Purge

The leopard men on the Riley residence porch all snapped to attention. Debra’s mouth had engulfed Stewart’s head, her tongue running across his smoothening face.

Even if Jordan couldn’t hear the screams of what had been her father, she could feel it all the same.

“Jordan!” Her mother was screaming at her in the back. “Go!”

Jordan shook her head. The leopard men – including her brother – were charging at the vehicle. Her foot slammed on the gas pedal.

The SUV peeled out of the driveway and backed into the street. Several leopard men had leapt at the windshield and watched the hood of the vehicle disappear beneath them before they hit the ground.

But one managed to catch up to the SUV, their body slamming into the vehicle’s side and a clawed fist punching through the driver door window. Blake’s hand clutched at the trim in the car while Jordan shifted the car into first gear and floored it.

Blake’s claws sunk into the trim and he pulled himself closer to Jordan. She looked at her brother, barely able to recognize him anymore. One of the eyes was still his. The other was a cat’s eye.

“Please,” Jordan begged. “Please let me go.”

In the blink of an eye, both eyes were that of the leopard. Blake gnashed his teeth and slashed at Jordan’s shoulder.

She cried in pain as blood gushed down her arm. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t her brother anymore. Jordan smashed her foot into the brakes as hard as she could.

The brakes squealed and skid marks melted into the road behind them. Jordan saw what was once her brother lose his grip, claws tearing up the insides for the car before he was sent flying into a parked car on the side of the street.

Jordan stared at the body stuck halfway through the windshield of the other car in shock. At least with Elijah, that had been an accident. He’d walked into her knife. This? She’d slammed on the brakes. That was her choice.

Karen leaned in from the backseat. Her lip quivered. “Is he…”

Police sirens started to blare in the distance. There was no time to be sure. Jordan pushed it all deep down and started speeding through the streets again.

Grey’s knuckles were white from how she was holding onto the grab handle above her door. “Do you know which way to go?”

Karen spoke up. “Through Main Street, that’ll take out of Green Pines and into Bolloron.”

Jordan winced. “That’ll take us downtown. There’s an old service road near the high school, we’ll take that.”

“No, they built a new police station on that road,” said Karen. “They’ll have blocked it off. Go through Main Street.”

“But that’ll take me downtown,” Jordan said again.

“That’s the safest option!”

Blue and red lights were now flashing in the rearview mirror and gaining. Jordan didn’t have time to argue this with her mother. They went past the hospital and turned onto Main Street.

The whole community looked abandoned. None of the businesses were open, not a light illuminated any of the signage for them. The streetlamps weakly flickered on and off. The only cars on the road were them and the police.

Looming ahead was the gate to the community. It was closed shut normally, opening only when presented with the access card property owners or given permission by the security team. Neither of which Jordan would be getting tonight.

The SUV rammed through the gate.

Everyone inside was rocked by the impact but the gate flew off its hinges from their force.

And then Jordan understood exactly why Frank had warned her to get out of town before the sun went down.

----

Bolloron looked like it was burning to the ground.

Bodies littered the sidewalks as its residents fled for their lives. Some were followed by leopard men, lazily following them and taking shots with pistols and other guns.

The road was a mess. Jordan had to drive around burning cars and had several near misses with others filled with people trying to find somewhere, anywhere that was safe. A few even dared to stop long enough to pick up stragglers who were lost and on their own.

Jordan wanted to help. Everything in her screamed at her to do so. But with the police still on her tail, she couldn’t bear to put Grey and her mother in the line of fire. She sped past everyone else and hoped for the best.

“Oh my god, oh my god!”

Karen was freaking out. Her head was on a swivel, looking at all of the terror and destruction playing out. “What is all this?!”

“The Party,” Grey explained. “This is the Party.”

All Jordan could make out was a weak ‘I didn’t know’, repeated over and over. Her mother softly rocked back and forth. She couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.

Grey grit her teeth but remained quiet. Jordan knew seeing this again must have brought up some uncomfortable memories.

The repeated weaving through and around cars seemed to be working. The police cars chasing the SUV were getting further and further back. It wasn’t long before Jordan had broken their line of sight entirely.

Once she was sure she had a moment, she turned into a parking garage and shut the car off. Police cars raced down the street, thinking they were still on the road.

Jordan nearly got sick at what she saw in one corner of the garage. A pile of corpses, their burnt flesh making it impossible to tell where one body ended and the next began. She focused on the steering wheel, the dormant speedometer, anything to not look at it again.

Her mother hopped out of the car and treated Jordan’s shoulder. Jordan knew she was trying to say something soothing as she tended to Jordan, but both were too shellshocked by the night’s events to say anything or to take it in.

All Jordan could do was scream when Karen cleaned the wounds and dressed them.

-----

With a bloody patch of gauze now stuck to her shoulder, Jordan started the car once again.

The SUV inched out of the parking garage. The streets were clear of any more police cars. Jordan turned back onto the street and started moving.

“Is it the same way back to the highway?” asked Jordan. When Karen nodded, she turned a right at what remained of a gas station.

The chaos had died down somewhat. The fires still burned with no fire department on the way to put them out. Jordan wondered if that was the plan – burn down all of Bolloron so only Green Pines remained.

Jordan adjusted the rearview mirror. Then she started speeding up again.

She recognized that pickup that had gotten behind them. And knew that her grandmother was behind the wheel.