by David Nell
The safe house.
The memory was hazy. When did he set up a safe house? He couldn't remember, but he did know where it was.
He pushed the car into gear and drove.
Carter stirred into consciousness, harsh electric light shining into his weary eyelids.
He could smell alcohol, and the lingering odour of decay. In the background, he heard the chatter of voices on a TV talk show.
He was lying on a hard mattress. For a moment, he imagined that Natalia was with him, facing him lovingly, just inches away from his own body, and if he were to reach out with his hand he would feel her smooth skin. But he knew she was not really there. He remembered where he was.
This time, his memory was clear - Ruben, the knife, the failed hit. The safe house.
He opened his eyes. The room seemed strangely familiar, but he could not think why. He was on a double bed, in a small, shabby room, lit by a bare light bulb, a TV playing on a chest of drawers opposite. Adjacent to the bed, a small desk, with a telephone and a typewriter. His gun and car keys lay scattered on the bed by his side. He was naked, white dressing wrapped around his stomach, another bandage, pink with blood, tied tight around his leg. An empty bottle of whiskey lay on the floor.
Why did he know this place? He felt there was something important he was forgetting.
He recalled driving his car here. He had showered and dressed his wounds, then sat back on the bed with the whiskey. He had no idea how long he had slept.
He sat himself up, feeling throbbing pain in his head, and agony in his stomach. His mouth was dry and his body felt weak.
He had not yet spoken to Yang. He knew he had to call him.
Moments later, the telephone rang, although Carter did not really hear a sound. He reached across the bed, and picked up the receiver.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"It's Yang," came the reply.
"How did you know I was here?"
"Come on, Carter, it's my property."
"You know the job went wrong," Carter stated.
"Yes, you disappointed me. I thought you were good."
"It's just a setback," he promised. "Give me a few days and I'll be right back on him."
"He could be anywhere."
"I'll find him," Carter answered. "I need the money, you know that. This is my last job. I'll finish it. He got lucky."
"Lucky? You blew it Carter." There was silence. Carter gripped the handset. "I'll give you one more chance. But the payment has been withdrawn - complete the job and we're quits."
"You can't do that," Carter said, his voice low.
"Yes I can. It's my apartment you're bleeding in. You owe me."
Carter clenched his jaw. There was always a reason. There was always a debt to pay. Always one more job.
"No more assignments," he said. "I just want to get my money, then clear out. I've had it with killing."
Laughter. "I know you too well Carter, you won't ever stop. You can't stop. You think you'll go and join Natalia? She's gone, Carter, long gone."
"What do you know about it?"
"More than you. It's a fantasy, Carter. You're never going to join her, it's not going to happen."
"You don't know anything."
"Where is she? South America?" His voice spoke mockingly. "No-one has flown out that way for years. There's nothing there anymore."
Carter frowned. He tried to recall exactly where it was that Natalia had emigrated to, the place he was going to meet her. "There's good land there, we're going to make a new start..."
"She's dead, Carter."
"No. That's not true - why would you say that?"
The laughter turned to a gentle chuckling that played in time to Carter's sobs. "You know she's dead, Carter, you've always known. You killed her. She was the first...now you don't know how to stop."
Carter screwed his eyes tight. He had to shut himself away from the lies. But what was the truth?
"Lies. All lies," he muttered. "You bastard. I ought to kill you."
The mocking laughter again. "You can't kill me. You need me. You need me, Carter."
And Carter finally understood. He stared at the receiver in his hand. "Not any more," he said quietly.
He half-smiled as he put down the phone, the phone that made no sound. He shook his head, and reached across the bed for the Makarov.
"Don't do it, Carter." A voice. His voice.
"It's over," he said.
He staggered across the room, opened the adjoining door. In the bathroom, his bullet-pierced body rotting and decomposed, Stan Yang almost seemed to be smiling.
Carter placed the gun against his temple.
He could see it now. The war had destroyed the world, but it had also destroyed him. Ten years of horror in the frontlines of Europe had poisoned his soul, and taken his sanity. He was broken. Out of control.
The world might survive, it might yet recover; find a way, as it so often did. But he had no place in it. He was beyond salvation.
His place was with Natalia.
Carter squeezed the trigger and the shot rang out loud in the confines of the room.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Richard Smith is a part-time writer of dark and speculative fiction, based in England. He has most recently had short stories published in Dark Tales and Morpheus Tales magazines.
UNORTHODOX
NUCLEAR FAMILY
Nick Johnson
They unleashed a fire that had devoured the world in a flash. The sounds of air raid sirens had heralded the end of the world like the trumpets of angels. Everyone still alive was left to experience the death throes of a planet that now resembled nothing more than an animal doused in gasoline and set ablaze by a match. The raging infernos would run across its entire surface before burning themselves out and leaving a charred, cold, and decaying shell.
There were only two kinds of people left, the dead and the dying. The bomb's fires had unleashed pillars of smoldering acrid clouds which quickly swept across the sky, blanketing the earth in an ebony death shroud, forever blocking the sun from the sky. Ash constantly fell from the clouds like snow quickly blanketing the entire planet, plunging the world into eternal winter.
The great cities of the world were now vast plains of twisted steel and concrete, the only human remains the radiation sickened living corpses who with their last big of strength were hemorrhaging from the orifices left in their melted flesh.
Tucked away in a place that was officially nowhere, was the new subterranean habitat of the man who had ordered the apocalypse with just a single phone call.
Matthew Blake, the 47th President of the United States of America.
Along with his family, he and his vice presidents and their families, they had been quickly whisked away after the decision had been made. They were now living in their own little world beneath the earth. It was an artificial world that provided its inhabitants life's essentials by only artificial and ultimately temporary means. It was also a place to hide from the consequences of their decision. A decision with drastic effects for the vast majority who had no agency, whose lives could be extinguished with just the proverbial push of a button.
Within the walls of the nuclear super bunker, sitting under a desolate plot of land with the codename Sight Hope, were the automated mechanisms which produced clean water and fresh air, lamps that were meant to double as the sun, a vast supply of foodstuffs reminders that death had infinite patience.
President Matthew Blake, the commander-in-chief, was sitting in a small conference room somewhere in the confines of the cavern.
It was a windowless, rectangular, concrete cell with gray walls and a heavily contrasting vibrant plush blue carpet and a long, perfectly polished oak table. When he first arrived this conference room had been filled with advisors, and generals. Now it was dark and quiet. Empty of all but the President himself, at the head of the conference table, slumped down in his commander's chair with his face resting in his folded arms on the table. He was hung over
and it only took one glance to know the binge had been heavy and long.
The angles of his chiseled face were covered with unevenly grown, light brown stubble. He had discarded his jacket onto the floor along with his tie. The sleeves on his usually immaculate button down had been sloppily rolled up his arms. This was where he spent much of his time, and where he usually drank. He was mumbling to himself, occasionally tapping his fingers on the surface of the table. Those were the only sounds that could be heard in a room with a man everyone had forgotten.
He lifted his head as he often did to look at the pair of twin clocks above the steel door. The red glow of their digital displays cut through his blurred and tunneled vision One read 13:52 and the other read 264:34:08. Respectively, they were the time and the sum of the total hours he had spent in the bunker. He often checked this while sitting at the table like an office worker counting down to the end of the day. The room around him seemed to be spinning and the weight of his head became unmanageable. He lay his head back on the desk. "24 hours in a day," he muttered. "162 divided by....uhh 24,72....Jesus, almost 11 days". He groaned.
He thought back to the last time he had met with a cabinet member or one of his generals. His eyes fell on the clipboard on the table. He reached out and dragged it over to him. The last logged meeting was at 148 hours. It was a reminder of how irrelevant he had become. What was he the president of anymore? He issued directives to a military that most likely no longer existed and he filmed addresses that no one would see.
The people that were left no longer lived in America with a president. They brought him here as part of procedures for "continuity of government" but that was all delusional thinking. There was no control. The bunker wasn't a presidential command center, not that the word presidential carried any meaning anymore. It was a tomb. He was like the last pharaoh and this was his hi-tech sarcophagus.
He slowly got off his chair and poured himself onto the floor. He rubbed his face against the plush carpeting and closed his eyes. When his eyes opened he looked back at the twin clocks. They now read 15:39 and 266:
His head felt like it had been encased in cement. He buried his face in the carpeting again and groaned. The door at the front of the room opened up. "Oh Jesus, look at you," said a voice. It was Michael Crane, the president's husband.
President Ryan was America's first openly gay president, and the last person to ever hold the office. He had married his college sweetheart Michael. They met while they were both attending Yale law. They were both chiseled and highly polished all-American men. They were modern day Kennedy boys, except lovers instead of brothers. His critics had been afraid that a gay president, "wouldn't be a tough president." He had shown them though. He had shown about 8 billion people just how tough he was.
Michael returned with a low-ball glass filled with ice water. He sat down on the floor next to Matthew and handed him the glass. Matthew put the glass to his lips with shaking hands and took a small sip and set his head back down on the floor. "Come here," Michael said as he scooted over closer to Matthew. He patted his hands on his thighs and the tired president lay his head down in his lover's lap. "Michael. Mikey Mike Mike," Matthew muttered.
"What is it?" Michael said, slowly brushing his fingers through his lover's hair.
"What did I do?"
"What do you mean?"
Matthew sighed "Why did I give that order?"
"You did what you had to do," Michael said in a reassuring tone.
"But now there's nothing. Its all gone. Now we're all stuck in this pit and we're all gonna d...."
Hey, shhh shh," Michael whispered as he kissed Matthew on the forehead. "You're a good man. You're the man who helped me come out to my parents, and you're the man I married. You're a good man, and you're damn sure a good president," Michael said.
Matthew always appreciated this side of Michael. It was the side the public never got to see. They were allowed to be gay, but no one was ever to see it. Mostly Michael just stood behind Matthew with a strong silent composure. No one would ever expect to see the squared jawed captain of the rowing team cradling another man's head in his lap, whispering to him as a mother does to a sick child. But as much as Matthew loved him, Michael wasn't sure he really grasped what had happened. "Everyone needs you to be strong. Not just me, but the country. These are going to be hard times and they're going to look to you to get through them." Michael said. Matthew didn't say anything. "Now come on you need a break. I bet you forgot its Christmas".
Mathew's eyes squinted "Christmas," he repeated warily. The leisure quarters of the bunker had been done up to look like a suburban family room. Everything was there. The couch that sat adjacent to the recliner, the flat screen TV against the wall, and the large wooden coffee table. They had neglected no detail in creating the facade, but there were cracks everywhere. No matter how much paint they threw on it, it would peel and crack and the cold concrete walls would show through, revealing the true nature of what the place really was.
The Vice President and his wife were sitting on the leather couch. They were much older than the president and his husband. The vice president was a tall, somewhat portly, gray man with a round and somewhat red face. He squinted when he smiled and a lock of his curly hair always seemed to be hanging over his forehead. His wife was a slender redhead. She had aged well. She was past the point of being able to cover her many wrinkles, but she was well composed and carried her long, straight body with a dancer's grace. They were watching Alex, the president and his partner's 8 year old son, playing amongst a pile of hastily shredded wrapping paper and ribbons.
Matthew and Michael walked into the room, the president dragging his feet with his arm draped over his husband's shoulder.
"Another staff meeting?" Beckerman said with a grin.
"Come sit over here by us," Cindy said, patting a spot next to her on the couch.
Matthew groaned. His body sank into the couch. "Hey, dad!" Alex called excitedly.
Matthew sat silently, dreading the next time he'd speak. "Dad!" son called again. Matthew breathed deeply. He felt his son's body crash into his knees. "Dad, look, I got the Play Station Z!" his son exclaimed, holding up a black game controller.
"Yeah, you might be waiting a long time for the new games," Matthew said wryly.
"Oh come on now there's no need to be grumpy," Cindy said, playfully slapping him on the knee.
"Why's Dad so mad?" Alex asked.
"Oh, he's just been having a tough time at work," Michael said. "You just have fun with your game."
"I wonder if Tim got this. We could play online," Alex said.
"It'll probably be a while before there's internet," Mike told him.
"How long do you think?" Alex asked.
"About when we leave here, so figure 2, maybe 3 weeks," Michael said.
"Yeah, just think of this as a camping trip," Matthew said.
"Hey I know why don't we throw on 'AChristmas Story'," Beckerman suggested.
"Ohhhh yeah, that's a good one," Cindy agreed.
"Whats that?" Alex asked.
"It's a movie about a little boy like you that wants a rifle for Christmas," Michael said.
"You'll shoot your eye out," Beckerman giggled.
"I'll go get it when the cookies are done, Micheal said.
"Jesus Christ! Fuckin cookies?" Matthew sneered.
There was a knock on the heavy steel door at the other side of the room. "Ohhh that must be her," Michael said with the giddiness of a school girl.
"Let me guess, you got fuckin' Santa," Matthew murmured. No one heard him.
Michael opened the door. Three marines in full combat gear, complete with hazmat masks, entered the room, brandishing automatic weapons. Sitting jauntily atop their respirators were Santa hats. A much smaller figure followed behind them. The mask came off, revealing a short woman with long salt and peper hair, olive skin, and crow's feet around her eyes. She smiled wide. "Alex!" She called out holing out her arms.
"
Grandma!" Alex exclaimed, running into her embrace.
Matthew stood up. "What the hell?"
"Merry Christmas, sir!" one of the Marines said. "The first lad....I mean your husb....uh, your life partner, arranged to have us chopper your mother to this location for the holiday festivities sir."
"Matthew, how are you?" His mother smiled.
Matthew bit his lip and took a deep breath. "Are you people fuckin insane?"
The room went quiet.
"What the hell is all this? Don't you people have any idea whats happened?" Matthew moaned.
"Honey, calm down," his mother said softly.
"Yeah," said Michael. "Just because things haven't gone so good at work doesn't mean you have to ruin Christmas for your family and our son."
"Yeah we'll get everything fixed up. Its not the end of the world," Beckerman added.
"Not the end of the world," Matthew shrieked. "Not the end of the world? In case you haven't noticed, I'm responsible for the fuckin apocalypse!"
The room was silent. Everyone was speechless, except for Alex, who then asked, "Whats 'the apocalypse'?"
Matthew moaned and held his face in his hands, "It's the end of the world! Don't you all get it? We're all dead!"
"That's enough," Michael shouted over Matthew. He scooped up Alex and the boy buried his face in his shoulder. "We're trying to make the best of our Christmas in this place which, to be frank, you put us in, but you won't even let us have that." Michael quickly turned away and left with their son.
Matthew wiped his brow and stumbled back over to the couch.
"Are you OK? Can I get you something?" his mother asked.
Before Mathew could answer, sound of machine gun fire rang out from somewhere in the bunker.
"What the hell is that!?" Beckerman shouted.
Everyone cowered down as a few more sharp bursts echoed around the chamber. Matthew heard something hollow hit the ground and roll into the room. Before he could even look up to see what it was, there was a deafening roar and a blinding flash, and for a few seconds the light and the ringing in his ears was all there was, and a few seconds was all it took.
