Wrath and Ruin

by C W Briar

  I need her, he thought as he paced the kitchen floor.

  ***

  Brynn screamed from somewhere in the haze. Yanked from half-sleep into full consciousness, Dave leapt up from the living room floor where he had been lying unaware. The shrieks quickly changed to angry, fearful shouts of his name. She was standing in front of his office, her mouth gaping and the contents of her dropped purse spilled over the ground.

  Panic struck him with such force, he nearly collapsed to his knees. How could he have been so stupid as to leave one of his web searches on the computer screen? Dave steadied himself with one hand against the wall. Why were his legs so weak? He tottered toward her, hoping to explain away whatever she was seeing. He needed a swift excuse, even though whatever he said would be useless.

  Dave reached his office, clasped the door frame, and froze. His wife staggered toward the computer. One of their honeymoon pictures, a photo of her lying beside the hot springs in a bikini, had been pulled up on the screen. Someone had maliciously edited the image. The playfulness in her eyes had been stretched into a wide, lifeless stare. Her body was torn open in several places, and three crows perched on top of her, their beaks bloody. One held a chunk of flesh in its jaws.

  Brynn’s mouth moved up and down for several seconds before she managed to speak. “Is this … what you did all day? You made this horrible thing?”

  Dave looked frantically between her and the image, trying to figure out how it had gotten there. “No, I didn’t make this.”

  “I’m not stupid, Dave. It’s your computer.” She shook her finger at the screen. “Did somebody pay you to make a horror image?”

  “No.”

  “So you made it for your own sick enjoyment? I didn’t give you permission to use my picture like this.” She plucked something black from his desk. “And what are these?”

  She was holding a crow’s feather, one of dozens spread around his keyboard. Dave’s head whirled, as if his brain were being spun at the end of a rope. He tried to recall what happened earlier that day, but the attempt left him feeling disoriented, confused, and nauseous. He collapsed into his wheeled desk chair. It rolled back several feet.

  “What’s going on, Dave? You haven’t even showered yet, and I come home to this freaky, cultish stuff in your office.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” Each question was louder and higher-pitched than the last. “Are you on drugs, or something?”

  “No,” he answered firmly, then winced from his throbbing head and knotting stomach. It felt like something was squeezing the sides of his skull.

  She started to move closer to him, but he stopped her with an upraised hand.

  “Just tell me,” she pleaded

  His thoughts shattered and drowned in a maelstrom of emotions. Fear suffocated him. Shame weighed on his chest, making the air in his lungs feel as heavy and difficult to move as a bucket of water. Dave buried his face in his hands and mumbled at Brynn. The words seemed to well up from somewhere deeper within than his throat.

  “What?” Brynn asked.

  Dave sat upright and glared at her. Why won’t she shut up? He repeated his words, loudly enough for her to hear them clearly.

  “Shut. Up.”

  Brynn dropped the feather. “You need help,” she said with disgust.

  In a burst of regained strength, Dave stood and shoved his chair back, bashing it against the wall. He shouted, “Get the hell out of my office! Stop screwing up my life.”

  Brynn recoiled as though punched. She attempted to speak, but her lips contorted into a deep, quivering frown. After breaking down into sobs, she hurried out of the room, slamming the door behind her. The mess of feathers on his desk lifted into the air and scattered around the room.

  Dave had no idea why, but when Brynn disturbed the feathers, she stoked his already-burning rage.

  ***

  Brynn remained isolated in their bedroom for the rest of the evening. He didn’t dare to knock on the door or try to speak with her. Instead, he remained vigilant in his watch of the neighboring rooftop. He couldn’t sleep, not while so distraught that his love and lust for the mystery girl might go unrequited.

  A brief but heavy rain passed through during the night. Dave cursed the storm for keeping his muse off the rooftop. After the weather cleared, he opened the living room windows, lay on the sofa, and listened for her. As he waited, he studied one of the crow feathers by the dim light of the city’s runoff glow.

  Her voice fluttered into the apartment and kissed his ear. His mystery girl, his true love, was calling to him with her gorgeous, foreign words.

  Ecstatic, Dave ran to a window.

  She was there, leaning on the parapet. This time, she was staring at him. Her pale skin reflected the moon and city lights with such intensity that only her blue, crystalline eyes could be seen through the gleam on her face. Twirled by the wind, her black hair repeatedly brushed over her naked shoulders and curled back in a come-hither gesture. The song, her intoxicating warble, embraced him like a lover’s arms and pulled him closer. Dave lifted his feet, and his body slid out through the window.

  He landed on the balcony of the fire escape. Its grates were wet from the recent rain, and the warm, humid breeze felt like a breath on his neck. A murder of crows took flight from the platforms beneath him, their rapid wings beating in time with his excited heart.

  The mystery girl was still waiting for him. She didn’t vanish like before. If he crossed over to the other building’s fire escape, he could climb the stairs to her. How perfect to finally join her on the rooftop, to unite under the hazy, moonlit sky.

  He was separated from her building by only a one-way street. It was practically an alley, and stairways framed it on both sides. He could make that jump with ease. Not even a jump. A hop. The ground, dark and far below, was inconsequential. Dave climbed onto the railing, keeping low to maintain his balance. He wobbled, but his doubts and fear vanished as quickly as they appeared, overpowered by the courage from her inspiring voice.

  Once steady, Dave tensed his legs, then jumped—or at least tried.

  His foot slipped off the wet metal. He fell, but in his terrified flailing, he managed to smash his hands on the other building’s fire escape. Dave caught the railing, and even though his fingers slipped as he swung wildly, he held on. His heart banged with an intensity he had never known. His shouts echoed in the street.

  Brynn must have heard him. Within seconds, she appeared at the window. “Oh my—Dave!” she screamed as he struggled to maintain his wet grip. “I’m coming.”

  He tried to hook his toes onto the edge of the platform, but the gap beneath the railing’s lowest bar was too small. “Hurry!” he shouted.

  He could hear her climbing out onto the same part of the escape he had leapt from. He dared not risk a glance over his shoulder at her. Dave slid his left hand out to the side, trying to find a better hold.

  He felt something scratching the back of his head. It was Brynn’s fingers.

  “Dave, I can’t quite reach you,” she said, clawing at him but only able to reach his scalp. “Hold on.”

  Crows circled in the sky. Again he adjusted his hands. He heard no further noise from Brynn. She had gone, and he didn’t know if he would be able to last until she came back. However, it appeared he wouldn’t have to. The mystery girl, his beloved, descended the steps toward him, coming to his rescue. She wouldn’t abandon him.

  For the first time, he saw her entire face—or what should have been a face. With dread realization, he renewed his cries for help, this time for rescue from her rather than by her. The girl—no, the monster—was nude, but her luminous body lacked the sculpted details of a normal human. Breasts and other features were vaguely approximated, melted into a mannequin-like replica of the female form. Her face was equally devoid of basic anatomy, possessing alluring eyes but no mouth or nose. Stranger and more terrible still were her limbs. Near the elbows, her arms transformed
into raven wings with clawed fingers, and below the knees, her legs resembled a bird’s.

  The mystery girl was an abomination. It hummed a joyful melody as it glided toward him. “Stay away from me,” he warned, but the beast merely responded with a curious head tilt. It slid over the grated platform until it stood directly above him, staring at him without blinking. Its body gave off cold vapors like dry ice. The water on the railing began to freeze and sting Dave’s fingers.

  He swung his right leg, then his left, trying to gain some footing. Terrified, he considered reaching back for his own balcony. But before he could act, the monster stabbed his hands with its claws.

  Dave opened his mouth to shout, but the pain stole his voice. Blood flowed down his forearms as the creature dragged its nails up to his knuckles. His wounded fingers began to recoil and surrender their grip, regardless of his desperate will not to fall.

  The monster, which he had approached for pleasure, in turn seemed to take pleasure in his fear and misery. Its empty visage was emotionless, but it signaled delight with its writhing dance and flapping arms. It leaned close to his bloody wounds and, despite lacking a nose, made a motion that resembled sniffing. Then the creature emitted a song at a pitch and volume that threatened to rupture Dave’s eardrums. Crows gathered on the railing, joining in the sinister celebration.

  I’m about to die. That realization filled him with taut, weighty emotions he couldn’t identify. He struggled once more to bring his foot up to the platform, or to wrap it over the railing below, but fatigue crippled his attempts. He was going to die, and the inhuman beast was hastening his end. It stopped its dance mid-sway and reached toward his face with its long, tapered claws. Dave looked up at the cruel thing one last time before clenching his eyelids shut.

  The coolness of its presence washed over his cheeks and lips. When he felt the claws pressing his eyelids, beginning to bore through the thin flesh, he released the railing. Shouting, he plummeted into the dark chasm of the street.

  The impact came quickly, and far above the pavement. One floor below, he crumpled onto wood. His ankle wrenched awkwardly and popped, but otherwise he escaped injury. Dave grasped the edges of the plank that had saved him.

  “Dave!” his wife screamed. Brynn and Mrs. Hill were standing behind him. They had dragged the old woman’s table outside and laid it upside-down across the railings, bridging the gap between fire escapes. Their quick thinking had rescued him from a deadly fall.

  He looked up, expecting to see the monster diving after him, but it was gone.

  Dave crawled off the table and into his wife’s embrace. Brynn wrapped him in her arms and, sobbing deeply, buried her face into his shoulder. Warm tears soaked his shirt. Dave slowly moved his trembling hand to her hair and held the back of her head.

  “I thought I had lost you,” she moaned. “I thought I had lost you.”

  Her warm breath, her smell, and her touch calmed his racing heart.

  Mrs. Hill examined Dave’s bloody wounds, raising her eyebrows in shock. Other residents, having heard the commotion, began to emerge on their own balconies. A few of them called out and asked if they needed help.

  No, Dave thought. I’ll be all right. He felt freed, steady, and healed in his wife’s tight embrace.

  Mrs. Hill climbed into her apartment to get bandages, leaving Dave alone with Brynn. He glanced up toward the roof’s edge. Several crows remained perched there, but the monster had flown away. He spotted its gray, glowing form vanishing into the haze above the city.

  The Other Edge

  Astronaut Varik Babel reached out to keep from rotating in front of the video display. He drifted backwards until his feet touched lightly against the wall, and he glanced out the spaceship window. His brief look stretched into a lingering gaze. They were orbiting over the ultramarine waters of the Mediterranean and the tan coasts of Europe and Africa.

  “… Would you agree, commander?” asked the reporter on the communications display.

  Oh, cripes! What was the question?

  Like a student called on by his teacher while daydreaming, he flipped back a page in his memory, trying to recall what had been asked. What could he say to redirect the interviewer? He must look like a fool.

  Janice Widowicz, the five-person crew’s biology specialist and youngest member, rescued him. “We can’t see it from this part of the ship right now,” she said, minimizing her French-Canadian accent. “But we do have a magnificent view of Earth. Ciao to everyone watching from Italy.”

  “Have you seen Angel One yet?” the reporter asked.

  “Yes. We’re orbiting alongside it at a distance of approximately six hundred meters.”

  Varik smoldered with frustration. Hadn’t the reporter been listening when the last five interviewers asked the same thing? We are six hundred meters from the greatest discovery in history. Stop wasting our time.

  It had taken humanity almost a decade of work to reach this moment. When scientists began broadcasting laser communications to probes around Mars, they didn’t expect to hear replies from the asteroid belt beyond the Red Planet. An unidentified object was broadcasting a signal that counted up and down in increments of ten, and every nation denied it belonged to them.

  The first known alien artifact, a spacecraft, had been found. NASA named it Angel One and declared its plan to bring the object to earth’s orbit.

  Varik remembered the announcement well. He had been a pilot for the Air Force at the time, but within a week of hearing the news, he submitted his résumé to NASA. This was going to be a monumental event. He needed to be a part of it, even if only in some small way. By hard work and luck, he earned more than a small role. He was chosen as commander of Unity, the space shuttle built to intercept and investigate Angel One.

  But being on the first crew sent to explore an alien spacecraft meant enduring the media day after day. Varik knew what the next question would be before the interviewer said it.

  “Can you describe the alien ship for us?”

  The Unity crew members looked at one another. Lance Ishikawa, the engineering specialist, took the question.

  “The vessel is approximately two hundred meters long, making it three times longer than our ship and four times longer than the old space shuttles. It’s shaped like a swan with a long neck, except the wings are short and the body is round like a disc. The box structures on the wings are possibly thrusters.”

  “What color is it?”

  “The spacecraft’s skin is extraordinary,” Janice said, her accent more prominent with her excited tone. “It’s not a single color, especially when sunlight reflects off of it. The best description for it is slightly darkened mother-of-pearl.”

  The interviewer directed a few questions to the rest of the crew, British pilot Callum Mills and German mission specialist Emma Stadt. He then said “Commander Babel” and paused for a response. He probably wanted to confirm Varik was paying attention this time.

  “Yes?” Varik said.

  “Are you and the rest of your team proud to have won the Second Space Race?”

  Varik nearly scoffed at the question. “This mission has never been about nationalistic one-upmanship, and I have a lot of respect for the Russian cosmonauts and the Chinese. I’ve worked with both.”

  He sighed. The reporter was sidetracking him. “The priority of our mission has always been to explore this artifact left by our unknown intergalactic neighbors. This moment is for all of humanity. Our ship is called Unity, after all.”

  “And there certainly will be a large percentage of humanity watching,” the reporter said. “Experts predict your mission will be the biggest televised event in history. How does it feel to be watched by billions of people?”

  It feels like you’re wasting everyone’s time with idiotic commentary, that’s what.

  Janice patted Varik on the shoulder. She had witnessed enough of his rants to know how he truly felt.

  Varik forced an ambassadorial smile. “I would like to tell th
ose billions of people to stay tuned. The course of human history will change forever after today.”

  After a few more exchanges with the crew, the reporter signed off with an awkward catch phrase that was, based on his grin, nowhere near as clever as he thought it was. After a cut to black, the comms display changed to a live feed of Nick Costa. The balding man was the capsule communicator, which meant he bore the famous “Houston” call sign and served as the voice of the command center.

  “That’s it, folks,” he said. “It’s just us now. Are you ready to make history?”

  The crew let out a collective sigh.

  “It’s about time,” Callum said.

  “Sorry, Unity. Everyone down here is just as eager as you, trust me.” Nick checked his watch. “We’re only a little behind schedule. Nick, Janice, and Ishikawa, suit up for the walk.”

  The distractions stopping them from the mission had passed. Emma drifted toward the flight deck with Callum, laughing at a comment he had whispered. Janice and Ishikawa leapt off the wall and propelled themselves like torpedoes toward the airlock. An hour and multiple interviews ago, Varik would have gladly joined them. Instead, he lingered in front of the comms display, fuming. He could see Nick speaking with someone off camera.

  “Nick?” He used his friend’s name rather than his call sign to indicate what he had to say was personal.

  Nick turned to him and inserted his earpiece. “Yeah, Varik?”

  He scowled. “Seriously, what was that bullcrap? Nine interviews? We’re astronauts, not TV hosts.”

  “Calm down. That’s part of being a hero. Plus, we need to pay the bills. Interviews excite the taxpayers, and excited taxpayers don’t complain about funding NASA.”

  “There’s a six-hundred-foot alien vessel orbiting Earth. Keep that on camera and they’ll fund us for the next century.”