Chet & Floyd vs. The Apocalypse: Volume 1 (18 page)

Chapter 43

“Floyd I have to go to the bathroom
,” Chet said.

The small cell didn’t have much for privacy.
The toilet sat exposed in the dead center of the room. Chet had a shy bladder at the best of times. This, for him, was absolute torture.

“I haven’t gone in days.
I am so off my cycle. It’s not good for me to be off my cycle. It used to be like this: pee in the morning right away, after breakfast take a really big…”

“You don’t have to tell me your bowel cycle
,” Floyd said. “I get it.”

“I really wish you would stop interrupting me Floyd.”

“If you would ever take a pause in your constant stream of consciousness, I wouldn’t have too. The answer is ‘no’ by the way,” Floyd said.

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean ‘no’ as in no I will not turn around completely and cover my ears and sing a song so that you feel comfortable enough to use the loo. I won’t do it.”

“That’s not very friendly of you
,” Chet said. “I can’t go unless you do that. I am very shy.”

“If it was one or two times I would do it for you no problem
,” Floyd said. “You have me doing this every thirty minutes, and you never go.”

“I’m working my way up to it.”

“Eventually your body will have to do it whether you want to or not. You should just let the cycle happen.”

“I haven’t gone in days though
,” Chet said. “All I can think of is all that waste just sitting inside me. I’m festering inside myself Floyd, and it’s freaking me out.”

“I’m sorry.
I will not help you this time,” Floyd said. “If you have to go, just be a man, sit on the pot and go. Damn everyone else in the room.”

“Just be a man?”
Chet asked.

“Yeah, men don’t care.
They don’t sweat peeing in front of other men. It’s an attitude thing.”

“I’m feeling it Floyd.
I am a man, and I don’t care about what I do in front of others! I will defecate as I please,” Chet said.

“Just sit on that toilet
, and let her go!” Floyd said.

“That’s just what I’ll do!”
Chet said. He sauntered over to the toilet, dropped his pants and sat down.

His look of defiance quickly vanished.
He looked at Floyd who was looking out the cell window. The guards were playing a game of cards and not paying them the slightest attention. Still nothing would come.

“Could you at least plug your ears Floyd?”
Chet asked.

“You’re hopeless Chet
,” Floyd said.

Chet sat on the toilet for a moment
, then got up and zipped up his pants. “This will never work,” Chet said. “I just can’t relax.”

“Well, at least you tried
,” Floyd said. “That’s all we can ask for really.”

Chet lay down on his bunk an
d put an arm over his eyes.

“Did you have sex with Sue that night?”
Chet asked.

“A gentleman doesn’t speak of those things, but yes indeed I did
,” Floyd said.

“Is that the first time you’ve had sex?”

“No,” Floyd said.

“I didn’t have sex with my girl.
I wanted to wait until our relationship deepened a little bit more,” Chet said.

“Chet, I know you’re a virgin.”

“I am not!” Chet said.

“Yes, you are.
You can admit it to me. I’m your best friend.”

“Okay, you’re right
,” Chet said. “I’ve never had sex. But I want it clear that this is not a decision I’ve made by choice or religious beliefs.”

“You want it made clear that you’re a virgin because nobody wants to have sex with you?”
Floyd said.

“It didn’t sound that way in my head, but I guess so.
It just hasn’t happened for me yet.”

“Don’t worry
, it will happen.” Floyd felt an odd sense of déjà vu. It was odd that their conversation on using the bathroom and having sex came to the same conclusion.

“I had girls in the past tell me that they wouldn’t have sex with me even if we were the last two people alive on earth
,” Chet said.

“So?”

“That’s becoming more of a distinct possibility every day,” Chet said. “Maybe one day there will be just two people left on earth, me and a girl. Sorry about that. May you rest in peace Floyd.”

“No offense.
Carry on.”

“I bet they would want to have sex with me.
There would be no other opportunity for them to experience that singular human warmth. That closeness.”

“A bunch?
You’ve had more than one girl tell you that?” Floyd said.

“I just don’t understand it
,” Chet said. “Am I handsome Floyd?”

“I don’t want to have this conversation
,” Floyd said.

“Be honest.
You can tell me. A man can think another man is handsome without any underlying meaning behind it. You think Sean Connery is handsome. You think Brad Pitt is handsome.”

“You are a very handsome man Chet
,” Floyd said. “Now shut up.”

“Very nice of you to say so
,” Chet said. “That wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

Chapter 44

The execution was mere hours away.
Zukov had come down to witness the last guard change and to make sure preparations were under way.

“Time for you to say goodbye to your friend
,” Zukov said to Floyd.

“I thought they would just execute you too for the hell of it
,” Chet said. Floyd winced.

“Let’s not put that thought in their head right now, okay?”
Floyd said. He turned to Zukov. “I get to leave here unharmed. That is what we agreed on.”

“I’m still willing to follow through with that agreement
,” Zukov said.

“Can I be allowed to go back to my home and get my things?”
Floyd asked.

“I’m afraid not.
We’ve already taken ownership of your home. Everything inside is ours. I would suggest you be thankful that we’re allowing you to leave with your skin.”

“I can dig that
,” Floyd said.

Zukov nodded to one of the guards who opened the cell and gestured Floyd to come out of it.
Floyd came out without trouble.

“See you later
,” Chet said.

“Good luck buddy
,” Floyd said. He walked out with the guard. The outside air felt pretty good to him. People never smell that great to begin with, let alone when there’s not enough water for a shower. Four people—guards included—in that small area was pretty rank.

Outside there was just enough breeze
to carry away his odor, and that was all he could ask for.

“I know you
,” Floyd said to the guard.

“Everyone here seems too.
They all want to know the man behind the mask. Makes me a bit of a legend around here,” the guard said.

The man was indeed the community executioner.
He’d been very busy lately, especially right before the riots when the previous ruler had people put to death left and right. Chet was his first under the new regime.

“It’s been a few days since I hung anybody
,” he said. “I promise that I will do a good job for your friend. Snap his neck right off. No struggling.”

“
Is that supposed to make me feel better about you killing my friend?” Floyd said. The executioner shrugged.

“Everybody’s got a job to do.
I’m just doing mine. I understand if you don’t want to make friends. Let’s get you on your way.”

“This isn’t the way out
,” Floyd said.

“We have to make a stop first.
I forgot all my stuff this morning for the execution ceremony, and I don’t have time to walk you all over the place and get back to it. We’re going to my place first. Can’t be late. Can’t keep people waiting when they’re attending an execution. They tend to get a little restless.”

“So executions, like the trains…”

“Have to run on time. Exactly,” the guard said. “You sound like you have the makings of an executioner, but you never can tell. Some people just don’t have the stomach for it. Ever kill anybody?”

“More than quadruple the number you have
,” Floyd thought. Instead he said, “Name me someone alive now that hasn’t. Everyone has killed, either by his or her own hand or doing nothing to save someone from death. We all have blood on our hands.”

“You’re kind of a weird one, aren’t you?”
the guard said. “My house is coming up. Let’s pick up the pace a bit.”

Floyd and the guard went up to a non-descript house that looked much like all the others in the area.
There seemed to be no special perks for the community executioner.

“You wait here now
,” the guard said. “I don’t have to tie you up or anything.”

“You might want to.
You never know what I might do,” Floyd said and smiled. The guard laughed.

The second the guard turned to get his things Floyd hit him with a reckless haymaker.
He hit the man so hard his hand went numb. For a moment Floyd thought he’d broken it.

The guard fell with a grunt, unconscious.
Floyd gave him a good and hard kick in the head just to make sure. He dragged the guard to the bathroom, took off the guard’s belt and tied him to the toilet.

Floyd searched through the house until he found what he was looking for.
The executioner garb was all black, long and baggy. It hid his frame well. The hood completed the ensemble. Looking in the mirror, you couldn’t tell Floyd from the real executioner.

Even though it was a hanging, Floyd had to then locate the ceremonial axe he’d seen the executioner bring to other events.
If he showed up without the ceremonial axe, there would have some explaining to do. He found it in a closet.

It was a hastily made plan for saving Chet.
There was a good chance they would both be killed while carrying it out. Chet would bear most of the risk, although he didn’t know it yet. Floyd was fine with that.

Chapter 45

Floyd, fully clothed in executioner garb, hefted the large broad axe used for the hanging ceremony. It was blunt as befit a weapon only used for ambiance. He had made sure to sharpen it before he left.

F
loyd felt overwhelmingly cool in the get-up. He put a little extra swagger into his step as he went to Chet’s cell to pick him up.

There were six guards already there who looked up annoyed.
“You are very late. We’ve been waiting a long time,” one of them said. He held a huge broadsword that was likely as dull as Floyd’s axe used to be.

“I am late.
I had some last minute paperwork to do,” Floyd said.

“Paperwork?”
the guard asked.

“Yes
,” Floyd said. “There’s an awful lot of bureaucracy when it comes to execution. I don’t want to go into it now. Just be warned, if someone ever tries to give you my job, remember there’s about two hundred pages of paperwork for every head that’s chopped off. It’s not just chop, chop, chop, go have some soup. I’ve been up all night. Plus I have my other guard duties.”

“I had no idea
,” the guard said.

“An executioner
’s job is never done,” Floyd said. “Let’s kill this guy.”

The guards opened the cell.
Chet jumped at them with all the fury he could muster. He was so trussed up it left him very little movement. All his effort was for nothing and only got him some extra kicks and punches.

Chet lay on the floor and promised to behave.
Floyd watched the whole thing from across the room.

“I do have one question for you
,” Chet said.

“What is it?”
the guard asked.

“You have no reason to lie to me since I am a dead man.
I just really want to know. Do you eat your dead?”

“No!”
Floyd jumped in. “We are a society. We are not the ravenous dogs who roam the desolate landscape outside these walls. We would never do that. There is no reason for any ‘last revenge.’”

“You know about my ‘last revenge’?
How could…” Chet said. Floyd quickly interrupted him with a slap to the face.

“I used to have a friend who planned on soiling himself right before he was taken by cannibals.
He was a very odd person,” Floyd explained to the guards. “This one may be plotting the same thing. It would be very gross to drag him all the way to the block with his pants full of filth.”

“That’s crazy
,” one of the guards said.

“But not a bad idea
,” another guard said. “No matter how much you cooked him, you would always think you were tasting crap.”

“That’s what I
always
said,” Chet said. “And now as my final act of defiance!” Chet pinched his face and he turned a deep red. Floyd grabbed his arm and put his face close to his.

“For the love of Pete, Chet don’t do it
,” Floyd said. “Are you blind? It’s me.” Chet looked up with the startlingly obvious revelation.

“Floy
…” Chet said. Floyd interrupted him with another slap.

Chet shook his head and then went into a very overacted plea.
“Oh, great and very scary executioner, please don’t kill me! I throw myself at your feet! I am so very, very, very, very scared, and I don’t want to die!”

“That’s enough
,” Floyd said. “Let’s go.” Chet lay down on the floor and blubbered at his feet. Floyd tried to kick him away. “I said that’s enough! Don’t overdo it! Let’s just go.”

The guards looked at each other, slightly confused.
They picked up the squalling Chet and marched him outside.

The hanging platform was about fifty yards away.
The community people were lined up on either side of the expanse of grass. Before the guards reached the crowd, they spread out from Chet, who would have tried to escape if he wasn’t so well shackled.

When the first stone flew from the crowd and hit him on the head, he knew why the guards had given him such a wide berth.
Soon stones pinged off his abused flesh, some hitting him so hard that he fell to his knees.

According to what Floyd had learned of executions here, most people were so badly hurt before they even made it to the block that they had to be carried to their eventual death.
Every time Chet was knocked down, he got back up until about twenty feet from the platform. A jagged stone hit him square in the nose, and he dropped hard to the ground. Floyd would have moved over to help him the rest of the way, but he noticed that Chet palmed the sharp stone under his stomach, and he made sure to stay well back.

Two guards came over to pick him up.
When the first one brought him to his feet, Chet spit a large gob of blood in his face and slammed the stone between his eyes. The guard dropped, instantly killed from the blow.

The second guard tried to take the stone away and found himself choked to death by Chet’s ropes.
More stones sailed in from the people, and they began to close in. It seemed that Chet wouldn’t even stay alive long enough to be hanged. “Why couldn’t he have just waited for me?” Floyd thought. “He’s so impatient.”

Just before
the multitudes jumped upon Chet, an automatic machine gun blast made them halt in their tracks.

Zukov himself was on the platform, thundering off an assault rifle into the air.
With a wave of his hand the crowd parted. Chet lay under the guard he just killed, gasping for air.

“Let’s do this properly
,” Zukov said. “I’m having this man hanged, not torn apart like we’re some sort of savages. I would suggest that you all stop throwing stones at him though. He’s pretty fricking dangerous.”

Chet shoved the guard off of him and stood up.
“Are you going to behave?” Zukov asked him. Chet nodded. “Executioner. Bring him up here to be hanged.”

Floyd stepped forward
, gripped Chet by the arm and led him up the stairs.

“Feel free to save me a
t any time Floyd,” Chet said through clenched teeth. “you seem to be taking your sweet time about it.”

“I have a plan.
Just don’t mess it up,” Floyd said. “Now shut up before Zukov hears you.”

Floyd took Chet to the platform and put the noose around his neck.
He stepped back and let Zukov address the crowd.

“This man is being put to death for
the murder of a community member and the attempted murder of me, the community leader,” Zukov boomed. “Do you have any last words?”

“I do
,” Chet said.