Pandemic- We’ve Run Out of Toilet Paper!

by Declan McCreary

  “Fuck you, you cunts!” I yell as I take out my revolver.

  I peak around and take aim as a bullet shatters the bark and it clips my eye before I can take a shot. An Asian man, probably over six foot sprints towards my aggressors with a chain screaming, “I’ma fuck you up!” and they shoot him dead without mercy. I take advantage of the momentary distraction, peer out and take aim blasting one of their skulls wide open. The other opens the door to my car and grabs Mary putting the gun to her head.

  “Throw your gun out or she dies!”

  My blood chills, checkmate—why the fuck did I leave them there? I step out from the tree with my hands up and I see Mary crying with a gun mashed against her head.

  “It’s gonna be ok Mary, I promise.”

  He takes aim and I leap forward behind my car. I open the door and pull out Jesse, he’s awake so I tell him to run towards the other side of the enclosure.

  “You’re dead mother fucker, come out and die or she does.” I’m pretty sure he will kill her too anyways. It seems I’m at the end of my rope here.

  “I can help you, I know where they keep the supplies, the food, and water, don’t shoot.” I step back out with my arms up.

  “Bullshit it, where is it?”

  “Let her go and I’ll take you there.”

  “Fuck you,” he says as he shoots Mary in the head splattering her brains all over himself, in that moment I know without a doubt that God doesn’t give a god-damned shit about us at all, not even a little bit. I feel a pull inside me and my eyes blow up, frozen in time without access to my motor system. I can’t even take a breath in as the anger flows like a broken dam-becoming my totality. The instinct to survive reasserts itself and I leap towards the pistol his partner held as he shoots towards me, one round hitting my arm. I unload the clip into him, he goes down and I shoot him until it’s empty. Mary’s body lays there next to his. I’m bleeding and don’t know where Jesse is, I look back towards the commune. Buildings on fire, the white ogre swinging his axe and splitting people, the steam-punk girl is standing atop one of the motor homes unloading. Bodies strewn over everything like a heavy snow fall. I walk over to Mary and look at what’s left of her, I gag and scream till my throat burns and then I remember that I need to find Jesse. I sprint away from the action to where I imagine a kid might have gone during such interesting times. I get to the fence and frantically look everywhere-spinning around, my mind races-I sprint back towards the madness. I slow down when I near the center, the sound of gun fire deafens my ears; a sickly sweet odor of BBQ wafts into my consciousness when I see a burning body hanging on fire in the distance.

  A roaring machine blasts out from the smoking refuse, a biker with a nailbat screams from the underworld towards me. It’s time to use my Swiffer, I put my gun away and slowly take out the Swiffer stick holding it calmly over my head. The maniac rides full speed at me as I lower my center of gravity, time slowing down, everything happening now is an instant in life’s fabric of constant torment. A brief moment in the ever marching path towards the void. When he is within 20 feet I lunge forward with every ounce of power and rage that I can. He raises his nailbat ready to smash my face into my brains and I jump directly at him, shoving the broom through his teeth, shattering them, through his spine and out his neck, jumping over him as he slides off his motorcycle.

  “Motherfucker.”

  I run over and get on the bike, I hear Jesse yell out and I see him in the distance. I ride towards him but slow as I near the steam-punk chick. She’s supporting herself with a beautifully out-of-place Katana, blood trickles down from where her nose-ear-ring was torn out, her leg shot. “Get on,” I tell her and she does so smirking, “let’s fuck shit up.” We ride on as I see the big white overalls fella lift one of the raiders above his head and smash him into the ground head first in a crunch.

  “10 points Bob!” the woman jeers as we ride by, he gives us a thumbs up.

  Ahead of us a mohawked female raider has a nail gun and she takes notice of us, then starts letting them rip at us as I fire my revolver wildly in her direction. I get lucky and shoot her through the eye, as we pass my partner takes her arm off with a clean swipe.

  “Help!” Jesse screams as we ride up.

  A man picks Jesse up and puts him inside a large van; slavers I wager. That’s my cue, I don’t even bother shooting, I just ride right at him and upon seeing us, I imagine his soul said its final words and he starts running away. I ride up and his head goes missing, we loop back around to get Jesse. He gets on the bike and sits in front of me.

  “Do you have a weapons stockpile or anything?” I ask her.

  “Yea, head back to the main house.”

  “Alright, what’s your name by the way?”

  “Anal Penetrator,” she says without any hint of humor. I just nod and say nice.

  We make the ride back quickly, on the way I see an old gypsy woman telling a bloodied man his fortune, as we pass I only see her single gold tooth as she smiles—I imagine his fortune is looking good. Back at the main house we enter to find bodies draped over the limited furniture. Anal Penetrator leads Jesse and I past a locked room, inside is a chest she opens, she grabs a TEC-9 and hands me a .357 Magnum. I grab additional ammo and then I pause. Jesse looks sad that he didn’t get anything, so I grab a bullet proof vest and hand him my Swiffer stick. I don’t want to make him a target, but also don’t want to leave him out; the burdens of modern day parenting I suppose.

  “You got my back buddy?” he smiles and nods like kids do. “Thanks for the weapons but we aren’t sticking around.”

  “Where you headed?” she asks.

  “Not sure, but not here.”

  “Want some allies, anal penetration aside?”

  I smile, “sure, I could use an extra hand, we’re better off with a car though.”

  She pulls out a set of keys from her fanny pack and smirks, waving us to follow her. Once we step outside a raider steps from our left and swings a sledge hammer and I duck at the last second, it smashes through the wall of the house and she can’t yank it out. Anal Penetrator lights her up with the TEC-9. Her final moments were a kind of avant-grade electro dance of death as she became a marionette with strings of bullets. I look up at the sky and wonder what it’s all about.

  “The fuck you stalling, let’s go!” and we run after her, she takes us to a 1966 Cadillac Fleetwood Sixty Special Brougham, with a few after-market upgrades: sunroof with one PK Machine Gun, a cool decal that is two men sucking each other off, and pink seats.

  “You drive, the kid takes the gun, I got shotgun.”

  I look at Jesse and he beams all over. We get in and start driving towards the main gate. We pull out quick and the last thing I see is an RPG fired from the hip of some fool dressed as a clown. In that last moment our hero realized he wouldn’t find his girlfriend, his family, or his friends, but that he had briefly found something that eluded him all his life; an adventure.

  Aftermath

  During the chaos and confusion Logan had strapped on his bullet-proof vest and set out to dispatch and repel the invaders. He had seen Anal Penetrator and the visitors whiz by in his Cadillac only to have an RPG explode beneath its chassis. Luckily he had the people in black reinforce the undercarriage, doors, and roof with steel. He runs over as the clown is reloading, he doesn’t waste time and throws one of his shurikens directly into his eye. As the clown no longer smiles wailing and moaning, Logan runs up and demapps him from the map with a single shot through the heart. The car starts to blaze and he runs to pull Anal Penetrator out, he has yet to find out why she’s called that and doesn’t want to die not knowing. He then pulls out Beeblebrox and Jesse-faces like a chimney sweep.

  The lot of them is coughing, wheezing, hands on chests as they lay on the ground in relief. Death had flashed before their eyes; little else in life gives one a sense of new found joy and respect for life.

  “Where’s Mary,” cries out Jesse finally realizing her absence.


  Beeblebrox feels a pierce through his heart as he once more takes in the truth. The fighting seems to have subsided and the question is like a friend’s prank, putting their cold feet on you, jolting you into awareness. He hugs Jesse close looking into his hazel eyes, tears well up in both their eyes. He searches for the right set of words to give Jesse, a child who has just lost his last remaining link to his family.

  “I’m sorry Jesse, but Mary isn’t coming back.” He hugs him ever closer as Jesse’s tears turn to deluge, crying out loudly damning the world in his own way.

  Anal Penetrator and Logan take stock of the situation, most of the tobacco and greenhouses have been burned and destroyed. Dead people decorate their once peaceful compound-some moan in agony from loss of friends and limb alike.

  “Well shit,” is all Logan can muster.

  “What the hell are we going to do now?”

  “We should just give up,” he says with genuine dejection.

  “Oh come on, there’s so much to live for! Charred bodies, our new friends, and all of the terrors and wonders that await us. Plus, you still have to experience me at my best and brightest. You haven’t lived until you learn why I’m Anal Penetrator,” she winks at Logan who smiles back.

  Even amidst total insanity one’s sense of humor carries the capacity to uplift others. They double back to Jesse and Beeblebrox who are sitting on the ground as Beeblebrox tells Jesse about his own family and friends; he tells Jesse about their dinners, stories of laughter and mirth, and finally gets excited himself and asks if he wants to meet them. Jesse is still melancholic but his eyes do travel up to meet his new guardian and the proposition does sound rather comforting.

  “Well we can’t stay here, my plan’s been to head east and find loved ones who hopefully haven’t been obliterated by the new denizens of post-sanity Earth. You two seem like good people to have around, are you interested in travelling together?” Beeblebrox asks the two of them.

  They look at each other and reminisce about their first meeting, saving one another, and how they set out together only to once more come upon the crossroads.

  “We’re gonna have to teach the kid how to fuck shit up though,” says Anal Penetrator as she shows off her Katana to Jesse.

  “I think a few of the cultists are still around, we might be able to hitch a ride,” says Logan.

  All of their vehicles being charred, Logan orders four of the people in black who remain to serve as their vehicles. They get down on all fours and our heroes mount them like loyal steeds. Jesse doesn’t know how to compute what’s happening, Anal Penetrator is right at home, Logan feels like his on top of the world, and Beeblebrox has his Swiffer-Broom strapped behind him ready for anything. Together they slowly ride out of the compound heading east, for greener pastures.