Apocalyptic Shorts (7 page)

“You said you’ve seen the symptom before. Where?”

“Back in ’98, I was part of a team that intercepted a mind control technology in Moscow. The tech infects people with a virus and the victims become puppets to whoever is controlling the virus.”

“Controlling the virus?”

“The virus is capable of many things like communicating with an outside signal, converting received messages to impulses, which are then conveyed to the muscles. It is also capable of temporarily shutting down the brain. They called it the Tsar-Virus.”

“Wow,”

“Some of the symptoms were black veins on the face and the back of the neck, and expansion of the black of the eyes. But I can assure you that is not what we’re dealing with here, and I wish it is, but it's not.”

“So what's your job like, awesome?”

“I wouldn’t call it that. It’s fun, but not awesome, not even close, I’m one of the lucky ones though.”

“Lucky?”

“I mean, most agent don’t get to have a real family.”

I move away from the edge. “I think I get it now. Why that man jumped out of the plane without a parachute, why mom took her own life. I would to you know, if it ever comes to that, if I’m ever backed against a wall, surrounded by black-eyeds. It would become the most logical thing to do.”

“Don’t think about that now Steven. I hope it never comes to that. We can make it to carrier, we will make it.”

His words are soothing, and they help me relax my mind, but I’ve seen enough to know he’s only trying to make me feel better, and he doesn’t have the slightest idea if we’ll ever make it to the carrier.

“That man on the plane,” he adds. “He pulled the door open like it was nothing.”

“Yeah. That's strange right?” I say.

The door that leads to the roof swings open and three black-eyeds squeeze themselves through the small doorway out to the rooftop, running toward us. Paul shoots them down.

We look at each other, “They took the stairs,” I say. He nods.

More black-eyeds pour out. I run to the edge of the roof and jump to the next roof, I barely make it. I grab the edge of the roof and pull myself over, I roll on my back. Paul lands next to me, he jumped better than I did. He helps me up and we run to the other side of the roof. The black-eyeds are not smart enough to jump, so they are falling off the building.

The distance between the roof we are standing on and the next roof is only ten feet max, we jump it easily, and then we continue from roof to roof. On one of the roofs, black-eyeds pour out from the door that leads to the roof. I shoot whenever a black-eyed gets too close. We jump to the next roof and they follow. The distances between the roofs are now barely noticeable, and we are no longer jumping, just running across.

We get to a roof and stop. The next roof is about fifty feet higher, and the building is about twenty-five feet away. Black-eyeds are coming hot, and we have about ten seconds to decide on what to do. Paul bends, his hands on his knees, he’s trying to catch his breath.

“It’s a dead end.” I say.

“No, it’s not. You’re going to watch and do exactly what I’m about to do.”

He aims his gun at one of the windows on the next building and shoots twice. The bullets shatter the glass of the window. He shoves his gun into his waistband, takes two steps back and runs. He reaches the edge and he jumps. He goes down to the next building and falls in through the window he shot. He gets up and beckons me to come over. I shove my gun under my waistband, take five steps back, take a deep breath and run. When I reach the edge, I throw myself with all the strength I can summon. I begin to fall, screaming. As I get closer to the window, I realize I’m going to miss the window, but I can still grab the windowsill. I hold out my hands, ready to grab. My hands touch and slip off the sill. I begin to fall, but a hand grabs me on the arm. I look up, and Paul smiles down at me, his face turning red from struggling to hold my weight. He pulls me up the window and I collapse on him. He puts his hands around me tightly, he’s hugging me, but I’m too shocked to hug him back.

I get up, my hands and legs shivering. Pieces of the broken window glass are in my palms. He pulls them out for me, and it hardly hurt because I can barely feel my hands.

“We have to move now,” he says.

We find the elevator and ride to the ground floor. The elevator door opens and suddenly, a loud bang fills my head. My shoulder stings, and then intense pain rushes in and then I don’t feel my left arm anymore.

I notice a change in my angle and then something hits the side of my head. I blink and when I open my eyes, the floor appears right beside my face.
What’s happening to me?
I think, trying to voice it out, but my lips are numb. My head and half of my body are in great pain, and my left arm feels dead cold. I look down to the arm and see thick red liquid streaming out of it, just above the elbow. It is blood, my blood. I hear two gunshots, and then the floor vibrates slightly as if something heavy lands on it. I manage to move my head and see a woman on the floor, bleeding, and it all makes sense. She shot me, and now she’s dying, or dead. Paul shot her.

“Help her!” I scream.

Paul kneels beside me and carefully attends to my wounded arm. He presses his thumb into the bullet hole, and I feel his thumb touch the bullet, and he removes his finger. He takes the hem of his shirt and rips a part of it. He ties the piece of cloth around the wound and helps me to my feet.

“Help her,” I say.

“She’s dead,” he replies.

We hurry out of the building before black-eyeds find the source of the noises the guns made. We find a working car and find our way to a black-eyed-less road. I keep seeing that woman in her own blood and I keep trying to make the picture go away. I know he shot her not because he wanted to, but because he had to.

It’s not long before the Washington Monument appears ahead, but still a little far away. The closer we get to the building the more it appears less a building and more of a space rocket, and it is many times bigger than I remember.

“Isn't supposed to be the Washington Monument?” I ask.

Paul looks as surprised as I am.

One of the car's tires bursts and the car slows down to a stop. I remove my gun from my waistband and reload. We get out of the car. Dead bodies everywhere. The carrier is only a few minutes’ walk now. I hear the sound of a helicopter, but I don’t see any helicopter. I hear thick gunshots, different from the ones I’ve heard before. Paul pulls me close and we take cover beside the car.

“What?” I say.

“They’re shooting the black-eyeds.”

That is bad. If they are shooting black-eyeds from way up there, it will be difficult to tell the difference between the black-eyeds and normal people like us. They will shoot us down before we can get close to the carrier. We move along the side of the road, through several dead bodies, keeping our heads down and staying out of the helicopter’s sight. Dead bodies don’t scare me anymore. We take cover in the woods by the road and cross over to the other side. From here, we see the carrier in totality. It’s about a thousand feet high and it’s
big.
and awesome.

“I can’t believe the Washington Monument has always been a spaceship in disguise.” I say.

“Not always.”

The carrier is surrounded by steel fence. We find a rock out in the open, we run for it and take cover behind it. It hides us from the helicopter. We wait until the helicopter turns away, then we run for a bus and take cover beside it. The helicopter’s sound gets louder. We move into the bus and stay quiet.

Paul takes his phone and dials. I hear the creepy croaking sound close by, I look out the window and see twelve black-eyeds looking up at the helicopter and following it. The helicopter sees them and begins to shoot at them. The gunner must have poor aiming skill because the thick bullets are flying everywhere instead of simply going at the black-eyeds.

“We have to run, they’re gonna kill us.” I whisper.

Paul shakes his head. “We stay here,” he says.

Two bullets enter through the roof and hit the chairs, blowing through the foams and raising foam dust. We stare at each other. More bullets come in. I raise my head slightly and peek out the window. The twelve black-eyeds are dead on the ground but the gunner is still shooting. I guess he wants to be thorough. He must have had zero close encounter with the black-eyeds, or he would know they don’t hide. They hear a sound or see movement, they just follow.

“Stay down!” Paul yells with a whisper.

More bullets are hitting the roof and everywhere around us. Paul keeps his eyes on me and keeps telling me to stay absolutely still. I do. Bullets keep coming in through the roof and the windows, hitting the floor between and beside my legs, but none of them touch me or him.

After a few seconds, the shooting stops and the helicopter’s sound slowly fades.

“Faye, it’s me. We’re outside the fence, and we’re getting fired at.”

“Paul?” she sounds relieved to hear his voice. “Where are you?”

“In a bus, right outside the fence.”

“With your family?”

“Mary didn’t make it.”

“I’m so sorry Paul. Stay where you are, I’ll come get you.”

“Okay. Don’t be long, it’s crazy out here.”

He hangs up. “We have to stay here,” he says. “She’ll come get us.”

We stay in the bus, looking out every time we hear a sound. Paul keeps assuring me that Faye is doing everything she can to get us inside.

“This attack, I heard Faye mention something about it not originating from this planet. Is this an alien invasion?” I ask.

His eyes widens at me, like he does when faced with a challenging question in physics class. He looks away. “What matters Steven, is that we’re under attack, and we have to survive.”

“The president knew this would happen.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Why else would an historical structure be converted to a spaceship?” He does not respond. “You know, there’s a big part of me that’s excited that we’re going to Mars.”

“Yeah, me too.” He says, smiling.

I hear the creepy croaking again, but this time, it’s louder, thicker and coming fast, and it’s accompanied by several stumping. I look out the window and see so many black-eyeds coming toward the fence, so many of them that I cannot count, they must be in thousands

“Oh god no!” Paul yelps. He calls Faye on the phone, but she doesn't pick up.

The helicopter begins to shoot at the black-eyeds, and then three more helicopters appear. There are so many black-eyeds that I don’t think the helicopters will be able to stop them, and the people in the helicopters are too stupid to see that it’s the sound of their engines that is attracting the black-eyeds. One of the helicopters drops a bomb on the black-eyeds, blowing many of them to pieces.

The explosion shatters the windows and knocks the bus over. Two black-eyeds crawl in through the broken windows. I shoot them on the head, and more and more come in, squeezing themselves through the tight space. I put my feet together and hit the cracked window beside me. The crack spreads, but the glass still holds. The black-eyeds are already in the bus, crawling toward us, and if I don’t break this window, we will be trapped. I hold my gun at the glass and pull the trigger. The bullet explodes out of the gun and hits the glass, breaking it to pieces. Paul is shooting at the black-eyeds, but there are too many of them. I crawl out and pull him with me.

We make it out of the bus and run, black-eyeds coming after us as vicious as ever.

One of the helicopters sees us and turns its guns on us and begins to fire. We run, bullets piercing the ground all around us. We run toward the fence. Ahead, I see five black-eyeds getting electrocuted by the fence.

The helicopters are throwing more bombs at the black-eyeds, and the explosions are causing thick fog of smoke and dust. The helicopter above us stops shooting. They must have lost sight of us now that we’re covered in thick fog. I know they won’t throw bombs at us because we’re too close to the fence. I look around, and I barely see Paul, but I manage to make out his hand from within the fog, and I grab it and we keep running. We reach the fence and stop. We turn around, our backs facing the fence. The fog makes it impossible to see beyond twenty feet away. I feel my pocket with my hand to gauge how much ammo I have left. Paul takes out the phone and tries Faye’s line again, but she still does not pick up.

I see a shape move in the fog, I hold out my gun. A black-eyed charges out from the fog. Before I can shoot her, she dives at me. I clutch the sides of her head and turn with it, sending her face to the ground and my right knee on her back. I put two bullets in the back of her head and she becomes still. I get up and turn around immediately, ready for another round. Two more dives at out at me. I shoot one and fall beneath the other. She raises her head up, mouth opened, teeth opening and closing and she brings it down at my face. I shove the mouth of my gun in her mouth and pull the trigger three, four times. Her blood splatters all over my face. Paul pulls the body off of me and pulls me up. Five black-eyeds are lying dead behind him.

The croaking gets louder. We step back. We both know that no matter how bravely we fight, they will get us. But there is a better option. I look back at carrier and look at Paul and I know he is thinking exactly what I’m thinking.

The fog is clearing out, and now I see how close the black-eyeds are; only a few seconds away. Paul holds my hand tight and we embrace, tears running down my cheek.

“I love you dad,” I say.

“I love you too.” He replies, his face frowned and wet with tears.

I raise my gun and put it to the side of my head and he does the same.
Something lands between us and the coming black-eyeds. Half of it sinks into the ground and half sticks out. It is a pod about the size of a little dog, or the size of a bomb, but it cannot be a bomb, because at this range, it will destroy the fence, and they don’t want that. Something about it feels strange. It is smooth with glowing lines around its top and middle. The top part of the pod hisses open and the pod divides into three parts, each of the parts begins to spin in opposite direction of the other. It slowly separates from itself, leaving five inches gap between each part. I am so focused on the strange pod that I completely forget about the black-eyeds. And even now that I remember, I still cannot bring myself to look away from the pod. It glows, clicks and explodes, sending a glowing wave in every direction. Paul pulls me down flat on the ground. The wave touches and moves past us, it feels cold.