One Minute to Midnight

by Steve Lang

  "Whooop! Whoooop! Weeeeep!" Cried the leader. It shambled along on legs stiff from rigor mortis. An abomination that was not quite a zombie, but not all human either.

  "WAAAGGGGHHH! WAAAAAAGGHHH!"

  Cried another.

  It was terrifying to hear them scream, but Falcon also knew there were real people trapped inside those hideous shells. These monsters were created by mankind's frustration at a world it could not control—a side effect of war’s aggression and weaponized chemicals. The mutants were dangerous, hideous to look at, and whatever shred of humanity they had before the chemicals twisted their minds was gone, or barely glowing like a distant light in thick, dark fog. In any case, their numbers were large and it was better to hide, and if the mutants did find you, you fought to kill, or you ran away. Falcon hovered silently like a ghost, and closed his eyes, turning around with his back against the wall. He slid down to sit on his rear end and plugged his ears with two dirt-smeared index fingers. "Please God, make the sun come up!" He thought.

  As if the heavens had answered his call, Falcon could see the blue tint of morning approaching and he heard birds singing in the trees outside. The whooping and hollering mutants passed by, and Falcon breathed a sigh of relief for the first time in hours. He was now reminded of just how tired he was, and cold from the wet ground. Falcon yawned and laid his head against the wall, feeling his chest rise and fall as he breathed, and saw little black beads buzzing around behind his eyes as he contemplated sleep.

  "Get up and find a bed." He said to himself.

  Falcon peered over the windowsill one more time, ensuring that the street was empty, and low-crawled into the adjoining bedroom. The curtains were drawn, and as the sun rose he could see a sliver of light illuminating the tossed bed sheets. In the pale half-light, he could make out the silhouette of a body, lying still and quiet.

  "I'm sorry, ma'am or sir. I only need a place to sleep for the day and won't be a problem. Do you mind if I crash here?" He said. Falcon walked around the bed with slow, careful movements as he got a better view of the bed’s occupant. It was a skeleton dressed in blue jeans and a Stetson shirt. Beside him on the nightstand was a tan cowboy hat.

  "OK, I'm crashing out. I don't think you'll mind much." Falcon said. He lay beside the skeleton, and seconds later passed into deep sleep. As Falcon began to snore, the skeleton laying beside him placed a pillow over its head and went back to sleep. Hours later, as the afternoon sun shone in his eyes, Falcon woke up.

  His sleep had been dreamless for the first time in months, and he felt refreshed, but he also had a gnawing ache in his stomach, reminding him that food was necessary. When he got up he looked down at where he had been sleeping, he saw that the skeleton was gone.

  "What the…" Falcon said.

  "I thought you'd never wake up. I was about to leave, but I thought I'd hang out for a few and see if you might want to join me." A voice came from behind. Falcon turned to see a figure sitting in the corner obscured by shadows.

  "Are you the…" Falcon started.

  "I'm Tony. I don't like to talk about my condition, so if you'd be kind enough to acknowledge the fact that I'm a walking skeleton, and never mention it again, I'd appreciate it." Tony stood and came into the light. Falcon felt his fear rise as he stared at the reanimated pile of bones. Although he was only sixteen, he had seen much in his life and had brushed it off, but this was a tall order. Falcon forced a smile.

  "You're well dressed. I'll give you that." Falcon extended a hand. "I'm Falcon, pleased to meet you."

  "Much obliged, and thanks for the compliment." Tony replied.

  "If you don't mind me asking, how did this happen?" Falcon asked.

  "I was in Detroit the day the neutron cluster bomb went off. My crew and I were working in the tunnels beneath the city, removing precious metals for sale to China, when BOOM! The bastards tore a hole in the world that basically caused all kinds of extra-dimensional shit to happen. My DNA, soul, spirit, or whatever you want to call it, was fused to my bone structure and I've been this way since. I'm the only one who survived, if you can call it surviving. I call it a living hell, but hey, that's just one skeleton's opinion."

  "You can't die?" Falcon asked.

  "Rude!" Tony yelled indignantly. "But, no, I can't." Tony looked at the floor.

  "I need to find food, but I'd be happy to go with you as long as you're headed west. I'm looking for my parents. Have been for four years." Falcon said.

  "Four years? Whoa, kid. That's a long time. How can you be sure they're alive? I don't mean to sound harsh, but six billion people were wiped off the map by that war."

  "I just have a feeling, that's all. I heard San Francisco was one of the cities that didn’t take much of a beating, and that's where they were when the sky fell. I've been walking for four years, but I’ve only managed to make it from North Carolina to Missouri." Falcon looked around the corner of the bedroom into the darkened hallway. There were three skeletons lying on the floor, face down. Falcon looked back at Tony with an unsure expression.

  "They're dead, I checked. As far as I know, I'm the only one like me out here. Depressing as it is, most of the time my condition's a great disguise when the mutants come sniffing around. I lay still, and they go away." Tony retrieved his cowboy hat off the nightstand and followed Falcon.

  Downstairs in the kitchen pantry, Falcon found two cans of beans, a manual can opener, and an open box of Pop Tarts.

  "I wonder if these are any good?" Falcon worked with the plastic foil wrapper and the Pop Tarts fell out on the kitchen counter. "They seem fine." Falcon turned the box over in his hand. "Looks like the expiration date was October 12. Four years ago."

  "It may just be me, but I'd chance the beans over those things." Tony warned as he put his hat on. Falcon looked up, and it struck him how strange and cool it was that he was in the room with a ghostly gunslinger.

  "You might be right, but… what the hell." Falcon stuffed one of the pastries in his mouth. "Tastes good! Stale, but… yum!" He spit little crumbs out of his mouth as he spoke.

  "It's your stomach, kid. Let me know when you're ready to go. I don't eat anymore, or get hungry." Tony exposed his ribcage.

  "How'd you get all the way out here?" Falcon asked. He rummaged through the cabinets, climbing onto the counters to see what was there.

  "Same as you, I guess. For the few years that the cars still ran, back before we ran out of fuel, I was able to catch a ride with the few people I saw passing by in automobiles."

  "People let you in their cars? You’d have scared the crap out of me." Falcon asked.

  "OK, you got me. I hijacked their cars by scaring the hell out of them. You'd be amazed at how disturbed people can be by a walking, talking, bag of bones, screaming at them from their driver side window. Most of the time they just high tailed it out the passenger door, but there was this one guy who remained unaffected. Punched me in the skull and ran over my toes when he drove off. Rude asshole." Tony said.

  "You're pretty freaky, man."

  "How come you didn't take off, or even scream when you saw me?" Tony asked.

  "I guess nothing surprises me anymore." Falcon answered. "I've seen people do the most horrendous things in the past four years. You'd think that surviving the war would make people think about rebuilding society, or loving their brothers, or whatever, but I've only seen them become more dangerous… and weird." He paused for a moment, thinking. "Also, I figured, you had a shot at killing me while I was sleeping and you didn't, so you must be an OK guy."

  "Huh." Tony chuffed. "Well, I think I might be able to get you to California faster than the old shoe leather express. Can you fly a plane?" Tony asked.

  "Uh, no. I was twelve when the war ended, and before that, the closest I got to flying a plane was playing online shooter games with my friends."

  "Well, I overheard some people who were passing through here the other day, and they were saying there's an airport like thirty miles to the west. They were talking a
bout taking one of the planes, if they were still in working order, and flying to the Bahamas." Tony explained.

  "It's worth a shot. I'll try anything not to have to walk the rest of the way to Cali. I do know how to ride a horse, but there's nothing larger than a dog or cat left alive after the crops and grass died from all the chemicals and radiation." Falcon said. He was feeling around on top of a cabinet. "Gotcha!" He pulled down a semi-automatic pistol.

  "Nice gun, Falcon. You know how to use one of those, right?" Tony asked.

  "I haven't had one in a year, but yeah I do. These things are like pennies from heaven." Falcon released the magazine and checked for rounds. "Fully loaded, excellent!" He placed his hand back up on the cabinet and brought down a rattling little box of ammunition. "Fifty rounds of 9mm. I love it. Thank you, people who used to live here." Falcon hopped down from the counter, sliding the pistol in his waistband at the eight o'clock position.

  He often saw gangsters in movies put the barrel of a loaded gun down the front of their pants, right next to their crotch, and wondered if that happened in real life, and if so, how many people shot their balls off accidentally when drawing on an attacker. After Falcon ate some beans, the two of them walked out into the bright sunlight where Falcon and Tony were immediately confronted by three mutants scavenging the dead body of a dog in the street.

  "Shhh, they haven't seen us yet. Let's just walk around the back of the house." Tony said, and slowly backed up into the doorway.

  It mattered little what Tony did, since he was already dead and they could not smell him coming, but when Falcon walked out, the mutants could smell his live flesh, and hungered for it so much that they left the rotting dog carcass behind and began to shuffle toward the duo. Falcon stepped in front of Tony and drew his pistol.

  "You're going to draw more of them when that thing goes off." Tony warned.

  "Yeah, but we need to get moving, and once it gets dark this place will be crawling with them anyway." Falcon pointed at the sun overhead. "We're closer to the end of the day than the beginning, and I don't want to spend another night in there." Falcon fired three shots at the mutants, striking each of them in the spaces between their eyes and dropped them to the ground.

  "Nice shootin'!" Tony said.

  "Now, time to get the hell out of here. The other mutants will have plenty to eat, now." Falcon smiled.

  Tony cocked his head, and the two walked out of town toward the airport. Two hours later, they came to another town that looked much like the one they had just left, only this one had a working streetlight.

  "You don't see that every day." Falcon said.

  "The power grid went down years ago." Tony said. "Be careful in here, kid. Someone else is living in this place, and they may not be friendlies." Tony said.

  "You have done nothing but worry ever since I met you." Falcon looked at Tony in frustration. "You've got to loosen up, bro!"

  Falcon walked through one of the yards, shaking his head at Tony. A moment later, his foot was caught in a snare, and before he knew it he was being dragged through the town on his back by a thick steel cable. His back ached as he was hauled over rocks, a sidewalk, and finally dropped from a curb. The trail ended when he was hoisted up the working street light pole and left dangling, in extreme discomfort. Tony walked up and the two of them were eye to eye.

  "I definitely told you so." Tony shook his head. Something whooshed past him and made his shirt flap.

  "What the…?" Tony looked down and saw a hole in his shirt where his ribs were. "Hey, stop shooting at me! We're not here to hurt anyone. You wrecked my best shirt! Dammit!"

  "Get me down from here, Tony. Shit!" Falcon began squirming on the line as he felt the blood rushing to his head.

  A figure dressed in black jeans, a black T-shirt, and a ski mask appeared from behind a building, and approached the two companions with a crossbow leveled at Tony.

  "You can keep shooting, but it'll do you no good. Worst thing that could happen to me is a chipped bone. However, my friend here is very much alive." Tony said.

  "Did you just invite this person to shoot at me?"

  "Please don't shoot at him, either." Tony said. "Better?" He shrugged at Falcon.

  "Who are you two, and what do you want here?" Said a female voice.

  "I'm Falcon, and the skeleton, er, my friend here, is Tony. We're on our way to California. Can you please get me down from here, and explain why you designed an elaborate trap to catch people passing through this town?"

  "It's not for you, necessarily. I catch mutants and dispatch them with that line. You're the first people I've seen in months. I include you too, Mr. Bones, because I imagine you were people at some point. I don't even want to know what condition caused all of this." She said, gesturing with her hand from Tony's head to knees.

  Falcon's captor removed her ski mask to reveal a beautiful girl’s face with shoulder length purple hair, and a barcode tattoo on her neck. She reminded him of Jennifer Anniston, if Jennifer had ever been a punk rocker. He estimated her age to be eighteen or nineteen, but he was upside down and near blacking out, so he could have been mistaken.

  "I'm Danny." She said.

  In her right hand was a remote control, and when she pressed the button, Falcon began to descend until he was on his back. He quickly removed the loop of wire from around his sore ankle. He rubbed the bloody red ring that was formed when the cable dragged his body.

  "Nice welcome mat." Falcon said.

  "Sorry about that, but like I said, those are for the mutants. Since I got here I've reduced their numbers by twenty-five. I can almost sleep at night again without those damned things whooping and hollering through the town." She said.

  "Are there any more of you here? Any more people?" Tony asked.

  "It depends on how you define any more. I've got a traveling companion named Baxter, and much like you, Tony, he's sort of a mutant, but friendly enough, unless you cross him." Danny said.

  "Well, where is he?" Falcon asked. He was getting to his feet.

  "Right here, pleased to meet you, I suppose."

  "Where?" Falcon asked.

  "Right here! Look down."

  Falcon and Tony looked down and realized the voice was coming from a talking beaver.

  "Wow, that's amazing." Falcon said. His face was frozen in wonder.

  "You think so? I was building a dam with my lady one afternoon, and then this purple fog came rolling across the ground at us. I breathed some of it in, but I dove under the water to get to our log dome, and I thought Maryann was right behind me. The fog covered everything and I think the overexposure killed her, and all of my family. The side effect of my limited exposure was the ability to speak to you humans, and a terrible case of the shits for three days."

  "I'm sorry to hear that, truly." Falcon said.

  "Well, it’s in the past. Welcome to Dannyville." Baxter said.

  "Yeah, I sort of named this place when we showed up here and started killing mutants. I think this town was originally named Toad, but my name is so much better." Danny said.

  "You know, you two are welcome to join us on the road. We have reason to believe there are still people alive in San Francisco, so that's where we're headed." Tony said.

  "My mom and dad are out there, and if we can find someone who knows how to fly a plane, we might be able to get to San Francisco before I'm an old man." Falcon said.

  "I do." Danny said.

  "You what?" Tony asked.

  "I know how to fly a plane. I'm an amateur pilot. I got my license a few years before the war began." Danny explained.

  "Bullshit! That seems a little too good to be true." Falcon blurted.

  "Suit yourself and go alone. Baxter and I are getting along fine out here together."

  "Wait, I'm sorry, OK? I believe you." Falcon apologized.

  "I wouldn't say we were doing fine. I mean, the two of us have been getting lucky is all. In this new world, there's safety in numbers and we ain't got em'." Baxter sa
id.

  "Well, it's getting dark, and the mutants are worse at night, so you mind if we crash here and head out in the morning? The airport should be about twenty-eight miles or so from here." Falcon said.

  "Sure, we can leave in the morning." Danny replied. She shrugged her shoulders and turned to walk away. "Well, aren't you coming?"

  Falcon, Tony and Baxter followed her to the biggest house in the neighborhood. The first floor was all boarded up and a rope ladder hung from a second floor window. The home had been constructed of brick, and had a wraparound porch that was currently occupied by multiple rows of concertina wire, making access to the downstairs deadly for the shambling mutants. Some of their corpses were caught in the wire.

  "I think you've got some danglers in your security fence." Falcon said. The bodies smelled awful.

  "That sends a message to the mutants. I leave them there and since I've started doing that they’ve moved away from my house more every day. I'm too much trouble, I guess." Danny said.

  "WHHOOOOOOOP!! WEEEEEEEEEP!"

  "They're coming. Quick, we need to get inside. There's a herd of about fifty half a mile outside of Dannyville to the west. I spotted them the other day when I was out looking for food, and I think that's the same group."

  The four of them made it to the rope ladder, and that was when Falcon noticed that Danny had a sling over her shoulder. She knelt down to Baxter, moved the sling around her front, and picked him up enough so he could climb in. Then she slung her crossbow over her back and began to climb. Tony went next while Falcon stood guard with his pistol. The whoops were getting closer, and he could feel his nerves tingling as Tony cleared the window. Falcon put his foot on the first rung when he felt a hand on his shoulder. When he turned he was face to face with a hideous abomination. The mutant had crept up on him, which was a rare occasion, because normally the things were so loud you could hear them coming from a mile away. This mutant's head was cocked to the side with an enormous pustule of disease dangling off its neck. Its face was almost indistinguishable from human, because of the lesions and cancerous sores.