“Julie just told me about it.”
It’s a headline on the New York Times site. Two people have died. A young boy in Tulsa and an old woman in São Paulo.
It’s starting.
The new Death is finally getting the hang of things. How soon will it be before he takes the thousands in comas all around the world? And then what does he want?
Candy cruises around the Web, looking at other sites to confirm the Times’s story. It’s all over the place, the first story on every news site on the planet. Naturally, my favorites are the lunatics. Fundamentalist Christians claiming it’s the Tribulation. Other, even crazier groups claiming that somehow it’s the fault of gays and unwed mothers. Techno-hippies recalculating the Mayan calendar to prove that the 2012ers got it all wrong. Conspiracy freaks linking the situation to everything from the Kennedy assassination to 9/11 to lizard-men flying-saucer bases in the center of the earth. And then there’s the hucksters, selling everything from magnetic prayer beads that cure your arthritis while mainlining your prayers to God to homeopathic cures for “the death virus released by global warming.” There’s even a black metal band in Norway that committed mass suicide so they can be the first group to play a concert together in Valhalla.
Humanity’s best and brightest step up to the plate again. You’ve got to love ’em.
An hour later, Kasabian and Vincent come in. Kasabian is in a wrinkled tracksuit and Vincent is in an ancient Resident Evil T-shirt three sizes too big. Maybe I should have taken a little more time when I was grabbing clothes at Max Overdrive.
Kasabian drops onto the threadbare sofa and fires up the TV, scowling as he zips through the station listings.
He says, “I’d forgotten how much hotel on-demand movies suck. It’s like we’re stuck in a mall in Iowa still showing Lethal Weapon 3.”
He wads up a Chinese-restaurant menu on the table and throws it at me.
“You couldn’t have taken a few discs when you came out of the store?”
I toss the menu in the kitchen trash.
“ ‘Do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you, but rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings.’ ”
“What?” he says.
“It’s from the Bible. I read it in one of those Twenty Thousand Unbelievable Facts books I found in Lucifer’s toilet in Hell.”
“Want to end the world’s suffering? Give out HiDef boxes and decent surround sound systems.”
“You’re the thirteenth disciple, Kas.”
“No, I’m Job. Reduced to an analog picture, one shitty speaker, and a cheap remote the size of a car battery.”
“You’re just spoiled,” says Candy.
“Damn right. And proud of it. These primitives don’t even letterbox their movies.”
I shake my head.
“There’s a special place in Hell for whoever invented pan and scan.”
“I think it’s nice here,” says Vincent.
“So do I,” says Candy, I think less because she likes the hotel and more out of solidarity with Vincent.
Kasabian continues to angrily flip through TV stations.
“Turn on CNN,” I tell him.
He shoots me a look, but does it.
Vincent sits up when he sees the report on the dead boy and the old woman.
“I’m being replaced,” he says. “I no longer have a purpose.”
“Of course you do,” says Candy. “Whatever that thing in the Tenebrae is, it’s not Death. It’s a monster.”