by Cross, Amy
"Shit!" I say, as I realize there's no sign of the BB-gun anywhere. After a moment, I realize it might be in one of the cabinets in the front room, so I hurry back along the corridor. Just as I'm next to the door, however, Bob comes lumbering through and grabs my arm, spinning me around before pushing me down to the floor.
"I was gonna kill you quick," he says, kicking me hard in the side of the chest as I try to get up. "But then you made me run up those fucking stairs, so I guess I'll take a little longer." He kicks me again, sending me sprawling across the floor. He towers over me, with a big grin on his face as if he thinks that somehow he's won. "You probably thought I couldn't catch up to you. What are you doing in here, anyway? What the fuck could you possibly use to stop me?"
"Fuck you," I mutter, trying once again to get to my feet. Before I can get far, Bob slams his knee into the side of my head, sending my thudding back down to the floor.
"Someone should have taught you some manners," he says, standing over me with the gun aimed straight at my head. "You meet a guy with a gun, you oughta be a little nicer, in case he takes badly to your foul language and decides to teach you a lesson. Didn't your parents ever take some time to show you how to treat your elders? Didn't they ever tell you to listen to other people from time to time?"
I stare up at him, filled with anger but unable to strike out at him. I know for certain that he won't hesitate to pull the trigger, but I'm running out of options.
"I was hoping we could all be friends," he continues, "but I guess I was naive. My first attempt to form a little group has failed, but I'll learn from my mistakes. There'll be others coming along, and I'll get it right the second time. Of course, this little meltdown wasn't entirely my fault. You and your brother have been uniquely ungrateful, despite my attempts to help, and I guess I just expected a little better. I could tell Henry was trouble, but I thought I could knock him into shape. That's always been my trouble, really. I'm just too forgiving of other peoples' faults."
"If he's dead -" I start to say.
"Who? Henry?" He smiles. "Yeah, he's dead. I'm a good shot, see? Got him right in the chest, right in the fucking heart. I don't need no second chance with a gun. Besides, these bullets are special. I had to go out of state to get 'em, and they're not entirely proper, if you know what I mean. Had to keep 'em out of sight. They splinter on impact, see, causing maximum damage. Military-level issue." He pauses for a moment. "I'm just sorry we never managed to get a bit closer, Elizabeth. I truly believed I'd be able to bring you round to my way of thinking. I was looking forward to getting down to business and starting a new generation. I know you were probably dreading the thought, but I think you'd have come around eventually. I can be quite a sensual lover. Then again, I guess once you're dead, I can have a little practice, huh?" He laughs at his own joke. "Well, I figure, why not? You'll stay warm for a few hours."
"Go to hell," I say, getting ready to lunge for the gun. It's a long shot, but it's all I can think to do. "You're just a coward," I add after a moment.
"I don't feel much like a coward right now," he replies. "I feel like I'm doing pretty damn good."
"Well, you -" I suddenly remember the hunting knife wedged into my belt. It's not much, and it's still a long shot, but if I can get close enough, I might be able to get at him before he has a chance to pull the trigger. "Why don't you show me what you can do?" I ask, hoping to maybe distract him by trying to seduce him. "You keep talking about getting me pregnant, but I don't see any sign of you making a move. What's wrong? Scared?"
He smiles. "Think I'm that dumb, do you? Think I'm that easily distracted?"
"Maybe," I reply, fixing him with a determined stare. "Or maybe you're just scared." Biting my bottom lip, I can see that I've managed to get Bob's attention. For a moment, he seems to be wavering, as if I might actually have started to bring him around to the idea.
"Slut," he says suddenly.
"You don't like sluts?" I ask, slowly reaching down toward the knife in my belt. "Aren't sluts your kind of thing, Bob?"
"Sluts are only good for one thing," he says.
"And what's that?"
He smiles. "You won't reach that fucking knife."
I freeze.
"Nice try," he says, before kicking me so hard in the side of the face, I'm send sprawling across the floor. "Very, very nice try. Most men would've fallen for that and ended up with a knife in their gut, but I'm afraid you picked the wrong guy to mess with, Elizabeth. I'm not so easily led."
"Fucking coward," I mutter, spitting blood out onto the floor.
"What did you call me?" he shouts.
"You -" Before I can say anything else, Bob grabs me by the waist and hauls me up onto my feet. Holding my arms tight behind my back, he tosses his gun onto the sofa and pushes me over to the broken window. A cold wind is blowing into the apartment as Bob gets me right up against the sill.
"You think I'm a coward?" he sneers, spitting into my ear. "You think that, just 'cause I didn't pull your panties down the first time I met you? You think I didn't want to?" He leans closer, sniffing my neck like a pig. "You think I didn't recognize you for a slut and a whore? I could tell what you were, the first time I every laid eyes on you. Running in and out of the building with your friends. Well, I'm sorry, Elizabeth Marter, but I'm afraid I'm a gentleman, and I decided to try and treat you right, to give you a chance to be less of a fucking bitch. Obviously, that turned out to not be such a good idea, but at least I can hold my head up high."
He presses me down onto the broken glass, which cuts a line across my chest. I let out a gasp of pain as the shards dig deep into my flesh, but I'm determined not to scream. Looking down, I see the sidewalk far, far below.
"Or do you think I'm a coward because I use a gun?" he continues. "Is that what bothers you? Well, fuck that, I don't need a gun to dispose of a slutty whore like you. You think a guy like me needs to hide behind some little piece of metal? I was gonna keep you alive so I could fuck you a few times, but I guess that's out of the question now. I wouldn't touch you if you were the last woman on the fucking planet. I need someone who can offer some decent genes to our kids, not a putrid little whore." He pauses for a moment. "I'm very sorry, Elizabeth, but this is gonna have to be goodbye. There's no way back from what you did. I hope you have time on the way down to repent for your disloyalty."
"Fuck -" I start to say, but suddenly Bob grabs me by the waist and pushes me out through the window. Twisting, I reach out and grab the edge of the window just in time. My hand digs into the broken glass, but I can't let go; the rest of my body is dangling out the window, hundreds of meters up above the sidewalk.
"Still clinging on, huh?" Bob says, smiling down at me. "What are you gonna do? Promise to fuck me if I pull you up?"
I try to get some kind of grip with my feet, but the side of the building is too smooth. Scrabbling desperately for some kind of hold, I look up at Bob and see the grin on his face. He thinks he's won. He thinks he's got everything he wanted, and he thinks there's nothing I can do to get back up.
"You're gonna scream as you fall," he says, placing his hands on mine and slowly starting to pull them loose from the edge of the window. "Who's a coward now, huh?"
Pulling one of my hands away, I reach down to my belt and feel the hilt of the knife. Realizing it's now or never, I pull the knife loose and then I use my other arm to haul myself up, even though this means gripping the broken window frame so hard, the glass digs deep into my hand. Before Bob can react, I plunge the knife straight into the center of his chest, feeling the blade scraping against his ribs before it slips between and lodges itself firmly in his body. Letting go of the window ledge with my other hand, I reach up until finally I'm hanging from the knife as it lodges in Bob's chest. If it slips out of his body, I'll fall.
"You fucking -" he starts to say, with blood starting to pour from his mouth.
With my very last ounce of energy, I haul myself up. The knife is between Bob's ribs, but I can feel it
starting to bend a little. Finally, I scramble back through the window, pushing Bob back into the room in the process. He takes a few steps away, before turning and looking over at the gun.
"No way," I say, hurrying to the sofa, grabbing the gun, and turning to him. I hold the gun up, aiming straight at Bob's face. For a moment, I feel as if I can't do this; I can't actually kill him. After a second, however, I'm overcome by a sudden feeling of strength: I can do this. After all, Bob shot my brother, so why can't I do the same thing to him? I've always hated guns, and I've always seen them as a weapon used by cowards. Right now, however, I've come to realize that I was wrong; sometimes, a gun's really all you need.
"You..." He grabs the hilt of the knife and slowly slides it out from his chest. Blood pours from the wound, and it's clear that he's getting weaker by the second. "You fucking little bitch," he blurts out, his mouth filling with blood.
"Yeah," I say, taking a deep breath to steady my nerves. "Well, so what?" With that, I pull the trigger and shoot Bob straight in the center of his face. His forehead explodes and he falls backward, crashing into the cabinets before finally slumping down to the ground. His body twitches for a moment, but finally he falls still. Just to be absolutely certain that he's gone, I step forward, place the gun against his temple, and fire one more time. The other side of his head is blasted apart, with bits of bone and brain slopping down onto the ground.
"Fuck you, bitch," I whisper.
I take a step back, as an icy wind blows through the apartment. It's almost as if I can still hear the gunshot echoing through my mind. After a moment, I turn and look over at the door. "Henry!" I shout, before racing out of the room.
Chapter Six
Oklahoma
"I was hoping to last a little longer," Clyde says as he steps closer. "That was the idea, anyway. I mean, controlling the other bodies is easy, but I wanted to see if I could control one that was freshly dead, and make it so that no-one could tell the difference. I think I did a pretty good job, all in all, but obviously I should have done some research in advance. Still, I fooled you, didn't I? You couldn't tell it was me."
Taking a step back, I try to work out what to do. If I can just find some way to delay Clyde, I have a chance of getting to the truck, but I don't think it's going to be the work of a moment to slow him down. Besides, he's going to have reinforcements soon: the other creatures are clawing at the window and trying to push the door open.
"I should have prepared better," he continues. "I know that, but I just wanted to see how I'd do. I mean, it was easy enough, piloting those rotting dead bodies around. But I wanted to do more. I wanted to see if I could make one seem like it was still alive." He pauses for a moment, and he un-tucks his shirt and lifts it up to reveal that his belly is slightly distended, with the skin turning a familiar gray tone. "This body has barely rotted. Just a few bits here and there so far. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to - Hang on." He frowns. "I don't speak a fucking word!" he says firmly, before smiling again. "Sorry, I'm controlling another body in Beijing right now. This guy's babbling at me in Chinese, begging me not to kill him." He blinks a couple of times. "There. Done. Sorry, I'm still getting used to piloting multiple bodies at the same time."
"When did you change?" I ask. My heart's racing as I back slowly toward the other side of the kitchen. There's a knife on the counter, which I figure is better than nothing.
"Change?" He walks over to the front door and slides the lock across, allowing the door to swing open. Several of the creatures start to enter the room. "I didn't really change, not while you were around. This was just one of the many bodies at my disposal, but fortunately this one wasn't too badly bloated. I thought it'd be fun to see if I could trick you, and I did pretty well. But the time for stupid games is over."
Grabbing the knife, I hold it out toward him.
"You think that's gonna be much use?" he asks, laughing. "You really don't understand the severity of your situation, do you? There are billions of me. You kill this body, there's a dozen more right outside, and more all over the world. That's the whole point of the virus; it's a way for me to spread and control almost every body on the planet. I'm everyone, and I'm all around. I'm coming through the front door, the back door, the windows. I'm not gonna stop coming for you, Thomas. All of you. Every survivor."
"Who are you?" I ask, playing for time while I come up with a plan. I figure I could get through to the next room and push some furniture against the door. Clyde thinks I still need to move Joe's body, so I've got a small advantage, but not much.
"My name was Joseph," he says, as the other creatures continue to crowd into the room. "Joseph Drachman. Remember that name. It's the name of the man who changed the world. It's the name of the man who used his DNA to clone a virus in his own image. I turned myself into a virus and now I'm everywhere, connected all around the world. Not just infecting bodies, but I'm literally everywhere. I'm on the floor, I'm on the walls. Bacterial life has always been the dominant life-form on this planet. To humans, this whole thing might seem like a mass extinction event, but I don't give a shit about humans. This is about me, bridging the divide between humanity and bacteria, and becoming both. This isn't a mass extinction event, it's a mass life event, and I'm the life."
Realizing that he seems to be getting distracted by his own speech, I decide it's time to make a break for the garage. I still don't quite understand what Clyde means, but I can tell he's struggling to remain focused. It's as if his concentration is wandering, and he keeps getting distracted by something I can't see. Any second now, I'm going to run. The other creatures are staring at me, and they seem to have fallen still, as if Clyde's too caught up in himself to notice what's happening.
"Sorry," Clyde says eventually. "I'm having a conversation with some guy in Germany. I don't... You don't speak German, do you?"
"Me?"
He nods.
"No."
"Damn it," he continues. "I thought I'd planned ahead. I thought I'd prepared for every eventuality, but I forgot that there'd be a language issue. Hang on, let me just break his neck." He pauses, and finally he smiles. "There. Done."
"You're crazy," I say.
"Of course," he replies. "My growth over the past week has been exponential. No-one could go through this without losing their mind a little, at least temporarily. In a way, it's good that there are still some survivors to be killed. It gives me focus. A few of you turned out to have natural immunity, but that's only to be expected. I'll have fun mopping up the stragglers, and finally I'll be the only one here. The whole planet, just me. Perfection, really. I've got to admit, it was a crazy idea, and I wasn't at all sure it'd work. But here I am, inhabiting all these dead bodies. It's taking a little time to learn how to control so many bodies all at once. I guess each mind was supposed to control one body, and now look at me, controlling billions. But I'm getting there. Don't worry about that. Seeing the world from so many different vantage points, that's not something you can get used to very quickly. Right now, for example, I'm seeing the view from all over the world, all at once. Honestly, it's enough to drive someone crazy. The human mind isn't designed to cope with such an influx, but I'm learning to deal with it slowly. I'll get there eventually, but for now, I'm sorry if I seem a little crazy or a little scattered. I really must apologize for the slightly distracted manner in which I'm about to kill you -"
And that's when I do it. I turn and run.
Heading through to the next room, I slam the door shut and push a small table across the entrance. It's not going to hold him, though, and I look around for something else to use.
"Seriously?" Clyde calls out from the kitchen. "You think you can escape? I'm everywhere!"
At that moment, a nearby window smashes. Two more creatures start climbing through, and one of them grins as it looks over at me. "See?" the creature says, "you're really not gonna be able to -" He looks across the room, and for a moment he seems surprised. "You already got him on the truck?" he as
ks. "Clever boy. When did you do that?"
Not waiting to give him an answer, I turn and hurry through to the garage. Getting into the driver's seat, I slip the key into the ignition and find, to my relief, that the engine starts beautifully, first time. I pull the door shut and stare ahead at the garage door. The wheels spin for a moment before the truck shoots forward, smashing straight through the door and then lumbering down the driveway and out into the street. Looking back, I feel a moment's relief that Clyde doesn't seem to be following us, but then I look forward and see two of the creatures coming straight toward the truck.
Without a second thought, I turn the wheel and drive away, knocking one of the creatures down in the process. I feel a heavy bump as the wheels run straight over the creature, but I don't have time to even register what just happened: all I can think about is the fact that I have to get out of here as fast as possible, and that I have to get far, far away from Scottsville. Glancing over my shoulder, I see Joe's motionless body in the back of the truck. I want to stop and check that he's okay, but I can't risk being caught by Clyde or any of the other creatures.
"Joe!" I shout. "Are you okay back there?"
The truck bounces over a bump in the road, and I see Joe's body jolting around. I don't know whether he's still alive, but I can't afford to stop and check just yet.
As the truck speeds past the last building of Scottsville and I head out into the countryside, I realize that I've actually made it. I look at the rear-view mirror as Scottsville recedes into the distance. Whatever else happens, I have to keep away from towns from now on; they're too dangerous, and people like Clyde could be waiting around every corner. I just have to keep going and hope I can find some way to help Joe, otherwise I'll be completely alone out here. Even though I'm now well clear of the town, I tell myself that it's too early to relax just yet. I need to keep going, which means there's no time to stop and check on Joe. I guess, in a way, I'm delaying the moment where I check to see if he's still alive. But he has to be. He's my brother. He's Joe. He's the toughest bastard I ever met in my life, and he's not gonna let some gash in his chest be the end of him. I can trust him to stay alive on the back of the truck, just as he can trust me to get us to safety.
