Copyright © 2021 by L.K. Samuels
Published by
Freeland
Press
P.O. Box 22231
Carmel, CA 93922
www.freelandpress.org
All Rights Reserved, Published 2021
Printed in the United States
ISBN (Print): 978-0-9615893-3-2
ISBN (ebook): 0-9615893-3-7
This novel’s story and characters are fictitious.
L.K. Samuels
We Are Them: The Apocalypse Syndrome
1. Fiction 2. Adventure
Cover design by Rick at Vision Press. www.myvisionpress.com
Editor: Erin Becker. Proofer: Linda Blumenthal.
Name: Samuels, L.K.
Title: We Are Them: The Apocalypse Syndrome
Website for author: www.lksamuels.com
First published, April, 2021
Contents
Chapter 1: We Are Them: The Apocalypse Syndrome
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 1
We Are Them:
The Apocalypse Syndrome
L. K. Samuels
When I swung open the door, I knew something was wrong. I could almost smell the faint whiffs of trouble in the air.
I can still remember that day so clearly. I peered inside the dimly lit room and swallowed. It was time to endure another torturous session. I had no choice but to endure a time-freeze, a place where time almost stood still. At least it seemed that way.
Even worse, I had to play the chump. I had to sit quietly and listen to the endless hours of psychobabble drivel. Sure, my life had faded into a never-ending circle of joyless reality. Such agony would soon be the least of my problems. I would soon star into my own special “Twilight Zone” episode. That role would take me on a madcap roller-coaster ride where I would never stop clenching my stomach muscles. If only I had the common sense to know when to jump off the cliff. That was my dilemma. Like most idiots, I had waited too long.
But back to the beginning. Back to where I decided that my marital problems were too big to handle. I had arrived at a stark conclusion: marriage was not a spectator sport. With that realization, I declared my marriage dead because, for all practical purposes, my wife was dead, metaphorically speaking. No matter how many marriage-counseling sessions I attended, nothing was going to change. I knew that they would not solve my problem. Yet, I found myself stuck in limbo-land. If I wanted to be released from my marital bondage, I had to endure the stinging nettles of therapy. I had to become the proverbial pincushion to my wife’s grievance. I had to deflate, unpack, and reveal my alleged dirty laundry to a doofus therapist. I would rather die first. As it turned out, that was remarkably prophetic.
When I stepped inside the building, I peered across the room and spotted the thorniest idiocy of my life. The woman was sitting in a folding chair next to a half-bald psychologist hastily scribbling something in his notebook. There she was in all of her reptilian glory, a plain, cold-blooded creature who needed the warmth of the sun to keep alive. I had tried to spark the warmth of friendly conversation. Instead, she ignored me and shifted to a wish-you-were-dead frown. She was not just my estranged wife. No, she was a predator, inclined to flick her forked tongue with indifference or strike with deadly force. That might be an unfair assessment, but divorce is war from the get-go, and I was determined to win.
I started to breathe in deeply and sighed. For a time, it seemed like life could not possibly get worse. I was dead wrong. My misery scale would soon zoom off the charts and surprisingly it had nothing to do with my divorce proceeding against Sarah. No, the subject of divorce would soon fade away, like a mirage in the desert.
I shook my head and said nothing. Similar to past sessions, I decided to sit down right next to her, almost arms-length away from her motionless body. I could see what she was doing. She always did the same annoying antics. She would hang her head low and stared blankly at the carpeted floor, probably counting the loops in the Berber carpet. She was good at that—counting things that did not really matter. She always had a talent for taking lunacy to new heights. In my mind, Sarah did not belong to the human race. She belonged somewhere else, to some sluggish species that never amounted to anything.
I tried to look at her without looking at her. From the corner of my eyes, I watched her finally move. She lifted her right arm and began to fuss with her tangled hair. That spirt of activity lasted a split second. She soon returned to her comatose state, now more engaged in her carpet staring. I knew what she was doing. She had withdrawn into her own special imaginary world, a land that was never opened to me. Despite her obsession to escape reality, I felt compelled to watch her antics with a somewhat amused expression, as if I were an anthropologist examining the ancient ruins of long-dead people. I was never sure why I felt that way. She was never going to let me unearth her secret hideaways. She was never going to invite me inside and show me her hidden artifacts. Her lips were sealed shut.
Naturally, I felt that I had to reciprocate and return the favor. I had to keep my own distance. I had to conceal my own insecurities and inner fears. I guess we were all guilty of trying to conceal our dark secrets and purposeless lives. Unfortunately, this had become our pathetic routine. But at least she was not one of those freakish crazies. She was civil, not like those sourpusses that I began to refer to as “THEM.”
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my neck. My wife was many things, but she did not want to control every single atom in the universe. Sure, she had some bossy genes that bubbled up from time to time. Who doesn’t? Who could resist the opportunity to scream a few obscenities when the shit hits the spinning fan blades? Yet, Sarah was not a connoisseur of finely crafted devilry. She had no burning urge to drive through landmines for the pure pleasure of killing innocent bystanders. She found no pleasure from tossing people into whirling wood chippers. No, that took a dedicated maniac with a diabolical scheme to conquer the world.
By the time, I had gotten all comfy in my flimsy metal chair, I stared down and slouched as the therapist began to drone over my tardiness. I would ignore his passé and trite words. Why get upset? At that time, I felt blindly blissful. I just wanted to wait out the clock, and completely ignore any suggestions. I had no urgent need of professional help. I could stare up at the wall clock for hours, hum a silent tone, and watch time tick away while dreaming about the Dodgers finally winning the World Series this year. I could do that all day.
“Spencer!” Dr. Everett von Hagen began to speak louder with his heavy German accent. I ignored him. He began to drum his fingers on his chair. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Sure!” I replied. The doctor’s forehead furrowed into ridges and grooves. I pretended to be interested in his wisdom, just as he pretended to be interested in my mental well-being instead of his exorbitant fee.
“If you don’t listen, you will not be able to change. Why are you still avoiding your wife›s concerns? This must be a two-way street. Otherwise, you’re an avoider. Right, Mr. Crane?”
My response was always the same. With a big cheesy grin, I nodded like a bobblehead on my car’s dashboard. I had my reasons for caring little about much o
f anything. I knew how to detach my emotions from my body. I could do that all day long without any professional help.
“Well, Mr. Crane?”
I shrugged my shoulders and gave a blank stare, pretending not to understand. All I wanted was a quick divorce. Nothing complicated. Just send her back to Venus so that I could live alone on Mars. Naturally, the authorities would not grant my wish without first attending countless hours of counseling, which only hastened the doom of our marriage.
“You know,” Dr. Hagen said, “a new millennium is almost upon us. This is your chance for a new beginning. Or perhaps time to rekindle old commitments.”
“Well, I’m always behind schedule. Anyway, the Y2K bug will probably kill us all.”
“That’s not an answer. You know, making up excuses can only prolong the pain and cause more damage in the future.” The doctor peered forward, looking over his eye-glasses. “Right?”
I tried to downplay my response but his astute insight had caught me by surprise. With my typical knee-jerk angst, I blurted out my old pathetic shtick. “But that is the best excuse I have.”
That did it. Our overpaid headshrinker groaned with an exhausted sigh. He next rolled his eyes and then flashed a disapproving glare. We were all miserable, as always.
Of course, this was when my wife would usually enter the fray. She knew I had spent most of my ammo and excuses. Now she came in for the kill. It was not a pretty sight. She stared at me with her sad puppy eyes. Next, she rubbed the back of her neck and droned with a perfect monotone voice, “I’m not a dead herring. You act as if I’m not here. You are always zoning out. Dead to the world and me.”
“Now, now.” Dr. Hagen focused his attention on my wife, mumbled something in German, and then finally adjusted his wire glasses. “Don’t take the role of validator, Mrs. Crane.”
That stopped her outburst, but only for a brief moment. She would bow her head, frown and clench her hands into little fists. “I’m trying to be more social. I know that is important.”
That reply excited the doctor. He turned and looked at me, his face sparking with smug satisfaction. “And how do you feel about that?”
I hated that expression. I leaned back and simply put my hands behind my head. As he kept staring at me, I simply shrugged again. No point in encouraging him. My marriage was on life support, and all I wanted to do was pull the plug.
Naturally, my aloof response caused Sarah to go ballistic. She stood straight up and peered down at me from her moral high ground. “How dare you ignore me! You sit in that easy chair all day long and just vegetate.” Next, she locked and loaded her index finger and pointed it at me as if I were a naughty child. “My God! You’re just not there. You never say anything, do anything or go anywhere.”
“You’re wrong,” I bust out with a self-satisfied grin. “I get up during commercial breaks.”
Like always, Sarah shook her head, folded her arms, and glared at me with her dark, beady eyes.
“I believe you have a point, Mrs. Crane,” Dr. Hagen broke in and took a quick glance at his watch. This was the moment when he would clear his throat, stand up, and wear a fustian face of disapproval. “What do you really think? Or is that too much to ask?”
“Well…” I usually paused. I knew that the doctor did not want to know my real thoughts. He had heard them countless times before and ignored them with a cold disposition. What I really wanted was to be left alone. Was that so terrible?
“Why are you so determined to dismiss these problems so... readily?” Dr. Hagen inevitably asked in a frustrating tone. “You cannot hide from your feelings forever.”
Sure, I could, I silently murmured to myself. The real question was more troubling. Did I want to put any effort into trying? Sarah was a plain and unassertive woman without much education or good paying job skills.
“Well,” Dr. Hagen asked, “Do you actually want to abandon her?”
I stared at him for a moment. Sure, I mumbled to myself. The thought of leaving her felt intoxicating. That was all I wanted. But every time that happy notion entered my brain, my therapist would sabotage it with more silly questions like, “You still have feelings for Sarah?”
The obvious questions were always the worst ones. The doctor and I knew it was a rhetorical question. Sarah had nothing in common with me. Never did. We were from different political planets—as if that really mattered these days. Anything I favored, she was always against. I was Catholic and she was one of these serious-faced Lutherans from Minnesota. I admired big monster trucks; she adored little fuel-efficient cars that could barely climb over a gopher mound. I worshiped sloppy Joes, and she despised red meat. I owned a Chevy; she had one of those fix-or-repair-daily Fords. In fact, the little message above my license plate said it all: “Driven over a Ford lately?” We could not even agree on what music to play. She listened to caterwauling Italian operas that lasted six hours, while I embraced the soothing beat of Led Zeppelin with two huge subwoofers hanging from the ceiling. Nothing matched.
“Why don›t you take a walk and see the lights of the city?” the doctor suggested near the end of every session. “They are very lovely from up here.”
Usually, I just got up, displayed a disingenuous smile and walked out the door without any word or goodbye. Yet this time, for some unknown reason I agreed to take a short stroll. I am not sure what came over me or why it happened that night. Never before had I taken any interest in taking a moonlit stroll along a mountain ridge overlooking the city. I had no visions of romantic bliss. I had no plans to mend any crumbling fences or rebuild any broken bridges. The walk by itself would have been fine, except that I had to be in close proximity to my wife. To Sarah, fun meant a wild night at the church bingo parlor or singing in the choir on Sunday mornings. When I tried to engage her in some lascivious behavior in bed, she became the proverbial sack of potatoes, unemotional, unmoving, and yawning at every intimate moment. Most nights were not fanfares of romantic ecstasy; rather they were re-enactments of the night of the living dead.
We stood up, walked to the door, and wandered outside into the cool air. She said she wanted to talk about something important. Very important. She indicated that she had finally reached a final decision. Her only problem was that she still needed a little more time to phrase exactly what she wanted to say. I could wait.
We took a short, mostly silent walk past a few small resort motels and rustic cabins on the outskirts of Idyllwild. We just kept looking at each other in silence. I kept thinking how crazy all of this was. A reticent walk was not going to solve anything. We both knew that the counseling sessions were just delaying the inevitable. The “divorce” word was surely inscribed on our lips. We were destined to travel alone on separate highways.
Sarah did try to get me to chat. She started to reminisce about camping at a lake near Garner Valley. We did have fun with one broken-down pup tent, two ancient sleeping bags, and a jug of red wine. But that was when we were footloose and fancy-free, minus obligations, mortgage payments, and responsibilities.
We decided to stop at the edge of a jagged rock outcropping that overlooked Hemet over four thousand feet below. I remember thinking that the city seemed so small from up here. I had turned my face upwards, catching a glimpse of a shooting star. Then I stared back at Hemet. “The lights of the city are beautify tonight.”
Sarah faced me and displayed a weak smile. Then she offered her typical divisive commentary, complaining that there were too many city lights and that someone ought to prevent any new development in the city.
I tried to ignore her grumbling and continued to gaze at the cold dark sky, wishing that somehow things might get better. Just after I kicked a rock down the hillside, Sarah turned to me and finally said something I was waiting to hear for over a year. I can still recall her exact words: “What’s the point? We both want out. Why don’t we just forget the counseling? Let’s just go our separate ways. Isn’t that what you want?”
Praise the Lord and pass the div
orce papers! My face immediately lit up like never before. I told her that it sounded like a good plan. She said she would sign the papers. I smiled. She nodded. Finally, it seemed that things were starting to go my way. The world was now in perfect harmony; the ocean tides flowed in accord with the moon, and the movement of the stars followed their universal rhythms. Everything was splendid.
At almost that exact moment, Sarah lifted her arm and pointed at a fast-moving object in the eastern sky. The fiery ball was streaking almost straight towards us. Before it could hit a nearby mountain, the fireball suddenly stopped, hovered high overhead, and spun like a wooden top. It began to drift slowly towards the city lights. In a blinding flash of light, the object exploded like a 3,000-ton rocket. Long strands of silvery sparkles floated down and spread across the entire town, engulfing it in a dense cloud of purple gases.
I looked up and watched some of the colorful gas floated above us. The cloud eventually morphed into a purplish mist that cast a faint glow. As it lowered, Sarah reached up to touch it, but by then the vapors had quickly dissipated. I told Sarah that it was both insanely beautiful and mysteriously freakish. We oohed and aahed for a good couple of minutes. I speculated that the object must have been an old satellite that had fallen from space and exploded.
Surprisingly, Sarah agreed and turned to me. She reached for my hand and held it in a loving fashion. That was weird. The most bizarre part was that I did not mind. I began to feel a softness in my heart for Sarah. How was that possible? Maybe it was just a bad case of heartburn.
Sarah began to open up. She began to share her fear of living alone, without me. I felt compelled to sympathize with her plight. The thought was unnerving and uneasy. Nobody likes growing old alone. I acknowledged that simple fact, and she seemed pleased for once. She drew me closer as if she wanted to kiss me. I moved a little closer. This turn of events was totally messed up. I could not believe that I was somehow changing my negative attitudes towards the Wicked Witch of Northern Hemet. Amazing what a little strange gas could do.
Suddenly, I could not stop thinking that perhaps the counseling had actually been worth the money. What an amazing thought. This was truly a night to remember on so many levels. If only it had not been the night destined to mark the beginning of the end.
We Are Them Page 1
