Redneck Apocalypse Special Edition Box Set

by eden Hudson

  I’ve never been divorced, so it might be naïve for me to say that our breakup felt like one, but it did. Even though we only dated for two years in high school, it felt like Shannon and I had been together forever, one unit, and then it was over and I had to find a way to get her out of me, get back to being a whole person by myself. The Colters had become my other family. Charlotte felt like my little sister. I respected Henry like my own father. Then Shannon and I broke up and suddenly I hadn’t just lost her, I’d lost her family, too.

  At first I tried. I kept an eye on Charlotte at school. I went over to help Henry with the chores on weekends. But every time I realized they were thinking about her and stopping themselves from saying anything for my sake, it felt like I had internal bleeding.

  Then Charlotte started skipping school. One week she missed three days in a row. When she showed up on Thursday, I went down to the junior high lockers and asked her if Henry knew.

  “Screw off, Danny,” Charlotte said, pushing around me so she could put her books away.

  “You can’t just skip school and expect him not to find out,” I said.

  “What, are you going to tell on me?”

  “No, but the school—”

  “Butt out.”

  “Look—”

  “No, Danny, you look,” Charlotte yelled. “You broke up with her. That means you don’t get to follow me around and act like you give a crap because everyone knows you don’t.”

  After that, I stopped trying. The Colters didn’t want me around and it was immature to want to be around them so that I could hang onto some shred of Shannon and me.

  Five years and I almost had her out of my head. I can listen to music again. Not the radio, but CDs and tapes. I don’t get this black sickness in my heart every time I see Shannon on a magazine cover or hear someone talking about the Lost Derringers. I haven’t had a dream about her in forever.

  My coffee is cold. I don’t think I touched it the whole time she was here. When the waiter comes by, I let him fill it back up. Then I get my notes and Bible back out and try to work on my thesis again. Literal demons versus demons of the flesh. Weaknesses that leave humans unable to fight the forces of Hell alone. Literal fighting versus metaphorical fighting.

  Did I really tell Shannon yes on the concert?

  The coffee shop door opens. It’s Noah. He doesn’t come all the way in, just looks around. When he sees me, he says, “Let’s go, Country!”

  Shannon

  We’re halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge before Tiffani says anything.

  “A preacher?”

  “Not that much to pick from in Shit Creek, Missouri,” I lie, reaching for another pointless cigarette. I’m shaking so bad now that I have to flick the lighter back on three times before I hit the end of the cigarette with the flame. When it’s lit, I hold it cherry-up and blow the smoke down with an enigmatic look on my face. “Who am I?”

  Tiffani laughs. She gets the Smoking Man reference, if not from my arguable talent for impressions, then from the number of times I’ve repeated it.

  We start walking again.

  “Mulder would’ve spray-painted a huge X on that coffee shop,” I say.

  Tiffani asks, “Because you saw someone you knew?”

  Because I saw someone who I used to be sure loved me. Maybe it was some kind of trap, but it definitely wasn’t a coincidence.

  Something overhead catches my eye. A flutter of black wings near the top of the pylon.

  “Tiff,” I whisper.

  She takes a deep breath through her nose and looks at exactly the spot where I saw it go.

  “I smell it,” she says. She starts pulling me toward the Manhattan side of the bridge. “It’s the same one. Come on.”

  But I can’t move. Can’t breathe. When the angel doesn’t show itself again immediately, I stop being able to think about anything but panic attacks. I’m going to have a panic attack. I’m going to feel death squeezing my heart, feel Hell breathing on my face. Oh God, I can’t do this. Just make it stop, make it go away, get me away from here.

  As usual, God doesn’t do anything, but Tiffani does. She picks me up like I don’t weigh anything, and without even looking around to see if anyone is watching, she hops up on the railing and jumps down to the Manhattan-bound roadway of the bridge. A cab screeches and swerves around us, laying on the horn. Another cab, a garbage truck, and then a cop car.

  The red and blue lights flicker and the cop hits the siren.

  That’s when I realize I’m going to miss that damn interview. Corey’s going to have a nuclear-weapons-grade conniption fit.

  Danny

  Something crunches underneath me. It sounds like Styrofoam and smells like rotten spaghetti sauce with too much garlic.

  I turn over. After a few seconds, I remember to open my eyes.

  Why am I lying in a pile of wet trash bags?

  A gunshot. Something roars.

  Oh, right. The seeker.

  “Hey, Country,” Noah yells. “Anytime you want to quit dreaming and give me a hand—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” I fight my way through the trash bags until I can stand. Look around for my sword. It’s hilt-deep in the overflowing dumpster.

  Then I catch sight of the little girl that the seeker is possessing. She picks Noah up and throws him. He hits the ground and rolls a couple times.

  Noah was a linebacker for U of Wisconsin until he blew out his knee and transferred to seminary. He’s big and black and built like a tank. Seeing the little blonde girl toss him like a rag doll, then prowl down the alley after him, eye sockets full of teeth snarling, is enough of a shock to kick my mind back into gear.

  I grab the lip of the dumpster, haul myself up, and rip my sword out of the trash. Jump back down and run after Noah and the seeker.

  The seeker hits me head-on. We smash into the restaurant wall hard enough to shake the place on its foundation. My vision fades, but comes back just shy of losing consciousness. The seeker drags my head down, tooth-filled sockets snapping, ready to tear my brain out through my eyes.

  Adrenaline slows time down. I feel the raindrops. See them gluing the seeker-possessed girl’s blonde hair to her forehead and cheeks. I can’t believe I dropped my sword again.

  Noah’s yelling into his walkie-talkie as he half-runs, half-limps up the alley toward us—“Where’s that shock and awe, Clarion?”

  I can’t hear Clare’s answer because Noah pulls his Glock and fires off three rounds point-blank at the back of the seeker’s head. The seeker growls. Drops me and swings a tiny fist at Noah. He goes flying again.

  I get my legs under me. Yank the knife out of my ankle-strap.

  The alley strobes black and white. I hear the first millisecond of the flash-bang, then my ears are ringing and I can only feel the rest of the sound.

  In full coyote form, Clare crashes into the seeker from behind. They tumble end over end, Clare’s jaws locked onto its shoulder.

  I sprint after them. Stab my knife into the back of the seeker’s neck. It goes limp immediately.

  Clare twists and turns his head and pushes on the seeker’s shoulder with a forepaw until he can get his teeth detached from the meat. When he shifts back into human form, I have to look somewhere else. The way his bones slide and reform make me sick to my stomach.

  Noah’s limping over to us, saying something. I point at my ear and shake my head. That high-pitched whine is fading, but it’s still muffling everything. I give Clare a hand up. Whatever Noah said sets Clare off. Must’ve been something about how long it took Clare to throw the flash-bang. Through the whine, I can hear Clare’s voice getting louder. Saying that if we hadn’t just fought that seeker halfway across Manhattan—

  “—I wouldn’t have had to keep moving the perimeter—”

  “Halfway?” Noah yells. “We didn’t even pass Canal Street.”

  “—or did you want to be the guy explaining to the cops why three big dudes were kicking the crap out of a little girl?”r />
  I laugh at that. After a couple seconds, Noah and Clarion join in. Post-battle stress. Seekers aren’t anything to joke about, but laughing is the easiest way to deal. None of us are seriously injured, none of us are brain-dead, and I know we’re all thanking God for that, especially considering how many times I screwed up tonight.

  When the laughter wears off, Noah grabs my shoulder and Clare’s and says a prayer that ends with “And for all our sakes, Lord, please give your country boy some more focus.”

  “Amen to that,” I say.

  Then it’s clean-up time. I dig my sword out of the trash heap again and try to wipe it off with some splotchy napkins before I slide it into the concealed sheath on my back. Clare shoves the spent flash-bang down into the dumpster and throws a couple garbage bags on top of it. Noah kneels by the seeker and pulls my knife out of its spine right before he says, “In the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior, I banish you from this earth.”

  A hot, tornado-force wind sweeps through the alley. Lightning strikes the little girl’s body. I cover my ears, trying to block out the seeker’s scream. It sounds just like a little girl being cast into the Lake of Fire and tortured for all eternity. I know only a few seconds are passing, but it feels much, much longer.

  Finally, the wind dies down and the alley goes dark again.

  The little girl’s eyes open—brown human eyes, not sockets full of razor-sharp teeth. The seeker is gone.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. “Do you know where you live?”

  She doesn’t answer. Her pupils are dilated.

  “She’s in shock,” Noah says. “We can’t just let her wander off.”

  “There was a police station a couple blocks back,” Clare says.

  We backtrack and find it. Since Clare is the least dirty and he doesn’t look too beat-up, he takes her in. Noah sits on the steps and rubs his bad knee. I ease down beside him, trying not to jostle my brain any more than necessary. Now that the adrenaline’s wearing off, the knot on the back of my head is throbbing.

  “So, what now?” Noah asks me. “Pack it in for the night?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m really feeling that brick wall.”

  “All right, let’s call it—” He points up. “—on account of rain.”

  “Wow,” I say, massaging my temples. “That one actually, physically hurt.”

  “You know, sarcasm is the lazy man’s comedy.”

  “It wasn’t sarcasm. It was Proverbs 27:6.”

  “Whatever,” he says. “You can knock my jokes when you pull the log out of your own sense of humor.”

  We settle down and sit quiet for a while, watching people pass. I check my watch. Five after midnight. It’s strange to think there was a time when I would’ve been four hours dead to the world by now.

  “Man, where was your head tonight?” Noah asks.

  I take a long breath and blow it out. “Ever heard of the Lost Derringers?”

  He shoots me a look.

  “Naw,” he drawls. “I live in a vacuum. I’m deaf, dumb, and blind.”

  “Dumb, anyway,” I say. “Want to go to their concert tomorrow night?”

  After he finally quits ragging on me for the way I say concert with the emphasis on both syllables, Noah asks, “At Madison Square Garden? How did you get tickets? Radio says it’s been sold out forever.”

  I have to think about how to explain this. Noah and I met freshman year at seminary while I was still in the quicksand depression of trying to get over Shannon, so he knows more about our breakup than I’ve told anyone. But that still isn’t much.

  “I ran into my ex-girlfriend earlier and—”

  “Shannon? Here in the city?”

  “Yeah. What’re the odds?”

  “Insane,” Noah says. “If you’re all right, you should think about buying a lottery ticket.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, shrugging. “It was like we were friends or something. And anyway, she’s in the band, so—”

  “Whoa, back up just a minute there, son,” he says. “When you say ‘the band,’ you mean—”

  “The Lost Derringers.”

  “You’re telling me Shannon—your Shannon—is Shannon Colter from the Lost Derringers?”

  A lot of replies jump to mind when he says that. Mostly bitter and sarcastic, like how she hasn’t been my Shannon since she dropped out of school to tour at the end of our junior year and started acting like she believed all the rock star hype.

  Before I can say anything, though, the station doors open. Noah and I both look over our shoulders, ready to get Clare and head back to the hotel. I’m already thinking about my thesis and what I can get done before I’m so exhausted that the print in my Bible gets too blurry to read.

  But it’s not Clare coming out of the police station, it’s Shannon, and just like in the coffee shop earlier, if she ain’t my Shannon, she sure could’ve fooled me.

  Shannon

  “What did you want me to do, Corey?” My voice won’t go back down to standard inside volume. Now that we’re actually outside, I feel my lungs open up and I let Corey really have it, stadium volume. “It would’ve been faster than just letting him book us. I was trying to make it to that interview that the fate of the free world apparently hung on.”

  As usual when I get stirred up, Corey calms down. That’s a bad sign, though.

  “Are you Tiffani’s pimp?” he asks. “Do you pay her to have threesomes with you and on-duty officers of the law?”

  “Not tonight, I guess,” I say, even though inside I feel awful because I didn’t think of it like that until he said it. What if the cop had taken me up on the offer? Tiffani probably would’ve gone through with it for me.

  “Do you even understand half of the problems you’re causing?” Corey asks.

  For him. For the band. For the label. For the reporter who’s probably still waiting at The Bright. For Tiffani who’s having to rein me in more and more every day. For everyone.

  “No, Corey, I don’t,” I yell. “Tell me how embarrassing it is to have your client miss an interview because she got arrested for disrupting traffic and soliciting on the Brooklyn Bridge. Even though I probably just gave that guy article-of-the-week material. I don’t get what he’ll have to complain about—he gets to break the ‘Shannon Colter Arrested Again’ story. Those’re the ones that pay the bills these days, I hear.”

  “Don’t you even try to justify yourself,” Corey says. Then, because he knows how to really cut me, he glares at Tiffani. “You told me you would get her there.”

  Tiffani doesn’t say anything back, just flat stares him down until he’s looking at me again.

  “I am at my rope’s end with you, Shan,” Corey says. Then he tries the I’m-your-friend routine even though we haven’t been friends in more than a year. “If this is about your father and sister—”

  “It’s not.” I feel like I’m screaming into nothingness. A black hole of people who won’t listen to me.

  I head down the steps toward the street.

  “Then if it’s about Philly, we’ll figure it out,” Corey says, following me. “We can get you into counseling for the breakup or even couples counseling if you want to make it work.”

  “I don’t,” I tell Corey, searching my pockets for cigarettes. My pack is empty. Tiffani slides a cigarette out of hers and hands it to me. “We’re done and good riddance. He can screw groupies but I can’t? That’s some double-standard bullshit.”

  Then I turn back to ask Tiffani for a light and I see Danny sitting on the steps next to this black version of The Hulk. They’re looking at me like I’m some kind of whore, which I guess isn’t too far wrong. I feel something snap inside of me.

  “What the hell, Danny?” I yell. “Are you fucking following me?”

  “No.” He sounds offended. “Leave me out of this.”

  “Oh, that’s right!” I throw my hands up. “I forgot. Danny Whitney doesn’t get dragged through the mud. Danny Whitney is spotless. Dan
ny escaped the Dreaded Shannon Vortex—”

  “You’re going to stand there and talk like I abandoned you?” Danny jumps up. “You didn’t even try to tell me you weren’t sleeping around.”

  “I shouldn’t have had to defend myself to you!”

  “All you had to do was say those stories weren’t true! I would’ve believed you!”

  “Bullshit,” I scream. “You wanted me to cheat on you so you would have something to be jealous about!”

  “Wanted?” The veins in Danny’s neck are standing out. “Can you even hear yourself?”

  He takes a step closer and Tiffani moves in between us, ready to kill him.

  Suddenly I don’t want to play this game, don’t want to have to think about how I don’t deserve her loyalty and how I don’t deserve to be mad at Danny. Why is he even here? Not just in front of the police station, but in my city, on my side of the country, in my life three nights before we leave for the Euro-tour.

  It’s too much to be a coincidence. This has to be a trap.

  Corey is the only thing that keeps me from going into a full-blown freak out.

  “Who are you?” Corey snaps at Danny. “Is he involved in this, Shan?”

  “He wishes,” I say.

  “No, I don’t,” Danny says. He leans back against the stair rail and crosses his arms. “Not anymore.”

  “Well, good for you,” I say. “You really did escape.”

  My hands almost shake off of the lighter when I try to light my cigarette.

  Corey sighs like somebody’s mom. Mine, I guess.

  “You’re not taking your anxiety pills,” he says.

  I take a deep drag, then blow the smoke at his face.

  “No, Corey,” I say. “I’m not taking them. Do you want to know why? Because they don’t help. You know what helps? Vigorous, strenuous, callisthenic sex.”

  I hope that hurts Danny, cuts him all the way to his spine.

  “Then go find yourself someone to fuck,” Corey snaps. “But be on that stage for sound check tomorrow or I really will have your ass.”

  Then he storms off like the drama queen he is and flags down a cab as if he’s got important places to be in the middle of the night.