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First, it was hot. Not hot enough to burn his skin, but only to make him feel slightly uncomfortable. He could feel the pressure on his body gradually lessen and the immediate cooling sensation starting from his front to his back. Slowly, he woke up. The sounds of white noise in his ear irritated him.
His eyes opened and processed what he saw. Old, moldy floorboards beneath him covered with a thick amount of dust and debris. Quickly, the floorboards grew in size until they abruptly stopped. The sharp pain in his nose jump started his brain which began to ask the usual questions of time and place.
Raising his head, he looked around the dark room. It was mostly empty except for a few chairs thrown around and a broken table. The windows were boarded, Light poured in through the cracks, the rays only visible because of the amount of dust in the air. He stood to his feet, coughing as he breathed in the dust.
“Hide! Hide! It’s coming!” Someone shouted. Just then, the door opened, exposing the dark silhouette of a man holding an automatic rifle at his side. He shut the door came down the steps and spotted the other guy standing in the middle of the floor. “What’s your name,” asked the man, his features hidden by the darkness.
It took a few seconds to remember his own name, but he spurted it out eventually. “Andre… My name is Andre.”
“Andre,” the man whispered. “It’s fuckin’ important that you stay quiet and do not move.”
Andre nodded, even though the man wouldn’t be able to notice.
It was quiet for a few moments. Andre was beginning to think this man was crazy. Of course, Andre was wrong. He felt the steps long before he heard them, each one louder and more violent than the one before it. Andre watched as the light disappeared, replaced by the moving body of something machine.
It watched him, peering at him. It watched him think and breathe and every other normal human activity. Andre trembled with a fear he had never felt before. He fell to his knees with a loud thud.
The sound the machine produced was unbearable, similar to an air raid horn laced with the sound of vibrating metal sheets. A red laser shot through the boarded windows and into the wall behind Andre. It slowly moved laterally across the wall leaving a trail of flaming wood.
“Lay down you idiot!” Shouted the man as he stood up, gripping his rifle. The laser passed over Andre and disappeared.
The man shot up to his feet and barged through the door to open fire on the machine. Andre, still in disbelief, watched as the fire grew, engulfing the room in orange light and suffocating smoke. He ran out through the door to find several others attacking the machine.
The machine, this walking behemoth, stood on two thick legs attached to a thin waist and tapered torso. Its arms jutted out from its body ending with several fingers. It looked like something from a B movie in the Fifties.
The others surrounded it, firing their various weapons at it, but all were conventional and they had no affect on the machine. It continued about its business unhindered.
It turned to Andre and he could see the small slit in its torso fitted with glass. On the other side of the glass were human eyes. Distant and without any remorse, they watched Andre. The headless behemoth stood up straight and before Andre’s eyes, the machine became a pixilated mess of blurred squares. Then, each one disappeared into the air, into this harsh lit world.
“Hey, we picked up another one,” said the man that had helped Andre. He turned to the burning building and watched as the fires disappear without any look of surprise on his face. “It’s been a while since the last one, eh, Jo?”
A girl came up behind Andre, frowning, apparently tired. “Three years since last,” she said, looking him up and down through the corners of her beautiful eyes, although her beauty was lost to Andre at this time.
The man put the strap around his body and let his rifle rest at his side. He smiled while looking at Andre. “Welcome to Hell, my friend.” The man watched as Andre’s darted around, eyeing each and every new person to come into his vision with a sense of disbelief and confusion.
“He looks like he’s gonna puke,” said the girl as she meandered through the small mass of people.
The man smiled with only one corner of his mouth moving up his face while his bottom lip barely moved. “Take it all in, brother. Remember the harsh light that bakes the motherfuckin’ skin off of our bones. Remember the creeping shadows that stalk your every move. Remember and hope that you never come back here.”
Suddenly, Andre was swept into darkness and felt as if he were airborne. It was at that moment that he realized that what he had just experienced was not real. It was not a construction of this universe, but it was made possible by his mind, and nothing more.
He yawned controllably, seeking normality for once in his daily activities. Today, he would go to school to learn about various subjects, take tests, do homework, and the like.
After finishing the morning rituals that involved cleaning oneself, he caught the bus to school. He swiped his ID through the fare box and stood next to the driver. In this position, he could look at all those on the bus, trying to get to their respective destinations on time, without feeling uncomfortable. It was the same makeup every day: twenty percent trying to get somewhere while the other eighty percent took a cruise around the city.
The homeless were quite the problem, not because they were violent or anything like that, but because they were a fairly large population; larger than anyone might expect, but everyone ignored them and tried to stay as far away as they could.
The majority denied the homeless’ existence by averting their eyes from the truth and to something more pleasant. Andre decided not to do that for a change and took a seat next to one of them. “What’s your name,” he asked the sunburned man who smelled like he hadn’t showered in months and wore clothes that look they hadn’t been washed in the same amount of time.
“Johnny is what they call me kid,” answered Johnny as he smiled from ear to ear, throwing his head to the side while knocking his knees together. “I really like your hair, kid. I tried to get hair like that, but man, it’s tough. Gotta keep up with it, you know?”
“Yea. I gotta keep redoing them,” Andre said while holding out one of his seven inch dreads and staring at it. “It takes me like an hour to do all of them again. But that’s only once a week, though.”
“Yea, man. Gotta keep up with that shit, man.” Johnny smiled, thrusting his entire torso forward. “You know, man, what do you dream about?”
Andre wasn’t startled by Johnny’s sudden change in subject. They always tried to get in as much subject matter as they can as if it were the last conversation they would ever have. “Just stuff, crazy stuff. One night I dreamt that the world was living and it was scarred and shit and the trees were all fucked up. Last night, I dreamt that this giant fuckin’ robot was trying to kill me.”
“That is fuckin’ fucked up, man. Fuck! Man, the thing I noticed about dreams is that you never see the faces. Everything’s blurred to hell.” He pressed his finger up to his temple. “It’s the mind, man, playing tricks on you. Your mind is telling you, that’s your friend Bob and that’s that dude, Johnny, not that you have friends named Bob and Johnny or David or Michael. Your mind makes the choices. That’s what life is: a fuckin’ series of choices, man.”
He looked outside and scratched his neck uncontrollably while nodding. “Is this your stop,” Andre asked.
“Fuck yea, man. It’s 32nd.” He pressed the stop button and the bus slowly came to a stop. “I’ll fuckin’ see you later, man!”
Johnny waved as he stepped off the bus, smiling still. Andre continued to watch as the bus turned the corner. Johnny almost backed up into a group of construction workers digging their way into the earth. Andre smiled. It was his own personal triumph, helping a guy feel wanted in this world; giving this man proof of existence.
He turned back in his seat and saw the girl in front of him gasp. A loud boom shocked the bodies and minds of everything in range. The plastic glass on the bus cracked from the initial shockwave. Andre turned around just in time to watch the second explosion engulf everything around it.
The bus came to a stop and everyone turned to look out the windows. Andre ran off of the bus and to the scene, but a third explosion knocked him down off of his feet. A man, Johnny, ran around in flames shouting “Help me! Help me!” No one did. They just watched as something nonexistent was wiped from the earth.
Andre sat on the curb, watching the mitigated chaos, but not paying attention to it. “Are you alright,” asked someone while placing a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see a beautiful girl standing over him. “I’m a volunteer with the University and they got me askin’ everyone if they need help or anything.”
Andre shook his head. “No, I’m alright. What about all of the people who got caught in the blast?”
The girl sat down next to him leaning back with her arms propping herself up. “Several of the construction workers were badly injured, but they’ll live. That other guy… he’s dead.”
Slowly nodding his head, Andre turned away.
“Did you know him?”
“No, not really,” he said.
She smiled. “If you want to talk about it, or something, you can call me or something.”
He turned back to look at her. She was fairly good looking; thin, but with some meat, long brown hair, dark eyes, a bit short, and light skin. Naturally, all of this was lost to Andre’s head which only noticed the size of her breasts, the firmness of her butt, and her attractive face. “Okay,” he said as he pulled out his cell phone.
“Nine four nine five two one two,” she said as Andre recorded it into his phone. “The name’s Casey. I have to go now. I hope Talk to ya later.”
She stood up and waved goodbye as she continued on to the next person, asking them if they needed any medical attention. Andre put his phone back into his pocket, seemingly at peace and cool as the fire hoses sprayed water down the hole. “Awkward,” he said.
“Hey, uh… this is Andre… we spoke before downtown,” he answered, struggling to come up with stuff to say.
“Oh hi. How are you doin’?”
“I’m good. You?”
“Same.”
“Well, do you wanna go get somethin’ to eat or somethin’ later on tonight?”
She was silent for a bit and then answered. “Sure.”
“Okay then… I’ll meet you at Stop Short on 32nd and Hill Dale, alright?”
“Okay. See you then.”
At Stop Short, they ate their fast food together, talking about school and work and life. She stared hard at him, diving into his eyes to search for his soul, smiling as she did so. He chuckled. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said. “You’re just dreamy.”
“Dreamy? Wow, I had no idea we were back in nineteen fifty-five.”
“I brought my DeLorean,” she said, laughing.
“I’m glad you caught that.”
“Come on, I was born in the eighties,” she said, taking a sip of her strawberry soda.
“You know, it’s funny that you said that,” he said after taking a bite of his hamburger. “All my life, I felt that I have been in a dream.”
“Everyone does,” she said. “It’s just natural. People don’t want to deal with the real world and… they’d rather be in a dream.”
He peered at her sideways. “I thought you were in the medical field…”
“No, I only volunteer,” she corrected him. “I’m a psychology major at the university. What’s your major?”
“English… psychology, huh? Tell me about myself.”
“I thought I just did,” she answered him, smiling. “What is it that you’re so afraid of?”
Andre’s smile disappeared and then looked elsewhere. “Pirates of Dark Water…” He looked at her to gauge her expression. “It’s an old cartoon about these pirates who are tying to fight off this evil substance known as Dark Water. I loved it as a kid. Now, I can barely remember it. I can’t remember the characters’ names or even what they looked like.”
“Interesting,” was all she said, placing her arms on the table with a sense of finality. “I should go back to my apartment. I have a big test tomorrow. I’ll talk to you later.”
She stood up from the table and left with a neutral wave and little shake of her ass. He suddenly realized that he burned the date with something so geeky. He sighed, and then realized that she didn’t finish her food. “Shit,” he muttered to himself.
The bus came to a stop for a few people waiting on the corner of 32nd and Minute when Andre spotted someone familiar. “Johnny,” he said, mouth agape.
Johnny, still in his ragged clothes and a smile as wide as his face, came over to Andre. “Sup, buddy.”
“You’re… alive…”
“Yea man, it’s harsh out there, man,” he began scratching his neck. “But man, how do you know my name?”
“Wait… what?”
“Dude, I don’t tell everyone my name, bro,” he said, still scratching his neck.
Andre leaned over and spoke quietly so that no one could hear. “You died yesterday. You burned in an explosion. How in the hell can you still be alive?”
Johnny shrugged and then his demeanor changed. He lost all of his jitter and his anxiousness. “Maybe you’re reliving the same day,” he asked, staring hard into Andre’s eyes. “Ever thought of that? Or maybe you’re just dreaming?”
“That’s impossible,” Andre said.
“People like you,” he said with a total indifference, “should not exist.”
Andre laughed. “And why is that?”
“You are a mistake, a pure coincidence; the result of a series of choices. You are an anomaly, an anomaly that must be erased.” He stared at Andre with those distant eyes that held no remorse for what was about to be done.
Physical contact wasn’t necessary. Andre could feel the life being sucked out of him as if it were Coca Cola. Johnny only looked at him with those eyes; the eyes of the invisible, and of objectivity.
A round of fire rang through the bus startling everyone. Johnny lay on the floor, thrown back by the bullet that hit him in the forehead. A woman, carrying a rifle, slowly made her way down to the front of the bus. Andre recognized her from his dream.
She stood over Johnny, claiming her prize as if it were a kill. “Just like the useless shit that graces our televisions,” she began, “you never die and go away. You just come back with a nice and shiny new coat of shit.”
“What the fuck!” Andre shouted. He looked around the bus and noticed that everyone was still going about their business as if nothing happened, ignorant to the situation. Johnny, sprawled out on the floor, blood gushing from his wound, invisible to those around him. “What the fuck is happening?”
The woman took hold of Andre’s shirt and pulled him up and out of the bus. “There are two things you need to know, my friend,” she said, walking towards the sidewalk while her rifle was pointed in the air. “When faced with death, men turn into either one of two things: total pussies or courageous men. You have to look death in its face and not care about the consequences even though you’ll most likely die. Those are the ones who live, propagating the seeds of life and whatnot. And women just hate fuckin pussies… so, which kind of man are you?”
She pushed him away and held her rifle with both of her hands. Andre now noticed the numerous straps of ammunition around her torso. She took out a grenade and placed it into its launcher on the rifle. She loaded the grenade and aimed her weapon at the bus.
“The second thing you need to know: there are worse things than death.” She pulled the trigger and Andre watched the trail of smoke as the grenade hit its target. Upon impact, it exploded. The bus erupted into a billow of fire and scorching metal, torching everyone inside.
Andre grabbed the rifle and in a fit of anger he shouted at the woman. “What the fuck are you doing? They’re innocent people on that bus!”
He looked at the fire raging in the middle of the street and saw the figure of a man slowly standing up, unaffected by the heat licking at his skin. “It takes away our influence first,” she said. “It wants to erase us. Do you want that to happen? Do you want to be forgotten?”
Andre watched as Johnny disappear and then suddenly reappear in front of them. “What in the hell are you?”
“I’m the cosmic arbiter,” Johnny answered. Suddenly, he was shot twice in the shoulder.
She kicked Johnny away and fired her rifle at him. Bullet by bullet, he was torn apart, both the man and the woman aimed for the head at first. When nothing human could be seen at the head, their aims descended lower and lower, reducing Johnny to nothing more than a bulging mass of meat and blood. The woman, unaffected by the sight of a still beating heart turned around and grabbed Andre by the arm.
“You killed him,” he said, shocked and breathing heavily.
“He’s not human… he never was…” she said, trying to justify murder.
“You killed him,” he repeated. Then he saw the bus still on fire. “You killed them.”
“They’ll be alright.”
“Bullshit! Fuckin’ bullshit!” Andre then watched as the burning bus disappeared and replaced by a new bus right before his eyes. What was left Johnny disappeared as well.
The woman impatiently screamed at him. “Calm the fuck down, kid,” she yelled.
And he did calm down a bit, his breathing came back to normal and the cold sweat along his forehead dried up. His eyes, though, they still darted around, looking at each person ignorant of the current situation. They continued on with their menial duties of errands and getting from point A to point B and their continued menial actions caused Andre to grow more and more impatient and nervous. “What’s going on?”
“We are the invisible, kid,” she answered him cryptically. “We’re the refuse of this world, unwanted like a prom night dumpster baby. We need to go.”
She began to lead him down the sidewalk, pushing past the unaware people. “Where are we going?” He asked, already giving up on trying to find out what was going on.
“I’m taking you to the university,” she said. “My name is Jo, by the way.”
They picked up the pace making hard steps as they went. “Why are we going to the university?”
“Answers to your questions will be given to you once we get there,” Jo said as she led him. “Until then, please shut the fuck up.”
He tossed the pencil away and the others around him laughed. “They getting’ thinner and thinner each fuckin’ day,” said another.
“Alright, alright… okay, she goes into the bathroom with Jo, and I’m laying on the perch, my dick pushing into the fuckin’ cement. Next thing I know, Jo comes out of the bathroom with the chick’s hair between her fingers, screaming at the top of her lungs. I swear to you, it was loud enough for the entire block to hear her. The chick, she starts throwin’ shit at Jo. Mistake number 1. Then, she starts saying how Jo’s mama was a big fat whore and shit. Mistake number 2.” He pointed right between his eyes. “She got her right there. Broke her nose and she bawled like a bitch in heat. The enforcers came in with guns blazing. In three seconds, Jo took them out breaking their various bones. Then, she looks at me…”
“Talking about me,” Jo asked as she came into the room along with Andre.
The man smiled and then said, “This is him?”
“He’s been touched by the Effect,” she informed him. “I don’t know how far along contamination went. They were in contact for a total of two seconds.”
“Shouldn’t be bad. We’ll just have to keep an eye him.” The man stood up and held out his hand. A long scar ran from his palm up to his shoulder. “I’m Grant and I’m the leader of this pack. I’m sure you have a few questions about what’s going on.”
“Who are you people?” Andre asked reaching out to shake Grant’s hand.
“Well, those two are John and Will,” he pointed to the two men still sitting at the table. John was redheaded and skinny. Will was dark and much burlier. “And you already met Jo. We have a few more people as well.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Andre said.
Grant smiled. “We’re the same as you.”
“Stop fuckin’ around with him,” John said.
“You know,” Grant began, but was then interrupted as an old man burst into the room. “Old man, what are you doing here? Where’re the kids?”
“The Arbiter,” the old man panted. “The Arbiter approaches.”
Jo grabbed her rifle. “Fuck,” she said as she slid the strap over her head. The others grabbed their weapons as well, all seeming to know what to do.
The old man glanced at Andre sideways. “It comes for him,” he said.
“Stop your fuckin’ creepy ass bullshit, old man,” Grant said. “Go keep the kids safe. And where the fuck is Menace?”
A low cricket chirp caught all of their attention and made them silent. Grant went up to Andre and looked him in the eye. “Remember what I told you back at the Coalescence,” he whispered, “don’t say a word.”
The footsteps were quiet, yet Andre could here the rubber soles slapping against the tile. He watched the shadows of feet pass by the doors and the cricket chirp disappeared.
“The kids,” said the old man. “The kids are not safe.”
“We can’t let it get them,” Jo said.
“The wave comes,” the old man said. “I can feel it in my bones.”
Grant checked the magazine in his gun and said, “Let’s go.”
Knowing that someone was behind him, he turned around and found a man dressed in all black with black shades and two black handguns aimed right him. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Effect.”
Grant and Jo rounded the corner just in time to see Johnny approach the man in black. “Menace!” Grant shouted as he aimed his gun at Johnny.
“I can handle this,” Menace said slowly and without much emotion. “I am the One, after all.”
Johnny stepped forward and Menace shot him in the shoulders and then kicked him in the chest. The image of Johnny became pixilated and then came back together to form an image of him standing. Menace lowered one of his guns. “See you in another body,” he said. He fired again and the bullet went straight through Johnny’s head.
He fell over onto his back, not pain and definitely not dying. His eyes remained open, fixated straight ahead, still distant and without remorse.
Andre watched as a slow panic began to build up in his body, filling his nerves with anxiousness. His fingers were the first ones to begin shaking; starting slow and then it crawled up his body straightening the hairs on his body. “J-Johnny,” he said as he went to the still breathing body. “He’s dead.”
Jo groaned. “Damn it, we already went over this: She’s not dead.”
Johnny parted his lips as air flowed between them; the last one he would take. “This is not a dream,” he said. Andre’s eyes widened and tears began to well up in his eyes.
Menace lowered his gun and took off his shades, slightly disturbed by what he had just heard. He mulled it over in his head and silently said, “Nah.”
Jo remained unyielding. She turned to the old man. “Is it here yet?”
“It’s soon to be,” he said. They all watched as Johnny disappeared with pixilated glory.
Grant went over to Menace and patted him on the back. “Good thing he was only in the incubation stage, else he would’ve given you a run for your money.”
“Money is something we don’t have anymore,” Menace replied turning the face the other way.
“Well, Neo, good job.”
“I’m not Neo,” Menace said. He turned around and presented himself. “I’m Preston, Class I Grammaton Cleric.”
Grant displayed a sign of contempt. “Right.” He looked at Andre still kneeling. “You should talk to him.”
“A cleric shows no emotion,” Menace replied.
Grant sighed and went over to Andre and kicked him lightly. “Hey, stop crying. It’s time to go.”
“Why in the hell should I go with you?”
“It takes away our influence,” Grant said.
“I already told him that,” Jo said. “And he didn’t respond. I think he’s still in shock what with the killing of his homeless friend and all.”
“How uncharacteristically kind of you,” Grant commented to Jo.
“The wave… it’s here.” The old man announced.
“Well, kid, you’re going to go through in more shock now,” Grant said smiling. He lowered a few inches into the floor. A thin line of blue outlined the contour of his body as he plunged into the ground. He waved as his head disappeared beneath the tile.
Andre shot up to his feet and backed up trying to feel for the wall behind him only his fingers passed through something that felt like water. He turned to finger his fingers within the wall as if it were the water columns in Turok. Frightened, he pulled his hand away and just stared at the wall.
He watched the others. The two children playfully jumped through a wall while the old man limped into it. John smiled and fell over backwards to disappear into the floor as did Will. Menace casually took a step forward and glanced at Jo before he jumped into and through the ceiling.
“There’s nothing to it,” she said as she kicked him in his chest plunging him into the wall.
