Part 19 (1/2)

Before the two in the back seat answered him, they were staring out ahead of them as every tree in every yard broke free of the earth. Pockets of the road suddenly turned into potholes, each coin going into a random steel slot causing the street to dent or implode in parts.

Brock became a stunt driver, weaving, turning, slowing down, speeding up, twisting the wheel left and right, guiding them through the deadly concourse to avoid a flat tire, or worse, one of the trees reaching into the car again.

Watching in gaping eyed fascination through the rearview and side mirrors, Brock caught a series of horrid scenes. They weren't the only ones who'd survived and were holding onto life. Many people racing out of their houses and screaming for help were terrorized. A local man was running out of his backyard with a bevy of tools hovering after him, namely shovels, axes, a hammer, hundreds of nails, and a pitchfork. Suddenly all the items surged forward with insane speed, cutting right through him like a corer through an apple.

Another woman, an older lady, was trying to work her way through an open window, but it had come down on her back, slamming into her spine again and again and again. The sound of breaking vertebra was accompanied by blood spilling out of her mouth until she fell limp in place, dead.

A boy and his father were cornered by five trees, the trees being living animated things. The trees tipped over one-by-one, going timber, and crus.h.i.+ng them.

A garden hose was strangling a teenager in his backyard. The pressure so tight, the boy's eyes were bulbous and insect-big. The teenager's girlfriend was screaming in panic as power cables snapped from their posts and wrapped around her up like a mummy's body. Then the lines constricted, tightened, and she was squeezed to death. Blood and flesh and fat were rendered between the lines of cable in coagulated pudding.

Inside his house, a man was being stalked by his kitchen appliances, namely a blender and juicer. The kitchen table banged its body towards him and pinned him into a corner as the blender pureed his left hand and the juicer sliced up his other hand until all he had was bleeding pulp stumps.

An open window displayed a man trying to help his wife out of bed when the ceiling fan broke free of its molding. The blades were spinning so fast, it sliced off their heads and shot them out the window across the street and into another person's yard.

The fireplaces in many of the houses turned into blazing ovens. They spewed arcs of fire and turned the havens into thousand degree pressure cookers. Brock gawked at the dozens of people whose skin boiled from their bodies, popping like grease, until all that was left of them was fleshless and meatless bones.

Gas ovens burst against the open flames, raising a series of houses, shooting debris up to the heavens. Cars were driving by themselves, disappearing down roads after the others who'd survived, their lights blinking and flas.h.i.+ng erratically. Flowers danced back and forth in their pots on porches, swaying to an unknown song. Blades of gra.s.s s.h.i.+fted to the beat of the same unknown song. Birds by the hundreds hovered about the sky like a dark cloud, pirouetting and spinning in tandem as if synchronized. Window shutters clapped closed and swung open over and over again. Houses dismantled themselves piece by piece and put themselves back together in minute intervals. The squares of the concrete sidewalk raised themselves up straight like dominos and fell down one by one in a strange show.

Brock forced himself from the trance-inducing scene once those that had recently died got back up and were chasing after them, though slowed by their broken bodies. Black oil oozed from the pores of their skin. The pursuers were accompanied by trees, vehicles, and random sharp implements.

Everything was out to kill them.

”They're gaining on us!” Hannah shouted, staring at the schoolyard with living playground equipment. The swings moved back and forth, occupied by invisible people. A baseball bat floated and took a swing as a invisible pitcher threw out a baseball. The bat swung, smacking the ball into left field. Catchers mitts floated after the hit. Kick b.a.l.l.s, basketb.a.l.l.s, and jump ropes had escaped from the school, spreading out across the blacktop area, the objects playing a game of their own.

Speeding through the main stretch of town, cars had lined themselves up in a blockade to prevent their escape.

Brock gave a start. ”s.h.i.+t!”

Hannah panicked. ”We have to turn around.”

Angel gave a short shrill of a scream. ”No, they're right behind us!”

”Then what the h.e.l.l do we do?”

Brock gathered courage. He was determined to escape this d.a.m.nable place. Turning the wheel, he drove up on the curb, driving through chairs on a sidewalk cafe. He escaped around the wall of vehicles. The cars, worked up that their rouse had failed, backed up and began pursuing them, blaring bright headlights in their wake and honking their horns.

Storefronts smashed open behind them, kitchen implements stabbing at the air after them. A toy store front spit out living teddy bears and action figures. Toy tanks shot off tiny rounds from their cannons. Plastic machine guns were clutched by commandos and military action figures the size of toothpicks, the guns prattling bullets and blue smoke. They were each demented in how they moved, the plastic alive, flexible, and boasting of killing intentions with the black oil leaking out of their faces.

The street itself began tipping upwards like a bridge being raised. Brock pushed the truck on as hard as it could run, all three of them shouting as they were driving up an incline. Reaching the end of the incline, they were three stories high.

”Brace yourself!”

Flying through the air, they were coming down fast. Mid-air, they caught streetlights bend with the ear-aching twist of steel to push them off-kilter, though it ended up helping their landing. They came back down, hitting the back tires on the street first, then the front ones. The axles protested and the shocks weren't too happy, Brock figured, but the car kept driving.

Off in the distance, a junkyard was animated with action. Machines smashed vehicles in their death-grip jaws as other cars too damaged to be serviceable crawled on, trying to escape the beast that was smas.h.i.+ng them to death. They bled black oil like blood as the junkyard became a steel pit of death.

Up ahead a mile, the bridge out of Blue Hills took shape.

”Drive faster, Brock!” Hannah begged him. ”Hit the gas!”

Angel kept staring at the side mirror to watch the trees, the cars, and the floating implements of death stalk them. The voices of the dead returned once again, enjoying the terror show. They were cheering on their demise.

Brock ignored everything, even as the trees in the woods began uprooting themselves. Hawks swooped overhead, encircling them, the coin slots s.h.i.+ning in their backs. Dead corpses were limping towards the bridge, everything and everyone knowing that's where they were going.

Keep driving, he told himself, you can't stop now.

A flying hammer gouged out the back tire, the rims sc.r.a.ping the road and kicking up sparks. Brock was forced to slow down. The cars behind them were gaining speed. Birds pecked at him from the broken window, stabbing his arms with their beaks as he fought them off and continued to keep the wheel straight. He was struck from behind by a driverless Sedan. Jolted forward, the wheel s.h.i.+fted in his grip. Another car narrowly missed striking them, and in doing so, ran itself off the road and into the river below the bridge.

Brock kept pounding the gas. Accelerating despite the flat back wheel. Suspended like a net above them were thousands of knives and sharp implements and tools collected from town. They were poised to rain down on them. To top things off, the overhead steel beams of the bridge bent like fingers to crush them in its fist.

THE BRIDGE.

Brock had closed his eyes to the incoming events, but once the car stopped rolling forward and Hannah shook him, he re-opened his eyes. They had made it to the last tier of the bridge, except the back-end was being crushed by the bridge. Angel was kicking at the front winds.h.i.+eld with both legs, and Hannah joined in the effort, as did Brock. The birds, the incoming knives, the living mechanical machine behind them, none if mattered, because they would soon be flattened like trash in a compacter if they didn't escape the front cab.

The winds.h.i.+eld cracked in forks, but it wouldn't give. The doors were wedged closed, partially crushed by the steel beams. The steel hand tightened, working harder to destroy them inside. The voices of the dead were garbled, losing their numbers, as if what power they did weld was fading fast.

Bubbling up through the undercarriage and oozing from the vents, the boiling black oil flooded in after them. After all they survived, Brock thought, this was what would kill them. Angel was burned on her thigh, and Brock's left arm was covered in spatters that boiled from the vents, each of them screaming out in pain after being touched by the black. They lifted up their legs, dodging the mess, but it was pooling inside thicker and faster. The top of the truck was closing in on them too. The metal hand worked to end their lives. It wouldn't be long before one or the other would send them to their end.

”Die for us/die forever/you shall see h.e.l.l and all there in that awaits you/let us hear your screams/suffer in agony/it's my father's fault this is happening/I'm so sorry/die drowning in black/die drowning in the bath of our blackened bodies/I'll save you, Brock, I'll save you all/ wretched h.e.l.l shall warp your sanity forever/kick through the gla.s.s, kick through the gla.s.s before it's too late/you can't defeat the dead/we'll try and try again to kill you.”

Brock was confused, hearing a voice that wasn't evil. He realized it was James speaking. After the words stopped, a thick trail of oil worked up to the gla.s.s, spreading across it, and then burning into it, James cried out, ”Kick through it now!”

They did so, their heels driving through the weakening gla.s.s, and all at once, it shattered. Brock pushed Hannah through, then Angel, and as Brock was working his way through, the metal hand squeezed, sending the entire front cab imploding into itself, crunching like the biggest tin can. His foot was caught in the warped steel, and he couldn't free it. Hannah and Angel were pulling him back towards the safe end of the bridge. Brock shouted, crying out in terror, until his foot finally slipped free. Landing on the ground, the three of them scooted back from the bridge.

Oil spat out the front of the truck, totally enveloping it in black. The water rolling beneath the bridge evaporated and went dry in moments. Seconds later, deep trenches in the earth spread out all across the town of Blue Hills, spouting oil wells of fermented dead bodies. Skeletons, corpse torsos, human appendages, and innards by the thousands of gallons mixed in the steamy brew that began melting everything they touched. The boiling black coated the buildings and reduced them to liquid. Trees batted their limbs as they boiled against the forces of molten hot death. The birds in the sky went poof into flames. Every house, street, and paved surface melted into a caramel thick substance, and then they too mixed in the black death oil. Blue Hills gradually sank into itself until everything was black sledge. No landmark remained.

The melting began and ended at the bridge line. Blue Hill's town limits. Brock watched on in awe and confusion as the oil drained back into the ground, slowly sucked back in by an unknown power, and eventually vanis.h.i.+ng altogether. The earth solidified again. The foothills sprouted fresh gra.s.s, and what used to be a town was now empty woods and mountains.

The town of Blue Hills was gone.

Angel was the first one to speak. ”Where do we go now?”

”What can we do?” Hannah asked, her eyes still wide from taking in what had happened. ”Try explaining this to a third party.”

”I won't be doing that anytime soon.” Brock turned his back on Blue Hills, grateful to have the two people he loved the most with him. ”We go back to our lives. We can't tell anybody about this because there's no way to prove anything. The town's really gone. It's like this place never existed.”

Angel turned so her back was facing them. ”Is my back really okay?”

Brock checked it. Only scar tissue in the shape of a box was leftover. ”Only scars, Angel. You're okay.” He was saying it for himself as much as everyone else. ”We're okay.”

Hannah hugged him, then she rested her head on his shoulder. Angel did the same, all three of them huddled together. They began weeping. All Brock could do was keep repeating, ”It's over...it's over...it's really over...”

AFTERMATH.