I think she was around 12 when she asked me, “Mom, is the world going to end?”
I didn’t really know how to answer that. How does a parent answer that? I mean, the world would end. Eventually. Not for a long time, though. Probably. “Not for a very long time, sweetie,” I managed. "What makes you ask that?”
Bobbi shuffled her feet and looked at the ground. “Deidre in the 9th grade says it will.”
I sighed. “Deidre doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
As she pushed a shopping cart just a few feet ahead of me, I glanced down each aisle. A big banner over a section full of canned goods, water, and toiletries read “Shower Prep Month”.
Looking at it, Bobbi turned back to me and asked, “When’s the next Shower again?”
I exhaled. “Hmm, well, the last one ended on… March 3rd of last year, if I remember correctly. So if today’s September 9th, then about a month? 587 days, right?”
“Sounds about right,” Bobbi said, grabbing a few cases of bottled water.
As we loaded the groceries into the car, she stared at the sky.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go visit Dad.”
Within row 38D of the Grand Exterminator Memorial Cemetery sat a special grave. It was one we knew. The grave of one David Trivett. Bobbi stood there, face blank, as I put some fresh flowers on it. I rubbed her shoulder gently, and we left, wordless.
Struggling to fill in the crossword, I half-listened to the news on the TV across the room. “With less than a month til the next Shower,” the news anchor droned on and on. “We would like to remind all of our viewers to stock up on enough supplies for up to two months. As always, official government reports will be sent out once the Shower is due to start. Keep calm and-”
The TV shut off. “Fuckin’ satellite,” I cursed. I got up off the couch with a groan and joined Bobbi on the porch. She must have been about 16 then, when it started. “Whatcha lookin’ at?”
She pointed towards the night sky. “Think I saw a shooting star.”
Silhouetted by the moon, I saw a blue flash. “Oh look-” I started to say. Another blue flash. Then another. Countless blue streaks began to materialize in the sky, some already burning up in the atmosphere. Just behind them, I could see several impact the moon, dislocating chunks of the massive orb.
“Bobbi, get inside,” I said sternly. Before she could even start to protest, I commanded, “Now.” As I began to follow her back indoors, I heard an intense roaring. Looking back up towards the sky, I saw a massive meteor, blue streaks flaming behind it. It couldn’t have been more than a few miles above us. I didn’t wait to see where it landed, shutting the door behind me.
Pulling down the metal shutters over every window and door, I looked to make sure Bobbi was safely inside. “Bobbi, turn on the air filters.”
“Have you ever seen that happen before?” She seemed scared. “One hit the moon?”
I hadn’t. “Turn on the filters Bobbi.” I was trying to stay calm, I really was.
She came back into the living room, shaking. “Mom, what’s happening?”
“I don’t know, Bobbi.” I had a hand in my hair now, thinking. Had it ever started early? Surely they would have known, right? “Honey, can you turn on the TV for me?”
“It won’t,” she said, crying now. “It won’t turn on.”
I rushed over to her and took her in my arms. “Shh, come now sweetie, it’s going to be ok. I’m sure they’ll take care of it. It’s probably just a normal meteor shower.”
“But what if it’s not?” She sobbed. “What if it’s the Shower? We’re not ready mom, we’re not-”
We both yelped as a boom shook the room. I rushed over to the windows on the other side of the house, peaking out of the shutters and staring in awe. In what must have been near downtown, something big had exploded. It lit up the night sky in dancing oranges and blues. Smoke filled the rest of the sky, and sirens echoed throughout the city. I thought about the meteor I had seen.
We didn’t sleep well that night. I hardly get any rest during normal Showers, let alone one like this. I woke up around 3 am to a noise in the kitchen. After grabbing the knife I keep by my bed, I crept around the corner.
“Bobbi, what are you doing up?” As she turned around to face me, I saw what she held. I had tried to make one when I was young, and it ended up burning my hands badly. “Bobbi Trivett,” I shouted. “I will not have you making a flamethrower in my house!”
She wasn’t crying anymore. Her face was hard, determined. She clutched her duct tape contraption of cooking spray and a lighter in her hands. “We might need it, mom.”
I cursed. She was right. “Fine, but we do it properly. Let me show you.”
She was 6 when she asked, “Mommy, what’s the Shower?”
I had figured this question was coming, and had prepared my answer. “Well, every now and again, the planet passes by a bunch of asteroids- those are big rocks floating out in space. And when we get close to them, sometimes a few of them hit us.” I had specifically tried to make it sound as not-scary as possible. “And when they hit us, they make a bunch of dust called spores that hurt people. When someone breathes in spores, it kills them and makes them scarier, so you have to be extra careful to make sure you don’t breathe them in.”
“Scarier how?” She asked inquisitively.
“Well,” I hadn’t really prepared for that one. “It turns you into a monster, sort of. You’re not you anymore. You don’t think, and sometimes you hurt people. It’s daddy’s job to fight these monsters. He makes sure they don’t hurt anyone.”
We ended up getting some rest that night, together on the couch, flamethrower on the coffee table. I woke up to a repetitive clunking sound. Following it back to its source, I found it came from the air filter in the laundry room. Cursing, I opened it up. It was a big metal box of various mesh screens, hooked up to the entire AC. Caught in one of the screens was a clump of lint, held together by some sort of mystery grease. Having cleared the screen, I closed the filter back up, hoping it wasn’t out of commission for too long.
The rest of the day was largely uneventful, and we even managed to sneak a meal in. The power went off that evening, and we spent the night reading by candlelight. We were lucky the filters had batteries built in, otherwise we wouldn’t have lasted as long as we did.
I can’t remember exactly how many days we spent like that, I lost count around 50 or so. Our quarantine at home wouldn’t last forever. The longest Shower I’ve ever heard of lasted just under two months, so the fact that this one had been going strong for so long was concerning. I didn’t have much time to be worried, though; we were forced out pretty soon after that.
For about a month at that point, we’d been hearing the screams. Not just of people, but of the changed too. Sometimes I could hear them thundering past the house in herds. I don’t think I’d ever seen so many before.
We were rereading old books at that point, having finished every one several times over. We heard a herd going by, and I motioned at Bobbi for her to stay silent. When it sounded like the coast was clear, I peeked out of the metal shutters. Just across the street, sniffing around the neighbor’s yard, was one of the changed.
It had lingered behind its pack, it seemed. It had four legs, thick and powerful, muscle exposed. Its body was covered in a thin membrane of flesh, missing in some places, exposing more muscle. The torso started horizontal where it met the legs and suddenly sloped upwards at a 90 degree angle, transitioning into a wide neck that sported a face; both incredibly human and all too alien at the same time. Along the vertical part of the torso were dozens of small arms, constantly grasping for something that wasn’t there.
All of a sudden, it glanced towards our house, and I closed the shutters quickly. I grabbed my flamethrower and handed Bobbi hers, slowly backing away from the windows. The thing let out a pained scream before charging towards us, crashing into the metal cage over the door. It scrabbled at the door for a bit, shouting in anguish, before it stopped and sniffed its way towards the window I had just been looking out. Each footstep hit the ground hard, and I could hear each thud, each slap of melting flesh against the lawn. All at once, countless little arms, covered in blood from their attempts at the door, burst through the shutters.
Bobbi screamed, and I opened fire. It screeched as the flames enveloped its body, but did not relent. The shutters began to bend at the thing’s weight. I stopped firing and pushed Bobbi further back. Moments later, the shutters burst, and the changed forced its way into the house. At that point, both Bobbi and I fired upon it, drenching its body in flame. We continued to back up, soon finding ourselves behind the kitchen island. My fuel ran out first, and I scrambled for any other weapon I could find, settling on a large butcher’s knife. Bobbi’s fuel ran out then, and the changed continued to approach.
Powered by adrenaline and fear, I leapt over the kitchen island and dove at the creature, sinking the knife deep into its charred skull. Its wretched body seized, mouth open in a silent scream, and then it collapsed, taking the knife and me with it.
Hyperventilating, I rolled off of the mass of burnt flesh and blood, kneeling on the floor. Bobbi knelt down and wrapped her arms around me, crying once again.
We couldn’t stay there anymore; the house was exposed to the air, and any other changed could get in if they wanted. They could probably smell us from miles away anyways.
Sporting gas masks, replenished flamethrowers, and rations, we set out. The moment we heard or saw a changed, we hid. We only had to fight head on one other time, when one found us hiding underneath a car. Bobbi and I managed to escape, but not before it took a good chunk out of my left arm. The wound quickly became infected, and I could feel my blood pulse through the veins near the injury. I can still feel it throb, sometimes.
As we passed more and more buildings, most either abandoned or locked up tight, we eventually came by an apartment complex, where, on the third floor, a light was on. Electricity, months after the power went out.
“Do you have to go?” I pleaded.
David looked at me with a sad smile, rubbing my shoulder gently. “Hun,” he said. “You know the Shower’s tomorrow. I gotta be ready for the call.” I could tell he was trying not to cry. It was always hard to say goodbye like this. “It’ll be the same as last year, just doing some cleanup. Hopefully the forecast is light this time around.”
I nodded, hugging him before sending him on his way. Bobbi was 13 then, and neither of us would see him ever again.
It’s not that Frank was a bad person or anything. He just… wasn’t right. He couldn’t see it- wouldn’t see it. Couldn’t stare reality in the eye. He refused to change. He’s dead now, did you know that?
We knocked on his door, begging for refuge. He opened it without even glancing through the peephole first. “Oh, please, come in!” He smiled. After introductions were done, he made us some tea and had us sit at a little coffee table.
It would have been hard to ignore. We noticed it pretty much the moment we entered the small apartment. From floor to ceiling, along every wall, were boxes and boxes of records. There must have been tens of thousands of them.
A record played something slow and melancholic from the bedroom. “So, uh… you a fan of music?” Bobbi joked somewhat nervously. It was nice. I hadn’t heard her chuckle like that in weeks.
Frank glanced around the room and chuckled a bit himself, putting down his cup of tea before responding. “I guess you could say that, yeah. I usually have one vinyl or another playing.”
“So…” I asked hesitantly. “How’d you keep the power on?”
He glanced up at the small fixture in the middle of the ceiling. The lights flickered. “Just paid my electric bill on time, I guess.” He looked back at me, quizzical. “Why? Should the power not be on?” The lights flickered again, the record skipped a little.
I glanced at Bobbi. “Well… yeah. Ours went off a month or so ago. Seems like the rest of the city’s did too. It’s just uh, it’s just you.” This made him look slightly uncomfortable, and he deeply stared into his cup of coffee. “What, do you have a generator or something?”
“No… no generator.” In the next room, the record repeated the same lines over and over.
You and I are a radiation
Glowing softly in the night
I see us in every constellation
Deep down, we know this ain’t right-
You and I are a…
We couldn’t stay there for long. I think it was screwing with Bobbi’s mind. I think she started to feel like we were safe.
I really do wish neither of us saw what happened as we approached downtown… but part of me feels like it was a good reminder. I think maybe we needed that.
A few dozen yards ahead of us, we saw the distinguishable orange latex of an exterminator’s suit. It resembled a hazmat suit, but bulkier, topped with a clear plastic mask and large gas mask. The exterminator took a step back and fired his flamethrower at a small group of changed. Unlike our amateur weapons, his was able to melt several creatures in seconds, turning the things to a sticky fluid on the ground.
There were too many, though; he needed backup he didn’t have, and we were too far away and too low on fuel. A few approached from behind, one eventually getting close enough to swoop down on him, knocking him to the ground. They were all upon him then. His screams only lasted a few seconds.
Every time I think of David, imagine how he died, I think of that exterminator. I imagine it’s David in that suit, all alone, surrounded. I imagine it’s him getting torn to shreds. There are no open casket funerals at the Grand Exterminator Memorial Cemetery.
As we hid from the large group of changed, I glanced at my shoulder. The veins were bright blue, and it pulsed, as if it had its very own heart. I looked away quickly.
We laid low for an hour or two before moving on. Before I knew it, we were on the outskirts of downtown. They would have shelters, bunkers. That’s what I told myself, at least. That’s how I rationalized it, the singing that called me towards the fluorescent blue glow of the city.
before they killed me, i was changed for only a few days. i was truly alive, more alive than i had ever been. in comparison, the time before the change felt pale, boring. how could they take that away from me? i was changed, and i was beautiful. i was a creature of the night, born of the stars and the earth. don’t they know what they destroy every day? do they even realize how pitiful their lives seem in comparison?
I wasn’t really sure where we were going, at the time. Mom had said she saw a really big meteor heading in this direction, so why were we following it? I mean, I know now why we were following it, that angelic singing we both hear. Just, at the time it was confusing. I trusted her, though. Figured she knew what she was doing.
I didn’t notice until a few days after it had happened that she had even been wounded at all. She played it down, of course, but it scared the hell out of me. Looking back, it still scares the hell out of me. Sometimes, when it was too hot for her to wear her sweater, I could see it clearly. A massive chunk had been taken out of her arm, looking like it was fermenting. Some sort of pus gathered around it, and the veins were bulging, like they were about to burst. The infection had started to spread to the rest of her arm, too, even creeping up her neck a bit. Sometimes, when it was my watch at night and she was asleep, I saw it twitch.
We reached downtown proper the day after we saw that exterminator. Between the skyscrapers that still stood, we could see the blue glow on the horizon. During the day, it was hard to spot it against the red, fire-stained sky, but at night, it was unbearable. It seemed brighter than the sun at times.
In some places, the roads were cracked, almost torn in two, the same way pavement looks as a tree root grows beneath it. Some of the cracks were large enough that we either had to jump across or go around entirely.
Within downtown, we didn’t see many changed, and the ones that we did seemed softer, fresher. As we got closer to the blue glow, I started noticing more and more biomass attached to many of the buildings. Some large clumps of it bridged across the street from the tops of skyscrapers, large strings like chewing gum pulled taut.
I must not have been watching my step, looking at something stupid like the chewing gum on the buildings. In the back of my mind, though, I know it was meant to happen. That hole was made for me, and I was always going to fall down it.
I didn’t even have time to scream. I was just next to my mother one second, and the next, all that surrounded me was darkness, wind rushing by my ears. I could faintly hear her scream above me. I would give anything to fall down that hole again, visit that chapel.
“BOBBI!” I stared in shock at the crevice she had fallen down, considering jumping down it myself. “BOBBI!” I cried again, this time through tears.
My flashlight couldn't reach the bottom of the hole, I had no idea what was down there. I sat there, maybe for hours, crying softly to myself. How could anyone survive a fall like that? Even if she had survived, I thought to myself, there’s no way she didn’t break anything. A broken leg during the Shower is as good as a death sentence.
After a while, I reluctantly got to my feet. I’d keep going. Keep following the singing in my mind. It was strongest when I looked at that blue luminescence, the meteor that it came from. My arm twitched in tune with the chorus in my brain.
It didn’t matter if Bobbi was alive now. I didn’t even care whether or not I survived. All I cared about was making it to that crater. As long as I could see it, touch it, be scorched by it, then all would be alright.
The fog of the early morning glowed bright blue, and I could barely see more than a few feet in front of me. After a while of walking, I saw a silhouette through the mist. I reached for my flamethrower; there wasn’t any way I was going to let a clump of regurgitated meat stop me from making it. My hand relaxed, though, when I saw it was the figure of a human. A human I recognized.
“David…” I could barely say it. I hadn’t said his name in years, tried not to look his death in the eye.
He smiled sweetly, reached out a hand. “It’ll be okay now,” he said softly.
As I got closer, I saw that his clothes were tattered, his skin scorched. I reached for his hand anyways, took another step-
-And fell. Felt at least one bone break. Tumbled a long way down. With a groan, I opened my eyes. On the rim of a massive crater, a crater I sat at the bottom of, I saw David looking down at me. He still had that rotten honey smile on his face. To my left, close enough that I could feel the heat of it, was a rock. It was massive, bigger than most of the buildings we had passed so far. It was gray and brown, with luminescent blue veins. It looked just like my arm.
As I finally looked away from that magnificent meteor, I saw that the crater was filled with dozens of changed, maybe hundreds. They walked over to me slowly, seemed to understand that I wouldn’t fight back. I rested a hand on the meteor as they gently and lovingly tore me to shreds.
As I fell, the walls of the crevice gradually sloped, catching me gently. Just as gradually, the rocky surface became slick, even squishy in places, as the thin layer of biomass and liquified flesh became thicker and thicker. Eventually, I was unceremoniously dumped into a small pool of the stuff, up to my knees.
I let out a long string of curses and made sure everything was intact. A broken leg during the Shower is as good as a death sentence. Luckily, I was fine. Can you call it luck if it was planned? But I digress.
I waded out of the pool of filth and blood and caught my breath on the soft rocks next to it. They breathed softly beneath me. I would have been content to lie there forever, had I not heard a soft groaning further down the fleshy cave I was in. Glancing down it, I saw something crawling along the ground.
Hesitantly walking up to it, I recognized the shape of its head immediately. It was a changed. Or, it would be. Would have been. Its skin was mush, chunks falling off in a slimy trail as it crawled towards me. All it had was a torso and one barely formed arm. Poor thing.
I did not hesitate to stomp on its head, squishing it with ease. I feel bad about that now. What could it have done to hurt me? I should have just let it be.
Wiping the viscera off my boots, I continued down the corridor. It was a vaguely circular tunnel, with clumps of flesh along the walls, bathed in a faint blue glow. Moss, mold, and vines thrived among the flesh, appearing in abundance in that beautiful little corridor.
As I continued, the heartbeat of the world got louder and louder, until it was almost unbearable. The world reverberated around me with each beat, and I started running, hands over my ears. Until, all of a sudden, the heartbeat stopped. The world was dead quiet, and it was worse than the ear-splitting beating.
I stopped too. I was in a fairly large chamber, much larger than the tunnel I had come from. In front of me, a large bulge decorated the wall. There was a seam running down the middle, from the ground upwards.
And then, it opened. An eye, as large as the chamber itself, bloodshot and overwhelmingly blue. At the same time, the heartbeat returned, along with a screaming in my mind. The eye stared at me. Looked through me, into the very depths of my being. The screaming grew louder and louder, an unholy chorus echoing throughout my skull. I fell to my knees and clutched my ears. The pain was overwhelming, and I began to scream in turn.
while i decomposed, i dreamt. i was knee deep in an ocean of blood. just a few feet above me was a reflection of the sea below. within the scarlet ocean suspended over me were millions of blue dots, stars in a blood red sky. i closed my eyes as the ocean and its stars began to pool into me, forming flesh and bone, building me anew.
When I finally opened my eyes, the screaming had stopped. The eye and its heartbeat were gone, and in their place was a tunnel, circular and sloping upwards. At the end, I could see light.
I laid there for a minute, in that cave. I soaked in the viscera that pooled around me, eyes closed. There was something in my head. A heat right behind my eyes, a glow in the recesses of my mind.
Eventually, I willed myself upwards. Climbed on shaky legs towards the surface, out of that crimson oasis. The moon hung high in the sky. I had no idea at that point in time how long I had been down there, or how long the Shower had even been going on for that matter.
I was just outside downtown, could see the buildings covered in their chewing gum, the fires that raged throughout the countryside. The meteor had lost its beautiful blue glow, and sat dormant in its crater. As I observed, a voice spoke to me. It whispered reassurances in my ear. We would be ok. It would all be ok.
On the edge of the crater, I saw a figure, sitting, staring at the meteor. There sat my mother, legs dangling over the abyss.
I woke up just in time to see the last of the blue glow before it faded. I did not fret, though; it would always be near me. I rubbed my new flesh. It lacked any scar or wound and had a slight red tint to it. I looked upwards at the stars as my daughter approached from behind.
“You look different,” I said, not looking away from the sky.
She sat down next to me. “You do too.”
I smiled softly to myself. On the fringes of the city, I could see short bursts of flame, exterminators clearing the changed.
“Mom?” She said, hesitantly. She sounded a little scared. A little like her old self, before the seed was planted in her head. “Do you… think the world’s gonna end?”
I looked down at the meteor. “Probably,” I said calmly. “Probably not today, maybe not tomorrow, either. But eventually. Maybe it’s already ending. Maybe-”
Reggie feels a connection to these "changed."