October Rain

by Morgan, Dylan J.

  My legs propelled me forward, but my distraught body struggled to comply. Not through physical exhaustion, but because of emotions colliding in my soul, threatening to send me cart wheeling into my own private hell. They’d been kidnapped, yet in a way I would never have imagined. The clues to Pierce’s camouflaged abduction had been there all the time. The cleansed, orderly house, the absent suitcases probably filled with our life’s belongings—the money missing from a safe securely locked. No sign of a struggle.

  The evidence stared me in the face; only my confusion had obscured it. Or maybe I hadn’t wanted to confront the obvious truth. They thought Pierce was me.

  In the space of one hour my world had fallen to pieces.

  Wishing I could push those horrifying thoughts away yet unable to regain my composure, I dashed across the concourse and prayed to a god I didn’t believe in.

  The Departure Hall had the same open plan layout as Arrivals. Few people remained in the hall—probably relatives to some of the passengers—and shops were being stocked with what few supplies remained available. All sound seemed to drift into the district’s apex before being absorbed by the city.

  Sprinting through the somber hall, it seemed Olympia had already died.

  Security desks and the external tunnel to the launch pad were located in the southwest corner of the district. A fiberglass wall channeled all passengers first through a security check, then scanner control. Both checkpoints remained manned.

  A muscular man, whose uniform seemed one size too small, stepped from the security cubicle and raised his hand. Though anxious to speed up and barge through him, three more guards waiting at the scanners made the risk too great. Slowing to a stop, my breath came in heavy gasps.

  “I’ve got to get to the shuttle,” I pleaded.

  “Do you have a ticket?”

  “Of course.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “No, my wife has it. I think she’s already gone through.”

  “You think?”

  “Please, we’re wasting time.”

  We both knew a ticket inspection wasn’t required until inside the terminal, so he didn’t press the issue.

  I took a deep breath. “I need to get to my family; I think they might be in trouble.”

  The guard nodded, and then passed a handheld detector over my body. It squealed when he guided it across my thigh.

  “No passage beyond this point with a firearm,” he said.

  “Come on, my family’s in serious danger here.”

  The guard pointed a thumb over his shoulder at a large sign that stated No Weapons in red lettering.

  Leaning closer I lowered my voice. “Cut me some slack, buddy, this is government business.”

  “I don’t care if it’s my business, you don’t go past this point until you lose the piece.”

  Cursing, I unclipped the strap, and dropped my weapon into a sealed bucket.

  Two of the three guards stood as I approached the second security desk. The lead guy, a middle-aged man with a portly stomach, slipped a pen into the breast pocket of his shirt. The guard to his right, older and with mottled skin, gripped a black shotgun with life-weathered hands. The third man, just a kid really with a Trainee badge pinned to his uniform, remained seated by a tall, metal gun cabinet.

  “Bit late aren’t you?” the first man said.

  I smiled and bent forward to the scanner. A mask covered my eyes and I pushed my fingertips into plastic holders on the scanner plate. Heat seeped into my palm and a brief flash of red blocked my vision.

  ‘Access denied.’

  “What!”

  “Sorry sir,” the man said. “But you ain’t getting on.”

  “Are you crazy? Is this some kind of fucking joke? There must be a mistake.”

  He shrugged. “Try again.”

  Bending forward, my sweaty palm slipped on the glass cover.

  ‘Access denied.’

  “No.”

  “Look, you’re not allowed on.”

  “Check the damn thing, please. My family’s on there, I need to get to them.”

  The man moved to the computer terminal and typed in a command. The older guard took a step forward and curled fingers tighter around the gun. The middle-aged man shook his head, tried again, and then shrugged.

  “Look, you have to let me through,” I pleaded. “My name’s Steele, I work for the government’s Interstellar Correction Agency, and I’m pursuing someone who’s kidnapped my family, now let me get the fuck on that shuttle.”

  “Sorry, but I’m not letting you on.”

  “Oh, come on! Why not?”

  “Because it says here that you’re already inside the terminal.”

  “What?”

  “The system—it’s already confirmed your details. You’ve been scanned in.”

  I wanted to tell myself it was impossible, but knew it wasn’t. An image of the man with no eyes flashed into my mind; and with the vision came documents on retina and fingerprint transplants spread upon the murdered corpse of my clone. The seriousness of such a security breech should have registered with the portly guard but his eyes maintained a blank glaze. Two identical prints, two indistinguishable retina scans, and the guards should have radioed ahead to halt liftoff. Neither man moved. A trickle of sweat rode the wrinkles on the old guy’s forehead.

  “Aren’t you going to stop the fucking shuttle?” I pleaded.

  The plump guard opened his mouth, hesitated, and breathed an uncertain moan on his exhaled breath.

  “Who the hell do you work for?” I asked. Stupid question, because the answer was obvious.

  With the exception of Kari and Shauna, it seemed I’d been deceived by everyone.

  I had just one chance to reach my family.

  The punch carried enough force to send the security guard sprawling onto his back. I grabbed the old man by his shirt collar and dipped my head, pulling him towards me. His face smacked my skull. He dropped the gun and crumpled to his knees. The young trainee fumbled with keys to the locked guns. Without breaking stride I pushed his head into the metal door of the weapons cabinet.

  It left a dent.

  I ran up the tunnel, a sealed channel with a domed roof that curved away from the city walls. Streaks of rain pelted the landscape and water flowed over the fiberglass roof in turbulent waves. The cliffs of Olympus Mons rose to my left, the launch pad built from Martian rock climbed to my right.

  “Hey, stop!”

  The shout was nothing more than mild background noise.

  With the coattails of my jacket flapping like useless wings, I pressed on. So near to my family, so close I could almost touch them.

  “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

  Scarlet rock towered over the tunnel. A curved lip surrounded the launch pad and water cascaded from it in a spectacular fall. The shuttle, prepared and ready for blastoff, sat atop the manmade plateau.

  I couldn’t see it, but it was there—Kari and Shauna within reach.

  Pain came before the noise: numbness, then searing heat flowing through my chest. My left shoulder jerked forward. Blood sprayed my face. Bone fragments raced ahead of me, spiraling through the air. Screaming, I tumbled to the ground. In spasm, my left arm twitched against the floor, the limb joined to my body by a bloody pulp.

  I screamed again. The burly security guard ran up the tunnel towards me. He gripped a high-caliber rifle with both hands. Holding his jaw, the middle-aged man from scan control followed him. The sound of footsteps filtered through my screams, coming down the tunnel from the launch pad. The first kick struck me in the stomach, and air deserted my lungs. A blow to the head, then to my knees. The brawny guard brought the gun’s stock down hard onto my jaw. Teeth crunched and my tongue split. Blood filled my mouth. They beat me—not with fists or feet, but with weapons: batons and the butts of high-caliber rifles, submerging me in a relentless barrage. I tried to curl into a ball, but they wouldn’t allow it.

  Kari.

  Shauna.r />
  Unable to cry out to them, my scream echoed inside my head. Darkness welled up before my eyes, a cloud of unconsciousness that came to shelter me. The pain faded from my body, withdrew into my soul.

  EPILOGUE

  Scalding droplets shower my ruined body as if God Himself is persecuting me for not believing; each splash like His fist, adding to my wounds.

  I’ve been sick. It stains my face, and lumps are tangled in my hair. I’ve urinated, too, and not even this damn rain washes its stickiness from my thighs. I’m lying in filthy discharge, battered and alone like the lowest form of life on this desolate planet.

  A raindrop splashes into my eye, and I wince in pain. Inside closed lids I no longer relive today’s ordeal, but I see Kari and Shauna strapped in their seats as they await the rocket’s departure. The excitement is clear on their faces, and my heart shudders in my chest as I picture Kari holding Pierce’s hand—the bastard they think is me.

  A distant rumble coaxes my eyes open.

  Through the ceiling vents orange light flickers against the chaotic sky; dim as the last, fragile rays of a setting sun.

  Main engine start.

  Screaming, nothing comes out, and my lungs protest about their use; an inferno of pain burns deep in my chest. I try to move but my broken body won’t cooperate. If only I could scramble to my feet, rush to the spacecraft, and strangle the life from my brother’s sick and twisted body, then at least I could die contented.

  The prison cell trembles and tumultuous clouds are illuminated by the brightness of exploding rocket fuel. The rumble of an October storm is overtaken by the roar of the rising shuttle. Its bellow rushes into the cell to scream in my ear, mocking in victory.

  An immense fireball arcs into the sky and black, roiling smoke connects the craft to its launch pad like a surreal umbilical cord. My gut twists in fear and my mouth is dry. Helpless in the callous foundations of a dying city I breathe panicked gasps of thermal air.

  Inflicted pain I can endure, but this agonizing emptiness is something I just cannot take. Upon my moment of death, if a surgeon were to open me up, I’m sure he’d find a hole in my chest where my heart had shattered. I’m crushed and defeated; the thundering rocket drowns out my sobs. Storm clouds engulf the orbiter and the Martian night returns, as dark and profound as my despair. They’re gone. My family, the only two people I care about in this whole fucked-up universe, taken from me at nearly a thousand miles per hour.

  When the roar of the spacecraft’s engines fades into space, all I’m left with is the tormenting crash of falling rain. It doesn’t cleanse my soul, nor does it wash away my memories or heal my broken heart.

  This rain doesn’t hide my tears.

  It burns.

  Dylan J. Morgan is the author of four novels, three novellas, and a short story collection, all in the field of horror and post-apocalyptic fiction.

  Now living and working in Norway, he was born in New Zealand and raised in the United Kingdom. He writes during those rare quiet moments amid a hectic family life: after dark, with limited sustenance, and when his creative essence is plagued the most by tormented visions.

  If you’re searching for that light at the end of the tunnel then stop looking—you won’t find it here.

  Also by Dylan J. Morgan

  Hosts

  Flesh

  The Sickness

  The Dead Lands

  The Dead City (Coming summer 2016)

  The Blood War Trilogy

  Bloodlines

  Monsters and Mortals

  The Last Stand

  Dominio della Morte

  EXCERPT FROM THE DEAD LANDS

  She was gone, life pouring from her in the torrent of blood gushing from the wound. Eyes wide, her head dangled on what little bone and tissue remained attached to her shoulders. Blood warmed his hands and soaked through his PBU, dying the dust from the dead lands a deep crimson hue.

  The stench of her death flooded his senses.

  A crescendo of barks rippled along the street. Some form of communication, Lane realized. Steel clanked against stone, a call to arms that sent a current of fear through his bowels.

  Lane lowered Maya’s body carefully to the road. His immediate thought was to pilfer her corpse, to equip himself with vital supplies, but he didn’t have the time. He removed the Woofer from her hands and pumped a new cluster grenade into the chamber. A quick swipe of his hand activated his visor and it glided into place.

  “Be alert everyone,” Johan shouted into his microphone. “This shit’s about to get real.”

  Standing, Lane looked up to the demolished wall of a store. One of those things stood in an upper window, highlighted in his visor by a yellow flag. It barked with excitement and dragged its curved weapon down exposed stonework. Lane pulled the trigger, the Woofer kicked gently in his grasp, and the cluster grenade arched into the opening. The explosion splintered stone, showering rubble and smoking body parts over the sidewalk.

  Then, they came—out of doorways and windows, through holes blown in buildings by a century-old apocalypse.

  In the light of day they appeared even more menacing than what he’d witnessed from the hotel earlier in the morning. Skins red and blistered from the sun, the divested bodies were toned and muscular. Apparently descendants from Magna’s cursed populace, the creatures retained some semblance of a human façade. Yet their eyes were slits and their nostrils flared; mouths agape to reveal sharp, uneven teeth. Some scrambled on all fours, a primeval state of feral hunger etched onto gruesome faces.

  The charging horde threw up a myriad orange flags in his visor, almost blocking his view of the cityscape.

  He squeezed the trigger, exhausting the third grenade from Maya’s Woofer. Tossing the weapon to the dirt, Lane dragged his Woofer from its scabbard. Firing, he pumped another shell into place and squeezed off another round; then he launched another grenade into the advancing crowd. The explosions scattered them, tore some to pieces, but the surge was unrelenting.

  Pushing the Woofer back into place and activating his Berserker, Lane was already running before Johan gave his order.

  “Move!”

  Scattering like panicked animals, the squadron broke ranks and sprinted up the street, desperate to avoid the wave of attacking mutations surging from gaps in the shattered metropolis.

  The street erupted into an orchestra of screaming Berserkers spitting plasma.

  The occasional Woofer popped in symphony, explosions echoing off the district’s remains.

  A chorus of barks and clicks rattled from the charging creatures, their cries laden with bloodlust and primal desire.

  Johan’s labored voice hissed through his headphones. “Up ahead, a church of some kind. Everybody head for it and we’ll regroup.”

  A church? Lane doubted they’d find much refuge there, the building probably filled with the tortured souls of those who had entered its doors in a final quest of forgiveness. He had no idea what kind of god the people of Hemera had once worshiped, but he suspected the deity had long since abandoned this place.

  Expending magazines, soldiers fired into the scampering mutants with an unrelenting stream of white hot plasma. Sunburned and cracked flesh split easily, muscular bodies pirouetting under the onslaught. Exploding plasma shells tore some of them in half, severed limbs, and imploded heads, but the stream of creatures never wavered.

  Fresh monstrosities scampered over the devastated, smoldering remains of their dead kin.

  Lane suspected most of them were related, distorted, and animalized by disease and a century of inbreeding.

  The building loomed ahead, its stonework fractured and worn. The steeple lay in ruins across the steps outside, cracks running like dried veins along its weathered skin. Darkness settled deep inside the building, its large arched doorway standing open.

  They were running towards it, desperate to escape; yet they had no idea what they were escaping into.

  EXCERPT FROM THE DEAD CITY

  (Co
ming Summer 2016)

  When she passed through the troop carrier’s exit door, electronic sensors embedded in the frame automatically activated her helmet visor. The clear shield became flooded with a patchwork of data lines and the green flags of her comrades. The sensors kicked her weapons into life, disengaging safety locks from the firearms. The Wilson RFP-550 hummed subtly in her grip—with a payload of five hundred and fifty plasma shells and the option of rapid fire, the Berserker, as it was nicknamed, was the army’s most lethal weapon. Located in its holster against her thigh the “Woofer”, a dual-purpose shotgun-grenade launcher, pulsed against her armor. Miniature booster rockets located in the sole of each shoe ignited, blasting multiple streams of hot air downward to aid a smoother landing. The drop was exactly fifteen feet and it felt exhilarating.

  When she landed, Jayde looked up and couldn’t see a thing.

  The entire world around her was a cloud of swirling yellow grains and small projectiles. She’d made a few landings back home on Erebus but with that planet’s cold, wet climate a torrent of rain had been the worst she’d had to face. Splashes of water were easy to see through but this wall of dust quickly became debilitating. Grit pounded her body armor, finding even the most slender gaps in the covering to pinch at her skin. Her vision crackled, the visor’s data display flooded with sparks for a moment as debris played havoc with its built-in sensors. The troop carrier’s downdraft pushed sand everywhere and she feared it would flood her Berserker and clog its mechanisms. The gun was like a miniature computer in her grip, needing circuitry to fire, count payload, and activate its self-cooling system—if that all went down she’d be screwed.

  Blanking out the momentary confusion and disorientation, Jayde remembered her training; took two steps forward almost immediately so the soldier landing after her wouldn’t come down on her shoulders.