Skyfire (6 page)

HUGHES

Trent tossed and turned on a couch in the facility administrator’s office.  To Jessica, it looked as if he were having a terrible dream.  There was a pained look on his face. 

Jessica finally nudged him
.
“It’s time to wake up, Trent.  Something isn’t right.”

“Huh? What do you mean?  I have the alarm on my watch set for 6am. We’re fine.”

“No, we need to leave now.”

“What the hell? OK, OK, I’m up.  What’s going on?”

“You don’t feel that?” asked Jess.

Trent put on his gray sneakers and dug a new shirt out of his assault pack, throwing the crusty, foul-smelling Jets shirt on the floor.  The new shirt had “PRIDE FC” printed at chest level. 

But the soiled Jets shirt bothered him.  It had been hard to find. He’d had it for so long.
  I’ll never be able to get that fucking stain out. 
The shirt was lime green and fitted perfectly to Trent’s toned chest and shoulders.  The sleeves clung to his biceps.  It had a jumbo-jet airplane from the 80s printed on the front, along with the word ‘JETS’ over the plane.  It had old stains, and the neckline was worn.  The plane looked like something a child had drawn, but Trent loved the shirt.  He loved anything that symbolized something that had existed before, during, and after the difficult periods of his life.  During the worst of his post-war depression, Trent eagerly anticipated fall Sundays for no other reason than to watch the Jets, get shitfaced and fall asleep in the ugliest way possible.  He hated it, but the Jets represented a consistency he could appreciate. 
God, I just want a few more hours of sleep.

“Trent, now!” Jessica tugged Trent’s hand.

“Jesus, fine. I’m up.” Trent pulled the quick release straps of his assault pack tight to his shoulders, picked up his M4.  It was 4:00am, pitch-black outside.  Any buildings with emergency power had likely lost it by now. 

They stepped out onto the boulevard.  Jess looked petrified.

“Jess, what’s wrong? Nothing’s here.  Let’s start walking.”

“Trent, come on!  How can you not feel that?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if you don’t lower your voice, someone could hear us,” Trent whispered.

“They’re coming!” Jess took off running west, toward the side streets, leaving Trent to catch up to her.

“Jess, hold on!  There’s nothing here! Goddamn it.”
Too early for this shit. 
“Jessica, you had a bad dream! Everything’s fine!”
Well, not really, but whatever.

Trent ran to Broadway, two blocks west, then turned left to chase after Jessica.  He began to feel more fatigued than he should have given his physical condition. 
What the hell?  I’m not even hung over.
  He heard a faint scraping sound similar to white noise.  It started as a moderate hum, then quickly lowered in pitch as it got louder and louder.  His head hurt.  It was a dull pain that quickly escalated into a full-blown migraine.  Nausea and blurred vision followed.

“Jessic—” Trent tried to scream but could not keep his strength.  He watched her small figure disappear into the distance, his knees buckling.  The low-pitched sound was unbearable. Trent was now vomiting uncontrollably.  He hit the ground face first.  Hard.

When Trent regained consciousness he could taste a mix of blood and bile in his mouth.  He opened his eyes and realized the left side of his face was planted on the pavement.  He saw the tire of a broken-down car three feet in front of him. 
Fuck. I haven’t been that bombed since CJ’s wedding in Buffalo ten years ago.
  Trent took a knee and began looking around. 

He immediately realized his assault pack was missing, as were his weapons. 
Did I get robbed?  What time is it?  Where the hell am I?
  His watch was stopped at 4:07am. 
Now my fucking watch is broken?  How much did I have to drink last night?  Did I even drink last night? Fuck, Jessica! 

“Jess! Jessica! Where are you? Come to the sound of my voice!” Trent yelled as loudly as he could.

There was no reply.  Trent got up, brushed the dust off his pants and t-shirt.  Something was wrong with his surroundings.  The sky had a reddish twinge.  A cloud of smog, dust, and what appeared to be snowflakes hindered visibility. 
What the fuck just happened?
  Trent was utterly confused but intent on finding the girl.
I will not let another one die.  Get your ass moving.
 
Do not fail again.

Trent scoured the immediate area for anything he could use as a weapon.  There was nothing
.
  He then noticed a piece of all-weather electrical conduit hanging from the side of a two-family house on the west side of the road.  He grabbed it hand over hand and used the leverage from his left foot to pry it loose from the side of the building.  It had a duplex electrical outlet encased in protective metal on top and useless wires hanging from the opening where it had been torn from the concrete.  Trent now had a makeshift club.

He jogged down Broadway in West New York, through the reddish twilight, until he heard the sounds of scuttling no more than thirty meters south of his position. 
What the hell?
Taking a knee behind a car, he carefully peeked over the trunk to see if he could determine the source of the noise.  All he saw were the silhouettes of three short individuals disappearing west into the dust and ash of another side street.  He couldn’t tell if it was just his eyes playing tricks, but it appeared as if the people running were vibrating very fast. 
Optical illusion.  Optical illusion.  Optical illusion.  Keep going, Trent.
 

Rounding the corner, Trent saw the three vibrating figures moving erratically toward the next intersection.  They turned left and headed further south.  They were moving even faster than before, but come into focus slightly.  It was not a continuous vibrating motion. Their way of moving seemed based on quick, silent, and violent bursts of energy.  They had not noticed that Trent was following them.  At the southwest corner of Hudson Avenue, he noticed a foot-and-a-half wide blood trail extending a block down the street and hooking left into an alleyway.  He sneaked up to the northern edge of the alleyway, tightly clutching his makeshift club in his left hand, carefully keeping it from sight of the dark figures.

Trent heard a door slam.  Then a scream in the distance inside one of the buildings. 
What the fuck?
  The dust and apparent snowflakes in the air were taking their toll.  It took every ounce of Trent’s willpower not to cough loudly.  He approached the metal door that the three mysterious figures had gone into, placing his ear close to it to see if he could hear anything.  Nothing
.
 

“No, stop! Stop it! Don’t!” cried a loud female voice in the distance.

Trent slammed through the door with his shoulder, cradling the electrical conduit in his arms. 
What the hell? Nothing’s here. 
He looked to his right and left.  The entire structure was dark.  Only the low light of the moon, obscured by dust and ash, shined through the windows.  Nothing made sense. 
Is this even real?  Am I dreaming?  How would I know I was dreaming?  What is dreaming?
  Trent walked slowly forward and noticed that the ceiling was, at a minimum, triple the height of his own in his apartment, with wide gauge chains suspended from it. 
Why is my life the Texas Chainsaw Massacre right now? 
His heart pounded. The knot of fear in his throat and chest made it hard to swallow.  In the distance, near the back of the dark room, he noticed a chain swaying with something hanging from the end.  Initially it calmed Trent to observe the rhythmic, almost pendulum-like object. 
Am I in a meat locker?  It’s fucking cold. 

“Jessica!” yelled Trent at the top of his lungs.  “Yell my name if you can hear me!”

“HUGHES!” answered a thunderous, screeching voice. The voice was accompanied by the brain-rattling, low-pitched hum that had resonated throughout Trent’s body before he passed out.

Trent was terrified.  He ran toward the back of the building. 
Fear is OK.  What I do in the presence of it is what defines me as a man, just like dad used to say.
  His dad’s words had come to him each time he jumped out of a plane when he was in the military.  Trent was terrified of heights. 

“TRENT HUGHES!” thundered the mysterious voice again.

Trent sprinted toward the back of the oversized room. As he drew closer to the pendulum he realized a person was hanging from the chain.  It was the silhouette of a small person, eerily swaying back and forth in the dull red twilight. 
Oh fuck. Those guys came back for Jessica!

“Jessica!” Trent raced to inspect the hanging person.  “Jessica, what the hell happ-”

“TRENT HUGHES!  YOU BELONG TO US NOW!” The hum got unbearably loud once again. 

“Oh god. What’s happening?”

Trent dropped to a knee just as the figure abruptly stopped swaying.  Trent was horrified by what he saw next.  The silhouette unmistakably belonged to a little girl.  The dark, misty figure reached behind its body and grabbed the thick chain link just above the massive hook inserted into its lower back.  Each movement was sudden and jerky.  There was no fluidity, no economy of motion, only violence and terror. 
What the hell is happening? 
The apparition grasped the wide gauge link and thrust its hips as it leapt off the hook, landing a few feet from Trent.

Trent and the apparition just stared at each other. 
C’mon man, just like an IED strike, right?  Calm the fuck down. 
“Jessica?” He tightened his grasp on the electrical conduit. 

The figure stood in silence, phasing in and out Trent’s vision. 

“Answer me!” yelled Trent.

The specter slowly raised its wispy left arm.  It pointed at Trent. “HEEYOOOOOSSSS!!!” it shrieked loudly, sounding out each letter of Trent’s last name.                              

Trent readied the club.  The sound coming from this thing was more piercing and painful than anything he’d ever known.

The figure continued shrieking as it approached him with great speed.  Trent wound up, left hand over right, fully prepared to swing the club.  But as soon as his hips rotated left, his whole body seized up and he dropped to his knees.  He saw the indistinct wraith directly above him.  His heart was in his throat.  His ears hurt immensely. 
I don’t understand.
  Everything went dark.

CALLIE

Callie woke on her couch to a distinct chill in the air and an acute sense of anxiety.  Her body felt sore all over.  She had a terrible headache.  There was a familiar loud, low-pitched hum, the same as what she’d heard emanating from the janitor’s closet at the hospital.  The sun was still down, but a thick layer of fog had descended.  The moonlight coming through the window had a red hue. 
What the hell is this?
  She reached for a tissue. 
Maybe I’m getting a cold.
  She blew her nose and felt the tissue quickly become saturated. 
Gross.
There was blood everywhere on her hands and on the tissue. 

Callie ran to the bathroom.  She washed her face, spit her metallic-tasting blood into the sink until there was nothing left to spit.  Her headache worsened. The low-pitched sound reverberated in her skull.  She stared at herself in the mirror, her sense of dread steadily building.  Then Callie felt a sensation like someone gently running two fingers up her back. The fingers moved up to the back of her neck, moving in a familiar stroking pattern.

James O’Hara’s presence was in the room with her.  The stroking motion was his. It was exactly what he did to try to calm her prior to the many times he had raped her over the course of three years.  “It’s OK sweetheart,” he would say. “We’re just massaging each other, making each other feel good.  This is natural. But you can’t tell anyone because they won’t understand.” 
Didn’t fucking matter anyway. My mom was too strung out to give a shit.

Callie’s stomach churned with fear and adrenaline. She turned to claw at her abuser.  No one was there
.  Jesus, get it together.  He’s nowhere near here.  He’s off raping other young girls back in Ohio.  Because I was too scared to do anything.  God, what the fuck is wrong with me?  Why the hell didn’t I say something?
 
I’m just as bad as he is.  I might as well have ruined those girls’ lives myself. 
She became nauseous as thoughts of her multi-year hell flooded her mind. She collapsed to her knees, began vomiting.  Half the projectile vomit hit the sink and floor. The other half struck the toilet water, splashing her in the face. 

After emptying her insides into the bowl, she rested her elbows and forearms on the toilet seat and dry heaved. 
Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.  I’m better than this. 
She placed the palms of her hands onto the toilet seat, lifted her right leg and rested her body weight on her left knee and palms.  She deliberately breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, repeating self-affirming thoughts. 
This is my existence.  I am in control of my own reality.  This is my existence. I am in control.

She calmed down after a few minutes and arrived at a decision.  She would pack a bag right now and find out what was happening outside
.
  She grabbed her favorite satchel; it doubled as both a large purse and a laptop bag adorned with safety pins, a fifteen year-old Nine Inch Nails patch, and a ‘C. Kennedy’ patch carefully embroidered into the back of the top flap.  She quickly changed into her favorite pair of black jeans and knee high boots. 
I need to get out of here.  Something isn’t right.  I have never been this scared in my own home before.  I am in control of my own reality. 

She threw on a black tank top and packed another in her bag, along with socks, underwear, toiletries, a four inch retractable pocket knife, and her zip lock bag of sativa with rolling papers.  In a flurry of movement, she also grabbed some miscellaneous canned and dry goods, as well as some old bottled water. She put on her favorite leather jacket as she walked to the door, closed it behind her and locked it.  It was 4:30am. 
Fucking awesome. Now what?

Sunlight was just beginning to peek over the once pristine beauty of the Manhattan skyline.  Callie returned to her typical calm demeanor. She attributed her episode in the bathroom to repressed mental health issues. 
I need to figure out what that thing over the city is and why my goddamn iPhone and TV aren’t working.  Oh yeah, and the hundreds of fucking dead people all over the place.  That might be a good thing to look into, too. 

The next logical step to Callie was to go to the West New York Police Headquarters building.  The station was a quarter mile west of her apartment building, on the same street.  She lit a joint and began strolling down 60
th
Street. 
Jesus Christ, I’m smoking a fat J as the sun is rising, stepping over dead bodies littering the street on my way to the police station.  On my way to the police station voluntarily!  Who would have guessed this would happen only a few hours after grinding my lingerie clad ass on some gross Arab dude’s denim cock.  Wow.  Good job, me you really won at life. 

The calming, focusing grip of the sativa took hold on Callie’s body two blocks from the police station.  She walked up the stairs of the building and tried to open the door.  It was locked
.
  She peered inside and saw a makeshift barricade apparently trying to keep anything and everyone out. 
Great, Palisades Medical version 2.0. 
She clamored down the stairwell, looking for a service entrance into the basement for maintenance workers or subcontractors. 

The service entrance door was locked.
  Great. What’s around here?
Callie scanned her surroundings for anything she could use to break a window
.
She spotted a loose cinder block and picked it up. 
No
,
this isn’t weird at all. Just some stripper in black clothes, high as fuck, trying to find a window so she can break into a police station. 
Her window of choice was on the ground floor on the west side of the building.  It was poorly boarded from the inside.  She threw the cinder block through the glass, kicked in the boards. 
Well, up and over.

Callie landed gracefully on her feet. 
Fuck yeah, pole dancing tricks for the win.
  She looked around. A sign indicating reception was just ahead, to the left up a short stairwell.  Everything seemed relatively normal until she approached the front desk in the waiting room.  A lone female police officer sat in the chair, her head slumped down as if she were a high school sophomore sleeping through geometry. 

“Officer! Hi, my name is Callie Kennedy.” Callie’s voice was speedy, nervous. “I live over at the Riverside Terrace building, a few blocks away.  I woke up in the hospital down on River Road. I know this sounds crazy, but I’m pretty sure almost everyone is dead and actually I woke up in a morg-” Callie stopped. The officer hadn’t moved at all. “Hello? Officer…” Callie searched for nametag
. “…
Suarez? Officer Suarez? Hello?”

Callie leaned over the waist high reception desk and tapped the officer on the shoulder, giving her a small nudge.  The momentum of the nudge carried Officer Suarez to the ground, as if she were dead weight.  “Oh shit!” Callie shrieked.

Suarez had the same red membranes over her eyes and skin rash Callie had seen on the bodies at the hospital.  The officer also had a large exit wound just above her brow line. 
I’m gonna throw up.
  She heaved, spitting up only bile.
Just when you think you can’t throw up any more, the universe shows you some shit that makes ‘Two Girls, One Cup’ look like an episode of goddamn ‘My Little Pony.’
She dry heaved again. It was starting to hurt; each gag and subsequent heave produced a steady stream of stomach acid, burning her insides and tasting absolutely wretched.  All she could focus on was Suarez’s body and the sound of flies buzzing around all the other corpses littering the area.  As disturbing as it was to see fresh human corpses, something about the buzzing of the flies made it all much worse.  It was a feeling she would never shake, a feeling that would haunt her for the rest of her life. 
I am staring at a police officer who was shot in the back of the head sometime in the last few days.  Inside the very police station where she worked.  What. The. Fuck.

Callie pulled herself together.  This horror was reality now.  She looked around for anything that could be useful - supplies, information, survivors - anything that might help.  She noticed Officer Suarez’s gun was not holstered.  It lay three feet from her corpse, as if thrown aside while she was attempting to draw it. 
Who the fuck shot her in the back of the head while she was working the front desk? Another cop?
  Callie felt entranced from her sativa-induced focus.  It made her hyper-analyze almost everything. 
Either way, I’m taking this gun.  Wait, how the hell do I use it?  It’s like Homer Simpson said, point it at the thing you want to die and squeeze.  Something like that.
 

She carefully inspected the firearm.  The side read ‘BERETTA U.S.A. CORP ACKK., MO – MADE IN USA.’ 
Cool, thanks for nothing, gun.
Callie fumbled about until her right thumb accidently depressed the magazine release, causing it to loudly clang to the ground. 
Goddamn it.
Fear took hold, telling her this was definitely not a toy.  She loaded the magazine back into the gun.
Ok, we know what that does.
Now what’s this?
  Along the top sliding assembly was a small lever canted down at a forty-five degree angle.  She carefully flicked it forward, exposing a bold red dot underneath. 
Red is usually bad.
She used her thumb to pull back the hammer, exposing the firing mechanism. 
Shit, why the hell did I do that?  I’m not Jason Bourne but I know enough that this gives me a bad feeling
. Handling her weapon carefully, Callie pointed the gun toward an empty brick wall and squeezed the trigger.

The jolt from the small caliber pistol startled Callie more than it should have. She let out a small yelp.

So it works.  How do I make the hammer thing go back down?  It can’t be the button for the ammo clip and it can’t be the trigger.
  She flicked the original lever back down, concealing the red dot and causing the hammer to snap loudly back into place.  She was again startled. 
So this thing is a safety and this is the ammo.  If I pull back the slide thingy a little, I can see a bullet inside the chamber ready to fire.  I got this. 
She realized her satchel was not necessarily the best place to keep her newly acquired weapon. She needed some sort of holster or something. Then she remembered, Officer Suarez.

Callie unbuckled Suarez’s belt. It had handcuffs, a two-way radio, a pistol holster and two additional ammunition magazines in small pouches.  She saw where the belt had been buckled time and again on Suarez’s waist.  It was a few inches too wide for Callie; even with the belt tightened all the way, it still slumped down and to the right, along her petite waistline. 
Cuban sandwiches are a motherfucker, Suarez.  Rest in peace.  Thanks for your shit.

Callie continued through the police station, past the reception area and into the detectives’ offices in back, where the desks were arranged in a bull pen configuration.  It was eerie.  The morning light peeked through the windows, exposing particles of dust drifting slowly through the air.  All the windows and doors were closed and boarded.  There was no ventilation.  The smell of death crept into Callie’s nostrils, getting stronger and stronger.  To her left, she saw more dead bodies piled in a corner.  All appeared to be civilians who had come to the station for help over the last three days. 
How do you get from everything being cool to a pile of bodies in the corner at the police station in three days?
 

The rearmost area contained holding cells and adjacent interrogation suites.  The hallway connecting the cells and interrogation suites was even more disturbing.  Thirteen dead police officers lined the walls.  They appeared to have fallen in various stages of a prolonged firefight.  Three officers had barricaded themselves between the last cell in the row and the exit door, seemingly in an attempt to defend themselves from the other ten. 
Why the hell are cops shooting each other?  Most of them seem to have the skin and eye thing going on too.
 
No point hanging out here. 

On the way out, the placard for the chief’s office caught Callie’s eye. 
Couldn’t hurt to take a look.
  She approached the door.  It was wood with a glass window and the chief’s name displayed in adhesive lettering:
Dennis Cipriatti, Chief of Police
.  She tightly grasped the handle of her Beretta, her palms sweaty, and slowly pushed open the door, trying not to make a sound.  She slipped quietly inside the room, took a look around.  No one appeared to be in the room until she walked behind the desk. The police chief lay on the ground alongside his desk chair in a puddle of blood and chunks of brain. He had a pistol identical to Callie’s clutched in his right hand.

I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that in less than twenty-four hours I have already begun the process of getting desensitized to real life gore.
  She inspected the area, first grabbing the chief’s extra ammunition from his belt and tossing them in her satchel.  Turning around to leave, she caught sight of where the bullet that killed the chief had struck the wall, along with more brain splatter. 
Gross.  Looks like a Jackson Pollack.
  Then she noticed what looked like a hand-written note on the desk, both covered in a light red mist. 
Suicide note?
  It read: