BRUISES

"Damn," she said, rubbing her temple. There would be a mark. There always was. When she exerted herself that much, the veins in her head and neck pulsed and swelled. Capillaries burst, leaving small star patterns of bruises. They always ended up hurting a bit, but she also thought they were pretty. Sometimes she drew them with crayons.

She surveyed the room. All of the medical equipment in the lab had been pushed out from her and was in heaps along the walls. The bulbs in the overhead lights had all exploded and the room was dark except from the light from the all coming through the small windows in the double doors. The wall of glass that surround the upper section of the lab, separating it from the observation room, was white with spider cracks. Apparently it had been reinforced class, the observers wanting some protection from the observed. She could see what happened to the observers now.

Like Felicia.

She wiped her little hands on her hospital gown. She grown up with almost daily blood tests so the sight of the red stuff didn't bother her. She was aware that other six year old girls might cry at having their hands slick with blood, but not her.

If there had been bodies, it might have bothered her, but the bodies had all gone away. Perhaps there were still parts on the heaps along the walls, but in the dark she couldn't make them out. There was blood beyond the few splatters that hit her hands and face. Blood on the walls and glass. Large smears and fine mist sprays. Abstractly she knew that this was what was left of the staff. Dr. Swanson, who had always encouraged Felicia to think of as "mom," had been standing right in front of her when Felicia had exerted. So that particularly large splotch on the wall directly opposite Felicia was probably Dr. Swanson.

Felicia had liked Dr. Swanson well enough. But she had had enough this morning. She didn't want another of those big needles stuck into her brain. She hated that. It didn't really hurt, but it made it hard to think and left her nauseous. If there was one thing that Felicia hated it was throwing up. So she had just pushed her brain harder then she had before. She couldn't remember a time when she couldn't push her thoughts out and touch objects and stuff with them. She understood that the doctors and the observers (who would come and watch her during test and never speak to her directly) couldn't do it. She assumed that when you became big and grew up that you couldn't do it anymore. But that couldn't explain why all the adults in her life, the only people in her life, only seemed to care about this ability.

One of the computer like things that they always attached to her head lay on its side, its screen scattered, and it was blocking the doors. She climbed over it, being careful not to step on glass or get her flimsy gown caught on anything, and pushed out into the hall. The lights were on here but flickering irregularly. There was very little noise. No sounds of people. No people.

Then she saw it. One of the men who wore the dark uniforms and the guns at their hips and were always talking into walkiie talkies, lay slumped against the wall. Behind his head was painted red with blood. Felicia stared for a bit. She knew that this should be upsetting. But it wasn't. It was just a body. Bodies can't hurt you.

She walked through the halls and saw more bodies and more blood. Soon she stopped even thinking it was odd. She passed the little room that she had grown up in. Felicia considered going in and getting one or two of her favorite toys, the few things in her world that had not, in some way, been cold and distant. But she decided she didn't need them any more. Her head was feeling better. Better than it had ever before. She moved on.

Felicia didn't stop at "Testing Rooms." She had spent too much of her short life in those rooms, being run through test after test. "Felicia, can you make the ball roll?" "Felicia, can you lift the block in the air?" "Felicia, can you make the water a bit warmer?" And she could. But it would go on for hours. She also learned quickly that if she did it with ease, it just meant they pushed her harder. And it meant more needles in her head. So she had been holding back, making it look more difficult than it was. If it looked like it was making her tired they often let her go back to her room.

But today she had walked into the room, still sleepy. They had asked her to move a chair across the floor. She hadn't been thinking, wasn't even really listening to them, and was cranky about being woken up from a dream where she was playing with other little girls. Without any effort she lifted the chair up in the air, spun it around and slammed it into the wall. The doctors had been so excited. Dr. Swanson had hugged her and said, "I love you so much!" And then taken her directly to the lab and started preparing the needles.

It felt like she was walking for hours and was just thinking she'd would be lost in the halls forever when she pushed through a door and into daylight. Felicia shielded her eyes from the morning sun and felt its warmth through her gown and on her bare backside. After her eyes adjusted, she saw that she was in a parking lot. A car had crashed into a lamp post, its driver limp over the steering wheel.

Felicia walked up to the car and look at her face in the side mirror. The star bruises were really big a purple. And pretty. She liked them and hoped they'd never go away. They didn't hurt this time.

Walking out of the lot and into the street, she wondered that the city was a lot quieter than they were on the television shows. Somewhere distant an alarm was screeching. She didn't like the noise, so she shut her eyes and pushed and somewhere there was an explosion and the noise stopped.

There were more bodies but that was just how the world was now.

Felicia began to walk gingery down the street. "Damn," she thought. "I should have gotten my shoes." But she figured she could find some new ones. That and some other little girls to play with.

Movie: Daybreak

Ah, yes. Everything in my being says this should be horrible and yet it is right down my alley.

News: Ray Bradbury hates the interwebs

"Yahoo called me eight weeks ago," [Bradbury] said. "They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? 'To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.'

"It's distracting," he continued. "It's meaningless; it's not real. It's in the air somewhere."

(via scifi wire via Geekologie)

Clip: Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?

Toy: Four Minfigs of the ApocaLEGO

From Brothers Brick, tag ApocaLEGO.

If you have ANY interest in LEGO, check out the rest of their posts.

Image: Liquid mushroom cloud

Image: When mother died

A Softer World (because it too small to read here).

While we're on the topic of zombie, please go read Disney Zombies.  It is awesome.

Movie: 9

If Tim Burton were to make a CG post-apocalyptic steampunkish version of The Borrowers, it would be 9.  It is Tim Burton produced but is directed by Shane Acker.  And in incredible voice cast:  Elija Wood, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Christopher Plummer.

The clip below was shown at ComicCon (I believe).  It is a full sequence, so you might consider it a SPOILER.

Untitled Zombie Novel Excerpt: ZOO

"I thought you said it didn't affect animals!" Phil screamed as he held the doors shut against the headbutts of the beast. "That's what you said!"

Dr. Belaus was already scanning the gardening shed for weapons. "It never had before," she stated in her always calm voice that annoyed the fuck out of Phil. "Fascinating. It may be a new strain. I don't know. This changes a lot." Belaus found what she was looking for on the bottom shelf of a work bench in the back of the shed.

"You think?! Because those are god damn undead giraffes! Giraffes!" Phil put his back into the doors and tried to reach an arm out to a rake to put through the handles and hold them shut. "Some help, Doctor?" Right then the doors stopped thumping.

Phil took the opportunity to quickly lean forward, grab the rake and lock the doors. He stopped moving, listen through the thin wood walls of the shed. He could hear the clop clop of the long legs of the giraffes outside. He looked around the shed for weakness. Belaus's back was to him at the workbench, fiddling with something. Then he saw the shelving until up against the wall. It was not the unit that made him panic. It was the small dirt covered window behind it.

"Shit!" He ran to the shelves and tried to see outside. The window was seven feet up and only slim light was filter through the dust. He couldn't make anything out at first and stood on the bottom shelf to bring his head to the windows height. He could make out movement.

The glass suddenly shattered and Phil tumbled backward has the shelves toppled over on top of him. The rotting giraffe head pushed in on it's lanky rank neck. It tried to bend down and bit at him, snapping its narrow mouth and broad herbivore teeth. It couldn't quite get to him due to the angle of the window the shelves, but Phil was also trapped.

He tried to get a hand around to the large hunting knife on his belt, the the shelves were pinning his arm. "Belaus! Fuck! Help!"

He heard her almost mumble, "Yes, yes," and then heard two chokes of a small motor attempting to start. Then the loud roar and the buzz of a chainsaw. The doctor had a small chainsaw in her hands.

"Yes! Kill this fucker!" Phil yelled as viscera of the giraffe's mouth and rotting face dripped into his face,

"I can't get a good angle on the head. It's moving too much and I worry and hurting you. Mmmm."

"Do something!"

Belaus moved long the neck, at seven feet of which stretched into the room and up to the window. With a surgeons precision she maneuvered the whirring chainsaw through the neck. It fell free from the body and from the window. Phil shoved the shelves up and rolled out from underneath them. The neck was still moving, like a mad stiff snake, still trying to get at Phil.

"Ah," declared Belaus. "Perhaps I should have but cut so low."

"You fucking think?!" Phil grabbed the first thing he could get to: a ten pound sledge hammer. He slammed his foot on the neck just below the head to hold it still and raised the sledge above his head. He brough it down with al his force, splattering his legs with giraffe skull and flesh.

Belaus was looking out the window. "Phillip, we may have a problem." Over the noise of the chainsaw Phil heard it: a wet trumpet-like roar, unmistakably the angry cry of an elephant.

MAD?

Mad? Perhaps. Perhaps I am. Or, perhaps, it is you who are mad, trapped in your small minded world or “ethics” and “morals.” I scoff at those ideas! Science is about pure thought making the impossible possible. I do not “break the laws of nature.” I make the laws!

Yes yes. The consequences of my genetic experiments were unfortunate. But do we not live in a more exciting world now? My bearsharkhawks fill the skies with their majestic cries. It they feed on children too careless to look up occasionally, how can that be blamed on me?

And I ended the death of soldiers with my perfection of the Slaughterbots. All world governments purchased them. What they did with them was not my concern. I am about the science! If Europe is overrun by my designed machines, destroying everything in their path, that is just a testament to their effectiveness.

Cheap power! Limitless! That was me. ME! Tapped directly into the sun with my Solar Probes. You rejoiced. All of you! And now you complain that I lied, that it turns out the sun will be sucked dry in thirty years. I did not lie! There are other stars to be utilized, you short sighted fools!

This? What is this with the red numbers counting down? Just an intellectual exercise put into practice. It will create a temporal collapse, erasing the very element of time. What? Doomsday device?! Poppycock? How can there be a doomsDAY device if the concept of time is destroyed? There will be no more time. Of course it will work! That's why I made it – to see if I could! It is about the science, the pure pursuit of knowledge!

Death? I scoff at the concept! My immortality is assured by my genius, regardless if you small minded people are around to give witness to it! Think upon that for the next thirteen seconds.

BLOCKED

His pen stopped moving and He lay it down. He rubbed his temples. He looked at the stack of pages he had already written and then down at the blank page before Him. He cracked His knuckles and picked up His pen and hovered. Then He put it back down, stood up and walked around the room.

He had a snack. He took a shower. He read the newspaper and an old book for a bit.

A nap didn't help. Nor did going for a long walk. He tried to paint for a bit and listen to music.

Finally He had to admit it. He was blocked. Completely and entirely blocked.

It has started so well. Compelling, fast paced.

But over the pages it had just gotten too convoluted. He had written Himself into a hole. So many plot inconsistencies, too many improbably events. Way too many characters. He was stuck with the Story and had not idea how to get out. He might be able to fix it with editing but the idea of doing that just made His head hurt. Probably best to trash it and start over.

No. It might be salvageable. Someday. After he had finished another project.

He boxed up the pages and placed the boxes on a shelf in the top of the closet.

He sat back at the desk and pulled out a blank sheet of paper. Picking the pen back up, feeling excited again to be starting something new, open to infinite possibilities. He had liked the way the last one had started, perhaps. Something like that. He put the pen to the page and wrote.

In the beginning...

WE HAVE COME FOR YOUR WOMEN

“We have come for your women,” said the alien emissary.

It was tall and lanky with limbs disturbingly spindly. Humanoid but hairless with large solid black eyes and skin a sickly pale green riddled with deep blue veins that appeared to slowly shift configuration. Its mouth was lipless and ran vertically from just below the eyes to almost the tip of the chin. It wore long robes of crimson.

The gathered leaders of the world (or what remained) gasped. This was the first time they had met the aliens face to face. Only nine days earlier, they had arrived in orbit in their massive crafts, hundreds of ships. Earth had reached out, trying in anyway to communicate. But after twenty-four hours the aliens had attacked without any warning.

Large of rocks, that the aliens had cut from the moon, were shot from kinetic accelerators, striking all across the globe. The choice of target confounded military leaders. Some made sense, symbolically at least. The White House. The Kremlin. Buckingham Palace. Others were more confusing. Sears Tower. The Taj Mahal. Mount Rusher. The Eiffel Tower. Burj Dubai. Disneyworld and Disneyland. Millions died in the first night, not just from the attacks but the panic that followed.

Missiles were launched and within seconds were cut from the sky by beams of blue light that sliced through the clouds. The same blue beams began to dicethe wings any airplanes in the sky. And then ship at sea. And then vehicles on the roads. For one two hour period on the third day, the blue lights began to hit every red and blue vehicle, be it military or civilian, from baby blue U.N. APVs to racing red Honda Accords. The lights danced upon the globe avoiding anything that was not red or blue.

The military bases of the world seemed to be left relatively untouched at first. Then there was an almost subsonic hum at Camp Pendleton and with in minutes the marines there began to attack each other using what ever weapon was closest to them. This spread across the world for half a day and then ended as suddenly as it began.

On the fourth day, the aliens began to land. They descended on spiky black ships, spiny spiders of obsidian. Each the size of a ten story building, they strode through the streets on five taloned legs that cratered the ground with every step. Rag tag groups of humans all over the world attempted to fight them off, but their weapons were useless. The black walkers seemed to toy with them, remaining unmoving, absorbing a dozen hits by shoulder launched rockets and tank cannon shells, before suddenly into movement, chasing down every single person who had hit them.

On the sixth day, the attacks all stopped and the aliens had broadcast a message. “We wish to meet with your leaders. You may travel freely for three days.” Coordinates were given in the Gobi Desert. The people of Earth, what remained of their governments, knew they had no choice. The aliens weren't specific so anyone who thought of themselves as a “leader” and couple arrange travel went.

The aliens had built a giant amphitheater in the desert, plain and utilitarian. A fifty thousand humans sat to hear their fate.

“We have come from your women,” the alien said.

Gasps and screams and murmurs and howls and shouts and crying followed. The alien, aloe in the center of the amphitheater waited unmoving. Eventually he touched his long fingers to the podium and a sub-hum cascaded through the humans forcing them to clutch their heads in pain. The hum passed and the alien pointed to one man near the front. “Ask your questions.”

The man stood, nervous to be the speaker for Earth. But he pulled himself together.

“Our women? Why? To experiment? As slaves? Or to breed with them? Is that it? Or as slaves? Or food?”

The alien pulled back in what was clearly shock.

“What? Experiment? Do we look like scientists? Have you not seen our behavior since we got here? And do you really think we'd have sex with you guys? That is just gross. And eat? That's sick.”

The alien leaned forward, his hand on the sides of the podium. “No. See, we're all guys. Do you know what it is like when it is all guys for an extended period of time. Things get out of hand. I mean, look at the last week! We just start breaking stuff. Everything becomes a... I believe the human phrase is 'pissing contest.' We're sorry about all that. We had been on a bender and things got out of hand. Sorry about being such, who do you say, douche bags Seriously, without some female influence we're just going to get in more trouble. Look, we don't wanna force anyone to come with us. We just don't want to be jerks.”

FRIDAY DINNER

"I hope you all don't mind but I tried something new." Fredrick was almost bubbly this evening as he placed the plates of food before us. It was slow going because he only had the one arm and his prosthetic right leg below the knew was just a touch too short. "I experimented with the White #16 and Yellow #5 to make a something like mashed potatoes. I think they came out pretty well. Not that I can actually remember what potatoes even tasted like." Fredrick laughed and everyone else politely laughed along with him. Except me. I wasn't in the mood to laugh.

Out of the five of us, Fredrick was the best cook and, as always, he managed to make the processed "food" elements that gave us most of our nutrients into something that actually looked like food. And since it was Friday night, we were actually having our special dinner with real meat. And, in spite of myself, it smelled delicious.

Jessica looked done at the thin slices. "Barbecue? You made barbecue sauce?"

Fredrick sat down and tucked his clothe napkin into the front of his shirt. Something about that felt vulgar to me. Tacky. Disrespectful. "Yep. Not only that but...." With a flourish, he removed the lid from ceramic dish on the table to reveal a thick brown fluid.

Peter leaned over and stuck the tip of his pinkie in it and stuck it in his mouth to taste. I restrained the need to wince. "Gravy!"

"Yes," said Fredrick with obvious pride. "Yeah, I know that barbecue and gravy don't really go together but I thought it might make the potatoes feel more like potatoes." And with that he took a large spoonful and dripped it unto the mound of white on his plate.

Looking at the four of them, I could see the anticipation and hunger in their eyes as they readied themselves to dig in. We rarely stood on any sort of ceremony but this was Friday night dinner. Fredrick was staring at me with that stupid grin on his face. In someways, I was glad that he was to cook tonight since I knew the meal would be excellent. But it irked me the joy he took in it. Cooking Friday dinner always bothered the rest of us but not Fredrick.

The others awkwardly avoided my gaze which also made me mad. I suppose it was a no win for them and me. I looked down at my plate, both ravenous and nauseous. The meat looked so delicious, lined with crispy fat and red with juices. My stomach ached at the smell but my head rebelled at the thought.

Fredrick coughed. I looked up at his questioning but smiling face. I knew he didn't mean it, but I felt like I was being mocked. I took a deep breath, knowing my roll. "We thank you, Fredrick, for preparing tonight's meal," I said in measured tones.

He, in response, said brightly, "And we thank you, Noah, for providing it." And with that they began eat.

We rationed the food substitutes we had slowly, keeping ourselves alive a long as possible. We had no idea what we might be waiting for since we hadn't had contact with anyone in months and were isolated. The last communication we'd had was jumbled and confused. We could only guess when (or if ever) they'd be able to mount a rescue. After six months, we'd realized that there was a gap in the nutrients, some type of protein we weren't getting. So we'd come up with this solution.

I suppose it was an extra special Friday. When our turn came up, we got to chose what got provided for the meal. And I, unlike Fredrick, was not ready to give up an arm yet. So this was our first thigh as my shins had been offered up on my previous turns. I knew that the extra meat made this a large meal. And all that fat rendered down made the gravy possible.

The pain from the surgery still hurt. I looked down at the bandages just below my right hip, where my leg had been just 24 hours before. I refused to take any more painkillers because if I was going to have this meal, I wanted to be able to at least taste it since we had so few pleasures.

I pushed past my disgust and cut a piece of the succulent me. Speared it with my fork, I slowly drew it to my mouth and held me on my tongue.

One week in and we might have structure

I wasn't sure how I would tackle this project but it is starting to take shape.

Monday: A repost of a story done on my other blog.  I only did ten, so that will only be the case for a few months.

Tuesday thru Thursday: New single stories.  Some may end up being extremely short  All depends on my mood.

Friday: A new except from the zombie novel.  To be clear, I haven't actually written the novel.  At this point it is just a random collection of scenes in my head.  I also need a title for it.  It will probably not stay a pure zombie novel.  Other horror lurk in the streets.

Saturday and Sunday: Random apocalypse related links and such.  Not all weekends, just when I have something.

Also, if there are any guest writers out there, shoot me a line.  Always up for stuff that will give me a break.

Movie: Zombieland

I am not sure if we need another comedy zombie film.  Shaun of the Dead pretty much nailed it.

Part of it is that zombies are never about the zombies but about how people deal with it.  And they are something that normal people can deal with.  Zombies are dumb and (usually) slow.  You don't ned fancy weapons or planning.  Anything with an edge.  Also zombie movies are cheap to make (relatively).  Slap some makeup on and you have a zombie.

And they give a guiltless excuse to kill people in fanciful ways.  Because they are already dead.

I feel a bit bad for Jesse Eisenberg since he is going too be know as "the guy who isn't Micheal Cera."

(Note:  I still think there is room for a comedy zombie apocalypse tv series.  I still want Eliza Skinner to make it.  In part because I want to see what I look as a zombie.  In fact, I love playing zombies.  I will GLADLY play a zombie in any project anyone has.  Actually, now that I think of it, I will play any sort of mindless killing monster in any project any one has.)

Comic: xkcd - Apocalypse

Link.

Okay. This is clear some sort of math in joke. I have no idea what it means. Paul Erdõs is the punch line. I am sure it is hilarious. If anyone can explain it to me, great!

News: NASA to blow up moon.

Link.

Not the plan but you know how these things go.

LCROSS may be one of NASA's most participatory missions. If the spacecraft launches on schedule at 12:51 p.m. Wednesday, it would hit the moon in the early morning hours of Oct. 8. The cloud from the 350 metric tons of debris kicked up by the Centaur booster should spread six miles above the surface of the moon, hitting the sunlight and making it visible to amateur astronomers across North America. The space agency is enlisting telescopes around the country to help monitor the impact.

The idea is to see if there is water on the moon.  In the moon.  Whatever.  Shoot a rocket into the moon, blast material six miles up, see what's in it.

This is a bit like when I lose my keys and throw everything in my room into the air.

Good luck, NASA.

(via Geekologie)

Theater: The End of the World

Chances are if you are reading this, you've seen me plug thisa dozen dozen times.  But I am pretty proud to be involved with it so here it goes again.

The End of the World is an improvised apocalypse.  The show is split into two roughly 25 minute halves.  The first half, based off a single suggestion, starts at an apocalyptic moment and then goes back to the see the events the led up to it, and then ends with the moment again. The second half is a single long post-apocalyptic scene based on the events of the first half.

Only two more chances to catch it. June 23rd and 30th. 11pm.
Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. 307 26th Street. NYC. $5.

Clip: Hey!

(via Geekologie)

Movie: 2012

The new trailer for Ronald Emmerich's 2012 was released. am sure you are familar with Emmeric's work. Independence Day. Godzilla. The Day After Tomorrow. Master of the stupid disater movie. Master. His movies are made to make excellent trailers. And, yes, we absolutely need more movies with aircraft carriers flipping on top of the White House.

God bless you, Ronald Emmerich.

Untitled Zombie Novel Excerpt: SHAFT

(Fridays will be random excepts from a novel I have never written. It's mainly an excuse for me to write cool zombies scenes without ever having to write the boring parts.)

Jeremy and Catherine finished blocking the doors to the stairwell. Desks, filing cabinets, a broom handle through the handles. The three zoms continued to bang against the doors, moans in hunger but the barricade would hold.

Wiping the sweat from her forehead Catherine said, “We need to find a way down, Jeremy. It's only a mater of time before a swarm forms. If they surround the building–”

“I know, damn it!” Jeremy checked his revolver. Only four rounds. “How many shotgun shells do you have left.

Catherine didn't even bother checking. “Two loaded. Two here, “ she said tapping her pants pocket.

They had wasted way too much ammo in getting down from the top floor. They'd been careless and stupid, thinking they could get up to the penthouse and back down without attracting the dead. But they had wasted to much time and the zoms had caught their scent and flanked them. They gotten to the stairs and down to the 8th floor before getting routed. They had more ammo back at Haven but that did them crap all good now.

“The elevator shaft,” he said.

Catherine didn't wait and quickly moved down the hallway to the elevator doors. She pulled out her small pry bar and jammed into between the doors. “Jer, we're going to need something to jam them open. He nodded and moved back into the offices and scavenged, eventually finding a tall metal trash can Catherine was bracing the doors open with her arms and legs when he got back. He placed the can between the doors on the floor.

Stretching and cracking her joints, Catherine peered down the shaft. The only light came from the doors they stood in and that was becoming dimmer by the moment. Twilight had hit. Soon it would be night and they'd be down the flashlights. If they didn't get to street level before too long into night they would have a whole other host of issue to deal with. Neither of them were priests (or shamans or whatever). They'd be open targets for the shadow beasties.

Catherine turned slipped on her headlamp, a small LED flashlight on an elastic band. She scanned the shaft, but even though the headlamp was surprisingly bright, it didn't cast it down more than a couple of floor. Jeremy squeezed his torso over her. It was tight, the doors only open by about 3 feet. He silently pointed to the metal ladder that ran next to the shaft. Catherine nodded.

The wet moan was loud and right behind Jeremy. He spun around to come face to face as the decayed zom in a ratty business suit fell upon him, pushing Jeremy back into Catherine. She had been quicker to respond then him and had already spun around and pulled up the shotgun. But she was trapped between Jeremy and the shaft. When he fell into her, she stumble backwards over the trash can She dropped the shotgun free, which luckily was still on it's shoulder strap, and shot her hands out to the edges of the elevator doors barely stopping her fall.

Jeremy had to use both hands to hold the zom back. He regained his balance, braced against the door and shoved hard. The zom stumbled back a few feet. Jeremy reached for his machete at his waste, but it the time it took him to pull it out, the zom had begun to lunge for. Jeremy dodge to the side, swinging the blade wildly. He caught the zom in the stomach with a great horizontal gash, spinning the zom slightly.

Catherine had just begun to pul herself forward when the zoms plowed into her, sending the both in the shaft. Jeremy dropped the machete, dove forward and trust his arm through the doors. He made contact and grasped.

Everything had happened so quickly and Catherine's headlamp was blinding him at first so it took him a second to process the situation. Jeremy was leaning forward, his stomach laying across the trash can. His left hand was braced against the elevator door and his right hand held a wrist. The wrist of the zom. The zom's hand gripped at his wrist, but was tried to claw at his skin. Catherine had her arms wrapped around the zom's waist. Jeremy could see that she was slipping on the lose clothes and loose decaying skin.

The zom was trying to pull itself up to Jeremy, its mouth biting in desire. Jeremy's arm strained against the weight of two bodies and felt the rotting flesh of the wrist slide in his hand. He tightened his grip, digging into the bone. The zom didn't care. It just want to eat and kept trying to pull closer to him while clawing with the other arm. If Jeremy tried to pull the zom and Catherine up, he'd just pull the zom into his own face. Not that he was sure he could lift both their weight. The zom might weigh a lot less than a normal adult but she was trying to lift Catherine's 150lbs plus the zom's probably 100lbs with one arm.

“You have to climb up,” he yelled, knowing this meant she's have to climb over the zom's head.

“I'm trying! Shoot it!”

“I go for my gun, I drop you both!”

Catherine threw up one hand and grabbed the zom's shoulder tight by the neck so it wouldn't be able to bite at her fingers. It seemed totally unaware of her, fixated as it was on Jeremy. She dug her fingers deep in the zom's flesh, getting a firm grip on the collar bone. Taking a deep breath, she let her other arm go from the zom's waist and tried to pull her self up with a quick jerk.

At that moment moment the zom pulled sharply against Jeremy's arm. The shock load of all the weigh shift caused the joints and tendons in the zom's elbow to popped and begin to separate. Jeremy had just enough time to let go of the elevator door with his left hand and force his toro deeper down the shaft, grasping madly. He grabbed the zom's other (and now only remaining arm) with his left hand. The zom jerked out of free fall and against Catherine's weight. Quickly he dropped the now unconnected forearm in his right hand and grasped it around the zom's arm.

The the split second of falling and the jerk to a stop, Catherine had struggle to keep hold on the zom. She fumble down and around the zom, desperate for a hand hold. When everything came to a rest, she realized she had one hand deep inside the zom's abdomen, in the gash Jeremy had sliced. Her hand has wrapped around a piece of intestine.

And it began to unravel.

(to be continued)

UMPTEEN

“They will make us gods,” science declared
Nano robots, miniscule umpteen
Finessing matter, leaving unimpaired,
Replicating swiftly and unseen.

They've one desire on their tiny minds,
To reproduce and legion become.
Much too late did we heed all the signs
Our creation had grown to such a sum.

You can not parley with things so small
Who only want to eat all that exists.
Man's hubris is what led us to fall.
No one will be left to reminisce.

What we have wrought we can not now undo.
All that is left is an Earth of grey goo.

(editing help from Nicole Drespel)

WEIGHT

The last of the other pilots was gone. Only Benjamin remained.

He woke up and climbed from the pod. Not that he was ever not “awake” now, even in the pod. But the ship's system insisted on taking him out of stasis. They thought it would mitigate the effects to get up and move around and not just be plugged in. But now, surround by twenty-three “dead” pods, it just reminded him of how alone he was.

Alone. Funny to feel so alone knowing that the ship carried a hundred thousand people. But they were just cargo now and would be until they arrived at their destination. If only he knew where, and win, that would be.

They'd had very little warning. Less then ten years. The Sun would flare and make Earth's solar system would be become uninhabitable. For the human race to survive, they would have to find a new system, a new planet.

There was panic and war, but during it all a plan was put forth. The ship was built to travel. But it was unknown if a habitable planet would be found on the first try. They had enough fuel to get there. But it would take over 40 years to get to the nearest system with the highest probability of sustaining life.. If they got there and nowhere suitable was found, the ship would gather more fuel and materials and set off to another system.

They had to plan for trip that might take hundreds of years. Or more. The speeds achieved, while great, were still much slower to take much advantage of time dilation. To achieve such speeds would use too much fuel.

The ship was designed to run itself. It could self-repair and everything was automated. The “passengers” could be placed in a dreamless stasis, fully unaware of time passing. But choices would have to be made. The computer, as advanced as it was, still needed to be monitored. Too much was at stake.

Benjamin stretched. When he placed his hand on the side on the pod it left a streak in a thin film of dust. No matter how good the filtration system were, dust material still gathered. It had been 3 years since any of the pilots had woken. Benjamin checked the records and saw that it had been 2 years since the cleaning robot had been through the cabin. With a few quick flicks of his finger on a monitor he initiated a scrubbing sequence. He would have done it even if the cabin had been clean. He liked there to be movement around him. He missed movement.

Massive leaps in technology were made in a very short time to make the ship possible, but there was not enough time to fully test everything. You can't test run a mission that would last so long. Simulations could be run, but there was a limitation to what could be predicted. Especially concerning the human mind.

The solution to the pilot problem was to place people in stasis physically but to keep them aware. Their bodies unmoving and unaging but their minds tied into ships systems, overseeing it all. No dreaming, no sleep, but mentally one with the ship.

They knew this would take a toll on the mind of the pilots, to be isolated yet aware for so much time, for an indefinite time. Even during the few short years of testing the system, many pilots cracked in training. The system was improved but could never be perfected. Madness would overcome almost everyone eventually.

Benjamin walked to the pilot's chair and sat down. He ran his eyes over the monitors. He was already aware of exactly what he'd see. He's been plugged into the system only minutes before. The pilot's chair and cockpit were unneeded but the designers put it in anyway. It gave the pilots a sense of control, made them feel less like parts of just a system.

Even though he knew it what it would say, Benjamin check the radiation outside the ship. It was clear and safe. He flicked his fingers and lowered the shield on the small clear window. He could have viewed it on the screens but he wanted to see it, like he always did, with his own eyes. Again, the window wasn't needed for any reason except to make the pilots feel more like pilots.

Twenty-four pilots were selected. The best and most mentally stable that could be found. They would operate in six month shifts, two pilots at a time. The other twenty-two pilots would slip into full-stasis, resting their brains and lessening the time they'd have to be aware. Two pilots to keep each other company, to be a team. Out of every six years, each pilot would be “awake” for only six months.

And so many pilots would operate as backups. Because they could never test the system fully.

The shielding slipped away and Benjamin shut of the cabin lights and dimmed the monitors. But outside was just black and distant stars. The window faced forward and Benjamin new one of the stars was their next destination. If he gave it much though, he could probably figure out which. There was little point. The ship knew where they were going. It always knew.

He moved his fingers across the monitors and brought up cameras from the outside of the ship. It was massive and utilitarian, with little attention to aesthetics. So much metal and plastics and ceramics. A huge ark carrying the human race. It was too large, too heavy, to every enter the atmosphere of a planet. If they ever found a suitable one.

The first pilot cracked only three weeks in his shift. Too much responsibility, too much grief over the billions left behind. The second pilot lasted for 17 years before breaking. The rest stayed stable.

Until they reached the first system after more than four decades. Nothing would suit their needs. The ship gathered material from the planets and asteroids in the system, refilling and repairing. After a year, the ship departed again. Two months, to the day, into the first shift, both pilots cracked. They awoke fully from their pods and committed suicide together.

The ship had a”awoken” Benjamin and his partner, Nathan, as they were up next. It informed them of what had happened. The bots and cleaned up after and disposed of the bodies.

Nathan had lasted 23 more years. More pilots would go. More systems would be visited, reaped and left behind.

They were now on there way to their thirty-second system. Thirty-one systems had been dead. The ship still functioned as new, but six hours ago Cassandra had slipped into madness. She and Benjamin has swapped six months shifts for over fifty years. And now Benjamin was the last pilot.

He shut the monitors back down and closed the shielding. He walked back to the pods and found Cassandra's. He couldn't remember her face. They had never been out of their pods at the same time and the last time he'd seen her was before the ship left Earth's orbit. Now she lay in full stasis. There she'd wait until Benjamin could deliver them to somewhere to make a home. A hundred-thousand souls, all relying on him and only him. He would only age for the few shorts hours he left the pod every few decades. The rest of the time he'd remain in sleeplessness, constant aware of the ship and it's status.

Now it was all on him.

WISHES

They sat on the beach, looking up at the night sky. The shooting star was bright and brilliant, glowing not only white but oranges and reds and blues.

“I know you aren't supposed to say it out loud but I want to tell you my wish,” he whispered into her ear as he took her hand. “But I already got my wish. To be with you, here tonight. To feel your touch and hear your voice. To be able to look into your eyes and feel so close with you. I couldn't dream of a better night. I can't wish for anything better.” He sighed and kissed her sweetly on the lips.

She stared back at him and then back at the sky and then back at him.

She sighed and spoke. “I fucking wish that wasn't a giant meteor about kill us all. I mean, jesus, you are such a sap.”

THE BOOK

In what may have been the worst case of miss shelving in the history of time, the book was placed in the children's section of the Greylock Public Library. Somehow it ended up slipped in between National Velvet & The Neverending Story, which is curious since the book gives no indication of its title. How it end up at the Greylock branch at all is curious as well. There are only so many copies and most are guarded extremely closely by their owners. But the copies of the book have been known to surface in odd places at odd time, so it is not without precedence. And this was one of those small Massachusetts's sea towns where these sorts of things seemed to happen. It may have even been by design.

Young Nicolas Brogan felt drawn to the book. The unadorned leather binding, the deep brown stains in one corner. The rough edges of the pages. The tattered red silk ribbon bookmark. The rusted metal clasp. It was a bit over sized but not to stand out amongst many of the children's books. It was perhaps thick, but it was not a complete edition of the book at only 400 some pages. (The last know complete edition, John Dee's flawed translation from the 1603, ran over a thousand, if accounts are to be believed.) What decided it for Nicolas was the short glance at the inside. The chaotic drawings and mess of words. And especially the hand written notes filling the margins, scribbled in at least a dozen different hands. He was good reader for an eight year old but many of the word, even the letters themselves, were foreign to him. But fragments could be deciphered. On the top of one page, someone had written in a shaky letters

That is not dead which can eternal lie.

And with strange aeons even death may die.

Nicolas knew it wasn't a normal book.

The librarian paid little attention to what was being checked out. She scanned the barcode taped to the spine (which, oddly enough, came up as The Places You'll Go) and sent him on his way. Nicolas' mom was distracted by the fact that her Pilate's class had been cancelled and only asked him if he had found something interesting. "Uh huh," mumbled Nicolas, clutching the volume to his chest. She left it at that as she juggled driving and texting and wonder what the hell she was going to make for dinner.

Late that night, Nicolas huddled under his covers with a flashlight and flipped through the book. It made little sense to him but the drawing were neat: animals and creatures; men and women doing things he only had a vague notion were naughty; lines and curves; knifes and swords. Nicolas wanted more than anything to understand but the words seemed to scuttle across the page. But he was a determined young boy.

The book, of course, has driven men mad. Just reading it can open one's mind to horrors beyond horrors. Perhaps the fact that Nicolas had so little experience of the world to place it in context shielded him from having his reality ripped inside out. Or perhaps it is that a child's mild is ready to accept anything, has not been made rigid by years, that it was no different from believing that the worlds of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings could be real. The hows and whys are not important. The facts are that Nicolas Brogan focused his entire attention on the pages and managed to sound out words that had not been spoken in decades.

Through random circumstances everything was aligned that night. It was the right time of year and the right stars were in their right positions in the sky. The elements of the ritual just happened to be amongst the things an eight year old boy collects on his journeys through the neighborhood: an old coin (that happened to bare the likeness of Emperor Septimius Severus and had last been owned by a lady of the night); the skull of a bird (that had happened to drown in the first rain of Spring); a stone in the shape of a heart; an iron spike (that happened to have been driven into the lung of a police officer). The tooth beneath Nicolas pillow in fact covered at least three of the elements required, including "a sacrifice of one's own flesh." At the moment Nicolas finished whispering the words, his parents climaxed together in joyless copulation in the room below him.

A ritual that many before had failed at before him, that had destroyed souls and shattered minds, was complete to perfection by Nicolas Brogan under his Transformer sheets.

Nicolas pushed his head out from the covers at the silent tearing sound. The air at the end of his bed split and cracked and opened up. It opened up into the depth of the nothingness beyond our world, a void that sunk into infinite abyss. A chaos of black could be glimpsed. Great globes of of light approached the opening. Surrounding the globes were tendrils of amorphous black flesh, blood and pain, flowed and crept from the nearest globes as they broke apart. In time primal, the eldritch, hideous horror of the realm of The Old Ones, the monstrous noxious form of the formless, drew itself towards our world. And a voice of a thousand souls immortal, murderous and vile, frothed and spit and addressed the wide eyed Nicolas.

"You call me, the Lurker of the Threshold, into your world. I am Yog-Sothoth. All-in-one. One-in-all. Yog-Sothoth is the gate and the gate is Yog-Sothoth. Time is nothing to me as I am all time. Into your world Yog-Sothoth spews and the era have man shall end. That is the trade. Infinite knowledge for my passage to the realm of flesh. All that has been known and all that has never been known and all that shall been know has been tasted in Yog-Sothoth's maw. You call me and that knowledge is yours to be had. Power and suffering beyond measure. All you have to do is say the words, but, be warned! For this knowledge can–"

"Am I getting a Wii for Christmas?"

The formless thing stopped moving at the edge of the opening. A silence stretched into the emptiness. Nicolas has shifted out from the covers, the book still in his hands, and sat bouncing on his knees at head of his bed.

Yog-Sothoth remained unmoving. Slowly it opened its maws and slithered, "Um... What?"

Nicolas picked at his nose and said, "You know everything, right? I really want a Wii and I didn't get one for my birthday so I really really want on for Christmas. Am I going to get one?"

Yog-Sothoth shifted slightly. "The secrets of the universe are open to you... and you want to know... if you are getting a... Wii... for Christmas?"

"Yes. If you don't know just say so."

"I am Yog-Sothoth, All-in-One, One-in—"

"You said that part."

"Okay, yes. You are getting a Wii. Your dad hid it in his closet above his ties."

"Sweet!"

The Lurker swelled again, it protoplasmic tendrils gripping at the edges of the rip. "Now! What other mysteries to you wish to have stabbed into you small mind, to be enlightened and blinded and–"

"Why did Sally throw a rock at me yesterday?"

"Look, there is so much–"

"And babies. Where do they come from? It has to do with s-e-x, right? Do you know where my G.I. Joe got lost? Why does orange juice taste weird right after I brush my teeth? Timothy said that dinosaurs are just birds, but he's a liar, right?"

"Well, I–"

"When can I have my own dog? I think I like Sally and Dad said she likes me too but it is stupid to throw rocks at someone you like, right? I am I going to be an astronaut? Are there really aliens in space?"

"Oh, oh. I know that one! In the great void, The Old Ones, the They, live and shall–"

"Why are tomatoes gross but not tomato sauce? Can you make ice cream with Twizzlers in it? Why do people have ear lobes? If Optimus Prime fought the Power Rangers who would win? What is better, burritos or pizza? Can you be an astronauts and NASCAR driver? How about Wolverine and Optimus Prime? Timothy said cooties are real, but they aren't, right? And–"

Yog-Sothoth had backed from the opening and was slowly closing it. The globes of light dimmed as if trying as unobtrusively as possible to slink from the room.

"Where are you going?"

"Well, you know, this is not really my... um... expertise. Really, kid, you should ask your parents. So I'm just gonna go."

"But..."

"Look. Try me in a few years, okay? I'm not going anywhere. Because, well, you know... All-in-one..."

"One-in-All..."

"Right! So... um... yeah."

And with that, the Lurker of the Threshold closed the porthole behind him. All that remained in Nicolas' room was the slight smell of fish and cobber.

Nicolas picked his nose again and thought for a few moments. Then, remembering that in just two months he would be opening a Wii under the Christmas tree, he crawled back under the sheets.

Later, the book fell between the foot of the mattress and the endboard and unto the floor under the bed. It would lay there, next to G.I. Joe for quite awhile.

5 days a week, a new end of it all

Starting on Monday, Apocalypse Daily will bring you a new story of how the world will end.  Monday thru Friday, one story.

Some will be longish.  Some super short.  Some will be reprints of stories I've written in other places.  Most will be totally new.

Coming Soon