Star-Spangled Apocalypse Read online

  ONE NATION UNDER GOD (not Allah)!

  I’m hyped up! I’m ready to fight for your freedoms! Join me today, live, from 6AM EST to 10AM EST, where I’ll be talking to a constitutional expert from The Daily Supremacist about black athletes and their desire to DENIGRATE our flag. The only people that will be kneeling after this conversation are the lefties. Safe space alert!

  FREEDOM and JUSTICE for those who have paid for it.

  --Tucker Jones

  ***

  Every Tuesday for nearly a year now, Virgil worked the same closing shift at a Starbucks coffee shop with his shift manager, James. He lived in Austin most his life, moving here from California when he just was eight years old.

  Virgil had a light tan complexion that came from his father’s side of the family, and long stringy hair that came from his mother’s. His right arm was covered in random tattoos, and he was fond of wearing a necklace with a glass Flower of Life as the centerpiece.

  The McStarbucks, located in a high-end shopping center in west Austin known as Westlake, was slow on most nights, especially Tuesdays.

  James and Virgil’s routine had been mastered a year ago: come around two o'clock, clean the espresso machines, take a lunch, fake interest in the customers in hopes of getting a good tip, and attempt to get the hell out of the coffee shop ten minutes after closing, keep their politics to themselves.

  It was better that way.

  James and Virgil got along fairly well, as long as they didn’t open a political can of worms, and they usually had enough cleaned up by eight to relax in the lobby for the last two hours.

  During one of the two hour stretches to closing time was precisely where their Armageddon conversations first started:

  “Hey, James, so I was talking to my amigo, Cory, the other day about what we would do if it all came crashing down.”

  Virgil plopped himself onto a coffee stained sofa to emphasize this hypothetical situation.

  “What the hell you mean by all of it? Like the entire world?” James fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette. There was no telling what Virgil would be going on about next.

  “Yea, like if Armageddon just happened all the sudden...” Virgil used a hair tie to hold his shoulder-length hair in a ponytail.

  “Well, Virgil, unless you’re raptured, what do you think you could possibly do?”

  “Raptured? Nobody is getting raptured; all those people who believe that shit will be here burning alongside us when things go down. Besides, the art of rapturing stems from fundamentalist Protestant thought anyway, and those guys have never failed in the category of delusional.”

  The art of rapturing? James smirked. Sure, part of him was offended, but Virgil had a way of speaking sometimes that was so insane that it seemed plausible. “Okay then, Mr. Religious Scholar, what would you do?”

  “What the fuck else would I do? I’d fight my way through it, taking on demons and angels if necessary.” Virgil laughed. “I mean, why the hell not? That or I would attempt to escape to the fourth dimension via meditation...” Virgil pointed at his forehead and motioned towards the ceiling.

  James shrugged. Virgil was usually talking about religion, alternate realities, the duality of duality, posing cosmic queries, or his favorite subject – hallucinogens. He was twenty-three years old and a complete fucking mess.

  “Well, either way,” James said as he closed the newspaper, “it would definitely be shitty.”

  From that point forward, the two men would contemplate the end times like so many men before them had done.

  Through the 2016 election, when Virgil nearly had a meltdown after the results came through, to the subsequent year of constant political trials and tribulations, the two baristas spoke of Armageddon and what they’d do if it ever came true.

  Whether triggered by a pretentious customer, or a way to skirt around a conversation on the latest scandal to come out of the White House, Virgil and James continued their ultimate Armageddon man-tasy, even though, truth be told, it was a bit of a touchy subject with James.

  At least it was something, a way to escape.

  And James had never been that religious anyway, even with his conservative upbringing. Of course, when triggered, he could be as religious as a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, but again, that was more or less a cover for his anger against liberals in general, and he rarely gave any of that flack to Virgil.

  “Back to our conversation last week,” said James one late afternoon. “Lock-picking, that would be an Armageddon skill that could come in handy. Hell, karate and whooping ass is fine and all, but I really think that lock-picking would be good too.” James was standing in the backroom adding a little whiskey to a blended strawberry concoction that he liked to make on especially slow nights.

  That was another reason he liked Virgil. The stoner yogi barista never seemed to judge him, hell, sometimes he’d even join in the drinking on occasion.

  “Dude, don’t waste your money! If the Apocalypse is upon us, what's the point of lock-picking? I mean, it would be friggin’ Judgment Day. Kick that door down Will Smith-style, if you get my drift.” Virgil took a sip of the spiked strawberry beverage, wincing as the cheap whiskey slid its way down his throat like a rusty sword. “Fuck, that’s potent!”

  “In that case …” James strengthened his drink with more whiskey. “But if you were trying to be stealthy about it, you know, like in a video game, then it’d be useful as fuck. Imagine sneaking into a former business establishment while the owner is in there holed up with a shotgun. My point is, it would be nice to not make a lot of noise while opening the door. Kicking the door in or breaking a window makes a lot of noise, being stealthy about it on the other hand…”

  “I see what you’re saying,” Virgil replied, “but I still feel like some hella badass Asian weaponry would suffice against any store owner with a shotgun.”

  James snorted. “You’re an idiot.”

  “Hey!”

  “Have you ever even used a shotgun?” he asked as he took another sip from his beverage.

  “Fuck no, I’m gun-free. You know that.”

  James sighed. They had argued about gun rights plenty of times before. James was all about open carry. Hell, if the rent in Austin weren’t so damn high because of Californians flocking to the city, he’d have himself a new piece now. But he didn’t, and he definitely didn’t want a shitty handgun from WalMacy’s, so for the time being, gun ranges sufficed.

  “Before you say anything else, let me set this up for you. The best time to steal in the post-apocalypse is at night, right?” Suddenly, Virgil raised his left leg in the air and tried to roundhouse kick a paper coffee cup he had set on the sink. He missed the cup and nearly fell over trying to land his kick.

  The empty cup sat on the edge of the sink, staring mockingly at the two baristas.

  “Sure,” James said as he grinned at Virgil’s ridiculous looking karate move. “Night, go on.”

  “Well, if you make your move at night, how is he going to see you in the first place?”

  Virgil tried to kick the cup again, this time catching his heel on the sink and almost losing his balance. He glanced apologetically at James and asked rhetorically, “What would a real ninja need, my barista friend?”

  “Actual training and less Hollywood movies?”

  “Three words: Chinese throwing stars. However, and just to be fair, he could also utilize a dagger, a bow, or a sword...maybe some nunchucks? So the real question is, do you have any of these tools and are you ready for the impending doom? I personally have three throwing stars, and with good lighting, could probably take the shop owner out with one of them.”

  “Which shop owner again?”

  “The one we were just talking about, the one whose establishment we’re trying to rob in this hypothetical situation.”

  “Well, I have a pocket knife and a sword, and I know for a fact that the shop owner wouldn’t stand a chance against a good blow from my katana.” James took a quick pe
ek at the security camera. “Crap, here comes a real customer, hold on...”

  This imaginary shop owner found his way into several of their Armageddon scenarios and additional details enhanced this hypothetical character.

  The two baristas imagined the shop owner as obese, as a starving shop owner, a Vietnam vet with a thirst for vengeance, a Buddhist with a heart full of compassion but not enough compassion to share his goods, a Christian with a Kalashnikov, a forgetful hippy, a former college football star obsessed with himself, a plumber named Mario, a wall street tycoon with a terrible cocaine habit, an Islamic extremist with the hopes of destroying both the baristas and himself.

  “So, what if the shop owner was a lady? What then?” Virgil asked one Tuesday afternoon. He was a little wobbly from James’ newest invention – a shot of whiskey on top of an extra foamy espresso macchiato.

  “We would have to either kill her or take her as our sex slave,” James stated matter-of-factly. “In a post-Armageddon world, the ethics of modern day society don't necessarily apply.”

  Virgil cringed. “That’s fucking offensive, man.”

  “What? I said ethics of modern day society don’t apply.”

  The door swung open and a Westlake soccer mom entered in her tight yoga pants carting a pair of twins in a stroller while talking on a wireless headset.

  “I would just feel wrong doing that, even if it was Armageddon,” Virgil said under his breath.

  “Don’t be such a pussy. We’re talking about the end times here.” James opened the front of the espresso machine. “At least I didn’t say anything about eating her, although this is something we may have to do as well.”

  “Eating her?” Virgil whispered.

  “Hello, welcome to McStarbucks!” he called to the approaching customer.

  Chapter 2: The Somali Pirates and the Jeep of Destiny

  Something happened to downtown Austin, Texas, on a cloudy Tuesday afternoon in the spring of 2018 that would forever change both the city and the landscape of the country. That afternoon, the steel from the owlish Frost Bank tower melted; the numerous bars along 6th Street reached the point of maximum intoxication; the condos and the cranes building more condos exploded the housing market; the legendary Red River district played its final encore.

  Downtown Austin, Texas, lit up like a Ukrainian ammunitions depot, painting the sky and its surroundings the color of scarlet napalm. The explosion burnt, shattered, crippled, or melted everything it came into contact with.

  The ruthless bombardment triggered a massive lightning storm the likes of which only a hangry Zeus himself could have conjured. Ground zero became the proverbial eye of a flaming hurricane, set to destroy or dissolve anything in its path.

  The only blue spot in an increasingly red state finally changed colors.

  The Austonian Condominium, the prized gem of modern bourgeois Austin, tipped towards Lady Bird Lake and crushed everything in its path. EBAYmazon Whole Foods became a pit fire, sucking its surroundings into its expansive parking garage below, a mini Hell if there ever was one. The gentrification of the east side of the city continued as white bursts of chemicals melted the aged streets, searing through cubular homes and ramshackle dwellings alike.

  All was lost, all was toppled, all was on fire.

  The immediate outskirts of downtown Austin were ignited by the flaming debris from the blast, raining down like chariots of torture driven by Mephistopheles. Sirens blared vociferously as telephone poles collapsed one by one, dragged along by each other and steered by unapologetic shock waves.

  Booms and blasts were constantly being triggered by the large gas tanks of Cadillac Escalades and Ford extended cab XXL trucks, dismantling anything they encountered and continuing an increasingly violent chain reaction set on total annihilation.

  The sound of the explosion shattered the windows of houses and buildings that were miles away from the detonation point, hell, all the way up to the Hyde Park neighborhood and its million-dollar one-bedroom half-bath bungalows. Chaos and calamity, hellfire and brimstone, death and destruction – all would be used to describe the harrowing blast years from now.

  Gabriel had finally blown his horn over the city of Austin, unleashing destruction the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the end of the Second World War.

  ***

  Tony, Virgil’s roommate, was performing his usual Tuesday afternoon routine the day an earth-shattering explosion rocked the self-proclaimed Music Capital of the World.

  This included waking up four times before actually getting up from his mid-afternoon nap, watering his Barack Obama Chia pet, enjoying a cup of cold orange juice, and turning on the three televisions that surrounded his bed.

  It was a perfect setup for Tony. He could watch three computer screens all at once while lying down in the comfort of his own room. Plus, with the new remote he had recently purchased, he could also control all of them at the same time.

  The man was serious about television and online programming: the computer screen sitting on a bookshelf, towards the left of his bed, was constantly on CNN tracking the progress of what had yet to be titled but clearly was World War III; the TV mounted on the wall in the middle was usually showing a string of YouTube videos, and the TV to his right, his ‘Research TV,’ was set up on a tray he’d built that could swivel and hover over his considerable girth.

  His ‘Research TV’ was actually an Applesoft Surface Tab, but he called it a TV because it was easier than saying ‘Surface Tab,’ or so he claimed.

  Tony was a bulky, redheaded man who was still waiting to grow into his pale, chunky body. The reclusive man rarely left his room, and had avoided the draft because he held dual citizenship in the United States and Canada.

  Appearance-wise, he looked like Humpty Dumpty but with a little more definition in his face. With a stringy burnt orange mustache that he was quite proud of and a constellation of freckles over his cheeks and nose, Tony redefined the term ginger and would have been a shoe-in for an MIA video.

  His parents, who lived in Canada, had been trying desperately to fly Tony out to Canada since the war had started – after all, they argued, Canada is safer than America and look, no guns! – but he was stubborn, and he didn’t like flying on airplanes.

  In fact, he didn’t really like going outside much either.

  He had lived with his roommate, Virgil, for nearly two years now and the two men were very well accustomed to each other’s peculiar behavior, the ultimate odd couple.

  His biggest point of conflict with Virgil was the guy’s orange tabby, Arjuna, whose whiny and inquisitive behavior had frustrated Tony since the first week he had moved in.

  Tony cursed each meow that emerged from the cat’s furry lips but at the same time, he let Arjuna watch television with him almost daily. Arjuna especially liked watching reality TV.

  Every time Tony had any reality show playing on any of his three televisions, Arjuna would usually make his way onto his bed and cuddle up next to Tony, in a soft spot created between his armpit and his man boob.

  It was Arjuna who finally succeeded in waking him up the afternoon the series of explosions rocked downtown Austin, Texas.

  As Tony’s alarm went off for the third or fourth time, he rolled over, squeezed his pillow and pulled the blanket over his head. He was a night owl, and although he enjoyed waking up for a cup of coffee and a side of television, he preferred to sleep for most of the day – unless Arjuna said otherwise.

  “Meeeeeeeoooooooooooooow. Meeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooow.”

  “Shut the hell up!” Tony bellowed from his blankets. “Dammit, cat!”

  He peeled open his droopy eyes, rolled out of bed, and stumbled over the sheets that were still wrapped around his body. After a long, post-nap fart, he fell from his bed and rolled into a nice little bundle right in front of his bedroom door.

  “Meeeeeeeoooooooooooooow.”

  There he lay, spread out on the floor as the cat continued to meow on the other side of the door
while Tony struggled to untangle himself from his blanket.

  His face reddened as he boiled with rage.

  “Dammit, cat!” Tony slammed his fist on the ground. “Virgil already fed you today. Why do you do this to me every morning?”

  “Meeeeeeeoooooooooooooow. Meeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooow.”

  The big man scooted forward and, from his prone position on the floor, he reached up to the door handle. He opened the door, his bloodshot eyes meeting the fingernail slits of Arjuna’s lime green eyes, and for a split second, both creatures stared each other down.

  Tony pointed at him and grimaced. Arjuna sat down on his hind legs and cocked his head to the right.

  “Meow?” Arjuna remarked, cunningly.

  “You little fucker.”

  Arjuna watched as Tony attempted to free himself from the symbiotic relationship the sheet had made with his body over the course of his afternoon nap.

  It took the big man nearly a minute to untangle himself from his sheets and stand up. Arjuna watched the entire time, licking his left paw and occasionally offering some sort of feline criticism on the process of Tony’s unraveling.

  That’s when it happened.

  As Arjuna licked his paws, the ground rumbled and the disheartening sound of an explosion burst through Tony’s open window.

  The lights flickered immediately, and the electricity shut off.

  Luckily for Tony, his beautiful and informative televisions continued playing – he had hooked them up to a generator about a year ago just in case of a thunderstorm.

  As the news began hectically reporting the explosion, Tony crawled back into his bed and started watching, his hand going for a half-eaten bag of Spicy Nacho Doritos next to his bed.

  Sensing the most interesting reality television program yet, Arjuna crawled into Tony’s bed and cuddled up next to the fat man, both creatures fixated on the developing story.

  ***

  “Your total is, um, $5.95.” Virgil stuck out one hand for the customer’s money while fiddling with a roll of quarters in the other. The customer looked at Virgil over the top of his Tom Ford sunglasses and shot him daggers with his eyes.