Forgotten Fears (13 page)

Deep sleep.

It’s time, but don’t worry, I’ll look after you.

Just like I promised.

You look so innocent, so unaware of what’s about to happen. Either way, it’s time we were going. The lines at the purgatory hall are always a bitch, and it’s best if we get there early. I wonder if you will have any regrets when you find out it’s over?

I think I would, although to tell you the truth, your wife and kids will probably lead better lives without you there to screw it up. It may be harsh, but it’s true. The world won’t miss you. In fact, it will be better without you in it. That big wheel will keep turning regardless.

You’re in that place.

Deep, do not disturb land, and I was never a reaper that needed to be told twice.

It’s time.

FIRECRACKER

[This is one of those stories which seem to crop up every now and again, in that I genuinely don’t recall writing it! Based on the dates on the word document, it looks like it was sometime in mid-2011, which would tie in with the Dark Corners writing sessions. Either way, I can’t recall it, and discovering it again was a pleasant surprise. I like the simplicity of it and although it takes a few liberties with real world procedure, I’m happy to include it here. ]

SIX MINUITES. THREE hundred and sixty seconds. The human heart beats between sixty and eighty times per minute when resting, but I know mine is going a hell of a lot faster than that right now. It’s funny how you never think about time until you don’t have much left. But I’m thinking about it now, because in exactly five minutes and twenty-eight seconds, the world as we know it is going to end.

I know this because I made it happen. I’m not some lunatic cult member either like David Koresh of the Canadian guy who thinks he is Jesus. I’m just a man like everyone else, I’m just fortunate that the fringe benefits of my job have given me the opportunity to pull the plug on this shithole world that we live in.

It’s funny because even as a kid growing up I think I always knew that this was my fate. We relied too much on governments without backbones who, when the time came, didn’t have the guts to stand up and be counted. Whilst my buddies were watching cartoons and riding bikes, I was watching the news as those people in power continued to flush the country down the drain. Even then it left a sour taste in my mouth and I knew what I needed to do.

Four minutes.

It's strange knowing what fate intends for you from such a young age. I knew what subjects I would need to take to get there, and I devoted myself to getting there whatever the cost. It was because of my complete dedication that I had no friends growing up. I didn’t need them either. I learned early on that most people are out for number one and will stab you in the back first chance they get. My parents and teachers were overjoyed and encouraged me to keep working hard.  As I grew up, I was still wet behind the ears. I thought I could make a difference, I thought that by getting involved with these political groups that I could bring about change, but it didn’t take long to find that it was a hive of the corrupt, fed by the greed of those who only wanted to increase their own power.

The thing is, it would have been easy to join in with those tyrannical old men. They were the snake offering the tainted apple, promising the world if only I would sell them my soul. I will admit to being tempted. I was young and hungry for success, but when it all came down to it, I couldn’t face the idea of becoming a member of that particular club, clinging on to power with one gnarled hand whilst I stuffed pockets full of cash with the other.

Not likely.

My decision to shun their invitations made me a target, but I was never one to shy away from a good fight, and so I used the public against them. It was easy to get them onside, because many of them, like me were sick of these people who were running the world into the ground. I told it how it was, I exposed their flaws, uncovered the skeletons they had tried so hard to bury, and the public loved me for it. One particular world leader made some derogatory statements about me in the press back in two thousand and two, but I wasn’t some wet behind the ear rookie anymore, and I arranged for a dead hooker and two kilos of heroin to be found in his hotel room. No matter where you are in the world, that would be enough to get you a stretch in prison, but this was Texas, and it was punishable by death. I pushed for it to happen. Not publicly, but behind closed doors. I schemed and whispered and planted seeds of ideas in the heads of the right people. In two thousand and four, after two appeals and numerous protests, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. In public, I said it should serve as an example that nobody was above the law. In the circles I ran in though, people suspected that I had more to do with it. The disdain they had for me grew into fear, and that suited me just fine.

Two minutes fifty. Time flies.

I had to dispose of a lot of people on the way up. Don’t be so surprised, though. I wasn’t the only one that got my hands dirty. You might say I was just as vile and corrupt as the rest of them, but I’m different. You see, I had that one goal, that one idea of what needed to happen if the world was to really become a better place. I knew by then that words alone wouldn’t change things. Only action would do that.

My only sorrow is that when the world finds out what I did when they really dig into my history, they will brand me a terrorist. And more than anything else, that concerns me. What I’m about to do is for the people of this world. It’s a chance to reset, to rebuild and make this world a better place. You might say I’m a terrorist. I say I’m a martyr. My only wish is that I could be here to see what happens afterwards. But by now, they will know what I have done and will be coming for me.

Two minutes left. I better hurry this up.

The headaches started at around the time I announced my intention to run for president. By that time, I had two distinct reputations. One in the public as a golden boy, a smiling, baby kissing forward thinking symbol of hope. Behind closed doors and with those who moved in the same political circles as me, I was a beast. A monster. Someone to be feared. Nobody dared to make a move against me because they knew what would happen if they did. I made enemies almost daily, and I suppose it was inevitable that it wouldn’t be long until somebody decided to try and off me. It was July 11’ when I was at a peace rally in Chicago when some look tried to shoot me. He got two shots off from around eight feet away before security took him down. One bullet completely missed and hit the wall behind me, the other hit the silver lighter in my breast jacket pocket and ricocheted off to safety. The event that should have killed me only left me with an ugly bruise on my chest. I still have that lighter. I can see it on the desk in front of me, all bent out of shape and twisted.

I found out who tried to have me killed, and dealt with them accordingly. All off the books you understand, all away from the prying eyes of the public. I never did anything myself of course. I’m not a hands on kind of guy. But I gave strict instructions to the people I paid to do it to make sure the son of a bitch suffered before he died. If anything, the assassination attempt only served to increase my popularity with the public, and in turn, the fear amongst my political peers.

I can hear them now outside, banging on the door and trying to get in. I have barred it though. Barred it good. The headache is throbbing behind my eyes, and the office suddenly seems too bright, too harsh. I long for quiet, I long for an end to everything. My chief of staff is lying face down on the floor, the blood pooling around his head soaking into the blue deep pile carpet. The gun on my desk is a magnum, just like the one Clint Eastwood used to use when he played Dirty Harry. I want to make sure you see. I want to make sure there is no comeback.

Less than a minute to go. I better wrap this up.

I Became president last year. Me, Dillon Brooks, president of the United States of America! Who would have thought it? It was a landslide victory. I thought that I owed it to myself to at least try to put things right without resorting to the extreme measures that I have now put into place, but I found that even with the title of president, I couldn’t solve everything. Sure enough I might, over time, be able to change a few things for the better, but the world had become a cancer, and the vile roots of those who controlled it went deep. Plus, there were the other countries too. The ones intent on destroying the planet. Our natural resources are depleting. Oceans are rising. Overpopulation is becoming a problem. But at no point has anyone decided to try and change things. Only by purging the planet can we change things for the better. Only by making sure that future generations have a chance, can we rest easy.

The voices on the other side of the office door are getting louder now, and I’m sure they will soon break through. It’s already too late, though. There is no stopping this now.

Time to wrap this up.

The genesis project is a top secret weapons program. People think that the atomic bomb is the be all and end all, and so did i. but it turns out we never stopped developing our weapons capability, and Genesis makes the nuke look like a firecracker. I’m not exactly sure how it works, something about charging the oxygen in the air and making it volatile. It was never launched because there was no way to control how much of the oxygen it would burn. It was shelved and labelled as unsafe, but I had the power to restart the program. I poured as much money as I could into it. My advisors asked how I intended to afford it but never pressed too hard. Maybe because they trusted my judgement, or maybe because word had gone around about my ruthless streak. Either way, it doesn’t matter now. I can already hear the rumble in the distance and the sky has gone dark.

I didn’t realise quite how powerful the blast would be, it’s frightening how large that wave is, that wall of fire racing towards me. I have the gun of course but that doesn’t seem fair anymore. I only got it in case things went wrong, so they couldn’t send me to trial. I know now that I won’t need it. Nothing could survive this. Nothing at all. Besides, I don’t think my family would have approved of me wimping out and not dealing with the situation I caused. That’s not my way. I can see it coming now out of the window, a column of fire as far as I can see, the rumble shaking the photographs off the walls. Even the banging on the door has stopped. I think they know as well as I do that there is nothing to be done.  It’s so beautiful.

I only hope it’s quick.

[This is another story which was written for an anthology which never saw the light of day. (This happens more than you might expect) I love the idea of a post-apocalyptic world, and although there are plenty of stories out there about how such worlds came to be, I wanted to look at what life would be like for someone who was born into that world. Into a world where the world as we know it never existed. I had the idea to try and incorporate a more visual cue of how that world might be which you will see as you progress though the story. Hopefully you will enjoy it.]

I CAN’T REMEMBER the sun. Some of the old timers claim to recall it, but the world I know has always been this shade of grey which blankets everything. The rains come often, but they are more ash than water and leave a greasy sheen on the skin. I think today is my birthday, but I can’t be sure. The people who took me in when my family died count that day as my birth, which to them it was. Hell, I don’t even know how old I am. Maybe twenty three or so, although I look and feel nearer to forty. People around here call me James, and although I know it’s not my real name, I don’t argue. Names don’t matter anymore really. What matters is that I - we are still here. The last survivors of a dead world. I have dated the start of this journal as July 7
th
just for the sake of keeping records, although the truth is, we stopped counting days and months long ago. If nothing else it will serve to keep my thoughts in order as I write them down.

The story of what happened isn’t one that any of us like to talk about. After all, we all lived it. We know. We look into each other’s eyes and there is something there. Shared knowledge, shared respect. I don’t really know what it is. Some kind of solidarity. It’s funny, because in the movies back before the world actually went and died on us, they always painted a picture of scattered groups of mangy survivors hiding from cannibalistic bandits and trying to make their way to salvation. The reality was that there are no bandits, not that I know of at least. In fact, those of us who are left have pulled together. I don’t know if it’s good fortune or irony that it took the world going to hell around us to finally make us set aside petty squabbles and come together to survive.

Our group consists of just seven people. We had twelve until recently, but we lost two on our last hunt, and another four to cancer. Damn radiation, that’s the enemy now. Even as we struggle to survive it eats away at us. That and the things in the water.

Before I get to that, I think a little backstory is in order. I managed to find this journal in the ruins of a schoolhouse, and borrowed a pen from Gimmy, who out of everyone understands best why I need to get this on paper. See, I’m pretty sure I’m dying. The cough that started a few weeks ago is still here, and I have started to bring up blood. My nails and hair haven’t started to fall out yet, but I don’t think it will be too long before it happens. Brad thought I was just paranoid when I told him I thought I had the cancer, but he can’t understand that I can feel it inside. It’s in there, mutating my cells, screwing around with my internal composition. The others don’t seem too concerned about my plight. We have all become desensitised to death, and even though they don’t say it, the look in their eyes tells me they see me as a dead man walking - an inconvenience. An extra mouth to feed when food is scarce. They won’t cut me loose from the group, but I don’t think many tears will be shed when I join the other four billion plus who have died on this god forsaken ball of rock since this all began. We go hunting in a few days, and that means facing those things, those foul abominations that live in the oceans. Brad thinks they are stupid and mindless, but I don’t think so. They know we can’t live off the land, and that our only food source is out there with them. I keep wanting to call them fish, but that would be an understatement. They are mutations, amalgamations of the things that used to live in the oceans before the event happened. Abominations of nature ruined by whatever polluted the water. I don’t have time to go into it now. The shadows are getting longer, and we will have to get the fire going soon. The nights are so cold. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you all about how this thing started.

Didn’t sleep too well. This damn cough kept me awake, and the few times I did drift off, I dreamed of those things out in the water. For as much as we have coped with a lot, it’s hard to handle how they look. First one I saw was twenty footer. Imagine a whale mingled with a squid and then turned half inside out, and you would be somewhere in the right ballpark. They are hellish, violent things, their need to hunt us as much as we them making our clashes inevitable. But all that will be told in time. Later today, we go out to face them, and that frightens me more than I could ever express in words. The day the asteroid hit was a Thursday. It cut through the sky at over 20,000 miles per hour, and impacted somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The sky lit up for five solid days, and then the world became shrouded in darkness - a worldwide blanket of ash which blotted out the sun. Millions were killed by the blast and the resulting tidal surges. Countless others by the fallout. Nothing was left untouched. Nothing escaped the hell that came. For all the arrogance of man, it astounds me just how quickly we died out as a species. There was no fight, no master plan. Nature simply decided our time was done, and snuffed us out.

A few of us remain of course. Skeletal, filthy wretches with haunted eyes that only tell part of the horror. There aren’t many though. Death is something that we all grew used to pretty quickly. I sit now in this abandoned husk of a building, its interior as ravaged and barren as I’m sure all of us feel inside. I know I do.  Some of the others question why I bother to write something down when there is no hope that anybody will ever read it, and I suppose they have a point. I think whatever my reasons, it makes me feel better to get it down on paper. Maybe, just maybe whoever you are that might be reading this are in a better world than this one. I think about what is about to take place, about going out on the water, and it fills me with a horror even worse than the lingering stench of ash and death that clings to those of us who are left.

Benson just told me that he understands if I don’t want to go out there with them. When I asked him why I wouldn’t, he mumbled something about my condition. I know he didn’t mean to cause offence, but I still found myself getting defensive, screaming and shouting that I was fine. Truth is, I don’t want to go out there. None of us would if we didn’t have to. Let them keep the damn oceans to themselves if that’s what they want, but the fact is, we have no choice. They are the only thing left that we can eat, and so we have no choice but to try and hunt them.  Even though they gave me a readymade excuse not to go, I still have my pride, and wanted to prove my worth out there before I find a quiet corner to die in. I need to get away from these people, at least for a while. It’s funny that even in a world as empty as this one, we still need to spend time by ourselves.

Had to get away yesterday. Hated looking at their faces. They look at me like I’m some kind of leper. I suppose, in a way I am. I walked out into the bleak wastes, everything covered in grey ash or burned and broken. Bodies of the dead lie mummified in their thousands, some taking on a ghostly stone effect from the ash build up. It reminded me of something from Pompeii, and I almost laughed outright. The quiet is something that even now I struggle to get used to. There is absolute deathly silence. There are no birds left to sing, no animals left to scratch at the undergrowth. No people to exchange nods with and share pleasantries. All there is, is the sound of the water, and the knowledge of the things that we all know live in it. I have found some letters on my travels. Voices of ghosts from the past that I have gathered from various places as I walked the earth and tried to figure out what I was supposed to do.  I don’t know any of the people who wrote them, but I somehow still feel a connection to them. My intention is to leave them with this journal when it’s finally my time to pass so that someone else might be able to get some sort of useful information from them, or at the very least see how things were for us. More and more often I wonder about my wife and daughter and I ask myself for the millionth time if it’s possible they somehow survived. I know of course that they didn’t. I went to all the places where I knew they would go if we were separated. I only hope for them it was quick and painless. I wouldn’t wish this life I have now on anybody. I don’t feel much like writing anymore today, but as promised, I will include the letters I found within the pages of this journal, just so you can see for yourself the devastating impact on the world. If anything, maybe the next species of humans will learn how not to do things.

Barely slept last night. I think it was because I know today is the day that we head out onto the water. Even Stan was tense this morning as he checked the netting and harpoon guns. Four of us are going out. There is me (obviously), Benson who once again told me he understood if I didn’t want to go. He’s a nice guy and he means well, but I’m not about to be seen as a coward. Also coming with us is Toby. He’s pretty new to the group. Found him wondering down the side of the road, weaving around burned out husks of cars. He’s only fifteen, and although he talks like the big man, this morning I saw fear in his eyes. The kid shouldn’t be ashamed. We all feel it. It’s like a physical thing, hanging in the air with the ash and the smell of rot and death.  Benson told him not to worry, and that he was going out there as a boy, but coming back as a man. I don’t believe that. After all, I have seen what’s out there.

In charge of the fishing trip is Stan. He knows all about these things, and claims to have caught dozens of them before he joined up with our group. He certainly talks the talk, and we couldn’t help but feel reassured as he told us exactly how it will go down out there. He says there is a spot around eighty miles off the coast where these creatures roam, and that will be our best bet of finding them. It sounds crazy I’m sure. Hell, it looks crazy even writing it down. Nobody in their right minds would go looking for these things, but we are all hungry, and have people relying on us. If we could manage to snag one, even one of the smaller ones, it would give us food for a few days. We would be able to eke out another few weeks of existence. Of course we all know the dangers. There is a reason going out there is a last resort. We know before we even set off that we might never come back. From where i sit, perched on the hood of a burned out car, I can see the ocean. It laps against the shore. In the water is the rusting remains of a passenger plane, it’s blue and white frame a flashback to a life which is long dead. I look at the water, a dark undulating mass, and I know that they are out there. I think here is a good time to include one of the letters I found, as it concerns these creatures. I have to go and get myself ready to go out there anyway. With the sun unable to break through the ash that hangs in the atmosphere, it will be chilly, and the last thing I want to happen now is to catch a cold. I’ll be back soon to write some more.