A. R. Shaw's Apocalyptic Sampler: Stories of hope when humanity is at its worst

by A. R. Shaw

  Bishop waited until the young man was out of sight before he continued onward. Sudden dim light filled the hallway to the left, and when Bishop looked he found that the left side of the hallway was opened to windows that were letting what light there was seep through. He was utterly exposed there at fifteen floors up, and when he looked out the windows, he saw men in black running around in all directions on the ground below. They were looking high and low for them outside in the frozen landscape, but not high enough.

  They assumed he and Austin had fled outside, and why not? They’d never expected someone to head toward danger.

  A distinctive clicking sound, one Bishop was all too familiar with, came from the other side of the door, commanding his attention from the scene outside the windows. Whoever was on the other side of that door knew there was danger near.

  Hurrying to the edge of the heavy closed door, Bishop waited and listened. As a shadow blocked the sliver of light from coming underneath the doorway, Bishop watched as the silver door handle began to twist.

  41

  Metal snapped, something heavy clanged to the ground, and the door whipped upward, all at once flashing light inside. Maeve was blinded. Her first instinct was to shield her eyes with her left hand. She caught herself as a man stepped inside. He held a rifle pointed at her and the children behind her and yelled roughly, “Put it down.”

  For a second, she had no idea what he was talking about and then remembered she was holding him at gunpoint. With a menacing look, he glanced behind her at the children and then to the side, at the horse. After a moment, he sniffed the air. “You piss your pants?” he yelled at the children.

  No one answered him, and he didn’t seem to expect an answer as his eyes were too busy plundering the boxes behind the children. Whatever was in those boxes, he wanted to know.

  “I found your tracks outside. Whoever tried to hide them thought he was clever. Stand up and put your damn gun down now, or I’ll shoot you. I don’t give a damn about kids either.”

  She believed him and silently screamed at herself as she found she was lowering her own weapon in defeat. There was no way she could endanger the children. Knowing Bishop would be disappointed, she did as he warned against. You’re making a mistake, she screamed to herself. Shoot him!

  “Geez, you’re a pretty thing. You’ll fetch a nice price.”

  Boom!

  Maeve ducked, and the tremendous noise came from behind her. Her hands were in the air when she turned to her children to protect them from the unknown shooter. Then she saw her son standing there.

  A small swirl of smoke whirled up from the muzzle end of his rifle. Her son Ben stood there, his eyes locked on the downed man in front of them, his mouth slightly agape.

  “Ben!”

  She went to comfort her son when the man on the ground began to move. Twisting, Maeve launched herself to her Ruger and raised the weapon just in time to pull the trigger before the assailant wrapped his hand around the grip of his own.

  This time, she knew for certain he was done for. Half of the man’s head sprayed across the concrete ground and into the snow, the crimson and gray in bright contrast to the bright white snowflakes coming down.

  42

  Now, slowly, with a creak of its hinges, the heavy wooden door moved. It crept open, exposing the muzzle end of an AR-15; then, with the sound of friction of metal against the edge of wood, more of the weapon appeared.

  Stiff-lipped, Bishop leaned against the wall, slid his hand into his holster, and pulled out the handgun without a sound. Then he pulled his right leg upward and kicked at the door all at once.

  A shot fired from the rifle, shattering the hallway of windows. Subzero wind flooded the interior; white, billowy curtains flapped out in the sudden breeze. The owner of the rifle attempted to pull the muzzle free by yanking it inside, but Bishop had it trapped.

  He fired once through the wood of the door at chest height. Wood fragments blasted all over. The rifle slackened, and the barrel end bent downward. For a brief second, Bishop thought that was the end…thought he’d killed the guy on the other side, but he was mistaken.

  A body slammed into the door. The force of it knocked Bishop’s leg away, and the knob slammed into his gut. The Desert Eagle in his right hand was trapped in the corner, disabling him from bringing it upward. The door opened again, only to knock into him once more with full force. This time, there were hands gripping the edge of the heavy door. The rifle had fallen to the ground.

  Bishop shoved his boot outward to stop the door from nailing him a third time, reached around with his left arm, and grabbed the assailant by the waist.

  When he finally laid eyes on the man, he had no doubt in the brief nanosecond their eyes met that it was Roman. Tall guy, dark hair, but most of all, a menacing grin. He was enjoying this.

  Shattered glass and air gusted inside as the two men struggled. The floor-to-ceiling windows were practically gone as Bishop wrangled the man into the precarious hallway that had suddenly become a fifteen-story cliff.

  The rifle Roman dropped to the ground among the glass shifted on the floor as they struggled. Roman reached for the gun, but Bishop kicked it away just in time and out into the opened chasm of shattered glass. Briefly in midair, the rifle sailed downward and out of sight.

  Struggling to point the gleaming Desert Eagle, Roman held Bishop’s arm upward, and strength against strength, they wrestled. The man had more than five inches on Bishop in height. And not knowing exactly how it happened, they were on the shattered glass–strewn floor. Bishop’s back pressed against the sharp fragments. Roman slammed Bishop’s right arm again and again against the ground, but even though pain shot through his injured shoulder, he wasn’t giving up the weapon in his grasp no matter what Roman tried to do.

  Then Roman seemed to have a new tactic. He looked out the shattered window and began sliding Bishop’s body with furious tugs toward the abyss. Bishop’s boots soon were in free space and dangling fifteen stories above the ground. He would soon have to make a choice: to loosen his grip on Roman and grab onto something or he was done for.

  Finally, Bishop threw his own forehead upward, slamming into Roman’s head and stunning him briefly. Just enough for him to loosen his grip on Bishop’s arm. With just enough time to raise the handgun, Bishop fired into the man’s chest once, but Roman twisted at the last second and only shrapnel from the floor shot everywhere. He let go of Roman’s arm with his left hand and punched the bigger man in the jaw, but Roman wasn’t done yet.

  Knowing he had only one bullet left in the gun, he continued to fight. Roman clawed for Bishop and shoved him even further over the edge. With his ass halfway over the ledge, Bishop raised the gun once more and sent the last round right into Roman’s chest, but at a price. Bishop dropped the spent gun and dangled dangerously over the edge with Roman’s body over his chest and began to lose his fight with gravity as he tried to scramble back over, only to catch shards of glass with his hands. About to panic in the inevitable freefall to his own death, another hand reached out and grabbed him by his jacket and hauled him back to safety.

  Breathing hard, with blood mixed with the glass impaled in his hands, Bishop looked up to see Austin and said with heaving breaths of air, “Thanks, man. Just…in…time.”

  43

  Tentatively, Maeve took steps toward the torn menace of the man crumpled in front of her.

  “Careful, Mom!” Ben warned from behind her.

  “Stay where you are,” she said to her son. With her eyes, she saw only blood, bone, and brain. And before she could kick at his body and close the door, her stomach dry heaved against her will. She knelt over to the side, involuntarily lurching. Not even looking, all she saw in her mind was the gray matter mixed with blood. Blood she spilled to save her son. The overwhelming nausea seemed like it would never subside, but finally it did. She wiped the thick saliva from her lips and stood once again.

  The little girl was crying great sobs with her head buried i
n the blankets. Her son stood in shock, still holding on to his rifle in his hands.

  A noxious mixture of strong urine, iron, and bile made her decide. She found herself leading Jake out of the storage unit just ten feet into the snow-covered alleyway. His gentle eyes looked at her as if nothing terrible had happened. She tied his lead to another unit’s door lock and then came to the dead man in her way.

  She avoided looking at the mangled part of him and kept her vision to his feet. She kicked away his gun in the snow and then straightened his legs out in front of him. Pulling his legs to the side, she dragged the man five feet with all the strength she had. Dropping his feet finally into the snow, she returned to the unit and looked for a shovel.

  Needing to remove the rest of him that remained, Maeve looked along the walls until she spotted a long-handled shovel among the other tools. She didn’t want to look at the bits of him that were still out there out of fear she’d have to vomit again.

  After taking a couple of deep breaths, Maeve took another look at the kids. Louna still sobbing, her son patted the girl on the back but still clutched his rifle. With resolve, she turned and slid the blade of the shovel under the largest bloody chunks and walked a few paces with the offensive load and dumped it on the guy’s chest. Returning for another load, she scraped the ice on the pavement outside the unit for as long as she could manage and dumped that load on its owner too as if to say, “Here you go. This belongs to you.”

  Then she shoveled snow over the man until he was a mound against a berm. She packed more snow over the last scattering marks of blood in the snow near the entrance to their unit. The whole time, the plummeting temperatures continued to seep through her and steal her inner heat. She was shaking before long. Her hands trembled as she carried the shovel and what dim light there was began to darken.

  “Where is Bishop?” she wondered out loud and stared blankly toward where the alarms had been coming from before.

  “Mom?”

  Maeve turned to her son. “We should bring Jake back inside and close the door.”

  Nodding to herself, she first brought in a few shovelfuls of clean snow, dumped them at the high point of where Jake left his mess, and scooted the snow in a downward motion toward the end of the concrete, shoveling some of the urine out with it.

  Then she retrieved Jake and put him back in his spot. Looking at the trampled snow, she used the back of the shovel to try and level the evidence of them being there and to mask the steps, but eventually she could see it was no use. Anyone coming this way would know there was someone there. Before she closed the door, she gazed at the mound with the dead man beneath. The first person she’d ever killed, the one who nearly killed them. Quietly she lowered the metal door the rest of the way, hoping no one could hear them, and she wondered if Bishop’s life had also ceased with the end of the alarms from earlier.

  44

  “He nearly shoved you out,” Austin said, his eyes round.

  “Yeah, he did at that.” Bishop pointed at the body. “Was that Roman?”

  Austin nodded his head. “Yes, that was him.”

  “That’s a relief. I don’t want to go through that again today.” He was still trying to catch his breath. “Guy was relentless. Nearly killed me.”

  Holding on to the edge of the wall with a firm grip, Bishop leaned outward and looked below. Men in black were still wandering around looking for the enemy.

  “Who are those guys?” Bishop gestured with his chin.

  Austin laughed. “They’re hotel security and bellboys and staff.”

  “Did they like this guy much?”

  “No one liked Roman.”

  “So, you don’t think they’ll miss him?”

  “That, I don’t know. They did what he said without question. If they didn’t, they were dead men.”

  “Well, let’s send them a message,” Bishop said and pushed Roman’s body over the edge where the man had attempted to send him earlier.

  Now, in silent descent, the black-suited dead man tumbled through the vast empty space; his suit jacket flapped in the wind, and then, with an audible thud, the body hit the snowy ground and caught the attention of all those on watch.

  Observing, Bishop leaned out the window farther, gusts of wind drying his eyes. Three armed men approached the body, then stood again and looked up. While one returned quickly inside the building with his rifle jangling behind him, the other two wandered away, leaving abandoned footsteps in their wake.

  “Let’s get down there and see where we’re at. Same rules as before—stay close behind me.”

  Austin nodded. “The only way out is through.”

  “Yeah,” Bishop said and exited the penthouse. They hit the elevator down button and waited cautiously. Soon the car opened, and once inside, Bishop hit the lobby button.

  “You sure?” Austin asked with concern.

  “I have a hunch we’re done here, but if we have any issues, follow my lead.”

  Descending the fifteen floors took too much time for Bishop to think. He’d been away from Maeve too long, and he pictured them huddled in the dark, worried and scared while they waited for his return.

  Suddenly, the elevator door opened. Bishop craned his head around the corner to sneak a peek into the lobby, where he saw several men dressed in black standing in front of the raging fireplace facing him.

  No one said a word. On the ground in front of them was a pile of rifles. Bishop looked from one face to another and said to Austin, “They’re all boys. Not one over twenty-five.”

  “Roman made sure anyone who went against him died. The older men were the first to go.”

  Tentatively, Bishop stepped out of the elevator. “Raise your hands where I can see them,” he yelled loud and clear.

  One step after the other, Bishop kept his rifle trained for any sudden movement. There were at least twenty young men standing in the lobby. Most of them bore looks of shame; some of them even cried.

  Bishop used that to his advantage. With a commanding voice, he yelled, “Take off your black shirts and your black pants now. Any sudden movement and you all die.”

  They looked from one to the other, and slowly they did as Bishop demanded. Soon the young men stood in their underwear. Some wore boxers while a few wore briefs.

  As Austin watched his back, Bishop motioned his rifle at a smaller man on the left. “You. Pick up the clothes and toss them into the fireplace.”

  The scared boy nodded and did as Bishop said.

  Sparks flew out as he hefted the load inside. The enormous fireplace whooshed with a fresh blaze.

  “That’s it. You.” He pointed to a taller kid. “Are there any more of you anywhere?”

  “No sir!” he said at first and then looked around. “Well, a few left already.”

  “Where did they go?”

  The kid looked around. “Home, sir?” His statement came out more like a guess.

  Bishop looked at their young faces again. “You damn stupid kids!” He couldn’t just let them go. They were murderers and thieves. They were the minions of a tyrant much like the soldiers that served the horrors of Hitler.

  “You don’t blindly follow anyone! Use your damn brains!”

  His angry voice rattled them. Each of them took steps backward in nervous fright. He had to do something. The people in the town were terrified and dying because of them. Because of Roman’s demands, but ultimately because these boys gave Roman that power by following his orders and complying with his requests without questioning authority.

  “Never will you wear that uniform again. Is that understood?” he bellowed.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That uniform is what terrified these people now. You’ve succeeded in ingraining that terror into them. They’re dying out there. Your families, remember them? The people you’ve abandoned? That uniform is no different than a swastika. If I see anyone wear it again, they’re dead. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir!” they said in unison, more loudly thi
s time.

  “All of you…leave. Just as you are. In your shoes and underwear. Go to your homes and beg forgiveness from your loved ones if you have them. If you don’t have a home here, you’ll have to beg entrance somewhere else. Some of you will die in your attempt for salvation, but that’s the price you paid. You’re at the mercy of these people now.”

  Again they each looked to one another, and when no clear leader emerged, one of them edged toward the door, as if uncertain they were really free to go. They all went as a group. Some of them ran immediately in no particular direction. Some followed others. With the weather well below freezing, they wouldn’t get very far.

  45

  Opening the door, Bishop began to walk out.

  “Where are you going?” Austin asked. “You can’t just leave now!”

  Putting a hand on Austin’s shoulder, Bishop asked, “Is there an intercom in the building?”

  “Yes, in the control room.”

  “Can you use it to address any guests or anyone else still in the building to come to the lobby? We need to get some things in order.”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “Good, get them down here. Put those guns in a secure place and I’ll be right back. I have an errand to do.”

  “Bishop, I can’t do what you do.”

  “Austin, you’re the man now. Your dad would expect this of you, and you’re capable. There’s no more time to be a boy. Point and shoot if you have to. I’ll be right back.”

  Bishop left without looking back and climbed past the body he’d dropped, walking down the road going east the way he came. Gusts of wind blew flurries by, metal street signs barely visible above the snow shuddered in the strong breeze. He had no doubt many of the nearly naked boys would die out there tonight.

  Fighting the wind, several blocks later Bishop stopped where his snowmobile lay covered and half-hidden in the snow from earlier that morning. Looking for the little boy who’d landed in the icy berm, he only saw boot marks near where the child was thrown. He had no idea if the boy lived or died, but at least he had a chance.