Apocalypticon (2 page)

Patrick reached across and grabbed Ben’s hands in his own. “No, Ben. Disney World is the best possible destination. Decades of snappy marketing tricks have made it so.”

Ben yanked his hands out from under Patrick’s. “Let’s make a list of destinations that are less dumb than Disney World. Ready?” He spread his hands wide, as if he were offering a magnanimous gift. “Las Vegas. Grown-up Disney World. Let’s go there.”

“Pass!” Patrick slapped the coffee table with both hands, his eyes growing wide and bright. “Disney World or bust!”

“No, don’t do that,” Ben said, shaking his finger at Patrick’s crazy-eyed face. “This is your trip; it’s your decision. All right, I get that. I understand. If you want to go to Disney World, well, shit. I guess we’ll go to stupid Disney World. But Disney World is for babies and honeymooning Christians. Not for real life grown-ups. And do you know the only thing lamer than Disney World? Burned out, rusted up Disney World full of charred baby skeletons.”

Patrick leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “I once knew a Ben Fogelvee who would have thought a burned out, rusted up Disney World full of charred baby skeletons sounded
awesome
,” he challenged.

“Yeah, you know, it
does
sound pretty bad ass,” Ben mused. “I’m warming to the idea. But try this option on for size. Old Cliff in 13B says he knows a guy who knows a guy who hosts a
battle fucking royale
once a week in this dirt circle arena in his backyard somewhere in Detroit. These guys, they come from all around with sticks and knives and bats and iron pipes and just wail on each other for three hours until everyone’s dead.”

“Hmm.” Patrick pressed a finger to his lips and thought carefully. “Now, that sounds like something I would certainly like to play a video game about. But are you
sure
everyone dies? What about the last guy? He lives, right?”

“Hell no, he doesn’t live! First place is the quick, painless release of death from this stupid post-apocalyptic life. Everyone dies, one just less painfully than the rest.”

Patrick squinted and pointed a suspicious finger at his host. “Are you sure this is a thing?”

Ben pointed back and met Patrick’s squint. “Here’s what I think. I think we find you a stick, and we make you a
champion
. If we’re going Code White, make it the bright, blinding white of nuclear self-destruction.”

“I appreciate where your head’s at, Ben. I like your thought process. And it’s tempting. Don’t get me wrong, it’s extremely tempting. But we’re going to Disney World.”

“Why?” Ben sighed. “Do you at least have a good reason?”

“Of course I have a good reason. Because I’ve never been. And I read somewhere that you should go before you die.”

•

Patrick stood at the bank of windows in front of his balcony. These days, 24E was considered a river view apartment. The 30-story skyscraper at Grand and Wells toppled a week back, falling mostly east, thank God, where the HVAC roof units plunged to the depths of the lake. The base of the building still smoldered, meaning someone must’ve gotten ahold of some top-shelf explosives to do the job. This type of destruction wasn’t exactly uncommon, though things had certainly quieted down a bit after the Great Chicago River Bridge Explosions a couple years back. Still, buildings got bombed pretty regularly. As far as Patrick knew, the latest victim building was just another apartment bloc, and its destruction didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but sense wasn’t exactly the prevailing theme these days. At any rate, the building’s collapse gave Patrick a straight shot to the Chicago River, which he could sometimes actually see, when the wind whipped a clearing through the thick, and ever-present, yellow smog.

He funneled a handful of pale, sort-of-brownish coffee grounds into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. The last dredges of caffeine had probably soaked through weeks ago, but the placebo effect made him feel instantly more focused. He checked his watch. 9:57. Any minute now. He hoped.

He shoveled the wet grounds from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue and paced over to the dining room table, a battered antique made by Annie’s great-grandfather almost one hundred years before. Darkly stained scrollwork trimmed the strong oak plinth. Patrick fingered the carefully carved rivets, tracing his fingertips around the smooth, knobby curls. For the first time ever, he actually considered the table and marveled at its presence. One hundred years old and showing no signs of weakness. It would be there long after he left. Depending on how things went with the world, it could very well be there until the end of recorded time.

He thought of Annie, and of all the meals they’d eaten in front of the television all those years, the stupid, goddamn worthless television, when they should have gathered around this heirloom that was so much a piece of her. The blood of the man who made that table ran through Annie’s veins. It had, before the blood spilt and pooled, before it seeped out in viscous globs and dried and turned to rust, before it flaked and drifted away in the wind.

He wiped the tears from his eyes and shook his head, forcing the image back under. He pushed up onto the tips of his toes and looked out the window. Still nothing. He looked back at his watch. 10:03. Any minute now.

The butterscotch Snack Pack sat innocently in the center of the table. Patrick smiled and picked up the little two-pack. Butterscotch. Sure, most kids wanted chocolate, Ben had that right, and Izzy did adore chocolate. Just like her mother, she’d have eaten her own hand if it were made of chocolate. She just liked butterscotch more. She was such a weird kid, so imaginative and bizarre and confusing, and so completely, undeniably his.

Izzy’s pudding in Patrick’s hand on Annie’s table.
The gang’s all here.

Patrick tore the cardboard holder and tossed it aside. He set one pudding cup down on the table and hefted the other. He tossed the pudding cup up and down as he paced back over to the windows. Still nothing. He checked his watch. 10:07. Any minute now.
Come on.

He turned to continue his pacing when a glint of light on the horizon caught his peripheral vision. He spun back to the window, pressing his nose against the glass. For a moment he wondered if he had imagined it, but there it was again, a sharp glint on the horizon, barely visible through the yellow cloud, but unmistakable. He pulled open the door and stepped out onto the balcony. For nearly three minutes he strained his eyes against the smog, trying to verify the moving shape, when a sharp wind from the lake ripped a hole in the cloud, and he could see it suddenly, the entire train moving slowly down the tracks a few miles away. He smiled a big, lopsided grin as the engine disappeared into the underground station.

He ran back through the door and slammed it shut. He tore the foil cover from the pudding cup and smiled down at the smooth, creamy surface. He grabbed a spoon from the kitchen counter and plunged it into the butterscotch. Three years, four months, and thirteen days had passed since the Flying Monkey attack, and every second of that time had ticked its way down to this pudding cup. He thought maybe he should say something, so he said, “The second-to-last of many.” It sounded stupid, and he wished he had said something a little more historical, for the sake of his own personal record and the biography that he assumed Ben would probably want to write about him someday, but there was no time for revisions. He had to hurry. The train left in just twelve hours. They would need every bit of it to reach the station.

He finished Izzy’s butterscotch in three bites.

•

Ben had a serious dilemma. He glanced at the oversized knapsack, crammed almost to the brim with canned food and bottled water, then over at the weapons cache, his very own carefully cultivated collection of cutlery and bludgeons.

Decisions, decisions.

He could carry the knife in his belt, the bat in his hand, and the machete in the bag, but then he’d have to leave the hammer and the baton behind, and both of those were light, which would make them good in a surprise attack. He might be able to fit the baton in the bag with the machete and the food, but it’d be a tight fit, if it fit at all. Or he could put the baton on his belt, if he could find the nylon case, put the knife in his pocket, and maybe carry the hammer, but then he’d have to leave either the bat or the machete behind. He could put the machete in the bag and carry both the hammer
and
the bat, but the proportions were all wrong, it’d make him feel stupid. He could switch out the hammer for the machete, since the machete and the bat were roughly the same size, but then he’d have one weapon in each hand that really required two hands to use it effectively, so that’d be pointless, and, besides, he was liable to cut his own leg off walking like that. The stupid machete was
sharp
. He could leave the machete and put the bat in the bag, or maybe put the hammer in the bag and carry the bat, but then he’d have all blunt weapons, except for the knife, which was handy, but too small to really be useful for large, fast-moving targets, and you never knew when you’d come across a mutant bear. He could leave the bat behind, since he’d always kind of swung like a girl anyway, but something about the idea of a blood-spattered bat really spoke to him, probably due to all the B-movie horror flicks he’d watched in the break room years ago as a Blockbuster clerk, and, besides, what if he found a huge spike lying on the ground somewhere? He’d definitely want a bat to drive it through,
Warriors
-style. But it didn’t make sense to leave the hammer, the knife, or the baton behind, seeing as how they didn’t take up a whole lot of room. What if he carried both the baton and the hammer on his belt? Then he could put the knife in his pocket, the machete in the bag, and the bat in his hand.
Perfect!
It was settled.

Then he remembered the pipe wrench.
Oh dammit, the pipe wrench!
How could he forget? He couldn’t leave the pipe wrench! He’d been sitting on a great Clue joke for
months
now, just
itching
for a chance to say it after braining someone with the wrench. He had to bring it. But, damn, it was heavy and pretty bulky. He’d have to sacrifice the bat and carry the wrench. Or maybe tie it to his belt, but three weapons down there would get heavy, and they’d probably make his pants sag, which would make it impossible to run like hell if any of the weapons failed. He could leave the machete, but dammit, no, never mind, he couldn’t leave the machete; he’d already been over this.

He felt like crying.
Shit
, he thought.
The apocalypse is hard.

He had just decided to dump out all the food and stuff the bag full of weapons when someone knocked at the door. Three hard knocks. Ben froze.

“Ben, it’s me,” Patrick called from the hall. “Can I come in?”

Ben stood rooted to the floor and listened. It didn’t sound like there was anyone else out in the hall with him, but, hell, the apartment door was 24-gauge with a steel frame and ultra-high-density foam insulation. Who knows what he wasn’t hearing out there?

What he
was
hearing was Patrick muttering a muffled string of expletives. There was a loud thud near the bottom of the door (a kick, probably). Then, with no small amount of perverse delight, he heard the sequence begin...

Three hard knocks, two soft knocks, one long knock, three short knocks, two and a quarter rapid-fire knocks, one flat palm slap, four knuckle taps, another palm slap, seven knuckle taps, two long knocks, seven left hand-right hand alternating slap-pounds, three short knocks, one knuckle tap, two palm slaps, three hard knocks, two soft knocks, four hard knocks, one rippling knuckle tap, two palm slaps.

Ben double-checked the sequence against the sheet tacked up by the door. His jaw fell open in surprise.
Holy shit, he got it right
. Ben shrugged and reached for the top chain lock, but stopped short. He leaned back over to the code sheet and looked at the date at the top.
Huh
, he thought. “Sorry,” he called through the door. “That was
last
week’s code.”

This time, the string of curses was not muffled. 

“Ben, if you don’t open this door, I will leave you here to die alone, I swear to God. And I will not give you the rights to my biography.”

Against his better judgment, Ben threw back the series of locks and cracked open the door. Patrick’s face burned a deep crimson. He’d never seen the poor guy so angry. “What makes you think I want to write your biography?”

“Don’t act like you don’t.” Patrick pushed the door open and stepped inside. “If you don’t knock off this Knock Code nonsense, I’ll have no choice but to—oooo, weapons!” he cried, pointing at the arsenal splayed out on the living room floor. “
Bemme. Bemme! Bemme
weapons,” he said, making quick open-and-closed grabby hands.

“Are you speaking a language?” Ben asked.

“
Bemme!
” Patrick pointed frantically at the pipe wrench. Ben shook his head, but picked it up and handed it to his gaunt friend. “Ooooo! Pipe wrench!” Patrick swung the heavy tool wildly, freezing in various (and completely off-balance) ninja poses. “Yes! I like this. This shall be my wrench, and I shall call him Rusty.” He swung it around his head, and the weight of the wrench carried him straight back into the wall. The head blasted right through the drywall. “It works!” Patrick cried.

“Okay, two things,” Ben said, swiping the wrench out of Patrick’s hand. “One, the wrench is mine. Two, everything here is mine.”

“Aww, come on! All I have is a putter. Holy cats!” he cried, eyes bulging. “Is that an extendable baton?”

“Yeah. It is. Don’t touch it.”

“Where did you get that?!”