Chet & Floyd vs. The Apocalypse: Volume 1 (13 page)

Chapter 29

Floyd blinked.
He was pleasantly surprised to wake up alive. He was equally surprised to see a large ‘C’ sewn raggedly onto his T-shirt. Floyd shook his head. He already knew what the large ‘C’ stood for, but the questions about that could wait.

His body seemed to be one large abrasion.
Bandages were placed sporadically from his shins to his face. His shoulder was one large bandage.

Floyd sat up, grunting aloud.
He flipped his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. He wobbled a little bit, but soon regained his balance.

A small man looked in through the doorway
, his furtive eyes opened wide.

“Boo
,” Floyd said softly.

The man ran out of the room.

Floyd put his hands over his face and rubbed vigorously.
He wondered how long he’d been out and what had happened in that time. It was never a good thing to leave Chet to his own devices for long.

“Think of the devil
,” Chet said as he walked through the door.

“And he appears
,” Floyd said. “How did you know I was thinking about you?”

“I know I’m never far from your thoughts my little Floydorama.
It is good to see you’ve decided to join us.”

“Are you talking about my regaining of conscious
, or does ‘deciding to join you’ have something to do with this large ‘C’ sewn onto my T-shirt?”

“It’s good to label what you own
,” Chet said.

“You don’t own me Chet.”

“I don’t mean own you in a slavery type of way, you silly guy,” Chet said, slapping Floyd lightly on the cheek. “I mean own you as in a brotherhood where we own each other equally.”

“Equally under you
,” Floyd said.

“Equally can mean a lot of things
,” Chet said. “You should be thanking me Floyd. I got you out of that basement. I got you medical attention. I saved your life
again
. I save your life all the frickin’ time Floyd. You should show me some respect.”

“Saving my life after you personally put me in mortal danger doesn’t count
,” Floyd said.

Chet waved his comments away.
“Put all that aside Floyd. I should tell you I am a changed man. I have become a man of great responsibility. Since the Big Death, I have known that somehow I have a greater purpose.”

“Which is?”
Floyd said.

“Men have decided to follow me
,” Chet said. “I am a leader of men.”

“How many men?”

“About fifteen, give or take. I haven’t really counted them.”

“Your great calling after the
Big Death was to become a great leader of fifteen ragged and starving men?” Floyd asked.

“It sounds better the way I say it
,” Chet said.

“What do you call these followers?”

“The Chets.”

“Go figure
,” Floyd said. “Chet, let’s just dump these people off somewhere and get on with our lives before they’re all dead.”

Chet shook his head.
“I have a responsibility to them,” he said.

“That’s right!”
A grey and grizzled old man shambled into the room. He was covered in scabs. His shock white hair stood out straight from his head. “Our great and exalted master Chet rose from the rubble like a phoenix from the ashes. He is our true master and leader.” The man took a half bow toward Chet. “He rose his hand from the debris in the form of a C. We are the Chets! It’s prophecy fulfilled!”

“Prophecy?”
Floyd said. “What prophecy? He’s missing three fingers from his hand. It always looks like a C.”

“I don’t mean actual
prophecy
-prophecy,” the wizened man said. “I mean more like the prophecy that you make up after the fact.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing
,” Floyd said.

The old man stammered for words, but Chet cut him off.

“These are simple people compared to me Floyd. They understand in their hearts what their meager words cannot hope to convey.”

Chet waved the old man out of the room.
He left shuffling backwards half bent over.

“You are my right hand man Floyd.
Together, with the power of my Chets, we will rule this new world. They’ve even come up with a theme song.” Chet cleared his throat and sang. “When you’re a Chet you’re a Chet all the way / From your first cigarette to your dying day / When you’re a Chet when the spit hit’s the fan / You’ve got brothers around / You’re a family man!”

“Uh, Chet?”
Floyd said.

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m singing Floyd!”
Chet said. “I’m about to bring it home.

“
Then you are set with a capital ‘C’ / Till they cart you away at a hundred and three / When you’re a Cheeeeet / You stay a Cheeeeeeeeeet!”

“Nice song
,” Floyd said.

“It’s very catchy
,” Chet said. “I have some really creative people in my little gang.”

“Funny choice of words
,” Floyd said. “It’s too bad your theme song rips off
West Side Story
.”

“It’s an original.
Don’t pick at my honor.”

“You’ve just replaced Jet with Chet and worked on
the lines so they rhyme. You remember, ‘When you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way…’”

“Those songs have nothing in common!”
Chet screamed. He was clicking his fingers and in a very high state of agitation. “I will leave you now Floyd. I can see you need some rest.” Chet stomped quickly out of the room.

Floyd could hear him down the hallway singing to himself.
“When you’re a Jet you’re a Chet all the way…Dang it!”

Chapter 30

Floyd sighed deeply at the sight of his 1971 Super Beetle. The body was dented and smashed on all sides. Glass was broken on all but one of the rear side windows.

He stuck his hand through the driver
’s side, where the door was ripped off and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. The car was dead.

Floyd opened the hood and grabbed out one of his cigars.
Most of the tobacco was twisted and mashed. Soon enough he would have to smoke the rest out of a pipe like Chet. A box of Gurkha Viper cigars had made it through the assault, and he lit one of those. He was as discreet as possible about where he got them, as he considered himself watched at all times. Not by Chet’s decree; it was just a feeling he had.

The car was a block away from where Chet had set up his new small army.
They were set up in a large house with a garage that contained all the tools that Floyd needed. Floyd hated trim work. He was the type of guy who loved demo. Rip it apart, slap it together and let someone else work the details. He was going to get this car running. It would be awhile before it looked good. But it would be running.

A lanky young man had materialized next to him while he was lost in thought.
Some of Chet’s new army reminded him of roaches. He never really knew where they were hiding most of the time, and they popped up suddenly.

This one he knew the best.
The guy followed him out to his car a couple days ago and slowly got the courage to come close and check the vehicle out. He didn’t know anything about cars but was eager to learn. It was refreshing to have someone around who would actually assist in the repairs, rather than Chet who was mostly good for destroying things. Floyd called him Lanks.

“Lanks.”
Floyd said. “Good to see you. Hand me that saw with the blade that cuts metal.”

Lanks handed it over with a nod.

He didn’t say much and that was also refreshing.
Chet was one to speak all the time, whether there was something to say or not. Chet said things like a frenzied filibuster.

The silence
was fine for Floyd. He had never realized just how quiet a person he was until Chet became busy with his new gang. Two quiet people together get a lot of work done, but it was a somber business.

Chet talked a lot, it was true, but he always tended to add a spark of life to whatever was going on.
Floyd dropped his train of thought and put his muscle into chopping the top off the Volkswagen.

This would have been short work if they had power tools.
Without electricity, they were a useless invention, a thing of the past.

Lanks stood a few feet away watching.
Floyd did like working with him, but he just didn’t do anything unless he was told to. Floyd was used to Chet flying off full speed towards whatever whim he was pursuing at the time, so giving orders was foreign to Floyd. He would sometimes forget Lanks was there.

“Why don’t you take up a saw and help me out with this?”
Floyd said.

Lanks smiled, picked up a blade and started sawing on the other side of the car.
It was sweaty work, but soon he and Lanks were able to lift the top off the car and throw it off to the side of the road.

“Convertible
,” Lanks said.

“This is going to be one sweet ride
,.” Floyd said.

Next they removed the rented remnants of the front fenders.
Floyd put Lanks to work taking off the hood. Floyd would then hammer it back into its normal shape as much as he could.

Without
the front fenders, headlights were a problem, but he would figure that out later. The engine’s timing was off, and Floyd was trying to puzzle that mess out without having to do a complete overhaul. He had taken the engine out and done a full rebuild before, but that was with a shop, mechanic’s tools, manuals and the use of the Internet. Rebuilding and engine blind would just leave him with a shop full of engine parts, otherwise known as a dead car.

By the end of the day Floyd and Lanks had done pretty well for themselves.

“It looks like a little tank,” Lanks said.

Floyd almost jumped at the words.
He had forgotten that Lanks was there.

“There isn’t much to these old German cars.
You strip them, and they
are
almost like tanks. Except, of course, for the armor and firepower. They are tough little cars though, easy to keep running. It’s hard to kill one of these for good,” Floyd said.

Lanks nodded.
The job they did on the roof of the car looked a little rough, but the rest looked good. The broken glass was cleaned up. The new rear armor they put on the fenders was a direct contrast to the bare front tires.

Floyd was worried about the engine, as the rear hatch was destroyed in the assault.
“How are we going to cover that thing?” Floyd said.

“I don’t know
,” Lanks said. He ran a finger over the car lovingly, the way Floyd would have done. It put a smile on his face.

Floyd slapped him on the back.
“Great job today,” he said.

“Thanks
,” Lanks said. He helped Floyd clean up his tools, and they walked back to the house.

The next day Lanks showed up to help Floyd with the car
, this time bringing two friends with him. Floyd shrugged, handed out the tools, and they all got to work.

Chapter 31

Chet kept his eyes downward as he entered the house
’s front room where he held his morning affirmation meetings with his gang, the Chets. Chet didn’t want to do this morning’s meeting; he wanted to sleep in. But being the leader of a gang had its cost.

Without their morning affirmation meeting, some of his gang
might go about their business with low self-esteem and little vigor. It was up to him to pump them up.

“Here he is
, our great and exalted leader!” the wizened man exclaimed as Chet entered the room and made his way to the small, hastily built podium from which he gave all his speeches.

There was a smattering of applause.
Chet waited until it died down completely. Chet raised his eyes and addressed the group.

“Good morning Chets!
Today is a day that will live in infamy—where the hell is everybody?” Chet said.

His gang
was composed of around twenty or thirty people. He never took an actual count. Today there were only five people looking at him from the rows and rows of folding chairs he’d decreed set up days before.

“Oh, great wise and glorious leader!”
the old man crooned. “I’m not too sure where everyone is this morning, but it’s the quality of the person, not the quantity that matters.”

Chet looked out over the sickly and scabby faces.

“What quality? Where are my Chets?” Chet said.

The old man shook his head and shrugged apologetically.

“I have a very important meeting today
,” Chet said.

“Is this another affirmation meeting?”
A stunted and scarred man asked from the front row.

“Yes.
It’s our time where we affirm ourselves as Chets and men.”“Great,” the man said, rolling his eyes.

“What’s wrong with the morning affirmation meeting?”
Chet said.

“Don’t get me wrong
,” the man said. “I love the meeting. You say some pretty nice things to me. I just don’t really see the purpose of it. What are we doing here?”

“You are my
post-apocalyptic army,” Chet whined. “I rose from the ashes to command you.”

“That is very true
,” the old man said. “You are like the phoenix. The harbinger from the bowels of hell. You’ve risen to lead us into the new age.”

The man in the front row snorted.
“All we do is sit around and listen to speeches. What are we going to actually do?”

Chet stared at the man, not really able to think of anything.
It was nice having a post-apocalyptic army, but he really didn’t know what to do with it. He couldn’t attack some stronghold; there were no strongholds to attack. There was nobody to conquer and no riches to be gained.

He couldn’t try and play out a whole
‘world repopulation manifesto’ thing. The meager number of women that were once part of this group all died with the explosion.

There was nothing to do but give speeches.
So that’s all he did. There was murmuring among the scant remaining members of his gang. Chet needed to find a purpose and now.

“What are we going to do?”
Chet said. “We are going out into that wasted landscape and start a new era! Right now!”

Chet stomped out of the room without the slightest idea what he was going to do once he was out there.
His Chets came shuffling after him.

Chet walked straight out from the house to where he thought Floyd might be.
Maybe he and Floyd could figure out what to do. Chet just hoped that Floyd would think fast.

When he saw Floyd,
Chet’s feelings of dread turned to fiery anger. Now he knew where all his Chets had gone.

Floyd was working on the Volkswagen and so were about twenty other people.
Men who had C’s on their Shirts were polishing hubcaps, sanding down rust spots, doing interior work or a variety of other jobs.

Floyd saw him coming and waved.
This pissed Chet off even more.

“Here is the first task of the Chets!”
Chet turned and screamed at his gang. “There is our enemy! We must destroy them!” Chet pointed at the people down by Floyd.

Chet stomped down to Floyd.
“What are you doing Floyd? You are stealing my gang! This is my post-apocalyptic army, and I refuse the share them.”

“I didn’t steal them
,” Floyd said. “They came down here on their own. We’ve been working on the car. Doesn’t it look good?”

“It looks really cool.
I like the armor on the back,” Chet said. “But don’t muddy the water with your viper’s tongue. You’ve stolen my Chets, and I want them back.”

“You can have them.
I don’t care,” Floyd said.

“That’s it
,” Chet said. “I declare war you and your Chets! Tomorrow morning I will meet you here, and you and your Chets will die.” Floyd shrugged and went back to work.

Chet turned to the men.
“Tomorrow there will be war. Whose side will you be on? My side—with my phoenix-like kick-assedness—or this troglodyte?”

“Chet I don’t care about any of this.
I don’t want to fight you,” Floyd said.

“Your words mean nothing
compared to the foulness of your actions,” Chet said. “You cannot hide behind your wall of verbiage.”

“I’m just fixing our car.”
Floyd shook his head and got back to work.

“Who’s with me?”
Chet said. “When you’re a Chet—”

“You’re a Chet all the way!”
s small chorus of voices hailed back at him.

Chet had doubled his numbers with the small rallying speech, which wasn’t saying much.
He had about half the men come back to the house with him. Half stayed with Floyd.

“Does that mean we have to find another place to sleep tonight?”
Lanks asked Floyd.

“Don’t look at me.
I don’t care where you sleep,” Floyd said. He gestured with a socket at the rows of empty houses. “Take your pick.”

“We each get our own house?”
Lanks said. “That is so generous!”

“That’s not really what I meant
,” Floyd said.

“All hail Floyd the
Generous!” Lanks said. Everyone else took up the cheer. Floyd groaned and tightened a bolt under the gasket.