Diabolic Fiction

Smiling At Ground Zero

Johnny Zang sat on a hill overlooking his fair city. He thought about how it used to be called Pleasantville, but now that the meteor was only minutes away from smashing right smack dab in the middle of town, the newspapers had renamed the doomed city, Ground Zero. While this quiet area was the focal-point of the meteor’s emotionless fury, scientists predicted that the impact would destroy about 95% of all life on Earth. In other words, with the exception of cockroaches and glowing creatures at the bottom of the ocean, all would be gone.
Johnny was already aware of this. He also knew that in 2.5 million years, a fish hitherto unknown by science, would rise from the sea and tread upon a beach. A few million years later, it would begin to walk, and then a few weeks later, would become the first mammal to stride over the Earth since the great meteor of ’98.
The thing is, Johnny had the power to stop the meteor dead in its tracks. Just one thought and that hunk of space debris would explode into a million tiny pieces, harmless to Earth.
Pete Mitchell walked up to Johnny. He sat down next to him and looked down on the deserted town.
“Those morons. They think they can run from this thing. They don’t realize that they’ve traded a quick, painless death for an agonizing one. I’m staying right here. I ain’t gonna leave and take the chance of slowly burning to death, or choking on the ash and smoke from the damned thing. No sir. Right here I will stay!”
Johnny ignored Pete. He had only one thing on his mind, and that was how he was going to spend the last few minutes.
“Oh shit, Johnny, there it is.”
He looked up to see a small, grey speck in the sky. Its image wavered in the noonday sun, but started to expand with every passing second.
“Here it comes. Those scientist fuckers were right…that son-of-a-bitch is headin’ right for us. Oh shit.”
Johnny held his hand over his forehead to cut the sun’s glare. The meteor was growing larger. A small shadow began to appear over the city. It soon oozed over the ground, blanketing the town square…slowly stretching out and expanding to swallow everything in its dark diameter.
“You think we’ll get to see it up close? I mean, right before it hits? I want to see it. I want watch the flames all around it…I want to feel the heat…see the rock right here. You know? Do you think I will?” Pete turned his head to look at Johnny, hoping for an answer.
Johnny lay back and slid his hands behind his head. He smiled.
“No, Pete. You won’t see a goddamed thing.”
Before he could turn around for one last glimpse of the meteor, Pete’s eyes melted away. A second later, his skin and then his insides followed right behind.