Star-Spangled Apocalypse

by Harmon Cooper

  “Umm…Yeah it’s still $5.95... I work at a McStarbucks twenty years in the future, and there, your latte would cost $49.95,” Virgil joked, much to the customer’s dismay. “So basically, you got yourself a bargain right here at $5.95!”

  “Six bucks for a cup of coffee,” the customer said. “Why does my wife always get the fancy sh–”

  Both men heard a rumbling in the distance, a percussive sound that mirrored a giant bass drum the size of Mount Everest being struck with a mallet the size of the Eiffel Tower.

  Virgil’s eyebrows rose, one at a time, as he turned to the window.

  The ground quaked and the storefront windows shattered in unison, creating a glittery spectacle worthy of a New York Christmas parade. The two men looked at each other in slow motion, the corners of the customer’s mouth moving into an “O” shape as the fire sprinklers went off and an alarm sounded.

  Without finishing the transaction, the customer made a beeline for the front door.

  ***

  Virgil sprinted towards the backroom to find James drinking a whiskey-infused chai tea latte and gazing fixedly at the security television.

  “Dude! Did you frickin’ see that!?” Virgil yelled, panting as he tore off his apron like it was on fire.

  James stared at Virgil, not able to process what he’d just seen. “I saw them shatter on the security monitor…Was…was it an earthquake?”

  “There are no earthquakes in Texas, I mean, not here anyway. Shit, maybe it was global warming.”

  James frowned. “How the fuck would global warming cause an earthquake?”

  “Do we really need to get into this right now?”

  “You’re right. Let’s check it out.” James took off towards the lobby. “Fuck me,” he whispered as soon as he saw the destruction outside.

  Their coffeeshop was a couple of miles from downtown Austin, so he couldn’t see the smoldering buildings or anything, but he could see a giant black cloud heading their way.

  James pulled out his smartphone with its cracked screen and began fumbling with it, swiping away some updates from Rush Hannity and Tucker Jones. “Looks like my cell phone is out too. Shit.” He took a deep breath and returned to the backroom. “This is bad. I’m guessing we should stay here until the cops come or...”

  “Fuck the police, man. Everyone is calling the cops right now.” Virgil quickly yanked off his pants and hopped into a pair of cut-off jean shorts and a ‘Don’t mess with Texas’ t-shirt.

  James shook his head at that first statement. He’d had a serious debate with Virgil once before about law enforcement, how minorities provoke them, and how if everyone just obeyed the law, no one would get hurt.

  Says the man who likes to drink and drive, James remembered thinking at the time. Then again, if they don’t catch you, is it really breaking the law?

  But goddamn is Virgil brainwashed.

  “Let’s check the parking lot,” the younger barista said.

  Both men quickly reached the curb outside the front of the store and gasped.

  The afternoon sky was four shades darker than before and a cloud of smoke covered downtown Austin. Employees and customers from neighboring businesses ran towards their cars, started them up, and crashed them into each other in a frenzied panic. It was absolute pandemonium, a monster truck rally during a 1960s Los Angeles riot meets a fifteen-minute-long terror-run in Grand Theft Auto 5.

  “Damn.” James took one look at the entire situation and decided it was time for a fucking cigarette. He reached into his shirt pocket. “You know, Virgil,” he mumbled as his cigarette fell to a comfortable nook in his mouth, “I’m pretty sure this is what we have been talking about.”

  “Are you saying?” Virgil shifted his focus from the parking lot to the madness behind James’ eyes. The two men stared at each other, pupil to pupil for what seemed like eternity.

  “You really think this is it? I mean…I guess the fire, screams, and smoke is a good sign of Armageddon, but do you really think this is it? I haven’t seen any demons or shit yet.”

  Virgil scratched his small Buddha belly and watched a pedestrian spaz out about a hundred yards away.

  “Could be.” James’ phone buzzed; he quickly looked at it to see it was an email alert from Rush Hannity.

  BREAKING NEWS. Austin, Texas, the libtard hub and Sodom and Gomorrah of the Lone Star State, is under attack! And I’m not talking about gays, fascist lefties, bathroom-confused techies, Muslims, and BLM here, people! Reports are coming in that downtown Austin has been bombed to smithereens by planes coming from Mexico. How did they get into US airspace? ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ATTACK! We’ll be examining the attack live tonight, and I’ll meet with a series of experts including BreitFox fake news expert and white migration researcher Queef Sessions; Daily Flat Earth climate change expert Richard Perry; and Sarah Squareface Sanders, a Benghazi and Clinton email scholar from Brigham Young University. See you then, and come fired up and ready to get to the bottom of all this! Rush Hannity, out.

  James nodded for a moment, wondering how the plane came from Mexico. It couldn’t have been Mexicans. They definitely didn’t have an air force, at least to James’ knowledge.

  Virgil was already running with James’ earlier suggestion. “Judgment Day is upon us, James, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but here is shit…” He pretended to hold a lump of shit. “And here is a fan.” He tossed the shit into the invisible fan.

  James nodded, half-believing what he was about to say: “You know, it is rather ironic that we talk about Armageddon and now the city is on fire…”

  “Damn, dude, we’re like totally on the same wavelength!”

  Virgil sat down on the curb without taking his eyes off the parking lot. The sounds of particles bursting in the open flame flicked violently against both men’s eardrums.

  “Yeah, sure,” James muttered.

  “I say we stick together, man. I mean, I have a friend who has a safe place we can go to out in Bastrop, which is about an hour-long trip from Austin.”

  “Hmmm…”

  Virgil took a deep breath and looked up at James from the seat of the curb. He flinched as a car smacked into a street sign to the right of the store. “But to be quite honest with you, what I really want to do is to go by my place, so I can grab my collection of hallucinogens.”

  James looked down at Virgil incredulously.

  “Don’t judge, dude. I’ve been working on my collection for nearly two years now, just in case something like Armageddon happened.”

  “Your collection?”

  Fucking Virgil and his drugs – that’s what has been affecting his mind. Virgil’s drug musings usually entertained James, mostly for their sheer stupidity. You name it, Virgil had done it. Dripped acid into his eye? Check. Ballooned molly? Check. Eaten mushroom-infused cannabis chocolates? Check.

  Virgil’s recreational drug usage was at odds with James’ conservative thinking, but they’d worked together long enough now that James knew that the long haired hippy barista wasn’t going to be changing his ways anytime soon. And as long as he came to work not tripping, James didn’t mind.

  Besides, Virgil never gave James any shit about his drinking, which he took as a sign of respect.

  “Well,” James said after a long drag of his cigarette, “anything would be better than waiting here and sorting through all this mess.”

  “Dude, that’s what I’m saying!” Virgil watched as an abandoned shopping cart crashed into a tree. “I mean, I’ll be careful with them, my collection, but I don’t want to just leave them here.”

  “But fuck going to Bastrop, I need to get my son, Zane, and he’s in Denver, Colorado.”

  “Colorado, huh?”

  It’s been a year. James swallowed the thought down and turned back to Virgil. “That is my number one priority. You down for a road trip?”

  “Fuck yes, I am.”

  “Maybe we could stop by your place here in Austin, head west to get my son, and play it by ear f
rom there? Hell, what’s there to lose? The city is on fire. I can’t believe I’m saying that, but it’s now or never.”

  James and Virgil stared at each other for a moment.

  “Yeah,” the younger barista finally said, “you’re right, now or never.”

  “Agreed. Let’s grab our things and get the fuck away from this coffee hellhole.”

  “What about your apartment? Should we stop by there first?” Virgil asked.

  “To stop by my place,” James replied as he listened to the most recent explosion in the sky, “would force us to have to deal with downtown Austin, which is currently on fire. So, the sooner we get to your place, get some gear, and head west, the better. Besides, I have most of what I need – a couple of cases of cigarettes and a few t-shirts – in my car. Always come prepared.”

  ***

  A woman that had been shopping at the jewelry store next door ambushed the two soon-to-be-former baristas. Her eyes were watering and her mascara had bled onto the collar of her blouse. She took one look at the flames and burst into a seizure of shivers.

  “Help me! Please! What do we do!?” she screamed, her face writhing with anguish and despair.

  “Virgil, can you handle this?” James asked like a good manager.

  “Sure can, boss!”

  James tossed his cigarette to the curb, spun around, and headed towards the back room to grab his knapsack. The lady stood motionless, her eyes pleading with Virgil for assistance. The wild-eyed barista motioned her forward and began rattling off his Armageddon theory bullshit. By the time Virgil ended his treaty on how to respond to Armageddon, the woman had fainted on the floor with her hand over her head. He shrugged her off and headed into the back room to rendezvous with James.

  “Hey, so the crazy rich lady just passed out, should we just leave her there?” Virgil asked as he pulled his long hair into a manbun.

  “That’s what I’d do. What did you drive today?”

  “My car is broken, so I, um, borrowed my brother's Jeep Cherokee. I would say it is definitely Armageddon equipped. It has a large black grill, those big circular flood lights, or whatever they're called, and it’s a 4x4. It’s a gas guzzler, but it’s heavy duty.”

  Virgil's brother, Cody, had joined the Air Force as soon as he had gotten word that he was going to be drafted. He was currently located in a remote air base in Iceland. The jeep had been left in the care of Virgil with the expectation that he would start it up every now and then.

  “We’ll need cash. What do you have?” James asked.

  “Shit, not a lot. Just paid rent and bought some crazy good weed butter. You?”

  “That wasn’t an answer.”

  “We could hit up an ATM?”

  “Bad idea,” James said, his eyes narrowing in on the store’s safe.

  Don’t do it.

  James reached around for his wallet and opened it. He knew he had rent money in there, was going to pay it in cash tomorrow. He preferred to operate with cash anyway. Made things easy.

  “I’ve got some cash,” he finally said, “and you have a little, right?”

  “About a hundred, plus another hundred in my hallucinogens box.”

  “That’ll work. Your brother won’t mind if we borrow his jeep, will he?”

  “As long as we take care of it.”

  “Good. A jeep is the perfect ride for what we are about to face. Maybe we should bring some coffee, too. I wonder what else we could utilize around here, might as well make the best of our surroundings.”

  Virgil pointed towards a large green container on the ground, near the sink. “Well, we have that forty-five-gallon coffee cambro and we could maybe fill it up with gas, don’t know how we’ll get it from the cambro to the tank though.”

  “Good idea. Let’s get out of here.”

  As the two baristas made their way through the lobby, James stopped in front of the woman who had fainted. “Don’t forget the cambro.”

  “Shit! Yeah, my mind is just trailing right now, I totally need to do some breathing exercises in the car.”

  As Virgil returned to the back room, James glanced down at the gargantuan diamond ring on the fainted woman’s finger.

  He looked to the back room door just to make sure his cover was clear, hesitated, and dropped on his haunches in front of the woman.

  A quick tug and the ring came off.

  James placed it in his shirt pocket just as Virgil stormed out of the backroom with the coffee cambro in hand. “Yo, we should totally bring some of those biscottis in the back. Talk about perfect Armageddon food – those things could last through two nuclear attacks! I’m pretty sure we have a case of five hundred or so...”

  “Good call.” James cleared his throat. “Hurry and get them.” He quickly pocketed the diamond ring.

  The two men, stocked and ready for the worst, left their former lives as faithful baristas behind as they headed towards the Jeep of Destiny.

  ***

  “Meow?” Arjuna said, in hopes of getting his belly scratched.

  Virgil’s roommate frowned at the cat. “Yes, you’re right, we’re in the middle of a crisis.”

  Tony was having the most important conversation of his life with his roommate Virgil’s cat, Arjuna. Their strange relationship was growing more important as the aftermath of the explosion unfolded on the television screens in front of them.

  “You know whose fault all this is, Arjuna? It’s those damn Somali Pirates. If they hadn’t started hijacking cargo ships, which then inspired Russian, Chinese, Iranian, American and Indian navy vessels to position themselves in the Indian Ocean to combat the pirates’ thievery… oh, and then there’s that missile that the United States accidently fired at that Russian ship, well, that was possibly fake news, no telling…I guess that started it and it probably shouldn’t have happened, but then again, the Russians pretty much micromanaged the latest US election and got an orange dotard elected…I mean since when has the United States been an aggressor state?”

  Tony snorted.

  “Not like Canada, I’ll tell you that much! Ever heard of Justin Trudeau? Now there’s a leader you can get behind, and I’m not talking about the fact that he is incredibly handsome, I’m not gay, but yeah, as I’ve said before, I’d be gay for Trudeau. And fuck, Canadians damn sure weren’t in the Indian Ocean!”

  Arjuna started purring.

  “Yes, I have dual citizenship, but in times of national stupidity, I always revert to the country that is the lesser of two evils.” Tony thought about the American president and shook his head. “What in the actual fuck were you people thinking?”

  “Meow?”

  He laughed. “You’re right, just because you were born here doesn’t make you American. Wait, you were born here, weren’t you? Someone get ICE on the phone, Virgil has a Mexican cat!”

  Arjuna’s eyes widened.

  “Kidding, kitty, I wouldn’t turn you in. But seriously, why don’t we give citizenship papers to animals? I mean, we are the more advanced species, are we not? Yet we let your kind just fucking do whatever you’d like. Seems odd, right, kitty?”

  Tony scratched Arjuna’s favorite spot on his lower back. Another televised explosion moved his rant from a political diatribe to the cause of the attack on the city of Austin.

  “Where was I? Ah, yes. Anyways, the Iranians accidentally fired a missile at a Chinese war ship claiming that they had intelligence that it had been hijacked by Somali pirates, which led Iran to attack a Chinese cargo ship heading from India towards Egypt. Of course, this ‘intelligence’ was derived from a boosted GoogleFace post that originated from Crimea, cough, cough, Russia.”

  Arjuna yawned.

  “Somehow, this led to India firing on a Russian ship that had come too close to one of their naval fortresses as they thought it was – you guessed it – Somali pirates, who may or may not have had ties to ISIS, those camel fuckers, and who may or may not have had some funding from a CIA initiative instituted in North Africa to stop th
e spread of Eurozone liberalism.”

  Arjuna buried his head in a fold of fat on Tony’s stomach.

  “And what about that Chinese commander, citing something about getting revenge on the States for recognizing the Dalai Lama as Tibet’s true leader? Well, he fired on an American vessel, which inspired your allies in colonialism, the British, to sail their happy little asses to the Indian Ocean and investigate everything happening there.”

  Tony made an explosive sound as he pounded his fists together. Arjuna looked up and buried his head again.

  “The first two British vessels got sunk immediately by who knows who, which inspired the United States to declare war on – oh this was the shocker, Arjuna – on Iran for firing a missile at a Chinese ship which America felt had encouraged the Chinese to attack them. I think that’s how it went. Anyway, they also declared war on North Korea, because those fuckers have had it coming for a while and their leader looks like a chode. Wait, I’m not finished yet, Arjuna!”

  Arjuna acknowledged Tony with a quick purr but for one reason only – he loved having his side scratched.

  As Tony continued on like a professor with tenure, Arjuna’s attention quickly drifted to Tony’s chubby, sausage-like fingers. Slowly Arjuna’s mind drifted back towards the conversation and he started listening to Tony once again.

  “…Meanwhile, the Somali pirates had sailed off to Bali and were basking in the sun and making love to natives, converting those bitches to Islam and raping and killing anyone who wouldn’t get their Allah on. Damn, religion is fucked!”

  Tony laughed at his own blasphemy.

  “Anyhow, it was during their absence that China declared war on India and Britain, which somehow led to India to declaring war on China, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, which inspired Iraq and Iran to declare war on America, Christendom, India, and Russia! Oh, and the French, because fuck those frogs! Actually, I like French people, but still fuck ‘em!”

  Tony shook his head at one of his screens, which showed a reporter outside downtown Austin in an armored vest and helmet trying to get a scoop from a homeless man pushing a shopping cart.