Middletown Apocalypse

by Brett Abell

  TWO WEEKS PREVIOUS

  “I’ve got something special in mind for you,” he’d said after a particularly frenetic and energetic lovemaking session. They were lying side by side, passing a joint between them.

  “I thought you did just give me something special.” She smiled.

  “No … no, that was magical, my dear. Don’t forget that. But this, this is important. I’ve found a way to strike back at the jackals that call themselves the government.”

  “I’m listening.” Beth had sat up and rolled over onto her side, propping her head up. Her long brown hair spilled onto the pillow.

  “Have I told you how beautiful you are?”

  “You already came; you don’t need to keep the pretense up.” She laughed. “Now tell me what you’ve got planned.” She took a drag and handed the joint back, making sure to blow a big exhalation of smoke into his face.

  “Durgan,” he began.

  “That dolt? This has to do with him? He couldn’t plan a piss without getting it all over himself. I swear those steroids are shrinking his brain as much as his dick.”

  “His dick?”

  “When I first came here, before you and I became involved, he whipped it out, right in the hallway. Started pointing at it and asking me what I thought. I was thinking he was playing with me and had it tucked between his legs. The thing he had sticking out couldn’t have satisfied a tight chipmunk.” Beth couldn’t help but giggle. “Shriveled up little worm.” She held her thumb and forefinger up no more than a quarter inch apart.”

  “What? You want the roach back already? I haven’t even taken a hit.”

  “No! I’m showing you the size!”

  “Are you kidding? That monster of a man has a penis the size of a bottle cap?”

  Beth nodded.

  “How am I ever going to look him straight in the face again after this?” Now he had joined in her laughing.

  “Just don’t look down.” And they started laughing again.

  “You are evil.”

  “I am.” She sobered up. “Now tell me what dinky-dick Durgan had to say.”

  It took Jimmy a few more moments to gather himself. “Okay, I’m good. All right, there’s this university in Middletown, Ohio.”

  “Ohio?”

  “Just listen for a sec and then you decide.”

  “Okay.”

  “The school does tons of R&D for the government. Research and development.”

  “I know what R&D means. What kind of things do they work on?”

  “Mostly biological.”

  “Go on.”

  “Durgan went to school with a guy who works there now … some guy named Charlie Noble.”

  “Is he one of us?”

  “No, he’s all goody two-shoes. Durgan approached him already.”

  “That’s like using a sledgehammer to fix china.”

  “Exactly, that’s why I need you to go to Ohio.”

  “For?” She left the question hanging out there.

  “Durgan says this Charlie guy has had very little, if any, experience with women.”

  “So you want me to suck his cock so I can get a hold of some biological weapons.”

  “Do you have to be so crude?”

  “Well, tell me, Jimmy, what do you want me to do? I’ll snap his neck or stick a knife in his throat if you want me to. I’m not sleeping with him though.”

  “I’m not asking you to. I want you to get close to him, maybe go out on a date. Promise him some things. Get him to show you the lab, then you incapacitate him and plant a bomb that Easter is working on.”

  Easter was the resident munitions expert. After having served two tours in Iraq, he’d come home before his third could start. He’d been the recipient of an insurgent IED that had reduced his hearing to less than 20 percent and taken his right leg. He’d been hailed as a hero—at least for as long as the government supplemental pay had lasted. He took his impressive explosive resume and sought financial help elsewhere; the ATF was all too willing to comply with his monetary demands.

  “What’s the purpose of the bomb, Jimmy? To destroy or to release?”

  “Both, I guess.”

  “How much danger am I going to be in?”

  “The bomb has a timer. All you need to do is set it and get out. I don’t even want you in Ohio when the thing goes off.”

  “This Charlie guy can’t be a complete idiot. How am I possibly going to sneak a bomb into the lab with me?”

  “You’ll have to figure that part out. I’ve got a feeling, though, he isn’t going to be looking at much more than you. You do this right, you could be the number-one homegrown terrorist of all time.”

  “Do they have terrorist trading cards that show those kind of stats?”

  “They might start when you’re done.”

  ***

  That had been two weeks ago. Beth had done some weapons training and had sat down with Easter Evans for a couple of hours to go over all the specifics of the bomb. She hated to be that close to him. He poured insanity out through his pores. When he wasn’t talking, he hummed the Battle Hymn of the Republic continually, it was all she could do not to shove her knife into the small of his back.

  Jimmy had seen her off the day she left; however, she found it odd that they had not slept together after he’d told her the plan. She’d convinced herself it was because he was so busy with the rest of the attack he promised would cripple the government.

  “I wish I could fly,” she said as she sat in the pickup truck.

  “TSA might be an inept governmental bunch of jack thugs, but they’d have a hard time missing this,” Jimmy said as he tucked the suitcase with the bomb under the passenger seat.

  For a moment, she was convinced that this bomb had already been armed and it was set to explode once she was far enough away from their headquarters. She couldn’t imagine why he’d do this, but Jimmy had his own set of issues. She’d once watched him beat one of their cooks nearly to death because the chocolate pudding wasn’t creamy enough. Maybe she hadn’t satisfied him in bed and this was her payback.

  He came around to her side of the truck and kissed her tenderly on the lips.

  “Is that the kiss of death?” she’d asked more than a little seriously. Instead of answering, he’d walked away, a wry smile on his lips.

  “Call me when you get to Ohio!” He’d turned and yelled from the porch of the house they were renting.

  She drove two blocks and pulled over, quickly entering the luggage combination. She sighed in relief when she realized it hadn’t been armed. Paranoia crept in when she thought that he’d figure she would look and had somehow put the arming mechanism under this false front.

  “Fuck you, Jimmy. This just smells bad.” She’d taken the bomb and quickly walked back the way she came. Being more careful when she got close, she went behind yards and into an alley. She slowly lifted up one of the bulkhead doors to their rental and placed the suitcase on the cement stairs.

  She went to a rent-by-the-hour motel down the street and waited, fully expecting to be awoken by the noise of an explosion followed immediately by sirens.

  It was three in the afternoon the next day, when she figured that would be about the time she’d be driving into Ohio. “I guess I should call him soon. Now I’m going to have to get the damn bomb back before he realizes what I’ve done.” She wasn’t too worried about the timeline; it was Friday, after all. She would say that Charlie had gone away for the weekend and she wasn’t able to make contact until Monday, maybe even Tuesday. That part would be easy enough.

  “Hey Jimmy, I’m about ten miles outside of Ohio.”

  “You in the truck?”

  A small alarm went off in the back of her head. “Yeah, going about seventy on I-80.”

  “It was a lot of fun while it lasted,” he said before hanging up.

  “You motherfucker,” she said just as the window in her room shook. The explosion would break windows out up to two streets away. She join
ed the burgeoning crowd to see what all the fuss was about.

  “What happened?” she asked a bystander. Their rental had been reduced to its foundation, along with four houses that encircled it.

  “Gas main explosion is what the cops are saying,” the man said, his long gray hair held back in a ponytail. A Live to Ride vest covered his broad back, revealing his extensive tattoo work down his arms.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think someone was playing with bomb making and didn’t quite follow the Anarchy Handbook correctly.” The man was going to say something else, but Beth had noticed Durgan on the far side of the crowd. Her suspicion grew as his face showed surprise at seeing her like she should no longer be alive. She thumbed open the knife in her pocket and was about to plunge it hilt deep into his stomach.

  “Thought you were in Ohio?”

  She paused, he wasn’t surprised she was alive, just surprised she was here at all. “I heard about what happened and came as quickly as I could.”

  Durgan seemed all right with that answer, although time-wise this made absolutely no sense. The bomb had gone off not more than fifteen minutes ago; nothing short of a non-existent matter transporter machine could have gotten her there so quickly.

  “I told him to stop messing around with the bombs.”

  “Cops are saying it was a gas main break.” She was fishing for information.

  “Well, that would be a trick, wouldn’t it?”

  “Why?”

  “The house uses oil.”

  Beth gripped her knife tight. The next couple of moments were going to determine if she was going to bathe the blade in blood. “Do you know of any reason why Jimmy would want me dead?”

  “Are you pregnant?”

  “No.”

  “Then I have no idea. Whoa, wait a second; is this your doing?”

  “This is the bomb I was supposed to use at Charlie’s lab.”

  “What the fuck is it doing here?” Durgan moved in and gripped Beth’s right arm in a vise-like grip.

  “Jimmy tried to kill me. I didn’t like that arrangement, so I changed the proposal.”

  “Seriously?” His grip loosened. “Jimmy tried to kill you?”

  “He told me to call him when I got to Ohio. I said I would. He was adamant about it and I got suspicious. So I put the suitcase in the basement and then called to tell him I’d made it. Ten seconds later, this house goes up in flames. Pretty sure it wasn’t coincidence.”

  “What an asshole.”

  “Me or him?”

  “Him. I’m not a fan of yours either … I think you’re an arrogant, stuck-up bitch but that doesn’t mean you deserve to die. There’d hardly be any women left at all.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “Hey, no problem. You going to the cops?”

  She had not really thought out what she was going to do from here. The ATF was now without a leader and would most likely dissolve if someone didn’t step in.

  “Was the Charlie Noble mission real?”

  “I set it up, of course it was real.”

  “Did Jimmy maybe have a change of heart? Like maybe the only way he could stop the mission and save face was to say I died in an accident.”

  “Hardcore man. I thought he had feelings for you.”

  “Being psychotic means you don’t have feelings for anyone but yourself. Can you get a hold of another bomb?”

  “Are you kidding me? I think Easter hordes them. Why?”

  “Because I want to pull this mission off and then claim my right to run the ATF.”

  “I’ll back you.”

  “Even if I’m an arrogant, stuck-up bitch?”

  “Are you going to hold that against me when you’re the boss?”

  “Not if you do your job.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Beth was the on the road less than twenty-four hours later. This time she made Easter show her how to arm the bomb before she would put it in the car with her.

  “I thought it was weird that Jimmy wanted a cell phone trigger installed. I just figured it was a backup in case the timer failed or you got caught before you could deliver the package.”

  “You knew about the new trigger but didn’t tell me?”

  “I figured you knew. Hey, don’t take it out on the bomb maker.”

  “You’re right, you’re right; it’s not your fault. So this one is good to go?”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “One more thing—could you show me where the fail safe is?” She got next to him. He was leaning toward the case. With reflexes a cat would have been proud of, she pulled out her small knife and sliced into his neck not more than a centimeter across nor deep. His hand shot up to the offending cut.

  “Bitch, what did you do?” At first when he pulled his hand away, there was no blood. That changed in an instant.

  “I just cut through your carotid artery; you’re going to bleed out in less than three minutes.”

  “You fucking bitch!” He moved to the far side of his bench to grab his rifle that was leaning up against the wall.

  “I don’t think so.” Durgan had come into the room and now had the rifle in his hands.

  Easter once again placed his hand against his neck, this time fat drops of blood were falling to the floor, and no matter how hard he pressed, he could not stem the red tide.

  “How could I know he wanted to kill you?” he hissed. “Get me some help! I won’t be able to make any more bombs,” he threatened.

  “I don’t know if you played a part or not, Easter. But if I have trust issues then you can pretty much kiss your ass good bye. If it comes down to my life or yours, where do you think my allegiances lie?”

  “You’re a fucking bitch. Jimmy was right to want to do you in. Said you were the poisonous end of a scorpion, not giving a shit what you struck or why. Said we couldn’t have that kind of anarchy running through our organization.”

  “You stupid shit.” Beth had grabbed his face, “Our organization is all about anarchy.” Then she pushed him away. “Good luck with that last minute and a half, I heard it’s a doozy.”

  Easter fell off the stool he was sitting on, his head fracturing as it slammed down onto the unyielding concrete floor.

  “Get all the bombs and clean this place up. I want Middletown to be in flames by the time the police find this location.”

  “I can get Spiro or Newt to clean this shithole up. You want me to come with you to Ohio?”

  “You’re not going to try and show me your dick again, are you?”

  “I was drunk.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “You really are a bitch.” Beth just stared at him, a pool of blood spreading out from the body at their feet. “No, I’m not going to show you my dick again.”

  “Good. I could use your muscle and definitely not the one you just thought about.”

  ***

  “Damn, this place looks like something out of the fifties,” Beth said as she pulled into the middle of town.”

  “Think they have a strip club?” Durgan was leaning forward looking through the windshield.

  “Yeah, I’m sure it’s right next to the Soda Fountain Shoppe. Fuck, what do people do for fun around here? Rousing game of Beat the Clock or something?”

  “More like beat the cock.”

  “Do you think about it constantly because it’s like a phantom appendage?”

  “Huh?”

  “Forget it. How do we get in touch with Charlie?”

  “There’s a bar outside of town called the Minister’s Daughter.”

  “Of course there is.”

  “I’ll tell him to meet me there for a couple of drinks like old times.”

  “You actually have friends? Or is this some sort of strange bully-victim relationship?”

  “We grew up together. I was a pretty good student until I, um, got mixed up in lifting.”

  “Mixed up
in lifting? Is that a thing?”

  “The lifting not so much; the steroids, that was something I got mixed up in. In a fit of rage I broke my professor’s femur because he gave me a D on a term paper.”

  “Ah, so that’s what’s wrong.”

  “Wrong with what?”

  “Nothing, nothing, just get Charlie to the bar. I’ll do the rest.”

  ***

  Beth had done her best to keep the bar flies from circling around her when she entered. Normally she’d be somewhat flattered. That was if the median age wasn’t somewhere north of forty, along with most of the waistlines.

  “Do I look like I want to fuck you?” she said when the fourth man had come over, trying to ply his wares. “Unless you have a Lamborghini or a Lear jet parked outside, fuck off.”

  Rage and embarrassment warred within the man as he slunk back to his friends. Sometime later, he returned. When he was able to speak without stammering, he told her what he thought of her in no uncertain terms and that he’d just wanted to buy her a drink. She smiled and took another sip from her scotch and tonic. “Screw,” she told him, setting off his nervous tic again.

  Her cell phone vibrated on the bar. It was Durgan. “Yeah.”

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes.” Then he abruptly hung up.

  “Better give me another one.” She held up her glass.

  The bartender was a woman, possibly in her early thirties, but her best days were long gone. And up until tonight, she was usually the best thing to look at, at the local dive. She was none too pleased to be sharing the spotlight. Or more fitting, she didn’t like being left out in the cold while Cinder’fucking’ella soaked up all the sunshine.

  A fair amount of the drink splashed onto the bar top as Della delivered the drink.

  “Hope you’re not expecting a tip,” Beth told the woman’s ever-expanding rear end as she walked away.

  “Honey, the best thing you could do for me would be leave.”

  Beth had a moment where she contemplated hopping over the counter and sinking her knife into the mid-section of the bartender. She could run out of here before any of the patrons knew what was happening, and even if one saw her, it wasn’t likely they could move fast enough to stop her.