Revenance

The sun was down the first day. He escaped into the sea while the island burned behind him. The waves crashed against him, but he swam harder and faster than ever while hands unhallowed reached for him. Swimming and swimming. All so blurry. Fuzzy. The pain in his skull and his next memory was waking on the western beach, His skin was a lobster red with spots of tan. Nothing stirred except the bits of debris in the street. You could whisper to yourself, but only the dead would hear you.
He looked around. Bodies, none of them was getting back up. An unmerciful sun. He walked over the sand, the soles of his shoes worn down. It had been fifteen miles of hell on foot. Off the damned highway and into the cornfields that swayed blonde tinged with red highlights. Stitches in his side. Damn, He breathed deep and took in the cure. His feet took him to the seawall. Quiet . Trails of dirty blood running down its contours. That's why he had ditched his flip-flops. Turning around, he saw spires of black smoke rising from the ocean. Someone had died on their horn. It bellowed now that he reached the top of the man-made barrier. The main boulevard here ran parallel to the sea. Across the way, an old grocery store. His stomach growled. Limping his was across he listened for any groans. No doubt he was shuffling like them now. They were hungry too..
He checked his pockets. Only a useless wallet. He tossed out the cards and ids, dumped the cash, and entered the store. It was empty, the shelves themselves were in the parking lot, and the carts, like before, were strewn about the place. But he moved toward the noodles, and grabbed the first packet of Ramen he could find, and chomped into it, chewing its plastic texture like it was a massive potato chip.
As his mouth crunched through it, he savored it and closed his eyes. Then something came out from one of the pillars of darkness under the shattered lights. A metallic crash along with an equally distorted screech overcame him. He dropped his food. The thing came forward, its eyes empty and gone; its blood was oozing and coagulating with itself on the floor. It's steps sucking up the fluids. But he moved toward it in a lunge. A second before he connected he dashed right and the revenant was sent stumbling onto its face. Ross did not turn and look. He ran. It did too. Soon it jumped him with all of its weight, and its slobbering human face was biting at him with only inches to spare. He kicked it but it pulled at him. He gave it a boot to the chin and stunned it. Then he noticed the M9 Service Pistol holstered on its right leg. He rolled past him and grabbed it. Soon he began to fire into it. But the bullet holes just closed up. Controlling the fear, he shot the revenant in the head twice. It fell after a few staggers and then dissolved into a colorless mass which diffused into the concrete. Just like all the rest. The fatigues and ammo were all that remained. He took the bullets and left the rest. His own clothes smelled bad enough.
They hid. They waited. Only at first did they frenzy. After one of them, bit you. Fairly quick. ...
You stayed out of the boarded up houses. You could smell them. The heat poured out of their bodies. He had never seen them on infrared, but he was sure they burned like desert sands against the surrounding materials. He was walking home. There were good things about the day and times. No traffic. Now the homicidal maniacs came after you on foot, instead of behind the wheel. Passing the lines of mildewed and burned wrecks, he came to the cheap motel that he had called home for four months.
The TV burned blue as he passed the two locks and entered the one room that served as his living quarters. He hadn't watched it much anyway. A stack of books was on the floor, along with a months worth of 40 ounce liquor. Evening was coming. He opened the DVD player and placed the disk in its tray. It retracted the tray, and he watched yet another old TV show about the cosmos while the generator whined and cranked in the distance. Now they started. A roar and screaming session. He turned off the TV. He could match them one better. He placed a nice death metal CD in the player and let it roar. His cat hissed. That is why he kept the cat. Sometimes she could hear them before they came, sense them, smell them, and go nuts.
Then he drank as he had almost every night for the past two months. He could hear them fighting his welded steel plates. But that sound blended with the double bass. He slept soundly for four hours. Then he awoke, drank more, and fell into a state past sleep.
The light danced offensively past the steel and blackout curtains as it did every morning. He stumbled over to the fridge and drank something meant for the human body, and then unlatched the doors to the outside.
He passed his courtyard with its large tree and its psilocybin mushrooms. Five miles later he was near the northward interstate highway and stood before the last government building with any power: the unemployment office. A few corpses lay about. One on the left was clasping a pistol which had apparently blasted through its owners head by the command of his index finger. No need to check them. They melted after they were done.
He passed through the doors and b-lined for the phones and opened the phone book in the last place he had left it. He dialed each number, and with the busy tone, crossed it off. Next he moved over to the fax machine and dialed more numbers. Between the busy tones, he caught a sound. Click click. And he saw the shadow. Turning he saw a man in a stupid suit ill-fitting his rotting fat flesh. He tapped his pen incessantly on the nearest surface, and he shuffled. A slow one, weak from hunger or running out of whatever juice powered them.
His name tag said 'greeter'. He shot him in the face twice and beat feet from that location. One the way he siphoned gas into his Jerry cans and stole ammo from the dead. Then he went to the local library. Books: old, new, it didn't matter. He took a cart and threw in everything useful. Tracking techniques. More chemistry for the bathtub brews. He reached for work on trig. He pulled it and a whole shelf of books came down with it. There was a hand reaching from across the way. A gray-haired woman with a name tag and glazed eyes, mouth spewing gore over the books. He pulled back and kicked the shelf. The hand fell and so did he. Scrambling he drew the weapon and pulled the trigger. It clicked empty so he bashed the pistol into her head until the half body stopped moving. It would buy time, but she wasn't going away. As soon as he cleared a good ten feet he could hear the hands clawing the carpet. He moved with the books in his pack. Then he saw one of the bodies in the parking lot rise with its limbs melting in the sun. Its breath was hot as he reloaded the clip. Humid, like the sick, toxic air. Tiredness washed over him as he watched it melt into the grass.
Goddamn.
The walk burned his legs. The city was derelict before all of it went down. Off in the distance industrial skeletons reached the sky with gray hands trying to claw the beauty from the clouds. The sulfur stench would still waft through the air though some of the refineries had exploded.
He turned and unlocked the steel reinforcer over the red door. He turned the key in the rusted lock.
The TV blared blue.
The music looped. He switched it to some Dido, a bit of beauty to wash off the stench. Damn what was mankind to do when all the artists were dead. Well, we had pulled through the dark ages too.
How long had it been since he had seen someone?
Nothing just bodies with maggots for eyes and roaches for cushioning.
A dark shape appeared from behind the greenhouse that he had converted from its former life as a cannabis grower to that of producing food. He raised the pistol but kept his index finger along the bottom of the slide mechanism. Silly, he thought. No one was left on the island. He knew that. But it wasn't shuffling, this being. It was moving like a person. He countered his happy thoughts with a dash of the cold water of reason.
“Hey!” the voice called.
Damn, it was a person. Damn sure not one of the revenants. Was it the booze still making him drowsy. No, it was booze not saliva. No reason to think he was hallucinating. Then it reached and pulled a blade that shone in the bits of the sun that fought through the dark coastal clouds.
“Lower the gun.”
Ross complied.
“What do you want?”
“To talk,” she answered
She. Damn, he felt lucky. It had been awhile.
“Sure.”
“You sound thrilled.”
She came into the light on the driveway. Dirty glasses, a worn set of nice clothes. A pang of recollection hit him.
“Ross!” she yelled.
“Joanna?”
“Thought you were dead.”
“I figured you were undead,” he said.
“You disappeared from base.”
“Yes,” he said. “Can you blame me?”
“No,”she said. “What happened?”
“You are welcome to come inside.”
“Good. I’ve been on the road since it began.”
Thy passed into the humid mildewed hovel.
“I had to bug out of there,” he said. “It was one of those days.”
“You could put it that way. ”
“I was in the teleportation unit as you know. We had a lot of the techs from Groom Lake. Things were getting too hot out there so we got everything. All the research was based on collocation and quantum entanglement. The experiments with particles had been successful as far back as the 90s and they had moved into the movement of objects.”
“I had no idea,” she said.
“So much for compartmentalization. Anyhow, we had all this data and were moving to human trials. Of course, all the volunteers we sent through the process ended up only being sent to the medical unit. It never worked. There was something missing. The human mind has more possible permutation of neurons than there are particles in the universe. I'll spare you the details, but it's like going to Hell and back. That day we had primed the units once more. That's when the power kicked off. Then we saw the chaos as the first of those things came upon its victims.”
“It wasn't you guys,” she said. “I know what this is from.”
“You were in the nanotech unit,” he said.
“Yes. We were mastering the microelectronics that would advance manufacturing and medicine two or three centuries.”
“I thought medical was doing something with stem cells.”
“They were. Some grievous accidents, but this wasn't them.”
“So then it was you.”
“You are too quick with the personal pronouns.” she said.
“I was under another doctor. Rosenberg, Project 386. ”
“The war criminal. The guy the ICC cited for medical experiments over in the Stans”
“Yes.”
“So what were you creating?”
“Intelligent Self-replicating machines. They have swarm intelligence. They download the knowledge and consciousness of the deceased. Without access to our computing system, they seem to have settled on parasitism. I'm only guessing at this point. They have moved to take over the greatest species of the planet: us. By themselves, the nanobots were nothing. We needed them to work together s we made sure they could network with one another. Strange anomaly that this event is. They seem to have become conscious. We had prepared for ecophagy. But this is very deliberate.”
“Extinction.”
“Yes,” she stopped. “But there is this.”
She reached in her pack and brought out a flyer. Ross grabbed it and glanced at it.
“Neutron bomb.”
“Tomorrow at noon. We are the only ones that can get out and let them know.”
“So the question is how.”
The evening had fallen outside.
“Tomorrow will be a long day,” he said. He tossed her one of the forty ounce bottles.

He left the apartment for the last time. The cat was tucked into his pack with only her head poking out from it. The rain had come heavy and pelted them. She reacted by recoiling inside the backpack. 
“They'll probably follow the neutron bomb with a nuclear air burst,” Joanna said. “It would be the easiest way to deal with them.”
“I'm surprised they haven't already,” he said. “Any idea how far this is gotten?”
“No. No more than you.”
She pulled a brown cigarette from her pocket. Ross's eyes grew large.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“They cover our smell. Try it,” she lit up and handed him one.
“Ill do this on trust.”
They moved down the main road, dashing between vehicles in a crouched position. They came near a resale shop. Rape Crisis read the sign, right next to the unemployment office that he had been visiting daily. 
“I have to change,” she told him.
“Now,” he asked.
“Of course.”
In ten minuets, she emerged with a pair of boots and a blue dress. Absurd.
“Alright let's go” he said.
They passed near the overpass which loomed an unforgiving gray concrete above the dying rusted hulks of buildings and gutted husks of machines.
Underneath he couldn't see. Bats flew and chirped right overhead. He ducked,. Rabies was a bad rap even now.
“Skiddy?” she laughed.
Rustling from above. A man appeared from directly under one of the nooks decked in the worst rags. The kind of man you could smell from ten feet away. Ross trained his gun without hesitation.
“No!” she stopped him. “Still human.”
“Spare some change?” the drifter asked.
Jonna handed him a cigarette and he shuffled back toward his box.
Ross blinked and continued in the early morning sun. The humidity soaked his flesh.
Ahead loomed a consumer mecca. Damn.
“Wait. That will be full of them.”
“It's the only way. We don't have time for a detour.”
“Hope your cardio is as good as mine.”
They began to run for their lives.

The crowd of undead followed them the entire way, not sweating, not complaining, not stopping. A flash mob of mindless hungry. Turning and shooting. Soon they gave up and just ran.
They blew past the destroyed fence. Having been there many times, they knew that the rusted hangar was only a cover. Ross loosened the hatch on the manhole like airlock. She dropped down first, like firefighter down a pole. A second before following, he looked up to see three of them rush him. He climbed using the rungs on the ladder and pulled down the hatch with him until he met resistance. One of the hands was crushed under the steel weight of the door. Another gripped and pulled. He pulled the M9 and shot it. The bullet ricocheted and hit him on the side of his eye. He held on. Pulling himself with his one arm, he gripped with the other and tightened it.
“Come on!” she shouted at him. He slid down. The grunts came through the airlock. He followed her, running into the depths of the nano lab.
“Dammit!” she said as they came to a large titanium door. “Iris scanner.”
Ross turned around wordlessly.
“Where are you going!”
“Getting an iris.”
 The nearest body was twice his body weight. He tried to drag it. Dead weight.
He turned it over and cut out the right eye with his bowie knife. Joanna Turned away from the sight. But the door chimed and opened.
“Here it is,” she said.
“Where are the codes?”
“His desk.” she said. “Ross you are bleeding.”
“Self-inflicted. I'll live,” he replied. “Just get the codes.”
“Aye!” screamed a voice. “Stop where you are.”
An old man stood up from behind a desk. He held an AK-47 with a huge drum magazine. No way he could pull any gunslinger moves and take him out.
“We just need the codes!” Ross yelled.
“Need? I don't care about that.”
“Doctor, please, we just want to get out to the rigs. We know the soldier are out there.”
“Ah, the little green toy soldiers will save you. When will you learn to trust reason Joanna.”
“Rosenberg, what the hell has happened. I thought you were gone.”
“Silly girl.” he turned the weapon at Ross. 
“Stupid man, don't move anymore.” Ross complied.
“I'm responsible,” Rosenberg said.
“You always were” Joanna agreed.
“I released them, once I knew what they were.”
“What!” she screamed.
“The closest we have come to AI, was self-replicating computer viruses. I had to further the development of consciousness. As an experiment, I released them,”
“Goddamn,” Ross said.
“Now isn't the time to blaspheme,” Joanna said.
“Aren't you Jewish?” Rosenberg laughed, the gun made its way to Joanna then back to Ross.
“Man is something to be overcome,” he said. “It is the destiny of the flesh to die. The artificial intellects will preside timelessly over humanities' demise.”
“Madman” Joanna protested.
“Atoms, working together. It will be a conscious universe. We won't need a damn god. We have created him. When the machines created their religion, I would be their fleshly demiurge.
“No,” Ross said.
A vent shattered downward onto Rosenberg. Ross tackled Joanna just as a burst dashed towards them. A black shape came upon Rosenberg and held him. The man choked him with his own rifle as he drew a knife and plunged it into his neck, quickly sawing into it like it was shop-wood needing refitting. The guguling was all Ross could hear as he looked up, still shielding Joanna.
The man stood like a painted wraith. 
“Who are you!” Ross demanded.
“Most every mechanism capable of catastrophe has a failsafe. In that case, consider that failsafe me.”
Ross stood, hands in the air.
“Don't worry about that. I can take you to the Rigs. You two are valuable. I've been here before, though you may not remember me, I received the treatment.”
“Then how,” Joanna asked as she stood. “Are you not one of them?”
“Interference. I am the fruit of all your research, to say the least.”
“How did you get in here?” she asked.
“I unleashed a chemical device into the air intakes and triggered security. Opened the escape mechanisms. Once past the first layer I climbed through the air vent to find our friend here. I was triggered once certain members of the Franchise inside the project alerted the Pentagon that this man was going overboard.”
“Just call me Failsafe,” he replied. “They will be here soon. We have to go. I suggest you follow me.”
“Why are we going down?” Ross asked.
“Tunnels.”
“Tunnels,” he asked
“Yes.”
“I never knew of any tunnels.” said Joanna.
They passed down several levels, via ladder. When they got to the bottom, a corridor with long low green chemical lights seemed to stretch forever. He couldn't make out light at the end of it. Bathed in sick green light, the things screeched and moved with that danse macbre jerk, picking up speed. Ross aimed his weapon.    
“No,” said Failsafe. “This tunnel goes underwater. Your weapon could rupture it,” he said as he produced a pistol with a long suppressor. He fired into them, missing none of them; never having to shoot them twice.
The walk was a hard five miles. Coming to the end, Failsafe stopped at a hatch and tapped the communication button as if he were buzzing a friend's apartment.
“Alright, soldier, hurry up here. Few minuets until the air burst. The island was hit with the neutron weapon already.”
“I won't miss the second episode of this show.” Failsafe smiled and unscrewed the hatch, moving up the long ladder first. Ross and Joanna followed. Reaching the last rung Ross pulled himself into a metallic hallway.
“It's a rig,” Failsafe said. “Keep it coming.” 
Strolling at an easy pace to end of the corridor, past heavily armed guards and beaten down civilians, he opened the door to the outside. The cool sea air chased off the stale air that stunk of oil. Ross was soothed by the sensation as it collided with that slimy layer of sweat he had grown used to. Just as he was beginning to enjoy the orange glow of the sunset over the ocean, light in the sky overcame it. Shielding his eyes, he heard the air burst consume the island.