The Lazarus Impact (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

Twenty feet below ground, Brandon Jessup watches Extreme Naturalist on a small tube television that he managed to rig up to his parents’ cable service. He lounges on a homemade bean bag chair, vacuum sealed and filled with rice. Tonight’s the big night; the end of the world, or so he hopes. His parents think he’s crazy. Unlike other kids who want new baseball cleats, or who save their money for a car, Brandon stockpiles apocalyptic comic books, first person shooter video games, survivalist books, and canned goods.

"Alright. That's as close as I'll get," Wolf says. I don't know if this is toxic, but it certainly doesn't smell healthy," he says between coughs, standing on the edge of a sloping crater the size of a baseball field in diameter. He has another fit, ending with a throaty vomit. He spits up a stringy mucus and breathes heavily, trying to calm himself. "Well. There goes supper." He chuckles, making light of the situation. “Happy Christmas everyone. And if you’re ever stuck out there on your own, just remember: there’s always tomorrow.” Wolf says his catch phrase with a bit of hesitation, wondering whether there will even be a tomorrow. The confused look on his face speaks volumes to Brandon.

Brandon flips through the channels for a bit. He lands on a news report. They show aerial images of a new archaeological find with narration.

“Thousands of years ago a great civilization thrived in these jungles. Today we know them for their incredible accuracy in star gazing and sky mapping, and their mystical prophecies regarding celestial events. They were the Mayans. The jungle here is thick, but not tall, so archaeologists have had good fortune finding the ruins of their ancient cities. One recent find, here in central Mexico, is ironically on the edge of a large crater basin that was later grown over. In fact that's why the jungle doesn't grow very tall; it sits atop a ground made of almost solid limestone and underground rivers. This ancient location is the same place where scientists believe a great meteor once collided with Earth millions of years ago and perhaps wiped out the dinosaurs, well before the dawn of the Mayan civilization or even mankind.”

I'm not deep enough
. Brandon shuts the television and makes his way through piles of canned food and boxes of bottled water. He neurotically counts off food items and supplies strewn around his bunker, as he has done a hundred times. A pretty cool hideout for a teenager, he has outfitted the shelter with many modern comforts, including a most important stack of porn magazines for when the internet goes down. His computer has several instant messages waiting from unknown cyber friends that regularly contribute to
Apocalypse Any Day Now
, a comic book style doomsday message board. All are eagerly watching Wolf’s show to see if the meteor shower turns out to be a fateful night for modern civilization.

“If I lived as close as you I’d be there watching! Instead ur trapping urself in a dungeon. We r all gonna die. May as well have front row seats,” one message from ENDITNOW says.

“I’m prepared, no, excited, to ride out the aftermath,” he responds from his handle, Zombology15.

“Enjoy your canned beans. LOL,” ENDITNOW retorts.

I will
. Brandon turns and looks at his stack of canned beans; a four foot tall pyramid that graces one corner of his bunker like a temple offering to the legume and fart gods.

He’s off from school. Christmas break. Unlike most of his peers, he’ll willingly spend it locked in the reinforced shipping container buried under his parents’ property; a remnant from the Cold War days. The idea is to give it a test run, to see what it’s really like to survive in a bunker, to ration food and water.
Looks
like this test run might turn out to be the real thing
.

Last week all the news channels could talk about was the so called Lazarid Cluster; a meteor shower that was recently detected and heading for Earth. After scientists discovered the meteor shower, it disappeared for three days and then later reappeared when using the new GOD, or Graduated Optical Depth, space imaging telescope. As such the scientists decided to name it after the biblical story where a man named Lazarus came back to life by the hand of God. The President and all his scientists kept reassuring the public that there was nothing to worry about. Brandon knew they were just trying to prevent panic, anarchy. He saw the websites; the ones popping up for a few hours and then disappearing, where scientists were claiming there would be a big impact.

Everyone knew the government was lying on some level. In their gut they knew it, but it was like no one cared. People simply stocked up on batteries, water, and canned food like they were bracing for a winter blitz that might never come. Even in his quiet suburban town, Brandon saw the shelves in the supermarket thin down and empty.
What a waste
.
That’s only part of being prepared
.
An entire town can’t stockpile in a week what they need to survive just by raiding the local supermarket
. He even posted the sentiment on the message board.
It’s too late for them
.
They didn’t prepare
.
All those supplies will be wasted
.

I don’t have enough!
Five months, maybe six
. Swiping an occasional few cans of soup and boxes of crackers from his parents wouldn’t cut it, so he got a job at the local comic book store. He made enough to pick up some essentials; large containers for storing water, MREs, batteries, and fuel for the generator in his parents’ shed.
Not too bad for a kid
.
But others would be extremely well prepared; people from the internet
.

“If it ever gets too crazy out there, will you come try to find me?” asks Apocalypta, Brandon’s long distance internet flirt from the message board.

“Hell yea. I have the directions to your farm written down in five different places,” he responds with an added smiley face.

Like him, she is 15 years old. Only her parents have a secured compound in the mid-west. They live like the end has already come to pass. Brandon is jealous of how well prepared they are. Fully energy independent, a greenhouse protected from the elements, scores of weapons, and a fully sustainable food supply. They even have a security perimeter. Apocalypta feels like a prisoner in her own home, but after years of conditioning she’s become accustomed to the lifestyle.

“I hate to say it, but I hope this thing really happens so that one day maybe we can finally meet,” she writes. But before Brandon can return the sentiment, his bunker goes dark. A deep, sustained rumble shakes all around him. No lights, no internet, no nothing. Boxes of food fall from their shelves, his bean pyramid tumbles, and his stacks of comic books and porn magazines slide and flop to the ground.
Oh shit
...

He feels around, trying to make his way to the hatch.
God damn it
.
Why didn’t I install a flip switch for the generator? Stupid asshole
.
I need to get up there and start it up before anything happens
. The generator itself is protected by cinderblock walls that he built around it, with a padlocked metal door on one side.
The shed might be blown to shit, but at least the generator will be safe
. He would also need to get his parents down there before the shit hits the fan. If a big enough meteor struck the earth close by, the whole house might be torn to shreds in just a few moments.

He gets closer to what he thinks is the ladder up, but in his haste he haphazardly steps on a can of food that tipped to its side. His legs kick up from underneath himself.
Those fucking beans!
He slams to the floor, cracking his head on another fallen can. He slips into unconsciousness, never hearing the banging and yelling from the hatch above, never hearing the cries of his parents.

CHAPTER 3

He knew something big was up when the power flicked and the whole place went old school for a good half hour. Emergency backups, manual overrides, keys instead of buzzer buttons, the whole nine. When everything powered back up, Marcus heard the guards whispering about running generators and the national power grid failing. But there was more electricity in the air when the power was out than when it was on. He could sense the tension, the calculation, the energy from his fellow inmates.
All it takes is a split second for a caged animal to find its way out
.

“How long those generators gonna last, mutha fucka?” Harley taunts the guards from three cells down, sparking a chain reaction of supportive screams and metallic banging throughout the entire cellblock. The prisoners are on edge, knowing they’re restricted to their cells until further notice. Marcus sits quietly on his bed, refusing to join in the commotion. He doesn’t mind the restriction so much. He likes being alone with his thoughts.

“Roll!” yells a guard from two floors down. “Stand up and face front!”

Where the fuck we gonna go?
Marcus is more pissed about being disturbed than about being confined to his cell all day. He stands up and faces the bars of his cell, tuning out as the guard walks the row and calls out everyone’s names, awaiting their responses.

“Better keep these doors fuckin’ locked, mutha fucka! There’s more of us than you, nigga!” Harley belts out again, rousing the others into a ruckus.

“William Harley Davis,” says the guard. All falls quiet on the block.

“Fuck you, nigga!” Harley responds.

“Open 368!” the guard yells. The door pops open and the guard, along with two others, enter and beat Harley with their night sticks. Makeshift mirrors sparkle in the fluorescent overhead light along the row of bars in the cellblock, all trying to get a glimpse of the repercussions. Marcus stands still, resolute, unaffected.

When the beating is done, the guard continues his walk of the row. “Marcus Johnson.” Marcus blinks from his haze of thought to see the capped guard standing before him, in front of his cell. He tips his head down and his eyes meet the guard’s. It’s Thompson. He and Marcus talk from time to time, and he keeps Marcus up to speed on sports. He’s one of the nicer guards, but Marcus knows not to cross him like Harley just did. Flecks of sprayed blood speckle Thompson’s face.
Harley must’ve gotten it pretty bad this time
.

“Here sir,” he responds quietly from six and a half feet high.

“If blue keeps it up they’ll be in the bowl this year,” Thompson says, winning a grin from Marcus in response before continuing on.

At 285 pounds of solid bronze muscle, Marcus could have easily beaten the piss out of Thompson and the other scrawny white guards that put a beating on Harley. But he likes to think of himself as a reformed man, at least he wants to be.
It’s tough to truly reform in a den of thieves and killers
. He knows his crimes earned him true damnation, something beyond the earthly punishments that mere man can dole out. He feels remorse. He truly does.
This prison is just a waiting room
. He often says so among the few people he socializes with. If he had it all to do again, he would have done things differently.

At 15, Marcus had already developed a customer base selling weed on the streets. It was small time, but it got the attention of some of the local dealers. He was a big dude, even at that age. The dealers saw him as an asset, a resource. Rather than make an example of him, if they even could, they rewarded him. He became an enforcer. A collector. A carrier. By 18, weed was long gone and he was on to more lucrative substances, and he had already killed. By his early 20s he was known by all the locals, and even a little bit beyond. Soon enough he was under police surveillance. But Marcus knew. One night he slipped away and stashed money, valuables, and even his truck in a rundown building outside the city that he bought with cash, using it like a storage unit. Then he paid a visit to the snitch and beat him to death. The police caught him after. That was the only crime they managed to pin on him, but it was enough to put him away for life.

He often wonders if everything is still there in the building, or if some bum stumbled upon it. It’d be like winning the lottery. He doesn’t miss life on the outside so much, doesn’t long to see anyone. But he does miss his freedom.
A man needs his space, his liberty
. Most of all he misses his truck; an '86 pick-up, jacked up on four foot high monster truck tires. Under the hood is a fully worked 350 cubic inch engine. The thing screamed, and Marcus was so feared on the outside that he could leave it unlocked on the mean streets and no one would dare touch it.

The rest of the night comes with a lot of hushed talk about what happened. Guesses mostly; a distant earthquake that knocked out power, a terrorist attack, a meteor, or even just a precautionary drill. Whatever it was, it whipped the population into a frenzy.
Something serious is about to go down
.
If there’s riots, or worse, I’ll stay in my cell
.
I wanna do my time in peace, with the Lord
. He knows he’ll never see freedom again, but he also knows that his punishment is justified. He feels he’s not fit for society if capable of such reckless disregard for life.
Reformed or not, there’s no place for me out there
.