by Carver Pike
“The Mutes,” Tact said. “Sasha told me one time, when we were short on food in the camp, that we’re lucky we don’t have to eat like the Mutes. I didn’t really get it at the time.”
“The city doesn’t look that bad though,” Gabe said. “Hell, I think Darkar looked worse.”
“Dat explosion happened far from here. Otha side a da city. Long time ago. Before my time. I think only Oddity been alive that long. Seems he ain’t fixin’ ta expire anytime soon. Supernaturals,” he said with a shake of his head. “Plus General Falix an his troops been cleanin’ and rebuildin’ fer years.”
As the rest of the group chatted, Gabe put his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Vision rested on his chest, rising and falling with each breath. He drifted off.
Gabe found himself suddenly wading in a pool of black water. The stench of dead, rotting things filled the air. It was night and trees, old, frail looking things, stood at the shoreline, one every twenty feet or so, circling the pond he was in. A thick fog floated between them.
Gabe swam a couple of feet until he found earth beneath his toes. He stood the best he could, pushing through the black water with his hands. It seemed to get thicker the more he moved.
“Hello?” he called out. His voice echoed through the air.
“Daddy?” he heard a soft, calm voice call out from somewhere far away.
“Daddy,” a second voice growled from what sounded like beneath him, within the water.
“Hello, Lisa!” Gabe yelled.
“Daddy?” the soft voice came again.
“Daddy,” the strange darker voice said, and Gabe couldn’t shake the feeling that the second voice was mocking him.
The water grew thicker and thicker until it was the consistency of oil, and Gabe could barely move. Someone screamed and lighting cracked through the air, then another scream, and another streak of light. Gabe watched as bodies, with nooses around their necks, dropped from the tree branches, one body from each tree, the crack of the necks breaking as loud as thunder. He couldn’t move in the tar-like water. He could only watch.
Fog rolled over the pond, wrapping around Gabe until he could no longer see through it. It seeped into his eyes, nose, and ears. He clamped his lips shut to stop it from entering his mouth.
“Daddy?” the soft voice came again.
A hand bathed in white light reached through the fog, handing him an olive branch. Gabe reached for the hand, but just couldn’t quite get hold of it. His fingers were so close, yet seemed so far away.
“Daddy!” the darker voice screamed, and suddenly a black hand, dipped in tar, shot up out of the pond, clutched his face in its open palm, and dragged him down into the depths.
Gabe’s eyes shot open and he gasped for air.
“Gabe?” Lisa asked with her hand clutched around his arm, shaking him gently.
“I can’t…I can’t breathe,” he told her.
She grabbed his face in both palms, concern written all over her face. He closed his eyes and tried to relax.
“I’m okay,” he said. “Just a dream.”
“I’m sorry for waking you like that,” she said, “But…”
“Gabe!” Bronc yelled.
Gabe looked over at his friend and saw him squatting down next to Emma, who was lying on her back, sweating profusely and grunting in pain. Everyone else stood around watching. Bronc lifted her shirt and gasped. Her stomach was huge, bubbled up like a giant balloon just waiting for the smallest pinprick so it could burst.
Thick, black spiderweb veins covered her flesh. A large lump suddenly rolled across her belly, lifting the skin like those mamoles burrowing beneath the soil back at Sanctuary. It went one way, then another, as if swimming laps inside her stomach.
“What the hell is it?” Gabe asked.
“She looks pregnant,” Lisa replied.
“Nooooooo!” Emma cried from her balled up position.
Bronc wrapped his arms around his wife and rested his head on her shoulder, quietly chanting in his native tongue.
Lisa, as if she had all the experience in the world, dropped to her knees and slid over to Emma’s side.
“Honey,” she said softly, “I’m going to need to take off your pants. I need to see what’s going on.”
Emma shook her head, but as a new wave of pain washed over her, she nodded.
All remained quiet for a few minutes, as Emma hissed with each breath, trying to breathe without moving her stomach too much. Then, without warning Emma sat up and screamed a cry of agony that seemed to rip the flesh from the inside of her throat. She reached out and grabbed Bronc’s arm with her right hand and Ayana’s with her left, and squeezed, drawing blood as she dug her nails into their skin.
Then it happened. The black blob-like substance, the shiny dark ooze, shot out from between her legs, smashing into Lisa’s knee as she sat crouched down in front of her. Everyone jumped back as the creature slithered back and forth, as if trying to find an escape route.
Finally, it shot between Hawks’ legs and out into the hall. Gabe could hear it tumble down the stiars. Emma collapsed in Bronc’s arms. She was out cold.
Gabe jumped to his feet and met Hawks by the stairs; both men had their guns in hand. Would they need them? Gabe wasn’t sure. He didn’t even know what the thing was, much less whether or not it was deadly.
“I heard it hit the stairs,” Hawks said.
“It’s too dark,” Gabe replied.
“Want me to go open the blinds?” Hawks joked.
“Seriously?”
“Sorry, bad timing. I’m not going down there in the dark to find that thing.”
Gabe agreed it was a horrible idea.
They returned to the main bedroom to find everyone still sitting quietly, as if not sure who should ask the crazy questions. Bronc gently laid Emma down on the floor and stood up. He looked over at Vincent, who rested in his blanket on the floor. Vision lay next to him.
“He did this,” Bronc announced angrily.
“You may be right,” Lisa said. “But we need to figure out what THIS is. Don’t jump to any conclusions. He’s my son. Please, Bronc.”
Bronc picked up his shotgun and bounded towards Gabe.
“I need to kill something,” he said.
As they began their stealthy descent down the stairs, they were halted by the sound of loud banging, like a battering ram. They rushed down the stairs with their guns raised, but they were too late. Just as they reached the bottom floor, the black ooze ripped through the front door, shattering a large hole in its bottom.
“What the fuck is that thing?” Hawks asked.
“Evil,” Bronc replied.
Gabe didn’t offer an answer of his own. He knew that Bronc would want blood and he was concerned about whose blood he would take. He needed to keep his friend away from Vincent. Bronc turned and made his way towards the stairs. Gabe chased quickly after him. At the top of the stairs, Lisa, Ayana, and Tact stood, peering down at them.
“Did you get it?” Tact asked.
“Um, y’all might wanna see this!” Jaundice called out from inside the bedroom. “Wait, no! Don’t do that!”
Gabe followed the others into the room, with Bronc right by his side, just in time to see Emma, in a zombie-like state, smack her head against the bedroom window, as if trying to walk right through it.
“Emma!” Bronc yelled.
It was too late. She smacked her forehead against it once more, and the window shattered. With her body as stiff as a board, she went with it, flipping through the window frame, her feet the last thing seen as she went over the edge. Her body hit the pavement below with a sickening thud.
Bronc was the first to reach the window. He nearly leapt through it himself. “Emma!” he cried out.
The room remained silent. Bronc stared out the window, unmoving. Then he turned and looked at Gabe. His eyebrows were lifted, his eyes were bloodshot, and his teeth were clenched in rage. He looked past Gabe and over at Vincent resting
on the floor.
“What you do to my wife?” he hissed.
Then, he charged at Vincent. It happened so quickly Gabe didn’t even have time to react.
“What you do to my wife, you monster?” Bronc screamed as he tried to maneuver around Gabe and get to the dark-haired baby.
Gabe’s only option was to stand in Bronc’s way and take the brunt of the attack head on. He slammed his shoulder into Bronc’s chest. The force was tremendous and sent Gabe crashing to the floor. He tried to keep his balance, but tripped, stepped awkwardly on his right ankle, and it popped. A pain like boiling hot liquid shot up his leg and down his foot.
“Gabe!” Lisa screamed.
“Bronc, no!” Hawks yelled.
Gabe couldn’t hold his own weight and crashed to the ground, right next to Vincent. He crawled to his son’s aid and covered him up with his own body. Bronc pounced on Gabe and clawed at his arms, trying to reach the baby within Gabe’s grasp.
“What you do to my wife, you bastard?” Bronc yelled.
Hawks ran to Bronc and scooped him up in a bear hug. He lifted the older man up and slammed him down on the floor, where he and Tact held him down.
“Brother, stop!” Hawks commanded. “You are better than this. This is the image in you!”
Tact looked up at Hawks, who’d obviously forgotten that they were all images there except for Gabe, Lisa, and him.
“Let me go!” Bronc ordered. “He hurt my Emma.”
Gabe handed Vincent to Lisa and tried to stand up on his broken ankle. The pain was severe and he had to hold onto Jaundice’s desk for support.
Bronc seemed to calm down for a moment.
“My Emma,” he sobbed.
“I’m sorry,” Gabe said as he limped forward, trying to reach out to his hurting friend.
Tact and Hawks loosened their hold on Bronc. Rage flashed across his face once more as he reached out and punched Gabe hard on his jaw. Gabe flipped over the desk, and as soon as he hit the floor, Bronc grabbed his shirt and lifted him back to his feet. The two men wrestled.
Gabe punched Bronc once in the ribs, but tried not to cause any serious damage. This was his friend, a man in serious pain. As the two men went back and forth, punching and shoving and tossing and flipping, they came dangerously close to the window Emma’d leapt through.
“Bronc!” Gabe yelled. “The window!”
He grabbed Bronc’s shirt sleeve just as the man was about to topple through the gaping hole. Both men gripped the window frame, huffing and puffing.
“Your wife is down there, alone,” Gabe managed to say between gasps for air. “You need to go to her.”
Bronc looked down at the street.
“Where is she?” he asked.
Gabe peeked out the window to see that Emma was gone. All that remained was a small pool of blood and shattered glass.
The siren signaling the end of sanitation and the beginning of free time sounded off just as Gabe hobbled after Bronc onto the street. Gabe could hear the others, but he was too concerned with his friend to look back.
As the adrenaline finally started to wear off, Gabe’s ankle screamed at him. The pain was immense and he couldn’t move forward. He collapsed in the street, where Lisa quickly rushed to his aid. She leaned over him and tried to help him up.
“My ankle. It’s broken.”
“No, baby. You can’t have a broken ankle. Not here.”
She tried to help Gabe to his feet, but he was too heavy, and she plopped down next to him. Gabe leaned back and gritted his teeth in pain. Through squinted eyes, he watched as Lisa leaned over to check out his leg. He saw Vision’s hand dangle down and brush it, and then pain suddenly shot from his toes up to his groin.
“Fuck!” Gabe yelled.
He felt the cracking of his bone suddenly shifting back into place. It hurt badly for just a moment, but then felt minty cool, as if a strange ointment had been spread over his leg and was sinking into his flesh.
“Ah,” he said. “What’s happening?”
Lisa looked down at Gabe’s leg and then back into his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“My ankle. Something’s happening!”
Lisa didn’t understand.
The pain disappeared as quickly as it had come on, and Gabe knew he’d been healed.
“It’s better. The pain is gone. Unbelievable. Help me up.”
She helped him climb to his feet, where he bounced lightly on his injured foot.
“That’s impossible,” he said.
“Maybe you just hurt it, but didn’t break it,” Lisa said.
“No, it was broken. I’ve broken it before, and this was worse. Vision touched me when you leaned over, and as soon as he did, I began to heal.”
Lisa laughed. “Gabe, that’s crazy. He’s just a baby.”
“Like Vincent?”
She scrunched up her face and looked down at her feet.
“Vincent has some sort of power, Lis. And Vision does too.”
With his ankle fully repaired, Gabe and Lisa chased after Bronc, who’d run down the street, searching for Emma.
“She’s here!” he yelled from a block away.
When Gabe and Lisa reached him, he was holding Emma in front of a destroyed apartment building. He had her pinned down and was trying to control her flailing arms. Hawks jogged up, right behind them, with Vincent in his arms. The others showed up just after he did.
“She was just walking,” Bronc said.
“What’s wrong with her face?” Ayana asked.
Gabe looked more closely and saw that she had black veins spread out in all directions across her cheeks and forehead.
“She was walking,” Bronc repeated. “But no like my Emma. Sliding down street, like dead thing. Very strange like.”
“Emma, honey, are you okay? Can you hear me?” Lisa asked.
“I tried. She no answer,” Bronc said.
He focused his gaze on something behind Gabe, and he turned to see that it was Vincent in Hawks’ arms.
“Keep that monster away. He evil,” Bronc warned.
Hawks shook his head.
“We don’t know why yet,” he reminded his friend, “but both of the babies are important. They brought the daylight, remember?”
“Vision bring sun. The other?” Bronc said. “The other bring darkness. He need be burned.”
“Bronc, please,” Lisa said.
Bronc ignored her and focused on his wife, still trying to break free from his grasp.
“I here,” he whispered to her as tears rolled down his cheeks. “I here with you. Please, no die. I can’t go on alone. No without you.”
As he held Emma in his arms, she slowed her movements. Her arms moved around, but she stopped trying so desperately to break free.
“Gabe, if she die, I want you put bullet in my head. This world too dark, too cold for me. Vision bring sun, but Emma bring light to me long ago. If she go, I no want live.”
Ayana moved to Gabe’s side and looked at Bronc and Emma.
“This is not right,” she said. “Look at her. Look at her face. That is not Emma.”
Bronc scowled at her.
“It is Emma.”
“That’s not Emma!” she replied. “Look at her head. It’s not even straight on her neck. Whatever that is, it’s not her.”
“I think she’s right,” Hawks said. “Look at her. It’s like she’s empty. Soulless.”
Gabe took a step forward and remembered his injured ankle. He snapped his fingers.
“I wanna try something.”
He reached out to Lisa and lifted Vision into his arms.
“Little buddy,” he said to the baby. “Whatever you did to my ankle back there. I need you to do that for daddy’s friend too, okay?”
Vision didn’t respond.
Gabe made his way over to Bronc, and squatted down next to him.
“Look, I’m going to let Vision touch Emma. Don’t freak out, okay?”
