Part III, the denouement
by Jeff Sawyer
No one knows when the gray squirrels became carnivorous and learned to parachute. Not even the Mayans predicted it, and they forewarned of great floods and Kardashians and reverse mortgage lenders.
I spotted the first, vile sciurine creature on December 10, 2011. I was watching “Dr. Whom” on the BBC, the episode in which the Syntax Booth teleports the language doctor to April 14, 2155, where he discovers mutant Chupacabra* Librarians hurling titanium library cards that behead anyone who says “9 a.m. in the morning” or “very unique” or “me and her are going to the mall.”
The window outside my bedroom went dark quite suddenly, faster than the mood of a conference room of employees being told they aren’t getting a Christmas bonus by a senior vice president jingling in his suit pocket the keys to a new Telluride ski chalet.
Peering through glass that suddenly seemed very thin, I could not immediately register what my reeling mind told me was happening outside. Rodents of the family Sciuridae were landing in the trees, on the roofs, on the cars, everywhere. Hundreds floated down from a darkened sky under tiny camouflage parachutes, blanketing the neighborhood in a turbid river of coarse gunmetal fur. One of them, perhaps the leader, had a lip tat.
They chewed through parachute lines entangled in car antennae, flagpoles and the spokes of bicycles and scampered to the trees. Never was there scampering more demonic than this.
Staring upwards, neighbors caught outside screamed and fell to the ground, batting away at the invaders. Gunfire erupted as a few men reached the deer rifles affixed to the rear windows of their pickups. An errant bullet zipped past my window and I dove to the floor. It was as if the neighborhood association itself was panicking, instantly filthy, caked with blood, parked on the lawn and behind in its dues.
Explosions erupted at the end of the cul-de-sac in reds, whites and yellows. The new neighbor I keep meaning to introduce myself to had crawled from the hideous Subaru in his driveway into an open garage door and was firing shells from inside, unloading a cache of not-yet-unpacked July 4th fireworks upon the beasts like a mini-Gatling gun. The creatures were quick, evading most incoming shells. Whenever one was hit by a roman candle projectile it was blown to eternity, a flakky furball that would have merited appreciative “ooohs” and “aaahs” from the crowd had it been Independence Day.
And still they came, the invaders. An old lady yelling, “See now, you get out of my yard!” was encircled by half a dozen of the onrushing carnivores and overrun while digging through her purse for a can of mace she had actually thrown out months before after mistaking it for breath spray and driving off the interstate into a pond. She went to the ground wielding a handful of spare dentures like brass knuckle choppers and was devoured in minutes.
By evening, the survivors on both sides were few. Smoke rose over piles of human bodies, neighbors whose last cogent thought was, “Surely this isn’t going to be covered by my homeowner’s policy.”
Immobilized by the elegaic scene, I was finally able to draw back from the window, stunned – worst of all, aware that all of this quiteus and destruction was wrought because of one person, me … all because I had attempted to deport a single gray squirrel from my attic when it had simply sought refuge, a place to keep its nuts warm through a brutal midwestern winter. But no, unable to tolerate the sound of its footsteps above the bedroom ceiling, I had pursued its demise through every imaginable avenue, summoning a worthless exterminator (afraid of heights) and setting a peanut-butter baited Havahart trap at night only to find it empty and sprung in the morning, as if someone had snuck out of a casino buffet without paying.
Crouching low, soldiers jumped from green army tanks onto the street, standing guard with bazookas while others scooped up carcasses with forklifts and piled them onto flatbed trucks. A few squirrels remained up in the trees chattering down at them, no doubt about revenge, shaking their furry little fists.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The next day at around noon, my doorbell rang. I opened the front door and found no one there. Out in the yard, sunlight reflected off a strange new object – a small, silvery steel table, atop which sat a white box. Wisps of steam rose from inside. Glancing warily up at the canopy of trees around me and finding the branches empty, I moved slowly towards the strange objects.
I could see now that the white box bore the image of a stereotypical, plump, smiling Italian chef. Red letters next to him read, “GOODA PIZZA! You’ve tried the rest, now try the best.”
Gingerly, I reached out for the box, pulled free the two little flaps on either side as I had a thousand times before, and lifted the lid. Inside was a large sausage pizza with extra cheese, smelling savoury. Nervous yet peckish, I slid a twitchy index finger under a warm, greasy slice of pie and lifted it toward my mouth. Just as I did so, a lever under the table slid sideways, and a great metallic crashing sound erupted behind me. I spun around, terrified, and saw that a giant, silver metal door had just slammed down behind me, shut flush to the frame, and locked tight.
The End
© 2011 Jeff Sawyer
www.sawyerspeaks.wordpress.com
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*Chupacabra being derived from chupar, “to suck,” and cabra, “goat;” together, “goat sucker.”
