by Al Ewing
"Because finally - here, at the end of it - I know I've died for something."
The tentacles twitch.
Did it understand me? Does it have any comprehension of what I'm feeling right now?
Of what feelings are?
I shake my head. It's pointless talking to it. I was talking to myself all along. Coming to terms.
Are you out there? Is there anybody left alive? Anybody left to do this for?
It doesn't matter in the end. It's got to be done, so just do it.
Just end it.
I move forward, hooves banging against the old wood, splashing through the thick stagnant mire, raising the guns and firing one long three-second burst - three seconds that stretch out and out as I twist time, gripping it, clamping it with my mind... so that the bullets drift towards the slow-waving tentacles like grey clouds, like a child's balloons... so that the clatter of the gun slows to a sound as regular as the low, slow ticking of a metronome... so that the hollow-point rounds push in slowly, slowly, fragmenting in a beautiful ballet of metal shards, each one finding its place in the grotesque meat of the monster's waving arms.
It doesn't even notice.
I jerk left, hurling myself out of the way of one tentacle, and another comes down, the millipede-legs gripping an arm, then yanking back like a cracked whip. I can feel the tearing sensation as it rips the limb from my body, taking a chunk of my side with it, the gun still chattering in the death-grip of the lost hand, ploughing bullets into the ceiling.
I'm so shocked by that that it manages to tear off two of my left-hand arms before I can twist out of the way. Gouts of black blood spray towards the ceiling in slow motion, falling upwards through the air. It'd probably make a good cigarette advert.
My stomach flips over. This was going to be my big revenge, my big moment when I reclaimed my life, and it's just going to tear me into little bits. If it gets at my head, it's over.
I've got two guns left. I bring them down to aim at the brain itself, sending a slow, beautiful stream of hot lead gliding like fat, lazy birds into the pulsing ball of strange flesh. It's so gratifying to see ragged holes appearing in that massive ball of pus, to see the bright yellow pus shooting out of the wounds, mixing with the black slime filling the room... to hear it shrieking...
I've hurt it. Now I've got to kill it. I power forward, the guns clicking dry in my grip. Then two of the tentacles reach down, each of them snagging one of my thighs -
- there's a yank -
- and I'm up in the air, swinging upside down, dangling from my right leg as the tentacle hangs me over the pulsing brain like a Christmas tree ornament, my other leg and a section of my hip twitching as it hangs from another tentacle far away. The tentacles are already reaching after me. This is where I get torn into tiny pieces and then those pieces get torn into smaller pieces, until all there is of me is a slop of random parts floating in black bile...
But I still have three good hands left.
I hope that's enough claws for this.
I reach down, the nails like razors carving into my own thigh before the tentacles can reach me, cutting and slicing through flesh, through bone, severing the leg just above the knee. My black blood showers down over me as gravity takes over and I fall down, slow and graceful as an elevator...
...right onto the pulsing, glowing surface of the brain itself.
The tentacles are already flicking after me, but too late to catch me before I hit, claws first, touching down like a lunar lander made of razors, slashing my way into the centre of the mass... and starting to eat.
This is probably the first time I've eaten a brain that really, truly deserved it. As I stuff the spongy, glowing matter into my mouth, my other hands tearing and slicing, slashing and stabbing, it tastes of rot, and reek, and foulness, it tastes of poison and bile and everything dark and evil in the world.
It's the best thing I've ever eaten in my life.
Time locks down around me as the screaming starts in earnest, the tentacles thrashing like palsied snakes, darting this way and that, starting to lose their cohesion, pieces flaking off them and drifting down over us like snow. It's almost romantic.
Slow it down enough and anything is beautiful.
And this revenge has been so very slow.
I can feel it, in my mind. I can feel the ruby sky above us flickering, shorting out, letting in the stars. I can feel those few Wyrms and workers dropping, dissolving, dying.
Somewhere, in a place that isn't a place, beyond space, beyond time, I can feel ancient intelligences rearing back, stung.
Stitch that. Stitch that, you bastards. That's been a million years coming and it wasn't anywhere near soon enough. Soak it up, you sons of bitches. That's what the human race thinks of you. That's what it's like to die.
Most of all, I can feel the scream, the death-scream, rising, louder and louder as my own strength fades, my body going slack like it's 1976 all over again, the pain washing through me, burning me cell by cell.
This is what it's like to die. This is agony that makes Morse's torture feel like a picnic in the park. And I love it. Because maybe I earned it, maybe I deserve it, but I chose it.
This death belongs to me.
I could keep it forever. Lock time down so far that I felt every cell of myself, of this we that is me, dying one by one. Savour that sweet martyrdom; burning on my cross for the sins I gave to the world...
But a million years is a pretty good run.
And if this is what it's like to die... how did I put it?
At least I've died for something.
I let go of time for the last time and feel it folding around me like the covers of a closing book.
And then...
...the moment passes.
EPILOGUE
Towards Zero
The old man stood on the cliffs, looking out at a brown sea as the tide lapped sluggishly under a clear blue sky.
"G'day!" the voice came from behind him, clear and easy.
"G'day." murmured the old man, sadly.
"Penny for your thoughts? Got an esky here with a few tinnies. Hate drinking with the flies, especially now." It was a young man with sandy-coloured hair, almost white, and very pale skin. He grinned, cracking open the portable cooler beside him and dragging a can of Foster's out of the ice. "Here. Get that down you."
The old man hesitated, then took the cold can and cracked it open, taking a swig. "Ahhh... yer blood's worth bottling, mate. Cheers."
"No drama. Figured in this heat you could probably use a drink." The younger man grinned again, cracking his own tin and taking a gulp. "So - penny for 'em?"
The old man took a drink, then gestured with his can out at the expanse of brown. "What do you reckon, mate?"
"Yeah, I think about the same stuff meself. I figure talking about it helps, but tell me if I'm earbashin' yer." He nodded and smiled, evidently eager for company. "You got family abroad?"
The old man nodded. "Yeah. Had a daughter moved to Connecticut. Me son-in-law's a Yank. Was a Yank. And me ex-wife lived in Brisbane, outside the circle." He sighed, looking at the can in his hand. "Mind if I skull this, mate?"
"Strewth, mate, you'd be a better man than I if you didn't after a story like that."
The old man tilted back the can, draining it in one gulp, then crushed it and tossed it onto the ground. The young man cracked open a second can and handed it to him. "Cheers. Y'know, mate, if you'd told me a month ago Barrow Creek'd be on the coast of the world's first circular country, I'd have called you a bloody galah."
"Yeah," the young man nodded. "One second later we'd be down in the brown ourselves. It's a good thing they learned how to process water from that goop or we'd all have carked it by now. I'm takin' pommy showers as it is."
"I'd tell you not to speak ill of the dead, but the poms started all this, so fuck 'em." There was a long silence. "I'll be honest with you, mate - I came out here to bloody toss meself off, so to speak. I figured I might as well g
o ahead and cark it with everyone else I knew."
"Still goin' ahead with it?"
"Wouldn't be polite, would it? Besides, don't make much difference. We're all gonna die pretty soon, I reckon. Don't reckon the population can sustain itself. We weren't all that crowded even before we lost the coasts."
The young man shook his head. "Reckon?"
"Fair dinkum, mate. We're stuffed as a species."
The young man grinned and shook his head, cracking open another can. "In a pig's eye, mate. Trust me, there's nowhere to go but up. I'm a great believer in second chances." His eye sparkled. "Who knows where we're all gonna be in a couple million years?"
The old man looked at him. "Bloody hell, you're a bit optimistic! What if all them space fellahs come back?"
The young man smiles. "They won't. Not until we're ready for 'em." He grinned wider. "Trust me on that, mate."
The old man looked at him. "Here, since you're so chipper, lemme put this to yer - how come we survived, eh? Whole bloody planet goes tits up and the bloody outback comes out ripper. How's that work, eh?"
The young man grinned. "Somebody had to live through it, mate. To keep things going, eh?" There was something unsettling about that smile. Something the old man didn't like.
"Yeah... well, I'll be seeing yer, mate. What's your name, anyway?" He stuck out his hand.
"Blow. Joe Blow."
"You're bloody kidding! What's it like to be stuck with that?" The old man laughed as the younger man shook his hand. "Gary Goodall. Christ, you're like ice! Like shakin' hands with a bloody corpse!"
"It's from holdin' the tinnies, mate. You have a good one."
Gary Goodall nodded and waved, then started up the track back to the town.
Joe picked up the cooler and walked to the edge of the cliffs, sitting down and swinging his legs over. It was going to be a long day, and a long day after that one. It might take another couple of thousand years for humanity to pick up and start evolving again.
But Joe could wait.
He had all the time in the world.
THE END
Al Ewing crawled from the grave in 1977 and has since shambled around with various bits dropping off him, moaning gutturally and occasionally biting pedestrians. Despite this unfortunate handicap he has managed to write various deeply violent strips for 2000 AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine as well as the novel El Sombra for Abaddon's Pax Britannia series. In his spare time, he is a semi-regular guest on the discussion shows Freaky Trigger And The Lollards Of Pop and A Bite Of Stars, A Slug Of Time, And Thou on Resonance FM. Neither of these titles did he make up. If you see Al Ewing, do not panic. Either aim a shotgun blast at his brain or decapitate him, thus separating the brain from the spine and sending him back to the rotting oblivion from whence he should never have emerged.
