Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse: A Novel

by Victor Gischler

  “We can follow the tracks,” Bill suggested.

  “No,” Sheila said. “If we go along the creek a mile or so, we’ll cross a dirt road that takes us south. Nobody will see us. Come on.” She didn’t look back to see if they followed.

  They hesitated only a moment before running after her.

  The stars were brilliant in the night sky, the moon a crescent of glowing silver. The night was cold but not bitterly so. Mortimer slung the Nike tote over his shoulder, fixed the Maxfli cap firmly on his head.

  “Where’s she taking us?” Bill asked.

  “Away.”

  Behind them, the scattered shots sounded like popcorn. Like a string of firecrackers on the Fourth of July.

  HIKING AND CAMPING

  XXV

  Sheila led them farther and for longer than Mortimer would have hiked if it were up to him. The creek twisted past houses and into the forest. After a long time it hit a dirt road.

  “The logging trucks used to come through here,” Sheila said.

  Mortimer expected her to stop and make camp, but she climbed up the embankment to the road and kept going.

  Bill finally spoke up. “Any time you want to s-stop is f-fine with me. I wouldn’t say no to a fire.” He didn’t have a coat and shivered.

  “Not yet.” She kept walking.

  They marched by starlight and the wan glow of the moon. Another hour slid by. Bill marched with his head down, his back bent, carrying the sack of goods from the Joey’s pantry. At last, Sheila halted, looked about, seemed to get her bearings. She dove into the woods, and Mortimer found himself on a narrow path.

  The path soon opened into a clearing, and Mortimer made out the vague shape of a structure. As they approached, he saw it was some kind of picnic area.

  To Bill Sheila said, “Get wood if you want a fire.”

  Bill dropped the sack, started picking up sticks.

  “What is this place?” Mortimer asked.

  Sheila relit the candle and held it up to a brown sign with yellow lettering. TVA STATE PRESERVE. PICNIC AREA E.

  “We were here when it got the worst,” Sheila said. Her voice was flat and cold. “A Brownie troop. Kyle was the husband of our den mother.”

  Mortimer was glad it was dark. He didn’t want Sheila to see the look on his face.

  Bill dropped an armload of wood next to the fire pit. “Let’s get this f-fucking thing lit. I’m freezing my b-balls off.”

  They made a circle around the fire and ate chunks of brown bread taken from the Joey’s pantry. Nobody had the energy to cook anything. Sheila pulled a tightly rolled, very thin sleeping bag out of her backpack. She unrolled it three feet from the fire and slipped inside. The sleeping bag was pink, with pictures of the Little Mermaid on the front.

  Mortimer gave his thin blanket to Bill, who didn’t have a coat. He used his tote bag as a pillow. The fire took the edge off the cold. Even Bill had stopped shivering.

  In spite of a deep exhaustion, none of them could fall immediately to sleep. The buzz of the danger they’d left behind still coursed through Mortimer’s veins, his mind tumbling and turning with a hundred thoughts. Maybe the others felt the same way. Mortimer glanced around the small camp and saw open eyes glinting in the firelight.

  “Maybe we should count sheep,” Mortimer said.

  Bill yawned. “That’ll just make me hungry for mutton.”

  “How did you end up at the Cleveland Joey’s, Sheila?”

  She didn’t say anything for a while, like she was trying to figure out how to start. Finally, she said, “I sort of panicked after Kyle was killed. I know that probably sounds stupid, but you get used to someone telling you what to do all the time, when to eat and when to sleep, and, well, just everything. I went back to the firehouse at first.”

  Sheila sat up, wrapped the pink sleeping bag around her, stared into the fire. “After spending one night by myself, I knew I couldn’t just stay there and do nothing, if only because the food would run out. But it wasn’t that so much. I just felt I had to go, you know? I haven’t really thought about it until now, not clearly, not asking myself what I was thinking or if I had any plans, because I didn’t. I didn’t have any plans except I had to go. But thinking back, I guess I knew that it was up to me. That I could go or stay or live or lie down and die and it was completely up to me and nobody else. It was scary that first day, not having anyone tell me what to do, but once I packed everything and left the firehouse, I didn’t see how I’d ever lived before. I guess I hadn’t lived, not actually. I was just this thing that Kyle used. When he died, I started living.”

  Mortimer propped himself up on one elbow. “What happened?”

  She pulled her gaze away from the fire, met Mortimer’s eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, to end up at Joey’s. You were suddenly free, but then you ended up…” Mortimer couldn’t bring himself to say a whore. “It seems like you went from serving one man to serving any old man who walked through Joey’s front door.”

  Sheila cocked her head to one side, eyes squinting like she was trying to understand a duck that had suddenly started speaking French.

  “It’s different,” she said. “You don’t understand at all. Men come from miles around to see me. They need what I can do for them. Kyle made me think I needed him. And that was wrong. Men want me. Need me.”

  “Don’t get upset,” Mortimer said. “I didn’t mean anything.”

  “I’m not upset. I just can’t believe you don’t understand. If you think being at Joey’s is the same as being with Kyle, if you don’t see how it’s totally different, then I don’t know how to explain it to you.”

  Now Mortimer sat up, made vague shushing motions. “Look, I know it’s a lot safer at Joey’s. They treat you well and feed you and it’s like a million times better than what Kyle was doing. Of course it was a better situation.”

  “You still don’t get it.” She did appear angry now, her hard eyes flashing in the firelight. “I have worth. At Joey Armageddon’s they recognize that worth. They showed me I have value. All those years, Kyle wasn’t raping me. He was robbing me.”

  Sleep came eventually. Mortimer awoke the next morning to the smell of sausage and coffee and thought he’d weep for joy.

  “Morning.” Sheila tended the fire, cooked the mystery sausages in the pan Mortimer had purchased just yesterday. She didn’t seem upset. The morning was bright. Birds sang. The air was crisp and sweet.

  “Where’s Bill?”

  She said, “Off somewhere taking a shit, I think.”

  Right.

  She pointed deeper into the forest. “If you go that way you’ll find a nice, clear stream if you want to wash up. I got some water earlier, but I used it for the coffee.” She handed him his tin cup.

  The cup was hot, and Mortimer used the tail of his shirt to hold it. The cold morning air drifted up his shirt and chilled him. He ignored it, held the coffee up to his nose. It smelled damn good. “Thanks.”

  Sheila poked at the sausages with a fork. “Breakfast soon.”

  “Okay. Guess I’ll splash some water on my face.”

  He wandered off to find the stream, in no particular hurry. The forest was starting to fill in with green; still no underbrush, but pine needles were thick on every branch. It was pleasant. Mortimer could almost pretend he was on a camping trip. It was pretty here; maybe there was even good fishing in the stream. He had not been fly-fishing in a long time.

  Anne had never cared for fishing, but she liked hiking and the outdoors in general. Their last real vacation had been to Las Vegas, and neither of them had enjoyed it; they had spent most of the time complaining that they should have gone to Yellowstone instead. Maybe if they’d gone to Yellowstone the next year it could have saved things. Maybe that would have been the start, gotten things back on track.

  They never got around to it.

  Mortimer found the stream, splashed water on his face. It was freezing, but even that was pleasant, the wet sting
waking him up. And the coffee. That woke him up too, warmed his belly.

  Mortimer sat on a rock and watched the stream go by and sipped coffee, and was quietly happy that not everything in the world was broken. There were still clear early mornings and hot cups of coffee.

  Sheila’s scream echoed through the forest. Mortimer dropped the tin cup and was already running before it hit the ground.

  XXVI

  Halfway back to camp, Mortimer made himself slow down. He wouldn’t be able to help anyone if he ran straight into a trap. He moved as quickly as he could while remaining quiet.

  At the edge of the camp, he crouched low. He saw bodies moving through the low-hanging pine boughs. He scooted around, trying to get a better look. Two men, no, three, standing near Sheila. One had her by the shirt lapel. She was trying to pull away. The men laughed.

  “Doing some camping, sweetheart?” asked the one holding her.

  “Fuck off.”

  That made him laugh more.

  “Who’s here with you?” asked one of the other ones.

  “Just me, asshole.”

  “She’s got a mouth on her,” the third one said.

  “She’s got a sweet little caboose on her.” The one who held her pulled her closer, dropped his rifle so he could grope.

  Sheila aimed a kick at his groin. He turned and took it on the thigh, grunted.

  The other two men laughed at him. Mortimer saw the armbands. Red Stripes. He tensed to spring out at them, but what could he do? All three carried rifles. Mortimer could see his shotgun leaning against his Nike bag on the other side of the campfire.

  “Stupid cunt.” He yanked at her shirt and it ripped, the buttons popping halfway down. Sheila gasped, fear blooming in her eyes, no trace of defiance anymore. He yanked again and the shirt ripped open. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her breasts sprang out, immediately goose-pimpled in the cold air. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back, her mouth gaping open, a scream caught in her throat.

  Three of them. Mortimer couldn’t take three. Not barehanded.

  The bushes rustled on the other side of the camp, and Bill bumbled through, buckling his belt. “I thought I heard—oh, hell.”

  The third Red Stripe swung his rifle, aimed it at Bill. The tip of the barrel was a foot from Bill’s nose. “Hey, man! Hold it right there.”

  Bill froze, eyes big.

  Sheila dropped to one knee, grabbed the coffeepot off the campfire.

  The guy holding her looked down to see what she was doing, and she splashed it all. The scalding coffee hit his eyes and he dropped her, screaming. Falling to the ground, pawing at the bright red flesh of his scorched face.

  Mortimer was already out of his hiding place and running toward them. He threw himself on one Red Stripe, pinned his arms so the guy couldn’t bring his rifle up. The one near Bill turned, aimed at Mortimer. Mortimer saw what was happening and turned his captive toward the Red Stripe firing at him. The rifle barked, and Mortimer felt the man in his arms twitch and die, a bloody hole in his chest. He dropped him, turned toward the man with the coffee eyes, who was already on his feet again.

  Bill jumped the Red Stripe near him. They wrestled, went down.

  Mortimer advanced on coffee eyes, but the Red Stripe pulled a revolver from his belt, brought it up toward Mortimer, who flinched back.

  An explosion, the echoing crack of pistol fire.

  The Red Stripe’s head exploded above the temple, hair and bone and blood flying up and away. His whole body vibrated like some obscene tuning fork before it collapsed.

  Sheila stood a dozen feet away, holding an enormous automatic pistol in both hands, her open shirt flapping in the breeze, a look of wild animal rage on her face.

  Bill had wrested the rifle away from the last Red Stripe. He stood over him, about to bring the rifle butt down on his head.

  “Wait!” Mortimer shouted.

  Bill took a step back, but still held the rifle ready to strike.

  Mortimer bent and pried the pistol from the dead Red Stripe’s hand. He took it to the Red Stripe near Bill, aimed at a spot between the Red Stripe’s eyes. There was fear there, and he held his hands up feebly like he might ward off the bullet.

  “Now,” Mortimer said. “I’m going to need you to answer a few questions.”

  They used Sheila’s ruined shirt to tie the captive’s hands behind the trunk of a thin pine. He sat up against the bark, looking afraid.

  Sheila put on her only spare shirt, a navy blue turtleneck, and joined Bill and Mortimer in staring down at the prisoner. They made a menacing trio. Mortimer held the .38 revolver he’d liberated from the head-shot Red Stripe, and Bill cradled one of the deer rifles in his arms. Sheila’s automatic turned out to be a .50 Desert Eagle, and Mortimer marveled that the little girl had not been knocked back on her ass when she’d fired the thing.

  The Red Stripe said his name was Paul.

  Sheila said they couldn’t give a shit and pointed the giant gun at his face.

  “Just hold on.” Mortimer took her by the elbow and pulled her back, felt her muscles tense. “I want some information.”

  “Look, I really don’t know much,” Paul said.

  “We’ll decide that.”

  “I didn’t even want to be a Red Stripe.”

  Bill smirked. “You just in it for their generous medical benefits?”

  “I got drafted,” Paul said. “They found me down in Georgia. I was just minding my own business and scrounging for food, and they picked me up and said I could join up or they would put my head on a pike as a warning to everyone else.”

  “Like hell,” Sheila said.

  “I’m telling you true, man,” Paul said. “Let me go, and I’ll run in the opposite direction.”

  “If you didn’t want to be a Red Stripe, then why didn’t you three just run off now while you had the chance?” Bill asked.

  “They always make sure there’s at least three of us together. The guy with the pistol was our unit leader, and we can never know if the other two will gang up on us if we try to run away. They always rotate us around, so we can’t ever trust anybody.”

  Mortimer recalled the three Red Stripes he’d killed up on the mountain. “Check the rifles, Bill. How many rounds?”

  Bill looked in each rifle. “Only one bullet each.”

  Mortimer thought about it and nodded. “I think he’s telling the truth.”

  Sheila snorted. “I think he’s a lying sack of shit.”

  “I ran into three Red Stripes before,” Mortimer told them. “They only had one bullet each.”

  “That’s right,” Paul said. “You see? They don’t want us to mutiny.”

  “Why did you attack the Joey Armageddon’s in Cleveland?”

  “I don’t know,” Paul said. “They said attack, so we attacked.”

  “Who gives the orders?”

  Paul said, “The company captains give the orders to the unit leaders. I just do what I’m told.”

  “I mean the head guy. Who’s in charge of the whole deal?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “He’s lying.” Sheila thrust the gun back at him.

  “I’m just a grunt.” Paul cast a pleading look at Mortimer. “You got to keep her off me, man.”

  “Like you were staying off me a little while ago?” She spat at him, and it landed on his ear.

  “That wasn’t me, man. That was Brandon. He’s, like, a fucking animal.”

  “You didn’t try to stop him.” Cold hatred in her eyes.

  “I told you. I’m just a grunt.”

  “You must’ve heard rumors,” Mortimer said. “Something about your leader.”

  “There’s always talk around camp. Nobody knows what’s true and what’s bullshit.”

  “Talk.”

  “They say he’s eight feet tall and has pointed teeth like a shark’s.”

  “Do you want me to shoot your goddamn face off?” Sheila yelled.

  “You asked, so
I told you.”

  “Try us with something a little more credible,” Mortimer suggested.

  “Most stories agree his headquarters is down south,” Paul said. “He sends out his spies to get information and deliver orders to the company captains. Sometimes people will just disappear, and everyone always says it’s one of the Czar’s spies doing an assassination.”

  “The Czar?”

  “That’s what everyone calls him.”

  “Why?”

  Paul shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

  Sheila growled. “You’re a useless asshole.”

  “Take it easy,” Mortimer said.

  “Fuck easy,” Sheila said. “You don’t think this guy would have taken his turn if you hadn’t come back? Him and his buddies?”

  Paul shook his head. “No way. I—”

  “Shut your goddamn mouth.” She put the barrel of the automatic against his forehead, pressed hard.

  “Hey, man, get her off—”

  “Sheila, let’s not get excited, maybe just…” Mortimer took a step toward her.

  “I should blow your fucking balls off, pig.” She aimed the gun lower.

  “Sheila, don’t—”

  “She’s crazy, man. Get her away—”

  Bang.

  Paul howled.

  Bill jumped back. “Fucking shit!”

  Mortimer could only watch in horror.

  Blood gushed from the ragged hole between Paul’s legs. It came out fast, forming an ever-widening pool, like somebody had kicked over a five-gallon tub of raspberry syrup.

  “Oh, God! Holy shit, man.” Hot tears rolling down Paul’s suddenly pale face. “You’ve got to help me. Oh, Jesus.”

  “In some places, they chop off a thief’s hand,” Sheila said. “This is what you get.”

  “Oh, Jesus God, help me, fucking shit, I’m going to die, oh, shit.” The blood gushed out so fast, they could see him actually deflate, shrinking against the pine trunk.

  Mortimer gulped. “Do we have a first-aid kit, something to staunch the blood?”

  “Are you kidding?” Bill looked green. “He’s like a damn blood geyser or something. How do we stop that?”