Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After the Rise of the Elder Gods (2 page)

“It’s like they know what we remember from our childhood,” I joke, bringing the room into silence.

The food tastes just that little better than usual with Alison here. Everything seems a little brighter somehow. As we sit there together eating, the fear takes a step back. It’s as if something could be normal again. I finish before her and reach out for her hand, but she shies away.

“Don’t,” she whispers.

“I’m sorry, I just thought…”

“We can’t, I’m sorry. I want to, we just can’t. Last night was wonderful, but we can’t be together.”

“Why not?” I say, failing to realize I’m getting angry.

“You know why not. Because they’ll see, and they’ll know, and they’ll spoil it all and take it away.”

“We could be careful.”

“It wouldn’t matter. They might even be outside the door, watching now. I like you, I really do. Maybe we can do this again. But if they see us together too many times they’ll follow us. You know what they are like with couples, moths to a bloody flame.”

“You don’t know that,” I almost shout. I can feel something breaking inside me, and an angry part of me wants her to hear the crack.

“Yes, I do. And you do, too.”

She’s right, but I’m not ready to admit it. “So is this what you do, then?” I retort.

“Excuse me?”

“Just a few one night flings.” My voice is getting louder.

Alison looks like I’ve just struck her, but that only makes her angry too. “It’s not like that, not that I have to explain myself to you. Anyway, I didn’t hear any complaints last night.”

“I didn’t realize last night we were just trading for beans on toast.”

As I say it, I know I have crossed a line. “Fuck you,” she says, almost too quietly for me to hear it. She picks up her hat and marches to the door, the remains of her breakfast pointedly forgotten. As she flings it open she almost runs straight into the small crowd of smiling people that have gathered outside. There are about seven of them, all facing us, but who gently part to let Alison go. The fear of them knocks the anger out of both of us. As Alison leaves she turns, wanting to say something but having no more words than I do. I answer her in silence, as the smiling people look on. Then she turns and hurries past them, and I close the door.

I walk back to the loose floorboard and almost take out the ring. But I know they are out there and I stop myself in time. I sit on the floor crying, my hand on the floorboard. Grief gradually gives way to hate. The smiling people. I can’t believe they are taking away something I don’t even have. But Alison is right: any relationship gets their attention, and under that gaze, anything is poisoned. Is there nothing left for any of us? The rage builds up inside me, as I list the things Alison and I will never be, the happiness we have been denied.

Picking up her cold plate of beans on toast, I walk over to the door, and as I open it, I throw it at whatever remains in the hallway. There are only three smiling people there now, but I almost hit one of them full in the face. The plate bounces off his shoulder and smashes on the floor. He barely moves, the impact momentarily shaking him, like hitting a tree. The beans run down his face and drip across his expensive suit jacket, but he still does nothing. Then a long thin tongue slides out from between the crescent teeth and slides around his face.

It wipes away the sauce and beans slowly, as if savoring each moment. I’d swear his smile gets a little wider, something I’d thought impossible and I step back to close the door. My hands are shaking so much it takes me two tries to shut it properly.

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After that night, I hate the office even more than I used to. Alison and I barely even glance at each other. A few times we are forced to interact, such as passing pointless papers to each other. I want to say something to her, and I think she wants to talk too, but the smiling people are always there, somewhere. After a few days of this, I can’t take the silence anymore. I walk over to her desk intent on apologizing. I just want to tell her I understand. It might not be what I want, but it’s so much better than not having a part of her in my life. I don’t want to make a scene. All I want is to say my piece and see her smile again. That is all it would take to settle things between us, and I could go back to having hope again.

But as I get closer to her desk, I see her talking to Bill Abbot. He’s sitting on her desk and grinning like a cat. She puts a hand on his knee as she laughs quietly at one of his awful jokes. It’s then that I realize I can’t share her. I don’t know Bill that well, but she deserves better. He might be perfect, the sort of no strings guy she can share brief nights with to ease the pressure. But I don’t want that for her, or for me, but there is nothing I can do. I want to punch Bill, or just walk over and kiss Alison and tell her I don’t care about the smiling people. Maybe I want to do both. But the truth is that I do care about the smiling people, we all do, and as I realize this, I notice one is standing a few feet away watching them both. Something inside me snaps.

“Just leave her alone,” I scream, picking up an ashtray and hurling it at the smiling person.

It strikes him on the head and he staggers. He reaches out for support on a nearby desk and a green thick liquid starts to run down his head. The whole room goes silent. The smiling person turns to look at me. He moves towards me very deliberately, but a little unsteadily. The green liquid is running steadily down his back and dripping on to the floor as he comes towards me. I can’t move. Fear has me rooted to the spot. I stare at Alison, wanting her to be the last thing I see, and her eyes are wide and confused.

The smiling person crosses the last meter between us suddenly and grabs my hand, the one that threw the ashtray. Then he slowly begins to squeeze, tighter and tighter. I try to pull away, but I can’t. I find myself standing on tiptoe as I feel the bones shift in my hand. There is an audible crack as something breaks, and I whimper out a scream. I know in that moment he is going to kill me slowly.

But there is a noise to my left as someone starts singing. Tom Franklin has stood up and, with a voice only barely suited to karaoke, is offering his rendition of “Mack the Knife.” The attention quickly shifts from me to him. There are other smiling people in the office and they begin to cluster around him. The one grabbing me turns to look at this new spectacle. Having not captured all his audience, Tom jumps onto a desk and begins showing us dance moves worthy of a drunken dad at a wedding. It is such a comical sight a few of the office workers are giggling, some out of hysteria.

The smiling person releases my hand and moves closer to get a better look at Tom. I sink to the floor clutching my hand. It’s agony but I grit my teeth not to cry out. Tom and I exchange looks, and I mouth a brief thank you. He nods in acknowledgement as he tries to get some of the others to join in the chorus. To his credit, he gets some of them to at least begin clapping along. I remember there is a medical kit in the kitchen that might have something I can bind my hand with. As I leave the main office, I turn to look at the smiling person who hurt me, and he has his head turned towards me. I freeze, and he turns back to Tom, who is coming to a big finish. It is all I need to see to understand this incident is not over.

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I’m too scared to leave early, so with my hand wrapped in a bandage and throbbing with dull pain, I stick out the rest of the day. I want to catch Tom to thank him for possibly saving my life, but he seems to be avoiding me. He is not the only one. It’s like I’ve been marked, and no one wants to get tainted by being seen with me. So all that I can do is walk home and hope the day doesn’t get any worse. My hand continues to throb as I walk, but the cold helps a little. Something must be broken, but there are no hospitals here. Pain is a draw for the smiling people. I think they want to know how easily we break or how much suffering we can endure.

Just before I get home, someone pulls me into an alley. I shake off the hand that has yanked me by the arm and turn to defend myself. I’m surprised to see it’s Tom.

“I need your help,” he says. “I figure you owe me after this afternoon.”

He’s right, but I’m still confused. “What do you need?” I say noncommittally.

“I’m getting out of here.”

It’s a simple sentence, and not the first time I’ve heard it. I’m filled with equal parts hope and terror.

“What makes you think you can leave?”

He opens his coat and shows the handle of a gun poking out of his belt. The device looks old and a little worn, but it might just still be serviceable. I think it might be the same type of gun my father used to own before the creatures came.

“This will get us past anything if we’re fast. Once we’re over the wall, we can get hold of the resistance. I just need someone to watch my back. I can’t do this alone.”

“Why me?”

“You know why. They are going to kill you after what you did today. That’s why I distracted them, why I risked my life for you. I need someone with nothing left to lose.”

I want to tell him I have Alison, but I know that isn’t true. I change the subject.

“Where did you get the gun?”

“It came in my box. I know that sounds crazy, but there it was, and a few bullets too. I think the resistance has infiltrated wherever they pack this stuff up. There must be people like us filling the boxes and delivering all this food and one of them sent me this. I don’t know if they meant it for me, or if they just wanted to get it to someone, but it could be my ticket out and I’m not going to waste it.”

“Okay, so when do we leave?”

“Now.”

“Okay,” I say, unsure. “I’ll get some things and meet you back here.”

“No. When I say now, I mean right now.”

“What? No! We need clothes, provisions; I have stuff at my place.” I don’t want to say it out loud but I can’t leave the ring behind.

“That’s no good. We start packing anything and they’ll know. They might even know just from us talking here. We have to start walking and maybe, just maybe, they won’t know what we’re up to until we’re at the wall.”

I close my eyes for a moment and picture the ring, safe under the floorboard. It is all I have left, but if they kill me, it won’t matter. If they bring us back, they won’t find it on me. If we escape, maybe I won’t need it.

“Alright. We go now.”

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Walking to the wall, we do our best to look nonchalant. It gets harder as we get close because the smell from the wall is thick and heavy. As we get closer there are fewer people around until we are the only ones. Both of us have our collars turned up so we can cover our noses from the dense rot that stinks over the whole area. But no one stops us; no smiling people seem to be around. Maybe without so many people here, they don’t have much interest.

When we reach the wall itself, it is hard not to retch. The smell is deep here; I can feel it seeping into my clothes and sticking to the inside of my nostrils. It towers above us, a pile of detritus and effluent. The remains of an entire civilization has been used to build it. There are bodies there, so many I can’t count. Each is mummified after years encased here. Some seem to reach out as if they might have been alive before they became part of it. There are animals in there too, and bones. But the construction is not entirely organic. Rusted girders, rubble from destroyed buildings, and even a few vehicles have been used as materials. The whole construction is held together by a green and yellow mucus that has set almost as hard as cement. However, even now, the outer layers of it somehow remain sticky and soft to the touch.

Tom and I grit our teeth and begin to climb. It isn’t a difficult climb in many ways. There are so many handholds, and the angle isn’t as steep as it might be. My damaged hand is a problem, but not an insurmountable one. But the smell is overpowering, and everything I touch is disgusting. Dead eyes stare out at me as we climb, and my feet keep slipping on God knows what as I push up each step. With each breath, I want to throw up. It feels so high that I wonder if I’ll ever reach the top.

I don’t know how long it takes us to climb the wall, but it must have been hours. The night has deepened as we crawl up to the apex, but we can still see by the light from the city behind us. It feels empty up here, far from everything. When I look back, I think I see something moving below us, but it is too far away. Is it a smiling person? I can’t tell, but I’m not sure if they can see us up here from down there. We are both exhausted and take a moment to rest, spread out on this jagged ridge. The climb down should be easier, but with the worst over, we both take a moment. Tom smiles at me, but it is too early to think we are safe yet.

Given the darkness, it is hard to see very far, even from here. But the sky bathes the land in a soft glow of sickly mauve and green. I can’t see anything but barren land, though. There is nothing out there as far as the eye can see. In the distance, mountains rise up to the clouds and here and there, the shapes of tentacles wave frond-like from the sky. Where they touch the ground, they seem to be grazing on the dust that remains.

“Beyond those mountains. That’s where they’ll be,” says Tom, his hope failing to infect me. I don’t answer him. Looking out here, I can’t imagine there is anything else left. I’m not even sure without provisions we could make it past the mountains. But I can’t destroy his last hope, and I want to believe him. I want to believe him so badly I’m still ready to risk my life here.

After we’ve taken a moment to catch our breath, we start to make the climb down. As we stand to begin the decent, there is a screech and something falls from the sky a few feet from us. It looks like a cross between a bird and a reptile. It has a thin humanoid form, made of bones and skin. Its head is pointed with glittering eyes and great leather wings block out the sky behind it. Its feet are claws, and it grips the wall as it perches there. It screams out a cry at us both and stalks towards us, reaching out with long sharp fingers.

I want to run, but Tom pulls the gun from his belt. He fires at the creature four times quickly. Three of the bullets find their mark, spraying both of us with its yellow blood. The creature staggers back, its screams gurgling as blood fills its throat. Tom smiles at me in victory as the creature falls backwards to slip down the wall.

I meet Tom’s gaze just in time to see another creature pluck him from the wall in front of me. It lifts him off his feet in seconds. As it does so its wings smash into me and knock me from the wall. I fall, tumbling and turning down the steep hillside. I hear bones crack under me, but can’t be sure if they are mine. Shards of steel slice and bash me as I slip along the broken edifice.

As I fall, I hear Tom’s gun fire, but I can’t tell how many times. It seems far away, up in the sky, but how high I can’t tell. Then I hear a crunch not too far away as I slowly come to a rest. Opening my eyes and uncurling myself, I try to look around. Every part of me hurts and I can’t tell if the thick liquid that covers me is my blood or more slime from the wall. Tom lies on his back a few feet away, his eyes staring skyward. One of the creatures squirms nearby, flapping its wings in death throes as it sprays yellow blood around it. Another creature lands next to it, but ignores me. It tears the head from its kinsman, almost in annoyance at the noise it was making. Then it fixes me with a glare, struts over to Tom’s body, and begins tearing into his stomach. His body lurches as it rips out his succulent organs, while his eyes continue to stare blindly at the sky.

I crawl away as best I can. It will come for me next and there is nothing I can do to stop it. As I drag myself away from the wall onto the dry earth, I look up to see smiling people all around. They stand in a great crowd facing me, and they seem eager for something. I force myself to kneel, then to stand, so I can face them. It is over for me. I don’t know how I can stay alive, or even if I want to anymore. But I will at least keep some of my dignity.

“Go on, then,” I shout at them. “Just kill me and get it over with.”

I’m waiting for their usual silence, but instead, one of them opens his mouth a little and in a quiet voice full of echoes says, “No.”

I step back in shock. They have never spoken before, at least not to anyone who has talked about it.

“Why not?” is all I can think to say.

“We have not finished.”

“Finished what? Is this some experiment? You just want to see what it takes to break us, what you need to do to make us beg? Why? What is the city for?”