The Not

by A. R. Braun

  Her breathing became heavy and fast. Stealthily, she stood, then slipped and fell onto her butt on the carpet. Trembling so hard he thought she’d have a seizure, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Aaarrrggghhh!” Don had never seen a nervous breakdown before, but he was willing to bet this was what one looked like. She jumped to her feet, screaming and batting her head. “All right, all right, you fucking cocksucker!”

  Don bounded to his feet. “NO, FAY, DON’T.”

  “Take it! Take Santa Fe! But bring back my mom and uncle.” She sobbed and nodded. “Ben too.”

  Don stomped up and down on the floor. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckety-fuckin fuck! Fuck-a-doodle-do and fuckeroo!”

  Georgia and Uncle Jim burst through the door. They looked as if they’d just seen a legion of demons.

  “What in the devil is going on in here?” Uncle Jim shouted.

  “Oh, my baby.” Georgia ran to Fay, whom she embraced on the floor.

  “Mom. Oh, thank God, Mom.” Fay hugged her back.

  Don wasted no time. He hurried over and tugged Fay and Georgia off of the floor. “Come on! We’ve gotta leave this city right now!”

  Uncle Jim shoved him. “What the fuck?”

  Don backed the old man into the wall where he slammed hard enough to make the plaster fly.

  “Get the hell off me,” Uncle Jim cried.

  Don turned him around and put him in a headlock. “Fay, grab your mom and let’s go, now.”

  “See here.” Uncle Jim thrashed and flailed, but couldn’t get free. The old man gagged.

  “Come on, Mom, no time to explain. This city’s going up in flames and we’ve got to get out of here.” Fay grabbed her mother and dragged her out the door, following Don, who’d already gone through the threshold.

  “What the heck?” Georgia cried. “Did they announce missiles heading our way on the news?”

  “Yes, Mom, missiles.”

  Don and Fay tugged them toward the elevator. When they got on, a tall, thin-but-muscular man with black hair halfway down his back and a Megadeth Super Collider shirt stood with his legs spread apart and his arms crossed. He scowled, then gasped. “What the heck?”

  Don hammered the button over and over. The doors took forever to close. He turned to face the man. “There’s not much time to explain. We’re taking her mom and uncle by force because this city’s about to explode like Rio Rancho and Albuquerque.”

  He dropped his arms. “I don’t hear any air-raid sirens.”

  The doors finally slid shut.

  “Uncle, Don!” Uncle Jim said. “I’ll go.”

  “You promise?” Don asked.

  The man with the concert shirt laughed, then put his hand over his mouth as if ashamed of the chuckle.

  “Honest Injun,” Uncle Jim yelled.

  “How eerily appropriate.” Don let him go.

  The old man clutched at his throat and wheezed. He coughed a couple of times. “Jesus Christ, you prick.”

  The young man held out his arms. “Someone want to tell me what’s going on?”

  Don pointed to Fay as the elevator lurched, making him feel dizzy while it headed downward. He struggled to catch his breath. “Fay — my wife — she was weak. A Native-American deity named Pishuni has her by the mayonnaise. He’ll turn her into a man-hating lesbian and kill her mom and uncle if she doesn’t give it power over every city we go to. This god is sadistic and wants to destroy mankind.”

  The young man’s eyebrows rose. “But… Jesus is God, man.”

  The elevator doors opened. Don and Fay power walked through the lobby with Uncle Jim and Georgia in tow. The young man struggled to keep up with them.

  Don said, “I know it sounds crazy, but trust me. I was there when Rio Rancho went up, and Fay was with me when Albuquerque exploded.” He turned toward Juanita, who stared at them from behind the desk. “You need to come with us,” he yelled at the clerk. “The town’s going to be obliterated like Rio Rancho and Albuquerque.”

  “Huh?” she asked.

  “All right,” the young man said.

  Don turned to face him.

  The youth nodded. “So there’s another deity. Fine, I can deal with that. But he’s not the only one. If Fay here resists Satan or whatever demon she’s dealing with, she’ll stay straight and be a good wife to you. And there is a devil, by the way.”

  Don stomped toward Juanita, who cried out and ran away through a side door that led outside. “Fuck! There’s no time for this shit!” He jogged back over to Fay, who was discussing all this with the youth.

  “But my mom and uncle will still be dead,” she said.

  The young man shook his head. “Just pray for a miracle.”

  “It didn’t work when we prayed for my other uncle to live.”

  The youth waved her off. “Then it was his time to go. Trust me. I know what I’m talking about. My band sucked until I came to Jesus Christ and got the anointing. We hated each other and were going nowhere. That’s all changed now.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  Uncle Jim put his face in his hands and groaned as Georgia smiled at the young man.

  Don hurried over to them. “We don’t have time to discuss this. We’ve gotta leave now.”

  The youth put up his hands. “All right, all right — let’s go.”

  They burst through the doors of the inn. Red, yellow and orange electrical-looking waves of heat headed for the ground from the sky. Don glanced at the others, whose faces gaped.

  “What in the world is that?” the young man asked.

  “This is what happens right before it starts,” Don answered. “Run to the car!”

  CHAPTER 29

  Don fired up the car and tore out of the parking lot. He turned onto Galisteo Street. “Put your seat belts on, now!” He checked GPS on his iPhone to find the quickest way to the interstate. Fay was crammed in next to him, and the youth sat at her right. Uncle Jim and Georgia were in the backseat. Don cracked the window, then cranked the air-conditioning. It was about to get a lot hotter, thanks to the devastation soon-to-be unleashed. When Don looked in the rear-view mirror, Uncle Jim and Georgia’s faces were pale.

  “I’m Rick, by the way,” the youth said.

  Don answered, “I’d say I’m pleased to meet you, but…”

  Rick nodded. “So, you were into black magic, is that what you were saying?”

  “Not this time. Fay was though, and since she prayed to it, the deity will consider her on his side, so we should make it out all right.” He glanced at Rick for a second. “I’d cover my eyes if I were you. What you’re about to see will haunt your dreams forever if you don’t — that goes for everyone.”

  Rick steepled his fingers, begging Jesus Christ to have mercy on them.

  Fay said, “He’s praying, hubby. Maybe it’ll stop the attack.”

  Don sighed. “I haven’t seen any God at work but Pishuni.”

  Rick had finished praying. “That’s because you and your wife invoked ‘Pishuni.’ I’m telling you how to get rid of — ”

  Don choked on his spit. He’d stopped at a red light before turning right from Ortiz Street to La Fonda on the Plaza. He froze as he looked out the window.

  Gun in hand, Ben ran for the car. “There you are, you fuckers! You went and did it! You’re gonna get my grandma killed.”

  The waves of heat hit Ben, and his clothes melted off his body, sliding downward till they sizzled and smoked at his feet. Don looked over and saw Fay covering her face — Georgia did too — and when he glanced in the rear-view, Uncle Jim, who’d formerly told the young couple they were full of crap, now blanched with wide eyes. Turning back to the front seat, Don spied Rick gawking at the kid, then he looked away. Don gazed at Ben. The light was still red. The teen covered his privates with his gun hand and the other hand like an amusing character in a cartoon.

  A fortyish man in a raincoat stumbled up to the car and banged on the windows. He dropped his WILL WORK FOR FOOD OR PUSSY sign. “I
t’s doomsday, you heathens! Doomsday, I tell you!” He ran off, but he didn’t get far. The Mother Mary statue from the Loretto Chapel had come alive and grabbed him by the neck, choking him. The statue’s enormous strength made the seer’s face turn purple.

  Then she twisted.

  The massive torque took his head clean off. A gusher of blood painted Mary and the sidewalk an eerie dark red. She threw the head into the air and kicked it like a soccer ball. It flew upward and stuck on top of the street sign that advertised ORTIZ STREET and LA FONDA ON THE PLAZA. Blood raindropped onto the windshield of Don’s car. Groaning, he turned on the wipers and the spray.

  Wretchedly, Ben exploded as the little girl had done in Albuquerque. Creeping fear ravaged Don, making him tremble. Unlike the girl in Albuquerque, however, Ben’s blood and body parts flew toward the place he’d blown up — like some weird CGI effect — and merged back into… well, Ben.

  There was only one problem. They’d merged into the wrong places. Ben’s hands were where his feet should’ve been, his feet took the place of his hands, his head was stuck on his crotch and his penis was where his head used to be, bobbing back and forth as if trying to see them out of its cyclopean eye. His eyes rolled around in his dickhead. Apparently, Ben couldn’t handle being put together wrongly — he didn’t have the skill to walk on his hands — and fell to the sidewalk. With his penis attached to his vocal chords, it squeaked like a mouse. Ben crawled down the sidewalk as if he was a scorpion, his face grating against the concrete and leaving a disgusting crimson trail.

  “I hope nobody else saw that shit!” Don said.

  He turned right onto La Fonda on the Plaza, trying not to look at the pedestrians — which was difficult because they ran to and fro — as cars crashed into telephone poles and drove onto lawns. Some of them raced over the crowd that ran out of the Plaza. Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump. Everyone was screaming.

  With his head between his knees, Rick dialed his cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” Don asked.

  “I’m tryin to let my band know to get out of the city.”

  “If they’re not with us, they’re doomed.”

  “Can’t we go get ‘em?”

  “No room! No time!” Don zigzagged between frantic, running people. He made a mad scramble for any clear part of the street. He came to the spot with the R2-D2 mailbox… which had come alive, its mail slot now a gaping maw. It snapped as if it possessed jaws.

  A Boy-Scout Troop in uniform followed their leader — a stout man with glasses and a mustache. He looked absurd in the same getup the boys wore. R2-D2 ran their way on the mailbox’s four legs, electronic arms sprouting out of the sides of its body. Don noticed the slot had grown razor-sharp teeth. R2-D2 grabbed a towheaded plump boy and stuck his hands into the slot.

  CRUNCH, CRUNCH.

  The boy shrieked as he pulled out the bloody, gashing stubs where his hands had been. A crimson stream spurted out of the stumps and splattered the mailbox an eerie red, so that the red and blue streaks became a candy cane from hell. The Troop leader wailed on the box with his fists — to no avail, only injuring his hands — and cried out from the pain and held his bloody knuckles.

  This was all the diversion R2-D2 needed. It ran slot-first into the man’s crotch, grabbing the Troop leader’s legs. With a sickening crunch and maddening ripping sounds, R2-D2 bit down and pulled back, not coming away empty. Maniacal mechanical chewing ensued.

  The whole time, Don had been honking for the Troop to move. Finally, they ran for their lives with R2-D2 in hot pursuit. Just before Don drove away from the nauseating scene, a mailbox bit into a little boy’s ass.

  Don shook like a mental patient and gasped at the next sight.

  Oh, my God.

  The cast-iron sculptures of Kokopelli, the hunchbacked ancestral Hopi fertility god and flute player, came alive and chased persons in the streets. When each figure of the god of music caught them, they stuck the cast-iron flutes in their eyes, gouging them out, and laughing in voices too low to be human as the blood and ichor sprayed onto their menacing faces. The statues caught several businessmen and -women, as well as a large number of Hispanic and Native-American males and females. After their eyes had been gouged out, they clutched the spraying sockets and screamed in soprano. In the end, each version of Kokopelli had filled a whole flute with a row of eyes and held up the insane shish kabob like a trophy.

  Screaming, Don sped toward Route 25 as quickly as he could, but not before seeing one more grisly sight.

  Lake Katherine erupted from the depths of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains — which apparently had slurped it up — and soared into the sky, then dipped toward the city. But en route, it became lava and rushed at a crowd of Hispanics, Native Americans and Caucasians rushing out of the American-Indian museum. They threw their hands up in a futile attempt to stave off the lava, but to no effect. It showered them. Don tried not to look, but wasn’t able to help himself. When the lava poured past them and ran through the streets like sewage from hell, all that was left of them were bones, which crumpled to the concrete like Pick-up sticks.

  Don shrieked as he stomped on the gas pedal, speeding up the exit ramp away from the lava. Since no one else was having any luck escaping to the interstate, he had the road to himself. He surreptitiously glanced at his passengers — all had their eyes covered and their heads between their knees as if to kiss their asses goodbye — and that’s when the buildings exploded.

  BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM.

  With white knuckles, Don drove out of the city. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” he whimpered. As before, he couldn’t help look in the rear-view mirror as he sped out of the city. An enormous mushroom cloud of fire and the black smoke of death and destruction left a huge crater in its wake.

  The other four passengers whimpered and whined as they uttered hearty prayers for survival. Finally, Rick spoke up.

  “Is it… o-o-over?”

  Don drew a few deep breaths. “I’m afraid so.”

  “My band.” He obviously tried not to, but he wept. “We worked so hard for so many years. My livelihood’s gone. I was finally gonna make something of myself. I love those guys like brothers. What am I gonna do now?”

  Don turned toward him. “I’m sorry about your band, bud.”

  Rick wiped his face with his hand and sniffled. “Thanks. It’s a lot to process.”

  “I understand. I lost my career when Pishuni destroyed Intel in Rio Rancho.”

  Rick sighed. “It’s a test of faith.”

  Don didn’t know how to answer that.

  “My bandmates are in heaven,” Rick added. “We’re the ones left to suffer.”

  Don nodded. “That latter part I agree with.”

  ***

  Fay’s mind lurched. Don did seventy-five miles an hour traveling up Route 25. Everyone was wide-eyed, and none of them had a steady hand. Fay couldn’t have even held a cigarette, so she didn’t bother lighting one. Something thudded onto the roof, making it cave in enough to bump Don and Rick on the head because they were both tall, Rick saying, “What the hell?” Then the roof rose up a bit, at least off of their heads.

  Don said, “It’s that Pishuni cocksucker.”

  Pishuni said to Fay with his voice of booming eons, “Makes a God proud! I apologize, Fay, but I couldn’t resist.” Too afraid to answer or even think a thought to him after what he’d done, she ignored him the best she could. “Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh.”

  Crying, she held onto Don and soiled his right dress shirtsleeve with hot tears. How was she supposed to deal with this? Would they be on the run from Pishuni forever, traveling from city to city until he destroyed the whole country? Hopeless, she wished for death, thinking the persons who had been destroyed were the lucky ones.

  ***

  Don looked into the rear-view and saw a pale Uncle Jim staring back at him. Red-faced, Georgia sobbed, dabbing her face with tissues. She handed some to
her daughter over the seat, and she gave some to Rick. Though the air-conditioner worked its ass off, tiny beads of sweat dotted Don’s brow.

  Uncle Jim said, “I guess you were right about that Indian god, Don. I suppose I owe you an apology.”

  He waved him off. “Of course it sounded crazy to someone who wasn’t in the middle of it.”

  “I meant no offense — just trying to protect Fay and my sister, that’s all.”

  Don nodded.

  Rick faced Don, the youth’s long hair mussed-up. “Where we headed?”

  Don whipped out his GPS on his iPhone with one hand, keeping the other hand on the wheel. He set the cruise control. “If we stay on Route 25 — which we will — we’ll pass an actual Indian reservation. Then we’re heading to Denver. We might get on Route 50 and stop in Pueblo to sleep or get a bite to eat, if needed, but Denver’s the main destination. Then we’re turning right to go back to where I came from.”

  “And that is?”

  “Chicago.”

  Rick nodded and looked straight ahead. “I’ve always wanted to see Chicago.”

  Don answered, “The way I see it, the more distance we put between us and Indian-deity territory, the better.”

  But did he really believe that?

  ***

  “You tell him that’s a load of bullshit, my hussy of destruction.”

  Fay looked up from Don’s soaked shirtsleeve. “Pishuni says that’s B.S. He wants me to let you know that you won’t get away.”

  Rick glanced towards the couple. “This is where you’ve got to be through with running and stand and be counted.”

  Don put his hand up. “With all due respect, I haven’t seen proof of any God but Pishuni, like I said before.” He turned the air-conditioning down. They were leaving dry-heat territory, where they’d fry instead of bake, but he didn’t need to crank it. He rolled the cracked window completely down. Fay thought that when the sun set, he’d shut the air-conditioning off.

  Rick said, “I know I must sound crazy, but have you ever asked the Almighty to help you, or do you just assume, making an ass out of you and me?”

  Apparently, Don didn’t have an answer to that. When Fay looked in the rear-view mirror, she saw Georgia was watching them. Uncle Jim was nodding.