The Grinding (16 page)

“Out,” I said to everyone, grabbing the duffel. I
threw the bag over my neck and pushed my seat forward for Michelle and her son
to get out. Uri jumped out his side, cursing and stomping the mice and fire.

A huge building with a chain-link fence and a
massive, empty parking lot stood to our right. A trailer park spread into the
fog on the other side of the street. As I watched, twin monster cats pounced on
the roofs of trailers. One collapsed through the roof, breaking apart as it
fell. Screams and gunshots filled the park.

We rushed along the fence, running west. Uri held
onto the boy, and Michelle ran alongside. Without a car, we were fucked. We
came to the end of the street as screams and gunshots surrounded us. The city
that had seemed so empty at night was now awake. The creatures forced the
hidden from their homes. The mini-monsters stalked through the neighborhoods
near the Grinder’s path, herding people like sheep to feed the insatiable
monster.

And we were right in the middle of it.

There was nowhere to run. I could hear commotion
coming from every direction, and if there were monster birds, it was only a
matter of time before they saw the four of us poking up like bright, shiny
worms out of the early-morning dirt.

“We have to find a place to hide,” I said.

Uri had a thought. “We can go into the sewers. I
work for the city, and there’s a pretty big system right under our feet.”

“You want to hide from rats by going in the
sewers?” I asked.

“Good point,” he said.

Michelle climbed the chain-link fence. It was only
about eight feet high and didn’t have any barbed wire or anything. She made it
up and over quickly.

“What’re you doing?” her husband asked.

“I’m making an executive decision,” she said
through the links. She gestured to the building within the fence. “We’re hiding
here. Now hand me Patrick.”

I didn’t like the idea. We might end up trapped, but
it was a hell of a lot better than going underground. And the building was
huge.

I heard a loud, high-pitched, glass-tinkling crash.
Two cat monster shadows stood over the now-upturned Volkswagen, barely visible
through the haze.

“Move it,” I said, jumping on the fence. Uri
handed up his son, who no longer screamed but continued to sob. I remembered just
how scary the normal world was when I was small. I couldn’t imagine how it must
be now, especially with a hurt ankle.

All four of us landed in the gravel and rushed
across the large parking lot toward the giant, square building. Tinted glass
ringed the exterior of the modern structure. I couldn’t see a sign on the
building, but I had a pretty good idea what we’d find within. Tucson had
several buildings like this, and they were all the same on the inside: rows and
rows of cubicles.

This was a call center. I’d never worked in one,
but Nif had spent time in half the call centers in town. She never lasted more
than two months. Her M.O. was to get the job, sit through the paid training,
and quit a week or so after the real work started. Tucson had so many places
like this, I used to joke her strategy would last her through her twenties.
She’d get mad when I said that.

It’s not a
strategy
, she’d say.
I just want a
job that doesn’t make me want to vomit blood
.

Several emergency exits dotted the walls, but
there was no way in on this side except through a window. I didn’t waste time.
I picked up a big-ass rock from the landscaping and hurled it like a shot-put.
The big window broke on the first try. I kicked some glass free, and we stepped
over the threshold into a cluttered office.

A computer monitor peeked up through all the
paper. A white board contained a chart listing several names and all sorts of
random numbers, and glamour shots of a very large woman wearing a rhinestone
cowboy hat ringed the wall. A windowless door to the rest of the building was
closed.

“This is the Telesync building,” Uri said,
whispering. It seemed appropriate to whisper. Even little Patrick had quieted.
I peered out through the hole in the window, but I didn’t see any cats coming
our way. “They do directory 411 service. They also do 711 relay for the deaf. I
knew a guy who worked here a couple years ago. This place is usually open 24
hours. They must’ve sent them all home.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I think when Godzilla’s fucked-up
little brother starts trashing…”

I didn’t see the hawk until its talons were about
three inches from my eyeballs. Cut off in mid-sentence, I half ducked, half
fell backwards as the shrieking bird flew into the office. It missed my eyes by
millimeters, but the razor talons shredded my forehead.

And I thought being hit in the head with a
baseball bat had hurt. Fuck.

The hawk didn’t have time to stop its forward
momentum, and it careened into the far wall of the office, crashing into a
Glamour Shot. The hawk collapsed in a hail of glass, dead.

Blood poured off my head. I held my hand to the
wound, and hot blood seeped between my fingers. I hurt like hell, the side of
my head still tender from my earlier beating at the hands of Scooter’s bat
squad.
I’m gonna die because a bird
clawed my head
.

“Come on,” Michelle said as she opened the
windowless door. It led to a dark hallway.

I sucked up the pain and followed everybody, stomping
the dead hawk as I passed.

A sound like an enormous flag whipping in the wind
filled the office, and I turned in time as a ball of shrieking, knife-taloned
birds torpedoed the window. The dark mass shone purple as hundreds of birds
rearranged themselves to fit through the opening.

I slammed the door and backed away, cursing myself
for not locking it. It was too late now. The animals worked for the Grinder,
but had they gained any sort of intelligence? Normal birds wouldn’t know how to
open a door handle. But I didn’t know if the Grinder had super-brained the
things, and right now they were grouping and planning attack vectors and shit
like that. I didn’t want to stick around to find out. The door shuddered as hundreds
of birds slammed into it. The blood continued to flow, covering my eyes. I felt
light-headed.

Despite the pain, I clasped my hand over my
stinging forehead and followed the others down a long, straight hallway filled
with offices. Half the office doors were open, and I didn’t think to close them
until I’d already passed several. We pushed through a pair of double doors into
a large employee break room. Uri put Patrick in a chair, so he and Michelle
could move the refrigerator to block the doors.

I collapsed in the chair next to the little boy. I
felt dizzy, like that one time Nif and I had gotten fucked up on Jack and did
the bumper boats at Golf ‘N Stuff. A janitor’s cart stood nearby with a large
garbage can, piles of cleaning supplies, and loads of rags. I slid a rag off
the handle and wrapped it around my head. I pulled the knot tight. I could feel
my pulse in my head. It stung hard.

“You need a Band-Aid,” Patrick said looking me up
and down. It was the first time I heard the child speak.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I do.”

“It’ll stop soon,” he said. He clutched onto his
plastic gun, and he banged it on the table. I remembered I had the real thing
in my bag, and just an hour earlier it had accidently blown someone’s head off.

I watched Michelle and Uri struggle with the soda
machine. “That’s not going to do anything,” I said as they tried to slide it
next to the fridge for more of a blockade. “The doors open out. Besides,” I
pointed at the second set of doors over my shoulder, “there’s more ways than
one to get in here.”

They looked at each other and then me.

“We have to do something,” Uri said.

A loud crash came from the other side of the barricade.

“They’re in,” Michelle said. Uri scooped Patrick
up, and they rushed out the second set of doors. I followed, stumbling as I
ran.

We entered the main room. The call floor. I’d
never seen one of these places first hand, and it was just as horrifying as I
imagined.
The Cubicle Jungle
, Nif
called it.
The Soul Freezer
. We ran
down the dark center aisle, but there was nowhere to hide. We could crouch in a
single cubicle, but the rats or cats or birds would surely sniff us out. With
all the bruising and blood, I knew I smelled like a cut of filet mignon to the
small mammals.

I tried to imagine what it’d be like, to be
overwhelmed with biting rats and clawing birds. Earlier, I had watched the
soldiers beset with bugs. I didn’t know which was worse. Bugs, small animals,
or birds. I didn’t want to find out.

We turned a corner, and more cubicles spread out.
Behind us, a massive boom followed by a loud, wet fizzing cracked through the
silence.

“That was the soda machine,” I said as we ran.

We came to the far wall, with more doors leading
off in different directions. Two of the doors were bathrooms. No way. A perfect
place to get cornered. I guessed one set of doors led out to the main lobby,
which was likely a room with lots of glass with a view outside.
Coming in this building was a bad idea
.

Uri started trying doors, but they were all
locked.

I caught movement at the corner of my vision. A
set of stairs climbed the wall to our left, and it led to a small,
dark-windowed office that overlooked the call floor. I guessed that was where
the general manager worked so he or she could survey the hordes of workers. The
door at the top of the stairs was cracked open―and two people peered out
at us. Women, both about my age. One waved at us as the other pulled her back
into the room.

Before I had the chance to ponder the risks of
accepting refuge from a pair of strangers, I’d already bound halfway up the
stairs. I felt imminent exhaustion coming on, and I just didn’t have the energy
to run any more. I didn’t tell the other two I’d decided to go up. I wasn’t
even sure if they’d seen the two girls. Still, Uri and Michelle ran behind me,
clomping up the hollow-sounding steps into the raised office.

I pushed into the room, and held the door for the
other three to follow. I slammed it closed right after them. I locked the door
this time, and turned, collapsing against it as I slid to the floor. Once my
butt hit the ground, it pretty much told me it wasn’t getting back up anytime
soon.

The two girls crouched in the back of the room,
hugging each other in terror. One held onto a closed, black umbrella, like a
weapon between themselves and me. I had to be a gruesome sight. I wore a black
and blue body suit covered in oil and blood, half of my face probably looked
like an eggplant on a bad day, and I had a grimy doo rag around my head, which
still seeped blood. In fact, I bet two seconds after they caught our attention,
they took one look at me and thought,
oh
fuck, what have we done
?

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “This isn’t how I always
look.”

One of the girls looked at the other, who gestured
at me and repeated what I’d said. It took me a moment to realize one woman was
deaf, and the other had translated with sign language. Uri had said this call
center partially focused on 711 relay, which was for deaf people to communicate
with people who didn’t have a TTY machine. I guess it made sense that they’d
have a deaf person or two working here. I remembered now that Nif had once
applied at either this place or one like this, but she couldn’t type the
required 75 words a minute to get hired.

The deaf girl signed, and the other translated.
“What are you doing here? This is private property.”

If I wasn’t so terrified of making any noise, I
would’ve laughed.

Michelle answered. “Please. They’re chasing after
us. We have to be quiet. They’re down there right now.” Uri had let go of
Patrick, and the boy was now wrapped tight around his mother, his face buried
in her chest.

Outside, I could feel the Grinder a mere quarter
mile away. It had resumed its passage north, moving up First Avenue. If it
didn’t veer off again, it would miss this building, but only barely. Once it
was gone, I hoped the other monsters would go with it.

I surveyed the long, thin office, about ten feet
wide and thirty feet long. The way we came in was the only door, at the end of
the rectangle. The long side facing the calling floor featured dark, tinted
glass, top to bottom. On the opposite wall, a lone window looked out onto the
roof of the building. From my vantage, I could see a small, tended garden out
there, cactus and winter flowers in pots, which meant the window could open and
provide escape if it had to.

I placed bets it would have to.

Two desks faced each other in the middle of the
room, probably the girls’ workspace. The deaf one, maybe a manager, and the
other, her translator. Unlike the other office, this one was clean. Each desk
held a computer monitor and keyboard. That was it. On the wall by the roof-access
window were several old-movie posters.
Breakfast
at Tiffany’s
was the only one I’d heard of.
The Nun’s Story, Wait Until Dark, Funny Face
were some of the
others that seemed vaguely familiar.

The dark-haired, deaf one was pretty in a
pinched-face, giraffe-y sort of way. She had to be six feet tall and was a
tangle of arms and legs. Her translator had blonde, perfectly-straight hair
pulled back into a tight ponytail. The only sign that she’d had a rough night
were her round, saggy eyes. She looked like a sorority girl, the kind I
imagined who would’ve owned the Volkswagen I’d just abandoned.

Below, a crash broke the silence. I knew it must
be the cubicle walls falling over. I couldn’t see out the tinted picture window
from where I sat, but Uri leaned against the glass, looking. He pointed to
something, and his wife nodded. The boy stuffed his plastic gun into his pants
and scrambled into his father’s lap. He clutched onto his father like a little
monkey.

“Three monsters,” Michelle said. “Two cat ones and
a lizard thing. I don’t see any birds. They’re still way in the back, kicking
around cubicle walls.”

The two girls leaned out to look, and the deaf one
gasped.

“What are those things,” Sorority Girl asked,
signing as she talked. “We thought there was just one, giant monster.”

“Animals are breaking off the main monster and
forming smaller ones now,” I said.

“Hey,” Uri said.

His next words chilled me.

“There’s a bunch of people down there. What… Are
they dead?”

Sorority Girl talked, whispering and crying the
words. “Several of us were hiding out in the building, and soldiers came in.
They told us we had to go outside, and when one of us refused, they started
shooting
.”

“Those might not be real soldiers,” I said. Then
again, after what I had seen and heard earlier, it grew difficult to tell the
difference between the good guys and the bad.