#FridayFlash - Lice

The predicted snow finally arrived as Burke stepped across Amsterdam Avenue and continued down West 81st Street. To his right, Burke's long-time friend, Martin Ashford, kept pace, his head swiveling around, constantly checking the streets and windows behind them. Tonight, this was Marty's job. To Burke's left, his only son, Jordan, had to move at a near trot, and Burke hoped the boy could keep up the pace—at least until they reached the safe house.

The snow fell in a white mist at first, swirling in the yellow glow of street lights as the wind whipped around. Then it fell in large, wet flakes. Somewhere around mid-block, the boy spoke up.

"Are these the houses you said are worth almost five million?"

Burke raised a finger to his lips. The boy needed to be quieter.

"At one time, they could have brought that kind of money." Burke looked at the brownstone buildings. Some of the windows had been boarded up while others were blacked out with heavy curtains. "Now, they're just glorified community quarters."

He glanced down and noticed his son looking from side to side, the boy's eyebrows pinched into frown. He could tell Jordan was trying to work it out.

"They were much better looking places back then," Burke added.

Jordan seemed to consider that for a moment, and then nodded.

At the corner of West 81st and Columbus Avenue, they cut through a small courtyard that stretched along the side of what used to be the planetarium. Now, the building was fitted with fifty-foot flat screens, each filled with their own displays. On one, a soldier stood in uniform. "Each one serve for a better tomorrow," a superimposed banner announced. On another screen, the image showed one of the first public arrests. The man, a Wall Streeter, had violated the public trust, they were told. The video showed a mob of people—their fists raised high, their faces contorted with anger. Armed police shoved the man into a car with tinted windows. The screen went black. Blocked letters told the viewers: "Equal justice under the law."

The threesome cleared the courtyard and stepped across the next street, taking the nearest entrance into Central Park. They made their way around the lake, exiting near Fifth Avenue and East 72nd Street, and Burke felt his spirit start to lift. Tonight had shone them good fortune. The safe house wasn't much farther—assuming the information he was given turned out to be correct. He hated leaving everything behind, hated leaving some of his friends, but the truth was he hated living here more. What was once the land of the free was now nothing more than a portrait of the surreal. Truth was defined as lies, lies became the truth, and the only value for human life was the service it could offer.

A quick glance up and down the street told Burke the way was clear. They crossed over. Steam rose through metal grates in the sidewalk, and rats scurried away from a rotting corpse as they passed by and into a nearby alley.

"What happened to him?" Jordan asked.

"What could happen to us all," Marty said.

"I certainly hope not," Burke added.

He noticed the dead man wore no shoes or coat. They cleared one alley and entered another, finally stopping at a metal door. A small sign read: "Mission Laundry: You Wear It, We Clean It." Burke gave a series of knocks, and a moment later the door opened. A bear of a man stepped out. The man had a bald head, a beard down to his chest, and arms the size of a wrestler. He wore a tight shirt that revealed his strength.

Burke was five-foot-eight, and he had to look up to meet the man's eyes.

"I'm looking for a piece of bread," He said. "You got any?"

"Depends." The man looked from Burke to Jordan to Marty. "What kind you want?"

"Seven grain and a slice of white."

The man looked at Burke a moment longer. "Maybe we can handle that."

Burke took a deep breath and let it out. "Is this the safe house?"

The man shook his head. "This place is only a door. You want to see the safe house, you got to be checked for lice."

Burke blinked. "Lice?"

"Man, we got to be safe. Ain't no lice gets past the door." The man reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol. "You clean, then we see about you going to the safe house."

"What does that mean?"

"Means you got to be checked out. All of you."

Burke stood for a moment, contemplating. He'd heard rumors of this, but the reality of it still hit him hard. He looked at his son—this was the boy's only chance—and finally nodded. "Yeah, okay."

Inside, the man ordered them to a room where another man with a syringe injected them with a blue liquid. He then scanned their bodies. In minutes, Burke and his son checked out; alarms sounded, though, when the man waved the scanner over Martin.

The doorman cursed. He said something about a tracking device and raised his gun. Martin stepped back.

"Wait," Burke shouted. "Please wait." He looked at Martin. "Why?"

"I had to," Martin cried. "The police threatened to kill me. No harm was to come to you, though. They promised."

Burke shook his head with disappointment. He turned to the other men. "My son and I had no knowledge of this. Please believe me."

The doorman looked at him. "You want us to believe you, then you handle it." He lifted the pistol as an offering. "Otherwise, none of you are going anywhere."

Marty begged for his life as Burke looked from the doorman to the pistol and then to his friend. He glanced at his son. Finally, he nodded and held out his hand.

In time, maybe, Jordan would understand.

#FridayFlash - The Last Stand

Colonel Shane T. Manahan stood by the rectory window, a cup of coffee in hand. One of the privates brought it in earlier, presenting it as requested—heavy on the whiskey, light on the coffee. He stared out the window and took a sip. A blue-gray light permeated the haze of fog and smoke that covered the landscape, and across the field inky shadows of trees stood like a phalanx of soldiers preparing to meet the enemy. The fighting had been intense last night. The air still carried the scent of burned out buildings from a nearby village. The morning report, detailing the casualties suffered and the troops remaining, had not yet come in, and Manahan was eager to know how the day might go. In the distance the muffled beat of snare drums could be heard, the enemy signaling its march out of camp.

"I guess today's fighting will be here soon enough," he said. "Anything you want to discuss? Any prayers you would like to offer?"

Tied to a chair, the priest said nothing. The room was adorned with only a bed, a desk, and a table with two chairs, one now occupied.

Manahan glanced over his shoulder. He stared at the hard lines furrowing the old man's brow, and then turned his eyes back toward the window. "I didn't think so."

Another ten minutes passed in silence, long enough for Manahan to finish his coffee. Finally, one of the lieutenants entered with the report. They had lost fifty-six men; now, only eighty-three remained. Hearing the news, Manahan closed his eyes. It would most likely be a short day—assuming, of course, they made it through the morning.

"Send a couple of men to scout the woods. Once the king's men are within range, we'll take the priest and march him out with the rest of our troops."

The lieutenant nodded his understanding, turned on his heels, and left. As the door closed, the priest finally spoke up.

"Don't you fear God?"

"God? Yes. You, however..." Manahan shook his head. "And certainly not the man you serve, the one who thinks he has God's favor."

"You think the Holy Father doesn't have God's favor?"

"I wouldn't know. I was talking about the king."

"But I don't serve the king."

"And yet the king's army knew to check that village and who to round up."

"And you think I had something to do with that?"

"Not me. Your own bishop said as much... before he died." The priest blanched. Manahan leaned against the wall. "You asked me, Monsignor, so let me ask you. Do you fear God?"

"My conscience is clear. I have the support of the Almighty."

Manahan frowned. "Really?" From the table he pulled the other chair over and sat down. "You know, I understand why the king and his court do what they do. Though blessed by the church, nobody really confuses the fact that they're still men, that they still rule by their own desires and needs and will pillage the wealth of the people in order to secure their own hold on power. And if that's not enough, they'll slaughter a whole village, women and children included, in order to prove that point. But the church? Unfortunately, too many people still hold fast to the idea that at least the church will do what is right. That it will feed the poor, clothe the naked, and lead everyone on the right path according to the scriptures. But what if it doesn't fulfill its mission, Monsignor? What if the very priest the people trusted turns on them? And when he tells the king's army who, what, and where—what then?"

Manahan let that sit in for moment. He stared long and hard into the eyes of the priest, but found nothing there—no shame, no conviction, no repentance. Instead, the priest clenched his jaw and stared back.

Manahan shook his head and stood. "You disgust me."

As he stepped away, the priest said, "You're just an angry man on the losing side of a bitter war. I know. I heard how you lost your wife and children." Manahan turned and stared as the priest continued. "But that was not God's fault. You can't blame Him for that."

"Make no mistake, Monsignor, I don't blame God. He's not the one who spoke to the king's men."

"You say you don't blame God, but yet you attack His church?"

Manahan walked toward the window.

"I'm not a young man anymore, Monsignor. I am not easily swayed. I admit that there is at least one priest who still lives the noble life. I have met him. I have broken bread with him. And who knows? There may be more like him. You, however, are not one of them. And as far as I am concerned, you are no more a holy man than I am."

With that, the priest fell quiet, and the only sound that filled the room was the steady beat of drums, growing louder by the minute. A knock at the door broke the silence between the two men. The lieutenant entered. He announced the enemy was within range, and Manahan looked at the priest.

"I think we're ready then," he said.

The lieutenant nodded and left the room, returning a moment later with a uniform and a pair of boots.

"These are for you to wear," Manahan said to the priest.

"And if I won't?"

"You have no choice."

The priest stared at the clothes. "Know this day, that you will stand before God. You will account. And then you will burn."

Manahan sighed. "That may be true. But when the priests side with the king, when they twist and bend the scriptures to serve their own interests instead of God, then we're all damned to hell. You're just going first."

#FridayFlash - Truth or Consequences

Everyone had finally accepted that it wasn't going to work after all.

Not that it came as any surprise.

Staring at the road ahead, at mile marker 71 passing under the glow of his headlights, John remembered the day he told them—told them the truth in unambiguous terms, as a matter of fact. It wasn't going to work, no matter how much Dr. Zanthur promised it would. The crazy man was the one who had actually started the whole thing and didn't even realize it, so how could he possibly be the one to undo it? The other doctors wouldn't listen, though. Even with the calculations and empirical data on his side, they couldn't see it. Or wouldn't. Blinded by their own dreams of finding the cure and the prospect of global notoriety, they refused to listen, refused to even entertain the notion that John knew more than they did, that he actually understood how history would repeat itself, how the whole process would play out. And besides, he was only one voice against more than five hundred. With those numbers, they considered his opinion more of an outlier than a real possibility, so he needed to just shut up and sit down. The cause of science was far greater than the cry of one man.

As it turned out, their actions affected more than just one, though.

Ahead, a large road sign glowed green against the backdrop of a blackened canvas. Truth or Consequences, it announced, and a white arrow pointed toward an exit ramp. Under the large sign a smaller one labeled it as the "City of Elephant Butte." John smiled as he passed by, exchanging the interstate for Business Loop 25. As a kid, he and his friends made fun of that sign and of the city itself. Sure the U was long, but that didn't matter to a group of six graders. Why would you want to live in a place like that? they often asked with a cackle. And though the high school claimed the tiger as its mascot, to John and his friends, and to most everyone else who didn't live there, the town and the team would always be the back end of a pachyderm.

His smile faded as the business loop took him past houses and buildings left dark. Even the towering street lights now stood blank, two rows of silver ghosts illuminated only by the beams of his headlights.

"It's the cure to end the spreading disease," Dr. Zanthur proudly announced. John could still see him on the television, flanked by the President and the leaders of both the House and the Senate. "No longer will the world be held hostage to the sickness of the few. With this serum," he added, and held up a vial of orange colored liquid to emphasize his point, "the entire population will be set free."

But it didn't set anyone free. In time, just as John predicted, it had actually enslaved the masses. The blaze of a new disease flared up on the coasts and quickly spread inward. Images of crazed lunatics and street mobs, their eyes pasty white, their mouths dripping with blood, filled the television sets. From New York to St. Louis, L.A. to Denver, and all points in between, the world imploded as fathers turned against their sons, mothers against their daughters, each devouring the other until almost everyone had been infected.

There was only one salvation to the madness, and John saw it firsthand in the footage of an execution interrupted by a prison riot. With a slight nod of the head, the warden gave the signal and the medic administered the first of three injections, then the second. Finally, as the prisoner slipped into a sodium thiopental-induced coma, the medic pushed a lethal injection of potassium chloride through the IV. It was then that the door to the execution chamber flew open. Screams pierced the air as a small band of monsters entered and attacked the warden and medic. More screams as another wave of animals found entrance into the witness room. In the end, the only one left untouched was the dead prisoner. One figure actually stopped and sniffed at the corpse, as a dog might a bowl of peppers, before it turned its nose away and attacked someone else.

In the heart of the darkened city, John turned right onto East Riverside. In another mile, he reached the clinic, a veterinarian's office just off the Rio Grande. He had been there before as a kid, the time his father took him along to put down Roxy, their aged and failing Golden Retriever. His father said it was the humane thing to do. At the time, though, he didn't see anything humane about it.

In the parking lot, with the brick face of the clinic white-washed by his headlights, John put the gear in park and turned off the engine. There wouldn't be much time, he knew. Like sharks smelling blood in the waters, creatures a mile away would sense that something new had just entered town.

He reached over and shook the shoulder of his passenger.

"Wake up, Billy," he said and shook the shoulder again. "We're here."

The boy raised up and looked around. "Dad? Where are we?"

"At a town close to where I grew up. Truth or Consequences."

Billy looked out at the building. "What's this place?"

John looked at the sign on the wall: Emergency Vet Clinic. Inside, he wouldn't find any potassium chloride, but he would most certainly find enough pentobarbital and sodium thiopental. It wouldn't be pretty, but he was tired of running against a force that would eventually find them. At least this way it would be on his terms.

He took a deep breath. He could be honest with the boy, but that wouldn't make it any easier.

"Salvation," he finally said.