In The End: a pre-apocalypse novel (6 page)

Carl was dreaming that he was in a bar fight, surrounded by
angry women. They threw bottles of whiskey and beer at him, but none of them
struck him - his reflexes were too fast. But they were moving in closer. He was
going to have to do something more than just duck and swerve to defend himself.

He picked up a pool cue from the
table beside him and swung it left and right, testing it and warning the women
off. They continued to creep toward him. He swung at the closest woman and felt
the reverberation at the base of the cue when the other end connected with her
head. She went down, but the others kept coming, although a little slower now.

Carl was ready for them. In fact,
he was eager. It felt good taking one of them out and he looked forward to
dropping the rest. He grabbed another cue from the table on his left, turned it
so that it was vertical and then let it slide through his palm until all but
eight inches had passed through, then he gripped it tight. He thought that had
to have looked cool.

Now he felt fully prepared for battle.
A small, angry brunette rushed him and he swung both sticks toward her head.
They both struck at the same time on opposite sides and she dropped to the
floor.

Two women broke off from the still
slowly advancing group with the intention of flanking him. He whipped his head
to the left and to the right, keeping an eye on both of them. He thought, “I
can take ‘
em
. But I need to take a piss first.”

He raised his hands in the air,
looking like he was going to use the pool cues as spears. This was not his
intention – he was communicating the wrong thing. He dropped the spears so he
could make the correct hand signal, holding one hand in the air horizontally
while placing the other beneath it vertically. He rapidly tapped the fingertips
of his right hand with the palm of his left.

“Time out!
Time out, goddammit.
I gotta take a leak.”

The women stopped advancing. He
looked around for the restrooms, but didn’t see any signs. He didn’t know this
place and he was afraid he wasn’t going to be able to find a toilet before he
couldn’t hold it any longer.

One of the women said, “Why don’t
you just piss in your pants, asshole?”

He felt like he was going to, the
urge was becoming so great. He couldn’t stand it anymore, but didn’t know where
to go. He just kept looking around and willing his bladder to hold on a
goddamned second.

Carl opened his eyes and said,
“Goddamn. I gotta piss like a seahorse.” He was lying on his back in an empty
ski lodge which was the main building in a deserted ski resort, a few miles
from the Ice Bunny Resort.

He and Trey had broken in the night
before and sat on the floor drinking beer and smoking pot until they had both
passed out. According to the sunlight, they had slept well into the day. They
were on private property, but they had no fear of the owner coming to the
lodge.

The resort had been vacant for over
40 years and would probably remain vacant forever. It was fenced off and the
owner had posted signs everywhere making it very clear that this was private
property. Carl told Trey it would be a great place to crash until they found
something better - or until the owner came by and spotted them.

Carl got up quickly then stopped
for a second as his head pounded with pain. He put his hand on top of his head
and pressed down as if he could stop the pounding sensation that way. He walked
to the front door, pulled it open and stepped outside.

He probably would’ve relieved
himself somewhere other than the wooden deck just outside the door if he hadn’t
had to go so bad, and if his head wasn’t still throbbing from a hangover. As it
was, he said, “Fuck it,” and unzipped right outside the door.

He urinated on the wooden deck,
waiting for the urgent, nearly painful feeling to go away. He closed his eyes
and concentrated on the relief he’d feel any second. The air outside was cold
and felt good at the moment.

Finally, he was past the halfway
point of emptying his bladder and he relaxed and felt better. His arms were
really feeling the cold air now. He opened his eyes and glanced up to see if it
looked like there’d be snow today.

“Holy shit!
Trey! Get out here. You gotta see this.”

He couldn’t believe what he saw on
the horizon rising in the sky above the mountains, coming from somewhere over
the Denver area. The unmistakable formation of a mushroom cloud hung in the
air. Someone had nuked Denver and Carl thought it was the coolest thing he’d
ever seen.

He turned around, zipping up his
pants and yelled, “Trey! Wake your ass up, man. You ain’t gonna believe this.”
He
squinted
his eyes from the pain that yelling
brought to his head.  “Goddamn, I need a beer.”

He walked over to the twelve-pack
carton sitting next to Trey and bent down to reach inside for a can. Again, the
pain in his head was there to punish him for the act of bending over. He stood
back up with a can of Coors Light, cracked the top and then he kicked the
bottom of one of Trey’s boots, finally waking him.

“What the fuck, Carl? Why you gotta
be an asshole like that?”

“Get up! You gotta see this
outside. You’ll shit your fuckin’ pants.”

“Get up so I can shit my pants?”

“No. Grab a fuckin’ beer and get
your ass out here.”

“Shit. You don’t
got
aspirin, do ya?”

Carl just looked at him for a few
seconds, thinking, “Why the fuck would I have
a
aspirin?”

“What’s the big deal, anyway?” Trey
reluctantly pulled himself up into a sitting position and looked around,
rubbing his eyes.

“Come on, dammit! This shit’s gonna
blow your mind.”

“Why don’t you tell me what it is,
so I got some motivation to get up?”

“What if I told you every single
cop in Denver just turned to dust?”

“I’d tell you to share whatever it
is you’re
smokin
’.”

“I’m serious, Trey. I ain’t gonna
say anymore. This is
somethin
’ you gotta see for
yourself.”

Trey’s curiosity was finally aroused,
although he suspected that Carl had lost his mind or really was smoking
something that he wasn’t sharing. Either way, he wasn’t going to find out
without getting up and going outside to see what had knocked Carl off his
rails.  He reached into the twelve-pack case and felt around until his
fingers landed on the last can of beer. He grabbed it and got up.

“This better be worth it. A few
more hours and I
mighta
slept past this hangover.”

“Trust me, Trey. This is the first
day of the rest of our fuckin’ lives.”

Trey scowled. Carl’s statement
reminded him of some kind of motivational bullshit he didn’t care for. Trey was
wearing a blue denim vest that featured more dirt than blue over a black
t-shirt that had faded to grey. He reached into the breast pocket for his
cigarettes, took one out and lit it with a Bic he found on the floor.

“Okay. Let’s see this.”

Trey followed Carl out to the deck
and looked around, not seeing anything but Carl’s big, shit-eating grin.

“Well, I don’t see anything. What’s
this nonsense about cops turning to dust?”

“Ain’t that the coolest thing
ever?” Carl pointed at the sky over Denver.

Trey looked to where Carl was
pointing and his mouth fell open while his eyes widened as far as they could
go. He looked panic-stricken.

“No, no, no!”

“Hell, yes,
Trey!”

“No, Carl! My sister and her kid
live down there!”

“Not anymore,” Carl said.

Trey swung at Carl without
thinking, connecting with his jaw and sending the bigger man flying backwards,
stumbling and landing on his ass.

“Okay,” Carl said, rubbing his jaw.
“I’m gonna let you have that one,
cuz
you just lost
family.  But try it again, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Trey ignored him as he stared at
the sky and thought about his kid sister, Tori and her little girl, Lizzy. He
realized his parents could also be dead now if bombs had dropped in California
too, but that didn’t bother him. It was a little sad if his mom was gone, but
he never talked to her much anyway since he couldn’t stand being around his
father. All the bastard ever did was
tell
him how
wrong he was about everything in his life. Fuck him. Good riddance.

Carl got back up and went inside
for another beer. The carton was empty. He picked up his keys from the floor
and looked around to see if he needed to get anything else before leaving.
Finding nothing, he walked back outside.

“Trey, we need to do some
shopping.”

Trey finally snapped out of his
sorrowful trance and his thoughts of what a shame it was for Tori and her cute
little kid to have died so young.

“We ain’t got any money.”

“Money?
Hell. Who needs money? Don’t you know what that big
ol
’
cloud means? Everything’s free now. We don’t need
no
money. We take what we want. Ain’t
no
fucking cops to
stop us.” Carl smiled like it was the greatest day of his life.

“Maybe there ain’t no cops in
Denver, but there’s still county and state that
wouldn’ta
been there when the bomb went off.”

“Fuck ‘
em
.
We’ll take them out too. You know why?
Cuz
there
ain’t
no
reinforcements
comin
’
from Denver!
Hooo-weeee
!”

Carl walked over to his Harley-Davidson
motorcycle, got on it, and put the key in the ignition. “I’m
goin
’
shoppin
’ anywhere I damn
well please. You
comin
’?”

He straddled his bike and
kick-started it instead of using the electric starter button. He felt powerful
and wanted to exert the energy. He revved his engine while Trey went inside to
get his keys.

Carl unsnapped the leather sheath
on his belt and pulled out his hunting knife. He turned it over, looking at one
side then the other, and talking to it.

“I think you and me are gonna have to
go get us some guns.”

He put the knife back and snapped
the cover shut and smiled, looking forward to all that life suddenly had to
offer him.

Tori panicked and looked all around, desperately hoping to spot
the bright pink little ski jacket that Elizabeth wore. She didn’t see her
anywhere, so she yelled, “Elizabeth! Where are you?!” She walked to the road at
the end of the driveway and looked both ways, seeing nothing but trees, widely
spaced cabins, and dirty snow.

“Elizabeth!” she called again, not
knowing what to do or which way to go to find her daughter. She fought back
tears and the urge to panic and tried to think. Where could she have possibly
gone? She wasn’t walking in either direction down the road – she’d be extremely
visible if she was.

She looked around and tried to
imagine where would a three-year old go – what would attract her or draw her
attention?

“Mommy.”

Did she actually hear that, or was
she imagining it?

“Where are you, baby? Elizabeth,
where are you?”

“I’m right here,” the tiny voice
sounded from somewhere nearby.

Tori turned to face the cabin and
saw the bright pink of her daughter’s jacket under her Pontiac Sunbird. She ran
the short distance and bent down to reach for her daughter.

“Oh, Jesus, baby. You scared me to
death. Why are you under the car?”

“The loud noise was scaring me, so
I hided.”

“It’s okay now, baby. Come here.”

Elizabeth crawled to her mother.
Tori picked her up and carried her to the porch and set her down for a minute.

“I’m sorry about the scary noise. I
had to break this window so we can get inside Grandma and Grandpa’s cabin and
get warm.”

“How come?”

“Because I don’t
have the key.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where’s Gramma and Grampa?”

“I don’t know, baby.”

Tori told
herself
that she hadn’t just lied to her daughter. She didn’t know that her parents
were dead from a nuclear blast, or possibly dying from radiation poisoning
somewhere. It was just the most probable thing. But she didn’t need to tell
Elizabeth about what had probably happened.

“I’m going to pick you up and carry
you through the window. I need you to put your hands in front of your chest and
keep them there. We have to be very careful going through the window so we
don’t get cut. Okay?”

Elizabeth nodded solemnly. Tori
picked her up, held her tightly and carefully and slowly ducked and stepped one
foot into the front room, crunching glass beneath her foot. She leaned over and
gently lowered Elizabeth until her shoes touched the floor.

“You can put your hands down now,
but don’t move.”

Elizabeth looked at the broken
glass all over the floor as Tori came through the rest of the way.

“The first thing we have to do is
clean up this mess – then we need to cover the broken window. Come with me,
baby.”

Tori got a broom and dustpan from
the utility room near the back door. She left Liz at the dining room table with
a coloring book and crayons she took from her little backpack. She cleaned up
all of the glass that she could see and feared that there would still be little
specks she couldn’t see and they’d end up finding them with their bare feet. If
she ever managed to get the house warm, they would have to wear shoes in the
living room. She put the broom and dustpan away and looked for something she
could use to cover the window.

She couldn’t find anything but
sheets and duct tape. Before trying to tape the sheet over the big window, she
put a can of soup on the gas stove with a very low flame. She turned around, looked
down at Liz and saw that she had drawn what might’ve been a mushroom cloud over
a picture of a house with an apple tree in the front yard.

Tori shook her head. She knew that
sooner or later Liz would talk about the strange cloud she’d seen and she’d ask
Tori if she’d seen it too, and she’d want to know what it was. Tori did not
want to tell her daughter about the horror and genocide that had been unleashed
on all of the people who lived in their hometown.