Макс Брукс - Devolution - A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre

I don’t know how we managed to make it home without being hit. Were they aiming for us? Could they see us? They must. One or two at least. Purposeful shots.

I remember the whistle. I couldn’t have imagined that. The cliché I’ve always heard of a bullet speeding past someone’s ear. This version wasn’t so much a high whistle as a deep whoffff. Right past me, bouncing off the front doorframe just before we jumped inside.

A rock struck the door as I slammed it. I can still feel my hand vibrating. Dan pulled me upstairs. I shouted, “Lights! Get the lights!” I meant from the master switches at the top of the stairs, not the central control from his iPad. But that’s what he tried to do, halfway up the stairs. He stopped to fumble with his tablet. “No… not…,” but he’d already dropped it. The glass face cracked as it hit the naked wooden step.

“Go!” I yelled as the house shuddered, kneeing him in the butt as he swiped up the iPad. “Go! GO!”

We ran into the bedroom just as the balcony doors took a direct hit. I yelped at the loud hollow BOP and turned to protect my face from the glass. But the doors stayed together. Like our iPad, and maybe our car’s windshield, the plate just bulged in a spiderweb of sparkling cracks. I had maybe a moment of shock, gratitude, then I yelled, “Drapes!”

We split up, yanking the cloth covers together, then turned to do the same with the front windows.

I can’t believe I did that. Hesitating for just a few seconds. But the view of our entire village, rocks sailing in from all directions, bouncing off roofs, kicking up ash geysers.

If I hadn’t stopped to look.

If Dan hadn’t noticed.

“Lookou—” His voice, his weight. The force of his shoulder in my chest. We hit the floor just as the window above us shattered. I felt little cold flakes pepper my neck and ear as the baseball-sized rock bounced across our bed.

Panting on the floor, Dan picked glass from my hair. “Don’t move.” The warmth of his breath, the pressure of his fingertips. “Here… ow… here… here’s one.” Maybe a minute, maybe longer, before it felt safe to move. Squat-walking to the bathroom, the only glass-free space. As I flicked off the light, Dan found the master switch on his iPad. I noticed some of the screen’s finger smudges were red. “I’m fine.” He showed me a tiny bubble on the end of his forefinger. “It’s not from the screen.” That had been the ow when he’d checked me for shards. Now it was my turn, crouching in the shower with the curtains drawn, using the flashlight from my iPhone, looking for any sparkling hints.

thmpthnkscrkthmp

That was our soundtrack, a symphony of impact sounds that, after a couple of minutes, we could pick out like instruments in an orchestra.

Thmp. The ash.

Thnk. A roof.

Thomp. Our roof.

Ksssh. A window.

And one big, crazy kssssh… ­weeeeu­eeeeeu­eeeeeu­eeeee. A car, its alarm wailing like a wounded animal.

Then footsteps. In the house! I looked at Dan, who reached for his stabber that wasn’t there. He’d left the coconut opener downstairs on the kitchen table, just like I’d left the javelin in the bedroom.

Time to get it? I wondered for a second before rapid strides clattered up the stairs.

Then a frantic banging on the bedroom door.

“Kids?” Muffled shouting. Mostar!

“Kids! Are you in there?”

We practically flew to the bedroom door; it was so dark we nearly felt her arms before actually seeing her. Shaking, all of us, on our knees, crouching in a group hug.

A second, a sob, then Mostar breaking to grab a face with each hand.

“Danny, downstairs!” twisting his head to the living room. “Get a… two… two seat cushions from the couch! Go!” No argument. Dan bolted.

“Katie!” Still clutching my jaw. “Come with me! Come, come, come!”

I ran across the upstairs walkway, past Dan’s office with its newly broken window and basketball-sized boulder in the middle of the floor. Into my office where Mostar, crazily, started opening the windows! I couldn’t understand. I was halfway under my desk. But when that little oblong, mango-shaped rock came spinning in through the open window, the words “what the fuck are you doing” were almost out of my mouth. Those words stopped short as the “mango” bounced harmlessly against the back wall, then rolled to a stop at my feet.

No window. No glass!

“Katie!” Mostar motioned to my side. I jumped up, opened the window, then pressed myself up against the wall as a rock whooshed through open space. This one, ironically, almost hit Dan, who’d just come puffing in with the cushions.

Mostar yelled, “Here!” She grabbed one of the cushions and jammed it against her half of the open window as Dan copied the action on my end.

thmp

His cushion recoiled slightly as a rock bounced harmlessly off the other side.

Simple. Genius. Mostar.

She was already sliding my desktop monitor behind her cushion when I slid over next to Dan.

“Behind me!” Taking the soft barrier from him, I jerked my head to the two smaller steel shelves against the far wall. Dan got it, rushed over, and tipped their contents on the floor.

As he lifted the first into place, I felt another rock punch my cushion. The impact nearly knocked me down. “Are you…” Dan’s hand on my back.

“Fine!” Nudging him away. Shifting my weight, widening my stance, I barely felt the next two hits.

Across the room, Dan grunted, “Look out,” and plopped the second shelf on the desk. Then restocking; files, printer paper, printer—the Ikea desk groaned under their weight. But they held! An audible thmp, a quick sliver of light between cushion and windowsill. But it held! I did the same, hands free, stepping back. A soft thmp and rattle of something hard and loose on my shelf.

Barely audible above the rest of the bombardment. That’s what Mostar called it, resting on the floor, back to the wall. “They never warn you,” she breathed, “they always come in before the sirens.” I heard her sniff, hard, then cough. “Never get caught in the open, always away from the doors. The old streets are best, narrow. They shield you from shrapnel.” More cryptic Mostar-isms.

She yawned, breathed some indecipherable foreign phrase, and then dropped right off to sleep. Seriously! Snoring! Louder than Dan’s! He’s at it too, now, by the way. Both of them, like characters in a Disney movie.

At least Dan waited for the “shelling” to stop. It petered out about an hour ago. Maybe ten minutes in total? God, what a ten minutes! Mostar’s still sleeping upright against the wall. Dan’s curled up at the foot of the closed office door. I was worried that we’d suffocate in here, but he insisted we keep it shut. “The alarm’s out.” Those were his last words before dropping off. “I’ll fix it tomorrow… fix it… I’ll fix it.”

I guess I shouldn’t worry. The barrier’s not airtight. I can feel little drafts of cold air drifting down around my desk. That’s where I am now, next to it, wedged into the corner, writing all this down.

My fingers are cramping. I need to pee. I want to sleep but I also don’t. I’m afraid of tomorrow.