Chapter 8

Finding Trent

Tuesday, September 16th, 2059

30 days to the apocalypse

In the morning, Leo waited for Mom to come home from her graveyard shift and turn in for the day before getting up and sneaking out of the house.

He needed to level up on his walking and running skills, but he also needed to get to this church before hell froze over, so he'd dug into his life savings and grabbed some bus money. His twelve-year-old life savings was under the tile in his closet where his sister had said it would be. Minus the five dollars Lydia had no doubt confiscated per their agreement. Little brat.

Leo boarded a smelly city bus filled with drunks and drug addicts, who, thankfully, left him alone. The bus took him down Main Street to the city's outskirts. He got off a few blocks from the church's location.

As churches went, The God's House was small, nondescript, and covered with fading, peeling white paint. On one side, someone had spray-painted graffiti depicting a horned demon. The only interesting thing about the church was the large cross above the entrance. A cross made from hundreds of smaller crosses welded together. Leo wasn't a big fan of religion, but he had to admit it looked pretty neat. He opened the door and went inside. The large, empty room smelled like pine-sol cleaner and felt quiet, peaceful.

A small woman dressed in jeans and a tee shirt came out from the back. “Can I help you?”

“I'm looking for Trent, a man with a tattoo of a cross on his right hand?” Leo was suddenly nervous, wondering what he was doing here and if he was wasting his time.

“And who are you?”

“Leo. Leo Edwards."

“Nice to meet you, Leo. Assuming I know this person, what do you want with him?”

Shit. “Uh, I can't say. But I need to speak to him. It's important.”

She looked at him for a long moment and seemed to make up her mind. “Wait here.” She walked away, but he could hear her talking on her cellphone.

“Boy, around twelve... Leo Edwards... No idea, says it's important. Think it might be the boy you were talking about?... Okay... Will do...”

She came back. “He's in the neighborhood and he said he'd swing by shortly. Would you like some tea? Hot chocolate? Coffee?”

“No thanks. I was wondering... I read an article about your church. I believe the article said something about a cancer patient taking Bio-Blessed, but they censored the story.”

She sighed. “Not a story for children, but if it stops you from taking that stuff...” She sat down on a pew. “One of our older church members took Bio-Blessed for her cancer. At first, it seemed to help. She looked better, hair growing back, more energy, didn't need a walker. Then, a couple of months ago, she collapsed in the middle of the Sunday sermon. I called the ambulance, and we tried to help her, but there was nothing we could do. There was a large snakelike thing underneath her skin, circling her neck, strangling her. Her doctor thinks it was her tumor growing out of control. Said he'd never seen a tumor grow that quickly, and if he hadn't seen it himself, he'd have sworn it was impossible.”

She looked away and shook her head. “Bio-Blessed Inc. insists their product had nothing to do with this and if I suggest otherwise, my church will be shut down and I will face multiple lawsuits for slander. You seem like a bright boy. I'll let you decide for yourself what happened.”

“I see,” Leo said. He wondered how many such events Bio-Blessed Inc. had covered up before the change.

***

Leo sat with the woman, wondering how long it would take for Trent to arrive.

“Trent's done a lot for this place. Did you see the cross outside?” she asked.

Leo nodded.

“That was him. Trent made it for us with his arc welder.”

“Wow. Nice.”

The entrance to the church opened. A man in a brown jacket entered. The sight hit Leo like a blast from the past. Trent looked cleaner and less unkempt than he'd been in Leo's previous life. He was smiling. Leo had never seen him smile.

“This must be Leo,” Trent said, walking up to Leo and extending a large hand. Leo shook it. “Nice to meet you, Leo. Join me for lunch? My treat. I know this great burger place...”

Leo nodded, following him out of the church and to his old, beat-up, blue-gray pickup truck.

The man brought back memories of weeks after the Change, scared and alone, shunned by almost everyone. He shivered. He wanted to deliver his damn message and go, but decided to go along with things. Find out what was going on.

Trent drove them to a nearby hole-in-the-wall fast food joint. A small, dingy sign in front, made from non-working, red fluorescent bulbs, said Larry's Jumbo Burgers. “Their burgers and fries are great. Everything else here tastes horrible.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Leo shrugged. “Burger and fries are fine.”

After Trent ordered two meals of burgers and fries with two cokes, they sat down at a corner table. “What happened to your face? You get in a lot of fights?” Trent asked.

“Only when I have to,” Leo answered.

“Have to, like how?”

Leo told him about his encounter with Brick, and later, when he'd helped his friend against some eighth graders.

A server brought out their food. Trent took a big bite from his burger. Leo tried a french fry and decided Trent might be right about the food. The fries were good, and the burger smelled mouthwatering. That, or Leo was so used to eating whatever he could scrounge in the wastelands that anything tasted good.

Trent put his burger down. “One of my future stepdaughters said a boy might look me up because he wanted to ask her on a date. You seem like a nice guy, Leo, but she's not allowed to date until she's a lot older and, frankly, I think at twelve, you shouldn't be dating either.”

Leo laughed. “I thought there might be a misunderstanding. I'm here to deliver a message and return a favor. I didn't know you had a stepdaughter.” He made his implant glow, careful to shield it from anyone else.

“Jesus Christ!” Trent hissed, pushing away from the table. “I obey the law of the land. I don't mess with those things, and I want nothing to do with whatever you're up to.”

Leo leaned forward. “I'm here to deliver a life and death message. Now, you are going to listen to me, or I'm telling everyone you have an implant and are a level 10 Pyro Mage. Just hear me out for five minutes and I swear I'll never bother you again.”

Trent pushed his burger to the side and leaned forward, glaring at Leo. “I don't know who you've been talking to, but what you've heard is garbage. You have five minutes, then I want you out of my face.”

“When I put on the,” Leo pointed at his wrist, “two days ago, I had a vision. It was like I lived through fifty years of my life. In my vision, just over a month from now, the two of us met at a refugee camp. You helped me out. You gave me a message you would have given anything to deliver to your past self. That is the message I'm giving you now.”

“You met me in a refugee camp, but you didn't know I had a fiancee and her daughters to look after? There's no way I'd have left them behind,” Trent said.

“I'm sure they were dead. A lot of people didn't survive the first week of the Change.” Leo drank some coke, his mouth suddenly dry. “I didn't have a family by then either.”

“You've officially creeped me out, kid. If I ever see you near my fiancee or her daughters, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. Christ wasn't a pacifist and neither am I. Now give me the message and go. You got three minutes.”

"You told yourself to listen to your Imp. The game isn't a game, so quit messing around. You've got to play to win, or you will lose everything."

***

Congratulations! You have completed your quest and received 20 Demon Tears, Leo's Imp said. The Demon Tears appeared in his inventory.

Trent sat back in his chair and rubbed his neck, looking perplexed. “What you're saying doesn't make sense. It's possible I know of a level nine Pyro Mage. Friend of a friend. He uses his power to light cigarettes or ignite kindling in his fireplace. That's all a level nine Pyro Mage is good for. He's a human cigarette lighter. I get the whole disaster apocalypse part. But I'd be telling that guy to buy a bunch of guns or something.“

“About that,” Leo said. “The Change turns anyone who took too much Bio-Blessed into a monster, but it also activates certain implant features you thought were a hoax or part of a game. Suddenly, you will be able to throw fireballs around, but without increasing your energy storage and recovery levels, you can only throw one fireball every eight hours. That's why your friend desperately needs to increase his energy storage levels and energy recovery rates. Something I'm sure your friend's Imp has been telling him to do for months. If I were your friend, I'd use my Demon Tears to make my energy storage at least ten times its current size and do everything I could to speed up energy recovery rates. That and put something into defense. Fire-shield, for example.”

“Yeah?” Trent took another bite from his burger and chewed. He seemed to be thinking. “Got any evidence for this? What did you see happening in the month before this apocalypse?”

Leo pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket and handed it over. “When I lived through this before, I didn't pay attention to current events. I've listed the few things I remember that might be evidence, but it isn't much.”

Trent looked at it. “Two movie stars fighting in public. Who cares? Politician using an eyedropper for fake tears to look like they're crying, Pope blessing a billionaire who wishes to be known as a deity. Stuff like that happens every day... Wait. That imitation Bio-Blessed company, Body Booster Inc. stock crashes two weeks from now? I thought they just got FDA approval.”

“Don't know about the FDA. But apparently, the owner spent the company's money on real Bio-Blessed and flew away. I mean, he literally grew wings from his back and flew to another country to hide. My dad was so pissed he was throwing stuff at our flat screen. He'd invested in the company.”

“Interesting.” Trent put the crumpled paper in his pocket and stuffed the rest of his burger into his mouth. “You got a ride home?” he asked through a mouthful of food.

“No. But I need to level up in walking long distances and running.”

“Some neighborhoods around here aren't safe for either. I'm driving you home.”

Leo packed up his burger and fries for later, followed Trent to his truck, and gave him directions to his house.

“I'm curious,” Trent said once they were driving. “In your vision, what happened to me?”

“About a week after I met you, you got drunk, left the refugee camp, and got yourself killed, taking at least ten of those things with you. Sucked for me, 'cause you were my only companion.”

“That does sound like something I'd do. Okay, Leo, I'm going to make sure that my friend does what you suggested. It's not like he'll lose anything by doing it. But if the world doesn't end, I want you to get therapy. Deal?”

“Deal,” Leo said. They shook on it.

“Oh, and if the world is coming to an end, you should learn how to fight. You seem to get your ass kicked a lot.”

“On my to-do list.” Leo got out of the truck and headed inside. He turned around to take a last look at his onetime friend. But the man was already driving away.