Kiss My Apocalips Ch. 01

It was empty, of course. No one there, just like all of them. But then I looked closer. Her clothes were crumpled in the driver's seat. With a wracking shiver that crawled over my whole body, I tried the door. The car was still on, all the displays still brightly lit on the dashboard, so it made sense that the door wouldn't budge. Taking a deep breath, I swung my tool toward the forward bottom corner of the front side window, and it shattered, raining glass particles over the articles of clothing that were all that was left of my mother. I touched the lock button next to the window controls; then, I pulled the front door open.

The power monitor registered three-quarters, with roughly 380 miles to go before the primary battery was drained. She must have charged it over the weekend at her boyfriend's place. Music was coming from the speakers, and I recognized a song from her favorite playlist. The communication console showed one incoming call, and registered a voicemail pending. The last thing I wanted to hear right now was my own panicked call.

Her blouse had gently collapsed onto the waist and hips of her skirt, and by looking straight down at the loose pile of clothes, I could see the bra inside. The toe of her short-heeled right shoe was resting on the accelerator pedal, but not depressing it enough to make the vehicle move. Taking a shuddering breath, I leaned in and shifted the short gear knob to "park," then I touched the master button, turning the thing off. I backed away a few steps and studied the scene.

Physics made so much sense afterwards. The car had barely been moving when it departed the road's surface. Her shoe, after it lacked the weight of the foot inside, had allowed the vehicle to decelerate naturally; the steering tight enough on the straight road to keep the car on the highway for a long, long time. When it finally did wander past the shoulder, the front wheels encountered soft sand, and the stop had been very gradual as it finally bogged down in the gentle surface. That's why the clothing was still sitting in the driver's seat, rather than being thrown forward onto the floorboard.

I could have tested this hypothesis, of course, but why bother? I KNEW what I would find if I checked out any of the other vehicles. Why check a hypothesis, when you already know the answer? Well, the answer to THAT question, anyway. There were so many more. But ... they all had answers, too. And, sooner or later, I'd figure them out.

I considered, for a moment, taking a memento. My mother, after all, had been my only friend in life. For all of my existence, I had been a loner; and I had never cultivated friendships, either at school, in my neighborhood, or anywhere else. There were a few teachers that I respected ... quite a few, as a matter of fact. But they hadn't been friends. Not really. Not like my mother. However, keeping a phone, an article of clothing or anything physical; well, it would serve no purpose. It would only accentuate what I had lost in life.

I strode back across the highway to my little piece-of-shit Honda; but I paused before I clamored back aboard, looking right, south, and at the thin line of black smoke coming from what I could only imagine was making it at the airport; and then back to the left, north, where the low buildings of Junction City were just visible against the flat horizon. Nodding, making up my mind, I drove away from my old life and into my new one.

Junction City was a modern ghost town. I saw not a single human being; but now that I knew what to look for, I spotted the signs. Everywhere. Small piles of clothing on the sidewalks or in the crosswalks. Unable to suppress some sort of natural urge, I stopped the car and checked out a baby carriage at a street corner, but the only thing therein was a thin blanket and one very odiferous diaper. Not a living soul. Anywhere.

I'm not sure if I actually had a plan, but when I saw the storefront, the idea formed immediately, and I somehow knew that this was my only logical course of action. The sign above the door bore only a single four-letter word, but it spoke volumes: Guns.

I stopped the little car in the middle of the street and got out, then checked my watch. It was nine-sixteen on a Monday morning. There was no way the place had been open before ... whatever had happened, but it would be the height of stupidity to bust into the place if the door was unsecure. I walked over and tried it. Locked. Of course. Like an idiot, I knocked. Nothing. Of course. How long did I have before somebody else showed up? Glancing around, I saw the door to a hardware store standing wide open. I nodded. I knew just what I needed, and I knew just how to use it.

Less than five minutes later, I had one end of a logging chain attached to the front door of the gun dealer, and the other wrapped around the rear axle of the little car. If it broke the axle, no big deal. There were literally hundreds of vehicles all around me, and I could have my pick. But, of course, the handle of the store's door simply ripped right off, leaving me, if it's at all possible, even further from my goal.

Back in the hardware store, I chose my next weapon: another logger's tool. I had always called the thing a "come-along," a solid stainless-steel bar, five feet long, and weighing about twenty-five pounds. It was round-handled at one end, and had a large, squarish, chiseled tip at the other. Some of its counterparts had big, hinged hooks at one end, but I liked this one. Normally, when your chainsaw started binding up most the way through a cut, this thing was used to turn the whole log over so you could keep going. And, this one could also apply enough force to break almost anything. Weight times Arm equals Moment. More physics stuff. It still took me the better part of five minutes to crack the top of that stupid door, though ... and that was only to find out that there were at least two more locks, lower down on the thing, that were still holding. I had the idea figured out now, though, and it didn't take me much longer to get into the place, leaving the metal-reinforced door warped, twisted and defeated, clinging to a single hinge.

The power was still on, so I was expecting an alarm to sound. When it did, thirty seconds later, I was ready with my trusty steel bar to skewer the siren/speaker on the far side of the shop, near the back counter. It issued one last, sickly, dying squawk, and fell mercifully silent; but it had a partner, somewhere up near the front door, and I turned in that direction to murder my second blaring accuser. Instead, I froze in my tracks.

In the exact center of the store, calmly examining an automatic pistol in her right hand, stood a young, pretty, athletic girl of African-American descent. I guessed her age to be somewhere around twenty, and she wore a pair of blue jean cutoffs, tactical camo boots, and a crop top that tried valiantly to support a truly magnificent pair of breasts. Her short hair accentuated a long, graceful neck, and her clear complexion and delicate facial features reminded me of my mother. As I gaped at her, she raised her left hand to shoulder-level and waved at me.

I took a step or two forward, and she suddenly looked startled, backing up a pace. However, despite having been so interested in it, she didn't seem to consider using the gun for her protection. I paused again and tried to communicate. "If you'll just allow me to ...."

"What?!" she yelled. I could only just hear her above the din. Giving her an impatient look, I pointed to my steel friend, and then pointed toward the blaring siren above the front door. She turned to look, then seemed to get the gist of it and nodded, backing away toward the side of the shop.

It took me a minute, but I eventually battered the shrieking alarm into submission. My ears ringing, I turned back toward the girl.

"I think I can trust you," she told me levelly. "I can, can't I? Can I trust you?"

I walked toward her. For a moment, she looked as if she was going to run, but she held her ground instead. She looked blankly at my extended hand.

"My name's Jacob Jones."

She reached out and let me shake, but instead of reciprocating, she said: "God, your hands are huge!"

I regarded her curiously, but she seemed content to let me take any conversational leads. "It's nice to see somebody else that's real live flesh and bones," I ventured. "Where, exactly, did you come from?"

She shrugged and pointed toward the front. "I decided to get a soda. I was across the street in that café, and I've been watching you trying to get into this place. Looks like persistence finally paid off."

I thought about that for a few seconds. "Yes," I told her. "Yes, you can."

Now, she was confused. "What?"

"Yes, you can trust me. However, I would strongly recommend that you not trust other men who break into gun shops."

She gave a short laugh that was almost a giggle. I very purposefully blinked and looked down. I thought it would be exceedingly bad form to blush right now, but every time I looked at her, I couldn't help letting my eyes drift in the direction of her boobs. Finally, I turned toward the back counter, and I pulled an assault rifle off the wall and studied it. "Do you know what type of ammo these things take?"

She shrugged and looked down at the pistol again. "Don't have a clue. I hate guns. Never fired one in my life."

I nodded. "Same here; but we don't have all day, and we need to figure this stuff out. Quick."

She glanced at the brow-beaten alarm over the counter. "Do you think the police are coming?"

I shook my head. "No, I don't think so. If there were cops here, they'd have somebody out on Main Street looking for survivors. But someone from somewhere is going to investigate this town eventually."

"There are others?" she asked me hopefully. "You really think so?"

I nodded. "Definitely. Everybody in my home town is still alive and kickin', though there's apparently nobody between here and there."

"Where?" she asked pointedly. "What town?"

"Acton. In the hills, west of Eugene." I was fiddling with my watch. Miraculously, I found a search engine that was still functional. "45 millimeter 556 or Remington 223," I said aloud. "I have no idea what that means, but that's what we're looking for." I started rummaging behind the counter and stacking boxes on top of it. "By the way," I said sheepishly, "I'm sorry I stared."

She brought the automatic over and set it down on the counter, as well. "Stared at what?"

"At you." I refused to look in her direction. "At your ... um ... at your chest. It was rude. I'm sorry."

She was silent for so long that I was forced to glance at her. When I finally did, she nodded and smiled. "Everybody does. You're the only one who's ever apologized, though."

I sighed. "What kind of vehicle are you driving?"

Again, she refused to answer me for a very long time. "What makes you think I'm driving anything at all?"

I huffed at that. "If you were from here, you'd just be a little pile of clothing now, like everybody else. No kidding. What are you driving?"

"A pickup truck."

"Perfect. Can you please back it up to the front door for me?"

Again, she hesitated a long time. "Do you really think I'm going to be leaving here with you?" I gave her a look that probably conveyed my exasperation. "Fine!" she exclaimed at last. "Okay, fine!" And she turned and walked out the door.

Three minutes later, a green pickup backed up to the door, bumping into the thing and knocking it off of its last mangled hinge. I saw her at the edge of the door, trying to figure out how to get back inside past it. Failing in that, she started the vehicle again and pulled a couple feet forward. I found the entire exercise bewilderingly humorous.

I walked past her carrying an armload of semi-automatic weapons. "What's a Beaver like you doing in Duckville?" I asked her. The truck was perfect ... just perfect. It had a stretched soft cover over the bed which latched into the rear tailgate. We could get damn-near the whole store into this thing, and have it protected against not just the elements, but prying eyes as well.

"What do you mean?" she asked quietly. Her tone startled me, and I gave her my full attention. She seemed unsure about what I'd just said. I tried to remember my own question, then shrugged.

"You're driving an OSU vehicle," I explained. She still seemed nervous and sort of pissed off, as if she'd taken offense. "Uh ... you are not from Oregon, are you?" I asked.

That seemed to throw her for a moment. "Um ... I'm from Ohio. I just started to school this semester up in ...."

"Corvallis. Yes. I know. Oregon State. The Beavers."

She sobered. "Oh. Yeah. I knew that."

"And you work for the Agricultural Extension Office there. Part-time, I assume." She seemed confused for a moment. "You're driving one of their vehicles," I continued patiently, pointing toward the side of the pickup. Then I really confused her by asking: "What were you doing at 7:47 this morning?"

"Um ... I was in Eugene?" She seemed unsure. "I picked up some sample trees from the Ag department at Oregon University ...."

"Home of the Fighting Ducks."

"Um ... yeah. I knew that." Her expression told me that it was very possible she hadn't known that.

"And you left Eugene after 7:47?"

I could see the wheels turning. "Um. No. It would have been earlier. I picked up the baby trees last night. I stayed at a hotel in Springfield. They gave me a voucher. I got up ... um ... at six. And I drove north, toward an extension outlet ... um ... a farm where they were going to plant them. It was all programmed into my phone. I needed to drop them off and get back before my class at noon. I remember I left the motel right at seven." She looked at me carefully. "So, you think that's when it happened? Seven forty-seven? That's when everybody disappeared?"

"People don't disappear," I muttered. "Science happens. Magic doesn't. Whatever it was, there's an explanation." I sighed. "But, yes. That's when it happened. At least, everything seems to point toward that time."

"Do you think it's aliens?"

I issued a single laugh. "When I see any evidence of THAT, I'll consider it. So far, I most certainly haven't. Have you?"

She shrugged. "What else could it be?"

"Let's see if we can find out," I told her, and I walked into the back rooms behind the counter. For some reason, she seemed reluctant to follow me, which seemed odd. I could just as easily have assaulted her in the deserted front of the shop as in the back. But eventually, she joined me and stood in the doorway of a small, cramped, cluttered office while I began pounding away at the keyboard of a mini-cube computer setup that was obviously paired to four monitors set into one wall. There were apparently cameras set next to the interior alarm sirens in the main section of the store, as well as two more outside: one to the left of the outside front door facing right, the other to the right-side facing left, thus providing double-coverage.

I found the app I was looking for and started backing up the archived data. We saw ourselves talking in the main area of the shop, then all four monitors showed movement as she pulled the pickup away the door. Then she was back and talking to me again. Everything was happening in reverse. I could see her watching as I whaled away at the front alarm, then her walking backwards out the door as I attacked the first one. Finally, the only action was outside as I broke into the place. And then ... no action at all, anywhere. I checked the time stamp and sped it up to max. Watching breathlessly, we leaned toward the monitors as they approached the moment when it had all happened.

And then the monitors went blank. Frowning, I navigated to the first frame of the video. The time had been 7:47 AM. I figured out how to manipulate the display, and zoomed in on items in the street. They were piles of clothing.

"This is where the video archive starts," I said, frowning.

"Go to File Manager and undelete what's been erased," the girl said, leaning over my shoulder.

"Nothing HAS been erased," I told her. "This is where it starts. This is the beginning."

"That doesn't make sense," she told me, almost frantically.

"Everything makes sense, once you think about it the right way," I told her flatly.

I got up. For a moment, she hesitated, despite our nearness. I have a way of making any room seem smaller, and this cramped little office was suddenly VERY close. Just a few moments ago, she seemed reluctant to come back here with me, but now she raised her right hand and gently rested her palm on my left bicep. Her breath seemed to catch, and I couldn't help seeing her cleavage in my peripheral vision as I looked down at her face.

"Can YOU make sense of it?"

"We can talk about that later. Look ..." I hesitated. "I still don't know your name."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Wanda. It's Wanda."

"Wanda. I've always been a loner. I don't usually work with others. But, here's the deal. The world is about to change. Big time. We don't know how widespread this thing is. We don't know a lot of things. There are survivors, but right now, we don't know how many or where they are. Folks are going to team up. Form bands. Go tribal. That's only natural. They'll congregate around a city government, or a church or a club or a dominant group. There might be power struggles. Who knows?"

She seemed to be listening intently, and I went on. "I can see this going one of two ways. We could seek out others and try to join some band or group sight-unseen; or, we could find a nice, quiet little corner of the world first, sit back, and wait to see how things shake out. Either way, we're going to need barter items. Lots of them. Food, survival gear, building materials. Many, many things. But the most immediate ones are the things in this shop right here. Guns are going to go first. Scavengers are going to go after this stuff right now." I spread my hands and motioned, as if we were back in the main shop area. "Having what's in this store would give us an advantage in anything we decide to do later. I'd like to use your truck to transport it somewhere safe. I give you my word that I'll give you half of everything we take. Would that be okay with you?"

I moved an inch back and watched her, trying to judge her thoughts and choices, but she kept her eyes on mine. "When I first saw you, I didn't think you were very smart," she said bluntly. "But that's not true, is it? You're smart as the dickens!"

I gave her a chuckle. "Yep. That's me. Smarter than the average dickens."

She didn't smile, and she remained silent for a long minute, thinking. I decided not to interrupt.

"Okay, I'll stay with you and let you use the truck on three conditions." I nodded and waited. She held up one finger. "I'll follow your suggestions, but you have to explain what you're thinking. You always have to tell me why." She put a lot of emphasis on that last word. Then, she waited, and I nodded. She held up a second finger. "You can't send me away if I don't want to go. You can't abandon me."

I narrowed my eyes. "Abandon you?" She didn't respond, and I decided to give her the peace of mind she wanted. "Okay, I won't abandon you."

I waited for that last condition. She felt obliged to take a deep breath before delivering it, and I tried hard not to look at her expanding chest. "You have to promise to protect me, Jacob. Please. I'll believe you if you promise."

I canted my head quizzically, trying to figure out just what she was trying to imply. "Uh, Wanda ... we've only known each other for a few minutes. You have no idea what kind of guy I am. Not really. And, I don't really know anything about ...." The look in her eyes stopped me. It was profound and filled with expectation and longing and other emotions I was completely unexperienced with. I was suddenly way out of my depth.