“Name’s Yul. You can thank us by giving us back our weapons.”
Smacky laughed. “Not just yet, ‘chief’. Don’t trust you more than a wooden nickel tumbling in a slot machine. Until you prove to Smacky you’re loyal, that you’re not going to drive a metal pin through his eye, we keep ’em safe.”
Yul grumbled. “Smacky’s your name? Look, there’s an alien invasion and we’re—”
“Preaching to the choir, spaceman. Think I don’t know what’s going on in my backyard? Think I’ll divvy up these weapons to my crew. I like my shotgun, quirky as it is.” He crouched and tossed Yul’s weapon at his feet to two of his redneck crew. “Marv, Wilb. Catch! You can fight over it.”
Marv won. He gave an ear-to-ear, gap-toothed grin. He eyed the weapon like candy. “Gracias, Smacky! This one’s got double action, and heavy gauge.”
Smacky nodded, pleased that he could light up the lives of one of his ragboy crew.
Cloye muttered a sarcastic rejoinder, “Don’t think either of you yobos know one end from another.”
The taller and larger stepped forward with a menacing grin. “Who you talking about, girlie? Your spaceboy friend here?” He swaggered in closer.
“Relax, she’s right, Marv,” Smacky conceded. “Who taught you how to work an energy rifle?” He pulled it from Marv’s grasp. “You do it like this, see?” He recalibrated, gripping the stock and adjusting the firing arm, then waited until the green light sighted and stopped blinking. He sprayed a burst down the culvert, deafening everyone. Tossed the weapon back to Marv. “You try.”
Marv beamed, licking his lips. He snuck in a quick wild shot at a startled rat-like thing darting for cover in the culvert’s end. Likely had some nest there.
Smacky gave a weary nod. “Marv’s poor aim’ll be the death of us all.”
“Smacky, you should give me the gun, not Marv,” another long-hair suggested.
Smacky waved him off. “Don’t pay to linger here. Bugs’ll be after us before long and zap us, take us up in the sky, like they did Nora and the kids.”
With grim looks and grumbles of hatred, the gang trudged through the shallow puddles to the far end, herding Yul and Cloye along like cattle.
“So what’s your plan, Smacky?” Yul asked.
The gang leader squinted into the saffron light streaming in from outside. “Not rightly sure, Yab. A bit of this, a bit of that. Probably some duck and dash before the day’s out. We’ll keep on moving through the night, pegging off bug scum with these new weapons. Reckon they’ll be gone before long.”
“Think you’re not factoring in the reality. It’s never over. The squids’ll be down soon, and they’ll make the locusts look like angels in a bishop’s wet dream.”
Smacky sneered. “What do you know? Squids, octopussies, crabs, we’ll keep fighting them in the streets, air, and through flame.”
“As you should. But think you’re going to need a better plan than the one you got, drawing attention to yourselves, hobbling on through the night.”
“And what may that be?”
“Getting ships and firepower to level the playing field. Capturing as many ships as you can: aphids, even the locust mantis fighters.”
“You seem to know a lot about this, Yab. Thing is, none of us knows how to drive a starship.”
“Me and her do.” He jabbed a thumb at Cloye. “If we work together, you could get us—”
“Shut up. I know your tricky little games, spaceman. Get us all keyed up in hopes so you can plug a shell in our backs and fly away, leaving us all stranded. No, Yab, think we’ll do it my way.”
“Suit yourself.” Yul shrugged and looked away with a frustrated grimace.
Without warning, Marv shot another few test rounds back down the culvert, making everyone’s ears ring again.
“Hey, this ain’t no firing range,” Smacky thundered. “You warn people before you fire that gun, hear? Give me that.” He smacked Marv in the ear and snatched back the rifle.
Marv slunk back and put on a simpering face.
“Real smart there, moron, get your kicks out of killing a few helpless animals,” muttered Cloye.
Marv shot her a feral stare. “Black beauty, that’s what we should call her, Smacky. What with the blackened eyes and sooty cheeks. Like a regular weasely marbikin come up from the sewer pipes.”
“Good one, Marv.”
They all laughed. Cloye told them to go circlejerk themselves.
Spike snickered. “Black beauty got a mouth on her.”
“Shut up, Spike.” Smacky motioned them out of the culvert.
The dank shadows gave way to a wide traffic circle and what must have been a city park, littered with garbage and now, slumped bodies. More broken up shops and dingy low rises hunched at the far end. Behind them a row of sooty buildings rose over the culvert and what Yul guessed another city street in behind the buildings. At one time the city had been affluent, judging from the formal structure of roads, parks, apartments and squares.
Members of Smacky’s roughneck gang blinked under the raw light as if seeing real sunshine for the first time. The dome’s semi-transparent material had filtered their source of radiance for who knows how long. Out in the natural light, Yul got a better look at them. A degenerate crew. Skid row types. All wore chewed-up denims and frayed leathers. Some with teeth missing and parts of ears clipped off or torn. Their faces were sullen and cracked with seams and bare arms and necks were grimed and cinder-sooted, fingernails caked in dirt.
“They keep us holed up here like hogs,” muttered Smacky. “Fuck ’em. Now that their dome is gone batshit, I
