What the Hand: A Novel About the End of the World and Beyond

by Stockwell, Todd

  “Yeah, what happened to Speckle, Roger?”

  “Please, Howard,” said Danny.

  “He got his head cut off,” said Roger.

  “Well, how do you think that happened…he bumped into the axe?” said Howard.

  “Please, Howard!” said Danny again.

  “This punk’s been worshiping the devil. How do we know he won’t kill us in our sleep?” said Howard.

  “What are you talking about?” said Roger.

  “Nothing,” said Danny.

  “You killed Speckle, you idiot, and you called in those demons, who almost took us all out,” said Howard.

  It was out now, and Danny couldn’t do anything about it. She sat on her sleeping bag sobbing.

  “Is that true, Mom?” But she didn’t answer. “Is it, Mom? Please tell me, Mom! Tell me…is it true?”

  “Yes…but it wasn’t you. A demon got in you.”

  “What? No, Mom…it’s not true…take it back, Mom, take it back!”

  “It was the demon in you, Roger,” said Danny.

  “No, Mom,” and Roger began to cry.

  Danny pulled him into her, cradled and hugged her son while he sobbed.

  That’s when I realized, once again, he wasn’t a man—just a lost, imbecilic and somewhat deranged kid, who was sorry and didn’t know what he was doing half the time. I put my hand on his shoulder. “Roger, it’s bad everywhere. These things are evil—they take advantage. I know you were upset about Joe. It’s not all your fault. And it could have happened to any of us.”

  Danny looked at me gratefully, but Howard wasn’t having it. “What are you talking about, George? He was praying with that book.”

  “Just leave it,” I said.

  “No, he needs to go.”

  That’s when Billy finally spoke up. “He’s right,” he said.

  “Nobody is going anywhere,” I said. “He won’t hurt anybody.”

  “How do you know?” said Billy.

  “What don’t you people understand? He chopped off Speckle’s head!” said Howard.

  “It was the demon, for the last time already, and Speckle’s with God!” I said, but it was no use. This wasn’t going anywhere, so I thought I’d help by using a tried and true sales technique: when the conversation is moving away from the close, change the subject. To accomplish this, I decided to turn the focus on Billy, who needed to explain a few things himself. What I couldn’t know at the time was that the question I was about to ask would get Roger killed. “Billy, where the hell did you go this morning with the weapons?”

  It was just enough to turn Howard’s attention away from his attack on the sobbing boy. “Yeah, what happened to you?” he said.

  ***

  Billy told us he couldn’t sleep. He kept beating himself up over the sisters and being a coward for not spreading the Word and becoming a martyr. That’s when he decided to do something about it. He took his Bible and started down the mountain looking for the nearest town. But after a few hundred feet, he began shaking nervously. He was afraid, he said, and rightly so.

  We still had about a half bottle of whiskey we carried for first-aid purposes. Billy decided he needed a few swigs to control the shaking, he said, so he went back for it. Billy had always been a bit of a lightweight when it came to hard alcohol, and in the thin mountain air the effects were even more substantial. In his drunken state, he began to formulate a new plan, he told us, a more aggressive one.

  Alcohol had been the catalyst for most of Billy’s legal problems. It fueled the rages that festered from his disturbing childhood, costing him years of his life. And now he pointed that rage at the Minions, so he snuck up to where I was sleeping, took the shotgun, stuffed the pistol in his waist, and headed down to foster a violent demise.

  About halfway, however, the long trip down the mountain had taken its toll on his inebriation, and Billy began to see the vindictiveness of his plan. He didn’t want to kill anyone. He decided then, with the little alcoholic courage he had left, to put down the weapons and continue toward martyrdom unarmed. But after a few hundred yards, he realized some things: he was tired, he was afraid again, he didn’t have his Bible with him, and he would be leaving us without the extra weapons. It was an easy decision then. And that’s how he ended up back in the camp to take down the Roger-demon.

  ***

  After Billy’s explanation, Howard forgot or didn’t have the energy to continue hammering Roger about his devil worshiping. We went to sleep under the countless stars of the mountain sky, now empty of the demon flock, which had long passed to fulfill its mission of torment on the Mark-bearers of the world.

  ***

  While the rest of us slept, the wheels in Roger’s limited brain continued turning. He had listened intently to Billy’s story, but actually didn’t hear much of it. Roger fixated on the words and phrases in conversations that excited his feeble mind, usually ignoring any substance, meaning, even reality. And like a child at a dinner buffet, unable to ignore the desert table, Roger reached only for the cakes and pies of Billy’s tale. He imagined the shotgun in his hot hands, stalking the city streets, picking off the Minions of the Antichrist like so many human avatars in one of the violent video games he once mastered. And lying there, unable to sleep, he could almost feel the weight of the weapon, hear the blasts, and see the bodies tossed backwards from the impact, the wide holes blown through their chests, the blood flying in every direction. It was all too much for a dimwitted psychopath to ignore.

  22

  I probably wouldn’t have blamed myself for Roger’s death just for prompting Billy into telling his story in front of everyone, but I had ignored Roger’s almost gleeful reactions to it, and I did one other stupid thing to make his death possible. In all the madness, I completely forgot to secure the shotgun and pistol Billy left lying in the tree line.

  ***

  Danny woke me the next morning frantic. “I can’t find Roger!” she said.

  “You know how he is. He’s probably off taking a leak or torturing some animals or something.”

  She punched me in the shoulder. “I’m serious, George, something is wrong.”

  ***

  In those days I learned not to question Danny’s sixth sense, which was uncanny at times. She would often alert us to danger or point us toward food and water. One day, on the run from the Minions, ready to drop because we were dying of thirst, she insisted we move in the opposite direction—a direction the rest of us were sure would lead us back into the net of our pursuers. Lo and behold, she led us right to a stream. After we had hung around awhile, drinking, filling our bottles and canteens, and resting, she told us to be quiet. She stood on the bank of the stream, wide-eyed and listening intently. We all looked at her like she was crazy. She ignored us, and a moment later, she spoke. “We have to get out of here.”

  The way she said it, with this certain intensity, and her finding the stream and everything, made us listen without complaint. We let her lead us up the hillside surrounding the stream. After we’d climbed about halfway up, we heard a loud roaring sound from somewhere upstream. Seconds later, a torrent of water came rushing into the valley, wiping out the area we had left just moments before. Danny had saved our lives again.

  ***

  No, as soon as she said something was wrong, I stopped clowning. “Let me get my boots on and look for him.” After I said it, I remembered about the weapons, and my heart sank. I didn’t want to alarm Danny, so I asked her to fill some canteens for the search.

  I ran over to where Billy slept, waking him to show me where he’d placed the shotgun and the pistol. We spotted the pistol quickly, but the shotgun was nowhere to be found. Billy insisted he’d left them in the same spot, and when we found the pack Howard always carried with the excess ammunition spilled open near the trailhead, we knew with little discussion that Roger had taken the shotgun and was probably mimicking Billy’s failed mission.

  Danny wanted to come along, but I convinced her to stay behin
d in case her son came back. I woke Howard to apprise him of the situation, passed out the canteens, gave Billy the pistol, gathered the rifle for myself, and the three of us sprinted down the trail to find him.

  ***

  Some distance down the mountain, we heard the gunfire, except we were still too far away to see anything, so I had to read about it later at the Hall of Knowledge. I could have guessed. It happened pretty much as I’d imagined it while sprinting, desperately trying to reach him—not so much out of concern for Roger, but because I thought Danny wouldn’t forgive me if we didn’t get to him in time.

  ***

  Roger wasn’t afraid or anything; in fact, he was ecstatic, clearer and more determined than he had ever been. In his mind, he was being a hero, avenging Joe and saving us all from the Minions of the Antichrist. He had become the invincible character of one of his video games, coming to life to wipe out all targets and reach a level of acceptance from us he believed had only been mitigated by his satanic activities. This, he figured, would mean redemption and fun at same time.

  ***

  The trip down the mountain was longer than he’d expected, and Roger was exhausted by the time he reached the outskirts of the seaside town of Crescent City, California. He rested behind a low fence, watching the morning activities of the city’s occupants on Main Street, his thoughts like wringing hands, impatient over the coming carnage he was about to impose.

  Roger’s original intention was to take out only the black-suited soldiers of the Antichrist, but he wasn’t exactly the most focused individual. He did spot a checkpoint at the end of the busy thoroughfare manned by a half-dozen armed Minions, but the route to them was fairly crowded with civilians, so he simply designated them as bonus targets.

  ***

  In 1999 two other deranged video game fanatics went on a similar, if much less well-intentioned, shooting spree. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris loaded their car with twenty-pound propane bombs, stuffed their packs with Molotov cocktails and ammunition, gathered shotguns and automatic weapons, and set out for their high school in Littleton, Colorado.

  The plan was to place the large bombs, set with timers, in the cafeteria, and to gun down the panicked students as they ran from the mayhem of the explosions.

  The timers failed. Disappointed, the two killers moved through the campus picking out random student targets as they happened upon them. After killing a seventeen-year-old girl and wounding several others, they entered the school library, where they found dozens of students hiding under tables, and a massacre ensued.

  By the time it was over, twelve students and a teacher were dead, and many more wounded in the ugly venture. The pair then committed suicide. Why did they do it? Were they bullied? Was it revenge? Was it demons? Nope. They did it because they wanted to be famous. In a way, they succeeded. Klebold and Harris are quite well known among the damned as two of the stupidest people who ever lived.

  ***

  Before Roger’s visit, the inhabitants of Crescent City had been relatively lucky regarding the events of the Tribulation. Their population had been small enough that the massive flock of bug-men barely took notice as their horde flew over the tiny village on their way to bigger fish. And though the seaside town had lost a few hundred of its occupants to various natural disasters, diseases, and Minion activity, their food supply held up, and the tidal wave and flooding, which had wreaked havoc on other California coastal cities, altogether missed their quaint village, tucked away as it was above a discreet little bay.

  Their fortunes were about to change, however—all our fortunes really, for better or worse. And though Roger’s short reign of terror would only be a side note, it would mark a beginning of sorts, as the Tribulation was about to kick into high gear. The end of the Old Earth was upon us, and only a handful would survive the last Judgments.

  ***

  Roger smiled when he stood—the shotgun in both hands, bands of ammunition strewn wildly about his torso like some sloppy bandito—to begin his violent stroll down Main Street.

  ***

  He probably wouldn’t have been smiling so much, except Roger had failed to take into consideration a few minor details involving his attack plan. First, the shotgun only held five rounds. Next, he was a horrible shot, even with the shotgun’s wide field of fire. Also, it had taken him five minutes to figure out how to properly load the shells he’d placed in the chamber just before the attack while away from the heat of battle. Finally, the Minions on the other end of the street carried automatic weapons, with which they were quite proficient.

  ***

  The people on the sidewalk closest to Roger immediately stopped to stare at the dirty, bearded man in the middle of the street. They saw he carried a weapon, but they were more puzzled than afraid, as they had always been well insulated and protected by the Minions from any criminal elements in their fair city. They didn’t know what to make of Roger, until he turned and fired at them.

  The first shot was aimed at a young couple who had just walked out of a Starbuck’s coffee shop loaded down with overpriced coffee and muffins. Luckily, the center of the blast came between the two, and the pellets sprayed and ripped through an arm each, causing only minimal injury and spilled lattes.

  With that first inaccurate shot, a woman screamed, and the people on the sidewalks dispersed like a kicked anthill. Roger’s targets moved so rapidly, he began to panic, firing his next four shots wildly and in quick succession. He managed to maim a beautician on her way to work by shooting out most of her hip, and to remove the foot of a fleeing bicyclist as he pedaled around a corner, but the rest of his ammo exploded harmlessly into the air.

  The Minions heard the shots and screams but took a moment to react because nothing much ever happened at their sleepy post. By that time, Roger was fumbling with the reloading of the shotgun, and they looked at the unlikely attacker with more amusement than fear.

  Somehow, though, Roger managed to load all the shells, and by then he was within fifty yards of the guard post, so he was now in a good position to cause some damage to the bunched-up Minions, even if he was a horrible shot.

  And before they quite realized the danger they were in, Roger fired and struck their captain in the chest. He flew back, knocking over the two Minions standing behind him. As one of them tried to get up, Roger, without aiming, managed to blow off the top of his head.

  The remaining Minions finally raised their rifles, and Roger was only able to pull the trigger one more time, mortally wounding one of the shooters in the throat, before the others finished him. The Minions continued unloading their weapons into Danny’s son long after he was dead.

  ***

  By the time we reached the edge of the city, Roger’s bullet-riddled body was hanging from a lamppost. It was a warning to any would-be rebels. Devil worshiper or not, I felt bad for Roger—we all did. And, of course, Danny would be devastated. This, I knew, would push her over the edge. He had been the only thing stopping her from martyrdom. I would have to tell her Roger was dead, and I was sure I would lose her for it.

  ***

  Still, I wasn’t going to let her see him like this, torn and bloody, hanging in the street. Knowing Danny as I did, I figured she was already on her way down to look for him, so I gathered Billy and Howard, and we hurried back up the mountain to intercept her.

  But as it turned out, I wouldn’t have to tell her about her son at all. Within a few minutes, I would be unconscious, Danny would be badly injured, and Billy and Howard, along with a third of Earth’s remaining population, would be dead.

  23

  In his vision, John said it looked like “a mountain burning with fire,” and I can’t describe it any better, except that I might have been closer to the object. What I had seen seemed bigger than a mountain, the size of a small planet, filling up a great chunk of the sky, descending rapidly.

  ***

  Actually, Billy saw it first. We were heading up the trail, our backs to the ocean, trying to cut off Danny be
fore she could reach her dead son. I was out in front, running as fast as I could, when I heard Billy say my name. But it was the way he said my name, like the last question of a dying man, which stopped me in my tracks.

  Then Howard asked me what it was. I didn’t take the time to answer him. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was anyway, but I figured it must be a meteor of some kind, and we were all done unless we could get over the next ridge, still a hundred yards away, and quickly. “Move!” I said, and I waved them past me.

  Before they passed, I looked back at it again. All I could see was a blinding light, and when I turned to run, I couldn’t see the trail any longer. I dropped the rifle and took off anyway, scraping against the brush, bouncing off trees, until my vision cleared, and I found myself running through the middle of the forest, my companions nowhere to be found.

  ***

  I don’t remember much after that. I remember trying to get over the ridge and shouting for Billy and Howard. I remember a loud swooshing sound, a blast of wind that seemed to come from the ground, and what felt like the whole forest being sucked upward. And I remember flying through a valley of yellow light.

  ***

  It was actually an asteroid—I read about it at the Hall of Knowledge—the third largest ever to hit the Earth. It landed in the Pacific Ocean, extinguishing much of the sea life there, shaking the entire Earth for nearly ten minutes, causing tidal waves across the globe, including a tsunami that sunk the Hawaiian Islands. The impact threw dust and debris into the atmosphere, triggering a nuclear-like reaction, which caused parts of the planet to heat up like an oven, igniting thousands of acres of forest all at once, and creating a great firestorm that wiped out thousands more.

  ***

  In the city of Babel, the New World Order general in charge of Wormwood, the secret nuclear missile the Antichrist had kept hidden during the alien disarmament program, panicked when he heard the explosion and saw the great flash of light. The general was sure the Chinese had fired their own hidden missile. So he pressed the button. Fortunately, the general’s missile missed the intended target—the city of Beijing—landing one hundred miles to the north at the Guanting Reservoir, an area with relatively sparse pockets of civilians. Still, millions were killed, and the Chinese began to plot their revenge at the Battle of Armageddon.