with Joel Hentges
In other news, I am told that we are receiving live feed . . . live feed of a rampage – taking place right now, in broad daylight – in the slums of New York. Here it is, up on the screen now. I am told that this man with the black hair is the suspect. We can see that the suspect is weaving through alleys in an industrial area – an industrial area of the slums. At the moment we do not have an exact location.
According to witnesses he has shot several people so far. As of yet there is no official word on the exact number of victims or the extent of the damage done to them. Oh! While I was talking . . . while I was talking, the suspect shot another man – a homeless man in an alley. He had been hiding behind some boxes but now he is leaning against a wall.
It looks like the homeless man is muttering something: he is mouthing something while clutching his chest where he was just shot by the killer. Blood is seeping through his thick, dirty fingers. We’ll have a lip reader look over the video.
While the homeless man is dying we would like to take this opportunity to apologise to you, our viewers, for the lack of audio coming from this shocking feed, and ask you to please refrain from phoning in your complaints as our switchboards are being jammed by the overwhelming call volume.
I can only imagine the state that the cameraman must be in at this moment. The camera is swinging wildly around, possibly looking for an escape route. No, it suddenly seems calmer now, but is focusing on the buildings above rather than the killer: the buildings are perfectly black monoliths, and I feel suffocated – claustrophobic – just from looking at them.
But caught between the buildings is a calmer, brighter, bluer world. The camera is coming down on the alley again, where everything is drowning in shade. The killer is heading out of the alley and into the sun. He appears to be walking with a limp. Is it possible that we missed something? Did the homeless man attack him in one brave, final moment? We may have to wait until the aftermath to find out, so stay tuned.
We’re out of the alley now, but the killer is already across the street at some large dilapidated doors. Stunned onlookers are all around the street; strangely enough, many of them seem more interested in the camera than in the killer, whose clothes are stained with blood.
The cameraman has caught up with the killer. I am wondering where the police are. Why is this allowed to continue? None of the onlookers seem to be rushing for help; not one of them is using their cell phone to call for assistance. Hey now! The killer has just burst through the doors! He used his shoulder as a ram and burst through the doors!
Inside are five men sitting around on couches; they’re sitting around a tv set that appears to be off, or it could be broken. The camera is swinging side to side, taking everything into view; I think I caught a glance of a man in a room off to the side. None of the doorways in the main room have doors.
The killer takes fire! He’s shooting all of the men in the room, shooting them again and again, mercilessly, demonically, like a man possessed. The room has become a horrible bloody mess. There is nothing left but bullet holes and blood spatter.
The tv in the room appears to have turned itself on. On the screen is a newscaster, who is talking while footage plays out on a smaller screen beside him. We can see on the smaller screen that there is a killer rampaging in broad daylight, in what looks to be New York. The killer is a man with black hair and we can see that he is weaving through alleys in an industrial area – an industrial area of the slums.
1.
Lewis and Miguel were best friends, having known each other since kindergarten. Way back in kindergarten Lewis would steal a cute stuffed animal from the animal shelf and then guiltily return it the next day; this scenario repeated itself every two months or so. Something about the stuffed animals had held a magical mystery for him, possibly because they were not his but he was free to play with them for designated periods of the day. It was more like a friendship than the usual owner-and-owned relationship. When he brought them back to his house the magic wore off. So the next day at school he would see the kindergarten teacher’s face light up once she found that a diminutive rabbit holding a puffy carrot had been returned to its proper spot on the shelf, after having experienced a brief fling with adventure and fresh air.
Miguel tended to play on the computer in the room more often than not, playing games involving numbers and shapes and Sesame Street characters. He became so good at them that the teacher gave him a special gold star that he was allowed to wear on his chest in class. It came to the point where he would spend more time with the computer than with the other children, so the teacher decided to rectify this by having Miguel teach Lewis how to use the computer as well as he could. Lewis was so impressed by Miguel’s skills, and Miguel was so ecstatic to have a friend as interested in the computer as he was, that the pair quickly became great friends. It was Lewis who had consoled Miguel when, during the much-hyped Parent Day, Miguel’s mother had stayed for only half an hour while everyone else’s parents remained for the entirety of the class. She had barely even seemed to be interested in the amount of cookies that the Cookie Monster was willing to eat.
Now Lewis was twenty-three years old, and Miguel was twenty-three years old, and they were walking down an unfamiliar street at night, their memories of kindergarten long behind them. Even though it was night the street was lit up in colour: orange street lamps cast their glow on everything in sight, creating an artificial sunset or sunrise. When they talked about it later, Lewis said it was a sunrise while Miguel said it was a sunset. But at the moment they did not speak a word.
They walked up a slight hill which gave way to an intersection, and Miguel checked their map.
2.
‘I had a dream last night,’ Lewis had said. ‘Do you remember when the news showed the video of the guy killing people? This was when we were kids. Anyway, yesterday I was thinking about it for some reason and then I had a dream about that guy. Do you remember him? I dreamt that after he shot all those people he went into hiding up in an empty house over in the suburbs, the ones over by Highbury. I dreamt that he never left his hiding spot. Eventually he died there, having eaten nothing but bugs and cobwebs. I felt like I was watching his body while not actually being there, the closest to an out-of-body experience I’ve ever experienced. I watched as his body decomposed and disintegrated, becoming nothing but dust and smoke. But his skull remained. It never decayed in the slightest. I got a very, very strong sense that the skull has some sort of power that allows it to control the minds of anyone but the person possessing it. Now, this is going to sound kind of weird to you, but I also got a very strong sense that this skull is real – that it actually exists. You think I’m crazy? Look, when I woke up I drew a map showing which house he went into. I looked up some maps online and they match the one I drew. Crazy, right? I looked up some information on this house and apparently nobody has lived in it for quite some time, even going back before the guy went on his rampage. It’s basically abandoned.
‘I’m planning on going to take a look at this house and I want you to come with me. I have to confirm if my suspicions are true or not. This is important to me because, if this turns out to be real, then it proves that there’s far more to our existence than the immediate tangible reality. It would be confirmation of not only our eternal spirit but of immortality as well. Are you with me?’
‘I’ve been frightened of death since I was a kid,’ Miguel had responded. ‘I’m in.’
They had decided to have their friend Carson go on ahead of them to stake the place out, since it would look suspicious if two young men were seen hovering around a house at night, especially in such a dense neighbourhood. Carson, they joked, was disposable; it was a joke they had been telling since they had met him in the fourth grade.
Back in their fourth grade class he had been the stereotypical quiet loner, a shadow of a shadow wandering between portables and traversing wet fields in squeaky, oh-so-squeaky rubber boots; they had felt sorry for him, so they agreed to be friends with him on the condition that he did what they told him to. It was when he readily agreed with a wide grin on his face that they realised he might be somewhat stupid, but a good kind of stupid that could be controlled. They made him the lookout for every nefarious scheme their little minds could formulate, from stealing answer sheets off the teacher’s desk to sneaking up on poor Sally Liddell and pouring a bucket of snow over her head.
Although they had asked him to be the lookout for these matters, really they needed someone to take the fall for them if it was ever so required. And fall he did. His record had become so spotty that some teachers refused to take him.
Now that they were all older and no longer took such pleasure in harvesting rights from wrongs, Carson was typically cast in safer, albeit still unwanted roles, such as designated driver and ticket holder.
When Carson was asked to stake out the house, all of the memories of being a patsy poured into his brain, and although he did not outright refuse he did display some uncharacteristic reluctance. Lewis had to lure him with the prospects of treasure and adventure: the story was that Lewis had been researching the history of their city online and came across several articles regarding the killer who had gone on a rampage when they were kids; he followed the links to different web pages, which led to other web pages speculating where the killer had run to, and from those pages, along with some map sites, he pieced together the exact location that the killer had made his hiding spot for so many years. Lewis made it out to seem like the killer had a stockpile of stolen goods stashed away in the attic of the house where he had been hiding. This turned on a different tap in Carson’s head, the one that poured childlike imagination, and he found that he could not resist taking part in what was essentially a treasure hunt. So he accepted the map that Lewis had copied out for him and agreed to scope out the location, where he would keep an eye peeled for all of the potential entrances into the building and note which of the neighbours were the nosiest.
Lewis and Miguel met with Carson under a broken lamp-post by the end of the block that contained the house. They all wore their regular clothing since they believed that anything out of the ordinary, no matter how slight, would draw attention to them; they were to act as casual as possible while they broke into a strange house in a neighbourhood they had never been to before. Standing under the unlit lamp they felt more like dim heroes than bright villains, private detectives rather than publicly detected.
‘What I’m trying to say is that we’re modest adventurers,’ Lewis explained to Carson, who was having doubts about the situation. ‘We’re not really burglars since nobody has lived in the house for about thirty years; we just have to be sneaky about going inside the house to ensure that the treasure is ours and ours alone. Imagine if we went after it in broad daylight – everyone would want to know what the fuss was about, and we’d have to tell them, which would involve media attention, which would involve police investigation, which would involve all of that treasure slipping through our fingers and landing in the hands of those who would never go through the effort we’re going through now.’
Carson looked to Miguel, who was nodding in agreement with everything Lewis was saying.
‘Okay,’ Carson agreed vaguely – vaguely since he was not all that certain of what he was actually agreeing to. ‘There seem to be two houses that are awake right now. One of them is across the street from the house, to the left; their lights are on on the right-hand side of the second floor, and sometimes the silhouette of a person appears in the window, like somebody is looking outside. Or maybe they’re just standing with their back to it – I’m not sure.
‘The house’s neighbour to the left has their tv on in the living room; you can tell because the drapes are glowing blue and flash every so often. It could be a family staying up watching a movie, but that’d be strange since it’s a weekday. So I’m thinking somebody may have accidentally fallen asleep with the tv on, but then again I have no way of proving that either. I didn’t want to get too close to any of the inhabited houses for obvious reasons.’
Lewis thought over Carson’s reconnaissance while Carson fidgeted, wondering if he had done well.
‘You’ve done well,’ Lewis allayed. ‘We’ll walk around the block: if we go straight from here, then the tv of the neighbouring house will highlight us in blue, making it easier for the facing house to spot us, while if we try to cut across from the other side of the street, it’ll be even easier for the facing house to spot us since we’ll be right in front of it. So we’ll walk around the block and sneak around the house to the back, because that way we’ll be too far from the facing house for it to spot us, and we won’t have to worry about any such tv-glow spotlights pointing us out for all to see. What do you guys think?’
‘I think I like the cut of your jib,’ Carson answered gleefully, his worry blooming into excitement. Lewis smiled, for he was glad to know that he had finally and completely won Carson over.
‘Miguel?’
‘It’s a good plan,’ Miguel agreed. ‘The only plan we have.’
‘Very dramatic, Miguel; I like that,’ Lewis commented. Then: ‘So, is everyone good? Okay, then let’s go.’ He snapped his fingers and then followed the direction of his hand.
They strolled around the block in silence, breathing in the cool night air. While they were walking, Miguel looked up: all of the stars in the sky were actually airplanes; the moon was the only thing that was genuine. He wondered how much of reality was created by man and how much of it was actually real, and then he realised he was only wondering that to take his mind off of the situation at hand. He was less calm than he had been letting on, but so was Lewis; Carson was the one who represented their emotions for them and they secretly thanked him for it.
Eventually they reached the house from the other side of the street and were surprised to find everything going according to their hastily-assembled plan. They slipped around to the back of the house without being spotted; the backyard was covered in a blanket of absolute darkness, and it was at this point they knew that they could continue with uttermost confidence. Whatever they did or said would just be the action of a curious animal, nothing for anyone to concern themselves with or contact the authorities over. So they felt blindly for entrances. Nobody had any qualms about taking a brick to any of the locked windows, but for the sake of silent interest they decided to try the backdoor first anyway. Not surprisingly the door was locked, but after fumbling around for an impromptu window-smashing device Miguel found a metal rod lying between two rotting boards in the patio, undoubtedly a leftover from previous ‘adventurers’, and he used it to pry the door open.
The boys hustled inside and Carson banged his funny bone against a table.
‘Ohh, man; ohh, golly,’ Carson moaned, half-laughing at his own pain.
Lewis and Miguel snickered at Carson and then they all shushed each other.
‘I wasn’t expecting furniture,’ Lewis admitted as if in apology to Carson. ‘I tried to write down everything I could remember when I woke up from my dream, but some stuff slipped away while I focused on the other, more profound things.’
Miguel poked around the immediate vicinity with his metal rod, touching upon a coat rack here, the small table that had assaulted Carson there, and a now-cracked mirror beside them.
‘It’s surprising to find furniture in a house that hasn’t been touched since before we were born,’ he noted. ‘It’s like a fully furnished, fully frozen moment in time.’
‘What dream are you talking about?’ Carson belatedly asked, but the others ignored him. They continued standing near the safety of the back door, waiting for their eyes to completely adjust to the house’s blackness; they felt like their eyes were slowly excavating a perfectly preserved fossil, of which they were filled with awe at the discovery.
‘Nuts to the treasure, let’s just grab what we can and run,’ suggested Carson, seeing all of the many nice things that still adorned the house’s interior.
Miguel shrugged. ‘As much as I’d like to agree with you, Carson, we can always come back for that some other night. For now we should stick to Lewis’ plan, since that’s why we’re here in the first place.’
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ baaed Carson. ‘We’ll stick to our guns.’
‘Okay, can everybody see now?’ Lewis asked; his shiny eyes were the brightest things in the room. Miguel and Carson nodded, and because they had been able to see each other nod they knew that their eyes had finally adjusted. ‘Then let’s get this show on the road. Hup hup!’
3.
After much searching, or rather after much knocking into things and cursing at inanimate objects, the trio came upon the attic door, and upon seeing it Lewis slapped the side of his head in consternation. To say the door was locked would be an understatement; from the very top of the door to the very bottom was a staggering array of locks, each of a different size and shape, and each seeming to require a unique method of unlocking. All three of the young men looked at each other: Lewis gritted his teeth, Miguel massaged his eyebrows and Carson laughed nervously.
‘Okay, we can’t let this get us down,’ Lewis asserted. ‘Carson, this is your time to shine; look for a paperclip or some type of wire and bring it here. I’ll try as many of the locks with keyholes as I can; I think I’ve seen enough movies to know how to get along well enough, as long as the wire is of proper thickness and length.’
Carson saluted.
‘Now, a lot of these seem to require number combinations and other such fun stuff. Miguel, you’ve always been good at puzzles – why don’t you work over the more difficult locks after I’ve given the vanilla ones a shot?’
Miguel resisted the desire to salute and nodded instead.
‘Guys, I fully believe we can get through this door – and start swimming in treasure – as long as we all work together,’ Lewis finished. He had thrown in the line about treasure for Carson’s benefit, but by now he was beginning to believe his own words. Well, the skull really was a type of treasure, Lewis thought – if it did in fact exist. In any case, the locks were proof enough that they were onto something.
While Carson looked through random dressers and drawers in random rooms of the house, Lewis and Miguel opted to relax for a spot; they did not wish to think about the locks until it was absolutely necessary for them to do so. So they went into the main bedroom, hoping to sprawl onto a large bed or lounge in cushioned chairs, but came upon something far more enticing than either – something that offered fresh air as a respite from the dust-clogged staleness permeating the entire building.
What they found was nearly treasure enough. They sat perched in the house’s second story bay window where they could look over the neighbourhood: the house had been built on the highest point of a region of many hills, and as such it afforded a view unlike any the young men had seen elsewhere in the city. They sat on pillows and felt like Persian kings.
Suddenly they heard a rustling from down below and both of the young men immediately and simultaneously ducked. Lewis, displaying caution, signed for Miguel to take a look, but Miguel shook his head. So Lewis decided to check for himself, carefully moving into a position that would allow him to peek down from the edge of the window without being spotted. He peeked and his mouth went dry.
A small dark form that appeared to be a little man dressed entirely in black was heading towards the back door. Lewis, wondering who or what it could be, was worried for the safety of himself and his dear friends; the little man could be a homeless lunatic who had made the abandoned house his home, a residential killer who had followed them here to perform an endless series of tortures in secret, or a demonic ghost, or a murderous hobgoblin, or anything really, anything that was positively frightening and malicious. Lewis had a habit of looking on the dark side of things when anxiety struck.
As the little man neared the house Lewis could tell that something was definitely not right about him: the intruder’s form was too misshapen to be recognised as purely human; it was moving with a feverish agility that Lewis would apply to a raging ape, even though he had never seen a raging ape before; and, as it slowed, its head twitched like a sparrow’s. When the little man – or little devil – slowed, Lewis noticed that in its clutches was a familiar pale object, though he could not place it. He waved Miguel towards the window so that he could get a second silent opinion on it.
That was when the little man bent over and placed the object on the patio before entering the house. They froze. What was that on the patio? It had obvious holes in it and two matching rows of ivory, and the more Lewis looked at it the more familiar it became, but for some reason his brain did not wish to accept whatever it was he was looking at.
‘It’s a skull,’ Miguel whispered. Without having to say it they both knew that it was the skull; they also knew that they had to get out of the house before whatever just entered it came up to meet them. What about Carson?
‘He’ll have to take the fall again,’ Miguel sighed. ‘Carson knew his role coming in. This is what he lives for.’
‘Poor guy was typecast,’ sighed Lewis, shaking his head at his own inconsideration. ‘Oh well, we have to get out of here. Let’s go.’
‘Go? Go where?’
Lewis motioned towards the window; he had meant to imply that they scale down the wall but Miguel took it to mean that they jump, causing him to hesitate as he had never suffered from a broken limb before and did not wish to experience one now – especially not with a potentially homicidal something-or-other after them. But he realised that such hesitation was costing them time.
‘After you,’ Miguel offered, mentally preparing himself for the short ride ahead.
Lewis swung around and dipped his feet into the air as though he were testing the temperature of a body of water; he then lowered his legs completely until they touched upon a sill or ridge of some sort, and he continued lowering himself until all he could see was the wall, less than one centimetre from his face.
All Miguel could see were the pink knuckles of pallid hands clutching the edge of the bay window. Then those knuckles fell out of view and Miguel heard a loud thump, and Lewis most definitely felt that thump; Miguel, in trepidation, poked his head out the window to see Lewis flashing the a-ok sign up towards him, and both of them sighed relief. Miguel followed down in much the same fashion as Lewis, hurting his rear but thankfully nothing else. They had both landed right beside the skull.
Without even thinking about it, Lewis grabbed skull, and suddenly the night sky became a very bright and sunny one in a very real way; the effect was akin to having dark sunglasses unexpectedly yanked from your face after a long period of use. With the shift in time came a loud, piercing shriek that rent the air betwixt Lewis and Miguel and whatever it was that had entered the house.
Yet Lewis gripped the skull more tightly and bounded off the patio towards the closest fence, which he clambered up awkwardly, not looking back. He landed in the neighbouring house’s backyard and Miguel was right behind him; there they brushed past a wall of shrubs and found themselves on a clear, quiet suburban road where they ran as nimbly as they could, running over parked cars and weaving between trees. As they ran Lewis tossed the skull Miguel’s way and Miguel tossed it back, so on and so forth like a game of hot potato. Not another person was in sight the entire time they were running.
For a moment they paused to catch their breath; their throats had been run so dry that they spat blood. While they were resting, clutching their knees and watching their spit trail out of their mouths, a familiar holler echoed down towards them:
‘Guys! Guys! Guys! Don’t! Don’t! Don’t! Forget! Forget! Forget! Me! Me! Me!’
‘Oh, thank God,’ Lewis uttered hoarsely, legitimately glad to see his friend limping after them alive and well – well, perhaps not all that well. Carson was obviously hurt but it did not seem to be slowing him down any; he had caught up surprisingly fast after Lewis’ and Miguel’s cowardly head start. ‘Are you all right, Carson?’
A string of curse words was his response, and then Carson laid his hands on his friends’ shoulders, pushing them forward in an attempt to keep them moving. Lewis nearly tripped over himself as he shifted his feet into gear, and soon the gang was running together, lost and uncertain about everything but how frightened they were. The most important thing was that they were now sticking together.
They turned left at an intersection and came to a park populated by approximately thirty children of varying shapes, scents and sizes. Apparently they were near a school, or it was a birthday party, or something, because they had never seen so many children grouped together like that without adult supervision; given their current circumstances it was far more eerie than such innocence would normally allow. They paused here, figuring they would be safe around a large group of people, even if they were very tiny people.
A spark of electricity popped along Lewis’ spine.
‘Hey, something just hit me like a surge of inspiration,’ he said. ‘Or maybe not inspiration. I feel like some kind of knowledge has been passed down to me, perhaps from my dream.’
‘What’s this dream you keep talking about?’ Carson asked. ‘And why are you holding a skull?’
Lewis turned more pale than normal. ‘Once a person – a person who is not in possession of the skull – lays eyes upon it, they become entranced and have but one purpose in mind: to either get the skull or the person holding it.’
‘You said the skull could control minds,’ Miguel said.
‘I made the mistake in thinking the person in control of the skull could control people’s minds; that was how I interpreted my dream. But it’s actually the skull that’s in control.’
‘So . . .’
All of the children had stopped whatever it was they were doing and were now staring at the skull in Lewis’ hands.
4.
The idea of a single child, or two children, or even a small handful of children chasing after you with malevolent intent is not all that scary, although it is definitely creepy. After all, most children are small enough that you could step on them in retaliation if it came down to it. But the thought of having thirty children coming after you with blank eyes and quick, tiny legs would be enough to make anyone uneasy.
Lewis, Miguel and Carson were face-to-face with this situation, and seeing all of those little children look so zombified in their expressions, yet remain so agile in their body movements, was the most frightening thing they had experienced in a day ripped out of some lost horror film.
Lewis and Miguel looked around frantically for a place to escape to while Carson stood staring at the children rushing towards them. As one head Lewis’ and Miguel’s eyes alighted upon a fenced-off property off to the side of the park, and as one mind they raced towards it without a single word spoken between them, leaving a bewildered Carson behind.
They hopped the fence and landed in a large backyard containing a pool full of people; many of them were adults, and once they noticed the skull they became zombies just as the children had. These were definitely not people Lewis and Miguel could simply step on if it came down to it.
Forced to keep running, they crashed through the wooden door blocking off the path to the side of the house and made their way back onto the street, letting their legs do all of the work as their minds were taking a much-needed vacation. Without thinking about it, they followed their legs back to the park, which was now an empty field.
For a moment there was calm and silence, enough of a moment for them to catch their breath; they were getting a year’s worth of exercise all in one day and it was taking its toll on them. Then a low rumble rose from the street: the young men swung around to find a mob consisting of the park children and the pool people charging towards them.
They turned back to the park, searching desperately for someplace, anyplace, that would lead to safety and not draw more zombies. That was when they noticed a plastic yellow barn near the park’s playground, tall enough that they could climb atop it without worrying about grasping hands. After a slippery start they managed to shimmy up the side of the barn and found purchase on its highest point, which the child zombies definitely could not reach, though they pounded their tiny fists on the walls in a nearly-effective attempt to shake them down. The taller zombies, however, had an easier time at pawing their feet, and one of them even managed to pull itself up with them.
Lewis pushed the skull between himself and the zombie as a sort of buffer. The zombie, finally landing a hand on the skull, shook his head, shaking out the blank, blind stare and no-faced expression, and seemed to become the man he once was.
‘This is certainly an odd place to wake up to,’ the man commented in no small confusion, looking from the skull to the yellow plastic beneath them, and then down to the swarm of zombies that were giving no signs of letting up.
‘If only I was still sleeping,’ Lewis replied.
‘What’s happening?’ the man asked.
‘We found a skull with magical properties,’ Lewis explained. ‘Apparently it draws out a person’s inherent jealous nature, or materialistic tendencies, or outright fear, or downright hatred, or something else entirely, as soon as they catch sight of it. I suppose “magical” is too cute a word for something that’s cursed.’
‘Something is happening that should not be happening,’ said Miguel, explaining the situation in his own concise way.
A familiar cry sounded and Carson came out of hiding from around the corner of the park. He ran up to the yellow barn, not seeming to care about the zombies surrounding it.
‘Hey guys,’ Carson shouted up to them nervously. ‘We have to get out of here, pronto.’
‘No fear for the zombies, Carson?’ Lewis asked.
‘As soon as you guys left me to die they stopped noticing me,’ Carson said, a hint of bitterness in his tone. ‘They ran off to one side of the street and I ran down the other, hoping to find help. Instead I found the thing you guys left me with in the house – I do mean to alarm you when I say it’s coming this way.’
Lewis and Miguel looked at each other, and then they pulled Carson up to the top of the barn, none of the zombies so much as turning in his direction; apparently he was nothing more than a ghost to them.
‘Okay, Lewis, you’re the king of escape plans, or at least escape plans that don’t involve me – what do we do? Where do we go?’
‘That’s a good question, Carson. At this point I honestly have no clue where to turn to, especially since I don’t know this neighbourhood all that well, or at all. Really, this entire area of the city is news to me when we get right down to it. So I don’t know; I don’t know what we can do. I’m sorry.’
‘Uh, I don’t mean to cut in on all this doom,’ the strange man said, ‘but there’s an airport just down the road from here, beside a scrap metal yard.’
‘An airport beside a scrap metal yard?’ Miguel asked. ‘That’s reassuring.’
‘Well, as far as I know it’s the only chance we’ve got,’ Lewis said. ‘You get my vote, mister.’
‘My name is Max.’
The young men formally introduced themselves to Max as a writhing sea of hands clawed at their yellow refuge.
‘Okay, so this is the plan, guys: follow Max, since he’s probably the only hope we have right now.’
5.
After much yard-hopping and skull-tossing, the group of four managed to lose the zombies, although it was entirely possible that they were still out there in their zombified state, desperately searching for the skull and its bearer.
They passed the scrap metal yard, a rusted, fenced-off zone that smelled of crushed pennies. Bits of cars and an airplane wing or two could be seen amongst the generic hunks of metal scattered about the yard. Past the yard was the airport parking lot, half-filled with cars and laced with colourful streamers. Together the group crossed the airport’s threshold; apparently the airport was in the midst of an air show, with planes of all sizes resting on cement plateaus of different shapes. The setup had the appearance of an oddly-faceted swimming pool or very angular skatepark, due in part to the surplus of grey.
‘Still, the planes are evenly spaced enough that people can comfortably walk between them, and if anything the surrounding grey brings more attention to the planes themselves, so the design is not altogether flawed.’
‘Why do you obsess over such minor aesthetic details so much, Miguel?’ Lewis asked after his friend had given his critique of the airport architecture.
‘I’m not sure,’ Miguel admitted. ‘Perhaps it has something to do with the amount of time I spend on computers, in particular all of the logic and puzzle games I play on them. You know, fitting one tetromino into another; that’s how you win, by making things fit.’
Just then a sudden burst of static broke the air above them like a firecracker, startling them into a familiar panic, and they glanced around the airport in quest of the sound’s origin. They found it in the form of an undersized air traffic control tower off to the side of the show; within it was a blonde woman in a blue NASA jumpsuit shouting orders over an invisible loudspeaker, her words inaudible under a blanket of white noise. From her wild movements it appeared she was shouting at nothing.
Lewis noticed a second woman nearby, this one working on the cockpit of a strange shuttle, the likes of which he had never seen nor heard of before. Miguel, Carson and Max noticed the shuttle as well and walked closer to it, admiring all of its unusual curves and contours; the woman in the cockpit glanced up, saw them and smiled, and seemed to be explaining what the shuttle was; only Lewis could not hear a word of it. His friends were asking her questions, as Lewis could tell by the positions of their jaws when they took up a sentence, the ways they posed and re-posed their bodies, and the springy manner in which they gesticulated, but he could not hear a word of what they were saying either.
All sound was insulated by punishing static and rumbling bass; Lewis thought he was going insane and felt nauseous. He rushed out onto the open landing strip so he could puke freely if his body so required it. He spit, and watched the trail of his spit as it coiled onto the blackened asphalt. Unable to bring up anything more than saliva, Lewis looked up to the sky in order to beg for assistance.
He noticed a plane, lower than it should be given the distance between it and the airport; Lewis could easily tell that it was a 747 given its size and hump. The plane was turning in tremendous arcs, leaving equally tremendous and spiralling trails of smoke behind it. As it lowered, everything around Lewis vibrated as intensely as an earthquake, to such an extent that he felt the ground beneath his feet was about to be rent asunder. Everything became a blur.
Then the plane arced back up into the sky until it became a miniature, and although Lewis could no longer hear anything other than a high-pitch tone, he could definitely make out the small sun that broke out of the plane’s wing like an eager chick popping out of its eggshell. By this point Miguel, Carson and Max were standing with Lewis and gazing up at the spectacle as well, although he did not realise it at the time. Together they watched as the plane turned once more and descended directly towards them.