BUILDING A BETTER TOMORROW
WITH THE SPLICE OF LIFE
She grimaced.
There were bars on all the cells here. A prison. A leaky, wet prison.
She peered into one cell. Tried to see the naked thing huddled in a corner under a blinking, stuttering light.
She tapped her shotgun against the bars to get its attention.
The thing turned to her. A young boy. Twelve, maybe. He was streaked with grease and blood. He had his knees pulled up against his chest with skeletal arms. The boy looked out with pleading eyes. Like he wanted to scream. But had no mouth. It wasn't sewn shut or ripped off. It simply wasn't there.
The mouthless boy-thing stood on scrawny legs. Approached her. Gripped the bars.
She backed away, unable to hide her fear and revulsion.
He slammed his soft, bloody palms against the bars.
She watched his blue eyes move down and stare at her shotgun.
She shook her head. No. No, she couldn't do it like this.
He reached through the bars. Grabbed her brown coat. Pulled her forward. Nodded to her. Nodded to the shotgun.
She reached her hand to him. Ran her fingers through his hair. She didn't know him. But her heart ached for him.
She could only wonder about her brother. And her mother. And her father.
She lifted the shotgun up. Placed it between the bars.
The boy tilted forward. Rested his nose above its twin barrels.
His eyes told her.
Please. End this.
She screamed. Shook. Cried.
What had been going on here. Up in the clouds. What monstrousness.
The boy made a whimpering noise in his throat. And closed his eyes.
She pulled the trigger.
***
Gunfire got the guards' attention.
They came at her while she wiped the boy's blood from her face.
Both hulking men wore long brown coats, like hers, but they had armor on their chests, shoulders and knees. Goggles and rebreathers covered their faces. They carried long blades at their sides.
Better for hacking away at prisoners, she figured.
She cracked open the shotgun. Popped two fresh shells in. Aimed the double-barrel death machine not like a gunslinger, but like someone who had no experience.
She unleashed twin blasts of buckshot at the charging guards.
The gun kicked. Hard. Something in her wrist snapped. She hissed in pain.
Pellets from the shotgun shredded the first guard's face and neck. He screamed. Collapsed. Tried in vain to clasp his hands around ruptured arteries.
The second guard escaped much of the barrage. Just grunted as his shoulder was hit.
She had trouble opening the old scattergun. Unable now to do anything fast. Her wrist was at best sprained. Probably broken.
She cursed herself. Fumbled to load more shells.
Damned idiot. Why didn't you use two hands? At least one to steady the fuckin thing so it wouldn't buck and break your bones.
The second guard was on her.
He brought an armored knee up into her ribs. Something there snapped, too.
She struggled to breathe.
It was all going so wrong so fast.
The guard picked her up by her hair and threw her against the bars of the mouthless boy's cell. The shotgun skittered off to her side. He jabbed her in the ribs with stiff, gloved hands. She howled. The guard responded to her pain by slapping her across the face and then grabbing her mouth.
He leaned in. She heard his rebreather whirring along with his own harsh, heavy excitement. She saw his eyes through the thick goggles he wore. They flared with disgust and hate.
He said, "What are you doing, girl?"
She couldn't talk through the glove he had clamped around her mouth.
He tore open the long brown coat the brothers had given her. He looked down at her chest and her dirty blouse. Ripped it open so that her tattered bra and the tops of her breasts were visible. "You one of those pathetic street urchins we dip into on off hours?" He jabbed her ribs again.
She screamed against his gloved hand.
He smirked. Slapped her.
She hit the ground. Sprawled out on her side.
"Whole place is gonna come down in a few minutes," he said. "I'm dead because it's my job to stay behind and guard the freaks. You're dead because I get to have some fun before we burn up." He chuckled to himself. Kicked her over. Pushed her legs apart. Unzipped his dark brown trousers. Pulled his prick out.
She stared up at him. Angry. Hateful.
He stepped forward so that he was standing over her chest. His sex swung as he moved and laughed.
With silent care, she brought her legs together behind him. She used the boot heel of one foot to push the combat knife down, through the sheath strapped to the other foot, so that it protruded. The result was a six-inch stiletto that could kill.
He pulled free the enormous machete at his side. Said, "This first. I'm going to drive it into your stomach. You'll last just long enough. I like the way girls' muscles spasm as they die, if you catch my drift." He smiled.
She said, "Yeah?" Smiled. "Well fuck you, too."
The guard looked surprised.
She pulled her legs together and up and plunged the knife into his crotch.
She kicked. Again and again and again. Until his dick was shredded meat. His testicles mashed slop. Until the blood poured from him in torrents. Until he could do nothing but squeal and fall.
He hit the ground like a rag doll. Grabbed for what remained of his reproductive organs.
She stood. Buttoned her coat, high and tight. She spat on him. With a trembling, damaged wrist, she scooped up the shotgun. Broke it open. Loaded in fresh shells with her good hand.
She looked down at him.
He looked up to her. "Please. I'm sorry. Help me. Get off. This ship."
She laughed. "You'll last just long enough. Just long enough to burn slow in pools of fuel when this rig hits the ground. You fuck."
He reached out for her.
She bolted down the hallway.
***
She stopped when she saw a cell with her family's last name above the door.
She grabbed the bars. Winced at the pain in her wrist. Shouted, "Dad? Mom? John?"
She saw three hunched figures. Like the boy. Huddled together in a corner. Naked, save scraps of grey cloth over their dignity.
"It's me. Please. Please let me see you at least. I came to save you. We don't have a lot of time," she said.
The figures turned to look at her.
She wanted to throw up.
Utter horror.
Each only barely resembled the people she knew as a child. Skeletons dipped in pale wax. Mouthless. An absence of speech. Only molded flesh.
Their eyes...
They didn't have any. Just sunken caverns with copper balls in the place of irises and white. At the center of each, a small pinprick of red light.
Her family. A nightmare.
She started crying. She held onto the bars of their cell. Slid to the floor. "What did they do to you?" She whimpered. "What did they do?"
Her father walked forward on unsteady legs. He sat in front of her. Sat cross-legged as he had when she was small and wanted a story. He reached a hand through the bars and brushed her hair with bony fingers.
She wept in great choking heaves.
Her father drew in the dust of the filthy floor. He wrote.
THEY WANTED SILENT SERVANTS
Her mother and brother joined her father. They each brushed her hair. Each caressed her cheeks. Each wanted to touch her. To feel her love as much as tell her they loved her still. And they were happy just to know she was all right. Alive.
If they could have cried, there would have been a flood.
She screamed. Screamed as the family that had been wrenched from her paid her as much attention and communication as could be afforded.
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"I'm getting you out of here," she said.
Her family shook their heads. Fervent. No. They pointed and nodded to one another. Look at what we've become. We can't live like this.
She said, "Then what am I supposed to do? Please tell me. Please. I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Her brother leaned forward. Wrote: LIVE. FOR ALL OF US.
She shrieked at that. As though she had failed in some total and life-ending way.
Her family reached their hands out to her again. Gentle, loving touches never quite had the chance to appreciate. And she would miss it. Miss it so intensely that her heart would never be able to let go of that one moment.
She reached into the pocket of her coat. Pulled out the stopwatch the elder brother had given her. She draped it, shaking, around her father's gaunt neck. She said, "Give me forty-five seconds to get above deck. Give me just enough time to get above. And then hit the stopper twice." She caressed her father's face. Her mother's. Her brother's. "I'll figure out how to get off this rig."
The mangled faces of her kin did something like smile.
She said, "I love you." She stood.
She ran.
In the heartbeat she glanced back, she saw that her mother had scratched:
WE LOVE YOU TOO
ALWAYS
***
The enormous Delta blimp had descended at a fantastic rate.
The whole horrible vessel was at city-level. Just about to collide.
There were still assholes inside running around. Screaming. Trying to collect their valuables. Some looked around. Blank-faced. Like they were thinking: Shit maybe it's better to die than to fall into the hands of the underclass below.
She grabbed the copper railing of the gondola. Looked out at the rooftops. Thirty feet. Maybe forty. She could jump. Hope to live.
Break every bone probably.
No. There had to be a better way.
She moved up the deck.
Down the deck.
No better there.
Fuck.
"Hey!"
She turned to the shout.
It was the brothers. Riding along the slowly sinking and highly flammable dirigible formerly known as the Authority's prize possession in a skiff.
She ran toward them. Younger holding his arms out. Elder manning the controls.
"Just jump," said the younger. "Hop on."
She did.
He held her and hugged her. Kissed her. Long and strong on the lips.
She pushed him off. "What do you think you're doing?"
He blushed. Turned a little from her. "Shit, sorry." Ran a hand through his hair. "I apologize. Heat of the moment kind of thing."
She smiled.
"Oh, brilliant," the elder brother hollered from the control room. "So this all ends with a kiss? Fantastic. Like I needed a bedtime story."
She said, "Follow the ship down."
Delta was an inferno. A maelstrom of shouts. Fire. Chaos.
Between the gushes of flame and explosions, she was sure she could hear the faint pop from the stopwatch that gave her family peace. And the burning agony that ended her would-be rapist.
Delta came to a smoky, fiery stop in a vacant construction area at the city's center. It hissed and deflated. Parts of it boomed. Fire yellow burst from it and licked the walls of decrepit buildings nearby.
She and the brothers watched as a few Authority goons emerged from it. Burning.
Citizens charged them. Beat them. Battered them until they were burnt husks.
They floated just above the throngs of people celebrating. The people who cheered the death of the Authority's hellish machinery.
The elder brother said, "Now we fight."
"No," she said. Her brilliant grey angel eyes gleamed. "Now we live."
William Vitka is a journalist and author. He's written for CBSNews.com, Stuff Magazine, GameSpy, On Spec Magazine and The Red Penny Papers to name a few. His debut novel, INFECTED, was published by Graveside Tales in late 2012. His anthology of short stories, THE SPACE WHISKEY DEATH CHRONICLES, was published at the crack of 2013 by Curiosity Quills. He lives in New York City.
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