Anti-Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  It’s over.

  Then Felicity says in a very small voice, “I…” She hesitates. “I’m…” She shakes her head. “I’m not strong enough, Arthur.”

  I stare at her. She looks back at me. I look at the mouth that said my words. “I can’t leave you here,” she says. “I just can’t. I don’t have it in me.”

  “I…” I say. “I can’t…” But she’s said it. They’re her words now. I have lost my ownership.

  “I tried, Arthur,” she says. “I tried to be better than I am. Better than… I don’t know, us. Not you and me specifically,” she flounders. “But that idea. That concept of us. But… God, I protect my own, Arthur. You’re my own. Us. We’re each other’s. I don’t…” Something in my chest is fracturing. That I am hearing this now. As she is asking this of me. To let her sacrifice herself. I don’t know where I’m standing.

  “This is your plan.” She puts a hand on my chest. “Not mine. Yours. You need to be the one to fix this. I honestly don’t know if I can. You don’t think you’re strong, but there is a force of will in you…” She bites her lip, bites off her sentence.

  “If they come through,” she says. “When they come through, I won’t let them eat me, or whatever the hell it is they do. I’ll make sure it’s the spores that get me. I won’t be dead.”

  Jesus. Jesus. I’m reeling. The image of Felicity as one of… of… Shit. As one of those. Her eyes gone. Her mouth. Her fucking mind gone. No. No. No.

  I shake my head. She grabs my shoulders, pulls me toward her. My head down to her level. “Because then you’ll save me, Arthur. You’ll make your plan work. And everyone who’s infected will be safe. Will be free. I will be free. I will be alive. Because of you.”

  I try to take it in. All of it. Felicity’s life riding on my plan. My long shot. Can I live with that? Jesus. And why did it seem easier to put the rest of humanity on the line?

  I remember New York again. The Empire State Building. Seeing her carried away from me. Seeing her being taken to die. I remember diving out of a window to save her.

  I remember letting a city die because of that.

  I can’t do it again.

  I can’t let her stay here.

  “You go.” And I’m begging now. Pleading. “You save me.”

  “I love you, Arthur,” she says, so suddenly, so abruptly that it stops me right there. “I love you so much.” She leans in and she kisses me. Her lips pressed against mine. And such incredible softness. Such heat. A warmth spreading through me, flooding me. And for a moment I am lost to it. To her. Just lost.

  She pulls away. “I love you. And once you save my life, I cannot wait to date you again.” She blinks at the tears threatening to spill. “This is all fucked up. It always will be. But we will work something out. Now let me get this shit over with, and go save the world, goddamn it.” She’s smiling despite the tears in her eyes. “Go do that thing that makes me love you.” She nods. “Go on.”

  The clamor against the door is getting louder. The walls either side of it are starting to bulge. Felicity glances away from me and shoots into the spongy surface. The bulge deflates.

  I stare at her. God. She’s willing to do this. She believes… well, maybe not in my plan, but in me.

  Do I?

  God, I staked the future of my species on this. How can I back away from that now?

  I try to say OK, but I can’t. The lump in my throat is too big, too hard to shift. Instead I just pull out my pistol, eject the magazine.

  “Take this,” I manage to say. “Say you’ll take this.”

  “You’ll need—” she starts.

  “You’ll need it more.” She won’t deny me this. If she expects me to walk away from her here…

  Oh God. Oh Jesus. Oh fuck.

  “OK,” she nods. Then, “Remember there’s still one in the chamber of your gun. If you need it.”

  I nod.

  “I hate to be the one to do this.” Clyde puts his hand on my shoulder. “But unless we start moving, all this noble sacrifice business—which is amazing by the way—it isn’t going to matter much.”

  We can’t be doing this. This can’t be the way forward.

  “Go,” Felicity says. “I love you.”

  “I love you.”

  She smiles. It’s beautiful and perfect. It lights her up like a city at night. And then she turns away, and faces the door.

  Clyde takes me by the arm and pulls me away.

  79

  We’ve turned the second corner before I get my emotions under control enough to insist, “We have to go back.”

  But we don’t.

  Clyde keeps pulling me along, drags me forward step by tumbling step. “Sorry, Arthur,” he says, “but the whole point of nobly sacrificing yourself is so someone else can achieve something. If they don’t go ahead and achieve it, that rather undercuts the whole point of the sacrifice.”

  I wish he wasn’t right. He remains stubbornly so. I plant another foot in front of the other.

  But she’s back there. She’s behind me. I can picture her, the slow-motion of my mind’s eye dragging out every agonizing second. I see every shot she fires. Every one that finds a home in a zombie’s skull. Every one that isn’t enough to stop the tide. And then I see her waiting. See them coming for her. And I see that she has no way to defend herself.

  How long will it take? Is it over already? Is she still hanging on?

  What if she isn’t infected? What if they move too fast for her? Or her resistance makes them angry? Scenarios bifurcate, become fractal in my head. Only one constant swirling at their heart.

  I left Felicity to die.

  I feel nauseous, dizzy. The edges of my vision have lost their focus. We have to go back. We have to go back. It’s the rhythm of the blood in my veins, of my feet on the floor. We have to go back. But we can’t. We mustn’t.

  Clyde is right.

  The floor lurches. At first I think it’s some psychosomatic sense of vertigo seizing my gut, but then Clyde staggers too, grabbing at the wall for support.

  “Holy shit,” he says. “I think we’re sinking.”

  Sinking. Exactly what the marines want. To send Version 2.0 to the bottom of the ocean. And given the way things were the last time I saw Gran, he may not mind if I’m on board.

  I wait for another lurch, but it doesn’t come.

  “From the department of not-so-great-news,” Clyde says, shrugging a few times, “the rate of ice melt is going to keep accelerating. We really do need to move.”

  I know. I know. I think I can hear guttural sounds chasing after us. Distant, but not retreating. I can’t tell if it’s in my head or not.

  The wall to my right bulges abruptly. I stagger, spin, raise my pistol. One in the chamber, Felicity said. One shot. And it could be the one thing that prevents her noble sacrifice from being a pointless one.

  The wall ruptures.

  “Well, that’s just feckin’ gross.”

  I stop, stand perfectly still.

  “Kayla?”

  She stands there in front of me, dripping mucus, hair lank and matted, soaked flannel shirt clinging to her equally soaked tank top.

  “Well, feckin’ obviously.” She paws some of the goo from her brow.

  “You came,” I say. It’s obvious, but I’m so stunned that I have to state the obvious. “You’re here.”

  She ran. All the way from Mount Rushmore to the Arctic Circle. With a hole in her side. And she cut into Version 2.0’s compound. Past the golems. Past the zombies. Even for Kayla this is an act I can barely believe.

  “You’re here,” I say it again, trying to get a handle on the enormity of the fact. I grasp her dripping arms, make sure she’s solid and real. She is.

  “Well.” Kayla looks rueful. “I had to come. You’d gone and left without a feckin’ sword again. Feckin’ neglectful it is.” Her face softens slightly. “I would have brought you one but I didn’t see any lying around. So it’s just mine, and you aren’t getting
your feckin’ paws on that. So I’m just here to tell you to remember next time.” She shrugs.

  She’s here. Kayla is standing right before me. And behind me, somewhere, is Felicity. And suddenly it feels as if there’s a chance that Felicity’s sacrifice will mean something. That I can turn this around. Or that Kayla can do it for me.

  I hug her. Covered in mystery snot or not, I don’t care. I cling to her. Because she is the promise of a good break finally. Because she didn’t give up on us.

  “Get the feck off me.” Kayla wrestles away with ease. She looks up and down the corridor. “Where the feck is everybody?”

  Jesus. How to explain. How to tell her she’s the only thing that’s gone right since we left Mount Rushmore.

  “Gran is… opposed to our course of action,” Clyde says. “We had a bit of a tiff about it. Then the ceiling collapsed and we rather lost track of him and Tabby after that.”

  “Feckin’ Americans,” Kayla says but seems to have little to add after that. “What about Shaw?” She looks at me. “You finally detached her from your hip?”

  And God, how to say it? How to explain?

  But then there is no time, and no need. We have dallied too long with this reunion. With a grunt and a growl, Felicity comes charging toward us.

  80

  Part of my mind simply unhinges. This cannot be. I have to deny reality.

  Felicity’s sacrifice was worthwhile. It was meaningful. She bought us time and space. We are using that time and space to get ahead of the zombie horde. To buy ourselves time. So we can save the world. So I can save Felicity.

  That is what is. What has to be.

  So she cannot be here. The horde cannot be here. We have not wasted the lead she gave us this way. We have not wasted her sacrifice. Because no. Just no.

  I stand there. Just stand there.

  To my left I am half aware of Kayla blurring into motion. Zombies rush toward us. Kayla chops one in half, a long diagonal slice from shoulder to hip. The zombie falls in two pieces. Kayla spins. Her blade flashes. Another zombie is bisected at the waist.

  I barely see it. I am completely focused. On the zombie that is not there. That cannot be there.

  Her hair hangs lank, darker than I remember it… than it would be if it really were Felicity, if it could be her. And the eyes are the wrong color. Not a dark rich brown but a purple-black. Felicity’s lips are a delicate dark red, not that lifeless blue. Her nails are well cared for, not black claws at the end of frozen hands.

  She… it… staggers forward. Even less coordinated than her brethren. Newborn perhaps?

  No. No. No.

  To my right, Clyde extends an arm, mutters words. A zombie comes apart at the seams. Arms and legs and head and torso spilling apart. A crackle of electricity and the chest of another flexes from concave to convex. It collapses in a bloody, frothing heap.

  The zombie that is not there walks on. Walks past the death of her fellows. Walks toward me.

  And there is something still beautiful in this… this… thing that is not, cannot be her. There is some echo of her in the angle of the cheekbones, the curve of the brows, the shape of the eyes. Some echo of a woman I love.

  Kayla’s blur of violence moves toward her. Clyde does too. Piling up bodies either side of her. Making a channel for her to move through. Kayla decapitates, amputates, maims. Clyde smells of ozone.

  She walks toward me, down a channel of the dead. Like a bride toward her groom.

  I am aware of the gun in my hand. One in the chamber. That’s what she said. One bullet if I truly need it.

  If I need it to save her.

  I raise my gun. I can see her face beyond the end of its barrel. Can see her black eyes locked on mine.

  And once you save my life, I cannot wait to date you again.

  The gun drops from my hand. I can’t. I just can’t.

  She reaches me.

  Her arms are wide. Like a lover’s. She embraces me. Clutches me with stiff arms. And I hold her back. My arms fold automatically about her. And her body is so stiff, so rigid, so unlike her. And yet somehow so familiar. The way this curve fits here, the way her head comes to right here.

  I look into those eyes. Those lost black eyes, and she stares into mine. She tilts her head back, as if for a kiss.

  I remember those kisses. Softness pressing hard on my lips. The taste of her lipstick. The smell of her perfume and her hair around me. Her, so much of her. My Felicity.

  I lower my head toward hers.

  And her jaws open wide.

  81

  “Feck!”

  The shout is distant, barely registering. All I can see are those eyes, that mouth. Darkness to drown myself in. To make all my problems go away.

  A sharp harsh noise emerges from Felicity’s throat. And part of me wishes she would not have done that. That she would not have ruined this final embrace with her new tongue.

  Then her head lolls back, and the stiffness flees from her body, and she is limp in my arms.

  Kayla pulls the blade free of Felicity’s body. The blade is stained black with infected blood.

  All the strength flees from me. I drop her. Drop Felicity. She falls to the floor.

  She falls to the floor.

  She falls to the floor.

  “Close one that.” Kayla nods at me, and whirls away. Zombie limbs fill the air.

  I drop to my knees. Stare at Felicity. She lies there on her back. Arms splayed. A broken bird. A dropped book. She lies in a pool of black blood. It expands in short oozing pulses.

  Pulses.

  Her chest rises and falls.

  Her throat works.

  Because she’s alive. She’s still alive. Holy shit.

  My mind races. First aid courses. The recovery position. Tilt the head back. Clear the airway. No. No. That’s not right. Five pumps, one breath. Or is it no breaths now? Just pumping. No. No. Pressure. Apply pressure to the wound. Stop the bleeding.

  I flip her over. I see the puncture in her back straight away. A tear in her jacket haloed by blood. I slam a hand down on the wound and press, put all my weight into it. A grating gurgling sound emerges from Felicity’s throat. No matter what has been done to her vocal cords there is no mistaking that cry of pain.

  But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if it hurts. It only matters if it keeps her alive. Her arms twitch weakly, trying to grab for me. I ignore them. Blood is seeping between my fingers. I need something like cloth. Something absorbent to help the clotting.

  I take my hands off the wound, jam my knee into it. A fresh moan emerges from Felicity. With shaking hands I rip at my shirt buttons. But my hands are quivering too much. I grab my collar and yank. Buttons pop. I don’t care. I tear off the shirt, jam it over the wound. Black blood flows into white cotton. I hold it there with my knee, work off my belt. I start working the belt under Felicity. I’ll tie the shirt there. She’ll stabilize. It’ll be OK.

  “What the feck are you doing?”

  I don’t even look up. “It’s OK,” I pant. “She’ll be OK.”

  “Did they feckin’ bite you?”

  I glance up at Kayla, standing over me, a confused, almost horrified look on her face. She has her sword out. Blood and gore drip from the blade into Felicity’s hair.

  I bat the blade away. “Move that fucking thing!”

  She keeps on staring at me. And I don’t have time for this. I go back to the belt.

  Kayla shoves me roughly aside. I sprawl back off Felicity’s body. She stares at me, at my eyes. “Are you feckin’ losing it, man? We’re trying to kill the feckers.”

  “No!” I yell. And I am trying to be rational, to not blame her for this, to not go for her fucking throat. But the fury is raging at the back of my throat and in my voice. “Not her. Not her!”

  And then Clyde arrives. Finally. He stands beside Kayla and looks down, looks at Felicity, looks at me. “Oh no,” he says. “Felicity?”

  “Felicity?” Kayla’s eyebrows go on a
n orbital trajectory. “Oh, you are feckin’ kidding me.”

  “We’ve got to stabilize her,” I say, scrambling back toward the body, grabbing the belt. Stop the bleeding. There’s still time.

  “Oh shit,” Kayla is saying. “When the feck did this happen? I didn’t know, Arthur. You’ve got to understand I didn’t feckin’ know.”

  “I know!” I snap. “Just…” Red tints my vision, things start to blur, but I force it down. I need to focus here. Focus on Felicity. “Just help me.”

  “OK, OK, OK.” Kayla and Clyde kneel. They help me with the belt. Kayla applies crushing pressure. Clyde folds the fabric to clot more effectively. And together we dress the wound.

  82

  We stumble on. Stumble deeper. Everything hurts. My body. My soul. My head. It’s trying to contain too much, to hold onto this one stupid fucking plan I once had, this idea I had to save the world. But it seems ethereal now, slipping between my fingers.

  Kayla carries Felicity across her shoulders. The weight doesn’t seem to bother her. Felicity twitches and growls. She claws lightly at Kayla’s back, but achieves little. She’s weak, getting weaker.

  Does the fungus interfere with the body’s healing process? I’ve seen how fast the zombies rot away. What if it stops her from healing?

  I can’t afford to think like that. I have to focus. I have to find the heart of this place. Find Version 2.0. I have to kill him.

  This place feels oddly absent of him. Where are his stand-ins? Where is his omnipresent face looming over me? Does he think this vision of biology and architecture fused speaks for itself?

  I thought I knew him. When I see Clyde in front of me—I know him, don’t I? Yet this thing his twin has become. This force for… is it evil? This place is so alien it seems to exceed such a simple definition. And his goals, as twisted as his methods are, they’re noble. That’s still the truth.

  Everything is twisted around. Has become a wracked body wrapped around Kayla’s shoulders.

  We round a corner, following the major artery that we picked up back before the hangar room. Another door. Clyde pivots it wide and we duck through. Another massive chamber. But this one isn’t empty.