#until I fuck up so badly that I lose like all my extra lives rapidly and in a row. which has happened. the game senses my hubris.

[cha-melodius]

The Definition of Madness Chapter 5

Whumptober No. 26: Concussion

Fandom: The Man from UNCLE (2015)

Pairings: Napoleon Solo/Illya Kuryakin, Napoleon Solo & Illya Kuryakin & Gaby Teller

Summary: They say the definition of madness is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Or, Illya gets stuck in a very whumpy time loop.

Ao3 Link

TW for this chapter: implied suicide. Only a very brief mention of it, and definitely no details of any kind. I think you can probably guess the context of this given the nature of the story. I will say that the latter half of this chapter is very warm and fluffy, so I'm not leaving you in a dark place.

*****

Previous Chapter

Illya’s not sure how he does it, but he manages to wake up hours before dawn. The safehouse is dead silent, and his partners will be asleep for a while yet. As quickly and as quietly as he can, he arms himself with every possible weapon he can strap to his body and throws extra ammunition and some random bits of portable food into a small backpack.

He practically runs up the mountain, covering the distance in less than half the amount of time it normally takes them. The forest is pitch black around him, but he doesn’t need to see where he’s going. He knows it in his bones, by this point.

The sun is just peeking over the horizon when he arrives at the compound. He doesn’t cut his way in, because he’s sure there’s some kind of silent alarm that gets triggered, and instead finds a tree that’s been allowed to grow too close to the fence. It’s not the easiest climb, but he makes it high enough to launch himself over the fence, tucking into a roll as he lands on the other side.

It’s odd, seeing the compound in the daylight. Somehow it looks just as deserted as it is at night, like it’s only ever staffed by a skeleton crew of guards. He knows better than to let himself get lulled into a false sense of security, though. There must be some hidden part of the compound that he hasn’t discovered yet, underground perhaps, somewhere the mysterious man in charge hides out. Somehow Illya has never seen him until someone has gotten captured, but he can’t possibly just appear out of nothing.

Illya finds a lone guard about his height and knocks him out, quickly stripping him down in a storeroom. His uniform is a bit tight on Illya, but it’s not too noticeable. Concealing his weapons as best he can, Illya pulls the guard’s cap low over his eyes and steps back out into the facility.

He should have done this ages ago, he thinks almost idly as he wanders freely through the compound. He learns a lot more about their targets, understands a lot more about the facility, and his partners are safe. Well, he doesn’t know that they’re safe. He has no idea what they’re doing, to be honest, but at least this time he can pretend.

If there is an entrance to some underground bunker, it remains stubbornly hidden. Illya has poured over nearly every inch of the compound, and so eventually he returns to the chemical building. He’d been avoiding it, in part because of the bad memories and in part because it always feels like a trap. Then again, maybe it feels that way because it’s where the information he actually needs is kept.

The building is empty, as it always seems to be. Illya finds a high, secluded perch on a nearby building and watches for a long time, hoping to see some sign of activity, but there’s nothing. He briefly wonders if the reason that no one seems to be around is because they are in the process of attacking the safehouse, but he pushes the thought from his mind.

Eventually he climbs down from his perch and creeps into the building. It’s a familiar space at this point, given that most of the loops seem to end with them dying there, but most of the times he’s there he’s too busy to really look around. To wit, this time he finds a door hidden along one wall, partially obstructed from view by lab benches and equipment. The lock on it is strange and high-tech, like nothing he’s ever seen before, and he wishes Napoleon were here. He’d probably be able to crack it no problem.

Illya spends a long time trying to figure out the door. Long enough that he is, finally, lulled into a false sense of security. Surely if they knew he was here, they would have acted by now. He’s considering putting some charges down and trying to just blow his way through the door, when the day finally catches up with him.

He hears the footstep behind him too late. Turns too slowly to defend himself. After all of the myriad ways he’s been attacked, it seems almost absurd that this time he’s taken out by nothing more than some kind of heavy club that smacks hard into his temple and makes him see stars before everything goes black.

*****

The thing is, it doesn’t kill him.

Illya wakes in a cell. The floor is cold, damp concrete underneath him, and even though the air isn’t particularly cool, it chills him to his bones. When he tries to open his eyes he sees there is a high, barred window letting a sliver of light in, but even that is too much for him. He winces and rolls onto his side, pushing himself up just enough to heave out what little is in his stomach before collapsing to the ground again.

Fuck. He hasn’t been concussed this badly in a long time. He forces his eyes open again and the world spins around him, but he can’t just lie here. He has to find some way out. Unfortunately his efforts to move end with him dry heaving again, and he curls reflexively into a ball. Maybe in a bit, then.

“So nice to finally meet you, Mr. Kuryakin,” a familiar voice says, some unknown amount of time later.

Illya pries his eyes open to see—who else?—the mysterious man in charge standing outside his cell. A small smile plays on his lips, mocking and smug, as he surveys Illya where he still lies on the floor of the cell.

“You look to be in pretty rough shape, there,” he says lightly. “Sorry for the rude welcome, but, you see, my boys can get a bit carried away sometimes.” “Fuck you,” Illya manages, spitting the taste of bile out of his mouth.

The man laughs at this. “Ah, there’s the spirit I was expecting. You surprised us today, Mr. Kuryakin. Did you know that?” “Just kill me and be done with it.”

Silence falls heavy in the air, and when Illya looks up again the man is staring at him with a calculating expression on his face.

“You’re the one resetting the day, aren’t you?”

It is perhaps the very last thing that Illya thought he would hear. Surprise chokes him and he erupts in a coughing fit, wincing against the blinding pain in his skull.

“I suppose that makes sense,” the man continues, “given all that you seem to know about the facility. Fortunate for us that we caught you, then.” “What are you talking about?” Illya growls as he tries to force himself to his hands and knees.

“Don’t play dumb. You know what I mean. I don’t know how you stole it from me, but no matter. I’ll get it back shortly.” “Impossible.”

The man raises his eyebrows questioningly. “Did you never wonder how we always know where your team is, or what you’ll do? I spent fifty loops trying to outsmart you before I lost it. I have to admit, you lot are quite creative. Far more formidable than anyone else who has tried to come take us out. How many loops has it been for you, now? Have you discovered all of our traps?”

Illya doesn’t answer. The idea that he’s nearly thirty loops behind their adversary is staggering. He pushes himself up until he can lean against the wall, ignoring the lurch in his stomach and cursing how his head is at once throbbing and fuzzy.

“How does it work?” he groans eventually. Clearly there’s no use pretending he doesn’t know what the man is talking about. “How does it end?”

“You don’t think I’m going to actually tell you that, do you?” the man laughs. “As to how it ends: don’t worry, there is a cure, so to speak. Once we pull you out, I’ll take the reset back, and your pesky team will finally be eliminated.”

“None of this makes sense,” Illya says. Granted, his mental facilities aren’t at their best right now, but even so he’s pretty sure this is insane. He would never believe it for a second if he hadn’t been living it. “How can some drug do all this? Time doesn’t work that way. Reality doesn’t work that way.”

The man smirks at him. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s not real. Maybe it’s all in your head. Maybe it’s all some elaborate psychological torture to get you to reveal your plans.” He turns, then, and walks toward the door, pausing only for at the threshold to glance back at Illya. “What do you think?”

He leaves Illya alone in the rapidly falling dark of the cell. To be honest, Illya doesn’t know what to think anymore, but for the first time the idea of losing the ability to reset the day is terrifying. What if he gets this ‘cure’, whatever it is, and his partners are already dead? What if this is the day that he loses everything, and there are no redos?

That night, for the first time in this already too-long nightmare, Illya does the unthinkable.

*****

He wakes up in his bed at the safehouse with the mother of all splitting headaches. The early morning sunlight is just starting to come through the window and it’s already too much. There’s pretty much no way he’s making it up the mountain today, so he might as well stay in bed, but then he hears Napoleon humming and thinks maybe he should try to keep him from burning his hand.

Turns out, trying to push himself out of bed is a mistake. His head swims and he collapses onto all fours with a heavy thud, retching the bile from his empty stomach onto the hardwood.

“Christ, Peril, what’s wrong?” Napoleon gasps as he tears open the door to the room. He rushes forward and bends down at Illya’s side, one hand grabbing his arm while the other rests between his shoulders, rubbing small, comforting circles. 

Illya groans and allows himself to be hustled back into the bed, throwing an arm over his eyes against the light. “Can you…” he mutters, gesturing blindly toward the window, and after a moment he hears the blinds shut.

A few moments later the edge of the mattress dips as Napoleon sits down next to him, then a tentative hand brushes over his arm. “Peril, what’s going on?”

“M’sick,” Illya mumbles, because how do you explain that you have a concussion despite the fact that you didn’t actually hit your head?

Illya pulls his arm off his face and squints at his partner in the dim light, and finds Napoleon staring at him with no small amount of care and concern written across his face. He reaches forward and lays his palm gently across Illya’s forehead, presumably checking for a fever, and for some bizarre reason Illya shivers under his touch. It occurs to him, then, that Napoleon didn’t end up burning his hand on the pan after all, and the realization shocks a laugh out of him.

“Well you’re not feverish, but you might be delirious,” Napoleon says wryly. “I don’t know what this is, but you’re obviously going to have to stay back today.”

“No!” Illya say sharply, then winces at the volume of his own voice. He clamps Napoleon’s wrist in an iron grip. “You can’t go. You and Gaby, you have to stay too.”

“Come now, Peril, I appreciate the concern, but the two of us can handle a little recon without you.”

“Please, Napoleon,” Illya grits out, clenching his eyes tightly closed, “don’t go. I…” I need you, he can’t quite make himself say. “Don’t go, just for today. For me.”

Illya squeezes Napoleon’s wrist again, and after a moment his partner’s warm palm covers his hand. At that he manages to pry his eyes open again and finds that same worried, careful expression on Napoleon’s face.

“Ok, Peril. Ok,” he agrees. “We’ll put off the op.”

He expects that Napoleon will get up and leave him to his misery, but his partner just sits there, watching him, his hand still covering Illya’s and his thumb absently tracing small circles on Illya’s skin. All at once Illya is thrown back in his memories to the kitchen, to the determination, and something else, in Napoleon’s eyes. It sends another shiver down his spine, which Napoleon apparently interprets as a chill. He pulls away to grab the blanket, and Illya tries to suppress a surge of disappointment at the loss of contact.

“I’ll bring you some breakfast in a bit, hm?” Napoleon says as he pulls the blanket over Illya’s body. He pauses, frowning, and somehow Illya can tell he’s remembering seeing Illya dry-heaving only minutes earlier. “Maybe just some toast.”

“Cowboy,” Illya murmurs, stopping Napoleon before he leaves the room. He turns back expectantly, but once again Illya feels lost for words. He chokes down whatever emotion is clogging his throat and sighs heavily. “Don’t touch the pan handle without a mitt, and don’t turn on the oven.”

*****

Reading is, unfortunately, not really an option in his current condition, and honestly playing chess isn’t much better. He sleeps a lot of the day, and Gaby plays a some simple card games with him, but he doesn’t see much of Napoleon except for when he comes in to deliver food. Illya tries not to feel disappointed. It doesn’t really work.

He discovers why his partner has been so scarce when he finally gets up in the late afternoon. The injuries he sustains from loop to loop at least have the benefit of healing a lot more quickly than usual, so he feels almost back to normal besides a lingering dull headache. Napoleon is, perhaps predictably, in the kitchen, and he tuts disapprovingly when he sees Illya enter.

“You shouldn’t be up,” he scolds, barely pausing in whatever he’s doing.

Illya ignores him and walks over to investigate. Napoleon’s shirtsleeves are rolled to his elbows and he appears to be kneading some kind of smooth, pale yellow dough.

“You’re not using the oven,” Illya says quickly, his gaze darting toward the appliance, but it appears to still be off.

“No, I’m not,” Napoleon huffs as he kneads, “even though you won’t tell me why. This isn’t for baking. I’m making pasta.” Illya blinks at him, thinking he must be misunderstanding something. Surely Napoleon isn’t making noodles from scratch in their tiny safehouse kitchen. When would he have even gotten the ingredients to do such a thing? The whole operation seems extravagant, even for Napoleon. His partner is too busy vigorously kneading the dough to notice his confused look, though.

“Why?”

Napoleon laughs. “I can’t very well make my nona’s soup with dried pasta,” he says, no small amount of disdain lacing his words. “I think she might rise from the grave and beat me over the head with a wheel of parmesan.”

“All right,” Illya allows, like he understands why it would matter, “but why are you making the soup now? Here? The circumstances cannot be ideal.” “Ah, well, it’s her famous get-well soup,” Napoleon explains. He pauses for a moment, still staring down at the pasta dough. “When I was growing up, any time I got sick she would come over and spend all day making this soup. Said it was better than any medicine a doctor could give.”

Momentarily, the dough seems forgotten. Napoleon looks like he’s lost in a pleasant memory, a small, melancholy smile curling the corners of his mouth. The image of a short, round Italian woman taking care of a small boy with dark hair and deep blue eyes forms in Illya’s mind, and he finds himself inexplicably warmed by it.

“And?” Illya prompts. “Is it?”

Napoleon snaps out of his reverie and sets about kneading the dough vigorously again. Illya wonders how he knows when it’s ready, but he doesn’t want to know badly enough to get a lecture on pasta making from Napoleon right now.

“Of course, Peril,” Napoleon says. “Like she always said, it’s got her secret ingredient in it.”

“Which is?”

To his surprise, Napoleon flushes an impressive shade of red at this question. “Wouldn’t be a secret if I went around telling everybody, would it?” he mumbles, barely audible.

Illya lets silence fall between them for a moment, only broken by the soft sounds of kneading. It’s really rather more mesmerizing than it should be, watching the muscles in his forearms move under his skin as he works the dough with strong, capable hands. Napoleon's hair is starting to curl from being in the steamy kitchen all day, a few locks escaping his pomade to fall across his forehead, and the whole picture is rather… arresting.

“You still haven’t answered the question,” he says eventually—and why on Earth does his throat feel so tight?—“Why are you making it now?”

“I would have thought that was obvious, Peril,” Napoleon huffs. “You’re sick, you get the soup. Which is also why you really should be in bed.”

He finally looks up at Illya, and his eyes are full of that same something that they had been after the explosion. And then, suddenly, everything seems to fall into place. Napoleon has been in here all day making this soup, the soup that his grandmother made him when he was sick, the soup that you clearly only make for people you love, because why else would anyone spend that much time making soup…

And he’s making it for Illya.

Abruptly Illya really does feel like he needs to go back to bed. Or at least sit down.

“Have you… have you made it many times?” Illya asks quietly, sounding nearly as unsteady as he feels.

Napoleon stares at him for a moment before he drops his gaze to the counter again. “No. No, I haven’t,” he answers, just as quiet. Then he clears his throat, clenching his jaw, and gives his head a tiny shake. “But I know how, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’ll be good.” “I know it will, Cowboy,” Illya says. “Thank you, for making it for me.” “Well, you know, it’s something to do while we’re stuck here all day,” Napoleon says dismissively, but it’s too late. Illya happens to know what Napoleon would do all day when stuck in a safehouse, and it’s not making extremely labor-intensive soup. “Now will you go back to bed? You look like you’re about to fall over.”

Illya takes the excuse, even though his fading concussion is certainly not the thing that’s currently making him so lightheaded. Gaby offers to play another card game with him but he begs off, claiming he’s going to nap, when really all he does after he climbs back into the bed is stare at the wall and think.

It would be one thing if the only thing that had clicked into place was Illya’s understanding of Napoleon’s feelings for him. No, that realization had the benefit—or misfortune? who could tell—of seemingly popping the cork on Illya’s own repressed feelings. Of everything he felt, but didn’t dare put a name to, that terrible day in the kitchen, and nearly every other repetition of this miserable loop. Told himself it was loyalty, told himself it was friendship, because good agents simply do not fall in love with their partners.

Turns out he is just as terrible a spy as he’s always accused Napoleon of being.

He’s not even close to done processing all of it by the time Gaby peeks her head into the room and says that dinner is ready, and does he feel up to coming to the table to eat?

He nods and follows her to the kitchen, feeling some kind of perverse comfort in the knowledge that he has, seemingly, all the time in the world to make sense of what’s going on in his heart.

The soup is, without a doubt, the most delicious soup he’s ever tasted. Gaby lets out a groan of delight more suited to the bedroom than the dinner table when she takes a bite and honestly, it’s all Illya can do not to echo her. He’s sure his face does something incriminating nevertheless, because the blistering warmth that fills his chest—warmth that has decidedly nothing to do with the temperature of the soup—is far more than he can reasonably control.

Napoleon, of course, looks exceedingly pleased with himself, but whatever emotions that had slipped loose earlier have been carefully locked away again. It doesn’t matter. Between Napoleon’s aborted confession after the explosion and the soup, Illya knows. To be honest, it’s a little embarassing that it took him 22 loops to figure it out, now that he knows where to look for the signs.

A year and 22 loops. God, he’s an idiot sometimes.

Next Chapter

#whumptober2020 #no.26 #concussion #the man from u.n.c.l.e. #fic #suicide #the man from uncle #tmfu #napollya #napoleon x illya #napoleon solo #illya kuryakin #my fic

[the-voice-of-hell]

The Septagram

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***

Rosemarie Miller was walking a cart of looted groceries home through relatively barren streets.  A few homeless anarchists were grooving at a public fountain, hopping through the water to cool off as needed.  She was jealous of their easy-going ways.  The reason the pigs all high-tailed out of the region was always on her mind.  Would she see the murderers?  Would she have to deal with them?

The only reason she’d stayed behind was because she was trying to find her best friend, Jennifer Smith, and ended up missing a window of opportunity for an evacuation escort.  She certainly wasn’t going to risk the wilder stretches of highway without an armed guard, so it was safer just to stay at home, in the flat part of Renton.  The worst part of missing the opportunity was when she finally did find Jennifer, and learned the weirdo had stayed in town for the chance to rip wicked bicycle moves.  Thanks, Jen.

The sky was hot and blue.  That part of Renton was so flat that it felt like being at the bottom of a bowl, decorative hills off to the sides, infinite scorching void above.  She looked at the new stainless steel apartments along the way.  Should she just steal one?  Was that where the anarchists were sleeping at nights?  There was no evidence the door had been jimmied, so probably not.  She reached her apartment, set down the groceries, and fished out her keys.

Suddenly, a distraction.  That dragonfly sound of a bike chain speeding her way.  As much as she knew it was Jen in her head, in her heart it was the murder clubs.  She whipped around to see that goof zipping her way, dorky chipmunk teeth smiling, bleach blonde bob whipping the breeze, big light eyes behind dark-framed nerd glasses.  Her frame was typical of a short, slightly pudgy person, but her limbs were bulging with creepy muscles.  If she dehydrated enough she could do bodybuilding competitions.

“ROSIE!  WHAT DID YOU GET ME?”

Rosemarie wasn’t going to play the shouting game.  She waited until her friend was close enough to hear above the chains.  But Jen didn’t stop, was heading straight toward her now at full speed.  Rose cringed, falling to one knee.

Jen hit the brakes and twisted the bike’s frame in just the right way to spring off the ground with the momentum, spinning three times horizontally as she flew over Rose, and landed with her bike across her shoulders like Jesus carrying the cross.

“WHAT THE FUCK JEN!?” Shouting after all.

“What?  That was fucking sick.  You used to like my stunts.”

“You’re gonna be the death of me!”

“I hope not?  I’m still sorry about that, and I’ll say it as much as you need me to.”  She dropped the bike and sent it rolling to rest by the building’s stoop with one hand.  “I wub you, come on!”  She went in for a hug.

“No!”  Rose held her back with a talon-like finger.  “You’re sweaty and disgusting.”  She relaxed.  “I’ll make you something if you want.  But you need to shower first.”

“Bossanova.”

Suddenly out of the clear sky they heard a thunder crack and peal.  It rumbled and dissipated.  Strange notes played in the wake, like the brass section of the world’s worst marching band, but weak as if from miles away.  They were both looking north to Seattle proper.

“Doesn’t look like a storm,” Jen said.

“Maybe they’re gonna drop the bomb.  Come die with a full stomach, loca.”

***

Clark Upton was a fortunate man.  He had lived a long life of excitement and romance as a dancer, dance instructor, and choreographer in some of the gayest cities in the world.  But this was Seattle, and it was starting to feel like the end of his run.  Although his coughing had cleared up since most of the people evacuated (had he just been allergic to exhaust all this time?), there was apocalyptic air about the events that precipitated the change.

And now there was an apocalyptic air in the literal air outside his apartment.  It had been a sunny summer day one minute, and then clouds began to rapidly form - between the buildings themselves.  He was below those clouds on the seventeenth floor, but he could see that there were apartments in taller buildings that would be above them.  The thunder began as soon as the clouds had, as a rumbling vibration through all the buildings, through the bodies of those still living there.  It was building to a climax of some sort.

“Thurston?  Thurstooon?”  He called for his friend, but couldn’t make himself release his grip on the balcony rail.  This wasn’t right.

Thurston Connor was another gay dancer and friend, staying with him while in town.  The tall beautiful black man with his perfectly shaved head did not come to his call.  Clark began to fear he wasn’t even in the same dimension as the guy.

Then the thunder burst out in a great crescendo and red sheet lightning bridged the clouds and the bus tunnel entrance on the streets below.  Something began spilling out of the bus tunnel.  Dark forms, tumbling and spinning and leaping, shiny instruments in their grips.  It was like someone had taken a paper bag full of different noxious species of insects, shook them up to instill anger, and dumped them onto the ground.

The thunder subsided into a rolling menace, but less deafening than its initial burst.  And under that sound he could hear them.  It was a marching band.

“Oh dear.  I’m having a stroke.”

He laid down on the grate floor of his balcony, amid clay pots and chair legs, and he waited to die.  It was a lonely feeling.  As good as his life had been, he’d known many moments of loneliness and he did not love them.  He wished that he’d had a husband - someone who would be there for this.  But then, it was never in his character.

The wind whipped wildly below him, carrying the discordant notes of the hellish stroke band.  What was that tune?  “Inna Godda Davida”?  Yes, it was definitely in there, scored with the skill of Souza and played with the skill of Bob Log III.  But there were other tunes being played simultaneously - pure torture.  Oh no.  One of the tunes was Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

Clark made up his mind.  Death was horrible, and he couldn’t stand it.

***

A thunderstorm had started in the north.  Must be that summer thunder - not very common in the Puget Sound region, in Park’s experience.  It didn’t look like there were enough clouds to cause any kind of rain, but it was hard to tell because it was very far away.

The headache was getting worse.  He was in a previously vacant house they’d commandeered for barracks.  Normally as evening began to fall, he’d be on the roof.  He’d set up tall chair there so he could get a good view of the neighborhood and radio to get extra attention on anything suspicious.  But this night, he found he was needing rest more than usual, and came down after just a few minutes.

For unit cohesion the guys were living with members of their respective agencies.  All the Tacoma PD plus a few State Patrol and other local cops were sharing this house and the one next to it.  More than half of them were on patrol or other tasks at the moment, leaving just a few guys behind.  They were taking nightcaps and gambling in the living room.

“Hey guys.”

“You want in, Park?”

“Not right now.  We got any good painkillers?”

“Legal or otherwise?”

“Watch it, Rickard.”

He ended up taking some Excedrin from one of the first aid kits on the kitchen counter, washing it down with a beer, leaning there under a bright kitchen light.  He thought about joining the guys out there but really he didn’t want to play.  He just wanted to hang out with Infante.  He was afraid he’d made a bad impression earlier.  Why was he being so weird?  He shook his head, regretted it, then gulped more beer.

Infante came in, grabbing a half-empty bottle of Grey Goose out of the refrigerator.  “Hey boss.”

“Hey, Infante.  You don’t have to call me boss.  Hell, I think we have the same salary.”  He tried to smile but it looked like something crinkled and painful.

“Eh… It’s just easier.”

“I don’t recommend drinking that all by yourself.  Gotta stay in fighting trim.”

“I know.  I was gonna split it.  We got glasses on the table.”

“Good man.”  Why do I keep saying that?  Christ.  He had to get some air again, but up on the roof was too much tension, scanning the horizon for any sign of mischief.  He went out the front door without saying goodbye.

The sky was getting dusky.  People were having a lawn party across the street.  A few children waved at him but mostly they didn’t like police.  One even put his hand on the top of a baby’s head and turned it away from him.  It didn’t bother him too much.

A dark-skinned woman in badly stained clothes staggered in the direction of the party.  Her hair was long with puffy curls of varying sizes and shot through with little bits of plant matter.  She was holding a hammer.

Park resisted the urge to pull his gun and quickly stepped between her and the party.  “Ma’am, please.  Stop.”  Palms up.

She looked at his gun then looked at his face, scowling deeply.  “I need to go.”

“That’s fair but maybe you should lose the tool and clean up a little.  There are children over there.  You’ll scare them.”

“Don’t care.  I need to see Elijah.”

She started walking again and he hustled in front of her.

“At least give me the hammer.  I’ll hold it for you.”

She looked confused, thought about it, picking up the hammer as if she’d forgotten she was carrying it, and then handed it to him.  “I’m gonna need that back.”

He nodded and mutely accepted it, then followed about fifteen feet behind her.  The hammer looked like it had been used to smash up a green compost heap.  New, but recently rendered disgusting.  He shook his head.

She walked up to one of the houses, stood at the porch for a moment scanning the crowd, then went inside.  He hustled to close the distance and stood inside the door, trying to hold the hammer out of sight.  Two little black kids played video games, but the house inside looked too nice to have children.  Visitors.  Park just watched her walking the house, looking for someone, listening to hear if she got in trouble.

Someone almost bowled him over coming inside.  “Excuse me officer.  Need more soda pop.”

“Elijah?  Eliijah?”

The pop seeker yelled.  “He ain’t here!”

She came back into the hall and stepped closer to her.

“Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well what the fuck are you doing in his house?!”

“Hey!  Calm down!  There’s a cop riiight theeere.”  She pointed at Park.

The messy lady was a little more clearly visible where the light of the kitchen came into the hall.  She was thin, with thick and strongly curled eyelashes but thin eyebrows.  She looked like she hadn’t changed clothes since the evacuations began.

“OK, fine!”  She gestured angrily as she spoke.  “Why are you and these boys in Elijah’s house?  Why are those people on Elijah’s lawn?”

“He knows us.  We’re just usin’ his food and nothin’ else.  He wouldn’t mind.”

Park waved from the entrance.  “We’re here but our priority is keeping people safe in the neighborhood.  You’re not from around here, but you knew the owner?”

She scrunched up in impotent fury.  “Yes I know Elijah.  I don’t know her!  I don’t know them!”

The boys didn’t like the look on her and jumped up, running past Park out to the lawn.  The game beeped and yelled at nobody, controllers on the scuffed up old hardwood floor.

Park took a step toward her and offered a calming gesture, palm down.  “You’ve been out there, right?  Fighting your way here to find your friend?  Listen.  You can just stay in this house.  Take a bath, wear some of his clothes, catch some real rest, OK?”

The soda hunter said, “Mm-mm, that’s between y’all.  I’m just gonna get this soda pop and get, alright?”

The skinny lady blew past Park to head outside again.  He turned to follow her.  She started asking party goers.  “You know where Elijah is?  You know where Elijah is?”

Park held the hammer behind his back and offered a sympathetic look to the people.  To a woman nearby, he quietly offered, “I can do something about her if you need me to.”  She shook her head.

“Ippy.  I know you.”  A Q-balled thirtyish guy with strong arms regarded the skinny lady.  Nobody turned down the music - some R&B diva going off the rails.

“I don’t know you.”

“We went to high school together.  You me and Elijah.”

“I don’t remember you.  Do you know where Elijah is?”

“Maybe he was at work when the shit went down, ended up evacuating before he got home.  I haven’t seen him since it all happened.”

She shook her head slowly and looked stricken.

The bald guy looked kindly, “Aw girl, it’s OK.  He’s probably fine.”

“I don’t have anyone.”  She turned around and went past Park back to Elijah’s house.

The guy looked hurt.  “What am I?  Chopped liver?”

Park followed her into the house.  In the living room, he got assertive.

“Ma’am, stop.  Look at me.”

She stopped in the hall and slowly turned.  Park did not like the look on her.  He’d seen the expression on other people before - like they had their own lives, whatever was going on was the most important thing in the world, and that every cop in the world could blow away and they wouldn’t care.

“You don’t have to stay here, you can do what you want.  But get a grip.  Clean yourself up.  I am not gonna let you have this hammer back unless you show me you aren’t unhinged.”

“Then keep it.  Go away.”

He nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

Iphigenia was glad to be rid of the cop.  A chance to go cry in peace.  She knew she’d never see her people again.  Everyone died or left her behind.  Her mind was spiralling the drain.  She went to Elijah’s room and walked toward the bed.

There was a big dark shape there - another woman, old, sleeping?  She had her eyes closed, head on a pillow.  But her breathing was steady and easy - not the kind of racket the average person made in their sleep.

No, Ippy did not have time for other people, awake or otherwise.  She went to the poorly maintained guest room.  It had a bunch of half-folded laundry on the bed and she just flopped across the top of them in that slimy stinking condition.

Park had dropped the hammer in a garbage can on his way back to the cop house.  Inside, he saw the poker game had ended prematurely.  Only Infante and Rickard remained, sitting on the couch and looking through a book of DVDs.

“Wanna watch a movie now?  What happened to the game?”

Rickard said, “I don’t know if I wanna watch something, really.  Just...”

Infante said, “The game just got … not fun.  We all started to get the creeps.  Maybe just ‘cause somebody mentioned it, then we all started feelin’ it.”

“Huh.  Yeah,” he looked at some kind of green stain on his hand from the nasty handle of the hammer, “It’s pretty creepy out there.”  He looked back to them.  “But that’s kinda strange.  You guys alright?”

Infante dropped the book, leaned back, and looked at Park.  “You alright?  You look like you’re sleepwalking but somebody wired your eyes open.”

Park felt like he was blushing and looked away.  “That bad, huh?  Fuck it, I’ll try to go to sleep.”  He made a few stops along the way, grabbing a harder beverage from the kitchen and looking around for more useful medicines.

There was still daylight coming through the windows and he shut the curtains as well as he could.  He took off his gun holster and hung it near the bed with care, then stripped to a tank top and boxers.  He turned off his radio, swallowed a ZzzQuil with a glass of ill-tasting rum, and settled down.

A few minutes later, still wide awake.  It was like his eyes didn’t want to shut, were made of lighter material than that.  He sat up, went to a corner and turned on a fan, then returned to bed.  The white noise helped, and eventually the chemicals did too.

***

Maddy and Jason had to hike up a very steep hill to get out of that neighborhood.  Exhausted, they took a rest stop at a lake.  It was surrounded by private residences and they didn’t know which might have some paranoid lingering homeowners with guns, but there was also a senior care home on the lake, and it felt a bit more safe.  There was just nobody in sight.  Not a soul.  Only a few ducks and geese wandered the surface, off in the distance.  Jason felt like splashing some of that water on his face, but knew it would be full of bacteria - and he still had open cuts from the crash.

“A place like this has gotta have a nurse, right?”

“Safe to say she’s out of town, daddy.”

“Ah, but I bet she left some supplies in her office, right?”

“I don’t wanna break and enter.”

“It’s alright.  Anyone would be understanding, given the circumstances.  We can’t exactly motor on over to the nearest urgent care clinic and get patched up, can we?”

“I guess.  But let’s do our best to not surprise anyone, OK?”

They knocked, they yelled, and they broke and they entered.  The place was bereft of human life.  Fortunately, as with most of their journey, there weren’t any corpses either.  Safely evacuated.  They improvised some medical treatment, ate some food, drank lots of water, and ultimately decided to call it a night.

In a room with two beds alongside each other, they laid themselves out.  Maddy insisted to leave the light on, but they lowered the blinds.

“We’re doin’ good, hon.”

“Oh really?  I don’t think so.  I messed up pretty bad today.”

“I would’ve done the same thing at the wheel.  Don’t think about it.  Listen.”

“What?”

“We should steal a car tomorrow.”

“Whaaat?  No!”

“It’s gonna be a reeeally long hike down I-5, Baby.  We shouldn’t have to do that.  You know I avoid talking about the … bad men, but do I have to remind you?  The plan was to breeze by them.  Eighty em’s pee aitch.  Can’t do that on your Keds.”

“They’re New Balance and… I just don’t think it’s good.  Everyone is going to come back, and lots of people are gonna find stuff stolen.  We shouldn’t make anyone go through that.”

“Well listen then, I got an idea.  When we take the car we write down the license plate and make, all that.  And then we use the information to find the people, let ‘em know we’ll cover the damage.  Right?”

“...I guess.  I guess so.”

“OK, snuggle up buttercup.  Let’s catch every Z and make ‘em our bitches.”

“*snrk* That’s horrible.  Good night, Daddy.”

“Good night, Princess.”

Outside the blinds, outside the glass, the night air swirled in an unnatural miasma.  The world was changing.

***

Ippy had cried herself to sleep, hugging Elijah’s clean laundry, making it filthy.  But in the night, her eyes popped open.  Somebody was mumbling.  The old lady in the other room.

She sat up, felt like her body was turning into a statue and she interrupted the process rudely.  It protested by making her movements embarrassing and stiff.  She staggered into the hall, footsteps as light as she could manage, and leaned against the wall outside Elijah’s room, listening.

The lady’s voice was quiet as if she wasn’t talking to anybody, expecting anyone to hear.  And yet, she said, ”Iphigenia.  Come and hear.”  Ippy’s body threatened to freeze solid, her eyes widened.

She went inside, feeling along the wall, not sure if she should turn on the lights.  She decided not to.  “Yes?”

“The Sibyls sing.  Will you listen and understand?”  Her body was still.  A shape.  She was breathing evenly between her quiet pronouncements.  Eerie.

“Not like I have anything better to do.”  Ippy almost choked on her words, but then she took halting steps forward, tried to bend her ear.  The old lady was so quiet.

“They never mattered.  You do.  The murderers will come to you, come to die.  They will break upon you like water.”

“What?  How?  What do you mean?  How can I--”

“It doesn’t matter.  They didn’t matter and their deaths will not matter.  But you do, Iphigenia.  If you only think of them you won’t understand.”

She was standing loose in a midnight blue void.  No light, no understanding.  “Fine, fine.  What do I need to understand?”

“The murderers opened the door.  What comes through will change the world.  But you will decide.  Your hand will decide what that means.”

“I don’t care what it means.  Not now.”

“The die is cast.  Alea iacta est.”  She moaned louder than anything she had said, moved fitfully.

“Ah, are you OK ma’am?  You need help?”

The moaning almost sounded like crying for a moment, but then faded away.  She propped herself up.  “Oh girl.  Can you help me get to the bathroom?”

“Yes.  I can do that.”

It wasn’t easy.  The old lady was closer to four hundred pounds than three hundred, but she put in enough effort of her own to make the move possible.  “Oh Honey,” she said.  Her voice had dropped to the soft tone of her prophesying.

Ippy listened close in case there was anything else to glean.  “Yes?”

“You smell really bad.  God love you, but you need to wash yo ass.”

***

Park’s skull was a house and he was living inside.  He had no curtains.  The miasma of the changing world could pour right in if it wanted to.  Maybe surface tension kept those clouds at bay.  There was a light behind them as well, like the brightest sun trying to get through.  He didn’t want to experience that sun.  He knew it was going to hurt.

He sank into the bottom of his cranium, ass wedged into the dip where the brain stem passed the bony cage.  He covered his eyes and hoped it would go away but the light was getting stronger.  He dared to look and up above, his fontanelle was opening again.

The plates of the upper part of the skull were coming unseamed, a star-shaped light streamed through.  The miasma didn’t reach up there, only that illumination.  With the photons came sound waves, rippling through his body, pinning him in place.  A ring of swarthy old white men stood at the edges of the opening, looking down on him.  They were wearing various togas or standing nude but for sandals.

“What the hell?  I’m trying to sleep!”

One opened his mouth, then another, then another.  A humming sound increased.  He began to know things.  He knew they were the Oracles and that their light was going to consume him whether he wanted it or not.

The light, the knowledge, took shape.  He beheld a vision.  At first it was a relief to escape the weird scene in his head, but he still felt the vibrations and heat passing through his body, and knew it was just a vision of the future.

He was in a throne room.  Infante was suspended from his wrists, stripped to the waist, sweating.  A pale, smiling, red-haired white woman was seated on the throne towering above him.  The throne itself was carved to resemble a camel, head snaking up from between her legs, and a massive bone crown sat above her heavily painted face.  She looked ten feet tall, wide at the bottom with huge thighs, spoke in an unknowable voice.  Every word she said caused Infante pain and he jerked on his chains.

Another creature was behind her, even larger, horned, cloaked in shadow.  And then someone stepped in front of her, holding a familiar hammer.  Park couldn’t see her face but he recognized her big black hair, her dark brown hands.

Then Infante began to scream, distracting him.  He turned around and saw the young man’s body tense, muscled, dripping with sweat.  And his face was taut, wracked.  Something terrible was going to happen.  Park felt his pain and his heart almost burst.

Snap.  Back in his skull, then rolling out of bed.  He hit the floor face first and hurt his mouth and ribs.  Did he bite his cheek?  No, but the inside of his lower lip was pressed between teeth and the floor enough to break skin.  And he needed to go to the bathroom badly as well.  He used the bed to climb up to his feet and staggered that way clutching his belly.

After finishing his business there but before cleaning up, the cop sat on the toilet, his head in his hands.  Must’ve been the ZzzQuil.  He’d never used that stuff before.  But somehow he knew that wasn’t true - knew that he’d seen the future.

“The oracles sing,” he said quietly.  “The story is already written.”

Somebody knocked on the bathroom door.  “You alright in there?”

“It’s occupied, Rickard.  Fuck off.”

***

Morning sun coming from on high in the east, streaming over the hill down into the valley of ghost cows.  The red manure haze hadn’t been kicked up yet, fog still clung to stands of trees near houses and around the road.

Blood and glass covered the road like marble.  Alongside the road, along and under.  The mud was red.  It could all be blood.  There could be so much blood that it would mean somebody was surely dead, and you wouldn’t know because the mud was so red.

Tangled roots in the embankments just teased at a notion of escape but there could be none.  They were too thin and the earth too loose to offer a sure grip.  You’d just be pulling carrots too easily, like Bugs Bunny having a good day.

Maddy was in that muddy ditch again, but it was deeper and the car was more mangled.  She was so worried about her father but he was hard to see through the spiderwebbed glass and maddening distortions of the twisted metal.

Plus she had the monster up on the road to deal with.  What had it been?  Had it lived?  Would it come for them?  She kept glancing up there, half sure she was seeing glimpses of it.  No, she thought.  She would get daddy out and he would be able to stop it.  She knew he would be OK because she had already done this before.

“Just another minute, Baby.  Gotta adjust my baby seat, haha.  That’s all.”

He just kept making inane statements of blithe positivity.  Things that didn’t even make sense.  Was he crazy from blood loss and shock?  Would he go into a coma?

“Nobody keeps a good man down.  I’m like a rodeo made outta dynamite.”

“...I’m working my way up to it.  I’ll get out of here and do a tap dance just to show you how OK I am.  Or make a sausage outta one of these cows.”

“You never knew your mom as well as I did.  She could turn a Vietnamese submarine into a pretzel with her nose.  She was my queen, Princess.”

She banged and slapped the metal, shrieking, hoping he would hear her over his mad droning, knowing he wouldn’t.  She left red handprints up and down the car doors.

Suddenly the car door popped free and open.  She fell against the embankment, looking in at her dad with a sense of fear that she didn’t understand.  He was just sitting there coyly, hands in his lap, thumbs together, smiling.

“Hi, snookums.”

“You have to… to get out...”

“I told you I could do it.  Just let me stretch my legs for a minute.”

He started pushing himself free of the driver’s seat using only his legs.  He kept his hands clasped over his belly, body leaning back in that casual pose.  His legs finally popped him free of the dashboard and began lifting him into the air.  They were too long, too thin - and covered in bark like birch trees.

Maddy woke in a panic, but settled down once she remembered where she was and once she realized she’d been dreaming.  She composed herself and dragged Jason out of bed.

As she tried to penetrate his foggy morning demeanor, she became possessed by a worry that the longer they took getting to the Beacon Hill safe zone, the more things could go wrong - the worse the situation would get.

Jason kept up his sunny demeanor, but went along with her demand for urgency.  They decided that cars from businesses or apartments would be less likely to have angry shotgun grandpas protecting them, and set to finding one.

At last they found a business with a garage that they were able to break into.  The sun outside had just finally fully risen, but they were in relative darkness.  Jason found the key that corresponded to the company car they were going to steal - a charcoal grey Prius advertising pest control on the doors - and pushed its buttons.  With a beep the thing came to life, signal lights gleamed on their lowest setting.

“Paydirt.  And the phone number for the owner is right on the side.  How do you like that, Baby?”

“Thanks for listening, dad.”  She poked around in the gloom for a button to open the garage door.  They were able to get their bodies in through a side door, but would need the big one rolled up to get the car out.

Suddenly they both became aware of a sound growing, coming closer.  A marching band?  One so big it shook the earth.  Maddy had found the switch she needed, but she didn’t dare flick it.  Instead, she gripped an exposed structural beam for dear life, half expecting it to grow into an earthquake.  She looked at her father and he looked at her face, etched in confusion and fear.

The rumbling definitely was coming from whatever was making that music.  It was a cacophony of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “March of the Gladiators,” and … Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball”?  The sound and the vibration made it clear, this band wasn’t just marching down the thoroughfare - they were a line stretching from one horizon to the next.

At its horrid climax, the sounds were from all around them, they could hear bodies and metal slapping against the outside of the garage, hear feet running over the roof.  Maddy jumped and collapsed as shadows began to fall in front of the nearest window - the players leaping down from the roof to continue their mad dash over the world.

And just when they thought it was for sure moving away, that their fear could diminish, they heard a joyous voice cry out - echoed by another a hundred feet away, and another.

“QUEEN BYMAAN WALKS THE EARTH.  THOU ART HEREBY SUBJECT TO THE AUTHORITY OF EXALTED LUCIFER!  YOURS IS NOW THE KINGDOM OF HELL!”

The voices died down, piping up again barely audible in the distance, following behind the line of the great unholy band.

“Baby, um… Oh no, Baby!”

She was collapsing under the weight of terror.  He jumped over the car hood to get to her as fast as he could.  Her eyes were wide, her mouth agape, head lolling.  Jason took his daughter in his arms, kissed her sweaty temple, held her close.

“Don’t worry about that, Honey.  It’s nonsense.  Just some… nonsense...”

***

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#The Septagram