Apocalypso

Apocalypso – Franklin Marsh


Abe and Lyle sat on their bench staring out into the Mojave desert, sipping ice cold Schlitz.
Lyle’s bottle emptied.

“More beer, woman!” he hollered.

Betsy glanced out of the gas station door.

“Can’t you old farts even get your own beer no more?” she jeered, and walked over to the cooler.

Abe almost didn’t notice the resupply. He was squinting out into the heat haze.

Betsy sipped a Coke.

“Somethin’ out there, Abe?”

“Don’t know, Betsy. We got any binoculars?”

Lyle wheezed out a chuckle.

“It’s a mirage, you old fool.”

Abe watched the black blob advancing through the shimmering heat divide and elongate.

“There is somethin’ out there,” said Betsy, an edge of tension in her voice..

The indistinct black shape continued to approach the trio.

“It’s a guy!” said Betsy, relieved.

“Walkin’ through the desert? Must be a major loon,” sneered Abe.

“Here he comes,” said Betsy.

“All dressed in black,” wondered Abe. “In this heat?”

“Stiletto shoes,” gasped Betsy.

“And a big top hat!” bellowed Lyle , finally focusing on the approaching figure.

Abe felt an irrational coldness creeping over him that wasn’t the beer.

“Looks like some kinda mortician,” he said.

“A ringmaster from the circus of Hell,” replied Betsy in an unexpected burst of erudition.

Abe saw that the figure had some kind of playing card stuck in his hat band but it was reversed so that the face of the card could not be seen. He could make out the white edging, an olive green background and a yellow and black shield.

“His eyes,” wailed Betsy. “He must be some kind of vampire!” She edged backwards.

“Walkin' around in broad daylight? What about his eyes?” grumbled Lyle.

“They’re bright red,” said Abe in wonder. He took a quick draught of beer and coughed.

“He’s got white hair,” observed Lyle. “He’s a ‘bino. Nothin’ to worry about.”

Abe wasn’t so sure. This guy didn't even seem to be sweating. Abe was.

“You still got that piece back there, Bets?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “ You proposin’ I shoot one of my customers, Abe?” The light tone was forced.

“Mean lookin’ sumbitch,” said Abe, unconsciously lowering his voice as the man neared the gas station.

Betsy retreated inside, and fluffed her hair in the mirror behind the counter. You never knew.

Abe slugged more beer as his mouth dried up.

“Howdy, stranger!” whooped Lyle. “What brings you…?”

Doctor Dementer snatched the Schlitz bottle from the elderly man, and chug-a-lugged it’s entire contents. He then smashed it over Lyle’s head, grasped the wet hair, jerked the oldster’s head back, and slashed his throat with the jagged neck.

Abe stared, releasing his grip on his own beer in shock. The Doctor kicked one of the bench legs, tearing it free. The seat tipped over, Abe falling on his dead brother. Dementer clutched the broken piece of wood, and rammed the pointed end into Abe’s chest. Abe expired without even a scream.

Betsy yelped as the door to the gas station crashed open.

“Hey, Mister, what…?”

Dementer opened and emptied the till. He saw the Saturday Night Special under the counter. He picked it up and pointed it at Betsy.

“No! You can’t! Just take the money…”

The little pistol made a noise like a cheap firecracker and puffed out blue smoke. A small, dark hole appeared to the left of Betsy’s forehead. Her eyes rolled up, then closed, as she fell surprisingly gracefully to the floor.

The Doctor replaced the gun, and snatched up a set of keys. He kicked down the door to the back entrance, and walked over to a corroded pick up truck, ‘A & L Gorch’ in faded white paint on the side. The keys fitted and she started first time.

The Doc ran her round to the front and filled up with gas. As he climbed back on to the driver’s seat, he saw the Highway Patrol vehicle ease off the blacktop. He crashed the gears and the old rustbucket took off like a spooked mustang. She bounced off the police car’s fender, smashing the metal into the tyre, then bucked onto the highway.

Patrolman Harding hit his head on the windshield and fell back dazed. The car slowly careered into a large Yucca.

The radio blared June Carter Cash. The Doc fiddled with the knobs, eventually locating a would-be subversive college radio station out of Lovelock.

The truck swerved as ‘Sunarise, come every morning…’ warbled from the speakers. The Doc was about to can the Antipodean wobble-boarder when electronic thrashing came from behind the singer. Better Alien Sex Fiend than Rolf.

Rescuing a bouncing packet of Lucky Strike from the dashboard, the Doc jammed a filter into his mouth, and pulled out the cigarette lighter. As the music swelled and the stale smoke filled his lungs, he grinned and put the pedal to the metal.

******************************

Tanith ran up the stone steps, gasping for breath. Her legs and heels hurt as she reached the landing, and tottered towards the desk. The monk looked up in surprise.

“Tanith,” he said gently.

“Brother Francis,” she nodded, gasping for breath. “I have to see the Director.”

“This is highly unusual,” replied the monk.

“Emergency, Code Name Physician,” she retorted.

The monk stabbed a button on the intercom and relayed the message. The huge wooden door opened almost immediately and Tanith hurried in.

***********************************

The Rolls Royce Silver Seraph moved almost silently through the rain swept Essex Marshes. It agilely negotiated the twists and turns of the mud-sodden country road until it reached the tiny church. The driver alighted and rang the bell. The door was opened by a short, squat little priest. Long, black hair parted in the middle framed the chubby face. A black beard obscured the weak chin. A heavily jewelled silver cross hung inverted around his neck. Three tall men climbed from the Rolls and hurried into the small building.

“Welcome, welcome,” chuntered the priest, “This way, Gentlemen.”

They walked down the central passageway. The altar was tilted onto its back, revealing a flight of stairs leading down into darkness. The priest led the men down under the earth.

*******************
Tanith walked into the spartanly furnished room and approached the huge teak desk. She knelt on the deep pile red carpet, and genuflected.

“Thank you, Tanith,” said the Director, smiling. “What’s the fuss?”

“Codename Physician has surfaced, Director. He terminated two greybeards and a woman, and injured a Highway Patrolman. He has since destroyed the town of Lovelock.”

“Destroyed a whole town?” cried the Director, incredulously.

“More or less,” faltered Tanith. “He drove an old pick up truck into a gas station, causing an explosion, and widespread property damage. He proceeded to terminate Elias Walter, proprietor of Gun Fury, specialist weapons store, and arm himself with a bewildering variety of pistols, rifles, machine guns, a flame thrower and several LAWS rockets. He stole the late Mr Walter’s Hummer and drove through the town, destroying the police station, cinema and church.”

“Enough,” barked the Director. “Where is he now?”

“He is believed to be travelling through the Mojave, in the direction of the former Nuclear Testing Grounds, now the Oddity Relocation Camps.”

“Believed to be, Tanith?”

“He has temporarily slipped beneath our radar, Sir, but…”

“But me no buts.”

The Director stood up, ran a finger round his dog collar, and kicked his waste paper basket.

“Goddam’ Motherfucking Sonofabitch!”

Tanith blinked and hoped that she hadn’t heard what she had just heard. No one would believe her.

“If I could get my hands on that red-eyed, white-haired frea…”

The Director came out of his fugue, and put his hand on Tanith’s shoulder.

“Let us pray, Tanith. Let us pray that we can apprehend this Godless no-goodnik before he can cause any more harm.”

They knelt together , the Director’s arm slipping around Tanith’s waist.

*******************************

The three men stooped to pass through the tiny aperture in the subterranean wall. They stood erect once inside the crypt. Two large stone slabs stood before them, a naked body upon each.

To their right, an obscenely obese man, rolls of fat cascading from his stomach to conceal his genitalia, hamhock legs, bulging arms, a completely bald head crowning an ugly, stern face.

To their left, a slim, attractive young girl, seemingly unblemished apart fom a shaven head.

“Copley-Syle.” It was the Chinaman who spoke. “Where were they recovered from?”

The long-haired priest stepped forward and removed a mange-tout from the obese man’s ear.

“From a loch in Scotland,” he replied, slipping the green vegetable into his mouth.

“And this one?” enquired the Haitian, the eyes of the Goat’s head atop his own watching the unholy man.

“A shack in Texas.”

The Haitian ran his hand over the girl’s belly, drawing the priest's eyes from the dark triangle with the edging of two white streaks.

“We heard she’d suffered terrible, terrible injuries.”

“She had, oh yes,” murmured the priest, “but…” he gestured, “see for yourself.”

“Are we ready?” The third man, a Native American, asked, surveying his companions.

“Yes! Oh, yes!” whooped the Canon Darren Copely-Syle. He dashed to a nearby cupboard, and removed the mewling infant.

****************************

Hester looked out of the window despite her fears. There was usually some uniformed sadist torturing an orange-uniformed oddity outside. All was quiet tonight. She sighed in relief and stared eagerly at the lightning flashes over the far hills.

“Anything?” asked Dick the midget.

“Not yet, honey,” she replied, “ but soon a real rain’s gonna come.”

A groan from inside their cell drew her away from the window. She’d lost weight again, but not in a good way. They’d shaved her head but left her beard. She must look like a distaff Ming The Merciless. The cell floor was littered with red hair and small scales.

It was hot, even in the dead of night. Claude lay on the floor trying to sleep, his warts oozing. He snuffled uneasily, as if having a bad dream. Leopold and Wade lay together on a sacking-covered pallet. They were so weak. Hester was convinced their cell was built over a nuclear waste facility. Something was slowly wasting them. Klin and Klang, the Siamese twins were unco-ordinated and listless.

“Is he comin’ Hester?”

Wade’s voice could hardly be heard.

“He ain’t comin’. He sold us out in Vegas. He don’t care no more. He just wants his little girl.”

Leopold’s bitterness seemed to have given him a bit of fight.

Hester got angry too.

“He’s comin’. He’ll not leave us no more. He knows we’re his family now, not that murderin’ bitch. He’ll be back.”

“You’re foolin’ yourself, Hester,” coughed Leopold, another clump of fur falling from his head. “We don’t exist for him.”

Hester turned back to the window, and looked forlornly out into the dark.

“Don’t let us down, Doc,” she whispered.
******************
The young woman carried the earthenware bowl of broth to her bed-ridden mother. The old woman’s hair was grey, not a trace of its former flame-red glory.

You’re a good wee girl,” she croaked. Sam spooned the orange liquid into her mother’s mouth. When the bowl was empty, she wiped her mother’s lips.

An ancient wrinkled hand emerged from the bedclothes, and clutched her wrist in a cold grip.

“Im no’ long for this particular world, Lassie. I can foresee trouble. You’re of an age now to know that your sister and her father are about to reappear. There will be violence. Your sister always was a wilful girl. You must go to her. Get her away from her father. She can be redeemed. He cannot. Seek out the Doctor. Your trust fund will provide for you. And I have some books of instruction for you to read. I’ll help all I can, Lassie.”

The old woman tapped her temple.

“It’s all in here, girl.”

****************************************

The helicopter soared across the desert sand. Tanith clutched the Director’s hand tightly and hoped she wouldn’t be sick. He was shouting furiously into the radio.

“What do you mean you can’t find him? Look! He’s in a Hummer packed with weapons. Get more choppers aloft! I don’t care about the budget! Find him!”

He tore off the headphones and glared out of the window.

********************************************

Darren Copely-Syle looked at the three piles of clothes, and then turned shakily to the two figures sitting up on their slabs.

“Master?” he gargled.

“You have done well, novice,” rumbled the obese man. “You will be rewarded.”

He gestured at the cupboard. There was the sound of breaking glass, and an array of small, stunted, hideous, damp creatures emerged from the wooden container, bearing black clothes.

Copely-Syle’s eyes nearly started from his head.

“My homunculi!” he ejaculated. “They’re…”

“Alive,” smiled the man, reaching for the first creatures offering, a pair of Satanic underpants.

More things emerged, bearing satin and leather.

Copely-Syle’s shining eyes turned to the female figure, who had adopted a coy cheesecake pose. The unfrocked priest watched in amazement as long, lustrous black locks sprouted from her bald head to flow down over her shoulders, and shroud her magnificent bustline. Thin white threads twisted through the hair, one on either side of her head. Her demurely crossed legs precluded Copley-Syle running a match downstairs.

The man indicated the vanished Haitian’s headgear, and said to a particularly revolting homunculus, “I say, dear boy, how about some goat’s head soup?”

********************************************************

PFC Butte wondered for the umpteenth time what would happen if he lit up a cigarette. Down here in the underground tunnels. Right next to America’s premier stockpile of obsolete nuclear, chemical and conventional weapons.

As per usual he decided against it, and wondered what Betsy was doing. Whiling away her time at the Godforsaken gas station, with mostly just those two old fogeys for company.

“Evening.”

“Hi.”

Wha?????

Butte struggled to unsling his rifle as the eccentric walked past.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

The white-haired, red-eyed man tipped his black top hat with the blood-stained chicken feather stuck in the band, and stepped through the doorway to the weapon store.

Butte blinked. Through the door. Which wasn’t open. Eighteen inches of steel. His rifle drooped. He stepped forward, tilting back his helmet to scratch his crew cut.

Butte felt something move inside his head and everything went black.

?************************************************************
The Director thumped Commandant Kier’s desk, almost upsetting the pint glass of vodka, ice and lemon.

“I tell you he’s coming here! You’d better be prepared!”

“So?” Kier muttered at the Director whilst simultaneously undressing at Tanith with his heavily-lidded eyes. Tanith shuddered and mentally dressed herself. How could their organisation employ such…Eurotrash?

“So, if he gets in here and releases his buddies, your ass is grass, my dear Commandant.”

Kier sipped the clear liquid, enjoying a mental battle with Tanith over her brassiere.

“Do not worry, Herr Direktor. The Special Oddities are quite safe in their concrete bunker and should be very, very contaminated by now. Even if he should get in, none of them will get out - unless we let them...”

“Why would you do that?” queried the Director, suspiciously.

“Have you never heard of the Most Dangerous Game, Herr Direktor? An Oddity hunt? With them glowing away in the desert blackness? Wunderbar.”

He drained the pint, glassy eyes crawling over and beneath Tanith’s dark business suit. She shuddered, and moved behind the Director.

“We have every conceivable means of extermination here, Herr Direktor. I know you are a man of God, but surely you would rejoice at the chance to remove a few of the Godless? Of Satan’s Rejects?”

“Kier,” said the Director, quietly and menacingly, “I think you’re beginning to lose touch with what’s real, all alone in your personal fiefdom out here. All we want is to capture this man and incarcerate him with his little elves. Then, when I’m sure that you have accomplished that , I can walk away and you can shoot them escaping or something.”

The Commandant pouted.

“Oh, you’re no fun any more, Smithy. Time was, you’d have been leading the pack.”

“Those days are over, Kier, and you know it. Are your perimeters safe? Can we leave one little loophole for Doctor Dipshit to get in?”

“Of course my perimeters are safe!” screamed the Commandant in a vodka frenzy, as all the windows of his office blew in and the earth shook.

*********************************************

Darren Copely-Syle nodded, and the two misshapen homunculi struggled to tilt the carafe of sloshing blood-red liquid. Having filled his glass, they trooped around the table.

Anton Krolok held out his mug.

“What news, my dear Canon?”

“Dementer is in Nevada.”

Krolock slammed down his flagon on a creature’s foot. It hopped in agony until a steak knife pierced its black little heart. Lorelei grinned and bit off the head.

****************************

Samantha studied the books, listened to her mother and practiced. Within hours she could levitate, within days take short trips upon the Astral. She was nervous. She was the good one, her half-sister the bad. She really didn’t want confrontation. Her mother told her it was inevitable.

***************************************************

“It’s happening!” cheered Hester, watching the night sky light up with orange fireballs. “He’s hittin’ the whole damn’ site. Better get ready!”

A rejuvenated Claude, lifted Dick up to one mighty shoulder, then the poorly Wade was draped gently upon the other. Klin and Klang tied Leopold to the monster’s back with ripped bed sheets.

Hester watched in delight as Kier’s uniforms ran around like headless chickens. The Oddities were overcoming them, strangling them with chains, seizing their weapons, the torturers were being tortured in a hellish blood red glow.

The cell floor erupted as a whirring silver screw pulsated through it. It withdrew and a top hat poked through the floor.

“Going underground!” hollered the Doc. “C’mon, you sad sacks. Let’s git while the gittin’s good.”

The Oddities clustered around the escape tunnel, and began the leap into darkness.

***********
“Hey, Pops? We gonna face down the Doc and his guys? With guns? Huh?”

“Lorelei, my dear darling daughter, I sometimes wonder if you aren’t actually related to that quack. You know that a gun obsession is an obsession with the male reproductive organ? I thought you’d exorcised that particular beast in Las Vegas.”

Lorelei shuddered with pleasure.

“What a gas! Can we?”

“No, child. This time it’s magic. It’s time you started thinking beyond your guns.”

Krolok stood up.

“Come, my dear. Time to depart.”

Copeley-Syle looked up, startled. He raised a tremulous hand.

“Hello? Can I come too? I did…”

Krolok contemptuously clicked his fingers. The homunculi fell upon the canon, tearing, biting, ripping.
The quivering bloody mass collapsed to the floor. The screams stopped as the tongue and vocal chords were torn away, the disgusting creatures feeding noisily.

“Not the Astral?” moaned Lorelei.

“The Astral,” confirmed Krolok.

***************************************

Doctor Dementer hummed The Count Bishops’ I Take What I Want as the little electric buggy eased it’s way around the death superstore. He pocketed various test tubes and petri dishes in the Chemical Warfare section.

The Oddities were perplexed. As they had descended through the Doc’s hastily excavated tunnel into the underground storage silos, they noticed the faint yellow glow surrounding them. Hester pulled at her beard anxiously and clumps came off in her hand.

When the Doc returned from his shopping expedition, they voiced their fears. With waves of his hand, he pronounced them cured. Leopold launched into a diatribe about traitors, turncoats, and how long would it take him to desert them again for his offspring. The Doc’s good humour evaporated.

“She’s Krolok’s girl. And she’s coming for us. With her daddy. We’ve got to be prepared.”

“Eat shit,” muttered Leopold.

Wade, head still bandaged from the terrible mutilations of Las Vegas, lay wheezing in the trailer of the buggy. He waved feebly at Dementer. The Doc drew close and listened.

“Doc, gimme my glow back. I can’t take no more. Lay me on one of those,” he indicated a small nuclear warhead, “and I’ll take care of Kier and his boys. Maybe even Smithy. Leave you free to deal with Krolock. And her. I’ll see you in the next world.”

The Doc patted his shoulder.

“Whatever you say, Wade. Noble sacrifice.”

***********************************************

The helicopter buzzed them as they fled across the Mojave in a half-track. The Director radioed Kier, astride a magnificent white Arab charger, as he led the remnants of his battered, tatty army across the sand, swigging from a bottle of Stolichnaya.

“What’s that glow?” queried the Director. Tanith squinted through her binoculars.

“It’s the little Alligator Boy!”

“Hah! He’s one of the Specials. Kier! Get your ass over here.”

Tanith strained to make out Wade’s peculiarly phallic companion. She realised.

“Director?”

“Come on, Kier. Move yourself! The others are getting away.”

“Director?”

“Hush now, Tanith. This is men’s work.”

“SMITHY! You patronising sexist bastard! Get us out of here. He’s lying on part of a tactical nuclear missile.”

The Director grabbed the binoculars, half-strangling his assistant.

“Shit! You’re right! Go, Garcia! Go!”

The pilot rammed the stick forward.

Kier’s steed flew towards the faint glow, then reared neighing above the prostrate Oddity.

“Hah! ‘Gator Boy! Meet your death!” shrieked Kier, leaping from the saddle.

“Meet yours, Asshole. Fuck you,” said Wade, smiling. “And the horse you rode in on.”

He thumbed a red button. A silly farting noise came from under him.

“Shit,” said Wade.

“Die!” bellowed Kier, thrusting his sabre forward. He and his horse were instantly vapourised.

The helicopter jounced in the air. Tanith and the Director prayed. Garcia swore as he fought the controls.

The occupants of the half-track looked back in anger at the mushroom cloud.

“I’ll miss him,” said Hester, her voice breaking.

“He died so that we might live,” said the Doc.

“You lying shit,” groaned Leopold.
*****

Samantha appeared before her mother in a simple, white, ankle-length cotton shift. She leaned over and pecked the old woman on the cheek.

“Have you got your bag, hen?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Godspeed.”

Samantha picked up the bag and held her arms aloft. Smiling at her mother, she was enveloped in sparkling white light, and gracefully rose, passing through the bedroom ceiling.

Morag closed her eyes, lay back and exhaled her last exhalation.

Sam saw the castle recede. Soon she was flying through the Astral at tremendous speeds, still managing to focus on the worlds that lay below. Starting simply, with fluffy white clouds, puppies and kittens, she soon began to enjoy the trip. New born babies, sunlight, wine lakes. Surrounded by chuckling faeries performing stunning aerobatics she looked down as the light from her rained over a Punch and Judy show, a sad clown cleaning his glasses, a chef emerging from a huge overcoat clutching sauteed Sugaraspa, a newspaper editor tearing off his clothes and running naked through woods, hugging moss-covered trees and marvelling at his developing nether regions as fur grew upon his legs. As she glided above Alternative Thailand, a huge drowsy-eyed Caucasian man looked up smiling, his index finger touching his headband in salute. The cobra he should have been concentrating upon saw its chance, and struck at its rival between his thighs.

“Aieeeee!”

Sam’s elation faded as she flew out over a dark desert.

*************************************

Krolok and Lorelei finished sucking on Copely-Syle’s bones. He took her hand.

“Come,child.”

They extended their arms and were encased in shimmering dark light. They flew over war, famine, pestilence, death, overdue library books, football hooliganism. graffiti, vandalism, terrorism. Krolok sang What A Wonderful World, and laughed. Lorelei felt an unexpected tension, and gritted her teeth as they reached the desert.

*************************************************

The Doc brought the halftrack to a halt beside the rippling pool.

“It’s an oasis,” gasped Hester.

“It’s where he’ll abandon us,” moped Leopold.

“Hush,” responded the bearded lady. “What’s that?”

Two figures stood beside the pool.

“It’s them,” groaned Hester.

There was a splash and a shriek. A beautiful blonde girl emerged from the water, her white, now see-through garments clinging to her body.

“This is more like it,” enthused Leopold.

The girl placed her white plastic bag inscribed with five mystic blue bars and five runic red letters upon the sand. She reached inside with both hands and withdrew two large cucumbers.

“No!” Krolok blenched.

“What’s up, Pop? It’s just a coupla tallywhacker shaped vegetables.”

Samantha held one green length upright between her breasts, and held the other crossways, about a third of the way down the first. She closed her eyes and sang a high-pitched note of purest faery-song.

Krolok screamed. He seemed paralysed. Each cucumber released a small ring, which floated across to Krolok and covered his eyes. He vomited diced carrots.

The Doc smiled and, reaching beneath the halftrack’s dashboard, retrieved a bag that matched Samantha’s.

“Doc, what do those runic red letters stand for?” asked Hester.

“Tetragrammaton, Eschaton, Satanae, Conflux, Occultum,” replied Dementer.

He jumped from the vehicle, and produced a huge sweetcorn from his bag. The small yellow particles detached themselves, and floated through the air to attach themselves to Krolok’s exposed skin. His screaming intensified, and Lorelei released his hand, staggering backwards.

Samantha, still singing, produced an apple, that floated into Krolok’s mouth, subduing the screams. A tomato appeared from her bag, and landed upon the black sorceror’s nose.
Dementer’s bag gave up a massive aubergine. It floated slowly behind Krolok, turned, appeared to aim between his buttocks, then sped forward at an amazing speed.

“MMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!”

“Pop!”

Lorelei wept as her father crumbled from inside. Soon he was just loose skin, drifting across the desert.

“No!” Lorelei turned to her adversaries.

Samantha stepped forward proferring a cucumber. An internal battle seemed to rage within Lorelei. A hand moved forward reluctantly and seized the vegetable. Sam offered the other cucmber. Again, despite struggling, Lorelei grasped the green protuberance. The girls screamed. And merged. Two shrivelled gherkins fell to the desert floor.

Lorelei looked down at herself in awe. Her black leather garb was white. She blinked and looked at the Oddities and Doc.

“I feel good,” she said in surprise. Then added “Like I knew that I would.”

The Doc stepped forward, hand reaching for her.

“Here he goes,” grumbled Leopold, reaching for a .357 Magnum. “Doing his Darth Vader act.”

Lorelei raised her arms and levitated. The shimmering white light cascaded around her.

“See youse!” she called joyously, “I’m off to Faery Land!” She disappeared..

Doctor Dementer stumbled forward. Leopold pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him in the centre of his back, bursting through the frilled white shirt. He took one pace forward and fell to his knees. Leopold’s second shot bloodied the white hair, and removed his forehead. The jolt knocked off the top hat, which rolled on the sand. A desert breeze lifted it, and sailed it out over the pool. It came to rest floating upon the surface.

It was as if all of the test-tubes and Petri dishes the Doc had lifted from below the earth had shattered. Horrific boils grew and burst upon his skin. His clothes rotted then his skin, muscle, bones, internal organs, all turning to a putrescent mush which sank into the desert sand with dizzying rapidity.

Hester snatched the Magnum from Leopold’s paw, and placed the still warm barrel against his temple. He closed his eyes and said “Do it.”

She thumbed the hammer down, clicked on the safety catch and placed the pistol on the floor of the halftrack. Seizing Leopold’s sackcloth jacket, she flung him onto the sand, then sat in the driver’s seat and started up the vehicle.

“Kill me!” screamed Leopold. “Just kill me! Don’t leave me here!”

The halftrack roared away in a cloud of dust.

*********************************************

The Director reached under his seat and pulled out an ancient Thompson sub-machine gun. He fitted the drum magazine and leant towards the helicopter pilot.

“Garcia, try and get just in front of them, so I can lead ‘em a little.”

He turned to Tanith.

“Heh, heh. Just like Gangbusters.”

As he leaned out of the open door, trying to aim at the speeding halftrack of Oddities, Tanith removed her shoe, placed her bare foot on his Ecclesiatical rump, and shoved. The Director disappeared into the darkness. Tanith slid into the co-pilot’s seat and smiled at the gaping Garcia. She placed the headphones on her head.

“Hello? Brother Francis? Tanith. Hi. Can you patch me through to Deputy Director Carpenter? Thanks. Hi? J. Edgar? Tanith. I regret to report Director Smith as MIA over the Mojave. However, CodeName Physician is terminated. As are Commandant Kier and Camp Grenada. Oddity problem gone to ground. Guess you’re the big cheese now.”

She switched off the radio and removed the headphones. Sitting back with a sigh, she looked at the pilot.

“Let’s go home, Raoul.”

********************************

The Director let go of the machine gun and clutched empty air. He hit the ground head first, his body and limbs protruding from the sand like some malformed writhing Joshua tree. The halftrack hit him at 60 miles an hour, leaving his head buried in the sand. The torso and extremities were shredded by the rear caterpillar tracks, a hand caught between the links surreally waving farewell to the oasis.

*******************************

As moisture seeped into the material, the top hat slowly keeled over, filled with water and sank, one or two bubbles rising to the surface.