“I’m Winston Twilling,” the man said. “But everyone calls me Twiggy. At least, they used to call me Twiggy. No one calls me much of anything these days, I guess.”
“I’m Mason Dowell.”
“Pleased to meet you. Wish the circumstances were better. But we can’t all be eating cake and crumpets these days. But I’ve got some good tea. Swiped it from the fancy market down the street. They have an entire aisle dedicated to the fine world of teas and coffee. Wouldn’t shop there before—they used to just gouge people on their prices. But a free lunch is a free lunch. At least these days it is. Who’s gonna complain?”
Twenty minutes later Mason sat in the only chair in Twiggy’s bachelor apartment and waited while the man fiddled with the buttons on an old propane stove that now ran on gasoline. Mason stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. It was getting harder and harder to get a full night’s sleep these days. Twiggy, however, looked like he’d had ten hours the night before. The old man’s eyes were bright and energetic.
Twiggy’s apartment was more like a museum than a home. There were shelves overflowing with everything imaginable. Thousands of books, notebooks, statues, loose articles, and knickknacks, piled and tossed until every corner was filled. On the walls were a collection of maps of the world. Maps of the solar system. Maps of subway routes and what looked like small towns. There were drawings and pictures, mostly of places—waterfalls, beaches, jungles, canyons, ruins of ancient civilizations, and even a few smiling people—stuck in place with thumbtacks and pushpins, several of which overlapped into one gigantic collage.
Binders and newspaper clippings were stacked in corners. Even the kitchen had boxes of books pushed up against the refrigerator and cupboard doors.
The place made Mason feel slightly claustrophobic, but it didn’t seem to bother Twiggy in the slightest.
“It was a push-button generation,” Twiggy said. “We never needed to work for anything. Anything you wanted was within your reach. If you were hungry you popped something in the microwave and pressed a button. If you wanted to drink you turned on the coffeemaker. We used buttons for elevators, cars, televisions, alarms—hell, if you could think it up, someone would invent a button for you to press in order to have it. Now, I’m not one of those old farts who goes around talking about how much better the world was when I was a boy. It wasn’t. At least, it wasn’t a few weeks ago. Can’t really compare it to today, can I? Nothing is worse than this.”
Mason nodded. He stared at a stack of books that looked dangerously ready to topple at the slightest breeze. Twiggy’s apartment wasn’t dirty, but it wasn’t exactly clean, either. The dishes were done and neatly stacked in the cupboards, and the bedding looked freshly washed. But everything was worn—old and faded. Mason couldn’t help but think it must be a depressing place to live.
Twiggy caught him looking around. “Yeah, it’s not much, but its home. I’ve lived here a long time. I guess if I really wanted to, I could find myself a nice condo in the downtown core. I’m sure there’s plenty of good real estate waiting around these days for someone to grab it. Might get a real steal of a deal.”
Mason nodded, distracted by a smushed bug on the ceiling.
“But this is mine. It’s not the building but what’s inside that counts. Been here thirty-some years. Could have left it behind a long time ago, but never felt like I needed anything else. Aside from books and knowledge, I’ve always believed in a simple life. Never married, no kids, nothing but my job and that was enough. Even after I retired I still didn’t feel like moving down to Florida or whatever it is old people do these days. Besides, can you imagine how much it would cost to move all this junk?”
“What did you do?”
The kettle began to whistle and Twiggy switched off the burner. He poured the water into mugs containing fancy-looking tea bags. For a one-legged man, movement was not a problem for him. Balancing on one crutch, he picked up a mug and brought it over to Mason without spilling a single drop.
“I was a sociology professor at the university,” Twiggy said as he went back to the kitchen. He picked up a bag of cookies and tossed them at the bed before retrieving his own mug. “Don’t look so surprised, us nutty professors always look like twenty miles of bad road. I think unmanageable hair and tweed suits are part of our chemical makeup.”
“Cool.”
“Extremely,” Twiggy said. “I specialized in downfall, the destruction of societies. As you can imagine, this whole event has caused quite a stir in my attention span.”
A scream sounded from outside the window, and Mason jerked his hands up, spilling hot tea across the front of his shirt. Swearing, he jumped to his feet, pulling at the cloth to try and prevent the scalding liquid from burning his chest.
Twiggy hopped over to the window and pulled aside the curtain to get a better look. “Can’t tell if that was one of them or someone in trouble. Not that we’d be able to do much.”
“Should we go take a look?” Shirt cooling, he joined Twiggy at the window, which faced an alley. There was no one in sight.
“Not a chance. I may be old, but I’m not looking to die just yet. I saw them tear apart a looter a few days ago. Dumb idiot was trying to carry one of those seventy-two-inch televisions. Don’t know what he thought he was gonna watch it with? Maybe he thought it runs on pixie dust? Who knows? They did him in just the same. Never heard a man scream that way. You’d best keep low if you want mankind to survive.”
Mason turned from the window. He knew Twiggy was right. It seemed irrelevant anyway—the screamer was gone. Or silenced.
Twiggy closed the window and pulled the curtain. Moving back toward the bed, he sat down. “You don’t talk much, do you?”
“Not really.”
“I doubt it’s because you don’t have much to say.”
Mason shrugged.
“I’m not going to ask you who you lost,” Twiggy said. “It’s all over your face. But I’ll tell you this. Going off into the wild and being a hero isn’t going to bring them back. Now isn’t the time to be getting survivor’s guilt.”
“It’s not that,” Mason said.
“You want answers? There aren’t any.”
“Why?”
“Good question.” Twiggy scratched at his leg. “But I don’t have that answer. Why does anything happen? I think the disease just got too deep.”
“Disease?”
“Humanity.”
Mason shrugged again, mostly because he didn’t have a clue how to respond. Twiggy was staring at him intently, and he was getting uncomfortable. His algebra teacher used to do the same thing all the time, especially when he knew Mason didn’t have the right answer. Maybe it was a teacher thing?
“Born into blood, raised by blood,” Twiggy said. He hobbled over to the bookcase and took down a scrapbook, passing it to Mason. The first page had a black-and-white photograph of a wasted world. Broken buildings loomed in the background while hundreds of dead bodies littered the streets. “Humans are the most violent species on the planet. We have a brilliant history of all the ugly deeds we’ve done. We’re rotted straight to the core. The disease finally won the battle. We’ve never had a cure, and the symptoms are out of control. We’re finally doing something right by wiping ourselves off the face of this planet.”
“So you’re saying we’re responsible? We created this?”
“Not directly,” Twiggy said. He turned over a few pages for Mason until he found what he was looking for. Ancient ruins. A temple covered in vines and overgrown bushes. Mummified skeletons with their jaws forever open in agony. “It’s the end of days, Mr. Dowell. Like all great societies before us, ours has begun to eat itself—cannibalize, if you will—from the inside. Think of all the great societies in the past. Mayans. Aztecs. Romans. All advanced for their time. All destroyed and gone today. They’ve left behind nothing but a few hints for people like me to come and dig up.”
Twiggy pointed to a picture on the wall. Hundreds of dead bodies piled
together. “Murambi Technical School in Rwanda,” he said. “The genocide of an entire culture. Hundreds of thousands killed. Hacked into pieces with machetes. Slaughtered. Not pretty, is it?”
“That’s messed up.”
“It’s our turn to eat ourselves from within. Something happened that roused the destruction on a universal scale. We are no longer a cluster of societies living off the land. We’ve globalized and grown too big. Now something’s made us go strange in the head. Took away our free will. Humans are dogs, you realize. There is a pack leader that starts us off down the path to destruction. But someone or something always comes along to throw us a bone first. Philosophers like to argue that we have free will, but I think the majority of people can’t stop themselves from following. Whatever is controlling this, it picked the perfect time to plan its attack. I think it was the earthquakes. Animals can sense them, did you know that? Fact. But something caused the ground to split, and it’s angry. It’s come for us, you see. And we’ve invited it in with open arms.”
“I don’t believe in that sort of crap.”
“Doesn’t matter what you believe in. Do you think things will stop or change because you’ve forgotten what the bogeyman looks like? Maybe that’s what pissed it off, so to speak. It doesn’t like being forgotten. So it decided to shake things up a little.”
Twiggy took back the scrapbook and turned a few more pages until he came to a picture of total devastation. A woman held her dead child in her arms, her face taut as she tried to keep from falling apart. Dead bodies were lined in a row behind her. People stumbled around the debris, desperately searching out their loved ones. Another picture—the bodies of two young girls, side by side, rotting in the streets because there was no one around to bury them.
“There have been earthquakes before,” Mason said.
“True. And maybe there were bad things lurking about during those disasters too,” Twiggy said. “Maybe some were misdiagnosed. We’d have to go back and look to see if there’s a connection. But that’s a moot point right about now. I doubt I’d be able to get my hands on any research material these days. Just think, maybe millions of years from now they will find our cities buried under the dirt and try to understand what brought on our demise. Imagine what they’ll think of our laptops and microwave ovens.”
“I don’t believe in evil.”
“Once again, we’re only tiny pawns in this game. Belief has nothing to do with it. For all we know, this evil could have killed off the dinosaurs. Or maybe it really was a meteor. Or maybe history was just created from God’s hands to give us something to argue about over dinner parties.”
From beyond the closed window, the muffled sound of glass breaking reached their ears. Mason’s body stiffened, and it annoyed him that such things were still affecting him. Twiggy didn’t even twitch. How long would it take before screams and breaking glass wouldn’t even have Mason blinking his eyes? Would he ever become as calm as the old man in front of him? Maybe if he wasn’t this highly strung he might be able to get some sleep at night.
“It’ll be dark soon,” Twiggy said. “I’d invite you to stay, but as you can see, I’m not exactly set up for company.” He pointed at the single bed.
“I should get going anyway,” Mason said, standing. “You wouldn’t happen to know where a car dealership is, would you?”
“Hold on.” Twiggy hobbled over to the dresser and opened it. Reaching inside, he pulled out some keys and tossed them at Mason. “Downstairs in the garage. Not much, I’m afraid. Just an old, beat-up Honda. I don’t drive it a lot, but it’ll do you well enough. There’s a full tank of gas.”
Mason squeezed the keys tightly in his fist. “Are you sure? Do you want to come with me? I’m not sure where I’m going yet, but you’re welcome to—”
“Let me stop you right there,” Twiggy said. “I’m not going anywhere, Mr. Dowell. It’s not my world out there. I’m safe here. I have everything I need and the fancy grocery store down the street from which to steal. I’m not a man who deals well with change. I have no desire to join you in your adventure.”
“Okay,” Mason said. “I had to ask.”
“Yes, of course you did.” Twiggy laughed. “And now that you’ve asked, you can move on with a clean conscience. It’s good for the soul. Now thank me kindly and start moving on.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Twiggy saw him to the door. “Just follow the stairs to the basement. It’ll be parked in the back corner. I doubt there’ll be anyone down there. The door’s automatic; you’ll have to do it manually. Try not to let anyone in when you leave.”
“Thanks for all your help.” Mason turned to go.
“Oh, Mr. Dowell? One last thing.”
Mason turned back to face Twiggy. “Yeah?”
The coffee mug sailed through the air, smashing into the side of Mason’s face. White stars exploded in all directions, and the edges of his vision instantly distorted. He couldn’t control his body—knees buckled, arms became dead weights, and his legs fell out from underneath him like some slow-motion dream. He cracked his head on the doorframe on the way down.
He couldn’t move. Through blurry eyes he watched Twiggy hobbling toward him, his crutches stopping dangerously close to Mason’s face. He wanted to do something, but his eyes weren’t focusing. He couldn’t breathe.
The last thing he saw before the darkness took him was Twiggy leaning over him, a crooked smile showing yellow teeth. His eyes were funny. Bloodshot. But the veins weren’t red. They were black.
“Trust no one,” Twiggy said.
Then nothing.
NOTHING
I don’t feel like talking today. Go find someone else to bother.
I mean it. Stay away.
Don’t make me hate you.
ARIES
She was cold. Freezing. Her fingers were white and stiff. Something was wrong. October never used to be this cold. And wet. The tiny Gastown apartment was waterlogged. Vancouver may be known for its precipitation, but this was over-doing it. It’d been raining for a week and there was still no sign of it giving up. The clouds were fat and gray, the land pregnant with swollen tears.
Funny how a gray sky made her want to curl up in a ball and start crying, especially after everything else that had happened in the past few weeks.
Depressing.
She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. It was itchy and stained and smelled faintly of mold, but at least it kept her somewhat warm. There was no such thing as luxuries anymore. Besides, she hadn’t showered in days; she probably didn’t smell like roses either. When was the last time she saw her own reflection in a mirror?
Through the window she watched the solitary person walking in the rain, pushing a squeaky shopping cart. The person had no face, at least not one that was visible, and was covered in a makeshift raincoat; the eyes were blurry through the clear plastic.
“It’s one of them.”
She turned toward the voice. “How can you tell from this distance?”
“No one sane would be outside in this weather.”
“Har-har. Very unfunny.”
Jack shrugged. “I’m still not going to take any chances and invite him up here for a cup of tea.”
Aries nodded. “Yeah, I hear you. Better safe than dead.”
“The saying is ‘better safe than sorry.’”
“I wouldn’t be sorry. I’d be dead.” Aries closed her eyes and leaned back from the window. She was tired. They all were. No one got much sleep these days. Who has time for napping when staying alive requires so much effort?
They’d done well so far. They were still alive. At least some of them were. That had to count for something. How many people were left? Ten percent of the city? Five? It was hard to tell when so many were in hiding. There weren’t as many screams these days, and that was a blessing in disguise. But less meant less—not more. Should she include the monsters in her head count? Could you conside
r them human anymore?
“You should take a break and get some sleep.” Jack leaned over and grabbed the water bottle from the window ledge.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You’ve been here for at least six hours. We’re supposed to be doing this in shifts, remember? It’s okay to give someone else a chance. They aren’t going to come breaking down the doors if you close your eyes. I’m here. I’ll watch over you.”
“It’s not that.”
“You don’t trust me?” He brought the bottle to his lips, but she could still see the smile concealed behind it.
“I trust you.” She grabbed the bottle back before he got a sip. Water sloshed out, soaking his nose and forcing her to grin like an idiot.
It was nice having these moments when they could forget what was going on outside and share a silly laugh. The problem was, it didn’t happen often enough. Aries placed the bottle back on the ledge and scanned the street below her. The shopping cart person was still moving steadily toward them. In a few minutes they’d be within earshot. That was enough to sober her up.
Whatever humanity had become, it still had good hearing.
They waited silently while the figure moved past the building. It moved slowly, pausing once to sniff the air and glance back down the road from which it came. It kicked an old soda can into the gutter and picked up something off the street: a bicycle helmet with a long crack down the side. It rustled around in the shopping cart for a few moments before pulling out a human head. Jack gripped Aries’s shoulder. They both watched silently as the plastic-clad person placed the helmet on top of the severed head before stuffing it back under the tarp. Eventually the person started moving again, heading back down the street in a continuous shuffle. It wasn’t until the monster turned the corner that Aries realized she’d been holding her breath.
“I think we’re safe,” she muttered. Her heart was thumping hard, and she was angry that she was still scared after three weeks. She wanted to be stronger. She had to be stronger if she was going to run this group. They all looked toward her, except Colin, but he still grudgingly went along with whatever she suggested. Well, most of the time.