Story #1: Terror on Route 25
Chapter One
Of all the things Kyle could've done on his Friday off, he had to choose nerd stuff. The kind of nerd stuff that would get him wedgied by his old classmates back in Manhattan. The stuff that terrified parents warned would either turn him into a demoniac, or get him ritually sacrificed by a cult of them. Of course the college kid with his idealistic journalism minor would want to spend his free time on the weekend playing nerdy games with fellow freaks like him.
He was about to run a session of Dungeons and Dragons. Satan's game. And the weirdos he was going to host a game for were busy rolling up their characters from his copy of Basic D&D, not even the current, fancy 2nd edition. 3d6 – three six-sided dice – rolled in order of six statistics. Tolkien races like elves and dwarves were a type of character apart from human warriors, priests, magicians and thieves.
One of his players fidgeted in his seat, eagerly counting up the dice he'd cast. A thief? Nah, though it'd suit the little punk. Nah, a hobbit. Well, a halfling. The Tolkien estate wasn't fond of TSR using JRR's name for the short furry-footed folk. The lone girl among the group wasn't even sure she wanted to play. She was busy recording the stats for a cleric, however, if only to both fight monsters and to keep the party safe with miraculous healing. Even though Kyle had warned her that her holy healer wouldn't get such powers until later.
The third player stared at Kyle's rulebook, now passed to him. He grumbled, no longer lifting his droopy ears up from his eyes. "This is stupid".
The halfling player's beady black eyes stared up at the bulky dog-man in extra-large coveralls, still hyperactive as ferrets were. "Aw c'mon Cu", the scamp frowned, "I bet you didn't even read it."
Cu shrugged to himself, already sitting up from his folding chair, ready to leave Kyle and his card table companions to their game. "An' you'd be right. My noggin's built fer software, not this He-Man stuff."
The lioness in a short dress next to him scoffed, her words more a low grumbling growl than the clear English of the boys. But by now her new friends could all understand her remark: "And not much else".
Mid-sip, Kyle grimaced behind his glass of cheap cola. He had a feeling the dog-man, who he'd learn took up the name Cu Chulainn – Cu for short – couldn't care less. The mutant mastiff hated fun. Kyle couldn't complain. If not for Cu's sense of justice beneath his misanthropic nature, he probably wouldn't have lived to invite the three mutants to crash at his apartment.
While the young man kept quiet, the lioness he knew as Sunny got up from her chair. "Hey", she grunted at Cu, "What's with you?"
Without even a scowl when he left for Kyle's couch, and without turning his head to face Sunny, Cu had already flopped into the battered recliner and reached for the TV remote. "Nothin'. Yer readin' is improving, Sekhmet."
Oh, yeah. When they had first met, Kyle had known Sunny by another name. With Cu named after an old Irish god, Sunny was named after an Egyptian goddess. Though he was drifting in and out of consciousness when he first heard her correct the dog and the ferret, Kyle was sure she was cross with being called Sunny. And Kyle was right. To anyone who hadn't earned her trust, the hot-headed big cat preferred being called Sekhmet. According to the weird old Asian guy who renamed her, the name suited her well.
That just left the third animal-person, only half Kyle's size and already flipping through the D&D rulebook he'd swiped from Cu's space. If they were going to crash at Kyle's pad for long, he'd worry that this little rascal would eat him out of house and home. Dressed in a weird, loose purple garment, the ferret looked up and asked, "Hey, hey Kyle. Whaddaya want me to do next? I rolled the dice a buncha times, right?"
Kyle shrugged. "Right. And you wrote the numbers you got in order, right?"
"Yeah", the ferret rapidly nodded. "Twelve strength, thirteen intelligence, sixteen wisdom, blah blah blah! When do I get to get a cool weapon?"
"I wish I had that, Kamaitachi", Sunny frowned, staring at her friend's notebook paper. "Wisdom is good for clerics, right?"
"Ability scores don't matter that much", Kyle reassured. "Kamai, you'll need to roll those dice one last time. That'll give–"
The dice clattered on the table. "Ten!" Kamai blurted.
"Uh. Cool. One hundred gold it is."
"Can I get a katana?"
"So like, a longsword? It's a bit big for–"
"No dude, a katana!"
"Same difference."
"No it's not!"
Sunny rolled her eyes, plopping back down into her chair and pointing to the corner of the room. There a real-life sword with a long, simple wooden handle rested against the wall. Its long curved blade housed in its leather sheath. Next to it were a few more weapons: a spear that nearly reached the ceiling, a short samurai sword in its scabbard, and cheaper-looking Japanese dagger in its own scabbard. Among the archaic arms laid a modern weapon in its holster: a handgun. Good thing Kyle had a license, though it wasn't his. None of the weapons were.
"Yes", Sunny groaned, still pointing a clawed finger to the curved sword. "That's a longsword".
"That", Kyle corrected, "Is technically a kreigsmesser, so says my uncle. Or a grossemesser. I dunno. But that is as a longsword, and so is–"
"What lame game doesn't have a katana?" Kamai complained, letting the paperback rulebook drop from his bony hands. "Maybe Cu was right about this crap."
Kyle pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "You're the one who wanted to play".
But Kamai, having lost interest before long as always, was already zipping over to the kitchenette behind him. "Hey Cu", he called out, "Flip to some cartoons, will ya?" The sounds of him raiding the cupboards followed. How else could he fuel that jittery energy without a second or third snack after breakfast?
Kyle sighed, folding up the illustrated cardboard screen in front of him. Of course his plans fell through. "Don't suppose you wanna quit too, Sekh?"
"Sunny", the lioness gently corrected. "And screw them. I want to play." Right. She trusted the young man. It was okay to call her Sunny.
"Gonna be rough with just one player", said Kyle. "Let's wait till later and try again. If you want, you can read the rules. Good reading practice, I'd say."
Sunny gazed at the D&D book, her round ears lowering against the dirty-blonde, flowing hair on her feline head. "Yes", she hesitantly replied, "Good practice."
"It's not so bad", Kyle assured right back, "I can help with any hard words. Besides, I think this is more up your alley than my niece's picture books. Cool monster pictures, too."
She then stared at Kyle, piercing him with those wide maroon eyes. She did this all the time. Though she struggled to speak and read with more difficulty, there was something about how Sunny looked at people. It was just like a stray cat toward a passerby, or sometimes to a bird they were stalking.
Locked into that gaze for a few more uncomfortable moments, Sunny subtly nodded. "Okay. Thank you, Kyle". She stood up from her seat once more, padding over to a short couch that, like Kyle's hand-me-down recliner, had seen better days.
By now Cu was flipping through the channels on Kyle's television set. The landlord's cable connection was generous, if pricey, and not everybody had access to so many channels. The college kid's parents insisted they pay for the initial hookup. All expenses paid for the semester, just like Kyle's tuition for Burich College. And as they insisted, home was about a half-hour away from school.
Too bad they never asked if Kyle wanted a bunch of channels with nothing to watch. Sure, he had MTV. All the rage for kids his age. Too bad he wasn't like most young adults. He connected more with his weird uncle in the Society for Creative Anachronism than he did with jocks, metalheads and punks. Hanging out with the geeks and the freaks kept his nose clean of the drugs and other debauchery he'd already seen from frat boys on campus. And he couldn't exactly rage against the machine when he, holding a part-time job and studying communications as his major, planned to become a part of it when he graduated.
Taking another drink from his tall glass of Faygo, the kid sat back into his chair. A proper wooden chair, not the creaky metal folding set he'd gotten from his uncle. 'In case of parties', he'd told Kyle. He reminisced on ol' Frank's gifts of spare furniture in the back of his mind, while Kamai walked back into the main room. A loaf of white bread, a fresh pack of bologna and a bottle of mustard were cradled in his arms. He saw Sunny flop on her side in front of the couch as she liked, seemingly undeterred by the flat carpet over a hard floor. He watched Cu lazily gaze at the Channel 6 morning news, the wrinkled old hound dog at ease once more.
It wasn't a party, but the chairs were being used at long last. Kyle couldn't help but feel he could relate more to these weirdos more than plenty of folks he'd left behind in Manhattan. And though he'd heard the adage where some could connect to animals more than people, this wasn't quite how he'd imagined it.
Besides. They saved his life from a bunch of ninjas in the Bronx. The start of their friendship was as abnormal as they were. No skin off his nose.
Kyle got up at last, setting his game aside to sit behind Sunny on the sofa. But as he looked to the news anchors on the screen, something was wrong. He'd seen the man and woman and their upbeat broadcast plenty of times growing up. His dad always tuned in at 6 PM, right on time for the second half of the evening news, for as long as he could recall. But the cheerful expressions of Linda and Carlton were absent. After so many broadcasts, he knew why.
"...an unidentified group of terrorists", Carlton spoke evenly on the screen, "Have seized control of a school building on Route 25 near Greenport".
They were telling their viewers some bad news.
"Yo", Kamai blinked, pausing his sandwich-making on the sofa. "Wha–"
"Hush", Sunny gasped, her pupils going small as she sat up on her haunches.
The broadcast had shifted to a news helicopter feed. Cars and a small crowd were piled out outside a police barricade somewhere on a rural road. Cops moved around and behind the barriers, keeping a wide berth between a single-story schoolhouse and the crowd. To the right of the building sat a small, empty playground. When the broadcast switched to a news camera on the ground, two sights barely in view made Kyle's blood run cold.
Parked cars to the left of the building were riddled with bullet holes. The name of the school was in view on a sign, also chewed with bullets. Deer Meadows Elementary.
Carlton's voice came back to Kyle's consciousness. "...many as one-hundred children and six school teachers may be hostages. More details at 5."
Linda's voice shook as she said, "For any anonymous tips, the NYPD's phone lines are open. I'm, I, I wish we could've ended broadcast on something happier than this."
Kyle swallowed hard. "Cu", he mumbled. "Turn that down a moment".
The dog stared daggers at the screen. "Doggone it. Not a day goes by without some–"
"Cu, seriously", Kyle cried out, speaking faster than usual. "That's, that, this isn't the time for that. Th-that was Deer Meadows"
Sunny turned her body toward the panicked young man, pupils still narrowed and ears folded in fear for whatever made him so uneasy. Nervously stuffing an open-faced, half-completed sandwich in his face, Kamai also paid attention. Shaking his head slowly, Cu was the last to look toward his frightened guest. With his eyes pried from the tube, Kyle could see the worry on his face to match his own.
"Kyle", Cu asked slowly. "Was that yer old school or somethin'?"
"That school", Kyle grimaced, "My niece goes there."