Chet & Floyd vs. The Apocalypse: Volume 1 Page 6

  “There aren’t any trees down here Floyd.”

  “We don’t have time to argue. Take it or leave it,” Floyd said.

  “I’ll take it,” Chet said. “It’s always good to have an out.”

  “Glad you think so,” Floyd said. He held up his sawed off shotgun and poked the muzzle out the bars. The black clad dog-men had finally gotten themselves together, and the leader was about to speak.

  “We have a—heep—great show for you tonight!” the leader said and raised his hands to the smattering cheers.

  “Fire in the hole Floyorama!” Chet yelled.

  Floyd pulled the trigger and closed his eyes. This time the feel of hot metal slivers slicing up his arm - with a side order of powder burns - didn’t happen. The shotgun kicked back.

  The distance from the dog leader was lengthy, but Floyd’s aim was perfect. The dog-man’s chest exploded in a wide circle of small holes, shoving him backwards in a spray of blood.

  The other dog-men looked at their leader in disbelief. The crowd was stunned into shocked silence. Floyd raised his gun to the person in charge of opening the cages. He had the man’s attention.

  “Do you think he knows what you want?” Chet asked.

  “I hope so,” Floyd said. He nodded his head once at the man who looked at him, mouth agape.

  “Does he know how out of range he is?”

  “He will if you keep yelling,” Floyd said. The shock had worn off, and the dog-men began yelling and pointing at Chet and Floyd’s cell. They didn’t attack out of respect for Floyd’s gun. They were calling to the rest of their men from the top of the pit. Floyd saw them scrambling for weapons as a couple ladders were lowered into the pit.

  Floyd kept his shotgun on the man who ran the controls. The guy still stood there with a scared look on his face. Men with guns began to slip down the ladders into the pit.

  Floyd panicked. “Audible Chet!” he screamed.

  “I’m not naked though Floyd!” Chet screamed back at him. “You said under no circumstances except for these specific instances…” He would have kept going, but Floyd turned the gun on him, shutting him up.

  Floyd heard the first bullets fired into their cell ping off the bars or thud into the stacked cinder blocks that made up the back wall.

  “Audible Chet!” Floyd yelled. “I don’t understand why you choose this to be the first time you listen to me!” Their cell door opened, and the dog-men lined up for a clearer shot.

  Floyd turned his shotgun back to the men and fired. The shell exploded in the chamber, knocking Floyd to the ground with a myriad of fresh wounds. Chet hit the sand from the sound of gunfire.

  Bullets ricocheted in a tornado of metal in the cell. He felt a little guilty as he shoved his body behind the unconscious Floyd and waited for death to come. Chet opened his eyes only to have a bullet fly so close it cut his eyelashes that then fell like dust in his eye.

  The smoke began to clear, and the shooting stopped. Chet lay still, eyes closed tightly, amazed he was still alive and uninjured.

  “I can’t wait to tell Floyd about this,” Chet thought. “I could teach him a lot about prowess.”

  Chet patted Floyd’s back softly. “You just sleep on buddy. I’ll take care of this.”

  Chet’s backpack was within easy reach. He slipped his hand into it and came out with a fistful of tarnished throwing stars.

  He made a fist with his right hand and tucked three stars into the folds between his fingers. He could hear the dog-men begin to advance on the cell. “Try to sell me a pig-in-a-poke, will they? Their time has come,” he whispered.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Floyd groaned softly. “Are you using me as a shield?”

  “No time to explain your position. Glad to see you’re awake,” Chet said.

  “Am I your bullet shield?” Floyd said.

  “Not now Floyd. I have a few dogs to fry on the Barbie.” Chet shoved Floyd forward. Floyd popped up from the momentum.

  The dog-men fired at Floyd. Their bullets thudded softly in the sand around him. Floyd could do nothing but raise his hand against the stinging sand.

  Chet screamed like a banshee as he hurled the stars in his fist into the mass of black clad men. The flying metal hit. The dog-men cursed and fell, holding onto abused flesh. Chet sent two more fistfuls of stars at the men before they realized they were hurt less than first thought.

  Floyd loaded his shotgun and fired. The bullet exploded in the gun, sending him hurtling back into the cell.

  “Damn it!” Floyd yelled.

  “Would you cut it out with that stupid gun?” Chet screamed as he sent another whirl of stainless steel at their foes. “You’re going to kill yourself with that thing.”

  Floyd lay in the cell with his face in the sand. “I think that’s enough shooting for me for one day.”

  Chet took out a wave star, barrel rolled forward and came up into what he called his “patent-pending reverse twisty-stance throw.” Its awkward look belied its accuracy. The wave star hit the cage opening lever, halving it.

  All the cages opened at once in a frightening rasp of rusted metal. Bedlam ensued. Crazed humans and starved dogs ran out en masse towards the center of the ring.

  As the cell doors opened, Chet ripped off his belt and lashed it around their cell door. He pulled the door closed and held it fast in an instant.

  The freed people, black clad dog-men and fighting dogs collided in a torrent of gun blasts, ripping fangs and flesh-tearing nails.

  Dogs tore into any foe within reach, some stopping to feed on the corpses of their kill. Others, who were blood-frenzied, killed, turned and killed again. The freed humans fought like depraved serial killers, seeing this as their only chance for revenge or escape.

  The dog-men were the first to die as their shock lost them the precious seconds they needed to protect themselves. The slaughter within the pit matched the savagery in the spectator stands. The dog-men’s deaths made the people above scramble and fight for the food and supplies used for betting. They fell on those protecting the bounty, rending and killing for a pound of meat or the flint and steel they bet and lost the night before.

  The whole operation fell like a house built on sand. Chet closed his eyes to the confounding violence. Bodies flailed against their barred cell. People and animals died. The horde piled upon themselves. People fell from the above, dead or dying from wounds. Some few escaped with a pitiful handful of stolen goods. Most weren’t lucky enough to leave with their skins.

  Within ten minutes, all was silent. When the quiet stretched on for a few minutes, Chet looked at Floyd, who shrugged his shoulders.

  “Hello?” Chet called. There was no answer.

  “Hello? Anyone alive?” Nothing.

  “I think we’re the only ones,” Floyd said. “You ready to leave?”

  Chet looked at Floyd and wiped a gob of gore off his face. “You know what Floyd? Yes I am. You can’t stay in one place too long before it starts wearing thin on you. Know what I mean? Boca Raton stops being Boca Raton after a few months. You might as well be staying at the Super 8 near the Saint Louis Airport.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Right behind you Floyd.”

  Chapter 14

  Chet and Floyd found their Volkswagen safe and sound in the parking lot of the bowling alley. They tossed a couple of dog carcasses they took from the fighting pit in the back seat and drove the car down the silent city streets until they found a good piece of road under a highway to park the car for the night.

  The dead dogs didn’t make good air fresheners, but their olfactory senses had been lambasted so badly over the last few days they hardly noticed.

  Floyd fell asleep almost the instant they parked, but Chet’s thoughts kept him up. Chet’s mind reeled. There was no off switch.

  He spoke to Floyd, knowing that his buddy wasn't listening. “Here I am awake again. Lots of time to think things over. Planning out my tomorrows. You'll be happy to know, Fl
oyd, that my plans include you. I'll have to pencil you in, for most of my time is already regulated for me.

  “That’s not totally true. I’ve made my own mess. I’ve created my own demons, and now I am a man full of obligations.

  “I don't want you to think that this is a bad thing or that I think it’s a bad thing. It’s good. I haven’t always been the best person when I have a lot of time and no responsibility. You know me well enough Floyd. I usually take that free time and turn it into something self-destructive or waste it in passive meanderings.

  “My passiveness is full of things that only half keep my attention. This increases my self-loathing. Nothing important to attend too. You know of course that the importance I'm referring to are the things in my life that I give importance too. Things are no more important than you give credence. Enough free time makes the devil of a man. Makes him a monster.

  “So I think it a good thing that my time is so filled. Filled with the needs of others, that I may aid them and build virtue. Filled with precious moments with those I love, the sweetest times I have are these. Filled with everything that has nothing to do with myself.

  “That is not a complaint! I don't even know what I want anyway. I don't even know what I need half of the time. I just attend to this and attend to that, and then my day is over. I feel like an ant in one of those plastic ant farms with God looking in on me. He just stands there watching me move to and fro, bustling about my business until I dry up and croak. Nothing those ants ever do in those ant farms amounts to a damn thing anyway. And so it goes with man.

  “He bustles about, lives his life and chases dreams, and then what happens? He dies and is forgotten one or two generations down the line. Nothing but a face in an old picture. Half squinted at by his children’s-children’s-children.

  “Don’t try and feed me any lines about the great men of our time either, Floyd. Their legacies erode the minute they die. Changed by every tongue that speaks of them, until no semblance of who they truthfully were remains.

  After we’ve created the image, the revisionists rip them to shreds, tearing our idols back down to men. Until no heroes remain. No one to look up to. No leaders. Even having a hero is scoffed at. To have a hero is to not know the person. ‘Look closely’ other’s will tell you. ‘That is not a hero, just a man.’ They don't mean what they say. When they say ‘look closely,’ they mean look at the heroes faults.

  “It’s never hard to find fault in others, and we all like to see the mighty tumble. Some people spend their whole lives relishing the falls of others.

  “That’s not me. I try hard Floyd. I work so hard. I can’t sleep. I don’t know why. I don’t look forward to the dawn. It’s hard enough to face the day, let alone the added pressure of insomnia Fake a smile. Play the game, and let others see what they want to see.

  “They can’t control what goes on in my mind though, Floyd. That is my own. That is just for me. It’s not that I think I have mastery over my mind. Far from it! If I did I would have calmed the damn thing and been asleep by now. Not staying up and talking to you.

  “Why is it Floyd that you can sleep and I cannot? What is it about you? Do you not have any cares? Is your conscience clear? It could easily be the opposite: you've had so much to live down in your day that, in your dire fatigue, you’ve crashed. Sleeping like a baby. That’s not for me Floyd.

  “There is much in my past that I do not like to think of. I have much regret. All the present goodness doesn’t make up for that. I think so hard on it that I sometimes curse out loud to make the thoughts swim away, like frightened fish from a looming shadow. Wakefulness leads to thoughts about the times I've been weak. Times I've been mean. Times I've been violent. Decisions that have cost me much. Decisions that I have learned from—very much so! I am a better man for these experiences, but I was not a better man while engaged in these experiences. How high is the price I must pay for the cost of learning!

  Tell a man the fire is hot, and he will go back to it again and again. Your soft words are not enough. But when a man burns his hand on the fire, he will never go back for seconds. Lessons wrought through pain are those best learned. The problem is that pain leaves marks, both tangible and intangible. The ones you can’t see are the worst. People don’t see them and, thus, treat you like you don’t have any scars, when, actually, you’re the walking wounded. That’s the way we like it though, isn't that right Floyd? We hide scars.”

  “We hide scars.”

  “We hide scars.”

  “We hide scars.”

  “We hide them so well sometimes that even we forget we have them until nights like these, when you can’t sleep and all that muck that lies at the bottom of your soul gets stirred up and lets you take a good long peek at yourself. No distractions. Take a good look.

  “That’s why I can’t sleep Floyd. I’m having a good look at my scars. They are ugly. I bet you have them too, Floyd. You’re just too busy to think about them right now. You’ll have your own sleepless night soon enough. I’m not too prideful to think I’m the only one to have these. Just don’t let me in on whatever stirs up your soul. I’m not ashamed to think that if I knew everything about you, my friend, it would tear down my image of you. I don’t need to know all your faults. I don’t want to know them. I’m just happy that one of us is sleeping and that you’re here with me in spite of who I know myself to be. You’re here in spite of my past, my faults and my present tenuous state of sanity. Thanks Floyd. It’s good to have a friend.”

  Eventually Chet’s eyes grew heavy and sleep overtook him.

  Chapter 15

  Floyd was startled awake. A dense cloud of smoke that filled the Volkswagen, and his lungs heaved for air. He slapped his hand against the door until he found the handle, pulled it open and gasped in the fresh air. Smoke billowed out into the bright morning sky. Floyd’s lungs heaved as coughed violently. His eyes stung. They felt so dry he could feel the inner lining of his eyelids scraping over them, like brick rubbing on concrete. When his coughing slowly subsided, he turned his head and saw Chet puffing heartily away at his pipe. Smoke wafted heavily from the bowl with every deeply drawn inhale.

  “Not a very smart move Floyd,” Chet said as he needlessly relit the hotly stoked tobacco in his pipe.

  “You trying to kill me or something?” Floyd said. “Worst wake up I ever had.”

  “You are the one who’s trying to kill me,” Chet said. “You’ve sent up a smoke signal so huge Custer would have taken note of it.”

  “How about cracking a window?”

  “I’m trying to keep a low profile.”

  “I was close to asphyxiation. It’s stupid to smoke in a small space with the windows closed,” Floyd said.

  “I didn’t have a problem with it. Maybe you just can’t hold your smoke Floyd. Maybe you’re just a sissy.”

  “What the hell did you put in that thing anyway?” Floyd said. “It smells like someone vomited after gorging on orange Fanta and tapioca pudding.”

  “I am so please you asked Floyd. I was wondering if you would even notice. There are some of us Floyd, like you, who have burned away their taste buds on the tobacco of whoresons and scalawags,” Chet said.

  “I have a duffel bag full of Olivia, Patel and Torano,” Floyd said. “The finest Cuban seed tobaccos on the planet. They are not whoresons.”

  “Can I never finish a thought with you around Floyd?”

  “Can you ever say anything that’s not ridiculously inflammatory or completely insulting?”

  Chet sighed. “We will never be able to have a true conversation if you always take a difference of opinion for a personal attack. What can I do with that Floyd? I am not a ‘yes’ man. I have my own viewpoints. I have my own idioms, which I will tenaciously defend. I am not just some fish that glides along with the current. I make my own waves!” Chet slammed his hand down on the dash, shaking the car.

  “Easy on the Skull Beetle. You’re going to break her,” Floyd said.

 
“So very sorry Floyd,” Chet said. “I will be the pinnacle of carefulness from now on and only use the softest touches on our little baby here. Now I was talking about how you like whoreson tobacco. Your tobacco is like a bowl full of boring old oatmeal.”

  “I like oatmeal,” Floyd said.

  “As do I. I like it plain and would be content with eating plain oatmeal every morning for the rest of my life, if that was the choice before me. However, I know from experience that a little variety can make all the difference. Sometimes I like my oatmeal with a little sugar or maple syrup or fruit. There are several different things I can add that give my oatmeal a little zip.”

  “My tobacco doesn’t need a little zip,” Floyd said. “There are many different types of tobacco in cigars, and they effect the taste enough for me.”

  “Lies and more lies. I’m surprised that you can even look at yourself in the mirror.”

  “We don’t have a mirror.”

  “We should get one Floyd because you could use a little sprucing up, but I digress. My point is that, no matter what or how you describe the tobacco you’re smoking, it’s all kind of the same. You have to admit that,” Chet said.

  “Fine,” Floyd said.

  “Now with my pipe tobacco there are a myriad of flavors that compliment that great tobacco taste. Cherry, vanilla, maple and so many more. I stumbled upon some great epiphany while you were snoozing away Floyd. I thought why not mix all the flavors together and then smoke them real fast to get as much out of each gram of the cancer-inducing weed as possible?”

  “I am envious of your great creation,” Floyd said sarcastically.

  “Your tone isn’t very nice Floyd. Especially now that I have changed. I am a new person Floyd. I’m surprised that you even recognize me. I have changed before your very eyes.”

  “You look exactly the same to me,” Floyd said.

  “Maybe in body, but not in soul. I am a Zen master Floyd.” Chet said.