Plastic Folding Tables

Devon scraped the aluminum ladle against the bottom of the ceramic crockpot. The sound was a high, drilling screech that made the fillings in Sandra's back teeth throb.

"This is literally mid," Devon said. He stared down into the brown sludge. "I am eating burnt water. Who made this?"

"You did," Sandra said. She didn't look up from her gear. She sat at one of the cheap plastic folding tables that filled the community hall, running a greasy rag over the barrel of a kinetic shotgun. The air in the room smelled like bleach, wet dog, and scorched meat.

"I followed the recipe," Devon argued. He dropped the ladle back into the pot. It landed with a wet, heavy thud. "It said spicy venison chili. I used the venison from the November hunt. I dumped in the hot sauce. It tastes like dust."

"You burned the bottom," Mike said. Rookie Mike. He sat two tables over, scrolling on a cracked phone. The blue light from the screen illuminated the acne scars on his chin. "You left it on high for six hours. The meat is ruined."

"Shut up, Mike," Devon said. He scooped a gray lump of meat into a styrofoam bowl and carried it back to his seat. The floorboards creaked under his boots. The community hall was basically a rotting wooden shed built in the seventies, meant for bingo nights, not as a staging ground for tracking biological anomalies.

Outside, the spring thaw was doing its worst. For three days, the temperature had spiked aggressively. The unseasonably warm air turned the heavy winter snowpack into a dripping, rotting slush. Water leaked through the roof. It dripped into a plastic bucket near the door. Drip. Drip. Drip. The sound was driving Sandra insane.

"Eat it fast," Sandra said. She tossed the dirty rag onto the table. "The slush is getting worse. If the ground thaws another inch, the perimeter sensors are going to sink into the mud and short out."

"The sensors are fine," Devon said around a mouthful of bad chili. His nose crinkled. He swallowed hard, his throat working. "We sealed them with silicone last week."

"You sealed them," Sandra corrected. "Which means they are probably leaking right now."

Mike laughed. A short, nervous sound. Devon shot him a glare that shut the rookie up immediately. Mike went back to his phone. His thumbs moved in rapid, anxious bursts.

Devon pushed his bowl away. The styrofoam squeaked against the plastic table. "I'm just saying, we should have ordered pizzas. The highway is clear. Delivery could make it up the access road."

"Nobody is delivering pizza to a condemned bingo hall in the woods," Sandra said. She slammed the shotgun barrel into the receiver. The metal click echoed off the cheap wood paneling. "And we aren't here to eat. We are here to watch the ice."

"The ice is gone," Mike mumbled without looking up.

"What did you say?" Devon asked.

"The ice is gone," Mike repeated. He finally looked up from his screen. His eyes were wide. "I walked out there an hour ago to smoke. The ravine? It's just mud now. The deep-freeze is totally exposed. The slush is just washing over it."

Sandra froze. Her hands stopped moving over the weapon. The blood drained from her face. Her stomach tightened, a hard knot of panic forming right below her ribs. "You went down to the ravine?"

"Yeah," Mike said. He shifted in his plastic chair. The chair groaned. "Just to the edge. The ice shelf collapsed. It's just water and dirt down there now."

"You idiot," Devon hissed. He stood up. His chair scraped violently against the floorboards. "The thermal variance. If you stood near the edge, your body heat..."

He didn't get to finish the sentence.

On the far wall, the community scanner pinged.

It wasn't a digital, clean sound. It was an analog shriek. A brutal, grinding noise that tore through the quiet room like a circular saw hitting a nail. The red bulb mounted on top of the radio rig flashed, bathing the dirty walls in a harsh, pulsing glare.

Sandra was on her feet instantly. Her chair tipped backward and hit the floor with a loud smack.

"Movement," she shouted. She sprinted toward the radio rig.

Devon cursed. He grabbed his styrofoam bowl and threw it. It hit the wall, splattering burnt chili across the peeling wallpaper. "It's waking up! The melt woke it up!"

Sandra reached the scanner. She slammed her hand against the side of the metal casing. The needle on the main dial was buried in the red. The geographic display showed a massive heat bloom right where the ice shelf used to be.

"It's out of the freeze," Sandra said. Her voice was tight. The cognitive static of fear made her hands shake. She forced herself to breathe. "It's moving. Fast."

"Where?" Devon asked. He was already moving toward the gear lockers.

"North," Sandra read the dial. "Up the embankment. It's heading for the tree line."

"If it clears the pines, it hits the highway," Devon said. His face was pale. The highway was three miles away. If the thing got onto the asphalt, it would hit civilian traffic. "We need the EMPs. Grab the rifles. Now."

Mike dropped his phone. It clattered against the floorboards. He scrambled toward the heavy metal gun rack at the back of the hall. He reached for the heavy, blocky EMP rifles. He grabbed the first one and hauled it off the rack. The weapon weighed forty pounds. He grunted under the load and slammed it onto the nearest plastic folding table.

Devon jogged over and slapped the power switch on the side of the rifle.

The digital display on the rifle blinked once, flashed a low-battery icon, and died.

Devon stared at the dark screen. The air in his lungs vanished. He pressed the button again. Nothing. He grabbed the second rifle from the rack. He slammed it onto the table. He hit the switch.

Dead.

Devon's head snapped up. He looked at Mike. His eyes were wild. "Are you kidding me?"

"I plugged them in," Mike stammered. He backed away from the table. His hands were raised. "I swear to God, I plugged them in last night."

"The meters are zero," Devon yelled. He grabbed the heavy power cable dangling from the rack. He traced it to the wall outlet. The outlet was scorched black. The surge protector was melted into a warped lump of plastic.

"The circuit tripped," Devon said. His voice was a dangerous whisper. "The power grid in this stupid shed surged, and the circuit tripped. They didn't charge."

"That's not my fault!" Mike shouted. His voice cracked. "I didn't design the wiring!"

"You had one job, Mike!" Devon roared. "You were supposed to check the meters this morning! You told me they were green!"

"I thought they were!" Mike yelled back. "I looked at them from across the room!"

"You're so sus, I swear to God!" Devon grabbed Mike by the collar of his jacket. He slammed the rookie against the locker. The metal rattled loudly. "We are cooked. Do you understand that? We are completely cooked. We have a Class-Four biological running through the mud, and our primary containment weapons are dead!"

"Let him go!" Sandra barked. She racked the slide of her kinetic shotgun. The sharp, mechanical sound cut through the panic.

Devon released Mike. He shoved the rookie away. Mike stumbled and caught his balance against the wall, breathing hard.

"What do we do?" Devon asked. He turned to Sandra. His chest was heaving. "Bullets won't stop that thing. We need the pulse."

"We don't have the pulse," Sandra said. Her jaw tightened. She walked to the lockers and started pulling out the heavy, mud-caked vests. "We use the kinetic slugs to slow it down. We use the mud spikes to pin it. We buy time until the main unit gets here from the city."

"That will take hours," Devon said.

Before Sandra could reply, the lights flickered.

The yellow bulbs overhead dimmed, buzzed loudly, and then died entirely.

The room plunged into a flat, dead gray light. The spring sun trying to push through the dirty windows was suddenly blocked.

The dripping sound from the roof stopped.

A heavy, unnatural silence fell over the hall. It felt like the air pressure in the room had suddenly doubled. Sandra's ears popped. The smell of wet earth and raw ozone flooded the room, overpowering the bleach and the burnt chili.

"Don't move," Sandra whispered.

A massive shadow passed over the high windows. It wasn't a cloud. It was a solid, moving mass. The sheer weight of whatever was moving outside pressed down on the flimsy roof of the community hall. The wooden support beams groaned. Dust rained down from the rafters, coating the plastic tables.

The vibrations started in the floorboards. A deep, rhythmic thrumming.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

The plastic folding tables began to shake. The empty styrofoam bowls rattled. The metal spoons clinked wildly against the ceramic crockpot. The sound was deafening in the otherwise silent room.

Devon held his breath. His stomach turned over. He could feel the vibrations traveling up his boots, into his shins, vibrating the marrow in his bones.

Mike stood frozen against the lockers. A single tear cut through the dirt on his cheek. He clamped his hands over his mouth to keep his teeth from chattering.

The shadow dragged across the roofline. It blotted out the remaining light. For ten agonizing seconds, the community hall was entirely dark. The smell of ozone grew so thick Sandra could taste it on the back of her tongue. It tasted like copper and old blood.

The beast was right outside.

And then, the shadow moved past. The gray spring light returned to the dirty windows. The massive thumping faded into the distance, moving steadily toward the north.

The plastic tables stopped vibrating.

Sandra let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Her lungs burned. She looked at Devon. His face was slick with cold sweat.

"It bypassed us," Devon whispered. "It didn't even care we were here."

"It's heading for the highway," Sandra said. She moved fast. She threw a heavy tactical vest at Devon. It hit him in the chest. "Gear up. Right now."

Devon didn't argue. He shoved his arms through the armholes of the vest. He grabbed a bandolier of kinetic slugs and slung it over his shoulder. The heavy brass shells clinked together. He bent down and tightened the laces on his combat boots.

Mike was still frozen against the wall.

"Mike!" Sandra snapped.

Mike flinched. He looked at her, his eyes hollow.

"Grab the mud spikes," Sandra ordered. "Load the flares. If you mess this up, people die on that highway. Move!"

Mike swallowed hard. He nodded once, a jerky, terrified motion. He scrambled to the supply crates. He began hauling out the heavy, iron mud spikes, his hands shaking violently as he shoved them into his pack.

Sandra checked the action on her shotgun one last time. She shoved a handful of spare shells into her cargo pockets. The fabric was stiff and smelled like dried sweat.

She walked to the front door of the hall. She grabbed the heavy metal handle.

"We run," Sandra said, looking back at the two men. "We do not stop. We cut it off at the ravine ridge. If it makes it over the ridge, it has a clear shot to the asphalt. Understood?"

"Understood," Devon said. He pumped the slide of his own shotgun.

Sandra kicked the door open.

The spring air hit them like a wet towel. It was warm, damp, and smelled strongly of rotting leaves and crushed pine needles. The ground outside was a disaster of melting snow and deep, sucking mud. The access road was practically a river of brown water.

Far in the distance, through the dense barrier of pine trees, they could hear the faint, steady roar of civilian traffic on the interstate.

They racked their weapons in unison, sprinting into the wet dark before the thing could reach the asphalt.