by Bryan Smith
Warren didn’t reply to that. His opinion was there’d been nothing at all wrong with her thinking during the composition of that note. Yeah, she’d been a little meaner, not to mention a little more condescending, than she’d needed to be. But she’d done the right thing. She was new to Rutgers and it was clear he’d been dragging her down, putting her in danger of washing out of school in her first semester.
“I’ll be damned.”
Amanda frowned. “What?”
Warren grunted, shook his head. “I’m an asshole.” He smiled at the puzzled look that dawned on Amada’s face then and said, “Sorry, that was the mother of all non-sequiturs, wasn’t it?”
Amanda smiled. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re an asshole. Just confused.” She hesitated a moment, then added. “And brokenhearted.”
“You’re being kind,” Warren said, choosing to ignore the latter part of her statement. “There’s something I don’t understand, though—why don’t you just get on a plane and fly down to Florida? Surely your parents would buy you a ticket.”
An exasperated groan seemed to propel Amanda off the bed. She began to pace around the tiny apartment, stopping now and then to glance out the window. “I can’t do that, Warren. The government’s suspended commercial air flights indefinitely. Seems they think it’s too dangerous, what with the universe busy trying to turn itself inside out, or whatever the fuck it is that’s happening.”
She stopped pacing and looked straight at him. “I want you to drive me to Florida, Warren.”
So that’s what this boils down to, Warren thought.
“But—”
“But nothing.” She strode over to the bed and placed a hand on his chest, pushing him backward until he was flat on his back. She sat astride him and pulled off her shirt. Her bra came off next and Warren instinctively reached for her breasts.
Amanda seized his wrist and held it tight. “We’re leaving tomorrow. Time enough to get everything figured out. And we have a lot to figure out, baby. What route we need to take. How much money we’ll need to get to Miami, and how we’re gonna raise that much cash inside of a fucking day.” She gave his wrist a hard squeeze. “Okay?”
Warren sighed. He closed his eyes a moment. She didn’t need to manipulate him this way. Or any other way, for that matter. It all came back to what he’d told her earlier—he didn’t have anything else in his life worth hanging on to.
He opened his eyes. “Okay.”
She smiled. “Groovy.”
Then she kissed him and they both forgot about the madness overtaking their world for a little while.
* * *
Nashville, TN
11:00 a.m.
Emily awoke to find herself sprawled across the small, uncomfortable vinyl-covered couch in Phil Parker’s small office. Someone had covered her with a trenchcoat. She swept away the makeshift blanket and sat up, groaning at the pounding ache in her head. Her mouth felt dry the way it did after a binge. It occurred to her that the amount of drinking she’d done after watching that freaky thing that happened to the president certainly fit the definition of a ‘binge’.
She groaned again, wrapped her arms about her midsection, and rocked herself gently on the edge of the couch. “Oh, God…”
The door to the office swung open and Phil Parker came bustling in, his hand at his ear, his mouth flapping as he spewed invective at the mouthpiece of his cell phone. He winked at Emily and plopped into the chair behind his desk. “I don’t care about what’s happening in Pakistan, you sorry, lazy-ass sack of shit.”
Emily rolled her eyes.
Mr. Charming in action.
With his free hand Phil mimed a squawking motormouth. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. What the fuck ever, Jacob. The sky is falling and all the little chickenshits are running around like their goddamn heads have been cut off. But that don’t mean shit to me, okay? All’s I know is you don’t have your ass here by six, you’re out of a job.”
Emily’s boss listened to Jacob Dunham’s reply as he rocked agitatedly in his chair, eliciting a series of rapid-fire, ear-piercing squeaks from the overworked casters. “Uh-huh,” he said, nodding. “Uh-huh…well, Jake, I appreciate the suggestion, but I don’t think I can stick the whole goddamned bar up my ass, you smartass son of a bitch.”
He snapped the phone shut and made a sound of frustration.
Emily tried not to smile. “Jacob’s quitting?”
Now it was Phil’s turn to roll his eyes. “Yeah. That fuckin’ fruitcake. And now I’m short-handed again.” He fixed Emily with a serious expression. “You’re gonna have to work a double shift again.”
Emily sighed. “No.”
Phil exploded. “What!? Oh, come on!” He slapped the surface of his desk hard enough to send a loose stack of papers sliding over the edge. “I can’t fucking believe this, Emmy, I really fucking can’t! How ungrateful can you be? Out of the goodness of my motherfucking heart, I give you a second chance and this is the thanks I get? Unbelievable.”
Emily felt a brief surge of anger then, but she was too weary to indulge the emotion. She got to her feet and moved toward the door. “I’m going home, Phil. I need to sleep.”
Then she spun on her heels and got moving, banging through the office door before Phil could say another word. She sped through the bar’s darkened interior and out the front door, then stood blinking on the sidewalk, shocked at the sight of what appeared to be a perfectly ordinary day on 21st Avenue. The traffic was as congested as ever. People were sitting in chairs outside coffee and pastry shops. She studied the faces of passing strangers, searching for hints of trauma in a series of largely nondescript faces. After a short while, it became apparent that there was an undercurrent of tension, of anxiety, but it wasn’t a crippling thing and that surprised her. The world around these people was unraveling, decaying in some strange, unfathomable way, and yet they were all going about their usual business.
Emily wanted to scream at them. She wanted to seize them by the throat and break through that barrier of denial propping them up, that kept them going through the motions like so many mindless automatons.
But it would be no use. They’d only think she was a lunatic. She sighed and moved away from the bar’s entrance, turning to her right and threading her way through the stream of people as she walked briskly in the direction of her apartment building, The Mayflower, which was only five blocks away. Five blocks later, she crossed Fairfax and walked through the tiny rear parking lot of her building. She slipped between a Volvo and an old Mercedes station wagon, and started down the stretch of sidewalk that ran parallel to the rear of the building. But she came to an abrupt stop at the sight of a dog lying dead some six feet in front of her.
“Oh, no.”
The depression she’d been feeling since waking threatened to spiral out of control. The animal, a sweet Basset Hound named Henry, had belonged to a young Vandy student. Some pretty blonde girl whose name she didn’t know. Emily would chat briefly with her when their paths crossed out back or in the nearby park, and she’d seemed like a very sweet young woman. She wondered where the woman was, and if she knew her pet was dead. That didn’t seem likely. She wouldn’t just leave Henry lying here like this.
What had happened to him anyway? Henry was a young dog, playful and full of energy. Though her stomach fluttered at the thought of getting closer to the dead animal, she did so anyway, kneeling next to its carcass and peering closely, looking for any obvious signs of trauma. But there was nothing. Except for the fact that he clearly wasn’t breathing, he looked fine, as if he might merely be sleeping. But just to be extra sure, she put a hand on his belly and leaned closer still, striving to detect even the faintest hint of a pulse or weak breath. But again, nothing. Just a whiff of some foul odor. A death smell. If she’d believed there’d been the remotest chance of bringing Henry back from the brink, she would’ve scooped him up and driven at high speed to an emergency veternarian hospital.
She shook her head and
sniffled. “Oh, Henry…what happened to you buddy?”
Henry, of course, didn’t answer. Emily, not knowing what else to do, scooped the little body up in her arms and carried him up to her apartment. Once she was inside, she located a blanket and wrapped him up in it. She knew the Vandy student, who lived in the opposite wing of the U-shaped building, wouldn’t be home for a few more hours. In that time, Emily would try to think of a way to break the news gently to her.
She didn’t turn on any of the apartment’s lights, preferring the semi-gloom to a harsh artificial glare. The light wouldn’t do her hangover any favors, and the near darkness better suited her grim mood anyway. She spied her acoustic guitar, an old Ovation, sitting propped in a corner, and picked it up. Then she sat on the edge of her sofa and began to pick out a few melancholy notes, humming a melody that was at once haunting and familiar. It was a lovely piece, something she’d begun playing without thinking. The words came to her and she sang a few lines.
When she realized what the song was, she struck a sour note and stopped playing. The sorrowful tune was “Warren’s Song”. She’d written it years ago, near the end of her troubled and heartbreaking relationship with Warren Hatcher.
Damn his sweet, beautiful soul. Wherever the hell he was now.
She put the guitar aside, suddenly unable to find any solace even in music, her life’s truest remaining passion. After sitting there silently on the edge of the sofa for a while—her mind lost in thoughts of a different time—she got up with a weary sigh and trudged off to bed.
* * *
Phil Parker failed to take notice of the frisbee-sized black hole in the floor beneath his desk. Something resembling a thick, hair-covered pink worm emerged from the hole and began to ooze slowly toward the polished brown loafer covering his left foot.
He thought of Emily bent over the foosball table and rubbed absentmindedly at his crotch. He unzipped his trousers and reached across the desk to draw a box of tissues closer. The slithering, wormlike appendage of the creature from the hole oozed across the top of his shoe as he was taking his cock in hand. Thinking about Emily had gotten him all worked up. He needed to unload some jizz or he’d be distracted the rest of the afternoon. The pink tentacle started to curl around his ankle.
Then a big, discordant noise from outside the office made him jerk in his chair. Some fool knocking on the door, demanding entrance long before the bar was due to open. The tentacle retracted, disappearing back into the hole so quickly Phil never saw it. He did, however, finally see the black circle in the floor. He also saw a very faint flicker of movement within the blackness. He leaned closer, his brow furrowing deeply as he tried to make out a shape. A sound emerged from the hole, a high, piercing screech that made his teeth hurt. And now he had an impression of more frantic movement within the hole, followed by a sense of something hurtling toward him, like a just-launched nuclear missile leaping out of a silo. By the time it occurred to Phil he ought to be scared out of his wits, it was too late.
The hole widened abruptly and a thing much larger than the original tentacle burst forth, upending the desk and driving Phil back against the wall. Phil screamed and called for help, but there was no one to help him. The pounding on the front door resounded again and Phil opened his mouth to issue one final screeching plea. But then the mouth of the creature opened wide and punched hundreds of needle-like teeth into his abdomen. Every nerve ending in his body sizzled with unbearable agony as some form of otherworldly venom was pumped into his veins.
Then he was thrown to the floor, where he remained conscious for several awful moments as he watched the thing slurp his intestines like strands of spaghetti. He died thinking of Emily, his wife, and whether he was going to hell.
* * *
An Underground Bunker
Noon
The new president sat at the head of a conference table. Also seated at the table were the highest ranking members of the cabinet he’d inherited from the deceased president. He studied their grim faces, searching for any hint of something hopeful. But there was nothing. Just that same sense of a grave, impossible dilemma. They looked like a bunch of men (and one woman) about to be marched off to the death chamber.
The president struck the table with the base of a fist, making lukewarm coffee slosh over the edge of his mug. “This is insane. We’re the richest country in the world. We have access to the most brilliant minds in the world. We’re surrounded by technology so advanced it boggles the mind. There should be a solution to this problem. We should be able to think of something…”
The cabinet members exchanged expressions of weary exasperation. Some shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.
The president sighed. “There’s a black fucking hole where Pakistan used to be. Every recon drone we send in disappears without a trace. And we sit here doing…nothing. What’s wrong with this picture?”
Jack Campbell snorted. “There’s nothing to be done about that situation. Sir.”
The president shot Campbell a withering glare. He didn’t like the man. And he’d been furious when the late president had named him Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But…he was right. Goddamn him. Still, he couldn’t keep the helpless anger out of his voice. “So we’re just going to throw up our hands and surrender, is that it?” He laughed, but the sound became a wheeze as his throat constricted with emotion. Christ, he was on the verge of a breakdown. This was no way for a president to behave. Especially in the presence of so many hardened old bastards.
He cleared his throat. Then he looked each of them in the eye in turn. “It’s incredible. Isn’t it? Here we are, deep underground, insulated, safe from the worst weapons our earthly enemies can throw at us. And yet we’re as vulnerable as any ordinary man or woman walking unprotected on the streets.”
He leapt out of his chair and jumped up on the table, taking satisfaction from the startled yelps the action elicited from his cabinet members. He watched their eyes go wide with fright as they scooted backward in their chairs, and he felt a kind of wild exhilaration, a feeling he hadn’t experienced in decades, since before he embarked on his career in politics. He pointed a finger at the ceiling and screamed, “There! Look up there! What do you see? Just a ceiling, right?”
He looked down at them and saw pity in their eyes. They thought he’d lost it, that he’d cracked under the strain. Well, fuck them. Maybe he had. And how could any sane person blame him? “That ceiling is a solid thing. Above it are other chambers, other places where the elite among us might seek refuge in the face of Armageddon. And above all of these secret places are layer upon layer of reinforced steel and concrete. Above that a mountain. This is an impenetrable fucking fortress!”
Campbell cleared his throat. “Mr. President—”
The president leveled a forefinger at him—it shook with the fury of his passion. “Shut up, you fat fuck!” He looked again at the ceiling. A note of strange serenity entered his voice when he spoke next. “Despite our most elaborate efforts to construct a place where we are absolutely safe, we are helpless. We are sitting ducks. At any moment a hole might open in that ceiling and something beyond our understanding might come screaming into this room. Something horrible beyond any previous conception of horror.”
Campbell stood up. “Mr. President, you are not fit to lead this country. I suggest you tender your resignation at once and spare yourself and your family the embarrassment of an open revolt among the members of your administration.”
The president looked at him. “The fabric of reality is decaying. The universe is unraveling. There is another place. A black realm beyond this one. It’s inhabitants are eating their way into our world. They may devour us entirely. Do you deny this, General?”
Campbell shook his head, but his stern expression never wavered. “No, sir.”
The president stepped off the table. He straightened his tie and smoothed back his hair. A part of him wanted to fight this. His political self, that portion of his personality that had taken him
this far up the ladder of power. But the politician in him was dying, and he was relieved to realize he didn’t have the will to rally that aspect of himself one last time. He began to feel a sense of liberation. No, that wasn’t precisely it. The word ‘liberation’ implied a degree of empowerment and he didn’t feel anything like that. The opposite, in fact. But he did feel free. The immense burden was off his shoulders. He also felt free of his previous ambition. His former aspirations seemed like the incomprehensible desires of a stranger now.
He looked Campbell in the eye. “You’re right. I am not the right person to lead the nation at this time.”
The general heaved a big sigh. “I’m sorry it has to be this way, sir.”
The president nodded. “I believe you. But I think you’ll come around to my way of thinking soon enough.” He smiled at the general’s raised eyebrow. “I mean that. Carry on as best you can as long as you can. I expect nothing less from a man like you. It’s admirable. But I think you’ll know my despair soon enough. That’s what I’m sorry about, General.”
And with that he left the conference room. The sound of the door snicking shut behind him had a note of melancholy finality about it.
* * *
VNC Headquarters
Atlanta, GA
1:45 p.m.
Zeke caught fleeting glimpses of two of his colleagues through the thin vertical spaces to the left and right of the door in the bathroom stall. Matt Lewis, a producer, was examining his reflection in the bathroom mirror while he washed his hands. Dean Clark, who had moments ago finished unloading a dump of epic proportions in a stall next to Zeke, leaned against the wall with his massive forearms folded beneath his disturbingly perky man-teats and nodded as Matt repeatedly (and viciously) stabbed Zeke in the back.
Dean was VNC’s newest weather reporter. He’d been hired for his personality as much as for his knowledge of meteorology. Dean was a Big Funny Guy in the vein of John Belushi or Chris Farley. Audiences loved him. Which meant the suits upstairs loved him, too. As a fledging news outfit operating in CNN’s hallowed home territory, VNC needed every ratings edge it could get. But his appeal was a mystery to Zeke, and right now he’d give anything for the chance to drive a fist straight into the middle of his blubbery face. His hands curled into fists as he thought of the way Dean had so aggressively buddied up to him since the day he was hired. They’d gone out for drinks together several times. Jesus. Of course, duplicity in the world of television news was nothing new, but Zeke was certain he’d never encountered anyone so baldly two-faced as Dean fucking Clark.