by Tim Curran
He tugged the door open again and stood on the precipice, wondering briefly if he should take one more step and add his body to the wreckage thirty stories below.
While he thought, he drank. And breathed in the acrid smoke that was rising from the countless fires that blazed in clusters around the city as far as his eyes could see. Smoke that was beginning to take form—vaguely resembling the dark deity that had briefly acknowledged his existence.
It was almost a relief when his brain registered, at long last, the rising wailing of sirens.
And screams.
From all over the city.
From all over the world.
Countless Summers Ago:
Fifteen minutes after the strange man had left, Blair heard the sound of a helicopter approaching, and, looking out the window, he saw a UH-1 Blackhawk bearing down on the building, and damned if that wasn’t Ed Hollister leaning out its door, his eyes anxiously scanning the terrain. Somehow, he caught sight of Blair in the building’s window and began waving.
Blair waved back, only to freeze in surprise. For one brief second, beyond the approaching bird, the bright daylight sky appeared full of stars. Endless, brilliant, insane, dizzying stars.
He looked away and then back at the sky. The stars were gone. A migraine coming on, maybe. Not surprising after all he had been through.
The vertigo passed quickly, but he knew he never wanted to see anything like that ever again.
Where Were You When the
World Ended?
TIME FLIES
Pete Rawlik
Pandora Peaslee sat up in bed and stared at her lover’s silhouette. He was standing in front of the window, staring out at the Indian Ocean, watching the sun rise. The day was already hot and humid, and sweat glistened on his bare skin. He waved his hand over his head, shooing something out of his thinning hair. Sometime during the night the fruit flies had found their way in and were now busy hovering lazily around a table where a bowl of bananas, pineapples, and some things she didn’t recognize sat slowly ripening into decay. It was December 26th, 2004, they were in Sri Lanka, and Pandora Peaslee had fallen in love with an alien.
His name had once been Vince Delarosa. He had been an underwater welder on an oil rig in the Arctic. He had died when his hard suit had cracked and freezing cold water had slowly leaked in. He had been in the water six hours before they finally pulled his body out and declared him deceased. They put him in a body bag and stored him in the meat locker. Two hours later he was screaming, but he wasn’t Vince Delarosa anymore: the body had been possessed by an alien intelligence, one of a kind that had been known to the CIA for a long time. They were called the Yith, and for all intents and purposes they weren’t much different than humans. They had better control over their emotions, and they understood things about the universe, particularly the nature of time, better than humans did, but they could be reasoned with. The Yith were time-traveling aliens who were open to conversation and negotiations.
This was a good thing, because in the last eighteen months more than four thousand of them had suddenly taken possession of human bodies and become part of the human world. They brought with them knowledge, and sold it to governments and corporations alike. New chemicals, new medicines, new ways to harvest energy, and new ways to treat things that men had long thought incurable. There were treatments for HIV, Down syndrome, and even ALS. This knowledge didn’t come free; it wasn’t cheap—but it wasn’t expensive either. The Yith seemed to understand the economics of things, how to balance price, returns, and market share. It had made them very wealthy, very quickly, and they liked to use that wealth.
Traveling, it seems, is what Yith did best, and when they did it, they did it en masse. In August they had gone to New York City for the Republican National Convention and to tour the Statue of Liberty. In October they had been to Rome and witnessed the signing of the European Constitution. But in November they had suddenly flocked back to their home base off the coast of Australia, and stayed there for two weeks. All staff, diplomats, and attachés had been asked to leave, briefly. The conspiracy nuts went wild.
Pandora’s favorite theory from the wingnuts was that this was an invasion, that the Yith were coming to take over the planet; not through military force but by buying their way in. Of course, the public relations firm that had been hired by the Yith vehemently denied this, which, of course, was their job. They also denied all the other rumors that came down the pike. What they didn’t do was ever explain why exactly the Yith were here. Any time they were pressed on the subject they simply released another piece of miracle technology or threw money at the issue. They were the epitome of vague, masters of the non-committal response.
As a CIA agent, Pandora knew the truth—or at least what the experts said was the truth. Incursions by the Yith had been documented for centuries, and according to files, they were mostly harmless. The expert opinion on the aliens was that they were time-traveling historians with a penchant for unusual events. By unusual, the files meant inexplicable. The Yith concept of what was an important event and what wasn’t seemed to defy human logic. For the most part they shunned war but gravitated towards natural disasters. They recognized that certain things had value, but often left business details to be handled by their human agents. They were in many ways epicurean, enjoying food and drink and even sex, and a variety of other recreational activities. Some were avid readers, others loved music, or film, but very few seemed interested in sculpture or painting. Many were intensely interested in hiking, swimming, running, archery, and skeet. A few even had an interest in larger weaponry. They were a conundrum, but they paid well, so nobody minded that much; those who did were ignored.
And then there was the dead thing. All the historical incursions had been live individuals who had been occupied, sometimes for years, and then returned to normal, or as close to normal as possible. This large an incursion and using the recent dead was unprecedented. When asked about it, the Yith said they thought it was finally time.
Pandora had met Ys, Mister Ys, the thing that had occupied Delarosa, at a security interview. She found him charming, engaging, and even witty. When he had been cleared to enter the general population he surprised everyone by asking her to be his personal bodyguard. He had offered more money than she could refuse. Their first trip had been to the Library of Congress where he read her poems by Edward Derby. They had pizza for dinner, and two bottles of wine from a little shop on the edge of Chinatown. The next day they flew to Portland and had Dungeness crab and local-made craft beers at the Columbia River Brewing Company, before going to the Hollywood Theater to watch a marathon of Universal horror films. He could have watched these anywhere, anytime, but had, as he explained, wanted the theater experience.
Two weeks in, at a blues festival in Palm Beach, Pandora Peaslee had kissed him. He tasted like barbecue sauce, powdered sugar and apple cider. That night they made love. He proved insatiable, and the first man to truly understand and fulfill her own desires. Months later he was still as vigorous and ravenous as ever, and she simply couldn’t get enough of him. Their schedule was often restructured to accommodate these extracurricular activities. Planes were delayed, but it didn’t matter; the Yith paid well and so nobody minded. Given her sudden and fantastic new life, it wasn’t surprising that Pandora had fallen in love. She was suspicious of course, about Ys, about her feelings, about his motives, about his feelings, but there was never any time for all of that. They were living for the moment, as if at any moment it might run out.
He turned to face her and glanced at his watch. Ys, like all the Yith, was obsessed with always knowing what time it was. He looked at her and a smile came across his face. “The Mission has arranged for a breakfast buffet on the roof; we need to be there by 07:00. We’ll be going to the mountains afterwards: wear your cotton field shirt, jeans, hiking boots and that photo tog you bought in Budapest.” He said it with an “H” sound, “Budapesht”.
Ys was an avid hiker, and Pan
dora had gone with him on near-daily adventures, turning her lithe body into an efficient and tight machine. She wasn’t muscle-bound, not by any means, but she was a lot more toned than she had been. She had more stamina now too, which allowed her more energy for a variety of activities. Pandora glanced at the clock, noted the time, did some quick calculations and pulled her lover back into bed. He didn’t resist.
The first thing that Pandora noted as she stepped on to the roof was that, as usual, Ys had overbought, and had bought things that they hadn’t really needed. There were two cubic yards of spring water bottles and dozens of coolers of ice. There was fresh fruit, still in mesh bags, in piles taller than a man, coconuts and bananas mostly. There were half a dozen machetes nearby. Next to that were several large propane grills, and an oversized fuel tank as well. Off in the corner was an iconic blue Porta-Potty. Several wooden crates were stacked about, their contents unknown, but large latches with ominous locks cried out for investigation. As she scanned the party she noted a large tent with solar panels, an oversized computer, a satellite dish, and several large televisions mounted about.
“What is all this?” she questioned her partner.
“Just a party,” he responded without looking at her, “a very special party.”
Her eye caught a strange kinetic sculpture, a huge thing, bigger than a man, comprised of mirrors and crystals and coils and rods of wire that seemed to be moving. She tried to see how it worked, how the various pieces fit together and influenced each other, but whenever she tried to focus on a particular component her eyes grew blurry and her ears began to hurt. She stumbled but Mister Ys caught her.
“Come this way Pandora; the morning excitement seems to have given you a touch of vertigo.”
There was coffee. Not American coffee, not French coffee, not Cuban coffee, but a local blend of robusta concocted, or so legend said, by a British writer who had made his home on the island. It was rich and dark, but not overly bitter, and it lingered on the tongue and brought to mind the dark mysterious riches of the jungle. Pandora savored the bold flavor, then added a hint of cream. All around her, people, Yith, were savoring the dark liquid refreshment. It was then she realized that of the forty or so people at this little soiree only about five were human. The rest were alien minds occupying human bodies, bodies that had at one point been declared dead. She could tell by the bright blue symbol that had been tattooed on the left hand of every Yithian, a swirling symbol of curves that told everyone instantly what this thing before them was. Despite the tropic heat, the morbidity of the whole situation suddenly struck her, and manifested as a sudden chill. She grabbed a mimosa from a tray and tried to chase the feeling away. It was a prejudice deeply rooted in western culture: the dead should stay dead; they should not be hosts for other beings. Strangely enough, many other cultural traditions said just the opposite, and there had been a great debate amongst practitioners of Voodoo and Eastern mysticism about the issue. The Yith had remained silent—didn’t even bother to attend.
At 7:20 one of the Yith, a woman who used the name Miss Trey, stood up and gently tapped her glass with a spoon, calling everyone to attention. As usual, the ever-polite Yith settled into their seats and were instantly still, like well-trained students at a private school. “Associates,” her voice was crisp and clear, “A little over two hours ago the event we have been expecting occurred on time and in the predicted place. To enlighten our few human guests, a magnitude 9.2 earthquake occurred off the coast of Indonesia. As a result the planet is now oscillating at the predicted frequency and the rotational change will be approximately 2.5 seconds.”
All around her the Yith were eerily silent. Their attention was on the speaker, but they took in her news as if they were at an everyday morning brunch listening to a weather report or perhaps the scoring from a local cricket match. Only the five humans, herself included, seemed to take the news with a touch of terror.
“We have pictures coming in from affected areas.” The monitors behind her sputtered to life and revealed scenes of terrifying devastation. Whole cities inundated with rushing water, with cars and small buildings completely submerged. The cameras showed no people. “The casualties will be immense. Indonesia is recorded at 167,000 with 500,000 displaced. Thailand, 8,200 with 7,000 displaced. India, 20,000 with 650,000 displaced. Sri Lanka, 35,000 with 516,000 displaced.”
As those words left her mouth, one of the other humans, a man Pandora knew only as Jones, ran to the edge of the roof and looked out at the beach. When he turned back his face was pale and his eyes frantic. “I can’t see the ocean!” he screamed. “It’s gone, it just rolled away!”
A moment later Pandora heard the screaming. There was an immense rushing sound like a thousand jets all landing at once. The building shook, trembling as something unseen slammed into it. The lights flickered. Pandora stood to try and get to the side, to try and see for herself what was happening, but the building itself was no longer level. She lost her balance and fell to the floor, smacking her head against the bamboo mats that covered the concrete roof. As she lost consciousness she caught sight of one of the monitors. A tag at the bottom of the feed said Indonesia. The waters were receding, and with them came the bodies, a river of bodies mangled and entangled with the debris off some unknown third-world city. A city that looked quite a bit like the one she was in right now.
When she awoke there was an electric hum in the air. She could hear the sound of rushing water, and of debris, flotsam, crashing against itself and the building. In the background she could hear the voices of people, some talking, some screaming, some crying; it was a low murmur, a cacophony of human voices that filled the air in an indistinct drone. But beyond that organic sound of men living and dying, there was the decidedly artificial hum of some sort of machine that made the fillings in her teeth ache. As she stumbled to her feet she lost her balance and put her hand out to steady herself. It was met by a hand from Mister Ys, who put an arm under her shoulder and helped her to a chair. Without being asked he handed her a glass of water and knelt down before her, caressing her leg gently, reassuringly.
“Are you all right, Pandora?”
She looked about the rooftop and was shocked by two unusual sights. The first was that the kinetic sculpture of rods and mirrors was spinning, rotating, twirling at a frenetic pace. It was from this weird machine that the electric hum was emanating. The hum had a frequency, a rhythm that grew as the machine began moving faster, its mirrors and rods dancing about each other in complex elliptical orbits. The second thing that surprised her was that except for Mister Ys and Miss Trey, all of the other Yith were bound with strong rope, hog-tied so that they could not stand or use their arms. These prisoners were seated comfortably and carrying on cordial conversations with each other and the five humans, all of whom remained unbound.
“I’m fine,” she muttered in response to Ys’ question. “What’s going on? Why is everybody tied up?”
Mister Ys sighed. “A measure taken to assure your safety. In a few minutes we will be leaving, and our former host bodies will become extremely dangerous.” He handed her a machete. “You have to prepare yourself. The world is going to change. If you are to survive you’ll need to change with it.”
She felt the weight of the machete in her hand. “What are you talking about?” As she finished her sentence she saw Miss Trey open up a wooden crate to reveal a large cache of guns and ammunition. She looked up at Ys with her eyes full of fear and confusion.
“There has been an earthquake,” reminded Ys, “and a tsunami. Hundreds of thousands are dead. Millions are injured and displaced. Over the next few weeks the priority will be to try and save and relocate a significant percentage of the world’s population. Little to no attention will be paid to the cause of the quake, or its geological impacts. This is a mistake.”
She opened her mouth but Ys shushed her. “The earthquake has cracked the Plateau of Sung; seawater has seeped in. Even now something stirs in the depths of the Earth. Zhar a
nd Lloigor may be dormant, but their spawn, that hideous, amorphous, polyphemic thing that men have no name for, will soon wake—and it heralds the end of the civilization of men. A strange city will rise in the Pacific, and from it shall burst forth the heirs of Xoth to pave the way for their father. The moon shall crack, the poles melt. Darkness will descend on the land.”
Pandora shook her head at the madness of it all. “Old Testament stuff, dogs and cats living together.”
Ys scowled at her levity. “You can survive, at least some of you. We’ve prepared a place in the mountains. There are maps and supplies here and on a few more rooftops where you’ll find allies. It won’t be easy, but you’ve been trained; trained all your life really.”
There was a sudden peal of thunder. Pandora realized that it was the foundation of the building across the way cracking. The people on the other roof began to scream as their hotel began to crumble beneath them. She could hear the waters below as they lapped hungrily at the windows and terraces. She ran to the edge and watched as men fell into the swirling muddy waters and vanished from sight as if they had never existed.
“You’ve survived the tsunami,” Ys whispered in her ear. “The waters will recede quickly. Use the supplies here to survive the next few days. Establish yourselves at the place we’ve prepared. It’s very defensible. You should be able to keep out the anthrophages. A word of advice if I may: ‘headshots’.”
He suddenly had Pandora’s attention. “Anthrophages?”
Ys pursed his lips. “Normally when we occupy the living, the departure process also replants the original mind, but these bodies were dead when we occupied them. There are no minds to replant. That fault in the procedure will create a biochemical error; a protein will misfold, and become self-replicating. You call these things prions. The prions will destroy most of the higher brain functions, leaving the bodies to become less than human, less than animals: they will be driven by only the most basic of needs. They will eat anything that moves, including humans. The process is infectious.”