The End
62
Nichole Haines
The End
62
Nichole Haines
Perfect Pony's
Nichole Haines
The biggest lights on Christmas Eve, 2029 did not come from the neighbor’s house. They also did not come from the public park, where the city put on a show each holiday season which seemed to grow more ridiculous with every passing year. The biggest light also did not come from the strip of trees on the median in front of the post office. Those lights had been put in the trees years ago and never pulled down. They were just unplugged on New Year’s Day and plugged back in after Thanksgiving.
The biggest lights did not come from any department store. It was already past nine in the evening. A gentle snow was falling, ice was forming from the day’s thaw, and every last business was closed except that one Chinese place. All windows were dark, doors locked, grates pulled down and CCTV switched on to catch any ill doings in ultra high resolution, including automatic retinal ID of everyone involved.
63
The biggest lights came from no source that could be considered jovial or jolly. You would not walk your kids down to see these lights, in a effort to tire them out so they would actually get to sleep in time for you to put all of Santa’s presents under the tree.
Just like the lights you know and love, these lights came in a few different colors. Red. Orange. Black.
In a nearby home, a child woke from the sound and ran to the window to see if she could spot Santa Clause. She avoided slicing her feet on shattered glass due to the slippers she had received from Santa the previous Christmas.
Taking one look outside, she sucked in air and turned to run for the phone. Her mom and dad were in the basement wrapping a few final gifts and they didn’t hear her. Because of the slippers, again.
911. The numbers that stick in the head of anyone who’s been alive for more than a couple years. The girl dialed them and held the phone to her ear.
“I think Santa’s sleigh crashed,” she said.
That was the first anyone heard of the latest attack, except for the unfortunate souls involved in it.
It happened at 9:14 PM. Christmas Eve, 2029.
A few hundred miles east, and a little south, certain figures in the government gathered in a small room. The President had glitter on his t-shirt from where his daughter had slapped a sparkling bow on him. The Secretary of Defense had a bandage on her finger; she had cut it on the serrated teeth on a roll of tape.
“Just when I thought we might make it a whole day,” said the President, rubbing a hand over his face and catching his wedding ring on his lower lip for a moment, pulling it down and showing his teeth. “All I wanted for Christmas was a day. A gift from… whoever it is that’s doing this. Well, let’s see what we have this time…”
A hundred inch screen turned on behind him, showing a vast grid of shrunken camera feeds. One by one the screen cycled through, showing each feed in enlarged form on the bottom right.
“I know one of you saw something,” the Secretary whispered, staring with her hand in a fist under her chin.
“One of you did…”
The attacks had started three years earlier. It took about four attacks for people to accept they were happening on a daily basis. It became a guaranteed fact of life that, at some point during each twenty-four hour cycle, some small area on Earth would be subjected to a brief moment of Hell and all who stood on that spot would perish. It might happen in the next county over, or on the other side of the planet. Or it might happen right where you were standing.
One news station gave the phenomenon a name which stuck; the Daily Dirge.
The first thing anyone did when they woke up in the morning, usually even before visiting the toilet, was to turn on the news and find out if an attack had happened already. If it had happened after midnight, Eastern Standard Time, which authorities had determined was the time zone the unseen enemy was operating on. If an attack had already occurred for that day, you could relax, knowing for certain you would be safe.
If an attack hadn’t yet occurred, well… you got in the habit of looking up into the sky at every chance. Looking for that weird swirl of light which some people said preceded each attack by a few seconds.
There was nothing you could do but wait and hope that someone else figured something out. No government had a clue what any other government was doing to combat the threat. It was a worldwide problem, no one was exempt, and yet everyone was paranoid and ready to put the blame on some other country. No one trusted anyone else, and no one shared what information they had.
The US Government did have a plan. A crazy plan, scraped together from the remnants of failed experiments. An idea that they might catch something that someone didn’t want them to see.
The fire trucks weren’t here yet. Nor were the ambulances or the police. It was Christmas Eve, and the response time would be a little slower.
Clyde folded up the tripod, stuck it in his backpack, and walked forward to survey the wreckage.
Not much had been caught in this one. A single SUV, carrying a family of four. The hatchback had blown open; further back along the street a pet cage stood, dented and scratched but otherwise unharmed. Some creature moved restlessly inside, letting out a series of pathetic noises.
Clyde approached the SUV. It had been red once, but was now stripped of all color. The paint had become a mist and settled in a red circle around the vehicle, growing fainter as it spread outward. Every plastic component inside the vehicle had melted, flowed into some Daliesque version of its former self, then solidified as it cooled.
A clean hole had blasted through the car and deep into the street, utterly destroying everything that stood in between. A foul, rising smell said that some damage had been to the sewer system down below street level. Unfortunate. Someone was going to have to come out here and fix that, once the police took the bodies away. On Christmas Eve, no less. Or maybe on Christmas Day, depending on how long everything took.
But that wasn’t Clyde’s problem.
He looked briefly in at the family. Two parents, two kids. He couldn’t tell who was who, or which gender they were, because nothing remained but smoking bones and a few curls of melted hair.
Funny, how different it looked in real life. The news stations loved their shock tactics – they pretty much showed everything – but it was still different, looking at it with your naked eyes. A lot more visceral. More abrupt. When you just saw the aftermath on the news, you had no way of sensing how fast and sudden these attacks were.
The SUV had been travelling at thirty miles an hour, flying right through a green light with no one else on the road. But it had reached a speed of zero in the space of a nanosecond, skewered in place by an immaterial blade. The stop had been so sudden that bolts in the engine compartment had sheared off, causing the entire engine block to shift forward, deforming the hood and pushing out the front grille.
Clyde had seen more than he needed to see. He straightened up, grabbed his gift off the top of the car, and walked away.
The animal cage was starting to move around as the creature contained inside grew restless.
The miniature pony was too small for the carrier it had been crammed into. Fine for a quick ride home, though. Clyde, using every bit of strength, was able to carry it along. The pony sniffed and snorted at his hand. Its silksoft mane tickled his arm.
A two for one special. He was going to be the hero this Christmas, for the first time in his life.
It was her daughter’s last Christmas. Kelly wanted nothing more than to make it a good one. But she had already put every last shred of money available into her car, into the fridge, into the utility bills. There was nothing left. She thought about asking Corey if he had anything. To him, Jenny was as good as his own daughter, though he and Kelly weren’t yet married.
But Corey was strapped. She knew that. He was already working two part-time jobs and going to classes on top of that. Trying to make a life, something good enough and impressive enough for a woman like Kelly. A woman he loved. She had no idea where he had gotten such lofty opinions of her. But she was glad that the world was still capable of making men like him.
Kelly finished folding her last load of laundry. She picked up the basket and carried it upstairs, navigating the tricky turns of the basement steps without banging an elbow or a knee. That was an accomplishment in and of itself. With skills like that, she would make one hell of a housewife. Which seemed to be her destiny, if Corey had his way.
To reach the bedroom, she had to walk by the living room. Corey and Jenny were in there. She was asleep, using his leg as a pillow. His hand, which had been scratching her back, was now frozen. He was staring at
the muted TV. A security camera had captured the brief, burning fireball of the most recent attack. The location was displayed at the bottom of the screen. Kelly stopped. This was less than a mile away. She drove through that intersection twice a day.
Corey spotted her. He stood up slowly, lifting Jenny against his chest. Instinctively, unconsciously, he put a hand to her chest and an ear to her mouth. Checking if she was still alive, still breathing. That was the type of habit you got into, when you were taking care of a child who had months or maybe only weeks to live.
“I’ll hook her in,” Corey whispered, moving past Kelly down the hall.
She followed, and started to put laundry away as Corey set the little girl in bed and slid the IV line into the permanent plug on her arm. Reaching down the front of her shirt, he attached two pads which would monitor Jenny’s heart and, in the event it stopped, attempt to restart it.
When Jenny was squared away, Corey came to help with laundry. When they finished, the two adults moved into the hall, shut the door quietly, moved to the other end of the house, and only then did they fall into each other. They collapsed, turning to mountains of dust that fell toward one another, locking in place.
“It’ll be OK,” Corey lied.
Kelly nodded. She knew there was no hope of getting Jenny out of her mind tonight, but it was worth a shot. “How about that attack?” she said. “How many people?”
“Family of four in an SUV,” Corey replied. “No one else. I guess it was lucky that it came when it did. That intersection would have been jammed full of traffic a few
hours ago. The chain fire would have burned through all of them.”
“It could have been us.”
Corey held her tighter. “No.”
“It could have been.”
“But it wasn’t. Just don’t think about it. Think about me. Think about Christmas.”
But that wasn’t a comfort. Because everything led back to Jenny, and the simple fact that she was dying.
Clyde touched the latch on the garden gate, then sniffed his hand. The metal was slick and oiled. Freshly lubricated. It wouldn’t creak. It was funny how much better things looked around here with a real man in the house.
He opened the gate, slowly, quietly, and hoisted the cage through. He carried it a few meters, set it down, went back to close the gate. The blinds were down on all the windows, but he could tell from a pulsing, colorchanging light beyond that the TV was going. A shadow kept passing back and forth. Kelly at her chores. Always at her freaking chores. She never did anything else. Too nervous for anything.
Clyde strode into the dark, deeper in the backyard, and crouched behind a bush. He reached into his coat pocket, made sure the ampule was still there, and nodded to himself. It was all worth it.
There was a strip of pebbles along the foot of the fence, running around the perimeter of the yard. A defense against weeds. Clyde grabbed a cold handful. One after the other, he tossed the pebbles toward the animal cage ten feet away. He dialed in his aim, and kept hitting the pony in its flank. Every time it would prance around, as
much as it could in its confinement. It would try and rear back, whinnying like its more majestic forebears. But it was nothing like them. It was a munchkin, a genetically modified freak. Designed to be the perfect plaything for children. It would never grow larger, it would never kick, it would never defy being ridden.
They were all the rage this year – all the pet stores had them. It was not a gift that Kelly could afford. And Corey, no matter how much of a gentleman and a handyman he was, could never afford it either. Clyde grinned as he tossed his stones, feeling giddy.
Finally the dumb animal got the hint and made some real noise. It crashed and banged against its metal cage, letting out a high-pitched whine.
A shadow approached the window. A finger hooked the edge of the blinds, pulling them back for a quick peek. But it was too dark in the yard to see much.
Corey would come. He would be the one to check. There was no way a guy like that would let his woman go alone into the dark to investigate a strange noise.
And, right on schedule, the back door soon unlatched and swung open. Corey came through in slippers and pajama bottoms, a zip-up sweater hastily draped over his shoulders. He held a flashlight and a baseball bat. He turned the light on and played it toward the source of the noise. But all he could see from his angle was a dark cage; he couldn’t tell what was inside it.
“Shut the door, idiot,” Clyde muttered to himself.
Corey shut the door. No way he would let the heated air out, not when the two of them were so utterly broke. He crept toward the cage, narrowing his eyes. When he saw
what was inside, he made a noise that was either surprise or disgust.
“Another piece of stolen property, Clyde?” he mumbled to himself.
In the other pocket, Clyde’s hand found a knife. He strode forward, as quiet and untouchable as a shadow.
Kelly came out into the living room and realized two things at once. First, that she hadn’t seen Corey in a while. And there was a cold draft, blowing in from the direction of the back door.
“Corey?” she called.
No answer.
She went to grab the baseball bat, the one he kept tucked in the kitchen pantry. It wasn’t there. And neither was the flashlight. So instead she grabbed a knife from the kitchen. Keeping it hidden, tucked up against her forearm, she walked slowly toward the back door.
Clyde was there, hoofing a huge metal cage through, letting in a sparkling drift of snowflakes.
“Wanna give me a hand?” he asked.
“No, I don’t,” she replied, turning away, heading back into the kitchen to grab her phone.
“It’s for Jenny,” Clyde called. “Just wait. Don’t call. It’s just a present for Jenny.”
Against her better judgment, and every instinct available to her other than the motherly one, Kelly turned back. She ducked down, looking into the cage, and found a tiny equine face staring back at her with perfect doll’s eyes tucked in a blanket of chestnut hair.
“You didn’t,” she said. “Clyde, this isn’t yours. So it can’t be hers. This is stolen.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t have the energy to explain, but
it’s not. I’m just trying to do one thing good here. I know all the kids want these things…”
“It’s all Jenny’s been able to talk about,” Kelly admitted.
“Where did you get it? How?”
“That’s not anything you need to think about. Just take it. Help me get it in, it’s freezing back here…”
Kelly stood and grabbed one end. They lugged it through, digging up carpet fibers, denting corners, but neither of them cared. Clyde didn’t care because he had never been capable or caring about anything. Kelly didn’t care because her girl’s impossible wish had somehow come true.
“Where’s Corey?” she asked.
“He went for a walk,” Clyde replied. “I had a little talk with him. Asked him a favor. Asked him if he would let me be the hero, this one time. Can I see Jenny?”
“She’s asleep.”
Clyde nodded. “Well, can I still just see her? I won’t wake her up or anything.”
Kelly shrugged. They shut the door and carried the pony as far as the living room, where there was room to actually walk around the cage. Quietly, with plenty of shushing motions from Kelly, they made their way down the hall. She opened the door, held it there, gestured for Clyde to take a quick look.
“There,” she whispered sharply. “Happy?”
Clyde pushed in past her, nudging her arm aside.
For a moment, panic seized Kelly and eroded her away. Broke her down until she was a helpless little girl, squatting and absorbing his abuse. Coming up with stories to explain away the black eyes, the split lips, the obvious hand print on her neck.
Then she came back to herself. The strength she had built up, that Corey had helped her to build up, came surging forward. She grabbed the back of Clyde’s shirt and yanked as hard as she could.
Inside, she was ready for a fight. Ready for the filthiest, bloodiest scrap imaginable. Because that was what she secretly hoped it would come to. She wanted a chance, now that she was strong, to hurt him as much as he hurt her. She wanted to scratch his face, shatter his teeth, gouge his freaking eyeballs out.
But instead of fighting, Clyde moved with the pull and turned to face her. In place of a choking hand on her throat, he just touched her arm gently. Tapping it, like a wrestler throwing in the towel against a superior opponent.
“Sorry,” he said. “For everything I did. I guess it probably doesn’t mean much, but it’s all I have to give. I got nothing else.”
She looked into his eyes. They were as beautiful as ever. Just as capable of mesmerizing her. She had no love for the man behind them anymore… but she would never shake off the power of their hypnotic spell.
She found herself nodding, shrugging, smiling, like everything he had done to her could be explained away with mere words. Like actions didn’t matter.
But he had gotten the pony. That was an action. He wasn’t doing it for her, but Kelly was thankful nonetheless.
“I just want to see my girl,” Clyde added. “I just want a minute alone. How about it? A Christmas olive branch, for old time’s sake?”
“Okay,” Kelly said, letting out her breath. “Just one minute. Then you have to go. Understand?”
“I understand,” he replied. “One minute.”
He went into the room and shut the door. As soon as he turned away, and his eyes no longer fixed her in place like spotlights, logic returned to Kelly and she realized her mistake. Lurching forward, she grabbed the door handle and twisted. But it was locked.
Clyde ignored the jiggling handle and the quiet entreaties of the woman on the other side. No matter what she thought, he had no ill intentions. There was something broken inside him, he knew that. Up until Jenny was born, he thought he would never be capable of loving anyone other than himself. To him, other people were… figments. Entities in a simulation. They weren’t real, not like him. But Jenny was different. She was real, because she was part of him.
He knelt by the girl’s bed, pulling the ampule out of his pocket. It was tiny, the size of a jelly bean. But contained inside it was a miracle. Something impossible. But miracles are a matter of perspective. To a human living a million years ago, the electric light that burned overhead would be a miracle. But to Clyde, it was commonplace. Something he barely noticed. So it was with the ampule, to those who had created it. No skin off their backs.
Jenny slept on. The sleep of the sick and drugged, deep and motionless. It was not the excited, restless, half-sleep of a child who knew the next time they opened their eyes it may well be morning, and time to run out through the halls and find the pile of presents waiting…
What was she dreaming about? Clyde tried to remember what he had dreamed, once upon a time.
Death was, in a lot of ways, the same as falling asleep.
Clyde had lost everything. His wife. His daughter. His home and his marriage. Even his job. He had ten bucks in his wallet and he used it to buy a bottle of vodka. He walked for miles in a summer rain and finally lay to rest in the wet grass of a park, drunk and full of the darkest thoughts.
It was easy to take the leap. Mentally and physically. All he needed was a high place and an unwillingness to live. The second part was already taken care of. The high place was all he needed.
Luckily, such places are easy to find in a city.
In the dark blue light of early morning, he scraped himself off the ground and wandered toward the tallest building he could see. His head pounded with hangover.
The building was a hotel. He could see the sign from here. Excellent. They would have a staircase or an elevator that went to the roof. Getting through the roof door might set off an alarm and bring security running, but that wouldn’t matter. By the time they got up there, he would be gone.
One last fall to the bottom. Nothing he hadn’t seen before.
He was in the crosswalk, heading across to the hotel, when he was suddenly incapable of moving. A car, making a right turn behind him, squealed and lurched to a stop. It was something up above, a light that was solid.
Clyde looked up, straight into the funnel of a tornado made of light. Less than a second later the fire of death flashed down out of the sky, destroying him.
As far as Clyde could tell, his skin was pulled up into the heavens on the backwash of light as it was once again
swallowed into its source. They took his skin, along with his genetic material, and they remade him over a metal skeleton. Retracing his life, they built his brain and his memories. He was reborn. They made it clear, in various ways, that he had a choice; he could become their living toy, and they would save the person he loved most. Or he could say no, and he would return to that dreadful blackness of nonexistence from which he had only just woken. He would remain there forever, knowing his daughter would soon join him.
A moment after he died, Clyde reappeared on Earth. He stumbled away from the burning wreckage, a survivor of the Daily Dirge. In a few hours, as his mind cleared up, he remembered the instructions he had been given.