Civility [HIATUS]

2. When the Four Horns Attack, and Again Sanity is Questioned

2. When the Four Horns Attack, and Again Sanity is Questioned

            Jane pointed her camera to the ruin that was St. Louis and narrowed her focus on the remains of the Gateway Arch. She snapped the picture and lowered it to her waist as the old Nikon printed out a colored photo.

            “Are you just ganna stand there and take pictures?” Rin asked.

            Jane refused to meet his gaze, continuing to stare at the demolished city skyline. “Not until you tell me what’s going on here.”

            “What do you mean?”

            Jane paused and glanced back at Rin as he stood sorting through a first aid kit over the roof of his white Electricar. It was an absurd question. “What do I mean? I’m on my way to California, a bomb blows up St. Louis, and then a complete stranger who’s using what could only be called magic saved my life, and for what? Then, you don’t even tell me what’s going on.”

            The man sighed. “I told you, my name is Rin.”

            “Yeah, real informative.”

            Jane rolled her eyes and looked away. As far as she could tell, Rin was a dishonest creep that had a secret too bizarre for anybody that wasn’t there to believe, but Jane had no choice but to trust him. The current situation was far too difficult to interpret, and Jane needed Rin to protect her if things went awry.

            She pursed her lips and allowed the camera to dangle from her neck strap as she studied the developed photo. Though it was printed in color, the camera could only detect black, white and gray. Behind the two curved towers that used to be the Arch, there were blackened buildings and iron skeletons slouching before a gray backdrop.

            Jane looked back up and swallowed her emotions. She needed to stay strong.

            How could somebody do something so devastating? It was still difficult for her to believe. St. Louis was gone, millions of people were dead, and she was just beginning to discover that supernatural things actually existed. Maybe she was dreaming after all.  

            “They still make cameras like that?” Rin asked, approaching with a bottle of MediPatch skin repair and two rolls of gauze. Jane’s palms suffered from third degree burns after scraping them against the scorching blacktop. Fortunately, her leather pants had only been blackened, and the rest of her body was too numb to feel the pain from her other less serious scrapes and bruises.

            Jane frowned and slid the photo into her camera bag. “No, they don’t,” she said, meeting Rin’s dark gaze. “They stopped making them in twenty-twenty.”

            His brows pushed together. “And you actually kept that garbage?”

            Jane glowered. “Be grateful for this garbage, because when we find out that the entire world looks like this, I’ll be the only survivor with functioning electronics.”

            Rin rolled his eyes and then shook his head. “I’m telling you--this was the only bomb. And even if it wasn’t, we’d be the only survivors after a nuclear blast like that. Now hurry up so we can find a T.V.”

            But why would we be the only survivors? she wanted to ask, but she didn’t want to waste her breath. Rin wasn’t going to tell her anything.

            While Jane had stood gaping at the city ruins, Rin had remained levelheaded and walked her through everything that needed to be done, though he refused to explain to her his magic shield ability. Basically, because gamma radiation had destroyed the satellite signals that powered Rin’s Electricar, Rin had to rely on Jane’s classic Jeep Rubicon to get him to some type of authority or news broadcaster. Once they figured out what exactly was going on, he’d go on his way to thwart whatever forces were fighting against them. Jane knew he could do it. Even though he was rude, he was noble in his own way, and he also had that weird shield ability. Jane, however, had no part in this. She belonged with her uncle and sister where she could wait in safety for Rin to save the world.