ZONE DIDN’T CARE much for his fellow New Yorkers. He knew he should care—they were his people after all, the other members of the Proletariat—but it was a serious bitch to feel solidarity with a bunch of motherfuckers who would just as soon step over your corpse as look at you.
And when they did look, all they could see was a scruffy, skin-and-bones punker with two red spikes of hair jutting from the front of his otherwise shaved head like a pair of horns. It was a statement, his hair, a political statement. It was about being a devil.
Not in the way most of those brain-washed Judeo-Christian retards thought of the devil, but as Lucifer actually was: a bringer of light, a challenge to the status quo. Shit man, Lucifer got a bad rap. He just hadn’t bought the official line from on-high and when he’d tried to make a few suggestions—maybe form a Union, like local Seraphim 108 or something—the Man had cast him out. Zone didn’t believe for a second all that shit about evil and avarice and everything was really how it went down. No way, comrade. The bible was just another hate pamphlet from the propaganda department of the Judeo-Christian power machine. And thus, the hair horns.
Zone trudged along 5th Ave around lunch hour, the long legs of his black jeans sprouting from a pair of tank boots. He shouldered his way through the crowd of oblivious suits, half of which talked into their fucking cell phones like they were glued to their heads. Man, it was like the currency zombies paid more attention to the hypothetical people on the other end of their phone conversations than they did to the real ones with whom they shared actual space. And, dig it, the whole thing was giving them brain cancer. It was all a government plot, of course: mind control through microwave induction, but no one ever listened when he tried to warn them.
An office clone with the exact same haircut and blue, gray and/or black suit as all the other office clones almost ran into Zone. He stopped short and gave a quick scan over Zone’s horns and the chrome bar that ran through the bridge of his nose. “S’cuse me, pal,” he said and tried to side step. Zone side stepped with him and held out a flyer.
“Two for one at the Hummus Hole.”
“The hell you just say to me?”
Zone sighed. He was just trying to do his job for the day: handing out flyers for the restaurant he sometimes worked for. His last gig had been as a bike messenger, but he kept pissing off the clients. Apparently, large corporations don’t like it when messengers read aloud from Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book in the elevator. Try to spread a little truth and see where it gets you.
“Two for one at the Hummus Hole,” he repeated.
“The hell is that?”
“It’s a vegetarian place. A restaurant.” Man, all he wanted to do was sit in a coffee house and read. This conversation wasn’t going to be good for his energy flow. He could already tell.
“Fuck off, Sid Vicious,” the office clone said. “I only eat meat.” He shoved past Zone hard enough to make him spill his stack of fliers.
A hundred patent-leather shoes kicked and stepped on his job for the day. Zone dropped his bony shoulders. It reminded him of countless high-school confrontations with the popular kids, the “trendies”. They were always making him drop his books and then kicking them down the hall. For all he knew, the offending office clone was one of his former classmates. They were about the same age. Zone turned and shouted, “Eating meat’s bad for your heart!”
The O.C. stopped short and turned around.
Zone’s eyebrows (well, only one, the other was shaved off) lifted. Oh shit, the dude was coming back. Zone raised his hands. “I don’t want any trouble, comrad.” He clumped back a step. “I was only joshing you.”
The O.C. stepped up, all Body Pump muscle and quad-shot Café Americano. He jabbed a finger into Zone’s chest. Zone grunted. He didn’t have a lot of meat to armor against something like that. “Hey, man, c’mon.”
“Shuddup, faggot,” O.C. said. “Why don’t you get a fucking real hair cut and a fucking real job?” He jabbed again and Zone fell back another step. The Proletariat River flowed by, roaring and self involved. “What’s the matter with you anyway, you some kind of religious nut? You one of those fucking terrorists Arabic fuckers? Huh?” Every question mark was another strong arm jab. Zone would have a black and blue mark in the middle of his chest for a week. “You got somethin’ to say about the way I eat? Think it’s bad for my heart?”
“I was just—.”
“I run 20 miles a week and bench 225 in sets of ten, you faggot. Don’t you fucking tell me about what’s good for me or not.”
“I’m sorry,” Zone tried. Jesus, this guy was seriously pissed at him. It was bewildering. What the hell had he done except look funny and get in this guy’s way for a second? Man, he hadn’t even tried to read out of Mao’s book or anything. “I didn’t mean—”
“Bad for my heart?” The O.C. bunched a fist and held it up, a flesh and bone mace. “I’ll fucking show you what’s bad for the huh—” His eyes popped and the mace bloomed into a five-pedaled flower. He grabbed Zone’s shoulder with it, the other hand clutching his chest. “Oh, God!” he grunted through his teeth. “That hurts!” A look of purest terror bleached his face.
Zone shook the O.C.’s arm off and stepped away from him. He looked at the guy who had been ready to bash his face in a second ago. What the fuck? The bulging eyes, the red face, the red meat, the stressful situation. He got it.
“Hey, shit!” Zone shouted, looking for help in a hundred passive, passing faces. “This guy’s having a heart attack or something! Help!” He did a funny little dance, jigging left, then right, hands opening and closing. “Someone call 911!”
The river flowed. Parted, but flowed.
A female office clone came clocking up on her high heels, cell phone embedded in a cloud of hair. She was oblivious to the scene she was about to walk by. Zone snatched her phone. When it looked like she was going to shout or fight the freak with the red horns who’d just stolen her phone, he held up a single finger and shouted, “No!”
“She’ll call you back,” he said into the phone and hung up. The O.C. was on the pavement now, clutching his heart and panting. Zone was about to punch in 911 when a wicked claw raked his face.
“Gimme my phone, you fuckah!” Pure Queens.
Zone tried to cringe away as she lunged at him again. She was going to blind him with those nails. Man, try to be a good samaritan and see where gets you. “Lady, please!” he tried, but she came in on the attack again. Zone’s boots tangled up in the O.C. dying at his feet and he sat down hard. His teeth clicked and he tasted salt and iron. Finally, a small crowd began to eddy around the strange triplet. The Queens tiger-woman shrieked with ear-splitting nasal furry, “That fuckah stole my phone!”
Zone was about to explain when the woman’s eyes squeezed shut and she doubled over as if punched in the stomach. Instead of clawing Zone’s face, she grabbed her own left arm. She went down on the pavement with a smack, shredding through her stockings and the skin on her knees. Zone looked over just as another woman was asking, “What’s going on, here?” The newcomer answered her own question with a yelp. She slapped at her chest like a bird was trapped inside her ribs. She went down just like the two before her. One after another, the small crowd began to clutch their chests and arms, falling to the pavement around Zone. Finally, the rest of the River Proletariat noticed and froze over. The whole block stuttered with anticipation, then someone screamed.
“Gas! Gas! The terrorists are gassing us!”
Everyone still standing withdrew as if they were a grease slick in a kitchen sink struck by a drop of dish soap.
Less than two minutes after the first office clone raised his fist, Zone found himself sitting in a circle of dead. They all looked the same: standard suits, standard hair. There were at least fifteen people surrounding him where they had fallen, a standard rictus of confusion, pain, and fear on their standard, stiffening faces. Zone could hear the thud-wash of his own heart.
&n
bsp; Someone chuckled.
Zone revolved his head as if in a dream. A man with mirrors in his eyes stood just outside of the circle of death. For a second it looked like he was holding a flapping pigeon down by his side, but no, it was his hand. It was just shaking like the guy was being electrified and only his hand was getting the juice. He looked at Zone and eclipsed one of those mirrors in a wink. “Nice hair,” he said and walked away.
~~~~~~~~
From the Journal of Drummond Fine, MD
Wednesday, June 27th, 12:01pm
Everything has changed. Everything. The woman in the hospital is an empath. I’m sure of that now. The feelings she filtered, the sheer multitude. She’s a tap into the heart of an entire city. A heart I can break. When we encountered one another in the hospital the other day something happened—we altered each other somehow. Now, ah, now it’s hard to write! Hard to organize my thoughts. The thrill I feel is like a drug. I am filled with a power that releases me from my bondage. I’ll never have to worry about finding another “client” and hiding my “sessions”. I can take anyone now at will.
It started this morning during my regular session with J.C. During her usual prattle, I couldn’t stop thinking about how wonderful it would be if her rotten heart just seized up and she expired right there. Somehow, I reached right through her chest and squeezed her to death. WITH MY MIND! (Funny, one would think that a man used to a psy-ability wouldn’t be so thrown by the addition of a new one. But it’s as if a bird suddenly learned it could swim and breathe underwater as well as ply the skies.) The fear pulsing off that plastic Barbie-bitch was beyond delicious, but unlike the pathos of my usual clients in duration. The only draw back to this new ability seems to be a lack of elongation of the final emotional gasp. It’s just over too soon. Well, I’ll have to replace quality with quantity. I’ve never felt so free.
(One concern to note: a pronounced shaking in the left hand. Not sure what it could mean, but on the chance that some neural damage has occurred in tandem with the appearance of this new ability, I’ll order myself an MRI.)
As I sit here and type, I can’t help but wonder if this will be the final entry to this journal. The faggot could awaken at any time and indentify me as the “Phobia Killer”. Vulgar name, but apt enough. It may only be a matter of time before the authorities come for me, or they might never come at all. M.M. may never regain consciousness. I could run, I suppose, but I can’t for the life of me imagine why. I’m on another plane from the rest of them now—a God among mortals. I exert my will over the realities of life and death themselves. How can their laws apply to me? There’s nothing I can’t do now. Nothing that doesn’t belong to me.
I’m itching to use to my new-found power again. But on whom and where? No, that’s the old Drummond Fine thinking, the human. I can exert my Promethean will on whomever I choose, whenever I choose, wherever I choose. The entire city awaits my the deliverance of my fire.
Think I’ll go for a walk…
--DF
~~~~~~~~
Chapter 11
EMILY DREAMED OF the past. She was downstairs making breakfast for Daddy. He had a big day ahead of him and she wanted to make sure he got a solid start. On his really busy days, he was apt to forget to eat at all if she didn’t remind him. Today he was supposed to be in court for an important case. Working with the Feds, Andy and his officers had captured an arsonist responsible for burning twelve churches in as many states. It was a big deal and he was nervous. She could hear him clunking around upstairs, knocking things over and cursing under his breath. Emily started to measure out the coffee grounds and stopped. She rummaged in back of the lazy susan by the sink, brought out an old tin of decaf and mixed it in with the regular stuff. With all the nerves Daddy was throwing around this morning, the last thing he needed was extra go juice.
She turned back to the stove and flipped some bacon, jumping back as the grease spattered. She swiped an already cooked piece off her father’s plate and crunched, squinting out the kitchen window at a fluorescent white sky. Even through the bacon grease she could smell the snow coming. A blue pick-up truck cruised by with a load of sandbags in the back. Looked like someone else knew the snow was coming. Daddy was going to have to put the chains on before the day was out. He hated doing that. Always managed to cut himself. She shook her head and smirked.
Andy Burton thundered down the stairs and into the kitchen. Emily smiled. He’d missed a button on his shirt. She fixed it for him.
He kissed her on the forehead. “Smells wonderful in here, bacon breath.”
“Sit down and eat before I steal the rest of it and your eggs, too.”
“Ma’am,” he said and folded in at the kitchen table. Andy scowled and thumbed at a scratch in the laminate surface.
Emily slid a couple of sunny side up eggs and pile of bacon in front of her father. She filled his coffee cup and sat opposite with a mug of her own. Beneath the table she crossed her feet, cozy in their double-thick socks. The sight of her father eating the food she’d cooked filled her with ridiculous warmth. It was the farthest thing from feminist she could imagine, but there really was something satisfying in cooking for the man of the house. God, she needed to get out of Wisconsin.
Probably wasn’t even her feeling. Mrs. Molson from next-door was likely feeding her two sons—line backers on the high school football team—and Emily was just picking up on it. Daddy forked an entire egg into his mouth at once and Emily got another shot of easy warmth. Nope, she wasn’t pawning this emotion off on anyone but herself. She just liked watching her father eat. Emily gazed out the window just in time to catch the first fat flakes sifting down.
The kitchen door swung open and Charlie stuck his head into the room. “Front door was open,” he said as if he’d lived in the neighborhood his whole life and hadn’t just gone on his first date with Emily in the real world. “Mind if I join you?”
Andy waved him in, “Charlie! C’mon on in, buddy. Have some joe.”
Charlie leaned in and gave Emily a peck on the head. He sat down at the table in front of a plate of eggs and bacon that weren’t there a moment before. A steaming cup of coffee appeared the second he reached for it. Unlike Emily and Andy’s ceramic mugs, Charlie’s was styrofoam and embossed with the words Tri-State Health System. He took a sip and gave her a wink.
“Whatcha’ up to today, Charlie?” Andy asked.
“Emily’s going to show me her magic tricks and then we’re going for margarine cones.” He leaned in and conspired, “It’s all in how you stack em’, you know.”
Andy nodded. “S’long as you don’t bring in any over my state line, son.”
“No, sir.”
“Good man.”
“I see you’re in your dress uniform,” Charlie said. “What gives?”
“Daddy’s got a big court date,” Emily said around her pride. “He caught a God-burner.”
Charlie tucked in his chin. “Big deal, huh?”
Andy scooted his chair back from the table and belched. “Ah, would be, but I’m gonna’ have a massive stroke in about,” he checked his watch, “another three minutes and twenty-seven—nope, twenty-eight seconds.”
Emily gripped the edges of her chair. “Do you have to, Daddy?”
“Yeah, punkin’, I do.” He gave her a look of deepest pity. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”
Charlie was quiet a moment, then asked, “You got life insurance, Andy?”
Andy grinned like a shark. “Tons. Took out a policy as fat as a prize pig after Emily’s mom passed.” He leaned over and ruffed her head. “When I go, my girl’s gonna’ be set for life.”
Charlie crossed his arms. “I’d been wondering about that. How she was paying for that hotel room, I mean.” Charlie winked. “You know she came in with an old man who’d had a heart attack the other day. It’s how we met.”
“That was Samuels, Daddy. He could tell I was from Wisconsin. You’d like him.”
Andy took a sip of coffee. “He wear dr
esses?”
“No,” she said. “That was the other one.”
“Oh, that one,” Andy said. He put his hand on Emily’s and the light went out of his eyes. “He’s going to need you before this is done. He’ll introduce you to the heartbreaker.” Andy sat back in his chair and cocked an ear.
Emily listened as the front door creaked open—it had been making that sound her whole life, no matter how many times Daddy oiled the hinges—and clicked shut. Footsteps clumped up the hall and stopped just outside the kitchen door. Emily asked, “Would you see who that is, Charlie?” but Charlie couldn’t get up. He was clutching his chest with one hand, the other splayed out on the table at the end of his stiff arm. She turned to Andy, “Daddy, who’s at the—?”
“Shh, honey,” Andy said. “I’ve got to have my stroke now.” He placed both hands flat on the table and cleared his throat. “Okay, ready.”
The kitchen door banged open. What looked like a man’s shadow stood in the entrance. There was no solid form, nothing for the light to catch upon, except two slices of mirror hanging in the black space where the eyes should be. There was a breathless moment of silence and then it rushed at Andy. Its footfalls rattled the plates in the cabinets as if it were made of some incredibly dense material, the tissue of collapsed stars, endings. It stopped behind Andy’s chair and caressed his temple with one smoky finger. Emily watched as her father’s eyes rolled back into his head, the lids fluttering like butterfly wings. She looked at the shadow-man and asked, “Why?”
It looked back at her, but all she could see was her reflection in those quicksilver eyes.
* * *
EMILY OPENED HER eyes, propelled from her dream by the loss of her father…again. This was the first time she dreamed of his death. Rolling in numb, post-dream fog, she wondered how many more times in her life she would have to go through it. Losing him in the real world had been hard enough, but at least there hadn’t been any shadowy monsters representing death, or whatever the hell that thing with the mirror eyes was supposed to have been. It had been familiar, though. Could you have de-ja vu in dreams?
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