I left her, helpless to speak beyond promising Fiona would be safe. Once more, I pushed down every rabid emotion over leaving my child an orphan and set out.
I must convince Sydney. Victor is taking her down a very bad path, and she is my best chance of gaining an ally against him.
While the Row is a shining example of affordable housing gone wrong, the Rifton projects in southern Haven make its brown brick facade and groaning pipes look like a nursery. Where the Strip splits off into suburbia, there is a turn most people miss unless looking for it. Back in the day, everyone used to be more spread out, before Haven’s city council started banking on gentrification and moving all the ne’er-do-wells out of common areas.
Rifton is the offspring of that terrible decision. A row of houses and three apartment buildings adjoined by tunnels offered the Sheriff’s favorite miscreants a central hub to be rounded up and carted off to County jail. The local DEA regularly busted meth labs and grow ops in these units, and most black-market weapons passed through Rifton on their way in or out of Haven.
For as much as he likes to talk tough, Victor didn’t grow up in Rifton, where mothers beat their children and fathers choose heroin habits over supporting their families. Everyone knew who Harry Quinn was—the bigshot investor who only moved into town after making his millions. Victor is nothing more than a spoiled kid whose father might have looked down on him, and now he’s acting out.
Sydney, on the other hand, screams Rifton. Her spunky personality and views on self-preservation are all qualities of a projects kid. I had friends grow up in this area, and it was not the kind of hood you wanted to go home to at night. Surviving Rifton, or the mere association with it, was somewhat of a badge of honor.
Entering through its stone wall enclosures, my eyes meet the peeling paint and rotting infrastructure of Haven’s most notorious slum. Victor’s boys had the bodies cleared away from the streets, but its unmaintained lawns and piles of discarded furniture paint a picture of the American working class, while there was still one to oppress.
I find Sydney sitting on the third set of steps past the enclosure’s opening. Her hair is matted; thumbs poke through the sleeve, pinching a cigarette to her forefinger, lifted to her lips. Noticing me, she scrambles to her feet. I hold out my open palms, trying to disarm her panic.
“I’m not going to hurt you!”
Sydney sighs, relaxing; her bunched fist finds my shoulder, and I recoil at the force thrusted into it.
“Ow!”
“The fuck?” she exclaims, “You scared the shit out of me!”
“What? I didn’t sneak up on you!”
She rolls my eyes.
“Storming off like that? You don’t call. You don’t fucking write. Starting to think you’d skipped town, Pete. Leaving me alone with these psychopaths!”
Clutching my throbbing shoulder, I wince.
“Didn’t think you cared, cozying up to Victor and Frank. The fuck was that, with the hicks?”
“What?” she says. “Think I had some part of that? All I know is I’m standing where Reggie told me. Fucking Frank drives up, starts whistling at me. Tells me to get in the truck, or he’ll shoot me in the head.”
“So that wasn’t you? Operating the mounted gun?”
Sydney squints.
“What exactly do you think you saw? You realize Frank is thinner than me, right? For someone who hates women so much, dude is sure built like one, isn’t he?”
I could swear Sydney was behind that automatic weapon, and killed Leon, Shelly and Richard, along with all their friends. Was I hallucinating?
“Must’ve got confused.”
“You’re a fucking asshole, y’know? That motherfucker asked if he could put his hand down my pants. Make sure it works, he said. Then he got on a mounted gun and fucking slaughtered people. Not me.”
“Sorry,” I say, looking up to the house. “This yours?”
She shrugs.
“My daddy’s. Died about five years ago. I buried him in the middle of the night. Was cashing his Social Security checks until the plague hit, and... well, the government stopped paying Socials now, right?”
I must stare at her too long, because she casts a glare like I have three heads, then asks if I want to come inside. I wince and say yes, no more confident I can turn Sydney against Victor than when I arrived.
At least now, we won’t be discussing his assassination out in the open.
The house’s interior is more disheveled than outside. Its floors are stripped, revealing wood underneath. Curse words are sprayed on the walls, windows and ground. Frames are without doors, and the place looks like someone’s home reno project with a side of squalor.
“You want something to drink? Lifted a bottle of gin from Victor’s stash. They tend not to watch you as much when you’re a lady.”
What has gotten into her?
“Why are you being weird?” I ask from the entryway. She disappears down a peeling corridor into the kitchen.
“What do you mean?”
I follow her voice; other than speech trailing between gutted walls and exposed wiring, the house is quiet. There are no photographs on the staircase. Reaching to the back of my pants, I make sure the revolver is easily accessible, and I can draw it to defend myself at any point. Victor could pop out from any corner, at a moment’s notice, and the jig will be up.
Arriving at the kitchen, nothing is as I expected. All the makings of such a room have long been torn out. The walls are covered in plastic sheeting; behind them, pipes can be seen where a sink was. Certain spots behind the sheets don’t have a full wall, only cheap insulation between studs. The window has been covered with cardboard where glass behind it likely lies broken, never to be fixed.
And in the center of it all, a shrine of sorts has been assembled from rocks and sediment. Each is thoughtfully arranged, painted over and decorated in bright colors. A wreath with tea lights assembled in patterns beyond its edges holds up a framed black-and-white photo as the centerpiece. A young boy smiles within it, unaware of the tragedies to come.
“My brother,” Sydney explains, “Chris Mayhew. Died on this very spot.”
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“For a long time,” she admits, “I was lost. So many things have happened since then, but Chris was the first, and hurt the most. Even with my mom getting shot a couple years later, losing him was the worst day of my life.
“Won’t lie. Fucked me up for a long time. One day, I wanted to do something for him. Couldn’t bring him back or change the fact that he died in the equivalent of a meth compound. All I could do was make this stupid memorial for him, that nobody would ever see but me.”
At the risk of alienating her confidence, I don’t ask how her brother died. Morbidity is enough of a hot topic these days. But she looks up, and our eyes meet. My hand finds the back of her hair, and her lips meet mine. Soon we are not only kissing but pulling each other’s clothes off. Sydney’s hands work quickly, unbuckling my belt as I hoist her top in one brisk motion over her head. The rest of our clothes fall to the ground, and she pulls me down to the rough wood. Thin arms snake around my neck and her small breasts into my face. Our hips push together, and soon my grunting clashes with her moans.
When it is over, and we lay at the foot of a shrine for a boy who died on this spot, I am not unnerved as I might once have been. Lying in the dark, catching breath, I speak the words that can never be taken back.
“We have to kill Victor,” I say to her great surprise, praying to God I have played my last card right.
The next morning, we assemble where Frank Lancaster gunned down an entire convoy of gun-loving, patriotic Americans the night before. Their bodies were piled into one of Frank’s appropriated vehicles and dumped outside Haven to rot with the rest.
I hope Fiona is sound asleep, and Mara has not told her anything. The woman seems capable, and I don’t pin her as someone to prematurely spill the beans. That said, one can never be too careful,
and I hope to be back with my child by nightfall.
“We ready?” Victor asks. Having foregone his more tribal appearance from last night, he adorns a Kevlar vest like the one handed to me moments ago.
Just in case, he said.
“Just waiting on Andre, boss,” Frank quips, winking at Sydney, earning her scowl.
“Right. Where the fuck is Andre?”
“Right here!” the burly man calls, jogging up to join us from the north, as much as his sheer size will support running of any form. “Was visiting my old lady’s grave. You know, ‘case she’s afraid I don’t come back.”
Sydney snickers.
“You do know she’s a corpse, don’t you?”
Andre doesn’t dignify her snark. Victor orders us into the two pickups that will take us down the highway to Fairchild. Sydney and I jump in the flatbed of the other truck, so neither of us will have to sit behind Frank Lancaster.
“You ready?” she asks, adjusting the front of her bulletproof vest, which does not fit her thin body.
“As ever.”
The drive to Fairchild is short and sweet. The base has always been a source of pride for Spokane, having won its proximity over Seattle half a century earlier. Considering Haven is twenty-six miles from the second largest city in Washington State, we are included in that demographic, and have always been aware of our shared countryside with the Air Force base.
When I suggested Victor Quinn’s crew storm Fairchild, I never anticipated he would actually go through with it; I only wanted to show him I had a good ideas. Looking over fields at the distant base, I wish I had never said anything.
Ahead of our vehicle, the passenger door to Frank’s truck opens, and Victor climbs out. His driver follows suit. Andre emerges from the seat behind them as Sydney and I leap down from the flatbed. Walter and Ronald exit the back seat, with our driver Reggie remaining behind. From the lead truck’s flatbed, Victor retrieves several assault rifles; he passes one to everyone but Frank, who brought his own M16.
“You alright?” he asks me, handing over one of the weapons. Peering over aviators on the bridge of his nose, the rifle hovers between us. I reach for it, but Victor yanks it back, awaiting my answer.
“Yeah,” I reply. “The gun?”
He smirks, handing it over the tense gap. My heart pounds so loud, it’s a wonder the entire crew doesn’t hear it. Frank squints at the interaction, and I try not to meet his gaze. While the others check condition, cleanliness and safety, I awkwardly point mine to the ground, no intention of pulling the trigger more than once; no plan to kill anyone but Victor.
If there is a God, Harper will do the rest.
“Your moment is here, Pete,” Victor smiles, “You’re gonna help us change the world, aren’t you?”
Before I can respond, he signals the others to walk with him. Hoarded breath is exhaled once all their backs are turned, including Sydney’s. Her coffee colored hair bobs as she moves down the ravine, and I hope confiding in her wasn’t a mistake.
“You okay?” a voice says. It wasn’t there before, and it probably won’t be there later, but startles me in the moment.
Harper joins my side. Appearing from thin air, she stares at the ragtag crew about to plunder a federal military base.
“Okay as I can be,” I reply. “You decided to come.”
The woman who claims to be an angel shrugs.
“I’m always nearby.”
Not much of a conversationalist, apparently.
“Peter!” Victor cries from two hundred yards away. His arms wave at the spot I haven’t moved from, talking to empty air that happens to harbor a divine being inside of it. “You coming or what?”
“Come on,” Harper nudges me, “We don’t want to arouse suspicion.”
We move down the ravine; the decline is a steep, grassy knoll which sags under recent rain in places. The terrain eventually levels out, and we start closing the gap.
“Is the base empty?” I ask.
Harper nods.
“Checked it out before you guys got here. Lots of bodies. There was an admiral who survived the plague, but I found him with a bullet through the brain in his back office.”
“Suicide?”
Harper nods, but ultimately glosses over it. We pause halfway between the trucks and my accomplices. Knowing the air base poses no threat leaves me to contend only with Victor and company, but offers no distraction if they turn on me.
“Look Peter, I know this wasn’t a fair position to put you in—” she begins.
I can’t risk looking crazy, talking to myself.
“Stop,” I tell her, and looking away from where Victor waits, I try to keep lips from moving as I talk. “I know this has to happen. One bullet in the back. The world will be a better place, right?”
She nods, but mouth corners betray her lack of optimism.
“Good luck, Peter,” she says, turning back towards our abandoned vehicles, leaving me to face my entire life’s purpose.
To rid the world of Victor Quinn.
Frank continues studying me as I join them, and Sydney doesn’t meet my gaze. A cool breeze sweeps through my disheveled hair, mercifully alleviating collected body heat under the bulletproof vest.
“Yeah, just gathering thoughts. We gonna do this thing?”
Victor motions forward. I walk ahead of him, clutching my rifle, taking final steps towards the mess of my own making, dead certain not all of us will walk out. About a mile from the base’s eastern gatehouse, rotting corpses—whose smell we thankfully skirted within our microcosm of apocalypse—pervades the scenery. Any peace the stunning open vista might have afforded is neglected by stench finding its way into my nose and throat, making my stomach turn and flip. Given the air’s saturation with it, any doubt Harper was telling the truth dissipates.
“Jesus,” Frank coughs behind us, covering his face with the crook of his elbow. “Fucking hell.”
“Quit your bitching,” Sydney commands, “We knew this was going to be no picnic.”
“Lady’s right,” Victor quips alongside Walter. Frank is behind them, with Andre and Ronald bringing up the rear. I am the misfortunate soul placed in front—if anything goes wrong, I’ll take five bullets in the skull. Six, if Sydney joins in. She says her role in the hillbillies’ deaths was limited, and all my surviving suspicions have shored up behind that narrative. I am not naive enough to assume I’m more than a warm body to her.
A half mile after death’s flavor made itself known, Victor stops. With his rifle pointed at the ground, he tells his boys to set up here. He and I will scope out the base for survivors.
This is it. In twenty minutes, he will be dead, and Haven will be free of his demented grip. People will pass through without fear of being brutally murdered, and my daughter will have a chance at safety.
“You guys got your radios?”
Radios?
“Yeah,” Frank says, “just message when the deed is done, boss.”
Deed? What deed?
Did Sydney tell him?
“Okay then,” Victor says. “Ready to do this, Pete?”
Play it cool, York, I tell myself. Could simply be a sign he trusts you.
Or it’s a sign he knows you plan to murder him.
“Waiting for the good Lord?” Victor asks. “Come on, Pete! I don’t got all day!”
If he trusts me, why didn’t I get a radio?
All I can do is follow through. I have no idea where Harper disappeared to; the woman seems able to appear and disappear at will but doesn’t have much intention of coming back. For Fiona’s sake, all I can do is follow through. One step away from the others, the burden feels lighter. The second is no heavier than a landing feather. By the third, I’m weightless. The base grows no closer than it was, and I am no longer under any illusions. The air might smell less like death but any hope of walking away from this mess slips through my proverbial fingers. Victor chuckles, but the sound is uncomfortable.
He knows, because
Sydney told him.
“You must have guessed this could only end one way, Peter!”
My feet stop moving. I stare down at the grass, trying to figure out how much further we might have gone if I’d never indulged the pillow talk with Sydney.
There are no answers down there.
“Least you can do,” Victor says, “is face me like a fucking man.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, looking at the rifle clutched in my tightening fingers.
“Face me, Peter!”
I only get one shot at this.
Swinging as fast as my body will allow, I raise the rifle. Without a second thought, I pull the trigger as its sights line up between Victor’s eyes. It proves completely unnecessary, only producing the horrifying click of an empty chamber.
Just like the radio I wasn’t given, neither was I handed the fair chance of a loaded clip.
Victor chuckles again.
“So, it was true,” he says, raising the pistol in his own hand.
And that is the last thing I see.
When my eyes open, the world is red.
I draw breath but choke on it.
I try to exhale and seize.
What happened?
It only takes one moment to change the world, right?
Motherfucker shot me.
“Peter!”
Think about it, Peter. All our lives, we’ve been distracted. We’ve been complacent. We have worked our hands and bled patriotism for a country that only fucked us sideways! But when it came time to pleasure us, reward us for the profits of our labor, the Man simply pulled out, and went to fucking sleep on us.
The grass is soft on the nape of my bare neck, where the first bullet tunneled through the side. Another grazed my temple but didn’t finish the job. Curled blades of grass, wound in balls, form pillows for limp wrists. The attached fingers are barely silhouettes to wet, blurring vision.
Victor, for all his bravado and confidence, is a piss-poor shot.
A voice calls my name inside garbled treble. I can’t see the face they belong to, or lips producing them, because all the world is red and I am a shade of grey, absorbed within.
Fiona?
“Peter? It’s Harper. Just hold on, okay?”
Underworld Earth Page 15