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

you might help.  Can you?”
    Standing again, I retort, “That depends.  What sort of help do you need?”
    Extending her hand, she announces, “Darling.”  Like so many hands, it writhes with scar tissue and it twists from broken bones.  I shake it.  The Girl refuses.  “Follow me,” she offers with a toss of her arms, leading us across the street to a holding lane where pizza delivery drivers once waited for permission to enter into that hallowed village.  Now, a large electric cart waits for us there.  “I don’t know what that one told you about this place,” she says, indicating for us to climb inside the car, which she immediately jolts away from the curb and up the winding lane, through an overhanging arch of tree boughs that must have been beautiful back when beauty was a thing, “but this might be the only functional community on the entire coast.  Of course, functional is a relative term.  Though we have a fraction of The Village’s old-world population, our suicide rate is probably many times higher.  Is this so surprising?”
    It’s a rhetorical question.  I abstain from answering.
    Instead, I admire the massive houses, ivy grown walls, weed infested tennis courts, algae filled swimming pools, and sprawling lawns gone to seed.  It must have been some place back in the day.
    Darling continues, “We have most amenities now.  A bit of wind- and solar-powered electricity.  Hot water.  Refrigeration.  Television, if you don’t mind recorded reruns.  Fresh meat.  Fresh fruits and vegetables.”  Driving along at a surprising pace for such a small vehicle, our host runs over a fat squirrel, which expires beneath the cart’s little rubber tires with a shocked squeak.  The woman never flinches or swerves.  “If you decide to stay, you can have your pick of locations.  Most of the houses are available.  Or you can live in one of the communal facilities.  Some prefer it.  They have nightly orgies there.  Nobody cares much about diseases anymore, so all the fun is bareback.  Both genders.  All ages.”
    I grin.  “You sound as though you’re experienced.”
    It’s her turn to shrug.  “It’s something to do.  It fills the holes.”
    Exchanging another sardonic gaze with The Girl, who occupies the rear bench seat and is busy rearranging the disturbed contents of her bottomless purse, I wonder if Darling has made a pun.  The older woman seems not to have noticed, though.  She refuses to belabor the point.
    “We have a community government, of sorts.  I’m president or whatever, but only because nobody else wants the job.  I don’t do much, really.”  Now the lane opens up as we turn right onto what must be a major thoroughfare within the enclave.  “This is the main street of The Village.  It’s circular.  Think of the place as three concentric rings.  The outer ring, we just left.  It’s mostly expensive single-dwelling homes.  They’re nice enough, I guess, but you have to remove the bodies, yourself, and then clean up the blood and guts.  That’s not much fun.  The middle ring is stores, churches, and the communal properties.  Townhomes and a few apartment complexes.  I guess this is where the help lived.  A golf course occupies the center, but nobody plays golf now, although a few old farts have taken to bow hunting the squirrels there.  It’s become a kind of unofficial sport, I guess.  They call it ‘Critter Darts’.  Do you play?”
    Now I’m beginning to wonder if Darling is all here.  Rather than antagonize her with the obvious questions, I tip my head and reply, “Not today.”
    She shrugs again.  “Maybe tomorrow.  By now, they’ve staked a couple of hundred of the little bastards down all over the course.  They’re really thick right now, what with the seasonal fall of acorns, walnuts and chestnuts.  Yard rats.  Tasty, though.  So, anyway, like I said, we have a village government, kind of but not really.  Sometimes we