by Jason Brant
“Shut up, nerd, and get your ass over here!” The nearest man drew a bead on Scott with his pistol. “And keep your hands where I can see them! This shit has gone off the deep end and I’ll shoot the first asshole that gives me any attitude.”
“Sure, sure, I can do that! Shouldn’t we see if anyone survived that accident first though? I mean, I’m pretty sure that the woman didn’t make it seeing as she’s just a dark spot on the road, but someone else might still be alive in there, let me tell you. What if—”
“I said shut up! Shut that damn dog up too! There’s some crazy shit going on here. I can’t think with you—”
“Maybe he’s right,” another man interrupted. He wore the same style black suit with a white shirt underneath. His neck was the same size too. “The boss is in that car. If we don’t help him out, he’ll have us skinned alive.”
The first guy mulled it over. Aaron thought it probably caused him physical pain to think things through.
“Fine. We’ll get the boss out and see what he wants to do.”
Aaron couldn’t believe his eyes when the man started toward the darkness.
“Stop! The other guy with you was just taken!” These guys were dumber than he could have imagined.
“Well, how do we get to the other car?” the man asked.
“Walk in the headlights.”
Jesus.
“Oh. Yeah, OK.” He started forward again.
“Take care of that piece of shit colonel if he’s still alive,” the second man said.
Chapter 21
It took McKenzie a few seconds to realize that he was staring at his feet.
The SUV was on its side and he was upside down, on top of one of the gorillas. No one else inside appeared to be conscious.
Copper and rot stunk up the air. He understood why he smelled copper, he was covered in blood after all, but the rot didn’t compute.
Flashes of people lining the road came back to him then. Hundreds of people just staring at the car as it went past. Only glimpses of them were visible before the car flipped but it was one of the creepiest things he’d ever seen.
McKenzie tried to lift his arms, wanting to grab a headrest and pull himself up. Only his right moved.
Then the pain hit – stabbing, deep agony in his upper left arm. When he looked down at it he noticed that a second joint had appeared at his biceps, bending the opposite direction of his elbow. The misery grew as he stared at it.
The casing around the dome light was shattered, but the bulb hadn’t been touched. To have survived the crash without wearing a seatbelt only to die because a tiny light went out would have been too much. If the pain in his arm kept building though, he might have to change his mind.
Both the left window, which would have been above him now, and the giant sitting beside it, were gone. The opening where the window used to be wasn’t big enough for such a large man to fit through, so he must have been thrown somewhere else inside the vehicle. McKenzie couldn’t find him, guessing that he was probably in the third row of seating.
Through the windowless hole McKenzie could see that the sky had the tiniest amount of color in it. Sunrise would be coming soon. Things would probably get really interesting then.
People shouted from somewhere outside. McKenzie couldn’t make out the exact words, but it sounded like an argument of some kind. A dog barked continuously.
“Take care of that piece of shit colonel if he’s still alive.”
That came through crystal clear.
They would be on him within seconds.
McKenzie rolled to his right, placing his legs against the back of the front passenger seat. The pain was exquisite. He tried to ignore it. Using the headrest allowed him to work to his knees.
A low whining sound filled the cabin. It took McKenzie several seconds to realize it came from him. Blooms of light flashed across his vision as his arm dragged across seemingly every object around him. Small tugs from his handcuffs sent white hot spears of misery all the way to his shoulder
The weight of the SUV shifted. Someone was climbing on the bottom so they could see through the windows. McKenzie knew he would be executed on sight.
“Anyone alive in there?”
A small hump in the unconscious gorilla’s jacket grabbed the colonel’s attention. He brushed the coat open with his functional hand, revealing a large pistol resting in a shoulder holster.
He unbuttoned the leather strap holding the gun in place.
The vehicle shifted more.
Chunks of glass from the shattered window fell onto McKenzie’s head.
“So you’re still alive?” The voice from above was deep and confident.
“I am.” McKenzie pulled the gun free and whirled around, aiming the pistol straight up. Everything blurred as his busted arm was tugged along by the cuffs. “Too bad I can’t say the same for you.”
Through his hazy vision he shot at the dark blob that he assumed was a head and put a round dead center in the mass. Red mist fell into the cabin, forcing his eyes shut. The car shifted one last time as the big man slid free of it, landing on the road with a heavy thud.
The rest of the morons outside went nuts. They shouted back and forth, trying to goad each other into going after McKenzie. Other voices murmured at a much lower volume. Who the hell was that?
A quick peek into the front seat confirmed that Baldie and the driver had kicked the bucket. Baldie’s head was bent at unnatural angle. Good. He was a real dick.
Because he only had one good hand, McKenzie stuffed the pistol into his waistband. He reached for the arm rest on the door above him. His hand shook like a leaf. Shock was taking over. If he didn’t get out of the car and take care of the rest of the hired help in the next few moments, he would be a dead man.
“I said stay where you are, you little shit! I don’t care who you talked to!”
Who were they shouting at? Had they somehow stumbled upon some survivors? Or were they talking to Miles?
If they’d already thrown Miles to the darkness, he would kill them all. Slowly. Very slowly.
McKenzie pulled himself up, standing on the front seat and headrest, balancing as best he could. Miraculously, the side view mirror remained intact. The glass had a thin crack running down the middle, but it was fully functional. He tried not to scream as he reached past the driver and manipulated the power controls for the mirror.
After some fiddling, he managed to angle the mirror enough that he could see a small group of people huddled together. One of them, a dorky man dressed like a lab technician, held a lantern in front of him. Two teens clung to each other, both covered in blood and dirt. Another woman stood with them, shouting at the armed thugs by the other SUV and holding onto a dog.
The large group of people that had blanketed either side of the road was nowhere to be seen. Had he imagined them? He couldn’t have – one of the gorillas had seen them as well.
McKenzie tried to focus on the people that were still there. Somehow he’d found a group of people less than a mile from the edge of the dark. Did they know that the rest of the world was unaffected? Due to the communications blackout, he doubted it. They probably thought the apocalypse had occurred – the Mayans were just off by a little.
One of the black suits stood in front of the car, an easy target between the headlights. The mirror wouldn’t rotate far enough for him to see the others.
McKenzie pulled the pistol free, took a deep breath, counted to three, and popped up through the window.
The bones in his broken arm grated together as he took aim.
His first shot went wide, punching through the windshield.
He squeezed off two more rounds, hitting pay dirt with both. Gorilla number two collapsed to the ground in a heap. Bullets whizzed past as the colonel dropped back through the window.
Christ, had he hit Miles with that first shot? He assumed the sergeant was somewhere in the back of the car.
His head swam as he braced himself be
tween the seats, praying that he wouldn’t pass out from the pain. Both hands shook with such violence that he struggled to keep a grip on the pistol. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he could fire again with anything approaching accuracy.
“One more step, boy, and I’ll take you out!”
McKenzie mentally pictured the group of survivors slowly stepping away, trying to escape the gunfight.
“Colonel! If you come out now, we won’t kill you! You have our word!”
If McKenzie wasn’t on the verge of collapsing, he would have burst out laughing. No one in their right mind would buy that bullshit.
That raised the question of what he would do next. His legs were growing tired from crouching inside the car, his hands wouldn’t stop shaking, and he couldn’t get the spinning in his head to slow. He was up shit creek without a paddle and he knew it.
The dog’s barks grew louder.
“Get that mutt quiet or—”
Gunfire erupted.
Two shots, rapid fire. Sounded like a double tap to the colonel.
Fearing a trick, McKenzie tried to look in the mirror, not wanting to stick his head out.
The dog went silent.
“It’s clear, sir!”
Miles’ voice sounded like the singing of angels.
McKenzie eased his head out of the window an inch at a time, making sure everything was safe. Miles stood by the civilians with one of the giant’s pistols in his hands, which were still handcuffed in front of him.
More color touched the sky. McKenzie could see details of their surroundings emerging in the darkness.
Two bodies rested in the road on either side of the second SUV.
“I’m going to need some help,” McKenzie said. “My ass is thoroughly kicked.
Chapter 22
It took several minutes for the handcuffed shooter, Miles he’d been called, to lift a bloodied and broken man from the wreckage.
Christy stayed back with Scott, Stephanie, and Aaron, watching the sky to the east with unparalleled anticipation.
The man pulled from the crash was in rough shape. Dozens of cuts and scrapes covered his exposed skin. A grotesque bend above his elbow forced Christy to look away.
Scott’s nervousness reached a whole new level. His hands worked continuously against the broken housing of the lantern. He shifted his weight from one foot to the next like a child doing the pee-pee dance.
“Holy crap. Your arm is really gross. I think some serious surgery is in your future, let me tell you. Is it compounded? It looks like it might be. If it is that’s even more disgusting. One time when I was about ten years old—”
“Who are you people? Where did you come from?” the wounded man asked. He had a military haircut and piercing blue eyes. “And where the hell are all of the other people I saw beside the road? Christ, there had to be a hundred of them.”
“That’s a really long story,” Christy said.
And it was. Each of them had survived by a combination of luck and fortitude. They’d all suffered horrible losses. To discuss it would take hours and Christy didn’t know if enough willpower remained inside of her to go through it.
As for where they had gone... that was the million dollar question. Christy and her group of survivors had been completely surrounded, dogged at every step. And then they just slipped away. Why?
Fortunately, the man nodded his head in understanding. As they stepped closer to the headlights of the second vehicle his injuries became more apparent. His hands, also cuffed, shook in front of him as he limped along the road.
They stopped by the front of the car. A patch of darkness separated them from the dim glow put off by the lantern in Scott’s hands. Christy thought they should move closer to the SUV, but she wanted to make sure that these new men were safe. They’d survived too much to simply trust someone else.
“Why are the two of you handcuffed?” Stephanie asked, beating Christy to the question. Blood still coursed down her face, but her eyes had cleared somewhat.
“That’s also a long story. I’m Colonel McKenzie and this is Sergeant Miles.”
The answer to what had happened to the denizens of the dark hit Christy like a slap to the face. She looked at the dead bodies of the agents by the SUV, piecing it together. They had used the crazy woman, manipulating her so that she would kill Christy and her friends.
When that failed they backed off, watching from the shadows as the agents drew their weapons and threatened to shoot Scott and Aaron.
But now that those men were dead, what would they do next?
Miles and McKenzie noticed the long red smear on the road. “Jesus, what happened—”
“Scott.”
The voice was close and unexpected, coming from just behind the astrophysicist. Christy spun around and saw a short woman standing in Scott’s shadow, almost within arm’s reach of his back.
Scott, already on the verge of a nervous breakdown, screamed and dropped the lantern.
They glided out of the darkness again, surrounding everything that was visible in the light. Their legs didn’t move, yet they drew closer, as if they stood on one of the moving sidewalks found in an airport.
Colonel McKenzie shouted something in fear and confusion that Christy couldn’t make out.
The lantern fell in slow motion; too far away for Christy to catch it, but close enough that she tried anyway.
It bounced off the packed dirt of the road’s shoulder, the LED finally dying, its dim light winking out.
The darkness descended upon them.
Pain, immediate and blinding, consumed Christy. She was lifted from her feet by a thousand hooks of agony.
Her muscles stretched and tore, joints pulling to their limits. Organs and blood heated, wanting to boil in their cavities. Blackness wrapped around her, crushing and stretching her tissue at the same time.
Muted, hollow barks came from far away as Molly tried to free her master.
Small flashes of light, like sparks or fireflies, filled the air around them.
Then Christy was released – falling, landing on her knees in the dirt. She gasped, choking on the air, her body shaking uncontrollably as spasms racked her tortured muscles.
Through bleary eyes, Christy could make out the dark shapes of Aaron and Stephanie beside her. They sobbed and sucked in air, trembling in each other’s arms. Scott fell behind them, landing on his side.
The sun crested behind them, bathing their backs in warm light. Its harsh rays crashed against the evil surrounding them.
They shrieked and disappeared in an eruption of smoldering cinders. The pieces melted into the darkness in midair, lost in the surrounding sparks.
Molly whimpered, tail tucked, and hid behind Christy’s legs.
A hissing, like a wet log thrown on a fire, grew in volume as the glimmers of light spread everywhere. The smell of rot abated. Christy noticed that she could see further than before. Trees on the other side of the road were visible even though they were at least fifty feet away. Aaron and Stephanie’s features cleared, their pain-ridden faces seeable in the twilight.
The darkness swirled to their right, moving about in a downward spiral, narrowing to a point just above the pebble-covered shoulder. Thousands of flashes of light flowed through the cyclone-like spire, condensing at the bottom.
A form took shape, growing and molding, chiseling out the figure of a man. The area behind the spiral cleared slightly, showing the empty highway behind.
From the concentrated shadow stepped Walter.
He wore the same clothing that he’d died in, but the blood and grime that covered him as he bled out were gone.
Christy’s weary knees turned to rubber. They couldn’t do this to her.
“Christy.” Walter’s voice was his, but different somehow. Calmer. Emotionless.
“No!” Aaron cried, his pain and torment strangling his words. “Not him!”
It didn’t acknowledge the boy.
“Christy. Come with me.”
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She struggled through tears that flowed once again. Fighting the convulsions and suffering that crushed her body, Christy forced herself to stand, facing that which tortured her.
Walter had saved them all only to be taken by them. God damn them all.
“You have such sights to see. The universe will open up to you. No pain. No fear.”
“What. The. Fuck.” Though Miles still held the gun in his hands, he didn’t bother pointing it. McKenzie stood beside him in the headlights, staring in disbelief at the abomination before Christy.
“They’re all in here with us. This is your chance at immortality – at infinity.”
Flakes of Walter separated from his body as if blown off by an unfelt wind. He held out his hand to Christy.
“You bastards,” Christy whispered. She knew she should turn her back to it, but she was tired of showing fear and refused to avert her eyes. “I’ll kill you all.”
Dust fell from his fingers, disintegrating in sparks like the darkness surrounding them.
His hand fell apart like so many ashes. The destruction continued up his arm to his shoulder.
Walter’s face changed. Something moved under his skin, manipulating his features. His calm demeanor vanished, replaced by a predatory malice.
“We’ll see you again.”
Flesh leafed away from his cheeks.
“Soon.”
The flashes of light floating in the darkness increased in a blinding series of micro explosions. Serpentine hisses stabbed at their ears.
Walter burst from the inside out, pieces of him decaying in midair.
The darkness pulled in on itself, condensing in a single point, exposing the area around them as it evaporated like a fog in the morning.
And then it was gone.
The world had returned.
Epilogue
They sat in the middle of Route 40 and cried.
For the thousands of dead.
Their families.
Walter.
Scott rambled incoherently about the scientific possibilities of what they’d seen. The terror they’d experienced minutes before manifested in his spastic movements. He scrawled equations in the dirt beside the road with a stick, mumbling to himself.
