Don't Call Me Ishmael

by Chris Kennedy

  My body is a lot denser than most people’s, and I didn’t fly as far as he expected. He looked down at me and—although the crocodile mouth didn’t move—his eyes indicated his puzzlement. Now in the light, I could see that his dark, shiny color came from the scales that covered his body and that he was—rampantly—a human male, which was a lot more than I’d wanted to know.

  It shrugged and walked over to the M2, and tore the weapon from its mountings with its two huge, webbed claws. The Freak hefted the gun once, then threw it at a man who was on the street gawking up at him. The barrel impaled the man, and threw him backward five feet on impact.

  Although there were now a number of people nearby—all of them standing around gawking, too amazed to do anything—it turned to look back at me, and jumped off the flatbed in my direction as I stood. I drew my pistol from its holster, and the creature blurred. Before I could pull the trigger, it slapped the pistol from my hand, leaving bleeding furrows marking me from my wrist down. It tilted its head back and made a loud noise, but it took me a second to realize what it was—it was laughing at me.

  I took a couple of steps back, looking from side to side for a weapon I could use. I knew I couldn’t outrun it on my best day, and today was far from it. After a couple of seconds, the creature stopped laughing and paced toward me. I could see my death approaching…stalking me; the Freak was far stronger and faster than I, and we both knew it. I needed to be faster—much faster.

  As I had that thought, I could feel my adrenal glands kick into overdrive, and my body surged with energy unlike anything I had ever felt before. I covered the two steps between us faster than I’d ever moved, pulling my knife as I advanced. I don’t know if I was as fast as the Freak, but I was faster than he expected. He didn’t get his hands up to block, and barely turned aside in time.

  He did manage to twist though, and instead of my knife driving through his heart, it only scored a line across his right shoulder as he turned and moved to his left. His right hand snapped back as he moved, and I ducked a blow that would surely have broken my neck. The Geno Freak took two steps away from me and roared a challenge, then dropped into a ready position as if to grapple with me.

  There was no way I was going to wrestle the Freak; there was no way that could end well. I stepped back, looking for another option, all the nerves in my body aflame with the desire to move, to strike, to kill the beast. Before I could come up with a plan though, it charged me with its arms open wide.

  I feinted left, then down to the right, under his arms, diving at his legs. He leaned forward but missed me, and my shoulder hit him in the knees. The force of the impact cracked my collarbone and stopped me in my tracks, but I was enough of a roadblock to make the Geno Freak cartwheel over me.

  He hit the pavement like a ton of bricks, flat on his back, and I heard the air whoosh! out of him. I spun, my shoulder on fire, and raced over to him as he struggled to sit up. I grabbed him from behind and tried to run my knife across his throat, but the scales were too thick and turned my blade. He reached behind with his left arm and grabbed mine, and I nearly blacked out as he wrenched my arm so hard I could feel the broken collarbone separate.

  I held on with my right arm around his throat as he tried to drag me around from behind. Like the kid with the tiger by the tail, I was unable to do anything to him but hold on—to let go meant certain death. He got my arm far enough around where he could grab it with both of his webbed claws, and he adjusted his grip in preparation for throwing me. Or snapping my arm off; I wasn’t sure which, but I knew I only had a moment left before I was going to be in a world of pain.

  Unable to do anything else, I jabbed the knife up into the underside of his mouth, and I found the skin and scales much softer and more giving there; the knife penetrated!

  With a strength born of desperation, I pulled it out and jabbed it as hard as I could, sinking the blade all the way to the hilt. The Geno Freak froze, then seized as all his muscles contracted at once, and I lost my grip on the knife as I was bucked over his head onto the pavement in front of him.

  I maintained a tenuous grip on consciousness as I hit—hard—and was able to push the stars back from my vision as I rolled onto my side, then onto my stomach, holding my left arm as close to my chest as I could to prevent any further damage. The gravel on the road bit into my arm, but I ignored it as I struggled to my feet to find the Geno Freak twitching about spastically, while a circle of about ten people stood around it watching.

  All of them were armed, and I walked over and took a pistol from the closest woman, without asking, and emptied the entire magazine into the creature’s head from underneath its chin. One of the men on the other side of it was coated in gore when he didn’t move fast enough to get out of the way; I didn’t care, nor would I have minded if he’d been hit. All I knew was that I was going to put the Freak down for good.

  When the pistol ceased firing, I walked back to the woman I’d taken it from, handed it back to her, and said, “You’ve got the rest of them.”

  Then everything went as black as the asphalt I collapsed onto.

  Sometimes you reach your limits in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  “I thought I told you I couldn’t be using up all of our supplies on one person,” Doctor Briggs said as I woke up. I recognized the room. If it wasn’t St. Vincent’s again, it was a very close facsimile.

  “Not…my…fault,” I said.

  “Oh?” she asked, surprised. “Do tell me why that is.”

  “You told me not to stand in the way of any more bullets or knives,” I said, my voice growing stronger. “You didn’t mention anything about wrestling giant half-crocodile/half-man crossbreeds.”

  The doctor chuckled. It was the first time I’d seen her look amused. “Honestly, I’m sure it never would have dawned on me to do so.” The smile left her face. “I guess I should thank you. Had you not killed that…that thing…I’m told that eventually its minions would have used us all as livestock.”

  “Happy—” I coughed and got a little twinge of pain from my shoulder. Not anywhere near as much as I would have expected. I mentally sighed—I’d probably been out again for a while this time, too. “Happy to help,” I finally finished. “Did you see it?”

  The doctor shuddered. “Yes,” she said, her voice much softer than it had been before. “It was awful. There were also some…other things it had sired. They were all…awful.” She shuddered again.

  “But they’re all dead now, thanks to you,” Jacobs said.

  I rolled a little and found him sitting in a corner behind me. I nodded once to him.

  “Once you killed the leader, it took the heart out of the rest of them, and the last few gave up. It didn’t make it any easier at the end, but it’s over now, and we were able to make contact with some other survivors down toward Selma that we may be able to trade with. It’s a long way with gas being scarce and all, but we’re going to put together a wagon train and see what we can do.”

  I nodded at him again when he stopped and looked at me funny. “What?” I asked as he kept looking at me.

  “Is it too early to ask if you’d be interested in a job as a caravan guard?” he asked. “I came up as you fought that Geno Freak. I’ve never seen anyone move as fast as you did.”

  “Not fast enough,” I said, holding up my hand, which was so heavily bandaged it looked like a club. “That thing was a lot faster.”

  “Well, you moved faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. You also absorbed that blow when he punched you off the flatbed. He punched one of my other men like that, and it killed him—crushed his entire rib cage through his organs. I saw my man afterward—it looked like he’d been run over by a semi, and you got up as if nothing had happened.”

  He stopped and looked at me, and I shrugged.

  “There’s a lot more to you than meets the eye,” he continued. “You also weigh a lot more than someone your size should. They told me yo
u were heavy the last time we brought you here. I didn’t think anything about it then, but I helped lift you this time, and they weren’t kidding; you are a lot heavier than what you look.”

  I shrugged again. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” I finally replied. “I’ve already told you everything I know about me. I’m not one of those Geno Freaks, if that’s what you’re trying to get at. Not that I know, anyway.” I looked at Doctor Briggs for confirmation.

  “No, you’re not a Geno Freak,” the doctor replied. She appeared to want to say more, but then shut her mouth.

  “But what?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want to say anything else in front of him,” she said, nodding to Jacobs. “Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  “That’s fine,” I replied. “I’m not hiding anything…that I know of, anyway.”

  She nodded. “To be totally honest, I’m not sure what you are,” she said. She held up her hand to silence me when I opened my mouth. “Let me finish please.” I nodded. “Okay, what I wanted to say first is that you are not a Geno Freak, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

  “So I’m just normal flesh and blood?”

  “Well, no,” she replied. “Actually, you’re neither normal flesh, nor blood.” She shrugged. “I don’t know what—or how—it was done to you, but you have been made into something…I don’t know how to describe it. You are a human…only more. Your muscles and bones have been enhanced and are higher in density than a normal person.”

  “I knew I was a little stronger than most people…” I said.

  “You’re a lot stronger than most people, and you’re a lot better at absorbing punishment than the average person,” Briggs said.

  “I’d vouch for that,” Jacobs added. “Based on what I’ve seen, anyway.”

  “Your nerves have also been tweaked—I think to make you faster—and your blood is able to carry a lot more oxygen than a normal person, increasing your athletic performance. Your lungs have also been tweaked, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you were able to breathe oxygenated water.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how all this was done, but you have been developed—or modified—to be more than a normal person.”

  She looked at me expectantly, and I looked over to Jacobs. He was giving me the same look, as if both of them expected me to have a breakthrough with all of this information and tell them something.

  “Sorry,” I said, “I don’t know anything about it.” Which was true—to a point. Although I expected those changes must have had something to do with being an Agent, I still didn’t know that for certain, nor did I know how those changes had been made. I could definitely see the advantages that an Agent would have, though, with all those modifications.

  Ultimately, I shrugged and smiled at Jacobs. “It must not be too bad, if you still want to hire me on as a guard.”

  It was Jacobs turn to shrug. “I don’t know anything about all that stuff,” he said, “but you’ve never been anything but honest with me. You’ve done what you said you would—and more—and have helped out this city more than the next five people. Whatever—and whoever—you are, I don’t think you’re a criminal or someone who’s evil. If you were, we’d all be in a lot of trouble. You could have turned on us at any point, but didn’t. Hell, you even fought the Geno Freak for us…and he would probably have eaten most of us alive. Literally.

  “The bottom line is that—whatever you are—I trust you, and trust isn’t something you find much anymore in this world. If you want to stay, I’ve got a place for you.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. “Maybe I’ll be back, someday. This seems like a nice enough place, and it’s encouraging to find a place where the rule of law still holds.”

  “I figured you’d say that,” Jacobs said. He pointed out the window toward the parking lot. “We brought your car here, and the town has paid your hospital bills and stocked the car. You’re free to go, whenever you feel up to it.”

  “Thanks, Jacobs, I really appreciate it.”

  He nodded once and started for the door, but turned and looked at me again. “You take care of yourself, okay? And, once you find what you’re looking for, y’all come back and see us now, you hear?”

  I nodded once, and he left.

  If you look, compassion can still be found in this Fallen World.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I rested for two more days and drove off after a quick goodbye with Doctor Briggs. I thought she might actually have had a tear in her eye, but whether that was because of the dusty nature of the hospital, or because she was losing her favorite experiment, I didn’t know. She muttered something about how there’d now be a lot more medical supplies for everyone else, and then I was on the road.

  The car was pretty much as I had abandoned it, with the exception of a .50 caliber hole in the door. As it turned out, there were two layers of kevlar in the door paneling, and the second had stopped the round. That was good to know, although I doubted the window could have done the same.

  Jacobs had done a great job provisioning the car, and I think I actually drove off with more ammo and supplies than I had arrived with. As I almost got killed twice in order to get it, including nearly getting eaten alive by a giant Geno Freak, I’m not sure how great a deal it was, but I ended up alive, re-provisioned, and on my way, so I was as happy as a man who didn’t know who he was could be.

  The journey north started out better than most of my other recent excursions, and I was all the way to the outskirts of Birmingham in less than an hour, having only had to run two roadblocks where the defenders made—at best—a half-hearted attempt at stopping me. It wasn’t even worth giving them the finger for trying. Don’t get me wrong—I totally did give them the finger—but their efforts barely justified it.

  The Geiger counter started going crazy as I approached Birmingham—it had obviously taken a hit or two—so I took the bypass around the city, running another two roadblocks along the way. Perhaps the folks in northern Alabama didn’t have as much ammo as their cousins in the south? Perhaps they hadn’t been fed as well? Ignorance and apathy—I didn’t know and didn’t care—I was just happy to blow on by the barricades without being in a whole lot of danger. And, thanks to their involvement in my life, I was able to improve my skills in driving on grass to the point where I rarely lost control anymore.

  My car acquired a few more bullet holes in the outer sheet metal, but in general, I was rather pleased with my progress.

  After a couple of hours on I-59 and a crossover onto I-24, I was rapidly approaching Chattanooga when things returned to normal, which is to say, “shitty.” I had just gotten my first sight of the Tennessee River when I came to the bridge that wasn’t. Where the bridge used to cross Lookout Creek, there was now nothing except the river, flowing quickly under the 80-foot-wide gap. Worse, as I got out of the car to look at it, the Geiger counter began climbing. It was too early to know for sure if Chattanooga had been wasted, but that was looking like the way to bet. Still, I hadn’t seen Boudreaux yet, or any indications of his passage, so I went back to the last big intersection and cut over to Highway 41, which roughly paralleled I-24 into the city.

  I made it a little further past Lookout Creek on the other road, but then the Geiger counter went crazy. I was within a couple of miles of my destination, but unless I wanted to glow at night—which I really didn’t—I was going to have to try something else. Boudreaux had an army of helpers—I knew he wouldn’t have risked going any further either, so I had to have missed him somewhere along the way. Either he went down a different road…or he got wiped out, which I felt was less likely. If I’d made it this far on my own, he probably had, too.

  With that in mind, I turned back south, climbing up Lookout Mountain. Maybe a view from above would help me figure out what to do. Unfortunately, the mountain was heavily wooded, and there wasn’t any way to look back into the city. On the good side though, the radiation levels fell quickly as I headed south
, so at least I had that going for me.

  I drove along, continuing south along the spine of the small ridge, not really sure what I wanted to do. I needed to stop and think, but the area was well-populated, and I didn’t want to give anyone a shot at me in the open. I would need gas soon, as it was reaching a critical level, but I’d seen plenty of people since I reached the outskirts of Chattanooga and didn’t really want to stop. Although none of them appeared ready or willing to accost me, I wasn’t really in a trusting mood. There were a number who held out hands to me as I breezed through some of the intersections, but I avoided them and kept going.

  I made it about two miles farther, then ran into a roadblock at the entrance to Covenant College. Although the three men at the barricade were all armed with rifles, they were slung and none of them seemed to be in a hurry to shoot me, so I allowed one of them to approach the car without trying to back up and make a getaway.

  He made a motion for me to roll down my window.

  “Can’t!” I yelled through it as best I could. The armored window blocked sound almost as well as bullets. “It’s broken!”

  The man scanned the inside of my car. Happily, I’d put all of the extra stores in the trunk, out of sight. All he could see was that I had a rifle and pistol. I could see a calculating look in his eyes—while the weapons might have been enough for him to try to take them, if he did so, he had to know I might be able to use them, and he ran the risk of becoming dead, rather than better armed. Common sense won out over avarice in the end.

  “You need to turn back,” the man said, finally. “There’s a war zone up ahead.”

  “A war zone?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Some folks from Florida thought they could come through and take what they wanted from us, but we called up the militia. We got ‘em trapped up at the college.” Something must have crossed my eyes, because the man stepped back away from the car and moved to the front of the car. “Where you from, anyway?” he asked.