Chapter 2: Chapter One – Rule One: Cardio

Chapter One - Rule One: Cardio

Amber had an interesting relationship with exercise.

On the one hand, she was pretty good at sports. Soccer, mostly; it wasn’t too expensive, and it let her hang out with some of the girls from the only high school in town. She could run and jump and hold her own fairly well.

She had always been a little competitive, and wanting to be one of the better players had always made her push herself.

On the other hand, she hated every minute spent actually exercising. It was sweaty and unfun.

Don’t regret a minute of it now.

She sped up, spurred on by inhuman howls and the creeping sensation that something was breathing down her neck.

Speeding around a corner, she glanced over her shoulder just long enough to see that she wasn’t being followed, at least not by anything visible. The long-armed monster was still by the cemetery, twisting this way and that while black blood gushed from its face.

That was enough to give her a boost.

Her home came up before her. A little two-storey house, once bright blue, now nearly white from the sun draining the colour out of the vinyl. The grass needed cutting, and there was a step on the front porch that was cracked.

It was home, had been for a little over a year. It was safety.

Amber bounced up the front steps, deftly pulled her keychain out of her too-small jean pockets, and fumbled with the lock.

The moment she was in the house, she spun around, closed the door behind her, and locked it. Pulling the curtains closed, she turned back around and stared over at the couch. Their house was a tall but narrow building, stairs to the right, living room to the left. The kitchen was somewhere in the back.

Not down here.

She took the steps two at a time and burst onto the top floor, heart still fluttering away like a bird trying to escape its cage. “Dad?” she called out. “Dad!”

“Sweetie?” Her father’s voice came from a room off to the side.

Amber burst in, eyes locking with the lump on the bed. Her shoulders slumped. “You’re okay,” she said.

“Hey sweetie,” he said. “Is school over?”

“It’s Sunday,” she said. She shook her head, reddish locks flying about. “Didn’t you hear the sirens?”

“The phone?”

She moved over to the side of the bed, her hand coming up and laying across her dad’s forehead to move his hair away. “Dad, we need to get to the basement.”

“What?” her dad asked. He looked up to her, familiar green eyes locking with hers. He had always been a big guy. Wide at the shoulder, a sort of brick wall type. That was before. Now he was, in a word, fat.

It was the chemo pills, or maybe it was some other part of his daily cocktail of drugs. It didn’t matter; something messed with his metabolism. She’d spent over a year seeing him turn from a strong, capable father to a man that only had his pride left.

“Dad,” she said. “The sirens went off. We need to get to the basement.”

He groaned, pulling the blankets higher. “It’s another test.”

“It isn’t, Dad, I saw the monsters out there. Creepy things, there was a giant skull and… and Dad, come on, let’s go downstairs.”

Amber moved around the room, pulling curtains closed and shutting off the lights as she went. “Are you sure?” came from the blankets.

“Yes. Please? We need to go.”

Her dad sighed. “I’ll be fine here.”

“Dad, no,” Amber said, putting a bit of force behind it. She picked up a few pill bottles and ran out of the room and into hers.

There wasn’t much in the room that marked it as hers. A few old plush toys, a pile of folded clothes on a chair. Medical pensions didn’t add up to much, even after downsizing. She found a big purse tucked away in her closet, already half-filled with a few odds and ends. Tossing the pills in, she rummaged around and pulled a canvas bag out from under a few things and flung it over her shoulder.

Returning to the bedroom, she found her dad sitting on the side of the bed. “Need a hand?”

“No, no, I’ll manage,” he said.

Amber gave him a few seconds, then extended a hand to him. “Come on. We shouldn’t be up here.”

Her dad hesitated, then took her hand. She had to tip back to pull him up, but he got to his feet, then started the slow process of fumbling his shoes on.

“Do you have everything?” he asked.

“I think so,” she said. “How are your lungs?”

He shrugged and started towards the door. Amber slid past him and made her way down to the first floor. The rest of her dad’s medication was in the kitchen, so she ran over and flicked every bottle into her purse. Her dad arrived and tugged the door under the staircase open. “Should we turn the basement lights on?” he asked.

Amber licked her lips. They were dry. “I don’t know,” she said.

We’ll need water. She grabbed a couple of bottles, then followed her dad down. He had tugged the light switch on, illuminating the humid basement in flickering fluorescent-white. It would probably make it easier for something to find them. But then, there were monsters that travelled through the shadows.

I want to see it coming, at least.

They had a little corner of the basement with an ancient sofa, there since before they moved in. It was a bit of a mess, but it supported her dad’s weight when he landed on it with a huff.

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Amber dumped her things next to him, then, with plenty of nervous energy left to burn, she rushed around the room closing the curtains over the little windows and shoving old boxes filled with mouldy books before those that didn’t have any curtains.

She was moving back towards her dad, to sit next to him, to hold his hand, when the floor shook. The junk on the shelves trembled, and a basket filled with dirty clothes by the washing machine in the corner tipped over. Amber bent her knees a little, arms spreading to keep standing.

Just as suddenly as it had begun, the trembling stopped.

“What—what was…” her dad stopped talking, a hand pressed over his chest.

“Dad?” Amber asked.

Then she noticed it. Dust, from the ceiling, displaced by the shaking of the ground. Her dad coughed, then coughed again, a racking, wet cough that had her cringing.

She rushed over and rooted around in her bags for a t-shirt that she pressed over his face. “Here, breathe through this,” she said.

This mouldy air, the dust. Damn.

“Inhaler,” her dad said. “My throat.”

She nodded and rifled through the medication bottles. “Um,” she said. “I have water.”

“Do you have my inhaler?”

Amber shook her head. “I didn’t see it. I’m sorry, I’ll go get it.”

Her dad placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s fine,” he said.

She could already hear the wheeze in his voice. “Where was it?”

“Next to my bed? I…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small picture frame, a smiling pair of redheads grinning at the camera, one smaller, sitting on the other’s lap.

Amber looked away. “Next to your bed, right? I’ll be back in a minute.”

“You should stay here,” he said. “I can get it.”

“It’s fine,” she said.

No goodbyes, she thought as she moved towards the stairs. Just upstairs and back down.

The first thing she noticed that was out of the ordinary was the sky. It had turned a swirling sort of smokey-white. It was like looking into a blue sky and seeing a few streaky white clouds, only these were low, and seemed to roam over the city like the fingers of giants.

Amber licked her lips and moved up the stairs. Barging into her dad’s room again, she spotted the inhaler right away. A blue-plastic thing, next to the head of the bed.

“That was rude.”

Amber gasped while spinning around. Her hand reached out, grabbing the first thing she touched and flinging it across the room.

Her dad’s pillow sailed in a tight arc and smacked the cat-like creature with a dull thump.

It flew off the edge of the bed. Then she noticed the inhaler dropping next to it. It had been in the same hand she’d grabbed the pillow with.

“Wh-what are you doing in my house!” Amber hissed.

“You have a cat door,” the thing said. Its head appeared over the edge of the bed, fur all mussed until it shook its head.

The creature was cute. Big guileless eyes, lots of fluff, big tufts of hair sticking out of its floppy ears. Amber was instantly wary of it.

“Get out of my house,” she said.

“Usually, girls are far more enthused to meet us.”

Amber crossed her arms. “You’re creepy.”

The creature’s ears drooped. “Ah, we apologise. We didn’t intend to scare you. I suppose your reaction wasn’t too implausible, considering the circumstances.”

“You can apologise by leaving,” Amber said.

It blinked. “I suppose we could. You… do know who and what we are, yes?”

“Yeah, I watch TV,” Amber said. And she saw the news articles, and the celebrity rags, and the cartoons. My mom didn’t raise me to believe just anything. “Do I need to fling you out by an ear?” she asked.

“How interesting! I don’t think that would be wise though. Not when there’s already a nightmare in your house.”

“You?” Amber asked.

Something crashed downstairs.

“No, not us.”

***

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