by D. S Mac
What had shocked him so badly, enough to make him react and fall as he did, was a tiny human skull. It was cracked down the frontal lobe, and the jaw was missing, but it was unmistakably a child’s skull. “What happened to you, eh?” Brendan stood back up, brushed himself off, and let out a much-needed sigh. He started to well up, eyes swelling, tears threatening to fall. With the palms of his hands, he rubbed his eyes, shook off the tears, and proceeded his descent down the first aisle.
He couldn’t believe his luck. Amongst the dust, debris, and broken shelving was a large hiker’s backpack. It was hanging partially off the shelf while all the others in that area were trapped by the splicing of folded-in ceiling, shelving and flooring. Brendan grabbed the bag, brushed it off, and slung it over his shoulders. This was a great find. He could now find and store more items than he ever could with his hands. He still had no idea what to do, but at least now he could go back to the food he’d found and pack a lot of that up with him for the journey. He would not be limited to quick searches nearby and could explore a bit, try to figure out a plan, and figure out where he was. He was a scientist, after all.
***
Time is a human-made construct. We forge devices that fall in line with the planet’s rotation to help guide our time in segments. Without any of these devices, how does one measure the passing of time? The obvious answer is by the sun and day and night. What if these did not exist either? How then would we know? The only way Brendan knew of how much time had passed was by the length and growth of his hair and beard. He knew it took around three months for his appearance to resemble a caveman; usually around the two-month mark was when he would have popped to see a barber. He would have had his hair trimmed to a nice tidy comb-over with a partial fade, and his beard would have been trimmed and lined. However, his hair was a mess of knots and unbearably long, while his beard was not knotted. It was an itchy mess that protruded from his chin. That was how he knew roughly three months had passed, three months stuck in a hell of a place, satiating his hunger with canned shit, no daytime, no night-time, only orange, dusky shades and lightning storms above.
He had spent the days wandering and searching. Over time he had looted up a promising stash of canned foods and warm, stale bottled water, which tasted awful but quenched a necessary thirst.
Through the nights, he slept in a human-made den on the second floor. After a lot of examination, Brendan had deemed it stable enough to climb. He knew absolutely nothing about structural integrity, but nothing fell apart as he traversed the building. He’d used tents and towels along with foliage he’d found a week ago to create a tiny sanctum where he could rest and store his findings.
Talking was a basic human need. Brendan found he no longer had any need to speak. His voice had not been used for a long time. He wasn’t sure if he ever would again. His internal monologue, however, seemed to thrive. Every piece of communication needed travelled straight through his synapses and filled his thoughts. Daily he wondered if he was losing his mind, and it would reply with “who wouldn’t? You’re alone; you’re dead.” Dead? Was he dead? He felt alive. He could think and breathe and move.
How long had he been standing there for? When he snapped out of his inner thoughts, he realised that he was standing there in the middle of a road. With his dirty, calloused hands, he swept his matted fringe out of his eyes and had a confused look around. He did not remember coming here. It was a good half day’s walk away from his camp. Frantically he rubbed his eyes and tried not to panic. There must have been a good reason for this. Maybe he did have the intention to walk this way. He had to remember.
For the first time since he’d arrived, he heard the shrill screaming again. His internal monologue went haywire. “They’re not real, it’s ok… No! They’re coming for you. RUN!… Don’t be so preposterous. We haven’t heard them in ages… Die then, you fool.” In a swift movement, he slapped himself across the face and decided to see what was making the noise. He followed the screaming for a few minutes, having to stop and listen intently when it stopped so he could track its direction. Each attempt, he was sure he was homing in on it, assuming he was correctly calculating the direction.
He stopped again to wait for a scream. Head cocked to one side, waiting. The screams chorused down the streets and sent sharp shivers up his spine because of how close they were. He took a few more steps toward the crossroads, looked right and saw nothing of interest. His left was blocked by a big old red bus with the rear end folded in on itself. However, the front was dirty but surprisingly intact. The door was stuck half-open like the power had been cut off mid-process. Very carefully, he pried it open a touch more so that he could squeeze through.
Once he was in, he slowly walked halfway down the aisle and tried to look through a window. Annoyingly, they were also coated in thick dust, inside and out. He pulled down his sleeve and proceeded to wipe the inside of the window. “Wipe, wipe, wipe… oh, shut up… missed a bit.” Brendan had to stop wiping to clamp a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh. Now he needed to wipe the outside, but there was no way he would go around the bus. “Think, dammit, think… thinking is all you ever do. Time for action.” He slammed a palm to the side of his head. “Oh yeah, what course of action would you have us take?” The last few words came out as if through gritted teeth: “Open the damn window, genius!” Brendan had to stifle a laugh, and this time with an exclamation of excitement, he slowly pushed open the tiny pivoting window that was above the main window, then he stopped to listen. Nothing seemed to have reacted, so he stuck his arm through the gap and wiped the outside of the window too.
It was still rather dirty and difficult to see through, but he was not mistaken about what he saw. Three deformed creatures all juddered away from him like computer game glitches, joints and bones moving at impossible angles. A sickening crunch resounded each time one moved. Their limbs were in all the wrong places. They barely resemble humans. Brendan threw his hands to his mouth to stop two things from happening: his stomach had turned, and nausea overcame him, and in reaction to this, he almost gasped aloud. Fear paralysed him, frozen where he stood, his head dripping with sweat from his overactive heart. Eventually, he had managed to stop himself from defecating all over the bus. He swallowed saliva and took another look, each pounding thud of his heart causing him to jump.
The creatures were now much farther away, and they were heading in the opposite direction. Shock took hold as Brendan saw what looked like two people, two human people. “No way!… You’re seeing things…no, I’m not! That’s people.” Excitement filled his veins along with a whole host of hope. He ran back to the door, squeezed himself through, and walked as silently as he could behind the creatures while taking cover behind rubble and other vehicles. Getting as close as he dared, he could see two people. His mind was not deceiving him. All of a sudden, the creatures screamed in unison and shot after the people. “No, no, NO!… We’ve got to help; we’ve got to do something… we’ll die! They’re already dead.” He slapped himself in the head again and planted his feet firmly on the ground. “NO! This is the best bit of hope we’ve had in a long time!” With that, Brendan gave chase after the creatures.
Brendan had not used this much energy nor the muscles used for running in a long time, and he was tiring quickly. “Must push on… you’re weak… shut up!” Gradually Brendan got slower and slower until he could no longer run, a stitch pierced his side, and his breath was struggling to return. He looked around but could not see the creatures, nor did he know where they had gone. He collapsed onto the dirty ground as if he were going to make dirt angels. Tears streamed from his eyes, the warm saltiness dripping down his face, smearing the layer of dust he had accumulated. “NOOOOO.” The scream came out unwillingly. He had not meant to produce such a noise, wasn’t even sure if he still could.
His cry was returned with an awful scream. The high-pitched reply was too close for comfort. Brendan clambered to his feet unsteadily, still lacking energy. The terror he felt had drained
his entire being. His body had taken to shaking. He was terrified. While the screamers partially resembled human beings, he was sure they were not into a friendly chat. His head and eyes darted left to right and back again, scouring every direction, every doorway and road.
It wasn’t until the creature was on top of him that he saw it. They were both sent crashing to the ground as the creature collided with him. Brendan managed to get to his knees as the creature crashed onto him again. Its arms, which were way too long, both protruded from where its ears should have been. They both had Brendan latched around the throat, pressing harder and harder. Sharp talon-like nails were digging into his soft flesh, threatening to pierce his jugular. Struggling to breathe or even think, Brendan gasped and clawed at the creature, trying to gouge an eye or find any soft spot. The strangulation pressure made his head swim. He felt like he was underwater, falling deeper and deeper away. That was when he realised the creature had no eyes on the front of its face, and they were wide open and lidless right above its nipples. There was no way he could contort to reach them, and his life was quickly fading away. With his vision clouding and the voices in his head quiet for the first time in ages, he felt at peace. This could be the end, and he would be alright with that.
His left hand shot up. He was completely unaware he had dropped it to his side, but there it was, shooting up nonetheless. It smashed into the side of the creature’s head, again and again. Blood and brain were spewing out all over him. Brendan realised he was not in control of himself, maybe a natural fight or flight had taken over, or he was too out of it to even know. The hand kept pummelling the creature until it was a bloody pulpy mess that sagged over his right shoulder. As he shrugged the thing off, he became aware of a hefty piece of rock in his hand. “We’re not done yet, Doc.” His manic laugh ricocheted off the surrounding buildings and filled the air around him.
Chapter 8 – Stranger
Several days had passed since their encounter with the creatures.
The first few hours after had been tireless, in search of water. To drink, to clean. They looked like a pair of serial killers, caked from head to toe in blood and gore upon leaving the store. Fergus had a new faraway look in his eyes, whereas Drake seemed to have embraced it. That boiled down to their backgrounds. Drake had been in the army for many years and had seen his fair share of blood, while Fergus was a physicist, and blood was not in his daily routine. Eventually, they had found a place to clean up. It was another destroyed shop. Again mostly smothered in orange soot, but there, they managed to find several bottles of water, canned goods, along with a lot of not so goods.
After licking their wounds, which, after a decent look and once-over, were not life-threatening, they continued their search of the unknown. In another shop, they had found backpacks that were in relatively good condition considering the state of the world. Having packed up as much as they could carry, they once again set off in no direction in particular. To them, it seemed ridiculous to hole up and sit around. Drake was coming back inside after relieving himself down the alley when he saw Fergus, shoulders slumped, head in hands. “Ferg bud, you good?”
Fergus looked up, still with a distant look in his eyes. “Aye, fella, can’t get my head around all this.”
“I know how you feel, mate. This”—Drake threw his arms out to signify everything—“is really fucked up, but we’ll be alright, Ferg.” He sat down next to Fergus, opened up his bag and searched for a bottle of water. “We will find our way home, and we will find Chase.” Having uncapped a bottle, he took a large swig and offered it to Fergus.
Fergus willingly accepted, had his fill and passed it back to Drake. “You know, I keep thinking about his Titanic comment.” They both chuckled. “He was an absolute sucker for that film.”
“He still is, Ferg. We’ll find him.”
“So where do we go from here?”
Drake had put the bottle away and was zipping up the bag. “For now, we survive until we understand.” With that, Drake stood up, grabbed his blood-matted hammer, and proceeded to the door. “Come on, bud.”
They hardly spoke for a while, both deep in thought but on two drastically different scales. Drake wondered if those creatures were the only ones, and if not, they had best be ready because the three had nearly ended them. Fergus was thinking about Chase and what could have happened. One option was that Chase got lost in the infinite time-space continuum, and another was that he didn’t make it when they shifted and was now in pieces on Westminster Bridge.
“Drake, what do you see when shifting?”
The question stopped him in his tracks. He turned his head slightly toward Fergus. “Funny you should ask that. Up until this shift, I saw nothing but black.”
Fergus reached out and grabbed Drake’s shoulder. “Saw? You mean that’s changed?”
“Yeah, this time… somehow I was able to snap myself back into focus. I could see you hanging off my hand, screaming.” Drake turned around fully and looked Fergus in the eyes. “But… then I also saw fractures everywhere. Tonnes of them all popping in and out of existence around us.”
Fergus nodded and continued walking. “So do you reckon you could navigate or traverse it?”
Drake matched his pace and sighed. “I’m not sure, but I think so. Wait, shit! I’ve realised something.”
“What is it, Drake?”
Having noticed something different and off about himself, Drake now had a worried look in his eyes. “I can’t feel it, Ferg. How did I not notice?”
“Feel what?”
“The energy! I can always feel an electric sort of tingling through my arm. It’s gone. Our ticket back has gone!”
They both looked at each other with a worried expression and said, “Shit!”
Knowing the apocalyptic expanse around them, they knew their chances of finding help or equipment were significantly low. But it was as good a place as any to start. They had decided to head to another hideout Fergus had. It wasn’t too far away. That was, of course, if it still stood. When it was in the state it was in, navigating London proved to be a difficult task. Almost every few blocks they walked ended with a dead end, and they had to retrace their steps and take a different road. They might as well have been stuck in a maze, which neither of them had any experience with.
Eventually, they reached a problem. Three directions to go and three dead ends.
“Fuck’s sake! This is ridiculous.” Fergus had reached a tipping point. They had been walking for hours on a journey that should have taken no more than one hour. “I’m not bloody going back!”
“Ferg, calm down, bud. Let’s explore these buildings and find a way through.” Drake was doing well to stay level-headed even though inside he was raging as much as Fergus. Having decided that the routes straight ahead and to the right were the best options, Drake took the lead. “Right, Ferg, you take that building, scout through it and the other side.” He pointed to another building and said, “I’ll take this one. Regroup here in twenty minutes.”
Fergus calmed down, agreed to the plan, and set off to find a way through in his allocated building. Drake watched him for a minute, then did the same.
Drake entered the building. It was a high-rise block that was once possibly flats. Back from the road, he was able to see that most of the rear half had collapsed while the front and left side were primarily intact. Entering was easy. It wasn’t a mess of rubble, and walking down the hallway was actually possible. He knew there was no point checking the rooms, so he continued down the hallway, following its path round to the right and back to the left. “Shit!” The whole corridor from there onwards was completely blocked off. It looked like the ceiling had collapsed in this particular area.
He retraced his steps. This time, however, he checked rooms as he went. There were three that he could get into, one by force, and each were the same. Dust kicked up as he entered, making him cough and rub his eyes. All the rooms had washing on lines by radiators. Two of them had piles of washing up absol
utely festered in dirt and mould. The last room still had dinner plates with mouldy half-eaten food that was barely recognisable. However, the biggest problem was that each of the back windows that could have led outside was also blocked off, like the hallway.
Having hit yet another dead end, Drake wondered what to do. He was about to head back outside to call for Fergus when he noticed a door next to the front door that he had not seen upon entry. With his hand, he brushed off the grime from the sign, which read stairwell. “How did I miss you?”
As he pushed open the door, more dust showered him, and he had to take a step back to brush himself off. With the dust tickling his sinuses and his body threatening to sneeze, Drake pushed the door back open and continued into the dark stairwell. With his thumbs, he squashed his nose together to try to stifle the outburst. Having reached the first floor, he was disappointed with yet another dead end. The door leading to the halls would not budge, so he ventured to the second floor, taking two steps at a time.
The third floor’s hallway was where it ended. The stairs above had been blocked off in the same way as the rest of the damned place. He pushed on the door, which opened surprisingly easily, and stepped through with his fingers crossed, metaphorically. Drake found himself in another hallway, much like the ground floor’s. First, he decided to check down the end, and as he expected, it was blocked off at the same spot as the bottom. Returning the way he came again, he realised he was already tired of this. “Come on! Let this be the way.” As hard as he could, he shoulder barged the door, which smashed open. Pieces of lock and door frame scattered over the floor, and before he could gather his thoughts, something barged right into his chest, sending him sprawling back into the hallway.
