Mutant Moon (2) She smiled, a smile like a rainbow you'd only see in fairy tale books. Her big, almond shaped green eyes sparkled, her teeth a perfect white; braces had never touched these ivories. ''I'm going your way, if you're going toward Fuckaduck.'' Fuckaduck? Milo thought. What the FUCK is that? ''I'm sorry,'' he said. ''I...I don't think I'm going anywhere near there, wherever there is.'' Her smile grew wider, her emerald eyes sparkling even more, her little pug nose twitching like the character on the old TV series, Bewitched. ''Fuckaduck,'' she explained, '' is wherever you want it to be. Don't you ever dream?'' Milo stopped and thought about that for a moment; Yes, I dream, he thought. But you wouldn't want to SEE my dreams, baby. An old song suddenly came to mind, even though his normally mixed up brain would usually forget such things; Sweet dreams, baby.....sweeeeeeeetttt dreams, baby.... WHO WAS THAT? No matter; take care of the business at hand, Mr. Takingcareofbusiness. ''Yeah....I dream. If that's what you could call it.'' She shot him a look of Yeah....right. Beautiful eyes, but all knowing eyes, he thought. Don't let her beauty get to your head. ''Yeah,'' she said. ''Whatever. Have you seen any rocks out here? '' - she glanced around, still using her hand as a visor - '' I hunt rocks.'' He hadn't noticed it before, {mainly because he'd been checking out her figure}, but she had tattoos; no, designs, painted on her face and arms. Peace signs, butterflies, flowers. ''Rocks?'' Milo asked, still looking at her slim build. Pert breasts, wide hips, small round ass. Yes; he'd been out here too long. '' Why rocks? Well, I mean, all that's left out here is fallout dust and shit like that'' - he nodded his head toward the highway - ''why would rocks mean jack shit, if you'll excuse my language, and attitude.'' First things first, he thought. Damn....you've probably offended her. Too late. She reached up and grabbed a chain made of rawhide leather that was hanging around her neck, and shook it. Milo watched, in awe, in awe of the fact she was designed this way, yet so young, so beautiful, seemed to be....so....untouched? ''See this?'' she asked, as if Milo should have seen this at least ten years ago, or longer. ''It's a necklace of sun stones, well, I mean....well, okay, man, just look.'' He did. As she shook it, it was like watching a thousand sunsets blurring his vision; a necklace of sunspots, like a thousand times Milo had wished he'd been the man, hey, motherfucker, I'm the king of the highway, remember? What I want is MINE, man, I mean....hey, I mean... His eyes fixed on the stones, her voice fixed upon his medulla oblongata, he said, ''I...I wished I'd seen this a long time ago,'' he said, 'but...'' ''But nothing,'' she said, her eyes now said, as if she'd inherited some type of hippie gene. ''Too late,'' she said. ''Too goddam late. It's cool....it's cool....it's cool....'' she said. ''Who are you?'' Milo managed to say. She smiled again, this time, more of an evil grin than a smile. ''Looks can be decieving, huh?'' she said. ''I wish I'd been so ....so...innocent, but, that's the way it goes, huh?'' ''What do the stones mean?'' Milo screamed. ''Think about it,'' she said. ''Do you want a ride or not?'' he said, losing his patience. ''Like I said, if you're going toward Fuckaduck, I'll...'' ''Okay, okay,'' he said, giving in. ''Sure, I'll get you there. I have to make one stop first, then we're on our way. Okay?'' She didn't say anything, just climbed in and shut the door. Moments later, the king of the highway wore the necklace of stones , his queen at his side, on their way to oblivion. ~**~ AFTER driving about a mile in an uncomfortable silence, he turned to her, saying; ''As I was saying awhile ago, what do the stones stand for? They must have some sort of special meaning for you to collect them, wear them around your neck.'' She smiled. ''Yes, they do have a special meaning....well, power, that is.'' She shook them again, and to Milo, they sounded like the rattle of old bones. '' A very special power.'' Hoo-doo, voo-doo bullshit, Milo thought, but kept his opinion to himself, at least for now. Goddamn, desert gypsy, he thought. They'll tell you or sell you anything for a ride, or a drink of water. ''Special powers, huh?'' ''Very, very special.'' ''I see....'' he said, training his eyes back on the road. The sun was blinding, so he reached up to lower his visor. ''So, in other words, Miss Fuckaduck, you can do magic with them, that kind of shit, right?'' She shot him a dirty look, her lips pouty. ''Ha-ha,'' she said. ''Ha-ha, mister funny man, you're a real riot.'' ''Just trying to understand what this power is you're talking about, that's all. I've never met a real life desert gypsy before.'' She glared at him, wide eyed. ''Is that what you think I am? A gypsy?! '' ''I...I didn't know. I mean, the way you're dressed and all, what did you expect me to think? You were a Girl Scout out earning a merit badge?'' ''True,'' she said, glancing down at her garb. ''I can see that....I guess.'' ''Well?'' he said, turning on the radio. As usual, nothing but dead silence puncuated by ocassional bursts of static. ''What kind of powers do those fancy rocks hold?'' ''It'll take too much time to explain,'' she said. ''I know....pull over to the side of the road, up there where that dead armidillo is laying? '' - she pointed out the windshield at a pile of steaming roadkill - ''and I'll show you what these stones can do.'' As Milo neared the bloody mess, he slowed down, pulling over by the median and putting it in park. He shut the engine off, leaned back in his seat, and let out a long, exasperated sigh. ''Well? I'm waiting, Miss Fuckyducky.'' She shot him another dirty look, saying, ''Okay, smartass, watch this.'' She climbed out of the car, walking over to the steaming mess, and leaned over it, shaking the stones and chanting something under her breath. Not wanting to get out in the heat, but, not wanting to miss the show, he climbed out as well, walking close for a better look. He immediately wished he hadn't bothered; the armidillo was a bloody mess. It had been run over, more than once, it looked like, smashed flat in the middle of it's back, it's steaming guts hanging out of it's mouth and asshole. It's eyes bulged from their sockets like bloody, hard boiled eggs, and it stunk to high Heaven, the relentless sun enhancing the odor ten fold. He backed away a little, choking back bile, as she continued to chant some sort of nonsensical jibberish under her breath, the words foreign and meaningless to Milo. He stood there shaking his head, holding his breath, anxious for the charade to end before he passed out from the heat. Then suddenly, she stood upright and turned to look at him, a look of defiance, ...triumph? ''Now, mister smarty-pants, take a look at that!'' She pointed to the stinking mess lying at her feet. Milo reluctantly walked closer, peering over her shoulder at the poor beast, and that's when he saw it move. He jumped backward, almost tripping over his own feet, gasping for breath. The creature's eyes fluttered weakly, it's ears perking up like an attentive dog. It began moving it's feet franticly, attempting to right itself, but to avail considering it's wounds. It's back was broken, it's guts smashed out, so even though revived from the dead it could no longer function as it had before. ''Why....why can't it move?'' Milo asked, his eyes as wide as golfballs. He immediately felt stupid for asking; the reason for the creature's immobility was obvious. ''Well, silly, why do you think?'' she said, cracking a cocky grin. She was enjoying this. ''I think it's sooooo obvious, isn't it?'' ''I mean....well, if you bring it back to life, them why can't you make it move again?'' He was still having alot of difficulty believing his eyes. ''Because I can only bring things back to life, not heal their wounds. You see, their wounds are permanent, but their life can be restored, I mean, souls and all. I've never been able to heal the wounds, and believe me, I've tried. I guess it's not considered to be in the natural order of things.'' ''There's nothing natural about this,'' he said, still shaking his head. ''Nothing natural at all.'' ''Sorry,'' she said. ''Best explanation I can give you right now.'' ''How long have you been able to do this?'' he asked, watching the little creature squirm ''All my life, as far back as I can remember. My parents showed me how, right after the bombs.'' ''You parents?'' he said, bewildered. He'd pictured her being born of unnatural origins. ''Yeah, they told me that the power had something to do with some kind of radiation or something left over from the bombs, made these rocks like they are. As you can see, I haven't had any reason to doubt them.'' As Milo watched the armidillo squirming, he suddenly got an idea. ''Do these stones work on humans?'' he asked, smiling. ''Never tried it on humans before, only animals, reptiles.'' He pointed at the armidillo. ''Take your new friend there, put him in the back seat. I've got someone who I know would just love to meet you.'' A couple of minutes later, they were back on the road to Purgatory, Milo hoping and praying that Wilson was still alive. ~**~ The Boarsnet Bar had the same dead reek as always. Manny�s face had aged to gray again, as he waited for the bartender�s drink. He leered greedily the moment he saw the girl, his smile made worse by the dead flesh melting a little down his face, revealing part of his jaw bone. The girl looked at him as he looked at her, as a piece of meat for sale. �I�d do anything for you,� Manny said. �Anything?� the girl asked quietly. �Anything?� Manny leered worse, and Milo felt a flicker of worry. Oh, the pain of Purgatory, almost being unable to care but still capable of it, sometimes. He�d brought her here, so he�d have some responsibility. One more nightmare to add to the horrors of each night. The girl�s lack of fear was worse for him � it meant she wasn�t afraid, wasn�t cautious, and oh so likely to get killed. How had she lived this long? How had she lived long enough to even grow up? �Yeah,� Manny said, �anything!� �I couldn�t be with a man like you,� she said aloud. Manny slapped his hands on the counter, eager for one kind of life when so readily slapped down by the other. �Barkeep, where�s my buzzard juice?� Willie popped out of nowhere, a graying figure but still intact. Upon the sight of the girl, he offered it to her instead. �It�s on the house, kid.� �Name�s Hope, actually,� she said. She tossed her head in a way that made the stones and her breasts jingle. The undead thought of what it would be like to have that flesh. Dessert before dinner, at the very least. Milo wondered if that was how she�d lived this long. There were no rules on how long one could be with the living, and that meant keeping them alive. The girl picked up the drink and sniffed it. �Poison!� She threw it away immediately against the wall, painting it with the death juice. Manny roared in rage, hating her for denying him the taste of life they all craved. He lunged for Hope. He seized her necklace as he fell too far, trying to pull her down. Hope kneeled down beside him and started chanting. The sing-song gibberish locked Nolan and Willie in place. The stink of spilled buzzard juice as it ate threw the wall was overwhelmed by the smell as Manny vomited and quaked. Willie could not move, not sure if the man was being promoted to fully dead. As he shook, his body began to piece itself together like a jigsaw puzzle or body art exhibit. This is what happened to a dead man brought back to life. Willie started screaming in pain for all the injuries his body had had but hadn�t felt for being dead. He was alive, and it was torture. �Kill me! Kill me!� he let out between the incoherent screams of agony. �It�s going to take months before all those injuries heal,� Hope stated with absolute authority. And a dozen others who had come at the sounds of Manny�s un-death � expecting a man being killed and thus soon offered for dinner � saw enough that they ran away. No one would touch Hope now without her permission, and even then might not. This is how she�d lived this long. �Milo, come here.� And Milo feared for himself far more than he�d ever feared for her. There was Hope in Purgatory, and by fuckaduck, it might be worse than Hell. Willie�s new friends offered Hope their best fresh kill, a whole raw body to be made as she wished it. Mile knew it as a crazy gone sane from seeing Manny�s undeath, only to commit suicide again. Milo said nothing as he shook from his own healing, barely able to walk, not certain if he was grateful or hateful for the gift of life. Living hurt. How could he have dreamed about this? Death � real death - would be better, except that he�d be in the Hell of his nightmares and no end to the pain. Hope took a knife and bowl from someone who offered it reverently. Hope held her the knife and necklace in one hand and bowl in another, next to the neck of the dead man. The chanting rippled and flowed around the suicide�s bruised neck. What was the point, if the injury would not heal, and he�d die of it again soon? Or did she just want very fresh meat? He awoke as his body reformed some, but the bruising about his neck remained. He screamed a gurgling cry and arched his back. Hope promptly but gently punctured a hole in his neck. The now fresh blood flowed into the bowl, splashing like a red fountain of life. When the bowl overflowed, Hope took it to her mouth and drank her fill. It was life, and she drank of the life, and all who were there witnessed it. The man died a second time from blood loss, and Hope did nothing about it this time. Maybe she didn�t have to. Milo tried to stay back, holding his hands, staring at the gray-white pall of someone who had not been under a warm living sun for far too long. His skin was intact, but mottled and dry from the hot sun. He was thirsty from the sun. He needed a drink. Before he could refuse, Hope gave him the remnants of the bowl. Milo thought of his mother�s words: Never, ever, go cannibal. But was drinking blood cannibalism? And especially if the person didn�t stay dead, so there was no permanent death? Then it was not murder � it was merely a meal. And if he outraged Hope � well, Hell had no fury like a woman scorned. He drank and tried not to be grateful. The stream of visitors to Hope was a joke upon itself. She stroked the broken back of the armadillo, now a pet. The girl healed all the others who came, taking as tokens or token payment dead things or objects of a dead civilization that might even give her more power over others. But none of that mattered. Hope was here, there was nothing worse to fear, and they would all live forever and ever in her glory. And Milo had brought her here. Others thanked him, words he had not heard in ages and wished weren�t used. Here was a new torture in his Purgatory � guilt of life and Hope. Milo flexed his hands, feeling so dry he grew stiff in the heat. As if his body itself was drying to death. He trudged to the �barn� to get a fresh drink. The road kill Hope had sent him to retrieve had been hooked up to old milking equipment. There were no udders, only holes upon their bodies. Prostitutes who had sold their bodies and souls now worked as modern day virtuous milk-maids. They put the suction things upon the wounds and pumped made up pumps from bits of cars and junk. Out came fresh blood, freely distributed in their twice daily Communion with Hope. After the service, Hope would return life to all those here. All were fed, and no one died as a result. The suicide man, Hope�s first blood offering, ran this place. Milo tried not to stare at the rubber tubing patch he had in his neck. It only opened for Hope, when she asked for it, which was rarely. Whether it was given to flow freely at other times Milo never asked. Milo sat in the mock shade of the dried wood and tin shelter. A middle aged woman with a twisted body and more twisted child brought him a cup. �Take the child to Hope,� Milo said. �Let her cure him.� �She can�t.� The mother�s face was sad. The child�s might have been, too, but the flesh was so contorted that it might have even been smiling. �Mutations are genetic injuries � thus they are permanent.� If she could cure the weird ones born after the war, make them look as she did, he might be able to forgive the evilly kind support structure she was building. Yet, if true, then there was no hope of the next generation being better than the last one. All of the adults were sick and twisted and irradiated and burned and empty. Their children looked on the outside like they felt � if anything at all � on the inside. Purgatory had restored people. However, if they still had the hell of mutated people � or even those like this child breeding of more freaks, their descendants � this Purgatory could go on and on forever. Or even grow into something worse as those freaks that did not die at birth now lived. �There is no Hope for your child, then,� Milo said, now wistful. He bowed his head and tried to remember his own mother. Tears refused to come; he was too dry. The heat had sucked the life from him. He tried to swallow the life giving blood but couldn�t. His throat refused to work. Milo forced himself up to seek Hope. His legs were now like marionette wood, jerkily bending and straightening. He tried to scream for her, but his voice was a dry croak. A zombie moan. The sound of the dying. Of the undead. He found Hope in what had been Willie�s bar. �Please, help me,� he tried to beg. Beautiful, precious Hope offered her kind and gentle gaze upon him. How he would have loved to love her. How he hated himself for hating her. She held out her hands and necklace of sun stones and sang. It was a song of angels now familiar, though he never quite caught the words. Maybe that was on purpose, so that no one else could do what she did. A way to continue protecting her own life, though there was no risk of that given how well she sustained theirs. Or maybe no one else who could it. Hope, born of the lost souls of the pre-apoloypse, might be the last of her kind. She was certainly their last hope. Milo felt his flesh return to normal. The blood he drank slid smoothly down his throat, imparting warmth and life to him. Alive. He was alive again. But didn�t that mean he had to be dead? �How could I need you to heal me?� Milo demanded. �Buzzard juice is a poison.� �It brings the dead back!� �No. It kills those who drink it, a poison that only works if you stop taking it. If you keep taking it, then sustains them � you - in a half-life. I can heal you temporarily, bringing you back to full life for a while. But there is damage to your cells, your very essence. I can only bring back the dead. I cannot repair injuries.� �Then where is buzzard juice?� �You can�t take it. You would back like you were. Half dead, all the time.� �We�re all the walking wounded.� �Better than the living dead,� Hope stated with a finality that would have frightened Milo except for the growing anger in his now human gut. �Where is the buzzard juice?� Milo gritted and groaned out. �I had it all destroyed.� Milo felt rage flare, a hatred he dared not reveal. He knew what she could do, might do, and had yet had the conscience and kindness not to do. He would have to rely upon her for his survival. An addiction that could never be cured, except by death, and she could undo that escape clause, too. If not for her killing him by kindness, this would be Hell. And that was Purgatory for him. Milo sat in a silent corner of an abandoned building, holding his last two cans. The last of his Mother�s stash. The last bit of life she had left him. It truly was the last, since he didn�t count as alive anymore. He�d been eating the real food from time to time, as soon as possible after Hope�s healings of him. The reminder of his death left him hungering for life. Hope offered love freely, but Milo could not take it. So he ate the remaining bits of his old life, feeling his renewed gut suck the life out of the food and release it into his body in a rush that might have been heavenly. Might have been, if not for the knowledge of how his body had been restored temporarily. How much of a waste had it been for him to eat these canned stores? If he was dead, how could eating the food have restored him? Maybe it had merely calmed him, feeding an emotional hunger dying left in the walking dead. Feeding off his mother�s life�s gift, feeding the need that way, instead of from human flesh. She�d denied herself food so often during the hungry years to make sure he kept his strength up. So, in a way, he was feeding off her very life and flesh, what she gave up so that he might live. Fat lot of good that did in the end. He�d still died, and still lead even more to their deaths. How many could have lived if he�d known he was dead and given the food to those not yet dead, keep death thus at bay? He thought that thought and felt the black guilt threaten to return. Those he�d lead to their deaths, because he hadn�t realized he, too, was dead. By feeding off his mother�s food stash, he�d fed his own delusions of life, and thus lead to even more death. Regret, too, hovered in his mind. He was tired. He could not be tired unto death; Hope would fix that. Yet the intense hunger remained, despite her healing. He wanted to eat this food, more than anything. The makeshift drums began like the patter of rain. Made from skin offered by the never dead, the drums erupted into a fierce storm. The voices joined in a sing song chant that yielded life after death to them all. Even the animals mewled and cried. At least they strained from their bonds in an effort to escape the horror. They, at least, were intelligent enough to recognize their chains and seek to be free. And Hope blessed the animals, each and every one. As happened before every sunrise, the animals were revived from their night�s �rest�. Then the blood flowed. It was collected for the sunrise Communion. Their common meal of life blood. Milo had drunk it at first in hope that Hope�s gift would keep the need for cannibalism at bay. Then of fear for those newcomers that had come to kill and feed and were instead fed upon. They still lay in the barn, tied and shackled, bled to feed those worthy of worship in Hope�s alter. The alter and temple had once been Willie�s bar. It was still their �watering� hole, though there was no more water in Purgatory anymore. A ragtag straggler came in, holding himself tight against the hot wind and radioactive dust it carried. Hope exited the barn, her followers carrying the blessed blood of life. Milo watched through the crack in the wooden wall as the man stared at her and it in eager need. Life, sweet life. Hope was eternally young, forever reborn, and never aged a day. All of the bomb�s survivors were wizened crones and creaking skeletons. Their few children were twisted and warped, bumped and broken. Hope alone was the only beautifully innocent creature in Purgatory. And she glowed like a light, attracting all who heard her drums and saw the lack of defenses. Hope had had them all torn down. The straggler approached her, hard in course and eager to devour all that she offered. He was a moth drawn to flame. He took the blood from her proffered goblet and drank. A new convert, then. Any straggler who dared Hope for hope herself ended up in the shed, serving her purpose in a more painful way. �Milo, we�re gaining more people.� Milo was kneeled before her, staring at the ground. He could not bear to look at her shining, beautiful face. �We need more livestock to sustain them.� Milo felt cold inside, knowing it was almost time for his next healing. He did not have the mobility to harm her, to even dare think of escape through the adoring throng. No one spoke. All others were silent in awed reverence of her words. One of the attendants began bouncing and jiggling suddenly. The mutant baby it held cried, more like a wounded kitten than a real baby. Hope held out her hands and the mother gave Hope her firstborn without hesitation. Hope put a hand on the child, sang a soft sing song, and the crying stopped. As Hope handed back the swaddled bundle, an edge slipped down. It was a hideous thing, something only a mother could love. A monstrosity born only to die, because it had no hope of living in the real world. Milo still stared at it, wondering if he were the only one with even a fragment of a soul left. All the other undead like him were either in the barn for daring to seek to cause all to lose Hope or for trying to escape Purgatory for their own private hell. Those fellow undead who still �lived� in the barn had compassionately had their skulls crushed so that they were dumber than the livestock that still, instinctively, sought escape. Hope kneeled down between Milo and the child. She smiled gently. �I found a can of food in your cupboard,� Hope said. Milo�s eyes turned to her against his will. �Why do you have it?� Milo said nothing, as hard as the stone as he wished he was. �We don�t need food like that anymore.� �What are you going to do about that, Hope?� Milo challenged. �Kill me?� �No. There�s no more death anymore, as we all hoped there would be. And there is no more cannibalism, or murder, or thievery.� Hope produced his last canned good from a hidden place. �There�s not even hunger and thirst any more. Life is as good as it will ever get, for all that we, Hope, it can be.� �You said there was not enough `food� for everyone, Hope. What other option is there, but to starve?� Milo challenged her. He stared at the old steel can as if he could drill a hole in it with his eyes and devour the unknown contents that way. The hunger threatened to overwhelm him. Hope took a knife from someone. The canned lid popped open with her skilled single knife maneuver. Beets. He hated beets. But his mother had stored that away for him. He would have eaten it anyway. The hunger, that reminder of life, was the center of his universe. �Oh, disgusting,� Hope cried, tossing it into the air. Her beloved dead armadillo scurried on its broken back, digging its claws in until it scampered up to the spilled remnants of Milo�s gut. It eagerly and instinctively devoured the food, not noticing or caring that bits of beet fell out of a hole where one of its legs had been. Running on habit, it ate, fueled more by Hope than real life. Hope rose and took a single Communion bowl. The blood was fresh from that morning, but had started to congeal. It was disgusting. It was fit for flies, but there were no flies left since Hope�s arrival. No insects at all in Purgatory. She said it was a sign of Heaven. Milo thought it was because the last living things in Purgatory had fled from the Hell it had become. Oh, how he wished to flee. To leave. To be King of the Road and be so, so far from this place. The hunger was screaming within him. He began screaming, the half-dead man sustained by buzzard juice and then Hope itself asking for death than the false lie of a life she offered. �I love you,� she whispered. Then she held his nose and poured the life blood he had denied as long as possible down his throat. Milo had his full load. He ready to go home. Home? To fuck with Fuckaduck, with their so called salvation, and the Hope of their Eternal Life. To Hell with Purgatory, Milo thought. But the long day in the hot sun had brought the drying roughness back to his non-dead carcass hands. Desert duty made him look like a desiccated mummy, if he was gone too long. Much longer than his shift, or if he didn't return at all, he'd dry out into a thinking kindling piece, ready for the next wildfire to consume. If he returned, she would restore his normal, life-like appearance. Life-like. Milo thought briefly of his mother, who he wanted to think was in Heaven. The fires of her fever ripped her away from him, destroying her body but not her soul. No one, nothing, could return his soul. But restoring his body's appearance would return a semblance of safety, security, and maybe even a modicum of sanity. Milo stared down at the load of dead animals in his vehicle, waiting their restoration to "life", and then being harnessed to their greater purpose � eternal service of Hope in Hell. He and the road kill, thinking they had control over the road and then were crushed by it. Only to be reborn into a living death fueled by a false Hope that would never end. He and the road kill, they weren't so different after all.
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