Note: I’ve been only using my computer for about a month now. I’m not too tech savvy; I actually hate the internet. But I’m lonely, and this bunker I’m hiding in doesn’t exactly have a lot to do besides occasionally turning a crank to keep the lights on (my computer runs off a separate, fuel-based generator). I finally got my house Wi-Fi to finally connect to my PC in the bunker after a month and, I will admit, I see the appeal to all this web and social media stuff. But whilst I’d love to explore the internet and look at cute Asian girls dancing to music I don’t understand, my stash of jerry cans ran out and my generator is on its last legs. I’m going to eventually have to go back out and hopefully not die to that fuck.
I’m getting a bit ahead. Let me start over.
I was part of a biker gang in Alberta, Canada. Just over the American border. “Darker Hearts” we called ourselves. We were about 50 crooks, cutthroats and crazies, all united by the smell of gasoline and the sound of a revved motor. Drug dealings, protection money and the occasional, very rarely, motorcycle accidents - the works.
Police didn’t like us, obviously. But we’re elusive, and they can’t keep up with us. They’ve tried, oh believe me they tried. And it’s not like we couldn’t fight back either. One of the people I knew, Garry “Gravedigger”, once shot a cop in the stomach with a shotgun.. A shotgun! He got life in prison and the cop (somehow) survived. But still, it’s hard to know someone who survived a shot to the gut, but it’s even harder to know someone who pulled the trigger. Now, unfortunately, the group has been unwillingly disbanded, so we’re not taking in any new recruits. But it’s fun to reminisce on old times.
As much as I made a good pitch for you all to think I’m the lowest scum of society, I do just want to admit that we committed mostly small crimes simply for the status. In fact, you give one of us 15 bucks and a pack of beer, you’re basically the new leader of Darker Hearts. That takes me to the start of this story. It was me, Johnny, and another man, Darryl, I think his name was. We were on our bikes just outside one of those usual rundown bars in the forest. We was waiting for a fourth friend who refused to leave until they had a girl around their arms. So we were just sitting there, the 3 of us alone, the sun was covered by gray clouds but there wasn’t a drop of rain on site. 3 engines silently revved, the smell of beer, steak, and gas filling our nostrils and a taste of lead in my tongue as I talked with Johnny about the war in Ukraine and Palestine and shit. Suddenly, a boy, not a man, a boy, emerged from the dirt path leading to the bar and towards us. Now, I was focusing on political bullshit with Johnny, Darryl was looking out at the birds and wilderness when he turned to our direction and saw the kid. His eyes locked onto him, curious.
Eventually, I noticed his gaze, and Johnny, too, and we all looked at the child standing among us. He was fair-skinned, and seemed no older than 16. He wore yellow and black. A yellow sweater vest with a black long-sleeve shirt underneath. A black belt(The ones you wear in karate class) with black sweatpants and yellow “Jordan’s” or whatever slang you young kids used to describe that one shoe brand with the man jumping on it. He wore a yellow, transparent, raincoat that covered his entire upper-half of the body, aside from his head, where he had the hood down. He wore a black bandana and a yellow cap inverted. It started to drizzle.
“Hello.” The kid spoke in a calm, damn near innocent tone, and he waved the same way a child half his age would.
“You lost, little one?” Darryl asked, he was always good with the youth.(DO NOT LET HIM NEAR YOUR CHILD)
“No, I just want to ask some questions…”
Johnny was looking past the boy, for his parents, I assume. The bar was adults only, and there wasn’t civilization for at least another mile, at least to another adults only bar owned by another biker gang. We were planning on trashing that place but one of us was too horny to not want to bring a feminine companion.
“Do you guys have any gang-affiliations?” The boy asked, he leaned his head forward, expecting a yes or a no from Darryl. But I butted in.
“Who’s asking?” Sternly, I asked.
“Well, me, of course!” as if the answer makes his motives any clearer.
“And why do you wanna know?”
“Well… If you are part of a gang. I would want to join you!”
Johnny laughed at that statement. I held it in.
“You being serious right now?” Johnny asked sarcastically, “You’re out of your league, kid. Now fuck off before something bad happens.”
The kid in yellow was taken aback. “B-but I’d make a really good fit!”
I could see Johnny open his mouth, possibly to threaten the poor boy away, but then the kid continued.
“I can kill!”
And we all laughed. For a good while, the kid was clearly getting the sign that he wasn’t being taken seriously. I mean, how could he? What kind of pitch was that? He can kill?? Really??? The laughter subsided as Johnny and I wanted to start to take things seriously ourselves. This kid was entertaining but now his presence is annoying us. Darryl, on the other hand, had some other ideas… The rain had started.
“Alright, kid, I’ll humor you-”
“No we fucking won’t.” I said back, cutting off Darryl, “Fuck. off. or I’m taking your sweater.”
The boy raised his hands in surrender and pleaded “No, please! Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it! I make good on my deals, I swear!”
I was about to get off my bike and give this kid the beating his father never gave him until Darryl butted in.
“No, don’t. Let’s have some fun with him. He’s clearly adamant.” Darryl was smiling. I turned to Johnny for his opinion but he looked past uninterested with this child and basically didn’t care what happened to him so long as he was gone. I relented too, and snuggled myself cleanly back onto my motorbike.
The boy noticed, and a small wonder walked across his eyes.
“Alright, kid.” Darryl said, “There’s another bar similar to this one a mile down. You can kill, right? I want you to kill all the men there. And the men ONLY. No women, you understand?”
“Yes, I swear, I make good on my deals!” The boy was so joyous. All Johnny and I could do was look at Darryl with pure disgust. This man was going to send an innocent child to their death(great with kids). Darryl was smiling, he knew neither Johnny nor I would do anything to stop him, it would get the child off our backs and would also anonymize us of any wrongdoing. It’s not like we told him our gang-affiliation or anything. There’s 5 different biker gangs in our area, and our main rival wasn’t large enough to start a war with all of them.
“I’ll be back, wait here for a second!” The boy said.
The boy took two steps back, flipped his cap forward, covering his eyes, and put his hoodie on. As he slowly crouched down, a thick, cyan, crystal-like substance emerged and tore out from his lower legs and onto the ground, almost conjoining them. All 3 of us looked in awe. It was pouring rain now. And as the rain poured heavily on our heads, I instinctively looked down to shield my eyes from the water. But that’s when I noticed the black, wilting grass. I looked up, at the same trees and wilderness that which Darryl stuck his eyes on, they were wilting in real time, as if their life was being sucked out of them.
I looked back at the child again, we all were, and he leaped at least 4 stories into the air. The crystals I once thought to have had rooted him down had instead actually brought some debris up with him as well. At the same time he reached his peak height, his wings grew and expanded. Large, angelic, cyan crystal wings that spanned twice any wingspan any man could have. He spread his arms out, and he looked like an angel ascending into the heavens, his wings radiating with a glow that made the passing raindrops dance.
And then he damn near broke the sound barrier.
I covered my ears and closed my eyes and pointed my face to the ground as he launched himself in the direction of the other bar. It was only after a moment when my temporary deafness faded, that I finally looked up, Johnny and Darryl were just as dazed as I was. Johnny seemed pissed but relieved, and Darryl seemed scared. I was just plain pissed.
“What the FUCK did you do, Darryl!?”
“How was I supposed to know that he would do… That?” And Darryl pointed at the position the boy was previously at in the air.
As the screaming match between me and dumbshit Darryl was about to start, Johnny revved his engine. Darryl and I looked at him with confusion.
“This is fucked up. We fucked up.” Johnny said as he started to move out.
“Where are you going?” I asked, the monsoon of the rain clouding my words.
I couldn’t hear a response back, but if I were to infer from what he tried to reply with with Johnny’s character, he probably said “The fuck out of here.” And Darryl and I both joined later.
Fast forward a day, and the local news station displayed our mistake on live TV.
It was a gruesome scene. Though the outside of the bar was only shown, guts and organs lingered on the entrance, blood cried from every window and several, human-shaped, black bags were lined up outside alongside several police cars and ambulances. All the trees and bushes in the background looked as though they were trying to uproot themselves and run.
No fingerprints, no cameras, only jagged, cyan crystals were found. Beer bottles, pipes, guns, a whole semi truck and a grenade were reported to have been used. That boy didn’t keep his promise, either. Everyone, men, women, everyone was dead. Nobody was spared. Cops had nothing, either. The horrors that happened in that pub could not be reenacted with an entire separate gang, and it sure as hell wouldn’t explain the crystal residue.
I turned the TV off. I sat alone on a shared couch with 4 other roommates, all part of Darker Hearts. They all left because a big meeting was occurring at a gym and I couldn’t come because I felt sick that day, and I had every right to be. What the fuck was Darryl thinking!? No. What the fuck was I thinking? Like it or not, Darryl saved my life indirectly. If I had tried to get physical with the kid, it would’ve been Johnny, Darryl and I on the news right now, with crystals jutting out of all our orifices. Darryl atleast redirected the horror to another bar and spared us a day.
I was pondering 101 things. And the telephone rang. It was a simple walk over and as I answered. My heart dropped.
“You didn’t wait for me.”
The boy’s voice was heard, but faint moaning sounds could be heard in the background. I didn’t know what to say. What was there to say? “You didn’t keep your promise, either”? You think that was going to quell him, get him to realize he fucked up and never come back? I said nothing, so he kept talking.
“I couldn’t find you guys so I asked for directions.. Apparently your rivals knew you just as well as you knew them.”
My heart was palpitating, I really was sick.
“I got Darryl, I got Johnny, I was hoping for you, too. Guess I gotta look a little harder..”
And then the moaning became unsettlingly apparent.
A goddamn harmonic musical of agony being screamed through slashed, pierced, and torn lungs. With people begging for help and the crystals acting as a cruel instrumental to the choir moans of souls soon to fall to hell.
“But thanks for answering my call. I can track you down now-”
And I hung up.
It wasn’t exactly the end of the world, but it was soon going to be the end of my world. I rushed to the secret fallout bunker my dad and I made during the cold war. It was small, meant for only 3 people, and had approximately 1 years worth of energy through a fuel-powered generator (and other basic necessities). Alas, times have hit the poor generator girl hard and I’m barely making it halfway to the expected power outage.
He hasn’t found me yet, thankfully. Originally, I wanted to use the internet in hopes of tracking his movement via the news but I thought that if he could find me via a phone call, he could find me if I connected my computer. I installed my computer some time after my father died in 2010, old, bastard, I know. I assume he can’t find me, I mean, it’s been 5 months.
By the way, how the hell is there no international coverage about this already? I searched everywhere, and I can’t see shit about what happened at the pub or gym. Either he’s good at bribery or something happened to the news sites covering this. Neither sound good and I hate the implications of both more.
By the time the 6th month rolls around, I’ll be completely out of gas, and the last of my sanity. I need to head out and get gas from my motorbike or anywhere else if I plan on staying here any longer. I know that kid might be long gone now. But the hairs on my neck haven’t rested for 5 months. Somewhere, in my soul, he is still here, he is waiting for me. To die by his cruel hands or by the cruel passage of time. He can outlive me, he can wait for me to starve, there’s nothing I can do.
This is my final moment before I head out. I thought if I’m going to die, I might as well just record whatever’s left of me and post it here. Thank you for reading.
My name’s Jesse.