by Guy James
Milt frowned and looked into the distance. Beyond the evolvers in the adjacent lot, Milt saw yet more evolvers on the East River Greenway. They stood in unmoving clumps and stared, expressionless, in all directions. He found reassurance in the separated clumps. There were evolvers in need of direction, and he would be the one to provide it to them.
“Please hurry,” Milt said, addressing the evolvers in the adjacent lot. “It is time for me to move beyond this barrier. It is time for us to pursue our prey.”
The fence shook harder as more evolvers piled into the throng that pressed toward Milt. The sound of bending and tearing metal began to drown out the clatter of the fence’s shaking.
“Yes,” Milt said, “that is it. The barrier is almost breached. Please proceed with greater force. Bend your knees. Apply maximum power. Maximum power.”
Milt looked beyond the throng behind the fence to another, larger group of evolvers. They filled the width of the East River Greenway and they—no, it couldn’t be. They were losing balance and toppling, one by one, into the river.
“No, fair evolvers,” Milt cried, projecting his voice as best he could toward the troubled group. “Do not follow the ruinous design of lemmings. That is not your purpose and you are far grander beasts. Mind the railing, dear evolvers, and step away from it. Step away.”
Concern grew to grand proportions in Milt’s belly, filling him with dread. Why were they being like this? Did they not understand that they all had a vital role to play? Did they not understand anything at all?
Mystified, Milt walked in the direction of the diving evolvers. His shoes, now lacking much water to slurp, made retching sounds as he went.
“All they need is able leadership,” Milt said to himself.
“Heed my words, evolvers,” he yelled. “I have come to show you the way. I command the lot of you to halt your plunging this instant. You have a far grander purpose than swimming, I assure you.”
He moved closer to the clump of evolvers by the East River railing. One by one they toppled in, one by one, toppling…
“Stop,” Milt cried. “Cease in your errant course of conduct. You are to transform the humans of this world, not the mutated fish-creatures of this river. Please, do not enter the murk.” Milt paused for a moment, thoughtful. “But what of the mutated fish-creatures and of fish-creatures generally? Are they to be transformed also?” He put a hand up to his cheek and scratched the side of his face.
He was still pondering the issue when his feet were knocked out from under him and he fell hard on his back. The canister of his self-hydrating contraption clanged.
93
CHELSEA, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Murky water streamed past Lorie, offering some resistance to her progress through the water. Dauntless, whoever or whatever was pulling her did not relent.
The water around Lorie began to clarify. It grew lighter and increasingly transparent.
At first, she could only make out shapes moving around her, but, moments later, her surroundings resolved.
Lorie screamed. A stream of bubbles gurgled from her mouth. The garbled sound of the scream in the water seemed pathetic to her own ears, the scream of a corpse that had not yet accepted the finality of its fate. She watched the trail of bubbles from her mouth lengthen, fade, and disappear as she was pulled backward.
The monster that was pulling her stopped and let go. As soon as the tug on her hair was gone, Lorie whirled, but there was nothing behind her where her attacker should have been. Around her, a circle of nightmarish monsters staggered closer.
The monsters bent over her and blocked out more and more of the light that was filtering in from above the surface of the water.
There was another tug at the back of Lorie’s hair, harder than before. Then she felt a stab of pain in the back of her neck. The monsters bent lower, and a piece of rotten flesh detached itself from one monster’s cheeks, revealing a high, fractured cheekbone.
The monster opened its mouth and Lorie saw a gaping hole that was equal parts sharp, rotting teeth and torn, desiccated flesh. The teeth and the rot from which they protruded drew nearer.
Lorie screamed, managing only a small trail of bubbles this time.
The world became agony.
94
EAST RIVER GREENWAY, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Because Milt had lost a lot of fat in his transformation, falling onto his back should have been less of a problem for him than it used to be. Unfortunately for Milt, the large amount of water weight he had just sopped up from the East River made the plight of his current fall equally pitiable as the fall he had taken in the Wegmans parking lot during the first outbreak. The difference now was that Milt looked less like a flailing, bloated turtle on its back, and more like a flailing, bloated water bug on its back.
“What foul treachery is this?” Milt cried, turning his head this way and that, but having no luck in determining what had caused his fall.
The evolvers bent over him, their mouths working with an alacrity that belongs solely to the hungry undead.
“It cannot be that one of you has done this,” Milt said. “I refuse to believe it. Now please help me back to verticality at once. We must proceed with our charge towards the fort held by Sven. Once that refuge of humanity—the last refuge, a vestige actually and literally, that I shall concern myself with—is overthrown, I shall grant each of you your leave and you shall each be free to cavort and play in the land of the once living, doing and taking as you please, without consequence or retribution.”
The evolvers bent lower over Milt, crowding in around him. The group became so thick that Milt could not see any ground beyond the evolver legs that surrounded him. He looked up and saw that a clear spot had formed in the sky to the west, a bright contrast to the dark cloud cover of the rest of the sky.
Water squirted from one of the manifold folds of Milt’s soaked clothing and the evolvers bent nearer, the excitement in their dull, black eyes growing.
“What are you doing?” Milt said with growing concern. “We do not have time for friendly banter at the moment. If we dally, Sven will no doubt escape. Do you not remember the urgency of our mission to convert the one called Sven? Has my blood, which gave you this life not informed you of that…have you not been imparted with my biological memory?” Milt paused for a moment, considering this. “Do they lack all intelligence? Are they not controllable?”
The evolvers were now climbing over each other to reach Milt, and the mass of deteriorating, undead bodies fell on top of him. They intermittently pulled at his clothes and limbs, then let go.
“Are you inspecting me?” Milt asked. “I must say I am quite offended. I created you, and you are inspecting me? I assure you that I am authentic. Were I not, how could I have given the virus’s gift to others such as you?”
Milt decided that his logic had worked on the evolvers, because they seemed to relent, backing away and giving him some more space.
“Very well,” Milt said. “Now that the formalities are out of the way, please proceed to set me upright and we shall resume conquering this side of the island.”
The evolvers did not proceed to set Milt upright. Instead, they bent lower, closing in on him again.
“I say, what do you think you are doing?”
The evolvers moaned, and, for the first time, Milt saw their eagerness for devouring clearly. These were not at all controllable beasts that could be set to tasks that he chose. These were beasts with a separate logic that he did not program, beasts designed by some other master , set to an irrevocable, unalterable beat that was—
Milt didn’t scream when the first evolver tore into his flesh. He was too much overcome by the irony of what was happening. It was so beautifully ironic that, even though Milt was the victim of it, he couldn’t help but appreciate the satirical quality of his own impending undoing.
“But I am already evolved?” he croaked.
Another evolver tore into his flesh.
And another.
And another.
And another.
An evolved being himself, Milt found the pain of being devoured quite unremarkable.
“But what about Sven?” he asked, desperate with the understanding that he was about out of time and there would be no one left to oversee the necessary conversion of Sven and his unappreciative posse. “You shall go after him next, correct? Please confirm.”
The evolvers that were eating Milt’s copious flesh paused for a moment, as if they were actually considering what Milt had just said, and the pause allowed the evolvers behind them the opportunity to push their way to the frontlines and bite into Milt’s flesh.
“What is this over-eagerness? Am I that savory that you cannot grant that final request?”
If the evolvers understood Milt’s words, they made no sign of it.
“It cannot be that you are nothing more than moisture-seeking automatons. We are supposed to have been part of a collective being. It cannot be that all you want is to... It cannot...”
Milt groaned. “But I am a Dual N Back master. My intelligence quotient is of undeniably epic proportions…proportions so great they can hardly be imagined by—”
The evolvers ripped at Milt’s massive left calf, hooked their bony fingers under the muscle, and peeled it away.
“Blasted dolts,” Milt blurted, then clapped a hand to his fat lips. “My apologies, my sincerest apologies, dear evolvers. Oh, what have I said? But why, pray tell, do you insist in such tearing? My flesh is to be envied, to be sure, but I am your fearless, supreme leader, and you are most certainly not fit to consume me.”
The evolvers bent over Milt’s bulk, vying for a spot at the feeding trough that Milt had become. They tore into his great belly, turning his skin and fatty padding asunder to reach their prize: Milt’s bloated intestines.
The evolvers forced their gnarled hands into Milt’s belly and pulled the intestines free. Milt watched in disbelief as they pulled improbable lengths of intestine out and bit through them. Blood poured from the mouths of the evolvers, covering their lips and chins and dripping back into Milt’s torn belly.
He watched all of this until he finally understood what was happening. They didn't follow him. They had never followed him. They followed blood and moisture and nothing else. Devouring him and draining him of his fluid was their path of least resistance, just as lurking his whole life in his comic book shop and its basement underbelly had been his. They were all doing what came naturally to them. That was what creatures did, and what they had to do.
Milt felt a sense of pride then, for he had created these noble evolvers, and they were true to their nature.
He was completely disemboweled when he began to lose consciousness.
Milt stared up at the tree above him. Its bare branches seemed to dip lower, as if reaching for him. Milt knew then that they were—the branches were reaching for him. He barely felt anything as his evolvers continued to tear his body apart, and then the branches of the tree swooped lower, and lower still, and, finally, Milt, better known as the World of Warcraft’s Miltimore the Sword-Wielder, expert fighter and sword handler, was reclaimed.
95
THE WOODS OF RURAL VIRGINIA
The vegan with the handlebar moustache froze. He narrowed his eyes. In the distance ahead, he saw a small, silver briefcase moving deftly through the thick woods. At first he guessed that his eyes were playing tricks on him, considering that he’d walked all through the night, and though he didn’t need much rest given both his condition and his vegan nature, it was possible that he was seeing things.
The vegan rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and looked again. The silver briefcase was still there. He tried to place where he had seen briefcases like that before, but couldn’t. It wasn’t the sort of briefcase a fancy businessman would carry, not because it wasn’t fancy enough, but because it was too small. It might be something a Mafioso would own—it was certainly shiny enough, but again, the briefcase was so small that the vegan couldn’t think what one would keep in it. And there was a vague medical quality to it that made the vegan uncomfortable.
The silver briefcase drew nearer, and the vegan quickly hid behind a tree, clutching his makeshift pike. He peered around the tree. Then the vegan caught his first glimpse of the man who was carrying the briefcase. The man’s looks didn’t rule out mafia ties, but—
The vegan saw the gas mask on the man’s face and gasped. Had the vegan been more caught up on current events, he would have known that gas masks—given Sven’s informational initiatives—were very much in vogue.
Through the semi-transparent plastic of the gas mask, the vegan saw a thick, offensive moustache that was markedly unlike the vegan’s neatly-kept handlebars. The man was wearing dark pants and a sweater that didn’t look warm enough for the chill air.
Then again, the vegan thought, who am I to judge, being out in bare feet in the snow?
The man with the silver briefcase moved past the vegan’s tree with a precision of movement that seemed clinical. Again, the vegan couldn’t shake the feeling that there was some medical quality to everything about the man, including the horrible moustache and the briefcase...something darkly medical.
The vegan decided that the man could have been a doctor, but not one the vegan would ever want to visit—not that the vegan went to doctors, because he didn’t believe in them, but if he had believed in doctors, the man with the briefcase would not have been an acceptable option. He had the look of a surgeon who one went to when one was dying, with the full expectation of never waking up after the scheduled procedure. For some reason that the vegan couldn’t place, he was sure that what he felt about this man was true.
A twig cracked beneath the vegan’s foot.
The man with the suitcase stopped and turned around. He peered around the woods, then reached for his belt and lifted the bottom of his sweater, uncovering the butt of a large gun. The man with the silver briefcase drew the gun and held it aloft, the barrel at a forty-five degree angle to the ground. He bounced the gun playfully in his hand, as if weighing it and getting its feel.
The vegan stood in place, holding his breath. His bare feet sank deeper into the leafy mud in which he was standing. In his stillness, he felt at one with the forest, at peace with it, as a creature that was from it and had returned to it, finally back in the place where he belonged.
“Who is there?” the man with the silver briefcase—and now the gun—said. His voice was muffled through the filter of the mask, but discernible.
The lilt in the man’s voice had an unmistakably sadistic note, and it sent a chill down the vegan’s spine. If not for the brutal quality of the man’s voice, his heavy Russian accent might have been amusing.
“I know you are there, and I will find you.”
The gentle breeze that had been stirring up tiny snow flurries stopped.
The vegan focused on the remaining sounds, and the clarity of the sounds he perceived surprised him. He could hear minute details of the other man’s movement: the penetration of the new snow by the spikes of the man’s boots—there were eight spikes on each shoe, and one spike on the man’s left shoe was bent—the subtle back and forth twist of the metal of the gun’s studded grip in the man’s hand, the alternating sniffle and whistle in the man’s nose as he breathed, and the sloshing of some kind of liquid inside the briefcase.
The vegan shifted his focus away from the details. He squeezed the makeshift pike.
The man with the gun was now only a few feet away.
His mind clicking away rapidly, the vegan visualized the possibilities as he prepared his body for action. He had already decided that he would not run, because he recognized the planning that God had gone through to stage this encounter. All things happened for a reason, and, the vegan knew, this forest confrontation was happening for some grand reason with grand implications.
The vegan’s ears went to points.
The movement of the other man had stopped.
The vegan focused, and understood. The man had stopped, and was standing just on the other side of the vegan’s tree.
The vegan squeezed the pike.
“Nothing,” the man said. “Just the wind.” He snorted, coughed up some phlegm, and spat.
The vegan heard footfalls crunching the snow, moving away from the tree.
He relaxed his grip on the pike.
Very carefully, the vegan twisted around the trunk of the tree and peered around it. As he twisted, his cross tumbled out over the collar of his shirt. It hung, poised, at the end of its simple chain, as if it were reaching down, trying to touch the snow-covered ground of the forest.
A gust of wind swept through the trees.
The vegan heard it coming just before it reached him, and he knew its purpose at once.
He had to smile at the beautiful precision with which this moment had been constructed. It was perfect.
The gust of wind jangled the cross on its chain.
The man with the silver briefcase and gun spun around. His nose whistling violently, he aimed the gun at the vegan and pulled the trigger. The shot was improbably loud.
The vegan felt a guilty pang of doubt as he watched the events of his own life unfold, and then, his body overcome by weakness from the dull, spreading pressure in his chest, he let go of the pike, and fell.
96
CHELSEA, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Tendrils of putrefying seaweed reached for Lorie. They curled around her arms and legs, then around her neck, and tightened. They began to strangle her, because, apparently, being underwater wasn’t enough.