Armageddon drifted quietly down the street, keeping to the shadows. She'd left her truck as soon as she'd seen the lights and gone on the rest of the way in on foot. Good thing, too: the town, or what was left of it, was overrun by Angel Falls troops. The U-Haul they'd loaded the prisoners into was unhitched, parked at the side of the road, and two armed men were posted outside, one at each corner of the trailer doors. They were on open ground, and she saw no easy way of sneaking up on them.
As she pondered what to do next, there came the roar of an engine and one of the familiar military-style jeeps came rolling up. The men inside were actual soldiers, like the ones she'd seen dishing out orders back at the battle-ground, and they looked at the two guards with obvious disdain. "Hey, asshole," one of the soldiers said.
"That's not my name," the guard grunted. He was a big man with a handlebar mustache and a biker-style leather vest, and he only seemed a little bit drunk. "If you're not gonna call me by my right name, then I'm not gonna - "
"I'll call you whatever I want, asshole," the soldier said. "In fact, you know what? From now on, asshole is your name. Because tomorrow morning I'm gonna go to General Mathers and I'm gonna get a special dispensation and then I'm gonna go down to the hall of records and then I'm gonna get your name officially changed to 'Asshole Buttplug III.' What do you think of that, Asshole?" The other soldiers hooted with laughter, but the big man frowned and said nothing. "Enough of this bullshit," the soldier said. "I've got a message for you girls, so listen up. We counted every last ounce of merchandise in that truck. If any of it's missing when we get back home, it's gonna come out of your hides. So don't go getting any fancy ideas, capiche?" he turned to the driver. "Get us out of here."
The soldiers drove off. The other guard gave them the finger, but the big man only gazed after them sadly. "I don't wanna be called called Asshole," he murmured. "Damn it, Ray - how'd we get stuck pulling guard duty? I thought we was gonna party tonight."
The other guard - Ray, Armageddon presumed - was a lanky, twitchy youth wearing tinted sunglasses and a T-shirt with the words GOAT DISMEMBERMENT printed on the front in large, spiky letters. "Hey Warlock, don't you worry about those losers, man. They won't even remember any of this come morning."
"Yeah - because they're gonna get wasted," Warlock said, looking mournfully at the big house. "It ain't fair, man. All that good stuff up in there and we don't even get a taste."
Ray laughed. "Ah man - that's what's eating you?" he giggled to himself. "They counted all the merchandise, did they?" He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a small bag. "They never counted this. I took it off one of those Buttfuk bastards before the battle was even underway. Knocked him out from behind, Boom!" he threw a fake punch in Warlock's direction and laughed wildly. "You wanna party?" He shook the bag. "Party's right here, man. We can party alll night!"
Warlock frowned. "I dunno, Ray - ain't we supposed to be guarding the prisoners?"
Ray grinned. "Door's locked, man, and only the general's got the key! Those bastards ain't goin’ nowhere, man. Now are you in or not? I wanna taste this shit. I wanna talk to the dragons, man!"
Warlock's face got a cautious, hopeful look. "You sure it'll be OK, Ray?"
"Yeah man, it'll be a blast! Just like last time!" Ray opened the bag, spilling out pills of every shade into one trembling hand. "What's your favorite color, Warlock?"
Ten minutes later, Armageddon no longer had to worry about how she was going to subdue the guards. Warlock was standing stock still at the side of the road, staring up into the sky, while Ray was curled up in a ball under a nearby bush, alternately weeping and giggling. Armageddon had quietly relieved them of their weapons, and neither man had so much as stirred at her presence. She crept back to her truck, put the guns in back, and then started the engine, praying that no one else would happen by: if they did, this was going to get messy.
Less than a minute later she had backed up to the trailer and hitched it to the back of her own truck. Neither Ray nor Warlock had moved while she did this, though Warlock could be heard humming a little ditty to himself. Almost done, she thought. She hoped she could find a way to bypass the lock - there was no question of trying to get her hands on the general's key - but that was a problem she'd have to deal with later. For now, she needed to get out of here fast and find a place to go to ground. She maneuvered the rig carefully out onto the road, wincing at the loud bump as the trailer bottomed out on the asphalt, and then drove off looking as nonchalant as she could.
Ten minutes later she was stopped behind the remains of an old motel, abandoned and unlit, that she'd spotted at the top of a hill. The driveway wasn't in the best repair, and she'd had a few nervous moments getting the trailer up there, but she eventually made it up to the back lot. It wasn't the best hiding place - if Angel Falls decided to check it she was sunk - but she didn't plan on being here for long.
The lock didn't turn out to be a problem. It was a steel cable lock, thick and sturdy, but no match for the mechanical bolt cutters that Armageddon kept in her truck. It took a minute, but soon enough the lock fell away. The silence as she shut off the cutters was very loud. It had been noisy, sweaty work, and she had been more than a little worried that it would draw attention, but for now she seemed safe enough - the only sound was the night wind and the rise and fall of her own breath. It was only then that it occurred to her that for all the noise, she hadn't heard a peep from inside the container. All this noise and bustle and I don't hear so much as a sound from in there? How can that be? Are they afraid? Or... did something happen to them in there? She felt a sudden chill and yanked the doors open.
The odor that hit her was almost indescribable - scores of bodies worth of BO, underlaid with a strange, acrid smell that made her head swim and patterns dance at the corners of her eyes. Drugs! she thought, cursing. She buried her nose in her sleeve and clambered up into the trailer. Most of the captives were insensible, lying sprawled immodestly all over one another, but a few stirred and muttered as the moonlight fell on them. I have to wake one of them up, she thought. I'm flying blind here - I don't even know the area, or where to go.
She counted maybe half a dozen folks who looked in better shape than the others; a few were groaning and trying to sit up, clutching at their heads as if they pained them. Armageddon went to the one closest to her, a husky-looking woman wearing jeans and a tie-dye T-shirt. She put her hand on the woman's shoulder and shook her gently. "Are you all right?"
The woman looked up at her, eyes coming slowly into focus, and then waggled her tongue at her. "Hey there, you pretty thang," she rasped. "You here all by y'self?"
Armageddon jerked away, hands curled into fists, but the woman appeared to slide back into a doze, slumping across the legs of a shirtless youth with the letter T painted on his chest. Armageddon scowled and cast her eyes through the forest of degenerates around her, watching them squirm and groan and babble nonsense as the drugs ate away at their brains. Lord, is every single one of them insane? If I can't get sense out of them we're sunk - it'll only be a matter of time before the soldiers find us...
Her eyes happened on a man who looked in better shape than most of the others. He was dressed rather well - compared to his comrades, anyway - in cargo pants and a clean white T-shirt. He was sitting up on his haunches, leaning against what appeared to be some sort of metal storage locker, turned away so she couldn't see his face. Every few moments, he wiped his eyes with the back of one hand. "Oh Lord," he muttered. "Oh Lord, give me strength, give me strength..." Armageddon stepped towards him, and he sensed her presence and looked up. As he turned towards her, Armageddon saw a red cross logo emblazoned on his T-shirt.
"Sir?" she asked. "Are you all right?"
The man's eyes widened and he lurched to his feet, stumbling against the wall. His eyes, on Armageddon's, were wide with amazement.
"Our lord, our father," he murmured. "You have sent a righteous soul to save us."
The man introduced himself as To
dd, a medic for the Buttfuk forces. He was tall and lanky, all knees and elbows, with buzz-cut blond hair and an aw-shucks grin. He had lived in Buttfuk for many years, he told her; and he was one of few in that town who had taken the Lord into his heart. He had been captured near the battle's end, unwilling to leave the soldiers he was tending, and he'd had the presence of mind to down a Risperidone cocktail when the Angel Falls men had started filling the U-haul container with gas. It hadn't stopped the sickness and the loss of consciousness, but it had allowed him to recover a good deal quicker than most of his fellows. By the time Armageddon helped him into the cab, he was almost himself again. When she asked him where to go, he directed her to a place called Zaor Valley, a fallback spot for Buttfuk's troops. "With any luck, the general and the rest of our people will be there," he told her. "I will pray that it is so, Miss Armageddon; and I believe that prayer will be answered. I do not believe the good lord brought us this far only for us to fail."
It was good to be with a fellow believer again, Armageddon had to admit. These past few weeks, filled with degenerates of every stripe, had worn at her. "You may be right, Brother Todd," she told him, "but let's get there before we start celebrating. Trust in God, but lock up your truck, as the saying goes."
"I don't think I know that one," Todd said. He shrugged and grinned. "I'm sure you're right, though. Well, it's only a few more miles, so I suppose we'll find out soon enough if our friends are there."
Armageddon nodded absently as she maneuvered the truck back onto the highway. "So you've been in, uh... your hometown... how many years now?"
"Twenty years, Miss Armageddon." Todd grinned. "As of this year, that's half my life."
Hmm, she thought, Brother Todd is older than he looks. She'd have put him not much older than herself, but maybe that was because he reminded her of a youth pastor she'd known growing up. "It must be hard," she said, "living in a place like that."
"It is at times, I will admit. But does the good book not tell us to preach the gospel to all creation?"
"It also tells us not to associate with immoral people," Armageddon said.
"That it does. But how do we judge the moral from the immoral? I have seen deeply immoral people come to the lord's grace, in time. Haven't you?"
Not lately, Armageddon thought, and not in these parts. But she forced a smile. "Once in a while, brother Todd. Once in a while."
There was a moment's awkward silence. The road dipped and turned, and then Todd let out a whoop of joy. There were lights in the valley below, from vehicles and buildings both. "They're there, they're there!" he hollered. "Oh Sister, I knew you were here to save us! Drive on down to the gates, and I'll see us inside."
Dr General
Pride goeth away with empty pockets and a feeling of smug self superiority.
Dr Gimble Guerrero, general of the Buttfuk forces, was a short, florid-faced man in late middle age, decked out in a military uniform of indeterminate origin. If Armageddon was a gambling woman she would have bet that he'd gotten it from a costume store somewhere: starchy white fabric, gold buttons, a ridiculous peaked cap with an eagle on the front. As the sentry called out their names, Armageddon leaned over to Todd and whispered: "Doctor? Not General?"
"He prefers Doctor," Todd muttered back. "He refers to himself as a Doctor of Strategy." Todd ushered her forward, between the watching rows of Buttfuk fighters, and stopped before the general's seat. This appeared to be an easy chair covered in gold paint. "Doctor Guerrero," Todd said, "May I present our rescuer, Miss Armageddon Hyde."
Guerrero leaned forward, staring at Armageddon with large, dilated pupils. "Your name's... Armageddon?" he asked, and then giggled slightly. "That's trippy, man." Armageddon bristled, not trusting herself to reply. The general's eyes swam back in Todd's direction. "So is everyone okay?" he asked. "How'd the snake thing go?"
Todd frowned. "I don't understand - "
Guerrero giggled again. "Aw Todd, you're such a noob." He looked back at Armageddon. "So, you saved, what... a hundred people? That's pretty good, lady, pretty good. Just walked up and drove 'em on out of town, huh? You got some balls, sister." Armageddon looked at him stonily, saying nothing. “Yeah,” the general grinned. “Trippy, man. So anyways, the least we can do is give you a reward..." He frowned, looking thoughtfully at her. "The town coffers are a bit depleted right now, what with the war and all, but... hey, did you happen to see a storage locker in the back of that truck?"
"I believe I did," Armageddon said. "If it's town property, I'll be happy to return it. Theft is a sin, after all."
"Oh that's good, baby," the general said, giggling. "Naw, that ain't what I was driving at. We don't have a lotta raw cash right now, but there's a whole bunch of product socked away in that locker. You could walk it into any town you chose and make bank." His grin took on a rather wicked slant. "Or... y'know - there's a whole lotta party there, if that's your thing." He drew himself up, affecting what he seemed to think was a dignified look. "It's the least we can do, in light of your good deeds, and you know, all that shit. So yeah... have it in good health." He waved her away and then giggled into the back of his hand. "Armageddon," he muttered.
There was a smattering of applause from the crowd: the audience seemed to be over. Todd, his grin wilting a little around the edges, stepped up to Armageddon's side. "Uh, Doctor Guerrero, Miss Hyde here is a member of the Church of the Final Millennium, and they don't hold with recreational drug use. I think, under the circumstances - "
Armageddon held up a hand, silencing him. Her eyes never left the general's face. "Gimble Guerrero," she said, "I would not take a stick of gum from you, for fear that it had been laced with some kind of intoxicant. You are a foolish, sinful man, and you will have curses and confusion visited upon you very soon. You can keep your drugs, and your money, and your stupid hat." She stormed off, half expecting to catch a bullet for her troubles, but the soldiers let her through unhindered.
Todd turned to the general. "She's had a long day," he said apologetically. "I'll see her out, sir."
"Yeah, sounds good," the general said disinterestedly. "Don't hurt yourself, man."
He turned to his second as Todd scurried off. "Curses and confusion," he said thoughtfully. "You know, we should make a product called that."
Finally, some Good Luck
“Did you say Cherry??”
"I'm sorry about that, Miss Armageddon," Todd said. "The general, he, uh - he's been known to indulge in... "
Armageddon unhooked the empty trailer from the back of her truck and let it boom to the ground. "I know what he indulges in, Brother Todd," she snapped. "I'm not completely naive to the ways of the world." She started to get in the truck, then stopped and turned back. "I'm forgetting my courtesies," she managed. "Do you need a ride home?"
Todd frowned. "Are you sure? I would have thought that Buttfuqe would be the last place you'd want to go, after -"
"It is the last place I want to go," Armageddon said. "But I have business there, and I will not be put off by a bunch of drugged-up delinquents. Are you coming, brother? Because I'm leaving now."
"Of course," Todd said, subdued. "Thank you."
He climbed up into the cab, and Armageddon gunned the engine. "Get back on the main road," Todd told her, "and then take the next left. Town's just a few more miles, and - " he stopped, face brightening as a thought struck him. "Say, Miss Hyde - why don't you come back to our house for a bit? I'm sure my family would be delighted to meet you!" he seemed quite taken with this idea. "You can stay as long as you like - it's the least I can do..."
He went on, but Armageddon was barely listening. Her first instinct was to refuse Todd's offer, but it had been a long day. And staying with a good, god-fearing family beat the heck out of shacking up at some roach bag hotel somewhere with who-knew-what happening in the rooms next door. Maybe this is why he's here, she thought. To help me. And if I get there and decide that's not the case - well, I will just be on my way.
"...so what
do you say?" Todd said, looking at her hopefully.
Armageddon took a deep breath. "Thank you, brother," she said. "I'd be happy to stay with you - for tonight at least. I'm not sure how long I'll be in town, but..." she trailed off as a thought struck her. "Todd - this is a long shot, but - have you met a young woman named Cherry on your travels?"
Todd gave her a quizzical look. "Did you say Cherry?"
"Yes. She's my cousin, if it matters. I've been looking for her for a while, and I have reason to believe she may have passed this way. I fear she may have gotten herself into some trouble - "
Todd looked confused. "Wait, wait... you don't mean Cherry Field, do you? Young gal? Late teens? Curly red hair?"
Armageddon looked up, then sighed and shook her head. "You almost had my hopes up," she said. "But no, that's not her. The girl I'm looking for is a redhead, yes, but her name's Cherry Hale, not Field."
Todd sat bolt upright in his seat. "Oh my Lord... did you say Hale?"
"Yes, why?"
"But how..." Todd stopped, shook his head, and then finally started over. "Miss Hyde - when did you see Cherry last?"
Armageddon frowned. "It would be close on a year ago. It's a complicated story, but... well, she left her home rather suddenly last summer. The church elders sent me to find her, and - "
Todd cut her off with a laugh and a clap of his hands. "Oh, Lord, what are the chances?" he hooted. Armageddon stared at him in utter confusion, but Todd went on unabated. "Well, she was in some trouble when we found her, that's for sure. But no more! She lives with a good, godly family now!" he grinned at her. "Miss Hyde: Cherry Field - nee Hale - is my daughter-in-law! She's married to my very own son! And she lives right there in Buttefuqe with me and the rest of the family!" Armageddon gaped at him, thunderstruck, and Todd shook his head in delight. "Oh Miss Armageddon, what are the chances? I knew the Lord had sent you this way for a reason!"
Armageddon Hyde in The Chosen and the Damned Page 3
