Genesis Virus

by Pinto, Daniel

  Matthew says. “Don’t shoot idiots, you’ll hit the Boss.”

  The Chief pushes the Boss forward from behind, and elbows an approaching goon in the gut.

  A soldier further back says. “On the ground Indian, before I shoot your leathered skin ass.”

  The Boss flicks the blood from his stigmata hand, ties a handkerchief around it, tightening it with his teeth. He says in a rich baritone. “Are you sure you want this? I’m not just some guy in some town. I’m the man who’s going kill to you.”

  With contempt, the Chief curtsies. “Do me one last courtesy.”

  “Without further ado.” The Boss kicks the knife towards the Chief. “If this man kills me, kill the girl over there and let him leave with his Sora. Or not, what do I care I’ll be dead.”

  Matthew says, “Sir,” then points at Ava across the way. “Grab her.” Thaddeus pulls apart her arms around Jude’s throat, he stopped breathing minutes ago. She enjoyed every second of it. He had no weapons on him.

  Ava fidgets in Thaddeus’s arms and spies around for Phillip. With her long pointy nails she claws Thaddeus’s eyes like a feline. “You bitch.” That only makes her dig her claws deeper into his throat. He positions her to face him, lifts her with ease from the ground by her throat; runs with her, she tugs his hair and thumbs one of his eyes. He lifts her up higher and chucks her through a cracked car windshield. The Chief’s and Thaddeus’s eyes meet.

  The Boss takes off his belt with guns and gives it to Matthew. “A gun, a gun, my kingdom for a gun.” Matthew has an uneasy look on his face. “Sir, this is unwise.” The Boss tells him. “How would it look to the men if I run and cower? Paul didn’t. No one wants to follow a talker.” With a renew vitality he pumps his arms back twice stretching his chest, and pulls his blade from its sheath. “No one disrespects me in my home.”

  12

  Phillip’s sitting on top of the school desk in his room. Sora runs in with a handful of towels. He has a split lip and eyebrow. A purple knot under one eye and rash burns underneath the other. One side of his face is swollen as if he had a bad reaction to something.

  Sora says. “You did it. We can leave tomorrow.”

  Phillip takes off his shirt and wipes off Paul’s bloodstains from his neck and arms. He never told her he had to kill Paul for her to leave. She thinks it’s for all three of them.

  Sora says. “Life for life, how is that fair?”

  Phillip cleans the cut on his chest and applies pressure to the deeper cut on his side. “Something is only sad if you make it so. One more life taken is not going to change my world.”

  Sora says. “How does it feel to be free of this place?”

  He looks down at his wedding ring. “It’s a new and old sensation at the same time, like when a ring feels funny on your hand when you first put it on, then you forget it’s even there. A gradual change. It’s always with you. I’ve always been free to make my own choices I just have to look down to help me remember that.”

  Sora’s silent as she packs her belongings.

  Phillip slumps back against the wall, painting red over the erotic artwork. “I know I’m not making sense, I just got the shit beat out of me.”

  Sora says. “You’re allowed to say and do whatever you want, everyone else does.”

  Phillip picks up one leg at a time into the chair. “I will take you where ever you want to go tomorrow.”

  “What if I want to stay with you?”

  13

  Extrapolating the outcome in his favor. The Chief cleans the knife on his bicep then lunges forward and swings it repeatedly, the Boss sways and dashes around the knife by pivoting on one heel and twisting his entire body like a front propeller on an airplane. The knife hits empty air. Then he circles around the Chief, resembling a dancer. The Boss’s boot heels make scraping noises like sandpaper against the skin.

  The Chief turns to face him again, slices at the air in front of the nemesis of many, and the fleet Boss deflects the knife in his face as if his weapon is a rapier.

  He quickly backhands the Chief in the mouth with his free hand and karate chops the inside of the Chief’s arm, dislodging the blade out of the Chief’s hand. Runs up and stabs the Chief, who turns to use his arm as a shield, the blade goes through his bicep.

  As the Boss stretches forward to retrieve his knife, the Chief conks him in the head with his good arm; the Boss’s knees buckle. The Chief pulls the knife out and swings down at the squatting Boss, who rolls in the dirt away into the dark.

  Matthew and Thaddeus are visible, clear as day. No Boss.

  The Chief takes a breath and tightens his grip when he hears quickening steps, the Boss finally appears and is running straight for him with hard upward thrusts. The Chief waits. The Boss wallops the Chief, running into him at full speed. In the clinch, the Chief uppercuts the Boss out of his face. Matthew uncrosses his arms and takes a step forward.

  The Boss holds his jaw in one hand, “Chief, what else you got,” turns his head and spits.

  The combatants are circling each other, the Chief’s holding his arm and looks down for his weapon, and the unarmed Boss quickly hooks him with his right hand bringing the Chief to his back.

  The Boss squats over the Chief with his palms on his kneecaps. He lets out a heavy gasp and says. “I don’t know what I did to you, get over it or die here.”

  The Boss waves his arms at the men to stay back then stares down at his foe. “You brought me Jacob’s killer, I think I’ll keep Sora for your insolence and you can leave with your life. What did you think was going to happen once you killed me…wait I think I do recognize you. I knew something wasn’t adding up.”

  The Chief grins despite himself.

  The incredulous Boss grabs him by the shirt and lifts him a foot off the ground. “Where’s Jacob, is he with your group?” There is a flash of red on his neck.

  The Chief laughs and says. “Kill me and always wonder. She’s a patsy, she doesn’t know anything. Look at her skin color, we’re not the same.” Taking a page out of The Stranger’s handbook.

  The Boss punches him in the mouth; the Chief’s eyes roll up. “Tell me.” He drags him up to his feet.

  The Chief spits in the Boss’s eye then spears him with the tip of his elbow in the jaw, causing the Boss to turn and catch himself with a hand to the ground. The Chief grabs the broken lion figurine in the dirt and as the Boss stands to face the Chief. He stabs the Boss in his love handle and twists. “This is for all the people you killed.” Both men let out a roar.

  The Boss drops his hands, deflecting the next blow away from his face; the Chief rams his head into the Boss’s chest, bashing him into a car door, shattering the window.

  Thaddeus and Matthew are holding back the men.

  The Chief scoops up the Boss’s knife and swings at his face, who is turning to grab the other knife, the Boss’s cheekbone is sliced to the marrow. The Boss squeezes the Chief’s wrist with both of his hands and runs his body, mostly falling momentum into the Chief’s body.

  On the ground, the Chief twists the lion wood figurine still lodged in the Boss’s gut. The Boss lifts his torso up by placing his hands and weight on the Chief’s bleeding bicep. He flings the hair out of his face and brings the Chief’s knife into his palm. It goes through the dirt and flesh; the Chief screams as he reaches to pull it out and the Boss hastily stabs the Chief’s other hand into the dirt, crucifying the man in the dark. The Chief’s window of uncertainty slams shut.

  The Boss stands, moves into the dark, to assuage the pain of embarrassment, looks up and pulls out the wooden spear-tip, his face goes to one side like a paralysis victim. “Urghhh.” His back teeth grind.

  Dirt fills in the ceases and wrinkles of both winded men. The Chief’s grunting and bicycling his legs upwards trying to do a situp. Matthew’s cleaning the Boss’s wounds with pouring liquor and watching the squirming man. “I’m a bloody mess.” Matthew rips off strips of Duck-tape, new age frontier medicine.

  After,
the priggish Boss stands behind the Chief’s head and says. “I’m sorry you feel like a loser…but I won’t apologize for having it all.”

  The Boss slowly walks away with Duck-tape as dressing over his wounds, his face is blotted out by black squares. He joyously breaths in the fresh air like one of his cigars. Halfway to the bunker door, he says. “Get rid of him.” Stops and looks back. “Did anyone hear that? He walks forward a few more steps. “A kid’s lullaby?”

  A soldier whistles and the Boss rivets towards the entrance again. That’s when he notices the lone stranger entering his house.

  14

  The Chief slides one hand down; he bites down hard like a man feeling the first shock of the electric chair. The knife cuts its way out between his fore finger and middle finger. He raises his torso in an awkward angle, shakily grabs the handle of the other knife with the tips of his ring and pinky fingers, and pulls with the little strength he has left.

  A solo derelict zombie, rags interweaved across his chest, staggers into the entryway. That composes of opposing eighteen-wheelers confronting each other like winged sphinxes, waiting to crush intruders on command. The sallow and jaundice complexion zombie has no eyes and two tough cauliflower ears; it’s the blind leading the blind that has lost its way and has a foretaste for all.

  The Boss gleans up at the gateway. “How did this manhunter get through?”

  “Sir, I got it.”

  Inchoate soldiers whisper amongst each other like scared chirping canaries trapped in a coalmine. A shot is fired from behind the Boss, still the zombie moves about like a marionette on strings, it crosses the threshold of safety, with its face down and hand out like a beggar in a man’s home. The Chief rolls behind the nearest car swaddling his torn hands.

  The Boss aims his gun at the zombie, now half in shadow, but his eye is drawn to the Chief rolling under the car.

  A man behind the Boss walks up and lowers his gun from the sky. “Wait.” The man from behind fires two shoots, one bullet goes through the flimsy ribcage and hits the stick of dynamite strapped to the back of the zombie. All the car windows explode, glass flies through the air like a crystal shrapnel tornado.

  “My eyes.”

  Cars rock back and forth, tires make new thread marks, and all the towering spotlights go dark. No one is standing. The white trucks at the entrance are redecorated black and red. Grey smoke twirls in the vacuum of the explosion.

  The Boss plunged near the Chief as the dynamite went boom, shielding his face. Shockwave blast imploded the shooter, only his gory ankles remain, the force swept the Boss away like a dead leaf; a tire stabs him in the back and stops his twirling. He has glass poking out of both his arms like thorns on branches and rose colored blood flowing from his ears.

  15

  Disfigured men run hunched forward like Quasimodo to safety as practiced during fire drills. Others seem to be sound asleep, bleeding through their clothes.

  “Boss. Boss. Boss.”

  “Medic”

  “I can’t fucking see, is anyone alive?”

  “Let’s drive away.”

  “No vehicles work inside, dipshit. Look at them.” Two men push each other, only ceasing when Thaddeus drags a screaming man by both arms that has no legs. “Get the fuck out of my way.”

  Matthew bangs on the bunker door with a bloody fist. “Open up.” He kicks the door. “Open up. Goddamnit. We need help.”

  Thaddeus wipes his bloody hands on his thighs. “Gather every fucking weapon you can. You two bring all the metal barrels to me. Make a line.” He points at the ground. At the helm, Thaddeus doffs his scarf and leather jacket and tosses it into the dark. He stands on a hood and pounds his chest; his voice becomes strident like a drill instructor. “Fuck them. Fuck their mothers. Fuck their sisters. I don’t give a fuck if their leader is Jesus Christ himself, fuck him too.”

  Men eagerly start to assemble from the dark towards his booming voice. Thaddeus speaks over the heavy tread of incoming boots and rolling of barrels. “Tell death to fuck off. Tonight we’ll make history, not be discarded by it. This is our land.” He gazes at the American flag flapping high on the carwall. “And Justice for all.”

  The men lumber and gather into squadron formation, becoming rows of soldiers, reminiscent of America militia in colonial times, they look as unprepared as their forefathers did.

  A rabble-rousing Thaddeus jumps off the hood. “THEY sent in an old man, a girl, and a dead guy. What’s next a baby with a fucking Uzi? THESE are not people to fear. We’re the chosen ones.”

  Metal canisters almost as tall as the men are arranged in front and spaced between every other man like somewhat pillars of hope to hide behind. Matthew sits in the bed of the truck off to the side of the men, staring at the bunker door. More weapons, more hostages, and more safety.

  Thaddeus bellows. “They’re hoping, we’re all going to run with our tails between our legs…They’ve come to the wrong FUCKING place.”

  He grabs a guy by the shoulders and steadies him upright. “This is our home, we never run. We TAKE will don’t get TAKEN…they have a General Custer leading his 7th Cavalry to their fucking doom, OBLIGE THEM.” Thaddeus points into the darkness with a straight arm as stiff as a spear.

  “OO-RAH.” The men shout at the top of their lungs, it’s rushed like a car horn.

  Thaddeus points at each and every man as he walks down the line “You are KNIGHTS, protecting the innocent children you’ve fathered. Don’t let these people make them orphans and steal everything you worked hard for, shove your boots so far up their asses…” He bounces in the air with excitement.

  “OO-RAH.” The men do not take their eyes from the burning and roaring entrance.

  Thaddeus holds his rifle with both hands over his head and marches around the men, spouting. “Avenge the few fallen brothers. One measly bomb can’t defeat US.” He shakes random men’s shoulders. “Not you…you…and certainly not you.” One guy can’t open his other eye. Thaddeus shakes his hand and gives him the handgun from his hip. “Fire straight ahead, the gun will do the rest, my friend.” He slaps the man’s shoulder.

  “OO-RAH.” Some men light Molotov cocktails and others exchange ammo.

  Thaddeus balls his fist and crotches midway. “I fucking hate these cowards. Who had to send in the dead to kill us, because they have no balls. I’m mad I won’t get to kill them all my damn-self...I know you greedy bastards will do your duty and the make The Last Brotherhood proud…we protect our own, these sick fucks probably eat their dead. Show no mercy.” Thaddeus rises and swings his arm upwards with full force. “Let’s wake the dead with their screams.”

  A cocking of guns and a cockiness takes over the crowd of contenders.

  “OO-RAH.” The men collectively raise their M16s, AKMs, and SIGs assault rifles over their heads.

  The rest of the garrison mobilizes on the sides of Thaddeus with the mountain at their backs. It’s not quite as large as the Devil’s Tower, but unscalable nevertheless.

  Thaddeus steadily kneels and aims the assault rifle at the grey cloud of smoke in the doorway. “Hurry the fuck up, already.”

  The vociferous battle cry gets louder and louder. “OO-RAH.” “OO-RAH.” “OO-RAH.” “OO-RAH.” “OO-RAH.” “OO-RAH.” “OO-RAH.” “OO-RAH.”

  Possessing a newfound esprit de corps, the men unanimously rally around Thaddeus like Myrmidon warriors around their Achilles, creating a shield wall, half an acre long.

  16

  Phillip’s choking the soldier that’s near the door to the outside world, feet tap dance in the air to the beats of the banging. He can hear what sounds like Matthew screaming and banging on the door. “Open up. Goddamnit. We need help.”

  Sora finds Phillip amongst the internal chaos.

  She zips up her jacket. “We have to fight. The devil we know is better than these strangers.”

  He stands in the nearby doorway blocking her. “I’ll let you know when it’s safe, be ready with my daughter. We’ll
never get another opportunity. Everyone that doesn’t matter is on the outside.”

  Phillip hands her his new handgun. “Shoot anybody that’s not me.” She hugs him and nods her head.

  “This is the safest area, for now. Use your judgment for how long to wait. If I don’t return, leave out the second exit with everyone and don’t look back. Head north.”

  She reiterates because he’s talking fast and over her. “How will you find us?”

  “I might not, if so, you’ll have to raise her…I know it’s a lot to ask, anything is better than being a sex slave…Can I count on you?”

  He stares at his daughter fast asleep. If he wakes her, he won’t leave out the front, he’ll run out the back and sign the death warrant of another group in a bunker. He couldn’t save his community. This is his second shot to save a group from these men.

  She says. “I’ll do my best to save her.”

  “And I’ll do my best to kill as many as I can to buy you all some time. Try to get that door open.”

  All the rest of the weapons and ammo are locked in a room, he doesn’t want to waste time and miss his one chance for absolute freedom.

  Phillip steps through the doorway. “Tell Abigail, her dad tried to be a decent person, for her sake.” He hands her the dead guard’s assault rifle, to help her odds, because the odds are stacked against him.

  Sora says. “You’re so much more.”

  17

  Whispers in the wind enter the camp through the cracks in the carwall. Only light is cars on fire.

  Behind the group of men, a man in a black hoodie near the bunker door rests his Barrett sniper rifle on a metal canister, his breathing is even and his hands calm. He closes one eye, waiting. Till he’s shot in the head from behind, the plangent bang intensifies outward like in an amphitheater. All the men speedily turn to find a man and no gun.