Mega Post-Apocalyptic Double Bill

by Mark Gillespie

  Rachel hesitated. “They’re coming here,” she said.

  “The Exterminators?” Cody said. “Coming here?”

  Rachel looked up at the ocean of darkness above their heads. Her eyes drifted off into the depths.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Cody said. “Nick and Crazy Diamond are still back there. They might need us.”

  “Dad,” Rachel said, putting a hand on Cody’s arm to steady him.

  “What is it honey?”

  “I can fight them,” she said. “When they come.”

  Cody looked at her. “Fight them?” he said. “Rachel, you’re just a kid for God’s sake. I don’t care what powers you think you stole off them. I don’t care if you’re Supergirl. Now let’s go.”

  “We have to fight them,” Rachel said. “They’re coming.”

  “Let’s go Rachel.”

  They walked back to the van in silence.

  Cody opened the driver’s door and climbed behind the wheel.

  There were two steering wheels in front of him.

  “Damn it,” he said. “I think my vision is a little wonky.”

  He concentrated and tried to slide the key into the ignition. After a short struggle, he couldn’t find the slot. He tried again with no luck and punched the steering wheel in frustration.

  “This isn’t good,” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” Rachel said.

  Cody sat back in his seat. Both steering wheels looked back at him – challenging him to try again.

  Everything else was a blur.

  “Rachel,” he said. “We might have to wait a while before we go anywhere. Think I took a bump to the head back there.”

  “Alright,” she said. “But…”

  He looked at her. Her face was a blur like everything else. “But what?”

  “I think I can drive the van.”

  Cody managed to laugh, somehow. “You don’t know how to drive.”

  “I sorta do,” she said.

  Through his skewed vision, Cody saw Rachel screwing up her face in concentration. A long silence lingered in the cabin. Cody was about to break the silence when he heard the choking sound of the Sprinter’s engine.

  It was trying to spurt into life.

  Cody looked at his hand. The key was still there, locked in between his forefinger and thumb.

  “Wait a minute,” he said. “How…?”

  The engine coughed and spluttered but it wouldn’t start. Rachel’s eyes were still closed as she tried to tempt the van into starting. Cody wasn’t sure if he was seeing things, but he caught a brief glimpse of what looked like colored sparks dancing at the tips of his daughter’s fingers.

  After about a minute, Rachel fell back into her seat. She looked at her dad and smiled, like she’d almost mastered a new trick. She was breathing heavy.

  “You gotta start somewhere,” she said, sounding more West Texan than he’d ever heard her before. “But it’s going to take a while.”

  “This isn’t happening,” Cody said. “Whatever it is, it’s not happening.”

  “It is,” Rachel said.

  Cody’s head fell back onto the seat. It felt good to stop for a moment. He closed his eyes and everything was peaceful.

  “Let’s just sit here for a while,” he said. “I’ll drive us back when my eyes are good. Then we’ll go help Nick and Crazy Diamond. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Rachel said.

  Father and daughter sat in silence together.

  Above Brackenridge Park, a gentle rain began to fall. It made a soft pitter-patter noise as it landed on the roof of the van. The black sky grumbled from afar; it sounded like a dark premonition of bad weather.

  In the distance, Cody heard the flapping of bird wings.

  The End

  Black Earth (Exterminators 3)

  ‘Out of the night that covers me,

  Black as the pit from pole to pole,

  I thank whatever gods may be

  For my unconquerable soul.’

  Extract from ‘Invictus’

  By William Ernest Henley

  1

  “Go ahead,” Cody said. “Make a wish.”

  Rachel leaned over the tin of peaches on the wooden table. The lid of the tin had been peeled back slightly in an inviting gesture. A solitary green candle was poking out at the top, having been wedged in between the lid and the small opening. A dull orange flame flickered on the candle’s head.

  As Rachel blew out the flame, a clumsy rendition of Happy Birthday rang out across the room.

  Cody watched with a pained smile as the small audience sang to his daughter. It had been almost six months since the incident at Brackenridge Park with the Exterminators. So much had happened since then. The most important thing was that Rachel was getting to grips with her newfound talents – and she was doing so at a remarkable speed.

  It had all started with her attempts at lifting various pieces of furniture – in fact the first thing she’d tried to do was lift this same rectangular coffee table that was taking the weight of her birthday tin.

  Cody smiled at the memory.

  He recalled how Rachel had sat cross-legged for hours in front of the table during those early days of training, like a miniature blonde Buddha, shutting everyone and everything else out. Eyes closed, face screwed up in concentration. It hadn’t come easy to her. The table had shook and swayed, as if some hidden puppeteer on the ceiling was jerking it back and forth on invisible strings. That’s how it went for a while. It was several days before the breakthrough came and when it did it didn’t last long. The table had levitated an inch or two off the ground, shaking violently as if an evil spirit was trapped inside, trying to fight its way out of the reddish brown, rustic wood.

  Then it had crashed back to the ground.

  Rachel had come a long way since then. And now she was eleven years old. In fact she’d been eleven for a while but nobody knew the exact date anymore so it was hard to gauge how late they were in throwing her a birthday party.

  “Happy Birthday Rachel!” Crazy Diamond said. The young woman took her gloved hands off her ears now that the celebratory singing had stopped. She turned to the giant figure of Nick Norton sitting on the floor beside her.

  Crazy Diamond scanned an imaginary piece of paper in her hands. “It says here on the program that you’re up for entertainment duties Nick,” she said. “What have you got in store for us big guy?”

  Nick’s body was wrapped up in a dark green winter coat. He threw down the massive hood, revealing the small afro that he’d been growing over the past few months. He scratched at his salt and pepper beard, throwing a bemused look at Crazy Diamond.

  “Do I look like Coco the Clown to you?” Nick said. “My freezing cold ass is staying right here.”

  Rachel walked over to Nick and Crazy Diamond. She was carrying the tin of birthday peaches in her hand.

  “You want to see me lift something?” Rachel said, looking at Crazy Diamond.

  Crazy Diamond’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Yeah,” she said. “Can you lift Nick?”

  Rachel looked at Nick.

  “Easy,” she said.

  “Cool,” Crazy Diamond said, rubbing her cold hands together. “He won’t mind. He’s a pilot and they love to fly. Ain’t that right Nick?”

  Nick looked up at Rachel who was standing over him. There was a look of pure mischief in her eyes.

  “I’ve always been nice to you Rachel,” he said, pointing a finger at the girl. “Now you remember that. Remember who it was that suggested we throw a birthday party for you. Me, that’s who.”

  “Because you were bored,” Crazy Diamond said.

  Nick kept his eyes on Rachel.

  “That’s not true.”

  Cody reached over and locked an arm around Rachel’s waist, pulling her back towards him.

  “Alright smart ass,” Cody said. “We get the picture – you’re a genius. Now eat the rest of your birthday cake and stop showing off.”

&n
bsp; Rachel wriggled free of Cody’s grip. She turned around and looked him dead in the eye.

  “I could lift you instead,” she said. “You’d be easier than lifting Nick.”

  Cody laughed. He was surprised at how nervous it sounded.

  “Do it and see what happens,” he said. “But alright if you really have to lift someone, go ahead and lift Nick.”

  “Thanks buddy,” Nick said.

  Cody reached out and pulled the zipper up on Rachel’s silver North Face jacket so that it touched her chin. “Don’t forget to keep this up,” he said. “You’re the last person around here we need catching a cold and then pneumonia.”

  Cody took the tin of peaches out of Rachel’s hand and pulled the lid fully open. He reached a hand into his daughter’s coat pocket and pulled out the small silver spoon that she always carried around with her for mealtimes.

  “For you,” he said, handing her the spoon. “Now eat up.”

  Rachel took the spoon and held the can aloft. “Does anyone want some?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “It’s all yours,” said a gruff man’s voice on the other side of the room.

  Three people sat bunched close together, a little further apart from Cody, Nick, Crazy Diamond and Rachel. They were dressed in thick winter clothing – parka jackets, zipped up to the chin, gloves covering their hands and beanie hats on their heads.

  Marvin Hearns – known as Marv – was the leader of the trio. Marv was a grizzled war veteran – a taciturn, leather-skinned man of sixty-two who’d seen combat in Iraq and several other far-flung places that most people had only ever heard about in the news. Marv’s face looked like it had lived a thousand lives – his pale blue eyes were full of untold stories, and the deep crags and grooves in his skin, along with several impressive scars, hinted of a life of hardship.

  Rita and Lance were sitting beside Marv. They were both about thirty years old. Rita was a slim, black woman with a pretty face and dark, intuitive brown eyes that didn’t miss much. Lance was tall and pale, with round boyish eyes that betrayed a sharp war veteran’s mind. He’d fought with Marv in the armed forces and also in San Antonio after the Black Storm. A soft tangle of brown fluff hung from his youthful face, barely passing for a beard.

  Marv, Rita and Lance were former Resistance soldiers. After the Black Storm hit hard, Marv and the others had fought alongside Harry and the San Antonio Resistance – right up until Harry had sold out and made a deal with the suits who were trying to get their hands on Rachel. Even though the suits had kidnapped Harry’s wife, Marv had been disgusted with their decision to work with the enemy. He’d walked away at that point. Rita and Lance, like the loyal soldiers they were, went with him.

  Rita smiled at Rachel. She pointed to the ‘birthday cake’.

  “That’s all yours darling,” Rita said. “That right there is a Happy Birthday present from the San Antonio Resistance.” She looked at Lance and smiled. “The real Resistance that it is.”

  Lance laughed and threw his hood up over his head. A Browning automatic rifle lay on the floor at his side.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Nick looked over in that direction and shook his head.

  “C’mon you guys,” he said. “You know I don’t like that name. We’re not the San Antonio Resistance. Those assholes have been and gone. They’re history. We gotta come up with something else – the New Resistance or Resistance 2.0 or Human Lives Matter or something like that. Anything but the SAR. Because unlike those cowardly bastards who sold us out, we’re actually trying to resist something.”

  “Go easy Nick,” Marv said. His breath was a fine mist that dispersed slowly across the room. “Not everyone in the Resistance sold you out. I don’t remember anyone here trying to screw you guys over. Just the opposite in fact. Who was it that turned up to help you guys when you and Crazy Diamond were locked in that building, shooting it out with the suits?”

  Nick held up a hand. “Alright,” he said. “I wasn’t talking about you guys. I’m talking about Harry and his band of treacherous assholes. Damn near got us killed.”

  “One of us did get killed,” Crazy Diamond said. She looked at Nick with a blank expression. “Remember?”

  Nick nodded.

  There was a brief silence in the room. It was broken only by sound of Rachel’s spoon clinking off the tin as she wolfed down the peaches.

  Cody looked at Rachel’s birthday treat. A tin of fruit with a candle stuck on top. But tins were nothing new in their lives. The ‘New Resistance’ had been living off them for a while and thank God for them or they’d probably have starved to death by now. Fortunately for Cody, Rachel, Nick and Crazy Diamond, Marv and the others had taken them to the old Resistance hideouts and bunkers scattered across San Antonio. There were plenty of supplies out there – food, clothing, flashlights and everything else they’d need to stay alive.

  “We tried to find you a Coke or something,” Cody said, looking at Rachel. “But there’s nothing out there anymore. Sorry honey.”

  Rachel shoveled another spoonful of peaches into her mouth.

  “I stopped craving Coke,” she said, talking with her mouth full. “Can’t even remember what it tastes like.”

  Nick nodded. “Tastes like pi…”

  Crazy Diamond clipped him on the back of the head.

  “Language,” she said.

  The room went back to silence.

  Cody leaned his head against the wall. He looked around the room they’d called home for the past five months or so. The survivors had taken up residence in the eight-story Rand Building on East Houston Street, located on the western edge of downtown San Antonio. They were on the seventh floor of the red-brick building, which was a familiar sight around the city and had been since its first appearance in the early twentieth century.

  Cody and the others had cleared out most of the furniture they’d found in the Rand and taken it downstairs, piling it up in the lobby. As the months passed, they’d worked through it slowly, building the occasional fire outside when the cold became intolerable.

  Cody could barely remember what it was like to be warm. Like memories of blue skies and bright sunny mornings, the sensation of warmth was fading to the back of his mind. It had been hard on everyone at first, the gradual decline in temperature. They’d gotten used to it, but that didn’t make it any easier.

  A few items of furniture remained in the room – quirky desks, red sofas and fancy office seats – a testament to whatever hipster business venture had once thrived there. Now it was no more than a gathering space for possibly the last human inhabitants in San Antonio.

  “Think I’ll go out for a smoke,” Marv said, getting up to his feet. “Any of you part-timers want to join me?”

  “Yeah,” Cody said. “I could do with the air.”

  “I’m in,” Rita said.

  “Screw it,” Nick said, groaning as he climbed to his feet. “I’m coming too.”

  Part-timers – as Marv had called them, were people like Cody who didn’t smoke but had become regular companions of Marv on his frequent smoking breaks. Even though they didn’t smoke, the part-timer would always end up smoking anyway. In truth, there was little else to break up the long spells of boredom were such a huge feature of their lives. Cody hadn’t smoked for years, not since the days of his Hollywood bad boy image when he’d appeared on countless magazine covers with a cigarette dangling from his lip. Even then he hadn’t liked it much. The taste of a cigarette hadn’t changed in all those years. He still didn’t like it but he had to admit, smoking had a weird way of making him feel a little warmer. Maybe it was nothing more than a distraction from the cold.

  Cody zipped up his black parka to the neck. Then he pulled a pair of gloves out of his coat pocket and slipped them over his hands.

  They walked downstairs in silence.

  Marv pointed a flashlight ahead and a tunnel of pale white light shone upon the remnants of things that no longer served much of a purpose
. The first floor of the building had once contained a retail space with the second to eighth floors being used for office and commercial purposes. On the first floor they passed an abandoned bar and several coffee shops and breakfast joints. Cody always imagined the same thing when he walked past those places – all the workers filing in and out on weekday mornings – the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the air. And after work? Straight to the bar for a cold beer. Shoot the breeze and catch the eye of that cute girl in the office. Maybe even pluck up the courage to ask her out on a date.

  They stepped outside into the cold darkness.

  Cody looked up and saw the three gates in the sky. It was always a sobering reminder – the first thing anyone saw when they stepped outside.

  The gates had appeared in the sky several months ago, not long after the incident at Brackenridge Park. They were the first signs of light that had appeared in the San Antonio skies for a long time, but they were far from reassuring. They were three giant suns hanging in a neat row on the black sky, their centers like an iris, bursting with a variety of brightly colored light. They were similar to the gate that had opened above the softball field in Brackenridge Park when the Exterminators had tried and failed to kidnap Rachel.

  Except these were much bigger.

  The weather had taken a turn for the worse not long after the gates had first arrived on the scene. The Black Storm has grown more intense. The sky was even darker than before, something that would have seemed impossible at one point. Darker and colder. Heavy, icy winds blew across the land, coming from all directions. The wind tore at the survivors’ skin like a slashing knife.

  The black snow had followed soon afterwards. Since then it had fallen almost every day, mostly coming down in a light sprinkling but sometimes it was heavy too. The temperature in the city hadn’t reached freezing yet but the snow continued to fall like it was below zero. It felt more like a warning of things to come than a reflection of the wintery temperatures. The city streets were covered in a thick black carpet, a perfect companion to the ebony sheet that had swallowed the sky.