One Minute to Midnight (43 page)

"I know you!" Gretel said as they began to run
again.
They heard a loud booming sound echo through the temple and the
floor began to rumble.

"They’re taking off!" Gretel
yelled.

"What? Who?"

"This is a space ship disguised to look like a
temple. We have to get out of here, they’re going to take off with
us still inside." Gretel said.

"I don’t know of another way out and I
destroyed the temple doorway on my way in. I’ll have to make a new
one." George said. The floor rumbled louder.
He took off one of the bandoliers and set a digital timer for each
of the hand grenades. After leaving them in a cell up against the
wall, he returned to the empty cell at the end of the corridor
where he left Gretel and waited.

"Cover your ears." He said.

In a moment, an explosion rocked the prison
level of the temple as a jet of fire raced past the cell he and
Gretel were hiding in. When it was safe, they exited the cell and
both could smell the sweet scent of fresh air as daylight shone in
around the corner of a destroyed section of cells.

"Run!" George yelled.

Just as the ship began to rise into the sky,
two humans from different worlds tumbled out of the craft and onto
a blood-soaked battleground. They had jumped out just in time to
see the ship ascend skyward, but because of the mass damage caused
by George’s grenades, the spaceship depressurized and exploded in a
hail of rock and metal while the remaining mantis forces were
destroyed by the human army. George and Gretel lay for a moment in
each other’s arms, as chinks of debris scattered along the
ground.
"That was as close as I ever want to come to being blown up."
George said. He wiped his dirt-streaked face with a sleeve as
Gretel reached inside the pocket of her jeans.

"I know you, but not how. Can you tell me why
I have this?" Gretel showed George a picture of him sitting outside
of a coffee shop having a conversation with an unseen party. "It
showed up one day in the mail about five years ago with a letter
attached that read
keep me in your
pocket
." Gretel said.

"I don't know about anything anymore, but I
have the strangest sense we've known each other before. You are why
I was sent through time and space..." George trailed off. Gretel
pulled in closer to him and smiled.
"Thank you for rescuing me." Gretel kissed George's sweat-stained
chest as he moved a mop of dirty hair from her pretty
eyes.

"It was well worth the journey. I just wish
there hadn't been so many bugs." George smiled back and she
laughed. Sparked by a new sense of togetherness, the two grew to
love each other, and had two children later in their
lives.

Jinks the Wanderer had been successful in
reuniting another star-crossed couple, and as he peered down on
Gretel and George from his starship, he wondered how many more
couples it would take before his karma was clean. Grilnek, the War
Lord of Karnos, Destroyer of Planets, was now a matchmaker to the
millions of lost souls searching for each other across the vastness
of space-time. With another success under his belt, he steered his
ship toward the crab nebula. Two reptilian young people were in now
dire need of his unique services.

a new day dawns

During the final war, Falcon was separated
from his parents. With help from his friends in the new world, he
just might find them again.

Falcon's trembling hands clutched the cold, wet
earth, as fresh early morning dew soaked through the cotton rag of
the T-shirt clinging to his back. It read
There's no place like 127.0.0.1,
and
since there were not many fun clothing items left after the wars
ended, he treasured it and wore the ragged shirt every single day.
Falcon lay for a moment while the odor of whatever foul muck he
fell into permeated his nose like the stench from under a dumpster.
It was a damp, foul odor, reminding him of old ketchup, and dirty
diapers. Falcon heard taunting howls coming from the mutants now,
and their pack was not far from him. He had been spotted trying to
break into a convenience store in the middle of the night to grab
any pills he could find to trade for food. The hard drugs had been
used up years ago, but every once in a while, he could find a crate
of antibiotics, or nasal decongestant, the good kind that will get
you a little high. For many in this era, the cheap thrills a simple
decongestant could bring were enough for a momentary escape from
the hell of reality.
Closer now, louder, more fearsome were the whoops and hollers.
Falcon pried himself from the ground and made another attempt at
scaling the second floor roof. If he could get his footing on the
gutter and clamber up before the mutants got to him, he would be
safe and out of sight. The bottom floor windows and doors had been
barricaded long ago, preventing access, and if there were people
living within, he hoped they would take kindly to a stranger
barging in.
I really have no
choice.
He thought.
In a few hours, the sun would be up, and somehow it always made
encounters with the mutants less scary, but no less dangerous. In
the dark, they took on the persona of the boogey men, those
horrifying monsters lurking under your bed as a child, but mommy
was not around to make the demons go away. Not anymore. One… more…
jump. With the tip of his ragged tennis shoe, he caught the drain
spout’s mounting bracket and hoisted himself onto the roof with the
tips of his fingers. The second floor bathroom window glass had
been blown out long ago, leaving a gaping black portal leading into
the unknown. Falcon looked back to the street one more time and
made his move. Just as he saw the first mutant appear from around
the corner, he was through the window and peering down at the
street as he crouched behind the wall.

"Whooop! Whoooop! Weeeeep!" Cried the
leader. It shambled along on legs stiff from rigor mortis. An
abomination that was not quite a zombie, but not all human
either.

"WAAAGGGGHHH!
WAAAAAAGGHHH!"

Cried another.

It was terrifying to hear them scream,
but Falcon also knew there were real people trapped inside those
hideous shells. These monsters were created by mankind's
frustration at a world it could not control—a side effect of war’s
aggression and weaponized chemicals. The mutants were dangerous,
hideous to look at, and whatever shred of humanity they had before
the chemicals twisted their minds was gone, or barely glowing like
a distant light in thick, dark fog. In any case, their numbers were
large and it was better to hide, and if the mutants did find you,
you fought to kill, or you ran away. Falcon hovered silently like a
ghost, and closed his eyes, turning around with his back against
the wall. He slid down to sit on his rear end and plugged his ears
with two dirt-smeared index fingers. "Please God, make the sun come
up!" He thought.

As if the heavens had answered his
call, Falcon could see the blue tint of morning approaching and he
heard birds singing in the trees outside. The whooping and
hollering mutants passed by, and Falcon breathed a sigh of relief
for the first time in hours. He was now reminded of just how tired
he was, and cold from the wet ground. Falcon yawned and laid his
head against the wall, feeling his chest rise and fall as he
breathed, and saw little black beads buzzing around behind his eyes
as he contemplated sleep.
"Get up and find a bed." He said to himself.
Falcon peered over the windowsill one more time, ensuring that the
street was empty, and low-crawled into the adjoining bedroom. The
curtains were drawn, and as the sun rose he could see a sliver of
light illuminating the tossed bed sheets. In the pale half-light,
he could make out the silhouette of a body, lying still and
quiet.

"I'm sorry, ma'am or sir. I only need
a place to sleep for the day and won't be a problem. Do you mind if
I crash here?" He said. Falcon walked around the bed with slow,
careful movements as he got a better view of the bed’s occupant. It
was a skeleton dressed in blue jeans and a Stetson shirt. Beside
him on the nightstand was a tan cowboy hat.
"OK, I'm crashing out. I don't think you'll mind much." Falcon
said. He lay beside the skeleton, and seconds later passed into
deep sleep. As Falcon began to snore, the skeleton laying beside
him placed a pillow over its head and went back to sleep. Hours
later, as the afternoon sun shone in his eyes, Falcon woke
up.

His sleep had been dreamless for the
first time in months, and he felt refreshed, but he also had a
gnawing ache in his stomach, reminding him that food was necessary.
When he got up he looked down at where he had been sleeping, he saw
that the skeleton was gone.

"What the…" Falcon said.

"I thought you'd never wake up. I was
about to leave, but I thought I'd hang out for a few and see if you
might want to join me." A voice came from behind. Falcon turned to
see a figure sitting in the corner obscured by shadows.

"Are you the…" Falcon
started.

"I'm Tony. I don't like to talk about
my condition, so if you'd be kind enough to acknowledge the fact
that I'm a walking skeleton, and never mention it again, I'd
appreciate it." Tony stood and came into the light. Falcon felt his
fear rise as he stared at the reanimated pile of bones. Although he
was only sixteen, he had seen much in his life and had brushed it
off, but this was a tall order. Falcon forced a smile.
"You're well dressed. I'll give you that." Falcon extended a hand.
"I'm Falcon, pleased to meet you."
"Much obliged, and thanks for the compliment." Tony
replied.

"If you don't mind me asking, how did
this happen?" Falcon asked.

"I was in Detroit the day the neutron
cluster bomb went off. My crew and I were working in the tunnels
beneath the city, removing precious metals for sale to China, when
BOOM! The bastards tore a hole in the world that basically caused
all kinds of extra-dimensional shit to happen. My DNA, soul,
spirit, or whatever you want to call it, was fused to my bone
structure and I've been this way since. I'm the only one who
survived, if you can call it surviving. I call it a living hell,
but hey, that's just one skeleton's opinion."
"You can't die?" Falcon asked.

"Rude!" Tony yelled indignantly. "But,
no, I can't." Tony looked at the floor.

"I need to find food, but I'd be happy
to go with you as long as you're headed west. I'm looking for my
parents. Have been for four years." Falcon said.
"Four years? Whoa, kid. That's a long time. How can you be sure
they're alive? I don't mean to sound harsh, but six billion people
were wiped off the map by that war."

"I just have a feeling, that's all. I
heard San Francisco was one of the cities that didn’t take much of
a beating, and that's where they were when the sky fell. I've been
walking for four years, but I’ve only managed to make it from North
Carolina to Missouri." Falcon looked around the corner of the
bedroom into the darkened hallway. There were three skeletons lying
on the floor, face down. Falcon looked back at Tony with an unsure
expression.
"They're dead, I checked. As far as I know, I'm the only one like
me out here. Depressing as it is, most of the time my condition's a
great disguise when the mutants come sniffing around. I lay still,
and they go away." Tony retrieved his cowboy hat off the nightstand
and followed Falcon.

Downstairs in the kitchen pantry,
Falcon found two cans of beans, a manual can opener, and an open
box of Pop Tarts.

"I wonder if these are any good?"
Falcon worked with the plastic foil wrapper and the Pop Tarts fell
out on the kitchen counter. "They seem fine." Falcon turned the box
over in his hand. "Looks like the expiration date was October 12.
Four years ago."
"It may just be me, but I'd chance the beans over those things."
Tony warned as he put his hat on. Falcon looked up, and it struck
him how strange and cool it was that he was in the room with a
ghostly gunslinger.
"You might be right, but… what the hell." Falcon stuffed one of the
pastries in his mouth. "Tastes good! Stale, but… yum!" He spit
little crumbs out of his mouth as he spoke.

"It's your stomach, kid. Let me know
when you're ready to go. I don't eat anymore, or get hungry." Tony
exposed his ribcage.

"How'd you get all the way out here?"
Falcon asked. He rummaged through the cabinets, climbing onto the
counters to see what was there.

"Same as you, I guess. For the few
years that the cars still ran, back before we ran out of fuel, I
was able to catch a ride with the few people I saw passing by in
automobiles."

"People let you in their cars? You’d
have scared the crap out of me." Falcon asked.

"OK, you got me. I hijacked their cars
by scaring the hell out of them. You'd be amazed at how disturbed
people can be by a walking, talking, bag of bones, screaming at
them from their driver side window. Most of the time they just high
tailed it out the passenger door, but there was this one guy who
remained unaffected. Punched me in the skull and ran over my toes
when he drove off. Rude asshole." Tony said.
"You're pretty freaky, man."