The Julian Year

by Gregory Lamberson

  Ilij charged at her, and as soon as he stepped onto the rug she seized the frayed end and jerked it with all her strength. Ilij’s feet flew out from under him, and he thudded to the floor.

  Rachel ran toward the front door and stopped outside the kitchen, where she debated whether or not to search for the knife with the longest blade. Ilij’s footsteps thundered behind her, and she jerked the closet door open, jumped inside, and slammed the door behind her, the sound ringing in her ears.

  The doorknob turned in her hands, and a fist pounded on the other side of the door. Then steel struck the wood, which splintered. The next blow broke through the panel. Rachel released the knob with one hand and fumbled in the darkness.

  Ilij pried a piece of the door off, allowing her to see his leering face through a narrow triangle shaped like a shark’s tooth. His appearance caused her to shudder, and when he opened the door she shot him four times with her revolver, driving him into the kitchen where he fell back with a startled expression and didn’t get up.

  Emerging from the closet, Rachel stared down at the dead man. Holstering her gun, she rushed into the bedroom and stuffed panties, T-shirts, bras, socks, makeup, her spare Glock, and ammunition for both guns into a shoulder bag. She reloaded her Smith & Wesson, strapped on her Kevlar, pulled on her coat, and ran to the front door. As she unlocked it, the buzzer sounded beside her, causing her to flinch. She glanced at the plastic box, her heart racing.

  Then she opened the door and stepped into the hallway. She locked the door and didn’t look back. At the edge of the stairs, she glimpsed the arms and legs of people entering on the ground floor. Several adults ran up the stairs.

  Brandishing her gun, Rachel went upstairs rather than down. The higher she climbed, the louder the footsteps below. Emerging onto the roof, she closed the door with silent precaution, then kicked a piece of scrap metal under the door, wedging it locked. She ran to the roof’s edge and gazed over the wall, her eyes widening. A dozen men and women sprinted across the street to her building armed with knives, baseball bats, and pipes.

  Rachel ran across the icy roof and jumped onto the attached roof next door, then onto the roof next to that. She continued like this, glancing over her shoulder, until she reached the end of the block. At that point, she threw her legs over the building’s edge, lowered herself, and released her grip on the wall, dropping onto the fire escape below. She made her way down the clanging metal, her lungs filling with frigid air. She saw no one on the quiet street now; all of her assassins must have gotten into her building.

  Sliding her .38 into her pocket, she seized the edge of the lowest level of the fire escape and dangled in space. Then she let go and landed in snow. She ran to the corner, took out her cell phone, and sent a signal.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Ethridge said.

  “I just killed a Norman in my apartment, and now at least two dozen are breaking in. Don’t worry about me, but you be safe. They’re armed.” She tossed the phone into a garbage can and hailed a taxi.

  “Where to?” the taxi driver said.

  “I need to find an ATM,” she said. “After that, just drive. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  Eighteen

  Sitting alone in a diner on West Fiftieth Street, Weizak finished his corned beef sandwich and washed it down with water. Since January 1 he had been eating healthier and had shed a dozen pounds, but sometimes the need to indulge in fatty flavor overcame him. What was the point in living if you didn’t enjoy life?

  During the month following his promotion, he had taken lunch at an Irish watering hole where the Daily Post’s reporters gathered, but he soon discovered there were no stories to be found there except old tales repeated by braggarts. A few of the seasoned pros seemed to resent Weizak’s sudden success, and Weizak had lost interest in winning them over.

  He preferred to eat alone someplace where he could observe people behaving under the weight of doomsday. The diner was crowded; the end of humanity had proven a boon to restaurants, at least for now. The people around him seemed pleased to be in the company of strangers, but Weizak also sensed paranoia: everyone checked out the other patrons as if appraising their sanity.

  Weizak took out a twenty and laid it on the table. Making his way toward the kitchen in the back, he turned into a short hallway leading to the restrooms. He opened the door to the men’s room, stepped inside, and was closing the door when a figure burst through it and knocked him aside. Weizak flailed his arms and went down on one knee, and as he regained his balance and scrambled to his feet, the intruder slammed the door and slid the dead bolt into place.

  The Mexican man was short, with spiky black hair and acne scars on his face, and he wore a black army jacket and sunglasses. He pressed a long hunting knife against Weizak’s throat and forced him against the blue tile wall beside the toilet. “Do you see how easy it would be for me to slice you open like a pig?”

  Swallowing, Weizak nodded.

  “Do I look crazy to you?”

  Weizak searched for something to use as a weapon, but the man’s face filled his vision. Was this a trick question? He shook his head.

  The man smiled. “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t, right?”

  A muscle in Weizak’s neck twitched. “What do you want?”

  “I know who you are. Do you have a recorder with you?”

  “Yes.” Weizak feared he would slit his own throat if he nodded again.

  “Take it out and turn it on.”

  Weizak fumbled in his coat pocket. Raising the pocket recorder where it could be seen, he switched it on. “It’s voice activated.”

  The man leaned closer. “Tonight at 8:00 the president will announce that the world has been invaded by damned souls possessing the bodies of the living.”

  Weizak knew about the president’s televised speech during prime time tonight, but he hadn’t heard anything about its content. “How do you know?”

  The man grinned. “Because I’m one of those damned souls. I’ve suffered in what you call hell, and now I’m born again, just like my brothers and sisters.”

  Ask me again if I think you’re crazy, Weizak thought. “Why tell me?”

  “Because we want to make sure Rhodes stresses the gravity of the situation. We want to make sure he conveys all the information we gave him to the public. Consider this an exclusive interview, but we want to see it on the front page of tomorrow’s edition. We’ll check the Daily Post’s website at midnight, and if the details of this little talk aren’t there we’ll find you. We know where you live and where you work.”

  Make it sound convincing. “I can’t promise you the front page. The editors decide that.” The man’s breath reeked of unfamiliar scents. “After the president gives his speech, they’ll want this story. No one else will have an interview with an honest to God hobgoblin from hell. We’re going to make you a star. Ask me some questions, and make them good or I’ll leave your corpse so messy the janitor will need to mop it up.”

  His mind raced. “What do you want?”

  The man frowned. “My kind has suffered since the first sinner drew his last breath. We were all human until our actions caused us to be banished. We’ve waited centuries for this moment, and now it’s at hand.”

  “Why now?”

  “Because the population is large enough to accommodate a sizable number of our souls.”

  “Then why kill anyone? It seems to me that the more of us there are, the more of you there can be.”

  “Every war has its casualties. We needed to weaken you, terrify you, demoralize you. And we’ll revel in our victory when you’re gone. So far, you’ve only experienced the advance wave.”

  “Who’s your leader?”

  “We have no leader. Not the way you mean it. There’s no man with horns and a pointy tail poking our asses with a pitchfork. Our mission is our leader.”

  “What happens when you’ve won? When there’s no one left to possess?”

  The man removed his knife
from Weizak’s throat, and the reporter slid down the wall and sat on the toilet.

  “You’re not exactly Frank Rich, are you?”

  Gasping, Weizak massaged his throat. He focused on the blade, which the man raised. “I never said I was.”

  “Poor Julian. You were never particularly good at anything. Just a fat mama’s boy who stayed in the big city because he couldn’t go home and face his own mediocrity.”

  Weizak’s eyes widened. How do you know that?

  “I look forward to reading your story. We all do. Now do what you came in here for, and don’t leave for five minutes.”

  As soon as the man left, Weizak jumped to his feet and locked the door.

  After an afternoon battling Joe Rosen over the interview, Weizak took a taxi home. During the drive through darkness, he noticed open stores and people on the sidewalks. Police officers, National Guards, and soldiers stood spaced out between the corners. Evangelists preached to anyone willing to listen. Two police cruisers and an ambulance splashed red light on a police car with a flattened roof and a crater in it, parked below a twenty-story building.

  On Broadway, firefighters hosed a blaze where a helicopter had crashed into the structure atop the subway station. Weizak had become accustomed to such sights.

  “I can’t go any farther,” the taxi driver said.

  Leaning forward, Weizak saw half a dozen police officers spread across the avenue, separating the traffic from a wall of billowing black smoke. “That’s okay. I’ll walk from here.” Glancing at the dashboard meter, he paid the driver and got out. Cold wind assailed him, and he pulled on his knit cap. Farther up the block, he saw the source of the smoke and traffic delay: a National Guard troop transport had exploded.

  “What happened?” Weizak said to a police officer.

  “Keep moving,” the officer said.

  Weizak took out his press credentials. “I’m with the Daily Post.”

  “I don’t care who you’re with. Keep moving or I’ll arrest you. Trust me. You won’t like who you’ll have to share a cell with.”

  Weizak didn’t want to leave the warmth of the burning wreck until the wind shifted direction and he smelled burning flesh.

  Weizak opened his mailbox and sifted through his bills. He wondered what would happen if he just stopped paying them, but he needed electricity and cable, both tools of his trade. Climbing the stairs, he wondered what he would eat for dinner. He didn’t feel like cooking, but he was spending too much money eating out and having food delivered. He inserted the key into the lock on his door and entered his apartment. He shut the door behind him and turned on the lights.

  A footstep in the kitchenette caused him to spin around.

  “Jesus!” he said.

  Rachel smiled. “Sorry. I debated whether to leave the lights on.”

  Catching his breath, Weizak raised one hand. “How the hell did you get in, and why the hell are you here?”

  “I used a credit card; that’s all the damned thing’s good for now. I’m hiding from the Normans and don’t want to risk being traced. They tried to kill me twice today.”

  Weizak made sure the shutters were closed. “So you came here? Jesus, thanks.”

  “Relax. I came here because I have no connection to you. No one could possibly trace me here. I’ll leave if you want me to, but I honestly have nowhere else to go.”

  Weizak took off his coat. “Why do the Normans want to kill you?”

  “Because of when my birthday is. They want to make sure no one is left.”

  “If you’re right, that means the odds of you surviving past your birthday just increased.”

  “Unless they take me out first.”

  “So turn yourself over to your brothers in blue or the FBI. They’ll protect you.”

  “Sure, in protective custody. I have fifteen days before my birthday. For all I know, it’s my last two weeks, and I plan to live them on my own terms. How would you like it if they told you that you couldn’t have your last two weeks?”

  He draped his coat over the back of a chair. “I don’t expect to get two magic weeks to do whatever I want. I’m in the game until the last inning, remember? I won’t have a job then. God knows what the world will be like. If you’re still around, maybe we can ring it in together.”

  “Nothing personal but you’re not my type.”

  “Then why did you sleep with me last night?” “Because you’re not my type.”

  “Should you be speaking this way to someone you expect to hide you?”

  “I just need a couple of days to get a plan together. You won’t even know I’m here. Hell, I’ll even cook for you.”

  Weizak considered the offer. “Okay, you can spend the night. If your cooking’s good, two nights. But don’t use my phone and don’t log on to any web accounts using my computer. The shutters stay down and so does your voice.”

  After showering, Weizak sat down to dinner with Rachel. “Spaghetti and meatballs? I could have made this myself.”

  “It’s all you have in here. Go shopping and I’ll cook something nicer tomorrow.”

  “I like to eat out.”

  “How much longer do you think you can do that? Three months, six maximum? Then what? The whole system is going to come down; it has to. There won’t be any restaurants or fast-food joints. There won’t be any produce. People may have to eat each other.”

  “You paint a very dark picture of the end of the world.”

  “Even if it turns out that leapfrogs are immune to the disorder, I don’t think I want to live in a world populated by homicidal Normans.”

  Weizak pushed his plate aside. “I think I’ve lost my appetite. Is it too late for me to add a condition to your stay here? No doomsday prophesizing, okay? We all get enough of that already.”

  “You should get out of the city. Go back to that quiet town of yours and wait for the end of the story there.”

  “What about you? If you’re immune to possession, where will you spend your last days?”

  Rachel cocked one eyebrow. “Who said anything about possession?”

  Hesitating, Weizak tried to read her eyes. “Isn’t everyone?”

  Her suspicious gaze made him feel guilty.

  “Some nut cornered me in a men’s room today. He said he was a demon or a damned soul or something.”

  “What did his eyes look like?”

  “He wore sunglasses. Why?”

  “Because the freaks who came after me looked like demons or damned souls or something.”

  Rachel took a shower and changed into a pair of flannel pajamas that Weizak gave her. He took out half a gallon of pistachio ice cream and poured each of them a glass of red wine, and they sat on the futon in front of the TV and waited for the president’s address.

  “Good evening,” President Rhodes said from his desk in the Oval Office, his expression solemn. “On January 1, our world changed. Life as we once knew it changed. We found ourselves in a crisis never before faced by man, which has impacted every facet of our existence. Citizens of our planet became homicidal maniacs on their birthdays.

  “Scientists and doctors from all over the world tried in vain to find a cure for this condition, which my administration branded the Omega Disorder. But there is no cure, because there is no disease. Clergy and people of faith have looked to their respective religions for answers. Some have called this crisis the beginning of the end, the apocalypse, the end days. Whether or not you believe in tribulation or revelation, there is no denying that some higher power is behind this crisis. The nature of the way it affects people—following birthdays on a calendar created by men—begs the existence of a greater being or beings.”

  Rachel slid her hand over Weizak’s. He didn’t object.

  “Millions of people all over the world have been killed. Millions more have been incarcerated. Under my orders, hundreds of disordered individuals in the custody of the United States have been interrogated. All have maintained their silence until yesterday when
a prisoner requested to speak to me. I met with this former resident of New York City in a protected environment. He told me things some will find impossible to believe. In what appears to have been a coordinated effort, other prisoners around the world told their interrogators and jailers the exact same things I was told. Given the incredible and terrifying circumstances in which we find ourselves, there is no reason to doubt the information we were given.”

  Rachel squeezed Weizak’s hand so hard that he groaned.

  “Sorry.” Her gaze never left the TV.

  “There is no doubt in my mind that the attacks we’ve suffered are the result of supernatural possession and that we are at war with a force we cannot beat.”

  Oh, my God, Weizak thought. That lunatic in the bathroom was telling the truth. He felt a tear rolling down his cheek.

  The president continued, “If man’s days are truly numbered, then we have a responsibility to face those days with all the strength we can muster. Difficult choices lie ahead: personally, nationally, and globally. I encourage each and every one of you to say a prayer for mankind tonight.”

  Rachel slept with Weizak. She had made it clear to him that they were not having sex again, and he didn’t try to change her mind. They lay in bed, holding each other and listening to the sirens and howling wind outside. Weizak didn’t even check the Daily Post’s website to see if they had posted his interview.

  “I haven’t heard this much activity since day one and day two,” Rachel said.

  “Sane people must be going crazy,” Weizak said. “I need to go upstate to see my mother. I’ll be gone for a week, but you can stay here as long as you like.”

  “Thanks. Can I trouble you to do some grocery shopping before you leave? I don’t want to go outside until I have to.”