Is This The End?

by Craig Sargent

  “I thought your cycle got taken out there in the combat zone,” Stone commented as she walked over to him with a come-hither look in her eyes, her bare breasts shining in the candlelight, wearing only the skimpiest of panties. These women were completely and certifiably schizophrenic, Stone was one hundred percent positive about that.

  “That was my scouting bike. My war bike—that’s here. No one gets near that. That’s why I know they won’t do nothin’ to yours. You saw what I did to Ms. Spike tonight. They don’t mess.”

  “I bet they don’t,” Stone said softly. He was thinking again about going for his guns, which were inside his jacket, difficult to reach the way she had him cuffed.

  “Now don’t you worry about that silly bike of yours,” Raspberry said, coming up close to Stone until she was only inches from his face, her nipples touching his jacket. She took out both of his guns and placed them on a shelf, then turned back and up against him again. “Worry about pleasing me. ’Cause when I ain’t pleased, you can see what happens, can’t you?” Stone wasn’t sure he liked where the conversation was going or not, though his hands had the strongest urge to reach up and grab a palmful of the perfect breasts that swung before him, daring to be touched, begging to be touched.

  Suddenly she reached out and tripped him backwards. The woman was as fast and strong as many men he’d fought. Stone fell backwards, bracing himself for the hit. But when he landed it was onto the soft velvety spreads and pillows all around the place like some sort of Hugh Hefner bargain basement. He prepared himself to kick up as she attacked but she was down on top of him before he could make a countermove. And she wasn’t exactly in an adversarial mood.

  She was all over him like a living eel, squirming and rubbing against him, cooing in his ear and licking at his neck and face. She undid his pants and pulled them down and Stone was immersed in a state of mental, emotional, and hormonal flux. He didn’t know whether he was going or coming.

  “Oh you are a man, aren’t you,” she said when she had exposed him to the elements.

  “Last time I looked,” Stone replied. She didn’t answer as her mouth was stuffed with something that made it hard to talk. Stone groaned and arched his back as she swallowed him down. He had such mixed feelings about the whole thing that had he been given the choice he might have just gotten up and walked out. But he wasn’t being given any choices. And the male organ has a will of its own. Against his mental commands it began to grow under her lips and tongue and soon filled her, driving him to the brink of madness.

  “I want you now,” she moaned out. “Maybe you’ll be able to satisfy me as none of the others have. Maybe tonight.” She brought her body up to his hips and straddled his flesh pole. She guided it into her sex, not even waiting to go slow or any of that stuff. The staff disappeared all the way to the hilt and she slid down, her legs as wide apart as they would go atop his arching pelvis. Stone didn’t know where the hell he was—he just knew the thrustings of two animals locked in pure passion. Her body was like heaven, or a close approximation thereof.

  They went at it like writhing things for many minutes, and then she was going crazy riding atop him like a bronco. She made a wild cat-like sound and threw her head back, letting out with a long high-pitched wail. Stone reached his peak just a second later and pumped up hard into her, making her rise right up into the air. She quivered all over, her eyes closed, and made mewing sounds as he poured all that she had stirred up from his depths into her deepest burning parts. Just as Stone’s eyes rolled back in his head he swore he saw faces peering down through the window ceiling above them. But then he was lost again in the grasp of her womanliness, her doe-like sounds as she gripped him tight.

  When Stone awakened he knew it was very late. He had that dull throbbing headache and tired eyes that felt like they were glued together, which meant it couldn’t be past three. He heard her voice whispering in his ear, making him come out of his languorous sleep.

  “Up, you’ve got to get up now. They’re coming to kill you, Stone. And I won’t be able to stop them. Ordinarily I would kill you myself. As you might have guessed, we take out the men we drag in after their usefulness is over. But you—you satisfied me. I can’t kill you and destroy any chance of ever having it again. You’ve got to leave now.” She helped him put on his pants and then hesitating for a second she took out a key from a shelf and undid the cuffs. “I know you could kill me for all this,” she said, handing him his guns. “But I’m taking a chance.”

  He gripped them looking at her hard, and then slipped them on. “Why should I hurt you—you satisfied me too,” he grinned, leaning forward and kissing her. “You might have been a little less insistent—but I guess that’s the way it is with modern girls.” Suddenly there were faces above them again and still naked-as-a-jaybird Raspberry ripped a shotgun from the wall and fired straight up into the glass, sending it flying, and the faces that had been staring down flying for cover.

  “Out this way, they won’t look for a few seconds.” She lifted a flap of material from the lower part of the rounded dirt wall and Stone saw there was a tunnel. “It goes about a hundred feel straight back. Circle around to the right once you get out. Your bike is there. Good luck Stone. If we ever meet again I want your body—and I don’t mean dead.”

  “It’s been interesting,” Stone replied, getting down on his knees and starting into the tunnel. “I’ll send a postcard.” Then he heard voices and a commotion behind him and moved down the mud-caked tunnel as fast as his hands and knees would carry him. He came out on the run and went right around to the side using trickles of light from the fires to make his way. He could see them all running from around the camp to Raspberry’s window on the world and there seemed to be fierce hand-to-hand fighting going on between all the “girls.” Whatever power struggle had been brewing had clearly just gone over the edge.

  He spotted the bikes parked together—his at the end next to what must have been Raspberry’s war machine by the size of it, even larger than Stone’s with all kinds of firepower poking out. The woman who had been sent to guard Stone’s bike was taking her duty seriously and patrolling around the thing with a handgun dangling at her side. Stone didn’t want to hurt her. She had after all been doing him a favor. He picked up a pebble and threw it a few yards to the right. She came to investigate walking around the bikes holding the pistol at waist level. The moment she walked past him Stone jumped out and grabbed her around the neck. He put on a quick choke hold, applying it for only four seconds, ten could kill. But four would put her out for a few minutes.

  He rushed over to the Harley and saw that it was undisturbed. Anxiously, Stone threw open the cover of the box he’d been keeping the dog in. It was still there, as frozen as a still life painting. He reached down and felt it. It wasn’t cold. As long as it wasn’t cold. He pushed the bike forward, using his feet as the uproar hundreds of feet away was reaching Civil War proportions. At least Raspberry was going into battle well-fucked. Stone couldn’t hope for any more himself.

  CHAPTER

  Ten

  “WELCOME TO AMARILLO, A TOWN OF LAW AND ORDER. TROUBLEMAKERS SHOT,” the sign read as Stone slowed the Harley at the outskirts of town. It was hardly what it had once been in its glory days, Stone could see as he stopped the bike at the outermost block of houses and looked around. The bombs that had landed nearby had clearly taken out a lot of the town as well. But they had rebuilt here. In fact, unlike just about every place Stone had been to thus far since he had left the safety of the bunker, they seemed to have actually gotten it a little bit together around here. The buildings, though crude, were in one piece, some even with doors and shutters if not glass over the windows. By modern American standards the town was a veritable Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

  He headed down the main strip, dousing his light as he realized the dawn was bright enough to see by now. Already, Amarillo’s citizens were up and about, rushing off in various directions. Though they didn’t look all that happy ab
out things, faces tight and grim, they did seem much more industrious than those Stone was used to encountering. People these days were so lethargic and ready to crawl into the grave that they were already halfway there. These were a better dressed bunch than the average mountain man. Not that they were wearing Pierre Cardins, but the simple work clothes and boots they had on seemed whole, even fairly new. Something was going on.

  The only thing he didn’t like about the place was the smell. It permeated everything. A thick chemical smell like there was a plastic factory nearby. Stone drove slowly down the main street as stores opened on every side of him. He pulled the bike up to what looked like a fairly well-stocked used hardware store, parked, and headed in. The storekeeper, a portly fellow with a thick top of hair like a dirty mop looked over at Stone with not the most welcoming expression.

  “What you want mister? Ain’t got time to fart around right now. The night shift boys will be coming in from the oil fields. This is my biggest part of the day. Now what you want—or be out of here.” The man bustled around trying to look important as he fiddled with his junk, which lined various buckling shelves around his fifteen by fifteen foot store. Stone had seen backwoods stores that had only two things. This guy must have had a hundred—knives, hammers, axes, saws, machetes, even a few guns. A lot of the stuff looked in decent shape.

  Stone knew that money talked a thousand times louder than the greatest orator. “How much for that knife there?” he asked, looking over at one on a shelf with twenty different blades. One of them was a very thin, nicely constructed switchblade. Stone had always wanted one. He pulled out a silver dollar from his inner pocket, having found that the shine of the coins seemed to open doors. It worked again. The storekeeper stopped in his tracks, his hands putting down some cast-iron pots he was moving, and he stared at the coin as if it was his salvation.

  “Well, why didn’t you say so,” the fellow said with a big salesman’s smile as he wiped his hands on his dirty jacket and held out one toward Stone. “Thought you were just another of the riffraff who float through town. Like to look—but not buy. Like to take—and not pay.” He looked down at the silver piece as if pretending not to but trying to check if it was real silver. “Men around these parts been known to take down the underside of pans or even old car doors and hammer them into silver dollars. Not that most of them look much like the real thing.” This one did.

  “Now jes’ what knife was you talking about?” the man asked, as he stepped back from Stone and smiled beatifi-cally.

  “This one here,” Stone said, lifting it from the pile.

  “Oh that one, that’s one of the best in the place,” the man said, rubbing his hands a little too nervously together. “At least—at least that dollar you’re holding in your hand.” He looked up at Stone to see what the reaction was to the outrageous request. For a silver dollar in most parts could buy a man a whole cow or a horse.

  “Ridiculous,” Stone smirked. “It’s not worth a tenth of that.” He looked around some more as the storeman coughed and mumbled something about value going up as things were used up, how there would be no more of anything soon. How everything was a collector’s item. Everything was the last of its kind. Stone tuned the guy out with his ears. He knew the noble truths as well as this bastard. He looked around and spotted an odd pen with a leather thong attached around it.

  “What’s that?” he asked, lifting the thing.

  “Oh careful, careful,” the storekeep said, taking it gingerly out of his customer’s hands, smiling all the time. There was something about the scent of money that made store types’ lips pull back to their ears, and their teeth loom and glisten like piranha. “This is a firearm, believe it or not. A .22-caliber single shot gun. See, you just hold the base of the thing here, and twist the little lever on the bottom. Fires a shell straight ahead. A gimmick thing. Not a real weapon but—”

  Stone reached out and held it in the same hand as the stiletto. His eyes were caught by some medical looking bottles on the end of one shelf. Stone walked over with the proprietor walking closely behind, his eyes growing bigger by the moment as he saw his bank account swelling like a radioactive sore. He lifted one of the bottles. “Tetracycline, Megadose,” it read on the side.

  “Stuff work?” Stone asked.

  “Just came in,” the storeman said. “Two days ago. Some old prospector brought them in from a box he found in some ruins. Can’t promise you they’re good,” the man said. “Don’t want you to take ‘em and then start vomiting up your guts and come looking for me to snuff out. I run an honest shop here, just want you to know that.”

  “Well, I appreciate the warnings,” Stone said, smiling warmly at the guy for the first time. “There aren’t too many honest around, that’s for damned sure. How much for the whole lot—knife, little gun here—hope you got some shells that fit—and the bottle. Just one will be enough.”

  “Well now, that’s worth more than one of them there silver dollars, mister,” the man said, trying to get a hint out of Stone what he had in mind.

  “How about we don’t waste time,” Stone replied, reaching back into his jacket and extracting two more of the shining coins. “Let’s just say three of these and call it even.” He threw them down onto the shelf and they rolled around the other bottle.

  “Yes, yes, that will be just fine,” the keep said, reaching out and grabbing the things for fear they would try to get away. “And I do got four more slugs what fits that little gun. I’ll throw them in for free,” the keeper said, holding the silver in his hand and looking down at it with a most happy expression on his usually dour face.

  “And one more thing,” Stone said as he looked closely at the mini-gun. “I want a little information.”

  “As long as it ain’t about what I do with my wife after the lights goes out,” the man chuckled, “I’ll do my best.”

  “What’s that smell? It seems to get stronger by the minute,” Stone asked, slipping his newly purchased things into various pockets. He put the single-shot pen gun around his neck with its leather thong.

  “’Course it’s stronger by the minute,” the man said. “That’s the morning wind shifting this way. We’re getting the stench from the oil fields and refineries. It’s like this almost like clockwork everyday. The winds come in and they back all the smoke into town.”

  “What the hell do you mean—oil fields?” Stone asked, hardly able to believe that large-scale industrial oil drilling was going on. No one had that kind of technical expertise anymore.

  “Where you from, mister?” the keep asked, turning walking across the room to a vault hidden behind a baseboard. He opened it and quickly stashed the dollars inside. “The oil fields is what powers this whole part of the country. What makes this town have money for people to buy stuff, what makes the smell. It’s the oil, mister. The oil.”

  “I can’t believe there are oil wells—it’s just not possible anymore,” Stone said skeptically.

  “Oh, they ain’t got the old kind of big rigs out there— you’re sure as hell right about that mister,” the keep said, closing the safe, turning the combination lock and rising up again. “It was all fucked up by the bombs. But the oil—it still comes out. Oh, you have to see it mister, have to see it. It’s hard, dangerous work. That’s why they pays ‘em good money to work there. They need men with brains, not your regular assholes wandering around who don’t know which end of ‘em the shit comes out of. They don’t live long out in the fields but they makes good money while they do. That’s why there’s even a town here. ‘Cause of that stinking oil.”

  “Who’s they?” Stone asked as he heard a rumbling outside and a bunch of vehicles coming down the street still several blocks off. “Who runs the whole damned thing?”

  “The freaks pal, the freaks. Damn, you must have been living up on Mars for the last ten years or something. They control everything around here. Run the oil operations, control this town, ship out refined gasoline in every direction. They’re into so much
I couldn’t even begin to tell you. Trucks coming in and out from all over the country to their operation.” Everything the guy said just brought up more questions in Stone’s addled brain.

  “Who are these freaks? Where are they?” Stone asked, knowing he was starting to get close.

  “Oh, I don’t know what they all look like, seen only two of ‘em myself. Wish I hadn’t. They’re just—freaks. Twisted faces, arms missing—whatever. Heard tales of how some of the others look that’d make your blood run cold. Anyway they runs the whole damn show. You cross them, you’re as good as dead. I just stays invisible in my little shop here, pays my one-third tax to their strong-arm boys and keeps me mouth shut. Don’t tell anyone you spent that money here, will you mister? They’d tax it if they learned.”

  “I don’t talk about my money matters,” Stone said dryly. “Where is all this oil anyway?”

  “About ten miles south of town,” the storeman answered. “The fields anyway. No one knows just where the freaks are located. They got all kinds of entrances hidden around the area east of the fields, maybe another ten or fifteen miles. All of them guarded by all kinds of damn electronic stuff. Take my word for it if you don’t want to mess.”

  “I’ll believe anything you told me at this point,” Stone said with a quick grin as he heard the cars getting closer, huffing and knocking like they were on their last wheels. He headed toward the door. “I see you got your morning business coming in. So you say just head south?” Stone said as the storekeep kept grinning, glad to start out the day on such a prodigious intake.

  “Go to the end of town, hit the main road, just keep on it. Can’t miss it. There’ll be trucks traveling down the thing all the time. I told you the operation never stops. They keep it going twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Thanks for the goods—and the information,” Stone said. “And you don’t tell anyone that / was here asking questions—and I forget the silver.”