Alexander McGee's Stories

Parley

2008-06-16T17:39:37Z

There was only silence, save for the crackling of the bonfire. As my vision gradually shifted from concussed blur to night-blind blur, I made out the unmoving figure of Junior, similarly trussed on a nearby pole. While he seemed to be okay, three feet of ground were all that was preventing a good old fashioned pig-roast.

One of the shadowy figures stepped into the firelight. He was lucky my hands were tied – I was getting sick of this shit. The ‘Chief’ was wearing nothing but a combination of Motorcross armor, feathers and some creatively-stitched grocery bags. His headdress alone represented at least three feather dusters, a stuffed parrot and possibly the innards of some unfortunate pillow. Goose down I’d wager.
He lit into some big speech about the evil of interlopers and the unclean. I used the time to clear my head and look around. There were about 20 villagers, mostly women and kids, all bag-clad and scared looking.
“Excuse me.” I said, cutting the chief off. He turned to me aghast.
“Got a cigarette?”

Capture

2008-06-16T17:27:46Z

I only remember a handful of sensations, immediately before the dull, sweet kiss of rifle butt against the back of my skull. I remember the face I made, imagining that sooner or later I’d have to drink the brackish, fish-smelling water burbling into my canteen. I remember the crack of a charcoal twig behind me. I remember Junior’s expression, tentacular shock, his face spreading out like a grotesque, snouted starfish; preamble to some trumpeting scream. Then there was the interface of human cranium and mahogany then nothing at all.
I came to in the dark. I’d have looked at my watch, but it was hidden by a tangle of nautical rope lashing my wrists to a pole. I hung like a spitted rabbit from the fossilized wood. As consciousness seeped back, I made out the glow of a huge fire, with shadowy figures beyond.
I called out “Listen if you guys are cannibals, let me shoot myself, I’ll save you the trouble. Just make sure the guy who gives me the gun doesn’t have a mohawk – I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

Journeys

2008-06-13T01:11:40Z

I spent the next two hours following the ‘Happy Squirrel’ trail line if the occasional smouldering signpost was to be believed. The park, which must at its peak have been a nice, woodsy draw for suburban consumer-zombies and their spawn – all sanitized trails and bear repelling rangers armed with elephant guns – was now a wonderfully ironic wasteland.
Grey ash blew everywhere, carried by hot winds from distant fires still burning. It might’ve been depressing if not for the handy opportunities to light cigarettes from cinders as I walked.
Junior didn’t seem to mind, though after the first few minutes he had managed to accumulate a shoulder-high coat of grey muck. This only added to his unique appearance, putting him somewhere between pokemon reject and something H.P. Lovecraft would have run the hell away from.
Shortly we came to a pond, stocked trout all belly up and gnarly dotted its surface like decomposing sprinkles on a gooey cake you wouldn’t eat on a dare. I sighed and stooped to refill my water bottle.

Wanderings

2008-06-13T01:02:19Z

Not far from the bus, I found a comfortable looking rock to park my ass on and take stock. My possessions to date consisted of: my rifle (utterly devoid of ammo), the clothes on my back (protective and practical for the post-apocalyptic man on the go, albeit unfashionable), five and 1/2 cigarettes (I smoked one in the process), half a candy bar I must have forgotten in my jeans before the world ended (it sure smelled that way) and a mutant pig who apparently subsisted on potato chips (which I was also out of). Oh and a derelict school bus with no gas.

Things were not, per-se, looking up. For the first time, I realized I was sitting in a square-shaped hunk of shade; the scorched remnant of a wooden sign loomed above me.
“Pleasant Gorge” was apparently the name for the valley trail ahead. I glanced past the sign at a cheery vista of naked black stone, ashen wastes that had probably been forests, and the gnarled, crispy figures of unlucky woodland creatures. Junior was already crunching a medium-rare squirrel.

Luck

2008-05-28T14:53:08Z

30 seconds and 3 shots later, the scoreboard was two dolls’ heads and a raider left in the dust – but the pink caddy was still coming.
I swore and levered in the last round; the back of the bus was speckled with bullet holes but I was somehow still intact. At the wheel, Junior thrashed erratically, jerking the vehicle left and right as he hoovered chips.
I held my breath and dropped the iron sights on one of the caddy’s front tires – and squeezed.
The tire came apart like a bomb going off, jerking the pink monster 3 feet off the ground. The whole thing came down with a deafening smash, immediately throwing up a cloud of dirt and ash as its bumper dug a deep trench.
We accelerated away, leaving the caddy to crunch to a halt before it was swallowed by our billowing dust cloud.
I shouldered Bessy and made my way shakily to the front of the bus. Junior had finished the last of the chips and was staring fixedly out the dusty windshield.
Not too far away, the jagged peaks of mountains loomed over the ashen plain.

Road Warriors

2008-05-18T12:47:03Z

The Cadillac with its huge engine easily kept pace with the sluggish bus. I didn’t even want to imagine how much precious gas that pink behemoth was burning. These guys obviously didn’t take their survivalism very seriously.
A couple of them were standing on the car’s hood, firing wildly at my bus, while Mr. Monster Truck was crammed behind the steering wheel, still shouting his manifesto above the roar of our engines.
I dropped my pack on the gas pedal and tossed a handful of potato chips across the dashboard. With a grunt (from both of us) I picked up Junior and propped him against the steering wheel. Immediately he began to hoover up the chips while providing us with some nice, random, evasive manoevers.
I ran to the back of the bus, unslinging Bessy as I went – her magazine had four shots left.
I kicked open the emergency door at the bus’ rear and squatted, bracing myself against a seat as the pig ‘drove’ wildly. The big man dropped his megaphone and joined in the shooting. I levelled Bessy and took aim.

Escapes

2008-05-18T12:40:39Z

We lay still on the floor, counting shots until they finally finished-32. I didn’t bother looking at what was left of Chuck – I hastily shovelled a few mouthfuls of his untouched meal, tossed the rest down Junior’s wriggling gullet and ran out of the room. I could hear shouting and running footsteps from the stairwell at the far end of the hall, so I dodged down the closer one, taking the steps two at a time. Junior followed awkwardly, faceplanting with a squish at the base of the stairs.

I kicked open the fire door, revealing the dusty boneyard of derelict vehicles I had entered through. We rushed aboard the nearest vehicle; a big yellow school bus. I wiped frantically at the dust on the console, enough to clear away the fuel gauge. It was maybe a millimeter short of empty – and the keys were in the ignition. Good enough for me.
The roar of the engine alerted the bandits, and I soon heard their shots pinging off the bus’ roof. We hit the open desert at full speed – immediately seeing pink in the rear-view.

Manifestos

2008-05-18T12:18:11Z

Outside, a monster of a pink Cadillac was idling in the schoolyard. A dozen guys, two of whom I recognized as the bandits I had sent packing, stood around the car. Some of them were training guns on the school’s windows. I did a double take at the car itself – not only was hot pink decidedly too garish for our new grey-friendly color scheme, but the hood was decorated with an assortment of severed dolls heads. Several of the men even had mohawks – real ones. I was beginning to feel like a bit of a liar for not shooting myself sooner.
One guy in particular, dressed in what looked like cut up monster-truck tyres, lifted a megaphone and started proclaiming assorted nonsense. It revolved around his Lordship of the Ashen Lands and other horseshit I chose to ignore.
“Friends of yours Chucky?” I asked my captive.
He only grinned wider and flipped me off.
“Then lets get re-acquainted.” I grabbed his desk and heaved it to the open window, putting him on clear display.
Then I hit the deck, grabbing Junior as I went.

Reinforcements

2008-05-18T12:10:01Z

The bandits’ power supply was a car battery, jury-rigged to a half-dozen extension cords. It took two and a half episodes of Friends and three microwave dinners to run it dry. When the juice finally went, Junior and I were happily chowing down on ravioli, and a betoweled Jen was about to appear. Our captive was bound hand a foot to a school desk with a chrysalis of duct tape. His dinner lay uneaten on the desk, Junior eyed it hungrily.
Sighing, I pulled the DVD and slid it reverentially back inside my jacket.
“Are you going to kill me?” asked the bandit, eyes darting between me and his meal.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Charles.”
“Well Chuck,” I said hoisting my gear. “Im not too jazzed about losing my TV, much less all my food and smokes. I also have these fantasies about what you wanted to do to me with that tennis-racquet number of yours. I figure you can hang out here until your buddies man up and come back for you.”
He grinned suddenly as from outside came the unmistakable sound of a vehicle’s engine.

Victories

2008-05-17T20:08:46Z

One of the would-be cannibals/road bandits/Mad Max enthusiasts had taken upon himself to incorporate the business end of a push broom, mounted hat-wise, into his post-nuclear wardrobe. As I put him between Bessy’s iron-sights I felt that since his mohawk was artificial, I was at least obligated to shoot someone.
The powerful .303 round took the hat clean off his head, leaving him intact but throwing him backward with the force of a linebacker.
His two friends, brought back to the reality of projectile weapons and the fun they bring to a confrontation, dropped their home-brewed weapons and sprinted away. Junior and I watched them go as they tore opposite paths through the ashen waste.
Looking up at the school, I could see it was worse for wear – windowless and heavily sandblasted, but still whole.
We walked up to the third bandit, who was trying to convince himself that his head was actually still attached and not a dissipating pink mist. I put a boot squarely on his chest.
“Does this place have an A/V Room?

Revelations

2008-05-17T19:59:25Z

The arrow fell short and skidded to a halt between my boots. Glancing down I could see it had been crudely fashioned from most of a feather duster, a sharpened spoon and enough duct-tape to render it largely un-aerodynamic. It also didn’t help that the would-be archer’s arms were scarcely thicker than his bowstring.
He swore and ducked back behind the bus, from which came muffled conversation. A moment later a trio of figures, clad in stitched-together rags and leathers, emerged clutching makeshift weapons. One seemed to have cobbled together an ‘axe’ made from a tennis racquet, disposable razor blades and, again, duct-tape.
“Oh come on!” I shouted. “Just three months ago you guys were probably copy-machine repairmen or postal workers or something equally lame. Now you’re self-declared Road Warriors?” I hefted my rifle in their direction.
“Now drop that goofy shit, give me my stuff back and we can all go back to our respective hobbies.”
They kept advancing, hungrily.
“Fine, have it your way.” I fired the gun.

Visitors

2008-05-15T18:30:12Z

As we walked I tried to remember where the path would have led us – if the whole end of the world thing hadn’t turned a perfectly good town into tumbleweeds and charcoal. Whoever I was tailing was headed to the east – the bad end of town, though at this point ‘ends’ of town was academic.
Every few steps I would feed Junior a chip, just to reinforce his companionship – I had kept a bag of them just in case.
The path ended, maybe a two miles from my shelter. I couldn’t believe it.
Skulls on sticks made for a picket fence, assortments of burned out cars were stacked or pushed together to form crude walls and barricades. What had been a school was now an homage to a Mad Max marathon. If I saw a mohawk in the next five minutes I resolved to shoot myself.
Not wanting to cross the skull-line, I shouted vaguely at the largest car-pile.
“Hey!” Not the most manly opener but I was hoping for civility.
I was rewarded by a tall, rangy figure popping up from behind a bus; he nocked an arrow in a crude bow and let fly.

On the trail

2008-05-15T18:23:11Z

The place was totalled. I didn’t even bother trying to revise my personal tallies for supplies – I just assumed they’d all be near enough to zero that it wouldn’t matter.
Mutants, scavengers, and me with only the food and ammo I had on me. Now I’d even acquired an unlikely and somewhat cute (if you squinted really hard) sidekick. This was turning out to be like one of those dumb books real fast. All I needed now was a scantily-clad, beautiful survivoress to rescue.
The bastards had even kicked my T.V in. It’s the end of the world; we now live in an ashen waste where the only sources of entertainment are painful death and the occasional pigmonster with a fetish for novelty potato chips. Who the hell destroys the last T.V in existence? With a sigh I popped out the Friends DVD – at least they hadn’t wrecked that – and stuffed it into my shirt. Out at the door, Junior was making a fuss, which sounded like a squid being sat on. Going up to him, I saw why – a trail of recent footprints led off into the wasteland.

Not Alone

2008-05-15T18:18:17Z

I browsed what was left of the store, shoving foodstuffs at random into my satchel. My new companion seemed content to follow me, as long as I breadcrumbed his path with his favourite bacon-ranch treats. Eventually my bag was full and I was sick of the place. Night was maybe an hour away and I didn’t trust my sense of direction in a dark nothingness. I grabbed an armful of chips and headed out. The pig, who I had named “Junior” trailed along, continuously crunching.
We were maybe half a mile from town when I realized what was wrong. The doorway to my shelter – the only thing more than a foot high – was wide open. A spear of yellow light shone out like a beacon into the dusty sky. I might have been half-assed about securing it, but I had certainly left it closed. Apparently I had been as wrongly optimistic about scavengers as I had about bizarrely hungry mutants. I looked down at Junior who gave a hungry grunt. Then we were both running across the ashen plain, trailing supplies as fast as I could throw them.

Unlikely friends

2008-05-15T18:09:49Z

When a man is in such circumstances; trapped, alone, unarmed – facing a hideous porcine mutant, laughter is not the generally expected reaction. I couldn’t help it. Spattered in pig-spit and moist potato chunks, the last man in the world started laughing. Fully and deeply, with only the occasional cough brought on by my plasticised lungs and the radioactive dust. My eyes had adjusted to the gloom – and the pig was indeed standing in front of me, one bleary eye fixed on me quizzically as its tentacular maw masticated chips. That alone was hilarious. It was like watching an octopus fight a bag of Lays.
I put my fear aside and reached out to stroke its muzzle. The only real ‘contact’ I’d had with farmyard animals generally involved the bargain meat section and a Foreman grill, so the strange feeling of its fuzzy snout surprised me. I thought it might be slimy – tentacles and all that – but it was warm and soft under my fingers. The pig itself gave a gratified grunt/squeal/horrible slurping noise and chewed more.