Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction

CLOUDS | Wayne Kyle Spitzer-3

By the time Karen had maneuvered us to a hard landing at the edge of the playing field, the first of the sword-tails were already circling the Excelsior—just circling and gliding, as though carefully sniffing the zeppelin out. As for myself, I knew we’d have but seconds before security responded—violently, I was sure—and so was scrambling with the bullhorn before the balloon’s envelope had even fully deflated. I only remember that the thing was heavier and louder than I’d expected, and for the latter, at least, I was profoundly grateful.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to ask you all to get up and proceed to the nearest exits. Please don’t panic, just do it now and in an orderly fashion.”

But they did panic, almost instantly, probably because someone had already noticed the sword-tails, and the next thing I knew there was a sea of humanity crushing toward the exits even as the security staff ran at me across the field and the first explosion rocked the arena.

“Get on the ground!” I recall someone shouting in the instants before I was piledrived, and then I was literally seeing stars as the heavyset men piled on and at least one of them started kicking me in the ribs.

“Jesus, look up!” Karen shouted, and when I rolled over on my side I saw that she had leapt atop one of the men’s backs and was forcibly lifting his head.

To the purple-pink sky and the soaring Jovian hunters. To the massive, dark-skinned zeppelin which was already on fire and continued to explode as additional cells were ignited.

And then I was free, they’d clambered off me at last, and I struggled for breath while still curled up on the Astroturf even as great chunks of burning wreckage began to reign down all around and Karen tried to help me to my feet. And yet even amidst all that it occurred to me: my camera might still be in the ruins of the balloon (for I’d placed it on a shelf below the bulwark right after the Gas Monkey had exploded). And the next thing I knew I was searching for and finding it and triggering the record button, pausing only to look at Karen over the viewfinder as she let go of my arms at last and began shaking her head.

“I—I’ve got a kid, if no longer a husband,” she said, the tears streaming down her face. “I can’t stay here.”

“I know,” I remember saying—as gently as I could under the circumstances. “Go. I’ll be all right.”

And then she smiled almost motherly—and was gone across the wreckage-littered field.

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* * * *

It didn’t take long for what remained of the Excelsior to come crashing down, its great, bullet-shaped envelope almost completely burned away and its interior girders warping and melting. Nor did the hydrogen-eaters abandon it even then, but continued to draw sustenance from it as their abdominal sacs swelled and their manta ray/bat wings beat furiously and their eyes seemed to spiral like the storms of Jupiter itself.

As for myself, I’d retreated to the relative safety of a roofed area near the dugout, where I continued to record as the now-gorged hunters at last began to rise ... and in very short order disappeared into a cloud of their own making.

And then—finally—it was over, and I could only stare at the ruins of the Excelsior as a few survivors stumbled from the smoke and swirling particulate—at which instant I awakened as if from a dream and hurried to assist them.

I was helping an elderly woman get back on her feet when I first heard the gasps and expressions of surprise happening all around us. Nor did it take long to figure out what they were responding to, for when I followed their collective gaze to the blue-gray sky I saw two enormous creatures rising into the clouds—huge creatures, as big as mountains, shaking off avalanches of snow with each undulating breath, pulsing upward like man-of-wars in water.

And I remembered the old Indian.

They fall from sky ... onto my land.

And knew nothing would ever be the same.