by Sean Platt
“I dunno,” Charlie said out loud, not even bothering to mask his dialogue back to Boricio in thoughts. He’d put mayo on his knuckle sandwich while the cameras were rolling; he didn’t think he could get more embarrassed than that.
“Nice performance last night, by the way,” Boricio said clapping his hands. “Ole Chucky finally scored him some Callie! Even if it was a solo performance.”
“You were there?” Charlie asked.
“I’m always here, lil’ buddy,” Boricio tapped his temple. “I’m in your head.”
“Well, I’m just glad you didn’t pop up last night. That would’ve been a mood killer for sure.”
“Who ya kidding, you would’ve both loved it if I whipped out my slim reaper and put on a show for the both of ya!”
“Not now,” Charlie said, “I don’t wanna lose my appetite before breakfast.”
Charlie glanced back up to see if the Guardsman was done giving the old man his food, and was shocked to see the old man standing entirely still, his mouth stretched impossibly wide as black, smoke-like liquid rose from his throat, then spilled out of his mouth and floated down toward the slot at the bottom of the door.
“What the fuck is that shit?!” Imaginary Boricio said.
The Guardsman stared, seemingly unable to move away, as the black thing floated through the slot and then up until it was standing in front of him. The darkness started to swirl within itself, gathering mass, then suddenly thrust itself through the man’s glass mask and into the Guardsman’s helmet as he swiped helplessly with his hands at his headgear, falling to the ground.
“What the fuck?!” Imaginary Boricio screamed, running to Charlie’s cell door. “What the fuck is that shit?”
The black thing forced itself into the man’s mouth until it had completely disappeared inside him, leaving the Guardsman lying like an empty pile on the ground.
Charlie looked over in the cell beside his just as the old man fell to the floor, so hard the fall must’ve shattered the back of his skull. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling as a sea of blood pooled from under his head.
Charlie looked around the cell block, and saw that everyone else was doing exactly as he was — staring in wide-eyed shock at the pair of fallen bodies.
Then one of the bodies stood — the Guardsman.
Charlie stared, wondering what had happened to the man. His helmet’s glass mask was shattered, and his eyes were vacant as if he’d suffered a concussion.
Where did the dark thing go?
“I thought it went inside him!” Boricio said. “What the fuck?”
The Guardsman turned to Charlie’s cell, removed his glove from his hand, then put it on the pad next to Charlie’s cell.
“Is he letting us out?” Imaginary Boricio asked.
The Guardsman’s eyes went black. Charlie’s heart started beating at triple its usual speed.
“Fuck, it’s in him! And now it’s coming in here!” Boricio yelled.
The glass door slid open, and Charlie fell three steps back, unsure of what in the hell he was dealing with, preparing for anything. He had to get past the Guardsman and alert someone.
The Guardsman went from slowly shambling toward Charlie to suddenly jumping at him. The man, impossibly strong, lifted Charlie from the floor, then shoved him hard against the glass wall behind him.
“Fuck!” Charlie screamed, trying to kick out, or summon whatever the hell it was inside him that had turned him into Super Charlie when he took the guards out his first day on the block.
The Guardsman, seemingly possessed, clutched Charlie’s neck, his fingers squeezing tighter into him as he moved in closer, opening his mouth impossibly wide.
Oh God, no!
A dark bulb, like a rotten fetus, pushed itself from the Guardsman’s mouth, a solid-looking form at first until it went flimsy and began inching toward Charlie’s open mouth, which the Guardsman’s fingers had roughly plied wide.
Charlie tried to bite down, to chomp off the man’s fingers, but it was too late — the darkness was forcing its way into his mouth, with the taste of bitter chemicals and promised death.
Charlie choked, spitting the chunks of black and bile that felt like they were boiling his throat. When he stopped spitting, he had to gasp for air. That’s when the blackness infiltrated the rest of him, pouring into his body all at once.
Charlie felt It inside him immediately.
He was merely a passenger in his own flesh.
It had taken over.
And It was going to break out of Black Mountain.
Forty-One
Boricio Bishop
Black Island Research Facility
September 2011
ONE MONTH BEFORE THE EVENT …
When Boricio woke up, someone in a yellow hazmat suit was entering Rose’s cell. Rose was lying on the mattress, still asleep. At least, Boricio hoped she was only sleeping.
Boricio leapt to his feet and pounded on the glass wall of his cell, seeing a group of three men standing in a semicircle outside of Rose’s cell. The group included Will, Ed Keenan, and Sullivan — they were keeping this experiment on the down-low, apparently.
Will turned to Boricio and walked over, and touched a panel beside the door. A radio crackled to life in the cell, “Yes, son?”
“What’s going on?” he asked. “What are they doing with Rose?”
“Dr. Williams created a new serum, using a different vial. To see if we can cure her.”
Boricio gasped, tears flooding his eyes, surprised that Will had agreed to do what he said he wouldn’t.
“Thank you, Dad,” Boricio said.
“Don’t thank me yet. I have no idea if it will work,” Will said before he returned to join the others in front of Rose’s cell.
Boricio couldn’t see much, since the people were in the way, but he saw the yellow suit bending down, likely injecting Rose with the serum.
Boricio put his hands on the glass, trying to get a better look, hoping like hell the serum would work this time. Dr. Williams, Boricio noted, was not in the room. Perhaps he was on lockdown somewhere, awaiting the results of this experiment.
Boricio swallowed, hoping against hope that they could undo the damage his actions had caused.
Please be okay.
He didn’t care if they could cure her paralysis or if she never ever remembered Boricio again, he just wanted her human again. He’d rather her be a stranger than have her live as the monstrosity she’d become.
He didn’t even want to think about what would happen if this serum didn’t work.
Yet, his mind went there, anyway, wondering if Will would be patient enough to continue experimenting with other serums. They’d have to, he figured. They were scientists, and they’d witnessed a mutation unlike anything ever seen before. Even if Rose was Hitler reincarnated, they’d keep working to cure her. That’s what scientists did. And besides, curing her was in line with the Remedy Project’s goals.
No way in hell the vials could ever have a human application if they didn’t figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. With Rose, they had something years ahead of schedule — a human subject. Without Rose, they had nothing. The project would be set back years, if not permanently. Or — and at this thought, Boricio began to worry — they’d have to experiment on the only other known subject, Luca.
No way in hell Will would allow that.
So, they had to cure Rose.
He hoped.
“It’s administered,” the man in the hazmat suit said over the speaker.
Keenan said something, but Boricio couldn’t hear it above the sudden static of the speakers in his cell.
The man in the hazmat suit was breathing heavy and said, “She’s waking up.”
Boricio moved to his left, trying to see beyond the men, but couldn’t see anything other than the top of the hazmat suit’s helmet as the man, who Boricio now recognized by his voice as Anderson, looked down at Rose.
And then came the scr
eaming — a scream so loud and shrill that it crackled the speakers and hurt Boricio’s ears. Boricio couldn’t tell if the scream was male, female, or even human.
A loud thud crackled over the speakers as the man in the hazmat suit was thrown against the glass wall of Rose’s cell, and then he slumped to the ground. Something black moved like lightning in Rose’s cell, hopping on top of Anderson. The smash of glass and the sound of wet flesh ripping came through the speakers. The men jumped back, startled, and Boricio was given a clear view inside Rose’s cell.
Whatever had been left of the woman he loved was gone — and replaced by a hulking, black monster with a long head, large, black eyes, and a wide mouth filled with rows of jagged teeth. Her body had become as unrecognizable as her face.
Boricio cried out, “Rose!”
The thing that had been Rose looked up at him and for a moment, he thought she recognized him across the room. Then she backed up and ran toward the glass wall of her cell. Hard. She bounced off the wall, leaving a slimy black and red residue — blood, perhaps.
The men scrambled, Sullivan rushing toward the door panel.
“No!” Will shouted, “It’s too late.”
What’s too late? Saving the man in the hazmat suit?
Boricio then noticed that the man’s mask was broken, his face a bloody pulp.
Oh God.
Boricio cried out, “Rose!”
Keenan looked up at Boricio, glaring, accusation in his eyes saying, This is your fault.
Rose slammed into the glass again. And again. Cracks began to spread from the points of impact.
“It’s going to break through!” Keenan shouted. “Hit the gas.”
Sullivan pressed buttons on the door panel, which sent a sleeping gas into Rose’s cell.
Rose crashed into the glass again, the gas having no effect on her yet. The glass cracked further, this time sending a chunk to the floor.
Rose saw the hole and started bashing her giant mutant arms into it, sending more chunks of glass to the ground, creating a small hole large enough to stick a hand through. It wouldn’t be long before she broke out of the cell.
“It’s not working!” Sullivan said.
“Initiate Burn Protocol!” Will yelled.
Sullivan looked at him, and then Keenan, who nodded to confirm the decision.
Boricio’s heart sank.
No, they can’t.
“No!!” he screamed. “No!!”
“Burn Protocol?” Sullivan asked, seeking a second confirmation.
Boricio slammed his fists on his cell and screamed for Will, “No, Dad, don’t!!”
“Yes,” Will said. “Do it! Now!”
Rose slammed against the glass again, and then something caught her attention, and she looked up at the ceiling.
Boricio cried out, “No!! Dad!!”
The flames came on.
Rose screamed, her shrieks gurgling in the speakers as her black form was engulfed in flames that filled her entire cell.
Boricio cried out, watching helplessly as Rose writhed in agony.
Will suddenly reached into his pants and retrieved something from his pocket and then thrust it through the hole in the glass into the fiery cell.
“What was that?” Keenan asked sharply.
“The rest of the vials,” Will said. “I’m ending this now.”
Both Keenan and Sullivan’s mouths were agape.
Keenan screamed at Will, “Why?!”
Will got in Keenan’s face and screamed, “We should’ve done this from the start!”
Rose’s screams died with the flames a moment later.
In the center of the room, the love of his life, along with the vials, had been reduced to a smoldering pile of ashes.
Boricio fell to the ground, screaming, his world shattered.
He noticed Will approaching his cell.
Boricio looked up at him, barely able to quell the rage simmering inside.
“I’m sorry, Son,” Will said.
Boricio slowly stood up and met his father’s red eyes.
Whatever love and light that the man had ignited in Boricio’s life so many years earlier had been snuffed out and replaced with cold, unending darkness.
Forty-Two
Boricio Bishop
Somewhere in Alabama
September 2011
ONE MONTH BEFORE THE EVENT …
Fuck Black Island, Boricio thought as he hopped out of the truck that had driven him the last stretch of miles and thanked the man who’d given him a lift.
Boricio had been gone from New York for two weeks, slowly making his way down south to New Orleans, where he planned to get a job as a chef in a restaurant, and hopefully disappear in his work.
He would be thrilled if he never thought of Rose again, or if Will could never find him, and he never had to look at the murdering fuck’s face.
Boricio would happily settle for one of the two.
He wandered south for several days, alone and desolate, with nothing but the pack on his back, caretaker of the last vial left, which he’d managed to sneak off the island, thanks to Luca. Boricio was surprised that Luca had helped him, and was certain that Luca would be in huge trouble. When Boricio asked Luca if there had been another vial, as Will suggested another had been taken, Luca pleaded ignorance — which either meant the boy was lying, which Boricio doubted, or someone else had taken a vial. Boricio wondered for a while, but then stopped caring.
Not my problem.
Boricio wasn’t sure why he had taken the last vial, other than he felt he had to protect it. Will wanted to destroy them all. And while the vials had turned Rose into a monster, Boricio knew that they were also capable of incredible good.
Someday, Boricio would find a way to start a new project. Perhaps he’d go to Black Mountain, which was run by a more daring group of scientists who often found themselves at odds with the Black Island faction.
But for now, Boricio just wanted to get lost.
Without a car, he hitched his way south until he found himself in Alabama.
He was walking along a road in the middle of nowhere, wondering if he’d even see another car to hitch a ride from, or if he should look for someplace to sleep for the night. He had a decent stash of cash to last him a while, so all he needed was to find a hotel.
Searching the horizon, he looked up and happened to see a sprawling cross standing tall and proud against the bruised purple sky.
Boricio stared up at the cross feeling an odd sort of promise, an oath strong enough to pull him from the road, through an ornate gate opening, where he met a smiling woman in a long, blue dress, and past some houses and through the church’s wide open wooden doors on the rear of the sprawling property.
Boricio sat in a pew at the back of the church, listening to the pastor as he paced the pulpit, hands raised in the air as he delivered a sermon.
“Ours is not to question His will. He works in mysterious ways, as the saying goes. Ways that we mere mortals cannot even hope to understand. Most of human misery comes from us trying to make sense of God’s will, to put a human face on divine reason, rather than just accepting His gifts.”
The pastor found Boricio’s eye, and in that moment, it felt as if the pastor was speaking directly to him, offering a light in the dark nightmare that had become Boricio’s life.
The pastor continued, “There will come a time in this Earthly life when The Good Lord will see fit to take someone you love, someone you simply cannot bear to live without. And when that happens, it will feel as though your heart can no longer beat, and your head can no longer think, and the breath inside you feels more like a curse than a gift.”
The pastor took a moment to pause, casting his eyes across the room, his soft stare settling again on Boricio’s, as his hands continued to hover. He finally dropped both arms to his side, then started to pace the pulpit again.
“I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that you will likely never get over your loss
, not all the way, anyhow. It simply hurts too much, and our hearts are too tender and loving. But the good news is that The Good Lord loves you, and if you let Him live forever in your broken heart, you will be mended! You will be enlightened, because you understand that He only asks us to suffer through the sour of this world so that we may fully appreciate the eternal sweet of His Kingdom. For even though death leaves a heartache that no one and nothing will ever be able to heal, at least not in this life, The Good Lord offers a salvation and everlasting eternal joy that no one can ever steal.”
Boricio was in no way religious, yet he found an odd comfort in the pastor’s words, and felt surprisingly at home with his back resting against the freshly polished pew. Boricio didn’t move an inch for the remainder of the sermon, or even after it was finished. He sat safely out of sight in the back of the church until the pastor finally stopped shaking hands of the men, women, and children who filed out. The pastor looked up at Boricio and walked over and took a seat next to him.
Normally, that would have been Boricio’s cue to leave.
But he stayed.
“It looks like you could use a bit of The Good Lord’s light,” the pastor said, slapping his hand on the back of Boricio’s shoulder. “Welcome to the New Unity Church.” The pastor smiled kindly at Boricio, then added, “We’re here for you, Son. You can call me The Prophet.”
TO BE CONTINUED …
::Episode 17::
(Fifth Episode Of Season Three)
“a priori”
Forty-Three
Luca Bishop
Our Earth
Las Orillas, California
April 2, 2012
SIX MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT …
Luca’s life before Oct. 15 was only a shadow.
He could easily ignore the day’s shadows. But at night . . . at night, they demanded his attention.
