Old Geezers, The Gateway

Chapter One

Transforming two hundred retired gentlefolk into silent assassins had been no easy task.

It was probably the gay male stripper who’d tipped the balance.

After years of gentle and, sometimes, not so gentle taunts and practical jokes, the man’s exuberant entry into the common room accompanied by the ear-splitting howl of a camp pop song had finally done the trick. The pure revulsion on their sanctimonious faces as he’d minced, nipples rouged, thong bursting, had been a pure joy to watch and easily compensated for his exorbitant fee. And by the time the paramedics had sedated everyone, the dust had more or less settled so it wasn’t as if any serious damage had been done. Even the stripper would walk again – eventually.

Perhaps not all of them were as bad as the still-unknown ringleaders. In reality most were just kindly pensioners wafting carefully through gentle and genteel days while enjoying the twilight of their long lives. Thus it logically followed that at least some had no direct involvement. However secrets rarely remained such in this or any peopled establishment. So, as not even one of them had so much as pointed a craggy finger at the offending party or parties, then by extension they were all jointly culpable. They had it coming.

A bored detective had listlessly attempted and failed to discover the perpetrator(s). His attempt at investigation had been commendable, if only for his reluctance to traumatise his grandmother who (it later transpired) was a long term resident. In fact the entire enquiry had been performed and classified as an accident within two working days. However none of this mattered; retaliation from the retirement home’s inmates had been worth their near fatal consequences. The wrinkled miscreants could return to their cosseted life since its brief disruption had been well worth the effort expended. Long in the making and thoroughly enjoyed, but now sadly over. It would take a considerable time to prepare something quite as funny. So in the meantime, they would just have to find something else to break up the incredible monotony.

But what?

The essential problem was that life was good – too good. Year after monotonous year rambled uncomplainingly by without the slightest peril timidly knocking at their triple-locked doors.

There was always plenty to eat. The temperature within the Sunny Glade retirement home never varied a degree above, or below seventy four Fahrenheit, while humidity remained a stolidly enforced forty five percent. Even the mildly diverting prospect of a wild-eyed criminal breaking in was out of the question given a security system that would make Fort Knox look like an eat-all-you-can buffet in comparison.

Yet every aspect of this mind-blowing safety was taken entirely for granted by the aforementioned group on this, as every other day. As usual, all but the bed-ridden huddled in cosy, self-absorbed cliques, taking refined breakfasts or indulging in what the more cosmopolitan among them referred to as brunch. Or if not to eat then simply to talk, of trivial pleasantries, or past glories; some half remembered, others entirely fabricated. Any aspirations or desires once deemed important now relegated to distant memories.

To facilitate this pleasant environment an artificially subdued sun dappled the ground floor dining area, designed specifically to cater for the ‘guests’ and all their attendant ailments. Vigilantly ionised air wafted throughout with any residual aromas fellated to extinction by the very latest in extractor technology. A discreetly tinted ceiling simulated a shady forest glade from which oozed the gentlest of pine scented zephyrs. While tasteful muted music crooned tenderly into hundreds of delicately balanced hearing aids. Accordingly it was here that all congregated for vigilantly planned, nutritionally certified and unidentifiably spice-free meals.

However, this well regimented paradise was not to everybody’s taste and thus another slightly less refined daily custom was also well under way. Tediously raised voices audible to even the most hard of hearing, emanated from a peculiarly deserted section of the dining room. The source of the disturbance was, as usual, three old men slouching together at a debris covered table. It consisted of a noisy debate as to what they had just eaten. Years of practise had lent some of the proposals creative if not disgusting implausibility:

‘Corned beef fried in the jet wash of a fighter running on dog piss.’ Inventive as always but not quite revolting enough to garner the required reaction.

‘It was an old tennis sock stuffed up someone’s ass for two weeks then baked using dead rats for seasoning.’ A collective groan of revulsion from those unable to distance themselves indicated a successful result.

The Old Geezers were up and about. Their names, even if any of the residents knew them, were never used. Any or all were just part of the whole. The unofficial title alone was enough for the management to identify the origin and cause of copious complaints, and in the latest hilarious case (for the three at least) an abortive attempt to slaughter two of them all as they ate breakfast.

Quite who had tried to murder, or even just maim them might be forever unknown. Which was probably fortunate for the person or persons in question. Especially since the loudest and largest member of the group, Charles (Chet) Haughey, routinely offered, ever with an element of hope, to crush anyone who voiced a word against them. Except one; but more of her shortly.

Chet was an unashamed boor and a bully. A towering, white haired figure with the sagging body of an ex-prize-fighter and a bulbous, deeply reddened nose, courtesy of a lifelong love affair with bourbon. In this, as in every other place he had ever lived, he was uniformly detested by everyone; a situation which, perversely, filled him with pride and thus reciprocated with an equal measure of passion.

Next to him sat Amon Macafferty; a short, wizened man of indeterminate ethnicity. As always he could be found with his two friends guzzling orange juice and scratching his head before their next foray into the disgusting. A particularly nasty case of cranial eczema obscured most of his heavily wrinkled face. This condition, which was not his fault, was accompanied by a swathe of revolting personal habits which were. These peculiarities had been the cause of his banishment from several other government institutions and a subsequently warm welcome from Chet at this one. Even after a life spent in the military, he begrudgingly admitted Amon the better man when it came to grossing out almost every person who had the misfortune to encounter him.

Abraham Hankstetter was perhaps the oddest of the three, if only for his apparent normality. Why he had chosen the other two for companionship was probably the biggest mystery to anyone concerned enough to ponder the question; which naturally, were few. Needless to say his association with them precluded any invitations into the rarefied company of the other residents.

Unlike Chet, Abe did not appear to be the product of decades spent in a gymnasium, or of countless illegal fistfights. In fact he’d never been in a fight or entered a gym in his long life. And unlike his friends he had not developed the habit of hiding his face at the appearance of anyone he didn’t know lest he be an officer of the law bent on his arrest. Slim to the point of emaciation, it seemed that a gentle gust of wind might topple him. Only a careful look into his eyes would reveal an intelligence shared by neither of his strange friends; or indeed few of the many residents in the institution which housed them.

Many decades spent as a computer programmer poring over computer code and computer screens had left Abe permanently stooped. Jet black hair awash with brilliantine, his eyes peered myopically, rather alarmed by the daylight he’d spent most of his life trying to avoid. As usual he kept out of the mealtime autopsy.

Today, like every other before it, offered not the slightest chance of diversionary amusement. Thus a very bored Chet briefly toyed with the idea of announcing his birthday; his seventy forth, making him the oldest of the three. Although with the impressive hangover he was currently enduring, any backslapping or ribald remarks which might accompany the news would result in him hurting someone. At any other time this prospect would have been invigorating, but this morning he felt tired and just a little delicate. So the news and the violence could probably be saved for another more convenient time. Besides, birthdays were hardly an occasion for celebration these days. Between them the three had existed on this plain for almost three hundred years - hardly anything to get excited about any more.

What might have excited, or dismayed him was the news that an impulsive act of careless greed the previous night had, or shortly would result in the destruction of the entire world and simultaneous creation of a completely new one birthed amid the agonies of prehistoric savagery.

Chapter Two

Owing to the vagaries of chance this day also happened to be the thirtieth anniversary of an event which had forced three things upon the world. And, by extension, the three old men slouched in the dining room. First was the final instalment of those seemingly never ending Middle Eastern wars, or bitch-slaps as Chet scathingly described them. This had resulted in the total destruction of the two largest remaining oil fields in the world by way of a carefully positioned and exceptionally dirty nuclear device. Who had perpetrated such a heinous act, and why, was still under hot debated. Certainly someone had benefited, but thus far nobody had claimed credit.

This situation had been further exacerbated by the still-volatile standoff at the Polar Regions. Countless nations stridently claimed territory and by extension a large portion of the previously inviolate oil and ore deposits. While others had augmented their own demands with mumbled threats of nuclear Armageddon. Fortunately, memories of the last incident and the terror of yet more untold devastation had prevented any mining of the anticipated treasures to be found below.

As expected, and almost overnight, the price of oil and its by-products had soared far beyond the pocket of the average man. Fuel had been agonisingly expensive for years due to its scarcity and the policy of certain foreign cartels of maintaining unnaturally high premiums. Yet even this might not have sounded the death knell for the private automobile had not several disparate factors come into play. An unfortunate flirtation with hydrogen powered cars by a small and now defunct company, in a now entirely defunct state had been one. Bad enough but not disastrous. However the failure to consider the potential effect of several million discarded electric automobile batteries beneath the mid-west’s massive agricultural reserves had effectively sealed their combined fate. Land unfit for human habitation could hardly be expected to yield much in the way of rape seed and thus bio-fuel. All this allied to the ever-growing global warming lobby, had presaged the final demise of the internal combustion engine for all but government and military purposes.

In fact, apart from the millions of rusted hulks populating the world’s junk yards, daily travel in private automobiles was little more than a fondly remembered and distant memory. These days the three friends, along with almost the entire country’s population, availed themselves of countless electric trams sinuously plying their almost silent way through the streets. A nominal fee of one dollar per person, per trip, made it an affective and extremely cost effective mode of transportation.

Even Chet, ready at any time to bemoan the fate of his old Chevy, had grown to live without the threat of imminent death from the few remaining homicidal maniacs running their cars on ever more ingenious, which is to say more lethal, concoctions. That menace aside death itself had become somewhat of rarely seen stranger. And thanks to the new generation of electric weaponry even the police no longer carried the means of lethal capability, much to the silent gratitude of Chet and Amon.

The second and slightly less important event in the drawing together of the three men was the end of Chet’s lifelong army career. An untimely inhalation of mustard gas during one of the aforementioned bitch-slaps had resulted in his medical discharge. Even though the immediate and potentially lethal effects had been nullified by the efforts of a nearby medic, the army had not missed the opportunity to rid itself of someone whose career was, to say the least, heavily blotted.

The third and arguably most important event that had ultimately forced the men to meet was the catastrophe predicted for generations. The famous French sage had only erred by twelve years, but even his famously vague smattering of data had never hinted at the catastrophic consequences.

In the dusk of a balmy spring evening the ground shuddered beneath the surface of Los Angeles. Nothing unusual there, most ignored it as they did for all but the most severe. The more cautious sought shelter beneath door frames, more from habit than fear, assuming that it would pass in a few short minutes just like it always had.

After the first few, almost hesitant, shakes the ground had suddenly erupted into a terrifying, heaving convulsion as if trying to shake off anything and everything upon it. Yet still it continued, achieving and easily surpassing the greatest measurement ever recorded with nerve numbing intensity. Soon towering and supposedly earthquake proof buildings began to topple with a regularity that would provide a generation of litigation lawyers a lifetime’s employment. By then it was apparent even to the most optimistic that this was a major event. After twenty incredible minutes it continued and even seemed to increase in fury.

Police, fire services and ambulance crews had been rendered powerless as great creaking fissures opened, rupturing the sidewalks for hundreds of feet before swallowing whole buildings and untold people in an awesome display of gluttony. Before just as quickly juddering shut as if they had never been. Eventually the quake would officially be classified as a nine point eight on the Richter scale.

Curiously it was not the San Andreas which had been the epicentre but one of the nearly one hundred lesser fault lines in California which had awoken. This mattered little to the victims of the giant upheaval who cowered, frozen into utter immobility by the ferocious onslaught.

After an hour of the carnage, little of the city remained standing. The devastation, incredible in its totality would forever prevent even a close estimation of its fatalities. One point eight million would be the figure to eventually emerge although at best that was merely an estimate since countless unknown visitors had, as usual, had been in the area and presumably some of those had taken the opportunity to escape bad marriages or irate creditors.

Two hours later the maniacal seizure of the earth remained unabated. Malibu, Santa Monica, Hollywood and even Los Angeles proper had long disappeared into the voracious Pacific. America’s coastline had been forever altered.

Then abruptly, as if switched off by some unseen and now bored god, the ground gave one last furious shake before slowly subsiding into a long juddering halt. Afterwards an airborne observer was to state that he was looking down upon an alien landscape. Nature however had not quite finished. Just as the small numbers of survivors began to crawl, stunned, from the twisted remains of the city, the first of an estimated fifty after-shocks began.

The first, almost as powerful as the primary itself, effectively demolished any remaining structures. While all over the city vast fires ignited as gas pipes, fuel storage tanks and at least one oil refinery lit up the darkening horizon in a Dante-esque scene from hell.

More after-shocks followed in relentless succession, each weakening and dispatching even more of the survivors, until after three days the trembling finally, reluctantly, ceased bathing the dead city in an eerie silence, broken only by the wind and occasional frail cries of the wounded. Los Angeles was utterly eradicated, as if it had never been.

Cities within a thousand square miles had all suffered damage to varying degrees. San Francisco, where most pundits had envisioned the epicentre to be, had escaped relatively unscathed with a mere two hundred thousand fatalities. While in the middle ground untold thousands had perished largely unnoticed against the incredible devastation on either side.

New Los Angeles had thus been named as a tribute to the dead of the original. Built at the outer edge of a buffer zone some thirty miles from the outskirts of the old, the new city had, over the intervening years grown and flourished despite, or even perhaps because of, the sagacious mutterings of those predicting that it would happen all over again.

This incredible disaster was also the primary reason for the almost exponential increase in retirement homes which now populated the state.

Chapter Three

The unusual and continually boisterous behaviour of the three friends, much to the everlasting chagrin of Mrs Weintraub, the Chief Administrator, was the indirect result of a passing drug company representative. He had literally stumbled over three apparently drunken men playing Strip Gin with a new and unfortunately naïve administrative assistant. After assuming, correctly according to Mrs Weintraub, that he’d found an institution for the marginally retarded; he’d made them, and subsequently the management an offer they simply could not refuse.

In return for indefinitely trialling a new drug and recording its potentially myriad side effects, the pharmaceutical company would take over the state’s contribution and pay for the three men’s permanent residence. But more importantly for the three, the trial would also afford them a modest pension. Some might have claimed that a test group of three was hardly representative, but perhaps such an enterprising drug company representative would subsequently have visited every retirement home in the state, of which there were several thousand

Regardless, the administrating company of the institution who, incidentally, owned most of the retirement homes in the state had naturally snapped up a guaranteed income for an indefinite period. And if the aforementioned three old men were occasionally ‘trying’, then it was up to Mrs Weintraub to deal with them.

Thus it was that once a week they took their medicine - although not the kind Mrs Weintraub would have liked to administer. And every week filled out the same check-lists, barely bothering to conceal the fact that they had been mass produced by Abe for the whole year. Thus proving the efficacy of the drug, appropriately named Longevitax and keeping both the management and the drug company happy. Unfortunately the initial side-effects were unpleasant in the extreme and the resultant day of diarrhoea and nausea were difficult. Especially as they knew that little could be done about it without spoiling the results of the prolonged test. This included alcohol, but as with most rules, the three simply ignored the injunction. Similarly, one side effect of the drug that the agent had not known about (or perhaps he had) was that all pre-existing ailments would continue unabated. However this was no obstacle to the men who had no intention of ever dying. Four score and ten had just been Chet’s starting point - and what did a few bleeding piles matter?

As to whether this new miracle drug did or did not prolong the life of its users was unknown as yet. However it definitely, according to Mrs Weintraub, contained something that transformed supposedly grown men into moronic delinquents. Even though the medication had not produced the miracle of instant youth, the three had begrudgingly admitted a distinct improvement in their collective health. Not that any of them could have sprinted the hundred in under a minute, but even Chet, ready and eager to complain at the drop of a hat, had professed to feeling like a new man. Or if not new, then at least one whose joints didn’t crack like castanets every time he rose from his seat or lifted anything heavier than a beer glass.

It was the day after their last dose and only now were they just beginning to recover their strength.

‘Did you scope that new management trainee?’ Amon leered, simultaneously luring the young innocent into a quite disgusting scene in his mind, ‘I could give her what she needs.’

‘You?’ Chet coughed out a lungful of smoke, ‘The last time your weenie saw any action was when the nurse told you to cough and turn your head.’

‘Yeah right. Hark at Super Stud.’ Given Chet’s obviously fragility Amon was feeling brave, besides, Abe would provide temporary protection, ‘Cut the finger off a rubber glove and you still wouldn’t get a tight fit.’ Chet felt warm and moderately comfortable, so let that one go, but he would remember. A callused and nicotine stained middle finger was his only response.

‘So what are we going to do today?’ Abe asked quickly, assuming his usual responsibility almost unconsciously. He didn’t have the strength this morning to restrain Chet physically, and besides he was afraid of making any sudden movement which might result in an accident down below.

‘Don’t know about you two but I’m still pebble-dashing the john.’ Amon muttered, to the revolted groan of a passing restaurant worker. Ignoring her he busily returned to the mounting pile of skin he was shaving from his heels. This was a monthly act which had, as expected, caused several dozen guests to flee in disgust while carefully avoiding an invisible but apparently tangible demarcation line between them and the three pariahs.

The pariahs in question had availed themselves of an uninterrupted view of the gardens through the electronically tinted windows. These allowed them to spy upon any young woman careless enough to walk within a hundred yards of Chet and Amon.

Chet smiled. His lethargy had quickly been replaced by humour due to a judicious application of medicinal bourbon added surreptitiously to his coffee.

‘I vote we go to the Exclusion Zone. After that tremor the other day there’s probably been some stuff forced onto the surface. We could sell it.’ Chet really had no need of any more money but the chance of a quick profit never failed to set his blood racing

‘Are you crazy?’ Abe’s eyes shot open, appalled and simultaneously aggrieved at being wrenched so abruptly from the daydream of sentient computers he had been enjoying. ‘You know what happened to the fool who tried it last month.’

‘Yeah, but he was a jerk.’ Chet continued blithely, his strength returning at a satisfying rate. ‘He was using a sledge hammer to break in.’

‘They found the poor sap with about twenty tons of masonry on his head.’ added Amon, as ever the enemy of the unlucky or just plain stupid. ‘I think his name was Barney Rubble.’ He cackled, amused by his own peculiar version of humour.

‘You know it’s illegal to go in there.’ Abe attempted to brush away a fleeting image of his friend crushed to death beneath a wall of bricks. ‘They’ll put you away.’

‘Yeah, with all those cellblock queens.’ Amon grinned evilly, encouraged by Chet’s docility, and enchanted with a personal vision of someone attempting to sodomise his friend.

‘Anyone tries to stick something up my ass’ll be eating his balls for breakfast!’ Chet scowled at anyone who just might have been looking his way and further reinforced this threat by loudly breaking wind with a volume born of pure malevolence. Abe simply groaned while Amon looked on with sincere respect as those few guest still capable of movement hobbled away as quickly as they were able.

A loud and familiar footfall echoed behind them. As always all further talk was immediately curtailed. The three paled, Chet especially. He turned slowly, trying not to cringe. It was probably just an illusion but the sun seemed to dim for a moment.

Mrs Weintraub had arrived. A low almost sub-aural murmur followed her passing. As one all the other guests turned unashamedly to stare, perhaps in the combined hope that the day of retribution was finally at hand. In her bulging forearms Mrs Weintraub bore the daily newspapers. Why she was performing this mundane task herself was a mystery since she rarely did any other job that a lesser mortal under her control could carry out

Chet had once considered enquiring about a husband, though not his incredulity as to who would actually marry her. Equally as tall as Chet, even with her jet black hair wrenched back and imprisoned by a large steel pin, she weighed about the same. However, unlike Chet very little of it appeared to be fat, as viewed beneath the severe black trouser suit through which enormously muscled thighs pressed furiously. And the fact that she was about forty years younger than he encouraged even more caution in his dealings with her.

It went without saying that she had caught a snippet of their conversation. This incredible prowess had been a positive necessity when dealing with the over-aged louts she frequently proclaimed them all to be. Dark, eternally angry eyes glared fiercely downwards while enormous breasts squirmed beneath her white silk shirt as if eager to escape and slaughter the objects of her loathing themselves. Mrs Weintraub took no truck from anyone and today was to be no exception.

Towering over the table, her moustache bristled with barely subdued fury. Abe resisted the urge to wince and bade her good morning. Ignoring him she launched straight into the other two.

‘Did I hear you say something about the Exclusion Zone?’ Her neck seemed to stretch and twist simultaneously, somehow allowing her to stare at them all in the same instant. Her question was rhetorical since she knew none of them would admit to it.

‘You’re nothing but a pack of retarded children. You all know it’s dangerous there! Don’t let me hear any more about it or there’ll be trouble. I’ll have you all out on the street in a second!’ This staccato invective thundered over them in less than four seconds. Even those not facing her wrath paled, plunged into a netherworld of terror, since anyone who could bellow forty seven words with one breath was obviously not to be trifled with. She fixed them all with a laser-like glare, daring them to so much as breathe.

They denied her the pleasure, silent before the next onslaught. Especially Chet; no matter what he might threaten after her departure, he was no fool. Throwing all the papers on the table save one, she advanced upon Abe who, with an inward grimace waited fearfully. His nerveless fingers dropped a charred memory chip which had spectacularly exploded as a result of his latest disastrous computer program. Mrs Weintraub’s severe features softened perceptibly. Almost reverently, she held out a publication, shrunken to insignificance by her huge fist.

‘I found a copy of that computer magazine you like, Abe.’

As usual Abe reddened; once more a schoolboy and not an eighty something year old man. Every person in the home was well aware of her inexplicable feelings towards him even though he had neither instigated nor ever returned them. She smiled warmly, the bulging arteries criss-crossing her forehead almost disappearing as he sat, frozen like a deer before an approaching juggernaut. Ignoring the others she placed it gently before him. He muttered his thanks, at the same time waiting for Chet, fully aware that he wouldn’t miss out on this opportunity the very instant she was safely out of earshot.

‘You. Get those feet covered up!’ she snarled, now a hair’s breadth from Amon’s white and terrified face. ‘And for God’s sake, wipe your head, or better still have it amputated. ‘And you!’ her head swivelled faster than the syllables could leave her mouth, ‘Put out that cigarette, before I rip it out of your face!’ The smouldering filter wobbled precariously on Chet’s lip, cascading almost an inch of hot ash directly into his crotch. With one final glare she stalked away. Absently rubbing at his burnt pants, Chet scowled at her receding girth. Whatever anyone said to the contrary, he had no doubt who had been responsible for dropping rat poison into their collective juice the week before. Especially as it had been the day of Abe’s annual doctor’s appointment.

‘I wouldn’t.’ Amon said to his uncurling middle finger, ‘She’ll bite it off.’ Now that his own imminent injury had been postponed once more he smiled, stilling the tremor in his hands that every meeting with her provoked, before turning back to the mutilation of his feet.

Chet didn’t like to be bad-mouthed by the little weasel. There was his street cred’ to consider after all. He decided to have some fun.

‘Did you check your juice before drinking it? You’ll notice I didn’t have any.’ He had drunk about half a gallon of the synthetic concoction but hoped Amon hadn’t noticed. Amon had not and his face whitened immediately.

‘What, you mean…?’

Chet let him panic for a few seconds before snorting with laughter.

‘Nah, relax. Abe’s here. She wouldn’t want to poison her pet would she?’

‘You don’t really think it was her, do you? Abe felt his throat constrict and spat out a mouthful of coffee, as if it too might be poisoned. In truth it had only been luck that had saved them the first time.

After the ever clumsy Amon had slammed into the table whilst eyeing a young assistant, his impact had shaken it hard enough to send the jug of orange juice tumbling to the floor. And there, lying amid the quickly draining juice, Chet’s sharp eyes had immediately spotted the white sugary substance clinging to the floor. His expert nose had immediately sniffed its deadly contents. Where he’d acquired this knowledge was something Abe had never got round to asking.

Now fully into his swing, their saviour and tormentor continued.

‘Oh Aby-poos,’ Chet began on cue in his falsetto version of the administrator’s voice, after prudently waiting for the flatulent hiss of the automatic door, ‘I found your little magaziny-poos.’ He laughed a wheezy first-cigarette-of-the-day cackle.

‘Up yours.’

Chapter Four

The Exclusion Zone was a wide belt of rubble-strewn ground between old and New Los Angles. It was supposed to prevent any unsuspecting or just plain stupid wanderer from entering the unsafe ground therein. It was to this no-man’s-land that Chet’s occasional nocturnal forays had been, to the dismay of the others, and the rage of La Weintraub. Actually getting to the fault lines and back was the easiest part while slithering past the Administrator’s office, the most potentially dangerous, utilising all of his military skills to the fullest.

He had no wish to put to the test her threat issued to him one winter’s night after seizing his two hundred and thirty pound frame effortlessly. With one giant paw easily encompassing his neck, her forearm had rippled as if with a life of its own as she illustrated her plans to emasculate him with a blunt knife if her suspicions were ever proven.

The news that he had been to the rubble that was the old city did not impress the others either, even if he had brought back spoils which now lay in the old gas mask case he used for all his adventures. He unearthed it with a flourish once the retreating bulk of