by Sean Platt
Kingsland, Alabama
Oct. 13, 2011
TWO DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT …
The dreams were getting worse.
Boricio woke with his nose curling at the scent of Jack soaked into his collar. He swung his feet to the floor, rose from bed, then went to the motel window and stared outside at the empty parking lot, and the few beat to hell cars, including an ancient Chevy.
Boricio’s dreams, as they had been for the last month, were a special sort of bullshit, and worse for their razored edge of reality.
He went to the bathroom, took a shit, then put on his shoes and collapsed back onto the mattress, wondering if today would be the day he’d finally get the fuck out of Dodge. New Orleans was about seven hours away. If he left this morning he could be there by the end of the day and starting his new life tomorrow.
Boricio was sick of dreaming about Rose, sick of hearing her final screams screeching every time he closed his eyes, and sick of thinking about the goddamned vials.
He was awake for several minutes before realizing he was still slightly drunk. He’d never had a hangover before, at least nothing beyond a mild headache. He’d never thrown up, at least not from too much alcohol, though the bottle of Jack he’d spilled on himself while falling to sleep the night before made him want to wake with a Technicolor yawn.
Boricio glanced over at the empty bottle, and felt almost happy for the draught. One more reason to shift gears and get the fuck out of town. He was drinking too damned much, even though the too much felt like it was barely enough while he was doing it. Becoming a drunk was too easy, and Boricio had known too many men who were too stupid to live any other way. That was the problem with alcohol: You drank to forget and drank to celebrate. And if you didn’t have anything to mourn or memorialize, well hell, you could just drink while waiting.
Boricio wished that so much of his last few months weren’t swirled in such a blur. He was having a difficult time separating truth from horror, and the past he was trying to flee. He wasn’t sure where the true lines lay between nightmare and reality. Time had turned soupy, and while the calendar clearly said Oct. 13, Boricio could hardly believe so much time had passed since his last time behind the wheel of the Mini-Cooper.
When Boricio fled Black Island, he was searching for the time and space to find himself anywhere else and away from everyone’s reach — he longed to find a place beyond the flow of time.
But Boricio had found nothing like that at all. He found The Prophet instead.
It was odd, how much Boricio felt drawn to The New Unity Church, even though he knew religion was bullshit. Even smart theology left you with two choices: Either man was one of God’s fuck-ups, or He was one of theirs. Boricio found the second one far easier to believe.
Before walking through the front door of New Unity, Boricio would have claimed, gun to head, that God was definitely not good. Religion was a crutch for the weak, giving you nothing you couldn’t get for free, costing plenty you shouldn’t have ever had to spend, and ultimately, worth exactly the same squirt of piss it was worth before your ass ever kissed the flat of the pew.
Yet mankind was largely religious, which in Boricio’s estimation made people slightly dumber than most animals, since most animals were smart enough to kill for food and protect their young, without being dumb enough to murder another just because their two theories end-to-end failed to make a straight line. It was bullshit, but the truth: Two religions in a valley meant war. Add another dozen and you had enlightenment.
When the old man first started talking about Oct. 15 and the Judgment Day right behind it, Boricio thought he was crazier than a sewer rat. But that was before he said something that momentarily bleached the marrow from Boricio’s bones.
The old man had been giving one of his two daily sermons a few nights earlier, about 90 minutes or so before Boricio started emptying his bottle of Jack. He said, “There is no power, short of the gentle hands of The Good Lord Himself, that can pry the secrets from the depths of the human heart.”
After he said the word “heart,” the old man kept going on and on and on like he always did, except this time Boricio seemed to know before every word before it left the old man’s mouth. When the old man started talking about standing at the empty well, even describing it down to the pile of bricks beside it, Boricio could see the same well, same as he’d seen in his dreams. Then, when he started talking about the end of it all and the beginning of everything else, Boricio could see it like he did in his dreams, staring down from space at the world, where everything was turning to black like pixels fading from a dying screen.
In that sermon, the old man somehow changed from a smarmy evangelist to something Boricio didn’t quite understand, but he was just curious enough to stick around and figure out. The longer Boricio spent around the old man, the more it seemed as though he’d known him, or at least had been dreaming of him, forever. Boricio couldn’t tell if that was true, or just part of a larger illusion.
The old man certainly took himself seriously, and carried himself with dignity, but everyone on TV, from news anchors to folks on the street, loudly testified to his lunacy. Of course, Boricio knew one-sided when he saw it. He’d seen plenty of people praising the old man, twice a day for a week, though he never saw the anchors or the interviewers on the news getting their side of the story.
The TV talking heads made fun of “The Prophet,” crafting jokes and casting him as anything from a raving idiot to a master of deception. Boricio hadn’t untangled the second part yet, but knew the first one was downright ridiculous. Anyone who failed to see the intelligence in the old man’s eyes a second after staring inside them had to be idiots themselves. And anyone who hadn’t looked into his eyes didn’t have a right to pound their nails into a rickety bridge of opinion. Assholes were entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own set of facts. Hell, even an 8-year-old knew that.
Boricio suddenly missed Luca with a flare of fierce intensity, as though his little brother could make his world orbit like it did back when everything was better. As if Luca could give him permission to start living, without having to wake in the morning with the scent of Jack on his collar.
Given the time, Luca should be alone, assuming he was still being home schooled, or maybe with Sarah, but when Boricio called, Will answered on the first ring.
“Hello?”
Boricio was silent.
“Hello?”
Still nothing.
“Is that you, Boricio?”
Will gave Boricio a minute to respond, but Boricio only chewed the air without hanging up.
“I’m sorry, Boricio,” Will finally said. “Please, talk to me.”
Boricio thought of telling the old man to fuck himself, maybe with something sharp, but silenced the line instead.
He dropped the phone in his pocket, where it buzzed seven or so seconds later. Boricio pulled it back out, looked at the screen to see what he already knew, then opened his nightstand drawer and dropped the phone inside with a thunk before slamming it shut.
He heard a knock at the door, so in time with the slamming drawer that Boricio wondered if it was his imagination.
Three more knocks said it wasn’t.
Boricio went to the door and opened it to the round face of the old man, split a third down the middle with the widest smile Boricio had seen before breakfast in months.
“Care to have a talk over drinks?”
Boricio scratched his head. “You kidding, Father? You’ve any idea how early it is?”
The old man said, “I’m not a Father, just a humble servant of The Good Lord. My cloth gets stained before it gets in the wash, no different from yours.” He smiled even wider and pat Boricio on his shoulder. “Besides, I’m not drinking anything but the blood of Christ, and all times of day are great for that. And you,” he shook his head, “well, you’re not having anything but the hair of the dog that bit you, and I can’t see a lick of harm in that.”
The
Prophet added, “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink,” then winked. “Isaiah 5:11.”
Boricio said, “Doesn’t that verse mean we’re not supposed to drink?”
“Nope, Son,” The Prophet shook his head. “It sounds exactly like permission granted to me.” He winked again, then said, “I’ll be right back.”
The old man nodded at a now smiling Boricio, then disappeared to his F-150, returning a minute later with a full bottle of Jack — replacing the single drop Boricio had left — and a black wine bottle with a large rooster on the label, and a gold twist-top instead of a cork, plus two red plastic cups.
The Prophet set both bottles on the small table in Boricio’s room, then turned to Boricio. “What’ll it be?”
Boricio said, “Jack, please. I can’t trust wine without a cork.”
“Corks don’t make the wine taste better,” The Prophet argued.
“Yeah, but it’s how wine’s supposed to be finished. Would you listen to a sermon that didn’t mention God?”
“That’s different.”
“Nope,” Boricio shook his head. “I don’t think it is.”
“People want things easy, and don’t always have a bottle opener.”
Boricio didn’t want to argue. He said, “Wine is poetry in a bottle; sunlight, held together by water. The cork is the final verse. I’m not interested in your savior’s blood this morning, Padre.”
Boricio watched The Prophet, blinking twice as fast while breathing half as slow, trying not to look a quarter flustered as he was, probably trying to figure out how to talk to a man like Boricio — not just the man he was, but the man he was becoming, a man unwilling to wait for the world to tell him who he was.
Boricio wanted to know why the old man was in his room. If he was drinking this early in the morning, he was likely holding onto a special sort of bullshit he was ready to shovel onto Boricio’s plate.
Boricio sipped his Jack beside the old man, more out of curiosity than anything else. Because there was already alcohol in his blood, it was only a half hour or so before he was well on his way to demolished — even though he’d yet to wring his liver from the evening before.
The old man started talking about the coming prophecy again, and Boricio found himself swaying back and forth in half belief. “You know I haven’t just been dreaming of this day for years,” The Prophet said. “I’ve been dreaming of you.”
Boricio felt an icy chill, not just because he was slowly and inexplicably starting to believe, but because he’d been dreaming of the old man too.
The Prophet must have noticed the look on Boricio’s face, because he started to question him like a prisoner. “You’ve dreamed of me, too, haven’t you?”
Boricio nodded because anything else would’ve been a lie screaming inside him.
The old man said, “This isn’t a mistake, Boricio.” He shook his head back and forth so fast it looked like it had batteries. “God doesn’t make mistakes. You and me,” he clapped his hand on Boricio’s shoulder. “The Good Lord has brought us together, given us a special acquaintance so we could do something as one. Something special.” He paused, then, “Something that’s never been done on His green Earth before.”
Boricio didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. A few minutes faded into five before the old man relieved his bottle of its final drops, then filled Boricio’s red cup with another few shots of fuel.
“What can you tell me about the vial, Boricio?”
Boricio suddenly wanted to leap from his chair, and fly toward the old man and start beating his face in.
How the fuck does he know about the vial?
The Prophet was either exactly who he said, or what Boricio feared he might be.
“How do you know about the vial?”
“Same as everything else, Son — when He whispers, I listen.”
The old man reached out to Boricio. “Our time is right now,” he said.
No, this isn’t right.
Boricio stood, then said, “Of all bad men, men of the cloth can be the worst.”
The last word was the hardest. His head started to swim, and Boricio wondered how long it had been since he’d felt so drunk.
Except it wasn’t drunk, not exactly.
He collapsed to the edge of the bed as the world went dancing in circles.
“What is it, Son?” the old man asked. “Tell me what’s in the vial.”
Boricio’s heart was pounding. He had to reach his bag, make sure the vial was safe.
He rose from the bed again, then swayed but stayed on his feet, swerving back and forth like a pendulum as he tried to keep himself steady.
But he couldn’t.
Boricio tried to ask the old man what in the fuck he had done to him, but his words, like his breath, were trapped in his throat.
He collapsed to the floor and fell into a fresh abyss.
Forty-Nine
Ryan Olson
Black Mountain, Georgia
March 31, 2012
FIVE MONTHS AFTER THE EVENT …
Ryan tried to cover his ears from the sound of the braying alarm, buzzing on and off for what seemed an eternity until someone finally appeared outside his cell door.
It was Lisa, one of the Guardsmen who’d found him and brought him to Black Mountain. She was covered in a bucket of blood and sweat, though as far as Ryan could see, none of the blood appeared to be hers.
“Something got in here, or escaped,” she said.
“I know,” Ryan said, standing. Her shotgun was still in her hand, but she, along with several others, had come to trust him, so it wasn’t aimed at him. “I saw. They’re doing some sort of experiment, which somehow linked me to the kid, Charlie. Now I can see inside his head.”
“Whoa,” Lisa said. “That’s crazy.” Then, “Does that mean you can tell us what in the hell he’s doing?”
“He’s not the Charlie you know,” Ryan said. “He’s been compromised. Something else came in here, in the body of an old fat man they threw in the cell next to Charlie’s.”
“The Prophet?”
Ryan thought for a moment. He didn’t recall the thing thinking of itself as any name, let alone The Prophet, so he shrugged. “I dunno.”
He asked, “How many are dead?”
“A lot. Dead, or infected,” Lisa said. “And the weirdest thing, most of the infected people are mutating immediately — like you, but without your control. It’s happening so fast — I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Why are you in here?” he asked.
“I need your help. I know what you’re capable of,” she said. “We’ve gotta save Billy.”
“Who’s Billy?”
“This kid I found on our last trip out. He was alone, scared shitless. I told him I’d protect him. He’s three levels down, and the thing is making its way toward him right now.” She looked in what was left of Ryan’s eyes. “Do you need a gun?”
He looked back, then held up his right hand, deformed and ending in a blackened claw, “Can’t use one. And don’t need one. But I’m glad to see you trust me enough to give me one.” He tried to smile but his face hurt too much.
“Don’t make me regret it,” she said.
They stepped from the elevator and into a long hallway on a residential level. The alarm continued to buzz, with bright-red lights spaced every 40 feet or so blinking along the ceiling.
The halls were splattered with blood, black liquid, and too many corpses to count. “Jesus Christ,” Lisa said, staring at the carnage in horror.
Ryan’s elevated senses picked up on two heartbeats nearby, at the end of the hallway, in one of the rooms to the left. “I can sense two people here, though one heartbeat is way faster than the other,” he said to Lisa, pointing toward the far end of the hall. “But I don’t think they’re mutants or the aliens. I sense them differently.”
“Is one of them Billy?”
“I dunno,” he shook his head
, slowly making his way down the hall.
Before they reached the door, Ryan sensed someone behind it. He turned to Lisa. “Maybe you should go in first, so I don’t scare whoever’s inside.”
“Good idea,” she said, then stepped through the doorway, which slid open at her approach.
The door slid closed behind her, leaving Ryan alone in the hall, standing beneath a blinking red light, listening to the alarm, which was growing increasingly annoying.
Lisa was taking forever inside the room. Ryan wondered if something had happened. Perhaps the person was hiding, or maybe they’d left the room. He considered going inside, but was still worried about scaring whoever was in there, or worse, having them mistake him for a monster and opening fire when he stepped through the door.
After a while, Lisa came out of the room with a 20-something, dark-haired woman, looking 10 months pregnant judging by the way her belly pushed tight against her black dress. Her eyes were two confused saucers.
“She doesn’t speak English,” Lisa said.
“So, what are we doing now?”
“We’re gonna get her out of here,” Lisa said. “To somewhere safe.”
“I think she’s safer here,” Ryan said. “I can feel them, too many, out there, roaming the halls on the other floors.”
“Yeah, but if we leave her here, she’s defenseless. Once they get to this level she’s done.”
Ryan looked at the woman, and sensed the two heartbeats, hers, along with the child inside her, both beats thrumming like drums in his head.
He wondered if the Darkness, the aliens, or the other mutants could sense people as well, or maybe even better than him. If so, it was only a matter of time before humanity was picked like every cherry from a tree, or transformed into Darkness.
“Come,” Lisa said, waving them back toward a connecting hallway. “Can you sense anyone else? Can you sense Charlie?”
Ryan stopped and closed his eyes, searching for Charlie’s signal, like trying to tune his mind to a distant radio station.
