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

by A. R. Shaw

  Locking up and heading back, she grabbed a few water bottles left on ice for anyone’s need and went back to her tent.

  “Aren’t you going to join us?” Cal yelled to her from the circle around the bonfire, clearly already on his way to intoxication land by the slur of his voice.

  She didn’t bother to answer. But if there was one person she wished hadn’t made it out of the fire today, that twisted prick would be the one.

  “Good, no Rebecca,” Dane said as she reentered the tent, relieved to have solitude for a while.

  Shaking the water bottle with its new addition, Dane drank that one down and then started another and had her back to the tent entrance when she heard arguing outside. She peeked and saw that again Rebecca was telling Cal off. Not my business, Dane thought. She can handle herself. Deterrent, Rebecca. Give him a reason to deter. Then she settled in and tried to forget the day, the night and especially her past while she drank down the liquid.

  “You okay in here?”

  Two bottles later, Matthew stood at the entrance.

  “Go away, Matt.”

  “I’m just checking on you.”

  “Well, don’t. I don’t need checking. Take me off your list, hero man. I’m going to sleep now,” she said and rolled to her side, pulling the covers over her shoulder.

  “Good night, then,” Matthew said, lingered a moment and then walked away.

  She didn’t reply. The buzz she felt, however, took away the pain. Took away the memories. Took away the nagging desire to have control over her useless life. Thoughts might float across her mind, but she wouldn’t focus on them without feeling the clutch of her stomach take her down. Without shaking in fear or utter despair. With the buzz, she felt free, if only for a little while.

  Sometime later in the night, Dane heard someone scream, “No!”

  The shriek jolted her. Sitting up on her elbows. Dane listened again and glanced over to Rebecca’s empty bunk next to hers. The voice didn’t sound like the shrill one earlier. She thought it sounded more familiar. Far off, she heard Rebecca’s voice yell no once more.

  “Just kick his ass and get it over with,” Dane yelled in the empty tent. She didn’t expect anyone to hear her words; she just wanted the noise to stop. The yelling reminded her too much of times past. It was the tone this time that bothered her. But after Dane settled down again, she couldn’t help but hear scuffling a few tents over, and a muffled cry.

  She had to pee anyway. On her third bottle of water now—or was it the fourth? Dane carried another with her as she stood up and stuffed her feet into her worn boots, the laces trailing out, the tongue saluting. With increasing pressure on her bladder, she shuffled outside and saw that several of her team members were still staring bleary-eyed into the fire pit visiting, drinking or had passed out beneath the stars. Matt looked up at her and waved. Surprised he still tried with the niceties, she huffed. Still not giving up? There’s nothing here for you, she thought and turned away, walking past them and the ambient light of the fire into the pitch darkness between the tents, where the restroom buildings were near the center of the park.

  Arms of a Woman by Amos Lee played somewhere in the distance. She supposed they were attempting to lull them all to sleep, which was fine by her. The easy-going vibe was a welcome change from the stress of the day. Cool dew settled on the dry blades of the park lawn. With each crunchy step, the scent of smoke and summertime wafted to her nose. Things had quieted down considerably but there was still a raw fervor in the air. More scars were earned today. More burns. Near misses, much like what she and Matthew had endured earlier. A few of them were lost forever and those left behind were trying to grip onto that reality without losing their minds in the process. It was too soon, she realized. She knew this from experience, but it was part of being human…that part of always trying to make sense of the senseless.

  She found herself swaying to the rhythm of Amos Lee’s tunes as she neared the restroom building. There was one dim light affixed to the eaves of the domed brick structure. Dane hated bringing drinks into the restroom; it just seemed to have that ick factor, so she took another long swig of her water again before she had to abandon the bottle on the concrete sidewalk against the wall for a short time, when she heard a commotion nearby. That cry of desperation again, one she knew well. Somewhere near…she heard the muffled voice again and a scuffling.

  “Stop…please,” it said. “Heeelp!”

  “What the hell is that?” Dane said out loud for anyone to hear and walked around the back of the darkened building.

  That’s when she saw, by the pale moonlight, someone’s fist raise and slam down over and over again.

  “Pleease! Help mehhh!” shrieked a woman’s voice. And then Dane realized it was Rebecca’s voice.

  Cal raised his fist again with his left hand tangled in Rebecca’s flaming red curly hair. “Shut up! Think you’re too good for me, now?” Cal growled into the side of her ear.

  “You twisted son of a…!” Dane heard her own voice yell.

  That’s when he heard her behind him because he turned around quickly, his eyes wide as spheres.

  It was like an out-of-body experience, she would later recall. The next thing Dane knew, she’d closed the distance and lunged for him and he couldn’t get away from her in time. Suddenly, she was kicking his bare ass.

  He tried to turn away from her but because his pants were around his ankles, he tripped to the left, exposing himself briefly.

  But it was too late for him. Knowing what he’d done, Dane stomped the heel of her left boot right there and as he buckled into a fetal position, she grabbed him by the hair and straddled his chest before he could move his arms, pinning him to the ground. And she began pounding his face in with her fists and when that wasn’t enough, she grabbed a nearby rock the size of her palm and whaled on him over and over again. “You son…of…a…bitch. Taking advantage of…distractions…to do your sick, twisted, fucking deeds.”

  In the back of her mind she wondered why Rebecca wasn’t making any noise, but she wasn’t going to let him go to find out. Her hands were sticky with warm blood. Had there been enough light, the scene before her was grisly, but the moonlight aided her deception. Cal no longer moved or tried to resist. Somewhere behind her, Rebecca finally let out a small cry, and Dane continued to slam the rock into Cal’s head over and over again. Wobbly flashes of another man’s face came before her…until suddenly Dane wasn’t sure where she was. And instead of the cool tunes of Amos Lee, now David Gray crooned Easy Way to Cry. She couldn’t help but think the music seemed so inappropriate for the current situation. Instead of mellow, she wished for Billie Eilish’s Bad Company or something with a more vigilant feel at the moment. At least something to keep up with the repetitive beat of her rock hand.

  Then someone grabbed her arm on the next upswing, and she struggled to bring down another crushing blow.

  “Enough, Dane. What the hell happened here?”

  It was Matthew, Dane realized from his voice when she looked up finally, although the image of him was split in two. How much water had she had already? She wasn’t sure now.

  “Rebecca? Is that you? Are you okay?” Matthew said, suddenly releasing Dane’s arm and going to help her. “Rebecca, oh my God. Hang on, you’re going to be okay.”

  But as soon as Dane felt the release of her rock hand, she continued to beat the hell out of Cal’s head.

  Her mission wasn’t yet complete. Over and over again in tune with the music, slamming the rock to bone, rock to bone; as she hoped, it began to crunch beneath the blows. Just a few more swings possibly, and the bone would give way to the gooey center…she could feel it. Just a few more strikes.

  “Dane, stop!” Matthew yelled at her as he held Rebecca in his arms.

  Taking advantage of the fact that Matthew had his arms full, she didn’t listen. Over and over again…A couple more slams, it’s beginning to cave. And then Dane went spiraling off Cal’s body entirely. She rolled a few
times. Her rock flung out of her hand, nowhere in reach, though she swept her arms around her in search of it. Matthew body-slammed into her, driving her into the ground when she attempted to get up.

  She tried to scramble away from Matt and from the ambient light of the moon, and she saw the rock not far away, just in front of where Matthew had laid Rebecca on the ground, her hair covering her face, or was that blood? She reached for the rock, using her knees to buggy crawl away from Matthew. But not a foot away from her goal, Matthew’s hand found the back of her waistband and slammed her down and back. Pinning her to the ground, he kneeled into her back.

  “Let me go!” She was only thinking of the diversion of the twisted prick and how he used their lost attention to attack Rebecca to get off. They were all in shock over the day and Cal used that to his own advantage. She couldn’t get over it.

  “No.”

  The next thing she heard was fabric tearing as Matthew sat on her and pulled each of her hands behind her back and tied her down, searing her wrists together in the process. After that, he did the same with her ankles. Her loose boots were lost somewhere during the struggle.

  “I can’t help Rebecca if you’re still trying to kill him. Settle down. Wait, are you drunk? It doesn’t matter; I’ve got to get her to the hospital and I can’t let you kill him when my back’s turned.”

  He was yelling at her like she’d never heard before. This wasn’t her fault. She didn’t hurt Rebecca.

  “Why the hell not?” she spit out as she watched him lift Rebecca up into his arms once again.

  He didn’t answer right away. He looked at where Cal laid in the grass. “Dane, seriously. He has to pay for his crimes. This isn’t the way.”

  “You’re wrong. It’s the perfect way. The world’s messed up. They’ll say it was consensual. He’ll get away with it, Matt,” she said, but he didn’t hear that last bit. She struggled with the ties and watched from her place on the ground as Matthew carried Rebecca away in the moonlight.

  14

  Kitty

  One week later, Kitty found herself assigned to a new unit. Missing Eleanor and Roland was a constant pain, as if she had a knife plunged into the center of her chest, and she was surprised no one else saw the handle still sticking out. She turned her head when she heard someone giggle in Eleanor’s high octave. Getting used to two strangers was hard. Their system was different. They weren’t as lax. They took the job way too seriously. This time Kitty was assigned to two middle-aged coworkers. Gone were the jokes only millennials got. Now only proper procedure and protocols were allowed instead of the tension-breaking outbursts that Eleanor was prone to and Roland managed with his own flare.

  “Kitty, turn around to watch the traffic behind us,” the driver said. “If I have to stop short, you’ll injure your back.”

  Looking at him in the driver’s rearview mirror, Kitty resisted the urge to glare at him. Did he really just take the time to say that as if she were a child in the backseat of her mother’s minivan? The least of your worries, dude, is that I might have a back injury if you stop short. That’s what she thought, without glaring at the man in the mirror. She didn’t say the words. Instead, she willed for the day to end even before it began.

  Their first call was a traffic accident with no major injuries. The third call was a domestic dispute and a stab wound. Nothing major. So far so good, came her inner voice by noon. Why didn’t we get these kinda calls? That’s not fair. Only…her inner voice began to sound more and more like Eleanor’s voice. That’s when Kitty sat at the end of the ambulance doorway, taking small bites of the triangle end of her bologna and mustard sandwich while the others dined in the local McDonald’s. Apparently, they could afford a McDonald’s lunch as a tradition. “Stop that,” she whispered and brought the sandwich down to her lap. I’m losing my mind. She looked up at the pale blue sky. No rain in the forecast. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and listened to the birds chirp on the slight breeze. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. A lock of her dark brown hair escaped her braid and flung itself over the side of her cheek, entwining the strands between her long eyelashes.

  “Hey, Kitty?” the driver said. His tone had an annoyed tinge to it. “What the hell? Didn’t you get the notice?”

  She wondered what he was talking about. Was there some crime in eating a sandwich in the parking lot from the back of the ambulance now? “What message?”

  Holding up his phone, he wiggled in a little dance for her to see. “All of our phones blew up in there. Didn’t yours?”

  “No, I turned it off. I needed a break,” she said and knew immediately she was in trouble. That was one of the rules. Phones were left on for a reason, but her mother kept texting her, asking her if she was okay, and she never answered her anymore, nor could she bear to read her texts.

  “They blew it up,” he said.

  Then she saw their coworker coming their way, clearly agitated and yelling on her own phone as she rushed to the ambulance.

  “What? Who blew what up?” Kitty asked. The whole country was in shambles under various causes already. What more could they do? And by they Kitty meant everyone.

  “Does it matter to you? You don’t really care, do you?” he asked.

  As she shook her head, Kitty’s mouth hung open a little. “What?”

  He just shook his head at her like she was the moron.

  “Come on, let’s go!” yelled her other coworker.

  Tossing the remains of her sandwich into the vacant lot nearby for the pigeons to have a feast, Kitty quickly brushed off the crumbs and jumped into the back of the ambulance, closing the doors behind her. She still had no idea what blew up and who was responsible. So as soon as they were settled, and the driver sped along to a destination he didn’t bother telling her, she turned on her phone. Alerts continued to flash across the screen, intermixed with frantic green balloon texts from her mother saying, “Are you safe? They’re attacking us.”

  “Who?” Kitty said to herself and her finger swiped right and left. One alert said, “Chicago is under siege.” Another said, “Houston’s been hit.” And then a third: “Cushing, Oklahoma.” They kept listing cities. Some she knew. Some she’d never heard of before, but she still didn’t understand. And then she read pipelines and oil. Then a name: EPA Fundamentalists. She’d heard that before. They had nothing to do with tree hugging or really caring about the environment. They were terrorists. She herself came from a family of progressives but this group…they’d done things beyond humane under the guise of protecting the earth, and their funding had been linked to terrorist organizations.

  “Oh my,” Kitty said as she looked through picture after picture of utter devastation. Blaze after blaze. “It was a coordinated attack,” one of the drivers said. “Enjoy the gasoline while it lasts. This is going to end transportation as we know it.”

  “There’s plenty in reserve,” the driver said. “The government has it stockpiled.”

  “Dude, gas goes bad after a couple of months,” the passenger said.

  “Nah, there’s additives and stuff now. It’ll be fine. They’ll extinguish the fires and rebuild the pipelines.”

  “Dude, you’re naïve, man. This is epic.”

  They continued that way while Kitty kept looking at the climbing death count. In one video a man in a plaid shirt caught fire, his shirt ablaze, as he ran away from what looked like a massive volcano erupting somewhere in Missouri. He’d finally fallen and writhed on the ground until someone came to help him. You needed people to help you now. No one could live on their own anymore. There was no one to watch your back. People died. Every day now…someone died violently because of someone else’s cause and they didn’t even care that it cost at least one innocent bystander’s life. That was just collateral damage somehow. Society had lost empathy and Kitty realized it was all just a game to those few who wanted to play.

  She switched her phone off again as they rumbled down the highway on their depleting fumes. Unwilling t
o watch the game play out anymore, Kitty considered Eleanor and wondered if she was better off where she was right now. Her light laughter was always just beyond the veil.

  15

  Dane

  She must have passed out sometime later because the next thing she knew, Matthew pushed her shoulder back and forth and when she opened her eyes, she was lying in her sleeping bag in her tent and her hands were stiff with bandages.

  “Wake up, Dane. Here, drink this. Don’t struggle, I’m just trying to help you.”

  Blocking the drink he held to her mouth with her wrapped hand, she suddenly remembered the stickiness to her fingers, the rock, the pounding, the screams both inside and out. “What happened?”

  “Drink first. Explanation later.”

  She took a swig of the bottled water. Her head pounded about the temples and her whole body felt like dead weight. Then it came back to her. “How’s Rebecca?” she asked, knowing the questions would indicate to Matthew that she cared. And she did care…she felt guilty for not doing more.

  He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he took in a deep breath and ran his hand down his face. Matthew had not slept; she could tell that right away—that was, when her eyes focused on his face long enough to see he had dark circles beneath his blue eyes.

  “She’s going to need some recovery time. Honestly, she’s probably done. He hurt her real bad.” He shook his head as if trying to dispel the images. “I don’t think she’s coming back this season. The doctor said if you hadn’t come along when you did, she could have died, Dane. She was bleeding out from tears and ruptured vessels…inside.”

  Suddenly Dane’s breathing increased rapidly, hearing her shrieking screams, and she couldn’t speak. Both terror and rage flooded her system.