Blaze of Glory

by Weston Ochse

  Truth be told, he was a soldier. His weapon, that trumpet and the notes he'd learned to play, were as deadly to the maggies as anything they had. In fact, if there was one weapon that could be said to be their weapon of last resort, it was the boy and his trumpet.

  Thermo-nuclear Trumpet Player.

  Buckley liked the sound of that. He was sure the boy would too. When it was all over, he'd share his private thoughts with the kid, if they lived.

  Buckley looked at MacHenry again, now almost finished rigging the super soakers. He hadn't believed in the idea at first. Once they'd gathered together after the supply run, Samuel had made a beeline to the bags. While Buckley explained his salt-water propellant concept to MacHenry, Samuel had pulled one of the super soakers out of one of the bags. The high school jock had leveled the orange and green rifle at his hip and pretended to shoot down a line of people, ala gangster-style, sub-vocalizing the brraaaaap of the real life weapon.

  MacHenry still didn't understand. "It's just a toy," he'd argued.

  And grandma, in all of her magic wisdom had said the perfect thing that Buckley still remembered. "What better to kill things that aren’t supposed to exist than a toy gun that shoots water?"

  To that MacHenry had no answer.

  CHAPTER 21

  An hour later they were ready to go.

  They'd planned and prepared. But like green soldiers before a battle, none of them are sure how they'd act. Buckley could see it in their faces— their inability to look at each other, their shifting of feet, sweaty palms, and rapid breathing. But they were as ready as they could be. Now all of them wore the cellophane armor, a thin layer of salt like Kevlar between their skin and the plastic.

  After inspecting each one of them, Buckley was finally ready for them to leave. With one last look behind him, he gave the command to leave.

  Samuel kicked the door open revealing a hallway filled with the bodies of Bennie, Lashawna and Sally. Flesh stripped from the bones. Organs all but gone. All that was recognizable of Sally Struthers was her blonde hair.

  Samuel and MacHenry left the apartment first, spraying liquid death from their Super Soaker water guns. The few maggies still clinging to walls in search of food sizzled as the water struck them.

  Next in line came Buckley with Grandma Riggs taped into a kitchen chair that’d been roped to his back. With head down and his hands holding the ropes of the chair, he searched for any sign of the deadly creatures along the ground.

  Close on his heels, Little Rashad held his trumpet to his lips, playing for all of his worth. The theme to Rocky filled the hall and stairwell, camouflaging the nervous screams of MacHenry and Samuel who were firing at every movement, flash of light and shadow.

  Sissy and Gert exited last, covering the retreat with their own pair of Super Soakers. Their eyes were wide as they saw maggies in every nook and cranny. Sissy bit back a scream as she slipped on Sally Struthers’ hair. Gert kept glancing to the front, as worried for her man as she was for herself.

  And as they began down the stairs, one voice rose above even the trumpet as Grandma Riggs began to sing.

  Little Bunny Foo Foo,

  Hopping through the forest,

  Scooping up the field mice,

  And bopping them on the head.

  Halfway down the stairs, Samuel and MacHenry ran out of water. But they were prepared for that. Letting go their Super Soakers which fell to the length of the straps, they then pulled two more from their backs. Less than a second passed before their path was once again blessed with salt water.

  Little Bunny Foo Foo,

  Hopping through the forest,

  Scooping up the field mice,

  And bopping them on the head.

  Just as they exited the building, the great pulsating maw of a caddie reached from around a corner and sheared off the upper half of Samuel. Blood fountained once from his upright legs then lost interest. What remained of the boy fell to the ground.

  MacHenry halted in pure shock and stared first at the boy who'd so recently fucked with him, and then into the maw of the slaverous caddie. Pieces of Samuel dripped onto him, the suddenness of the death temporarily stunning him.

  Finally Buckley broke the spell. "Caddie!"

  MacHenry came to his senses in time to scream. Gert fired her super soaker catching the creature behind the head, causing it to jerk away as wide lines of smoke marked the damage. Buckley somehow managed to both hang onto Grandma Riggs and jerk MacHenry away. After a few seconds, MacHenry gathered himself and fired his own super soaker, his salt-infused water adding to the damage.

  And down came the good fairy,

  and she says...

  Little Bunny Foo Foo,

  I don't want to see you,

  Scooping up the field mice,

  And bopping them on the head.

  Grandma's singing stalled as Buckley stumbled. He managed to catch himself, but not before he sent Grandma Riggs glasses flying and her carefully coifed blue hair sliding to the side, her wig unveiling itself.

  "Run!" He screamed.

  Momentarily stunned by the attack, the caddie backed away. But the pain enraged it, and before long it propelled itself towards them, lumbering nearly as fast as they could run.

  The group sprinted past Samuel and into the streets. Sissy, who'd lit a Carolina cocktail, hurled it at the creature as she passed, catching it full in the side. The cocktail exploded on impact, meat from the caddie showering them like an abattoir hail.

  Sissy pumped her arm once in victory, then hurried to catch up with the group.

  CHAPTER 22

  Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,

  Mutilated monkey meat, Chopped-up dirty birdies' feet.

  Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,

  And me without a spoon.

  Over and over Grandma Riggs sang the grotesque children’s verse as Buckley carried her through the rubble-strewn streets at a dead run. For almost an hour, with Grandma Riggs sitting in her chair facing backwards, she’d alternated between singing, cackling and begging for just a little more crack.

  Her arms had been too brittle and weak for her to be able to hold onto him, so they’d duct taped her to a chair which they'd then affixed to his back with lengths of rope. Even now as he ran, however, the rope around his chest and waist sawed back and forth. He was certain that the skin beneath the rope was gone, leaving a set of long bleeding wounds.

  They were headed for the ocean. They’d been only a few miles away from the shore and the idea had hit them that if the Maggies had such trouble with salt, the ocean would be like acid. Hope was kindled as they all realized that fully two-thirds of the planet was safe for humanity. Perhaps even islands were habitable. Hurricanes, once seen as the bane of the North Carolina Coast and the Outer Banks, suddenly took on Old Testament connotations promising to cleanse the earth of evil. Had the great flood been for this very purpose? Had the Maggies been here before?

  Buckley turned for a second, pausing to catch his breath and work out the knot in his side. He watched as Gert leaned back like a center fielder and hurled a North Carolina Cocktail at the last caddie still on their trail. The glass bottle containing salt and lighter fluid arched high into the air, then fell, striking the Cadillac-sized maggie on its back and exploding as the burning rag ignited the gasoline, immediately causing an eruption of blood and flesh and maggie guts.

  Mark another one for the human team.

  MacHenry, winded but grinning from ear to ear, ran up, grabbed Buckley’s elbow and helped propel him along. Even overloaded as he was with cloth bags filled with Carolina Cocktails, he was less burdened than Buckley.

  “Thanks man,” Buckley wheezed. “She’s heavy and I’m not as young as I used to be.”

  “Giddyup! Move it horsy! Giddyup!” came the commands from his back. Grandma's heels dug into his back as she tried to urge him forward with her kicks.

  Buckley rolled his eyes.

  “None of us are.”
Then MacHenry's smile fell. "Fucked up what happened to Samuel."

  "I didn't think you cared," Buckley said, not really meaning it. "The way he fucked with you."

  "That wasn't a big deal. He was just scared is all. It was his way to bleed off stress. Me, I got to have sex, so who am I to complain."

  "It could just have easily have been you," Buckley said.

  "Don't I know it." MacHenry shook his head. "I don't know what to say about that."

  “Really? I thought you'd be disappointed you aren’t dead yet? I mean this ain’t exactly going out in style. This isn't jumping off the top rope.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? This IS going out in style. I’ve always loved those suicide rides like the Charge of the Light Brigade; how against all odds, with death a certainty they rode as a unit into the face of the enemy for God, country and comrades. Into the Valley of death and all that shit.” He turned to glance behind him, ensuring Gert was in stride. “Oh yeah,” he grinned broadly, leaning over to kiss the woman who’d become his truest love. “I definitely feel like Johnny Storm right now. How about you? You feeling heroic? You feeling like Ben Grimm?”

  “I don’t think he ever felt heroic, you know?”

  “No?”

  “I think he was just tired of it all; of all the violence and death.”

  “Well, maybe not, but you sure kick ass like he did and are just as strong.”

  “Strength is relative.”

  As if to prove MacHenry’ point, over the cacophony of crumbling buildings and screaming friends, Buckley heard Grandma Riggs ordering a pizza with pineapple and anchovies on an imaginary cell phone, reminding him that he was an Atlas, doomed to carry the fate of the world upon his shoulders, or at the very least, a crack-addled grandma.

  Their portable soundtrack provided the maniacal background music to their flight as Grandma Riggs sang over and over –

  Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,

  Mutilated monkey meat, Chopped-up dirty birdies' feet.

  Great green gobs of greasy, grimy gopher guts,

  And me without a spoon.

  Ten blocks later, it was plain that they wouldn’t be able to run all the way. It was just too far. Twice, Buckley had stumbled struggling to hold both him and his passenger upright. MacHenry and Gert were both limping as legs more used to other, more supine, activities suddenly found themselves pounding vertical.

  They had to stop.

  CHAPTER 23

  Five minutes later they came to a secluded corner. They'd left the caddies far behind. Only the occasional crunch reminded them that the beasts still existed, and during the intervening silence one could be lulled into the belief that the world hadn't ended. Looking around at the burned out hulks of cars, shattered windows and the debris-strewn streets, Buckley could almost convince himself that they'd just survived another hurricane. Such meteorological confluences were so common in Wilmington that nary a year went by without some sort of storm that ripped away roofs, blew out windows and created devastation of Irwin Allen proportions.

  "Let's stop here." Buckley sagged to a curb and leaned back so the feet of the chair rested evenly on the sidewalk. He was beat. Too tired even to loosen his load, he sagged, his lids barely open, his breathing lost in an avalanche of gasps.

  MacHenry and Gert bent at the waist, holding each other and gasping.

  Sissy knelt where she stopped, her head down, shoulders shaking with small sobs.

  Little Rashad stared into the night, wide-eyed.

  MacHenry stood and looked back the way they'd come. "One by one. Just like in the movies."

  Gert joined him. "First Lashawna, then Bennie, and now Samuel."

  "Don’t forget Sally," Little Rashad added.

  MacHenry reached over and ruffled the boy’s head. "That’s right. And good old Sally, too." MacHenry stared behind him a moment longer, then turned towards Sissy, Grandma and Buckley. "And then there were six."

  Gert frowned. "Morbid."

  "That’s me. Morbid MacHenry."

  The old whore leaned into the used car salesman and they held each other in the middle of the empty street. A breeze stirred the detritus, swirling papers like they were leaves on a cool fall day in a place where hope still existed and love had a future. They closed their eyes. Gert's face pressed against MacHenry's chest. His chin rested on her head.

  Minutes passed until Little Rashad broke the silence. "Where'd everybody go?"

  "Eaten, most likely," MacHenry said without opening his eyes.

  "Or worse," Gert said, her eyes flashing momentarily to Buckley.

  "What could possibly be more worse than being eaten?" MacHenry asked.

  "I'm not the one you should—"

  Sissy shot straight up and chopped the air with both hands. She screamed, her voice cracking as it journeyed the unknown roads of anger and despair. "Shut up! Just shut up, will you?" Sissy slammed her hands to her head and leaned back against a light pole. Her arms wrapped her body as she fought to control the shaking. "How can you joke about this?" she sobbed.

  Buckley roused himself from his half slumber, witnessing the girl's breakdown.

  MacHenry seemed as if he was going to say something, but decided against it.

  Grandma Riggs stirred. Buckley felt her movement on his back as if it were his own. The old woman held out her arms for Sissy. "Come here, baby."

  Seeing this grandmotherly motion, Sissy stumbled into the old woman's embrace, shaking her head, tears flinging. Buckley groaned with the added weight, but said nothing. He tried to look back and see, but his neck wouldn't twist that far.

  "Easy girl. Easy now. We talked about this."

  "I know, but..."

  "But what, baby."

  "I don’t wanna die."

  Grandma Riggs laughed low. "That decision’s been taken out of your hands. Jesus up and changed everything and didn’t think to ask our opinions. I told you, it’s up to us."

  "But it’s so unfair."

  "I suppose it is. I suppose it is. But, then now your challenge is to die right."

  Sissy lifted her head from Grandma Riggs’ shoulder and stared with incomprehension into the old woman’s face. She searched the old eyes for awhile, then shook her head. "But I thought you said—"

  "I know." Grandma Riggs petted Sissy's hair, smoothing the tangles with her crooked arthritic fingers. I know. Hell, I don’t even know why you’re listening to this crack-addled old broad."

  "But—"

  "But what?" She shook the girl and pushed her at arm’s length. "You want the secret? You want the knowledge of the pharaohs? You want to know what every man, woman and child has begged to know since time first started its infernal ticking? Okay, then try this on for size. You're gonna die. That's it. There's nothing you or I can do about it. So deal with it girl. Plan on dying, so if you live it’ll be a surprise."

  Sissy stared as if struck.

  Buckley closed his eyes, afraid to move.

  MacHenry was the first to speak. "She’s right. Plan the way you’re gonna die. You don’t want to die afraid..." He glanced at Gert who was staring over his shoulder into the past. "Hell, we got enough time to prepare, you know? It shouldn't come as much of a surprise."

  Grandma Riggs nodded. "Ask Mr. Adamski. He knows."

  When Buckley didn't say anything, the old woman spoke for him, her old voice lending authority to the words. "Do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

  Sissy lowered her head to the old woman's shoulder as she listened.

  Do not go gentle into that good night,

  Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  Gert began to cry as the poem continued, her soft keen enough to break Buckley's heart. Yet the old woman's gravel voice held them in thrall as the poem moved towards its climax

  And you, my father, there on the sad height,

  Curse, bless me
now with your fierce tears, I pray.

  Do not go gentle into that good night.

  Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

  The silence that followed was filled with everyone's thoughts of mortality. Buckley wondered how Dylan Thomas could have said things so perfectly. What had occurred in his life that he'd understood the hopelessness and need to fight the unfightable so well? Certainly not the end of the world, but something so personally devastating that a slim white man dipped in Welsh beer and kidney pudding could say it better than anyone else left alive.

  "So there’s no chance," Sissy whispered.

  Not even a wisp of a hope, thought Buckley.

  He watched as MacHenry and Gert shook their heads in silent acknowledgment of the truth.

  "Exactly. So concern yourself with death now, not with life."

  "But—"

  "But nothing. See? This is quite an opportunity. You get to decide how you’re gonna die. Sometimes that's more important than anything else."

  "You’re not making this up?"

  Grandma Riggs lifted her head and looked to where MacHenry stood. Their eyes met. "Mr. MacHenry, tell Sissy your philosophy."

  "Mine?" MacHenry looked to Buckley who shook his head.

  "Yours," Grandma replied.

  "Flame on," he grinned.

  "What?" Sissy's forehead crinkled.

  "Flame on. Live fast. Die on my own terms. Johnny Storm." He shrugged. "It’s a comic book thing."

  "Mr. Adamski? What do you say to Sissy?" Grandma prodded.

  "Do not go gently. Flame on. It’s all the same thing," he said.

  "Gertrude?"

  "Flame on, honey. Flame on."

  "What about me?" Little Rashad asked, stepping forward with his trumpet in his hands.

  Grandma Riggs appraised him with blind eyes. "What about you?"

  "Am I gonna die too?"

  Grandma Riggs grinned. "Probably. Maybe. You scared?"