The War Within #1: Victims

by Rodham Perry, Marcus

  The woman turned to face him, arching an eyebrow in playful surprise, her eyes looking languid and amused. She seemed totally out of touch with the scenario, holding a small umbrella to protect her golden hair from the rain, and wearing a dazzling white dress that seemed to make her the brightest entity in the world.

  “I think it all depends on your concept of reality,” she retorted, smiling. “What did you think of the boy’s offer?”

  “Offer?” Asimov made a face. “Ah, yes. I couldn’t accept it. She doesn’t want my presence, and I don’t... I don’t feel very comfortable—”

  “‘Very comfortable’…” she mocked. “You should have said yes. Given what I’ve seen around here, the chances of survival are better with a group.” Her voice sounded aggravated, scratchy. For all the apparent naivety in the voice, there was a sturdy authority behind the whole thing.

  And, for the first time, Asimov took note of how her beauty was thunderous, essentially akin to a corporeal force. She was the model of a woman who enjoyed the hatred of other women and had men in the vein of pet dogs. She was glorious, and Asimov’s own admiration began to displease him. There were too many things at stake.

  “I can’t go with them,” he said. “I don’t know them, and I don’t know if I can trust them.”

  “And who do you know besides them?”

  “You...”

  “Really?” She looked him up and down and raised an eyebrow, her face showing a curious hostility, maybe even a challenge. She approached him, her feet moving quietly while she speaks, “Look around you, what chance you have in a place like this?”

  “Until now I’m doing—”

  “Oh, do you are?” She gave him a hesitant, reserved smile. “Come here; let me show you something...”

  They were on the roof of the building. They approached the parapet, looking around the city center. It was a cruel atmosphere, the quiet, the absence of engines, the lack of people walking to and fro on the streets, following their lives — it was painful and wrong, to say the least. Here and there Asimov spotted vultures, perched on poles, occasionally one of them rising up and flying somewhere in circles.

  “What do you see?” she asked.

  “The impossible,” It was his answer, for there was no other. It was hard to believe that this was the world he lived in — it was hard to believe that this was the reality. More than once he wondered if he hadn’t died and was now trapped in some kind of hell.

  Yeah, if that were the case, he thought to himself, it would definitely make more sense.

  The woman leaned one arm on the parapet. “Sometimes I hear voices,” her tone had changed again and now she spoke with a soft sadness, “The voices of people suffering — women, men, even children... People who worked here and there,” She pointed to some shops downstairs, cafeterias, restaurants, and bookstores that had now been reduced to ruins. “Joyful voices, quiet, calm, you know... But then they get worse. The laughter goes away and all that is left is the cries and screams.”

  She turned her face to him, only a few inches away, and said vehemently, “This is real. This IS REAL. You’re not dead, at least not yet,” she grabbed his head with both hands and pulled him closer, her touch sending an electric charge through his body, “and if you want to stay alive, you need to start listening to me.”

  Only two centimeters separated them and they stood still, looking at each other. She lowered the umbrella, letting the rain soak her, and at that moment Asimov felt his heart throb in his chest as if it had dilated, the hollow sound resounding in his eardrums. He stared at her mouth and eyes, the rainwater that ran down her face and followed the curve of her neck. The beauty was overwhelming, and it had captivated him.

  She opened her eyes wide and then turned away suddenly. “I think you should take the boy’s invitation,” she said, picking up the umbrella and heading for the stairs while he was still bewildered. “He’ll be safer with you, and something tells me you’ll need them to understand the rules of the new world.”

  Asimov cleared his throat, “I will think about it—”

  “Why didn’t you kiss me when you had the chance?” She stopped and spoke to him in an easy, curious voice.

  The question still took him by surprise. “I... I didn’t mean to offend you,” he said.

  The woman raised her eyebrows. “You don’t seem to know me,” she said low, avoiding his gaze.

  “But... do I know you?” he inquired.

  In that, she smiled, and her blue eyes, confident and serious, rested on his. “It’s like I said, you just have to remember.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Things to do. You just have to remember.” She went down the stairs, leaving him alone in the rain.

  Asimov was ready to follow her when a loud noise caught his attention. He turned to the parapet. Another noise followed — a growl this time. He looked down, searching. The snarls came from a nearby alley. Asimov examined the shadows, and it didn’t take long to find the creatures.

  Shit...

  THAT’S OUR KILLER

  Olivia slipped the satellite phone back into the backpack. There was no signal and she sighed, taking a quick glance at the metal cylinder. Inside it was their ticket, two passages out of that miserable land. That is, as long as the Americans kept their side of the bargain — the serum in exchange for asylum, that was the agreement.

  She looked at the boy, who was sitting on the couch, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Sarah Polansky’s words echoed in her mind whenever she looked at him.

  “Take care of my son,” she ordered, as the Shades entered the house. Then she hid them in the bathroom, locked the door from the outside, and came back to meet the intruders. Her screams…

  Don’t think about it, Olivia told herself. Focus...

  “I still believe he has to come with us,” the boy said.

  Olivia shook her head. “I said no.”

  “He saved us!” Thomas protested. “He took care of your wound!”

  “We can’t trust him,” Olivia cut him off. “We can’t trust anyone. We’re pretty close now, and I won’t risk it—”

  “Oh, yes? What are you going to do if we are attacked again?”

  Olivia felt close to having a fit of rage. “I’ve kept both of us alive for the last three weeks!”

  “Say it to my mother!”

  Olivia didn’t respond for an instant. There was no way to argue against that. Sarah’s death was very traumatic, and Thomas was more than sad. He was angry — angry with the Shades that killed his mom, angry with his mother for leaving him alone with Olivia, angry with Olivia for being alive instead of his mother.

  “Asimov can protect us,” Thomas affirmed.

  Olivia blinked, “Who?”

  “A-si-mov.” Thomas repeated slowly, irritated, “the guy who saved us!”

  “He said he didn’t want to go with us.”

  “He doesn’t want to go because of you.”

  Olivia lifted her arms to the sky. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Stop acting like an idiot and call him to come with us!”

  It was weird to hear an eleven-year-old boy calling her an idiot, but that didn’t mean he was wrong. Hell, Olivia knew he was right, but she didn’t want to give up. Her denial wasn’t so much about the current situation, it was in relation to an old childhood trauma — even at the end of the world, where it was necessary to do whatever it takes to survive, some emotions still held her hand. Even now, Olivia didn’t like cops.

  “We need him,” Thomas went on. “Otherwise, we’ll never get to Ilha Bela.”

  Ilha Bela, right, she thought, as not even Thomas knew the whole truth. Olivia shook her head. Apart from her prejudice, could she tell the truth to a stranger who didn’t seem to know whether it was day or night? The man was… Maybe “crazy” wasn’t the right word, but he was weird, too say the least.

  But he knows how to fight, it was an undeniable truth. And maybe she didn’t have to tell
the whole truth; she’d keep the same story she had told the boy. Yeah, the same story, but much more simplified.

  “If I agree to this,” she said, “you can’t tell him about the vaccine, okay?”

  Thomas nodded and was glad the ex-maid finally heard what he was saying. Something like a smile snaked across his face — the first smile he gave in days.

  At that, a figure came running in from the darkness.

  “We have to go,” Asimov said, exploding inside the room.

  Before he could explain himself, there was a soft noise coming from the window. They all froze. Asimov exchanged a glance with Olivia and then turned his attention to the window. The curtains were closed, but the noise was coming from there, from the other side — of the sixteenth floor.

  Letting out a breath that he barely noticed he was still holding, Asimov drew his pistol and carefully approached the curtains. The rifle was on his back, but with no more than five shots on the mag... Well, it would be wise to save a bullet for him. He looked back at Olivia once more, his expression conveying the message perfectly to her: Get ready to run.

  Then he slowly opened the curtains.

  And looking back at him through the glass, there was a face with golden eyes.

  The Shade opened its mouth, ready to push through the glass, and Asimov placed his pistol against the glass, pulling the trigger, the .45 round shattering the window and hurling the creature back and down.

  “Run!” he yelled as the other windows of the room exploded, the Shades raining inside the apartment.

  He didn’t have to say twice — Olivia grabbed Thomas by the collar and fled the apartment in a flash, even before the word escaped from his mouth. Behind her, Asimov started shooting, the sound of his weapon being concealed by the roar of the monsters. She ran to the stairs, but stopped, listening to the noises of more Shades below — screams and roars, alongside the beaten sound of bare feet coming up the stairs.

  Shit! We are trapped?! What do I do?!

  A hand closed over her shoulder — just the wounded shoulder! — and she screamed in pain. The hand pulled her back, ignoring her discomfort.

  “Up!” Asimov cried, pulling Olivia and Thomas with a strong push. “Climb the stairs! Up, up!” He pushed them both up the stairs as he turned to face the creatures.

  It wasn’t long before the first Shade came up the stairs to meet him, the grotesque mouth open and the tongue hanging out. Asimov instantly noticed that it was different from the ones he saw earlier. It seemed sick, emaciated, just bones and skin, wearing barest tatters of clothing darkened with gore. The thing looked more like a walking corpse than a living creature, and that vision made every muscle in Asimov’s body stiffen and his skin crawl.

  Next, he put a round in the thing’s head and started backing up the stairs on his back, moving his foot blindly. Asimov fired at the next two monsters that appeared and the next one too, their ruined bodies collapsing on the steps. More came at him, snapping at the air with their jaws. A bullet in the right place was more than enough to stop the bastards, but the creatures attacked like a wave, trying to gain the advantage through numbers.

  And even with the size of the stairs limiting the extent of their attack and preventing the mass of bodies from swallowing it, the monsters did indeed have the numbers. It was redux of Leonidas and the 300 against the Persian army, and it would only be a matter of seconds until…

  His weapon clicked empty.

  Cursing the Heavens, Asimov let the empty magazine drop out of the pistol as he took another in his pocket — while one part of his mind screamed for him to be faster, the other tried to find a way out.

  How many mags did he have? And how long for them to reach the roof terrace? What then? Would he, Olivia and Thomas be trapped, and then killed? The building only had one exit, which he couldn’t use, he didn’t have enough bullets to kill all the monsters and hiding was out of the way — so, what?

  It took less than a second to reload his weapon — which it was more than enough for a hundred tactical questions to pass through his head, and also for a pair of bloody claws to get dangerously close to his neck. Asimov almost screamed as he pulled the trigger twice, sending the Shade back to its companions coming behind.

  Asimov kept firing, each bullet hitting a vital point, knocking down monsters like pins in a bowling game, some rolling down the stairs and hindering the others coming behind, others being trampled underfoot by the comrades until they became a folder.

  In less than ten seconds he was reloading the pistol again, trained hands performing the indispensable task of change mags while the legs did the inestimable magic to keep him running and climbing backward the stairs without tripping.

  His memory might be in tatters, but his muscles still remembered the training, repeated and practiced over and over again. Asimov didn’t know who he was, but his hands had no doubt of his history.

  As for his legs, well, they wanted him alive.

  But the monsters, these so-called Shades, were getting closer and pressing the attack. Asimov no longer waited to see if his target had fallen dead, already reaching for another creature and firing, fighting the panic.

  “Get in!” he yelled, trying to make himself heard over the gunfire and the screams of the monsters. “Olivia! Get in an apartment!”

  Asimov couldn’t tell if she heard the whole message until she started yelling his name. He fired twice more before turning, climbing the steps as fast as his body allowed.

  He found Olivia in an apartment doorway, the door open behind her, that ridiculous .38 in hands, staring at him with eyes full of fear. Asimov didn’t shout for her to get inside; instead, he just pushed Olivia in with all his strength. The girl sprawled on the residence’s floor, and Asimov turned and closed the door.

  A second later, the monsters burst into the wood, the door trembling so hard that he was nearly knocked over, fists clenched against the wood, nails, and claws scratching with an almost dreadful despair. Asimov slammed his shoulder on the door, knowing full well that he couldn’t hold them for more than a few seconds.

  Okay, now what? Think, think! He looked around the apartment. The blueprint was the same as the other one where they had taken shelter. Think, shit, think!

  A crazy and desperate idea came to mind. His eyes locked on Olivia, who was still rising from the floor. “Get the gas canister!” he shouted at her. “The gas canister… the gas canister! BRING THAT SHIT OVER HERE!”

  Olivia might not understand what he was thinking, but the urgency in his voice was more than enough to make her run to the kitchen. A hard blow against the door nearly knocked him down for good and Asimov gritted his teeth, the muscles starting to shake with the effort. He closed his eyes. What if there was no gas in the canister? What if it didn’t work?

  The growing group of creatures hit the door again, so hard that the door opened only for a moment — enough for him to see at least a dozen faces with wide eyes and bloody mouths staring back at him.

  Asimov heaved and closed the door again, throwing all his weight against it. “Hurry up with that!”

  Olivia shouldn’t have taken more than twenty seconds, but, for a man playing push-push with who knows how many monsters, it might as well have been an hour.

  “HURRY THE FUCK UP, WOMAN!”

  “Here!” She appeared a moment later, dragging the gas canister. It looked heavy, and that was a good sign — there was still gas inside. With his back pressed against the door, Asimov opened the canister with zero hesitation, the artificial aroma of the gas filling his nostrils. Asimov turned his face and coughed.

  “Get the boy and go to the back room.”

  “What do you—?”

  “GO, GODDAMN!”

  Olivia hesitated for a moment, but then grabbed Thomas by the arm and ran to the room, disappearing from his sight. With the door slamming and clicking behind him, Asimov quickly checked how many bullets were still in the pistol and the size of the living room.

  Could he ma
ke it?

  No?

  Perhaps…

  Oh, fuck you!

  He jumped away from the door, running like a madman, trying to put the biggest distance between him, the door and the open gas canister. Without his resistance, the door swung open, vomiting creatures inside the room — the first Shades stumbled to the ground, caught off guard by the sudden lack of resistance on the door, their bodies covering the canister.

  Asimov raised the gun and shot the gas canister. He fired until a lucky bullet produced a spark as it drilled the canister’s steel, and then there was an explosion that would bring pride to any Hollywood filmmaker. For very little Asimov didn’t die too — the heat wave and the aggressive displacement of the air tossed him up and back, along virtually every furniture around, his body crashing into the wall on the other side of the room.

  Now I wake up in this nightmare, he thought as he hit the floor next.

  ♦♦♦

  However, beyond the buzzing in his ears, the blinding glitter in his eyes and the feeling of being on fire, he was still alive and trapped in the — unhappy — real world.

  His body was hot — too hot — and Asimov realized there were real flames on him. But then he felt hands smacking his back in places to put out small flames on his shirt.

  “Get up!” The words resonated far into his ears, and then closer, stronger. “GET UP!”

  It was Olivia. Asimov tried to respond but couldn’t hear his own voice. Hands grabbed him by the shoulders and tried to get him to his feet, but his body was like an anchor, too heavy to be erected by Olivia and Thomas.

  Move, your little piece of shit! Hurry up!

  Turning his head to the open door — his neck wasn’t making it easy — he saw what remained of the Shades was only a toasted mass of torn limbs. A hand here, an arm or leg there... not much else. The door itself was gone, the entrance and the other side of the room were on fire. In fact, he began to take note that he was a very fortunate man, given the state of the room.

  Asimov pushed Olivia’s hands away and tried to stand up alone. His whole body pulsed with pain, like when he’d woken up on that beach. With a lot of effort, he managed to steady his feet and stand up. Olivia and Thomas regarded him with a mixture of reverence and fear—or maybe they just thought he was completely insane.