The Earth Died Screaming

by Chuck Rogers

  I put Bobby's PPK in my pocket.

  I secured the house, typed in Malibu CA on the Rand McNally phone app, put the dosimeter on the dash and went for a drive. I won't bore you. The ride was uneventful. One minute a beautiful drive through the Santa Monica Mountains. The next minute a lunar landscape. A number of the roads had been washed out but I had Rand McNally on my side. Malibu was a rat's nest of back roads. I had to do a lot of backtracking. People got lost in Malibu literally and metaphorically all the time.

  People write songs about it.

  It took an hour, but I finally got into town.

  That's when I knew things had been bad. Fire and rain could explain the hillsides. Malibu is within fifty miles of the San Andreas Fault. An earthquake, (That I hadn't felt . . .) might explain losing a section of the PCH. In town, riots, lawlessness and looting might explain the smashed buildings and overturned cars I saw everywhere.

  The mega yacht nearly the size of city hall on its side in the city hall parking lot bespoke of larger happenings. I got out of the car in what might be called Malibu's suburbs and took a long look through the binoculars. Nearly all of Malibu proper was located on the coastal strip.

  Nearly all of Malibu proper was gone.

  The PCH was gone. Every seaside house, hotel, restaurant and pier was gone. The lagoon was gone. Most of Pepperdine University was left but most of it was up on a seven hundred foot hill and defended by the Malibu Bluffs.

  The wave that had done this was unimaginable.

  It had smashed everything in its path and then sucked the debris away as it receded. A month of rain had washed anything the tsunami had missed. Malibu was the cleanest scene of devastation you ever saw.

  Nothing moved except a few seagulls.

  Not a peep out of the dosimeter.

  I walked over to the gas station. The windows were smashed out and it looked thoroughly looted. It looked like idiots had beaten the shit out of the pumps trying to get gas out of them. It was your typical four-tank station. I smiled as I looked at the metal hatches covering the tank refilling ports. All four hatches that had literally been beneath the idiots' feet appeared to be intact. I had studied up on these things in the hole and I might have a gold mine here but I needed tools and something to store the gas in.

  There was a hardware store across the street and a block of apartments that housed people who couldn't afford the beach or the hills and lived in between.

  I walked over and froze.

  In the alley between them a woman lay underneath a car.

  She was halfway jammed underneath the front bumper of a 70's vintage, Fiat 124 Spider. You didn't see that everyday. Not even post-apocalypse. It didn't look comfortable. She was wearing remarkably clean pink sweat pants that were several sizes too large and white go-go boots.

  It just kept getting weirder.

  I squatted down on my heels behind the dumpster.

  Sitting in prison teaches you waiting. Force Recon teaches you all about laying in wait. So does staking out Hollywood miscreants for days until you make your shock and awe move. I would not describe myself as a patient man, but if the situation required it?

  I could outwait a rock.

  I did not approach. I watched her for a good ten minutes. She was absolutely motionless. So was I. I couldn't tell if she was breathing. Finally, I spoke quietly but loud enough for anyone in the alley to hear.

  "Hey, you all right?"

  She didn't answer.

  No movement.

  I didn't see a trap. The only window looking down into the alley was boarded up. The rolling loading gate behind the hardware store was shut.

  Maybe I really was the Omega Man and everyone was dead. I had only seen one person in Malibu and she was inexplicably wedged beneath an Italian sports car.

  The Sesame Street one of these things does not belong song was echoing in my head. The Force Recon 'What have you stepped into Marine?' was a my spine is the bass-line bugle call.

  This wasn't right.

  It was wrong.

  I rose and approached. The Uzi rose to my shoulder as I very lightly kicked the sole of her disco boot. "Hey."

  Her foot wiggled but no response. She didn't appear to be decomposing and I didn't see any blood anywhere. So if she had crawled underneath the car and died it had been recent.

  I made an executive decision.

  I leaned the Uzi against the security gate, cocked the PPK in my pocket, grabbed her by both ankles and pulled her out.

  The license plate scraped her t-shirt up and her huge, K-cup, hostile-projectile boobs burst forth while impossibly puffy nipples pointed at me accusingly. Her vacant blue eyes stared up at me in permanent, slightly slack-jawed, sea-bass lipped seduction.

  She was wearing a fake gold chain with her name spelled out in glittering fake diamonds.

  Her name was Ashley.

  Of course it was.

  Ashley was a sex doll.

  A very high-end sex doll. Like so high end it was frightening how human she looked.

  Who in the Blue Hell would partially stuff a sex doll beneath a Fiat?

  I mean, I like modern art as much as the next guy, but even for the end of the world this was decidedly avant garde odd. If it was the world's most avant garde IED the fuse had failed.

  Then I figured it out.

  Without a shadow of a doubt.

  It was a trap.

  I heard the security gate rattle behind me. I whirled in time to see my Uzi fall over and a filthy hand shoot out beneath the foot of open gate and grab it. I lunged as the door rattled back down and I bounced off.

  God, damn it.

  Really?

  First day in town?

  And I get played right out of the gate?

  They started shouting inside.

  "I got it! I got his gun!"

  "Shoot him! Shoot the fucker!"

  I threw myself aside as my own Uzi stitched thirty-two holes at me blindly through the metal.

  I drew the PPK and put four holes where I thought a crouching, shooting human might be and got a lovely, strangled "Oh shit! Oh fuck! Oh God!"

  "He shot Dougie!" Someone screamed. "He shot Dougie!"

  Doom on you, Dougie.

  "Shoot him! Shoot him!"

  "It's empty!"

  I heard the boarded up window up behind me crack. I spun to see the boards falling. Not much had been holding them on. I got a flash of a Cousin Itt looking jack-hole in the window and then a bowling ball came arcing at my head. I fired three times and dodged. I don't think I hit anything and the PPK racked open on a smoking empty chamber. The bowling ball hit the pavement with a "crack!"

  "Shoot him!"

  "It's empty!"

  "No!" The asshole upstairs shouted. "He shot his clip! He shot his clip! Get him!"

  Mother-fucker.

  Good news, they were trying to shoot me with my own weapon and it was empty.

  They didn't have firearms.

  Bad news, now neither did I.

  But I smelled the numbers game coming. I needed a weapon.

  All I had was an empty PPK and a chub of salami that Beautiful Bobby would not find particularly intimidating. They started spilling out of the auto shop and the apartment across the alley in filthy, homeless of the holocaust hordes. They had axes and picks and shovels. The Odin-looking, homeless fucker of Ragnarök walking leader-like had a garden hoe he had beaten straight and ground against a curb until it had become a harpoon. He leered at me with horrid familiarity.

  "Look at the meat on him."

  Not good.

  A homeless surfer looking brine-hag shrilled. "Fuck him up, Luther!"

  A Mexican gangster-gone-Grizzly Addams made three quick kissy noises at me. He had a Halligan bar. Fire fighters use them as entry tools. Three feet of steel with a giant claw-hammer claw on one end and a wedge-blade and a spike on the other.

  I wanted it.

  I wanted none of them.

  There were ten of them. Thirtee
n if you counted the three I could immediately identify as female.

  This was bad.

  I ran.

  "Get him!"

  "Fucker!"

  "Faggot!"

  The street passed under my feet as I sprinted.

  I hated running. God knows I could do a thousand free squats, but running? I never liked it. In the Marines we ran all the time. In Force Recon we ran even more. I was good at it. But I never liked it.

  And running away had never sat well with me.

  I ran.

  I could out run them, but the distance to the Prius was too short. I didn't have enough lead. I'd never get in the car much less reach the Beretta before garden tools and a possibly another bowling ball started coming through every window.

  I ran like a scalded dog past my car and the Beretta in the glove box with the homeless of the holocaust a dozen feet behind.

  The only thing I didn't do was yelp "Yipe-yipe-yipe-yipe!" as I ran down the street.

  Oh, I could've outrun them. It had been a long time since I had run for speed or distance but I had been on a 12 week Bronson-level prison routine of calisthenics when I wasn't biking to charge the shelter's batteries. I'd also been eating three squares a day for the last three months. I was Force Recon.

  Once I hit the trees these fresh pieces of humanity were not going to be able to hang with me.

  Then the shit hit me.

  I mean shit hit me.

  As in I felt the spatter on my back as I ran.

  Then I smelled it.

  What-the-fuck?

  Did they stop like apes in the zoo mid-fight and crap in their hands?

  Did they carry their shit around in baggies in case of battle?

  One of the brine-hags shrilled. "Run faggot! We'll find you!"

  That's when I got angry. They had my weapon and they were going to get my ride. I was being chased by bum fight looking motherfuckers who'd raided a Lowes Garden Center and their own colons for armament.

  You want to fuck with me?

  Raid a Bass Pro Shop.

  Malibu was my adopted home. I would be good and god damned if I was going to get driven back up into the hills my first day out of the rabbit hole by these ass-clowns.

  Look at the meat on me and despair, fuck faces.

  The Lord provides and God helps those who help themselves.

  I needed a weapon.

  I saw a bicycle lying on the pavement and I saw what I needed.

  I bee-lined for the bike.

  "Pedal your way to freedom, faggot!" One of the sea-hags shrieked. The horde roared.

  I have a gay friend. He saved my life on the eve of destruction. The homophobia was getting old and had no place in this brave new world. There was no way I could make these people see reason.

  All that remained was to show them the error of their ways.

  I reached the bike and ripped its Kryptonite heavy-duty lock from the clips on the frame.

  I read the Holy Bible in prison.

  I'd read it again down in the hole.

  I'd read Samson killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. I had never seen the jawbone of an ass. I suspect it was pretty much two parallel foot-longs of horse mandible with a chin at one end. I had a foot-long, 14mm hardened steel shackle with two pounds of blaze-orange, double-deadbolt lock on the business end.

  I turned, spinning the lock by the shank around my forefinger.

  The horde skidded to halt and started fanning out.

  "Samson," I quoted. "The Philistines are upon thee."

  Luther cocked his head. "What?"

  "Judges, Chapter 16, Verse 20."

  "What?"

  Goddamn Philistines.

  Everywhere.

  I lunged and snapped the spinning lock forward into Luther's mouth. It wasn't a particularly strong blow but it broke the remaining front teeth he had.

  "Oh you, fuck . . ."

  That gave me the second I needed. I wound up and swung that lock like a tennis serve. Up and over and I turned my wrist to bring the lock down edge-on through the top of his skull. His eyes crossed and he let out this sound like he was going to say the alphabet while burping but all he had was vowels. He went down.

  A scrawny punk holding my Uzi howled. "He killed Luther!"

  I didn't stop there. I had some Kryptonite for these assholes and I waded in using my precious seconds of shock and awe. I raised the lock at the vato with the Halligan bar like I was going to hit him the exact same way. He predictably raised the bar to block.

  I went low and slammed the lock into his shin. He keened like an animal and dropped the bar. I rose and gave him the lock to the back of his head as he fell and the screaming stopped.

  This all happened in about four heartbeats.

  The kid with my Uzi kept screaming. "He killed Carlos! He killed Carlos!"

  A shit head with a gardening knife came at me.

  I flipped the Kryptonite in my hand and caught the lock. This brought the shank forward. Knife fights are bad fights. I hate them. I would rather face a bunch of guys with axes, Halligan bars and baseball bats than one asshole with a knife. Hell, I'd almost rather face a gun. You get a hole blown in you? You plug the hole. If there's an exit wound? You plug both. Unless something vital got nicked you're probably going to make it, and even then you can last for hours. Knives open you up. One good cut and unless the EMT's are already there laying bets on the fight it is all the Kings horses and all the King's men. Sure it was a Japanese gardening knife but it was eight inches long, one edge was sharp the other had saw teeth and I wanted no part of it. All this brings me to my main point.

  In a knife fight, the other guy's knife is your primary target.

  He brought the knife up like a gangster in a 1950's musical. Exactly like I wanted him too. I whipped the steel shank into his fingers. He howled and with the return stroke I backhanded the back of his hand. Bones broke and the knife fell. I spun the lock again so the shank flipped back along my forearm. That left me with two pounds of lock in my hand and turned my fist into a battering ram. I gave him three, chopping right hand leads that shattered his jaw, collapsed his cheekbone and turned his eye socket into a bomb crater.

  It was still a numbers game and they almost got me.

  The guy with the axe swung like he wanted to split me down the middle. All I could do was get the shank along my arm in the way. My forearm stopped short of breaking but the entire limb went white with pain. I felt the force of the blow down to my heels and nearly took knee. He raised the axe for another blow. My right arm was barely obeying me.

  But I know what the left is for.

  I hit him with a left jab that snapped his head back so pleasingly that I let him eat two more before I swung my boot up between his legs like I wanted to send his dick to the moon.

  He dropped vomiting.

  The brine hags high-tailed it.

  The jaw of the kid holding my Uzi worked up and down in horror as he found the mighty Frame before him. "No! Please!"

  I snapped the lock around so it was shank forward again and gave him the hoop to the solar plexus. He folded in half with a "Guhhhhh . . ." and dropped.

  It was still a numbers game. I almost took a sharpened, redwood garden stake in the face in an Ahab serious harpoon attempt. The wood shattered as I swatted it aside. Spear guy ran. So did Spade and Pick and suddenly the street was clear. I took a great heaving breath and roared.

  "Malibu is mine! Clear the fuck out! I'll kill anyone who comes! Sweep and destroy starts tomorrow! Let everybody know!"

  I heard movement and rounded on the kid again. "Now, as for you?"

  The little shit couldn't have been out of high school. His shag haircut had grown out into some clumpy octopus-looking thing that was threatening to become dreadlocks. He was up on his feet, still clutching my Uzi but gasping and crying from where I'd hit him.

  "Give me my gun."

  He looked at me, looked at the gun and backed up a step.

&n
bsp; "Oh, don't make me chase you . . ."

  He bolted.

  God, damn it!

  I chased him.

  I almost caught him. Then he started to pull away. He'd probably spent the last three months doing nothing but running, he had youth on his side and a guy like me was chasing him.

  He had motivation.

  I grimaced as my lungs burned and said fuck-this. I took two big about to throw a javelin hops on my back foot and let the lock fly with follow through. The Kryptonite heavy-duty tomahawked delightfully through the air and hit him squarely between the shoulder blades.

  "Guh!" His arms flapped in ruptured pigeon mode. "What the fuck!"

  The punk ate pavement with absolutely no control over his fall.

  To his credit he kept hold of the Uzi.

  I stalked forward. "Now, give me my fucking gun."

  He wheezed and weakly chest-passed the Uzi to clatter on the street between us.

  "On the ground? Really?" Rage filled me. I stalked forward, fatigue forgotten. I snatched up the weapon and checked it. Scratched. Through the paint and Parkerizing. Mint, only fired twice Hebrew steel. Violated.

  He saw my facial expression. "I'm sorry!"

  I loomed over the punk as I reloaded. "I am gonna--"

  "I'll suck your dick!"

  Oh for God's sake.

  I glared at him until he started crying.

  "What's your name, son?"

  Called him son.

  "Jaiden!"

  Of course it was.

  I took a knee on the sack of chicken bones Jaiden called a chest and put the muzzle of the Uzi in his face. "You want to live?"

  "Please, oh man, please!"

  "I need the status of the apparatus. STAT."

  "What?"

  "What's going on?"

  "Whatta you mean?"

  "I mean what's been going on for the last three months?

  He actually lost his fear for a second and blinked. "What the fuck, mister? You been living under a rock?"

  He almost took the buttstock to the teeth for that. But what the hell.

  The little fucker had me.