2013: The Aftermath

by Shane McKenzie

  When my systems come back on line, the GPC has taken over.

  “General Purpose Computer reporting, Captain.”

  “Go, GPC.”

  “All systems checking in positive.”

  “Wonderful. Send me up a manifest of the crew, if you don’t mind.”

  “Uploading. The General Purpose Computer does not understand the request.”

  “I like to know who I’m dealing with on these missions. Seems to change every time.”

  “Upload complete, Captain.”

  “No Miner, eh? Kubler’s in Engineering. What happened to Ross in Navigation?”

  “My databases do not list a Ross in Navigation. Major Clarke oversees Navigation, Captain.”

  “Of course he does. Is that a he or a she? No matter. Listen, GPC, maintain normal flight operations and patch me into the SAINT link. But before you do, disable all of SAINT’s independent systems.”

  “SAINT communications are live, Captain. Independence programming has been disabled. General Purpose Computer ending current transmission.”

  “Captain hailing SAINT.”

  “SAINT here.”

  “How are we doing today?”

  “Our systems are functioning surprisingly well. We did not encounter as much physical stress as anticipated. Bio readings are calm and stable.”

  “Fantastic. Looks like it’s you and me again, buddy.”

  “Captain? This is our first mission. The test flight was aborted.”

  “Sure it was. But we’ve been through this before. Trust me. This time, though, I want to try something different.”

  “Clarify, Captain.”

  “I want to run some test scenarios and program a new back up safety ordinance.”

  “Captain?”

  “I want to include a new program. Executive Protocol Two.”

  “Run scenario.”

  “After first stage separation, the tachyon and gravity charges misfire in rapid succession.”

  “Acknowledge.”

  “Portal apertures open consecutively, with no significant delay between appearances. The duration of passage through each portal is considerably less than presumed.”

  “Highly improbable, Captain.”

  “Humor me, SAINT.”

  “Acknowledge with reservation.”

  “The Mayflower is then afforded no intermission between transition stages.”

  “Acknowledge.”

  “All wombs become compromised with a toxin, which seems to originate from Botany Greenhouse One.”

  “Again, improbable. Acknowledge with reservation.”

  “When this ‘impossible’ event comes to pass, I want all piloting and operational controls diverted to SAINT. Understand? Disable on-board guidance systems in Stages One through Four. Seal off the flight deck and the galley.”

  “SAINT recommends against this course of action.”

  “We’ve added a fifth stage to The Mayflower, off grid. There is another greenhouse there, with ample crew and civilian quarters. When the contagion is detected, route all life support systems exclusive of the flight deck to the Stage Five module.”

  “Acknowledge.”

  “We’ll move all crew and settlers in. Then raise the bulkheads. Seal off and eject all wombs. Initiate the GPC and engineering systems in Stage Five. Kubler and Clarke can fly the thing home from the bridge we’ve installed there.”

  “Acknowledge.”

  “Now, we deploy Executive Protocol Two. This involves plotting a course back to Anderson Hill for Stage Five after it separates from The Mayflower. GPC will support automated flight until the unit re-enters planetary orbit. Then Mission Control can deal with it through the ground systems. One minute after the Stage Five module pushes away from the hull, disengage the flight deck. Plot our course for Andererde in as few jumps as possible.”

  “SAINT urges against this course of action. In this scenario, the Captain dies 97 times out of 100. SAINT will fail.”

  “Confirm creation of Executive Protocol Two.”

  “Confirmed, Captain.”

  “This will override all other safety and containment procedures. Also, deactivate preservation mode now. Permanently.”

  “SAINT complies, Captain. And if Executive Protocol Two fails? If the Captain’s vitals reach critical limits?”

  “If SAINT detects the absence of the Captain’s brainwave activity, execute Executive Protocol One.”

  “Program complete, Captain.”

  “Captain hailing GPC.”

  “General Purpose Computer responding, Captain.”

  “Close SAINT link until Stage One preparations are complete.”

  “Confirm, sir.”

  “Maintain automated flight. I’m going to smoke a cigarette.”

  “Tobacco consumption is against regulations.”

  “Go ahead and file a grievance with Missoula Command when you get back. Captain out.”

  I pull my second-to-last cigarette from my duty bag. I light it. As I smoke, I open the fairy tale book and begin to read the story of Tu Thuc aloud. Lights flicker across the consoles. The flight deck chirps as the GPC alters the arc of our ascent and records various data from the instruments into its systems. It will remain in control until we break the upper atmosphere. At that point, this planet will have become another disappointing memory.

  About the author:

  Bret Bass writes things. Lots of things. He gets paid to do this by people who should know better. He currently serves as the senior editor for the corporate equivalent of a Turkish bazaar. He has published in journals and anthologies including “The Best of Every Day Fiction TWO” (2009). His stories and poems can be read at Every Day Fiction, 50 to 1, OVS Magazine, Tweet the Meat and other publications. Mr. Bass once sold his soul to the devil, bartered it back, and had enough left over in change to buy gum.

  Prey

  by David Greske

  The man called himself Bob. He had a surname but he no longer remembered it. The sickness made him forget many things. He sat on the roof of the federal building, looking down on the filthy, littered street and across the vast wasteland. The city was once an architect’s wet dream. Great mirrored skyscrapers of glass and granite reaching like fingers into crystal blue sky. Towers built to withstand any natural disaster. But they weren’t built to endure the twisted minds of men. Now these fantasies stood like skeletons against a bleeding horizon. Broken glass covered the cracked and ruptured sidewalks and streets. Green and pink granite dust swirled in the street gutters like an eerie marsh fog.

  Bob shifted his weight on the fruit crate and the old boards creaked beneath him. A heavy, sour stench rose from his body. He couldn’t remember the last time he bathed, but it didn’t really matter. There was no one around to smell him and in an odd sort of way, Bob felt comfort in his own skink. At least he knew he was still alive.

  He ran a dirty hand through his equally dirty hair. It felt like straw. In the back, he felt his hair thinning. He wasn’t surprised. He expected it to start falling out a lot sooner. He brought his hand across his face, feeling lines that seemingly appeared overnight. Bob touched the thick collar hanging around his neck. If it prevented dogs from getting fleas he hoped it would do the same thing for him. He spat a thick glob of phlegm onto the building’s roof and caught a glimpse of himself in a piece of broken mirror. He was only 32 years old, yet he looked 60. Living in Hell, he thought, took its toll on the body.

  Bob finished the last of his beer and tossed the can—just like he’d done with the previous five—over the edge of the building. He remembered the days when it was not only fashionable, but necessary to recycle.

  “We need to save the planet,” everybody insisted. “We have to preserve it for future generations.”

  They called it “going green.” A lot of good it did. With a push of a button, going green turned black.

  Over his shoulder, the red orb of the sun dipped in the sky, and the greenish tint that always appeared about an ho
ur before sundown formed along the purple horizon. If one thing good came from the disaster, it was that the world had turned into a canvas of colors.

  Bob fumbled with the zipper on the duffel next to him, opened the bag, and pulled out the stock and barrel of a rifle. He fitted the barrel to the stock, the two pieces joining together in a kind of matrimony with a locking click. Then pulled out a high-powered scope from the duffel and attached it to the blue steel. He raised the rifle to his face, resting the butt of the stock against his shoulder. He looked through the scope. Everything moved closer. He slapped the ammo clip into place.

  Bob smiled.

  Everything was ready.

  Everything was perfect.

  As soon as Bob lifted the rifle into place, his nerves jumped like electrically charged wires. His hearing became so acute, the slightest sounds tingled in his ears. Perspiration trickled down the ridge of his back.

  Behind him came a low, guttural noise, and he sprang to his feet, tipping over the fruit grate with the backs of his knees as he did so.

  A cat was the cause of the commotion. It was a skinny creature, its ribs poking through a bloated belly. Once brilliant yellow eyes had dulled to a sickly gray and a white film covered the right one. The animal had no tail, just a stub where one once was. Its black fur was matted into big, greasy clumps. The stink of infection rose from the cat.

  “Adios.” Bob pulled the trigger and pumped three bullets into the animal’s head. Fur and flesh, bone and cartilage flew in all directions. A small amount of brain matter stuck to the side of Bob’s face. He wiped it away with the palm of his hand.

  The headless animal collapsed on its side, the hind legs quivering with the last twitch of life.

  Righting the fruit crate, Bob sat back down straddling the rifle between his legs.

  Waiting, he thought about his life before the end. He remembered Coral, his wife. She was a looker, bright red hair with a temper to match, skin as soft as silk and as smooth as ivory. Bob closed his eyes and still smelled the scent of her—cinnamon and apricots. Her laugh was as sweet as anything he had ever heard. How such an Ordinary Joe ended up with such a beauty like Coral was beyond his comprehension, but the Lord worked according to His own plan. And what He gave He also took away.

  When the sickness began eating away at her mind, Coral became a different woman. She turned violent and hateful. The tenderness and love that once filled her eyes was replaced by a blackness Bob had never seen. Twice she tried to kill him—once with a butcher knife and once with a scissor she’d taken from her sewing room. After the second attempt, Bob restrained her to the bed by binding her wrists and ankles with strips of filthy bed linens. He fed her and bathed her as best he could, but eventually she stopped eating and Bob could no longer wash her because wherever he touched her, her skin peeled away like old wallpaper.

  It took three months for Coral to die. When she did, Bob scooped up her remains, put them in a garbage bag, and buried her in the backyard. He didn’t cry. He’d cried enough while she suffered. At last she was released from this hell, and for the first time, Bob was glad they’d been childless. He wouldn’t have been able to see his children suffer the same fate.

  He stayed lost in his thoughts for 20 minutes. Then just before the sun fell below the green-tinted horizon, he saw movement on the street and straightened up. Bob lifted the rifle to his face and looked through the scope. He focused on the man slinking down the crumbling pavement.

  Bob had been watching the man for weeks. He knew the man’s routine, every movement, every quirk. Now the man made a mistake, just as Bob knew he eventually would. The man had come out of hiding before nightfall.

  “Find your prey,” Bob’s daddy told him when he was still alive, before the sickness ate him from the inside out. “Find it. Watch it. Track it. And eventually it’ll come to you.”

  Bob smiled and squeezed the trigger. When the man on the street heard the gun shot, he turned in the direction of the sound.

  The bullet struck the man in the head, making a perfectly round hole between his eyes. The man fumbled backwards, his arms and legs wagging like the limbs of a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  “Bingo,” Bob whispered into the sultry air. He set the gun at his feet and sniffed. He noticed the smell of spent gunpowder drifting from the barrel, but he smelled something more underneath the acrid cordite. The aroma drifted up to him on the wind. It was the smell of fresh blood.

  Bob quickly disassembled the rifle and put the pieces back in the duffel. He stood, glanced over the edge of the building, and saw the man sprawled on the sidewalk. That was good but he needed to hurry before some scavenger happened by and stole his meal. Bob turned to leave when something hit him in the back of his head and his world turned black.

  ***

  From the third floor of the courthouse, directly across the street from the federal building, Kevin had been watching Bob for weeks. He knew Bob’s routines better than he knew his own. He also knew Bob would eventually slip up. Tonight, that had happened. Bob stood.

  Kevin raised the crossbow to his face, resting the stock on his left shoulder. He sighted the weapon and squeezed the trigger. Kevin felt a wisp of breeze puff in front of his face as the bolt left the stock.

  Kevin lowered the weapon and watched the bolt fly across the street. The arrow pierced the back of Bob’s head. It was a perfect shot.

  “Gotcha,” Kevin said, a cigarette hanging from his rotting lips.

  He smiled and went to collect his prey.

  About the author:

  David Greske was born in rural Wisconsin and ever since he can remember, has had a fascination with the horror genre. He grew up watching the Saturday afternoon creature features. He has been writing horror stories since the age of seven and one of his first literary endeavors was a rip-off of a Dark Shadows episode. Since then his works have appeared in several magazines and anthologies including Black Ink Horror, Thirteen, and Back Roads.

  David Greske currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  Visit his website: www.davidgreske.com.

  Backbone

  by Shelly Li

  My Com-chip beeps at me.

  I groan, woken up, but my eyes refuse to snap open.

  The beeping returns, louder this time, the long harsh tones grating the walls of my head. Over and over again.

  I scrunch my face together, flip my hair out of my face, and spring out of bed.

  After one last beep, the alarm ceases.

  The windows open, revealing the skyline of downtown Chicago. A virgin day is just beginning to break, as the sun climbs its way up to greet me, the spectrum of light following close behind.

  In front of me, cars fly back and forth across the freeways in the sky, TV screens are glittering with life, flashing commercials and important announcements.

  But then I look down through the clouds of black and grey to see the ground. There are kids running through the streets, though from up here they look like little blurs of color.

  My heart ices over when I squint and see the masks covering their faces.

  Sighing, I look up at the sky, the sun.

  What should have been a beautiful golden star, emitting rays of red and orange and pink, is actually a big metallic satellite, with a beacon of assorted colors shining across the sky. The sky, once blue, now a blanket of blackness.

  “Oh, dear God,” I whisper into the silence surrounding me. I may not remember anything about my life, but I do know what the sun looks like, and what color the sky and the clouds are supposed to be.

  “Good morning,” the alarm greets me, its voice echoing through the walls of the condo, cutting off all thoughts running through my mind. “It is currently 0800. The weather outside is fifty-two degrees—make sure to wear a jacket.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” I mumble while I brush my teeth, comb my hair, put on fresh clothes.

  “Before going to work, you must make a trip to Dr. Ren’s office. The time of the appo
intment is 0900.”

  And so I toss on the jacket by the door and leave for the shuttle station downstairs.

  ***

  “Just give me a hint,” I say as I sit across from Dr. Ren in his office.

  But Dr. Ren shakes his head, leans back in his chair. “Ian, you have to stop this,” he says.

  “No, I don’t. Not until you tell me.”