Terminus_The End of The World As We Know It

by Lee Ragans

  The room inside was dark. David keyed the flashlight on his pistol and shined it in the room. We could see nothing moving, and we went in pulling the door behind us. As soon as the door closed red lights came on.

  “Red to keep our night vision,” Josh said for my benefit. He was thoughtful, or maybe he saw the question on my face.

  I expected to see something like a James Bond movie, or maybe lines of guns. It was just a storeroom with locked boxes.

  Josh keyed in his code on a keypad between a set of 6 lockboxes. One of them opened revealing a single key on a keychain. David shined his pistols flashlight on it revealing the keychain was green. Not the gray I saw in the red lights.

  They shined the flashlight around on keys and started unlocking thing that the green key could unlock.

  “Bingo!” Josh called out. He was grabbing boxes of ammo for his Barrett. It was highly unlikely we would ever find more. Not many people used 50 caliber rifles.

  I looked through all the things that the key opened, and I grabbed a small .380 and a few boxes of ammo. Dropping them into my backpack over my shoulder I kept looking.

  “Got it,” David said. He was holding what looked like a big cell phone. It was, I assumed the satellite radio. He pulled out a hand crank charger and put both in his bag.

  They walked through the rest of the gear and handed me a few things. Most of which I could not figure out why we needed. The medical kit made sense. When Josh handed me a box of painkillers, I was unsure, but the bag of weed made perfect sense. The CIA had this place stocked with everything you might need to do bad things.

  They looked around one more time and then said, “Close everything up.” I assumed for my benefit. I helped to close all the cabinets. As they hung the key up and locked the cabinet back, I asked, “So why are we locking it up?”

  “If anyone else comes in they may not have access to our stuff.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “It is part security, and part courtesy,” David answered.

  “So there could be other spooks using this?”

  “Maybe. I doubt it, but maybe. Also, the cache will have an uplink telling the status of the stores here. If we call in and have not followed protocol, it will be noticed. They need to know are still doing things by the book.” David looked concerned as he finished saying that.

  We made the crossing back zig-zagging a bit to dodge some clusters of the dead. I realized what great shape I was in now. I was not even breaking a sweat after jogging with the gear on my back.

  The marker was fine, so we went inside and resecured the barricade from the other side. No one was sneaking in on us. The hike up the staircase made me break a sweat, but it made then boys breath heavy too, so I felt good.

  We dropped out gear, and David pulled out the satellite phone. He powered it on, and before putting in any codes, he said, “I am going send it without location information.”

  Josh nodded.

  I had to ask, “Why?”

  “If they give us orders we don’t like or can’t do we can ignore them.”

  “Wait. What kind of orders could they give you? What if they ordered you to kill me. Would you?”

  With a serious look, David said, “Not a chance in hell. I would hunt them down and kill them for daring to ask.”

  “Ditto,” Josh added.

  David keyed in something and waited.

  The phone chirped back.

  “There is someone out there with command codes.”

  “Where are they?” I asked.

  David smiled, “They are not saying.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Josh said, “It means they are smart. And they think like we are. They don’t want to be ordered into a death trap.”

  “They say they are safe and sound, but ignorant.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means don’t ask for help or information. They are just as fucked up as we are.”

  “I am asking how many other teams are out there.”

  David waited for the reply, “They say we are the 3rd to check in. They followed up with 3rd in the world.”

  “Wait, that means there are only 4 teams of people using these to check-in. So if anyone were going to survive this crap, it would be Delta force CIA spooks like you. And in the whole fucking world, there are only 2 other teams.”

  “You got that about right,” Josh said.

  “The world is well and truly fucked.”

  “You knew that already,” David said.

  “I had hopes. They were slight, but they were there.”

  “Well, they are not trying to force us to come in. That is good.” Josh interrupted my rant with his non-sequitur.

  “So what the fuck do we do now?”

  “I think we go on living,” David said.

  “I am sorry to be a fucking girl here, but I really want to freak the fuck out now.”

  And with that, Josh pulled the back off week and a pipe out of his bag. Packing it expertly he lit the pipe with a puff and handed it to me.

  I thought for a long moment, and I hit the lighter to the pipe and took a puff. He was right. This was good stuff. I had not had anything that strong since prison. And in a few minutes, I did not give a shit about the world. I finished the bowl while David and Josh tried to for out what everything meant.

  I was really relaxed when the laid out the new gear they gathered. I fell asleep. One of my husbands carried me to the bed and tucked me in. I wanted to be pissed that their reaction to my being upset was to drug me and put me to bed, but it was really the best of a bad situation.

  I woke to being the stuffing in the Oreo that was out marital bed. It meant they were not worried anymore. I crawled out of bed with a huge case of the munchies. I never remembered having the munchies the next day, but who knew anymore. I looked at the counter and grabbed a can of Pringles. I walked up the roof and started the grill burner to make coffee in the old-fashioned percolator.

  Josh was first to join me when the coffee was ready.

  “Sorry to do that last night.”

  “Don’t be. It was the right thing to do. I was going to lose my shit. You guessed right.”

  “I have never seen you that upset.”

  “You have not known me that long.”

  “No. I have seen you deal with some shit. But you were always calm. Watching you let night reminded me of how you thought the world worked. You were a normal. We used to makes jokes about you guys.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You think that you paid your taxes, went to work and voted and everything just worked.”

  “It really did.”

  “No. You thought it did. David and I killed more than a few businessmen, and politicians to make things work. Some you hear of, some not.”

  “I really don’t get what you mean.”

  “So imagine some guy invents a solar panel that works really well and is cheap and easy to make. The guy plans to give it away and then people who have an interest in oil want him to stop. They offer to buy it. Make him richer than he could imagine. He says no way. He releases the plans online. Some spooks at the NSA scramble his posts and hide it from most of the world. So now that guy and a few other people he emailed his plans to need to never do that again. That is when they send people like David and me.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Yeah, oh shit.”

  Josh looked out at the morning fog lifting and said, “David and I have killed a lot of people. Some who deserved it. Many who didn’t. What it taught me was the world was a lie. I see this as a reasonable reaction to the facade we had.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “That is good. You were not supposed to. The only reason I tell you now is there is no world left to keep the secrets for.”

  David was standing in the door. He poured a cup of coffee and took a seat.

  “I know something about the unfairness. Technically I think I violated parole.”

&nb
sp; We all started to laugh. It was a good honest laugh.

  David said, “Oh shit. The two professional killers are with a parole violator. We could get in trouble.”

  We drank our coffee and looked toward the dome in the distance. We all heard the gunshots at the same time. But they were so far away there was nothing to do. They were on the other side of the dome. Near the world congress center. I think that is what it was called.

  We watched and listened. It stopped.

  “Those were US army. Sounds like a 223.” Josh said.

  “So there are soldiers out there?”

  “Probably soldiers weapons. There was probably an evacuation site there at the dome. That is the usual plan for cities like this. There may be a few folks over there.” David said as if he had seen it all happen.

  “I have no urge to find out.” I have no idea why it came out of my mouth. I meant it though. Just no urge to find other people and pretend again. I could sit and go an entire day without talking with my boys. No pretense needed.

  We had food for weeks, and there were plenty of places around here to look for more. It was time to take stock of the situation and see what happened.

  Josh said, “We need to go meet the neighbors at the hotel. This place is defensible, but those 4 are putting on weight. We need to make friends.”

  I assumed David was nodding. It was dark. He said, “Yep.”

  We packed for the road and then took the time to hide all of our other supplies we gathered here behind access panels. Making our own secret cache. If people moved in, they would find it, but just passing through they would think it had already been looted and move on. We put out some empty cans and made a general mess of the area.

  Heading South and then back around we ran into a well-sized horde. We had seen larger, but with them being funneled through the streets of a major city they were positively terrifying. If we tripped just got slow, it would be the end of us.

  The front of the horde was constantly being run over and walked over. Presumably, they got up at some point. It occurred to me that given enough time the horde would destroy itself or at least make itself very slow.

  10

  We got some good distance ahead of the horde and then called up the hotel.

  I yelled out, “We can hear the generators. There is a horde coming. Can we get some help?”

  A nice-looking man, maybe 30ish looked down from the balcony and led us to the entrance. He opened the elevator door, and we followed him up the shaft up the ladder. It was not conducive to long-term living. At some point, you would fuck up and slip, but the elevator shaft meant they were never going to be surprised.

  The poor fella was so distracted by my boobs that he literally stammered. I had spent days naked with the boys, and they hardly noticed anymore. I have to admit it was nice to get a reaction. The girl was upset. She did not like competition and was nervous about me. It was obvious to me that she got the guy because she was the only one there, at least that is what she thought. Obviously, this guy loved her. He kept looking at her when trying to ignore my boobs.

  We met them all. One guy was really cute and worked out a lot. He was really cut and worked out constantly. Said he had to for diabetes.

  The girl and I made dinner. They had a lot of food. It as in large packages. Mostly commercial stuff. So they had access to the hotel’s food. They did not reveal it. I felt good that they were keeping that to themselves. IT meant they were not stupid and might just survive.

  They offered us rooms, we took just one. They were surprised. The girl noticed out wedding rings but did not ask. I did not volunteer. We enjoyed the shower, but we had one better just 2 blocks away. We did not let on.

  At one point the boys were helping gather fuel, and I was left alone with the workout king. He was stealing glances at my body every chance he got. So I asked, “So he got the girl and you are left out.”

  “Well, I get to watch them. With the diabetes and a few bad episodes, I am really not up for anything.”

  “I am sorry to hear that. All of it.”

  “So are you with one of the soldiers?”

  “I am with both of them. We are married.”

  “Oh…”

  He was trying to stare through my pants.

  “Look. I would let you have a go, but it would not be fair to my husbands.”

  “I could not anyway, but thank you for the offer.”

  That night David asked if I had jumped the exercisers bones while they were out. I was shocked.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I am married.”

  “Sure, but that fella is going be dead soon, and you are the hottest piece of ass he will see before he dies.”

  “Thank you, but I did not think we had that kind of relationship. So, would you fuck some girl who offered it?”

  “Depends. Are you going to as well?”

  I was silent. He continued, “Look, there are a lot more males alive than females. I get it… they are going to be sniffing around my wife.”

  Josh let out, “My wife too…”

  We laughed.

  “So are you saying you don’t care?”

  “No. Just not going to be angry if you do.”

  “Well, he can’t get it up from diabetes.”

  “So you offered?”

  “No, he was busing trying to stare through my clothes, and I called him out on it. He let me know.”

  “What about the girl. She is cute. Big boobs.” I said. Pointing to mine. Mine had been bigger, but losing body fat meant losing boobs. Fortunately, my husbands were not boob men. Not that they had a choice.

  “Yeah, she’s got a little meat on her bones,” David said.

  “More cushion for the pushing.” Josh tossed in.

  “I suppose it has been easy for us to not deal with the people up to now. There have been none. This is good.” I said.

  11

  We left the hotel a week later. I told them we were going to New York. I have no idea why I lied. New York and Philadelphia might as well have been on another planet. Walking into cities with the densest population was just suicide.

  Instead of heading back to the post office for our bicycles we went to the Georgia Tech campus. It took us all of 10 minutes to find 3 simple bicycles that we could use.

  David tapped on the sat phone. I asked what he was doing. His reply was completely a mystery to me, “Looking for a ride.”

  We headed North up I75. I thought we should have to go I85 to go over to the East coast, but David had a plan. I wished he would share it, but I had gotten used to not hearing the plan until I needed to know.

  By early evening we were dodging a small horde and entering the Lockheed Martin plant. The gates were gone, and there was no activity from the attached airfare base. We made a quick camp on top of a truck.

  In the morning David said, “We need to get the jet fuel out of this thing and load it with diesel.”

  “This is a fuel truck?”

  “Yep. Called a HEMTT. Pronounced, HE Mat. No idea what the fuck that stands for.”

  “Why empty it?”

  “It can’t burn jet fuel. It can burn diesel.”

  I asked what I found out was the dumbest question in history, “Where are the keys?” I had no idea that the Army did not have keys for the ignition of vehicles. They had locks on steering wheels, but they were only used when vehicles were parked in a motor pool. It made sense. If the guy with the keys was killed, the vehicles were useless.

  I drove the tanker to a hill and slanted it with the rear downward. We opened the valves and let the jet fuel run off down a small hill.

  Josh just said, “No smoking.”

  I was not sure if he was joking or serious. I think it was just an observation. They each said things that a normal human should know. They were just reminders to do the right thing. It aggravated the shit out of me. It was really the only annoying thing they did. I suppose I could live with it.

  It
took the majority of the day to find a diesel fuel tank with fuel. It had an emergency hand crank in a locked box, and the task of filling the HEMTT with fuel from the tank began. We took turns cranking. I watched the flow and did the numbers. It was going to take us a day of cranking to make it all transfer. And based on eyeball measurement, the HEMAT fuel tank was twice the size. So it would talk all of it easily.