Marc Andreottola

“No More Tunes”

excerpt from novel in progress

July 19th, 1986.

NYC, 10:05am

The radio wasn’t playing the tunes.  This time it was that annoying sound that every human seemed to recognize but never thought would hear in reality.  Like a pay phone ring you never thought would get picked up.  Jai still felt the buzz from the shots of Patron last night. He didn’t remember turning on his alarm, the thing seemed to go on by itself.  “This just in - We have some updates for you all on the earthquake that just happened east of Los Angeles.  Guys, this looks like it was the big one. Magnitude 8.9.  We are having trouble getting any reports from the area.  All infrastructure is down.  Right now the military are in operation in the area.  No word on number dead.  The estimation could be, could be well into the thousands.” Scout’s feet came pattering down the hallway.  His loyal friend seemed a bit anxious today.  He jumped on the bed and issued a terrier distress call.  Sometimes it felt like dogs knew more than humans.

Jai flipped on the tube.  Damn, it really did look bad.  Blurry helicopter footage showed a big streak going straight across the screen.  Seemed to be a street until the tiny specks became clearer.  Smoke wandered into the frame.  Orange blazes lit up the background.  Those tiny specks became cars, piled up on each other, and then people, stranded, flailing their arms.  From this perspective it looked like ants, but the closer the camera got the more human they became.  “Shiiiiiiitttt.” Jai exhaled.  Nothing was gonna happen today without coffee.  He fumbled for the Bustelo.  “We got a lot of bodies down there.” The announcer said.  “It’s absolutely devastating.”  The helicopter just flew in circles, moving into plumes of smoke.  From this perspective Jai could see that some were trapped beneath slabs of pavement, some were trying to make way to higher ground.  “I just can’t imagine - hopefully these people will be getting help soon.” The announcer exclaimed. Jai scooped the Joe into the percolator, flipped the gas and made his coffee for the day.

He ran down stairs to let Scout take a leak on the pavement.  This would be a good time to give Callum a call.  The phone buzzed once.  “Hullo?”

“Yeah, Callum, what the fuck is goin’ on, man?”

“Huh?”

“You ain’t wake yet?”

“Naw, the radio went on by itself, though.  I’m hearing things - this a disaster or somethin’?”

“I dunno.  There was an earthquake in LA.” 

“Aw…”

“Yeah, terrible.  But I guess it’s over.  We going to do that job today?”

“Yeah, man.”

“Okay. Where should I meet you?

“Meet me outside Vinnie’s Pizzeria, one hour.”

“Got it.  Later.”

Scout did his business and then tapped Jai’s shoe.  He seemed agitated.  A giant flock of birds flew past above, like a blanket moving through the sky.  “You gonna get that pipe fixed, Jai? Jai?”  It was Mrs Ellingson, professional nag.  “Eventually, Ma’am, but you know - there’s some BS happening right now.” “Oh, you mean that thing in Yosemite?” 

“Ya mean LA?” 

“Naw, well I heard Yosemite. That was before the radios cut out.  I listen to different stations though.”
“Yosemite…Huh.  That’s weird.  On the news they said LA.”
“Ha, oh I find it hard to believe we got so many problems at once.”

He heard the choppers fly past.  One, two…five of them.  They were black hawks.  They were low.  “It’s looking serious, but…I guess it’s over, huh?”
“Please get my pipe fixed by this evening.  That’s a problem in another state.  I haven’t been able to flush in two days.”  

Mrs Ellingson slammed the door.

Jai got back up to the apartment to slip on some clothes.  He turned on the faucet, water seemed fine.   Flipping on the news again, all the stations were out.  White static filled the screen.  Satellites must have gone down.  

Outside it was hot as hell.  That kind of heat that gets under your skin and feels heavy inside your lungs.  Jai popped into his Chevy and pulled on to the interstate.  He only had to go from Crown Heights to Queens to pick up Callum, then get this remodeling job done up in Bensonhurst.  A few more weeks he could head back to Las Cruces and live life in peace.  There seemed to be more ambulances than normal, but the radio was going in and out - finally he got a station signal.  It was Howard.

“Look guys, I’m only gonna be on a few more minutes.  Then I’m jetting.  Then I’m outta here.  They’re already saying get your asses down to the municipal centers - stadiums, arenas, town halls, YMCAs - whatever is closest- get together there now.  Robin’s gone.  I’m not fucking with you guys - this is serious.  There has been a terror attack.  A nuke was dropped or detonated at Yosemite National Park.  Wyoming.  This has triggered a volcanic explosion.  Half the US - I think they’re gone, I dunno. But you got a lot to worry about.  New Yorkers, you’re gonna get volcanic ash on the city these next few days.  But we got - there’s a lot going on now - it seems like there’s a lot of things happening at once. They’re gonna play this message over and over again, cuz I’m jetting. Get to your large local community centers now - stadiums, arenas, town halls, YMCAs.  The government needs people quarantined and needs order. Go Now.  God Bless.”

There was a hiss, then the message from the Crawley show played up again.  Callum was up ahead.  His white tank was drenched with sweat.

“What the fuck is goin’ on! This is serious!”

“Yo, we gotta get out, man.  Just an hour ago I was watchin’ kids playing in the park, now it’s like the world is ending.”

“I know.  I was just listening to Crawley, listen to this message —“

Jai cranked the dial up. 

“—Stadiums, arenas, town halls, YMCAs —“

“Why the fuck they want us to go there?   

He listened some more.

“Dude, he’s talking terror attack?  Fuck this shit! Get the fuck out of this city.”

“No Bensonhurst?”

“Hell no!”

“Let’s go.”

Jai screeched the vehicle in a U-turn then he saw it.  Up in the distance it was like a weird green fog. People seemed hypnotized by it. Jai dragged his tank over his mouth. If you squinted you’d see little pink flickering particles floating through the air. There was a few up ahead far off that started collapsing, then a few more, like dominoes. He felt pallid and weak and started side-stepping, like in a fever dream where you can’t control your body in the same way you used to.

A woman up ahead ended up with her walker over her head. Callum had hit his head but got up quickly.  Then he was limping.  They saw a tank three streets up with armed marines jumping out.  A team of ambulances had almost instantly arrived on the scene.  

Jai’s body felt wrecked but he could walk. “Let’s bolt, man.”  The marines were rounding people up. Then the crowd they had gathered received a rain of bullets.  The people of the crowd swayed and ran, but the marines seemed to be targeting them. Or I dunno. “I can’t tell man - what’s going on - don’t know what day is and I - Sunday or Monday - arm - I -“

Callum grabbed Jai and the bolted into the pizzeria and hid under the counter. From outside you could hear the pandemonium of random scream, burning embers and gunfire.  A fire hydrant exploded and water was flooding the street.  All this in just a day.  Then the footsteps came closer.  “Anyone in here?” The marine called next door.  Then he heard the same from across the street.  They were hunting. “Negative!” “Next one!”  

Jai heard the heavy breathing for a second and thought it was Callum.  But there off on the far end of the pizzeria was a fat plum-faced sweaty man.  His eyes were bugged out and stray hairs went in different direction over his bald head.  He was chewing on a red bandana, frantic.  Jai put his finger to his lips to silence him.  The marine arrived. “Anybody in here?”

The man lunged up as if on springs.  He seemed to be calling for the marine, but unable to find words.  His eyes bugged out like from chronic stress or Graves disease.  The marine shot him down cold.  “One down.  Vinnie’s Pizzeria.” “Copy.”  Then they moved on and left.

Jai and Callum rushed to the back of the pizzeria.  “We can’t go out on the streets. What you wanna do?”

There was a sewer drain out in the back. 

______________

The tunnel system went on for miles and Jai had no clue where to go.  They didn’t have a flashlight, but they did have a lighter. Jai and Callum used it sparingly while navigating the walkway to the side.  The smell of sewage would snake up his nose like a shit sledgehammer.  Jai wrapped his flannel around his face.  They needed to be quick.  Still his mind was blown about everything.  From the marines rallying people up to the general pandemonium it seemed that everything was substantially fucked.  It reminded him of that John Carpenter movie “Escape From New York”.  It was almost like that movie became reality.  But he felt his mind more together down here. It was something with those particles.

Callum stopped.  “Don’t move.”

Up ahead something moved.  It could have been a rat, a vagrant, or someone like them.  

Jai and Callum waited to hear if the steps were moving closer or away.  Blood pumping through their brains, it seemed harder and harder to hear.  Then came the explosion.  

Up ahead there was giant thud.  A blast of light shot underground, illuminating everything.  Then the bricks and rubble started tumbling in, cars and poles and even arms and legs.  Jai got a glimpse of a woman in a red jacket, mouth agape with a paroxysm of terror in her face before she was shuffled under the rubble.

A man wearing brown rags came running from the smoke screaming like an animal.  He had the appearance of being a local to the sewers and was just as shocked to see Jai and Callum as they were to see him.  Screaming for help, Jai and Callum ignored him and kept running the opposite direction.  The man followed until it seemed the ceiling stopped collapsing.  

“Please!  Please stop!”  The man cried.

“Hold!” Callum yelled.  “Hold back!”  Callum pulled a switch blade from his pocket.

“Are you one of them? Infected?  Check his eyes.”

“Callum…”

“Check his eyes!”

Jai grabbed the shaking man from the back and cocked his head back toward the light. 

“What’re you looking for Callum?  What’s this about?”
Callum took a few slow steps to the shaking man.  Spittle covered the man’s beard.

“Honest I’m not - I don’t know what’s going on, man!  What the fuck is happening up there?”

When Callum moved close he could see the man’s eyes were clouded somewhat, but not exactly what he was looking for.  Still there was a milky appearance.

“It’s my glaucoma man!  I ain’t spending no time up there.  I spend all my time down here in these tunnels.”

“Callum…”

“Which way to the North Bronx?”

“Up ahead past where that building fell. We might have trouble getting through that!  But there’s another way - we can go together, yeah?  It’s safe up there in North Bronx, yeah?”

“Ok, let him go.”

Jai released him and the shaking man fell back.

“What was that about man?  Think you’re tough, huh?  See how you get around down here, ha ha!”  The man scuttled further back.  Suddenly a few rats popped out from the sewage and charged him.  The man booted them away.

“They’re aggressive down here, man - haha!  You’re gonna fend for yourself?”

Jai stepped forward.  “We’ll follow you to the North Bronx.  When we get there we go our separate ways.  It’s a win-win for both of us.  Let’s get out of this mudtrap.”

The man laughed, then dragged towards him.  Callum intercepted.

“No.  Deal is you stay ten feet ahead.  And remember I have my knife.”

A forlorn look fell upon the man’s face. “Right. I’ll get us there, ha-ha.  Don’t know why we’re going, ha-ha.  End of the world means there’s nowhere to go, ha-ha.”

“Just keep moving bitch and get to kicking the rats out the way.”

And so they went, pulling off a grate and going into the smaller sewer up ahead.

______________

It was a long trek to the North Bronx.  The jittery stuttering derelict asked them if they heard about it - the new human rabies.  Jai told him to keep walking while he explained what he meant.  The man said if you want to call him something to call him Mouse - that’s what everyone called him down here.  Mouse told the brothers that something was going around a few days before it all happened like this.  One of his sewer buddies had gotten sick and he saw it for himself.  At first it started with his head bleeding, then something like little horns were growing out of his nostrils and ears.  It was like his head was pregnant with something.  The friend got aggro, they all confined him to a cage and watched him go insane.  They never got to see how things developed because the devastation happened long after and everybody fled.  Amongst the group, it was called human rabies.

They were in the nineties, east Harlem.  Up ahead there was a ladder and grate.  Callum wanted to check out what was happening above. He climbed the rusted ladder and pushed open the sewer grate.  The street was empty with trash blowing through the middle of the road.  There were no cars, but there were many looters.  Up ahead he saw a group of older folks being wrangled onto a military truck.  They looked lost, somehow, but trusting.  Not knowing where they were to go, but trusting the system.  Some of the people in the streets walked on all fours in a rapid pace.   These were the ones that the military was shooting.  Up ahead one was frothing at the mouth violently as it charged one of the officers.  It leapt onto the officers back, causing a stir up ahead.  The group screamed and everyone fled off the back of the truck.  In the stir of the pandemonium, the other officers shot into the crowd.  

Callum dropped the grate.  When he got back down to Jai and Mouse, he told them what he saw above. They were better off in the sewers, but Mouse said it was just as bad down here - they just hadn’t had any encounters yet.  From above they could still hear the sounds of calamity breaking out.  The three men resolved to move fast through the dark tunnels, even swimming through sewage to get there.  It wasn’t much of a different world for Mouse, he planned to stay in the sewers.  

“Eventually we’re all gonna get it, you know.” Callum wasn’t having it and told him to keep his mouth shut.  The three were hungry and thirsty, but needed to keep the pace.  The echoes of the world falling apart above seemed like a soundtrack to Revelations, something Callum believed but Jai didn’t.  Callum thought a bit about their old grandmother back in Albuquerque and what she might be going through right now.  Where she might be and what she might say.  Or maybe the world was still in tact there.  

“We need to go through the more narrow tunnel.” Mouse said.   “This one is blocked up.”  Jai asked him what he meant, but then he could see it.  A cage had been placed over the tunnel to prevent people from moving through.  “That’s been there for a while.  Cuz of people like me.  This way works, though.  Might be tight.”  Jai looked up at the tunnel and wasn’t sure what Mouse was saying.  “Lend a hand?” They propped Mouse up to the little tunnel and then he pushed himself in.  Jai grabbed the edge and tried getting in but his shoulders were too broad.       He popped back down.  Mouse was long gone as he squeaked down that tunnel.  The two brothers knew they’d have to try and find another way.  

“We don’t have much further to go - we just need to get past the Bronx.”   There was a man hole up ahead.  Heading back into the world was a scary thing, but Callum reminded him that maybe that way they could get some supplies and weapons for protection.  When he pushed open the manhole grate, he wasn’t prepared for what he’d see.  The entire city was covered in a thick patch of white. He couldn’t see his own hands held in front of him.  The two brothers ran into the thick smoke.

______________

Jai scrambled up to one of the street posts.  It was Lexington and 125th.  “Few more blocks we can cross over on the Third Ave Bridge.”  You could hardly see the stores, but there were some flashes of neon flickering from random bursts of electricity pulsing through the signs.  Up ahead was a Gray’s Papaya.  Jai called Callum over.  There was no response.  He screamed again for his brother.  “Jonnnnnnnny!”  Then he tripped. 

The body was mutilated, face disfigured, an old ugly woman with a scarf, holding a bag of groceries.  Jai reached in and started scooping up everything he could find.  Peanut butter, razor blades, chocolate pudding, chips, crackers, soap and matches.  “Jonnnnnnnny!  Jonnnnnnnnyyyy!”  He heard the bullets.  It was a military gun.  Jai stayed low to the ground, faked dead.  Wrapped the back pack around his shoulders.  

Up ahead he saw two rats fighting.  They screeched and clawed.  One of them had horns, which was strange - it’s face was filled with these weird horns.  Then it smelt him.  It lunged towards Jai’s face, but he quick pulled back and kicked it into the fog.  Callum bumped into him.  There was a despair in his bloodshot eyes.  “We gotta move.”

When they got to the bridge they saw the source of the smoke.  A huge crater replaced where the bridge once was.  Water was flooded all throughout the streets and the brothers waded through the sludge.  They’d sometimes hear people calling for help or screams and gun fire, like everyone in the world had lost their mind.  Callum stopped and held his brother back.

On the other side of the bridge was a long line of soldiers, holding massive assault rifles, bedecked in military gear.  They were guarding something.  

“We can’t go this way.” Callum told his brother.  “We need to find another route.”  They both hid behind the cement slab thinking about the next move.  It was night soon, but the fog was still thick.  It was hard to suppress the coughs that eventually would come, instigating the gun fire from the other side.  Both brothers ran into the smoke.  Ran violently until they hit the water and when they hit the water they swam.  The water seemed free.  They swam until they got to land.  The island was Randall’s Island and they camped out there for the night.

______________

Jai and Callum’s heads bobbed in the water as they floated along in the bay.  To any passerby they’d appear lifeless.  Beneath the surface they slowly waved their arms hoping to drift to the other side.  Only two hours of sleep before they reconvened in whispers in the darkness.  Some of the criminals from Rikers had escaped and swam to Randall’s Island.  It was better to not intercept.  These times bring out the madness in people, Callum said.

There off in the distance Callum watched the buildings emit plumes of smoke to the stars.   He thought about Emily back home, how she’d always tell him she’d love to experience the end of the world.  County fairs and barbecues in Albuquerque.  Bottled beer and fireworks.  Radios playing Tiffany and Springsteen.  Anything to get out of what was in front of him, a true unknown.  He turned his head a bit.  Only a few hundred feet more.   He grabbed his brother’s arm so he didn’t float far.  There was no one on the beach up ahead.  

“Where we gonna go when we get to the other side?”

“Far into the woods.”  Jai said.

“Massachusetts?”  

“Probably the best bet.”

Callum wondered what the future might look like.  He asked his brother what he thought had happened.  Jai said he didn’t know, but it was something wrong that snowballed.  It was hard to believe that things escalated so quickly.  

“And those people?  With their mouths frothing?  What’s up with them you think?”

“Something making them that way I guess.”

“Something contagious?”

“We got to stay away from people, man.  Cuz we don’t know right now.”

Over on Randall’s Island where the Rikers convicts had swam there were fights breaking out.  Devilish screams and gunshots, punches and thuds.  Callum kept his eye on the sky.  It was the only place that seemed to contain any sort of peace or promise now.  But soon there was the air chop of the helicopters with searchlights brightly illuminating the water.  Both brothers ducked down into the salty thick Atlantic water and swam to shore.

______________

The two brothers followed the road, keeping to the side, careful on every block.   They had to get to nowhere.  The smoke in the city cloaked them, but also made it more daunting to move about.  An old woman emerged from the smoke, mouth covered in spittle, muttering about the end and getting her to a hospital.  Jai just pushed her back.  It was uneven and cruel moment, but it had to be so.  Up ahead in the distance a figure was sitting in the drivers seat of a truck with the door open.  Callum squinted, then whispered the man had a gun.  The two brothers slowly approached.  

The man’s face was pasty and bloated, almost as if he had been submerged.  Skin fell off from the neck, as if his body were only soggy matter.  A Colt 45 was stuck to his stomach where blood had clotted against a Fleet Farm flannel.  The radio static drifted in and out but the radio was playing.  Not tunes, but words.  It was President Reagan.  Callum grabbed the man’s guns and both listened to the Presidents speech.

“Friends, Americans, as you may know by now we are under attack.  A facility in Yosemite was detonated and this triggered a series of failures at many high-security biological containment facilities across the nation.  We are now experiencing the threat of many of these agents having been released at once and we are trying to establish order across the United States.  At the same time we know there to be many bad actors, terrorists, across the United States who are exploiting this moment.  At this time I have called on the military to enact martial law.  US citizens need to be taken to secure facilities.  At this moment we need everyone to peacefully follow the instruction of the military and go to the quarantine centers at stadiums and arenas and outposts across the nation.  We will get through this and God Bless America.”

There was a static hiss, then the message played again.  Soon as it started Callum felt a sharp strike to the back of his neck.  The man had a gas mask over his face and made a move towards the car. Jai pulled the gun and in a second the bullet went straight through the faceless man’s abdomen and he fell back. Jai picked his brother up from the pavement and dragged him to the car.  He pushed the bloated man to the side of the road and started the ignition. Swerving around debris and bodies, the two brothers made their way at a steady fifty down Bronx River Parkway.