Never Just One Apocalypse

by Karen L Mead

  The next thing Sam knew, he was lying on the ground, with Dmitri standing over him. He could hear the sirens from the ambulance that had just left; it sounded like screaming. When the noise of the sirens receded, he heard a man’s voice; someone was talking to Dmitri above him.

  “…all the time, somebody comes to rubberneck at the accident, faints, and ends up leaving in an ambulance themselves. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “Keep your hands off him,” said Dmitri, and Sam realized that Dmitri must be arguing with an EMT.

  He sat up and looked around him, wincing; he felt sore all over, like he’d been beaten. The original accident had been repeated, in its entirety. There was no sign of the noxious taint of black magic, but that wasn’t much comfort at the moment.

  The baby…was it a girl or a boy? Why don’t I know?

  “Look, I think your friend here needs some medical—”

  “Leave him alone, I won’t ask you again.”

  “Let them take me,” Sam said, collapsing back to the pavement.

  Dmitri looked at him, eyes wide.

  “If you are hurt, Eugene will see to it. You will see our doctor.”

  The EMT moved toward Sam, only for Dmitri to grab him by the shoulder. The EMT looked confused, wondering how this not particularly large man was strong enough to render him completely immobile with just one hand.

  “Let them take me,” Sam whispered, not certain he was talking to the vampire anymore. “Let them take me. Let them take me.”

  “I cannot—”

  Sam murmured a word of command and shut the vampire down; even in his weakened state, he was so closely bound to all the Buckley vampires that it didn’t take much effort to influence them. Dmitri fell unconscious to the floor, and the EMT he’d been holding back jumped.

  “Christ…I need some help! Two gurneys over here, I don’t know what the hell’s going on.”

  Chapter Nine

  Cassie wasn’t sure where to look in the emergency room; everywhere she looked, there were people on gurneys, some sleeping, some awake. Fortunately, no one seemed to have a critical injury at the moment, because no one she could see was hooked up to much equipment. The most severely injured person in sight was a teen boy with a broken leg in a fresh cast. Finally, Dmitri poked his head out from behind a pale violet curtain, and she and Miri hurried over to the far corner of the ER.

  As soon as Miri was in reach of Dmitri, she bonked him lightly on the head. “I can’t believe you let them take him,” she whispered.

  “I was not given much of a choice. It was all I could do to keep myself from getting admitted as a patient.”

  Sam was asleep on a gurney. He was still wearing his street clothes, but there was an IV in one arm. Miri walked over to him, touched his arm where the IV was inserted, and shot Dmitri a look of disbelief. The other vampire sighed.

  “Listen, Gingercakes, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but mind-turning isn’t working right now. I wasn’t going to fight off the nurse to stop her taking blood from him.”

  “Maybe you should have…waitaminute, we’ve lost hypnosis?” Miri whispered.

  Dmitri gestured to Sam with his head. “I think he may be so out of it, our bond is compromised.”

  Miri took a step back and exhaled. “Dmitri, what the hell?”

  “I don’t know myself. This magic…it is too big. That’s all I know.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Cassie took a few steps closer to Sam as the vampires bickered. He looked so boyish in his sleep, with his tousled blond hair, that she couldn’t help but smile faintly. With his eyes closed, he could pass for many years younger; something about his eyes aged him.

  In fact, she’d never really thought about it before, but most of the time, he looked older than he actually was….

  “What did you do? What did you almost do?” Cassie whispered.

  She reached out with her mind, tentatively, a little afraid of what she might find. She needn’t have worried; he was closed off to her. A voice that wasn’t really a voice snarled in her head. She shivered suddenly, and realized his mind was effectively booby-trapped. She had a feeling that the more she tried to push, the more uncomfortable she’d feel, until she was at the point of throwing her guts up.

  That was enough probing; she didn’t need to be told to stay out more than once.

  “We have to get him out of here,” Cassie said.

  “Duh. Let’s just pick him up and—"

  “Hey, girl?”

  Cassie turned around; there was a man in the next bed who was staring right at her.

  “What?”

  “Ain’t you the girl from that elephant video?”

  “Nah, I’m much prettier than her.” Cassie found the curtain between the two beds and pulled, hard, isolating their small corner of the ER from the rest of the room.

  “Should we wake him up?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Dmitri murmured softly.

  Just then, a doctor entered their little curtained-off sanctuary. Balding and thin, he looked like someone whose pale complexion had just turned several shades paler, to the point where he was white as a sheet.

  “Hello. I see Mr. Andrews has visitors, how nice,” said the doctor pleasantly, but something was off. The hand holding his clipboard was quivering faintly.

  “Um, hi,” said Cassie. Miri fixed the doctor with a suspicious look.

  Slowly, and not without difficulty, the doctor raised his clipboard to eye level so he could look at the results. He was still shaking.

  “Ah, I have to ask: is your friend taking part in any kind of, ah…drug tests? Perhaps some particularly aggressive, illegal drug tests?”

  “Nope. This guy doesn’t take anything harder than Tylenol,” said Miri.

  The doctor let out a nervous giggle; it was probably involuntary. “Are you sure? Because these test results indicate, uh…well, they…they, uh…” he trailed off. He looked at the chart in front of him, but his eyes were glazed like he was no longer really seeing it.

  Sam stirred; the sound of the conversation had apparently woken him up. Still half-asleep, he turned over onto his side. “Grrrrgllllm,” he grunted softly. Before she even realized she was doing it, Cassie was gently stroking his hair.

  “If your results are that wrong, perhaps it is your equipment that is at fault? These things happen, yes?” said Dmitri, taking a step closer to the doctor. “Maybe your machine just needs rebooting.”

  Apparently that was the last straw, because the doctor slammed his clipboard down onto his thigh and began speaking through gritted teeth. “Look, this isn’t even blood, okay? This is nothing like blood! N-no one has PLATINUM in their blood! What in God’s name—”

  Dmitri spun the doctor around and put him into a submission hold, all in one smooth motion. He began to choke the man into unconsciousness. Cassie winced.

  “Isn’t there a less painful way to do that?”

  “Not really. Everybody thinks hitting people on the head is the best way to get people unconscious, but you could give them a concussion, or worse. If we can’t hypnotize him, this is the safest way,” said Miri. She turned to Sam and began shaking him lightly on the shoulder. “C’mon Sam, we can’t Krav Maga the whole hospital. Time to go.”

  Having successfully knocked out the doctor, Dmitri gently lowered him to the floor and put his body between the curtain and the wall; you would have to know he was there to be able to see him.

  “No,” Sam said quietly. Cassie still wasn’t sure how awake he was. “Leave me.” Cassie stopped stroking his hair and took a step back; something in his voice, even his quiet, half-asleep voice, sounded threatening.

  “We can’t, handsome. If we don’t get going soon, they’ll be telling the press that they’ve found an alien life form before sundown.”

  “Maybe it’s better that way.”

  Miri began pulling on him more aggressively. “I need you to wake up for real now, honey. C’mon, there’s esp
resso and a cinnamon roll back at the Daily Grind with your name on ’em, okay?”

  “I said GO!” Sam said, and Miri shrank back as though in pain. Now fully awake, Sam sat up, rubbing his temples.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this anymore. I’ve tried, and I can’t. I want them to commit me…put me in an institution somewhere, and keep me so medicated so I can’t hurt anyone. That’s what’s best for everybody.”

  There was a pause as everyone processed that.

  “What happened today?” asked Cassie quietly.

  He winced slightly, like it hurt to hear her voice. He kept his eyes on the bed in front of him, not making eye contact with her. “It doesn’t matter what happened today. What matters is what’s going to happen, someday. Maybe it’ll be a year from now, I don’t know, but someday, I won’t be able to fight anymore. And I need to be locked up somewhere safe, before that happens.”

  “You won’t be able to fight what?” asked Miri.

  “The thoughts,” Sam said. His voice had gone flat, neutral.

  There was an awkward silence. Cassie thought of saying, “Oh, I’m sure they aren’t THAT bad,” but she knew him better than that, so she said nothing for a moment.

  But then, she found herself starting to get angry, without being entirely sure why.

  “Do you remember what you said to me in Las Vegas? How you weren’t going to run away anymore?”

  He exhaled slowly. “This isn’t me running away, this is me protecting everyone. There’s a difference.”

  “You want to go to a mental hospital and be high on drugs all day, that sure sounds like running away to me,” said Cassie sharply.

  “Cassie,” Miri said in a warning tone. Dmitri just looked at her with an inscrutable expression.

  Sam did look at her then, but after looking her in the eye for a moment, his gaze traveled down her body. “You, of all people, should know better than to resist me on this.”

  Cassie felt a strong urge to put her hands over her chest to protect herself from his view, which was absurd because she was already wearing several layers of clothing. Instead, she tightened her arms around her midsection.

  “Stop trying to scare me, and be reasonable. You can’t just—”

  He laughed then, a laugh filled with as much anger as mirth. “You think I’m trying to scare you?”

  “Sam, don’t,” said Miri quietly. The pleading tone in her voice bothered Cassie; she never wanted to hear Miri sound like that.

  Sam lay back in bed then, still leering at her openly. “If you knew what I think about doing to you every day, Cassie, you would be running to get me put away somewhere. I could do whatever I wanted to you, then I’d do a reversal so it never happened, and do it again. Thinking about that is all that keeps me going sometimes, during long shifts.”

  “You would never do that,” she said softly.

  He stopped eyeing her chest long enough to meet her eyes.

  “For all you know, I already have.”

  Miri’s voice was quavering, like she was fighting back tears. “Please, don’t. Don’t be like this.”

  “Like what? Like myself?” Sam snapped at her, turning to face her with a glare. “And you’re the one who really should know better. Why don’t you tell Cassie about some of the things we do together? Let her know what’s in store for her.”

  Miri put a hand over her mouth and began to cry. Somehow, that was even more shocking to Cassie than everything Sam had said.

  Dmitri just shook his head sadly, still wearing that same inscrutable expression. He was not surprised.

  Cassie looked down, feeling numb. She knew she should be feeling a lot of things, fear and disgust primarily, but somehow, that wasn’t how she felt. Mostly, she just felt tired. After a moment, she took a deep breath and looked up to meet Sam’s gaze. He smirked at her, but the expression didn’t quite match his eyes.

  “Well, now that everything’s out in the open, are you ready to have me locked up yet? Get rid of me while you still can, little witch. You won’t get this opportunity--”

  “You’re invited over for dinner tonight, at my house,” Cassie said quietly, but firmly.

  It took a moment for Sam’s grin to falter. “Wh…what?”

  “We need to talk to my parents already, tell them the truth. It’s not fair to keep them living in a daze, like freakin’ pod-people, and I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time for you to go full-evil, I just don’t. If you want to rape me or whatever, then fine, do it, but wait until after tonight after we sort this thing out with my parents and my brother.”

  Sam just looked at her in frozen disbelief. Since he was useless at the moment, Cassie turned to the vampire.

  “Dmitri, get him home. Get him showered and dressed, then stop off at the bakery on 6th and pick up something for dessert. They have a cinnamon coffee cake my mom likes, but if they’re out of that, apple pie is fine. You have to bring dessert, okay? Otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it from Mom. Miri, let’s go.”

  And with that, she turned on her heel and walked away. Miri took a moment to collect herself, shot Sam a hurt look through tear-stained eyes, and followed her. Sam was left sitting on the bed, looking like he’d definitely missed something.

  “What just happened?”

  Dmitri cleared his throat. “As they say, I believe you just ‘got told.’”

  Chapter 10

  “I take 242 points of damage; I’m dead,” said Jay. He frowned and looked at the cards remaining in his deck. “I thought I might have had you that time.”

  “You almost did,” said Ethan, scooping up his own cards. “When you pulled the Zombie Army I thought I was dead. I only came back because I got lucky and drew a Manticore on the next turn.”

  Jay began shuffling his deck for the next game, smiling faintly. “When you always draw the right card just when you need it, I don’t know if you can say that’s luck.”

  Ethan seemed to take offense at that. “It was luck! I could have drawn a Mystic Mountain or something, then I would have been dead ten turns ago!”

  Khalil watched the kids playing Sorcery while he rang up a distracted customer that had ordered black coffee. He had only played Sorcery a few times, but knew the game well enough to follow what they were talking about. Mostly.

  Is it my imagination, or is Jay getting better? Ethan’s like a Sorcery genius, and Jay ALMOST beat him? Maybe Ethan’s lying? Nah, that kid’s a terrible liar….

  “One medium light-roast, half-decaf half-regular. Have a nice day.”

  “Thanks,” said the woman, not even looking up from her phone. As she took her coffee and left, Khalil heard the door behind him open. It was Dwight, carrying the supplies for cleaning the blenders.

  “You know who really runs the world? Not politicians, not demons[GW2]—it’s whoever prints those damned cards,” said Dwight, motioning to the table where Jay and Ethan were sitting. “Have you ever seen how much money those things cost at the store?”

  “No, I don’t want to know. I just use some of Ethan’s when he’s bored and desperate to play, even someone who sucks.”

  Dwight began cleaning the equipment, whistling softly; clearly, he was in a good mood. “I see you’re asking for time off at the end of the month? Is it surfing?”

  “No,” said Khalil. He looked around the shop to see if a customer would come to save him from this conversation, but it was one of those times during the afternoon where they usually had a lull in activity: no such luck.

  “Oh. Where are you going then? Back to Philly to see the parents?”

  Khalil closed his cash drawer, where he’d been sorting his change, and sighed. “I’m not asking for time off. I’m leaving.”

  Dwight turned around and lowered his shades.

  “Consider this my two weeks’ notice.”

  “Khalil, you can’t,” Dwight said quietly.

  Khalil turned around, leaned against his register, and crossed his arms. “Nothing keeping me here; this
job’s nice, but no offense, I can make coffee anywhere. And it shouldn’t be hard for you to replace me.”

  Dwight took off his glasses. “That’s not what I mean. You, uh….” He scanned the shop to make sure no customers were in earshot. “….you have another position here that’s not related to selling drinks.”

  “You think it’s a ‘he knows too much to be allowed to leave’ situation? I think the Buckleys can do the whole Men in Black, ‘we let you remember only what we want you to remember,’ thing, and I’m fine with that. I’ll be happy to let them do it, honestly.”

  Dwight exhaled slowly. “That’s one way to get over a bad breakup.”

  “This isn’t just about Miri,” Khalil said, shooting Dwight an irritated look. He went to the pastry case and took out a cinnamon roll to eat; technically, taking food without paying was against store policy, but they always ended up with extra cinnamon rolls at the end of the night anyway, so he doubted that Dwight cared.

  Besides, what’s he gonna do, fire me? Too late for that.

  “I want out of this horror movie,” he said between bites. “I admit, some parts of it have been pretty sweet, but I’m over it. Too much excitement, and not the good kind.”

  “I don’t think you can opt-out that easily,” said Dwight, then he turned his head at the sound of the door opening.

  A striking woman entered the shop. With dark, mahogany-colored skin and light eyes, she looked a bit like Nyesha, except the vampire was built like a tall model; this woman was quite petite. She looked barely five feet tall, if that. Dressed impeccably in a dark purple suit, she stood in front of the shop, looking around. It was as though she had never been in a coffee shop before and was taking it all in.

  Khalil popped the remains of his cinnamon roll in his mouth, then licked his fingers.

  “Speaking of which, how much do you want to bet that pretty lady is not here for coffee?” he whispered.