Only The Numb Remain (Second Teaser)
(Cover Design: Cody Sexton & Neda Aria)
Below is the fifth draft of Part One, Scene Two. Massive thanks to Paige Johnson and Neda Aria for their support and suggestions. The final version might be different, but here’s what I have so far. I hope it’s in pretty good shape. Comments welcome ☺️
For this novella, think: Thomas Ligotti’s Conspiracy Against the Human Race + Cormac McCarthy’s The Road + some degenerate Buddhist and Taoist musings.
Hopefully this keeps your interest ☺️
Part One, Scene Two
Down a road called lonesome, trees whispered in the wind, owls vomited hoots, and wild pigs scurried by.
Deliah wiped her blade. “Too quiet.”
The stench of death subsided, leaving the familiar aroma of a world frozen by death. Like a slaughterhouse butcher, Calix acclimated to the perverted wild west. The path before them was barren, untouched, its asphalt a reminder of humanity’s progression before history closed the book, resigning humanity to flames.
“Ever heard of cosmic puppet theory?” Calix sauntered back and forth, vodka bottle in hand, taking regular swigs.
Daliah signed. “Just my luck Jimmy’s Gas would have more alcohol.”
Calix smiled, patting his pack. “All stocked up.”
Deliah remained silent.
The serenity broke when a man cried out, curled up, naked, and shivering, his hair matted with blood. Vomit caked his beard.
“Ma legs,” he said, “Can’t feel em. Glad ya’ll done came by when ya did.”
Calix knelt down beside him and offered him a sip from his bottle.
“Thank ya kindly, good sir.”
“I admire your courage.”
“What are you doing?” Deliah asked.
Calix cracked a grin. “Tell me, old man, how many more?”
“Don’t think I follow, feller.”
“This is a worn-out trick, old timer.”
“Trick? Sorry mister, still don’t believe I follow.”
Calix pointed the gun at the old man and yelled, “Come out now.”
Silence.
“Show yourselves or I turn his head into a canoe.”
“Cool it, cool it, cool it,” a voice cried from bushes, maybe ten yards away. “Just me.”
“Reveal thyself.”
“You’ll shoot me.”
Calix spun the old man around, and bashed him in the mouth. He coughed up blood, and sprayed teeth. Crimson vomit painted the asphalt.
“How easy do ya want this to go down?” Calix asked.
“Hey, fuck you,” the voice said.
“Boy,” Deliah said. “It’s in everyone’s interest if you just come out.”
“So you can gun me down like a fuckin’ dog?”
Calix exploded the old man’s head, then turned toward the bush. “I gotta hunt ya’ll down, boy? Sure, you’ll move quicker. But I’ll find ya eventually. And your people. And when I do, I’ll peel your faces from bone, leaving nothing but liver colored musculatures.” He loaded another bullet in the chamber. “And that’s just the start.”
“Calix, let’s just—”
“Ok, ok, ok,” the boy said, arms raised, slowly approaching. “I give myself up, mercy, yes? I want no trouble.”
“There’s probably others,” Deliah said.
Calix nodded.
“No ma’am.” The kid said, “None at all. Just him and I. I swear to God. We ain’t eaten for, well shit man, I ain’t know how da fuck long.”
Calix motioned him forward and the boy approached. “Turn around and kneel.”
“Mister, I mean ya’ll no harm.”
“Yeah, you bet.” Calix cracked him on the shoulder, dropping him to his knees. “Deliah, search him.”
“C'mon, man. I ain’t done nothin’ to ya.”
“How old, boy?” Calix asked.
“17. Born the day the world fell.”
“You believe in God, boy?”
“Yes, sir.”
Calix took out a rusted wound pocket watch. “It’s 4:33PM right now. If your God shows up before 5:33, I’ll spare ya. Seem’s like a fair deal?”
“He’s clean,” Deliah said.
“Sir, please. I mean you—”
“I’d start praying if I were you, boy.”
“Why are you doing this?” Deliah asked. “It’s sadistic.”
“God might show up and stop me.” Calix winked at her. “Maybe I’m wrong about divine intervention. Who knows? Perhaps something out there cares. Let’s do it for science. It’s what the people at the base would want.”
“Hardy, har, har.” Deliah rested the sword on her shoulder. “We really gonna wait an hour?”
Calix stared at his watch and nodded. “Gives us time to talk.”
“Gives you time to talk.”
“Cosmic puppet theory,” he said, “isn’t unique to me. I’m sure other learned folks speculated on it with more sophistication. That said, I’ve lived in these wastes well over fifteen years. In extremis is its natural state. And being in extremis reveals the lie of agency. The lie of free-will. The—“
“Mister, please.”
“Silence.”
“Calix, for Christ sake,” Deliah said. “Let the boy go.”
Calix took a long swing of vodka. “The wastes gave me the gift of reflection. You know what I learned?”
“Would you shut the fuck up if I said I don’t care?”
“Consciousness is nature’s freak on a leash.” He grinned. “A byproduct of brain activity disjointed from the natural order. The true horror of our awareness of this place is our mortality. We are never without a reminder out here.” He paused. “That’s the real horror of an apocalypse. It’s not the death. It’s the reminders of death.”
Deliah shrugged, and scanned their surroundings. “If you say so.”
“You know, Deliah, out here is brutality unsanitized. You think I’m brutal? You think the freaks out here are brutal?” His eyes boar into hers. “Girl, you haven’t experienced civilized society with their mathematical and ideological brutality. We’ve always been barbarians.”
The hands ticked and ticked and Calix fell silence, but kept his gun aimed at the boy. The ticking became hypnotic, almost soothing, as it was the only sound the wasteland uttered besides the boy’s prayers. To the boy, each tick must have felt like infinity plus one.
A wild boar reared up and Deliah put it down.
Vultures dipped down to rip eyes from the old man’s sockets.
“Time’s up,” Calix said.
“Sir, please. I mean ya’ll no harm.”
Calix cocked back the hammer. “Whatever you’ve done, boy, it’s too late to atone.”
“Sir, please.” Sobs and snot dripped from the boy’s face.
“I’m doing you a favor. Trust me.”
“Calix,” Deliah said. “Let him go.”
The shot rang out, echoing through the wastes. The boy slumped over, and Calix waited for a descent of men that never came.
“Had to be sure,” Calix said. “I know these parts, I know ’em well, actually. In the woods, there’s an abandoned cabin I used to hide in. It’s getting late.”
Deliah asked, “Are you really that numb?”
“Only the numb remain.”
“Calix…”
“I once saw a group of men murder a woman. Of course they gang-raped her first, then cooked and devoured her flesh. They wanted to consume her soul.” He paused. “Months after the collapse, I witnessed a woman rip a fetus out of another and devour it like pork ribs. I’ll never forget what one said: No meat is as tender as a baby.” He holstered his revolver. “I’ve bled the wastes from East to West. Never ended someone who didn’t deserve it.” He paused. “Humanity’s outlived its biological function, though I doubt it had any to begin with.”
“Of all people, why volunteer to escort me? Why not remain at the base? You never answered me.”
“There’s cabin a few miles in the woods.” Calix lit another Blackwood, and gestured down a thin dirt path through the woods. “I sense a storm.”
Shameless self promotion
