That very night, Michael had a dream about the creature. It said nothing, just lifted a pale hand, and pointed a long bony finger towards Michael’s eyes. Michael awoke screaming to find his television already on and tuned into the local news station; the first case of the illness in the country had been reported.
Looking back, it’s amazing how quickly the country fell to chaos; how the fragile society fell into panic. First there was the string of violence to obtain what scammers claimed to be an inoculation against the disease. Then there were the news reports of people who were displaying nothing more than a cough being literally dragged into the street and beaten by those who just wanted to “keep their families safe”. Next came the looting of every grocery store in the nation for food and water and basic necessities.
The police tried to keep order. The National Guard tried to keep the peace. The President pleaded with the people in repeated national broadcasts to remain in their homes, remain calm, and trust that everything was being done to find a cure. Hospitals were overflowing, doctors themselves were becoming patients, and the sick and dying were spilling out into the streets. It was days before the report was leaked that the President himself had fallen ill with the sickness and had died.
Countries, full of fear and paranoia, began to blame each other for releasing the plague as some sort of biological warfare. Accusations became heated and rampant, peace talks between countries broke down, tempers flared. Those still with military access launched attacks at imagined culprits. Retaliatory strikes were initiated, missiles were launched from long dormant silos, and people were left broken and bloody in rubble-strewn streets. Nations untouched by the plague were obliterated by man-made instruments of destruction.
Michael watched all of this from his living room until the television signal died. While his surroundings were reduced to ruins, his home was protected against the storm of chaos and insanity that had taken over the world. This was the boon bestowed by the monster he had summoned. Left disease-free, safe from the destruction, and with a clear mind, he sat; the lone witness to the fall of humanity. Haunted by the visions, the screams, the sounds of indiscriminate destruction, the echoes of his demands to the creature reverberated in his troubled mind.
All that was left in the world would soon be his alone. He would be the sole keeper of the knowledge of the ages. He alone had the power to survive the end of the world. He could almost hear the ragged man’s laugh echoing in the silence.
~ Present Day ~
With a deep sigh, Michael looks away from the window, as broken as the world, and trudges down the stairs to his dark dank basement.
It seems like ages since he last saw the plague-bringer . Once again he has taken great care to light the candles, place the objects, and verify that the symbols are drawn as was written in the old parchments. Looking down for the last time, he checks the one change in the chalk symbols at his feet; gone now is the carefully drawn protection ward.
Chanting the strange words once again, Michael closes his eyes and winces as he draws the knife over his scarred palm just as he did a scant year ago. Tears streak down his dirt-stained cheeks as he awaits the silent thunder signaling the return of the pale man.
The Ocean’s Cool Air
Vincent V. Cava
I stared up and into the heavens. Stars dotted the evening sky like little white splotches of paint haphazardly splattered across a black canvas by some wannabe artist who believes he’s the second coming of Jackson Pollock. It reminded me of the type of piece one might find in a terrible, surrealist art gallery where pretentious hipsters sip Two-Buck Chuck out of plastic cups. All the while hoping their idiotic interpretations of each exhibit will make others think they’re more intelligent than they actually are.
On a nearly moonless night the tiny twinkling specks of light were the only things illuminating the darkness brought on by dusk. I had grown to look forward to nightfall. The days had become unbearable due to the constant bombardment of UV rays that I had been forced to endure. The evening’s cool air tended to my damaged skin and gave me reprieve from the daily beatings I took from the sun. The night also provided constellations, which had become a welcomed distraction. The stars told stories – stories that helped me forget – forget about the decrepit old lifeboat in the middle of the ocean that I was stranded in.
I barely noticed the commercial fishing boat as it approached my dinghy – a testament to how far-gone my mind had become from the weeks of isolation out at sea. Even to this day, I don’t know how they managed to spot my tiny boat shrouded in the vast darkness of the open ocean.
“Hey there! Are you ok?” The young man was looking down at me from the bow of the ship. His piercing blue eyes almost glowed in contrast to the black sky behind him. Upon further inspection, I could see the whiskers that had begun to sprout from his face – a result of going days without shaving while out on the water. As he scratched his stubbly chin, more of the crew crowded around the front of the boat to take a gander at me. I suppose a half-dead man marooned out at sea was the strangest sight they’d seen in quite a while – an honor I would hold for only the briefest of moments.
“He’s alive!” one of the fishermen shouted, “Let’s get him up here now!”
As I watched the crew frantically buzz around the ship’s deck like a bunch of worker bees, trying to figure out how to bring me aboard, a laugh escaped my mouth. Not a loud bellowing one, mind you, just a tiny giggle. It was the irony of the situation that I found comical. Perhaps that last little chuckle was the humor center of my brain finally fading from the weeks of emotional agony I had sustained. Going out not with a bang, but with a whimper – just a tiny giggle.
It started with a loud crash across the starboard side of their boat. The fishermen struggled to retain their footing when the powerful impact caused their vessel to rock onto its side, nearly capsizing it. Shouts and expletives streamed from the mouths of the startled sailors as I watched them desperately try to make sense of what had just occurred.
Another thunderous CLANG rang along the side of their ship and this time it tipped. The once silent ocean air was now filled with the sounds of chaos as the trawler smashed across the surface of the sea, flipping completely upside-down, and sending the men toppling overboard into the cold, murky water. I struggled to lift my head in order to peer over the side of my dinghy at the anarchy taking place around me.
The fishermen barely had a chance to breach and catch their breaths before it began pulling them back down into the abyss. Their panic quickly intensified as one by one, they started to realize their crewmates were disappearing into the deep, dark sea. You’ve never truly experienced pandemonium until you’ve heard a dozen grown men screaming for their lives in the middle of the ocean. The young man who had first greeted me from the ship’s bow thrashed and kicked through the water, urgently trying to make his way towards my lifeboat. With salvation mere inches away, he flailed his arms wildly, reaching and grasping with reckless abandon, attempting to grab on to the side. I watched the hope in those piercing blue eyes of his turn to hopelessness as a black, sludge covered tentacle wrapped itself around his ankle and yanked him back down under with one quick jerk.
It was the fishing boat’s turn now. Still submerged, the sea-beast easily crumpled the already twisted hunk of metal, before sinking it down to the watery graveyard at the bottom of the briny deep. There it would join countless other vessels that had shared a similar fate.
Without warning, the massive creature erupted from the surface of the sea. I wondered briefly if the salty taste of the water that splashed my face when the beast made its appearance stemmed the ocean itself or the blood of the men who had died in it. I shut my eyes, hoping not to catch a glimpse of its horrible features. The sound of water trickling around the leviathan’s body as it waded towards my lifeboat caused me to wince in fear. Though my eyes were clenched tight, I could still feel its awful presence as it closed in on me. I gagged and choked as the rancid smell of it
s hot breath forced its way into my nostrils and down my throat. With a thud, it dropped a mangled human limb across my lap – one of the fishermen’s arms to be precise.
It spoke only one word. The same word it had said to me many times before and the same word it would repeat many times after.
“Eat.”
And with that it slithered back into the sea, leaving me to myself again. I opened my eyes and stared down at the mutilated piece of flesh lying across my sunburnt thighs. For a moment I was tempted to throw it back overboard, but thought the better of it, fearing retaliation from the creature for not listening to its commands. For whatever reason, it seemed to want me alive, but I wasn’t about to test its patience. I sunk my teeth into the skin and tore a chunk of muscle from the bone. It had been a week since I had last eaten. The hunger pains in my stomach helped to subdue the horrors in my mind and made the atrocity of cannibalism slightly easier.
I let out a sigh and looked back up to the starry night. I was alone again, and once more only silence reigned over the ocean’s cool air.
The Rekindling
Dillon Murphy
Otto O’Hare stood alone, separated by a mere podium and makeshift stage from a crowd large enough to intimidate even the most hardened of journalists; never mind the fact that Otto was anything but a hardened journalist. He couldn’t help but chuckle at the hordes patrons hooting and hollering, flashing cameras and assorted signs displaying their support for the guest of honor. All the people, all the excitement, all if it for one man – Otto forced himself to swallow the bitter taste of resentment that this one man wasn’t him.
He basked in the energy of it all, an entire city block shut down to accommodate the gathering of people. His home city of Brockville, New York had a bustling population of about 260-thousand people. It was growing by day and looking to put itself on the map. Skyscrapers were under constant construction as the city reached towards the unsettled skies above, gift shops and museums abounded, a nearby river often brought tourists looking for a pleasant boat ride and there was even sprawling park for those who fancied nature over the monument to progress the city stood for. Every other attraction must have resented being ignored so blatantly as it seemed every person in the city was forcing their way into the town square. They were all looking to catch a glimpse of the living legend they had been promised and would not be sated until he appeared. Otto grabbed the microphone before him and cleared his throat in an attempt to ease the crowd down into a dull roar.
“Well hey there, everybody!”
It was like speaking to a brick wall, granted this wall was one that screamed back at you unintelligibly instead of ignoring you though, in the end, it accomplished as much.
“I think I know why you all might be here today! My name is Otto O’Hare, resident of our great city of Brockville and editor of The Brockville Post. It is my pleasure to introduce a man very near and dear to us all,” his words were barely heard over cries of the city proclaiming their love for the celebrity they were all waiting for, but Otto pressed on. “However, before I hand over the stage I would like to mention a side project of my own, a new book about to hit stands. Titled The Future was Yesterday, it addresses how the development of new medical practices, food production techniques and peace-keeping have improved mankind’s standard of living across the world, so much so that death is almost unheard of-”
Otto had been nominated to be the one to introduce the guest for the sole purpose of publicizing his book but the crowd’s reaction couldn’t have been worse. He was met with booing, cat calls and a few too many thrown beverages for his taste. He tried to talk over them but found himself disgusted with the crowd and his inability to appease them. He decided to wrap up early and pass the torch.
“Well, at any rate, here’s the man you’ve all been waiting for: Edmund Fortnight, world’s next oldest man,” Otto practically threw the microphone into the hands of the now approaching Edmund. Even at the ripe old age of 349 and hunched over onto his cane, Edmund was a towering individual with broad shoulders and hard, sinewy muscles. He was one of the last living humans to have served in any sort of military, and wore his uniform with many medals and even more pride. Aside from a wrinkled, bald head and dentures Edmund was in perfect health for any man, let alone for someone his age. Otto's wiry frame stood in stark contrast with Edmund's massive build, he was so underweight even his shoulder length hair was thinning. And when the old codger reached the podium he effortlessly swiped the microphone from the air between himself and Otto and shuffled to face the crowd as Otto slunk shamefully offstage and as far from the crowd as he could.
“I heard you folks like to celebrate,” Edmund croaked into the microphone. His scratchy voice boomed all across the park and garnered a reaction so immense those close enough swore the stage began to shudder. “Well, I’m glad to hear it because I’m just a few days away from breaking the world record for oldest man and by golly, there’s nowhere else I’d rather have my party than my home of Brockville!” The cheering drowned out Edmund’s voice, which was just fine for Otto. Edmund himself had written several books highlighting his practice of good health, but they were no different than any of the hundreds of other books with the exact same message. Diet, exercise, and a spoonful of fish oil before bed- it makes the heart strong, they all say. And while life expectancy has been skyrocketing in the past few centuries, Otto put no faith in fish oil to that fact. Medicine had been near-perfected and disease almost non-existent, pollution was now nothing more than a pleasant smell of cinnamon released by massive factories that promoted increased virility and did wonders for the reinforced ozone layer above the Earth. Man-made islands and towering skyscraper apartment buildings for the cities addressed overpopulation and a single, well-meaning government who took great pride in listening to the people whom it protected made the world Otto was born into nothing short of a utopia. All this, and Otto wished to be part of some other lifetime, world, dimension- any scenario in which he would never have to face the humiliation of his life's work being booed in favor of a party-hardy geezer ever again. As much as the world had changed since every continent united under a banner of peace, the people on those continents never changed; whoever offered free alcohol would be forever hailed as a hero. Otto only found relief when he had put a considerable distance between himself, the roaring crowd and Edmund by meandering down an isolated trail into the park.
***
Brockville's park, just a short walk from the temporary stage where the soon-to-be oldest man on Earth was appealing to the masses, was a literal breath of fresh air amongst the busy city life that Brockville offered. Tall trees blocked all signs of the city and the winding trails swerved and intersected with each other to make the small, isolated block seem miles long and almost a lifetime away from Brockville, assuming one was talented at blocking out the echoes of honking horns or, in this case, screaming fans- a practice which, as the park was Otto's preferred haven to escape the pressure of life, he had mastered long ago. Though it was deserted now, the park was ordinarily occupied by handfuls of children playing pretend, young couples watching the sunset and the elderly counting their ever-increasing days left on this Earth; Otto was the only middle-aged man he'd ever seen in the park not surrounded by kids. It was in this faux silence that Otto began openly venting to himself, accompanied only by the wildlife chirping in the trees. “The hell does he think he is, anyway? I dedicate my life to writing, to documenting the world they all live in and all he does is not roll over and die already and all of a sudden he’s some hero?” Otto kicked a pebble as he walked, dragging the poor rock down into his pit of misery along with him.
“You are so right, you know,” a voice from behind chimed in. “As far as I’m concerned, living is very over rated.”
Otto stopped in his tracks and turned to face the originator of the voice, swearing he hadn't walked past anybody. Otto spotted a tall, lean figure shrouded in loose black sweatshirt and dark acid stained jeans, face obscured
by a hanging hood. His hands were pocketed but Otto noticed the edges of gloves around his wrists. The figure leaned against a tree near the path and his appearance unsettled Otto more than he'd care to admit.
“Go back home, kid, I don’t need some punk kicking me when I’m down.”
“Kid?” The figure’s hood cocked to the side, its smooth, deep voice tinged with amusement. “I’ll have you know I’m as old as existence itself, as powerful as the tides of the sea or the seething magma of the Earth’s core, as wise as- as…. Damn it, I always trip up right there. What’s something really, really wise? An owl?”
“What in god’s name is wrong with you?” Otto was more than a little put off by the figure; he was probably some junkie looking for a quick buck.
“Well in God’s name I am Spiritus Raptor- that’s the Robber of Life, but your folks usually call me the Angel of Death, Grim Reaper, I think the Greeks went with Hades for a while…” The figure moved its fingers into its hood, as if to rest its hand on its chin even though there was no sign of skin inside the jet black folds of the clothing which flowed and wisped like smoke through the air.
Dark Tales: 13 New Authors, One Twisted Anthology Page 2