The Doomsday Chronicles (The Future Chronicles)

by Samuel Peralta

  My world is dying. My Olympus is dying.

  Angela clings to my shirt as I race toward the lobby. Debris is flying everywhere, and a sharp piece cuts my cheek wide open. I feel the blood well up and stream down my chin, but I ignore it. I have to get Angela out of the building.

  I have to get Angela out of Olympus.

  I remember everything now.

  Angela was the first test of Olympus.

  And I am the last.

  The virtual world isn’t collapsing without cause. The virus is finally breaking down the integrity of the system. Olympus is being irreparably corrupted. If I don’t get Angela out quickly, she’ll die here.

  Me? I’m already dead.

  The virus devastated my brain the moment I connected to the Olympus uplink. That’s why I forgot everything. Literal brain damage. The kind you don’t recover from.

  This was a one-way trip to watch the end of my world. I knew that long before I made it.

  I hold Angela tightly in my arms as I race into the lobby. I know I can’t go outside the hospital. I’m trapped here until the world ceases to exist. Until I cease to exist with it.

  I go as far as I can, ceiling tiles disintegrating above me. Sliding to a stop, I set Angela down on her two tiny feet.

  “Mr. Icarus!” Her cheeks are stained with dust and tears.

  “Angela, listen to me.”

  The internal failsafe was never touched by the virus. Angela has always been able to leave. She just never knew it. Because of me.

  “Angela, I need you to go outside, close your eyes, and say, I’d like to go down the mountain. It will make you wake up.”

  She whimpers. “But, Mr. Icarus, what about you?”

  I shake my head. “I can’t go with you, Angela, okay? I can’t leave the building.” The back road only ever went so far. It was an afterthought. It was never designed to fully access Olympus. Another mistake on my part.

  “But…”

  “No buts!” I squeeze her shoulders. “Look, your father is waiting for you outside Olympus, Angela. He’s been waiting for you to wake up for a long time. Don’t you want to see him?”

  She nods, sobbing.

  “Good. Then go.” The hallway behind us collapses. The building is coming down. “Go, Angela. Now.”

  I release her.

  For a moment, she hesitates.

  “Go!”

  She runs as fast as her small legs can take her, curls flying, violet dress rippling in the air, shoes with the little bows tap-tapping on the broken floor. She narrowly avoids the implosion of the lobby’s entryway. Steel supports tear through the ceiling, crashing to the floor in front of me.

  Through the enormous holes now torn into the ceiling, the sun beams down on me.

  I watch Angela closely.

  Tears still pouring down her face, she clenches her eyes shut. Her bottom lip trembles as it forms the first words. Her debris-covered shoulders shake.

  Then, her body begins to vanish. It’s not like the decay of Olympus, with its brutal cracks and broken pieces. It’s graceful and smooth. She fades away, back to the world she belongs in, leaving only a brief flicker of soft violet in the air where she used to be.

  Angela is free.

  My eyes shift upward, toward the beaming sun. For the longest time, it seemed as if it was sneering at me, mocking me, peering at me through windows and bars as if I were a lowly prisoner. Now, I see it in its full and awful glory. My eyes don’t burn it its light. I stare straight into its core, my vision ebbing into a white sea dotted with a thousand vibrant colors.

  In the distance, I hear the rest of the hospital collapse around me, but I don’t look away from the sun. Instead, I watch, a smile gracing my dusty, bloodied face as the star’s burning edges begin to dull. The sun itself is dying before my eyes. It will never taunt me again.

  A sharp pain shoots through my arm, and another assaults my back. Flecks of paint and plaster fall into my eyes, but I don’t take my sight away from the darkening sun. The decay reaches its center, leaving nothing but a pinprick of yellow surrounded by a sea of deathly brown.

  The final supports of the hospital fail, and the two halves of the building plummet toward one another. Just as they collide, I glimpse that final pinprick die. And then sun is gone. The sun is dead.

  Tons of debris careen toward me, and it’s only then that I close my eyes, let my enlightened sight die as well. With my vision goes the rest of my senses. My hearing fades out as the roar of the falling building overpowers it. My tongue and nostrils are too choked on dust to sense anything at all.

  In the end, there is nothing but a dull snap of pressure, like a stretched rubber band, worn from so many years of toil and stress, finally breaking.

  Then, there is nothing at all.

  And finally, finally, I’m free too.

  * * *

  Epilogue

  The light shining down on Angela is bright, but it’s not like the sun she’s grown used to in Olympus. She sits up, confused, and slides herself out of the strange tube that the bright light belongs to. The light gives way to a familiar sight.

  Mr. Icarus’s lab.

  Next to her, one of Mr. Icarus’s friends is sleeping in a chair. She hops quietly off the tube’s bed cushion and lands on the floor, whimpering at the feeling of the cold tiles on her bare feet. Someone took off her shoes, the pretty ones with the bows, and she doesn’t see them anywhere nearby.

  She glances at the sleeping man, but he doesn’t stir, and twirls on her toes for a moment, wondering what to do.

  She remembers Mr. Icarus telling her to wake up in the scary world that was falling apart, that her daddy would be waiting for her. But he’s not here. So she walks past the sleeping man, following the familiar route to Mr. Icarus’s office. She knows Mr. Icarus won’t be there—he said so himself—but she wants to sit on his comfy couch, like she always does when she visits the lab.

  A few minutes later, she’s standing in front of the door. The label doesn’t say “Mr. Icarus.” It reads “Dr. Ignatius Monroe,” which is his real name. Angela’s always found that hard to say, so she started calling him “Mr. Icarus” along with the rest of the people who work here.

  She knows what that name means. She’s read the story lots of times.

  But she never, before today, thought Mr. Icarus really was Icarus. Now, she can’t help but wonder if he really made a mistake like the flying boy. He looked so scared in the world that was falling apart. Mr. Icarus had never looked so scared before.

  Angela touches the door handle, but before she can open the door, she hears voices.

  She turns to the left and watches a group of men and women pass by.

  Three are dressed like policemen. Three are wearing white lab coats.

  Two are wearing suits. And two of them she recognizes.

  One of them is her daddy.

  The other is the grumpy man from the garden in Olympus.

  His name is Ericson.

  A Word from Therin Knite

  Everybody likes to write about the apocalypse these days. So when I thought about how to approach an anthology centered around “doomsday,” I wanted to take a slightly different path from the usual pandemics and zombies, meteors and super-volcanoes, alien invasions and evil A.I.’s.

  I wanted to spin “doomsday” into a more personal tragedy, deconstruct it into a story about the end of someone’s world but not the end of everyone’s. And that’s how the central idea of Olympus came to be.

  Thanks for reading!

  Therin Knite is a recent college graduate who occasionally writes sci-fi thrillers and has the odd delusion of literary stardom. Knite lives in a humble little place known as the Middle of Nowhere, Virginia and spends every possible second of free time reading books and writing what may possibly qualify as books.

  For more information about Therin Knite, please check out Knite’s home base— http://www.tknitewrites.com.

  Mia + Vegan Cannibals

  by S.
Elliot Brandis

  THIS VEGAN SCRAG IS TRYING TO EAT ME.

  Sorry, that was a loaded sentence. But I swear to God, that’s my blood dripping down her chin. And these are her bite marks on my arm. Right there, between my tattoos. Crazy Mother Teresa.

  Full disclosure: I may have kissed her boyfriend. Still, that’s hardly a reason to eat somebody. Especially if you’re a vegan. Don’t they have a code or something?

  “I’m going to strip the flesh from your body,” she says, her voice low, “and feast on the life within you.”

  “Uh… I’d prefer you didn’t, maybe?”

  She pushes me into a chair and I nearly tumble. The last thing I want to do is lose my footing. I step back to steady myself, the soles of my Chucks squeaking on the floorboards, and look around the conference hall for help. Surely somebody can help me, weak-armed vegans or not.

  I’m met with a thousand hungry gazes.

  Balls.

  If I’m going to be eaten in front of an audience of dead-eyed cannibals, I might as well tell you how it happened. Let’s start at the beginning… when a man loves a woman.

  Too far back? Damn, I wanted to do the sperm wriggle.

  Okay, picture this: Me, Mia Alderson, standing on a rooftop at three in the morning. I’m wearing a black beanie, a bad-ass denim jacket, tattered Chuck Taylors… you get the idea. I’m hot freakin’ stuff.

  There’s a big billboard in front of me. It’s one of those rubbish ads for female moisturiser. Love the skin you’re in or some guff, like we don’t know the same company promotes their men’s product lines with dancing slappers getting wet from a whiff of deodorant. I rattled my spray can. I’d only brought a couple of colors, but I wanted to do something big. The billboard could be seen from the highway. This was a chance to mess with a thousand dead-eyed commuters.

  “You know they test on animals?” asked a man’s voice.

  My heart jumped from my chest. I spun around, my hands sweaty. I was already on probation—one more charge and I might end up in the slammer. For graffiti! That wasn’t going to help my prison image. Why are you here? Helga the resident neo-Nazi would ask. Um, I’d mutter, unsanctioned moisture-based artwork?

  Yup. As good as dead.

  “How did you get up here?” I asked the dark, keeping my voice calm. The confidence was fake, but it sounded real. It always does.

  “Same way you did.”

  It took my eyes a moment to adjust. The billboard was bright, highlighted with glowing LEDs, while the stranger stood in the shadows. My heart calmed as he came into focus. He was close to my age—early twenties, maybe—with messy brown hair and intense eyes. He wore a tight shirt and tighter jeans. Light stubble peppered his pale face.

  “I have white paint,” I said. “I was thinking of trimming off her curves, a bit of street-style Photoshopping. Then I could write over the logo in red… something weird, like ‘eat’ instead of ‘love’.”

  “Eat the skin you’re in? That’s a bit… morbid. I’m not sure I get it.”

  “Exactly. It will mess with people. They’ll be expecting a grand point, but their minds won’t be able to process it. It’ll piss off everybody at once.”

  He watched me for a moment with a gentle smirk. The night was a little eerie, with a high full moon casting pale light. The air was cold but still.

  “I like you,” he said.

  “Great.” I shook the spray can, letting the rattle of the ball indicate my eagerness to get started. “You can be my Edward fracking Cullen, right?”

  “Frack? What is this, network television?”

  “I was thinking basic cable…” I paused but he didn’t fill the silence. People always fill the silence. “I was brainwashed in juvie, alright? I can’t swear. The white coats messed with my brain. Serious Clockwork Orange retina-scratching hogwash. Plus, you know, it kind of opens me up to a whole new audience. Right?”

  I flashed my brightest smile. I hoped to God I brushed my teeth that morning.

  His smirk dropped. He strode across the rooftop towards me, his eyes steely cold. My heart stopped—don’t tell me he actually was a goddamn vampire. That’d me my luck, seriously. He lowered my arm, pressed his chest into mine, and kissed me. My knees shook.

  Christ.

  “I hope to see you soon,” he said.

  Before I could say anything, he was gone—winding down steel staircases to the street, an occasional clang the only sign he hadn’t vanished into the night air.

  “Feminism now, Mia,” I whispered to myself. “Don’t fall for that Count Creeper crap.”

  I painted. The image turned out better than I expected, the white paint fading perfectly into the background. I gave the ‘plus-sized’ model (a.k.a. normal as sin) a Disney princess hourglass figure.

  Let’s see her intestines work her way through that corset.

  I goddamn impress myself sometimes.

  As I was finishing the lettering, I heard footsteps. I won’t lie—my stomach did flutter a little. The thought of his soft lips, his wandering fingertips. Mmm, I’ll stop. I turned around and copped a faceful of torchlight instead.

  “Don’t move,” rang a confident voice. “Police.”

  Bollocks.

  After tha— Hang on.

  Mohammad’s bloody ghost.

  The overly attached cannibal-girlfriend, henceforth known as Blondie McFlesheater, has me pushed up against a conference room table. I manage to grab her neck with my right hand, wrapping my fingers around her windpipe. I squeeze, hoping it might dull her appetite for human flesh. As luck would have it, it bloody well doesn’t.

  “What the hell do you want?” I scream.

  “I want to suck your eyeballs out of your skull,” she says, “so you can see the moment I bite into them, letting the fluids drip down my throat.”

  “Jesus Zombie Christ. Look. I’m sorry I kissed your boyfriend. He kissed me first, I swear to God.”

  Her face changes for a moment, softening with confusion.

  “Not a God person?” I ask. “Um…. I swear to Baphomet. That’s his name, right? The goat dude? He’d love you. All about the flesh and the hellfire.”

  “He kissed you?”

  “Goat lord?”

  “My boyfriend.”

  “Oh.” I do my best to look nonchalant. Well, it’s pretty much useless when you have a vegan cannibal bearing down, your blood crusting on her lips. “You didn’t know?”

  “I’m going to skin you,” she growls, low and guttural. “Nice and slow, so you don’t die. Then I’ll hold up your shape before you, a floppy, dripping mess, and gnaw at your flesh from the inside. When there’s no meat left, I’ll savor the rest of you. Strip by strip. A few fibers at a time. I will consume your soul.”

  I have to admit, she knows how escalate things. Credit where credit’s due.

  “Maybe you need a little more soy and a little less soylent green?” I ask. My free hand is flapping around the table behind me, looking for a makeshift weapon. My fingers curl around the base of a blender. It’s one of those crummy plastic ones from late night television, but now’s not the time to be picky—I swing it at her face. “Why not try a shake!”

  Okay, that was lame. Even Peter Parker had to start somewhere. I don’t even manage to do it right—the container tumbles to the ground, spilling green ooze, while the now-exposed blades stab into her cheek. I fumble for the button with my thumb.

  Wizzzz.

  The blender blades spring to life, cutting up the side of her face. Her eyes twitch as she stumbles back. Pieces of her cheek dangle like maggots.

  “You got McGuyvered, hussy!”

  I spin and run across the room. I am the jam, right? That’s entertainment.

  Now, where was I?

  Right, right. The fuzz.

  So, I was sitting in a brightly lit room back at the police station. Would you believe it, they good-cop-bad-copped me. I thought that was a movie trope, no joke. The good cop was actually kinda cute, a clean-cut country
type with short blond hair. He even had dimples. Dimples.

  “I’m real sorry, officer,” I said, eyes wide. “But this type of marketing to women is cynical and exploitative. It’s a sign of the patriarchy that’s—”

  “Cut the crap, Ms. Alderson,” Bad Cop interrupted. He dropped my file on the table. “Theft, vandalism, possession…” He cleared his throat. “And it says here you… once took a dump on a blue Daihatsu?”

  I looked over at Good Cop, who was frowning gently. This wanghole was making me look bad in front of Officer Dimples. I took a sip of my stale coffee, trying to maintain my cool.

  “In my defense,” I said, “the car belonged to my ex-boyfriend, and he stole my bloody sta—”

  I caught myself. It’s probably best not to say stash in front of the 5-0. The whole war on drugs and all that. That’s still a thing, right? Also, why do we call cops the 5-0? Eh, forget the whole thing. Raises too many questions.

  There was a moment of silence before Good Cop started to laugh. It was a wholehearted chuckle, like an old friend remembering the time you both did something dumb as kids. Damn, Good Cop was good. I could eat his cheeks like butter.

  “What’s passed is past,” he said warmly. “We’re not here to bust your chops, let alone talk about Daihatsu deuces. I mean that. What’s passed is past.”

  I looked down, taking another sip. I’m telling the story, so I’m going to say that I didn’t blush.

  “I’m a reformed pooper. Honest.”

  “I’m sure you are,” he said. “And that’s why I’m sure we can come to an arrangement. See, we believe you know somebody that is of interest to us.” He leaned in a little, as though sharing a secret. “Malcolm Gold.”

  I leaned in a little too, to see what his breath smelled like. He had to have a flaw, surely. Minty tones lingered in my nostrils. I sniffed, hoping to find a telltale hint of nicotine gum. Nothing. I crinkled my nose, annoyed at his perfection. “Who?”