Day Late, Armageddon Short

By William DeGeest

                The lead rider looked down at the slightly more than middle aged woman that was standing in front of him in the middle of her driveway.

                He raised his head to scan the landscape. Straight ahead was an unremarkable farmhouse and a few outbuildings. The grass was mostly brown and crispy. The sky was a sickly yellow with a dull sun trying to shine through. Off in the distance of the flat plain, green and gold lightning flashed from rust colored clouds. Occasionally tiny pieces of ash fell.

                Turning back to the woman, he looked her up and down. Flannel shirt, denim bib overalls, and muck boots. Long gray-brown hair loosely tied up in back. A gray and white cat came up and rubbed against her leg. He turned in his saddle to see his three companions. They shrugged.

                “What the f…” he muttered.

                “So,” the woman said, “Pale horse and whatnot. Isn’t Hell supposed to be coming with you?”

                The rider turned back. “No offense lady, but I think it beat us here. Obviously, you know who we are.”

                “Yeah, not that hard to figure. You’d be Death. That one on the right is War and on the left is Famine. Middle guy is Pestilence. Or do you go by Plague?”

                The rider sat a bit taller. “Either is good. Thanks.”

                “Well, I suppose you are wondering what in world is going on. Come on in the house. Name’s Rose, by the way,” the woman said.

                The riders got down from their horses and started to follow Rose up the drive to the house. The cat darted in and out of their legs.

                “I have to say, those are some nice looking horses you fellas have. I figured they would be all,” Rose twisted her face and raised her hands to look like claws.

                She pointed at the frail figure of Famine.

“I had a paint like that when I was a kid. How long have been riding her?”

                “Since the beginning of time,” replied Famine.

                “Oh. That makes sense, I guess. Well, I just made some biscuits this morning. I still have some coffee if anybody is interested.”

                Death and Pestilence looked at each other and started nodding their heads.

                Rose gave them a slight smile and nodded back.

                “Heck, I might even have a bit of lemonade.”

                War’s helmeted skull went to Rose.

                “Lemonade?” he asked.

                “Yep. Not fresh though. Drink mix.”

                His shoulders dropped an almost imperceptible amount.

                “Oh. Oh, that would be fine, thank you.” His glowing red eyes dimmed a bit.

                Before long the group made it inside Rose’s modest but cozy home. The Four Horsemen bobbed their heads around, trying to take it in. Knick-knacks, family photos, overstuffed furniture. A bit of a change from what they were used to.

                Rose told them to follow her into the kitchen have a seat while she got the coffee going. It was a tight fit around the small table but not so bad as to be uncomfortable.

                “Okay. Hmm. It must have started about ten years ago because George, that would be my husband, died the year before. Anyways, the first thing was robots.”

                “First thing?” Death asked.

                “Oh, yeah. First thing.” She set a plate full of biscuits on the table. “Got some chokecherry jam. Anybody?”

                Famine lifted his hand up from under the table.

                Rose grabbed the jam and a butter knife as she continued.

                “Some military funded outfit on the east coast was developing autonomous drones and made this artificial to-damned-intelligent software and put it into these walking robots of theirs. Big news. All over the internet and whatnot. Well, turns out those movies from the 80’s were right and once them metal and polymer things got to thinking for themselves, they decided we had to go.”

                Famine popped some jelly and biscuit into his mouth. His eyes shut as he slowly chewed.

                “Jesus Christ, this is good,” he said softly.

                “While all of that was just getting going,” she said, mixing up a pitcher of lemonade, “some other eggheads on the west coast were figuring out how to turn dormant genes on and off. Why? Oh, they had some good reason, I suppose. According to what I read they did it by engineering their own viruses that would go into cells and muck about. Well, they were making some good progress and started to experiment on domesticated poultry and before you could say, ‘Michael Crichton,’ we had dinosaur chickens roaming the earth. It would be hilarious if it weren’t so damn terrifying.”

                The Horseman looked at each other. War took his helmet off and set it on the table to put his hand on his forehead. Rose set a glass in front of him and poured from the pitcher.

                “So, we had those two things going on for a while. Doing some pretty good damage. Got into,” Rose put up air-quotes,” a ‘limited nuclear engagement’ with the robots that, as one would guess, didn’t go well for anybody. But the big problem there was that was around the time the recently deceased started coming back to life.”

                “Zombies?” Famine said. His mouth full of biscuit number two.

                Rose took the coffee pot off the maker and filled Pestilence and Death’s cups. And one for herself.

                “Why not, huh?” she said as she sat on a stool by the counter. “The same genius brains who made the dino cluckers made another virus to shut ‘em down. You can probably guess what happened next. A billion irradiated living dead traipsing around. This time the movies got it partially wrong. Yeah, they still wanted to eat our flesh, but a headshot wouldn’t put them down. Got pretty messy. About three months into that is when the asteroid hit.”

                Pestilence was mid-sip and nearly did a spit-take. War stared at Rose, blinking. Death set his elbows on the table and put his face in his hands. Famine stopped chewing his fourth biscuit and looked at his companions.

                Rose set her cup on the counter.

                “Heck, fellas. I haven’t even got to the alien invasion yet.”

                Death’s gray skin seemed to flush. Pestilence and War looked at each other with blank expressions. War said, “holy shit,” and Pestilence kicked him under the table. Famine swallowed his mouthful.

                The rest of the afternoon was like that. Rose talked of more and more calamities while the Horsemen sat in bewilderment. Details became harder and harder to come by as each disaster came down but Rose did her best to fill them in.

                “Things have calmed down a bit. Caught a lucky break with the chickasaurses liking the taste of alien flesh more than ours. Couldn’t get much to grow in the garden for the longest time. Well, except for the rhubarb. That came back year after year no matter what. But I still have some food storage left. George and I just always did what our folks and grandfolks did. Save for a rainy day. Or a fire from the sky day. Dead rising from the grave day. You get the idea.”

                Death pushed himself away from the table and turned to his fellow riders.

                “Getting late. We should probably be moving on,” he said.

                “Sorry you had to hear all of this from me, fellas.”

                The Horsemen stood in unison, Famine’s now protruding belly catching a little on the table. War grabbed his helmet. A cat was curled up inside. He gingerly put it back on the table.

                “No,” Death said, “that’s fine. We had to find out somehow.”

                “Pretty disturbing stuff, I know,” Rose said.

                Death gave a little grin.

                “Not really. Not to us anyway. It’s just…” He looked out the window at the sky. “…it’s just that most of this was supposed to be our job, you know? Well, other than the alien invasion and the octopus uprising. It was all a bit of shock to hear at once. We are kind of rudderless right now.”

                “What are you going to do?” Rose asked.

                “Good question,” he said as they all walked to the door.

                They all stood together in silence back on the driveway where the day had started.

                “Is there anything you really miss from before, Rose?” Pestilence asked.

                “Not much really. George and I were always homebodies. I miss him, of course. But I still love living on the prairie. Although,” Rose paused, “I really miss going to the races. Especially at the state fair grounds. Too far now and I don’t think any cars run anymore. Hear they are having dinosaur chicken fights there these days.”

              The answer seemed to satisfy the Horseman. He uttered a small “hmm” and walked to his steed.

               One by one the Horsemen saddled up. All four raised their right hands at the elbow for Rose.

              “Thank you for your hospitality.” Death said. The others nodded in agreement.

              “If you boys ever happen to make it back to these parts you will be welcome.” Rose said.

              The riders turned their mounts and headed down the drive toward the road. They seemed to disappear into a fog that wasn’t there. Rose turned back to the house. The distant storm clouds were getting closer. A cat rubbed against her leg.

              “Well, if there is one thing we could always count on here in South Dakota, cat, is that the weather will always change.”

              Rose went back inside her house to spray Lysol on the chair Pestilence had been sitting on.

              FIN