The Change: Life

by J. C. Nichols

  Her mother smiled while her grandmother glared.

  "You know, Sprout, if that machete was a guy, I'd be seriously worried. You take that thing everywhere."

  "Get that thing off the table!" Her grandmother snapped, causing her to jump. "It's filthy. Little girls shouldn’t walk around carrying swords to begin with."

  Ivy sighed and placed the machete on the floor, keeping her eyes on the table, refusing to meet her Grandmother’s gaze.

  "Mom, give Ivy a break. It's not like it’s a toy. She needs it."

  "Not at the breakfast table she doesn't! Besides, I'm just trying to be the bitch I was accused of being."

  Ivy raised her eyes to meet her Mother’s. "Mom,” Ivy began hesitantly. “What are guys like?"

  Her mother smiled. She knew exactly what she was doing; intentionally ignoring her grandmother, knowing it was going to piss her off. She gifted her daughter with a strange, lopsided grin. "Honey, I honestly don't know too much. I've had boyfriends when I was younger," Ivy's eyes widened and began to sparkle "- but nothing serious. I was very young."

  "What's it like to have a boyfriend? To kiss a guy? You have kissed guys, right?"

  Her mother rolled her eyes. "We are not having this conversation, Sprout. Not right now. In case you can't see, I'm being actively glared at by your grandmother. I don't think she approves of this conversation."

  Ivy's grandmother dropped the plate she was holding. "I AM NOT HER GRANDMOTHER! She is – she's an abomination! She is no kin to me!"

  Ivy felt something deep inside her chest swell. Pain didn't quite cover the feeling. It was more than that.

  "Mother! Apologize to her right now! That was wrong! She is NOT an abomination! No more than you are for having a mouth that you can't fucking control!"

  "You will not talk to me like that! I am your mother! Your real mother! Not a fake one like you claim with that!"

  Ivy's mother's eyes grew wide in alarm, and she took a step closer to her mother. "Apologize! Now!"

  The older woman narrowed her eyes and glared at her daughter. "I. Will. NOT! You brought a demon within our house! She is the devil’s child! Can't you see she's one of them?!"

  "I'm not one of them," Ivy said meekly standing up, leaving her breakfast uneaten as she hooked her machete through the belt loop on her pants. She refused to meet either of their eyes, knowing that if she did she would break down where she stood. Before anything else could be said she make a quick detour to the front room then ran outside.

  She had to get away from her grandmother.

  From everything.

  *

  The wind whipped through her long black hair as she drove her mother’s truck down the bumpy old dirt road not far from their house. So far she had not seen any Changed, but even if she had, she had no plans to engage them. Her mother, on the other hand, liked to mow them over and antagonize them. Ivy would just rather leave them completely alone. Besides, she was not driving for any kind of confrontation.

  She was driving to think.

  Or, at least, that was the plan when she stole the keys to the truck and ran out of the house. The reality was she couldn't bring her mind to think about anything – it was blank, almost as if it were in some state of overload. She let it be. It was oddly peaceful. For a change.

  Changed.

  They came running at her from the sides, from an impossible distance away, not having the slightest chance of catching her. But they pursued her anyway. She watched them with interest, as they converged far behind her and continued running, trying desperately to catch the truck that was going over twice what they were capable of. After a while she lost interest in them and went hunting for the cassettes that her mother kept hidden all throughout the truck. She found one at random and popped it into the cassette deck. A song came on that, for some reason, made her emotions flare up. Something about the glory of love. It was an older song that her mother absolutely adored.

  So did Ivy.

  She wished she had a knight in shining armor, someone that would protect her and stand up for her when she felt too weak to do so herself. Did her mother ever feel like this, she wondered? Is that why she loved this song so much? Even if she did find a guy like that, what would she do? She had absolutely zero experience with boys, and even if she did none of them would find her attractive: she had weird green skin, after all. She was different. On more than just the outside, she suspected.

  That didn't stop her from fantasizing, however.

  She often thought about how the first time she met a boy would go; she would act shy, of course, because her mom told her that's what guys liked. He would be suave, incredibly handsome, and literally sweep her off her feet. He would say sweet, nonsensical things to her, woo her, and they would run away together and start a family.

  Ivy smiled to herself as she pictured it all. She knew it was childish to fantasize about such things, but she didn't care. She needed the fantasy.

  On a whim she drove off the road and onto the mostly grassless dirt ground, feeling an odd sense of pleasure from the jerking caused by the irregularities of the ground. It was almost hypnotic. She closed her eyes for a bit, just letting herself feel the wind blow past her face, the bumps that caused the truck to jump and jerk this way and that. Her mother would kill her if she knew what she was doing.

  Stop.

  Ivy's eyes snapped open. Someone just spoke to her, in her mind. That had never happened before. She slowed the truck down and looked around her. She was still out in the open, with nothing of note around, nothing that would be a danger to her or the truck.

  You're wrong. Leave. Now. There is danger here.

  Ivy stopped the truck completely. "Who are you?"

  LEAVE!

  That last command was so powerful that it almost made Ivy start the truck and speed off.

  But she didn't.

  She was through with being told what she could and could not do. She pulled the key out of the ignition and shoved them in her pocket. She was going to see what was so dangerous about this barren area.

  She opened the truck’s door and slid out, almost falling face-first into the ground. It was so ridiculous that she had to laugh. "Great intro to my self-proclaimed independence!" She giggled, wiping the moisture away from her eyes. Apparently she had been crying.

  Voices. She heard them, but she couldn't see where they were coming from. She walked slowly, quietly, going in the last direction she thought she heard the sounds coming from. She became so obsessed with trying to figure out where the voice came from that she was startled completely when something hit her, causing her to fall down to the ground.

  She looked up. Nothing was there.

  And then there was.

  Two people simultaneously popped into existence right in front of her; a large, ragged looking man with a large handgun on his side and a filthy meek-looking boy that had to be around her age, wearing only underwear and a large metal gauntlet on his right hand.

  Men.

  She froze, completely unsure of what to do next.

  RUN!

  But her feet would not obey.

  "I don't know how this damn thing works, but I love it," the man said as he made folding motions and shoved his hand into his pocket. Ivy couldn't see what he was folding, it looked like he was trying to fold air. The boy, refusing to look her in the eyes, kept his face pointed at the ground. It looked like he had been crying. Hard.

  The man reached down towards Ivy. "Need help up?"

  Ivy nodded, not quite sure what else to do.

  The man reached down and grabbed Ivy by her arm and brought her to her feet in one brisk, smooth movement. He was strong, but his arm had a big nasty bite mark on it. Most likely from one of the Changed.

  "How were you – how were you invisible?" Ivy asked the man as she tried to disengage herself from the man and step back. He refused to let her go.

  "Where are you going?” he asked, ignoring her
question. “There ain't many others alive anymore. We got to stick together. Are there more where you came from?"

  "It doesn't matter," the boy said suddenly, “nothing matters. WE JUST BURIED HER, dammit! Why are you so eager to jump on board with even more people?! Can't you see how this is all going to end? Everyone we know is going to die! Aileen, Mi-” The man silenced him with a vicious backhand that sent him to the ground.

  The boy looked up with a dangerous look in his eyes, and he flexed then made a fist with the hand his gauntlet was on.

  "Quit whining! We ain't dead, are we? In the end, that's all that matters! People gonna come and go – but we're still here! We're survivors, Jacob! And our chances at survivin' look way better if we're with other people! Think!"

  So his name was Jacob. Ivy looked at him with increased interest. What did he go through that made him so skeptical and negative? She had to know.

  She tugged on her arm again, but the man refused to let her go. She shifted her eyes from Jacob to his, only to find him looking her up and down, his eyes feeling to Ivy as if they were leaving greasy trails on her body. She didn't like the way he was looking at her. It made her feel disgusting.

  The boy slowly got back to his feet and held his face with his gauntleted hand, keeping his eyes locked on the man holding her. He looked like he was about to cry again.

  Something about the boy made Ivy want to hold him, to comfort him. He looked... broken.

  "Is-is Jacob your son?" Ivy asked the man in an attempt to appear civil. She quit struggling with the him, knowing that when it came to a battle of strength she would lose hands down.

  "Son? Ha! Nah, any boy of mine wouldn't be as weak as he is. He's just someone I picked up. Like you. A tool."

  Ivy frowned. "A tool?"

  The smile the man gave made Ivy’s skin cold. He moved his hand to her shirt and clenched his fist, bunching the fabric together.

  "No!" Jacob yelled, grabbing the arm that was holding Ivy and struggling with it. He was rewarded for his valor with a swift kick that sent him sprawling across the ground.

  "Been a long time since I seen a female. Too long. And Aileen never really put out anyway."

  "L-Let me go. Please." Ivy pleaded, suddenly aware of exactly what was going through this particular man’s mind.

  "Oh, I will. After. Or, you know, maybe I won't."

  Jacob got halfway to his feet, hunched, and spread the fingers of his metallic glove. It started to change as he stared at this man with wide, unblinking eyes.

  Like he had just snapped.

  Ivy began to hyperventilate – something that had never happened to her before. The man grinned and, with one movement, ripped her shirt off her body. She began shaking. She never wore a bra, for several reasons, the most important was that she simply didn't have the need for one. Right now, however, she wished she had one on. She wilted as the man’s eyes took in her breasts, small as they were, and something inside her snapped.

  Her breathing became heavy.

  And slower.

  Her eyes opened wide.

  The world seemed to become enveloped in a thick oily shade of black.

  Her skin became alive, moving, itchy.

  Her emotions went wild.

  And then she exploded.

  *

  "Are-are you OK?"

  Ivy's eyes fluttered open. Jacob was staring down at her with a look of fear and concern on his young, beaten face.

  She blinked a few times, taking quick diagnostics of herself before answering. "Yeah, I'm fine, just a small headache-"

  Her eyes widened as she suddenly remembered the man ripping the shirt off her body. Her eyes immediately flicked down to her exposed chest – but found that it was gone.

  She looked up at Jacob, alarmed.

  "Oh, uh, you weren't – you were naked so I took the cloth and covered you."

  Ivy felt her chest. There was indeed something there, but it was invisible, and it seemed to show the ground underneath her perfectly, as if her torso wasn't even there.

  She was at a complete loss for words.

  "It-he got it from someone we knew. Apparently it was covering some kind of small machine. It kind of makes you invisible."

  "Kind of..." Was all she could manage to say.

  "Thank you," Jacob said, swallowing heavily as he looked away from her.

  Ivy frowned. "What are you thanking me for? And where's that guy at?"

  Jacob looked to the distance, a motion Ivy mimicked. There was nothing there, save chunks of meat and blood splattered all over the otherwise featureless ground.

  She blinked her wide eyes several times before she was able to find her voice. "How-"

  "You. You did it," Jacob informed her, suddenly becoming animated, amazement thick in his voice. "Your eyes went black and-and, well, you just-he exploded!"

  Ivy sat up, clutching the cloth to her chest as she took what he said in.

  "Seriously?"

  Jacob smiled a fake, lopsided smile. "Yeah. It was... interesting. For the longest time I fought to keep him alive, to try and make sure nothing happened to him, but… seeing him with you… it reminded me of exactly what kind of person he truly was at heart. He doesn't deserve to be alive. I just wish I could have realized that sooner..."

  She looked at him silently for several long moments. There was, apparently, a lot of history behind his words. And then something occurred to her. "Wait, you're not scared of me?"

  He shook his head. "Yeah-I mean, no. Not really. Not of you. I mean, he... he needed to die. He..." Jacob’s voice began cracking, and his eyes became moist. He swallowed. Ivy reached for him, pulling him in to her and hugging him tightly. She could feel her heart pouring out to him. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what kind of horrors he had seen, had been through.

  "It's OK, he's gone. You’re safe now," she cooed. Jacob began shaking in her arms as she held him, and moments later was crying in her arms.

  She let him.

  So maybe her first encounter with the opposite sex didn't quite go the way she thought it would.

  But she couldn't care less.

  *

  Jacob stiffened in her arms. "Uhh..."

  "What's wrong?" Ivy asked, still not letting him go.

  "We're not alone."

  Years of fighting Changed with her mother kicked in with little more than a thought. Ivy pushed away from Jacob and rolled to the side, springing to her feet with her machete firmly in her hand.

  Almost as an afterthought she realized her torso was uncovered. Another thought jolted her: it had been uncovered the entire time she had been holding Jacob. She felt her entire body flush.

  She took in the scene.

  Her eyes nearly fell out of her head.

  They were surrounded in a lazy circle of robotic dogs and humanoid looking robots, the closest of which was about 100 yards away. And more than that, Changed were ambling over in the distance.

  And then another creature materialized out of thin air.

  She had seen this creature before.

  In her dreams.

  He was large, wearing some sort of electronic armor, his right forearm bare, as if the armor that covered that portion was somehow ripped off or lost.

  In the distance the Changed, locking onto Ivy and Jacob, started running towards them.

  Ivy planted her feet firmly in the ground like her mom had taught her long ago and readied herself. She cast a quick glance at Jacob to see what he was doing, and was surprised to find the gauntlet he was wearing – which looked a lot like the armor the figure in front of her was wearing – had long bladed fingertips, and he was wielding it like he knew exactly how to use it. A look of scary focus and determination was etched onto his face.

  He was ready to die.

  Ivy wasn't.

  A large explosion amidst the Changed in the distance caught her attention. Dismembered Changed were flying everywhere, though the
source of their destruction was nowhere to be seen. The large armored figure briefly looked back and then, almost as if he was dismissing the commotion, returned his attention back to Ivy. It didn't even seem to notice Jacob.

  Why hadn't it – or it's robotic army – attacked them yet?

  Ivy once again became conscientious of her bare torso.

  The armored figure advanced upon her as the destruction of the Changed continued behind it. It was a surreal scene, ripped straight out of a nightmare. Ivy forced herself to focus, and decided to not wait for the menacing figure to make the first move; she attacked, slashing her machete at him with perfectly timed accuracy.

  It clanged off of its armor without even causing a scratch.

  The creature didn’t even flinch, didn't even look at her knife. He wouldn't quit looking at Ivy’s face. Ivy pulled her attack back and readied herself for another strike. It briefly cocked its head, otherwise keeping its head unmoving and focused solely on Ivy's face.

  "Not again..." Jacob said, his voice almost a whisper.

  Ivy spun around to him. “Wait, what? What do you mean not again? Do you know this thing or something?”

  Ivy's attention was briefly taken by bits and pieces of the Changed flying through the air in the distance, the robots mowing through them with cold efficiency.

  "Later." Is all Jacob would say. He kept his eyes on the figure, who finally turned his head and looked at him back.

  “You… Ja-cob...” It murmured in its cold mechanical voice.

  Ivy’s eyes widened so much she felt as if they would fall out of her head.

  “Look, hasn't there been enough death for one day?! Leave us alone!” Jacob yelled at the large figure, taking a bold step towards him.

  Ivy panicked, grabbing Jacob’s arm and preventing him from advancing any further. “What, are you insane? Get away from him!”

  The armored figure advanced one more step and leaned in to Ivy, almost as if he was carefully examining her face.

  And then lifted off the ground and flew backwards, revealing a tall robed figure in his place.