Brett McBean - Tales of Sin and Madness

“Court’s now in session,” Judge Stevens said.

The Saviour left the bar and walked over to one of the grimy windows with wire meshing over it presumably to keep the vandals out ( or us in ), his long tattered coat flapping as he went. He peered out. They all waited for the Saviour to come back and stand in front of the bar. “We haven’t got much time. The apocalypse is coming, it’s getting dark outside.”

Aleister checked his watch. It was only eleven-thirty in the morning. He looked back at the window, saw that yes, it did look dim out there, but reminded himself that the window did look out onto an alley. Plus the window itself was thick with dust and mold.

Poor deluded fool .

“Everyone down to the cellar,” the Saviour said.

Now we’re talking. Cellar means alcohol!

Aleister stood along with the rest of the bums. They all seemed pretty nonplussed about it all — except for the Saviour of course.

“Okay, Doreen, you lead the way downstairs.”

Doreen huh?

Aleister watched as the black woman, who hadn’t uttered a word or moved the entire time he had been in here, started walking. Judge Stevens followed, then Peaches, Broadway Queen, Jack, with Aleister bringing up the rear. The Saviour fell in behind Aleister, picking up his invisible glass as he left the bar.

Soon Doreen stopped at a door, which was situated around the back of the bar. She opened it, then stepped through.

So that’s where the stairs were hiding , Aleister thought.

He stopped when he reached the door. There was a narrow landing just beyond the door, then stairs that stretched a long way down to the cellar.

He turned and faced the Saviour. “There is whiskey down there, right?”

“Of course,” the old man said. His breath fogged Aleister’s head with hot, overwhelming fumes. “There are lots of things down there — food, water, beds. Everything we need to last us for at least two months.”

Aleister’s breath was sucked from his body. “T…two months?”

The Saviour nodded. “Haven’t you been listening, Mr. Donaldson? We are going to shut ourselves down there while the world destroys every living person. We have to wait sometime before we can emerge and be sure the world is safe. I’m sure He will give us a sign when it is safe to come out.”

Aleister’s throat was dry — he needed booze bad.

“In the meantime we’ll sing songs, tell stories, eat and drink like kings, and, of course, procreate.”

Aleister gazed down the long staircase. The full realisation of what these nutcases were doing hit him and for the first time since he could remember, the dizziness he felt wasn’t from drinking.

“You’re crazy,” he gasped. “All of you are nothing but crazy fucking bums. The world isn’t ending. For Christ’s sake, we’re in an abandoned bar in Manhattan. The world may be fucking bleak out there — I guess you people are testament to that — but it’s hardly coming to an end.”

“Stop this nonsense Mr. Donaldson and go down into the cellar. Doreen is waiting.”

Aleister frowned at the Saviour. “She’s waiting? For what?”

“For you. She likes you. She told me. She wants to have many babies with you. Imagine that, two months of making love with my sweet Doreen.”

“Doreen’s your wife?”

The Saviour laughed. “No, my daughter.”

“But she’s bla…”

Oh what’s the use? How can you reason with a nutcase?

From down below, Aleister heard the unmistakable cry of “Peaches!”

“Come now, we really must be going. The end is nigh. We will be safe down in the cellar.”

No amount of free alcohol was worth this — of that Aleister was certain.

Who am I kidding? There’s none down there. I must’ve been crazy to think there was .

Aleister pushed past the Saviour.

“You can’t leave.”

“Right, I’m one of the chosen.”

“You are. We need you. Doreen needs you.”

“I don’t give a fuck about Doreen. I don’t give a fuck about any of you pathetic drunks.”

Aleister turned and walked towards the door that led out into the alley.

“But you need us,” the Saviour called. “It’s your destiny.”

Destiny my ass , he thought.

As he neared the door, he looked back and saw the Saviour staring at him. Aleister shook his head. “Have a nice life bud. Say goodbye to the others for me, huh?”

The Saviour gazed at Aleister, and with a knowing twinkle in his eyes and a slight grin said, “You’ll be back. You’re one of us, Mr. Donaldson, whether you realise it or not.” With a bow of his head, the Saviour stepped back and closed the door. Aleister was all alone up in the main room. “Well, screw you,” he said and felt something heavy in his pants. He shoved his hand down his left pocket and to his absolute delight his fingers grasped his hip flask. He didn’t realize he had it with him, wondered why he hadn’t noticed it until now.

Who cares?

He pulled the small stainless steel container out. He shook it. The container was half full.

His heart rose and his soul lifted. “Thank you, Lord,” he said and unscrewed the top and drank the entire contents of the flask.

“Ah,” he groaned. “That’s the stuff.”

Feeling better now and able to tackle the subway, he shoved the hip flask back into his pocket, then gripped the handle and opened the door.

He heard screaming outside, lots of screaming, but told himself this was New York, so what else did he expect?

Crazy bums and their stories , he thought and stepped out.

Into the waiting darkness.

I like ambiguity in stories. If done well, it can add mystery to the story and, hopefully, make the reader think about the story long after they’ve finished reading. As I’ve tried to do with this story. Is this just a simple story about a group of delusional bums? Or is it an apocalyptic story? Or is it about the effects of alcoholism…?

You decide.

And let me know, ‘cause I have no idea myself…

It was a few minutes after ten o’clock when they arrived at the rubbish tip.

George Fisher gazed down at his ten-year-old son and whispered, “You wait here. I’ll come and get you once I see that the coast is clear.”

Bobby, looking the picture of pre-pubescent innocence in his favourite, “I hate hippies,” Cartman T-Shirt and red shorts, nodded. He set the rubbish bag which contained the neighbour’s cat, Mojo, on the ground.

George stepped up to the ten foot high corrugated iron gates. Nailed to the left of the gates, on the metal fencing that surrounded the rubbish tip, was a sign that read: Private Property. Trespassers will be shot — or worse .

George swallowed.

It was an almost perfect summer night — pleasantly warm, no wind, but one glance at that sign turned his body cold with fear.

George knew the tip’s owner, Edmund Mullroy, well enough — he saw him damn near every day at the slaughterhouse (the tip’s nearest neighbour, about twenty minutes on foot, and where George and his brother, Tony, both worked). He was a quiet guy, hardly ever smiled, was always chomping on a cigar, but he seemed friendly enough. George doubted that Edmund was the type to shoot trespassers unless he had good reason to. The sign on the fence was surely a scare tactic to ward off troublemakers, but that didn’t mean George was any less apprehensive about entering the tip unannounced.

Located in a heavily wooded area on the outskirts of town, at the end of a dirt road, the tip wasn’t for public use. Edmund happily collected the town’s rubbish once a week, but if you needed to get rid of some unwanted junk in a hurry, you had to get Edmund’s OK first. There was always the option of driving the half hour to the city tip, but most people in town were content to let Edmund run the tip his way.