In A Universe Without Stars 1: Skyeater

by J Alex McCarthy

  “Nice suit,” The man casually remarks.

  “Thanks.”

  He pulls out a pair of glasses and puts them on.

  His name is Jack Smith, Lance’s case worker. He spoke with him over the phone for this meeting. A fitting name for someone who has the power to let someone in the country. Maybe that’s not even his real name. Maybe it’s an government issued name.

  Smith squints in his small framed glasses, looking through the piles of papers on the table. There’s an awkward silence in the room. Lance feels small in his chair.

  “You’re four hours late, Mr. Freeman.”

  “Well, I…we…I came on time but the line was…” Lance stumbles through his words. Get it together man.

  Smith continues to look through his papers. Lance waits for him to do something, say anything.

  “On February 5th, 1990, your brother, Nikolay Goncharov was deported back to his country. Is this the right date?” Smith asks.

  “Yes, he came a year later than I did but was deported because the US stopped accepting refugees.”

  Smith just nods, he marks something down. Maybe Lance said too much, it was a simple question and he just fucked it up. The door opens and the woman who led Serena off walks in, she nods to Smith and hands him a small stack of papers and leaves.

  “That’s all we needed, you won’t believe what state our archives are in. We lose things all the time, hell, half of the immigrants here are recorded under the wrong name,” Smith says as he stands and puts out his hand. “Congratulations, Mr. Freeman, you are now a US citizen.”

  Lance sits there shocked, mouth ajar. He doesn’t shake his hand.

  “That’s it?”

  “We just need to prove one of the statements of your brother’s application and get a few simple statements from your wife. We are not the bad guys, Mr. Freeman.”

  Lance jumps up from his seat.

  “Thank you so much, Mr. Smith. And Happy New Year’s.” He shakes his hand.

  A champagne bottle pops, the cork slams into a picture frame on the wall in Lance’s place. It shatters on the ground. Lance and Serena stand in the middle of their small apartment.

  “Oh crap!” Lance says as he holds the bottle. He turns to run to the frame, but Serena grabs and stops him. She spins him around and kisses him.

  “Don’t worry about that, tonight we celebrate,” she says. It’s 10:13 pm. The immigration office took far longer than expected.

  “It’s already so late.”

  “The night is still young, I wanna take you out tonight,” she says in her best seductive voice. “I know a place that closes at three. Plus, it is New Year’s Eve!”

  She takes off his shirt, showing off his hard earned money, locket, and well weathered scars.

  “But first let’s take a shower.” She takes her clothes off one by one as she heads toward the bathroom.

  Lance has finally done it, he’s a citizen of one of the greatest countries in the world, is with the love of his life, and finally has some of his family back again. He’s living the American dream, or at least his image of it. And now he’s about to go out to celebrate. But first…

  Serena makes it to the bathroom and turns, she motions with her finger.

  Get in here.

  Lance and Serena stand in a packed subway train, filled like a pack of sardines, shoulder to shoulder. Tunnel lights trail past them as the train goes to their destination.

  It’s filled with all types of people, old, young, rich, poor, joy filled and the ones who just want to get home. But mostly, tonight, Lance checks his cheap Casio watch, it’s 11:55 PM, it’s mostly filled with young twenty something’s heading towards the busiest part of town for the time of their life.

  He wishes Serena didn’t take so dang long getting ready. She looks nice, wearing a silky purple button up jacket and black skin tight jeans. He just wears a pair of jeans, a simple white Henley and a leather jacket.

  Lance used to hate riding the subway, being so claustrophobic, but he’s gotten used to it, he might even come to enjoy it.

  He’s got a pocket knife in his front right pocket if he ever needs to cut his way out though. Not that he would ever do that. Morally. Serena wraps her arms around Lance. Everybody lurches forward as the train comes in to the station.

  It comes to a halt and the doors open. Nobody moves. There’s shouting, people yelling to move, a low rumble of voices as the crowd start to get agitated. Lances stands on his toes and looks out the door. This is their stop.

  The station is packed with people. What the hell? People start to push to get off. The doors ding, it closes and opens, trying to close on people but the sensors stops it.

  “Hey! We need to get off!” Lance yells. He grabs Serena and shoves his way through the crowd.

  They force their way through the doors as it closes behind them. The train steams away.

  ”What the hell?” Serena asks. There’s a crowd of people all the way up the stairs. Lance sighs, he know it’s New Year’s Eve but man, maybe it wasn’t a good night to go out after all.

  “Come on,” he says, grabbing Serena. He pushes and shoves his way through the crowd and towards the stairs.

  They make it to the stairs, there’s still a crowd leading up. A reddish orange light shines down the stairs, out from the city. They force their way up.

  They walk out into the sidewalk. The sky is lit up as if the sun was setting but never went down. The dark orange haze of the sky above is unsettling. There is no sun. Lance and Serena gaze up into the sky. “Why is it so bright out? It’s the middle of the freaking night!” Lance says.

  What the hell? It was dark when they entered the subway. He glances down at his watch again, it’s 11:58 PM. Serena tugs on his arm.

  “Lance,” she says with an oddly worried tone. He looks back down. He was in so much awe of the night sky that he didn’t notice the streets are filled with people.

  Something must have happened. Serena grabs him. “Let’s go.” She pulls him through the mass. She doesn’t notice she’s going the same way that the flock of people is going. She stops suddenly.

  “What…” She pauses. “…is that?”

  A two story stone angel stands in the middle of the street. Its back is against a giant silver metal cross. Stony eyes stare at them. The entirety of it is wrapped in metal chains. Police barricade it off.

  Lance and Serena push their way to the barricade. The police block off the entire street. It’s next to where they need to go. Lance wants to try again another day, but by the way Serena pulls on him, she’s pretty insistent to get him to the bar, club, restaurant or whatever the hell they’re going to. She won’t tell him.

  They make it to the barricade. Lance walks up to one of the officers, by the look on his face, he doesn’t know what this thing is either. Maybe it’s some kind of viral marketing or something. “Hey comrade! What the hell is going on?” Lance asks.

  “I don’t know, we are bringing in some trucks to move them, but there are multiple ones blocking our way. I don’t have an estimate on how long it will take,” The officer says.

  “What the hell is that thing?” Serena says as she tries to go past the barricade.

  “Ma’am! You need to step back!” The officer yells. Serena causes a scene.

  “It’s just a stupid statue! Let us through!” The officer grabs her and guides her back. Lance stares into the statues eyes.

  It looks surreal, almost as if it has real eyes. The whites looks real and not like stone. They look at him.

  “Bozhe moi!” Lance yells. His watch beeps. It’s midnight. The eyes blink.

  “Oh my god…” someone mutters. Serena leans on the barricade, looking up at it. “What it that?” she murmurs.

  Lance grabs her arm and pulls her back. He doesn’t know if it’s an angel from heaven or hell but if it’s the start of the apocalypse he’s going to get the hell out of there.

  There’s movement, the sides of its mouth crack as it opens. It lets
out a horrifying screech, it sounds like nails rasping on a chalk board.

  Everybody clasps their ears. There’s a slight pulsing sound. It cries out again, like a newborn crow. Serena stops following Lance and drifts toward the stone angel. Lance grabs her arm again and pulls her away.

  “We have to go now!” He runs through the crowd. Only a few follow him.

  The angel levitates into the sky. First only an inch and then it’s a foot and then two as if it was floating with the wind. And then it slowly picks up speed and keeps going.

  Most of the crowd is too captivated to move, in awe with what they’re seeing. Maybe God has finally come down from the heavens to save them after all. Its wings stretch out from around it, it unravels its arms and legs in a grotesque way, snapping into place as if it was made out of wood, chains still attached to them. It lights up, it’s clay-like skin becomes radiant.

  The more religious of the crowd get on their hands and knees and start to pray to their various gods. But at this moment it’s all useless. A large yellow energy crown appears and hovers over it’s head as it ascends.

  They all stare at this spectacle, common sense leaves them, for they have never seen anything like this before and they never will again. Serena and Lance are halfway to the subway station. The angel gets brighter until—

  There’s a boom as it screech pierces the sky, it’s heard all over New York City. Statues all over come to life. On the rooftops, gargoyles, baby angels, demons. They all morph and shape into the angel like the one from the streets, attached to a metal cross by thick iron-like chains. They all scream and light up as they rise into the orange sky.

  The angel in front of the crowd gets bright and brighter to a point where some shield their eyes away from it. It opens its mouth, for what looks like a scream but instead we see flames. It spits out a beam of light. Everywhere the light touches explodes.

  It sweeps the ground, people running down the street explode in a burst of blood and guts, intestines and insides splatter on the poor people next to them. They don’t have time to reel back as the beam hits them next. Lance and Serena make it to the subway station as people explode behind them. Guts hit their backs as they run in.

  People stare out of the windows in horror in the buildings that surround the beings, too perplexed by the awe of the beast to notice what’s happening below and that it slowly rises toward them.

  The floor explodes out, the light annihilates everything it touches. It continues to rise, people run away from their windows as the lights hit them, but flames still engulf them all.

  The angel pulsates. Everything in a two mile radius is destroyed by a shock wave, the pulse sends buildings crashing down. The shock wave knocks out every window in a ten-mile radius.

  In the subway station, Lance and Serena run down the stairs into the lowest platform. Nobody follows after them, the platform is only half filled with people. The rest didn’t make it. Lance is glad he thought on his feet. Now to find a way out of here. Lance runs toward the track but Serena stops.

  She lifts her arms and looks at her clothes, they’re covered in blood, not her own. She runs her hands through her hair, but she stops as she looks at her hands, even more blood.

  “What...” She staggers and falls to her knees, she starts to asphyxiate, tears fall from her eyes.

  Lances stops in his tracks.

  “Oh no,” he says. He runs to her. “It’s going to be okay.”

  She tries to speak but nothing comes out. Lance wraps his arms around her and starts to hum. Drowning out the sound of the screams above.

  He notices she’s covered in blood, he is too, but not to the extent she is. He needs to do something. He takes off her bloodied shirt, her naked skin touching the air and wraps his jacket around her. She never did any good with blood.

  Lance hugs her and continues to hum. “It’s okay, it’s going to be alright.” Sometimes, that phrase is all that’s needed to get through the day. He can feel her calming down. His locket feels oddly warm to the touch.

  He hears a beep but he ignores it, Serena is all that matters right now.

  “What’s happening?” she asks with her head on his chest.

  “I don’t know, but we got to keep going, no matter what happens or what we see. I’m with you.” Lance notices he still holds her bloody shirt. He throws it to a trash can.

  “Okay…But where are we going to go?” She lifts her head. He wipes the tears from her face with his dirtied hand, it leaves a bloody mark. Mostly everyone is gone in the station except for a few people jumping down on the track.

  “Hey buddy! Where are you going?” Lance yells at the last man jumping down. The guy doesn’t answer as he runs off. What an asshole. Lance and Serena run to the tracks and jump down simultaneously. They land on their feet.

  “Which way!?” Lance asks himself. Serena looks to the left, she sees people running.

  “This way!” She grabs Lances hand and drags him with her. When she’s not drenched in blood she’s actually a very capable person.

  They run down the tunnel catching up to the people in front of them.

  “Where are we going?” Lance asks.

  “I don’t know. But anywhere is better than where we were,” Serena replies.

  A hole explodes open over the people in front of them. Huge concrete blocks crash down on half of them. An angel falls through and lands down with a smack. Its golden crown illuminates the tunnel.

  “NO SURVIVORS.” It lights up. People stop, not knowing whether they should run or drop to their knees and pray for mercy.

  Lance throws Serena behind him, his locket beeps again. The angel shoots out beams of light, burning though concrete like hell fire and exploding flesh like firecrackers in a skillet.

  Screams are gruesomely cut short as it hits. The angel swings the beam at Lance. He throws up his arms to brace, what else can he do, he thinks he lived a somewhat good life.

  A force field shoots up as it hits, sparks fling off it as the angel lays into the shield. The angel stops and stares at them. What did he just do? There’s an odd sense of comprehension on the angels face.

  Lance and Serena glance as each other.

  “Wha-“

  “Problemproblemproblemproblem!”

  Two extensions shoot out from the crown like octopus tentacles and wrap around both of them. Serena screams as it rockets out of the hole it came from. It goes up incredibly fast, Lance braces himself trying not to black out.

  The ever so faint sounds of battle from the tunnel explodes into their eardrums. The gun shots, the explosions, the screams, the horrible screams. The perceived sunlight paints a gruesome picture.

  He stares into Serena’s eyes. He needs to figure out a way to save her, even if he doesn’t survive. Under them the ground quickly becoming more and more distant.

  The angel stops and they hover above it all. At least twenty angels lay siege to the city. The clouds above them block out the source of the light.

  The angel looks at Serena. Lance can’t let her die, not after all they’ve been through.

  “No!!” Lance screams, struggling in his binds. Clink! Bullets bounce off the angel’s head.

  An F-35 passes by, it maneuvers to turn and do another pass. This gives Lance a chance. He digs into his right pocket, lucky that he’s only bonded by the chest. He pulls out a pocket knife.

  The angel lets out a beam of fire as the plane passes by. It’s hit and disintegrates instantly. There goes their help. The angel looks down on his captives, but this time he focuses on Lance. Fortunately for Serena this thing is simpler than they first thought.

  It opens its mouth and bends down for Lance’s head. Lance has to wait to attack, his arm isn’t long enough to get it. The jaws gets closer and closer. He can smell its foul fish like breath. Its teeth scrape against his head and—

  Lance grabs up and stabs the knife into the damned thing’s ear. A horrid screech pierces Lance’s and Serena’s eardrums as it screams out. It’s ten
tacles disappear and they drop.

  “Noo!” Serena scream is cut short as she didn’t notice that the rooftop was only ten feet below her. They land with a thump. Lance grabs his ears, the ringing is intense, blood drops down his earlobes.

  Sound slowly starts to come back to him as the ringing ebbs. The screams and Serena. She cries for him on the other side of the roof.

  He jumps up, ears be damned and runs to her. They embrace each other as they meet. She cries in his arms, she scared and there’s nothing he can do. Lance looks into the sky, the angel is nowhere to be found.

  Something is a mile away on top of another building. A huge muscular beast with sickly tan green skin, it just sits there, watching them. His name is Ulbe, it’s the watcher of this battle. But Lance doesn’t know that, he thinks it’s the devil himself. It really is the apocalypse.

  Another screech is heard from above, but it’s different this time. It sounds like two large pieces of polished metal are rubbing against each other. Lance and Serena both glance up. A giant red ship appears from the orange haze sky, it’s unlike anything they’ve seen before, its front end is slick and thin, a sliver of a window covers the round top front. Its back end is covered by the clouds.

  The front juts out like a sword. It just hovers there. It makes another pulsating sound, like an alarm; the sound fills the sky. Hundreds of small spheres of light appear over New York.

  Lance and Serena can’t help but stare up in amazement. The spheres light up the sky like it was an starry night. Serena cries again, maybe from the impending end or the unknown of it all. But to Lance, at least they will die a beautiful death.

  One of the spheres falls toward the Empire State Building. It goes straight through it and explodes out. The blast levels multiple blocks around it. This is the end.

  There is a sphere right above them. More of them start to fall and level the city. He wishes it wouldn’t end today, he has so much more to do. He’s never going to see his first child.

  The light above him falls. It’s almost graceful, it flickers like a star. Lance clutches Serena.