"You've always thought the world was going to come to a giant cataclysmic end?" she asked while reaching for the glass.
"Sure."
"That's insane."
"No. I was right."
Nicolette looked around the room and realized she'd never seen it empty. The story had appeared on every channel, every social network, and every site and then just looped. It was a tribute to professionalism in its way, that every webmaster, editor and programmer, before leaving their post, had taken the time to loop the story.
The world had come to its end. And now here it was, only nine o'clock and the bar was empty and this bartender was just standing there, smiling like an idiot watching her cry.
"I know, I know. There's nothing sadder than an empty bar. You should play your set," he said eating an olive from his garnish tray.
“You don’t have anything better to do than sit here and listen to me play a set?”
“I’m just glad you're playing tonight. If the world had ended last night I would have died listening to whatever was on the jukebox.”
“So this is it then? You’re just gonna sit here and listen to me play 'til the world ends?”
“If you got somewhere else to be, feel free,” he said with his slightly crooked smile. His deep-set eyes seemed to laugh at her quietly from a forgettably handsome face.
“I’m the only other person here, what’ll you do if I leave?”
“Well, the good part about being the bartender at the world’s end is that I have a lot of booze and I know how to make an Old Fashioned. I’ll be bummed you left, but I’ll manage.”
She smiled and took a sip of the vodka tonic. It seemed a little better than all the ones that had come before. She noticed the way the ice clinked musically as she replaced the glass onto the coaster.
“Look, if it makes you feel any better, the world won’t end for us,” he said, his hand twisting a knife against the rind of an orange.
“But the news said...”
“The news says a lot of things. I’ve seen a million polls, studies, stories - nobody ever asked me anything, studied me, interviewed me. It’s the same here. The rich and the important, their world is ending, the TV station's world is ending. This little bar, in a little town in Ohio? I’m betting there isn’t a missile pointed at it.”
He took the twist of orange peel and dropped it into a glass.
“So if everything else blows up, but you’re alive what will you do?”
“I don’t know," he shrugged. "I know I won’t go to work, but after that, I’ll play it by ear.”
She watched as he poured a small amount of sugar onto the orange twist and then muddled them on the bottom of the tumbler.
“What do you do for work?”
"This."
"Just tend bar? Nothing else?"
He shrugged and again flashed his smile, his teeth a little too large, but straight and white. He dropped a few cubes of ice into the glass.
“Not really. Are you gonna play?”
“I’ve seen you before, right?”
“Every show you’ve played for the last two years, I’ve been there, Ms. Riggs.”
"Call me Nicolette. What’s your name?”
He splashed bitters over the ice, topped it off with a fair amount of bourbon, spun the whole mix with a cocktail straw and then reached over to the bar fruit and pulled out two maraschino cherries. He dropped one in the drink and ate the other.
“Caleb.”
"Really?" she laughed.
"My parents lacked originality."
“Well, Caleb, it’s nice that I got to meet you before the end of the world.”
He reached his glass across the bar and clinked it against her own.
“Yeah, we’ll always have that, right? You’ll see me walking through the wreckage of our doomed civilization and I’ll see you wearing post-apocalyptic clothes under a ruined sky and I’ll say, 'Hey, remember that night when the world ended?' and you'll say, 'Yeah, how you been?'"
Together they sipped their drinks as the cold water of condensation dripped onto the bar between them.
Chapter 20
***
"How is he still alive?" October asked in wonder.
"My shots just missed his internal organs. One in a million chance. He was lucky," shrugged Flores.
"Or you just missed," October smiled.
"I shot a man three hundred feet away, with a 9mm handgun, in the middle of a gun fight, in the dark. I hit him in the chest and stomach - I'd hardly call it missing."
"And yet, here he is, Agent Flores."
“Sir, we should go.”
“No, Miho. I want to be here when he wakes up. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to stand over this man and watch him die.”
“There are risks.”
“Miho, he’s tied to a chair. We turned off his camera. We’re twenty miles from anyone. What could happen?”
“With all due respect, Mr. President, if anything has been proven to us recently, it is that Jacob is dangerous and can think ahead. He knows how to play all of us and for all we know he’s doing just that again.”
“I’m not afraid of Jacob. I’m not afraid of Nestor Bravo. I’m going to be here when he wakes up. You go out there and make sure nothing goes wrong," October snarled.
“I insist you keep a guard in here,” she snapped.
“You insist?! Who are you to insist? I’m the President, not YOU!”
“Very well, Mr. President, I’ll be outside if you need me.”
October watched Miho and Flores leave the room. He locked the door behind them and then turned back to Nestor. Nestor had been twitching for the last few minutes, which October assumed meant he would soon be waking up… or never would.
He wished he'd brought in a snack. He considered opening the door and ordering Miho to get him one, but he knew that would lead to another argument about leaving. She was a worrier. Sometimes it was a good thing, it covered his blind sides from time to time, but it could wear a man down.
"That's why I didn't get married, eh Nestor? Yeah. You know there was a time where a single man couldn't be elected President of the United States? You had to be married; it proved you were a family man. People liked that. A lot of people blame the biases against homosexuality at the time, or the religious sentiments of the majority. But, I came to a conclusion the other day that I think is pretty smart. Men don't like to give power to a guy who thinks he's better than them. They are willing to follow a man, but only if they think he's been there, been a follower, a servant. They want a guy who's gotten yelled at because his shirt wasn't tucked in right. Of course it changed, eventually only single people could be President, but they had to be soldiers. Which is about the same as getting married I expect."
Nestor twitched again. October stared at the man.
Nestor didn't seem so tough tied to a chair, unconscious, but at the same time he didn't look as vulnerable as October would have liked. Nestor, somehow, even unconscious and restrained, looked deadly. It was in this moment that October realized how to truly humiliate the man, to make him the most human kind of vulnerable. He leaned down and began unfastening Nestor's pants.
"What are you doing, October?" Nestor asked.
"Oh, um… nothing."
"Why are you taking my pants off?"
October stood up and turned to face the wall. His hands bunched into tight fists.
"Answer the question, October, why were you taking off my pants?"
"I wanted you to be nak… look today has been a very hard day for me, so, you know, just let it go okay, Nestor?"
"Were you going to have sex with me?"
"No."
"Then why were you taking off my pants, October?"
"You weren't supposed to wake up until I was finished!"
"Finished what?"
"It's just… I wanted to… never mind. Just forget about the whole thing. Please?"
Nestor shrugged and grew silent.
�
��You thought you killed me didn't you, Nestor? Well, you didn't. You killed a man who looks just like me. But don't feel bad, he knew the risks, it was part of the job.
“What’s that job called? Target? Dummy?”
“Hero. I believe that’s what they call people who give their life to protect the President.”
“Well, I hope he wasn’t your only one, from what I hear, this won’t be the last assassination attempt.”
“You mean Jacob's little theory?”
“Theory? Is it necessary to lie to me? You’re going to kill me any second and then kill everybody else, why bother lying.”
“Not everybody. Not those who God’s chosen to live.”
“You’re God in this scenario?”
“No, I’m the one who was unfortunate enough to be in charge when God unleashed a plague on the world. I didn’t want this. But, I will do what’s best. That’s what being a leader is.”
“Fine. So you build your little island. You didn’t have to kill everybody else.”
“Do you remember what happened when the news came out about the genetic crops making everyone impotent? There were riots in every city. You know what the most attacked thing was? Not crop production plants or science labs, not even billionaire's mansions. No, it was electronics stores. People were so mad - they just had to steal a new Plasma Screen."
"What's your point?" Nestor said, trying to shift to see his bullet wounds.
"People are greedy, stupid, violent and unpredictable… and we have all the TV's."
"People trusted you."
"I don't think anyone has trusted a president in two hundred years, Nestor, but I am helping them. We over populated, the world couldn’t sustain us. We were using up every resource, too fast. I mean, perhaps if at some point people had decided that getting along, compromising, and having intelligent discussion was a better way to spread their ideals than having shitloads of sex and filling the world with likeminded people… but they didn’t. So we run out of food. Nature, God, whatever, says 'Fine, if you won’t control your population, I will.' So what do we do? We design plants, crops to fight back... and He poisons those. You can’t argue with God! So, I’m the one who’s stopping the argument. I’m humble enough to say, 'I’m listening, God.' I’m taking His chosen few and treating them as special, like He wants. Which means protecting them from those that He has forsaken. If I thought they were as noble, as humble as me, to do as He wished and peacefully fill their time and then die, I’d let them. But, they aren’t.”
“You talk too much, October. It's always been one of your annoying habits.”
“Look, I was hoping you’d do me a favor.”
“A favor?”
“Yeah. Kill Jacob. He’s still on the continent. You’re still on the continent. He left you to die here. Get even and I’ll personally come get you and bring you and his corpse back to The Island.”
“Go to Hell, October.”
“I understand why you’re angry. Why it feels unfair... but life’s unfair. There are those who weren’t given all that others were, the power to make the world right, but they can sacrifice on the behalf of those who can fix the world... like that hero you just killed. He couldn’t save mankind, but he could save me so that I could.”
“You'll just screw it up."
"Nestor, look at me. You're going to die if you don't agree to do what I want. Come work for me."
"No."
"Okay, then beg. Beg and I won't kill you."
"No," Nestor smiled.
"You think I won't?! You think I won't kill you?!"
Nestor sighed softly as October pulled out a gun he'd borrowed from one of his security guards and pointed it at Nestor's head. Neither man moved or blinked. They were perfectly still and silent. The screaming and pounding seemed distant at the beginning, as if rather than a door Miho was pounding against an ocean. But, after a few seconds, the screams became clear and focused, and Nestor's smile grew.
"DO NOT SHOOT NESTOR! STOP RIGHT NOW AND OPEN THE DOOR!" Miho boomed from the other side of the door.
The gun in October's hand shook as Nestor's smile stretched even further.
"OPEN THE DOOR, MR. PRESIDENT! DO NOT KILL HIM!"
October stopped and turned from Nestor, the door now shaking under an outside impact.
"How did you know I was…" October mumbled.
"He's filming! His feed, it's broadcasting! Open the door!" Miho's shouts came between the booming impacts.
"What?! I thought you turned off all the feeds!" October said while still frozen, too stunned to move.
"I did," Miho's voice came from the other side of the door. "But… Jacob… I don't know how he did it. It's only his, only Nestor's! Only Nestor's feed, but it's broadcasting! OPEN THE DOOR! I don't know how, Mr. President! And it doesn't matter! What matters is that you can't kill him!"
"Go turn off the feed!" October shouted at the door's vibrations.
"We don't have time! People are rioting. There is a war on the street right now, our planes are being attacked. The Migration is under threat! Mr. President, the moment is now!"
October turned back to Nestor, the door cracking off of its top hinge.
"What was the point of all of this, Nestor? None of it stops me, none of it kills me. Why?"
"You always wanted so badly to be loved."
"Nestor…"
"No one will ever love you again."
October looked down at Nestor.
“I still win, Nestor. You and Jacob are dead. I’m the last man standing.”
Nestor smiled.
“Say I won! Say it!”
Nestor kept smiling.
October hit Nestor with the butt of his gun. Then again. Then over and over. Nestor's laughter rang out between the impacts, his eyes filling with blood as the door came crashing to the ground.
“Sir, stop! Please," Miho reached over and stood between the two men, "we have to go.”
“I’m going to kill him!”
Flores pulled October into the corner and held him solidly against the wall as Miho moved in front of him. Nestor felt the swelling begin around the base of his eyes and his ears rang. The blood was hot and sticky as it covered his face. He could see nothing but red.
"You can't beat a man to death… again. You need to seem in control! The Island is watching and waiting. We have work to do. Do not ruin everything you've built in a moment of rage," Miho hissed.
"You don't understand…"
“We’ll leave him. When the bombs begin, the sensors on the building will go off. The house will go into lock down and since he doesn’t know the override code he’ll never get out. He’s dead - just let him die!”
October struggled to gain control as he processed the small woman's words.
“You hear that, Nestor? You’re going to die! You’re going to die!” October shouted.
Nestor just laughed through the blood. October tried to push past Miho and Flores.
"Let me go, I'm gonna wipe that look of his face! I'll kill him!"
“Sir!”
October could hear Nestor laughing as they dragged him out.
Chapter 21
***
"What now, Jacob?" Arian asked as Jacob poured whiskey onto the ice that lay in the base of the two crystal glasses.
"Now, you and the others, get some sleep if you can. Drink if you can't. I want a word alone with Dr. Thomas."
Arian nodded and left the room as Jacob brought a glass over to Dr. Thomas and sat down in a chair across from him. Jacob took a sip of his own whiskey and smiled. In the floor to ceiling windows behind Jacob was a city that Dr. Thomas had never seen. It stretched out for miles. He knew that at any moment the missiles would fall, but somehow, Jacob seemed more frightening.
"Are you sure we're safe here?"
"Yes I am, Doc, this is one of October Carnegie's favorite apartments. He'll make sure it's unharmed, untargeted and undamaged. And in addition, he's made it fallout proof."
"N
o, is he really that crazy?"
"Makes sense really. He plans on coming back here one day. Of course, it does let those of us who oppose him know where we can all meet up and regroup safely. He had it fitted to resist radiation and all. This apartment, this neighborhood, is in fact one of the most heavily protected places in America. There are at least three different nuclear bunkers in a square mile."
Dr. Thomas saw the sweat beading on Jacob's forehead.
"Are you nervous, Jacob?"
"Nervous, no. I have a fever. I have the fever," he smiled. "Do you have anyone out there, Doc? Out in the world?"
"A daughter. On The Island."
"Ah! That's why you did it? To save your daughter - you killed everybody."
"You don't understand a father's love, Jacob."
"No? You know me so well, do you?" Jacob leaned forward and glared at Dr. Thomas with a violence that seemed to fill the room. In the silence of the moment the ice hitting the sides of the glass in the shaking doctor's hand was deafening. Jacob took a moment and then slouched back comfortably in his chair, again the smile stretching across his face. "In fact, I have a daughter myself. I had thought I was unlucky, in that I couldn't have a second over the years, turns out it was a miracle I ever had one. When she was born I held her in my hands and I loved her. I loved her in a way that scared me. And, then I realized that this love was my weakness. That all of the horrible men in this world, who wanted to use me, stop me, kill me - they would use this love against me. Just like with you."
Jacob stood up and turned away, his back slumped uncharacteristically, as if tired and old, as he moved to look out the giant windows.
"Oh yes, Doc, I understand your love. But, you are a selfish man and you wanted your love. I'm a disciplined man," Jacob sighed. "So, I gave her and her mother, the woman I loved, to a friend to hide. To hide away from me and everything else. To keep them safe. My love never forgave me. My daughter grew up without me, but… well, parenthood is selfish business and I… I'm a soldier."
"Your daughter is out there?"
The man watched as Jacob pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He struggled to get a cigarette out of the pack as he stared out the window that was filling with the bright flashes of explosion. Jacob became nothing but a silhouette as the first missile hit close by. Dr. Thomas closed his eyes against the flash. When he opened them it was bright, a manmade daytime now out the window. Jacob had turned his back on the destruction and was staring at Dr. Thomas, all signs of weariness and age now gone from his face and replaced, once again, by the laughing smile.
Monsters of the Apocalypse Page 6
