Man Vs. the End of the World

Chapter 1

Leon Grates pulled himself through the narrow opening into the bottom of the crevice he’d lowered himself through hours before. He’d been happily exploring the cave alone, even though spelunking wisdom told said a person should never explore a cave without a buddy. The cave reminded Leon of the hours he’d spent below ground growing up in the hills of Tennessee. Neal, however, tended to be a bit claustrophobic and had asked to stay above ground. He assured Leon that he’d stay close by to monitor the radio in case Leon got into any trouble and to be there when the man needed to get out of the cave.

“Neal,” called Leon into the walkie talkie. “Neal, I’m ready to come up.”

Leon released the talk button and listened intently. There was a burst of static, but nothing more. Furrowing his brow in confusion, Leon tried again with the same result.

“Neal, where are you?” demanded Leon to no one in particular. He actually liked Neal and thus far, Neal had never let him down.

The survivalist swung his flashlight around the cavern and on the third pass, he caught sight of a rope dangling down. Leon grinned happily.

“I knew Neal wouldn’t let me down.” He pressed the talk button. “Thanks, Neal. I’ll be up in a few.”

Although there was no response on the walkie talkie, Leon leapt forward to seize the rope. He gave it an experimental tug and when it held, he climbed up hand over hand. An image of himself at 12, unable to reach the top of the rope in gym class rose up in his mind unbidden. He flashed his carefully sculpted teeth to shake the memory from his mind. He’d taken great pains as an adult to make sure he’d be strong enough to handle anything, even getting himself accepted into the Navy Seals and working SWAT in a police force. Of course he’d found that he could get paid a lot more and get more attention if he went into show business. He laughed thinking about how he had everything he’d never had a child.

Halfway up, he wrapped himself in the rope to take a breather. He didn’t rest long though; he was thinking about the pretty little wardrobe girl. He thought he’d chatted her up enough the night before in the hotel bar to get her into his bed soon. Something else he’d never had much of as a scrawny teenager.

Finally, he broke the Earth’s surface. He took a deep breath of fresh air and turned to grin at Neal, who surprisingly, wasn’t there. All of Neal’s gear lay scattered around as if he’d just been there merely moments before.

“Probably wandered off to take a piss,” laughed Leon. “I’ll surprise him when he gets back.”

Leon grabbed a small pouch from a pocket of his fishing vest, which was a clothing item he often found useful when scouting a new film site. He squirted red liquid across his throat and quickly lay down in the reclining lawn chair. Laying still, Leon waited for Neal to emerge from the nearest scrub where he could have gone to relieve himself.

The minutes ticked slowly by and Leon fell asleep in the soft glow of the setting sun after a long day of exertion in the cave below. Finally the chill in the air and a coyote’s mournful cry startled the man awake. He glanced down at his watch which read 1 o’clock.

“Damn! I must have fallen asleep. Well, the joke’s on me,” laughed Leon. “Neal! Let’s go back the hotel, they’re probably worried about us by now.”

Only silence answered him. Even the faint sounds of wildlife fell quiet at his call.

“Neal! This isn’t funny! I’m sorry I tried to scare you.” Still nothing. “Neal, damn it! Come out right now or I’m heading back to town without you. And I’m telling Maria, uhm, Mary, uhm your wife, about how you abandoned me in a cave!”

He let enough time pass for the wildlife to begin calling and crawling again. There was still no sign of Neal anywhere. Angrily, he threw everything into the back of the jeep they’d driven out to the site. He climbed into the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirrors.

“Fine! I’m going! I’ll send some out to look for you in the morning.” Leon tossed a canteen of water and a protein bar out of the window. “That should keep you until the morning. Oh, have this too.” A blanket followed the canteen to the ground.

Leon shifted the jeep into drive and stomped on the gas pedal. His tires spun momentarily before catching and jolting the jeep forward. It had been a long time since he’d had to drive himself and frankly, he was enjoying himself out in the desert. He called out and laughed at the top of his lungs as he kicked up a huge plume of dust.

“Why, did I stop driving?” Leon wondered out loud.

Unbidden, his last DUI popped into his head. He’d run a red light and clipped the rear tire of a bicycle. Only a helmet and a miracle had saved the bike rider’s life. Leon’s driver’s license however, had not survived the accident. It had been revoked and only his money had kept the story under wraps. Ever since then, either Neal or someone from the studio had been assigned to drive Leon everywhere, even the grocery store, that is if Leon didn’t just have his personal assistant do the grocery shopping.

The drive took an hour to get to Mexico City where the crew was staying in the Grande Hotel. Long before he even reached the city limits, he was stopped by a snarl of cars and various vehicles blocking his road. Angrily, he laid on his horn to get the cars moving. After he expended the worst of his rage on the horn, Leon took notice that the cars were not only not moving, but most were dead as if the drivers had all gotten out and walked away from their cars, suddenly.

“What the hell!” swore Leon. “Where’d they all go? Now how am I supposed to get back to my hotel? Uhm, I mean how am I supposed to get help to find Neal. Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

Leon cautiously exited his jeep, keeping an eye out for bandits or possibly revolutionaries. In his experience, Mexico had never been the stablest of countries in the best of times and a drug war had destabilized things further. Seeing nobody near him, Leon got a backpack out of the rear of the jeep. He loaded it with a few supplies and tossed it over his shoulder. Reaching under the back seat, he pulled a Glock 9 mil out and holstered it in his belt carefully. He’d already had a run in with a stray bullet from an improperly holstered gun and didn’t want a repeat, especially if he wouldn’t be able to find help in this God forsaken country.

Sighing heavily, Leon set out, weaving his way between the stopped traffic. He wasn’t sure exactly how far the hotel was, but he was determined to reach it safely. All his special forces training kicked in and he dove and weaved, keeping his profile low. After an hour, he broke into the city proper where he could move more easily on sidewalks and use the buildings and tight streets to protect himself. The air resounded with the sounds of his footsteps at first. He kept one hand on the Glock at all times in case he needed to defend himself. The silence was so absolute that the only sound Leon heard was of his own footsteps on the pavement

“Damn.” Leon slipped off his shoes. “I hate to go barefoot, but,” Leon broke off to listen to the city around him. A dog barked in the distance, but other than that, the city was filled with silence. Tying his shoe laces together, he slung his hiking boots over his shoulder and set off again carefully placing his feet to avoid injury and excessive noise.

“Why is the city empty?” the survivalist muttered to himself. “It’s not Christmas. These lazy Mexicans take two weeks off, but even then I should hear the sounds of parties. It’s not Los Dia de los Muertos, so they’re not all off sitting in a cemetery talking to their ancestors. I’d hear parties if it were Cinco de Mayo or El Grito de Independencia. What could they possibly be up to? I don’t trust this.”

About day break, he took a breather and had a couple protein bars. The silence was oppressive. He began to sweat and every slight noise made him jump, even the crinkling of the protein bar as crumpled it in his hand. Suddenly, a sharp bark broke the still air, followed by several more. Leon leapt to his feet and broke into a run, a pack of dogs hot on his heels. The half eaten protein bar dropped from his hand and several dogs dropped from the pack to squabble noisily. Thinking quickly, Leon snatched another protein bar from his pack and ripped off the wrapper.

“Take that you mangy mutts!” Leon flung the protein bar as far as he could and the pack sped off after it. “I’m going give this dirty city a bad review when I get back to civilization. Yelp will be hearing from me!”

Leon turned to head down another street and slammed his toe against and overturned garbage can. “Ouch, damn it! Where are the garbage men! I’m suing this city.” Leon grabbed his foot and hopped around for a few seconds. He sat down in a doorway to put his shoes back on, deciding that the noise of his shoes on pavement was less of a risk than tetanus from the filthy streets. Leon looked around him in confusion.

“Where the hell am I?” Leon looked around for a street sign. He didn’t speak a lot of Spanish, but he had a working knowledge of the language. “These backward people could at least post street signs! God! How am I supposed to find my way around this place?”

Sudden inspiration struck, “I still have my GPS!” Leon pulled out a small yellow electronic device and held it up. “Let’s see, I still have the coordinates of the hotel programed in and I’m here.”

Leon focused on the LCD screen and began walking again, ignoring his own footsteps echoing through the narrow street. It was a tedious process and he had to turn back quite a few times to get around dead end streets and a major road blockaded with tanks.

“Tanks! My God what happened here? I wonder if the terrorists got to Mexico too. I bet that’s what happened. They evacuated the city due to a terrorist threat. They’ll all be back soon. And they’ll find me relaxing in the hotel. Won’t they be so glad to find me unharmed?” Leon flashed his pearly whites and programed the location of the tanks into his Global Positioning System.

He found the hotel abandoned as he had expected. But it didn’t disturb the survivalist, he thought he was going to enjoy a little solitude until everyone returned. He broke into the kitchen and pulled a thick steak from the still running fridge. He spent the next hour making a gourmet feast for himself since all he’d had to eat in the last 24 hours was protein bars and water. After stuffing himself with everything from steak, to enchiladas and fried ice cream, Leon decided it was time for a hot shower and a nap. Little did he know it would be his last hot shower for a very long time.

Naked, Leon lay down on the covers of the bed with fantasies of the wardrobe girl being one to discover him in his hotel room. He quickly dropped off into sleep with no hesitation. He expected that by the time he awoke, the crew would be back and he’d have all his needs met.

The wardrobe girl entered his room with a halo of light surrounding her. Leon smiled, displaying his perfect white teeth that he’d spend years and thousands of dollars to create. He sat up in the bed and reached out hand toward her.

“I was just thinking about you baby,” Leon murmured seductively. “Come here and warm me up.”

“Leon,” whispered the woman in response as she floated gently toward him with a quick flap of her wings.

Her wings? Leon hadn’t remembered that little detail about the wardrobe girl but it kind of turned him on. It didn’t matter if there were a couple extra appendages, she was still female and he was still male.

“Leon, we’ve all gone,” whispered the woman.

“You’ve left me in this third world country? Alone? Why would you do that to me? I’m the star!” Leon was losing the mood in his anger.

“Honey,” she said gliding closer, “we couldn’t bring you with us. This world is now yours to do with as you please. But if you want to see me again, you need to repent your sins.”

“My sins? What sins? I give money to Feed the Children every year,” replied Leon to the angelic wardrobe girl.

“It’s a scam dear,” she said matter of factly.

“I knew it! I knew it! How about PETA? I do that too.”

“Still a scam. They want to end human ownership of animals. Of course that doesn’t matter now. You need to get closer to God. Now wake up and remember, get closer to God.” She began to fade and he reached out toward her.

“Wait!” he called on his hands and knees.

“Closer to God!” And she vanished.

He toppled forward out of the bed and woke up to find the hotel shaking around him. Being a Californian, he immediately recognized the signs of an earthquake. Remembering his training he crawled across the floor to the bathroom door frame. A few minutes later the hotel stopped bucking and he got shakily to his feet.

“Wow, that was a big one,” he moaned. “Get closer to God. What a strange dream. Must have been those enchiladas I ate.”

He stalked angrily across the room and threw back the heavy curtain and opened the window.

“It’s gotten really hot in here, the air conditioning must be broken. And I thought this was supposed to be the best hotel in all of Mexico City. That’s going to go in my review too.” He looked out but couldn’t see the sun or the moon in the sky. It was as bright as an overcast day, but there wasn’t a cloud in the sky or any sign of the stars yet.

“What is going on here? No people. And the air conditioning isn’t broken; there’s no power at all. How strange.” Leon realized that there were no lights in the entire city either. “I better go up to the roof to see if I can get a good view of the city”

Leon stepped out into the hall before he remembered that he was in a state of undress.

“Oops,” he laughed catching the door before it latched. Leon dove back inside the room and quickly got dressed in his trademark black fatigues and heavy hiking boots. He thought about the fact that the locks were card locks and run by electricity so he thoughtfully placed a piece of duct tape over the door catch on his way out. Forgetting once again that the electricity was out, Leon punched the elevator button. It didn’t light up.

“Come on,” groaned the man and he looked toward the fire exit and stairs. “Well, I guess we climb up, huh, Neal.” Neal had been his constant companion for so long that for just a moment, Leon forgot that Neal had last been seen yesterday morning in the desert. “Whoops,” his giggle bordered on hysteria. “Neal’s not here.”

The survivalist turned smartly on his heel toward the stair well door. Anxiously, he chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment while he thought about what he’d need to reach the roof and when he was up there. He returned to his room to get a Swiss army knife, a multi-tool, his Glock, and a pair of binoculars.

“I’ve got to get smart about things. I’ve got to get ahold of myself.”

Leon set out once again to get to the roof and get a look at what was going on around him. All the way the stairs he caught himself chanting “Get closer to God. Get closer to God.” He didn’t know what it meant or why he was chanting it, but it made a good climbing cadence. Finally, he reached the top, and was proud of himself that he was barely winded. He’d spent a lot of time in the gym and on the pavement, keeping himself fit.

Once he reached the railing he cautiously leaned over looking down at the motionless streets. It seemed that even the wind was so still that not even so much as old newspaper blew down the street. There didn’t seem to be even a stray dog scavenging among the cars. He noticed something that he hadn’t when it had been his sole purpose to make it to the hotel, every door hung open slightly. It was vaguely disturbing in a way he couldn’t pinpoint. Shaking off his moment of deja vu, he put the binoculars to his eyes to examine more than the streets below. In the dim light the distant lake appeared red like blood but he felt it couldn’t be true, that it was just a trick of the light.

“Maybe I should go get a closer look,” he muttered. “I could grab a motorcycle and get there and back in a short time. Yes, I’ll do that. Are you coming Neal?”

He turned to face the place Neal would have occupied in better times. Of course there was no sign of Neal and for a moment, he felt lonely and at the same time released and free. Neal’s presence was his sister’s way of keeping him safe, something she’d been unable to do when they were kids. Sometimes, Leon thought Marissa only married Neal to watch Leon’s back. Neal and Leon would never have been associates let alone friend on the their own, but somehow Leon had come to rely on the cameraman to bounce ideas off of and to warn him when he was about to go too far.

“All right, I’m going to do this with or without you Neal. You can’t stop me this time.” Feeling light as a feather, Leon raced down the stairs trying to get his heart rate up to keep his cardio workouts up to date.

When he reached the bottom, he was panting heavily and quite happy with the buzz of his oxygen deprived light headed feeling. He was just about whoop with joy when he remembered that there could be others still hiding in the city. There were several possible bikes parked in front of the hotel lobby and Leon ran an experienced eye over them. They looked like the typical poor country, cobbled together bikes, but one looked sturdy enough and had keys dangling from the ignition.

Without a second though he hung the binoculars from his neck and mounted the bike. Pleasure ran through him at the sound of motor revving. He hadn’t ridden a motorcycle since his DUI either and didn’t realize until now how much he missed the feel of a roaring machine between his thighs; it was almost as good as feeling a woman between his thighs, he thought with a smile.

Racing along the sidewalks and around the cars blocking the road, he made it to the river in good time. When he got there, the water was indeed the color of blood, even when he scooped some into a discarded water bottle. The day continued to darken and the moon rose. It too was blood red and Leon felt despair.

“What is this world coming too? I’ve been left here in this hellhole. Even Neal left me! ‘God why hast thou forsaken me’!” screamed the man to the black sky and red moon. He collapsed on the bank of the lake and lay motionless, tears streaming down his face.

“How could they leave me?” he moaned.

He lay still as death for a long time. He no longer knew what time of day it was and didn’t care. His eyes stared sightlessly at the black, starless sky. A flash lit up the sky like day time for just a moment, then a hot red streak burned across the blackness toward him. It passed over head and he felt a tremor as the object crashed into the city, somewhere close to the center of town.

Leon sat up stunned. He stared at the red flames and slowly the pieces began to fall into place. The sun turning dark, the earthquake, the lake turning to blood (or at least it resembled blood to him, he didn’t dare taste the water), the meteor strike, and the sudden lack of people. Now he hadn’t heard a trumpet blast, but then again, he’d been almost 1500 feet below the earth’s surface at the time.

“The Rapture! That’s what happened to all the people! Oh my God! Neal, did you hear that? It was the Rapture.” He sat up suddenly and began to think.

“I need to hide since any one else left behind should be evil, right? I mean only the believers would have been taken. I bet that the other people are hiding right now so they don’t have to face the wrath of God.” Vaguely remembered Southern Baptist teachings spun in his head. “Why didn’t I pay more attention in Sunday school?

“Okay, so let me see. There will be a time of persecution and money will be useless, but gold, now that we can use. I bet I could get some of that out a bank vault while everyone is still hiding. And food, water, clothes and personal things like toilet paper. Yes, I can’t forget the TP. I’m going to need a lot of that; I hate using leaves.”

He got up and paced back and forth on the bank of the lake. “Wait, there will be another time I’ll get to be with everyone again. Wouldn’t it be cool if I filmed a documentary of how I survived the end of the world? Hmm, Man Versus the End of the World. That’s a great name for my new show!

“I’ll have to film it myself and prepare for getting away from Mexico City. It’s bound to be a cesspool of evil before too long. Come on Neal, we have work to do. I think I know where I can get some explosives to get into a bank vault.”

Without turning to see if Neal was following, Leon mounted his bike and headed off back to the hotel. He knew that the crew had been staying in the rooms near his and he was excited at the prospect of beginning anew. Truth be told, he’d gotten a little tired of the standard survivor show and he hoped that now that the Rapture had occurred, he be able to make a stand out show about surviving anything.

At the hotel, Leon quickly found his way to the manager’s office which had been left unlocked when the manager had left the building. Though, it was odd, Leon supposed the manager hadn’t felt the need to lock the doors behind him because he no longer cared about a hotel that he wouldn’t be in charge of anymore. A cabinet behind the desk held the emergency keys to open doors in case of a power failure kind of like the one going on in Leon’s life.