Star-Spangled Apocalypse

by Harmon Cooper

  “Fuck this.” Virgil flipped the radio off.

  “Hey, I was listening to that!”

  “Please, man, anything but Tucker Jones. Like, do you ever find it odd that the conservative news pundits always argue for the common man, yet they are about as far from the common man as one could possibly be? Hell, BreitFox news is headquartered in Manhattan. Tell me what fucking coal farmer lives in Manhattan?” Virgil scoffed. “Sorry, just can’t hear that stuff right now. I’ll change the subject. Salvia. Wow. I hate the way that drug makes me feel after, man. Shit just rips apart reality like it’s…like it’s a thin piece of paper or something.”

  Virgil shook his head.

  James took a sip from his flask, letting Virgil’s early comment slide. No sense in arguing with him right now.

  “You want a sip of whiskey? It may take the edge off.” James looked out his open window and noticed a glowing billboard that had seven candles on it. The billboard’s ominous flames tossed red silk in every direction as the wax melted indifferently.

  Both men stared fixedly at the sign as the jeep flew past it.

  James turned his attention back to Virgil. “So, do you want a sip of whiskey?”

  “Not right now, but thanks anyway.” Virgil closed his eyes again as if he had a headache.

  “So, um, you going to tell me what you saw back at your place or not?”

  The younger barista nodded. “It all started here.” Virgil mimicked his mind moving forward, pointing from his temple to the evening sky outside the Jeep’s window. “After that first puff I was kind of just floating there, trying to focus on my breath when these three crazy beings came to me. One looked like a leopard, the second a she-wolf, and the third a large, yellow lion.”

  “Leopard, she-wolf, lion. Got it.”

  “Fluttering all around them were these blue butterflies with electric wings with, like, small spinning thingies around on the surface of their wings or something. The leopard looked right at me, straight up. He had these bizarre eyes with bright pink lotuses around his pupils, kind of like my dream mask, the one I used to scare Tony.”

  “How could I forget your mask?” James asked, well-aware that the psychonaut had stashed the mask, a sketchbook he carried, and a host of coloring supplies in an old military knapsack.

  “As the leopard talked, the words came out of his mouth in a different language. I don’t know what language he was speaking in, but I could actually see the words. They were some sort of ancient symbols.”

  “Got it.” James raised the flask to his lips, noticed his hand was a little shaky, and decided not to take another sip for the time being.

  “And that’s when the lion began translating it all for me.”

  “Well, what did he say?”

  “He said, ‘things are about to get a whole lot worse. You must leave now.’ Or it might have been…. ‘You must leave now, things are about to get a whole lot worse.’ Who knows? But that was the gist. The entity I remember most though was the she-wolf. She was the strangest of the three because she was wearing a pointy Lady Gaga bra and she was like, bending over provocatively, beckoning for me to follow her. Seriously, dude, I almost did, and who knows where she would have taken me.”

  James started to chuckle.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Continue.”

  Damn hippie, James thought as he started fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette.

  “The lion repeated what he said earlier: ‘things are about to get a whole lot worse. You must leave now.’ He opened his mouth and three fat white pigeons flopped out onto the ground, followed by a fourth pigeon that wasn’t white, a black pigeon.”

  “Getting weirder.”

  “Fuck yeah it is. Then the she-wolf stuffed the three pigeons in her mouth, while the leopard continued to ramble in some foreign language. And the fourth pigeon flew into the she-wolf’s breasts and melted into her fur. This is when I opened my eyes. Seriously, James…” Virgil looked over at James, who was taking an exaggerated drag off his cigarette. “What the hell?”

  “Wow. I guess it’s a good thing we left then.”

  James ashed his cigarette and stuck it in the corner of his lips. He unscrewed the top from Ol’ Faithful and took another long swig, sighing as the whiskey crawled down his parched throat. Virgil’s hallucination back in Austin was bullshit, and he knew it.

  ***

  “At the rate we are going right now, we’ll pass Liberty Hill in less than an hour, then Briggs, then Lampasas where we can get on 281 and eventually end up in Wichita Falls, where we can hop on I-44. Wow, Tony really has some good whiskey.” James took another sip of his flask and burped.

  Fuck.

  Virgil opened the small wooden chest that he had been clutching and pulled out a medium sized bag of marijuana. A pungent smell of skunk escaped into the cabin, mixing with the smell of exhaled whiskey and fusing into an odor that could intoxicate a ghost with a gasmask.

  “Whew!” James coughed. “That shit is strong.” He looked at the chest out of the corner of his eye and noticed a strange carving on the wooden chest.

  “All I can do now is roll a joint and try to figure out what the hell the leopard, lion, and she-wolf meant. Do you mind? Or can we stop so I can puff it up real quick?”

  “Um, sure, smoke, but roll the windows down.” James swallowed hard as he thought of all the illegal things he’d done and was currently doing since the start of Armageddon. Not too many, yet, but it hadn’t even been twelve hours.

  “Hey, is that a snake on your hallucinogen box there?” James flicked his cigarette out the window as the two baristas sped through a town outside Austin called Cedar Park.

  “Yep. It’s an Ouroboros. Heard of it?”

  “Nope.”

  “The symbol signalizes the fact that reality eats itself.”

  James raised a skeptical eye but didn’t say anything as Virgil finished rolling the joint. His counterpart lit the doob, and inhaled nearly half of it with a single breath in.

  “That’s what I’m talking about,” Virgil said on the exhale.

  He closed his eyes and reached to turn on the radio, quickly switching to a classic rock station. He bobbed his head up and down. By the time some eighties ballad that James couldn’t place came on, Virgil was asleep, his head on his right shoulder and his arms clutching his collection of mind toys.

  James flicked off the radio, not interested in tuning in to a news station.

  The highway grew darker as they headed further away from the city limits. We will need to get gas in Lampasas, James thought, as he tossed the empty flask onto the floorboard.

  Thirty minutes passed, and Virgil began snoring, occasionally tossing and turning in his sleep. James yawned, and decided he would try to find a rest stop outside of Briggs. They had a long day of driving tomorrow, and James had this strange inkling that he would be the one doing most of it.

  As he sped along the highway, his mind began tracing the proceedings of the day, attempting to piece things together in a way that they would make sense later on. But his mind was fogged over by Tony’s power whiskey, and he kept going back to a moving picture of the fire burning over downtown Austin.

  Damn.

  James had never witnessed something so sinister and he knew, at least he thought he knew, that it was a sign of the apocalypse.

  At least I hope it is.

  This last thought had him cursing himself and how stupid he’d become.

  Let it go.

  It was true that he and Virgil acted impulsively. Still, James had been dying for an adventure, and whatever they were about to embark on would be one for the record books.

  Life had become so stale in Austin and not being able to see his son had made things quite unbearable. Seeing Austin on fire had given him a reason to leave.

  There’s one. James caught a glimpse of a sign announcing a rest stop in a few miles. He sped up, swerved a bit but got his bearings. He’d never been more ready to call it a d
ay.

  The rest stop was typical of this part of Texas – a small covered building with restrooms and snack machines; a few strange vehicles parked haphazardly around the stop; a handful of public trash cans filled to the brim with beer cans and fast food wrappers.

  James found a nice spot near a dying Hackberry tree and parked the jeep.

  After a whiskey-tinted burp, he stepped outside and took a fresh breath of country air.

  “That reminds me.” James filled his flask, took another swig, and lit a cigarette as he paced around the vehicle.

  The silhouette of the Hackberry tree wavered in the light from the moon, creating a living lava lamp of activity on the rest stop’s cool pavement.

  Like the reflection, James was definitely a little wobbly by this point, and he nearly tripped twice on his brief walk around the vehicle. He sat on the curb and tried to light his cigarette, but almost burning his cheek instead.

  A smoky cloud emerged in front of the moon above him, blocking any light it had been producing.

  James stood up, almost fell, and caught his balance. Just as he was deciding he’d better get to sleep, he heard something that sent a sobering chill down his spine.

  “I am the Alpha and the Omega.”

  Chapter 7: Coffee and Religion

  “Who the fuck are you?” James screamed.

  A cloaked being with a sword slowly sliding out of its mouth motioned for the older barista to follow him. James turned to run, and as his feet took off beneath him, the same intimidating entity appeared directly before him.

  Eve? It can’t be!

  James turned again and again, panic surging through him. Every time he attempted to flee, the sword-bearing entity appeared in front of him, blocking his escape.

  A deep breath in, James glared at the frightening monstrosity. “Fine, bring it!” he shouted, clenching his fists.

  The cloaked being pointed to seven pillar-sized candles dripping wax onto a golden carpet that was decorated with swelling ecclesiastical icons.

  A loud thump! met his eardrums and James tried to run, but every direction he turned again showed him the melting candles.

  “This can’t be happening,” James thought, his mind a thin sheet of paper being torn in half. “I am dreaming. I have to be dreaming!”

  Another loud thump! and James heard the voice again:

  “I am the Alpha and the Omega.”

  “What do you want from me!?” James whisper-screamed as his reoccurring nightmare of the emaciated female appeared behind him.

  Eve.

  James felt her breathing again, her inhale sucking all the air out of him, her exhale clawing its way down his throat and filling his lungs.

  He tried to yell at her, tried to yell for his son, but her thick breath sucked all the air out of the space.

  Eve’s leathery, aged skin sagged towards the invisible ground as she moved towards him.

  James gasped as he awoke.

  He sat in the driver’s seat of the jeep with one leg hanging out the window. It was just a dream, he thought, steeling himself. “Just a dream,” he said aloud.

  The memories of the last day came to him and he suddenly felt stupid for evacuating the city. It was irrational, impulsive. He glanced to his right to see Virgil gone and the glove compartment open.

  He heard another thump! above him and looked up to the ceiling of the jeep. He scrambled out of the vehicle, and sighed angrily when he finally saw Virgil on the jeep’s rooftop.

  The psychonaut barista stood on one leg, his creepy dream mask on his face.

  “What in the actual fuck are you doing?”

  James’ sudden outburst caught Virgil off guard. He lost his balance, tumbled forward down the windshield, and landed on the hood of the vehicle.

  It was the final thump of the morning. The grand finale. Another impetus for James’ petulant mood. Virgil swiftly recovered and rolled off the hood.

  “I almost fell face first, brother!” Virgil dusted off his shirt and pants, his dream mask muffling his voice.

  “Virgil…” James growled.

  “What? I got bored waiting for you to wake up, and I figured I could do some balancing poses on the roof.”

  “Why the roof exactly?”

  “Better vantage point.”

  After shooting Virgil a murderous glare, James climbed back into the jeep. “Let’s get going.”

  “Get going we shall!”

  It’s going to be a long day, he thought as he searched for his flask, which he found on the floorboard. He took a morning swig, just to take the edge off, and started the vehicle up, threw it into reverse and got back on the highway.

  The Jeep huffed and puffed as it slowly pushed itself to a comfortable speed on the highway.

  “What is wrong with you, Virgil?” James asked.

  “Wrong with me? Nothing by my accounts! I was in my place, dude. After my mind journey last night, I needed to clear my head with some yummy oxygen. I was trying to get in touch with the mask, and also, it’s a little breezy out here, so I figured the mask would keep my face warm. But no worries, I took it off. We’re good. Nothing to see here, people.”

  “Yeah, nothing to see,” James mumbled.

  Virgil tapped on the glove compartment then rubbed his stomach. “Not going to lie. I need some coffee and some breakfast. Wish there was an Omlettry out here.”

  “Omlettry?”

  “Austin breakfast spot. Munchtacular pancakes and extra bueno hangover options. I already ate like ten biscottis. Those things are making my tummy hurt.”

  “We can get breakfast in Lampasas.” James glanced at his watch; it was already half past one. “Damn, it’s already lunch time. I must have been sleeping forever.”

  “Yeah, dude, you were out.”

  James looked at himself in the rearview mirror, his eyes tracing the wrinkles of concern on his forehead. When he first moved to Colorado, he was told that he didn’t look a day over twenty-five, his hairline firm and his skin clear. But the last few years had taken their toll, from his skin to the growing bald spot on the back of his head. He felt like he had aged a century or two.

  The thought came to James and he spit it out. “I am having my doubts on if it is Armageddon or not. I mean, do you think that maybe we were a little irrational? It’s just, what the fuck are we doing?”

  Virgil pulled out a joint that looked like a mummified banana and cracked the window. “Looks like a penis, huh?”

  James frowned.

  “Anyways,” Virgil said as he lit the spliff, “relax, man. All the signs are clear. First of all, everything was on fire. You saw that yourself. Secondly, that billboard with the seven candles last night – yes, I saw it too – that was definitely some sort of omen. And before that there was my vision, a vision in which we, the heroic former baristas, were compelled to make a journey to infinity and beyond. Truthfully, it might not be Armageddon just yet, but it’s definitely the start of it.”

  James’ dream flashed across his mind’s eye. Had there been seven candles in the dream as well?

  “I just don’t know.”

  “Don’t believe me? Check this out.” Virgil reached into a large knapsack at his feet. He hadn’t pulled anything out of it yet, and James had figured that it was just some clothes.

  Virgil took out a copy of the Bible and flipped towards the end of the book and started reading the Revelation to John, skimming through all the parts he had previously highlighted. “Okay, here is what I was looking for,” he said, the joint hanging out of the corner of his mouth. “And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks…were the candlesticks golden?”

  “I guess? I can hardly remember it.”

  “Then that billboard was a sign that Armageddon is happening.” Virgil lowered the Bible into his lap and took a puff off his joint, ashing it outside the window.

  “What other books do you have in there?” James asked as they approached a sign saying that Lampasas was 12 miles away.

 
“I also have a copy of the Quran, a book on comparative religious texts, a copy of the Tao, a short book on the Gnostic gospels, and a condensed version of the most popular Hindu texts,” Virgil replied, matter-of-factly.

  The Quran? James started to shake his head. What anyone would want with that book was beyond him.

  James lit his cancer stick, and soon, the smoke from the cigarette and the joint fanned their way across the interior of the cabin, beginning with the joint’s, which extended a long wispy claw to the cigarette’s smoke.

  As the smoke mingled, the Jeep passed a billboard with a cowboy and his wife smiling invitingly on it. The sign read: Cowboy Church – Come Celebrate Jesus Cowboy Style.

  Virgil puffed on his joint for a moment and sighed. “Damn, man, that’s some shit right there. Okay, back to your question about me having a variety of religious texts. I guess you could say it’s kind of like having a collection of different … um … coffee flavors! Yeah, that’s it, a bunch of coffee.” He instinctively offered the joint to James who declined. “So, I’m basically a religion connoisseur…”

  “What do you mean?” James shook his head at the blasphemous shit coming out of Virgil’s mouth. Somehow, the afternoon nicotine mixed with a little whiskey was starting to ease his pounding head.

  “Just think about it, dude: religions are like coffee chains.” Virgil slowly exhaled a large cloud of smoke. “You see that one? Big as fuck!”

  James bit his lip, not sure if he should put an end to this conversation before it got stupid.