Gasoline | Ben Parish

46

SOMEONE is screaming. 

I'm running up and down city streets, a bag filled with something heavy thumping against my leg at every step. Flames are licking the corners of a building somewhere far behind me, but the powerful heat from the roaring inferno is enough to warm my bones still.

My breath is the loudest thing I can hear aside from the screaming; it is ragged and desperate. My footfalls take third place, crunching through harsh snow and debris.

I don't know where I'm going. My body is in total control, steering me towards whoever needs help.

I am thrown through the glass windows of a bank again, but this time there is no explosion to accompany it. Shards rain all around me, cutting into my face and hands. The sting is sharp in the cold yet also numb.

Reznik is towering over me, his words garbled. Blood starts to erupt from his mouth, covering me. I shriek and kick him away, scrambling to avoid the red shower.

I get back on my feet again. Without paying my former instructor a single glance, I leave the bank and continue following the screaming.

As I get further into the city, I start to see bodies. At first I think they're already dead. Then one of them speaks to me.

"Croak, please."

I stop abruptly, head on a swivel.

It's Oompa. He's leaning against a wall, clutching his stomach. He cries and begs me to help him.

I stare my squad member right in the eyes, and then I keep running.

The next person I see is Flintstone. His head is the result of what looks like a grenade, millions of perfect slices destroying his face.

"Please help me," he asks.

Once again, I look at him and keep running. He's going to die anyway.

...but what if he isn't? What if it truly is on me to save Flint and Oompa? What if I'm the one who is killing them? Am I responsible for their deaths like all my other kills? Am I a freak?

The screaming stops. My feet still. I am stationary at the end of a red trail in white snow.

Slowly, my eyes follow the trail. I see another body at the end, this one laying flat. It doesn't ask me for help. It doesn't call my name. It just lays still.

My feet drag me forward. I know what I am about to see. I try to tell myself to stop, that I can't take this sight, but they still carry me ahead.

He's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, finally at peace with himself. His face is pale, nearly the same color as the rich snow beneath him from laying out in the cold for so long. His dark eyelashes, long, hold little snowflakes. His lips are closed and white. His hands, large with bruised knuckles, still cling to his side.

My knees give out. I crumple to his side, head going to rest on his broad chest. "I told you," I whisper. "And you promised."

I become angry then, the tears hot and full of the fury found in hopelessness. "You promised me!" I shout, sitting up and shoving his body away.

It isn't him anymore, though.

The body in front of me is my own – well, the one I had before the waves and aliens and the world ending.

My hair, still long and dark, is fanned out around me. I'm wearing a pink dress and Converse. There's a necklace around my throat, one that Tram gave me for my birthday one year.

I look beautiful. Much softer and nicer than the hard killing-machine in black fabric that I am now. I find that deep down, I want to be the old me again.

With trembling hands, I reach out to touch my own hand. As soon as Croak touches the skin of Mary Beth, something horrifying happens. A massive dark spot appears on her chest, growing and stretching, eating away the beautiful pastel material with dark red.

At first I think it's an identical wound to Zombie's.

...but then I see the hole is in the rib cage. Something has been taken out of Mary Beth and given to Croak to carry around and pull out whenever she feels the urge. It's in Croak's bag, resting snugly against her thigh, like it's another weapon she can use.

Mary Beth is missing her heart.