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From: Andrew Roller <roller39@IDT.NET>
Subject: The Fading Universe part 3 of 7 (NND)
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_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Andrew Roller Presents
THE FADING UNIVERSE
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Chapter Three
The boulevard was dark and deserted. A makeshift barricade had
been thrown across it in an unsuccessful attempt to hold back the
Alameda army; Marvin could make out the bright letters of the word
POLICE on an overturned sawhorse, and nearby an armored personnel
carrier with an Ontario insignia painted on its side sat useless, its
tread torn from the body and tangled between the sprockets of its
wheels. Here and there lay a uniformed corpse.
"We're back in business," Frankie announced, running forward
to strip the soldiers and policemen of their weapons and valuables.
"I claim any food that you find on them," Flaherty yelled.
"Save any tampons you find for Elsa," Perry said with a weak
laugh. Elsa shot him an angry glance but said nothing.
Within a few minutes they had sorted through all the bodies.
Perry had gone aside and, in an act of mad catharsis, castrated several
of the dead. Marvin spotted Flaherty giving a particularly thorough
search to one female soldier who had noticeably large breasts.
They continued walking; past gutted buildings, boarded up
shops and abandoned tenements. Now and then they would stop and peer
inside one of the stores, but most had been ruined by fire, their
interiors glowing eerily with flickering embers.
"Hey, Marv," Harrigan called out. "There's a city bus inside
this store!"
"We must have found the local city bus dealer," Marvin
joked. He peered past the plywood that had been nailed over the
storefront window. The beam of his police flashlight fell on a smashed
up bus. "It must have crashed through the back of the building," he
thought aloud. He directed his flashlight deeper into the shop but
couldn't make out the rear wall in the gloom.
By this time Harrigan had managed to jimmy the front door open
and he, Frankie, and Flaherty were banging around inside the store.
"Sure stinks in here," Harrigan remarked.
"Quit letting so many farts, Flaherty," Frankie said.
"I haven't cut any cheese all day," Flaherty protested.
Harrigan gave a frightened shout. His flashlight clattered to
the floor as he began battering himself with blows. Frankie dashed over
to the man and began beating him with his palms.
"Help! Insects," Frankie cried.
Flaherty bolted out the front door of the shop. Marvin and
Elsa ran inside, Perry hung by the door.
A minute later Harrigan stumbled out of the store's murky
interior, shaken but safe.
"Do you need any help?" Perry asked, purposely tardy in his
offer of assistance.
"No, I'm O.K., thanks," Harrigan mumbled.
"You alright, Harrigan?" Flaherty called from across the
street.
Inside the store the bus's engine coughed to life. Its one
surviving headlight blazed through the gloom of the store, blinding
Perry, Frankie, and Harrigan. The bus lurched forward, and burst
through the glass storefront a moment later.
Marvin opened the front door of the bus and kicked out a dead
body. Several cockroaches clung to the corpse as it hit the asphalt.
"Climb aboard," Marvin invited. "It costs a dollar, but I'll
waive the fee as long as you promise to abstain from anal sex."
"Harrigan and I each have a dollar," Frankie said, dropping the
money in the bus's coin box.
Elsa helped Perry climb aboard, despite the boy's protestations
that he could mount the steps himself.
"Boy, this sure beats walking," Flaherty said, hurrying over
from across the avenue.
Harrigan plunked down behind the wheel, folded shut the front
door, and with a wheeze, the bus rambled off down the dim thoroughfare.
# # #
Agile figures sprinted amidst the shadows.
"I think we've got company," Harrigan reported. He reached up
and changed the cellophane sign on the front of the bus from "15th
Street" to "Not in Service."
"Leatherjackets," Elsa breathed.
"Hey, we need a lift," a silhouette called from the curb.
"It's Harrigan!" someone shouted. "Harrigan's the driver!"
A salvo of gunfire shattered the windows along the left side of
the bus.
"Duck down," Marvin commanded. He crouched behind a broken
window and returned fire.
Gaudily dressed figures, most of them young males, ran out
behind the vehicle as it passed and threw Molotov cocktails at it.
Explosions rocked the bus.
Perry leaned out the back window, shouting curses.
Suddenly a convertible rushed out of an alley and came up
alongside the bus.
"Fuck you, Marvin," one of the passengers shouted, firing a
bazooka into the bus. Marvin dove to the floor of the bus as the blast
tore off a section of the roof above his head.
"Damn, they've picked up some pretty heavy artillery," Marvin
muttered.
"They ain't so smart," Frankie grinned at him. The dwarf leapt
onto a seat and nimbly pitched a concussion grenade into the
convertible. A cry went up, the car careened toward the pavement, and a
moment later an explosion erupted. The bus sped past the wreckage.
# # #
"What's that humming sound?" Marvin asked worriedly.
He was standing inside God knows who's apartment, on the second floor of
a building. It fronted one of a myriad of dingy little streets that
crisscrossed the city. Outside their bus lay uselessly on its side,
smack up against the wall of the building.
Marvin figured the Leatherjackets had never needed “a lift.”
They’d used that little ruse themselves, he and Perry, to rob more than
one motorist.
A dilapidated pickup truck had shown amazing fortitude in
pursuing them. And there were other vehicles, somewhere in the
distance, following fast. The chase had gone full throttle, high-speed,
two Somali-like “technical vehicles” exchanging gunfire back and forth.
Except one was a pickup that belonged in a junkyard and the other was a
city bus. Together they blazed through torn-up sections of Ontario. It
was a dance of death between two suicidal lovers.
Harrigan had gotten something of a lead, fought for amidst the
twists and turns of the interlocking streets. But their lead wasn’t
much. In the end, it cost them their bus. Well, the city’s bus,
actually, but whether there was any real “city” left now was debatable.
Harrigan had lost his balance on the last turn. They’d capsized and
slid painfully across the road.
Marvin was standing on the capsized bus, feeling like some
sailor on top of a yellow whale, when he’d seen the Leatherjackets’
pickup lurch into view. Their vehicle was smaller. It made the turn.
Quickly Marvin hoisted Perry up through a window on the side of the
bus. Frankie was leaning out a window on the second floor of the
tenement, firing at the Leatherjackets. Marvin dragged Perry across the
overturned metal bus and shoved him up into Frankie’s window. The dwarf
sniped at Perry for screwing up his aim. Perry complained that the
dwarf’s gun had gone off in his ear. Marvin could see himself getting a
metal enema before either of them let him through.
Now what? He’d gotten inside two seconds before the enema
arrived, but where was he? He let his eyes graze the dirty walls.
Behind him Frankie was back at dueling with the Leatherjackets. Marvin
heard a wail as one of them was hit. “We’re outnumbered, though,” a
little voice chirped in Marvin’s head. “Get your bearings and get your
ass in gear.” Marvin glanced at an old television. The screen was
busted. Maybe Elvis had stopped here for the night, been upset with the
quality of the programming. Yeah, this place had been trashed even
before the Alameda army had come through. They weren’t in the high-rent
district, that was for sure. But then, they never were.
Batman, of course, would simply have slipped up to the
building’s roof and leapt across to another building. But Marvin wasn’t
Batman. And neither was Perry, for that matter. Perry wasn’t even
Perry anymore. When Marvin first met the boy he was shrewd,
calculating, a modern Hitler. Now Perry, like Hitler, had gone insane.
When he wasn’t ranting about some perceived injustice he was laying
plans for an impossible conquest. Meanwhile, Marvin kept about the day
to day work of keeping them all alive. With a little help from his
friends. Frankie especially, too short for most people to notice but
absolutely deadly with a gun. A gun taller than he was. And Harrigan,
a walking advertisement for everyone’s notion of what a child molester
should look like, but surprisingly cool under fire. It was Harrigan’s
expert driving that had just saved them...again. (While Perry screamed
useless insults out the back window of the bus.) Of course, there was
Elsa. When she wasn’t too busy playing “riot grrrl” fashion model. She
was O.K. And Flaherty? He seemed more trouble than he was worth. But
he stuck doggedly with the group. You couldn’t get rid of him if you
wanted too. Marvin figured as long as someone wasn’t shooting at you,
they were on your side.
But now they seemed to have walked into a trap of their own
making. They’d fucked up the bus, and now there were Leatherjackets
outside, working their way in toward the building. One dwarf with a
rifle couldn’t keep them at bay for long.
"Insects!" Elsa screamed from the hall. Marvin ran forward.
He found her standing at the top of a staircase, gazing down at the
hallway on the first floor. Marvin dashed over to her and peered down.
Thousands of black cockroaches covered the floor below.
“Oh, shit!” Marvin cursed. Well, one benefit of the insects
was that they’d keep the Leatherjackets out. But it was like a pact
with the Devil. He didn’t want to get shot by the Leatherjackets. Then
again, that was nothing to getting eaten alive by bugs. The black mass
below writhed, as if it were some giant beast, sniffing the wind.
Suddenly, as if responding to some primal cue, they rushed up the
stairs. It was a flood. A flood that flowed uphill, and it was fast.
"Frankie!" Marvin called out frantically. The dwarf was still
merrily preoccupied with trying to kill his fellow man. His shots rang
out the apartment window.
“Hee! Go to mama!” Frankie chirped to himself as he offed
another Leatherjacket. “Another Leatherjerkoff gone!”
“And only twenty million to go,” Marvin muttered aloud. Wildly
he turned his head to try to locate everyone.
Flaherty, Harrigan, and even the enfeebled Perry were shooting
their asses up the stairs to the third floor, leaving Marvin and Elsa
behind. At the top step Harrigan whirled about, realizing that Frankie
wasn't with him. Usually the dwarf could be counted on to be right at
his heels. But Frankie loved killing even more than fucking.
Marvin dashed into the room and grabbed the dwarf. He scooped
him up, like you would a small child. There was no time for dignity, no
time to ask permission. He ran from the room and dashed up the stairs
to the next floor. Behind him he heard shocked cries from the
Leatherjackets. They’d used the capsized bus as a staircase into the
second floor of the building. “Guess they didn’t know the building had
tenants after all,” Marvin thought. The carnivorous kind, smaller than
Frankie and much more deadly. Impossible to kill too, outnumbering even
the Leatherjackets themselves. As they climbed through the second-story
window the Leatherjackets dropped haplessly into the roaches.
“So much for the advance guard,” Marvin muttered. But there
would be more, many more. There were always plenty of Leatherjackets.
Marvin glanced over his shoulder at Elsa. She’d made it, thank
God. Up the stairs while he was in the room with Frankie. She was
swatting off one or two hardy little bastards that had managed to catch
onto her jeans. The rest of the insects had gone straigt for the
Leatherjackets. May as well eat everything on the second floor before
going up to the third. Bug psychology. Psychology Today, courtesy of
the roaches of the world. Eat what’s fallen on the floor before you
race up the stairs for more. Bugs didn’t go for the bone in the river
when they were holding one in their jaws.
"Gee, thanks Marv, I'd forgotten about Frankie," Harrigan said.
Marvin turned his glance away from Elsa. He grinned at his
trusty driver. "You almost had to go out and buy yourself an inflatable
doll," Marvin quipped.
"Do they make inflatable male dolls?" Flaherty asked.
"Not for you," Frankie replied. "Sorry."
"I resent that!" Flaherty objected. "Marvin, tell Frankie to
quit picking on me!"
"Oh, go fuck your empty potato chip bag," Elsa snapped.
“Let’s get going,” Marvin said. Now was not the time for
squabbling and backbiting. But then, “now” never was. They seemed
always to be on the run lately, as if Death had decided their time was
up. Was it playing with them, watching them “twist in the wind,” so to
speak? Or was Death just a little slow. After all, centuries of
killing could slow anyone down. Maybe the Grim Reaper had developed
arthritis. It was chasing them, just not quite fast enough. Not
yet. “Look for a fire escape!” Marvin called ahead. They
needed something to get them up out of the hallway on the third floor.
The top floor, it was, the tip top floor for this slum dwelling’s must
exclusive tenants. Perhaps there would be a helpful sign. “This way to
roof.” Or, “Escaping insects? Right this way.” Someone should make
signs like that. “In case of total societal collapse, follow the yellow
arrows.”
As luck would have it, the roof had fallen in. Around the
corner, down the hall. Of course, there wasn’t always supposed to be a
roof. Sometimes one floor just merged with another. Now, though,
concrete reinforced layers blocked any upward movement, to keep one
class of people from “acting suspiciously” in the neighborhood of
another. Ontario had drawn inward over the years, before the War that
had ended its empire once and for all. Then, rebuilding after the War,
it had built more walls between its citizens, even more than it had
built during the decline preceeding the Great and Final War, as some
called it. Now buildings that were supposed to connect the floors often
didn’t.
“Excellent!” Perry announced, upon viewing their route to the
roof. It was as if the boy thought he’d created it himself. In fact,
it was Harrigan who’d sallied ahead to find it. With Frankie, of
course, always with Frankie tagging along, directing the man where to
go. Harrigan happily obeyed his beloved dwarf. And together they found
things like escape routes made out of collapsed roofing materials.
Harrigan and Frankie went up first, with Perry just behind, and
Flaherty. Marvin helped Elsa over the tumbled roof slabs, while keeping
one eye on Perry’s less-than-athletic efforts. “Don’t take up mountain
climbing, Perry,” Marvin thought to himself. Of course, Perry wouldn’t
take up mountain climbing. He’d ask that the mountain be delivered to
him. Surely Marvin could find a way. “After all, why do you think I
consent to having you in my gang?” Perry would ask Marvin, as if his
friend remained dismissable at will. As if Perry could just go on
without him. Marvin wondered if Perry realized their “gang” was down to
himself, two sodomites, an airhead and a fatso.
A few moments later Marvin stepped out onto the rooftop. The
gloom of the city spread itself before him. Someone had blasted through
here recently, reducing many of the nearby buildings to rubble. The air
filters must be working overtime to clear the place. Thanks to the
man-made view, Marvin could get some sense of where he was from this
vantage point. There were buildings, of course, as far as the eye could
see, some merging upward into the floor above, some topped off with a
roof like this one was. He thought he saw the Emery building in the
distance. There was still a lot of smoke hanging in the air, obscuring
everything, distorting it. Garish arc lamps stretched across the
ceiling at regular intervals; marching off into the distance. Many were
burned out. What little light they did provide seemed to turn the
overhanging smoke into wraiths and spirits of Doom. In the glow you
could just make out the cityscape, once thriving, now a haunt of
Leatherjackets, perverts, roaches, the remnants of a society gone mad.
And now there was some new war ravaging Ontario. Some unknown army from
far away, come to conquer and kill. As if Death didn’t have enough
victims already.
“I think we can get across, Marv!” Frankie called out in his
pipsqueak voice. He and Harrigan were over at one end of the roof,
sizing up a new escape route. “Thank God for a breakdown in city
planning,” Marvin thought. Someone had built a rickety ladder up into a
little hole that was cut into the ceiling above. It was on the next
roof over, of course (nothing was free in this universe), but there was
a board connecting the two roofs. Worn, wiggly-looking (Elsa might look
nice going across it), but Hell they could manage a fucking board,
couldn’t they? Below, Marvin heard gunfire. Or, rather, he let it seep
back into his consciousness. The Leatherjackets sounded like they were
trying to blast their way through the roaches. Dumb, dumb. (Marvin
hoped.) There were cries of agony as some Leatherjackets got shot or
eaten. Death throes. Cries of anger and frustration.
Marvin let his eyes refocus on the board. Frankie was already
on the other side now, scampering over to the makeshift ladder.
“Hey, Marv! I think this thing might go up into a WEALTHY
section of town!” Frankie called out gleefully, peering up, his voice
just audible. They’d built soundproofing into the walls and the roofs,
into the very material the buildings were made of, a thousand years ago,
to cut down on the echoes you’d normally expect to get. Walls, roofs,
with a ceiling above, voices should bounce all over the place, but they
didn’t. Marvin had to shout to make himself heard by the dwarf.
“Let’s hope they’ve all been killed and we can loot the place,”
Marvin called back. ‘Course we’d need someplace to spend whatever we
got. Details, details.
“Marvin, this will be the beginning of our new offensive!”
Perry announced to him grandly. He stood with one foot on the board,
waiting for Harrigan to get across before he himself went over.
“Don’t break it!” Flaherty called out. Either he’d been slow
(for once) to get across first and save his own skin, or Flaherty was
letting Harrigan test the board for him. Dwarf-crossings didn’t count
when you were a fatboy like Flaherty.
“With this offensive we shall have Ontario entirely within our
grasp!” Perry crowed. There was a manic grin on his face. His hair,
uncombed as usual, hung slant-wise across his eyes. Perry swept it out
of the way with an exaggerated gesture. “Deutschland!” seemed poised on
his lips. Or something Germanic, anyway. Nazi Socialism. The Power of
the Will.
“I’ll stand on the board while you walk across,” Marvin
offered.
“Very well. I shall make my crossing now,” Perry said. And
off he went, awkward as ever, the board bulging ominously downward as he
stepped out.
“Hurry up,” Marvin thought. Yet, if he hurried, the boy might
plunge to his death. But if he didn’t, Marvin might have to play host
to the bugs. “Welcome to our fine rooftop restaurant. Your dinner is
served!”
“I should have gone next! I got here first!” Flaherty whined
at Marvin.
“There’s two ways off this roof,” Elsa warned him, edging
toward Faherty with a bitchy look on her face.
“I’m not complaining, I’m just pointing out the justice of the
matter,” Flaherty replied.
“Unfortunately, Death doesn’t believe in justice,” Marvin said.
###
"This shopping mall is under the control of the Alameda army,"
the Lieutenant announced. "You will surrender your weapons. You are
now prisoners of the city of Alameda. Co-operate and you will not be
harmed."
So they had come out underneath a shopping center. Probably
Westminster Mall. Marvin had been wondering what building would require
such a cavernous basement.
"Here's all our guns," Marvin said, casting his plasma Gatling
into the pile of arms. "But listen: we just climbed up from a tenement
on the floor beneath this mall, and it was crawling with insects."
The Lieutenant's face turned pale. He called two privates over
to carry away the guns. Then he hurried off to report to his commanding
officer.
"This way," a sergeant said to Marvin and the others. A group
of half a dozen soldiers, part of a basement patrol, escorted Marvin and
his friends to the lingerie department of a Famous Bar store on the
first floor of the mall, where they joined other captives.
###
The department store shuddered as artillery bombarded the
mall. Marvin and Elsa exchanged anxious glances, their hands slipping
into each other's palms.
"We're under attack," the Lieutenant, suddenly appearing,
shouted to the prisoners. "I suggest you take cover!"
"Must be the city cops," Marvin said to Elsa as he pulled her
underneath a table.
"Just so it's not the Leathernecks," she breathed.
"Or the mutants," Marvin added. Or one of a hundred other
groups inside the sprawling city that would find quick work for any
cache of arms that they happened upon.
Suddenly the ceiling above them collapsed in a shower of cement
boulders and broken plaster.
"You O.K.?" Marvin asked Elsa as a snow of alabaster dust
drifted down upon them.
"Yeah." She coughed.
Marvin crawled out from underneath the table.
"All I asked for was a refund," Perry quipped when he saw him.
Marvin spotted Flaherty's feet sticking out from underneath a
rack of women's dresses.
"Marvin? Are you still there, Marvin?" the fat boy's voice
quavered.
Harrigan appeared, dressed in a see-through nightie, with a
flowered corselet around his thigh.
"Pull your pants on," Marvin told Harrigan. "And get Frankie."
30
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Andrew Roller Presents
THE FADING UNIVERSE
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Chapter Four
The subway station was jammed with people. Every time a train
pulled in they crowded toward it, pressing themselves into the cars.
Within moments the train would be filled to capacity. Its metal doors
would slide shut and the train would pitch forward into the blackness of
the tunnel, leaving hordes of hopeful passengers stranded on the
brightly lit platform.
Marvin waded through the crowd, Elsa clasping his hand,
trailing behind him. A little further back Frankie, Harrigan, and
Flaherty followed. Perry, just behind Elsa, passed his hands lovingly
over the little girls he passed as the gang wedged its way forward.
Anonymous touchings in a crowd by a stranger who’d disappeared by the
time the girl turned her head to look.
They were somewhere in the heart of Ontario, sheep amidst more
sheep, with no shepherd around to protect them from wolves. Here on the
platform were bespectacled businessmen, librarians, city clerks, all the
culturally neutered people so necessary to the efficient organization of
a state. They were without weapons. And they were without any survival
plan. They’d called 911 and no one had answered. But they still
believed in the state, whether it really existed any more or not. The
state, like Tinkerbell, MUST exist. And if they stood here long enough
and mentally clapped their hands surely it would come into being.
Someone would arrive. Someone with a badge, with authority. They would
be told where to go, what to do, how to live, and some of them, surely,
would have to be told how to die...violators, perpetrators, those that
remained uncastrated in modern society. Those that still had “balls.”
Marvin was uneasy in such a group. He’d grown up in the
ghetto, and just by looking at the walls of the subway he could tell he
wasn’t in his element. There was no graphitti here. No incidental
scrawlings designed to say, “We rule here, and we’re not the State.”
No, here the state ruled. Instead of graffiti there were nicely
lettered signs. “No Littering.” “Do Not Stand in Front of the White
Line.” But there was a sense of desperation in the crowd. An idea had
been let loose, and it simply would not get back in the bottle. It
whispered among the people, rattled in their heads, rattled their
nerves. If they did litter, would anyone arrest them? And if
they...well, it was unthinkable. Did they need a sign now that said,
“Do Not Rape.” “Do Not Pillage.” “Do Not Murder.” And if those signs
were properly painted up and hung, would anyone enforce THEM?
Half an hour passed. Marvin gazed into the abyss of the subway
tunnel, waiting for a train. Behind him Flaherty noisily sucked up the
foam residue of an empty milkshake. Occasionally, when the murmur of
the crowd faded, Marvin could hear a broken pipe dripping water.
Marvin shifted his weight onto his left foot. He licked the
beads of perspiration off his upper lip. His mouth felt dry, like
sandpaper.
They’d run with the other captives from Westminster Mall. It
had been total chaos. Their crowd had merged with others, and those
into a larger mass. People, well heeled and well clothed, with perhaps
their last meal already in their bellies, running. Shouting and
grabbing and trying to hold on, as rocket batteries echoed over them and
into them. Death was loose here, swinging his scythe. Death did not
have arthritis now. Marvin had no choice but to seek out the thickest
part of the crowd. Use the bodies as protection from all the firepower
that was going off around them. Alameda had lost control of the mall,
but to whom? And did it matter? Had Alameda merely lost the position
momentarily, suffered a setback, and were they now on the attack?
Whoever was doing the shooting, it seemed to be coming down on the crowd
from all sides. Someone had the bright idea of running down into a
subway tunnel, and the crowd followed. Marvin figured they must be
about on the level of the Westminster Mall’s basement, maybe five or six
blocks over. For all he knew a train would pull in and whoever had
gotten control of the mall would be on it, come to round them all up and
haul them back. “This is your lucky day, shoppers. The mall is open
forever and you get to live there now. Until we decide what to do with
you, anyway. Until we restore “order.” Our order. Just follow our
orders.” Marvin didn’t like this, being unarmed and among people like
this. It reminded him of Jews being herded off to a concentration
camp. Once you got a lot of people together they seemed worth less to
somebody with a gun, especially somebody with a grudge. They became
just bodies. They became easy to kill. Perhaps fun to kill. Marvin
could imagine Perry setting a bomb off among a group of people like
this. “Hi, it’s time to Die!” With a grin he’d unburden himself of
some perceived offence, with luck he’d cow and enslave the survivors.
Well, they’d live better then, that was for sure. But right now they
had no bomb and they were among the crowd, not outside it. They’d die
right along with it if some wiseass did set a bomb off, or started
shooting into it. There would be no special dispensation for Marvin and
Perry. No “free pass” for fellow bandits. They were faceless in a
faceless crowd. A crowd where there were no names, no addresses, just
bodies. And the bodies were pressed together, too close, and the people
were getting edgy. They were beginning to want to kill each other. The
guy next to them who sweated too much, who’d stepped on their foot,
who’d looked at their wife or their daughter. The crowd itself would
turn into a bomb if something didn’t happen soon. Something to relieve
the tension. Fortunately, Anacin was on the way. Sometimes drugs do
have side effects, though, Marvin worried, as he caught the faint
glimmer of steel on steel shimmering in the far distance. He cocked his
head. Mentally he began rehearsing how he would handle the situation.
He’d gotten them close to the edge, in front of most of the people. One
thing was for sure, he wanted on that train. He felt like he was in a
prison here, like he was in a tomb that maybe somebody had already
closed shut. They were going to get on that train no matter what.
Around him, other ears perked up, heads turned, everyone heard it now.
A train!
A low roar echoed from deep inside the tunnel. The crowd came
alive. It pushed forward. Relief at last. SOMETHING, anything to
relieve the terrible tedium. The waiting. God, they could not wait any
longer. A moment later a train pulled into the station, a harsh squeal
permeating the heavy air as its brakes engaged. Marvin half expected to
see Ringo Star emerge.
“Hullo there,” he’d say, in his proper, clipped British
accent. And he could feel the crowd feeling the same thing. Yes, it
would be Ringo, and he’d have a pocket watch. And of course the first
item on the agenda would be the proper presentation of tickets. Not
that any of them had any, of course, but Ringo would ask for them all
the same. A matter of procedure, you know, and fill out this form in
triplicate if you’re without one. Hurry, old boy, people are waiting.
We have a schedule to keep.
The train's pneumatic doors opened with a dull thud. But there
was no Ringo, not even any Leatherjackets. Just millions upon millions
of insects.
Elsa let out a shrill scream of horror, her ululation joining
that of thousands.
###
Marvin sat dazedly in a puddle of blood on the floor of the
speeding train, his back resting against a pair of metal double doors.
He feebly reached up and felt the cloth tourniquet around the bleeding
stump of what had been, just minutes ago, his right arm. His thoughts
still reeled, one scene dominating all the rest. In his mind Elsa stood
just outside the door of the train. Marvin reached out and grabbed her
hand. Without warning, the steel pneumatic train doors closed solidly
on his arm. Elsa fell against the side of the train as it bolted away
from the platform. Then, like a rag doll, she sprawled backward into a
seething mass of abandoned people and rapacious roaches.
Marvin couldn't believe it. He had positioned himself, Elsa,
and the others at exactly the right place on the platform; close to the
edge, but not so near to it that they could be pushed off. And they had
endured the interminable wait, crushed together in the thick damp air of
the tunnel.
Marvin shuddered reflexively as his mind's eye pictured the
first train as it came in, filled with ebony beetles. Almost
immediately afterward a second train had pulled in on the opposite side
of the platform. Behind them. Of course. There were two sides to the
platform, each with its own track, and Marvin had picked the wrong
side. It had been a 50/50 gamble, and (like so often lately) he’d
picked the losing side. Marvin's mind shifted from the rush across the
platform to the wrenching pain that had shot through his body when his
extended arm, caught in the door and sticking out of the train, had been
ruthlessly clipped off by the cinderblock wall as the train passed into
the tunnel.
"Hey, I think I know who that skinny boy is," a burly passenger
said of Perry, who had awakened from a traumatized fatigue and was
sitting on the floor near Marvin.
"You're right, I know him too," a middle aged man said
angrily. "He was on the evening news last night. That kid is Perry,
the head of the gang that blew up South Haven elementary school!"
"No, you're mistaken," Marvin mumbled, grimacing with pain as
he turned his head. "He's just a high school student at Brownbury.
Honors, in fact."
"And who are you, his mother?" the burly man yelled. "I know
a face when I see one!"
The loss of Marvin's arm had attracted the attention of the
entire train. Someone had bandaged it for him. Someone who claimed to
be a doctor. Marvin couldn’t remember who now, he’d been dazed, in
shock. A face in the crowd. A face among faces. And all the faces had
been staring at him.
And someone, staring long enough, had recognized Perry now.
Marvin felt more trapped than ever, and he was in no condition to fight,
to do anything really, except maybe to die.
Suddenly the passengers, pent up and with no one to blame for
their agony, were in a frenzy. The crowd closed in. Fists began to
fly. Blind rage rippled in toward Marvin like some in-sucking
whirlpool, and he was at the vortex. It was as if he were sucking in
all the hate in the world, and he knew it must consume him.
###
Marvin's eyes sprang open. He felt a rush of cool wind all
around him. Suddenly he realized that he was falling through the air,
plummeting down toward a vast blue ocean.
The shoreline, jagged with the metal outcroppings of ruined
tunnels, was directly to his right. Above him a train was crossing a
trestle.
Marvin's mind flashed back to the fight on board the train.
Harrigan, Frankie, and Flaherty had managed to beat back the enraged
passengers long enough for the train to get out over water. Then they
had cast Marvin and Perry out the window.
Marvin slipped into unconsciousness for a moment. The shock of
cold water woke him as he hit the sea. Above him the train exploded.
He stared speechlessly at the pieces of the train as they blew apart and
curved slowly earthward. Marvin squeezed his eyes shut as debris
splattered on the undulating waves all around him.
A while later Marvin was jostled into consciousness by someone
bobbing beside him. It was Flaherty.
"Boy, we sure got out of that train in the nick of time, huh,
Marv?"
"Flaherty! You escaped!" Marvin cried.
"Yup. Me, Frankie, and Harrigan jumped out just a few moments
after we threw you overboard." Flaherty let out a silly laugh.
Soon the others joined them. Then they all paddled slowly
toward an extrusion of twisted steel that stood above the waves in the
middle of the bay.
Reseda Island. Once it, along with all the metal corridors
that lined the shore of the sea, had been part of a seamless network of
tunnels. But during the war a pulse bomb had gone off in this area,
gouging out a huge hole, breaking open an encapsulated reservoir. They
would be safe on Reseda Island, at least from the insects, for the bugs
couldn't cross water. It was impossible for them to infiltrate Reseda
from below, either, because water had flooded the portion of the
superstructure that sat beneath the ocean's surface. The bugs could try
crawling across the wide expanse of serrated ceiling that stretched
across the sea, but the drop down on to the uppermost peaks of Reseda
would, Marvin hoped, kill them.
"Say, Marv, do you think there are any sharks in this water?"
Flaherty asked uneasily.
"No, just Piranhas."
###
Marvin sat wrapped in a wooly blanket in front of a blazing
fire. He sipped at a soothing mug of warm ale, reflecting merrily at
how quickly Flaherty had swam to Reseda Island, gullibly swallowing
Marvin's gibe about the caribes. Perry sat next to Marvin, toasting his
bare feet before the iron grate of the hearth.
Casey's pub. Located on Reseda Island, Casey's had long been a
haunt of the fishermen from the clapboard village of Chatsworth that
huddled amidst the mutant-infested ruins along the shore. The bar also
catered to a host of undesirables, as its owner was undiscriminating in
whom he served. As long as one paid his tab, Casey catered cheerfully
to your needs and asked no questions.
"Pretty tough, huh Marv?" Flaherty asked.
"What is?"
"Casey told me Alameda blew up that subway. With a cannon.
Apparently they had issued a warning. If anyone tried to leave Ontario,
they would be killed."
"It's nice to know Alameda keeps its word," Marvin said dully.
"Hey, Casey, how 'bout some more ale, pal?" Flaherty shouted.
When the robust man had re-filled his mug, Flaherty resumed relating the
details of the train wreck, but Marvin had slipped into a troubled
sleep.
###
When Marvin awoke he was slouched in the same chair. His eyes
focused on a mug of hot ale (recently refilled by Casey) and he made to
pick it up. Suddenly he realized that his right arm was missing, and
the pain and horror of the previous day's events came rushing back.
"A group of people just arrived from Chatsworth," Flaherty
said, alarmed. "They say the insects penned in a tribe of mutants along
the shore and those deformities are heading right this way."
"What's that you say?" Casey, across the room, blustered, his
face crimson.
A fisherman, drenched with rain, replied, "I said the mutants
killed four families. Snuck up on their homes without a sound."
"Damn bloody bastards!" Casey cried. "Men," Casey announced,
addressing his patrons, "I cain't require you to remain, but if ye have
any love of God in ye you'll stay and give those foul sewer rat mutants
the licking they deserve! Help those debased slaves home to the devil
in Hell what spawned 'em!"
A roar went up. Men pounded the tables, shouting. The
venetian lamps hanging overhead swayed to and fro. Like revolutionary
patriots, Casey's customers jumped up and began hurrying about,
fortifying the bar and the dock outside, preparing the island against an
attack by the mutants.
###
The boat rocked back and forth amidst the rippling waves.
Marvin hunched in the bow, a blanket pulled over his head to shield
himself against the sheets of rain that buffeted the sea. He wondered
absently when the storm clouds that had formed inside the large interior
of the cavern would dissipate.
To Marvin's right the burning methane from Signal Hill,
Ontario's oil refinery, cast a bright orange glow over the sable
waters. When Marvin had been thrown out of the subway the ocean had
been tyndall blue, illuminated by slender arc lights that traversed the
roof. Now a power failure had cast the cavern into darkness.
Marvin gazed at Reseda Island as the sloop receded from it.
Chunks of the licorice monolith were in flames. Casey's tavern
overflowed with triumphant mutants, hooting and howling in victorious
celebration. The remnants of Casey's customers and the families who had
fled Chatsworth retreated in a motley assortment of dilapidated fishing
vessels.
Marvin's head nodded and a moment later he drifted off to
sleep.
NEXT ISSUE:
"Gran'pa, throw these gays o'erboard into the shit! They won't need to
excavate for it if they're swimmin' in it!"
30
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