The Erasable Man: Chronicles of Zachary Artemas

by Christopher Salch

  "Run!" I coughed. My throat was dry and raw. Had I been screaming? I shook my head, climbed to my feet, and stumbled forward. "Sheridan, run!"

  He was looking down Kokura Street, back the way we had come. He looked at me, then at the wall, and bolted through the rapidly closing opening. Three steps and I was on the other side, just in time for the wall to snap closed behind me.

  The landscape of the Wastes was as barren and foreboding as always: dark clouds threatening rain that never arrived, sandy, ashen earth, and the occasional eternally-smoking-stump of a tree. You could see the remnants of roads and the crumbling remains of concrete slabs that had once been rows of neat houses. Behind us was the steel door I had expected to see on the other side of the wall. It was a bit dusty but otherwise in pristine condition. The wall itself was little more than a fifteen foot by thirty foot section of crumbling brick at the edge of a large concrete slab. It had once been part of an old warehouse. Thanks to dear old Dad, it served as a gateway between the Wastes and Pocketville.

  "Are you alright—"

  Sheridan's right hook caught me completely unguarded and off-balance. My head left a bloody dent in the powdery concrete. I decided it would be better to stay down when he buried the barrel of his shotgun in my cheek.

  "You have exactly one chance to tell me where the hell we are and what the fuck those things were!"

  "What things? Sheridan, I have no idea what—"

  "Don't give me that! Where'd you get that flamethrower? There's no way you've got the permits—"

  "I don't have a flame thrower. If you'd just let me explain—"

  "You lying bastard!" His kicked my ribs, keeping the shotgun solidly against my face.

  "I'm telling you the truth—"

  Something growled, and we both froze. I couldn't see anything, but the mixed smells of freshly butchered meat and electric ozone were unmistakable. The locals had found us.

  "Sheridan, listen very carefully. A headshot is the—"

  "Shut up!" he hissed back. "Don't move."

  He backed away without making a sound. From where I was on the ground, I couldn't see Sheridan nor the thing hunting us, and I didn't dare try looking around. My left arm was under me and had just enough freedom that I might have been able to reach my pistol. It was loaded with Anne's untested new rounds, and I had no idea how safe they would be at close range or if they'd do anything at all.

  Gravel crunched to my left, out of sight—entirely too close, and at the wrong angle for a quick pistol shot. More crunching gravel, and the smells got stronger. Where was Sheridan? I could feel the creature's breath on the nape of my neck. Its breath smelled even worse than the rest of it.

  "Hey, big guy!"

  It pulled away and turned toward the sound. I rolled over, ready to fire, just as the creature's head exploded, splattering green blood, bits of blubbery flesh, and bone all over. Through the cloud of gore, I caught sight of a massive body supported by a tripod of legs. A mournful roar escaped its ragged stump of a neck, but the creature remained standing. Sheridan racked his shotgun and took aim for a second shot as I scrambled to my feet and ran to the opposite end of the wall.

  "Why is it still standing?" I asked. Sheridan's shot had blown its head apart; there was no way it could still be alive. I took aim from behind the wall and cursed. A second and then a third neck arched over to look at the oozing stump of the first. Its translucent skin was drawn taught over a roughly spherical mass of writhing human forms. Hands, arms, legs, and faces locked in silent screams tried to push their way through that rubbery skin only to be pulled away by grasping hands from deeper inside. Thick, bulbous protrusions filled with twisting, intertwined limbs formed its legs, and twitching columns of melded flesh formed the necks.

  All we could do was watch as new flesh flowed from the freshly decapitated neck. An arm here, a face there, exuding from the gaping wound in a fluid stream of flesh. They twisted and stretched, like half-melted wax sculptures being stirred together in a glass tube. Three heads forced their way out of the ragged end and smashed into each other—seeming to weld together at the cheeks. Eyes, noses, and mouths flowed through each other and merged together until only a single, indistinct face was all that was left. Pitch black eyes filled with hungry malice shifted back and forth between us before settling on me. A toothless mouth, screaming in rage, opened to reveal seething darkness inside.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  T- 17 Years - The Hunter and the Pixie

  "Well now, this is more like it!" exclaimed Ed as he turned his rusted out pickup truck into the Tekcop mansion's driveway. The grounds were larger than anything he'd ever seen before, and security was as lax as it could get. At least there was nothing that looked like security roaming around, not that Ed was worried about such dangers.

  He pulled his truck up the three lane driveway, to the front door of the main house, and cut the engine. Polished marble columns supported a high-arched dome mounted against the house and spanning the drive. Neatly pruned flowers and vines were arranged around the base of each column, forming a leafy arch over a tall oak door. Ed glanced to the top of the doorway and smiled—it wasn't every day that he came across an entryway he could walk through without ducking.

  After a month of tracing his prey's scent, it was time to get down to business. He collected Marco's shotgun, still encrusted with blood and brain matter, from under the seat of his truck. That sorry excuse for a human being only had the one box of shells, and that had been half empty when their fight started. That left Ed precious few rounds to work with. Then again, he didn't need a firearm to get the job done—it just made things more fun.

  He retrieved a crowbar from under the seat—gripping it like a one-handed club—the tines on either end were sharpened to a knife edge and polished mirror smooth. He swung the bar a few times to make sure he remembered the feel and weight, then slipped it through a loop on his belt.

  Ed felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end—someone was watching him. He glanced up and to the left, spotting the camera almost instantly, and smiled.

  "Hello up there!" he yelled. "You don't know me, but it's best to not get in my way."

  Janus watched on a monitor set into his desk as the new arrival calmly gathered his weapons. The man was huge, seven feet at least, and had musculature more at home on a silverback gorilla than a human.

  "Paige?" said Janus without looking up from the screen.

  "Yes, sir?" she answered, stepping into his office. She'd been waiting just outside the door ever since first alerting Janus to the new arrival. "Are you observing our guest, sir?"

  "Would you please invite him in?" stated Janus calmly.

  "Sir?"

  "I would rather he not force us to replace the front door," commented Janus. "But please inform our guest that his presence here is not in his best interests."

  "Understood, sir," stated Paige, her voice going ice cold as she turned to leave.

  Janus could almost see a smile on her lips.

  "And Paige," called Janus.

  "Yes sir?"

  "Try not to make a mess."

  "I'll do my best, sir," Paige said, her voice completely flat.

  There was a predatory glint in her eye that Janus hadn't seen in a long while—not since before Ruth moved permanently to Pocketville. Paige was going to enjoy this. He almost felt sorry for the behemoth outside, but the beast had brought it on himself.

  Ed stood at the door, trying to decide if he should knock or just break it down. While breaking and entering didn't bother him in the least, the noise would call more attention to his presence and leave no doubt about malicious intent. On the other hand, he thought, sometimes there's useful information to be had by seeing who greets the visitors.

  While he was considering what to do, Paige quietly opened the door from the inside and waited for Ed to notice her. She wore the same grey suit she was accustomed to and her usual wire frame glasses. It didn't seem to bother her that the top of her head ro
se to a point just below the middle of Ed's chest.

  Ed glanced down, taking notice of her as one might contemplate an interesting bug crawling along the table. The sense of silent confidence she radiated seemed out of place. Most people took one look at Ed and immediately deferred to his bulk, but this diminutive girl didn't seem to react at all. No, that's not quite right, he thought, she's hunting me! Ed laughed. His chest heaved like enormous bellows as he howled, slapping his hand against his thigh.

  "Oh, this is rich!" he said after a while. "You're here for me, aren't you little lady?"

  "You are correct. I must inform you that you are not welcome, no matter what business brings you here. Leave immediately," she ordered.

  "Perhaps you don't understand the gravity of your situation," chided Ed, closing his free hand around her throat. He picked her off the ground as effortlessly as anyone else might lift a pencil. "I'm looking for a woman who visited here recently. You've been to her apartment, I'd know that scent anywhere."

  "I will not ask again," stated Paige, completely unperturbed by her feet not touching the ground. "Leave, now."

  The muscles in Ed's arm rippled as he applied more pressure to Paige's throat. Her expression never changed. Their eyes locked—Ed's searching for the agony and torment his body craved, her's as cold as a dead moon. He squeezed harder, so hard that beads of sweat formed on his temple, but Paige remained unmoved. Her breathing never changed—as even and regular as if she was quietly meditating, not being strangled in midair.

  "As you wish," she said. A gaping hole appeared where Ed's wrist had been, exposing the radius, ulna, and most of the tiny bones that made up the joint inside to open air.

  Ed stared at the wound in disbelief as pain exploded down his arm and his fingers lost their grip on Paige's throat. Her hand closed tightly around the ulna of his arm as she dropped—a quick twist of her wrist served to separate the bone's end from the cartilage holding it in place.

  The moment her feet touched the ground, she rolled her body along the length of Ed's arm, pulling his ulna like a lever, and ripping a gash all the way back to his elbow before the other end finally broke free. His muscles and tendons twitched, torn loose from the bones in his hand. Blood splattered everywhere, pulsing from severed arteries and oozing out of torn veins.

  Now free from his vice-like grip, Paige let her body drop lightly into a crouch, stepping just inside Ed's reach. Her fist—the ulna bone still clutched tightly in her hand—exploded upward into Ed's groin with all the force of her tightly coiled body. The bone snapped like a twig against the inside of his leg, its sharp point tearing a ragged wound along Ed's thigh before Paige's fist impacted his crotch. There was enough force in the punch to pick Ed several feet off the ground—almost to the height of Paige's shoulder. Three steps back and Paige was out of the way before Ed smacked face first into the concrete. She tossed her improvised bone weapon onto Ed's back and waited to see what would happen next.

  Blood spurted from the wound in his arm and leg, forming a dark red puddle under him, but there was something else as well. A green ichor mixed with the blood, swirling through it and slowly replacing the deep red liquid. Ed rolled over and sat up, examining the wound in his arm with detachment. He picked up the pieces of his ulna and pushed the loose bones back into his arm one-by-one.

  "That wasn't …," started Ed with a slight squeak. He cleared his throat and tried again. "That wasn't very nice."

  "You were told to leave," responded Paige, standing as she had before. Her eyes were ice cold, emotionless, almost tired—as though she had just finished dusting the mantle—but never wavering.

  "I wonder what you think of shotguns?" he asked, pointing the late Marco's weapon at her head and pulling the trigger. Paige reacted with such speed that Ed couldn't completely follow her movements. Her body seemed to flow forward and down—dodging the cloud of deadly steel shot—into a somersault that ended with the shotgun barrel in between Ed's eyes and a fresh shell in the chamber.

  "I like you," laughed Ed. "You've got spunk!"

  The blunt end of the crowbar slammed into the shotgun—knocking the barrel away from Ed's face. Paige's finger twitched against the trigger—one of the tires on Ed's truck went flat and a burst of steam erupted from under the hood. Paige continued the motion into a spin, attempting to bring the shotgun to bear again. Instead, the barrel struck metal, and Ed slammed it to the ground with his crowbar, smashing her hand into the concrete in the process.

  Paige winced.

  "Oh? So you do feel pain after all!" exclaimed Ed.

  Paige freed her hand, taking part of the shotgun's grip along for the ride, and back-flipped away from Ed. She stopped, standing ramrod straight, a good ten feet from the door inside the mansion.

  Ed pulled himself to his feet and kicked what was left of the shotgun off to the side. There was a fine trickle of blood running down Paige's arm and a tear in her sleeve near her shoulder from a pellet graze. Her eyes were still cold, but Ed could see concern edging into her demeanor; this fight hadn't gone as she had expected.

  She raised her good hand to her ear.

  "Sir, we may have a problem," stated Paige. A faint smile crossed her face. "Very well, sir."

  Paige spun and dove through a door to her left so fast that Ed almost lost his balance trying to follow her with his eyes.

  "That little minx is trying to run away from me!" mused Ed, taking off after her at a jog. "This is the most fun I've had in years!"

  Paige appeared in Janus's office moments after he had seen her on the monitor. Even after the fight, not a hair was out of place on her head.

  "How bad is the arm?" asked Janus.

  "The injury is only minor, sir," she responded in her customary flat tone of voice.

  "Shall I see to it?"

  "That will not be necessary, sir," stated Paige. "It can wait until this incident is resolved."

  "Which path did you take to get here?" asked Janus.

  "I moved through the Ossuarium, into the transfer chamber, as instructed," she stated. "If our visitor is as adept at tracing as he appears to be, he should arrive there in two or three minutes."

  "Plenty of time," mused Janus. "See to your injuries. I'll go greet our guest personally, as any good host should. Please notify Ruth that she will have an unexpected visitor."

  The first statue looked so much like the photo of his target that Ed almost smashed it before realizing it wasn't alive. The statue was so detailed—down to fine lines around the woman's eyes—that it looked more cast than carved. For a moment, Ed had to ask himself if his victim was still alive. No, the thread of her life is still there, he thought to himself, but something wasn't right. He could feel the woman's essence, sounding its note against the background melody of life, but there was something off about the harmony—something out of tune.

  "Very lifelike isn't it?" asked Janus, interrupting Ed's thoughts. "My name is Janus Tekcop, what's yours?"

  "Names are not important," answered Ed, swinging his crowbar in an arc as he turned toward the voice. Janus ducked under the weapon and hit the back of Ed's knee, upsetting the big man's balance. Ed tumbled to the ground, but was on his feet again immediately, hunting for the ghost that had attacked him.

  "You can't hide from me!" screamed Ed. He sniffed the air and caught a foul whiff. "You smell almost as bad as I do!"

  Janus's head popped out from behind another statue—this one of a man frozen in mid-scream, his head pulled completely back, mouth open to the air. Ed spotted him and charged to the spot, smashing into the statue. It teetered and then fell, shattering the marble tiles where it hit the ground, but remaining intact. Janus was nowhere to be found.

  "Missed me!" he called from behind another statue, farther around the spiral.

  Ed charged again, smashing into the statue of a woman staring ahead, her eyes pleading for someone to end her agony. Knocking her over sent Ed sprawling and brought down two other statues on top of him, audibly snapping several of h
is ribs.

  "Oh, come now!" prodded Janus. "You gave Paige so much trouble! Tell you what, I'll stand right here and wait for you."

  Ed spotted him standing, silhouetted against a rounded door that opened into a brightly lit room. Janus was smiling, with his arms spread wide, beckoning for Ed to come at him. The giant man screamed in rage. He clawed his way clear of the statues and ran straight at Janus with total disregard. Statues ricocheted off his body and went flying as Ed moved like a wrecking ball through a graveyard. Janus saw him coming and started counting. Just as Ed was almost in reach, he ducked sideways and yelled.

  "Now Paige!"

  Ed never saw her coming. Paige's tiny body smashed into his back with enough energy to send him flying uncontrollably forward. His leg caught on the door's lower lip, adding another gash and broken bone to his growing collection, and he crashed into the far wall of the transfer chamber. There was a metallic clang and the room's bulkhead door slammed shut.

  "Any last words?" asked Janus via the intercom.

  "You're a dead man, Janus Tekcop."

  "You'll have to get in line. My wife's at the front of it, and she doesn't take well to cutters."

  Janus punched the transfer button and started counting down from thirty. The screams started at twenty-five.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  T- 36 Hours - A Trip Home

  "What the hell is that thing?" yelled Sheridan, firing three more shells before ducking back behind the wall. All three of the creature's heads burst into clouds of green gore. It stayed standing. Another scream, harmonized between three ragged throats. More bodies were clawing toward the stumps, fighting for dominance, trying to escape the hell of writhing flesh and pressure inside.