The Earth Died Screaming

by Chuck Rogers

  "Yeah, that's why I smell nice, and that's sir to you, fucko."

  "What?"

  I put about half my weight into my knee. "Sir, yes sir! Say it!"

  "Sir, yes sir!"

  It was good to establish compliance early. I eased off.

  "So," I made a vague, planet-encompassing circle with my free hand. "What happened?"

  "Dude, the Deathstar."

  I leaned hard. "Sir!"

  "Sir, the Deathstar Sir!"

  Object out in space. Cosmic death ray. Deathstar in the common vernacular. Made sense. "And?"

  "The Deathstar, it like, broke the moon."

  Interesting.

  "It hit the moon first?"

  "Yeah, they say that's why the Earth wasn't destroyed. It absorbed a bunch of it."

  "Then what?"

  "Then the beam hit Earth."

  "And?"

  "Anyone who saw it went blind."

  Day of the Triffids. Check. I'd ask about carnivorous plants later. "And?"

  "The beam hit the ocean first."

  Tsunami's, no more waterfront property, check. "And?"

  "And there was a . . ." Jaiden searched for someone else's syllables. "A resulting mass evaporation event?"

  Mass evaporation. Forty days and forty nights of rain. Biblical flood. Check.

  "And?"

  "Then there was like, the burn flu. If you got it you died and stuff."

  And stuff. Pandemic, check.

  "And?"

  "They say it burned a big hole in the ozone layer, and the weather is like all fucked up."

  Deathstar related climate change. Check.

  "And?"

  "Food's . . ." Jaiden wouldn't meet my gaze. "Run out in a lot of places."

  Cannibalism. Check. "And?"

  "And, what?"

  I leaned hard.

  "Guh! What the fuck?"

  "Anything else I should know?"

  Jaiden wheezed. "I haven't seen it. But they say . . ."

  "Say what?"

  "If you burn, you turn."

  "What exactly is that supposed to mean, Jaiden?"

  "Like, the places where the beam hit. They say if you get to close to them you get burned, and then, you like, turn."

  "Turn what?"

  "Bad?"

  I just stared.

  "Or if you get too close to a chunk of the moon."

  "A chunk of the moon?"

  "They fall, like, every night."

  Possible mutants, and it rained rocks every night. Check.

  "And?"

  "It's been pretty bad."

  "Any word from the government? Local, state or fed?"

  "No one I know heard anything before or after."

  "What's it like in LA?"

  "Bad. Gangs, mobs, they say the burned come out at night. I heard there were soldiers, like organized and stuff, but they say they don't share or help. They take what they want. They take the people they want. They shoot people they don't."

  LA had gone Mad Max. Check.

  "Okay," I stood up. "Jaiden?"

  "Sir?"

  "Fuck off."

  Jaiden looked up at me with getting ideas, goo-goo eyes of hope. "Sir, you and me? Maybe you--"

  I hauled him up by the front of his jacket. "Maybe I'll fuck your little ass, Jaiden! Would you like that?"

  God I hoped he said no.

  "Sir, no sir!"

  "Good lad."

  I gave him a shove that sent him stumbling.

  "Fuck off."

  Jaiden gave me a butt-hurt look.

  He jumped as I fired a burst into the ground to his right.

  "Move!"

  Jaiden and his hematomas took off running.

  "And don't suck anyone's dick unless you like them!"

  I waited until he was out of sight. Didn't want the little shit ghosting me back to my nest. I scooped up my new lock.

  "I shall name thee Hammer."

  Hammerlock?

  Get it?

  Yeah, well, fuck you too.

  I'd gotten some exercise. I'd gotten the lay of the land and some pertinent intel. Except for one very embarrassing mishap? A good bit of reconnaissance.

  On top of that?

  I was the King of Malibu.

  I sighed.

  Malibu Frame without a Barbie. Well, there appeared to be a few Cousin Itt looking brine-hags about and Jaiden had offered, but if that was the way of it I would be digging out Bobby's Fleshlight sooner rather than later.

  Or Ashley.

  I nodded to myself.

  A girl like her was too good for these mooks.

  I went back to the scene of crime and picked up her and my new Halligan bar.

  I took my spoils and headed back up into the Malibu hills.

  The city of Malibu was a bust.

  It was time for a cup of coffee and some decisions.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Could you be mine, would you be mine, won't you be my neighbor?

  THERE WERE FOOTPRINTS by the side of the garage.

  Two sets of them, both wearing boots. One set large one set small. So blatant I noticed them as I pulled in.

  I left Ashley in the car.

  The gate had worked fine as I came in. No sign of forced entry. I scouted the perimeter. No sign of break in. But the tracks went around the house. I saw smudges on the window dirt where someone had put their hands against the glass to look in.

  Someone had been peeping.

  I came to the front door with the Uzi ready.

  Someone had tucked not one but two hand written notes into the door jam.

  I opened the first.

  Bobby,

  Are you home? Are you okay?

  Love you,

  Eve

  I liked the sound of Eve. Most female porn stars refused to work with gay male porn stars, but Bobby was famous and rich and had broken into reality TV. They flocked around him, and Bobby loved being flocked around. I'm not proud. I'll take Beautiful Bobby's leavings.

  As long as he hadn't touched them.

  I looked at the second note.

  It was hostile.

  Squatters not welcome!!!

  Get out or get killed

  24 hours

  Sincerely,

  Neighborhood Watch

  Interesting.

  I figured they must have heard the smoke alarm. That meant they were fairly close.

  Both notes had been left today. I was betting at the same time. Two sets of prints. Two notes. The three exclamation points on note #2 seemed a little non-professional, and they'd made no attempt to go inside and see what was what. They had circled the place peeking. There was no sign they knew about the bomb shelter.

  I went below and pulled up the M14 and eight loaded mags in case I met the neighborhood watch and they were hostile. I strapped the Beretta on my thigh, thought about it and reloaded the PPK and put it in my pocket. The tracks lead straight to the road.

  There they had gotten back on their horses.

  Two of them. Shoed. Then their tracks disappeared. If they'd ridden down the road there was a good chance I was screwed. I applied Occam's razor, looked both ways and crossed the street. The hoof prints resumed in the woods. They were staying out of sight but I could track them blindfolded.

  Okay, tracked them is kind of a load of crap. I followed hoof prints in soft soil.

  Anyone could do it.

  You could do it.

  The woods rolled along. There was a dip and a bit of a rise and there it was.

  It was a lovely French country style house obscured from the road by forest and a hump of hill. From the road it was easy to miss. They had solar panels so they had power. There was a glade in the back with a fenced off paddock. A beautiful roan-red horse nibbled at the weeds. A mudslide had turned the barn into wreckage and barely missed the house. They had taken boards from the barn and tarps and made two makeshift shelter stalls for the horses. Despite having a three-car garage there was beat up w
hite Ford pick-up parked out back.

  I ignored the NO TRESPASSING sign and circled the house.

  I stopped.

  A woman stood in the garden by the mudslide. She was looking into one of her planter boxes. I counted ten of them with various bits of greenery starting to shoot up. She was older. She'd let her hair go silver and it looked good on her. Her lips, cheeks and brows had the telltale signs of cosmetic surgery but not bad. Not bad at all. She wore a barn coat that was several sizes too large and baggy jeans but I suspected there was a cougar who does yoga body under all that denim.

  Lot of that going around in Malibu.

  She looked vaguely familiar. Maybe I'd seen her on TV. There are a lot of show business people living back in the canyons as well.

  I watched her contemplate her strawberries. She scribbled something on a notepad and went back inside.

  I nodded to myself.

  An older woman can be a good thing.

  I finished my circuit of the house but saw no sign of the second rider.

  I went home.

  If there was a neighborhood watch it was time to be neighborly.

  I cooked up a stack of fry bread without setting the house on fire, wrapped them in a pink-checked kitchen towel and found a basket.

  Who can resist fresh bread?

  Bold as brass was the plan so I skipped the woods and took the road to Eve's place. Security consisted of a fence that a pug with a running start could have cleared so I just walked up the drive and rang the doorbell. I dimly heard a man say "Jesus!" and a woman's voice but I couldn't make out the words. I rang the doorbell a second time and looked up into the security camera. I tilted the M-14 jauntily across my shoulder, finger off the trigger, and arranged an idiot, 'Hello everybody! My name's Frame! Hello everybody!' smile on my face.

  I heard a shotgun pump behind the door. The man spoke across the intercom. "Who are you?"

  "Hi, I'm Frame. I'm staying at Bobby's. I'm sorry I missed you when you came by, but I was in town."

  I could hear him chewing on the slew of ramifications goodness.

  I held up the basket. "I made fry bread."

  "Put the rifle down."

  I leaned the rifle against a potted palm.

  "Lose the pistol."

  I kept smiling and I shook my head. "No."

  There were a few moments of hushed, hurried debate on the other side of the door.

  I held up the basket. "Fry bread?"

  Eve opened the door. She was gray-eyed super-cougar up close. Unfortunately she was wearing a ring and so was the man pointing a shotgun at me. My Eve porn dreams ebbed. The husband was prototypical Hollywood silver fox. I had definitely seen him in something. Eve had a .38 she was not quite pointing at me. The two of them stared at me in near-incomprehension.

  I might as well have been a unicorn.

  Or Frankenstein with fry-bread.

  I maintained full idiot-grin and very slowly flipped away the four corners of the tea towel. I held out the basket and Eve couldn't help but lean forward. I fanned the basket with my hand and the smell of fresh coconut-fried, fry-bread hit her.

  "Oh my God . . ."

  I had her. "Can I come in? I just got into town. I'd love a chat."

  I was fibbing slightly but it was generally true. Plus their tracks hadn't gone to the bomb shelter and despite wanting to be a good neighbor I wasn't quite ready to show all my cards yet.

  She looked at her husband. "Ted?" Ted looked at Eve. Ted and Eve both looked at me. I kept smiling like the village idiot who had grown too large to control and now you had to be nice to him. They literally had no idea what to do.

  Shock and awe.

  Always a good tactic.

  "I'll just leave this here," I arranged a slightly butt-hurt look on my face. "Knock on my door anytime."

  Ted stared at me. "You?"

  "Yes, sir?"

  Called him sir.

  "You're a friend of Bobby's?"

  "He said I could stay at his place until he got back from Spain." I looked around meaningfully. "But I don't know if anyone's coming back from Spain now."

  Ted and Eve stared at each other. They stared at me.

  I heaved a sigh. "You're actually going to stand there and let these get cold?"

  Eve took the reins. She took the fry-bread. "Please come in. A chat would be lovely. I just made some tea."

  "Tea would be nice." I looked at Ted. "Can I put my rifle inside?"

  He lowered the shotgun a bit. "Okay."

  I followed Eve and put the M-14 in the wrought iron umbrella stand in the foyer. Ted followed me and he didn't put down the shotgun. The house was straight out of Win an HGTV French country home makeover! It was very nice, and their furnishings were tasteful. Eve led me into the kitchen and gestured at the barstools by the kitchen island.

  Beautiful granite.

  "I don't have any butter," She smiled sheepishly. "Will honey do?"

  "That is the traditional condiment."

  Eve brought plates, napkins, tea and a half-full plastic honey bear bottle. She poured while I served. It was Earl Grey, high quality. Eve didn't brew out of bags.

  Ted and Eve looked at the fry-bread like they were wolves and I was a human holding out a treat. They wanted it, but they were wary. I was tempted to put the basket on the floor and walk away.

  "Tuck in. It's getting cold."

  Ted and Eve took one wary bite each.

  "Wow."

  "Oh my God!"

  They attacked the fry-bread like wolves. They didn't look like they were missing meals but I got the vibe they were rationing. I sipped tea, nibbled one piece and smiled benevolently.

  Eve gushed. "This is so good!"

  I make good fry-bread.

  "I've never had Navajo fry-bread before!"

  God, damn it.

  Okay, I'll admit it. Navajos make good fry bread, and they are the tribe with their name attached to it, but it was kind of like if Eve had walked up to me back when I was sitting on my sled, wearing my colors, smiled guilelessly and said "You must be a Hell's Angel!"

  No ma'am.

  No I'm not.

  Then again?

  A happy girl eating is a beautiful thing. I watched a bit of honey drip onto Eve's chin and vainly wished Ted had been swept away in the mudslide. Speaking of Ted, the last of the bread disappeared and it was time to get down to business.

  I set the neighborhood watch notice on the table between us. "Got your note."

  Eve's eyes went wide. Ted's hand dropped beneath the granite and I was pretty sure he had a pistol. I raised both hands.

  "You seem like nice people. We've broken bread, and I want to be a good neighbor. And since you're friends of Bobby's? You can knock on my door anytime. Anything you need? You let me know. Don't hesitate." I put my hands back down. I let my voice drop an octave.

  I gave Ted the look.

  "But I am staying at Bobby's. With his permission. I will not be run off. If any of the other neighborhood watch have a problem with that? Then you need to make them see reason. Or I will."

  Ted and Eve looked at me like I was pointing the M-14 in their faces. But it was a nuanced warning. It deliberately excluded them, but it didn't let them off the hook. My voice dropped lower. "And Ted? You put your hands back on the table. Both of them."

  Ted put his hands on the table and said what I knew he would say. "We don't want any trouble."

  "Me neither. What I'd really appreciate is some talk." I shrugged hopefully. "You know, chew the fat in a neighborly way."

  "We'd love too." Eve said. "Honestly? We haven't talked to anyone outside of the hills in weeks. Oh, and thank you for the bread. That was very thoughtful."

  "You're very welcome.

  Ted opened. "I'm Ted Cutshall, this is my wife, Eve."

  "Frame."

  "You say you just got into town?"

  "For all intents and purposes, yeah." I suddenly thought of what was really bothering me. "Tell me something. Is there
something wrong with my watch or is the sun going down at three in the PM?"

  Ted nodded. "That's the moon."

  "The moon?"

  "Yeah, or should I say the lack thereof."

  I blinked.

  Right.

  Jaiden had said the moon had gotten hit.

  Ted went Science Guy.

  "Well, most people know the moon exerts tidal forces on the earth's oceans. Relative to the size of our planet we had a huge moon. I suspect we have some of the highest and lowest tides around, but the moon's gravity also exerts drag on us. So, while there is still a huge mass of rock up there? It's rubble, and breaking into smaller and smaller pieces all the time. Its gravity is dispersing as we speak."

  Ted looked at me hopefully.

  I did the math. "The Earth is spinning faster."

  "Exactly! So our days are getting shorter," Ted sighed with genuine sadness. "And the surfing sucks."

  Eve put her hand on his arm.

  The Apocalypse just kept getting better and better. "So, we're all going to go flying off into space?"

  "Actually with increased centrifugal force gravity is going to get heavier."

  "So we're all going to get smushed or have super-strong, high-gravity babies?"

  I told you. I watched a lot of sci-fi down in the hole.

  "No, the Earth would have to spin so fast for you to notice the gravity increase it would be unimaginable." Ted shrugged. "The Deathstar's lovely parting gift is that the Earth will probably end up with a pretty spectacular ring. Meantime, the meteor showers are nothing short of amazing. Well, you've seen them."

  I hadn't, but I looked at Ted with renewed respect. "You're a scientist."

  Ted shot me a shit-eating grin and that's when I liked him. "No, but I played one on TV."

  I laughed.

  Eve laughed. "He's been waiting to use that line for years."

  Ted laughed and the tension broke between us.

  "You know I was nervous when I came over."

  Eve looked at me askance. "You?"

  "Yeah, well I gave it a 50/50 chance that someone with a shotgun would cut me in half through the door." I smiled sincerely. "But I'm glad I made the effort, and I'm very glad to meet you two. And I mean it. Knock on my door any time."

  Ted and Eve beamed.

  See?

  I can play nice.

  "You guys are friends with Bobby?"

  Eve gave me a frank look. "He's actually a lovely neighbor."

  I could kind of imagine it.