by Nathan Allen
Eric agreed to do just that. But the truth was he had privately been reevaluating his long-term ambitions for some time now. He still fully intended on sticking with his original plan of leaving the glitz and glamour of LA behind to devote his life to the purest form of writing. But he hadn’t completely disregarded the idea of sticking around for a few more years, just to see how it all played out. He’d be lying if he said this level of success hadn’t caught him by surprise. He’d also be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it. It hadn’t taken him long to become accustomed to the endless shower of money, fame and accolades that had come his way over the last year and a half, and he had recently put a down payment on a Pacific Palisades home previously owned by Bruce Willis. He wasn’t sure if he was ready to turn his back on all that just yet. Besides, he had the rest of his life to write his novels. It wasn’t like he was in any hurry.
“Even if you don’t end up writing the screenplay yourself, we’d still love to have you involved in some capacity,” Karen said. “How does executive producer or creative consultant sound? You know, just by having this conversation you’ve earned an associate producer credit.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” Eric popped another smoked salmon canapé into his mouth. “If you like, we can talk about it some more over lunch next Thur–”
He was cut off by a rapid series of pops. It was like a burst of firecrackers, coming from the other side of the room. He looked up in time to see a gaggle of Victoria’s Secrets models fall to the floor in a bloody heap.
Time came to an abrupt standstill. A cacophony of screams rang out as the chaos ignited. Blood and bullets flew, but Eric didn’t move. He just stood there and watched the armed assailant, a man wearing a priest’s cassock and white collar, as he fired indiscriminately into the crowd. The logical part of his brain told him he should be alarmed by all of this, and that a normal person would flee for their life. But he had the opposite reaction. It was one of fascination. He found himself perversely drawn to the violence. Some sort of disconnect was taking place between his brain and the events playing out around him.
He felt a bullet whiz by his ear, and reality soon caught up with him. He realized it was in his best interests to escape with his life.
He joined the stampede for the exits, only to discover he couldn’t move any further. Up ahead was blocked, with too many people trying to fit through too small a space. He changed direction and sprinted along to the next exit, keeping his body as low to the ground as possible.
A small missile flew past his head and landed in the middle of a crowd, about thirty feet away. A brutal explosion shook the room a few seconds later. A dozen people were torn apart like wet tissue paper.
Eric was outside the blast radius, but the force still threw him to the ground.
He came to a couple of seconds later, dazed from striking his head on the hard marble floor. The world around him had turned hazy. He blinked several times until his vision sharpened, where he saw A$AP Rocky stumbling around with his lower leg barely hanging on, and Ruby Rose on all fours, bleeding profusely from the shrapnel wounds to her face.
The room plunged into darkness.
Eric pulled himself to his feet and tried to navigate his way to safety. He took two steps and tripped over an inert body. He didn’t know who it was, or if they were alive or dead. He didn’t stick around to find out either. He got up and took a few more steps, but was knocked back down when he collided with another panicked guest.
He climbed to his feet once more, languid and disoriented. He had lost his bearings completely. He had no idea which way he was facing or where the exits were. He fumbled for his phone, trying to use the light to navigate his way out, but this was of little help.
A brilliant golden ball of shimmering illumination then lit up his immediate area. A split second later, he felt the heat. He turned around in time to see the gigantic fireball coming straight for him.
The cliché about your life flashing before your eyes during your final moments proved accurate. There was nothing Eric could do but stand there and watch on helplessly, knowing that he would be completely engulfed in less than a second.
He knew this was the time when he was supposed to experience some sort of deep epiphany. He should be remembering all the great things he had seen and done during his time on earth. Everything he had achieved in thirty short years; the milestone moments from his childhood and adolescence, the great friendships he had formed over the years, and the joy his work had brought to millions in the past twelve months.
But he wasn’t thinking about any of that. There were no cherished memories or profound realizations. His only thoughts centered on his imminent death here at the Met Gala, one of many to be brutally slaughtered at the world’s most exclusive social event, and how it would be overshadowed by those deemed more important. All these undeserving stars who were more famous than he could ever hope to be, the vapid models and overpaid actors and fashion industry phonies currently being exterminated in this mass celebrity genocide. They would be mourned, while he would be forgotten.
Eric may have been a preternatural talent whose words had touched the lives of an entire generation of cinemagoers, but this was a narrative in which he was destined to end up as little more than an anonymous extra.
Time resumed its normal speed, and the wall of flame swallowed him whole. The searing heat passed straight through him. His skin melted away, and his hair singed off like dandelion spores. His twenty thousand dollar tailored Armani suit may as well have been made from newspaper given how quickly it turned to ash.
He collapsed to the floor, the brief stab of pain giving way to the numbness of shock.
With his final thoughts he could only lament that fact that while he had everything he could ever ask for – worldwide fame, millions of dollars, the respect of his peers and a slew of awards – it was all without meaning. Eric had sold his soul, and now he was going to die alone.
Alone in a roomful of A-listers.
Thank you for reading.
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For further reading check out The War On Horror: Tales From A Post-Zombie Society and All Against All, available for free download from as many ebook retailers kind enough to allow independent scribes to publish work on their sites.
No celebrities were harmed during the writing of this book.
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