by J. Thorn
***
Their feet kicked puffs of sand into the air as the wind grabbed the noise and threw it to the wasteland. Samuel felt the hardened asphalt beneath his feet and a sweat breaking out underneath his arms. He looked to his right at Lindsay and he could barely see Tommy on her right. Her hair flew back and her cheeks were red. Samuel had to turn away from her or risk being distracted by her raw beauty. Lindsay was strong, sexual and more than he ever deserved.
Samuel thought back to when she found the bow. He was not sure if it was a reflection, like his knife, Scout, or if it was an artifact of the world before the cloud. He watched her target practice for hours. Lindsay told him she went to summer camp one year and learned archery but had not touched a bow since. For her, the skill came back with a few hours of practice and it wasn’t long before she was landing kill shots on the targets. Lindsay had the bow strung across her back, along with a backpack serving as a quiver. Samuel had no doubt he could protect them if the fight was in close and he felt better knowing Lindsay could handle the approaching threat. The extra one hundred yard buffer could mean the difference between life and death.
He glanced to his right as the buildings housing the threat marched backward into the distance. Samuel sensed a threat up ahead, but his legs propelled him forward. Samuel’s body, at the cellular level, adapted to the reversion. His senses attuned to the difference in perception so a pale yellow flame became the new fire standard for him. Although he despised the suffocating silence, even that was something he thought he could tolerate more than he did when he first arrived in the reversion.
Samuel’s gut told him they were running straight into danger. Before he could stop or say something to Lindsay, he saw the man step over the guardrail, waving his arms in the air.
***
Alex figured he only had a minute or two before Jack would respond. The young man was expecting Alex to obey him out of fear. When Jack saw what Alex was doing, he would most likely come out too. Alex had to make the most of the element of surprise.
He hopped over the guardrail about fifty yards from where Jack was hiding behind the fence. Alex estimated he had anywhere from forty-five to sixty seconds to get to Lindsay before Jack arrived, and then it would be impossible to control the situation. Jack and Samuel might fight, or Samuel might try to protect Lindsay. He fantasized about grabbing Lindsay around the waist and running with her to safety. She was more like a doll than a person in his daydream and his obsession with her blinded him to this fact. Not only was she a person, she was a warrior.
“Stop, stop,” he said waving his arms above his head. “You don’t want to go any further.”
Samuel kept running but Lindsay and the boy stopped. Alex looked at them and then back at Samuel. He was running faster and Alex could see the determination in his face, the focus in his eyes. This man knew the situation was life or death. Alex glanced at Lindsay and Samuel kept coming. He had not planned for this. Alex cursed himself in that moment, frustrated he did not think through the most basic consequences of his actions.
“Lindsay, it’s me,” Alex said. He started running toward her, angling on the highway in hopes of running past Samuel, who was advancing on him. They would most likely collide like two football players on a kickoff, but Alex hoped he could get to Lindsay before Samuel reached him.
“Mr. Brown. Look, it’s me, Mr. Brown.”
Samuel was within ten paces of Alex and he was not sure of his intent. Alex saw the situation like an instant replay in slow motion. Samuel’s face grew tight, as though he were about to scream something at him. His lips tightened and his eyebrows rose. Alex looked past him to where Lindsay and Tommy stood. He saw the boy standing still, his legs spread and his hands at his sides. The boy was not moving and Alex guessed he was not afraid or was prepared for the conflict.
Lindsay was in motion. Alex saw her reach over her right shoulder with her left arm. She retracted it and was now holding a bow. Her right hand came over her left shoulder to grab an arrow.
She remembers me, Alex thought. She’s going to protect me because I’m her soul mate.
He watched as Lindsay placed the arrow on the bow and stuck her left arm out. Her right hand drew the arrow back.
Samuel was close enough to Alex that he could smell him. Alex looked into his face and could not tell what Samuel was thinking. He would probably tackle him, but Alex did not think that would happen. Lindsay would take the man down first.
As Alex turned to look at Lindsay, he saw the bow was pointed in his direction, her right eye hovering behind it. He saw the bow release the arrow as it flew through the air. The arrow traveled five yards to the right of Samuel, who was running at him, until Alex realized its intended target. He saw the arrowhead twisting in mid-air and the impact of it knocked him backward.
Alex felt a cold rush of air followed by an intense burning sensation in his chest. He lost feeling in his extremities and his head bounced off the asphalt as he hit the ground. He closed his eyes and when he opened them, Samuel was standing over him, sweat dripping from his forehead. He tried to speak, but he could not get his mouth to make the words. Alex’s eyes panned down towards his chest where the shaft of the arrow protruded. Lindsay’s arrow pierced his heart, breaking it in more ways than one.
***
“The stupid son of a bitch,” Jack said.
His initial impulse was to leap from his spot and ambush Samuel, but he didn’t. Jack waited a few seconds and was rewarded for his patience. He watched Samuel break into a sprint towards Alex, which is what Jack expected. What he was not prepared for was Lindsay armed with a bow and arrow, as well as the ability to neutralize a target at fifty yards. She had the arrow notched and fired before he realized what was happening. The boy stood there the whole time, smiling.
Jack saw Samuel standing over Alex. Samuel bent down, checked the man’s pulse and stood up again. He motioned for the boy and Lindsay to come forward. Jack waited to see how it would play out and make sure Brown was dead. Lindsay walked with her bow in one hand while the kid skipped down the dividing line of the highway. The three of them surrounded Alex. Lindsay nudged his arm with her boot. Jack saw her fall into Samuel’s arms, her hand still clutching the bow.
He considered leaping out from behind the fence and catching them off guard, until he heard a growl. Jack turned around and saw the white panther. It was pacing back and forth like it was locked inside a cage. Jack climbed off of the drum and walked toward it. As he came closer, the panther became more and more transparent as if the background of the reversion began to bleed through the mythical creature. By the time Jack was five feet away, the white panther disappeared completely, leaving nothing but paw prints in the sand.
Jack kicked at the dirt and thought about the story Alex told him. The descendant of the great chief was dead, rendering the talisman useless. The panther went back to whatever cosmic place it came from.
He ran back to the barrel and jumped up on top, peering over the fence. Alex’s body lay where it fell and everyone else was gone.
***
“It’s not possible,” Lindsay said. She buried her sobs in Samuel’s chest.
“Tell me, Lindsay,” he said.
Tommy stood to the side while Samuel held her. She had not let go of the bow and could not look down at the man she killed with a deadly shot.
“It can’t be him.”
Tommy began to hum a random melody. Samuel shot him a bitter stare but the boy ignored Samuel and increased the volume of his humming.
“Who?” he asked.
“Mr. Brown,” Lindsay said. “That fucking bastard. I’m glad he’s dead. I’m glad I killed him.”
Samuel rubbed her back in an effort to calm her down while his eyes darted back and forth. He was already scanning the buildings, expecting another assailant.
“Let’s go.”
Lindsay pushed away from Samuel and slapped him across the face.
“Don’t fucking tell me what to do. I don�
�t need a man to boss me around.”
Samuel held his hands up in the air while Tommy hummed even louder, smirking at Samuel the entire time.
“Let’s go, Linds. Please. Let’s get out of the open.”
Lindsay stifled another round of sobs and nodded her head at Samuel.
“Right, right,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Lindsay put her hand out to Tommy. He stopped humming and took it.
“Go. We’ll follow you.”
Samuel scanned the fence on the left side of the road near the rear of an old gas station. He thought he saw movement before turning away and leading Tommy and Lindsay over the guardrail and into a place where they would not be so vulnerable.
Chapter 14
Kole swung the bag by his side as he walked next to Shallna down the center of the road leading into the heart of the city. Shallna held Kole’s staff while Kole carried the orb. The bag was the same weight and shape as a bowling ball and Kole giggled to himself, imagining someone watching them. He was with the Grim Reaper, while holding a bowling ball, walking down the street toward a city destroyed by an unseen apocalypse.
Fucking hilarious.
Shallna remained quiet since Kole strolled from the building with the bowling ball bag in hand. He did not ask Kole what happened inside and did not seem to care. He turned to walk and Kole followed.
They walked past the remains of automobiles and piles of refuse. While the outskirts of the city were empty, the closer they came to the center the more destruction they saw. Sand buried much, but the artifacts that remained told a grim story. Kole looked closely at an upside-down car with the rear end dangling over top of the guardrail. He could not determine the make or model. It looked like a vehicle from the old Soviet Union complete with Cyrillic letters. The hood and trunk were gone, leaving the engine block naked and exposed to the elements. Kole stared at the driver’s seat and could almost see a man on his way to work when an unseen force ripped him from the road and tossed the car to the side as if it were nothing but cardboard.
As he moved closer, Kole caught a faint whiff of motor oil and burned brakes. He saw more vehicles like this, some lodged into the front of buildings and others stacked in random heaps of metal. The dark green aura and advancing cloud put a menacing glow on the vehicles, making them look like dead dragons from another realm. Poles strung with wire and traffic lights angled out from the city as if knocked back by a tremendous force. Sheet metal, the remains of old signs, stuck out from beneath windblown sheaves of sand littering the road. Kole could see remnants of paint on them but none had decipherable writing, mostly odd and archaic symbols. The skyscrapers on each side of the road in the heart of the city formed a steep canyon. The last natural light out of the east filled the space like a celestial doorway. The black birds circled above and Kole felt a chill run up his spine.
“I don’t see one that’s taller than the rest,” he said to Shallna.
“We will know the one when we reach the base.”
“Huh?” Kole asked. “It’s not a mountain, it’s a building.”
“We will know,” Shallna said again.
Ahead of the cloud and coming out of the west, a low fog crept up behind them. It settled at their ankles and curled up to their knees. The moist, cold air bit at Kole’s arms and his finger joints began to ache.
“My grandma used to say she could feel the rain coming.”
“Do you?” Shallna asked.
“Yes. I feel achy, tired. My joints are hurting.”
“Descension,” Shallna said.
“Fantastic.”
They continued down the highway as the fog crept up to their waist, covering the highway like dirty cotton.
“This orb.”
“Yes?”
“It can do some wicked shit.”
Shallna did not reply, unsure as to whether it was a comment or a question.
“I met myself in the Penn Monroe, but you already knew that, didn’t you?” Kole said.
“I did.”
“He told me… I told me… I found out I’m pushing a rock up a hill. I’m not really supposed to be happy with the end result. I need to take joy in the act itself. I need to use the orb to destroy and gain pleasure in that. Doing so will earn me my release.”
“It appears to be so,” Shallna said.
“So I’m gonna fuck some shit up with this bowling ball. But what about you, Grim? How do you get out of this shithole? What happens to your gig if I go away?”
Shallna did not break stride. His cape floated on top of the fog.
“If you succeed, I succeed, master.”
“Stop with the company line bullshit. How do you get out?”
“As I said, your success is mine. I have run rampant throughout the multiverse in many forms. I have come to the reversion as a Gaki and now serve its lord. When that duty has been fulfilled, I will know the eternal freedom that all deserve. The Great Cycle will release me from duty and let me go to a better place.”
“Like Florida? Florida sucks but it’s definitely a better place than this. Not one fucking Starbucks here. What the hell is up with that?”
Shallna kept walking.
“Sorry. That was insensitive of me. Even the specter of death, the Grim Reaper, deserves a little empathy,” Kole said with a chuckle. “I think they have a card for ‘eternal freedom’ at the Hallmark store next to the wedding and anniversary section.”
Kole’s chuckle blossomed into riotous laughter. “Congratulations on your eternal freedom, from all of us,” he said.
The wind increased and the fog swirled about them.
“Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Grimmy. You demons from hell are so sensitive.”
“You must test its powers,” Shallna said.
“Back to business. Got it,” Kole said. “How should I test the powers of the bowling ball? Are there zombie pins for me to knock down?”
The question brought another round of laughter that Shallna waited out.
“The young man. His interference could have unintended consequences.”
“Jack? You mean that kid?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where he is right now?” Kole asked.
“I do not but the orb will locate him. And then he must be eliminated.”
“Death bowling,” Kole said. He held the bag up and gave Shallna the two-fingered sign of the devil. “Fiery strikes of hell.”
Shallna walked as Kole continued to laugh at his own jokes.
***
Jack shivered as the cloud moved across the sky. He was not cold and yet his body began to shake. Alex was dead, the panther was gone and his plan to ambush Samuel was ruined. Jack picked through the refuse inside the gas station. He found the shaft of a screwdriver and a coin worn smooth, neither of which made great weapons.
“Fuck,” he said.
Lindsay and Samuel could be anywhere. He had no idea whether or not they knew about him. From what he saw out on the road, Jack did not think Alex told them anything. Lindsay put an arrow through his heart before he could do more than identify himself.
All the better, he thought. Alex was too old for her.
Jack had a hard time letting go of Lindsay even after they fed him to the spider crabs in the last reversion. He still felt something for her. Jack had that problem in his real life too. He came on too strong and scared the ladies. They did not understand how much he cared. Jack was skinny and a bit of a nerd, but he knew what women wanted and he would deliver, if he only had the chance.
The young man slid the shaft of the screwdriver into his belt and he tossed the coin into the corner of the room, where it landed in the sand with a soft puff. He would need more than a Phillips head to take down Samuel and win Lindsay’s attention. He fingered the talisman and laughed. Sure, the white panther came to them, but so what? The animal split the horde for him and Alex but that mattered little now. Jack needed a way to get to Samuel, some approach that would surprise him.
Jack turned his head as the man came from behind the counter of the convenience store attached to the gas station.
“But you get what you need,” Kole said.
“I hate the Beatles,” Jack said.
“That was the Stones, fucknut. I get the feeling you need something right now.”
***
Kole held a chunk of unidentified meat over the fire. He was able to ignite a pile of papers and create enough heat to singe the edges while the interior of the flesh was slimy and cold. Jack took one bite and spit.
“That’s terrible. Did you fucking skin the horde for that meat?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I did,” Kole said.
Jack vomited on himself spewing saliva and hunks of diseased flesh down the front of his shirt. He gagged two more times before taking a swig of cloudy water from a plastic bottle.
“The water?” he asked, between gulps.
“Fine,” Kole said. “No zombie piss or anything. Just good old puddle water from the reversion.”
Jack continued drinking. He believed anything would be better than tasting zombie meat again.
“You promised me Lindsay.”
“I did,” Kole said. “I certainly did.”
“Well?” Jack asked. He raised his hands to emphasize the point.
“I didn’t say when. You should be more patient.”
Jack looked out the front door of the gas station where Shallna stood next to the guardrail facing downtown. His tattered robe danced upon the asphalt.
“What the hell is that thing?”
“Shallna?” Kole said. “That’s my own Grim Reaper. Pretty cool, huh?”
Jack sighed and rolled his eyes. “You want me to do something still.”
“Damn, Jack. You sure are a sharp fella. Yes, I guess you could say that’s what I want.”