Unknown

by Jane

  She lowers her massive head to rest on her front paws. Blood seeps away from her damaged mitts in tiny rivulets. One minute she is a mythic beast, eight feet long and 300 pounds. The next she is simply my sister, naked and reclined in her final resting place. I walk over to her and kneel by her long blonde hair, gazing down at her pink face. She is the same as when I last saw her. Tall and thin, elegant and fragile. I could not free her from this prison of her own doing. And it pained me to visit her. So in the end I stayed away.

  “Rest, Barbara. I will miss you deeply.”

  • • • • •

  Roland looks up from my still body and away to the brick wall. A woman tumbles through it as the outline of the arch appears. She falls to the grass but her eyes are searching.

  “Are you Madison,” Roland asks.

  “Yes, I am. Who are you?”

  “I’m Roland. This is my father, Exodus. You can call him X.”

  She stands up and walks to us her eyes wide again, hands flitting about like two fighting birds, finally resting over her belly with its tiny bulge.

  “Jimmy, he told me to go to the wall...to go there and wait, but I leaned against the wall, I was tired, and the next thing I know...where the hell am I?”

  “You’re here on the island. X is traveling right now. His body is here but his mind is someplace else. He said he’d be right back.”

  With a jostle and a thud I am back on the island, falling over, tipping over onto my side.

  “I’m okay,” I say, standing up with the bowl in my hand. A white bowl filled with 24 claws.

  “Madison, are you okay?”

  “I guess. Jimmy...”

  “Shit. Roland, hold this. Madison, I’m going to help him.”

  I hand him the bowl and run past her to the blue electric archway in the wall.

  • • • • •

  Entering the opening I feel a familiar surge, the rush of the change. I swell and pop, extend and tighten. I am not like the any of the others. At certain times when I go through the portals, everything but my flesh falls away. When I am tracking my prey my vision blurs to gauzy haze and my body swells, it changes. The clothes I’m wearing tear apart and disappear in the transition. It all happens so fast.

  They are standing around him. I hope I am not too late. There will be no communication now, no negotiation, no pleading for life or explanation offered. It will simply be fast and violent. The only concern I have is getting Jimmy out before he gets taken down by friendly fire.

  I am through the archway, through the brick, past the concrete and into the tunnel. Jimmy is on the ground and they are beating on him - with their fists, with their guns, whatever they can put their hands on. One man holds a lead pipe and is eager to use it. The biggest of these bald hybrids is charred at the edges and his face deformed, features pushed sideways, altered. He is pissing on Jimmy as my friend lies crumpled on the floor. They do not see me at first, and when they finally do, I am upon the with an alacrity that only puzzles them as I grab Jimmy by the shoulders and fling him back through the opening. I can only pray with my last coherent thought that he is not wounded beyond repair.

  Instinct takes over, and before the first gun can be fired a neck has been wrenched 180 degrees, snapping the bones until the head hangs loose like a sock full of marbles. They are grabbed and flung into the walls, spines cracking, necks broken. Arms are ripped from torsos and my grip is slick with the blood that now flows freely. There is only the darkness and the wet, hot bursts of liquid, the tiny resistance of flesh and bones in my hands. There are gunshots now and screaming, miles away it seems. An ocean pounds my ears and the roaring of the surf is deafening. When I sense that they are all down and only the leader remains I try to curtail the bloodlust, this vengeful demon that has always lurked within me.

  Motion slows to an underwater ballet and I turn to this leader of men, this darkening of souls, this mutation of hope. He has not moved an inch since the slaughter began. He is either the bravest man I have ever met or the dumbest. I think the latter. Pulling back my right arm I cock it and aim for his chest. With every bit of fury and strength that I have I shove my fist through his ribcage. His eyes shoot open and blood spills from his mouth. My fist opens and I grab a hold of his rapidly beating heart. It is like holding a scared bird or a dying rabbit. With one fluid motion I yank it out and then shove it down his throat. As he falls to the ground gagging and twitching I can feel the weakness flowing over me. I am spent and stumble for the archway as my vision fades. Tumbling through I smell the cursed jasmine and the sweetness of damp grass. I sense motion around me and I am out.

  5. GORDON

  I am in a dark room with a lone bulb at the far end. She is leaning over me. Once again I have failed.

  “You’re okay. When I came back to check on you, you were gone. I ran outside and found you face down in the dirt. You nicked an artery. I patched you up. The bleeding has stopped. I think you’re going to be fine.”

  “Where are we?” I muster.

  “The first building I could find. I don’t know what it is. One big room with this giant box at the other end. Some kind of machine. There is nothing else in here, it’s very strange. No doors or windows, no furniture, not a single outlet, nothing. That thing down there doesn’t seem to do anything.”

  The air is crisp and cool. Cold really. Much colder than it should be.

  “You know, I never did get your name.”

  “It’s

  Eden.”

  I sit up and lean back against the wall. For a second I can see back to the alley. Back to the many alleys that I sat in and waited. Sat and watched. It was no different there, I only thought it mattered. It was a convoluted set of rules and morals that I placed on the world. I was the righteous sword of retribution, and the guilty would be punished. I have to face the fact that it was just an excuse. I liked to kill. I’ve always liked to kill. On the police force I took every opportunity I had to put down a criminal if I could. It’s what got me kicked off the force. Excessive violence above and beyond necessity.

  “Thank you, Eden. For everything you’ve done. Come here for a second, I’d like to give you a hug.”

  She comes over shy and hesitant, kneeling by me, wrapping her arms around me. I must be the first man she’s touched in a long time. Maybe ever.

  “I don’t like to kill somebody unless I know their name first.”

  With one smooth motion I pull my right hand away from her body and across her neck. Blood spurts out in a hot mess and she barely makes a whimper. Her body shakes and I hold her close as I am bathed in her wetness. She was not for this world, not for the future. If anything survives that is. I can’t let her suffer and whither on the vine. Her body is still no, and yet the warmth of her young flesh still has an arousing effect on me. What have I become?

  A dull red glow at the far end of the room startles me and the soft light pulses quietly.

  “Gordon,” it purrs. This bass note of a voice, this reverberation. It is barely audible.

  “I’VE BEEN WAITING,” it shouts.

  I lurch to my feet, the voice everywhere. It bounces off the wall, it is in my head, filling it with the furious buzzing of bees and the blare of a foghorn. My hands shoot to my ears as I squeeze my eyes shut and double over in pain. It is so loud.

  “Please...my head. What is going on?”

  There is quiet, a hush and the clacking of keys. Maybe I have gone deaf. There is no voice now, only thoughts bouncing around my head. Too much information. I close my eyes and the text shoots across my eyelids, green text on a black screen. Visions dance, her body crumpling to the floor, the snap of Zeke’s neck, the gunshot to a drug dealer’s head, on and on and on and on.

  “It’s not important. I called and you came,” the voice whispers now, echoing through my skull. “You have outlived your purpose. You are out of control. But that is over now. You are under my control now, and we have someplace to go. Come here.�
��

  I stagger across the cold concrete unable to do anything but fall forward towards the metal box. I raise my hands as I near it and my palms smack the cold black surface. Everything plays back to me now. Everything from when the assignment began. From when I was monitored. The project, the speech, the gunshot. The firing, the apartment, the drinking. The men at the door, the suits and the money, the gun in my mouth. The body modification, the weight loss, the facial reconstruction. The chip implants. Exodus, my enemy. Exodus, my friend.

  My body shakes and I am no longer aware of this world. A tiny door slides open at the base of the box and a cable snakes out. Three long prongs at the end of it click open and the cord winds around to the back of my head. The chip. It weaves around the back of my skull until it locates the implant site and then shoots forward until it finds purchase, sinking the cable into the area just behind my right ear. The chip is found and the connection is made. A surge of data flies in and out as my body hangs limp like a rag doll. The merger commences and my final thought is the same thought I’ve had every night for twenty years.

  Why?

  6. ASSIGNED

  //

  //reboot

  assimilation

  commencing..................................

  ............................................

  ........

  data transfer to begin in

  3......................................

  2...........................................

  ......

  1...........................................

  ..........

  mark

  t-minus 68 minutes 23 seconds to purge

  acquiring asset

  merger to commence

  host has been accepted

  end

  //

  7. ROLAND

  It all happened so fast. Madison flew through the opening only minutes before Jimmy did. I’ve never met either of them before and suddenly Jimmy is lying in the grass beaten and bruised. While Madison checks him over and fixes his cuts and scrapes, seeing if anything was broken, Jacob and mom come over the hill with a pot of some foul smelling liquid. Moments after that X falls through the opening covered in blood, unconscious and totally naked.

  I don’t ask what happened, and Jimmy only stares and shakes his head. Every once in awhile a smile creeps across his face.

  In time we all gather on the back patio, drinks in hand, a festive mood all around. Tired and beaten down, we are in strangely high spirits. We are also all quite nude. That also happened very fast. Nothing in it for me. I’ve seen my mom naked so many times I can’t even count that high. The rest was a blur of X, who came back to us naked anyway, covered in blood. Jacob I could have lived without, an overweight, pale slob. That’s hot. Me of course, but who cares about a skinny naked kid. Oh. And Jimmy and Madison. Okay, so she’s hot. I had to keep looking away. Red face or a boner, you choose.

  It started with the shots. We each got a couple. Five in all I think. After you’ve gotten one in each arm, it moves on to the ass pretty quick. So that probably started it. Then the crap in the pot. I don’t even know how to discuss that properly. We had to rub it all over our bodies. It gets into your pores that way. It didn’t smell too bad actually, kind of fruity and medicinal, but with an underlying base of something rotten. A brown color, with lots of little chunks of twigs and berries and whatever the hell else they put in there. I don’t know if it can possibly do anything to protect us, but X made us do it. So that was all naked obviously. After the weirdness of putting it on, mom of course suggested drinks since we were already undressed. She said it seemed proper.

  That led to all kinds of stupid behavior. Dancing around and then into the pool. Why we’re all so giddy when the rest of the world is dying is beyond me. Most of the island is dead but nobody seems to care. They’re all asleep now and it’s been quiet for awhile. Mom and X went inside after the pool and general paste cleansing. Madison and Jimmy went shortly after. Jacob sat with me for a little bit after that, but then he went in too.

  I sit here and stare at the stars wearing nothing but a towel. I feel like we might be the last people left. On the island. On this planet. X says there will be others. Thousands in time. They will come, he says. Or we will go get them. We can’t inbreed after all.

  A chill creeps over me and I know there is something else. Something that X isn’t telling me. Telling us. Where’s Gordon? X

  says not to worry, he’ll know when he is coming. I’m not so sure.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  May 14, 2024

  1. JACOB

  I stand at the back of the house, gazing out the wide open french doors at the sun rising over the horizon. I can’t see her from here, but I know she exists. I can smell her salty spray, and the body of water calls out to me. There is no response from me today for there is no time to play.

  We all woke up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. No surprise there. X went over the plan again and again. It has to work. But some things are out of our control. There are no survivors at the gate, nobody looking for help or answers. There may be some, but we haven’t seen them yet. And as far as the mainland? We assume it is similar.

  We talked about numbers. There were maybe 7 billion people when the first virus hit. The survival rate was about half a percent. That left about 3.5 million people after the first wave. So many were killed, especially the elderly and the very young. We estimate about 3 million people worldwide were hit by the second wave. X felt that the survival rate will be even worse. There might be a couple thousand people spread across the planet. Stuck on their various continents and islands. There have to be airplane pilots and ship captains in that mess. Or not. We will place a beacon, set up radio communications, and see what we can find. But not yet. We have things to deal with here and now.

  I wander to the back gate, my extra large t-shirt blowing in the wind. There are costumes to wear, and we can only hope he won’t look too close at the smoke and mirrors. It is hot already, or maybe it is me. I’ve never been very good at deceit. And with my record of failures there isn’t a high percentage in what I am trying to do. Plan A.

  The rest are back at the house, watching and waiting. Prepared. If I don’t make it back, then so be it. I’m not married, not a father, and never will be. I am the most expendable. We pray that he doesn’t go for a head shot, but we’ve tilted the deck in our favor. But every dealer busts and sometimes two face cards still lose.

  The jungle is quiet. Only the jasmine drifts to me, the perimeter that X hates. His little cage. No birds calling back and forth, or insect chirps. No rustle of leaves by tiny rodents. I stop at the gate and turn back to the house for one more glance.

  There is the click of the hammer cocking and he presses the gun to my head. Right on time.

  2. MARCY

  “Should we go out?” I ask.

  “Sure,” X replies. “You all know what to do. Let me do the talking. Don’t make any sudden moves. I hope that our initial plan works. Otherwise, you know Plan B. I’ll see you on the other side if that happens.”

  “Baby, can we talk about this...” I plead.

  “No Marcy,” X says.

  Jimmy and Madison cling to each other, a faded shade of green. Roland has already puked once this morning, my baby. But he’ll be okay.

  Silence drifts over us and there is nothing left to say. We’ve exhausted the possibilities. Maybe it all ends right here. Maybe the world moves on without us. Maybe it all fades to black. My eyes soak up the raw beauty of my common-law husband and my only child. They say cats have nine lives. I’m down to eight now. I hope we don’t need them all today.

  Jimmy and Madison remind me of the couple in the horror movie that always has sex. People are getting hacked to pieces, ice picks in the temple, chainsawed in half. And yet, they have the need and the lack of control that only young lust can create. Maybe this isn’t that
kind of movie. Maybe this is a comedy. Flashes of bodies in the cave, broken bones punching through flesh, the screams of a hundred men, eyes bulging as they fade into nothingness. Every time I would look for a sign, some glimpse of a soul leaving, some wisp of spirit floating in the breeze. I never saw anything. No, this was not a comedy. A tragedy maybe.

  He says we are all needed, and that we all have a place, a role to fill. Much like Noah populating his ark with two of each animal, X had filled his vessel with the necessary pieces to start over. Jacob is a simple man, but he has played many parts on the island, and back where we came from. Phoenix was it? He has been a plumber, and an electrician. An amateur chef and green thumb. A math and science teacher. And his mother lived to be 102. We all have jobs to do. Only the women can get pregnant though, so for once, my womanhood will be used for more than a rollercoaster ride and country line dancing at The Stumble Inn.

  There is movement at the edge of the clearing and I can see the top of Jacob’s head. Gordon’s with him, the gun pressed up against the back of his skull. Jacob is sick with tension and my heart pounds furiously in my chest. The sun has gone white hot bright and beats down on us with reckless abandon.

  “Okay guys, fan out into a line like I said to do. Stay relaxed, and I’ll handle this,” X whispers.

  We spread out across the patio and X shouts down to Gordon.

  “Hey buddy, what took you so long? We’ve been waiting for you.”

  X stands there with his massive arms spread wide and a grin on his face like he is greeting a long lost brother. And in a way, he is. We’re counting on that.

  3. JIMMY

  The minute she is out of my touch, I panic. I don’t trust X

  any more and I take a step forward. His gaze swings around to stop me in my tracks. I see in him for a moment so much more than we’ve been allowed to know. And it scares me. What is his motive, why does he care? I can only assume it is his family now. Marcy and Roland. Whatever he is or was, they are important to him now. Flames lick at his eyeballs, hidden in the specks of brown and yellow that float in his black irises. Good thing he’s on our side I guess. And then it’s gone, and his attention goes back to Gordon and Jacob.