by Sean Platt
“Say it,” Boricio whispered into the man’s ear.
“What?”
“Say you’ll be my bitch.”
Dead Guard Walking squirmed, and for a moment, seemed like he might try to fight. Boricio shoved the bat in deeper, causing the man to gag again, dry heaves this time.
“Say it, bitch,” Boricio said.
“I’ll be your bitch!” he cried.
Boricio smiled. This asshole had been too easy to break. He’d love to have an hour alone with him, to really show him what Boricio was capable of when properly motivated and inspired. So rare that his victims actually earned what was coming to them, so moments like these were special, and Boricio hated wasting them.
He pulled the bat from Dead Guard Walking’s mouth. The man collapsed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, too ashamed to look up.
“Yoo hoo,” Boricio whispered to get the man’s attention as he raised the bat high above his head. The guard looked up as Boricio brought the bat down fast and hard. A dull thwap echoed through the tiny room. Not quite brain stew, but Dead Guard Walking had finally earned his name. Well, except for the walking part.
Boricio dropped the bat and turned to take a bow. The room was still, except for the sound of the bat rolling across the floor, but the men were on their feet, ready.
“What’s next, boss?” Moe said.
No hesitation. Boricio walked up to Moe, threw a flat palm beneath his chin, then kicked his feet from under him. His arms were around Moe’s neck in a second. Boricio twisted his head and snapped his spinal cord. Moe’s body dropped to the floor like an empty sack.
“He was a traitor, and we can’t be running with none like that,” Boricio said. “I ended him for all of us.”
He looked through the room; sure as shit they all agreed.
“So, we have to wait, but we have the advantage. Them fuckers out there don’t know what happened in here, and whoever walks through that door is gonna have to face all five players of Team Fucking Boricio.”
Boricio gestured around the empty room. “As you can see, not counting Robin there, we don’t have any weapons other than these,” he held up his fists, “so that means we’re gonna have to make a decision, and we should do that before that door bitches open again. We can get the fuck out of here, or we can fight this shit out, stick around and get some goddamned answers. Seems like these cumdingers might know a thing or two. So who’s for fighting and who’s for staying?”
Charlie said, “I want to fight.”
“Me, too.” Adam was nodding his head.
Everyone else was silent.
Just as he figured, the two kids wanted to brawl while the old fuckers wanted to tuck it between their legs and bitch their way out of the blue.
Fine by me. Three’s company, anyway.
They spent six minutes standing: Boricio in front, bat in hand, Manny and Jack in the middle, Charlie and Adam in back.
The door whined open, and Boricio smiled.
Forty-Three
Mary Olson
Oct. 16
Evening
Belle Springs, Missouri
Mary did nothing but helplessly stare as her daughter vacillated between writhing uncomfortably on the couch beneath thick layers of guttural moaning, and falling into long silences where she lay so still Mary had to check her breathing. It had been nearly 12 hours, maybe more since they’d found Paola. Mary had stopped paying attention to time as it seemed to slow to a crawl as her daughter lay on the verge of death.
Moaning occasionally turned to murmurs, but never clear enough to inform Mary of what Paola was trying to say or what she might be dreaming. The murmurs were just enough to give Mary an icy chill — her daughter was in danger, and she was powerless to do anything about it.
Her dreams must have been vivid the way Paola was thrashing about. Her eyes had darted open, not once but twice, as if to protest the atrocities happening behind drawn lids.
Mary felt helpless, unable to do anything to help her. She couldn’t latch on to her daughter’s thoughts as she had been able to do increasingly over the years. Specific thoughts would be nice, the kind she occasionally overheard and would have done anything to hold on to now, but Mary would have gladly settled for the psychological equivalent of a pulse.
She’d read about amputees who could feel a tingling where their limbs once were. Doctors called it phantom limb syndrome. Made perfect sense to her. Why shouldn’t you feel the ghost of something that had been a part of you forever? Mary should be able to feel Paola, but her daughter wasn’t even a phantom.
That was bad.
Worse was outside.
When she and Desmond returned to the hotel with Paola, another of the creatures had been milling about the parking lot. Desmond opened fire, but missed the shot, shattering the glass lobby doors behind it. His second shot tore through the creature’s torso. A large chunk of its midsection fell in wet chunks to the ground before the rest of the creature followed.
At least the creatures were easy to kill. Or so they thought.
They went into the hotel, got Paola bundled in a bed, then barricaded the front door, leaving a space large enough to look out of, and shoot out of. Six hours passed until they saw another creature. After that, they started multiplying, more and more showing up every hour. Maybe a couple dozen were there when they went to sleep. At least twice that by morning. The number gained weight all day.
Mary stayed by Paola’s side while Jimmy, John, and Desmond took turns with two-man guard duty. The creatures were congregating at the far edges of the parking lot, as though an invisible retaining wall were holding them at bay. The wall seemed to work just fine until early twilight when a trio of the beasts were suddenly standing just outside the lobby doors.
John was first to notice, and act, running outside and emptying his gun into the creatures. Jimmy and Desmond joined the volley, and the three of them managed to hold off the threat. And while nobody mentioned it, they all must have realized it had taken more bullets than before to bring down the creatures. Especially since the creatures seemed to be multiplying in numbers as the hours ticked by.
If Paola was better, it’d be different. At least then they’d have a chance to run. The creatures didn’t seem terribly fast.
Yet as long as Paola was in this state, they couldn't leave. Though Mary couldn’t hear or even feel any of her daughter’s thoughts, she felt like Paola was ... waiting for something. Perhaps it was Mary’s imagination, wishful thinking, or just trying to hold onto anything and afraid to do anything wrong, but the sensation was strong. Paola was waiting ... for something.
Desmond was suddenly behind her. “How you doing?”
She looked up, happy he was checking on her again.
Her smile was weak, but stronger than she felt. “Worried about Paola. What did you find out?”
“There’s a bunch of bleakers … ”
“Bleakers?” Mary asked.
“Yeah, that’s what Jimmy’s callin’ them, and the name kinda stuck. Anyway, there’s a bunch still huddled around the Suburban and the cargo van, maybe 10 total. I’ve been watching them. Odd as it sounds, I think they’re getting stronger, faster, maybe even smarter. I’m thinking we take them out, back the cargo van into the hotel, to hell with the front doors and the body of the van, throw a mattress in back for Paola, then hit the road in a hurry. We leave first thing in the morning.”
“Okay,” Mary wasn’t thrilled but didn’t want to explain that she wanted to wait, because she felt silly. Besides, Desmond seemed so full of hope as he laid out his plan.
“Desmond?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you think happened?”
He sighed, then sat next to Mary on the couch. “You’re starting to make me feel bad every time you ask me. I wish I had a different answer, but I just don’t.”
“That scares me more than anything. You have a cargo van and guns, but you’re not the survivalist type. You’re the sharp
est guy I know, and I’m sure you at least have a theory. Why are you so scared to tell me what it is?”
“I’m not scared; I just don’t want to speculate. Information is everything. When you give the wrong information, even once, people trust you less.”
“Sorry, Desmond, but your business is dead. If you have a theory, I want to hear. Come on, don’t be stingy. Maybe whatever you say will be good enough to make me feel fine throwing my comatose child in the back of a cargo van while ‘bleakers’ wait outside to kill us.”
“Well how can I argue with that?” Desmond stood. “Mind if I pour us an evening glass? I promise I’ll drink just enough for good theory, but not enough to dull my rather awesome bleaker-killing abilities.”
It felt good to laugh, so Mary was glad when she didn’t hold it in.
“Yes, please. Make it two.”
Desmond was back a moment later with two full glasses of Pinot noir.
“Here ya go.”
He made her wait behind a long sip, then said, “Okay, now remember, I have no idea here, so I don’t even count this as theory since that implies a hypothesis that would require an educated guess at least. This is me talking entirely out of my ass. Unmitigated bullshit. I love theory; I just don’t like talking about it. At least not before I can link theory to facts. Before then, it’s just popcorn. Yummy, but no nutritional value.”
“Not everything has to have nutritional value,” Mary said. “Sometimes, popcorn is great just because that’s the best way to watch Amelie.”
“True,” Desmond smiled, raised his glass, took another long sip of wine, then continued. “What if this is the planet’s way of starting over? Maybe Mother Nature is sending us back to dusty roads and wooden wheels, and it’s all for a reason.”
Mary took a sip of wine and looked curiously at Desmond.
“The technological achievements of the last decade are staggering. We may not have jet packs and moving sidewalks like The Jetsons promised, but we have video conferencing and a ton of stuff Hanna Barbara couldn’t imagine. Yet, the more people get, the more they want. And the less happy they are with what they already have.”
Desmond paused, took another sip, then set his glass on the end table beside him. “Do you know about Moore’s Law?”
“Is that the one about technology doubling every five years, or something like that?”
“Sort of. I’m gonna get geeky, okay? Moore's Law states that the number of transistors you can place on an integrated circuit doubles every two years or so, each time at a reduced cost. And so far this has held true, for more than 50 years. This means the power of everything is exponentially climbing: processing speed, memory capacity, the number of pixels in your Canon.”
Interest colored Mary’s face. Desmond’s story gathered speed. “So, the big question has always been, what happens after Moore’s Law hits a wall? Best-guess experts place that possibility around 2020, or soon after when suddenly we hit a technological singularity.”
Mary’s face must’ve given away how crazy she thought Desmond was being. He laughed, sending a stream of Pinot into the air. “I’m sorry,” he said, still laughing. “I realize I’m being ridiculous and confusing. The whole idea of this conversation is just ... ludicrous ... I mean, I think about this stuff in my head all the time, but never out loud to my neighbors and never because it might have value outside my own brain. Not to mention I’m probably not making a whole lot of sense.”
Mary took her second sip of wine. “I’m completely following,” she said with a smile, “and loving every word. Go on.”
“Okay. Thanks.” A final laugh, then, “You’ve seen The Terminator movies; The Matrix; I, Robot; Battlestar Galactica; all the end-of-the-world, robots-win-and-we-all-lose type movies, right?”
“Of course.”
“That’s the technological singularity in action. Technology gets smarter and faster until it’s smarter and faster than us. The created become the creators. Fascinating concept. So, what if that’s in play here? Maybe we created something without realizing it, or maybe nature created something to fight back against something we did? I don’t know the who or why, and really, I couldn’t even guess, but something about this seems almost ... organized.”
Mary shuddered at the thought of the bodies at the river. She leaned forward in her chair, but before she could open her mouth a horrible clang came from outside, too loud to be an accident.
Desmond sprang from the couch, gun in hand by his third step. John and Jimmy were on guard duty, each stationed on the far end of the lobby. They had moved to the middle and were standing side by side in front of the doors. Jimmy pointed, “It’s that one.”
He meant the bleaker in front, but three more were directly behind, four of them moving like an arrow flying toward them in slow motion.
“Alright guys, we have time. Aim before you fire. And go for the forehead. Don’t aim anywhere else and don’t pull the trigger until you think you can make it. I’ve got the leader.”
Desmond stepped outside, Jimmy and John followed. All three found their targets then held their aim. John shot first — over the head of his target and into a tree trunk. Desmond’s was next with a bullet that whizzed by the leader’s cheek. Jimmy shot last. No telling where his bullet went, but it wasn’t anywhere close.
Mary stood behind the three men, still inside the lobby.
John and Jimmy’s second shots rang in unison, then disappeared together.
Desmond’s second bullet sailed straight through the leader’s face, which crumbled to the ground even as its body raced forward before falling after three headless steps.
The remaining creatures regrouped, suddenly single file, but still moving slowly. Desmond got another shot off, and the front creature dropped. Almost as if on cue, the two creatures behind, split up, charging the front of the hotel at full speed, forcing the men to split their attention, and increasing the odds that one of them wouldn’t hit their target and the creature would break through.
“Take the one on the left,” Desmond shouted. Three guns emptied themselves in the creature, and it joined its brothers on the pavement.
The final bleaker was on them in seconds. Jimmy kept clicking his empty gun toward it, panicked. John put his arms around Jimmy’s waist and pulled him back inside the hotel. Desmond charged toward the bleaker with a swift kick to its midsection, then circled behind it, pulled a second gun from a shoulder strap, and shot the creature dead.
Desmond glared at the parking lot where the rest of the creatures shrank back behind a pair of vans. He then went back into the hotel, out of breath.
“That was close.” he said.
“We have to go!” John said, panicked almost to the point of shrieking. “They’re moving in packs now! We can’t sit this out the night. We need to get Paola in the van and move out now.”
“We can’t do that,” Mary said. “She’s waiting for something.”
“What?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but she is. She’s waiting for something in her sleep. I don’t know what it is, and I can’t feel her at all. But I know she’s waiting. And I’m not leaving here until she’s ready.”
“This is crazy,” John said turning away from Mary and talking directly to Desmond. “You can’t possibly agree with this?”
“Not exactly,” Desmond said. “But I don’t disagree. Mary, you sure?”
“Yes,” Mary said, somewhat offended that Desmond didn’t say more to support her.
Suddenly, a scream from Paola. Mary spun around, dropping next to her daughter’s side.
“See — something is happening inside her right now. We, or at least I, have to see it through. If nothing happens by morning, we can leave, no argument from me. I’ll even load her in the van myself.”
“Happy?” Desmond asked John.
“No. But I’m not unhappy.”
John walked away, and Desmond followed, leaving Mary alone with her daughter.
Paola lay still throughou
t the night. Mary found sleep impossible for more than a minute or two at a time during the night. By morning, she was exhausted, and barely able to keep her eyes open.
John agreed to wait until the afternoon since little was happening outside and the creatures’ numbers no longer appeared to be growing. That gave Mary a chance to catch some sleep while Desmond watched over them both.
“I think something’s happening,” Desmond said, waking Mary with a start.
She sat up, looked at Paola. Her skin was warm, and color returned to her face. Her mouth opened and she murmured something — a handful of not-quite-connected syllables that sounded mostly happy. Like she was talking in her sleep.
“Something’s happening,” Mary called to the entire lobby.
“Over here, too!” Jimmy was pointing outside, causing Mary’s heart to speed up. She couldn’t handle another rush of monsters. Not now.
But the deafening sound outside wasn’t from monsters, but rather a helicopter.
“W-T-F?” Jimmy said.
“Did you just say ‘WTF?’” Desmond shook his head and rolled his eyes.
Mary looked toward the doors, though she couldn’t see the hole in the barrier from where she was. She looked back down at her daughter.” She squeezed Paola’s hand and whispered, “I’ll be back.”
She went to the door and looked outside, beads of sweat nesting on her forehead as a chill ran down her body. Walking toward them was an old man, tall and thin, next to a small boy who couldn’t have been more than 8.
The boy.
That’s who they were waiting for. She knew it. Praise be to whoever sent him, even if it was the same, horrible god who had up and ended the world.
Forty-Four
Luca Harding
Luca and Will flew through the sky in the helicopter they’d just grabbed from the local airport. This helicopter wasn’t like the first one. It was old and beat up. It reminded Luca of the “weekend car” Mr. Roberson kept in his garage under a big, gray blanket. They had to trade the plane, which made Luca a little sad because it wasn’t nearly as noisy as the helicopter and felt a lot, lot safer, but it was okay because Will said there wouldn’t be enough runway for takeoffs or landings, so they needed something that was easier to move around with while they looked for the people.
