Tandem of Terror (26 page)

But he had been so sure of himself and his
anti-toxin, that he'd administered it to Shan and himself. He'd
decided instantly they would stay put until it was all over instead
of rushing out to help his peers and CDC struggle to contain the
plague.

There had only been three of them and he'd
been well armed. When they showed on his doorstep howling, he'd
went out to scare them off thinking they were merely looters or
people driven mad with fear. He hadn't realized the virus's
side-effects on those naturally immune to it until he'd emptied a
full clip from his 9mm into one of them and watched the man get up.
They'd overpowered him and fought their way inside nearly killing
him in the process. There was no reasoning with them, no asking for
mercy. They were animals, mindless and violent. They raped Shan
over and over as he watched and when they were finally done they
torched his home with her broken and battered body lying inside. He
lay in his driveway that night too wounded to move, watching the
flames and screaming as they fled into the night, leaving him for
dead.

Gary floored the accelerator. His truck slung
gravel as it sped out onto the main interstate. He jerked the
wheel, right and left, steering his way like a madman through the
sea of rusting cars and the rotting corpses dead within them. Many
a time he had prayed for death yet he lived on, searching for a
cure even though he knew it was far too late to matter to the
world.

Gary pulled into the parking lot of a BP
station. Its bright green sign lay shattered into emerald shards
upon the pavement. He let the engine idle and leaned back in his
seat, lighting up a stale cigarette. The virus was in his blood too
despite his anti-toxin. He got out of the truck and walked around
to the pumps. The station somehow still had power. He lifted a
handle and sprayed gas over himself and the truck and drawing his
9mm, fired around into the truck's tank as the sun sunk below the
surrounding mountains. The twilight was lit by a blaze of flame, a
fireball reaching up to the heavens. He howled as his flesh
blackened and burnt away until the darkness over took him.

When he awoke, he looked down at his naked
form, whole and rebuilt by the monster he'd given birth to. For him
there was no death or insanity, only pain. A hell of his making,
eternal and for him alone.

He noticed a woman standing on the road
nearby. Her tattered clothes smeared with blood and dirt, her feral
eyes gazing at him questioningly. He raised his hand and called out
to her but she fled, running into the trees as drool and foam
bubbled from her mouth. Gary rested his face in the palms of his
hands and wept once more.

Across the street he spotted another
abandoned truck, dilapidated and accosted by whoever or whatever
had blown through here before. He crossed the street to it, hoping
for a corpse that still had some clothes that he could cover his
naked body with.

For once, there was a smidgen of luck on his
side, Holy Hallelujah someone was giving him a break. Gary pulled
the ragged clothes from the shriveled body, he glanced at the
rotting face, patches of bone exposed through the flesh, and stared
at the open mouth that winced in eternal anguish. "Poor bastard,"
he muttered as the rustling sound caught his ears.

He looked up at the trees that lined the side
of the road and spied the woman again. She was still there, her
eyes locked onto his frame, studying his face, his actions, his new
rags as he covered his manhood.

She sat on bended knees, half-hiding behind
branches and brush but somehow he felt she wanted him to see her.
He wasn't quite sure but he thought a smile or what she could
manage as one twisted onto her dirty, ravaged face. Some spittle
trailed from the corner of her mouth as she lifted a hand and
gestured meekly to him.

Gary wanted to laugh.
If anyone could see
this ridiculous event right now
. If only there was one other
normal person on this God forsaken planet. Perhaps she was not as
far gone as he first supposed. Maybe the effects of the plague had
only partly damaged her. Was there someone salvageable inside.
Someone he could teach to be normal again. He didn't want to be
alone forever...he needed the company of someone, anyone.

It seemed she beckoned him to follow her. She
stood up fully, a bit hunched however, and started to walk off,
gesturing once more before vanishing through the trees.

He started off after her, shaking his head.
What the hell was he doing? This was crazy but what the hell else
was there to do. He glanced back at the hunk of flaming wreckage
that once was his truck across the street and continued on.

He noticed his skin smelled a bit sooty as he
walked through groves and mud caked fields. She lead him through a
thick neighborhood full of hollowed out houses that looked like the
husks of long dead animals.

She slipped around one of the homes and he
jogged across the street so that he wouldn't lose her.

As he turned the corner he came to look upon
a stone wall and suddenly realize that it encased a cemetery. The
wall came up to his chest as he walked up to it. He gazed over the
cemetery, noticing crumbled headstones and toppled tombs. There
were a few long dead bodies scattered about the graveyard and he
also noticed that some of the graves smoldered, as if they had been
on fire.

He saw the woman in the cemetery, she was
standing by a grave, the breeze stirring her ravaged clothing. She
beckoned to him again.

Gary questioned himself and this odd
circumstance but knew she had something she needed to tell him.
Without much forethought, he hopped onto the wall and climbed
over.

The cemetery grounds felt like mush beneath
his bare feet, it was sponge-like and the very touch of it sent a
sick feeling through his stomach. As he walked he saw that some of
the graves were dug open or clawed open it appeared. Soil was
scooped into piles and coffins lay exposed in their final resting
places, some were desecrated, others were broken into.

He looked ahead, the woman waited patiently
for him but when he drew close he saw her drop from his sight.

"
What the... . ," Gary
cocked his head and spit into the earth beside him. Finally he
found that she had actually jumped down into a newly dug grave, its
dirt piled up around the new hole.

His entire body filled with revulsion as he
looked down on her. In her arms she held a rotting arm, partially
covered with decomposing flesh. She bit into it with zest, tearing
the reeking flesh from the bone and gnashing it between her
teeth.

The vomit, choking back his scream of horror,
splattered to the ground below his feet, soaking them. Hearing his
repulsion the woman looked up at him and smiled again, bits of
flesh clinging to her cracked lips, and offered part of her meal to
him. She raised her arms up high, holding the arm aloft, as if it
were some new trophy.

Gary held his hands out as if in defense.
"God, god, god, god..." Clearly she was not like the others, she
didn't seem dangerous but she was as lost and gone as they were.
The virus had done something different to her but there would be no
redeeming her. He wished he had something to destroy her with. But
he wasn't even sure if she could be destroyed...the others like
himself could not be--

He felt an explosion from his chest as he
watched an arm plunge through it.

The pain washed through him like the fire
from earlier and he dropped to the ground.

Looking up, he saw one of them again, the
creatures that had killed Shan.

It stood over him, his blood dripping from
its arm, and cackled maniacally. The rage flooded Gary as he
screamed out at it, tears coming to his eyes. Suddenly he noticed
that he felt no pain, even though a mortal wound pulsed in the
middle of his chest.

Red coated his vision as the anger fueled his
body. He leapt to his feet and lashed out at the beast before
him.

He took the head clean off, watching it roll
across the ground and plop down into an open grave. The woman
behind him laughed shrilly.

The creature's body stumbled about like the
scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz searching for a brain or its head
in this case. Gary looked at his fist, perplexed at the strength
that now germinated within him.

He followed the headless body as it stumbled
about and grabbed hold of one its arms. With a swift jerk he tore
the arm from it, a spray of thick red hitting him. Without
hesitation, Gary continued to dismember the foul creature until
there was nothing left but to tear its beating heart out of its
chest.

He cast the heart and the other body parts
into the grave with the head and walked away laughing. He glanced
at the feeding woman and thought about doing the same thing to her
but by this point the rage had died within him and he could not
bring himself to do it to this wretched soul that once was human,
that once had a life filled with laughter, work and dreams.

On a slab of stone in the far end corner of
the cemetery Gary slept, tired and weakened from the days events.
The moonlight illuminated the area with an eerie phantom
luminescence. Funny how nature just continued its task while the
world of man crumbled into the dust.

One eye popped open, Gary was awakened by the
chill that slithered up his spine. He looked into the darkness and
in the shafts of moonlight saw a shape form.

"
Not again," he grumbled,
not really up to battling with another creature tonight until his
heart nearly stopped.

Out of the light he watched Shan walk, her
blonde hair dancing in the cold breezes, her eyes ignited with the
moonlight. Closer and closer she approached, there was a distraught
look on her face.

Gary almost lost it, his arms twitched, his
heart raced like a horse and his throat went so dry he couldn't
utter a word.

He didn't have to. The expression on Shan's
face twisted into fury as she now stood in front of him. "It's your
fault Gary!" He watched tears stream her cheeks. "All of it, it's
all your fault. Why Gary...why?"

"I... I don't know..." Gary offered. Shan
smiled then, dark and menacing. "Would you like to know why
Gary?"

Gary stared at her in disbelief.

"I'll tell you why, it's because you were
always such an arrogant bastard. Nothing was beyond you. You
thought you were the 2nd coming and in your way you were. Just not
of God, but of Satan."

Gary stared at her, his eyes burning with
tears. "I'm sorry, Shan. Forgive me."

Shan chuckled. "Your anti-toxin is
failing."

Gary blinked, "What? How could you know
that?"

"I'm here, aren't I?...I'm dead, Gary. How
could I be here?"

With those words she was gone fading like a
phantom into the dim starlight. Gary shook his head and got to his
feet, staggering out of the graveyard. The world seemed to swirl
around him. Bright spots danced before his eyes. He felt rage
building inside of him. He yanked the cemetery gate from its hinges
effortlessly and hurled it across the road.

"Good, Gary, Good," he muttered, "Now do you
feel better?" It was in Shan's voice that he spoke. "You're damned
Gary, now and forever."

Howling like an animal, Gary ran into the
night. Shan's laughter echoed in his wake.

The
Eveningtide

Eric S. Brown

The station's energy to matter converters
were one of the first things Ben had fixed when he took his job
here. They worked well enough, in fact they were top of the line.
The food they created was excellent and the repair parts well above
Corp standards. The problem had been in their programming. With a
few modifications though, Ben had gotten them to create what he
really needed, the things that were against Corp regulations, like
cigarettes. Ben wasn't a hardcore, old Earth druggie, or at least
he didn't think he was. He just needed his smokes and an upper once
in a while. Besides, it wasn't like he was ever going to get caught
out here. It was one of the reasons he loved this job.

He was the sole member of the Eveningtide's
crew and other than the automated drop off drones that appeared
every few days, the station rarely had visitors. An inspection ship
from the Corp only dropped by about every three or four months and
he knew when to expect them. Usually though, they didn't even dock
with the Eveningtide. Simple audio Contact was enough to assure
them that the station was fine and things were running as
normal.

A bright light flashed inside the converter
and a pack of cigarettes appeared where there had been nothing. Ben
reached for the pack and tore it open. He reclined in his wheeled,
swivel chair inside the station's main control room as he lit up.
He really did love this job. He knew every inch of the five mile
long station like the back of his hand, even the 220,321 bodies,
maybe especially the bodies. Of course the drones dropped off
anywhere from ten to fifty new ones each week which had to be
processed, cataloged and added to his chaotic filing system to be
persevered for all eternity. If you were rich or powerful enough
when you died, then you came to a station like Eveningtide after
death. It was kind of a status symbol in the Corp these days.

Today was drop off day and Ben was excited. A
void space tunnel opened up off the station's portside as a drone
emerged from it. The tunnel collapsed upon its self as the drone
raced towards the Eveningtide's upper docking levels. Ben got up
from his seat and headed towards one of the station's lifts to meet
it.

Ben knew today's drop was a small one, only
eight bodies total. He also knew that among them was Daniel Mortam,
the famous holo star. Mortam's career had been far from glorious.
The man had spent his life appearing in a list of horror-vids too
long to count and yet he was nearly a household name. The bulk of
his fame came not from his films but from his private life. Mortam
had clung to the older faiths of mankind, even in this enlightened
age of science, and had been persecuted for it. The man claimed he
could have been one of the greatest actors ever to have lived had
his beliefs not been leaked to the press early in his career.