Chapter 2: Not Ketchup
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JUNE 8, 2009
2130 HOURS
Joaquin DeSantos was lost in the happiest of thoughts when a peculiar bubbling sound started to pierce his awareness. Specifically, the thought was: Baby names… I can't believe I'm thinking up baby names! Maria didn't want to find out in advance if it was a boy or a girl, so they agreed to come up with a list for both. It was shaping up to be one hell of a terrific year: he and his partners had been having much success at the auto shop they'd started, and now he was finally going to be a father, to give his parents their first grandchild.
He was so preoccupied that his train had come and gone without him noticing, but the bubbling sound seemed so wrong and so close that it started to nag at him. It was the smell of iron and ground beef, however, that really got his attention.
He'd been staring at his shoes, and as he snapped back into reality, he noticed they had a spatter of thick red fluid on them. Some idiot was probably putting ketchup on his hot dog.
Joaquin looked to his right, towards the source of the sound. No, not ketchup.
He swore there had been someone standing next to him. He looked down. There had been. Only now she wasn't standing. Now she was a puddle.
A floral print dress lay in a heap next to a leather purse. He could even see what appeared to be a pacemaker right in the center of the dress. Viscous red fluid seeped everywhere out of the pile… so much fluid. So thick. Not blood. More like a red milkshake.
Joaquin noticed what else was in the pile: bones. Looked to be all the bones that made up a human skeleton.
People all around Joaquin were screaming and running. Joaquin, though, just stood there, mesmerized by the sight. His brain was struggling to try and put it all together, figure out what exactly it was that had happened and was happening next to him.
But it wasn't that hard of a puzzle.
Some woman was standing next to me, and now she has melted. Her flesh, her muscles, her organs have dissolved into a red liquid, leaving a pile of bones and clothing behind.
Satisfied that he had solved the puzzle, Joaquin leaned over and threw up. And then, screaming at the top of his lungs, he ran as fast as he could, not caring where he ended up, just as long as it was far, far away from here.