Suddenly, two men jumped from beneath the leaves and pointed their weapons at him. He backed away and put his hands up. The two men looked extremely ridiculous. One had a rooster top flapping in the breeze. The other’s half-shaved head shined like a q-ball in the sun. They were dressed in black leather and army boots and they had piercings in their ears, noses and other parts of their body.
“Well, well, well…” the rooster head said. “Look what we have here.”
“An intruder on our turf. This gives us the right to shoot him on sight.”
“Please, don’t shoot me!” Derek said. “I come in peace.”
“Oh, he comes in peace. Can you believe that, my brother? This faggot here intrudes on our territory in peace.”
“Let’s just shoot his ass!” the q-ball said, before cocking his weapon.
“No! Please! I wish to speak to your leader. Just take me to him and then you’ll never see me again. Please!”
“Well, well. This guy has nerve. He wants to speak to our leader.”
“Unbelievable!” the rooster head said, laughing.
“Well, maybe our leader doesn’t want to speak to you, dipshit.”
“Yeah. What exactly would you speak about with our leader, you dick?”
“I came here to tell him that my town wants to surrender to his terms. And he won’t be pleased to see that you killed the messenger bringing a peace offering.”
After looking at the other, the q-ball said:
“This guy makes me curious. Maybe we should take him to Drake Junior, see what he’ll do with him.”
“Yeah, I agree. Okay, buddy, you win. Let’s go to Drake Junior. But remember: any sudden movements and you die.”
“Okay,” Derek said.
Derek got in front of the two, who were still pointing their weapons at him, and started walking. When he got in the rebels’ camp, he could see evil was at its home in there. Skulls aligned in various places as ornaments, body parts left to rot in trees. Nothing but disgust came to Derek’s mind in regards to these people. It was obvious to him that they had no shame and no moral compass. They prayed to nothing and they stopped at nothing when it came to their debaucheries.
“Hey, handsome!” a young girl, no older than twenty, told Derek when he passed next to her. “Want to fuck me?”
Derek looked with surprise and disgust at the young woman who, besides a leather bra to cover her breasts and leather panties decorated with metal fripperies to cover her front and back zones of interest, had nothing on her.
“What about your boyfriend, Zoe?” one of the rebels asked her.
“Fuck you, old geezer!” the girl replied. “My boyfriend is not here.”
After walking for a few more yards, one of the two rebels walking behind Derek said:
“There he is, right there.”
He pointed Derek at a young man, in his early twenties, with blonde hair, torn off jeans, and a grey hoodie on him. He had earrings in both his ears and he was wearing a pair of dirty sneakers on his feet. He was playing with a knife, which he kept throwing on the ground, in an attempt to stick it in.
Derek and the two rebels approached him. One of the rebels said:
“Hello, Drake Junior!”
“Hello!” the young man replied. “Weren’t you supposed to be on guard? And who the hell is he?”
“He says he is from one of the towns we’re at war with. He says he needs to talk to you.”
“Do you now?” Drake Junior asked Derek. “What? Your town wants to surrender or what?”
“Actually, yes, it does, sir,” Derek said. “And we are ready to accept your terms for peace.”
Drake Junior was silent for a few moments, and had a look of amazement on his face.
“Your town wants to make peace with me?” Drake Junior asked Derek.
“Precisely, sir,” Derek replied.
“And what town did you say you’re from?”
“Huntsville, sir!”
“Huntsville… yeah. But I don’t remember the terms that I offered for their surrender.”
“We agreed to offer you eighty percent of our food each month in exchange for peace between our two parties, sir.”
Drake Junior thought for a few seconds.
“Oh, yeah. I do remember. Your leader’s name is Simon, right?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Yeah, I remember. I remember that your leader told us to go to hell when we first made him this offer. Why did he change his mind and offer to accept it now?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, sir, this war cost the lives of many of our men. About seventy percent of our population died from fighting. Our leader decided that he wants to spare what remains of our town from a similar fate.”
“Did he, now? Wise man.”
“So… what should I tell him, sir? Do you agree to make peace with us?”
“You don’t have to tell him anything. I will tell him the new terms for their surrender.”
Derek frowned.
“New terms, sir?”
Drake put the knife on Derek’s throat and said:
“Yeah… new terms. You don’t have a problem with that, do you now?”
“No, sir,” Derek said, scared. “No problem whatsoever.”
Drake removed the knife from his throat.
“Good,” he said. “Wise man.”
He then took a few steps and yelled to his men:
“All right, everybody, get to the cars! We roll!”
***
Thomas was sitting on a chair, on the porch of Simon’s house. He was looking in the air, having nothing better to do. Once in a while, he would look up the sky and admire the stars. He wished he could be on one of the planets up there, to be far away from the wrecked Earth, filled with diseases, misery and, of course, rebels. Suddenly, he remembered what an old man told him twenty years ago: The Alignment was the obvious sign of the beginning of the end of days. Back then, he laughed at the old man and called him crazy. But now, after witnessing so much suffering caused by The Alignment, he was starting to wonder if the old man was right. Could it be that one day soon, Jesus will show up on a cloud, in the sky, to judge the men on the Earth? Could it be that, soon enough, he could be cast in a lake of fire because of his sins? Should he start asking God for forgiveness?
Suddenly, Julie opened the door and interrupted his thoughts.
“You should come inside,” she told him. “The mosquitos will be all over you soon enough.”
“I’m good for now,” he answered. “Besides, I want to enjoy the view.”
“What view?”
“Look up and you’ll see.”
Julie looked up at the star-filled sky.
“Yeah, you’re right. It is a beautiful view.”
“Of course it is. Everything that God created is beautiful.”
“Except for The Alignment and its consequences.”
“Yep. Except for that.”
“I was just thinking… twenty years ago, in one of the communities we visited with mom and dad, an old man kept preaching that The Alignment was a clear sign of the imminent approach of The Apocalypse, of Jesus’ second coming. Back then, I obviously scoffed at him, but now…”
“You think he might have been right.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Well… maybe. Who knows? Maybe Jesus is coming to punish those who disobeyed Him and bless those who lived by His laws.”
“And which one do you think we will get?” Thomas asked.
“Well, we were sinners for most of our lives. If He was to judge us right now, I guess he would throw us into the lake of fire. No doubt about it.”
“And how exactly did you sin?”
“Oh, come on, bro. You expect me to tell you my sins?”
“Yeah, I’m curious. Spit it out!”
Julie sat on the railing in front of the porch and kept talking:
“Ok, here goes… I had sex with Darryl long before the wedding…”
<
br /> “Oh, that’s a nasty one. That’s a nasty one. You little whore, you…”
“Ok, what else? Um… I cursed a lot.”
“Did you, now?”
“Fuck yeah, I did.”
Thomas laughed.
“Okay, what else?”
“What else? Let’s see, um… a lot of times I was proud of myself and others, which, as you know, is a sin.”
“All right. Anything else?”
“I got angry a lot and... oh, yeah… I want to avenge my family. And vengeance, of course, is a sin.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is. God clearly says in the Bible: vengeance is Mine.”
“You’re making that up.”
“No, why would I?”
“I don’t know. You must have a reason.”
“No, I don’t. What about you, Thomas? What are your sins?”
“Well, I suppose they are the same as yours: sex before marriage, cursing, blaspheming, getting angry, yearning for vengeance, etcetera, etcetera.”
“Sex before marriage? Was it someone else before Carla?”
“No, I had it with Carla.”
“Oh… and let’s not forget that we both killed people.”
“We defended ourselves. That’s not a sin.”
“Killing, no matter the circumstances, is a sin.”
“Not when you defend yourself it isn’t.”
“The Bible doesn’t specify.”
Thomas, again, was silent for a few moments, then he said:
“So you think mom and dad are in Hell?”
“No. Why would I think that?”
“Because they killed. A lot. For us, most of the times.”
“Gosh, I hope they’re not in Hell. I hope God forgave their sins and took them for the kind, decent folks they were here on Earth and received them in Heaven.”
Tears started flowing on Julie’s cheeks.
“I hope they’re watching us from up there as we speak.”
Thomas sighed.
“Yeah, I hope so too. And I hope they’re proud of what they’re seeing when they look at us. When they look at the adults that we have become.”
“Do you think they can hear us too?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“What would you tell them if they could hear us?”
“I don’t know. I guess… I guess I would tell them that I love them, that I miss them… that I thank them for the sacrifice they made for us twenty years ago, which shows what good parents they were. I would ask them to forgive any sort of mistake that we made against them and I would also ask them to keep me a place up there, next to them, for when I’ll die. What about you? What would you tell them?”
“The same thing, I guess. And I would ask them to say hi to Darryl for me.”
“Yeah, I would tell them to say hi to Carla and Fred too. I forgot about that.”
Suddenly, someone yelled from the wall:
“Rebels! Tons of them!”
“Go get our weapons! Now!” Thomas told Julie.
Julie didn’t think twice. She ran inside the house and brought her Kalashnikov and her brother’s. The two cocked their weapons and headed toward the wall. Once there, they climbed the wall and headed toward the portion above the gate. When they got there, they could clearly see the rebels’ cars in the distance, with their lights on and the rebels standing on top in the trailers, some holding torches, while others were holding a firm grip on their weapons.
Soon, the wall was occupied by the rest of the locals, who pointed their weapons at the rebels. Simon came next to Thomas and Julie. He pointed his weapon at the rebels as well and yelled:
“What do you want?”
Drake Junior jumped out of a car. Then, he took a chain in his hand and yanked it. Derek was at the other end of it, with a collar around his neck. He got out of the car as well and came next to Drake Junior. They both started heading toward the town wall. When he passed next to a car, Drake Junior said, while reaching his hand:
“Torch!”
One of the rebels in the car gave him a torch and the two continued walking. Eventually, they both stopped at about thirteen yards away from the wall. The adrenaline was pumping. Anyone could pull the trigger at any moment. Then, Drake Junior started talking:
“You can put your weapons down. We come in peace.”
“Your men are armed as well. Why should we believe you?” Simon said.
“We brought weapons for defensive purposes. Just in case one of you decides to open fire on us.”
“My men are armed for the same reason. No way we’re putting our weapons down.”
Drake Junior took a gun from his back and pointed it at Derek’s head.
“You have ten seconds to lower your weapons or I will shoot your messenger. And that will be a shame, since his only participation in this thing was to deliver a message, don’t you agree? One, two, thr...”
“Okay, okay, you won,” Simon said. “You won. Everybody lower your weapons! Lower your weapons!”
The townsfolk complied. Drake Junior put his gun back in his pants.
“Now, like I said, I’m here to discuss the terms of your surrender.”
“We agreed to your terms. That’s why we sent Derek to you,” Simon said.
“Oh, no, no, no, buddy. Those were the old terms of your surrender. A lot of time has passed since then. I’ve come with new ones.”
“Okay, let’s hear them.”
“Now, we want ninety percent of your monthly food.”
Simon could not believe his ears.
“Ninety percent?! We’ll starve to death.”
“I don’t give a shit. These are the new terms for your surrender. If you want to peacefully coexist with me and my men, you will abide by them.”
Desperate voices could be heard in the crowd.
“You have until tomorrow at sunrise to decide. That’s when I’ll come back to hear your answer.”
“In the meantime, can we have our messenger back?” Simon asked.
“Oh, no,” Drake Junior said. “The messenger is our guarantee that you will make the right decision. We get to keep him until tomorrow. Until then…”
Drake Junior turned around and yanked Derek in front of him.
“Hey, asshole!” he suddenly heard from the wall.
He stopped and turned around.
“Who just said that?”
“I did,” Thomas said.
Drake Junior threw him a disgusted look.
“And who are you?”
“Are you the leader?”
“I asked you first.”
“I’m the one whose wife and son you crucified on the wall back in Fullerton. I’m the one whose whole community you killed while searching for me. And I’m the one who’s going to have his revenge on you. I’m Thomas.”
Drake Junior couldn’t believe his ears. He started laughing with joy.
“Well… My day just keeps getting better and better. So you are the one I’m looking for…”
“That’s right. My father killed your father twenty years ago. And now you want to have your revenge on me for that.”
“Oh, no, no. You misunderstood me, my friend. It’s not revenge I want from you. I just want to balance things, that’s all.”
“Balance things? How so?”
“Well, you see, I, for one, don’t think that it’s fair that some of your relatives are still alive, while mine are all dead. The universe doesn’t agree with this situation either. So what I’m looking for is to even the odds. Balance the universe. Bring some order in this world. Don’t you agree?”
“Agree with this, asshole: one day, I will cut your head off and I’m going to shit and piss in it for what you did to my family back in Fullerton. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but one day, I will use your head as my personal shithole. And I’ll let my sister do the same for what you did to her husband.”
“Oh, yeah,” Drake Junior said. “I almost forgot about you
r sister. Is she here as well?”
“I’m right here, you fuck,” Julie said.
Drake Junior laughed, and, after that, he resumed talking:
“Well, well, well… fortune does smile on me.”
“You’re going to pay for what you did to my husband, dipshit. Just before my brother cuts your head off and uses it as his shithole, I’m going to cut your dick off and make you suck it. And then I’m going to shove it deep in your ass.”
Drake Junior laughed again.
“Will you now?” Drake Junior said, after finishing laughing. “Those are some bold words for someone whose side is numerically inferior.”
He then turned toward Simon.
“All right, mister Leader. New terms. Ninety percent of your food and tomorrow, when I come back, you will turn these two over to me.”
“I’m not sure if I can do that, sir.”
“You will, if you want things to be good for your community.”
Drake Junior then turned around, grabbed Derek’s chain, yanked him and headed toward the cars. He then jumped into a car.
“Tomorrow at sunrise,” he yelled. “I hope you’ll make the right decision.”
Then, to his men:
“All right, let’s go.”
The cars then turned around and they left in high speed, leaving the dust behind them.
The townsfolk climbed down from the wall and gathered around Simon, looking for advice.
“What do we do, Simon?” a woman asked.
“We can’t possibly comply with their demands. We’ll starve to death,” a man said.
“I say we keep fighting the bastards ‘till we decimate them all,” another man said. The crowd quickly approved him.
“Yeah, let’s keep fighting them,” a woman said.
“Yeah!” the crowd quickly approved.
“People, people!” Simon said. He sighed and stood silent for a few moments.
“You’re right. We can’t comply with their new demands. We can’t give them ninety percent of our food. We would, indeed, starve to death. And we can’t possibly turn over Thomas and Julie. They are part of the community now. And that’s not how we treat our citizens.”
Another moment of silence. Then, after a deep sigh:
“You’re right. We have no choice but to fight them. And fight them we will.”
Dark Apocalypse: A Post-Apocalyptic Family Saga Page 19