by A. R. Braun
Don finally found the nerve to touch the head, at first trying to push it through the safety glass. Yet it wouldn’t budge. For a moment, he had the crazy thought of poking his fingers in the young man’s eyes, Nyuk-nyuk-nyuk, like The Three Stooges. Don pushed harder, no luck. Harder than that, still nothing.
“Um, all right, I’m just gonna — don’t look, Fay — I’ll just, uh, here we go!”
Don punched him in the nose — crack — still not hard enough. The eyes just rolled. Then he unbuckled the seatbelt, reared back — noticing that Fay had covered her eyes — and socked him in the face with all he was worth, leaning into it.
The head dislodged, rolling down the hood like a bowling ball and falling onto the pavement with a thud. Don sat stunned in the idling car, then he turned to Fay.
“Is it gone? Is it gone?” she asked.
“Yes.” Don buckled his seatbelt.
She pulled her hands from her face. “Donny, what’s going on?”
“It’s started. Pishuni is destroying Albuquerque. Getting married didn’t work. We’ve got to get out of here now.”
Fay put her head between her knees as if to kiss her ass goodbye, then lifted her head, opened the door and vomited on the asphalt in a sickening yellowish-green spray.
Don rubbed her back. “Come on, get it together. It’s time to boogie, or we’ll be — urp — next.” But he couldn’t take his own advice. He shoved his door open and likewise puked. When he’d lost all of his lunch, he sat up straight, closed the door, wiped his mouth and drew a few deep breaths. Fay was still retching.
A brunet Girl Scout, about ten years old, hopped down the sidewalk, her pigtails bouncing. She headed toward his car and then stopped as she pinned Don with her eyes. She gathered up the jump rope she’d bundled in her right hand and started skipping. Don lowered his window to tell her to get in so she could escape the destruction, but before he could…
… “Pishuni,” she chanted, “demon seed, with your loved ones dead, no more worries.”
Then the little girl exploded.
Blood showered the sidewalk, the street and the top of the car. It trickled down Don’s window like the rinse cycle at a car wash. Appendages and digits poured forth, bashing into the backseat window also. One of her ears stuck on the pane as he gaped at it, then it slid downward in slow motion, making the sound of a squeegee before it plopped onto the ground. The little girl’s gray matter showered the hood, along with her entrails. Her heart went thump, thump, thump across the hood until it rolled off the car and squished onto the road.
Mercifully, Fay was dry heaving out of her door so she couldn’t see the tragedy. Unmercifully, the heart rolled to a stop right in front of her face.
Fay screamed again. “What is that? That can’t be someone’s heart! Just fucking what is that?”
Don yelled at the top of his lungs and stomped on the gas pedal as he turned on the wipers and the accompanying spray. The car rocketed off, Fay’s door closing automatically. He took hairpin turns with precision and slowed down just enough so he wouldn’t wipe out. On autopilot, he headed for the interstate. A full moon loomed above the red Sandia Mountains even though it was daylight, and the pissed-off sun glared brighter, which caused him to erupt in sweat.
Something caught Don’s eye, and in another situation, he might have been able to enjoy the dazzling sight. Since Albuquerque hosted the nation’s largest hot-air balloon rally, citizens tried to escape to the heavens. The helium-filled contraptions filled the sky like alien crafts. Don realized he hadn’t even noticed the red, yellow and orange electron wave patterns that had started the first attack until now. They loomed above, still reaching down like the fingers of Pishuni.
That’s what was making the balloons explode.
They erupted into flames and soared toward the ground. When they fell, they fell on persons, knocking them down and setting them on fire. The victims lay underneath the infamy, screaming their guts out and becoming Cajun-skinned.
The whole city erupted in frantic shrieks, a hellish cacophony.
Fay had her head down, covered by her arms. She shook so badly Don thought she’d pass out. She mumbled and whimpered like an insane person.
Don constantly had to dodge cars and persons, hurrying to a safety zone that didn’t exist. Then he pulled to a stop because a phalanx of muscle-bound Hispanic construction workers rushed up to his car and banged on the windshields, shrieking and begging to be let in.
Don looked at his GPS on his cell phone. He’d turned off Ventura St. NE and taken a left onto Wyoming Blvd. NE without thinking. He’d soared down it at 100 miles an hour, making it look like it lasted a couple of blocks. He should have turned right onto Harper Rd. NE until it turned into San Antonio Dr. NE and then turned right onto Route 25. But in his panic, he’d forgotten that. All he could do now was turn right onto Central Avenue NE and take it to Route 25, but not with these Hispanic men pounding on the car, because a couple of them had jumped up onto the hood (though one of them slid off with the help of the gore). The remaining man, squirming for a foothold in the bloody entrails, crazily poked his head into the opening made by the severed head. Don punched him out of the space, and the man slid through the blood and guts, then landed on the road with a thump. He cried out and whimpered.
I could speed off and leave them stranded, but I’d take a couple of them out in the process. What am I going to do? I can’t fit them all in here.
The two men, now shellacked in blood, stood in front of the car and screamed for help. The others pulled on the doorknobs with brute force.
“Get out of the way!” Don said. “I’m gonna barrel through!”
Yet they didn’t listen. Central Ave. NE was so close, but yet so far.
On the left, a sandstone church with two steeples lurked behind the scene. Don watched in horror as the three crosses, one in the middle of the church and not atop a steeple, trembled and then became dislodged. The parishioners ran out the front doors. A phalanx of crazed-looking men with long hair and beards or long hair and goatees — along with shaven-headed punks and short-haired muscleheads — ran into the parking lot. The thugs bore chainsaws. They dropped the tools and caught the crosses that flew downward as if carried by angels. Then the men put them down, revved up their chainsaws and sharpened the top ends of the crosses while laughing like lunatics. Don’s car rocked back and forth because the Hispanics who had been pounding on it were now trying to topple it over.
Don glanced at his wife.
Forced to look by the seesaw motion of the car, Fay’s eyes goggled.
Don didn’t want to know why she pointed behind him, but much like an ambulance chaser, he had to look. As he turned, he just had time to see the crazed criminals shoving the sharp ends of the crosses into the backs of the Hispanics on Don’s side of the car. The wood went all the way through, and red splinters poked out of their stomachs. The tips of the crosses spilt out steaming-hot, crimson-splattered entrails that fell to the ground like dropped spaghetti on a plate. Their eyes bulging out, the impaled ones shook as if they were having a seizure, then stood limp. The mob pulled the crosses out, dropped them, picked up their chainsaws and went after the church group, now passing the car.
What impeccable timing.
The murderers outran the parishioners. The latter group tripped or dropped to their knees, crying and screaming as well. Equal opportunity destroyers, the mob sawed off the heads, the arms and the legs of all races. One musclehead stuck his chainsaw into an African-American man’s back until it poked out of his stomach. A long-haired guy stuck a chainsaw in a white man’s face till it sawed through the back of his head. Blood splattered the windshield so badly Don couldn’t see, and he again had to turn on the windshield wipers, along with the spray. Then he could spot heads rolling and arms and legs flopping on the street, in time falling limp and rolling to a stop.
The two men at the front of his car ran as if someone had set their shoes on fire.
The attackers a
rmed with chainsaws pointed Don and his wife out. Don had never seen a more crazed look in the eyes of his fellow human beings. Their irises had turned black, bearing a look of hatred that would’ve put Jim Crow to shame. Blood vessels stood out and covered the whites of their eyes, which then glowed red. But this was Don’s chance to escape with the Hispanic men gone, and he stomped on the gas pedal, turning right onto Central Avenue NE.
And running over body parts.
Ker-thump, ker-thump, ker-thump, ker-thump.
Across the street, an American Indian statue came to life as a madman in army fatigues walked by, carrying a machete. It magically flew from his hand into the Indian’s, and then the monstrosity ran toward a group of toddlers that had been out for a walk with two female adults, perhaps their teachers? The adult duo screamed no and tried to fight the statue, but it was no use. Their fisted blows broke their hands with nauseating snaps as the Indian threw them aside like so much rubbish. Airborne, the two adults crashed down onto a steel bench.
The man wearing fatigues was laughing.
The statue ran after the already-running children with inhuman speed. Don turned away, not able to bear what was about to become of the little ones.
Darkness erupted as the sun hid behind the clouds and a storm brewed. Fay’s head was between her knees again; she screamed words unintelligible. Don had to slow down because of all the cars crashing into each other or hitting telephone poles as horns blared non-stop and smoke poured out of the engines. People ran into the streets like madmen and madwomen. They must have been the ones without cars.
They’re fucked.
Don passed the neon-lit Route 66 sign… which grew eyes, a mouth, arms and legs. It pulled itself from its restraint, rose up and flipped into the air, flying toward the crowd. It bashed into a few persons and knocked them down. Then it covered a family of four that had run from their crashed car. The parents and the small boy and girl fell under the weight of the sign that loosed its circuits. They flopped like searching tentacles, then rammed into their mouths. Their hair stood on end, their eyes bulged and they fried like burnt chicken, their skin turning black as they lay on the road underneath the sign that let out a low-pitched laugh. The crispy critters that they were, the family burned until their ashes drifted out toward the crowd, the world’s first black snowfall.
Don glanced to his right, and Fay’s eyes bulged as he knew his did also, while she stared at the atrocity.
“Oh God, we’re not on Pishuni’s side!” Don said. “We’re gonna die!”
“No, you’ll get out. I told you, you have till ten tonight to continue to worship me, or you’ll lose Fay. You think just because you’re married I won’t turn her into a lipstick lesbian? Oh, you’ll see, you DISOBEDIENT PALEFACED BITCH. Just to double whammy you, I’ll turn her into a man-hating lesbian.
“For now, enjoy the show!”
Fay cried, “Donny. Donny. Get me the fuck out of here.”
Don made a hard right and drove through a parking lot, then the grassy knoll of the Spanish Plaza until he saw a break in the road where all the cars and persons suddenly parted like the Red Sea, probably Pishuni’s work. Don cranked it to 100 miles per hour, slowed down for the turn left onto Route 25, then sped back up.
That’s when the buildings exploded.
The deafening sound made Fay stick both index fingers into her ears as she grunted like a mad hatter at the top of her lungs. Don didn’t have that luxury and thought his eardrums would implode. Broken windows rained down like hail upon the city, and steel girders and chunks of brick showered the road, but miraculously never landed in Don’s way or bounced out of his way just in time. The fireworks turned the town into an apocalyptic nightmare of insidious fury. The streetlights went out so that he had to turn on his brights. Don floored it to 105 miles per hour. He sped out of Albuquerque as quickly as he could.
Shrieking, Fay unhooked her seat belt with flailing hands and crawled over the seat and into the back of the car. Don risked craning his neck to see her on the car floor with her arms over the back of her head. Soon, he was going over 115 MPH. As they left the city limits, he heard…
… BOOM.
Don looked in the rear-view mirror. Albuquerque had become nothing but a likeness of the Grand Canyon that oozed smoke into the sky, the black fog of hell.
He kept the pedal on the metal.
CHAPTER 23
The only other car going out of the city was a bright-yellow sports car with plates that said PIMP 69, belonging to Ben, of course, who screamed as he drove. Don honked and tried to wave at him. If anyone knows what he’s going through, it’s me. Pacing along with Don, Ben looked at him with wide eyes.
The rain came down in a blinding torrent. If Ben had been an experienced driver, he would’ve known to slow down. If Ben had been an experienced driver, he would’ve known to turn into the skid when he’d begun to hydroplane.
Ben was not an experienced driver.
The canary-colored vehicle slid, kicking up a wave of dirty rainwater as it careened toward Don and Fay.
Shit.
Don veered out of the way, barely escaping being clipped by the teen’s vehicle, which landed in the ditch with a crash. A hailstorm of tinkling, shattered windshields followed.
Don eased the car over and parked on the curbside. He got out and opened the kid’s car door. The boy was slumped over the steering wheel. Don pulled his head up, noticing Ben was all right — he’d walk away with just a scratch. The teen trembled and looked up at Don with knowing eyes, all of adolescence’s fire gone out of him.
Ben’s voice quaked as he said, “You’re… that guy who tried to… warn me. Y-y-you were right.”
Don gingerly grabbed under his arms and lifted him out of the wreckage. “I know what you’re going through. Come on, I’ll give you a ride.”
Letting Ben put an arm around him, Don helped him to the car, and Ben climbed into the front passenger seat without incident. The boy trembled and looked straight ahead, his face blanching so badly it might as well have been waxwork. As Don got in, he looked him over for a couple of seconds and then got back on the road and headed God knew where.
“Is it over?” Fay whimpered from the backseat.
“Yes, it’s all right now.” Don looked in the rear-view mirror. He marveled that she didn’t even seem to notice the boy riding shotgun.
“Oh my God, my mom and Uncle Jim are… de-ad!” Fay put her face in her hands and bawled.
Ben’s tears mingled with the rainwater on his face, his expression frozen somewhere between disbelief and terror. Fay’s comment must have gotten him thinking about losing his family.
It had become a day of reckoning.
***
Don’s gaze traveled upward as something thudded onto the roof of the car, denting it inward. It bumped the top of his head.
That Pishuni bitch.
“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. Take that, paleface!”
Shut up, shut up, you piece of shit just shut up!
Don glanced at Ben for a few seconds. “Did you hear that?”
Sniffling, Ben turned his head toward him after wiping his eyes. Wide-eyed, he nodded.
“Do you know his name?” Don asked.
Ben stared straight ahead.
“His name is Pishuni,” Don continued, “an evil deity who wants to destroy mankind.” He sighed. “He probably told you he was harmless, but now you know different.”
Fay wept and Don glanced in the rear-view. A wreck, she lay on the back seat. He realized that, in a pathetic way, he was the leader of this small group — the eldest at thirty — a shepherd of a twenty-two-year-old woman and a high school boy, both probably more lost than he was. Don’s parents were alive in Illinois. That’s more than he could say for theirs.
He turned up the air-conditioning. The thought of the massacre made him erupt in sweat.
A motel with a service station next to it came into view. Don decided to stop so he could check his bearing
s and fill up on gas. He pulled into a pump, left Fay to her waterworks and Ben to stare into nowhere as he filled the tank and tried to think of how to get back to Illinois. He’d have to borrow money from his parents and start a new go-nowhere job.
Who knew what would become of Ben?
He pulled the gas nozzle out and about had a heart attack when he saw what it cost to fill er up. Don swiped his credit card, then walked over to his car and hopped in. “Hand me the map out of the glove compartment, will ya?”
Apparently, Ben had gone catatonic.
“What am I saying?” Don continued. “I’ve got GPS.”
He looked at his smartphone. Don shook his head when he realized he was going the wrong way, but he couldn’t have gone the other way — it ran through what was left of Rio Rancho, now a huge hole in the ground. He mentally worked out the routes he’d take so they’d eventually end up in Denver and be able to follow one road all the way to Chicago.
That decided him.
The last thing Don thought he’d see in the windshield: a face. Upside-down, a creature with spikes in his glowing red eyes with black pupils peered in at him. His head blazed, a fiery inferno that shot outward, a nimbus of the sun. The wings flapped downward for a few seconds and temporarily blinded Don, for they were nucleons that flashed beaming prisms. He and Ben shrieked. This monstrosity didn’t look like Pishuni.
How many evil gods are there around here?
“What are you two screaming at?” Fay asked.
Don wanted to answer her, but his heart had climbed into his throat.
The monster spoke in an almost-deafening voice: “You peons will continued to worship me, or you’ll wish you’d never been born.”
Pishuni could change forms, apparently. The voice echoed, rumbling in Don’s chest, and the deity’s eyes pierced his soul, every secret thought read so that Don knew, knew this creature held every essence of his being. He didn’t look over at Ben, but was positive he felt the same way. Don couldn’t tear his gaze away from those eyes, maniacal orbs that burned with a power that would make hell shudder: the vehement desire to consume the universe until it was a nonentity.