Risk

I swung the AK back behind me, bending down to grab one of It’s ankles. I dragged it along behind me and pulled it back down the stairs. As I went I sang under my breath:

Come gather 'round people, wherever you roam
And admit that the waters around you have grown.
And accept it that soon, you'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'.
Then you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'…

I turned the corner at the end of the corridor and went down the three steps, pulling open the door with the black-and-yellow hazard sign. An instant blast of heat hit me and I coughed a bit.

Come writers and critics who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide, the chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon for the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who that it's namin'.
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'…

I approached the furnace and gave the handle a tug, throwing it open. The heat overwhelmed my face now and I had to turn quick before it stung my eyes too much. I reached down and grabbed the It just above It’s knees, and with a grunt I flung the It up through the wide door and hurled It into the fire.

Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call.
Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled.
The battle outside, ragin’
Will soon shake your windows and vibrate your walls
For the times they are a-changin'…

I closed the door of the furnace again and yanked the handle down tight. I turned back to leave-- oh, gross, there was a trail of blood and brains to follow back. That’d start to reek in a couple days. I’d root up some old bleach or something… or just leave it, who the hell cared, I was used to the stench. I walked out and shut the door to the furnace behind me.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.
Your old road is rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'…

Up the big stairs to the surface. Open door. Gun up, three sixty. Clear.
I strode toward the Macy’s at the end of the aisle. Actually, the one thing really pissing me off right now was my own smell, now with dirty hands of It’s filth. As I came through the department store door that same old ugly sweater that I hated to much was hanging there, and I stalled quick to wipe my bloody hands off on it.
I headed to the Estee Lauder display. Hmm, oughtta try a new fragrance today. Something in a rectangular bluish bottle caught my eye. I gave it a sniff, decided it was good enough, and gave a couple sprits to my underarms.

The line it is drawn and the curse it is cast.
The slow one now will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changin‘.

My mouth still tasted like morning. I knew there was the old soda dispenser in the food court’s Taco Bell, I could do with a quick Mountain Dew rinse-- aw, fuck, I forgot to get the generator running. Hmm, machine might be working anyways. I just wanted this fucking taste out of my mouth. Lukewarm rinse was better than nothing.
I kept whistling the same tune as I strolled down the main aisle to the food court. I remember Uncle Henry used to adore Bob Dylan. Anything and everything the man wrote, my Uncle Henry would cling to it like it was a piece of gold. Hen was a straight-up Protestant, strong minded, strong willed, but if he was presented with the opportunity I just know Hen would go gay for Bob Dylan in a heartbeat.
Since Uncle Hen loved lived Dylan, I was raised on him. I knew every word to every Dylan song. I just found Times to be completely appropriate for my life now. In a sickly humorous kind of way. Ah, Hen would’ve laughed. He brought me up to look at the bright side of everything, even if I had to be hard.
“Baby girl,” Hen would say in his deep southern drawl, “even if you gotta be tough as nails, you still gotta smile every chance you get. Smilin’ makes you live longer. And even if the world is hell, the good Lord wants you to keep your life goin’. Gotta give your all. And that means you gotta smile.”
If I had to pick a single reason for why I still tried to survive it would be because of Uncle Henry. He was my best friend. He was Daddy’s big brother, and since Daddy looked up to him, so did I.
Oh, I was a Daddy’s girl alright. Not that I had another option. Momma died when I was seven. I don’t remember her much. From what I do remember she was beautiful. She had long auburn hair that curled slightly at the ends. Her eyes were crystal blue, surrounded by long dark lashes, and glittered every time she smiled through her soft, bow-shaped lips. She had fair skin and a perfect complexion, the lightest natural blush to her cheeks. I don’t remember her ever wearing makeup. The only beauty products she ever used were a hairbrush and her perfume; a sweet perfume that smelled of cherry blossoms in the early spring. Every morning she would put that perfume on, and Daddy would walk up behind her as she sat at her dressing table, kissing the top of her head and taking in a long deep breath, his strong hands resting on her shoulders. Momma would close her eyes and smile, reach up and cross her arms over her chest, lightly placing each one of her hands on top of Daddy’s. I remember peeking into their bedroom in the mornings and watching them, wishing that someday I could find someone to fall in love with, a love that would burn as strong and true as my parents love for each other…
There’s a plan that got shot to shit.
I reached the food court and jumped the Taco Bell counter. Apparently the soda fountain did hold on to some of the generator’s energy; it lightly hummed with life. I stuck my head beneath the Mountain Dew spout and opened wide. The button gave a loud click and sweet yellow-green nectar flowed. I got a good mouthful, swished, spat it down the drain beneath the fountain, and went back for a long drink. Of course, I couldn’t take too long a drink. Resources were running short. The Taco Bell soda fountain was one of the last.
Once I’d had enough I decided it was time for a good hearty cup of java. Looking up and out the sunroof-- the only glass in the food court that hadn’t been shattered and replaced by wood from the bookshelves of the Barnes & Noble-- I saw a ripe mango sun peeking it’s way overhead in the middle of a powder blue sky with wispy cotton clouds.
There were only a few beautiful things left about the world. The sunrise was one of them.
I hopped back over the counter and headed to the Starbuck’s over by the Hollands & Rogers. A smile I got every day: free Starbuck’s coffee. And you’d be amazed how stocked up that place was! I could have my one cup of coffee every morning and not worry about dwindling supplies. Not only was this because I drank my coffee pretty weak, but because there were literally hundreds of bags of pre-ground and un-ground coffee beans in the back of the shop. Frankly, it was kind of ridiculous, but I wasn’t complaining.
I made it to Starbuck’s and went about my routine. I was feeling a little lazy this morning so I poured in the pre-ground beans. One scoop to make a full ten cup pot of coffee. (Like I said, I drink it weak.) As the machine started to sputter and brew, I sat on the counter and planned out the day.
A food search, that was said. And definitely try to find the entrance the It had found to get in, which would mean not only discovering the source but also (sob) dismantling yet another bookshelf to cover it. It felt sinful to do such a thing, but you do what you need to.
Daddy and Uncle Hen were tough guys, but they worked together to raise me on books. Any book: fantasy, mystery, adventure, even romance. Hen, who had fought in ‘Nam, and Daddy, who was a Marine, bringing me up on Nicholas Sparks. Not exactly what you’d expect but Daddy and Hen never did like orthodox.
Regardless, they did raise me strong. I had planned to go into the military when I was eighteen. Now seventeen… there was no military to join. Unless I wanted to join the Army of Them.
No thank you.
My coffee finished brewing. I poured up a travel cup, one that I’d already used three times, and flipped the coffeemaker off. I headed out of Starbuck’s, off in search of the It’s entrance.
So: first thing to do? Footprints. Blood and mud were the key. The smell of death and decay. I headed back to the entrance of the basement to backtrack from there.
I used to go hunting with Daddy. I was never old enough to get a proper license and next to never actually got to shoot anything down, but even Daddy cheated sometimes. “Someday sweetheart, you might need to know how to fire a rifle,” he said, as if this justified it. “And so long as I’m here with you, you’re not too young to learn. Dangnabbit to the law! I know you’d never go runnin’ off with no guns.”
I remembered him saying that the first day I’d raided a firearms shop for rifles and ammo. His voice rang in my head. And lemme tell you, that was NOT a pleasant experience.
But Daddy was right in the end; I did need to know how to fire a gun. Yet as far as I know this wasn’t the purpose Daddy anticipated I would use this skill for. Then again he’d died doing the same thing--
Block it out, Risk, block it out.
Alright, here we are. Back at the basement I saw the light dirty footprints, lightly highlighted with red streaks of blood. The only actual footprints were the occasional tread of a left boot. The right side was a drag mark from a limp It leg.
Lovely.
I turned and sipped my coffee, following the tracks backwards. As I moved along the tracks became a darker and darker brown, the blood thicker. It was Daddy who taught me how to track animals when we went hunting together. I had just learned to adapt some of the same basic principles of tracking for hunting Them.
The tracks eventually led back to an escalator. The dark gray steps made it too hard to see the marks, but I knew there would still be tracks at the top.
Only thing that confused me:
It came from the second floor?
I’d never known Them to be good climbers… ah, maybe it just went up another idled escalator from the first floor and come in a circle… yeah, that had to be it. I ascended the stairway to follow back to whichever other direction It had come from.
At the beginning of The Crisis I had felt like one of Them. In a different sort of way, though. They always just… roamed. They never had a destination. For the first year or so I felt the same way. I was fourteen for Chrissake, I didn’t know what was safe, who was safe! I slept in old bomb shelters, moved around every four days to a week. Until I found the mall I had never found anywhere to stay put. I was just roaming, never had a destination. The absentmindedness. Not blissful so much as empty. Uncle Hen and Daddy-- gone. All my friends-- gone. Everyone I ever knew.
Gone.
Changed.
I remember one day, at the beginning of The Crisis, I was walking down the street. All I had at the time were .45 and .36 to keep me safe. It was early in the morning, and the streets were empty. I was out in the next town over, the suburban area next to the city I lived in. I’d visited this suburb quite a bit during my childhood and knew it rather well. I remember going past the old library… Library. Might be safe? I turned the corner to check the door and see if it was alright.
And I came face-to-face with Alice Fusse.
I had gone to the same elementary school as Alice. We played in the sandbox together, learned to play the recorder in the same music class, were Reading Buddies in fourth grade. And there Alice Fusse stood, right in front of me, a familiar face in the darkest of times.
But she wasn’t Alice Fusse anymore.
Her face. I’ll never forget her face. It was mutilated, mutated. Alice was a pretty girl, always had been-- light blond curls and a sweetheart face, the type you knew would be the perfect prom queen someday. But that sweetheart face was now slashed. Her bottom lip had been sliced on the right side, flopping downward, exposing her bottom teeth, coated in remaining pieces of the last-chewed organs, and gums, now infected with pustules of fluid. Alice’s skin was tinged blue and green, both sickly and dead. She wore a pretty pink party dress, smeared all down the front with blood. Beneath her well manicured fingernails were shreds of flesh as she had torn loved ones and innocent bystanders to pieces as sustenance for her now diseased body.
It was the most traumatic moment of my life.
I remember staring in shock. Until finally my mouth opened and I squeaked out, “…Alice?”
A deep, predatory growl rose in Alice’s throat. I stumbled back, close to tears of terror. And then she charged.
I’d never run faster in my life. I blasted down the street, too afraid to realize the air was tugging at my lungs and the speed raging hell on my muscles. And once-- just once-- I made the horrible decision of looking behind me.
And that’s when I realized my only option of survival.
As I ran I slid my hand into my belt and unclipped my .45. I clicked off the safety. What I remember most about that moment is hearing Daddy’s voice in my head saying never to run with guns. The most horrible moment of my life and I felt guilty for breaking Daddy’s rule. I pulled back the hammer and ran around the nearest corner. Once behind it I turned around. Seconds later, Alice came charging.
One tear fell from my eye as I pulled the trigger.
The bullet pierced Alice in the thigh. A guttural noise of rage came from her as she fell to the ground. It only delayed her for seconds, though, and she began to use her arms to drag herself toward me. This time I fixed my aim properly at her forehead and pulled the hammer back again.
And blew half of Alice Fusse’s head off.
She fell instantly, completely still. Silent.
I dropped the gun and fell to the ground. I was shaking and gasping, but I was not crying. I could not cry. I was still trying to register the fact that I had blown my childhood friend into oblivion.
I had killed.
Immeditely to my knees I rose, and I crossed myself, and did the only thing I knew to do in a situation such as this.
“Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” I coughed and choked, hoping with all my soul that God, Jesus, Mary, all the angels, could possibly forgive me for the terrible thing I had just done. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”
With a deep breath I picked up my .45 and stood. I took one last look at Alice Fusse. Then turned on my heel, and walked back to the library.
That was the day I realized the world would never be the same again.
And I was right.
I reached the top of the escalator, taking another swig of coffee. When I looked back down I saw--
Nothing.
No footprints.
“…What the hell?” I said to myself. The footprints had come down from the escalator. But why weren’t they here?
I looked left, right, down, everywhere. A glittering caught my eye about ten feet in front of me. I squinted and looked more carefully.
A field of broken glass lay on the tile floor in front of the Gap. And when I looked up there was a gaping hole in the sunroof ceiling of the mall.
Oh shit.