Red Robin: Post-Apocalyptic America

by R. B. Tetro

  They made their way down a steep, stone stairway. It was pitch black all around them and each of them clung to the wall as they worked their way down in the darkness. They stopped. Reverend held the torch up high so they could see. They were standing on a huge stone landing that sloped down to two separate stone staircases. There were no rails or walls on either side of the stairways and the brothers looked a little apprehensive, as he led them down the staircase on the left.

  They went slow, traveling downward for at least ten minutes, finally coming to a stop on a jagged landing with a solid iron door cut into the wall of the massive cavern.

  “Remember rule three,” Reverend reminded the brothers.

  Before they had a chance to answer, the door opened slowly and they were met by a small, pale man with homemade glasses, wearing a long white robe.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  While Reverend and Blake kept an eye on the brothers, Tom took his two sons and two handpicked members of the Over Watch guard and hurried to meet Jack and give him safe passage back to Over Watch.

  Jack was a founding member of Over Watch who’d held out hope for a peaceful solution to the councils’ corruptions. Reverend and Tom had said for quite some time they needed to be ousted no matter what the means. Now they were too strong and much too firmly rooted in their corrupt positions of power with the support of the uninformed people behind them no less.

  Tom picked up the pace. They were almost to the tunnel leading them to the conference room. Without warning, they were surrounded by ten soldiers. His men put their backs against each other, preparing to fight, but Tom ordered them to lower their weapons and surrender. He knew the council was looking for a reason to kill them and claim treason. If they were alive, at least they could be heard.

  But after binding them, the council guards took them down tunnels none of them knew existed, coming at last to a cavernous pit. There were guards placed all around the top of the pit, and they could hear screaming as they were pushed roughly toward the yawning opening. Tom could see, twenty feet down, at the bottom of the pit there were tables set up with all sorts of torture devices on them. There were also bloodstained boulders with chains attached to them.

  One of the boulders had a man across it, face down and chained. He was screaming in agony as a figure dressed in a long black cloak twisted a sword into the fleshy part of his shoulder. It was Jack. Tom realized they should have fought and now it was too late. They would never be found here, and no one would ever know what happened to them.

  Jack struggled against the ropes holding his arms firmly behind his back. “I love you, boys!” he yelled as he was pushed over the edge of the pit. He tried to land and roll but his hands being tied behind his back made it impossible. He landed with a dull crunch on his left shoulder. The wind was knocked out of him.

  He opened his eyes in time to see two men wearing blood spattered butcher’s aprons coming toward him. He kicked out, catching one of them on the side of the knee, smiling as he heard it crack, causing the man to go down screaming. The other man looked at his friend lying on the ground and approached Tom with more caution. Tom tried to kick him but he was off balance and the man picked him up in a violent bear hug, slamming him down, face first on the ground. Tom groaned and writhed on the ground. His front teeth had been knocked out and his forehead was bleeding badly.

  “Why don’t you give him a chance, you coward…” Tom could hear his oldest son shouting.

  The man stopped and looked up. He smiled and nodded, approaching Tom carefully. Tom tried to kick out again but the nimble man side-stepped his kick easily and rolled Tom over on his stomach, pulling a long bladed butcher knife out of his broad leather belt and cutting the rope binding Toms hands. The man stood up and stepped back, watching Tom warily. Tom sat up, rubbing his wrist.

  The man in the bloody apron motioned for him to rise and fight.

  Tom stood shakily. He smiled bravely up at his sons as the man started to circle him like a shark. He tried to move his left arm, but it would not move. He circled away from the man, looking around for a weapon.

  The man kicked him, knocking him back into one of the bloody boulders. Tom felt his left hand come down on a wooden handle. He glanced down and saw that he was holding a hammer as he ducked under the charging man’s reach. It was bloody with clumps of hair and bone on the head of it. The man yelled and rushed him again.

  Tom side stepped his careless charge and swung with all of his strength connecting with the torture man’s head. The man went down like a stone.

  The dark figure torturing Jack screamed and ran at him, swinging a wicked looking curved sword. Tom ducked the sword blade and swung the hammer hitting the dark figure in the back of the head. The hooded figure collapsed onto the ground beside his helper. Tom looked up and waved at his sons as they cheered for him.

  He never saw the rock demon come out of the ground behind him. The demon grabbed his arms from behind, pulling them viciously from his body. Tom gasped and dropped to his knees with blood spraying from both stumps. The last thing that he saw was his son’s bodies hitting the ground beside him and the rock demon violently ripping them apart.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Lucky sat with his back to the far end of the long, low ceilinged, canvas tent which served as the campgrounds main watering hole. It was crowded and smelly and Lucky-who fancied himself a gambler - loved it that way, the louder and smellier the better.

  He took two cards and put his bet on the table before looking at them. It had the desired effect. Two of the rough looking men he was playing poker with folded, slamming their cards down on the table and colorfully describing his mother. The other man looked hard at him but stayed in the game, raising him twenty silvers while chomping on a dilapidated cigar.

  Lucky studied him while he flipped a thin bar of silver between his long fingers. “Now Slade, you and I both know you don’t have what you need in that hand. Why don’t you just fold like a good boy and stumble on back to your pop- up.”

  For a moment, Lucky thought Slade was going to pull on him. He rested his fingertips on one of the pearl handled, Colt Commander .45’s in his belt.

  “Them fancy pistols don’t scare me none Lucky, I’m in,” growled Slade.

  Lucky smiled and shook his index finger at Slade. “You never learn. Don’t you remember how mad your wife was when you lost your camper to me and you had to move her and your three kids into that piece of shit pop- up?”

  Slade jumped up and started to reach for his rusted up pistol. Before he could even touch it, Lucky drew his own gun and held it facing Slade’s big gut on the card table. “I raise.” he announced, keeping the pistol pointed at Slade. He took out another ten silver bars and stacked them on the table. “That’s ten more silver to you, if you want to see my cards.”

  Everyone around the table stepped out of the line of fire. It was no secret that after Slade had lost his camper to Lucky his wife had tried to – negotiate- its return. Slade hadn’t forgotten. Every day Lucky had been gone on his last guiding job he’d announced to whoever would listen he was going to kill him and take back his wife and camper. “That’s bullshit. You can’t buy the hand, you son of a bitch.”

  Lucky leaned back casually in his chair. “If you can’t afford to pay… you can’t afford to stay,” he stated calmly.

  Slade looked like he was going to self- combust. He looked around for support but didn’t find any. The world had changed, the people in the world had changed but the game of five card draw would never change. He stared hard at Lucky. He wanted to shoot him so bad he could taste gunpowder. “That hand is mine,” he said low and forced. His face was red and desperate.

  “All you have to do is call me, and it’s yours,” said Lucky, smiling.

  Slade growled and flipped the flimsy card table upside down, sending the cards and silver along with drinks flying every which direction. Lucky drew and shot Slade in the neck before he could draw his pistol.

  Slade stood s
waying on his feet, trying to stop his life blood from spaying out of the bullet hole.

  Lucky stood and covered the people around the table as he plucked the silver bars off the floor. Slade watched him while he died, falling forward and crashing face first down on the over turned table. “That’s enough for me tonight,” Lucky said, keeping his pistol ready as he backed his way out of the tent saloon.

  Once outside and clear of the place, he took a deep breath and lit a smoke, as he made his way through the labyrinth of campers and tents in the campground. He made it back to his camper without further incident. Turning the lock on the door and going inside, he stood in the darkness listening for a few minutes before lighting a candle and relaxing.

  He sat at the small linoleum table in the camper he’d taken away from the man he’d just killed. He had no intention of keeping it. Slade’s wife and kids needed the place a lot worse than he did. The rumors of him sleeping with Slade’s wife were untrue. In fact, he’d tried to keep them off the street, giving them money to buy the pop-up to get them away from Slade. Now that he was no longer in the picture, Lucky would return the camper to his wife.

  He sighed deeply and took off his Cavalry scout cowboy hat, setting it carefully on the table before lighting a smoke and taking a long lung-full. He lit another candle and took the three .45’s out of his belt, laying them out neatly on the table. He checked the load in the one he’d used to kill Slade, keeping it cocked and loaded while he cleaned the other two. He took out the fat stack of silver bars he’d won in the poker game, counting them carefully before putting them in his saddle bag and blowing out the candles.

  He slept sitting up as always, with a .45 in each hand. He tried not to think of his wife and how much he missed her, but it was hard as the night dragged on and the

  quietness filled his soul and tugged at his lonely heart.

  He and his wife had survived the blackout and everything terrible that had happened in the years since then. They’d made their way to the campground in a dented up Winnebago with barely a handful of silver bars. Five years later, they owned the biggest camper on the sprawling campground and had stacks of silver stashed in the safe beneath the floor. Lucky thought they had the world by the balls until the day his wife had complained of a headache and started throwing up blood.

  Now Lucky was alone except for his brother. He still had the silver bars but he’d sold their luxury camper to the highest bidder and started working with his brother, guiding groups of green-horn travelers to the Cavern of the Light. He liked it out in the wastelands. It was where he belonged. He’d grown up there and he knew every rock to hide under and every rock to avoid. He knew where the water holes were also, and that made him the most sought after guide in the territory.

  He heard someone outside of his door. “Who is it,” he yelled.

  “It’s me…” an impossibly deep voice replied.

  Lucky smiled and flipped the lock on the door. He lit the candle on the table illuminating a towering figure hunching and scrunching down to step into the camper. “We got a job,” the giant man rumbled, as he sat down gingerly on two of the kitchen chairs.

  “What kind of job?” Lucky said, lighting a smoke and rolling another one across the table to his brother.

  Juggernaut tried several times to pick it up with his huge fingers.

  Lucky did it for him, putting it in his mouth and lighting it. “What kind of job?” Lucky asked again, looking at his half- brother.

  Juggernaut was 7’2 and weighed over three hundred pounds. His real name was Rupert, but everyone called him Juggernaut, because he looked remarkably like the Juggernaut in the horror movie, Thirteen Ghosts. He and Lucky were a good team, brains and brawn.

  “Bunch of survivors from Fortress,” Juggernaut answered finally.

  “Do they have money, or are they trying to trade their way there?”

  Juggernaut shook his massive head no, emphatically. “Silver bars, a lot of them

  from what I hear.”

  Lucky nodded and reached behind him for a bottle of whiskey on the counter. He opened it and took a long pull before handing it to his brother. Juggernaut took it in his massive hand. The bottle disappeared. He took a long swallow before handing it back.

  “When?” asked Lucky.

  Juggernaut paused long enough to take another drink off the bottle. “We have to go get them and lead them out of the ridgetops, tomorrow.”

  “How much silver…?” Lucky asked again.

  Juggernaut took another swig before smiling at his brother and sliding the almost empty bottle toward him. “Scout said a lot… a whole lot.”

  Lucky chuckled and worked on the bottle for a bit. “You mean he rhymed a lot.”

  They both laughed and shared the whiskey; two brothers trying to get by in a world that was damned hard to get by in.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Reverend and the brothers followed the little man through a well- lit tunnel, coming finally to a simple wooden door. The man with the homemade glasses put his index finger to his lips and gently opened the door, beckoning for them to follow him. Reverend stepped to the side, letting the brothers go first.

  He smiled, watching the reaction on their faces as they looked upon the fabled Cavern of the Light for the first time in their violent existence. To say that the Cavern of the Light was impressive was like saying that the Grand Canyon was pretty good. It was immense in size, shaped like a massive amphitheater with room at the bottom for two football fields.

  Chains and his jaded brothers stood transfixed by the thousands of sparkling crystals set in the walls of the great underground cavern, glowing from the light of hundreds of flaming torches. On the floor of the cavern were countless relics and pieces of memorabilia from old America surrounded by flags from the original fifty states.

  Reverend touched Chains on the shoulder, motioning for him and his brothers to keep up with their guide. They followed him to a row of high-backed wooden chairs overlooking the speaking podium which was standing in the middle of the cavern. After they’d been seated, the brothers continued to look around. It was magnificent, a living memorial of true America, the America that so many had died to preserve.

  “Do you like it?”

  Chains took his time answering, letting his gaze take in the full effect of the great cavern. “Very much… it reminds me of how… things used to be.”

  “How about you…?” Reverend asked Basher.

  Basher shook his head slowly, like he was in a dream. “This place is way cool man,” he whispered.

  Reverend nodded. “Way cool indeed…” he agreed.

  “Hey Fury, even your evil ass has to admit this is pretty cool,” said Basher.

  A strange look came over Fury’s face; as if he wanted to cry. “Finally… a place worth dying for,” he muttered respectfully.

  Reverend looked at him; surprised. He had no idea Fury was capable of feeling anything except for primal blood lust.

  “Well said, brother,” said Chains.

  “You see Reverend… he’s not always an asshole… just when he’s angry,” said Basher.

  There was a high, clear ringing that started out quietly, then grew much louder as hundreds of silver bells of all different sizes were being rung throughout the cavern. The man that had guided them motioned for them to stand. Everyone in the cavern was on their feet. Well over one thousand people were there, with many more filing in and finding seats as the bells continued to sound.

  “What’s with the bells?” Chains asked.

  “Every bell that rings mark the passing of a life that was given to establish and protect Over Watch and the Cavern of the light,” Reverend explained.

  Chains nodded solemnly as they listened to hundreds of the bells being rung. They watched as a tall figure dressed in a simple white robe with a broad silver belt walked up to the podium and stood there waiting for the bells to remember the deaths of the Caverns fallen heroes. He stood patiently with his eyes closed respectf
ully and then suddenly the bells stopped; the ringing echoing throughout the cavern.

  “Welcome to the Cavern of the Light,” the speaker announced loudly. His powerful voice carried easily. “We have much to address tonight but we will begin with the evening broadcast.”

  He waved his hand and two men pushed a wooden cart with a giant boom box on it out to the podium, leaving it there and returning to their positions. The speaker pushed some buttons on the 1980’s looking machine and slowly the cavern was filled with a low static humming.

  The brothers smiled and started to jostle each other. Everyone around them started to get excited. The radio started to squelch and pop and buzzed and hummed and came to life. Everyone in the cavern strained to hear every word.

  “This is the Red Robin. Wake up all you wasteland walkers and Blood- eye stalkers. I need you to pay special attention tonight. Are you listening fellow freedom fighters? Tonight we begin the revolution… from within!

  This message is for all the citizens of the wild-west territory. You know who you are…the people of the campground, the Cavern of the Light, and last but never least, my brothers of Over Watch.

  Listen up, because after tonight fellow freedom fighters… things are going to

  change.

  The first order of business is to introduce my destructive and short-tempered friends. They’re the best warriors around and I sent them to my Over Watch brothers to help sort out any greedy, traitorous, puss-filled wind bags, sitting on the self -appointed Cavern of the Light Council.”

  Everyone was too busy listening to the broadcast to notice the guards filing in around the top ledge of the cavern, each of them carrying a high powered rifle.

  “The brothers are veterans of the freedom war. They are true Americans with the hearts of true Americans, but don’t get me wrong people… they’re tried and true stone-ass killers, and they will know which side to fight on.