The Post-Apocalyptic Tourist’s Guide to St. Louis

by David VonAllmen

  “This way will be less painful,” Thursday said. He reached out and took her hand. “I don’t want you to have to watch me slowly die while the rot eats away my skin.”

  The rocky-voiced man stood and pulled at the knot keeping Thursday’s feet tied together. “Hey, I don’t want no infect—”

  “We’re not fallin’ for no tricks,” the shorter man said.

  The rocky-voiced one let go of the knot and squatted back down to stare Thursday in the eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “We’re not fallin’ for no tricks.” He looked at his companion, then back at Thursday, his expression worried. “‘Cause you were tryin’ to pull a trick, right?”

  “Of course he was,” the short one said. “He wants us to think we’ll get sick and die if we eat him.”

  “Look, all I ask is that you kill us quick,” Thursday said. “After we’re dead you’ll still have to decide whether or not to eat us, so anything I say now isn’t really going to make a difference.”

  The two cannibals looked at each other quizzically. They seemed to be trying to work out the logic of Thursday’s words.

  Finally, the short man said, “We’re not fallin’ for no tricks.”

  “If you’re so convinced it’s a trick, take off my shoe,” Thursday said.

  “What’s under your shoe?” the rocky-voice one asked.

  “Half of my foot,” Thursday said.

  “Half your foot?” the short one asked. He held the kerosene lamp up to take a look. “Looks like your foot’s all the way in the shoe to me.”

  “Yes, but I’ve only got half of it left,” Thursday said. “The rot took the other half.”

  The rocky-voiced cannibal tugged at Thursday’s shoe, but it wouldn’t come off.

  “It’s caught up in the cord around my ankles,” Thursday said.

  The cannibal studied it for a second, perplexed.

  “Instead of pulling my shoe up, you could pull my leg down,” Thursday offered.

  The cannibal thought about this for a second, then grabbed Thursday’s calf and gave a hard tug. The foot popped out and Thursday’s knife fell from his sock, clanking against the floor.

  The knife disappeared in the darkness. Thursday frantically ran his hands across the floor, searching for it. When the short cannibal realized Thursday was grabbing at something, he dropped to his belly and skimmed his hands over the floor. The knife skittered. On instinct, Thursday grasped in the direction of the sound. His fingers caught the edge of the handle, just enough to press it against the floor and stop its movement. He wrapped his fingers around the knife, unfolded it, and swiped at the cannibal.

  The short cannibal was smart enough to spin away as soon as he realized Thursday had the knife. The rocky-voiced cannibal was dumb enough to take a step forward. Thursday jammed the knife into the man’s leg, just above the knee, then yanked it free. The man screamed and fell back.

  Thursday threw his shoulders upward as best he could, swiping at the cord stretching between his ankles and the ceiling. He made contact, but didn’t get all the way through. In the darkness it was impossible to see if he’d made any real progress. The short cannibal grabbed a club and stomped toward Thursday, ready to swing. Thursday flailed the knife in front of himself, trying to scare the man back. The cannibal darted in, but only got in a half-hearted swing of his club before Thursday’s knife grazed too close to the man’s thigh and he jumped back. Thursday took the opportunity to heave himself up again. This time, his knife hacked through the cord.

  He landed with a slam onto his left shoulder, but hardly felt it, benefits of his new durability, and rolled himself away from the cannibal. Thursday jumped to his feet just in time to see the cannibal charging forward, club up to strike. Thursday managed to jam his foot into the man’s stomach and drive him back. The cannibal crashed against the wall. Thursday grabbed Nandi’s cord to hold it still and sawed through with one hard swipe. The short cannibal climbed to his feet and came at Thursday again, but he and Nandi were closer to the door and were already bounding down the stairs.

  Out into the alley they ran, heading the same direction they’d been going before the traps snared them. With a quick look over his shoulder, Thursday saw the cannibal chasing, only a dozen strides behind. They turned the corner and rounded onto a street.

  “There!” Nandi yelled.

  Thursday looked up to see the gate to the brewery grounds, a few hundred feet ahead of them. They’d get to it before the cannibal could catch up to them, but the gate was closed, surely locked.

  “Hey!” Nandi yelled. She waved her hands above her head. “Hey let us in!”

  Thursday’s eye caught movement, just outside the gate. An orange-faced demon stepped away from a tree planted alongside the sidewalk, its black body dashing toward them at inhuman speed. With a shock of fear, Thursday skittered to a halt, grasping at Nandi’s arm but missing. He opened his mouth to call her name, but when his eyes shifted back to the demon it had transformed into a man. Damn hallucinations.

  Two more demons appeared from the corner of a building. No. They were also men. At least he was pretty sure they were. For all he could tell they were just as likely to be shrubs. Two female demons a man ran toward them from further down the street.

  Nandi slowed, her head swiveling.

  “It’s the Bishop’s followers,” she said.

  The followers had gotten to the brewery first and had been waiting just out of sight for Thursday and Nandi to make a run for the gate. Thursday spun. Followers appeared from every building’s shadow. And in the dim moonlight, there were a lot of shadows.

  “We’re cut off,” Nandi said.

  Thursday’s head spun frantically back-and-forth, looking for a direction they could run where no one wanted to kill them. There was none. Their only chance was to use that to their advantage.

  “This way,” he said, grabbing Nandi’s hand and yanking her along with him as he ran at the cannibal.

  The cannibal, seeing Thursday come at him with a knife followed by dozens of angry men and women whose allegiance he didn’t know, skidded to a halt, turned, and ran with everything he had back down the alley and into the building where he’d held Thursday and Nandi captive a minute earlier. Thursday followed, Nandi right on his heels, sprinting up the stairs.

  Where exactly the cannibal disappeared to was lost to Thursday in the tangle of rooms and kerosene lamps that whipped past as he ran up the stairs past the first floor. Someone stepped onto the landing just as he reached the second floor. Thursday jammed his knife into the person’s stomach and shoved them back, not sure if he’d just stabbed a man or a woman. He continued up the stairs, two at a time.

  Down the stairwell below him, Thursday heard exactly what he was hoping for. Shouts. Bangs. The clatter of weapons and bodies clashing against each other. The Bishop’s followers had followed them, and now the cannibals were fighting to defend their building.

  At the seventh floor, Thursday stopped, bent over and gasping.

  “Good thinking,” Nandi said, barely able to force the syllables out one at a time between huffs of breath.

  “Thanks,” Thursday said.

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “I saved our lives, didn’t I?”

  “For the next two minutes. But someone’s going to win that fight down there. And then we’re trapped up here.”

  “You would have rather died two minutes sooner?”

  Nandi walked past him, into the seventh floor. Even lit only by the moonlight coming from the wide doorway at one end it was easy to see the entire floor was one vacant, open area.

  “Maybe there’s a fire escape,” Nandi said. She walked out onto a balcony identical to the one on the first floor they’d been hauled over. Like the one below, the balcony had no railing. Thursday stepped up beside her and looked over the edge. He saw no fire escape to either side, just a six-story drop to the ground. Five stories if they landed on the cargo trailer parked in the alley.

  “It’s so close,�
� Nandi said, looking to the brewery building across the alley.

  It was close, Thursday realized. The balcony stuck far enough out over the alley that they might be able to jump the gap. The wall and the building beyond were three stories high, which meant only a three-story drop from where they stood. With their durability, they might not get too badly injured.

  Nandi looked at Thursday and seemed to understand the calculations he was making in his head.

  “We’ll have to get a running start,” she said.

  He nodded. They backed up a handful of paces. Thursday drew deep breaths and exhaled each sharply, his eyes never leaving the edge of the balcony. He’d need to kick off at the last instant possible to have any chance of clearing the distance.

  “Once we start, no hesitation,” Thursday said.

  Nandi took his hand. “I’m with you.”

  He drew one more deep breath. “One… two… THREE!”

  They ran, Thursday’s focus locked on the patch of concrete he would launch himself from. He dug with everything he had, arms pumping, core coiled for the final explosion.

  A hand caught his ankle. Thursday crashed to the floor, chin slamming hard. He’d not thought to let go of Nandi’s hand and jerked her down with him. But her momentum kept going, and when their grip broke loose, she tumbled over the edge of the balcony.

  “Nandi!” he screamed. He managed to break free of the hand around his ankle, giving one hard kick to the face of whoever had tripped him, and raced to the edge of the balcony.

  Nandi was still hanging on, her feet dangling below. Thursday grabbed one of her wrists and pulled with all his might, yanking her roughly back onto the balcony. Hearing movement behind him, he spun just in time to see one of the Bishop’s followers coming at him.

  Thursday spun out of the way of the man’s fist. The man stumbled forward and slammed a foot down to stop himself from going over the edge. It would have worked easily if Nandi, still on her rear, hadn’t lifted her foot into his hip and kicked him back. The man fell out of sight, a cry of terror cut off a second later with a small, distant smack.

  They looked over the edge. The man lay motionless on the street, leg twisted grotesquely. The Bishop’s followers were tough, but not invulnerable. Thursday had wondered if they might be able to survive a fall from this height if they didn’t clear the gap to the brewery. Now he knew for sure they would not.

  “Did you kill another of my followers?” a woman’s voice said behind them. Before he spun around, Thursday knew it was Jael. She stood in front of the stairs, Bill, the blonde-haired man they’d met in the art museum, right behind her.

  “Your followers?” Thursday asked.

  “The Bishop is dead,” Jael said. “The followers need someone to lead them. It’s my holy duty.”

  What Jael did next caught Thursday completely off-guard. She broke into a wide grin, barely containing a laugh. Behind her Bill smiled wide. Whatever the hell her game was, Thursday didn’t care, he just wanted to get away from her and all her followers. But the jump to the brewery was dangerously far even with a running start. Now, standing on the edge, they had no hope, and Jael and Bill were standing right where Thursday and Nandi needed to start from to get up to speed.

  “What kind of game are you playing?” Thursday yelled. He stepped forward, fist up and clenched, as if his rage was going to cause him to do something irrational. Jael and Bill both took half a step back.

  “The same game everyone else with half a brain is playing,” Jael said. “I should thank you for killing the Bishop, it saved me the trouble of doing it myself.”

  “Oh, so you and the Bishop are pulling this scam together, only he wasn’t smart enough to figure that you weren’t content to stay in your place,” Thursday said. He took another step forward. Jael took another step back. Bill did not. He stepped around Jael, a look in his eye like he was excited at the idea of a fight. He wasn’t going to step back any further and give them the distance they needed to get up to speed for the jump.

  “No,” Jael said, nearly giggling. “It was even better than that. Are you ready for this? The guy just guessed what he thought the Bible said and assumed he was guessing correctly through divine influence. He wanted to keep his followers to just the hard-core believers. Stupid. You need numbers to rule a city.”

  “So that’s your plan,” Thursday said, clenching his teeth to show anger. “Build up a cult full of people on a drug that makes them hallucinate demons so you can control the city.”

  “Yes,” Jael said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “That’s why I ordered my most faithful to raid your boat. Believe it or not, alcohol counteracts the effects of the drug. Also, that’s how the King of Brews funds his little army, so denying his supply of ingredients weakens my only real rival for the St. Louis throne.”

  The sound of footsteps echoed from the stairwell. More of the followers were coming. They only had another second before Thursday’s plan would no longer be viable.

  He howled with rage and tackled Bill. Jael jumped backwards as the two crashed into her. The space needed to make a run at the ledge was now clear.

  “Jump now!” Thursday yelled. Nandi’s face gave away her surprise, but she recovered quickly, turned, and ran for the balcony. She sprinted right off the edge and leapt, arms and legs pumping in the air until she dropped out of sight.

  Thursday kicked at Bill, trying to get away to follow her. But the man grabbed him around the waist and though Thursday fought his way to the balcony, he got there with Bill still holding tight. Thursday looked over the edge. Nandi was on the brewery rooftop across the alleyway and three stories down, slowly picking herself up. She looked up at Thursday, shock and sadness on her face.

  Thursday managed to kick Bill back, but he was in the same predicament as a moment before, only now Jael knew what his escape route was. She stepped onto the balcony as a handful of her followers crowded the room inside. There’d be no tricking them into backing up this time, and he stood no chance of fighting them all.

  “Okay, you win,” Thursday said, relaxing his posture to let them know he wasn’t going to fight. He looked at Jael. “I’ll join you.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so…” Jael said, her tone solemn now that that her followers were listening. “Not after you killed our prophet.”

  “Okay, then,” Thursday said. “We’ll do it the painful way.”

  Thursday spun and dove at Jael, driving her over the edge of the balcony with him.

  “Thursday!” Nandi screamed.

  He looked at her as he fell, not wanting to look down and see whether he’d aimed correctly or whether he was going to die. If he did splat on the concrete below, he wanted Nandi’s face to be the last thing he saw.

  The impact shattered all his senses. His eyes shut tight instinctively as the air was pounded from his lungs. Only the whuff of imploding metal ringing through his ears remained, and in an instant that disappeared, too. But the sound told him he’d aimed just right. Jael had caved in the metal roof of the cargo trailer parked in the alley and he’d landed on her.

  Thursday opened his eyes. Jael lay below him, her eyes open, but whether they saw anything he couldn’t tell. She weakly tried to draw breath but did not succeed.

  The followers would only need a minute to recover from their surprise and bound down the stairs to the alley. He had to move.

  Thursday rolled off the cargo trailer’s roof, his every muscle numb and refusing to work right. He flopped to the ground. The sharp pain of concrete biting into his skin and bruising his bones woke him enough to get going again. He hobbled down the alley and made the turn onto the street just as the followers streamed out of the building.

  Thursday made it to the black bars of the brewery gates, but they were locked and the followers were seconds away from catching up to him.

  “Hey!” he screamed, pounding the flat of his hand against the bars and rattling the gate.

  He turned to face the followers. The mob
slowed, spreading to surround him and approaching cautiously. But they did not stop coming forward. Their rage outweighed any fears they might have that he had a weapon or some other trick up his sleeve.

  “Duck” came a voice from behind him.

  Thursday spun to see a crossbow bolt sticking out from between the gate’s bars. He ducked and the bolt flew, striking a follower in the shoulder. The struck man fell to the ground, crying out. The others faded back, but resisted the temptation to run.

  Thursday heard the gate clank open behind him. He didn’t dare look away from the crowd, so he backed up to it and felt for the opening. A hand grabbed him by the collar and jerked him through. The gate was slammed behind him with a hard rattle and locked as the followers ran forward and slammed their bodies against the bars, shouting in anger their vows of revenge.

  The man who pulled Thursday inside raised his crossbow and shot one of the followers point-blank in the chest. The man fell to the ground and the others scattered.

  “For good measure,” said the man who pulled Thursday inside.

  ~~~

  Thursday finished his beer as the King of Brews stared down from his throne. The hallucinations were already subsiding.

  “Is that not the best beer you’ve ever tasted?” the king asked.

  Thursday fought to keep the look of disgust off his face.

  “Well… I’ve never tasted beer before so…” he began. The king frowned. “But it is absolutely as you say—light and refreshing.”

  The King of Brews smiled.

  “You’re a good man, Thursday,” he said. “I appreciate all you’ve done for me and my kingdom. Would you like to join us? It’s a good life to be had here—better than you’ll find anywhere else, I’d bet. Plenty of beer.”

  “Thank you, your highness, but I’m afraid I can’t,” Thursday said. “I’m sick and the only way to get well is to get to Seattle in the next couple of months. I have to leave right away.”

  “How are you getting there?” the king asked.

  “I wish I knew,” Thursday said. “I guess I’ll start walking and see what I come across. I can’t think of anything else right now.”