Topher's Ton

Survival of the Fittest-1

Survival of the FittestIt was the end of the world, and Topher needed a new linen suit. Unfortunately, some maniacs from the west attacked his caravan before he could find one, so he had to put off the search until later, unless he died, of course, in which case the point was moot. But at least he’d put on clean underwear, not that going into battle wearing soiled undergarments was even an option. It was a longstanding Bill family tradition to put on clean underthings before all major life events, stretching back to the days of Wilhelm Bill the Mangler who, having married into French aristocracy, fought against his homeland during the Franco-Prussian War, thus earning the title Wilhelm Bill the Sonofabitch. Besides, Topher considered himself a gentleman, and gentlemen did not die while wearing dirty drawers.

But he wasn’t dead. Not yet.

He had a battle to win, crazy people to kill, so he did what great leaders did: he strode through the maelstrom of bullets and grenades, Molotov cocktails and flamethrowers, arsenic-laced bullets, whip-cracks, moans, shrieks, and cries, and barked orders until his voice went hoarse.

Then a spear zipped by his head and he nearly soiled himself.

To make matters worse, a gust of wind kicked up dirt all around him and dirtied his beard. He passed through it, cursing, coughing, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. It occurred to him to do something impressive, perform some kind of daring feat, so he removed his Panama hat and knocked it against his thigh.

“Mayor Bill!” someone shouted.

A short, skinny young woman ran up to him. She had smooth, olive skin and a thin, angular face, and she wore thick, oversized glasses that perpetually slid down her nose. Her curly thatch of black hair was tangled and filthy, and she hid it beneath an old Redskins baseball cap. Her name was Saanvi.

“Saanvi,” Topher said. “I told you to man the flamethrowers.”

Saanvi struggled to maintain her composure. The shouts and screams, the occasional bullet, all of them wreaked havoc with her sensory issues. Plus, she was afraid of dying. She blinked and flinched with each bullet fired and each explosion, but squashed the desire to run. This wasn’t her first fire fight, and the best cure was exposure. The best cure was exposure. The best cure was–

“Saanvi!”

She shook it off.

“We’re out of gas.”

“What? We can’t be out of gas. We had plenty before.”

“We ran out. We were just trying to use the flamethrowers, but–”

“Goddammit!”

“What do you want us to do?”

“I don’t know. Throw the flamethrowers!”

Topher stomped away, Saanvi trotting close behind.

“Throw the flamethrowers?”

“Why do you think they call it a flamethrower?”

“But that’s stupid. We’ll find gas somewhere else. What if the enemy has some?”

A bullet ricocheted off the top of a nearby truck. Saanvi ducked. Topher didn’t.

“There’s no way they can have any gas.”

“They probably thought the same thing about us.”

“Not anymore.”

Saanvi blinked hard, forcing herself to answer rather than react.

“Mayor, they’re going to breach the ring!”

“Then throw rocks at them. And stop calling me ‘Mayor’.”

“Rocks?”

Topher stopped abruptly and spun around.

“Yes. Rocks. And when they breach the ring, break their skulls with your fists, and when they break your fists, tear them apart with your teeth, and when they break out your teeth, head butt their eye sockets, kick them, lick them, spit on them, do something! Do something! Do anything except follow me around repeating every suggestion I make like some kind of deranged cockatiel!”

Saanvi opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. She snapped a quick salute and turned on her heel.

“Wait,” he called after.

A white flash interrupted him, followed by a roar and then black silence.

Topher gasped awake, head pounding. The battle was done, replaced by nothingness. No bullets, no enemies, no explosions, no dust. Somebody cried out in the distance. He sat up and looked around. To the left, hunks of metal and glass entwined with body parts. To the right, blackened frames of cars. A burning rubber tire rolled by, turned, and wound to a stop like a quarter on a table. He watched it.

My God, he thought. It’s over. It’s truly over.

He thought maybe he should feel something. Anger, perhaps? Rage? Fear? Guilt? He’d let everyone down, after all. His men were dead. But he didn’t feel anything remotely close to any of that. In fact, all he felt was relief. He always knew the day would come, the day when he lost, when he would die, and waiting for it was worse than it actually happening. Now he didn’t have to worry anymore about anything, about his men, about the children, about the illness, about gangrene, about dehydration, about getting an infection, about losing an arm, about hunger, shelter, or someone slitting his throat in his sleep. He stood up, giddy, and swayed in place. A body lay nearby, and he stumbled over to it, stuffed his boot under its chest, and flipped it over.

Not one of his men.

He did the same to the next body and the next. Not his. Not his. None of them were his. So wait. The idiots had somehow bombed their own people. They’d bombed their own people and didn’t even know it.

He sighed.

He’d won again.

The stupidity was galling. He might be ready to die, but it wasn’t going to be at the hands of morons. He looked around for a weapon, something with which to brain a skull, or stab a gut, or slit an artery, and there, a few feet away, lay a morning star made out of nails and a piece of rebar. He picked it up.

“Perfect,” he said, and weighed it in his hands.

But before he could plot anymore, before he could mock his enemies and praise his superiority, a familiar voice rang out. He paused, listening, and there it was again, cutting through the screams and the pain and the moans of the dying.

“Onward, you apes!” it cried. Topher swung in its direction. “Don’t stop until your hands have wrung the necks of every last one! Don’t stop wringing their necks until your palms meet! Cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war!”

He was in shock. That voice. Could it be? Saanvi suddenly appeared, her face covered in soot, her glasses hanging at an odd angle. She grabbed his arm.

“Mayor, we’re done. We’ve got to run.”

He shook her off.

“We’re not going anywhere.”

He broke into a trot, heading for the voice, leaving her there.

A savage leaped into his path, all wild hair and ululations and bad teeth, and Topher buried the rebar in his chest. Another flew at him and he clothes-lined him. A strong wind collapsed upon them. Storm clouds rolled in. Fat drops of rain spattered on the asphalt.

Topher jumped up on the hood of a burned-out wreck. There, in the midst of all the c*****e, stood a bearded man wearing fur pants and a fur jacket, screaming into the wind.

“Where are you?” he cried. “Fight! Fight!”

Then he spotted Topher and froze, amazed, petrified. His beard flew up into his face and he clawed it away.

“Oh dear god, no. Not you,” he said.

Topher let up a whoop.

“Zorn!” he cried. “Zorn, you i***t! It’s ‘let slip the dogs of war’!”

Topher sent Saanvi to retrieve their people, the horses, the food truck and the children, while he and the surviving men set up camp by the side of the road. The worst of the storm had passed, washing the highway clean, and a fine mist took its place as evening settled. The peepers in the woods started to sing. When she returned, Saanvi wove through the tents, looking for where Topher had set his up. She’d lost her cap, and the mist dampened her hair, decorating it with little crystal dew drops. She paused for a moment to take a breath before going inside, and she was just about to say something when Topher erupted with laughter from inside.

Laughter always made her feel uncomfortable. In fact, of the many things that made her feel uncomfortable—facial expressions, abstract art, disorganized closets—humor made her feel the worst. No. That wasn’t entirely true. She liked humor when she was the one responsible for it, but when it came to discrepancies, particularly those for which she was unprepared, she possessed the tact of a sledgehammer. Why was Dali considered brilliant? All he did was make things look weird. And what was the deal with puns? There was nothing funny about homonyms. Why was the Mayor laughing after dozens of people were killed? War and death weren’t funny.

One of the enemy savages passed by. He was all beard and belly and wild hair, but he’d changed into khaki pants and a tattered blue Oxford. He stopped when he saw her and said, “Barry.”

He held out his hand. Saanvi looked at it. She knew she was supposed to shake it. Social niceties demanded acceptance of another’s presence via rigorous digital manipulation. But of all the appendages on the human body, the hands and fingers harbored the most disease, and in this post-antibiotic world, one could never be too careful. She clasped her hands behind her back.

“Saanvi,” she said.

Barry faltered and let his hand drop.

“I was a dentist.”

Saanvi nodded.

“I was in a mental institution.”

Barry laughed.

“Then I guess things haven’t changed very much for you at all, have they?”

Saanvi watched him as he walked away. Of course things had changed. One, she never slept in the same bed twice anymore. Two, no more Tapioca Tuesday. Three, living outdoors resulted in a distinct lack of hygiene. Four.

She stopped herself.

The list could have gone on forever if she didn’t. Her hand automatically went for her right sleeve, which she always kept buttoned around her wrist. Nobody needed to see her arm. It led to questions, and rather than answer them honestly, she lied, which was hard for her to do because it wasn’t real and things that weren’t real made her anxious and anxiety reminded her of father and his rules and his punishments and his expectations, so rather than give anybody the opportunity to ask her about her scars, she kept her sleeves buttoned. When she needed to, she felt them over her shirt. She decided to repeat the number four times and then stop.

Four.

Four.

Four.

Four.

And that was it.

She balled her fists, tensing up the muscles in her arms and back, held it for a few seconds, then let it all go with a ragged breath.

The compulsion was gone.

Her mind was clear.

The Mayor laughed again at one of his own jokes. He often did that, but this time she decided that it might actually make sense. From what she understood, he and the savage leader were old acquaintances, college roommates or something. If they had truly found each other, then they would be happy, and when people were happy they sometimes laughed. She smoothed her dirty clothes and knocked on the tent flap.

From inside a voice said, “Did someone just knock on the tent flap?”

It was the savage leader. The Mayor said his name was Zorn, but that was an odd name because she’d never met anybody named Zorn before. It didn’t help when, after the battle, he explained to her that Zorn was his friend’s last name.

“What’s his first name, then?” she’d asked.

“Michael.”

“Then why don’t you call him Michael?”

“Because I call him Zorn.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.”

“Saanvi, what’s your last name?”

“Fickerald.”

“Fickerald? Your name is Saanvi Fickerald?”

“My father was white.”

Topher took a breath.

“If you don’t stop talking to me about this, I’m going to refer to you as Fickerald from now on.”

“But why?”

“Does it make you anxious?”

Saanvi thought. Her hand trailed to her cuff.

“It makes me very anxious.”

“Then you have your answer.”

Saanvi knocked on the flap again.

“It’s probably Saanvi,” the Mayor grumbled. Then, in a louder, exaggeratedly pleasant voice, he said, “Enter, Saanvi. No need to knock.”

She ducked inside. The Mayor and Zorn were propped up in lawn chairs, each holding a jar of Ton Brew. A small fire crackled in between them, and a thin line of smoke rose up into the air and out of the little circular hole in the top. It was quite warm and cozy.