skirmish. Allison was wrong. There is no safe place to run.
Mutants pack the front of the school, milling about in what looks like a confused mass. An occasional group splits off and marches to the road. You steal down the bus lane, thankful the streetlights don't blaze over your head.
Fewer mutants stand guard in back. Even one is too many though, with your naked flesh opposing sunbeams. You try windows. They're all locked.
Behind the cafeteria, you get lucky. The unguarded door leading to the dumpster sits ajar. Reaching it, you see why. An arm lies trapped between door and jamb, half in, half out. Just inside the door, the arm ends in a blackened stump above a charred uniform sleeve bearing a patch of your school's mascot, a wildcat. Mr. Cutter, the janitor, might not need his arm anymore. It sure came in handy for you though.
Strange sounds waft through the dark school halls. No light shows. You like that. You can navigate this whole building in the dark. But navigate to where?
The image returns to your mind. A giant red mutant lounges. Behind it are basketball goals.
The gym. Of course! Where else would a house-sized mutant fit?
Several halls lead to the gymnasium. You take the back one, through the teacher's lounge, coming in from the rear.
The door opens in a corner beside folding bleachers. Strange gurgling greets you along with winks of green light. You slip out the door. The two upper rows of bleachers are deployed, as usual. In silence, you climb to the second highest row and elbow your way over to the center of the gym. Angling your head, you raise one eye up to stare.
The king perches in the center of the floor facing a crumbled wall of the gym. Through that wall, mutants drag their injured bodies, limping over to stand before their leader. A green beam fans out of the king's head and plays across a wounded soldier while the king gurgles a sympathetic note, the only sound you hear besides shuffling feet. The beam cuts off. The solider waddles away, headed back to war. Another injured one soon takes its place.
This goes on without pause. You wonder what to do next.
A handful of mutants attend the king, enough to burn you to cinders before you could take two steps toward him. And if their beams didn't fry you first, the king packs two arms, thick as oil drums, which could squash you and your little surprise package before you ever became a threat.
It wasn't enough. The bundle of hatchlings had no chance. But that was the plan. Her plan. You must try.
Steeling yourself, you prepare to vault over the bleachers.
A huge commotion comes from out front of the school.
The king's attendants turn as one and light the wall breach with a soft blue glow. In lumbers another massive mutant, a smaller version of the king. The general! Any hope you had before now evaporates.
The she-mutant drags a burden behind her over to the king's feet. A thick rope in one of her knobby hands leads to a knot around eight spindly legs. There before you sits the spider queen, immobile, head wrapped in a plastic tarp to contain her lethal spray. The she-mutant presents her prize with a crude flourish.
On your back, the hatchlings sense their queen nearby. They twitter, eager to do their duty, anxious to protect.
The attendants focus their blue beams on the queen as the she-mutant flexes stubby fingers. With deliberate slowness, the she-mutant grabs a joint on one black leg and twists apart. A sharp snap announces the joint's failure. A squeal erupts through the plastic wraps.
The hatchlings go berserk. Your time has come.
You sail over the bleachers, bare feet slapping on the floor. Four strides take you past the closest attendant. You fling yourself at the king. A massive blow on your back slams you down. You tumble, skid, and stop, right between the king's legs.
Hatchlings swarm everywhere, on king, attendants, she-mutant, and spider queen. They cluster on the queen's binding and release their spray. The knot explodes. The queen rights herself. Plastic shreds and falls away, uncovering her black head.
Attendants twirl helpless, unable to unleash their searing weapon for fear of hitting their leaders. Marauding hatchlings begin reducing them to slag.
The she-mutant's hands slap across her body, crushing the tiny pests. She freezes when she spots one raised sewer pipe leg, unencumbered, poised. The leg stabs forward deep into the puckered fold, erupting from the back of her head, before it withdraws. The king groans as the she-mutant topples. Hatchlings swarm in to exploit the mortal wound.
A hand closes on you. The kings hoists you, shakes you at the queen. In your head, she laughs, a horrible squeal of delight. You, her best expendable weapon, ensured she got a personal attack advantage: her true plan all along.
They come together, king and queen, closing for a fight to the finish. Acid spray on one side. Yellow sunburst on the other. Both hit you as the king's mighty hand squeezes.
Your skin burns. Bones grind. Organs rupture.
Then, the final blackness.
* * * *
From the crashing and hysterical screaming erupting out of his room, Joshua's parents first thought a raging inferno must be underway. No billowing clouds of smoke greeted them though as his father threw open the door. Instead mangled pieces of Immersion Station components lay strewn about the room mixed with the still sizzling carnage of the boy's wrecked computer and furniture. Joshua's father checked the window for signs of forced entry, and finding it secure, he turned to face the boy huddled in a fetal position on the bed. His mother lowered herself beside the boy's trembling form, murmuring to him, looking for signs of mortal injury. When he remained unresponsive, she rested a hand on Joshua's shoulder and then dove off the bed as the boy snapped upright and screamed, "Don't you touch me!"
* * * *
Timmy's computer woke up and pinged. He loaded the queued packet message and scanned the report.
Joshua completed the playback, the entire stream. For some reason, Joshua's Immersion Station telemetry failed the instant playback finished, so he couldn't gauge any human host reactions post-execution. Right up to the end, the host's pulse, blood pressure and respiration had ramped, an unwavering line spiking from normal to tremendous overstress. Many other report values he didn't understand, but he knew he'd made a lasting impression on his opponent. A huge one.
Joshua's beaker still winked in the screen corner. With a flick of his thumb, he snagged and held it over the incinerator bin. Glancing in amusement at his bed, Timmy's thumb twitched. Sounds of tinder igniting crackled from the speakers. One more flick and the computer went dark. Five minutes later, he was fast asleep, and he didn't stir until the alarm clock chirped the next morning.
* * * *
"Just wanted to thank you," Timmy said.
"It worked?" Charlie asked.
"Oh, yeah. Here's the report." Timmy flicked.
Momentary static and then, "Jeeeze, I've never.... Holy shit! This is incredible! You came up with this?"
"Yep."
"Have you talked to the victim?"
"Not yet. I'm about to go to school and find out more."
"Amazing. Simply, amazing. Do you think you would sell it? I mean these are first class numbers. People would pay handsomely to get their hands on this kind of thrill. Hey, do you think you might make more, kid? If you're this good, we're talking big bucks here. Sony might even sponsor--"
Timmy tapped on DISCONNECT. One minute later he was out the door headed for the bus stop.
Joshua's artificial terror couldn't stand up to the real nightmare he had poured, molded, and shaped into his own stream. Nothing could.
But now he must face that particular monster head on. Timmy didn't need any further distractions from what he knew would be the biggest duel of his life.
# # # #
About the author:
Todd has always been a fan of the dark, strange, and twisted tale. Picture a vat of liquid Disturbed bubbling and churning away. Now imagine each of Todd's stories being plunged into that vat right before their emergence into the world and you've got a pretty
good handle on the essence of his writing.
GAME OVER happened to be Todd's first short story sale, originally appearing in Allegory, January 2007 (https://www.allegoryezine.com).
Find out more about Todd:
Primary web site: https://toddthorne.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dark_opus
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