by James Kiehle
Judy noticed him staring, smiled, and lifted her glass in a toast, swallowing it whole.
A good sign—her glass was refilled.
Roger had had more than enough of this high school flirtation, barely holding hands, no kisses, just pecks and stuff—what was in this for him? One lousy BJ? Sure, she was married, but probably to a corpse, so it was time—growing shorter hourly—to move past childish parry and use more thrust, make the leap, fuck like there was no tomorrow, because there wasn’t.
But this still didn’t happen.
Damn Real Life.
Hours before, miles off the California coast, some eager kid said that he could see a glimmering string of city lights on the horizon. People gathered at the railing, sharing a feeling of triumph that changed from jubilation to horror and resignation after the twilight sighting of what should have been Long Beach proved to be a burning glow of high flames along the entire coast. Above the conflagration, fast-moving, thick swirls of charcoal-tinged smoke spread across the sky, this as a collective, despondent dread settled over the passengers’ upbeat mood, snuffing it out.
Los Angeles was devastated. Fires lit the sky from San Diego on north. The hulls of wrecked ships, half-submerged, lay on the water like dead metal whales.
Until later, after everyone filled up on what was going to be the final banquet in the main hall, a voice broke through the persistent melancholy and mourning, as a fat man in a Hawaiian shirt stood on a chair and proudly, if unevenly, yelled the top of his voice: ‘TWO WORDS, PEOPLE: FUCK IT! WE’RE ALIVE!” to laughter and clapping and a reply of “That’s four words,” while another called out “Seven!” which altered the mood from gloom to glee in a heartbeat. These people didn’t need much help to hope, Judy thought, both sheep and realists now, armed with a sober view of the absolute certainty of death. It was all just timing. A few days ago, most everyone in the world passed on and Judy could only wonder at how full the gates of Heaven must be—a queue to making laughing stocks of any DMV.
So, yes indeed fuck it. The passengers began to drink to excess, then drank some more. A man played guitar and someone sang, then everyone sang as Judy watched and Roger watched Judy.
Iris scurried up to her mom, kissed her cheek and introduced her new friend Rafe, from Finland. “He doesn’t speak a word of English, but I understand him fine,” she grinned. “We’re gonna play ping-pong, okay?” Iris kissed her cheek again, whispering. “You drunk yet?”
“Not yet, honey. Have a nice ping or pong or chat, or—oh I don’t know, have fun for a change.” Judy laughed.
Iris said, “You look nice, Mom,” then skipped off with the tall, slender, blond boy wearing pink-framed glasses, an accessory somehow lessening Judy’s worry. She looked up and noticed Roger Lind sidling in on the next chair, scooting closer.
“Do you know how dazzling you look tonight?” he said, gently touching her hair. “Like a princess. You need a tiara to go with that incredible dress.”
“This old thing?” Judy might have blushed, or it could have been the alcohol, but managed to slur, “I found this in a suitcase in our stateroom.”
“It’s so—shiny.”
To blame for that: a tight, shimmering, black metallic sheath dress with cutout shoulders by Rachel Zoe that glittered as she walked in the room, making Judy the mirror ball of the party. Judy, not one to use makeup for anything but the basics, had decided it was time to shine, put those lessons learned at Nordstrom cosmetic counter boot camps to good use. Eye shadow. Foundation. Blush. This, that, the other, capped by a slash of vivid red lipstick and a slick of clear lip gloss—she looked like a star. Men bought her drinks, women gave her polite smiles and death stares. She hadn’t felt so popular since—when?
She took another sip. She had to think about that.
•
Glen Paden and the pilot had flown almost the entire north-south length of the state and barely a word had passed between them. They were heading for Pasco, Washington at Paden’s urging but Glen didn’t know what to do with the pilot once they touched down. He had no bullets left but the pilot didn’t know that and Paden figured he’d worry about that later. Maybe just pop the dude on the noggin with the gun butt.
They were high above a forest, flying at about five or six thousand feet, and Paden could see the trees and cliffs and lakes and streams below. He found it very peaceful to look out and watch it all. His big concern was how to get the money back to his sister, Claire, money she needed to abort her unwanted baby.
At stealing, Glen had been a hopeless failure, but for Ernie and the dead cop, Paden felt nothing. Ernie deserved it for having the harebrained idea in the first place and the cop, well, he was a cop. Another badged bully. Reason enough in Paden’s mind.
“We’ve got company,” the pilot said and tossed a thumb over his shoulder.
Behind them and closing fast, Paden saw two police choppers, one on either side. They got close enough to use the speaker and warn Paden and the pilot to follow them down.
“Lose ‘em,” Paden said and pointed the gun in the pilot’s face for emphasis. “Do something fancy.”
Abruptly, the pilot veered to the left, ducking under a helo, both copters in pursuit. The Cessna lurched and dived and turned, but no use. The helicopters were state of the art and kept up with everything Paden’s pilot tried to do.
“You’re gonna need a miracle to get out of this,” the pilot told Glen.
“Shut up.”
“Well, what the hell do you want me to do?” the pilot said. “They’ll shoot us down.”
Paden had no answer. What Glen knew about airplanes and their capabilities was minimal. Hell, this was his first time ever in a plane. He scoured the ground looking for a place to land or to get low enough to jump.
“You got a parachute?” Paden asked, looking down around his seat for one.
Before the pilot could answer, the sky suddenly erupted in a radiant flash of light as an incredible, painful brightness illuminated the sky, though Glen was wearing Ray-bans and looking at the floor. The effect was far worse for the pilot, who screamed, “I’m blind!”
“What the fuck was that?” Paden shrieked at the same instant. But over the top of the mountain, Glen could see a mushroom cloud rising ominously and knew at once.
“Fuckin’ A-bomb?” Paden said. “A nuclear fucking bomb?”
Then the blast wave struck the plane and the electrical system went out. The Cessna’s propeller stopped spinning and the plane spiraled towards the Earth, tumbling end over end, both men’s cries lost in the wind and roar.
Watching the spinning ground below made Glen dizzy, but he saw that the police copters had suffered the same fate and were also tumbling to the Earth, where they exploded. The world became a blur; he began to feel lightheaded, and then passed out.
The next thing Glen knew, he was nearly drowning in a lake. When he became conscious again, Paden flailed his arms around, splashed hard and gasped for breath. Unaware of how he had got there or how long he’d been in the water, Paden looked around and realized he wasn’t too far from the lake shore. In terrible pain, he managed to reach the water’s edge and lay in a heap on the pebbly sand for a long while.
His ears rang from the sound of the blast and his eyeballs hurt like hell. Huge black swirls danced in front of his eyes and only got worse when he rubbed them. Glen kept them closed until the sensation passed.
Paden saw the wreckage of the plane smoldering on the other side of the lake. Some length of time must have passed because the plane was by then the size of its own crushed engine block and charred jet black, but there was more smoke than fire.
Concerned, Glen patted his waist. The gun was still there. Worthless but available.
The bag of stolen money was nowhere to be found.
Feeling his body, Paden discovered his left wrist felt like Godzilla was squeezing it. There was also a big gash on his arm, bleeding a little, so he tore off a sleeve and made a tourniquet, then crouched down, stil
l dizzy.
Paden tried to decide which way to walk. In front of him, Glen saw the dark outline of an undisturbed forest, unaffected by the bomb. Deep within it, sticking up like a basketball player at a Woody Allen look-alike contest, a firewatcher’s tower with a light on top. Glen thought that might be a good place to aim for. He managed to stand up but quickly felt dizzy again and sat.
“Get going in a sec,” he told himself. “Need to rest a bit.”
It was morning when Paden opened his eyes.
•
The last time Judy was really popular?
Actually, the night she met Russ, a long time ago.
Back in college, freshman year. Judy was still high from high school. The long hot summer following her captain-of-the-swim-team/first-runner-up-prom-queen/backup-cheerleader senior high days segued into freshman year at the University of Oregon where she quickly got nailed with labels. The first: wholesome. Out of nowhere that’s all she heard about herself—Judy was wholesome. Wholesome, wholesome, wholesome, wholesome. The second: You look like that girl from Dawson’s Creek, then Batman Begins, then every Katie Holmes movie made since. They were aging at the same rate, though Judy was slightly younger. No matter how you sliced it, Judy got tagged as America’s Sweetheart.
But Judy wanted her own stage and in her dreams her film would be 9-1/2 Weeks, not First Daughter.
An unsettling misrepresentation, this sweetheart notion, a construct that Judy tried to try to dispel by getting hooked on cigarettes. The cool girls smoked. Not that chain-smoking Salem Lights would turn her into Lady Gaga, but the longest journey begins with one step. And then, Judy’s junior year, after a ton of smoked weed and Jello shots, her only experience with real sex (with a pre-med student who—however handsome—was as much fun in bed as a load of charcoal) she decided that lung cancer would really suck and switched vice majors.
She was, by her own analysis, an “oral person,” who ditched cigarettes for the more organic, which—coupled with a fear of STD’s—was not worth the title “Blow Job Queen” that she earned in summer school at the University of Puget Sound.
Judy wasn’t wholesome, she was sexy, dammit.
Soooo…
At a Halloween costume party senior year, Judy turned up the volume, reinvented herself as Catwoman from the early Batman movies, wearing a black PVC unitard and hood and borrowed knee-high patent boots, opera length vinyl gloves that she sewed herself and, of course, a bullwhip that she snapped when asked, which was often.
No U of O woman shone brighter that night. In this beguiling outfit, Judy had ditched the wholesome label once and forever—reborn as a vixen. One guy after another asked for a dance and, by ten, she was exhausted. Outside, taking a breather, Judy noticed a tall, slender Zorro, who shyly introduced himself as Russ from Portland.
“Judy from Corvallis,” she replied as gloved hand shook gloved hand.
She liked his grip and dashing costume, while he wanted badly to see her face. Judy’s swimmer’s body, broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips, accentuated by the tight, shiny outfit, was as close to perfect as he’d ever seen outside of movies and magazines. Maybe it was initially the costume, but Russ was smitten.
“I’d like to take off my mask, show you the real me,” Russ told her. “Would you?”
Judy didn’t want to unveil the real her at all. She was Catwoman—meow—reveling in the adoring and lustful looks she’d been getting all night—she wanted it to go on. Spoil the fun by taking off her hood? Judy had to think for an awkward long minute.
But there was something about Russ from Portland that intrigued her, that Judy instinctively liked, so she replied, “Alright,” reaching in back to unzip the plastic hood. “But just for a minute. I hate to break character.”
“Me, too,” Russ laughed. “I’ve never been so suave.”
Hood off her head, Judy shook her hair and looked up to see Zorro transformed into the most normal-looking guy on campus. A masculine mirror of herself, because Russ was almost—wholesome.
Russ, astounded by her beauty, managed to say, “Oh my God. You look just like—”
Judy’s eyes narrowed, her voice chilled. “Who?”
“Judy from Corvallis.”
•
Russ and Daria made two trips back to the campsite, taking only the most important objects from the van—personal things, tools, clothing—but left the canned food and an extra can opener for Glen Paden or anyone else who might find the site and need sustenance. They took the curry powder which she was reading as they walked back to the lodge.
“I think I like curry,” Daria said. “Do I look Pakistani?”
“Less than I do,” Russ replied.
“And what’s your heritage?”
“American.”
•
The fleet memory of her first meeting with Russ made Judy momentarily sad but alcohol made her bold and forced her to consider other options, other possibilities, other ethics. On land, this was bound to be a strange new world, where everybody made up their good’s and bad’s along the way; subject to change at the drop of a hand grenade.
But Russ…
…and Maggie.
Sitting in a tree? K-I-S-S-I-N-G?
Judy sipped more, then gulped a little and raised her hand for a refill. Roger was there to oblige.
“You look lost in space,” he grinned. “Thinking about anything I should know about?”
Another round of the high end liquor to guzzle.
“Adultery,” Judy replied.
Finally. Here it was. Adultery, one of Roger Lind’s favorite concepts. No fuss, no muss. Slam bam thank you Ma’am. And no husband around to break his jaw.
“Adultery sounds right up my dark alley,” he said.
Judy took another long sip as her brain began to swirl.
“It’s not about you, it’s about my husband,” Judy replied, unsteadily looking at Lind.
“He’s having an affair?”
“No more than I am,” Judy replied, her mouth tightening.
After three glasses of Chivas on an empty stomach, Judy agreed with the loud man in the Hawaiian shirt: FUCK IT!
“I wanna be Maggie tonight,” she whispered to Roger Lind. “Think Cat on a Hot Tin dick.”
•
At the campsite, Russ had drawn a crude map on construction paper which showed potential survivors how to find the lodge, then made a large arrow out of small logs that pointed to the trail’s entrance.
They made it back to the hotel just before nightfall. Daria had been stunned by the amount of food in the freezer, refrigerator and cabinets. Fittingly, she discovered a pantry with even more food stocks.
“We won’t be starving at least,” she told him. “There’s enough food here to last through next winter, providing it’s just the two of us. I’ll take inventory tomorrow.”
“Personally, I hope it won’t be,” he replied. “I’d like all kinds of people in this place. Kids, adults, all races, all creeds, even Chinese.”
Daria smiled as she arched an eyebrow. “Even Chinese? You have a thing about Asian people?”
“I can forgive them. It’s not like a billion of them all pressed the buttons.”
Daria looked bewildered.
“I don’t understand. What does China have to do with anything?”
“You’re joking, right?” Russ asked. “You don’t know what happened? The war?”
“War? I don’t think I listen to the news much.”
“Clearly not. Me, I would have no excuse— I’m in the news business.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
Sitting there in the big old lobby, feet up, pooped, feeling the fire, sipping whisky, Russ explained all he could about the rapid-fire build up to the war.
In recap, the multiple dangers seemed individually newsworthy, but coming back to back, taken as a whole—ominous. The domino theory. The timing was bad, starting with Taiwan. How they thought they could get away with declaring freed
om from mainland China was bad enough, but with nerves already shaky from endless threats from North Korea, any blowup in the region was cause for concern.
But only the People’s Republic of China saw the real threat: A nuclear Taiwan was unacceptable to them. In retaliation, they didn’t cut off their credit, but their shipping, and then launched a full-scale invasion.
Then there was what they called The Bullet.
That the meteor appeared out of nowhere was not even huge news; that it split up and actually caused more than a trail of smoke in the sky and a blast over two continents was another. Bam, into China. Bam bam, into Canada. China, on pins and needles, miscalculating, ushered in The End.
Daria just shook her head. “So whose left? On the planet, I mean.”
“No way of knowing,” Russ shrugged.
Daria considered this. “So, this must be our Eden.”
“Well,” Russ replied, “it’s some form of oasis.”
Daria pan-fried the defrosted steak, cut it in two and made some mashed potatoes using red potatoes, butter, and evaporated milk, then heated a can of asparagus. Russell found a wine rack with about fifty bottles and opened a Bordeaux.
“I suppose in this new world, you’d be old enough to drink. Want some?”
“Pull-ease,” she replied, spinning her eyes comically. “I’m surely past legal age, even if it mattered.”
Russ smiled. Daria barely looked out of high school.
“I won’t be asking for your I.D.”
“Good thing,” she laughed. “I don’t have any.”
Russ considered her face. She was a pretty young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and an angelic presence that seemed familiar to Russ, but not enough to spark a memory. She had beautiful skin and her smile was incandescent.