“Yeah?”
“Do you believe in God?”
Her expression, with pouty lips held tight and brows creased, made her look much older than she was. “I guess so,” he replied. “Why?”
“I do,” she said. “I talk to him every night. Mommy says it’s my guardian angel, but I know he’s God.”
“How you know that?”
“He told me.”
Corky sat up, picked grass off the back of his neck, flicked it away, and watched it flutter in the calm breeze. “Why you telling me this, darlin’? What’s going on in that head a’yours?”
“Nuthin,” she answered, but there was something about the pleading way she looked at him that said differently.
“You can talk to me. You know that, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So tell me.”
“It’s daddy,” she said. “He’s acting funny.”
Corky let out a small chuckle. “Your dad always acts funny.”
“Nuh-uh,” she said, looking offended. “He used to be nice.”
“And he’s not nice now?”
“Um…yeah. But he don’t sing Humpty Dumpty to me anymore. He cries at night. I listen when he thinks I’m sleeping.”
“Has he ever talked to you while he’s crying?”
“Uh-uh. He talks to Sam.”
Corky cocked his head. “Who’s Sam?”
“His invisible friend. I used to have an invisible friend. Her name was Matilda.”
“That’s nice.”
Resting on his palms, Corky squinted against the sun’s glare. He wasn’t sure what to do with what Shelly just told him. Hell, she was five for Chrissakes. But how could she get the impression he had an invisible friend, of all things? Imagination? Yeah, that’s probably it. It was true that Tom had been acting strange ever since Hector fell ill, but they all had. It was normal abnormal behavior, if that made sense. The guy had to deal with his issues somehow, and Corky guessed that the fact that Hector had brushed him off during their last meaningful encounter only added to his strangeness. Likely thought about killing him or some shit like that after it happened, and now he’s feeling guilty for thinking it. Hell, I’ve thought the same things. Best to just give the guy a break.
He leaned forward, took Shelly in his arms, and began rocking her. She gazed up at him, her tiny lips parted just slightly.
“Quirky, will you make everything okay?” she said.
“Oh darlin’, of course I will.”
“Will you sing Humpty Dumpty to me?”
“Sure thing.”
And he did.
* * *
Storm clouds wrapped the moon in a coat of shadow, causing the night to be virtually pitch-black. The only respite from the darkness was the occasional flash of lightning, which illuminated his surroundings in a blaze of blue-white. Rain was coming. It looked like it might be one hell of a downpour.
Tom twiddled his fingers while he sat on a suitcase in the attic—the same attic he, Allison, and Shelly had hidden in when his new friends arrived. Clicking on his flashlight, he surveyed the scene before him; four suitcases, lying open on the slatted floor, stuffed to the brim with clothes. He’d started packing their things eight days before. At first it was only one piece of luggage, containing just the essentials for his personal exodus. His original plan was to skip out in the middle of the night, to leave his family and friends behind, thinking them better off away from the craziness of the thing that guided his movements. Of course, he didn’t get far. Once he grabbed the handle and reached for the doorknob, a stabbing pain drove into his brain, freezing him in his tracks and making him whimper as he writhed on the ground.
Instead of going it alone, he decided to bring Ally, leaving Shelly safe under Corky’s care. It ended in the same result, only this time the bastard waited until he was almost at the bedroom before setting fire to his nerve endings. After that he gave lip service to the thought of leaving, but nothing else. He packed, unpacked, then packed again, spent hours marking up maps looking for the best route to God knew where. Of course none of it mattered. He was hopeless to go anywhere on his own…at least not now. He simply wanted to leave so bad, to put all this madness behind him forever.
And now, with Horace saying there were new developments in regards to their friend in the basement, it appeared leaving was the last thing on anyone’s mind.
You can leave, the voice in his head said.
“No I can’t,” he growled in reply. “You keep stopping me.”
Laughter filled his skull. It is a harsh world out there, Thomas. There are things I cannot control that wish to harm you. You need protection, you need bait, and these people will give you both. You need them…until you are by my side.
Tom laughed. “Fat chance of that happening. They won’t leave.
Convince them otherwise.
“Ha! I thought screwing with Hector was supposed to accomplish that.”
Pain corkscrewed behind his eyes, and he slapped his hands over them. He opened his mouth to scream, but shut it before anything came out. Biting back the hurt, he stayed silent. In no way did he want those downstairs to hear him. There would be questions were that to happen—questions he was ill equipped to answer at the moment.
The man you call Hector is my child now, and that was the first stage, his master said. The last stage is putting him in position to carry out my will.
“And how the hell do I do that?”
More pain, though tolerable. He gritted his teeth and pushed through it.
Do not play dumb with me, Thomas. You know what must be done.
Tom rubbed his temples and grumbled, “I know.” He then stood up on weak legs, turned off the flashlight, and made his way to the door. More lightning flashed, guiding him. From there it was down two flights of stairs, tiptoeing like he had when he betrayed Hector. Mother Nature worked with him this time, however. The gusting wind outside and the creaking of the old hotel created a calming ruckus. He didn’t have to be anywhere near as careful this time, but he remained vigilant anyway.
At the rear exit, he slid the door open a few inches, then slipped his sickly frame through. The wind hit him, and it was cold. He wrapped his arms around his torso, the button-up shirt on his back—a gift from his long-dead father—doing little to stop him from shivering. For a moment he thought the sudden change in climate might be God’s way of telling him his soul was damned, until he realized he didn’t need God to tell him that. He’d been damned the minute the strange beast showed up in his living room all those months ago. Hell, for all he knew it had happened the moment he went against his father’s wishes and decided to enter politics.
Grabbing the handle of the huge bulkhead with both hands, he gradually pulled it open. The hinges creaked, a conspicuous metal-on-metal grind that made him wince. He lifted a few inches, paused to see if anyone lit a candle, lifted a few more inches, paused again, and finally opened it the rest of the way. The door bounced against the side of the bulkhead, causing a bang that Tom hoped the others would assume to be a tree falling somewhere in the distance. Holding the flashlight out before him like a sword, he descended the stairs.
He was halfway down before he clicked the flashlight on, creating a narrow tube of light that was virtually useless in the suffocating dark. He cocked his head to listen, and harsh breaths reached his ears. He swiveled, his whole body stiff as a board, and the beam of light fell upon the creature Hector had become. The mere sight of the man in that state—with jutting teeth, pockmarked flesh, and holes in his cheeks—made Tom hitch. He doubled over and vomited.
All because of me, he thought.
Yes. Because of you. There is power in this. Do not deny it.
Tom scrunched his face, stiffened, and defiantly stood up. He brushed off his shirt and pants with flattened palms, trying to force his mind to think this was just an ordinary act on an ordinary day. He was tired of playing the scared fledgling to whatever force he’d submitted himself to. The le
ast he could do was pretend he was in control.
That is better.
“Whatever.”
He stormed across the basement, closing the distance between himself and the thing in less than ten steps. Then he held the flashlight in his mouth, reached into his pocket, took out his wire clippers—the same wire clippers he’d used to gouge Carl Pendergrass’s brain—and went to work cutting the ropes and cables that bound the monstrosity. When they slipped away he worked on the chain, unhooking it, twisting it around, trying to find out which way it was looped.
The whole time, the beast that had been Hector stared at him with those haunting, yellowish eyes, breathing deep. It made no move—at least nothing threatening. It simply lay there as if the concept of willful movement was foreign to it. Catching a glimpse of those sharp, elongated teeth, he hoped the concept remained foreign for at least a while longer.
Finally, the last length of chain dropped to the concrete floor with a clink. Tom straightened and stepped back, forcing himself to admire his handiwork. The freed creature shrugged its shoulders, glanced down the length of its body, and then its gaze lifted, staring at him with hungry eyes. Drool trickled through one of the holes in its cheek. The realization of what he was about to unleash struck him. His family was up there.
“Oh shit.”
He spun and bolted across the basement and up the steps as fast as his legs could carry him. The sound of the creature’s feet hitting cement followed. Huffing, heart pounding in his chest, he jumped over the ridge and slammed the bulkhead door shut, latching it without care for the bevy of sound it made.
“I don’t care!” he screamed. “It can stay down there! No one else gets hurt! You hear me? NO ONE!”
Pain filled his head once more. Pain, and unremitting, insane laughter.
* * *
Rain pelted the windows as Horace hunched over, scribbling notes while intermittently pressing his eyes to the microscope before him. He flexed his arm, feeling the tug of the bandages against his hairs. A Petri dish containing a few drops of his blood sat beside the microscope. He eyed it, noticing the deep burgundy color of the liquid, then lifted his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
He hadn’t slept that night, and exhaustion made his vision waver. This isn’t the time to be tired. Grabbing the handle of the desk’s bottom drawer, he tugged it open. His hand fell upon the old metal thermos hidden inside, and he lifted it out with care. He twisted off the top and removed the baggy filled with the corroded remnants of the tissue sample he’d taken from the hidden necropolis he and Doug found that winter. He hadn’t so much as glanced at the contents of the bag for so long, and he screwed up his lips. There seemed to be less than he remembered in there now, though with only a few grams remaining, it was possible his eyes were playing tricks on him. Shrugging, he put down the bag, snapped on a pair of latex gloves, and went to work.
While he used a pair of tweezers to extract a minuscule amount of diseased flesh, he tried not to let his mind wander. He didn’t want to think about what he’d seen in his own tissue, didn’t want to understand how mortality was catching up with him in the most horrible of ways. His stomach cramped and bile slunk into his throat. His hands grew weak and shaky, and he had to put down his tools and catch his breath. When the nausea subsided he went back to work, though he was now covered with a thin sheet of sweat. He saw two words in his mind’s eye, two haunting, desperate words that seemed etched into his forebrain.
Hematological Malignancy.
He should’ve known, should’ve seen it coming, what with the vomiting, the bruising, the tiredness. But he hadn’t—or at least he’d ignored the symptoms, choosing instead to live as if there was nothing wrong, to carry on with those he cared about as if tomorrow would always come. Yet the bloated, studded beach balls in his bloodstream didn’t lie. That’s what happens with cancer when it goes untreated, he thought. It changes. It spreads.
And yet the idea of the cancer in his lungs now residing in his blood stream brought about a sense of curiosity and morbid excitement, as well. The creature in the basement, the beast that had only a week or so earlier been his friend, had responded strangely to it. It had been pained, tortured, and the irony of the possibilities made him want to laugh, albeit without much humor.
The battery-powered centrifuge stopped spinning, and he removed the vial from it. He sucked up a small portion of the liquid with a syringe, then pressed his eyes to the microscope once more. There was his blood, contaminated and dying. Cautiously, he brought the needle over to the center of the red sea, and depressed the plunger the tiniest bit. A few drops of the disease that had all but wiped out humanity fell into the dish.
One cell tried to attack another. The untainted blood cells were easily overtaken in a matter of seconds. But it was when the invader reached the cancerous cell that things got interesting. The head of the Wrathchild grew large, like a mosquito that decided to drink blood until it popped. The cell then withered, growing black around the edges. The thin red strands that performed the assimilation process turned black as well, their sperm-like movements sluggish as they passed from one cell to another, spreading this new sickness to each of its brethren.
Horace glanced at his watch, amazed. In a matter of less than a minute, there was no sign of Wrathchild in his sample. The virus had been wiped out, destroyed by the other malady that had taken away so many of his friends and colleagues over the years, the very disease that would soon end his life as well. He threw his head back and laughed. It was sad laughter, expressing all the pain, fear, and lack of faith that had built up inside him. Then he leaned forward, dropped his face into his hands, and cried.
A killer killing a killer. How appropriate. How sad and hopeless.
That’s when the earthquake struck, shaking him so hard he fell out of his chair. His old bones hit the floor with a thud, and though dazed he glanced up just in time to see the items on his desk topple over. He rolled out of the way as they bounced off the carpet. It took a lot of effort to struggle to his knees, and he shuffled like that over to the door to his room, intent on yelling for help.
An explosion came next, again knocking him over. His ears rung, but underneath the buzz he heard people screaming downstairs. Smoke reached his nostrils. His adrenaline kicked in and, ignoring the overwhelming ache suffusing him, he rose to his feet, pulled the door open, and limped down the hall.
* * *
Larry Nevers sat in the lounge alone, doodling in a notebook. He wasn’t much of an artist, and most of the time he simply spent his time sketching band names, but it was all he could do to keep his emotions in check. He’d become a basket case of late, always feeling on the verge of tears while thinking about the people he’d lost. Scribbling, even if it was nonsensical, while thinking of better, more youthful times was all he could do to keep the despair from engulfing him.
His mind tracked to the past, remembering Connie, his old girlfriend. They met a year after he dropped out of high school, and she was a little older. She was a bubbly sort, with a wonderfully tacky dye-job, but she was infatuated with him, and he with her, and when they made love…she was probably the best fuck ever. He closed his eyes and tried to remember why they broke it off. They’d had so much fun, and there seemed to be no reason for it to end. But end it did, which led to him meeting Brooke, who he married. And yeah, they were happy early on, even though it ended badly. He was glad he got to experience it—even if the sex wasn’t nearly as good.
“Everything happens for a reason,” he muttered.
A shadow passed by the window, and Larry glanced up. The rain came down in sheets outside, the sound of it like thousands of continuous rim-shots. Another shadow crept across his vision, along with a flash of blue, and he put down his pen. Rising from his stool, he tiptoed across the plush carpeting. No one could’ve been outside, not with the ferociousness of the downpour. The notion that Hector might have somehow escaped came to mind, and fear gripped him.
He grabbed a poker from the
fireplace on the way by, and then pressed his back to the wall beside the picture window. Turning slowly, he peered through the glass, spotting two female figures, one large and one small, decked in raincoats and holding umbrellas. He let out a breath when he recognized Allison and Shelly Steinberg. While it was odd they were out in a driving rainstorm, they obviously didn’t pose a threat.
Then a third figure appeared, and Larry felt a moment of trepidation. It was Tom, running after his family, his body shifting from side to side as if he could barely keep himself upright. Allison spun around, stared at her husband with wide, frightened eyes, and yelled something Larry couldn’t hear. Tom then pointed off in the distance, twirling his other arm like a third base coach waving the runner home. Allison and Shelly took off in a sprint, with Tom right on their heels.
”What the fu—”
Those words were cut off when the floor rumbled with such force that Larry dropped the poker and collapsed against one of the couches. He heard voices shouting down the hall, followed by doors slamming shut. The voices grew louder, and soon Dennis and Luis appeared from the hallway.
“What was that?” asked an incredulous Dennis, his silver hair a mess.
Larry shrugged. “Don’t know. Felt like an earthquake.”
“Well—”
Light flashed, so bright it felt like his eyes would melt in their sockets. A deafening boom followed, and the ground shook once more. Dennis and Luis screeched from the other side of the room, and barstools toppled over. Glasses fell from their perches, smashing on the parquet floor surrounding the bar. Larry held on tight to the arm of the couch, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to get the stars out of his vision.
More voices, this time Corky and Doug’s as they appeared from the other direction. Doug’s eyes were narrow and serious, while Corky’s bulged from his head.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed the towering redhead. “Did you guys see that?”
Everyone nodded.
“What happened?”
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