4/26/10
The beast rose from over a knoll, all snarling and slobber, hungry for flesh, the natural malevolence shone in its eyes. I froze in my tracks, silencing my body as it trembled.
"Bitches!" he screamed across the subways tracks, followed by incoherent mumbling, punctuated by, "Whores!"
The draft down the tunnel wafted the aroma of urine and a bar floor combo alcohol stench. A train barreled down the tracks, perhaps just a station away, shoving the air currents along the platform, carrying the man towards me.
His boots shuffled across the tiles, smearing Saturday Night vomit along like a slug. Drool slipped from the corner of his mouth, snot dripped from both nostrils, and I think he shit his pants.
Passing the row of empty benches between us, he shambled up in my peripheral vision as I tried to read. The words I was running my eyes over disappeared altogether, my concentration long ago broken by his outburst. He was nearly upon me.
The train light erupted from the dark mouth of the tunnel, propelling the metal mass towards my direction, the wind whipping up, sweeping over my body, the air curling below my nostrils. My eyes closed for an extended blink and I could sense the madman's hand as it reached out for me.
Someone stepped out of nowhere and thrust their arm forward, open palming the bum, ripped off his feet like crumpled notebook paper, tossed aside without a thought. I watched as the force left the arm extending behind me, into the frail and elderly body, the sick, weak flesh that was covered beneath dirty rags, soaked in filth.
The bum mouthed the words "Burn."
Or so I thought. Just before the B train shredded and splintered his person, obliterating his skeleton, pulping his limbs, grinding his organs into paste. It splashed up the front of the train as the driver shrieked in horror and slammed the brakes.
The train screeched, metal shearing metal, twisted whine of polished friction. The wind dropped instantly as the doors 'DING'ed open. A hand appeared on my left shoulder as a face drifted in on the right. It was him. Me. The last one. Smiling.
"Come on Charles. Time to do this thing." His left arm gently pushed me onto the subway car, like a piece of meat shuffled along a conveyor belt.
"What the fuck do you want?" Bastard.
"We gotta wrap this apocalypse up."
I knew he was right. Just as I knew that the derelict that was just slaughtered didn't matter. I didn't need to ask why, or proclaim the inhumanity of it all. No one was left to care. The human race was down to bare bones.
"Stand clear of the closing doors." Automated convenience.
I dropped onto the bench. The doors slid closed. The man came into full view as he held onto the pole. It was me in my sixties, maybe after I worked out for a few years and hired a stylist. Looks like I got my teeth done too. A rune tattoo behind the ear.
Bastard. A shimmer formed around him as the train chugged onwards. The car lurched forward and the space inside began to warble. All around me became fluid. It condensed, drawing me in, sucked down the drain. We built up speed and the bubble shrunk, pulled me up onto my feet, standing before the elder Charles Crown.
I pulled back, arched away from him, wasn't there an issue with two beings of similar matter touching each other? A personal paradox that'll bash time and space apart?
He saw the look on my face and smirked. We curled up in an oval lounge space, intimate and cozy, practically sitting on top of one another. And with a faint BOOOM, we banish ourselves from the material plane.
"Where are we going?" It was the only question I had on hand.
"Beyond."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment