Underworld Earth

by Nicholas Gagnier

  “Yeah. Guy seems like the kind of person you’d want watching over you while you sleep. I mean, that is what you wanted, isn’t it, Peter? Someone to take care of all this?”

  This is not what I meant at all.

  “Maybe,” Sydney suggests, “we should try talking to him. See if we can be assets.”

  Much as I wanted nothing to do with a drug dealer-turned-murderer and all-around tyrant, it would be wishful thinking that anyone of an official nature is coming anytime soon.

  “What are assets, Daddy?”

  “Something girls get when they’re older,” Sydney jokes, earning a glare from me. “Never mind.”

  “Even if he would listen to us,” I say, “what could we possibly offer that he would need? Man has guns, and men to wield those guns. If he doesn’t control all the egress routes, water and food, he will shortly.”

  Sydney shrugs, looking to my daughter, whose hand has loosened, then let go of my own. Her fear of the home invader has faded, given way to thinly veiled respect. I can only hope Fiona won’t see something worth idolizing in her.

  “There’s always something a man needs. I might have an easier time, being a woman and all. But look hard enough, you might find something.”

  Before I can respond, she disappears through the crowd, somehow the most fearless among them. I am left with my impressionable child, and my moment of world-shattering truth.

  Normalcy is gone, and never coming back.

  Before I can speak with Victor, I need to find somewhere to leave Fiona. Unwilling to park her just anywhere, I consider all options, up to and including bringing her with me. I quickly rule out the latter. Leaving her with Sydney is no better. The woman is a disaster waiting to happen and I don’t want her rubbing off on Fi.

  Thankfully, my old high school teacher Margaery Tickson survived, and instantly recognizes me in the crowd after Victor leaves.

  “Peter?” The small, frazzled woman who taught me arithmetic in sixth grade squints in my direction. Introductions are made between the haggard Mrs. Tickson and my daughter. She lives right down the road wouldn’t you know it? In a collection of apartment buildings neighborhood kids call the Row—old brick buildings with bad lighting and filthy windows—Margaery offers to put us up for the night.

  I agree and thank her. Together, we shuffle off to her home. Following its peeling innards and creaky stairs to the third floor, Mrs. Tickson’s apartment is infested with the smell of rotting meat. Rats run along the floors as Margaery explains her husband Robert died in the night; spittle down his chin and a terrible cough. She offered to pay some of the nice fellows from the Square, who are now armed with pistols, to haul him away with all her neighbors.

  They refused, she tells me, and did it for free.

  “What nice boys. Anyway, I cleaned his sheets and disinfected the guest room before the power went out,” she says proudly. “We hadn’t shared a bed in years, but everything should be fine now. You two can sleep in there.”

  Laying Fiona down to sleep in the glow of candlelight, I try not to think of Robert Tickson choking on his own bile, struggling to keep swollen eyes open in this very bed.

  I try not to focus on nicotine-stained walls or the cheap mattress beneath my legs—a far cry from the small comforts we’ve become accustomed to. Instead, I distract myself by making Fiona comfortable; avoiding her mother’s brown eyes, searching my face for answers.

  “Mom is dead, isn’t she?”

  The question stops me needlessly arranging her covers, overcompensating for my uncharacteristic omissions. Her small hand reaches over the thick blanket, caressing the top of my own.

  “I’m sure you did everything you could, Daddy,” she says. Shuffling onto her side to face the wall, the look in them will haunt me longer than the end of humanity ever could.

  Considering how her mother died, that is saying something.

  I find Victor Quinn in his headquarters—an emptied liquor store where he idles in the back room, only admitting people worthy of his valuable time. Several waves of armed men—ordinary citizens who have rallied around him in the hours since publicly murdering Rex Shapiro—loiter between the store and town square across the street. The doorman is a born bouncer, holding up beefy hands to stop me from advancing inside.

  “Boss is not taking visitors,” the guard announces. “Have to wait until morning.”

  “I have a proposal he’ll want to hear,” I say.

  “Is that right?”

  Racking my mind for whatever reason I can find to be of value—keeping me alive to protect my daughter, rather than die as an arbitrary example—I settle on a gamble, rather than the safe bet.

  “Tell me,” the guard says, “and I’ll pass along the message.”

  “So you can claim the credit? I know how to protect Haven!”

  As the doorman is about to tell me to shove off, several of his friends perk up, anticipating confrontation. Barrels of their weapons level out as they stand. The guard to Victor’s domain does not draw a weapon, but he doesn’t need to. His size speaks for itself.

  “Reggie,” commands a concealed voice inside the doorway, “I want to hear him out.”

  The face attached to it is obscured by shadows. The cherry of a cigarette moves with words from a mouth I can’t make out. The doorman’s friends back down, reassuming their seats on slabs of concrete block.

  The obscured figure steps into the street, drawing on his cigarette. Without the aviator shades or blood-soaked shirt, Victor appears far more presentable. If not for the dead eyes, mangy beard and tied back hair, he could pass for a respectable citizen.

  “I remember this one,” he says. “You’re the guy from the gas bar, aren’t you? With the kid? Yeah, I remember. One moment to change the world, right?”

  Chuckling, Victor bounces his index finger up and down, its tip pointed in my face.

  “Been finding some mighty uses for that phrase you taught me, friend. Come in! Where are my motherfucking manners, huh? Walter! Get this man a drink, all right? Reggie, hold the door. We’ll be in my office.”

  Victor gestures to follow him. Inside the store, rows of shelves have been emptied of bottles, probably transported somewhere they can be hoarded as bargaining chips.

  We reach a well-lit office in the back. No larger than a broom closet, with a desk and a raggedy loveseat shoved inside, a poster board with several flyers preaching the limited rights of employees is irrelevant now.

  In this town, Victor Quinn is the only one with rights.

  “Drink?” he asks. The thin, bespectacled man who helped drag away Mrs. Harmsworth appears in the door frame, offering two crystal glasses. Victor accepts them and dismisses his underling. “You know, I had to beat the piss out of someone trying to loot the place earlier. Damn alkies; but then again, not like we can blame them, right? Small town? Nothing else to do but drink and shoot heroin, smoke meth. Shit coming out of the Rifton projects? Unreal. And yet, they all still flock to the damn bottle.”

  Retrieving a large bottle of brown liquid from the desk’s top drawer, Victor pours between the glasses, spilling trace amounts between rims. Passing me what smells like rum, I want to gag, but don’t.

  “So, what’s this idea you have?”

  “Before I tell you,” I say, unsure where any of this guile has suddenly come from, “I want assurances.”

  “Assurances?”

  “Yes. That my daughter and I will remain safe.”

  “And why,” Victor asks, “wouldn’t you be safe here? Peter, is it?”

  “I don’t know. Ask that Shapiro guy.”

  Haven’s new leader chuckles, taking a large gulp from his glass. I balance mine on one knee, trying not to let him see the level liquid tremble.

  “Saw that, did you? Look, I’m not going to pull any punches with you, Peter. Motherfucker was a cranky old fart. It was a wonder he survived the plague at all. Now, I don’t need no fucking geezer telling me that just because he knew my daddy, he has any righ
t to dictate terms! Imply I’m some piece of shit just because old Harry Quinn liked to shoot his mouth off in the public arena from time to time. Man drank until he could barely walk some nights, and here, the cunt was making my business public!

  “Point is Peter,” Victor says, reverting to a calmer tone, “I don’t know you from Adam. You seem to be a pretty clever guy, trying to come in here and leverage some sense of personal security out of our collective problem. So, let me tell you what I told the other guys I hired off the street.

  “Clever guys are useless to me. Loyalty is everything. I killed old Rex because number one, he was mouthing off to me like a cunt, but also because people like to talk, Peter. All I did was give them something to talk about. Rather than gossip, like some fucking asshole, I showed them blood. Show the people blood, and they will come running. They will come running, and then they will talk.

  “So,” he concludes, “that being said, I think it is time we discussed this proposal of yours.”

  Finally, I lift the glass in my hand, downing the entire drink in one shot, setting it on Victor’s desk. The alcohol burns my tongue and deprives judgement I can’t afford to lose, but desperate times call for desperate measures—like having a drink with the Devil.

  “The army base,” I say, perhaps more confidently than I should.

  “Fairchild?”

  “Can’t be many soldiers who survived. You go in, put them down. If you’re successful, you have access to the Army’s weapons. You’ll be a king among kings. Haven will be untouchable to anyone who challenges your hold on it.”

  It’s a huge risk. Until the moment Victor’s poker face lapses into a goofy grin, I am not sure whether he buys it. Best case scenario, the Army will gun him and his compatriots down, and Haven can come under more docile management.

  “That is fucking genius.”

  Worst case, he will take over the Fairchild base down the highway, and actually be untouchable.

  For the sake of my child, I hope for the former outcome. Her mother is dead. I will not allow her to grow up in a world where tyrants like Victor Quinn can run rampant. Bidding him goodnight, he is left to ponder the next move. I return to Fiona, having proven my worth.

  Margaery sits at the end of the bed where my daughter sleeps soundly, slightly snoring. I thank her as we trade places, and she exits the room quietly.

  Assuming Margaery’s place, I would close my eyes if it did not mean seeing Meghan every time. I would relax if my shoulders didn’t have an imaginary knife sticking out of one, dragging moral balance down.

  I would give my life to protect the little girl in my care. But to do so would be to leave her at Victor’s absolute mercy.

  Harper

  I am the irredeemable.

  The mid-size kitchen is bigger than I was fortunate enough to afford in any dwelling I ever lived in. As mortals, it is easy to take worldly possessions for granted; the inability to take them in death is lost on most people.

  I have lived without such things for years. Other than the clothes on my back, the locket’s death grip over my soul has little need for food, sleep or said useless, worldly possessions. Fifteen years I have walked among a billion people who could not go a day without smartphones, status symbols or material gain.

  Reduced to the head on my shoulders and the odd autonomous fashion choice, I have become a mannequin. A mockery of morality.

  A monster.

  The room’s pitched ceilings peak over a large marble island; to the left is a china cabinet that probably cost more than my first year of law school. A circular dinner table between them hardly matches either. I could say how I gained access to the suburban home in Stamford, Connecticut, but it would only add to my list of sins, which is beginning to rack up.

  It was no feat to brag about. The house may be larger than three people require to be adequately comfortable but it is not well-secured for its size. Beyond a basic Honeywell keypad, there was nothing powerful enough to keep an undying woman out.

  Approaching its steeped pathway, the lack of a garden sharply contrasted with all the houses surrounding it. The lawn was tended to a minimum standard, standing out like a sore thumb to the rest—sprawling gardens and precision-snipped shrubberies set a standard the house’s occupants had no interest or time to meet.

  The wallpaper peels at its edges; foyer floors a child clearly spent years ruining have left scuff and scratch marks on their hardwood. A dining area beyond the entrance looks hardly used, bordered by expensive liquor cabinets. The den appears more lived in; throw blankets piled or strewn across the cushions. A flat screen television casts glare over the empty room, repeating a chorus of infomercials.

  Ignoring both rooms, I continue down the hall, stopping to admire framed photographs along the walls. Two of three faces in the majority were familiar while the third, plus the array of relatives and family friends, smiled back at me as strangers.

  Progressing to the kitchen I stand in now, looking out at a ghost story, I don’t smell a body in the house but am intuitively aware one of those smiling faces is a corpse upstairs, and everybody else has fled the scene.

  These people already saw the ending to their story, Phoenix. Their continued existence is an affront to the Atlas’s wishes.

  How does this fall to me, like always?

  And what’s more, how am I supposed to find the inner monster to ruthlessly murder a teenager?

  What the Atlas is doing is not even guaranteed to work. That said, it is the only chance to reverse the Breach.

  This is all Tim’s fault.

  My target is obviously not here. There were no cars in the driveway, so it’s possible neither Samantha Wallace nor her son have been here for a while.

  In the course of glancing out at nothing, pondering what little recourse I have, my focus lands on a glass sliding door, leading out to a weather-beaten wooden deck. Drawn to the small creature whose final resting place is just beyond plated glass and white plastic framing, I slide it open, stepping out into temperate air. The world beyond the deck’s sanded railing is eerily quiet.

  The locket glows gold, granting permission to cup the bird’s body in my palms, giving it a final seance with the sky. In a world where death has become the prevailing state of living things, nobody gets to choose survival as an option. Nobody gets to play God.

  At least some can go out with dignity.

  No one else will die senselessly, I promise the bird in my hands. If they must perish, it will be with purpose, not fear. It will be because they died saving the world, with some honor to their final moments; not merely because the Atlas wanted it done—

  “Poor thing.”

  The voice comes from within the house, just beyond the sliding door left ajar on its track. Laden with shadows, its owner hides in the darkness of a kitchen nobody will ever cook a meal, share a glass of wine or talk about their day in again. As the figure steps out from obscurity, joining me on the deck, I groan; he is the last person in this blasted world I wish to see.

  “I didn’t know you were such an animal lover,” I say, studying the broken avian mass. It must be a robin; its feathers are blackened with soot, beak mangled from force with which it met the glass door.

  Gabriel chuckles, stopping beside me.

  “All creatures are miraculous,” he muses, looking down at my hands enclosed over the creature. “Their very existence is a compound which grew out of something singular, left to absolute chance.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re not a believer in that book humanity loves to worship.”

  “It is amazing, isn’t it? The way people look at something, explained using concepts that should theoretically govern everything in the universe. And still, they believe in a being that humanizes these principals. It’s not enough they have identified quantum physics, laws of motion; all doctrines that, having been proven within shadows of a doubt, should be irrefutable. But some things... are not included in that.”

  I have no desire to enter into theisti
c conversations with a being who would cheer as I break all my mortal principles to do his bidding. The audacity of trying to engage me in one curls my lips and tenses fingers encasing the misfortunate robin. Its brittle bones groan at the intensifying protective pressure of my grip. Just as I protect its remains from the Nephalim, he would have to pry such a dialogue from my cold, dead body.

  He’s halfway there, at least.

  “What are you doing, Gabriel?”

  “What am I doing?” he asks.

  “Don’t play coy. Coming out here, checking up on me? Not like I don’t have enough trouble pulling this shit off. I don’t need you here.”

  I turn my focus back to the corpse of a small creature; perhaps the only kind I still feel empathy toward. He lets me sink in my bitterness a moment before opening his mouth to offer an answer I don’t really want.

  “Have I ever told you how I became a Nephalim?” he asks. “Was the Grand Maester who appointed me. Not that you would know who that is.

  “Before, the Atlas kept creations of their own—called Behemoths—to maintain order over the realms. This was before the Shroud’s creation and the appointment of an immortal to serve as Death. They were closer to gods, given almost unbridled discretion and power over how the rules of existence were enforced.

  “It led to… abuses,” Gabriel continues, taking a seat on the arm of a plastic lawn chair. Across from where I do my best to ignore him, he is weightless, and the furniture does not creak under his red robes. “Eventually, the Atlas was forced to recruit human souls, and did away with the Behemoths altogether.”

  “What happened to them?” I ask. “The Behemoths?”

  Gabriel shakes his head.

  “That was before my time, Harper. For all I know, these are merely legends; cooked into the very lore of Atlas. But it has long shaped the perception I have of my role, the Council I serve and the kind of decisions that must be made to ensure humanity survives.”

  “Why?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why do you care if humanity survives?”