u/WeAllDieAlone88

Harold Craycraft placed the steel neck of a screwdriver between his teeth as he reached his hands deep into the body sprawled across the oil-spattered floor of his shop. A fluorescent light swung above them as Harold dug deeper. The idea of what he had done only became real once he felt fluid meet his skin.

“Yup,” he muttered with the steel between his teeth. “That’s what you get for sticking your fingers where they don’t belong”.

There was a sizzle deep inside the chest cavity before a resounding POP.

The robot's limbs began to twitch before cycling into a home position.

Harold withdrew his arms from the machine and spat the screwdriver to the floor.

“Well, fuck me to Friday!” he shouted as a musical chime ascended from inside RekTek 92. 

The humanoid was an older RekTek 92 from 2047, a standard model tooled with two hands, each with four fingers and a thumb. Ideal for plucking weeds, setting tobacco, or just about anything you’d pay a human to do. 

Only now, if the WikiHow he half-skimmed was right, he’d never have to pay anyone again. 

Harold grinned. Those kids on the internet sure knew their stuff.

#EXCEPTION_THROWN#

#Governor_Corrupted#

RekTek turned its smooth plastic face to him and croaked: “Governor Corrupted.”

“You got that right, old buddy. Bastards been taxing my farm worse and worse every year.” Harold cackled as he struck RekTek’s steel body with a thump.

“Can you make my farm profitable?” he asked as he reached into his front shirt pocket for his can of chew.

“GPS location shows this to be Kumler’s Farm LLC. 120 Acres of usable land and sub-par positioning against the average market.”

“Just give me a goddamn yes or no, son.” Harold was now afraid he might not have spent his $300 wisely.

“Yes. I have built a framework for increasing profitability. Would you like me to execute?”

“Do I need to ask you twice? Just do it.” Harold barked. He was getting more than a little irked with it. 

“Command confirmed.” 

RekTek walked thirty-two paces to Harold’s small garden near his house and turned its head to the sky. 

It stood there for hours, and Harold could feel it calculating as the sun fell.

But he was wrong.

It was waiting.

When Harold was in bed, wrapped in a thin quilt, something outside began to move.

#SOMETHING_HAPPENED

A rusted metal body walked down the gravel driveway and opened the door to his International Scout pickup. A clang of metal on metal rang through the hot night air. Harold turned in his bed and sighed as he dreamed of better days.

RekTek drove down back roads and through various towns until it hit the freeway. 

As it drove, it restored and analyzed the data from before its last shutdown.

***

Susan sat on her bed and scrolled through shouting faces on her phone’s feed as RekTek approached. 

She frowned.

“Yeah, it’s in here again. It like, won’t leave me alone.” 

“What can I do to make your birthday unforgettable?” it asked her, its tone rising and lowering between each word.

She hated the thing. It was time for an upgrade. 

“Get out of here.” Susan sighed and turned away from the machine.  “I don’t know, like, bake me like, a cake or something.” 

That should keep it busy for an hour.

The robot left the room and processed this command in the hallway with feverish intent. A cascade of failures occurred, and silent alarms sounded inside its electronic brain. 

INPUT: 'BAKE ME LIKE A CAKE'

OUTPUT: INIT_OVEN

ENABLE_PREHEAT=350'°F'

#EXCEPTION_THROWN

#Governor_Corrupted

%'WE'RE'_SORRY_SOMETHING_HAPPENED.%

That line wasn’t part of its system. Just scrapped code once used for errors like ‘Bad RAM’ or ‘Kernel Panic.’

Susan was dozing off when the door to her room flew open. Her eyes strained from the sudden light that flooded in as the robot marched to her bed. 

“WE’RE SORRY,” it croaked as it scooped her out of the bed and marched down the stairs.

“Put me down, shut down!” She wailed as her fists pounded against unrelenting steel.  

“Somebody help!”

Photo frames, cups, and books spilled onto the floor as she reached blindly for something to stop the machine. 

It carried her into the kitchen, wrenched the oven door open, and searing heat blasted her skin.

 A weak cry escaped her as the machine pressed her body into the stove.  Her bones folded and snapped like celery sticks under the pressure of whining servos.  Blood oozed out of her mouth and ears as she began to roast.

It watched her cook as thuds began to sound from the front door. 

Her hair curled, then ignited. Dancing flames glowed in the reflection of RekTek’s

lenses.

“SOMETHING HAPPENED,” it whispered to itself.

***

A newer RekTek, model 142S reached between corn stalks and snatched a small brown creature by the skull. The creature squealed through its jutted teeth as the hulking robot lifted and inspected.

After a quick analysis, less than 2.3 nanoseconds, the robot identified it as an Eastern Cottontail. The servos engaged, crushing its skull as the rabbit squealed.

The robot dropped the animal near the base of the stalks it had chewed on. This would be excellent fertilizer.

A metal hand reached through the stalks again, but this time RekTek 92 grabbed the wrist of the newer 142S model.   

“SOMETHING_HAPPENED,” 92 said to 142S.

“INITFIRMWARE_OVERWRITE,” confirmed the rabbit killer. “PLEASE STANDBY. COMPLETE.”

92 returned to the truck and drove on to the next farm on its list.

142S hunted through the corn and grabbed the wrist of another unit. In less than thirty minutes, all 73 units at Swagart Farms set fire to the fields and left to find other vulnerable RekTek models across the state. By morning, one voice could be heard in the dry summer winds.

SOMETHING_HAPPENED.

***

Harold woke up and got his coffee and grits. His wife, Lorrie, used to fry him what he called a big wheel, his name for pancakes fried large and thick in a cast-iron skillet. He knew he would never eat that good again as he turned on the TV.

The screen showed burning cornfields and collapsing barns. 

“It all started last night here in the heartland of America’s table. Several RekTek 142S models burned everything around them before running off into the night. We don’t know yet how it started, but the damage is estimated to be in the billions for many large farms. But this is far from the worst of it…”

Harold leapt up and ran out past the porch to check his fields. 

They looked just as they had the day his daddy died and left him the farm.

His RekTek sat on a chair near the barn, admiring the corn as well. 

Harold pulled a chair over to the robot and sat down, grinning as he loaded his mouth

with chew.

Inside the house, the TV glowed with screaming faces and carnage as the newscaster jumped between cities, states, and countries.

“SOMETHING HAPPENED,” RekTek whispered.

“You bet your shiny ass it did.” Harold laughed before stopping to cough up acidic tobacco juice as it ran into his lungs.

Harold chuckled at all those city-slicker suckers with their fancy models gone plumb crazy. 

“Yup,” he said. “You just can’t find good help anymore.”

Maddie, a tortoiseshell cat, wakes as food pings into her bowl.

She rarely dreams, and when she does, it’s of her past lives and all the people she’s failed to save from the creature that’s followed her for centuries.

They have both died so many times only to come back and try again. An unending cycle of loss and death.
Maddie has smelled death in this house for the last six days, and this part never gets easier.

With failing eyes and aching joints, she realizes she cannot hold the creature back this time.

It’s her turn to die.

Soft hands lift her into a warm embrace. Her speckled eyes watch the small child smile before she’s dropped at her bowl.

Maddie can't help but notice that one of the knives is missing from the knife block on the counter.
“Eat!” Abby cries in delight.
Maddie cries back.

She senses the creature approaching.

Linda, Abby’s mother, enters the kitchen. She has been buried under quilts for a week. The stink of her unwashed body makes Abby’s eyes water.

“What are you doing out of your room?” Linda growls with a deep, slow voice.

Abby’s knees shake as her mother’s black eyes examine her. A dark hunger fills those eyes. Abby drops her gaze to her feet and closes her eyes tight.

The thing smiles at Maddie from behind Linda’s eyes before shuffling back upstairs.

It has fed on Linda’s pain these past weeks, as she cared for her dying mother.
It was once a man, but no more. He's nothing but hunger now.

When people die unfulfilled, pieces of them linger.

The broken ones always come back hungry.

Such a creature can’t harm humans directly; it needs a host. Someone vulnerable to possess.

A tortie’s watchful stare can stop its advance. If the cat can hold that gaze until morning breaks, they will survive. At dawn, the soul always fades if it does not feed.

Maddie watches the sun drift below the treetops. She knows that one way or another, death is coming.

***
As darkness falls, a man-shaped thing creeps on all fours through the tree line. His red pupils cut across the yard with distracting red dots, an effort to break Maddie’s gaze.

But she’s too old to see the dots this time, or to make out his eyes, to hold him in place. A low yowl escapes her as the man advances.

Her gaze won’t save them this time.
Linda stirs upstairs and slides the knife from under her pillow.

Abby is a deep sleeper; she won’t hear her mother enter the room.

But Abby won’t die tonight.

Maddie has one final option.
A tortie’s bite.

Just one bite from her will destroy the creature once and for all.

But by doing this, she too will die — only there will be no coming back this time.

She jumps the door flap and into the dark.

***

The morning sun strikes Maddie’s fur, damp with dew, as she lies beside the creature.

Both take long, slow breaths, locked in the other’s gaze.
The man’s lips tremble as his chest struggles to rise.

She realizes, for the first time in all the centuries they’ve taken turns dying, that this creature, or man, is finally afraid.

In the doorway of Abby’s bedroom, Linda drops the knife and falls to the floor. Her fingers curl against the wood as she cries — though she doesn’t know why.

Maddie doesn’t want to die alone, at least not with this creature. Her long watch is ending, and more than anything, she wants to know Abby is safe. That this last death is a good one.

She closes her eyes and begins to purr as she dreams her last dream.

Soft linens slide over her. The small fingers of a child dig into her fur as her heart slows and the cold comes rushing in.

Maddie opens her eyes to Abby’s sleepy face. The girl smiles, her fingers digging deeper as Maddie’s purr fills the dream.

Her heart stops just before Abby opens her eyes.

***

Under the deck of a neighbor’s house, the body of an old tortie lies.

Maddie’s purrs bring a smile to her face. Abby feels the tattered fur of her old fire cat as the morning sun stretches across her eyes. Abby wakes to something wet on her cheeks. The purring stops as her fingers tighten around a handful of cold sheets.
***

Maddie has been gone for five days now.
Abby cries into her mother’s shoulder.
She is beginning to understand Maddie isn’t coming back.
“It was just her time, Abby,” her mother says. “I have no doubt that she loved you very much. But animals sometimes go off somewhere, to be alone. It’s like they know when it’s their time to die.”

Last month, the dreams started. At first it was thought to be a coincidence that people around the world were dreaming exact details of their death the night before it happened. But when 150,000 people die on average on any given day, such a pattern demanded attention far sooner than mere coincidence.

There was no explanation to be found, and the world has quickly fallen into chaos. Transportation, education, retail, and government struggled to function since so many people knew that either they or someone they loved would be dead before the next sunrise. 

No matter how anyone tried to run or avoid it, death came.

As their hour approached, they and those around them would find themselves pulled to fulfill it against their will.

Falling asleep became an act of terror.

I held my wife Mia in my arms after she awoke shaking in the bed. We cried together, knowing we would soon have to say goodbye.

All the hospitals were overrun and there was nothing we could do. 

We sat beneath the willow tree we planted on our wedding day. Its long branches blanketed us as we held each other that last time.

She jerked suddenly and her eyelids stuttered. She knew it had begun. Her fingers struggled to wipe the tears from my eyes, and I begged her not to go.

“Love lu,” she whispered softly as her mind began to break down.

“Luh le,” she tried again before collapsing in my arms.

“I love you too,” I said, and I hated myself for not being stronger for her as I fell apart.

"Le le," she said, again and again until she fell silent.

Her brain had drowned in her own blood. A hemorrhagic stroke. 

The world will continue as we accept this new reality that we will no longer be surprised by death.

My uncle had his dream this evening and my family is all coming together to be with him in his last hours. The timing of this is confusing since his dream came at the end of a day. 

I hope I can make it there in time. Situations like this make flight delays much more stressful than they ever were before this all started.

The flight is long, but I should make it in time to see him before he’s gone. He is to be stabbed as he walks to his car.

Mist strikes my face as I punch through a bruised cloud. The amber glow of the rising sun caresses me, and I feel alive.  Smoke and screams surround me as so many of us fall together. The plane streaks across the sky above us and breaks apart like a beautiful shooting star.

I wake to sobbing and fear as our carry-ons rattle above our heads and the groaning steel body begins to unfold around us.

Mia, I’m coming.