"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