Alex Burkewitz stood behind the lodge, hiding from the rest of her family, and stared at the pristine pine forest surrounding the lake. The water glimmered and rippled in the afternoon sun and the boughs swayed softly in the breeze.
She wanted to burn every last tree to the ground.
Uncle Irv’s sneering, ragged laughter cut through the woods, dragging out for several seconds. Too long. No joke could be that funny.
Over her shoulder, the family lodge poked just above the trees. The dark, earth-colored pine shingles seemed to absorb all light, the grimy windows like black portals. This place, her family…she couldn’t believe that somehow it was all even worse than she had remembered. The lodge felt like the only remnant of civilization in this vast sea of trees, tucked away in the western side of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. She’d driven ten hours up here from Chicago, and the last few had been nothing but pines in every direction. It was a place where anything could happen and nobody would be around to see it.
Nobody but her family, anyway.
She dialed June and didn’t even let her sister finish saying “hello” before dropping the bombshell.
“He’s fucking HERE,” Alex hissed through her teeth. Her sleeveless Metallica shirt was drenched in sweat.
“Um, what?”
“DAD!” The very mention made Alex’s vision blur at the edges. She opened her mouth to speak again and stammered, the anger blotting out all cogent thought. “And Mom. She fucking hugged him. She told me over and over he wouldn’t be here!”
What was there to say about father? Alex remembered enough. She remembered his thick-veined hand gripping her throat and slamming her to the garage floor. Bruises on June’s arms, purple and yellow, still visible a week after June had escaped to her first apartment.
And that hug. It was the only thing that could make it all worse.
Every time they thought their mom had ditched their worthless son-of-a-bitch dad for good, this shit happened. What a fool Alex had been to believe that her mom had finally seen through her father’s lies, or rated herself worthy of any respect. Nope. She’d crawled back. Again.
Even with her head spinning, Alex knew if she stuck around for that sweet little lovers’ reunion that she was liable to hurt somebody, so she’d booked it here to the far side of the lodge. She fished around in her pocket for her cigarettes and her lighter, then glanced at the 500-gallon propane tank right a few feet away. While the idea of dying in a blaze of glory had its merits, she walked further into the woods as she listened to June.
“I tried to tell you…”
“Okay, you were fucking right, June, that what you want to hear?”
“No.” Her sister’s voice was calm, soft. It carried a tinge of sorrow and regret.
The line was quiet for a moment. The hum of cicadas was loud enough to drown out all other noise. Alex stepped around a fetid pool of water, black flies swarming above the carcass of a small rodent at it’s edge.
June had never even entertained the thought of coming to the reunion. That only made Alex feel all the more foolish for coming. For hoping once more that this time, things might be different. That she and her mom could finally share something real.
June let out a long sigh.
“I’m sorry. Look. Forgot how you got there. You need to get out.” Her tone had a nervous edge that made Alex shiver even though it was pushing ninety degrees.
“Dad’s into it some weird shit. Do you remember how he used to collect old bones? He’d make those statues with ‘em? Before I moved out, I flipped through some of those old leather-bound tomes he has around. I couldn’t read all the Latin, but I looked it up later. Deep-cut texts on resurrection. Alchemy. Shapeshifting and biological transmutation.”
Alex glanced back in the direction of the lodge. Smoke was rising up through the pines. They’d be expecting her for dinner soon. The woods quickly enveloped her as she walked, leaving no visibility on the lodge beyond.
She took a drag of her cig. The warm rush of nicotine eased her nerves. So did the thought of putting a bullet in her father’s skull.
“Yeah. Dad’s crazy, we’ve always known that.”
“I think it’s gotten worse, Alex. I needled mom about him recently. Got a few glasses of wine in her over dinner. You wouldn’t believe some of the shit she was telling me, that he’s said to her.”
Alex’s stomach turned. Of course her mom and dad had already been talking. So the whole damn thing had been a set up.
“Listen. She said he can perform miracles, Alex. That he can create life. Now I don’t usually buy that stuff, but hey. The world is a big, strange place. Just like I don’t mess around with Ouija boards, I don’t mess around with assholes with a God-complex dicking around in the occult.”
“Fucking freak.” Alex let out an exasperated sigh. Her anger was losing its edge from pure exhaustion. And this talk from June wasn’t helping. Her rage was curdling into unease.
“What really scares me is I think the whole family is in on…something. That’s why mom was so insistent. They’re all gathering up there for that comet.”
Alex looked upward, spotting the streak of white against the blue sky. It turned green at night.
“Refresh me, who else is there?”
Alex summarized the guest list. There were all the regulars at a Burkewitz reunions: Uncles Irv and Josiah. Alex didn’t remember much about Josiah, except that he was prone to disappearing into the woods for days at a time. They were joined by Aunt Rita, with her glass eye and ankle-length skirts, and Jasmin too, who was quieter, but no less zealous about chem-trails and the coming rapture.
Last but not least, Eric and Steve, the “dipshit cousins” as June called them. Alex left out the part where this lovely duo had repeatedly deadnamed June earlier over beers and smokes. They’d had a good laugh to hear Alex was working as an HVAC tech, too. A woman in the trades. Ha ha. She hoped they hurt themselves with the illegal fireworks they’d “scored” on their way up from Ohio.
June groaned as she heard Alex rattle off the names.
“Okay, that settles it. You need to get out of there. I’ll pick you up if I have to.”
Alex felt her anger flare up, this time at her sister.
“Yeah June, that would be great, except it’s a ten-hour drive back to Chicago and it’s already pushing 6:30. I’ll drive back in the morning.”
“Right. Sorry. Well, just…be careful, okay? I’m serious.” There was a nervous edge to June’s voice that sent a chill down Alex’s spine. The breeze picked up, whispering through the trees and promising rain, maybe a storm. “I need you back. We’re going to the Detroit Zoo next weekend, remember? To see the red pandas.”
Alex felt her face grow warm as a bittersweet sadness washed over her. June had planned that trip just for her, had even looked up the closest zoo with Red Pandas, remembering that they were Alex’s favorite animal as a kid. The realization that she’d driven ten hours here to this reunion only to leave behind the one family member who cared about her hit like a blast of buckshot. She bit her lip to stop the tears.
Something large rustled in the woods beyond her, snapping twigs and scattering leaves, snapping Alex back to the moment.
“Of course, I’ll be there. Listen, I’m starving, so I really gotta go. Love you.”
She hung up her phone and peered into the gloom, but couldn’t see anything at all. She shivered despite the heat.
Back towards the lodge, in the long shadows of the gathering dusk, she saw smoke drifting up from the far side of the lake. Her father was gathering there around a table and a bonfire. What the hell? Why would they eat so far from the house and lug everything so far away? Everyone was orbiting her father, who she couldn’t hear, but was clearly directing folks around and organizing the set up.
Alex blinked, head swimming, the anger once again muddling her thoughts.
She would do it in a heartbeat. If she had to.
The wind picked up as she walked back.
* * *
Everything about the dinner felt wrong.
Everyone was wearing their Sunday best -- long summer dresses, button-up shirts, slacks. Even Uncle Irv, who Alex had never seen wearing anything other than jeans and flannels.
A chair sat empty at the head of the table. Her father’s seat.
Her mother sat beside the empty chair, waving Alex toward another spot at the table. Her arm moved slowly, as if she was underwater.
Alex stepped forward and laid a hand on the back of a chair to steady herself. She felt dizzy.
“Why are we eating here? I don’t remember this table at all,” Alex said. It was cedar, the wood still fragrant.
Irv flashed a broad smile. “I built it. That we may all sit together.”
Aunt Rita sat down next to Alex and put an arm on her shoulder. Her glass eye gleamed in the golden hour sun as she flashed a nervous smile and gestured toward the sky.
“There’s a much better view of the comet from here.”
Above the lake, opposite a small crescent moon, the white streak was clearly visible in the northern sky. It getting brighter and the sun crept toward the horizon. Behind them, pines soughed in the breeze, set in orderly patterns from loggers long ago, like columns in an ancient temple. A bonfire crackled softly alongside the table.
Family members were hurrying about, setting steaks, corn, mashed potatoes on the table. Since when could this family afford steak?
“I’m so grateful you’re here for this special occasion, Alex.” Rita’s voice was low, almost a whisper. Alex glanced around and realized that nobody at all was talking very loudly. Her cousins Eric and Steve whispered to each other in hushed tones at the other end of the table.
Rita’s face clouded with regret.
“It’s a shame your…little sibling wasn’t willing to join us.”
Alex didn’t bother to hide her scowl.
One by one, all the family members sat down. Her father was last. He sat down with gravity at the head of the table, sitting up straight, and beamed at the family before him.
Her father had a bolo tie with a deep, dark ruby in the center inlaid in an intricate gold pendant. Alex felt dizzy when she looked at it, and for a moment thought she saw an eye within the gem. Something seeing through her. Then all she saw was the flicker of the bonfire’s flame in the gemstone. She shifted in her seat and took a deep breath to steady her nerves.
Her father’s eyes slowly scanned the group, stopping for a slight hiccup longer than usual on Alex. She thought she saw his face darken, almost imperceptibly.
“My kin, thank you for joining me on this blessed day.”
He looked up at the sky, his face wistful, eyes locking onto the comet.
“This comet has only passed by Earth once before in recorded history. Nearly 600 years ago. One of our ancestors wrote of it in his diary. It is a night of power, of potential, of new possibilities. And tonight, we will experience new possibilities like never before, my brothers and sisters.”
Alex pulled out her phone and typed a quick text.
You were definitely onto something about dad, she texted June.
When she looked up at her phone, Rita was glaring at her disapprovingly. It made Alex’s skin crawl. She looked up from her phone. At the other end of the table, Isaac was holding hands with her other Uncle Jeff as well as Alex’s mother. A few tears were dribbling out of his eyes, and that made Alex want to throw up.
When her father spoke again, his voice was trembling with emotion. He locked eyes with Alex as he spoke.
“Just after sundown, this family will be reborn as one.”
Alex’s stomach churned. She felt more and more dizzy, as if her seat was no longer bound by gravity and might start falling up, up through the trees and into the atmosphere, spiraling faster and faster away.
Beside the lightheartedness, her anger simmered.
Her father leaned in close, his voice tightening with a steely resolve.
“All the pain, all the hurt, all the wrongs of the past…all that will be washed away. Forever. But only if we come together.”
All of a sudden, Alex’s anger and exhaustion overwhelmed her and she exploded.
“NO!” She slammed her fist down on the table as she screamed in defiance.
She stood up too quickly, almost falling over in her dizziness.
For a long moment, everyone stared uncomfortably at her. The family sat shell-shocked. No one breathed except for her father, who sat backwards, a look of utter disdain on his face. Her mother whimpered and shook her head in sadness.
“With HIM?”
Alex felt delirious. The words tumbled out of her.
“You want me to listen to him talk about “coming together?” What’s WRONG with you? In what fucking…”
“Alex, please…”
Her mother stood up, tears streaming down her face. The other family members leaned in, begging her to sit down. Her father just stared.
“I’m not FINISHED. In what fucking universe would anyone listen to him about family?” She shoved the chair against the table violently. “NO!”
The whole family was raising their voices, pleading with her. Her uncle Isaac was raising his voice, telling her to shut up. She wanted to scream more, but her anger had outrun her words.
“NO!”
Her head swam. She stormed back along the deer trail circling the lake, up the broad lawn leading to the lodge. Back to the room where she’d stashed her bags. She walked in and slammed the door, then started shoving her things back into her pack. She was heading home. She’d sleep in her car somewhere if she had to. June was right. She couldn’t stay here with these psychopaths.
She was zipping up her bag when the howling started. First a single, piercing wail. Then it erupted into a chorus of screams and agonized shouts, barks and screeches. Her breath caught in her throat as she remembered her father’s words at the table.
Just after sundown, we will be reborn as one…
She couldn’t see anything outside the window in the gathering dark. She heard a large loud crack, then another and another. Fear rose within her like a tidal wave and she grabbed her bag and hustled outside toward her car.
The air was cool, humid. She couldn’t help but look across the lake to the smoldering remains of the bonfire. Against her better judgment, she paused when she realized nobody was there. Where had they gone? Some distant voice in the back of her mind told her to start running to her car and drive away fast. But her legs felt rooted to the ground.
She desperately scanned the lake and surrounding woods, hoping to catch a face or glimpse of movement in the pale moonlight. Nothing. But the dinner table…it had been crushed into the ground, the boards snapped like balsa wood. She felt every hair on her neck stand on end.
And in the water…there was a wake. The V-shape of something that had been moving through the lake, but descended below the surface. The V was pointing toward the lodge. Toward her. She watched breathlessly as the water continued to ripple.
* * *
Something broke the glassy surface of the lake.
A hand, then an arm. It was bent backwards and twitching limply. More flesh followed. A torso. A face. But something was all wrong. Alex’s mind struggled to process was it was seeing. Her hands shook.
There was Aunt Tilda’s face with her big bushy eyebrows. There was Eric’s whole torso, his pudgy, round flesh that made him look like a caveman, poking forward like a Cirque de Soleil dancer hanging from silk, his legs nowhere to be seen in the mass behind him.
The beast trudged forward, water dripping off it as more of its hideous bulk emerged from the surface.
There was poor Uncle Irv, his legs one set of six that carried the monstrosity forward, thin and wrinkly as ever, arms nowhere to be seen but his upper torso and head barely above the surface, screaming in agony.
It was her family. All of them. All melded in one shuddering, bulbous mass of mismatched bodies, arms, legs and faces.
Dear God, the faces.
Atop it all, her father, a crazed look of wide-eyed divine ecstasy, commanding the gibbering heads below him as it lumbered and tottered forward on six sets of human legs like some ludicrously top-heavy insect.
Something emerged from the treeline. Her mother. She was running, screaming, crying.
“I didn’t know. Alex, I didn’t know!!!”
A few arms from the monster reached down. She thought it may have been Uncle Josiah and her cousin’s, but she couldn’t tell. The flesh rippled, muscles bulging as they lifted her mother off the ground and ripped her in two, straight down the waist, like someone tearing the good meat out of a crayfish.
Alex felt a sharp pang of sadness. It passed quickly. Then her father saw her and started screaming incoherently.
The monster started moving up the steep incline toward her. Alex froze, every ounce of her soul vibrating in terror.
A single thought came to her with vivid clarity.
She would end this.
She had to. She was the only person who could.
She would lead the monstrosity to the propane tank, shoot it. But shooting it wasn’t enough; she’d also need to ignite the leaking gas. Good thing she had her Zippo. She’d send them both to oblivion.
She sprinted toward the lodge, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The monstrosity that was once -- still was? -- her family screamed, wailed and shrieked in a discordant cacophony. It lumbered steadily across across the lawn, picking up speed as it’s multitude of legs started to work in unison.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl. The woods around her sharpened into clear focus. The world became more real than real, she could see every blade of grass, every needle on the pines, feel the air caressing her.
Ahead, she saw the treehouse. She and June had hid their long ago. Played card games. Told stories.
June.
The zoo. The red pandas.
She slid to a halt, panting, halfway to the tank.
The monstrosity shuddered and screamed behind her.
She had to find another way. She glanced around the property. She spotted Eric’s beat up F-150 and glanced over her shoulder. Her father’s torso swayed above the tottering monster as it lumbered forward. It was seconds away…
She charged towards the truck, not daring to look behind her, praying that Eric still left his keys in the sun visor. The wails had turned into a hungry squeal. She leapt onto the truck’s step bar, wrenched the door open and clambered inside, frantically flipping the sun visor down. She scrabbled with the keys in the ignition as the monster barreled forward, threatening to fill up the entire windshield.
Her heart was pounding. She shifted the truck into gear and revved the engine, speeding forward and turning at the last second to careen around the beast. The monster and the truck roared in unison, and she winced as one of it’s many arms smacked the side window. She hooked around the lodge, the right wheels lifting off the ground, the monster passing out of view as she slammed on the brakes just past the propane tank. She pushed the clutch and revved the engine and turned around to watch for it. Over the roar of the engine, she couldn’t hear the monster at all, and a long, painful moment of waiting stretched on and on. She slapped the steering wheel, muttering “come on, come on, COME ON!!” over the roar. Then all of a sudden Aunt Rita’s manic face and glass eye peered around the corner, followed by the full weight of the monstrosity. Alex let her foot off the clutch and slammed the gas, the truck exploding forward. The monster shrieked in protest and lunged to smack the tailgate, but she was out of reach.
Alex watched the speedometer climb up to 50 mph, then slammed on the brakes and swung the steeling wheel hard to the left, letting the truck drift violently sideways. The monster was lumbering toward her still, with the propane tank in-between. It would be passing the tank shortly. She pulled out her Glock and shot wildly into the tank. Watched as the compressed gas burst out of the holes. The monster was a few feet ahead of the tank now. Then she leaned backwards, scrabbling against the seat — panicking briefly as her hands grasped for purchase — and pulled out one of Eric’s illegal roman candles. She brought it upwards and flicked the lighter. Excruciating seconds passed in an eternity as the flame flickered and fizzled against the end of the candle and for a moment Alex considered the possibility that it would not light, and then it did, and a ball of flame shot outward in a gentle arc toward the tank and…
Everything flashed red and orange. The flames shot high into the air, high as a football field, engulfing the house and melting the flesh of her family as it was thrown into the woods beside the lodge, the pines catching fire like cinders.
The shockwave was slower to reach Alex, but it came all the same, shattering every pane of glass in the truck and rocking it backwards. She felt a blinding pain in her left leg, then everything went black.
* * *
Alex awoke to a piercing sun high above and a blinding hurt. She was covered in aches and bruises and scrapes that culminated in a wound of pure agony by her knee. After laying on the ground and praying to lose consciousness to escape the pain again, she let out a low whimper and pulled herself up on one elbow. She grimaced looking at the gash above her knee, seeing bone and a large pool of blood by her. The truck lay battered on its side next to her. Judging by the scuff marks in the dirt and the trail of blood, she had crawled out of the shattered remains of the front window, but she couldn’t remember that at all.
The lodge was completely flattened, as if an angry child had scattered a tower of Lincoln Logs. It looked like ground zero of a military grade explosion. A score of trees alongside the lodge was snapped backwards like toothpicks.
And then there was her family. Or what remained. A pile of mangled, blackened flesh and limbs. A grotesque barbecue. She could still vaguely make out the remains of her father, half his face twisted into a dead-eyed grimace, the other half seared off the bone. She wanted to cry and scream for joy, but her brain was hardly functioning.
She slumped backwards, head spinning. She’d lost a lot of blood…and the nearest hospital was at least 45 minutes away. No time for a rescue, but enough for a goodbye.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed June, biting her lip.
June picked up after the second ring, her voice thrumming with anxiety.
“Thank god, I’ve been dying to hear from you.”
“June, I…” She choked back tears. “I’m really hurt.”
Alex heard the sound of an engine revving in the background.
“Okay, hang in there. I’m almost there.”
“Wh…what?”
“Your last text spooked me. When I didn’t hear back, I started driving.”
Alex bit her lip, tears streaming down her face.
“June…our family…they’re gone. I’m so sorry.”
“Alex, I love you. No matter what.” She paused. “Now just stay with me, okay?”
Alex closed her eyes and focused on June’s soothing voice, letting it anchor her, keep her from fading.
She was going to make it.
And then she was going to see the red pandas, with their sleepy, adorable faces, on a beautiful summer’s day with her sister.
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