This Is the End

by Eric Pollarine

  Everything comes to life in under a second. The screens dim for a half a second and we both notice it.

  “What was that?” she asks. I get up and motion for her to sit again.

  “I just opened up everything in the building except the door controls for you to look over. There’s a couple of hundred server racks that are powered up right now, waiting for you to get cracking; it’s a pretty big power drain.”

  Her jaw opens slightly, there’s a small trace smile in her lips, but she quickly tries to hide her enthusiasm.

  “What am I looking for exactly?” she asks.

  I point at the screen that Robert McMillan’s face is on.

  “Anything to do with that fucker, and what happened.”

  “Awesome. I’m gonna lay down then if you two are gonna geek out,” says Scott. He spreads out on the couch and puts his feet up on one of the arm rests. I walk over and knock his boots off; he gets up too fast for his own good. He sits back down and holds his stomach for a few seconds as if he’s going to puke again.

  “Nope. We, my good man, are going to see about my car,” I say.

  “You have a car?” asks Scott. He’s still deciding whether or not getting up is a good idea.

  “Yep, a Ford Focus.”

  “Dude, you were like the richest guy in the world before all this shit and you have a Ford Focus?” he asks.

  “You’ve never seen my Ford Focus,” I say and walk towards the door.

  9.

  When the doors open up I instantly stop; the smell of rotten and decaying flesh is too much. Scott must not have been paying any attention because he runs right into my back. I put my hand up and he does the same. I had forgotten what was out here. Scott can’t hold back and heaves behind me. I jump forward and step on someone’s hand; the sound of bones cracking under the heel of my shoe is almost enough to make me lose it. I suck in a mouthful of air and hold my breath. Jesus, even the air has the same sickening smell to it.

  I turn around and Scott looks like hell again, he’s turning from pale back to a sickly shade of green and I watch as he fights another urge to spew. He looks over at me and I motion for him to follow. We make it to the other side of the security door; he clicks on the flashlight and we both sit down on the top step. I take my pack of smokes out and light one up, then hand it over for him to take. He shakes his head.

  “No, I’m good. I just need to breathe,” he says.

  I suck back and watch the cherry light up then get up. “You good?”

  He waits a few more seconds and then replies, “Yeah, just wasn’t…I just forgot.”

  I nod and say, “Me too.” And then start back down the steps towards the ground floor and the garage.

  I don’t even know if the car is still there or not. Really, I just wanted to clear my head. I’m almost a hundred percent sure my theory on Rob is right, but even if I’m wrong, he still has to have more to do with this than most people thought.

  We move forward; we keep on going through the motions of stepping over each other in silence. Scott is in front now, then I’ll round out and beat him forward on a landing and he’ll hand the flashlight off to me for a while.

  It’s only six floors until we hit the garage then we’ll have to figure a way to get from the doorway to where my car is parked. If I’m right, then there won’t be a large chance of running into anything like the crooked man down in the garage. Even when everything was normal, I only staffed two security guys down here at all times.

  Let’s face it, if anyone had gotten into the garage, they could have easily blown the building. There wasn’t much that I was going to be able too do about that. We move in silence the entire way until we see the big capital G on the wall.

  “This it?” asks Scott.

  I nod back and say, “Yeah,” while I’m putting my face to the window in the door. I tip-toe up and look around but it’s no use; it’s pitch black in there.

  “Fuck,” I whisper and slide back down onto the souls of my shoes. Scott looks terrible; I should have just done this on my own. He’s leaning hard on the wall like a drunk trying to piss a straight line. Every other breath he takes is strained and the arm that’s extended out and propping him up is visibly shaking.

  “You sure you’re all right?” I ask him and he looks over at me and nods his head and then tries to make it look like fuck-all didn’t run over his body this morning.

  After a minute or two of standing upright and trying to fake it, he leans back on the wall, exhales and says, “No.”

  “Drink too much?” I ask back, though I already know the answer. He stands up straight again and surprises me by shaking his head back and forth slowly.

  “Then what is it?” I ask him again. This time I’m holding the flashlight and looking for the little fingerprint reader that should still have power.

  “Last time I had to fight those things was the raid on this building, time before that was down in Nashville. Both were just as bad.”

  “Oh, Jesus, Scott. Don’t tell me you have PTSD or some other bullshit excuse that’ll make you freeze up like a—”

  I barely have time to get the “a” out before he slams me into the wall next to the door. He’s breathing heavily and spit is pooling on his lip. I see the face of pure, unadulterated, scary, physical strength for the first time in my life. I’m not going to lie; if I could have, I would have pissed my pants.

  “No, I don’t, dude, and if you say one more thing like that, one more fucking snide remark, I will carve out your kneecaps, drag you outside and laugh as you scream your lungs out while those things eat you alive. Got it?”

  I nod my head yes and feel pain shooting down my spine. I can barely breathe; his hand is wrapped up in my dress shirt and he’s pulled it tight against my throat. I can feel my face turning redder and redder on its way to blue. After a few more tense seconds and a stare that I’m pretty sure would make Satan himself think twice, he lets me go.

  I begin to apologize, “Sorry, I just—”

  But he stops me and then starts brushing me off. “No, it’s cool. I lost it for a second. My bad,” he says.

  I make a mental note that Scott is officially off my list of people to fuck with and then turn back to look for the sensor. I look up to the ceiling for the reflection of the red laser beam then shine the flashlight over and see the black pad sticking out of the wall. I turn back and shine the light on Skinny Scott and he looks like he’s gonna be sick again.

  “I found it. How do you want to do this?” I ask him.

  He looks at me and shrugs. “I’ll take point, I guess.”

  I look back at him and he says, “It means I’ll go first.”

  I nod and pull out the pistol from the waist of my pants and flick the safety off, hand him the flash light and then I move back towards the fingerprint scanner. I hear the beep and the magnetic locks release with a stomach-turning click. Scott grabs the handle, pulls the flashlight up, clicks it on and pulls the door open wide. I run behind him and grab hold of his shirt and we move into the garage.

  The beam from the flashlight cuts through the darkness in the garage as he sweeps it from left to right. There are still four rows of cars parked in the garage which means that it’s almost full. I’m still holding onto his shirt and he looks back at me. I let go but stay directly behind him. He looks back out towards where the cone of the flashlight ends on the far wall of the garage. He signals for me to be quiet, and I nod back to him.

  “Which way?” he asks in a tone barely above a whisper.

  “Towards the left, that’s where my spot is,” I say back.

  He moves slowly and I follow his every footstep. He shines the light forward and we make it to the first set of parked cars. He crouches down next to a midsized sedan and I follow him and crouch next to him. He chokes up on the flashlight and covers the beam with his hand. He turns to me and motions for me to be quiet, then he flicks off the light and we sit in the darkness. The car has what feels like an eighth of an inch
-thick layer of dust on it, and I reflexively cringe at having to put my suit jacket up to it.

  We lean on the car and wait for, I presume, the sound of anything but us moving. I can feel my nose and chest start to tighten up from the dust and I begin to wiggle my nose. After a few seconds I yank on his shirt and he clicks the light back on and puts it under his face.

  “What?” he whispers back.

  “If there was anything in here, don’t you think that they would have seen the big fucking ray of light from the flashlight?” I ask him.

  He looks around and then says, “Good point.”

  We stand up cautiously and scan the perimeter again. Nothing moves.

  “Ok, where’s your spot again?” he asks and I look around but can’t see a thing.

  “Give me the light?” I ask. He looks down at it and then reluctantly hands it over. I scan towards where I think the car should be and then I see it. It’s still there, in all its non-elegant glory and complete ugliness.

  “That’s it,” I say and then I take off without giving back the light to him.

  He tries to protest for a second but then gives up and follows. I stop at the hood of my mighty metal rhino. Seeing it makes me want to cry. Not because I missed it, though I know when I get into it, I will have. But just the sight of something that’s mine and that hasn’t changed is enough to make me want to get emotional.

  “I seriously can’t believe you drive a Ford Focus,” he says back to me. He starts to walk around the car and look at it, inspecting the tires and the body.

  “This car has more technology and safety features than most tanks,” I say back to him. I’m walking around the opposite side and running my hand over the hood. Even with all the dust and moisture on it, it still looks beautiful.

  “Think of it this way,” I say back as I fumble in my suit pocket for the keyless ignition. “This thing is like my office upstairs. It’s got solar cell membranes, bulletproof glass, composite Kevlar carbon fiber reinforced frame and run-flats, a fully functioning real-time sync to the units upstairs and drink holders.”

  “Yeah, no, that sounds awesome,” he says back to me, “but why a Focus?”

  “Would you expect one of the world’s richest men to drive around in a Ford Focus?”

  He thinks about it for a few seconds and then looks back to me. “Another good point.”

  I hand him back the flashlight and push the unlock button on the key fob and watch as the latches rise up along the four doors. Scott stops for a second and looks behind him. I’m too busy getting into the car to really notice what he’s doing.

  I sit down in the seat and run my hands along the dashboard controls and dials. “I missed you,” I say to the car, and I can almost hear it saying, I missed you too, Jeff.

  I click on the dome light and close my eyes for a second at how bright everything is. I look over to where Scott is still standing next to the right headlight. He’s scanning back and forth and looks like he’s focused on something in the garage. I open the driver’s side door and stand up. “Hey, what is it?” I ask.

  He shushes me and moves his hand like he’s telling a crowd to quiet down. I stop and listen. Then from the right, we hear something that isn’t us. Scott jumps and spins the light around to where he thinks the noise is coming from.

  For a few heartbeats there is silence again. I double-check the safety on my gun and strain my eyes to see if I can make anything out in the dark. The noise repeats again, but this time it seems closer. He moves back to the passenger door and then opens it out and stands behind it.

  “Hey, you got power?” he asks and I say, “Yeah,”

  “Then turn on the headlights.”

  I sit back down in the seat and look at the dial that controls the headlights; I look back out into the darkness. I hesitate for a few seconds and then decide to say fuck it, and turn them on full-blast. The headlights seem to illuminate the whole garage and instantly make everything cast deep and dark shadows on the wall.

  We both hear the sound again. This time it’s coming from the left hand side of the car, the one closest to me. I pull the door closed.

  Scott turns out the flashlight and stoops down to look inside at me and then says, “Brights.”

  I give him a look that says “Really?” and he nods twice. I click on the brights and the whole garage comes into tight focus. Then we see the first one, then the second and then the third and then so on and so forth until I count about twelve. Scott gets into the car and closes the door.

  “Turn the lights off, please,” he says without looking at me.

  I click everything off and the garage is solid black again. I hear someone say, “Fuck,” but to tell you the truth, I can’t remember which one of us said it first.

  * * *

  “You’re sure this thing is safe?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I whisper then add, “What the fuck are we gonna do?”

  “I have no idea. This was your plan,” he says back.

  I didn’t think that there would be twelve of them. If nothing else, I thought maybe one—two tops. But twelve? I never thought there would be twelve.

  We hear the first of the monsters’ fists hit one of the windows and it makes me jump; I couldn’t tell about Scott, but I’m pretty sure he did the same. It sounds like it was right outside my window. It was a dull thud at first, as if it were just trying to spook us out. Then, as the others make their way over, they start to pound on the car; the thudding, open palm slaps begin to become fist slams.

  They start at the hood and then work their way up to the windows and back around to the hatchback.

  Twelve sets of hands start bashing into everything and everywhere all at once. The car isn’t easy to rock, it weighs too much, and from what I have seen of these things, which is admittedly very little, I don’t think they have the strength to tip it. But the continual beating the body and doors and windows are taking is enough to make me think that this might not be the safest place for us to be.

  “I could gun it?” I ask him.

  “What?” he says back, and though I can’t really make out the expression on his face, I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m fucking nuts.

  “I could start her up and try and get them off of us,” I explain.

  “Where are you gonna go?” he asks back and then adds, “I don’t know if you saw or not, but it’s not like there aren’t any other cars in the garage.”

  “What the fuck else are we gonna do, sit in here and wait ‘em out? They already know we’re here—might as well try and move ourselves closer to the door.”

  He begins to object but as he starts to tell me how stupid the idea is, one of them slams their face into his window.

  “Fuck! JUST DO IT,” he yells and grabs hold of the dashboard.

  I push the power button and the engine roars to life; the headlights cut back through the murky darkness and reveal the multitude of bloody fist and palm prints that are scattered over the windows. I shove the automatic gear shift into drive and floor it. The monster directly in front of the car goes down and we bounce over it like a pothole as we move forward, towards the first row of cars.

  The other monsters try and hold onto the car as it rams its way forward. Their hands streak across the windows and leave smears of sticky black fluid and blood in their wake.

  “TURN THE FUCKING WHEEL,” I hear him scream as he reaches over to grab the wheel.

  I slam the steering wheel all the way to the left and we narrowly miss the row of cars directly in front of us. I try to slam on the brakes or make another turn but can’t. We smash into the roll down doors of the garage. The airbags deploy and instantly Scott and I are thrown into the backs of our seats.

  “Oh, shit, that sucked,” he says as he tries to push the airbag out of his way.

  I move my own airbag out of the way and say, “Not as bad as that.” The door to the garage is off its track and I can see dull yellow daylight leaking around the perimeter of the door.

  Sco
tt looks to the door and says, “Fuck.”

  The monsters catch up to us and start beating at the windows again, this time with even more resolve to get at the two of us. One of them is standing next to my window and I can make out the familiar face of an intern that must have gotten trapped here.

  His face is sagging and discolored but virtually unscathed, however from the neck down he’s covered in the same sticky black goo and dried blood as all the others. His once white shirt is dingy and discolored. His hands are mashed flesh sticks; his hands are nothing more than bloody stumps from smashing at the window.

  “I liked this better before we could see them,” I say over to Scott.

  “I liked this better when we were upstairs,” he says back.

  I put the car into reverse and slam back down on the gas. Another of the monsters falls prey to my mighty Ford. This time I can actually control the car, and after I feel the thing’s body dislodge from underneath, I slam on the breaks and put us back into drive.

  We make it around the next row of cars, but the monsters have a target now and follow us. I stop and throw us into reverse again.

  “What the fuck are you doing? We’re almost to the door,” says Scott. I look over to him and put my arm behind his headrest.

  I look back towards the group and smile. “Thinning out the herd,” I reply as I slam on the gas and smash into the monsters, sending yet another one underneath the car and two more bouncing off the back and into the air.

  I spin the wheel and pull us back behind the original row of cars and roll back over one of the bodies on the floor of the garage. As the tire bounces over what must have been its head, we hear a sickening pop followed by a crunch. A thick strand of blood shoots out from underneath the front driver’s side wheel. Scott pulls his hand up to his mouth and I choke back the breakfast that’s becoming lodged in my throat.

  The other monsters don’t seem to care about their fallen and run headlong into the hood of the Focus as I put it back into drive and surge the car forward again.

  “Seriously, are they that stupid?” I say, and Scott grabs hold of the dashboard again.