Terminus: A Novella of the Apocalypse

by Huff, Stephen Donald

  Personally, I no longer care which way it goes. I have no vested interest in survival.

  Nevertheless, I loathe that kind. They are maggots feeding on the vast, rotting corpse of this planet, and I never much appreciated those who take a free meal. To be worthwhile, I feel a person must earn his or her way. Nothing should be given. If The Guide wants to kill me, so be it, but let him come against me himself.

  Jogging through the first line of warehouses, I turn a sidelong eye on The Girl. Will she be an asset or a liability? Is she truly freelance, or did she find me sleeping in the street as an objective? Could she be working with The Clan? I know I should not trust her, but to act on my suspicions would come too close to caring. I don’t believe I deserve to live, not after what I have done. If The Girl is the one, I can be okay with that. At least she’s pretty and tight. Yeah, I think while admiring her lithe form, I can be okay with that.

  I decide to let her live a while longer. See what we see.

  In a situation like this, the first mistake most make is panic. The second mistake is going to ground too soon, if at all. Better to keep a clear, calm head. Better to keep moving.

  From long experience, I know Terminal cases can endure endlessly. Something about the affliction amps up the metabolism and physiology. Like a viciously whipped thoroughbred, they will give chase until their hearts burst. Should they run their quarry to ground with the last vestiges of their strength, even this scrap would be enough to undo most non-afflicted human beings.

  Yet, movement must also be of a particular style. We dodge between countless fully functional automobiles, but investigate none of them. I suspect most will start. Many will be fueled sufficiently to make a long drive. Unfortunately, the streets and highways are ruled by Terminal Clans. They are like spiders and they cast their webs where they are most likely to catch a free meal. No, the only safe way to move is on foot.

  Silently. Flexibly. Mobile.

  The Girl gets it, too. I upwardly revise my respect for her. If she is playing for the other side, she has at least decided not to insult my intelligence by insisting on the easy way out, perhaps on a tantrum or a pout. Here, she turns to reflect my observation. Her pretty, scarred face remains flat. Despite our headlong flight, she continues to breathe through her nose, so I know she, too, can run a long, long way yet.

  Curious, I think. And deadly. If we come against one another, I will not underestimate her abilities or her stamina.

  Because nobody is perfect and because fate has taken to playing funny games of late, we inevitably find ourselves in a bind. We hear The Clan moving up from behind, and as a consequence we have buried ourselves too deep in our predicament to return the way we came. Somewhere back maybe two blocks or more, we entered into a large industrial plant, mistaking it for a continuation of the wider city. Besides being ringed around on all sides by high walls and razor-wire fences with only one easy way out, The Village-sized manufacturing center was once dedicated to assembling a complicated mechanism from smaller and then smaller mechanisms. Consequently, its outer structures all tend to funnel into the center building, this a massive, sprawling bit of architecture, maze-like and self-limiting. No matter which way we try to get out of it, those passageways will always return us back to the start in that one containment.

  By the time we both realize the only way out is the beginning, we have passed the point of no return. Our keen ears combined with the general silence of a dead world inform us. The Clan has already staged itself at the plant entrance. By now, its dogs of war will be swarming the outer barricade. Check.

  Strolling casually now to conserve our strength, we return to the center of that center structure. There, I turn to her and say, “You don’t have to stay, you know. Just go. Get out. I can take care of myself.”

  Flat and lucid, her expression does not change. She reaches into her bag to extract her Bowie knife. This, she fixes to a thin belt at her waist, tying the dangling tip of its scabbard around the feminine bulge of her left thigh. To be certain she has arranged it properly, she practices her draw. With stunning speed, she extracts it from its cover and then crosses the space between us. Her right hand loops around the back of my head, while her left forces the dangerously sharpened blade under my chin.

  I feel it pressing there, creasing my skin. I hold my pose.

  My eyes impart the truth. Do it. Or don’t do it. I don’t care. My body relaxes. I make no effort to change her mind, one way or another.

  Rather than cut my throat, however, she lowers the knife and backs away, returning it to its scabbard with an all but silent hiss of steel across plastic. She simply stares at me, her face void of emotion, as always. Her message is clear. She will fight. She can manage herself. I have no power to tell her to go or stay. She does as she pleases. Got it.

  I say, “If we can’t get out, we’ll work their numbers down, one at a time. By now, they’ve formed their perimeter all around this place like a sack. Soon, they’ll start to cinch the drawstring tight until it encircles us with overwhelming force. We have to make a hole in the sack somewhere, get outside it to take them individually from behind. Then we’ll work toward the front. The Guide is our objective. Kill him, and we decapitate The Clan.”

  She is already jogging away. It’s my turn to follow.

  By noon, we have found our starting position. We linger to either side of a doorway. This is the only passage through an intact wall of perhaps one hundred meters in length. One of them must come this way, and even now we hear the drag of semi-cautious, uncertain footsteps through the gravel of the alleyway behind the wall.

  Closer and closer approaches the unseen Terminal. Driven to overconfidence by the numbers of his fellows, this crow-like figure juts a head through the doorway and sees me standing in the shadows collected alongside it. His blurry, bloodshot eyes blink owlishly, surprised by what he has found. Then, as a familiar, psychotic gleam of bloodlust rises in his semi-lucid gaze, I strike forward with a savage jab that unseats the man’s fragile mind, even as she steps into a deep stabbing motion directed between his ribs and into his heart.

  Without a sound, the Terminal collapses at our feet. We drag him through the doorway to stash his corpse beneath a bit of equipment. Then we kick sand and pebbly debris onto the gelling pool of his blood, concealing it.

  Immediately thereafter, she starts through the doorway and into the alley, but I stop her with an undeniable grip around her left upper arm, thus staying her knife hand. Hissing, she spins to confront me. Though her face remains flat, I can see question, anger and resentment in her eyes. Once I bring her to a halt, I let go my grip before she changes her mind about gutting me with that big hunting blade. I press my right forefinger to my lips and motion her close.

  Into her ear, I whisper, “Something about that one bothers me. He’s ragged. Too ragged, even for The Clan. He’s at the end of his tether. Terminus would have killed him in another day, no matter what happened here. No, he’s not a lead. He’s bait.” Her eyes widen. She understands. She nods. “More will be coming through that doorway now, because the one we killed will never return to signal them all is well. We messed up. Time to move.”

  We selected that doorway because the wall it penetrated is long and otherwise unbroken. It would have made a nice barricade to put between us and them; we could have watched for followers along fifty meters in either direction. Now, it will work against us the same way. I point to the roof.

  Overhead, the ceiling scrawls with catwalks. We see an ascending ladder three open floors above. It points to a closed hatch, which can only be a roof access. So we climb breathlessly.

  Before I drop the hatch behind us, watching the empty doorway three flights below, I see a shadow fall across it. Lowering the lid until a thumb-width crack remains, I observe silently. A mince of stabbing weapons proceed their rush, lashing out to either side of the opening. Had we been standing there, we would be full of holes now. Afterwards, perhaps a half dozen crows push through. Like well-traine
d dogs, they pour into the maze of machinery and equipment inside the building to search every crevasse. Cleverly, they leave one non-Terminal handler behind to guard the exit.

  I drop the lid. On cat-quiet feet, I make my way across the roof.

  She has already started sliding along a high cable that crosses the alleyway like a zip line. She hangs upside down from the bends of her elbows and knees. She is fast. I follow. Nobody lingers within the alleyway below us. This is a tactical mistake on the part of The Clan. After all, few of them are professional Pre-Terminus soldiers or peace officers. Most are accountants, dentists and clerks. Housewives. While they are now quite proficient trackers and killers, they are far from professional.

  The cable dangles me perhaps ten meters above the pavement. Three full floors. At this height, I could survive the fall, but not without broken bones.

  Halfway across the gap, movement in the doorway catches my attention. The non-Terminal steps outside to turn his head both ways along the alley, scanning for evasion. On an unspoken signal, we both halt our movement and silently watch the outcome of this intervention. Once more, the crow scans the alleyway. He or she pauses to read a colorful bit of Pre-Terminus graffiti etched across the brick wall behind the building. That hooded head cocks curiously. Another scan both ways. Then back inside the structure.

  Breathing easier now, we finish the traverse. We clamor onto the opposite roof. To my surprise and delight, she waits for me there behind the cover of a large ventilator. Two heads are better than one, after all, and I am happy to see she understands this.

  The Girl points across the rooftop in the same direction we had been headed. She silently indicates we have successfully escaped the plant, and she insists we take advantage of this good fortune to disappear into the city.

  I set my jaw. I shake my head.

  “I came here so The Priest could kill me, Girl,” I growl, suddenly enraged by the complete and utter disintegration of the world and, with it, my former happy life. “That he failed pisses me off to no end. Now I intend to kill The Guide. He’s a maggot. I want to crush him under my boot. Go or stay. Makes no matter to me, but I’m going that way.” I point toward the entryway to the plant behind us, where I believe I will find the target in question.

  Her eyes sparkle meanly. She glances this way and that. She ponders her choices. Then, with a single curt dip of her chin, she acquiesces. She will go with me.

  I grin. “I’m starting to like you, I think.”

  Bent low, using our toes and the balls of our feet, we patter perhaps half a mile across the sprawling rooftop, climbing up and down to its various levels as required, until we achieve the far end of it all. This abuts the same street servicing the plant we had just escaped, and we can see the gateway arch rising perhaps three blocks to our right. I realize now how we missed it. The top of it has torn away from one side so it dangles vertically along the farthest vertical support, taking the plant’s welcoming sign with it. Even from here it seems like just another tangled bit of destruction leaned against the wall.

  As expected, parked in the gap, I spy the panel truck that had stalked us from The Priest’s ruined cathedral. I wonder what I will find within its cargo space.

  Again, overconfidence will be The Guide’s ruination. Only four Stranglers linger to keep guard, and these are all burn-outs, too exhausted from the Terminus agent to make proper work of the search. I figure the Clan believes they have me trapped inside those walls, and they want me badly enough to commit every viable resource on hand to run me down.

  They won’t stick with it forever, though. By nightfall, they’ll decide I have escaped the sack, and they’ll disperse into the city again.

  Using a standpipe, I climb down to the street. The Girl follows.

  Relying on afternoon shadows and the deteriorated minds of those four Terminal cases, we creep along until we stand less than five meters from the truck in the crux of the gateway support and the corner angle of a wall. We wait, breathless, as I size the competition and determine our approach.

  While I ponder, I admire the artwork spray-painted onto the sides of the truck. It is circus-like and colorful. In fact, replacing the garrotes and nooses for sparklers and tight-ropes, it might have been a circus truck. Rather than indicate the approach of pleasant family entertainment, however, those images threaten with a ghoulish army of bloodthirsty Stranglers. They would not distract happy children with baton-twirlers, dancers, and magicians; instead, they would capture, torture and murder any hapless victim caught before them. Their joyful promises of violence and mayhem are proudly etched across the panels of the truck in all the colors of the rainbow. Along the top of the display in a brilliant ribbon, they have emblazoned the title of their wicked troupe, “The Clan of the Immaculate Strangulation”.

  Now I notice something odd. For some strange reason, the nearest crow seems not to see us, though he stands facing us almost directly. I notice something funny about his posture, too.

  He stands feet slightly apart, knees crooked, hooded head tossed slightly backward, mouth open, eyes closed, and hands unseen. Near his crotch, his tattered black robe agitates with an obvious reciprocating motion. I smile. I turn to The Girl, make a circle of my right fist and then jack it back and forth.

  Without interrupting this obscene display, we simply stalk around this obviously distracted guard and then peer into the back of the truck. Its rear door has been modified. It is no longer of the sort that rolls up into the ceiling of the cargo bay. Rather, it presents a flat panel with a standard hinged door set into it. A permanent stair services it, climbing to a brief porch offering sufficient room for two men to stand shoulder to shoulder before the threshold. I don’t have to wonder if the door is locked or not, because it’s cracked open.

  THE GUIDE

  On a motion, she follows me up the little stairway and through the door. I push this open silently and enter into the darkened chamber beyond. At my back, The Girl pushes the portal partially closed again, though she keeps her cautious eye to the crack for a time.

  Inside, the cargo bay of the truck has been transformed into a sizeable office, replete with two smaller rooms, one clearly configured as a sleeping chamber and the other as a bathroom. Sitting at a small desk positioned along the driver’s side wall of the cargo area, The Guide stares into a half dozen lighted monitors. His fingers work a keyboard and the views change. Apparently, he has outfitted all his trucks with an array of high-def cameras, and the non-Terminal cases in his command wear body cameras, mics and headphones. With that same low, pinched voice I heard reciting poetry earlier, he instructs this one and that one to go here or there.

  I touch The Girl’s left shoulder and point. We creep across the carpeted floor.

  Once I wrap my hands around the little man’s head, stifling his mouth and lifting his chin, she thrusts that impossibly huge knife across his throat and presses it close until a rivulet of blood runs along its edge. The Guide’s eyes bulge. He struggles to shake his head within my grip, and I hesitate to break his neck. Something about his expression and his body language, which remains curiously relaxed, hints restraint.

  Leaning close to his right ear, away from The Girl’s knife, I hiss, “One unhappy note from you, little bird, and she’ll cut off your head. Got it?”

  The Guide responds with a tremulous nod. To pontificate, he lifts his hands away from the keyboard and raises them non-threateningly. I relax my grips, but only slightly. This is a trial run. Likewise, she eases back with the blade. When The Guide refrains from shouting the alarm, I take a step backward. Though she clearly disapproves, The Girl follows.

  We confront him this way when he turns in his chair to put the desk at his back, his hands clearly visible and relaxed atop the armrests. The Guide smiles slyly while his right eye ticks. I estimated correctly. The Asian is psychotic, but lucid.

  He chuckles through his nose, a noise I find disturbing. He says, “Ha, you said ‘little bird’. That’s proper. That’s righteous
. You like my poetry? ‘Little Bird’ is one of my favorites. These days, we are all of us little birds, tossed from the nest, left to the mercy of a predatory planet. Don’t you agree?” He turns a lecherous leer on The Girl. “And who is this little bird? Huh? A lover? A girlfriend? A wife, perhaps?”

  At the mention of this taboo word, I strike him hard across his mouth. The gesture is too fast even for me to stop it.

  Rather than angering him, the blow seems to delight The Guide after it snaps his head to one side. He smiles with bloody teeth. “Right. Right. Right. It’s a bad word for most men these days. I get it. My apologies to The Scientist. You are The Scientist, aren’t you? Of course you are. The Scientist and his… Protégé. Yes? A better word, I think. Safer. Smarter. You’re really smart, too. Just like they say you are. Oh, I’m not surprised. Not really. We’re all smart these days, but most of us have a different kind of smart.” The Guide pauses his rattle and his eyes roll strangely back and forth between me and The Girl. His already impossibly broad grin broadens. I can see his blood-outlined back molars now. Slyly, he adds, “I’m smart, too, you know. Smarter, maybe. Look behind me.”

  I have already been watching. That his Clan has returned to encircle the truck means nothing to me. I have not come here for them. I came for him.

  He sees this in my eyes, I think, for his smile droops a bit. His eyes bulge again, and his Asiatic face pales. Pre-Terminus, The Guide was probably a low-echelon gang member, a foot soldier in one of those Chinese organizations that had once plagued the state since the nineteenth century. Had the world kept turning as before, by now he would probably be dead or incarcerated, a sacrificial lamb cut short in a hit gone wrong or a failed drug deal. He doesn’t seem so smart to me, really, because I could kill him easily, no matter what else happened next.