Endless Memories

Endless Memories

Darkness reigns in the stadium and the air quivers. Switches are pulled and night is pulverized. The momentary silence of shock intensifies the roar of a Harley engine heralding a dark rider. His black cape billows behind his Kabuki face framed in long red hair. He rides leisurely around the inner perimeter with one clenched hand raised as the thunder from the crowd shakes the foundations.

He cruises to the center of the field and dismounts. The ground rises. Bending down, he clenches a microphone and pivots as he raises it to his mouth. There is instant silence. He shouts, “Brave new world, I welcome you!” A thrill runs through him as the very ground trembles from powerful echoes of approval.

He slams a fist high and silence routs the clamor. He screams, “The powers of Nature have chosen us to rule. Those others will join the ranks of extinct inferiors.” His arm slices the air to sever an invisible foe and a roar rents the air.

*****************

A woman stands alone, tall and slim, in the mouth of a building with a pistol in her hand, straining to sense the signature of human life. She has the Bug; for that, she believes, many would kill her on sight. Others, of her kind, have signaled for her to join them. Though she has hung back, she has followed them to this city hemmed in hills. But now, as more and more of them converge on the city, they ignore her. She wonders what is pulling them here.

Stepping out of the unlit building into the dark deserted street, she sees, half a block ahead, a body with its arms and legs spread out on the pavement. As she approaches, what she thought was the fluttering of its clothes is revealed as the jerking of a pack of rats feeding. Several turn their heads and the glow of the moon is weakened in their eyes and reflected in red. She stops in her tracks fearful of disturbing them. Slowly, two by two, red dots fill the outline of the body. She takes a bold step and the pack disperses. A splash echoes. She whispers a curse and spins her head to its source as her filthy blond hair whips against her mud spattered face. Leaping to a wall, she plasters herself against it. She sucks in the cold air and holds it while keening her senses. Hearing only the sound of paper rustling in the wind, she relaxes, for she trusts her radar like ability to sense human life. She exhales a mortal cloud and slides to the pavement, holsters her gun, and sits to ponder.

****************

The first of those like her, driven by their inner metamorphosis, fell upon the nearest bystanders in markets, streets, and parks. Almost all died violently in a hail of police bullets or later to mob violence and revenge. But, soon, it spread to those close to their hearts: co-workers, friends, and family. Thus, at the very beginning of that stage, some, with great effort and danger, were restrained and taken away to medical labs. She had been one of them.

During the probing and experimentation, she raged and nearly went mad from the lust for blood of which the mere presence of her captors aroused. Time meant nothing under that thirst. Only the change from the heat of midsummer to the cool of late autumn revealed to her the passage of weeks. Neither did she trust her memories, for she was injected countless times with drugs that induced vivid dreams or hours of hallucination. Yet, somehow, they conditioned her just enough to keep her sanity, and as the days progressed, her need to bite into flesh lessened.

It was near the end of her imprisonment, still groggy from the effects of a new drug, that she heard that another lab had discovered the virus responsible for creating vampires like herself. The same lab also confirmed that winged insects were the original vectors. From insects the virus entered the human population world-wide in less than a week. Such speed of infection was believed impossible without the hand of intelligent planning, for the virus couldn’t have mutated simultaneously in every continent; it must have been a timed release. But, whose devilish hand? No one knew, though she heard conjectures of terrorists, Armageddon sects, and aliens.

Not many days after, she had found the door of her cage open and the lab abandoned. She used to wonder why they hadn’t kill her. It was just one more crazy thing that didn’t make sense.

*****************

Pain rips through her head. Within, memories kick open a door leading deep into nightmares past. She sees herself bound in rough rope. The canopy of a gigantic tree looms over her. From the dying leaves hairy pink caterpillars rain upon her. She twists frantically against the rope, knocking a dozen of the squirming bugs off and squishing them under her naked body. Yet, they continue falling. Soon, the wriggling crawling mass melts into a cold black slime that oozes over her. Like a living thing, it spreads up her neck. Violently, she shakes globs of it off her face. Finally, squealing, she arches against the ropes as the slime squeezes into her brain.

The scene shifts. Home safe in bed, she sees herself lifting the blanket off and rising to her feet. She sways and grasps her head. Her eyes stare stupidly at nothing. Saliva drips down her chin and her eyes flutter. She inhales sharply and slurps her drool. Then, she crosses the room, swaying and staggering, to her sleeping sister with a need burning in every nerve and falls upon her.

She wakes from the dream within a dream and wakes again. She’s disoriented a moment longer as she hears drums over the sound of rushing water, until she realizes she’s listening to her blood propelled by a pounding heart. She groans; reality’s horrific enough, she doesn’t need nightmares.

Her senses alert her to the presence of uninfected life: humans, a band of about a hundred coming around the hills from the east. She also hears and sees her kind, many more than the band, converging on the bending road. A familiar desire is awakened, much weaker than the irresistible compulsion it used to be. Yet, she doesn’t resist; she stands up from the pavement, then follows the need from her tingling nerves.

Soon, in the distance, she sees a convoy of cars. Entering a building and climbing the stairs, she takes a small pair of binoculars out of a jacket pocket and pans the horizon. She finds a group of a dozen on a hill clustered around three launch tubes, but one commanding figure attracts attention, a figure as black as the emptiness of space save for his chalk white face and ruby red hair. It points an arm east. She spins around, and yells for the convoy to turn back. She jumps and flaps her arms to no avail. Finally, she raises the binoculars and watches in anxious frustration.

The convoy is going at a sedate pace with all lights off. The sixteen vehicles, a stew of makes and sizes, are battered and muddy, their doors reinforced with steel skirts. They travel in a tight column with a gap in the middle. Four flat-bed light trucks are filled with heavily armed men. One truck is at each end and two are in the middle of the convoy just in case they need to split up. A soldier in each truck and the driver of the first truck wear night vision goggles, the rest stare nervously into the night with bare eyes. The cars are mostly occupied by children and armed women. Without exception, all are covered in cloth and many wear cheap goggles, not one patch of skin is exposed, for none want to be bitten and infected.

One of the soldiers spots a crouching figure sprinting to the side of a building and speaks into a phone. The convoy picks up speed. In the distance, a rag tag mob spills into the streets from the left and front. The lead pick-up truck swerves around a corner to the right and the others follow with a squeal of tires. Up ahead the driver sees the road has been blocked with overturned vehicles. His navigator points to a large park a block away, then turns to signal for the men in the back to lie down. The driver slams on the gas. Trees flash by, then the truck jumps the curb, smashes through the gate, and leads the convoy to the center of the park. Thinking they’re up against a leaderless foe with no plan, they form a square with the cars and park a truck at each corner of the formation.

Orders are barked. The children are herded into the center and forced to lie down. Machine gun crews set up on the flat beds of the trucks while others take position behind cars.

The scream of an incoming rocket passes overhead and the ground explodes fifty meters behind the square. Another rocket explodes fifty meters in front. Heavy smoke blocks the view, but soon, the smoke drifts away and guns from the square open up on the crazed mob rushing in from all sides. A scythe of whizzing metal mows down the first ranks. Rockets fall all around and on the square. Vehicles flip through the air. Bodies on both sides are blown apart. The barrage stops as the mob reaches the shattered wall of vehicles.

The battle becomes hand to hand. At first, the uninfected slay their unarmed enemies with steel and pistol, but exhaustion and sheer numbers overwhelm them. As the last defenders fall, an old man among the children pulls a pin and a crown of light and fire leave a smoking crater.

She lays the binoculars on the ledge of the roof. She’s nauseated and dizzy. The city spins, her legs crumble, and she collapses to her knees.

The virus in her brain enters the next stage in its mutation, and now interferes with the brain’s perception of time.

The battle rewinds. Red, orange, and white light mixed with limbs, heads, and clumps of earth appear from nowhere. They converge: the light to disappear, the limbs and heads to point their guns to vacuum bullets into their barrels.

The scene fast reverses. She bending over her sister, feeding blood into the veins of her neck.

Stop. Fast forward. She’s in her cell. She scurries to the bars, leaps, and crashes into them, then rolls on the floors while biting the air in a feeding frenzy.

Her eyes bulge as her stomach heaves and heaves until she faints.

A winged creature alien to Earth lands, bends down, and holds an instrument over her. Symbols appear. It straightens up and surveys the landscape. Its wings swell as if it is well pleased.