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    Apocalypse Now!
    Apocalypse Now!
    Apocalypse Now!
    Ebook462 pages7 hours

    Apocalypse Now!

    By Raymond Towers

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    About this ebook

    The end times are here, to be witnessed by humanity before, during and after the catastrophic events that will forever change life as we know it. Included is a collection of 31 titles, ranging from poetic fragments to three large story arcs in the dark fantasy and science fiction genres. Tales of doom, pain, loss and survival of the fittest. The Apocalypse has begun. Rating: MEDIUM controversy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRaymond Towers
    Release dateOct 19, 2012
    ISBN9781301671823
    Apocalypse Now!
    Author

    Raymond Towers

    Raymond Towers is an author of fantasy, horror and science fiction that strays away from the mainstream, plus a little in the way of true paranormal and other genres. He has written and independently published over forty titles, most of them full-length novels and collections, with several more on the way. The author has been a lifelong resident of warm and sunny southern California, a location that pops up frequently in his writing. At the moment, the author is looking for ways to reach new readers all over the world, in addition to pursuing his great love of writing and taking it to the next level.

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      Book preview

      Apocalypse Now! - Raymond Towers

      About the cover: The cover image is titled Armageddon. It was produced by Ig0rzh, and was acquired through Dreamstime.

      About this title: The end times are here, to be witnessed by humanity before, during and after the catastrophic events that will forever change life as we know it. Included is a collection of 31 titles, ranging from poetic fragments to three large story arcs in the dark fantasy and science fiction genres. Tales of doom, pain, loss and survival of the fittest. The Apocalypse has begun. Rating: MEDIUM controversy.

      #####

      Other e-books by Raymond Towers:

      A Terrible Thing To Waste

      Before The Seven 1 – Don Diego Meets Lucky Luis

      Demonic Murmurs Collection

      Dobrynia’s Path 1 – Dark Harbinger

      Dobrynia’s Path 2 - Ragnarok

      Roaches In The Attic 0 – Non-Retrieval

      Roaches In The Attic 1 – First Contact

      The Black Cellar

      The Throwback

      The Two Sides Of Humburg

      Two Bedroom Cottage

      Variant Worlds 1 Collection

      Varriano 1 – The Case Of The Missing Q-Drives

      Apocalypse Now!

      A Collection Of Science Fiction

      By Raymond Towers

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 Raymond Towers

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All of the characters in this e-book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, whether living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      This e-book contains a MEDIUM amount of controversial subject matter.

      #####

      Table Of Contents

      Introduction

      Today

      Candles

      Beneath The Waves

      Comfort

      Epic Fail

      Holding Hands

      Breakthroughs And Failures

      Crowd Gone Wrong

      Forgotten Man

      Tomorrow

      Plenty Of Time

      Holing Up

      The Descent Of Wormwood

      Mad Man Disease

      The Streaks In The Sky

      The Father And Son Reunion

      Beyond Tomorrow

      Apocalypse Rant 1

      Apocalypse Rant 2

      Apocalypse Rant 3

      Breaching The Fence

      Twenty Years Later

      The Reclamation Of Planet Earth

      Food Run

      Dinosaur

      Carnivore

      The Bikers

      A Fragment - A Simple Question

      A Fragment - Fleeing

      The Great Purge

      The Demise Of Adon Weisman

      Dustin Saves The Town

      Finding Alma

      The Great Wall

      Coffee And Credits

      Perimeter Control

      The Outside

      About The Author

      Author Website

      #####

      Apocalypse Now!

      Introduction

      Few things hold us with as much morbid fascination as the end of the world. The catchwords include Armageddon, The Apocalypse, The End Of Everything as we know it, or as the Jehovah’s Witnesses might put it, the End of this Present System of Things. How many times have you found yourself wondering just when and how is this supposed to finally happen? Will God rain down fire upon us, as is stated in the Biblical Book of Revelation, or will our own government leaders and their incessant corruptions do us in instead? Will humanity be struck down by an object from space, or by radiation from the sun, or by a nuclear missile? Will we be wiped out like the dinosaurs, with scant traces remaining of who and what we once were left behind for our descendants to piece together? Will we unleash some plague driven by nanotechnology upon ourselves, or merely pollute our skies and water to the point where we can no longer survive on them? The Mayan calendar, at least one of them, has drawn to a close, or so they say, and there are those constant rumors of Planet X looming closer and closer, and then there is the I Ching, and McKenna’s Longwave Theory, and the Web-Bot predictions. According to so many sources, the end is right here, staring us in the face.

      I’ll admit; I’ve spent many long hours roaming through conspiracy and end-times forums trying to gauge my own answers, trying to ease my own anxieties and fears by writing stories about The End Of Everything. I’ve written thirty-one works so far, and this doesn’t include a few concepts for novels that I’ve still got simmering on the back burner.

      Part of me is afraid, very afraid, of how the end will take place, but another part of me says Let It All Burn Down. Maybe that’s what we need as a species; a good bashing and thrashing to make us realize the enormity of the calamity and carnage we’ve spread upon our Mother Earth. Maybe that’s what it will take for us to realize that we’ve lost our spiritual selves in the mire of materialism and selfishness that surrounds us today. Maybe we can change and make things better, and reach a new level of affinity with our planet, with nature and with ourselves. Is that too much to hope for?

      Get ready, dear reader, for The Apocalypse is about to begin.

      #####

      Today

      Candles

      Like candles, the stars above

      Began to extinguish and die.

      And I knew then that our world

      Had reached its untimely demise.

      #####

      Beneath The Waves

      You might not believe this, as I myself am having trouble believing it, but I’ve seen this guy walk right into the ocean like three different times. I mean, this dude went right into the water, with his clothes on and everything! Like it was the most natural thing in the world!

      The first time it happened, I was out taking a stroll in the dark. I’d been moping and depressed ever since my latest fight with my girlfriend Terri, and I ended up walking down into the sand by the pier at Dog Beach.

      I was just sitting there, feeling the sand with my fingers and listening to the crashing surf when I spotted said dude, a man whom I’m guessing was around middle age and wearing one of those soft gray business suits like guys that work in courthouses and business buildings. At first, I didn’t pay him too much attention, guessing him to be some burned out exec who was trying to clear his head out there, just like I was.

      Through the yellow glare from a nearby lamppost, I watched as this guy trudged over the beach and into the wetter sand at the edge, and that’s when things started getting weird. Dude didn’t even slow his stride, and I’m thinking he’s about to get his polished loafers and fancy socks all wet, when the water starts scurrying to get out of his way. You heard me right, the water made a path for this guy! And this guy, he walks right in like he’s Moses parting the Red Sea! Not even five seconds later, the guy is so far into the ocean that I can’t even see him anymore, and the waves close up around him like he was never there!

      Anyway, I’m jumping up and down looking for somebody else who might have witnessed this, but there wasn’t anyone else around. Then I had my phone in hand and I was about to start punching in numbers when I thought, who the hell is going to believe me? Not Terri. She’d say I was making the whole thing up just to get back on her good side. As for my buddies, forget about it. I’d be the laughingstock of the whole bunch.

      I paced back and forth for a few minutes, next to the spot where the man had gone into the water, but there was no trace of him. Nothing, zip, zilch, nada. Eventually, I gave up and went back to my apartment.

      Anyway, a couple of nights later, I’m walking down the boardwalk from Jimmy’s place, when the curiosity got the better of me and I decided to stop by the pier. Guess what? There’s that same guy, like a hundred feet ahead of me, swinging his arms and walking like he’s trying to hurry to the nearest restroom without getting noticed. He’s not looking back, and his pace is so quick that I almost have to jog to keep up with him.

      I don’t know why I decided to follow him that night. Maybe it was just to convince myself that I wasn’t going crazy, but wouldn’t you know it, dude heads right back to that same spot where I’d seen him the first time. And just like before, the ocean waves scooted out to make room for him. He strolled right in, and then the water closed back up like a giant zipper. I was, like, you know, aghast or something, like some old lady who’s just seen a mouse running through her the kitchen. So I ran out to the edge of the surf. I’m out there trying to find the guy, but he’s gone. I mean really gone, like leaving no trace behind or nothing gone.

      I told Jimmy the bartender about it the next evening, which I shouldn’t have. All that got me was getting cut off from the alcohol for the rest of the night. I tried telling Terri about it, but she was still sore at me, so that didn’t go very well either. I thought to myself, hell, I’m going to get to the bottom of this one way or another, and I came up with a plan to do just that.

      The next afternoon, I went down to the beach and surveyed the landscape. There are always huge clumps of seaweed washing up on the shore, and sometimes the sanitation people pile them up together for pick-up. In the meantime they’re just sitting there doing nothing. These piles are plenty big enough for a man to hide behind, and I enlisted a few kids to help me gather them up. We made three sizable stacks, lining them up just a few yards from the spot where the guy had entered the water two times now.

      Since the mysterious man had appeared at around the same time on both nights, I figured I still had a few hours to kill. I went back to my apartment for a sandwich and put on a pair of swimming trunks under my jogging pants and sweater in case I ended up in the drink. With about an hour to spare, I went back to begin my stakeout.

      Guy didn’t show up.

      Naturally. Jimmy at the bar had a good laugh, and worse, he told some of the other guys about it. So yeah, I ended up the laughingstock of the bunch.

      I was determined, though, and I tried again the next night. This time, however, I moved the piles of kelp a dozen feet closer to the pier, and like some woodsman hunter waiting by a camouflaged barrier, I concealed myself between the pier and the seaweed. This time, well, you ain’t gonna believe me, but the guy showed up.

      Dude wore the usual gray suit and he strode from the boardwalk to the sand with that noticeable swing in his arms. He kept moving at that same rapid pace towards the water’s edge. Even though I hadn’t given much thought past this point, I left my hiding place to intercept him. I didn’t yell or anything, since I didn’t want to startle the guy, but I did trot out casually. In retrospect, I should have galloped over like I was at the Kentucky Derby.

      The man’s walking pace was much quicker than my trot. By the time I reached the surf, he was already a dozen feet into the waves. I hesitated a second, reining in my fear and anxiety, and then I ran in after him. Wouldn’t you know it; that was when the water churned back into place.

      Like sledgehammers, the waves crashed onto my back and smothered the air out of me. I drew in a huge gulp of sick tasting, polluted seawater, and I felt my balance swing around as if I were in an industrial clothes dryer. I swear, I saw death’s bony hand reaching out for me, it’s black robes ebbing violently with the tide and its other hand gripping that long scythe. When my vision went black and I thought most assuredly that I was dead.

      I can’t tell you how much time passed, but when I came to, I jumped up trying to escape the turmoil of the sea. My hands slammed into some hard transparent substance. Although I could clearly see the ocean around me, all over me, it still took a few seconds for me to figure out that I was breathing fresh air. And not just fresh air, but some kind of sweet, purified air, like the kind produced by my uncle’s ionizing machine.

      I was inside some kind of glass bubble, parked on the ocean floor some forty or fifty feet from the shore, with fish and jellyfish swimming just inches away. The flooring was made of some kind of soft metal that reminded me of aluminum, but I can’t say for sure what material it really was.

      Sit. A grave voice came from behind me.

      I turned, hesitantly, finding that the bubble was some twelve to fifteen feet across. Right there in the center of the floor were a pair of metallic chairs, facing one another. The guy in the gray suit was sitting in one of those chairs.

      He was a little older than I figured him to be, maybe in his late fifties, with gaunt cheeks and thinning hair going from gray to white. He motioned with an open palm towards the second chair. Sit, please.

      I couldn’t, it was just too weird. Moistening my tongue and lips, I asked, Who are you? Seriously, dude.

      The man’s chair had a dozen buttons on each armrest. He glanced over and clicked on one of these. You must not be alarmed. I am returning to my true self.

      His body shifted, morphed, something. The only reason I didn’t run was because I was already as far away from him as I could get. His features molded together, shrank, and his entire body diminished and paled. The fabric of his clothing changed into a form-fitting bodysuit with a metallic sheen. The being’s head inflated like a balloon, while its arms and legs withered into those of a small child. When its huge, black eyes and tiny slit of a mouth formed, I realized I was looking at a creature like those I’d seen in the UFO abduction specials. It was one of those aliens that people usually termed a ‘Gray.’

      Its voice was now thin and squeaky, with a much higher pitch. Sit.

      As I was beginning to feel faint, I pretty much went over and dropped into the other chair. Who are you? And what is this thing, your spaceship? I recalled the rush of water coming down on top of me. Then I looked down at my moist, but not dripping wet clothes. You saved me, didn’t you? You saved my life!

      For now, your questions are unimportant. The alien replied. What I must speak to you about is most urgent. It concerns the state of your world.

      What?

      To put things simply, your world is dying. The alien explained. Pollution continues to destroy your planet’s atmosphere. Air, water and land all suffer, as do plant and animal life…

      Well, yeah, but…

      World leaders are presently highly ineffectual. The alien continued. The political system has become self-serving and corrupt. Religious elements polarize their followers. Many religions are embroiled in scandals or subterfuge, while true universal faith is for the most part ignored.

      What are you getting at?

      In many of your countries, the legal and medical professions founded to aid the public are no longer working for the common good. Greed is prevalent, the wealthy and the celebrity are idolized, while the poor and destitute are despised and blamed. Crime on many levels runs rampant. Humankind as a whole is becoming increasingly violent and devoid of the more pleasant emotions. Genuine love is fast becoming a scarcity in this world.

      Why are you telling me all this? I can’t do anything about it.

      That is incorrect. The alien said. Individuals make decisions. These decisions influence other individuals, who in turn make decisions that influence even more individuals. It is a mere and simple chain of influence. As you know, Earth man, every chain begins with its first link.

      So? What does any of this have to do with me?

      I have chosen you to become one of the first links. The alien informed me. Although many have observed me entering the sea, throughout the many lands I have roamed, very few have dared to follow me. For that, I will give you the gift of Love. Your fears and anxieties will soon be gone. You will be able to influence others in a greatly positive manner, if you so choose. Every person you influence will in turn feel compelled to influence others, tenfold, until a state of love and kindness eventually reaches every single link in this localized chain.

      Wait, what if I don’t want to be a part of this, this love thing?

      That decision is yours alone to make, for I cannot control your fate or your free will. The alien answered. But if many links are in this way enabled, in just a few generations your entire world will begin to realize its numerous mistakes. Measures will be taken to correct them. Thus, humanity will begin to progress in a more fruitful, positive fashion, and facilitate its ascension towards true enlightenment.

      I was stunned.

      I regret our conversation must be concluded, Earth man. There are only a few of us aiding your people in this way, and there are so many of your people we wish to reach. I wish not to force this granting of Love upon you without your consent. Therefore you must make your decision quickly. Would you willingly accept this gift?

      It was in the middle of the morning of the next day, when I heard the sound of gulls and ocean waves. I opened up my eyes to see the sun just barely starting to go into full furnace. I thought I might have fallen asleep and dreamed the whole incident, as I got up from my hiding place behind the piles of kelp. My sore muscles groaned from having lain on cold sand too long.

      But you know what? The last few days, my buddies have been a lot nicer to me. And my girlfriend, she’s been pretty cool, too. No fighting, no arguments, nothing like that. Just a lot of happy words and actions going on nearly all the time. Sounds crazy, huh?

      I mean, what if it really happened? What if some alien did bestow the gift of Love upon me? Wow. I have to go out and tell everybody, right?

      That’s what I’m doing now. Just think about what I’ve said, and go out and do something nice for somebody today. Maybe for somebody you know, or maybe for somebody you’ve never met before in your entire life. Every link is important, and it’s up to us to make this thing happen.

      Dude, it might just save the world.

      An abbreviated version of this story was posted on Anotherealm.com in 2002. It was submitted to the July/August flash fiction contest. The theme was ‘Underwater’.

      #####

      Comfort

      Is it a comfort, then?

      To observe our world,

      Enclosed deep within

      The jaws of darkness?

      #####

      Epic Fail

      Momentous occasions can mark an individual in such a fashion that the person will often remember where they were and what they were doing, and perhaps even what they were wearing or what they were eating, at the time of the important date. Happy events, sad events, historic and / or catastrophic moments are thus etched into a person’s mind with a salient permanence overshadowing other notable, but more regularly occurring occasions such as birthdays or anniversaries.

      This was the case, on December 1st, 2020 with one Roger Merriman. Roger was employed as a food preparation worker in a lackluster restaurant that catered primarily to senior citizens. As per Roger’s usual routine, he had driven home for his lunch hour to heat up a can of soup with a full serving of vegetables mixed in. Roger followed this schedule religiously; he hurried home, ate a quick meal, relaxed or power napped a handful of minutes, and drove back to work happy. (You may have guessed that the restaurant’s usual fare did not appeal to Roger. The monotonous and frequent acts of heaping globs of butter into a mush-filled bowl or pouring buckets of oil into a boiling vat were enough to make him commence a mad dash towards his vehicle as soon as the clock hit eleven. This was without taking into account the rat and roach droppings and insect particles that he sometimes found in the food itself. Disturbing as well was the occasional hamburger patty which leaped off the grill, landed on the tile flooring, and was soon recovered and simply dusted off before being cheesed and lettuced and bunned and dispatched towards the front.)

      This was when The Moment occurred, with Roger sitting lazily on his couch and buoyantly flipping through the channels for the 24/7 news network, while he patiently waited for his processed, yet nevertheless nutritious meal to simmer into readiness.

      Having reached the correct channel, Roger wondered for a long moment whether or not he’d found the news station he’d been searching for, as incredibly he observed two strange, clammily pale beings on the screen instead of the usual talking heads he expected. The beings wore luminous silvery bodysuits that reached snugly from their thin wrists to their tiny necks, and as for their features, they had large, bulbous heads with zero hair on them, and large solid black eyes. Roger gulped, recognizing the infamous ‘Grays’ of alien folklore.

      Of the pair of extraterrestrials, the more wrinkled of the two seemed to be the mentor, and only nodded or added a phrase whenever he (Was it a he?) deemed it necessary.

      Roger had the TV on low volume at the time, as he’d typically accustomed himself to only watching the images and reading the flashing banner at the bottom of the screen, until he’d set down his soup mug and started slurping away at it. In his haste to raise the volume, however, he accidentally changed the channel, a minor mistake that he soon rectified, right before he whirled into the kitchen to check on his soup.

      While he served himself, he heard the voice of a familiar anchor cut in. The grave sounding newsman offered a recap of the stunning turn of world events; It seems a journalist and his cameraman had been covering the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem, working on yet another piece covering the escalating violence in the Middle East, when the two Grays had apparently materialized nearby. (The cameraman hadn’t been able to catch the moment of arrival on video, and had only swung the camera away from the gawking reporter when the droves of faithful started shouting out excitedly and flocking towards the alien beings.) In short order, the savvy and opportunistic journalist managed to squeeze his way through the excited crowd and prodded his microphone towards the nearest of the short, four-foot tall creatures. The broadcast, as you might guess, was now being telecast live to the entire world.

      As Roger scurried back towards his couch, with hot soup sloshing around in his wide mug, and an equally hot pair of toasted wheat slices burning through his twice folded piece of tissue and into his fingers, the news anchor concluded by saying that, as far as what the aliens were saying, well, the viewers at home would just have to listen in and judge for themselves. Normally, this was a tease to keep the audience from switching channels, and this time the ploy actually worked.

      The camera panned back to the younger of the Grays, and to its barely moving tiny slit of a mouth. It was speaking in a soft, and almost apologetic voice. —A deliberate and conspiratorial distortion and manipulation of historical events as described in the grouping of tomes known as the Bible by the Emperor Constantine at the Council of Nicea in your year of the Common Era three hundred and twenty-five.

      A blatant suppression of the facts that continues to this very day. The second, older Gray cut in, somewhat reminding Roger of the stereotypical good cop / bad cop routine he sometimes saw on the cop shows.

      As an example, The first Gray continued. The willful tampering of truths regarding reincarnation, evidence which was thought to be removed in its entirety, but its allusions can still be found in various sections; Jeremiah 1, verse 5, Romans 9, verses 11 through 13, Job 1, verses twenty and twenty-one, Mathew 11, verses eleven through fifteen, Mathew 24, verse thirty-four…

      Substituting the word ‘earth cycle’ for ‘generation’ in Mathew, as was originally intended. The second extraterrestrial commented.

      Roger tore himself away from the TV just long enough to retrieve a pencil and paper, jotting down as many of the Bible verses as he could remember, planning to research them when his shift was over. With some reluctance, he quickly finished his lunch and grumbled his way back to work.

      When Roger arrived home that afternoon, he bounded into the living room and powered on the TV. The two Grays were still there, this time expounding in great detail over the many atrocities and deceptions committed throughout history by our Earth’s many nations, arranged from the least influential up to the most, and including numerous nations which had long ago ceased to exist, and quite a few that nobody had even heard of.

      Hours went by, as the Grays related their critical analysis of some very obscure civilizations, both overwhelming and frustrating Roger until he finally relented and turned the set to another channel. He’d click back every so often, waiting until the latest anchor reviewed the highlights, trying to digest all of the intriguing information and its historical significance. And so it went for the next three weeks, until finally, the Grays lectured past great civilizations such as Babylon and Rome and got to the United States, but alas, it was a workday and Roger was unable to call off, as his skeptical manager at the restaurant thought the entire thing was not just a sham, but a Sham-Wow.

      Roger hurricaned into his residence at lunchtime and clicked on the TV.

      The first Gray gravely intoned a long list of names, Werner Von Braun, Arthur Rudolph, Ernst Stuhlinger, Werner Karl Dahm… And so on. It wasn’t until the subsequent recap that Roger learned that these were some of the names of several thousand Nazi scientists recruited and covertly allowed to work in the United States as part of the infamous Operation Paperclip. Scientists that were never tried for Nazi war crimes, mind you, and that continued their work in various nefarious fields while hidden away from the public eye, and with nearly unlimited budgets.

      Next followed a frank and penetrating revelation of false flag operations where the United States had cleverly engineered an incident in order to engage in war or to invade a foreign country, without just or moral provocation. The Mexican War, the Spanish-American war, World War One, World War Two…

      A brutally terrorist nation, undoubtedly the worst in the history of all of humanity. The second Gray intoned. Declaring a war on fabricated means and with comparatively weak opposing nations, and most recently and gladly decaying into a fascist regime after an ill conceived marriage of corporation and government.

      What is the point of all of this? Roger asked his TV in an anxious tone, just before he glanced at the clock and realized that it was time to go.

      When Roger got home that evening, he received his reply.

      Harmony. The first Gray disclosed. This generation has experienced the last five thousand, one hundred and twenty-five years in order to obtain harmony. Only when a vast majority of a peoples’ consciousness has reached maturity and understood the power of Creation, and entered into a harmonic balance within itself, may these peoples ascend to a higher degree of knowledge, meld with the galactic consciousness, and eventually, become one with Creation itself.

      Failure to achieve this ascendance is the greatest of all sins. The second Gray nodded. Failure of this epic magnitude castigates an entire world of souls to repeat the entire revolution of life, death, and reincarnation once again. As it occurred in the year 3105 Before The Common Era, so it shall occur again.

      The totality of human souls will continue to recycle for the next five thousand plus years. The first explained. Ninety percent of your knowledge, and of your population, will soon be wiped away, in order for your wrongdoings to be forgotten and forgiven and in order for your search for enlightenment to begin anew.

      In a few generations, you will not remember the symbolism of your greatest monuments, or the design of your tallest skyscrapers. The second Gray sadly stated. Humanity as a whole will now face numerous catastrophes, of this world and not of this world, and your structures will crumble and fade away into nothingness. Humanity will be forced to work together for the common good, as it was in the ancient times. Only when your deep hatreds and prejudices and corruptions will be abated will you be able to guarantee your own survival.

      Tomorrow is December 21st, of the year 2020. The first Gray concluded. We will return in your year 7145, with the hopes that you will then be in a position to enter into the Cosmic Consciousness and bask in the glory of our Creation. Good fortune, people of Earth.

      Having said all this, and without further pomp or circumstance, the two Grays vanished.

      A shorter version of this story was posted in the January/February 2010 flash fiction contest on Anotherealm.com. The contest theme was ‘The Test’.

      #####

      Holding Hands

      Impatiently, Darius waited for the old Mexican lady in front of him to board the bus. The young black man grimaced. In an agonizingly slow manner, the bag of wrinkles in front of him, wrapped in an old, flowery church dress, curled her fingers into gnarled, steadying claws. Slowly, she lifted her walker, with mangled tennis balls for pads, up the bus’s short entry slope. From the indistinct mumbles, and the obvious exertion exiting her mouth as huffs and puffs, you’d have thought the old bitch was out climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

      Yeah, Darius knew what Kilimanjaro was; it was the highest point in Africa, or more accurately, since the dormant volcano had two separate high spots, the volcanic cone named Uhuru was the highest point at, what was it again? Nineteen thousand feet above sea level? The only reason he remembered that information, Darius recalled, was because he used to watch reruns from that old Star Trek TV show. And because he had an aunt that looked like Lieutenant Uhura, down to the ebony icon’s soft complexion, the pouting lower lip, and the nicely curved breasts.

      Darius was trying real hard not to be the typical ghetto niggah, out showing off his bling to everybody and looking to get laid twenty-four-seven. He had his little job going on at the fast food place, where he was scheduled to cashier at the drive-thru that afternoon. In fact, he was wearing his work uniform, a soft, olive green shirt and black Dickies, at that very moment. Darius liked to keep informed, too. This is why he’d missed the first transit bus. This later bus he was getting on now would leave him with very little time left to clock in on schedule, so the black man was in a big hurry to get onboard and get things moving.

      He’d been watching the news right before he left the house. That’s why he’d gotten to the bus stop so late. There was some serious bullshit going on in the Middle East.

      The young black man was now having difficulty controlling his temper, when the old, wrinkled woman fumbled through her old, wrinkled purse, until she finally withdrew and flashed her pass to the bus driver.

      Darius didn’t have a pass himself, as he usually had one of his parents drive him to work. He didn’t have his own car yet, but he was saving up the cash to buy one. Or at least he was trying to save up the cash. Darius slid his collection of bills into the little plastic slot that counted such things. Once the fare was taken care of, he scurried around the shuffling old woman and toward the back where he knew he’d have a much better shot at sitting alone.

      Since it was between lunch and dinnertime, the back half of the bus only had a handful of people on it; the closest of which were a black, overweight thug that said Sup to him, which he acknowledged with a curt nod, and a Mexican woman whom he’d guessed to be in her thirties. From what he saw, the woman was making that painful transition between the beauty of youth, and the haggardness that came forever after.

      Once he’d taken his seat, he let his imagination run free for a few moments and further considered the woman. Her face was oval-shaped, still pretty despite the inception of crow’s feet and the other, tiny, harsh reminders of a lifetime of disillusionment. Her hair was teased up and curled back in the front, with a smattering of bangs left to conceal an otherwise billboard of a forehead. She wore a simple blue blouse that only gave off the slightest hint of cleavage, and jeans that weren’t new, but still in good shape. Her arms were crossed over her stomach in some sort of defiance, and gave off the hint of short hair all around them. She was trying not to look like a former gangster girl, Darius surmised, but all the signs were there. He wondered what his mother would say if he brought a woman like that back home, and no, this woman did not have any rings on her fingers.

      But it was all wishful thinking, as Darius was a fresh and adventurous young man of twenty-two years, while the Latina sitting across from him might have been at least ten years older than he was, if not more. She probably had ten kids at home, too.

      The bus finally started moving. From the radio sitting on the big thug’s lap, he heard a commercial break end, and the familiar voice of one of the more popular disc jockeys take over. The DJ, a woman with a voice so sweet and thick it might have been made out of maple syrup, wasn’t happily touting hip-hop clubs or upcoming concerts, however. The DJ was unusually solemn, as she began talking about nuclear weapons, and about how our missile defense systems on the East Coast had failed. Boston, New York, and Washington were confirmed as having been struck, and there may have been more attacks going on as well that the news people didn’t know about.

      The ships parked near the Eastern Seaboard were Russian, Darius knew. They’d been warning the United States for months, to stop toppling over the hierarchies in the Middle East, to stop hoarding all the oil for themselves and to stop trying to devalue the Russian

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