The Erasable Man: Chronicles of Zachary Artemas

by Christopher Salch

  "Should I count down or just punch it?"

  "Punch it!" answered Ruth with a wink.

  The faint click of the switch closing barely reached their ears before the detonation's roar drowned everything else out. The polarizing glass in the view ports reacted just fast enough to protect their eyes from the blinding flash. Ruth could feel the structure around them straining to keep the raging hell outside from piercing its protective concrete shell. The ground shifted under their feet and all three slammed into the front wall. Even through the heavy concrete they could feel the heat beyond it radiating inwards. A second later, it was over.

  "Wow!" yelled Anne after her ears stopped ringing. "That was intense!"

  "Is everyone alright?" yelled Ruth, checking that her limbs were still intact.

  "Bruised, but okay," groaned Zachary. "What the hell was that?"

  "It felt like the shock absorbers in the foundation failed," said Ruth. "How big was that detonation?"

  Anne checked the readouts next to the Waldos.

  "If I'm reading this right, about ten megatons, give or take," she said. "Hey! I thought you said this could handle a giga-ton!"

  "It can! Just not that close!" exclaimed Ruth. "Radiation?"

  Zachary tested the blast door with the back of his hand and jerked it back instantly.

  "No one's going in there for a while," he said.

  "All green in here," said Anne. "The radiation detectors inside the chamber are off the charts. I'll have to run a cleaning cycle to get rid of it then. Are we in any danger here?"

  "Those walls are radiation shielded, but I don't know how well they held up. The Junctivator looks intact. We should get out of here until I can certify that the lab is safe," said Ruth.

  Anne nodded meekly, staring at the blast door. It had bulged as though an immense weight had leaned against the other side. There were no cracks or separations between the door and its frame, but none of them dared open it.

  "We should get down to the infirmary and let Lee do a once over. He has a treatment for radiation poisoning that he's been wanting to try out for a long time and that impact could have caused injuries we won't feel yet," she said.

  Anne nodded and turned to follow her into the Junctivator.

  "I could almost see it," said Zachary, looking out the view port. "I could almost see the threads unraveling."

  "Zachary?" asked Anne.

  "When it detonated," he said. "I could almost see the cords of energy unwinding. They were so beautiful! But, they moved so fast I couldn't follow them."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  T- 5 Hours - Lighting the Fuse

  The parking lot outside of Mike's was completely empty—not exactly uncommon in the early afternoon but still unsettling. It wasn't just the parking lot though. Everything around us felt dead, almost as though we were the only people for miles around.

  "Can you handle this?" I had to ask. Given Anne's emotional state and everything else she'd told me. "Can you make it through a real fight?"

  "I've been keeping up with Aden for sixteen years, and she literally turns into a fireball when she's mad. What do you think?"

  My forty-five was locked and loaded with Anne's special bullets, and all the spare magazines I had—not nearly as many as I wanted—were loading down a shoulder rig. Anne had her tube and probably a few other weapons she hadn't told me about yet. Between the two of us there was probably enough firepower to take out anything short of a tank and then maybe a tank too. I still couldn't shake the nagging suspicion we didn't have nearly enough for what was coming.

  The door to Mike's Bar was unlocked and swung open easily, almost as if we were expected. The place was empty, and someone had stacked all the tables against the walls leaving the floor wide open in the middle—completely devoid of any cover. Michelle was waiting for us behind the bar with a glass, a bottle of scotch, and the only two stools left.

  "I was wondering when you were going to turn up," she called to us. "Come on over and have a seat."

  I glanced at Anne before walking over to the bar. She followed a few paces behind. If the rest of the place was empty, at least the bar was still fully stocked. Michelle poured a liberal two fingers in the glass and pushed it across to me.

  "Aren't you going to introduce your lady friend?" she asked.

  "I can speak perfectly well for myself," said Anne taking a seat at the bar and edging her stool away from me. "You wouldn't happen to have a bit of tequila back there would you?"

  "I have a several options," replied Michelle, smiling a little too smartly. "But for you, only the best. Ed! Could you pull down a bottle of the Patron?"

  It was about time for that hulking brute to make an appearance. Ed pushed his way through the double doors to the kitchen. His one-piece jumpsuit was singed around the edges, with a few fresh holes burned in it, and there was a towel wrapped around his right hand that looked a bit worse for the wear. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Anne tense as she took in Ed's injuries. Aden must have given him trouble. Ed set the bottle down and leaned against the back wall.

  "It's been a long time, Miss Currie," he said, smiling like the Cheesier cat. "A very long time."

  "Do I know you?" asked Anne, slipping a hand into her pocket. "There's no way we've met before, you're way too ugly to forget."

  "You cared so little?" said Ed clutching at his chest. "My oh my. You were one of my most interesting victims and the only one that got away." He climbed over the bar, forcing Anne to step back or be trampled under his bulk. Her tube was out—pulling enough heat out of the room to drop the temperature several degrees—and radiating palatable malevolence. Ed paused, examining the black tube without touching it.

  "What have we here? That's a tool worthy of your stature," he said, smiling. "Worthy of a mass murderer. Worthy of the bitch who gave me this!"

  Ed tore his shirt apart and gestured at his chest. His body looked as if some macabre seamstress had taken patches of skin from a hundred different people and sewn them together with scars. There were parts of tattoos here and there. Some patches were covered in thick curly hair while others appeared smooth and supple. Smack in the middle was a blackened patch about the size of a dinner plate. It crinkled and popped like charred paper as he moved.

  "It's still smoldering after all these years," he bellowed. "It won't heal no matter how many victims I devour or how exquisitely they scream. So you better damn well remember—" Anne fired. A thin, electric-blue bolt leaped from the end of her tube to the wound on Ed's chest. The smell of burning flesh mixed with the acrid stench of ozone filled the room and a cloud of icy smoke enveloped Ed. He kept walking as if nothing had happened. "—me!"

  I reached for my forty-five but stopped the instant I felt something hard and tubular—very probably a shotgun—against the back of my head.

  "That's enough of that," said Michelle. "Let Ed have his fun."

  "My dear, I do believe you don't understand the current situation," I stated calmly. Anne was almost up against the wall and had fired at Ed several more times. One of his arms was hanging limply, and there were more burns extending onto his back, but he kept advancing step-by-step. Tenacious beyond sanity, beyond human capability—Ed would keep at it until his target had been beaten into a thin soup.

  I could feel the shotgun barrel pressed hard into the back of my head. Anne had seconds before Ed was on top of her, and I couldn't do anything unless I dealt with Michelle. How fast could she react? How touchy was that trigger? Ed took another step. I ducked sideways, doing my best to rotate out of the direct line of fire.

  Michelle fired with the barrel just to the right of my head, and I went down on the stool next to me—effectively deaf. It took several heartbeats for me to realize that there wasn't an enormous hole in my skull, that I was still breathing, and still reasonably mobile. Another few seconds and I was untangled from the pair of bar stools in time to see Michelle scrambling over the bar top and racking a fresh round into the chamber. Tucked under the ba
r where I was, it wouldn't take Michelle long to get a clear shot on me. I, on the other hand, had just enough time to put a few rounds into Ed.

  Except, Ed was already on the ground, oozing blood from a hole in the back of his skull. Michelle's slug—judging by the size of the hole—must have hit him when I ducked. Anne's face was covered in his blood, bits of bone, and globs of greyish-white brain matter. She was in shock, staring wide-eyed at Ed's twitching form on the floor, but not injured. That meant I was facing the wrong direction.

  "Anne! Snap out of it!" I yelled, putting as much intensity into my voice as I could. I could feel the vibration of the words in my skull, and my throat hurt, but I still couldn't hear anything over the ringing in my ears. She looked at me, saw Michelle on the bar top, and fired. A thin line of icy-blue light reached out from Anne's tube and struck Michelle dead center in the face. One shot was enough—Michelle fell forward, unconscious and covered in a thin layer of frost.

  Amazingly, the glass of scotch was still upright on the bar. One gulp finished it off, and I was lucky enough to be able to hear the impact when I slammed the glass down—though it was muffled and distorted, as though someone had slowed down a recording of wind chimes.

  "That didn't go as well as I'd hoped," I said to no one in particular. "I guess Adam didn't build that thing with Ed in mind."

  "It was designed specifically to deal with him," said Anne. She came over to the bar, giving Ed's still-twitching body a wide berth.

  "You should get your money back. It didn't seem to faze him. Well, not enough anyway," I said, pointing my pistol at Ed. "Cover your ears."

  I put a couple of Anne's special rounds into his body and waited. Thin tendrils of smoke rose out of two, rather underwhelming bullet holes, but nothing else happened. Ed was still twitching.

  "That bastard doesn't know when to quit does he?" I said, walking over to him slowly, making sure to keep my sights true. Ed's chest was still smoldering—if anything it was burning brighter—and both of the new wounds were glowing a dull orange, emitting slightly thicker tendrils of oily smoke. The foul stench of burning flesh was almost overpowering, but I kept approaching. His arm swung wide, almost catching my leg. I unloaded five more rounds, grabbed a fresh magazine, and ran it dry as well. Anne stopped me as I was seating a third.

  "Don't waste the ammo," she said. "If the first one didn't kill him, more won't do any better."

  "She's right you know," the voice was a whisper just behind my ear.

  We had more company. I reflexively slammed the magazine home and spun to face the speaker.

  No one was there.

  "Your toys won't work," said the voice, almost laughing behind my other ear.

  I spun around again and was pointing directly at Anne. She cursed and ducked below my line of fire, almost tripping over Ed's leg.

  Something threw Michelle across the room to where Ed's twitching form lay. Her flesh sizzled against the embers of his chest, and she screamed—fully conscious again. Ed's hand sank into Michelle's back, the sound of bones crunching mixed with her wild-eyed screams. He sat up and slowly scanned the room—smiling like a satisfied cat as his face began to put itself back together. His flesh flowed like a sculptor's clay, filing in the shotgun exit wound with fresh bone and muscle. Then he saw Anne and sneered.

  "You're next," he said, gesturing with Michelle's limp form as if it were some obscene sock puppet. Michelle's head lolled to the side, her mouth gaping in a fruitless gasp. With his free hand, Ed crushed one of Michelle's hands and twisted her arm until it gave way at the shoulder with a wet pop. His eyes closed to slits, and his body shivered ever so slightly as he licked the ragged end of her severed limb.

  Michelle reached out to us, pleading for help, not that there was much either Anne or I could do. I grabbed Michelle's shotgun—a nice pump action model with an extended magazine tube—and put three more shells into Ed. The holes healed almost as quickly as they appeared. He just stood there with his arms spread wide and laughed; daring me to try again.

  "Go on shoot!" Ed laughed flexing the muscles of his arm. Michelle gasped for air, clawing away at her chest with her remaining arm. "Her pain is my nourishment. The more you hurt me, the more of her I take!"

  I looked at Anne and then at Michelle's terrified face—there were no options left. One shell from the shotgun and a hole about the size of a fist appeared where her heart used to be—Michelle's misery was over. Ed looked at the wound for several seconds before tossing her lifeless body against the wall—his fingers hanging onto a chunk of her shattered ribcage as it was torn free.

  "That wasn't very nice," said Ed, frowning. "Now I need a new toy!" He started advancing on Anne, reaching out with a gore covered hand.

  I fired low, and Ed's left leg collapsed, the knee a gruesome mass of hamburger and bare bone. Without a victim to fuel his unusual physiology the wound would heal much more slowly, if at all. He didn't even try to get back up, but knelt in a growing puddle of his own blood, glaring at me. I racked the shotgun and lined up for a head shot.

  "Enough!" bellowed a disembodied voice—the same voice that had been whispering in my ear. Grey, wispy shadows coalesced into a vaguely humanoid shaped mass between Ed and the two of us.

  Time stopped. At least it felt that way—it was the same sensation I had experienced in Mulhullond's office, being frozen in place, but mentally aware. I could force my eyes to move just enough to see the spent shotgun shell frozen in mid-flight.

  "You're wasting time, and you've killed your handler, Ed. If your continued existence weren't necessary to our master's plan you'd be joining her in death."

  "Empty words don't scare me," laughed Ed, his eyes still glaring at me. "The bitch shot me. She owed me a little pain."

  "Our master will deal with you later," said the shadowy creature pulling Ed to his feet.

  Unless Anne or I could break free, I had to assume we were both as good as dead. There was no way to know if Anne was even aware of what was going on, much less able to act. Besides, she was much better at creating artifacts and tools than spur of the moment work. The last time I'd faced this creature directly, dear old Dad had been there, dumping enough raw energy into the room to light up a small city. There wasn't anyone around who could duplicate that particular trick. That left getting us out of this mess up to me, and I only had one option left.

  I hated the Founder's Archive—hated it with every fiber of my being. It was as old as Pocketville, perhaps even older, and it was woven through my brain-like mycelium through rotten wood. Everything in Pocketville was cataloged and recorded in the Archive. Every single person who had ever lived in the City, every breath they had ever taken, and every grain of sand had a record. An invaluable reference, if you knew how to find what you wanted, and could stomach everything else. I let my mind reach deep, past my own memories, past the unforgettable nightmares I'd worked so hard to force out of my consciousness. Time slowed down until even Ed and the shadowy creature were as motionless as my trapped body. The world around me faded into insubstantial apparitions barely visible to my vacant eyes. Even the bar faded until I could see through its walls, then the surrounding buildings, and finally Pocketville itself disappeared until all that remained was a lone figure, me, standing on an empty plane.

  For a moment, I was still locked in place by the creature's power, then my mind broke free, and I was floating above the scene looking down. I looked up, and the Archive's ephemeral door was there—an enormous foreboding thing made of dark wood and cast iron. I knew it wasn't a real, physical thing, but it towered above my perception like some impenetrable wall, extending beyond sight in all directions. Once past that awesome barrier, I could hunt for a solution in the stacks while time in the outside world stood motionless. My hand reached out to touch the door's handle …

  CRACK

  The flesh was asleep. Waiting for something to happen—something soon. I could feel the shackles against its/my skin—a more leathery and supple skin than the crackling
paper of my last visit to this ancient form. It/We were changing, preparing for what was to come. I knew its anticipation, could feel the primitive elation building.

  It wanted to be whole again. It waited for a soul—its soul—to return.

  Pain exploded through my mind. The flesh woke screaming.

  Wrench! Snap!

  "You can't escape that way," the shadowy creature whispered in my ear, close enough that I could feel the heat of its breath. My body was doubled over its fist, gasping air back into my own lungs as echoes of the flesh's scream bounced around my brain. "We have an appointment to keep, and this is taking too much time. You've lost, make your peace. The end will come soon."

  Then it was gone and Ed along with it. The empty shotgun shell clattered to the ground, and Anne screamed in frustration. Michelle lay still in a crumpled heap where Ed had tossed her, useless to him once dead. Anne immediately started searching through the bar with her malevolent little tube at the ready, but found nothing more than tables, gore, and dust on bare concrete. The fight was over, and our last clue was gone with it.

  "How long were we out?" I asked, limping my way over to the bar. I poured two glasses of scotch, finishing the bottle. My head hurt. Being unceremoniously pulled away from the Archive like that was nearly as bad as actually making it into the damn place. It hadn't been designed for a living human mind to visit, ever.

  "You may have been out, but I was conscious the entire time! That bastard just disappeared!" said Anne glancing at the bar's clock before dropping into the nearest chair. "Three hours? How did he …"

  "It wasn't Ed," I told her. "The other one can stop your perception of time."

  "What other one?" asked Anne, frowning. She didn't know about the shadow killer.

  "Never mind. If you didn't see him, he's not someone you need to worry about. Besides, it looks like Ed is back to his old tricks," I said and motioned to Michelle's corpse against the wall. "You'll have enough to handle dealing with him."