by D. S Mac
Slowly he crawled over to Hannah, each movement forcing a grunt from his pursed lips. As he reached her, he instantly collapsed into her open arms. They both lay there, unthinking, unmoving. Until Hannah broke the silence.
“I thought I had it bad. You’re a mess.” She let out a raspy chuckle. Each burst of breath made Drake’s head bounce on her shoulder.
“You should see the other guy.”
As they both laughed at their luck surviving, Drake nuzzled in closer to Hannah, and she wrapped an arm around him. He felt warm and wanted. A lack of real human interaction over the years had hardened his heart. With himself potentially disappearing at any moment, he was never able to justify love, justify relationships of any kind. But now, something was different. Something had changed, finally.
Still wrapped in a loose comforting embrace, Drake tilted his head from her shoulder slowly up until they were eye level. Hannah turned to face Drake; their eyes connected, both glistening with want and lust. In the shadows of the run-down warehouse, Hannah’s face was so close to Drake’s that he could smell the sweet orchid tang of her perfume; then he could taste her as her soft, warm lips locked with his. Drake pushed and sought her tongue, not trying to win a battle but seeking union, closeness and the sharing of one breath, one sensation, one passionate moment to be encased in the timeless vault in his mind.
Drake’s heart beat faster and faster because he knew this was the day his loneliness permanently changed. This was the day he would live again. Another light rumbling shook the floor. Hannah broke away from the kiss.
“Did you feel that?”
“How could I not?” Drake said with a wink.
“No, you daft ape! I’m sure the floor shook.”
Drake perched himself up and placed both hands on the floor as a shower of dust broke free and rained down on them. The floor shook as the building groaned. Large chunks of debris loosened themselves from the ceiling around the broken pillars and smashed to the floor, kicking up clouds of concrete dust.
“Shit! I definitely felt that. Taking out the pillars has made the building unstable.” Drake whimpered from his aching body as he pushed himself to his feet. He held out a hand to Hannah. “We need to get out of here… fast.”
Hannah took the offered hand and wobbled to her feet. She staggered back and almost fell, but Drake threw an arm around to balance her.
“Shit, are you alright?”
“I’m fine, feeling queasy. Let’s go.” Arm in arm, they both limped towards the side door. Showers of debris intermittently fell, threatening to crush them beneath their cold, solid embodiments of death as they staggered for the door with their eyes raw from the unwanted contact with the stifling dust clouds. The exertion brought on more breathlessness as the air around them quickly became devoid of oxygen. Light shone from the doorway, shrouded by the haze, reminiscent of a tunnel to the other side. They pushed hard, focused on the tiny slither of light that was calling to them, beckoning them to be free, teasing them with fresh, crisp air. Today was not the day to die. They still had work to do. They still had a world to save!
As they reached the last push, Drake held Hannah in front of him to guide her out, mere feet away from the kiss of warmth from the sunlight.
“HELP.” The scream pierced through the dust clouds and managed to reach Drake’s ears over the cacophony of crashing debris. “PLE… HEE…”
They burst into the alleyway, instantly overwhelming their organs with fresh oxygen, and they both collapsed to the ground.
Drake placed a comforting hand on either side of Hannah’s face, took in a lungful and said, “I have to go back in. Someone was shouting for help.”
Hannah furiously shook her head and tried to speak, but the exertion made her splutter a rally of coughs into her hand.
Drake gently pulled her head to look at him. “I have to. I can’t leave them.” He planted a soft, warm kiss on her, then released her and ran back into the crumbling building .
Chapter 25 - Pet
A deep growling hum resonated. It was seemingly in time with the continuous cracks of lightning that lit up the orange sky. Brendan was faintly aware of the hum’s vibrations through his chest. Thick dust billowed in the wind, which created an irritating sandstorm effect. Each gust sent particles into a frenzy. With each blow, a burst of dirt encompassed his eyes. His filth- and claret-sodden hands added to the grime, which in turn accelerated the irritation. Thick dark rings like voids had materialised around the swollen red organs. Anyone who would have seen him like this would rightfully be terrified. For he was no longer a man but a beast. A beast with no function other than to fulfil his primal instincts. To satiate his indelible hunger. To hunt.
For over a decade, the beast’s existence had been identical to the fractured creatures’. The only difference was he still had a voice in his head. Screaming at him. Fighting to be let out. Unwilling to die. But the feral beast at the forefront of his mind was too strong, too hungry. He had entered an evolved state of mind, a broken mind—one that had adapted to the end of time, built solely for survival.
He hunted at nightfall. Darkness never really swept over the ruined plane. However, the lightning temporarily relaxed, so the orange hue became a darker, slightly more sinister brown. This was also when the fractured became quieter. They hibernated as if the full force of the lightning was what powered them. Most nights, Brendan would find a lone fractured, which he hunted, and he hunted for the thrill. Tonight he had seen the meal he was after.
Stealth was not an evolutionary adaptation, and it was not one he needed. Over the years, he had become faster, stronger and more capable than he had ever been in his entire life. After he spotted his prey, he would straighten up his back and draw in his full air capacity. Once his chest was fully expanded, he released it all in a deep guttural roar that would force a lion to piss itself.
He had done this countless times over the years. Every reaction was the same, a shrill shriek followed by a stumbling sprint in the opposite direction. However, this time, his prey merely cocked its head and watched Brendan with what could only be described as curiosity. The inquisitive fractured had a massive frame. Luckily for this one, none of its parts at first glance looked out of place. A large head with all the correct features, a torso with all the right limbs. The only telltale signs that it was a fractured being were its translucent skin, wide bloodshot eyes, and yellow-stained, jagged razor-sharp teeth.
Brendan edged closer, cautiously examining the odd creature, which the fractured copied. They both stepped in time, closer to each other, cocking their heads at forty-five-degree angles left and right, like two dogs sizing up their enemy. As the distance between them closed up to less than a meter, the complete opposite of all expectations happened. The fractured bowed its head and dropped to its knees. The part of Brendan that was still human was taken aback by the gesture. His primal instinct to kill and feed was suddenly overwritten. This fractured had laid down arms and surrendered to his presence, to his power.
Something in that moment terminated Brendan’s desire to kill it. Instead, he let out a deep hum of a growl, turned his back and walked off in search of a different kill. His new fractured subordinate followed without command. It wasn’t long until they crossed paths with another fractured. It was shuffling down the road on its hands, legs flailing about as if it were constantly in a state of unbalance, which wasn’t surprising considering the contradictory placement of its limbs.
Brendan straightened his back. Filled his lungs to maximum capacity. His chest bulged out like a weightlifter that was too big for his frame. He glanced over at his newfound follower and released a gravelly roar that could have passed for a Mongolian throat singer’s chorus. Their prey bent over double and pivoted through its hands like one of those drinking bird toys. Its eyes swelled to several times the size, and the acrid scent of fear cascaded down its arms in the form of a deep yellow liquid.
The thunderous claps of three sets of legs echoed throughout the
abandoned city. Brendan’s once raspy breath had adapted to the climate and now worked at full capacity. His face reddened. His heartbeat’s metronome increased in tempo from the excitement, but lack of breath would not overcome him. With every few hundred yards, they gained ground on their prey. The creature thrashed with everything it had to escape its inevitable end. Thick drool foamed at the corners of Brendan’s mouth. He could already taste the fresh warm meat.
Their prey seemed to gain some intelligence and began turning down different roads. Its attempts would be futile. Brendan never missed his target. They were mere meters away from feasting when the creature stopped dead. It spun around and screamed. Brendan had never seen a fractured react like this. Even with his mind screaming that something was wrong, he still threw caution to the wind and advanced on his meal.
Brendan’s pet fracture abruptly released a scream of its own and waved its impossibly long, muscly arms past the fractured. Three more fractured had wormed their way out from doorways down the street. Brendan snarled; a deep thrum cascaded out of his mouth as he looked around. All around them, fractured were emerging from every possible crevice. Three ahead, four on either side and two more behind them. They had been lured into a trap.
Blood-curdling screams of anguish quickly followed. Brendan lunged first and tore the throat from the closest fractured. Its body shook as warm blood fountained from the gaping hole. His companion sprinted directly at the three ahead. Before Brendan could even comprehend what had happened, he was walking back. A torn-off arm hung limply from each of his hands. A large chunk of throat dangled from his mouth, dripping what was left of its red liquid down his body.
Brendan looked proudly over his new companion and croaked out a single word.
“Butcher.”
With four down and ten to go, they both turned to face the wall of fractured. They growled in unison. They charged their enemies and tore them to shreds. Within minutes the fight was over. Limbs torn from bodies were strewn across the road. The dusty orange surfaces around them were soaked in thick red blood, as was their sodden clothing.
Chapter 26 - Malice
The lab was a hive of activity. Scientists bustled around, working hard like an army of ants all striving for one purpose. They were setting the final calculations in motion for Dr Forrest’s big world-changing experiment. It was a recreation of his failed 2018 zero-point energy reactor. A completely sustainable future lay before them, waiting to be unlocked. Dr Ashbury had read every single piece of research from Dr Forrest’s old files. She had run the calculations multiple times over and believed she knew where it had all gone wrong. She had been hired fresh out of Oxford University, where she had received top marks in particle physics and theoretical physics. If anyone could do this, she could.
Brendan sat at the monitoring station that overlooked the entire lab. It was a unique structure built from the theoretical works of an old partner, Dr Fergus McCarthy. Each of the four corners had an electromagnetic emitter, which created an impenetrable force field. It was designed to keep its occupants safe from another ‘miscalculation’. Little did everyone know, Brendan would be the only occupant. Everyone else was a pawn in his cataclysmic plan. No man nor woman could be trusted. No one would understand.
He was sitting at a centralised computer in front of a large bulletproof viewing window. There was only one thing he needed to do: ensure his preprogrammed calculations were input into the experiment at the right time. One minor adjustment to reverse the polarity of the antimatter. A knock at the door disturbed him from his task. With a quick flick of the mouse, he changed windows and leant back.
“Enter.”
Henry tentatively ambled into the room. His face was twisted with fear. “Sir… there has been a…” He coughed into his trembling hand.
“Get on with it, Henry!”
“There has been an incident… the warehouse… it’s gone.” Henry took several steps back closer to the door, not that a quick exit would help him here.
“Butcher?” Brendan swivelled around on the office chair and met Henry’s eyes with an evil sneer.
“Gone, sir…”
Brendan smashed a closed fist onto the metal desk. The computer shook from the impact. Then he brought his fist down again and again and again. The mouse had scuttled away to the other side of the desk. If looks could kill, Henry would be a mutilated corpse decomposing in the woods somewhere, while his family were spreading lies about how he’d died in an accident abroad.
Brendan slowed his breathing, eyes not leaving Henry for a single second. “They will be coming. Fix a trap upstairs. If they make it down here and you somehow survive, I will disembowel your entire fucking family.” He spun back around to face the computer. “Oh, and before you do that, initiate the resurrection protocol.”
“Sir, are you sure?”
Silence filled the room for what seemed like hours. Beads of nervous sweat trickled down into Henry’s eyes, the sodium chloride reacting like a hundred bees stinging his eyeballs.
“I’m sure.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be back with the device momentarily.”
Henry stepped out of the room, leaving Brendan alone with the computer. Under his breath, he muttered, “Goodbye, Mother.”
After entering his unique lines of code secured by hidden encryption, he stood up and shuffled to the window. A lingering grin spread across his face. With a tablet under her arm, Dr Ashbury was running from computer to computer, initiating check after check, when she spotted Brendan from the corner of her eye. She risked a glance up and saw the truly evil man glowering down at them. His malicious grin spread further across his cheeks as he raised a hand and wiggled his arthritis-ridden fingers at her.
He stood there watching the negligent workforce. He couldn’t help but snigger to himself. Everyone who had ever crossed his path had no idea of his true intentions. Nobody mattered. Nobody ever had, not even his current vessel. There was one goal, one purpose, and he would reach it.
Chapter 27 - Hero
As soon as Drake passed the threshold, the ceiling collapsed in a shower of rubble. The very door he had entered was now wholly inaccessible. It was blocked off by a wall of wreckage that would take hours with heavy machinery to move. Cautiously he moved through the dust cloud. The collapsing building had caused a severe lack of fresh oxygen. Drake tore off part of his shirt and held it over his mouth as he traversed the once open-plan warehouse.
Every step he took was met with a deep rumble and the groaning of steel girders. This building would come down, and if he weren’t quick enough, it would take him with it. It took a few minutes to work his way through the smog. Eventually, though, he found one of the cages and figured out roughly where he was. He pulled away his makeshift face covering and cupped his hands around his mouth.
“Hello… where are you?” His shout echoed through the smut. The only reply was a rumble that would have made it onto the Richter scale. Slowly he passed a couple more rows of cages.
“Where are you!” Still no reply. He was shocked at how many cages there were. He wondered how any man could do this to anyone. It was savage… brutal and animalistic. After what felt like another four-point earthquake, he finally heard faint cries of terror. Once the dust had settled, he realised they were very close.
“Hello, are you injured?” He could hear people shuffling, the sound of skin brushing concrete, from somewhere over to his left. Suddenly he thought, They may be terrified. They don’t know if I’m here to hurt them or not. “I’m here to get you out… That thing is dead.” More shuffling. A lot closer this time. Drake continued up the aisle of cages swiftly as the debris by the door’s ceiling collapsed. Pieces larger than Drake collided with the floor a few meters behind him. They shattered and sent fist-sized rocks flying across the room. One caught Drake in the back of the leg, while several others clattered off cages with sharp metallic dings.
Several screams reverberated in the grimy space. Drake ran the last stretch down the aisle
and found two young females. Naked and chained, in separate cages. Both were covered in bruises with a mixture of yellow and red stains down their legs.
“Holy shit!… Girls, I’m a friend. Can you move?”
One of the girls regressed farther back in the cage while the other, clearly the braver one, went closer to Drake.
“Y… yes, we can m… move.” Each word came out in a struggle, they had not been fed or watered longer than any human should go without, and it showed in their wasting frames.
“I’m going to get you out of h—” Drake was interrupted by a vicious rumble. The floor shook. The walls shook. The cages rattled. Both of the girls screamed as one whole side of the roof came down like a controlled demolition. The earth-shattering cacophony pounded Drake’s ears. He had no time to react as every cage from the way he had come was crushed into oblivion. Clouds of bitter dust engulfed the room. Drake dove to the floor and covered his face.
It took several minutes for the room to calm down. There was a constant rumble backed by groaning steel like an orchestra of amateurs sliding bows across a violin with no skill. Drake shot up. The urgency of their situation was dire. He had to get them out, and he had to do it fast. He fumbled with his hands to find a piece of debris large and strong enough to shatter the locks. He raised his arms and brought the shard down onto the lock. It took several attempts, but eventually, they snapped open. Both girls crawled out with a wall of vigilance. Their eyes were darting from left to right, expecting a trap. Drake held out a hand. The first girl took it and jumped into his arms. She wept and held tight.
