by Alex Fedyr
Seeing those nails brought Kalei’s own childhood trauma to the forefront and sent a renewed wave of rage coursing through her body. She squeezed the trigger with a satisfied smirk.
His head snapped back and his body tumbled off the moving car, into the clawing arms of the dirt-smeared men and women who climbed up after him. Kalei took them out one by one until the slide on her gun slid back and stayed there. Out of ammo. But it didn’t matter; only one Estranged remained. The teenage girl with her heavy, smeared makeup and her bedraggled brown ponytail didn’t stand a chance as Fenn switched into first gear and charged down the road. She lost her grip on the spoiler and fell away, hitting the pavement and rolling in a swirl of torn sweatshirt and jeans.
Kalei looked up as the girl’s body slipped into the distance and spotted three more figures pulling into the road on street-class motorcycles. Seriously? She returned to her seat and continued to watch the bikers in the side mirror. She knew they were Estranged because all three bikers were helmetless, shirtless (even the one woman), and they were coming straight at the car with the kind of hell-bent determination that could only be from an Estranged after a high. It didn’t make any sense. Why were there so many? She pushed the questions from her mind and focused on what mattered. Opening the glove box, she stuck her hand inside where she found napkins and registry paperwork and tire gauges, but— “Honey, where’s my revolver?”
“I didn’t want Teia to find it, so I put it back in the gun safe.”
Kalei took a deep breath and pushed her palm into her forehead. Now was not the time to argue. This wasn’t the end of the world. Instead, she stuck her hand back into the glove box and started rummaging through the papers. Once more, she came up empty handed. “Where are my spare magazines?”
“In the house with the rest of the ammo. I cleaned the car last week, remember?”
Kalei threw her empty gun at the dashboard and yelled, “Well, it’s a damn good thing I don’t have any bullets, because I could shoot you!” Kalei regretted those words the instant she heard them come out of her mouth. The whimpering in the back seat grew a little louder as Fenn grew silent. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that...” But it was no use. The damage was done.
She turned around and checked on the bikes. The Estranged were right on top of them now, just a couple feet behind the spoiler. No ammo, no weapons; just a car holding what little family she had left. She looked back at the girls and her heart broke as she watched the tears slide down their small faces. Kas protectively clutched her little sister as Teia quivered.
Then heartbreak turned to determination as Kalei steeled herself for the plan forming in her mind. Fenn wouldn’t like it, but it was the only way she could keep these girls safe. She said, “Kas, Teia, Uncle Fenn and I love you very, very much. You’ll get to see your daddy soon; Uncle will take care of you.” Kalei’s emotions threatened to overwhelm her, but she clenched her jaw and stuffed them back. “Everything is going to be okay, alright?”
Kas nodded, grimacing as she squeezed a couple more tears out of her watery eyes.
Kalei turned to Fenn. “Whatever happens, I need you to get them out of here.”
“What are you talking abou—”
“I need you to keep the girls safe— that’s all that matters right now. Take them to the police station, call your brother, tell him what’s happened. I’ll meet you there.”
“Kalei, I—”
“...I love you.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek and saw his anger soften as his confusion deepened.
Balancing his attention between Kalei and the road, Fenn said, “I love you too. But, honey, I don’t understand what you are talking about. You and I are in this car together. You don’t have to tell me all this. We’re going to the police station, we’re going to call Qain—”
By this time, one of the motorcycles had pulled even with the car. It pained Kalei to hear Fenn say we when she knew she would be abandoning him. She mouthed one more “I love you” before opening the door and slamming it into the nearest bike. The motorcyclist wobbled and quickly lost control, his machine crashing into the blur of pavement. Without looking back, she jumped out after it.
CHAPTER TWO
Darkness
A practiced tuck-and-roll protected Kalei from the worst of the fall. That, and the very healthy bush she crashed into. For once, Kalei appreciated her neighborhood’s obsessive attention to gardening. The Estranged, on the other hand, was worse off. His neck and head lay at an awkward angle to the rest of his body, and the front of his skull had caved in. The government has helmet laws for a reason, Kalei mused grimly.
She looked back over her shoulder to see the blue car disappear as it took a right at the end of the street. She was relieved. Her biggest concern was that Fenn would try to come back and talk her out of it while the remaining Estranged closed in on them, but he had listened to her. Only for the girls’ sake, she was sure.
The next part was a gamble. The two bikes; would they turn back or would they continue their pursuit? Kalei wasn’t sure she could catch up to them if they continued after Fenn, but she told herself that her familiarity with the neighborhood would allow her to cut them off at another intersection. Fortunately, she didn’t have to test that theory because the Estranged dropped their speed for a moment and doubled back for her. Typical predators. She was hoping they would go after the easier target. Now it was just a matter of eluding them.
Kalei sprinted over to the downed bike and extracted it from the dead man’s grasp, carefully avoiding his exposed skin. He might be dead, but she was still wary of him. Once the bike was erect, Kalei threw her leg over it, kicked it into life, and took off just as the others started to catch speed again. The thrill of speeding across the pavement on two wheels poured a new surge of adrenaline into her veins along with a vibrant sense of optimism. Not only were Fenn and the girls going to be all right, but this was going to be fun.
Blondie was still MIA, though. He wasn’t standing in any yards, he wasn’t riding either of the bikes, he wasn’t following in any car. His absence didn’t sit well with Kalei, but she pushed it out of her mind as she tried to put more distance between herself and the last two Estranged.
She twisted the throttle, but instead of gaining power, she started losing it. The bike began to slowly die beneath her. Her optimism quickly faded to dread as she looked down and saw that the entire left side was demolished. The plastic and metal framework was so twisted and torn that she was surprised the bike was still functional. In fact, she was surprised the thing hadn’t exploded beneath her the second she fired it up. When she had made her plan, she didn’t count on the bike taking so much damage in the crash.
Fuck! She looked back at the other bikers and assessed the situation. They were gaining on her. Not surprising. Side by side, elbow to elbow, they rode at her. Kalei looked forward, formulated a new plan, and prepared to act.
Without warning, she dropped one foot to the ground, whipped the motorcycle around, and released it. The momentum pushed Kalei off balance, causing her to fall backwards onto her butt, yet the new plan had worked. The bike crashed into the ground and skidded across the pavement, straight for the Estranged. With no time to react, the bikers slammed into it and were thrown violently into the air. Kalei first watched with triumph, then alarm, then horror as one of the bodies flew right at her. She scrambled backwards as fast as she could, then dropped onto her back as she realized the Estranged woman’s momentum was going to carry her over Kalei, not into her. But it wasn’t enough. The woman’s bare, flailing arm brushed against Kalei’s exposed knee as she sailed over her.
Pain ripped through every cell in Kalei’s body.
***
The light at the corner of the television blinked one, two... five times, then the black screen came to life with light and sound.
A fair-haired woman sat before a fake cityscape backdrop as she continued in mid-sentence, “...news coverage on this seventeenth anniversary of E-day. We
just spoke with news correspondent Jim Neilly from the scene of the attack, and now we have Professor Laney Daskalov of the Alundai University joining us to help answer the question: what exactly does this all mean to the people of Celan? Professor Daskalov, thank you for joining us.”
The screen split so the newscaster’s face could share the screen with another, dark-haired woman. This newcomer occupied some sort of office, with shelves full of books and unidentifiable knick-knacks filling the wall behind her. The Professor smiled and replied, “Thank you for having me.”
“So, Professor, let me ask you: now that we have witnessed what seems to be the first organized attack from the Estranged since E-day, what kind of implications does this have for further attacks, and how can those at home protect themselves?”
“These are questions I have been asked many times, even before this latest attack. As far as implications, I expect we will see a lot more activity from the Estranged. We now know they have the capacity to be organized, and this makes them even more dangerous than before. So in light of this, my advice to your viewers is this: Lock your doors. Don’t let anyone in without checking their nails first. This includes your friends, your cousins, even your own children, because to be perfectly honest, anyone can become an Estranged. I cannot emphasize this enough: You cannot know who to trust until you have seen their nails.”
Joanne-the-Newscaster replied in a light, incredulous tone, “You’re saying we can’t even trust our own children?”
Professor Daskalov answered, “That’s right, not even our children. Because, you see, the second someone is touched by an Estranged, they are gone. Whether they die or not, they are gone. The few people who survive to become Estranged are no longer the same innocent friends we once knew. Sweet little Suzy down the road will no longer be smiles and sunshine once her nails are black. If the Estranged-Suzy sees you, she will do everything in her power to kill you.”
Joanne leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “What causes that?”
The Professor hesitated briefly. “What? The change, or the need to kill?”
Joanne paused, then shrugged. “Both, I suppose.”
“Unfortunately, what little we know about Estranged is very complicated. We do not know whether it is a disease, a parasite, or something else entirely, but we do know for certain that it targets the limbic system in the brain. In layman’s terms, the presiding theory is that every Estranged is occupied by something we call the darkness. Now, we don’t know why, but we believe that the darkness, in a sense, embodies and enhances the negative emotion that resides within us: sadness, anger, destructive cravings... So when an Estranged touches another person, their darkness seeks out these emotional centers within the other body and immediately floods these areas of the brain. If the victim cannot withstand that initial rush, they die. But if they survive, they begin generating darkness on their own and become Estranged themselves. For the survivors, all thoughts of family, food— everything falls away in the face of a single-minded drive to obtain that limbic excitation they received when they were converted. In other words, a high.”
“A high?”
“Yes. It was discovered in a recent test that when an Estranged touches another person— Estranged or Untouched; doesn’t matter— they receive a high that we have found to be well beyond anything modern drugs have achieved. This is what the Estranged are after when they attack the community. To put it in perspective, several years ago, a pair of scientists named Olds and Milner performed an experiment in which rats received a controlled electrical impulse to excite the limbic system in the brain. If you recall, this is the same system that is targeted by the darkness in Estranged. Every time the rats pressed a lever, they received this limbic excitation, and it was found that the rats began ignoring food and sleep in preference to pressing this lever until, eventually, they died of exhaustion. However, the dose these rats received is minimal compared to the excitation Estranged are receiving from the darkness.”
Joanne’s hand was over her heart as fear and concern lightly played across her face. “It’s a good thing we have SWORDE. Actually— does SWORDE really quarantine Estranged? Or do they—” Joanne stopped herself and looked at somebody behind the camera.
Daskalov finished the sentence for her. “Do they kill them? Honestly, I can’t say what SWORDE does with the Estranged. As far as I know, nobody has definitively seen an Estranged leave Downtown, for good reason, of course. Perhaps that should be your next FactLine story? ‘The Mystery behind the Fence.’” Daskalov laughed at her own cleverness.
Joanne responded with a laugh of her own and replied, “Perhaps you’re right, but we’ll leave it to our editors to decide. Well, thank you for joining us, Professor. Coming up...”
A hand closed around the remote and picked it up from the worn, wooden desk. An old fountain pen rolled to the side as it was knocked away by the rising controller. The thumb— with a black flower swaying gently within its nail— pressed the power button and the television went silent.
***
Kalei woke up facing an abandoned city street. She only glimpsed the cracked grey pavement and heard the eerie silence before a deep, piercing dagger drove into her heart, forcing her to close her eyes against the pain. The sting was so acutely emotional that it felt alarmingly physical, catching her unaware and making it painful to breathe, making it impossible to even think. She bent forward and clutched at her chest, clenching her jaw as she tried to shut it out.
Gritting her teeth, Kalei forced herself to take a few deep breaths. One, two, three breaths and she started to regain her senses. Then it all came back. The attack, the car, Fenn, the girls— Her eyes flew open and she heard herself call out, “Fenn!”
Her voice echoed off the pavement and bounced off the abandoned structures around her, but she heard no response. It didn’t make any sense. She didn’t recognize any of these buildings. The cracked pavement, the abandoned, trashed cars on the sidewalk...
She looked up, and up, and up as her eyes followed the lines of the towering, crumbling skyscrapers. A soft breeze brought her the scent of salt and dead fish. Between the buildings, she could see part of the Alundai mountain range watching from the west. Downtown. I must be Downtown. The end of Celan’s peninsula used to be the center of it all. Now it was cordoned off and— like the frostbitten tip of a toe— left to die. This was Estranged territory.
Kalei’s head began to spin, and a growing headache threatened to rip her skull apart. None of this was right. How did she get here? What had happened to Fenn and the girls? What was she doing Downtown? Kalei pressed the heel of her left palm into her forehead, and then placed her right hand on the pavement as she prepared to push herself off the ground. Through the crack in her half-opened eyes, she saw black fingernails. Her own fingernails were all black. Kalei’s mind locked. Everything within her froze as a fresh wave of daggers ripped through her lungs and down through her gut. Again, she doubled over, unable to breathe. Her thoughts slowly began to turn as she hunched there, choking for air. I’m... I can’t be...
Kalei’s vision blurred. She fell forward and caught herself with both hands. Both black-nailed hands. The coughs became more violent as her lungs began to function again. She didn’t know how long she sat like that, her entire body shaking as cough after cough ripped through her throat, but eventually, the coughs subsided and she began to breathe normally again. She listened, suddenly exhausted, to the sound of her own breathing. Everything seemed so surreal. It felt like there was some... thing inside of her, moving through her body like a watery serpent bent on destruction. And even as it moved, she felt more of its body pouring out of a chasm in her chest, spreading and expanded as it lay claim on her body. Perhaps this is just a really vivid nightmare, she assured herself. Then, in the renewed silence, she heard the sound of a shoe scuffing against pavement.
Kalei sat up abruptly and pulled away from the source, pressing her back into the brick wall of the nearby building. A few feet away fro
m her stood a young man with dark hair. Her eyes didn’t linger on the figure for too long; she looked past him to see if there was anyone else. She suddenly felt very exposed; she felt that any minute, a group of Estranged could attack her, and here she was on the sidewalk, totally unaware and unprepared. She checked the street, she checked the sidewalk on her right, she peered warily into the shadows of the abandoned cars, but she didn’t see anyone else. Kalei heard a shout in the distance, but it was too far away to be related to her and the new visitor. They were alone. She wasn’t sure if the revelation made her relieved or more anxious.
A renewed wave of pain brought Kalei’s attention back to her condition. It rolled through her like a flood of angry lava, pouring through her veins and melting through every inch of her body. Her head bowed and her eyes locked on the pavement as she tried to regain control. The stranger was still there, probably some curious bystander who had found something new to look at. She managed to rasp, “Get the hell away from me.”
She heard the young man take another step forward. His voice carried a certain authority when he said, “Tell me what happened.”