Should Have Killed The Kid

by Frederick Hamilton, R.

  But he still couldn't suppress a shudder of revulsion.

  'Getting cold feet?' Marge stared at him sidelong and Dave rushed to compose himself. 'Yes? No? Hmmm?'

  'I'm fine,' he replied tersely.

  'Yeah?' Marge pushed, 'Sure you're not even a little frightened you'll fuck it up again?'

  Dave edged a nervous glance back but Will's eyes were closed again and the kid didn't seem to be the least bit interested in the conversation taking place in the front seat.

  'Yes,' he spat, 'I'm fine.' But his anger quickly fled as Marge fixed him in the side long glare again, a faint smile playing across her lips. He could tell she didn't believe him. 'Why do you need me anyway?' He tried to change the subject but instantly regretted his choice of words.

  In one little starburst of clarity he realised the answer was obvious.

  She didn't.

  And following hot on the heels of that chestnut was another realisation. With Sally's splayed corpse firmly imbedded in his mind, the thought was impossible to avoid. She's only keeping me around for when she needs a top up.

  Once the blood she'd absorbed while filling the jars wore off, he'd be there all nice and warm and ready to supply her with some juice.

  Dave felt his cheeks whitening and it was all he could do to stop from tugging open the door, diving out and probably splattering himself all over the highway. Judging by her laughter, Marge didn't miss his reaction but if she knew the slant his thoughts had taken, she didn't let on.

  'Well of course I fucking need you. You fucked it. You need to fix it. It's just one of the rules.' There was no comfort for Dave in Marge's words. Mainly because he didn't believe a single one of them. 'Don't worry, Dave my boy, you're essential.' The wink and snort of derision that followed her words only added to Dave's doubts.

  So much so that he found his hand gripping the door handle again.

  Found he was once more on the verge of fleeing...

  Until Marge abruptly slammed on the brakes and he was forced to grip tight to the dashboard to stop from head-butting the windshield.

  'Fuck me,' Marge muttered and when Dave recovered enough to follow her gaze he saw the words weren't unwarranted. Even his panic about his continued personal safety melted away as he stared at what stretched out in front of them.

  Marge had stopped dead, just as they'd crested a long sloping hill so they were in the perfect position to fully appreciate the enormity of the view.

  For a second Dave's brain just failed to process it. His breath hitched in his throat as he stared down the dead straight stretch of road that the nearby signpost claimed lead into Ouyen.

  If it still did, Dave could no longer tell. From where they'd stopped, the shadows started. More and more appearing with each metre that passed, clumping closer and closer together until nothing but black shadows spread out as far as the eye could see in front of them. The entire horizon transformed into a mass of black that glittered beneath the late afternoon sun, setting Dave's heart thundering.

  'Fuck me,' Marge repeated.

  Dave just stared. First at the sheer number of creatures crammed before him, then down at the two jars on his lap. Then back up again. He'd sort of expected something similar but it was still not preparation for actually seeing it spread out before him. The babble of voices at the back of his skulls rose a small, nearly imperceptible notch in volume.

  It's worse than I ever imagined, he thought and, as his hand rasped across his stubbled chin, almost burst into tears. And we're heading right into it. And the only weapon I have is one that I don't understand.

  His eyes went back down to the glass jars that Marge had claimed would protect them.

  'Fuck me,' he said, echoing the old lady.

  24.

  The length of time that Marge spent, hunched and staring out across the alien landscape did nothing to settle Dave's unease. Though he wasn't certain how far they'd travelled since leaving her house, he knew it was nowhere near enough. With the speed Marge had been driving they'd still be quite a way from Hent.

  Which meant they had a long drive through the dark ahead of them.

  And it's only going to get darker, Dave thought as he looked to the sky and saw that the sun would soon be sinking beneath the blackened horizon. The orange and red tones that lit up the sky would have probably been pretty if it wasn't for the mass of black that underpinned it. Now it looked more ominous than anything, as though the last embers of the world were slowly burning down to charcoal.

  How much further is it? How many of the things were out there? Would the shield around the car hold out? Dave didn't dare ask Marge any of the questions that rocketed through his head. The memories of Monty shrivelling into a mess of cracking leather and bone sent his mind drifting back along the lines it had been travelling before Marge had brought them to an abrupt stop.

  She's only keeping me around for my blood.

  It seemed even more plausible now, and Dave didn't relish the idea of being a walking, talking blood source at all.

  'Why are we going in there?' Dave jumped as Will abruptly piped up from the backseat and the tense silence broke.

  'It's okay, Will, there's nothing to worry about,' Marge called although her voice sounded distracted and not particularly reassuring.

  'Is it?' Dave leaned over and whispered, trying to keep his voice down so Will wouldn't hear.

  Marge turned and stared at him. Her lips pursed as though she was sizing him up. Dave tried his best not to think she was estimating the volume of red juice currently pumping through his veins.

  After a pause that lasted a few seconds too long, she finally continued.

  'Yes it is...' she said softly. Then swallowed and returned to her usual brash self. 'Quit fucking worrying. We'll be fine,' she added, and then started edging the car forward once more.

  Despite her words, Dave could feel the tension permeate the car like a living, breathing entity as they started down the opposite side of the hill and the growing shadows slowly swallowed up the scenery.

  Dave held his breath for nearly a full minute until they were well subsumed and then finally let it out in a harsh gasp when it became apparent that instant death wasn't about to befall them. The shadows seemed completely unconcerned by their presence and, as they bulldozed through the midst, they didn't even seem to notice. They just parted like water across a ship's bow in front of them and flowed around to knit back into a perfect mesh behind. The occasional one flitted up and over the windshield, where Dave assumed it rode the dome all the way clear of the car, but none of the creatures seemed to linger like the other ones on the highway had. He kept waiting for the plink, plink, plink of the claws on the shield but it never eventuated.

  'See? Nothing to worry about,' Marge crowed, 'Shield's holding fine.'

  The relief in her voice undercut her words though.

  'But when Monty did it for–' Dave started but Marge cut him off.

  'Monty was a fucking pussy,' she growled and they continued on in silence.

  As they drew closer to where Ouyen used to stand, Dave squinted trying to make out their surroundings. After a few blinks, Dave was surprised to find his eyes adjusted to the dark and details started to emerge. Up close, it was still possible to pick out shapes through the mantle of black that draped everything. Not that what he picked out seemed particularly promising. Just more destruction: mounds of shadow-coated rubble and weird, large black rods that crisscrossed the area, confusing him until it dawned on him that they were toppled power lines.

  Mercifully, the road ahead was relatively free of debris so it was a straight trip through the remains of the town. It still seemed to take a lifetime though. With the way shapes abruptly reared up out of the shadows, only coming into definition when they were right on top of them, Marge had to putter through, the needle on the speedo barely cresting twenty.

  Silence filled the car. Dave fidgeted, his fingers picking at the labels on the jars as he tried to ignore the glittering vista. Looking
at it too long made him feel strange. He could feel something bubbling away deep inside. Something that gibbered as it lurked, just waiting for the chance to be unleashed and reduce him to a shattered wreck of a person.

  The babble of voices bumped up another notch in his skull.

  Once they were out of town and the surrounding rubble disappeared, it really was like a void stretched before them. It took a minute or two of driving before Dave’s eyes adjusted to that alien landscape as well. But once they did, it became quite a bizarre experience.

  Scrubby trees grew more and more prominent, silhouetted by the lighter sky as they motored forward, and the road could be determined by the sculpted sides. In fact, the further they progressed the clearer things became until Dave discovered that it was quite easy to distinguish the individual items from out of the dark. The fence posts and wire slung between them. The ever-present power lines that appeared to have been randomly toppled. Street signs that they passed. All of it started to emerge from the mass of darkness until what surrounded him looked like a normal country landscape. Only one that a giant squid had voided its ink sacs over.

  It felt like driving through an alien world filled with familiar objects. And there was always the lingering feeling as they motored along and the sun started to dip lower on the horizon that the world was disappearing at the edges. The definition of objects faded with distance. Beyond a hundred metres it was just flat black and Dave could imagine it crumbling away to reveal a void beyond. That if they headed that way they’d just sink on down forever.

  It saddened him to think that beneath the shadows lay a coating of strewn and torn bodies. On his previous trip, along with the wheat, livestock had trod the paddocks.

  He shuddered to think what had happened to them. In a way it felt more horrifying than what had happened to his fellow men. He couldn’t help thinking that the cows and sheep didn’t even put up a fight. Didn’t even try and move out of the way. Just stood and stared dumbly as the wave of black approached.

  Dave swallowed and returned to studying the jars. Though they didn’t really make him feel any better, at least it was something to look at as they moved along, drifting steadily through the black around them. The glittering that occasionally stirred from its depths more reminiscent of starlight than anything else.

  Dave did his best to block it out.

  The kid whimpering away in the back didn't help matters.

  One split second. One split fucking second, Dave couldn't stop thinking. If the shield drops, one split second and they'd be on us and tearing us apart.

  The idea gnawed away at his brain, bolstered the strength of the boy's whimpers until Dave had nearly peeled the entire label free of the right hand jar.

  Dave didn't know how long had passed before Marge finally broke the silence. To him it felt like a lifetime and he latched onto the interruption with gusto, trying his best to keep the conversation going. If only to fill the void that silence left.

  'What the fuck are they up to?' Marge muttered, hunched over the wheel while she peered out into the darkness. 'It's like it's right fucking there.' She tapped her temple. 'But I just can't fucking wrap my head around it.'

  'I don't know...'

  'Well, that fucking surprises me, Dave. Really it does.' Dave chose to ignore the muttered sarcasm.

  'I don't understand any of this,' he continued. 'Why the fuck aren't they attacking? Why can't they see us..?' He paused for a second as perversely, now that he had the opportunity to voice some questions, all of them seemed to flee his mind. 'How come we aren't just plowing them down?' He finally managed to dredge one up from the depths.

  'I reckon it might be because they are getting out of the way, what do you think, Dave?'

  'Fuck off. You fucking know what I mean,' Dave spat, his temper flared out of nowhere. His cheeks flushed. The words he forced from between clenched teeth laced with venom.

  He regretted the outburst immediately. Marge seemed to find it more amusing than anything. A faint smile crinkled her wrinkled face.

  'That's more like it,' she murmured then, before Dave had too much of a chance to ponder what that was supposed to mean, continued on as though his outburst hadn't even happened. 'Well, actually what I was saying's true. Essentially when it comes down to it, they are getting out of the way. It's just they're not really aware of it.'

  'What–'

  'I'm fucking getting to it, Dave. Patience, we still have quite the drive ahead of us. They're not aware of us being here because they're not really here anyway.'

  'What–'

  'Dave, come on... Okay? Yes, you can hear me alright? They are here but they aren't here too, well at least not like you and me. That's why they can do the things they do. I suppose the best way to think of it is between dimensions but even that doesn't really sum it up. Really, I'm not fully fucking convinced a human being can understand it. A far smarter man than I tried to explain it once and I still don't get what he meant. It requires an entirely different thought process. Let's just say that shield out there is the equivalent of shunting a mountain in front of you or me. You wouldn't ask why it was there would you? You'd just go around it.'

  'But I've seen them scale far worse things than a mountain. Shit they can move through water...' Dave trailed off as he realised the ridicule that emanated from Marge in waves.

  'Remember the bit about an entirely different way of thinking being necessary?'

  'Yes.' Dave felt the last lingering shreds of his angry outburst dissipate.

  'I think you should think about that for awhile.' Marge said, snorted and then lapsed into silence leaving Dave to think as the car slowly churned over the kilometres.

  Half an hour later, he was still no closer to an answer. After spending the time peeling and then reapplying the labels, Dave found something happening that as they'd driven into the shadows, he would have thought impossible.

  Boredom had set in again.

  Marge was staying mute.

  The kid in the back had even stopped his whimpering now.

  Dave, exhausted from burst after burst of adrenaline and the physical exertion of the last couple of days, found his eyes starting to droop as the hours passed, bringing nothing but more of the strange blackness.

  No fucking way, he thought after he started awake for the third time. He shifted straighter in his seat, shook his head a couple of times but to no avail. Within moments, his eyes started to droop again.

  'What's wrong with her?'

  Dave's eyes burst back open as the kid chirped up from the backseat, grateful for the interruption.

  'What?' he asked, whipping around to peer at Will who stared back open mouthed.

  'What's wrong with her?'

  'Sorry?' Dave asked, confused.

  'What's wrong with her?' This time, Will punctuated his question by pointing forward toward the back of Marge's head.

  Instantly, something cold gripped Dave's stomach nice and tight.

  'I'm sorry?' he asked again even though by now he knew exactly what the boy had said.

  'What's wrong with her?' Will asked once more, his words starting to form a metronome beat.

  Dave could put it off no longer.

  Time went into slow motion as he spun to face Marge. His turning head took forever to finish its arc.

  When it did, he wanted nothing more than to scream and look away.

  Marge withered before his eyes. Her face tightened into a leather mask that popped and burst along its seams, the lips shredding and turning ragged as the old lady tried to scream. Something more like a moan came out. A long, low moan while she let go of the wheel and raised her hands up so Dave could see them wither into a mess of bone and fossilised tendon.

  'Fuck, fuck, fuck,' Dave swore under his breath. His eyes widened while he stared at the grotesque scene. He couldn't think of anything to do to help though. He sat frozen watching Marge go the way of Monty before her.

  'FUCK!' he yelled louder when he caught a glimpse out the win
dshield and it dawned on him that the fact Marge's hands were no longer on the steering wheel might have some other consequences.

  They plunged through the blackened wire of a fence and then the shadowed side of the road dropped away alarmingly into some sort of drainage canal. It loomed up before them and Dave's paralysis finally broke but even as he dove for the wheel he knew it was futile.

  Marge's mummified form wrapped him in a hug while he yanked at the wheel. The split and barely recognisable face loomed in close as though she wanted to kiss him. He screamed as it robbed him of the last hope. The extra bit of weight hampered his attempt to spin the wheel. The car slewed...

  But not enough.

  The thump of impact threw Dave into the dashboard and then abruptly he was weightless, every thing around him spinning, only aware of one thing: that the glowing shield that surrounded the car was blinking out of existence...

  'SHIT!' Dave bellowed as his eyes flew wide and he suddenly bolted upright, his head darting from side to side.

  'What?' Marge looked across from where she hunched over the steering wheel and Dave collapsed back into the seat with relief. 'Fucking. Shit. Fuck. You nearly sent me off the fucking road.'

  Dave didn't answer. Instead he sat panting and waited for his heart to slow. His sleeve came away sodden after he wiped it across his brow and surreptitiously snuck a peek at Marge while he did it. She does look a little under the weather, he thought, or is that just paranoia? Dave wasn't certain. Marge's face was already pretty lined and wrinkled, he would hardly notice any difference until it was too late.

  'Fucking snoring away for hours and then kaboom. Fucking scream. Nearly gave me a fucking heart attack. Fuck!'

  At least she didn't sound any worse for wear.

  'It's alright... I'm okay.' Dave finally started to rein in his heart beat. He shifted forward in his seat and leant against the dashboard when he saw through the windshield that a strange glow crested the top of the hill ahead.

  The movement toppled the jars that he'd forgotten were perched on his lap. Dave felt his heart skip a beat as they thudded to the ground. He winced and awkwardly froze in position. Beside him, Marge spat, 'Watch what you're fucking doing!' Her sharp tone only led to more panic in Dave.