Red Robin: Post-Apocalyptic America

by R. B. Tetro

  Angel had left the subject alone and as time wore on she had tried to distance herself from supernatural contact but, from time to time, she was forced to use the power that her mother passed down to her and this was one of those times. There was something inside prodding her for understanding such as, how did Siros remain alive and how did he and Magnus control the snogs and many other things she felt might be helpful to know.

  After the alarm went off they’d ran and hidden and played a terrifying game of catch me if you can with the slavers until Onyx and the remaining pack had caught up to them and ripped their pursuers to pieces. Now they lay in a circle with the wolf pack around them, except for her- she was with Onyx a good distance away from the rest of her group. She knelt on her knees in the sand with her head bowed, willing the long ago discarded energy of discerning to come to her once again.

  At first, it didn’t work and it wasn’t until she sent Onyx away to rejoin the group that she started to see flickering images in her mind. Images that were disturbing and made her want to run as fast as she could and as far away as possible but she forced herself to look and study each image until, at last, she saw where Siros and Magnus’ power came from. She saw the terrible things they had done before the bombs baked the earth and all of the even more terrible things that they were doing now. Just when she was whining and crying in her trance she saw it…the thing that Siros held most high, the thing that was the source if his power and where it was hidden inside of the Keep.

  Poet found her with the help of Onyx not long after, passed out, pale and shaken. It wasn’t until he had her safely tucked into her bedroll and the rest of them standing around her that she was able to share her vision. At first they thought she was crazy. She was used to that but this time was different. This time, she along with the rest of the civilized humans in the territory needed them to understand.

  She spoke for a long time and for a long time they were skeptical until they each fell asleep, frustrated and exhausted from trying to wrap their minds around what she’d revealed to them. That night, each of them had a very similar dream about what she’d told them and about where it was hidden in the Keep.

  The next morning, they spoke of their dreams of a blood-red crystal underneath Siros’ work bench and what was hidden underneath it. Finally, it was decided that they needed to get to the Keep and somehow tell Daniel and the rest of them. That’s when they heard Onyx and the rest of the wolf pack growling, all of them facing the setting sun which was blotted out by a fast moving, strangely shifting, dark cloud.

  “Run for cover!” Poet barely had time to shout before hundreds of vultures came down on top of them, screeching, ripping and tearing. They fought back as best as they could with no cover to run to and were just on the verge of being ripped apart, piece by piece, when they heard the roar of the motorcycles and saw help coming on the horizon.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FIVE

  Hog Trough was burnt down to the ground along with everything in it. Razor swore when he saw the overturned water tower which was busted right down the middle, its precious cargo already dried to a dismal damp gunk under the ruined container. Everyone felt beaten. There was no way they would make it to the Star Towers, much less make it through another soul torturing day in the Griddle without water.

  According to a survivor they’d found hiding in the ruins, there had been a disagreement between two rival bike gangs, followed by a fight, followed by a fire that got out of hand in the high desert winds.

  Jessie clapped his hands and shouted for everyone’s attention. Finally, the frightened uproar subsided enough for him to be heard. “Please, everyone! We might find something here that will help us. In the meantime, set the watch and tend to the wounded…please.”

  Razor waited until the crowd was dispersed before tapping Jessie on the shoulder. “All is not lost-maybe. Butcher and I hid a spigot that runs to a separate water source.” He walked towards what used to be their biker gang’s saloon. It was reduced to rubble and ashes. Together they moved piece after burnt piece until the scorched and blackened wood floor was exposed to them.

  Razor looked around before sliding the business end of his broad sword into a narrow crack between two loose boards. Smiling, both of them held their breath while Razor turned the spigot knob. Squeak, squeak, squeak… Jessie was usually calm through every kind of danger they walked through but right about now he felt as if his heart was going to explode. Squeak, squeak, splash. Gurgling, clean, clear, drinkable water came bubbling out.

  Razor laughed and drank handful after handful. Jessie joined in and, for a moment, the two of them forgot about everything except the pure joy of being alive and the knowledge that the rest of their people would be okay.

  Jessie whistled and Lucas appeared, looking rough, but still standing. He saw the water, and he dropped down and crawled on his knees toward them, quietly looking around before drinking deep from the spigot. The three of them laughed and patted each other on the backs and shook hands, each of them full of renewed hope and vigor and then they remembered there were a lot of people that needed water and set about making it happen.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIX

  “What does your bowl say to you, what do you see?” Magnus demanded from Siros.

  Siros whipped around, obviously agitated by the intrusion. “I’m afraid you won’t like what the bowl is showing me. Can’t say as I like it much myself.”

  “Should we… be worried?” Magnus had never seen Siros look as frightened as he did at the moment.

  “It is… as it was in my dream.”

  Magnus searched his uncle’s face for any sign of deception and found only fear. “I’ll call in the entire army”.

  “Did you not hear what I just said to you? Everything is happening exactly like it happened in the dream. I do not want to see what happens or need to see what happens because I already know what happens. And what happens is, we end up mangled and dead!”

  Magnus almost grabbed his uncle and ended his miserable existence once and for all, but he stopped, reminding himself that he needed his undead relative’s formidable magic far more than he’d ever needed it before. He took a deep breath and walked over to the balcony before letting it out. For a moment, he watched the fever-pitched battle below. He didn’t want to admit it, but the truth was the small group of warriors had come a lot further than he would have given them credit for.

  In the middle of the heaviest fighting he saw a grey haired, soldier man with blazing blue eyes, hacking and chopping his way through his troops with ease. The man had a handful of fighters around him in a circle and everywhere the small group went there were stacks of dead bodies. “Uncle Siros, if you would be so kind as to join me out on the balcony.”

  Siros stepped into the archway leading out onto the balcony, looking doubtfully at his nephew.

  “I think you will want to see this man and his friends. No tricks…I promise.”

  Siros wanted to go out on the small balcony with his giant nephew about as bad as he wanted his own head stuck up his ass, but something in the look on Magnus’ face told him that he was being serious. That look on his nephew’s face scared him more than the dreams had, because the look on Magnus’ face was a look that he’d never seen on his psychotic nephews face before, and yet it was there. It was fear. Shuffling slowly, Siros went to the far end of the balcony, as far away from Magnus as he could be.

  “Look down, off to the left of the gate,” Magnus pointed.

  Siros followed his gaze, then he gasped and backed away from the stone railing to the safety of the archway. For a moment, neither of them said anything.

  “Well?” Magnus asked. Siros looked at him and nodded.

  The man with the crew cut, grey hair and the battle-axe. Is that the one that kills me…in the dream?”

  Again, Siros nodded yes.

  Magnus wanted to slap him for quivering. The two of them stood in silence while Magnus watched the rebels destroy his ground troops. “Any suggesti
ons?”

  For a moment, Siros didn’t answer. He was back over at his bowl, looking deep into the bottom. He turned as Magnus came toward him. “Call the guard to the top of the inside walls and let them into the Keep.”

  Magnus saw red. He grabbed Siros, lifting him off of his feet like he was a child. Drawing his sword, he pressed the tip to his uncle’s throat. “Why would I let them inside? These walls are all that holds them at bay!”

  Siros was turning blue. His breath was coming in small tortured gasps as Magnus squeezed harder; enjoying the feeling of finally hurting his uncle. Maybe he would just end it and face the stubborn rebel’s without his help.

  “Let them in! I have a surprise that not even they will be able to withstand. Let them in,” Siros gasped.

  Magnus brought him to within inches of his face, taking a sudden nip out of his rotten cheek and spitting it out before letting him go. Siros yelped and crashed to the floor, struggling to breathe and crawl to his knees.

  Magnus stood over him, nudging him with the toe of his boot. “You had better have a good plan, old man.”

  Siros managed to get to his knees. He could barely talk. “Magnus, have I ever let you down? I want to live as much as you do! Don’t worry. Let them in…when they reach the inner chamber that’s as far as they’ll go.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVEN

  Battle dust still hung in the air. Daniel stood beside Pops who stood with his arms around Chains and Scout with Juggernaut watching their flank. They were looking down.

  On the ground, dead at their feet was Basher. His head was caved in. It didn’t seem real to any of them, especially Chains, who had now lost both of his brothers.

  The battle had been intense. First, they’d been attacked by over two hundred Snogs. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have posed too much of a problem but this time had been different. This time, there had been a little extra surprise. They were armored, all of them, new armor with some kind of extra strength.

  No matter how hard they’d swung their weapons at them the Snogs had been able to withstand the blows. The rebels had been forced to pair off, striking at the blood- thirsty creatures at the same time for maximum effect. It had worked, but it was slow going.

  For a while, things were going pretty badly, then, things got worse. Magnus unleashed his secret weapon. Hundreds of ravenous vultures, the size of small gliders, descended on them. And with all of that to contend with, at the highest pitch of the battle with both sides crowded together, slipping in each other’s blood, hundreds of rocks and boulders and arrows were unleashed down on them from above.

  Daniel knelt beside Basher, putting his hand on his still chest. He closed his eyes and started to pray the Lord’s prayer, because he didn’t know any other prayer and he wasn’t even sure that the Lord was listening, but he was sure that Basher had been one of his best soldiers and friends for a very long time. He rose and the remaining men gathered around him, each of them with tears in their eyes, all of them silent.

  “Basher was one of the best soldiers I have ever had the honor to serve with. I considered him not only my friend but also my brother. I promise you if you’ll follow me… we will take our revenge!”

  “Revenge! Revenge!” they shouted as one and turned and followed Daniel, leaving Chains to say goodbye to his last remaining sibling.

  After seeing the condition of the men, the extent of their exhaustion and seriousness of their wounds, Daniel decided to fortify their positions and stay put until he and his men could recover enough to enact the next part of their plan.

  Later that evening, Standing Wolf brought his warriors over to their fire with blankets and bottles of whiskey.

  The two groups now one.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHT

  Constance sipped on a rare glass of Merlot while she watched Darius toss and turn in his sleep, remembering the time when he was five and she and his father took him to a giant water park. At first he’d been delighted, splashing and sloshing from one wet ride to another, so captivated by the broadness of the experience he actually forgot, for a short while, his unusual fear of crowds and his crippling shyness.

  Constance was hanging back, taking pictures, while her husband shelled out the coin for a Slurpee Darius had to have, and suddenly the crowd closed in on the boy, blocking him from their protective view, snapping him back into his usual, super- panicky personality.

  “The people! There were too many people… too many evil people!” he’d kept saying over and over as they drove home. Darius had always been attuned to who was good and who was filled with darkness. After taking him to church when he was younger and having to leave the service in a rush because he was screaming out in fear at the preacher, who later turned out to be consumed by darkness, they’d decided to worship at home.

  School was even worse. After being called by the principal’s office several times for many different incidents, they’d decided that he would be better off being home- schooled.

  Darius had always been a little different. A fact that perplexed both parents because neither one of those traits appeared in anyone on either side of their family tree. And as time crept forward, Darius became more and more withdrawn and aloof. The only people he would talk to were his parents.

  Darius told his father one time, that if it wasn’t for him and his mother he would probably go on the big journey to the other side of things because the world was so rotten with evil. Despite both parent’s untiring efforts to show their beloved son that there was goodness in the world, Darius always wore black, always mourning the human condition; as he liked to put it.

  Now, as he lay still, his face bandaged and his breathing almost returning to normal, Constance saw things from his point of view, making her wish, for the hundredth time, that she and her husband had listened to his warnings and gone to hide together in the mountains.

  But, she’d sold her soul for power, and not even a good power… on the contrary, the worst kind of power. And, despite the small flicker of light deep in her rotten heart, and the love she still felt for her son, she was more than ready to go down to hell and start serving her time.

  He stirred, moaning in his sleep, calling for someone, or something. She really couldn’t understand him. Briefly, he opened his eyes, looking at her in amazement and smiling as he realized she was real and that, against all odds, he was with her once again.

  He frowned… she looked much different now. Paler and skinnier, to the point she was starting to look almost reptilian. She reached out to smooth the blood-crusted hair away from his black and blue face, stopping when she realized he was staring at her claw-like hand. Hiding her hand in her lap, she smiled at him before he fell back asleep. There was no hiding the fact she belonged to the dark side now.

  Since giving up sleeping with Siros, he’d grown jealous and put a spell on her which seemed to be slowly and rather painfully turning her into something… not human- like a cross between a lizard and a bird. Her nose was elongated and so was her face, which was cast in disturbingly deep shadow. Her eyes had turned blackish- red, no longer the spectacular blue that had captured Darius’ father’s heart and held his love for so long.

  Constance choked back tears and swallowed the rest of her wine. Perhaps another bottle was in order. She was, after all, celebrating the return of her son; or what was left of him. It would have to be quick. She had decided she would kill him first, then herself; sending his beautiful soul up to heaven and quickening her black soul into the waiting gates of hell.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINE

  Butcher and his riders were able to chase off the vultures, but it was too little too late. He, along with the rest of the bikers watched helplessly as Reverend, Angel, Poet, and the old lady were snatched off the ground by the giant vultures and flown away toward the Keep. After leaving some of his men behind to treat the wounded and bury their dead, what was left of his forces got on their bikes and followed the vultures.

  Reverend watched them until they fad
ed away from his view, which was partially obstructed by the huge, flapping wings of the vulture that was carrying him, clutched painfully tight in its terrible long claws, hundreds of feet off the ground. To his right just above them, was the old lady who was hanging upside down. She smiled at him and waved; as if she were enjoying a day at the beach.

  To his left and down was Poet, who was being held in the air by one leg. He was alert and watching Angel, who was clutched in the claws of the largest vulture. She wasn’t moving although she seemed to be alive but there was really no way to tell.

  For miles they flew without stopping or resting. They flew and flew until, at last, the landscape changed and Reverend realized, without ever having been there that they were nearing the Keep. A half hour later they flew over the top of the Keep in broad circles.

  Reverend’s heart almost burst in his chest when he saw the long ribbon of beach behind the Keep. The black sand and the flowing water was blood-colored and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that his dream or actually, nightmare was about to become all too real.

  He saw an island and around the island was a nothing but crimson water and black sand. In the middle of the island, he thought he could see people who looked like actual, normal people and then they were descending toward the beach, too fast. Right before they crashed, the vulture extended its great wings and stopped, dropping him roughly on his face in the black sand before flying away.

  It took some time before he regained his senses but when he did, the old lady and Poet were standing over him, looking like they were used to riding on giant vultures

  and that this was just another ordinary day at the beach. “Nice of you to drop by,” joked the old lady.

  Reverend started to chuckle but stopped when he realized he’d landed on his ribs. “Angel?” he managed.