Brian Steele - 4POCALYPSE - Four Tales of a Dark Future

Owen’s father was one of the strongest and he protected his son.

While trapped beneath the library the men began digging not only up but down with the good intentions of building a better place: a city of their own based on the designs of the Underground Government City that was less than seventy-five miles away. The same city the small town didn’t want to go to for the mere fact of not wanting to be controlled by the US government. As Owen’s father, the town mayor had preached. Why, we have everything we need in our fair town. Why should we give everything we own and become a socialist when the impact will happen on the other side of the world? What he was really saying was, I don’t want to give up my position. Here, I’m a big fish in a small pond; there, I’ll be a small fish in a large ocean. And while the killing for food continued, Owen grew darker, hungrier.

“Oh, my, God!” Jasmine screamed out when she fell to her knees. There were over fifty women and children in the dungeon. All of them in various stages of health and well being; all of them contained in one method or more in confinement. There were jail cells that held all of the children like veal. They were suspended off the floor with bands around their arms and feet. The women were either jailed or shackled to the floor or walls.

A couple women were strapped to various torturous devices that Owen used when satisfying his insane cravings. Except for Angela, a woman would only refuse once. The second time she became a meal. As for Angela, and unbeknownst to her, she frightened Owen. Through rumors, he had heard of Angela’s brother and his association with a gypsy, and Owen feared gypsies as he did witches and ghosts, and believed the gypsy would come for him. He was right.

Angela helped Jasmine to her feet. “I’m so sorry,” Angela said. “I should have warned you.”

As they awakened, the women began to cry along with Jasmine, all calling out to Angela. Then the children started, and finally everyone in the dungeon cried out.

The wail sent chills down Jasmine’s back as she turned and slowly, pathetically climbed the stairs, all the while wishing she had not killed Owen so quickly, wishing she could have taken him out a limb at a time only to make him suffer long before she finally killed him. What is happening to me, Jasmine wondered as she reached the first landing. I’m turning into the people I hate.

“Where are you going?” Angela called out in a panic.

“To get the fucking bus and to kill every motherfucker from here to there and back.”

Carmen’s baby lay in a hammock, alive, suckling on a bottle of mothers-milk, being prepped for roasting.

“You don’t have to go alone, you know. You could use a wingman… I could be your wingman,” Angela said just moments after the last woman and child entered the bus. “We can take him out.”

Jasmine was silent for a long moment before finally answering, “No. You have to go back to Kansas and let them know what’s going on out here. Let them know about Owen and the new outposts.” She pulled her pack up and fastened it, then checked her weapons. “You also have to give Tank the cannon. Tell him it was great but a little too big for someone like me.” She looked at her nails. “I think I broke a nail.”

Angela laughed. “He’ll be worried about that.”

“Make sure you tell him how much I appreciated all he did for me,” Jasmine said while laughing. “He is a good man and I will never forget it.”

“You come back for him, you hear.”

“I will. I owe him my life and a dinner he’ll never forget,” Jasmine said, nodding. “And I expect to see you there before you go back to Oklahoma, okay?”

Angela nodded her head and fingered tears from her eyes.

Jasmine hooked a 250cc Honda dirt bike to the back of the BSA in case she needed it to cross the river. The BSA was good on flat land but she wasn’t sure if it would get across and up the rugged terrain that lay ahead of her. She then climbed atop and settled down. She turned the key and then cranked the bike over, and finally smiled. She loved this bike but the dirt bike would get her across the Red River and into Dallas.

“You said you heard 75 was clear?”

“I haven’t seen it but that is what I’ve heard. Most of the bridge overpasses have been cleared but I suspect you’ll have a slow go at it.”

“And the other gangs,” Jasmine asked, nodding. “Are they thick along the way?”

“Let me come with you, Jaz. We can do this. We can get this guy.”

“Hawaii. A villa. You. Your old fart. Tank. My aunt and uncle. How does that sound?”

“Damn it, Jaz,” Angela shouted.

Jasmine got off the bike and hugged her. She then kissed her on the cheek. “If you come, we die—”

“That’s bullshit—”

“If you go back, you’ll do well, very well, and we’ll meet in Hawaii,” Jasmine continued. “This is the way it has to be. I have no worries.”

Jasmine got back on the bike and slowly took off. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t look back.

The ride to the Red River was uneventful. The weather held out, and if it weren’t for the golden-brown haze and horrible taste and smell of the air it would have been a pleasant run. She had seen two small hunting parties but neither came after her, which surprised her. Maybe they assumed she was one of Owen’s and left her alone. She was able to travel at one hundred miles an hour for nearly the entire ride, slowing only when she came upon an old vehicle or debris from one of the fallen overpasses. Although a single lane, she was amazed at how nature and some of the pathetic assholes were able to make a passage between any places that were almost livable; or at least a place to catch their next meal or get the drugs through.

When she reached the Red River, her heart nearly fell to her stomach. The bridge was gone. There was nothing that would allow crossing. Down the side of the banks and into the river were cars, trucks, and other vehicles along with bodies in various stages of dead. Some even looked as if they were killed today but nothing like the skull and poles that she saw when she came out the City of Kansas. What she learned from the poles was that it was more of a scare tactic than anything else and she wondered if the government had placed the poles there to discourage people from leaving the cities.

Jasmine studied the river, the canyon, and several places where people had tried to cross. She closed her eyes and listened, and then allowed her mind’s eye to reach out to those who died trying, looking for maybe a partner who might have made it across, and in her mind’s eye she saw the path. It wasn’t the view of the dead but the view of the killers and how they were able to travel from Oklahoma to Dallas. She also saw the drug runners and knew this was one of the routes. Not only would she stop the bastard but also she was going to learn how to stop his distributors.

Far off to her right, a quarter of a mile, maybe, was an actual road, maybe a frontage road of such that had collapsed, but over the years the gangs rebuilt it. It was rickety, and definitely looked unsafe, but accessible, and from the looks of it they used bikes back and forth.

That’s why they didn’t stop me, Jasmine thought. The rockets. They use the rockets to get back and forth between Dallas and Oklahoma, and once in the City of Oklahoma they’re able to get the drugs to the City of Kansas and elsewhere.

She rode over to the entrance of the rickety bridge and stopped. She looked at it for a long moment, hoping to see how others may have crossed it. She kept getting the feeling that the best way to cross it was as fast as she could, wide open, she kept hearing.