Victor Gischler - Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

“What is this, Ruth?”

She shrugged, her eyes unreadable in the darkness. “I was hiding in one of the offices. Mother Lola came from this direction.”

“Why were you hiding, Ruth?”

“I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was looking in the offices. I was curious. Nobody is ever supposed to come down here.” She latched suddenly on to Mortimer’s arm. “Please, we have to go. If she catches us here…”

Mortimer shook his arm loose, stepped up to the wall, ran his hand along its surface. Knocked. The material was thin, flimsy. “This is cardboard painted to look like the wall.”

Mortimer shoved, and the wall shook; the ship picture fell, frame glass shattering on the floor. Ruth started, yelped. He pushed the wall again, and the cardboard structure flopped over. Light streamed in, and Mortimer flinched. He pushed on, kicking the wall down until it was flat.

The hallway led to a glass door.

They went to it, pulled. Locked.

Mortimer looked for a place to try the keys he’d found in the doctor’s desk. No luck.

Ruth put her hands flat against the glass, looked through to the other side. “What is it?”

“Some kind of reception area. Or maybe a security checkpoint,” Mortimer said.

There was a counter, a phone and two cheap office chairs in a small waiting area. Half the lights still worked. Mortimer jerked on the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

“I bet this is it,” Mortimer said.

“What?”

“The way out. Wait here.” He jogged back down the hall.

“Where are you going?” A hint of alarm in Ruth’s voice.

“I’ll be right back.”

Back in the dead man’s office, Mortimer picked up the fire extinguisher he’d used to bash open the padlock. He hefted it, feeling its weight. Probably he could smash through the glass door with it. He turned to run back down the hall. Paused. He set the extinguisher down, entered the office again.

He stared at the corpse, still clutching the panties, imagined a macabre smile of perverse satisfaction across the mummified face. Mortimer’s gaze shifted downward, came to rest on the plastic I.D. badge hanging from a frayed cord. Mortimer grabbed it quickly, yanked, and it came loose. He ran back down the hall and found Ruth squatting small and quiet against the wall.

It only took Mortimer a second to find the slot. He inserted the plastic I.D. Nothing happened.

“What’s that?” Ruth got to her feet, stood close to Mortimer. “What are you doing?”

Mortimer turned the I.D. card around so the magnetic strip faced the other way. He inserted it again. The slot buzzed sluggishly, a green light flickering and struggling.

“Come on!” He jammed the card in harder, slammed the slot with the heel of his other hand. “Work, you piece of shit!”

The green light buzzed. An audible click from the glass door.

“Get it. Quick!” ordered Mortimer.

Ruth pulled the door open and held it. Mortimer put the I.D. card in his pocket, raced through the door, pulling Ruth after him. “Come on!”

This is it, thought Mortimer. The way out. Mother Lola had kept it hidden, kept all her little subjects trapped in her morbid little kingdom. But they’d made it through. They ran down a long hall, Mortimer’s heart thumping.

“Wait! What’s that?” Ruth halted abruptly, pulled on Mortimer’s arm.

They held their breath, listened.

From behind they heard movement, hard footfalls on a tile floor, muffled voices.

“Oh, God, they’re coming.” Ruth’s eyes shot wide with animal panic. “Mother Lola knows. She’s coming.”

“Hurry!” Mortimer pulled her forward, ran down the long hall.

They turned a corner, saw a smear of daylight. Double doors leading to the outside. They ran. Ruth faltered, almost stumbled, but Mortimer jerked her upright and kept running. Flashlight beams behind them now, harsh shouts to stop.

They didn’t look back, hit the doors at a run, bright sunlight washing over them as they erupted into the open.

“Run for it!” Mortimer let go of her wrist, ran full speed for open ground. “We can make it,” he shouted into the wind. “Keep running!” He turned his head, expected to see her sprinting for her life.

She wasn’t next to him.

He stopped, turned, saw her still only a few yards from the hospital entrance. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I…I can’t…” She took three halting steps, then froze, shut her eyes tight, put her hands in the air as if fending off some unseen ghost.

Mortimer ran back, grabbed her, started running again. It was like pulling a sack of bowling balls. But then she jogged, tried to keep up, Mortimer pulling and urging her. Abruptly she fell to the ground, sliding out of his grip. She curled into a ball.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He grabbed under her armpits, attempted to hoist her up. She went limp, dripped from his arms.

“I can’t…I didn’t know.” She shook her head, the words coming breathless. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”

He grabbed her, ran sluggishly with her a hundred yards before they fell into a pile. Mortimer panted, gulped for air, his breath steaming in the cold. “What the hell is your problem?”

“It’s too much,” she gasped. “I didn’t know it would be so big. I can’t do it. It’s so much. So open.” She put her hands over her head like she was trying to fend off the sky, gigantic open spaces threatening to crush her into the earth.

Mortimer stood, looked back at the hospital entrance. Three women stood in the doorway. Mother Lola with a fox fur around her neck, two women flanking her. Both holding bows and arrows.

“Unhand her, vile abductor,” bellowed Mother Lola.

Mortimer dropped next to Ruth, whispered in her ear, “We have to go right now.”

“I can’t. It’s too much. There’s nothing between me and…and…” She waved a frantic hand at the sky. “Everything.” She staggered to her feet, ran for the hospital. “I have to get back inside.”

“Are you crazy?” Mortimer leapt, tackled her around the ankles. They both went down, Ruth screaming.

She kicked at him, writhed, twisted from his grip. She was up again and running.

Mortimer started after her when an arrow landed with a meaty thwock in his upper thigh.

“Holy fucking shit, that hurts!” He hopped on one leg, gritting his teeth and uttering curses. He grabbed the shaft, pulled the arrow out with relative ease. A nonbarbed target arrow. It hadn’t penetrated deeply, but it stung like a son of a bitch.

Mortimer yelled, “Ruth!”

She didn’t turn, fled weeping into the arms of Mother Lola.

He stood a moment looking at the women and the hospital, vines creeping up the building on all sides as if the earth were trying to swallow it whole. He saw Mother Lola and Ruth disappear back into the darkness within.

Another arrow whizzed over his head.

“Okay, okay. I can take a hint.”

Mortimer limped away as fast as he could. They didn’t chase him. Maybe his seed wasn’t so desirable after all.

The cold tore at Mortimer’sbare ankles, whooshed up his pant legs to do fierce, shrinking things to his genitalia. He shivered and trudged, favoring the leg with the shallow arrow wound. The winding, narrow road twisted and curved through the forest away from Saint Sebastian’s and toward nowhere he could guess. He assumed the asphalt would eventually take him to some village or town. He’d settle for a farmhouse where he might beg a scrap of food.

He could not shake the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Ruth. Poor girl. What should he have done for her? Ultimately another victim of the world’s implosion. After growing up in her sterile cocoon, how could she possibly face the unyielding totality of an entire planet?