Skin on My Skin

by John Burks

  “My baby. This world… it’s…”

  There wasn’t really anything she could say. I should have realized it at the time we set the fire, but she sounded just like my father when he tried to kill me.

  I lowered the rifle to the ground, letting it slip away. I took Jenna’s hand. “We have to go.”

  “Mommy,” the thing growled, looking at me. It pointed to the south, away from the city.

  The implication was clear. It wanted us to leave and I had no idea how Brian, the apparent leader of the group of feral plague monsters could keep his cohorts in check. I kept a death lock on Jenna’s hand and lead her down the alleyway formed by the mutated children. I did my dead level best not to make eye contact. There was so much hatred there, a murderous rage boiling just beneath the surface. These beasts wanted nothing more than to destroy us and, quite honestly, I didn’t blame them.

  As we left I finally realized the monster children, with Brian as their leader, were my family. In a way, and in literal sense in a lot of cases I was sure, those children were my brothers and sisters.

  My father had made us all monsters.

  We walked without looking back and we didn’t stop for anything. Jenna didn’t say anything the entire way and, at that point, I was okay with that. I’d have liked nothing better than to be back in the Penthouse, away from my father and my twisted siblings, but I knew that was never going to happen. When we finally made our way across the old bridge into New Jersey, I knew then I’d never go back to the home I’d made for myself in the dying old city. I stopped and turned, taking it in, in all its decaying glory one last time as the sun began to set.

  Jenna didn’t look back. I didn’t blame her. Not that it was a competition, but as survivor stories went hers was much worse.

  We found the other surviving Touchers just where they said they’d be. The park across from the old sporting goods store might have been nice, fifteen years ago, but now the playground equipment was overgrown with weeds. The old sports store across the street had been looted long ago, but the remaining dozen men and women had managed a reasonable amount of gear. It was a start, anyway. I had better gear back at the old penthouse but there was no way we were going back into the city of monsters to get it. I was going to have to show them how to scavenge for real in the future, I guess.

  And then I laughed. The future… it wasn’t something I’d ever thought about before. The idea of there actually being one appealed to me on some basic level.

  “What took you so long?” Frank asked, coming and sweeping up Jenna in his arms.

  I paused, wondering what Jenna might say to the man. Would she tell him about the beasts we’d left in the city? Would she tell him about her son and his new tribe? I waited for her to respond, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked at me, winked, and then stroked my cheek like we were old lovers.

  “We got caught up in the moment,” Jenna said softly. Her lie was so complete I almost believed her. I wanted to believe her. “We had to celebrate.”

  “Fine time for that,” Frank grunted. “We need to get moving. Henry has found an old bus he thinks might be serviceable and enough fuel to go for a little bit. Where are we going, anyway?”

  “Florida,” Jenna replied without any hesitation. “I always wanted to go there.”

  Frank nodded and joined the other Touchers who were gathering. Jenna went to join them and I stopped her, grabbing her hand.

  “What?” she asked, annoyed with me.

  “You aren’t going to tell them?”

  “About?”

  “The kids back there. Your kids.”

  “I don’t think there’s any reason to tell them that, is there? Why ruin the trip?” Jenna asked and, for a moment, I wondered if she’d gone on and lost her grip on sanity. She had a faraway look in her eyes. We’d seen so much in the last couple of hours, and even before that. I knew that if she was slipping, I’d only helped contribute to the situation. I hadn’t helped her when she needed it the most.

  “I won’t say anything right now,” I told her. “But you have to answer one thing for me.”

  “What?”

  “Can they breed?” I asked, images of a dead city filled with even deadlier monsters hard to get out of my head.

  “I don’t know… why?” Jenna asked, though she didn’t really want to know the answer to that. I got the impression, from her tone, she didn’t actually want me asking. I didn’t want to know either and was stuck with the vision I’d have of New York inhabited with Brian’s offspring.

  But we weren’t in New York anymore and we were going to head south, to Florida. What was left in that dead city was more than welcome to die along with it. We were, for the moment, safe. And if my father was to believed, the human race wasn’t doomed and the secret to unlocking our salvation was tucked safely away in my own blood. I didn’t know whether to believe the man or not. He had, after all, murdered a planet.

  There would be time for all of that later, I thought, falling in behind the Touchers as they headed south, away from New York.

  A new day was dawning and, for the first time, I had a little hope about it.

  About the Author

  John is a transplanted Texan and currently mayor of Hooker Island, Oklahoma. He is a fourth generation oilfield worker, occasional drunk, and epic doer of mostly useless stuff. He is aspiring to be an aspiring writer while doing a bit of Redneck Gardening on the side. He is married to the most fabulous woman on the planet and has five mostly evil children.

  He writes what he likes to read, which is a bit of everything.

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  Other Books and Stories by John A Burks

  Two Moon Dawn - The Witch and the Werewolf

  Cassandra Kent only wanted spend humanity’s last night in her lover’s embrace, watching as the world killing comet known as Wormwood slammed into the Earth, obliterating life as we know it. For one night she wanted to be free of her over protective mother, free to finally do what she wanted.

  Fate though, doesn’t always cooperate with one’s desires. Fate, sometimes, is a real bitch.

  Cassandra learns two important things on that, the last night of the old world. The first is that not only are werewolves real, but her mother’s people, the witches, have been hunting them for generations. For hundreds of years the witches have been the only force keeping the werewolves from overrunning the world and turning man into a primary food source. With the coming of Wormwood, though, the scales have tipped. Mankind will no longer be the dominant species on the planet.

  Cassandra just barely escapes into the post apocalyptic wastelands around Houston, Texas as the pack slaughters her mother. As she runs her mothers’s last words ring in her ears. In order to save the human survivors from the werewolves she must find and kill the first werwolf, ending his control over the world’s packs.

  Kill the alpha, save the world.

  But in order to do that, though, she’s going to have to learn exactly what it means to be a witch and master her newfound powers. And she soon learns that the worst monsters, in the ruins, aren’t always the werewolves.

  Flesh Worn Stone - Book One of The Game

  (Free at Most major Retailers)

  Steven Alexander has what he considers the perfect life. With a good job, a loving wife, and happy and healthy sons, he has little to complain about. In a flash that life is ripped away and he is thrust into a world of violence and slavery beginning with a brutal home invasion. His sons are murdered in front of him and he and his wife Rebecca are then kidnapped, drugged, and taken to an uncharted tropical island where they awake on a pristine beach in the company of five strangers.

  The island is a playground of horror and the kidnapped are forced to participate in the Game, a modern-day rendition of the Coliseum of ancient Rome, where they must compete in acts of murder, rape, and self-mutilation for the amusement of an unse
en wealthy elite. Contestants must survive the Game five times to earn their freedom from the island. Losers become the evening meal.

  Steven struggles to survive in a world where violence is not only accepted but cheered. He fights to hold on to his wife in a community where cannibalism is survival, brutality is affection, and living another day is at the expense of his own soul. Survival comes with a price, however, and he soon learns that not only are not all of the players in the Game are not only willing participants, but they’ve paid a steep price for the opportunity.

  Bone Splintered Asphalt - Book Two of The Game

  Surviving the Game was only the beginning of the nightmare…

  Steven Alexander escaped the brutality of the Game, a modern-day rendition of the Coliseum of ancient Rome, where contestants must compete in acts of murder, rape, and self-mutilation for the amusement of an unseen wealthy elite. Contestants must survive the Game five times to earn their freedom. Losers become the evening meal. He escaped without winning, a feat unheard of in the five hundred year history of the Game.

  Steven lost everything to the Court, the ancient group that runs the Game. His sons were murdered in front of him. His wife disappeared into the debauchery of the Game. His old life was ripped away leaving him with no choice but to run, all the while trying to protect the innocent young girl, Mia, who he rescued from the Game.

  But how do you run from a worldwide organization that controls the police, the media, and politicians high and low? How do you find help among people who will do anything to become part of the Game? The Court will stop at nothing to protect the secrets of the Game and they want Steven back at any cost leaving him with only one choice… sweet, simple revenge.

  Blood Stained Mahogany - Book Three of The Game

  Mia Alexander was born into a life of slavery, a daughter of the Cave home to the Game, one of the most brutal sporting events conceived. The Game is a playground of horror and the people of the Cave, both those born there, those kidnapped and taken there, and those who volunteer for the debauchery, participate in a modern-day rendition of the coliseum of ancient Rome. They must compete in acts of murder, rape, and self-mutilation for the amusement of an unseen, wealthy elite. Contestants must survive the Game five times to earn not just their freedom from the Game, but a promised life of luxury. Losers become the evening meal.

  Mia struggles to stay a child in a world where violence is not only accepted but cheered, where cannibalism is survival, brutality is affection, and living another day is at the expense of his own soul. She envisions nothing for her life except attempting the Game, never knowing there is anything else but the Cave. When she’s abruptly taken from the Game, taken from her mother and everything she knows, she is introduced to a world where, for the briefest of movements, she tastes true freedom.

  But the freedom is short-lived and she’s soon thrust into the world of the Court, the secret society that has run the Game for the last five hundred years. Mia is adopted by the Queen of the Game and groomed to takeover

  Mia, however, is a child of the Cave. The Game pulses in her blood. When she runs afoul of her adoptive mother she is thrust back into the world of the Game. This time, however, she is not a child who will be rescued. This time she must survive the Game on her own or perish to its evils. And this time there is more than just the Game working against her.

  NecroTech

  When the oil finally ran out the world teetered on the edge of the apocalypse. Wars raged over the few remaining supplies and mankind huddled in the cold darkness, waiting for the lights to go out forever. Without the oil modern civilization came to a standstill and famine, disease, and crime raged. But one man, billionaire and war hero General Simon R. Benedict, pulled the world back from the edge of destruction, introducing a mysterious new clean burning and apparently infinite power supply known as nRgy. nRgy soon powers everything, from cell phones to automobiles and airplanes. Benedict’s company ushers in a new golden age and within years he becomes the most recognizable and revered man in the world.

  But the new golden years come at a price and Benedict’s company ruthlessly protects a dark secret. nRgy is produced from the ghosts of the recently deceased and Benedict will stop at nothing to not only protect his company’s secrets, but increase his power supply - even if that means mass murder.

  There are cracks in his empire, though, and the dead cannot be controlled forever. Now ingrained in every aspect of society, from the cars on the highways to the cell phones in people’s pockets and the computers that control everything, the ghosts are presented with an opportunity they’d never had before nRgy - they can return to the land of the living. The ghostly revolution begins in Sin City, home of Benedict’s nRgy Corporation, as the dead forge metal and flesh into mechanical zombies, vessels of war to carry them in their conquest of the world of the living.

  The onslaught of the dead is unstoppable as every man, woman, and child who fall are quickly folded into the machine, their flesh melded with machine to build even larger instruments of horror, their very souls the power source. Las Vegas quickly succumbs to the dead and five survivors--a truck driver locked in his own personal hell, a mother with a dark past, a guilt-ridden cop, a son on a quest against his father, and soldier brought back from another time--are left to try and stop the contagion before it spreads further into the land of the living.

  Apocalypse(s)

  Eight short stories from the Apocalypse(s).

  Message Board - Hell has come to Earth and humans are on the verge of extinction. One boy, though, may have the key to saving the world.

  The Butcher’s Children - In a world without sickness and disease if you don’t have insurance you can’t get sick. And they only take the healthy ones at the Butcher.

  Rush - In order to save us from ourselves the future invades the past, but time travel always comes with a price.

  NecroHead - The dead are rising and taking over the machines, human or otherwise.

  The Last of the ‘An - A species hunted to the verge of extinction. Can the last one be saved?

  The Trouble with Neo-Savages - After the fallout settles, on the plains of Oklahoma, a Cavalry troop hunts cannibalistic Neo-Savages led by a mad witch doctor.

  The Beach at the End of Their World - If Man dies on another world who’s after life does he end up in?

  The End of Hope - Left behind after Earth is abandoned, one of the survivors is desperate to prevent another calamity.

  Bad Jump - A Story from the Teleportation Wars

  (Free at major retailers)

  7500 Words – A Short Story from the universe of The Teleportation Wars

  It was supposed to be an easy jump. Captain Ryan Carter and A-Squad were supposed to teleport into the wastelands of North Dakota, scout an abandoned National Guard installation, and then teleport home. Easy.

  But nothing is never easy in the wastelands left by Teleportation Wars. When squads are lost in the wastelands the entire base

  When Base One’s Jump Master intentionally teleports A-Squad into the heart of nuclear ravaged Houston, Texas, Ryan knows that the Jump Master is a traitor. At the very least he’s stranded A-Squad in the wastelands, away from their families, with no way home. Worse he knows that the entire population of Base One is at risk from the crooked teleportation operator’s treachery and he is sure an attack on the base is imminent.

  With only limited supplies and their teleportation-enabled weapons, A-Squad has to find a way back to Base One before the traitorous Jump Master has a chance to destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to salvage in the post apocalyptic world of the Teleportation Wars.

  The Teleportation Wars - Book One - Cop

  When Dr. Caprock Werner leaked the method for cheap and easy teleportation technology onto the Internet, he thought he was dragging the world back from the edge of economic meltdown and ushering in a new golden age for mankind. He was sure he’d ended man’s dependence on ever dwindling stocks of oil. He envisioned an end to war, fa
mine, and poverty. Werner saw the eons old dream of utopia finally coming true for man.

  What Dr. Werner never imagined, though, was the new wave of crime and atrocity his technology would unleash. Drugs run freely as smugglers simply teleport them to their destination. Murder and assassination are easy and anonymous. Bombings become a simple matter of teleporting one object into another, the atoms of both objects rejecting each other and resulting in a miniature nuclear explosion.

  Governments across the globe struggle to battle the rising tide of teleportation crime. Ryan Carter, a member of the Houston Police Department’s elite Teleportation Crimes Unit is on the frontline of that daily battle. He knows, however, that the crimes are only the beginning. War is coming and it will be a war unlike anything the world has ever seen.