Apocalypticon (40 page)

Despite the circumstances that led to their death, it didn’t seem right to leave the corpses strewn about the apartment, though no one was champing at the bit to dig four graves. So Annie stayed behind and, with the others watching from the sidewalk, happily set the whole apartment building on fire.

As the flames consumed the building, Amsalu mumbled something into the blaze and made the sign of the cross with his hand.

“Last rites?” Patrick asked when he was done.

“Even those who stray are children of God,” he replied.

The mourning period didn’t last long. Once they were safely back inside the walls of Fort Doom, Annie snatched a bottle of whiskey from Ben’s bag and thrust it triumphantly into the air, whooping and laughing like she were already drunk. The rest of the crew joined in, laughing and slapping high-fives and shaking off the general unpleasantness of justified slaughter.

Sarah pulled Ben aside and inspected his head wounds. “These look bad,” she frowned, prodding at his bruises.

“Yeah, well, the--ow!--the floor was pretty hard,” he said.

“Come with me. I’ll help you clean up.” She took his hand and led him to one of the cabins. Ben’s heart battered against his chest cavity like a caged animal at her touch. He shot Patrick a pleading look over his shoulder and mouthed,
What do I do
? Patrick gave him a thumbs up and mouthed back,
Just don’t be yourself
. Ben frowned as he stumbled after her into the cabin.

Patrick slipped off his backpack and set it on the ground in front of him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he opened the bag, dug through the cans of beans and vegetables, dug all the way to the bottom, and there, dented but unbroken and unopened, lay the butterscotch pudding cup. He exhaled with a smile and cinched the bag shut.

James stoked the mid-morning fire while Annie cracked open the whiskey. Amsalu went in search of his guitar, and Dylan retrieved a fresh tin of ash. Patrick leaned back against a log and twisted the cap off a bottle of wine. He clinked bottles with Anti-Annie, took a long swallow of the sweet red, and passed it across to James. Eventually Ben and Sarah rejoined them, Ben’s head wrapped in dirty bandages. They sat around the fire, drinking whiskey and wine, singing old songs, and swapping stories about the absurdity of the apocalypse. Tomorrow, Patrick would start on the rain-catching system, and Ben would practice talking to a girl. As for the next day, or the next week, or the next month, who knew what awaited them, but for that moment, right then, with Amsalu strumming his guitar, James grinning his lopsided grin, Annie shrieking with laughter, Dylan smoking his ash, and even Sarah cracking a smile, there was no doubt in either of their minds that they were exactly where they were meant to be.

•

Calico crouched low, inspecting the dirt underfoot. He plucked a long blade of browned grass and chewed it thoughtfully.

“What,” the man standing over him said.

Calico raised his mismatched eyes and grinned. “Looks like our boys started to drift.” He stood and arched his back, popping it along the spine. “Florida’s that-a-way,” he said, pointing away from the sun. “But they looped their way south.”

The other man gritted his teeth. “The monks lied.”

But Calico shook his head. “Naw, don’t think so. That little piece tied to the tree and those weird-ass monks told the same story. They headin’ to Disney World, all right. They just got no clue how to get there.”

The other man removed his cap and rubbed at his temples. “Options,” he said quietly.

“Well, hell, we could keep on after ‘em. I’d say they’re up on us by three days, we could prolly make up that ground. But I think we keep on keepin’ on to Florida. That’s where they headin’, that’s where they’ll end up. Stop goin’ after them; let them come to us.

The other man nodded slowly. It was a fine plan.

18.

Patrick yawned and stretched and mumbled a sleepy hello to the morning sun. He pulled on his sweater and crept out into the yard, closing the door gently so he wouldn’t wake Ben. He wiped the sleep from his eyes as he crossed to the fire.

“Morning,” James said. He picked the percolator from its grill shelf above the flames and poured a cup of steaming coffee into the empty mug at his feet. He set the percolator aside and handed Patrick his mug.

“Mornin’,” Pat replied with a yawn.

“You looked a little shifty sneaking out of your bunk this morning,” James grinned. “Trying not to wake the mice?”

“Trying not to wake Benny Boy. Those mice, they’ll sleep through anything. But Ben, he needs his beauty sleep.”

“Not likely, with you clomping around like a sick elephant,” Ben said, emerging from the cabin. He yawned and stretched and scratched his belly. Then he zipped up his jacket and ambled over to join them.

“I do not
clomp
,” Patrick said, hurt. “If anything, I saunter. Some have said that I sashay.”

“Whatever you do, you do it loudly, and clumsily.”

Patrick sighed. “Not the first time I’ve heard that.”

“Morning,” James smiled, pouring Ben his own mug of coffee.

“Morning,” he mumbled. He took the mug and blew away the rising steam.

“I think you’re beautiful, no matter
how
much sleep you get,” James said. Ben snorted grumpily. “So, Pat,how’s your paw these days?”

Patrick proudly unraveled the bandage around his palm and held his hand up for all to see. “I do believe it’s just about healed!” he said. “No more hole.”

“Excellent news!” said James. “Fort Doom: Gangrene-free for almost two full years.”

“OSHA would be proud.”

James grinned. “So what’s on the docket today?”

“Ah! An excellent question! I’ve got some repairs to make to Gully, then I--”

“Gully?” Ben interrupted. “Who’s Gully?”

Patrick gestured to the giant tin-and-tarp structure looming over the garden. “
That
is Gully.”

Ben sighed. “You named your water spreader?”

“It’s not a water spreader, Ben, it is a high-concept precipitation distribution platform,” Patrick insisted. “And it’s not an it. It’s a she.” He turned back to James. “Anyway. Gully needs a little work, and I have to mess with the new alarm system. I tested it out last night, stepping on the panel only gets one of the groups of cans clanging. Need to figure that out. Then I thought I’d try my hand at designing a rapid-launch weapon system to mount above the gate over there.”

“Ooo, rapid-launch weapon system? That sounds exciting.”

“Well, don’t get
too
worked up. It’ll likely only launch very small rocks. But if all goes according to plan, it’ll launch them very, very quickly.”

“I like it!”

“Why don’t we just fill a bucket with rocks and dump it on people who attack?” Ben asked, sipping his coffee. “That’s pretty rapid delivery.”

Patrick frowned. “It’s also eighteen times less fun. Stop waging a war on fun, Fogelvee!”

“What about you, Ben? Any plans for the day?”

The door to Sarah’s cabin opened, and she stepped out into the yard. The three men turned in unison to look at her. She marched directly over to the outhouse cabin without sparing so much as a glance at any of them. When she closed the door with a quick, curt slam, Ben turned back to the fire. Patrick and James grinned at him like a pair of idiots.

“What?” he asked.

“Perhaps today is the day you finally speak to yon fair-haired angel in a tender and romantic manner?” Patrick teased, jiggling his eyebrows up and down.

“Shut up. And no. I’m going to start patching the southern wall today. Amsalu and I’ll bring back a few loads of bricks and start working on the hole.”

“Bricks!” Patrick cried. “How resourceful! Where’d you find them?”

Ben squinted at Patrick. “Gee, Pat. I don’t know. Where in this apocalyptic wasteland full of building rubble could I possibly find some unused bricks?” He shook his head and sipped down the rest of his coffee.

“Man,” said James, slapping his hands against his knees, “an irrigation system, an alarm, a rocklet launcher, a new wall. You guys are spoiling us.”

“Just trying to earn our keep,” Patrick said.

“Ha! You’ve done more than the rest of us combined, and we’ve been here for two years. You guys have only been around for--” He trailed off, frowning in concentration. “How long
have
you been here?” he asked.

“Who knows?” Ben shrugged. “Rule Number 18.”

Patrick leaned back on his log and did some quick calculation. “If I had to guess, I’d say…14 weeks? Maybe 16?”

James let out a low whistle. “Four months already?” He shrugged. “I guess time flies.” He picked up a stick from the ground and used it to stoke the pale flames. “Remind me where you guys were headed when you got here.”

Patrick opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself. Where
had
they been going? He crossed his arms and bit his lip, struggling to remember. He knew they’d been headed
somewhere
. They didn’t just leave Chicago for no reason. Did they? He cast an uneasy glance at his friend. “Ben?”

But Ben was struggling too. He furrowed his brow and scratched his cheek. “Maybe...Neeeeeeeew Orleans...?” he asked uncertainly. “That sounds like a place we’d go. Right? Or no?”

James shook his head. “We talked about it your first night here, I know that. But for the life of me...”

“Huh.” Patrick stared quizzically at his shoes. “Where were you taking me, feet?” He wasn’t accustomed to memory lapses, and his brain was coming up alarmingly empty on this one. The feeling was...unsettling. “Ah, well,” he said, waving away the mystery with a swoop of his hand, “it’ll come to us. And besides, wherever it was, it can’t be any better than this. Food, water, and friends, am I right?” he said, nudging Ben on the shoulder.

Sarah emerged from the outhouse and walked swiftly back to her cabin. “Yeah,” Ben said, following her with his eyes. “It doesn’t get much better.”

“Huh.” James tousled his tangled hair and shrugged. “Well, at any rate, we’re glad you stayed,” he grinned. “And speaking of things that’re on dockets, laundry’s the first on my list today. You guys have anything you need washed?”

Ben shook his head. “I just washed my shirts yesterday. And jeans are always clean.”

“How ‘bout you, Pat?”

Patrick sniffed at his knee. “Oof. Jeans are
not
always clean,” he decided, pushing himself up to his feet. “These are due. Let me go find a decent pair of replacement pants, and they’re all yours.”

•

James ambled down to the water’s edge and dropped the bundle of laundry on the ground. He worked open the knot and opened the blanket, letting the dirty clothes tumble out onto the rocky beach. He lifted up a pair of Annie’s jeans and inspected a fist-sized bulge in one of the pockets. He reached in and pulled out a whole potato. He sighed. He didn’t even want to know.

“Guess I better check ‘em all,” he muttered.

He searched through the pile of clothing and scavenged a guitar pick from Amsalu’s jacket pocket and a straight razor from Dylan’s patched pants. He didn’t even know Dylan
had
a straight razor. That’d be something to discuss at the next round table.

He set the pick and the blade down on the blanket and moved on to Patrick’s jeans. He felt around the pockets and was about to toss the pants aside when he heard a light crinkle. He turned the jeans over, reached into the back pocket, and pulled out a worn, folded piece of paper.

“I shouldn’t read that,” he said aloud. “Probably none of my business.” Unless, of course, it
was
some of his business. What if his new friends were keeping something from him? Something important? Could Patrick and Ben be spies for the Carsons? Or one of the other Mobile gangs? Or, good lord, someone worse. Someone new to town looking to make a hard move into the city. They could be on an embedded recon mission. Was that insane? Of course it was insane. Right? Right. But, then again, there weren’t many uses for written notes these days. It had to be communication from
someone
. And how much did he really know about those two? Only what they told him.

James shook his head. It was unlikely. And it was a ridiculous idea. But they themselves had shared with him one of their rules, number 12: Err on the side of crazy.

He unfolded the note.
Better safe than sorry
.

As his eyes moved over the note, his heart sank. The words became blurred, and he realized that he had tears in his eyes. Which was stupid, because he wasn’t a cryer, hadn’t cried in years. He scrubbed his eyes dry. He refolded the note, sat down on the cold beach, and looked out at the swirling yellow mist roiling above the ocean. For almost a full hour he sat there, note in hand, staring out at the water, thinking. But there really wasn’t all that much to think about. Something had to be done. And he had to be the one to do it.

When he returned to the fort, he hung the clean clothes on the drying line, then he sought out the rest of his group. Ben was lugging bricks over to the southern wall, and Patrick was busy tinkering with the alarm system outside the gate, so James gathered the rest of the crew together behind the row of cabins. “Listen,” he said uneasily. “We have to talk about something.”