The Empty Ones

by Robert Brockway

  “So what are the angels? What do they want?”

  Tub laughed. “That is what they want. We’ve seen references to them going back to the start of human history. They’ve always been around—solving people, stealing energy, moving it around—and they always will be. They’re a part of the universe. They’re like gravity, or the tide. They just … are.”

  Tub stopped speaking. He peered into the shadows of the second floor and, apparently not finding what he was looking for, turned back to us. “To be honest, the Flares aren’t even the problem, though I’ll spit in your eye if you ever tell Meryll I said that. They do their thing, and they take, what? Maybe a few hundred people a year? That’s consistent, through most of history. The number never seems to swing much from century to century. They’re like sharks. They’re gonna kill, because they’re designed to kill, and we’d be best just accepting that.”

  Something in me went cold. I had started to like Tub, to think of him like the drunken abusive father figure I never had. But he’d lost me at the shark analogy. I won’t ever accept that.

  “The real problem,” he whispered, “is the Husks. A botched job that leaves behind a Husk and a Sludge is the exception, not the rule, so maybe only a handful get left behind in a century. But we can’t kill them. So even though there aren’t many, they’ve been building up over time. Our planet is a goddamned rubbish bin for monsters, and it’s just about full up.”

  “Rubbish Bin for Monsters” would make a good band name, I thought. I figured I’d mention it to Randall later, though, because Tub apparently wasn’t done yet.

  “There’s so many now that the Husks have started finding each other,” he said. “The world wasn’t always so connected. Every once in a while one would get made, and it would cause havoc in its area, and that was it. People would call them vampires, or demons, or whatever—and they’d just warn their kids not to go near them. That’s Dracula’s castle, boy. That forest is haunted. That’s just the way it is, and you can’t do anything about it, so stay away.”

  Tub drew a big circle in the dirt with his cane. He crisscrossed it with long, straight lines.

  “But then the Husks started moving. Boats, trains, airplanes, cars. They found each other, and they started talking. And they did what every screwed up lonely little mistake does when it finds out it’s not alone. They built themselves a religion. They made up a reason for their existence. And then they got down to spreading the gospel. Making more Flares. Seeding the Faceless. They know they’re an accident. They accept that. But they think that means this world and everything on it is an accident, too. The Flares exist to solve mistakes, and the Husks want the whole world solved.”

  I took a drink, because that seemed like a fine thing to do after hearing that news.

  “We heard about what happened in New York,” Tub said.

  Randall raised an eyebrow.

  “Maybe not about what happened to you two personally, but we heard about the disappearances. A few dozen kids, at most. What’s happening here? Isn’t anything like that. Thousands are disappearing by the week. You tangled with one Husk and his gang of Faceless. We have trouble counting how many armies have amassed here. You boys went through a nasty street fight. This is The Great War.”

  I stayed quiet. I figured Tub had earned himself a pretty dramatic pause.

  “Man,” Randall finally said. “You Brits seriously just will not shut up about World War II.”

  Tub stared at him, then remembered he should be slapping him in the back of the head. So he did that.

  “Ow, shit!” Randall hopped up and ran to the other side of the fire. “I’m just joking. God damn.”

  “That’s the problem,” Meryll said, from somewhere above and behind us. “You’re always joking, and you’re rarely funny.”

  Yes, she’s okay!

  Yes, she insulted Randall!

  Holy shit, how is she okay?

  TEN

  2013. Highway 57, Mexico. Jackie.

  Long straights, cruise control, droning music, blasting through flat beige landscapes that never seemed to move no matter how fast we went. Highway hypnosis. I was thinking about home. About West LA and what I missed: Japanese food. Frozen yogurt. Zankou Chicken.

  Maybe I was just hungry.

  But there was also my apartment. Melissa, my stupid roommate who always left dishes on the floor.

  On the floor, Melissa? Really?

  My couch and my TV. Binge-watching Kids in the Hall and practicing all of the voices. I missed getting on stage—even the small, dimly lit ones in the basements of comic book shops. And making the audience laugh—even if the audience was a dozen dorks just killing time until some guy who shades Batman took the stage.

  I missed the beach. We’d been bombing around the butt crack of the Southwest long enough that you’d think I’d be sick of sun and sand. But it’s not the same. The sand here is too coarse. It doesn’t run between your knuckles like silk when you pick it up. It’s not a bunch of stones polished by time and oceans. It’s not sand. It’s just dirt. The sun doesn’t penetrate into you, warming your organs first and spreading outward. It stops at your skin. It leaves you feeling burnt and fluish. It’s not sun. It’s just fucking hot.

  And, oh man, the people in these towns. Holy crap. Like every car is an IROC. One time I saw a guy with two mullets. I don’t even know how.

  I miss people that don’t look like they’re one zipper away from wearing your skin as a coat.

  But you know what I really, really miss? I miss safety. I miss locking the door to my apartment, changing into my Hulk Hogan pajama bottoms and my Wayne’s World sweatshirt, sitting cross-legged on the couch and playing stupid phone games, and never, not once, thinking a fucking tar monster was going to kick in my door and turn me into a blood Slurpee. Or that the faces in the audience I can’t quite make out aren’t just sitting in shadows. Or that some hollow-eyed pretty boy is going to eat my soul and turn me into some Stepford-core cultist.

  I should not have to worry about this crap.

  I wouldn’t have to worry about this crap, if not for Kaitlyn.

  I love her, God bless her, but when she said we had to run, and I said, “I’ll come with you,” I really wanted her to be like, “No, no, you totally can’t. You’re too precious. Stay here and live your awesome life while I embark on a thrilling but dangerous adventure, stopping by occasionally to have margaritas and laugh about my shenanigans.”

  I didn’t want to go. I liked my life. I hate adventure.

  But she started crying. That little Kaitlyn cry that’s more like tiny hiccups. She thanked me, then she helped me pack. What was I supposed to do? She was my girl. If she needed me, I had to go.

  That’s how friendships work … right?

  Right?

  So yeah, I had a lot on my mind. I wasn’t paying attention. It was just past sunset. You could see light over the horizon, but it wasn’t making it down here. It was black on the ground, and black on the road, so when something black loomed up in front of the Jetta, I didn’t even see it in time. Carey jerked the wheel, but that just made us hit it sideways. It gave a little on impact, like punching a brick of Jell-O, then rebounded just enough to send the car flipping down the road.

  Cut.

  Scene missing.

  Guitars are twanging. An angry man rants about guns and butter.

  My eyes open, but one won’t focus. My head is full, my vision red. I’ve been upside down for a few minutes. My fingers move slow, and because I’m still hanging from the seat belt, there’s so much tension on it that the buckle won’t release.

  All this talk of blood and iron / it’s the cause of all my shaking.

  One speaker is blown. The song is even tinnier than usual. Carey’s not in the seat next to me. I wonder if he was wearing his seat belt.

  I laugh a little.

  I would be goddamned amazed if he was.

  It hurts too much to turn my head. I can check on Kaitlyn once I get myself down.
I grab the steering wheel and haul some of my weight off it. I click the release button. I fall.

  The fatherland’s no place to cry for / it makes me want to run out shouting.

  I land on my neck. Should have planned better. After I finish whimpering, I turn to crawl out the passenger side window and hit my nose. It isn’t broken. Huh. I assumed everything just shattered, in a car crash. That’s how the movies make it look. It feels silly, unlocking the door, pulling on the handle, and exiting my upside-down car as if I meant to flip it and now I just have to go run errands. The metal grinds on the pavement.

  I hear some talk of guns and butter / that’s something we can do without.

  I move onto my side and drag myself around to the back window. I see Kaitlyn still inside. At least, I think that’s Kaitlyn. There’s too much blood to see her face.

  If men are only blood and iron / Oh doctor doctor, what’s in my shirt?

  I grab the handle and open her door. I purposefully don’t check to see if she’s breathing. I don’t need to know that yet. I can’t know that yet. I lift her weight as best I can with one arm, and release her seat belt. I loop my hands under her arms and drag her clear of the wreckage. I don’t know why I’m doing this. Do cars explode when they’re flipped upside down, or is that just in Grand Theft Auto?

  I’m too foggy. I can’t think straight. I give myself a mission: Drag Kaitlyn’s skinny ass to safety, then pass out and probably die. But first things first.

  The car stereo fades as we reach the shoulder. I keep moving until there’s a big rock behind me. Big rocks are good. Solid, dependable rocks. They’ll know what to do. I pull Kaitlyn up to the boulder and prop her up against it. It’s still sun-warm, emanating heat like a radiator. When I’m sure she’ll stay upright, I collapse next to her. That’s when I make my first big mistake. I look back toward the car. Past it, into the dark behind it. And I see that the night is moving.

  I’ve never encountered any of those tar guys that Kaitlyn and Carey talk about. Apparently I very nearly was one, but I didn’t think to take a selfie at the time, so I’ve never actually seen them until now. It’s nighttime in the desert, and they’re pure black and pretty far away, but even so I can tell that the things are built like André the Giant. Roughly human shaped, but too tall, too thick. Large heads, massively disproportionate hands and feet—with something glinting in their faces. They are quiet. No sound when they move. And they are apparently social creatures.

  Because I see now that there are thousands of them. Maybe tens of thousands.

  I thought there were only a few, at first. That the shadows rippling like a disturbed pond in the distance were just my eyes playing tricks on me. But no. There were so many of the things. Bunched together tightly, and moving as one unit. One unit that extended as far back as my eyes could see. And, I got the sense, even farther.

  Luckily, they aren’t moving toward us. Or at least they weren’t, before Carey stumbled out from behind the Jetta, threw a tire at one, and called it “cancerous diarrhea.”

  The tar man splits off from the main group and plods slowly toward Carey, who is just standing there on the far side of the highway, past the overturned Jetta and the shower of off-white plastic it left embedded in the asphalt. A few more seem to take notice of the first tar man and follow him. Half a dozen are coming Carey’s way now, and the asshole, is backing up toward me.

  “Don’t you bring that shit over here,” I yell at him.

  “Hey, you’re alive,” he says. “Cool. Help me kill these things.”

  I make six faces at him at once. I can’t decide which of the many valid questions I have about his plan are the most dire.

  “What?” I decide. Then, “Why? H-how?”

  “If I can get enough of them over here by the car, they’ll catch the rest on fire when I blow it up.”

  “How the hell are you going to do that?”

  “I … shit. I guess I just figured I’d throw my lighter at it. You think that’ll work?”

  “I think that’s only in video games and action movies,” I say, conveniently not mentioning that I’d had the same thought. If only briefly, and while concussed.

  “Well…” Carey says, “that stinks. Because I’ve already pissed these things off.”

  I try to get my feet under me, but they aren’t cooperating. I try to shove and drag Kaitlyn around the edge of the boulder, but she just flops over and bleeds quietly into the sand.

  “I can’t move her,” I say. Then more urgently, “Carey, I can’t move her!”

  Carey thinks for a second. Looks like it hurts. Then he feints left, but bolts right around the nearest tar man. Once he’s past it, he loops back toward the Jetta. He starts banging on the door panels, hooting and hollering.

  “Over here,” he yells. “Come take a bite of this asshole sandwich.”

  The tar men turn, and begin lumbering in his direction. Carey disappears out of sight behind the car, leading an impromptu parade of monsters away from me and my unconscious best friend.

  All of them but one.

  Maybe it’s just closer to us than Carey, or maybe it has tar where its ears should be, or maybe it just thinks cute, bloody girls make a better snack than crusty old punks. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t turn and follow Carey. It’s fixated on us. On Kaitlyn.

  It doesn’t have eyes. It has two brass gears roughly where its eyes should be. No mouth. No nose. No skin. No face. Just a thick fluid like crude oil, flowing in slow motion. One hand is stretched toward us, though it’s still fifty feet away and moving slowly. Thick fingers that nearly flow together into an indistinguishable mitt. A piece flows down its thumb, seems about ready to drip off, then retreats. It runs down the thing’s arm instead, and rejoins its body. It leaves no prints behind, no puddles. It’s about forty feet away.

  I can move my legs, but I can’t get any strength in them. I prop myself up on my knees, wrap my arms around Kaitlyn’s feet, and throw all of my weight into it.

  She moves an inch. That’s a generous guess.

  I should’ve gone jogging with her. At least once. She asked so many times. She was always saying stuff like, “Hey, let’s go for a run instead of rewatching RoboCop for the one hundredth time,” or “Let’s go hiking instead of drinking margaritas on your roof,” or “Let’s go to the gym instead of the hot dog stand,” but no—Jackie digs wieners. Jackie’s gonna die for her love of goddamned wieners.

  I have moved her maybe four inches.

  The tar man is now thirty feet away.

  It’s moving so slowly, like watching a fat guy swim. That’s the worst part. I could mosey, and still outrun the stupid thing, but my legs just will not respond. They get the message. They twitch and stretch, like they understand what I want, but the lazy bastards give up when it actually comes time to follow through.

  I pull. I heave. I throw everything I have into it.

  Jesus Christ, Kaitlyn, you cannot weigh this much. I am looking at you, and it is physically impossible. Unless your ass is made out of dwarf stars, you cannot weigh this much!

  I’ve moved her, like, six inches. The tar man has advanced another ten feet.

  I am going to die in slow motion.

  Then something that looks like a giant bat flaps out of the darkness behind the tar man and wraps itself around the thing’s head. It’s covered in patches and duct tape. It has spikes on its shoulders. It’s Carey’s jacket. He’s somehow gotten behind the tar man and thrown his coat over its head. It seems to be contemplating whether or not it cares about this new development.

  Carey takes advantage of the distraction. He runs around in front of the tar man, grabs the part of his jacket that’s still over the thing’s face, feels around for something in there, and appears to find it, latch on, and yank backwards with all of his strength. There’s a sound like duct tape being peeled from the roll, and Carey falls on his ass, holding his jacket in both hands. He looks up at the tar man.

  Nothing happens.

&n
bsp; At all.

  The thing is frozen in place.

  Carey shakes his jacket out, and two shiny brass gears thunk into the dust. He looks back at me and gives me a big shithead smile. He is just never going to shut up about this, I can tell already.

  “What, no hand jobs for the hero?” he’s going to say later, when we get out of this. If we get out of this. And once again I’m going to tell him that he looks like he just escaped from the punk rock internment camp and smells like a homeless basketball team.

  Oh, but that’s all moot. Because here comes another tar man, drawn by all the commotion. I haven’t stopped shoving, pulling, twisting, and otherwise uselessly manipulating Kaitlyn’s stupidly heavy body. We’re maybe a full foot away from where we started, and I’m done. I’m out of energy. I’m hurt and dizzy. Waves of nausea ripple out from my stomach and crash against the backs of my eyes. I’m sweating, and even though the desert still has plenty of lingering warmth, I’m also shivering.

  Carey steps around the frozen tar man toward the approaching one, and he pulls out his lighter.

  He’s just about to throw it when I tell him, “Don’t waste it! Look around!” I point to his left.

  More tar men have broken off and are pouring in from the side. Carey looks to his right, and sees more of the same. They work more like fluid than animals. Enough start moving one way, and the floodgates open. They all come pouring in.

  Carey rapidly displays two looks that I’ve never seen on his face before. The first is utter and total defeat. The second is something I’d call “thinking,” if I didn’t know him better.

  He bolts for the Jetta. It’s unnecessary. He could have walked over there. There are dozens of tar men, in a huge, rough circle now, slowly closing in on our boulder from every direction. But they’re in no hurry. Carey rips off his T-shirt—it’s black with a yellow hand displaying a sort of reverse peace-sign, the letters SLF across the top—and twists it up real tight. He flips open the gas cap to the Jetta and shoves most of the shirt in there. Then he pulls it out, now soaked in gas. He flips it around and puts the dry end back into the tank, then gets out his lighter. He flicks the flint and it catches on the first try. Carey turns to sprint back toward me and Kaitlyn. Just as he reaches us, he dives, lands on his stomach, rolls, and quickly wraps himself around our bodies, shielding us from the blast.