Return from the Apocalypse

by Blake Pitcher

  Inside, shadowed figures scramble in the dark. Some are Penitents, fleeing for their quarters. Others are Enlisted, halted in confusion between the attack from the valley and the sudden explosion from the main entrance. Roger bites his lip and makes decisions quickly.

  Was that a Penitent in his path? Innocents would die. They always did.

  The main complex is before him. Pause, shoot, and run.

  Keep moving. Toward the complex.

  Toward Esther.

  A tall, familiar figure approaches in the haze of smoke and torchlight. Her pace is steady and determined as she draws her pistol.

  Zulé.

  Her aim would be true. Roger releases a spastic spray of fire, but she doesn’t flinch. There would be a single shot, and that would be it. He would be killed in cold efficiency.

  From behind her, a shorter figure takes her side. A boy. My son. Roger knows in the innermost of his being. He drops his rifle in reflex and raises his hands in the air.

  He waits for the inevitable.

  But the inevitable does not come, yet.

  Zulé keeps her aim steady. “Move an inch and I’ll drop you six feet,” she says calmly.

  “Just do it,” Roger says. “End it.” All gunfire has stopped, and the distant shouts are subsiding. They must have gotten Ernesto and Joe. It was over.

  “It won’t be that easy,” Zulé says.

  From the corner of his eye Roger sees a form pull up by a nearby outbuilding. Ernesto. He is close, too close, Roger thinks. Ernesto lifts up his rifle, what Roger thinks of as an Elephant Gun because he can never remember its name. Surely the large-caliber shot would take out both Zulé and the boy.

  Ernesto would make sure of it.

  “Don’t shoot,” Roger cries out. “My son.”

  Zulé holds her aim. But the boy turns and sees Ernesto, who dives toward the outbuilding as the cherry-stocked shotgun sounds. Ernesto falls abruptly into the ground, hand twitching at his weapon. An Enlisted runs up and adds a bullet to his head.

  It was over.

  Chapter 28: Savior

  If only I could talk to you. Spit out my gag. Tell you.

  The boy is frozen in a white-knuckled grasping of the cell’s metal bars as he stares at Roger, who lies bound tightly on the floor. The ringing in his ears has lessened, but not subsided. Inside himself he feels a terrible weight of failure.

  It is just the boy in the room. If I could just reason with him…

  However, the boy’s cold, anger-filled stare tells him this would not be effective.

  My son. The boy from the Ashland basement.

  Time was running out. Zulé would return.

  As if summoned by the very thought, the door to the jail swings open and Zulé strides forth, only she is insignificant, a distant thought overwhelmed by the power of the present.

  Esther.

  Esther is here.

  Culmination of a thousand miles times a thousand miles. Her spirit is unchanged, a halo that surrounds her, repelling the weight of the present. Roger savors the wonderful, terrible moment, bound on the floor, floating above the helplessness and the futility.

  Esther is crying out, but she does not see him, yet. She is embracing the boy, tears wetting her cheeks. In the moment, Roger comes to the realization that this is his family, this was his wife, and this was his own son. It was clear as day.

  And then Esther sees him, and the recognition lights her face, but Zulé cuts into Roger’s altered reality like a knife.

  “We’re safe now.” Zulé’s voice slices through sentimentality as she rests the long fingers of her hand on Mackenzie’s shoulder. “The bad guys have lost.”

  Roger twists his head up, seeing the boy’s shotgun leaning against the wall. If only the kid would take the thing and turn it on Zulé. He sees the image of Ernesto collapsing and shudders.

  “It’s important to have justice, even in these times,” Zulé says. “Tomorrow this liar, murderer and rapist will stand trial for his crimes.”

  Esther steps up to the cell. “Roger, I—”

  “Stand back,” Zulé says. “Or else.”

  Esther steps back, takes Mackenzie’s gently shaking hand.

  “I won’t have our prisoner further poison your mind. You must leave. You may take Mack with you, for now.”

  “I want to stay,” Mack says resolutely. “To guard him.”

  Zulé smiles like an alligator. “You’re not too tired?”

  “No.”

  “Alright then. The guards will be outside if you need them. If you have to shoot him, well, I understand.”

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  Esther stares into the mirror above the dresser in her room. Stares through it. Through the wall and into the eternal. The necklace Mackenzie gave her back in the cold, Ashland basement rests coiled on the dresser-top. She draws it around her neck, letting the gaudy, fake diamonds sit against the bare skin of her chest where she has unbuttoned her nightshirt one more button.

  The turquoise hairpin also waits on the dresser-top, and she slides it into her hair. She stares at her own eyes in the mirror. Through her eyes. They are the eyes of someone else.

  The room is oppressive, Esther tells herself, so she wanders the hallways of the complex, chest constricting and breathing fast. She cared for Roger, but her son… protecting him was foremost in her mind. If she protested Zulé’s actions it would exacerbate the situation. Roger would still die, and perhaps she with him.

  As if that weren’t happening anyway, one of these desert days.

  Mackenzie was not lost yet, could not be lost. His impressionable mind had been strongly imprinted, but he was still there. Whatever she did, or did not do, it must be in the best interests of him.

  Lost in her thoughts and drifting footsteps, she looks up to find herself outside Maddox’s door. Directions of the subconscious mind. She hesitates, suddenly aware of her body, her nightshirt and tangled night hair. She is barefoot, and her thighs are showing.

  She gently knocks.

  And waits.

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  The boy is staunch, the boy is unflinching. I should enjoy this, Roger thinks. My last and only times with my son. If he could only talk to him, but the cloth stuffed in his mouth prevents him. His hands and feet have since gone numb from being bound. Is death a numbness, a lack of feeling? He would know soon enough.

  The door to the jail opens again, this time with Enlisted who drag in Joe Mercusio by the underarms. His face is bruised, but he seems intact. He is roughly deposited in the cell beside Roger’s where the Enlisted bind and gag him.

  So that was it. Unless Crimhauser came riding in on his mule, guns blazing. Right.

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  The bed is a cold place. Esther touches the bristle of Maddox’s arm beside her, tracing her finger along his leathery skin. “I… there’s something difficult for me to ask.”

  “Yes?”

  “Roger.”

  The bed seems even colder.

  “What about him?” Maddox asks.

  “What will happen to him?”

  “He will be judged for his actions.”

  “I understand.” Esther hesitates. “I wish I could say some last words to him, before then. To help me accept.”

  “Perhaps it could be arranged,” Maddox says absently.

  “I don’t want to upset Zulé… she said—”

  “Zulé has nothing to do with this.” Maddox turns in the bed, facing Esther. “You can have your last words. Just make them quick. And I will be there, of course.”

  “Thank you.”

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  The stars are fading as Maddox escorts Esther to the jail. The entrance is without sentry, but inside an Enlisted stands guard over the cells. Esther’s heart flutters in brief despair until her eye finds Mackenzie, sprawled out on a wooden bench across the room. The boy has succumbed to exhaustion and sleeps heavily, his small chest rising and falling rhythmically. Esther wants to go to him, em
brace him, perhaps draw a blanket over his body, if she had one, but the task at hand necessitates otherwise.

  The guard stands at attention as Maddox approaches.

  “Open the cell, and ungag the prisoner.” Maddox commands.

  The guard shifts nervously. “Zulé said the prisoners weren’t to be disturbed.”

  Maddox’s eyes are slate knives. “Reconsider.”

  The guard visibly trembles, torn between Maddox’s orders and the certain wrath Zulé would unleash if she were to find orders were not followed.

  “Are you deaf?” Maddox says coldly. “Leave my sight.”

  The guard swallows. “But, Zulé...”

  “Leave!”

  The ashen-faced guard cowers and heads for the door.

  Maddox selects a key from many on a ring. “Make it quick,” he says, inserting the key into the lock. “Best to rip the bandage off quickly.”

  Esther stands silently behind him. She has drawn the jeweled hairpin from her hair.

  The lock clicks, and she drives the hairpin with all of her strength into the side of the White Texan’s neck. His reaction is instant; his right hand grabs for the pin, his left crosses for his faithful knife at his side. But it is gone. Esther has slipped it from its sheath and drives it repeatedly into the softness of his side, gently swelled from the lazy days of eating richly at the ranch. He draws out the pin from his neck, and more blood releases with it. He turns halfway, but is already dropping to his knees, the blade of his knife entering and leaving his body repeatedly, increasingly indiscriminate as it punctures his abdomen, back and arms.

  Esther stabs, stabs, stabs, until suddenly she is still. Maddox lies on his face in his pooling blood. His blood is on her hands, her face, spattered over her chest and fake diamond necklace.

  Hypnotically, she rises back to her feet. Sees Mackenzie, still sound asleep. Sees Roger squirming in the cell.

  She opens the door, and removes his gag. Uses the bloodied blade to cut through his bonds.

  There is no time to say the things. There are no things to say.

  “What do we do?” Esther whispers.

  “We escape,” Roger says.

  “Mackenzie, I’m afraid he won’t come…”

  “We’ll do what we have to.”

  Roger struggles to his feet, limps to Joe’s cell and releases him.

  Joe spits out his gag. “I told you I wanted to kill that son of a bitch.”

  “Sorry.”

  Roger stands over the sleeping boy. “I hate to do this kid.” He stuffs a gag in the boy’s mouth as Joe holds him down. The boy wakes, struggles, looks to his mother who puts her hand to her lips. “It’s okay, Li’l Mack.” Roger uses the rope cut from his bonds to tie the kid’s hands and legs.

  “How’re you going to carry him?” Joe asks. “You can barely walk.”

  “The blood’s finding my feet. I’ll make it work.”

  Outside the jail the area is quiet. The stars are almost completely dissipated now, ready to give way to the sunrise. Ernesto’s body still lies where he fell, though his gun has been taken from his corpse.

  “She’s going to come for us, you know.” Joe says. “She’ll never stop.”

  “It is what it is.”

  Joe kneels by Ernesto’s body. He pulls a small, green cylinder from his belt. “Look what got left behind.” He looks back toward the jail. “You took my kill. So I’m going to claim my own.”

  “We’ve got to move, daytime is coming. We can still slip away.”

  “I’m staying. Right back there in that cell. And when she comes in I’m gonna get to see the look on her face when she sees you’re gone. Sees her White Texan daddy all done and killed. And then, well, we’ll go out with a bang.” Joe holds up the grenade.

  “Just come with us,” Roger says.

  “Tired of walking. She won’t be following you when I’m done.”

  Roger shifts the weight of the boy on his shoulders, and steps forward. Esther supports him. It was time to leave.

  Chapter 29: Into the Wasteland

  Stranger Sun rises in full glory, her twisted rays bathing the desert in orange and pink. Roger and Esther have almost made it to the knoll with their obstinate burden. The complex is distant and seemingly harmless, tinted with the color of the sunrise that reigns above it.

  They have covered the distance in silence, words being inadequate and unnecessary. Esther in her bare feet padding against cool sand, Roger fighting the numbness in his limbs.

  A muted explosion sounds; Roger pauses and looks back, sees Zulé in his mind, entering the jail, exploding into myriad pieces after Joe pulls the pin. So it was done.

  Crimhauser is waiting on the hidden side of the knoll, mule packed and horses ready.

  “It’s just us,” Roger says.

  “I figured.” Crimhauser says. “A pleasure to meet you my lady,” he says, grasping Esther’s hand, stained with Maddox’s blood. “Another item to pack on the mule?” He asks with a nod to Mackenzie slung over Roger’s shoulders.

  “A lamb for the farm,” Roger says.

  “Where to? North?”

  “Into the Wasteland,” Roger says.

  Crimhauser takes Ernesto’s horse and leads the mule. Esther rides behind Roger, slipping her arms around his waist.

  The future would be something.

  {}{}{}{}{}{}{}{}

  Jodi's Poem

  In the cabin by the blue tin cup

  Jodi tends the fire

  While Calluna walks the woodland path

  With a shy laugh and a sharp eye

  You won't escape her grasp

  But she'll let you go and laugh

  In the woods with the wet drift snow

  Jodi tends the kettle

  Fine hands made rough

  by the strangeness of the sun

  With a gleam in her eye

  and a joy in her heart

  She'll welcome you with a call

  and chokecherry wine

  In the hour of the gloaming

  Under the winter heavy pines

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  Also by Blake Pitcher

  Letters from the Apocalypse

  Cigarette Angel & Other Stories

  Six Deep at The Sink

  Connect

  Web: writing.blakepitcher.com

  Facebook: Blake Pitcher Writes

  Twitter: @blake_p