Phantom of Apocalypse

Chapter 4

“The first day of Holy Week, he started making a cross, fifteen feet high. When my mom asked why, he said it would be just like the one he had seen in one of his visions. He kept carving and never did get much sleep that week. When it was all done, he set it up near the creek running along the farm and the main road. It was important for people driving through to see it. My mother and I figured he would put it on wheels and carry it on his shoulders across town. It was the only way to protest sin spreading from the city to our farm.”

Pausing to drink a glass of water, Roy mumbles that he should have known something was wrong when his father came into the kitchen drunk. Holding a cup of urine in his hand, Jed asked Roy and his mother to drink from the cup . “Drink damn it, he screamed at us. It’s Holy Water, the blood of our Lord when it’s inside our bodies.” When they hesitated, he drank first to prove that it was like wine and it would indeed turn into the blood of Christ.

“When he went to bathroom to puke, I took my mother and ran. We slept in the barn that night. The next morning was Good Friday. He came to the barn where I was sleeping. He must have knocked me out with the rifle. When I woke up, there was blood everywhere. He was driving a nail through my left hand. ‘You have to feel the pain of Jesus to be rid of your sins boy,’ he kept saying. Mom was hysterical pleading with him to let me down. She finally took the tractor and knocked him and me down from the cross. I must have passed out. I woke up in the hospital, all bandaged up.”

Shorty reminds Roy that his drunken father was hardly someone to be confused with a true Christian. Wiping saliva off his mouth, the former theologian stresses that such unusual experiences are no excuse to reject Jesus, especially amid the plague when everyone needs faith more than ever. Murmuring a quick prayer, Shorty compliments Roy for not inheriting his father’s thirst for whiskey and w****s. In a voice of resignation, the street boxer confesses that he inherited his father’s thirst for violence. When he first arrived in New Heaven seeking to establish individual HCS status, underlying fear, hostility, and suspicion of city folk were priorities. Equipped with all the traits to endure the plague, he could have enjoyed a thriving career in fatal street boxing. It was not meant to be. Once he discovered that his feeble mind would not cooperate with his rugged body, the dream of glory faded.

Perpetually abused as a child and tormented by nightmares, he sees ghosts entering his body through the microchip to violate him in ways he’d rather not share. To help him end the horrific nightmares, the prison psychiatrist suggested that he dig deeper than the surface of his rugged masculinity into his subconscious mind to find the repressed self. Roy struck the doctor on the head. “Before I went to prison,” he recalls, running his hand over his head, “there were times I could just explode, unless I let out my anger. My head feels like catching fire trying to explain this right now. I guess the virus struck me harder than most of the others. Many nights, I stay up thinking crazy thoughts. I want to kill all those who caused the plague. The prison psychiatrist said insomnia was not my problem. He said I was a criminal and I must accept it to start back to recovery. I am fighting this demon inside of me trying to come out. Every time I went to the doctor’s office, he looked at me like I was a mutant. I had to beat him up so he can stop looking at me like that. I mean, what else could I do, right doc?”

Gazing at the reactions of people in the diner, he takes out a small mirror to look at his face. It is as though he wants to be convinced they do not see a monster when they look at him. He would like reassurances he is human, facial scars notwithstanding. No one is saying a word. “I look nothing like a damned mutant, do I Red? After all the fights, my face isn’t as damaged as the inside of my head.” In a calm steady voice, she reassures him that he is no different than anyone else in the diner. “It was wrong of the prison doctors to have you embrace your aggression impulse Roy. Too bad they analyze antagonism as another form of death anxiety. That means that they have given up on a cure. These days aggression is an instinct as natural as sneezing. With everything that has happened all around us, the last thing we need is soothing witchery from people in my former profession.”

Encouraged by Red’s scathing criticism of psychologists, Roy picks up a napkin and wipes his face and mouth. He behaves as though it has become infected simply breathing the same air as the others in the diner; a habit he picked up watching Shorty go through the same ritual. He explains that medication given to him in prison calmed his nerves. Arranging new pots of various foods that just arrived from the kitchen, he becomes angry, remembering how the medical staff treated him.

“ The first doctor said medication was not changing my behavior to his satisfaction. I bit off part of his nose. I asked him if that was satisfactory enough for him. After that day, they put me on some strong stuff. I couldn’t taste food. My body was numb and wobbly. I thought I had no feet or hands. I was sleepy but could not sleep. It was horrible, walking around and peeing myself. When I looked in the mirror one evening, I saw my father’s face staring back at me. He wanted to nail me to the cross again. I banged my head against the mirror and tried to make him leave me alone. It was like I was two different people. You know what I mean, Red?”

Complimenting him that he is healthier than most of the infected people in New Heaven, she raises her glass of water and drinks to his health. Shorty exclaims that the answer for physical and mental health rests with prayer and faith in the Lord. “If that is the case, why do you engage in self-inflicting injuries and then take medication?” Red asks. Shaking from anger, he loses no time defending his faith. “ Atheists like you will say what they will. I have no need for voodoo psychoanalysis. The Lord is by my side.” Jumping into the conversation, Roy interjects that his faith rests on the motorcycle he will use someday to jump over the city fence. On the days he is not working, he rides the old motorcycle equipped with knife-edged steel wings that allow it to fly above street traffic with other flying vehicles; always under drone police surveillance. The old bike is another prize he won in a street fight after he was nearly killed. Even if it means spending the rest of his life in prison, he intends to use the motorbike to fly over the electric fence keeping citizens safe.

He often rides out to the north end of town and sits just a few feet from the electric fence dreaming of how he will execute his escape on Independence Day. On the other side of the fence across the horizon he can see the prison where mutants and rebels also try to escape but are caught or shot dead. Although rebels tried to help him when he was in prison, he tells Red that rebels are dumb because they really believe things will change. At the same time, he is fascinated with the sense of altruism associated with rebel violence. “For Cain and his cult members, violence gives them some sort of twisted divine purpose,” Red explains. “They’re under the illusion of belonging to a superior group the plague has created. Ironic, that they are the self-appointed defenders of the superior humans destined to survive the plague. Now who is the bigger fool? Cain and his friends or the rebels who preach violence for a better world?”

Hissing various insults at Red, Cain’s belligerent attitude prompts Roy to warn him that the police can make their presence known within minutes. No matter what Red and Dr. Jeff claim about working together toward harmony amid the plague, Roy belittles rebels as naive fool. “Look around the diner? Do you see any one here that wants anything good for anybody else? I sure as Hell don’t. Can you imagine rebels wanting to free me from my aggression, for my own good, like they know what’s best for me? For what, so I can become a punching bag for the world? If I go back to prison, it’ll be because I’m trying to escape from this damned place, not for trying to save it. Where were the rebels when police and prison guards were beating me like a mutant? To hell with them. It’s just me all alone in this damned world.”

In a sign of solidarity with Roy, Cain and his companions pound their fists on the table. Instead of welcoming their support, Roy raises his voice and points his knife at them. “ You freaks are no different than my drunken father. All of you just want to suck my blood and throw my carcass in the incinerator if you had a chance. I fight to save my skin from vultures like you. I want to get away from all of you. I just want to make it back to the farm. Even if it means I have to hide from the police chasing me down for the rest of my life, then that’s how it’s going to be.”

As he prepares to return to the hospital, Dr. Jeff leans over to Red and whispers that all is set with the escape plan. He then turns to Roy to encourage him that Independence Day may be the beginning of a new life for a lot of people in New Heaven and all across the country. Roy rhetorically asks how is that going to make him feel any better, unless he makes it to the farm alive. Opening the diner door, he points out that the festive atmosphere makes people walking around more edgy than usual. Gunfire and fireworks explosions go off from different parts of the city. The noise alone is enough of a stimulant for diner workers and customers. “It feels like this entire town is a giant spaceship floating between planets,” Dr. Jeff comments as he walks toward the door. “There is just nothing natural about it. What a mess we made of our world.”

Sizing up each person in the diner like mental patients on the couch, Red realizes she will only be in town another two days. She does not have to see these people ever again. Wondering how many would lose their lives celebrating on Independence Day with guns and explosive devices, she sighs that it is a sad commentary that violence is the new norm. “I suppose all of us believe we are normal. Psycho-consultants label aggression healthy and desirable within legal limits, of course. Business and government identify it with competitiveness and encourage it as a good thing as long as it leads to more productivity. We accept it because we fear losing HCS value and our life style.”

No one bothers to reply or even look at her. Gazing at the frantic activity outside the window, Roy tells Shorty that the smoke from fireworks has only worsened the humid polluted clouds hanging over the city. Government has taken extra security measures, not just with drones flying overhead, but strategically placing human and android police and security units. Hearing the broadcast news program announce that the police hope to arrest the elusive rebel leader, Roy becomes excited. “Insomniac-crazy and pissed-off ready I am. Come on, I’m here waiting for them virus-ridden bastards. Just let them try to mess with me. I can feel it in my bones. Before the weekend is over, I’m going to have to mess them up real bad. I can just feel it. Maybe Cain or one of you boys back there want to make bleed.”