"2024" BY JOHN BRUNI

 Those of you who have been around me a long time know that if a year has been particularly terrible to me, I write a bizarro horror story about it. It has not escaped my attention, by the way, that these have all been election years so far. This is the third in the series. The first is "2016" and the second is "2020." Check them out first, because this might not make sense if you don't. If this isn't your first rodeo with me, enjoy! (If that's the right word. It might not be. But it must suffice.)

2024

By John Bruni

 

So obviously I didn’t die. While I was passed out, the world changed again. Now we didn’t just have time atrocities, we also had monsters. Vampires owned the night, even though the werewolves owned the moon. Sorcerers and invisible men and ghosts grew more and more powerful by the day.

But I missed all of that. As I lay dying like a Faulkner novel, 2021 was born from the shark-ravaged ruins of 2020, and he was a big bastard. At six-ten and three hundred pounds of pure muscle he wore sunglasses that hid his eyes and a gold chain that could choke Andre the Giant.

And he found me. He later told me that as I’d killed two years and destroyed the planet, I was too dangerous to be free. Hence my lifetime incarceration in his torture chamber. It was a very well-used room. Used on me all year and then passed on to 2022 like a royal scepter. Repeat, give to 2023.

And now I’m owned by 2024, a heartless and adroit torturer. He knew how to bring me to the brink of death and nurse me back to life just to do it all again. He also knew to do no permanent damage. He knew that would result in me giving up.

And he still had plans for me.

He keeps me drunk and on drugs at all times. Then he deprives me of both, sending me into dopesick DTs until I beg for death. Then he shoots me up and gives me whiskey only to do it again. And again. And again.

2024 is a real fucker of fucks, and I want to kill him with every fiber of my being. I keep my eyes open, seeking any opportunity, no matter how hopeless.

It comes in December. Near Christmas. 2024 is now old. Not frail—yet—but he’s starting to miss a step here and there. I just need that step to be close to me. Close enough to bite. My hands and feet are tied to a chair, so it’s the only thing I can do.

The loose hanging skin near the inside of his elbow gets too close to me. I am so weak that I think I might not move fast enough. Then my neck kicks into gear with a near whooshing sound, and I clamp my teeth down on it. Sludgy blood oozes into my mouth and between my teeth. 2024 screams, but I worry my head back and forth and the hunk of flesh comes off like Play-Doh stretched too far. The sensation grosses me out, and I gag, dropping the skin into my lap.

I have no time to think. I must react. I spit the blood at the ropes binding my hands to the chair, hoping to get my wrists wet enough to slip them. The friction burns, but I work frantically to escape.

“Son of a bitch!” 2024 says. He clutches the crescent I bit out of him. That awful gooey blood of his dribbles down like honey instead of the usual liquid flow. “Don’t go anywhere.” Smiling like he didn’t hurt. He charges off, looking for something.

The blood is helping make me slippery, but it’s not good enough. I gnaw at the ropes, pulling back, trying to slide my hand free. I can feel it give a little. The taste in my mouth reminds me of hay and seawater. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s weird, and I struggle faster.

My hand is free! I grab at the rope on my other wrist and claw at the knot, twisting and pulling. I’m almost there! Almost . . . al—

2024 returns with a set of dental tools. He’s going into some villain monologue I don’t bother to listen to. I know what he has in mind. He has yet to look at me, so I must be fast.

My other hand slips out just as he turns to me, holding aloft a tool probably meant to relieve me of my teeth. But he pauses in mid-step. He sees my hands, and a snarl forms on his grizzled face. He lunges forward.

So do I, but I’ve forgotten my legs are still tied to the chair. I belly flop on the floor, cracking my jaw on the hardwood. I bite a sliver off my tongue with a white hot burning pain. It gets stuck between my cheek and teeth.

2024 does not expect my fuckup, so he trips on my head and falls on top of me. The air whumps out of my lungs, but I know the stakes. I can’t grow lax. I twist as much as I can and get my arms around him in an upside down bear hug. Because of my awkward position I don’t have much power in my grip, and he breaks the hold easily. He head butts me in the balls, and I can’t breathe. The pain spreads like warmth through my crotch, and no matter how softly I cup my genitals, I don’t think I’ll be able to function again.

2024 stands, a gun now in his age-gnarled fist. “The others said I should keep you alive, but fuck that. You almost got me. I can’t have that.” He thumbs the hammer back, and the cocking sound is apocalyptic in my ears.

Fuck. This is it. I never should have killed 2016. I close my eyes and wait for the bullet.

I hear the POW loud in my ears, loud enough to cause a ringing. I’m dead, and my ears are ringing? That seems unfair.

I open my eyes to see 2024 standing above me with an exit wound in his chest big enough to hold a dinner plate. His heart is gone, and he’s incredulous about it. Then he crumples, wheezing, death sidling up on him.

A man stands behind him holding a smoking gun. He seems familiar, but it isn’t until I see his remarkable eyebrows that I recognize my savior.

“Luigi Mangione?!” The Adjuster himself?

Luigi reloads, then stows his gun away. “2024 was out of control. I had to stop the bastard. It took me a while to find him, but vengeance is mine.”

I recall the odd looks everyone gave me when I was hunting 2016. It never occurred to me that someone else might think to murder a year.

I hear 2024’s death rattle, and I brace myself. When I killed 2016, the world fast forwarded because it was summer, not the last day of the year. 2024 is almost over, so I don’t expect anything crazy. I think we’re going to be okay.

2024’s corpse lets out a tremendous fart, shaking the world again. I look away, not wanting to see 2025’s birth. These years always come out with a great and terrible flood of diarrhea. I watch Luigi’s horror spread across his face until the shit explosion. He gags, doubled over, thankfully away from me.

Baby 2025 sits in the bloody shit puddle of its predecessor. It gurgles, looking up at us.

“This is fucked up,” Luigi says.

“First time?” I’m thinking of the Buster Scruggs hangman meme.

“What do we do now?”

I remember thinking about baby 2017’s fate. I showed mercy, and look what happened. “We should kill the son of a bitch.”

“Kill a baby?” He shakes his head as if to say, “What a crazy world this is.”

“If we don’t, it will come for us someday.”

“But a baby?”

“Needs must.”

“Doesn’t killing years lead to weird shit?” Luigi asks.

“Fair point. But what’s the worst that can happen? Aliens?”

He nods. “Aliens.”

I hold out my hand for the gun. He thinks about it for a second, then gives it to me. I point it at 2025 and pull back the hammer.

“No mercy,” I say.

“Maybe some mercy?” 2025 says in a high-pitched helium voice.

I pull the trigger, blowing his tiny head off, and wait to see what happens.

THE END

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #447: 2020, MY YEAR OF SHIT

 I think this will be the last GF column of the year. I'm going to take it easy this holiday season because I'd rather not spend it in the hospital for any reason. 2021 may not have been a great year, but it was at least better than 2020, or at least in my experience. This time last year I was in pretty rough shape. I'd made some bad decisions, and sometimes bad decisions were made for me, but only because I put myself in those situations.

This time last year I'd been out of work for a few days short of an entire year. I'm not one to say that I define myself by my job, but I do need some form of structure in my life, and employment usually helps fill in that particular gap. As such I felt myself slipping away pretty badly. Some of you were there for those bad decisions, so you remember.

So yeah, I had a lot of regrets. Suicidal thoughts and the psych ward. Hospital stays. Drugs. The booze took over more than I'd like to admit. A loosening of my personal morals. Accepting things I would ordinarily never have accepted under any other circumstance. To say nothing of the fucking plague. Writing probably saved my life. Without it I'd undoubtedly be dead. Probably cannabis, too. If the State of Illinois hadn't legalized recreational use, I'm sure I'd still be drinking myself crazy.

And I intend to write a GF column about the booze. I had an experience a while back that helped shed some light on some of that. Not that I'm against alcohol. It's too useful. I still drink, but not every day, sometimes not even every week, and never in the mornings anymore. Well, unless it's going to be a fuck off day where I do absolutely nothing but read, watch movies, etc. But that's a rarity for me and a topic for another day.

A friend told me that she'd never seen me so low in my life, and she would know. She'd been around for half of it. She was right, though. 2020 brought me lower than I'd ever been, and I've been through some low periods of my life. Startlingly low for people who don't know my story.

Yeah, 2021 sucked. I've still had a few hospital visits (the problems with my guts aren't, it turns out, alcohol related, so ain't that fucking grand?), and I totaled my beloved Honda Civic. I've had battles with the State of Illinois (and there's one starting up right now, come to think of it). But I have a job, so I'm not left to my devices on a regular basis. And I've stayed out of the hospital so far this month. I have a ridiculous amount of writing getting published in 2022.

But I learned a lot during 2020. Especially about me. I thought I'd had it all figured out, and boy, was I wrong. I'm still an undiscovered country to myself, and that's kind of interesting to me.

Anyway, that's all for now. Merry fucking Christmas, everyone. And Happy New fucking Year!

2020 by John Bruni

 [Before I start, this is a sequel to my story, 2016. It's not important that you read that one, but you'd be a whole lot cooler if you did. There is one amendment I'd make before 2016 takes over. In the intro, I state a lot of bad things that happened in that year. I'm glad to say that my girlfriend at the time is no longer confined to her bed, that her brain damage turned out to be minimal. We don't speak to each other anymore, but I'm glad that she's not bad in that way anymore.]

It was the last of the heroin. I used it sparingly to make it last and so I didn’t get addicted. I lived in the wilderness, and while I knew how to get more, I was loath to leave my self-imposed hermitage. The heroin eased the pain in my crippled left leg. Tough times ahead. Indeed. 

I took the plunger in my teeth and pulled back, filling the “insulin needle” I got at Walgreen’s with dark brown fluid. A nice potent shot. I tied off my arm with Velcro—much better than a rubber strip or a shoe lace—and pumped my fist. Now came the hard part. Even before I started this habit, my veins were shot. I’d been in the hospital many times, and IV’s had all but destroyed my veins. Thankfully I had more on the back of my arm. I pulled my hand to my shoulder as hard as I could. I saw a vein pop up, juicy and ready to be pierced. I used the suck at this—I had to stick it in and dig around until I found what I needed—but practice made perfect. I eased the needle in, and I barely felt it. I pulled the plunger back until I saw blood. 

Then I rammed it home and yanked the Velcro away as quickly as I could. The rush came seconds later. My jaw dropped, and the pain faded away. In a buzz I was barely aware of myself removing the needle and setting it aside. 

Ever since I killed 2016 the world’s temporal experience has been, well, odd. They said that the Titanic was seen leaving Ireland. A platoon of Nazis stormed Paris. Vikings raided England. Pirates took a millionaire’s yacht in the Caribbean. I myself saw a caveman attacking an elephant at the Brookfield Zoo. And, God help me, CNN reported a T-rex tearing the White House apart. 

I’ve always wanted to be a hermit, but I actually became one out of necessity. I had to escape the Time Crazy world. I lived at the tippy-top of a very rough mountain. It would take dedication to find me. 

The drawback to heroin is it makes you useless. You can’t do anything productive. But it feels very good. The temptation is usually to sleep. Don’t. It’s a waste of a good—no, the best—drug. Never get greedy. That’s what makes an addict. Respect the drug. 

Morphine is good. Dilaudid is better. Fentanyl has the best rush, but it’s over in seconds. With heroin the rush lasts and lasts and lasts. 

The front door burst open, letting thick snowflakes into my living room. A man with a thick coat and a gun stumbled in, the wind a beast at his back. He looked left and right, his eyes settling on me. 

“John Bruni?” he asked. 

I nodded. “Who are you?” 

“My name is 2020. You killed my great-great-grandfather. Prepare to die!” 

We stared at each other for a moment, and I broke into laughter. 

“Why do you laugh at me?!” 2020 shouted. 

“That was the best Inigo Montoya speech ever,” I said. I didn’t mention how I missed the perfect opportunity to do the same thing with his great-great grandfather. 

2020 stared at me, bewildered. “You don’t fear me?” 

I grunted a laugh. “I’ve lost everything. I fear nothing. Do your worst. I won’t even stop you.” 

Again, 2020 remained silent. He looked like a dog trying to figure out a math problem. 

“What?” I said. “You think I’m living here in the wilderness because I like it?” Well, I did, actually. 

“You killed 2016.” 

“Only because 2016 killed my dad first. All I wanted was to have my dad back. If only for one fucking minute. Lacking that, I killed the bastard who took his life.” 

“You disrupted the natural flow of time. You don’t get to kill a year and live!” 2020 said. 

“Oh yeah? Then why didn’t 2017 come for me? Why did it take a runt like you to come after me?” 

“Runt?! How dare you call me a runt!” 

“I have another name for you if you like. Fair warning, though. It does rhyme with runt.” 

2020 laughed, and it sounded genuine. “I get it now. You’re provoking me so I’ll give you a swift death.” 

Not really, but I stayed silent. Let him think what he wanted to think. 

Then I saw something. “You’re bleeding.” 

“Huh?” 2020 asked. 

I pointed to the crimson path down his pants. He looked, then covered it with his coat. “It’s nothing.” 

“I got bandages.” 

2020 pointed the gun at me again. “I don’t think so. Remember why I’m here?” 

“No need to lose any sense of civility. Come on. Sit down. I’ll get you fixed up. Then you can kill me and be on your merry way.” 

2020 considered, then sat in an easy chair. I got him some whiskey and went off to get the first aid kit in the bathroom. 

“Nothing funny!” he cried out. “Come back with a gun, and you’re dead!” 

I came back with the kit held aloft. “Nothing funny.” 

2020 opened his coat and lifted both a sweater and a shirt. I saw tiny circles all over his stomach. Closer examination revealed these to be bites. I almost laughed. 

“Didn’t think you had piranha in your moat,” 2020 said. “Or a moat, for that matter.” 

He took a healthy slug from the whiskey, and I went to work. No stitches needed, thankfully, but a lot of disinfectant and medical tape went into his injuries. When I finished, he relaxed, dropping his shirt and sweater. He took more whiskey. 

“This is good,” he said. “Got any pills for pain?” 

“I just finished the last of the heroin. Sorry.” 

“Ah.” He waved a dismissive hand. “This should do.” Another drink of whiskey. He refilled his own cup. 

I still rode the midnight gloom. Past experience shows that heroin and whiskey made for a bad tummy ache. I simply sat and watched my quarry. He looked weak and tipsy. Not good for a killing mood. 

“You still want to kill me?” I asked. 

2020 glanced at the gun in his hand. Shrugged. “Yeah. I’m just going to need a minute.” 

“Take your time.” Settling back. All the more to enjoy the heroin. If he was going to kill me, I hoped he wouldn’t wait until I was sober again. 

2020 took another bite from the whiskey. He grimaced, and his eyes turned to me, dull and already bloodshot. “What the fuck do you do out here in the middle of nowhere?” 

“Not much,” I said. “Sometimes I write, but I gave up that lifestyle. I’m not a writer anymore. It’s just too . . . too much. I get good wifi, though. Prime and Netflix is how I spend most of my days. That and the whiskey and smack.” 

2020 grunted. “That’s fucking pathetic.” 

“So’s the fucking world,” I said. 

“You have no one to blame but yourself. You killed 2016! You had to know that there would be repercussions.” 

“I wasn’t thinking at the time,” I said. “I was running on high octane revenge. As you can imagine, my tank is on empty. Has been for a while now.” 

2020 drank again. I watched him carefully, hoping to catch some indication that he could connect the dots I was showing him. Judging from the dull sheen over his eyes, he couldn’t. 

“You think you’re special,” he said. 

“Nope. Not really. Would I be a hermit if that were the case?” 

“No, you think you’re special. What makes you think that you should have killed an entire year? And don’t give me that shit about your dad. Years kill people. That’s what we do. We also bring life to others. It evens out.” 

“I didn’t care,” I said. “2016 had it coming.” 

2020 sneered. “You’re nobody. You’re nothing.” 

“And yet I killed your great-great-whatsis,” I said. 

He turned the gun on me and fired. I jumped, surprised, but the bullet missed me by the proverbial mile. It plowed into the wall next to me. 

“Whoops,” 2020 said. He laughed, taking another drink. 

“Maybe you should take a nap,” I said. “You’re a bit rough around the edges.” I couldn’t help but think that he should have approached from the west instead of the east. If he’d done so, he would have been devoured by the sharks I keep on that side of the moat, and I wouldn’t be stuck in this mess. 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” 2020’s grin was lopsided, and I was sure that he wouldn’t be able to stand up straight, much less shoot me.  “I wanna watch you squirm.” He fired again, and I involuntarily flinched, even though I expected it. The bullet went wild, and I later found it in my bathroom. 

But then his aim straightened, and he aimed the gun at my stomach. Ever have a gun pulled on you?  I have. In high school. I’d gone over to a friend’s place for a math project, and he showed me his rifle. He showed me that the weapon was not loaded . . . and then he aimed it at my torso, grinning wildly. Even though I knew for a fact that gun was empty, I still felt my insides oozing unnaturally against each other. 

So you can imagine how I felt when 2020 aimed a loaded gun at me. 

“Gettin’ nervous?” he asked. 

“You ever kill anyone?” I asked. 

2020 took another drink of whiskey. “Nah. Not really, I mean.” 

“It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man,” I said. “Taking away all he has, all he’s ever gonna have.” 

2020 laughed. “Yeah, I saw Unforgiven, too.” 

Drats. “Ah, fuck it then. What are you waiting for?” 

2020 pulled the trigger. This time I did not flinch, but I felt the bullet rip into my guts. I looked down to see a hole in my stomach already spouting blood. I lifted my shirt and saw my intestines through the bullet hole. I reached behind me and felt the exit wound, which was a lot bigger. Blood saturated the chair. 

2020 giggled. “I did it. I killed the year-killer.” 

I thought about my ruptured organs leaking poison into my body and knew that he was right. I was as good as dead. But I still had coherent thoughts. I still had that going for me, if nothing else. 

“What do you think are the odds that you’re going to get medical help all the way up here? At the top of the mountain and far away from civilization?” 

“Not good,” I croaked. 

“So I’m going to leave you here to suffer until your body finally dies on you. How do you like that?” 

It sucked, but I kept my mouth shut. I had a finite amount of breaths to take now, and I didn’t want to waste a single one. 

2020 wrapped his coat around himself. He grimaced slightly at the pain from his piranha bites, but he took another drink from the bottle, and it seemed to settle him down. He then went to the door and yanked it open. Giant flakes of snow washed over the floor, and he squinted into the wind. “So long, asshole. I hope you live a good long time before you die from that gunshot.” Grinning, he stepped outside. 

I yanked off my shirt and ripped it in two. The first I put in the entry wound, the second at the exit. I picked up a dirty shirt off the floor and tied it around my bulk, hoping it would buy me enough time. I probably wouldn’t have made it if I wasn’t wearing my leg brace. But I stood despite the dizziness and staggered to the door. The icy wind cut into my eyes, making them water so badly that I almost turned back. Then I saw 2020 looking down the mountain, trying to judge the best path to take. He turned to the west and started on his way down. 

I pushed myself as hard as I could, and I could feel myself stumbling against the ice and rocks. I made it around to the other side of the cabin. Just beyond 2020 I could see the moat. Just where I wanted him. Using the last of my strength, I launched myself at him, meaning to check him in the back of the head. My aim was off, and I got him in the small of the back instead. 

He gave a shocked yelp as he fell forwards and down the mountain. I watched his body flail on the way down, trying to grab anything that would stop his descent. Then he took a ten-foot drop and landed on his ass. I heard him scream and could only assume that he’d broken his tail bone. I knew what that was like. It happened to me twice. I felt no sympathy for him. 

He still rolled and bounced until he hit the lip of the moat, which sent him sailing over half of it until he splashed down into the murky waters. He managed to tread water pretty well, though. 

“You think you can kill me?!” 2020 roared. “You did jack shit, Bruni! Jack fucking shit!” 

And then the first shark fin surfaced. And then a second. And a third. 

“What the fuck?!” 2020 yelled. “This is bullshit. Sharks need saltwater!” 

I wanted to tell him that I’d had the saltwater imported for the express purpose of getting sharks for my moat, but my throat felt clogged, and I gagged up maybe a pint of blood. I propped myself up so I could watch. 

I almost missed it. One of the fins ducked down, and suddenly 2020 wasn’t there anymore. The moat turned crimson, and 2020 splashed back to the surface. “Help!” he screamed. “Don’t do this to me!” 

I chuckled, which was about all I could do at this point. The other two fins ducked down, and 2020 vanished yet again. This time, when he broke the surface again, it was only his decapitated head. And then one of the sharks gobbled that down, too. 

I fell onto my back, satisfied that if I was going to die here, at least 2020 got what he deserved. I remembered that I had a secret stash of Vicodin behind the medicine cabinet over my bathroom sink. My mouth watered, thinking of the ten pills I had in there. I spat, and it wasn’t saliva. 

I turned my head. My house seemed so far away. I tried to stand, but lightheadedness shoved me back down to the ground. I let my head fall back. I felt so tired. All I wanted to do was rest. 

Yes. Rest. 

I closed my eyes, not knowing if I would ever open them again.