Slag Attack (16 page)

   
He kind of wants Shell dead so he runs after him, wishing he had a gun or, fuck, even another arm would be great, at this point. Luckily, he still has the tin can clutched in his right hand.

16.

Darren reaches the end of the alley and it occurs to him that, since Shell is running, he might be running
from
something. But it’s too late. He turns to his left and sees an enormous slag half-running half-slithering toward him. Its legs are too rudimentary to carry him quickly but they are there and Darren can only think about what they’ll look like weeks or months from now.

   
Darren ducks back into the alleyway, knowing the slag has sensed him. The slag slows but doesn’t stop completely and Darren thinks he is very lucky. Tentatively, he takes another step out of the alley. The slag is running off to his right, eclipsing Shell who runs before him. Darren thinks he could try and save Shell but he also thinks Shell is mostly the one who brought them here.

   
Where was Pearl?

   
Darren takes a deep breath and assesses things. Tries to orient himself and realizes it’s impossible to orient yourself to someplace you’ve never been. What he needs to think about is getting out. Getting out or dying. Those are probably his only two choices. To his left two slags are battling each other. One is the older kind that looks like a slug except he’s the size of a house. The other is the newer, more evolved kind,
Tyrannosaurus rex
-like arms and legs that, at this point, just jut out from the lower body, too small to even reach the ground.

   
The city is a patchwork of devastation. Some houses are destroyed while others are built up to three and four times their original sizes. Cars line the side of the road. Most of them are blackened shells. All of them are flattened. Trash and debris is strewn everywhere. Many things are on fire. The smoke and heat scorch his lungs and he wonders how much of what he is breathing is the nasty chemical stuff the Army used against the slags in the final days of the second attack. He realizes he doesn’t care. It will just kill him quicker and, staring at the world he is left with, he thinks death is a very admirable option.

   
This world has probably long been scavenged and emptied of weapons, by people who thought they had a chance at a time when that might have been true. A lengthy quest to find the perfect weapon is out of the question. He wishes he still had Gary. A blackened brick sits atop a pile of blackened bricks. He looks at the rusted can in his hand. Brick or can? He decides he can throw a brick. The can is too delicate to do damage if thrown. He drops the can and picks up the brick, turning to his right. Part of him wants to watch Shell get devoured by the slag.

   
Cautiously, he wanders down the broken sidewalk, looking through the shattered windows at sagging displays of merchandise finally revealed for what it is—worthless junk. To his left, hanging from an awning, are several dead bodies of varying shapes and sizes. They are all male and they have numbers tattooed onto their naked torsos. Maybe this had been a way to keep track of the dead at one point?

   
The slag is a couple blocks ahead of him and he can see it straining to force its way into one of those narrow alleys. It seems Shell had found a way to escape. That left him for Darren.

   
Darren doesn’t know why he hates Shell so much. Perhaps it’s his blind faith. If there were ever a thing to completely remove one’s faith, Darren thought the apocalypse would surely be it.

   
Now how to get the slag away? Darren could always enter the building adjoining the alley and see if there was some kind of opening. Or he could just taunt the slag. Really tempt death.

   
He throws his brick at the hulking beast. It bounces off and clatters to the ground, breaking in half. Darren thinks about bending to pick it up but realizes he doesn’t care. He’s too tired. Instead, he just looks at the slag. And notices they are developing eyes. He doesn’t know if this is a good or a bad thing. They seem to have done a fine job of sensing their prey. Now, with eyes, they would just be forced to look at the ugly world around them. Darren holds out his arms and waits for the slag to clamp down on him.

   
But it doesn’t.

   
It snaps its giant teeth and Darren clenches his jaw thinking, This is finally it. But the slag is snapping its teeth at another slag, one that has slithered up behind Darren.

   
Darren steps out of the way.

   
Seeing the larger slag, the smaller one goes into some sort of frenzy and launches itself at the behemoth.

   
They’re fighting each other.

   
That’s why the large one was after Shell and didn’t seem concerned with Darren. Shell still had the slag as a left arm. Darren had removed his. The slarms weren’t weapons, they were bait.

   
He approaches the alley and turns to his right. Shell is huddled against a melted dumpster midway down the alley.

   
Darren approaches him slowly, wondering if Shell has a gun or not.

   “
How are you still alive?!” Shell yells. But it’s not the authoritative yell he had used back in the chamber. It’s a panicked yell. This is a different Shell, Darren thinks. One completely transformed by fear.

   “
Whose idea was the slarm?” Darren asks, moving closer and closer to Shell.

17.

“
Pearl’s!” Shell shouts. And before Darren can stop him, he’s jabbering on. “She’s one of them. You don’t understand. I don’t know how I could have been so stupid. How I fell for it. I wasn’t always like this. There was a time when I would never have fallen for something like this. She did something to me. She has powers. Do you know how important that is? Do you know how special it is to possess something like magic when it looks like the whole world is going to hell? Everybody was looking for something like that. Even people who didn’t believe in anything wanted something to believe in because they knew they couldn’t do it themselves. There was no way to survive on your own.”

   “
I did.”

   “
What?”

   “
I survived on my own. I did all of this on my own.”

   “
You were ready to drown in the ocean.”

   “
Better in the ocean than in the mouth of a slag.”

   
Shell has no answer for that. Then he says, “I was here years ago. Before the second wave. All the residents believed that it was nearly slag free. They believed Pearl made it that way. They called her the Queen of Town. But you want to know what I think?”

   “
Not really.”

   “
I think Pearl started the plague. I think there were no such things as slags. I think she found some way to come here through that goddamn fugue and bring her plague gods with her. And I think she had all the charm and magic to do it. Obviously.”

   “
Obviously.” Darren doesn’t know whether or not to believe Shell. He supposes what he’s saying is no more ludicrous than anything else he’s witnessed over the past few days. He does believe Shell’s intent is good and those good intentions may be what save Shell’s life.

   “
What happened to your slarm?”

   “
Still haven’t figured that one out, huh?

   
Shell’s one eye is blank. He isn’t even able to draw his own conclusions.

   “
The slarm is a fucking signal. The slags don’t want us anymore. It’s probably been so long since they’ve eaten human they don’t even remember we’re food. They’re eating themselves now. But they’re also connected psychically or something. They can sense each other. Maybe it’s sonar. By keeping that idiot thing on your shoulder, you’re begging to be found and eaten. I bet Pearl knows where you are right now.”

   
Shell’s eye glazes over in fear.

   “
What do you think we should do?” Darren says.

   “
You’re asking me? After I lead nearly twenty people to their deaths because I was too stupid to see the truth?”

   “
Well, there aren’t really a lot of other people to ask. And I’m too tired to think. If it was up to me, I would go out and lie in the street and beg for something to come along and either eat me or trample me to death.”

   “
Get this thing off me!” Shell shouts and starts flapping the slarm.

   
Darren doesn’t have the can anymore. He doesn’t know how he’s supposed to help him.

   “
I don’t have any way to get it off,” Darren says.

   
But Shell is already reaching down into his cargo pants. On the inside, not into a pocket. He brings out one of the largest knives Darren has ever seen. Then he starts hacking at the meat of his shoulder.

   “
You don’t want to cut yourself,” Darren says. “It won’t bleed if you just cut the slag part.”

   
Saying that doesn’t do a lot of good. Shell continues hacking. It’s like he went from crazy to bug fuck crazy in a matter of seconds.

   “
We have to find her,” he spits, still hacking. “We have to find her and kill her. Take her out.”

   “
You don’t have to look for me.”

   
Darren turns toward the entrance of the alley.

   
Pearl stands there in her summer dress. She’s holding a gun, aiming it with both hands, and Darren thinks the gun could very well be Gary the Glock. She tightens up and fires. The roar is huge.

18.

Shell’s head erupts, the slarm only half off.

   
Darren quickly realizes he is in a whole lot of trouble. But, at this point, he feels like the proverbial tree in the forest. What if Pearl
is
one of them? What if
he
is the last human on earth? What then? Does he spend the rest of his days ejaculating into his own shit and trying to grow a homunculus? Does he just exist, fighting for survival every second? Our existence, he decides, is determined by those we coexist with. And he would try and find them. If he could make it through this, that’s what he would have faith in. If people wanted to believe in ridiculous gods and anything with a touch of magic, then so be it. He would believe in his search. His quest. He would believe in his fellow humans, thinking more than just one must have survived.

   
Mainly, he wonders if Pearl has another shell in the gun.

   
He can run toward her or he can run away.

   
He runs away.

19.

He runs away for the other side of the alley. Maybe then he’ll have a second to think about what he can do because, at the moment, his options seem pretty damn limited.

   
And Pearl is standing directly in front of him. Blocking that side of the alley.

   
For a second, he thinks about turning around and going back to the other side of the alley but he sees this as a ridiculous game that could continue for hours. Unless she shoots him.

   
But she doesn’t fire the gun. That might be a good sign.

   
Darren backs up until he steps in some of Shell’s gore.

   
Pearl raises the gun and walks toward him.

   
He wishes he was attached to magical strings that could pull him up into the sky.

   
This is probably the end, he thinks. He has nothing. Nothing to defend himself with. The only person who can answer any of his questions is Pearl and he doesn’t really think she’ll tell him the truth.

   
She depresses the trigger and nothing happens.

   
Darren feels something close around his ankle. He looks down and sees Shell’s head lift from the asphalt, leaving chunks behind. His one eye is vacant, zombified. He moves his head toward Darren’s ankle and bites down.

   
From the other end of the alley, Pearl is laughing. She tosses the gun to the asphalt and begins walking toward him. Probably so she can feed on him. Darren kicks at Shell’s head, looses his teeth from his flesh. Actually, it’s more like his head just falls apart, the fractured skull unable to support it anymore.

   
He whips back around and Pearl is nearly on top of him. This close to him, he can see she isn’t right. He doesn’t know how Shell ever fell for it. Her skin is clearly slag skin, covered with a ton of make-up.

   
She lunges for him and he takes off running, nearly slipping in what’s left of Shell. He waits for her to pop down on the other side of the alley but she doesn’t. He turns to his left out on the sidewalk. He doesn’t have any idea where he’s going. He doesn’t have any idea where to go. He just keeps running for two or three blocks. He loses count. It’s impossible to keep track. And the blocks have been so destroyed and rearranged they do not give him any gauge of distance anyway.

   
Monstrous slags are all around him. Fighting amongst themselves. The larger slags eating the smaller slags.

   
Darren turns down another alley to his left. His lungs are burning and a vicious stitch has opened up in his side. What is he even running for?

   
He comes out on the other side of the alley. This street used to be lined with trees but now it’s lined with charred stumps. He runs and expects to see Pearl at any moment. Now the street runs up hill and by the time he reaches the top his entire body is jelly.