“Saint Peter?”
“My, you know, wiener.34”
“I get that. Your ‘peter.’ But why Saint Peter?”
“He denied Jesus three times. Then the cock crowed.”
“I don’t get it. . .”
“Me neither, really. I just think it’s funny that it says ‘cock’ in the Bible.”
“Oh . . .” Helena kept silent for a minute.
“What?”
“You can be so weird sometimes.” She made a ticking noise with her tongue. “Will you be at the club tonight?”
“Can’t even think about that right now,” Timmy Jimmy said. “Probably.”
“Okay. Take care.”
“Bye.”
Timmy Jimmy inserted his head into a sink filled with ice and cold water. He held his head down until he felt his brain would explode. Screaming, he ripped himself away from the basin: “Ow!”
Nevertheless, the soaking seemed to help. He doused himself one last time. Then he grabbed a towel, rubbed his hair dry, and patted down his face. He collapsed on the couch in the living room, staring at the old ten-foot LCD screen he found discarded on the sidewalk. Timmy Jimmy was unable to muster the strength even to give the verbal command, “TV, START, CHANNEL 11,091, VOLUME LOW.” Instead, he sat, a spoiled cabbage rotting away in the stench of its own stew.
An explosion outside boomed louder than most typical neighborhood detonations, so Timmy Jimmy somehow found the will to stand and sock-slide to the window. The building across the street had been demolished. Two demons hovered above the debris, their huge flapping wings causing a small dust storm.
“What the hell?”
As Timmy Jimmy watched, convinced his hangover had now given him delusions, the demons laughed and pointed at the junk and dirt created by the destruction of a twelve-story building and all who were in it. One of the beasts checked a piece of paper in his scaly hands. He poked the other beast, and the two stared at the paper, down at the wreckage, back at the paper, down at the wreckage. One of them pointed across the street at Timmy Jimmy’s building. The bigger demon smacked the smaller one on the head. They headed toward Timmy Jimmy, dragons’ flames blasting out of their mouths. In less than a New York minute, Timmy Jimmy’s apartment building became an inferno.
“HOLY HELL!” Timmy Jimmy said, running in a crippled kind of way from the window, hunched over and holding his forehead and his stomach, both of which ached beyond belief and each in its own special way.
He headed out the door and into the hall. The fire alarm screeched, and the hallway filled with others running, yelling, and pointing. Timmy Jimmy’s headache pain tripled.
“Oh crap, oh crap,” he said as the roof collapsed. The top two stories had now fallen in on his, the fifth floor. Flames and smoke filled the air. Timmy Jimmy remembered something about stopping and dropping and did so.
He remembered something else, about not taking the elevators at a time like this. So, he crawled to the stairs. He entered the stairwell with most everybody else, moving with the crush of the crowd making its way down to the street. With considerable jostling, screaming, coughing, crying, and hysteria, as might be expected.
The stairwell filled with smoke . . . visibility-decreasing, panic-increasing smoke. Some people tripped and fell, and some were helped back up, but many were trampled. Timmy Jimmy was too weak from drink to help; his head spun and his hands shook. It took every ounce of strength he had to keep from retching.
Halfway down the stairs, a little past the second floor landing and heading to the first floor, the beasts appeared. They were surprisingly big, up to twenty feet tall, maybe taller. They didn’t seem quite so big when seen from farther away, but that was perspective for you. These monsters stank of sulfur and whiskey and something else—jeez, what was that scent? It was so familiar. . .— Right! Licorice.
Weird. . .
While Timmy Jimmy tried to identify smells, these creatures tore a dozen humans apart at the waist, a Red River of blood running down the stairs.
Timmy Jimmy’s vomit flew out of his mouth like the worst kind of gossip, while the need to pass out rolled over him. Why hadn’t he brought a gun? He shouldn’t be too hard on himself, though. After all, most people don’t reach for a weapon when there is a fire.
As the throng of people tried to flee back up the stairs to get away from the unspeakable evil, a few dozen more escapees forced their way into the stairwell, slipping on blood, gridlocking the escape attempt. Individuals screamed as they were swept up by the demons, who then beat the humans’ heads into the cement steps, pile-driving their skulls into mush. Timmy Jimmy lost his cookies a second time, which brought him to the notice of the giant devils.
The things crashed through the crowd toward him, setting fire to anyone who got in their way. They picked Timmy Jimmy up and swept him away into the sky as the building burned to the ground, taking most, if not all, of the inhabitants with it.
LATEST VICTIM
The monsters deposited Timmy Jimmy in the basement block beneath the sewers under the bridge. They tossed him away, a used apple core. Timmy Jimmy bounced against the cement wall and rolled back toward the center of the room. Some of the poor souls already in the chamber gathered around him in a gloomy vigil, watching for signs of life. The first indication they got was not truly a confirmation: he vomited. Can you vomit as you die? After you die? Timmy Jimmy moaned, and they knew he was still with them.
“Get him over here, by the boxes,” one of the women said. Her name was Village Smithy because Village seemed to match Vivienne and she enjoyed hunting for metal now, in the hopes of making some sort of weapon to fight off the ogres, or some kind of trap. What kind of trap, she had no idea. But collecting iron and steel kept her occupied and gave her something close to hope.
The others in the group, including a man wrapped up in bloody cloth, who was known as “Rags,” and another man with a wooden leg, who was known as “John,” helped lift Timmy Jimmy. They dragged him to a corner location in the shadows where the group had piled up broken cardboard boxes, newspapers, some cloth, and other found materials to make a rudimentary rest zone for the wounded. Considering that the other choices were cement, dung-covered cement, blood-covered cement, and entrails-and-brains-covered cement, this area was total luxury.
Timmy Jimmy continued to make small grunts and moans, even as he lay in the sublime comfort of the cardboard sick bay. He tossed and turned, suffering from a bad hangover as well as some significant internal injuries.
After an hour of this, Village Smithy ventured over to him and sat at his side. She picked up his hand and patted it. His pale hand looked already dead in her darker one.
“Little man,” she said in her best soothing voice. “How are you feeling? Can you talk?”
Timmy Jimmy coughed and tried to answer, but it was too much of a struggle.
“Can you nod your head, then?” she asked.
He did so.
“Do you know where you are?”
He slowly shook his head.
“You are in a cave-like space near the Queens Midtown Tunnel, even lower than the sewer lines. It’s the size of a soccer field, with big badass pipes running all over the place. About a hundred of us are down here with you. It’s dark, but your eyes adjust after awhile.”
Timmy Jimmy didn’t move.
“Do you know why you’re here?” she asked.
Timmy Jimmy shook his head again.
“Neither do we. We assume we’ve all been captured to provide the beasts with food, fun, and pleasure. That’s all we’ve seen them use us for, so far. They will sometimes single out one of us and pull him or her away separately. We never see that person again. But we know the beasts took them to be interrogated. We can hear the screaming—when it gets loud enough—and we can make out the evil things shouting their questions. Do you know what they are looking for?”
Timmy Jimmy’s head shook once more.
“Someone called Zachary Zemeritus.”
Timmy Jimmy rolled in the direction of Village Smithy, his long hair falling into his eyes. “Did you say,” he struggled to enunciate the words, “Zach. . .ary,” he paused again, “Zemeritus?”
Village looked at him. “Yes.” She gently brushed his hair from his eyes, but it would not stay away, dropping back like a broken window blind. “Why?”
“No. . . reason,” Timmy Jimmy said. He shut his eyes, trying to control his breathing.
Thunder filled the tunnel. The demons had returned.
Timmy Jimmy, too weak to move, curled bit by bit into the fetal position, his back to the approaching stomping and roaring. Screams reverberated all around him. He clamped his eyelids as tight as they would go, as if trying to squeeze them closed forever. He heard many voices, then one in particular, louder than the others. The shriek of someone being taken. Timmy Jimmy forced his eyes open.
A small girl dangled from the fingers of one of the demons. Below her, adults leapt uselessly in the air, trying to save her. They threw things at the demon, mostly the metal that Village Smithy had collected. But the large beast deflected or ignored the bits of metal—even the larger pieces—with casual indifference. The girl screamed and cried, covered in blood splatter from someone else’s death. She was maybe seven years old, with pigtails and a torn jumper now damp with her own soil and urine. She had on only a single shoe and wore a blue jacket. She covered her eyes as the demon began its speech.
“ONE OF YOU WILL DIE, EVERY DAY. I DO NOT CARE WHO. UNTIL YOU TELL ME WHERE ZACHARY ZEMERITUS IS. ONE OF YOU MUST KNOW HIM. HE IS ONE OF YOUR KIND. UNTIL THEN, THERE WILL BE THIS.”
He opened his hideous mouth wide, and a green mist escaped. He raised the girl over his head as if he was eating a sardine. The girl screamed, hysterical.
Timmy Jimmy clawed his way across the floor on all fours and with a piece of sharp metal, courtesy of the scavenging skills of Village, jabbed the steel deep into the demon’s toe with the last bit of his strength.
Surprising to all that witnessed this event, the tactic worked. It worked, anyway, insofar as getting the creature’s attention. The thing dropped the child, who fell onto the crowd of adults below, thus breaking her plummet.
A small group of people ran away with her to another dark part of the room and proceeded to hide her in a crack in the wall, then covered her with found items and garbage in an attempt to prevent her from being selected again.
The creature, meanwhile, bent over, removed the tiny thorn from its toe, and with the same toe kicked Timmy Jimmy across the room. Timmy Jimmy skidded along the concrete and slammed into the wall, half-conscious.
The demon sneered and said:
“MOSQUITO.”
The monster selected another: a fat old man hiding under a coat in a broken rusty shopping cart. The demon yanked him up to the ceiling. He pulled the old man’s arms off, his legs, then his screaming head, all in rapid succession. After this demonstration, the beast tossed the rest of the body into a pile forming near the entrance; a pile of dead, mutilated corpses, rotting and maggot-infested. The demon grumbled and left the room.
In a dark place, an unknown place, Mallory waited. She was small, scared, wet, and cold. The place was a fearful one. The darkness complete. No light or sense of light pierced through. No peace. No goodness. Just a perception of dread, of evil.
Mallory Alexandria waited, not conscious, not unconscious; a place in between. She was in a realm, a time, a dimension in between as well.
She breathed, as if underwater. Slow, struggling breaths.
And she waited.
GIRLS’ NIGHT OUT
“Dani Pistachio speaking.”
“You do understand that’s the most ridiculous name, don’t you?”
Dani crinkled up her face and rolled her eyes. Helena again. She pulled her chair closer to her screen and sat up in her seat. She leaned in toward the mic/speaker embedded in the monitor. Dani cupped the speaker with her left hand in an attempt to keep the conversation at least somewhat private—a condition almost impossible to achieve in this cube farm. Each “office” was less than four feet by four feet, and the walls were only three feet high. Since Dani was nearly six feet tall, it pretty much meant she was visible from every direction, every cubicle.
“Hellooo Helena,” she said, smiling. “Why do you always have to tease me about my name?”
“Well . . .”
“Pistachios are my favorite, okay? I think it’s a pretty name. Plus, hello? I was born Daniel Pataccino. So shut the hell up.”
“Okay, sure. Hey,” Helena said. “I almost forgot. I’m calling about Malley and Zach.”
Dani straightened in her chair. Her skirt, short to begin with, slid from under her thighs and showed every inch of her legs. Dani made no adjustments.
“What about them? Are they no longer the Cutest Couple This Century?”
“What? No, no. It’s just I haven’t heard from her in a few days. I’ve been calling and leaving messages, but nothing. I tried her ALARM™ page35 and that hasn’t been updated either, not even with old fashioned 3-D.”
“Did you try Whispering™ to her?36”
“Of course. I Whispered. Nothing there, either.”
“What about Zach? Does he know where she is?”
“That’s just it. I can’t get a hold of him, either.”
“Well, you silly girl, that explains it! They’ve blown off the whole bunch of us. They’re probably up in New Hampshire in some cabin screwing each other’s brains out.” Dani ran her fingers through her long black, blonde, and purple tresses.
“Dani, New Hampshire’s been closed for over two years. It’s just a big hunting ground now. No one is allowed in anymore for anything ‘cept gaming.”
“Oh, right. Well, okay, Vermont.”
“They wouldn’t have been able to get a visa that fast.”
“Well, I don’t know! They went somewhere to be alone together, that’s all I’m trying to say.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I guess I shouldn’t worry about it. Hey, what are you doing tonight?”
“Nothing.”
“Not anymore! We’re going out: dinner and drinks on me.”
“What’s the occasion?”
“I’m tired of being by myself in my apartment all the time. Anyway, something is going on in this town that’s spooking the hell out of me. I want to have a little fun with my girlfriends. But since they’re not around, you’ll do.”
“Nice . . . ” Dani said, smirking. “Real nice.”
“You know I love you. And I love to tease you. Meet you at Spikes & Sparkles at ten tonight?”
“Sure.”
“We can get a steak downstairs, then move upstairs to the lounge. Maybe get lucky tonight.”
“That’d be a pleasant change.”
“See you soon.”
“See you,” Dani said, a big smile on her face as she hung up.
“Miss Pistachio.”
Standing beside Dani’s desk was a short man staring past Dani’s cleavage to her long, smooth legs and at a glimpse of the lace top of her raspberry thigh-high stockings. He had a small, but still noticeable, throbbing bulge. On his back. His hump throbbed. Dani could never get used to that, the creepy hunchback perv.
“Please straighten your skirt. While you’re at it, button up that blouse.”
“Sorry, Mr. Brotten. Reaching for a file and my skirt got all jerked off.” She straightened her miniskirt sensuously while Brotten’s face reddened. His bulge continued to throb, on his back. “That’s better,” Dani said.
Brotten slunk away. Rhymes with rotten, Dani thought. She looked at the holoclock37 floating like the moon in the day outside. 4:45. Close enough. Outta here.
She packed her oversized purse with various papers, pulled off her stripper-appropriate platform heels and shoved them in her purse, too. She slipped on her subway shoes; they were a bit beat up and only had a four-inch heel. But, she could run if she needed to before the subway door
s closed or in case it started to rain.
She locked her drawer and surveyed her cube to be sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. Nope. Dani turned and left, heading for the elevators, where a small group of people had already begun to cluster.
OPERATION
On a morning a little more than a week after the attack, technicians lifted Zachary out of bed and onto a gurney. The various pipes, tubes, and wires remained attached to virtually every surface of his body. Barely conscious, everything seemed (due to the massive amount of drugs being pumped into him) hazy and dreamlike. Nearly hallucinogenic.
The crew wheeled Zachary down the hall, through a right turn, straight again, into an elevator. They proceeded down a few floors, rolled back out of the elevator, and made their way down a long corridor. Many more doctors, nurses, and technicians strode alongside him now than had been with him upstairs. The lights above reminded him of being on stage.
Zach imagined he was a rock star or a “hangster.”38 They slammed his gurney through double doors, and he ended up in some kind of prep area. More was under way here. A lot of talking and other noises, too. Water splashing. Metal clanging. Electronics pinging and beeping. Someone wearing a mask put a mask over Zachary’s face. Now things were a dream.
I must be dreaming. His last thought before he trundled off to Slumberland.
Nurse bots glided his unconscious body into the operating theater and set up all of his hooks and wires and cables and steam pipes and clamps. They next investigated the readings on the operating room monitors. Dr. Grayzan entered, ready for work.
Fifteen tables surrounded the medical team, each tabletop displaying a significant number of metallic parts. The room looked more like a car repair shop than a surgery center.
Two additional doctors walked in wearing scrubs and masks, with their hair and hands covered: Dr. Alfie Tyler from Brecknockshire UK and Dr. Van Wijk from the Netherlands. They chatted as the team of nurses continued to lay out medical devices, large pieces of metal, drugs, sutures, and the rest.
DEMON DAYS: Love, sex, death, and dark humor. This book has it all. Plus robots. Page 5
