I still don’t understand how it happened. I just know that it felt right, and I did it, and then it felt so wrong. The rush, it was filling, but emptying. I know, I know, it sounds like a beer commercial, but that’s how it was.

From the Final Journal of David Sturmbridge.

The darkman laughed. “You have balls Lieutenant. And spinal memory. But no brain. I can sense the change. I know who you are. And now, you DIE!”
With the final word shrieking from a mouth turned wide and perfectly round, the darkman reached out towards David, and gripped his fingers in midair. David felt his throat start to tighten. He drew a quick deep breath, then, holding it, launched himself at the darkman as his windpipe grew tighter. A fist right between the eyes stunned the darkman, and David felt his throat free itself from the strange grip. Blowing out bad air, dragging in good, David threw another punch, again staying far away from the unusual mouth.

“Really? Vader crap? Really?” With each word, David threw another blow, knocking the darkman back step by step. The darkman stepped on a metal pipe, dropped during the earlier melee, as David intended. Instead of sliding and falling as he had hoped, though, the black leather shoe melted around it, and gripped the pipe like a deformed hand. The steel tube came whistling through the air towards his face as the darkman kicked out. Jumping back, David narrowly avoided having his nose squashed, then reached out and snagged the pipe before it came back down, twisting it with his weight as he dropped to his knees. The metal thunked hard against the wooden floor, bringing the darkman down to the ground with it. Dropping the pipe, David barely registered the sound as he sprung himself forward. Straddling the darkman, he wrapped his hands around the creature’s neck, squeezing. The flesh squished sickeningly under his grip, and the darkman laughed, not needing any air to make the dreadful sound from it’s wide open, perfectly round mouth.

David stared into the eyes, the dark black ovals of nothing, anger coursing through him, gripping harder and harder, as if he could sever the thing’s neck with his fingers alone. He felt his own pulse pounding in his ears, and felt the scar twisting in his skin with the beat, writhing like something alive. The blackness of the darkman’s eyes suddenly popped into a sort of focus to David, like an optical illusion or a hidden picture becoming obvious. Shades and shapes danced within, a ballet of black on black, misted over with yet more darkness. The darkman stopped laughing, and started screaming, scrabbling at David’s arms, trying to get free. Fingernails cut like razors, shredding the leather on his arms, slicing fine red lines across the skin of his arms, but still he held on, bearing down on the throat beneath him, looming over the prostrate figure.

Images filled David’s mind, a kaleidoscope of pain and misery. Withered old men in dark robes stood over some kind of pool of darkness, chanting, as children, naked and covered in filth, fought tooth and nail, like beasts, in a school playground reclaimed by the forests around it. Jets cut the skies, dropping bombs that blazed white and hot as they fell, and mirrors shattered while arms shoved themselves through pools of water, reaching for something in their own reflection. Suddenly everything clicked, the tableau vanished, and he saw the darkman struggling underneath him for what it was. The human flesh a mere coat, the beast inside controlled it, pulling strings made of itself. The great mouth was but another eye, seeing by absorbing the world. The spirit of the darkman shivered in its dead suit of meat, stealing the heat, the life, of those around it. But David had a maw of his own, he realized, one that ate death as this thing ate life.

He leaned down further over the struggling creature, closing his eyes, and opening his mind. He felt the scar yawn open, and heard, second hand, as if recorded and played back through cheap speakers, the screams of his men as the light fell from the room, outshone by the pure darkness that hid itself within his face. The soul of the darkman struggled for brief moments before being sucked from it’s body, absorbed by the scar, made part of the river of black at its core. David felt its thoughts, its knowledge, its pain and misery and futile final screams for survival, then nothing. Power flowed through his body, strength, pain, pleasure, all in one. His mind screamed, soared, as the world faded away and he floated for brief moments.

Light returned to the room, and David to the world, and he opened his eyes. The body beneath him went limp, then slowly deflated, shrinking towards the ground as a dark pool of black blood ran out, flesh melting and turning to liquid. David felt himself being lifted off the puddling body, and suddenly found himself on his feet, Goliath’s hands clamped on his arm like iron shackles.

“David. What the hell did you just do?”

David looked up at Goliath, a smile across his face. “I… I think I just ate his soul. ”

Goliath ran back and forth among the Slings still standing, assessing injuries. Those prone were already being checked by Slings near them as those who had flung bullets at the beasts came streaming in. Goliath jogged up to David, who was toeing at some small black shards that had broken off when the beasts were hit by the slings.
“Davey, sir, two broken arms, one concussion, one stab wound, one bite. Looks clean though. Sir?”

“What is this, obsidian?”

“Apache tears, sir. Standard ammu… wait… David?” Goliath peered into David’s face. “Shit. You’re still David. I thought you switched back.”

“Switched back? What the hell are you talk..” David was interrupted by a groan next to him as the body of a Bustle started to move, then sat up, hand on his bleeding head. “Oh god, don’t tell me zombies!”

Goliath shook his head, and offered the Bustle a hand up. “No, not zombies. We try to knock out as many humans as we can. If the blood runs black, then we kill them. If they’re still human, we like to give’m a chance. Still, I’m just glad we didn’t run into”

The interruptions came full circle as Goliath was cut off by a screech from David, who clapped his hand to the scar on his face. In a moment, it had gone from itching to throbbing in pain. The light darkened noticeably in the room, as the Bustle member who originally made David’s scar itch walked suddenly out of a shadow several yards from him.

“Lieutenant! I challenge you to single combat!” The words boomed from his mouth, a loudspeaker in human form. The vibrations of the sound ran through David, as the dark figure pointed at David with one hand, and removed his sunglasses with the other, throwing them aside. His eyes were pure black pools, no whites, sucking away the light in the room. He pulled back the hood of his jacket, and his hair, cropped short, seemed made of the same substance. While hard to see, it seemed that the hairs stood up, waving back and forth as if by a breeze.

“By Lieutenant, he means you.” David looked away from the figure for a moment, and up at Goliath.

“Yeah, I kind of figured that. What is this?”

“Boss fight, David. Its a boss fight.”

“Wait, what? What is this? Am I in a fucking VIDEO game now?”

“Its… Its a long story. We don’t understand why, but sometimes a group of darkbloods is led by one of , well, those. He’s a darkblood as well, pure, no red left in his body. But it didn’t change him outside for some reason. But.. It changes them inside. We call them darkmen. They… they have powers. You fought damn well, but he’ll kill you.” This last was said without emotion, a simple pronouncement of doom.

“So what, this is, some kind of honor thing?” David looked around, seeing the Slings staring at him, waiting. As he looked, and understood what they were waiting for, he felt a change in his mind. They weren’t some unruly gang of thugs. They were men.. no, they were HIS men. “I get it. I refuse to fight him on on one, everyone bails on us. That about the long and short?”

“Yeah, but David, he’ll kill you. Let me…” Goliath trailed of as David pushed him back with one hand on his chest, and started walking towards the darkman.

“I ACCEPT!” The bellowed words surprised even David with their volume as they left his mouth. He took what he hoped was a decent looking fighter’s pose, pointed a hand roughly at the man, and waved him forward.

David stepped into his path, pipe whistling and hooting as it swung through the air. He brought it across the beast’s face, stopping it dead in its tracks. Howling in rage, it swung a wild swing at David. He brought the pipe up, a hand on each end, and took the blow on the metal tube. The pipe rang like a bell, and bent in middle. The beast swung again, and again David blocked, the pipe bent back the way it was, almost straight, but for the inward curve in its middle.

Some unknown sense in the back of David’s mind screamed at him, and he found himself dropping to his knees as the air buzzed angrily just over his head. The thud of an object impacting flesh reached his ears from in front of him almost in time with the twang of a bowstring from behind. A black painted shaft sprouted from the beast, and screaming in pain, it brought both fists up and then down on the prone David. Again he blocked with the pipe, but this time it bent nearly in half. He jumped quickly to his feet, and started circling the beast, looking for the hidden sniper, and hoping to put the body of the monster between them. A motion from near the roof caught his attention, and he circled again, putting the sniper at his back, as the beast roared with frustration at a prey that would not sit still. He stopped suddenly, and the beast threw a final swinging punch. David caught it for a fourth time in the center of his pipe, which promptly broke in the middle. All four blows on a different face of the pipe, the two pieces in his hands had been crushed down to crude points by the beast’s blows. The pipe in his left hand drove forward, taking the monster just under the chin.

The Beast staggered back, thick bony hands scrabbling uselessly at the pipe embedded in its throat, as blood, thick as oil and black as midnight started to pool and drip along the hairy chest. Ignoring the struggles of the beast as it fought to draw breath, David dropped to his knees again, the arrow this time missing by a mile as he timed the sniper’s likely shot. He spun, coming up on one foot, and hurled the other end of the pipe like a javelin. It sailed up into the rafters, taking a dark clad figure hanging from the crossbeams in the center of the chest. He sailed off his precarious perch, and hung there, the pipe pinning him to a wooden support beam. The crossbow in his hands fell and spun, clattering to the floor. Hands gripped the pipe for a moment, then fell to his sides, slack, as scarlet blood began to flow around the outside of the pipe, dripping from the open end to the wooden floor below. Veins of black flowed through the blood, clotting up and falling in chunks onto the heads of assailants below.

Not even stopping to see if his hurled bolt had landed, David came up to both feet, and spun again. He jumped towards the beast, a foot shooting out to push against the open end of the pipe still protruding from the monster. It burst its way out the back of the thing’s neck, a shower of bone and black blood. The darkblood teetered for a moment, then crashed backwards. In time with it hitting the ground, several doors to the outside burst open, and the buzz of bees filled the air. Laughing still, David found himself again dropping to his knees without knowing why, but so did every other Sling in the room, as the Slings that burst into the gymnasium let fly with their slings, cups of fabric on long ropes, holding dark stones. The bullets shattered and rained on the still standing beasts, and the Slings came back up, the first volley over, and quickly finished off the wounded beasts.

YAH! David did good man. Goliath tolled me bout the fight later, over beers. Said it was creepy as hell. Watching my body, my moves, but a stranger wearing my face, laffing in a way I never would. I love a good fight, everyone noes that, but David? Sheer fucking bliss, like getting blown while on glowweed, Goliath said. Shoulda nown, those light siders. Repressed fucks, the lot of them. Would have liked to have been there for the end too. Goliath damn near pissed himself talking bout it, and nothing shakes that fucker.

Hey, I am NOT repressed you dropout bastard. I was fighting for survival. I did NOT enjoy a moment of it!

From the Final Journal of David Sturmbridge.

David stepped into the fray, a grin plastered across his face. Fights broke around him, some aura palpable around his body, most combatants knowing instinctively that they did NOT want his attention. Finally, a member of the Bustle who’s instincts started with scratching himself and ended in much the same spot swung a pipe at him, bloody from the Sling he had just dropped to the ground. In a swift motion, David turned into the blow and stepped forward. The pipe end closest to the attacker bounced off David’s chest, the slower moving end not having any time to build up speed. David’s fists shot out once, twice, and a third time again, taking the Bustle in the wrist, arm, and nose. He staggered back, pipe falling towards the ground, weapon hand hanging numb as his other hand came up towards his face to stem the blood already seeping out from flattened nostrils. David spun on his heels, catching the tumbling tube of steel in midair. His back to his attacker, the pipe clipped of the back of the head of another of the rival gang, distracting him long enough for the Sling facing him to open his gut with a glittering swipe of the knife. Coming back around, David guided the pipe dead center to his attackers face, crushing the hand over his nose, and the nose behind it a moment later. Blood spewed from between crushed fingertips, scarlet with chunks of rotting black, as the unconscious body fell.

He laughed then, a cackling sound that brought pause to the fights near him as Sling and Bustle alike stared at the crowing madman in their midst. Fights resumed a moment later as David waded into melee, two foot impromptu club more precise than a sword, breaking knees, shattering hands, and ruining faces. The regular Bustle, the ones that seemed human, quickly fell beneath the combined might of the Slings, David having broken up the few real fights. As quickly as the widespread melee had started, it ended, and there were several small knots of fighting around the dozen or so hulking figures like the one that had dropped on David from the ceiling. Each beast looked different, twisted in some way, their skin unnatural shades of primary colors. While most had four or five Slings on him, each protecting the others, preventing the beast from striking, while wearing it down, one stood nearly alone, two Slings flanking him. Weaponless, its fists seemed encased in a thorny bone shell, twin hammers a foot wide. Splinters of wood threw themselves up from the floor as hammer blows missed their targets and slammed into the abused surface. One Sling slipped suddenly, losing his balance, and the beast grabbed him by the head and threw him into his compatriot. They both tumbled to the ground, and the beast, howling, started to run towards one of the knots of fighting, to even the odds.

David was unaware of all this, however, as he gaped up at the beast standing on the splinters of his chair. Once a man, the figure’s face was twisted and gnarled, one eye lower than another by several inches, one ear long and pointed. His eyes were pools of black, like the scar on David’s face, no light reflecting from the orbs. Teeth were rotted and green, his mouth hanging open due to the canines, one of which jutted THROUGH his upper lip, another which came out of his face at a forward angle, 4 inches long and curved. What David first thought was a filthy leather jacket resolved in his vision to be a dark purple layer of fur over his chest, with a leather bandoleer holding hanging knives. Green saliva dripped across his chest, matting the fur over powerful muscles. Hands ended in yellowed nails, long and razor sharp. The darkblood, for this David somehow knew it was, raised a fist curled around a crude axe, large blade crudely hammered from some piece of industrial steel, and poised it for a moment, ready to bring it down.

The silvery blade caught the light, divots and hammer marks sparkling in the floodlights used to light the room. Time seemed to slow for David, and his body took over. He rolled to face downwards, chest to the floor, even as his mind screamed at him to look up at his impending death. Legs and arms tensed and sprung, and he drove himself forward as the axe crashed and scraped the ground behind him, sparks flying. He landed on his shoulder and rolled, and suddenly found himself on his feet, facing the beast. Before the thing could raise its axe again, David darted in, the hand seeming to pull the rest of his body behind it. A series of quick stabs, and several spots of blood welled from the beast’s axe arm, a blackish ooze of tar dripping thickly to the ground below. The darkblood brought the axe up, but the blade fell spinning to the ground as it’s grip failed, tendons cut. The thing stared at it’s ruined arm, bewildered, and David, suddenly not being attacked, stared at his own hand with same expression on his face. The knife dangled from his fingers, dribblets of the dark blood hanging in clumps like glue from the polished metal. Before he could think to do anything more, he suddenly found the ground rushing at his face again, an arm tugging roughly at his neck, a weight on his back. The knife went skittering away, and he felt an edge digging into his side.

Again on automatic, he convulsed, all muscles tightening, then releasing with a snap, and rolled, not away from the edge as logic would dictate, but towards it. The motion wrenched the arm holding the knife to him, and the pain vanished as the blade withdrew from where it had been sawing towards his ribs. The weight vanished as the body on top of him rolled away, and he dragged in a gasping breath. David’s foot kicked out randomly, and he was pleased to feel a connection and hear a grunt of pain. Rolling to a sitting position, a Bustle member lay next to him, holding his gut where David’s boot had impacted him. David pulled back his other leg, and brought it forward, smashing into the man’s face, shattering the cheap sunglasses. The man’s head rolled back then forward again, and David’s foot crushed into it again. Blood welled from his nose, and cuts from his face, scarlet red mixed with the same black tar as the beast. His eyes flashed yellow, lighting up from the inside, and the Bustle tried to rise, hissing at David. His foot shot forward again and again, the face more distorted and bloody with each blow. Elation flowed through David, his heart lightening, the gloom of the day evaporating in the sheer joy of watching another being destroyed under his foot. The man with the ruined face wavered for a moment, then fell unmoving. As battles raged behind and around David, he ignored it all, rising to his feet. He stepped over to the body, looking at the ruined face in glee. He stomped down a few more times, hearing bones crack and fluids spray. The glory of the battle pervaded his mind, and he let go, stopped trying to think, just enjoying the ride as his body took over.

Goliath shook his head for a moment, then sat back in his chair, breathing deeply. His color came back, and in a moment he was calm again. He brought his hand to his mouth as if to stifle a yawn, then coughed three times, loudly, followed by a dragging snort sound, as if trying to clear his nose from the inside.

Upon hearing the noise, David felt his hand move, almost of his own accord, to his belt, where he could now feel that a knife was tucked away. He moved his hand away, but noticed that the Slings next to them had done similar, and while still smiling and looking around, their gaze had turned sharp, as if they were looking for something.

Goliath leaned back over, nonchalantly. “I know you don’t know how this works, so I’ll ask some strange questions. Anyones that you look at make it itch worse, and don’ you dare lookit them right now while tellin me!”

David smiled and grinned broadly, trying to pretend that Goliath had just told him a joke. “Yeah, the guy in the hoodie, fourth row from the back.” David looked elsewhere in the crowd, trying to ignore the figure even though he could feel the sunglassed eyes staring at him. He noticed that the groups of Slings, instead of spread out talking with the Bustle members, seemed to have clotted together into groups of three or four over the last few minutes, but were still chatting, showing off scars, and generally talking the ears off the other gang.

“Shiiit.” David looked back to Goliath as the profanity slid from his lips. “What?”

“Thats Evan McCombe. Second in command of the Bustle. If he’s infected, then this is a trap. Keep your eyes open!”

“What do you mean… infected? How does this gash on my face tell me…” David trailed off for a moment as the light dimmed then came back. The itching was back stronger than before, but seemed to have direction. He looked around, using the feeling as a compass, but it didn’t seem to do any good. The feeling of WRONG was not around him, but…

Running on instinct, David dropped off his chair and pulled his knife. He screamed out “UP!” right as a figure fell on the chair he had just abandoned. Others started falling from the sky, and the Slings, already warned by Goliath’s signal and David’s scream, moved aside as they fell, weapons appearing in a heartbeat. Some of the Bustle screamed and ran, but others, also waiting for this moment, moved to engage the Slings, weapons of their own out. Forces met and clashed, the smell of blood filling the air as knives stabbed and small hand axe’s chopped. A bang echoed off the walls and through the air as a lone pistol went off, the Bustle member who pulled it dropping instantly as a hatchet sprouted from the side of his face. Screams from outside the building showed that battling wasn’t just happening in the hall, but outside it as well.

Several Slings were waiting just outside the bathroom. They were new faces to David, hadn’t ridden with him and Goliath, but the scar tattoo made them recognizable anywhere. Without a word, they fell in behind David and Goliath, flanking them as they walked down a long hall. David wrinkled his nose at the smell, the dirt on the floor evident that the place hadn’t gotten a good cleaning in a while.

At the end of a hallway, a man waited, dressed in blue jeans and a leather jacket, white shirt, and large shades, similar to the guards outside, but without the green cloth fanny pack. He bowed to them silently, opening the door behind him. He led them through several twists and turns, and in a few places, plywood and two by fours made small tunnels between empty doorways. David got the impression that they had left the theater, and passed through at least two other buildings. Finally, they came to another of the makeshift tunnels, and to a pair of large steel double doors. Without a word, as though they had practiced, the two Slings nearest David and Goliath moved quickly forward to hold the doors open for everyone, then fell in place behind them all.

The doors opened into a large room. It looked to David like a cafeteria, or perhaps a gymnasium. Posts held up near the ceiling by chains likely once held basketball hoops, and the scarred and scraped wood floor still clung tenaciously to bits and fragments of colored paint here and there, legacy of games once played on its surface. A large part of the room was obscured behind shelves and rolling carts covered with gear, clothes, weapons, and food. A good thirty by sixty space was dominated by chairs around a battered old portable pulpit on a wooden platform. The crowd contained the men that had come to this place with David, and several other Slings, easy to pick out of the crowd due to the tattoo. The rest of the crowd was dressed like their guide, leather jacket, blue jeans, white tshirts, and dark sunglasses, even inside.

“What is this, an 80′s revival?”

Goliath grinned at David’s muttered comment. “Yeah, but their nuthin’ compared to the Peacock’s in the Hills, right my man? ”

David looked left and right at the flanking Slings, and realized that he should know what the gangs looked like. “Uhh, yeah, you have a point Gol. ” Then, remembering the cover story, he grimaced, grabbed his throat, and made a sound like clearing it. Goliath rolled his eyes at the theatrics, then looked forward again as they came through the crowd to the center dais.
A simple raised wood platform, the lectern David had seen looked even more battle scarred up close. some large round emblem, probably the state seal, had been scraped off the front. In its place, someone had drilled two holes and mounted a pair of sunglasses like the ones worn by the Bustle. Goliath motioned to several seats behind and next to the lectern, and David sat in the chair nearest it. The rest of the guard detail sat in the remaining chairs, except the two bookends, who stood behind the rest a few few feet, scanning the crowd.

Goliath took the pulpit.  No mic was provided, no sound system to amplify his voice, but Goliath’s chest provided its own amplification.  “QUIET!”, he bellowed, and waited for the silence to drop, which it did almost instantly.

“I’m sure you all know me, I’m kinda hard ta miss.  For those that don’t, I am Goliath, second in command to Davey Sling.  Davey got grabbed around the throat last night by a crabber.  The bastard’s pincher broke when he tried to strangle Davey, but it did leave him with a might sore throat, so I’ll be gabbing for him tonight, ain’t that right Sir?”  At a motion from Goliath, David nodded his head once, slowly, trying to look as stone cold as he could.   “You all know why we’re here.  The Slings control the only area free from the dark taint.  The Bustle control two Wells.  But you have a problem with what comes from the Wells.  You know this, we know this, the damn Frogs in the Tuke know it.  The Wells bring you power, but what is that power if you are overrun by Hell?  Where , is the GLORY, if you fall to the Dark?  What is the point of being yourself in this world, if you let the Taint in, let the dark flow through your veins and run your life?  We’ve been there friend, Davey and I, ” At that, he made a motion with his hand to David, who again nodded gravely. ” In Peru, in Panama, fighting the mockeries of men, the darkbloods. It steals your soul, your mind.  You let those beasts overrun you, they will steal YOUR souls, and YOUR minds. ” With this statement, he points a finger at the audience, sweeping back and forth, staring into the bespectacled eyes of the congregated Bustle.

“We can help you.  We don’t want your territory, we don’t want your Wells, we don’t want your food, or your ammo.  We want to kill the Darkbloods.  We want drive them back to whatever Hell they came from, to wipe their stain from the earth. We want the GLORY, found in battle. We want the HONOR, given through deeds.” He paused a moment, gauging the smiles and other expressions in the audience.

“We want passage to the places where the taint waits. To clear your lands, and extension, ours. To keep us all a free people, not slaves under a black blooded bastard!” He stopped again, amid cheers and rabbling voices. Once the noise calmed down, he started again. “Your leaders have told us that this deal requires a vote among you. I’m asking for that vote now. You will notice several Slings in the audience. They are here for you to talk to about us, get information beyond what you hear on the street. Many of them have scars of their own to show, from fighting our common enemies. Please, think it over, talk to us, and yourselves. ”

With that, he sat back down next to David, and the crowd turned into itself and started chatting. David leaned over towards Goliath and whispered in his ear. “Damn pretty speech. Your gutter accent disappeared.”

“Well man, I was pretendin’ to be you, gotta sound pretty fer the boys and girls, ya know?”

David grinned and chuckled, then leaned back and watched the crowd. One figure stood out, the dark glasses showing a shine off of overhead lights, as David realized the Bustle member was staring right at him. His jacket came with a leather hood, pulled over the top of his face, hiding hair and most of the features that their regular uniform didn’t cover. He met the man’s gaze, growing more and more uncomfortable.

He found his gaze starting to wander in circles, the edges fading out. Whispering voices tugged at the edge of his awareness, at first sounding like the rooba rooba of the audience, but then separating themselves out, sibilant voices chanting meaningless phrases. As he tried to concentrate on any one voice, it would fade out. A sudden prick of pain brought him back to himself, and he looked at the spot of blood that had appeared on his fingernail. Feeling a matching ache on his face, he realized that he had been scratching just under the ravine like scar until it bled. He hadn’t felt it before on his face, but he felt it now, a mass of tension quivering up and down along the track line on his face, an itching that grew ever more intense and couldn’t be itched.

“Hey Jimm… err, Goliath.”

“Yeah?”

“You read that note, right?”

“Yeah.”

“About where it said to tell you if my scar starts to itch?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“It’s itching.”

Goliath swung to face him in his chair. David was shocked at the look on his face. It was white as a sheet, his mouth open and eyes wide. For a just a moment, that is, then his jaw clenched shut, he drew in a ragged breath, and started to look normal, color returning to his cheeks. “Crap. Not here, not now. This isn’t good. ”

Goliath shook his head slowly in the negative. “No. No way. You left orders for this. Damn witch woman was right. ”

“What witch woman? What are you talking about.”

“Nothing, I’m talking about nothing. Here’s what you told me to do.” The large man pointed a long fat finger at David’s back. “Your pack. There’s a secret pocket in the strap. Read what’s in there. ”

“How did you…” David let his voice trail off. Not even his girlfriend knew about the pocket. Cut into the strap, filled, then sewn shut, he kept two ones, a five, and a one hundred dollar bill in there. For emergencies. Read the rest of this entry »

Goliath’s face fell. He looked down at himself, unbelieving, and patted his chest and stomach.

“I feel pretty damn alive Davey. Why do you say I’m not?”

Davey stepped forward and straightened up, confusion gone from his face.

“Because you’re not. When I was twelve, I went on vacation with my family, to see my grandmother before she died. I didn’t want to, but I had no choice. When I returned, they told me. You had gone to the train yard. They didn’t know why, but I did. You were looking for hobos, like we always said we would. They found your shoe and foot wedged under a tie, and the rest of you splattered across the gravel. High speed line, just passing through, not slowed to switch or stop, they said. Freak accident, they said.”

David paused, taking a breath in deep, and holding it for a moment before releasing the air with a sharp sound.

“Your funeral was the day before we came back. Closed casket, of course. I didn’t believe it, I couldn’t, so I went down to the train yard myself, looking around. I found blood in places myself, under stones around the track where they said it happened. And then, climbing a loading machine, I found half a book. The Wizard of Oz. You had been reading it right before I left. It was torn in half, and stuck together with dried blood. I knew then, they hadn’t lied. You were dead, and it was my fault, Jerry. I failed you. You asked me to run away, that night, come live in your tree house, like some old story. I told you no. Always the brave one, but I told you no, because I was afraid of my father, and I left you behind, and you were dead. And it was my fault. Is that what you want to hear? Is it?”

David stepped closer to Goliath, confident now. “You are dead, it is my fault, now let’s move on to my next torment, shall we?”

Goliath went pale, his mouth hanging open. David smiled, expecting this. Whatever demon was tormenting him did not expect him to have figured things out yet.

“My dear god. You’re not Davey. You’re HIM.”

David’s smile faltered. This, he did not expect.

“You say you didn’t run away, you DID go on that trip?”

“That is what I said Jerry, yes.”

“Are you also going to tell me that you did not, a few years later, drop out of high school to enlist in the Protective Forces?”

“The… Not only did I never drop out of high school, Goliath, but I have a college degree.”

David put as much sarcasm and venom into saying Goliath’s name as he could, and grinned to himself when he saw the big man disturbed by this.

“As for the, Protective Forces, as you call them, I’ve never heard of them.”

Goliath nodded, stepping closer, a shark moving in for the kill.

“And I suppose you never fought against the darkbloods?” David shook his head no as Goliath took another step towards him. “Never led your men to safety in those South American hell holes, myself with them, at your side?” Another shake, and another step. “And I suppose you never took the poisoned axe to the face that gave you, THAT!”

With the scream of “THAT”, Goliath moved the final few steps towards David, grabbed his hair, and spun him to face the bathroom mirror.
David was about to spin back around and protest, when something caught his attention. His face was his own, and yet not. More deeply lined, longer haired, with a pierced ear. But all of that paled to insignificance after the scar.

Starting above his left eyebrow, it curved across the eye socket, down across his cheek, and to his chin beneath his lips. Pale pink flesh curled away from the center, years old scarring. The center line dove deep into his flesh, so deep one expected to see the white of bone like a raging river at the bottom of the canyon that wound along his face. But instead, a black so deep that no light escaped ran in a thin line at the bottom of the scar. Every now and then, David almost thought it moved, as if it were a running liquid, but it was so black, there was no way to tell. Almost offhand, David realized that the tattooed scar on Goliath’s face, on the face of all the men with them, was a mirror image of the very real scar on his own. A scar many years old, that he had never received.

He turned to Goliath.

“Jerry… Goliath. Where am I? Who am I?”

The bus bumped and swayed along the road, shocks long gone the way of the dodo. David watched out the window, looking at a world gone mad. Everything was what he knew, but different. Darker. Parking lots stood empty, or, if filled, with battered relics, spray painted cars, or primer gray rusted hulks. What had been a car dealership parking lot, filled with gleaming new cars, was filled instead with tents and large crates. Street signs, where they still existed, had faded, were covered in graffiti and stickers. Even so, enough were legible to confirm that David was where he was supposed to be, even if the world had gone mad. Houses were boarded up or burnt, trash littered every yard. Store fronts were windowless, empty sockets staring at the street. A perennial night infested the sky, though the sun should only have been a quarter of the way through its daily trip. As the bus crawled closer to what had only yesterday been a large shopping district built around a pair of malls, the scenery began to change. Side roads were clogged with cars piled on top of each other. Here and there men with firearms sat or stood, guarding the streets. A large drainage pipe in the corner of a small park was manned by two men with shotguns, as if some creature might come crashing through the bars any moment.

David looked closer, and realized that there were no bars, as had been across the opening yesterday. Ruined metal curled from the opening. Something HAD come crashing through. Everything looked like a war zone.

Coming in closer to the mall, the general state of disarray turned from armed camp on the edge of destruction to simply run down. The bus pulled up in front of a movie theater next to the mall, and Goal hopped to his feet. Silently David rose and followed. As they entered the theater, armed men stood inside the doorway with rifles at their sides. They both wore fanny packs of some sort, with several layers of green and black cloth hanging over the pouch and dangling down over their asses. David suppressed a giggle. It seemed the Downtown Bustle wore bustles.

Goal gave the men a brief salute, and David copied it. His wonder circuits burnt out, he just followed along aimlessly. The giant man, towering over everyone, looked at his watch, and for some reason David could only think of the white rabbit, the smallest one of the party. The parallels to falling down the rabbit’s hole made his mind start to churn in wonder again, and he quickly choked off those thoughts. Goal spoke briefly with a few of the tattooed men, then put his hand on David’s shoulder and led him to the men’s room.

Quickly checking the stalls to be sure they were alone, Goal turned towards David, deflating.

“Okay man, what the hell is up Davey?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about Goal. Score. Basket. Shit, I wake up, my life gets turned around, the world goes insane, and I get carted around by a man whose name is a euphemism for winning.”

“The name, Davey, is Goliath. As in David and Goliath. The old myth? You named me, you should know that. I’m the oldest friend you’ve got, and you act like you don’t know me.“ Goliath’s eyes narrowed. He studied David’s face, turning this way and that to look at him from all sides. “And since when the fuck did you know how to pronounce the word euphemism, let alone what it meant? Shit. Has the poison in your face spread again?” He reached out a hand as if to touch David’s face, slowly inching closer. At the last moment, David turned away.

“What poison in my face? What are you talking about? My oldest friend? I’ve never met you before!”

“Never met… Never met me? C’mon Davey, whatever’s going on, you have to remember me. Hell, we used to ditch Mrs. Flint’s class in third grade together.” At the name, David started, and turned to look back at the man. “Yeah, you remember that. We learned to ride bikes together. Whenever kids picked on little ol’ bookworm me, you were the one that protected me, stood up for me. When I tripped and got stuck in the tracks at the train-yard, you were the one that pulled me free before that car crushed me like a bug. I sure as hell could never forget you, at least show me the same courtesy.”

David stared open-mouthed at the man, his head slowly shaking back and forth no.

“ C’mon. Jarod fucking O’Neil. You have to remember me.”

“Jerry? Little Jerry?”

Goliath’s face lit up, a grin splitting from ear to ear. “Oh thank god, he remembers. Yeah, little Jerry. Not so little anymore, as you can see.“ Goliath laughed, and wiped his hand across his forehead. “Shit Davey, I mean, David. You had me worried there for a moment.”

Goliath’s grin turned to puzzlement as fear spread across David’s face. David backed up slowly, arms in front of him as if to ward the man away. He stumbled into the sink, and stopped, back pressed into the corner of the bathroom.

“No. No, you can’t be Jerry. I look at your face, and you are, I don’t know how, but you’re little Jerry. But you can’t be him.” Panic took hold of David, his voice rising shrill as he repeated himself over and over. ”You can’t be. You can’t be him. You’re Jerry, but you’re not. Damnit, YOU CAN’T BE HIM!”

“Why can’t I be me?

“Because. Because you’re DEAD.”

“I knew where I was then… The darkness, the destruction, everything almost real, but not quite. I was in hell. I had died. Perhaps a heart attack walking down to the bench. Maybe a car ran off the road and struck me, killing me instantly while I read the paper. It didn’t matter. I was dead, and in hell, and being faced by those I had failed in life. Starting with Jerry. I had no clue just how right I was, and yet, how wrong…

From the Final Journal of David Sturmbridge