Read More Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse Online

Authors: Joel Arnold

Tags: #horror, #apocalypse, #horror short stories, #apocalypse fiction, #joel arnold, #apocalypse stories, #daniel pyle

More Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse (5 page)

BOOK: More Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse
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December – Marilyn Monroe

Saturday, December 1st.

Since I had the weekend off, I slept in that
morning. The gas pumps and store are open on weekends, of course,
and Glen Heywood, a twenty-something hotshot, was the on-call
mechanic in case anyone needed emergency repairs. So when my phone
started playing the rocking part of
Bohemian Rhapsody
, I
almost didn’t answer.

Almost.


Jordan?” It was the weekend cashier,
Erik, eighteen and skinny as a dipstick.


Yep?”


Sorry to bug you, but we got someone
needing a new tire.”


What about Glen?” I asked.


Well, that’s the thing. I called him,
and he came in, but then he just left.”


He just left? What do you
mean?”


I mean he just…left. Like he had some
kind of emergency.”


Did he say why?”


Nope. Just ran out and peeled
off.”

I sighed.


Jordan?”


Yeah?”


Can you come in? Or should I call
Ben?”


Naw, I’ll come in,” I said. “Just a
blown tire, right?”


Yes sir.”

I got dressed, brushed my teeth and ran a
comb through what little hair I have left and walked the half-block
to the garage. Eric was entranced in his Game Boy, while some
out-of-towner sat on the hood of his Rav-4, the front passenger
side’s tire a spare.


Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said.
“I’ll have the thing fixed in no time.”


Good. I thought I had a bad case of
B.O. or something, the way that other guy left.”


Sorry about that. I guess he had some
emergency to get to.”

I jacked up his vehicle and replaced the
spare with a new tire, and then checked the pressure on the rest of
them. He was good to go. As he paid Erik, I grabbed a coffee from
the break room. When I came out, I noticed Mort’s office door was
open. Nothing unusual about that, since Erik has a key in order to
get change for the register drawer. But I asked him, “Was Glen in
there?”

Erik shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess so. I
mean, actually, yeah, he was, now that you mention it. He came out
like he’d seen a ghost and took off.”


Huh.” I went into the office and I’ll
admit, the first thing I looked at was that damn calendar, my eyes
lingering on a young Marilyn Monroe. If you had to pick a Grand
Poobah of oozing sex appeal, it would have to be Marilyn. My eyes
slowly moved down to the days.

I caught my breath.

The days
.

The calendar went up to December twentieth
and stopped. Underneath was empty space, all virgin white.

My stomach knotted. I felt dizzy.
Nauseous.

Stop it, I told myself. Stop being so damn
ridiculous.

I took the calendar off the wall, carried it
out to Erik and showed it to him.


What do you see here?” I
asked.

He glanced up from his Game Boy. “Some hot
chick in an old swimsuit.”


But what about the days?” I
asked.

His eyes were back on his device. I jerked
it out of his hands and shoved the calendar in front of his face.
“What about the days?” I asked again.

He stared at me a moment, then looked down.
“That’s messed up,” he said.


Why do you say that? What’s messed up
about it?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Looks
like they ran out of ink.”


It only goes up to the twentieth,
right?” I asked.


Well, yeah.” He looked at me like I’d
turned senile. “What do
you
see, Mr. Conrad?”


Same thing,” I muttered. “And that
doesn’t bother you?”


It’s a printing error,” Erik
said.

I slowly backed away, nodding, staring at
the blank space on the calendar. So he saw it, too. It wasn’t some
mystical, magical calendar then, showing us our dates of death.

Unless…

I ran outside. A couple kids were filling
their bicycle tires with the air hose. I held out the calendar to
them, folding it over so that only the page with the dates was
visible. “Tell me what you see,” I said.

They glanced warily from me to the
calendar.


What do you mean?” one of them
asked.

I tried to keep my voice calm. “How many
days do you see here?”

They looked closer. “Twenty,” one of them
said.

I held it up to the other kid. “And
you?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Twenty.”


Okay.” It really was just a printing
error after all. I took the calendar back into the office and
placed it back on the wall, making sure it was straight. Not worth
getting fired over.

 

Monday. December 3rd.

I walked into the break room and poured a
cup of coffee. Ben came in, smelling of bourbon. No, he
reeked
of it.


Jesus, Ben,” I said. “What the
hell?”

He looked up at me. Pale. Sweating.
Trembling. “I…” He pulled a chair out from the card table and
slumped into it. “Fuck,” he muttered. He looked up at me
glassy-eyed and shook his head. “I guess my time has come,” he
said. He pulled a bottle of Jim Beam from his pocket and took a
slug.

I grabbed the bottle from him. “Cut it out,”
I said. “It’s the calendar, isn’t it? It’s just a printing error. I
saw it, too. Only goes up to the twentieth, right?”


You saw it, too?” he
asked.


It’s just a goddamn printing error.”
Then I said, “Go home. Sleep it off. You can’t work like
this.”

He nodded slowly. “You really saw it?”


Of course I saw it. Erik saw it.
Anyone who looks at the thing can see it.”

Ben said, “That calendar – it’s been here a
long time. It was here when Mort bought the place.”


Go home,” I said.


But we’re all doomed. Can’t you see
that?”


You’re
beyond
drunk.” Then I
asked. “Is Mort in, yet?”


Huh?” He shook his head. “What’s it
matter, anyway?”


Go get some sleep. Nobody’s doomed.
Not me. Not you. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”

Ben slowly got up. “I can walk.”


You sure?”

He stared at me, confused, then said,
“Ayuh.” He shuffled out of the break room. I followed him to make
sure he didn’t get behind the wheel of his car, and when he was a
block away, I came back in. Mort arrived a few minutes later. I
stopped him before he went into his office.


Hey, wait. Look, the calendar,” I
said.

His brow furrowed. “What about it?”


There’s a misprint on it. But don’t
worry. We can all see it. Okay?”

His eyes widened. “What do you mean?”


It stops on the twentieth. But I saw
it. Ben saw it. Anyone can see it. I’m just telling you so you
don’t freak out.”

He pushed me aside and rushed into his
office. I followed. He stopped and stood, staring at the
calendar.


See?” I said.

He slowly nodded. “I see.”


It doesn’t mean anything,” I
said.

He didn’t respond.


Not if we can all see it,” I
said.

He looked at me and smiled slightly.
“Right,” he said. “Not if we all see it.”


That’s right,” I said.

He walked over to the calendar and ran his
fingers over Marilyn’s black and white body, and then over the
days, stopping at the twentieth.


It doesn’t
mean
anything,” I
said.

He sat down in his chair. Rapped his
knuckles softly on his desk.


Right,” he muttered, staring at his
hands.

I sighed. Left him there. Went into the
garage and got to work. Although it was a slow day, I kept myself
busy. When I wasn’t working on cars, I swept and straightened out
the tools. I mopped the floor, both in the garage and the
convenience store. I scrubbed down counters and shelves. I cleaned
the break room.

As I got ready to leave, Mort called me into
his office.


Should I sit down?” I
asked.

He shrugged. He handed me a thick
envelope.


What’s this?” I asked.


It’s for you. A bonus.”


What for?”


For all the hard work you’ve done
around here.”


Are you firing me?” I
asked.

He looked up at me, confused. “What? No, I’m
not firing you.”


Okay,” I said. “Thank
you.”

He waved the words away. “Sure.”

I asked, “Are you okay?”

He shrugged. Looked up at me. “I’m okay,” he
said.


Why don’t you go home,” I said. “I
can stick around and close the place up.”


No. Thanks, though.”


You sure you’re okay?”

He cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

 

That night I woke to the sound of sirens and
the smell of smoke. At first I worried that my apartment building
was on fire. I dressed quickly and hurried outside. It was nearly
three in the morning.

It wasn’t my apartment building. It was
Morton’s Service Garage.

Others had woken and stepped out to see what
the fuss was about. Flames reached into the sky. Smoke rose and
obscured the stars, muted the moon. There was an explosion, a
series of loud pops, like gunfire. Firemen trained their hoses on
the building.

At least nobody was inside at this early
hour, I thought. Thank God.

Turns out I was wrong. I found out the next
day that Mort had been inside. Ben, too.

The word was that the fire hadn’t started
accidentally.

Jesus.

I picked up the envelope Mort had given me,
tore it open and pulled out a thick wad of hundred dollar bills.
Seven thousand dollars worth.

Double Jesus.

That goddamn calendar. I should’ve burned
the thing when I had the chance, not just tossed it in the goddamn
garbage bin.

Well, it was burned up now. Burnt to a
cinder. Goodbye, Norma Jean. Those crazy, stupid…

It was a
printing
mistake. I saw it.
Erik saw it. Those kids saw it. Ben and Mort saw it.

And besides, it wasn’t the twenty-first,
yet. So if it did mean anything, it was wrong. Mort and Ben died
too damn
early
.

 

Days went by. I wasn’t in any hurry to look
for new work yet. With seven thousand dollars, I had time. Hell,
maybe I’d leave this town. Go back to Chicago. Or someplace,
anyplace else. I dug out my atlas and started flipping through it.
Maybe I’d move closer to my daughter. I missed her. Just talking on
the phone wasn’t always enough.

 

The twentieth came and went. Nothing
happened. I didn’t expect anything to. I went to bed.

But...

The phone woke me up at six this morning. It
was Angie.


Dad?” she said.


What is it? Are you okay?” I
asked.


Turn on the TV.”


Why? What’s going on?”


Oh God, Dad, I love you.”


Honey? You’re scaring me. What’s
going on?”


I just – ”

The phone died.

I turned on the television. All I got was
static.

I tried connecting to the internet on my
phone. Nothing worked.

I heard people crying outside. Dozens of
them.

They’re out there now, some hugging, some
crying, some wandering around dazed.

Just what in the hell is going on?

 

 

* * * * *

 

* * * * *

 

 

Last Seat on the
Rapture Express – 2

 

 

Cally-Jo rocks nervously in her seat,
hunched over the daypack she holds tightly in her lap. Colors whiz
by in a phantasmagorical blur. She catches herself humming, and the
moment she stops, she forgets the name of the song, forgets the
melody, as the chug-chug-chug of the train takes over her brain.
She sweats, wonders if the air-conditioner isn’t working, although
maybe there isn’t one. But that would be ridiculous here on the
Rapture Express, wouldn’t it? No air conditioning?

She sits between an old man in overalls and
shit-kicker boots, and a little boy in a black suit and tie.

I don’t think I belong here
.

The old man sleeps and snores, moaning
occasionally as if something hurts him in his dreams. The little
boy – maybe ten, eleven – runs his fingers over the text of an open
book. At first, Cally-Jo thinks it’s a bible, but as she listens to
him mumbling the words to himself, she hears words like
Pikachu
and
Charizard
. She squints at the book.
Something about
Pokemon
.

He catches her staring. His fingers stop
mid-page and he looks up at her. “’Sa matter with you?” he
asks.


Nothing. Sorry.” She looks back at
her daypack, squeezes it tighter, and begins rocking
again.

The boy’s voice softens. “It’s okay. You can
read along with me if you want.”

She glances at him and smiles briefly. Then
she leans over and whispers, “I don’t think I’m supposed to be
here.”


Why?” the boy asks. “You got your
ticket, don’t you?”

BOOK: More Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse
8.44Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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