“We have identified an overproduction of neuropeptide Y in the hypothalamus, more than triple the levels of the average adult at their peak.”
“In plain English, doc.”
“No matter how much they eat, the infected will never, ever feel satisfied.”
–Dr Ava Sherman. Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. 2 Months After.
----------------------------------------
Would this nightmare ever end?
Liam kept waiting for the moment. He kept expecting to wake up in his shelter on Purgatory and realize that this was all a concussion-induced hallucination. He wanted to hear the sound of waves hitting sand, and see the wind rustling through palm trees, and taste the sea air on his tongue. Was isolation really so dour when compared to this?
“How much further?” Liam asked, more to keep his mind busy than to use the information for anything. It wasn’t like they bothered listening to a word he said.
“Close,” Leah answered without even bothering to turn. “We’ll meet up with Mother once we get situated. She’s a scientist who knows more about the Hollowing than anyone else.”
Liam gawked. One of them is called ‘Mother’ now?
“Don’t worry,” Kurt said. “We’ll keep you safe.” The mobile refrigeration unit he was dragging cracked open with a bump in the street, and a portion of its acrid contents slipped free, once again reminding Liam that his companions were dragging a half-dozen animal carcasses, and not just him.
How had he found himself in the company of this lot? These creatures? It had only been a few hours since the state of the world had been explained to him, and already Liam regretted ever choosing to return. Purgatory was a godsend compared to this.
Leah marched onward. At first glance, Liam had mistaken her as a human like all the others, but after spending all day marching in her wake, he could see the unnatural paleness of her skin, taste the rot that emanated from her flesh, and feel the coldness of her lifeless body, even from this far away. And she wasn’t alone. Buttercup, Kurt, Mastermind… There was no denying the inhumanity of them all.
“Rezzers,” they called themselves. The last embers of mankind’s fires, resurrected from the people who had died before. Were these monsters really all that remained?
Liam exhaled his stress. He supposed that he wasn’t much to look at himself either. At their request, he had swapped the light T-shirt he’d found on the Xin Yue Jiang for a poncho, then donned leather gloves for his hands, and thrown a balaclava over his face. Even his eyes were shrouded below a pair of tinted goggles. The rezzers originally wanted to give him even more layers, in spite of the sweltering heat of Los Angeles during a midsummer afternoon. Apparently, they didn’t feel temperature in the same way and preferred to block out the sun. But Liam haggled his way down to the poncho in the end, though even that was bordering unbearable. He’d never understand where the hell they’d found so much heavy clothes in this part of the world.
The smell was getting rough too. Liam was told that his flesh gave off a distinctive aroma that could be detected by both rezzers and hollows alike, so there was no choice but to cover himself in dung to cover the scent. This wasn’t the only time that he’d avoided predators in this manner, but this was most certainly the first where they had given him the advice.
“What next, mate?” Liam muttered to Thirsty. “Wolves telling us where to store our food?”
Thirsty beamed back. If only Liam could believe his “Life is good” message right now.
The group reached a bend. There was no doubt that the debris was less intense here, and the road had been cleared of any derelict blockades.
“We’re almost at the Styx,” Leah said. “It’s going to get risky from here.”
Liam raised an eyebrow. “The Styx?”
“That’s what we call the boundary between the old city and Pandemonium. They don’t let anyone cross without screening. Do yourself a favor and pretend to be more…” She paused.
“Dead?” Liam filled in.
“Just not so alive.”
Easy for you to bloody say! Liam dragged his foot like he’d seen the hollows do. “Would this work?”
“No. That’s too much. They’ll see right through it.”
“I don’t know what you expect me to do. It’s not like I’ve been gone for twelve years or anything.”
She sighed. “Just keep quiet and follow my lead. Lower your voice if you have to say anything, and don’t pull off your goggles under any circumstances.”
“You don’t have to say that twice.”
“Good. Let’s get this over with.”
They turned the corner, and Liam froze in place. A great barricade spanned the length of the horizon, extending upwards anywhere from four to six stories tall as far as the eye could see, its form a mix of preexisting building, storage crates, and sheet metal, all welded together from one point to the next. The bottom layers were fortified with concrete and steel, and a six-lane street was converted into an open field, with not enough rubble left for even a mouse to hide within. It was like staring across an infinite asphalt river.
Dark figures patrolled the top of the wall, their forms hidden beneath blackened cloaks. The tell-tale bulge of rifles poked free from their shoulders.
Then Liam noticed the checkpoint in front. A group of four cloaked soldiers stood within the remains of a corner shop. Each brandished automatic weapons, and Liam gulped at the sight.
One lanky rezzer stood apart from the rest, waiting behind the shop’s desk as Leah approached. He looked like the incarnation of death itself, with a worn, dark cloak that dragged against the ground, and hands wrapped in cloth. His irises were shrouded red between lidless eyes, and his skin was grey and cheeks gaunt, like a person that had been carved out of stone. Were it not for the golden badge poking out from the breast of his cloak, and the assault rifle strapped to his back, Liam would have guessed he was merely a statue.
Leah approached first. “Hello, Charon.”
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“You’re back soon,” he said, unmoved.
She nodded over her shoulder to Liam. “Found a stray on the road. He’s not all that talkative, but his Rez is full enough. Figured he could use a place to get himself together.”
“So no papers?”
“He’s still too fresh, though I’m sure we can work something out.” Leah opened her jacket and handed him a bundle of… Are those photographs? There were images of everything from buildings to pets to couples on a day out, all worn and faded with time. It was like Leah had pulled photos from a hundred random scrapbooks, thrown them into a pile, and wrapped them with a rubber band.
Charon flipped through the pictures with unblinking eyes, the muscles in his face otherwise immobile. After making it halfway through, he put the pile below his desk and nodded. “Still gonna have to search you.”
“Understood,” Leah said.
The three remaining guards began to pat them down. Liam shivered as bony fingers probed his arms and legs, but they were gone soon enough. Then the guard got to the duffle bag filled with canned food. His brow hardened as he stared Liam in the eye.
“What’s this for?” the guard asked.
Before Liam could speak, Mastermind wandered between the two and tapped the guard on the knee.
“Ahem, good sir,” he said, “but that would be mine. My most illustrious of companions here offered to do me the service and carry these canned curiosities on my behalf.”
The guard looked down. “Okay, then why do you have them?”
“Why would I not? Do you see these here?” He pointed to the characters on the cans. “This script is Mandarin.”
“So?”
Mastermind feigned offense. “So? Does that not raise interest with you, good sir? How did these cans work their way to this part of the world? Why are they in such excellent condition? What might we learn about those who maintained such treasures when the Hollowing came? I intend to resolve this puzzle by studying each of these questions in detail, and more!”
The guard stared dully. “Oh.” He set the luggage down without another word.
The other two guards nodded as they finished their own searches, and Liam let out a sigh of relief. For all the madness he’d been experiencing today, at least Leah and her people had been honest in keeping him safe. So far.
“You’re good,” Charon said. Only then did he make the slightest degree of movement. He pulled a walkie talkie from inside his cloak and held it close to his mouth. “Got five incoming.”
Leah turned, and the others marched back to the street.
“Just be careful,” Charon said. “You know how Pandemonium gets for first-timers. Keep safe.”
She nodded. “You as well, Charon.”
The last light of day danced on the surface of the wall’s metal sheets as it spread apart, revealing a gate wide enough to hold two lanes of traffic. The group walked into the abyss and Liam braced for impact.
* * *
He wasn’t sure what he had expected Pandemonium to be. Perhaps a city made of bones, with rivers of flowing blood. Or maybe it would be a decimated ruin where shambling silhouettes drifted from one pile of debris to another. Or maybe this was all an elaborate scheme, and someone would put a bullet in his head the second he walked through the gate. Hell, Liam hadn’t been fully convinced that this wasn’t a delusion, and he’d wake up on his raft after swallowing too much seawater.
And yet, not even the extremes of his own imagination could have possibly encapsulated the vision that lay in front.
Hundreds of electronic signs jumbled the walls of the street, glowing in bright, neon lights and illuminated in every color and shade possible. Shops infested any building and crevice in sight. Tailors, jewelers, lenscrafters, antique refurbishing, taxidermists, record stores, electronic repairs, clothing lines, gun shops… Many of them had television screens bolted above their doors and along the windows with advertisements running on loop. And that came before the street itself. Rezzers buzzing around every few feet in various states of decay, shopping kiosks that lined the sidewalk where there was room to set them up, salesmen screaming in their hoarse, undead voices to get anyone to pay them mind. One couldn’t find a single spot to look without being the subject of five or more of these overstimulating displays. There was more commercialism here than Liam had ever seen before. More than he thought possible. It was like watching an endless flea market at its peak. Not even Tokyo at night could hold a candle against this madness!
Leah glanced over her shoulder. “You’d better stay close.”
Liam blinked through the shock and ignored the morgue-like taste that was quickly filling his nostrils. As his companions worked their way through the crowds, they donned a set of badges onto their breasts. The badges were made of silver and shaped into a canine skull and crossbones design. Whomever laid eyes on them bowed out of the way.
A horn blared to Liam’s side, and a truck rolled into view. It was militarized and painted in urban camouflage, with the trailer exposed, and filled with rezzers dressed in the same black cloaks that Charon’s people wore outside. The gate opened again and the truck soared through, then shut with a slam. Before Liam could even marvel at the sight of a working vehicle, another sailed through an adjacent street, this one covered in chrome plating and with a drawing of a cow on the side.
There were so many lights… So much technology! Where the rest of the world had been a bleak, ruinous mess, this place was more robust a city than anything he’d ever seen before, in spite of all his worldly travels. Liam was breathless. Between the noise and the lights, it took everything out of him just to keep from passing out. How is this possible!?
As if to answer his own question, he caught sight of the upper floors. The top story’s walls had been covered with solar panels, with more sticking out above, and even some wind turbines slicing through the air where there was room. Cabled wires crisscrossed the open air above the street, forming clusters before splitting away like a giant, electric spiderweb. Where the wires hit the sidewalk, more lanterns sprung out, showering the swarming crowd in multicolored light.
The main road intersected with another, and then split apart into a pedestrian promenade. Buildings were tighter here than elsewhere, and the terrain sloped up. Roman-styled arches framed the walls of one building in view, and lanterns from the ‘50s lined the pathway. The vision was iconic even with the added neon lights.
Past melded with present, memory collided with experience, and in a breath, Liam saw the specter of a time long since gone.
He closed in on Leah. “Are we in Beverly Hills?”
She nodded. “Pandemonium was built on its ruins. We’re on Rodeo Drive, specifically, though it hasn’t been called that in a while. This is Asphodel.”
Of course it bloody is. Like everything else about the world Liam had left, these creatures were obsessed with grinding its memory into dust, rebuilding it into an imitation of what it had been before, and finally, rebranding it as though it were their own creation. What alien machination would he stumble upon next?
Kurt set down the mobile refrigerator in front of one of the shops. The sign fittingly called it a “butchery”, though not one that Liam would ever partake in. Raw organs were splayed in the display window, covered in ice and viscera in what appeared to be an attempt to maximize its appeal. The stench of fetid meat wafted out from within, and Liam withdrew a few steps before it made him puke.
The shopkeeper met up with Leah. He was a heavy one, with a giant white apron caked in blood and a set of knives conspicuously strapped to his waist. When he opened the refrigerator and examined the contents, it was done with a professional level of inquiry. The two haggled shortly after, and the shopkeeper handed her another bundle of photographs, this time with an added couple of books on top.
With the exchange made, Leah distributed the photographs around to each member of her party, saving the books for herself.
“Anyone have any requests from the bank later?” she asked.
Mastermind stroked his chin in thought. “I have been interested in obtaining more literature about Statistical Forecasting. Perhaps a condensed edition would suffice?”
Leah blinked. “You’d have to come with me.”
“No matter! I shall go on my own if need be.”
“I’m sorry,” Liam said as the substance of their words caught up to him, “but where the hell do you people have a bank?”
“You’d remember it as the library,” Leah said.
“You turned a library into a bank?”
“No. The library is the bank.”
Again, Liam found himself equal parts interested and confused with what he was witnessing. Was there a single aspect of undead culture that he could wrap his mind around?
“So let me get this straight,” he said with a sigh. “You use pictures and books as currency?”
Leah shrugged. “You used pieces of paper and metal discs with dead old men on them.”
Liam couldn’t help but laugh. “Fair enough.” He again looked up and down this mayhem they called a city before landing back on his hosts. “So this is all that’s left then?”
Leah’s scarf curled with the grin beneath. “Oh, not even close.”