This is the End 2: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (9 Book Collection)

by J. Thorn

  Chapter 5

  The cold November sun set as the temperature dropped. When John was last in the living room, a Halloween party was in full swing.

  On the Father’s command, the assassination squads moved through the city. The soldiers hired by the Holy Covenant rescued the small minority of the faithful while murdering the rest in God’s name.

  The black cape from a vampire costume fanned out across the floor with a pool of dark liquid shimmering under the partygoer’s cape. The man’s arms lay at odd angles and he stared at the ceiling with dead eyes. The flies that survived the bitter day buzzed above the corpse. A woman dressed as the Bee Lady slumped in a kitchen chair next to the overturned table, her open eyes and unblinking.

  John stumbled and lunged for the sink. He heaved into the stainless steel basin but nothing came up. He laughed in spite of himself, shaking his head. A winter wind whistled through the street, rattling the old windows.

  John forced himself to ignore the dead bodies as he riffled through Reggie’s cabinets looking for food that would last on the run. He grabbed a reusable shopping bag and filled it with rice cakes, peanut butter and crackers. From the fridge, John grabbed a two-liter of soda.

  He looked around the room, trying not to focus on his friends’ dead bodies.

  Murdered. They’ve all been murdered.

  He turned the flashlight on and walked from the kitchen to the dining room. He passed the beam over the oak crown molding that he helped Reggie put up a few months earlier. As the light moved down the wall, John saw dark splatters covering the light beige walls. Elsewhere he saw various friends and acquaintances in grotesque positions, arms and legs twisted in severe angles as if dropped from the sky. The faces of others sunk in sickening pools of blood. He saw the werewolf and the Headless Horseman in one corner. John moved into the living room and identified the red-headed witch, the pirate, and the French maid. He knew their names but preferred to think of them as characters in a movie.

  John passed each of the dead, hoping not to find his best friend Reggie. He climbed the stairs to the second level, stepping over a body that lay crumpled on the landing. At the top of the steps, he turned left toward the spare bedroom where dresser drawers tumbled across an upturned mattress. Bullets punched black holes in the wall and shattered windows overlooking South Belvoir Road. His head ached and he reached into his pockets for a phantom pack of cigarettes.

  “She drugged me, sent pics to my wife and stole my smokes,” he said to himself.

  John moved into the next spare bedroom. The rumpled bedding hid shapes under the blood-stained sheets. The couple was in bed with legs dangling over the edge. Pieces of clothing lay scattered about the room, along with empty beer bottles. The odor of feces and death forced John to place his arm in front of his face. The beam from the flashlight hit the frozen faces of two beautiful, young people. Both bodies had a third eye punched through the middle of their foreheads.

  He entered the master bedroom and saw a shape on the bed. He saw the silver and turquoise ring on his middle finger, Reggie’s favorite ring. Dark, syrupy blood dripped from the end of his pinky finger. John moved to the other side of the bed knowing his best friend was gone like all the rest.

  John flew down the stairs into the living room. He pulled the Venetian blinds to one side and peered out. Empty streets stared back at him. Not a car or pedestrian passed while he observed the neighborhood. No games of soccer, no strollers and nobody doing yard work. An empty street in Cleveland’s December would be expected, but not early November. Most people in the city savored every last day before the specter of winter moved in and banished them to the confines of their dry, drafty homes.

  The streetlights remained dark as night came. John sat at the window for an hour, trying to decide if he could wake himself from the nightmare. A lone pit bull stalked down South Belvoir Road, daring anyone to push him to the side.

  John turned to the living room and walked toward another body. He searched the man’s pockets underneath the black cape and managed to find a cell phone. He turned it on. The phone worked but it, too, displayed the “No Service” message. John shut the phone off and shoved it into his pocket, hoping to try again later from a different location.

  Then he heard a vehicle. He ran to the window, let the blind fall shut and peered through the tiny opening between it and the window sill. Blinding bursts of white lit the desolated street and narrowed as the headlights formed two solid, penetrating shafts. The armored vehicle moved at a steady rate. John crouched low and fixed his eyes as it slowed to a stop in front of Reggie’s house.

  Chapter 6

  Intelligence supplied to Father by the upper echelon of The Holy Covenant suggested John the Revelator could be somewhere in South Euclid. He directed the troops to search the houses for him.

  Three soldiers dressed in urban camouflage jumped out of the APC, also known in the military as a “battle bus.” The mercenaries were hired by the Holy Covenant. They swung their guns in swooping arcs, daring anyone to set foot in their path. Muffled voices filtered through the deteriorating leaded windows of Reggie’s living room. John watched with relief as the sergeant led the men to the house directly across the street and stopped two feet in front of the door.

  The streets are empty, he thought.

  A flashlight mounted on top of his weapon passed over the living room window and through the glass panes of the door. The soldier smashed it with the butt end of his weapon. Crackling glass fell in tiny shards onto a weathered, leather sofa. He reached through the hole and unlocked the door. John watched the trio of flashlight beams popping up throughout the first floor. After they entered, the beams jumped in each room, eventually rising from the second floor to the attic.

  The wind rustled the leaves and pitched them down South Belvoir Road. John held his breath. The house across the street remained still, the darkness snuffing the flashlights. John shuffled his feet and put a hand on the middle of his back. He did not take his eyes off the house.

  After what felt like hours, the three soldiers came out the front door of the house across the street. Without streetlamps, John saw eerie silhouettes moving through the November darkness. One of the soldiers stopped and faced the brick to the right of the front door. He made erratic motions with his arm and the three men climbed back into the APC. The headlights once again cut through the late evening air and fell upon the stray pit bull. The dog barked at the APC while backing away. John saw the fear and confusion in the dog’s eyes even from a distance. The driver inched the troop transport forward, a warning not heeded by the dog. It continued to bark until the APC ran it over. John sat back and took a deep breath as nicotine withdrawal reared its ugly head. He felt the burning itch to light up a cigarette and considered searching his dead friends’ bodies for one.

  He moved across the living room toward the kitchen and walked down the steps to the side door which was open. The scent of moldy leaves drifted through the opening. John stepped over the broken glass of the screen door and crouched low against the side of the house.

  He sidled the length of the driveway, stopping behind the trunk of a bare maple hanging over the lawn. He looked up and down South Belvoir and saw no movement for blocks in each direction. Not a single light shone from any streetlamp or deserted window. John decided to explore the neighborhood. He wanted to figure out what was happening.

  With the tools and supplies clanging in the duffel bag, John sprinted across South Belvoir and behind the overgrown bushes of the neighbor’s house. He held his breath and waited for the crack of a rifle or the accusing beam of a soldier’s flashlight to find him. His cheek brushed the coarse mortar crumbling from the old, red brick. He tasted fresh spray paint hanging in the night air.

  John craned his neck above the bush and examined his neighbor’s front door without revealing his entire body. Slow, red drops appeared on the brick to the right of the door. John reached out and let one of them fall into his palm. Using his sleeve as a damper o
n the powerful beam of the flashlight, John aimed it up toward the top of the door. A crude and shaky hand had sprayed a red circle on the brick and a five-sided star filled the space inside. The hair on John’s neck rose and gooseflesh broke out on his arms as he recognized the universal sign of the devil, the pentagram. The Holy Covenant was marking the houses where they exterminated the non-believers, much like the search and rescue teams would for a natural disaster.

  This is a holocaust, John thought.

  Chapter 7

  John stood and slung the duffel bag around his head and over his left shoulder to keep it from swinging into his legs. He walked through piles of leaves, kicking up the moldy scent of a dying autumn and forced out a sneeze that rattled his sinus cavity. As he glanced back at Reggie’s house, he saw the pentagram inside the circle painted above and to the right of the front door.

  John flashed the beam toward Reggie’s neighbor to the left and saw the same thing. Reggie’s neighbor on the right owned a two-story colonial with white siding and it gleamed like weathered bone in the darkness. John did not see the pentagram anywhere on the front of that house. He walked onto the colonial’s front porch. Old, wooden planks bent under his feet and cracked as he moved toward the living room window. A two-person swing squawked at him as the wind blew it in each direction. John’s survival instinct warned him at the same time his rational mind catalogued observations of the house. He cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the living room window. The furniture remained upright and it did not appear as though it had been ransacked by the soldiers.

  When the beam of the flashlight lit the face of the young man standing in the living room, John lurched back and held the porch railing. The boy wore shoulder-length hair that fell in greasy strands. A white shirt covered his torso with spreading circles of darkness under his arms and neck. His blue jeans clung to his hips and both knees poked through holes in the denim. Bare feet kept him fastened to the living room floor.

  John mistook the boy for a Halloween zombie, like the mannequins people dress and put on their front lawn to scare kids. But this boy was alive. Time passed in awkward, loping increments. John’s hand held the light on the boy’s face. The boy’s eyes reflected it back giving him a feral quality. John stepped backward toward the porch steps as the boy advanced toward the front door. In one motion, John jumped from the top step and landed on the moist wood chips of the neighbor’s landscaping. He heard the tumbler of the front door and the hinges swing the door open. A deafening roar followed a flash of light. John threw himself to the ground as another blast rang his ears amidst the burning fragrance of gunpowder. He recognized the sound of the twelve-gauge shotgun from his time as a youth hunter in the Pennsylvania woods. He crawled through the hedgerow that separated the houses.

  “Servants of the Dark One suffer to the revelation.”

  John heard the words spew from the boy’s mouth but the ringing in his ears made it difficult for him to focus. He jumped up and ran down the driveway of the red house into the backyard. John glanced over his shoulder and saw the boy walking toward him. The young man did not run and he did not stray from his course. His bare feet sloughed forward over shards of broken glass, penetrating his skin like miniature daggers.

  Another shotgun blast. John heard the individual pellets lodge in the side of the garage. Judging from the spray pattern, if the boy advanced another ten yards, John would be dead. A six-foot cedar privacy fence ran the length of the property. John saw a chain-link fence on the other side separating the white house and the red house. He lunged for the top pole and scrambled over it. John fell for longer than he expected and winced as the weight of the duffel bag slammed into his ribs. He stumbled to his side and fought to keep from losing his balance. An explosion rocked the fence to the right of his head.

  John ran through the backyard of the property behind the red house and down the driveway to Winston Road. He knew he could be running right into the raised barrel of another assassin, but his fight-or-flight instinct moved him as far from the deranged teenager as possible.

  He stopped where the driveway met Winston and looked over his shoulder. He did not see the boy and heard no other shots except the ones still ringing in his ears. But then he heard a familiar growl and knew he had no time to stop and think. From the far northern end of Winston Road came another APC. John saw red pinpoints bouncing from tree to tree, moving off of parked cars and overturned garbage cans.

  John sprinted down the middle of Winston Road where it split two blocks before reaching Mayfield. East and West Winston looped in a semicircle and met a block apart on Mayfield. He dodged to the right, onto East Winston. John glanced back at the vehicle bearing down on him and hoped the distance disguised his choice. Night fell hard and the dead street lights aided his escape. He ran toward the third house and dove into evergreen bushes next to the front door. John’s ankle throbbed and he felt warm, sticky blood running down his side where the duffel bag had cut into his flesh. Then he watched the APC disappear around the bend on West Winston.

  With images of the zombie teen from the last house flashing through his head, John stood and peered into the dark living room window, concealing as much of his body as possible and hoping he found a house devoid of corpses. Furniture was strewn around the place, resting in heaps of torn fabric and upholstery. He covered the flashlight with a sleeve and shone it upward toward the front door. The running, red paint of the circled pentagram crawled down the brick. John reached up and touched it. The paint felt tacky but the chill of the Cleveland autumn may have slowed the drying.

  John kept his back to the house as he sidestepped toward the rear. Around back he found a door clinging to its hinges. He stepped across the threshold when the rancid smell of death almost knocked him over. It smelled like a dumpster on a summer day. Motionless lumps lay spread across the kitchen floor. He jumped over one and bounded up the steps toward the second floor with his ankle protesting the rapid movement. Although it could be risky if the soldiers returned, John wanted a second-floor window so he could watch the streets and try to determine what the hell was going on.

  When he reached the second level the smell dissipated, allowing for a deep breath. John stuck his head in each of the three empty bedrooms and entered the one with the least amount of scattered furniture. A single bed stood in the corner and a chest of drawers tilted to one side, spilling spare sheets and blankets onto the carpeted floor. John shut the door and threw the lock into place. He tossed the duffel bag to the floor and sat beside it as exhaustion took hold. He laughed at his own desensitization of the carnage, surprised he was thinking about sleep amidst all of the death.

  This must be what happens in war, he thought.

  John’s eyelids fell and locked into place. His heartbeat slowed as his tense muscles relaxed. He climbed on top of the bed and yanked the spare blankets from the floor. John slid into a deep but fitful sleep.

  Chapter 8

  The rumble of another APC shook John out of his sleep. He held his breath as the sound faded into the distance. The morning sun crested over the trees and reflected spinning crystals off the frosted window. John’s nose felt like ice but the rest of his body remained warm in the bed.

  John’s ankle swelled overnight and only his shoe prevented it from becoming the size of a volleyball. The sounds on the street jarred him from the concern over his ankle and snapped him back into the present. He was hungry.

  John grabbed some canned corn and an opener from the duffel bag. As he tipped the can to his mouth the slimy corn left a salty taste in his mouth and silenced his stomach. He dropped the steel can when he saw the bedroom door was open.

  John looked out into the hallway. He saw footprints in the plush carpet but nothing else out of the ordinary. He gathered his things and threw them into the duffel bag.

  “How did you sleep?”

  John jumped and turned toward the end of the hall. A young man sat in a folding chair at the top of the steps.

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p; “Are you the owner?” John asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  John reached for the opening of the duffel bag in the hopes of placing his hand on anything that could be used as a weapon.

  “Don’t bother, Father. If I had wanted you dead, you’d be bleeding out in that bed by now. Follow me.”

  The man stood and John followed him down the steps. The stranger appeared to be in his mid- to late-twenties. He’d shaved his head bald and wore a black T-shirt and jeans. A knife and a holster hung from a flaking leather belt. A full sleeve of tattoos ran down his right arm while two portraits hung on his left. The sleeved arm cradled a twelve-gauge, pump action with a sawed-off barrel. The man’s black boots left deep impressions in the carpet.

  John followed the man into the kitchen where red stains on the floor replaced the bodies of the night before.

  “I found it difficult to have breakfast with the dead. Hope you don’t mind me cleaning up a bit. How about some eggs?”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Steve. You, Father?”

  “John.”

  “Nice to meet you, Father John.”

  Steve held his hand out waiting for John to shake it. John did, but without taking his eyes off of Steve. He had forgotten about the white collar under his black shirt.

  “Is this your house?” John asked.

  “No, this isn’t even my neighborhood. I live in Shaker but happened to be drinking with my girl when the shit went down.”

  “What shit is that? I still have no clue what the fuck is going on.”

  “Hmmm. Well, you just confirmed my hunch that you’re not a real padre and I don’t have to cut your throat – yet. I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer,” Steve said while stirring the eggs on the stove. “I woke up from a drunken sleep, still groggy from screwing my lady, when I heard all these explosions like the Fourth of July fireworks. Next thing I know the power is cut and the entire neighborhood goes black. My girl, she starts freakin’ out. I had to slap her to get her to shut up. I could see the flashlights moving from door to door. I thought maybe it was a drug raid or something like that, but there were too many shots coming from too many places. My girl throws her clothes on and goes running out to ‘demand information.’ I saw them gun her down right on the front lawn like they already knew which people to eliminate.