Soft Apocalypse

by Will McIntosh

  Rumor went straight to Ange and hugged her fiercely; he was so much bigger than her that she almost disappeared inside the one-way hug. “Little Peanut! So good to see you again.”

  Rumor led everyone to the food table. I followed and shamelessly fixed myself seconds. As we settled into chairs, Rumor came and stood in front of our little group. “Can I give you my patter? Then if you decide not to join us, you can all fly away with food in your bellies.”

  “Sure,” I said, my mouth full. “But I doubt you’re going to find any converts here.” I thought of Deirdre, falling end-over-end to her death.

  “That’s fair enough.” He covered his mouth with his palm, considering for a moment. “I have to alter my pitch, because you already know so much. You know this virus was engineered by scientists. These scientists realized that if the human race was going to survive, we have to take the next leap in evolution ourselves. What do we need to survive? We don’t need more hands, or two heads, or to fly. We need to be healed. Our violence, our sadness, our loneliness, our fear… they are a sickness that is killing us.” The cadence of his speech was mesmerizing. It was like listening to a good sermon.

  “Look at what’s become of the world under yesterday’s people.” He swept his hand around the room with a flourish, as if all the suffering and death in the world were spread out before us. “What do you think? When the ashes settle, shall we let the same people have another try?” He laughed. “Would you like another helping of the same rotted stew?”

  No one responded. Rumor went on.

  “We are the future, my friends. We’re going to build a world based on loving kindness, not ego. We convert violent people every chance we get, against their will if we must. If you’re violent, you forfeit your right to choose. But for others like you, it’s your choice. We offer you food, companionship, a safe home. We offer you the future.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “This safe home—it wouldn’t be Athens by any chance?”

  “It would indeed.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Cortez said. “Everyone in Athens is infected?”

  Rumor bowed his head. “Only the converted are permitted to live there.”

  “Sebastian, you bastard,” Cortez muttered.

  “When did he plan on telling us?” Ange asked. She looked angry enough to pull Sebastian’s ears off if he’d been there.

  Rumor spread his hands. “Can I finish, please? What questions do you have for me about joining us? Why are you so angry? Tell me your doubts.”

  Sophia spoke up. “I’m happy the way I am. I’m not killing anyone; I’m not filled with hate.”

  “Clearly you’re a good person,” Rumor said, moving to face her directly. “But don’t we all strive to better? Don’t we all want to reach our greatest potential? This will lead you toward that self-actualization. It’s like an extremely nutritious vitamin, only for your mind instead of your body.”

  He waited for Sophia to respond, but Sophia only crossed her arms and shook her head.

  “There are thousands of foreign entities already in your bodies! Consider all the helpful bacteria in your digestive tract. And this virus won’t change you. I’m still me.” He pointed at his chest. “I’m more me than I was before I felt the needle’s song. Only in my case it was not a needle, it was a water gun!” He laughed merrily. “The virus freed me to be far more me, far less of the streets I grew up on. I’m still me, just a much friendlier version of me.”

  I looked around at my tribe, gauging their reactions. You couldn’t help but get a little caught up in Rumor’s words. But it was irreversible, and there was Deirdre to consider. What if it wasn’t as pleasant as it seemed from the outside? The scientists behind this had also created the bamboo, and that hadn’t turned out all that well. Who knew, maybe over time Doctor Happy would drive its hosts insane.

  “Isn’t it also important for people to remain human in the full sense of the word?” Jeannie asked .“Being human means experiencing both the good and the bad, feeling both happiness and sorrow.”

  Rumor laughed. “The fundamental human experience has led to ruin. Yes, humanity is both good and bad, but the good has not adequately balanced the bad, and probably cannot. The bad must go.”

  The more I considered it, the more it seemed like giving up. Maybe one day I would be ready to give up, but not today. “You’re a good salesman,” I said, “but I don’t think we’re your target audience.” I put my hands on my knees and leaned forward. “Now, is that your patter? Are we free to go?”

  Rumor sighed. “Jasper, your wings can carry you wherever you like, after my patter or before. You are a free bird.” He came over to me, put his hand over mine, his rough palm touching me gently. I resisted the urge to pull away. “We mean well. I hope you believe that.”

  I pulled my hand away and stood. “We do, too. We appreciate the meal, and the offer.” The others gathered up their stuff.

  “Where are you going to go?” Rumor asked. “You’re not going to survive anywhere but in Athens, I promise you.”

  We looked at each other. “We’ll do the nomad thing for a few more months, then go back to Savannah and see if things have settled down,” I said.

  Rumor shook his head. “There is nothing for you in Savannah. The Jumpy-Jumps cut off the federal army’s supply route. Their push collapsed quickly after that. The soldiers who aren’t dead are thirsty like everyone else. And don’t head northwest from here, whatever you do.”

  “Why’s that?” Cortez asked.

  Rumor frowned. “You haven’t heard about Redstone?”

  “What’s Redstone?” Jean Paul asked, impatient.

  “Redstone Arsenal, outside Huntsville, Alabama,” Rumor answered. “Millions of rifles are stored there—literally millions. The governor of Alabama conscripted the unorganized militia, which means that every male between the ages of eighteen and forty-five was to report for military duty to restore peace and quiet. The problem was, no one told the Jumpy-Jumps, the Civil Defenders, the city-block warlords that they should stay home when the rifles were passed out.”

  We digested this little nugget. There were a million rifles running around northwest of us.

  “Well, we’ll figure something out,” Colin said.

  With that, we left the Doctor Happy recruiting station.

  There was a path of sorts through the bamboo—we squeezed around three people heading toward their free meal and patter.

  “Good luck,” Jean Paul said as they passed.

  I woke from a dream in which I was walking on cookies. Lots of cookies—enough to carpet the ground. That’s it, not much of a dream, not very profound or insightful. Dreams become less insightful, less draped in deep symbolism, when you’re hungry.

  Ange rolled onto her stomach. Her eyes had that bleary just-awake look, where dread was still raw and refused to be closeted.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Hungry,” she said sleepily.

  I wondered what she’d dreamed. Maybe popcorn falling from the sky like snow.

  The Doctor Happy cult recruitment meal we’d had ten days earlier had been our last decent one. Since then there had been days when we ate nothing at all. We gave Jeannie much of what food we could find so baby Joel could be nourished.

  Something had to give, and last night as I was drifting to sleep, I’d gotten an idea. There was another Young Mozarts song that I liked better than the one the Doctor Happy recruiters had been playing. One of the lines in it was Chances are before you’re done, you’ll beg, you’ll borrow, and surely you will steal. I’d never stolen anything in my life. Of course I’d killed someone, so it was a giant step backward as ethical transgressions go. I decided I wouldn’t involve my tribe, just as Cortez didn’t broadcast that he’d killed someone’s ex-pet to provide the first meal on this shitass journey to nowhere. I dressed, stuffed a few things in my pack, and stood on the stoop of our current domicile with the crickets still chirping.

  “Where are you going, exactly?”
Cortez asked.

  “I won’t go far,” I said. “I spotted a place that looks like a good spot to find wild mushrooms. I may be a while if I find a bunch.”

  “I’m coming with,” Ange said.

  “No,” I said. “You’ll be bored.”

  “Of course I’ll be bored. I’ll also be bored if I stay here.” She shrugged on her pack. I tried to think of a better reason why she couldn’t come, but drew a blank.

  “Ready?”Ange asked. Cortez handed me a pistol. I couldn’t get over how much the guy had changed since I’d first met him. Back then he’d been one of those guys who had an exaggerated tough-guy walk that he’d clearly rehearsed in his bedroom mirror. Now he seemed so comfortable in his own skin, and in this world.

  As soon as we were out of hearing distance of the others, I turned to Ange and said, “I’m not really going to look for herbs.”

  “I kind of sensed that. So where are we going?”

  “We passed a farm on the way in, about a mile back down the tracks. I want to try to steal some food.”

  I looked at Ange, gauging her reaction. She nodded tightly. “Okay.”

  “I don’t like stealing,” I said.

  “I know you don’t. You just realized that the rules have to change if we’re going to stay alive. The rest of us need to get our heads out of our asses and realize that, too.”

  And that was that. Ange and I moved quickly. She had a knack for finding the path of least resistance through the bamboo. Once we hit the railroad tracks we made better time.

  The farm was just a few acres of cleared land, a house, silo, a few animal pens, all surrounded by a rhizome barrier. There were a couple of dogs asleep in the shade of the house.

  I handed Ange the pistol. “We’re less likely to get caught if there’s just one of us. I’ll be right back.” My heart racing, I sprinted through a clearing before Ange could argue. I stopped behind the silo, scanned the yard for signs of people, then went around to the front of the silo and ducked inside.

  It was empty.

  I’d been picturing it filled with grain of some sort—I had a shopping bag in my pack that I’d been planning to fill. I didn’t know anything about farms, about where the food might be.

  Outside, a pig screeched.

  I snuck back around behind the silo and eyed the animal pens. Crap, I didn’t want to kill a little pig or a chicken. But what else was there that wasn’t actually in the house itself?

  “Put your hands in the air.” The first thing I saw was the rifle. The guy holding it was about twenty. He was a big guy—big calves, big neck, had a big guy’s swagger as he came out of a pecan grove. I put my hands up.

  “I’m sick of you thieves.” The tone in his voice, the disdain, was so familiar. I was a gypsy again.

  “I’m sorry, we’re just very hungry,” I said.

  “That doesn’t mean you can steal from people!”

  “I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, too,” he said. He wiped his mouth with one hand. It was shaking badly. “If there were police, we’d let them take care of you, but the way things stand we shoot looters on sight.”

  He lifted the rifle and pointed it at me.

  “No!” I threw out my hands as if I could ward off the bullet, clenched my eyes shut as if I could hide. I shrieked as the gun fired once, twice. I was gone for a moment, my ears buzzing, the world spinning away.

  I opened my eyes, looked down at my chest. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t on the ground, why there was no blood.

  The guy with the gun was on the ground.

  Shouts rose from the house. People came running out. They had more guns.

  “Run!” Ange said. I was grateful for any guidance, given how confused I was. We broke into the bamboo. It was hard to run—the stalks pounded me in the face, yanked at my arms.

  Voices shouted behind us. I heard a hiss of labored breathing, glanced back to see three men close behind. I ran harder, but that only made things worse.

  Heavy hands ripped at my shoulders, yanked me to the ground. I landed ear first, felt a knee dig into my back.

  “She shot Danny! She shot my Danny!” a woman shrieked. “My Danny’s dead. Oh, Jesus, my Danny’s dead.”

  “Gun! Gun!” the man on my back shouted.

  “Here!” another guy said.

  The muzzle of a pistol pressed into my neck. I was yanked to my feet. The guy holding the gun on me was in his sixties, with a silver goatee and beady blue eyes.

  “Get her!” a white-haired woman shouted. She had both of her hands on top of her head. I followed her gaze.

  Ange was still running, clutching the gun. A guy was right behind her; he jumped at her and they both went down in a tumble of dust.

  The guy dragged Ange toward us by one foot. Danny’s mom ran at her; she kicked at Ange’s head, screaming incomprehensible curses as Ange wrapped her arms around her head to ward off the blows while kicking her foot to try to break free.

  “He was going to shoot me!” I said. “I wasn’t resisting and he was going to shoot me.”

  “What did you expect?” the man pinning me said. “An invitation to supper?”

  “I’m sorry—” Ange said.

  “Shut up!” Danny’s mom screeched, kicking at Ange frantically until Ange shut up. She was an ugly woman, with a hound dog’s droopy face and deep ragged creases in her forehead. Breathless, she tottered back to Danny, knelt, slid her hand under his head. Danny’s tongue was poking from between his lips.

  Jesus, we were in bad trouble.

  “I say we find a good crackling spot,” the dad said.

  “That’ll fix them,” an acne-stricken teen said, probably Danny’s brother. His voice was filled with grief.

  They dragged Ange to her feet.

  “Danny was gonna—”

  “Shut up!” The father hit me in the side of the head with the pistol. “Don’t say nothing, either of you!”

  It was quiet then, except for the mother’s crying, and the crunch of dead bamboo leaves underfoot. My ears buzzed, and I had a terrible headache. I wanted to look in Ange’s eyes. I don’t know why, just to have contact, or to thank her for saving my life, but Ange was ahead of me. I had a wild, irrational moment of hoping someone in our tribe had followed us and would save us, but I knew it was just wishful thinking. I felt a wet dribble of blood down my neck. They were going to kill us—that had to be what was going to happen.

  “Quiet,” the dad said. Everyone stopped. I didn’t hear anything, except the rustling of bamboo leaves in the breeze. “That way.” He pointed. They moved us on, faster. I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to know where they were taking us. Something bad was going to happen, and not knowing what it was made it a thousand times worse. Every time we paused I thought they were going to line us up and shoot us, or throw a rope over a branch. Only they didn’t have a rope with them.

  We reached a clearing with only a few scattered patches of bamboo.

  The crack and snap of new growth lit the air.

  “This looks like the place,” one of the brothers said.

  “Over there,” the father said, pointing. The two older brothers dragged Ange into the clearing while the rest of us remained at the edge. Ange began to struggle harder, so they grabbed her arms and legs and carried her to the spot their father was pointing to. They put her on her back, pinned her arms and legs. Ange twisted and bucked.

  I thought they were going to rape her, right in front of their parents, but they just held her down. I didn’t understand what was happening—they were just pressing her to the ground.

  And then I realized what they were doing.

  “No!” I screamed. I lunged, broke free of the father’s grip, took two steps before being slammed to the ground. I clawed blindly at his face, trying to find an eye, a lip to tear off. Something hard hit me in the face. I knew instantly that my nose was broken—I’d never felt such pain before. Again, at the same spot, I hear
d a crunching. Again. Again. Finally it stopped. “Turn him over, he’s gonna watch this.” They rolled me over. Someone pulled my hair so my head lifted.

  Ange was still twisting and thrashing.

  “Help them,” the father said, waving a finger toward the clearing. A third brother ran over and pressed Ange’s hips to the ground.

  It was a bluff. It had to be. They were going to scare her, then let us go. That had to be it; they couldn’t really mean to do this.

  Ange screamed, thrashing her head back and forth.

  “Please don’t,” I said. I could only see out of one eye.

  Ange’s eyes clenched shut, and the pitch of her scream changed. It went on and on, broken only long enough for her to take quick breaths, drowning out the crackling of the bamboo, and my screams.

  Could this really kill her? Could a bamboo shoot really grow right through her, or did it just hurt badly because it was ramming against her back? Surely that was it. Later I’d give her some antimicrobial Goldenseal and she’d stay put for a while and heal.

  Ange stopped screaming abruptly. A bird sang brightly nearby. Ange looked at one of the brothers hunched over her.

  I couldn’t seem to string my thoughts together; the blows to my face had left me disoriented, my head literally spinning.

  “Please get it out of me,” Ange said. “Please.” He looked off into the distance, one of his fists closed over her wrist, the other on her breast. “I’m really sorry. Please let me up.”

  There was a fluttering under her shirt, as if a moth were trapped there. A green shoot poked out near her collar bone.

  “Can I have a drink of water?” Ange said.

  One of the brothers slid a hand under Ange’s shirt. He squeezed her breast, stared at his hand beneath her shirt, mesmerized, his mouth hanging open.

  “Let me get her a drink of water,” I said.

  The father hit me on the side of the head with the gun.

  I couldn’t see the green shoot grow, but every time I looked at Ange lying there, the shoot seemed bigger. Soon it was jutting a foot over her, pointing straight at the sky. Ange groaned, and cried.