The Sound

by James Sperl

  Clarissa squeezed his hand with both of hers. Even in this place, where darkness and fear were the norm, where reality was a skewed version of itself, Dustin was a constant lightning rod of positivity and goodness. She knew now, just as she had suspected upon first meeting him, that he was one of the good ones. She chuckled at the irony of their ill-timed courtship. Leave it up to me to discover my soul mate at the end of the world.

  “Do you know what you're going to do?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Okay. Just make sure it's big. I can't have any of those things nearby when I create those bombs.”

  “Don't worry. It will be. But Clarissa...” Dustin took her hands in his. “Once they're in place, you get the hell out of there.”

  “I will.”

  He gave her hands an affectionate tug. “I'm serious. We have no idea what their reactions will be when they see the bombs appear. They might swarm you.”

  The thought had occurred to Clarissa as well. The appearance of so many foreign objects will likely be cause for great concern, particularly when their proximity to the oscillating blue light—an apparent gateway between worlds—is read as a potential threat. Dustin's distraction needed to be obscene on a grandiose scale.

  “You just make sure you don't give them any reason to notice me,” Clarissa thought.

  Dustin reached for her and put his hands on her waist. “I promise I'll do everything I can to keep them away.”

  Clarissa's breath jittered when she inhaled, though she was the only one who noticed. “Okay. Let's do this.” She began to pull away, but Dustin held her. “Dustin, we need to go. We're running out of time.”

  “What happens to us?”

  Clarissa froze. “What?”

  “Us. What happens when the bombs go off while we're still in here? If we can create things, and we can die in here, what happens to us? How do we get out before they detonate?”

  A sheet of slick nausea slid over her. “I, uh...I don't know. I could...I could imagine timers on them.” Her response nearly came out sounding like a question.

  “And if we wake before they count all the way down? Will they still go off?”

  “Um, I don't...”

  Dustin's hands slipped from her waist and found her fingers, which were cold and damp.

  “I think I just answered my own question,” he thought, his words tinged with unambiguous sorrow.

  It was the one facet of her plan Clarissa had failed to consider. As she had just discovered, there were limitations here. Dustin's question cut to the heart of the most relevant aspect of this: If they woke, did their dream still exist? The Nothing Place was, after all, a dream state, albeit a highly realized one. If she and Dustin woke up, logic suggested that anything they created in there ceased to exist, just like any dream. She had no proof of this; she only knew it felt right. Which meant the only way to be sure the bombs went off was to be here to witness their destruction.

  “Well,” Dustin thought, his attempt to infuse his mind with optimism failing miserably, “if we're going to die, saving the world is a pretty worthy way to go.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Okay.”

  Clarissa would have been just fine to stand there and hold Dustin's hands until whatever happened happened, to feel the warmth of his fingers interlaced with hers, but she had been placed—however unwittingly—in the unique position to save her species. She couldn't squander that. No matter how afraid she was.

  “I'm so glad I met you,” she thought.

  “Not half as glad as I am. So much for that first date, huh?”

  “You mean this isn't it?”

  No one laughed.

  “See you soon,” she thought.

  Dustin said nothing. Instead, he pulled Clarissa's hands to his lips and kissed them. Then he let go.

  Clarissa wouldn't allow herself to stand alone in that black world and mourn what she stood to lose. Scores of people had lost things far greater than she. She had never been much of an optimist, but she recognized minor victories when they occurred. She and Dustin may not have been fated to live long, happy lives together, but they had found love in the bleak aftermath of a historic happening. How many people could say the same thing?

  Focusing her attention on the swirling blue light, she swallowed back the fear that threatened to engulf her. Then Clarissa Evans, waitress extraordinaire, walked toward it.

  CHAPTER 72

  Andrew was convinced Hell existed—he was pinned down smack dab in the middle of it.

  New Framingham had erupted into all-out warfare in every sense of the word. Humanity was no longer present in the beings that engaged in life-or-death battles before him, their semblances replaced with man-shaped likenesses fully committed to performing atrocities and hideous acts of depravity. Blood flowed in sickening streams along with gasoline freed from the tanks of bullet-riddled vehicles, their progress diverted by the plethora of mangled bodies, whose life-giving fluids drained from any manner of horrific wounds.

  The carnage was everywhere: A war-painted invader charged a fleeing woman and lanced her from behind with a modified fence post; a pair of New Framingham men unleashed their inner feral beings upon a downed attacker's head with the butts of their rifles until they reduced it to a seeping pile of red-mash pulp; two women battled one another using only their hands, the fight a vicious, primal exhibition that ended when one of the women clawed out the eyes of the other.

  Andrew had never seen such savagery. The volumes of historical battles he had read over the years couldn't prepare him for the vicious brutality of actual warfare. His respect multiplied tenfold for anyone who had ever experienced the horrors of combat, but such late-to-the-party sentiments were pointless, much like the blood-soaked campaign taking place in front of him.

  He and Naomi had managed to evade injury when he scuttled them over to a car spewing smoke from under its hood. He cowered in the opening between the body and its twisted rear passenger door, which created a protective curve that appeared to embrace them.

  Naomi howled, as Andrew fumbled the handgun he had collected from a dead man on his way over. He would have preferred a rifle, or anything with a higher firing rate, but juggling Naomi from arm to arm would have made it difficult to use and made it less safe for the both of them. Why the hell didn't I send her with Evan and Elenora! He ejected the magazine from the grip of the gun and counted five rounds before he slammed it back into place against his thigh. He checked the chamber and verified a sixth round.

  Six rounds.

  That didn't buy him a lot of protection, but it was better than nothing at all. He needed to conserve what little he had—he would need every shot. For when the time was right, he would make a break for the eastern checkpoint. If he could clear it undetected, then it was on to the safe house to join Evan and Elenora so they could flee this godforsaken holocaust.

  Elenora.

  How would she react when she found out about Cesare? She was a strong woman—stronger than Andrew felt anyone gave her credit—but a loss was a loss. Cesare was the world to her, and she to him. Andrew could still see his body across the parking lot, as war raged around it. It nauseated him to have to leave his friend lying there on the blood-soaked asphalt. He hoped Elenora could forgive him for not rescuing her grandson from such indignity. He was a good, decent man who deserved better. But such concerns were for a later time. He needed to get out of there first.

  Timing was crucial to Andrew's escape attempt, with luck playing no small role. New Framingham's defenses would not successfully repel the attackers. Of that, he felt assured. What little organization remained among the fighters on the rooftops disintegrated with each passing second, as the aggressive army systemically overran each position. They would gain control of New Framingham. If—or when—that happened, Andrew considered an important question: what would the attackers do to those that survived? The worst case scenario seemed evident, which meant that he and Naomi needed to be away from here.


  When the Sound erupted across the sky, he was sure its presence would provide him and Naomi with a distraction to slip out the nearest exit. But no one so much as glanced upward when it screeched its now-familiar noise. Nothing would help them. They were on their own. And they couldn't wait any longer.

  Andrew moved from his knees into a crouch position and scooted to the edge of the car door. He peered into the maelstrom that had only this morning been the Sleep Zone. Gunfire sparked through caustic clouds of burning fuel and gun smoke. Enemy combatants engaged in hand-to-hand fighting, the screams of the wounded and the soon-to-be-deceased haunting the acrid night air.

  Adjusting his grip on the gun, Andrew clutched Naomi firmly to his breast.

  “Come on,” he muttered to himself. “You can do this...You can do this...” He counted down: Five...Four...Three...

  But that was as far as he got.

  A crazed woman wielding a blood-stained meat cleaver pounced on a man twenty feet in front of Andrew, as the man attempted—and failed—to reload his rifle. The woman—whose clumpy, dirt-brown hair flung about in thick cables—brought down the cleaver with full force onto his shoulder, nearly separating the arm from the body. It hung by tendons, ribbons of tissue, and a modicum of splintered bone. In a daze, the man tried to stagger away with the cleaver still embedded in the meat of his shoulder—but the woman was far from done. Striding after him, she wrenched the cleaver free and connected with the man's skull in a swift, overhead arc. He froze as if in disbelief. Blood spewed down his face. With his remaining good arm, he groped listlessly for the thick metal blade that protruded from his split-open head. Seconds later, he lay on the ground motionless. But the woman still wasn't finished.

  Andrew watched with stomach-churning revulsion as she hacked and chopped at the man, her assault so vicious, so utterly primitive in its unnecessary cruelty, he let out an unintentional cry.

  The woman jerked her head up and looked directly at him.

  Shit.

  Trampling over the man's body, she sprinted at Andrew like an untamed beast. She shrieked as she ran, her mouth pulled agape in a warrior's cry of unrepentant rage.

  Andrew drew on her. He stared down the sight at the demented young woman, who looked to be no older than Clarissa. Not so very long ago, she'd had a different future. But the Sound had robbed everyone of something. Unfortunately, for this impossibly disturbed girl, it would be responsible for ending her life. Andrew pulled the trigger.

  The woman recoiled violently, as the shot ripped through her neck. She had managed two more steps before she collapsed onto her knees, her hand planted ineffectively against the gaping hole where blood gushed in a torrent of deep red. She dropped forward gracelessly.

  Now, Andrew thought. Go. GO!

  He couldn't dwell on what he had been forced to do. He had to use the situation as an incitement to action. He sprang to his feet with every intention of hauling ass toward the checkpoint, but no sooner did he press his soles to the asphalt than the sound of metal buckling rumbled behind him. He turned in a frenzy, but it wasn't fast enough to escape the rope garrote that looped around his neck and caused him to drop his gun.

  Andrew forced open his eyes and twisted to look up at the brutish man who had jumped onto the roof of the car to choke him. The man, whose coal-black eyes and lean physique instilled in Andrew a heightened level of dread, yanked upward on the rope with astonishing strength. Andrew felt his Adam's apple crush as the rope constricted, the man hoisting him until Andrew raised onto the tips of his toes.

  Naomi screamed unabated, Andrew doing everything he could to hold onto her as he grappled with his attacker. But it wasn't enough. A one-armed battle against a two-armed assailant with an elevated position meant certain death. He had to even the odds, and he had to do it before the deadly lure of unconsciousness wholly consumed him.

  Making the only decision he felt he could, Andrew pitched Naomi underhanded through the open passenger door onto the cushioned backseat. She bounced and toppled onto her face where she kicked and screeched with astounding volume.

  Andrew gripped the rope with both hands, even as his attacker heaved him farther off the ground. His lungs burned from oxygen deprivation, his vision cloudy from the onset of a total blackout. Summoning what little strength remained, he leaped into the air and positioned his feet on either side of the door frame, suspending himself off the ground. The man frowned in a moment of incomprehension, but Andrew made clear his intent in the milliseconds that followed. Using the full weight of his body, he hauled the man from the car roof with a violent backward yank.

  Thrown off balance, the man pinwheeled forward. Abandoning the garrote, he braced himself for impact with the ground, where he fell hard onto his hands. Andrew thought he heard a wrist snap. Tumbling to the asphalt, Andrew fished for his dropped gun, which had taken an unlucky bounce and caromed beneath the vehicle. His neck sizzled with white-hot pain as he stretched to reach it. His fingers had just curled around the grip, when the man clamped a hand around Andrew's ankle and dragged him ferociously away from the car.

  A half second sooner and Andrew would have been forced to engage in a no-holds-barred battle to the death with the man. It was a fight he wasn't sure he could have won. But fortune favored the bold, so as Andrew transitioned from a floundering hold on the weapon to a rock-solid grip, he sat up. The man lunged forward to meet Andrew, his arm raised to strike, his face fiendish in the ghastly light of conflict, but Andrew was there to meet him first. Jamming the barrel of the gun into the man's open howling mouth, Andrew fired. The back of the man's head exploded in a river of gore. He crumpled where he knelt, his hand still wrapped around Andrew's foot.

  Andrew kicked the man's arm away and scrambled onto his knees. He pivoted wildly, pointing the gun in elbow-locked readiness toward any other would-be attackers. But no one else challenged him.

  The rope was cinched tightly around his throat. His assailant may have only looked like a wasteland tough, but he knew something about knots. Andrew groped at the garrote and fingered the mass of tangled rope snugged up against his neck. He loosened it until he felt the sweet rush of oxygen fill his lungs with its complete removal. He coughed and inhaled as if air were in limited supply.

  Naomi screamed unremittingly. She had managed to work herself onto her side and rested against the seat back, but she had sustained an injury. A trickle of blood oozed from over her right eye, the wound likely obtained from the impact with a belt buckle.

  Andrew scooped her up. “I'm so sorry, honey,” he muttered. He gave the little girl the briefest of hugs and a kiss to her forehead then whirled back around, gun at the ready.

  They were leaving. Now.

  With adrenaline surging and his body riding high on the euphoric wave of bountiful oxygen, Andrew ran for the checkpoint. He was eager to escape, but he couldn't be stupid. A straight shot across the parking lot would have put him in direct jeopardy with any number of wild-eyed foes, and that was inclusive of any New Framingham residents who were too caught up in the melee to recognize an ally when they saw one.

  He scuttled over to the trunk of a burning sedan then took off seconds later to crouch alongside the concrete base of a parking lot lamppost. Andrew could see the checkpoint now. People scurried in all directions, but the fighting concentrated there appeared less intense than much of what he saw inside the fallen community. He thought they just might have a chance.

  Naomi was inconsolable, but Andrew couldn't do anything for her now. He shushed in her ear and whispered assuring words even though he didn't believe any of them.

  A collection of bodies had accumulated in front of Toys R Us. The volume was shocking. With its proximity to the checkpoint, the high number of dead shouldn't have come as much of a surprise. Still, it gave Andrew pause. It was as if fifty or so people had decided to all lie down at the same time.

  Andrew bet at least one of them had a weapon.

  With only four rounds remaining, he needed to either resu
pply or upgrade. Probably both. He had no idea what waited for him outside. The situation could be even worse. He needed to arm himself with as much as he could. Anything less than total preparedness was a suicide mission.

  A truck approached from the south. Three men rode in the bed and fired at will into the night, their shots random. Andrew shrank to fit his and Naomi's body within the confines of the concrete base as the truck passed. Bullets kicked up chunks of asphalt not five feet from him, the shots ricocheting with cartoon-like pings. Then the truck came under attack.

  A group of fighters emerged from the shadows and unloaded on the truck, sparking an all-out skirmish. The men in the bed fired wildly, the two others who had been riding in the cab springing from their seats to join in the fight.

  Now was Andrew's chance.

  He sprinted across the lot toward the bodies. Errant shots whistled by, the shouts of battle punctuating the smoke-filled air. Reaching the above-ground mass grave, Andrew half-slid to stop his progress, but he underestimated his speed and the unevenness of the ground. His foot caught on something immovable, and his momentum propelled him forward. With Naomi cradled in his left arm, only his right remained to absorb the impact. He twisted as he hurtled and ended up landing on the body of a woman with his right forearm. He dropped onto his shoulder to further lessen the impact, it driving into the bloody thigh of a recently deceased man.

  Andrew pushed himself away from the repugnant scene, kicking and trampling over the dead in an attempt to right himself. The feverish motion resulted in a yelp from one of the bodies, which subsequently sat up. Andrew drew his gun on the woman that had just sprung to life, but he lowered it just as quickly when he realized who stared at him down the barrel of his weapon.

  “Val?”

  Her painfully blond hair was streaked through with blood, her clothes and face Rorschach patterns of the same dark fluid, but it was Valentina. She trembled as she gaped vacantly at Andrew. Her eyes narrowed as if she were trying to make sense of the sight of a man and a baby sitting on a pile of dead bodies.