Anonymous
It is the height of summer on a day that is just warm enough to be uncomfortable, and the Animals are coming.
Tyler and Aisha hurry into the metro, pushing through the crowds of people coming back from work. Against all odds they manage to find a seat, and as they squeeze into it together, Tyler lets out a pleased huff when the air conditioning breezes over him. Aisha wipes off the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve.
After a ding and the customary ‘doors are closing’ announcement, the metro takes off, sliding along the rails with nary a sound. Aisha rests her head against the cool window. Outside, the silhouettes of buildings blur into one, a dark smudge against the bright sky.
The sky is blue. It’s always blue, except on Mondays and Thursdays, where there’s a 50% chance of rain. In winter, Fridays and Saturdays are snow days.
“Another attempt to create a human AI has failed,” the above-head display in the metro drones, the reporter’s voice barely carrying above the buzz of conversation within the car. “Researchers let it train on a sample of various web forums and social media sites, but it turned violent again.” The other reporter jokes, “Maybe we’ll be stuck with chatbots for the time being!”
“Boo,” Tyler mutters, losing interest in the rest of the news report. He glances out the window, trying to see what about the featureless skyscrapers interested Aisha so much. “They perfected autonomous cars for commercial use a few years back, yet they can’t make some glorified chatbot.”
“Glorified chatbot!?” Aisha gasps in mock offense. “Don’t let the developers hear that. They’ll have your head.”
“Pah, what could they do to me? Bore me to death with research reports? I say, let them come.” He flexes his arms. They’re still sore from sports practice, but he’d been in a hurry to see the Animals with Aisha that he hadn’t bothered to stretch properly. Maybe he regrets not stretching. Just a little.
The rest of the trip passes and they relapse into their regular back and forth, chattering about how much homework they have, or that football match last night, or how Aisha got in trouble for sneaking pizza into class one day. “That’s because you snitched on me,” Aisha laughs and punches him in the shoulder.
In the background, the news continues to drone.
“The last breeding pairs of common pigeons - columba livia - have started to die with no signs of reproduction. The good news is we here at the Zoo have developed a model that can perfectly replicate pigeon behaviour! As always, we are committed to making sure that your zoo-going experience is the best it can be!”
The metro hums into the suburbs, tossing everyone out at the final stop. People spill from the station to the street, dispersing each to their final destinations. Tyler joins a crowd drifting down the largest street, tugging Aisha along after him.
The neighbourhood is a typical one, pretty little houses lining the streets with white picket fences, yards of trampolines and slides and swing sets commandeered by laughing children. Lawns are resplendent; grass glows green, flowers unfurl brilliant petals, and trees extend their branches into the sky in snarls that look random enough. There is a gurgling like that of a small creek, but the source is unseen.
Aisha slows down beside a garden. The tree that hangs over the sidewalk is an old, gnarled thing, all knots and rough bark, the trunk a whole person and a half wide. The leaves fan out against the sunlight, dappling the ground in gently shifting shadows.
She stands there with her head tilted up, clearly having a moment, so Tyler reins back his reminder that they should probably move on or they would miss the action, and stands beside her. The foliage shimmers emerald.
“First time out here?” A hearty voice draws their attention, and they see the homeowner, a jolly man with a full beard, standing on the porch. He smiles widely and walks down the path, leaning on the fence between them. “It’s a lovely tree, isn’t it? As natural as it gets.”
“Yeah,” Aisha says. “All we got in the city are sticks with a sphere of leaves on top. If you’re lucky it might be a cone of leaves.”
Tyler snickers.
“What,” Aisha turns to him, half a grin hanging from her lips. “It’s true!”
“That’s the city for you,” the homeowner says. “I take it you’re here to see the Animals.” When they nod, he says, “excellent timing, you lot! About now is when the most come along. A big wave is due soon.”
They are broken up by the sound of high, needly barking coming from the house. On the porch appears a petite dog, silky fur flowing like water as it bounds down the steps, still yapping. He has never seen such a dog before, not this style.
“Oh dear,” the homeowner chuckles as he turns to receive the creature barreling at him full force. “Her Highness demands to be pampered. Have a fun time, you two!”
“She’s a pretty dog!” Tyler calls after him. Dogs in the city are mostly standard sized, short hair mutts with not much variation to go around. Such is the effect of high demand.
“I know!” The homeowner says over his shoulder as he walks back to his house. He picks up the dog and cradles it, its fur rolling over his arms like a blanket. “I put in a request for one a while ago, just received and registered her yesterday. Worth every second of waiting!” The dog starts to whine. “Okay, princess!” The door swings shut behind him.
The two resume walking, heading down the street to where a red tint bleeds into the sky.
“We never have nice things in the city,” Tyler groans.
“I’m not sure I want to take the metro to and from school everyday,” says Aisha. Tyler reluctantly huffs his assent.
The road ends at a large stretch of grass. Beyond that is a crowd clustered around a facility - the civilian post - and a tower, beside which sits four bulbous machines with long tubes sticking out the front. The screen on the back of each machine flickers with a bold, red number, occasionally ticking up by one as a shot sounds.
The air is cloyingly sweet.
They push forward, swimming through the crowd. This is it - the Outer Lands, just beyond the barrier. Tyler twists his hands in his pockets, feeling his breath speed up every step closer. Aisha is just ahead of him, forging a path through the bodies.
The sky is no longer blue. Beyond the barrier, which becomes transparent as the blue water of the ocean becomes transparent on close inspection, the sky is dark red, murky with clouds. Clouds? Maybe they were plumes of smoke. Tyler squints - he sees no Outer sun. Many sources said a sun existed out there, but it turns out they were wrong.
Finally at the front of the crowd, they stand on the flat cement just beyond the grass.
“Whoa,” Aisha breathes, voice small.
The Outer Lands are a mess, just as they had read online, yet somehow worse. The photos they’d seen looked a thousand times better than this. Grime and ash sweep the sandy landscape, tearing gravel from the earth and whirling it into the air. Light glints harshly off of something embedded in the ground, and Tyler shades his eyes. There’s a short metallic cylinder. Next to it is another. And another. There’s a whole pile of them, and as another gust howls by, the entire pile scatters. Something like a plastic bag flies past in the wind.
Thin red lines, light made visible by the particulate matter in the air, slice through the smog, scanning back and forth like mini searchlights. They are searchlights of a sort, Tyler knows. They are just guides. To aim. What kills are invisible beams of concentrated energy, but the whole ordeal just wouldn’t be the same without the extra flair from the laser pointers.
Try as he might, he can’t find their targets. They apparently can’t, either, since things have been quiet for a while. Disappointed, Tyler looks at Aisha, but judging by her expression, she too hasn’t had much luck.
A shot cracks like lightning. One found a target. They turn to see, but are too late. That’s the thing with these targets - they disintegrate or melt within a second.
“Next!” The military personnel standing guard by the machines - turrets - speak into megaphones, gesturing with their arms. Their uniforms are bright red, just like the numbers displayed on the back of the turrets, one of which had hit 100.
The capsule of the turret pops open and a person clambers out, rushing over to their friends nearby the moment their feet meet the ground. They start jumping and gesticulating, puffing out their chest.
The next person in the long queue behind the turret bounces forward, waving their ticket, barely containing their energy as the military personnel help them get situated safely in the turret and explain how to aim and shoot. The capsule closes, the number flickers back to zero, and the turret buzzes to life with a deep hum. It joins the other three in a search for targets, twitching back and forth with the precision of the second hand of a clock as it ticks to the next position.
Tyler counts the seconds. Nothing happens; everyone is looking, searching, trying to catch a glimpse of the monstrous denizens of the Outer Lands.
“Didn’t you want to shoot one of those turrets?” Aisha whispers to him, conscientious of how silent the crowd had fallen.
He takes one glance at the lines snaking behind each one, so long they went in loops, and blanches. “We’d be here for hours.” He could come back another time. Sometimes that wasn’t when the Animals were most active.
Yet for a time that they were supposed to be the most active, there sure wasn’t any sign of them.
Speak of the devil, because one breath later Aisha gasps and grabs at his shoulder, shaking him and pointing past the barrier. At the same time, a megaphone crackles to life, and an operator announces, “Look alive, everyone! The Animals are here!”
The crowd surges forth, hooting and hollering, everyone wanting a glimpse. Cameras raised above heads flash wildly. Tyler nearly loses his footing, but Aisha grabs him before he falls. Military personnel march back and forth brandishing bats, herding the crowd to be a safe distance away from the barrier. Turret shots ring like fireworks, handfuls at a time, and the red numbers soar. Some soldiers have drawn their guns and joined the turrets, a cacophony of blasts filling the air.
“Where!?” Tyler yells over the noise, trying to follow Aisha’s finger but finding nothing save billowing dust. The red lines spasm back and forth, lingering here, then one blast later jumping there. The flashing and jittering remind him of lasers at a rock concert, complete with the accompanying loudness. “Where!?” He yells again, looking around him and trying to see where other people are facing.
“There!” Aisha yanks him close to her and grabs his head, twisting it to look at the Outer Lands.
Like out of the haze of nightmares, the Animals come. They break through the miasma like a jet breaks through clouds, curls of smoke swirling around their hooves and paws with each shambling step. Their twisted, atrophied bodies, blackened, peeled, and flaking with ash, are tangled in debris - strips of plastic, styrofoam cups, crooked metal wire, loose rubber bands. Every breath they draw comes with a shudder, their ribs pushing out against their skin so tightly they look like they could burst at any moment. Their blood encrusted mouths hang limply open, rattling with ash.
They stare toward the crowd with hollow, empty eyes, and Tyler wonders what they see - if they could even ‘see’ and process images. Maybe they saw their reflections. Maybe they saw the humans. That would explain why they kept coming, hungry for blood.
Dust piles up as the turrets find their mark, each collapsing Animal met with a wave of cheers from the crowd. The laser beams sweep by, shots echoing, numbers flying. The low energy beams are strong enough to deconstruct the molecules of the Animals, but not structures of plastic, metal, glass, and styrofoam.
One Animal, rotting antlers twisted with sheets of plastic, breaks ahead of the others, lumbering forward. It is possible that the turrets didn’t see it, so focused they were on the wall of other Animals in the distance. The crowd screams, yelling for someone to take care of it. People flee, backing away from the barrier - a few more steps, and the Animal would be upon them.
Tyler grabs Aisha’s hand and tugs her back. She’s shaking, but watching with rapt attention, eyes flickering to every flash of a laser.
“It’s coming too close!” He shouts. He can see the ghastly dark eyes pinned on him, the yellow, rotting teeth gnashing beneath cracked lips. A scent of rot washes over him, and he gags.
The crowd rolls back, exhilarated gasps and whispers flitting mouth to mouth, dispersing yet still hanging about curiously. Ice cream and drinks go unconsumed, attention fully turned beyond the barrier. Glinting eyes peer from fearful faces, watching the Animal stagger closer. People look around - is nobody going to deal with it?
The wall of Animals advances closer. Even with the turrets and guns going full force, the grotesque creatures prevail. Where one falls, two others take its place.
BAM!
Tyler jumps. The Animal pitches to its knees, and hairs away from the barrier, and its skin sloughs off of its bones, blowing into dust on the wind. The rest of it collapses into shreds. The rancid smell washes away, perfumed air taking its place.
The crowd cheers, confidence returned, hailing the hero that had saved them, but whoever it was has already disappeared back to the line, weapons aimed toward the outside mass. Tyler whoops along with them, laughter caught in his throat. Beside him, Aisha lets out a relieved holler. A father raises his daughter above his head and the little girl squeals. Several people peel off from the crowd to drift closer to the barrier, phones out and taking selfies.
Carefully, they inch back to their previous spot, followed by the shuffling crowd.
“That was… so cool!” He sweeps his trembling arms out, replaying in his mind over and over again the exact moment the Animal had fallen, its scratchy hide splitting open, black blood oozing out, all shrivelling up and turning to dust the next second.
“A bit scary though!” Aisha says, and they clasp their hands together for comfort.
They look out again. The gunners and military are winning - the number of Animals are thinning, the wave coming to an end. The clamour of the crowd rises as it realises this.
“Yeah! Get ‘em!” Someone yells. A chorus of agreement follows suit.
“Look! No guide!” Another person yells. A finger is pointed, and everyone’s heads swivel to see.
Sure enough, one of the gunners had figured out how to turn off the laser guide on their turret. “Oooh!” The crowd swells, appreciative as the gunner lands a headshot on an Animal without the red point emblazoned on its forehead. The number behind the turret has exploded into the thousands, every guideless shot making it climb. Tyler cranes his head, trying to guess which Animal dies next.
“Tyler!” Aisha tugs at him.
“Wait! I’m trying to see!” He responds, not taking his eyes off the turret.
“Tyler!” She says again, voice urgent, a tremor present. She’s backing up into him, knocking him off balance.
“What is it-” he turns, exasperated.
The smell hits him first, socking him straight in the nose so hard his head rocks back. It’s something burnt, like the smell that had come off his chicken after he left it out for too long, but a hundred times worse. He can feel the putrid acid worm up his nose, mangling the back of his throat.
Then, he sees it.
Aisha still pulls at him, dragging him back. Retching, he tries to regain his footing so he can run, but Aisha is too fast and every time he thinks he can stand the world spins and puts him down again.
“Let me up!” He cries.
On their side of the barrier is an Animal.
It’s a small thing, a corpse of garbage and rotting flesh masquerading as a rabbit. Its bulging blank eyes, sunk deep into its skull, glare forward. Flecks of yellow appear in the froth by its mouth, smearing into its ears that drag by its side. It limps, wheezes, and oozes pus as it flounders forward.
At this point, the crowd has noticed too. There’s no time for screams of help this time - people scatter, going as far as their legs could take them. Cups still half-full of slushies splatter to the ground, spilling their contents over the concrete. Aisha hauls Tyler onto the grass, kicking and struggling for balance.
“Stop it!” She hisses. “Let me carry you!”
“It’s going to bite my foot off!” Tyler screeches. He can see the Animal in great clarity, those long, cracked incisors with dead bugs stuffed between the cracks. He can see each stiff, spine-like hair sticking out from its swollen nose puffed up like a cancerous growth. It’s definitely looking at him, eyes crusted with yellow substance.
He fights harder until Aisha loses her balance too, and they crash to the grass. It’s right there. The Animal is right there. It’s coming after them, their flesh and blood and tendons laid out before it like a feast.
“This is it. This is it. We’re done for.” Aisha, trapped under him, presses her hands to her eyes. “I can’t watch.”
He scrambles to untangle their legs, but her jacket is wrapped around his arm and his arm is looped around her neck and his arms hurt and everything is a mess and they are so, one hundred percent, definitely going to die today. He finds no purchase on the ground. His feet keep slipping on the grass. It feels like he’s fighting against every loose piece of clothing dead set on keeping him down. It feels like he’s fighting Aisha. His chest is tight. He can’t breathe. There’s not enough air.
Any moment now, the searing pain of a bite will come, followed by the fever and chills of infection.
If this is going to be how he goes out-
Tyler gulps, squeezes his eyes shut and then flings them wide open, forcing himself to twist his head toward their assailant. He’ll go down facing the enemy, seeing it, imprinting its image into his brain for the last few seconds of his life.
The Animal has stopped at the end of the grass.
“What?” The confusion bubbles out before he can stop himself.
“Are we dead?” Aisha whispers thinly.
“No-” he pauses. The Animal jerks its head down like a puppet on strings. Its mouth yawns wide, the dark inside festering with infection open for all to see. Then it throws its head at the grass, sinking its teeth into the green.
“What’s happening?” Aisha peers out from a crack between her fingers. “Wait, what-”
The Animal jerks itself back, mouth locked around a tuft of grass that wouldn’t come loose. Finally the grass rips, tearing from the lawn. Instantly it turns grey, green light fading from miniscule light cells connected by the thinnest metal fibre, its electronic roots. Static ripples out from the broken patch, a domino effect of malfunctioning lights.
“It… it broke the lawn,” Tyler said, chest heaving. He can’t believe what he’s seeing.
A red spot appears on the Animal’s forehead, a shot cracks through the air, and a pile of dust lays smouldering in its place. A handful of plastic straws and part of a styrofoam cup stick out.
“You alright?” A soldier jogs up, gun in her hand. “That could’ve been dangerous! Pest was so small, probably got missed that way.” She spits into the ground. “Right. It’s been dealt with now, everything’s fine.” A huddle of spectators had gathered around to watch and she waves her arms, herding them away. “Cleanup will come soon! Go find something else to do!”
And that was that. As ordered, everyone left them alone, heading back to the more interesting civilian post where turrets were still going off, but less frequently now.
“That was… whoo!” Tyler breaks the silence, sits up, and drags a hand through his hair, damp with sweat. “I was sure we were- man- that was-”
“Gotta be more careful next time. Maybe we stay by the turrets. Safer there.” Aisha gasps, slowly untangling them both. “The military people with the guns are there.”
“Next time we should be in the turrets. Shooting and not at risk.” He hugs his knees and looks down, exhaling heavily. “Man…”
“We really got lucky, or unlucky,” She says. “It’s very rare that an Animal breaches the barrier.”
“I- sure. We just need to be more careful.” He says.
Tyler takes a deep breath and tries to stand up. It takes him three attempts. “Well, at least we can safely say our first encounter with Animals is also our most exciting-”
“Terrifying.”
“-and terrifying encounter,” he chuckles dryly. “Uh, and I guess no other one in the future will ever come close.”
“Unless you get eaten by an Animal,” she points out.
“Aisha!” He can’t help but sigh.
She laughs, surprisingly bright despite the shake in her throat. “You know I’d never let that happen.”
“Next time, I’m going straight for the turrets,” he gives her a look.
“Whatever suits you best,” she shrugs.
So they are two, one standing, one sitting by a patch of dead grass waiting for maintenance, trying to grasp some sense of stability again. He rubs the back of his neck. She twiddles her thumbs. If they look away from the barrier, the sky is blue. It’s always blue.
Aisha pokes at the patch of dead grass, picking up some grey blades between her fingers. She rubs them together, they disintegrate, and she lets the silver dust drift to the ground. “The structural integrity of this grass is laughable,” she says. “I hope the trees are better than this.”
“Take electrical engineering or something in uni,” He says. “Maybe one day you’ll be the one to fix the grass.”
She laughs.
They stare at the ground, as if by willing they could give the grass its colour again. The sun beats down on them, the sun of a summer day that is just warm enough to be uncomfortable.
“Man, it’s hot,” Tyler says, and extends a hand to Aisha. “Let’s go get some ice cream.”