The Next God

by MB Mooney

  -----

  Vikki sat in the driver’s seat, most of her clothes on now, and she shook Matt.

  She had let him sleep, but he wasn’t waking up now. He made no response, and he was feverishly warm. Sweat covered his body. She considered taking him to the hospital, but she would have to put some of his clothes on first. She managed a few items but finally covered him in her own coat. She was crying, feeling silly. The whole thing scared her.

  He was breathing shallow, and a mist covered the windows from the heat and sweat on his body.

  The way he talked to her, the things he said, the way she just ignored them, as if he wasn’t rambling on and on about nonsense, the way she had been overwhelmed with desire, as if by just closing his eyes he could seduce her, it was all unnerving. She had never been this reckless. They did not use any protection at all, this bit of truth making her heart race a little faster.

  What had she done? What had come over her? And during the act, every emotion was a little clearer to her than it had ever been before. She was still young, hell, still in high school, and she hadn’t been with that many guys, only two; but he did something to her she couldn’t explain, as if every emotion he felt, she felt it too. And the intensity of those emotions confounded her, took her to a place of wonder and ...

  My God, had it been real?

  She shook him a little harder. “Come on, Matt,” she said. “Come on. Wake up. Please.”

  She was about to give up, to just put the car into gear and go to the hospital, when Matt’s whole body stiffened, and he sat up quickly, taking in a sudden breath like a drowning man coming up for air. She drew back. Her coat fell away from him. He looked down at himself.

  “What happened?” he said.

  She shrugged, wiping a tear from her left cheek. “I don’t know, Matt. Christ, you gave me a scare. Are you all right?”

  “I feel okay. Where are we?”

  “You don’t remember? We’re at the mill. You’re in my car. You ran away, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, and his confused countenance deepened. “Wait, I need to do something.”

  “Look, I’m gonna take you to the hospital.”

  “I’m all right, I swear. I just need to remember ...” She put the car into gear. He turned to her, his eyes wide and full of fear. “Richard! It’s Richard! We have to go to his house!”

  “What?”

  “Just do it! I’d drive this car myself, but I don’t know how to drive a stick, and there’s no time. At least I don’t think so.” He found his sweater, in the back seat, and put it on, lifting the seat itself back to an upright position.

  “What the hell are you talking about? You rambled on forever about not being human, and then you practically pass out after we have sex, and now you’re talking about Richard? You have to help me, Matt. I’m scared, really scared. I don’t know what’s happening to you, Jesus, much less to me! What’s going on?”

  “Look, Vikki,” he said, taking her hand and looking deep into her eyes. “I think Richard is in trouble. A lot of trouble. And we have to move if we have any chance of saving him. Don’t ask me how I know, just trust me. I know there is no reason for you to do that, but I’m asking you anyway. Please. For Richard’s sake. Trust me.” And his eyes held her gaze. “Trust me.”

  She nodded. “Okay,” she said. She backed into the dirt road that led away from the mill and drove to Richard’s apartment.

  -----

  The Postman stepped out the front door of the apartment and looked both ways for Marcus. He was nowhere in sight. He cursed, moving angrily back to the long-haired man barely crawling and conscious on the floor. “Well, if there are no more interruptions, you should be dead in a matter of moments, my hippie ass friend. You’re pretty tough, but not tough enough for the Postman. No, not one bit.” He rubbed his jaw. “You’ve got a pretty good straight right, I’ll give you that. But you’re shit for worms now.”

  He picked the man up by the shirt collar, twisting it in his hand, and the waist of the jeans.

  He threw him through the front window of the apartment, a double window reinforced by cheap wood, but wood still, and the body rolled to a stop against the iron railing of the landing just outside the front of the apartment.

  The Postman would have to go back to the Walker house and wait. After he killed this man, that is. He searched a little and found the pistol, and the sword was in his other hand soon after. Walking outside the door, he stood over the man.

  But it wasn’t a man. It was just a kid. Through the blood from the cuts on his arms and face, dark red, almost black in the absence of light because of the low moon behind the trees and nonexistence of power, he saw this person was no older than Marcus. This must be the one who kicked poor Marcus’ butt. “Ah, you are the tough one, and you do live here. Marcus wasn’t lying to me. He’s just a dumbass who got the apartment number wrong.” The Postman leveled the 9mm at the boy’s face.

  He saw the headlights first, hardly able to ignore the only source of artificial light within miles, and the small black car raced into the parking lot and screeched to a halt. Coming up the hill, the headlights had blinded him temporarily, but the Postman was one story up. The headlights shone away from him, below him, and he could see into the car, a black Civic, clearly as his eyes adjusted.

  And there, in the passenger seat, there sat his target, the boy, the Walker boy.

  It was him.

  -----

  Their eyes met, and Matt could see the insanity within. This was no rational person. And he knew the lump of something on the floor of the concrete landing was Richard. He could see the blood from here. He heard Vikki gasp, then scream. The man wore a long, black coat, strangely fitting his tall frame. He held a pistol in one hand and a long object in the other. They stared at each other for a long moment.

  The madman. The Killer.

  “Get down,” Matt said, and he reached over, grabbing the top of Vikki’s head and forcing it down below the dashboard. He bent down and lay on top of her, forcing both of them practically into the floorboard of the small Civic, but there wasn’t quite enough room. She still screamed, and above her noise he heard a man’s roar.

  Then he heard the gunshots.

  All he heard for the next few moments was the thundering applause of the pistol from above them, the sound of shattering glass, the screams from Vikki, the roar from the madman. Shards of glass rained on them, and Matt felt the sting of something on the back of his neck, more of an annoyance than anything else.

  Then it was over, the noise of thunder gone, only the sobbing of Vikki and the low curses of the madman, sounding clear to them through the nonexistent windshield. He sat up to see the madman pulling the clip from the empty pistol. Matt also noticed the smoke rising from the bullet holes in the hood of the little car. They were alive but the car was dead. He opened the car door quickly, speaking to Vikki under his breath. “Come on, we’ve got to get out of here!” She moved fast, responding immediately to his order, as if anything would be better than staying there.

  Chapter 20

  The Postman watched as the young couple got out of the car without any noticeable scratches, and he continued to curse, looking through his coat for the ammunition that he knew to be there. He kept one eye on them, one eye on the bleeding young man under his feet. They began to run, got about twenty feet down towards the road when Matt Walker, yes, it was definitely him, stopped, the girl with her long blond hair flowing in the cold air grabbing at his hand. The boy looked back at him defiantly.

  This intrigued him.

  The boy spoke. “It’s me you want! You killed all those people in my dreams, but I’m still alive and unharmed. Come and get me if you dare!” And he turned, running, pulling the girl behind him.

  This enraged the Postman.

  The rancor in him grew to the point that he threw the 9mm pistol down, not in any particular direction, just away. He pulled the sword from the sheath and ran from the landing and down th
e concrete stairs after them. Although he limped noticeably, the vengeance in his heart and the heat in his head overwhelmed the pain in his knee.

  He completely forgot about the longhaired boy and left him bleeding on the landing of the apartment building.

  -----

  “Where are we going?” Matt heard Vikki ask from behind him, the sound of her breathing and heavy footsteps on the asphalt of the dark street accompanying her strained voice.

  “The school is what, a half mile down the road, just before the town square?” He breathed deeply already, trying to keep the air. He was really in no shape to run so hard or fast, but the adrenaline began to affect him. He felt a little lighter, slowed only by Vikki.

  “Yeah, but ... the school?”

  “Just come on,” he said. He looked behind him. In the distance, he could see the madman running after him, but he didn’t gain on them. They could outrun him all night if they needed to. But they needed to get to the school as quickly as possible.

  “Can’t I just call 911 on my phone?” she asked.

  “You can try.” But he didn’t think it would work.

  “Shit!” she said after a moment. “The line is busy!”

  The power was out all over the neighborhood. But he hoped that the security system at the school didn’t operate only on the local power supply. He hoped that it ran off of some sort of generator. In fact, he banked upon it. What would get the local authorities moving faster than someone robbing the local high school with brand new Apple computers and a closed-circuit television system installed at the beginning of the year?

  He hoped, at least.

  And hope was all he had left. His energy was draining, and he didn’t think a one on one fight would result in a victory for the home team. At least he had gotten the madman away from Richard. Matt wondered how badly Richard had been hurt. He couldn’t tell in the brief glimpses he received back at the apartment building. But he knew that Richard still lived. He just knew.

  He didn’t have to look back to see the madman limping after them or the sneer of pure insanity and irrationality on his face to know it, either.

  Matt didn’t tell Vikki these things. She was already scared enough.

  They reached the parking lot of the school, and they had to push their tired bodies up the slight incline to the front. Vikki took deep breaths. “What .. now .. huh?” She leaned over, her hands resting on her knees.

  He shot a glance at her.

  The entry at the front of the school was decorated with a series of stone pillars and bushes. Three double doors, all glass reinforced with a wire mesh, marked the entrance. Matt picked up a metal trashcan that rested near one of the stone pillars and carried it over to the middle double doors, pushing it through the one to his right. The glass shattered and the wire mesh caught the object. He pulled it out again and threw it as hard as he could through the previous breach with a yell, and the trashcan fell through to the tile inside the school.

  No sound. No alarm rang through the dark, cold night.

  Matt cursed. “Maybe it’s a silent alarm,” he said.

  “What?” she said, still catching her breath. “This was your plan?”

  “Well, do you have any better ideas?”

  She shook her head. “Why don’t we keep running?”

  He looked back and saw the killer not far away. They had pulled away from him and his limp, buying themselves a little extra time, but he would be here in a matter of moments with that ... sword? Really? A sword?

  “Come on,” he said, beginning to rip the rest of the window apart, throwing glass and wire mesh aside and cutting his hands several times. He climbed through. He just fit through the opening. “Let’s find somewhere to hide.” She sighed in defeat and allowed him to help her through, as well. “Watch for the glass,” he said. Her shirt tore, but she got through almost as well as he had.

  They moved through the front of the school until the lobby split into the two main halls. Matt looked to his right and to his left. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. He turned to her. “Did he see us come in here?”

  She shrugged incredulously. “I guess. Do you want him to come after us?”

  They moved down the hall to his left, and he tore at things as he ran down the hall, the familiar smell of the school and its tile filling him. He tore at the bulletin boards in front of one teacher’s room. He tipped over another trashcan.

  “What are you doing?” she asked. “He’ll know where to look!”

  “I hope so,” he said.

  They reached the end of the hall. He pulled her with him into the Chemistry lab.

  The Chemistry lab was laid out like most in the many other schools that Matt had attended. There were several permanent workstations placed around three of the walls with sinks and outlets for the Bunsen burners. “Yes,” Matt said more to himself than to Vikki as he immediately began to turn all of the gas outlets to an open position. “Come on!” he yelled. “Hurry up and help me!”

  “Help you what?”

  “Turn them all on! Hurry!”

  And she hesitated before turning one on, then another, then quickly to another and to another. They both worked together, and Matt let her finish while he looked for ways of implementing the last of his plan.

  -----

  The Postman limped up the slight hill towards the front of the school.

  He would kill them. Did they really think that he didn’t see them go into the school? They were trapping themselves in, allowing themselves to be cornered. And if they hid from him, then he would look for them, all night if he had to. The power and phones would be out until the local utility workers figured it was a computer virus and brought in a hacker to fix the problem. There was no telling how much time he had.

  But these kids, they would die. He would see to it. He would kill the boy first, then the girl, then maybe piss down their throats or in their eyelids. He would laugh while he did it, yes, laugh and laugh, roaring in victory.

  It wouldn’t stop there. There were more to die, more to kill. He would go after Daddy Franklin next, then all of his men. He would kill them all.

  But first these two, first these young ones ripe for the moment of death he would bring them.

  He made his way to the front of the school.

  The hole they had crawled through didn’t seem wide enough to accommodate him. He took off his coat, ignoring the cold, throwing it aside and putting one hand through the hole, then his head, then his other shoulder. The edges of glass cut into his skin. He groaned angrily, pushing through the hole. Falling through to the other side, he was careful to keep a hold of the sword, dropping the sheath outside.

  He stood, yelling, his face turned towards the ceiling of the lobby of the school. “Keep running! You’ve got nowhere to go!”

  -----

  They both heard the madman yell from down the hall and looked at each other simultaneously. “What are you looking for?” Vikki asked him.

  “Are they all on?” he said, bending low and rummaging through a cabinet.

  “Yes, all of them, now what are you looking for?”

  “A bottle of some kind. Help me. He’s in the school.”

  “How do you ...”

  “Just look,” he interrupted. “Hurry.”

  “Okay,” he heard her say as he flung open another cabinet, this one above his head. “Here,” she said. He turned to see a glass Sprite bottle, empty and lifted off of the teacher’s desk.

  “All right, now we have to climb through the window.”

  “The window?”

  “Dammit, yes! Now go!” He reached the long window after she did, and he helped her wind the winch that turned the lever for the glass to open and allow for air or whatever in or out, holding a soiled hand towel in one hand. The space wasn’t that wide. He didn’t know if she would fit through.

  He boosted her up and into the area of the open window. Matt knew the killer was in the lobby, looking now down the hall towards the Chemistry lab,
noticing the obvious signs of disruption. The madman didn’t care. He followed them.

  Matt pushed her through, and he didn’t know how she made it. But she did. He heard her squeal as she fell to the cold hard ground below the window. He squeezed himself through next.

  The madman was halfway down the hall.

  He held on to the towel for dear life as he made it through, his thin body navigating the space easily. Vikki helped him up. He led her ten yards from the open window of the Chemistry lab across the lawn behind the school. The football field lay just beyond this lawn. He stopped and turned to the window.

  Taking the glass Sprite bottle from Vikki, he stuffed the towel halfway down into it. He took the pack of matches out of his pocket, the pack of matches from the café of their first date the other night, the first date of that other life, that other time when the danger of his life had just been a dream.

  “What are you doing?” Vikki asked.

  “Waiting.”

  -----

  The Postman walked, limped, down the hall, stepping over a poster that had once been taped to the wall. Chuckling softly, he thought the children, so scared, so damn shitless that they were flailing down the hall. Sounds of yelling, talking, and movement in a room nearby. He shook his head. Children. Sometimes they didn’t understand how voices carry, carrying sounds of their imminent demise to his ears, sweet sounds telling him how they would die, how he would kill them. His knee was in very noticeable pain, but that was negligible compared to the pleasure their deaths would bring him. He reached the room finally and entered the open door.

  He saw the open window only after his eyes darted quickly, crazily around the room built for one of the sciences. Beyond the open window he saw Matt Walker, looking into his eyes. How could the boy see him over the distance and in the dark?

  And what was that in his hand?

  The Postman looked around the room again. All of the knobs on the workstations were pointing to the red side.

  He heard the hissing. They were on. It was natural gas.

  He heard the boy say something, what he couldn’t tell, and his head turned just in time to see the flaming bottle fly towards the open window.