More Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse (6 page)

She sits back, clutching her daypack, a
gaudy hot pink, and closes her eyes. She rocks harder, faster.

“
Lady, it’s okay. You can just explain
it to them. Tell ‘em you lost it.”

She lifts her face barely an inch off her
daypack. “I have a ticket,” she whispers. “I just – it’s not
mine.”

“
Someone give it to you?”

A voice rings out at the front of their car.
“Tickets! Tickets please!” The conductor slowly makes his way
toward them, dressed like he’s straight out of a western.

Cally-Jo’s hands tremble as she unzips her
daypack.

“
Tickets, please!”

Five rows ahead of them, a man starts
sobbing, pleading. “I had it right here. You’ve got to believe
me!”

“
You know the rules,” the conductor
says. “Ticketed passengers only.”

“
But what about that hippy you picked
up? That guy with the sign?”

The conductor spreads out his hands, his
fingers neatly trimmed, save for his pinky finger. That nail is
long and pointed. “He was on the guest list,” the conductor
says.

The passenger nods, his eyes brimming with
hope. “Yes, the guest list. Maybe
I’m
on the guest list!
Could you check? Please?”

“
You’re not on the guest
list.”

The passenger starts to stand, his eyes
darting this way and that. “But I made a
deal
.”

The conductor smiles sympathetically,
although Cally-Jo, five rows away, can tell it’s not
real
sympathy.

“
I’m sorry sir,” the conductor says,
“but the only deal is
this
deal. The
real
deal. Any
unauthorized deals are null and void.”

The ticketless passenger steps into the
narrow aisle and drops to his knees, hands clutched together.
“
Please
.”

The conductor sighs and produces a wooden
whistle from his pocket. He puts it to his lips and gives it three
quick blows. The door of the train car opens and a stern, sturdy
old woman appears. Cally-Jo thinks she’s dressed like one of those
prison matrons from the movies – like what her uncle Dusty would
call a ‘straight-up bull-dyke.’

“
No,” the man pleads.

“
There, there. Not to worry.” The
conductor puts his hand on top of the man’s head. “There are
available seats up top.”

The man looks up, confused. “Up top?”

The conductor nods. “Plenty of room.” He
steps past the kneeling man, and the old, but thick and sturdy
woman takes the man by the hand and encourages him to stand.
Cally-Jo notices now that the woman’s eyebrows are painted on, her
lipstick too thick.

The man stands. He hangs his head as the
woman leads him out the door from which she came. The door slams
shut behind them.

And then over the chug, chug, chug of the
train, Cally-Jo hears screams.

“
Tickets! Tickets, please,” the
conductor says as he makes his way down the aisle.

Out of the corner of her eye, Cally-Jo sees
a body –
another
body – fly past the window, on its way
somewhere
.

She clutches her daypack in her lap, hunches
over it and rocks back and forth in her narrow seat.

“
Tickets! Tickets, please!”

The man to her right in the overalls
continues to snore. The boy in the suit on her other side leans
over and puts his hand on her arm. “Miss? You can have my ticket if
you want.”

She stares at him hard and shakes her head.
“I couldn’t do that,” she says, blinking away tears. “Besides, I’ve
got a ticket.”

The conductor hovers above them. He taps the
boy on the shoulder with his well-manicured index finger.
“Well?”

The boy looks once more at Cally-Jo, and as
she slowly unzips her daypack, the boy hands the conductor his
ticket.

The conductor smiles. “Thank you, son.” He
punctures the ticket with the dangerous looking nail of his pinky
finger.

The boy closes his eyes and leans back in
his chair.

The conductor clears his throat, and as
Cally-Jo stares into her pack, the man next to her stirs and wakes.
He digs a crumpled ticket from the pocket of his overalls and hands
it across Cally-Jo to the conductor. The conductor taps his cap in
acknowledgement and punctures the ticket. The old man lies back in
his chair and looks out the window. He startles as another body
falls from the roof, but then shuts his eyes and begins muttering
the Lord’s Prayer.

The conductor clears his throat again and
rocks back and forth on his heals waiting for Cally-Jo. “Shall I
call for assistance?” he asks quietly.

Cally-Jo shakes her head and reaches into
her daypack. She pulls something out. “It was my mother’s,” she
says.

It’s a human forearm, sawed off just below
the elbow, the ticket clutched in the pale, stiff fingers of a dead
hand. Cally-Jo hands it over, trembling. “I don’t know if it
counts.”

The conductor takes the severed limb and
gingerly extrudes the ticket from the clenched digits. He
uncrumples it and examines it. He smiles. “Perfectly legal tender.
We do value the resourcefulness of our riders. Well done, well
done.” He punctures the blood-soaked ticket and drops it into his
pocket. He hands the limb back to Cally-Jo. Winks at her. “A
souvenir,” he says.

Cally-Jo takes her mother’s forearm and
places it back in her hot pink daypack. She zips it shut.

The boy in the suit continues to sleep and
the old man in overalls continues to mutter prayers as the Rapture
Express rolls on.

* * * * *

* * * * *

All the streets, the parking lots, the
sidewalks of Bushton, breathed. The smog was fading. Curtains of
soot and smoke were parting. The sky was turning emerald blue, a
color that hadn’t been seen in decades.

Dr. Harry Moore acknowledged the thunderous
applause and stepped carefully off the platform. It was enough that
the wine was getting to his head, but the effect of this
unprecedented attention was in itself enough to make a man dizzy.
He clutched the key to the city in his wiry hands and drifted
slowly through the crowd as a jazz combo struck up
In the
Mood
.

Harry Moore was the inventor of Oxycrete, a
form of organic cement. It was durable, cheap to produce, and it
breathed
. While absorbing pollutants from the air and rain,
it also produced clean oxygen.

Oxycrete had quickly replaced the old
highways and sidewalks. New buildings were being erected with it.
Bushton was the prototype for introducing Oxycrete into the rest of
the world, and it was becoming more successful than anyone had
imagined. Harry just hoped it would stay that way.

He grabbed another glass of wine off a
passing waiter’s tray. He had never expected so much attention. All
those years in an isolation tank made him forget how many beautiful
women there were out in the real world.

An arm slithered around his shoulder.

“
Harry! How are you?” Large white
cheeks and glistening teeth hovered inches from Harry’s
face.

“
Great,” Harry managed.
“Super.”

“
What’s this I hear about a new
project? Hard at work again, are you?”

Normally, Harry’s years of industrious
seclusion made him wary of social situations. He didn’t trust
people. But tonight was different. He had done something good for
the world, made something that people wanted, and they were all
here to congratulate him.

But it was mostly the wine that caused Harry
to blurt out, “Sound! Vibrations!”

“
Oh?” The man’s breath smelled of
fermenting raisins. His tongue caressed his gleaming teeth.
“Sound?” He laughed. “Vibrations?” He slipped another glass into
Harry’s hand.

“
Yes.” Harry took a large swallow.
“Actually, the lack of vibration.”

The man nodded, a complete lack of
comprehension spreading across his lips in a smile. “Hmm. Yes. I
see.”

“
Sound and vibration and its lack
thereof,” Harry slurred. “I’m sorry sir, but this wine has gone
straight to my head.” He took a deep breath. Then another. He
grinned as he realized the air he breathed was produced in part by
his own invention. “I’m working on a way to produce sound with no
vibration.” He quickly finished off the glass of wine.

“
But isn’t that what sound is?
Vibration?”

“
Yes. Technically. At least that’s
what we’ve always thought of it as.” An excited giggle escaped
him.

The man pulled Harry to the edge of the
crowd and grabbed him another wine. “I’m afraid you’ve lost
me.”

Dr. Moore looked at the man’s lapel, trying
to bring it back into focus. “What about dreams?” he said. “You
have the illusion of sound in dreams, do you not?”

“
Well, yes. I suppose so.”

“
And what vibrations produce those
sounds?”

“
But they’re just dreams.”

“
They seem real enough when you’re
dreaming them, and yet your tympanum is quite dormant. Quite
content to sit there and register the occasional creak of the
house, the snores of your sleeping partner.” Harry pointed to his
head and turned his finger in a quick, wild circle. “What if there
was a way to stimulate those same brain cells that give the
illusion of sound to your dreams? What if there was a way to bypass
the middleman? Go straight to the brain without bothering the ear
at all?”

“
Sort of like hearing
voices?”

“
Exactly.”

“
But that’s preposterous.”

“
Absolutely.” Harry smiled.

Of course, afterwards, with a large
hangover, Harry remembered exactly why he never discussed his
projects before they were ready. He remembered why he was always so
careful in choosing those few people he spoke to.

He trudged out of bed, took an aspirin for
his throbbing temples, and jumped as his phone played
Tchaikovsky.

He had the terrible feeling that if he
answered, his troubles would officially commence.

He took a deep breath and answered.

“
Hello?”

* * * * *

Harry walked dejectedly over the respiring
sidewalk to the office of the Mayor of Bushton. He knew what was
going to be said beforehand, and again, he swore to himself he
would never ever touch another drop of wine again.

“
Harry! Damn glad to see you! What’s
this I hear about a new project in the works?” The Mayor smiled and
winked. “And you didn’t even let me in on it? C’mon, Harry. What’s
the good news? What’s the low-down on that brilliant brain of
yours?”

Harry uttered the words he had rehearsed on
his walk over, although now, they didn’t seem so convincing. “I’m
not sure what you’re talking about,” he said.

Gone was the confidence, the feeling of
acceptance he’d felt the previous night. Now he was just Dr. Harry
Moore. Dr. Harry Moore, who craved isolation, basked in solitude,
blossomed in seclusion.

“
Not sure?” the Mayor laughed. “Come
now, Harry. I have it all right here.” He pulled out a sheet of
paper and read from it, as if it were a trial
manuscript.

Harry held up his hands and shook his head.
“Is this some sort of joke?”

The skin around the Mayor’s eyes creased.
His irises glistened a bit too brightly.

Harry went limp.

“
Care for a drink?” the Mayor
asked.

“
Look,” Harry said, staring at his
feet. “I’m not ready to discuss this yet. It’s in the preliminary
stages. Very preliminary.”

“
Aw, hell,” the Mayor laughed. “You
said that about Oxycrete. And look how wrong you were.”

Harry shot a cold glance at the Mayor.

“
Harry, Harry, Harry,” the Mayor
clucked. “You need your successes
yanked
from you. You’re
too much of a scientist. If it wasn’t for me and the Foundation,
your organic cement would still be in the preliminary
stages.”

“
We don’t know its long term effects,”
Harry sighed.

“
Take a deep breath. Look up in the
sky. There’s your effect.”

“
We can’t be positive.”

“
I’m
positive.” The Mayor waved
his hand in the air as if brushing away the long lost smog. “We’re
not here to discuss that, anyway. That’s already entering the
history books. Let’s talk about this vibrationless sound of
yours.”

Harry slumped into a chair.

* * * * *

For some reason, Harry couldn’t catch a cab.
Even the Bushton busses pulled away at the last minute, the doors
shutting indignantly in his face. Even before opening the lab’s
door, he had an awful premonition of what he would find.

The place was ransacked.
Just like last
time
. His hardware was gone, too. The various headsets, the
vibrationless amplification systems. All of it.

Although he still strongly believed his
concrete experiments were taken and put into use too soon, this was
worse. The applications of something like this...

Harry shuddered.

The Mayor had needed the concrete formula to
clean up the city. Show the Bushtonites how serious he was. It
hadn’t hurt that the election was just around the corner,
either.

But this - who knew what he’d use it for?
Harry shivered. He walked over to the file cabinet and opened it,
expecting a mess. It was, except -