Judgment

by Tom Reinhart

  “The Judges, did you see them? Do you know where they went?” Margie asked me.

  “They followed me down to the basement. I hid, and then I thought they came back up this way. I was coming up to find you.”

  “What’s downstairs? Anything useful?” asked Steve.

  “No,” I told him, as I wiped a bit of dead slime off of my neck with my shirt sleeve. “We’ve got the inhalers. Let’s get the hell out of here now, okay?”

  I could see Margie glance over to the room where the baby was still crying. I could see the sadness in her eyes when she nodded yes, and we made our way down to the lobby by the light of the flare. Steve had a backpack stuffed with inhalers, more than enough to hold us until we got out of the city and into the rural areas. Cautiously entering the lobby looking for the Judges, we found the pathway out as clear as it had been when we entered.

  The outside of the hospital was much quieter now that the generator had shut down. As we stepped out into the darkness of the night, I could hear the moaning of the maledicted, and the crying of a baby whose mother would never come.

  Chapter 8

  Dead Men Do Tell Tales

  “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out

  for those who mutilate the flesh.”

  ~ Philippians 3:1-21

  The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge loomed before us like an enormous sidewalk into the heavens. A deep morning fog hung heavy and low, making the vertical structures of the bridge disappear into the thick mist above. We had walked since early in the morning before dawn, looking to put some distance between us and Brooklyn before the light of day made our traveling more dangerous. After the hospital we had made our way to Steve’s daughter’s house. There we found only ashes and Steve’s memories, but it gave us a place to sleep for a few hours before heading out. Now ahead of us was Staten Island where we would look for Margie’s brother, and then on through Jersey and into Pennsylvania. There we hoped the more rural farmlands might give us a longer life expectancy than the city had.

  Now I found myself high over New York Harbor, trying to not be seen and caught walking across the bridge. The Verrazano was long to cross on foot, and the winds were blowing strong, pushing us around. The path was a parking lot of cars, all lanes entirely blocked as far up the bridge as I could see.

  Almost all the cars had the doors flung open, the driver’s abandoning them when there was no other choice and nowhere to go. There were small piles of ash up against many of the tires where the dusty remains of people could hide from the wind, the rest just blown off the bridge into the harbor.

  The winds kept increasing as we moved further up, whistling through the suspension cables that arced lazily up into the heavens. There wasn't a sound except the wind and the creaking of the bridge. It was eerie as hell to be standing there high up on the bridge, looking around to the skyline at a dead city.

  As we neared the center of the bridge we found the reason for the traffic jam. A massive accident, several cars piled into one another with one flipped over onto its side. Two of the cars had maledicted in them, mangled and bloodied. They were clearly dead, yet moaning and calling out to us as we passed by.

  Steve was searching vehicles, looking for anything of use. It's amazing how valuable now the trivial things had become. Cigarette lighters, clothing, and flashlights had all become priceless and lifesaving. Expensive cellphones, laptops and iPads were now completely useless relics of an extinct society.

  We scrounged a few things while ignoring the maledicted in the crashed cars. As I was glancing down the other side of the bridge towards Staten Island, Margie had been watching behind us.

  “Adam...”

  I hadn't quite heard her the first time. She called a little louder, a bit more urgency in her voice.

  “Adam...look.”

  I turned to see what she was pointing at, having to look far down the bridge from where we had come. At first I couldn't see it, but gradually it became clearer. The bottom of the foggy mist was moving slightly, bits of it swirling and dislodging, as if being displaced by something concealed moving through the fog. As the motion drew nearer, I could see the tips of great wings poking out through the bottom of the fog in rhythm with the Judges’ flight.

  “They're coming Adam. They've seen us on the bridge.”

  Fuck.

  Steve saw them too, and quickly shoving some loot into his pockets began a fast paced hobble towards us. “C'mon, let's get the hell out of here.”

  Margie swung her pack onto her back and began to move. “We have to get off the bridge. We're sitting ducks out here.”

  My mind began to race. Looking down the bridge ahead of us, Staten Island was a long ways off. “We'll never make it before they catch up to us.”

  “We don't have any other options,” Margie yelled to me.

  I looked back at the parking lot of cars that filled the first half of the bridge. Car after car, end to end; hundreds of them all stacked up like dominoes and filled with fuel. “Margie, give me a lighter.”

  “What?”

  “A lighter. Give me a lighter.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Just give it to me.” Looking back I could see the stirring of the fog getting closer, a few hundred yards away. Taking Margie's lighter I quickly ran to one of the wrecked cars. At the driver’s window I ripped a piece of cloth off the shirt of the maledicted crushed there, ignoring the smell of death and the mumbled protests of the owner.

  Stuffing the rag into the gas tank opening, I lit the cloth on fire. A small flame sparked to life on the tip of the rag that slowly grew larger as it began moving towards the gas inlet.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Margie was still asking.

  “Playing Dominoes. Knock one down and watch the rest fall. Now let's get the hell off the bridge.”

  She looked at me puzzled for a moment, then quickly began running behind me, Steve following just slightly behind. At first nothing happened as we ran. I kept waiting for the explosion, but I could only hear the footsteps of Margie and Steve behind me. I stopped and turned to look, wondering if I should run back and give it another try. I could see Steve hobbling along as best he could, still within 40 yards or so of the car. I could still see little bits of flaming rag sticking out the car’s gas inlet.

  Above Steve I saw the angels now descending below the dense layer of fog, the gray mist swirling around their wings as they came into view; three, four, maybe more of them. They were coming quickly, and we had half the distance of the bridge to still go before the other side and Staten Island.

  We'll never make it.

  I screamed out, urging Margie and Steve to run faster. Before I could finish the sentence, the car exploded in a huge fireball that knocked Steve off of his feet and sent a burst of warm air rushing past my face. The car literally flew off the pavement, flipping into the air onto the car behind it. Dripping fuel was already running across the road, quickly igniting the next few cars in line.

  C'mon baby. Make it rain.

  Steve got to his feet, and continued in my direction. Margie was just a few steps away. Behind them I could still see the angels coming in spite of the black smoke billowing from the burning cars. They were only a hundred yards away now, flying just below the layer of fog and coming fast.

  Suddenly the bridge became a gauntlet of fire and exploding metal. In a startling massive explosion the next couple of cars burst into fireballs, and the chain reaction began.

  I felt the bridge buckle and sway under my feet. Car after car began to explode, several launching themselves into the air, the others billowing huge fireballs and thick black smoke. I watched one burning car flip upwards and strike the lead angel, covering the Judge with burning gas and oil. Its wings ignited, and it flew out of control from side to side in a panic, crashing into a suspension cable before hurtling to the ground in flames. I saw a second angel's wings also catch fire, and after spiraling up into the air, watched the flaming form of the J
udge plummet down into the harbor below.

  The explosions began to come quicker as we ran towards Staten Island. The chain reaction I had hoped for took off with great fury, car after car exploding violently one after the other until the entire east half of the bridge was filled with fire and thick black smoke that formed a barrier between us and our pursuers.

  We ran the entire rest of the way off the bridge, feeling the vibrations in the concrete beneath our feet with each new explosion. Each time I glanced back to see if any angels were behind us I saw nothing but fire and black smoke. At the west end of the bridge, just into Staten Island, we collapsed onto the ground with exhaustion. Steve was sucking heavily on an inhaler.

  Margie was the first to be able to catch her breath and speak. “We can’t stay here long,” she said, still a little winded. “That mess on the bridge is going to draw attention for miles. I bet you can see that from all five boroughs.” I still couldn’t stop gasping for air, so I opted to simply nod my agreement.

  Rising to my feet, I watched the bridge burn for a few minutes. Glancing over towards Brooklyn, I could see them coming. From a distance they looked just like birds, like the first morning when Jim Brooksher and I had seen them from my office window. As they draw nearer, you can tell there’s something different about them, that they aren’t birds.

  Steve noticed what I was looking at. “That didn’t take long.” He took a big long drag off his inhaler, and when it didn’t quite give him what he wanted, he gave it a shake and then threw it to the side of the road. “I guess we better get moving.”

  “Yeah.” The Judges were still a ways off, almost clear across the harbor. I didn’t think they could actually see where we were yet. They were more just drawn to the action on the bridge which I was sure could be seen and heard all the way up in Manhattan. “Margie, how far to your brother’s place?”

  “On foot, with Steve’s ankle? Longer than I’d like, but we should make it before dark.” Margie slung her pack onto her back, took one last look at the approaching Judges flying over the harbor, and began walking off, Steve and I following behind.

  * * * *

  I couldn’t sleep.

  Steve, his breathing soothed with asthma inhalers, was happily snoring away the night. The rest of the dark world was screaming in agony. Maledicted moaned and screeched in the streets, while Judges roamed the rooftops, their heavy steps thumping just above my head. Margie was asleep in her brother’s room, or still quietly crying; I wasn’t sure.

  Margie was right, we had made it here before the sun went down, but we hadn’t found what she had hoped for. There was no sign of her brother, unless he was one of the piles of ashes we found in the Laundromat downstairs. There was just no way to know, but it seemed likely. I left that choice up to Margie. She could hold on to hope, or not; that was an individual thing.

  Staten Island was a mess. God’s apocalyptic hand had definitely smacked it around for a while. I noticed now that whenever we saw the maledicted, they seemed to be in packs, as if the cursed were drawn to each other somehow. Perhaps in the absence of anyone else, they were the only other humans to gravitate to. We rarely saw one alone any more, but always three or four moving together. As the days went by, the more likely it was that they had no sanity left, their brains having been rotting for weeks. They were more dangerous than ever now.

  Staring out the window, I noticed a dim glow in a bar across the street. A thin light, the flickering of a candle, escaped out through broken windows, dimly illuminating the sidewalk. I could see a man sitting on a bar stool pouring himself a drink. It was another survivor, just across the street. It had to be, and I had to go see for myself.

  I locked the door to the apartment and made my way down to the street. Glancing around for danger and seeing it was clear I made my way across. I stood outside the broken windows for a moment, and now closer could see that not only was it a survivor there in the bar, but he was a police officer. I could see his uniform, his hat, and the gun strapped to his hip. Oddly, even in a post-apocalyptic world, having a cop nearby somehow made me feel safer.

  Stepping through the window frame with glass crunching under my boots, I know he had to hear me coming, and yet there was little reaction. He barely flinched, and I would have thought he’d be a bit more concerned about who or what was walking up on him.

  In the dim light I could see he was covered in ashes. He reminded me of the people I had seen when the towers collapsed on 9/11, running through the streets covered in dust. When he moved, little bits of it flew off of him to drift aloft in the candle light.

  He turned his head slightly to look at me, his face mostly veiled in dark shadow, offering only a glimpse of candle flame reflected in his eyes. “You’re still alive?” was all he said, and I couldn’t quite be sure if it was a question or an observation. He turned away, taking another sip from the dusty glass in his hand.

  It was an odd question I thought, considering it should’ve been obvious.

  “So far,” I answered.

  I saw him nod slightly. “Not sure if that’s good or bad anymore.”

  Being a police officer I assumed he would have some insight into what was happening, what was being done by the authorities, and what help was coming. That wasn’t the insight he offered.

  “You can have my gun if you want, if it will help you.”

  What a strange thing to say.

  I got the sense that this was a broken man; someone who had given up, surrendering to the fate that would ultimately get us all. “I’d prefer you kept it, actually.” I sat on a stool a few spots away from his, and after glancing my way once more he slid a large bottle in my direction.

  “Whiskey. Help yourself. It’s Fireball, it tastes like Red Hots. Good shit. You remember Red Hots?”

  “Yeah,” I answered as I reached for the bottle and poured myself a little into a glass that I had done my best to wipe the dust out of.

  “Don’t worry about the ash anymore,” the cop told me. “It’s pointless, and the whiskey will kill the germs.”

  It’s not germs, its damn human remains.

  “So, do you know what’s happening anywhere else? Is there help coming? The military? What is the government doing?”

  Even in the dim and shadowy candle light I could see him chuckle. “There’s no government anymore. There’s nothing. They’re all dead. It’s just me, you, and the whiskey.” He pulled his radio off of his belt and slid it down the bar towards me, kicking up dust as it went, the ash slowly floating up into the air to join the rest that drifted and danced in the candlelight. “If you can get anyone on that thing, you let me know.”

  “There has to be help somewhere. There has to be people, doing something. This can’t be just the end of the world.”

  “This is it. We are it. It’s fucking over man.” He took a long drink and gestured for me to slide the bottle back. I complied, and he refilled his glass. “And we deserve it too. You know that, right?”

  I didn’t answer right away, trying to think for a moment what the right answer was. He spoke again before I could figure it out. “I’ve been a cop for fourteen years. I started out thinking I would do some kind of good, help the community and all that. I was gonna save the world like some superhero. ‘I’m gonna get the bad guys’, I used to tell my kids. Then I found out that we’re all the bad guys.”

  I didn’t say anything, watching him take another sip of his whiskey. “I’ve arrested hundreds of people, even shot a few. After a while I realized we’re all the same. The only difference between a good person and a bad person is getting caught being bad.”

  I took a sip of my drink, using my sleeve to wipe wet ash off of my lip before I answered him. “You don’t really think everyone is bad do you? Do you think you’re bad?”

  It took him a second, like he was carefully weighing his words. “I arrested a man once who had two teenage girls chained up in his basement. Do I need to tell you what he was doing with them before he started cutting thei
r limbs off? How about the guy who put his cat in the microwave to see if it would explode? Let me tell you man, humans are the worst creatures on the planet. Explain to me how we can dominate the world with our intelligence and ability to create amazing technology; yet the things we still do to each other, it’s like we’re just savages. Murder, rape, torture; we’re still uncivilized barbarians disguised in the thin veil of societal laws to mask it all, and it’s all just a bunch of bullshit.”

  He paused for another shot of whiskey. I had resigned myself to just listening to him as I refilled my own glass. There was something quite surreal about sitting alone in a bar with a cop during the end of the world and getting drunk together, and yet, all things considered, I had decided to embrace it for the moment.

  “Look at what we’ve done to the world,” he continued. “I mean, I was never much of an environmentalist type; in fact I thought those hippy wackos that chained themselves to trees on a construction site were nothing but misguided nuisances. There’s some validity to their claims though. Humans really don’t care how our expansion and evolution affects the world or the other creatures on it. We cut down forests like they were meaningless. Trees that take centuries to grow, give oxygen to the atmosphere and shelter other species; we knock them down like they’re nothing. We pour concrete where green fields of grass used to be. We pave asphalt roads where once were beautiful streams vibrant with fish. We build huge towers of steel and glass that block out the sun. We build factories that puke torrents of toxic smoke into the sky. No one cares. It’s more important to develop the next cell phone or luxury car. You know what I’m saying?”