by Brian Bowyer
Trinity grabbed the meth pipe and a lighter from the table. Neither Chuck nor Jenny had seen the little girl rise from her bed.
“Pipe’s empty,” Chuck said.
“Here, Trinity,” Jenny said. “Give me the pipe. I’ll load it for you.”
Trinity handed her the meth pipe. Jenny loaded the pipe and gave it back.
Then the three of them spent the next forty-five minutes getting high until an image of the presidential seal filled the TV screen.
The image of the presidential seal cut away to a shot of the president sitting behind his desk in the oval office. He was flanked by an American flag and a blue flag bearing the presidential seal. He wore a black suit with a white shirt and a blue tie. His forearms were at rest on the desk. His hands were clasped.
The president sat forward and cleared his throat. “My fellow Americans, today it is my duty to deliver the worst possible news to you and the rest of the world. I’ve spent the past two days debating if I should even tell you what I’m about to reveal. Many on my staff and even my wife advised me not to do so. They believe that it would be better for the people of this great nation to spend the last few hours of their lives in blissful ignorance of the doom headed their way from the blackness of outer space.”
Chuck glanced over at Jenny. She was looking at Trinity. The little girl was staring at the TV.
“Sixty-five million years ago,” the president continued, “an asteroid struck this planet and killed the dinosaurs. Today, mankind meets a similar fate. The object approaching us now, however, is not an asteroid. We honestly don’t know what it is. We do know that it is far, far larger than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, that it’s moving with incredible speed, and that the certainty of impact with Earth is one hundred percent. There is no possibility of a miss. This is an extinction-level event. Today is the last day of life on planet Earth.”
Chuck took a shot of whiskey. Jenny put some meth and some water in her syringe. Trinity just kept staring at the TV.
“The main reason I decided to go ahead with this address,” the president said, “was to let you know how much time is left. All the scientists I’ve spoken to agree that we have about twelve hours from right now until impact, which puts the end of everything at approximately sometime between eight o’clock and nine o’clock tonight. I hope that each of you will spend the remaining time with your loved ones, and find whatever peace you possibly can. So long, America. And farewell, planet Earth. May God have mercy on our souls.”
The image of the presidential seal reappeared.
Jenny grabbed the remote. She turned the TV off and looked at her father. “Are you ready to go see my friend?”
Chuck nodded. He stood up. He took a shot of whiskey and grabbed his other bottle. “Come on. Let’s hit the road.”
• • •
Chuck drove. Jenny controlled the stereo from the passenger’s seat. Trinity smoked crystal meth in the back. As far as Jenny and Chuck knew, the little girl had never been to their hometown. For most of the two-hour trip, they listened to various news stations and talk radio. According to numerous reports, riots were breaking out and people were looting stores all over America.
“And it’s still early,” Chuck said. “It’s only going to get worse as the day goes on.”
They arrived at Kyle Orban’s house shortly past ten a.m. He lived in a quiet neighborhood of stucco and clapboard bungalows constructed many years ago. Most of those homes undoubtedly provided more charm than space, but Kyle Orban’s house was one of the largest in the neighborhood. A two-car garage was attached to the house. Both garage doors were down. The driveway was empty.
Chuck parked in front of the garage door farthest away from the house and killed the engine. “Nice place.”
“His parents owned it,” Jenny said. “It became his when they died. They left him some money, too. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t worked since getting fired from the university.”
The three of them got out of the car. Chuck had finished his first bottle a few miles back, so he was only carrying one bottle now—which he hadn’t opened yet. Trinity had a lighter in one hand and her meth pipe in the other. Jenny’s suitcase (she doubted that she would ever need it again) was in the trunk; her duffel bag was slung over one of her shoulders. She looked up into the bright blue sky and shielded her eyes. “Hard to believe something’s gonna come out of that sky and kill us in about ten hours.”
“I know you said your friend’s an alcoholic,” Chuck said. “But what about drugs?”
Jenny lowered her gaze from the sky. “Kyle takes drugs.”
“So he won’t mind us sitting around doing meth until the world ends?”
“No. Trust me: Kyle loves crystal meth. Us having meth will make him happy. Come on. Let’s go see if he’s awake yet.”
Jenny led the way. Chuck followed the two of them up the front walkway and they climbed three steps to the porch. Jenny pressed a button by the doorframe. They heard a doorbell ring inside the house. Moments later, a man opened the door.
“Hi Kyle,” Jenny said. “Did we wake you?”
Kyle was tall and thin. His long gray hair was tied back in a ponytail. He wore a bathrobe and was holding a cocktail glass. “No,” he said. Then he looked at Chuck. “You must be Jenny’s father.”
Chuck nodded. “Name’s Chuck.”
Kyle sipped his drink. “Nice to meet you, Chuck.” Then he looked down at Trinity. “And what’s your name, little girl?”
Trinity wouldn’t even look at him.
“This is Trinity,” Jenny said. “She doesn’t speak much.”
Kyle took another drink. “It’s nice to meet you, Trinity.”
Again, she refused to acknowledge him.
Kyle stepped back and opened the door a little more. “Come on in, people. We’ll have ourselves a countdown to oblivion.”
He led them through the foyer into a living room furnished with a sofa, a loveseat, and a couple of armchairs. Bookshelves lined the walls. There were empty bottles and an overflowing ashtray on the marble-and-granite coffee table. “Have a seat,” Kyle said. “And pardon the mess. It’s rare that I have company. Be right back.”
He left the room and returned moments later with a trash bag. Chuck, Jenny, and Trinity were sitting on the sofa. Jenny was in the middle. Her father sat to the right of her and the little girl sat to her left. Kyle put the empty bottles in the trash bag. Then he emptied the ashtray and carried the trash away. When he came back in the room moments later, he sat down on the armchair closest to Trinity’s side of the sofa.
Trinity set her meth pipe on the coffee table and looked at Jenny expectantly. Jenny pulled the sandwich bag of crystal meth from her pocket and put some in the pipe. Trinity (already holding a lighter) picked the pipe up, put a flame to the meth, and started smoking.
Jenny retrieved the syringe and bottle of water from her duffel bag. She quickly prepared some meth for injection. Then she stuck the needle in a vein and pressed the plunger.
Chuck cracked open his fresh bottle of whiskey. He took two shots and then looked at Kyle. “Jenny said you told her that you can show us what’s coming to kill us.”
Kyle sipped his cocktail. “I can. And I will. But first, I want to get high.” He produced his own pipe from a pocket of his bathrobe. It was a little glass pipe that still had some marijuana in its bowl. He dumped the marijuana out into the large ceramic ashtray. Then he gestured at the bag of meth beside it on the table and looked at Jenny. “May I?”
Jenny nodded. “Knock yourself out.”
Kyle packed his bowl with meth and started smoking it. “Goddamn,” he said, after only a couple of hits. “This shit’s dynamite.”
Chuck smoked some meth out of Trinity’s pipe while Kyle finished smoking his.
Then Kyle set his bowl down on the coffee table and rose from the armchair. “Okay, people. It’s time to show you my satellite-surveillance chamber. Follow me.”
The three of them rose f
rom the sofa. He led them out of the living room, down a hallway, and into another large room on the other side of the house.
Two of the walls in the room were longer than the other two. On one of the longer walls was an immense screen about the size of most screens in a cinema. A map of planet Earth was projected on the screen. Cloud formations were superimposed on the map. Green lettering was superimposed on the cloud formations.
“What do the green letters mean?” Trinity said.
Those were the first words Chuck had heard the little girl speak.
“Weather conditions,” Kyle said. “Worldwide.” He sat down at a control console in front of the massive screen. “And all these other lights,” he added, referring to the blue, red, yellow, and white lights blinking steadily on the screen, “indicate the current positions of numerous satellites.”
“What do the satellites do?” Trinity said.
“A lot of them just handle electronic communications,” Kyle said.
Trinity’s eyes kept sweeping over the lights across the screen. “So all those satellites are just for cellphones?”
“Oh no,” Kyle said. “I mean, yes, a lot of them are just used for cellphones, TV, internet, and radio. But others are used for astronomy, meteorology, oil exploration, domestic surveillance, international espionage, all kinds of stuff.”
“Who owns the satellites?” Trinity said.
Kyle shrugged. “Government agencies. Military services. Public corporations. U.S. and foreign businesses. Doesn’t really matter to me, though, because I can access and use just about every satellite on that screen without the legitimate owners even knowing that their systems have been invaded.”
Chuck took a shot of whiskey. “Are you serious?”
Kyle nodded. “Check this out.” He pushed a button on the console, and the map of planet Earth vanished from the screen. In its place, an actual satellite view of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey appeared. The borders of those three states were overlaid in orange lines because their boundaries would have been otherwise difficult to define when seen from orbit. Then he pushed another button and the camera zoomed all the way in on a license plate. An image of the license plate filled the entire screen. Kyle glanced up at Chuck. “Look familiar?”
Chuck shrugged. “I don’t know my fucking plate number. Is that mine?”
Kyle pushed a button and the camera zoomed out a bit, revealing an image of Chuck’s car parked outside in front of the garage.
Chuck took a shot. “So whose satellite is that, anyway? Goddamn NASA’s?”
Kyle finished his cocktail. “Yes, actually. It belongs to NASA.”
Chuck shook his head. “I’ll be damned.”
Jenny said, “So what the fuck’s coming to kill us?”
There was a keyboard on the console. Kyle tapped a few keys, and the image on the screen was replaced by a view of glittering stars in outer space. He clicked a mouse beside the keyboard to highlight a fuzzy, grayish shape among the stars. The smudge of gray had pinpricks of light in it. “That’s what’s coming to kill us.”
“What is it?” Trinity said.
“You tell me,” Kyle said. “What does it look like to you?”
“A silver dragon,” Trinity said.
Kyle scratched his chin. “Interesting.”
Chuck took a shot of whiskey. “Looks like a cosmic cloud.”
“To me,” Jenny said, “it looks like a little swirling galaxy.” She turned to Kyle. “But you’re the goddamn genius, so what the fuck is it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. No one does. I do have a theory, however, and I think Trinity was pretty close when she said it looks like a dragon. But I don’t think it’s going to breathe fire and destroy us. Instead, I think it’s going to eat us.”
Jenny looked at Kyle. “Eat us? So you think it’s alive?”
He nodded.
She put a hand on a hip. “And you think it’s going to eat the entire planet?”
He nodded again. “Actually, I think it might eat most of the solar system.”
Chuck took a shot. “No offense, dude, but I think you’re fucking stupid.”
“None taken,” Kyle said. “And you’re certainly not the first person to think that. But we just started seeing these things yesterday, so no one’s had enough time to figure out what the hell they are.”
“Wait a second,” Jenny said. “Things? As in plural?”
“Yes. They began appearing yesterday all across the Eridanus Void.”
“The what?” Jenny said.
“The Supervoid of Eridanus. A space of absolute nothingness about a billion light years across. For years, the CMB couldn’t find anything there.”
Chuck said, “What’s the CMB?”
“It’s a map of the cosmic microwave background, which is basically electromagnetic radiation from the early stages of the universe. Anyway, for years, we couldn’t find anything in that massive space, and then, yesterday, these things just started popping up all the way across the supervoid. Strange, to be sure. Inexplicable, actually. But not an imminent threat to us, because the Eridanus Void is billions of light years away. Fast forward a couple of hours, however, and one of those things is practically right outside our door. In just a few hours from now, it kicks in the door and kills us all.”
Chuck took a shot of whiskey. “So there’s no chance it misses us? Or maybe just passes right on by?”
Kyle shook his head. “None. I don’t think you understand how big it is. Go ahead and take another look at it.”
Chuck, Jenny, and Trinity all three looked up at the screen. The swirling gray smudge was already bigger than it had been just a couple of minutes ago.
“Those pinpricks of light inside it,” Kyle said, “are bigger than Jupiter.”
Chuck and Jenny looked at Kyle with their mouths open. Trinity just kept staring at the screen. Jenny said: “No fucking way.”
“And I think,” Kyle added, “that those pinpricks of light are its eyes.”
Jenny looked at her father. “Let me hit that whiskey.” He handed her the bottle, and she took a drink. Then she took another one and handed it back.
Kyle stood up from the control console. “I want to show you something. Follow me.”
He led them to a computer workstation in a corner of the room. Beside the computer workstation was a light table. On the light table were several large photographic negatives of the thing from outer space that was coming to kill them. Also on the light table were a few little handheld magnifying glasses.
“Go ahead,” Kyle said. “All three of you. Grab a magnifying glass and tell me what you see.”
Chuck, Jenny, and Trinity each picked up a magnifying glass and began examining the photographic negatives.
“I see tentacles,” Trinity said.
Chuck said, “I see a goddamn mouth.”
“Me too,” Jenny agreed. “And teeth. Jesus Christ. Look at those fucking teeth.”
“That mouth is big enough to swallow stars,” Kyle said. “And those teeth are the size of planets and moons.”
“And the eyes!” Jenny said. “Those eyes look absolutely demonic! What the hell is this thing?”
“I don’t know,” Kyle said. “They just appeared out of nowhere all over the cosmos yesterday. My best guess is that they came from another dimension, and now they’re traveling through our spatial plane, devouring whole constellations, and leaving nothing but cosmic voids in their wake.”
Chuck took a shot of whiskey. “Well, we’ve only got about eight or nine hours left, and even though I’m high on this goddamn meth, I’m fucking starving.”
“I’m hungry too,” Jenny said. “I haven’t eaten in about a week. You think anybody’s still delivering food on the last day of existence?”
“Doubt it,” Kyle said. “But I could make us all a big pot of spaghetti. How does that sound?”
Chuck took another shot. “Sounds good to me.”
“Same here,” Jenny said.
Trinity shrugged.
“Her mother died a few nights ago,” Jenny told Kyle. “I haven’t seen her eat anything since.”
“So it’s settled then,” Kyle said. “I’ll make us all a big pot of spaghetti.”
The four of them went back into the living room and did some more crystal meth. Then Kyle went into the kitchen and made a pot of spaghetti. Soon thereafter, the four of them ate spaghetti, bread, and potato chips at the table in Kyle’s dining room. For dessert, they each had a Popsicle.
“I’m tired now,” Chuck said, after the meal’s conclusion. “Think I might kick back and catch a little shut-eye.”
“Me too,” Jenny agreed. “I’m probably going to nod off for a bit.”
Kyle rose from the table. “I normally do the dishes right away, but not today. I am, however, going to take a shower. Just crash wherever you want. Make yourselves at home.” He turned around and walked out of the dining room.
Chuck, Jenny, and Trinity went back into the living room. The bag of meth was still on the coffee table. Trinity sat down on the floor, put some meth in her pipe, and started smoking it.
Jenny stretched out on the sofa and closed her eyes. “Doubt I sleep long,” she said. “Just need a nap.”
Chuck found a bedroom down the hallway. He went inside and closed the door behind him. He stretched out on the bed and took two shots of whiskey. Moments later, he was asleep.
• • •
“Dad! Wake up!” Jenny’s voice. “Dad! Wake up! Trinity’s missing!”
Chuck opened his eyes. Jenny was standing beside the bed, looking down at him. Her eyes and hair were wild.