always diving from the top rope in a suicidal suplex. Live fast, die young, enjoy life, and fuck the world. He was the mach in machismo and lived life at Mach 10. He was Johnny fucking Storm, every second of every day going out in a blaze of glory. He was a metaphor, you see. He was you and me.'
A scraping, like the sounds of a hundred teeth against wood came from the front door. Screams exploded from the living room as the men and women there dealt with the threat. Buckley wanted desperately to leave and see what was wrong, but he’d been told he was too much in charge. He fought down the urge to run and fix things. Fuck it. Let them see if they could handle it on their own. He squeezed his hand until his nails dug in his palm as MacHenry continued.
'You want to know who I am? I’ll tell you who I am, Adamski. I’m Johnny Storm. No longer am I a washed up old has-been whose best days were when Toyota's motto was
Yes he did. In fact, he'd stopped reading the Fantastic Four then.
MacHenry finished his glass and fell back upon his pillow. 'Now, Mr. Grimm. Get the hell out of here and let me finish my bottle. I have a short life ahead of me and a long life to relive.'
Buckley sighed. Yesterday, he would have jerked the man out of the bed and shit-kicked sense into him until he capitulated and realized that his best chance at survival rested in his participation in his own defense. But today, within their newly formed pocket of democracy, Buckley intended on letting the old guy do whatever he wanted. After all, it was his decision. If he wanted to die, then it was one less body to be concerned with.
Buckley glanced down at Gert who stared fondly at her Johnny Storm. Poor woman. Years searching for love on the gritty streets and she’d finally found it in a crazed old used car salesman with a Marvel Comic’s death wish. If that wasn't the saddest thing he'd ever seen, he didn't know what was.
CHAPTER 8
The ex-garbage man closed the door softly, pausing in the hall. The scraping continued from the front door, but the screams had subsided. Bennie and Samuel spoke in confident tones, coming together to solve the problem, one gangbanger to another. Grandma was singing again and over the din, he could hear the well remembered strains-
Patty cake, Patty cake, baker's man.
Bake us a cake as fast as you can.
Mix it, and roll it, and mark it with a B,
Slap it on the door for Buckley and me!
For the hundredth time Buckley shook his head. Everything was so damn insane. He somehow thought the end of the world would be a little more orderly, a little less rife with the absurd. How he’d ended up in this redoubt with such a gaggle of-
Suddenly, an indescribable itch began at his side. Beginning as a pinprick, it evolved to a small tingling, then quickly progressed through the usual levels of pain until there was a second of intense searing agony and then a small pop. Scratching at the spot, he came away with a blood-soaked finger. Buckley Adamski stared in shock and felt around the hole again. His heart sank when he felt the small wriggling form. He pulled out his hand and glared at the innocent looking maggie that had exited his body, and with the surety of a lifetime knew that he was going to die.
He hurled the harbinger to the ground and squashed it beneath his heel, driving it into the cheap carpet with all of his two-hundred and twenty pounds. The fact that he was going to die a horrible death crept through him on sticky fingers, each touch a promise of the devastation to come, an assurance that he’d be the next one dancing the Sally Struthers’ death disco. It must have happened when he’d fallen asleep. They must’ve missed one in the rush to kill them all. Worst of all, he was paying for the sins of the others and it was so unfair. MacHenry should have been the one sitting in the chair. The irony wasn’t lost on Buckley. The man who wanted to die had escaped death.
Buckley wiped the blood on his pants and fought back the sob that’d bubbled up and lodged within his throat. He would have to tell the others. If he was any kind of man at all, he'd have to tell them, open the door and walk out into the hall.
They deserved to know.
He turned the corner and shuffled into the lantern-lit living room, head down. Bennie and Samuel stood with their hands on their hips, breathing heavily and staring happily at the door. Everything was coated with a light dusting of flour. The door was a mass of sticky white paste. Flour, salt, and water had been combined to make a cook's mortar to cover the wood and fill all the edges.
'Grandma gave us the idea. If one of those damned things manages to bite its way through the wood, then it'll get itself a killer surprise,' Bennie said.
Grandma was sitting in her armchair, an empty crack-pipe wedged between her smile as she silently pantomimed the
'You all did good,' Buckley murmured.
'It was because of you, Mr. Adamski,” Samuel said. “We talked about it and we're real sorry the way we treated you. All you wanted to do was help us, we know that. You made one small mistake and we attacked you. The truth is that the way you pulled us together and taught us how to work as a team was what made the difference.'
Buckley felt his eyes fill. He lowered his head. He was about to confess his death when the doors nailed to the windows began vibrating. The sounds of scraping and gnawing started in earnest as if they’d finally been discovered and every maggie in the city had descended upon their position. The vibrating increased dramatically until it seemed as if the entire building was shaking. Bennie shouted at the top of his lungs for it to stop. Samuel covered his ears and fell to his knees. Sissy and Rashad began to scream, while Grandma upped her dosage.
Buckley felt it.
The end was near.
This was it.
He walked into the kitchen, laid the shotgun atop the table and opened another bottle of vodka. He was dead anyway. Fuck it. Maybe MacHenry was right with his blaze of glory speech. No more Ben Grimm, it was Johnny Storm time. Flame on. As he spun the cap off the bottle, a clear precise note pierced the cacophony then traveled the treble scales until it found itself. The simple strains of the Rocky Theme from the old Sylvester Stallone movie took hold of the din, and before long, the vibrating stopped. The tune heard at millions of pep rallies, the soundtrack for an Italian-American boxing movie, the symphony for losers everywhere filled the air with its lofty notes. The scraping disappeared. All was silent except for the sound of a lone trumpet playing the ultimate underdog anthem.
Buckley stepped slowly into the living room to find Little Rashad standing in the midst of the adults who were still huddled on the floor in terror at the base of the boy’s feet. His eyes were closed, but not tight enough to dam the tears, just tight enough so his forehead rippled with the strange concentration known to all trumpet greats. Definitely Louis Armstrong, thought Buckley.
When the song faded to nothing, the boy lowered the trumpet and sagged. A small depressed circle remained centered upon his lips like a kissable halo and in the peaceful silence was slowly replaced by a smile.
“What just happened?” Bennie looked around.
Buckley stood staring at the boy. Like everyone else, he was stunned with the outcome. They’d been certain that this was it. Yet they were alive — alive because of a ten year old boy and his trumpet.
