Salazar

by Chariss K. Walker

  Salazar began to suspect that these people were drugged. His eyes carefully scanned the area and besides the roaring fires and shattered buildings, the only thing he could see that might account for this change in behavior was the strange fumes that lazily drifted through the air.

  Pinkish in color and thick in consistency, Salazar wondered why the gases were part of the air raid. Wanting to understand, he silently observed as some people grabbed their chests in pain and died. Some grew paranoid and quickly ran away. While others… others seemed to instantly go stark-raving mad.

  He wanted to steer clear of those.

  They were the ones that caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. As he kept scanning the area, he realized that a lot of the residents were affected in that same way. He slowed down and pulled Miki into the shadows of a building.

  "Look, Mother. Look at our neighbors and tell me what you see," he whispered as he pointed at two individuals they knew personally.

  "It looks as if they are no longer in their right mind," Miki concluded after observing the men for a few minutes.

  "What do you think could cause such a thing?" he asked.

  "I'm not sure, Son. I can't possible understand what would cause any of them to want to steal during such a time. You'd think they would be looking for shelter like we are."

  "Yes, you would think," he agreed.

  Miki felt an itch in the back of her throat and began to cough. At first it was a dry, tickling rasp as if she couldn't clear her throat. It was her body's natural response to try to rid itself of mucus or a foreign substance that had entered her airway. She looked up at her son as he also began to cough.

  "We've been out here too long, Salazar. Now, we have been exposed to whatever it is. We must hurry and get to wherever we are going," she urged between coughing fits.

  "We will," Salazar replied. He coughed two or three times before continuing, "I just needed to make sure that my assessment of our neighbors was the same as yours."

  Now completely overcome by a hacking fit, his mother couldn't reply. In only a matter of moments, her cough became so violent that she slid to her knees and vomited.

  "Oh, I'm really sorry about that. I think I got some on your shoes, Son. Help me up… we must get to our shelter right away or we might not get there at all," Miki pressed, feeling a consuming urgency to get away from the chaos.

  Salazar knew his mother was right about that, however, the only response he could make right then was to join her on the pavement as he expelled his own stomach's contents.

  When they had both recovered some and he was able, he took Miki's arm and they continued on their way. Still, he thought about the pinkish gases and wondered if it was a new biological weapon. From the looks of things, if that was true, it seemed that inhaling the substance brought out the worst in many of the people but not everyone. Some were sick; however, they still acted normally. Just as he did, they shied away from those who had gone insane.

  He wondered why and how it affected everyone differently.

  Did the gases attack some dormant characteristic in those who were already bent on chaos? Did the fumes inflame some particular trait causing it to surface?

  Not having any real answers, Salazar could only observe its effects. Nevertheless, his instincts led him to believe that the fumes were responsible for the things he and Miki witnessed.

  Hoping not to attract any attention from the crazed mob, Salazar and Miki crept along in the shadows. They stayed close to the buildings that had not yet been bombed as they carefully made their way to the entrance Serena had previously pointed out.

  Even after all this time, it still looked the same – a jagged, crumbled opening where a mortar blast had torn away the façade many years ago during the first war and rebellion. However, just before they could duck inside and out of sight, two men spotted them and approached from behind.

  7| Thieves

  "Looky-here, looky-here. What do we have, Steve?" one called to the other, drawing Salazar and Miki's attention. Not wanting to be followed inside, they both turned to face the men.

  "Yep Jeff, must be something valuable seeing as how they are sneaking along in the dark," Steve rejoined. He cackled while his hands twitched nervously at his sides and his eyes ravenously raked Miki's body. Acting as if he was in feral heat, Steve licked his lips. "I'll take her, Jeff. You can have the kid," he announced and then wildly cackled again.

  "Stand back," Salazar warned.

  "Don't pay any attention to Steve. He's not himself right now. Come to think of it, no one is acting like himself. On the other hand, I'm trying real hard to be nice. Just give up the bags, son. Then, we'll let you be," Jeff declared, trying to sound sincere.

  "I'm not your son and it's nothing of value," Salazar replied. "Just move along and I won't hurt you." With his voice calm and confident, it gave both men pause at first, and then, their greed got the better of them.

  "Ha-ha, young man. Now, that is funny. Give us the bags and we won't hurt you," Jeff repeated Salazar's words and nervously laughed. Jeff considered that the kid seemed far more mature than he looked and that worried him a little. "Why would you think you're a match for two grown men? You're just a boy."

  "Yep, just a boy," Steve agreed. "Just like you like 'em."

  Then, showing his cowardliness and thinking she was petite and frail, Steve attacked Miki first. He tried to wrestle her bag away from her and was surprised that he got more response from Miki than he had bargained.

  Miki was indeed Serena McKay's daughter. She surprised Steve when she used a forceful upper cut that squarely landed on his chin. The blow hurt and Steve stopped to rub his jaw and then shook his head a few times as if trying to shake it off. When he looked at Miki again, his lips curled into a wicked sneer.

  "I see you like it rough, missy. I'll give it to you as rough as you want it." His hysterical chortle ended abruptly when Miki forcefully slammed him squarely in the nose with the heel of her flat palm. Blood spurted across both of them.

  Miki knew that a broken nose was normally the best way to halt an assault. Most people didn't want to fight anymore after such a blow shattered the nasal septum and septal cartilage, especially when the excruciating pain hit the olfactory nerves. Steve was no exception. Suddenly, he felt as if icepicks piercingly stabbed his sinus passages.

  He immediately stopped his attack to glare at Miki in shock. "You broke my damn nose!" he blubbered as bright blood gushed down his lips and chin, making it sound as if he had said, "Yew ploke my plamn plose."

  "Yep, I certainly did, but that is on you. You should have left us alone," Miki replied.

  Meanwhile, Salazar had been taught to eliminate threats as quickly as possible. In his mind, he heard Tom Lang's instructions replay, Never mess around, do it with force, and get the job done. With that as his main objective, Salazar executed two powerful and quick jabs to Jeff's solar plexus – the soft hollow spot between his ribs. He felt and heard Jeff's ribs crack when his blows connected, making it very difficult for the assailant to breathe or move.

  Jeff immediately bent double, wheezing and in terrible pain. Too late, he realized that he had picked the wrong family to attack. A look of shock washed over his face as he gasped for air that did not want to fill his lungs. The well-placed blows ended his desire for anything more. He grunted and motioned for Steve's help. In a daze and hurt, Jeff didn't have the strength or wind to call out to Steve. He didn't have the energy to run away without his partner's assistance.

  Still holding onto the straps of Miki's bag, Steve saw that Jeff was in trouble and couldn't stand up straight. He shoved Miki to the ground; however, determined that they wouldn't leave without something to show for their troubles, he held onto the tote straps. Again, he got more than he bargained for. Miki tenaciously held onto her bag while she dug her heels into the cracks of the sidewalk to counteract his wrenching. Even though Steve pulled with all his might, he could not tear it from her grasp.

  Miki wor
e a circular broach that had been passed down from Marta Stevens to Serena and then to her. It was a beautiful ornament that used a five-inch sweater pin to attach it. Marta Stevens had taught Serena how to become a savvy computer hacker and to protect herself from the prying eyes of the government. More importantly, she had taught Serena how to live in a normal and loving family.

  Now, Miki pulled the broach from her lapel and jabbed its sharp end into the meaty flesh of Steve's hand. He jerked his hand back and let go of the straps, but not before Miki jabbed the pin into his foot too. Growling in defeat, he turned to help Jeff get away. Together, the two men limped across the street and back into the ruins of a collapsed building.

  After their attackers had disappeared from sight, Salazar gently helped Miki to her feet. When he saw the blood spatters on her face, he asked, "Are you hurt, Mother?"

  "Just my shoulder," she admitted as she tried to pull her torn blouse together, "it's only minor." Salazar looked worried as he ran a finger through a dab of blood on her cheek and then showed it to her. "The blood?" Miki snorted, "It's his, not mine."

  "I should have known," he admitted. "Your shoulder might be dislocated. If you had let him take your bag, maybe you wouldn't be injured."

  "Fat chance of that!" Miki scoffed. "I didn't fight to let him win." She used the broach to re-pin her clothing and noticed that her own blood oozed from a scrape on her hand. She had skinned her palm against the broken bricks when Steve shoved her.

  "Are you sure you're not hurt?" Salazar asked again.

  "Really, I'm fine. Let's just get off these streets before someone else decides what we carry in our bags is valuable."

  "I agree. It's not far now. Just a few more steps," Salazar urged and he led the way.

  It was now six-twenty.

  8| Entourage

  Unaware that a dozen pair of curious eyes had witnessed the attack on them, Salazar and Miki ducked inside the jagged opening and out of sight. Once inside, they felt safely hidden from the view of anyone on the street. However, their confrontation and victory over Steve and Jeff had evoked a strange confidence in the twelve people who had watched the pair meet the challenge and win.

  It wasn't often that they got to see any victories.

  Although they had not arrived at their location together, they each had the same objective – to survive this ordeal the best they could. Even though they were terrified of the nearby shelling, they also considered that the broken-down building the mother and son entered looked unsafe. It was possibly a deathtrap. Almost all of the onlookers hesitated to follow Salazar and Miki.

  Jesse Slater did not.

  He had seen enough people in his line of work to recognize that the mother and son team were exceptional. He knew that wherever those two were headed, he didn't want to be left behind. He quickly followed them inside and disappeared from sight.

  One by one, the others covertly sneaked into the building too.

  Phillip Beardsley was the last to enter. His face twisted into an ugly sneer as he watched the others dart across the street and into the bomb-blasted structure to follow the youth and his mother. He didn't really want to be 'led' anywhere, nonetheless, when a mortar struck a nearby structure, terror overcame him.

  In a true panic, Phillip ran shrieking to the entryway and flung himself through the opening. He landed face down and out of sight from anyone else left on the street. It wasn't the entrance he had wanted to make; however, in his mind, he rewrote the scene. He saw himself confidently leading the way and smiling at those who followed him. He imagined that they looked up to him and he was their protector and savior. He sniggered about the conjured image and the sensation of pride he felt from imaging it.

  Phillip had always seen himself as a misunderstood leader, a groundbreaker who never got any breaks. In his mind, he was sure he had the qualities required of leadership and it irked him that he wasn't the one leading the way now. Nevertheless, he considered that, if he survived this terrible night, an opportunity would present itself for him to step up and take charge. For now, he would follow and bide his time until such a moment presented itself… anything to get off the dangerous streets and to safety.

  In the meantime, Salazar found the basement. His calm voice inspired even more confidence in those who surreptitiously trailed behind him and Miki. "It looks exactly the way Grandmother described it," he confided to his mother.

  "You sound surprised. As a detective, she put a lot of stock in the details," Miki replied.

  "I know," he admitted, "she would have said 'the devil is in the details.'"

  Miki softly laughed at the reminder.

  From the light chit-chat, Salazar recognized that his mother was back. The adrenaline rush from their struggle with the two assailants had apparently been good for her. The battle and their victory had pushed the fear and worry aside while pulling her out of the fugue and despair that had consumed her earlier.

  However, when the bombs began to fall in earnest, Salazar realized the basement wasn't safe enough. The ceiling and walls shook and crumbled as the number of mortar blasts in Fallhaven grew in frequency and intensity. He knew they would have to venture further down and into the bowels of the undercity to find real shelter from the ongoing assault.

  By the time the sirens finally began to wail at six-thirty, the shelling of Fallhaven had begun in earnest. The bombers moved back and forth, systematically and purposefully, the same as they had done in Summerhaven and then Springhaven.

  They dropped high explosives on any and all government and municipal buildings. Every police station and military compound was obliterated even as men and women poured out of them and into the streets in an effort to escape.

  There was no escape.

  In was an effort to eliminate anyone with combat training, those skilled men and women were cut down by shrapnel which effectively destroyed August City's remaining warriors.

  Warehouses and shipyards, trains and bus stations, and any commercial sites or industrial buildings were also blasted to dust. Universities, schools, and hospitals were wiped out. Cell towers and television stations were also eradicated, severing ties to other cities around the United Sectors and the rest of the world. Those who had tried to call their relatives to ascertain whether this was an isolated event never got through to them because their phones had been jammed. Now, they would never know.

  Those in Fallhaven finally understood why the red and black clouds had seemed far away. The planes had made many passes to ensure that primary industry in Summerhaven was completely destroyed before they moved on to Springhaven and now to Fallhaven.

  Even the two specialized and secret bunkers where diligent scientists had painstakingly worked to perfect a new biological weapon were blown apart. These new poisons were designed to target specific DNA markers in any survivors.

  Although the weapon had not been fully tested, those who had commissioned it didn't really care about that. The initial reports were good enough for them – When inhaled, along with a fit of coughing and flu-like symptoms, the powerful substance chose random genetic codes in each person exposed. That the toxin had immediate consequences was even better.

  And it did have immediate results.

  The research bunker was filled with human test subjects collected from Winterhaven who had been exposed to the fumes. The results had documented that some died. Some grew paranoid. Some went mad and then transformed into ape-like creatures. Several, however, had looked at their captors with suspicion and knowing. There was accusation in their eyes. That particular reaction was the one that scared the scientists most of all. It was as if the test subjects had intuited everything and the blame for what they had suffered was clearly in their eyes.

  The toxin was designed to attack the most vulnerable genomes. Anyone with a propensity for schizophrenia or mental disorders would go insane. Anyone with a family history of cancer, liver or heart disease would suddenly fall ill and die.

  The intention was that the poison would en
hance only negative and weak traits; however, the trials were inconclusive. Now, that the toxin was part of the air raid and set loose on the public at large, its scientific creators had hoped to evaluate its affects in closer detail. They had hoped to study the results of their invention on a wider scale.

  However, when the rockets took off, they understood that they had been used and were expendable. Their facilities were no longer needed. They were no longer needed. Their entire covert project, along with the antidote, was wiped out in an instant along with all traces of everything else.

  To the residents of August City, it was unclear if they were the only location bombed. It was undecided who had attacked them. Having many enemies, it was anyone's guess as to who had the most to gain by such destruction. The attack could have come from anyone of a half-dozen countries. Were they attacked by Russian? Or was it China or Korea? Was it an Iran or a Middle-Eastern Terrorist group? Could it have been North Korea?

  No one knew for sure and it soon became apparent that the attack could have come from a local source.

  Those with military training could see that August City was not targeted by guided missiles or launched rockets from faraway places. There were no nuclear launches either. It was a definite air raid where they were bombed by visible planes. The residents feared it was some domestic terrorist group – it had happened before or so they had been told, but that was always the 'go-to' assumption.

  The very word 'terrorists' was designed to terrorize the public while, more often than not, it was later determined that most severe attacks were political ploys or plays for more power among those who already ran everything.

  In August City, no one knew anything for sure.

  The unknown can be terribly frightening and intimidating.

  That unknown was as much a part of the planned assault as the bombs. When one is in the dark and can't see their attacker, it makes the confrontation even more terrifying.