The Echo of Desolation

As I entered the town, I saw a flash of pink and a little girl ran in front of me, swirls of dust following her. I stopped, every sense alert. She paused too, turned around to stare at me. She showed no fear, only curiosity, a gap-toothed grin stretching across her grimy face.

My hand went to my gun, but she vanished. Only the empty street remained, the wind blowing grit across the paving. A knot in my gut, I kept walking.

The rumours are true.

For once, I hoped the intel was wrong. My job was tough enough in a place of strangers; coming to the town where I grew up made it infinitely worse.

Striding down the street, shadows emerged at the windows, whispers drifted in the wind. I felt their presence, the taint of death clinging to the world of the living; a town of lingering ghosts. One more miserable consequence of the plague. 

What I was here to eliminate.

The town square felt like the best place to assemble the machine. Central, the location would give good dispersal, not likely to miss stragglers. I unslung my bag and built the machine, piece by piece, the metal snapping together with a sharp clang. The noise attracted phantoms, watching me, never afraid, but surrounding me with murmurs. Voices I once knew, familiar, agonizing.

Remember, it’s just another job. Don’t look at faces.

Yet, how could I ignore them? Friends I went to school with, neighbours, family, all stared at me. I wanted to spare them, walk away, but I couldn’t. 

They didn’t know, but I did.

Ghosts went through stages. Initially harmless, fresh and confused, but when they rotted, they turned malicious, violent. I witnessed the remains of what savage ghosts did to the living, the butchery and bloody corpses they left. No one should die that way.

When I finished, I straightened, said, “I’m sorry,” then activated the machine. The air sizzled,  heavy with the stink of ozone, blue energy enveloping this town of ghosts, slicing through its former citizens. I closed my eyes, afraid to watch their forms dissipate. It didn’t help. 

Countless anguished screams lodged in my head, reverberating in the aftermath of silence.

I stood for a moment and said a fruitless prayer to ease my guilt. Then I packed up my gear.

As I left the empty town, I looked back down the main street, watching a wayward breeze swirling the dust along the road like a carefree child. For a moment, I lost myself in that flow of unrestrained nature and my memories, hoping for a whisper, a giggle, a shadow of what used to be. But nothing.

With a sigh, I walked on, headed back to my vehicle, with one more scar across my heart.

~ A. F. Stewart

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