Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF

by Mike Ashley

  "And I grew up in Oklahoma."

  Oklahoma used to be a real place. Now it's a word that a seventy-year-old man might as well have made up.

  "Off to see your mom, are you?"

  "I am."

  Ferris nods. "Say a good prayer for me, would you?"

  "Yes, sir. I will."

  The cemetery sits on north-facing ground too steep to be planted, affording a view of the rooftops and solar panels, bottomlands and the hills and prairie reaching to the rolling horizon. Looking east and downstream, the distant country changes from dead brown to sterile cold gray. That grayness marks crisscrossing paved roads and too many houses to count. I'll never go into the city again. It's a vow I made years ago, and I've kept it better than most. A few slumping buildings can look noble and important, but a landscape where hundreds of thousands of people lived and died is never noble. Cemeteries are beautiful places in comparison, even when the grass is brown. A cemetery doesn't smell, and it doesn't cry out in pain, and looking at neat burial sites never makes me think about the waste and appalling loss that comes when half a million ghosts are whispering in one miserable voice.

  I don't know what to think about the afterlife. But I'll never accept pretty notions like heaven and a righteous hell.

  Mom's marker is a square block cut from the local limestone, her name and the important dates chiseled into the flattest face, along with the usual scripture. My mom believed in God and loved Christ, and she took lessons from that strange old book. It's those lessons that save my life, and that's why I can stand on this frozen ground today. Mom always acted on what she believed, and since the heart is a fool, my poor father and his heart usually went along with her crazy decisions.

  I never could make sense of their love. But if I were a grateful son, I would kneel down on this frozen sacred ground and clasp my hands together, thanking my mother and God for this opportunity to be alive, seeing the world unfold into new, unexpected shapes.

  Except that I'm not a grateful son.

  My little ritual - this chore that I perform whenever visiting town - I do for the sake of my wife. Years ago, most of the local people treated Lola and her family unfairly. One bitter old woman was at the center of those bad feelings and petty slights. Even as a boy, I realized that my future wife didn't deserve to be shunned. But that was what happened. My mother was responsible, and the pain has lingered long past her death. And that's why I usually have one tall beer at the bar and then walk to the cemetery, taking a long look around to make sure that I'm alone, then yanking down my pants and investing a few moments pissing on that crude tombstone.

  It feels better than prayer. And that's what I'm doing today - without beer to help, but managing just fine - and that's what I'm finishing up when something unexpected happens. First comes the sound of an engine working and only then I catch a glimpse of a remarkable apparition on the highway east of town.

  What kind of truck is that?

  I pull up my trousers and fasten the buttons. I'm tying my belt when the mystery machine enters the town square. A long aluminum box rides high on fat tires and the windshield looks like the window on a house and smaller windows are fixed to at least one long side, and loyally following the vehicle is a big trailer carrying what looks like an auxiliary fuel tank and other supplies.

  From some deep unexpected corner of my head, a memory finds me. No, the vehicle isn't quite the same. It has been updated to meet this world's bad roads and fuel shortages. But out of the fog between my ears comes an impossible answer:

  An RV.

  Which stands for what?

  I can't remember. I probably never knew. But this is the best kind of marvel, like something from a dream, and that foolish part of me is beating fast now, making me feel like a happy little kid.

  I was seven and glad to be traveling the world, eating canned food and picking out new clothes as soon as my almost-new clothes were dirty. It seemed like a natural life, and I didn't complain. Then dad heard chatter on the short wave radio. People of Faith were talking about a town left empty and clean, and life was going to be easy again. But weren't things pretty sweet already? The dead didn't stink much anymore. I liked wandering and the everyday rituals, like helping my father explore empty houses, hunting for ammunition and tools and keys to cars that still ran. The scale of the disaster was enormous. But then again, everything's enormous to a young boy. And nothing is more natural than death. For all I knew, people had lived this way since the Creation: prosperity always made our species too proud, and then God would send a flood or worse, slaughtering only the evil people in the world.

  That's what my mother's prayers said. Every night and every morning, and with each meal of scavenged food, she would thank the Good Lord for the treasure left behind by the vanquished Unbelievers.

  I prayed and dad prayed, but not like mom. She was the one who decided we should drive to Salvation. Dad wasn't as hopeful, but he couldn't find good reasons to hang his doubts on. So we found a new car for a new beginning and by the end of that trip I was feeling excited about this mythical place. We crossed half the state before swinging wide around the giant city. Mom navigated; dad watched the gas gauge. I studied a thousand fires burning out of control, enjoying the towering smoke with the dirty flames at the bottom and the stink of chemicals and old wood incinerated by the wild, wondrous heat. I didn't think once about the consequences to anybody's health. I was seven, and fire was fun, and this very important drive was another great adventure in a life filled with little else.

  But once we pulled into Salvation, nagging disappointment took hold. We were late arrivals; only a few half-finished houses were left unclaimed. The Mayor welcomed us as Christians, and a little feast was held in our honor. But we didn't have solar panels or windmills on our house. Holes for pipes and wires were cut in the walls but none of that work had begun. Suddenly there were kids to play with, except now I was too busy to act my age. My folks put me to work. Ferris was our first friend, helping with the toughest jobs. He told us how the town was abandoned when he arrived, not even the usual bodies lying about. But then again, rich sinners usually died in distant hospitals and hospices. What else could explain it? A naturally happy fellow, Ferris smiled and sang odd songs as he and a few other men helped with our carpentry and plumbing and wring. But everybody had duties in their own homes. People with real skills were scarce and the Mayor and his inner circle monopolized their time. My parents did their best, learning from the daily mistakes. If I was lucky, the fires few and the weather clear, I got to ride with dad into the city. We hunted for useful machines or materials that could be bartered. I loved those little journeys. I killed my first wild game in one of city parks, and dad helped clean and cook my rabbit lunch.

  When the day got late, he said, "We need to head home."

  "Why?"

  He laughed. Shaking his head, he admitted, "I don't know why."

  I argued that we could stay here tonight, go back tomorrow.

  He dwelled on the merits of that strategy. Then he added his own good reason to delay. "We wouldn't have to pray again until tomorrow."

  We hadn't prayed before the rabbit feast. Until then, I hadn't noticed.

  "What do you think of Salvation, Noah?"

  I thought hard. Then shrugging, I said, "It's okay."

  He didn't talk.

  "Do you like it?" I asked.

  He didn't want to answer. It was best to point out, "Those houses are perfect for us. When ours is finished, we'll have power and water and all the comforts. We can grow vegetables out back, so the canned goods last longer, and you'll go to school with the other kids."

  "Are you going to teach us?"

  Dad was a teacher before. But the question seemed to take him by surprise. "If they want me to serve. Yes."

  But nobody ever asked, and dad knew better than volunteer.

  After that first year, life in Salvation became ordinary. Normal even. I had school and church and no reason to wonder where my food was
coming from tomorrow. Which was good and bad. New people kept arriving, some coming from distant parts of the country, and while a few lingered, most found reasons to keep moving. Most weren't Believers, or we didn't think they were. Why God's wrath had spared them was a mystery to me. But one undeserving family was particularly stubborn, claiming to have nowhere else to go. They built a new house in the hills. The dad was a talented carpenter, so he was able to find work even with the people who despised him. His little girl was named Lola. Lola's mother taught her at home, and only on rare occasions did they attend church services. But I made a point of talking to the girl whenever I saw her, and better yet, she would smile and happily talk to me.

  Mom noticed and thought it best to warn me, "She isn't a good person, Noah. Stay clear of her."

  "How do you know that?"

  Mom had many talents. She could talk to God and convince herself about anything, and she was a marvel when it came to manipulating others. But better than anyone, she was able to read people, measuring their souls and spotting their weaknesses.

  "Lola's parents are pretenders," she claimed. "They say the right words, but words mean nothing if there's no feeling behind them."

  Mom wasn't the only perceptive person in our family. "What about Dad?" I asked.

  She stared at me for a long moment. Then she looked away, asking, "What do you mean?"

  "He says the right words. But I don't think he believes them."

  "Well," she said, her coldest eyes finding me. "Don't repeat those words. Do you understand me?"

  I understood, but that didn't matter.

  We weren't the only people watching, and ideas, particularly the dangerous ones, have their own lives. Like diseases, they can be carried on the wind, growing wherever they find weakness.

  A couple years after our arrival, Salvation's first Mayor was drummed out of office. Three young girls were pregnant, each naming him as the father, and maybe that was true. Maybe. What mattered was that he was shunned, and mom became a very prominent citizen. She belonged to the new Mayor's inner circle, suddenly attending meetings and seeing to important but vague duties, holding no official station but acquiring a considerable reputation nonetheless. People couldn't stop smiling at her, even when they despised her. She formed a Bible study group, and women fought for the chance to sit in our living room, reading about God's mercy and judgment. When those ladies visited, dad would vanish. Then he started to skip Sunday church. And here the story can be told one of two ways: either my mother protected my father, deflecting criticisms to keep him safe for as long as possible. Or she was the acidic force that decided something had to be done about the doubter in our midst.

  Either way, one morning I woke to find Dad's hand over my mouth. He told me to follow him, and we walked out back, past the battery shed holding yesterday's sun and the woodpile holding forty years of sunshine. That's the way that one-time teacher would talk to me, explaining how the world worked. But there weren't any lessons that day. He barely had time to confess that he was leaving, leaving right now, and this was good-bye.

  I didn't ask why. There wasn't any need. All I said was, "Take me."

  He shook his head. "I can't, Noah. No."

  "Where are you going?"

  "I'm not sure," he admitted, looking worried about whatever would come next.

  I didn't feel scared. Until that moment, I didn't appreciate how much I wanted to be free of this town and its people - most of these people, at least -and that's why I asked to go with him, and that's why I was furious watching this man that I loved climb alone into a truck that probably didn't have enough fuel to run fifty miles.

  He felt sorry for me. I could see that. To make both of us feel better, he said, "I'll be back some day. You'll see."

  He was lying. I knew it, but maybe he didn't. He was lying to himself, just like he did for years when he pretended to believe whatever his crazy wife would tell him to believe.

  I started crying. On bare feet, I chased that truck west on the river highway, and I kept running hard even when I couldn't see my father anymore. Then I stumbled and skinned both knees and limped home, finding my mother sitting at the kitchen table. She had been crying but her tears were finished by then. She looked old and extra stern. The woman used to be pretty. Before she was a mother, she was beautiful. I knew that from the old pictures. But that woman died during these last years, and what sat before me was tough and incapable of telling even a pitying lie.

  "He did what was best," she claimed.

  "Leaving like this, before the harm spread to his loved ones ..."

  "But what about me?" I blurted.

  "You?" She stared at me. Then after a shrug of the shoulders and one bored sigh, she admitted, "You'll thrive or you'll perish, Noah. Either way, your fate is entirely up to you."

  The RV sits on the ornate brick road that borders the grassy town square. The machine's big engine has been turned off but still ticks down. Maybe twenty adults have gathered nearby, warning the children and one another to keep back. Guns are on display, and for every visible shotgun there are probably two pistols in easy reach. Stories about bandits have become common fodder, and people want to feel cautious and smart. Why nameless enemies would travel inside an old mobile home is a mystery. But sure enough, I find myself standing back too, listening to the engine cool, watching the dusty windows.

  Behind the glass someone moves.

  Prayers break out; neighbors join hands. But when somebody reaches for me, I step ahead of everyone, including the kids.

  "Noah," say a couple of the older voices, sounding reproachful.

  Then a girl, maybe twelve years old, blurts, "Who's that man?"

  I'm not seen around town enough to be familiar. But Old Ferris says, "That's Helen's boy," and it is strangely heartening to know that I am still defined by one minuscule accident in biology.

  I walk halfway to the apparition and stop.

  It's Butcher Jack who emerges from the crowd, winking nervously when he joins me.

  "What do you think?" he whispers.

  A thousand years of guesses wouldn't find the truth. I say nothing, and we walk together up to the RVs big front door, hesitating an instant before each of us gives the filthy metal a friendly, flat-handed slap.

  Jack starts to say, "Hello?"

  And the door opens. The violent hiss of compressed gas startles us, and we leap back. I'm so nervous that I am laughing, and that's what the young woman sees when she pops into view.

  She sees a giggling fool. To me, she looks twenty, fit and very pretty. Smiling as if it is her natural expression, she jumps to the bottom step and grabs the door handle while leaning out at us. She is lovely and slender with her gold hair worn long and trousers that couldn't be much tighter. It's not that I fall in love. But my first impression is that if I were ten years younger, I would be helplessly, shamelessly infatuated.

  "Oh good," she says.

  There's an accent to her words - a warm friendly way of speaking that is completely new to me.

  "Can you two boys help with grandma?" she asks.

  Jack looks at me.

  I suppose this could be a trap. A beautiful girl lures ignorant older men into her mobile home, making them her prisoner, abusing them in all sorts of wicked ways. That certainly is worth the risk, I decide. So I lead the way, climbing up into the RV with Jack close behind. The woman says, "Thanks," twice before adding, "My dad hurt his back, and I'm not strong enough to do this alone."

  What looks like a giant dirty box from outside proves smaller and less dusty than I expected. I smell people and recent meals and this morning's bathroom business. The "dad" proves to be a wary fellow maybe five years older than me, sitting behind the little table where a happy traveler might eat his meals, watching the countryside roll past. I remember enough to piece together a compelling daydream. This is how millions of people lived. Before. Burning gasoline by the tanker, wandering their world on the smooth happy roads.

  Loudly, confide
ntly, the girl announces, "I've got help for us, grandma."

  Dad watches the two strangers, thanking us with a little nod as we pass. The old woman is in back, laid out on a bed big enough to sleep two. I can't remember ever seeing a lady of these proportions. She probably began life big, time and too much food making her astonishingly fat. According to the one working scale at my house, I weigh 200 elk-fed pounds. But I wouldn't want this lady standing on my scale. She's that fat. And worse, her smooth round face is drawn around a couple blue eyes that look at me and look at Jack and then look at the blond woman, registering nothing in the process.

  She's blind, I guess.

  But no, she suddenly asks, "Who are you?"

  I start to answer. But the woman says, "I'm May and you're my grandmother."

  She says those words instantly, like a reflex. As if she says them a hundred times every day. She's patient enough, but I notice that she doesn't bother trying to sound sweet. These are pragmatic words meant to carry us through the next several moments.

  "May?"

  "Yes, grandma."

  "Where are we, May?"

  "At home," the girl says. "Your home." Then she looks at me and brings up that smile again, saying, "If you can each get on one side and lift. She'll help us, I think. And we can get her outside."

  I don't want to touch this strange old woman. It amazes me how hard I'm looking for any excuse.

  But butchers are made of tougher stuff. Jack leaps to work, and the force of his example causes me to grab hold of the other arm and shoulder. Grandma is a pale soft and very cool piece of humanity. I can't feel the bones for all of the fat riding on her. Yet as promised, she doesn't fight us. We grunt and get her to stand on her own mammoth legs, twisting her sideways to leave room in the aisle, and with her granddaughter in the lead, coaxing and tugging, we herd the old lady up the length of the RV, giving her just enough lift that she doesn't collapse, at least until we make it to the front.