by Adam Drake
No, no, no, this can't be happening, Wyatt thought. A rush of emotion surged through his body. This can't be happening! He got him here to the clinic! He can't die now!
The doctor turned to Wyatt with a somber expression. Over his shoulder Casket and Scarface were guffawing silently, slapping each other on the back.
“I'm sorry,” the doctor said. “Your friend has passed away. If he'd had gotten here sooner, or if we had electricity we might have-,” but the doctor didn't get to finish before Wyatt suddenly lunged forward.
Wyatt knocked the doctor aside as he charged at Casket.
Casket, expecting some sort of reaction, suddenly whipped out his large knife.
People screamed.
In an instant, Wyatt crossed the distance between them and collided with Casket. Casket tried to stab at Wyatt, but the old hobo caught his arm with a vice-like grip.
Wyatt's momentum pushed them back against a wall where people leapt out of the way. As they hit the wall Casket head-butted Wyatt in the cheek causing him to see stars, but the hobo kept on fighting. He smashed the Feral Kid in the face with the knuckles.
Casket suddenly collapsed to his knees, the knife wielding hand going limp.
Scarface punched at Wyatt's back like it was a punching bag. Wyatt grunted with each hit. Calmly, he reached down and took the knife from Casket's hand. Then he slashed backward with it and a red line appeared across Scarface's throat.
Wide-eyed, Scarface stumbled back, clutching at his neck where blood geysered from the wound. With shock he locked eyes with Wyatt, who watched him coolly, and tumbled to the ground, gasping.
Wyatt spun around to face Casket. “This is for Ethan, you shit.” He jabbed the large knife straight into Casket's face right to the hilt.
Casket fell to the ground, dead.
Wyatt stood, gasping, a strange calm washing over him.
The massive guard ran in from outside and took in the scene. Quickly, he unholstered his pistol and pointed it at Wyatt with both hands. “Drop the knife!”
Wyatt looked about in a daze. Casket dead at his feet with the knife sticking out of his head. Scarface convulsing on the ground in a widening pool of blood.
“Drop the knife, now!”
“You better do as he says,” Wyatt heard someone say. He looked over at Ethan on the roll-away bed.
Ethan was looking at him, alive as ever.
“Ethan?” Wyatt said in confusion. “But you're dead! I saw you die!”
Ethan shrugged. “Yeah, well shit happens. Least I died wearing nice shoes. Better than most can say.” No one seemed to notice that he was speaking, all eyes on Wyatt. “But what good would all of this have been for if you joined me now?”
Wyatt blinked in confusion, then looked at the pistol pointed at him. He willed it to shoot.
“Don't do that,” admonished Ethan's corpse. “Your time isn't now. You know that. There is still work to do.”
Wyatt's mind reeled. This was all too familiar, but he couldn't remember where, or from when.
“Drop the knife! I won't say it again!” yelled the guard, a look of pleading was in his eyes. He didn't want to do it, but he would if that's what Wyatt wanted.
Is that what I want? He thought to himself. He looked to Ethan, again, for guidance.
Ethan's body lay still on the bed, eyes closed.
There is still work to do.
Wyatt dropped the knife, and it clattered to the floor. He placed his hands behind his head.
He had the sense he was being handcuffed, but it didn't fully register. Instead, he gazed at the bloody carnage at his feet. A realization dawning on him.
Oh, no, he thought. I've done it again.
END OF BOOK ONE.
Black Out: Book Two
Day one of a terrifying new future.
The lights are gone and the darkness is forever.
Who has what it takes to survive?
Nate, a disgruntled hitman, is settling old scores with bloodthirsty enthusiasm. His intent is clear. While the world reels from the lack of power he will begin to build an empire from its ashes - one body at a time.
Wyatt, a homeless man, has suffered the worst loss of his life and his fragile mind snaps. As the city spirals into chaos his hold on reality slips away, and he grabs at the only lifeline left to him - the spirit of his dead friend.
CHAPTER ONE
Nate
Sitting amongst the corpses, Nate watched the city burn.
The night sky was flush with stars, bright and eager to be seen. Nate could not remember the last time he'd seen the stars like this. Childhood?
There was a time when his asshole father took him and his mother on a camping trip. Like everything else about his father, it was a joke. The man drunk himself into oblivion, pissing into the camp fire. When his mom complained his father started to beat her. Despite being only eight or nine, Nate tried to defend her and was beaten in turn.
The stars were beautiful back then, too.
Ah, memories.
But now that he thought about it, these stars were unusually bright. Like thousands of little spotlights trying to illuminate the chaos below.
Over the fence across the bar's back parking lot, fires burned in the distance. Nate couldn't see them directly, but their hot glow pushed against the night like little suns trying to break up out of the horizon.
Nate had his own fire, thanks to Morse the screw-up. The flames within the barrel flickered and crackled. When it started to die down Nate went into Unger's office and found more things to burn. Nate chose a bunch of Unger's photos and a mound of bills and papers from the desk.
He dumped them in and the fire blazed.
“Won't be needing those anymore, eh boss?” Nate said to Unger's cooling corpse.
Not getting an answer, Nate went and sat back down in one of the comfy chairs, shotgun across his lap.
He listened to the sound of the fire. Somewhere, far off, popping indicated a rifle being used. He'd heard more throughout the night as he sat there and watched the city die. Old scores needed to be settled and what better time to do it?
Nate had many of his own to get to. The list was long with only a few names being of distinguishing merit. But they were all shit that needed to be shoveled.
He patted the shotgun. This was his shovel.
A squishy noise emanated from Morse, causing Nate to raise his rifle. When he recognized it as a body expelling gas he laughed.
“Full of shit both in life and in death,” Nate said. “Not surprised.”
Morse responded with more death farts.
Nate fished a beer out of a small cooler next to the chair and examined the label in the fire light. God damned german import. Unger always had bad taste in drink. Nate shrugged, twisted off the label and took a swig.
He grimaced. Bitter and heavy, just like Unger and his family.
Unger's family.
In a normal situation Nate would be running for his life right now, having gunned downed the organization's up and comer. He didn't have permission to take Unger out, nor would he have ever sought it. That would have been a death sentence, being just a piddly gun-for-hire. A contract would be put on his head and the countdown would begin. Nate was certain he could have given any would-be bounty hunters a run for their money.
But this wasn't a normal situation. He doubted things would ever be normal again.
It made him smile.
A sudden scream from his left made him drop the beer bottle with a smash and stand up, shotgun at the ready. It had come from the little apartment building located next door to the Spectacular. There were a couple of windows which had small pulses of glowing orange, candles. One of them were brighter than the rest and was growing brighter. Frantic shadow puppets danced around inside trying to put out the errant flames.
Nate laughed and dragged the chair over so he could see better. He grabbed another bitter beer and sat down to enjoy the show. This little sun was closer than the rest, eager to
be born.
For nearly twenty minutes he watched as the fire went out of control and consumed the little apartment. Soon its flames licked out from the open balcony window, the curtains coiling into hot ash.
As he watched, he thought about what his next move would be. Killing Unger was an automatic death sentence, but only if other's found out about it. Or if he got to them first.
And with this strange day drawing to an end, Nate felt certain Unger's death would rank fairly low on priorities to those who might care. The world was being reborn, like these little suns.
No alarms sounded from the apartment building. The little batteries in the smoke detectors had been nixed along with everything else.
Maybe it was what the aliens intended. Kill the batteries. Kill the electricity. Let humanity kill itself.
Nate took another swig and watched the apartment fire spread across the floors. Who was he to try and understand what this event was meant to accomplish? To the aliens, he was nothing more than another human they hoped would die in an apartment fire.
But Nate felt he was more than that and would prove it. If anything, he was an opportunist and these last twenty four hours had shown he could grab an opportunity by the hair and make it his bitch.
“Hello?” a voice called out.
Nate blinked out of his thoughts. It had come from inside the bar. Quietly, he placed the beer on the ground and went over to the open back door, shotgun in both hands. He peered inside.
Other than the orange flickering light from the barrel fire he couldn't make out anything past Unger's office at the end of the little hall.
“Hello?” the voice said again. It was a man. Sounded like he was in the main room of the bar.
Nate entered and walked down the hall, shotgun pointed forward ready to spit out death. When he reached the office, he noticed another light through the office door, this one coming from within the bar itself. Someone with a light source?
With a glance behind him, Nate moved to the office door and peeked around its frame.
A man was standing in the middle of the bar, short and fat. A lantern sat on a table next to him, its inner flame bright and strong.
A quick look told Nate the man was not carrying any weapons in his hands, but he needed to be cautious.
Certain there was no one else present, Nate stepped through the door.
The fat man gave a quivering start when he noticed Nate. “Oh, damn,” he said. “You scared me. I didn't think anyone was around.”
“I'm scary,” Nate said as he approached. “And I'm around.” He kept two tables between them, the shotgun pointed at the other man. “Who are you?”
The man glanced at the shotgun with wide eyes and slowly raised his empty hands. “Hey, I'm just here to make a delivery. No need to get all worried about it.”
“I'm not worried. Who are you?”
“Martin,” the fat man said. Wide spots of sweat stained his shirt. Nate could see the man was shaking.
“Hello, Martin, I'm Nate.”
When Nate didn't say anymore, Martin said, “Hello, Nate.” He swallowed hard.
“What are you delivering today? Better not be anymore of that crappy german beer because that would put me in a really foul mood.”
Martin shook his head. “No, no crappy german beer.”
Fear kept the man from speaking. “Then what?” Nate said.
“Prawns.”
Nate burst into laughter. When he settled down he shook a finger at Martin, shotgun still held steady. “Ah, Marty, I did not expect you to say that. Beer, sure. But prawns?”
Martin shrugged. “Unger likes them, even though they don't sell very well here.”
“Yeah, who comes to a bar to eat prawns trucked in from an ocean which is miles and miles away.”
“They're from Japan,” Martin said, looking worried he might be speaking out of turn. “Unger likes those especially.”
Nate laughed again, this time louder and longer. “Oh, that is funny, Martin.” He looked around. “Where are these Japanese prawns? I know you didn't bring them in a truck.”
Martin shook his head. “No, my truck died on the freeway this morning. Along with everyone else's.”
Nodding, Nate said, “Yeah, that was one hell of a morning, wasn't it?”
“It's been one hell of a day,” Martin said relaxing a little. He pointed a thumb toward the front doors. “Got 'em outside.”
Nate nodded for Martin to start walking. “Well, show me these imported Japanese prawns, Marty.”
When Martin picked up the lantern and turned Nate nearly shot him right then and there. This man was dead weight. And if he sees the bodies out the back, he'd be a witness to Nate's crime.
But he didn't shoot the prawn man, not yet. Something about him made Nate curious.
Instead of blasting a hole in the fat man's back, he followed him out the front doors, which were still propped open by the stools vacated by Earl and Wilson.
“Here they are,” Martin said.
A wheel-barrel sat near the edge of the walkway stuffed with plastic bags marked with the stylised symbol of a big prawn.
Nate looked them over. “You hauled these here with that?”
“Yup,” Martin said, wiping sweat from his forehead for emphasis. “When the truck went tits up, I hoofed it back to the warehouse and grabbed the wheel-barrel. Then came back to the truck and filled up as much as I could.”
“There's more?”
“Yeah, but the refrigeration in the truck died with the rest of it, so I expect they've gone bad by now in this heat.”
“How far did you come?”
“Third avenue. Took me eight hours to get here.”
Nate was impressed, but frowned in confusion. “Then why bother bringing these all the way here if they were just going to go bad along the way?”
Martin shrugged. “I iced them up real good, but that melted away after the first two hours.” His voiced trailed off as if he didn't want to say anymore.
Then Nate understood. “You wanted Unger to know you tried.”
“Yeah,” Martin said, a little sheepishly. “If I didn't do anything, or didn't show I made an effort to get him some of his prawns here, there'd be hell to pay.”
Nate watched the fat man as he spoke. He recognized that look. Defeat. Fear. Here was an employee of Unger's who knew the boss was unforgiving, let alone even fair, when it came to mistakes. Even ones that were completely out of his control.
Nate lowered his shotgun. “Well, Unger won't be needing these prawns at all.”
Martin looked confused. “He won't?” He glanced into the bar. “Isn't he here? He's always here.”
“Oh, he's here. Maybe you can go explain to him what happened.”
“O-okay,” Martin said with some hesitation. He led them both through the bar, again, with his lantern.
Curious, Nate asked, “Where did you get that lantern?”
“Had it in the warehouse,” Martin said as they navigated around empty tables. The bar looked ghostly in the lantern's flickering light. “Always wanted to use it and now I got the chance.”
Nate smiled. “I think we'll be using it quite a bit from now on.” In all honesty, he liked what he saw in this Martin guy. A go-getter willing to do what it took to impress his boss.
A potential lackey.
They entered the office and Nate pointed the shotgun at the back hallway. “Out there,” he said.
Martin walked outside then stopped when he noticed all the bodies.
Nate kept his shotgun low, but held it so he could bring it up in a flash.
The fat man scanned over the carnage with wide eyes. His gaze settled on Unger's corpse. He blinked and walked over to it.
“He's dead,” Martin said.
“That would be his current state, yes,” Nate said. The apartment next door was in full bloom, its fire out of control. But neither he nor Martin bothered to look.
Martin said, “Did you kill him?”
Nate pondered his answer, then simply said, “Yup.”
Anger rippled across the little man's face. “Bastard!” Martin reached for the front of his pants.
Surprised at this sudden change in demeanor Nate raised his shotgun ready to add another body to the back lot's inventory.