The rushing cracked pavement was entrancing as they drove under the midday sky, the line straight for a few miles, through a beautifully ruined city no one remembered. Well... there was no one to remember it. And the two men in the black 1971 Ford Taunus didn't care much for what it was before. The sun was high in zenith and the pavement shimmered in homage with radiant heat. Johnnyboy let the wind smoke his cigarette while his hand hung through the broken car window. They have been going on for days, always heading west. No maps, no way of navigating except for the sun and stars. They knew about the time warp, of course. And Rock Roger set them on the final course just before his main circuit died. Gave them very few clues, but enough for them to find the Radio Tower. And it was visible for a while now, on good days, if you found elevation. The high tower that made everything vanish. The high tower that wiped out humanity.
What was left of it were freaks and losers.
Frank was walking a crossing, carrying a bag of goodies. Where he got them only god knows. But Frank was content. All the way up until a speeding car mowed him at the knee. He missed the windshield and rolled to the side, grabbing the ledge of the open window.
Johnnyboy smashed the butt of his gun on his fingers "Let go Frankie." The big purple man looked up with droopy eyes. Johnnyboy pointed the barrel at the purple giants head. "Let go." And so the giant did. Frank rolled and skidded for a few more yards before stopping. Neither of the boys saw him get up. They come upon a roundabout and took the uphill slope that took them onto the wide street, it's sidewalk bordered by fragrant trees. They saw the tower on the far end and Bigg stepped on the gas. For the cause. For humanity. And if all else fails, for some shits and giggles.
Ghosts appeared on the road. not too sudden, just phasing into existence. Same time, every day. The car went through them like a puppy through a pile of leaves, distorting the image of the specters as it passed through. The breeze the ghosts left behind was deathly cold and in spite of it being hellish outside, after only 2 ghosts passed him, Bigg decided to try and avoid as many as he could or risk freezing with the rest of them.
"We've been traveling for days man."
"Yeah. Almost there."
"Frank beat us to it."
"Sure did."
"Think he'll cause trouble?"
"Sure will."
"Shit."
The trees gave off a scent that Johnnyboy never smelled before. But it gave him a moment of peace, something he hadn't truly felt in a long time. He leaned his whole head out the window and onto the airflow just as Bigg went through one of the ghosts. His brain froze, giving him that momentary headache that went away when you squeezed your eyes real hard. Johnnyboy said nothing. And as he opened his eyes again, the world was bright and the smell was intense. Johnnyboy could have sworn he heard the laughter of children in the distance, a thing he never really heard before, but knew in his heart that's how it sounded. He could see shimmering shapes walk down the street as if the town was in the middle of a carnival. Frank used to tell them stories, long ago, before they found out the truth, before they ran away. He smiled. Another ghost went past. Big barely missing it. Johnnyboy closed his eyes again, not from pain, but only to enjoy the calm.
They will be at the tower soon.
Frank told them all the fairy-tales back then, of how the world was filled with people, living in peace and prosperity, filled with overwhelming joy. Some of it was truth, for there is always truth in fiction, it's where fiction finds it's footing. Humanity, as per Frank, was climbing towards paradise, seemingly unstoppable. An ancient story, ending in divine judgment. For when the chrono-transmitters were turned on in an attempt to bag a little more time for human endeavor, a flash of a thought was all it took to cut the climb short, casting said humanity into hopeless oblivion. People became ghosts, stuck in time, a fair price to pay for trying to steal it. Eternity for eternity. And the world stood motionless. The only survivors of the end of the world were Bigg and Johnnyboy. Frank always told them it was cause they were different, blessed, holy. But they found it to be otherwise.
As it goes, fate has a weird way of bringing the chickens home to hatch. A man named Shane appeared out of nowhere one day, asking for bread. Frank would have killed him on the spot, but the boys jumped at the opportunity to have someone else at the fireside, another creature from the stories they heard for so long. Shane got bread. The boys got a new story. Shane got a bullet to the back of the head. The boys got the book. Frank didn't know. But he already taught them how to read and he did too good of a job. The two hid every night, reading the old man's journal, written in neat typewriter format, recollecting the times long past and those that came more recent. And the towers. And the experiments. Eventually, they found out why it was them that were left alive. Those that have died at the timeless moment just before transmitters first started working were instead returned and allowed to live. Not for long, as their broken bodies couldn't stand still being used. So they wandered until they broke apart, the inevitable end taking them all a second time. But not Johnnyboy and Bigg.
They were caught at the edge, leaving the place of the living at the exact opportune moment when the living were trying to push away the world of the dead. Two babies, born losers, in the right place, in no time.
They were carefully nurtured by a soft-hearted monster that had been as much of a loser as they were. A monster, once a man, that was at the only point where the transmitters had no influence at the time of the catastrophe. Shane's book explained that the only point where it could have happened was at the switch. It was Frank's hand that pulled the trigger. It was Frank's that doomed the world. It changed him in more ways than one, it must have, as it was obvious he wasn't human anymore. And as far as the boys go, it drove him mad...
The car pulled to a halt at the end of the road. A gigantic mile high tower stood in front of them. They went inside and their steps echoed in the concrete main hall of "Doomsday High Rise". Ghosts phased in and out of the corridors as the two men walked by. The elevators were out, so they took the stairs. The entrance to the vault was cracked and decaying and they made short work of it. But not short enough. As the blast shattered half of the hall around it, they saw, through the settling dust, a form at the end.
"Don't do it boys." rang his voice down the corridor, calm but stern. "You don't know what could come of it."
The men said nothing and ran into the room. The stasis field made them feel sluggish, as if walking through a tub full of oil. Bigg set a bag down, Johnnyboy opened it. There was a contraption in there. Johnnyboy wasted no time. He pressed a button and a timer was started. 5 seconds.
Frank rushed in, his movements far less hindered as he pushed Bigg out of the way. 4 seconds. Johnnyboy fired his gun. He could almost see the bullets. Frank too. 3 seconds. But he couldn't move as fast. They were all too close to the source, the chrono-transmitter that sat silently in it's tank of coolant. Three bullets went through Frank, but he grabbed Johnnyboy and pushed him deeper in, towards the tube. Bigg jumped the purple giant. 2 seconds. And then time stopped for all. The three freaks infinitely slowed in time, in an eternal grapple. None of them understanding what is going on, years passing in a flash and a second passing in an eon all at the same time. 1 second. A teardrop left Biggs eye. A smile distorted Johnnyboy's face. Frank gasped for a few millennia.
And then the bomb went off. If hell could make a Broadway play happening on Earth, these three creatures burning in a brilliant nuclear flame would be the opening act. Slowly being vaporized, feeling no pain, but watching themselves vanish, the boys and the monster were gone in a time it takes a galaxy to wink out it's last star. But Johnnyboy smiled forever. For as the blast finally reached the fine glass tube of the chrono-transmitter, it pushed time back into it's place.
Not a fraction of a heartbeat. Not a glide of a photon down a millimeter of it's cosmic path. Not for a moment passed and it was all over.
Ghosts materialized into people. People who had a difficult task of having to come to terms with what happened in less time it took anyone to take a single breath. Life had been stopped, for humans at least. And as they stood there, unaware they were benched for foul play, the rest of the game went along. And now that is was time in again, life had to adapt to the time passed on, adapt to the moment that was long since gone. And no one will ever know, nor sing a song of the losers and freaks, born dead, who drove down Linden Boulevard to save the life they will never get to live.
