Chapter 9: What a shit show

They got a ride back to Serenity’s apartment from a grateful survivor who called their mom to come pick them up. James passed out in the back, leaving Serenity to fend off the excited questions from the teenaged girl in the passenger seat.

He awoke when they pulled up outside the laundromat.

The place was closed, the lights out, the blood smears on the sidewalk black in the street lights.

“So amazing,” said the young woman as James got out. “I’m going to get ready, accept the acknowledgment thing, and then dump all my points into Arete like you said.”

“Constantina Juventud De Marias, you are going to do no such thing,” snapped her mother from behind the wheel as she pulled away from the curb.

The sound of their arguing drifted off into the night.

Serenity hugged herself. “We’re back minus my phone and with no ammo.”

“You win some, you lose some. Shall we?”

The street was dead. They wasted no time unlocking the narrow front door and hurried up the cold stairwell into Serenity’s apartment, where James shucked the pimp coat, considered passing out on the couch, then reluctantly realized he had to wash out his wounds, even if they didn’t hurt.

Showering was awkward. His bandages were filthy and covered in gremlin blood, as well as having being bitten and mangled. After a long period of hesitation, he peeled off the tape and unwound it. Round and round, till his forearm came into view. The fresh puncture wounds were shocking, but the old bite was already mostly healed.

James studied the scabbed over puncture marks in the harsh bathroom light, dumbfounded. He kept expecting his body to behave the way it had all his life. Then, carefully, he removed the sodden and dirty bandages from around his neck, hissing as the adhesive tugged at his beard.

Just the same.

“Well I’ll be.”

He got into the shower and washed out the gashes and bite marks. His legs looked like something out of a horror movie, his forearms almost as bad, but the pain was negligible. The whole thing was surreal. He’d seen countless people screaming in agony and flopping about in their stretchers with less than this, and here he was casually washing it all out in a grimy shower.

Were infections part of his past?

He was too tired to care.

Eventually he emerged, borrowed some more old clothing from Serenity’s ex, and stepped back into the living room barefoot, toweling his hair.

Serenity sat before the TV, hand over her mouth, watching an anchorman trying to keep his shit together live.

James fetched up against the back of the couch, towel still pressed to the back of his head.

“…evidence now that everyone who followed guidance on not accepting the acknowledgment request from the first and second global wave have died, attacked by something far more powerful that what the Nemesis 1 has been capable of. This is being described as a punitive measure on the part of this enigmatic and malicious system that is controlling events, and even now reports are coming in of tens if not hundreds of thousands dying almost simultaneously.”

The man paused and pinched the bridge of his nose. The silence was total. When he resumed speaking, his voice was thick with emotion. “On behalf of this station, I wish to offer the bereaved our sincerest condolences and apologies. The NSA, the CDC, and other government agencies that issued the safety guidelines did so with the information they had at hand, information that we’re now realizing is painfully inadequate. Thus the safety guidelines on all government websites is being amended: do not accept the acknowledgement request if you are unprepared. The National Guard is deploying to every major metropolitan area, and those members who have already killed their own Nemesis 1’s will be wearing blue arm bands. The new policy if you receive an acknowledgement request is to find the closest National Guard station, maps of which will be provided on your local government website, and there explain your situation.”

The anchor’s voice gained in strength. “The National Guard will then ensure that your Nemesis 1 will be killed when it approaches you, ensuring your safety and wellbeing. This policy will go into effect at different times across different cities, so again, check your local government websites for more accurate data.”

“Hundreds of thousands?” whispered Serenity, turning to stare up at him.

James grimaced and draped the towel over his shoulder. “It’s probably higher. The first wave was small. The second wave felt much bigger. If most of them refused to acknowledge, we could be looking at millions dead.”

Serenity just gaped at him.

James strode to the window to escape that haunted look in her eyes and stared down at the dark street. A little traffic had picked up, but here and there he saw a gremlin stalking through the night.

They were still leaving those who’d not been messaged alone.

How long till the third wave struck?

“But we can fight them,” said Serenity with brittle conviction. “Raise our numbers. Develop auras like yours. All we need is - what - a thousand people like you in each city? And we can wipe the floor with them.”

“Yeah.” His voice was soft. “But that’s assuming this Level 3 aura is as effective against Nemesis 2.”

“Shit.” Serenity stared out at nothing, and James did the same thing. Summoned the count down.

71 Hours till Nemesis 2 Released

“This Nemesis 2 count down is just for the first wave, right?” Serenity blinked and looked over at him. “The second wave will get theirs a day later?”

“I guess so.”

For a while neither of them spoke, then James came and sat next to her and they started surfing the news. Word was filtering in from around the world. The trend to refuse acknowledgements had gone briefly global, and now the tragedy was hitting everyone all at once. People were trying to calculate the sheer number of the dead, with speculation being caveated endlessly by experts who seemed to spend more time explaining how loose and unreliable their figures were over actually giving the numbers.

But the consensus ranged from fifty million to three hundred million dead worldwide.

Images were shown of the Ganges River in India mobbed by an endless crowd determined to burn their deceased upon its hallowed banks. Riots were breaking out in Quito, Pretoria, Lagos, Athens. The Pope was holding a twelve hour vigil for the dead, with Saint Peter’s Square overflowing with weeping devotees holding a sea of candles. Violence had broken out in Jerusalem, with Hamas having launched numerous unguided missile attacks, one of which had hit an important target and done terrible damage. This in turn had sparked a violent retaliation by the government, while a fringe extremist had arisen claiming to be a prophet and begun demanding the death of all heathens on holy soil in the name of God.

On and on it went. A global catastrophe. Looting in Melbourne. A massive turn out of tens of thousands of New Age spiritualists in the Mojave Desert who prayed for salvation.

James stared, horrified, and in his mind’s eye he saw the globe slowly spinning, one continent following another, each with its cities, its borders, its nations and cultures, their histories and tragedies, their religions and people. All of them bloodied, shocked, devastated. Hundreds of millions were dead. All in a little over twenty-four hours. All those bodies, mutilated and hacked apart. Endless images of weeping, screaming relatives. Government officials giving commands, national leaders trying to comfort and reassure their constituents, militaries mobilizing, people locking their doors, people wandering the streets numb and heartsick and indifferent to their fate.

Serenity eventually turned off the TV. “I need a drink.”

“God yeah.”

They grabbed their coats. James picked up his skillet again. They descended, crossed the street, then climbed down the short flight of stairs to Herman’s bar.

The place was packed. Herman and two rough looking guys were pouring them as fast as they could, but when Herman saw James looming over the back of the crowd he shouted his greetings and waved him over.

The crowd parted reluctantly at first, and then a woman pointed at him like he was an animal at the zoo and said over the news playing loudly over the TV, “Holy shit, it’s the sexy lumberjack guy.”

Most of the crowd clearly didn’t know what she was talking about, but enough did that people turned to stare, and James found himself freezing in place, wishing he’d ditched the coat to cross the street, had shaved off his beard, anything.

Life as a homeless man had meant this kind of attention was never good. Old instincts kicked in and he began to back away, anticipating the shouts, the demands he get out.

But Serenity grabbed him by the arm and said loudly, “That’s sexy lumberhomelessjack to you, lady.”

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“Was that real?” shouted a guy from down the bar, his accent thick Bostonian. “Or was that special effects shit?”

“It was real all right,” Serenity answered, dragging James up to the bar. “I swear it on my mother’s grave. And what kind of fucked up asshole would upload fake shit at a time like this?”

Another guy with a bright red baseball cap glowered at James. “So you claiming to have the powers of the Lord or something?”

“No,” said James quietly, but nobody heard him.

“What, you stupid?” Serenity glared at the man, unabashed. “Ain’t you got your personal statistics sheet yet?”

“No,” groused the big dude. “Not been invited to join. But I’ll tell you this. When I am? I’m going to welcome it. I got more guns than an entire brigade. Satan won’t find me sleeping.”

Cheers from down the bar.

“So how does it work?” demanded the woman. “I put my a single point into every stat, but I didn’t get an aura.”

Everybody stared at James again. Herman poured him three fingers of good whiskey and slid the glass over.

Silence as James took a steadying sip, and then he set the glass down so he wouldn’t chug it all. “Look.” His voice was a rasp. “I don’t know why or how this works. All I know is that once my Arete hit thirteen I got a level 1 Lead aura. And no, I don’t know why it’s lead. But the aura hurts the gremlins -”

“Demons,” Serenity interjected helpfully.

“- and that’s all that matters. By the time I hit twenty-three points of Arete, my aura was ashing them before they could touch me.”

“I’ve killed three of the little shits,” said the Bostonian guy. “But I ain’t leveled. How many you gotta kill?”

James and Serenity shared a look.

“Maybe twenty for level 2? We weren’t really keeping track,” said James.

“More than that,” said Serenity firmly. “I shot at least thirty of them before I leveled.”

The Bostonian guy’s went wide. “You what now?”

“Honey, I emptied a hundred and seventeen rounds at demons this afternoon. You gotta work if you wanna keep up.”

“Jesus Christ,” said the guy, and sat down.

Everyone was staring.

James raised the whiskey, took a gulp.

“You know what? Maybe we’ll get a bottle to go,” said Serenity. “Herman, you hook us up?”

“You got it, Serenity,” said the old man. “I saw the video of James here doing his thing. Praise be. You got an open tab till the world drowns in fire.” And he pushed a bottle of whiskey over.

Serenity winked at him. “You’re the best, Herm. All right everybody, show's over. We’re leaving. You see a demon, aim for center mass, yeah?”

James finished his whiskey and followed Serenity back outside and up the steps. Closed his fur coat tightly about himself and took the bottle when she passed it to him and drank.

“What a shit show.” Serenity led the way back. “Now we can’t even get drinks no more.”

“Well, at least word got out.”

“You better credit me as your PR agent. You wouldn’t have ever made it big on TikTok without my know-how.”

“I’ll give you a cut of the profits.”

“Hey.” She rounded on him. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“No, for real. You look spooked.”

“Just… I don’t like crowds.”

“Ah, I get it. Yeah. But you were like a hero to them.”

“I don’t want to be no hero. Just… I guess I have to help, but it don’t mean I want everybody staring at me.”

“Fair enough.” She took a swig of the whiskey. “Look, the world has always been a shit place, but now? It’s just getting a whole lot shittier. But we did some good work today, and we got a bottle of Jack, and tomorrow’s another day. Let’s go drink this, maybe screw, and see what the morning brings.”

James tensed.

“Jeez, I’m just messing with you! I know you don’t want to bang. You like guys?”

“No, I don’t like guys.”

“You got a wife, then?”

His expression settled like concrete, and Serenity’s eyes widened. “Wow. Never mind. We can kill demons together, save each other’s lives, but I guess we don’t have to get personal. Fine. Will you at least help me with this bottle?”

“I’ll help you with that bottle.”

They reached the front door, but then paused as tan army trucks started to roll through the closest intersection. One after another, their backs covered with tarp, each identical, their headlights cutting through the night, ignoring the traffic lights overhead as they rolled on.

“Damn,” whispered Serenity when the last truck had disappeared. “I counted seventeen of them.”

“There better be a lot more coming.” James took the bottle so as to wash down the words he almost said: and we’ll need infinitely more if they’re to make a god damned difference.

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