Dominion

by Doug Goodman

  “So is it just you two? What happened to the rest of your group? The rest of the ‘lost boys,’ as I think the term is being used?” Peter asked.

  “Careful. It gets windy up here,” Kobie yelled. “Last week, wind sucked two guys off the crates. They are trying to rig a safety system up here, but we haven’t found anything, yet.”

  In front of them lay three giant generators, each half as big as a crate.

  “Mr. Olivarez found them in a warehouse. They were supposed to be shipped to Denver to power the house of some rich guy who doesn’t want to pay for energy anymore. We got them instead, and now two of them produce enough energy to power all of Bridgetown. So the other one is a backup. The only trick is making sure they stay fueled, so Mr. Olivarez has crews set up to go looking for fuel.”

  “That’s weird. We had no problem finding fuel not half a mile from here.”

  “Oh, but you came from the south. We never go south. Nothing good comes from the south.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kobie and Mayuran looked at each other as if they were having some sort of mutant power-twins, wonder-nerd communication.

  “Look,” Mayuran said. “There is something we wanted to tell you, but we didn’t want to tell you down there. It’s about what happens when…”

  “Hey!”

  Everyone looked back. A man with tattoo sleeves and another AK-47 was waving to them. “Get off of here. You could get sucked out into the shipping channel!” He ushered them off.

  Once they got down, Mayuran and Kobie ran off.

  Kirk was explaining about his jam session with the girl named Alex to Aidan and Peter and Colt when the guards received a signal on their walkies. The guards looked at each other, then motioned. “C’mon, lost boys, time to head to the top of the hill.” The guards collected Riley and Jax, who were still up in their quarters, and herded everyone uphill.

  At the bridge’s highpoint, they met Alyssa, Val, and Mr. Olivarez. They stood in front of some large gunmetal-grey school lockers. The lockers looked like they had been ripped out of a school and brought to Bridgetown. Next to the lockers sat more of the large shipping crates nicely stacked one on top of the other. OLIVAREZ was painted in black up and down its sides.

  “So I guess the rich folk live at the top of the mountain,” Aidan said.

  “I hope you are enjoying your stay with us,” Mr. Olivarez said, ignoring Aidan. “But in order to extend that visit, you’re going to have to give up your weapons.”

  “No way in hell,” Aidan growled. Even Jax put his hand on his parang.

  “I know it has been rough for you, living on your own with nobody to rely upon, nobody to trust. And I know I am asking you to take a leap of faith. So I will tell you that they will be kept in these lockers, and you will have the combination, 0812, so you could always get to them if you needed. In return for giving up your weapons, I will give you a gift of unimaginable value.”

  “No deal,” Aidan shot back. “We keep our weapons. If you don’t like it, we can leave.”

  “But wait, you haven’t seen the gift.” Mr. Olivarez leaned against a wall and turned a knob. A groaning, hissing sound shoveled through hidden pipes, and then behind him, a showerhead erupted with water. A small shower stall had been improvised using PVC pipe and shower curtains. Mr. Olivarez produced from his pockets shampoo, conditioner, soap, and a washcloth.

  Riley squealed. “Is the water warm?” she asked, hopping up and down.

  “The steam rises quickly on cool mornings,” Mr. Olivarez said. As if on cue, water vapor began floating up in the air.

  “But I can’t just give this away,” he said. He turned the faucet off, and just like that, the lost boys were returned to their filthy, unclean apocalypse.

  “I need your weapons in the lockers.”

  While the boys didn’t seem to mind the promise of more days in grime, the girls were begging Aidan to release their weapons.

  The lost boys stood around smelling very clean and talking about their options as the light began to slant and turn golden. Aidan’s head was shaved down again and his nerves were tingling with exposure to the wind. Clean went a longer way than any of the boys wanted to admit, but Riley was almost glowing, she felt so good after the shower. She of course, spent the longest time in the shower. Between the shower and the new denim shirtdress, she looked less like a survivor and more like one of the popular kids she had been in school.

  None of this changed how Aidan felt about staying in Bridgetown.

  “And now they’ve taken our guns,” he said.

  “Give it a rest, Aidan. It was worth it,” Riley chided. It was the most outspoken, defiant thing Riley had said since joining them. Aidan glowered at her.

  Jax interceded, “Aidan, I didn’t want to give up my parang, either, but even I got to admit, it’s nice to be clean. And Bridgetown has everything we need. Food, clothes, pumping water, electricity – even Kirk has a new guitar and someone to jam with him. You have to admit, this is a sweet deal.”

  Before Aidan could retort, Colt came running down the bridge, his eyes wide with excitement.

  “You are never gonna believe this!” he shouted. Peter was coming up behind him.

  “What?” Jax asked.

  “They have a movie theater with popcorn and Cokes and everything! C’mon!”

  The theater was made of two crates standing end-to-end with the walls broken out between. The crates were welded shut and support beams added to hold up the roof. There were five rows of folding chairs – enough to fit almost half of Bridgetown’s populace – between the crates. A projector hung like a mechanical crab from the ceiling and played images on the far wall. A concession stand was set up closest to the opening. Somebody had draped velvety curtains along the inside walls to make the crates look more like a theater. The room was full of the wonderful smells of fresh, buttery movie popcorn.

  “I didn’t know it was possible to miss something this much and not know it,” Peter said. He took a tub of the popcorn and inhaled deeply and blissfully.

  Most of the town was showing up for the movie. Mr. Olivarez and Val were already there with a few others who were making the popcorn and handing out drinks.

  “It’s our way of giving back,” Val said.

  “Don’t you give back enough?” Alyssa asked.

  “What are we watching?” Colt interjected. Like a typical child his age, nothing mattered but the promise of CGI graphics and lots of bullets.

  “Anything you want,” Mr. Olivarez said. “You are the new ones here. You get to pick.” He opened a case full of discs.

  “They have Transformers!” Colt shouted with complete giddiness. “You gotta play it!”

  Mr. Olivarez smiled. To Aidan, he said, “There is nothing like children. After Black Friday, we lost so many.” As Colt lifted a large cup of Dr Pepper mixed with Coke, Sprite, and Fanta Orange to his mouth, Mr. Olivarez nodded at his crooked arm. "I see your brother didn’t escape unscathed.”

  What happiness was in Aidan’s face soured, so Mr. Olivarez said, “Of course, things happen. We do the best we can. Please, sit down and relax. Enjoy the movie.”

  Suddenly, Colt let out a giant bellowing belch and smiled broadly. “Wow.”

  The movie was pure fun. The time passed so quickly, the lost boys didn’t notice the sun setting or some of the people going back home. By the time Optimus made his final soliloquy, there were only about fifteen people remaining in the theater, most of them other lost boys like the seven.

  As the lights came up, Mr. Olivarez stood and stretched. He looked around at the mostly empty theater and said, “The rest of you can go home now. You seven, though, hang back. I think we should talk now. You must have questions about what has happened in the world. How Bridgetown survives without the intrusion of the animals.”

  The projector was turned off. They pulled the folding chairs into a semi-circle around Mr. Olivarez and Val.

  “I was working on a rig the day the anim
als attacked,” Mr. Olivarez said. “Unlike most, we had some warning of what was to come, though we weren’t sure exactly what it would be. The mutating animals first struck in the cities and the suburbs. Mostly it was pets. God, I will never look at one of those YouTube cat videos the same way.

  “Guys were trying to get off the rig as fast as they could. They were fighting over the chopper. Either they wanted to get home to find their families, or they thought the rig was nothing more than a chicken coop waiting for the fox.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t go. I had Val back home. But cellphones were still working, so I was able to keep tabs on him. I guess I hoped I could be his eyes and ears to what was going on elsewhere. Give him a full account. Then the Internet died. We haven’t been able to get it going since. Best we can figure today, it was a combination of insects shorting out power plants and cell towers being toppled. That, and a couple of bombs went off in New York. I don’t know how or whether they were nuclear or if it was done by us or them, but the result was the same. Lights out.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

  “Those were the worst days. I knew Val had made it to the bridge, but now I couldn’t talk to him, couldn’t reach him. A couple of days later, they attacked our rig. It wasn’t with sharks or krakens, either. As seems to be the pattern, it started with the smallest things, like mollusks and starfish. We had noticed them accumulating on the foundations since Black Friday. But one night after the lights went out – maybe it was a week after Black Friday, but I’m not sure – they got on top of the platform. We took our knives to them, and that worked at first, but they were relentless. We worked in shifts. We took knives, screwdrivers, wrenches, whatever we could find to scrape the things off, and we worked at it all day and all night. A couple of shifts into it, we were all getting tired. Lots of headaches, too. That was when we figured out what you guys figured out.

  “Which is what?” Aidan asked.

  Mr. Olivarez looked at Aidan’s blank face strangely. “You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “They’re psychic.”

  Chapter Seven: Obedient

  Aidan nearly choked. “Psychic?”

  “Yeah. How else do you think birds and dogs and fish can fight together against mankind? When they have their big conversations, when they talk to each other a lot, it gives us headaches. That’s how we know something’s about to happen,” Mr. Olivarez said. “You never got the headaches?” Their shocked faces told him everything.

  “There are things we know and things we don’t know. I can’t tell you how it happened or what caused it. Evolutionary jumps, the wrath of God, or toxic waste – I don’t know. But it is clear what they are after.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Dominion. When I was on the rig and people started disappearing, we became frightened. Nobody wanted to go out and scrape mollusks off the rig. We had no idea what was taking people or how. It was like we were in a monster movie, and we hadn’t figured out the rules yet, so we didn’t know how the monster fed or lived or whatever the hell it did to kill people. So when it was my turn to go on deck, I took my pocketknife with me. It was a gift from my grandfather when I joined scouting. I’d had it since I was ten. I now know how ridiculous this all sounds. What can a one-and-a-half-inch blade do against these beasts? But right then I needed anything to boost me up, and that cheap little knife gave me confidence, so I took it with me.

  “The platform was getting worse. The mollusks were on all four sides by at least a foot in some areas. I got down on my knees and began to scrape the shells off. The shells were sharp, though, and I cut my hand. I started wiping the blood off, when something wet and slippery, yet strong like an eel, grabbed my arm. I looked up and saw something that even to this day is hard to describe, though I have described it often to lost boys like you all.

  “It was dark like Gulf water, and reeked of sediment. It was leviathan. It was kraken. It was dragon. It was all these things and much worse. Gripping the platform, I saw seven more dirty tentacles, and every four tentacles was like the fingers to another tentacle. The largest tentacles were like whiskers coming from a mouth full of vulture-beaked teeth. I knew I was nothing to it. I was less than a morsel. I was a tiny, insignificant crumb.

  “I sat squatting on the platform’s edge looking at this god-like creature and thinking, this is how I am going to die. I thought of my son and of the missed opportunity with the helicopter, and I just wanted to see him one more time. That’s when the creature revealed itself to me.

  “Revealed itself to you?” Kirk asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Through its grip on my hand, it showed me images of the world to come. Cities laid waste and turned into fiery infernos. The world’s population enslaved. Stockyards full of people crammed together for slaughter. And much, much worse things. I was given a choice. I could either die there on the deck of that platform, or I could betray my species and live.”

  That paranoid monster that lived in the pit of Aidan’s stomach was growling at him again. A darkness passed over Aidan as he started to rise. “What did you do?”

  “What any parent would do: I agreed. By my seven murdered crewmates who I tossed into its open maw, I swore allegiance to our new gods. In return for my loyalty, the creature showed me Bridgetown. That same day, giant eagles carried me to this bridge. The god we call Malifax offered us peace in return for sacrifice. So just like I was given a choice, every new group to come to Bridgetown is given the choice. They can sacrifice one of their own and live here in peace free from the monsters, or they can move on and return to the world of slave drivers and human-hide hunters.

  “But don’t you see?” Alyssa said. “This thing, this Malifax, is just using you to collect people so that it can kill them at its own convenience.”

  “Your pride is getting in the way,” Mr. Olivarez responded. “You want to believe that they are just trapping us because you think we are a significant threat to them, but you’re wrong. They just want us out of the way.”

  “This goes beyond unspeakable,” Aidan fumed. “You betrayed us all!” He spit in Mr. Olivarez’s face.

  Val jumped up, but Mr. Olivarez stopped him. He wiped the spit from his weathered face. “This happens every time. But in the end, you realize that the comforts of our world are too important. As a people, we need safety. And as a society, we need arts and entertainment and plumbing and air conditioning. We crave our electronic devices. We crave them because they are as much a part of us as our right arms. To reject them is to reject thousands of years of evolution. We can’t do that. You have until sunrise to give me your answer.”

  “And if we refuse?”

  “We have never forced anyone to make that choice, but just know that if you refuse, you must leave immediately. And you will not be let back, either.”

  As the lost boys walked defiantly out of the movie theater/cargo container, Val stopped Aidan.

  “Just give up Riley. You don’t want her or need her. Give her up, and everything will be okay for as long as you live.”

  Aidan walked out.

  Nobody talked during the short walk back to their container. Knowing the decision the lost boys were given, the guards kept their distance. While the others climbed up in the container, Aidan crossed to the opposite side of the bridge. A giant crane with thick trestles blocked his view of the downtown. The crane had been damaged at the base and was lilting to the side. He bet he could make it if he jumped, but he didn’t want to find out. He wasn’t a Peter or Jax. Instead, he climbed up on the bridge rail and walked up the bridge far enough to get a good view of Houston’s downtown. It was a long ways off, but not so far he couldn’t see all the skyscrapers. The downtown looked like a massacre of headless buildings and leaning bodies that had not only been slaughtered but also picked apart by vultures. For a few of the buildings, smoke jutted out like blood from a severed artery. Every once in a while, a flash of light would resonate, and he would hear the rumbling echo of pyrotechnic
s. He wondered if it was people fighting or being killed. In the skies overhead, he could barely make out the shadows of rocs.

  By morning, nothing had changed. Everyone was up because no one had slept. Jax and Riley had whispered to each other all night long. Around mid-moon fall, Colt had started naming all the different movies in their movie collection. Every once in a while, he would stop, make a correction about the name of a movie actor or character, then return to his list. Alyssa had removed her earrings, her jewelry, and the nice dress. She was back in her shorts and boots and had her pack ready.

  Peter and Aidan sat at the edge of the container, their feet dangling in the air.

  “We met these kids,” Peter said. “Nice, but talkative. I think they were trying to warn us about this. What are you thinking?”

  “They want Riley.”

  “What was that?” Jax said from deep inside the container.

  Aidan turned to him. “Val told me last night. They’re after Riley.”

  “No way. Not going to happen. I will fight anyone – including you – if you lay a finger on her.”

  “Shut up, Jax,” Riley said.

  “Riley, they are going to feed you to some monster.”

  “I said shut up.” She turned to Aidan. “Is that really what they said?”

  Aidan nodded.

  “Do you want me to go?”

  “It’s not that simple,” Aidan said.

  “No, I think it is.”

  Aidan looked away. Riley looked around the container, and then said, “Fuck y’all. I don’t want to go. I want to live. I’m tired of living like a third wheel here and being treated like a second-class citizen. I’m not your slave, and I’m not your lover, either,” she said to Jax. To the rest of the group, she said, “I was popular. I was a cheerleader and a member of student council. I was supposed to be prom queen! But I don’t give a damn about that. It’s not important. I don’t want to die, and I sure as shit don’t want to die so that you guys can sit here and wait for some demon monster to come eat you. I want to live. I want to live as far away from these monsters as I can.”