War with the Deranged Killer Mutant Monster Snow Goons
Disclaimer: I do not own Calvin and Hobbes and all characters associated with the comic. All rights are owned by Bill Waterson.
WOOSH!
Up the flames went, blackening the door and the wall around it but denying the enemy from entering in those precious few seconds it took to move the refrigerator to block the door. The perimeter had been breached, the house was surrounded by hundreds, and the survivors braced themselves for the next, and perhaps final attack.
Hobbes rushed to a window and peered outside, his hot breath quickly fogging it up. Wiping it away with his white paw he could see the South wall as goons streamed up and over, and there were some defenders being dragged away. Calvin nudged his way to get a look and saw for himself as boys and girls being taken over the wall, "Where are they going?" he asked, but Hobbes had no idea.
When the door was braced Hobbes looked upstairs where most of the survivors went. "Get up there!" the tiger panted as goons began to shove their way in.
Obeying the command Calvin rushed up the stairs. As he went he saw a wall clock still ticking and in his mind he calculated that the total elapsed time was just shy of thirty minutes.
Bracing the door with his body Hobbes found a discarded baseball bat, "Okay you putz, let's rumble!"
At the top of the stairs Calvin found Susie directing those left to begin barricading the stairway, "Give me some wood!" one called out as he tried to sally up a gap on the right side of the hall, "There is no more," Susie immediately replied. Calvin shoved his way to the girl's room and began to rip apart the bed with a bat.
"No! Not my bed! My grandmother gave it to me," she wept.
"Too bad," Calvin huffed as he broke off the foot board of high polished oak, "She'll get you a new one."
The kids were scared, it could be seen in their eyes. Some huddled in the hall or in separate rooms but Susie did not want them to be and took them out to prepare to fight and shoved a weapon into each of their hands.
"Hobbes, get up here!" Calvin's raspy voice called down the stairway as the barricade continued to go up. The immediate reply was a mixture of animal roars and shrieks of the enemy as they hacked their way in.
"On my way" the animal curtly replied.
As he darted up the stairs the tiger grumbled how everything was wasted, no barricade for the stairs immediately in place in case of such an emergency, "They're on their way up now" his eyes were jutted open and red as he yelled at Calvin whilst climbing over the barricade of furniture pieces, "We've got nothing here to stop them with." Despite his friend yelling in his ear Calvin ignored him, either purposely or just being wound up by emotion, all he could think was the loss of Ryan and those at the lunette, being rolled over just as when his parent's car lost its brake and crashed across the street. The goons were juggernauts and those kids were not even speed bumps. Catapults were lost, all their supply of stones were outside and now useless. Best that they could do was the old fashion rain of debris. This part of the fight was already underway. Susie and her former crew were throwing down baseballs, footballs, all her balls.
"That's it, use whatever you can" she shouted standing in a window with pool balls dropping them onto their heads, "Keep them back! Keep them away from the doors!" In a window overlooking the back yard, Hobbes got a visual on what he saw earlier. "There they are" muttering to himself as goons were dragging kids by their ankles around, behind the corpse of trees.
"Good gravy!" shouted Calvin, taking a step back from the window, flabbergasted, "They coordinated an attack. They actually hit us in the right spots." His face fell. Intelligence, how? These goons were actually learning to the point they can move in large numbers, far more than the garrison possessed. Those creatures, those that he created, were getting smarter. How smart are they now, or how much more could they be after this battle?
Downstairs, glass shattered, framework for windows began to splinter. They were breaking in. Up above, the shudders were thrown open above Susie's doorways. From up above came a rain of heavy items onto this white convulsing mass of ice and sticks. Parts of beds, dressers, anything that could be manhandled from rooms were pushed to Hobbes whom lifted and shoved them out the windows. Either by ones or two, sometimes in small groups, goons were crushed only to have their remains be shoved aside to let a fresh batch to take a whack at these obstacles. Their human opponents were battling to their hearts content. There was little planning at this stage of the battle. No stones and they were running out of furniture fast. Susie's room was nearly striped cleaned, but it was not enough, and through that one door out in front the goons made headway and by ones they filed into the warm house rolling over the bodies of their many dead without a thought.
Heaving out a dresser drawer Hobbes looked down at this mass and something in his mind clicked. "I'll be right back" he departed suddenly and jumped over the barricade and went downstairs. Children watched, stunned. Where was he going? Did he show the white feather? Turn tail and run? No, the great tiger was not fleeing, but what he needed was where the enemy was, and when he came running back a goon took a swipe at him and ripped out some strands of his orange fur. It was not the gas can that he had before, it was now empty, but what he did have was just as good, some heating oil that they obtained in a raid. As articles of wood and stone continued to rain down on them, something spicy was added as well. "Where did you get that?" Susie asked as Hobbes used a razor sharp claw to open the can, "From a good neighbor," he smiled removing the cap. For a wick, he ripped out a sizable piece of cloth from Susie's bed.
"No!" protesting this act of vandalism loudly, "You took my bed, all my other furniture, take the toilet, but not my bed sheets, please!" Her pleas went unanswered. Hobbes doused the cloth and stuck in to the can's mouth. "I need a match" asking his companions. Calvin stepped forward, taking out from his pocket, a large box of strike matches. "Where did you get THOSE?" Susie asked again. "From your kitchen" the boy replied, handing it to Hobbes.
"You two have been snooping around in my house and stealing stuff?"
"Blah blah blah" mimicking her and the two carried on with their task.
"She's cute when she's angry" muttered Hobbes with a smirk as a match struck up his wick. Overlooking this congested mass below, he yelled, "Time for a winter barbecue" then spiked it to the ground. When that large scale Molotov cocktail hit the porch, gas and flame met, creating an unbelievable fireball that generated a heat wave that could be felt all the way up to the second floor and incinerate everything in an immediate radius. Smoke, stench of burning wood, and gurgling groans of dying goons mark their success as survivors looked outside from the other windows. "Woohoo!" they exclaimed as they watched their foe die slowly.
This moment of joy was quickly shattered, just like the weak locks down below as the goons covered the entire ground floor. In their haste to escape upstairs, no one bothered to set the thermometer high in order to melt them. It did not matter anyway for it was smashed soon afterward their break in. Those in the hallway upstairs heard a crash of wood and shatter of glass, and promptly, they scattered like chaff in the wind. Their moans bounced around the interior of the household, magnifying it to beyond regular levels. To those little children it sounded as though thousands were just down the stairs and not the mere dozens that were. A whole new aspect of warfare, PsyOps, Psychological attacks that could break an enemies' will to fight without firing a shot, and a simple method is: intimidation. A few remained at the barricade held fast by the Susie's stout will and fist as others scattered as chaff to the window into various rooms they went; those gallant children that once numbering fifty, now less than two dozen, their discipline broke, it was every man for themselves now. Candace was gone; Susie did not know it until now when she asked others and they told of the horror of her being tossed over the wall as a beef treat for a dog. Shaking it off she kept four boys and another girl at the barricade with their bats and sticks. Their fortification had many loopholes, gaps in between furniture that allowed their sharpened weapons jutting out to stab their enemies from safety. As the first goons came up, they easily dwarfed the children, their width brushing the walls of the corridor, mouths agape, lanky arms reaching for them.
Susie kept them at their posts, others ran, but this will not be allowed to become a series of gallant last stands, at least for her. Sean, Harold, Dilbert, and Nick, with Brianna were those under her charge, their still gloved hands gripped tightly their weapons as the first goons sloshed up to the barricade, "Stab them!" they poked yet their blades either glanced off the ice body or did not go deep enough. "Harder! Stab them! Kill them!" Susie screamed, her voice becoming hoarser that she coughed after finishing.
Giving a glance backward, down the hallway, where there were many doors they were all shut, except one, the bathroom where the tiger, Calvin, and Floyd found themselves rummaging through the cabinets. "What are those buffoons up to?" she wondered to herself. The goons' body slammed hard but the barricade remained in place. "Stab! Stab! Stab!" she commanded and they did and the goon fell, his body blocking the way. That would buy them some time, maybe a few seconds.
They could not set the place on fire, not her home. Where could they go if they did such a thing? Granted it would kill many of the enemy but being as they were smart they would not stay around and dance in the flames but disperse into the darkness. Susie and her group still held on as Hobbes and Calvin retreated to Susie's room with arm loads of goods, then Calvin peeked his head out and told her to move.
"Fall back!" Susie gave the command and her group hurriedly moved to her room. The instant they left the barricade was ripped apart and Floyd was caught in the hallway, a deer in the headlights. Instead of moving in with the others he turned and went back into the bathroom and shut up in there. "What a hell of a way to go" he cursed himself as he wedged his small body between the toilet and the tub.
Mortimer, Oliver and, and O'Rourke barricaded themselves into Susie's parent's bathroom, they cowered inside that large shower, three kids in a tub. Even with three they were not a fighting force. Outside, they could hear the lumbering beasts moving about. Moaning, roaring, looking for their prey after they took apart the barricade and now roamed the hall and coming upon a door they began to bang against it.
"If only we did what that kid did when he was home alone" Calvin cursed, "With the buckets at the stairs." That plan may have stalled for time, but would not stop their juggernaut enemies. It was undeniable. At the top at last, the goons turned down the hallway and found four doors to four different rooms and a bathroom. Calvin gulped, a rock in his hand wearily looking forward at the door. Hobbes was beside him, a bat ready. Susie was unarmed.
"I didn't mean for it to go like this" Calvin spoke to them.
"At least we get to die together" Hobbes smiled up at him. It was a somber moment, final words before that door came crashing down and those defenders made their last stand. To go down swinging, fighting, never surrendering. It would have happened that way, had not Calvin had a change of thought.
"No one has to die" he muttered.
"What?" asked Susie to his left-rear.
"No one else has to die," he repeated. In the corner sat two wounded children huddling, clutching one another, "We are getting out of this."
"How?" they asked.
He approached the door, putting an ear to it. There were goons moving about, how many he was not certain. "If" he said looking back to them, "We can fight our way down the stairs and to the creek..."
"But" Hobbes interrupted, "You saw them coming out from the corpse of trees. It's an ambush. Besides, why go down the hallway when we could jump out the window?" he looked out that one only window himself, only to find goons crowded around directly below. "OK, I'm with you" the tiger changed his mind.
In the other rooms, no one had knowledge of this break out attempt. For all they knew, they were on their own. Oliver, O'Rourke, and Mortimer were locked the bathroom, the remainder of their company were now lost outside. Among those was that little boy, Travis. Each door was being knocked on loudly. Thuds and bangs, scratched, and moans followed the wails of children. They wanted in, the kids wanted out.
"Who is with me?" asked Calvin, looking at his rag tag survivors. Some clutched sticks and bats, others stones, some had nothing, but each one wanted out, and now. Moving towards her now bulging door, Susie waited impatiently. Calvin took hold of the cold brass knob, pressing his body against the adjacent wall. "1...2..." Calvin said, silently undoing the turn lock, "3!" the door was flung open and out stepped the boy and his deranged tiger. Shouting at the top of his lungs, Calvin threw his stone, hitting one directly in its pockmarked face, and instantly took it down. Hobbes swung his bat, taking the head off another. More were trying to come up but their bodies were too wide for the narrow stairway thus they were coming one at a time. Hobbes fought his way towards them, swinging his bat madly, taking off heads left and right. Reaching the site of the barricade he killed one mounting it and shoved its body onto those coming up creating a domino effect.
Hearing shouts and fighting going on outside, survivors in those other rooms began to wonder what was happening. "I think they are fighting to escape" said one, trapped in the guest bedroom across from the parent's room. "Then we should as well" replied another. This party, about five in number, agreed unanimously, they wanted out just as badly. At that moment, their door came crashing in, goons charge into its interior, but the children fought viciously, showing that they had nothing to lose in this stage of the battle, and everything to gain. A child actually jumped onto one of his attackers and began to punch its oval shaped head in until it finally died. With all their opponents slain, the children hustled out into the hallway to find Calvin's group fighting their way through the congested hall towards the stairs. A great break out was underway. At two points, the children battled. Trapped, hampered by their own girth and narrow walls, all the goons upstairs were being slain from two sides. Their bodies inside were unruly, could not turn around fast enough. However, that was only part of the plan. Going down it was tedious, for there were so many of the snow goons packed inside and more were forcing their way through, it was a full house. Swinging clubs and screaming war yells, the children descended to the first floor, "To the back!" screamed Calvin, in the lead as he pointed to the back door. Shoving a goon against the wall as he went Hobbes was right behind and finished him off with a mighty swing.
Flustered by slipping over several bodies and with more and more reinforcements entering the house through the kitchen Calvin muscled his way towards the back, climbing over the bodies and slipping on the water soaked floor. The door was open, knocked completely free, thus it would a rapid exit. Nearby windows were also gone despite being barricaded. "Darn boards" Hobbes was cursing at their own fortifications.
"Hobbes, help!" Calvin called out as a goon shoved his way inside and grasped the spry boy in his skeleton arms. With mighty strength, the tiger pulled the boy free and dropped the bat onto the goons' crown. The way was clear. "Hurry!" others cried together. Goons were coming for them from all sides. There was nothing left in which to the stop them except run, run far, run fast. Going by ones, an arm's length from each other the kids went as goons came at them from other rooms and especially from the kitchen. They were coming fast. The last one down the stairs jerked his head to the right and there was one right there, crippled but still in the fight and reached for him, those five inch fingers brushing the cotton jacket of his. The children raced out in an uncoordinated fashion. Here, it was every man for himself once more, but Calvin did not want it to be yelling "Follow me!" On the way they gathered their sleds that were stashed by the shed; their destination was the creek.
Glancing over his shoulder to see whom was with him, all Calvin saw was Hobbes, Susie, and a string of others and not the entire remnant of the garrison as he hoped. Cursing to himself, "Darn it" he reached the South wall rampart where the crew members put up a brief defense. The catapult was broken, the strong arm snapped thus useless. Mounting the wall he paused and had the others go past him, climbing over to the other side with Hobbes leading the way. As they went the boy looked back at his fort, the goons were now aware of their presence and beginning to come towards them whilst others were still inside about to finish off those still trapped. "Come on, guys, get out of there," he wanted to say but his voice did not work. He gasped several times, coughed, nothing. He felt the warm paws of Hobbes grasp his body and carried him into the darkness.
"AUGH!" PIFF the sound of impact of soft snow, "You dumb bell!" came a shout before Susie landed nearby, PIFF. Looking back at the house, Hobbes could see goons coming out and after them. In his final gaze at the fort some of the second story windows were broken out and a few were trying to climb down with sheet ropes in a final bid to escape. Those once gallant defenders were fleeing in every direction once their feet touched the ground. "Over here!" the tiger bellowed, a couple came towards his voice and were helped over to safety. Groaning in anger and seeing he was the last, Hobbes clawed his way up then slipped on over to the outside.
But, the battle was not over just yet for up in the second floor, Mortimer, Oliver, and O'Rourke, having barricaded themselves inside the bathroom, made no attempt to flee with the others. His mind was too cold, too weak to contemplate what could have happened if he tried or what his consequences were now, now that he and five others were trapped in this tomb. Nearby and trapped with them, not by choice, were Harold, Sean, and Nick, still bed ridden, incapable to fleeing. Moans and groans signaled their approach. In no time, their bodies were being heaved at the door. Sitting up at the head board was Sean. Nick at his side, both of them covered by a thick, warm blanket. Harold was at their feet, brandishing a small pocket knife, his only means of protection. It was at that moment that Sean remembered what Candace and Susie had given them, two hair dryers. "What the heck are these for?" asked a sweating Sean, "Your pistol, sir" replied a sarcastic Nick having plugged in both of them. Once the door gave way, the hair dryers clicked on, "Come and get us!" someone shouted. Goons rushed forward, seeing wounded prey. Herald slashed his knife around. When a goon landed on him in an attempt to smother him, he stabbed the face and neck, it died, but two more rushed him, slashing and flailing their branch arms. "NO" screamed Sean and Nick, turning on their dryers to maximum heat, they sprayed the entire foot of the bed. Goons swarmed in, going around both sides of their bed. They smothered their prey, whom did not scream or beg for mercy, their fight was over.
Not far away, three cowering individuals awaited their fate. Looking at his two companions, Mortimer had no regret, no remorse what so ever. "Well, this is it" telling them taking in a breath slowly. O'Rourke was set back; he did not want to die, especially in this fashion. No windows were in this room, no other means of escape. "I'm not going to stay in this place another minute" he told them, getting out of the shower.
"Don't open the door!" his suppose leader exclaimed. It was too late, O'Rourke opened their only defense, he saw goons ripping up the bed, then glared at this little kid in the door and made a charge. Slamming it shut there was no time to lock it. Bursting in, O'Rourke was thrown against the toilet. Stunned by this blow, he tried to sit up, eyes blurry. In a moment, a goon drove his arms into him, he was gone. Screaming from inside the shower attracted their attention. The sliding glass door was thrown open. They saw two kids huddling together, arm in arm. One towered over them was hideous looking, pine cone eyes, icicle fangs goon. It brought back an arm. The boys screamed, then silence. Hobbes's sharp ears picked up a blood curtailing scream then abrupt silence. Stopping in his tracks, his eyes fell back on the house.
"What is it?" Susie came up to ask.
"The Alamo has fallen" speaking softly, heartbroken. Looking with him at her home, a cold tear formed in her eye and dribbled down to her cheek where it froze. Taking up the tiger's paw, she held it tightly, "Come" he said, "We must go." Slowly, this small band of survivors began to trek towards the creek. Edgy over ambush, clubs were at the ready, weary eyes scanned all about. Calvin was in the lead, he was the first to find an article of clothing, a glove belonging to one of those that was tossed over the wall. No bodies were found, though. He took the glove, looking at it frozen in place as his friends came up, "What is it?" one asked,
"Oh, a glove I found" he said, stuffing it into his coat pocket, "Come on, we're almost there." assuring them at that safety was close. Some were wounded, all were tired, hungry, thirsty, and felt lost, even though they were in their own backyards. "Where are we going?" Susie asked as he helped one wounded boy through the snow. "Up ahead is the creek" said Calvin, "We'll use our sleds to get through the hills."
"Then what?" Hobbes questioned, struggling to keep up.
"Not sure" confessing, "Perhaps head North. Or wait in the woods"
"Why wait in the woods? We can't wait in the woods" yelled Susie, "We have no food or proper clothes to stay the night."
"Yes" Calvin growled, "But, we can't stay anywhere else. I say we find a safe place, perhaps a hill and wait it out until daylight".
"Then what?" asked Hobbes.
"We take back what's ours" almost to himself.