“Siousxie and the Banshees?” Cary asked, holding up a stark-white album cover.
“No,” Darryl pulled out a record from his collection, “Run-DMC?”
“Nah,” Cary held up something red and hazy, “The Cure?”
“Mm-mm, Grandmaster Flash?”
“Eh, it’s a bit silly. How about David Bowie? Low is a real heavy hitter for me.”
“Mmm, probably not,” Darryl said as he pulled out an album with a glowing orange cover art and showed it to Cary. “How about this?”
“Stevie Wonder?” Cary asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a double album though. We can’t listen to that before work.”
“Who cares? I won’t tell a soul.”
“Hmm, alright.”
Darryl gleefully pulled the first disc out of the album and gently placed it onto the turntable. He flipped the player on and dropped the needle onto the record’s edge. Within a couple seconds, “Love’s in Need of Love Today” began to echo from the speakers.
This was a common ritual for the two. They’d bicker about what record to put on before they started their shifts at the Old Folks’ Retirement Home in Orland Park. Darryl was into funk and a recent genre on the rise: hip-hop. Cary, on the other hand, was into post-punk and more gothic acts.
That wasn’t really enough to break their synergetic living situation, but this was one of the few times where the discussions ended harmoniously.
The two got ready in their respective rooms as side one came to a close. They headed out the door, being sure to put the record away beforehand. They commuted to work using a bus as the sun reached the horizon. It was 4 p.m., March 30, 1987, and it was going to be a long night.
Darryl and Cary arrived at the retirement home at 4:15 and clocked in, finding the place weirdly quieter than usual. Instead of the usual people coming to say “hi” or stare at them like they were aliens, there was nothing.
“Did they have an early dinner?” Darryl asked.
“I’m not sure dinner has even started yet,” said Cary. “Maybe we should wait a minute.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure!” shouted someone from behind them. Darryl and Cary turned around to find David, their receptionist friend, at the desk reading a comic book.
“Hey Dave,” said Darryl, “where the hell is everybody?”
“Don’t know,” David said, flipping a page. “Carly mentioned something about someone coming here and, something or other about their TVs, I don’t know. Maybe it’s some sort of hysteria going on.”
“Do you hear the shit they’re saying about Dungeons and Dragons? They’re calling it ‘satanic’ which is a little ridiculous if you ask me. I’ve got three cousins that all listen to, like, Judas Priest and shit, and they turned out fine!” David continued.
“Dude, calm down,” said Cary.
“Sorry, I get passionate.”
“I know, dude, we need more people like you. But how are we supposed to do our jobs?”
“I mean, you can go check on ‘em, I don’t think this day is going to get any weirder regardless.”
Darryl and Cary looked at each other and sighed before splitting off to go check on their favorite residents.
knock, knock, knock
“Gramps?” Darryl inquired. “You in there?”
No answer.
“I’m going to open the door. Don’t throw anything at me, okay?”
Still no answer. Darryl shrugged before unlocking the room and going inside. A thin vase then thrusted itself out of the darkness and toward Darryl. It missed, hitting a wall instead, but the sudden shock of the situation still made him jump.
“Gramps! It’s me!” shouted Darryl. “Your grandson, remember?”
Gramps looked up from the bed where he was hiding. The fear on his face morphed into a smile as he locked onto his grandson. “Darryl?” he asked. “Oh thank god! Hurry, close the door before they get in here!”
Darryl stared at him as he got onto his feet and shuffled to the door. “Gramps, it’s okay, I don’t think anyone’s getting in here, man.”
“That’s what you think!” Gramps shouted as he locked the door. “Kennedy ain’t doin’ nothin’ to deal with the shit that’s goin’ on here. That’s why I’m hunkerin’ down. I can’t call my brother, his line must be dead.”
“Gramps, we’re in the ’80s, Kennedy died a while ago, everything’s okay!”
“You’re sayin’ that like he was the problem! And he was! He didn’t do shit!”
“Calm down, man.”
Gramps stopped talking and he took a deep breath before going to his fridge. Darryl stood there for a moment, eyeing the unchanged interior of the room, before his grandfather shoved a bottle of apple juice in his face. Darryl took the bottle as Gramps sat at his kitchen table.
“What’s been going on around here?” Darryl asked as Gramps opened his bottle. “Dave downstairs says they haven’t left their rooms in a while. All he told me about was some guy coming in to turn the TVs to channel 10.”
“Hm?” Gramps eyes were empty.
“Do you know anything about that?”
“No.”
Darryl looked at his grandfather, confused, before placing his bottle on the table and going toward the television next to his bed. He turned it on and set the dial to channel 10. He was immediately met with two-second intervals of red and black screens that hurt his eyes. Darryl, confused, turned the television off before looking up at his grandfather, whose face had turned white.
“What? What is it?” pestered Darryl.
Gramps muttered something under his breath before running outside. Darryl stood there confused before running after him.
Cary opened the door with a large smile on his face. “Hey Robbie, how… the fuck?”
The sight was extremely confusing. Robbie sat in his chair, mouth agape and tears in his eyes. He sat still and unmoving as red and black colors flashed from his television screen. Cary, concerned, ran over to Robbie’s television and quickly shut it off but before he could check on the still man for his pulse, he was immediately tackled to the ground.
Cary shouted in surprise as he looked up at the old man pinning him down. Robbie’s eyes were bloodshot with red irises, his mouth was foaming, he had more strength in him than he did yesterday, or even since he turned sixty.
“Robbie what the fuck!” Cary shouted.
“You reek!” Robbie shouted back. “Have you been smoking?”
Cary raised an eyebrow. “What?” was all he could say before Robbie, with a cry, raised the nurse over his head and threw him through the door, stopping Gramps in his tracks.
Cary sat up and grabbed a large pot of soil that was sitting next to him before throwing it at Robbie’s face. The pot shattered instantaneously, getting dirt in Robbie’s eyes and causing him to stumble backward and crash through a window. Although the room was on the first floor, Robbie laid on the pavement dead.
Darryl rushed over to the two as they stared at the carnage within Robbie’s room. “What in the name of hell is going on here?” Darryl asked.
“I don’t really know,” said Cary, heaving. “What’s been going on with you guys, why’s your grandpa out of his room?”
“That’s what I’m wondering.”
Darryl and Cary turned to face Gramps. His lips started quivering again before he ran off toward the front door. The two gave chase but despite them trying to grab onto his shoulders, he wouldn’t budge, and Gramps managed to exit the building onto the sidewalk before he tripped over Robbie’s corpse, falling face first onto the grass next to him and falling unconscious.
“Fucking heck!” Cary cried as the two reached the foyer of the retirement home. He turned his attention to David. “Yo, Dave, could you call the cops?”
Dave was still staring at the front door. “What the fuck was that. Yo, Darryl, was that your grampa or something?”
Darryl nodded.
“Well shit.” Dave threw his comic book on the desk and picked up the phone to dial 911 but before the operator could ask for what the emergency was, an old lady ran out from the hallway and hopped over the desk in order to bite Dave’s neck.
Darryl and Cary shouted in surprise as the old lady pressed her teeth into Dave’s flesh, causing him to scream in agony.
Darryl and Cary managed to pull her off of the receptionist and under a chandelier but before the old lady could react, said chandelier fell off the ceiling, crushing her. The two, plus Dave, looked up to find another resident on the ceiling. His head twisted into the correct position before he scurried away.
“Holy fucking nuts dude,” Cary said with his hands on his head as Darryl ran over to the phone.
“Hello? Hello?” Darryl shouted into the phone.
“911, is anything wrong?” said the telephone operator on the other end.
“There’s a major problem at the Old Folks Retirement Home. Two residents are dead and another resident plus a nurse are injured.”
“Is there anything unusual?”
“Well, one of them was crawling on the ceiling. Uhh…”
The operator fell silent for a moment.
“…hello?”
“Are you on crack or something?”
“What? No, ma’am, there are people dying.”
“I’m sorry, this line, as all other lines, are for serious emergencies only.”
“If you’ll just listen to me-”
Cary, with blood on his hands, suddenly took the phone from Darryl’s grasp. “I’m a serial killer and I’m going to kill this man if you don’t come right now!” he shouted.
“What?” the operator asked.
“Oh, I’m itchin’! I’m itchin’!” Cary then threw the phone onto the desk and went back to holding a fistful of tissues against David’s neck.
Darryl stared at the phone before looking back at Cary and Dave. “The hell was that?”
“Shhh,” Cary pointed at the phone. Darryl could hear the faintest voice saying something about bringing police to the area.
“I don’t think the police are the least of our worries,” Dave muttered as he pointed past the desk.
Darryl and Cary looked toward where Dave pointed before he fell limp. Three old people were standing over them with wet mouths and hands caked in dried blood. Their fingernails had turned to nubs as they stared at Darryl and Cary in anticipation.
Cary looks at David and sheds a tear but before he could sacrifice him to the three standing over them, Darryl grabs the computer monitor at Dave’s desk and throws it at the devilish trio. The first one’s head was crushed by the monitor, the second had their arm dislocated, and the third was impaled through the back of their head and out of their mouth on the chandelier that fell.
With the second one still writhing on the ground due to how fat the first one was, Darryl ushered Cary to help carry Dave out of the retirement home and onto a bench outside, where they find Gramps laying unconscious in the grass.
“Dude, I didn’t know you had that kind of fight in you,” Cary said after laying Dave on the bench.
Darryl dragged Gramps to the bench. “I saw that look in your eyes, you were about to throw Dave into those people.”
David looked at Cary with betrayal in his eyes. Cary mouthed “sorry” while shrugging.
“What the hell do we do now?” Cary asked.
“I guess we just wait for the cops,” said Darryl.
“Wait, wait,” Dave said before spitting up a bit of blood. “Could one of you go get my girlfriend?”
Darryl and Cary looked at each other. “She works here?” Cary asked.
“Yeah… Erica, the janitor?”
Darryl cleared his throat as Cary held back a snicker. “You? With Erica?” Darryl asked.
Dave cleared his throat. “Yeah, she’s got a fiery attitude that I dig whole-heartedly. She even liked the Slayer records that I played on our second date.
Do you know how hard it is to get a girl, much less have her like Slayer? I mean, honestly, it’s a difficult world out there so finding someone who digs the same shit as you do? That’s a keeper. I remember this one date I went on, she-”
Before David could continue, he coughed up some more blood.
“You probably shouldn’t talk man,” said Cary. “All that blood might turn your shirts into some sort of tie-dye.”
“Eh, s’fine, I had an older brother that was into that sort of stuff.”
“…what happened to him?”
“Joined a cult, never saw ‘em again.”
Darryl and Cary looked at each other as a fire started in a third story room and another resident, also from the third story, threw themselves out of a window to the street below. They survived that but were killed by an oncoming car, who didn’t bother to stop because they were going too fast to care, or notice for that matter.
“Alright, we’ll do it.” Darryl patted David’s shoulder. “Hang tight.”
David nodded as the two ran back inside. He looked to his left and jumped a little at the sight of the unconscious Gramps.
The inside was complete pandemonium. Residents and nurses were either running around screaming or tearing each other apart like wet paper. A printer from one of the offices was thrown at Darryl and Cary but it hit three old people crowding around and chewing a dead nurse.
Everywhere they went, there was chaos, and their only saving grace was the stairwell to the boiler room.
It was very well lit, and seeing as that was the only place Erica could possibly be, they ran in. Although the lights were on, there was a noticeable tension in the air, only a hacksaw could cut it. There was an old man at the stoop holding a double-barrel shotgun, pointing it into the boiler room.
“Hello?” Darryl asked.
“You better not be one of them drones!” the old man shouted.
“Oh, hey Karl,” said Cary. “Where did you get that gun?”
“I’ve always had it, makes shit like this easier to deal with.”
“What?”
“It’s the government, man!”
“Look, whatever it is, I’m sure we-”
As Cary walked toward Karl, he tripped on the end of a broom handle and tumbled down the stairs onto him. This caused the gun to discharge, nicking an old woman on the back of her head and neck.
This gave Erica, who was initially in the line of fire prior to Cary’s fall, the opportunity to tackle the woman, knocking her to the ground.
Darryl managed to get Cary and Karl off of the ground as Erica kept the woman pinned down. Karl checked his barrels, one bullet left, before pointing it at the woman and pulling the trigger. It was quite disorienting to everyone else but it only made Karl sniffle.
“Whelp, that’s done and dusted,” he said. “Why don’t we get out of here and find a nice diner?”
“I think there’s bigger issues at hand, man,” said Cary.
“Right, like the fact that the government is doing this kind of thing! Why else would we just suddenly start attacking each other?”
“Maybe they were just bored?”
“Or maybe they don’t want to see the young’uns prosper!”
“How come you’re not infected?” Darryl asked.
Karl clears his throat. “Land of the free.”
Erica kept her eyes in the corner of the room. All she could do was sputter a quick “fuck” before taking the broom and running away. The remaining three men looked up to find that the bullet that Karl shot had also hit a gas line, and the noxious gasses were now spilling into the open air.
Karl reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a box of matches as Darryl and Cary ran back upstairs and out of the building, where they found Erica kneeling over David’s body.
“Oh god, please, no, no, no,” she cried.
David suddenly turned his head toward Erica and smiled with red teeth. “¡Hola, señorita! …I’ve been working on my Spanish, hope you’re excited about it.”
Erica embraced David, which caused him to wince. As the four quietly stood around talking, Karl emerged from the building, stinking of smoke and gas.
“Where the hell have you been?” Cary said.
“Nothing important,” Karl muttered before the glass doors behind him exploded violently. He barely reacted as everyone else covered their ears, including Gramps, who woke up screaming.
“They’re here! They’re here!” he shouted before running off, being sure not to trip during his exit.
He was correct. “They” of course referred to the police, who arrived with their sirens blaring as several officers exited their vehicles, guns pointed at the quintet.
“Drop your weapons!” an officer shouted.
Karl threw his shotgun onto the grass as everyone else raised their hands, except for David, who was still bleeding.
“Where’s the killer?” said another officer.
Cary was about to speak but before he could, Old Man Robbie sat up and, with a vicious look in his red eyes, shrieked. The officers then proceeded to shoot him until he looked like a blood sponge. Everyone fell silent as the sun started to set on the horizon.
Velocity 
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