6: Enter Chelsea Merrickson and Matt Lobin
"Is it mine?" Matthew asked her in a silent voice that shook with rage. His hand was white, clutching the back of a chair at the dining room table intensely. Chelsea feared he would chuck it at her. He had found out somehow. He had found out that she was cheating on him and had been doing so for a long time. However, she knew that wasn't what was bothering him; he had found something else out, too. She didn't want to accept that he had found that out.
"I-Is what yours?" Chelsea somehow kept her fear and knowledge of the answer concealed. Well, she thought she had anyway.
"You know." Chelsea swallowed saliva. Thank God her parents weren't here to see this. Thank God no one was here to see this.
"No I don't."
"Is it mine? IS THAT MY FUCKING CHILD?" his blue eyes were filled to the brim with rage when they met hers. He had never yelled at her before. She tried not to show her fear of him. Her weakness. Alas, her eyes betrayed her and began to water. She was two months pregnant and had managed to keep it a secret from both Matthew and Patrick. Well, thought she had anyway. Matthew took two large breaths and then resumed to speak in his calm-yet-royally-fucking-pissed-off manner. "Or is it his?" To be honest, Chelsea didn't know the answer to the question either. She had her suspicions, though. To voice them would possibly be suicide. She figured it best to fill him with the bullshit he wanted to hear.
"It's yours."
"Are you sure?" Matthew didn't sound quite so pissed anymore. She was glad, but she didn't want to flat-out lie to him. He would know. He wasn't abusive to her in any way, shape, or form. He was always kind to her. This drastic change in his persona was what was making her weak. She wasn't used to this. Chelsea didn't answer Matthew's question. So he repeated himself with a slightly raised voice.
"No," Chelsea replied silently, then cleared her throat. "No I'm not sure." Matthew looked down at the ground and sighed. His eyes were watering, too.
"Be sure," he stated simply. He then sighed again. "I-I'm sorry Chelsea. I'm really… I'm sorry. I don't know… my mind's just fucked up lately, you know? I want to be a dad. I really… I do want to be a dad." Chelsea thought it so odd that a teenager that had just attained their driver's license actually wanted a child. Of course, stranger things had happened and she doubted he was the only teen with that desire. The mood became less tense after that.
"I'm gonna g-go, alright?" Matt stated. "Do you want me to stay? I-I could stay if that… if that's what you want."
"No, you don't need to stay."
"Okay. I'll see you later, alright?" he then headed to the door. Chelsea asked her next question without thinking.
"Will you stay with me even if it isn't?" Matt stopped at the door to outside and remained silent for a few moments.
"I don't know. I'm gonna…" He then left the house under cover of night without finishing his sentence. He hopped into his miniscule Cavalier and drove away to some indeterminate destination.
Chelsea then sat down on the couch. The fake Matt had entered, but the real Matt had intervened between her and his false counterpart and taken off. Chelsea felt her stomach, which is where the slightest of bulges was beginning to grow.
The phone rang throughout Patrick Bateman's house. It was empty of all human life and had been for a full day. Once he had found the pregnancy test declaring Chelsea preg-o he had phoned Matt and filled him in on everything in a panic. After that he had bailed.
Patrick wasn't necessarily a coward; he had full intentions of sending a bit of child-support to the girl, but he didn't want to spend the next however long rotting in a jail cell while getting anally pumped by a big, black cellmate named Bubba. See, Pat was 22 years old and Chelsea was 16. That wouldn't really hold up well in a court of law. He felt bad about screwing her life up, but he wasn't about to have his own life screwed up for screwing hers up. Plus he didn't want the girl's parents to show their disapproval of his actions. He had met the two and they were good people that he hadn't wanted angry at him. Good job he had done keeping himself on their good side. He was gonna miss them.
Patrick was driving down route 666. He was a rather pious person, so he had been a bit unnerved at first about needing to travel down said route, but he had gotten through that. Most people thought it difficult to relate Patrick to any religion, let alone Christianity. He was a pothead, possessed of a drinking problem, and, yes, had sex out of wed-lock with underage women. Despite all of this he was in fact a Christian, and was certain that he would find himself in one of Hell's multiple layers upon death.
It was early in the morning; just after sunrise. Chelsea had been up all night trying to get into contact with Matthew, his parents, her friends, their parents, her parents, or anyone else for that matter. She had finally decided to try Patrick once again because she first off wanted to break it off, second wanted to know if he knew about her pregnancy, and third just wanted someone to talk to. The novelty of talking to herself had worn off not long after midnight.
Patrick was a long way from home and thus a long way from his desperately braying phone. He was daydreaming when he found himself staring at a car pile-up and slamming on the brakes of his car. He fell forward against his seatbelt and let out a startled cry of pain as the belt dug into his not-so-muscular chest.
Their were overturned police cars nearby, their lights flashing in endless, annoying urgency. There weren't a lot of cars in the pile-up, maybe three or four. The silence that descended after Patrick turned the radio off suggested there were no survivors. The blood on the ground far away from the accident and the grotesquely mutilated torso of a boy-in-blue suggested that it wasn't just the pile-up that had killed them either.
He rolled up his window fiercely and began to slowly, yet urgently, make his way around the pile-up. This was without much luck as it took up more than three-fifths of the road. So Pat took his old, beat-up Dodge off the road. He hoped to God that whoever had caused all of this wasn't aware of his existence. His thoughts went in a cycle, all promises to God that he would stop doing whatever if he were allowed to get out of there alive and in one piece.
Once the front of his vehicle got back onto the road three flying, flaming skulls smashed into his windshield at once, causing it to shatter. Two flew right into the back seat and hit the upholstery in the back, setting it aflame. The third one smacked him dead-center in the face and knocked him unconscious. His foot retained its pressure on the gas pedal for a moment before releasing and settling to the floor. The flying skull began to chew his face off as the flames sprouting out of its back set fire to the ceiling.
Five minutes later
Patrick was dead and his car was completely ablaze. Then it blew apart,
obliterating his body along with the
three skulls that had remained in the car to make certain he was dead.
Matt sped his tiny Cavalier through the panicking streets of the city. The right side of his windshield was cracked in a spider-web pattern and his antennae was unaccounted for. The passenger door was dented so badly that it was permanently jammed and the car's trunk cover was folded upwards from the car being rear-ended. His head was bleeding and he was barely able to think clearly. His body was aching in so many places due to his constant hitting of the brakes and being hit by other cars.
A tall, brown creature standing in the middle of the road leapt out of the way of the car just in time to avoid becoming road kill. He was headed to Chelsea's house. It was mere meters down the chaos engulfed street. Smoke choked the sky as flames scorched it and scattered gunfire filled the air. A mini-van cut off the road abruptly and Matt slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid hitting it… hard. The spider-web crack grew and his air-bags were set off. Matt shot his hand out to grab the car's door handle and let himself out, gasping for breath. He feared his chest had collapsed in on itself after being shoved against the seat belt once again. After a moment he realized that he'd be dead if that had happened and stood up painfully.
He shut the car door and leaned against it, trying to force the pain
into the back of his mind. The mini-van resumed backing out a couple
moments later and sped down the street. Matt caught sight the a splotch
of red on the cracked passenger window.
Suddenly Chelsea was the
last thing on Matt's mind as he realized he was marooned in the middle
of a demon-infested street. There were dog/bulls and imps all over the
place, but no floating demons. Matt was grateful for that. He was also
grateful that the gatling-gun wielding, giant, biomechanical spider
wasn't there either. That thing had been cutting through people like
butter with its weaponry.
Police vehicles came careening down the street with sirens blaring. One had its front demolished as it hit a dog/bull. The two cops inside vacated the useless vehicle brandishing weapons. One had a pistol and the other had a shotgun. They began to pull the triggers without pause and with professional aim. An imp underwent a crude anatomy supervised by a shotgun shell fired at point-blank range. The dog/bull that had been hit was up and back in the game. The cop with the pistol sent three bullets into the region where its brain most likely was. That took it down, but distracted the cop long enough for an imp to hurl a fireball right into his face. He let out a bewildered shriek and then fell to the ground either close to death or dead, his face being eaten away at by the lingering flames.
The cop armed with the shotgun then took off. He threw the heavy
shotgun away so that it wouldn't continue to slow him down and
un-holstered his own pistol. With the demons distracted by the fleeing
law enforcer, Matt limped across the street and grabbed the dead cop's
pistol. He didn't know how to use a gun, but figured he would soon
enough. He considered going for the shotgun, too, but one look at the
demons not running after the cop threw such considerations straight out
of his mind.
He ran as fast as he could limp and reached Chelsea's
house without further hindrance. Her parents' car wasn't in the
driveway. Just in case Chelsea was still there, Matt broke the locked
door down and entered. He coughed harshly for several moments before
calling out for her.
There was no answer.
Chelsea didn't want to answer the voice from downstairs. All she wanted to do was sink into another world and exist with no memory and no future. Was that really so much to ask for?
Unfortunately for her the voice was insistent, shouting for her again and again in an increasingly frantic tone. She wanted it to go away. To fade away with the rest of the world. There was inarticulate screaming outside that wouldn't stop either. Creatures growling and screeching throughout the world in the growing darkness. The sun was setting, taking with it the lives of millions.
"Chelsea!" the voice screamed, almost screeched. "For the love of God answer me! Please!" Chelsea opened her eyes and looked at the inside of her closed closet doors. She knew this voice.
"Chelsea! Where the fuck are you?" She knew this voice. She knew the owner of this voice.
"Matt!" she screamed, standing up and shoving her closet doors open.
Perhaps the world wasn't such a lost cause with familiar
voices in it. With familiar people still living.
Moments later Chelsea was hugging Matt tight, sobbing harshly. Screams were carried on the wind to their ears from outside. Roars from creatures that could not possibly have been created by God. Gunfire from those lucky enough to own firearms. Matt rested his blood-encrusted hand on her brunette hair. He needed medical attention soon or he was going to die. He did not tell Chelsea about this.
The three of them waited in Chelsea's closet, Chelsea, Matt, and their unborn child, as society withered and died around them.
