Revenge of the Apocalypse

by Benjamin Wallace

  The back of the boat crashed back down, and he felt the hull slip closer to the edge.

  The cameras were catching all of it. To his left, he could see that the monitors on the casino tower were focused on their faces. Jerry looked up and spotted the camera mounted on the bowsprit.

  “Everyone’s watching, Invictus.” He had to scream to be heard over the Falls. “Everyone sees you for the coward you are.”

  Invictus grabbed the rail and tried to push away, but Jerry held him in place. “You’re not the king of the world. You’re a cancer. You’re a stain in history that I’m about to wipe away. With you gone, the world will finally have a chance to heal.”

  Another surge raised the boat once more and set it back down with another slip of the hull.

  “Here it comes, Invictus! Do you feel that?”

  Invictus screamed and Jerry loosened the rope just to give the man more breath to scream with.

  Another surge. Another push closer to the edge.

  “You’re going to die. And you’re going to scream until your lungs are filled with water and rock.”

  Another swell. Another inch.

  “For everyone you’ve wronged.”

  Another surge. The tearing of metal.

  “For everyone killed in your name.”

  Jerry had to fight to stay in the boat with the next swell.

  “For every slave you’ve taken! For every child you’ve murdered!”

  Another swell. How long was this boat?

  “For Eli’s family!”

  The current felt angrier now.

  “For Joshua’s wife!”

  The swells were coming faster now, each one pushing the bow farther out into the abyss.

  “For Snaps.”

  The boat sank in the river as if the water had retreated around it. Like it was reeling back for one final push. It even felt quieter.

  Jerry leaned into Invictus’s ear and whispered, “For Erica.”

  The river struck the rear of the boat with a slap that could be heard over the thunder of the Falls. The river rose around them and the ship lifted from its perch on the unseen rock. The boat lunged forward and Invictus screamed the whole way down.

  Chewy sat on the shoreline under the observation tower, staring up at the Falls. Her ears were perked up and her head twisted constantly back and forth as if listening to something. Anything besides the sound of the Falls. She turned at the sound of approaching footsteps and stood up to meet them.

  Lucas walked toward the Mastiff with a trio of dogs at his side. Lord Stanley wandered off to sniff at the water’s edge. Brittany found a sunny spot to lie. But Heeler stayed faithfully at Lucas’s heel.

  “It’s Chewy, right?”

  Chewy barked at the sound of her name but did not approach.

  “My name is Lucas. I was…I’m a friend of Jerry’s.”

  Chewy barked louder at Jerry’s name.

  Lucas walked closer and sat down on the rocks next to the dog. She turned her head back toward the Falls and let him put a hand on her back.

  “We’ve looked,” he said. “We haven’t found anything except that bastard’s cape and torso.”

  Chewy sniffed at the air.

  “We’re not going to stop looking,—" he peeked. “Girl.”

  Chewy turned to look at the man.

  “He deserves to be found. We owe him that.”

  She laid her head in his left hand and let out a sigh that made her jowls flap.

  “I’m sorry you’re alone. I know how that is.” He scratched her and looked away. “I had a best friend once.”

  Chewy dug her head deeper into his lap as if she understood.

  “I was thinking. Maybe you and I can be friends.”

  She didn’t move her head, but looked up at him with big brown eyes and peaked, puppy-calendar-class eyebrows. She laid down next to him and they sat quietly looking at the Falls upstream.

  “It was really him, wasn’t it? He was really the Librarian. And he was everything they said he was. You don’t know how rare that is these days.” It grew difficult for him to speak so he sat quietly for a moment just patting the dog’s head. He even found that spot behind the ear.

  “He’s a hero, you know. He was already a legend, but this just caps it. These people will never forget him. Neither will I. He saved them. He saved me. Hell, he may have saved everybody. With that bastard gone, things can get good again. The world is going to be okay.”

  Chewy barked and sat up fast enough to startle Lucas.

  “What?”

  She looked at him and barked louder.

  “What is it, girl?”

  She stood up, ran halfway to the river and stopped. She cocked her head and listened for a moment. Then she began to bark and bound. She spun around and barked once more at Lucas.

  Lucas shrugged. “I don’t have the English to Wookie thing down yet. What is it?”

  Chewy barked at him one last time, could see that he would never understand and took off running downstream, barking and wagging her tail the whole way.

  Lucas watched her disappear and did begin to understand.

  There would be more rumors. There would be more myths and legends. And he hoped to God that every one of them would be true.

  * * *

  - THE END -

  If you enjoyed the Duck & Cover books,

  check out a different kind of apocalypse

  in

  JUNKERS

  * * *

  * * *

  They stand between us and destruction.

  And that’s a stupid place to stand.

  Read the first 4 BONUS CHAPTERS

  of JUNKERS now:

  Benjamin Wallace

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 by Benjamin Wallace.

  All rights reserved.

  Prelude

  He hated walking. It went against everything he believed in. Physical exertion of any kind wasn’t really his thing at all. He was completely against manual labor. It’s why he became a farmer in the first place.

  No lifting. No sweating. It was the farmer’s life for him. All you had to do was sit back and watch the drones work.

  On a bad day you might have to take the controls and pilot the drone yourself. That was about as bad as it got. He’d heard stories of some farmers having to go into the field to check on malfunctioning equipment, but until now, he’d never really believed it. He figured they were stories farmers passed around to scare off the masses from such a cushy job.

  That’s why, when the alarm first came up, he assumed it was the day shift pulling a prank on him. Those guys had a hard time telling the difference between being funny and being dicks. Even at that, this wasn’t their best work.

  A few keystrokes sent the drones to investigate and he kicked back to plot his revenge. The day shift foolishly left their food unguarded in the communal fridge overnight, and spiking their drink with some Nanolax would be a good start to the retaliation. He figured they could laugh at him all they wanted as long as a million microbots kept them glued to a toilet.

  A chirp indicated that the drone had arrived at the site of the alarm and found nothing. Nothing at all. The equipment that was sending the alarm wasn’t even there. He set a search path and the drones began running the preset pattern.

  He kicked back in his chair, much to the dismay of its springs, and put his feet up on the console.

  Watching the cornstalks zoom past the fish-eyed lens had made him queasy. Every row was the same. Every stalk was identical. Every leaf and ear was pitched at the same angle. They had been designed that way to ensure maximum exposure to the sun, but the whole effect worked to lull him into a trance.

  He spent an hour searching the cornfield for the missing machinery to no avail and was on the verge of passing out when a series of damaged stalks broke the monotony and provided the first clue as to what was happening. Seizing the controls, he piloted the drone back down the row then turned to follow the broken plants
.

  Something had crashed through the crop. Someone was making off with the equipment.

  He sat forward in his chair and willed the drone to follow the trail. He smiled. This was no longer work, it was crime fighting. Capturing the thief on the camera was all it would take for the authorities to identify the culprits. But he would be the hero, and for the second time in his life he might even trend. He smiled at the thought of this story supplanting the old one in the feeds. Finally.

  “‘Never live it down’ my ass,” he muttered to himself as he pushed harder on the control pad.

  Sweeping through the crops, he followed the busted stalks and fallen ears of corn. He wasn’t a farmer anymore. He was a fighter jockey piloting the latest generation WarBird through enemy canyons. The whir of the rotors played through his monitor’s speakers, but they weren’t quite fitting to the mood so he made his own scramjet engine sounds until he reached the center of the cornfield and stopped the drone.

  There it was. A shadow moving quickly between the plants. Each time the figure darted, another plant fell to the ground with the dry crack of firewood.

  He chased after the shadow for two rows and turned right to follow. But there was nothing there. The trail of destruction had ended. He flipped the drone 180 degrees in a deft move he would have to recount to the reporters later.

  For a brief instant, the figure filled the monitor. Then everything went dead.

  The drone dropped from the air and landed with its camera pointed toward the night sky.

  Corn swayed in and out of view through a cracked lens, but the machine no longer responded to his touch. He could hear nothing but the breeze.

  “No!” he screamed as the headlines faded from his daydreams. He shot up with such speed that his chair sailed back across the room, spinning as it went. He didn’t wait for it to stop. He pulled a denim coat from a hook by the door with one hand and a shotgun with the other as he dashed out the door into the night. He had to bring these evildoers to justice. He had to have another fifteen minutes—a better fifteen minutes—of fame. They could take whatever busted piece of farm equipment they wanted from the company, but they couldn’t take that opportunity away from him.

  The utility vehicle whirred into action. Knobby off-road tires skipped on the concrete before biting into the dirt with an unbreakable hold and catapulting him into the cornfield. A thousand acres separated him from his prey, but he wasn’t going to let it get away. He kept the pedal to the floor.

  The cart’s suspension ate the uneven soil without complaint and kicked the looser earth into the air behind it as it went.

  Much like the view through the drone, the rows of corn blended into a mesh of green silk as he zipped past. This time he accepted it. He kept his eyes forward and let his peripheral look for the trail. The broken stalks would be a sore thumb sticking out in the genetically engineered pattern.

  They were. He stood on the brakes when he spotted them and turned the cart into the path. The ride grew rougher as he crossed the furrows and the cart threw him back and forth, left and right, but he pressed on and let the cart jostle him about until he found the downed drone.

  The cart idled in complete silence as he stepped into the field. He was alone.

  Breathing heavily from the excitement, he was startled by how loud his breath was in the middle of the night. He swallowed hard once to try to hold it back and exhaled slowly before approaching the fallen drone.

  The device was peppered with holes. The rotors were shattered. Shot clean off. He bent to examine the wreckage more closely.

  There was a snap and a nearby corn stalk fell.

  He hurried back to the cart and grabbed the shotgun. He racked a shell into the chamber and turned back to the crop.

  “Show yourself.”

  There was no response.

  He took a cautious step away from the vehicle. “You’re not supposed to be out here.”

  Again, there was no response. There was no sound at all.

  He racked the shotgun. The unspent shell fell to the ground and he closed his eyes at his mistake. “You’re trespassing. Do you know what that means?”

  He bent down and grabbed the shell off the ground. “That means I can shoot you. Legally. That’s what that means.”

  He plugged the shell back into the bottom of the gun.

  “I don’t want to shoot you.” He so wanted to shoot them. He was terrified. But being the hero behind the trigger instead of the hero behind the camera was going to ensure him at least a half-day in the top fifty stories. Number one in the farm feeds for sure.

  Another stalk cracked a few rows over and he dove into the corn. The leaves whipped at his face as he fought through the tight plantings and burst through into the furrowed earth.

  He turned and saw the figure a few yards away.

  The shotgun bucked in his hands as he fired from the hip. He felt the blast in his ears, then heard it, then watched sparks dance as the shot bounced harmlessly off the metal scarecrow rooted in the field.

  The robot stood on spindly, telescopic legs that enabled it to set its head above the crop. Its straw hat flopped around, leaving only the lower half of its face visible.

  “Good thing the news didn’t see that.” He chuckled to himself and fired at the lanky sentry again. “Damn thing scared me.”

  The scarecrow took the blast in silence.

  Its eyes began to glow red.

  “What are you… You’re supposed to be offline at night.”

  The machine looked right at him. Hydraulics in the legs lowered the body into the cornfield. Then it took a step toward him.

  He ran.

  Against everything he stood for, he ran. He broke through the stalks and sent them falling to the ground as he scrambled back toward the cart.

  He had only made it two rows when he heard the scarecrow’s Gatling gun begin to whir.

  1

  It was a bright cold day in September and the clock struck thirteen. Nothing in the office worked right.

  Jake took out a long list entitled “Broken Shit” and added the clock to the bottom beneath everything else that needed his attention.

  He scanned the list. This needed that. That needed this. This thing was making that noise. This was leaking something most likely hazardous. It went on.

  The list had been shoved in and out of the drawer so many times that the paper itself was falling apart. There were more important things on the list than a broken clock, but none of it was going to get fixed without money. And to get money they needed a job.

  He looked at the phone and willed it to ring. He willed at it for five minutes before giving up. He shoved the list back in the drawer, stood up and pulled the malfunctioning timepiece off the wall. He gave it one last look before tossing it in the trashcan. Even if the phone did ring and even if the job did actually pay, it's not like he was going to spend the money on a stupid clock.

  Since the phone wasn’t cooperating and he no longer had a clock to watch, there wasn’t much reason to stay in the office. He did the books by moving the envelopes on the desk marked “final notice” to the trashcan and stepped into the shop to see if he could help with anything.

  The first thing that hit him was the sound of work, clattering, clanging and some grunting, the crew pounding something into place somewhere in the back. It didn’t sound like it was going well.

  The next thing that hit him was the question of the day.

  “Hey, Jake, do you think ankles are sexy?”

  The man behind the question was kicked back in a chair, behind a book, with his feet up on a coffee table. His name was Mitch Pritchard, but since he was full of cybernetic parts and horrible ideas everyone on the team called him Glitch. Glitch had been big and strong before he started adding parts to himself. Now he was twice as wide as a person should be and whirred when he walked. He called these enhancements “oddmentations” because even though Glitch tried to sound smart, he really wasn’t.

  The ankle q
uestion rolled through Jake’s head, trying to land in a place where it would make sense, but nothing stuck. “What?”

  “Do you think ankles are sexy?” Glitch pulled up his pant leg and pointed at his own ankle like he was presenting Exhibit A.

  Jake put his hands up between himself and the ankle. “I’d really rather you leave me out of your upgrades, Glitch.”

  The big man laughed and leaned forward. He held up the book and tried to explain himself. “I’m reading this book about the court of King Charles Vee Eye Eye and there was this woman named Agnes Sorel that started a fashion trend. She’d show up with her boobs all hanging out. That would be the modern equivalent of walking into the White House with your nipples saluting the President.”

  “Glitch…” he tried to interrupt, but he had lost the manmachine to either a vivid imagined scene or a hardly safe-for-work reference image on his optic implant.

  “And then other women started doing it, too. They wore dresses with their boobs all hanging out. BUT, they always had their ankles covered because it was considered scandalous to show ankles. And I thought, I never thought the ankle was really hot, but I don’t know, maybe I’ve just seen too many, you know? Like I’ve been overexposed to ankles and I became desensitized to their inherent sexiness. And then I thought, maybe we’re really missing out on this ankle thing.” His eyes wandered to a wall and a smile grew across his face. There was no telling what he was seeing.

  “Glitch…”

  The cyborg’s attention snapped back to Jake. “Well what do you think?”

  “I think, for the first time ever, reading has made someone dumber.”

  “Says you. But I could be onto something big with this ankle thing. It could be a big market.” He leaned back in the chair and returned to his reading.