Free Terminus: A Novella of the Apocalypse by Stephen Donald Huff

all part of the show, you know!  What am I supposed to do?  Just drive up and....  Okay!  Okay!  I’ll cut it short, if you promise not to cut another part of me short!”  Now his voice returns to its former gameshow luster, as he prematurely concludes, “You have asked and I have answered!  Behold!  The Scientist-ist-ist-ist.”  Again, distracted, softer now he adds, “Yes, I have to add my own echoes.  Look around this place, man!  There are no high walls to make one naturally!”
    For final measure, I clout his ear and back away from the table.  He kills the microphone.
    “Let’s go,” I intone, motioning to The Girl.
    “Wait a minute, Scientist,” beckons The Guide, spinning in his swivel chair.  “I’m going to sit this one out for now.  Me and the Clan don’t do so well in there, what with all the murderous interactions and what not.  I don’t care, myself, but those civilized types tend to get upset over random strangulations.  They don’t mind if you come to do it on purpose, you understand, but for some reason they don’t like for it be just a pastime sort of happenstance.  Go figure.”
    My initial reaction is to beat him to death where he sits.  I can see The Girl mulling the same prospects.  Then we both apparently decide he offers continuing utility, since we might need to use his trucks again.
    Still pondering the bizarre turn of events that replaced a public transit service with a band of psychotic stranglers, I push through the truck’s door to lead The Girl toward the community’s front gate.  Halfway there, I suffer another sick realization.  I had assumed they would not shoot me based on the assertions of a lunatic.  Even for Post-Terminus life choices, this is a strange one.  Unfortunately for me, I have come too far to turn back.  While Clan Stranglers scatter from their trucks to mill about doing whatever it is Terminal cases do to fill their time, and then with all those rifles confronting me, I feel caught between the veritable rock and a hard place.  At the least, I believe we are safer with rational recoverees than we are with a mercurial and homicidally inclined Clan.
    Minutes and perhaps a hundred meters later, we stand before the lighted gatehouse.  A mobile barricade wrapped with razor wire blocks the double two-lane entrance to the community.  Pre-Terminus, this was one of those wealthy enclaves with its own private police force, governance committees, and golf course.  Now the same walls that kept out old-world riffraff serve to keep out the new-world Clans, but they won’t do much of a job of it.  Those murderous crows can be surprisingly canny and capable when they want to be, as The Guide’s previous breach of the perimeter has already established.
    “Hold there,” commands a gruff voice, also broadcast through a loudspeaker.  “Carefully, slowly, do as I say when I say to do it.  We’ll shoot on the slightest deviation.  Nod if you understand.  Good.  First, we need the girl to remove the strap of the purse from around her neck, drop it to her feet, and kick it away.  Then the knife.”  When The Girl hesitates, the voice shouts, “Do it!”
    Pursing my lips, I hiss for her to comply.  I hope I haven’t made a mistake keeping her around, as I expected her to be smarter than this.
    Reluctantly, she complies.  She seems naked without that huge knife and gaudy bag.  Smaller, somehow, and less fierce.
    The voice continues, “Both of you, using both hands, lift your shirts.  Still holding the shirt above your waistbands, slowly turn around.  Good.  Now, drop the hem of your shirts, lean forward, and lift your pants legs.  The girl can simply stand for now.” She is wearing skin-tight exercise pants, but I’m wearing denim.  “Good.  Remove your boots and kick off your shoes.  One by one, turn them upside down and shake them.  Fine.”  Without the bullhorn or whatever, we hear the voice tell someone else, “They’re