by James Dean
"No, I told you I was done being your puppet. There is nothing you can do to me to make me change my mind," he said.
"You are stronger than I gave you credit for, Alan Anderson, but think of your sister Annabeth. Fulfill your mission and I will save her."
"What's wrong with her?" he asked, thinking of how her health had deteriorated. and the blood that came when she went into coughing fits.
"A cancer grows inside of her, eating away at her insides at a very rapid pace. There is no one left who can save her except for me. Kill Adrian Ring and she will live. A life for a life."
Alan was taken aback. Had the Devil really infected Anna with cancer? That would explain so much. He considered the Devil's offer. Adrian's life for hers, although it would be more than that. The future of the human race was supposedly in Adrian's hands. If he did kill him, it wouldn't be a life for a life. It would be billions of lives for one. Anna would never forgive him for that and to Alan, that was what really mattered. After so many years, he finally had his Sister back and she had forgiven him and that was what mattered.
"You know, at first I thought I was a badass. Look at me, the Devil's right hand man, but now I see things clearly. I'm just a sick and deranged monster with delusions of grandeur and you're an egomaniacal asshat. Get someone else to do your dirty work,"
The darkness shook and thunder boomed loud enough to cause Alan's ears to bleed. The air became so cold that it blackened his flesh with frost and suffocated him. He dropped to his knees in complete agony. He had done it; he had pissed off the Devil and he was about to pay for it. In a level of agony he had never experienced in life he found peace. It was all coming to an end. No more death and lies.
Alan awoke just as the first rays of dawn's light crept across the garage. His body ached and his skin felt raw. Looking at his hands and forearms he saw they were bright red like a bad sun burn. Before he could contemplate the events of what happened in the dark place and how it affected him in the real world, he thought of Beth and what the Devil had said. Launching himself off of his perch atop the abandoned car he raced into the garage, his heart racing.
He flung open the back office door expecting to see Beth still unconscious, laying in her make shift bed, but it was empty. Was she up and around, had she gotten better or was the Devil lying to him? The sound of something falling over in the garage caught his attention and he went to investigate. He caught the coppery smell of fresh blood and he felt his own turn into ice in his veins. He brought his hand to his mouth to stifle his cry as his heart shattered. Leaning over the bodies of Ted and Sasha was Beth, soaked in blood and shoving fistfuls of organs into her ravenous mouth.
"Beth," he said sadly as he removed his hand from his mouth, keeping his eyes on the thing that used to be his sister.
She turned her head towards him, dropping the pieces of Ted and Sasha. Rising, she shuffled towards Alan, her arms out stretched. He stepped into her arms and placed a hand on her blood covered cheek, stroking it gently. Tears spilled down his cheeks as she allowed him to touch her without pulling away in revulsion or fear. It was all he ever wanted. She stepped in closer and he wrapped his arms around her and held her close, kissing the top of her head. Even in death, he loved her more than anything in the world.
A searing pain tore through his neck as Beth's teeth sunk into his neck and ripped a chunk of flesh off. He felt the hot blood rush down his front soaking and staining his clothes, but still he held her close. Again, her teeth sank into him, ripping meat and muscle away but he held her until he collapsed to the ground. As his eyes glazed over they fell on the young woman standing above him and with the last ounce of life left inside of him, he smiled.
*****
The thing that had once been Annabeth Anderson stood idly by the body of her brother Alan when movement from the corner of her undead eyes caught her attention. She watched as her brother's body pulled itself up from the floor and stood before her. Without aim, he started to shuffle past her when their hands touched. On reflex the brother and sister's hands closed around each other tight and their eyes met.
That was how they stood, hand in hand, gazing into each other's eyes until their time came.
The End
ABOUT CHRISTOPHER T. MACDONALD
Christopher T. MacDonald lives in the great state of New Hampshire with his incredible wife and two awesome daughters. When not writing or spending time with his family, you can find him working in the kitchen of the Lucky Dog Tavern and Grill in Plymouth NH. Chris also enjoys long walks on the beach and candle lit dinners.
You can also find him on the internet at www.facebook.com/chris.macdonald.980.
He needs friends.
Only a Few Miles to Home
Chris Philbrook
Summer of 2009, one year before 'that day.'
The Camry's stereo blasted Seether's Breakdown so loud the guitar vibrated the rear-view mirror mounted in the windshield, and fought to shake the smaller ones mounted on the door. The Toyota held itself together fiercely against the onslaught of noise and pressed forward like an icebreaker through rough seas. As Adrian approached Steve's parent's place, he reached over and turned the knob down, giving the mirrors a reprieve from the sonic assault. The car seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as he braked.
Adrian guided his sedan through the gap in the stockade walls that surrounded the 'Davis family Compound' and slowed to a crawl.
"Don't flip your shit, Gary. I'm doing five," Adrian muttered as he waved to the group of people standing on the old cape's slanted porch. Gary (Steve' dad) had a hatred for anyone who drove on or near his property, period, and an intense hatred for anyone who drove faster than what he believed reasonable. This coming from a man who had a driveway less than thirty yards long, who kept a tractor, a pickup, and two mid-nineties subcompacts that had seen better days parked in a zig-zag pattern in said driveway. Driving five miles an hour was impossible.
"Slow down!" Gary yelled from the porch beside Steve. The old man threw up a hand in disgust as Adrian put the car in park.
"Fuck off, Gary! I'm already parked you asshole!" Adrian yelled out of the window with a grin before hitting the button to make the glass go all the way up. He ignored Steve's dad as the grumpy old man found colorful insults to hurl at his son's friend. Steve trotted out to Adrian's car with a spare beer in hand as the big man stepped out and stood up. He had a full head's height on his thinner friend.
"Hey bro," Steve said, extending the spare beer to his friend. Adrian took it and downed a mouthful immediately. "Hot enough for you?"
"This isn't hot. It's less than a hundred, and we have beer. I can tell you about Baghdad again, if you like. That's hot. Remind me why I agreed to come to your house for your birthday? Your parents are such assholes, and the dogs always try to jump on me to lick my face. I mean… they're nice dogs, but they don't listen for shit."
"They're cute though."
"They're obnoxious," Adrian countered.
"Come on. Don't be an asshat. You love the dogs, and my parents are the best. They're just like your parents, except my dad never served in the military and still thinks he's the baddest guy on the block."
"Only because he's hoarding canned goods and has this big fucking fence to hide behind," Adrian said with a chuckle.
"I know, right? He's got three kinds of tinfoil hat on every floor of this place, but drinks the shittiest beer in the world. What does that say about him?"
"Everything, Steve. Everything." The two men started walking toward the porch. "The dogs are cute."
"I know. I told you."
*****
The men sat on the porch together. At their feet lay a panting dog, hot enough that its spots might've been melting off its hide. Inside the small house with the windows half-blocked by clutter, they could hear Steve's parents arguing over how long to cook the chicken on the grill. Steve's dad wanted the meat charred to ruin, and Steve's mom wanted it digestible.
"You get any sleep?" Steve a
sked.
"Yeah, some. I'll be tired tonight, but it's not like I have a real job. Babysitting sleeping, snooty teenagers is hardly something I need to be coherent for. I'll double down on the caffeine and rock it."
"In laziness we trust, amen. How's Cassie? How come she couldn't make it?" Steve asked Adrian right before stuffing a piping hot pigs-in-a-blanket into his face. He huffed and puffed, waving at his face as he tried to cool the too-hot food in his mouth.
"We're taking that vacation to Hong Kong next month? She's trying to bank some extra money for it and pulled a shift at the club. Tips are so good she'll have all her spending cash in a couple nights."
Steve struggled the hot dog wrapped in burnt croissant down and cooled his scorched tongue with more cheap beer. "Ouch. You okay with your saucy redhead working at the titty bar without you there to smash heads?"
"There would be more of an issue if I were working there instead, which will come about on Friday, when I have my shift and she's home." Adrian drank more beer.
"She get jealous?" Steve asked.
"Only a little. She's good."
"She is good. Treat her right and you'll be a happy man. One day I aspire to find a woman who will treat me as well as I deserve," Steve said, popping another too-hot treat into his mouth.
"That's the problem with you, dude. You keep finding women who treat you exactly as well as you deserve. You need to change up your shit and deserve to be treated better. Only then will you find a woman willing to treat you as well as you want to be treated."
"When was the last time I told you to go fuck yourself?"
"Uhh… pretty recently. Within a week. I'd be shocked if it were longer than that."
"Ah, okay. Good. Cuz… well you know."
"Right. I do. Good times. Those any good?" Adrian pointed at the tray of pigs-in-a-blanket. Steve popped another and chewed it voraciously. He didn't answer.
"You didn't do any grocery shopping this week, did you?" Adrian asked.
"Nope. Forgot."
"Your mom made them?"
"Yeah. They're fucking awful," he said and popped another.
"How do you fuck up pigs-in-a-blanket?" Adrian mused and sipped his beer.
"Go ask my mom," Steve said, and tossed one to the Dalmatian that sat nearby. The dog smelled the food, and rolled over, away from the inedible bit.
*****
Adrian left the 'Davis family compound' with a few hours to spare before his third shift job at Auburn Lake Preparatory Academy. He had a ten minute drive home, and he had to shower and get his overnight bag ready. He had to pack his laptop for certain, and he needed to bring in some good coffee. The coffee in the dorm and cafeteria at the school would clean the undercarriage of a mudding truck in spring just sitting near it.
He put his directional on, looked both ways then pulled onto the road that headed towards Main Street. His cell phone rang from the cup holder at his side.
Caller Unknown--the screen said, and Adrian felt a rush of happiness. The likelihood that the call came from one of his two deployed brothers was high. He reached down, dragged his thumb over the answer button, and held the phone to his ear.
"Hey there," Adrian said, hoping for the right response.
"Hey big brother," Thomas said back. "You busy?"
Adrian breathed a sigh of relief. "Just driving. Quiet here, I can talk."
"How you doing?" Thomas asked.
"I'm alright. Hot, gotta head home and get ready for work tonight. How you doing? Can you say where you are? Is it late where you're at? You safe?"
"Early. We had some delays on a mission and I had some time. Safe enough, but safety relative. Figured I'd call. You still at that dead-end job at that school?"
"I prefer to think of it as a 'carefully designed lifestyle choice' position, Tommy. And yeah I'm still there, for now. I'll start looking for something different when I finish my classes and get my degree."
"You better. You're smarter than that. You've got a lot of to offer the world beyond babysitting sleeping teenagers."
"Someone has to do it," Adrian said with cheer as he slowed down to the town's speed limit. A car several hundred yards back didn't slow, and Adrian watched them. In the background of the call, he could hear loud machinery vibrating away. Maybe a Blackhawk spinning up. Beneath that he could hear men and women yelling. "You outside?"
"On the tarmac. Too loud? I can duck inside a trailer."
"It's cool. I can hear stuff moving. You near helos?" Adrian asked as the car to his rear continued getting closer. His hand gripped the steering wheel tighter, but he didn't realize it.
"Yeah. That's the delay. We got scrubbed and another team got the call."
"That's a bitch. All dressed up and nowhere to go."
Thomas laughed. "Yeah. How's Cassie?"
"She's good. Working tonight. We've got a Hong Kong vacation soon."
"Yeah that's exciting. Hong Kong is cool. You thinking about marriage yet?"
Adrian's eyes fixated on the rear-view mirror and the car that now pressed against his bumper. The driver's eyes were visible as were their clenched hands on the steering wheel. Adrian could see the mustached man yell at him, pissed that he had slowed to the speed limit. Adrian's heart rate began to climb.
"You hear me?" Thomas asked.
"Yeah, sorry. This dick is tailgating me."
"Pull over and let him by. Let him be in a hurry to die."
"Ha, fuck 'em. He can follow me. I'll slow down."
"Don't be a dick. You're not that guy," Thomas chastised.
"I know. Caleb is. Hey you talk to William at all? I haven’t gotten any emails from him on this deployment. Normally we get one a week." The man behind Adrian continued to gesture and yell, as if it would intimidate the man in the front car into driving differently. Adrian's heart kept up its pounding, but he ignored it.
"Don't change the subject. Thinking of marriage yet? You two have been together long enough, and you're certainly happy enough that it should be on the agenda," Thomas said.
"I know. I want to, I just… can't seem to pull the trigger. I know she wants to get married, I just can't find the reason. I mean we're happy. Why fuck that up?"
"Because not everyone can marry and they might want to, and/or because she wants to be your wife, and she'd be a good one. You love her and she loves you. Commit, idiot," Thomas said to his older brother.
"That's fair. I'll start making plans. Save for a ring," Adrian lied.
"Ha, save for a 'ring.' I hope you're not fibbing. Dibs on being best man," Thomas said, happy.
"I wouldn't get married unless you could be there for me. The gig is yours. So back to William. You hear anything?"
"Nada. I know they were on a Pacific Ocean deployment and he was on a frigate attached to a carrier group. Nothing from him though. I think now that he's seeing that girl back at port we'll be hearing a lot less from him."
"So true. I hope he's happy. No base rats allowed in the Ring family. Are there gay base rats? Is that a thing?" Adrian asked his brother.
"Big time. Especially in San Diego. I mean, they're not really hanging around military bars looking to get married so they can claim military benefits, but the bases tend to draw in a lot of guys looking for young, physically vibrant men," Thomas explained. "The pickings are anything but slim."
"Somehow, the word 'vibrant' made me creeped out. Gross. I'm gonna kill this motherfucker behind me," Adrian said, still gripping the wheel tight and looking into the mirror. Heart pounding worse, he tore his eyes away from the mirror and looked forward. Less than a hundred yards in front of the car on the small town's unkempt sidewalk he saw a pile of abandoned garbage. Several white trash bags sat surrounded by empty paint cans and a broken television. The trash bags were fine… but-
Adrian's hands went numb, and sweat launched from his skin.
"Don't," Thomas said, dismissing Adrian's idle threat. In the background of Afghanistan, or Iraq, or wherever Thomas was the sound of people yel
ling, and the beating thrum of a helicopter's rotors stirred up something deep inside Adrian.
The words triggered another phase of the unseen breakdown inside him. The garbage on the roadside… the man with the mustache following too close, driving aggressively, the terrible heat of the mid-summer night, and the sound of helicopters in the phone he held up to his ear…
The man honked at Adrian, and the unraveling was complete.
Noises did it for him. Snaps, pops, or horns were the worst. They made him revert. Made him lock up. It hadn't happened in a long time, but it was happening now.
"Adrian?"
Adrian felt smothered by weight. His chest tightened as if he wore his military body armor too snug, and he felt the trapped heat of a helmet crowning his skull. The sensation of his sneakers at his ankles crept up the skin on his calves until they felt like boots, and the smell of fresh cut grass in the summer warped into the hot interior of a humvee--filled with diesel and body odor--rolling down a bombed-out street of Baghdad.
Adrian froze, and his car started to drift into the opposing lane.
"Adrian?"
A car coming straight at him let loose their horn in a desperate bleat and stomped on their brakes. The loud gesture to alert the errant driver backfired, and sent Adrian into a further shutdown. He felt his heart hammer in his chest, skipping beats and threatening to jump straight through his ribs to get away. To get safe. To get outside of him. As he felt the little red organ fail, his stomach turned to hot, acidic jelly, and he continued to stare out of the windshield of his car at the stopped vehicle ahead that he was about to hit.
