Prospero's Half-Life

by Trevor Zaple

  “Just throw the switch, wait a minute, and press the button. It should detonate the explosives under the bridge starting with the closest and working its way out”.

  Richard nodded, setting the box on a nearby cement railing. He watched the last of the black-robes cross onto the other side of the river. His finger hovered over the arming switch but he made himself wait. Everything was riding on correct timing. He curled his finger back into his fist and forced himself to listen to the sounds of the night.

  They would be coming to meet them at the Lorne Bridge. They would have to; one of the preparations for this plan had been to blow up every other bridge across the river, no matter how small, for a few miles along the river in either direction. Richard knew that the men from the Republic would have to know that they were being funnelled into a trap; the idea was so obvious it was painful, no matter how clever the apostles thought they were being. The unfortunate part of it was that it put the ball in the court of the Republic; Richard was waiting for them to come to him, and they had the luxury of timing out their own response. Even knowing that he was planning to double-cross the men across the river and abscond with as much of the community as he could, he felt nervous and twitchy over the enemy. They were out there, somewhere, plotting something that Richard could not see. The severed head that the ambassador had deposited on the apostle’s council table ensured that they would be there somewhere. Such people did not make idle threats.

  Fifteen minutes passed; the grey-robed mass had caught up to them and were waiting patiently several feet away from the bridge. Carolyn had not appeared from the crowd, and Richard hoped feverishly that there was a good explanation for it. He couldn’t think of one, and it was driving him mad. Surely she wasn’t staying behind for appearances sake? What would that matter at this late a juncture?

  He stared across the bridge and subconsciously began to bite at his fingernails; it was a habit he’d forcibly broken in himself in his university days. He caught himself doing and realized that the stress was eating at him. He wanted to scream, to jump up and down in rage. The black robes were doing something across the river; he could hear loud movements and the dragging of what sounded like heavy objects. In the pre-lunar gloom, he couldn’t make out details. His heart began to pound. Something was wrong.

  Dupriss grinned at him, and Richard amended his previous thoughts on the man. The man’s grin was not fox-like at all. It was sharper than that, a razor-edge grin like a ferret. Or a weasel.

  “Can you stop smiling like that?” Richard asked peevishly. “You’re making it difficult to concentrate”.

  “Oh, you’ll want to pay attention in a second,” Dupriss replied, his grin getting somehow even wider. Richard stared at him heatedly and then froze. He felt the muzzle of a gun being pressed into his back.

  “You’ll want to pay very close attention to me indeed,” Dupriss continued. “You’re not in charge here anymore. The apostles know all about your little plan and they’ve put a stop to it”.

  Richard gritted his teeth and stole a glance around. There was a man behind him, and Dupriss in front of him. The fourth, a young-looking man with a youthful, patchy beard, stood against the cement railing near the box with a look of shock on his face. He wasn’t armed, which Richard cursed, but it let him know that not everyone was in on this new situation. He swallowed hard and tried to think very fast.

  “Your little whore is across the river,” Dupriss continued, and Richard went cold. His first instinct was to lunge forward and punch Dupriss in the jaw, on an upward angle. Dupriss, caught by surprise, went flying backwards. The man behind Richard froze and uttered a useless fuck. He heard a scuffle and when he whirled around he saw that the scared-looking kid had tackled the man with the gun. They were wrestling around using the gun as leverage between them. The kid had gotten an initial advantage through surprise but was rapidly being outclassed by the other man’s greater height and weight. Richard nimbly stepped forward and kicked the gun out of their hands. Without pausing, he then drove his boot heel into the bigger man’s nose. The kid wrestled him down easily after that; the fight had been completely driven out of the other man.

  He stopped to catch his breath and then quickly remembered Dupriss. He pulled out the .40 police issue from his holster and aimed it at the man as he was getting to his feet. Dupriss raised his hands into the air and scowled.

  “All right, all right, don’t shoot me,” he rasped. “You’ve got me covered, I’m unarmed”.

  “I’m not going to shoot you,” Richard replied flatly, “although I should. I’m sure you deserve it”. Dupriss shrugged and rolled his eyes skyward. Richard nearly shot him in that moment, out of spite.

  “What did you mean when you said that...where is she?”

  “Across the river, like I said”.

  “Tell me what’s been done!” Richard raged.

  “They kidnapped her and put her in black robes. She was marching with you the entire time. She’s across the river and if you blow the bridge you’ll kill her, or worse”.

  Richard pointed the gun at the dead center of Dupriss’ face. Dupriss blanched in alarm, wincing away from the gun. Richard felt a wave of contempt for him.

  “How many other people are in on this?” he seethed. When Dupriss’ didn’t answer he strode forward and placed the muzzle directly on the tip of the man’s nose. “HOW MANY?” he screamed, and there was a faint flutter in the night behind them. Dupriss shook his head, trying to shy away from the gun.

  “I don’t know,” he sobbed, “not many. There can’t be many. It was Mort n’ me, I don’t know about anyone else. There could be others. I don’t know. Please don’t shoot me”.

  Richard responded to this by squeezing the trigger. The shot rang off and Dupriss sprawled backwards, the top half of his head splattering off in an arc through the air. His corpse hit the ground with a meaty thud and Richard spun around, stepped forward, and put a round in the other man’s head. The kid gaped at him, his lips trembling. Richard reholstered the gun and nodded at the kid.

  “Once you hear fighting start on the other side, blow the bridge”.

  The kid blinked at him, not understanding. Richard leaned forward and stared at him. The kid winced away, and Richard put his hands up soothingly.

  “Hey,” he cooed at the young man. “I’m not here to hurt you. You’re still on our side, right?” The kid nodded. “Good. You still want to get everyone out of here and away from all of this?” The kid nodded again. “Then when you hear the fighting start on the other side, blow the bridge”.

  The kid shook his head slowly, seeming dazed.

  “You’ll be trapped on the other side,” he protested. Richard shrugged.

  “There are other ways across,” he remarked casually. “There has to be, somewhere along the river”. Without waiting for the kid to respond, Richard pointed at him and mouthed blow it with exaggerated gestures. The kid nodded morosely and Richard turned away to leave. He walked across the bridge with a speed he’d never dreamed of, his feet pounding heavily on the cracked pavement. He never once looked back.

  THIRTEEN

  He crossed the bridge alone, the hem of his light white robe fluttering out behind him. Up ahead, the sound of heavy dragging and other work noises continued. It was too dark to see anything except shapes moving in shadows; he found himself longing for a flashlight and cursed himself for not bringing one along. Overhead the stars were beginning to poke through the night-haze, glittering like diamonds but shedding only the most minimal of light.

  On the other side of the bridge he was immediately accosted by a pair of black-robes. They handled him roughly, and he had to wrestle them to prevent them from holding him by the elbows. He shoved away their hands and drew himself up, summoning every ounce of his largely imaginary authority.

  “Make way!” he cried, “make way! I am Brother Isaiah and I must see my lieutenant, Hodges!”

  The pair of black-robes chuckled throatily and ceased in their efforts
to manhandle him. They did not leave his side, however, and despite his best efforts Richard found himself with a hostile escort through the mass of black-robes on west bank of the Grand River. He saw with diminishing surprise that the cult’s army was actually digging in. The dragging sounds had been the rusted hulks of old cars, hauled into position to act as barricades and positions of cover. They were placed in an arc around the end of the bridge, like sandbags in an old World War II movie. They were never planning on detonating the bridge at all he thought, and then something about that thought rang false. He had seen them constructing the explosives apparatus under the bridge; he had actually inspected it on several occasions. Why would they be digging in when they were just going to blow the bridge anyway?

  His two escorts brought him to the flipped-over remains of an old 70’s Buick. Hodges was crouched behind the Buick, relaying orders to a pair of others in a low voice that did not carry. When he finished talking and the others left to carry out their instructions, he rose to his feet and faced Richard with a wide, knowing grin on his face.

  “So!” he exclaimed. “Our lordly Brother Isaiah has decided to come to the man’s side of the river, has he? Have you decided that you are now enough of a man to fight with men? Or have you found out that your slut-partner is over here? Either way, your mistakes are catching up with you”.

  “Where is she?” Richard asked flatly. He’d decided on the way across the bridge that he wasn’t going to play any more games. He was going to find Carolyn, and they were going to leave. He hoped that the scared kid across the river would blow the bridge at the appropriate time, and he hoped that the others would have enough sense to take the opportunity to seek other corners of the earth to live in after. He was beyond the point of control over them now, however. They were under their own auspices. His responsibility had shrunk down to two people.

  “Oh, she’s around here somewhere,” Hodges said carelessly. “I’m sure she’s being taken care of. Or maybe she isn’t. I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t really care, to be perfectly honest”. Richard had the inclination to hit him in the same fashion that he had laid out Dupriss, but he held himself back. With the amount of black-robes surrounding them, it would be the quickest way to commit suicide of which he could think. He had found over the last few months that he actually wanted to live, when it came down to it.

  “What is it you want, Hodges?” he asked. “Just cut through the bullshit and tell how you see this going”. Hodges shrugged lazily and looked around.

  “The enemy will be here soon,” he said slowly. “Our scouts have already spotted them skulking around the buildings a few blocks up the street. When they do get here, we’re going to engage them. We’ll win. Then we’ll go home. Simple and easy”.

  Richard wanted to laugh at the man’s seeming naïvete but only allowed himself to shake his head.

  “That simple?” he asked, mockingly. Hodges scowled.

  “We have God behind us,” he said stiffly. Richard began laughing wildly, unable to help himself.

  “You actually believe that?” he chortled, and Hodges withdrew a sharp, wicked-looking knife from within his robes. Even with this new threat Richard found that he couldn’t stop laughing. On the periphery of his vision he saw that they were attracting attention.

  “Stop it,” Hodges demanded. “Stop laughing”. Richard shook his head. There were tears coming out of his eyes now.

  “You...oh, you really think...you think that God’s highest purpose, right after killing everyone on Earth, is to cover up signs and destroy books? You...you think GOD is going to protect you from those bastards that are out there in the darkness?” He got himself under a rudimentary sort of control and stared Hodges full in the face. “Listen to me very carefully,” he said in a level, lethal voice. “Those are people that do not give a fuck. You will stand here and you’ll think that your God will protect you from them. He will not. They will roll over you and you will die. Were you planning on following the plan, still?”

  Hodges brandished the knife and jabbed forward in a feint. “The plan is for cowards!” he screamed. “We will stand here and fight! If God wills it, we will cross the bridge and then blow it up, but only if God wills it!”

  Richard shook his head.

  “How can you even begin to believe anything that comes out of your mouth?” he asked sadly. He saw a wild twitch in the man’s face and knew what was coming next. A second later Hodges darted forward but Richard had already begun to sidestep him. He brought his closed fist down on Hodges’ outstretched elbow and a startled cry of pain came out of the fanatics’ mouth. The knife went clattering to the pavement and a second later the toe of Richard’s boot dug into the side of Hodges’ ribs. The breath went out of Hodges in a low woof and he hit the ground painfully.

  Richard prepared himself to be swarmed by the black-robes around them but in the same instant that Hodges hit the ground the sharp rattle of gunfire came from the other side of their barricades. Richard hit the ground with a speed that shocked him and he began scrambling around, trying to pull his .40 out of the holster and failing. He cursed and when he was finally able to get the gun out he saw that Hodges had gotten up and had returned to his original crouching position.

  “Fuck!” the fanatic screamed. “I don’t have time for this! Someone grab this bastard and cut his throat! We need to return fire! Return fire!”

  The crack of rifle fire continued; there was now some being issued from their side of the fortifications. The battle had begun. Richard hefted his gun and pointed it at Hodges, who was continuing to shout out confused orders.

  “Where is she?” he demanded, his voice rising into a shout to be heard over the steadily increasing volume of gunfire. Hodges turned his head to regard him and Richard saw that the man’s eyes were wild.

  “FUCK YOU!” the fanatic screamed, and Richard shook his head sadly. From ahead there came the ratatatatatatat of an assault rifle. There were screams, both defiant and wounded. The wounded screams were the worst, and Richard tried to ignore them as best he could.

  From behind them there came a loud click, followed by the deafening sound of the bridge collapsing. Richard threw himself into a prone position and then realized that it was what he had been waiting for all along. The kid had managed to hit the trigger. The bridge had collapsed into the Grand River. They were now trapped on the west side of the water.

  “What the fuck was that?” Hodges screamed. Richard responded by shooting the man in the face. He flew against the underside of the Buick and his viscera splattered against the rusted network of auto engineering. None of the black-robes around them seemed to notice, or care. They were concentrating fully on the battle that they were now engaged in; Richard was a minor concern to them, at best.

  He crawled through the mass of men, going from barricade to barricade with agonizing slowness. He was unable to rise completely to his feet for fear of catching an errant round in the head. Everyone around him looked exactly the same, a vague shape of black robes against the slightly darker shadows of the night. He stared up at the sky and tried feverishly to gauge how long it would be before the moon rose. If it rose at all – he had no idea what phase of the moon the sky would be showing. If it was a new moon, he was completely out of luck.

  “Carolyn!” he screamed, trying dumb luck in the extremity of his concern. “Carolyn! Are you around here?” There was no response to his cries, only the rush of men and the rattle of gunfire.

  “The bridge is gone!” he heard someone shout, and it set off a panicked wave of similar shouts.

  “We’re trapped!” someone screamed, and then that same voice issued a high-pitched scream as though they had been shot. Richard grimaced, trying madly to block those dying screams out of his consciousness. He crawled his way onward, dodging around groups of milling black-robes, and making his way around the fallen bodies of the dead.

  He stopped to catch his breath on the safe side of an overturned pickup truck. He was weary to the bo
ne and his breathing was coming painfully. He rested his gun on his left thigh and stared into the milling, chaotic mass of black-robes dispassionately. Overhead, the moon emerged from behind a bank of clouds, and Richard managed a short laugh at this. Apparently it had been up for a while, but in hiding. It was waxing, and its light illuminated the scene of death and horror that was resulting around him.

  There were several dead bodies nearby, thrown into their final reposes by the force of gunfire. The air stank with copper and shit. Richard was forcibly reminded of that day in that long-ago city where he had first seen the mass of plague victims; he remembered the nausea, and the vomiting, and the sheer disgust at the final indignities of the human form. He shook his head and then rested it against the underside of the truck. He was unsure as to whether he would ever move it again.

  From nearby there came the sound of a struggle. He looked over, his neck muscles complaining at their usage, and saw that two black robes were wrestling. At second glance he realized that ‘wrestling’ was a misnomer; one of the black-robes was straddling another and had what looked like a sharpened kitchen knife in his hand. The man balled his empty hand into a fist and brought it down into the others face with vicious force.

  “Fucking whore!” the man screamed. “Should I rape you now or should I cut your throat and rape you while you bleed to death? Huh? Whore?”

  Richard shook his head sadly and then froze. The black-robes were, to the last, an organization comprised only of men. He brought the gun up with a speed that his muscles would not have dreamt of only moments before. He aimed with shocking clarity and squeezed off the shot. The man pitched off of the pinned form of the other, his head cracking open on the pavement like a rotted melon. Richard was up and over to the other before he even knew what he was doing.