6th Horseman, Extremist Edge Series: Part 1

by Anderson Atlas

  My voice leaped from my throat like I was breathing fire. I was possessed by my mother who was currently the Senator of New York. “The last three Presidents have promised the same crap! How about some real answers with concrete ideas! How will you handle executive abuse and corporate pandering?!”

  Congressman Jones had no idea what he’d gotten into. He was booed off stage, and to my own surprise, I stomped on stage. A sea of heavily shadowed faces glared at me from below. The crowd was silent. They watched me like a child seeing their parents do something different for a change.

  I tried to clear my throat. When that didn’t work, I chugged my beer then blurted out. “Who the fuck am I?” The crowd roared. “I’ve got two eyes, two ears, and a brain like everyone here!” The crowd roared again. I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but I had the crowd like a rabbit in a wolf’s jaws. So I bit down. After all, I was drunk, mad, and could put two words together. “The whole damn system is fucked!” A roar as loud as stampeding elephants thundered throughout the small space. “Some democrat comes up here thinking he could dance and we’d let him lead. I can see through it! He says the same bull crap we’ve been hearing for decades. Who the fuck am I? I’m a pissed American, that’s who.” Stomping feet and clapping drowned out my voice. I waited until it subsided. “Who was responsible for the housing bubble? Wall Street was responsible. Who went to war illegally with Iraq, Libya, then Pakistan? The government did. Who colludes to keep tax loopholes, pharmaceuticals overloading our shelves, and contributes to the military industrial complex? Government and lobbyists!” More applause and stomping. “I say we take this to the street. I say we set up a protest that clogs the entire city!”

  The crowd’s immense cheers hurt my ears. My throat was dry, but a rush of energy filled my body and burst out my pores.

  I’d found my political voice. Now I had a fire under my feet that kept me going. And dad’s monthly checks, of course. If my mother could teeter on the socialist cliff edge, I was gonna jump off it.

  I started to consume political material. I found gobs of criticism from socialist party websites and books. I read nonstop for months. I dropped out of school and didn’t even date. I read about scams by the bankers, government corruption, lack of oversight, and more. Anarchist papers. Communist papers. I read them all.

  I held my first rally in the fall. Fifty newfound friends met in a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. It was owned by some businessman from Yugoslavia. We jammed the warehouse wall to wall. It was a party. After the speeches, we got drunk and made some serious noise. But it was all talk. I wanted more. I wanted politicians to go to jail. In just a few months I’d grown our online subscription to over sixteen thousand subscribers. I thought I understood the nature of corruption. I thought it was all about selfishness and greed. At that time, I thought that the system revolved around a few very powerful people making decisions for all of us. The elite. The shadow government. As it turned out, we were the ones in the shadows.

  One night, my buddy, Reese, and five other guys set out to do some guerrilla protesting. That’s what we called it. Our end game was to embarrass a law office that protected crooked CEO’s. We had to be sneaky about it. Good thing I was excellent at being sneaky.

  We put on our black suits and headed out to club Tangle, which was next to the corporate law offices of Sim and Mayers. Club Tangle was a packed house, which was what we needed. First order of business was to pass out fliers with an info graphic that succinctly laid out how much money corporations spend on lobbyists. It also included names of CEO’s, their salaries, and seriously fat bonuses.

  The Law Offices of Sim and Mayers defended corporations who enabled them to keep the little people under their boot. We were whispering to people that something big was going to happen next door at the law offices. The word spread. People knew we were serious. They bit on the rumor and followed the carrot into the street. Tweets and blogs got passed around like a blazing joint and everyone started showing up. Traffic came to a grinding halt.

  I snuck away from the growing crowd and slipped on my black ski mask. I put on my leather gloves and retrieved a backpack I hid behind a dumpster. I pulled out rolled papers and handed one to each of my guys. We ran down the alley and into the underground parking lot, hitting the camera lenses with sticky balls while a guy went into the front lobby to distract the guards.

  Reese, a jack-of-all-trades, picked the lock to the lower security elevator door using some card clone device. Once on the third floor, we ran to the windows. We only had ten minutes. I opened a window at the corner office and ran to the window facing the club. I could hear the ruckus growing on the street. The cops had probably been called so we had to hurry. I attached my roll of paper to the outer windowsill with duct tape. There was a long string connected to a paperclip that kept the roll of paper rolled up. I let the string dangle out the window. My guys were doing the same at every window that faced the street. I taped up two more paper rolls at two more windows and dropped the string. All the strings were connected to a master string that hung to the sidewalk. Time was up. I could see the reflections of police lights dance into the building from the street below. The cops were early. We hit the stairwell and practically flew down the steps. At the street level was the emergency exit. We bashed through the doors like we were sledgehammers. The alarm rang, but it didn’t matter. We’d done our jobs. The crowd had successfully blocked the alley, and we were absorbed into the masses. I walked to the front of the crowd where the police were holding the line in front of the Sim and Mayers’ building. I pressed my back to the barricade. I was handed a bullhorn and when the attention came to me like magnet to metal I spoke, “Sometimes we have to follow the money!” I yelled. The bullhorn projected my voice like a flood of authority.

  “We see wrongs happening and we see corruption. Today we’re highlighting the very law offices that keep corrupt men from going to jail!” Hands went up in the crowd. Glowing screens from cell phones lit up the night. People started their cameras rolling. I turned and ran past the few cops to the steps of the building and turned. I held the bullhorn up, “Today we show you what the media is too lazy or corrupt to tell you! We advocate for the Forgotten Man!”

  One of my guys pulled the master string we’d attached to all our paper rolls. Banners unfurled from each window behind me. They were images of everyday people. Across their faces were words. They said ‘Fired’ across their blacked out eyes. Across their chests were various reasons. They included: for being gay, for being democrat, for being overweight, for missing too much work because of a sick child, for getting pregnant — and feebler excuses. I pointed to the posters behind me, “Each of these people took their cases to court and each case was thrown out. By who?! By corrupt judges and these guys. The lawyers that work in this very building!” The crowd booed. Their faces were a sea of anger and excitement. Their eyes reflected their humanity back at me. The desire to be right and to feel a true sense of morality was as strong as our beating hearts.

  When the cops arrested me and my friends, we laughed. We threw the remainder of our pamphlets into the air. The propaganda confetti fluttered into the hands of the people. I felt like I was bullet proof, like I was as strong as titanium. It was a night I never forgot.

  Unfortunately, my dad didn’t let me spend the night in jail. Afraid of the publicity sewer his company would reap in the press, he bailed me out and covered up my involvement. I haven’t spoken to him since.

  Our organization grew — The Red Stars. Eventually I was able to get over fifty thousand people to March on Wall Street. We were protesting the corruption of the banks and the system itself. We camped out for days. Hundreds of supporters followed. One week turned into five. Fifty thousand turned into a half a million. I felt like a god, like I could do no wrong. This energy that flowed through my thoughts kept me up at night. I walked the streets, filled book after book with thoughts, opinions and articles. Everyone knew me. Either you hated me or you loved me.

&n
bsp; The night it all fell apart I was half way through a fifth of vodka. I was drinking and toasting our success with a group, still faithfully camped on the National Mall.

  Well, at first the protest got a lot of attention. We were really making people think. Then the media stepped in. They distorted our message and made us look like crazy people. Some of us were crazy. We kind of attracted homeless people, ex-cons, and the messed up alike. Who else could take off work and sit around protesting and camping in a park for five weeks? Anyway, shit started going down. A guy in Orange County raped a woman. The cops tear gassed the park and everyone went home. New York protestors jumped a couple of aggressive cops and bashed their heads in. They got shut down. Houston had a counter protest next door and eventually they started throwing punches. Every time the cameras were pointed at a protestor they couldn’t answer a damn question. Of course the media latched onto the really stupid answers, and the Youtube whores sent the videos viral. The longer we stayed there the loonier we looked. It imploded, the whole thing. We were ineffectual.

  I used to write about the evilness of the rich. But I’m evil. I took everything away from everyone, including myself.

  #

  The rowboat is a tight fit. I want to scream out and hit something until the bones in my fists break.

  The night hits us full force and the rain stops. Then I remember I’ve got a light. In my pack, I have a flashlight that can be turned into a lantern. I take Isabella’s beater stick and set it on its end. The flashlight’s strap has a clip on it, so I’m able to tighten it to the handle. I turn it on and watch the darkness leap away from our little boat.

  The light has a weird effect. It makes everywhere else darker. The clouds block the moon and the stars. We can’t see anything, but we can hear movement on the shores. There are guttural screams in the distance and silence everywhere else. Not even a cricket.

  Rice whimpers to herself for over an hour. She’s not even trying to keep herself quiet. Just after two in the morning, Josh falls asleep from exhaustion. Tanis sleeps. Ben passes out. He’d been drinking the entire time. I’m hoping he’ll be more pleasant to be around when he’s sober, but the reverse might be true. Isabella keeps her eyes wide open. She chews on a sucker Tanis gave her, who, not surprisingly, has a stockpile of candy in his pack. Markus doesn’t sleep either. He uses the light to read passages from his Bible. Me and Hana keep the boat in the middle of the river by taking turns rowing. We try to row as little as possible. Andy sleeps as well, but he’s moaning like a he’s got a fever. We change seats in order to find the most comfortable configuration, but nothing seems to ease the cramped space.

  I can’t tell how close we are to the shore. Then I see them, eyeless faces moving along the shadows like jackals working out how to attack us most efficiently. They’re stalking us like we’re wounded antelope.

  “Shit!” I hiss, realizing we’re too close to the shore. Adrenaline floods my system. I turn the boat with one oar and then row with both until the shore fades from view. One of those walkers leaps into the water. Its twisted screeching face fades to black.

  After reaching the Hudson we float south toward the Atlantic Ocean. I don’t want to get pushed out to sea in a rowboat, but the receding tide gives us little choice. I’m worried, but I say nothing.

  “Those walkers must be able to hear us,” Hana whispers. “They don’t have eyes anymore. So I don’t see any other way for them to track us.”

  Isabella speaks up, “Does it matter? They want us. We have to find a way to burn them all.”

  “Yes, it matters,” Hana replies. “It matters to me.”

  “I think you’re right,” I cut in. “They sense us differently now. They aren’t human anymore. They must be hearing us . . . or seeing our heat. Maybe they have sonar, like a bat.”

  Markus chimes in. His voice is calm and reassuring, “Peter tells us about the apocalypse, ‘the day of the Lord will come like a thief’. . .”

  “Thanks for that,” Isabella mumbles.

  Markus continues unabated, “...The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. In Thessalonians, the passage says, ‘While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better, Markus,” Hana mumbles.

  “But we have, all of us here, have passed through the fire. We are to become the righteous. We will rebuild the world.”

  “So you think there’s no quarantine line?” Hana asks. “This virus is crawling across the entire Earth?”

  “I don’t know for sure. But these are the end times,” Markus replies. “I know it in my heart. When there’s no more room in hell, the Lord will come and the dead will walk the earth.”

  I pull my oar slowly through the water, steering us back to the middle of the Hudson. “I have to agree with Markus. If they stopped the spread of the virus wouldn’t we see planes in the sky? Wouldn’t we see the full force of the U.S. Army by now?”

  “They should’ve firebombed the entire area,” Isabella adds.

  Rice sits up. Her face has long lines of dark mascara streaking from her cheeks. In the shadows of my weak lantern her face is wrecked. She asks Markus, “Why are we saved? I never spent one hour in church. My parents didn’t believe in God. I never took communion or prayed!”

  “God has a plan for all of us. It isn’t quite clear to me yet, but I will see the plan. Stick with me. I’m in God’s favor,” Markus answers with a smile.

  “Where do we go if the world has ended?” Rice asks.

  “Let’s first find out if there’s a quarantine line before we lose our minds. If we can find safety, we will,” I reassure Rice. She puts her hand on my knee and tries to smile.

  “Okay, how do we find out?” Rice wipes her cheeks.

  Hana wakes up Tanis. “Hey, did you bring the radio you fixed?”

  Tanis nods and hands the bag to Hana. He lies back down on the floor of the rowboat.

  Hana takes out the radio. “Tanis fixed this thing. It’s not digital anymore, but he rigged this pin to scroll through the stations. If the world didn’t end, we’d be able to pick up a signal.” She flicks the radio on and slowly scans for stations. First there’s only static as Hana moves the makeshift dial slowly.

  The static breaks around 97.1. “Need survives. Greed dies. There is an Eden,” says a somber monotone voice. “You have been chosen.”

  “What the hell?” Isabella’s brow tightens as her eyes fixate on the radio.

  “Let me recheck the rest of the dial,” Hana says, but the rest of the dial is nothing but static. She tunes it back to 97.1.

  “Twenty-one degrees, forty eight minutes, north. Eighty degrees, zero minutes, west,” the voice on the radio says. Then it repeats the earlier message. “Need survives. Greed dies.”

  “It’s an invitation. There are survivors gathering at those coordinates,” I proclaim. “That means the virus has circled the world.”

  “How is that possible?” Rice asks.

  “Everyone is sick now?” Andy mumbles. It’s the first time I’ve heard him make a peep. His shock must be wearing off. His mouse voice cracks. I’m guessing he’s seven or eight years old. Cute kid. He reminds me of the gas station and the station wagon. A fresh wave of sadness fills my veins.

  “Shhh, Andy. Not everyone is sick. We’ll find the survivors and your parents. I promise.”

  The virus works so unbelievably fast to me. Three days from death to rebirth. “The same sickness has crossed oceans? Continents? Islands?”

  Josh adds groggily, “There are over eighteen million flights a year. That translates to roughly forty-nine thousand flights per day.” He does a bit more math in his head. “Average is 200 passengers per day, per flight,”

  “That’s over nine million passengers a day,” Markus calculates. He’s clearly done the math already. />
  “Doesn’t take a genius to see how fast a virus could jump continents,” comments Isabella.

  “Especially for an airborne virus that has no symptoms in the first twenty-four hours of infection,” Josh says.

  “So, the world is dead,” mutters Hana.

  I pull on my oar again, pointing our nose back to the middle of the Hudson.

  There’s a long silence in the boat. I can hear the lapping of the waves on the hull. A scream spears the dark night. Then another. The darkness seems to press against my back as the whole world gets a lot more threatening.

  “I suggest we get a bigger boat,” I say.

  “Let’s find Eden,” Rice suggests, covering Andy’s ears. “Anyone know how to read longitude and latitude?” She looks at Josh who seems to have the biggest brain in the boat.

  But it is Markus that answers, “Those coordinates say that Eden is in Cuba.”

  I don’t know how he knows that without a map and I don’t care. “I guess we’re going to Cuba.”

  Time passes as slow as sap drips from a wounded tree. And like that sap that heals the tree, I feel more relaxed. It’s as though the worst is behind us. Hana touches my shoulder and points to the sky. “Manhattan hasn’t seen such stars in over a century.”

  The stars are as numerous as sand on a beach. Are we special here? On Earth? Did I just fuck up the one grand thing in the entire universe? Though I try to hide it, I cry. I let my tears collect on my lids and watch the starlight blur into obscurity.

  Something bumps into the hull. Then another bump. I sit up. It’s too dark to see anything so I grab my flashlight and hold it over the edge. There’s a face in the dark water. I exhale like I’d been hit in the stomach with a tire iron. I’m about to scream out when I notice there are no roots in the eyes.