Terminus: A Novella of the Apocalypse (10 page)

“Is that what it is?” asks Chief sarcastically.

Between there and the refueling stop, the mayhem seems more generalized.  More haphazard and in tune with the random violence of Terminus.  Of course, rarified corpses litter the landscape wherever we turn, but similar statements writ in bodies are few and far between.

Perhaps an hour into the trip, our caravan climbs a low hill.  From the roadway bridging its summit, we can look down on a desolate interstate exchange.  It’s one of those highway stops surrounded exclusively by farmland, where the yokels once went for everything they needed.  Gas.  Groceries.  Dinner.  At each corner of the exchange, we see the sprawl of a large and once prosperous truckstop.  Signs boast of low fuel prices, good food, hot showers, and clean beds.

Post-Terminus, someone ringed the entire complex with a barricade of abandoned semis, tractors and trailers.  To plug the gaps beneath the trailers, someone wedged small cars there.  Then they piled refrigerators, washers, dryers and other large appliances into the gaps between the trailers and the cabs.  After so many years, the perimeter is complete, save for two gates aligned with the road we currently travel, which cross beneath the highway through a pair of overpasses.

As a gruesome deterrent, the occupants have nailed human hides all along the outside aspect of the cargo containers.  Each hide is accompanied by a spray-painted placard.

When The Guide zooms a high-def camera to the signs facing us most directly, we read a long list of crimes.  Kicking dogs.  Eating cats.  Stomping rats.  Cutting trees.  Trampling bushes.  Shooting birds.  Teasing deer.

“What the hell is their problem?” demands an exasperated Chief.

“Tree-huggers,” returns our host.  “Environmentalists.”

“It’s okay to skin a human being,” declares The Engineer, shocked despite his post-Terminus experiences, “but it’s not okay to ‘harass ducks’?”  He quotes from one of the more prominent claims, if the height and thickness of the lettering indicates prominence.  “How the hell does anybody harass a duck?”

The Asian chuckles, “I don’t know.  Throw rabbit butts at them?  Get it?  Hare.  Ass.  Get it?”

“Shut up,” growls Chief.

“To each his own.  We need fuel, right?” I ask, focusing on business.  “That’s where you intend to get it?”  When The Guide nods, I add, “Why there?”

He shrugs.  “’Cause it’s an interesting place.  Don’t you think?”

“I’d rather go somewhere else.”

The Guide sighs, tapping keys and reading from his monitors.  “Too bad I committed us, then.  We’re too low on fuel to go anywhere else.  You should have thought of that before I drove us here.”

I know better than ask the obvious, but Engineer gasps, “How the hell could we know about this place before we got here?  You told us nothing!”

Another shrug.  “You didn’t ask.  Besides, I did tell you something.  I told you this place was managed by The Clan of the Happy Rabbit.  That should have told you everything you needed to know.”

“The Clan of the Happy Rabbit?” sputters Chief.  “What does that tell anybody?  It sounds like… like... like a daycare center!”

The Guide turns his head, rolls his eyes, and grins to patronize his less-worldly guests. “Daycare?  Post-Terminus?  Really?”

“Alright,” I drawl, motioning forbearance with both arms, “calm down.  The choice is made.  We’ll just have to deal with it.  What’s the process?”

“The process?  The process?  There ain’t no process.  We just drive down there and fuel up.  They don’t care about the diesel or the gasoline.  In fact, they don’t care about anything except the animals.”

“Then why cordon off a bunch of truckstops?” from The Kid.

Chief answers, “Read the signs.”

“What?” demands Engineer.  “All the crap about punching bunnies and kicking dogs?”

“No, the old-world signs.  This was one of those roadside zoos.”

“Right,” supplies The Guide, “they even had a baby giraffe once, but somebody snuck in one night and ate it.  Everything except the head, the hooves and the guts, you know.  That really pissed them off, let me tell you!”

Now we watch through the cameras as one of our trucks rolls forward down the hill and toward the closest guarded gate in the makeshift perimeter wall.  Presently, the vehicle stops.  Its cargo bay door rolls open.  A half-dozen non-Terminals drop out, all carrying large sacks by pairs.  These, they deposit before the gate, one-by-one, until they compile a small mountain of the stuff.

“What is it?” asks The Kid.

“Kibble.  Different kinds.  Dog chow.  Cat chow.  Rat chow.  We even tossed in a bag of dried bananas for the gorilla.”

“Gorilla?”

“I think it’s a gorilla.  A little one.  Or a big monkey.  Sounds like one, anyway, but I’ve never seen it.”  When the Rabbit Clan appears to accept the payment, our host punches more keys and says, “Here we go.  When we get inside, be on your best behavior.  Hold the rats.  Stroke the cats.  Let the chinchillas crawl all over you, if that’s what they want to do, but be careful.  Don’t get hostile, even if something shits on you.  You’d be surprised to know how many brain-fried Terminal cases are animal lovers.  Every time I come here, in fact, I lose four or five turncoats, and there’s nothing I can do about it!”

“Couldn’t we just stay inside the truck?” squeaks Engineer.

The Guide blanches, shaking his head as our truck starts downhill with the rest of the convoy.  “Oh, no.  No, no, no, no, no.  They won’t allow it.  No, everybody has to get out.  Everybody has to pet the animals.  Oh, and you have to make smooching noises and kissy faces, too.  Just talk to the fur-wrapped poop-balls like they’re babies.  That’s what I do.  Little babies that like to hike their legs and piss on your shoes when you’re not looking!”

Minutes later, our eight trucks are parked beside various pumps, and the diesel is flowing.  True to The Guide’s instructions, the Rabbit Clan forces us out of the vehicles and into parallel lines of admiration.  We stand in ranks to pet the critters they offer up to us.

When I initially refuse to make the requisite smooching noises and kissy faces, the threat becomes real.  They all wield boning and flaying knifes that appear to be recently sharpened.  I get the message.  I smooch.  I kiss.  I coo.  I pet.

Each member of the Rabbit Clan wears a handcrafted animal mask, Terminals and non-Terminals, alike.  Only the non-Terminals handle the animals, while the brain-dead types just sort of hobble around after, fumbling to pet and stroke their keepsakes.  They all wear dinghy white coveralls, and many of them wear rabbit masks made of
papier-mâché
or plastic.  The rest wear sheep, dog, cat, and rat masks.  One of them sports a fairly realistic rendition of a panda mask, which she accompanies with a black-and-white panda costume.

This one appears to be the Clan leader.  She parades silently up and down the lines, monitoring the fun, enforcing the kissy-face rule and threatening refusals accordingly.  She also expends considerable energy attempting to entice Stranglers over to her side with offers of kittens, puppies, and hyperactive white rats.  As The Guide forecast, he loses a handful of foot soldiers to her cause, as they slough the black robes on the spot to exchange these for rabbit masks, white coveralls, and some kind of small animal.  The Guide grimaces at the sight, but keeps smooching and petting like nothing has happened.

During the change of clothing, however, I notice something interesting about the crows underneath.  They are diseased, gaunt, and generally wasted.  The enhanced physiology attributable to the Terminus phenomenon has taxed them heavily.  They are all dying, and I suspect this is the primary reason Panda works so hard at recruitment.  She appears to have a ready supply of baby animals on hand precisely for that purpose.  The crows love the little pets, and, though they are largely inarticulate, they easily enough mumble and mouth the required smooching and kissy noises.  We are awash in cuteness.

Behind me, as I pet and fondle, I count the chugs of the siphon pumps.  Fifty liters.  Seventy.  Ninety.  Soon, we’ll be full, and I think we might just get out of Panda’s zoo in one piece.

Then it happens.  Engineer squeals effeminately and I glance to my left in time to see him kick a fat white rat out of his pants leg, through a high arc into the air, across the parking lot, and then into a plate glass window with the sound of a GONG!  For a mad moment, the place falls silent and still.  Two hundred bunny masks turn to watch the crumpled rat body slide down the window, twitching and kicking, until it lies on the concrete apron, spasm-wracked and dying

Panda rushes over to aid the stricken animal, lifting it tenderly in her hands and smoothing its rumpled fur gently with a single forefinger.  Several of her non-Terminal handlers join her, their heads hung in sorrow.

Looking my way, Engineer shrugs apologetically, whispering, “Sorry.  I hate rats.”

At the pumps, Stranglers are already capping the tanks and dropping the nozzles.  Every one of us takes advantage of Panda’s distraction to slowly inch backward toward the sanctuary of the trucks, gently lowering a variety of chinchillas, rodents, rabbits, cats and dogs to the ground as we go.

About the time I think we might slink out of there without a fight, I see Panda toss back her head, flex her arms and shoulders with the dead rat dangling from her right fist, and then scream like a banshee.  It’s on!

With breathtaking coordination, out pop the various boning, flaying and filleting knifes, and then two hundred crazed rabbits, unicorns, rhinos and
et cetera
charge into the fray.  An overwhelmed Strangler Clan snaps out their garrotes, nooses and whips to defend themselves.  From the corner of my eye, I see The Guide toss his hands and flee for his life, so I push my crew rudely in the direction of safety to join him.

Making our way back to those stairs climbing up to our host’s makeshift office, I see the unique style of each Village survivor and I learn how each of them made their way through Terminus.  I punch, kick and gouge.  The Girl stabs, jabs and slashes.  Engineer prefers an extendible baton, which he uses to great effect when bashing skulls and breaking bones.  Chief likes brass knuckles tipped on one side by a savage double-edged blade.

The Kid’s style is unique, though.  Primarily, he prefers to duck and dodge, avoiding conflict wherever possible.  When one of the Rabbit Clan leaves him no choice, however, he makes a quick, decisive motion with either hand, as though simply bonking each aggressor on the head, adding a waggle of his fists for good measure after each strike.  For a time, I cannot determine why this should cause all of his opponents to throw an epileptic fit and then crumple to the ground.  Then a flash of morning sunlight informs me.  In both hands, he wields a kind of stumpy icepick.  He uses these to expertly punch through his opponents’ skulls.  That waggle of his fists slices up their brains.  Problem solved.

Leaving a trail of slain Rabbits and Stranglers behind us, we mount the lead truck and slam its doors.  Immediately forgotten in the tumult, through the cameras we watch the combat continue.  The Guide’s Clan is definitely getting the sorry end of the stick.  Scattered around the parking lot, Rabbits are already cutting away the clothing from fallen Stranglers to skin them, sometimes while yet living.  The screams curdle our blood.

As soon as our truck receives a driver, it lurches forward.  Several of the non-Terminal Stranglers have already taken the gate to hold it long enough for us to press through when they open it.

We escape.  Only two other trucks and perhaps twenty crows follow us.

The remainder will soon be nailed to the barricade with various notes highlighting their abuse of the wildlife.  Climbing the hill again, we watch the one-sided struggle continue.  While several of The Guide’s people press through the perimeter barricade to high-foot their way through the surrounding fields and groves, most are not so lucky.  Many of the escapees may live to strangle another day, but they will do so in the service of another Clan.

To me, speaking over his shoulder, The Guide asks, “See what I mean about diversifying?  A good businessman knows when to change business models.  I’ll have to get new trucks now.  How does the name ‘Clan of the Everlasting Road-Trip’ strike you?”

Marveling at the man’s frozen nerves, I reply flatly, “Needs work.”

“Yeah.  Too bad about my people, I guess, but I suppose I can always come and visit them anytime.  Some of those older hides look like they’ve been hanging in the weather for years.  I bet they’ll still be there next time I stop for diesel.”

“You’re planning to come back?” drawls Chief, using a fistful of paper towels to clean ribbons of flesh and wads of tissue from his spiky knuckledusters.

Our sly Asian host shrugs.  “Why not?  Clans don’t hold grudges.  That’s old-world stupid.  We kill when the killing’s good and then get on with our day.  No biggie.”

Engineer collapses his baton and we all take notice of him for the first time.  Our expressions are not pleased.  He grimaces, abashed and embarrassed for himself.

He says, “You’d think after Terminus, I’d be used to anything.  But rats… man… I just can’t do rats.  Especially when they crawl up my pants leg, unannounced.  Those creepy little rat feet… so soft and warm… and those delicate needle claws… like a June bug… but mostly it’s the tails.  Like… like… fat, slimy worms.  Or snakes.  YUCK!”