Apotheosis: Stories of Human Survival After the Rise of the Elder Gods

by Jonathan Woodrow

First, the church was closed, and second, there wasn’t a reverend, and third, the masters would be mad. So he’d told Mama that he didn’t want to go because he didn’t want to get in trouble. It was almost worth it just to go outside, because he wasn’t let out very often; the masters liked young children, they said.

  “Oh, you don’t want to go? You want to go to hell, maybe?”

  “I think maybe we’re already in hell, Lou,” Uncle Jimmy said to Mama. He was younger than Mama by about ten years, and he had been only a little older than George was now when it happened. When they came out the sky. People said he hadn’t been quite right ever since. George liked him well enough: he played with models of old things, cars and trains and stuff, and could get them to work sometimes.

  “Even if I was in hell, I’d pray to Jesus all the same,” Mama said, and she snapped at George to get on his coat and hat and don’t forget his gloves, and that was the end of him staying home.

  The city was quiet. Mostly it was quiet all the time, since there weren’t too many souls left in the place to make noise. Half the buildings were falling right down, and another quarter were well on their way. Here and there, you could tell someone still lived in a place, or worked in it, if you could say anyone worked much anymore. And from one or two of those buildings, down front stairs that creaked and thumped, and with their faces hidden behind scarves, came more folks to join Mama’s little group.

  Sunday morning, and they were off to church.

  “Why we got to go to church at all?” George asked.

  “Because the Lord above says we ought to,” his Mama hissed back at him.

  “There’s not a Lord above anymore, is there, not unless you mean—” Before he could say the name, Mama had whipped about and slapped her hand over his mouth.

  “Don’t you say that name, George, not out in the street, not when we’re trying to be quiet and not call any attention at all. You understand, boy?”

  He nodded behind her mittened hand, staring up at her eyes, which were narrowed in her soft face. Her skin was starting to look a little ashy, he thought, but it was still smoother than most ladies’ her age. She was a pretty lady, his Mama, and he was proud of that. But she could look really angry when she wanted to, and right then she did, so when she pulled her hand away, he didn’t say anything else.

  “I’m speaking of the Lord God, Jesus himself, who saves us all with his sacrifice, and not any old foolishness like they get to talking to in the streets these days. And my God wants me to go to church, and for you to come along too, you hear me?”

  He just nodded again dumbly and let her lead him on again, catching up with the straggling group ahead of them.

  They were two blocks away from the church when the first trouble came. A tall old man, his hair gone mostly white and heading way back on his head, stood on his porch in a bathrobe with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. “You all should be in bed,” he shouted out at them. “What you doing up? You think you’re going to church?”

  There were nearly thirty of them now, hurrying along the street, and they didn’t respond to the man on his porch, only murmured to each other things like Don’t pay him any mind, and Everyone just keep walking.

  “You think they don’t know you’re out? You think you’re sneaky? I see you, Miss Lou, and your brother James. I see you, Martin Washington. I know your names.”

  “God bless you,” Mama called out.

  “God? You think God cares? You think that one they got up to the mountain, that He didn’t eat God up for breakfast a long time ago?” But they were past the old man’s house, and he was falling behind them. “When the masters come, you’ll forget all about this foolishness, but not in time.” The man’s deep voice resounded down the street like some kind of prophet, but that was the last of him.

  George lifted up his eyes from the worn tips of his shoes where they’d been resting. He wondered about the boy who’d owned the shoes before; probably he’d been dead for fifteen years or more, George guessed. Dead since the masters came down from the sky. He wondered if the boy had been dragged out to church by his mother when it wasn’t even daylight yet, not really. He bet, back in those days, boys didn’t have to go to church unless they wanted to.

  “Don’t let him scare any of you. If they really knew we were up and about, we’d none of us be here. You think the Mayor’s just going to let us go to church and all, if she knew we were going?” Mama’s voice was barely louder than a whisper, but in the quiet of the morning, just shoes slapping down on the broken pavement and the faint puff of breath and the wicking of fabric against fabric, her words carried to everyone, and they nodded and said it was true, and a few of them thanked God and blessed Miss Lou.

  They turned the last corner. The church still stood, and George had always wondered why the Mayor hadn’t just torn it down, or why the masters hadn’t got rid of it a long time ago. They knocked down buildings whenever it suited them, and surely it would suit them to have the church gone, as much as they didn’t like it. This was the first time George and his folk had been to church in this building, but other people used it: they heard the stories. It wasn’t the first time the old Congregational Church had been put to good purposes, or even the tenth. George half suspected his Mama had been to services there a time or two, and finally got up the nerve to put one together herself.

  “Lord have mercy, they know.” That from Uncle Jimmy, who was shaking and not just from the cold. “We’re in for it now.”

  On the steps of the church were six people. George didn’t know them all, but he knew two of them: big, heavy Lawrence White, who was the Police Chief and used to be a soldier when there were soldiers still; and beside him, in a fancy fur coat and with her hair straightened and pulled back, and looking even smoother and prettier than Mama, the Mayor. Everyone just called her that: Mayor; but she had a name, and it was Martha Washington, and Mama said she was Martin Washington’s sister. She had her gloved hands clasped in front of her, and she was staring right at George, it seemed like. He shuddered from his tip to his toes from the dark eyed stare. The other four had billy clubs and masks on their faces, wood masks carved to look a little like the masters: curves and feelers and tentacles, like something from up out of the sea. Everyone said they came from the sky, from the stars, but maybe there was water up there, too.

  The Mayor lifted a bullhorn to her mouth and her voice echoed out to them. “You all need to go home, right now, or there will be trouble.”

  Hands reached out and touched, grasped. The group of thirty anchored each other, and held. George was in the middle, behind his mother, looking between her and Mister Washington to the church’s boarded-up front not fifty feet away. His free hand had been taken up by Monica, a girl three years younger than him who clutched desperately and leaned into the older boy. “It’ll be all right,” he whispered down to her, though he didn’t really think it would be. He just wanted to go home.

  “We’re going to church, Martha,” Mister Washington shouted. “It’s Sunday.”

  “No one’s going to church, and it’s not Sunday. We don’t have that day anymore. You go on home, Martin, and maybe we can pretend none of this happened.”

  “It is Sunday, whatever you want to call it instead, Martha. Now get out of the way. God is calling us to our real home.” Martin took a step forward, the whole group shifting a little as he did.

  The Mayor passed the bullhorn back to White and drew off her gloves one after the other, revealing her dark hands with one gold ring on each. Those twisted bands of metal seemed to curve in ways George’s eyes couldn’t follow, clearly visible even from this distance.

  “We don’t have to be afraid of her. The Lord is with us,” Mama said.

  “Yes, Lou, Jesus is with us.” Uncle Jimmy, his voice shaking. “Oh, help me believe it, Lou. Help me.”

  “Let’s sing,” Mama said, and then she raised her voice, just one voice for a moment and then they all started in, singing We Shall Overcome. George swallo
wed as they started, but he chimed in on the third line, “We shall overcome, some day.”

  They started forward, Martin Washington again taking the first step and then rest of them pulled along by their shared hands. The song was echoing over the empty streets now.

  The Mayor clasped her hands and bowed her head, as if in prayer. The four policemen stepped down and drew back their clubs, but didn’t come any closer than the lowest stair. And then the Mayor lifted up her head, frowning. She looked so sad, George thought.

  A faint thrumming inserted itself into the music, a low bass kind of noise that disjointed everything. A few singers fell out, uncertain, and the chorus stumbled. Only Mama’s voice kept on full strength, an anchor for people to find their way to. They started back to the verse, coming together, drawing closer…

  The air shimmered in front of the Mayor, on the sidewalk below the steps of the church, and then... something was there, something that caused the song to turn to shrieks and gasps, but only for an instant. One of the masters had come, and it was just like the old man said: they forgot. Time ceased to exist, their minds went away and hid. A cloud of darkness and confusion passed over George’s mind, but he thought, somewhere far off, he heard screaming and that something was hurting his hand.

  George came to himself still standing, his lips still moving silently in the words of the song: deep in my heart, I do believe we shall overcome. There was silence about him for a moment as he opened his eyes, saw the clubs coming down on some of the marchers, and wood biting into flesh without making a sound. His hands were empty. His mother was down on the ground before him, blood on her cheek and her lips, writhing, but still singing, he thought. His other hand ached but—the girl, Monica, she was just gone. They had taken her, he knew. They liked little kids, the masters, everyone knew that.

  Sound rolled back in, the crack of clubs on weak bodies, the screaming of humans battered and broken, and the song, still resounding on the street in fragments and pieces, in whispers and gasps.

  George looked at the Mayor, drawing on her gloves with that look of deep sadness still in her eyes, and something else, something like fear, maybe. Her lips moved, and though she was ten yards off and he shouldn’t have been able to tell what she was saying, it was clear as day.

  Go home, George.

  He thought of Monica vanished, and of Mama down on the cracked pavement, on the frost, writhing and still singing. He dropped to his knees beside her, and took up her hand, and he opened his mouth to call out the words of the song with his mother.

  “We are not afraid, we are not afraid.”

  The Mayor shook her head, and George smiled around the words he sang, and then a club cracked into his head.

  Paradise 2.0

  by Glynn Owen Barrass

  They kept moving, the vagrant lifestyle proving the best way to survive in the Human Race’s twilight years. It was difficult to hide from the enemy, those things that filled the sky and stampeded through the deserted, broken canyons of the old cities. They worried at minds and sniffed out human flesh with snouts designed by no sane evolution. Travelling away from once-populated areas, through the overgrown countryside, had kept them safe so far. Archer was their leader, and had been since the group broke off from the corrupted, dying settlement they’d been a part of some months earlier. She kept them safe, had made good decisions when it came to surviving, and kept them moving, always moving.

  The dissent began shortly after they found the farm.

  It was meant to be a short stop: a search for food, water, and some new clothing. A day later, Archer sat in the dining room facing four stubborn group members who wanted a compromise, a big one, in their regular way of life.

  The dining table, a large, dark wooden rectangle covered in a fine layer of dust, had been set with vases of wildflowers from outside. Archer stared at the flowers as those around her talked.

  “For one, there’s a well here, a bonafide, working well with fresh water,” said Andy. Tall, thin, with long black hair balding at the top, he had a habit of working his lantern jaw even when he wasn’t speaking.

  Archer nodded, looked at the water filling the glass vases before her.

  “There are chickens, cows, an orchard…” said Sarah. She was short and dumpy looking, with wiry brown hair and breasts that sagged down to her navel. “I think we could really make a go of things here. We’ve already eaten the eggs.”

  “And next we’ll be milking the cows,” Baker said. No one knew the man’s Christian name, he just went by ‘Baker.’ Tall, taller than Andy even, he was wide too, and red-haired. He had a chubby, friendly face, and of the three who’d spoken, he was the one Archer liked the most.

  The other two made noises of agreement. The only person who wasn’t speaking sat at the opposite end of the table. Archer looked up, met her gaze. Rhian, face between the flowers: small, petite, and with big brown eyes. Her brown, shoulder length hair was still damp, recently washed with water from the well. The girl had been Archer’s closest friend and companion since they left the Templedog settlement, so the fact that Rhian had joined this little group of… usurpers, upset Archer a little, and riled her a lot.

  A hint of a smile crossed Rhian’s face, and Archer’s anger melted some. She pulled her arms from under the table and pressed her palms against the dusty tabletop.

  “Guys…” Archer looked at the other faces before returning her gaze to the table. Avoiding Rhian’s eyes, she stared at the flowers. “We’ve gotten by this long by being on the move, with only a few brief stop-offs to rest. It’s survival, plain and simple. And you want to change that over a couple of farm animals gone wild and a well that could run dry anytime?”

  “The animals are fine, getting used to us already,” Sarah said.

  Archer looked to her, finding the woman had folded her arms over her ample bosom.

  Stubborn defiance there, Archer thought.

  “We could always just put it to a vote,” Baker said, and this surprised Archer so much she found her cheeks reddening. She’d been sure Baker would be the first one to relent, next to Rhian.

  “A democratic vote, yes,” Sarah said, and Archer felt the urge to punch the smile right off her face.

  Baker had folded his arms too now. Archer bit her lip and tapped her fingers on the table. She looked to Rhian again, and found the girl’s eyes lowered.

  “Well if democracy is what you want…” She paused her speech, but not her thoughts, considering her next words carefully. “Let’s go outside, get everyone together and make a vote.” Archer went to wipe her brow, which was beginning to perspire, but instead wiped the dust off her jeans, tucking her hands in the pockets so no one saw an action that might betray weakness. Things will go downhill from here, I just know it. The varicolored flowers, Archer just wanted to reach over and crush them.

  * * * *

  By a show of hands, there were nine people for staying, four for moving on (including Archer’s vote), and three that simply couldn’t decide. The vote took place at the front of the farmhouse, and three hours later, Archer sat on the porch and rued what she knew was an obvious mistake.

  This place has seduced her people, and with what?

  The farm had probably been something in its heyday, but now, abandonment and Mother Nature’s ministrations had taken their toll. The house behind her, a wide, two-story structure with whitewashed walls and a grey slate gambrel roof, had survived fairly well. There were a few broken windows on the first floor, with water damage and mold within those connected rooms. It had eight bedrooms that had pretty much been cleaned out of personal belongings. Archer guessed the people had left in a hurry, however, considering the odd book or memento lying around, or maybe they had just run out of room to take everything. It was good they hadn’t killed the animals before leaving, or not so good, considering this was one of the main reasons she was being forced to stay.

  Two cars were parked up in the lot in front of the house: a large Black Cherokee SUV and a compact
red Buick. Both were covered in dirt and bird shit, but one of her people had cleaned the windshields since they’d arrived.

  She stood, cracked her neck, and began a slow walk, turning left to pass the corner of the house a minute later.

  Behind the house lay a small orchard bearing two rows of apple trees with green fruit on their boughs. The ground around the trees was overgrown; the grass and wild weeds already above knee length. This continued past the orchard to the hen enclosure—well, enclosed no more, as when the original owners had left, they’d pulled down the wire fences and left the hens to run free around the farm. They still nested in the little wooden hen houses though, and from what Archer had seen, spent their days pecking around the orchard for whatever bugs lived in the overgrown grass. She saw some as she neared the orchard, one of the birds striding towards her as she walked.

  To the southeast of the house, beside the orchard, stood a large rectangular dairy barn with terracotta paneled walls and a white, barrel-arched roof. There was a small square milking parlor at its rear which adjoined a tall grain silo the same terracotta as the parlor and the dairy barn. One of her group, Simon, said it was still half full. The cows, all ten of them, strolled around the farm, and where the fences to the surrounding fields were down, they wandered there too, living off grass and shitting everywhere they went, a little skinny but still alive and fairly well.

  She paused just before the orchard, looking around at the remainder of their domain.

  The rest of the farm, squared off in a whitewashed fence, contained overgrown grass, machinery gone to rust, that well, and an ever-present cow shit stink. Still, being the leader, she’d set a couple of her group to shoveling up the shit, mainly because she hated the smell, and secondly because it was a farm (and didn’t they need manure?). Thirdly, and this was only partly due to revenge, or so she told herself, Baker and Andy had wanted this farm, so there they were, cleaning it up by shoveling the shit.