The Unfortunate Expiration of Mr David S Sparks Read online

  THE UNFORTUNATE

  EXPIRATION

  of MR. DAVID S. SPARKS

  by WIILLIAM F. AICHER

  Copyright © 2018, William F. Aicher

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  www.williamfaicher.com

  PROPERTY OF RECONSTRUCTION

  CLASSIFIED INFORMATION

  DO NOT DISTRIBUTE

  THIS DOCUMENT RECOVERED FROM LAST KNOWN

  BASE OF COLONEL CALVIN SIMON AND

  THE ASSOCIATED INSURGENT UPRISING

  COMMONLY REFERRED TO AS

  ‘THE CAUSE’

  DOCUMENT DETAILS OUR LATEST INFORMATION

  ON THEIR CONTINUED ATTEMPTS

  TO RESCUSCITATE ONE MR. DAVID S. SPARKS

  PROPERTY OF RECONSTRUCTION

  Memorandum

  To: Colonel Simon

  From: PFC Richards

  Subject: The Unfortunate Expiration of Mr. David S. Sparks

  I regret to inform you the most recent iteration of Project Sparks has resulted in a further repeated variation of the results from previous experiments. It is our hypothesis that a corrupted file remains the primary cause of failure for the resuscitation of the system’s memory.

  As per established protocol, the attached document follows, in detail, the collapse of this fourth revision of the project, and yet another unfortunate expiration of Mr. David S. Sparks.

  Notes regarding this iteration, including variances leading to the failure as well as deviations between this and the previous three attempts are included. Should you wish to discuss the future of this project, I am available at your request.

  ONE

  OH, GREEN WORLD

  A prickling at the tip of David's nose stirred him and the perfume of earthy grass, still damp from a recent shower, invaded his senses. Drops of water clung to thin blades of green, not yet dried by the throbbing sun. In the distance a faint hum, barely audible over the breeze, grew progressively louder. He hunted the expanse of emerald turf before him.

  David rose to his feet. In every direction, as far as his eyes could see there was nothing but vacant pasture. No trees, no buildings, no people. Nothing but an open grassy arena rolling with hills.

  The buzzing amplified, a constant thrum against his eardrums until, ultimately, he placed its source. A hundred yards to David’s left, one earthen mound rose at an angle harsher than the others—a near-mountain birthed from the rolling hills. The source of the sound. It continued to swell, louder and louder until no longer a hum, nor a buzz, but an ear-splitting roar. David dashed toward the noise, the only hint of civilization in these damp fields. Up the loose rock of the innocuous mountain he scrambled, and, breaking its crest, he caught his first glimpse of The Preservationist.

  Under normal circumstances the sight of the man in the valley below would have terrified him, but lost here in the wild, any fellow human was a welcome sight. Dressed in a pin-striped suit, professionally-tailored, but now tattered and frayed, the man stopped, stared at David and grinned. David, however, overlooked this toothy smile. He was too focused on the chainsaw buzzing idly in the man’s grip.

  The stranger opened his mouth and spoke, but the rattling of the chainsaw drowned it out.

  “I can’t hear you!” David yelled, pointing to his ear.

  The man killed the blades.

  “G’day my friend,” the man said, over the slowing, rusty grind of the metal teeth.

  The man stood tall—at least six-and-a-half feet—by David’s estimate. But it wasn’t the man’s height that seized David’s attention, rather his prominent forehead—a creased wall of loose flesh on top of an otherwise unremarkable face. The dusty gray bowler hat resting loosely on his head, propped in place by his ears, concealed the rest of his seemingly bald cranium. The man’s only visible hair sprouted from his ears: wispy strands the same shade of cloudy gray as his hat.

  Still clutched in his meaty hands, the chainsaw wound to a full stop. Orange rust spots dotted the chainsaw's body. All traces of paint were worn from the handle long ago, victims of time and heavy handling. A glint of breaking sunlight reflected off the polished grip. Grungy with clumps of dirt and grease, its teeth held bits of white lodged intermittently between them. The bar supporting its steel fangs was muddy and brown, not with rust but—from the way it peeled and flaked—with what appeared to be dried blood.

  “Are you going to kill me?” David asked.

  “Well sir, that depends on who you might be,” the man replied, his voice a combination of Southern drawl and British Cockney. “Are you Progressive?”

  His finger played with the saw's throttle trigger and he stepped forward, looking David in the eye. “I asked, are you Progressive? Do you have a chip?”

  David's mind searched for an answer. “No ... No, I'm not progressive.” Sensing the man's apprehension, he added, “I don't have any chip, if that's what you're asking.”

  The stranger lumbered toward David and excitedly slapped him on the back. “Then you're a friend! Well, shall we move on?” The man pointed in the direction David had just come from, back over the conspicuous hill marking the horizon.

  “Who are you?” David asked as they walked.

  “Those who know me call me Calvin. Those who fear me call me The Preservationist.”

  “Well then,” David hesitated. “I'm still not sure what to call you.”

  “I recommend Calvin. If you were to call me The Preservationist, I'd have to prune off that pretty head of yours.”

  The man yanked the chainsaw’s pullcord, accelerating its teeth to a frightful blur.

  “Where exactly are you going?”

  “To the sea!” Calvin replied. “Both of us of course, not only me. It's not safe here—at least for long visits.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The man signaled toward the sky, waving his hands and the buzzing chainsaw in the air. “It's everywhere here. The air, the rain, the land… even the places we can't see. We spend too long here, we’ll end up dead.”

  And so, the two walked on, trudging through the wet grass, silent beneath the leather soles of Calvin's loafers, squeaking with each step against the rubber of David's sneakers. Looking down at his clothes, he recognized them as the same he wore earlier in the day, when he phoned his wife in California and heard the shouts of love from his two children in the background.

  Had that really been earlier today? If so, how did he come to be here? The blue of the sky suddenly seemed too blue. Electric. As he looked down at the grass, the blades snaked upwards, consuming his feet as they grew—reaching under the cuffs of his jeans, around his ankles and calves. Then they tugged as the roots began to retract, pulling him down into the muddy soil. Waist-deep, he reached up and realized Calvin had walked too far ahead to save him. He thrust his hand down to the ground, bracing himself to keep from sinking any further into the recesses of the earth below.

  As his hand hit the ground a rush of cool air blew along his arm. Openness hit his hand as it dropped below the comfort of his bedsheets, to the side of the bed and into the open expanse of his bedroom. Upon realizing the vulnerability his hand suffered, dangling there ready for any old monster to seize from its hiding space under the bed, his arm convulsed reflexively, returning the hand back to the safety and warmth beneath his layers of sheets and blankets. Shifting his body, he drifted back to sleep.

  TWO

  SNEAKY SNAKES
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br />   A thousand icy bees stung at David’s face. He swatted them away and opened his eyes. It was now night and a heavy rain fell. Finding himself again in the grassy field, the dirt now a soupy mud, he stood knee-deep, unable to move. A vast expanse of darkness spread infinitely in all directions. A flash of lightning in the distant clouds briefly illuminated his surroundings. He was alone.

  Unsure which way Calvin had gone, and hesitant of which direction he, himself, had come from to find himself here in the first place, David searched the landscape, desperate for any indication of which way to go. Finding none, he continued forward.

  Though he had managed to pull himself from the sucking mud, with each step he risked becoming stuck again. After some experimentation he learned he made better progress moving quickly rather than carefully. A few hundred yards of this slog, however, overwhelmed him and he paused for a quick breath, realizing all-too-soon his mistake. As he stood, bent over gasping for air, his feet began to descend into the muck, which now resembled a swamp more than virgin pasture. He tried to move forward but remained stuck, anchored deep in the ooze. There was no way he could pull free.

  Fear struck like a lightning bolt from the storm overhead. Visions of sunrise filled his mind as the sun baked soil to stone, locking his feet in place like a pair of concrete shoes. In his imagination, birds descended on his trapped body, hungrily pecking at his exposed flesh.

  The world around him exploded with light, and the loud crack of thunder brought him back to the storm, along with the realization that the stinging pecks were bits of ice falling from the sky. Still, the vision of himself trapped, feet cemented in scorched earth while crows gobbled his eyes, stuck with him. Straining with all his might, he gave one more attempt to wrench his feet free, and succeeded—well, mostly succeeded. His body lunged forward with the attempt, and he very nearly found himself once again face down in the mud. Regaining his balance, a strange sensation of wetness engulfed his feet. With a final push, he pulled his feet from his shoes, and now stood with nothing between himself and the ground but a pair of dirty socks. Deciding it better not to risk getting stuck again, David sprinted across the waterlogged countryside.

  Soon David was no longer running across a field, but wading through knee-deep water. A new fear struck him. Am I going to drown out here? But that worry was immediately replaced with one much more rational—and much more real—when something massive churned in the flood near his feet.

  He kept moving, as fast as the rising water would allow. This became progressively more difficult, however, as the water level lapped higher still.

  Lightning struck again, brightening the sky for another flash of time, and David's heart leapt as he spied his destination.

  In the distance, about twenty yards ahead, a hillside broke from the water. Rivers carved its banks, threatening a mudslide, but at this moment any land was better than the rising flood. A surge of adrenaline shot through his body at this sign of relief, only to be squashed when the thing in the water brushed against his shins, threatening to trip him.

  He plunged forward, his nostrils filling with water. Reaching out, his hands could not find any bottom. Up and down lost all delineation and his lungs burned from the frigid water he already inhaled. The urge to cough—to breathe—to pull in any gasp of life-saving air wracked his body. But even as the burn tore through him, he resisted, for had he done so he was certain he would reflexively flood his lungs beyond repair.

  Forcing himself to relax, he hung suspended in the rising water. His feet and lower body sank, and his sense of direction realigned through this simple expression of gravity. Once he determined which way was up, there was no question about what direction to swim.

  As his head broke the water's surface another bolt of lightning hit, this time considerably closer than before, and the water tremored in its thunderous wake. He coughed the water he allowed to leach into his lungs and swam onward toward the shore, his chest burning with each inhalation.

  With every stroke, the hillside drew closer. So close that even without the lightning strikes, he could see it through the downpour: a man-shaped mass crouched at the water's edge.

  At first David thought it was a boulder or an overgrown bush, but as he drew closer the form rose to a standing position. He recognized it as the stranger in the suit. David’s feet found purchase and he scrambled up the grassy incline, out of the water to the safety of land. As he clawed his way through the sloppy mess, he caught a glimpse of Calvin's widening eyes. The man reared his buzzing chainsaw into the air, sprung in David's direction and David dropped instinctively to the ground.

  Calvin crashed into the water behind him in a momentous splash, slicing the chainsaw blade down as he hit. Surely Calvin intended to kill him. Lightning struck again, showering the scene in an explosion of light. Dark streaks painted Calvin's face and clothes and the storm surge before him blossomed in a sea of crimson. A rattling sound coughed from the chainsaw's motor, and it sputtered to a stop. Calvin trudged out of the water and stood next to David, the two of them staring as red faded to pink as another bolt rattled the hillside.

  “Had an anaconda hunting you. Sizable bastard too,” Calvin’s shoulders slumped as he exhaled.

  He dropped the chainsaw, blade-first, into the ground. The motor sizzled as drops of rain continued to fall on the cooling engine. Calvin sat down next to David and allowed his neck to relax, looking downward with his chin on his chest.

  The two rested in silence for what must have been hours and waited for the rain to end. As the skies cleared and the sun began to peek its face over their hill, the path to the west showed nothing but slowly receding floods. Whereas to the east, the land continued to rise.

  I guess I know which direction we’re going, David thought as his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep.

  THREE

  A COOL GLASS OF WATER

  David rolled in his bed and peeled the sticky sheets from his skin. The bedside clock marked the time as 2:14 a.m. He smacked his tongue against the inside of his mouth, tasting dehydration, and stumbled to the master bathroom, half awake and half asleep. Choosing to avoid blindness from the light of the vanity and being woken further, he flicked on the dim bulb of the shower light. An ambient glow escaped the frosted glass of the tiled shower, filling the bathroom with enough light to effectively maneuver, but not enough to shake him from his daze.

  The water from the tap was naturally cold, though the faucet handle was set to hot. It took a while for the hot water to make its way up the pipes, and though what poured from the tap had festered in the plumbing since morning, he twice filled his glass and gulped the water down. The drought in his mouth subsided, although his stomach now churned from drinking so much water in such short a time.

  FOUR

  A HEALTHY CROP

  The world around David spun as his stomach churned. He opened his eyes to find somewhere to vomit—and was greeted with a view of a man's bottom in a soggy tailored, but tattered suit. A green sky rushed by above. He tried to straighten his body and heard a voice.

  “Finally awake, eh boy?”

  Calvin dropped David's body and he thudded face-first against the ground. David pushed himself upright and stood, rubbing his nose where it banged the sunbaked concrete of the ground.

  “Looks like you busted your snout.”

  “Bleeding, but not broken,” David replied, gingerly tapping the tip of his dripping nose. “Where are you taking me?”

  “I'm not taking you anywhere. You're on your own now. Just didn't want to leave you at the side of the lake. You never can be certain what's lurking in there … almost got yourself killed last night.”

  David searched for an answer as to what this stranger was talking about. The only vision to surface was Calvin's demented face lunging at him, chainsaw raised. The man had tried to kill him.

  David recoiled, putting distance between himself and this strange man.

  “You said something about an anaconda?”

&nbs
p; “Yes, last night. Not really an anaconda though—one of the field serpents,” Calvin answered. “They made them,” he added, nodding his head toward the East.

  “They?”

  “The Progressives. The ones in the plastic city.”

  David clearly had no idea what he was referring to and suspicion crept over Calvin's face

  “Is that where you're headed? To the plastic city?” David asked.

  “Yes sir. I have business there. I assumed that's where you were headed as well, since God knows there's nothing but death out here. You're welcome to travel with me, if you'd like.”

  And so, they traveled onward, Calvin in his dirty suit, chainsaw in hand, and David empty-handed and shoeless.

  They walked, and hours passed in silence.

  “Thanks, by the way.”

  “Of course,” Calvin replied. “What for?”

  “For helping me out back, with, what did you call it ... the field snake?”

  “... field serpent. And I think you'd do well to ask yourself if you should be thanking me or fearing me.”

  “Trust me, I've asked. The trouble is, I don't have much of a choice here. Either I trust you or wander aimlessly. At least this way I'm wandering aimlessly with someone.”

  “It's not aimless if you've got somewhere to be. Do you have somewhere to be, David?”

  “I ... I'm not sure yet,” David couldn't remember sharing his name with the man. Then again, there was a lot he couldn't remember lately.

  They both fell silent again and walked on. The field seemed to stretch on forever, although the air had taken on a new weight over the last hour. The dampness had brought with it a chill, and a steady breeze picked up against them from the East. David’s stomach rumbled.

  “The field serpent?” David asked. “What was that thing? You called it an anaconda at first.”