of her body and resemble the often laughed at image we know only from exaggerated movies. She has the teeth of a vampire.

  Tanya steps to Robert’s immediate left and the rest of their children crowd in behind them as they look at the person or creature Cora has become. Her face is smeared with dirt, and fresh tears continue to pour from her eyes. She smells the air between her and her family, and it looks as though her ears twitch before she abruptly turns her back to them and crouches down in a defensive pose against an attacker no one else can see.

  Looking beyond her on the trail in the direction they were heading, they see what appears to be a man running, but moving unnaturally fast. Cora turns back to her family one more time before uttering one word, “go” and then runs to a collision course with the man heading their way.

  Tanya grabs Gabriel, Robert picks up Emma, and they turn to run, but the parents’ eyes linger in the opposite direction of their body’s movement to see what will unfold. Cora impacts with the man and begins a furious struggle with each being slammed against the rocks on the ground and the trees next to the trail.

  The shrunken fit of the clothes on their daughter’s attacker tells them it is most likely the teenage boy that had passed with his family earlier in the day. He is much larger than Cora, and Robert realizes she is not the focus of his attack when he finally bests her in fighting. He knocks her at least twenty feet away and into a tree. His head snaps in the family’s direction up the trail and his eyes lock on Robert’s.

  “Tanya!” he yells to get her attention at the attacker’s approach.

  They are handicapped in defense while having young children. Even against a normal attacker or pursuer, they wouldn’t stand a chance of escape or evasion. Their only prospect to defend themselves and their children against animals of the human or wild kind might not make a difference against this fast-moving threat of distorted humanity approaching them. Still, Robert raises his gun and fires at the running bulk heading toward them while lowering his daughter Emma to the ground with his left hand. Tanya steps up beside him, and they count the short seconds they have before the man reaches them while firing every loaded round they have.

  He is hit multiple times in his approach and begins to turn away from them, but his momentum causes his body to fall and roll at them anyway. When he stops, he twists his body like a cat and crouches on his hands and feet as if ready to pounce. Robert is fumbling with a new magazine to reload his gun when Tanya pulls her trigger and starts putting bullets into the skull of this boy turned monster.

  Instead of falling dead, he starts backing away as if in pain rather than mortally wounded. He doesn’t travel far before he is grabbed from behind by Cora who once again yells for her parents to “Go” before ripping into the neck of the wounded man.

  They both hesitate to leave without their eldest child. Even with the horrific scene of her devouring their potential attacker and her distorted transformation, she is their child, she is a part of them. Tanya steps forward with her hand out and whispers Cora’s name.

  The immediate look returned can only be described as animalistic and fierce. Robert grabs his wife’s arm and pulls her back to him as if she were attempting to grab a steak from a starving wolf. Cora pauses and has a small convulsion before telling them all they need to know.

  “Leave me here, a part of me wants to do this to you.” Tears stream from her face as she forces the words out.

  Tanya shakes and sobs as she gathers up her other children and turns them down the path toward their campsite.

  “Goodbye, Cora. I love you.”

  Robert leans down, picks Emma back up and turns away from his daughter’s gruesome feast. He only makes it ten feet before Cora lands in front of him, having jumped over his head from her place on the trail where she left her fresh kill. He freezes in fear for a moment, but she steps in and pulls him into an embrace and rubs her face against his chest smearing his shirt with the dirt, tears and blood of her ordeal.

  Releasing him and Emma from what he believes would be the final act of tenderness and emotion he will receive from his daughter, she smiles briefly before frowning and crying anew. “There will be more. Just like me, just like him. You have to get prepared.”

  With those words, she jumps away from her father and returns to the body of the boy, and Robert runs to catch up with his wife on the trail.

  Along the trail, the deadly truth of Cora’s statement plays out before they make it back to camp. At first, they pass the body of an elderly man lying in the bushes. His skin is pale white, and his eyes are stretched wide in a gaze at the unusual blue-hued landscape. He is obviously dead and most likely drained of blood if other children are changing the way their daughter has. There is a fleeting moment of normalcy with Tanya’s desire to check on the man’s condition, but that moment passes as soon as they hear movement on the trail up ahead and see another two bodies.

  Another girl, similar to Cora, is leaning over an elderly woman, probably the old man’s hiking companion. She is latched onto the woman’s neck.

  The trail is narrow, and they are forced to walk into the bushes to edge around this girl with her prey, guns out and ready for her to pounce. Robert hands Emma to his wife and stands between his family and the girl as they pass, waiting for her to move. He has his gun trained on the girls head, but knows he has little chance of stopping her if she can move like that boy or his daughter did.

  Back on the trail, Robert tentatively walks backward, keeping his eye on this threat to their rear, and the girl finally takes physical notice of them with her head popping up to stare directly at the armed father. He steadies his gun’s aim, but true to his fear, the girl jumps at him and knocks his arm to the side, making the single shot he manages to fire to go wide. The speed they have is incredible.

  Instead of biting him or knocking him down, she sniffs at his shirt and pierces his eyes with her stare. Her head pivots and shifts as she smells him, but her eyes never move away from his. His hand is shaking, still holding onto the gun she pushed away. He wants to pull it up and aim it, but he knows he won’t have the speed to shoot her.

  “You don’t need to shoot me,” she exclaims stepping back away from him and seemingly reading his mind. “Not that you could if you tried.”

  “Can my family and I leave?”

  A noise on the hillside in the sun makes the girl slink back away from him.

  “You need to mark them all if you want them to live,” she cries out while backing away to her previous victim.

  Robert watches as the old woman’s body is dragged out of sight down the trail. When he turns, he sees Cora standing between him and his wife. Cora has grown taller again and has something sticking out of her back under her shirt. A deep womanly voice of confidence echoes from her throat. “That girl was right. I need to mark you all.”

  She walks up to her father and now stands almost face to face to his six-foot height. She pulls his head a little lower to hers and begins crying again. At least it seems like tears at first, but they are thicker like gelatin. She rubs them on his face then bears her teeth, her new fangs, and rakes them up his forehead giving him two small cuts.

  With a small bittersweet smile, she turns from him and does the same with her mother and her brothers and sisters. Giving an unusually tender hug to Gabriel, she hands him back to Tanya and faces her parents. “I don’t know exactly what is happening, but I am beginning to. This isn’t just here, I think it is everywhere. You should stay at the campsite. Don’t go home, I can’t protect you there. I will tell you what is happening when I find out
more.”

  Robert’s body is numb and weak when he emerges from the forest. Tanya exclaims the same feeling of exhaustion. Besides the inexplicable occurrence of the blue light, transformations, and murders, they have been carrying their youngest children for most of the day. Tanya and Robert hold on to each other and pull their children in close as they walk past additional scenes of death and other small groups of people huddled in fear and confusion.

  The group walks through the campsite parking area and to their tent and camper. Along the way, bodies in various conditions of injury are pulled away from them and their path as the mutated children smell the air around the family and give them a wide berth.

  Tanya ushers her children into the camper and Robert follows, shivering with fear and uncertainty as he heads to the back cabinet to get the bigger guns and start loading them.

  Chapter Four

  Exodus

  Springfield, Oregon

  With no belongings in hand, Evelyn and Greg are rushed out of their house toward the waiting SUVs in their circular driveway. Their government saviors arrived in vehicles that look somewhat worse for wear. A crushed grill, shattered windshield, and smeared blood on the front of one of the vehicles makes the two hesitate and slow their approach. Staring at Agent Everett, Greg pulls his wife in close and turns his concerned expression to the men at his side.

  “It’s a warzone out there, sir,” he states before Greg can utter his question at the scene. “It isn’t pretty, but we have to get you to the airport.”

  The two climb into the backseat of the undamaged vehicle and watch as the first one speeds off ahead of them with their own cars tires spinning out before locking into the gravel to keep pace with the lead SUV.

  The Cavanaughs haven’t gone through all of the required training protocols as some of the senior members of government have. Emergency evacuations of all government personnel during regional crises was a regularly practiced drill for the DHS. A crisis on a national scale such as this was theorized but never implemented in practice or pamphlet form. The hope was that individual offices would implement their own protocols to gather as many members of the government as possible and take them to their respective safe locations.

  “This isn’t the quickest way to the airport” Greg offers as the vehicles turn west on Main Street.

  “We tried coming down the freeway to get to you, sir, it’s not an option.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “What did they tell you on the phone, sir?”

  “Not a damn thing, they only…”

  “Holy shit!”

  A jolt slams everyone to the left side of the cab when the driver turns the wheel sharply to avoid hitting the lead vehicle.

  A man has jumped onto the SUV in front of them and is pounding and scratching at the roof, trying to gain entry. As the vehicle they are in passes the swerving SUV in distress, flashes of light erupt from the gun barrels of the men inside pouring lead into the pale white attacker above them.

  The expected outcome of the man falling dead and rolling off of the vehicle doesn’t occur. Instead, he hops to his feet in a crouch and makes an impossible jump to the low roof of the next building they pass.

  “What the hell was that? How did that man jump that far?”

  “That is what we are up against out here, and it wasn’t a man, that was a teenager.”

  Even through the increasing stress and with the shock of seeing the attack, Evelyn is able to laugh at the ridiculous notion that the man attacking the other vehicle was anything other than a full-grown man.

  “We asked about the location of your son for a reason, ma’am. What we have been told so far is that children are mutating rapidly into adults and attacking other people.”

  “And you think my son is involved in this?”

  The man in the passenger seat undoes his seatbelt and turns back to the pair and yells, “Listen, lady, maybe you should be thanking us for saving your ass instead of running home to protect our own families. I have a wife that’s out there with my son and daughter, and I’m stuck here trying to get you to safety. I don’t know if my kids have turned into one of those creatures like others have or not.”

  Something crashes into the passenger side of their SUV, knocking the argumentative agent’s head into the door frame. His limp body slams into the driver and shattered glass from the side windows fly around the compartment. The impact pushes their vehicle sideways for a few seconds, and the SUV’s squealing tires skid across the street until they get enough purchase to begin moving beyond whatever has hit them.

  The driver’s left hand is turning white with strain as he attempts to keep the vehicle in control while shoving his unconscious partner away from him. The vehicle rocks several times to each side, threatening to overturn before the driver is finally able to regain control.

  Ultimately, his skill behind the wheel has them speeding away from the danger.

  All of the passengers turn around to peer out the rear window as the giant creature that rammed into them continues its course and steps into the path of the second SUV, ending that groups attempted escape of the returned rooftop terror. The rear end of the crashed vehicle lifts from the ground slightly as the larger monster crushes the front end before its own injuries cause it to collapse to the pavement and roll away.

  “What the hell is that?”

  A second large hulking creature steps out from the same side road as the first one and heads toward the wrecked SUV.

  The straight stretch of road they are on doesn’t save their senses from witnessing the assault and final stand of the men behind them. The giant creature rips the passenger door open and pulls out the man from inside, seeming impervious to the bullets that man and the others are firing at the new threat. His head disappears into the gaping mouth of the tremendous creature, and they watch as it is pulled cleanly off. A curve in the road ends their view of the horrific scene they are speeding away from, but the images are still burned into their minds.

  The numbed passengers silently turn to face the oncoming road in this new devastated landscape. Wrecked cars, bodies and some form of destruction are noticeable on almost every street they pass. The driver expertly swerves their own damaged vehicle through the wreckage on the road.

  “We’re good, Everett,” the driver calls back.

  “What does he mean we’re good?”

  “The bridge ahead is clear. We didn’t know if we could make it across the bridge into Eugene to get you to the airport, sir.” The driver shakes his head to stop the question he believes the representative is going to ask. “I didn’t think it was necessary to worry you and your wife that the bridge might be out, and honestly, we didn’t have the time to lay out our plan.”

  “You need to warn us about the possibilities in case we have to leave the vehicle and run for it.”

  “With all due respect, sir, you live here as well as we do and know the way to the airport. Any potential roadblocks that existed before are still there and in all seriousness, if we have to leave this vehicle before we get you to the plane, we aren’t going to make it.”

  “Like a plane is going to help you!” Weak-sounding sarcasm is coming from the recovering agent in the front. His words are filled with depression and anger.

  “What is your problem?” Evelyn asks.

  “You know what my problem is. My family is out there, and in a few blocks, I’m getting out to go help them. I’m not in the Secret Service and you aren’t the president or his wife. All I care about right now is getting back to my family. As for you two going up in a plane, we aren’t even sure if aircraft will stay in the air anymore.”

  Agent Everett shakes his head and turns to Greg and Evelyn. “Planes have been falling from the skies since this blue light arrived. It is possible that it’s affecting them structurally in some way, but more likely, it is children that have mutated while onboard planes that have brought them down.”

  “How many planes have crashed?”

&
nbsp; “I don’t have an exact number. I believe there are about three to four thousand planes in the air at any given time. We can assume any flight that had a child onboard who changed will crash so it is likely in the thousands.”

  “Thousands?”

  “Yes, thousands. And those thunderous sounds you asked me about earlier were most likely planes crashing around Eugene and Springfield. Although I haven’t seen any come down, I don’t know of anything else in this area that could produce such a tremendous explosion.”

  “We might have one up ahead,” the driver mentions, indicating a huge column of black smoke off to the left.

  They all crane their necks to look at the flaming debris among the remnants of houses as they drive by. A piece of a wing sticking out of a flaming building three blocks away confirms the tale of devastation. A medium-sized commercial plane went down on the subdivision, and it wasn’t a controlled crash. The breadth and depth of the destruction makes it look like the plane started rolling before or after it hit.

  There are no firefighters or fire trucks battling the blaze and no police in the area cordoning off a safe zone around the accident. Anyone that survived when the plane crashed and caused the spreading fires are left to fend for themselves in the chaos the city has found itself in.

  “I wish we could stop, I feel like we should help.”

  “We should, but we can’t. You can see there is nobody standing around out there trying to help. Everyone is running for their lives like we are or they’re in hiding.”

  Two minutes later, the SUV pulls over and the man riding shotgun gets out. He shakes glass from his jacket and pants and without a word or acknowledgment that the others exist, he runs across the road and disappears around the corner of a house on his attempt to make it home. The SUV continues on.

  “That’s the third plane crash we’ve seen,” Evelyn states as they move beyond their view of another smoldering crater of wreckage in a field. “I can’t imagine what is happening around the country right now if this many planes have crashed just here in Eugene.”