The Earth Died Screaming

by Chuck Rogers

  So did all the women.

  I estimated a three hundred plus population.

  They were Romani.

  Gypsies.

  I shouldn't have been surprised. Southern California had a substantial Romani population, and if the world was going to end, belonging to an extremely close-knit group of traditional, tribal nomads was an excellent survival strategy. I wondered if any of my people were left and if they had gotten back on their horses.

  The Mormons were probably doing all right.

  They weren't exactly nomads, but they sure got around, were tight knit as hell, and man, did they love guns.

  The Men-In-Black had to be casting a nervous eye on Utah.

  I watched the encampment and considered.

  There was a chance I might get a decent bowl of goulash and a dog in exchange for news. There was a real good chance they'd sick the dogs on me, and I couldn't lick thirty pit bulls today. The Romani were a part of the LA underworld, but my experience with them was limited. Even on the best of days it was always hard to judge the Romani mood, and the world had ended and I was a non-Rom who looked like death warmed over.

  I sadly turned my gaze away from their cook fires, chewed on fucking MRE crackers, noted the location on the map, mentioned them in my log for Alice and gave the caravan a very wide berth.

  The rest of Calabasas was emptied out and uneventful. I avoided the Mulholland Highway until I was back in Malibu Creek Park. Then I stopped in a nice open bit and fired a flare, followed by three, slow, measured shots from the M-14. I did this every fifteen minutes for three quarters of an hour. Colin and a wedge of his cavalry came galloping out of the trees. Colin whooped and waved his hat in big circles.

  "Frame!"

  They all started a whoopin' and a wavin'.

  Cowboys . . .

  I waved back.

  Colin was all smiles until he pulled up.

  "What?"

  Colin dismounted. "Frame?"

  "What?"

  "I've seen you look bad. You look bad."

  "Yeah, I could use some rack time." I handed him my map and notebook. "You want to give this to Alice for me?"

  "You bet." Colin glanced back at the hill and looked me up and down. "Alice told me what you intended to do. We saw the explosions lighting up the sky over the hill. We saw a helicopter dogfight over the park and one of them got hit by a missile and fell out of the sky. That was the Men-In-Black?"

  "They came in force."

  "And Valhalla?"

  "I salted the earth and burned it to the ground." I shrugged. "Ged's still alive."

  "Shit."

  "Yeah, but he lost over a thousand fighters and his base. You should start expecting refugees."

  "We're already starting to get some."

  "Watch out for sleeper agents."

  "We hang members who bear the mark. Provisionals we quarantine until Alice and the council can interview them.

  Alice and the council.

  "Slaves who bear that mark are free as long as the mark isn't recent. Them we quarantine too."

  "How's Lalli?"

  Colin wouldn't meet my eyes.

  I leaped into the Raptor's cab.

  "Frame!"

  The truck roared forward as I floored it. I ran out of gas two miles out. I ran the rest of the way. I collapsed on my street. I swear I've vomited more since the beam then I have my entire previous life. I was on my hands and knees in the middle of the road. I prepared myself to crawl.

  I heard the clip-clop-clip-clop-clip-cop of a shod horse on the road.

  Ted would help me.

  I wiped MRE chili off my chin and got to my knees.

  A man sat upon a magnificent white horse.

  I knew him.

  His curly blonde hair had been burned white and pulled into a pigtail. His vampire-twink skin had been burned a magnificent deep-water tan he would regret later. He wore a French or Russian blue-and white-striped sailor shirt that was knotted at the rib cage to show six-pack abs. He was all sinewy muscle and chiseled features. Joran Guftason's seven shot .357 was strapped to his chest in the safari rig.

  He had a Hobbit sword strapped to his thigh.

  He was wearing Capri pants and cowboy boots.

  My jaw dropped out of my head.

  "Bobby?"

  "Frame."

  "I like your horse."

  "Thank you. I bought him from Colin. Ted and Eve said they would take care of him for me when I'm not in town. I named him Snow Cone."

  I wasn't surprised.

  "You look good."

  "Thank you. I've been six months at sea." Bobby stared enigmatically into the middle distance. "It changes a man."

  It certainly had.

  "The magnum looks good on you."

  "Thanks, I took some of your guns and supplies. We're very short. I figured since you thought I was dead and I let you use my stuff you wouldn't mind me doing it when your status was iffy."

  "Oh, no worries. Mi armas su armas."

  "Thank you. My crew is going to love you."

  "You have a crew?"

  "Yes, on my ship."

  "You have a ship?"

  "Yes, she's scheduled to return this afternoon. We should go meet them."

  "Why is your ship gone?"

  Bobby looked at me like I was an idiot. "Frame, Malibu faces open-ocean. We don't even have a marina. Weighing anchor against a lee shore is suicidal. My crew dropped me off for forty-eight hours. Spartak, you'll meet him, he's down at the beach with the dinghy.

  I was having a hard time processing this.

  "You have a ship?"

  "Yes, Xavier, the lovely man whose ship I was guesting on when you called me? We lost him after Cape Horn."

  "You rounded the Horn?"

  "We'd heard nothing but bad things about the Panama Canal, and Brazil burned." Bobby shook his head in memory. "But the Horn was bad enough."

  Bobby had sailed over twelve thousand nautical miles.

  About twelve thousand questions flooded my brain.

  I finally managed "How?"

  "Frame? Do you know what a bunga bunga is?"

  "Sex parties of the rich and fabulous?"

  "Exactly! Anyhoo, Xavier was throwing a three-day bunga bunga blowout on his yacht when you called. Oh, and thanks for that."

  "You're welcome."

  "So, the beam hit just like you said," He paused. "I am so sorry about the girl."

  "Thank you."

  "I've had a lot of time to think. I must have seemed very callous."

  "Given the nature of the phone call you were surprisingly reasonable."

  "Thanks, that means a lot. So, when the beam hit I was below deck, so I didn't go blind, but I saw a bunch of the moon breaking apart."

  "That must've been something."

  "Within hours half of Costa del Sol was burning. No one had any bars or internet connection. I sobered up a bit and told Xavier about your call. He decided we should stay at sea for a while and we headed for the Straights of Gibraltar. So, most of the crew had been sent ashore to make room for the party, so Xavier had an undermanned and overcrowded sailing yacht filled with 24/7 party people and some very rich, and may I say some not so nice and powerful friends. Honestly? It went Lord of the Flies real fast. But I remembered what you'd taught me, about reading situations and what to do if I had to fight. I stuck by my X-man.

  His X-man . . .

  "In the end, Xavier lost most of his friends, but he had a crew of fit young men and women, and he taught us all how to sail, and fish and manage the boat. I think it was the happiest I had ever seen him." Bobby got a little choked up. "When he died we didn't know what to do, but Enrique, you'll meet him, he remembered the Pirate Code from Disney Land and wrote it down. We all agreed to it. We decided to call ourselves the 'X-Men' in Xavier's honor. I wanted to name the ship The Iceman."

  "Because Iceman's name is Bobby."

  "Right, and he's gay."

  "Iceman's not gay in the movi
es." I frowned. I'd spent time with the X-men down in the Hole. "He's in love with Rogue."

  "Hollywood, I'm kind of glad the bitch is dead." Bobby rolled his eyes. "But funny you should say that, because that's when Pippa, you'll love her, said we should name her Rogue, because ships are girls and we were a pirate crew of ruthless rogues. I was out-voted, but I love my Rogue. I think you will, too."

  I started to become very nervous about what he was hinting at.

  "You've been in your house?"

  "Of course."

  "How is Lalli?"

  Bobby got very quiet. He threw it back at me from back in the day. "Is there anything in that house you can't walk away from in thirty seconds?"

  "My girl and my dog."

  Bobby started crying. I'd seen him hysterical before. I didn't think this new Bobby would ever be hysterical again.

  He was weeping because he cared about me.

  I knew fear.

  "What if you got on the back of my horse and road down to the beach with me? My boat should be back by mid-day. We're taking Rogue up the coast to San Francisco. It's one of the safest harbors in the world. The tsunamis couldn't have done much damage. It was one of the richest places on earth, and you've got the whole Bay Area around it. Napa, Silicon Valley, farms and ranches to the south. If nothing else the whole Bay is one big yacht club. There should be plenty of supplies for the ship. We knew a lot of people there. We want to see if they're still alive. We could explore, together. We have girls on board. They're going to love you."

  "Bobby, I don't need to get on a gay pirate ship right now."

  "Frame, I know I was never your friend, but for a while there? You the only real friend I had. I owe you. I always will. Come with us."

  "What happened?"

  Bobby's face broke apart. "You've suffered enough."

  I stormed past Bobby and Snow Cone.

  "Frame! Don't go back!"

  That was a gut punch.

  I managed a tottering, head-spinning run down my street.

  My gate was open.

  I heard Face barking happily.

  I staggered into my front yard.

  All my vehicles save the SOG-Raptor were still there.

  In the Raptor's spot someone had parked an automotive abortion of nature. The front sort of looked like a Honda Civic. The back was some cross between a small SUV and an even smaller delivery van. It had bullet holes in some of the body panels and one of the back windows was cardboard and duct tape repaired.

  It was a Renault Kangoo Trekka.

  I'd done security work south of the border.

  You could hardly get any Renaults in the United States much less that model.

  They were very popular in Mexico.

  I heard a child's laughter.

  I heard Lalli's laughter.

  I heard Face barking.

  You wouldn't think I could throw up again, but it rose up against my tonsils.

  My house, no, it had always been Bobby's house. It was an Eichler. Windows for walls.

  I saw Lalli run past the kitchen window to the back yard. She had a slight limp. I didn't quite catch her face. But she was laughing and looking back and shouting happily.

  "¡Sale! ¡Sale!"

  "Come on! Come on!"

  A little girl with little pigtails and little cargo shorts and little boots and a little Mexican National Tricolor football team t-shirt chased her.

  "¡Mama! ¡Mama!"

  She was beautiful.

  Just like her mother.

  Face didn't chase Lalli.

  Face barked and ran beside the little girl because Face was the best dog in the world.

  Face was getting so big.

  I should've gotten on that big white horse behind that beautiful gay man and gotten on board that beautiful gay pirate ship.

  Rumor was there was a girl named Pippa aboard.

  Rumor was she'd love a guy like me.

  I felt the man staring at me from the garage door but I didn't look until Lalli and her daughter and my dog ran out of sight again.

  He was a Mexican artist looking guy.

  Not big, not small. Long hair pulled back and a beard. Jeans, jeans jacket, cowboy boots.

  My Beretta was perched in his waistband.

  He was vibrating at me like a Doberman pinscher waiting for the command to rip out a throat. Couldn't blame him. Of course Lalli had told him everything.

  For a Latin guy, Eduardo was holding pretty steady.

  "Señor Frame."

  I didn't know his last name.

  "Señor."

  He'd seen me before coming out. He held out my dog tags.

  I took them.

  "You need to go. You need to go now."

  "No."

  Eduardo's hand went to my Beretta.

  My eyes stung as I turned to look back on Lalli, Najelli and Face.

  "Take your family. Leave. Pick any excuse. Go visit the Cutshalls or Mar-J."

  I turned and looked at Eduardo.

  I was crying and I didn't care.

  Eduardo looked in my eyes and I swear there was actual empathy.

  He'd been ready to kill me.

  Now he saw how fucked I was and he pitied me.

  I shrugged.

  What else could I do?

  "When you come back I'll be gone."

  I walked down the drive. I walked into the woods. I cried my eyes out. Of course I picked a vantage. I watched as Eduardo drove out in Bobby's Jeep. Lalli rode shotgun. The railroad station of scars could not hide how beautiful her eyes and her smile was. Her daughter was as happy as a little girl could be in the back of a jeep with her dog and the top down.

  Face was with her and Face shoved her face past the roll bar so the wind could blow her ears and her beard and mustaches.

  I wept for the end of my world.

  I'd lost my girl, my dog, my home, my community and the family I would never have.

  It was still the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die.

  Frame wins the battle, loses the war, and fucks himself.

  As time goes by.

  I squatted in the trees on the outside looking in, while my ex-family drove away. I looked out across the cusp of my destiny.

  Cusp of destiny hell.

  I have a lot of problems.

  Fearing the darkness is not one of them.

  Fuck all that.

  Lalli deserved her miracle.

  Go with Santa Muerte, little priestess. Vaya con dios.

  It was the same old story, but that story was here Frame goes, again, on his own. Going down the only road Frame's ever known. Like a drifter, Frame was born to walk alone.

  I'd had my pity party.

  I put my dog tags back around my neck.

  They clicked against Santa Muerte.

  You and me, bitch.

  Let's take a walk down that road.

  The only problem with that road, currently, was there was a fork in it.

  Gay pirate ship to San Francisco?

  Or hunt Ged to the ends of the Earth.

  Decisions, decisions, decisions . . .

  The End

  About the Author

  Chuck Rogers lives by his wits in the throbbing heart of the Silicon Valley.

  For the latest news on Chuck's work, please visit and like the Chuck Rogers Adventures Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ChuckRogersAdventures.

  Also by Chuck Rogers:

  Heroes Road: Book 1

  Disgraced, destitute, and dishonorably discharged. Coel ap Math and Snorri Yaroslav are soldiers without a cause. When a mysterious sorcerer makes them an offer they can't afford to refuse, they set out on an adventure that will take them around the known world, and one that will determine the world's fate.

  Available in Print and Kindle formats at https://www.amazon.com/Heroes-Road-Book-Chuck-Rogers-ebook/dp/B01FL8C9IQ

  Heroes Road: Book 2

  "I
have looked across the arc of my dreams and seen Coel's death in all three hundred and sixty degrees of it. The circle of his destiny shall tighten like a noose upon him in less than one of your years . . ."

  Coel's journey eastward with the sorcerer Reza Walladid earned him the wrath of the Hobgoblin Hordes the Lord of the Assassins. The terrible secret he discovered there could turn humanity against him yet now it must be revealed. Now nation after nation fall before the Horde's inexorable march west, either slaughtered and eaten in battle or accepting the Horde's terrifying terms of surrender. In every shadow Assassin daggers lurk.

  Once again Coel must ride east, into the teeth of the invasion with a band of heroes upon a suicide mission. They are a gesture, unsanctioned by Church or King. With no chance of victory there is one forlorn gift they might give the failing west.

  The most terrifying thing of all.

  Hope.

  Surrounded by enemies on all sides, once again Coel finds his only refuge is honor. Once again Coel finds there is only one path to follow.

  The Heroes Road.

  Available in Print and Kindle formats at https://www.amazon.com/Heroes-Road-Book-Chuck-Rogers-ebook-dp-B07F2LN75B/dp/B07F2LN75B

  THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE TO THANK

  My brother Roger, first, best and always.

  Keith Brown: Beta reader and editor. You may have noticed a certain character in the book . . .

  And if you liked him in this? Check out Brawny Keith in Heroes Road 2 and 3!

  Alice O'kieffe: In previous author-would-like-to-thanks I have mentioned that she is the one who taught me how to write a screenplay, and when I have written anything at this point I try to step back and look at it with "Alice's Eye." I do not care if you have written a novel, screenplay or a dirty limerick. Pray for the day that Alice will say, "Okay, I'm kind of busy but I'll look at it."

  Nothing I don't owe you AOK!

  Plus invaluable secret knowledge of Malibu, Agoura Hill and the dark secrets of Malibou Lake we are waiting for her to write a screenplay about.