by David Beers
“Why would he?” Tommy asked. “Has Luke ever cared about anything before? Jesus Christ, Christian, how could you do this? How did you let it happen?”
Christian stepped inside.
The two orderlies were dead, both of their heads twisted in unnatural ways. One lay on the ground, his shoes removed. His socks, normally white, were soaked in blood—just like the rest of the building. Christian didn’t know if it was real or not; he didn’t know what was real in here at all. Only that these men were dead, their necks snapped like chicken bones.
Christian turned around.
Bradley Brown stood in front of him. A hole rested in his head. A clean shot, round and dark, with green pus dripping from it, mixing with the man’s hair. “He tricked me. He’s tricked you, too, huh?”
“They’re going to eat you.” It was the mouth speaking from somewhere in the room behind Christian, hovering over the dead bodies. “The dead. All of them. They’re going to eat you alive.”
Christian heard movement and he knew who it was. The orderlies. They were climbing up, blood soaked and broken, but ready to join the chorus of those Christian helped kill.
Tommy stepped up next to Bradley Brown. “How many more is he going to butcher, now that he’s free?”
Christian stepped by both of them, going back into the hallway. Canonine. He needed to find the doctor; Christian started jogging down the hall, heading to the administrative wing.
“He’s dead,” the other said, standing to the side once again. “You already know it.”
For all that Christian knew or didn’t know, Dr. Edward Canonine wasn’t dead. Terrified, yes, but one could only feel as scared as he did if one were still alive.
He sat next to Luke Titan. The car they traveled in—Edward’s car—was flying down the interstate at 70 miles-per-hour.
Edward had seen it all, everything that Titan had done, and he couldn’t erase any of it from his mind. The images were burnt into his brain like a brand on a cow, creating dark scars across his neo-frontal cortex.
“Come,” Luke had said. “Let me show you things that you won’t forget.”
Edward had screamed, looking at the man standing in his office—a man who should have been behind bulletproof glass and electronically bolted doors. Edward hadn’t wanted to go with him, but in the end, he did; and Titan hadn’t been lying.
He revealed things that Edward would never forget.
Titan threw Edward from his office and into the larger administration’s office. From there he dragged him into Karen’s room, where she lay on the floor, her eyes open and staring at the carpet. She was on her back and her head had been twisted completely around. One-hundred-and-eighty-goddamn-degrees.
Edward had shrieked again. Titan kept pulling through the hospital.
“We’re going to need your car, Dr. Canonine,” he said.
They came across other people and Edward watched as this creature dispatched them from the land of the living like they were gnats fluttering around his head. Edward had never seen anyone move so quickly—and if he’d been able to think properly, the word lethal would have come to mind.
Necks snapped. Noses jabbed upward into brains. Bodies collapsed.
And still, Titan kept moving forward, dragging Edward behind him. By that point, Edward hadn’t been able to put up any fight; he simply wasn’t capable of moving on his own volition. Titan didn’t seem to mind, though. They made it through the hospital, the dead falling around them as if the two carried the plague.
Now, sitting across from him in the car, Edward turned his head quickly, looking at the man who had once been his patient.
He’s a plague. It’s the only description that holds. He’s death personified.
“You’re in shock, Dr. Canonine. Seeing so many people die in such a short time is certain to cause ripples throughout your psyche.”
“A plague,” Edward said.
“What was that?”
Edward didn’t speak again. He might not have heard Titan’s question.
“I can only promise you, Dr. Canonine, that you’ll see a lot more death before we’re done. I told you I wanted you to witness my prayer. This is it. This is the final prayer I’ll ever make to God.”
Edward said nothing, his head flopping back on the seat. He looked out the window to this right, the world whipping by him faster than he could focus.
“Prayer is a very sacred thing, Doctor. For billions of modern day people as well as our ancestors that passed their religions to us. It is our way of showing how much we care for our creator. The difference between myself and others that pray—perhaps even yourself—is that I don’t care for our creator. I despise him. So my prayer isn’t to canonize the creature, but to bring him low. To make him understand that all he wants matters nothing.”
Edward’s head bounced against the window as the car ran over a bump in the road.
“You’re not in the right frame of mind to hear me, which is unfortunate. You wanted a paper to write, and I’m giving you one. If you survived this, you would be remembered forever. But you’re not here; you’re not present, Dr. Canonine, and so you’ll miss the paper that you should write.”
Edward heard the man next to him make a sound, which may have been ‘tisk’.
He only kept staring out the window, his thoughts slowing down, the images speeding up again.
All those people dead.
All from the plague next to him.
Dr. Edward Canonine could not yet comprehend the evil that was to come.
Chapter 20
Alan Waverly’s phone vibrated in his pocket. Only once, a single thing.
Just a notification, he thought, his mind on autopilot.
He reached for the burger in front of him and took a bite. He didn’t have to check every single update now, and that took some time getting used to. He swallowed the bite, then put the burger back down. He looked out across the small restaurant. There were only a few people in it, which was normal during the day.
That’s why he came.
It was only him, his waitress, and the owner behind the bar. The burgers weren’t half bad, and Waverly didn’t have to worry about being hassled.
He thought about the vibration again. It was nagging him and he wondered if he would ever be able to go back to a life where he wasn’t addicted to his phone. Were his reactions programmed now, even though he really had no need for a phone? He didn’t use it to call anyone, nor to receive any calls.
Most of it was news and the endless Facebook scroll. Waverly had created a profile, though changed his name of course. He found a few friends on it, and was beginning to see how that Zuckerberg guy had become a billionaire. The scroll was as addicting as the phone’s vibration.
“Tara, would you mind grabbing me some more Coke?” Alan called.
“Sure thing, honey,” the waitress said. She was on the other side of the bar, a large liquor shelf separating the two of them.
Alan had moved down here when Titan’s trial ended. He’d spent a quarter year on the beach, and the weather was just starting to warm up. Alan had spent time in Florida before, but never a whole summer; he’d stocked up on sunscreen, liquor, and beer. The things most essential for this new life, he figured.
Most FBI Directors went back to law or joined a consulting firm. Waverly had received offers, though not nearly as many as other Directors. He was a damaged item and knew it. Admitting to hiring a murderer in open court had a way of doing that to people.
Waverly turned them all down. He had enough money to live out the rest of his life, even if he spent frivolously. Maybe he would, though he hadn’t yet. He’d mostly kicked up his feet, drank beer, and thought about the past.
It was odd. Waverly had a 30 year career, yet it was the last five or six years that he focused on. Everything else that came earlier didn’t seem as important. Maybe it was time, or maybe Luke Titan was just the most impactful thing he’d ever come across. Maybe Christian ended up meaning more to
him than all of the other agents he’d encountered.
Waverly didn’t know. He only knew that he thought about it a lot. He hadn’t heard from Christian, and he hadn’t tried reaching out either. Waverly figured if something important happened, he would hear about it; if he didn’t, then maybe Christian wanted to live his life out quietly.
Waverly hoped he could. Even with the perjury charge the Senator had rigged, Waverly hoped he could.
The phone buzzed again.
Waverly sighed, wiped his hands on a napkin, and then reached into his pocket. He pulled the phone out, unlocked it, and sat it down in front of him. He pulled down his notifications.
Breaking News: Luke Titan Escapes Asylum. Ten dead.
Waverly blinked, not believing what his eyes were telling him. He kept staring at the phone, reading the same words over and over, then blinking again. He did it for maybe half a minute before his brain clicked into gear.
This is real.
He didn’t press the notification, but looked down at his text messages, seeing that’s where the second notification had come from.
A buddy from the bureau.
Windsor is missing, the text read.
Waverly sat back in the booth and looked ahead at the empty restaurant. He felt no mad urge to stand up, no need to call anyone. He truthfully didn’t know how he felt.
Luke Titan Escapes Asylum. Ten dead.
Windsor is missing.
It seemed much more possible that the burger he’d been eating had gone bad, and this was the aftereffect of such a lunch—hallucinations.
Titan was locked up. Forever.
Christian was … well, he was free to do whatever he wanted now.
Yet that’s not what the world was telling him.
Tara, the waitress, walked over to the table with a fresh cup of soda in her hand. She sat it down on the table.
“Will you read my phone, Tara?” Waverly asked, not turning toward her.
“Umm, sure. What am I lookin’ at?”
“Pull down the notifications and tell me what it says.”
She moved his phone to the edge of the table and did as he asked.
“Breaking News … Oh my, Alan. I’m sorry.”
“What’s it say?” Waverly asked.
“It’s says Titan escaped. It says there are people dead.”
“Thank you.” He stared forward for a few seconds in silence. I’m going to go, I think.” He stood from the table, pulled out a twenty dollar bill, and laid it down.
“Are you okay?” Tara asked as he walked off.
Waverly didn’t answer because he didn’t know what to tell her.
“You can’t stay here,” they had said.
“Even if Canonine isn’t here, you’ve got to go,” they said.
Christian had stood in Canonine’s office, the blood pooling much heavier in there. His shoes stood in about half an inch of the thick liquid, and when he moved, he sent small waves cascading against the room’s walls.
“You’ve got to leave,” voices said from behind him.
Christian didn’t see a body in the room, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t one here—only that he might not be seeing things correctly.
“It doesn’t matter,” someone said. “Whether you’re seeing it correctly or not, you need to get out.”
So, Christian did as the voices said. He fled the hospital. He didn’t know where he was going or what to do, only that the voices sounded like they knew what they were talking about.
Christian ended up in a small motel room somewhere in South Dakota. He didn’t know the city nor how he had gotten here. He couldn’t remember. Everything was scattered, as if his memories were toys and some giant, angry toddler had walked around inside his head and simply started kicking everything.
He lay with the lights off and the curtains drawn across the windows. There was some light flowing through the side of the curtains, but Christian wouldn’t look over there for all of Midas’s gold. He knew what he would see in those small rays of moonlight.
The dead.
They filled the room now. Not just Tommy and Bradley Brown. Not just the two orderlies. The dead kept coming for him, and there were so many. Christian knew that if he were to get up and turn on the light, he would see dead children encircling him. Some not even up to his knees.
They came from the FBI daycare; Christian knew that. The one that Luke and Charles Twaller had filled with anthrax.
The dead were here and they were hungry.
So Christian kept the lights off, and when they spoke, he said nothing. They were quiet at the moment, perhaps the late hour tiring them out, as it had him.
Christian didn’t even understand how he had checked into the place. He had no recollection of talking to anyone at the front desk, didn’t know if he’d given them his ID. He knew nothing, and more, he knew he couldn’t try figuring any of it out.
He couldn’t get out of the bed, not unless he wanted to touch dead people.
Where’s my phone? he wondered. Another answer that he didn’t have. He didn’t dare speak aloud, refusing to wake those all around him.
The man who had once been personally recruited by an FBI Director lay on a strange motel bed, staring up into blackness, and wishing more than anything that the walls would stop dripping blood.
“Dr. Canonine, it’s important that you eat. You need to keep your strength. We’ve got a long journey ahead.”
Edward turned his head to the plague sitting next to him. They’d been in the car for two days, and Edward’s only relief was that he hadn’t witnessed anyone else die.
Edward didn’t know where they were heading. He wasn’t sure he even cared.
“You killed Karen,” he said as Luke passed him a hamburger inside a paper wrapper.
“I did. I snapped her head all the way around. That was for you, Dr. Canonine. I could have just partly twisted it and done the job, but I thought I’d leave a lasting impression.” He motioned with the burger again. “Please eat.”
Edward took the burger and sat it down on his lap. He looked out the window at the parking lot.
“Where are we?”
“We’re in Ohio.”
Edward nodded as if it made sense.
They had pulled into a drive-thru about a mile back. Edward hadn’t even thought about making a scene. He wouldn’t try alerting anyone because he remembered so vividly what happened at the hospital. It didn’t matter how loud or quickly he tried to scream, Titan would always be quicker, more forceful. Edward might be able to get a few words out, but Titan would rapidly knock his teeth down his throat, then step from the car. He’d move through the fast food restaurant like a robotic killer, ending everyone’s life before they even knew what was happening.
There was no point in screaming for help.
No point in any of it.
Edward saw Karen’s face staring at the floor, her flesh pale. Her blood already turning cold.
“We’re going to Arizona, Dr. Canonine,” Titan said. Edward didn’t know if he was being toyed with or not; he couldn’t determine any inflections in Titan’s voice. “I should still own some property there, and I’d like to call Christian to me once again.”
Edward looked down at the hamburger in his lap. Eat, the man had said. As if it mattered what Edward did anymore. He was already dead.
“Why am I here?” he asked.
“You’re not paying attention,” Titan said. He wasn’t eating. In fact, as Edward looked at him, he didn’t think Titan had picked up anything for himself at all. “You’re here to bear witness. So far, you’re doing a very poor job of it.”
“You don’t need me for that,” Edward said, trying to create some semblance of order in his words. He needed to get out of here, away from this man, and he had to have a coherent argument if that was going to be possible. “The world bears witness. You don’t need me.”
“True. But you did ask, Dr. Canonine. Don’t forget that.”
“I d
idn’t mean it,” Edward said. “I didn’t …”
But he lost his train of thought.
“You didn’t know. That’s okay,” Titan said. “You do now. And if you don’t yet, you will soon.” The man readjusted so that he faced Edward a bit more. He was still. Even in his hospital room, Titan had shown more emotion than this. Now, there was nothing across the car from Edward—a statue that breathed. “You were going to keep me in that asylum for the rest of my life, asking me your questions, prodding me for answers so that you could write your precious papers. You would have done that forever, thinking you had the right because a court said you did.”
“No,” Edward said. He didn’t know what was going to come out of his mouth, only recognizing how foolish it sounded after he finished. “I was going to leave after I wrote a few papers. I wouldn’t have been there forever.”
“How thoughtful of you, Dr. Canonine. You would have given me to my next master. All of you ruling over me so benevolently. This is the same thing, only now I rule, and you watch. You should feel privileged, though. I promise this will be more interesting than a few papers.”
Senator Robert Franklin was sitting in his New York office when he heard the news. It wasn’t surprising that he found out while there, as nearly all of his days, and many of his nights, were spent underneath the artificial glow of his office lights.
Three days had passed and the news was national.
Robert had made rounds on the shows last night; there was a simmering panic over the country. One of the reasons Robert Franklin had ridden the waves of power so well over the past few decades was his ability to sense the wind before it really took off.
Three days after Titan’s escape, Robert was trying to do exactly that. He always focused on one thing, and that was maintaining power. He didn’t give a good goddamn what the rest of the world thought about it either. What kind of self respecting politician would do anything differently? The game wasn’t looking out for constituents; the game was keeping this office by hook or by crook.