6th Horseman, Extremist Edge Series: Part 1 (13 page)

Of course it doesn’t start. I check the dead
soldiers for weapons. They have been stripped already, but I don’t
give up. These guys always have backups. With my awesome good luck,
I find a small revolver in the boot of one of the dead soldiers.
It’s loaded. I look for more ammunition, but find none. Well, I
have six shots, anyway. I move on, continuing toward the park. I
want to use one of the bullets badly, but decide to wait until I
get to the park. Maybe I’ll try shooting a duck or something.

When I get to Central Park I try to ignore
the corpses. During their last moments it seems like they started
hangin’ on each other. I see groups of bodies all heaped on each
other like somethin’ out of
Dante’s Inferno
without all the
fire. It makes my chest tighten so I look away. I go to the lake,
looking for a duck. I don’t see one, or any other kind of bird for
that matter. There are some dead birds along the waterfront and a
ton of stillness everywhere else. It’s like I’m in the eye of a
hurricane. There are dark clouds thickening and swirling around
me.

I go back to the street and take aim at a
traffic light. I breathe easy and slowly squeeze off one round.
Boom! The traffic light bursts into shards. It feels good, but it
doesn’t get rid of this dark feeling growing in me. The feeling is
kinda like when I take too big a hit off my bong. I just gotta
ignore it, but it’s there, in my veins, thumping and swimming
through my body like death trying to crash my party.

“Hey!” yells some guy from across the road.
He walks up to me. He has jet-black curly hair that’s clipped right
above his shoulder. He has a dark black beard and, as he gets
closer, jet blue eyes. He has a huge hiking backpack, water bottles
clipped to his shoulder straps, a pair of binoculars hanging around
his neck, and a pistol in one hand.

“Have you seen the military?” he asks.
“Anyone, for that matter?”

He looks like a regular enough dude, so I’m
not freaked. “Nah. No one left but dead bodies.” After I say the
words, I want to barf. The feeling passes. “Where you headed? Looks
like you’re gonna hike a mountain,” I say, trying to sound as
pleasant as I can. Little does this guy know, I’m the killer, the
mass murderer, even though I didn’t quite know what I was doing at
the time.

“I’m getting out of the city. Everyone’s
dead.” He looks me up and down as if he’s trying to decide if I’m
real. “It’s gonna start stinking here in the next day or so.”

“Yeah, no shit.” I look around. “I guess I’m
gonna do the same.” I actually feel better now that I ain’t alone,
which is weird.

“My name’s Ian.”

“What’s up? I’m Ben.”

I
t’s dark in this
vent. Too dark. I yell for my Dad and scream for my Ma. I cuss
every word I’m not allowed to say. I kick and scream some more. I
black out for a while and wake up, hoping I’m just dreaming. Of
course, this isn’t a dream. It’s so hard to breathe. There are so
many other places I’d rather be. This is like the time when I was
forced to go to the opera with my class and my Ma tagged along.
That would be better than this. Or that time I was forced to ride a
stinky, dirty horse. Or when I was forced to go to church. I’d
rather be in jail, pinned under a Sumo wrestler, or on the sinking
Titanic! The walls get tight. It’s like some creature is crushing
my rib cage. I need to expand! To stretch out! I’m dying!

I pass out again. I don’t know how long. When
I wake I check my cell. It’s dead. I finish the water I have in my
bag. Luckily I have a candy bar in there too. It’s melted, but
good.

Time seems frozen. I have no idea what to
do.

I hear someone. “Heeeeelp meeeee!” I
yell.

Someone bangs on the wall. I scream as loud
as I can. Light breaks into the vent. It’s so bright. Someone’s
hacking into the vent with an axe. They slam the vent again,
widening a crack in the ceiling of the vent, right above my head.
Dust from the broken drywall filters through the crack. It makes me
choke and cough. A voice on the other side speaks up, “Do you have
anything to help me pry this vent open?”

I take out my pocketknife. The blade won’t
cut the metal so I fold out the can opener. That seems to work. I
slowly work open the metal and squeeze out. A wave of relief floods
my lungs. The wall has been hacked to pieces. I step through the
wall and into someone’s office. I want to hug whoever saved me, but
my rescuer is gone. There’s the axe leaning against the wall and
next to it is a box with a red label. The label reads:

‘
To the brave soldier that stood on the
front line. Stab it into your arm. Otherwise, you die.

~ Zilla’

I open the box and find a red syringe. I hate
shots, almost as much as that vent. I look at the vent. Nah, I hate
that vent more than anything -- including shots, clowns, or that
bimbo jockin’ my dad. I drop the needle into my arm and press the
plunger. Heat travels through my shoulder and up my neck. I put my
head in between my knees and fight a wave of the pukes. When it
goes away I bolt toward the door. The entire floor is quiet. I run
to my dad’s office. The door is still locked. I run through the
cubicles. No one is around. Then I see a frosted window at the end
of the cubicles. I see a hand pressed up to the glass. I take the
axe to the door. The hand twitches. I try to peer into the room,
but the frosted glass blurs everything.

“Stand back!” I yell. I hack at the doorknob
until it flies off. The door doesn’t open all the way. A dead and
bloated woman blocks it. A putrid smell hits me. I cover my nose
and mouth with my shirt then peek into the room. All dead. I see my
dad at one end. He’s lying on some strange lady. His eyes and nose
are covered by thick, dark brown, gooey stuff. His mouth is wide
open. I take a step back. Tremors roll inside me. No. Dad.

I run down the stairwell leaping two steps at
a time until I get to the lobby. The big glass doors are locked. I
swing the axe. The glass shatters but doesn’t fall. It hangs on the
doorframe in wicked spider-cracks. I hack and hack with the axe
until my arms ache and my shoulders give up. I carefully squeeze
through the hole in the glass and step outside.

I stumble to the street, weak and tired. Very
tired. The streets are packed with cars but the drivers have long
ditched them or are dead at the wheel. There are bodies everywhere.
Some are lying on each other like they were in my dad’s office. I
take a step closer. Everyone is fuckin’ dead! I spin around. New
tears come to my eyes.

I hear a neigh. I spin and see a horse coming
at me! I jump but the horse follows me. It’s a cop horse and it’s
got serious goo leaking from its nose and eyes. One eye is filled
with so much puss it looks like someone landed a baseball in its
skull. I run and the thing slams into the building. It falls to its
knees making seriously strange sounds.

I run so hard tears fly behind me. Some guy
on the sidewalk spits up phlegm and chokes on it. I can’t help him.
I can’t help anyone. I run while wiping snot off my face and onto
my sleeve. I need my Ma. The smell of smoke and ash surrounds me,
follows me, and burns my nose. I run across the street to a pay
phone, but it doesn’t work. I turn around and around. Home.
Which way to my home?

I walk for a half hour. I’m more relaxed now,
but I still feel like something rotten is growing inside me. This
isn’t real. This isn’t happening. Is it? My stomach pinches me.
It’s like knives are in my guts making sushi. It finally makes some
awful growling noise. Bile bubbles up in my throat. I think I’m
starving, but I don’t feel hungry. I feel sick and sad and
confused. Among dead and bloated corpses, the last thing I thought
I’d be looking for is a cheeseburger. First, I have to find
something to eat, and then I can go home. I pass by a digital
camera store, then a hotel. Finally, I see a small market. I round
a burned out box truck and jump over a dead person. The door is
locked, but I can see food in there. I pick up a trashcan and throw
it at the front window. The glass shatters. Inside, the shelves are
loaded. I grab soup, beans, and all the chocolate and gum I can
carry. I leave with my mouth full of those little powdered
donuts.

There’s a dead body sticking out of the
cooler. It’s an old guy. He has a white apron and a photo in his
hand. It’s a pretty girl. She’s around my age. I run out of the
store as fast as I can. I want to scream some more. I want to hit
something. I stand in the middle of the desolate street and cry
like a baby. I sob hard, so hard it hurts my entire body.

I gotta get home. Everything I know is there.
So I start walking toward the Queensboro Bridge.

The closer I get to the bridge the worse I
feel. My stomach is pissin’ me off, and my head hurts. I jump a
small iron gate that surrounds a restaurant patio and sit at a
table. The black metal chairs and matching tables are covered in an
ash-like dust. They look hundreds of years old. I sweep away a
layer of dust then I chug some water. The wind picks up and cools
me off, but the gross odor in the wind gets worse. I gag, then
throw up over the backside of the chair. I’m ready to see another
person alive. I’m ready to be home.

I hear deep explosions somewhere toward
Central Park. Then a bunch of pops. Someone is alive over there.
I’d go looking for them except I don’t want to mess with anyone
packin’ a machine gun. I get up and decide to get going. Call it
instinct, but I move faster and closer to the buildings, trying to
stay out of sight as best I can. I wish I had my rifle. I’d gotten
a twenty-two caliber hunting rifle from my Dad last year. It has a
serious scope with infrared tech and an insulated barrel for quiet
recoil. I’ve been to the gun range with my Dad many times, so I
know how to use it.

I turn the corner at 2nd Street. I can see
the massive build up of cars on the Queensboro Bridge onramp. Good
thing I’m not in a car ‘cause it would be impossible to navigate
this mess, unless I had a monster truck.

I jump on a red Jeep then hop onto the hood
of some old, crappy car. Then I hopscotch up to the straightaway.
Most of the cars are deserted, but I can see a few people still
buckled in. They are all stiff and dead like crash test dummies.
Some look like they’re just sleeping. I hop on a beat-up yellow cab
and then to the bed of a blue truck.

I see an overturned cop car that’s upside
down on other cars. The cop car is smashed. I follow the path of
destruction the cop car must have caused. It had tumbled from the
upper ramp. Damn messy fall. I work my way around it then stop.
There might be guns in the cop car, a shotgun or something, in the
trunk.