Day 36

The world was dying… Peter had no idea why, nothing seemed to make sense to him. Everything was fine, then he wakes up one morning and there was just nobody. It’s not like they just disappeared, either. No… everybody had simply turned into piles of dust. Peter remembered a movie called Night of the Comet, an old Eighties flick that his aunt loved. It was a cult classic, but he had never seen it. There was no use being a part of old people’s movie cult, it was just lame. But he couldn’t explain this. How could people just turn to dust? Peter had even looked up at the sky when the night of July 6th began, hoping to see a comet to explain the world he woke up in. Nothing… again. Surely, though, he couldn’t be the only human left alive. His thoughts had immediately turned to Alicia when he had come to some sort of terms with the situation he had found himself in. Peter had to get her, he had a ring to give her and a question to ask her. He couldn’t be sure that she had been saved from this strange fate, but he had to find out.

The problem was that Alicia was back home in Pennsylvania, and Peter had quickly come to find out that nothing worked. Anything not powered manually was hopeless. Yet another freakish realization and more confusion as to the cause of what he had woken up to. A week after he decided to walk (I must be fucking crazy! he thought), he found himself in the town of Flagler. It was around lunchtime and he decided to stop off at the I-70 diner in the small town. Peter realized it was a bad decision as he spied the innumerable flies on the windows before he even had the chance to open the door.

Rolling his eyes, he chose, instead, to walk next door to the liquor store. I’ll search for the grocery store later, he thought. Peter wasn’t one to drink a whole lot and getting a taste for warm liquor was not easy, but he managed and actually looked forward to it. The long walk seemed less tiresome with a little alcohol in the blood. It was inside the liquor store, where the piles of dust marked where the people had disintegrated, that Peter found Blaine. His initial reaction was that Blaine was of Middle Eastern descent, but his ‘beauty’ also made Mediterranean descent a possibility. He was a tall man, somewhat slight of build, but his demeanor and careful looks made it hard for Peter to believe that Blaine had been alone in this world for the last week.

Blaine’s jet black, shoulder length hair fell in perfect waves about his mocha (or olive?) skin and his once-meticulous goatee. His eyes had a certain wisdom, as though Blaine was much older than the thirty-something he appeared to be. His looks, though, were a striking juxtaposition to the clothes he wore, a red and black checkered flannel that fit his form tightly and ratty jeans cuffed around old leather shit-kickers. At his waist was holstered a rather large 357 Magnum, Dirty Harry as ‘pretty hick’. The laugh the thought generated gave Peter away, but the two men struck up a fairly quick friendship.

Over the next month, the two men had come to rely on one another, even though Blaine seemed to keep his past to himself and seemed rather uppity, or narcissistic. In the end, Peter thanked God that he wasn’t alone, but Blaine truly is a pain in the ass!

What Peter couldn’t understand is Blaine’s fascination with train stations. He kept mentioning that they may find manual transportation at one of them to use on the tracks and gain some time, but such rail vehicles were few and far between in these modern days. Nevertheless, Peter agreed to check out as many train stations and depots on their journey along Interstate 70 as they could. Sure, it took time, but that’s really all they had in this desolate world. Yes, the drive to find Alicia was always in the back of Peter’s mind, but could she really have survived whatever this was? Blaine always had some words of encouragement and consolation whenever he mentioned Alicia, but hollow words did very little to soften the blows.

And so, Blaine and Peter found themselves exiting I-70 in Topeka, Kansas to head over the Kansas River to the Great Overland Station. They’re hackles were up, though, as the two had spied smoke from fires in the city many miles back. Peter had let out a small sigh of relief, knowing that others were alive, but who knows what they had become after over a month in this post-apocalyptic insanity.

Overland Station was one of the beauties of the Midwest. Part of it had been transformed into a museum, but the place still, before the insanity, operated as a major hub of Heartland travel. Peter and Blaine approached cautiously, the incredible row of American flags flapping lazily in the breeze. The red-roofed building shined in the bright sunlight, and the large windows of the grand main hall reflected the midday sun back in their direction, forcing them to squint. Off to the left, beyond the flame-like metal sculpture and flag-lined cement walkway, stood a large billboard proclaiming the soon-to-arrive Amtrak monorail.

The billboard painting showed a fast-traveling, red bullet-like train with the plains of Kansas in the background. In dark blue lettering in the top right corner was the name of the company manufacturing the AI-controlled machines, LUD Industries.

“I could never trust artificial intelligence,” said Blaine, his voice shocking in the surrounding quiet. “It’s too much of a riddle to me. Do you think AI would like riddles?”

Peter didn’t really hear him, he was dismayed by the lack of an echo. Between the large cement walkway and the building, itself, there should have been a significant echo of Blaine’s voice. But it was more like he was speaking through falling snow. Something wasn’t right, but Peter couldn’t understand what it was.

“Don’t know nothing ‘bout any AI, but I know I’m a sucker for riddles. Got any?” The southern drawl from the voice behind them sounded so kind, but Peter knew that there was a gun pointed at them. “Who be you fellas?”

Blaire and Peter turned to face the voice, and they saw a man standing at the ready, a shotgun pointed in their direction. Under the oil-stained Kenworth hat were two beady, brown eyes, a generous nose, and chubby cheeks covered in patched beard hair. Suspenders held up the man’s jeans beneath a flannel-covered belly more generous than his nose. Tobacco spittle dripped from the man’s chin as hocked a chunk of it to the ground. It was evident that the man hadn’t bathed in a very long time, and Peter was thankful that he was upwind of him.

“Hello there,” said Blaine, his own kind tone lined with sarcasm. “I don’t do well with riddles when I’m staring down the barrel of a Mossberg. Who are you, sir?

“You jus’ nevermind who I am. Drop those guns on the ground nice and easy. The king’ll wanna see y’all,” said the man, his stained teeth making his mocking smile a disgusting mess.

“The king?” asked Peter as he and Blaine placed their guns on the cement. “The king of what?”

“The King of Greater Topeka,” he answered, the man’s pride swelling as he said it.

“Greater… Greater Topeka?” Peter’s head dropped as his eyebrows raised. “Look, we’re just travelers looking for food. We’ll just be on our way and-”

“No… you won’t,” the man threatened, raising the barrel a little in preparation to fire. “You belong to the king, now. Don’t worry, you jus’ do as yer told, an’ I’m sure y’all will live a decent life.” He flicked the barrel of the shotgun towards the door of Overland Station, “c’mon, in ya go.”

The man walked them through the entry door on the right of the main hall. The air inside was stifling as the sunlight streamed through the large windows. Sweat began to glisten on Peter’s skin instantly, and he felt as though he had to gasp to breathe. He looked over to Blaine, but he seemed unfazed by the drastic change in environmental conditions. What was worse was that Blaine, for as long as Peter had known him, never seemed concerned over anything. It was frightening to Peter that Blaine could face this insane new world with such little emotion towards it. Now, though, Peter found himself more frightened by the look of genuine concern on the face of his partner.

“Welcome to Greater Topeka, gentlemen!” The deep, scratchy voice echoed off the walls of the station, causing Peter to jump after the lack of echo from outside. The echo, though, caused him more distress at its unnatural feel than the lack of an echo from Blaine. Seeing the source of the voice pushed that distress into overdrive.

Beneath a black chandelier and the ornately painted ceiling was a hastily constructed plywood dais. Upon the dais was a beautifully carved oak chair, and in it sat a man in wearing a dark blue Armani suit. This man’s hair was slicked back and dark brown, and behind his steepled hands Peter could see a wide grin of bright white teeth. He was clean-shaven with high cheek bones and wide, green eyes. The skin around his eyes looked red from burns, but the man didn’t appear to be any pain. How can a man like this be real? He had the thought despite knowing the weirdness of the world he had lived in for the last five weeks.

Spittle man whipped the barrel of the shotgun into the back of Peter’s knees, then Blaine’s. “On yer knees for the king!” he commanded.

Each man gave out a grunt of pain and fell to their knees. Through the pain, Peter could see the pain on Blaine’s face, something he had never seen. Peter had the feeling, since he met Blaine, that there was something supernatural about him. He couldn’t explain it, but he could feel it. Blaine never looked less supernatural than he did now. Peter felt like he was never going to see freedom again.

“Easy now, Clarence,” came the gravelly voice of their host, the King of Greater Topeka. “There’s plenty of time for pain for our new subjects. It’s time for a proper introduction.”

The king lowered his hands to the arms of the chair and assisted himself in standing. He grabbed a thin paperback book from the under the chair and walked regally off the dais and towards where they were kneeling. He never looked at them as he walked, instead searching earnestly in the pages of the book for a specific spot.

“Ahhh… here it is. Page 34…” he said lightly, staring down his nose at the page as he paraded back and forth. Though the angle was steep, Peter could make out part of the book’s title, Sweet Emot-.

“On darkest night the tempest blows,

With deepest fright and inflicted woes,

Comes he with might against his foes,

To usurp the light as the tempest grows.

A terrible chord the music sounds,

With sharpened sword death abounds,

The shadow horde follows the crowned,

Ev’ry soul unmoored as the music propounds.”

The king let his arms fall to his side and craned his head back, eyes closed and taking a deep breath. He turned towards them, the smile returning below his wicked eyes.

“I am the tempest. I am the music. I am the crowned.”

Maybe it was the fact that he had lived the last month in an empty world, Peter couldn’t be sure, but he suddenly felt cynicism in the face of this King of Greater Topeka. “What exactly are you the king of? Did you ever hear King Nothing by Metallica?”

The king’s movement was a blur, and the strength behind his hand was fierce. Peter, in the next moment, crumpled to the floor.

“Get him to the conditioning chamber,” he said to Clarence.

As Peter’s limp body was dragged across the floor, the king went to Blaine, his smile even larger than before.

“Having a little fun with your purpose, are you?” The king grabbed Blaine by the hair and wrenched his head back. He bent to the kneeling man’s ear, “You won’t destroy this world, Lu-”

“You can’t kill me, you realize,” Blaine’s teeth gritted against the pain. “And you are not the first Shard that I’ve dealt with.”

He pushed himself to his feet, despite the iron grip on his hair. The king was surprised by Blaine’s strength and defiance, but he kept smiling anyway. His eyes flashed at Blaine and pulled him back to his knees.

“Perhaps not, but I can be your Devil for eternity.”

Blaine’s face became grave and threatening, and he spoke through gritted teeth, “Purpose cannot be forsaken.”