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  The intruders freeze.

  Walter opens fire. The fifty-cal booms, flames belching out from the barrel. The Walter war dragon is unleashed. Down below, a ripping round collides with the body of an intruder. Walter thinks it might have been his dentist. Skin looks a little sick since Walter's last cleaning. Weird. The dentist's back explodes in a shower of orange and red chitinous fragments. The intruders look confused. Unsure what to do.

  Through his scope, Walter sees them turn to a man with long, slicked-back dark hair and a dark suit with a red tie. The man looks right at Walter. They lock eyes. The man in the dark suit simply smiles then gives a slow wave of his hand. Walter’s heart skips a row of beats.

  The man raises his fist toward his flock. The intruders all pull guns from their backs, sides, and fronts. The bigger ones with the red eyes and the slick skin raise swords that look oddly like they are made of blue fire.

  Walter puts his finger back on the trigger.

  The man in the suit lowers his fist.

  Game on.

  Walter lets loose another blast. Another bone-rattling boom and another torso is blown apart in a spray of bright orange and red. The remaining intruders get a bead on Walter and start firing back. Bullets zip and fly, barely missing Walter’s head and body. He can hear the windows downstairs shatter. Thumps of lead pounding the concrete walls below. Walter drops down, avoiding the volley of shots showering his home.

  Crab-crawling along the roof, Walter works to set up at a new location. He manages to get a single, poorly aimed shot off before the intruders, these creatures, are opening up on him again. Seven or more, he’s lost count, versus one is a tough fight to win. Walter wonders if he should call his wife up to help, or if he should go down fighting in the hopes the creatures think he’s the only one here. He thinks of the conversations the family has had over the years. All of those long talks rush through his brain in a single instant as the bullets rip and zip all around him.

  The family must endure. Even if that doesn’t include him.

  Walter fights to find a new spot on the roof. It’s a good angle. The best he can hope for. He pops up. The intruders have moved to where they’ve found a little bit of cover. Walter scans through his night vision goggles, then pulls the trigger. Catches the leg of one of them. Takes pleasure in watching it explode into colorful dust. But as soon as Walter makes himself known with his gunfire, a barrage of bullets comes his way. The smoke and debris from the war-torn rooftop is starting to get to him. Walter knows coughing and sniper fire do not mix.

  He’s worried this is the end. The end of him. If it is, then he’ll give them one helluva fight. Take as many of those pieces of shit with him before he meets his maker. Lessen the number that Stella will have to take care of. He whispers a goodbye to his boys. An apology to Mara for not being there for her.

  Popping up, Walter looks through the scope, trying to get a bead on the bastards that have invaded his yard. His homeland. He can’t get a good shot now. They are moving too fast, crisscrossing, almost in an infantry, military-style pattern toward the house. Constant, steady movement forward. He takes a deep breath, preparing to stand up to get a better look. A stream of bullets tears lines to the right and left of him. One bullet whisper-rips just over his ear. Walter drops hard down to the roof. Frustration slams into fear. He can’t even get a shot off.

  Walter accepts that this is it. He reaches into his pack and pulls out two things he never wanted use. Not this way. He grips a grenade tight in each hand. Never thought this would be a real option, but he knew that if he needed to, he would. He will pull the pins and dive into a pile of those assholes if it will buy some time for his family. He eyes the dangling pins. Closes his eyes.

  A horn blares loudly in the distance.

  Walter pokes his head up. Bouncing headlights can be seen over the edge of the roof. The waves of bullets have stopped. The invaders have spun around, turning their attention on something new. Walter's almost sure he hears some Zeppelin playing.

  He scurries to the side of the roof. A beat-up old Blazer is barreling through the fence. The intruders take relentless blasts to their heads and bodies, dropping one after the other. One gets bitch-slapped by the grill of the Blazer, sending it hurtling up into the air before crashing into a lump of dead meat at the feet of the man in the dark suit. Their numbers are diminishing fast. The Blazer is making quick work of them, kicking up the earth in its wake.

  The man in the dark suit still holds that damn smile as he circles his finger in the air. The intruders start booking it for the hole they made in the fence.

  “They’re retreating.” Walter bites his lip in excitement, then sets the grenades down. Very carefully.

  Some intruders aren’t faster than the truck. The Blazer flattens them like roadkill as it makes a sliding, skidding stop. The Blazer idles for a moment. Walter holds his breath, looking to his fifty-cal. He’s unarmed. He’s naked right now. Left himself wide open, vulnerable to any new threat. The Zeppelin stops rocking, as does Walter’s heart.

  Through the sunroof, Mara stands up holding a smoking shotgun. She waves to her freak of a father with the brightest smile she's ever smiled.

  Walter sobs uncontrollably.

  Chapter Thirty

  “There’s safety in numbers.” Dibs sips some Life Raft coffee.

  It’s far superior to the shit at the USAF joint. Impressive. Still, Kate and Dibs take turns pouring a little whiskey in every once and awhile. Walter stares out the window, the gaping hole in his fence staring back at him. Mocking him. Stella keeps her assault rifle in hand, just in case. She doesn't know these people very well. They seem okay, but she doesn't entirely trust that they aren't aliens either.

  The twins cling to Mara’s legs, biting her occasionally. Walter and Stella hugged Mara for exactly thirty seconds. Stella timed it. She said if they needed to cry that was okay, but that needed to be contained during that time. About halfway through, Walter asked for extended crying time. Stella said no. Mara was thankful to get the half a minute. She was also very grateful they didn't say a word about where she was and why she wasn't home.

  “If what you’re saying is true…” Walter takes a dramatic pause. “Then we’re better off here.”

  Dibs looks around to the other faces in the room, trying to gauge where their heads are with this. Are they with Walter or him? Tough to tell.

  “This place is designed for this,” Walter continues.

  "Specifically designed," Stella adds, offering Kate some more coffee.

  "So, you're thinking we’re all just going to hunker down here forever?" Dibs asks. "Let those things have the rest of the town? The planet?"

  "We'll live," Walter says. "Look around. There are seven of us. Enough to fight and take care of the place." He looks Kate up and down. "We'll have to mix up the relations occasionally if we're going to rebuild the species."

  “Pardon?” Kate almost spits out her coffee.

  Dibs hands her the whiskey.

  The twins take turns swallowing bullets.

  "This isn't sexual," Walter says in a plain, oddly matter-of-fact tone. "If we have to repopulate, we need to mix up the genetic pools as much as we can. We can't have all the children be Stella and me and you and Dibs."

  Stella winks at Dibs. Fear spikes through Dibs. Kate hands him the whiskey back.

  "Okay." Kate stands up. "This is way the hell off topic.”

  “Look.” Walter holds his hands up. “I’m not trying to offend you. This is science.”

  "He's right." Stella points to Mara, who's holding off her twin brothers by the faces. "She'll be of age soon enough. Dibs?"

  Mara freezes. Her face goes red as her past ideas about him rocket to the surface. Going off to New York together and all that. Embarrassment strangles her senses.

  “Eeew,” she protests, over-the-top, trying to cover. “Disgusting, Mom. He’s old as hell.”

  Dibs holds his hands out. “Wow. Standing right here.”

 
Mara mouths a silent sorry while Stella’s back is turned. She blows him a kiss.

  Dibs is confused.

  Kate isn’t.

  The twins take turns slapping each other with a pie pan.

  “Enough!” Kate yells at the top of her lungs. “Those things out there will gut us and eat us.” She pauses. “Let that sink in. They will hunt us down and eat us, or worse, turn us into them so we’ll eat other people. We’ve seen it.”

  “True. We have,” Dibs says. “Ugly shit, man.”

  “We might make it here a few days, maybe a few months, but they will win eventually. Not to be an asshole, but if we hadn’t shown up—”

  “You guys would have been red-eyed freaks gnawing on a human thigh bone right about now,” Mara adds.

  Kate nods. Nailed it.

  "They're right," Dibs says. "They are also officers of the law. Newly deputized. And I'm the chief. Legally, we can't make you come with us, but I think you should. You're safer with us than waiting here for them to regroup and come get you." Dibs sets his coffee down. "I mean, they weren't even really trying this time. What's going to happen when they put their backs into it?"

  Walter and Stella look to one another. Dibs can see they are thinking about it.

  The twins are having a full-on knife fight while tied together at the ankle with rope.

  “We’re the law,” Dibs says, holding out his gun in his palm as he did with Mara and Kate. “I can deputize you, your wife and your two little goddamn psychos. That’ll make seven of us all together.”

  "The Stagstone Seven?" Stella says it as a question, but she's really only checking the sound of it out loud.

  “Mara?” Walter asks. “What say you?”

  “You with them?” Stella asks, tabling how cool the Stagstone Seven sounds. “Or are you with us, your blood?”

  Mara takes a step back, thinks, then turns to face her parents. This is the most significant decision of her young life. She looks into her family's eyes, then at Kate and Dibs, and takes in a deep breath. "Mom. Dad. They're right. I've seen these nasty-ass things go to work. We're stronger together." She thumbs over to Kate and Dibs. "You'll like these two. They're mean and nuttier than squirrel shit."

  Dibs and Kate shrug. She’s not wrong.

  Mara steps closer to her parents. "Please. I know you don't want to hear this, but staying here isn't safe."

  “Mara, you know what we’ve built here.” Stella places her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “This place was made for this very day.”

  “I know.” Mara places her hands on Stella’s shoulders, not really appreciating the silly little girl tone she’s getting from her mother, but hiding it. “But the day turned out to be worse than we thought.”

  The twins have found an old revolver. They take turns spinning the gun the kitchen table, getting in a quick round of Russian Roulette.

  Stella looks into her daughter's eyes. She can see it in Mara. Perhaps for the first time. In a single moment, Mara went from a child to a woman. And maybe, just maybe, she knows more than her mother, at least on this subject. Stella turns to Walter. He sees it too. Doesn't like it, but he sees it.

  “Oh.” Dibs snaps his fingers, remembering. “Almost forgot.”

  Walter and Stella look his way.

  “We’ve got our hot hands on a military-grade ass-beater.” Dibs grins big, nodding. “If that helps put a tingle in your shorts.”

  A gunshot fires off. The deafening close-quarters blast vibrates off the walls. Pounds the eardrums. One of the twins got on the wrong side of the count during their Russian Roulette game. Luckily, the gun was held at a careless angle and missed his little head, but blasted the light over the table all to hell.

  Everyone stares at the twins at the kitchen table. They look back as if they spilled grape juice. The light crashes down to the table in a plume of glass and plastic. The twins giggle like tiny, terrifying little maniacs.

  Walter turns back to Dibs and company. “We’re in.”

  Stella nods in agreement, her eyes wide, her jaw dropped, trying to understand her twin boys.

  “The Stagstone Seven is born.” Dibs looks over the room, trying to get his head around the most motley crew of whackos ever assembled. He takes a long slug from the whiskey bottle. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Dibs was taken aback by how Walter made driving the MRAP look so easy.

  Of course, Walter knew the vehicle and everything about it. “The Cougar 6x6 MRAP is manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems. Anniston, Alabama, I believe,” Walter says, pulling the MRAP Cougar away from the smoldering remains of the USAF outpost. “Seats ten, with a top speed of about sixty-five miles per hour. This sweet-as-pumpkin-pie bundle of badass was the child of Iraq and the ’Stan. Built for urban combat. Designed to give some and take more. Born out of the need to survive IEDs and close-range firefights. A go anywhere, do anything and get home safe to tell about it kinda machine.”

  “I like it. Real nice ride, Walter.” Dibs looks around the inside of the Cougar. He likes Cougar more than MRAP. “You know how to work that up there?” Dibs thumbs toward the cannon gun mounted up top. “That big bastard? That hog might, just maybe, come in handy in the very near future.”

  “I do.” Walter nods slow and steady. A warmth runs from his toes up to his very hair follicles at the thought of firing that bad boy once again. Civilian life doesn’t offer the opportunity to blow apart things and people often enough. “Yes, sir. I surely do.”

  The town is still dark. Not even a flicker of light anywhere. Eerily still. Quiet. Not a soul to be seen. Walter kills the lights, not wanting to draw any unwanted attention their way. He slows the Cougar to avoid unnecessary noise coming from the massive war machine.

  "No need to get loud until you need to be heard, I always say," Walter says to Dibs. His eyebrows bounce with his words. Walter knows the family hates it when he talks like that. Figures Dibs might like that butt-beating form of male communication.

  Dibs nods with a smirk. He does. He thinks Walter is completely out of his mind, but he enjoys the enthusiasm. Appreciates his state of mind on a day like today. Much needed at a time like this, though it’s fair to say there has never been a time like this in the history of all things.

  “You know where the Christiansen’s land is?” Dibs asks.

  “Who?”

  Mara pokes her head between Dibs and Walter, reciting the words her father would remember best. “You know, the land owned by the brothers of weakness and filth.”

  “Oh, right. Those morons cooking meth. Yes, I know the location.”

  “Good. Let’s head that way. That work?” Dibs stares out the window, letting his mind try and unpack what the hell could possibly be going on.

  "No problem." Walter turns the wheel cautiously, cutting up Main Street. He keeps one hand on the wheel and the other on his nickel-plated, rubber-gripped .357. A little more significant than the sweet sixteen gift Walter gave his girl, but similar. He notices that Dibs has his hand on his Glock as well. Nice weapon, Walter thinks, but mine’s better.

  "Why we going there, Dibs?" Mara holds her own nickel-plated family gun. The family name, Mashburn, is engraved on the butt. Stella has one too. Got it a few Christmases ago. The twins will get theirs once they turn sixteen.

  "I think that's where this whole thing started," Dibs says, watching the vacant town crawl by. "The Christiansen brothers were the first incident discovered.”

  "They didn't look good," Mara adds.

  “I’m sure they didn’t.” Dibs gets lost in his own head, but keeps the conversation going. Thinking while speaking. “What do we know, people? Huh?” He looks around the Cougar. “Let’s work through what we actually know. We know these things came here from somewhere else. King brought this here from another place. That means they have transportation stashed somewhere.”

  “Maybe,” Walter chimes in. “Maybe not.”

  "True. You're right. We don
't know how the hell they got here." Dibs nods. "Okay. Scratch that. We don't know that one, yet. Hopefully, the meth land will help us understand that one better."

  "They need us to grow in numbers," Mara says. "That we know."

  “Right.” Dibs makes a mental note.

  Kate pokes her head in. “They need the wives to use us.”

  "Sick bastards," Stella calls out from the back.

  Dibs turns back to take a look. Stella is pinned down by the twins, who are out cold. Fast asleep, snoring loudly with knives in their small, bloodthirsty hands, they do not have a care in the world.

  “So, if our understanding is right, we need to take out the wives,” Dibs says, turning back to the window. “We got one of them at Kate’s place.”

  “She put up a fight?” Walter asks, making another turn onto an unpaved road.

  Dibs and Kate look to one another.

  “Little bit.” They say it together.

  “Taking out the wives should make a dent,” Walter says. “That’s for sure.”

  “What about King?” Mara asks. “What if we lullaby his bitch ass?”

  They all look at one another. The kid might have something.

  "Maybe," Dibs says, rubbing his chin. "Head of the snake type of deal."

  Walter pats his daughter’s leg. Proud father moment.

  “You keep up with all this crazy conspiracy shit, Walter.” Dibs turns to him. “We’ve told you what we know about them. Why do you think they’re here?”

  “Well, Chief…” Walter thinks, scratches his chin, then looks to Dibs. “After talking to you fine folks, I coupled it with some theories that have been floating around the community for some time. Would you like to hear them?”

  "Of course," Dibs says.

  “Open-minded, are you now?” Walter chirps Yoda-like. “You pooh-poohed my strong warnings at the town hall meeting. Recall that? The one where we opened our arms and welcomed you into Stagstone?”