Cruel Apocalypse is Cruel

Robert made his preparations; he needn’t wait until four skeletal dudes rode horses down Main Street. As he saw it, the whole vibe was similar to Zombie Smokehouse’s “Champion of the Worms,” Volume 4, Issue #3, except he’d not yet encountered any flesh-eating undead, as far as he could tell.

On Friday, the world’s last day, Robert tail-slid his truck into town and shopped. Circumstances were too dire for him to rely on a mental list, so he’d scrawled on wide-ruled notebook paper.

“That’s every bottle of soda pop in the store and I don’t have no more Spam,” said Mr. Twist at the Picnic Basket. “Next delivery comes Wednesday or Thursday.”

Robert shrugged. “I’ll take all your corned beef and tuna fish. Even better if they’re still boxed up.”

Mr. Twist showed Robert the cartons of canned goods stacked in the back room.

“I’m not supposed to lift stuff,” said the grocer, “and the grandson won’t be here ‘til after his piano lesson.”

“Not a problem. I don’t mind waiting for him.”

Robert browsed the Picnic Basket’s rack of comic books and graphic novels before deciding to buy the entire inventory. These would be the last ones ever made. His throat clamped shut but no Heimlich thing existed to rid him of grief.

For the remainder of the afternoon, Robert crossed off destinations and items on his list: hardware store (dump cans, baling wire, duct tape), pharmacy (aspirin, antibiotics, pinup magazines), and gas station (gasoline, kerosene, smokes).

The Atta-Boy Oil Company attendant leered at him. “You fixin’ to have yourself a big ol’ bonfire party this weekend, Robbo?”

Artie crammed the last of six five-gallon dump cans into Robert’s truck bed. The two men had known one another since third grade but were neither friends nor enemies.

“If I was you,” Robert said from behind the steering wheel, “I’d leave work early, pick up some drinking water and ammo, and go be with the family.”

Whenever Robert bumped into facts, they visited in the guise of ball bearings and mercury. The world’s pending demise was no exception, but hindsight was mean as mustard. The clues had always been out in front.

To begin with, the barn swallows were late. They usually returned by Mother’s Day, but this year were three weeks tardy and didn’t arrive until June. Strange evidence, although by itself inconclusive.

Two days later, the water pressure dropped drastically while Robert washed his truck. Took him fifteen extra minutes to rinse off the soap. He could have spit on the old Ford and finished sooner.

The last clue, the big one, occurred Friday morning just prior to Robert’s errands in town:

Robert strolled into the bungalow he’d inherited from Mother last year, and tossed his keys onto the kitchen table. Sam stood there, eyes red, jaw squared. A backpack and one of those rolling suitcases flanked her, and she clutched a box full of plant starts, her herb garden. Robert glanced at the box and then the white circles where the tiny pots had lined up along the windowsill above the sink.

“Hey,” he said, “getting ready to put those in the ground? Thought you said it’d be a couple of weeks yet.”

He twisted open a two-liter Faygo, swigged it, and leaned against the fridge’s open door. Sam set the backpack atop her roller and tucked the box under one arm.

“I’m planting them,” she said, “but not here.”

She bustled past Robert, her best dress fluttering like smoke. He remembered when her dad fell under a riding mower and she went to visit, she’d worn that same dress so it wouldn’t crease inside the suitcase. Robert stared at the screen door for a moment and then followed her outside.

“Okay, babe,” he said from the porch as she loaded her rusty Toyota. “When you coming back?”

Sam slammed the trunk lid and shot her eye-darts at him over the car’s roof.

“I had a speech,” she said.

She slid behind the steering wheel. The Toyota fired after three tries and disappeared into its haze of incomplete combustion.

“But, when you coming back?” repeated Robert. His words scraped outward the same as when someone means to cough but nothing escapes except a wheeze with no air behind it.

Robert’s food supply lasted almost four months until only beef jerky remained. He smeared dark camouflage paint on himself, and random neighbors woke up each morning to discover their pantry had been raided.

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author bio:

Michael Grant Smith wears sleeveless T-shirts, weather permitting. His writing has appeared in elimae, The Airgonaut, The Cabinet of Heed, Ellipsis Zine, Spelk, Bending Genres, Bull & Cross, MoonPark Review, Okay Donkey, and elsewhere. Michael resides in Ohio. He has traveled to Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Cincinnati. To learn too much about Michael, please visit www.michaelgrantsmith.com and @MGSatMGScom.