Under a Broken Sun
Page 5
“Uh, guys?” Ashley said.
I turned. A fight had broken out down the street, a cop and some other guy. More guys appeared, followed by more cops. The crowd turned into a mob. Before we knew it, a throng of people with clubs, baseball bats, crowbars, all matter of destruction devises, marched towards us. A noise like a crowd roaring at a baseball game grew on the other side of the building. The throng heading towards us turned the march into a marathon. Some broke off into other stores. Some came out of other stores with TV’s, radios, even DVD’s spilling out of their arms. Electronics. I had to smile. Worthless pieces of shit now.
A pop sound on the other side of the building, something fired from a tin-can. Then a hiss. Then the smell. Tear gas.
The riots had officially begun, and we sat smack dab in the middle of them.
I grabbed Marilyn’s hand and pulled her down the alley away from the crowd to our right. Shattering glass reverberated from behind and the sickening sound of screaming as billy-clubs bashed rioter’s heads in. Or maybe it was baseball bats the other way. I didn’t stop to look.
I wanted to get out of the street but all I could find were locked doors and dark windows. Every few feet a small crowd of rioters ran to where the action was, but they left us alone. As we continued up Market Street, the noise shifted to something a little more organized. I couldn’t make out what they were chanting until we cleared the last street and stepped in front of Independence Hall. Someone shouted about Hell. “The Lord has come!” “We‘re all gonna die!” “It’s the wrath of God!”
Doomsday shit. Great. The last thing we needed.
I tried to pull Marilyn with me up the street away from that mess, but the words of the man at the podium hypnotized her. She snapped her arm back and shuffled towards the man in the middle of it all.
Jesse Hill - the Right Reverend dickhead who we unfortunately saved, paraded on some sort of platform in front of the throng. I followed Marilyn up further as she bumped and jostled her way through the crowd. What the fuck was it about this clown that fascinated her so much?
“Remember Revelations 3:3," he shouted, raising his right hand. "‘If therefore thou shalt not watch I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee’” Hill proclaimed. People had their eyes closed, tears streaming down their face. Fucking children, no more than ten years old, raising their faces to the burning sun. One started to quiver and speak gibberish. Others praised Jesus. “And Matthew Chapter 24,” he went on, “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.” He smiled as he raised his arms again. "God has pointed out the antichrist to us. It is not the President, he is merely a puppet. No, remember Paul's second letter to the Thessolians: '...that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposes and exalteth himself above all that is called god.'" He held up a book, and the crowd roared against it.
My dad's book.
"Dr. Dawson is this man! He claims to sit on the throne of god, and is worshipped as a god. He is the antichrist that we have been tasked to destroy." The crowd roared again.
Marilyn looked at me. "Holy fuck," I whispered.
"We gotta get the hell outta here," she said.
She had to pull me along. That motherfucker just threatened my dad. My dad may be an asshole, but he's no fucking antichrist.
Hill carried on behind us. “We have already been raptured and have returned. That is the speed with which God works. Now we must fight beside Christ the Lord!” Hill had worked the crowd up in a frenzy. “We shall have to FIGHT BESIDE THE LORD!” The crowd went crazy at that line. Fuckin’ lunatics.
We stopped in the shade of another underpass for a breath. Our clothes stank from the collected sweat running down our bodies.
Ashley flopped on the ground, sucking in air. “Oh my God,” she heaved. “What the hell is going on?”
“We need to get oxygen,” I said, pulling out my father’s list. “The air's getting thinner. Like we’re at the top of a mountain.”
“So?”
“So, that means less oxygen. Less oxygen means your brains could go to mush. People start acting really whacked out when they get a lack of oxygen. Hallucinations, that kinda thing.”
“How the hell do you know all this?” Ashley asked.
“Football. They talked a lot about it at practice. That and dehydration,” I pulled out a water bottle and took a sip, then passed it around.
“Ew,” Ashley backed away. “You’ve got germs and stuff.”
“Fine,” I gave it to Marilyn, who gulped it down. “Easy,” I said, pulling the bottle away. “We gotta make it last.”
“Can’t I have my own?” Ashley said.
“No.”
She pouted. Huffed. Then said, “Fine,” and held out her hand for the bottle. “So how long before they get the power back on?” She said with a gulp of water.
“They don’t,” I replied. “The whole grid’s fried. It’ll take years for us just to get back to manufacturing levels to produce more generators to produce more power. If the sun doesn’t bake us first.” I knew that wasn't true. The flashlight didn't work. The magnets fell off. We won't ever get power back.
Marilyn stayed quiet in the corner, knees pulled up to her chest, like she wanted to roll up into a ball and disappear.
“You ok?” I asked.
She looked up at me with her round, deep blue eyes. “No. Neither are you. Or any of us.”
“You’re not buying that Hill’s bullshit, are you? Cuz I'm not."
She sighed and looked down at the gravel. “No.”
So there I sat, with two sad cases, making us a trio of losers riding along the end-of-the-world conveyor belt. At that moment I couldn't think of a reason to go on. I began to think about the pills in my bag. About closing off this door and opening a new one.
A gunshot snapped me out of my suicidal daydreams. The shot echoed overhead. The girls scuttled next to me and the three of us huddled together. More gunshots. Automatic rifle fire drifted across the city. An answer from another in the distance. Screams.
“Adam,” Marilyn pleaded.
“Don’t move,” I said, holding her and Ashley tight.
An explosion and glass shattering. Grenades? How the hell did they get grenades? Another explosion and the bridge over our head started to crumble. More gunshots, concrete dust drifting down on our head.
The bridge began to collapse.
Marilyn grabbed my shoulder. “ADAM?” she shouted.
“Right. Let’s get the hell outta here.”
We hauled out from under the bridge as it moaned and collapsed one major chunk at a time. People standing on it began to tumble in thin air, the ground suddenly gone from beneath them. Must've been at least a hundred people who would be in the bottom of that pile.
We ran along the road, trying to stay out of sight. “Where’s the nearest hospital?” I asked Marilyn. She pointed ahead.
About a half-mile down the road we turned the corner up to the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania. It took me a second to absorb the scene: men and women flailing, screaming, kicking as cops dragged them away from the entrance doorway. Others pounded the door to get in, leaving smears of blood from their own beaten hands. Cops tried to set up barricades, but people took them down just as fast. Two women - mothers, probably - kicked a policeman while he floundered on the ground.
We walked up the street, and I jumped at the sound of glass shattering. Someone had broken a window to get inside. A row of cops linked arms or hid behind riot shields to block the crowd.
One guy in a white coat shouted from a window above the crowd. “Please remain calm. We will let you see your children the minute we’ve restored order. This is for the safety of our patients. We have no power at all inside and we must focus on saving the lives of those dependent on machines. Please!”
But no one listened.
We walked further up past the children’s hospital to the Univer
sity of Penn hospital. People covered every inch of the street, patients still in their skimpy robes with their asses hanging out in the breeze, doctors helping the patients wherever they could, some patients, still vegetables - or they may have been corpses by now, I couldn't tell - in their beds.
“Why are they outside?” Marilyn asked.
“Dunno. Gas leak? Lack of AC? Maybe it's hotter inside than out here. They’re probably trying to find them cooler shelter. C’mon.” I led them through the crowd to the edge of the chaos. Several bodies lay strewn in the gutter, placed carefully end to end. I crawled up to a gurney where a lifeless arm dripped over the side. An oxygen tank hung by the gurney's side.
Crouching low, I unscrewed the tank from a hose and lowered it down. A nurse shouted at me to stop.
“Move!” I said. The nurse who saw us shoved her way through the crowd but couldn’t get close enough. We ran back down the street, through the other riot, and into a small patch of trees – a mini-forest.
We flopped down on the dirt ground exhausted. The full oxygen tank weighed a ton; no way could I carry that across the country. We’d have to think of something.
It fit into my gym bag, but just barely. I took out a water bottle to make a little room; took a sip and passed it around.
“We’ll stay here the rest of the day. It’s getting too crazy out there,” I said. Another explosion emphasized my point.
“And then what?” Ashley asked. “Build a home here?”
“Where are you from?” I asked her.
“Columbus, Ohio. We were, um, connecting flights to Disneyworld.”
“And you?” I asked Marilyn.
“Northwest of here. Berwyn.”
“Ok. We’ll walk at night – move faster in cooler temperatures and it’ll probably be safer. First stop is Marilyn’s house. I can drop you off there. Ashley, your choice: stay with Marilyn or come with me to Chicago.”
“I don’t wanna go home,” Marilyn said.
“Wait, what? You don’t wanna see your folks?”
“No. Seriously, they’re mental. They’re probably not there anyway. They’re probably following Reverend Hill around.”
“They’d fight for him?”
“They’d die for Christ, and if Hill tells them to, yeah I guess they’ll fight. Like I said, mental.” She looked away, embarrassed. I completely understood. Parents pushing their bullshit ideas on their kids because God never wanted kids to think on their own or make their own decisions.
“Ashley?”
“I’m not going to some psycho house. I’m sticking with you. I got no one around here.”
“No extended family?”
“No. Just...Columbus.”
“Want us to drop you off there?”
She paused. “Yes.”
“Ok, then we follow my rules, got it? We can’t afford to be stupid now. We’ve lost two hundred years of technology – no cutting, no broken bones, no anything that would require medical attention.” I looked them over, their big eyes watching me. I never wanted to be a leader of anyone. I could hardly keep my own shit straight. No way was I going to waste any time keeping them in line.
“The world’s over, got it? We determine our own fate. We trust only ourselves, we help only ourselves because as of right now, there are a million other scared people making the same decision. Understood?”
7.
I woke up in the dusk shivering and drew my arms around me.
What the hell am I doing? How the hell can I get to Chicago, with temperatures bouncing between desert and arctic, and two high maintenance chicks following me like stray dogs? I got up and looked at the two of them sleeping soundly. I could leave two bottles of water to share, a few aspirin and some medicine just in case. They’d be fine.
I crouched down and drew a bottle of water out of the bag when Marilyn woke up. She blinked up at me, wiped the eye-boogers out of her eyes, and yawned. “Morning,” she said.
“Evening,” I corrected her. I handed her a bottle of water. “Dinner?” She forced a smile, took the bottle and sipped.
“I’m starving,” she said. I took her hand to pull her up, but with a strong yank she pulled me down next to her. Before I knew what was happening she had nuzzled herself into my neck. I pulled her in tight.
"Don't leave me, ok?" she pleaded.
I lifted her face up and kissed her. It felt like the only thing I could do to help. I couldn’t say anything. What was I gonna say, “Everything will be all right?” Bullshit. We were as good as dead. It was just a matter of time.
The kissing grew heavier. Our tongues danced over each other and my hands inspected every part of her hard body. She was in great shape, tight body, firm and well-toned. She wrapped her arms around my head, pulling me closer to her. My hips instinctively began moving and rubbing myself against her. I wanted her so bad I was gonna explode, but shit, we only met yesterday.
“Hey are you guys gonna eat this cookie?" Ashley said.
Cock-blocked.
She saw our position, which included me practically on top of Marilyn. "Oh my God, get a room,” Ashley said and she walked over to grab the water. “Seriously? Do I really have to watch this?”
We stopped kissing and looked at each other. Marilyn smiled a brief, small smile, and I knew that the kiss did the trick.
"Later," Marilyn whispered to me.
I ran my finger gently over her cheeks, her lips, her chin. My balls were past blue and moved on into purple. But still. I loved looking into Marilyn's eyes.
“Hello? We’re going to need food pretty soon,” Ashley said as she took a chomp out of an Oreo. “Water just ain’t cuttin’ it.”
“Now I know what it really feels like to be a parent," I said to Marilyn. I packed up the stuff and slung the bag over my shoulder, which ached like hell. My back throbbed as I tried to balance the weight. Didn't matter. We had to get moving. You tend to take for granted how easy it is to go sixteen miles in a car. On foot, it took three hours.
After those three hours we were well outside the dark city and into the Philadelphia suburbs. Circles of yellow-orange light dotted the landscape as fires of all sizes rose; some intentional, some not. We avoided any fighting; things seemed to have quieted down anyway. Only a few gunshots echoed in the distance like quick, small firecrackers on the Fourth of July.
We arrived at a place called King of Prussia. Signs also pointed to Valley Forge, which would've been interesting a few days and a normal world ago. We passed under a traffic sign reading MALL ROAD. Ashley beamed. "Oh. My. God. A mall? Seriously? I am so there." Typical. World goes to shit and fourteen year old girls still wanna shop.
No harm in that, I thought. Good chance to get supplies. We headed down the road. The world had fallen asleep and seemed, for the moment, at peace.
And then we saw the mall.
The King of Prussia mall extended in front of us like a small city. Crowds ran in and out, no longer just carrying electronics but clothing, shoes, just about anything they could carry. Police fired into the crowd but couldn't contain it. Flames shot up through the roof, cars exploded at random. Marilyn reached out and held my hand, her grip tight. I looked at Ashley. "Still wanna go shopping?"
We kept moving and eventually arrived at a convenience store. Broken glass littered the ground in front of the doors. I went to the dumpster nearby and hoisted the heavy lid up. “Dumpster diving?” Ashley asked. “We’ve got a whole store here.”
“Need a light,” I said. I reached in and pulled out a rag. Found a stick and tied the rag around the end of the branch.
"Gotta have lighter fluid inside," I said. I turned to go into the store, and as I did I thought I saw a ball of light go out from inside.
We crept in through the door, my small lighter illuminating about six inches around us. Enough to see the barbecue supplies. I grabbed the lighter fluid, doused the rag, and lit it.
"Viola," I said. "Instant torch." I kept the lighter fluid. Might come in handy later.
We went to the snack aisles and grabbed handfuls of everything we possibly could, stuffing them into my now open and overflowing gym bag. There wasn’t a lot left. We were the latecomers to this party.
We grabbed donuts, cereal, then made our way over to the cold wall of drinks, ice cream, frozen foods. When I opened it a welcomed blast of trapped cool air hit my face. I couldn’t suppress the sigh, just stood there taking it all in. Even though it was cold outside, the day’s sauna-like heat was still fresh in my mind. Plus the cold air had a certain artificial smell to it – it smelled like A/C. I think I sighed more from the memories than anything else.
In another day, all this would be melted and worthless.
I tried another sliding door, letting out more cold air, and grabbed more bottles. “Marilyn,” I said, “grab some bags from behind the counter.”
I heard Marilyn fumble her way to the counter, bump into something, cuss in a very impressive way, and then shuffle a handful of plastic bags. She came over to me, bumped into something else, and cussed even louder.
“Nice,” I said, taking the bags. “Here, fill these up. The water’s on the these shelves.” I took her hand and guided it up the shelves, and heard her dropping bottles into the bags.
“Ashley?” I said.
No response.
“Ashley? C’mon, man, we don’t have time for this bullshit.”
I heard a muffled sniffle and mumbling, like Ashley had her hand over her mouth. And then a smell. Really bad body odor.
“Don’t move motherfucker,” came a voice. Followed by a double CLICK. “Or I’ll blow her fuckin’ head off.”
I was ten when a man held a gun to my temple. My dad has had his share of enemies. You’d be surprised how many fundamentalists don’t want science to discover a damn thing. Probably even more surprising is how far they’d go to stop it.