Blaze of Glory

CHAPTER 1

There are things that run through a person’s mind right before they murder someone. Crazy things. Insane things. Among the many thoughts that ran through Buckley Adamski’s mind were two that crouched like Chinese Lion Dogs intercepting and interrogating every intuition and postulate —

Why had God allowed this?

Was He doing anything to change it?

Maggot-shaped pixels on the screen of the old-fashioned floor model television coalesced into recognizable images as Buckley lurched to his feet. He'd been watching television for hours, staring at the devastation and willing it all to be fiction. He stepped back farther to better see the screen, wobbly from both the vodka and the bombardment of doom presented in Technicolor perfection by the network. Scenes of destruction flipped and flowed past computer-racked commercials and ads for shows that would never be seen. From toilet paper teddy bears to the Eiffel Tower crashing into the Paris skyline to the panic of ten-thousand Chinese rushing madly into the ocean, the scenes merged into one other until he could only believe that it was truly an End Time, perhaps even the end of the world.

Buckley fell back a step as a line of a hundred Russian tanks fired, then exploded. Airplanes slammed into the ground. Roads became collections of abandoned cars. And the more he watched, the fewer people he saw.

The gold alarm clock his father had been given for retirement for thirty years in the Public Works Department chimed the top of the hour. The screen blanked, then was replaced by a torso-shot of a blond-haired news announcer. He'd seen this look a dozen times and each time he wished it would change. Maybe if he watched the broadcast one more time it would be different.

"This morning at 8:00 AM, the President declared a national disaster and is, even as we speak, somewhere overhead in Air Force One while below him on this great planet Earth, chaos reigns supreme. Borders are being fortified. Commercial planes are grounded. Ships are being halted off the coasts. Even in Iowa, a thousand miles from danger, neighbors are shooting each other over the tall corn. From Afghanistan to Alabama the world is in a panic."

His mother's body began to quake on the couch. She'd been unconscious for about an hour, long enough for the transformation. Buckley knew what was about to happen and was powerless to stop it. He watched the television instead, praying for the man to grin and yell 'Gotcha!'

"The Governor had seemed poised to handle events until the press conference yesterday," the announcer continued. "When he spoke, his confident words carried the day, making people sit up and feel better. He’d had ideas. He’d said everything was going to be okay. He’d said the creatures could be defeated. Scientists had almost figured it all out, he’d said. Then he began to twitch and sing as if something was in his brain. All he’d said before could have been true. Everyone could have been safe. The human race might have actually made it."

Suddenly Buckley’s mother sat up. She coughed and gagged. "Help me," she begged. So, like the good boy he'd always been, he did as she begged by placing the cool barrel of the 9mm pistol against her temple and pulling the trigger. She fell back on the couch, better for it.

"But as the Governor sank into the longing strains of an old BB King song on national television,” the announcer continued, “a single creature pierced the slick cover of his pupil and a million households watched as the small maggot tasted the air and began its dance. And the song continued on as the Presidential hopeful sang The Thrill is Gone.”

The announcer sobbed once as he pulled his own pistol from where he'd had it hidden in his lap. His slightly embarrassed smile was followed by a loud report as his brain splattered the blue screen behind him. Then the television cut to commercial.

If Buckley wanted to see it again, he only had to wait an hour, because this was all that had been playing since yesterday, over and over and over.