No Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  There is a sound like an earthquake. Part of one cooling tower suddenly rips free, hurtles skywards, disintegrating as it goes, vanishing behind a cloud to immolate itself against the vast mass of the Feeder. I manage to stop myself from tracking the rubble all the way up. I’m whispering a new mantra to myself: don’t look up, don’t look up.

  I can see a car in the sky. I pray it’s not the one with Ephie in it. I pray Kayla is still earthbound. In the distance trees are uprooting themselves.

  As Shaw and I approach a door, the wood is torn free of its hinges and races upwards. Shaw and I are holding hands. I’m not sure when it happened. As if we are both victims of the mad belief that this way we’re heavier, that this way we can survive.

  And the insanity clamoring at the back of my head is using that belief as a crowbar, trying to force itself in. Give up Shaw, it’s telling me. Give up Kayla. Sacrifice. Feed it. Feed it her. Feed him. Feed it anything. Just not me. Just not me.

  And then Shaw half pulls, half shoves me through the maw of the doorway and into the darkness of a corridor and abruptly there is a ceiling over my head. No more sky No more Feeder. No more vacuum. No more madness.

  We stand gasping in our pitiable shelter. I can hear the walls creaking, can see cracks appearing.

  “What do we...? What do we...?” I can’t make it to the end of the sentence. Part of my brain is still trying to process what it saw, yammering at the overload, flooding the rest of my processing abilities with the horror of it all.

  “Clyde,” Shaw says, and the word is almost foreign. “Come on. Clyde. Down.”

  It gets easier the longer we’re under cover. We stay away from rooms with windows. We stay in stairwells, in dark places. It’s easier to enter denial that way

  It’s not too hard to find our way now. We don’t need a map. We just follow the electric charge in the air. We go through rooms full of blown monitors, our feet crunching on the glass. We pass dozens of small fires casting flickering shadows around the remains of shattered strip lighting. Shaw uses a flashlight. I could use mine, but I’m still holding my pistol in my free hand so I’d have to let go of her to use it, and neither of us seems willing to give up the human contact just yet. We’re grounded by our palms— some circuit of flesh to counterbalance the circuits of wire that hiss and spit in the walls around us.

  We hit the bottom floor of the place and the spaces start opening up. Shaw’s flashlight doesn’t penetrate the shadows too well anymore. But then we don’t need the flashlight. The hulking pieces of machinery, the gangplanks and walkways, the bundles of wire— everything illuminated in a pale white light that grows stronger and stronger as we walk on.

  “Almost there,” Shaw says. And she makes it sound almost hopeful, as if there can still be hope. I’m not sure I believe that, but I cling to her words like a drowning man.

  “I should reload,” I say.

  “Good idea.”

  We stand there, awkwardly facing each other as I fumble the mostly spent magazine out of the gun.

  “What do you think happened to Tabitha?” I try to make the question light. I don’t try hard enough.

  “Nothing good.” Shaw doesn’t either. She swallows several times.

  “I’m scared,” I say. Because it’s absurd to deny it any longer.

  “Me too,” she says.

  “I don’t feel like someone who can fix this problem,” I say.

  “Neither do I.”

  We stand there. The fresh magazine is still not fully loaded. I stare at it.

  “Bet no one else does right now, either,” I say.

  “Probably not.”

  I push the magazine home.

  “Bollocks to it,” I say.

  “Bollocks to it,” she says.

  And then she kisses me.

  It’s nothing really passionate. Nothing to write home about. Neither of us is swept off our feet. She just leans in, and pecks me quick and hard on the lips.

  I stare at her.

  “What?” she asks. “I’m relatively sure we’re about to die.”

  I lick my lips. I can faintly taste strawberry Chap Stick. “I don’t mean to complain,” I say, “but you should probably work a little bit on your pep talks.”

  56

  I have to shield my eyes as we go through the doorway. The lightning is a scorching white stripe, like part of the screen of reality has burned out.

  And there, at the heart of the madness, is Clyde.

  What’s left of Clyde.

  No. That’s wrong. It’s not what’s left of Clyde. It’s what Clyde has become. If it was what was left of Clyde, there would be less of him. Instead there is so much more.

  His head is there, his torso. His eyes are wide open and bright white. His mouth is open and full of light too. Like the electricity is in him. Like he’s brimming over with the stuff. He’s pouring it into that beam of lightning, but I don’t think he can get it all out in time. It’s going elsewhere. Going deeper into him.

  Clyde is growing. His arms and legs have become liquid, flesh flowing over the bundles of wires that lead to his twitching form. He lies in a spreading pool of himself, something half human, half generator. A pseudopod of pink, doughy flesh rises up and wraps around a pipe, squeezing tight, bending the thing. It climbs like a creeper, wrapping up and around, anchoring Clyde to the place. And that’s not all of it, of him. A lapping wave of skin grasps at rivets in the floor, clamping down on them so that they poke whitely through the stretched tissue; his arm is bifurcating over and over, splitting into thick tendrils that wrap around every available piece of machinery; even his hair betrays him, becoming roots that push into cracks in the concrete floor.

  He already covers an area as large as my living room and he’s growing.

  “Oh no,” I say. “Oh Clyde.” Because how can we fix this? How can we make this right? He’s not even human anymore. And if we can’t even fix Clyde...

  “We have to stop him from casting,” Shaw says. She speaks haltingly, one hand to her mouth, as if holding back the bile.

  I can feel tears leaking down my cheek. This man was my friend.

  “We can’t just interrupt the power source. This place generates enough juice for fifty percent of Britain. If we interrupt it...”

  I flash back to Kayla burying the sword into the car battery, to the explosion that ripped the student in two.

  “We do more damage than the Feeder,” I say.

  “No.” Shaw shakes her head. “We just do it quicker, is all.”

  I look at Clyde again. His eyes are sightless. He is oblivious. “How do we interrupt him?” I say. “How do we get the attention of... of that.” It’s not a “him” anymore. Things have gone way beyond that.

  Shaw looks at me. The cracks in her mask of professionalism are spreading. Her lip is trembling. And I remember Kayla torturing the Progeny’s insider, Robert’s assistant. They live in the head and they don’t come out on their own.

  Except if Tabitha’s little black disk works. But Tabitha is... I don’t want to know what happened to Tabitha. Like Shaw said: nothing good.

  “We have to kill him, don’t we?” God, that hurts to say

  Shaw nods. That hurts too.

  I look down at the gun. Bloody thing. Nothing but bloody trouble, these things.

  Oh shit. I raise the gun, try to sight it. My hand is trembling so hard I can’t focus. My vision keeps blurring. I keep thinking about Swann. I don’t want to lose another friend.

  He’s not my friend. He’s not my friend. It’s like Kayla said, my friend is dead. He just hasn’t stopped moving yet.

  In the distance I can hear parts of the building tearing away. I can hear explosions and animal bellowing.

  I blink my eyes. I try to steady my hands.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” I say.

  “You can’t.”

  It’s not Shaw who speaks. A thin whisper of a voice that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere. Shaw’s eyes go wide.r />
  Something detaches itself from the shadows. I spin, but I still can’t get my hands steady, can’t line up a shot. I don’t even get to pull the trigger before the runner closes the distance and buries a fist in my guts.

  57

  I hit the floor, cracking my tailbone, rocking back in pain. The runner is already on me. His narrow fists pummel me at speed, fast as the lightning that crackles through the room. The gun spins from my hand. My head snaps sideways and I see Shaw leaping for it. But the runner is off me and across the floor, beating her with ease. One of his feet connects with the gun and it spins away. The second foot comes through and catches Shaw in the ribs. The air leaves her so fast she doesn’t even cry out.

  I’m trying to get up. I manage to roll onto my stomach, but my arms are useless at my sides. Not enough strength to lever myself up. The runner grabs Shaw by the collar, hoists her up and then brings her over his head, like he’s windmilling a sack of so much flesh and bone. Shaw crashes to the ground next to me. Her head makes a dull thwack against the concrete. She moans in pain, balling up like a babe.

  The runner finally moves slowly. He knows there’s no hurry. I push against the floor again but I can barely even lift my nose off. My breath bubbles through blood.

  He stands over us.

  “We were to use the one you call Olsted for this,” he says. His voice is the same thin whisper, rough and hoarse, but not weak. “He was to be the one to sacrifice himself. But once we had your creature we decided to use him. To try to tell you. To try to get you to understand that you cannot win. There is only one end to this. But you don’t seem to understand. When will you realize how futile this is?”

  Another foot enters my field of vision. A shoe. And it’s not white. Not slender. Not elegant. A big, heavy-soled Doc Marten thing. It takes steps toward the runner. I let gravity take my head. It rolls sideways. And I recognize the figure.

  “This was always inevitable,” says the runner.

  “Really?” says Tabitha from behind him. “Bet you didn’t see this fucking coming.”

  58

  Tabitha is a mess. One side of her face is caked in blood, her hair matted to the ruined flesh of her forehead. Her arm on that side is crooked, and cradled to her chest. Her knees are bloody wounds, scrapes and scratches crosshatching their way up her thighs and down her shins. She’s breathing heavily and everything seems slow and ponderous as she holds up the black disk with the red button so that the runner can see it.

  And he moves. Quick as the lightning spewing out of Clyde behind us, so fast his whole body is a blur. And still he isn’t fast enough to catch Tabitha.

  She slams the disk down onto her chest, so her sternum crashes into the button. Something whines high-pitched and violent. Tabitha winces, still not convinced, despite her brave face, that this is really going to work.

  The runner stops. Like he hits a wall. Like a stick has been thrust between the spokes of his wheels. He just jams, frozen in his lunge, twisted awkwardly. The disk’s whine builds. It crackles with static, spitting white sparks out into the air.

  The runner starts to shake, a tremor that seems to build in his legs then slowly climb until his whole body is vibrating, faster and faster as the noise builds. I can hear his teeth rattling. And this is what you get, you bastard. This is what you bloody get. This is payback. You took Swann and now we’re going to take your body from you. See how you like it, asshole.

  The disk is shaking now. I can see Tabitha’s hand vibrating almost as fast as the runner. Electricity plays over her skin. A moan escapes her lips, rising to match the whine of the thing. My eardrums are beginning to feel the pressure. I make it to my knees just so I can press my hands to my ears. It doesn’t do any good.

  Tabitha curses, releases the disk. Pulls her hand back like it’s been burned. It probably has. The disk hangs there. Quivering in space. The runner quivers, jibbers, and shakes.

  And then, when it feels like my eardrums are going to give, the Progeny does instead.

  The disk suddenly rips apart. A tiny flare of flame, a crack of electricity. It explodes into plastic fragments and torn circuitry. The runner’s head snaps back. The Progeny is flung out forward, straight through the throat. The tendrils of its mouthparts snap and fly. I can see ethereal strands protruding from the runner’s neck, flapping uselessly. The maggot-caterpillar twists, arcs as if trying to free itself, the tiny beak of its mouth gnashing wildly. It twists back on itself, gnawing at its own flesh. And still it’s shaking, faster and faster, until chunks of it are flying off. It spatters, twitching, leaking white fluid onto the floor. And then it’s just white bloodless chunks that fade, and fade, and then they’re gone.

  The body of the runner falls. Just a body. The eyes roll back. Whoever was in there before the Progeny took up residence is gone. Completely, utterly gone.

  Tabitha’s crying. I make it to my feet—I don’t really understand how—stagger into her, give her some sort of hug. I don’t know who’s really supporting who. She just leans against me.

  “It’s OK,” I say. “He’s down. He’s gone.” I don’t know if it’s what I should say, what she needs me to say, but what else is there to do?

  Tabitha pulls violently away from me. “It’s not!” She half screams it. “How the fuck is it OK? It’s fucking broken.” She points to the shattered plastic on the ground. “It’s broken,” she says it again, a fractured whisper this time. She looks up at me. “How the fuck are we going to save Clyde now?”

  Oh no. Oh shit, and oh balls, she’s right.

  I look over at Clyde. I was too beaten up to even realize the hope we held for a moment. I’d written that plan off. But Tabitha had been holding that hope with her the whole time. She’d gotten here on her own, holding the disk. And a few feet from her goal she’d wasted our one remaining weapon on the runner. She’d wasted it to save Shaw and me. She didn’t know it but she picked us over the man she... loves? Loved? I don’t know anymore.

  Tabitha turns away from me, turns toward the sprawling mess that is Clyde. He’s bigger now. The skein of flesh covering the floor is thickening. Ropey veins are threading their way through it, blisters of fat and muscles pushing up through the surface. His face is lost in it all, eyes and mouth full of white fire. And maybe that’s why it takes me a moment to realize that Clyde isn’t totally given over to his power anymore. Maybe that’s why it takes me a moment to realize that, while we’re looking at Clyde, he’s looking right back.

  59

  “Too late.”

  Clyde’s voice, like his mind, is no longer his own. There’s a bit of the old plumminess, the well-bred geniality left there, but it’s buried deep and sinking fast. His voice hisses, an electrical crackle at the back of his consonants. He spits sparks every time his lips meet. There’s something like distortion at the edge of his speech, a screaming echo to every word.

  “I’ve done it,” he says. “I’ve brought them through. And the Dreamers are too weak and too exposed and too fucking small to turn it all around. We’ve won. You’re too late.”

  I pick up my gun.

  “Don’t,” Tabitha says. I don’t know if she’s talking to me or to Clyde. “Don’t. Just don’t.”

  Shaw is still on the ground, but she’s managed to uncurl herself, managed to get on all fours. Her head is still tucked down toward her chest.

  “You know what you have to do,” she says.

  “Don’t!” Tabitha screams it. She steps in front of me. But she’s not looking at me.

  “Come on, Clyde,” she says. “I know there’s a part of you left in there. You’re bigger than this. You’re better than this. You can fight this. You—”

  But the Progeny is already laughing. And as Tabitha plunges on, a vast strand of flesh explodes out of Clyde’s spreading form and smashes into her gut. A blunt, jointless arm of flesh and muscle that powers into her, lifts her off the ground, drives her backwards. She crashes into the back wall of the room, head bouncing off pipes and machiner
y.

  “Too late!” The Progeny that was Clyde screams it, still laughing.

  “Do it,” Shaw says, and then the tentacle of flesh whips down, just to the left of me, drives into her, knocks her back down to the floor with a crunch, and a crack, and a spray of blood.

  I’ve got the pistol bunched tight in my hands. I’m staring down the barrel. I can see Clyde’s face. Clyde lost in what he’s become. I see the face of the friend who is not my friend anymore.

  “Too late, Arthur,” Clyde whispers. “Too late, old boy.” Clyde starts to cackle again.

  And there’s only one thing to do. What Kurt Russell, with a single tear running down his cheek, would do.

  I pull the trigger.

  60

  I don’t see the bullet. You never see the bullet. Not outside of Hollywood anyway. They travel faster than sound. I can wave my hand fast enough that my eyes can barely keep up—I can’t believe they’re going to manage the trick with a supersonic chunk of lead.

  But the mind plays tricks. And magic is so thick in the air, I can taste it at the back of my throat. And for a moment time really does seem to slow. And I do wonder if maybe I see something in the air flying toward the face of someone who used to be my friend. Someone who just hasn’t stopped moving yet.

  He’s still laughing when the bullet ricochets off thin air and falls away.

  I stare. I fire again. Sparks fly in midair. The bullets whine away. Clyde remains—cackling and whole.

  The tentacle of flesh teeters above me, then crashes down.

  I barely make it. I hear the floor crack, feel splinters of concrete scoring my legs. I trip over Shaw and roll. I’m up and I’m trying to fire but he’s coming at me again. I dive back, over the whipping arm of flesh, like this is some ballsed-up game of jump rope. I land better this time. Well enough, in fact, to stop myself from tumbling face first into the bolt of lightning that cracks across the room.