The Earth Died Screaming

by Chuck Rogers

  I had no time for any of it.

  "Where is she?"

  "She's in my sister's guest room! She's--"

  Mar-J had to jump out of the way before I walked through him.

  Bless his beautiful, caring, Christian heart. Mar-J didn't say anything or chase me. I went inside. Mar-J 3 stood in the foyer. He took one look at my face and his happiness to see me failed. The kid took a big, wide-eyed step back.

  I shrugged. "Hey."

  He took a big swallow. "Hey."

  "Where's Lalli?"

  "She's in Auntie's room."

  "I don't know where that is." The tears started spilling down my cheeks. "Can you show me?"

  Mar-J 3 started crying. He took my hand and led me to the room. The door was ajar. He whispered. "I think she's sleeping."

  "Hey buddy." I took a knee. "Thanks for taking care of my girl. Thanks for taking care of my dog."

  "We love Lalli. We love Face." Mar-J 3 wrapped his arms around me. "We love you!"

  "I love you, too. I love your family." I hugged him back. "You know they hurt Lalli."

  Mar-J 3 shook. "It's so bad!"

  "I need a little time alone with her."

  "Okay." Mar-J 3 stood tall. "You and Lalli tell me if you need anything. Anything, any time."

  The apple hadn't fallen far from the tree.

  "I love you, man."

  "I love you, too. We all do."

  "Thanks."

  I picked up Face and went inside.

  Eve Cutshall was sitting with Lalli. She put down her book and without a word rose, started silently crying, kissed me on the cheek and disappeared.

  It was Southern California mid-day. Auntie J's room was palatial and light streamed through the windows. Lalli's little body was curled around a pillow. Face squirmed and made a noise. I rubbed her neck.

  "Tranquilo."

  Face quieted.

  I walked up to the bed.

  My insides twisted.

  They'd cut up Lalli's face.

  They hadn't cut off her nose or her lips or her ears but if you took the scars on my face, that girl Sally from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' and added a dozen more you would be close. Her face was a railroad of crusted over stitches. They'd given her the Joker smile and slashed everything between and around her major facial features. That didn't take into account the slowly fading black eyes and bruises. She was wearing one of Mar-J's sleeveless workout shirts. Her exposed arm was covered with scratches. Lalli's wrist was still bruised and abraded from the rope that had restrained her. The dressing on her shoulder hid the fresh, VAE brand of a SOG slave.

  Woe to the conquered.

  I stroked Face again and set her on the bed.

  "Tranquilo."

  Face wormed herself up against Lalli. Lalli's sleeping hands reached out. My heart surged as her split, sleeping lips smiled.

  Then she opened her blackened eyes. They were blotches and webs of broken blood vessels.

  The look in her eyes was worse.

  I'd seen that look before.

  In Leavenworth.

  It was the look of a guy I'd discovered sitting naked, beaten black and blue in the shower. Sobbing and clutching himself while the pink trail of blood ran between his legs down the drain. That guy had taken it hard but in comparison he'd had it easy. The look in Lalli's eyes was indescribable.

  I reached out my hand.

  She flinched away.

  God . . . damn it . . .

  I lowered my hand and petted Face.

  "Baby."

  The lacerations on Lalli's face twisted in recognition. "Frame?"

  "I'm here. May I sit on the bed?"

  "Okay."

  I sat on the bed. I kept Face between us and scratched our dog behind the ears. Lalli kept her hand on Face but scratched her above the tail where she liked it.

  Face wagged her tail in love and whimpered.

  Face was a Malibu Catahoula Giant Schnauzer Hound. She was the smartest dog in the world, and she sensed the world as she knew it had ended. I worked my way slowly down Face's spine.

  I curled my fingers around Lalli's.

  She let me.

  Lalli spoke in a terrible, broken little-girl voice that gave me goosebumps.

  "Frame . . ."

  "Yeah, baby?"

  "I was so happy."

  Oh dear God.

  "Yeah?"

  "When the SOG attacked. I thought you were dead."

  "Yeah?"

  "When they were in the house, I knew it was over."

  "Yeah."

  "But when they were hurting me?"

  "Yeah?"

  "The things they said? While they did it? Then I knew you were alive, and I was happy."

  "Baby."

  "And then they, and then they, and then they . . ."

  She said it dozen times.

  That's when she fell into my arms.

  "I lost your baby!"

  "It's okay."

  It wasn't.

  "I tried! I fought! I prayed! But they . . . but they . . ."

  "It's okay."

  It wasn't.

  That's when she started sobbing. Horrifying, dumb-animal suffering sobbing. A woman who-had-been-broken sobbing. A woman who had been mutilated inside and out.

  For the things that I had done.

  I held my girl, stroked her hair and murmured stupid nothings.

  Lalli cried until she stopped and that was a long time.

  The ashes of my failure blew threw me.

  Game over.

  We'd lost.

  It filled my soul with bile, but the only way to be strong for my woman was to run.

  "They'll be coming. As soon as you can walk we're out of here. We'll find a place. Some place on the beach up the coast. I'll hunt and fish. We'll just lay in the sun and let you get strong."

  Lalli spoke low in my lap. "No."

  "No?"

  That's when she looked up.

  She looked up into my eyes. I will remember that look unto my dying day. She had reached her own crystalline place of clarity.

  I asked the question I already knew the answer to.

  We were going to an even worse place. One we would never return from.

  I was absolutely willing.

  But I had to hear her say it.

  "Baby? What do you want me to do?"

  Lalli's voice went dead.

  "Frame?"

  "Baby?"

  "I want you to kill them. I want you to kill them all."

  I looked into those beautiful, blackened, burst blood-vessel dark eyes and I saw the pure hatred within them.

  Lalli's hatred spoke to me.

  Her violation spoke to me.

  It spoke to me in the cold, horrid, ghosting me all-my-life familiar whispers.

  I saw red.

  I saw fire.

  The whole broken world turned into bloody red ruin and flames behind my eyes.

  If it was a hallucination?

  I was prepared to make it real.

  I went to the place where a pick-up truck full of townies had you surrounded by the side of a two-lane highway off the rez. You were twelve. They were drunk, laughing, had bicycle chains and were calling you 'red boy.'

  I went to the place when I'd come out to Hollywood and I was told you work for us .

  I went to the place when you were processed into prison with no friends, no affiliation, no rep, no juice and they came for you.

  I went to the place where they came for your ass.

  Where they came for your humanity.

  Where they came for anything and everything you had.

  I went to the place where there was nothing backing you up but your own spine.

  I went to the place where you said no.

  No matter what the consequences.

  I went to the place where that failed.

  I went to the place where there was nothing left but revenge.

  I took Lalli's butchered face in my hand.
<
br />   The floodgates opened.

  Things had been done.

  Things that could not stand.

  Rage opened within me.

  Fact is?

  No matter what they do to you?

  You're not their bitch if you don't submit to it willingly.

  Regardless?

  You stop being their bitch when you kill them.

  I went to the black hole.

  I went to the stepfather I'd put in the ground.

  I looked at Lalli whimpering like a tortured animal and I consigned my soul to one, final, permanent residence in hell as my brain filled with hate and my heart filled with terrible, angels of death singing resolve.

  I swear I saw Santa Muerte hovering over Lalli nodding her approval.

  I looked into Lalli's bleeding, broken eyes. I saw her broken soul, and I knew exactly what I had to do.

  I knew exactly what I was going to do.

  This course was taken.

  "Baby?"

  Lalli shuddered and looked up into my eyes. "Frame?"

  "I'm going to kill every last one of them."

  I am the Bastard of the Apocalypse.

  Look upon me and despair.

  Fuck every last one of you.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Now you're messing with a son of a bitch.

  THE SOG THOUGHT THEY WERE BADASS.

  They were.

  I was worse.

  I was bad medicine.

  War crimes are very clarifying, and they call for utter, disproportionate responses.

  They call for retribution.

  The priestess of Death had instructed me to kill them all.

  I knew exactly what I had to do.

  I knew exactly what I was going to do.

  It had taken me exactly five seconds to figure it out.

  War crimes are liberating that way. They wipe away any last, lingering humanity you may have thought you had and open up the wonderful world of the unthinkable.

  The thoughts I got?

  The SOG had motivated this Marine.

  I knew Lalli wanted to die. I made her promise me to wait two weeks.

  If I made it back, and she still wanted to?

  We'd do it together.

  I'd blown it before.

  I'd should've died happy and done myself with Line. I'd compounded my mistake by thinking this new world was different. I'd believed Dickie when he said this world was what I had been born and bred for. That a man like me could own this world. All bullshit. The world was always the same. The Men-In-Black were always lurking. There was always a Ged. They owned people like me, even when I became like them.

  Only I hadn't become like them.

  Their mistake was turning me into something worse.

  I was Nemesis.

  I'd made my peace with death in Agoura.

  I didn't feel any need at all to make my peace with indiscriminant slaughter.

  Fact is there's nothing more dangerous than a man who doesn't care. I didn't expect to come back. Lalli knew that and I didn't expect her to be here even if I did.

  I sat with her until she and Face both fell asleep.

  I very gently kissed Lalli good-bye.

  I kissed Face goodbye.

  I looked at the family I'd almost had.

  I walked out the door and stepped onto the path of death and madness.

  I smelled spaghetti.

  My beaten, blown up infected body bee-lined towards the kitchen.

  More like bee-staggered.

  Fuel.

  I was not surprised to see Alice and Colin and Clarice on barstools at the kitchen island. Mar-J was at the stove wearing an apron stirring a pot. He took one look at me as I came in and bless his heart he made a gigantic effort to paint a grin across his face. "My brother!"

  I walked past. I had no time for this.

  "I need ten five gallon buckets with lids."

  "For what?"

  "Plan B."

  "What's Plan A?"

  "You don't want to know."

  Alice shot to her feet. "Hey!"

  "Hey yourself."

  "We need to talk!"

  "No, we don't."

  Clarice was crying. "Frame, you don't want stay in that house by yourself."

  "No, I don't."

  I walked home.

  They were smart enough not to follow me.

  Clarice was right.

  I couldn't stay in that house.

  I went back down in the hole.

  Ashley said slightly less than Ramirez but I think she was still happy to see me.

  I splurged and treated myself to two chili-mac MRE's, two Xanax and two beers. I fell asleep and had no dreams that I remembered.

  * * *

  I SPENT FIVE DAYS IN THE HOLE.

  I wasn't in a hurry. I knew the SOG was re-allocating assets. I'd done them some serious Recon style mischief. They needed to bring up new fuel and new vehicles and those were in short supply. They were going to come at Malibu and when they did it would be with everything they had. They would be re-massing at Agoura for their invasion and that was exactly what I wanted. I ate. I slept. I took antibiotics. Bobby had a "Naked Restorative Yoga" DVD and I did two sessions a day. Given the fact that there were two handsome, chiseled, shirtless men on the cover hugging each other and beaming I avoided the 'advanced partner work.'

  Plus I was alone, so how weird would that be?

  There was also a 'naked meditation' section. It encouraged me to visualize a sunset, a waterfall, my power animal or the loving Buddha. I visualized Santa Muerte. During my five-day bomb shelter meditation retreat I visualized the Saint of Death for an hour a day, twice a day in ever more terrifying detail.

  My concentration was gorgeous.

  Who needs Xanax?

  I wasn't exactly praying to Santa Muerte, but I was pretty sure the old girl knew I was thinking about her.

  My fever went away. My bitten by the burned-and-turned hand did not fall off. The swelling went down. I did not manifest superpowers. Then again, apparently I already owned a cock that could detect cosmic radiation. I mean, it's pretty small beer in the X-Men superpowers scheme of things, but given the state of the world at the moment it was still pretty useful.

  No need to be greedy.

  In between times I had the Lord of the Rings going in the background while I obsessed about my Table of Organization and Plan of Attack.

  I was about to march on Mordor and I was only going to get one shot at this.

  I removed my stitches and emerged on day five. Beautiful, sunny day in the canyons. I took a deep breath. No bones about it. I was still in bad shape mentally and physically, but like another beautiful sunny day in some canyons in a land far, far away, they had pulled me out of a rolled and burning Humvee and my sergeant had screamed "Corporal! Can you fight?"

  Yes, Sergeant.

  Yes, I can.

  Ten, white, five gallon buckets had materialized on the patio in my absence.

  Thanks, Mar-J.

  I gave my purloined-from-the-SOG, Ford F-150 Raptor a thorough going over. I packed several jerry cans of fuel. I checked over the dirt bike, put three 4 x 4's together to make a ramp and drove it up onto the bed. I threw the ramp in the back and tossed in my Halligan bar and a shovel, a pick and a sledgehammer from the garage. I packed food and water for a fortnight.

  I packed a shitload of guns.

  I packed the intact Men-In-Black space suit, all three respirator systems, a certain frozen finger and the dosimeter. Then I sat in the breakfast nook, wrote Alice a letter and made out my will. I caught motion in my front yard and the Uzi snapped up.

  Ted jumped liked he'd seen a ghost through the window.

  Or jumped like a guy finding an Uzi pointed at him.

  I jerked my head at the sliding glass door and he let himself in.

  "Frame."

  "Ted."

  "We thought you were gone."

  "I was."

  "I was keeping an
eye on your house while you were gone."

  "Thanks."

  "So . . ." Ted suddenly shot me the movie star smile. "You defeated the SOG single-handedly already?"

  "No, I'm about to go and do that now."

  "So, where were you?"

  "Getting my mind right. Healing up."

  "You look good."

  I gave Ted a look.

  He gave me a sheepish grin. "You look better?"

  "Thanks. I could use a beer."

  "Little early, buddy."

  "Ted, this is probably the last beer I'm ever going to have." Ted's eyes widened a bit at that. I gave him a grin back. "I'd be honored to have it with you."

  Ted went to the refrigerator and came back with a six-pack of Negro Modelos. Then he went to the cupboard, rolled his eyes and took out a crystal pitcher shaped like a slightly curved penis. He cracked four dark beers into it. Bobby's penis-pitcher went interracial. Some foam spilled out of the cock spout.

  Somewhere up there Bobby the lad was squealing with joy.

  Ted poured us two pints, set the crystal penis between us and raised a toast.

  "I'd be honored to drink with you, Frame."

  I raised my glass and commenced to drinking.

  Ted's brows bunched slightly and then he caught up and drained his glass with me. He poured us both another. "So, what are you going to do?"

  "You really want to know?"

  "Whatever you do will probably affect every last one of us."

  He wasn't wrong.

  I handed him the letter.

  "Do me a favor. Give this to Alice, but you go ahead and read it."

  Ted read it.

  He stared at me. He stared at me with the 'I'm sitting in a breakfast nook across the table from a spider the size of washing machine' look.

  I had that effect on people lately.

  "Frame, you can't do this."

  "I'm not asking you for permission, Ted. You or Alice."

  "Frame . . ."

  "You know what the SOG is going to do to you, Ted?"

  "Make me a slave?"

  "No, they'll execute a washed up ex-actor like you out of hand."

  "A bit rough."

  "You know what they're going to do to Eve?"

  That finally got a rise out of him.

  "It's going to be fuck-a-movie-star night in the Fuck Tent. They're going to be handing out numbers and selling tickets. Hell, if Malibu puts up a real fight and they're in a bad enough mood? They might keep you alive long enough to watch."

  "For God's sake, Frame! How many people are you going to kill?"