The Void

by Kivak, Albert

  “Eat shit, bitch. And fucking die.” Meredith shrieked, holding down the canister. It was still loaded and spraying. “Breathe it all in, puppy love. That’s right. Just like that. That’s a good girl.”

  Hanna’s face turned purple and bloated as the toxins jetted down her windpipe. Hanna gargled, foaming at the mouth, as she writhed underneath Meredith who was still gushing blood out of the gashes on her breasts and abdomen.

  “Eat it and die!” Meredith cackled. “Eat it and die! Eat it and die!”

  .

  chapter eight

  The President of the United States initiated executive order for his national defense. He made several calls to his elected officials and declared Maple St. too hazardous to drive, work, or reside in. It was unfit to be a properly governed municipal. The citizens were losing cars by the dozens.

  He feared the backlash that might come with the inadequacy of the government unable to do anything. In recent years, a certain group of the political sect, the right-wing, had gone nuts with the higher taxes and less wages. This was another factor, in their agenda, that they might use to stop his progressive ambitions. He could not, for the love of God, understand why citizens only thought for themselves, never sharing or considering that the air they breathed was a unit for a clearer whole.

  The world was a scary place and the victims within had to be fundamentally changed to appreciate the solace his infrastructure provided. Homeland Security, US Marshalls, and National Guards, the CIA, NSA, TSA, and FBI were all there to help his people, if only they could see that the President was their leader.

  Lead. He had to lead now at the time of great calamity. A rouge terrorist had infiltrated a certain section of Maple Street. His name was Sheppard Singh, they told him. He might have something to do with the hole in the middle of the road, since the hole went down over a hundred feet, and no natural made sinkhole went as deep as this one. The idea it was actually growing distressed him, greatly.

  Would the citizens blame him for this one also? Perhaps, now, they would realize the constitutional rights were antiquated and unfit to follow—written by men who lived in times that were different from the way his people were now. The technological advances seemed to push them two steps back instead of propelling them forward. The President crumpled the briefing papers into a wadded ball of waste and lobbed it in the wastebasket.

  So the question was, should he or should he not? Were the citizens of Maple St. in such an imminent threat that the culprits had to be blasted away from the sky?

  He picked up the phone connected to the land line. Even now, there were phones in the White House still traveling through wires and not cell waves. The hand phone was big, black and lofty. The president placed two buffered shoes on the desk, just as black, and crossed them.

  “Use everything you got,” Mr. President said. “If by any means you find the threats to be substantial, you guys are cleared.”

  The voice on the other end spoke, wavering. “Do we have the go ahead?”

  “You guys are cleared,” he repeated. “If they don’t come out of their house, we’ll compensate whatever amount of money to those who lost their belongings or innocent life.”

  “Okay, Mr. President,” the voice fizzled back. “Mr. President?”

  “Yes,” he said, sighing. “What is it?”

  “Where do you want us evacuating the people of that area?”

  “Isn’t that your job?”

  “Any suggestions would be beneficial.”

  “A school auditorium? I don’t know. A park? Just do your work. Find a place.”

  “Okay, Mr. President.” The phone hung up. He put the receiver back on its cradle.

  “Never squander a perfectly good crisis,” the President said, clasping his hands. He ruminated about the future, where the next photo shoot locations would be, how he’d appear in front of the camera and live video feed, and what they’d perceive him as. A helper—a Messiah? He needed one more smoking gun to corral the masses. Perhaps, this was it.

  Never let a good crisis go to waste, he thought.

  But the President didn’t know just how bumpy things would become, how bad, how dreadful.

  II

  They called it the Maple Massacre, where ten casualties, and a hundred forty injured civilians, were pulled into waiting ambulances and rushed to the hospital. Looters broke into the small section of the neighborhood, wreaking mayhem and sowing destruction. This is how it happened.

  At eleven forty five am central time a forced evacuation order was issued. The 95th Regime Infantry entered the premise with their automatic rifles drawn. Tanks rolled down the street. Military convoys ejected a platoon of National Guard. The secret service, agents, police officers, and military might of the U.S. government worked in unison to declare the simple message through a loudspeaker.

  RESIDENTS OF MAPLE STREET, BY THE ORDER OF MARTIAL LAW GRANTED BY JURDISCTION OF MAPLE COUNTY, WE HEREBY DECLARE YOU ALL A DANGER TO THE SAFETY OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

  Meredith stopped cleaning the blood with a rag. She couldn’t let her son see her like this or the death scene splattered all over the living room. The carpet would have to go. Just ten minutes earlier, her fiancé, Donald, had arrived to witness the bloodshed and butchery. She had called him. Out of all the people she could call, it was him. He came through the door, panting through his shirt as he tried to block the smell of the insecticide seeping through his cloth. He opened all the windows. What little light, there was, crept inside. He added pressure on the towels to stop the bleeding and used a ripped cloth for bandaging her up. When he checked Hanna’s pulse, he said it was weak. The cell phone in her shorts began to vibrate. It was a call from a woman who claimed she was Hanna’s mother.

  YOU HAVE TO EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY FOR THE SAFETY OF YOUR WELL BEING. THE HOLE IS A DANGER TO EVERYONE AROUND IT.

  When? Sheppard Singh thought, watching the situation unfold on the TV and outside on the third floor balcony. His daughter had left a few minutes ago, down the elevator to the underground parking, with her pink bicycle she had learned to ride a year ago. It was her favorite. He had observed her cycle down the street, past the ever yawning hole, and now waited patiently. She was headed to the convenience store to purchase canned fruits, loaf of bread, and water—the essential to survive for a few weeks, until the craziness settled down. Sheppard walked to the refrigerator, opened it, and rifled through the tomatoes and spoiled cabbage. He never got around to finishing those, even after the turkey sandwiches he made for himself and Tina. He pulled out a potato and parked it in the microwave. He hit five minutes and “start.”

  I REPEAT YOU MUST EVACUATE THE PREMISE WITHIN THE NEXT TWO HOURS….

  Overhead, on the fifth floor, unbeknownst to the apartment residents, two Saudi Arabian nationals, who had lived in the U.S. for five years now, halted the construction of their twin bombs. They had amassed a stash of illegal fertilizer compound and placed it in a pressure cooker with black powder. They spoke Arabic, swearing at each other, that they should’ve set the bombs a week ago when the hole first began to form. They could have ambushed the infidels, and what better way than a group of military personnel flocking to one area with their news camera convoys? Now, look at them, a shit stuck in a pie-hole.

  RESIDENTS OF MAPLE STREET, BY THE ORDER OF MARTIAL LAW GRANTED BY JURDISCTION OF MAPLE COUNTY, WE HEREBY DECLARE YOU ALL A DANGER TO THE SAFETY OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

  Down on the second floor, Hanna’s mother watched the legion of squads assembling like a pack of ants, milling around the hole, like the corn stalks around a crop circle. If these men thought for a second that they’d misplace her in some ghetto stadium without food or water and running restroom, they were wrong. She’d rather die here with her daughters. Where was Hanna?

  RESIDENTS OF MAPLE STREET, BY THE ORDER OF MARTIAL LAW GRANTED BY JURDISCTION OF MAPLE COUNTY, WE HEREBY DECLARE YOU ALL A DANGER TO THE SAFETY OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

  Nancy Robins drove in a truck with the radio o
n and only heard static. She was headed to the hole. It was calling her, drawing her, magnified by the voices calling through the airwaves. She popped the clutch in third gear and rocketed past the red lights. Nancy’s own mother had taken her children in, but something about the hole called to her. So she was going back. Yes, mother knew best.

  III

  Donald Sheridan entered the hallway of the second level apartment. The paint peeled off the plywood of the dry walls. They were an olive lime color, faint greenish that appeared the same shade as kelp in some areas, and, as Donald shuffled down the corridors he realized they were fungus. Mold had seeped in the corners of the cracked plaster. A strange odor emanated in the linings of the burgundy carpet. He wished to God he wasn’t here, but the moral fiber pleaded against it. He had to tell Hanna’s mother what had transpired in his fiancé’s home.

  He stepped in front of the room #208 and knocked. Nobody answered. He knocked again, a soft rap that echoed in the passageway. Many of the tenants’ doors were ajar. Few personal belongings were left abandoned, outside. A child’s shoe and a teddy bear leaned on the end of the wall. Several of the tenants had already evacuated.

  Don lifted his arm to rap on the door, and he noticed the hinges creaking as it shifted and opened halfway. It wasn’t locked. Strange, Don thought, pulse quickening. He stepped inside the gloomy interior.

  “Hello?” he asked, pausing to hear the faint trickle of running water. “Ma’am? Are you in here?”

  Don had spoken to Hanna’s mother with Hanna’s maroon-streaked cell phone, when the mobile handset didn’t stop vibrating. The way the pants pocket bulged, wiggled and squirmed, brought dread in his throat. He picked it up without a second thought.

  “Ma’am, are you still here?” Don said, aloud. She had said she was, he thought. She had given him the address and correct room number. He treaded deeper inside. To his right, a foyer angled to the bedrooms. Straight ahead there was the family den, and further ahead, the balcony overlooked the outside neighborhood. The piano key blinds shifted and rays of light distilled into the room. Passing the kitchen, Don spotted a hulking figure sitting outside. It was the elderly woman, with white frizzy hair, resting in a wheelchair.

  “Ma’am?” he asked, sweeping aside the blinds, and standing behind her. He rested a hand on her shoulder. “Ma’am? Can you hear me?”

  “I can hear more than just you,” she sighed. He was spooked. He recognized that voice from somewhere. It sounded like the girl from the Exorcist. “Do you see the hole?”

  “Yes, I do. There’s been an evacuation order.”

  AGAIN, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY RESPONSE… blared the loudspeaker.

  “You don’t think I can hear? You don’t think I know what’s going on?”

  “I don’t believe your deaf, ma’am.”

  She turned to look at him. To his relief, he saw her face was normal and there was nothing demonic about it.

  Must’ve been the years of smoking or something, he thought.

  “Where’s my Hanna?” she rasped.

  “That’s what I came to you about. Your daughter is in serious condition.”

  “What’s wrong with her? Did she try climbing into that hole?”

  “I believe she’s dead.”

  “Dead?” the old woman laughed. Her wheelchair rocked from side to side. “Why do you believe she’s dead?”

  Don gulped, unable to understand the incompetence of this woman. What the fuck was wrong with her? Didn’t she know what dead meant?

  “She has no pulse,” Don said, moving away from the wheelchair.

  “Oh Hanna, Hanna, Hanna,” she whispered, clucking her tongue. “Tsk… tsk… tsk.”

  “Should I take you to her?”

  “What for? Let God handle it.”

  “But—” he began. “You have to convince the paramedics or cops that my wife had nothing to do with it.”

  “Did she try to kill your wife?”

  “I don’t know what happened in there. That’s what we gotta find out.”

  “Oh, Hanna, Hanna, Hanna,” she murmured again. She turned to look at Don, and this time her face exploded with blood. It spilled over her forehead in gushing rivulets. He was hitting her over the head with the wrench he hid in his pocket.

  What the fuck was wrong with me? Oh my God, what was I doing?

  His hand came down over and over, clutching the steel bar tightly. Blood spattered on his shirt.

  No witnesses, son. There can be no witnesses.

  Hanna’s mother wasn’t dead nor was she dying. She was shrieking with laughter, doubling up belly over. Phlegm came out of her throat like a backwash, splashing and dribbling on her clothes and soiling the fabric.

  “Don’t you know what’s in the hole?” she screeched in a high-pitched crescendo. “Don’t you?”

  “What—what’s in the hole?” he screamed back, pounding her face in. It caved in; one eye staring blearily, damaged and turning bloodshot, her mouth leered from her hag-like face.

  “Don’t you? Don’t you…”

  After it was all said and done, Don dragged the wheelchair into the apartment’s restroom. He turned on the faucet. The water in the bathtub hissed and gurgled, filling up the acrylic interior. As the irrigation rose above ankle height, Don pulled Hanna’s mother off the chair and dumped her inside the tub. Her heavy body rolled and an arm smacked the outer edge. She sank to the bottom as the flood of water rushed near her head, cascading her hair like a limp brush.

  Don shut off the valves and watched the blood sluice with inky texture. The entire bathtub full of water was turning from pink to scarlet red. He tugged the shower curtains closed; he was spared from the view of the corpse in the water.

  He washed himself in the sink, slathering his forearms and face with soap. He rinsed under the splashing current. He stared in the mirror, observing his hollow cheek and gaunt eyes. The man looking back wasn’t him—it couldn’t be him. He wasn’t a monster; he had never killed another human being until now. Was he a monster? No, he wasn’t. No, he fucking wasn’t!

  Then why are you cleaning up after yourself, Don? Only a person with premeditation would do such a thing.

  “Shut up—shut the fuck up,” he growled, staring at his reflection. What had come over him? He slammed his fist into the mirror, shattering it. Jagged shards of aluminum glass tinkered down, cutting his knuckles. He breathed onerously, slapping himself across the face. “Wake up, man, wake the hell up.”

  He checked his pocket and felt the wrench there, matted with stringy, ticklish hair. He pulled the implement out and ran it under the streaming water. The showerhead came on in the bathtub stall.

  Don’s eyes skated to the shower curtains again. The water rushing out of the bathtub spout was suddenly coming out of the overhead nozzle. Had she moved? Was she still alive?

  Don held his breath. He reached out, gripped the yellow vinyl, and drew the curtains open. The light in the restroom slanted downward, lighting up the dead woman, revealing the corpse still reclined in the same position, an arm angled over the tub. He let out a watery breath of air and turned off the faucet.

  The last of the water trickled as his shoulders went limp, head hung, and the tightened muscles in his back and neck loosened. He walked over to the toilet, unbuckled his belt, unzipped his fly, and liberated his bladder.

  A discharge of neon yellow lapped at the bowl. He heard something chilling, something odd the way his urine splashed inside the toilet. It wasn’t making any splashing sounds, no noises at all. He looked down and let out a bloodcurdling scream. He saw the most horrifying image of his life. Within the inner walls of the toilet bowl, a woman’s head stared up at him, mouth moving up and down like a rotor.

  It was the head of Hanna’s mother. Her lips widened in a ghastly grin. She smiling face covered with piss. The unleashed drainage became leashed, and all the fluids trickling out of Don’s urethra shut off.

  He screamed again.

  “Donny boy,” it said in a rough
, guttural rasp. Did you think you could kill me?

  Don flushed the toilet to no avail. The water rose to the brim, spilling out, but the head never disappeared; it stayed submerged, grinning. That’s when he heard the loud report of a gunshot going off, somewhere in the building, above him. Before he passed out, he saw the headless corpse rising out of the tub behind the curtains. She was strangling him—she was…

  IV

  A girl on a pink bicycle with extra safety wheels skirted on the sidewalk. Tina hit a bump as her bicycle bounced up and down. She maintained her balance and breezed past the military trucks and tanks. In her basket, brown paper bags ruffled with the canned goods inside and orange juice. She pedaled up a hill then down an incline.

  She turned at the corner of Westborough and Maple and got off her bike. She inched forward, pretending not to see the soldiers and police officers all congregated in one area, four feet away from the hole, assembling their A team.

  It was dangerous, but she knew they would find her dog. That hole couldn’t be more than couple of feet deep. It was just an illusion that the darkness made it appear there was no end in sight. Of course, there was, and her Isis would be rescued.

  As Tina pedaled her way across the street onto her block and traveled on the sidewalk, a soldier named Pino caught the child from the corner of his eyes.

  “Hey! Girl!” he yelled. His partner named Slim turned his attention to Tina rolling her bike, nonchalantly. They were both part of the SWAT team, both donned in black mask and goggles and tactical gear. Tina rode faster. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

  An army unit in green camouflage clothing got off his convoy and headed toward where Tina had stopped. “Are you lost?” he asked, stooping down and inspecting the bags in the basket. “You can’t be around here. It’s not safe.”

  “What’s safe to you?” Tina asked. “I’m going to my dad.”