Terminus: A Novella of the Apocalypse (4 page)

She also feels it.  She stuffs the remaining food and drink into her bag, knowing many days might pass before she can forage again, since Terminal gangs often settle into a place to clear it of remnant humanity unaligned with their cause.

They are curious animals, the Terminal.  Like us all, they experienced Terminus.  Unlike most of us, they never fully recovered.  Whether it be attributable to continuing effects of the Terminus agent or whether from psychological damage, either extant prior to Terminus or resultant from it, only one feature of the Terminal case remains constant:  violence.  It is their religion and their pastime.  It is their vocation and their avocation.  In its prosecution, they are avid and void of mercy, and because the world has run down to nothing they do it not for personal gain, wealth or fame.  They do it for fun.

By the time I finish thinking these thoughts, I have dressed.  Without running, since rapid, panicked motion will only draw their attention, I turn to take the shortest route off the street.  This leads me around behind the bench, through the landscaping of the homes fronting the church lane, and then into their abandoned rear lots.  Rusting playsets and forsaken gardens greet us there to remind us of children long since slain and of happier times never to return.

Indeed, in the backyard of the home on the right, its fence toppled by weather, I see a tall, sprawling oak tree.  Nailed to its trunk so her arms splay wide along its lower limbs, a woman’s corpse desiccates.  Shriveled and mummified, her head dangles from her shoulders, threatening to fall this year or next like a morbid apple left to rot where it hangs.  This is one of the most disconcerting aspects of the mass murder that was Terminus.  Too many corpses.  Not enough scavengers.  Where they are left in out of the way places, they linger, whole and unmolested, until they dry up and turn to leather.  Not even the flies can devour them all before the sun preserves them.

With a backward glance as I run, I verify The Girl’s continuing presence.  For whatever reason privy only to her, she has followed, her large, gaudy purse wrapped around her neck and shoulder.

Though she also glances behind her, she is not afraid.  Like me, she doesn’t really care if the killers follow or not.  Both ways, we are dead, and every survivor of Terminus knows dead-dead is preferable to alive-dead.  That hapless woman staked to the tree might be innocent or she might be guilty as sin.  She might have been a first to go, or she might have been slain by her neighbor after slaughtering her entire family.  No matter.  Her lifeless mind no longer squirms with the black, clotted thoughts of what happened during those dark days.  For her, it has ended.  For us, it goes on and on and on.

I had hoped The Priest might kill me.  That he failed only means I must find another.

Nevertheless, I do not prefer to end at the hands of a Terminal.  This must be a last resort, if only because it would negate all the years I spent surviving the end of the world while laboring to negate the psychological damage it did to me.  No, if I must go violently, then I want it to be done at the hands of a fellow survivor, someone who does it with a mind that is lucid and clear, with motivations that are pure and human and not borne of some unspeakable malady.  I want my death to be purposeful, rather than a mindless accident.

So I run.  So she runs.

Behind us from the street, we hear a loudspeaker.  “Little bird, little bird, where have you flown?  Have you squandered the sun’s riches?  Have you your nest firmly sewn?  Are you flitting in laughter from morn until eve, with no concern for what comes after all the hours you deceive?”  Now we hear the trucks’ motors roaring and transmissions grinding as they roll along the avenue before the burned-out cathedral.  “Little bird, little bird, what will you do?  Have you prepared for tomorrow?  Is it God’s work you pursue?  Or do you make wing for Satan to foreshadow his crawl, from one black heart to another, then from damnation to fall?”  We hear the press of booted feet hastening atop the pavement before the transports now.  Next, they stir through autumn’s rustling leaves in the yards we have just vacated to kick doorways and search for survivors within the attached homes.  “Little bird, little bird!  How I love you, you know!  You are both destination and byway!  You are the place I must go!  I seek you in sorrow, and I seek you in pain!  You are a crush of my palms until your blood falls like rain!”

After cautious glances both directions along the next street, we dash across, then through the final row of housing until we cross the next backyard to emerge on a long, straight train track now overgrown with weeds.  Another cautious check both ways, and we charge across this open space and into the dense line of saplings grown up on its far side.  Beyond this, we enter into an industrial sector of the city.  From the vantage of this low ridge, stretched before us we see an endless maze of warehouses and manufacturing plants, all fallen silent post-Terminus, but filled with shadows, cobwebs, and vermin.

Glancing backward just before we take the plunge into the tree-line, I see the lead truck idling in the gap between the first rows of dwellings, while the remaining vehicles park along both sides of the street.  The first one backs and turns, preparing to drive between the yards and follow our invisible footsteps.  I suspect they are using thermal technology to track us.  Before the vehicle, a horde of crazed monsters pours forth to give chase.  We might have a one minute lead on them.

I growl, “Hurry!”  I push her forward.

From the truck’s loudspeaker, a pinched male voice declares, “We are seeking The Scientist.  We know he came here last night to kill The Priest.  We know he is close.  The Clan offers a one-time amnesty for any miserable one of you who will betray him.  This means one passage through our ranks in any direction you want to go.”  The voice chuckles blackly.  “Of course, if we catch you again on another day, you will not be so fortunate.  Still, this is a promise.  A promise of life, and the Clan never breaks its promises!”

As I run, my spine tingles.  I know this bunch, if only by reputation.  They call themselves The Clan of the Immaculate Strangulation, because this is their preferred method for dispatching their victims.  They are of the pseudo-religious type.  Some Terminal gangs are of an artistic type; music, sculpture, painting or graffiti, like that.  Some have adopted a pre-Terminus style; steam punk, heavy metal, new age, whatever.  Still others make no claims, at all.  Regardless of their color and chosen methodology, they all have one thing in common:  they love to kill.

I believe this to be an aftereffect of the Terminus phenomenon.  Though it must have been a generalized, if engineered, affliction, its originators could not tailor it to consistently accommodate ten billion divergent physiologies, hence the randomized rejects.  Most of us recovered in the aftermath.  Those who did not remain locked in its embrace, albeit in a semi-lucid state.  They can be guided and controlled and they better understand their condition than before, but they cannot break the synthetic psychosis that spawns a murderous bloodlust within them.

Dressed all in black, the horde moving on foot before the wildly-illustrated truck are the Terminal cases.  The guy behind the loudspeaker is not.  He is a recoveree, rational yet constitutionally psychotic.  Most likely, that one was a killer before the great affliction.  The world must seem like Candyland to him now, and this must be his vision of paradise.  Accordingly, he thrives within it.

Though I cannot guess why they have come here searching for me, I know I must kill the Clan Guide.  As with The Priest, this is a ‘him-or-me’ contest.

Personally, I no longer care which way it goes.  I have no vested interest in survival.

Nevertheless, I loathe that kind.  They are maggots feeding on the vast, rotting corpse of this planet, and I never much appreciated those who take a free meal.  To be worthwhile, I feel a person must earn his or her way.  Nothing should be given.  If The Guide wants to kill me, so be it, but let him come against me himself.

Jogging through the first line of warehouses, I turn a sidelong eye on The Girl.  Will she be an asset or a liability?  Is she truly freelance, or did she find me sleeping in the street as an objective?  Could she be working with The Clan?  I know I should not trust her, but to act on my suspicions would come too close to caring.  I don’t believe I deserve to live, not after what I have done.  If The Girl is the one, I can be okay with that.  At least she’s pretty and tight.  Yeah, I think while admiring her lithe form, I can be okay with that.

I decide to let her live a while longer.  See what we see.

In a situation like this, the first mistake most make is panic.  The second mistake is going to ground too soon, if at all.  Better to keep a clear, calm head.  Better to keep moving.

From long experience, I know Terminal cases can endure endlessly.  Something about the affliction amps up the metabolism and physiology.  Like a viciously whipped thoroughbred, they will give chase until their hearts burst.  Should they run their quarry to ground with the last vestiges of their strength, even this scrap would be enough to undo most non-afflicted human beings.

Yet, movement must also be of a particular style.  We dodge between countless fully functional automobiles, but investigate none of them.  I suspect most will start.  Many will be fueled sufficiently to make a long drive.  Unfortunately, the streets and highways are ruled by Terminal Clans.  They are like spiders and they cast their webs where they are most likely to catch a free meal.  No, the only safe way to move is on foot.

Silently.  Flexibly.  Mobile.

The Girl gets it, too.  I upwardly revise my respect for her.  If she is playing for the other side, she has at least decided not to insult my intelligence by insisting on the easy way out, perhaps on a tantrum or a pout.  Here, she turns to reflect my observation.  Her pretty, scarred face remains flat.  Despite our headlong flight, she continues to breathe through her nose, so I know she, too, can run a long, long way yet.

Curious, I think.  And deadly.  If we come against one another, I will not underestimate her abilities or her stamina.

Because nobody is perfect and because fate has taken to playing funny games of late, we inevitably find ourselves in a bind.  We hear The Clan moving up from behind, and as a consequence we have buried ourselves too deep in our predicament to return the way we came.  Somewhere back maybe two blocks or more, we entered into a large industrial plant, mistaking it for a continuation of the wider city.  Besides being ringed around on all sides by high walls and razor-wire fences with only one easy way out, The Village-sized manufacturing center was once dedicated to assembling a complicated mechanism from smaller and then smaller mechanisms.  Consequently, its outer structures all tend to funnel into the center building, this a massive, sprawling bit of architecture, maze-like and self-limiting.  No matter which way we try to get out of it, those passageways will always return us back to the start in that one containment.

By the time we both realize the only way out is the beginning, we have passed the point of no return.  Our keen ears combined with the general silence of a dead world inform us.  The Clan has already staged itself at the plant entrance.  By now, its dogs of war will be swarming the outer barricade.  Check.

Strolling casually now to conserve our strength, we return to the center of that center structure.  There, I turn to her and say, “You don’t have to stay, you know.  Just go.  Get out.  I can take care of myself.”

Flat and lucid, her expression does not change.  She reaches into her bag to extract her Bowie knife.  This, she fixes to a thin belt at her waist, tying the dangling tip of its scabbard around the feminine bulge of her left thigh.  To be certain she has arranged it properly, she practices her draw.  With stunning speed, she extracts it from its cover and then crosses the space between us.  Her right hand loops around the back of my head, while her left forces the dangerously sharpened blade under my chin.

I feel it pressing there, creasing my skin.  I hold my pose.

My eyes impart the truth.  Do it.  Or don’t do it.  I don’t care.  My body relaxes.  I make no effort to change her mind, one way or another.

Rather than cut my throat, however, she lowers the knife and backs away, returning it to its scabbard with an all but silent hiss of steel across plastic.  She simply stares at me, her face void of emotion, as always.  Her message is clear.  She will fight.  She can manage herself.  I have no power to tell her to go or stay.   She does as she pleases.  Got it.

I say, “If we can’t get out, we’ll work their numbers down, one at a time.  By now, they’ve formed their perimeter all around this place like a sack.  Soon, they’ll start to cinch the drawstring tight until it encircles us with overwhelming force.  We have to make a hole in the sack somewhere, get outside it to take them individually from behind.  Then we’ll work toward the front.  The Guide is our objective.  Kill him, and we decapitate The Clan.”

She is already jogging away.  It’s my turn to follow.

By noon, we have found our starting position.  We linger to either side of a doorway.  This is the only passage through an intact wall of perhaps one hundred meters in length.  One of them must come this way, and even now we hear the drag of semi-cautious, uncertain footsteps through the gravel of the alleyway behind the wall.

Closer and closer approaches the unseen Terminal.  Driven to overconfidence by the numbers of his fellows, this crow-like figure juts a head through the doorway and sees me standing in the shadows collected alongside it.  His blurry, bloodshot eyes blink owlishly, surprised by what he has found.  Then, as a familiar, psychotic gleam of bloodlust rises in his semi-lucid gaze, I strike forward with a savage jab that unseats the man’s fragile mind, even as she steps into a deep stabbing motion directed between his ribs and into his heart.