The Black Seas of Infinity (12 page)

Were they thieves? Fugitives? It didn’t
matter. Whatever they had planned, they were in for a surprise. My
footsteps creaked on the floorboards as I ascended.

“So, you think this is the owner?”

“No idea. I told you, I never met him before.
Stop drinking so much beer. I need you sober enough to watch my
back.”

I pulled open the screen. The front door was
slightly ajar, and I pushed it open. The hinges creaked, the
conversation stopped. I heard the bolt of a rifle being drawn back.
I was halfway across the living room, looking straight down the
hall, when a guy popped into view. Beady eyes squinted through the
scope of a hunting rifle, the barrel pointed at my chest. He was
middle aged, a half-buttoned flannel sheathing a white T-shirt, a
beer belly bulging underneath. A baseball cap rested atop a mess of
dark, shoulder- length hair, his stubble peppered with gray. He was
about fifteen feet away, although unfortunately for him, the narrow
focus of the scope cut down his vision to a small circle. Unable to
believe what he was seeing through the lens, he lowered the rifle,
his pale blue eyes bugging out of their sockets in astonishment.
His mouth had fallen open, making him resemble nothing so much as a
dumb animal, frozen in shock as it was led to the
slaughterhouse.

“Holy Mother of God…”

I continued my approach as he leveled his
rifle and fired, his hands visibly trembling with the effort. The
bullet ricocheted off my right pec and buried itself in the wall.
Small caliber bullet, probably a .223. It didn’t even move me. I
continued my calm stroll toward him. He flung the bolt back,
ejecting the cartridge, and franticly fumbled in his flannel pocket
for another bullet. Jamming it into place, he slammed the bolt,
raised the barrel, and fired.

The bullet rebounded off my chest and into
his left thigh, tearing the faded jeans and scraping the flesh
beneath. A dark red blotch started to spread around the hole.

“Oh, shit… Oh, shit…”

He stumbled backwards, a look of mounting
fear on his face. I kept walking, savoring the intense effects of
my presence. As I passed the frame of the kitchen something struck
the right side of my head. I swiveled my neck and saw his partner.
He had tried to stab me in the head with a large hunting knife. It
was still raised in his right hand, the point slightly bent. I
zoomed in on the tip for a moment, quickly retracting my vision to
focus on the wielder’s hairy face. It was crowned by a greasy mop
of brown hair and topped off with a mesh trucker’s cap. He was
backing away in shock, jaw slack, knife limply upraised. The one in
front would be the first try to escape, so I decided to deal with
him immediately.

Leaping forward, I grabbed him by the throat
with one hand and rained down on him with the other fist. His head
burst like a melon, wispy fragments mushrooming outwards in a
splatter of pink and crimson gore, the lifeless body collapsing
backwards and carrying me down on top of it.

That was unexpected. Way messier and more
revolting than I anticipated.

I heard a slight trickle of water, and turned
to find the other intruder had wet his pants, a dark stain
blossoming on the crotch of his camouflage BDUs. His grip had
loosened on the knife, which he held aloft as if out of some
forgotten instinct, his fat, pitted face frozen in disbelief. He
probably was the local tough guy, at least 250 pounds, a stained
white wife beater covering his fat belly, his ponytail and pork
chop sideburns oozing attitude. I wouldn’t put him as a real nice
guy, but I still felt a twinge of regret at doing what I had to do.
But I couldn’t risk him telling anyone. Not to mention, I had
killed far better to get to this point. As I walked slowly toward
him, he stumbled backwards until his retreat was abruptly stopped
by the kitchen sink. He glanced about frantically, then tried to
make a run for it, bolting to the left. I grabbed his ponytail, his
neck whipping back and brusquely stopping him in mid step.

Bringing up my right hand, I cradled his head
between my palms. He punched at where my ribcage would be located,
the ensuing dull, crunching noise immediately followed by his howls
of pain, the knuckles having fractured on impact. He shook his
right hand limply and tried to jab at my eyes with his left. Had
they reached, his jabs would have had no effect, my eyes consisting
of sunken black lenses, but they weren’t even close. Drawing him
toward me, using my body as a lever, I snapped his neck sideways.
The vertebra cracked with a wet crunching sound, and I dropped his
lifeless body, the corpse crumbling in a pile at my feet. I
couldn’t wait a week. I had to leave now, before anyone came
looking for these two.

Walking to the bedroom, I pulled open the top
drawer. I had stashed a few clothes there, just in case, but I
didn’t need them. I grabbed a roll of black nylon parachute rope
and some mountain climbing clips. I pulled a canvas army-issue
duffel bag from the closet and tossed them in. At the bottom corner
of the bedroom closet I had a large, floor-mounted safe. Spinning
through the combination, I popped it open and pulled out two .45
pistols, several boxes of ammo, and an SOG Special Forces knife. I
threw these in the duffel bag as well. Finally I grabbed a couple
of ironwood kali fighting sticks I had in a cloth case leaning
against the back wall. Stepping out of the room, I rounded the
corner. The listless form of the first body blocked the hall, its
neck glaring at me in a ruined tangle of bone, blood, and brain. I
stepped over it and into the kitchen. The other body, its head
twisted unnaturally to one side, blocked the drawers under the
sink. I kicked the corpse aside, the impact accompanied by a moist
cracking sound that no doubt signaled breaking ribs. Stooping, I
opened the cabinet doors and grabbed a toolbox full of Craftsman
utensils and a nearby Maglite. Throwing them in the duffel bag, I
tossed it over my shoulder, stepped over the carcass clogging the
doorway, and strolled out the front door.

The sun was sinking, the dying leaves of the
treetops glimmering brilliantly in the wind. I glanced around for
what probably was the last look I was going to have of North
America for quite a while. It was really beautiful, in a
sentimental way—the solemn oaks surrounding the open plot of tall,
yellow grass the house sat amidst, the crisp breeze tossing about
the foliage and throwing aloft the curled remnants of dying leaves.
I couldn’t smell the air anymore, but I imagined it carried that
burnt wood scent of autumn. I traipsed forward, leaving an open
door and swinging screen in my wake. Circling around the Mustang, I
dropped the satchel by the rear bumper and tramped back behind the
house. The door offered a little resistance, unclenching with a
soft thud as it collided with the remains of the headless man. I
pushed it fully open and stepped over the body, making a sharp
right turn into the bathroom. Washing the gore off my hands, I
grabbed the throw towel and further scoured my arms and face.
Amazing the amount of detritus I had managed to sully myself with.
I had to flush bits of brain and bone out of the towel, wring out
the excess water, and continue scrubbing.

I tossed the stained towel into the
wastebasket. Under the sink was a roll of gauze and some metal
clips. I scooped them up. Wrapping my face from the bottom up, I
overlapped each new layer, leaving a narrow slit for the eyes. I
patched the ends together behind my head with the clips, pausing
for a moment to look at myself in the mirror. The sight was bizarre
to say the least. I was naked except for the swaddling of white
cloth about my head, a black sheath of musculature descending from
below the chin. I looked like the Invisible Man, only with an alien
shell instead of pedestrian clothing. Stepping into the bedroom, I
opened the dresser and pulled out a long-sleeved gray T-shirt, a
pair of blue jeans, and a pair of leather gloves. Each was folded
neatly, sitting side by side in the top drawer. No need for socks,
but I grabbed a pair of engineer boots and a tan cowboy hat from
the closet. All this had been carefully set aside in case my plan
actually worked. I had other clothes stuffed in the lower drawers
just in case it didn’t.

I examined myself in the dresser mirror. I
looked ridiculous, like some B-movie villain from a Hammer flick.
At least the horrendous getup might be a little easier to explain
than my actual appearance.

It was the last time I would ever see this
house. I had planned it that way, and I knew it was necessary, but
it still felt like I was leaving something behind, something I
owned but barely knew. I had been through some rough times in life,
times when I had nothing to my name, and it was hard to let go. I
stopped in the living room, extracted my keys from the pocket of my
old pants, and walked out to the car. Climbing in, I paused, eying
the house I was about to abandon, then the red Dodge to my
left.

The abandoned truck seemed to insinuate a
deeply bottled reproval, the taut silence accusing me of its
owner’s violent demise. Images of the bloodstained carnage in the
house flashed through my mind, making my quick departure seem all
the more urgent. I cranked the car, not even waiting for it to warm
up, just revving it a few times and spinning out in a cloud of dust
toward the main road.

It would be late by the time I was even close
to a more populous area. The trail exiting the cabin let out on a
small, poorly maintained road that went a good thirty minutes
before it hit a major interstate. The Mustang bounced as I sped
across the cracked pavement, its pitted surface still in better
shape than some cities I’d been in. The late afternoon sunlight
bore a dying color, a jaundiced tinge that seemed to signal the
approaching end. The hope and positivity of the blue light of
morning had aged into something ancient and menacing. The
surrounding trees cast long shadows, slicing the road into dark,
jagged lines splotched with lighter patches of pale asphalt. I
rolled down the window of the Mustang. The wind tore at the edges
of my costume. I really didn’t need the fresh air, or the cool
breeze, but it was an old habit and, in its way, reassuring.

A bit more of this road and I’d hit 95, which
I would take most of the way down before veering off toward the
southwest and heading into Texas. From there I could enter Mexico
and disappear in South America for a while. There was a far more
direct route. I could start off with Interstate 90, take 271 to 71,
and so on. I would have to deal with far less populated areas in
Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas. Clearly this was the best
route, but I had this nagging paranoia. Murphy’s Law is a bitch,
and I couldn’t afford for too much to go wrong. I knew NYC and
Washington DC. I wouldn’t get lost. Better still, if anyone found
out who I was, it was actually easier to hide in a heavily
populated area than a provincial one. There was not enough
wilderness left in most of this country to escape the sophisticated
detection devices commanded by the government. Even if there were a
wilderness to escape into, I wouldn’t know what entailed a small
wooded area as opposed to the beginnings of a huge forest. It was a
sad statement on the course of humanity when it was easier to get
lost in a crowd than in the wild.

CHAPTER VIII

A LITTLE SNAG IN THE
PLAN

This was really strange. It had been a few hours,
and I was off of the small road and onto a highway, yet the traffic
had never picked up. At first I chalked it up to the late hour and
sparse population. I didn’t really know this area well, but I was
on a major interstate now and a car was passing by on the other
side every forty minutes or so, with none on my side. I wasn’t
speeding—I didn’t want to risk being pulled over—and yet I wasn’t
being overtaken by anyone. My fuel reserves were low. Next gas
depot I saw a marker for, I pulled off. The interstate sign said I
had three stations to choose from, yet as the curving exit led out
onto a local road, I saw two, an Exxon and a Mobil, straddling
opposite sides of the road, and both were closed. I was surprised
they weren’t twenty-four-hour, especially considering their
location on the side of a major highway. Looking around I noticed
that even the street lamps were off.

The exit suggested another station lie down
the road to the west, so I hit the gas and kept going. After a
couple of minutes I spotted it, but it was closed as well, its
shiny metal and plastic outlines gleaming on the outside, the
depths cast in darkness, the ubiquitous Shell sign not even lit. A
thick mass of slowly drifting clouds filtered the moonlight, the
reflective surfaces quavering in the mottled luminescence. Very
strange. I turned back around and headed toward the interstate.

Another couple of miles down 95, I saw
another marker for gas. Pulling off again, my immediate view down
the ramp was of darkened, lifeless stations to the right and
left.

What the fuck is going on?

My fuel reserves were very low by this point.
I didn’t want to venture into small towns and risk having to deal
with the narrow scrutiny of my clumsy costume, but I wasn’t sure if
my vehicle would make it to the next highway exit. And even then,
judging from the last few, there might be nothing open. I took an
immediate right at the foot of the ramp, heading down the side road
in the hopes it would lead to a small town.

Another few miles with only the beams of my
headlights burning through the desolation, and the Mustang started
to sputter. A few more feet and it was out of gas, the engine
coughing and then dying a jerking death. I steered the coasting car
onto the thin, rocky shoulder. The weight of the old muscle car,
combined with the sudden lack of power steering, made for a stiff
glide. It ground to a halt, the tail end jutting out into the lane.
I switched off the useless ignition, pulled the emergency brake,
and popped the trunk. The shoulder, as it turned out, was more of a
drainage ditch, a narrow stretch of dirt falling away into a small,
muck-encrusted depression, with the dark trees of a forest towering
a few feet beyond. I pulled my two gas containers from the trunk
and set them down. Slamming the lid, I lifted the tail end of the
car up. Feeling like Superman—in fact, I recalled him doing this in
some obscure issue—I dragged the tail end onto the shoulder. Now
with any luck it wouldn’t get hit while I went for gas. I picked up
the cans and started walking.