Monsters of the Apocalypse

by Rawlins, Jordan

  They looked ravaged with sickness and hunger. Their stories were all, more or less, the same. The Mutant Army had come. It had come upon their settlement or bunker or city and ate the choice humans and then burned everything down as they left. The survivors were told that a second wave of more vicious mutants was coming and if they wished to survive they would need to follow behind the Mutant Army. So they followed.

  The following human survivors served as a sort of back up food supply for the mutants when a stretch of barren land appeared, but otherwise they were allowed to travel in the Mutant Army's wake in peace. When they came upon the Mutant Army camp at the end of the march they were mostly allowed to pass by the giant white tent and go to the tunnels, to Bragg, with a message. Always the same message.

  "We're hungry. We're coming."

  Bragg tried to ignore the message and focus on technical concerns since they were fixable. Food and beds. Medical care. Keeping peace in the tunnels. It was more than a full-time job, but Bragg was unflappable, inexhaustible and his presence threw a calm about him everywhere he walked. The mere sight of him seemed to bring out the best behavior of the survivors and this alone kept chaos at bay. He inspected the survivors who arrived at the gates and took responsibility for each new mouth that he let in, responsibility for the survival for every soul who passed through the gates.

  At night, in bed, after his prayers, he stared into the dark and waited for the final attack to come.

  Chapter 91

  ***

  "Nestor you need to take this, you're burning up," Caleb said as he forced the pill into Nestor's mouth.

  "After all this… a fever kills me, huh, Caleb?"

  "Swallow. Good. You're going to be okay, Nestor. Don't worry."

  "I'm not worried. I don't fear death. I'm just surprised it's a normal thing that got me."

  Caleb wiped Nestor's head gently with a wet cloth. Nestor glanced to his side where he saw the wolf devouring a slab of bloody meet, eyes never leaving the two men.

  "When I was kid they said global warming would kill us all," Nestor moaned. "Nuclear war. Terrorism. Earthquakes. STD's. Cell phone radiation. It didn’t happen. We didn’t die. The world as we knew it ended and here we are… and I am dying from a fever."

  Nestor nodded his head, his eyes half open as he fell into a feverish half-dream. Caleb kept the cloth wet and tried to keep Nestor cool. Nestor's hand shot up blindingly fast and grabbed for Caleb's throat, missing by inches.

  "You killed her. My little girl! You killed my little girl didn't you?! I'm going to kill you, October!"

  Caleb tried to hold Nestor down, but found it extremely difficult even with Nestor in a weakened state.

  "I'm not October, I'm Caleb. I'm your friend. Look at me. I'm Caleb, I'm your friend."

  Nestor squinted at Caleb's face with distant eyes, but a slight smile appeared on his face as he relaxed back to the ground.

  "Where've you been?"

  "I went for medicine. I got you medicine."

  "What happened to your face? You have a cut. A big one."

  "A pack of lunatic survivors attacked me. One of them had a damn crossbow. Shaved my cheek. I was lucky."

  "What happened to them?"

  "They weren't lucky," Caleb said with a wan smile as he re-soaked Nestor's forehead.

  "It's easy now, isn't it?"

  Caleb put a hand against Nestor's forehead and frowned.

  "Sleep, Nestor. The pills should help, just sleep."

  Chapter 92

  ***

  "This is it? This is the place right?" October sat eagerly forward.

  "Yes. Close. It should happen anytime now."

  "I can't stand it. I really can't. They know to bring back the head right? We can't leave the head lying around."

  "Yes, Mr. President, they know."

  Miho moved over to the window and looked at the waves crashing on the beach. The lights of the various buildings burned brightly despite the hour. She knew that in each of those rooms every eye was fixed upon a screen. October had been insistent that the Islanders be notified to watch Nestor's feed tonight. Miho had pointed out that this was a rather suspicious thing to do after outlawing watching Nestor's feed for the last year. In the end she had agreed to it, as long as he agreed, that they frame the notification under the guise that: an ambassador from The Island had been sent to negotiate a protection deal with Nestor Bravo and should be arriving at Nestor's camp that night. It was to be a historic moment, the final negotiation of peace that would bring Nestor to The Island.

  Behind Miho, October giggled incessantly, slapping the tops of his thighs in excitement. Flores leaned in and whispered in her ear.

  "It comes down to this then."

  "It does," she agreed.

  "And if they fail?"

  "They won't."

  "You are so sure? What if they do?"

  "Then you take his role. You don't think I just keep you around for you looks, do you, Mr. Flores?"

  Flores nodded and turned around to watch October bounce like a child in excitement. He turned back and looked at Miho, the woman seemed calm, but Flores noticed that her hand was fidgeting inside of her sleeve.

  Chapter 93

  ***

  Three days out from the basement and Nestor still didn't trust himself. His instincts and senses were off just enough that he lacked the confidence to act on them. He crouched at the edge of the fire's light, stared into the darkness and dug into the dirt at his feet with his knife.

  "Nestor, you're making me nervous. Sit down by the fire and relax."

  Nestor didn't acknowledge the command. He spat and stayed in his crouch, the wolf sniffing the air beside him.

  "There's something wrong, Caleb."

  "You're paranoid. Ever since the fever your way of compensating for not being a hundred percent is being a paranoid asshole. It's really starting to get on my nerves."

  Again Nestor spat and kept his eyes focused on the darkness. Caleb laughed and returned his gaze to the fire. The wind came across the plain, carrying a haze of dust with it. The fire bent and cowered with the gust of wind, but returned back to normal in the following stillness. Caleb had just reached forward to readjust one of the logs, when the first of the water from the water jug Nestor was holding began to pour onto the fire.

  "What the hell?!" Caleb shouted falling back from the rising steam.

  "Grab what you can and run, don't look back!"

  "What, I'm not…"

  Nestor dropped the empty water jug and jumped through the steam of the extinguished fire and lifted Caleb into the air, face to face.

  "Don't argue, they're here, it's now. You have to go, Caleb, they won't come after you. Bragg, will see this and he'll come for you. You hear that, Bragg? When you see this, you come for Caleb! Now run north!"

  Nestor let go of Caleb who stood still, to shocked to move.

  "If something is coming I'm not leaving you to die, Nestor!"

  "I don't need your life on my head! Go find your little girl! Go now!" The last shout came as Nestor grabbed his rifle and ran south, into the darkness, wolf at his heals. Caleb hesitated a moment before he followed after.

  Caleb had only cleared the circle of light thrown by the fire, Nestor's footsteps just faintly audible over his own breathing, when a sharp pain hit the side of his neck and the darkness of the night engulfed him.

  Nestor had made it a quarter of a mile. He kept his head down, feet pounding into the uneven ground, until the wolf fell beside him. Nestor spun on his toe and knelt beside the wolf. His hand quickly found the dart in the wolf's neck. A blinding light hit Nestor in the eyes.

  "Drop your gun, Nestor, you're surrounded. You move, we kill you then we kill the wolf and go back and kill your friend. I'm not playing around."

  Nestor without a thought dropped the rifle and placed his second hand on the side of the white wolf. Several other lights turned on, the one in his eyes lowered so that Nestor could see the sergeant's face.


  "Nestor Bravo. It is an honor to meet you. I want you to understand that I recognize that I'm alive because you chose to protect your friend and the wolf. Had you been alone, you would have found a way. I know it. That's why soldiers can't have friends. But, as a soldier, I understand why you'd want them. I had my men use darts on them, out of that respect. By the way, your friend Caleb, he followed you. He's a good man. I'll leave him here so your buddy Bragg can come get him, like you asked. Do you feel that I've been fair?"

  "Yes."

  "Any last words?"

  Nestor looked up at the sergeant's face and then moved his eyes back to the wolf. He petted the white fur and smiled.

  "No."

  "Good," the sergeant said as he raised up his gun and smiled. "October Carnegie says goodbye."

  The sergeant pulled the gun's trigger. Nestor's feed went dark.

  Chapter 94

  ***

  Screams and yells of shock came floating on the ocean breeze to the Presidential Mansion. October sat, frozen, staring at the blackness of the screen. Miho and Flores watched him, waiting. October finally forced himself up to standing and turned, unsteadily, and faced them.

  "What… what just happened?"

  "It appears sir, that Nestor Bravo was just killed by an Islander hit squad."

  "No… how… they were going to wear masks to look like mutants," October muttered while stumbling aimlessly around the room like a drunk. "It was supposed to look like mutants killed Nestor."

  "My guess would be, Jacob infiltrated our military, sir," Miho said her eyes dropping down to her screen. "I'm having security seal off the Presidential Mansion's grounds. I'm programming the security lockdown of the Mansion itself. The majority of the population is unarmed, though in time they could be problematic. The military is traditionally loyal to the President, but in the case of…"

  "No. Stop talking, Miho. How did this happen? How?!"

  "That will come later!" she snapped. "First, we'll issue a Presidential decree. The military leadership has been compromised. The military is to go under 24 hour lock down, keep them in the barracks. All of the military barracks have security locks that we can use…"

  "Why?" October muttered with a soft and uncertain voice.

  "Because they might come and kill you, sir. You just killed Nestor Bravo."

  "I didn't. It wasn't me."

  "I know that, sir, but they don't."

  October came across the room and leaned down, hands placed pleadingly on Miho's shoulders.

  "Miho, the people, this will make them hate me. They'll hate me."

  "If you're lucky, sir. If you're not, they're going to kill you."

  These last words were punctuated by Miho shaking off the President's hands, programming into her screen the military lockdown command and October Carnegie falling to the ground unconscious.

  BOOK FOUR

  ***

  "My father said that one of the side effects of the Apocalypse was that the smell of the Earth changed. Cities, farms, suburbs, nature, all had their own smell, but put them all together and you ended up with the smell of the Earth. That was gone after the missiles took flight - along with the cities, farms, suburbs and nature. Smell is the sense most tied to memory.

  "A strange thing began happening after the Apocalypse. People stopped being able to remember things. Some people think it's a survival thing. It's easier to live through hell if you don't remember what it was like before. If you don't remember how good it was, it's harder to miss and you get on with your day. I personally think it was the smell that made everyone forget. Whatever the reason, they forgot what it was to be free, or to rebel, to fight, to not be beaten.

  "In general, it was a fine time to be in politics.

  "My father said that what Nestor did was help people remember what it was to be human. To be free and fight for survival. He was a leader of men, a ruler I guess, not because he wanted to be, but because people wanted to be him. That's what made him so dangerous. That, and the way he shot people in the face."

  - President Nevers, "Thoughts on The Art of Ruling"

  Chapter 95

  ***

  "Nestor?" Caleb asked as his eyes struggled open.

  "Dead. Nestor's dead. Carnegie's men killed him. The feed went dead. It hasn't come back on. The soldier who shot him, he told Nestor how you'd followed… so he knew. Everyone knows," Bragg shrugged as he helped Caleb stand up. "I thought that might make it better."

  Caleb only nodded and then moved without resistance into the passenger seat of the car.

  During the whole drive Caleb stayed silent, which was fine for Bragg. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw the way that Caleb was continually rubbing his neck where the dart had found him.

  As they passed the last of the desert, Caleb straightened in his seat and reached forward, placing a hand on the dash.

  "It's Bragg, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, Bragg, I hate to point out the obvious, but you seem to be driving straight into an army of mutants."

  "Yeah."

  "Okay. Seems like a bad idea."

  "Seems that way."

  Bragg smiled as the panic grew in the small man, but, finally giving into sympathy he said, "They won't stop us or hurt us."

  "They won't?"

  "No. They just stay here. They never harm us or interfere. They just sit around smoking cigars and guarding that tent."

  Before Caleb could ask, he saw rising over the horizon a large white tent. The sea of mutants around them parted peacefully and looked at the car as Bragg slowly drove past. Their eyes were mostly curious, though Caleb felt he could see hunger in some. No one made any effort to curtail their movement. Some of the mutants, in particular the ones near the giant tent held impossibly large guns, but they held them casually and made no gestures to the car.

  "What's going on here? What's in the tent?"

  "We don't know. Mutants go in. Not us. They don't ever attack and we think it's wise not to ask why. They let us pass through their camp whenever we please. Human survivors trickle in steadily and we let them into the tunnels. Time passes."

  "On The Island?"

  "Riots, I hear. At first they say the military got locked in, trapped, but the riots turned on them too. The President, his security detail, the military, anyone complicit in the death of Nestor Bravo became a target of the screaming mobs of Islanders. Mobs of pretty women and old men."

  "What are the Founders doing about it?"

  "The Founders are dead. It's just Carnegie in charge now. Well, him and a few generals I suppose. They haven't done anything. Just held the line, which isn't hard when you have all the weapons. They just seem to be waiting."

  "For what?"

  "Same thing as us I guess: whatever comes next."

  Bragg slowed down and parked the car next to a subway entrance guarded by a group of ten tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed boys, who had big rifles and bigger smiles. At the sight of Bragg they stood at attention.

  "These are my nephews. Don't bother learning their names, there's too many that look too much alike. Boys, this is Caleb."

  The boys all stared at him from a respectful distance, heads slightly bowed. One of the boys opened a large metal gate and moved aside to allow Bragg and Caleb to pass.

  "Caleb, welcome to the tunnels of L.A., the last city of Man."

  Caleb didn't get any sense of the tunnels, since his way through was marred by an ever-growing, silent crowd of onlookers. The smell was that of burning torches and those torches cast dancing shadows over the old subway station walls.

  "Why are they looking at me like that, Bragg?"

  "You're famous, Caleb. If you let them, they'll make you a saint. If you want my opinion, don't let them. Sainthood is traditionally assigned after death so that you can finish a meal without being asked for a miracle. But hey, do what you like."

  They came to a long-dead subway train, the windows blacked out with blankets. Bragg brought him insid
e one of subway cars. It was set up with furniture and a computer screen.

  "What's this?"

  "This is your place, Caleb. Bathroom, you walk out, turn right, and you can't miss it. The electricity in here runs off a generator that I turn off at 10 every night, we don't have much electricity even still and so, if you can use a candle instead of a light, it would help. I'm going to put one of my boys on guard here to make sure you'll be left alone. This door, leads to the next car over and that's my car. You need me, come on in."

  "This is how everyone lives?"

  "At first. Now only saints like you and me who can't get privacy otherwise get their own space. Everyone else is camped out through the tunnels for now, though, at the rate survivors keep coming we may run out of tents and tunnels. But, until then."

  "Where do the survivors come from?" Caleb asked with sudden excitement.

  "Everywhere. The Mutant Army burnt the land and the crops that were left. People have nowhere to go, but here. More come everyday."

  "That doesn't make sense. I've walked all over this country and there weren't hardly any humans left. Tons of mutants, sure, but not humans. Where were all of these survivors?"

  "What can I tell you?" Bragg shrugged. "Maybe underground cities were more common than we thought."

  "Are they here?" Caleb said grabbing the big man's arm. "My city? Is Mary here? The Ohio underground city?"

  "Ohio underground city? Not yet, that I know of. But they'll get here, Caleb, you just wait. Everything is coming here, everything. Mutants, survivors, Islanders - it's all collecting right here. Someone or something is gathering everyone and everything. We just got to wait and figure out why."

  Bragg left the compartment and within minutes Caleb had fallen asleep, fully clothed, on the bed. He slept with his pistol in his hand.

  Chapter 96

  ***