Left Behind plus Zombies: Extract

Background: a quick writing exercise I did after somebody mentioned the two subjects above in the same sentence. This is a single page extract of a much larger story that, sadly, does not exist.

...

“Come ON! MOVE!” Buck shouted, motioning frantically as Chloe ran backwards through the O’Hare terminal, blowing off the head of the nearest lunging, ravenous monster with her shotgun. She tossed him the walkie talkie and he pressed the button, taking one-handed aim with his pistol as dozens more screaming, bloodstained undead burst through the glass doors. Chloe narrowed her eyes, still pouring buckshot into the oncoming hoard as they run backwards towards the opening to the runway.

“I think we’re in trouble…”

“Rayford! Rayford, where the hell are you with that plane?!”

“Dammit Buck I’m bringing her in as fast as I can! Touching down now!”

Rayford Steele brought Global Community One into abrupt contact with the ground, staring at the wreckages of other planes strewn across the runway as they zipped past. Lurching figures were taken by surprise and crushed under the planes wheels. The screech of the brakes against the wheels drowned out their angry vocalisations.

Nicolae sat next to him in the co-pilots seat. Whatever else Rayford might think of the man, Nicolae had saved his life: the thing that used to be Hattie would have killed him if not for Nicholae. The man was even more pale than usual, his eyes were closed, and he appeared to have lost consiousness. Rayford wasn’t surprised: Carpathia had lost a lot of blood through the bite on his shoulder. But there was nothing do for him at the moment: not if he wanted to save Buck and Chloe.

The pistol in Bucks hand clicked, empty, and he threw it away as he turned to run. Chloe followed, frantically fumbling more shells into her shotgun as the roaring, screeching hoard of gaunt, dark figures followed. They scrambled down a broken corridor onto the tarmac, and Buck turned to see a welcome sight: the headlights of Global Community One bearing down the main tarmac towards them. Chloe rapidly fired her weapon into the bottleneck they’d just escaped from, clogging it with inert corpses as they ran for the plane.

Rayford saw the gunfire and his heart raced quicker as he turned the plane with agonising slowness, preparing to take off the moment everyone was aboard. There was a moan beside him. It sounded like Nicloae was waking up.

Rayford glanced over at Nicolae and found himself looking into pale, pupiless grey eyes. Dead eyes.

He screamed in terror as the zombie Carpathia let out an inhuman roar and leapt for his throat.

...

FUNERAL FOR A HATCHET

Starring Verna Zee & Cameron "Buck" Williams

Verna yawned and looked down at her watch: 9:13 pm. Time flew when you were having fun, she thought. She wished that she could have some so that it would. She wished that she weren't so swamped in work, that she could have gone home at a reasonable time like everybody else at the Chicago offices of GW had. But the deadline was approaching fast.

Before the Event, she would have berated herself for putting things off until the last minute, and if she'd been in charge back then she might have berated those working under her as well. But they had lived through what might have been--what certainly FELT like--the worst disaster in the world's history. Few of her co-workers were able to function consistently, and they weren't always able to pull themselves together quickly enough to get everything done as scheduled. She could relate. She hadn't exactly been steady as a rock herself. It was rare these days to find anybody who was. Firing anybody for anything less than egregious failure to perform their duties wasn't an option; after all, where would she find replacements without the same problems, who'd been spared the same trauma?

So here she was, working late, working her ass off to pick up the slack and make sure the issue went out on time.

Thankfully, she was almost finished.

She heard the door to the office open and close.

"Hello?" she called out.

"Oh, hi Verna," replied a familiar voice, one that she hadn't expected to hear again anytime soon. "It's me, Buck."

Great, Verna thought. Just what I didn't need.

"What are you doing back here?"

"Well, I think I left my phone here by accident. I'd be lost without it. Um, have you seen it?"

Verna relaxed a little. Williams seemed different than when she last saw him. He wasn't confrontational. He wasn't acting like he was God's gift to the world of journalism. Maybe she didn't have anything to worry about.

"I'm not sure. You could try your cubicle--well, the cubicle I'd assigned you before you made other arrangements."

As she remembered how that had happened earlier in the day, some of the resentment started to come back.

"I'll have a look," Williams said before heading to the back of the office. Verna turned her attention back to her computer, hoping to focus more on her work and a lot less on Cameron Williams.

"Yeah, it was there. Thanks Verna," Williams said as he walked back into view.

"You're welcome," she responded flatly, not looking up. Now go away.

She heard Williams take a few steps toward the door, and then stop.

"Verna?"

God damn it, what does he want now?

"What?"

"I...um...I owe you an apology."

An apology? From the allegedly legendary Buck Williams? This was something new. Verna looked up, surprised. She had no idea how to respond. After a few seconds, Williams--who looked genuinely contrite--went on.

"I've been thinking about what happened earlier today, and, um...well, you can believe this or not, but I'm trying to be a better person than I used to. And part of being a better person means that I've got to learn to admit when I've been wrong. I remember how I treated you when I had your job, telling you that you were out of line for moving into Lucinda's office. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's where your hostility toward me comes from, and I guess maybe I deserve it. I'm sorry."

Is it really a good idea to get into this right now? Verna asked herself. Maybe this guy was more reasonable than she thought. Maybe it would feel good to get some stuff off her chest...then again, maybe talking to him about that stuff would result in an even uglier argument. And she had work to do...

Oh, screw it.

"I appreciate that," Verna said, getting out of her chair and walking around her desk to lean against it as she continued. "And you're right. Getting chewed out like that wasn't exactly the high point of my week, you know? So I admit, when I learned you'd be working under me, I was looking forward to getting even. Maybe I owe you an apology for that, because maybe I went overboard. But there's more to it than just that. Are you willing to listen?"

"I'm listening," Buck answered with a nod.

"Okay. For starters, there's the reason you were assigned here. You were supposed to be covering a story. You didn't show up to cover it. And when Stanton Bailey called you on that, you lied to him. You said that you were there despite a ton of evidence to the contrary. So you were insulting his intelligence, and you were insulting the intelligenge of everybody else you repeated that lie to, including me. I don't know what to make of that, Cameron. As you said, you had this job before me. How would you react if one of your subordinates did the same thing?"

Buck rested his chin in his hand and closed his eyes, evidently thinking it over. Finally he looked back up.

"You're right, I wouldn't take it very well either," he finally responded. "I might fire me, too."

Well, this is going better than I thought. Still...

"Can you tell me why you kept on lying? I honestly don't know what to make of it. Usually when somebody keeps repeating a lie that nobody's going to believe, it means there's something wrong with them. It means, I don't know, that they're either compulsive or delusional. I'm not calling you names," Verna quickly added as she saw Buck open his mouth. "I'm just trying to make sense of this, to understand it. A lot of people aren't 100% mentally since going through the events of that day, and maybe they won't ever recover fully. I'd be lying if I told you that I didn't have bad days myself. Will you tell me why you did it?"

A long pause, and then...

"You're right, Verna, I lied," Buck said in a resigned tone. "And yeah, I was affected by the Event. I was as shaken up as anybody. I was on a flight when everybody vanished, and you know how many planes ended up crashing. I thought that I was gonna die. Later on, somebody actually did try to kill me with a car bomb in England, and..."

Buck seemed to be struggling to figure out how to say the next part.

"And what?" Verna asked gently after ten seconds or so. "Can you talk about it?"

"Yes, it's just...embarrassing..." Buck answered. "I was under a lot of stress, obviously. So what happened in New York was that I got stuck in traffic. I didn't get to the U.N. on time. I missed the story, and when I got the call from Bailey I just...God this is so stupid...I just panicked. I said I was there, like some stupid little kid who breaks a lamp with his parents in the next room, and then lies about it because he thinks that admitting it will get him in more trouble. Even though they know he was the only one in the room and they heard the lamp break. I wasn't thinking straight, Verna. The stress finally got to me, I guess. I was afraid. I don't think you're stupid, I don't think Stanton's stupid, I just...I wasn't right. I realize now that telling the truth from the start would've been better, but..."

He trailed off.

"I believe you," Verna said with a sympathetic nod. "I mentioned that a lot of people were still feeling the effects of the Event. Sometimes they have panic attacks. Sometimes they just seem to go into a catatonic state where they can't do anything. It's a terrible time to live through."

"Yes, it is," Buck said, almost in a whisper.

"You might have thought that I was being spiteful, telling you that you weren't going to cover anything major. And that was partly true, and I ought to be better than that. Let bygones be bygones and such. But even so, there was a question of your reliability. You got demoted for a reason, and you can't expect to be treated the same as you were before. You've got to prove yourself all over again, Cameron. I understand why you screwed up, but you still screwed up, and there are consequences that go with that."

"I suppose you're right. Can you do me a favor, though? This might seem silly, but...could you please not call me Cameron?"

"I...suppose..." Verna said, wondering at why he would feel the need to bring up his nickname now. "Why does it matter?"

"I don't know, I've just always HATED the name 'Cameron' for some reason. I don't like the way it sounds. Every time I've introduced myself, it's been as 'Buck Williams', and usually nobody really makes a big deal of it, asks what my real name is, nothing like that."

"I guess I can sort of relate to that. I didn't used to like 'Verna' either."

She gave him a slight smile.

"Okay, 'Buck' it is."

"Cool. Thanks...'Ms. Zee'," he answered with a little smile of his own. "This is actually going a lot better than I thought."

Verna chuckled.

"What's funny?"

"I was thinking the exact same thing! I don't mind telling you, Ca--Buck, I spent this whole day trying to put that scene between us out of my mind, and failing. You really got to me earlier. So I'm glad we're clearing the air here."

"You got to me, too. I think it'd be good for us to talk about that, but I want to think about the most tactful way to put it...can you give me a second? Oh hell, actually I guess it's not important. You were working when I came in, and I've probably held you up too much already. We don't need to talk about it. I should probably get out of your hair..."

"No, it's okay. I was just finishing up, and I want to hear what you have to say. Earlier today I couldn't stand you, but you really do seem like a different guy tonight."

"I'll take that as a compliment, I guess," Buck said. "Well, you seem to be really concerned with, um...I'll say assserting your authority, and not just with me. Your secretary Alice, for instance, seemed really worried about getting in trouble with you. And there was what you said about how you expected all of your subordinates to call you 'Ms. Zee'. Not just me, but everybody. And that word, 'subordinate'...it just rubs me the wrong way, and I bet it rubs other people the wrong way too."

"I don't think it's too much to ask that people talk to me respectfully around here," Verna answered.

"You're right, it isn't. But Verna, less than a month ago all of these people were your equals here. They used to call you 'Verna' instead of 'Ms. Zee'--or so I assume--and you used to think of them as Alice or Bob or Carol instead of 'subordinates'. Or so I assume again. By insisting on this rigid protocol...well, to be blunt, I think you're making the same mistake I did with you. You didn't like it when I reminded you that I was the boss and you were the subordinate. I don't think anybody would have liked that."

Verna had her mouth half-open to say that people didn't have to like it, before it sunk in that there actually were some similarities between the way Buck had reinforced their respective places in the GW pecking order and the way she'd done the same, not just with Buck, but with a number of others as well. And while maybe Buck had asked for it, not everybody in this office had acted like Buck Williams.

"Go on..."

"Well, I won't pretend to be an expert on management...and like I said, I'm making some assumptions here without knowing what your working relationship with the other people here was like before your promotion...but think about what we're doing here. We're addressing the problems we've got, we agree that it's been going well. And I think a large part of the reason for that is because we're not in a pissing contest any more. Neither of us is acting as though we're better, more deserving of respect or deference, than the other. Neither of us is demanding that the other acknowledge them as the superior. As I think we both know from experience by now, that kind of thing can make the employee feel like dirt, and resent the hell out of their boss."

A pause.

"True," Verna acknowledged.

"May I ask why it's so important that people here address you as 'Ms. Zee'?"

Verna paused again. Buck waited.

"I'd actually prefer not to get into that right now. Sorry."

"Don't be. It's fine. I'm sorry for prying."

"Don't worry about it. I might tell you another time. For now, I'll think about what you've said."

Buck nodded.

"Well, I'd better get going. Thanks for listening."

"Thank you for apologizing. I've heard you haven't really made a habit of it in the past, so it might not have been easy for you."

"What's got you here so late, by the way?"

Verna told him.

"...it's rare to get a full week's work out of the entire office any more, and now of all times!" she finished a minute or so later. "Readers need to know just what the hell happened, what's going to happen. Plus, I just got this job, and I don't want to lose it. Others here might go home early if they have an attack or a breakdown or whatever, but I can't. I'm responsible for this whole operation."

Verna blew out a sigh. It crossed her mind that after being up over fifteen hours, most of which had been spent working, it was nothing short of miraculous that she was able to avoid snapping at Buck through this whole conversation. She was glad she hadn't, but it was still...strange.

"The problem didn't get any easier to handle when I found myself short one reporter today," she continued, a bit icily. And then she winced. Did I just jinx myself by thinking about how civil I was being to this guy?

"Well, maybe if--" Buck began hotly, and then stopped himself.

Moments later, he started speaking again, this time calmly.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"As in work for me? Aren't you getting your assignments from New York now?"

"You'd be surprised at how light the workload is, now of all times like you said. I found it kind of surprising. Hell, maybe after I dropped the ball at the U.N., they don't want to trust me with anything major any more," Buck told her with a shrug.

"Hmm...well, if you don't think it'd still be a waste of your contacts and experience..."

"I don't. Like you said, I've got to work my way back up, prove myself all over again."

"It might be worth a try. How about we sleep on this and talk about it tomorrow?"

"Sounds like a plan. Have a good night, Verna."

"Good night, Buck," Verna said.

They exchanged waves as Buck headed out the door and to the elevator. Verna plopped down into her chair and stroked her chin.

Huh. Just when you think you know somebody...

But Ruth Clung to Her. (A meta-Amanda story)

Amanda sighed as she stared at the phone. How she hated phones.

There had been no good thing that had ever come forth from one of the hated devices. She recalled nothing so vividly as the ring of the phone, and that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that resulted from the knowledge that it was her husband calling.

"Just so I know where you are, honey," he would have said. She recalled that slight edge he would place on the first syllable of the word; that faint sheen of ice that masqueraded a subtle threat. He used to have other threats too. The brushing of the back of his hand across his cheek, with a slight smirk on his lips. The dropping of the bible on the counter: a reminder that whatever he did, God would be on his side.

She had hated him, and now he was dead.

That thought brought a shiver through her as she considered the blunt, plastic receiver. He was gone, and he had taken his daughters with him. Her daughters. She could still recall the first moment that she had held them, the first steps, and...

Amanda winced, her eyes closing and a shudder running through her body. There were other thoughts there. Horrible thoughts about how her husband had taken her lovely, free spirited girls.

No.

Taken was the wrong word. It was nothing short of a rape. A rape of the mind, like he had once done, long ago, to her own body. He had controlled their thoughts, forcing them into a mental slavery dominated by dogma and hatred. And to make it all worse... he had been right.

It was the only explanation. The only possible way. God had indeed come and taken his people.

A people that she loathed. A people that had taken her daughters.

A people that had... Irene.

That last thought broke Amanda free of her reverie. A new sense of purpose poured into her as she once again contemplated the phone. She knew where Irene had gone to church. She knew who she had been married to...

But what to say...

"New Hope Village Church, Come and Hear the Good News!"

"Uhm, hi, my name's Amanda White... I uh... attended a home bible study there a few months back."

"Well, Good Morning Amanda! I'm Pastor Barnes, and I'm looking forward to seeing you here on Sunday!"

"Uhm, no I... I was wondering if..." Amanda thought furiously, trying to come up with the most nonchalant way of phrasing the question, "I was remembering a friend who was there, and I was trying to get in touch."

"We're all friends here at New Hope Village Church," Amanda could practically hear the "TM" at the end of that, "But I'd be happy to check the guestbook for you if you'd care to come down to see us."

"Oh, I am born again, don't worry about that," Amanda spoke the code words that she knew by heart. It had been a survival instinct for so many years, falling into habit was easy, "But I wanted to thank that member, because it was her conversations which led to my personal relationship with Jesus."

She felt sick in the pit of her stomach as she recited the words. Every little spark of sound a reminder of the sparks that had once dazzled in front of her eyes when she had failed to speak them.

"Well that's wonderful to hear. Not many people truly understand why God left us behind, but I'd be happy..."

"Actually, I was hoping you could help me find Irene Steele. I remember her name because..." FUCK! Amanda realized that she had said too much. It was a stupid move, and she needed to find some way... "because it sounded like Iron and Steel."

She winced. No, THAT was stupid.

Malevolent Father, Part Two

Okay, so I decided I really wanted to try to continue this, preferably with 'Our Heroes' actually trying to do something... Think of it as a kind of meta-Rayford in this... Rayford if he had a real personality.

***

Nicolae was staring out the plane window when it happened. He didn't know why it happened. Just that suddenly, the clouds had blurred and lurched right before his eyes.

Rayford had been praying under his breath, from the pilot's seat. There was no reply. Of course, there never was. Nicolae seemed to hear voices no-one else heard, Nicolae seemed to move to the rhythm of a strange and ineffable certainty, but for the Tribulation Force, there was only prophecy from times long gone, and the desperate hope that if they followed along for long enough, maybe this time they'd be given a sign.

They were the last believers, weren't they? The final hope? Surely the Lord wouldn't leave them stumbling blindly. Not again. Not even if there had been no warning, no chance, no time for farewells between those who were gone and those who were not -

No. He couldn't think about that. Emotions hurt too much. Faith would have to be enough, because faith didn't tap on his mental shoulder at the sight of every discarded child's toy and remind him of his son, of how Rayford had put everything off for later, and then 'later' had happened, and there were no more chances -

Stop it, stop it, stop it!

He couldn't break down. Maybe his focus on faith made him seem heartless, but it was the only thing holding him together. If he let himself consider the magnitude of the tragedy, if he let himself see it as a tragedy at all, his guilt and grief would swallow him whole.

And here I am, ferrying the Antichrist about his destined mission.

It was grotesque. Rayford almost swore under his breath - not allowed to say those words anymore. They might keep me from seeing them again.

His eyes hardened. He'd spent so long thinking he was a great and mighty hero, the renowned and dashing pilot. What would that pilot do, right now?

That pilot would do his duty by humanity. "To Hell with prophecy," he whispered, and jerked on the controls, sending the plane diving down toward the earth.

***

Pain.

Nicolae opened his eyes. At least, he thought he did. From the sensations racking his body, he wasn't entirely sure he had eyes left to open, or eyelids to cover them.

This is not what was destined! The Malevolence was screaming at him.

"Please. Father. I don't know what happened, I don't know what went wrong, please - ahh - please, let it stop burning..." His words trailed away as he saw the charred skeleton of the plane around him.

Something told him not to look down at himself. He was likely in the same condition as the plane, and there were some things he just didn't want to see.

He looked anyway.

Nicolae screamed, just once.

I will not be denied! This is fated, and it shall not be prevented! You are the instrument of my will, Nicolae, and you will not die. I forbid it.

And then his flesh was creeping back onto his body, even as the plane reconstructed itself around him and rose slowly, painfully, into the air.

It was agony beyond agony. Why could his Father not let him rest? Why could he not find some new tool to carry out his cruelties? Tears coursed down Nicolae's cheeks, stinging flesh still red and raw as it healed with unnatural speed.

"Please... no more..." The words slipped out like the pitiful whimpering of a hurt child.

You will do my will, Nicolae. You will reign, and you will grant me your gratitude and service in all things.

Somewhere deep in his mind, he realised love had never been mentioned in that command.

***

Rayford writhed in place as his body was restored. How could he be sent back like this? He'd been so close to seeing them all again, he'd been sure he'd destroyed their enemy.

And then he heard it; a great voice, a sensation just like when he'd said the words.

The Presence was not welcoming this time. It was angry. It railed at him for his ingratitude and impiety, for daring to try to prevent what was destined.

"Lord, please, forgive me!" he gasped, eyes filling with tears. He'd been wrong; it was nearly unbearable.

***

Nicolae heard the quiet pleading and prayers of his pilot. He could almost pick up a sense of rage-filled replies in the air. He listened closer, reaching out with the sense he'd developed over time.

Strange, he thought, though he knew not the source of the chill rippling down his spine.

The voice they both heard sounded just the same.

A World Without God - Scattered Bits and Pieces

People asked for more A World Without God and I have been writing more of the story, after a fashion.

I've got a bunch of disjointed sections of A World Without God. In the end, if I ever get to that, it will probably be the case that some of this is canon, some of it is a apocrypha, and some of it is heresy. I'm not entirely sure which bits fall into which category. I'm trying to sort it into some kind of order, but in a lot of cases I'm not sure about the order.

Some of this is story, some of this is randomly quoting poetry, some of it is massive exposition dump, and some of it is simply random. And I didn't keep track of names so now I have two entirely unrelated Andrews.

Things in brackets are out of story comments.

I thought the link to after the jump was supposed to appear automatically, but it doesn't seem to be, so read it here.

The Rapture

He didn't want to be having this conversation again. He tried to ignore her. He had something more important to do anyway. In theory clearing the memory card was the easiest thing in the world, put it in the reader, hook the reader to the computer, and tell it to transfer the files, and forget about it. In practice the only part of the process that worked properly was the memory card. If he didn't hold the reader perfectly still, which was nearly impossible in a moving car, the connection would break, and he'd need to tell it to move the files all over again. That might not be so bad, if not for the fact that the laptop's battery was shot and telling him it only had 15 minutes of power left. Given that it would shut down automatically when it got to seven minutes left, which never seemed right to him, it was critically important that he hold the reader steady.

Which was hard when she was saying things that made him so angry his hands shook. Couldn't they spend a day without talking about religion? He was clearing space on the memory card so they could take a thousand pictures of them having fun climbing a mountain. Wasn't that enough? Why did theology have to come into things?

Finally he couldn't take it anymore. “You think I deserve to go to Hell?” He didn't mean to say it that loudly and harshly, and for a moment he felt bad. But not enough to stop focusing on the computer and card reader.

“No, but...”

And he was fully angry again. It was silly and self centered to think of it that way, and most of the time he would have recognized it as such, but at the moment it felt like a personal affront. She knew how much he hated people stopping mid thought like that. He had always said that if you didn't know what you were going to say you should take a moment to figure it out before you start talking. She knew that.

He gave her what he thought was a reasonable amount of time. And then more time. Nothing. “What?! But, what?” Nothing. He turned to her.

“Shit!” He didn't have time to think about how it was possible for her to be gone, how she got out, or why he didn't hear the door. He didn't have time to think about the way his computer went flying as his entire body lurched forward and his hand shot towards the wheel. Only one thing mattered: Getting control of the car.

When he turned his attention to the road he found there was no road. The car wasn't going down the interstate at seventy miles per hour. It was parked. In what appeared to be a Walmart parking lot. He didn't understand. Had be blacked out? He picked the computer up off the ground, 14 minutes of battery left, the clock had the same time, it was still on the same file.

No time had passed. Where was she? Where was the interstate?

Where was he?

-

Kelly was getting ready to lunge for the same hold that had made her fall of the wall twice before. This time it would work, this time she would grab it right and it'd be an easy climb the rest of the way to the top. This would be the day. She just had to go.

Which was a lot harder than it seemed. She knew the rope would hold her, she knew Jen was a great belayer. She'd been caught without problem a thousand times before. But the part of her that knew those things wasn't the part that was keeping her short of breath and making the chalk sweat off her hands.

She closed her eyes to collect her thought. Then everything changed. She wasn't holding onto the wall anymore. She was standing on solid ground. She opened her eyes. She would have been standing next to Jen, if not for the fact that Jen had disappeared.

-

Michael was looking out the window at the fields below. He loved watching the scenery go by and wondering what was happening down on the ground and today was perfect, not a cloud between him ad the view. Then suddenly everything changed. He said, “Jesus,” but it didn't seem like enough an explicative. The fields suddenly came up to the window and the engine had stopped.

The plane tilted to the left until the wingtip hit the ground. They were in a random cornfield. He later learned that the pilot, copilot, and nine of the passengers had disappeared.

-

The ambulance wasn't hers. The shift wasn't hers. The supplies laid out on the ground in front of her weren't hers. But the people on the ground were hurt, that made them patients. And she was the only one around who could help, that made them hers.

The explosion had apparently happened mere minutes before she was transported to the scene. No one remembered how they were pulled clear of the wreckage, nor could they explain where the ambulance came from.

It didn't matter. There was healing to be done, the tools were at hand, and the fact that they didn't actually belong to her wasn't going to stop her from using them.

-

He'd been watching Elizabeth Warren give a lecture, on tv, then suddenly he wasn't. His response was, he thought, understandable, “Where the hell am I?”

The only answer he got was warnings from the equipment monitoring the patient's vital signs. Explanations could wait, there was a surgery in progress. That he was qualified to complete the procedure couldn't have been a coincidence. Somehow, whatever made his predecessor, Doctor Mary Jacobs, disappear decided to replace her with him.

Perhaps she had been needed elsewhere, what little he had seen of her work indicated she was better than he was. Being magically transported wasn't what bothered him later. Nor was it the look in the eyes of woman who, shell shocked, told him that half an hour earlier she'd been 8 months pregnant, though he knew it should be, or if not that the sobbing he heard as he walked passed the maternity ward, infant care, and the children's wing.

What bothered him was that there hadn't been any time for learning on the job. The time it took him to find out what needed to be done the patient should have died. Instead all signs pointed to a full recovery. It was impossible. As if someone had hit the pause button until he got up to speed.

When he had lunch he found several others with similar impossible stories. One told of how he'd been so drunk he needed both hands on the wall to move, and then suddenly found himself sober in the place he was needed most. Another of being transported to the ideal place to catch and treat a man who had a heart attack after witnessing an entire school bus disappear.

-

She had to divide her attention between the road and the mirror. She wished she didn't have to spend so much on the mirror, but there was bullying going on and she was determined to stop it. Maybe she couldn't stop it everywhere, but she could make sure it didn't happen here. Not on her school bus.

Then, the children were gone. All of them. She didn't think about the fact that the bus had been in motion. She didn't think about what would happen if she let it choose its own way down the hill. She didn't think at all. She stood up and looked at the empty seats.

She called the names of the best students. Then the worst. Then she called every student whose name she knew. There was no response, and no sign of any of them, but it was impossible. Unthinkable. They couldn't simply be gone.

It would be much later that she realized that somehow the school bus had parked itself by the school, though she was nowhere near there when it happened.

-

Flying Pony wasn't a pony and she couldn't fly, but what she could do was jump and she was good at the steeplechase. Just as she was about to launch herself over a loon themed jump something changed on her back.

The weight of her rider was gone. She turned to look and then remembered the jump. She remembered it too late. She tensed, but never hit it.

She was alone in a field. Her rider, the jump, the course, the audience, the competition, everything was gone. All she could see was open field. She didn't ponder the question. She was a horse surrounded by tasty looking grass. She started to eat.

-

One moment there were six cheerleaders forming a pyramid. The next there were four cheerleaders all safely on the ground.

-

The tugboat didn't notice its entire crew disappear. It didn't notice that it was no longer in a crowded harbor, or that it's engine had been turned off.

A set of high definition cameras that a documentary crew had set up in hopes of seeing the Loch Ness monster recorded the tug's sudden appearance. The monster did not show up.

What IS Nicolae?

Note: This is my first post, so if there's anything wrong with it that'll be my excuse. ;) After reading Pocket full of kryptonite on Slacktivist, I kind of became curious what the answer to Steele's question about Nicolae might be. I'm not sure if L&J tell the readers eventually (although I doubt it), or what the Bible says. My research for this pretty much consisted of the following: briefly checking Wikipedia, and asking a Christian I know about the Antichrist's nature as she understood it. It was also inspired partly by reading "Malevolent Father" during an earlier visit. I don't know a whole lot about theology, or about L&J's story. So basically, I'm an ill-informed guy who's just going to be making stuff up and hoping that it'll at least turn out to seem plausible. With that disclaimer out of the way, I'll start writing...

"I feel like I'm going to meet the devil," Rayford told Bruce. "I've never felt as scared as I am right now--and I hate to sound like I'm bragging, but I've never been easily frightened. I feel as if I'll fall apart in there! Buck may have gotten through a meeting with Carpathia, but he's younger and in better shape. I know that I can count on prayer support, but I still just want to turn around and run while I have the chance, and not look back."

On the other end of the line, Bruce listened sympathetically and instinctively nodded at Rayford's words, even though he knew Rayford couldn't see it. He didn't fault Rayford for being apprehensive--"apprehensive" nothing, the proper word would be "terrified". At any rate, it was a perfectly normal and human way to feel. But Rayford would need to keep his panic under control when meeting Carpathia. And even if Bruce were to forget all about the Trib Force's mission, hearing another human being in such distress made him want to ease that distress. It was simply his nature.

"Okay Rayford, try to stay calm. I believe you'll be able to get through this. We all do. And things aren't as bad as you think. First, you're not literally going to be meeting the devil; only if you were encountering the Antichrist in the second half of the Tribulation would you actually be dealing with the person who was possessed by Satan himself. Second, you don't need to be in excellent physical shape for something like this. As long as you're not prone to heart attack, you should be fine. And between you and me, I think you might actually have more stamina than Buck; he might have hit the weights on a regular basis, but the poor guy can't walk very far before he needs a rest."

When Rayford next spoke, Bruce was glad to hear that he did sound a little most composed.

"So what is Carpathia, then, if he's not actually the devil? Some second-rate demon?"

Certainly, Bruce thought, Rayford wouldn't have asked a question like that when he'd first called. When he had picked up, Rayford had indeed sounded like he was on the verge of falling apart. At that point, his focus wasn't on the nature of his enemy as much as it was on securing protection from his enemy. Primal flight instinct, Bruce thought. An animal confronted by a predator just wants to run away, get away as fast as it can. Only when it feels some measure of safety does its fear become replaced with some measure of curiosity, as seemed to be the case with Rayford now.

"Well, no," Bruce answered. "If he were a demon then I doubt he'd be a second-rate one, but that's moot because he isn't. Just the same as Jesus wasn't an angel. And, as I've already told you, Carpathia is not a manifestation of Satan, or even possessed by Satan. The simple answer is that Carpathia is a human being. He's a human being who has been given supernatural abilities by Satan, but human nonetheless. A human whom Satan has spoken to since the day of his birth. You almost have to feel sorry for him."

"WHAT?! How can you say that, Bruce?! I mean, this man is the Antichrist, and for the first time in my life I'm saying that about somebody without hyperbole! He's the embodiment of evil! He's the enemy, and you're saying that we should feel sorry for him for some reason?"

Me and my big mouth, Bruce thought. Sharing that particular opinion with Rayford had him back to near-hysterics.

"Rayford, I'm sorry that I've upset you. Please, let me explain. Imagine if you heard a voice in your head your entire life, a voice telling you to do this or that, a voice that praised you for some actions and berated you for others. A voice that drowned out the voices of your parents, teachers, people you looked up to, and a voice that you could never silence. That is what Satan has done with Carpathia. That's how Carpathia was groomed for the role Satan had planned for him. It's difficult to imagine any normal person not eventually succumbing to such mental conditioning. He had no choice in the kind of human he would grow up to be, and because of that he is doomed to burn for eternity. Jesus told us to be merciful, Rayford, to love our enemies, and a logical extension of that love is to pity them when they are in pain. Nicolae Carpathia may be evil, but I still wouldn't wish the fate that's in store for him on anybody."

Silence, but no dial tone. Bruce wondered if he ought to say something more, and then...

"I can't believe you're actually sympathizing with the son of Satan," Rayford's voice grated through the phone. Bruce's words had apparently fallen on deaf ears. Rayford sounded angry and disgusted with him. "He's EVIL. He DESERVES it."

It's not that simple, Rayford! Bruce wanted to shout into the phone. But he could tell that it would only make things worse.

"Look, Rayford, I have to go, all right?" Bruce lied. "We can talk more about this later. Just try to calm down. Meeting Carpathia while full of rage could be as bad as meeting him while full of fear. I'll make sure to pray for you and get the others to do the same, so you don't need to worry. Good luck."

"Yeah, goodbye."

Click and a dial tone.

Bruce hoped that he hadn't made things worse. Was he wrong, he wondered? Did pitying somebody condemned to suffer for eternity make him a bad person? Did God frown on that?

He hoped not. He couldn't help it. And he wondered, not for the first time, how a loving God could condemn even the likes of Nicolae Carpathia, even Satan himself, to such horrible and neverending punishment.

The Courtship of Meta-Chloe, part duex

An ongoing effort to re-write the relationship between Cameron and Chloe; the original scene being re-written can be found here and here with Fred's commentary.

Cameron dragged himself to the airplane gate, glassy-eyed and near-mindless. Dinner with the Steeles was a strange but invigorating affair. On the one hand, he had to stop himself from mooning over the Captain's young daughter; he kept wanting to stare, to drink in the details of her face. On the other hand, if Steele's claims were true, then the internet-based attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities (the Gog botnet) and on the Russian Army (the elusive MaGog computer virus) were connected to The Event, and all of it was really just a warm-up for what was coming next. Cameron had researched conspiracies before, uncovered what powerful corporations and governments had wanted to cover up, and before dinner was done, he had already started identifying sources to contact, questions to ask, and information to research.

Which was why, less than 12 hours later, he was barely conscious as he boarded his flight to Chicago. He'd spent most of the night writing emails, making phone calls, and lining up interviews with trusted sources. What he hadn't done much of was sleep, and his memory of Coach seating at Pan-Con didn't offer much hope of rest. He'd bought a bible at the airport gift shop, and had notes on sections to read and cross-reference with other sections.

"Mr. Williams?" The preternaturally-chipper employee at the gate had keyed in his ticket information and seemed amused. "It looks like you've been upgraded to Business Class. We hope you enjoy your flight."

Cameron blinked groggily before remembering the Captain asking about his travel arrangements the night before. Was Rayford trying to butter him up, make him think better of the Captain and by extension make his Rapture theory more plausible? Cameron smirked at the thought: sure, he'd been offered huge bribes, threatened by third-world dictators, but hey, an upgrade to business class? That changes everything!

(more below the cut)

The Backroom Meeting

((I apologize in advance if this seems as atrocious as the source material))

The room was tense, leaders from varied religions had been asked by Carpathia for a conference. There were some curt looks between people, ethnic and religious hatreds died hard. However they came, a mixture of obligation, curiosity and perhaps a desire to meet Carpathia brought them. He entered, eyes drawn to him, the small conversations stopped.

"Gentlemen, I asked you here for a fairly complex discussion, I invited each of you specifically either due to your devotion, charisma or various good works." Privately it was also because many of them had ambitions and prejudices he could exploit, but that was for later. "I ask you here because the situation we face is, for lack of a better term, of a divine nature."

Silence, to be expected, given what happened most people believed that the comment about electromagnetism was a lie but said anything openly. "The disappearances were a declaration of war by an entity that aspires to be the divinity of mankind. It acted as a thief, abducting our children and its most loyal as well as taking those that would cause great havoc if they vanished." He saw the skepticism in their eyes, he paused, this would have to be a more subtle application than usual of his normal powers to manipulate minds, making them mere puppets would be impractical he instead let them feel a kind of awakening, a feeling of living light coursing through them, a growing epiphany as he spoke.

"There is a divinity...perhaps it is the oversoul of the enlightenment perhaps it is Allah, Krishna, I know not. I felt its presence, its voice when the disaster came, I was told of what had happened and what was to come, I pleaded for its aid, it gave me some insight and knowledge of what will come. It has been sensed by others as well, many of the holy men of the past have felt it indirectly and tried to interpret it." And now the rage, many of them shouted now or proclaimed in anger how they had nothing in common with the heathen and 'other' that the other religions represented.

"How Dare you?!"
"Blasphemy!"
"You know not enlightenment nor what you speak!"

Carpathia growled out, "LISTEN TO ME," letting himself deflate slightly he looked at them plaintively, "Please..please listen. This being, this false divinity that stole our families and tore this world asunder isn't done. It's going to try to break the back of our societies and turn us into mindless slaves. The divinity that spoke to me, that tried to aid me..I..I can't do this alone. You are all men and women of power, charisma, and influence. If humanity is to have a hope against this threat, then we can't keep battling over the varied texts, we can't let ourselves stand divided against a foe that will try to devour us whole."



He stepped back, tears filling his eyes, crying on cue was a useful trait and one that he had honed. "Please, I wouldn't ask all this of you if I wasn't desperate. Things are far worse than this false divinity, the being that stole children and tore families asunder still has followers here on this world, some coming to bow after the event. What I have seen says that great horrors will be unleashed and that they will be rendered immune! There are too many innocents that will suffer, too many of our remaining brothers and sisters that will entrapped in the coming darkness unless we stand together."

The seed of epiphany had been planted before, and he could sense the gentle nudging of their own desires, some saw a chance for power, others saw a chance to ensure primacy of faith, and more than a few saw a chance to prove that their way was the right way, and each found ways to cloak their selfish aims in the noblest of cloth. It helped that they felt a brush of a powerful hand, and each assumed it was their own. One of them finally spoke, "What would you have us do?"

Carpathia took a deep breath, his face looking pained, "I ask that we call an ecuminical council, claim a grand revelation that shows a united path. If we can do this we have a chance. Faith is a bond that can hold us together even in crisis, and if the true divinity, the one that inspired the true prophets can speak to us we might find protections of our own, at least that much we can hope."

He listened to their words, but more their thoughts, shaping a few simple ideas, and in the end each one had their basic plans, a true unity he reflected. Each one planned to publicly support the unified system but secretly explain that theirs alone was the only right way, plenty more strife and it would make future 'witch hunts' all the easier. Ah, humanity.

A World Without God - Part 3

I got the three back to their community this morning. Those there seemed like nice people. It was a refreshing change to meet people who seemed genuinely ... nice. Kind hearted, as if they had somehow avoided the rot that afflicted the rest of humanity. It was the first time since the fall that I'd meet people that I didn't feel I had to be on my guard with. They gave me food, they gave me water, and for much of the day they simply talked to me. They told me of their theory for what happened. They believed that God had caused the disappearances and, haven taken the righteous, would punish the world for seven years before returning in glory to save us all.

There were some points I might have nitpicked in that theory given time, but I was more interested in where they got it. I was assured that it came from the Bible (though I had never heard of such a thing) and they promised to tell me more later. Then they asked about me. I told them about Jessica, and how I hope to save her.

That's when it went wrong.

When the word “witch” was mentioned I realized that perhaps telling them about how I could feel that Jessica was still alive wasn't the best idea. Maybe I should have said that I thought she was alive, or guessed it, or maybe I shouldn't have brought it up at all. The point is, when previously nice seeming people suddenly turn cold and approach you in a menacing way and the first thing one of them says is, “You shall not suffer a witch to live,” something has gone horribly wrong.

The person who ran throughout the entire settlement shouting, “Witch!” probably didn't help either. Soon it seemed that every one of them was roused. I found myself walking backwards slowly, empty hands in front of me, palms facing them, so that they could see I was unarmed and not a threat.

I tried to explain that I wasn't a witch. It didn't work. One said, “That dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death.”

That didn't make a lot of sense to me, but I wasn't going to let it go unchallenged. “Now hang on a minute,” I almost tripped over a root, but caught myself and kept walking back. I didn't want to run for fear they'd chase, but I also didn't want them even one step closer to me. “I didn't dream any dreams.”

They kept on approaching. In unison, which bothered me for some reason. I'm not sure why people walking in lockstep would be more troubling to me than, say, the furry cat sized many legged demon beasts that I once saw devour a live moose, but it was.“There's no dreams here.”

But there was the knowledge that I did have a power that I couldn't explain. I'd used it to save these people's friends, so I wasn't sure why they had such a problem with it. That moment seemed to be the perfect time to test whether or not I could use it on command, considering that I figured I was unlikely to survive without it's help. I tried to call up the feeling I had had.

It worked, things again came into sharp focus. It didn't help. I could see every pore on each of their faces. It didn't help. I was sure that, if I wanted to, I could empty my gun killing one of them for every bullet fired. That was useless. So what if I killed a bunch of them? There would be a hundred more.

From the back of the growing crowd, a chant of, “Burn the witch,” arose. I was pretty sure that wasn't Biblical, but I figured I had to choose my battles. I tried to push my senses further.

I was flooded with information. Of the crowd in front of me three deserved more attention than the rest, they were somewhat closer to me than the others, and would be the first to act when actions finally came. They were each armed with a pistol. The one on the left had an old 22. It was well built, but misaligned. It would misfire three out of every ten shots. If I had to let one get a shot off, having him be the one would minimize the risk. The other two had newer guns, identical to each other and several other guns in the crowd. Standard issue of some kind. They'd probably been looted from the local police. All three had old injuries, but they'd all been healed. Nothing that could help me in a fight. Besides, if I actually tried to fight the crowd would be on me in moments.

I'd backed out passed the buildings, which meant no cover until I reached the trees. I found that I knew the locations of the trees nearest me without looking. I also knew that there was exactly one person behind me. She wasn't a threat. She was standing alone off to my right. She wasn't moving, she didn't seem to know what to do. She was unarmed.

In fact, every single woman in the community was unarmed. That seemed odd. It couldn't be for lack of guns. There were more guns than there were men. The population was split about fifty-fifty along gender lines: one hundred and thirty five men, one hundred and forty six women. There were two hundred and three guns. The oddity wasn't just in guns. Of all of the knives there was only one in the possession of a woman. She was cooking. One of five women who kept working instead of joining the “Burn the witch” crowd. Of the other four, three were washing clothes and one was sewing a patch into the worn out knee of a pair of jeans. No men were still working.

Anyway, I considered using the woman as a hostage, but quickly rejected the idea. If these people were convinced that they would go straight to heaven when they died, the possibility of one of their own dying might not be much of a deterrent. At best she'd be a human shield they might shoot right through.

I tried to find anything useful in the information I had. The ground hadn't been cleared of roots, the fact that I knew where they were and could avoid being tripped up without looking might be some kind of advantage, but not enough to deal with one hundred and thirty five armed men.

I pushed my new found, definitely not in any way satanic, ability further … and learned nothing of value. The buildings they'd set up were somewhat shoddy, they didn't seem to know what they were doing. Critical joints were held together by fraying twine while high quality screws were wasted in places they weren't even needed. They had a somewhat eclectic collection of possessions, the most notable being an apple peeler and corer which couldn't really have much practical value, especially considering the total lack of apples. They had an impressive stockpile of canned food, it was stored in an large basement dug out beneath one of the houses. For some reason they had a lot of canned tomatoes.

By pushing my consciousness outward more I was able to tell how many of them were wearing crosses (one hundred and seventy three) and what metal most of those were composed of (pewter.) That totally failed to help. As did every other bit of similar trivia I discovered.

All of that took three steps to learn. Three steps from when I first called on the ability to when it told me about pewter crosses. On the fourth step back I realized that I was looking at things the wrong way. I'd been dealing with inhuman things too long. Things that were faster than me. Things that could follow my scent and see me in the dark. Things that I couldn't simply run from. And so, somehow, I forgot one of the most important lessons videogames had ever taught me: running away is a perfectly legitimate tactic. When dealing with humans at least.

No one approaching me was especially well trained. They probably weren't the best shots. I didn't have to make it that far. As soon as I was in the trees it should be easy to prevent them from getting a line of sight, and I should also be able to out run them. I could feel the position of the trees, I knew where roots and branches were in the way. I knew that if I could just make it to the woods I could get away.

I spun and ran as fast as I could, guns were fired, but when I made it to the first tree only dirt, rock and wood had been shot. I was steps from being in the clear when someone finally aimed their weapon properly. I could feel that the shot was good, and I could tell that it was too late to get out of the way. I felt the trigger being squeezed, I sensed the hammer fall, and as the primer ignited I started to realize that I was going to die. Then something impacted the gun.

The bullet didn't stay in the gun long enough for it to be pushed too far off course, but it was enough. A tree to my left took the shot and in two steps I was safely out of the line of fire. It was sometime around then when I realized what the something that hit the gun had been. It was whatshername, one of the three I had saved. I guessed there was such a thing as karma. As near as I could tell she didn't face retribution, so no one got hurt. Except the tree, but it could take it.

So, overall an interesting day. I've got a full belly and they've long since given up on chasing me. Now I lay me down to sleep.

A World Without God - Part 2

[Since the last one the food situation has been resolved and the narrator has set out on his own to rescue his friend]

I could hear people, which so far had never been a good thing. Definitely worth finding out who they were before they knew I existed. I found out that they were in the middle of a quarry, or a sandpit, or something like that. Steep gravelly sides, one of which I was peering over the edge of. I'd played in places like it when I was young, it was impossible to come down the sides and stay in control. You had to run as fast as you could just to keep from falling over forward, and the surface slid out from under you with every step. The only sane way in would be the road, which in this case required a long coverless approach.

As places to be went, it wasn't that bad. You had a pretty good defense against anything that didn't fly. Anything that came in down the road you'd see a mile away, anything that came down the side would be at a disadvantage.

They'd lit torches, in a circle. Seven men with guns were standing, with knives, over three people they'd tied to stakes. You don't need to be told what's going on when you see that. Criminals you shoot in the head. If bullets are scarce then it's a knife to the back of the neck, between vertebrae. The only reason to take time is for fun.

Fun.

I licked my lips as I thought about all the things I could do with a knife and three helpless strangers.

I shook my head but the thoughts wouldn't leave. I pushed them to the back of my mind. If they had to be in there let them stay in the dark recesses. Let them be confined to the unlit corridors and musty storerooms. Not in the front, in the light, on stage. Anywhere but there.

I was busy, I didn't have time for ... fun.

I had to figure out what to do with the situation in front of me. Really it was simple: There were more of them than there was of me. They might have their knives out, but a glance was enough to see that they were all armed with more. I was pretty sure I saw both handguns and rifles. The victims were strangers. I had things to do. The best course of action was downright obvious.

Except... except that once upon a time it would have been just as obvious, yet completely different. Before I would have known exactly what to do. I would have felt it deep inside. Back then I knew what was right. Ever since things changed I had been trying to get that back. I was hoping that if I went through the motions of doing the right thing, eventually it would become habit and maybe, eventually, something more.

Everything I did was predicated on the idea that maybe, someday, my moral compass would start working again. Until then I was groping at the memory of where it used to point. And that memory said, “You don't leave unarmed people to be slaughtered.”

Problem being, that was suicidal. How was I supposed to regain my humanity if I was dead? I didn't have an answer.

I said, “Fuck it,” to the world, and charged.

My first steps were wobbly. The ground was just as bad as I expected and I was pretty sure that I'd be dead before I had a chance to do anything.

Then something changed. My footing got surer. My vision got clearer. I felt liked I'd just had my glasses professionally cleaned. I chose my target, I imagined that the man lit up like I had selected him in a computer program. I drew my gun, I found I didn't need to aim, I just pointed the gun where it felt right, pulled the trigger, and the man died.

It should have surprised me. Normally I can't hit a target at ten feet if I'm standing still and looking straight down the sight. Yet for some reason it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Normally the sound of my own pistol makes me recoil, this time it washed over me without jarring me at all.

I didn't need to look at where the gun was pointing, I felt it, I didn't need to look at where the men were, I felt it. I knew the feeling. It was the same thing that told me Jessica was still alive. It was what told you someone was watching when your senses told you you were alone. It was what told you to duck just before something jumped out at you. It was everything the eyes can't see and the ears can't hear.

I gave myself over to it, trusted it to show me what to do. I chose another target. Again, I pointed where it felt right, pulled the trigger, and the man died. Time seemed to slow down. Another round fired, another enemy down. A bullet kicked up dirt to my left, some bastard had shot on me, I figured I should return the favor. Unlike him, I didn't miss. It was as easy as point and click. I did it again, I watched as one casing was ejected and the next round moved into place. I found I could feel the action slide, I felt the round as it was positioned, I moved with the hammer, the feeling of the primer igniting was indescribable, almost ecstasy. Expanding gas pushed the round from the gun, and soon another man was dead.

Tension in me released with that of the spring in the magazine as another round was pushed into place. Again I went through the motions of firing the pistol -I dropped with the hammer, ignited with the primer, expanded with the gas- but this time my awareness exploded forward with the bullet. I was flying. Spinning through the air. Flesh and bone tried to stop me, but the best they could do was slow me down.

Then I was back in myself. Standing on the quarry floor. The last of the men falling to the ground before me. Seven shots fired, seven people dead. It was impossible. But it had happened, and there were still the three tied up people to deal with. Two women, one man.

I pulled out my knife and cut them free before I could process the ideas that inevitably sprang into my mind. Before I said anything to them, before they said anything to me, I armed them with weapons taken from the nearest dead guy. They thought it was because I trusted them; they were wrong. How could I trust them? I didn't know them. The truth was that I would much rather find myself shot than have to face what I might do when faced with three people who couldn't defend themselves.

The most terrifying thing in the world these days is having power over another human being.

They offered me food and supplies if I could return them to their people. I would have rather left them there and just gone to find Jessica, but the problem with not knowing where you're going is that you don't know how much food you need to pack to get there. I was running low on food.

So we're going. Together. In the wrong direction.

A World Without God - Part 1

You could feel that the world had changed, right after the disappearances. Inside of you something changed. Your conscience was weaker. Negative thoughts crept in more often, and were harder to shake out. The suffering of others didn't effect you as much.

I thought it was just a response to the tragedy at first. With so much pain it made sense to put up walls, but that wasn't it. Compassion and empathy deadened. You had to fight to keep feeling them. You had to fight to keep the horrible thoughts from your mind. You had fight with all your will not to become something inhuman. Most people weren't up for the effort.

As things got worse with people, other changes went unnoticed. The sudden problems with sea travel barely made the news, and the reports of monsters were treated with scorn the few times they were mentioned. By the time people realized humanity wasn't the only thing that had been changed it was too late. The oceans belonged to them.

Soon after I saw my first monster. It wasn't one of the coiled sea beasts, it was something else entirely. Some nameless horror from within the earth. The ground rumbled, the earth split open, and the first pieces of it reached the surface. It was formless, a mass of flesh and bone that had never known a designer's hand. It's limbs grabbed buildings, and people, and trees. Some smashed through the ground and acted as anchors, and it pulled itself from the earth. Its own bones shattered and reformed as it moved, that was the only noise you could hear over the destruction.

Once it was out it started eating. It didn't seem to discriminate. People, pets, cars, statues, buildings; it ate them all. It would skewer something or someone on one of its limbs, and then drag its victim back to its central mass, a mouth would tear open, engulf its food, then close and disappear beneath the thing's shifting skin.

I was there when it first broke through, in a field half a mile from the house where I grew up. That was around quarter of eight in the morning. By sunset the town I'd spent my whole life in was gone. Devoured.

Fun fact: the interstate highway systems was created for two reasons. The first was to be able drive a tank anywhere in the country at a speed of 50 miles per hour. The second was to allow the survivors of a nuclear holocaust a way to get far enough away from the cities that they might rebuild along the road. Neither of those things actually requires more than one state to be involved, which is why there are interstates in Hawaii.

Not that I've ever been to Hawaii. What the interstates did not anticipate was that those fleeing the cities might be followed by things that wanted to eat them. There isn't any cover if you're on the road. We lost at least a hundred in the first attack. No one knows what did it; no one who stopped to look survived. We went to the woods after that.

It wasn't safe, but it seemed safer. Things moved in the shadows, at first we thought it was just the wildlife, but it set in, gradually, that there was something else. Something smarter than foxes and bears. There was never a scream, never a struggle. Every so often someone would simply stop being there.

All the while we degraded. A notion would slip into your mind, something you never thought you'd ever think. Something you knew should disgust or horrify you, but instead you'd find it enticing. No matter how you tried to drive it out, it would linger, every free moment it would occupy your thoughts. The urge to simply do it would grow and grow. Some people gave in.

Your perspective on the world is forever changed the first time you dump the body of someone you executed in a ditch, fully aware that you wanted to do the very thing you shot him in the head for doing. That you still want to do it. That your desire to do it keeps growing. That someday you'll give in and then you'll be the one in a ditch. Or worse still, you'll get away with it. That no one will stop you and you'll just keep on doing the same thing.

Several thousand people made it out of my home town with me. Inhuman monsters could only be blamed to bringing that number down to around two thousand, that means that the reason the current population is barely half that can be blamed solely on ourselves.

I came to realize that the religious people were right. It don't claim to know the exact truth, I have no denomination, but it is clear to me that there was some cosmic battle between good and evil. There was some greater good outside of ourselves. Something that kept our darker impulses at bay, something that propped us up and prevented us from ever having to face the true horror of human nature. Something that fought to hold back the darkness. And it lost.

It lost when the disappearances happened. Since then we've been on our own, and everything we were once protected from has come out of hiding, crawling from the darkest cracks of the world, and the darkest recesses of our minds. Things best kept in darkness have started coming into the light.

I don't know what happened to the missing, I don't know where they went, but it can't be worse than here. I like to think that they're evacuees. That whatever was holding back the evil in the world knew it couldn't hang on any more and loaded as many as it could into the lifeboats. Children first. Then some adults. As for the rest of us, there just weren't enough life boats.

Some people still refuse to believe the religious explanation, but any doubts I had were washed away when Danny died. At first it seemed like he had succumb to his baser instincts. He just went hunting, with a pistol. First a teenage boy, then a teenage girl, then those who came to investigate the screams and shots, then random people, then those sent to hunt him.

But when we finally found him you could see something was different, there was something in him, and around him, it made him difficult to look at, your eyes couldn't quite focus, he almost seemed blurry around the edges. He was fighting with whatever it was, he had tied himself to a tree and it was trying to make him free himself. We didn't get a chance to kill him, he did it himself.

Badly.

Though he put the gun to his head, the wound wasn't immediately fatal. I think he tried to tell us something as he was dying, but it was impossible to understand. Whatever got in him wasn't an alien or an inter-dimensional whatever, it was supernatural. He was possessed.

I don't know how you fight that. I don't have any garlic and I doubt it would work anyway.

Danny was a reminder, I'm just not entirely sure of what. Don't let your guard down? There's always something worse?

Two days later the last person I knew from before was taken. Not killed, taken. An inky black thing appeared behind her in the night. Other than the wings it looked like a poor attempt at sculpting a human. I could have done something. I saw it, I saw its faceless head turn to me, then to her. I should have warned her, told her to run, or duck, or something, but I couldn't find the words. Malformed arms wrapped around her, and with a flap of its wings she was gone.

She's still alive. I can feel it. I don't know how, I don't know why, and I don't care. It's enough to know. Trouble is, I can't get her back right now.

When we were all too busy dealing with foreign thoughts creeping into our minds, missing persons, and the damage left by the disappearances we failed to notice another change. We didn't notice until after we were forced to flee our homes. There was one change more subtle than the rest, which threatened us more than each other, more than any abomination. The land had changed too. Crops started to wither in the fields, fields we had hoped to live off of.

It's clear now that there will be no harvest, so we did the sensible thing. We found a city that hadn't been destroyed. It was abandoned, no doubt for fear of the others, and we looted it. All the food we could carry. Then we went back for more. We got enough that I thought that maybe, just maybe, we could survive. Yesterday it was stolen. Every can. The people guarding it were killed. Not just killed. Whoever did it to them enjoyed themselves.

I don't know a lot about wounds, but a medical student we have told me what was done to them while they were alive. Don't really want to know how she could tell.

It was done with knives, the others don't need knives. They have claws, and teeth, and worse. That means humans did it, that means humans stole it, that means we can get it back. Maybe. Without knowing how many and how armed there's always the chance this is suicide. Hence this.

I realized that I've left nothing behind. The place where I lived my life is gone. I went back once, I told people to see if anything could be scavenged nearby, but the truth was that I wanted to see it. I was hoping something would be left. There wasn't. It was a hole in the ground. A canyon dug by that thing's teeth, heading westward as far as the eye could see. Everything I ever made, or influenced or touched before my hometown fell was gone.

If I die, I want to leave something behind. Something that says that I was here. Something that makes me more than a forgotten casualty. I've never written a diary before, I guess I'm not very good at it, but at least it's something. If I live to write another entry I promise it'll be less scattered.

One other thing. If I don't make it back, if I do in fact die. That means I won't be able to save my friend. You have to. I don't know who you are, I don't know what you think, but it doesn't matter. You have to save her. This is imperative, it is non negotiable.

Finding her is simple. Head north west. When you start to feel like something is wrong, like you shouldn't be doing this, that means you're going the right way. Follow that feeling. As it grows in the pit of your stomach that means your getting closer. Follow it until you feel it in your bones. When every part of you is screaming at you to turn back, to give up, to drop everything and run like hell, keep going.

If you do that I'm sure you'll find her, and I know she's still alive. I can feel it as clearly as I can feel the pen I'm using to write this with. Her name is Jessica, she has green eyes and brown hair. She was wearing a red shirt and bluejeans when she was taken. Find her, and save her. If your conscience has faded to the point you can't see any altruistic reasons for doing it, then consider this: if I had been taken instead of her, she would have rescued me by now and gotten our food supplies back. She's that good. Your chances of survival are much better with her on your side than they'd ever be alone.