Sci-Fi

Darik`a stood before the command viewport of Peace and Order, gazing out across the Stamotian nebulae and admiring their beauty. There was no way they wouldn't be; the finest artists amongst his people had painstakingly designed them to be as such, and then scattered the stellar gases in such a way that the rays of the system's sun caught them just right, brilliantly coloring them.

Darik`a opened and closed the protective membranes over his eyes several times, the universal sign amongst Ren of withheld distress.

The tendrils lining his spine relaxed against his back, indicating to any observers that he was at ease. Within, however, Darik`a was a torrent of thought and emotion.

For the first time in eons, his people would be going to war.

Massive warships were being recalled from the farthest reaches of the galaxy to the throne-planet Va-Nar, homeworld of the Ren. Already, the press corporations of a thousand solar systems were deeming the massive military build up "The Rearmament".

It had been ages since the overlords of the galaxy, the noble Ren, had felt themselves unsafe. Even so, their military forces were well-armed, well-trained, and well-deployed throughout the galaxy.

Lyle Sanders was not a drug addict forced into the habit because he lived in a bad neighborhood, or because he was depressed, or because it was the only way he could make money. There was just nothing else to fuckin' do on the Fuchsia Dream.

The attendant gig wasn't so bad, really. Punching ticket after ticket, serving watered-down drinks to whiny children, then sitting back and waiting for something to do – anything, man. Anything.

Sure, the other flight attendants knew. Shit, he knew they knew, but as long as he didn't fuck up and didn't do anything wrong, who cared? It wasn't like most of them weren't shooting up themselves.

That was a course he plotted for himself, though. There was really no room to move up in Consolidated Intergalactic Transport services, but at least he had some job security. And a girlfriend, even if only in name. You certainly wouldn't prove yourself a good psychologist by pointing out that theirs was hardly a relationship – they were both addicts, who happened to have both reached the peak of their substance-induced sex drives one day and ended up fucking in one of the unoccupied bathrooms.

Lorraine really wasn't much to look at. Haggard, you could say. Didn't really take good care of her long brown hair or pale skin, didn't take too much pride in her appearance. Low self-esteem was probably what put her in the needle's frigid embrace.

Emptily she repeated to herself that she was her own woman, that this whole drug thing was just temporary, to relieve the boredom of serving on the crappiest space liner in the galaxy. Just as empty were her self-assurances that Lyle was in love with her, though she couldn't have known.

He was a convincing liar.

An exhilarated cough and a smile of self-satisfaction heralded the arrival of something new but familiar into Lyle's bloodstream, the same batch of ice he'd been shooting up with since they'd last made port. He flexed and contracted his hand, his godlike strength coming back to him.

A silent nod of acknowledgement from him, a loosening of the belt, and the suppression of a heartfelt whoop later, Lyle was on his feet and out the door, prowling the corridors of the Fuchsia Dream. Hunching forward slightly, the Beast formerly known as Lyle eyed passersby beneath a furrowed brow, drawing more than a few frightened stares.

Hours later, Lyle sat in the infirmary. White-hot tendrils of agony shot through the veins in his arm as the drugs administered by the nurse immediately brought him down from his high. If leather straps hadn't bound his arms to the table, he would have reached out and killed her.

A mountainous figure of a man filled the doorway; the Captain. Loping strides conveyed Cap'n Theodos to Lyle's side, disappointment infecting those deep green eyes as they gazed into him. Lyle turned away; thinking that he'd somehow let the Captain down was more painful than having to face the man's rage.

"You're lucky," Captain Theodos said quietly. "You could have died. Or been permanently incapacitated. Or, worse, offended one of the passengers, in which case I'd have been forced to let you go."

The Captain's masked compliment caught in Lyle's throat, keeping him from speaking. Not that he could have said anything of substance, anyway.

"You do good work, son," Theodos continued "That's the only reason I'm not letting you go. I see that you've got a life ahead of you…and I'd be real sad if that life involved whatever it is that we just had to bring you down from."

A curt nod was all Lyle could manage. Hell, what did you say to something like that? Nothing that wouldn't end up in Lyle looking dumber than he already did, and that definitely wasn't what he wanted.

Sensing that the restrained attendant before him was at a loss for words, Captain Theodos placed a hand on Lyle's shoulder.

"You'll do fine, my boy," he said before turning on his heel and striding from the infirmary, leaving Lyle to his thoughts. He shut his eyes tight and laid back, contemplating the rather one-sided exchange that had just taken place.

When Lyle again opened his eyes, they met Lorraine's. She was straddling him, but being careful to let most of her weight rest on the bed; he presumed that he'd fallen unconscious, and Lorraine had come to take him back to his quarters.

"Smooth work there, slick, getting caught by the Captain and all. Vomiting on his shoes was a particularly nice touch," she rasped, a bit of a mischievous grin crossing her lips as she imparted this knowledge to Lyle.

He groaned, now realizing how he'd been caught…and why. A faint memory of the stench of vomit brought him back to the instant when his lunch had decided that it matched the Captain's boots better than his stomach.

Lorraine started to unbutton her shirt, looking down as she did so.

"What in the hell are you doing?" Lyle asked, his first words in nearly half a day.

Lorraine shrugged. "I want some. And you're not going anywhere – Captain's orders. Confined to quarters for the next three days. Since Security decided to raid both of our bunks, we've been relieved of our stashes. Nothing else to do."

Lyle smirked, and then shrugged. Getting it when he didn't expect was better than not getting it at all. They filled Lyle's cramped quarters with screams and moans for the next few hours.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Nor`od`un spread his mouth-tendrils in the Ren approximation of a smile. "Slipstream capacitors operating at optimal efficiency, Captain," his engineering subordinate reported.

"Keep me posted," he replied, allowing the needless gesture to fade from his visage. The Ren were supposed to have become a race entirely devoted to the efficient conveyance of ideas, having shunned the theatrical and unnecessary practice of facial expression several ages ago.

Artistic expression, poetic license, even the teachings of literature were simply abandoned, not even acknowledged by the Ren people as a whole, deemed unnecessary and archaic. Automated databanks containing all of the objective knowledge possessed by the Ren were all the reading that their posterity needed, in their estimation.

- - - - -

Lyle felt the crunch of alien tissues beneath his booted feet as the bastard's head exploded against the wall with a sickening spray of blood and what he assumed was brain matter. The alien soldier – who bore marks of such high visibility that Lyle assumed he was a commander – slumped to the ground, its neck still squirting blood at a regular rhythm.

A second later, Lyle was himself on the ground, on his back, though he did have all of his tissues intact. He drew the rifle from under his back, cursing it for not being softer, and looked back and forth down the hall, drawing himself up into a crouch.

"Bastards shoulda never come on my ship," he said, using the back of his hand to wipe flecks of blood from his cheek.

Distressed shouting drew Lyle's gaze in the general direction of engineering, though he couldn't yet spot the source; the fact that he recognized the shouting as human further garnered his interest, though he progressed slowly, using the rifle as though it were an extension of his jaw, sweeping back and forth and listening for anything that might give his foes away.

Daring to expose himself, he rolled across a perpendicular corridor down which he guessed was whoever was shouting. Lyle strained his ears, but could only catch snippets…

"Take that, ye crummy bastard, and one for yer motha, too, aye…" followed by the sickening crunch of something hard tearing through bone, sinew, and flesh. Lyle could only hope that it was alien. The shouting ceased. He broke into a run, fearing that whatever survivor he had heard was wounded or killed, and only hoping that he could reach them in time.

At the far end, he could see only a crouching figure, and another with an enormous chunk of its head taken out, blood pooling around its head. Taking the crouching figure square in his sights, Lyle crouched and spoke normally; "Who's that?"

A smile spread across the lips of the figure, and Lyle instantly recognized it as human. Hearing the accented voice this close only cemented his recognition; "Not gonna shoot me, are ye, laddeh?"

"Ah, shit, Wallace, what…what did you do it?"

The ship's cook – Joel Wallace – rose to his feet, ignoring Lyle's question, though the blood-stained wrench in his right hand left little need for question. A small shudder worked its way up Lyle's back, but he said nothing. Wallace had been with the crew for years, and while he'd always been rowdy and boisterous, Lyle never could have imagined him capable of such a blatantly violent act.

The man was probably unstable.

Without a word, Lyle unstrapped the alien's harness from its chitinous shoulders and tossed it to Wallace, who wore it across his chest like a bandolier, alien weapons clattering against one another as he shifted it. As he did so, Wallace stepped into the dim light given off by one of the hall lamps, and Lyle could see that the man's overalls were tarred in alien gore; he wondered how many of them the Scotsman had felled.

Lyle closed his eyes, and saw Lorraine's death again. Shit, I'm tired.

"Y'all right there, laddeh?" Wallace asked, idly fiddling with one of the larger blades strapped to his stolen bandolier.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Alarms blared, and panic ensued. What the hell is the purpose of alarms, anyway? Lyle mused. Not like people can really go anywhere. It'll just make them stick their stupid heads out, and expose them to even more danger. The ship's paltry security teams assembled, armed, and then spread out again to cover all of the airlocks as instructed by the captain, whose complete lack of tactical sense bordered on disgusting.

If it were up to Lyle, he'd lock all of the unarmed civilians in engineering, give them a couple guards, decompress the rest of the ship except for one airlock so that he'd know where the aliens were certain to come from, and then hunker down and prepare. That way, there'd be no idiot civvies in the way when the shooting started.

No one asked Lyle, though.

In fact, he'd been essentially told he was on his own, and so he'd acted accordingly, procuring weapons from an abandoned security locker, and stripping off unnecessary elements of his attire. Lyle had never before fired a rifle, but he figured that if everything went well, he wouldn't have to. He wasn't an optimist, though.

A Place in Hell

Iroquois Heights High School

Corydon, Indiana

[John Arbuckle lights up a "q" – one of the post-war cigarettes named for their one-quarter tobacco content – and shakes his head at the ruins of his High School, which, as the interview is conducted, is being torn down by construction crews. This site, Iroquois Heights High School, is a sentimental place for John. This is where his war started.]

So, this is it?

Yeah. Hell of a place to die, huh? If that's what you can call it, anyway.

How did Zack make it this far, anyway? Wasn't some kind of warning system in place?

Are you joking? Look around you, man. This is Shitville. I guess the school had phones, sure, but remember, the Great Panic hadn't even started yet, or we wouldn't even have been in school. It had to be the hospital just down the block, [he gestures down the road, to a hospital that is no longer there] since the…ghouls, were in those toga-things they make you wear, where your ass shows and the nurses giggle and you feel like a dumbass.

I can't even imagine being the poor kid who first saw them. What would I have done, man? Musta thought they were, like, burn victims or some shit. I know I would have. I feel like shit for saying this, but thank God it wasn't me. Yeah. Thank God, man…

When did everyone realize what was going on, and how did they react?

[Laughs] You gotta be kidding. Shit, I dunno…when the "burn victims" started fucking eating people? But, uh, seriously, I guess…I remember some guy running past the class I was in – chemistry lab, we were combining some foul-smelling crap, but at least we got to play with fire – and he was just covered in blood, screaming his lungs out, "They ate him, for fuck's sake! They fucking ate him!"

One of the counselors walking through the halls, this buff black guy, about 5'10", real likeable, just tackles this kid and brings him right down, thinking this is some kind of sick prank or something. It'd almost be funny…almost. That is, if the kid wasn't being followed by like five fucking zombies.

You saw this happening?

Yeah. When I heard the screaming, I was coming out of the bathroom, and the kid was way at the other end of the hall, coming my way. Got intercepted halfway there, and I watched them coming, the first Zs I ever saw. Of course, at the time, I didn't know what to think, but, looking back on it, it's fucking terrifying.

Anyway, my first instinct is "Jesus fucking Christ, run!" And I guess that's why I lived. I know it's probably a horrible thing to say – maybe I should have tried to help, been some kind of a hero, or something – but if I'd done anything stupid, there wouldn't be much of anyone left to tell you this story.

So I run out of the school, since my class is right by the door that leads out to the parking lot, and my heart is pounding like God knows what. I guess that's what I get for not playing any sports or whatever, but I was in full-on survival mode, dude. And what really sticks out to me is that I had no idea why. To all appearances, my life wasn't in danger. I guess it's like dogs, you know? They have that Z-sense or whatever; they can tell when Zack is in town, and start going apeshit. I ran like crazy until I got to my car – early-decade European coupe, my pride and joy – and only then did I look back. It was…hell. That's the only way I can describe it.

What was happening?

Zack was pouring in. For him, it was lunchtime. Kids were pouring out, running and screaming. Some were trying to wrestle with Zack, and others, the hardcore kids, had knives that they were using to try to ward off ghouls. Lotta fuckin' good that did 'em. I must have zoned out, or something, because next thing I know, Zack's coming for me. Guess I made a pretty appetizing target in those years. Anyway, I realize I'm about a minute away from being lunchmeat, and start trying to get into my car. It was like in the fuckin' horror movies; had a case of the shakes so bad I had to guide the key into the lock with two fingers. Never bothered with those damned keyless unlock keychain whatever-the-hells. Anyway, I jump in, lock the doors, put the key in, turn her on, put my glasses on, take off my shoe…

Why did you take off your shoe?

Hah, funny you mention it. My friends gave me shit about it, actually. I took off my shoe because I couldn't feel the pedals otherwise. I'd only been driving for about two months, mind you, and I was cautious. Been rear-ended once already, and didn't want to return the favor or anything. Now that you bring that up, I guess it's funny I remembered. In the middle of that huge shitstorm, I remembered that. Hah. Hell of a kid, I was.

Where was I, again?

Taking off your shoe, car started, glasses, et cetera.

Ah, right, right. Yeah. I throw her in reverse just as the radio comes on, and it's "Shortest Straw", by Metallica. The good old days, man. I was maybe, like, two, when the album came out. It was destiny, I guess. The song fit what everyone else was going through.

I turn around and back her out at like 30 miles an hour, slam the brakes, put her in drive, and just fuckin' book it. I tear ass for about a mile and a half, when I pass my neighborhood. Nice, affluent, upscale neighborhood. Cold, though. Neighbors didn't wave much, and their fuckin' kids would just stand out in the middle of the street, for no fuckin' reason at all.

[John goes quiet for a moment; his eyes lose focus. He talks quietly now.]

I guess…I guess I shouldn't talk about 'em like that. Just kids, man. Enjoying life, and all that. And now…gone. Damn. Whatever – not worth being upset over. Not my fault.

[John takes another drag from his "q", and regains his confidence.]

Where was I? Ah, right – the neighborhood. Positively swarming with Zs. I turn in anyway, and just floor it. I try to avoid them, but it's just not possible, since they're coming right for me. Eventually, it stops mattering, when I've got enough momentum built up. Ever seen a Z hit by a car at 60 miles an hour?

[I shake my head.]

Tears 'em in half. At this point, though, I'm beyond caring. I've got my parents and my sister to worry about. I pull up in my driveway, and my house is on fucking fire. Even to this day, I've got no idea why. I don't stay long, except to open the garage and see that the car isn't there. That's all I need to know. I run to the fridge we've got in the garage and start chucking stuff into my backpack – it was empty, since the school year was almost over – which makes it clear now that I wasn't thinking straight.

What do you mean? You've gotta have serious presence of mind to collect supplies when you know ghouls are about, and you're not even armed…

Who the hell said anything about supplies? I was stuffing frozen food, wine, mineral water, energy drinks, whatever, into that backpack. Of course, that's all we kept in the outside fridge, but still. It's not much.

So anyway, I throw the backpack into the car, hop in, and get moving again. I'm halfway down the driveway when I hear barking. I look over and see my dog, like five feet away from some Zombie. It's one of my neighbors. Nice enough lady, I guess, but like most middle-class suburban housewives, she was already sort of a zombie. Damn, now I feel bad. Fuck it. You know the type, dude. Boring-ass life, slave to fashion, played tennis. Just waiting to die, I guess. Or maybe travel the world, and then die. Depends on how their mutual funds turned out, or whatever.

Whatever. I guess that sorta lost coherence, but you know what I mean. That's how I thought; that's who I was, back in high school. I hated that, that nine-to-five lifestyle, not giving a fuck about anyone else's problems, just living for yourself, pretending to be Christian, all that shit.

Wow, did I just go on another huge tangent? Let's see…useless housewife, zombie…my house…ah, right – my dog. I hit the brakes, and open the door and just shout some gibberish: "Ayyyy! Heeyyy!" Dog runs right in.

I lock the doors, back out, put 'er in drive, and once again, we're in business. Dog is going nuts, though, in the back, running around and shit. I guess I didn't notice that much – I just hauled ass toward the city.

Wait, the city? That's where there would be more people, and thus more ghouls…

You think I considered that? If you did, you're wrong. All I knew was, my dad worked at the hospital downtown, and he didn't have a car.

But wasn't your family rather, you know, affluent?

He was disabled. Couldn't drive.

[The reason for John's fierce determination to save his father becomes clear to me.]

Yeah. Anyway, I'm absolutely shredding ass down this normally crowded highway, and all I see is a few other cars hauling ass just the same – in the other direction. That's when I got that maybe, maybe this was all coming from the city. So I finally remember that I have a cell phone. I pull it out, still doing about 70, and look – no bars. What the fuck happened to the cell tower? Why would Zombies go for the fucking cell stations? They weren't that smart. Or at least it didn't seem to me. Still doesn't make sense, but what the hell. Then I see it gets one bar. Then that disappears.

I try anyway. I get him on the line, and my heart leaps into my throat. It's real choppy, and I can only make out bits and pieces. I don't remember exactly what I heard, but it was something to the effect of "Shut up and listen. We're going west. Get in your car and head towards Arkansas. We love you very much. We're all safe."

Hell of a lot for a conversation that was all chopped up.

Yeah – mind you, I didn't hear all that, word for word, but that's basically what I got.

Right. You filled in the blanks.

Exactly. So anyway, I realize that I'm heading the wrong way. I do a U-turn and start tearing ass in the other direction, following the flow of what little traffic there is. I check my gas, and thank God that I filled it up just the night before. My nerves start to calm a little from that panicked state, but they're still buzzing. I know I'm going to pass my neighborhood again, not to mention my school. I just sort of keep my eyes on the road, and accelerate a little more. I did my best to ignore the fact that I was having to swerve to avoid my "classmates". A lot of them, I didn't manage to avoid. I think that will always stay with me.

I'm sorry…

Don't be. By that time, they were reanimated. I shouldn't feel bad, but it's hard to dehumanize them. I guess that's kinda ironic. We try to "put a human face on something so distinctly inhuman", as the president put it.

Black Friday

Friday was slow in coming. Francis Nikeratos Poberas checked his watch again in the dark silence of his aged Buick, and ground his teeth through the impatience brought on by not having rubbed one off in a day or so.

Not that he needed to, though. Thursday had been delicious. The taste of her neck as his dry tongue broke the thin film of fearful sweat was more than enough to get him there.

Killing the bitch had almost been hard. Almost.

She did him the favor of making it easy when she kicked him in the nuts; it was always easier to do things in the heat of anger than in the cold calculation of necessity.

He smiled at his choice of words. Necessity. He liked that. Frank felt a strange kind of satisfaction, akin to what he imagined those tree-hugging pussies felt when they justified a bear killing a man out of "hunger".

"Bears gotta eat too, right?" he mumbled to himself. Just another crutch for Frank. Just another pill in his bottle.

The tinted glass doors slid apart, rolling out a white carpet of fluorescent light over the asphalt for the star of Frank's show; "Miss Friday, how nice of you to join us," he said to himself, a smile parting his cracked lips.

His loving fingers slid down to the safety of his service pistol and slid that nuisance out of his way as he wrapped a meaty fist around a door handle and pulled it with a satisfying plastic crunch toward his chest. Stubby legs found the asphalt easily enough, and he didn't even bother closing the door as he set into motion, traversing the darkened lot in near-silence.

Friday was beautiful.

***

Chase Margaret Eldridge would have laughed at the name "Friday." Sounded very Dragnet, like some stereotypical hard-boiled detective's nickname. Mac Friday – that was it. She would have given herself a nice chuckle.

***

As it was, though, she'd never know what name he'd given her. A stray lock of hair fell in front of her face as she furiously thumbed through the letters on her cell phone, hastily composing a text message to a friend as she traversed the quiet parking lot.

She smiled to herself. ***

Frank's aging Nikes ground the asphalt in awkward strides as he worked his way around the odd car, staying away from the pools of light that rained from the high lamp-posts.

***

He'd never win a prize for being stealthy, but that wasn't really necessary since his target was enthralled in her own little electronic world. Sweat greased his grip as he steadied himself against the hood of an Oldsmobile, starting on his final dash, the last few moments of the true hunt, where predator closed with prey in that final instant of absolute clarity, of primal order, absolute black and white.

This was his habitat.
This was his moment.
Meaty fingers wrapped around her right forearm as his weight smashed into her and bore her to the ground, breathless before she could even think to scream, unconscious before she could regain her breath as her skull bounced off the pavement with a gristly crack. Her Coke-bottle frames clattered to the ground only feet from the head that had once so proudly worn them.

She sobbed unconsciously as he dragged her farther away from the light.

Frank allowed himself a small smile as he unbuttoned her blouse, checking her pulse in the process.

After all, he wasn't no fuckin' necrophiliac. He snorted at the pun he'd made. Yes indeed, Frank was a hell of a clever guy.

***

James Isaac Gregory wasn't a donut-shop cop. No, sir. He had a genuine respect for his own line of work, and a sense that what he did was a necessary service for the community, and that he truly served his family by serving in the Jackson County Police Department.

His wife was nailing a meth dealer. So much for "Protect and Serve", the dealer would think as he shagged Jimmy's Mrs. Can't even keep his old woman from slipping into bed with another guy, and a criminal to boot.

Jimmy would glance over at the picture of his wife and son, Jimmy Jr., taped to his dashboard every once in a while, and feel some sense of pride. He felt like a fighter pilot glancing at a picture of his old lady as he flew into battle, except he did it for no reason at all.

When he pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot that night, Jimmy glanced one last time at that picture.

The dim light of a streetlamp only silhouetted the small, shifting form, and when Jimmy turned his car to face this new arrival, he saw very clearly the unconscious, naked woman. His patrol car screeched to a halt, and he threw the door open, drawing his pistol and leveling it at the pervert.

"Stop right there!"

Frank had stopped, of course, when he felt the harsh headlights of the cruiser on him.

***

Frank hadn't planned for this.

Yeah, he froze. Of course he froze. There was no covering this up. There was no way he could un-fuck this one.

Shit. They'd probably figure out all of the other ones, too. Shit, shit, shit. His gun definitely was not going to help his case.

He stood up, hands held high, teeth chattering, shaking like a leaf. Shit. He'd forgotten to put his dick up. Holy hell, that was embarrassing. Nothing kills a boner like being arrested. Period.

Frank and his new buddy made eyes at each other for a moment, Frank hoping the officer's gun wouldn't go off, the officer hoping that Frank's hadn't yet.

No one thought to keep an eye on the victim.

***

Officer Gregory blinked, and in that single eyeblink, the shabby pile of rags and flesh on the ground behind the "suspect" – good Lord he hated that term – had disappeared. A sharp crack in his neck elicited a distant shriek of surprise, which he only recognized to be his own as he came to terms with the fact that both hands had gone limp, and his pistol had slid from them. He didn't even have time to realize that they were his final moments.

***

Fucking sick, Frank thought as it – whatever the hell it was – started taking bites out of the poor cop who had been in complete control of the situation only moments earlier. Frank's fear built, and he could barely think to wrap his fat fingers around the waist of his pants and tug them up to the indentation at his waistline and start hobbling the other way, grease-slicked moans of terror escaping his mouth as he made for safety.

***

An ear-splitting howl only spurred his chubby legs on faster, his hands scrambling to secure his large pants to his body so that they might be free to pump in time with his legs. In his inattentive panic, Frank tripped over his own feet, spinning as he fell and landing on his back with a heavy wheeze. He scrambled for purchase, trying desperately to backstroke somehow on the asphalt, then froze in terror as he heard the soft pit-pat of bare feet on the asphalt approaching him.

***

"Fuck me sideways," he said, realizing that his own massive girth kept him from seeing the very object of his fright, and closed his eyes, whimpering softly and praying for mercy, swearing off rape, swearing off little boys, swearing off porn and cigarettes and drinking and greasy goddamned Chinese food, and – sweet tapdancing Christ, anything that would save his skin.

Silence answered him. He smiled, baring teeth stained yellow from a life of sleazy decadence, and dared to open his eyes.

Her red eyes stared back into his, and she bared her teeth in turn, all razor-sharp, all dripping with saliva as she eyeballed Frank like the steak that he so truly was.

He screamed, but the last thing he heard was her chewing through his chest, and the sick crunch as she tore through his ribs with her teeth.