“Doomed”

Illustration by Johnny “Atomic” Jackson

“I want a cigarette.”

“Shut up and hold the door,” said Justin.

Grumbling, Richard hurried to get in front of the cart.  Using the transponder card he had not returned after his day shift, he unlocked the rusted fire door and hauled it open.  Justin swore repeatedly as he muscled the cart up over the lip of the ramp and through the opening.  He scraped the sides as he pushed.

“Stop, stop,” Richard urged.  “Somebody will hear!”

“Just help me with this,” said Justin.  “Remember, it’s C11.”

“C11,” repeated Richard.  “I remember.  Don’t turn on the lights!”

Justin glared, but pulled his hand back; he had been reaching for the wall switch.  From the pocket of his windbreaker he produced a flashlight.

“Come on,” he said.

They passed locker after locker.  The temperature-controlled storage areas were cold.  Clouds of their breath followed the two men.  Richard clamped his mouth shut to keep his teeth from chattering.

“They’re going to know on Monday,” said Richard.  “I’m going to get fired.  Or arrested.  Or arrested and fired.”

“Only if you’re stupid enough to stay in town,” said Justin.  “Me, I’m going to Vegas.”

“You really think we’ll get that much?”

Justin said nothing.  He had found unit C11.  In the beam of his flashlight he picked out the padlock on the door.  “Do you have the keys for this?”

“No,” said Richard.

Justin looked around.  He pointed to the metal chair at the end of the corridor.  It was the chair in which Richard had spent the day shift; he was still wearing his uniform.  The security company that employed him would know his keycard had been used to gain entrance to the facility.  He was risking a lot.  Briefly, he considered backing out.

“Well?” Justin said.

Richard brought the chair.  Justin lifted it and tried his best to smash the lock from the door.  When he failed, Richard took a turn.  Both men were sweating and breathing heavily when finally they opened the locker.

The crates were the size of coffins.  They reached to the ceiling of the unit.  Each was labeled, “LATVERIA.”

A prybar rested atop the nearest crate.  Justin picked it up and, without difficulty, lifted the lid from one of the boxes.  He reached inside.

“Is it…?”

Justin tensed.  Richard could see it in the man’s shoulder blades.  Something was wrong.

“It’s empty.”

Richard rushed forward.  He snatched the flashlight, ignoring the anger that flashed across Justin’s face.  Playing the beam inside the crate, he saw what Justin had:  nothing.

“You said there would be gold!  Bars of Latverian gold, you said!”

“That’s what the news said!” Justin looked inside once more, then turned to glare at Richard.  “The revolution in Latveria has anyone with money running scared and shipping their wealth out of the country.  You’re the one that told me the crates were here.  You said they were heavy.  Heavy as in full of gold.”

“I said the last crate they pushed in here looked heavy,” said Richard.  “It took four guys just to move it.”

“Well?” said Justin.  “Which one was it?”

Richard pointed.  “That one.”

“Come on then.”  Justin wedged the prybar under the lid and pulled.

Nothing happened.

He let the prybar support his weight, and still the crate did not budge.  Hanging from the bar, sweat streaming down his cheeks, he looked up at Richard and almost snarled.  “Well, help me, stupid!”

Even with both of them on the bar, they could not open the crate.  Finally, Justin pointed to the cart.  “We can’t keep doing this. It’s welded or something. We’ll bring the whole thing.”

The crate was as heavy as it had looked.  Richard used the prybar as a lever to raise the lip of the crate onto the cart.  Then the two of them jockeyed it side to side until it rested on the platform.  By the time their burden was secure in the back of Justin’s van, they were pushing the clock.  The night guard was arriving as they pulled away from the curb.  Richard hoped the man — it was either Lee or Stan, but he couldn’t tell which — wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t think to take down their plates.

“You look like somebody shot your dog,” Justin said from the driver’s seat.  “Cheer the hell up.  We’re rich, little brother.”

 

* * *

 

“Victor.  Are you certain?”

“You are my most trusted lieutenant, Pimsleur.  You have never failed me.  Do not start questioning me now.”

Beyond the metal slits in the mask, Pimsleur’s wrinkled face appeared to crease further in concern.  “The revolution may burn itself out.  Your reign may yet survive.”

“You are not a fool,” said the man behind the mask.  “Do not speak like one.  Most of the palace guard have fallen. The populists have won.  They will breach this stronghold and they will murder us.  It does not matter how many I slay with the energies left to me.  I cannot destroy them all.”

Pimsleur paused, as if considering that.  Finally, he said, “You have made arrangements?”

“Of course.  The mask contains my… psychic resonance, if you will.  It will exert the necessary influence.  The route to be traveled, the disposition of the crate, the integrity of the seals and rivets for the proper length of time.  All of this can be ensured.  I can even see to it that the crate is discovered by someone suitable.”

“Very well.  I will do as you ask, Victor.  And then I will flee this place like a common criminal.  But you must order me.  It would feel disrespectful otherwise.”

“I am Doom,” said the main in the mask, “and I order you to kill me.”

 

* * *

Richard opened his eyes.  His neck hurt.  He had fallen asleep leaning against the wall of his own refrigerator.

What a strange dream, he thought.

It had taken hours to rip open the crate, rivet by rivet.  He and Justin had worked in shifts.  He must have nodded off while it was Justin’s turn.

Now his brother was standing over the crate beneath the open lid, staring inside.

“You… you did it?  You got it open?”

“Empty? How in the hell can it be empty?”

Richard hurried over. The create was layered in moldy straw.  He reached in, feeling for something, anything.  But there were no gold bars.  There were no coins.  There was only—

“What’s this?” said Richard.  He held up the metal gauntlet.  “Maybe it’s an antique?”

Justin slapped it out of his hand.  The glove thunked on the stained carpet of Richard’s efficiency, drawing a muffled but angry shout from the apartment below.

“Do I look like a frigging art dealer to you?” Justin demanded.  He reached into the crate and pulled a faceplate from it.  The skull-like mask, its eyes rectangular slits, seemed to frown at both men.

Whatever the corroded old costume was, it was probably valuable.  Justin couldn’t see that.  Richard knew his brother well enough to understand that Justin thought only of immediate gains.  They had worked all night to pry open the crate. The disappointment was just too much for his brother.

“I’m the one who’s going to have to leave town,” said Richard.  “Did you even think about that?  I gave up my job for nothing.”

“Like it matters,” said Justin.  “What were you gonna do, work your way up to manager?  It’s a dead end job for a dead end guy.  You’re a loser, Rich.  You always were.”

Richard, who had bent to pick up the glove, froze on his knees.  Without turning to look at his brother, he said, “What did you call me?”

“I said you’re a loser,” Justin said.  “It’s your fault we wasted all this time.  You’re always wasting my time, little brother.  You were never good for any—”

Richard rose, turned, and clapped his hand on Justin’s shoulder.

He was wearing the metal gauntlet.

Justin shrieked.  His lips peeled back from his face, baring his teeth.  His eyes rolled into the back of his head.  White smoke wreathed his skull as his hair began to shrivel.  The column of heat that rose from Justin’s body seemed to pour from his neck and chest, making him convulse and shrivel, cracking his skin and boiling his eyes within their sockets.  As the flesh peeled from his cheeks and his dying scream became a gurgle, Justin finally collapsed on withered legs.

Richard stood completely still, his arm extended, the Latverian gauntlet held before him with its fingers splayed.

Power!  So much power!  He had never felt anything like it.  The glove moved as if pulling him by the arm, willing him to the crate, urging him to remove the rest of the costume.  He picked out the second glove, pulled it on, and now his hands flew, assembling the costume within.  The armor was a perfect fit, as if molded to his body.  The strangeness of it did not touch him.

Carrying the face plate in one hand, wearing the musty hooded cape over his shoulders, he stepped over the shriveled corpse of his brother.

Justin, he had time to think.  I’m sorry.

“Are you?” said a voice in his head.  It was a sonorous baritone, rich and lilting.

“Am I what?” he heard himself say.

“Sorry,” said the voice.  “He was never kind to you.”

“No,” said Richard.  “He wasn’t.”

“And he wasn’t very smart.”

“No,” said Richard.  “He wasn’t.”

“You didn’t like him very much,” said the voice.

“No,” said Richard.  “I didn’t.”

The voice did not speak again.  Richard reached for the door.  It exploded beneath his gauntlet, turning to splinters that pocked the opposite side of the hall without.  He strode through the ruined door and made for the stairs, hearing the ringing of the iron-shod boots he now wore.

With each stride his gait became more confident, his shoulders rolling with an arrogance he had never before possessed.  He could feel the weight of the armor, feel the strength it gave him, feel the intoxicating energy that some part of him knew could only be the life, the soul, pulled from his brother’s body.

I didn’t like him very much, Richard thought.  In fact, I hated him.

At the street level he did not even bother to reach for the glass entryway doors.  The panes shattered at his approach, spraying pedestrians outside with razor shards.  A woman screamed.  Something about it struck Richard as funny.

He laughed.  The laugh was not his.  It was deep and full and genuinely amused.

He felt the police cars before he saw them.  Whether they were coming to arrest him for the burglary at the storage unit, or responding to the disturbance within the building, he neither knew nor cared.  He raised his arm once more.  The words of the ancient curse came to his lips unbidden.

Lightning shot from his metal fingertips.  The hoods of the cars were ripped in two, spraying pieces of engine through the windshields and into the spectators on the sidewalk.  Blood flowed.  Richard pushed with his mind and the lightning intensified, melting the policemen in their seats, turning them to liquid and then to fire.

Smoke filled his nostrils.  Ash peppered his face.  He walked to the nearest of the burning cars, his steps long and unhurried, and thrust the skull-mask into the flames, feeling it grow hot through the metal of his glove.

What are you doing? he heard himself ask.  Justin!  Justin!

“Justin,” he said aloud, “is dead.”  He brought the burning mask to his face.

Stop!  Stop!  Don’t do that!

“Richard,” he said, tasting the bitter name for the last time, “is also dead.”  He pressed the hot mask to his skull, feeling his skin crisp beneath it.

No!  No!  Not like this!  I’m Richard!  I’m Richard!  I’m not you!  I’m—

He pulled the hood of his cape over his head.  The voice of rebellion, outraged thoughts of a personality now crushed and swatted aside, dwindled to nothing.

“I,” he said, “am Doom.”

He marched off down the street, feeling the power crackle in his fists, ready to destroy anyone and anything that barred his way.