Enter the Apocalypse

by Gondolfi, Thomas

  A little laugh escaped Brett's lips. "Well, let's hope I'm as wise as you say, Señora. I expect we're going to be facing many days where wisdom is needed."

  Brett turned to leave again, but she said, "Capitán."

  "Yes?"

  "It's not señora...it's señorita."

  He / She / They

  John Walters

  Editor: First contact is a perilous time, even if you don’t know it’s happening.

  He

  You brought this upon yourselves, you know. We meant you no harm. Even when we realized your malevolent intent, we did not try to retaliate. Instead, we planned an evacuation.

  I was sleeping in a large empty room in a warehouse with my second and third offspring and a few other visitors when your raiding party of eleven or twelve burst in on us. Some brandished weapons, some had chains, and some had multi-frequency flashlights whose beams swept back and forth.

  I knew you still couldn't see us, but perhaps you caught an occasional flicker or glimmer as we attempted to avoid capture. Those of you with chains groped your way forward as we leapt for the rear door, the windows, the skylight.

  We were on our way home. We were one of the last teams. We had never attempted to hurt any of you.

  I had grabbed my third offspring and scurried out the skylight onto the roof. I had expected that my second followed close behind. Instead, I heard her cry out. I looked back. One of you had found her and shackled her ankle; others pulled on the chain from the doorway and dragged her out of the room.

  Handing my third to a trusted friend, I jumped back down through the skylight to attempt a rescue.

  When we first arrived, you were completely unaware of us. Not wanting to startle you, we left our ships in clandestine locations and approached on foot. Imagine our surprise when we realized you were oblivious to our presence. If some of you caught a glimpse or sensed a visual anomaly, it dissipated when we shifted our position.

  We discovered that the cells of our skins contained infinitesimal crystalline plates that passed the light from your sun through us instead of reflecting it. We managed to refine the

  effect to remove even the occasional glimmer and render ourselves completely invisible in your visual frequencies.

  Although our plan had been to establish contact, we studied your species instead. We discovered an underlying fear and tendency to react violently against the unknown that caused us to have second thoughts. Instead, we decided to merely observe, at least initially.

  We found your species exceedingly interesting. The number of observers grew rapidly from a few scouts to several hundred biologists, psychologists, sociologists, students, families of tourists.

  That's all I was. A tourist.

  It was such a thrill to walk among you and watch you live your lives. We would always keep a safe distance, not only out of respect but because though you couldn't see us, you would be able to sense us by touch if you stumbled into us. We limited our numbers and had strict rules to prevent such incidents. When they happened, as they inevitably did, we evacuated the area and you concocted no end of elaborate explanations and justifications to account for the close encounters.

  We lived among you for years observing, learning, recording. Those few of you who suspected we were around created philosophical, metaphysical, and theological theories to account for us. The rest of you had no idea.

  Until...

  We don't really know how or why the shift in awareness came. Perhaps it had to do with a change in your sun's light frequencies. Perhaps it had to do with the increasing amount of pollutants in the atmosphere. Perhaps we had been with you so long that you developed increased sensitivity. Whatever the cause, more and more of you seemed to know we were there. Not all of you, but enough to concern us. You would become suddenly startled, and look in our direction. You would reach out your hands and grope blindly for us. You would swing or shoot weapons, hoping to hit something.

  At first the reactions were individual; you hardly dared talk about us among yourselves.

  Later, however, the apprehension became societal. Your politicians and law enforcement officials counseled together. They enlisted scientists to study the phenomenon. Nothing was announced officially; it was all clandestine, hush-hush. Not only did you want to avoid a panic, but you also didn't want to be labeled fools if your theories proved unfounded.

  And so the hunt began.

  As did our evacuation.

  As I mentioned, we almost made it. Why did you have to become so aggressive? Why didn't you let us go? Once the breach was made, once my offspring was kidnapped, I had no choice.

  She

  In this age of the Internet, rumors fly by continually, in news reports, social media, chat rooms, forums, videos, comments, blogs, emails. What's a reporter to make of it all? Rules have changed, and they continue to change constantly, relentlessly, inexorably. I have no choice but to follow my instincts during this era when anyone can post almost anything to be seen by the world's billions. And my instincts are fairly good. I have a following of tens of thousands who anticipate my posts. Not a lot of people, I realize, but many of them pass the word on, and the ones they communicate with pass it still further, and so on.

  I had been following the invisible people rumor for weeks and had been met with derision, suspicion, scorn, fear, self-righteousness, pomposity, arrogance, ridicule, puzzlement: a complex gamut of emotional reactions.

  Only a few days before I had met with a priest who tried to convince me that demons walked the Earth stalking unrepentant sinners.

  Absurd as it sounded, it was difficult to discount the demon story.

  After all, there were the murders.

  All the bodies had been flayed. Autopsies revealed that through most of it the victims had been still alive.

  Who, if not demons, could have done such a thing?

  Perhaps demonic humans.

  And yet there were the reports of the invisible ones...

  Nothing definite, really; after all, how can you describe someone or something you can't see? But hints and glimpses, ominous forebodings. Have you ever had the feeling that though you appear to be alone, you know you're not?

  As the story congealed around these rumors and half-truths, I began to track down any information I could on the murder victims. And patterns emerged.

  So there I was, on a dark, dreary day, the rain increasing in intensity, entering a red brick high-rise on a block full of red brick high rises, on the next leg of my investigative journey.

  The interior hallways and staircases were oppressive, dimly lit, suffused with paranoia and the threat of violence. I could still hear the rain outside, a faint pounding sound as if chaos were trying to enter. The elevator didn't work. I trudged up three flights of stairs in constant dread that I'd meet a resident who took a dim view of intruders, of those entering their domicile without an invitation.

  I knocked on the appropriate door, paused, and then knocked again. A part of me gibbered that I should feign relief that no one answered and get the hell out of there. That always happened, though, and I'd been at this long enough to have gotten pretty good at suppressing my own cowardly impulses.

  I heard feet shuffling toward the door.

  "Who is it?"

  "My name is Michelina Sparrow. I need to talk to you."

  "Who?"

  "Michelina Sparrow. My friends call me Miki."

  "I don't know you."

  "I know you don't. But I know who you are. Your name is Ian Brady. I've come because of what happened two weeks ago. The night of the twelfth. And afterwards."

  A pause, then, "I have nothing to say. Do you have a warrant?"

  "I'm not with the police."

  "You're not with the agency either. So I repeat. Who are you?"

  "I'm a journalist. I've been investigating the killings on my own. I might be able to help you."

  "No one can help me."

  Another pause. Then I heard bolts being drawn back and the cl
ick of a latch.

  "Come in."

  He was tall, swarthy, unshaven, dressed in olive-green sweatpants and a white sleeveless tee-shirt flecked with food stains. He looked like someone who had been frightened so long that he had given up on life. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not usually like this. Have a seat." He motioned to a lumpy beige couch. "You want something to drink? I have beer, whiskey, maybe some soda."

  "Just water, please."

  "Sure. Just a sec."

  I sat on the edge of the couch cushion and looked around. The apartment was unkempt and smelled of stale food, sweat, and dust.

  After handing me the glass, he sat down in a nearby armchair, staring at me with wide eyes, breathing heavily.

  I decided I'd taken the wrong approach. "You know, I could actually use a little whiskey on the rocks, if it's not too much trouble."

  "Sure, sure."

  He returned with two glasses. His was fuller than mine, and as soon as he sat back down he polished off half of it.

  I took a sip and tried to avoid grimacing. Nasty stuff.

  "So you're in the reserves, Ian."

  "That's right."

  "And you were on duty that night."

  "I'm not sure I'm supposed to talk about this."

  "But it scares you. I can see that. And I know most of it anyway."

  He took another gulp and said, "It wasn't my regular weekend. They called us up for special detail. There was a dozen of us, including officers. We took a couple of Humvees. They didn't tell us anything until we were on our way. Then they said our mission was to..." He stopped, as if undecided whether he should divulge this piece of information.

  I took a chance and threw out a speculation. "To capture."

  "That's right. I had heard rumors of invisible creatures like everyone else, but I always dismissed them as science fiction fantasies. And my superior officer told us all about how we wouldn't be able to see them, how we were to feel around for them and shackle them if we came across any. I was...incredulous. I guess that's the word for it."

  The dark bags under his eyes, the miserable state of the apartment, and his unkempt appearance told me just how much the memory of that night had obviously been chewing him up inside. He was more than frightened; he was terrified. And mixed with the terror was an undertone of something else. Guilt?

  He went to the kitchen, refilled his glass, returned.

  "Tell me again why I should be talking to you."

  "Something dangerous is out there," I said. "We have to find out what it is."

  "I know what it is," he said. "It's a demon."

  "I don't believe in demons."

  "You weren't there. We had these flashlights that were supposed to be able to detect them, but they didn't work. We burst into this huge room, and it appeared to be empty. But it wasn't. I knew it; everyone knew it. The rest of my team was as scared as I was. But we had orders to capture, not kill, so we didn't fire. We scurried forward, feeling our way, trailing chains behind us. I almost shit my pants when I grabbed what felt like a leg. I held on, reached behind me for the cuff, and managed to secure it on the thing's appendage. The creature, whatever it was, struggled and let out a high-pitched screech, almost like a wail. Others in the unit pulled it out of the room. Then all hell broke loose."

  He took another gulp.

  "Something entered the room. I think it jumped down from the skylight. It had claws or weapons or something, because it started to rip us apart. It took Terry's right arm clean off and then slashed his throat. It went for Dexter next and tore him open belly to neck. The rest of us cleared out of the room and locked the door. We made it back to the Humvees and took off. That thing we'd captured...We couldn't see it and it was thrashing about and we thought it was going to attack us like that other in the warehouse had, so a few of us hit it, hard, with our rifle butts. It didn't move after that."

  "Where did you take it?"

  He studied me with a vulnerable, frightened expression. "Are you going to publish this?"

  "Not if you don't want me to. I promise."

  "You can't. Not this part. There's a facility. Some people in lab coats were waiting for it. They had cells, more like cages really, but when they realized it wasn't moving they strapped it to some sort of operating table and bent over it with instruments. Some of us hung around to watch but they were too intent on what they were doing to notice. They poked and prodded and measured, and they found no pulse, no heartbeat, no breath. They came to the conclusion that it was dead."

  Another long gulp.

  "Right away they decided to do an autopsy, while it was still fresh. Among other things, they wanted to find out whether it was visible inside, whether there was something in the skin that made it invisible. One of them grabbed a scalpel, felt its torso, and made an incision."

  Ian slowly and deliberately put his glass down on the coffee table and looked me in the eyes.

  "It screamed. Some sort of orange liquid spurted from the wound. It sat up. All we could see was the wound and the bright blood-like stuff coming out of it. The thing must have been flailing its arms, though, because two of the scientists cried out in pain from slashes on their faces and shoulders. One of my teammates fired a few shots. More orange blood burst from it and it fell to the floor. This time it really was dead. The scientists began to strip its skin off to analyze the invisibility factor. That's all I know."

  "Except that now your teammates have been dying one by one."

  "Yes. That's right."

  "And I've heard no reports that anyone else has been harmed. Whatever it is, it's targeting the team that captured that creature."

  "I know."

  "Are the authorities doing anything about it? Are they protecting you? Have they offered you security?"

  "They called us in two nights ago. It was optional. I didn't go. I can take care of myself." He opened a drawer under the coffee table, pulled out a pistol, and set it next to his glass. I noticed that his hand trembled slightly.

  "How can you shoot it if you can't see it?" I said quietly.

  He didn't answer.

  And then my own subconscious memories of paranoia about ogres, boogiemen, vampires, werewolves, and other terrors of the night began to surface. It's amazing how similar nightmarish myths and legends are in almost every culture, in the recesses of every mind. I wondered if I had made a mistake in coming there, if I had unwittingly exposed myself to the line of fire. Whoever or whatever the murderer was, it was going after the men in Ian's unit, and it was very likely that Ian might be next.

  I took a solid slug of my whiskey. Diluted though it was by the melted ice, tears came to my eyes, and I gasped and coughed.

  Ian smiled mirthlessly. "Want me to pour you some more?"

  I shook my head. I'd decided to make my excuses and leave.

  "I appreciate you coming by," said Ian. "The loneliness was driving me nuts. Just talking about it with someone else relieves some of the pressure."

  Damn. Why did he have to go and say that? It made me feel guilty about my planned hasty exit.

  "The truth is," said Ian, "we did something we shouldn't have done and it's calling us on it. Knowing that doesn't make the waiting any easier, though."

  "Maybe you should join your unit," I said. "There's safety in numbers."

  "I don't know if I'll be safer, but I think you're right. I'd rather wait with people I know and trust. Just a sec. I'll get my coat."

  He had just opened the hallway closet when a scraping sound began on the outside of the front door. Shrugging on his parka, he returned to the coffee table and picked up his pistol.

  "Are you expecting anyone? Does someone else live here?" I whispered, already knowing the answer.

  "No. Come on." He led the way into the kitchen and lifted the window that faced the alley. "Fire escape. Careful on the steps; they might be slippery."

  It was still raining. A single dim light about fifty yards down the alley was the only illumination.

  I hel
d the metal railing firmly as I descended the steps as fast as I could. They were slippery; dangerously so.

  Ian closed the window behind us before following me.

  The steps ended a story above the pavement. I waited for Ian to catch up and lower the ladder the rest of the way.

  Just as I started to climb down, the window above us shattered.

  "Hurry," said Ian.

  Somehow I descended the rungs without falling; Ian was close behind me.

  "My car's this way," I said, pointing toward the lit end of the alley.

  But before we could run, there was a splash and a spray of water in the puddle right in front of us.

  We couldn't see it directly, but raindrops ran off the humanoid shape in runnels, and the light behind it was diffused.

  Ian got out his pistol and fired, but the creature was fast, so fast. And once it wasn't directly in front of the light anymore, it was even harder to spot. Ian turned this way and that, but probably didn't want to shoot wildly in an inhabited area.

  Then he started making choking sounds. It had gripped him around the neck, and it lifted him clean off the ground.

  I froze in place. I’d never felt this level of terror. I was so scared I couldn’t even force myself to help.

  Ian's clothes shredded and fell off him, and his skin peeled away strip by strip. Blood welled up and flowed off in the downpour, followed by more blood and yet more. The creature began on Ian's back and worked its way around to his chest until most of his upper torso was raw flesh. It then severed his arms and his head and dropped the rest of the dismembered and beheaded corpse to the pavement.

  I should have run, I should have fought, but I knew there was nothing I could do. Then I empathized; I didn't want to leave him to die alone. Then I got caught up in terrified, morbid fascination.

  Once Ian lay in pieces on the ground, I knew that the creature had turned its attention to me. I felt it contemplating me as a predator regards its prey. I expected momentarily to be grabbed and shredded.

  I waited in dreadful anticipation, the rain pummeling me. I never considered running; I knew I wouldn't get far.