The Earth Died Screaming

by Chuck Rogers

It had been a rough morning.

  I had to continue my sweep.

  I peered through the blinds and saw no movement.

  I stepped outside.

  "FRAAAAAAAAAAMMMME!"

  God damn it.

  Chuck charged me.

  I'd already set his afro on fire and burned his head, but a burning and turning 6'8" four-hundred pound, naked mutating man is something to see. Morbidly obese men complain about how they can't see their dick anymore.

  Chuck's was about the size of a kitchen fire extinguisher and fighting all his rolls and folds to show me its hostile intent.

  I dropped and rolled beneath the trailer.

  The trailer rocked on its chocks as Chuck slammed into it.

  "FRAAAAAME! FRAAAAAME!"

  I grabbed my rifle and rolled to the other side.

  A part of Chuck's burned-and-turned, black-sumo wrestler mind knew what I was doing and I saw his giant cankles stomping around the trailer. I rolled to the other side and rolled up.

  Let's face it.

  In Chuck's prison-rape revenge on Frame fantasy, he was the bear and I was the twink.

  But I had medicine for rapey-bears.

  You take an M-14, you take a knee, and you flip the selector to full-auto.

  I took the extra precaution of fixing the bayonet.

  Chuck came around the trailer screaming, oozing, wobbling and flapping in every direction. I pointed the rifle at his bellybutton.

  "FRA--"

  The twenty round burst climbed to his clavicles as I held the trigger down.

  The M-14 racked open on a smoking, empty chamber.

  Chuck fell on his face.

  I rose and reloaded. I'd just announced myself to the world. I kept the bayonet on. As I recalled, radioactive rapey-bears are resilient, so I gave Chuck an experimental prod our two, but he had twenty spectacular exit wounds in his back and was visibly missing a section of spine.

  I continued my sweep out of Gipper's Grove to the south face of Valhalla and the employee parking lot. That was another, highly sought after bit of real estate. There had been heavy fighting here. All the tents were collapsed. One trailer had been pushed over onto its side and another smoldered. The intact ones all had their doors ripped open or their windows smashed by violent entry. Bodies were everywhere. I crouched and observed a SOG-tank.

  It was sexy as hell.

  I counted three axles so I was pretty sure it had started life as some kind of Chevy Silverado custom 6 x 6 conversion. Rather than the usual armored box this one's homemade steel armor was rakishly slanted to deflect small arms fire. The gleaming, sleek black paint job looked like it had been done in a professional auto paint shop. The broken world SOG logo painted across the frontal armor had the name "GEDZILLA" beneath it. Even the wicked, roadblock busting, inverted vee of I-bar mounted on the prow shined. The only thing that marred its sports-tank exterior was the belt of shuttered firing ports guarding all 360 degrees. The roof had two hatches. One mounted a general-purpose machine gun with a shield. The other had a US military Javelin anti-tank missile launcher.

  It looked like Ged'd had just about enough of Marshal Miles and his cannon mounted Chevy Tahoe. This was Ged's answer. Gedzilla was nemesis.

  I was so stealing it.

  Save that burned and turned bodies literally lay heaped around it in a circle. Kinda like someone had occupied Gedzilla and successfully defended it. It was all buttoned up with the bodies around it. Kinda like someone still might be in it. I had exactly one 40mm High Explosive Dual Purpose grenade, and let's face it. In this modern age an anti-armor grenade is kind of a non sequitur. I mean if I hit you with one and you're in a jeep or a truck that's your ass, but to actually punch through armor?

  Well?

  I'd heard it could be done, but you had to get real close and pick a real sweet angle.

  First things first. Find out if anyone's home.

  In Recon we call this reconnaissance by fire.

  I stood up out of the shrubbery and much like I'd done with Chuck I held the trigger down and put twenty rounds into the frontal armor arc. I got magnificent sparking action and the steel rang like an alarm.

  None of the bullets penetrated.

  The engine roared into life like a primeval beast awoke from slumber. I reloaded. Steel shutters shot open. Gedzilla rolled forward crushing bodies beneath the wheels. I sprayed another magazine across the frontal arc. A few small arms popped back. I reloaded. The hatched slammed open and Marrs appeared for half a second and dropped behind the machine gun's shield.

  "I see you, Frame!"

  I see you, too, you ginger, hammerhead son of a bitch.

  I ran like a little bitch.

  And that was the plan.

  I hurled myself across the hood of parked Mercury Grand Marquis and that is harder than it looks when you are carrying two rifles and a grenade launcher. Marrs' GPMG began tearing up the Marquis. I rolled flat and started firing from beneath it. Gedzilla had armored skirts to protect her tires but there had to be clearance. I was at eyeball level with it and began squeezing off rounds.

  Both front tires burst.

  The battering ram plowed into the lawn and Gedzilla tried and failed to stand on its nose. Something that big sheathed in that much steel has momentum and Gedzilla plowed on. I leaped up and ran for the wall of the archives building. Gedzilla plowed past and slammed into the Mercury Marquis. The behemoth crunched to a halt and I was already behind it. Marrs had been flailed around in the hatch and was a good two-seconds too late.

  The back hatch popped open for deployment.

  There was Franco.

  I raised the AR and squeezed the trigger on the grenade launcher.

  Franco had one second to gape in horror.

  I held the trigger down on the AR.

  The grenade sailed right over Franco's shoulder and the AR hammered him back into the tank. The grenade detonated. Perfect hotbox hit. Armor contained the explosion inside and funneled it. Yellow flame pulsed out of the rear hatch. Smoke and fire pulsed up the hatch around Marrs and he screamed like the damned in hell before he collapsed down the hatch into the burning interior.

  I reloaded and watched Gedzilla burn.

  No one came out and no one was ever going to.

  Flawless.

  Fucking.

  Victory.

  I took a wild, fucking chance and ran up the hood and pulled the retaining pin on the javelin launcher. I pulled a Dukes of Hazard slide back down and nearly broke my neck with my 50lb prize. I ran like a thief as the remaining missiles inside cooked off and fire roared out of the open hatches.

  Now I had a missile.

  Have to come back for that.

  I set it down along with the AR.

  I didn't care about being quiet anymore.

  I took up the M-14 and continued my sweep.

  Coming for you, Ged .

  Smoke filled the air but not much noise. As far as I knew the burned and turned migrated looking for something warm-blooded to fuck and eat and the next radioactive moon rock to bathe in. I'd done the water supply dirty but that left the radiation dispersed. I swung east around the perimeter and went in the main entrance. I swept through the halls. Had to shoot a few hoppers and crawlers who were between turning and dying.

  I reached the Oval Office.

  It was pristine.

  The beautiful, slave-woven SOG flag was gone.

  So was Ged's sword.

  There was one new thing since I had seen it.

  There was a military field phone on Reagan's desk.

  I did a slow circle. There was one cable coming out of it. I'd have to follow it down hill to see where it went. Could be a trap. A field phone box could hold enough explosive to light up me and the room.

  I didn't think Ged'd had the time for that.

  On impulse I picked up the handset and squeezed the send button. "Paging Mister Ged, Mister Ged, you have a telephone call at the Resolute Desk."

  He answered
immediately.

  "Frame."

  "Ged."

  "I was hoping you might call."

  I waited for him to open the bidding.

  "I wanted you to know, what they did to your girl. I did not order that. Brock and Dez got creative. I punished them for it."

  I believed him.

  "I believe you."

  "Thank you, Frame. That is important to me."

  "Speaking of Brock, I haven't seen that limp-dick's body or his Land Rover. Is he with you or off training to be a SOG Youth leader?"

  I swear I heard Ged smile. "You are a very perceptive man, Frame. I remember you wondering where all the children were."

  Jesus . . .

  Fucking . . .

  Christ.

  The children of the slaves were being groomed into Ged's own Hitler Youth, or worse.

  They were being turned into child soldiers.

  With Brock and a cadre of the teenage cavemen as camp counselors.

  There was a silver lining in the horror of all of this. I had shown Dez mercy, and there was the solace that even if I had joined the SOG the first day out of the Hole, the second I had become aware of this shit?

  I'd be doing exactly what I was doing now to stop it.

  I was still a human being.

  Just not a good one.

  "Tell Brock. What was done to Lalli? I am going to do to him."

  Ged switched subjects. "How does it feel to be a traitor?"

  Really?

  "Am I a traitor if I intended to fuck your ass from the start?"

  "You betrayed Dez. I think that may be what I will never forgive you for. She loved you."

  That hurt.

  "You loved her."

  "I did, and Del. But I cannot be fucking members. But they threw themselves at me, Frame. I could have taken them any time."

  "I found Dez in her trailer bleeding out of every hole. She asked me to put her down. I did."

  "Since you and I are talking honestly, can I ask you a question?"

  "Shoot."

  "What is it that you think you accomplished?"

  "Fucked your ass, big man."

  "You know, your fame is already spreading."

  "Groovy."

  "You do not understand. You never knew the whole picture or the extent of my movement. I am spreading your name. Soon the whole world will be spreading it. You are Frame, a dishonorably discharged ex-con. The SOG took you in, and you murdered us. You killed men, women and children."

  There had been no children involved, but yeah.

  "Who knows how you sold your soul, but the black helicopters came at your bidding and killed men, women and children by the thousands."

  That wasn't exactly true either, but way too much of it was.

  "How did you manage that by the way?"

  "You can think of me as that nasty kid nobody likes who instigates fights between the big kids and then watches behind the yard duty, laughing."

  "Then you took the poisoned dust of the beam and contaminated a water supply. Thousands of men, women and children, poisoned, burned and turned and bleeding out from every pore in their body. This is Year One, Frame, and you are the first war criminal of the post apocalypse. Every child in this new world will be told, Eat your veggie MRE, or Frame will come in the night and burn and turn you. Anyone who sees a black helicopter will say Oh God! Did Frame send them? You are the anti-Christ of the new world.

  "I serve the Saint of Death. Let her will be done."

  That shut him up for a second.

  "Speaking of which, I killed Chuck, Marrs and Franco."

  "I saw that."

  You're within field telephone distance, but you don't have anything to hit me with. Where are you, Ged?

  "I want you to think on something."

  "What's that?"

  "You bear our mark and you have some very identifiable scars on your face. Wherever you are recognized, you will be shunned like a leper or shot on sight like a rabid dog. That is best-case scenario. Know that there is already a price on your head, and I want you alive."

  Jesus.

  Ged should have been a PSYOPS officer. We could have used a guy like him fucking with minds in the sandbox.

  "I am going to rebuild, Frame, and I am going to burn Malibu and everyone in it. I mean every last man, woman, child and animal. Nailed to the Tree of Woe, doused with gasoline and burned."

  Things started getting a little dark around the edges of my vision. I knew the next thing he was going to say.

  "But you can stop it. Surrender. I will spare Malibu, but they will have to capitulate. Mar-J, Keith Braun, the Hausers, they can make member."

  Ged kept naming names.

  They had tortured everything out of Lalli.

  I started shaking. It had already been a rough morning.

  "The rest? They don't have to be slaves. I am thinking of instituting a class of serfs. Peons, if you will. They won't be happy, but as long as they earn and obey they will have certain rights. I can soften the blow for Malibu."

  Ged took the dramatic pause.

  "Just turn yourself in."

  God damn him.

  "You know I will keep my word."

  I knew he would.

  "I am not a sadist. This gives me no pleasure, but an example has to be made. You or Malibu."

  That's when he turned the knife.

  "I'll even let them keep their children."

  That's when I started laughing.

  "I amuse you?"

  Then I fucking lied and told the truth.

  "You think I give a shit about Malibu?"

  "I know where you live, Frame. Do you give a shit about what is left of your girl? Do you care about your dog?"

  "Lalli hung herself."

  Ged got quiet.

  "I put Face down so you never will."

  Silence.

  "I am never going back to Malibu. I have severed all ties. There's only one thing keeping me here, and that is you. This was a suicide mission, and you and I are still alive."

  Silence.

  "I have a dream."

  Silence.

  "It'll be difficult with a fat-body like you. It may take a block and tackle. But I am going to hoist you up, nail you upside down to a tree and fucking set you on fire. The rest of my life, Ged, devoted. Failing that? I take you from a thousand meters when you're so stupid as to think you're safe and make your next SOG revival speech from the back of a truck. You won't be able help yourself. You're going to try and rebuild, and to do that you are going to have crawl out of whatever hole your hiding in. I'll be waiting."

  "Then I guess we will see each other around."

  "I will see you through an optic."

  "Frame?"

  "Yeah?

  "The world could have used a guy like you."

  "You should take a look around your clubhouse. I think the world is finally using me to my full potential."

  Ged took a breath in like he was about to say something and crushed it.

  I was getting to him.

  "I'm going to go blow up the armory now."

  "Frame . . ."

  "But I'm keeping the Javelin, that thing is sweet. Oh, and you don't need to bother coming back to the Oval Office. I'm taking the Resolute Desk and the chair. That is going to look so sweet in the Frame Cave."

  I swear I heard his jaw muscles flexing.

  "You got two choices. You can run, but that just means you die tired, fat-boy."

  No clever response.

  I heard some muffled noises. Ged had people around him and they were listening.

  "Or you can come out and play. This broken world isn't big enough for both of us. So why don't you load up an AR and we can have ourselves a live-ammo paint ball game in the galleries. Of course, I'm Force Recon and you're fat. So, we both know how that's gonna go."

  He was seething.

  "Bring your friends."

  Silence.

  "Or, tell you what. You bring your fat a
ss and that fucking Hobbit sword of yours to the Rose Garden. I'll drop my clip and just use the bayonet."

  Silence.

  "Fight Night, Ged. You and me."

  Silence.

  "Guns or knives, Ged? GUNS-OR-KNIVES?"

  Waited all my life to say that.

  It seemed Ged had nothing to say to that.

  I sighed.

  "Fine. Bare hands. To the death. Let's do this."

  I gave Ged a long count of five and then used the only insult that'd ever meant anything to me.

  "You fucking coward."

  "Fuck you."

  I knew he'd break.

  Well, 50/50?

  "I knew you'd break."

  "I am going to nail you to the Tree of Woe, motherfucker! I am going to fuck your narrow--"

  I clicked off the handset and put it back in the cradle.

  Then I unplugged it.

  The Frame Cave was going to need a Frame Phone.

  See you around, Ged.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Don't go back.

  YOU KNOW WHAT IS MORE FUN THAN BLOWING UP FUEL TANKERS?

  Blowing up an armory full of homemade rockets and bombs.

  I finished my sweep but the SOG that could get out had and most of the burned and turned had followed them. I waited until dark, pushed the Resolute Desk out into the Rose Garden and lit the place up. Humping the Javelin down the hill in darkness sucked but I was not leaving that bad boy behind. I took a ridiculous chance and drove the Raptor back up the hill in the midst of the conflagration and got that goddamn desk and chair in the truck bed. I hadn't been lying to Ged about that.

  All executive privileges rescinded.

  I took the same eastern route back in case Ged had someone trying to follow me. It made it look like I was for real about never going back. The batteries on the NVG's died and I got real nervous as I crossed the Ventura in daylight. I was in a Ford F-150 SOG-Raptor loaded with guns and office equipment. Nothing suspicious there. On the outskirts of Calabasas I spotted a caravan. It was hard to imagine that many SOG had gotten away with that much gear but I took out the M-14 and went for a recon. I counted nearly three-dozen campers.

  They'd circled the wagons in a bit of open space like a cowboy movie.

  They were actually wagons.

  As in modern campers but drawn by horses.

  Children ran about. Chickens and goats ran about. There were lots of dogs, and pit bull variations seemed to the overwhelming favorites. Clothes dried on lines. The men all wore fucked up black hats and the women skirts and headscarves. Lots of vests. There were guns, not a lot and no heavy weapons, but they were armed, and every man over the age of twelve appeared to carry a ten-inch chef's knife on his belt.