64) Super Sunday, February 19th:
5:35 – 5:40 AM – “Blackout!”
High atop the catwalk paralleling the eastern wall of Giga-Plex,
General Westmoreland Soames trotted, crouching, right foot almost touching the
televisions that protruded slightly upwards and over the edge – each of which
was blaring out the same demented interview of sociologist Mike Hunt by the
anti-administration network’s newly-hired, former Presidential Press Secretary
Ted Treybourn.
Twenty feet behind him, Tom Eppert pursued - Tenison’s seven-inch TV in his left hand, gun in his
right. Twice, he stopped, fired, then started after Westy again… he
had plenty of ammunition in his pockets and a score to settle…
“Hey man, this is
crazy,” Soames finally said. “We work
together, we’re part of a team. The Freecock team…”
“Not me!” Tom
shook his head, aiming. “Not
anymore! I’m on fuckin’
suspension…”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that.”
“But you didn’t
stop them. You coulda
stopped them,” Tom accused, “but you didn’t.
Just let ‘em throw the book at ol’ white Tom so next time, when I ain’t ‘round anymore, bein’
everybody’s scapegoat, you think that they’ll treat you any better? You left me hangin’…”
“That’s
crazy. You’re fuckin’ crazy, man…” Westy shouted back, exposing his head for a moment and then
ducking as his terminated colleague fired off two more shots.
“And you owe me a
hundred bucks, and… and one way or other… I’m gonna collect…” Tom said,
squeezing off another shot.
Soames ducked
behind a pillar and the bullet ricocheted off of it, down into the store. “I ain’t
responsible for what my no’count cousin does…”
“Well I don’t see
Raoul around, so you’re the one who’s
gotta pay.
Just like the fuckers at FREECOCK made me pay ‘cause I just happened to be there,
it’s on you, now…” and Tom fired
again. Hearing an empty click, he
stopped to reload.
“That’s crazy. An’ I got a gun too, you know?” Westy challenged.
Tom paused to
consider this, and stepped back behind the partial cover of another metal
column. As he cogitated and fumbled with
cartridges, the boyish Treybourn zeroed in on Mike
Hunt, going for the jugular (the soundbite that would be remembered,
immortalized in morning editions of the Times, the Post and USA Today)…
“And so,
Professor Hunt, is this the beginning of the end for America?” he swung for the
fences…
“Perhaps, in
certain aspects of it,” the erudite and experienced Hunt hedged his bet. “The world is running out of everything
except hungry, unemployable people who, thanks to low-wage Third Worlders who toil in virtual slavery and, behind them,
robots… robots who never get sick, never strike, never gripe about overtime… are no longer of use to anybody now that the pandemic has
apparently run its course. The leaders
of the civilized Western nations… already a small minority of the whole
considering Brexit, the neo-Nazis winning elections
in the former Soviet bloc and the U.S. and the bankruptcy of the Southern
European and several South American republics… seem unable to fend off the
aggressive clamouring of the non-Western,
non-Christian, non-Democratic majority who hate us with an insane passion that
loves death more than life, and we fat, spoiled Americans, most of all…”
Tom stepped out from behind his pillar, arms outstretched…
holding gun and television. “Go
ahead! I’m a fat, spoiled American who
doesn’t care anymore, don’t have a half a life worth living. Stuck in Dumpster Town with a wife who hates
me, useless kids… suspended from work, what is
there to go on living for? My
President wclched on his
wall and then he was stabbed in the back by some clever Wall Street Jew! The gomer who died
stabbed the Syrians, Afghans, the Ukrainians and the Taiwanese in the back,
they all stabbed real Americans in the back and they’re trying to take away our Superbowl!”
“Evan Augsberg’s an asshole,” he
snarled over his talking heads, “but everything is going down the toilet… the
banks and credit companies run our lives, can’t buy gas, can’t buy milk, can’t
buy eggs… we got all the jobs goin’ to China and,
just you wait! FREECOCK’ll
probably go to China, too, now that they got the other Chinese as their new
slaves and the Koreans, pretty soon. Our
dollars ain’t even worth destroying… we’ll have
Chinese cops, Mexican firemen, a President born somewhere else, too… the way
your man was, but won’t even have to hide it… once they repeal that part of the
Constitution, whatever it is… Africa, Central America,
Israel? Nobody gives a fuck an’
they still don’t want us to know… what this shit’s really about…”
Westy remained behind his column, looking from Tom down to
the store, then back to Tom again. It
would be an easy shot, but… “Yeah, I can dig,” he said, “…but what’s killing me
gonna do, ain’t even gonna help you find Raoul…”
“It’ll mean I can be
somebody,” Tom affirmed, thumping his chest with the hand that still held the
gun. “Not much, but better than nothing,
I’ll be somebody. Be a man, and fuck you
too, Me Too. A man who doesn’t take shit from no goddam
n…”
“Hate to have to
be the one to tell you, but that’s all life is, takin’ shit…” Westy interrupted, checking his ammunition.
“Don’t have to be
that way. We could be the wretched of
the earth, striking back at the people who kick us around…”
Tom ran out of
talk and a great pause fell over the big box store as the batteries on the
bellowing, still-rolling Ghede began running low, his
maniacal laughter diminishing, allowing succor for muffled noises that might
have been human beings laughing or crying on their floors, ladders or catwalks,
or the groans of the wounded and dying in his wake. Not wanting to expose his head, Westy looked down into Giga-Plex
where, directly below, the Dominator lay, face-down, in a puddle of plasma with
Big Sonny’s feet and fingers sticking out.
The invaders, far outnumbering the few remaining defenders, had advanced
to Cyberia, Cameraland and the northern edge of the henge, where zombies periodically popped out behind the
boxed and live sets to shoot at the single remaining Mall Security guard,
crouched behind a 52-inch Korean plasmavision. Most of the Screaming Eagles had flown. Soames backed down the catwalk, sniffing the
increasingly smoky air wafting in from under the door to the corridor,
calculating the distance to that door, which would get him out into the Mall
proper and effectuate his escape as Tom crept forward, his position compromised
by Sam Dreibach’s broadcast of more news of Evan Augsberg’s incredible escape warbling from Mark Tenison’s looted, battery-juiced portable...
“Westy? You there, there, Westy-boy?” Tom
wheedled, as if a Proud or Boogaloo Boy coaxing
Congresspersons from the closets they were hiding in, or talking to a small,
domestic animal that had escaped its cage, perhaps one of the small,
fluorescent rats still running around in circles, trying to avoid the roaming
canines. He squeezed several cartridges
into his weapon, dropping several more that pinged against the metal catwalk, then plunged to big box floor. “Want my money,
Westy…”
“And this just in…” Dreibach
fairly shouted, “another flash mob, said to be
wielding more improvised placards of
Evan Augsberg and chanting his name, has stormed a
television studio in Vancouver, bringing to six the number of foreign nations
overtaken by anti-digital mania. This in addition to the insurrections in forty-seven states, plus
the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico… excepting only Alaska, New Hampshire
and South Dakota. In lieu of the
National Guard… presently deployed on the Polish border… the Governor of Virginia
has issued an overnight appeal to local police, fire and maintenance workers,
fraternal organizations, high school athletes and citizen volunteers to
mobilize at dawn, this morning…”
Beneath the cat
and mouse game playing out on the catwalk above, Captain Capps and Rifleman Stu
edged around towards the easternmost register as a pair of zombies darted past
the wall of televisions – the foremost… Boy Norris (Swee’Pea’s
friend from Nakonset Park)… diving behind the bin of
marked down hi-def analog/digital converters.
The wall itself seethed with maggot-like zombies, trying to pry models
from their stanchions. Stu rested his
rifle on his knee and drilled one of the looters through the back of his head,
exploding the television too…
“Goddam it, Stu…”
Capps exploded, recoiling as the ammunition from above bounced off the floor, “that was company
property.”
Stu glared at the
boss contemptuously, pointing downwards at the pulverized CEO. “What?
Sonny gonna jump up and hand me a bill for his merchandise? You goin’ soft, Cap’n?”
“How much ammo do
you have left?” Lester asked.
“Enough to do a
little more damage before we go. That’s
the program, isn’t it? Hang around until
the big birds from Waco come, fly off to ournext
assignment? So what’s wrong with getting
in a few licks for the home team?”
An addled zombie…
probably drunk, probably unarmed… had disinterred himself from cover behind a
punctured, hissing refrigerator to engage the now-monosyllabic robot Henry in a
through-the-looking-glass discourse.
Smirking at the boss, Stu took careful aim and exploded the debater’s
skull in a shower of red.
Capps shook his
head in disgust. Far above, Westy Soames tried to make
himself small behind one of the store’s columns as Tom… gun in one hand, TV in
the other… crept along the catwalk, calling out softly as if for a lost pet…
“Here,
darkie…darkie…darkie… here… Barack…”
He edged up
towards the last door to the corridor, charged through, firing wildly, then ducked back onto the catwalk above Giga-Plex. Below, Boy
Norris had taken advantage of the Screaming Eagles’ focus on the wall of
televisions… and looters… to slink into Sputnik Station, where he began
studying the various satellite models until Stu whirled, training his rifle on
him.
“Hey boy – see anything
interesting?”
Seeing as Stu had
his rifle’s red dot circling his nose, counter-clockwise, Norris chose to
ignore the insult. “Rather have one of
these than the cable. Get the whole
world with satellites…
Stu increased the
pressure of his finger on the trigger by a millionth of a pound. “What’s he gonna say when he finds out you’ve
been shot dead in Maryland…”
“Get real,
man! This place is toast,” Boy Norris
shook his head, “finito!… there’s even fire comin’, down from that way,” he pointed towards the produce
market favored by rich Marylanders whose burning kale and quinoa emitted toxic
fumes that rose above the conflagration.
“Anything here that don’t get carried out goes up in flames. You got doors open, you can get out any time
you want to. Over, man. It’s over…”
“Yeah, but I can
make it over for you, too, an’ nobody will ever know…”
High above, Tom Eppert crept along the edge of the catwalk, calling out:
“Where are you, Soames, I… ah fuck…”
Turning away from
the door, both hands full, his foot had slipped on the catwalk and he fell
sideways. The gun plummeted to the floor
eighty feet below and discharged – causing Stu, Capps and Boy Norris to dive
for cover. Tom grabbed for the rail and
dangled over the side of the catwalk – Westy slipped
out from behind the door to the corridor, seeing his co-worker with one hand on
the rail and the other grasping the chattering television.
“Jeez, you’re
still some kinda fuckup, Tom. Give me
your hand…” Westy sighed.
“Hell no! You owe me money! I’ll pull myself up
on my own, and then you’ll pay…” Tom promised.
But gravity… and
too many pizzas, ribs and chicken fried steaks ingested over far too many
years… surmounted Eppert’s will to save himself, so the General grasped the wrist holding onto the
rail. Below, Boy Norris stepped out from
behind a boxed satellite dish, discovering the business end of Stu’s rifle was
still eighteen inches from his nose.
“Can’t do
it. Gimme your
other hand…” Westy proposed.
“No!”
“Let the idiot
box go. Dammit!…
it’s only a TV, a fuckin’ seven-incher! Not even worth
a hundred dollars! A
fuckin’ unmod Hi Def? Five dollars!
Is it worth your life?”
Tom glared from Westy to the pair of Eagles arguing with some kid far, far
below, to dozens of revenant maggot-mirror-faces of Evan Augsberg
on dozens of Giga-sets, directing his legions into Armegeddon
from some bunker, somewhere, behind the image on the tiny screens…
“…have repudiated
God and country for the pottage of the Far East,” the prophet warned, “for a
culture no longer deserving of survival…”
Tom winced and
let go of Tenison’s TV and let Westy
pull him back up on the catwalk. The
seven-incher tumbled, end-over-end to the satellite corner of Giga-Plex where Rifleman Stu smiled insanely as he trained his
rifle at the red dot on Norris’s face.
But the TV did the job first, striking Boy on the head and exploding his
skull like a grenade. “Holy shi...”, Stu recoiled, firing
instinctively. The bullet snapped the
chain holding up the bank of satellite dishes and they plunged to the floor of
Sputnik Station… a deadly rain… one of the largest and topmost sporting a razor-sharp,
theft-deterring parabolic edge across its circumference, spearing Captain Capps
through the heart, bisecting him into halves like a butcher’s cleaver through a
tender roast…
“Cap’n? Cap’n?” the Screaming Eagle sniper
recoiled. “Oh shit…”
And as if, having
summoned the Beast, he dropped his weapon and one hand reached for his behind.
Stu kicked the
rifle aside and bolted for the open fire door behind the registers… several
miles away, a mob of angry Commander–cum-Football Team–cum–Redskins fans
mistaking a Potomac Power tower for a cellphone tower, were pulling it down
with chains attached to their pickups.
The ensuing explosion fried a dozen of them, and precipitated a blackout
stretching from Baltimore south, almost, to Richmond.
To Giga-Plex, where the cackling of Dreibach
and Jackson on the remaining hundred or so still unlooted
televisions sputtered and died; the screams and gunshots, the insane,
frustrated whispering of a bloody, upside-down Ghede
lodged against the One World Mall gates (blocking ingress and egress to the just
and unjust alike), the toneless medical readout of Moondreams
as the smart bed attempted to offer helpful medical advice to the growing pile
of corpses flung atop it and the plaintive, repetitive cries of Henry the
robot, whose pleas for recognition trailed off as his battery ran down,
eventually to die into…
Silence All silence.
Finally, across
the One World Mall, lay only silence, darkness… the snifflings
and moanings of the not-quite-dead yet, the ramblings
of lunatics and random gunshots, the gnawing and bristling and pitterpatter of rats and dogs and the wings of winged
predators and a few earlybird pigeons as they
fluttered in through the smashed windows and stinking smoke, down from the
treetops and rooftops and extinct powertowers and
lines while the beasts of prey long ignored in these suburbs of America’s
capital sniffed and loped and a million, billion creeping, crawling, slithering
things beneath their scales and paws and the flapping wings advanced from the
fringe-friezes of the green and orange flaming cosmos beyond...
And began to feed…
¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾
VISIT THESE OTHER GENERISIS SERIAL ABOMINATIONS…
THE GOLDEN DAWN BLACK HELICOPTERS
THE INSURGENCE
of CHAN SANTA CRUZ!