The Magnificent Bastards

ANK & WILLIAMS-6

GOOD LORD, WHAT A MESS, he thought, easing open the door to the projection room as the smell of decomposing flesh assailed his nostrils. What on earth happened—

But he knew what had happened, just as he now knew what had happened to the rest of the world (despite having no memory of who he was or where he was from). The projectionist had been going about his life when a storm-front full of strange lights had rolled in and changed the rules of reality forever—scrambling time so that three quarters of the population had simply vanished, and causing prehistoric animals and plants to begin materializing out of nowhere. And now all that was left of him was a rotting husk with only half its arms and legs, wedged into the corner of the blood-splashed and overgrown room (although the blood had long since dried), and seeming almost to twitch—which was impossible, of course. For if there was one thing Williams was sure of, it was that the projectionist was, in fact, dead, and so would not be returning as a were-raptor or anything else.

Were-raptors, he thought, and chuckled bitterly to himself. Time storms. A f*****g talking ankylosaur ...

He had turned to go back downstairs, realizing, for the thousandth time, that his eyes, like his ears—indeed, his very thoughts—could no longer be trusted, when there was a sudden squelching sound followed by a snippet of music—AC/DC, to be exact, although he didn’t know how he could know that—which stabbed at the air briefly before reducing in volume quickly and vanishing altogether.

He whipped back around, rifle at the ready, as the corpse twitched again—this time noticing something he had utterly missed the first time: a child’s shoe, filthy white with pink laces, protruding from beneath the stiff, dead form. A shoe which moved as he watched, attempting to conceal itself.

Someone was hiding beneath the body. A child—or a midget, he thought insanely, and lowered his rifle. The wind gusted and the blinds of a nearby window rattled. At last he said, “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” Flies buzzed about the dead man in the near total silence. “But hiding beneath a corpse is no place for a child, do you understand? You could get very, very sick. I’m sure your parents wouldn’t want that.”

What the hell are you even saying? he reprimanded himself, not knowing if he’d been a parent in his previous life but fairly certain he had not. And this voice was joined by another, a merciless, pragmatic voice, which whispered: There’s still time. It’s not too late. Time to pretend you haven’t seen this. Time to leave this place and its potential burdens as far behind as you can.

“You’ll take my radio,” came a little girl’s voice, stunning him somewhat, for it was the first human voice he had heard since Devil’s Gorge and the western theme park turned survival compound. “The last grownups I saw wanted it too, but I got away from them. And my parents are dead; I seen them killed myself.”

A radio, he thought. Holy mother of God, a radio! He thought of the snippet of AC/DC he’d heard. And a signal! Someone, somewhere, was broadcasting. And that meant power, electricity, lights. It might even mean an entire city had survived.

“I would like to listen to your radio, I confess,” he said, trying not to sound too eager or overly interested, “but I would never take it from you, do you understand? I presume you found it amidst the rubble ... that makes it yours, and yours only.”

He lowered his rifle. “My name is Williams. I have a friend downstairs I’d like you to meet—his name is Ank.” He watched the corpse, listening, but there was no movement and no response. “Do you have a name?”

The wind moaned forlornly and the blinds rattled again. At last she said, “Luna. Because my hair is white.”

“Luna ...” He smiled in spite of himself—in spite of the situation. “Because your hair is white.” He took a tentative step forward and paused. “May I see it? I’ve never seen a little girl with white hair.”

There was a brief silence. “You promise you won’t take my radio?”

“Promise and hope to die,” he said, and gently moved the rest of the way to her.

The corpse shifted slightly and the filthy white tennis shoe reappeared. Then she began pushing outward and upward and he quickly laid down his rifle and began assisting—until the body had been rolled over completely and he could see her in her entirety.

The first thing he noticed were her extraordinarily light violet (almost pink) eyes, which stared out from their dark recesses with an eerily penetrative gaze. The second was that, beyond them, she had no pigment whatsoever: her skin, her eyelashes, her brows—all were white. And the third was that she appeared dreadfully malnourished and was filthy from head to toe, like a porcelain teacup left out in the elements too long.

But it was the eyes that held him, haunted him, for they were the eyes of an old woman trapped in the face of a child.

“I’m an albean, albin—albino,” she stammered, as though apologizing in advance. “Do you still want to introduce me to your friend?”

“Why yes, I do, very much,” he said, even as his eyes dropped to her radio, which was red and had a large hand-crank.

She pressed it to her chest possessively, crossing her arms.

“Yours,” he repeated. “And yours only. Promise.”

She seemed to think about this, eyeing him uncertainly. At last she said, “Can your friend come up here? There’s blood roosters down there.”

He plucked the hair away from her eyes gently. “They’re called raptors. And no, he can’t, he’s too big.” He picked up his rifle and stood, swinging it by its loop lever and c*****g it. “But don’t worry. Raptors—blood roosters—are our specialty.”

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