The Grinding (22 page)

They brought it.

Before the previous evening, the only exposure I
ever had to the United States military and any of their tactics was through
playing
Call of Duty
, the rantings of
Royce and Randy, and a couple air shows from years ago. I knew what A-10s were
only because we had them flying over our heads every day. Things like cruise
missiles, artillery shells, AC-130 support were only vague concepts to me,
things I never knew of or cared much about.

I didn’t see where the bombs came from. They were
either dropped from really high up, or they weren’t bombs at all, but missiles
or artillery shot from far away. One moment, I scanned the sky, looking for any
sign of the military, and there was nothing. You would never have known it had
rained the night before, or that fog had encompassed the city a few hours
earlier. It was a beautiful, warm November morning, and the blue sky was only
partially obscured by the still-smoldering wreckage of Tucson behind me.

Then, Holocaust.

Fire became all I knew. Walls of it, burning so
bright, so blistering, so thunderous, melting the outer shell of the Grinder into
vibrating ash. This wasn’t a nuclear bomb, but it was pretty fucking close. The
three tentacles disintegrated. I died a thousand times over, fleeing deeper and
deeper into the monster until I was as close as I could get to the inner core.
The fire stampeded over us, sending the entire network into chaos. I sought out
the military minds, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened, but
all the minds were gone. I had nowhere to hide except in the ether itself,
which had drained from a torrent, to a trickle.

I thought of the tadpoles, dying in the hot sun as
their pond evaporated all around them. My consciousness floundered in the heat,
gasping for breath.

At the last moment, I found a body, a man named
Dante Medina. He was inside the second layer of protective nerve bundle. I fled
inside his mind. He’d been sitting at the Sonoran hotdog stand outside the
roller derby when he’d been picked up. His body was miraculously intact. Just
scrapes, bruises, and burns from being used as interior padding. The man was an
amateur body builder, addicted to steroids and porn. He worked nights as a male
stripper and went by the name of Inferno.

In the blast, the Grinder had gone from tens of
thousands of living minds to a few hundred. Cece’s mom. Jordan, the little girl
with the peeled-back scalp. Patrick, the boy who had shot his father. Officer
Beefycakes. Gone. Every remaining, living person I could find was cocooned in
nerves, most of them roasting alive.

I didn’t join these lost souls in their doomed
journey to the afterlife. I couldn’t bear the thought of their pain. I imagined
the very girders of heaven melting and snapping under the pressure.

You idiots
,
I screamed in Dante’s mind.
This is what
she wants
.

Nif, please
be okay.

The Grinder condensed as much as she could, so
grievously injured, she couldn’t move. More explosions ripped around us, but I
no longer had any exterior eyes. I couldn’t see from where the attacks came, or
what manner of craft caused them.

Your
capacity for war is outstanding
, the Grinder whispered, joy evident in her voice.
Even greater than I imagined
.

“You have to get the hell out of here,” I said. “I
don’t know what they just did, but it fucked you up something hardcore.”
Despite the protective coating of nerves, Dante’s skin blistered, and he’d soon
be dead. A constant hammering had been added to the fire, like a flying tank
pounding the side of the Grinder with explosive shells, reaching deeper and
deeper with each blast.

Yet it is
not enough
, she said.

“Maybe you should give up then,” I said, frantic.
“If this fucked-up plan isn’t going to work, then nothing will. Run away while
you still can.”

The Grinder didn’t respond. I simmered in Dante’s
body. The few that remained died around me, and soon, Dante was the only one
left. I knew there were more in the inner core, but I couldn’t get to them, no
matter how hard I tried.

Had Dante been conscious of his pain, he would’ve
died an agonizing death, steamed alive, wrapped like a burrito in nerve bundle.
I had nowhere else to go, so I stayed with him as he perished.

Once again I ascended, and the overwhelming joy
encompassed me. He became conscious of his ascent long enough to experience the
elation for just a moment before it turned, before he exploded like a nuclear
bomb against the walls of heaven.

As we burst into an unimaginable conflagration, I
became aware of a voice screaming. The Grinder. Its true voice. It was a male
voice, heavy with age and anger and the ultimate pain. He roared in a language
I didn’t know, yet I understood. His screams jarred my soul.

Let me in
,
he cried.
I am your child. Please, Father.
Let me in
.

This time, as Dante was rejected from heaven, I
felt others taken with him. The walls had been breached, and those that had
died long ago, those who had made it to heaven, were ripped from their eternity
and plunged with us into the thirsty black. In that brief moment, I knew those
who fell with us. Dante’s grandmother, Millicent. Dante’s sister, Vanessa, who
had died as an infant. Dante’s father, Raymond who had died just last year in a
car accident.

Why?
Dante’s grandmother wondered as her existence disintegrated.

The Grinder answered her.
He betrayed His child. That is why you fall
.

The wave of brimstone swept over me, and once
again I was ejected from heaven and sent back down tumbling, whirling, head
over heels, like a meteor to earth.

But this time I had nowhere to land.

…Except into my own body.

Every joint screamed as my nervous system
rebooted. Gagging, I reached up and scooped a wet, slimy glob of
I-don’t-even-want-to-know out of my mouth. I fell to my knees on the hard metal
floor and proceeded to vomit stomach acid.

I’m back
.

A second wave of nausea overwhelmed me as my body
adjusted to the abrupt, dizzying disconnection from the dying network.

I grabbed my neck. It was sore where I had been
attached to the Grinder. Tiny little pricklies jutted from my skin, like hard
stubble. Searing, stifling heat filled the small space. My head ached. The dry
suit hung about my body in tatters. My gloves were gone, but I still wore the
Kevlar.

I blinked, but I could see nothing. Dark forms
took shape. Was I in the armored truck? I blindly reached for my flashlight,
but I no longer had it. My duffel bag. Gone. The fanny pack, the neural brain
goo, gone. The needles Clementine had given me were gone as well. I still had
the Rambo knife lashed to my leg, but I had nothing to cut, nothing to kill.

And it was gone. The tug inside my chest. The tug
that kept me connected to her, to Nif. Gone. Along with my heart. A terrible,
foreboding feeling overwhelmed me.

“Nif,” I called into the darkness. “Nif!”

No answer. My skin prickled with the unbearable
heat. The oily smell was replaced with the acrid stench of burnt hair. Earlier,
no external sounds had penetrated this deep inside of the Grinder. Now, I could
hear everything. Jets roared above, as if, wherever I was, I had very little
cover.

I felt around in the dark, but she wasn’t with me.

“Where is she, you fucking asshole?” I cried. I
banged my fists into a wall, a pulsating, fleshy skin wall, colder than the
surrounding metal. This was nerve bundle, I realized. It no longer attached to
me as I touched it, but it coated the walls of my prison.

A weak, yellow light filled the compartment. A
bloated, mottled hand lowered from the overhead cabin lamp.

Cece.

I
was
in
the truck. We were alone, and I gaped at what she had become.

Cece was bone-white. Her overextended head and a
pair of fat, naked arms floated in a glob of pink, vein-riddled nerve that
spread around her like a massive, flowing dress made of flesh. Clumps of
stringy hair remained on her lolling head, and her lower jaw hung in her skin,
as if internally detached. Her flesh dress spread through into the cab of the
large truck and along the interior walls where I now cowered, the tissue forming
into tendrils as it connected to the rest of the beast through holes in the
steel. With every explosion, the truck rocked, and her open eyes winced with
pain.

“Cece?” I asked. I hesitated, then stepped forward
to put my bare hand on her swollen cheek. Everything around us broiled, but her
skin felt like ice. “Cece?”

Her eyes fluttered, and a low moan escaped her.
Black drool dripped from her sagging mouth.

“Ahh-dam,” she groaned.

“Cece,” I said. “Where’s Nif? Where did she go?”

“It huuurts,” she said, her words slurred and difficult
to understand.

I shook her head. Her skin felt fragile, waxy,
like I could scrape it off with my fingernail. “Look at me,” I said, panic
rising.

Her eyes slowly met mine. “Nif was here.”

“I know. I saw her. Please, Cece, where did she
go?”

“Gone.” A crackling, fireworks-like sound shook
the truck.

My heart lurched. “What do you mean ‘gone?’”

“…I could feel her, but now I can’t… Supposed to
come back and reform, but... Now…now…” Her eyelids fluttered. She said something
indistinguishable.

“Cece!”

Her body jerked, and her eyes snapped open. I let
go of her face and backed away, surprised. I could tell that I was no longer
speaking with Cece.

“Adam,” she said, much more clearly. “I’m glad you
made it back. We are falling apart, and very little is left. If you don’t act
quickly, all will be lost.”

“Where the fuck is she?” I asked.

“Calm yourself,” she said. The entire truck jolted
with another explosion, and it was difficult to breathe. “She is hidden. But
the mechanism in which she is protected has been injured. She is in danger.”

“No shit she’s in danger, asshole. Where is she?”

“First, you must do as I say, and then I will tell
you where she is.”

If it wasn’t Cece she was talking through, I would
have punched her in her face. “
No
,” I
said. “I’m not doing
anything
for
you.”

“Adam,” Grinder-Cece said. “Listen to me. I’m
going to let you go. You’re to find your wife, and you’re to get as far away as
you can. I’ll try to protect you until you are free.”

“What?” I asked. “What’re you talking about?”

“I told you. I have a special purpose for you. For
your beloved. You are going to do it willingly and freely.” The Grinder lifted
Cece’s arm and pointed it at me.

The monster continued. “I knew the moment I
absorbed her that she would be the one. Out of every human, you two are the
best suited. She is strong. But most of all, she has you—you so
hopelessly, blindly devoted to her that you would do anything to keep her
safe.” Grinder-Cece laughed. “It amuses me.”

The Grinder wasn’t making sense. Soon, the heat
would become too much, and none of this would matter.

She continued. “Get to her. Keep her safe. Watch
over her until you’re old and wrinkled, and she wakes up one morning to say,
‘Adam. After all this time, you’re still watching over me.’ And make no
mistake. That day will come, but only if you try.”

“Why?” I asked, taking another step back. “What’s
in it for you?”

Grinder-Cece paused, as if debating on whether or
not to tell me the truth. The back of my foot brushed up against something
soft. It was the duffel bag, covered with pink nerve. I reached down and picked
it up. It peeled away easily. The spongy nerve broke apart as I pulled, and the
edges of the nerves turned black. All around me, the nerves holding everything
in place withered like a time-lapse video of flowers rotting in the sun. I
pulled the bag over my shoulder.

“Everything I have touched, I have ground to
nothing,” she said. Her voice creaked out, slower and weaker. “Everything but
what’s caught in my teeth.”

“Damn it,” I said, sorry I had asked. “
Stop spouting bullshit and
…
Fuck
.” The entire truck turned sideways,
and I slammed against the passenger side wall. The metal of the door handle
burned my arm through the tattered suit, and I jumped in pain.

“If you want me to live, you gotta let me go right
now,” I said, gasping the words. Cece’s body had fallen sideways, and she oozed
down the wall, the pink flesh breaking apart as it fell. “Otherwise, we’re both
going to fucking die.”

The side door to the truck, now sideways at my
feet, swung open, revealing a hole in the ground below. The sewers.

“The atom-ripping blast your military plans will kill
you and your beloved if you do not flee.” Grinder-Cece smiled. As she did, two
of her front teeth fell out. “All that I made will die. All will help to break
the blades of heaven. But, alas, this temporary defeat comes too soon. I have
damaged my Father’s throne, but it still stands, refusing me entry.”

A stream of bullets ripped through the armored
truck, shredding the steel walls between me and Cece. I clutched my hands to my
ears at the incredible sound. Each half-dollar-sized hole punched a penetrating
beam of light through. Whatever happened next would finish us off.

“
Fuck
,”
I said. “Quit whining and tell me where she is.”

“The Botanical Gardens. Her body is entombed
inside what you’ve been calling a flesh golem. The golem was tasked to return
and re-absorb, but it has been injured. It is hiding where the butterflies
lived, before they became a part of me. You must get there before they find and
kill it.” Cece’s right side sloughed off the interior wall, melting like wax.
“I have lost control of all that I have left. They move independently. Hurry to
your wife. The golem will not give up its prize easily.” Grinder-Cece coughed.
“Now leave me. Flee through this passage, which will find you in a safe place.”