M.P. Fitzgerald's Blog, page 4

My Interview with Jason Yungbluth, Creator of Weapon Brown

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Jason Yunbluth is a talented, brilliant, maniac. If you are not familiar with his lampoon on Peanuts and post-apocalyptic fiction, Weapon Brown, then you are missing out on one of the most unusual and awesome things on the internet. Jason pitted all of your favorite childhood sunday comics characters in the same world — and then promptly nuked that world. The best part? Jason’s saga is being revisited with his new graphic novel, Aftershock, which means that you will have a new set of fever dreams to experience!

[image error] Charlie Brown and Snoopy, giving Vic and Blood a run for their money… -from whatisdeefried.com

I had the chance to talk to Jason about his works, what is coming next, and what exactly is so luring about the end of the world.

My interview with Jason Yungbluth
[image error]Jason Yunbluth, creator of Weapon Brown

Fitz: We are coming close to two decades since A Peanut Scorned was released in Deep Fried. What is it like revisiting a story you started so long ago?

Jason: (SPIT TAKE) Two decades?? It can’t have been that long! When does the money start coming in??

It’s actually only been a few years since the story of Weapon Brown wrapped, and Chuck has never entirely left my mind, so its not really like coming home so much as going back into the theater after an intermission.

That said, I had not planned to return to Weapon Brown at all. The temptation to do a sequel to a successful story is something all writers have to resist. As far as I’m concerned, Chuck’s story is over. However, I had already revealed some of Chuck’s backstory through the short stories I put in Weapon Brown that parodied the animated cartoons, and there were a few unexplored bits of Chuck’s history that I always wanted to tell, so adding these to the canon feels just right.

Fitz: Your previous iterations of Weapon Brown are filled to the brim with references to just about every comic strip ever committed to a newspaper, a single page is like a master class to comic strip history. You transform these cute caricatures into strange misshapen radioactive mutants with mad effect. Which of these was your favorite to draw, and are there any funny page denizens we have not seen that will be in Aftershock?

Jason: I really enjoyed my take on Beetle Bailey (especially the reveal of his eyes), and the sequence where CAL-V1N kills the characters from Bloom County is probably my favorite homage to any of the comic strips I featured. As for who is left to poke fun at, there must be a few comic strip characters that I haven’t lampooned… at least, there better be! I have 45 new pages to fill!

Fitz: Beetle Baily’s reveal was brilliant! It is honestly one of my favorite scenes. What ultimately made you return to Weapon Brown?

Jason: I already had the story for Aftershock cooked up, but I decided to forego it in favor of another project I am developing, Kobayashi Maru. However, when I ran my recent Kickstarter to fund a reprint of the Weapon Brown graphic novel, I knew I would need something to inspire the old fans to open their hearts and wallets, and so I decided to give them one more sizzling slab of Chuck before putting that universe to bed for good. The upshot is that I am trying out some new ideas as far as my storytelling goes, and the three tales I am writing each have a different art and writing style that will make them unique among the other short stories.

Fitz: I am excited to see what you come up with! I am a happy owner of your Omega Edition myself. Speaking of which, in the Omega Edition of Weapon Brown, you cite post-apocalypse classics such as A Boy and His Dog, The Day After, and The Road Warrior as being as much a part of your adolescence as the Charlie Brown Christmas Special. What is your favorite post-apocalyptic tale and what attracts you to the apocalypse?

Jason: I think that Harlan Ellison’s reading of A Boy and His Dog, which I used to listen to on tape, remains my favorite, although the apocalypse as envisioned in Terminator 1 and 2 is probably my favorite visual depiction. I think Thundarr the Barbarian lived in a pretty cool apocalypse!

What attracts anyone to the Apocalypse? I think that there is something about the idea of total ruin that also contains a phoenix factor, which is why there is always so much fantasy attributed to apocalypse stories; robots and monsters and awful technology that somehow flourishes in an environment where nothing at all should function. I also think we all secretly wish for everything to die before we do. Maybe we think that if we could just survive the end of the world, our very survival would mark our individual rebirths as superior beings.

Fitz: What is your favorite thing about authoring comics and what has been your biggest challenge?

Jason: I love telling stories, and I love reaching that moment where the stories write themselves, and scraps of ideas that I have had in my head for sometimes years suddenly start to assemble themselves into a story I never thought they would be a part of.

The biggest challenge is everything else I have to take care of as a self-publisher: scraping up the money, dealing with the printing and shipping hassles, and trying to figure out how to get people’s attention for my products when I don’t have two dimes to rub together.

Fitz: When and where can we get Aftershock and what can we read in the meantime?

Jason: Oh thank God! I was afraid you’d never ask! Did I mention how I don’t have two dimes to rub together to advertise my books??

Weapon Brown: Aftershock will arrive in the Spring of 2019, if everything goes right. In the meantime, you can buy the original Weapon Brown graphic novel at Weaponbrown.com, and you can buy all my other comics like Deep Fried and PEEK! at Deathraystore.com. Please visit Whatisdeepfried.com for my weekly strips and blogginz, and check out my newest comic book, Peek! The Second, in stores now!

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You can grab your own copy of Jason’s graphic novel here!

 

The post My Interview with Jason Yungbluth, Creator of Weapon Brown appeared first on revfitz.com.

A Happy Bureaucracy!

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If Mad Max meets Terry Gilliam’s Brazil with a heaping dash of Hunter S. Thompson’s distilled madness sounds like a thing that you can groove to then A Happy Bureaucracy is the uncut primo shit you have been looking for! Coming out January 15th on Amazon Kindle, this fever dream novel has all of the bleak humor that a clown cemetery cannot deliver.

When the bombs fell and the weather forecast became permanent nuclear fire, when flowers of destructive fusion blossomed leaving death in their wake, the least important question was immediately asked: who’s going to collect all of the taxes?

The IRS was the only institution to survive the human holocaust, and Arthur McDowell is a steadfast tax auditor craving the safety of the desk job due to him. However, his dreams will be put on hold as the IRS plans a census into new irradiated territory and he is forced to work with freelance Enforcer, Rabia Duke, who’s diet of drugs is hand to mouth. This will be a suicide mission, and neither is keen to see the other survive.

The denizens of the wastes have much to fear. Radiation, roving gangs of psychopaths, and starvation, but the thing they should fear most is bureaucracy…

…a happy bureaucracy.

So mark your calendars! Hide your children! If you cannot wait, pick up the official prequel, Memos from the Wasteland, FOR FREE and get a notification for when A Happy Bureaucracy comes out

A Most Apocalyptic Interview: Phil Williams

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Christmas products are in stores, carols are on the radio, and cafes are beginning to paint their windows with pagan figures like Santa. You know what that means? Well, it means that the retail industry is doing its best not to drown and face their horrible, but inevitable, death rattle by pushing Christmas shopping earlier and earlier. But it also means that I can get away with talking about one of my new favorite books, A Most Apocalyptic Christmas!

The Linford Christie Elf kept his voice down as we snuck away form the main building. He said “That man didn’t get his candy cane in time. I don’t have long myself. We must be quick”

“You lot are torturing each other for not collecting sweets? Those are your trials?”

It was unreal. But it brought another thought to mind.

“You got a store of alcohol?”

This quote is from A Most Apocalyptic Christmas, a bleakly funny book by Phil Williams. I had the pleasure to talk with Phil recently about his book, the holiday, and about the seductive lure of the post-apocalypse genre.

My Interview with Phil Williams
[image error]Phil Williams

Fitz: A Most Apocalyptic Christmas is told through the point of view of Scullion, a lone gun turned reluctant hero. He defers to nicknames for the other characters, never once taking a moment to ask them their actual names and thinks that life is cheap. To what extent do your characters resemble you as a person?

Phil: Oh that’s an excellent question that my wife would appreciate – she keeps complaining that I don’t use her actual name enough! Characters mistaking or inventing names is something that crops up all over my fiction, now you mention it. Must be something in it…

I think that no writer can avoid bringing themselves into any character they write – even if you base it on someone else, or some alien concept, it’s still your interpretation of such emotions and behaviour. Perhaps Scullion reflects some of my less responsible drinking days. But he’s a severe extreme – he’s cruder and more carefree than I could ever be – I care about things like responsibilities and consequences. But following him is an interesting test in exploring ‘what if’…

Fitz: The book is an absurd concept played straight, and honestly, is a lot of fun. It can be very grim and earnestly funny on the same page. Is this reflective of the comedies that you enjoy outside of your work?

Phil: Yes, I’d say so. I’m a big fan of bathos, and think absurdist or surprising humour work best in contrast. I grew up reading Pratchett’s Discworld, so you could probably see some antecedents there. He was a master at playing absurd humour straight – it works so well (to my mind) precisely because of how serious and stuffy a lot of his characters are. On the other hand, I don’t really get on with fiction that’s pure comedy. (And you could apply the same to TV/film – I’m a big fan of dark or surrealist humour played with a straight face.)

Fitz: We definitely share in that taste! You write about the post-apocalypse with a natural voice for it. In A Most Apocalyptic Christmas, you describe the gritty ruins of man with an almost raw poetry, what ultimately attracts you to the apocalypse?

Phil: Another good question! I guess I like the aesthetic of darker aspects of life, seldom trodden paths and things that are left to ruin, they evoke a haunting kind of emotion. The apocalypse is also a perfect setting for exploring morality – without societal constraints, moral choices are much starker in apocalyptic fiction. To say nothing of the opportunity it gives us to be wildly creative with reconstruction – what strange things might rise from the ashes? What distorted realities will people cling on to? How far are we from making these crazy things happen?

Fitz: You sir, were absolutely wildly creative with reconstruction! You turn the themes of Christmas on its head in the book. A time of mirth becomes a grim and bleak affair. Are you jaded and disillusioned from the holiday or a true believer, or is there room for both?

Phil: What appeals to me about Christmas, and always has, is that it can serve as a shining light in the middle of the darkness, beyond logic and reason. People use it as an excuse to find hope, and forgiveness, and happiness, in spite of everything. It makes it great for stories because of the contrast it can create – similar to my answer about humour. In that vein, the best Christmas stories emerge from the darkest backdrops.

Outside fiction, I’m still a fan of the holiday, but commercialism sadly dilutes its effect. Christmas is hardly a shining light in the middle of darkest winter if you’ve been submitted to it since the sunny days of August. I read not long ago about a man who determined to celebrate Christmas every day of his life. I’m not sure if he’s still doing it, but you have to imagine it’s lost its charm.

Fitz: I can’t imagine that it hasn’t. What is your favorite part of being an author, and has there been anything about writing that has surprised you?

I love spending time with my characters, because they take on their own lives and they always surprise me. There’s times that I reread character dialogue and have no idea where it came from. I also love taking them to unusual places, particularly ones I’d never be able to experience myself.

In terms of doing it as a profession, the biggest realisation I had to come by was how much difference feedback makes. I’ve been writing all my life, and before self-publishing I would privately write and rewrite a novel 6 or 7 times aiming for perfection. Once I got an editor on board, I realised I could achieve more with one (knowledgeable) outsider’s perspective than I could with 5 years of my own private revisions.

Fitz: Why write a holiday-themed post-apocalypse novel and not, say, a commercial thriller? What would you say is the greatest challenge for an indie author not afraid to write something different?

Phil: I enjoy commercial thrillers as a reader, but as a writer I enjoy pushing myself to different, stranger vistas. One of the greatest thrills of writing is experiencing something in your mind that you can’t easily recreate in reality. I get to build weird settings and upset the laws of reality. For me, it feels like a wasted opportunity if I can’t create unusual new places at the same time that I’m creating a story. Not that I don’t also like relating things back to reality – if you take a look at my Ordshaw (contemporary fantasy) series, that’s set in the modern UK. But I invented a city, rather than relied on one we already have. (The first novel, Under Ordshaw, is available here).

As for the greatest challenge – people buy the familiar, and read the familiar. It’s easier, it’s a quicker path to happiness. Even if you end up reading weak imitations of something you love, you know what you’re getting. When you try something new, there’s no guarantee it’s worth your time. For an indie author writing something unusual, you really have to persuade people to take a chance. Which, now I say it, sounds like the hardest thing in the world.

Fitz: Will there be more of Scullion’s misadventures on the way?

There were two full length Scullion stories around long before AMAC, both yet to be released. I have a 5-book plan with the first novel already written (The Worst Survive), and the fourth (for complicated reasons!) already in screenplay format. The stories are less surreal than AMAC, but just as frenetic – charting the rise of a dystopian society through the eyes of this very irreverent mercenary. The series mixes some serious cyberpunk, noir detective and wasteland warrior vibes. It’s coming along, but only between my focus on the Ordshaw series. I’ve got another post-apocalyptic series to finish, too, the Estalia series which started years back with Wixon’s Day. That’s a much more serious, haunting kind of saga, which has got an explosive finale on the way.

I also always had in mind an idea to do a couple more Christmas stories for Scullion – seeing as he’s led a very interesting life. The second one would be an apocalyptic reimagining of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – A Christmas Parole. I’m reluctant to prioritise another Christmas novella when I’ve got more substantial novel projects to complete, though!

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You can grab your own copy of A Most Apocalyptic Chirstams here!

 

The post A Most Apocalyptic Interview: Phil Williams appeared first on revfitz.com.

Everybody Dies: Atomic Death and Taxes

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A free short story by M.P. Fitzgerald (RevFitz)

Atomic Death and Taxes

 

If he could read, which he can’t, he would see that the ancient can of food that he had opened was called Vienna Sausages. Oh, there was a picture of the meat on the can, he knew what he was getting into. But to appreciate the full effect of the false promise that was on the label was to at least have the semi-pretentious name of the product in mind when you opened it. The decades-old meat that he now looked at was not like the carefully cut pieces of hot-dog that lay delicately under the yellowed text of the label. No, what Spider was greeted with was a pink, uniform sludge. What he was about to eat was an affront to the word “food”.

Spider was hiding. Though most people in the United Wastes were hiding most of the time this particular detail was important because it meant that he could light no fires. The offensive, decades-old sludge in front of him could not be cooked. The smoke would be seen from miles away, the light of the fire would alert others to his presence. If his pursuers were not nearby, if he had actually escaped them for the last time, there was still the ever-present threat of slavers, raiders, and the high-octane fueled nightmares of land pirates. The unfortunate truth of the apocalypse was that everyone was out to get you. That, and that being a “foodie” was a terribly misaligned hobby.

He sighed deeply, feeling the dead dust of the abandoned bank that he was squatting in cake the inside of his nostrils. He had to let it go. Even if he could light a fire there was no amount of cooking, no amount of uplifting that would make the pink sludge any better. He pinched his nose, closed his eyes, and downed the can of “meat” like it was an especially hateful shot of whiskey. A vague, and menacing, taste of chicken and burnt tin assaulted his senses. He had been shot, stabbed, burnt, and beaten in his life. He had lost his ring finger to an especially salty ex, and he had once nearly bled out under an uncaring sun. Spider had been through some shit, but these Vienna Sausages were top of the list for unpleasant torture.

The can of food was surprisingly filling.

It had to be. It was his last.

With the deed, no, the sin complete, Spider leaned against the concrete wall and sat down. There was time to sleep, hell, there was always time to sleep in the post-nuclear holocaust of the United Wastes… but could he risk it? He had only a single bullet left. The Enforcer he had killed did not go down easy. He had emptied most of his revolver before the bastard finally went down. If his agent was still alive, if she was still out there, would one be enough? Did a single bullet matter if she got the jump on him while he slept? There were no good answers.

Spider was always in trouble. This did not make him special, but selling drugs in the United Wastes presented its own special kind of trouble. Deals went sour, junkies robbed him at gunpoint, and rival dealers were always trying to off him. These were troubles that he was at least used to. Now he was being pursued by the largest, most well-equipped gang in the land: the IRS.

He did not know how they found him, he did not know how they knew that he was “self-employed”, but it did not matter. They, just like all of the other rival gangs, wanted a cut of his business, and just like everyone else, they came armed.

He was able to escape them unharmed. Once the Enforcer was dead the Auditor fled. But there was no telling when she would come back, or who was going to be with her when she did. So Spider sought refuge. Spider hid. He holed up in the first ruined building in the irradiated city that he could find. If he knew how to read he would know that he had picked an old bank. He had no context for the paper money covered in dust that surrounded him. He had only ever used the stuff as toilet paper. In the United Wastes, you got paid with bullets or canned food, which meant that poor Spider was now dirt poor.

He fought off the creeping allure of slumber. Ignored the rest that his full belly demanded from him. Still, it was a losing battle, and the moment he decided to give in, she announced herself.

“Hello?!” she said before she saw him. “This is the IRS!”

Fuck.

Spider reached for his revolver.

The woman turned the corner leading her movements with her fallen Enforcer’s shotgun. Their eyes met. Neither moved.

She was not tall. She was not menacing. There was little about her that suggested that she had been living in the same apocalypse. While Spider was decked out in coyote leathers and armor made of car tires, while he was caked in dirt, dust, and dried blood, she was clean. Glasses lay unbroken on her sharp nose, and a collared shirt and tie reflected light off of its stark white surface. Spider, he wore mismatched boots and scavenged pants from a victim of the nuclear war. This woman wore black ironed slacks and flats. To Spider, the stark contrast of the dusty and mostly destroyed bank that surrounded them to her clean and professional appearance was not just unsettling, but bat-shit insane and terrifying. And though her narrow shoulders would not carry the kick of the massive shotgun well, the short distance between them meant that she would get a kill.

He kept his finger on the trigger and his eyes on her’s.

“We sent you several notices about your unpaid taxes,” the woman said, “you have had plenty of time to take care of them. How do you plan on paying them?” Business was not just how she dressed, apparently.

“W-what?” said Spider not eloquently.

The woman’s shoulders fell. She sighed audibly. “Your taxes. How are you paying them?”

“What notices? I ain’t met ya before today!”

“Fuck you Spider. We sent them by priority mail through the postal service months ago. Stop playing dumb. How are you going to pay your taxes?”

Spider blinked. Hard. He did what no one in the United Wastes should, he took his eyes off of his enemy and looked around him. Half of the bank was in rubble. There were more irradiated skeletons on the earth than living people to meet. The world had ended, and what replaced it was savage, brutal, and dying.

“What the fuck is the postal service?” Spider asked.

“A place that has seriously dropped the ball,” the woman replied. “Now, how the fuck are you paying your debts?” she continued with extra vinegar in her voice while she scratched the tip of her nose with her middle finger. The foul gesture was one he had only seen one other woman do before…

“Susan?!” said Spider as phantom pain ran down his missing finger. “Holy shit! Is that you?”

“You’re kidding,” the tax woman replied. “Did you seriously not recognize me?!”

He stared at the clean, professional, and beautiful woman in front of him. “Absolutely not,” he said.

Susan lowered her shotgun by a few degrees, a courtesy that Spider did not mirror, especially now that he knew that she was his ex. She shifted her weight and rolled her eyes. “We spent three years selling drugs together in these wastes!” she said with a cocked eyebrow.

“Yeah,” Spider replied with no charm, “but you looked like shit then.”

Her shotgun was raised and pointed in an instant. “I’ll take that as some sort of backwards compliment,” she said.

“You still look like shit,” he lied.

She cocked a slug into her chamber.

Dust motes settled in the cruel light as the silence stretched thin as taffy.

Spider had taste, he could cook, if he had the right tools he could wizard a dead raccoon into pâté. But he was no educated man, and beyond cursing his wit was as dull as a religious pot-luck. Some things just took him longer.

“You sold me out to the IRS!” he screamed, taffy silence broken.

“No shit, Spider.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have!”

“You left me at the alter—”

“You still mad ‘bout that?”

She did not answer immediately. Her eyes still spoke of pain. He hated those eyes. “No,” she said, her eyes disagreed. “I’m better off that you did. I want you to know that, Spider, I’m a better person without you and the IRS is the best thing that has happened to me.”

“Oh?”

“They got running water, good food, and people are decent there, Spider, something you know nothing about being.” She gave him her half smirk, just another taunt in her bottomless arsenal against him. He did not challenge her on that last point, however. She was right. She adjusted her glasses with her middle finger, sure to let it linger just so that he saw the gesture. “I didn’t even know I needed these glasses until the IRS,” she said, “I’m even seeing better since I left you Spider.”

“Since I left you,” Spider corrected. He instantly regretted doing so. Those damn eyes again. He left their gaze, better to look at her trigger finger anyway.

“They really did not have to offer me much to sell you out,” she said.

“Oh? Running water, good food, and dorky glasses was enough to sell your soul huh?”

She laughed, a sound once sonorous to his heart was now like broken glass in a blender. “You are worth so much less than the luxury of running water Spider,” she said, half smirk wild. “They only had to offer me a job, said I could have it if I got a ‘small business owner’ like yourself to pay your dues.”

“You’re a bitch.”

“Your cooking sucks.”

Daggers! His trigger finger itched like a swarm of pissed off bed bugs.

“Now,” she said, “how are you paying your goddamn taxes?”

He never wanted to give her the satisfaction even when they were lovesick puppies selling crystal to cannibals. Now she was an ex that had gone the extra mile and betrayed him to the biggest gang in the modern Armageddon. He absolutely did not want to admit any of his shortcomings. But Susan had always been smarter than him. Truth be told: she kept an eye on the numbers and inventory when he made a deal. She was not just a business partner then, she was the business. She could read and understood math beyond her fingers and toes. He would never admit it aloud, but her mind scared him more than an irradiated bear on fire. And now that mind held a shotgun and was motivated by a heart that was not merely bruised but shattered. What choice did he have?

“What uh…” he stumbled, “what exactly is taxes?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“You gonna tell me or taunt me?”

She rolled her eyes. “See all this money?” She asked pointing at what he thought was toilet paper. “Used to be that people got paid in this stuff, traded for food, drugs, you name it. Every time they made money they would give a portion of that to the government which would build things like roads.” She shifted her weight once more. She knew that he wasn’t getting it. “Give the IRS some of your stuff so that everyone gets nice stuff too.”

“Why the fuck would I do that?!” Spider asked in earnest.

“Because it benefits others, Spider.”

“Who cares? It benefits me not to benefits others. I earned my stuff.”

“Look,” Susan said, “running water, good food, I know you like good food Spider, these are things we can all have after the IRS rebuilds society. They can’t do that if everyone is a selfish self-aggrandizing ass like you.”

Spider squinted at the woman he had scorned. There was more going on here than just her hurt eyes. She believed in what she was saying.

“You drank their kool-aid!” he said, his voice frayed in anger.

“Yeah, I did, they got grape and cherry flavor there Spider, It’s awesome.”

“What?”

“They got real kool-aid in the bunker.”

“I thought kool-aid was just a thing people said for like cults and stuff,” he said. He had honestly never considered that it was an actual thing that you could drink.

Susan shook her head. “Spider, help the IRS by doing your duty and kool-aid can be a thing again.”

They swallowed their breaths in arrested silence. It was dumb, but she was serious. She had every reason to kill him where he sat, but she would let him walk away alive for the slight chance of a civilized world.

“Fine,” he said deflating his shoulders and lowering his revolver. “The IRS wants money, take all the money here,” he said motioning toward the scattered bills that lay on the dusty floor of the bank. “They can have it all.”

“No.”

“What do you mean no?!” he cried in bafflement.

“You are missing the point. The money has to come from what you have earned, Spider. This only works if we pitch in our own stuff.”

“That’s bullshit!” he said, revolver back up. “You always been high on your horse with morsels!”

“Morals,” Susan corrected. “Morals not morsels! God! You’re such an idiot Spider!”

“Whatever! I ain’t got no money anyways and you know it!”

“I know what you got,” Susan said half smirk ablaze. “The IRS, see, they’re smart Spider. They know that things have changed. You think I have nice glasses and bitchin’ kool-aid because people pay in money? These things were the payments. They know we barter in calories and bullets. They wouldn’t hire me if you were some deadbeat target Spider. I told them about our canned wienie stash.”

“You bitch.”

She ignored the jab. “I’m not even here for my share of our profits, Spider. How’s that for some high horse morals? You pay up a portion of those wienies for a better future for all and I let you walk. We never have to see each other again.”

He lowered his revolver to his hip. He’d be hard pressed to admit that he ever wanted to see her again before now, but somehow the prospect of this being their last meeting still hurt. He hated her. But he also hated that she hated him. Hated himself for making her. Spider never believed in anything but the bite of his bullets. He didn’t think that she had either. But here she was, preaching the very basic cornerstone of society to a man who wore coyote leathers and car tires. He could not give her what she wanted. But then again, he never could in the past either.

“I can’t give you the canned food,” he said, his voice peppered with guilt.

The shotgun erupted violence over her head. This was no warning shot, it was an exclamation to her rage, to her frustration. “HAND OVER THE FUCKING CANNED WIENIES!” she screamed. Her hands trembled. Plaster fell from the ceiling in chunks, joining the dust on the ground. She cocked the shotgun once more and pointed it at Spider’s head. “Pay your goddamn taxes, Spider.”

Spider kept his revolver at his hips. They both knew that he could make the shot from his position, but he did not want to anger her anymore by raising it. “I said I can’t, not that I won’t,” he said. “I ate the last one just before you came in. They’re gone. All of them. There are no more wienies from our stash.”

She laughed. The action was twice as jarring as it was the first time. “I’m actually surprised,” she said and continued to laugh. “Do you know that? Shit Spider! I did not think that you could possibly disappoint me anymore. You are such an asshole.”

He dared not to move. She met his eyes. “Fine, it’s fine,” she said. “You don’t have to pay in wienies. They’ll take bullets too. Give me your ammo and I’ll be on my way.”

“That’s a death sentence,” Spider said simply, betraying the hurt in his heart.

“I don’t care,” she replied.

Their eyes locked. He once found them so comforting. So beautiful. Now, all he saw was his own sins. Now he just saw the pain that he had inflicted on the one woman he never wanted to inflict harm on.

That hurt was there even before he left her at the altar. He did not know exactly when they were filled with hurt, but it at least a year before she stopped looking at him with excitement. But they didn’t part. He hated her for it. Hated that she was a coward for never breaking it off even when they both knew that it was not working. He hated her forcing his hand. She made him the bad guy. And Spider? Well, he could play a pretty good bad guy if he had to. In fact, it came naturally to him.

Once, she would have risked her life for his and vice versa. Now, she did not even have the decency to shoot him herself. She would rather leave him defenseless in a cruel world and never think about him again. A coward, like always. Fine. What was that last part of their vows? Till death… fucking irony. He could play the bad guy.

She wanted his bullet? Well, he was prepared to give it to her.

He pulled the trigger. She was faster than he remembered.

…And Spider paid his taxes.

Enjoyed the short story? You’ll love Memos from the Wasteland! Set in same world it is a collection of short stories that paint a brutal picture of a post-apocalypse that still has to deal with line queues. And it is exclusive and free when you sign up for my Bunker Dispatches! Get your post-apocalyptic tax return today!

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Everybody Dies: Non-Cannibalistic Dinner Parties

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Today’s short story was guest written by Teowi, author of It’s Only Another End of the World!

 

Non-cannibalistic Dinner Parties

It was going to be a good night. I could feel it.

Luck had been on my side from the moment I met her at a bar. She was drop-dead gorgeous and just a bit shy, but when I approached her she smiled like she had just won the lottery. Guys may gush to each other about tits and ass, but there’s no bigger turn-on than feeling wanted. That was the start of a beautiful night.

Thirty minutes of drinking and chatting at the bar and she suggested going back to her place. For a coffee, of course, there was no Netflix back then. I couldn’t believe my luck. And ten minutes after entering her house she was taking off her clothes and nibbling softly at my bottom lip.

But suddenly she stopped, coughing and choking on something, clutching at her throat. I panicked and patted her on the back, hoping it would not force me to call 911. Instead, she jerked to the side and hurled on the floor, sickly yellow vomit peppered with bits and pieces of food. “Oh shit,” was all she could gasp, her eyes firmly closed in pain.

“Oh man…” I said, looking around. “I’ll get something to clean this up.”

“No, no…” she insisted before another wave of nausea forced her to puke again. Only by propping herself against the wall she avoided falling on the floor. That’s when something I saw caught my attention, then my breath. I stared at it, trying to imagine any other explanation for it being there, but I couldn’t.

Among the remains of her food spewed on the floor was a human finger. It was a pinky, severed at the first knuckle, its nail broken but still visible. It couldn’t be mistaken for anything else, and where it was severed, cartilage and bone were barely visible under the blood and yellow gunk.

I stared at the finger, then back at her, growing increasingly terrified. She looked back at me, irritated and in one fluid motion pounced at me and grabbed both my arms before I could react. Her grip was absurdly tight, cutting my circulation as I struggled, uselessly. All I could do was shout for help, but her reaction to that was even worse.

Her head split open, like a flower in bloom, revealing long pink tendrils inside her empty skull that undulated as they tasted the air, like the tongue of a snake. There was also a chitinous maw, like an insect’s mouth, chittering from deep inside the throat of her former head that now splayed open like a revolting starfish. The scream died in my throat, frozen in pure terror. The creature tilted its eyeless head inquisitively.

“So, um… Can we still have sex?” she asked. “Or did that just break the mood?”

I whimpered.

Her head closed in again, reassembling into a perfectly ordinary human head, one with an anxious expression. “Uhh, look. This never happened! It was all, um, special effects! Just like in Hollywood!” She grinned nervously, to which I stared at her in utter disbelief until her smile faded. “Shit… You’re not buying any of this, are you?”

“What the hell are you?” Was all I could answer, still dumbstruck.

She snorted, clearly offended, before hesitating for a moment and looking thoughtful. “It’s hard to explain, but my kind has existed in the shadows for ages. We call ourselves Kharzerai, but really that’s just a different way the Slitherbiters called us when the Silver Empire was…”

Her explanation trailed away into silence as she noticed my utterly confused expression. She frowned and rolled her eyes before giving the abbreviated version. “I’m a bug-lady that eats people. Occasionally,” she added, a touch defensively.

I screamed, begging desperately for help. She looked mortified and immediately placed a hand over my mouth. “Shhh! You don’t want the neighbors to come over, trust me!” She spoke, sounding truly scared for the first time in our conversation.

“Oh god…” I whispered. “If they do, will you eat them too?”

“No, they might eat me instead.” She clarified.

That shut me up. And with that simple exchange of words, my life was ruined forever

——

“They’re scary, really scary,” she muttered, gesturing wildly while sitting on the bed next to me.

“So these… Things. Thingies. Are they all bug-people too?” I tentatively asked.

“No, no,” she said, “there’s others. Slitherbiters, Wendigos, Nice Men…”

“Nice Men?” I asked, holding back a nervous laugh.

She let out a frightened shudder. “You don’t want to meet the Nice Men,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis. “They’re not very nice. At all.”

“Why are they called the Nice Men then?”

“Would you call them ‘Sadistic Motherfuckers” to their faces?” She asked, eyes wide. “Trust me, stick with ‘Nice Men’. Much safer.”

“So…” I spoke softly, trying to wrap my head around that terrifying idea, “if I scream… Those things will come and kill you?”

“Or you. Horribly. Or worse,” she was rambling now, staring into the distance, frightened. Her eyes darted back to mine, “so please, PLEASE, keep quiet? You REALLY don’t know what’s out there.”

“Is… Is that the whole building that’s like this?” I asked, bewildered. “Is this you guys’… Secret base or something?”

She chuckled at that, and it was her turn to look bewildered. “Secret Base?”

“Or hive, or… I don’t know,” I muttered. She laughed again.

“Think bigger,” she said.

“What, a few buildings? Or… Or what?”

“Eh,” she waved her hand from side to side, “If I had to guess… Half the population of the world is not actually human.”

There was a brief, terrifying pause as her words sunk in, like an iceberg into the ocean depths. The gargantuan, monstrously impossible implications lurked in the dark depths far below the surface of her nonchalant words contained.

“That’s… That’s bullshit,” I said weakly, not even able to convince myself.

“Well, I don’t know for certain, but… Umm. There’s a lot of us.” She shrugged, then looked at me, concern creaking her face into a frown. “And technically you guys are not supposed to know.”

She was staring at me while she said that, which made my mouth dry as my breathing quickened. I thought, not for the first time, of escaping but I couldn’t move. I was afraid to even raise my voice, which trembled as I asked, “Are you… Are you going to kill me?”

She squinted, struggling with an internal debate before burying her face in her palms with an exasperated sigh. “Uuugh! I should, but… I just can’t! I really can’t” She shook her head, still covered by her hands as if trying to dislodge a thought stuck on her mind. “It’s like watching a pig play in the mud, and it’s SO CUTE! And they taste so delicious, but then this really cute one’s just staring at you and it’s adorable I… I can’t just kill it. I can’t kill you.”

It was an odd thing, being compared to bacon. “So. Can I live then?”

“Ugh… I suck as a predator,” She chuckled before looking up with an expression of pity and uncertainty in equal measures. “Sure. Sure, why the hell not?”

She got up and walked to the living room. I froze for a moment, not daring to believe this was happening, before following her quickly to the front door of the apartment, which she had opened. I slowed and stopped at the entrance, hesitating, afraid to move.

But she did nothing but wave goodbye to me. “Go. Be free,” she whispered, her expression betraying sadness behind her weak smile. “Live a long and happy life.”

I took a step, then another, before finally breaking into a run. I ignored the elevator, running down three flights of steps before I left the building. When the fresh air outside hit my face, my heart brimmed with energy I had never felt before in my life. I was alive. Somehow, I was still alive. My breath quickened, my heart pumped harder than ever before and I had to stop myself from whooping with joy.

——–

Part of me wishes the story would stop here. I forget her, move on, live a happy life, the end. The art of having a happy ending is a simple one, just end at the right time. Continue the story for too long and, eventually, it will have to end in death.

While I survived, my mind was shaken by the experience with the insect creature in the apartment. What she had shown me, and told me, haunted me. I slept uneasily at night, frightened of monsters for the first time since I was six years old. Slowly but surely, that night tainted the rest of my life beyond repair.

I couldn’t trust other people. When I looked at them, I kept wondering if they were hiding something hideous under their flesh. Something that shouldn’t be. What were their thoughts? Did they see me as another person? As meat, prey or worse?

And it got worse. I saw things in the corner of my eyes that I could neither confirm nor fully banish. Staring and hushed whispering. Previously innocent oddities, like a coworker who ate all his food in a few quick bites or a janitor who always kept her left hand inside her pocket, no matter what took sinister undertones. I grew aloof and withdrawn, which only worsened my paranoia. Even if they were fully human, how could I relate to these innocent people, oblivious to the terrible things lurking beside them? How could I explain what I had seen?

My life grew cold and lonely, haunted by some unseen presence that I could feel, but not see, hiding underneath flesh and skin. Yet, no matter how cold, I dared not go close to others for warmth. I was afraid of monsters.

So it was much to my surprise that I found myself, a year later, returning to the apartment of the monster I met that night.

“Oh, It’s you!” She said, after opening the door. “Wow, this is a surprise!”

“Can I come in?” I asked, leaning on the wall next to the door. I might have been a bit tipsy when I decided to return, but I was not about to disgrace myself in front of the only person – sorry, creature – that I trusted.

“Yeah, sure!” She opened the door with an eager expression, that quickly turned into a worried one as her eyes darted inside her apartment and then back at me. “Hope you don’t mind if it’s a bit messy?”

“Oh god,” my heart sank with fear. “Don’t tell me you have someone’s body in there…”

Turned out she had left empty take-out cases around the house and hadn’t swept in a week. I couldn’t tell whether I was relieved or disappointed to discover that.

That night we talked a lot, but I can’t remember the details. We drank as we talked and I was well beyond tipsy at that point. I do remember begging for her to help me. To make me forget what she had told me or to teach me how to tell apart the inhuman from those like me. Unfortunately, she could do neither, which she admitted with a nervous frown, awkwardly patting me on the shoulder for comfort. What I had lost that night could never be regained.

When I woke up the next day, she was rushing to and fro, complaining on how hungover she was as she reassembled her face and got dressed. I was gently shooed out of the apartment before she left herself, waving me goodbye. Two things stuck to my horrified mind, as I walked to work. Firstly, I had slept in the apartment with that cannibal thing, completely at her mercy. The second was that I had promised to see her again.

And I went. Soon it became a weekly thing; a friendly routine. We politely avoided certain topics while discussing our daily lives. Curiosity was strong between us, as we asked each other questions on how we saw things. She was amused by my reactions whenever she told me the details of her non-human life and delighted in sharing weird tidbits of her experiences. What she told me fascinated and repulsed me in equal measure. Stories of entire cities where the creatures were an open secret, or of how she had never met her mother, instead being taught by one of her egg-sisters how to blend in and pretend to be human. We talked about our lives, our past and our hopes for the future.

“So,” she asked one evening, leaning in with an eager smile, “did you ever do something romantic once? Like, to a girlfriend or a woman you liked?”

“I guess,” I said, staring back at her and shrugging. “We’ve all done this or that when we were young.”

“Oh? Come on, tell me more,” She insisted.

“Well, ok, this happened a while back,” I said. “I was sixteen and really fancied this girl. But she was out of my league so I had to get creative. I managed to land on a science project with her and hatched a plan. I bought some flowers, hid them inside the project, and hid a sappy love note inside the flowers. My plan was to ask her out then.”

“Woah, you really did that?” Her eyes were wide in amazement.

“Yup. Complete disaster. The flowers got squished inside the fake house in the project and the note got damp and unreadable, which is a blessing looking back since the poem was so lame,” I scoffed. “But I kept my cool and told her that I was ready to re-do the project by myself to make up for it. And I said I would buy even prettier flowers and ruin them even more when asking her out next time.” I chuckled, remembering her reaction. “She laughed at that, and we hit it off. She asked me out for real one week later.”

“Oh, nice!” She was amazed at my silly story, sporting an excited grin. “What happened next?”

“About a month in I found out she didn’t want to have sex until after marriage. That turned out to be a dealbreaker, so I dumped her.” I looked away with an embarrassed shrug. “Sorry, but that’s how it went. Goes to show: romance is overrated.”

“No, no, that’s great!” She said, her enthusiasm not diminished in the slightest. “First you did a romantic gesture, but it didn’t go as planned… But then it did! And then you found other differences that made you break off! Wow… It’s amazing!”

“Is it?” I asked, nonplussed.

“We don’t get stuff like that with my kind,” she confessed, her voice dropping to a self-conscious mutter. “We have mating dances, which are nice, but very strict and formal. But human relationships are so random and messy and… It’s great!”

“Huh, that’s one way of seeing it,” I said.

“I mean… I’ve read about it and watched it on TV, sure.” She looked at me earnestly, “but it always felt distant, you know? Like it’s happening in another world. But you describing it to me here? In person?” She chuckled, eyes shining bright. “It feels real.”

Despite myself, I smiled when she said that.

——–

As my enjoyment of those nights with her grew, my life became more miserable. Others noticed my strange mannerisms and I refused to touch anyone. I received an official reprimand from my supervisor for the first time, due to my behavior. And at night I still had trouble sleeping.

“Gee, that sucks!” She said, commiserating with me. We were at her apartment again, sitting at the table and eating curry, which we had prepared together. She took a bite and looked down, pensive. Her shoulders slumped slightly as she asked, “do you blame me for ruining your life?”

There was a dreadful silence, which stretched as I was torn on how to answer her question. In the end, I chose honesty. “Yes,” I answered.

She deflated further, not daring to look at me now. “Yeah,” she agreed, her voice quiet. “I guess that makes sense.”

“But there’s more to it than that. If I had never met you I would have been happy and innocent, sure, but… I would also be easy prey. Like a lamb to the slaughter. I mean…” I stumbled, searching for the right words to use. “I… What I am trying to say is. I’m glad to have met you.”

There was another awkward silence, and if she was cheered by my words she did not show it. She was the one to break the silence. “It’s difficult for me too.”

Frowning, I asked, “how?”

“A couple of weeks ago I asked one of my sisters if one of us could have a relationship with a human,” she chuckled, without any mirth or warmth. “She had some choice words for that. ‘Deviant’, for one. It’s… She didn’t understand at all. I think I’m the only one who sees any purpose in treating humans as more than prey. I’m just weird, I guess. I’ve never met any other sister like me.”

“So you’re alone,” I said, not taking my eyes from her. “Just like me.”

“Also, I… I haven’t fed. Recently,” she said, very quietly, as if afraid someone else would hear.

“Wha… Wait. You mean people?”

She nodded. “I can eat other things, but if I don’t devour… Well. I am slowly starving now,” she confessed. “I think I can last… A few more months, maybe?”

“What?” I got up from my chair in alarm, completely floored by what she had told me. “Does that mean… You’re dying?”

“I shouldn’t have told you,” she frowned, looking embarrassed. “I just wanted to enjoy our time left, not bum you out. It’s… Look, it’s fine. I made peace with it,” she said, finally looking back at me with a small smile.

But I couldn’t smile back. And after a tense moment, I cleared my throat, willing the words out of my mouth. “Kill me,” I said.

“Huh?” Her eyes widened as her smile vanished.

“My life is already messed up, I’m lonely and everybody laughs at me,” I blurted, like a dam bursting, my words flowed like a flood. “My family doesn’t know what’s going on and my colleagues avoid me, and… I’m afraid. All the time. Look, no one’s going to be too bothered. Just do it. Eat me.”

“No!” her expression curled into a bewildered scowl. “Not anymore and ESPECIALLY not you!”

“I’m not worth starving to death over,” I chuckled, shaking my head. “Trust me, no one cares if I die. Go ahead.”

She stared at me intensely before reaching a conclusion. Her head split open, revealing the unsettling emptiness inside as her tendrils tasted the air, writhing gracefully as she moved closer, making me back away. “It’s my choice,” she said. “They don’t choose who I am, you don’t choose, nobody chooses but me.”

I forced myself to look back at her, shivering. “But… You’re going to die.”

She shrugged, such a normal gesture for an unnatural creature, with a cricket-like clicking coming from her throat. “I’ve made my peace with that.”

I looked away, overwhelmed by emotion, and took a deep breath to calm myself down. “You’re so stubborn,” I said, punctuating with a small laugh.

She fiddled with her hands, looking incredibly awkward as only her clicking and chittering filled the silence. “Can’t help it. It’s who I am,” she said at last, her voice but a whisper as her shoulders sagged. She looked crestfallen, despite her inhuman face.

I gave her a hug. It was the only thing I could do for her.

——–

We met even more frequently after that, spending as much time as possible, talking about our memories and our hopes, each hoping they could save the other from loneliness and death. We clung to each other, like a drowning man to a fellow swimmer, hoping to be saved. We knew it wouldn’t last, yet in the late hours of night, addled by the lack of sleep and food, we could at least pretend.

It was a short-lived dream. Therefore, I shouldn’t have been surprised one day to get a call from her, a few hours before our usual meeting time.

“They found out,” she whispered into the phone. “I’m not going to live the night. Listen! Do. Not. Come here tonight. It’s not safe.”

I was stupefied, struggling to regain my wits. “I… No. I’m not letting you go through that alone,” I replied.

“I need you to live,” she said. “I have a last request for you.” There was a small pause, I was too stunned to reply so she added “… please?”

I swallowed my bitterness “What do you want me to do?”

“I want a grave. Nothing fancy, a little pile of stones and some flowers would do,” she let a tiny laugh, rueful. “Kharzerai don’t have stuff like that when we die. I want to be special.”

My heart sank. “What about the situation right now? Are you sure there’s nothing I can…”

“Just make sure I am remembered. Please, it’s…” her voice stopped. I had no idea in what state she was on the other side of the line. I would never see her face again. “It’s all I can ask for right now.”

“I promise. I’ll do it,” I told her, sounding more confident than I felt.

Her voice had a hint of a smile as she replied, “thank you for the last few months.” Then the line went silent before hanging up. I had to excuse myself to the bathroom to avoid causing more of a scene than I already had.

Of course, I ignored her advice. After a couple of drinks, I went to her apartment one more time. Knocked on the door and waited and waited for anyone to answer. To see her face on the other side telling me it was all a misunderstanding, just a prank.

But no one answered.

I was forced to give up, walking down the stairs with unsteady steps. I almost bumped against a trio of perfectly innocent and normal men, who all smiled at me in a very normal and unthreatening fashion. There was nothing unnatural about them whatsoever. One of them poked at my neck playfully with his finger, in a non-suspicious and ordinary manner. This amused the three nice men, who all laughed normally and walked away, leaving me to stumble home. By the time I returned, I had forgotten all about them.

——–

I kept my promise, a little cairn with flowers. A week didn’t pass by without fresh ones from me. It’s been ten years.

Shame I couldn’t keep it up. It started with a wet cough, persistent and painful. Then my throat swelled up and I could barely swallow my food. The doctors ran their tests and concluded it was an unusual form of throat cancer, just in time for it to get worse and spread to the rest of my body.

Now I’m in a hospital bed, waiting to die. I wonder if, at my last moments, I will see her again? Is there a heaven for bug-ladies as well? Ridiculous thought. I was never very religious even before my belief in reality was shattered, why should I believe now?

Yet I couldn’t help but hope that I will see her face one more time, through God or dark powers or oxygen deprivation. In a world I know so little of, is it far-fetched to hope we can be reunited, somehow? Might we meet again in another place?

I guess it’s time to find out.

This story was guest written by Mike Spivak of It’s Only Another End of the World. If you liked this short story leave a comment and check out the author’s site! Check in next week for my own entry and for a chance to choose which of the stories (not including my own) that was the best in this series!

The post Everybody Dies: Non-Cannibalistic Dinner Parties appeared first on revfitz.com.

Everybody Dies: A Story for Three

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Today’s short story was guest written by Teowi, author of Gods are Watching!

A Story for Three

 

“Here’s a good story,” Knell had said all of a sudden. “Three people are walking in a desert, and one of them falls into quicksand.”

Erik cut him off immediately. “Don’t jinx us,” he said. His face was already bathed in sweat from the hot air. The pair had told her they had been out in the sands for half an hour, and already they looked to be melting from the heat.

“No, I want to hear it,” Loren told them. “Does it have a happy ending?” She was dragging the end of her staff along the ground, leaving a trail behind them that was quickly swept off by the wind. The desert in front of them drew a rugged trail across the horizon, while at their backs the last outpost they passed grew into a dark figure in the distance. From above, they must have looked like three small specks in the vast sand.

“Well, a good story has a good ending,” Knell said smartly.

“Does it?” Erik said.

He continued. “Three people walk in a desert, and one of them falls into quicksand. He doesn’t know how to escape, so he struggles and starts to sink fast. Behind him, his third companion says to his second, “He’s going to die at this rate. Quick, go in there and show him how it’s done.” So the second guy goes in the quicksand and lies on his back and floats, and quickly the first follows his example.”

She knew how it would end. “And the third person pulls them both out,” she finished.

He gave a grin. “No. The third guy steps on their bodies and crosses the quicksand by himself. His own weight pushes them under, and they both suffocate.”

“That’s horrible,” she said. “Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know. Why would three people walk in the desert?” He was hinting at their own excursion.

Erik’s voice was hard. “Nothing like that will happen to us. We three need each other if we want to kill the Sandworm—turning to murder will make us nothing better than the monster itself.”

Calling it a monster was no exaggeration. The beast had the length of a trail of camels in the desert, winding the hills in and out of sight, and the giant black mouth of a cavern. Loren knew because it had raided her town the week before, sweeping up people on the streets like morsels of food. It ate without satiety, swallowing more than it had the room and pushing acid-slobbered people from its behind, tearing down house walls like cheap paper. It had ripped her parents right out of her arms.

Knell had been different, with no family in town, but Erik must have felt the same vengeance burn. Five days ago his older brother had set out to slay the Sandworm, and there had been no sight of him since. The only hope for him was that the beast digested slowly.

He turned to her. “You hold a staff, but can you use any magic?” He had the sword at his side, and Knell his set of daggers. Loren had met them with only her staff and pouch of water. They had left their mounts tied at the outpost since the heavy lumbering of camels were more likely to bestir the Sandworm if it lay underneath in the ground.

“Minor buffs,” she answered. Before either of their eyes could light up, she added, “But only on myself.”

“Better than nothing,” Knell offered.

“Better than most,” Erik said. “Peasants like us are well off able to light a few candles. We’ll find better luck swinging iron than throwing a fireball.” He gave a pause, then spoke in a softer voice, but with the same surety. “If there was anyone talented in magic, it was my brother.”

“Then he would have put up a good fight,” Knell assured him. “And ours will be all the easier thanks to him.”

He only turned, the thought of the loss still bitter.

Loren figured she should tell them now. “Perhaps we won’t have to fight,” she said quietly.

“Well, the thing won’t die from a drop-kick,” Knell said, finding some humor in the idea. Erik sent him a warning look.

“No.” She put a hand over her water pouch, still heavy and somewhat cool under her cloak. “I have something that can kill it in one blow.”

He didn’t believe her. “The Sandworm is gigantic,” he reminded them. “Nothing like the stray beasts you find in the wild. Remember the old nursing stories, the ancient demon kings that sent forth waves and waves of abominations each season?”

Now it was Knell who doubted him. “All dead, and the kings sealed.”

“All of them?” He gave him a careful look. “The thousands upon thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands?”

He shrugged. “A few here and there, maybe…But Vulcan keeps watch, as do the other deities. They wouldn’t dare crawl out of whichever dank hole they fled into.”

His words were true—so long as the dragon-gods kept watch. But word had been that the fire deity had flown East some six months ago, one since guards and royal knights all over the realm had been pooled to the East for some urgent task. Six months was a long absence for the boisterous, Human-loving dragon, and for the creatures in dark holes, perhaps a window of opportunity…

She shook her head from such frightening thoughts. “What I have will be able to kill it—no, more than able.” She opened the cap of the pouch and showed them.

They peered in. Submerged in the water, a prick of light shone like a fiery star in the dead of darkness.

“Gods,” Knell breathed.

“That must have cost a fortune,” Erik said, a shadow over his brow. “I’ve never seen a crystal shine so clear.”

Loren closed the lid. “My parents were crystal merchants,” she explained. “I took it from our deepest safe.”

“Even so,” he pressed, “something like that must have been a family treasure.”

“And our cause is worth every copper. Not like there was anyone to stop me.” She clasped her hands around her staff and held it close to herself, ducking her head under her thin cloak. It kept the fire crystal just cool enough, bathed in the water, to prevent an accidental explosion.

“The blast from that thing will be huge,” Knell said. “How are we going to use it and get out alive? I doubt throwing distance will make it.”

“Maybe…maybe we’ll have it swallow the crystal?” she asked.

The frown only deepened on Erik’s face. The victims most recently swallowed would be at the front end, and the blast would kill them all. The three of them knew it. “It won’t open its mouth for something so tiny. We’ll stick it with blades first and leave the crystal as a last resort. If we slit it open…” He didn’t finish the thought. His brother was a skilled fire mage, and even he had fallen against the Sandworm. What could two freelancers and a merchant girl accomplish? They needed the firepower, which meant a sacrifice.

Loren broke the tension. “We’re nearly there,” she told them. “This is the last place I saw the Worm, and it couldn’t have crawled far still so bloated.”

“Then let’s rest,” Knell suggested. “And make a plan.”

They found shade under a hill of sand. For all the talking, joking and jibing Knell liked to give as they travelled, he became quiet when they sat, keeping to himself and his daggers. When he thought no one was watching, the carefree expression slid off his face like a mask, a wary one taking its place.

Loren found herself beside Erik, his face dark as he thought. She knew he was troubled. She drew her knees to her chest, counted to ten, and said, “I’m sorry about your brother.”

“Don’t be,” he replied, staring down at the sand. “You lost more than I did.”

“Are you angry?” she asked.

His hand rested over the hilt of his sword. “Out for blood…But so are you.” He looked at her. “You’re a merchant’s girl, and yet you’re out here, same as the rest of us. Your anger must out-burn the desert sun.” Unlike Knell, there was no smile on his face to be found.

She shook her head. “I’m not angry. I won’t get angry at a worm for just wanting to eat.” Her chin tucked under the clasp of the cloak, she held her staff in one hand and with the other drew a squiggle into the warm ground, thinking about how big it had been, how many it could swallow. “I don’t think people or animals should be faulted for being selfish or greedy, contemptuous or desperate. It’s in our nature.”

He seemed surprised. “Not at all?”

“No.”

“Then what about the story?” Erik asked. “You didn’t like the ending. The third guy didn’t kill the other two to save his own ass; maybe he stepped on them just to save time from walking around the sandpit. Wasn’t that selfish and contemptuous?”

Loren looked up. “But that was just a story. It was made-up.”

“And the difference being?”

She thought about it, then spoke honestly, which had become a rare thing. “Well…I think that stories should be happy. I want to hear about happy endings made by good people. I want everyone to live.”

“So you want happy thoughts,” he said. “And what goes to the bad people?”

She smiled quietly. “You’ll find it hard to find a bad person by my standards.”

He turned and barked a laugh. Even if it was spurred from her strange opinion, her heart soared at the sound. Laughter was something she hadn’t heard in a long time; now it seemed to her as strange and rare as a unicorn.

“What will we do when we find the Sandworm?” she asked. “Will you and Knell think up a strategy?”

Erik’s face sobered. “We will think of something. I doubt two people hacking and slashing will do much. Maybe we can find a weak spot and hit it there.”

She doubted such a thing would be found so easily. “What about me? I want to do something too, even if you won’t use the crystal.”

He looked her up and down. “Your staff?”

“I can swing it hard, but it won’t cut like a blade can.”

“I only have this one sword, and I’m not sure how fast you could pick up the dagger…” he said. Her face fell. “I’m sorry. Your crystal would out-provide both of us, but I just don’t want to resort to it first. My brother is in there.”

My parents, too, she added inside her head. “Well, teach me to swing it and grip it,” Loren suggested. “And if you get hurt midway through the battle, I can pick up for you.”

She watched him consider the proposal. No doubt it seemed far-fetched, having her fit for a sword in not even a half-hour, but she knew Erik felt bad about the crystal and wanted to humor her somehow. “Fine,” he agreed.

They stood. He handed the weapon to her, watching the stance and grip that she took.

“That’s close. Shift your foot back like that—there you go. Don’t hold your arms too straight, and don’t lock them. And your fingers…” He adjusted them on the hilt. “That’s good. Try a practice swing.”

She swung, but it fell clumsily when something gave. She stumbled.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” he asked.

“Injury.” She raised the blade again. “I can still fight.”

Erik stepped forward. “Let me see.” He slid up the sleeve, frowning at the bandages that wrapped from wrist to elbow. “Must be a long gash. Did a beast attack you?”

She nodded. “But it’s not as bad as it seems.”

She might as well have not said a thing; he frowned for a moment, then dropped her sleeve. “I can’t let you exert yourself like this. Bad or not, the wound is half your arm. You shouldn’t be fighting.”

Argument rose in her, but she bit her tongue to quell the panic. “I won’t go in fighting,” she said. “But if you fall, better me than Knell to pick you up—or at least your sword.”

It wasn’t enough to convince him. She closed her eyes. Every time they staggered like this, faltered in their plans, she thought of her parents dissolving in that thick acid in the dark and wanted to cry because she knew they were running out of time.

When Loren looked up, her eyes were wet with tears. “I told you I want to help. Believe in me. I want to save them, too. As much as you want to save your brother.”

“I know,” he said quietly.

“Do you really think we’re all going to get out alive?” she asked.

Erik didn’t need to answer. Maybe he was thinking of his own kin, dissolving in that same long stomach. Were they conscious in there?

“Even I know better.” She handed the sword back and sniffled, saying, “Here. You’ll need this.” Then she returned to the spot of shade under the mound and wiped her tears, letting him leave and talk to Knell. They glanced at her once, but she didn’t move. She laid her head on her knees and thought of her broken home.

Loren didn’t know how much time had passed, but the shift of shoes in sand jolted her from her half-sleep. Erik was standing in front of her, a hand offered out, and she took it and rose.

“Grab your staff. You’ll be needing it.” Knell was beside him as well.

“You mean…?” she began.

His clasp was firm. The low sunlight brought out the strands of copper and red in his hair, like a wreath of fire lit across the top. “We’re going in together. Knell and I talked, and I realized that it was foolish to try to leave you out. You’re the one that brought us here. We need to stick as a group, not tear ourselves apart before the enemy’s even shown up.”

“We’ll use the crystal, too,” Knell told her. “Even if it means the sacrifice. We won’t let the demon eat anyone else. When it opens its mouth to try to swallow one of us, throw it in. Then we’ll run.”

Her eyes were wide in disbelief. “You really decided this?”

Erik nodded.

“Not because I cried, right? Not because you felt bad for me?”

“Not for something like that,” he said.

Both her hands grabbed his own. “Then why?” she asked.

Erik looked sheepish. “You told me to believe in you,” he said. Then his face fell. “Why are you crying again?”

Loren ducked her head. She’d stared at him for so long that the tears had burned out of her eyes, but to them, it would have looked genuine. “I’m…I’m just happy,” she answered. “I’m happy you listened.” It was not a lie. She wiped her eyes and grabbed her staff, straightening as she faced them. The smile came to her easily, set as rock. “Come on. We have a worm to kill.”

The three of them took position. She raised her staff and slammed it down, sending out a great burst of sand that fell back in a coarse and blinding rain. With magic in her arms, she was as strong as Knell or Erik. The Sandworm would come soon, because it always heard.

The rumble came, deep and slowly. “It’s going to sprout from here,” she warned. “Let’s run back.” The three of them retreated, slipping behind the mounds of sand where they had taken their rest. They waited, but not even for a moment.

It was as if a colossal tower had exploded from the ground and rammed the sky. The ground seemed to break and sway. A great gust of wind blew out, sending forth a storm of grit, and they all recoiled in their hiding places.

Loren opened her eyes, going into a kneel, and she saw that Erik was frozen beside her. “What are you waiting for?” she asked above the howl of the wind. “Are you scared of death now? Give me your sword!” She grabbed it from him, his fingers pliable from fear.

The blast had only existed for a mere moment, but she knew that to every fresh set of eyes it was a single, frightening eternity. It had been the same with her. When the sand settled again, the sky cleared, behind them the Sandworm lay blind and confused.

He hardly risked a glance back. “It’s huge.”

The sword was in her hands. She was silent.

“If my brother fought this, even he couldn’t…” He swallowed. His arms trembled for a moment, but then he steeled himself, looking back again. “Where do we even attack from? How…?”

“It’s impossible,” Loren told him. “Run out and it will eat you. On the surface, the soft sand is like an extension of its body. It can feel you move.”

His head snapped to her. “You didn’t mention this earlier,” he said.

“No,” she agreed. “I’m sorry. Look again.” She let him turn.

His face changed when he realized. She could almost hear his thoughts as they raced; his brother had been a strong fire mage, and yet the front of the giant worm was unscathed. But the bandages on Loren’s arm…

She stabbed him then.

The blade slid so cleanly through the back. Erik choked in pain before he could scream, and then he choked on blood, and she let him fall against the mound. He landed with his eyes pinned on her.

Behind them, the giant worm stirred at the movement, but the shift of sand had been too small, muffled by the hill. It didn’t bother to search.

Loren shifted the sword to the arm without the wound, the stretches of skin that his brother had burned. He had been the first person. She’d taken his sword also, but couldn’t fend against the fire. But it didn’t matter; in the end, she had killed him as well.

She crouched and screamed, “Knell, help!” and he came.

A dagger shot to the ground beside the worm, distracting it, and he ran over. The second he got around, the end of her staff descended on his skull.

Crack

She pulled the sword from Erik, then sank the blade in his chest. He was already still. Her arms were shaking.

Two more, her thoughts bounced in her head, two more, two more, two more. This has to be enough. She counted to ten and pulled the sword out with an effort. The sand shifted under her stumbling steps, but the Sandworm didn’t move. It was used to being fed now.

“Tell me it’s enough,” she said to it. She stabbed the sword into the ground, heaving, and droplet of sweat slid down her cheek. Her chest felt cold. The monster only slid closer, smooth as a snake. Of course, it wouldn’t respond. “Eat up,” she said.

It rushed forward and swallowed Knell.

“And give me my family back.”

She wiped her face and it came down red. Not even the Sandworm spilled blood when it ate; that was the irony.

Loren kneeled, picking up her staff, but felt another hand pulling at it. She looked up and saw Erik.

Liar, he seemed to mouth. His head was half-sunken into the hill, but one bright amber eye burned at her from the shadows. His lips were parted.

She ripped her staff away. “Eat.”

The giant worm slid up and sucked him in. It tore through the mound of sand like water, tail lashing for a moment as it bulged with one more body. When it stilled, settling to eject, she held her breath and waited.

Two for two. The worm could only hold so much food at once, and inevitably it would be the older ones it spewed out. The other end was so distant, and the sand had stung her eyes, but she could recognize the squeeze and push as a Human body came out. A raw, red hand rolled into sight, a damp sleeve stuck with sand.

Loren ran forward. “Mom?” she asked, calling out. “Dad? Anybody?”

It was neither. It was a face she hadn’t expected.

She rolled the body over and met Erik’s older brother.

He was the first person she’d killed. That had been after her parents were eaten alive. After. He shouldn’t have come out now.

She jerked back, retreating slowly, not daring to ask the question, but for the first time, the Earthworm gave an answer. It shuddered again and spewed out a mass of brown slop.

Her throat closed.

The giant worm moved first, sliding its way back to them, and it swallowed Erik’s brother up again. More slop came out.

She made no sound. Loren only looked up and saw the end.

The demon faced her, and it seemed to growl.

She dropped her staff.

She dropped her cloak.

She dropped the fire crystal into her hand and tossed the pouch away, fingers dripping with water, and immediately it began to heat under the sun. She was crying now.

“Eat me,” Loren said, and put the crystal in her mouth.

This story was guest written by Teowi of Gods are Watching. If you liked this short story vote for it on The top Web Fiction and leave a comment! Check in next week for our last entry, Everybody Dies #8!

The post Everybody Dies: A Story for Three appeared first on revfitz.com.

Everybody Dies: The Curse of the Magi

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Today’s short story was guest written by Walter, author of The Fifth Defiance!

Curse of the Magi

 

I emerged from the Bargaining Place, turned to face the ongoing siege.

A hush never really breaks out on a battlefield. It would be totally unreasonable. Anyone who moved while everyone else was gawking at whatever the big deal was supposed to be would gain a huge advantage over their immediate adversary. No matter what flags were flown, what big shots cut down, the infantry always kept on swinging.

Nevertheless, a hush broke out on the battlefield.

Men backed away from one another, those in the golden cloaks of Rich Katra perhaps a shade more readily than those in the unadorned armor of First Muwenda. I couldn’t blame them. Katra’s was the fortress besieged, and only one of their gilded emissaries was scuttling forth from the tent. The Bargaining Place itself had belonged to First Muwenda. Everyone, seeing that he did not emerge alongside me, must have wondered if the Blade had been hired.

The Blade cast my eyes over the besiegers, registered their desperation, their fear, their barely concealed avarice. They would have heard the legends of the Blade, have taken the tenor of their master, maybe even believed he might have stooped to employing such a tool. Hoped it, perhaps.

All dead men.

It prompted me, and I drew the blade with my customary flourish, held it high.

A great shout heralded its appearance. ‘The Bidden Blade unsheathed in war, bought with blood and bringing more’, as the poet had said. Everyone knew what that meant.

Muwenda HAD hated. He’d hated enough to assemble great hosts, to empty the treasuries of his Tributaries and their servitors. Hated enough to smash his disparate armies against the citadel of his rival, to cast his sons and daughters into the wager. Hated enough to weep as they fell, and then send forth their siblings. Hated enough to lead the final attack himself.

Hatred, alas, was no guarantor of tactical proficiency.

Katra had always been his better. She had been to the War Houses. She’d maximized her every advantage. She’d hunkered down and worn his men away. She took no chances, made no errors. Engagement by engagement she’d worn away at his resources.

This siege would have been his last chance.

And here, at least, Rich Katra had slipped up. Perhaps the legend of the Blade hadn’t made it into the circles that she moved in. Perhaps she simply hadn’t given them any credence, explaining away the slaughters that grew like flowers in its wake as the result of some other factor. For whatever reason, she’d made no effort to keep the First away from me, and my deadly cargo. Her final play had been one of desperation, I felt, and had been unable to keep my deadly cargo from being bidden to battle.

I pointed the blade at the castle, and a great cheer broke out among the besiegers.

Earlier in my career, I might have denied them this. But I had grown beyond such pettiness. The Bidden Blade had a numbing effect on its bearer. I had no idea whether to blame the properties that the Ancients had engineered into it, or simple human nature, but the truth of the matter was that the slaughter had come to mean little to me.

I would always serve the Blade, until it passed me over for a greater wielder. Men would always hire it, giving their lives to secure their victories. Other men would always strive against it, pitting their frail prowess against the work of the Ancients. The particular details of any given instance of this pattern no longer engaged my interest.

Muwenda’s Archons strode to my side.

“He is…gone then?” asked the larger of the two. His lover, perhaps. His brothers had all gone before him, parceled out into the armies that had fallen to Katra’s tactical acumen.

I gave a simple nod, at the Blade’s instruction.

“We shall remember him with honor!” said the shorter of the two. A woman. I’d heard rumors that Muwenda had a bastard daughter, not yet fallen in this senseless conflict.

“Remember him with victory,” I suggested, mildly.

They gave the cheer of the First, slamming fists to their chests.

“Victory will be hard purchased today,” said the Lover. “The gate is narrow, and the foe has already sighted their Klaives upon it.”

An apt phrasing.

“Muwenda has already paid the price for your triumph,” I told them. “Have your men follow behind the blade.”

I walked towards the great gate, its surface riddled and shattered by the Klaives of Muwenda’s subordinates who came before.

Katra had let them breach it. She had a subtlety of mind. A sophistication that utterly escaped the men of the First. Time and again they had come against the gate. Time and again they had surged forth in their numbers, fighting bravely and utterly without guile. They had cracked the gate, surged inside, and entered the Dying Place.

Even as I was about to.

The besiegers subsided about me as I strode forward. Heads bowed with wary respect, or simple weariness. Even the dying seemed to scream less loudly. The world itself seemed muted, greyed. My senses dimmed, the Bidden Blade had no need of them.

Instead, it made use of its own peculiar sense.

Lines sketched themselves around me. Momentum of objects, fluctuations in temperature and pressure, the predicted paths of every combatant. Omniscience, so far as I’d ever been able to determine. It never let on just how far it reached, but I wouldn’t be totally shocked to find out that there was no limit. The Ancients had wrought too well with this particular device.

I wondered, from time to time, at the purpose of the Blade. Why craft such a weapon? A blade that made a slave of its master, and corpses of those who sought victory with it. Was it a lesson of some kind? Perhaps the result of some foolish dare? None could know. We, the folk of this faded era, knew only its deadly supremacy.

Klaives fired, ricocheting wildly down the path. They hadn’t been set for saturation density. There was no point to driving the First back entirely. They were sporadic, widely spaced. Almost an invitation to walk through.

The Blade did so, taking my nerves and marching me forward, sliding me aside before each Klaive flashed by.

It was no great feat of superhuman agility to do so. No single move beyond what an unpaired human could pull off. The Bidden Blade’s perfection was found not in its quality as an augment, but in its ability as an augur.

The Blade did not dodge. It did not need to. Its perceptions let it see the paths that the Klaives would take, allowing it to walk my form idly by each knifelike missile as though their course had been a part of its plan from the start.

I had spent a nontrivial amount of time pondering that very point, in fact. Did the Blade’s omniscience extend temporally as it did spatially? It certainly seemed to, reacting to every planned surprise and gambit of a foe or employer as though they’d been woven into its scheme from the get-go. But I’d come to suspect that it might simply be perceiving preparatory motions and using those to anticipate the future.

The Blade halted me at the end of the corridor, poking my head around to get the lay of the courtyard and then ducking smoothly back into the archway before a Klaive could make a sheath of my face.

Earlier in my servitude, I might have rejoiced at a moment like this. Where the corridor was passable, the better to entice invading forces, the courtyard beyond was decidedly not. It was where armies came to die, where every ounce of the fortress’s armory, those not required for defending the walls from more straightforward siege anyway, was focused.

It was utterly impassible. Not merely difficult to pass, but entirely impossible. Klaives flashed and vibrated through the air, their flight organized and coordinated by their mind cloud. They wouldn’t leave any openings for a human to make it up the stairs and onto the battlements. There might be paths that would take you most of the way there, but they’d all dead end at some point.

I was a bit disappointed in the path the Blade chose. It reached my other hand into a pocket, slid out Katra’s bypass, snagged from her corpse as she fell in the Meeting Place, and attached it to my shirt.

This was characteristic of its operation. Presented with an insoluble situation it responded with nonchalance and what I’d always felt was an unstated contempt for the best efforts of man. It evaded all countermeasures as though their design specs had been presented for its perusal at the time of their creation.

An instant later it put me in motion again, striding out into the klaive storm, ducking and weaving around them just as though it had left me unprotected. It didn’t need to do so, of course, but it seemed like it didn’t wish the bystanders to know it had Katra’s bypass just yet.

More of Muwenda’s men followed in our wake, hacking at the buzzing, hissing missiles. They hewed their own shortlived trails, smashing against the swarms’ components to the best of their ability. Each Klaive hacked out of alignment stressed the mind cloud’s net, might theoretically open up holes through which warriors could rush.

I couldn’t find it in my heart to blame them. The Blade had arranged this, just as it had arranged everything else. The flourish of the draw, the unwillingness to reveal the second contract, just its customary tidiness at work. All calculated to feed into mankind’s built-in sense of narrative, to convince the First’s men that they were part of the winning team. Might as well let the trash take itself out.

We moved quickly across the yard, only beginning to draw shouts of alarm from the watchers when we reached the foot of the stairs.

Katra’s men were busy, for the most part, contending with the ladders and other contemporary means that the Muwenda’s men were using to attempt other breaches. There weren’t, as the blade had known, all that many of them backing up the Dying Place.

The first klaive that *should* have killed us wicked by, twisting away at the last second as the stolen bypass overrode its heuristics. The shouts grew louder still as the onlookers recognized what must have happened.

Even as the Blade dragged me up the steps they didn’t move forward. Their bypasses would disrupt the pattern, much as ours had. They were also probably recognizing me, and more importantly my master. Maybe Katra had been ignorant of our legend, but these were soldiers. They would have heard of the Last Foe.

Still, when we cleared the last measure of the Klaive storm they came for us as everyone always does. They held their blades in shaking hands and rushed forth to fight with us.

What ensued was merest butchery. The Blade was at its finest in such engagements, taking the perfect measure of every participant, sliding my form smoothly around thrusts and bringing itself into intersection time and again with the vital portions of our target’s forms.

Onlookers had compared it, from time to time, to a dance, but it had always seemed to me more like a child’s bullying of a younger sibling. The fight was fixed from the start, every effort a defender made to escape the pattern turning out to have been nothing but the terrible design’s next step, as the Blade flawlessly incorporated their desperate strivings into its slaughter.

We might flatter ourselves, we descendants of the Ancients, that our will is free, our souls unbidden, but every time I saw the Blade pitted against such vain concepts I recognized the terrible truth. Man is Machine, and not an exceptionally sophisticated one. In the face of a machine of greater complexity he is a riddle easily solved, a child’s cipher.

We reached the first Klaive generator, and the Blade flicked out, plunging through a power cable in a great shower of sparks. The defenders redoubled their efforts, closing around us in desperate unison, thrusting blades as though they might find their mark.

The Blade drew me back from these thrusts, too many to parry or avoid within the confines of the top of the wall, and plunged me over the edge, back into the Dying Place.

The triumphant shouts of those above as we plummeted were entirely premature. The Blade slashed sideways, scoring the wall and slowing my descent at minor cost to my shoulder.

The Blade saw no need to expend its energies in battle with Katra’s minions, not when it had disabled a Klaive generator. It would leave them to Muwenda’s followers, great throngs of which were now starting to press through the diminished buzz of the previously impenetrable defenses.

The Klaive’s mind cloud could compensate for many factors, but a missing generator was not among them. The previously impenetrable defense matrix had great gaps and holes in it, and the enraged men of the First were all too eager to surge through these vulnerabilities and engage at last their hated foes.

The Blade pulled me through the press of them, exhorting and directing their efforts. It called upon them to remember their fallen, to remember their lord, and to avenge him.

As we reached the top once again, however, it bade me fall silent, and we struck out away from main vector of the thrust.

Muwenda’s men had gained the landings and were striving ever towards the gates which led deeper into the facility. Katra’s men, accordingly, were deployed to face them. The focus of both forces was ranged upon this point, as Katra’s crew mounted a last stand in this choke point.

As ever, the Sword disdained such drama. It directed me to a point along the wall, well away from the narrow gate. As soon as we reached the Blade swept out, carving a hole wide enough to step through. After several battering kicks, testing the limits of my bodies available power, the thin plug of stone fell away, permitting us to duck through into the interior reaches.

Katra’s Archon turned to face us, an old man in ill-fitting armor.

“Faithless artifact!” he shouted. “Katra went to you under flag of truce, paid your price with her heart’s blood! You should be slaying the besiegers, not fighting alongside them!”

The Blade had little interest in conversation, but it didn’t, at this moment, prevent me from indulging in it.

“Katra’s contract will be honored,” I told the old man, sourly. “Every one of your besiegers will die. But Muwenda’s contract will also be honored.”

His mouth opened, shock clear upon it.

“I don’t know why your boss thought that another contract with the Blade would cancel those which already exist. All she managed to do was turn Muwenda’s victory into a bloodbath. No one is going to walk away from this, no one at all.”

His mouth moved, but nothing came out.

At that moment the Blade saw whatever it had been waiting for. It rushed me forward, drove itself savagely into his shoulder, carving down into the core of him.

Why had the Blade bothered with this? Katra’s forces had been entirely reactive since their leader had fallen in the Bargaining Place. Killing their Archon would have very little impact on the overall flow of the battle.

I discovered the answer to that question a moment later. We moved deeper into the facility, cutting down the occasional panicking civilian.

The blade drove me onwards, passed us into the harnesser core of the fortress.

“Please!” shouted a technician. “No violence here. The harnesser is very delicate! I know not for which of the Great you fight, but whatever cause you bear arms for would be ill-served if its partisans were blasted apart by a runaway reaction.”

I felt a surge of despair at those words. I had been wondering, ever since the Blade took up Katra’s contract, how it would make certain that no one in Muwenda’s force fled the battle, and thus survived. I’d convinced myself that it was inspiring them, compelling each and every one of them to fight to avenge their beloved leader, but that had been nonsense.

This was its contingency. A spire of cloud-scraping the heavens, a blast like that which had ended the Ancient World. My service would end, at last, in fire.

The Blade did not disappoint. It cut down the maintenance personnel, then used my hands to make a series of careful adjustments to the controls.

I had no particular knowledge of the workings of a harnesser, but the cascade of red lights boded ill for us.

I’d always known that my service to the Blade would end some day. It had had bearers before me, and would have bearers after. I’d always presumed, however, that it would be years later, after I’d grown too old and decrepit to be of use.

The door opened behind me, and Muwenda’s Archon, the one that I’d called the Lover, came into the room.

“You are too late,” I told him, sadness filling my voice. “It has already triggered the cascade. No one will survive. Not your troops, nor your enemies. You have exactly what Muwenda bargained for.”

I waited for his blade. Killing me would be pointless, but in his position, I’d have done precisely that.

He lowered his blade instead, gave a hollow laugh.

“We were doomed from the moment your Blade took Katra’s life, were we not? Even if I were to stop this cascade it would only prompt your master to slay us in some other way.”

I didn’t bother to correct him, to point out that the Blade would never permit him to stop the eruption. It wasn’t worth it.

“I’m sorry, for what it is worth. Katra was very clever in seeking revenge. I’ve never seen, or even read of a victim of the Blade gaining audience with it before it began to strike and negotiating her own contract, alongside the one which doomed her.”

The Lover gave a sad smile.

“She did not do so alone. Muwenda, before he paid your price, exchanged emissaries with her. The pair of them came to this agreement.”

That made no sense. They’d agreed to die, to take with them all they loved?

“I don’t understand.”

He shook his head.

“They could not entirely set aside their hate. Couldn’t trust one another not to seek out your dread weapon. One or the other would have sought you out covertly. Instead they arranged this situation.”

I spat with distaste.

“Don’t you understand,” he asked, eyes shining with unshed tears. “We’ve killed it. Ours are the last lives that the Blade will ever take.”

It was my turn to shake my head, disgusted.

“The Blade has been buried before,” I said. “But fools of my ilk are plentiful. Another bearer will be along soon enough.”

“Buried,” he said. “But never like this.”

“I’m telling you it can’t be stopped,” I said. “The blade thrives on that which is worse in our kind. No matter what is heaped upon this place, someone will come for it. We cannot but do so. It is in our nature. No compact can stand against it.”

“I know,” he said. “But Muwenda and Katra did more than bury your master. They have discredited it. The tale of this outcome will twine forever about its name. Who will seek to make their fate that of Muwenda, of Katra? The Blade’s promise is irretrievably damaged.”

“You farcast the meetings?” I asked. “You let the world know what came to pass here?”

He gave a solemn nod.

“From the very beginning.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Magnificent,” I told him. “You didn’t waste any energy on our better natures. You’ve built a cage for this thing, one that relies upon human self-interest, and our ability to spit upon an unproductive bargain, a force scarcely less infinite that the cunning of the Blade’s manufacture.”

“No one will seek you out,” he said, scowling down at the blade itself. “Do you understand? Your role in our people’s history has ended.”

The harnesser cascade was reaching criticality now.

The blade gave answer. It rose and fell, one final time, slashing through the Lover’s neck with one precise arc.

But on his face, as the blast consumed us, was a triumphant smile.

This story was guest written by Walter of The Fifth Defiance. If you liked this short story vote for it on The top Web Fiction and leave a comment! Check in next week for our last entry, Everybody Dies #7!

The post Everybody Dies: The Curse of the Magi appeared first on revfitz.com.

Everybody Dies: Angel

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Today’s short story was guest written by Megajoule, author of Inheritors!

ANGEL

Even the candy bars were wrong: the wrappers dusty, the plastic shredded. The little sign on the jar said twenty-five cents but Peter thought a quarter was highway robbery. He sniffed the jar. Bad chocolate, bad town.

“You gonna buy something?” The cashier stared at him with dull eyes. Six foot two, pushing three hundred pounds, beard like a spoiled crop.

“Gas.” Peter placed his wallet on the counter and studied the rest of the store. Made you buy gas inside, then showed off their dusty wares. True to Texas, they had an entire aisle dedicated to beef jerky. A broken cooler hid lukewarm cans of beer by the bathroom, and Mexican pastries waited against the back wall, untouched since the time of the Roman Empire.

The cashier eyed the symbol Peter’s wallet, and the gun strapped to his hip under his jacket. “Y’all fish?”

“Yeah.” Peter didn’t know how Flatonia folk would treat federal agents, but he hoped they leaned toward fearful.

“What’cha in town for?” The cashier’s words were stilted, and his nose wrinkled ever so slightly. He avoided eye contact with Peter.

“Fishy business,” Peter said. “Ten gallons.”

The cashier rang up the gas and Peter walked out of the station. The Federal Investigative Services van waited by the singular pump. No wonder people didn’t like them. Their vans were all black, with tinted windows. Who knew if it was a fed or a child molester inside?

The lead agent Milo leaned against the hood of the engine, his arms crossed. “Agent. How’d the cashier seem?”

“Scared, mostly. I don’t think it’s hostile here, they just aren’t used to feds. I bet he thought I have a power or something.”

“You do,” Milo said.

“Immunity to caffeine isn’t a power, Milo, it’s a curse.” Peter pumped gas into the van. “Do the people in town know about the compound?”

“They thought it was some, ‘Let’s go be naked in the woods,’ hippie thing, not a full blown cult.”

Ugly business, murder cult in Flatonia, Texas. Locals didn’t know anything about it, and even if that was a lie, they’d never talk to the feds about it.

“Don’t suppose the cashier looked like the villain we’re after, huh?” Milo grinned at Peter.

“Do we even have a profile?”

“Nope. Not even a power set. Hopefully, the compound will have some clues.” Milo opened the door to the van and got inside. Peter finished with the gas, and got in the passenger side.

Agent Bell reclined in the back, leaning into her chair and kicking her feet up to the command console. She grinned at the buzzing wall of computers hidden in the van, which played a sitcom she’d been watching the whole trip down from Denver. She smoked a cigarette. Peter glanced at the carton she had, feeling a little jealous that she had so many.

“I see you looking,” Bell said. She took a drag. “Answer’s still no.”

“How much did that cost you, anyway?” Peter asked.

Milo started the van up, and pulled out of the gas station. “Roll the window down if you’re gonna smoke in here.”

“Tell you what, you can have one for five bucks.” Bell offered the cigarette she was currently working on to Peter with an arched eyebrow. “If you’re willing to pay as much as I am.”

“Maybe you should quit,” Milo said.

Flatonia, Texas lived up to its name. Miles and miles and miles of flat, arid grassland as far as the eye could see. Not like the woods Peter grew up around. He imagined there weren’t a lot of pets just walking around, not like his neighborhood.

Milo’s phone went off. “Fuck.”

“The missus?” Bell asked.

“Yeah. Didn’t think she’d wanna call right now.” Milo looked like he could crush a walnut between his eyebrows, and his lips practically receded back into his mouth.

Peter didn’t have a wife on account that he knew he wouldn’t stay faithful. Milo was the same as him, just with a wife. “Things not good?”

Milo squirmed in his seat, and silenced the phone. Peter found it funny to see somebody as physically big as Milo wriggling like a worm caught on a fishhook. “Let’s talk about something else. How’s your cat, Peter?”

Peter felt a chill run down his spine. There was no way Milo knew about Truffle. “Uh… went missing.”

“Ah,” Milo said. “Cats. I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

“She.” Peter doubted it, because Truffle was dead in his shed.

The compound was a stunted, flat building, much like the town it skulked around. White cob reflected the high noon sun, paining Peter’s eyes. Police tape covered the open door, but there were no officers or cars in sight.

Chalk drawings of angels and crosses graced the walls of the compound, and red paint outlined the door. Peter read something about lamb’s blood around a door being a Christian thing, once. “Is it really a cult if it’s Christian?” he asked.

“Ask Jim Jones,” Bell said.

“I don’t know who that is.” Peter’s specialty was villains, not cults. The only reason he was here was to determine the type of power they used.

Milo drew his gun. “Led a cult in the last century. You ever hear the term, ‘drinking the Kool-aid?’”

“Why are you drawing your gun?” Bell asked. “Police already taped the scene up.”

“In case someone came back. Cops aren’t here right now,” Milo said. “Told them to leave someone at the site.”

Peter’s stomach knotted. “You think?”

“It’s either small town incompetence, or something happened,” Milo said. “Better to prepare for both possibilities.”

Milo crouched under the red tape, into the compound. Bell followed, and Peter went last, feeling his heart rate quicken. He put a trembling hand on his gun.

Light filtered through huge skylights tinted red, casting the lobby in a gruesome light. There weren’t any bodies, though, just an empty desk, a babbling fountain, and four columns, each with scriptures spiraling around their height. The same scripture each time:

Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh.

Peter shuddered. Basically, the verse said to shut up and take it. He imagined all kinds of cultish things, like sister wives and holy rape and whatnot, and wondered how many times the column’s verses told them to be silent.

Milo pointed at another double door with two tiny windows stained by blood on the inside. “There.” He approached like a cat stalking prey, and opened the doors.

A slaughterhouse waited inside. Blood covered every wall, and minced bodies littered the floor. The corpses were so thoroughly diced they’d turned to a mushy paste with a few recognizable pieces scattered throughout. Peter marked a foot, an eyeball, a thumb, half of a face. He picked a shoelace from the mess.

Peter thought of Truffle splayed out on a metal table in his shed. “What in the fuck happened here?”

“Yeah, those files don’t really prepare you for seeing it up close,” Milo said. “See any signs of power usage?”

Peter scanned the walls for telltale battle signs. Scorch marks, cut marks, frozen spots. Anything a flashy power might leave behind. Nothing outright visible, but something looked off about the walls, like they had little hatch patterns all over them. Peter got up closer.

The hatch patterns were thousands of little slices, only just nicking the walls. “Some sort of cutting power.” Peter looked at the mashed goop of bodies. “I’d guess it has an area of effect, or else this villain took the time to mince his victims.”

Bell picked up a femur out of the mash and gagged.

“Was the villain their leader?” Peter asked.

Milo shook his head. “No idea. Not a single survivor, and they’ve got no texts or video or anything about what they believe. Other than the scriptures on the columns.”

“Hey,” Bell called. “This is weird.” She picked up something out of the corpse mash. “A feather.”

Peter took a look for himself. It wasn’t like any kind of feather he’d ever seen.

The shaft was all black, but the barbs were silver and shimmered in the light from the window. The feather had heft to it, weighing in at least a pound. Peter ran a finger along the side of the feather, and hissed as the barbs bit into his fingertip. Blood trickled down from the cut.

The barbs of the feather recoiled from his touch, moving like the legs of a centipede before settling down.

Peter stared at the feather, and all he could think of was Truffle, locked in his shed. “Likely the power, but I’m not familiar with it. If there was a villain with razor sharp feathers, you’d think we’d already know about them.”

Milo walked to the end of the room, to another set of double doors. “I think their rooms are this way. Maybe we can find some answers there.”

The trio left the room behind, continuing down the hall to the private rooms. Each room only had a simple bed with an iron frame, and a single nightstand. The rooms only had enough space to stand up and stretch your arms in any direction. They searched for well over an hour but found almost everything clean, until they came to the last hall.

Peter glanced inside one of the rooms and saw little chalk drawings, like the ones outside. Drawings of angels, over and over. Peter frowned when he saw that whoever drew them gave the angels angry expressions. Bladed feather. Maybe this was the villain. Why kill his own worshipers, though?

Peter checked the nightstand and found a diary. Bell and Milo were off searching the other rooms, so he took the time to flip through the pages. The writing seemed to belong to a young girl. The words were misspelled, the letters turned backward in some parts, but she took the time to dot her I’s with hearts and flowers. Peter smiled at her artistic flair, but that faded when he remembered whoever wrote this was in that horrible pile of gore.

Then he saw what she’d written: stories of the leader Pat forcing himself on her and the other girls her age. The most interesting entries, though, were the last three.

9/17/74 – An angel came to visit my room last night. He was swet to me. His voice sounded like those old cd’s Sarah has under her bed.

9/24/74 – The angel came back! He asked me who lived here, and I told him about the church and father Pat, and all the lessons we learned. He was quiet the hole time

10/18/74.

Peter’s breath caught in his throat as he saw the date. Just four days ago.

The angel said he’d pay us what was due, and told me to hide under the bed tonight

No more entries after that. The ones before September didn’t have anything about an angel. Peter took the diary with him as he went back out to the hall, hoping to find Bell and Milo.

Bell stood in the hall, smoking her cigarette. “You’re not gonna like this, Pete.” She gestured to the door open next to her.

Peter peeked into the room, saw Milo sitting on the edge of the bed. The body of a young girl lay on the bed, a single bullet hole between her eyes. The floor was drenched in blood and intestine, and shards of bones. Amid the remains, there was a gun.

“What do you suppose happened?” Milo asked. “Does this have anything to do with the villain, you think?”

“I don’t think the leader of the cult was the villain that did this.” Peter offered the diary to Milo. “Noticed the chalk angels? I think whoever did this was visiting random people like the girl, and took action after they found out what the place was.”

“So, what, a vigilante?”

“Yeah,” Peter said. “The girl’s diary mentioned some sex stuff.”

Milo rubbed his chin. “This is all awful.”

“It’s the job. To be honest, I prefer being out here.” Alone with his thoughts. Alone with Truffle, and the others that came before her. Squirrels, cats, dogs. Easier to be out here, doing his job, than at home, alone, with them.

“That’s because you’re fucked in the head, Pete,” Milo said.

“Well, we all are, a little,” Peter said. “We’ll find who did this.”

Milo stood up and followed Peter out of the room. Bell wasn’t waiting for them.

“Bell?” Milo called. No answer.

Peter exchanged a look with Milo, and they drew their guns.

Silence filled the compounds to the walls, stuffing quiet into the corners until Peter felt like he’d choke. He strained his ears for any sound, anything at all, but he couldn’t even hear his own heartbeat. The very air was muted around them.

“Pete, you good?” Milo asked.

“Yep.” Pete steadied his hand on his gun.

They stayed side by side as they went down the branching hallways of the dormitories. The bedrooms still lay bare and empty, save the scant pieces of furniture.

Bell screamed in the next hallway over.

They took off running. Milo pulled his phone out to dial for backup just as they rounded the corner.

A mass of silver feathers held Bell in front of it by the arm and leg. Two scythe talons clenched into her skin, and blood dripped to the floor from the ends. Peter couldn’t see anything else beneath the cloak of feathers, no head, no body. No doubt, though, this was the angel.

Milo raised his pistol.

“No!” Bell screamed.

The angel pulled her in two, simple as Peter did to Truffle, with one bloodcurdling howl of pain from the victim and snap of bones. Blood sprayed into the hall.

A voice slithered out from the feathers, and said, “Fear not. She is no longer in this sinful world.”

Milo raised his gun. Before he could fire, a flurry of bladed feathers cut into him, slicing his hand clean from his wrist. Another feather caught Peter in the shoulder, pushing straight through bone and muscle as if it were butter.

Peter ran for the lobby. Milo shouted behind him, but another storm of knives cut Milo off mid-scream. No time to look back, Peter dashed through the gore outside the dormitories.

He slipped and fell into the corpse mash, coming face to face with a half-destroyed skull staring at him from the carnage. He cried out, climbing to his hands and knees, and crawled for the entrance.

“Fear not!” the angel spoke, their voice cascading, echoing, changing like violated waveforms across the butchery. “For I come bearing good news. You can be made clean. You can be pure.”

Peter wondered, for a brief instant, if this is what the animals he’d picked apart felt like as they died. Even so, he still fought to the lobby, hoping that he could make it out in one mad dash.

Talons seized his shoulders and clamped down, cutting deep into the muscle. The angel turned him around to the feathers.

The wings unfolded, unfolded, unfolded, parted one after another until Peter felt he was falling into an endless downpour of knives. He twisted to look behind him, and saw that the cascade of wings closed in on itself, locking him inside the angel’s embrace. The angel’s voice echoed off the cage of metal, piercing Peter’s ears. “Show me your sin.”

A face broke through the feathers, black, scaled, with seven burning eyes of diamond. No mouth, but the mandibles of a spider. “Ah, I see.”

The feathers exploded inward at him, and Peter screamed, falling into darkness.

Peter woke up, restrained to one of the iron beds in the dormitories by his wrists and feet. He fought against the straps, wriggled and grunted, and then finally bucked and shrieked, hoping that someone would hear him screaming from the town.

Who did he hope for, honestly? The compound was on the edge of a collection of farmsteads and gas stations that could barely be called a town.

The angel entered the room, squeezing the cloud of feathers through the door frame like threading cotton through the eye of a needle. Only the two taloned hands were visible, carrying the heads of his fellow agents, Bell in the right, and Milo in the left.

The angel lifted Bell up, showing that it had scooped her eyes out and stuffed cigarettes inside the holes. “This one suffered the bonds of addiction, which led her to take bribes.” Then the angel hefted Milo up. Milo’s penis was stuffed into his mouth. “This one could not contain his lust, and broke the covenant he formed with his wife.”

“You’re a fucking monster,” Peter said.

“The pot calling the kettle black, Peter.” The angel set the heads down on the nightstand. “All of you are sinful. All of you have broken the law.”

“Someone will stop you, someone with powers, they’ll send Megajoule,” Peter said.

“They send them to die.” The angel flicked a talon out, and pressed the point against Peter’s chest. The talon cut down toward his stomach. “As for you, I think I will make you my own Truffle. That, I think, is just.”

“I was trying to help the people here!” Peter screamed, pressing against the bed, as far away from the angel’s talon as he could. “The little girl! I was trying to stop this from happening again!”

“Your kind never changes, Peter.” In one simple movement, the angel carved open Peter’s chest, and splayed his ribcage out. “One final specimen.”

Peter’s last thoughts were of his childhood, of winter woods underneath dark mountains, snow stained red as he realized there was something deeply wrong with him. The impulse as stark and unforgiving as the icy peaks, the whine of a dying dog.

This story was guest written by Megajoule of Inheritors. If you liked this short story vote for it on The top Web Fiction and leave a comment! Check in next week for Everybody Dies #5.

The post Everybody Dies: Angel appeared first on revfitz.com.

Everybody Dies: 1953

[image error] Today’s short story was guest written by A.M. Thorn, author of Vigilantes Make Us Safe.

1953.

Pouring rain bounced off the stone-lined streets as a man and a woman hobbled away from the sounds of gunfire and screaming. They ducked down a side street away from the main fighting. The woman wore a heavy coat which ran to the ground, covering most of her body and she struggled to bear the weight of her companion who leaned upon her.

The companion for his part tried to help but his feet didn’t do much more than get in the way. Wearing a dark red jumpsuit that covered him from head to toe, his left hand was pressing hard at a hole in his guts. A pair of young men ran past them down the street but they barely drew notice. There were a lot of people bleeding in the streets that night.

A row of two-story buildings drew the woman’s attention and she pulled the man toward them. He moaned in pain as she leaned him against a wall but didn’t complain. She banged on the door of the nearest home, listening for any sign of the owners. As she did so a tank rolled down the next street over, shaking the buildings. There wasn’t any sign of people inside but it was hard to say for sure if that was due to no one being home or if the tank hid any noise they made. Either the building was empty or the people inside had decided that with gunfire in the streets it was better to keep quiet.

With no answer and the shots seemingly getting closer, she made a decision. She slammed her shoulder into the door with all her might. It creaked but didn’t give. The second thrust caused the door to move and on the third slam it crashed in. She grabbed the door frame to avoid falling to the floor.

Using the wall the man managed to pull himself inside after her where she guided him to a ragged couch. She scrunched her face as the scent of mildew hit her but it wasn’t the time to complain. She hurried to the kitchen and started rummaging through drawers, looking for anything which might light. Several drawers ended up on the floor before she found what she wanted and after a minute she returned to the front room with a pair of candles.

The man sitting on the couch grimaced. “Door’s still open Karen. Want to get that before the entire neighborhood sees we’re here?”

She walked to the door but found it unable to close. The frame shattered when she broke in and wouldn’t be going back together. She settled for placing a small statue in front of it to hold it closed. It wouldn’t hold up against any pursuers but maybe someone walking by wouldn’t notice them. Back in the living room she reached into the coat’s pocket and pulled out a small box of matches. The man cleared his throat but grimaced as he did so. “Mind if I get one while you’re lighting things? If this is the end I’d like to be comfortable.”

Karen shook her head. “This isn’t the end. We’re both getting out of here.” Still, she reached into the pocket of the coat and pulled out a bundle of cigarettes. Sliding one between the man’s lips, she returned to the matches. After trying three of them and finding them too wet to light her shoulders slumped. “It had to rain.”

“Ah yes, the great Karen Summers brought down by a summer storm. Seems fitting.” He rolls the cigarette around in his mouth, seeming to find some comfort in having it between his lips.

A crash upstairs got their attention and they both stared at the staircase leading there. Karen threw the coat to the ground and reached for her pistol. Without time to move her partner, she took cover behind the couch. After a long silence, a voice from upstairs said, “I really hope that’s you two down there. I’ve had enough running for my life for one night.”

Slipping her gun back into the pouch she carried it in, she rushed to the bottom of the stairs and looked up. A black shadow took the stairs down two at a time and a rail-thin dark-skinned man wearing a glider modified to be part of his costume came down. A pair of flight goggles were lifted from his face and he pulled Karen into a hug. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight. “I didn’t think I was ever going to see you again.”

Laughing, he looked her in the eye and grinned. “Takes a lot more than that to put me down.” He pulled away and walked over to the other man, slapping him on the shoulder. “Glad to see you got out of there Taste. You had me worried with how much blood there was.”

Taste shook his head. “There’s still an awful lot of blood. We’re not out of anything yet. Any word on Armor? Tell me you found her Jimmy.”

Jimmy looked away. “Well, no I can’t say that I did. I tried to track her down but that beast was all over the area. Every time I swooped down a street he was there in the fog. Barely got away. I’m sure she got away though. If you’re really that concerned why don’t you find out?”

Karen and Taste exchanged glances and he sighed. “Might as well make myself useful at least one more time before I go. Bring me my case.”

An eyebrow raised on Karen’s face but she walked over to the coat she’d left on the ground and pulled what looked like a small cigarette case from an inside pocket. She brought it to him and he took it from her without a word, popping it open to reveal that instead of cigarettes it was filled with three bundles of hair. They both paused without making another move and Karen said, “You sure eating anything’s a good idea at the moment?”

“I don’t think a single hair’s going to be the difference in whether I get out of this.” He still hesitated. Picking a single hair from the curly red bundle on the right he turned to the other two. “Down the hatch then. Anyone have a drink to help wash it down?” Everyone looked at Jimmy but he shook his head. “Guess not then. Alright, well, here goes.” He slipped the hair into his mouth and swallowed.

Moments after the hair was in his mouth he closed his eyes and put the hand that wasn’t on his wound to his forehead. They sat in silence for a minute until his eyes shot open again. Tears started leaking from them. “Afraid she’s gone. We’re on our own at this point.”

Rushing to his side, Karen kneeled and looked him in the eye. “You’re sure? Maybe give it more time.”

“As sure as I ever am. I’m not getting anything.”

Jimmy got to his feet and started pacing. “Then we’re out of options. We got Armor killed. How the hell did that thing take her down, after everything that’s happened?”

Karen slumped to the ground against the couch and put her hands on her knees. “I think we might be in a bit of trouble.” She dropped the candles and let them roll to the side. The sound of them hitting the floor drew Jimmy out of his pacing and he walked over to them. He reached into a leather pouch on his back and pulled out his own set of matches. The first try got a match going and soon the glow of candlelight filled the room. After lighting Taste’s cigarette Jimmy rushed to the windows to draw the curtains and make sure the light stayed inside.

Taking a candle Taste started to examine his wound. “Never thought I’d take a javelin to the stomach. Certainly a lot more exciting than the way I planned to go out.”

His statements of doom drew Karen back. “You are not going to die. I didn’t drag you halfway across the city for you to give up on me now. We’ll figure this out.”

“Afraid not this time. It looks worse than it feels. If I had a doctor now maybe I’d have a shot but we can’t go to a doctor and you know it. As badly as we bungled this, we still have the documents. It can all be for something. If we go to a doctor we’re likely dead regardless. What time is it?”

Karen again reached into the coat and pulled out a golden pocket watch. “Ten-twenty. We have exactly fifteen minutes to be at the rendezvous if we’re getting out of here tonight. Any chance we make it?”

Jimmy put a hand on his forehead. “I could probably glide there in time but no chance for you two. Too much fighting between here and there. If you’re going to avoid it on the ground you’d have to go around. At least an hour. Maybe two.”

“Not if she’s alone.” Taste pulled himself to the edge of the couch. “She can make the trip in twenty or thirty minutes alone. You glide ahead and tell them to wait. She’ll sneak through the streets after you. I know they won’t wait long but they can give her an extra fifteen minutes if necessary.”

Karen returned to the couch and tried to get Taste to lean back. “There is absolutely no chance I’m leaving you here. I’ll die first.”

“Then you’ll die and that will be my fault. I don’t want that. If you miss extraction you’re a goner. By the time another can be arranged the Shade will have tracked us down and put an end to us. He could already be on our tail for all we know. There’s no time to argue about this.”

Pushing him backward Karen applied more pressure and Taste gave in. “Well, then we can stop arguing about it. If they track us down we’ll handle it.”

“If Armor couldn’t take them on what makes you think we can?”

She shrugged. “Not sure. I’m mostly hoping he doesn’t find us. Once morning comes he’ll be a lot more limited. Let’s start figuring out a way to defend this place until then.” Before either of the men could protest she leapt to her feet and hurried into the kitchen taking their one light with her.

In the darkness, Jimmy sat next to Taste. “You’re right you know.”

He coughed, hacking up blood into his fist. “Of course I know. I don’t much want to die but I’m quite certain I will. She can’t hold this place until morning. Even if she could, I’ll be long gone by then. No reason you two should miss your best way out so I get to die among friends. Very sweet of her but she’s not thinking.”

“I know. Knew the second I got that candle lit and saw your face.” He looked away from the other man. “Sorry.”

“Not at all. I know how I must look. You need to convince her and you need to do it fast. She won’t listen to me.”

Karen hurried back into the room with her arms full of sheets and blankets. She moved to the first set of windows she could find and started pressing them into the cracks. “He’s not getting in here. If he does we’ll be ready with the candles.”

Shaking his head Jimmy walked up behind her. “We really need to go. I know you don’t want to hear it but Taste’s right. He’s beyond our help and he’ll never make it to morning. I also don’t think we’ll be able to keep the Shade from finding us for long.”

Whirling around, she stalked him with her finger pointing into his face. “You know as well as I do that he would never dream of leaving one of us. I’m not doing it to him. I’ve already lost one member of our team tonight. Are you really prepared to make it two?”

Jimmy’s back tensed and he straightened. “I am. The alternative’s losing all of them. These documents matter. We can get them back and save a lot of lives. Make their deaths worth something.”

Resuming her work with the blankets she ignored what he said. He put a hand on her shoulder but she quickly shrugged it off. Jimmy turned back to Taste with a sigh and threw his hands up. Taste eyed the back of Karen’s head before looking to Jimmy. “Get over here and help me up. I need to use the restroom and I don’t much want to go out with my shorts soiled.” Jimmy hurried to his teammate’s side and helped him to his feet. Once he had his arm around Jimmy he whispered, “Stay close.”

They reached the bathroom but before Jimmy could leave Taste started rifling around. Soon he came up with exactly what he hoped to find. Pulling a large box of rat poison from a cabinet, his eyes scanned the label. Jimmy’s eyes widened. “That doesn’t look like a pleasant way to go.”

Taste worked his way down the label. “No, I don’t imagine it will be. The alternative though is all of you dying with me. I won’t allow it. Get me a glass from the kitchen.” Jimmy slipped away and soon returned with a dusty glass. Turning the sink’s handle, he let out a curse when nothing came out. The window caught his eye though and he pushed it open and started letting the rain fill his glass. Once it was full he dumped as much rat poison into it as he could. He smiled at his friend. “I don’t know how long this will take so let me say this before I drink it. It’s been an honor.”

A tear ran down Jimmy’s face but he looked away and wiped it from his face. “I’ll look in on your family from time to time.”

“As long as you don’t make eyes at my mother like last time.”

Jimmy stifled a laugh and he leaned down to take Taste’s hand. “She started it. I’ll be good though.”

With that Taste lifted the glass to his face and downed its contents in one long gulp. When the glass was empty he shook his head wildly and tossed it against the wall where it shattered. Drops of the liquid glittering from his beard flew through the room. “Well, that’s done. Care to help me back to the couch?”

Before Jimmy could start to lift Taste, Karen was in the doorway with her eyes wide. “What was that shattering?” Her eyes settled on the large box of poison on the counter and then flashed back to Taste’s. “You damned fool of a man.”

She moved to get around him but he held a hand up. “Are you going to force it out of me with a hole in my gut? It doesn’t seem likely to work.”

A shattering noise from the front room drew their attention and Karen rushed from the bathroom. Jimmy got his arm around Taste and followed. When they arrived in the living room the remains of a window lay on a rug and several bullets sat among the glass. Jimmy caught Karen’s eye and whispered, “Think someone knows we’re here or was it just random fire from the fighting?”

“I don’t want to find out. At least it wasn’t the Shade. He doesn’t need guns. Want to head out and see what you see?” Jimmy nodded and leaned Taste against a wall before hurrying up the stairs. Taste let out a long moan but bit his lip to suppress as much of it as he could. After a moment Karen and Taste could hear the sound of Jimmy’s glider opening as he leapt from the roof.

A gunshot whizzed through the open window and Karen tackled Taste to the ground. He yelped but after a moment managed to shove her off of him. He pounded a fist on the floor. “Stop worrying about me. I’m a dead man several times over. Get out of here. Take the documents and complete the mission.”

The door still held closed by only a small statue, rattled as the wind blew. Karen’s eyes went wide as she rushed to the living room looking for a better option to block entry. She settled on the couch which she heaved toward the door. It’s wooden legs scraped along the floor making far more noise than she liked but keeping anyone from getting in seemed far more important in that moment than staying quiet.

A pounding fell down the stairs and she spun to grab a candle and see what was coming. It was only Jimmy returning though. “There’s two of them across the street. Not soldiers, just locals. Probably trying to figure out if there’s anyone home and if it’s safe to hide here. The fighting’s getting heavy just a street over though so they won’t show much patience. We need to get out of here.”

Her eyes blazed and she shook her head. “I will not leave Taste. He is going to make it. We’ll get him somewhere they can reverse the effects of the poison and then we’ll find a way out of this damned country.”

Jimmy’s eyes lit up and he pushed forward until they were only inches apart. “You’re not in charge. Why do you assume without Armor here you call the shots?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not fit for leadership. You would leave a member of our team to die.”

A throat cleared and they both turned to see Taste leaning in front of the broken window. “That’s all well and good but Jimmy understands where we find ourselves. I love you for wanting to save us all but it is no longer an option. Use this distraction to get yourselves out of here.” He turned to the outside and shouted in broken German, “Over here boys. You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn from five yards.”

Karen rushed toward him but before she could get halfway there bullets ripped through Taste’s chest, tearing him from the window. He turned as he fell, landing face down. Karen let out a cry and slid to his side, turning him over as fast as she could. Another hole had joined the first but this time through his chest. He tried to speak but wasn’t able to find any words. All he could do was mouth the word go before the life slipped from his eyes.

Strong hands gripped Karen by the shoulders and pulled her toward the stairs. “He’s gone Karen. He did that for us, we aren’t letting it be for nothing.” She didn’t fight him. “We’ll use the distraction to slip out along the roof. You shimmy to the ground and go through the alleys. I’ll glide ahead. I just might make extraction if we hurry.”

Karen nodded but didn’t say anything else until they were halfway up the stairs when she spun around. “His coat. The documents are in it. I have to get it.” Jimmy didn’t follow but was relieved when after only a few seconds she ran back up the stairs, slipping the overcoat on as she moved. “Let’s get the hell out of this country,” she said under her breath.

At the top of the stairs Jimmy led Karen into a small bedroom. Clothes littered the floor as if whoever lived here left in a hurry. The only window in the room was broken, showing how Jimmy got inside. Jimmy yanked what remained of it open and Karen started to climb onto the windowsill to pull herself through. As she did Jimmy put a hand on her shoulder. “Wait a moment.”

She turned to find him looking at the ground, his hands shaking. “Weren’t you just saying we have to hurry? We don’t have time.”

He nodded. “I know. I just need to make sure of something first. When we get back, you’re not going to tell them the details about Taste are you? That might not look good for me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “He’s dead, I’ll tell them he took a javelin to the stomach and his wounds got him. I don’t think his family needs to know the rest.”

She started to climb out the window again but Jimmy’s hand again stopped her. “You’re sure, right? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable but it’s really important. They can’t know what happened. They didn’t even want me on this team and they only approved it because I’m doing the most dangerous job. If they heard how it went I don’t think that ends well for me.”

Karen took her hands and put one on each of his cheeks. She pulled him in close so their foreheads touched. “I’m not going to tell on you Jimmy. You have my word. I don’t agree with what you did but I still trust you. Let’s get out of here.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek and he nodded.

Turning back toward the window, Karen’s eyes went wide. Rolling down the street directly toward them was a tank leaving the main fighting to head in their direction. It followed two men who seemed to be running from the fight. The two men who were firing from outside saw it coming and rushed to the house, throwing themselves against the door. The couch blocking it stopped them from making much progress. Karen spun away from the window. “We need to go another way.” Catching sight of the men trying to get into the house, the tank opened fire. The men fell where they stood. The bottom half of the house turned to dust in seconds, smoke and splinters flying through the air. Before Karen or Jimmy could make a move the floor below them began to creak and move with its support gone. It gave way and they tumbled into darkness. As they fell the tank continued to fire. As they landed amid the debris there wasn’t even time to shout. In seconds all that remained was the darkness.

This story was guest written by A.M. Thorn of Vigilantes Make Us Safe. If you liked this short story leave a comment! Check in next week for Everybody Dies #5.

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