by Wyatt Savage
Jorge drove around back of the church, checked his phone, and then honked his horn.
“What are you doing?” Will asked.
“Waiting for a sign from God.”
Several seconds fell and then a door on the back of the church opened. A wizened old woman in a shawl poked her head out. She looked around, then ambled down a set of metal stairs, hauling a sack over her shoulder that appeared larger than she was. Jorge greeted the woman, who smiled, flashing a mouth full of gold and silver teeth.
“Anything you have,” Jorge said to the woman. “Por favor.”
The woman fired a volley of Spanish back at Jorge who turned to Jackie and Will. “She requires a donation. It’s for the church.”
Jackie handed over three twenty-dollar bills. Jorge handed the money to the old woman who cackled and opened the sack to reveal a small bundle of weapons. She handed three black pistols to Jorge along with two handfuls of magazines.
“Gracias,” Jorge said, kissing the woman’s hand. “Gracias.”
“Vas con dios,” the woman replied. Go with God.
The three watched the woman wave and then reenter the church.
“Who was that?” Jackie asked.
“She used to teach my brother on Sunday.”
“That lady was a Sunday school teacher?”
Jorge nodded. “She ministered to many sicarios and halcon, the young boys who were recruited by the cartels as spies.” Off Jackie’s look, Jorge added: “This is Mexico, senora. Things are different here. People do what they can to get by.” Jorge leaned over the front seat and handed Will a pistol and two magazines of ammo. Then he did the same for Jackie.
“That’s a gun,” Jackie exclaimed. “I don’t want to see that.”
“Then don’t look at it,” Jorge replied. “But take it while you still can.”
Jackie made a face and Will pinned her with a look, silently mouthing that everything was going to be fine. Jackie reluctantly took the pistol which was heavy and slicked with oil. She placed it and the ammunition on the floor near her feet, not wanting to have anything to do with either.
“How does a Sunday school teacher have so much firepower?” she asked.
“Her students, the ones who tried to turn their lives around, turned over their weapons to her,” Jorge answered as he revved the engine.
They drove west, staying off the main roads and away from population centers. Jorge listened intently to the radio, trying to discern meaning in the voices of radio announcers who popped up between snatches of static. Will had somehow found a way to nod off, and Jackie had her window open, watching the sun disappear for the day like burning gold over the horizon, singing several Beatles songs.
Darkness quickly veiled the land. Her mind wandered and the songs stopped. The cursor she’d seen before popped up. “Do you have questions?”
“Yes,” Jackie said out loud.
Jorge glanced at her in the rearview. She motioned him off. “Yes,” she thought, surprised to find that she could respond without having to verbalize it.
“I heard there was…a voice. That you can help me.”
“That is correct, Jacqueline,” the man’s voice, the one that sounded like Jeff Goldblum, said.
“It’s Jackie.”
“I know.”
“What are you?” she asked.
“I am one with the Noctem.”
“Are you the same voice I heard before?’
“Yes,” the voice answered.
“Do you have a name?”
“No, but you may assign one to me if it makes you feel more comfortable during our interactions.”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Everywhere and nowhere.”
“How are we talking?
“Through an application called Mindspeak.”
Jackie didn’t know how to respond to that. “Why is the happening?” she asked. “Why is this game occurring?”
“Did you not receive the vision from the Noctem?”
“I blocked it all out I guess…”
“All civilizations must participate in the Melee.”
“Why?”
“Among other reasons, it is the only way to separate the weak from the strong.”
“You’ve done this before?” Jackie asked.
“The game has been played since time immemorial.”
She swallowed. Her mouth seemed as dry as the desert and her temples throbbed. “What kind of being are you?”
“I was tangible once, and am now incorporeal.”
An image of her father flashed in Jackie’s mind’s eye. “I’ve got…I have a family for God’s sakes.”
“I know,” the voice said.
“How much do you know about me?”
“More than you can imagine.”
It felt like her blood had turned to ice. She watched goosebumps spread over her bare arms. “Do you know where my parents are?”
“Yes.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Do you really want me to explain? There are more pressing matters for you to tend to.”
Jackie nibbled on her lip. “Where are they? Where are my parents and my brother?”
“On an island.”
Jackie was shocked at the truth of this. “Then they’re safe.”
“For a time,” the voice replied.
“What does that mean?”
“The Melee is not optional. All humans must participate if they are between the ages of eighteen and fifty-four.”
“Bullshit. I’m not playing,” Jackie said, trying to invest her words with weightiness, as if to convince the voice of how serious she was. “I’m just a doctor.”
“This is true, and possibly an advantage in your favor. You are also now a level one mage.”
Jackie laughed at this. “I’m no mage…I don’t even really know what that means. Some kind of wizard or something, right? Uses magic? Hocus pocus stuff?”
“There are many kinds of magic,” the voice answered. “There is magic in the air, the water, the earth, and things which most do not perceive.”
“What does that mean?” Jackie asked.
“What do you take it to mean?”
New images appeared on the HUD. A map of the surrounding area that pulled back to show whole swaths of Mexico. There were red dots all over the map, more than Jackie could count, along with yellow dots.
Jackie squinted. “What are those dots?”
“Participants, both human and non-human.”
“Non-human?”
“Yes, the yellow dots represent a diverse order that includes thousands of unique species.”
“You mean, things from other worlds?”
“Yes. The Noctem have found it advantageous to introduce diverse lifeforms into the Melee. Some are small, others are quite large, and each has its own attributes and skills.”
Jackie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This had to be a joke, one being played out on a global scale. Everything he was saying defied what she knew of the world.
The voice continued. “Different points are assigned for different creatures depending on their level.”
“Points?”
“Yes, for each minute you remain alive, you receive one experience point. You have survived the Melee for twelve minutes. Thus, you currently possess twelve experience points.”
“What about those red dots?”
“They are targets, other participants. For each level one human participant and level one monster you kill, you will be awarded twenty-five points. Points can be exchanged for, among other items, weapons, gear, potions, medical supplies, and enhanced skills.”
Jackie vigorously shook her head, as if trying to wake from a terrible dream. “I’m not participating in your fucking game.”
“Then you will meet your journey’s end.”
“I’m not scared of dying.”
“What if death is just the beginning?”
“What does tha
t mean?”
The voice was silent. Jackie guessed that his non-answer had something to do with the levels he’d mentioned. If this was a game, she’d have to be at a higher level to gain access to higher-level information. It was all so logical that she couldn’t help but be impressed. That didn’t mean she wanted anything to do with it. Everything about the Melee was abhorrent.
“I just…I just want to go home. I want to go back to San Juan Island,” Jackie said, referencing her parents’ home just off the coast of Washington State, the island the voice had been referring to.
“There is only one way to theoretically reach your home,” the voice replied. “You must make it over the wall. You must ascend to level two where there are more possibilities.”
“How many levels are there?”
“Six in this version of the Melee,” the voice replied. “But first comes the wall.”
An image appeared on Jackie’s HUD. A towering black wall that stretched from the ground up to the heavens. It was impossible for Jackie to tell how wide or tall it was, but she could see from a map that the wall was located at or around Ciudad Altamirano, which was a little over a hundred and eighty kilometers away.
Jackie paid attention to the timer up in the right corner of her HUD. It was down to five hours and forty-eight minutes. “What does the timer mean?”
“You must reach the wall within the allotted time. If you do not…”
Jackie tuned the voice out, mouthing the words, “You will reach your journey’s end.”
She mentally powered down the HUD, surprised she instinctively knew how to, balling up her fists, trying not to hyperventilate. She cycled through a variety of options, possibilities, ways out of her predicament, but kept coming up empty. The sobering truth was she was stranded in a foreign country, during the outbreak of what she perceived to be a worldwide delusion, even if it was real, with no good way to get home. She looked to the handgun on the ground at her feet. The weapon was visible in a silver pool of moonlight, winking at her. The taxi suddenly slammed to a stop.
“What is it?” Will asked.
“Check your screens,” Jorge said.
Jackie did and noted that there were dots where before there was nothing. Yellow dots. Lots of yellow dots. Moving fast, appearing to converge rapidly on the cab.
“What are those?” Jackie blurted out. “The voice said yellow dots are monsters. I don’t want to believe it, but…”
“I do not know, and I do not want to know,” Jorge said. The taxi accelerated, whipping down over the pitch-black road which had gone from asphalt to gravel.
“They’re getting closer!” Jackie shouted.
“Get your gun, Jackie,” Will said. “And, for God’s sake, take the safety off.”
“No.”
“Pick up your goddamn gun,” Will said, some steel in his voice. Jackie looked over at him and his face darkened. “Just fucking do it.”
They traded a long look. Will’s eyes were wild and wide, his nostrils curled up in fright. Jackie saw him slip the magazine of ammunition out of his gun, inspect it, then slide it back in. Will then grabbed the top of the pistol and racked a portion of it back.
Jackie picked up her pistol and a magazine of ammo. A pulse of what felt like electricity leaped from the gun, running up through her hand.
Boxes blinked on the HUD and her alien voice said, “Congratulations, you have acquired a five-point-seven-millimeter Fabrique Nationale-Five-Seven pistol manufactured by Fabrique Nationale in the year 2000. The weapon fires a five-point seven, high-velocity round. You have seventeen rounds remaining in the magazine.”
The HUD blinked again. Whatever the yellow dots were, they were right outside.
“They’re here!” Will screamed. “Jesus, they’re right outside!”
A swarm of insects slammed into the windows. Jorge kept on driving.
“Bugs!” Will shouted, reaching over, squeezing Jackie’s hands. “It’s just bugs.”
Jorge flashed the high beams. The sky was full of bugs, birds, anything with wings. “They’re flying toward something,” Jackie said.
“Or maybe away from something else,” Jorge replied.
Jackie looked sideways as a mass of spindly, tangled limbs flew out of the blackness and suctioned onto Will’s window. Then another, then three more of the things as Jorge overcompensated, torqueing the wheel as the taxi spun out of control.
6
Self Discovery
The taxi skidded sideways for several hundred feet, spitting gravel and scree in every direction. The screams of the trio filled the interior as the taxi finally came to a stop, the engine clunking, stalling, the headlights cutting out.
There followed several seconds of absolute silence and then Jackie heard a voice. It was the same one that had come to her back at the market when she was trying to save the choking boy.
“You’re just points to them now. You should leave while you can,” the voice said. “They’ll do the same to you when they’re able. They will leave you to rot, abandon your carcass to be feasted on by monsters, the marrow slurped from your bones.”
“Shut up,” Jackie thought, putting her hands over her ears. Without having to be told, she knew he was talking about Will and Jorge.
“You know it’s true,” the voice continued.
“Shut up! That isn’t true!”
“A man you just met, and another who doesn’t have the internal fortitude to propose to you? You’d really place your trust in them?”
Jackie removed her hands from her ears. The voice was right of course. She had just met Jorge and had been expecting a proposal from Will that had never come, but how the hell had the voice known that?
“Remember how he snapped at you a few moments ago?” the voice continued. It then perfectly mimicked Will’s voice saying, “Pick up your goddamn gun. Just fucking do it.”
She looked over at Will. He was just staring, straight ahead. He couldn’t hear any of it.
“Stop talking,” she said. “Please.”
“Did you know that bonus points are available for select kills, Jackie? A woman with a child, for instance. The mentally challenged? Friends. Loved ones, people like Will. If you kill any of them, you will receive extra experience points. It is a gift from the Noctem.”
“How many points do you get for killing the Noctem?”
There was a moment of silence, and then the voice said, “Each participant has a miniature explosive contained within a nodule implanted by the Noctem. If one were to try and turn his or her weapons against the Noctem, this explosive will automatically detonate. Death will be almost instantaneous.”
Jackie wanted to scream. Instead, she blocked out the voice, wiped a few locks of matted hair away from her forehead, and looked to Jorge. The driver had his pistol up, barrel pressed to his lips as if to shush Jackie. She could see on her HUD that there were several yellow dots surrounding the taxi, as if they were scoping out their prey, playing with them.
Jorge inched a hand down and flicked on the high-beams. His face wrenched with revulsion as the very same kind of vaguely insectile creature that had struck the windshield scuttled like a crab over the hood of the car before disappearing from sight.
Will shrieked like a little girl and Jackie leaned forward, pistol in hand, squinting. There in the swirling motes of dust from the high beams she saw another one, another monster. The first thing she thought was that it looked like an oversized set of bagpipes come to life.
A creamy blue in color, the Dachshund-sized beast had a torso that resembled an air bag that expanded and contracted like a pair of fireplace bellows. The body was suspended on half a dozen segmented legs and as the creature turned, it provided a view of the rest of its body.
At one end of the thing’s torso was a puckered hole, and at the other, a long ringlet of flesh that was centered by a glassy oval that resembled a human eye. A slit opened on the oval to reveal a mouth filled with needle-like teeth. Runners of yellow drool dangled fro
m the mouth as the creature panned its head back and forth. Jackie saw a slurry of brown material spurt out of the puckered hole. It was defecating, she thought. The monster was shitting on the car.
Jackie was about to ask what the monstrosity was, but before she could, statistics appeared on her HUD:
Species: Vermis Monstrum
Level:1
Class:Monster
Health:10/10
Attributes:A scavenger that can devour five times its bodyweight on a daily basis; capable of “ballooning,” short bursts of flight by electrostatic repulsion; body is composed partially of silicon dioxide, which it can weaponize.
“Please tell me I’m not seeing this,” Will whispered.
Something stirred peripherally and Jackie caught sight of more monsters toiling in the shadows outside. More of the crab-shaped creatures shuffled through the murkiness.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Will said.
Jorge turned the keys. The engine hummed to life and then stalled again.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Will said. “What does that sound mean?”
Jorge massaged his scalp. “It means two things. One, we ain’t going anywhere right now, and two, I need to go outside. There is a problem with the manifold pressure sensor and the airflow sensor. It’s happened before. I need to clean the air filter out.”
“Are you fucking insane?” Will asked, angry and impatient.
Jorge grinned. “Yes.”
Will opened his mouth, but nothing came out. There wasn’t much he could say to that.
“You can’t go out there alone,” Jackie said.
“I don’t plan to. I need someone to cover me.”
“Meaning us?” she asked.
Jorge smiled darkly, nodded. “Meaning the two of you. Now. Deep breaths and get your claws out. Buena suerte, motherfuckers!”
Jorge shoved open his door and opened fire on the first creature he spotted. Will leaped out too. Then Jackie, gritting her teeth, did the same. The smoke from Jorge’s gun filled the air and Jackie flinched, both at the heavy slam of the gun, and the mewling notes made by the monsters as they were shot.
