Live, From the End of the World

by William Vitka

I poke Fred. “Check out Fox News.”

  “No.”

  “Okayyy... Then flip over to MSNBC. Just gimme something other than this little ‘Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me,’ back and forth.”

  Helene makes her way to the bathroom. She’s wrapped up in a towel. She smiles. I listened for the shower to turn on.

  Fred taps my stomach impatiently after flipping to CBS2.

  I look. Snap away from the wonderful mental image of a naked girlfriend. On the TV, people swarm out of the 191st Street station in upper Manhattan like a horde of stupid insects. Their hands and faces are covered with grime. They crawl over one another to get up the dirty steps. Rich and poor alike, common courtesy goes out the window. Their eyes are wild. Some scream. Runners bolt up the stairs and use the drab green entrance pillars to propel themselves away from the insanity with slingshot maneuvers.

  A child falls down between the tree-like legs of adults. Nobody stops.

  The reporter at the scene stammers. Tries to describe it all for viewers. He uses words like “terror” and “horror” and “chaos” and “disorder”—your standard synonyms for “bad shit.” He points furiously at people and yammers into the camera that nobody’s sure what’s happening, but an animal is involved. Some people say it’s bugs. Some say rats.

  “CREATURES ATTACK THE 1 TRAIN,” reads the ticker at the bottom of the screen.

  I hate television. It might be fast, but it ain’t as fast as getting info online.

  I grab my datapad. Pop up the holoscreen. Head to SomethingAwful.com. The forums there are propelled by frequently loopy users called Goons.

  There are sections updated by news hounds and nerds and kids with self-diagnosed Asperger’s in real time. This includes, in some cases, people from afflicted areas who can upload cell phone pictures or post just what the fuck is going on—without the broadcast nonsense.

  The advantage of the forums (as opposed to Twitter or Facebook or even news feeds) is that I don’t have to dig as hard to find what I’s looking for. All the same, I check what’s trending in the microblogging world and put that up on its own holoscreen.

  At Something Awful, the top thread topic reads “MANHATTAN SUBWAYS GOING BUGFUCK (lol).” After about twenty replies, the meat of it starts to come in. There’s a Goon in the tunnel who hasn’t gotten out yet. He’s taking and uploading pictures of the ordeal as quickly as he can. One of the thread responses redirects people to the guy’s Twitter account for speed purposes.

  A smart phone or datapad linked to a mobile photo platform can broadcast so long as the photographer is capable of hitting the right buttons.

  I flick my finger to the right across the datapad’s slick screen, which tells the program I’m running (an app called FeedMe) to automatically bundle the information and email it—in this instance, to my editor. I grab a few more bits of info from the feeds and (literally) slide them over to my boss.

  Fred mutters. “Cops cordoned the area off. Took em long enough.”

  I look up from my Asimov. Watch. The reporter has given up on talking. He lets the cameraman take charge. There are no words. Just the shouting and screaming of passersby.

  Armed NYPD soldiers head down faster than the stragglers emerge.

  And there’s blood.

  A lot of blood.

  Not one of the straphangers crawling toward the light is devoid of crimson splotches. The last guy out, an older man wearing jeans and a light brown jacket, yells at the paramedic coddling him: “You see em? You see what they did ta dat little boy and his motha?”

  Authorities hurry the old guy outta the shot.

  CBS2, terrified of the unscripted like every other corporate station, switches over to the talking heads in the studio. One male. One female. Of differing racial backgrounds, as is the trend.

  Guess it’s safe to assume people wonder about my own damn ethnicity. Truth is, I got no idea. I’m some kinda mutt. Not light enough to be white. Not dark enough to fit into another group. Asking my parents was useless cuz I’m adopted.

  Might’ve caused a few mental issues.

  But, hey, who doesn’t have those.

  I turn back to my Asimov. The Goon’s Twitter photo feed has loaded. I’m greeted by a stash of amateur photos from a little over 160 feet underground.

  The first could’ve been used in a timeline for the paper or online. It’s got a “human” element to it, as we say. It’s ineptly shot, but shows the interior of the subway train...and a pretty brunette girl with thick glasses who’s reading Bukowski’s Ham On Rye. She’s sitting below a window laden with scratchiti. I find myself liking her cuz she has a real paper edition of the book as opposed to some e-version of it. She doesn’t, in the shot at least, acknowledge the photographer. Though I’m certain he wants her to.

  The second shot is of the photographer himself. A goofy grin paints his face. His eyes are a stark hazel, hidden just beneath the ruffed-up brown hair of someone who wants to appear to not give a damn, but super fuckin does.

  The third is emo-fare. A Facebook-styled thing, taken from a high angle high to show off the jaw while slimming the face.

  Whatthefuckever.

  The fourth is of the girl again, but the window is crooked inward. It hangs on its swiveling latches. She’s shrinking away from it. Why is unknown.

  The next shot: Blurry as hell. Maybe the car is rocking from side to side. There are ghosts of people being thrown from their seats in a flash of motion. The lights have a haunting glow.

  Then the shooter has a lighter out. He takes the next photo with it half in the frame. Darkness surrounds the little island of brightness and ghastly faces are seen close by.

  Next shot is hard to figure out, but not cuz of its blurriness. The Goon aims toward the window of the train. Something wet and tubular hangs outside, pressed against the glass.

  Shot. Darkness with a hint of emergency lighting.

  Shot. Tunnel vision. Blackness all around. But light pours off of a platform in the distance. What has to have been the 191st Street stop.

  Shot. Our Goon clambers over the tough wall of concrete and steel that composes the platform.

  Shot. He catches the hurried faces of confused riders. Shadow and light are juxtaposed against one another.

  I suddenly want to hire him as a freelancer—if he survives.

  He takes a photo of people screaming in the foreground while others run for the stairs. Their faces are smudges of pain and terror. They look inhuman. Something out of a nightmare. Their mouths agape.

  Shot. Something red-black and almost two-feet long clings to the ass of one of the escapees as he bolts for the stairs.

  Shot. The subject is down on the ground. The red-black thing’s moved farther up his back. What looks like antennae, little insectoid radio receivers, can be seen.

  Shot. A dark pool underneath the fallen man. The monstrosity at the nape of his neck.

  Shot. A horde of glistening things punctuates the darkness.

  That’s the last frame in the feed.

  I glance again toward the television. An aerial view captures a SWAT response team in armor and biohazard gear hurrying down the stairs. Each one has some kind of weapon.

  Fred stands up in front of the TV. “What is that?” He points to a bulbous black tank on the back of one NYPD soldier.

  I furrow my brow. “You make a better door than a window, and that’s a flamethrower. Check out these pictures.” I hand Fred my datapad.

  He flips from photo to photo. “Fuck me. Are there more?”

  “I wish. Those were all taken by a forum kid while it was happening. I don’t even know if he’s alive. Only things that’re popping up in the thread now are questions and people recounting what’s been shown on TV and Twitter and wherever.”

  Fred and I lock eyes.

  I bite my lip. “What do you think?”<
br />
  “I think bugs. Cockroaches. That’s just on first glance. I wonder what the parents of these fuckers look like.”

  “Like Mothra humped a Buick.”

  More hermetically sealed cops stand at the mouths of the exits. Each one armed with a flamethrower. Behind em is another line of men, firing down into the station.

  The talking heads are speechless, but I can take a guess at what the police are doing: Sterilizing the area. Cooking it. Neutralizing the threat.

  A new photo pops up on the Twitter feed. The Goon’s left hand is thrown up to protect his face. A dirge of flame envelopes him. Hot yellows against skin in a concrete tomb.

  I assume it’s gonna be the last shot from his account.

  Fred says, “Hundred-and-Ninety-First Street station is the deepest in the subway system. So...” He strokes a nonexistent beard chin before he answers his own question. “A colony of mutant cockroaches punches its way through the walls. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if it punches its way through to the blue line—A, C, E trains. They’re only separated by a few blocks up there.”

  Very quiet, voice a whisper, CBS2’s on-site producer can be heard commanding the network’s cameraman to get through the line of cops. It’s barely audible. But the word “fired” comes through more than once.

  The camera bobs toward the soldiers as the producer creates a distraction off to one side. A minute gap between the cops appears. The cameraman seizes his chance once the flamethrowers go silent.

  NYPD soldiers yell. The cameraman jumps. He lands hard down below. Drops his camera to the ground and our view at home spins wildly for a moment.

  We hear him curse as he collects his camera. Then he pans it across the ruined platform.

  It’s a horror show. The station smoky and burnt. I don’t know how much heat those flamethrowers put out, but even the lights have been turned into dripping faucets of molten glass.

  The lumpy husks of at least two human bodies can be seen. One of em is undoubtedly our Goon.

  Every thirty seconds one of the dipshits from the network says that the raw footage “might be disturbing to some viewers.” Cuz, hey, fuckin shocker.

  A body near the stairs hisses with steam. The figure’s charred black. The second body, just a skip away, has the scorched outline of a cockroach hanging on its neck. The creature appears angry even in death.

  The cameraman creeps to the tracks. Our first-person vision dips and bobs as he makes his way. A few more cooked critters lie along the path, but not many.

  A hiss crackles over the broadcast: “Get the fuck down there.”

  I say to Fred, “Shouldn’t there be more?”

  “You mean fried bugs?”

  “Yeah, assuming this was a colony that burst through the walls. I mean, it’s unlikely in the extreme that there were only six dogdicking cockroaches in that family. Where there’s one, there’s a hundred, y’know?”

  “Yeah, I’m a renter. That’s how it goes.”

  The camera sweeps along the end of the platform and zooms down the tracks. A subway train is stopped about fifty feet back. The steel grey of the transport reflects the camera’s onboard light. It bounces the glare onto the walls in unsteady waves. Seems like the train was far enough away from the fire to avoid any serious damage, but not to avoid some black scarring along its corners. It’s a testament to how powerful the flamethrowers were.

  I want one.

  The lights inside the subway cars are still on. A bright sickly fluorescent blue cascades against the tunnel.

  Someone on the train is screaming.

  The producer keeps on the cameraman: “Get over there. We need footage.”

  Our intrepid lensman jumps down onto the poisonous metal and stone of New York City’s rails. Careful to avoid each tie, he hobbles along until he gets to the open door from which everyone else apparently escaped.

  The cameraman says, “Jesus God.”

  Center screen: A young woman crawls toward us viewers on the subway car’s fake marble floor. She’s got thick-black glasses and dark hair. The Bukowski gal. The real-paper-book gal.

  There’re tears in her eyes. She reaches out with what remains of her right arm. It’s shredded from the wrist back. Tendrils of flesh swing low and slap against the car’s floor. Mark it with thick gobs of semi-congealed blood.

  One of the creatures squats on her back. It dives for the flesh below the shoulder blades. She sobs as the thing makes a mockery of her struggles and stabs her white skin again and again and again with its cutting mouth machinery. Blood dribbles from its mottled ebony mandibles.

  The camera turns. There’s nothing left of her legs. Young, translucent roach larvae take shelter where the meat of her lower appendages used to be. They burrow into her. Crawl in and wriggle. As if they’re settling down for a cold night. Her skin bubbles with em.

  The cameraman, our eyes, never bothers to help. He’s too concerned with the footage.

  We watch her scream and cry and pray for whatever dipshit god she believes in to come save her. She howls like a pathetic animal having its life torn away chunk by chunk.

  The camera drops. More screams follow.

  Male this time.

  Text news alerts stand stark at the screen’s edge: CREATURES ATTACK THE 1 TRAIN.

  Viewer Discretion Is Advised. Some Scenes May By Inappropriate For Children. Won’t someone think of the stupid children?!

  Fred’s eyebrows go up. “Something wicked this way comes.”

  I grunt. “Huh?”

  “What’s next, I mean. Shit always gets worse.”

  “You’re starting to sound like me.”

  “I’m still drunk.”

  “So am I.”

  The scene snaps to the slack-jawed faces of our anchors. The female looks into the camera. “Folks, we have been assured that everything is fine and the situation will be contained in a few hours.”

  I say, “Y’know, our commute it gonna be fucked tomorrow morning.”

  Fred gives me the stink eye. “Our commute is fucked right now. The entire goddamn subway system could get shut down.”

  I jump up, Asimov in hand. I open bathroom door a crack. Shout to Helene: “I love you! World’s ending! Gotta go!”

  She peeks her head out from behind the shower curtain and shoos me off with a smirk.

  * * *

  There’s a portly man outside my apartment building shouting obscenities into a free newspaper box. I got no idea what language he’s speaking. Something between English and Crazy.

  In my mind, he has a nametag: CAPTAIN KOOKY.

  CAPTAIN KOOKY stops for a second and opens the box up. He keeps the spring door ajar with one knee. Unzips his pants. And pisses into it. He’s still screaming when his stream grows too weak to maintain. Then, penis to the wind, he kicks the box over and resumes his shrill denunciations of whoever happens to be nearby.

  An ad drone hovers near the loon. It scans him and apparently decides that he isn’t worth the energy. It shoots off toward a gaggle of teenagers down the street.

  I can’t wait until those advertising machines become self-aware—and maybe commit electric suicide cuz of their shitty jobs.

  Fred and I shrug. Then amble through the dirty courtyard of my aging apartment building in Bay Ridge. Except for one arched entrance, it’s completely sealed off from the street and lets us spy on CAPTAIN KOOKY. When we’re sure he ain’t looking, we initiate a half-walk, half-stumble toward the subway.

  We need to get into town before they shut the transit system down.

  Our walk hurries into a jog.

  You can’t tell anything is wrong by looking at the faces of the New Yorkers around us. There’s no discernible sense of panic at all. Nearly everyone’s talking about the subway attack, but it doesn’t faze em much. Missing a bus would freak em
out more.

  Old women on benches whisper to one another. They occasionally gasp and put their hands to their chest, but that’s the extent of their enthusiasm. Younger kids and teens yak into phones and datapads about the monsters Then they go back to listening to their headphones or watching stupid garbage or using stupid idiot garbage apps. Businessmen shuffle through the news feeds and emails on theirs while shaking their heads and muttering.

  Being New Yorkers, they don’t act like this is a tragedy or an emergency.

  The mayor’s obnoxious pro-tourism plans are a tragedy. Losing the ability to smoke where we want to is a tragedy. Subway fares are a tragedy.

  We’ve seen worse. A lot worse.

  This is just fucked. And we’ll deal with it. Much as we dealt with the voluntary cessation of New York City. The forced cessation of Los Angeles from America. The Vatican-approved United States of Christ—which does not include the Collective States of Latter Day Saints (formerly Utah and Arizona) or the fanatical Nation of Islam (formerly Illinois) which quickly turned itself into a modern day Iraq by legislating segregation of the variations of Islam...

  Nope. America hasn’t been the same since Emergence Day—when something old and horrible woke up under Brooklyn. When more came from outside. From some deep part of space. They destroyed what we thought we knew about humanity and our place in the cosmos.

  But that shit was before my time.

  I just live in the aftermath. And this isn’t that story.

  Fred and I trip over one another as we scramble down the subway steps. I push him to the left a bit and he pushes back harder. Neither of us fall, but I’m certain one would have laughed victoriously if the other’s face planted itself in concrete.

  We’re young boys racing toward the kitchen for freshly baked cookies. We can taste em. And we’re very hungry.

  There aren’t many folks on the platform. Which is an oddity. I stare up and down the urine-soaked station and can see only a handful of people near the Eighty-Sixth Street entrance.

  Fred grins. “What’s your headline gonna be?”

  “Thinking ‘Bugging out’ would be good.”