Dark Ages: 2020 (Dark Ages Series Book 1)

by JD Dutra

  When she got closer to him she couldn’t see any sign of blood and, with a sigh of relief, she realized that he was just asleep. His shotgun was next to him, and he had no covers but the clothes on his body, for a bed there was nothing but sand and small rocks. He rested between two freshly filled graves which were neatly decorated with desert stones and wildflowers borrowed from the landscaping beds around them.

  Mei Lin’s heart was still fluttering inside her chest when it began to ache with guilt at the idea of her organization being behind this pandemic. She wept silently, seeing Daniel there with the two graves was a sadder sight than all the bodies she’d seen on the streets. Seeing the father laying between his dead children made her think of her own parents and all the times she had fought with her mother, rebelled against her and joined the wrong crowds of people behind her back, just to show her mom she was in control of her own life. That was, until the crowds got progressively worse, and that led her into a group where she had neither control nor freedom.

  I’ve been such a fool.

  While tears flowed, she missed her parents more than she ever had. Mei Lin and her mother had gotten closer over the last few years, it became easier to connect with her when Mei Lin began to understand the world and the people who lived in it. Most them were now dead and now even her parents were probably gone. Her old life made her wear a constant mask and avoid deep relationships, now more than ever she felt the weight of the realization that she had no one to turn to. The burden of selfish loneliness suddenly felt so heavy and then she thought once more how Daniel must have felt as he worked alone in the night.

  Daniel stirred in the gravel, and began to wake up.

  “Mei Lin? Are you alright?” He asked with eyes still half asleep.

  “You should’ve called me to help you,” said Mei Lin, wiping her tears away.

  “It’s okay. I got tired of just waiting and not doing anything apart from watching. I thought about getting this started, and lost track of time. I got things done and sat with my children, that’s the last thing I remember.”

  “It’s alright, they never came anyway.”

  “You’re right… I guess they didn’t.”

  “I’m so sorry this happened to you Daniel.”

  “Me too,” Daniel said, while slowly getting up and slapping the dust off his clothes before he reached down to grab his shotgun. He looked like he had cried out all his tears throughout the night. He smiled softly at her and asked, “Did you sleep okay?”

  “Surprisingly yes I did, thank you. You picked a beautiful place to lay them down to rest.”

  “Do you like it? I planted it all myself actually. These guys were my clients.”

  “Really?” She asked, taken back. “So you’re a landscaper?”

  He nodded and said, “I have my own landscaping business… well I did have. I grew up doing this kind of work, been in it since I was 11 with my older brother. By the time I was 17, I had set up my own little company and it grew from there. I had a lot of clients all over greater Phoenix, I’ve been in business here for over 20 years.”

  Mei Lin smiled and said, “That is wonderful, you do great work Daniel,” she reached out and touched the soft tips of the wild grasses nearby, with a look in her eye of someone who appreciated the simple beauty of nature.

  “Thanks. A lifetime of work is now gone, I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

  “I know how you feel, but I’m sure you’ll stay busy. The supermarket shelves won’t magically fill themselves with processed food anymore, so your knowledge about plants could help feed the people who managed to survive.”

  “You may be right…” He answered, wishing he could just re-plant his children and watch them grow again. “How about you?”

  “Well, I ran a non-profit organization, but that is gone now, so I don’t know what I’ll do,” she replied vaguely, still trying to decide between getting lost somewhere after settling scores with Oneita and Raymond or heading down south to be part of a New World Order.

  “I think you’ll be alright whatever it is you decide you’ll do.”

  She could run a business and kill with her bare hands, I’ve never met someone like her before.

  “Let’s see if we can get inside the office, maybe there are things we can use if those guys turn up and Ivan’s still not here,” said Mei Lin and Daniel nodded his agreement after a last glance at the graves.

  They began to walk towards the reception office, which was nothing but a modern looking mobile home.

  “I am sure Ivan won’t mind if we help ourselves to whatever we can find, he is a good man,” said Daniel. “If he knew this gang deal was happening down here, he’d be livid.”

  He knows one side of Ivan, I’ve only seen the other.

  “Can you hear that?” Said Mei Lin, suddenly putting her hand on his arm before looking towards the direction of the sound.

  “Cars coming! We need to get out of sight!”

  They ran towards the mobile home, but the front door was locked. Mei Lin thought about shooting the lock but that sound would attract whoever was coming. There were three cars far out on the dirt road, coming towards the entrance of the yard.

  “Those look like the cars that left the apartments last night,” said Daniel, who moved to the window of the mobile home only to find it locked.

  Daniel stepped back to look at the roof. It was flat but it had a large wooden sign that said ‘Welcome to Rus’ Pick and Pull’. They could hide behind it.

  “Quickly, up in the roof! We can hide behind the sign, I’ll help you climb —” Said Daniel, but before he was even done suggesting it, Mei Lin had stepped back and run up the wall, grabbed the ledge and pulled herself up to the roof so easily it embarrassed him.

  “Hurry Daniel, they’re almost at the gates!” She whispered, lowering a hand down to him. He passed his shotgun to her first, then stepped up the window ledge then grabbed one of her hands, awkwardly making his way up the roof to lay down next to her behind the large wooden sign.

  The loud sounds of a rap song filled with profanity got even louder, and the three cars pulled into the front entrance of Rus’ Pick and Pull in a cloud of dust. They drove in and around the circular plant bed which was now also a graveyard. The people in the car all looked at the graves, and from behind the sign, Mei Lin recognized the man sitting in the front passenger seat of one of the cars.

  “That’s them, stay down,” she whispered to Daniel.

  They could hear doors opening, people getting out and stepping on the gravel, several sets of shoes crunching it loudly with every step. Someone began to speak with an unamused, annoyed voice.

  “Is this it? Where are they?” The man’s voice was deep and it was accented with an edge of impatience.

  “They are coming. They said last night they needed more time to put together the trade. When I changed my mind and asked for weapons and ammo plus the money it threw them off. I talked to the guy on the phone earlier this morning. Trust me, they’re coming.”

  “You better be right Jimmy, I could be out there making all kinds of gains right now, there ain’t no cops out there. Everything is just laying around for grabs.”

  “Yeah until you meet someone who’ll put a rifle in your face. With the guns we’re getting for this stuff, we can go against the army boys and take their stuff too, you know what I am saying?”

  “I hope you’re right Jimmy, my boys and I are counting on it.”

  “You Mexicans need to have more patience,” sneered Jimmy, before he added, “Speaking of them devils, here they come. Everyone keep your guns close, never trust nobody,” Jimmy said.

  Moments later, the front of a black SUV turned the corner into Rus’ Pick and Pull, slowly driving around the roundabout, more cars kept coming, one after another positioning themselves so as to block Jimmy and his crew from driving away in any direction. They were surrounded by 8 other cars, people were quickly pouring out and pointing their rifles and other high caliber guns at
them.

  “Hey! What a hell is this all about Ivan?” Screamed Jimmy, before pointing his handgun out in their direction, “I thought we were going to do business!”

  A man with dark long hair slicked back to perfection and perhaps looking too young to be speaking on behalf of this group of so heavily armed men stepped forward. With his hands in the air, he looked like a maestro conductor about to start a performance. His several dozen men had all kinds of different weapons pointing back at Jimmy and his crew. They all looked like they were just waiting for a signal.

  “Pardon my rudeness, Jimmy. But when you called last night to change the deal on me, I had to arrange for a change of my own,” said Ivan.

  “You ain’t going to scare me man. I’ll destroy this stuff here. You’ll never have any of it, you understand?” Jimmy sneered, pulling out a ziplock bag with five memory sticks inside of it.

  “Control yourself, Jimmy. We are still going to make a trade. I got something of yours that I’ll trade for what you got,” said Ivan. “Bring her out!”

  A man with a red silk shirt and suit went to one of the SUVs and opened one of the back passenger doors. He pointed a pistol inside of it and suddenly the car began to move from one side to another, as if a large weight was being shifted inside of it. Jimmy saw a Christmas ham sized calf appear, and a foot crush down firmly on the gravel, then another. The car moved around some more and a large figure appeared behind the door.

  “That Oneita?” Jimmy said loudly, with mockery in his voice.

  She began to walk painfully towards Ivan, she was bound at the wrists, her face was swollen, wet with tears and marked as if she had been beaten. Her hair was short and thin, with random red lines around her dark scalp as if her fake hair was yanked out of her skull before the glue had been dissolved.

  Jimmy began to laugh loudly, another one of his crewmen, an African American man wearing a wife beater shirt and the most unusual sweat pants with jeans pockets on them joined him. Suddenly Jimmy’s entire crew began to howl with laughter.

  “Well I got somethin’ for you. Here’s what I’ll trade for that black whale,” said Jimmy, before opening the doors of one of his cars and reaching in to grab someone, he pulled out a man by the hair. His face was in an even worse shape than Oneita’s, his eyes were swollen shut, his lips and cheeks grotesquely out of proportion, as it he had been stung by a swarm of African killer bees. The man’s shirt was torn and was stained with dried blood and he moved as if every inch of his body was in overwhelming pain. Jimmy dragged the beaten man in front of him to face the bound woman and Ivan, then he half pushed, half kicked the man’s butt, throwing him a few yards in front of him, face first into the gravel.

  “My Baby Ray!” The large woman screamed, the indignation suddenly animating her beaten body. “Jimmy you bastard! You could you do that to your own cousin! He was the one took you in when nobody else would. How could you, Jimmy?” She started wailing and howling with a mix of pain and disbelief, but it was not enough to make them stop laughing.

  “You can keep ‘em both, Ivan, we’ll take the regular deal,” said Jimmy, trying to control his laughter. “Come on man! Offering me that… thing? I want nothing to do with her or this loser of hers right here,” Jimmy said before stepping forward and kicking Raymond in the side of his stomach, making him squirm on the ground in pain.

  Oneita tried to walk forward to check on her man, but felt an iron grip on the back rim of her shirt, when she tried to take another step, she felt the cold steel of the barrel of a pistol suddenly press on the side of her temple. She stopped walking but continued to cry.

  “I’m not giving you or any of your filth any weapons, Jimmy. Bring the bag with the memory sticks up here or you can die where you stand,” said Ivan, raising one hand half way up in the air. Immediately his men tensed up with anticipation.

  “Then we all die right here today, Ivan,” yelled Jimmy, before raising his pistol towards Ivan. Jimmy’s crew followed, picking targets of their own.

  Chapter 43

  Rus’ Pick and Pull, Phoenix, Arizona

  Monday, October 26th, 2020

  6:53 A.M.

  Jimmy and his crew were surrounded and outnumbered by Ivan and his men, everyone involved in either side of the face-off just seemed to be waiting for a signal to unleash a storm of hot brass and lead towards each other. Oneita couldn’t stop crying as she watched Baby Ray move like a half dead vermin trying to sink back into the hard ground.

  Suddenly a movement to his right caught the attention of the man holding a gun to Oneita’s head and he leaned into Ivan’s ear to whisper something in Russian. When Ivan turned, he saw two familiar faces walking towards him, both people with their empty hands in midair. Two of his own men were escorting them at gunpoint.

  “Mei Lin? Danny?” Said Ivan, thoroughly confused as to how these two people could be together. He gave orders in Russian and the two long guns that aimed at his new guests shifted and took positions at someone in Jimmy’s crew.

  When they got close to him, Ivan looked at the two and cleared his voice trying to think of something to say to Daniel. After a brief silence, he whispered “What were you two doing on the roof?”

  “It’s a story for another time —” Said Mei Lin, before getting cut off by Daniel.

  “I’m here because these bastards kidnapped and killed my children!” Daniel said, his voice was trembling with hatred and emotion.

  “What?” Said Ivan with a sudden edge to his voice.

  “It’s because of these bastards that the state threw me in jail and that wasn’t enough. They broke into my home, stole everything of value then took and murdered my kids!”

  Daniel began to shake with anger and tears filled his eyes.

  “See the roundabout I planted for you a while back? That’s where Summer and little Nick lay to rest! They took everything from me Ivan, absolutely everything. I don’t have anything left!”

  Ivan’s breathing got heavier, as if he were trying to cage a rabid wild animal inside of him. He turned around and stared at Jimmy’s face, who showed no remorse or any hint of an explanation, just a fiendish blend of malice and mockery.

  “We’ve been doing business since Summer was a little girl,” said Ivan. “You’re like family to me Daniel. I can’t describe how sorry I am for your loss. They will regret what they did to you… and to you Mei Lin.”

  “Whatever you do please secure those memory sticks first,” Mei Lin said in a low voice, trying not to sound insensitive.

  Daniel looked at her with questioning eyes, wondering how someone like her would know Ivan’s true line of business, which apparently he didn’t even know himself.

  “I’ll tell you later,” she said while looking at Daniel. Ivan turned away to give orders to his men in Russian.

  Jimmy began to yell from behind his pistol, “So what’s it gonna be huh? This is lasting longer than that man’s daughter did when I took her the first time!” His crew began to laugh and howl.

  Ivan took a step forward, and raised his palms, and yelled some orders in Russian. His men lowered their weapons and three of them ran towards the back of the office in different directions.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Jimmy. We’ll make the trade as agreed,” said Ivan.

  “That’s what I like to hear man. Here the stuff you want,” Jimmy said while shaking the clear plastic bag up in the air, five identical memory sticks bounced inside. “Where is the stuff I want?”

  “Here it comes,” said Ivan, while two of his men carried a large dark green wooden crate with ‘property of US Army’ sprayed on all sides in black. They walked as if the crate was beyond heavy, and they laid it down in the middle of the space in between Ivan and Jimmy. Both men began to walk up to it to in order to finalize the transaction.

  Some of the men in Jimmy’s crew began to smile and nudge each other, feeling the tension ease and anticipating all the dreams that would come true once they had those military grade arms and were free to us
e them. Jimmy took a step forward, zip lock bag with the memory sticks in hand, his eyes moving between Ivan and his cache. Jimmy lowered his pistol as he and Ivan came within inches from the stolen weapons crate.

  Jimmy stood a few feet away from the crate and Ivan, getting close enough just to be able to see inside and said, “Open the box, if the stuff is in there, this is all yours man, then I never wanna see your Russian ass again.”

  “After tonight, you’ll never see me again, Jimmy, I promise you.”

  Jimmy briefly turned his head to look at his crew, his men had their pistols in hand, covering his back.

  If only those bastards who gave me hell in prison could see me now.

  “Hurry up and open this crate man,” said Jimmy, suddenly feeling bolder. He saw Ivan leaning forward to pull the wooden lid of the crate up, and from the corner of his eye Jimmy looked at Daniel, who was staring directly at him. The man looked like he was too lost in thought to feel anything, but his stare made Jimmy uncomfortable.

  I’m gonna need to teach him some respect, just like I did to that soft girl of his.

  Jimmy started to grin and seconds after Ivan had the lid wide open, his eyes finally came down to inspect the contents of the crate.

  “Oh hell no! What the hell is this?” Yelled Jimmy, but before he had a chance to say anything else his crew started to scream from behind him, they all burst into a chorus of desperation which was so loud, he couldn’t help but turn towards them and look. He saw people dropping onto the ground and taking cover and immediately a flash-bang grenade went off near one of his cars, then another, a third, then several at the same time, the deafening sounds and shockwaves disoriented his men, scattering them across the yard.

  His ears ringing, Jimmy turned to face Ivan, raising his gun at him but out of nowhere he felt the piercing and stinging of two metal probe darts that were suddenly dangling from his stomach. Before he could react he was immediately hit with a stunning current from a high volt taser that ran through his body, locking it up involuntarily and he felt his chromed pistol and the bag with the memory sticks slip away from his hands, falling to the ground. Jimmy dropped to his knees and began to scream, trying to regain control of his body, then he fell on his side, his ears were throbbing and his mind was a dense fog.