Ellen Datlow - After - Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

The othr haff the dark haff is Nothing. No wun unnerstands wut is in it Nothing I gess. Haff a planit uv Sumthing, haff a planit uv Nothing. Pirfect balans.

Just darck. Darck Nothing.

Why is that I wunder.

OK OK. The end.

Note to Commity: Now you see what I am trying to show you. Hapless Joey is a good boy and he knows a lot. This is the best pece of riting I seen in four or five years. I think you shuld also know that his parents were in Moscow or someplace when the SuperCollider collapsed. Like half the wirld, they never been hird from again.

It is my belief he deserve the ham. I culd come get it just give the say-so.

Dear Big Aunt,

The Committee has reviewed the writing of Hapless Joey and agrees with you that he is special material. Will you bring him to Central next week, any day you like, and we will train him up to be a missile into the Dark Edge. We have only sent ten or twelve people in ten years, and one day one of them will come back and tell us what they found there. Hapless Joey may be the lucky one. His name is the opposite of lucky, and something is the opposite of nothing. Don’t tell Hapless Joey what he has won. He may need to grow up more to appreciate the honor. We don’t want him to run away.

You may keep the ham for yourself after you give him up.

JEREMY LAY FLAT ON HIS STOMACH IN THE BACKYARD GRASS, watching three bugs crawl across a flattened soda can. They were larger than June bugs, with that beetle shape. One was copper colored, one was silver, and one rusty. Every so often their wing cases would lift slightly and reveal iridescent crystal blue beneath. The rusty one was almost twice as long as the others, with extra legs and a junction point where the new head would be after it split. Everywhere the bugs crawled, holes appeared in the metal.

Jeremy’s dad rounded the corner and said, “Get your butt in the car right now. We’re outta here!”

Jeremy scrambled up, brushing off his jeans. Ever since the power had gone out three days before, Dad’s temper had gone from easygoing to better-watch-out, and Jeremy wasn’t going to do anything that might trigger it.

When they rounded the house, Mom and Laurie were putting laundry baskets full of clothes into the trunk. Laurie was saying, “But why can’t I go over to Sarah’s instead? You said I could last week!”

Dad and Mom exchanged glances. Dad’s eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth, and Mom said quickly, “You’re going to have to trust me on this one, honey. Sometimes plans change.”

Dad shut his mouth and moved to the driver’s door. He muttered, “We should’ve left last week.” He paused and took a look at the house, head tilted back. Jeremy swiveled to see, but Dad barked, “In the car. Now!”

Jeremy got in the back and tried to look up through the rear window. He couldn’t tell what Dad had noticed, but it was hard to see ’cause Dad peeled out of the driveway and he was thrown across the seat and into Laurie.

She shrieked and shoved Jeremy back. “Put your seat belt on, idiot!”

He did, his eyes wide. The few times Dad had ever driven like that, Mom had screamed at him and made him stop the car, but now she was just looking back at Jeremy to make sure he got the seat belt fastened.

The tires screeched as they made the left at the subdivision entrance. Jeremy felt himself sink into the seat back as Dad accelerated toward the interstate.

Mom spoke through gritted teeth. “We’ve got to survive to survive, Peter.”

Dad blew air through his nose and slowed down slightly. The telephone poles were flicking by faster than Jeremy had ever seen, but there were no lines between them. Curling pieces of black insulation littered the ground and the side of the road.

Short of the interstate, Dad hesitated. “Last news report seemed to say it was spreading from Phoenix but it was worse in New Mexico. I think we should take 86 and 85, then join up on 8 and make for San Diego.”

“What about Mexico?” Mom said.

Dad shook his head. “No. They’re shooting people who try to cross. It’s stupid. The bugs travel all by themselves. It’s not going to help.”

“Do we have enough gas?”

Dad shrugged. “Maybe. There’s fifteen gallons in the jerricans.”

Gas wasn’t the issue.

Maybe Dad thought there’d be fewer bugs on that route because there were fewer people. Fewer people, less metal, but he hadn’t counted on the industrial park just west of San Pedro Road.

Mom muttered, “Where did they come from? Why are they doing this?”

You could see the frameworks of the buildings, but the skin, the painted steel sheets, were like Swiss cheese. Closer, at the side of the road, there were irregular mounds shimmering in the sunlight—silver, gold, copper, rust, all mixed with iridescent blue.

They didn’t slow down, but even going by at speed, Jeremy could see that the mounds weren’t still. They undulated and shifted, exposing the odd windshield or tire or plastic fender liner.

There was a crunching noise under the tires, and suddenly the air was full of iridescent wings.

It was like driving through a hailstorm. The bugs banged off the hood and the windshield and the roof. Dad took his foot off the pedal for an instant.

“Jesus!” Mom said. “Don’t stop! They’re not sticking.”

And that’s what they thought for another ten minutes. Then the bugs began edging over the front of the hood from the very front of the car. The grille had been scooping them up like a catcher’s mitt. You’d think that when they’d enter the slipstream on top of the car they would’ve been blown off, but they weren’t. They pressed their dark blind heads against the hood and stuck.

“Maybe we should get out?” Mom asked.

Dad tilted his head to the side. Through the rearview mirror Jeremy saw his eyes darting around. “Let’s get as far as we can.”

A few minutes later the radio antenna came off near its base and, several bugs still attached, clattered across the windshield, bounced once off the trunk, and was gone. Now the hood was covered and the bugs were climbing the roof struts on either side of the windshield. The left windshield wiper came off, and then the roar of the engine abruptly died, and everyone surged forward against the seat belts as the car slowed.

“They got the ignition,” Dad said, putting the car into neutral. “When I tell you, get out of the car as quickly as you can and run off the road.”

The car was on a downhill stretch and it wasn’t slowing much. Jeremy thought that was good. There weren’t as many bug mounds by the road, and the car was clearing the industrial park. The only bugs he could see were a small group eating a mile marker and the ones on their car.

Mom screamed, “They’re coming through the dashboard!”

They weren’t, really. There were a few crawling out of the plastic A/C vents. They began eating the metal radio trim. More crawled out, and she said, “Get me out of this car, Peter!”

Dad licked his lips, then nodded. Jeremy saw his body shift as Dad said, “The brakes are gone! They’ve eaten through the hydraulic lines!” Jeremy heard the ratcheting of the emergency brake, and the rear tires screeched. The rear end broke loose and slid. Dad steered into the skid, but with the engine dead, the power steering was no help at all.

They came over a rise, and saw the remains of another car—plastic, carpet, and tires in a jumble. Beside it, a cluster of turkey vultures were clustered around something dead. Rather than hit the wreckage, Dad headed toward the vultures. He tried to honk the horn, but it wasn’t working. As the car bore down on them, the birds jumped into the air, revealing their meal.