Chapter 37

One Minute Past Midnight

At Mr. Osmond's house, in the teacher’s living room, Jason lay on the couch watching TV, while Leo paced restlessly nearby.

“I've been informed that millions of people called in to work this morning asking if the world had ended. To answer their questions, no. No such luck. Get your asses in to work,” the TV announcer said.

“Yeah, I hear you. Damn aliens can't do anything right,” a second voice responded.

“I never expected the end of the world would be this boring,” Jason said. “Can you quit pacing? You're making me nervous.”

Leo left the living room and wandered around the house, unable to relax or even sit down. He knew he should try to calm down, but couldn't. On a bookshelf next to Mr. Osmond's desk, he found “Homemade Bombs Made Easy,” and paged through it. It was gibberish to him. He continued to look around and found more books on guns, bombs, and makeshift weapons.

Odd, a man who'd never used any weapon Leo was aware of, would have so many books on how to make them.

The hours crawled by at a snail-like pace. Leo got several implant messages, all to the effect that nothing of any consequence was happening. If the aliens were doing anything, they were being awfully quiet about it.

He texted his sister once that morning, to make sure everything was okay.

She'd texted back. No. I have this stupid creep brother who keeps bothering me.

So Lydia was fine. Little brat.

For lunch, they helped themselves to food from Mr. Osmond's refrigerator. Leo knew he should play more School's Out or do some last-minute preparation, but couldn't force himself to do so. At this time in his previous life, he'd been fighting to survive. He remembered sneaking around, finding an oversized hoodie in a backyard he was sneaking through, and putting it on.

“You can just stay here, or get a ride to the church if you want,” Leo told Jason when the clock's hands finally moved around to 3:00 in the afternoon. “I'm going to go home and check on my idiot sister.”

“No, that's fine,” Jason said. “I'm coming with you.”

The walk back home was uneventful. If anything, after all the excitement of the non-end of the world, things seemed calmer than normal.

Not only was Lydia home when they arrived, but she'd brought her friend, Kayla, a pretty blond girl

“It's a monster! Run!” Kayla screamed when she saw them, and the two girls ran from the room.

The TV, of course, was on.

“Die, implant wearer scum! Then sounds of a chainsaw.

Leo felt a tentacle against his neck. “Eeee.” He jumped over three feet, flinging himself away from the tentacle, before realizing it was his sister holding some kind of rubber octopus. He yanked the rubber octopus out of her hands and threw it at her, hard enough for the toy to hit her face with an audible thwap!, before it fell to the floor.

Lydia ran away, laughing. “I know what you were going to tell me. It was easy to guess. You're that crazy implant kid.”

“What makes you think so?” Leo asked.

“When I said I felt sorry for the implant kid the Monday before last. It was the look on your face when you said 'he must be stupid'. And you've been completely insane since September 14th. That's when the crazy implant kid supposedly got his implant.”

“Your brat sister's pretty smart,” Jason said.

“Don't remind me,” Leo said. “Fine. Lydia, you're right. On September 14th, I put on an implant, and I lived for fifty years. I saw the human race go extinct. It was a bit traumatizing, and yes, I've been spending the past month trying to warn everyone and prepare, which hasn't been easy.”

Leo thought of everything he hadn't been able to do during that time. It would have been neat if he could have fixed his bicycle, for example. He couldn't remember the last time he'd ridden a bike. Not to mention fixing Dad's motorcycle and learning to operate it. All the things he'd never do, unless he had saved the world, which he strongly doubted.

Leo followed Lydia into the kitchen. “In my previous future, on this day, I went to school, and all hell broke loose. I snuck back home, thinking that if I could make it home, everything would be okay. The front door was open and the place was deserted. By anyone living, anyway. There were gnawed-on bones in the kitchen and a scary amount of blood.” Lydia stopped next to the kitchen table, curious enough to stay put and listen. “I don't know who or what the blood and bones belonged to because I couldn't force myself to look, or even go into the kitchen. That's when I left the house and never returned. I searched for you at the refugee camp, but didn't expect to find you. Even back then, I knew on some level that the bones must have been yours, Lydia.”

Lydia shook her head. “You're crazy. I'm not dead, I'm standing right here, and I'm telling Mom you need a shrink.”

“Things are different this time around, and I don't claim to understand it, or know what's going to happen next. And not knowing scares me.” Leo grabbed his wallet, pulled out the almost weightless tinfoil-looking implant, and slapped it on the table. “That's why I made this for you. It's an implant and it will help keep you safe.”

“I knew it! You did make one!” Jason shouted. “You lied to me! And you can't even stand your sister. She's a little brat!”

“I'm sorry, Jason, but she's my sister! And I didn't tell you about it because I knew you'd get like this. I'm making one for you, I promise. Just be patient.” Leo turned back to his sister. “Lydia, put on the implant.”

“No!” Lydia shouted, backing away. “It made you crazy and I'm not going near that thing!”

Imp responded.

“Forcing an implant on another person is against the rules, Leo. If you persist in this, both the second implant and I will self destruct.”

“My apologies,” Leo responded. Then he said out loud, “Lydia, put on the damn implant. Please!”

“No! I'm telling Mom!” Lydia ran from the kitchen. They could hear her pounding on Mom's bedroom door.

Leo slumped into a kitchen chair and realized he was shaking.

“That wasn't how it was supposed to go,” he said to himself. Things were spiraling out of control. That he hadn't slept in the past few days wasn't helping.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Come on, Leo. You know I'll make better use of it than your sister,” Jason said.

Leo sighed. He had to admit his friend was right. “Okay, Jason, here's the deal. I give you the implant and show you how to use it. You help me look after Lydia, and you make a second implant. If Lydia wants it, it's hers. I'm making an implant, and I'll offer it to her as well.”

If one of them got killed in the next month, Lydia would still get an implant.

Jason quickly nodded, and Leo handed Jason the implant.

With no hesitation, Jason slapped the implant on his left wrist. It sank beneath his skin as it merged with his body. Moments later, Jason grinned. “Hi, Imp. I'm Jason.”

A loud, frightened, unhappy yowling filled the house. Lydia's cat, Sparkles, had gotten up and was standing on top of the easy chair. The cat's hair stood up, and it looked terrified. It turned around, ran away, and hid underneath the couch.

“Sparkles, what's wrong with you?” Lydia called. “Kayla, what are you doing with that knife? And why are you drooling? That is so gross.”

“What the hell?” Jason asked.

“Quiet!” Leo mouthed at Jason.

Jason nodded quickly.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! Leo's fragile hope that they had somehow averted the apocalypse collapsed, and he just wanted to cry.

Leo's pack was by the front door, and there wasn't time to go back for it. He moved as quickly and silently as humanly possible, grabbed a pan from the sink, and crept into the hallway.

It was the smell. That's why the cat yowled. The smell of the Afflicted, a smell the cat knew well, thanks to its previous experience with the Early Bloomer Afflicted lady, and with a better sense of smell than a human, Sparkles had noticed the smell before Leo.

Kayla was changing.

Leo crept into the hallway. Kayla was standing there, holding a small knife she must have gotten from the kitchen. Her back was to Leo as she faced Lydia, who was standing in front of Mom's bedroom door.

“Kayla, what are you doing? You are acting really weird,” Lydia said.

Leo got within striking distance of Kayla. He raised the pan and swung.

***

Kayla must have sensed Leo, or perhaps Lydia's eyes gave him away, because she spun around, dodging the pan as he swung it at her head. A slight glint of steel was all the warning he got as she slashed at him with her knife. She threw her head back and let out a terrifying scream.

There were answering screams, one of which came from Mom's bedroom. Kayla slashed Leo's arm again, cutting through his leather jacket and drawing blood. Leo retaliated with the pan, striking a glancing blow to Kayla's arm and shoulder as she backed away. He wasn't sure if Kayla might go for his sister, but he wasn't about to give her the chance.

Leo rushed her, hitting her head with his pan and taking another knife slash in return. His leather biker jacket protected him somewhat, but not completely. He was larger than she was, but thanks to her Afflicted status, she was strong and fast.

She tried to stab him, but he dropped his pan, grabbed her knife arm with both hands, dragged her down to the floor face first, and sat on top of her, getting clawed in the process. He grabbed the pan from where he'd dropped it on the floor and slammed it down on her head.

“Leo! Stop it! What are you doing?” Lydia screamed, grabbing Leo's pan arm, trying to pull him away from her friend. “Kayla! What's wrong with you? Both of you cut it out!”

Kayla twisted her knife arm free of Leo's hand and stabbed his leg. He grunted in pain. “Damn it, Lydia, your friend is gone!” he shouted, yanking his pan-holding arm free of Lydia's grasp and slamming the pan down on Kayla's head again. She screamed for a second time, her neck twisted further around than any human neck could as she tried to bite him with her elongating mouth and sharp teeth.

“Look at her eyes, Lydia. They're red. That means she's gone!” Leo slammed the pan down on Kayla's head again, feeling something crunch. There was pounding on Mom's bedroom door. Depending on how quickly Mom was changing, it was possible she'd forgotten how to use a doorknob. But she was more than strong enough to break down the door.

“I'm calling the cops!” Lydia shouted, running away down the hall. The bathroom door slammed shut and there was a click as she locked herself in.

Good luck with that, Leo thought, slamming the pan on Kayla's head again and again, until he was reasonably sure she was dead, despite her body's continued twitching underneath him.

Leo pulled the knife out of his leg and dropped it on the floor.

Wood splintered as Mom came out of her bedroom, looking scary and disoriented until she spotted Leo in front of her.

Boom! A gunshot shattered the air. Jason stood at the other end of the hall, holding Leo's pistol.

If the gunshot bothered Leo's Afflicted mother, she wasn't showing it. With a scream, she charged the source of the noise. Leo threw the pan at Mom and ran down the hall, passing Jason.

Boom! Boom! Jason fired twice more, then he screamed.

Leo rushed to his backpack, pulled out his khukri short sword and ran back just in time to see Jason pinned on the ground, fighting to stop Mom from taking a bite out of his face.

Leo swung his razor-sharp, khukri short sword at Mom's neck, cutting her deeply, blood spraying everywhere. He kicked Mom away from Jason and swung a second and third time, until she lay there, a gurgling, twitching, headless, bloody mess on the floor.

If Mom or Dad were in their right minds, they'd want us to kill them, Leo thought. That was how he justified this level of violence against a former loved one.

“Jason. Are you okay?” Leo asked, helping him up. Aside from being scratched and banged up from his experience, Jason seemed unharmed. Leo, on the other hand, was bleeding from several places and could feel blood running down his leg. “You fired three times. Did you hit her at all?” Leo asked, studying the body, not seeing any evidence that he had shot her.

“I don't think so,” Jason said. “I've never fired a gun before, not for real, anyway. Excuse me.” Jason turned away from Leo and vomited onto the floor, adding to the mess.

Leo picked up the gun from where it had been lying in a pool of blood. “I'll take the gun then. I'm lucky you didn't shoot me by accident.”

From the living room, there was an unhappy, crying, giggling sound from the TV announcer.

“I just received a note from the aliens. Fuck, I'm so scared and I'm on live. I'll read the note the aliens just sent us.”

The distinguished middle-aged man read from his cellphone:

The Board of Directors of the human corporation Bio-Blessed Inc., apologize for our previous misleading statements. We assured you that we wouldn't destroy your world when the billboard watch hit midnight, or 00:00 military time. Instead, we waited exactly one minute after midnight, or 00:01, billboard time. Approximately ten of your hours. Our earlier statement, though misleading, is factually true.

We get no pleasure out of destroying your world by turning all the Bio-Blessed users into monsters. It's just that our non-human clients are paying us a lot of real non-human currency to do this. Not that human currency isn't real, it's just that we can't use human currency in other parts of the galaxy.

Once again, we apologize. If any humans remain and wish to file a lawsuit, we will acknowledge our guilt and pay the slap-on-the-wrist fine all good human corporations pay when they kill a bunch of people or destroy lives and property. A regrettable cost of doing business. Please accept our sincerest apologies for destroying your world.

Signed.

The Humans From Bio-Blessed, Inc.”

The announcer buried his face in his hands.

“I can feel myself start to change and I'm scared. I don't want to be a human-eating monstrosity.” The announcer let out a frightened sob. “On a positive note, I've been told that the more Bio-Blessed you take, the stronger and smarter a human-eating monster you become. So that's a thing. Oh God. I'm so scared.”

“Fuck,” Leo said. “Jason! We need to get out of here! Thanks to your gunshots, our Afflicted neighbors will be coming this way. There's a cat carrier next to the TV. See if you can find Sparkles. Lydia's not going anywhere without that cat.”

Jason nodded, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and slowly got moving.

Leo pulled up his implant messages. Sure enough, there were a lot of them.

Teach: THOSE FUCKING ALIENS! THEY WAITED ONE BILLBOARD MINUTE! ONE BILLBOARD MINUTE! THE BILLBOARD WATCH HAS NOW STOPPED. THE END OF THE WORLD IS A GO! FUCK!

The Professor: Our hopes that the end of the world had been averted are for nothing. Now is the time to put those emergency plans into action. Be careful out there. The world has become a very dangerous place.

Mr. Al: Guys? Guys? Is there anyone nearby who can help me? I can hear them outside. I'm squatting in the abandoned apartment complex between Smith and Wilshire Street. I can make medical drugs as well as recreational ones. Please help me!

The notifications went on and on. Everyone was scared, and dealing with emergencies. At present, there was little Leo could do about any of them.

It was time to choose a character class. He pulled up his stat sheet.