Day of Reckoning

by Micah B. Edwards

  I check the front door just in case I left it unlocked, but no dice. I know there’s supposed to be a way you can open a window latch with a credit card, but I don’t know the technique to do that. Also, I don’t have a credit card, those being in my wallet, which is in turn in the baggie in the car. So that’s a no-go on several levels.

  The nice day we’ve been enjoying seems to be diminishing along with my mood. Clouds are starting to move in, blocking the sun and threatening rain. I’m really not dressed for being outside in a cold rain, so after trying both doors of my house and checking every window, I pick up a fist-sized rock and traipse around to the side of the house.

  I don’t see any neighbors around, so I quickly rap the rock sharply on a basement window, shattering the pane. I run the rock around the edges, clearing away most of the broken glass, then lie belly-down on the lawn and slide myself uncomfortably through the gap. The most awkward part comes after I’m most of the way inside, and my shoulders briefly get trapped in the frame. I’m momentarily stuck, unable to push myself farther in and without the leverage to pull my body back out. It lasts just long enough for me to have a clear vision of the police coming by to find me like this, and then my shirt tears at the sleeve, a piece of glass rakes painfully down my left arm and I’m dropping to the floor inside.

  I jar my ribs painfully on the landing and drop to one knee, arms wrapped around my side. I stay like that for a few seconds while I get my breathing under control, then assess my situation. Physically, I’m thrashed. The slide through the broken window has just added half a dozen surface cuts to my existing injuries. I’m suffering from an adrenaline crash. And I’m absolutely starving.

  I can do something about that last one, at least. I head up to the kitchen and start assembling a sandwich, although I eat a good portion of the toppings before ever putting them between two pieces of bread. This is what passes for an appetizer in my house.

  Sandwich in hand, I boot up the computer and load a local news site. Sure enough, they’ve got my picture plastered on the lead article. I look pretty terrible. My skin is pale, my cheek bandage is stained with dried blood, and my expression is best described as “angrily dazed.” The article itself describes my invasion of Rossum Medical, my resisting of arrest and my subsequent escape en route to a psychiatric evaluation facility. I’m described as “confused, dangerous and potentially armed,” and I’m forced to concede the accuracy of that statement, at least.

  They have a video interview with the cyclist I ran into, and I click play out of morbid curiosity.

  “He just came leaping at me. It all happened so fast,” says the cyclist, who the screen identifies as Alan Yonning. “At first, I thought it was just an accident, but now I think maybe he was trying to steal my bike. It’s hard being a cyclist in the city. There are a lot of dangers out there.”

  I snort and stop the video as it cuts back to a newscaster. Maybe if you didn’t speed on the sidewalk, some of those dangers would be lessened, Alan! Take some personal responsibility.

  There’s another video at the bottom of the article, and the still image is a face I recognize: Evan Tanger, Jr. Previously the owner and CEO of Tanger Construction, where I work. Also previously my nemesis. He was the man who launched a successful citywide smear campaign against me with the help of his suggestion nanos—the same ones that have landed me in this current trouble.

  Last I saw him, he was being quietly removed from corporate power by whatever backroom machinations millionaires use against each other. His nanos were deactivated when I exposed the truth about him, so what’s he doing back in the news? I click the link with a sense of unease, skipping ahead to the part where Tanger starts talking.

  “Mr. Everton is, unfortunately, a very troubled man,” Tanger says smoothly to a reporter standing next to him. “Please don’t take this as sour grapes. I knew this well before he scuttled my mayoral campaign with that faked video. I attempted to warn people before, but it was not well-received. Perhaps now people will understand.”

  Tanger reaches out one hand and clasps the reporter’s shoulder. “I’ll be holding a press conference later to discuss what I know. You’ll all find it very interesting,” he says with conviction.

  The reporter smiles, then turns to face the camera. “Evan Tanger, Jr. A pillar of the community, to be sure.”

  Well. Seems that Tanger’s gotten his nanos reactivated, too. Apparently Ichabot is pulling out all of the stops against me now.

  Maybe I should be flattered. After all, he clearly must consider me a large threat to go to all of this trouble. But then again, is it really all that much trouble? It took only a few keystrokes for him to deactivate my nanos. It’s probably about the same to reactivate them.

  Should the bacteria be flattered when the scientist sterilizes the petri dish at the end of the experiment? It’s definitely overkill, but is it really any more effort on the scientist’s part than taking proportionate measures?

  I’m mulling over this unpleasant philosophy when there’s a demanding knock at the door.

  “Open up! It’s the police!” comes the muffled call.

  I freeze, unsure what to do. Should I hide? Run? Give myself up?

  Before I can decide, a heavy impact shudders the door in its frame. It repeats, then again, before the door finally crashes open.

  “Just kidding,” says Vince, standing in the doorway. He’s flanked by two identical copies of himself. “It’s not the police at all. Hello, filth.”

  - Chapter Five -

  Entertainingly, my very first thought is, “I should call 911!” This despite the fact that I’ve spent all afternoon trying to avoid the police. It’s hard to break a lifetime of ingrained habits.

  I search frantically for a better plan, but the best that my brain can conjure up is apparently “Stall.” That’s pretty much the mental equivalent of a “Please wait, loading...” screen. Still, if it’s all I’ve got, then I’ll work with it.

  I figure that the first move in any successful stall is to get the other guy talking, so I ask the first question that comes into my mind.

  “How did you find me? Did you figure that I’d think that the police wouldn’t think to look for me here, since I obviously wouldn’t go to the most obvious place?”

  Vince, still in the ruined doorway, tilts his head to the side quizzically as he looks at me. “Did that make sense in your diseased brain?”

  He steps inside, and I stand up from the chair and retreat as he advances on me slowly. “I found you,” he says through gritted teeth, “because you feel like a tear in a map in my brain. It doesn’t matter where I’m looking, where I’m thinking about going. My eyes are drawn to that ripped spot every time. I couldn’t not know how to get to you if I wanted to.”

  Vince’s mood seems to have dramatically worsened since his arrival. At least when he kicked down the door, he was faking humor. Now he has his teeth bared like some sort of feral animal, and from the look in his eyes I really can’t be sure that he won’t try to attack me like one, too. I recall my attempts to talk to Brian while he was in the grips of the nano-inspired hatred, and how the very sound of my voice drove him into a rage. This is probably not a situation that can be improved by conversation, then.

  My eyes flicker to the kitchen doorway, measuring the distance. As if this is a prearranged signal, all three Vinces lunge at me. Their movements are almost perfectly synchronized, which is unsurprising since they think almost exactly alike. The only thing that saves me from being immediately caught is that since they all came to the same idea independently, they all rush the same spot instead of fanning out. This allows me to stay one step ahead of their grasping hands as I sprint into the kitchen.

  Never before in my life have I cared about interior doors, but now I find myself cursing their lack. I tear open the door to the refrigerator as I run past, hoping to slow down my pursuers, and a slam behind me tells me both that I was successful, and that they’re right on my heels. With my left hand, I s
nag a chair from the table and turn my run into a spin, swinging the chair in a wide arc around me.

  I almost hit the wall, which would have been a fatal mistake since one of the Vinces is nearly upon me. Fortunately, I miss it by inches and slam the edge of the chair’s seat directly into the side of his face. Blood spatters, two of the chair legs crack and fly off, and Vince grunts and careens off into the table, smacking his face into it before hitting the ground heavily.

  “Back!” I shout, brandishing the shattered chair at the next Vince, but he grins nastily and doesn’t even slow his charge until he collides with the chair. I’m knocked back by the impact, so I take an extra step back and swing the chair again, crashing it into Vince’s shoulder and head.

  I see his skin briefly torn by the impact, only to immediately knit itself back together. The chair, meanwhile, loses another leg and part of the seat, and this time it’s not entirely due to the impact. Vince has stolen pieces of its material to rebuild his own body. For the same reason the police couldn’t fight him with their batons, I’m not going to be able to do any damage with this chair. And in the time it took me to try, his other clone has shouldered past him and is coming at me, fists up in a boxer’s stance.

  I throw the chair at the clone on the grounds that maybe it’ll do some good and run for the hallway. I reach my bedroom ahead of my pursuers, slam and lock the door, and knock my wooden dresser over in front of it for good measure. The drawers jar open and spill their contents onto the floor.

  From the other side of the door comes Vince’s mocking voice. “I just broke down your front door, spitrag. You think this can stop me?”

  “Why are you after me?” I shout, looking frantically around my room for anything useful. I don’t see anything immediately likely to get me out of this situation.

  “To kill you!” shouts Vince. This is punctuated by a thump that rattles the door, but it’s a solid oak door and might actually be stronger than the front door. It should hold him long enough for me to come up with some sort of a plan, anyway.

  “I can tell you who did this to you. I can tell you where to find him! He can stop it!”

  “I like what he did to me, moron. I love this! The only part that’s bad about it is having to feel your festering pus-wound of a life. And I can fix that myself.”

  My search for useful items has led me to the attached bathroom. The cabinet under the sink has a bunch of different cleaning chemicals, and it seems like I should be able to do some damage with those. Even if he can heal it, I might be able to blind him for a second or something, long enough to get past. I sweep them all up in my arms and head back into the main part of the bedroom.

  A faint scratching noise snaps my eyes to the fallen dresser. I see grasping fingers on top of it and at first, I think someone trying to climb out from underneath it. Seconds later, I realize the truth is much worse.

  Vince, on the far side of the door, is converting the door into a mass of animated flesh, foregoing the complete cloning process in order to make a Lovecraftian puddle of semi-sentient limbs and organs. Not only is that horrifying and potentially dangerous, it’s also stealing away the material of the door at a concerning rate. Vince doesn’t have to break the door down if he just converts it. I look frantically around the room, at my spilled clothes and my armload of chemicals, but nothing seems to offer a way out. The pool of flesh is creeping up the sides of the door, turning the frame into fingers, eyeballs and the occasional tongue.

  “I’ll be in there in a minute, Dan!” Vince calls in a sing-song voice. “I’ve got all of the exits blocked.”

  I rush to the window, and sure enough, Vince is on my back lawn. Is this one of the ones who was at the front door with him? Are there more that I hadn’t seen? Even if it’s just one of him, he’s a better fighter than I am and he’s obviously prepared for me.

  “There’s no way out but past me. Might as well take it like a man, you worm.”

  Suddenly, an idea occurs to me. It’s stupid and possibly suicidal, but it might create enough confusion for me to slip by. Rushing to the bed, I place both hands on the comforter and focus on intensifying.

  “Uuuuuuuuup!” I chant, clutching the comforter in my fists and raising it into the air. The material smolders, then bursts into flames. Thick smoke begins to rise from the bed. I cough and retreat to the bathroom, returning with a wet washcloth held to my face.

  The bed is blazing merrily now and smoke is filling the room. I crouch low to the floor and pour all of the bathroom chemicals into the largest jug among them, a multi-gallon container of Clorox bleach. I don’t know if it’ll explode or what, but I cap it, put it on the dresser by the door and hope for some sort of a distraction.

  “Why do I smell smoke, Dan? What nasty little trick are you trying?” Vince kicks at the door and, weakened by the structural damage it’s taken, the door pops open. He kicks again, shoving the dresser a few inches backwards. The smoke rushes out of the room and I hear him cough. This is probably about as good a moment as I’m going to get.

  Washcloth still pressed to my mouth and nose, I crawl over to the door, grab the jug of bathroom chemicals and crouch by the entrance. As Vince kicks it again, shoving the dresser far enough back for him to enter, I pop the cap on the jug and squeeze it as hard as I can. Thick white vapor billows out along with a gout of liquid, and Vince screams, coughs violently and staggers backwards.

  I leap from my crouch into the hallway, slamming my shoulder into Vince and knocking him off of his feet. He grabs at my ankle as I run past, so I chuck the bleach jug at his face. He pulls his hands up to protect himself and I’m running free.

  The smoke alarm goes off as I make it to the kitchen, and once again my brain kicks in with, “Call 911!” Not helpful.

  I’m heading for the front door and feeling like I might be home free, when Vince suddenly steps into the door frame. This isn’t the original, though, which means he’ll take damage. He steps in to punch at me, but I’m riding high on adrenaline and duck under it. He manages an elbow to the back of my head, and I see stars as I drop to one knee. But even as he’s closing in with a kick, I rise back up, putting the full force of my body into an uppercut that smashes him full in the face. Now Vince is the one on the ground, and my kick to his head is successful.

  I’d love to take a moment to catch my breath, but the fire alarm is still shrieking, original Vince is probably back up by now and there could be who-knows-how-many more clones waiting for me. I stagger out into the street, coughing, and pick a direction to start running again.

  - Chapter Six -

  For once, luck is on my side, and I make it out of sight of the house without any visible pursuers. I slow my run to a jog, continuing to take intersecting streets at random in an effort to throw off any Vince clones who might be driving around looking for me. A sense of futility quickly begins to set in, though. Not only is my meager jogging speed totally useless compared to a car, if the original Vince is the one driving, he can clearly track me regardless. Staying on foot isn’t a sustainable strategy.

  I start scanning the houses I pass, and soon enough I see what I’m looking for—a bicycle leaning up against a side wall. There aren’t even any cars in the driveway, so there’s a good chance that no one’s home. I can steal the bike and make my getaway without anyone seeing me. Then I’ll be moving faster and tiring myself out less. It’s not as convenient as a car, but I have no idea how to hotwire a car. I definitely know how to take an unlocked bike.

  That’s not to say that I feel good about this decision. I have to do it, and I’m going to, but it feels lousy. My feeling only worsens when I get closer and realize it’s a kid’s bike. This poor kid is going to get home from school to find his bike missing. Then, after looking around frantically to find where he might have put it, he’ll get yelled at by his parents for letting it get stolen. So not only will he be out a bike, he’ll have to sit through a lecture. Depending on the parents, he may or may not get another bike.

 
; I make a promise to myself to return the bike if possible, but it sounds lame even in my own head. I wheel the bike down the driveway and awkwardly straddle it. It’s much too short for me, and when I try to work the pedals, I bang one knee painfully on the handlebars. In the end, I’m forced to stand up on the pedals to get up to speed.

  Still, even with the guilt and the bruised knee, this is an improvement over running. I still need to figure out a plan, but at least I’m on the move and more maneuverable than I was before. I’ve bought myself a little more breathing room.

  Of course, I thought that when I got to the house, too, and what did that get me? A sandwich, true, which is something, but I could have gotten so much more. Supplies, a backpack, some money. I’ve never been the kind of guy to keep a go-bag by the door, but I could have put something together instead of screwing around online, reading about myself.

  In retrospect, I have no idea why I haven’t been the kind of guy who keeps a go-bag by the door. I’m certainly the kind of guy who’s likely to need one, as the current circumstances attest.

  I’ve braked for a stop sign when I hear a voice shouting, “Hey! Hey, you!”

  I look up to see a woman advancing angrily on me. Whatever she wants, it can’t be good, and I eye the cross-traffic ahead of me, looking for a chance to peel out without immediately getting hit. Well, as much as I can “peel out” on a kid’s bicycle, anyway.

  Speaking of which, that seems to be the focus of her anger. “That’s not your bicycle! Where did you get that?”

  “What? It’s mine,” I say, sitting awkwardly on a bicycle that’s about a foot too short for me.

  “You liar! I know that bike. That’s my daughter’s friend’s bike. Where did you get it?”

  “No, it’s mine,” I insist. She’s stopped at the edge of the street, possibly because she’s realized that she’s unarmed and isn’t interested in getting into a physical altercation. This works for me, as I’m really not interested in getting into one, either.