There was always information not given to me. I stood outside my car and let my third cigarette burn down to a stub as I contemplated what was inside the darkened storage container. The shipping yard was dotted with stacks of colored metal boxes and most of them weren’t worth shit.
The Glut’s was not one of those.
I was told to be at the yard at ten-thirty and wait for someone to come open the container. I didn’t know how long I would wait or who was coming, I just had to wait.
Levi was supposed to be at the yard, but the fat ass slipped outside her apartment and broke a rib. Apparently being a dangerous monster was not a defense against gravity. In the few months after her fall she became very humble – very quickly. For a time she even convinced me to come pick up her mail; she couldn’t walk without a great deal of pain. Once she was on the mend, though, it was back to business and her bite returned. I immediately regretted helping her out. Maybe if she starved because of her handicap she would gain some mobility. Hindsight. What a bitch.
So she wasn’t at the shipping yard that night, not a loss in my mind. Honestly she couldn’t even drive very well, it might have to do with her sloth claws, but I’d be fairly certain that she was clinically insane. Also color blind. This sort of job – especially when Levi wasn’t around – was the kind I enjoyed. I simply wait around, play body guard to some schmuck and his money and – voila! – paid. Mostly it was two or three hours of late night talk radio.
NPR was still plugging along and was – as usual – discussing Hybrid rights. The ten to twelve spot that night was a short segment featuring a right-wing Christian evangelist who was made famous by his declaration that Hybrids were not in the image of God and therefore did not make it into the big book that Christ held by the lake of fire and brimstone. This stood in opposition to a growing sentiment on the matter that Hybrids were people just like humans and should be afforded every such consideration, but this Christian nut job – Pastor Matthew Jacobs – was not concerned with their lifestyle. This messenger of God felt that his territory was that of the Lord and the one true God would not see his heavenly landscape polluted with Hybrids. They were the offspring of Satan, they had lain with beast and should be sacrificed.
I didn’t know what to feel on the topic, really. I mostly listened to the segment for the passionate rapport:
“Pastor Jacobs, how can you say God will deny these individuals when so many have accepted His word into their lives, even knowing they are not in His image? Doesn’t that sort of faith put them on His good side?”
“The creatures – the Beasts – of the earth were created for the express purpose of being lorded over by man. God gave us dominion over them so we could exploit them, so says Genesis. God gave Man dominion – not woman, not beast, not part man, but Man – and man is in the image of God. If the things that crawl over the earth are not permitted into his kingdom then their brethren shall be so denied. Amen.”
“And the fact that more than twenty percent of Christian congregations are made of up of Hybrids?”
“Does the existence of non-believers destroy the image of our Lord? No. So, does the corrupting of the image of Man change the face of God? No. Can these beasts choose to assemble and ask forgiveness of the Lord? That is their business. Will the Father accept them into his kingdom? No.”
“So you do believe that Hybrids have free-will, just as the gift of free-will was given to Adam?”
“They stole it! These imitation men – “
“How can a natural derivation of Homo Sapiens steal free-will?”
“- poison the well of our families and teach our children that it is okay to be monstrous!”
“What are they teaching?! I don’t know if you’re aware, Pastor, but our board-op behind the glass is a Hybrid and he’s the hardest working Man at minimum wage!”
“The children of Satan are here?!”
I could heard a small commotion on the radio.
“Where is it?!”
“Ladies and gentleman, Pastor Jacobs has left the studio! I have called security! I think he’s trying to break into the board-op office down the hall!”
The struggle was broadcast live to a few hundred thousand people. Father Jacobs became and even more prolific symbol for the anti-Hybrid movement and the board-op – a Hybrid named Shelton Gartier – got promoted.
As the segment came to a close, I saw headlight turn onto the row of containers. A light mist moved in off the water and the closing lights burred into fuzzy wisps.
As half the distance was covered, I leaned in the driver side door and flicked my headlights off and on. Off- on. Off – on. It was met with the same signal. I could see as it approached that it was a dark-colored Cadillac. An Escalade. Typical gangster shit.
It rolled up alongside me and dropped the passenger window. The interior lights were off and it was hard to see the driver in the darkness.
“Name?”
Almost everyone in the Glut’s crew knew me by name, but she made a habit out of being thorough, “Atticus.”
“I am a monster. I have two sides, but only one face. I am green, but those who seek me are green with envy. What am I?”
Lately the Glut was big into riddles, especially when I was on assignment, “Money.”
Get it?
“Alright Atticus, back your car up a few containers and aim your headlights at the doors.”
So, I wasn’t allowed to see what was inside, that’s what his order mean. Obviously what was inside wasn’t heavy or bulky if one man was handling it and it was something valuable that I wasn’t trusted with. Maybe trust is the wrong word, the Glut trusted me, she gave me jobs and information that were delicate and dangerous, she had been for a few years. This storage container and its contents were simply something she didn’t want to burden me with, objects or information that I didn’t need to have, because having it would involve me in other jobs – larger jobs that use different crews. Division of labor in her own way.
“Yeah, holler if you need a hand.” I slid in behind the wheel of my junker and maneuvered around the Caddy, Parking about fifty yard away, just at the edge of the container yard. The twin beams of light reached their hazy yellow way towards the courier as he got out and walked toward the container. I pulled my hood up and stood outside the car to smoke. The gentle drizzle and the hum of the car engines were the only sounds I could hear, like a blanket of white noise that muffled the Cadillac driver and his business.
I could see in the distant silence the courier open the container door. At the same time a swift slapping sound came cascading towards me from the opposite direction. It was the same pattern of a horse’s gallop, but was soft and wet.
I couldn’t see it, not in the darkness beyond the yard, but I could hear it coming closer – very quickly. Trying to look calm, I let my cigarette rest between my lips and pull my gun from my waist band, pointing it into the darkness.
Something was coming. The shadow outside the headlights was almost a tangible force, like a wall of pitch that was draped across the night. It hid the approaching sound.
As it reached the ring of light, it stopped. Silent as if had never been there at all. An empty fraction of a second for me to drag on my smoke and then it came crashing down. The Hybrid was falling on me like a hurdling furry torpedo. It must have leapt out of the darkness to come hurdling down from above – poised to strike me in the chest.
I raise my gun but it was too late. .
It hit me in the gut and left me choking for breath. The whole thing was just a blur of fur and skin that I couldn’t follow with my eyes. The force of the impact knocked my gun from my hand, I grasped for it desperately.
We tumbled backwards in a torrent of limbs, my back and head slamming into the hood of the car. The hollow bong sound of the cheap metal bending in and my grunt of pain were stifled by the ambient sound around us. Fireflies flickered around my eyes from the blow and warmth crept down my scalp.
“Fuck…” I pulled my arms up and pushed against the Hybrid, “Off!”
Instead of me shoving, it leapt off and found all four of its feet – all four of its hands, it had human hands instead of paws – and landed facing down the corridor. The Hybrid was a dog, but it had very clearly defined human parts. She was almost a sphinx in my mind, with a soft-angled human face that was filled with anger, her furrowed brow made a deep V above her eyes and she glared into mind with a fire, burning into my skin.
“You’re in over your head,” She growled. Atop her head was a crown, a casually fitting ring of dynamite that was tilting back above her ears.
I could feel the free-flow of blood from the top of mine, spilling over like a bathtub that’s been left to run for hours. Only then, in the stunned moment after impact did I hear the buzz – the whispering countdown of a timer on the bomb.
She took off down the corridor, her pale-white hands slapping against the pavement, kicking water as she closed on the courier.
“Hey!” My heartbeat was a fast black thunder in my ears, pushing more blood out of my head.
“HEY!” I fell on my gun and fumbled to get two hands on it. Suddenly I was all thumbs, aiming the gun like an ape holding a banana.
I finally got my finger on the trigger, but the night ripped open. A sharp white cloud came rolling down towards me, full of yellow and orange claws that carried pieces of the black Escalade. The roar of the explosion swallowed me and spit me out, leaving my bones shaking in my skin. It threw me backwards, grabbing me by the ankles and whipping me against my car.
I was flung to the ground and was helpless as the world around me burned.
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