Inauguration Day Brought to You By Burt's Bees

(Washington D.C., January 21, 2017)

January 23, 2017, 1637 Hours

Looking back, it's hard to figure out why we didn't suspect the bees in the first place.

The scientists kept telling us they were mysteriously disappearing, that something man-made was killing them off. We were bombarded with data saying if the bees disappeared, it would be an epic catastrophe for mankind. The fact was, the bees weren't dying.

They were leaving Earth for reinforcements.

It's been three days since the bees returned, stronger, smarter, and much, much bigger. The Inauguration Day attack in Washington DC was only the beginning, but it put the world on notice they were coming and they were pissed. It didn't help. Nothing did. Much like post-election America, Earth's population was distracted by what was happening in Washington that day. While they were watching in horror as nearly the entire incoming and outgoing American government was gruesomely killed by the now walrus-sized insects, the monsters’ brethren were lying in wait around the world.

As the controversial new President was giving his inaugural address—a hodge podge of contradictions, junk science, and out-and-out lies—the sky went black as the bees descended. The man who had been the most powerful man in the free world for less than 15 minutes looked up, cocking his head like a curious German Shepherd, and could faintly be heard saying, “But he swore he wouldn’t—“

He was cut off by three massive monsters plunging their stingers into him repeatedly as their mandibles tore at his flesh. His screams, blessedly short, were other-worldly and will haunt my nightmares for the rest of my life, a life that is forever changed.

The bloody mess that had once been a billionaire fell lifeless on the ground behind the podium as the rest of the bees began their attack in earnest. A couple networks shut down their feeds once they realized what was happening in an effort to spare viewers the horror of seeing a human being ripped apart. The others, including all the cable news networks, kept rolling as the talking heads on duty provided a running commentary of the end of the world.

The bees at first seemed to slaughter indiscriminately, but soon a pattern emerged for those willing and brave enough to look for it. They were killing all the politicians who had, over the course of their careers, done their damnedest to convince their constituents science was a liberal lie to appeal to their right-wing religious voter base.

How did that turn out for you, fellas?

I’m sorry for the levity. At a time like this, it’s hard to find humor in anything so you take it where you can. Because the alternative is to simply think about what has happened since Inauguration Day and let madness take over. The plain and simple fact is, they’re intelligent. And not some form of basic intelligence or even dolphin-level animal kingdom intelligent. They recognized faces. They knew who they were going after. Seeing who they spared made that all the more apparent.

Somehow, the outgoing First Couple made it out, helped mainly due to the Secret Service immediately abandoning their new boss and his family, rushing to their old one. The Vice President’s wife, a former Secretary of State, her husband, and two former Presidents also made it out. One of the Presidents tripped over the plastic he had been using to protect himself from the light rain and fell hard. He quickly got up and rejoined the group, but I could’ve sworn one of the bees saw this and laughed a little.

The now-former Vice President stayed behind and what happened then will be repeated as legend for centuries. Channeling his inner Theodore Roosevelt, the meme-loving, jovial, grandfatherly man the nation came to love, especially in the final years of his time as the No. 2 man in the White House, threw off his coat, tore open his shirt to reveal a massive eagle tattoo and at least one visible scar across his belly. Open-shirted and disheveled, the first Vice President from the state of Delaware grabbed the nearest bee, punched it in the head, and screamed, “Come on, you motherfuckers! Uncle Joe’s got something for ya!”

The assaulted bee moved in towards the raging career politician but two more immediately grabbed their comrade and flew off, as though protecting the man from harm. The former US Senator seemed to realize what was happening and ran off after his family, grabbing the woman who would’ve been First Lady and her young son, taking them with him to safety.

What we didn’t realize until later due to the incredible carnage we were seeing in Washington, this was happening all over the world. The Kremlin had been absolutely decimated. China, North Korea, Venezuela, Colombia, Central America, Syria, Iran, governments everywhere were seeing its leadership brutally slaughtered along with any family or friends near them.

More telling were the countries not affected at all, such as Australia, the entire continent of Africa except Ethiopia and Libya, and all of the Scandinavian countries including Iceland and Greenland. Nations such as Spain, Germany, France, and Italy saw certain members of the government killed, but not the top leadership. England, on the other hand, saw the same brutality the US did with the exception of the Royal Family, who all escaped without harm. Ireland and Scotland were also spared.

It was all coordinated by the bees. Every attack on the planet was carried out at the same time, lasting a total of about 30 minutes. And then, after the attack, they left. Just like that. Just like that, the worst attack against the governments of the world in its history was over. The sounds of terror, fear, and pain echoed throughout the city. The city’s first responders would have been taxed beyond their breaking point had it not been for the hundreds and thousands of people immediately stepping up to help.

The EMTs and volunteers worked their way to the Presidential podium. The majority of the people in the stands behind it were dead, massive holes in their torsos from the bee stings and bodies torn apart by hungry mandibles. They looked for the now-former President and found nothing but a bloody suit, a red tie with Scotch tape on the back, and one shoe. One of the EMTs, a black lesbian who also worked for the Capital Police, smirked as she threw the suit (and the body that remained) in a trash bag.

Out of nowhere, a voice blasted in my head. Based on the reactions of those around me, I realized I wasn’t the only one hearing (thinking?) the chatter.

“THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING. GO FORWARD AND BE KIND.”

When the voice stopped, people continued to look around and talk amongst themselves for a minute or two. When they understood that was the entirety of the message, they went back to assisting the wounded and recovering the dead.

Later that day, I joined the remaining Representatives and Senators in an emergency session of Congress. With much of the opposition no longer among us, it didn’t take long to vote the former POTUS back into office using emergency powers. It was made easier by the fact nearly all of the newly-elected President’s cabinet had been murdered along with the President. Only his Secretary of Education remained and she could be heard to say “Fuck that” when told she would be the next President. That wasn’t the case anyway since she had never been officially voted into her roll by Congress.

My fellow Senators and I found the newly-reinstated Vice President, now completely shirtless and drinking a beer—and obviously not his first of the day—in the Oval Office after the session. He looked weary, but his eyes were bright and alert. He had blood on his hands and chest (not his) and more scars were visible now in the artificial light of the room.

He motioned to the large red cooler with “VEEP” written in Sharpie on the white lid. One of my colleagues opened it to find a couple cases of iced-down beer. The owner of the brewery had been a vocal supporter of the man replacing William Henry Harrison as the shortest-tenured POTUS in American history (17 minutes, 32 seconds), but good beer is good beer.

He had his feet on the desk and was leaned back in his boss’s chair, looking up at the ceiling while sipping his beer. As we all took a beer and opened it, the Vice President sat up and said:

“A toast. To those we lost, to those we have regained, and to a minor in melittology. So long and thanks for all the honey.”

REVIEW: 'Dark Days' in St. Louis

 

Had a great opportunity to view a panel recently with four of today's best Young Adult authors: Veronica Roth, Aprilynne Pike, Dan Wells, and SJ Kincaid. Wrote up a piece on the experience for Walrus Publishing and they were kind enough to run it on their website. If you would like to read what some great writers have to say about the art of being a scribe, how to get into the business, or just some info on some great books, click HERE.

One More For My Baby and One More For the Road to Hell

“Top that off?”

“Please.”

Mary lifted her glass as John sauntered to her casually to refill it. She watched as the remainder of the Chateau Pavie emptied from the bottle. “Looks like we’ll have to open another, dear. I believe this one has given its all for the cause.”

John looked at the bottle as he walked over to the bar, setting it down. The sound of the bottle being placed on the marble-topped counter made a hollow clink that echoed through the penthouse suite. Before the unpleasantness of the week prior, this was a multi-million dollar home, one of the many John owned. Now, it was simply a gilded refuge where he and Mary, a well-known socialite and sometime high-dollar escort, would apparently live out their final days.

“Would you care for some of the Chateau Lafite?” John asked. “No reason to save it now.”

“That would be delightful,” Mary said, downing the contents of her glass in a most unlady-like fashion. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had the privilege of enjoying such a rare vintage.”

“At this point,” John said, walking to the wine rack to retrieve the bottle, “it may as well be three-dollar rotgut. It’s serving the same purpose and is now as equally valueless.”

“Yes, but there is something so decadent about being in these surroundings, enjoying the finer things as the world burns. Very Nero-esque.”

“Quite.”

He filled her glass half-full with the Chateau Lafite and clinked his already-filled goblet against hers. “Shall we toast?”

“What to this time? A quick death? The resurgence of order? The possibility of at least one good sushi restaurant still not only operating but also capable of delivery?”

“No,” John said. “I say we toast to the next phase of evolution. As we replaced the apes and the caveman, now we, too, have seen our time come and go.”

“Agreed.”

As one, they hoisted their respective glasses, each taking a healthy swallow. John turned to look at a painting on his wall, a rather expensive one painted by a fellow who died sans an ear in the name of love, and was silent. Mary stood from her chair and walked to the window, looking to the street 86 stories below. The flames that had started a week ago with the errant missile strikes were compounded by those lit by the looters, anarchists, and gang members created in their wake. The fire alarm in the building in which they currently resided stopped a day after the attack. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. In fact, given the amount of wine she had consumed on top of the remaining Vicodin she had taken that morning, she honestly wasn’t sure of much, only that she felt deliciously high and wanted to fuck John at least one more time before she either passed out or the security of the building was compromised by the vermin outside.

The missiles, as they discovered via the 24-hour news networks and the internet, were mistakenly launched and were definitely mistakenly aimed at the United States. No matter; the U.S. returned in kind, partially to avenge the original strike and partially as a demonstration during an election year by a president viewed as soft on national security. The back-and-forth went on for nearly 24 hours with hundreds of thousands of casualties on both sides.

As shocking as the incident was, more so was how quickly man devolved into scavengers, looting anything and everything they could get their hands on. Men in Armani suits and women wearing Christian Louboutins were shown on TV fighting one another like animals for bottles of drinking water and cans of food. One particularly gruesome scene shown on television (which continued to not only spew forth information, but to get reactions from the latest reality show contestants featured on their family of networks) showed a famous celebutante eating what appeared to be the remains of a small animal. As the camera zoomed in, a small pink, diamond-studded dog collar lay next to her as she sat on the ground, continuing her morbid meal.

“You know,” John said, breaking the silence and startling Mary slightly, “none of this would have happened had we not elected that ni-“

“Easy, John,” Mary said, a tone of reproach in voice. “I voted for that gentleman and based on the alternative, what other option was there?”

Ironically, as the missiles had struck days before, the penthouse had been the site of a small but very affluent politically rally supporting the very gentleman John spoke of. John could care less about politics, but he knew hosting such an affair for the sitting president would bring the rich, the famous, and the beautiful to his castle in the sky and it did just that. When the bombardment began, there was, of course, utter chaos. The guests dispersed immediately, the smarter ones taking the stairs with others believing the elevator the way to go. The elevators, apparently, had shut down approximately halfway to the ground level. John thought it was safe to say those who chose speed and convenience over safety were probably quite dead now, these nearly six days later. He smiled to himself, thinking of one of the doomed passengers, an actor who made tens of millions of dollars playing the kind of action hero to whom a stuck elevator would be but a minor inconvenience. Irony is a bitch sometimes, John thought.

He set his wine glass on the bar and walked towards Mary. He maneuvered around the body on the floor of the senior senator of their neighboring state, who had happened to be in town for the day and invited himself to the soiree. All but he, Mary, and John had remained in the penthouse and when the building began to lose power, the security measures John had installed had turned the top two floors into a virtual panic room; no one could get in or out. The senator became unhinged at the prospect of being unable to leave. He also became rather aggressive towards Mary and had decided repopulation of the Earth should begin then and there. The small .380 Mary carried in her Prada clutch gave the senator two reasons not to continue his line of thinking; one in his gut and the other in his left eye.

John stood next to Mary, placing his arm low around her waist with his hand resting on her hip. She immediately moved closer to him, laying her head on his chest and smiling a stoned little smile. They both knew what this was. They were casual acquaintances in the reality before the bombs, friendly enough for the occasional dinner or roll in the sack (or in one instance, the private bathroom in the suite of a mutual friend during a popular, well-watched football game), but were never emotionally intimate. Now, they were foxhole companions. They knew they were probably the last person the other would ever spend time with and given the accommodations and the fact both were equal parts attractive and shallow, there were far worse ways to go.

“So, good sir, where do we go from here?” Mary asked, slurring the tiniest bit.

“According to my security cameras, there is a pack of gentlemen making their way up the stairs as we speak,” John said, looking at the top of Mary’s still well-coiffed head. “I make them out to be about 15 in number, they were at the 50^th floor a moment ago, and I believe they are ill-intentioned. They also have enough weaponry to make short work of the door.”

“Hmmmmm…” Mary said dreamily.

“Your thoughts on the situation, madam? Shall we try to negotiate with them? Shall we attempt to hide?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think we both know what has to happen. Our kind and their kind do not mix well. That is a basic truth that was, is, and will forever be a reality.

“What I would like,” she said, “is for you to kiss me. A good kiss. A kiss that will stop time.”

She looked up at him, eyes beginning to water and a tear spilling down her left cheek.

He leaned down and kissed her. It was rough, yet tender. It was a kiss that said everything it needed to. As they hungrily, passionately gave themselves to one another, knowing it would be the last time they shared this experience with each other, or with anyone for that matter, John slowly took the snub-nosed .38 from his jacket pocket and pointed it at her head.

As he cocked the hammer, the door to the penthouse exploded, a gang of armed and dirty scavengers flooding through. As John opened his eyes to look at Mary for a final time, he saw she had her .380 pointed at his temple.

“John.”

“Mary.”