Tar

by Taylor Hohulin

  The tattooed man let out a gurgling scream, and then the tar over his mouth stretched out, forming tentacles and reaching for the rest of the men.

  That was when Brendan left.

  His heart pounded as he stepped through the ruined bathroom door and re-emerged in the tavern’s noisy, colorful atmosphere. It was a different planet out here. Everyone carried on like normal, oblivious to what had happened. They hadn’t seen Samson fling five men against a wall without laying a finger on them. They hadn’t seen Brendan force the tar down someone’s throat. They’d overheard sounds of confrontation, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary in a tavern like this.

  Samson had rejoined Krystal at the table. They both looked up at Brendan expectantly when he returned, but he didn’t sit. He leaned over and said, “We need to leave. Now.”

  Krystal cocked an eyebrow. “Why?”

  A shriek rang out near the back of the tavern. The five infected had wandered out of the bathroom, their bodies contorted and blackened with tar. Tentacles burst from amid the group, claiming patrons who didn’t react quickly enough.

  A wave of humanity rushed for the exit, sweeping Brendan along. They packed so close to him he was certain he would fall and be trampled in the mad dash to safety. Despite his better judgment, Brendan chanced a look over his shoulder.

  What had begun as a tiny droplet of tar had grown exponentially as it gorged itself on human blood. Tentacles leaped from person to person, spreading faster than anyone could flee. It was a feeding frenzy. The tar exploded from mouths and noses and ears, through minuscule gaps between people, while those who remained uninfected shuffled along, their speed limited by the surrounding crowd.

  They reached a bottleneck at the front doors. Brendan heard the familiar gurgling choke of someone being infected mere feet away, but he didn’t dare look. He was almost out. Once he made it outside, it wouldn’t be far to Samson’s car. It was faster than all the bio-powered cars in the parking lot. The tavern and its patrons would be left behind, easy targets for the horde of infected.

  The night breeze cooled Brendan’s face when he pushed his way out of the tavern. It was quieter out here, the shrieks of terror dissipating into the open air, but his heart didn’t stop racing. He wasn’t in the clear yet.

  Brendan whipped his head around in search of Samson and Krystal. They weren’t far, and soon the three of them were running, side by side, for Samson’s old, gas-powered car.

  They made it to the car, and Brendan reached for the latch. It wouldn’t open. Brendan turned back as he yanked in frustration, and his heart dropped. An infected had fixated on them. It sprinted, black veins strangling what was once a lean, well-muscled man’s body. Its gaping mouth had been forced open by a mass of tentacles. As Brendan struggled with the latch, one of them shot toward him.

  “Down!” came Samson’s shout, and without thinking, Brendan obeyed.

  In quick succession, Brendan hit the concrete, the roar of Samson’s shotgun split the night, and the infected collapsed with a gaping hole in the side of his head. The gun erupted again, and a second infected—one Brendan hadn’t even noticed—also dropped dead.

  Samson swung his car door open, reloading with his free hand. Brendan scrambled for the car, but an infected jumped on top of the vehicle, rocking it in place. A halo of tentacles circled its head, leaking from its nose and ears. All the blackness coalesced and shot toward Brendan.

  He had no time to think. His mind was pure-white panic. An urge arose deep inside him, and he responded. He reached out with his previously unused power and blocked the tar. The tentacle flattened only six inches from his face, splattering in midair, before twisting to Brendan’s left.

  Before the creature struck again, Brendan opened the door and dove into the backseat. Krystal followed close behind, and the engine roared to life. The car hopped the curb, and there was a thud as the creature on the roof lost its balance. As they sped away, Brendan glanced out the window for one last look at the chaos.

  That was when he saw the waitress. She’d been nearby as he approached the car. Maybe she’d thought the generous people who repaired her mods would let her ride to safety with them. Instead, when Brendan redirected the tar, she’d taken the first blow. Her body went rigid, and her mods swiveled in ugly gyrations.

  The engine roared, and soon they’d driven far enough that Brendan could no longer see her blackening eyes. The tavern shrank, and the crowd with it, until they found themselves alone on the road once again.

  They’d made it out alive, but Brendan wondered if they were the only ones.

  7

  “Are you happy with yourself?” Samson’s eyes, blue and burning, stared at Brendan through the rearview mirror.

  Brendan watched late-night scenery go by his window: ramshackle buildings, stalled cars, and bleached bones, all illuminated in the headlights, with shadows dancing around them in a circle as the car drew close and then left them behind.

  “I know it was you,” Samson said. “You infected those men. Was it worth it?”

  But Brendan wasn’t in the mood for a lecture. He regretted what he’d done the minute the tar entered its first victim, but it was too late for remorse. Guilt wouldn’t bring back the dead.

  “I can’t change the past,” he said after a silence.

  “No, but you can avoid repeating it,” Samson said. “This power you have is dangerous. You hardly understand it.”

  “Then teach me about it.” Brendan leaned forward so his head was next to Samson’s. “You told me I could help you destroy the tar. How can I help you if I don’t know how to use my power?”

  “You saw what happened in the tavern,” Samson said. “You are not ready.”

  Brendan settled back into his seat and folded his arms. “You said you’d help me develop this power. Wouldn’t that make me ready?”

  “You are not ready,” Samson repeated, more firmly now. “The time will come for you to learn about your power, and the time will come for you to wield it. But before that day, it is safest for your abilities to remain dormant. This power is not a toy. It is not an ability you use. It is a force that uses you. The more you open yourself to it, the more dangerous it becomes, both to you and to those around you.”

  And then he stopped talking. Brendan exchanged a glance with Krystal. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but there was no guessing their cause. The horrors she’d witnessed at the tavern? Brendan’s refusal to accept Samson’s noble path? Or did Uncle Jeff’s face, blackening with infection, still loom large in her memory? One thing was certain—wherever the tears came from, they meant she wouldn’t leave Samson’s side. Brendan knew Krystal well enough to recognize the determined set of her jaw.

  He had no other choice, then. They were too far from Newhaven for him to brave the no-man’s-land of the highways alone. If Krystal wouldn’t abandon this foolhardy adventure, he had to follow Samson.

  But the gray-haired old man was crazy if he thought Brendan would give up on strengthening his own power.

  8

  Samson’s car rumbled down the cracked highway at a blistering pace. Brendan hadn’t been in something so fast in his life, but he acclimated quickly. Occasionally, a stalled vehicle would loom ahead, blocking their path, but Samson swerved around it. The maneuvers were abrupt, yet precise. Brendan and Krystal jostled with every swerve, but they gave up protesting. Samson had lost interest in conversation since his argument with Brendan.

  Krystal started, noticing something.

  “Your mod!” she said to Brendan. “What happened?”

  Brendan glanced down. He flexed the cybernetic attachment, testing its joints and connections. Sure enough, it was a little loose. The response was delayed, and its precision left much to be desired. Krystal touched the mod, but Brendan pulled away.

  “Probably messed it up at the tavern. It’s fine.”

  But Krystal persisted. She held his mod in her fle
sh hand and reached out with her mod. Two mechanical fingers flipped back, and small tools emerged for repairs.

  “Let me fix it,” she said. “No sense leaving it like this.”

  “It’s fine,” Brendan repeated. “Still got time before it needs work.”

  “But I can fix it now. Give it here.” Krystal held out her hand, gesturing with her fingers.

  Brendan turned, facing the window away from Krystal.

  “Brendan.” She gripped his shoulder, pulling him to face her. “Let me fix your mod. I’m not going to run up a tab for you, if that’s what you’re worried about. We’re on a team now, okay? It’s better for all of us if I fix you. And when you break down again, I’ll fix you then, too.”

  Brendan studied her, the only mechanic ever to work on his mod. Since she was the only one who understood the alloy which composed it, she held a certain authority over him. He resented her for it.

  She could have forced him to become her mercenary, her bodyguard, or whatever she wanted. He would have done all of this and more, because before he discovered his power over the tar, Brendan’s unique mod was the best weapon at his disposal.

  Instead, Krystal only asked for his friendship. And though he never tested the theory, Brendan knew if he refused her even this, she still would have acted as his mechanic. This was her greatest vulnerability and her greatest asset. She opened herself to so much exploitation, but in doing so ensured Brendan’s loyalty.

  “Fine,” he said. He extended the mod to his old friend, and she took it. “But I don’t owe you a thing.”

  “I never said you did.”

  And as she worked, a smile creased her features.

  9

  They drove through the night. Brendan drifted in and out of sleep as the car hummed along. Samson offered no more conversation, and that was fine as far as Brendan was concerned. He wasn’t itching for another lecture about his inability to handle power.

  But Krystal wasn’t about to let the car stay quiet.

  “Here’s a question,” she said. “Where do you get all the gasoline for this car? We haven’t had to fill up once.”

  Brendan smiled. The car had been silent for an hour, likely a difficult stretch for Krystal. Sometimes he wondered if the reason she charged so little for repairs was because she considered the ensuing conversations payment enough.

  Unperturbed by the sudden question, Samson said, “I make it.”

  “You make it?”

  He grunted. “There is always air in the gasoline tank, so I tell it to re-weave. I tell it to make the shape of gasoline.”

  “You...what?”

  “There are...” Samson paused. “...pieces. In the tank, they are shaped like air. But I tell them to separate and come together in the shape of gasoline.”

  “He’s talking about atoms,” Krystal said, as much to herself as anyone else. She leaned forward. “You’re splitting atoms, aren’t you? Moving around the protons and electrons like a tiny shell game until you’ve got the right elements and molecules to turn air into gasoline.”

  Samson shrugged. “If that is how you say it.”

  “But that would release tons of energy.” Krystal brushed a dreadlock out of her face. The thin blue highlight was iridescent in the car’s dim lighting. “Way more energy than what’s running this engine. Just turning the air into gasoline would create a huge explosion.”

  Samson only shrugged. “Perhaps my power plays master to your science.”

  Krystal had no opportunity respond. Without warning, Samson slammed on the brakes.

  Krystal jerked forward, and Brendan crashed into the back of Samson’s seat, releasing a cloud of must and mildew. He peered around the seat at Samson, who was glaring out the front window.

  A man blocked the road ahead. He panted and squinted in the night-piercing headlight. What remained of a mod dangled from his shoulder. Instead of a joint, a ragged mess of wires joined the mod’s two halves. Most were frayed or split, spraying sparks in the dark. The man was screaming, and though the windows muffled his voice, his message was clear:

  “Stop! Infection!”

  At first, Samson didn’t respond. He sat still, gripping the steering wheel and glaring at the living obstacle. Brendan wondered if he would rev the engine and try to scare the man out of the way before swerving around him. Maybe he’d run him over, or send him flying with a wave of his hand like he did in the tavern.

  “Could be a trap,” Brendan offered. “Probably is, actually. It’s no-man’s-land out here.”

  Samson nodded. He pressed a button to crack the window, just enough to hear the man outside.

  “Come here,” Samson barked. “Hands where I can see them.”

  The man came to the driver’s side window, holding his flesh hand up over his head, and pathetically raising the part of his mod that still worked. The bottom half hung by its few wires, swinging in front of the man’s chest.

  Samson said, “We need to get through here. We seek a woman who lives a mile that way.” He pointed down the road.

  “No way...no way.” The man’s voice quivered with fear. “It’s infected.”

  “Infected,” Samson said. “What’s infected?”

  “Everything.”

  The man swallowed hard and caught his composure. “There’s sludge. So much sludge. No way through.”

  “Let me guess,” Brendan called from the back seat. “You know a safe way around, and never mind the team of bandits waiting to rob us blind and split the take with you.”

  “I’m telling the truth,” the man said. “Believe me. I barely escaped.” He gestured with his ruined mod. “See for yourself if you want, but for God’s sake, go slowly so you can stop in time.”

  Samson squeezed the steering wheel. Wiry muscles rippled along his forearms.

  “All right. Get in.”

  The man backed away, but Samson didn’t balk.

  “We will drive close enough to see if you tell the truth,” Samson’s voice was cold and level. “But I want you where I can see you.”

  The man nodded. He shuffled around the car and settled into the passenger seat. Samson swept his supplies off the seat—taking care to transfer his gun to his lap—so the man had room to sit.

  “I only wanted to be helpful,” the man said. He was shaking all over.

  Samson let the car roll onward. Cracked pavement crunched under the wheels. The car moved with agonizing slowness, though Brendan interpreted the speed as a sign of deliberate control more than fear. Granted, Samson couldn’t do much that Brendan would read as fear. The short time they’d spent together had provided enough evidence that there wasn’t a fearful bone in the gray-haired man’s body.

  The car rocked to a stop at the edge of a hill. Up ahead, the highway sloped down, providing an extended view of the road. Before now, the largest patch of tar Brendan had seen was a few feet wide, but the collection of tar beyond the hill was anything but a patch.

  This was a sea.

  It stretched from one end of the road to the other, spilling into the steep ditches on either side and extending all the way to the horizon. Remnants of bio-powered cars rose from the murky depths.

  “No way through,” the man in the passenger seat muttered. “Never seen so much sludge in my life.”

  “Why didn’t you run away?” Krystal asked. “Why wait here to warn us?”

  The man turned in his seat. His eyes were sunken and dull

  “Where would I run?” he asked. “Where can any of us run? There is nowhere the sludge won’t follow.”

  10

  They let the man out of the car after that, and he wobbled off, presumably to warn more travelers of the nightmare waiting beyond the hill. He’d given them directions to reach the woman Samson was after. It was a tiny side road, wide enough for one car only and overgrown with brown weeds.

  “Can’t we just fly over the tar?”
Brendan asked as the car bounced along the trail. “You threw all those guys against the wall at the bar like they were nothing.”

  Samson huffed. “It is not the same. It would cost too much.”

  “What do you mean cost too much?” Krystal asked.

  “Do you think this power comes free? Do you think I reweave the fabric of reality without consequence?”

  Brendan couldn’t get a bead on the gray-haired old man. For someone so concerned with saving the world, he didn’t seem to care for any of the people living in it. Brendan had yet to notice a flicker of warmth in Samson. He had yet to see any emotion besides grim determination, and even that was cold and unfeeling. What drove this strange man with these unfathomable powers? Certainly not compassion.

  “This power is one that comes from knowledge,” Samson said. “Secret knowledge entrusted only to a few of us after our minds were opened by...” His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. “...by something.”

  He swallowed, squeezed the steering wheel, and shifted in his seat. His eyes took on a faraway look.

  “Once our minds were opened, we understood things about the world we never had before. I could not explain it if I tried, any more than I could explain how to swallow or how to breathe. But we did it. We spoke to the universe, and it obeyed. And while our abilities were limited only by our imagination, we learned the power did not come without a price. No power comes without a price.”

  Samson reached forward and patted the dashboard. “Even this car is powered at a cost. It burns gasoline, and that is enough to power the engine. For us, our power comes from knowledge. To use that knowledge is to burn part of our minds in an arcane engine. Sometimes, if I use my power for small enough things, the part of my mind I sacrificed grows back. Often, it does not. I do not understand it, except that it is dangerous to use this power when it is not necessary.”