One of Us

by Craig DiLouie

  He rode along the dark road leading out of town, leaving the mess behind him. The night air here was cool and clear. He smiled at the familiar ring of insects, the cicadas rattling like maracas in the trees. The deep stillness of the woods.

  After just fifteen minutes, though, he groaned at a stitch in his side and ache in his legs. A steady diet of fast food and sugar had depleted him. He hadn’t eaten since dinner, and he’d upchucked most of that after Shackleton blew his brains out.

  The Albod farm came into sight under the harvest moon. Goof pedaled harder, his body slick with sweat. He’d blown his second and third wind. He swung the bike onto the farm road, bouncing along the stones.

  “Nooooo,” he sang, enjoying the way the bouncing made his voice tremble. “Whaaaaat—”

  His mouth snapped shut as he bumped over a big rut. The gun flew from his pocket and landed somewhere in the tall grass.

  “Crap,” he said. “Sorry about that, future me.”

  He coasted the Schwinn into the yard and ditched it. The house stood dark and empty. A light shined from the barn. He went inside and froze in the doorway.

  Lanterns lit the scene. Smell of fresh hay and blood. Cows restless in their stalls. Workbench soaked black and littered with tools and instruments.

  The barn had been converted into a mad scientist’s laboratory.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Goof breathed.

  Reggie Albod stood strapped to a wood frame crossing a thick support. He let out a pleading moan.

  Brain sat nearby on the dirt floor, weeping.

  “What did you do to him, Brain?”

  Pa Albod growled and squirmed against his restraints.

  Goof’s voice dropped to a whisper. “What did you do?”

  The farmer had been surgically remade into a monstrous thing—half human, half animal. A single fused body of man and cow and pig connected by throbbing blood vessels. Compacted flesh, shared organs.

  Goof had wanted his freedom and had fought and killed for it. He’d seen incredible destruction on his way home. At every step, he’d sensed the hilarity of it all, horror and comedy being kissing cousins. A bunch of kids forming an unstoppable army, the victims paying back a lifetime of cruel abuse, the once-invincible oppressors becoming the new victims.

  But the sight of Reggie Albod mashed into this squirming, suffering abomination took it out of him. This just wasn’t funny anymore.

  Brain wiped tears from his scarred face and looked up at him. “Ever have an itch you can’t scratch?”

  “I think you’ve lost your mind, friend.”

  “An itch that won’t quit. Day and night, your whole life, it’s just there. It feels so good to finally get at it. Rake it right out of you. I wanted to be—”

  “A doctor,” Goof said. “I know.”

  His mind flashed to him telling the normals to gun each other down at Special Facility. Men crying as they turned their rifles on each other and fired point blank. The violence horrifying but also feeling good, somehow right, even necessary. Like regardless of whether it was for good or evil, he’d done what he was meant to do, using the gift the good Lord gave him.

  Goof knew all about the itch. He’d scratched it plenty today.

  “I wanted him to see,” Brain said. “What it’s like to be like us.”

  “What happened to the girls?”

  “I let them go. But not Pa here. Pa required justice. I grabbed him, and my hands just went to work. I lost myself for a while.”

  “This ain’t you,” Goof said. “I know it was in you, but it ain’t you. All this butchery and mayhem. It ain’t who we are.”

  Another flashback to the fighting at Special Facility. The air filled with gun smoke and blood as the bodies toppled.

  “Unless,” he added. “Unless they’re right and we really are monsters.”

  “Do you think he was innocent?”

  “His girls was always nice to us. As for Pa, I don’t know.”

  “He fed on us like a parasite. Being different in this world is appreciated if somebody can profit from it, but even that has limits. Pa Albod murdered Dog in cold blood. He beat me to within an inch of my life because he could. He didn’t see me as human and never did. Just like my mother. My own flesh and blood.”

  “So this revolution of yours. It’s about revenge, is that it?”

  Brain stood and stared at Pa Albod as if he was as surprised by what he saw as Goof had been.

  “You should end it now,” Goof told him.

  Brain trod to the workbench and picked up a box cutter he’d been using as a scalpel, an even deeper sorrow etched on his wrinkled face now.

  “We could have been partners, Pa,” he said. “We could have built a new world together if you hadn’t feared and enslaved us. A world of wonders.”

  Pa Albod let out a heartbreaking moan.

  “I’m sorry it all had to end like this,” Brain added. “Your suffering is over.”

  “Any last words, Pa?” Goof said.

  “I,” the man breathed, “I-I—”

  “Am happy my suffering is ending and I’m crossing over to a better place,” Goof finished. “Amen.”

  The farmer smiled as Brain pulled a single dangling artery and cut it. Blood spurted into the wet hay underneath. Albod sighed. His head drooped. The struggling hoofed legs went still.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Brain said. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “I’d say it’s good to be home, but home ain’t here anymore.”

  “Where were you? How did you get back?”

  “They had me in Special Facility. A bunch of us broke out. The Homes are rising up just like you wanted. It’s World War Three out there. The kids are killing everybody in the town. You need to get down there and put the brakes on.”

  Brain looked at the bloody box cutter in his hand and flung it into the hay. “It’s too late.”

  “There has to be a way. We made our point, didn’t we? We could talk to them and try to work it out before the whole country turns into one big bonfire.”

  “Do you think I like all this?”

  “What’s there to like?” Goof said.

  “I hate it. But if we don’t keep going, they’ll kill us all.”

  “You can keep going without me then. I’m done with all of it.”

  “You might want to think about that. You’re either with us or—”

  “I’ll do whatever you say,” Goof finished.

  Brain smiled and said nothing. The two boys stared at each other.

  “Do you know what my IQ is?” Brain said.

  “Pretty high?”

  “You have no idea.”

  Goof couldn’t control a mind like Brain’s.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  “Gods should never be sorry. Gods should be happy, so happy.”

  Goof’s eyelids drooped. Yellow lantern light flared before going dim. The crickets’ pulsing song became a soothing roar. He’d never felt so calm and relaxed. Like taking a long, warm bath in Special Facility.

  Yes, he was back in Special Facility. Dozing in a nice bath. The whole day was just a strange dream.

  Brain’s words popped across his vision in big yellow capitals.

  YOU WILL DO PRECISELY WHAT I

  “No,” Goof said, snapping out of it. “I won’t.”

  Brain couldn’t control him, either.

  “Then we’re enemies,” Brain said.

  “I ain’t nothing. I thought we was friends. I just want to be left alone.”

  “Go, then. Be alone. We won’t hurt you nor will we help you. But if you interfere with us in any way, Tiny will hurt you. You remember Tiny?”

  Goof swallowed hard. “I remember that boy.”

  “What we started, nobody can stop,” Brain said. “We have to go all the way or die trying.”

  “You do that. Just leave me out of it.”

  “Run, friend. Run and never stop running.”

  Goof did as he was told.<
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  Forty-Five

  Worshippers and refugees packed Trinity United Methodist Church on County Road 20’s eastward run out of town. Reverend Coombs led them in singing “Hold the Fort.” The congregants sang with hoarse throats. The organist, who’d been playing for hours, grimaced over her keys. Mamas bounced their young ones to stop them crying. A zealous boy in white shirt and tie roamed the outsiders, asking if they were saved. Matrons passed out food and water. Armed men stood at the doors.

  Ho, my comrades, see the signal, waving in the sky, the reverend sang. Reinforcements, now appearing, victory is nigh!

  The weary congregation sang along, Hold the fort, for I am coming, Jesus signals still. Wave the answer, back to Heaven, by Thy grace we will!

  Outside, the distant gunfire trickled to nothing.

  In one of the crowded pews, Amelia Oliver shivered against Richard Benson, his arm wrapped tight around her shoulders. They’d hoped to flee the rampaging children and had their first fight over the best route out of town.

  The road was pitch black. Gunfire everywhere. A massive fireball mushroomed over the gas station. They’d found the Methodist church brightly lit thanks to a backup power generator and decided to stop and steady their nerves before moving on. Their nerves hadn’t steadied yet.

  “George got his revolution,” she murmured against his shoulder while the congregation sang. “He’s going to get every one of those kids killed.”

  “Right now I’m more worried about him taking us with him,” Richard said. “They seem to be winning out there.”

  “I wish I could find him and talk to him. Make him stop this before it’s too late.”

  “You think he’d listen?”

  “He’d listen all right,” she said. “We’d have a good, long, reasonable talk about it. And then he’d go right back to rebelling.”

  “Maybe all this was inevitable. I tried to give my kids the tools they needed to accept the plague children. I was spitting in one hand and wishing in the other to see which filled up first. To them, the kids are monsters and always will be.”

  “They never played together,” Amelia said.

  “What’s that, hon?”

  “They never played together as little kids. That’s where living together starts.”

  “You saw what’s happening out there,” Richard said. “Turns out they’re monsters after all.”

  “They aren’t monsters. I taught them for two years. They’re orphans who grew up in violence and without love of any kind.”

  “Okay, but just because they maybe have some right on their side don’t make what they’re doing right. And it don’t mean I want to see them hurt you. I’ll—” His voice cracked. “I’ll kill anybody tries to harm you.”

  Amelia hugged his chest tighter and listened to his pounding heart. The plague children were coming soon, and when they did, nothing in the world would save her.

  “We’ll be all right,” she said.

  “Almost everybody I ever knew is already gone,” he said.

  In her fear, she’d forgotten he’d grown up in this town. While he was a loner who’d never quite fit in, he’d lived among these people. He’d grown up with many of them. He taught their children.

  “We’re together,” she said.

  He gave her shoulders a squeeze and kissed the top of her head. “That’s all that matters to me right now.”

  When her students burst through the doors, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else than by his side.

  The hymn ended. Reverend Coombs returned to the pulpit. “Friends and neighbors, this long night is coming to an end, but we are still here. Still praising the Lord.”

  “Amen,” the Methodists called out from the pews.

  “All y’all know ‘Hold the Fort’ is one of my favorite hymns. And I can’t think of a better time to sing it. Satan is surely coming with his army tonight. It’s been on its way a good long while. We knew it. We warned ’em, didn’t we?”

  “Amen,” the congregation cried.

  “Christ,” Richard muttered. “He sounds almost happy about it.”

  Coombs said, “We said the birth of demons was a sign the End Times had begun. We warned ’em, but they didn’t listen. We told ’em, but they turned away. We shouted it from the rooftops, but they just laughed. Do you think they’re laughing now? Do you think they’re ready to listen? Satan let the dogs out tonight. Demons braying for blood. Good folk dying. But not us. We’re still here, and we will not budge from our fort. We will praise the Lord until He comes to put Satan to rights. We are being tested, and we will not fail. It’s the end—”

  The reverend stared at the front doors. Heads turned to see what he was looking at.

  “Welcome home, son,” he said.

  Jake, Amy, and Amy’s ma entered the church. The doors slammed shut behind them. Jake and his father stared at each other across the crowded pews.

  “Go on,” Amy said. “You wanted to come here. Here we are.”

  He handed his shotgun to Mrs. Green and took Amy’s hand. They threaded through the refugees cramming the aisle. She nodded to Mr. Benson and his girlfriend. She smiled at Troy and Michelle, who held each other in another pew.

  Jake looked straight ahead at the man who’d always been larger than life to him. His own flesh and blood, almost a mirror image, yet so different. He trembled with relief and apprehension, steeling his nerves for what he had to do.

  Pa sucked in a long, ragged breath. “I am mighty relieved to see you.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay, Pa. I was worried.”

  “That makes two of us, son.”

  “I feel moved by the Spirit to speak. About what I seen out there.”

  “Go on then,” Pa said. “Open your heart.”

  Jake walked behind the pulpit and looked across all the faces. People he considered family. People who’d helped raise him after his ma passed on. Their love and charity had remade him as a Christian. He owed them so much. He now hoped he could show them the way as they’d shown him. He licked his lips, took a deep breath, and blew out a sigh.

  “My whole life, I watched my pa preach up here. I heard him preach just now. I love my pa. My pa is a great man. He gave every bit of himself to his family, his church, and the Gospel. My whole life, he warned us the end was coming, and he were right. He said it’s because the plague kids is demons. He were wrong.”

  The congregation rumbled hearing that.

  “The Scriptures and my heart tell me the plague kids ain’t demons. They ain’t demons but kids unlucky to be born what they are. Jesus said to love one another as we love ourselves. Instead, we hated them and we acted on that hate. We ground them in the dirt just about every way a kid can be ground. We scorned and defiled them. Where our nightmares was just dreams, theirs was real, and we was their monsters.”

  The crowd broke out in angry shouts. Jake raised his hands for quiet but they didn’t stop, pouring out their hurt and anger.

  “Well, guess what,” he hollered over them. “I got some bad news for you that you ain’t gonna want to hear neither. After all these years, they started to hate us, too, and now they’re fighting back.”

  “You saying we had this coming, boy?” a man shouted from the pews.

  “I didn’t do anything to them,” a woman said. “They killed Rufus.”

  The enraged congregation rose roaring to its feet, calling him a traitor, protesting their innocence, screaming the names of victims. Pa stood off to the side of the pulpit, head bowed, his face rigid and darkening.

  Before the rebellion, the plague children filled these people with a nameless fear. Now they were hysterical with terror and hate. Most of them had never hurt the plague children, maybe never even met one. In their minds, they were innocent.

  In Jake’s mind, that was the point. They did nothing.

  “I know right now they are hurting our friends and neighbors out there,” Jake cried. “But the answer ain’t to keep hating. Jesus taught us violence only b
egets violence, and hate begets hate. I know how it sounds, asking all y’all to find love in your hearts after everything we lost, but keep in mind we are close to losing far more. We are close to losing everything we love. We need to make peace.”

  The throng howled. They shook their fists at him, spittle flying from roaring mouths. He stepped away from the pulpit, pale and trembling. Amy took his sweating hand in hers. She held on tight as if trying to pour her strength into him.

  “They don’t want to listen,” he said. “It’s all gone too far.”

  “You did good,” she said.

  “If I wasn’t Pa’s son, I think I’d be dead right now.”

  In the end, it had been another futile effort. He’d tried and failed. He didn’t have the right words his pa always seemed to have handy. He didn’t know how to make them see, no, feel the truth. He knew he’d been harsh with them. Was there another way? Did the right words even exist?

  Pa raised his hands for quiet. “My boy spoke from his heart. I’m proud of him for that. Otherwise, I wonder where I went wrong raising a boy who can’t recognize the Devil standing right in front of him.”

  “Amen,” somebody called out, while others nodded.

  “We do not make peace with the Devil while he slaughters us in the streets,” he said. “We hold the fort. We hold it to the last man.”

  He turned to his errant son. “You got one chance to recant what you just said.” His voice now low and menacing. “You’re a man now. You make up your own mind. I won’t force you.”

  Jake shook his head.

  “One chance to make it right with God,” Pa warned.

  “I ain’t recanting, Pa.”

  “No?”

  Jake set his jaw. “I’m already right with God.”

  “Then git out my church.”

  “You’re a great leader, Pa. You can stop all this hate and fighting right now. We all can. Please listen to me.”

  “Recant or get out.”

  Jake looked at his feet. Figuring out his old math problem. How to make human nature add up to something right. In his mind, Pa was asking him to turn his back on God and his ma’s memory. And now on Amy as well.

  Fear or hope. There could be only one answer.