Fools' Apocalypse

by Anderson Atlas

  A week passes as they keep sailing south. The stock is running low on food and drinking water. Each one of them has a limit on how much they can drink and eat, and Tanis hates it. He drinks his part and is still thirsty. He eats his share and he’s still hungry. He doesn’t tell anyone, but he only feeds Kat once a day.

  Ian tried to find a place to dock the boat for over three days, but there were too many puppets. They’re like fugitives on their own planet. Every time they get close to the shore, they attract thousands. Isabella says it would be a suicide mission if they try and get food. Tanis believes her. She, over anyone else, knows when they’re outmatched.

  So, the food is recalculated as they continue making a push for Cuba.

  Everyone takes shifts to make sure they stay on course. The night comes. It’s dark. Spooky dark. The stars are everywhere, and there’s a sliver of a moon. Tanis tries to see the shore, but there are no lights on the mainland. No one talks much. As it gets late, everyone goes to his or her room. Tanis lies on his bunk, petting Kat. He can’t sleep. He doesn’t even like closing his eyes. A few hours later, Hana opens the door.

  “You sleeping?” she asks. He shakes his head. “It’s my shift. You want to go up top with me?” Tanis jumps out of bed and goes with her. Kat follows.

  “I feel like I’m sleeping right now. . .” Tanis mentions as she takes the wheel and sends Ben to bed. Tanis slumps on the bench next to the steering wheel with his head lying on the back. “. . . and that I’ll wake up and be in my bed at home. Ma will be downstairs, and Dad in front of the TV watching football or something.”

  Hana says, “I was dating this guy before all this. We’d gone on our third date three nights prior to everyone getting sick. He’s probably one of those puppets, walkers—whatever we’re calling them.” Hana sighs. “My parents were pretty old. They were really good people. Tried their hardest to do things right. They didn’t deserve what I did.”

  “What did you do?” Tanis’s pulse quickens and he sits up. She shrugs.

  “Nothing. I mean, they didn’t deserve to die.”

  “There won’t be a funeral or anything. Not for anyone,” Tanis mumbles.

  “Well, your soul goes where it’s gonna go with or without a funeral,” Hana replies, trying to make him feel better.

  “The Egyptians didn’t believe that.” Hana didn’t know what to say to that. “I’m kidding,” Tanis mumbles. “I did a project on the Egyptians last year. They were pretty crazy about the afterlife. It was kinda boring at the time. Now I get it. Death wasn’t the last stop; you know? It was like a waiting room for the next place. You’d get resurrected into the final world. That is, if you passed all the tests.”

  “What sort of tests?”

  Tanis racks his brain, “Well, I remember it was dangerous. The dead had to be protected from all kinds of demons. They had to pass through seven gates. Finally, Osiris would judge your life. You had to tell a ton of different gods why you had a good life. Why you should get into the gods’ world. You’d go in front of Anubis, the god of death. Then it was Maat, the god of truth. Then I remember Amemet would devour your heart if it wasn’t pure, and Seth would finish you off.” Tanis looks into the darkness all around. He feels like they were passing through death into the afterlife. Maybe they’re dead right now and don’t know it. The darkness presses on him like he’s being squeezed. This creepy feeling fills him up and tears threaten to burst from his eyes.

  “Well, I’m confident they’re all in a better place,” Hana says softly. Tanis notices she looks more like a woman standing at the wheel than a cop. She’d taken off her thick belt and gun.

  “I like your necklace,” Tanis says.

  She touches it lightly. “Thanks.”

  The boat rocks gently after a gust of wind passes. Water slaps the hull regularly like a clock.

  Tanis sees Ma in his head. She’s looking at him without saying a word, just looking. It’s hard to picture her any other way, though he tries. “I wish I knew my parents were in heaven. Like, really knew, like you do.”

  Hana shrugs. “Well, there’s a little skepticism in me, unfortunately.”

  Markus comes up the cabin ladder and sits on the bench. He’d heard them talking. “Even representatives of God feel doubt. Jesus cried and prayed all night before he was crucified. And he was the Son of God.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better.” Tanis picks up the end of a rope and fiddles with it. “You know, the day before all this happened, I caught my dad fuckin’ with another chick in his office. They forgot to lock the door.” Tears flood his eyes, finally.

  Hana tightens the wheel so it can’t turn by itself and gives Tanis a hug. She sits next to him. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I was so mad at him that I didn’t care what happened to him,” He says through snot and tears. Here he is, crying in front of Hana again.

  She returns to the wheel. “We have to believe that there’s a place after death for us to go, a place where everything is better. Where people are forgiven. But even if there isn’t a place like that, we can forgive and forget.”

  “So why even live on Earth at all, if there’s a place like that?” Tanis asks.

  Markus smiles. “Earth is our chance to feel a physical body. To feel things that our spirits don’t get to feel, like pizza and snow. We also get to feel the bad things, like death and hate. Opposing forces pull and push us through this physical existence. We become more aware and enlightened, and we take that with us to the afterlife. We finally become whole.” Markus can see the doubt on Tanis’s face because he changes his tone. “Scientifically speaking, there should be no reason there aren’t multiple dimensions that carry our souls between worlds.”

  “Like the Egyptians thought,” Tanis says.

  Markus chuckles and nods. “Kind of. See, those thoughts you have in your head? They’re your body and your soul working together to give you intelligence. When you die you leave your body behind, and your soul passes from one dimension to another, along with all the knowledge you’ve gained.”

  “I’ve never quite heard a preacher say it like that,” Hana says.

  Tanis shrugs. “I just want to know. Really know. That way, what I did won’t be—” Tanis catches himself.

  Markus puts a solid hand on his shoulder. “We all want that. If you need to know how to pray, you come talk to me. I’ll teach you, it helps.” Markus goes below to get some sleep.

  It’s just Tanis and Hana again. He walks away, but she follows.

  “Earlier, you said something about what you did. What did you do?” Hana asks, looking into his eyes. He leans on the back safety-line and pets Kat lightly, but he doesn’t have enough energy to play. Kat doesn’t have much energy either. Tanis feels guilty for not giving him food. He must be starving.

  Hana doesn’t have to watch where they were going, it’s too dark anyway. She just has to keep the boat heading due south. “You can tell me. The boat can drive itself for a while. We won’t get near land for a long time.” She picks a strand of hair out of his face and tucks it behind his ear. Tanis’s Ma used to do that. He used to get so mad when she tried to groom him like he was a poodle. Now, he’d give anything to be prepped by her.

  “What if Cuba is like the U.S.? Too many puppets to land?” he asks, barely able to push air through his voice box.

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we get there,” Hana insists.

  “I have a bad feeling about this.” Tanis takes a deep breath. “I need to tell you something. Just in case. I need to tell someone.”

  She rubs his back. “Go ahead, but I promise you, we’ll be fine.”

  Ian walks up, interrupting what Tanis was about to say. He’d been off on the dark side of the boat. Hana stands. She doesn’t have the energy to do anything but stare.

  “Shift is up. You guys can go to sleep.”

  Tanis hurries down to his bunk. Andy lays on the top one. He clicks his flashlight on and shines it on Tanis. “Hey.”

 
; “Why aren’t you sleeping with Rice?” Tanis cringes at the brightness and ducks from its illumination. He lies on top of the sheets. It’s way too hot to bundle up.

  “She snores and takes the sheets. I’m old enough to sleep by myself.” He plays with the light on the ceiling. “Do you miss your mommy and daddy?”

  “Yeah. Go to sleep.” A moment later Tanis adds with a sigh, “My parents were cool. I was lucky. Some of my friends’ parents were freaking wankers. Did you have good parents?”

  “Uh huh. My mommy read me stories and made the best cupcakes, and my daddy liked to swim with me. He was going to teach me to dive when he and Mommy got back from their ‘parents only’ vacation.”

  The sinking feeling comes over Tanis. It has become so familiar it’s like an old friend, swarming over his thoughts and body and turns the darkness into a tight space. He wants to take back what he did. He imagines that moment when he stuck the USB in to the computer, but this time, at the last moment, he changes his mind. The world doesn’t end and he goes home like any normal day.

  “My dad taught me all kinds of stuff. He was the smartest guy I knew.” Tanis wipes his nose on his sleeve. “Hey, I’ll teach you to dive if you want.”

  “Really? I’m scared to dive.”

  “Yeah, everyone is scared at first. But you just jump. And you remember that you’re falling into water. It’s like falling into pillows. You’re not scared of pillows are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then you’ll do awesome. The next time we stop we’ll go diving.”

  “Yeah!”

  “Now really, go to sleep, dude.” Tanis can’t shake the thought that he has nothing but this damn photo of his parents. He’s alone. Even though he doesn’t want to believe it, the only thing that makes sense is that this is it. There’s nothing after that light goes out. Nothing that lasts forever. No laughing or good times in heaven. But nothing means there are no sad things either. Maybe when that day comes for him he’ll be fine. He’ll fall into that endless nothingness and everything will be gone. It scares him shitless thinking about it. He presses the photo of his parents to his chest.

  Chapter 1.30

  Markus:

  Book of Revelation

  Markus’s rear end is sore and raw from sitting on this camel day in and day out. According to Mitchell, they’d entered Algeria an hour ago. All he knows is that his posterior needs salvation in a big way and the temperature must be over one hundred degrees. His doctor is going to smack him across the face for being so stupid with his old bones. The horizon is nothing but sand and hills, still quite a sight. In contrast to the blue sky, the hills look yellow, their shadows crisp and dark.

  When the hills level out, Markus can see the famous mirage run along the horizon. And that’s where it stays, just out of reach. When the sun vanishes, they camp. It truly is in the middle of nowhere, without a tree in sight. This is another night in the isolation of miles and miles of sand. Only their voices, the rumbling of stomachs, and the breeze keeps them company.

  The temperature at night drops to near freezing. It’s so cold his muscles cramp and he shivers in fits. They sit around a small coal fire, but it’s hardly warm. It will be their last fire because there is no more coal. Mitchell pours hot water into Markus’s mug. He stirs in a spoonful of sugar and some instant coffee. They’d run out of the good stuff yesterday.

  Mitchell studies the red folder, distracting himself by looking at the Stone of Allah and through the paperwork they’d stolen.

  “It seems like these guys were mapping out the flow of a virus across the United States.” He shows Markus the diagram. “They illustrate multiple infection points. It would seem that the best place to release a virus is New York City. From there it has the best chance of spreading across the continent.”

  “New York, huh?” Markus comments. “The city that never sleeps.”

  “Millions come and go every day, two international airports and hordes of people shoulder to shoulder.” He scratches his beard. “Why would someone want to kill the world?”

  “God doesn’t want the world to end, but He’s going to sacrifice it one day in order to make a Heaven on Earth. See, it’s not about death; it’s about redemption. It’s not God’s will; it’s His truth. God doesn’t live by our definition of time. He’s already witnessed the Apocalypse.”

  Mitchell looks surprised. “Have you lost your marbles, old man?”

  Markus shakes his head, “The Apocalypse will come. Some think the signs are happenin’ today. I believe we should all be living pure lives in preparation for the Second Coming.”

  Mitchell waves Markus off, “I’m not a religious man. To me that sounds like the same crazy stuff radical Muslims blow themselves up for.”

  Markus wraps his long dress tight around his chest in a vain attempt to keep his body warm. “There are Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. Conquest has already come. The Book of Revelation says, I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the Seven Seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow and he was given a crown; he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest. The arrow symbolizes advanced technology. If you had a bow in those days, you were advanced. The bow and the crown, which symbolize modern technology and greed, spread across the world in the ultimate conquest. Some call it globalism.

  “The second horseman is War. Again in Revelations it says, When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, ‘Come!’ Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. That would be the Antichrist. The man that fits that description is Liam Gershald. He’s the CEO of the Cantel Corporation. It was the Cantel Corporation that hired a military to fight rebels in Somalia to protect its assets, a historical first for a corporation. Now, because the rebels were really bad guys, the world did not protest or sanction the action. Gershald is working to get the United Nations to depose of the Sudanese and the North Korean governments. Some say he’s got influence in our White House. They talk about building the largest army in history to do it, a private army, fighting three wars financed by corporate interests.”

  Mitchell huffs, “Conspiracy theory. Blah, blah, blah. You can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it. Convenient for your argument.”

  Markus continues anyway. “The Third Horseman is Famine. When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, ‘Come!’ I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hands. Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, ‘A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!’

  “This period of famine is important. It’s not a famine of food you see. It’s a famine of energy. The oil is drying up. The world hit peak oil production years ago. We use over five billion gallons a day. Oil will become so valuable it will ignite small wars on the planet that eventually lead to one big war and the final days. We already have five conflicts over oil in Africa. Three belong to the Cantel Corporation and the United Nations alone.

  “When the Fourth Horseman arrives it will bring Death. When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, ‘Come!’ I looked and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hell was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the Earth. That’s when most of the people on this Earth die. It will restart humanity. It may end a lot of suffering as well as bring the righteous to God.”

  “That sounds lovely, but isn’t it true that in every century there are signs that the Second Coming is on our doorstep? Weren’t the Crusades started because the church thought that the war over Palestine was the war that will
return Christ to Earth?” Mitchell asks rhetorically. He’s a well-read man. “During World War II people thought the same thing.”

  “Yes. It is true.” Markus pulls out a piece bread and takes a bite. “Whatever God’s plan is; I’ll always be His humble soldier. I do not pretend to know what His plan is.”

  “You do that.”

  Markus flips through the red folder, finds a particular page, and points to the Arabic writing. “What does this say?”

  “The Stone of Allah is the hammer of Allah. It has brought death. It will bring death again. So, these guys think this stone will pave the way for Allah to return?” Mitchell muses.

  “Well, in truth, our version of the end of times and the Muslim version aren’t that different. Details are different, but the outcome is the same. The righteous will survive,” Markus says. “You see, God plans. There are reasons for things. A purpose to all that we do.”

  Mitchell takes the red envelope, “So, you were destined to find this stuff? Why?”

  “I will know in the days to come.”

  As Markus tries to sleep in the icy, dry air, he can’t help but wonder why God has sent him to this place and this time.

  He relaxes, his body pressed into the soft sand and stares at the stars. The Milky Way stretches across the heavens like the most intricately sewn silk embroidery so perfect in its light, and so vast. God is so much bigger than humans. “His plan for us will be known, and He will take care to make our path clear.”

  Chapter 1.31

  Hana:

  The Ghosts at Sea

  Hana wakes up in one of the staterooms of the Pioneer. She’d never slept on a boat before. The rocking back and forth is such a nice feeling. Her nose instantly picks up the smell of bacon. She leaps up, throw on her dirty sports bra, checks her hair in the mirror— regrets looking—and hurries out for breakfast.