The Fall

by Michael McBride

  She offered a hand, but it stayed empty for an eternal moment before Darren stepped to his right and offered his.

  “Darren,” he said, looking as though he was trying to smile but not succeeding, his lips twitching awkwardly. “And this is April.” He released Evelyn’s hand and reached back for April’s. She was cute in a kid kind of way, with just the touch of her baby fat remaining on her belly and in her cheeks.

  “We haven’t seen anyone else alive since we left,” April gushed, extending her hand and shaking Evelyn’s. “We didn’t think that we ever would.”

  “Neither did I,” Evelyn said, unable to control the tears and the tremor in her voice. “I’ve been driving for hours and my dad’s dead and—”

  “What’s that?” another girl asked, this one all arms and legs. She had shoulder-length blond hair and eyes so blue they could even pierce the darkness.

  “What?” Evelyn asked, looking over her shoulder to follow the girl’s wide eyes.

  “Mormon tears?” the girl whispered. “Did you write that?”

  “Yeah.” She drew out the word until it sounded more like a question.

  “This is Jill, by the way,” Darren said, but neither looked at him as they appeared to now be communicating with their eyes.

  “You’ve heard it, too, haven’t you?” Evelyn asked.

  Jill nodded her head slowly, never allowing her eyes to stray from the other woman’s.

  “I was starting to think I was losing my mind,” Jill finally sobbed, lunging forward and wrapping her arms around Evelyn.

  The two embraced there beside the dead road, sharing a familiarity that neither could explain.

  “Ray!” Tina whispered sharply, giving him a playful pinch.

  “Okay, okay,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve got to take Tina to use the can, do you think you guys can start filling up the bikes?”

  “Sure,” Darren said.

  Ray climbed back on his motorcycle and Tina hopped up behind, wrapping her arms protectively around him. They walked the bike in a half circle before kicking it into gear and driving right up onto the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

  “Not in here,” Tina said. She could see the bathrooms at the far left side of the diner, but to get there, she would have to navigate the slalom of black corpses and the nimbus of flies swarming them.

  “You want to go back behind the building?”

  “No!” she shrieked.

  “Fine. No sweat. What would you propose then?”

  She studied Ray, who was looking back at the others.

  “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Tina whispered.

  “Are you getting jealous?” he asked with a small lilt in his voice.

  “No, I just…I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Ray booted the kickstand and climbed down. He looked at her face, waiting for Tina to raise her eyes to meet his. Finally, with a sigh, she gave in.

  “You know you’re the only girl for me,” he said, the left half of his mouth angling into a smirk. “I love you.”

  He lowered his chin and looked up to her with puppy dog eyes.

  She shook her head and smiled.

  “Of course, and you know I love you too.”

  “Forever and a day,” he said, pressing his lips to hers.

  “Forever and a day,” she sighed after gently backing from his embrace and slowly allowing their eyes to part.

  “Now hurry and go to the bathroom before the new girl starts making eyes at me again,” he said, swatting her on the rear end.

  Her arm shot out like a striking snake, finding his nipple with practiced ease and giving it a sharp twist.

  “Ouch!”

  “You had that coming,” she said playfully, prying her hand away and heading toward the front doors. She swung the right glass door open to the tune of an electronic bell, propped the door on her rear end, and stuck her tongue out at him.

  Ray smiled and rubbed at the sharp ache on his chest. Perhaps his mind had finally deserted him as he was getting a kick out of watching Tina trying to tiptoe around the bodies in the aisle with a cute, pursed-lipped look of disgust on her face. By the time she reached the bathroom door, he was laughing.

  She stopped in front of the door with the little blue placard of a white woman in a triangular dress and looked across the empty booth in front of the window, over the line of ketchup and syrups, sugar and sweetened packets, and right into her boyfriend’s eyes.

  Ray stopped laughing and just smiled.

  I’m going to marry that girl someday, he thought.

  Their eyes lingered a moment longer, then she stuck out her tongue and threw her rear end into the swinging door. She hadn’t even started to turn around to enter before the door was ripped all the way open and she was jerked into the darkness.

  “Tina!” Ray screamed, sprinting to the front door and barreling through it. He hurdled the bodies at full tilt, reaching the door to the women’s room before it could fall back into place. “Tina!”

  He shouldered the door, slamming it into something forgiving, which let out a loud hiss as it was pounded into the wall behind the door.

  “Ray!” Tina screamed from the shadows off to the left from one of the stalls. “Help me! Ra—!”

  There was an abrupt tearing sound, followed by a gurgle like someone blowing through a straw into a glass of milk.

  He threw himself toward the sound of her voice, reaching the first stall at full tilt. Closing his eyes, he lowered his shoulder and prepared to strike, but his feet slid out from beneath him. He slammed into the door with his arms flailing for balance, his momentum following his feet beneath the closed stall door. Firecrackers exploded in his vision as his head hammered the tiled floor.

  “Ray!” Darren called, his voice muffled by the closing bathroom door.

  Ray slapped his palms down to either side and tried to push himself up, but both hands slipped in something slick and deposited him again onto his back. It was warm, soaking through his shirt and jeans and into his skin.

  Darren burst through the door.

  This time, whatever had been behind it was quick enough to leap out of the way and scurry up the white-tiled wall to the ceiling by the broken overhead lights.

  “Ray!” Darren shouted, grabbing his friend beneath the armpits and sliding him backward toward the door.

  “What about Tina?” Ray wailed. “Tina!”

  Her headless form flew from the darkened stall and struck the wall beside him, crumpling into a heap of flesh that poured more warmth in a rapidly expanding puddle. Ray tried to grab for her, desperately attempting to snag hold of anything he could get a grip on to pull her toward him, but he couldn’t reach her…couldn’t reach her…

  “Tina!” he screamed as Darren slammed the door into the wall once again and dragged him out into the diner, the lights flickering with the blue glow of dying fluorescents.

  “We have to get out of here!” Darren shouted, fighting against Ray’s efforts to get back through the slowly closing door even as he still slipped in his girlfriend’s blood, making crimson snow angels on the tile in his own likeness.

  “Not without Tina!”

  Darren looked back over his shoulder for help. April was standing in the doorway with both hands clapped over her open mouth, eyes as wide as golf balls.

  “Help us!” he shouted at her, spurring her to action.

  A bright light bloomed behind April through the closing glass door as she rushed to Darren’s aid and grabbed hold of Ray’s left arm so Darren could handle his right.

  “Tina!” Ray railed, still trying to fight to his feet as they dragged him through the mess of corpses. “We can’t leave her here!”

  The bathroom door was yanked open and something black appeared in the middle of the doorway, though staying back just far enough that the triangular stretch of light couldn’t reach it. Yellow eyes with seething black spots focused immediately on him. The thing let out a hiss like a roar, extending a pale yellow flap of s
kin from under its chin, shaking it furiously like an arthritic matador’s cape. Its open jaws revealed twin rows of teeth like serrated blades and a sharp, triangular purple tongue.

  Another dropped from the ceiling behind it, landing in a crouch and staring through the other thing’s black legs with its amber dewlap slapping the floor.

  “Hurry!” Jill screamed, yanking the door outward. Evelyn had pulled the truck right up onto the curb, the bumper nearly against the front window of the diner.

  “Give us a hand!” Darren shouted, dragging Ray to the doorway where Jill propped the door on her hip and grabbed hold wherever she could and gave a solid tug.

  Ray watched the first thing stick a black claw through the doorway into the strobing electric glow. It jerked it back quickly with a scream like a ruptured steam valve. The other creature behind it shoved it aside and hurled the hand dryer from the wall at the overhead stretch of twin bulbs over the counter. The plastic lenses shattered and there was a flash of light. Glass rained from the ceiling onto the corpses as darkness descended in a blink, marred by the twin rays of light from the truck’s headlights directed toward the kitchen.

  The front of the pickup passed between Ray and the diner. There was pressure around his chest, and the next thing he knew he was being heaved from the ground, his legs hanging uselessly slack, heels dragging on the ground.

  “Tina!” he screamed.

  He felt the corrugated metal floor of the truck bed against his back and then Darren’s weight was atop him. Thrashing, he tried everything in his power to get his friend off of him.

  With a squeal and a bang, Jill threw the gate closed and sprinted around to the passenger door, leaping in beside April and slamming the door.

  “They’re in!” she yelled.

  Evelyn jerked the truck into reverse and pinned the gas. The tires screamed off the cement walk before catching and launching them backward. Evelyn stomped the brake, threw the gear into drive, and stabbed the gas again. The truck raced forward, narrowly missing another truck stalled at the gas pump, and sped across the dirt parking lot before bounding over the curb and up onto the highway.

  “No!” Ray screamed. “We can’t leave her here!”

  Darren absorbed every blow his friend threw, crying as he wrapped his arms around Ray’s chest and hugged him tight.

  “Let me go!” he screamed, landing a flurry of blows against Darren’s ribs. “Tina’s still in there! We have to go back!”

  Darren held him tight as the wind picked up with the truck’s increasing speed.

  “Stop it!” Ray screamed, his words trailing into the throngs of sobbing.

  He brought both fists to Darren’s back and buried his face in his friend’s shoulder, shuddering against Darren’s slowly relaxing form as he shook and moaned, overcome by the tears.

  V

  Somewhere near Springfield, Missouri

  PHOENIX WHOOPED WITH JOY. AFTER SPENDING HIS ENTIRE LIFE IN ONE room, here he was seeing the whole world from the back of a flying stallion.

  Treetops flew past mere inches beneath his feet, close enough that he could have stepped right off and danced atop them. The blond mane curled in his fists, he leaned back and stared up into the storm, the lower reaches of the black clouds touching his face while the lightning flared all around him rather than above him. The cool air was perfect, its touch on his skin sublime. Every sensation from the bulging muscles between his legs to the tickle of the air between his toes was new and exciting, and he wished for it never to end.

  Those long leathery wings rose and fell so slowly that Adam wondered how it was even possible that they stayed aloft, the time between exaggerated flapping so long it was excruciating waiting for the free fall. He watched the boy flying ahead of him on the back of the largest stallion, its front legs tucked up against its chest, the rear legs pointed straight back with bars of gold for hooves, the tail flaring like flames from a jet engine, and couldn’t help but be amazed. The child was embracing all of the changes in the world while the rest of them were struggling to rationalize them. The landscape passing beneath was foreign as forests grew so tightly together that the strangely colored foliage and the treetops looked like the Andes from a great height, jagged, foreboding, and the thought of falling from atop his steed’s back onto them seemed like suicide. Fields where once crops had grown were now overrun with tangles of thorny and snarled feral species that more closely resembled nightmare patches of bud-less roses than anything even remotely edible. There were no longer well-hoed rows, but never ending interlaced vines and cords, like a briar patch. The streams and rivers they flew so quickly past flowed as black as tar, reflecting the lightning from above as though it were instead flashing deep under the currents.

  Adam knotted his fingers in the silky mane, pinching his knees as tightly against the flexing sides of the mare as he possibly could, and dared another infrequent glance back over his shoulder. Norman hugged the back of a cream-colored steed with a mane as white as frost, his head cocked just to the right so he could see around the beast’s head without having to relinquish the chokehold he maintained around its taut neck. His clothes flapped on the wind, his face bright red as though he were holding his breath. The horse swerved off to the right, banking gently to absorb the gusting wind beneath its nearly transparent wings before allowing the breeze to carry it back into formation.

  Peckham was a good fifty yards back, though all Adam could see were the man’s black boots pressed against either flank as the soldier had his face buried in the brunette mane of his painted stallion, not even daring to raise his head to look. Of them all, he was taking the mass changes the worst, somehow unable to accept the reality of the situation while the others were beginning to succumb to it. Norman was quite sure that he had died in the plane crash, though he was reluctant to admit it to anyone. Adam had resigned to being a passenger inside of his own flesh, reserving judgment for the point when it made something resembling sense, while to Phoenix, this was the world, as he had never seen it before. The cloud-choked sky was the most beautiful thing he’d ever imagined, the lightning every bit as precious as diamonds. He hated to even blink for fear he might miss something.

  When Adam turned around, Phoenix’s horse had its wings set, arched out to either side like a goose dropping from the sky. Its legs churned in anticipation of hitting the ground like a duck fanned its webbed feet before splashing into a lake. The long mane stood erect on the updraft of air like a Mohawk, its tail pointing straight to the heavens.

  The trees fell away beneath them to reveal a widening meadow with wavering grasses like a sea of gold. A black lake as clear as a mirror showed them the sky as if it were a hole straight through to the other side of the globe. Other animals the colors of flame milled around its bank, grazing in the tall weeds and drinking from the motionless water amidst the tall reeds. Birds as colorful as tropical parrots flapped from the back of one of the large creatures to the next, flocking in concentric circles around them like a mirage of rainbows.

  The lead stallion dropped right through the cloud of birds, which squawked their enormous displeasure, filling the sky with loosed feathers as they panicked and flapped out of control. Adam’s steed floated downward through the path created by the first, allowing him to clearly see the avian things. Some had bills like toucans on stumpy bodies with long tail feathers that appeared like there was a prehensile tail beneath the way it wavered in the air; others had short blood-red beaks as though they’d been freshly pecking carrion, eyes as blue as the sky had once been, and feathers that were so tiny they looked more like scales; still others had long flattened heads with horns like a toad, mottled pond scum-green and sunlight yellow with long black legs like a stork.

  The boy’s horse hit the ground at a gallop, slowing gracefully before shaking its head with a neigh and circling a small patch of grass in the middle of a herd of beasts that looked to be a cross between cattle and bison, painted with brushes dipped in the sunset.

  Adam pr
epared for a rough landing as the ground rose to meet them way too quickly, but at the last second, the equine’s wings inflated like a series of parachutes and it alighted every bit as smoothly as if the whole flight had been nothing more than a dream. It clopped between a pair of the orange-bearded bovines and sidled up to the other horse, which was already ripping mouthfuls of knee-high grass that smelled of marigolds.

  “Did you see that?” Phoenix hollered, running up to the side of Adam’s steed and tugging on his pant leg. “We were so high I could have touched the clouds!”

  Adam smiled as he dismounted, his trembling legs making the ground feel as though he was still atop the thundering animal.

  “I know,” Adam said, marveling at the light that glowed from behind the boy’s eyes. “It was pretty amazing.”

  The boy’s smile was so wide it threatened to tear his cheeks back to his ears. He looked like he was about to say something, but then just turned and dashed toward the tall reeds separating the field from the lake. They looked like bamboo blooming out of so many cornstalks with furry appendages atop them like lazily wagging tails.

  “That was… There are no words for it,” Norman said, untangling his white fingers and dropping down to the ground. He raised his right hand and gently stroked the broad side of his ride, flinching at first as though he had expected it to not really be there when he tried to touch it.

  Peckham dismounted last, and without a word. He simply stumbled away from the thing, which clopped over to share the patch of grass with its brethren. When he looked at Adam and Norman, his eyes were glassy as though he was looking right through them.

  “Where’s the kid?” Norman asked, slinging his backpack off and dropping it on the ground. He arched his back and stretched out the kinks.

  “Over there,” Adam said, nodding to the wall of reeds behind him.

  The weeds were a good foot taller than Phoenix and there wasn’t the slightest trace of a path, but he didn’t care as he stumbled blindly forward, crashing through the coarse foliage like an elephant. The tips of the broad leaves were sharp, but they didn’t cut him, instead making him itch, but even that was a miraculous sensation in a life all but devoid of it.