Letters from the Apocalypse (Book 1)

by Blake Pitcher

  And then there is the southern vantage, marked with three trailing plumes of dark smoke, cutting inwards and growing closer together as they creep toward the center of the city. At the head of the center-most plume must be the White Texan, pushing forward with fanatic certainty.

  I never was good at estimating distances. It’s difficult to tell how far off the Enlisted army is, as well as not having a clear idea of how far the city stretches in the other directions. The river heads north, but for how long, and then what?

  And then there is Zulé at his side, eyes set on the approaching columns of smoke. He owes her nothing, and yet he is guided by his conscience to do something, although that something is undefined. Is his the last remaining conscience? And why must he be burdened with it? Why must he be burdened with this girl? He could drag her along with him northward, where not knowing was the best advantage he had, or deliver her back to the White Texan where the evils were at least more clearly defined. Or just leave her here; pat her on the back and wish her well— have a nice life, kiddo. I didn’t ask for this.

  A voice from the stairwell. “Hello,” it says. “Don’t shoot,” it says, softly.

  Roger’s heart races. Why didn’t I watch my back? Zulé is wide-eyed. They turn.

  “Don’t be scared,” says an older man holding his hands over his head, “I am a friendly ghost.”

  “We don’t want any trouble,” says Roger.

  “Trouble? Dear me, no. I heard you in the stairwell.” The neatly dressed and groomed man gives off an aura of solitude and lavender. “I haven’t seen a living person in weeks.”

  “You’re a ghost?” Zulé’s voice is a calm exclamation that underlays the struggle between want of belief and learned cynicism.

  “Of a sort. I haunt the tenth floor of this hotel, in my own way. Roaming the halls in linen robes, and clattering about with this and that.” The man looks to Roger for approval and lowers his hands.

  “You smell nice,” says Zulé. “Better than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “A fine compliment. I’ve no shortage of soap, shampoo, condition and tiny bottles of lotion. Although food is scarce, I’m afraid.”

  “Are you a gentleman?”

  “What makes you ask that?” The man asks, visibly pleased.

  “Your clothes are very neat. And your tie.”

  “Ah.” The man strokes the length of his tie. “Herringbone.”

  “How long have you been here?” Roger asks.

  “Since it happened. You know, the big it.”

  “Can you tell us what happened here? Why almost everyone is dead?”

  “I have been able to comprise a working theory pulled from various observations, anecdotes and reflections. But it matters more that everyone is dead, than why they are dead. That’s what motivates us.”

  “Motivates you to ‘haunt’ this hotel?”

  “In a way. One could say I am motivated by grief over the loss of a loved one and lack of desire to go elsewhere.” The man’s face tightens as he holds back emotion.

  “I’m sorry.” Roger looks down. “For your loss.”

  “Apologies are not required but they are appreciated. I’ve lost one less thing than most have already.” The oldster ghost offers a manicured hand to Roger, and then to Zulé. “My name is Delvin. What are yours?

  “I was visiting San Antonio as a tourist,” says Delvin looking out over the city, arms crossed against the memory, “with my friend Antwan Chastain.” Delvin wavers slightly at the saying of the name. “In the first days we holed up in our room, like many others. Our floor developed a camaraderie of sorts. Looking out for each other, a kind word, the little things. The city was in turmoil, but we had hope that we could hold out until things normalized. Many people were surprisingly benevolent in the crisis.

  “But it wasn’t to last. A week after the lights went out, the coughing began. Rumors had it coming from the military bases, an outbreak of some fast-acting meningitis. A grown man would feel off one day, have a high fever the next and die soon after. Wherever it came from, it spread like wildfire. We barred the hotel to the outside, closed our windows. But it wasn’t enough. A couple in the room next to us had a child, Joey, who started with the nausea. Antwan insisted on aiding the family; I was angry, frightened of the disease, of losing him. But he insisted saying it was his duty as a doctor, as a human…

  “So they died, and so did he. The rest fled. He told me to stay in our room, to leave him be. I tried. I stayed in my room, listening to him groan through the walls. The lights bothered him… and it dragged on longer than most, in the darkness… until it stopped during the night, and I considered jumping from a window to end my own pointless existence.

  “After two more days I lost my head. I found his body in the hallway and embraced him. I couldn’t help it. I breathed him in, willing the sickness to take me, but it didn’t— and it hasn’t. I’ve forayed out among the bodies, but I haven’t caught it. Maybe I am immune, or maybe the disease was designed to lose efficacy quickly.”

  “Designed?”

  “That was the rumor. It was too deadly, too fast. Perhaps it was released as an attack in the panic. Or perhaps it was just an accident in the confusion. But as I’ve said, ‘why’ doesn’t really matter. The consequence is what we live with.”

  Roger points to the pillars of smoke. “You see those? That is coming straight here. And I don’t think you want to be here for its consequence.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out,” says Roger.

  “Bird’s-eye view?”

  “You read my mind. I feel like I’m grasping for straws.”

  “I have theories, rumors and unsolicited advice. Always have. In the early days of the disaster, there was a gentleman on our floor with connections to the military. He put several ideas into my head. Bombs may have been detonated. The big ones. Monster in your closet ones. Mythical bombs that school children used to hide under desks from. He did not indicate where. You’ve come from one direction, and you know what is there. Here, there is nothing except death from disease. Maybe the endemic has run its course, or perhaps it lingers in some agonizing soul, waiting to rampage once again. Maybe it has travelled on, carried by human hosts, northward, to Austin, Dallas, beyond. Or perhaps it died in the desert. Maybe worse awaits elsewhere.

  “The one person I cared about in the world is dead. No, I am wrong; there is one more person I care about. Me. But I have no motivations.”

  “You mentioned you have unsolicited advice. I think I could use some.”

  “Reality is one part situation and one part perception. You cannot always control the situation, but you can mold your perception.”

  “I was hoping for something more specific.”

  Devlin shrugs. “Don’t they teach critical thinking, anymore? Besides, I’m a crazy old ghost living with gargoyles in a hotel.”

  The three sit and look out over the city. Roger’s heart slows to a reasonable pace, but he feels as if minutes are ticking away toward an unknown doom.

  “I’m constantly paranoid,” Roger says to Delvin, not knowing why.

  “I don’t think paranoia exists anymore,” Delvin says. “Or if it does, it goes by the name ‘reason.’”

  “You can come with us, wherever we’re going.”

  “Thank you, but this ghost will stay.”

  “You see that smoke out there? Roger asks. “You don’t want to be here when it arrives.”

  Delvin smiles. “I’m already a ghost, remember?”

  The three part ways, the flight downward taxing Roger and his muscles in new and aching angles, but it is still easier than the grueling ascent.

  Zulé lags. “My feet hurt.”

  “You’re talking to me, now?” Roger crouches. “Here, on my back. I’ll carry you as far as I can.”

  Zulé clasps her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

  “Try not to choke me,” Roger says.

  �
��You’re soft,” says Zulé.

  “What?”

  “Like you’re weak, but not the same.”

  “Not the same?”

  “I can sense that you’re strong inside, but you’re not hardened. You’re soft.”

  “Why do you say that?

  “You didn’t kill the old man.”

  “Of course I didn’t.”

  “Or the woman.”

  “No.”

  “But she would’ve killed you.”

  “And the old man? He didn’t harm us.”

  “He was wrong. His mind was wrong.”

  “So?”

  “I would have killed him, to be merciful.”

  Roger’s steps grow heavier. The burden on his back feels heavier with each footstep.

  “Roger,” says Zulé.

  “What?”

  “We have to go back. But don’t worry. I won’t say anything against you.”

  “Why would you?”

  “You think like a soft person, Roger.”

  “Why do you want to go back?”

  “I’m hungry. And they have food. And when I’m cold they have fires. When I’m afraid, they have blankets and guns to comfort me.”

  “All these things are true.”

  “Then you will take me back?”

  “Yes, we will both go back.” The stairs go down, and Roger goes with them. Around, and down.

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  The ceiling of the tent is not inert fabric, but a living collage of recent events, revelations, rumors and possibilities. Delvin’s ghostly lips push out words that can only be seen, not heard, Zulé lifted onto the White Texan’s horse amid the uncertainty of Roger’s immediate fate. Roger, kneeling on the pavement: the expectation of the sword is replaced with the offering of a rancher’s hand, bidding him rise. A Penitent absolved; encircled by the faces of the red-crossed and Enlisted alike as he is gifted Dyne’s horse, tent and gun; but most notably a position next to the White Texan himself.

  And now the ceiling evolves into an animate map, juxtaposed with nuclear bombs that mushroom in the deserts, throngs of people falling to disease, wild and terrible faces committing acts yet unrealized, mass exoduses from one situation to another, and above it all, Esther’s face. Her eyes are closed, and it is unclear if she sleeping or dead. Roger’s mind suspects death, but his heart is convinced of life—a knowledge suppressed in the face of the infinite and overwhelming possibilities spread out between them. A leaf, as Zulé portends, fated to blow with the wind.

  So now the map fades, entwined with the nebulous cloud between consciousness and dreaming, Roger on his bedroll, back to the earth and face to the stars, with one silly little fear creeping in.

  He has never ridden a horse.

  Chapter 18: Five Years Later

  “To create, you must first destroy.” Maddox rests his tumbler of Johnnie Walker Blue Label on the mahogany desk. “In all things, from society to the individual. A corroded foundation will not support a rebirth of growth and prosperity.”

  “We don’t have the numbers. Houston is too sprawling, too far out.” The advisor avoids eye contact with Maddox, instead looking down at the large unfolded map.

  “We didn’t have the numbers for Brownsville, San Antonio, Austin, Waco or Dallas.” Maddox says. “But they were delivered to us.”

  “Yes,” says the advisor. “The outbreak.”

  “And Houston will be delivered to us, too.”

  “It’s risky.”

  “What is it that you think we have to risk? This is the Freedom Republic of Texas. There is no Texas without Houston.”

  “We can’t control the disease. It took out an entire division of our men in Waco. And it doesn’t last long. Even if we find a pocket of the affected, it would be impossible to bring someone that far before they died and the virus with it.”

  “A way will be provided.”

  “What about El Paso? It’s wedged between the Wasteland and the middle of nowhere. A fractured collection of ex-military, narcos and pitiful Wasteland refugees. We have the numbers to make an advance without leaving our current holdings too thinly protected.”

  Maddox snatches up the tumbler and smashes it against the wall, narrowly missing the advisor’s head. “That’s what I think of your numbers. Forget El Paso. I have been given a prophecy. And the prophecy says Houston.”

  The room is silent. The advisor steps back in line with the other sun-reddened denim wearers. “Of course, if that is the prophecy.”

  Roger has been sitting in the corner, quietly observing from a wooden chair. He rises to his feet and procures a new glass from the office’s small bar, filling it with two fingers of the Johnnie Walker before returning to his seat. Maddox takes up the freshly filled glass and challenges the room. “Advise me.”

  Leaning against the bar, Zulé lingers over an untouched drink. When no one else responds, she draws herself up, long legs rising up out of oiled brown-leather boots that push her a head taller than the White Texan. “Pony Express riders have carried back reports of an outbreak in a Penitent camp near Waxahachie. We take a handful of healthy ones along with the infected. Every few hours we expose two of the healthy to the infected and leapfrog our way to Houston. Once we’re in far enough, we’ll expose the remainder of the Penitents and the virus will do the rest.”

  Maddox sips his new drink, rolls the brown liquid around in his glass. “Leave it to young Zulé to come up with a plan while the rest of you make excuses. Now who will take the lead on this?”

  “I will.” Zulé steps forward.

  Maddox doesn’t acknowledge Zulé. But no one else stirs to raise his hand.

  “I said, I will.” Her arms cross over her chest and her eyes harden. “It’s my idea.”

  “Not yet.” Maddox is stone-faced.

  “If not now, then when? I can lead tougher, shoot straighter and outfox any of these excuse-making bootlickers.” Zulé’s blue eyes are sharp against her dark skin, cutting down anyone would meet her gaze. All eyes are lowered, except hers, those of Maddox, and sitting in the corner, Roger.

  “You speak the truth,” says Maddox. “But it is not the time.”

  “I’m eighteen years old.”

  “This conversation is finished.”

  “Like hell it is.”

  Maddox motions to Roger. “Escort Zulé to her quarters.”

  “I’ll escort myself.”

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  Roger follows Zulé down the hallway, at a safe distance. The complex is a prison to Zulé, despite its large size and location on a sprawling ranch. In her present state, Roger knows not to get too close or say too much. He’s been struck before, and she doesn’t pull her punches.

  “This isn’t the way to your room.”

  “No shit.” Zulé strides along without looking back. “I need to shoot something. Want it to be you?”

  Enlisted men sit in the shade of a wrap-around porch, smoking and playing cards. Up past the stables, Penitents tend to horses. Zulé follows a path that continues up and over a small hill and into a small valley with a shooting range. The man on duty lets them pass without question, and Zulé helps herself to a Saiga 12 Gauge from the armory.

  Two-liter soda bottles filled with water wait in clusters out in the distance. She braces the stock of the semi-automatic weapon against her shoulder, leans in and pulls the trigger rapidly. The speed of the rounds and the force of the kick-back vibrate the skin and muscles through her arms, shoulders and neck, but she keeps her aim tight as she blows the targets into showers of water and tiny plastic bits.

  “Feel better?”

  Zulé rests the emptied weapon against a rail. “I feel something.”

  “Can we head back to the complex? Before Maddox decides to make me the next target out on the shooting range?”

  “Roger, my savior Penitent and glorified Yankee babysitter who can barely stay on a horse.” Zulé swaggers up to Roger, and playfully shoves him in the chest. “What would
I ever do without you?”

  “I’m sure you’d cope.”

  “Tell that to Maddox.”

  “He’s protective of you.”

  “Overprotective. And I’m not a girl anymore.”

  “Can we go back?”

  “Just one more reload.”

  Roger ponders her evolution from a young girl as she obliterates more inanimate targets. Zulé's ambitions had grown as fast as her body. "She's shot up like a willow tree," Maddox would say. But where are her roots? Roger thinks. When Zulé wanted, it was perilous to deny. And what she wanted was control.

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  Ink to paper in a humble room. The hand grasps and strokes, makes words, then sentences, then thoughts. Five years. Five years in the desert. Roger’s letter grows, unfinished and unsent. A letter to a ghost. A letter to a memory. Written to someone else, but really for himself. Dyne’s old gun rests on the nightstand, ugly but useful. Is that who he was now? A toady with a gun, soft Roger with an unwilling hand.

  Five years he had looked for his way out, waited for his move, but the world was too wild, too unknown. The windows were too small and he was heavy, weighted down by a sense of protection, meaning, and duty. Watching his stead grow into a blue-eyed killer, watching himself float, a leaf in the wind. He still writes, he still holds onto the name while the face begins to weather and fade. I could send it, he thinks, if I had the right opportunity. The Pony Express men were granted neutrality for their network to operate within and beyond the bounds of the Freedom Republic. News from beyond had begun to filter back, suppressed from the eyes of the general membership but available in varying degrees to the upper echelon of generals and captains of the Freedom Army. Roger was the mouse, collecting crumbs that fell from the tables he was near. The news was not hopeful, yet while perhaps censored, a form of the truth was revealed. Much of the South was a violent patchwork of tribalism and militias, through which the Pony Express men had their winding paths and inside connections. The state of the Northeast was grayer; the great cities were uninhabitable, and mass exoduses had spilled outward, lapping against the sharp cold to the north and the jagged cutting edge of the warmer south.