Free Hissers by Ryan C. Thomas

after that. And we can’t get down the road here, which would be easiest, but we can head back up Union and go around the gas station—”
    “It’s gone,” Seth said. “Look.”
    “Right. I forgot. But we’ll just go that way anyway and stick together and—”
    He never finished his sentence. Over the shoulders of his friends he could see the street, the plane, distraught and curious people from the neighborhood being ushered away by angry and confused policemen, firemen maneuvering their fire hoses, and the cop who’d just been attacked at the edge of the neighboring lawn.
    The cop was standing. Just a few feet beyond the car they were hiding behind.
    Not just standing, but swiveling his head back and forth so fast it looked like he might snap his own neck, arms flexing like a television wrestler acting tough. His face had a gaping hole in the middle of it where his nose and lips had once been. His cheeks and forehead were split wide with deep gouges. What really concerned Connor was the way the cop was hissing.
    Just like the flight attendant.
    Before Connor could mention what he was seeing, the cop looked right at him, locked his bile-colored eyes with him, and burst into a sprint.
    Connor felt ice shoot through his chest. “Run run run!”
    Everybody’s eyes went wide and Seth screamed but they were all up and running in a flash, nobody looking back. Connor knocked one of the two-by-fours off the top of the car and it hit the faceless cop in the knees, taking him down.
    “This way,” Connor yelled, aiming for Union Avenue. The other three ran toward him but suddenly jumped apart as the cop tore into the middle of the group. Seth and Amanita ran back to the car, got it between them and the frenzied cop. Nicole reached Connor and yelled, “He’s gonna kill them!”
    If the cop doesn’t get them, Connor thought, those two firemen certainly will. They were standing now as well, and even at this distance he could see the way their heads swiveled and their chewed-up lips snarled in a hiss.
    What the hell is going on?
    “Seth, behind you!”
    Seth and Amanita turned, saw the two firemen running at them, screamed, and broke out toward the burning plane and firetrucks. The cop went around the back of the car and joined in the chase as well.
    Connor’s stomach lurched, knowing his friends were done for, knowing Seth was not fast enough and Amanita was handicapped by bare feet, knowing there was nothing he could do to save them, hating himself for being so worthless. Oh dear God he was about to watch them die in the most heinous way he could have ever imagined. One human being biting the flesh off of another until death.
    Seth and Amanita reached the nearest fire truck, gunning for the handful of firemen working the hose on its back, just as two more yellow-eyed, animalistic cops came out of the black smoke and swarmed the unsuspecting men.
    The pursuers—the faceless cop and two mangled firemen—saw the new attack and decided on the easier prey. Seth and Amanita leapt behind the truck as the entire pack of ravenous hissing authorities fought the firemen to the ground and bit off their faces. An eyeball flitted through the air and was quickly scrounged up and eaten. Other bits, noses and lips and chunks of gooey flesh, met the same end.
    “C’mon!” Connor shouted, waving them back over.
    Seth saw him, started to run, but stopped. He pointed at Connor. “Get out!”
    Connor turned, saw a neighborhood resident, a woman in a Disney Land sweatshirt, her neck ripped to shreds, running at them in the now familiar FUBAR sprint of the insane. She was a substitute teacher around the schools; he’d had her a few times. Running almost hand over foot next to her was Melissa Hodges, a quiet girl a grade ahead of him, her mouth agape and coated in crimson blood, face burned to a waxy slick. She must have been at the Drake’s party too. Something was spreading and it was happening damn fast.
    He grabbed Nicole and ran