Grief: Five Stories of Apocalyptic Loss (8 page)

She found herself turned, moving, writhing with the mass, becoming a part of it, until she wasn't much sure where her skin ended and someone else's began, and she felt less of an urge to try with every passing heartbeat. It wasn't pleasure – it wasn't not pleasure – but something else, something almost painfully intense, and it was more than she could handle – but what was 'she'? Where was 'she'? Her identity, her sense of self, was slipping away, but she didn't particularly mind. She didn't mind anything; shit did not matter.

She found herself turning with the flow of the sea of flesh, coming face to face with George in the dark. "George." His lips found hers, tasting of bourbon, his hands found the sides of her head, pulling her closer. He was the mass – every hand caressing her body was his, every pair of lips was his, every sigh, every gasp was his. She felt cradled by him, held, loved, and all the fear and anger and rage bled out onto the parlor floor.

***

Later, when the world returned to its focus, when she could think again, she realized that there were only four of them there, on the floor, a pool of spent lust rather than a sea, and she felt sick. Not because of what they'd done – shit still did not matter; after all, the world was ending – but because George hadn't actually been there, a part of things. It wasn't so much the infidelity that bothered her. She doubted he'd have cared, but that was probably the last sex she'd ever be having, and it was without the man she loved.

She gathered someone's jacket around herself and walked unsteadily towards the bar to see if she could spot her fiancé, eyes falling on the source of the blood she'd seen in the kitchen. Bill sat against the wall, nose busted, dried blood down the front of his shirt, arm around Henry, his lip split, his eyes blackened. Whatever reason they'd have to fight, in the end – and surely, it was the end – they were friends.

***

Ross caught her eye from the kitchen, beckoning her over. He'd stuffed a tissue up his nose, staunching his own bleeding, but she found it difficult to feel any sympathy for him. Still, she felt a degree of gratitude towards him – gratitude for helping her get to the point she was at.

"Have you seen George?" she asked.

"C'mere." He smiled, eying her used and naked body in a way that wasn't entirely sexual. She assumed that he was feeling self-satisfied that his talk with her had helped her leap some sort of emotional 'hurdle', but wasn't motivated enough to dissuade him this illusion of his own. Let him be the one who was wrong for once.

"Check it." He grinned, holding the pantry door open.

"What's this?"

A metal hatch was set into the pantry's floor, open to reveal a ladder leading down into the earth. It looked old – not as old as the house itself, but its stylings were certainly retro-50s.

"I discovered it when I inherited the place," he grinned, his voice belying how incredibly pleased with himself he was. "My grandfather built it in the 50s. It's a fall-out shelter, and I've spent the last couple years stocking it with canned food, bottled water, medicine... with the economic collapse and looting, I've managed to scrounge enough for all of us to hide out down there for years. Long enough to wait out the environmental devastation."

"What?"

He giggled. He actually giggled. "None of us is going to die, Elizabeth. We're going to survive the end of the world."

She stared at him, understanding and horror slowly dawning on her.

"Why... why didn't you tell us? We... oh god, why didn't you tell us this before... is this some kind of sick joke?"

She sank down to a sitting position against the wall, the strength having left her body.

"No joke. No. Liz, this was important. I couldn't just tell you all that there was hope. Especially not you. Don't you see? I had to make sure you'd broken, made sure you'd gotten past your denial, or else you'd just have taken your anger, your rage, down there into the darkness with us."

"Oh god – the things I've done. The things the others have been doing. God."

"No, see, that's the point!" Ross was excited now, speaking rapidly. "This is who you really are. Who we all are. When we think it doesn't matter. Nobody's twisting our arm. No one's forcing us to give in to our baser impulses. George didn't have to drink. You didn't have to fuck three guys just now. Bill and Henry didn't have to beat the fuck out of each other. All those illusions people keep about who they are, how they are... I've stripped them away by letting you all think that there were no consequences, and now you're free. Free from arbitrary morality. This is what it's about – this opportunity to--"

The heavy rotary phone's base connected solidly with Ross's jaw, cutting him off mid-rant, spinning him around half-way and onto his hands and knees. Elizabeth wasn't a strong girl, but the molten rage was back, filling her, fueling her, lending her arms the power they needed.

"Wha? No-- " Ross managed to mumble a few words through a broken jaw before Elizabeth brought the phone around again, this time on the small of his back, driving the stability out of his limbs and sending him to the floor. She was screaming again as she brought the phone down upon him repeatedly, reducing what was once a man to a broken and shattered thing.

When it was done, when the fuel had been burnt, she calmed almost instantly, wiping flecks of blood from her face with the back of her hand, dropping the phone weakly next to Ross's still form before turning to rejoin her friends, waiting for an end that no longer mattered.

About the Author

Michael Coorlim is a teller of strange stories for stranger people. He collects them, the oddballs. The mystics and fire-spinners, the sages and tricksters. He curates their tales, combines their elements and lets them rattle around inside his rock-tumbler skull until they gleam, then spills them loose onto the page for like-minded readers to enjoy.

He writes fast-paced stories about real people in fantastic situations, plots with just a twist of the surreal, set in worlds just a shadow's breadth from our own. He's the author of the Galvanic Century series of Steampunk Thrillers, the literary apocalyptic short story collection Grief, and the supernatural serial Profane Apotheosis.

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