Paths

by David DeSimone

  With stem caught in fabric, the feather quivered helplessly. For a moment it looked as though it would break free, but the breeze changed direction again, leaving the feather perched motionless atop the rotting mound.

  A quick jolt of the mound shook the feather. Another caused its hold on the fabric to slip. A third jolt finally knocked the feather free. On it’s brief trip downward, the feather spun once before its tip struck the ground, and then settled onto a thick, congealing puddle of blood.

  It wasn’t too difficult for the twins to punch through the abdominal cavity. Ana had already given them a head start when she used her fingers as claws to gouge much of the skin and muscle tissue from her abdomen and pelvis. When the puncture hole began to appear, the up and down jolting of Ana’s belly stopped. Tiny fingers found their way through. They pushed, stretching the belly like a pole raising a tent. Fingers became whole hands, the fingers fanning out as if reaching for something just out of grasp. Soon a second pair of hands joined the first pair and together they tore open Ana’s belly within the time it takes to open a bag of potato chips.

  Two creatures sat up pushing the clinging strands of flesh off to their respective sides and peeling off the shiny mucosal film of the amniotic sac from their blood-streaked bodies.

  Following the initial climb out of their mother’s womb, standing was difficult. It took a couple of tries before the twins managed to hold their balance on two feet. They were fraternal twins - brother and sister - and it was the brother who was first on his feet, but only had his sister beat by a few seconds. They wobbled precariously, looking as though they were about to fall, but soon enough they mastered it.

  Like the foal able to walk right after it is born, the twins took their first tentative steps away from the pile of shredded meat and blood that was once their mother. Normally, a human would need at least eight months to do this, but these were not normal children. A genetic mutation had occurred in the early stages of development, which had already predisposed them to exceptional cognitive and precognitive powers, which they’d used to send visions of a post-apocalyptic world to their mother, perhaps as a warning to find some way to prepare for it. For Ana, the visions had ultimately proved futile, but not so for the twins. The electric shock they’d received when their mother had been accidentally tased by a police officer and the gamma-ray burst somehow triggered something in their genetic mutations to accelerate physical growth and adaptability.

  Those of religious inclination - at least when they had still been alive - would have thought the babies a miracle from God with powers of divination. Others might have perceived them as the devil’s spawn, born to herald in the End Times.

  And those who had been of a more secular or scientific bent might have likely perceived them as the next step in human evolution.

  Either way, one thing was clear. The babies were extraordinarily special, not only because of their unique abilities and adaptations but simply because they had survived an extinction event not occurring on Earth in two billion years - if ever.

  Brother took Sister by the hand and led the way past their mother’s corpse. Two otherwise normal looking infants, save for the gelatinous remnants of amniotic fluid still coating their bodies, waddled through a maze of corpses.

  They paused.

  Brother turned to take one last look at his mother, her twisted remains, the concentric triangular patterns making up the mosaic design, which she lay across and whose crevices filled with her blood. It was the same pattern he and Sister tried to send in a shared vision to her. The twins only sensed the mosaic as having had some symbolic meaning to the people of the old world, but their brains were not yet able to decipher what that meaning was. Had they been able to codify the mosaic through language, they would have simply said it was the place of their birth, the beginning of the New World. But the people of the old world would have known it as the Strawberry Fields Memorial.

  The boy felt a pang in his chest that gave him pause. His eyes became watery, and for a moment lost all sense of his surroundings. A new experience that was to be one of many new experiences to come, but hopefully, this one won’t be repeated. He didn’t like the sensation. It made him weak and scared. Sister’s eyes had become watery, too. He noticed her tears, and the warm feeling that began in his chest and radiated throughout his body, making his legs even weaker and his shaky arms shakier, grew stronger.

  He did not only dislike it, He hated it, but was too weak to express the anger he wanted to let out.

  Instead, he turned away from his mother’s corpse, nudged his sister to do the same and they began to feel better.

  Things were happening fast. As their brains developed at an unnaturally fast rate, information about the world - visual and tactile - were overwhelming their senses, but not their brain’s ability to process. They quickly began to comprehend and familiarize objects such as trees, automobiles, roads, fences with a rudimentary sense of meaning and purpose, though still not able to grasp that sense in words.

  But as the language areas in their brains were still under construction, telepathy would have to do for now.

  The first telepathic transmission since leaving their mother’s womb was the importance for clothing. It was a chilly morning and the twins had begun to shiver. Brother conveyed an impression to Sister approximating a message roughly interpreted as, ‘Air cold. Need cover for you and me.’

  Sister: ‘Yes. We must find covers.’

  He chose a corpse at random, the body lying on its stomach with coat flap sticking out from under its ribs. The boy curled his pudgy little fingers around the flap and pulled, only to discover that he hadn’t the strength to pull the sleeve off the corpse’s stiffening arm. His sister joined him, but even with her help the coat would not get past the elbow.

  Another attempt with a different corpse proved equally futile.

  A bit of luck came by when Sister saw the body of a young woman splayed curbside on the pavement. She had died with her arms extending over her head and the pink sweat jacket she wore was pulled halfway up.

  It took some effort but with Brother’s help, they finally succeeded in removing the sweat jacket.

  Throwing the jacket over themselves they stood shoulder to shoulder sharing the warmth the sweat jacket and their own bodies provided.

  Small victory, but more battles lay ahead.

  The girl passed a message to her brother suggesting hunger. Brother got the point. He, too, was feeling hungry.

  He passed an image to his sister, a memory. It showed them climbing out of their mother’s womb and he licking blood that had crept into his mouth. He recalled liking how it tasted. In fact, he liked it very much.

  Sister, too, had tasted blood and also liked it.

  She smiled sweetly. Seeing her bright beautiful cherub face had an immediate affect on her brother’s mood. Although he still felt bad over the sight of his mother’s corpse, Sister had cheered him up. He returned her smile.

  In that moment he discovered that smiling was good, equating it with mutual agreement, pleasure, and a way to fight bad feelings. Yet smiling himself he felt something more, feelings that were not so simple to identify. They were not necessarily bad. Just different. He had first touched upon these feelings when tearing through his mother’s womb using his hands and teeth. It wasn’t necessarily anger he felt, but was somehow related. It made him want to do everything faster and with more force - tear, claw and chew. It made him even want to scream. But he could not understand why. Soon he would understand. He was a growing boy. His body was growing fast as well as his mind. That much he understood.

  He was becoming aware of the lot of things, not least the purpose of those sharp little nubs growing longer and longer in his mouth. He could actually feel them rising, getting wider as they forced their way through his gums. There was some pain, some bleeding, but not much. Mostly his gums itched. It was an irritating sign that suggested his teeth were going to be quite large and sharp when fully grown. He would ha
ve to bear the discomfort a little longer to know for sure. He wasn’t concerned, however, but actually felt pleased with how they were growing, with how he was growing.

  The idea of using his sprouting teeth to sample the flesh of the dead came naturally to him. Why not? If he liked the taste of blood so much, then why should he not enjoy the flavor of meat? And there was so much of it around him.

  And If by chance he spotted something or someone still moving, still alive, he might just want to try a taste of that, too.

  Brother turned to Sister, saw her tongue moving across her mouth. She bore a look of curiosity similar to a look he must have had a few moments ago when he first felt his teeth.

  And had he not also caught a glimmer of excitement in her eye?

  Using his tongue, he probed across the upper row of gums. His teeth had grown sufficiently now for him to have no doubt of their shape - long and conical with pointed tips.

  From end to end.

  Pointed…

  And still growing.

  It shouldn’t be long now.

  He passed this message to his sister.

  She nodded not knowing why exactly. It just felt right.

  19

  Just before the world ended, the man had finished a very long and tiring day at Warwick General Hospital, getting ready to put it all behind, thinking of that glass of scotch waiting for him at home. Earlier there had been an accident. The MRI machine malfunctioned and nearly killed a patient and her husband. The man couldn’t recall their names but he had saved their lives by guiding them through smoke and toxic gases to safety. The hospital’s lower level had been completely evacuated and the fire department had been dispatched to put out any fires in the MRI room.

  This did not mean the man would have an early day.

  The sixth floor was equipped with a CT scanner and there were patients who needed attending. After the post-accident examination declared him mostly undamaged, the man had elected to finish out his shift up there.

  Eastbound rush-hour traffic on I-95 was at its peak by the time he turned onto it. Traffic was flowing smoothly, however, unlike in the other direction, which was bumper-to-bumper and moving in slo-mo.

  Prelude to the Great Explosion - as the man would later call it - happened as he was passing a semi in the middle lane. A shadow cast over the interstate took the appearance of an approaching storm at first, but then it kept getting darker and darker.

  Within seconds, the sky had darkened to the point where he could only see the red taillights of the semi and a handful of other cars in front of him.

  Panic rose in his gut, his heart ramming against his sternum like the piston of a muscle car. In spite of this, he managed to turn on his headlights, looked up. But it was too dark to see anything. He turned his eyes back down to the road. Only a few cars pulled over to the right shoulder. Most kept moving probably realizing, like him, that when feeling threatened it’s better to keep moving.

  The flash that turned everything transparent blinded him instantly. As his arms flew up shielding his eyes, his little Honda cut into the left lane. There was a hard jolt on his right as the Honda clipped the semi in front of him, an even harder jolt on the left when the car struck the cement divider, his head bounced off the driver-side window. As the car scraped against the divider, there was a deep grinding noise that made his teeth hurt.

  Feeling himself slipping away, he slammed the brakes. The force of sudden braking and drag killed the engine. After that, he heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing until the storm - or whatever it was - was over.

  By the time he came to, dusk changed to early evening deepening the sky from muddy pink to dark shades of blue and purple. Not normal, he thought as he tipped his head up groggily, looking around. The colors should be clearer. Something was getting in the way - another tint. Greenish tint. Or yellow. It was getting too dark to tell. He touched the side of his head and felt a lump rising. The tip of the lump was sensitive to the touch. He hissed at the sting, drew his hand back, looked at his fingers. There was blood. Not too much, thank God.

  He wiped his fingers on his pant leg. He felt around the rest of his body. Everything felt normal. No pains. All checked out.

  Continuing to look around, the man was stunned at the surrounding cataclysm outside.

  Eastbound I-95, his side of the interstate, was bad, with cars and trucks scattered this way and that, mostly across the middle and right lanes, but there remained large gaps that allowed for a small car like his to weave through. Heading west was a different story. Every lane was clogged with traffic…

  Dead traffic.

  He slid across the front seats and got out of his car.

  He walked over to the divider, stared across the westbound lanes and saw people in their cars, many of which were not moving, presumably dead or unconscious; but others were moving. Those that noticed him began screaming, pounding against their windows.

  Jesus Christ!

  After the shock began to settle down a bit, he began to sense something not right about them. The first thing to clue him in, was that no one was trying to get out of their cars, even though there were opportunities to do so. No one! They just flailed around in their seat-belt bindings, hitting with their palms and ramming their heads against their windshields. Like a bunch of crazies. It was all wrong! Their appearance was wrong too, pale, some foaming at the mouth.

  Something else he noticed, more horrible than all the destruction and ugliness thus far. People were ripping their faces apart. Literally ripping their skin away. The most extreme instances had blood spraying the insides of windows with the force of a spray gun.

  With fear he hadn’t felt since that one and only night he had dropped acid as a teenager, he slowly backed away from the divider. As he did, he looked briefly at the damage to the left side of his Honda. It was flattened against the divider and the taillight was a goner, but the car still looked drivable.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw someone fast approaching and then felt a sudden sharp pain on his left shoulder. He screamed, pinwheeling his left arm to thwart his attacker.

  As he whirled around, his attacker swung at him and raked his chest. The man screamed again.

  The attacker came at him again, but the man was ready.

  He stepped aside and pushed his attacker away at the same time.

  The attacker fell against the divider and came at the man again, slavering and growling like a rabid beast.

  He ran around to the passenger-side door while his attacker gave chase.

  Opening the door, he crouched in an effort to climb in. Fingers clawed at his back.

  The man pivoted to his left and gave a powerful kick, knocking his attacker back. This allowed him just enough time to climb into his car and close the door.

  The attacker slammed against the door and the car shook.

  “Holy shit,” he said gasping.

  He slid into the driver-seat.

  Staring at his attacker, he was shocked to see that it was a woman. She had dark hair, either brown or black falling below her ears. She could have been in her thirties or forties. The snarl wrinkling her sickly pale face made guessing her age an exercise in futility. Her loose-fitting, light cotton jacket under a dark blouse concealed her body, but judging by her ropey-lean neck and bony face, the man could not believe she was very heavy - or large in stature. Yet she had fought him with the strength of a man twice her size. Raw, uninhibited, like the blind rage of someone in a PCP-induced psychosis.

  She must have been thrown from her car and somehow survived, the man assumed with little to no interest in proving. Others were coming, heading straight for his car.

  “Jesus!”

  He turned the ignition, trying several times to get the damned car to start. It was the second time he was having trouble with the car. Was it the starter? He wondered. God I hope not!

  Two men, both having the same wild look on their faces, joined the woman’s attack. The pounding was terrifying, each bl
ow shaking his ribcage. More people came toward the car.

  Finally the man got his Honda to start. He threw the car into Drive and sped off, knocking into a few people as he made his escape and being too frightened to care.

  As he drove, he thought about his mother in New York City, wondering if she was okay. Weaving through the highway wreckage, knowing now not to stop for anyone lest he risk another attack. He came up to an exit ramp, turned onto it and pulled over in an area well clear of any vehicle in either direction - a desolate area. He put the car in Park keeping the engine idling.

  From the middle compartment, he took out his cellphone and unplugged it from the charger tucked below the environmental controls. The last time he checked for messages he had noticed the phone had behaved strangely. Instead of a clear display populated with app icons, his phone produced nothing but strips of color before going completely black. At that time he didn’t give it much thought. Just needs a charge.

  It had been over three hours since he plugged it in.

  The man pushed the top button to turn the phone on and got the same thing: bands of color, then nothing.

  He plugged the phone back into the charger. Still nothing.

  He needed to see how his mother was doing. His heart ached not knowing. As he sat silently thinking about what to do, he became aware of the pain in his shoulder. He pushed his right hand under the left neck of his scrub and felt a hot welt swelling up. The skin was unbroken, but the pain radiated down his left arm and up his neck, suggested a massive bruise in development. He tilted the rearview mirror down to examine it and gasped.

  Not yet feeling pain, he had totally forgotten that the crazed woman scratched his chest. Not just scratched but gouged. Four deep gashes ran diagonally from one collarbone to the other, soaking the top half of his scrub shirt with blood.

  The sight of his own blood shocked and frightened him.

  He made a mental note to raid the back shelves of the first pharmacy he could get to for antibiotics.