Doc Harrison and the Apocalypse

by Peter Telep

  As usual, I’m locked on Julie’s wheel and maintaining the pace. If gaps form in the group, they’ll cause a yo-yo effect at the back of our pace line, making it much harder for those particular riders to keep up and judge the distance to the wheels in front of them.

  No, worries, though. The rumms ride like bosses. Even Tommy’s impressed by their precision and discipline.

  Occasionally he barks, “How we doing, Marines?”

  Julie and I reply with an “oorah” or “woot-woot” or “good to go,” and he responds, “Outstanding!”

  We continue north through the tunnels.

  The riding becomes almost mechanical, with the drone of our wheels and cranks allowing my mind to wander. I replay the conversation with my mother’s immortal. The nightmare afterward—

  And something she mentioned before I pulled her back.

  Something about taking Julie to the “healing wreath.”

  * * *

  The tunnels lead us to scorched foothills overlooking the southwest side of the city. We pause to get our bearings and recon the path. The rumms find the view obvious and boring.

  We find it heartbreaking and too much to consider in one glimpse. Dust clouds descend on the ruins as collapsing buildings vanish into the gloom. Vast plains of rubble stretch out in all directions.

  Even on a sunny day this place has one color:

  Death.

  So here we are, the City of Violet, once the beautiful home to millions, now a rotting graveyard, haunted and poisoned and dying a little more every day.

  “Makes me want to cry,” Julie says, shaking her head at the devastation—

  Caused by her father.

  I can’t even look at her.

  Tommy comes up behind us. “Time to go.”

  If there’s any good news, it’s the tailwind.

  We begin our ascent, with the rumms breaking into twos and threes because it’s hard to control our bikes.

  I’m out of the saddle and booted so hard by the wind that I’m not even pedaling, plus I’m airborne with nearly every bump. I remind myself not to panic.

  But that’s useless. I’m already making .5 past light speed, and my heart is in my throat. I think there’s an equation for this: pancake = geek on bike *V/no skills.

  I tighten my grip. My arms shudder with every impact.

  The bike’s in runaway mode—

  Getting faster and going down!

  Even the slightest feathering of the brakes could send me over the bars and into another superman impression. At these speeds, I’d definitely break a bone.

  While I’m puckering up, the rumms go wild. They zoom down the hills like alpine skiers, taking ridiculous risks and going airborne like they’re on ESPN’s First Annual Floran Post-Apocalyptic Mountain Bike Challenge.

  Yup, they’re as reckless as Meeka, and they keep proving it by dropping into depressions and sprinting up for serious airtime.

  Front wheels get yanked sideways as they arc, one after another, through the air. It’s like a BMX stunt show.

  A few rumms shake their fists in triumph.

  They will beat the nomads. Beat the storm.

  And their energy affects me.

  Being scared sucks. Time to get some!

  I holler and hammer my way down the last hill, barreling up beside Julie to give her a thumb’s up.

  I lower my hand just as a familiar and dreaded whomping cuts into the roaring wind.

  I’m about to look back—

  When the ground explodes not twenty feet ahead.

  Some kind of rocket.

  I veer left.

  Julie veers right—

  And we’re showered by dirt and rocks.

  “Nomads!” Tommy hollers. “Get down to the road! Looks like cover in the embankment over there!”

  I’d call him Captain Obvious, but he’s a major, and I think Julie already gave me that name.

  I glance ahead.

  The road Tommy mentioned is way past all these foothills and leads back toward the bombed out city.

  I steal another look over my shoulder.

  We’ve got two hoverjets on us.

  And the bastards fire again.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Here’s a little reminder so you don’t think our adversaries come from the ranks of cross-eyed Imperial stormtroopers who couldn’t hit a target as big as Jabba the Hut.

  The door gunners and pilots controlling the rockets are probably excellent shots. They’ve had prior training or were in the military before everything went to hell.

  Tommy would argue that they’ve gone through numerous “shooting packages” to train. He’d add that said weapons are well maintained despite everything that’s happened here.

  So gunning us down should be routine for them.

  But it’s not.

  Their rockets fall wide or ahead of us.

  Their gunfire stitches along our path, not across it.

  As I suspected before, they have orders to capture us alive.

  Don’t damage the goods. Solomon wants us.

  What’s scary, though, is that the storm’s playing havoc with their controls. The jets wobble while the gunners try to frighten us. One misplaced shot... and someone dies.

  As we close in on the field, the lead hoverjet swoops down to within fifteen feet, soaring directly over our heads.

  Jet wash blasts into my face and rips me off my bike.

  Impact in two seconds.

  I hold my breath and tuck in my arms.

  The rest is beyond my control...

  As the dirt smacks hard!

  I break into a log roll, spinning about five times before landing flat on my back.

  I sit up. The world spins. More humming from the jets.

  A spotlight—

  And then Mama Grren scoops me up with a giant paw and tosses me onto her back. She carries me to my bike as Brave does likewise with Julie.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, barely able to stand.

  “Yeah! We need to catch up!”

  Below us, the lead hoverjet wheels around and prepares to land—trying to cut off our entire group.

  The second jet zooms in from behind.

  As if on cue, the rumms ditch their bikes, roll, and come up with rifles in hand.

  Muzzles wink like Christmas lights. Rounds ricochet off the hoverjets near their open bay doors.

  One gunner slumps at his controls.

  Off to our right, Tommy’s down on one knee with Val tucked in behind him. He squeezes off three rounds before waving us on.

  Now, as both hoverjets descend to within ten feet, Brave and Mama Grren go into beast mode.

  Muscles flex beneath dust-covered skin.

  Teeth come to bear as they growl and hiss.

  Brave targets the rear hoverjet. Mama Grren sprints on for the first.

  Nearly in unison, they leap into their personas.

  Two grren become fourteen howling monsters of violence and death.

  Overwhelmed, the gunners scream as the grren leap into the open bays and begin their shredfest.

  Meanwhile, Meeka hollers for the rumms to hold fire and retreat. Julie and I pedal after them.

  The lead hoverjet banks hard as the pilot swings open his side door and bails out.

  Just as he hits the ground, the jet flips onto its back, gets caught in a gust, and then rolls again.

  Mama Grren and her personas launch themselves into the air and flee the dying bird.

  In three, two, one, the jet plows into the ground like baby Clark Kent’s space capsule, leaving a long trench behind it. The engines whine and grind as the intakes fill with sand.

  The pilot who bailed out looks back.

  All he sees are glowing teeth.

  He starts running.

  Mama Grren and her pack surround him. I can’t bear to watch—

  So I glance to the second hoverjet, as it, too, ascends, gets caught in another gust, and then rolls over and pitches down toward the ruin
s ahead.

  Brave and his persona wait until the last possible second before springing out of the bay—

  And the hoverjet explodes in clouds of roiling smoke and fire bent sideways by the storm.

  The rumms wave their fists and cheer.

  I join them and get the chills.

  The fires make it too dangerous to salvage anything from the jets, but the rumms do manage to grab a few pistols from what’s left of the door gunners.

  After that, we quickly regroup and ride on, before more of those bastards arrive, and before the sandstorm gets any closer.

  However, the storm already fills the southern sky like the flashing, exploding stage of a rock concert. All that’s missing is the band wailing on their guitars and drums and breathing fire at the crowd.

  With the adrenaline pumping, we race across the field and reach a paved highway, although it’s cracked and full of potholes, with weeds sprouting from the seams. Abandoned cars line the embankments, nearly all of them stripped down to their bones.

  At this point Meeka and Steffanie ride as a pair off the front. The grren pull up the rear, since the rumms are in charge of getting us through the city.

  As we approach a box-type truck, I notice symbols written in dirt across its rear door. My wreath translates the symbols into letters: GO BACK! DESPERS AHEAD!

  The road forks, and we turn left toward an exit. The path tightens between puzzle pieces of concrete draped in vines and furry brown moss.

  Meeka and Steffanie pick our lines through the debris, and the hand signals and warnings come fast and furious.

  We’ve officially reached the city now, and it’s warmer, as though I can feel the radiation. I know, I’m paranoid, but I remember Hollis telling us we should use suits. Or maybe the weather patterns changed and its better now?

  At the end of the first block, we turn right and bridge a broken sidewalk to ascend a stone staircase—a huge one like something belonging to an important monument or building like a state capitol.

  “First rally point,” Meeka says as we reach the top.

  “It’s getting dark,” I remind her.

  “Yeah, I know. Just a quick recon from this high ground. Won’t take long.”

  “Do I got time to use the uh, rest room?” I ask.

  She snorts. “Go ahead.”

  I glide off and peak inside the shattered building. An inscription written in floor tiles indicates this is (or was) the City of Violet’s Museum of Art.

  I park my bike at the wall, duck beneath cracked rafters blocking half the doorway, and venture inside.

  Once a great round foyer, the entrance is piled high with wreckage. The ceiling and most of the walls came down hard in the blast. However, a few paintings hang on the remaining walls behind me. It’s a miracle they survived.

  Ahead are paths between the debris, along with rows of footprints across the dusty stone floor.

  Quickly, I relieve myself and then dig into my jacket for a flashlight that Val gave me and thumb it on. I scan the paths and with a chill realize the footprints look pretty fresh. It’s time to go. As I turn, something else catches my eye. I brush ash off one of the paintings for a better look. Whoa.

  A young couple is seated on a sofa. He’s clean-cut and dressed in a black shirt with an odd turtleneck collar that reaches his ears. She’s like an all-American cheerleader type, wearing a bluish gold frock and curiously long white gloves. They look nervous and focus on something across the room.

  I clear more dust to expose a bed where their personas are having sex. It’s nothing porno. You can’t really see their body parts. She’s on top, and they’re glowing as one.

  I step back and shine more light on the painting. Damn. I guess you can have sex while in your persona. But what does it feel like? And can the girl become pregnant? Now that’s a question I’m dying to ask Keane...

  Wait. There’s something else, something hanging above the sofa: it’s a landscape of Flora, with the moons and sun on the horizon, along with a faint band that spans the entire sky.

  Julie calls me from outside. I hurry to join her.

  “What’re you doing in there?” she asks.

  “Bathroom break. Hey, check this out.”

  “No, we’re leaving.”

  “It’ll just take a second.”

  She climbs off her bike and follows me inside. I shine my light on the painting.

  “Oh, wow. It looks so real.”

  I snort. “Is that all you got?”

  She raises a brow. “That’s all I’m giving.”

  I gesture to the personas in the painting. “It’s interesting, though, huh? I mean in a scientific way.”

  Is she bored? Startled? Aroused?

  Her attention wanders to another wall. “We could learn so much just by studying their art.” She hesitates. “Hey, do you smell something?”

  Julie looks back at me—

  Her expression tightens into sheer panic. “Doc!”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Julie’s looking behind me.

  I lean over and whirl around—

  Just as the art museum’s curator, a pale, bald, skeleton of a man swings a metal pipe.

  He misses my head by less than an inch. But—ow!—he hits my shoulder before I can pull away.

  The blow sends waves of hot pain across my back.

  I lose my balance, drop the flashlight, and slam onto my rump.

  At the same time, gunfire echoes and booms from outside. Single shots, and then automatic fire rattling into the wind.

  I curse aloud. Our group is under attack!

  Meanwhile, the desper slams me onto my back, straddles me, and then gets his bony fingers around my neck.

  With his free hand, he rears back with the pipe.

  Tumors sprout like mushrooms from his bare shoulders. I can hardly bear his cracked teeth and bloodshot eyes and breath like roadkill. Drool drops from his chin.

  And there it is: a scar forming a Q with a slash mark that’s bulging from the middle of his chest.

  He’s the Monkshood welcoming committee.

  And just as he’s cutting off my air, Julie’s persona puts him in a chokehold.

  With a scream, she rips him off—

  As more gunshots crack from outside.

  At the same time, her body disarms him. She swings the pipe high above his head.

  I sit up and roll forward, pushing back to my feet—

  Just a group of despers, maybe six or seven, surrounds Julie and her persona.

  She leaps back and swats at them with the pipe, but like swarming insects they quickly overwhelm her. A few more arrive to grab her persona.

  I can’t get to her in time. “Julie!”

  “Doc! Help!” she cries, kicking and punching as they drag her off into the shadows.

  Outside, the booms and ricochets and screams from the rumms continue.

  As I’m scooping up my flashlight, four more despers lunge at me. They’re sophomores turned into zombies with clumps of hair sprouting from their oversized skulls. A few have cleft lips that expose rotting teeth. The lead kid’s eyes are too far apart and fail to focus.

  I direct my voice toward the entrance, even though I doubt he can hear me. “Tommy! We need help! Tommy!”

  And then I run at the despers, plowing through them like a linebacker. Sort of. I’d never in a million years make the football team—but neither would they.

  I shine my flashlight ahead—

  And spot Julie at the far end of the foyer. She’s dragged behind piles of rock.

  I sprint on, with the wailing despers falling in behind me. They sound like old men who’ve been smoking cigarettes all their lives.

  As I clear the mountain of debris, my light finds Julie and her persona being forced through a stairwell door.

  I could jump into my persona and try to cut them off on the other side—but then my body would be captured because I can’t multitask yet. I don’t know why it’s taking me so long. I guess I�
��m just a loser with no skills.

  Julie’s halfway down the stairs by the time I reach the door. Down I go, taking the stairs two at a time.

  I stop short. Jump into my persona. Whirl.

  And race back up the stairs—

  Directly at the startled despers.

  I put on my war face and scream like a maniac, Tommy style.

  At the same time, I hunker down, grab the first desper by his legs and toss him over my shoulder. I grab the second and do likewise, but the other two seize my arms—just as I jump back into my body...

  And find myself lying on my back, buried by the despers I just threw. Okay, not the best attack. But it’ll do.

  I drag myself from beneath them before the other two can reach me.

  Back on my feet, I bang through another door—

  And charge into a candlelit basement that’s been turned into an eerie cathedral.

  I slow down and take in all kinds of sirks painted on the walls or hanging like wind chimes from the ceiling. They’re small, large, made of metal or wood or stained glass, and a few are even designed from branches.

  At the back of the room lies an altar featuring a burning globe at least ten feet high. Rings of wire encircle the globe, and mounted on them are the silhouettes of people holding hands—just like that image I saw...

  Only these people are covered in flames.

  Julie’s managed to pull back her persona, but they still have her.

  And now we’re surrounded by thirty, maybe forty despers standing there like we’ve just interrupted some weird meeting or church service.

  “Doc!” Julie screams, lifting her chin past me.

  I check my six o’clock. Yep, the teenaged despers are right behind me, clutching metal rods.

  And just when I think, okay, at least this band of lunatics doesn’t have guns, two older men clutching rifles push through the others and come toward me.

  A few more armed nutjobs shift over to Julie.

  And then I remember Meeka saying the entire city is their temple and that they enjoy shooting invaders.

  But I think they’d like to do more than that. Much more.

  “Brothers and sisters, feast your eyes on our distinguished guests!” one madman cries. “The cleanest, most fine rumms we’ve ever seen!”