Gregory Norris - Down with the Fallen - A Post-Apocalyptic Horror Anthology

Eighty percent of the world’s population is gone. It’s a number that Diane wrote down for me, but I could barely comprehend. I imagine the survivors, huddled into camps, desperately struggling to stay alive, never knowing when he might appear over them. It’s down to us. It’s down to us and we’re just as scared and weak as the people out there.

Mason moves in first, taking point. Sergeant O’Reilly is tight on his back, with Hernandez to the right. I’m on the rear, Eriksson ahead of me, gazing up at the frozen archways over his head.

He’ll let you come to him . Diane wrote it down on the white-board, during our final debriefing, as they handed out our modified painted weapons, our single piece of ammo. They’d arrested Diane straight away, once it had become clear what he was doing.

Maybe they thought by holding her hostage they’d convince him to stop, although it turned out she’d more or less been living apart from him for a few months by this point. She was open about it, said she had noted a change in him, he seemed distant, restless. He had been spending more and more time out in the wild, building some kind of fortress.

He said he needed a place to think, to be alone. To try and shut out the world. The last time she saw him she said that it felt like things had gone back to normal. Whatever had been troubling him had passed, although in light of recent events she said maybe it was more like a decision had been made, that he was free from the worries that had been plaguing him.

They had dinner, they made love and when she woke he was gone. She didn’t hear from him for twenty-three days. The next time she saw him was with the rest of the world, breaking news, on every channel, in every country.

She was his wife, though, and she knew his secrets. His weaknesses. He had tested himself against every chemical, alloy and substance, and found only two had any affect. There was lead, which caused a unique layer of protection against his electromagnetic vision. And there was tellurium, a rare silver metalloid, which did something much much worse.

It would be our magic bullet. Our one chance to harm him.

We all remembered the footage from the late night talk-show where the host had fired a loaded gun at him and he’d not only caught the bullet in his teeth, but ejected it back toward a target, hitting the bullseye as the audience roared and cheered. With his eyes closed and blindfolded of course.

He’d hear the shift of the trigger before we’d even pulled it. We were marching to our deaths because we had lost so much and there was nothing else to do. The last thing I ever told my ex-wife was to go screw herself. We were fighting over the house we’d shared, trying to sell it, trying to work out who was owed what. Like that mattered. We’re so fragile and small, yet we spend so much of our lives being hurt and trying to hurt each other, unaware of how quickly things can break.

Diane wrote down one more thing. A single phrase. A few words that she believed would be even more powerful than the bullets we carried. All we had to do was be in the same room as him.

With every step up the ice covered stairs, we are getting closer and closer. Moving along crystal walkways, pepper potting our way to the top. We’re covering corners and inching forward as if this was a normal reconnaissance op, going through the motions. He’s letting us come to him. We might as well just stroll in, blowing whistles and trumpets. It’s like we’re in some warped charade, everyone playing their part. The fantastical tower. The magic bullets. The monster at the center of the maze.

His is floating a few feet off the ground, his back to us, staring out at the blanket of stars over the darkened valleys and forests. Even now, even at the end of it all, there is a sense of theater. The cape. The costume. The insignia still on his chest as he turns round, looking down at us with that perfectly sculpted face.

“So obviously I’ve been listening,” he says, as if it’s part of a continued discussion we’ve been having with him. “This conversation of yours, the back and forth, about how I’m some sort of coward…” He pauses for a moment as if to consider the significance of the word for the first time. “This was all Diane’s idea, right?”

Captain Mason doesn’t break eye contact with him. “It was. Yes.”

“It felt like something she would come up with. How is she?”

“She’s wonderful. She’s seen most of the world burnt and destroyed by the man she loved.” In moments like these I would follow Mason off the edge of the earth. He knows he could be destroyed in a heartbeat, yet he won’t give the bastard a single inch.

But the world’s most powerful man just smiles at us, like a tolerant parent looking down at her naughty children. “You’ve coated your guns in lead. Which makes me think you’re hiding something.”

We hadn’t planned for this contingency. We knew the lead would protect the barrel from his vision, but we never discussed the possibility that the act of concealment would give us away. Mason was meant to keep him talking, draw him in, deliver that one final piece of dialogue from Diane. Then Eriksson would open up with the first shot. A chain reaction–O’Reilly, Hernandez, and finally me further back—the last bullet, the last hope. Confuse and overwhelm him.

Within seconds it all goes wrong.

Eriksson jumps the gun. He’s been increasingly erratic on the journey up. Maybe he believed in the hero more than the rest of us. The flag. The symbol of truth and justice. Whatever it is, something has snapped and he raises his weapon to fire, even though he’s meant to wait for Mason’s signal.

There’s a crackle in the air, a blur of movement, and Eriksson stumbles forward, guts spilling out from a cavity in his stomach. O’Reilly and Hernandez have taken their cue from Eriksson and both try to get their shots off. They disintegrate before my eyes.

I can’t even move. I am like a statue, frozen in this kingdom of ice.

“Elevated heart beats,” he says, his costume flecked with blood. “I could hear them all the way up the mountain. And then a sudden escalation before action, well… it’s something of a giveaway. Was this the plan?”

“Some of the plan,” says Mason and he’s angled his weapon so it’s facing the enemy, but his M16 has started to glow red and it’s burning into his hands and even then he still tries to pull the trigger, but then he’s gone as well. The air is heavy with the iron scent of metal and blood. I still haven’t moved. There’s a thousand thoughts screaming in my head, but I can’t seem to grasp any of them.

I’m the last hope of humanity and I can’t even raise my weapon.

Maybe he senses this turmoil, looking toward me, brow furrowed, as if he’s genuinely concerned for my well-being. “How have you been, Tom?”

Everyone I know is dead. There is no fresh start, no rewind, no coming back from this. He destroyed our world because he could. How have I been? I don’t even know what that means anymore.

“…I’ve started smoking again.”

“I know. I can smell it off you.”

I pull out a crumpled pack, placing a cigarette into my mouth with shaking hands.

“Do you want me to light that for you, Tom?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

I’m surprised at how cool I sound, even though my voice breaks a little a bit when I speak. My lighter catches on the third attempt, and there is the welcome inhalation of warm smoke and cold air.

“I’m guessing you still have your bullet,” he says, nodding to my M16. “‘One in the pipe’ as you boys say.”

I nod. It seems pointless to try and lie to him at this stage. Like Mason said, if he wanted us dead, we’d be dead already.