I Will Rise (18 page)

Annabelle wipes her eyes. “I know you are one of the good ones, Charles, but still.”

It won’t matter, appearances, personality types, what matters here, like with Eddie, is that she respects me, she takes me seriously and doesn’t regard me as a loser freak. “But still nothing, I won’t trip. Shit, look at me. I’m stupid, abrasive and ugly as sin.”

“No you’re not, you’re beautiful.”

My chest warms. “That’s a new one, nobody ever called me beaut… Nobody ever called me that before.”

Annabelle’s tears have dried and angry red rims her eyes. “Because they’re all idiots,” she half screams. “They’re the ones who are fucking blind and I cannot wait for you to destroy them.”

Me too.

Me too? Weird doubts.

And I really want to, but again: Me too? More weird doubts.

This love thing is really fucking up my capacity for odium.

Inside: mewling and soft and surprisingly affecting: what about the “good ones”?

In my heart: Yeah, what about them?

In my head: Yeah, what about them? What about the future of humanity?

And why do I care?

But I’m beginning to consider something I haven’t allowed myself to consider before and maybe if I were able to see this supposed beauty, this indescribable perfection Annabelle has been shown, maybe I wouldn’t even be able to consider it, but anyway: doesn’t humanity have a right to progress, don’t dreams have the right to flourish, just as much as the dreamer or whatever has a right to dream us? Why am I buying into this notion that humanity is evil?

Maybe Annabelle has it backward. I know I have been mistreated and looked upon as inferior, and conditioned to despise, but I don’t really hate people.

Do I?

I don’t hate Annabelle or Eddie or Logan or even Mr. Shithead, who after all was only doing his job—in fact you might even say I love them. Varying degrees of course, but something like love nonetheless. Admiration, need, respect, emotion. Now that I am dead and out of my slump, active, it feels as though I can see a little clearer.

Or maybe I can’t see shit.

Maybe I am blind.

Maybe death and love have just got me loopy and fucked. Maybe, but didn’t even Annabelle, human-hating Annabelle, in a roundabout, indirect sort of way, just admit that there are in fact good ones? That I am one of the good ones—“one of them”—implying there are others? Maybe I can talk to her about this. Maybe I can bring her around to my way of thinking and pitch my remote location idea, an abandoned beach or wherever, and us, just the two of us enjoying each other, enjoying being human.

Maybe, except I am dead and toxic.

Maybe that doesn’t matter.

Just like she is older and uglier and fatter and extremely shy, maybe who I really am doesn’t matter and we could be happy. I’m thinking this is a very good idea. I’m thinking of opening my mouth and spilling it, but then there is the worry. After all, she has seen the beauty and who am I to think I can offer anything more?

Annabelle, completely composed and apparently over her worries, leans in close, arcs her neck for a view at the instrument panel and says, “We have to get more gas, Charles.” She moves in even closer and if she were actually here, flesh and bone, and I am guessing the sweetest smell in the world, I would be able to feel her breath kissing my neck. Lovely chills shudder through my body. She whispers in my ear, “We have to find a crowded gas station, one teeming with filthy, disgusting humans. I want to follow closely and watch you touch every single one of them.”

She moves in closer still, her translucent lips pseudo-brushing my ears, “I want you to hang on to a few of them a little longer than necessary.”

I am run through with desire. Heat rises. I am the human thermometer.

Annabelle leans in even closer still (if that’s possible) and in the sexiest voice imaginable says, “I want to see the look in their eyes as they feel their selfish lives being sucked away.”

The eyes.

Mercury plummets.

The wall of eyes rises in my brain.

And my discomfort must be outwardly visible for Annabelle picks up on something. She straightens and moves back into her seat, “Charles?” The irritated tone, the
Charles, you are such a royal fuckup
tone has returned. “Is there a problem?”

This is my chance to spill my thoughts, to tell her maybe we have it all wrong, maybe humanity has enough going for it and that we should defend it, but the expression on her face, the vibe emanating from her entire body tells me it would be a mistake. She has chosen her side and to try and change her mind would only piss her off and push her away from me. At this point, be it the freaky implanted love inside or something real growing independently from my deathly transformation, I would rather keep her happy here and now. I’ll worry about the future in the future.

“No, no,” I stammer rather unconvincingly. Annabelle looks increasingly pissed. It looks as if she is really thinking, carefully plotting her words for maximum effect. Suddenly something in her demeanor snaps. All tense anger and frustration fizzles. She adjusts and her movements go smooth, silky, exuding pure sensuality. Her face goes smoky and her eyes look heavy with allure. She moves—no, she slinks—close and puts her lips to my ear. “You know what I want, Charles?”

I freeze.

Sweat beads.

Breathy, she continues, “I want you. I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you. You are the man of my dreams.”

There is a long pause, Annabelle moving as close as possible, my mind reeling with ecstasy. The car swerves sharply, total control forfeited for intense fervor, and I fight with the wheel to get it under control. I have to remember where I am and disallow myself to become overwhelmed. It doesn’t help that Annabelle’s dream form is practically on top of me, but after a few scary swoops I get it right and dedicate a crucial bit of my attention to the road where it belongs. Confident and in command, I let most of me (one eye on the road, one in my heart) go goopy.

“I need you,” Annabelle continues, “to keep focused. To keep us on track. I am depending on you. You won’t let me down, will you?”

“No. Of course not, I just—”

“I know, and it’s going to get harder. Did you think humanity would just roll over? Did you think this was going to be easy?” Annabelle slides, no slinks, off me and into the passenger seat. Her intimate sidling has done a number on my head. Effective, very effective. “You have to be strong, Charles. You have to be strong for the both of us. They will try to sidetrack you every step of the way. They will try to break us up every chance they get.”

My soft spot goes hard. No, not there, you pervert—the squashy place in my head, my empathy for humanity, my compassion for you and yours. The more Annabelle talks the more I hate you.

She says, “We’re in this together now, Charlie. You won’t let me down, will you?”

She says, “You don’t want them to take me away from you, do you, Charles?”

She says, “You don’t want to be taken away from me, do you, Charlie?”

And on and on, pouty and sexy and strong and vulnerable and cunning and innocent. An act? Maybe. Perhaps, but fuck it, I am hooked, I am lapping it up, I am happy to believe. She needs me. Needs me.

“Do you understand me, Charles?”

“Crystal clear.”

“Look at me.”

I do. Annabelle stares into my eyes for a few seconds and then, satisfied, breaks and stares out the window. “You scare me, Charles.”

“I’m a scary guy.” I smile playfully.

“Prove it.” Annabelle points to an off-ramp and the bustling collection of gas stations and fast-food restaurants beyond. “Touch them all.”

We pull into a packed AM/PM. It seems as though the world is going camping, cars and trucks filled with families and supplies, an end-of-the-world craziness in their eyes. Even an idiot like myself can figure this one out. The death toll is mounting. The epidemic is in full effect. Northern California is likely a war zone by now. The good folk, the fanatical, pandemic-fearing, military-type good folk that is, of the Southwest are scrambling.

I’m about to jump out of the car and get this substantiation bullshit (look, Annabelle, I really am serious when I say I hate them just as much as you do) out of the way when Annabelle stops me. “They might recognize you. From the news footage. Maybe we should get out of here and…”

Too late. Her words are muted. My mind is a black rose, an infinite pit, and the killing taste has breached my throat. Stars, sharp, death shine, pulse like annihilation ingots in my fucked-up head. The sensation is electric and out of control. It’s gas station number one, Vegas, and the rest stop rolled into one. “Don’t you want to watch them suffer,” I belt out. The volume and power of my voice surprises me, but I am too super fucking cool to show it. I am ice. I am death. I am the end.

Annabelle recoils at the ferocity of my utterance and at first I think she is going to assert herself and demand I start the car and drive away, but she smiles huge and giggles. The air waves around her as heat pours from her dream form. She licks her lips and purrs and jumps past me through the car door.

I get out and she is jumping up and down in excitement. My transformation turns her on fierce and she moans, “Kill every last fucking one of them!” I nod and prepare to rush the first human I see. Control is a dead faculty. Like in Vegas, at the rest stop, I am ready to pounce.

“Wait,” Annabelle shouts, “this is getting me so hot, but we have to get it together. Just touch them, Charles. Don’t draw any unnecessary attention to us. Control it.”

I take a few deep breaths and try to curb my zeal.

Annabelle groans, “I wish you could just tear through them and rip them into pink shreds. Soon. But not today.”

The riot in my head cools to a medium rumble and I enter the minimarket. Annabelle flutters around me like a twisted Tinkerbelle as I brush up against every person in sight. I get a lot of stares and a few
fuck-offs
, but nobody seems to recognize me and I manage to stumble out of the store with nothing but the requisite headful of ending eyes.

Walking up to the first gas pump, Annabelle whispers in my ear, “Hold this one a little longer.” My mind opens and funnels, hungry for another life.

“What the fuck, asshole,” quickly becomes a series of stutters and gasps as I hold on to the man at the pump. He’s a tall guy, rather buff, but I am officially a Bad Motherfucker and have no problems keeping him in check.

‘That’s enough,” Annabelle whispers, but I ignore her and hold tighter. I can actually feel the man’s life force palpitating into my skin. The feeling is fucking incredible, my body abuzz, on fire, absorbing that which it lacks and hungers for: life.

Annabelle keeps on, “Cool it, Charles, we’re getting stares.”

I ignore her some more and squeeze even tighter. The man’s eyes begin to bulge. He is wearing a football jersey and has a hideous mustache and drives a souped-up Jeep with a bumper sticker that reads
My Other Ride is Your Girlfriend
. I can’t stop myself, not with this fucker. Not with this cocksmoke, this meathead, this shit-for-brains who’s probably made fun of people like me all his life. Who’s probably made fun of people like Annabelle all her life.

The world goes red, murky, thick, tidal. Waves of dark blood rush and I squeeze tighter and tighter and tighter. My head spins hundreds of miles an hour and I laugh when I think that this is how the Tasmanian Devil must see the world.

My hands are wet. I shake my head.

“Charles!” Annabelle screams at the top of her lungs.

I shake my head some more and slowly the world recomposes. Annabelle is sitting in the passenger’s seat of the meathead’s Jeep motioning for me to jump in. I stare at her blankly and then see a long leather strap hanging from the ignition. Keys. Cool. I shake my head again and see Mr. Meathead’s head lolling limply in front of me. His eyes stick to his cheeks in slimy trails of dribbling white fluid.

My hands are wet.

I try to bring the little deathbringers up for a look, but they’re stuck on something. I try my left. I try my right. No luck. I look down and am disgusted to see them buried deep within the innards of Mr. Meathead. While away, my killing hand burned its way in, searing a huge hole into the fucker’s back, and my right hand, eager to help, plunged right in after it. With a little effort, followed by a shower of guts, spleen, marrow and blood, I am free and jumping into the Jeep. I slam the door and smile at Annabelle.

Holding up my gore-strewn hands I say, “Told you I was a scary guy.”

“Drive!” Annabelle shouts. I am about to tell her to relax when I see reason to rush. While killing away Mr. Meathead, a mini militia of angry humans has amassed at the opposite end of the parking lot. They have hunting rifles and bad attitudes and seem rather pleased with themselves. Oblivious as I was, and thus far unopposed in my destructive spree, I ignored the possibility of other people taking up the initiative and trying to stop me. Looking around, I kick myself for allowing such immersive, world-erasing bliss to claim me.

Big deal, I can take a handful of eager rednecks, but as I glance around I notice that the militia doesn’t only exist at the opposite end of the parking lot, all exits have been blocked with motor homes and SUVs and half-ton trucks. The small army looks on, arms crossed, mothers, children, fathers and everything in between surrounding the perimeter of the gas station, snarling at me. This is too weird. Where did they come from? I have never seen anything quite like it.

“They recognized you, Charles. The moment you laid into that corpse out there they began yelling and whistling and blocking our way. I tried to get your attention.” Annabelle balls her little hands into fists. “The cops are coming.”

Sure enough sirens blare in the distance. “Where did they come from?” I repeat aloud.

“The other gas stations. The fast-food places. A few aggressive idiots started moving their trucks in front of the exits and that was that. The herd followed suit.”

“There must be hundreds of people.” I continue to look around, my mouth hanging open in awe.