The city of Boston stank of fish, and I was about to die for the fifth time.

It was a miracle, they said. The world changes, technology fails, two thirds of humanity disappears, but fish flood into Boston Harbor in a glorious explosion of utterly illiogical and insensible numbers and the remaining populace is saved from starvation. Like Moses in the desert getting his people Mana. Only problem is, mana doesn’t stink. Dead fish do. Do they ever. So, the omnipresent and rotting stench. Bluefish, tuna, mackrel, schrod, you name it. Plus one for a miracle that prevented mass starvation, minus something or other for a smell that approaches being a physical thing, a reek that beggars description.

In any event, enough with the fish. And onto the dying. And into the mess I currently find myself.

All I wanted was booze. Death number four had been a particularly traumatic one, after all, and my response to said death was perhaps a bit excessive. All I wanted was a little comfort. Preferably Southern Comfort. Or Jim Beam, Jack Daniels, hell random rotgut. Anything to forget. So back to Boston I had gone. Minding my own business, keeping my head down, drawing no attention to myself. Eating fish and looking for booze.

There were three of them, naughty Corrupted short cut users looking to drain and kill the uncorrupted, full of the pure meditated goodness that was a drug to this sort. And they had found a target, a young boy seemingly immune to the rot and stench, solemnly shooting rainbows out of his hands, his mouth half open his attention fully on the task before him. Something in his mediations had blossomed, some new tier or shelf or whatever they call it; some new toy he wanted to try out.

Must admit it was pretty.

You know what was going to happen, because at this point everybody knows what was going to happen. What was a bit unusual — at least at that point — was that the Corrupted were co-operating. When the sweet nectar of the uncorrupted was unavailable this sort turned on each other like weasels in a sack. They typically couldn’t - and can’t - help themselves. Ignoring what we’ve been hearing lately, at any rate. What was also a bit unusual was that they’d managed to get all the way through the suburbs, into the City and down right into the stinky, smelly, rancid harbor.

Never did learn the how or the why of it; the “why” being why they’d bypassed so many uncorrupted and arrived here. The “how” being how they’d gone unnoticed. Usually they murdered the first uncorrupted they saw, or were taken out and hanged by a righteous posse of BUZ citizens taking a break from embracing the Infinite to help themselves.

But there they were. There he was. And, most annoying of all, there I was. And nobody else.

I could have just let nature take its course, if such a thing could be considered natural. And beyond that, there’s the whole business of me being, well, different. And not just not being able to die and stay dead. That’s just one item on the laundry list of oddities I was at that point Which I suppose I shall have to address by the by, but at that point nobody knew, and the questions that might be asked were ones I’d rather not answer.

There had to be some booze around here, somewhere. After all, that was the whole point of leaving the half collapsed house on Beacon Hill I’d found and settled in quite satisfactorily after evading some of the new Zone marshalls and this laughable census they were trying to do. Sadly, the Beacon Hill digs were much less satisfactory after I drank my way through a fully stocked bar that had by some miracle evaded detection.

They started moving. The three of them, two men, one woman, looked like the old school junkies you saw pre-Change in the city centers of America. Rail thin, ratty hair, paper pale skin. Clothes practically rotted off. Except for how the moved, with a speed and power no athlete pre-Change could have matched. And very few uncorrupted. You could feel the hunger, the craving as almost a physical thing.

At least it would be over for the kid quickly, right? And certainly the good citizens of the Boston Unified Zone would rally later and hunt down these creatures. No uncorrupted was a match for any one Corrupted that I had seen, but well, get enough uncorrupted together and the power would overwhelming. These three had signed their own death warrants.

Only problem is, none of this would help the kid. He was toast.

Unless I did something. Damn it.

So I Turned and started shambling on an intercept course.

Another unique attribute. Turning. Nobody else I’ve seen can do it, nobody else would even know what koan or state of satori or cloud of unknowing or prayer to Saint Sebastian or Haile Selassie or, well, any of the usual steps people do to acquire some new skill, talent or annoying peaceful personality trait in this post-change world of ours. In fact, nobody else can actually change anything about their body that I’ve seen, and at this point I’ve seen a lot. You enhance your natural abilities, you don’t turn yourself purple or sprout gills.

My skin hardens to a kind of leather-like consistency, my face apparently grows something like a collection of bark or shingles also pretty much impentrable. And I get considerably stronger. And faster. For approximately 37 or so seconds. Longer if I concentrate, but for those 37 seconds I’m locked into being an Ent crossed with the Incredible Hulk.

I also pulled out my Rambo knife, of course. I can never remember if the thing is called a K-Bar or an S-Bar or for all I know a Mister Goodbar. Rambo knife works for me. It is small enough to carry under clothes and so passes without notice in a semi-civilized place like the BUZ and big enough to pull out and intimidate when the semi-civilized degrades to uncivilized.

I was also hoping the Corrupted were dumb enough to have come to town without Rambo knives or equivalent weapons of their own, though I guess matters had progressed to a point where what would be would have to be. From what I’d heard they had some strange ideas about using tools for assists, preferring to rely only on their abilities.

In any event, I got to the kid just before they did. Barely, but I did.

One problem with turning is that not only does my skin coarsen and toughen, but so do my my vocal cords. So while I wanted to say something suitably off-putting and pithy of the “Flee, Scoundrel,” variety, the best I could do was point with the Rambo knife and say “Go,” in an amazingly creepy and scary tone. Or perhaps I could have, had it come not come as something closer to “Moo.”

Still, me in front of the kid. Pointing the knife and looking like a dryad’s bastard child presumably made a point of some sort. Hopefully, of the “go away” sort.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

But they are hungry, oh so hungry. I didn’t really know then what I know now, so I guess I kind of hoped they’d turn tail and run. No chance. They weren’t going to stop for me or for anyone this close to their prize.

They did pull up for a second and look at each other as if to say, “What the hell is that,” but only for a second. And to give them credit, they didn’t bother trying to threaten me out of the way, either. Somehow they knew they only to the prize was through me.

Imagine if you will, standing between 3 junkies and their fix. Now imagine that said junkies are able to perform what I will vaguely call magic, are capable of moving very very fast and more likely than not have some sort of super strength. That is where I found myself, cursing whatever horrible impulse had driven me to interfere. It was unlikely I was going to be able to stop them, and all I was going to do was cause myself some unnecessary pain.

Oh, and the nice thing about magic fireballs, at least from the perspective of the individual casting them is that they are basically magic napalm. Meaning they burn and keep burning. Good for the caster not so good for me. Yes, my weird leather skin kept me from going up completely, but was also absolutely not immune to being lit on fire. I can assure you on that point. And, it was not one of the more pleasurable experiences of my life.

The two surviving corrupted paused for a second as they Took in the tableau before them, but at this point they weren’t going to stop and they weren’t going to run away. However, the nice part being that they had in fact paused. Miniature little old and me was on fire and for all they knew was soon going to be completely consumed, which in all honesty was not that far from the truth.

What had slipped their minds or more likely had never entered it in the first place was Any thought related to the knife I was holding. This gave me the opportunity to stumble forward and slash out at the other one, the one who had not cast the fireball. I aimed for his chest in a sweeping underhand motion, but sadly missed since he like most of his kind just moves so damn fast. I did catch him all lightly on the forearm, drawing blood and a snarl.

“I don’t know what you are man but I can tell you you’re so dead,” there’s a creature said to me in an oddly high voice.

I tried to get another go slash move out, but since the hardening effects of the turn only increase the longer I stay turned all that came out was a sort of strangled gurgle. The whole business of being on fire didn’t exactly help matters either.

Had they been thinking right and we’re not acting like a collection of junkies I was a dead man. Would simply have stood back and hit me with more of those fireballs or whatever it was they could cast and I would be completely helpless. But fortunately for me, addicts are not known for their abilities to strategize. They may have a sort of low cunning, but nobody is going to confuse them with von moltke either.

“Get out of the the way of the Exalted and maybe we’ll let you live,” the one casting the fireball blurted out. Obviously a lie but still a bit more in the way of tactics than I would have expected. And Exalted? What the hell was that?

Here’s where they made a mistake, and where I managed to make an even bigger one. play closed in on me which played to my strengths, such as they were (and I guess are) well arguably showing them up where they are at their weakest. One of them punched me in the side of the head, a blow enhanced by some sort of super strength. I staggered but managed to keep my feet and while wildly waving the Rambo knife about managed another hit, this time much closer to something vital.

To the credit of the one who I had just stabbed they said nothing, but just grabbed me, both hands around my neck and did something that was a bit like being electrocuted. whatever it was it was extremely painful, to the point that it made feeling like being lit on fire as as though one was receiving a gentle massage.

But this was also a fatal mistake on his part. Not quite sure why the knife still didn’t register with them but it had not. I guess if you’re a hammer you only see nails, and if you use magic”, I guess you only see magical threats. This time I went for the throat. And struck home.

The junkie did a sort of jig as he stepped back clawing at his throat, blood streaming from it, Hell’s fountaining from it, in a truly impressive fashion. The only sounds he was capable of a sort of perp blurp noise. Sadly, I did not have the time 2 review the fruits of my labor, since Mr. fireball was still going to town, though his aim seemed to be increasingly erratic. It had also gotten past me that I had managed to have been hit at least twice more while taking care of the zapper guyThe only thing for it was to try to close with him and take him out before he turned me into a piece of charcoal.

Fortunately for me, this was a junkie we we were talking about. Meaning getting to the boy was job 1 and I was merely a nuisance in the way. Perhaps he even thought a bit favorably of me for having eliminated the competition? Nah, probably not since he was focused on getting to the boy. Sadly though, he did not forget about me either in terms of fireballs or in terms of starting to spout some very odd monologue.

“Worm, You are simply delaying the inevitable! We, the exalted are the future! I don’t know what you are or where you came from since I sense nothing about you, but now you will die.”

What this drivel was supposed to I mean I had no idea at the time, but given what I was to learn later it fit into a very strange and warped world view. But drug addicted neo nietzscheans will have to wait for a later chapter. Something for you, dear reader to look forward to. As though most of you are not already familiar with the idea.

In any event, while he was spouting this nonsense he somehow managed to make a fireball much much larger than the preceding fireballs, a sort of apotheosis of fireballs I guess one would call it. Not only larger, but it gave off a heat far more intense than all his preceding efforts. Kind of impressive, but to my mind kind of a waste. Seemed like overkill though I guess since you still hadn’t come to terms with my leather skin and so on perhaps he thought the effort was merited. He was holding it before him in some sort of weird stasis, waiting for the right moment to launch it.

But that actually wasn’t the important thing. We had all forgotten about the woman I had rendered valuable chiropractic chiropractic services upon. She had not in fact perished, having some deep reserve of stamina or constitution or whatever one would care to call it that kept her ticking.

And now, she was glowing.

Being otherwise involved, I was not in fact the first to notice what was happening. A big old fireball dangling in the air 15 feet from you will have that effect. And had I seen it, I’m not sure I would have understood what exactly it was that was occurring. But Mr. fireballs noticed, and apparently did grasp the situation immediately.

“No, no, no, no! Martha, what are you doing?” This last coming out as a shriek.

Turning my attention from the fireball, I saw that Martha – I guess that was her name - was not only now glowing she was shaking, faster and faster, with a weird vibration, a sort of low pitched hum filling the air.

Martha stood. Glow increased, and the sound rose from the low hum to an almost angry giant bees buzz. And she started walking toward the boy, her body shaking an contorting in an inhuman fashioni.

Mr. fireball was having none of it.

“That’s too unstable!” A pause.

“You’ll kill us all!

As she reached the boy the sound became intolerably loud, the contortions so bad she could no longer move, the glow, painful to look upon. And only increasing.

“No,” screamed Mr. fireball, “No!” again, I guess for emphasis. Mr. fireball dropped the big fireball and started running. I’m not quite sure what went through my head at that point, but it must have been something along the line of, “Well, this can’t be good.” and that Mr. fireball over there probably had the right idea.

So I turned and grabbed the kid, couldn’t exactly pull him into me since I was on fire, and started running toward the buildings lining the harbor. I felt, not heard the explosion when it happened. I hoped I had gotten far enough away, but of course i had not. I threw the kid with great force, figuring the risk of broken bones was better than being stuck in a blast zone. One bit of luck was that I threw him into the harbor. Assuming of course there were no sharks around today. And yes they had been spotted.

And everything went black. Dead again, for the fifth time. My last thought being that this was getting rather old. And that I was going to have to recover my Rambo knife upon resurrection. A good knife like that is hard to find.