Onslaught

by Drew Brown

  “Of course I do, you fool.”

  “Be nice, zombie freak, I’ve got the gun now.”

  “For all the good it can do you.”

  “It’ll do me more good than you.”

  “Do you even realize what you’ve done?” the creature said, casting Tony’s arm around the room. “Do you?”

  Budd shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t think I sent us back in time, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”

  “You sent us to the future. You didn’t remember the code. You got it wrong.”

  “What can I tell you? I never could cope with exam stress. Still, it didn’t work out too bad for humanity, did it?”

  “You’re a fool, I still won. Your time is mine.”

  “Yeah, I guess it is,” Budd said, raising his left eyebrow and running his hand through his hair. “Tell me one thing. How’d you know I knew the code?”

  Tony sat down on the ground, his face smiling in the light of the flickering flame. “Because she was smaller and weaker, I was able to control the child sooner than I could an adult. I overheard you talking. How could I resist the opportunity to help you from there?”

  “Help me?”

  “During your flight from London, my domination continued so that I absorbed more and more of the population. I made the airfield operational for your arrival. I took care of everything you said in front of the little girl, every worry and concern. I made sure it was safe for you to land, provided you with the things you needed and I kept those younglings, who were still independent, away from you.”

  “However you put it, pal, I ain’t gonna say thanks.”

  “When your aircraft arrived, I sent someone you knew, someone you’d trust, this Tony, to guide and protect you. I needed to bring you here.”

  “Deacon said the Northern Camp was electromagnetically shielded. How come you turned the science geeks? Why weren’t they safe?”

  “They were initially unharmed, but the air they used was drawn from the surface. Even filtered, they could not protect themselves from my grasp.”

  Budd nodded his head. “And, being nerds, the adrenaline levels in here were pretty low. I guess none of them got lucky and survived.”

  “A few managed to. But my younglings removed them.”

  “That guy who ran up to the Beech King, who was he?”

  The creature laughed in Tony’s familiar voice. “He was like you. The last one. And he knew my secret. I caught him just in time. When I got you to the Northern Camp, I tried to learn all that you knew. I thought you would tell the scientists I controlled. When you could not remember, I staged an attack to jog your memory.”

  “And that’s when all your planning went out the window. You’re not quite as smart as you thought, are you, slime face?”

  “What does it matter? I took over the world in your time. I still control it now.”

  Budd cast his free hand around the room. “I gotta say that I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  “Your stupid wisecracks are of no worth now.”

  “Actually, they’ll be a lot of use. They’ll keep me company when you’re gone.”

  The creature’s eyes went wide.

  Budd pulled the trigger.

  62

  So that’s it.

  That’s how the world ended. I couldn’t save my own time, my friends, or even the beautiful young woman I came to love.

  But my stupidity, my failure to remember the right sequence of five little words, did manage to save the past. And that, really, is all we ever have.

  Nothing in the future is set.

  The present might suck.

  So, the past is all we ever have.

  Ah hell, I think I’ve had too much of this damned whisky. I’m starting to get all philosophical on us…

  Budd stared at the bullet hole in Tony’s forehead for a long time. He wasn’t sure how long; there was no way of measuring, but the torch’s flickering flame was almost extinct when he walked over to it.

  He left the revolver on the platform.

  Skimming the torch over the ground, Budd discovered a skeletal corpse that was still dressed in a lab technician’s white coat. The skull was obliterated into many pieces, and the broken parts rested inside its hollow center like a grim bowl. He shook out the collapsed bones and then wrapped the lab coat around the top of the torch.

  The dried-out material, although once fire-resistant, started to burn.

  With the torch going again, Budd walked around the room, using the brighter light to search for Juliette.

  He found her just inside the shattered wall of glass.

  Her leather jacket was still recognizable, although her red T-shirt had decayed and dulled in color. A long sliver of glass was held in her right hand, the white bones of her fingers surrounding it. Budd was sure that she hadn’t turned; that she hadn’t become one of them.

  She’d taken her own life instead.

  Kneeling down, he kissed her forehead, the bone cold on his lips. He opened up his left hand and placed the diamond-studded bracelet on her chest. “I know it isn’t how you pictured it, sweetheart. But here’s your grandfather’s trinket. I did my best.”

  Budd wiped the tears from his eyes with his sleeve. They kept coming, dripping from his cheeks onto the dry leather. Hardly able to breathe, he got to his feet and staggered through the broken wall of glass into the rest of the laboratory.

  His first port of call was the bottom of the staircase, where Father McGee had fallen, and he searched the floor by the light of his torch, not for the body, but for the old priest’s flask.

  When he found it, tarnished and dark in the dim light, Budd smiled and scooped down to pick it up. He undid the top and took a sip of its contents.

  The taste was perfect.

  “Whiskey, you old bugger,” Budd said between gulps of the liquid.

  In a daze, he wandered through the laboratory, sipping at the whiskey and looking around, keeping his eyes away from the central chamber—away from Juliette.

  In one corner, he found a door marked with the word TOILETS. The hinges were stiff and rusted, but he forced his way into the small unisex washroom. He walked into one of the stalls, lowered the lid of the toilet and sat down.

  People joke about ‘em all the time, but I’d never witnessed anyone actually have a nervous breakdown—I did fake one once at the suggestion of my attorney, but, well, we probably shouldn’t go there.

  He advised against it.

  But here, at the genuine, honest-to-goodness end of the world—and given the all the crap I’d gone through to get this far—it felt like I was going to legitimately lose it.

  I’ve never been to a head shrink—unless you count bartenders—but I know people always say you should talk about your emotions with someone when you’re feeling a bit off-kilter.

  Only problem here: there is literally no one left to talk to…

  The door to the stall remained wide open. Looking out, Budd saw a dim image of himself in a stained mirror that hung above a sink.

  He took another sip from the flask.

  Tears continued to stream down his face.

  “I guess you wanna know a little ’bout me,” he said, smiling at his reflection. “Which, as it happens, is a good thing, ’cause I, sure as Hell is hot, don’t wanna sit here talkin’ ’bout you.

  “The name’s William Ashby, but you can just call me Budd…”

  BUDD ASHBY WILL RETURN...

  About the Author

  Drew Brown is a horror fiction writer from the United Kingdom. Born in 1981 in a small Bedfordshire town about thirty minutes outside of London, his love of horror and sci-fi films goes back as long as he can remember, and undoubtedly stems from his mother. During his teenage years, particularly with the release of the video game Resident Evil 2, he found a special fondness for zombies; the intrigue of the duality of a recognizable world filled with the stuff of nightmares has stayed with him ever since. Brown married his loving and incredibly
supportive wife Serena in 2004, and they welcomed the birth of their first son, Luke, in 2009. When not working or writing, he enjoys a wide variety of sports and has a masochistic streak for undertaking DIY projects that are probably best left to someone else. You can find more information about Drew, his life, and his writings at Drew-Brown.com.