Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse: A Novel

by Victor Gischler

  The orange-pink smear of dawn was just hinting over the horizon when Mortimer clapped Ted on the shoulder and motioned him to follow. He waited until they were a quarter-mile away before speaking in a low voice.

  “Thanks for taking last watch. Makes it easier.”

  “Your friends are going to be pissed,” Ted said.

  “It’s for their own good. What about the reverend?”

  Ted shrugged. “He’s a practical man. He’ll understand, and he can show your people a safe route away from the city.”

  “Let’s make tracks.”

  They traveled quickly toward downtown, the buildings growing taller around them with each mile. Ted cautioned that they were well within the Czar’s patrol radius and would need to keep their eyes and ears open.

  Yeah, thought Mortimer, like I’ve been on a Sunday stroll until now.

  They passed a number of rotting heads on tall pikes. The entire city had a haunted feel about it.

  Near Peachtree Plaza, Ted abruptly pulled Mortimer into the shadows of a doorway. They watched in silence as six Red Stripes marched in loose formation on a cross street in front of them. The patrol did not appear to be particularly alert.

  Mortimer and Ted scampered from hiding place to hiding place all day like that, dodging four more patrols, making their way closer to the Czar’s headquarters.

  Twice, Mortimer heard engines in the distance, and once he saw a Buick speeding across downtown with two Red Stripes inside. The Buick sported a flag on the antenna, white with a red stripe across the middle.

  “If he’s getting gas, why do the Red Stripes still patrol on foot?” Mortimer asked. “Seems like he could put them all in pickup trucks.”

  “Various reasons,” Ted said. “First of all, they’re saving up the fuel for some kind of big push. The Czar has some kind of surprise in mind, but none of my operatives can find out what it might be. Even old Ted can’t sniff it out. Also, the Czar’s not able to hang on to all of his gas shipments. Somebody’s been raiding his supply line. Heck, we do that ourselves on a small scale. It’s how we get gas for Blowfish’s little motor.”

  “Who’s making the raids?”

  “Search me,” Ted said.

  They continued on, finally entering the back door of a building, walking the hallways all the way to the other side, ducking below a window that faced a street on the next block.

  “That’s the Czar’s stronghold,” Ted said.

  Mortimer raised his head for a brief glance and ducked down again. “The Omni/CNN Center?”

  “Can you believe that shit?” Ted’s face went red. “Pisses me right off!”

  Mortimer chanced another look, saw a dozen guards or so standing on either side of the entrance.

  “That’s the Czar’s castle,” Ted said. “He hatches all his schemes in there, and his men come and go all day and night carrying out his orders.”

  “What’s the Czar look like?”

  “Haven’t you heard? Eight feet tall with fangs like a shark.”

  Mortimer’s eyes grew big until he caught the old man’s smile. He laughed. “I heard ten feet tall.”

  “What now?” Ted asked.

  “This is as far as you go.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice. I’m not quite as concerned about your hide as your friends are, but I do wish you luck. You going to bluff your way?”

  “Yup.”

  They shook hands.

  Ted said, “I’m going to try to get in touch with my people. Who knows? Maybe we can come up with something to help.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Try not to die, Mortimer Tate.” And then he was gone. Atlanta’s old, gray ghost.

  Mortimer watched and waited for an hour. He told himself he was trying to get the lay of the land first, familiarize himself with troop movements before going in. Who was he fooling? He was trying to get up the courage.

  Mortimer took a deep breath, walked out the front door and crossed the street.

  XLVI

  When there had been such a thing as television, Mortimer had watched a show called Cops. In this show, police officers habitually wrestled perpetrators to the ground, where they would hit face-first—often on cement—and then have their arms pinned painfully behind their backs in preparation for a pair of handcuffs.

  Mortimer knew exactly what that felt like now.

  When Mortimer had crossed the street and casually announced he wanted to see the head honcho, the guards on duty had been momentarily frozen by his audacity. They recovered quickly and gang-piled him, leaving his bottom lip swollen and bloody, various bruises along the length of his body.

  His hands were tied behind his back.

  He was searched.

  He was disarmed.

  He was taken to a very small room just inside the CNN entrance and put in an uncomfortable chair, a guard standing in front of him, stone-faced, arms crossed, a pistol in a shoulder holster.

  Mortimer waited for half an hour before another man entered the room. He stood medium height, medium weight, brown hair of a medium shade, but his eyes were blue and active, giving Mortimer a quick appraisal. He wore a well-cut black suit with a black tie. The red armband the only splash of color. An eel-skin briefcase in his grip.

  “Hello.” Too cheerful.

  “Hi,” croaked Mortimer.

  “Throat a bit raw? Want some water?”

  “Please.”

  The man left, came back thirty seconds later with a glass, tilted it to Mortimer’s lips. Mortimer drank.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem. I’m Terry Frankowski. We’re going to be spending some time together, so I hope you’ll call me Terry.”

  “Okay.”

  “So let’s have your story, Mortimer. I hope I can call you Mortimer. Mort?”

  “Mortimer is fine. How do you know my name?”

  “We found your Joey Armageddon’s Platinum membership card among your belongings,” Terry said. “Now, let’s get down to business. Ready?”

  “Sure.”

  Terry cleared his throat. “I’m a member of the Czar’s intelligence organization, but, to be perfectly honest, my specialty is analyzing data. I’m not usually involved with interrogations, but I was the only one around, and, well, beggars can’t be choosers. Am I right?”

  “I’ll try to go easy on you.”

  “Ha. That’s the spirit,” Terry said. “We’re going to get along. I can tell.”

  Terrific.

  “Now, I’ve got a list of questions and procedures here, so that should help things along.” He produced a pencil and a clipboard from his briefcase. “First question: are you here to kill the Czar?”

  “Actually,” Mortimer said, “I think I can save us some time. If I can just talk to the Czar—”

  Terry tsked, sucked air through his teeth. “Yeah, the thing is, I just have this list of questions, and I’d feel better if we just got through them. I’m a rules kind of guy, and, look, I’m going to be square with you, okay? I’m a little out of my comfort zone, so I really think I should stick with the format.”

  Mortimer said nothing.

  “Let’s skip ahead,” Terry said. “Are you here to steal gasoline or sabotage Red Stripe gasoline supplies?”

  “No.”

  “Super. Now let’s—” Terry consulted the clipboard. “Oh, wait. It says here not to believe you and in parentheses it says slap face.” Terry tsked again. “I guess we can skip that. Things are going well enough, don’t you think?”

  The stone-faced guard cleared his throat, shook his head.

  “Oh.” Terry seemed disappointed. “Rules are rules.”

  Terry leaned forward, swung his hand in a wide arc and caught Mortimer’s face with a loud, stinging slap. Lights danced in front of Mortimer’s eyes. He tasted blood, his cheek having caught on some teeth.

  Terry flipped a page on the clipboard, then another page, reading ahead. “Oh, dear. Looks like we’re in for a long day.”

&nb
sp; Mortimer assumed the dungeon had not been installed as part of the CNN Center’s original design. He hung from a damp stone wall, held there with manacles and heavy chains.

  Terry hadn’t enjoyed a moment of the interrogation, but he was very conscientious about his job, had even taken twenty minutes to find a hand-rolled cigarette among the troops so he could burn Mortimer’s forearm as the clipboard instructed. There had been more slaps and punches in between predictable questions.

  Mortimer told him everything he could without giving away the show, sticking as close to the truth as possible. Yes, he was a Platinum member. Yes, he’d recently been to the Armageddon’s on Lookout Mountain. Yes, he’d busted out of jail and escaped south. Had he been part of the recent disturbance at Stone Mountain? Huh? Who? What are you talking about?

  Mortimer answered question after question, many seemingly irrelevant. But Mortimer had his chance too, made sure Terry knew that Mortimer had valuable information and was looking to trade. He’d talk only to the Red Czar himself.

  So they’d put him in the dungeon.

  He hung there, shoulders aching.

  Waited.

  He was half asleep, in a daze, when he heard the dungeon door creak open. He didn’t open his eyes right away. If they were coming to dump more punishment on him, maybe they’d leave him alone if they thought he’d passed out.

  He heard movement, somebody close to him. He felt a soft hand on his face, a cool, wet rag dabbing at the corners of his mouth. He felt something being applied to the cigarette burns on his forearm, a salve of some kind. Instant relief.

  Mortimer chanced opening one eye, looked down at the top of a woman’s head, rich brown hair with three thin strips of gray radiating from her part down the center. She stooped over a bucket, wrung out a rag in clean water.

  He was so thirsty.

  “Who are you?” His voice so hoarse and dry.

  “How disappointing. You don’t recognize your own wife,” Anne said. “It’s only been nine years.”

  XLVII

  “Anne?” Mortimer blinked, looked into her pale blue eyes. She smiled. The gray in her hair told the years, a few more laugh lines at the eyes. But her tan face glowed smooth and young like on their wedding day, lips full, posture firm and athletic. She wore a heavy brown robe, looked like a medieval monk. She was okay. She looked good and she was okay. He’d come so far. She was okay.

  He started to cry.

  Anne’s smile fell. “What are you doing? Don’t do that.”

  The tears came hot and fast, sobs wracking his body, rattling the chains. He tried to talk, tried to tell her everything he felt upon seeing her, the love and regret and fear and so many things mixed together that not even he understood fully. He couldn’t speak, could only gulp for breath between great heaving sobs, snot running over his lips.

  Anne wiped at a tear in the corner of her own eye, wiped the snot off Mortimer’s face with the rag. “You were always a sentimental jerk.”

  “S-sorry.”

  “What are you doing here anyway?”

  She really didn’t know? “I came for you.”

  “Me? Are you crazy?”

  “You’re my wife.”

  “That was nine years ago.” Disbelief in her eyes. “I’m not your wife anymore.”

  “I never signed the divorce papers.”

  She snorted laughter. “Really? Divorce papers? Filed in what court? Do you think legal paperwork matters anymore? Do you think our mortgage matters, our life insurance policy? Where do you think you’re going to cash the savings bonds your uncle gave us?”

  “I never agreed.”

  “You don’t have to agree. I agreed for both of us.” She shook her head, went on, her voice softer. “This isn’t really about our marriage, is it? It’s been so long. You haven’t really been thinking of me as your wife. Not after all this time.”

  No. Not really. He couldn’t imagine anything could really be between them, not anymore, after so much had happened. “I had to see you. Just to know. After the way we left it. I felt I owed you. I wanted…I wanted to feel right about it.”

  “You did sort of leave me high and dry,” Anne said. She continued to wipe his face as she spoke. “I didn’t care for your little prank, and I wasn’t going to stomp around the pocket wilderness with the divorce papers in one hand and a ballpoint pen in the other, calling your name. I’d hoped you’d come to your senses, come home and act like an adult.”

  She shook her head, let out a long sigh. She lifted a cup to Mortimer’s lips. “Drink. Slowly.”

  He drank. Relief on his raw throat.

  “And I would have waited you out,” she continued, “but Mother called from Chattanooga. She was scared. You know she lives—lived—in kind of an iffy neighborhood. So I was caught there when all the shit really hit the fan. We actually made it through the first year okay, but she died that winter. I made my way back to Spring City.”

  “Looking for me?”

  “I’m sorry, Mortimer, but no. Oh, I wondered if I’d see you, but no. I wanted to go home. That simple. So stupid. My house wasn’t mine anymore.

  “I took up wandering. Learned to kill to survive. I traded myself for food. Don’t look at me like that. You know things are different now. I got tough fast. Sometimes, I thought I wanted to die, but it was never true. I wanted to live. And if you want to live, you have to understand the way things are and adjust.”

  “I’m going to get you out of here,” Mortimer said. “Maybe that won’t make up for everything, but it’s a start. I’ll figure it out.”

  “How did getting chained to the dungeon wall fit into the rescue plan?”

  “I don’t suppose you could get me down.”

  She shook her head. “No way. They let me come in to clean you up and give you some water. I think they want me to tell you to cooperate. Maybe they think seeing me will soften you up. They knew I was your wife. Did you tell them you were here for me?”

  “I told them I was here for another reason. It’s a long story.”

  “Here’s my advice: Look out for yourself. If you can get loose, don’t worry about me. I suggest telling them whatever they want to know. They can make things bad for you if they want to, a lot worse than chaining you up.”

  “I’m not leaving without you.”

  Anne frowned, made a disgusted noise. “Knock off the hero crap. I absolve you, okay? You’re forgiven, so don’t feel you owe me anything. Besides, when I was captured, they got some of my girls too, a dozen of them. I was taking them to Little Rock to open a new Joey Armageddon’s. I’m responsible for them, and I’m not leaving them. So you see, I can’t run off with you just so you can feel like a good guy.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mortimer said. “I’ve come a long way—”

  “You’re not the only one who’s come a long way and been through a lot. So have I. So have my girls. Get over yourself.”

  She lifted the cup to his lips again. “Drink more. I’ll probably have to go soon.”

  He gulped, emptied the cup.

  “At least tell me why you’re wearing that robe.”

  “This?” She stood back, opened it. Underneath she wore a hot-pink bikini. She was thinner than he remembered, stomach muscles well defined, long legs. It was the wrong place and the wrong time, but Mortimer felt the stirrings of arousal. He remembered those early days of the marriage, her legs wrapped around him, making love all night in a sweaty pile. He wanted to cry again.

  She closed the robe, sighed. “The Czar keeps us all like a harem. We all have to wear bathing suits and underwear like it’s the fucking Playboy Mansion or something.”

  “Does he make you…do things?”

  “No. We never see him. I wonder if he even exists.”

  Mortimer managed a weak smile. “Eight feet tall with shark teeth.”

  She laughed. “Yeah.”

  A knock on the door, a deep voice on the other side. “Time’s up.”

  “Okay.” She pu
t a gentle hand on Mortimer’s face, kissed his nose. “Thanks for coming, but get out of here, escape or whatever, but don’t worry about me.”

  He started to say something, but it caught in his throat.

  She gave him one last sad look and was out the door.

  Mortimer Tate hung his head. If he died right then and there, that would be just fine.

  XLVIII

  Had it been an hour or a day? Mortimer lost track of time, hanging there, feeling useless and defeated. His arms hurt.

  Someone came for him at last.

  The dungeon door creaked open. The newcomer took a step inside, stopped with his hands behind his back. An older man, maybe early sixties, dressed the same as Terry Frankowski had been, black suit with the red armband. He was gaunt, tall but slightly stooped, white hair and moustache, weak chin. He looked around the dungeon with clear brown eyes.

  “I always thought this was a bit too theatrical.” A smoker’s voice, but kindly, like somebody’s tough, lovable grandfather.

  “It’s nice,” Mortimer said. “I’m thinking of doing my summer home all medieval. So who the hell are you?”

  “Name’s Ford. Jim Ford. I’m Terry Frankowski’s boss. I’d have been the one to deal with you instead of Terry but I was off taking care of some things.”

  “You here for round two?”

  Ford shook his head. “I’m just here to fetch you. Somebody wants a quick chat. But don’t get complacent. I was an Atlanta cop for twenty-two years, and I know how to get information out of a suspect. And there’s none of that Miranda bullshit keeping me from bringing in the thumbscrews. I figure I’ll have my crack at you sooner or later.”

  “Thanks. I like you too.”

  “Keep it up, smartass.”

  Ford fished a ring of keys out of his pocket and approached Mortimer. Behind him two more thugs with pistols appeared in the doorway. Mortimer’s shoulders were sore as hell. He didn’t like the odds, but maybe after Ford got him out of the manacles, he could surprise them, get hold of one of the pistols…No. He was dreaming. They’d stomp him flat. All Mortimer could do was bide his time and see what they had in store for him.