And It Arose from the Deepest Black (John Black Book 2) (4 page)

5

You won’t be surprised to hear that people lost it. A giant monster rolled out of the ocean to destroy towns. There was general, widespread panic.

Still, to me, it seemed a world away. The scenes on TV were from places 2,000 miles away.

I actually resented the damned monster. With the paparazzi finally leaving us alone and Sol gone, I wanted nothing more than a normal life, at least for a while. The Gorgol changed all that, despite being so far distant.
Everyone
talked about it.
Everyone
was freaked out. Normal ceased to exist.

Bolstered by this doomsday atmosphere, I made a decision. I was definitely going to ask Carrie out again. Not to the movies. I had to think of something great. Underage, without a driver’s license, my options were limited, which sucked. I had to be creative and go for style points.

I chose to ask her to a picnic.

Not a big, social picnic. Just her and me. I had the whole scene organized in my mind. I would pack a basket of food and stuff. I know, I know. I’d truly gone domestic. Deal with it. We do things to win the favor of someone we’re interested in. You’ve done something, too, I just know it. So lay off.

Anyway, that was the idea. There were two parks in town. Frank Merrick Park was wooded and flat, and had great baseball fields, but wasn’t terribly good for a date. Jeremiah Underly Park, however… that one had a lake. And if I could work it out — you know, get there before the families trying to do their recreational fishing and family cookouts — a few tables there overlooked the water. It was good. Like, romantic-comedy good. I was giving myself major credit before I’d even talked to Carrie. Come on, people. Work with me, here.

I walked up to Carrie on a Tuesday, between second and third period. She was at her locker, chatting with another girl, Tina Caleb.

“Carrie, can I talk to you?” Too dramatic, I know. Tina raised both eyebrows and faded away without a word. Carrie blushed. And her eyes… Okay, she just blinked. But to me, well, you know. “I was wondering what you were doing on Saturday.”

She looked at me without saying a word. Time passed. It seemed like
eternity
passed. At some point, I felt like I was watching the movie of my life, not participating in it. “The John Black Story,” rated PG-13 for occasional graphic language and sometimes death-inducing magical powers. She still didn’t respond.

I had the horrible, awful feeling she was about to shout
Why did you close the door?
The trauma of that flashback made me turn red, I’m sure.

Then finally, she said: “Did you want to ask me something?”

I blinked twice, hard. “Um, I think I just did.”

“You didn’t.”

“Huh?”

“You said,
I was wondering what you were doing on Saturday
. That’s a statement, not a question. A question is a sentence worded to elicit information, ending in a question mark.”

I blinked again.

And finally, Carrie laughed. “I’m just kidding, John.” She reached out and gave a faux punch to my shoulder. Fearing what it might do, I flinched backward. “Oh yeah,” she said. “Double-jointed.” She laughed again, and then the laughter faded, and for a second time we looked at each other in silence.

Why, oh why didn’t I write notecards or some kind of speaking prompts? I knew I was terrible at talking to girls, but I did it anyway, always unprepared. She was going to say no again. I was going to die.

Carrie blinked. Maybe fluttered. Maybe. “I’m not doing anything on Saturday, John. Why?” She smiled.

This is the point when my heart leapt into my throat. Then it bounced around and nearly choked me to death. I couldn’t breathe. Carrie Mc-Freaking-Gregor was waiting for me to ask her out.

No. It was a trap. I would ask and she would say no again. I knew it. I couldn’t proceed.

But I had to. I mean, otherwise, what? Say sorry and shuffle away down the hall? Believe it or not, that would actually be more embarrassing.

It was time.

“Carrie, I was wondering if you’d like to go on a picnic with me this Saturday afternoon. I know a nice place by the lake in Underly Park. I can bring everything, the food, the plates, napkins, utensils. You just need to show up. There are some tables there, I can make sure we get one. I’ll get a tablecloth, you know the red-and-white-checked kind, and —”

She held up one finger. “John. Enough. Yes. I’d love to.”

My mouth, which milliseconds before couldn’t seem to shut up, failed me. I couldn’t speak. Not one. Single. Word. I think I opened and closed my mouth several times. Nothing happened.

Then the bell rang. We were supposed to be in class.

Carrie looked concerned. “Oh no, my class is upstairs. I have to go — talk to you later, John.” She smiled and waved as she left. I think my mouth opened and closed a few more times, like a fish on dry land.

I couldn’t believe it.

I was going on a date.

6

The military response to the Gorgol was probably just what you’d expect: Kill the thing before it did too much damage. Some people had died, but they seemed mostly to be wrong-place/wrong-time tragedies. The Gorgol itself didn’t appear to have an active desire to kill people or even to crush buildings. But that’s what it did. And so in response, guns blazed, tanks fired, even aircraft zipped overhead, sending missiles into the stony scales of the Gorgol. None of it seemed to do much good.

The military had to be careful. As it was, the creature had smashed up most of the town where it landed. Now the counterattack was beginning to produce collateral damage. Given that our weapons weren’t having any significant effect on the Gorgol, people were getting pissed that the few homes that remained standing were being blown up.

Watching footage of the Gorgol was baffling. The creature seemed to wander in circles. Sure, it smashed the heck out of everything it encountered, but why was it doing that? Some of the talking heads on TV speculated that it was looking for something. Maybe being drawn to something. Seeing the military bounce bullets and projectiles off its hard armor while the Gorgol just kept doing its thing… well, it reminded me of my dad, from some past summer. Single-mindedly grilling burgers while absently swatting away the hundreds of mosquitoes that were dive-bombing him. Only now, we were the mosquitoes.

For days, the Gorgol plodded around, looking for who knows what. I don’t think it ever slept. Hell, maybe the Gorgol’s biological clock had a much longer cycle than our human one. It would make sense, given the size of the thing.

The monster consumed every news channel, every commercial break, every pixel online. To avoid it, Bobby and I played more video games. In which we, too, blew things up.

“Johnny, this is it, you know?” Bobby sat beside me on the couch, mashing buttons on the controller as he ducked his character behind a wall, then lobbed a grenade overhead. There were multiplayer modes, of course, but we liked taking turns at the game, one spectating and commenting while the other dove headfirst into chaos. Ostensibly, the nonplayer was supposed to be watching and figuring out tactics for his next turn, but really we just practiced our sarcasm.

“This is what?”

Bobby didn’t pause the game or even look over, just talked matter-of-factly as he continued to play. “This is the thing we need to do. The Gorgol.”

“What about the Gorgol?”

“We need to be the ones to take it down,” he said, jumping over a barricade and landing in an enemy bunker. Soldiers surrounded him, and in under a second, Bobby’s character was down, dead. As the game started loading the last save point, Bobby tossed the controller to me. It landed against my leg on the couch.

“What, because we have powers we have to do
everything
now?” I said. It sounded whiny. I know.

Bobby just looked down his nose at me. On screen, the game stopped reloading and my character stood idly, watching war happen all around him. I didn’t reach for the controller. The enemy soldiers began to move closer, and the screen flashed red as my guy took several hits. “John. Sol’s dead, so now we’re like the most powerful people on Earth, right? Do you think that happened so we could just sit around and play video games?”

I feigned indignation. “Oh, so now Bobby Graden is all about fate? Like, we have a predetermined purpose or something?”

Bobby rolled his eyes. “No, it sounds dumb when you say it like that.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know, okay? It just seems awfully coincidental that you and I — and Holly — end up with some kind of power, and then all of a sudden the world is attacked by a giant creature from outer space or under the ocean or wherever it comes from.” Shots were fired on screen, blinking red again. My character made a series of
oofs
and
args
.

“Bobby, I went after Sol because of what he did to me. He took Holly. I couldn’t sit by when that happened. But this Gorgol thing? I mean, I don’t want anyone to die, but that’s not my fight.” I reached for the controller just as the screen flashed red one final time and my character fell to the ground, dead.

“My turn,” Bobby said, swooping the controller out of my hand.

We played for another hour or so. When we finally turned off the game, normal TV popped back on screen. A special report on the Gorgol. No surprise there.

The military continued its bombardment, but more carefully, more controlled. The all-out assault had failed, and throwing everything else at the Gorgol was just wasteful and dangerous to bystanders, I guess.

Meanwhile, something had led the Gorgol back to the sea, and the live footage showed it standing in the shallows just offshore from the town it had leveled. Then, for the first but hardly the last time, I heard the Gorgol scream. It opened its triangular mouth full of large, spiked teeth and emitted a shriek that seemed like it would destroy the news microphones, and maybe our TV speakers as well. The Gorgol just stood there, facing out to sea, letting loose its verbal fury.

Then I saw why. A naval vessel, some dreadnought with huge guns, floated off the coast with the Gorgol in its sights. As we watched, huge puffs of smoke went up from the ship’s massive guns. A second later, the
whump
whump
whump
of the shells fired could be heard. Something hit the Gorgol, hard, and it staggered.

It fell. A huge cloud of dust blew up, and we couldn’t see anything. But the monster was down.

We held our breath for a moment or two. I broke the silence. “Guess there’s not much we need to do after all —”

“Wait! Look!” Bobby shouted, pointing at the screen.

The dust was thick, but something was moving. The camera zoomed in, and the black and brown shape of the Gorgol rolled over, countless pointed scales sliding past our view.

“Holy crap,” I said.

“They didn’t kill it.”

I think this was about the time my mom walked in, pushing Holly in her chair. “What’s going on, guys?”

Bobby chimed in. “They shot the Gorgol with some really huge guns and it went down. But… it’s getting back up.”

On screen, the Gorgol stood and faced its enemy again.

“This is bad,” Mom said, pushing Holly ahead of her.

You see this, Holly?
I asked.

Yes, but Johnny?
Holly said.

Yeah, Hol?

It’s like the old movies we used to watch. Saturday-morning monsters. You know, before I was… like this.

I laughed.
Yeah, it is, Hol. But a bit scarier in real life.

Her eyes were locked on the TV.

The Gorgol screamed again, a piercing cry that was part locomotive horn, part banshee cry, and several parts of something so unnatural that I couldn’t compare it to anything else. The sound was hell. And hell was pretty ticked off.

The news cameras tried to take in the whole scene, monster on the shore, ship at sea, squaring off. The Gorgol roared once more at its opponent. And then something really unexpected happened.

Something came out of the water and broke the ship in half.