Beautiful Disaster

by C. J.

  “I wouldn’t discount that diseased rat aboard a meteor idea.”

  “Right, boss, right” smiled Joe as he left the room.

  “Outside the office, Joe fumbled for his iPad, mumbling, “He was kidding, wasn’t he? Better put that down just in case...”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  SOUTHWEST NEW MEXICO.

  DANNY, KEVIN, AND MELISSA were glued to the TV set as Maggie channel surfed.

  “ How could it have gotten this far this fast?” she asked, as she switching from a news channel showing people rioting in different parts of the globe, to a tightly edited reality show with contestants frantically running about in various locations with different costumes.

  “Stop! What the hell is that one?” asked Kevin.

  “Which one? Medieval Madness or the Cave People v. the Techies?

  “Maggie!” Kevin gasped while shaking his head “You have gone too far. You just made that last one up. As if things aren’t bad enough, you’re making light of the Orwellian state we are in.”

  Maggie flipped back to one of the channels that, not too far in the distant past, had been an informative channel, sat back with her arms crossed and sulked.

  On the screen, half-naked people with rocks and sticks trying were make a fire in a pit outside of a cave and failing miserably. One man who looked as though he might have been a professional athlete or personal trainer in a former life, was slumped against an outer cave wall, struggling to make a spear with what looked like a very dull rock, and a stick that seemed incapable of supporting a strawberry seed let alone said rock. He tried to tie the stone to the wimpy stick with a sad bunch of weeds. The stick and weeds gave up the ghost and drooped, which caused the blunt rock to drop onto the athletes/trainer’s bare feet, eliciting a colorful spew of curse words, which of course had to be bleeped.

  “All right, my bad, I apologize, I had no idea. I am so sorry for doubting you, Maggie.” Kevin said, then mouthed to Danny, “DVR this” while pointing to the program.

  “Already done,” Danny mouthed back.

  “Do I want to know about Medieval Madness?” asked Kevin.

  “No,” replied Maggie “That one is brutal.”

  “Oh really? You know, violence is subjective. What causes one person to throw up in disgust may cause another to hardly bat an eye,” Danny explained as he grabbed the remote.

  “No, do not become one of them. Thanks to the formula, a majority of the people has stopped dying. We are now China. There is no room for anyone anymore. The world has gotten insane, and you do not need to climb aboard the dis-oriented express along with everyone else. The government has come up with all these game and reality shows to the death, with the winners getting a three bedroom home and being allowed to have two children with no penalties not to mention the $200,000 a year for life or similar prizes. Some of the prizes are a lot less, and all of the losers get a free trip to the cemetery of their family’s choice. Imagine dueling to the death over a three-bedroom house and the right to have two children a few years ago,” said Maggie.

  “Real estate has always been crazy across the country. I mean, of course, if you lived beachside or something, that’s obvious. Beachside California is going to be a lot more expensive than say, Detroit.” Danny said.

  “Detroit, ha!” snorted Melissa. “Even now a treehouse overlooking the Ohio River is preferable to real estate in Detroit.”

  “My point is that just about four years ago this out of the way house on 6,800 acres with guest house went for just under $300,000 and today, I don’t think the Wal-mart family could afford this place.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing you predicted this God-awful event. I know I keep bringing it up, but how did you know the world was going to turn out like this Danny?”

  “I didn’t, Mag. I just prepared for the worst, and the worst happened. Every day it just keeps getting weirder and weirder, like some sort really badly written cable movie. But at least we’re in our little desert paradise.”

  “True, and now in addition to location, location, location, it’s square footage. New York apartments were always insanely priced, but now there’s a waiting list for the waiting list to get into an apartment the size of one of our closets. Of course, by our closet, I mean your closet,” Kevin whispered to Melissa while edging slowly away.

  “What? You have just as many clothes as I do, mister” Melissa said, lunging forward to pokes Kevin in the stomach.

  “Hey police brutality, help, help!”

  With that, Melissa giggled, “I’ll show you brutality” and pounced on Kevin. They began to make out on the loveseat.

  “Oh my God, I think I’m going to be sick,” Maggie gagged as she rolled off the couch next to Danny and fell with a thump onto carpet.

  Danny grabbed his throat and was making similar noises to Maggie’s. When she hit the carpet, he picked her up and carried her into the next room.

  “Don’t say I never did anything for you. I just saved you from lovey-dovey overload. I know I was against moving out here but at least there’s no winter to speak of and no traffic.”

  “Yes, if I remember right, you and Kevin wanted to move to Canada until I told you how long the winters were. You two were totally against the Southwest, but I guess you can adapt to anything. Of course, now we have to have a state of the art alarm surveillance system, walls, and gates. We have everything but razor wire and searchlights for when someone goes over the wall.”

  “Those are on back order.”

  “What?”

  “Just the lights, motion lights. I knew you wouldn’t go for the barbed wire.”

  “OK, but when I’m the cautious one, you know we are in deep shit. We are going to have to do something Danny.”

  “Like what game night?”

  “No, my lovely idiot. We need to figure out how to undo this disaster.”

  “Maggie, how do we undo the fountain of youth? How do we make people want to grow old, wrinkly and jump into a grave at their pre-appointed time? I don’t think the best marketing people in the world could come up with an ad campaign to convince people to return to the era of illness and wrinkles. I can see the commercial now. Hey, aren’t you tired of being the best you can be? Don’t you want to find out what’s on the other side? Stop using that insanely easy to make formula and go back to being hideous and decrepit, and knocking on death’s door. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, everybody’s doing it. Don’t feel left out. Let’s get hideous again.”

  “Well if you put it that way, of course not. We will have to get sneaky and contaminate the product somehow.”

  “You mean like in that Batman movie where everyone was afraid to use cosmetics because their face might melt off or whatever horrible thing the Joker had going on?”

  “Does everything relate to movies with you?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “The thing is, we need to do something before they do something.”

  “They? They are too busy getting it on right now.”

  “Not Kevin and Melissa, dummy, I mean They, with a capital T.”

  “Oh. They. They. Sorry, you still lost me.”

  “We better get 50 Shades of Nauseating in here for a meeting.”

  Once Kevin and Melissa were separated from each other, they all adjourned to the workroom, which was located in a second building on the property where they could continue their mad experiments and use as a conference room.

  “All right,” Maggie began. “Are we all agreed that we should at least think about ways to fix this crisis we sort of, well, we did cause. I know Trainwreck did a lot of the damage, but we started this mess. If, we hadn’t made the formula, none of this would’ve happened. We can try to rationalize it any way we want, but we fucked up, and we are going to have to take some responsibility and try to change the course of this youth potion. When I say ‘we,’ I don’t mean you, Melissa.”

  “Yes, I know, but I’m with you for the long-haul,” Melissa replied and squeezed Kevin’s hand.<
br />
  I was hoping to get people to stop making and taking it voluntarily. The government can outlaw nanotechnology, but it will still be manufactured underground along with anything else the government does to try to limit or stop production of. It’s going to be like cocaine or any other illegal drug. You can make it illegal, but you can’t make people stop buying or manufacturing it. So the idea is to make people stop using it.”

  “People already saw through the cosmetic company’s attempts to discredit the homemade formulas, Kevin said. “Sure, ours works much better and lasts longer, but the homemade stuff works too. You just have to use a lot more of it and more often.”

  “I’m just afraid that there will be a crazy person who will try to thin out the population a bit and use the excuse, ‘“I’m doing this for the good of all.”’ I doubt it will happen this year, but if people continue to repopulate without dying in enough numbers to satisfy some number cruncher, I have a horrible feeling that something...”

  “Wicked this way comes?” offered Danny.

  All heads turned to scold him, but they could see that he was as serious as they were, so they all nodded.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  SOME PEOPLE, HOWEVER, were doing their damnedest to weed out the population

  Clark slid into the parking lot of Barry’s Tap. But given he rode the brake, he nearly converted the front of Barry’s from a walk in to a drive-through establishment. Damn, he felt good. That lotion stuff felt girly going on, but damn if it didn’t work. He had cut himself earlier to make sure the junk worked and it sure as shit did. He looked at his arm, and the cut had all but disappeared.

  Clark had heard rumors of a hellish bar fight down south in some hayseed hole in the wall where everyone walked away when they should’ve been carried out boots first. The story had been that everything from brass knuckles and baseball bats to sawed-off shotguns had been brought to the party. Whoeee, what a hoedown that must have been. According to a buddy of Clark’s, Thursday nights at Barry’s had turned into something special. If half of what he heard was true, this was going to be one helluva night, he thought and checked the seat next to him and made sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Wait, where’s my samurai special? Phew found it, (it had slid to the floor when he made his abrupt stop.)

  Clark could hear the place was already jumping as he stepped out of his truck. The music went up several decibels when two of Barry’s occupants staggered out, with one swinging wildly at the other and missing by a mile. The intended recipient of the punch hollered at the puncher, “Butch, I told you I’m done playing!”

  “It's not even midnight, Harley. Whatcha gonna do? Go home and wash your hair or maybe paint your nails? Man up and have another drink, I’ll even buy.” As Butch said this, he waved a bill at Harley.

  Clark had been hoping for some bloodshed, and when none appeared forthcoming, he headed for the bar’s entrance. He had nearly reached the heavily stained door when he heard, “You're it, mother fucker,” shouted behind him. As he turned, he saw Harley with an extremely pissed off expression on his face and, the handle of a knife sticking out of his chest. Butch looked extremely pleased with himself and was doing some sort of uncoordinated dance move around Harley.

  Harley took the knife out of his chest, doubled over and squatted for a few seconds. Butch stopped his jitterbugging and approached Harley. “Hey man, are you OK? I didn’t get you in the heart, I know I didn’t, I made sure I aimed clear away from”

  Butch didn’t get to finish his sentence as Harley bolted upright and kicked Butch squarely in the nuts. Before Butch even hit the ground, Harley pulled a gun from his boot and fired three rounds at Butch. The first bullet hit him in the left thigh, the second in the left shoulder. Clark started backpedaling when the gun first made its appearance and when he hit the entrance to Barry’s, he forgot he needed to pull the door open and kept pushing with his back to get the door to open it. Harley’s third round was meant for Butch’s right shoulder, but unfortunately for Clark, two more of Barry’s patrons decided to take in some fresh air at this very moment and opened the door, pushing Clark off balance. He fell forward,on top of Butch, and the top of his head intercepted the third bullet meant for Butch’s shoulder.

  The two patrons saw Harley and Butch with Clark lying motionless on the ground. The less drunk of the two, clad in an App State sweatshirt, asked Harley, “Hey, did he just get it in the head?”

  “I don’t know anything about that. Butch and I were just going our separate ways when this gentleman sort of collapsed on top of Butch. Isn’t that right, Butch?”

  “Hell, no, we were playing how tough are...I mean yes. We were headed on home when...”

  “Quit it, you two. You got shot,” App State said, pointing to Butch, “and you were stabbed,” he told Harley. “We don’t care who did what. Clay and I are doing a survey on survival rates after grievous harm for those who use the formula. So let’s see how this dude did after a one to the head.”

  The scholarly group pulled Clark over to Harley’s truck while he turned on the headlights. Butch was holding Clark’s hand and looking puzzled.

  “Why are you holding his hand?” asked Harley

  “Taking his pulse, dumbass.”

  “Oh, good idea.”

  “ Hmm, doesn’t look like he’s breathing. Looks like a shot to the head means it’s the end of the line. Better write that one down, Bo. What was that, a .380?” App State asked Harley.

  “Yeah. Damn it, what are we going to do with this guy and why does he have this funny looking sword?”

  “Oh, Barry’s got a system now that things have turned a little rougher at his place,” said Butch as he ran back into Barry’s. He was back in moments with two ginormous men. Butch pointed to the recently deceased Clark, handed the new guys a couple of bills from his wallet, and informed, “We have one for removal.”

  “Hey, you said you were down to your last twenty, mother fucker,” shouted Harley.

  “I always save a few for the removers.”

  “The what?”

  “Removers. They are part of Barry’s new system. Occasionally things go a little too far during game night, like this guy. When it’s game over, these guys step in. By the way, this is one kick-ass samurai sword.” While Butch examined the sword, one of the he-men slung Clark over his shoulder and disappeared around the corner of the building.

  “If we can make it to the safe zone I think we could all use a drink. By the way, I’m Jed, and this is Bo,” said App State.

  Bo looked at his watch at gave Jed a poke, “Look at the time, Jed, it's after midnight, and things are going to be getting lively in there.”

  “Hey, what do you mean by game night? I never heard of Barry doing any yuppie game night. I mean there's ‘How Tough Are You,’ which we had been playing, and it sorta escalated out here with the accidental shooting of this poor sap. I mean we don’t really hurt anyone. Just some slight cutting, throwing darts at each other, shit like that. I got a little carried away with the knife in the chest. Sorry about that, man. But we are even, since you shot me twice. That’s another rule of Barry’s, absolutely no guns. What the fuck are you doing with a gun, Harley?”

  “Have either of you been here after midnight on a Thursday?” Bo asked, returning from his car with a large duffel bag and interrupting what might have been another gun and knife fight.

  Butch and Harley looked at each other. Butch scratched his head, squinted, paused started to say something, stopped, and then looked at Harley again who was staring off into space.

  Bo rolled his eyes. “Okay, let’s not waste the rest of the night. It’s apparent neither of you has been here on game night. Every week for a while now on Thursday, well technically Friday morning at 12 a.m. things ramp up at Barry’s.”

  “What? I didn’t catch the last part. Things what?” shouted Harley

  Harley had to yell as the sounds of multiple gunshots could be heard from within Barry’s Tap, accompanied by the thumping
of large pieces of furniture crashing to the floor or against the walls. As the foursome gingerly approached the front door, there was a thud, then the sound of glass breaking to the left of the entryway. Bars covered this small window; however, Butch could just make out black hair sticking through the broken glass and bars. The hair wiggled a little and then was suddenly jerked away, leaving a damp, dark, bushy clump behind.

  Jeb and Bo now pulled out numerous weapons from their duffel bag offered a few to Butch and Harley. As Bo handed Butch a nightstick with nails pounded into it, he advised, “Stick to the walls at first to get your bearings and protect your head at all costs. The only rules are no fully automatic weapons and no long guns, like shotguns or rifles. Pretty much everything else goes. Are you ready?”

  “Fuck yeah!” Butch shouted flung open the door and charged in.

  Jed and Bo shook their heads. “They never listen. Keep your back to the wall when you enter otherwise it makes for a very short game,” sighed Jed.

  Harley, Jed, and Bo opened the door and slid in keeping their backs to the wall and headed toward the jukebox, which was encased in what Harley assumed was bulletproof glass.

  Harley couldn’t take in everything at once. The floor was slick with blood, and when he looked behind, he realized the walls were spattered with gore as well. The scene before him was unreal. The place was packed with thrashing shouting bodies. A man with a hatchet was wildly swinging it around and around like a shot put, while another man standing on the bar with a bow and arrow was firing the arrows into the crowd apparently at random. Harley was trying to figure out whether to grab Butch and get the hell out of here, fuck it and just leave, or join in when something struck his ear and then lodged in the wall. He felt blood running down his neck and turned to look at the wall. A throwing star was now wedged in the wall. He started to head toward the door when two more stars struck him in the back and leg.

  He whipped around and saw a few feet away a grinning fat man in a blood-soaked tan suit holding a box. The fat man’s tie was slung over his shoulder and his once upon a time white shirt now had a speckled maroon pattern. Whatever common sense Harley had in him fled. He charged at the fattie, nightstick raised. A few minutes later, Harley dropped the broken “policeman’s friend” and clutched the box of stars to his chest. Where was that guy with the bow? He nearly fell onto a man with a broken table leg through his chest. “Whoa, buddy that’s gotta hurt. Walk it off, don’t be a wuss.”