Fools' Apocalypse

by Anderson Atlas

  After some consideration, Hana decided to answer her phone if Zilla calls again. When tonight’s panic settles down she’ll help Zilla do the same.

  A car careens off the road and smashes into the lobby of a high-rise. A fireball erupts from the car, throwing a woman into the road. Hana swerves around her. It takes every ounce of self-control not to stop and help. She flips channels and find a dispatch signal. They redirect her to the entrance of the Queensboro Bridge. A mandatory government quarantine is in effect. The bridges are being closed so no one can escape the island.

  Someone jumps in front of her cruiser, forcing her to slam on the brakes. Angry people surround her, banging on the windows. When a man in front refuses to move she hits the gas, forcing him out of the way.

  “Go home! Martial law is in effect.” Hana’s voice is projected by speakers under the hood. People scatter. As she turns onto 59th Street and heads to the on-ramp of the Queensboro Bridge, a group of Humvees and two Bradley fighting vehicles force her off the road and pass. They ram cars and anyone that doesn’t move. Hana wonders if this is a dream, but it isn’t.

  She thinks about her family. She’s glad they don’t live in the city. Oh, there’s Mira, her best friend. She would try calling her, but the cell towers are down. The yellow streetlamps illuminate the heads and shoulders of the crowd in front and a thin layer of smoke hovers over the people like a fog.

  Blaring her horn raucously, she drives up the shoulder to the on-ramp and pushes her cruiser past cars and a flood of pedestrians. She arrives at the barricade and pulls in tight against the other two patrol vehicles, leaving her lights flashing. As she gets out of the car, the crowd eyes her with fear and suspicion. It takes her a moment and a few deep breaths to fully regain composure. An older man bumps into her. “What’s going on?”

  “I suggest you find your home, sir. And fast.”

  The man looks at her, his wrinkles are deep and his eyes dark. He backs away as she moves around to the trunk. Ten people stop and gather around. They fire off question after question, stumbling on their words and interrupting Hana’s responses. They quiet down after she pops her trunk and pulls out a M-4.

  It’s a short walk to the barricades. Hana glances over the edge of the bridge. A mass of cars cluster at the lower entrance. Dozens, maybe hundreds of people have gotten out of their cars and tried to cross the bridge on foot but were stopped by the barricades. She continues to the blockade on the upper road, pushing past a dozen people. Officer Denton opens the barricade and lets her through. He’s a very bald man and is wearing his face mask. Two other officers arrive on foot because they couldn’t get their cruisers on the ramp.

  A man in a black jumper and a shaved head approaches. “What the hell is going on?” he yells. More people join him. “You gotsta get out of my way, Po Po!”

  “Go home!” Hana replies.

  “I gotta get to my baby! She’s just over there in Woodside! You can’t keep us here, yo!”

  “Yeah!” echoes another man in the crowd.

  “If I was you, I’d be at home hovering over the TV, watching the Emergency Broadcast System!” Denton yells and coughs.

  “I live in Brooklyn, foo! You won’ let me go home!” the man in a do-rag yells. Someone spits at Hana. She dodges it and slips on her face mask.

  She looks at Denton. He’s flushed and sweating heavily. He coughs again.

  “You okay?” Hana yells.

  Denton is as tough as they come, but he looks like hell. “I’m fine. Get your head in the game.”

  The man in the do-rag continues yelling, but Hana tunes him out. More and more people gather. They’re going to need more cops on the bridge, or they’ll be overrun. The two forces are like tectonic plates pushing on each other. When the pressure releases, it will be the cops that fall.

  Hana listens to the radio chatter from her earpiece, which is linked to the ham radio. Crowds continue growing, fires have been started, car accidents go unchecked, lethal force is ordered for unruly citizens and the marinas are being attacked because the boats are overloaded with people trying to cross the Hudson River to New Jersey. One yacht doesn’t turn back and is sunk by an Apache helicopter.

  Last night Zilla had said he had proof that a terrorist attack will happen soon. The proof was left in a package at Hana’s front door. Inside was a stack of documents labeled classified. She had looked through them all. Just a bunch of official documents with black marks over names and other classified filing numbers and words. Hana inserted a disk into her laptop. It was a surveillance tape of the Secretary of Defense talking with the President in an office that was certainly not the oval office. There were no windows or paintings. Just walls of books. The film was grainy, and the camera angle was from a high point, possibly a vent. The two men were discussing an attack that was supposed to happen in the next few days.

  The Secretary wanted to sell the attack to the public as a Sudanese terrorist plot, though it was really from a homegrown activist group. It would give him the justification to attack Sudan.

  The President nodded. “Do what you need. I will deny this conversation,” he replied. The video ended.

  Hana’s blood boiled. She spent the next hour digging through the documents.

  Some were attack plans on the Sudanese government—the details of a premeditated war. Others were transcripts of the communication between the terrorists and their leaders. It would seem that the real culprits were domestic environmentalists. The last document she saw was a list of global alliances grouped into three factions: allies, enemies, and neutrals.

  Zilla told her the attack was on the water supply. It would be filled with a nonlethal bacteria. It would still prompt the government to quarantine all of Manhattan, causing tens of thousands of deaths.

  Five o’clock comes fast. More and more people pack the Queensboro Bridge on-ramp. They are mad as hell and starting to cohesively get pushier. This is expected. They’re inches from the razor-sharp barbed wire. The crowd facing Hana surges forward. People yell and cry out as they’re shoved into the wire and are cut. Cries for help ring out as blood is spilled. Hana flips the safety off her M-4.

  So far, everything has happened exactly as Zilla predicted. The reports even say the attackers are possibly Sudanese terrorists. Hana glances at Officer Getty. He looks more sick than before. All the guys are getting sick, but not her. Zilla had told her not to shower, use hot water, or drink anything unless it was bottled.

  Finally, she gets the confirmation she’d been waiting for. The radio announces that the CDC has just issued a report stating that the water contains a simple bacterium. It will make people ill, but it is non-lethal.

  Officer Denton shrugs and yells. “What the hell are we doing if the thing isn’t deadly? Why aren’t they lifting the quarantine?”

  A woman gets trampled. She’s screaming as feet smash into her and there’s nothing Hana can do. A man falls on the razor barbed wired and his flesh is sliced open like it was butter. He tries to move but someone behind him is pushing him, using his body to protect themselves.

  “I can’t wait for central. Pull the plug!” Hana yells. No one hears her because of the roar of the noise. She repeats herself loud enough to squelch her tears. “Open the bridge!”

  “What?” Denton shrieks. “We’re ordered to keep this locked up.”

  “I’ll take full responsibility! The quarantine is creating the panic. If people could get out, we would release the tension. This will save lives. Open the bridge! Let everyone go.” She lowers her weapon. The other officers follow her lead. She’s their senior and have never led them astray. Denton pulls the barbed wire away, and the crowd spills past like a river after a heavy rain. Hana is pushed into the huge metal girder. The crowd continues flooding the bridge, thousands of very scared people, none having heard that the bug is harmless.

  After a few minutes the crowd thins. Hana pushes her way back to her cruiser to see if she can get it out of the way. Once inside, she fires up the engi
ne and pulls off the road to let traffic through. People drive across the bridge recklessly. After a few hectic minutes, the crowd finally becomes manageable. Hana relaxes. That’s when she sees it.

  Thick, white smoke arcs into the sky. It must have been a rocket fired from a rooftop nearby. The rocket burns deeper and deeper into the atmosphere and then disappears. A cold sensation infects Hana’s spine. Everything is about to get worse.

  Suddenly, Hana’s cruiser dies. She tries the ignition, nothing. The remaining cars around her stop, too. The traffic lights blink out as well. Hana pulls out her cell phone, dead. The rocket must have been an EMP. All electronics within a certain radius will be useless. She tries the radio. It’s dead. Shit. Zilla never said anything about this. Is this just another thing to blame on the Sudanese rebels?

  Movement to her right catches her attention. An old Chevy truck is unaffected by the EMP and heads right for her! It hits the on-ramp going over forty miles an hour. The truck aims for the gap between the cruiser and a red Honda. Hana grabs her seat belt and clips it just as the truck slams into the passenger side. The force knocks the car off the ramp and tips it over the rail. The cruiser hits hard, nose first. The front crumples, the airbag fails to deploy, but the seat belt cinches tight. The car topples over, smashing the roof down. Hana covers her face as the windows shatter.

  After the car comes to a complete stop, Hana assess her body. She’s not badly hurt so she unclips her seat belt and falls onto the ceiling of the cruiser. Hana has landed atop two other vehicles. She tries the door handles first, but because both sides of the cruiser are smashed in, they won’t budge. There’s no way to squeeze out the front windshield, and the steel cage prevents her from crawling out the back. Hana feels a surge of anxiety so she screams. It makes her head dizzy, so dizzy that she gasps for breath. I’m gonna die. I’m gonna die just like my mother. Hana rips off her shirt and vest so she can breathe.

  #

  When Hana was young her mother drove herself off a bridge and into the river. After her body was recovered they found she had a blood alcohol level above point three. Even if she had survived the crash she was going downhill mentally.

  That first night away from home was the worst for Hana. Abandoned and alone, she felt like discarded trash. Hana tried to picture what it was like in that car. She wanted to be in there with her.

  Hana was sent to a boarding house and would spend the next few years bouncing from foster home to foster home. Most of her foster parents saw her as a pay check that occasionally had to be fed.

  Finally, after she failed her freshman year of high school, she was adopted by Beth and Ricky. Beth was her mom’s cousin, and Ricky was a cop. They were Hana’s salvation, the best mom and dad in the universe. Hana went back to high school, graduated with honors, and with Rick’s help, became one of the best cops in New York. As far as foster kids go, she was one of the lucky ones.

  #

  Ten years on the force prepared Hana for all kinds of situations, but tight spaces always unnerve her. She pulls her necklace out from under her t-shirt. It’s a half dollar–sized wooden circle engraved in Japanese kanji. It means peace and love through truth and strength. Ricky and Beth had given it to her for graduation from the academy. She rubs the necklace between finger and thumb, feeding off its calming effect. Hana tries to kick the door with controlled leg thrusts, but it’s crumpled, inoperable. She will need the Jaws of Life. With her boot, she tests the metal frame that is bent over the back seat. It won’t budge. She can’t squeeze through any opening or force any of the metal.

  A moan comes from a car below. “Hello! I’m here!” Hana yells.

  “I. . . I’m hurt,” sobs a woman from the car underneath me. Her voice is weak.

  “You’re gonna be okay. Stay awake. Keep talking. What’s your name?”

  “Jan. . .ice,” the woman cries then screams, “I’m bleeding! Oh God, what is happening to me!”

  “Stay with me Janice! Help is on the way,” Hana lies. There is no reply. “Janice!” She kicks the ceiling. Tears flood out of her. There is no answer.

  Hana tries not think about how long it will take for help to show up. It might be days. She’s locked in a prison of smashed, useless cars. People all around are yelling and screaming and no one is checking on the overturned police car on the Queensboro Bridge ramp.

  Hours go by. No one comes. Why? Nothing makes sense. Hana likes to think she’s as tough as they come, but she’s not. She sits with her eyes closed and tries to think of other things, but can’t seem to relax. She’s shaking and her blood sugar crashes. Maybe if she eats something. Hana pops open the glove compartment hoping her granola fix would tumble out. Instead, falls a red box. She opens it to find a red syringe and a note:

  Use or die. The New World thanks you. Your service was indispensable.

  ~Zilla.

  Chapter 1.6

  Markus Coburn:

  Seven years before the Extinction Event

  Markus Coburn locks the door to his church and staggers down the steps to the sidewalk. The sun is so bright it hurts his eyes. Jordan stares at him, her judgmental eyes digging under his skin. He knows she cares, maybe too much.

  “It’s fine, J,” Markus tells his secretary.

  “We don’t have to cancel Wednesday service yet. You’re being lazy. We get the word out in the neighborhood on Sunday, go door to door again,” she offers, tryin’ to act cheery.

  “I can’t pay you. We have no volunteers, and Regional has cut our stipend again.” Markus follows the sidewalk to the street then stops and turns. “I don’t like preachin’ to empty pews.” He shrugs. “It’s over.”

  “Mrs. Clarady is there. And old man Rinald.” Jordan’s a young and proud black woman, always wearin’ fashionable pantsuits to church like she’s a lawyer. Good lookin’ but naive.

  Markus chuckles weakly and shake his head. “See you Sunday.”

  On his way home he takes a detour, hoping to get a muffin and a cup of coffee at the café. He crosses the street without looking. A car hits its breaks, blares the horn, but it doesn’t faze him. He hasn’t been feeling good lately. The church sits empty, thugs run the neighborhood and he doesn’t feel God in his life anymore. Does He even exist, or is he just a stupid old man? Everywhere Markus looks there is misery. Even in his pews there are those that Jesus hasn’t helped. Over the past two years, he’s lost over a hundred parishioners in a downward freefall. He’s failing, saving no one.

  Markus heads straight for the café, looking forward to drinking coffee with his friend, one of the few things he still looks forward to. About a year ago he met Ramid, sitting at a table alone, drinking coffee and reading. He was portly, usually wore a full-length white kurta, a flat white cap, and sported a long fuzzy beard. Markus walked up to him and just stared. He had a bad night. Ramid could have been obstinate or rude, or ignored Markus, but instead his smile was welcoming. He motioned for Markus to sit at his table, as though he could read minds.

  “I know the look. I’ve been there myself.” He sipped his coffee confidently. “You are living with the suffering of thousands upon your shoulders. It is common for men like us.”

  “I feel–” Markus looked out at the passing cars. “God has abandoned me, maybe this town.”

  “Have a drink,” Ramid said and waved to the waiter. “I’m Ramid Aheed Mohammed and you are?” Their first conversation was a complete pleasure.

  A whole year had passed in a blink of an eye. They’d become good friends, settled into a routine of having coffee twice a month. Ramid is the Imam who heads up the Islamic Center of New York. He’s a proud Muslim, even in New York, where he gets less than positive attention most of the time. The man has helped Markus through dark times, though he still has not found peace. Ramid, even more so than his wife, understands the pain of running a congregation. It seemed they were cut from the same cloth.

  #

  Markus finds a two top table on the patio and waits for Ramid. He arrives on time, a
s usual. Markus chooses his words carefully. “I’ve decided to leave New York.”

  Ramid frowns. “Let us discuss the meaning of this.” His drink arrives, and he takes out a bag of sugar cubes and places a single cube on his tongue then sips his espresso.

  “I haven’t told my wife yet. When I look out at the streets of New York, I see only a blur of tired, meaningless activity. Empty shells walk around instead of people. They meander, hollow and godless. They’re weak like foil figures. I admit it is possible I’m projecting, peering into a reflection of my soul, seeing as how I haven’t spoken to God in quite some time.”

  “I cannot say that I did not see this coming.” Ramid’s dark eyes are kind, but today they are red in the corners. He has his own stress. Markus immediately feels guilty for dragging his problems out so early in the conversation. Ramid’s phone rings. He stares at the number for a moment and stands. “I will return.” He steps away and answers.

  The wind suddenly whips open his notebook and blows loose papers off the table. Markus collects them quickly and puts them back in the book but not before he notices a fax labeled ‘URGENT.’ It’s hard to ignore a thing like that.

  The fax reads: The Stone of Allah has been written about three times in the European press this past year. This is unacceptable. It seems there are records at the Vatican that we were not aware of. Our budget for this situation has been increased tenfold. I will be arriving in America on the 10th, 2:00PM, flight 2564. You will pick me up at that time.

  ~Aaban Aarif

  The Imam returns to the table, more somber than before. He must have gotten bad news. Markus feels he should explain what happened. “Your papers blew off the table. I collected them for you. I think I got them all.” He wasn’t sure if he should say anything about the message, but did. “What is the Stone of Allah?”