Free The After/Life (The After/Life Odyssey) by Vardan Partamyan Page A

messed something up (fifteen seconds)? If this goes wrong, they are going to kill Teacher Kendall. She will burn and it is going to be my fault (ten seconds). I can’t get it right – it is as simple as that (five seconds)… There is silence - all I can hear is the rapid beating of my heart… And then there is a dull sound of a blast and the floor shakes under my feet. I feel a cruel grin spreading on my face. It worked. The bastard Chief Executioner got a taste of his own hell machine. One of the little adjustments Bars and I made at the control terminal was authorizing the release of fuel into the incinerator and engaging the mechanism of prophylactic auto combustion set for eight thirty in the morning. The amount of fuel released into the chamber was about fifty times the amount usually used during incineration. It was to and, if the sound was any indication, did result in a nice little explosion, ending the inglorious existence of the Chief Executioner as well as hopefully doing one other thing…
    There is the sound of the siren. It whines through all the intercoms intruding into your brain and paralyzing you. Somehow, I am taken back to my childhood and the day when the bomb was dropped (I’ve been around for a long, long year). The same siren sounded then, announcing the arrival of the Apocalypse. And once again, through the sound of the siren, I can almost hear Sympathy for the Devil again. Roles have changed - here and now I am (stole many a man's soul and fate) the devil. I am here to wreak havoc (it’s the nature of my game). I can hear voices in the corridor. It’s general alert. Viler’s hounds will soon be here. I can hear them, shouting out commands and recharging the weapons. There is a furious knocking on my door. It’s eight thirty five – we programmed the elevator to come down at eight forty (if it ever does come down). The bastards are here too early. I take out the gun and walk to the door.
    ”What is it?” I yell so that they can hear me through the deafening sound of the siren.
”Open the door, Teacher. We need to talk to you,” there is a burst of vicious laughter outside and that peculiar click of weapons being taken off the safety.
”Well, talk then, you fucking dogs, I don’t need to see your faces to hear you bark,” I don’t know how long I can hold them here. There is no sign of the elevator, only darkness outside my window.
”Open the fucking door, Teacher, Principal’s orders,” someone started banging on the door. It was code sealed and could not be opened from the outside. It could certainly be broken.
    I step back, pull up the gun, aim at the middle of the door and pull the trigger. There is the deafening sound of the shot and I can hear muffled whining and a string of obscenities (I’ve stolen many man’s soul and fate). Then there is silence again and even the siren takes the back seat to my raging heart beat. I know what is going to happen now and just as I throw myself down on the floor the shooting starts. The sound is earsplitting. The bullets are blowing apart everything. Splinters from my furniture are flying through the air. The table lamp explodes in a fountain of sparks. The stuffing of my mattress is bursting out as feathers from the pillow are making their slow journey to the ground. There is a sound of ricochet and I see a bullet go into the floor right next to me. Another ricochet and I feel a sharp pain in my shoulder as the bullet tears my flesh. It seems that this will never end - just then it does. I can hear them recharging. I aim my gun at the door.
    ”You really should have taken turns shooting,” I start firing and am satisfied to hear screams of pain outside. Then there is another sound, so familiar after all these years. The elevator – it’s coming down. I fire another shot, grab my things from the debris on the floor and run to the window... just as I am about to reach it, the firing from the outside starts again. I can feel the