Melting Point

The man in front of Marcus didn’t move, nor did he speak or blink or even breathe. Upon closer inspection, Marcus realized the man did not seem capable of doing anything at all, save for pointing over his shoulder with a vacantly happy disposition. He waved his hand in front of the man’s face and snapped his fingers a few times. He weaved in and out of what he thought would be the man’s line of sight to see if the man would track his movements, but his blue eyes remained staring out into the distance and his mouth stayed plastered in a pleasant smile. 

Marcus narrowed his eyes at the man and scanned him up and down. He tried to make sense of the man’s colorful attire. Perhaps the bright colors were made to stand out against the smoke and ash choking the atmosphere, but he didn’t think the material would provide that much coverage against the elements. Not to mention the thin white shoes tied to the man’s feet. The man was indoors now, and well-sheltered against the sun’s rays, but if he were to step outside onto the blacktop… Marcus cringed at the thought of rubber melting into the soles of his feet. He nearly gagged as he imagined the smell of burnt skin, but the radio dangling off his belt pulled him from his gruesome reverie. 

“Marc- …-kill you. …-hell are you?” The radio crackled between each word, but Marcus could still hear Isabella’s anger loud and clear. 

Marcus gave the man one more look, but the man only returned the same smile he had greeted him with, before Marcus pushed through the glass doors of the building and jogged to meet up with Isabella who was stalking towards him from across the street. 

He and his sister had been walking down the road together earlier in the day when Isabella spotted a soot-crusted sign on the face of the building to their left. Though most of the text was illegible, Isabella eagerly tapped on the visible word: “Soup.”

Marcus had frowned at the sign and wiped away a small circle of filth from the neighboring window to peer inside the building. “It looks empty,” he told Isabella hesitantly, “but I don’t think it’s going to have the kind of stuff we’re looking for.” 

Isabella had already pulled out her glass breaker that she kept in the side of her backpack and glared at Marcus. “And how would you know that, smartass?” she asked him as she brandished the hammer-shaped object in his direction. Before Marcus could explain the array of overturned chairs and tables he had seen inside, Isabella had smashed the glass panel nearest to her. Pebbles of glass sprinkled onto her and onto the ground. She brushed some of the glass off her person and stepped into the new entrance she had created. “I’ma check it out real quick. And if they got cans of soup or food in there, it’ll be worth it.” 

Isabella was out of Marcus’s sight in an instant. He had sighed and was ready to follow her when the reflection of a silhouetted person in the small circle of glass he had cleared had made him start. Marcus had turned slowly to face the threat that appeared to be staring at him from the opposite building. Matteo had told them that this area was clear, and he didn’t think Matteo was petty enough to send him and Isabella into a dangerous situation with no backup or weapons. As Marcus got closer to the building adorned with signage that invited him to “Step Inside” and “Take the Stage,” he could see that the silhouette was that of a smiling man. 

Marcus was now jogging from the building and from the man to report what he had found to Isabella. Although Isabella’s face was obscured by her respirator, Marcus did not need to see her expression to know that she was fuming. He slowed his pace and waited for her to close the distance, which she did by smacking the side of his head. 

“Where the hell were you?” Isabella demanded. Her arm was winded back and ready to smack him again if she didn’t like his answer. 

Marcus raised his hands in surrender and motioned towards the building he had come from. “I was going to follow you but I saw…” he hesitated a beat and settled on, “someone.” 

Isabella’s eyes widened and her rage gave way to unease as she looked around . “There are other people here?”

“Yes? Well, maybe. I don’t actually know?” Marcus didn’t wait for Isabella’s unease to revert back into anger at him. He grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her towards the building. “Let me show you.”

“Matteo needs to know if there are other people here,” Isabella said. 

“He will! But just look,” Marcus said as they stepped inside the building. 

Marcus felt Isabella freeze mid-step and she jerked free from Marcus’s grasp. 

“See?” Marcus asked. He was again gazing at the man, who was still smiling and gesturing behind him. “Isn’t it-?” The word “weird” withered on his lips and morphed into a strangled “Wait!”  

Isabella was again wielding her glass breaker, but it wasn’t glass she was aiming to break this time. Her cry drowned out any of Marcus’s pleas to stop, and she pitched her body forward to ram the glass breaker into the man’s temple. 

Marcus turned away instinctively with his hands clamped over his ears. He didn’t want to hear the crunch and thud of the glass breaker cleaving through skull and flesh, nor did he want to see the man crumpled on the floor, oozing red. 

After a beat, he breathed sharply through his nose and braced himself for the grisly sight. He saw Isabella now holding her respirator in her hands. Her face was screwed up into a look of bewilderment as she looked at the man who still remained standing, pointing, and smiling. Marcus took up the same expression as Isabella. Her glass breaker did connect with the man’s head, and he saw that its sharp end was now embedded into the man’s temple. Marcus prodded at the glass breaker and gingerly pulled it out of the man’s head. Instead of gore in the wake of Isabella’s act of violence, there was nothing. Nothing but a deep indent the shape of Isabella’s glass breaker tunneled into the man’s temple. 

“What the fuck,” Marcus breathed. 

“Definitely weird,” Isabella said, taking her glass breaker back from Marcus’s grasp.

“But, why? How?”

“I’m not staying long enough to figure out how they got like that,” Isabella said. She was fixing her respirator back over her face and tucking the glass breaker into the waistband of her pants. “Let’s go.”

Marcus looked over the man’s shoulder in the general direction where he pointed. Behind the man and almost hidden completely behind a partial wall, Marcus could see the crown of someone’s head. He trotted over and found another man. This man was toppled over on his side, but his legs were crossed as if he had been sitting up vertically at some point. Marcus fingered the hood of the man’s burgundy jacket, and he walked around the toppled body to examine the man’s face. A startled cry curdled in Marcus’s throat as Isabella came around to retrieve him. 

“I said let’s go,” she hissed. “We have to finish scouting the area and Matteo said an environmental episode is gonna hit at some point midday.”

Marcus didn’t respond. 

“Pendejo, did you hear me? Matteo said-”

“Isabella I do not give a fuck what Matteo wants,” Marcus snapped back. “I’m trying to figure out why this man’s face has melted the fuck off.” 

Isabella came around to see what Marcus looked at, and her own startled cry came out of her mouth. The siblings could not tell if this man had been smiling like the man out front because this man’s mouth and nose and eyes appeared to be pooled in a flesh-colored puddle around what remained of his head. Where his face should have been, dozens of lines of bulbous dribbles of skin had leaked down from every orifice of his face and into the fleshy puddle. Marcus crouched down and reached out to poke at the man’s ruined face, but Isabella kicked his hand away. 

“Don’t touch him! Are you crazy? We don’t know if that’s contagious or what it is.”

“I don’t think they’re alive, Isa.”

“No shit, smartass,” Isabella said. “Let’s go.” 

“No. No, I mean, I don’t think they’re actual people,” Marcus said slowly. He looked back and forth between both of the men. “I think they might have been put here. Maybe?” He stood and touched the puddle of the man’s face with the toe of his boot. Isabella gagged behind him. “This isn’t skin. They melted. They’re not people.” 

“People can melt, Marcus,” Isabella said. Her radio crackled to life and she tugged it from the side pocket of her backpack. Most of the words were indecipherable, but the siblings could make out Matteo’s voice enough to know that he was urging them to return to their base. Isabella looked at Marcus with a stern face. Ever the older sister, thought Marcus. “Let’s go,” Isabella repeated. 

Isabella walked away quickly, giving the two not-alive men a wide berth as she made for the glass doors. She shoved the door open and waited for Marcus. He fiddled with the straps on his own respirator as he walked to give a rational explanation as to why he moved so slowly. He took in as many details of the men as he thought he could remember. Marcus wanted answers. He wanted to know who these men were, why they were there, who had put him there, what their purpose was. A rush of heat emanated from the doors and Isabella yelped in discomfort. Marcus gave the man a final look before rushing to help his sister. 

The siblings left the building and began their trek back to their base. Their breathing was labored through their respirators as ash began floating through the air and choking the atmosphere. Heat shimmered off the pavement in front of them, reflecting the gray buildings and orange sky like the rippling surface of the water that used to neighbor the city they were scouting. As sweat dripped from Marcus’s forehead and down his cheek, he couldn’t help but remember the final look he took of the man. The man’s pleasant expression was marred only by the injury to his temple and the single tear that dripped from his eye.