Shadowed Realms Issue 11 - The Coup de Grâce

It took Miller longer than it should have to admit that Cathy had been seeded. He was familiar with the symptoms—the abrupt mannerisms, the tantrums, the adjustments in habit—the first signs of infiltration. But it was only when she began swearing at him that he allowed himself to recognise the radical change in her personality. It could only be accounted for by the fact that she'd been hit.

Miller gazed at her as she lay on the bed, smoothed rogue locks behind her ears, and bent down to kiss her, ignoring her attempts to gnash at his cheek.

"How do you feel?" he asked, knowing he was being ridiculous, knowing he was giving in to a need to say something when there was nothing to be said.

She stared up at him. "I swear to God, I'll break your neck. Now, for the last time, get me off this fucking bed!"

Miller wiped his eyes and checked the ropes, making sure the padding around her wrists, neck, thighs, and ankles was holding out against her struggles. By tomorrow, he reckoned, she'd be a Crack-a-dawn. Her mind was practically out of it already.

"Can I get you anything?" Miller asked.

"You can get me off this fucking bed!"

He rose and left the room, closing the door behind him. The living room felt empty without her sitting where she normally sat, a laptop on her knees, frantically hammering the keyboard with two fingers because she'd never learnt to type properly.

On the sideboard, there were three black and white wedding portraits set in silver-coloured frames. He avoided looking at them and opened the drawer where he kept his pistol. He'd actually taught Cathy how to use it—worried about a Crack-a-dawn breaking into the apartment when he wasn't there—but she swore she never would.

In his hand, the pistol was compact and light but heavy with the smell of desolation. Miller stared at it before hauling himself out of his reverie, then returned to the room where his wife lay waiting for him.

The particles fell in irregular showers from some untraceable source in the depths of space. No one knew why. Given that they were only visible on a subatomic level, they were beyond the computation of astronomers. But they struck with such force that they penetrated the skull and entered the brain unnoticed, causing an eradication of memory and learning, until all that was left was a creature responding to instinctive drives, which were invariably brutal.

Miller stepped into the bedroom like a man through cement. Cathy was straining against the bonds when he placed the pillow over her face. She grew suddenly still. Five dull thuds—and she lay still forever.

He lay slouched over her body until morning, oblivious to the commotion on the streets below. The latest wave of Crack-a-dawns were going head to head with a Random Action Military squad, who'd arrived a little short of better late than never. The Crack-a-dawns would have been the people hit by the particle shower that struck Cathy. Miller was aware of the fact that reporting her condition would have enabled the authorities to prepare in advance for the consequent mayhem.

But he hadn't. They would have taken her away to a laboratory and used her in the hope of discovering some means of preventing the effects of the seeding. He knew about this because he was a research assistant at one of the labs. He was himself responsible for conducting experiments on specimens known to suffer horribly through the botched attempts of baffled experts.

The abrupt tone of the telephone wrested Miller from his stupor of grief. He'd been ignoring it for days. Now, somehow, he rose without thinking, stumbled into the living room, and hit the answer key.

"David? Is that David Miller?"

Miller said nothing.

"David, for the love of God, is that you?"

"I …"

"David? Hello?"

"Wadya want, Peaks?"

"Christ, where the hell've you been?"

"Fuck y—"

"David!" screamed Peaks. "I don't care if you're drunk. I'm pretty far gone myself, but get your arse down here. Now!"

"Go screw yourse—"

"Miller! Listen. The old man's just back from Beijing, and he's got their stuff … David? You there?"

"What?"

"It works, David. We've already tried it on some of our newest arrivals, the ones we haven't ruined yet, and I'm telling you they've made a full recov—"

Miller staggered into the bedroom and stared at the corpse that should have been alive—that he should have kept living. The blackened pillow still covered its face, and beside it, the pistol.

Loaded.

One bullet left.