by Rich Baker
“Lucky said I had to! He said I earned it! I didn’t want to disappoint him!”
Max rushes forward and puts his left hand on Nicky’s throat, and starts punching him with his right. Nicky raises his arms in self-defense but can’t block the blows. As he runs short of breath, he begins clawing at the hand on his neck. Blood pours from his broken nose, and he chokes on a mouthful of blood and teeth.
The man who was behind the door grabs Max’s shoulders and pulls him back, but something inside Max snaps. He pinwheels around and punches the man in the throat and draws the pearl-handled chrome .45 pistol that used to belong to his father. He’s about to shoot him when Nicky’s coughing gets his attention.
He grabs Nicky’s hair, and pulls on it, pulling him out of bed. He half leads, half drags him down the hall and through the front door. He picks up speed as he leaves the porch and throws Nicky down on the muddy road in front of the house.
Nicky lays on his side, the wound in his back bleeding through his shirt, the cast on his arm cracked and covered in mud. He vomits, expelling chicken soup, blood, and a tooth.
“Please, Max,” he cries out. “Please don’t.”
“THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THOSE WOMEN WERE THINKING!” Max screams at him.
“They weren’t, Max, they were knocked out -”
The crack of the gunshot echoes off the surrounding buildings. People are crowding to the windows to see what’s happening, but Max is oblivious. He’s watching blood spurt from a new hole in Nicky’s right foot.
“You were saying, Nicky?” he asks. “Tell me more about how the women weren’t able to think about what you were doing. Goddammit, Nicky! Why?”
Nicky gurgles a response, but it’s unintelligible to Max.
Jesse and Addie are jogging across the courtyard from the administration building. Jesse speaks up first.
“Max, Mani told us what’s going on. You don’t have to do this, bro. He’s learned his lesson, Max, look at him! He’ll never walk right again, bro, if he lives. He’ll never do something like this again, man. Give me the gun.”
Max aims at Nicky’s groin and pulls the trigger. Nicky writhes in agony, blood spreading into the puddles on the road.
“Fuck, Max, stop it, man! We don’t have the facilities to treat these wounds!”
Max moves his sights up to Nicky’s head and fires the gun, again, and again, until the slide locks back. He looks at Jesse.
“Now we don’t have to treat the wounds. Problem solved.”
For the first time, he notices people have begun to crowd around the scene. He shouts at them.
“If you want to lay your hands on a woman against her will, this is what waits for you here! It’s my only unbreakable rule! You rape a woman, you die!”
He turns around and walks into his house.
Jesse stands for a moment, looking at the ruined form of Little Nicky. Addie walks over to him.
“I’ll go talk to him,” she says. “You’d better go check in on Danielle.”
“It didn’t have to be like this,” he says. “We could have worked something out.”
“You know how Max is. Ever since Elina – well, you know where those cops are buried. After the head injury, Max only has one reaction to this kind of thing. He sees red, and it’s not going to go any other way.”
“Yeah, I know. But still, look at these people. They’re terrified now. They think he’s a madman. And I can’t make a very good defense.”
“You’d better. You get his back, you hear me? And make Mani clean this up. He’s the one who just let Max walk over here. If anyone could have stopped this, it’s him, and he didn’t. Take care of Danielle. She has to be freaking out.”
She turns and walks toward Max’s house, pausing to let the man who was in the bedroom pass her as he walks down the steps, rubbing his throat and thanking his guardian angels all he got was punched. As he sees Little Nicky’s body, his face unrecognizable, he realizes it could have been much, much worse.
* * *
Jesse draws a circle around a neighborhood with a grease pencil.
“You’re sure this is it?” he asks.
“Sure? No. But I think so. There’s a vacant lot, a big open field; it’s south of Ninth Avenue. So, I think this is it here,” Danielle tells him.
The giant aerial photo of Longview and the surrounding area covers the entire table. It used to hang on the wall of the dispatcher’s office in the tow yard.
Jesse has also circled the bridges over South Creek and North Creek. After the South Creek bridge on Main Street collapsed, he wonders if any of them are going to survive this flood. Just getting into Longview is going to be a challenge, then they have to find the Puckett’s.
“And you’re okay with us going after them? You’re really okay with it?”
She looks at him and lets the question ruminate for a second.
“Yes, I am. I don’t owe them anything, and this helps me get to California. So it’s a means to an end. I’ve made my peace with it.”
He nods thoughtfully, accepting her answer.
“Besides,” she says, “It’s not like I’m going to disappoint Max. I’ve seen what happens when you do that.”
“I hate to admit it, but it had the desired effect. Everyone is working their asses off for him right now.”
“Well, fear is a strong motivator. Like me, for example. I’ve decided I’m not wasting any more opportunities. I’m afraid that time is too precious to lose now.”
She grabs him and kisses him, pressing herself against him. He pushes her away for a second, but quickly gives up and wraps his arms around her, kissing her back.
The doorknob turns, and the door starts to creak open. Danielle steps back from Jesse, turning toward the door to see who is coming in.
Jesse keeps his back to the door, trying to act nonchalant.
Addie looks at them for a minute and says “There something going on in here? Were you two just making out?”
They both stammer an answer that sounds like ‘no,’ but it’s not convincing from either one of them.
“Oh my God! You totally were! I told you to check on her and make sure she’s okay, not play tonsil hockey!” She punches Jesse in the shoulder. “Just kidding. Good for you!” and she looks at Danielle and gives her a wink. “And you too! You guys deserve a little happiness. It works. You fit.”
“Can you not make a huge thing out of this, please?” Jesse says. “It just happened like thirty seconds ago, and this was the first time. It doesn’t have to be some big thing.”
“Okay, okay. Down to business, then. Rain’s stopped. Max wants to see you. Both of you.”
Eleven
“Look, the rain’s letting up. I want to check it out,” Marc says. “With DJ gone, she’s the only thing left that I need closure on. I need to see her pay.”
“You were ready to let the zeds eat you out there. Now you’re gung ho. What gives?” Kyle asks.
“It was the emotions of the moment. It helped to bury Keith. Helped solidify that justice needs to be done. It gives me a purpose. How’s that?”
Kyle squints at him. There’s more to this but decides to let it go.
“Okay,” Kyle says. “What have you got?”
Marc has a map of their subdivision on the big flat panel in Danny’s rec room in the basement.
“She went along the railroad tracks, which go under the highway and cross this ditch.”
He moves the mouse pointer over the features he’s talking about, so everyone can follow along.
“She doesn’t know the area. She could have followed the railroad tracks, which veer off to the west, or, if she saw the mall, maybe she kept heading south. Or maybe she was caught by a zed and killed.”
“And that’s what you want to look for? Her walking corpse?” Kyle asks.
“Exactly. Maybe we get lucky and find her wandering around, and she’s gone gray. I’d feel better if we could get a feel for whether or not we have to worry about her.”<
br />
Kyle looks at D-Day.
“What do you think?” he asks.
“I’m game. I could do with stretching my legs a little. We should take four people though. Safety in numbers,” he says.
“I’ll go,” Carmen says.
“Me too,” Stephenie volunteers. “If we find her, I want to put the bullet in her brain.”
Kyle looks past her to Annie, who shrugs.
“I guess that means I’m going too,” she says.
“Alright,” Kyle says. “Gear up.”
They get their vests and backpacks, secure spare magazines where they can get to them, and head topside via the neighbor’s house. D-Day, Carmen, and Stephenie carry AR15s and the suppressed .22 pistols. Marc, Annie, and Kyle also have the suppressed .22 pistols, but they carry the quieter .22 rifles from Danny’s shop. They exit the side door to the garage and find a handful of zombies in the alley. Kyle and Annie make quick work of them, using the notched fence boards to stabilize the rifle barrels.
They turn left, each of them silently glancing at the mounds of dirt that denote where they buried Keith, Amanda, and DJ. Only Keith and Amanda’s graves have markers, crosses made from spare wood in the garage.
The zombies are more focused now, with the rain reduced to a sprinkle rather than a downpour. They kill a few more at the end of the alley, then cross over and head for the end of the subdivision. They split up, with D-Day, Carmen, and Stephenie on one side of the street and Kyle, Annie and Marc on the other. This way, each group can shoot in front and behind them, but they can also provide support for the group across the street. They quick-step down the two blocks to the southern border of the development. They peek through the gate and find a few dozen zombies wandering through the alfalfa growing wild in the field on the other side of the fence. Kyle and Annie kneel down and take out the handful that are the closest, and they make their way to the railroad tracks.
“Can we slow our pace now?” Marc asks. He’s out of breath, his chest heaving as he talks. “We don’t want to trip and hurt an ankle or knee. The zeds have a very hard time with the tracks; I think we can afford to be careful.”
They move forward at a walking pace, watching zombies struggle with the muddy conditions in the field. When they do break free of the mud, they slip on the rocks that lead to the railroad tracks. Then, as often as not, they trip on the tracks themselves, or the gaps between the railroad ties once they get over the steel tracks. They get up, only to fall again after a couple of steps.
Kyle takes a knee and shoots several of the zombies, then gets up and walks toward the group. Annie stops and shoots as Kyle passes her. They leapfrog their way to the underpass, keeping the path behind them as clear as possible.
When they get to the underpass, they move with more caution. The cement pillars and the slope that rises to meet the road are covered with graffiti, much of it gang-related. The homeless who used to congregate under here have, no doubt, long since moved on or have been turned, but there is a lot of debris for zombies to be hiding behind. Old couches, steel drums, a burned-out car. A fox darts from behind a stack of wooden pallets, scaring all of them. Marc fires a shot from his rifle, the round ricocheting off the concrete.
“Finger off the trigger, Marc, until you’re ready to shoot,” D-Day says. “Don’t make me take your ammo away.”
Marc apologizes, his face turning red.
They come to the short bridge that spans over the irrigation ditch. It’s running high, the water bubbling up between the railroad ties on the bridge, but not over top of them. The strong current has pinned several zombies against the bridge. D-Day and Carmen dispatch them with the .22 pistols. The current pulls the bodies under, and they disappear downstream.
“This is where we need to be very careful,” Marc says. “If you miss a tie, you’ll drop through, fall forward and probably break a leg.”
They cross, one at a time, without incident. They walk ahead an eighth of a mile and the tracks turn west, toward an abandoned agricultural processing plant. If they continue south, the mall is visible, though the floodwaters from North Creek are covering the first 10 feet of the buildings.
Stephenie signs and Annie interprets.
“Following the tracks leads to a building that looks like a haunted house. I don’t think she went that way. I think she went to the mall.”
“Yeah,” Carmen says. “For all the good that does us. We can’t get to it.”
“Well, we haven’t seen her amongst the dead so far. So, that’s something,” Marc says. “I must admit, I’m a little disappointed about that.”
There’s a tall overpass that crosses the river, and the north side of the road is still above the water line. They walk the half mile to the spot where the road starts to rise.
“There’s a pedestrian bridge down there somewhere,” Kyle says. “It connects to a trail that goes all the way through town to the west, and all the way to the softball fields and the park to the east. It runs right behind the mall. If she beat the flood, she could have gotten away from here.”
“Let’s go to high ground and see what it looks like,” D-Day says.
They walk up the overpass, to the top where it flattens out. Part of the southbound lanes of the actual span over the river has collapsed, the concrete column having been taken out by something.
“What the heck could do that?” Carmen asks.
D-Day points at a steel cargo container that is wedged against a stand of trees on the east side of the bridge.
“Could have been that. Or the water could have eroded the ground under the pillar.” He looks around. “I wouldn’t walk any farther out there. The whole thing may not be stable.”
A metallic ‘ping’ rings in the air. Everyone looks around, confused. A second ‘ping’ rings out as what sounds like distant thunder peals through the air.
“Everyone down!” D-Day shouts. He gets into a crouch and scurries to the concrete divider that separates the north and southbound lanes of traffic.
“What is it?” Marc asks.
“We’re being shot at,” D-Day says.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Shots came from the southeast, hit the guardrail.”
D-Day pulls his monocular from his vest and peeks over the concrete. He finds the shooters, a half-mile away, on the south side of the river at a spot where the road they were driving on disappears into the water.
“Found them,” he says. “Three people, one shooter, using the cab of a big black truck as a bench. That truck is a nightmare, has a big mean looking plow on the front.”
Kyle crouches and hustles over to D-Day, holding his hand out for the monocular.
“May I?” he asks. D-Day hands it over.
“Be quick, Kyle. They’re probably looking for us to be prairie dogging.”
Kyle peers through the lens.
“They’re on County Line Road,” he says. “The road is gone, totally washed out, so that’s good, they won’t be driving over that anytime soon. Oh, nice.”
“What?” D-Day asks.
“One of them is taking a piss out of the bed of the truck. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that’s directed at us.”
“Let me see,” D-Day says, taking the monocular from Kyle. He peers through.
“Fuck me,” he says.
“Now what?” Kyle asks.
“I didn’t make the connection to the name before. Shit, this is not good.”
“What, what name?”
“Max Montero.”
Kyle is confused. “You know him?”
D-Day turns around and leans back against the concrete, out of the line of fire from the truck.
“Yeah, I know him, from my time in Iraq. It’s been years since I’ve thought about that fucking guy. He’s a head case, psycho, really. When you said he was pissing at us, it all clicked – the name Max Montero from those journals we found at the pawn shop, and the guy I served with in Iraq. We’d get pinned down by insurgents, and
he’d stand up and piss in their direction, trying to piss them off and get them to fire at us, giving away their position. How he never got shot, I have no idea. They used to call him Mad Max. He wasn’t in my squad, but we ran a few ops with his. Their sergeant was a real cowboy, and they all were fast and loose with regulations. He got blown up or something, and sent home on medical. He’s a killer though, one of the few who seemed to enjoy that aspect of combat. Ran with a guy called Rio, who was a helluva shot. I wonder if that’s him shooting at us.”
“So, if I hear you correctly, we have an ex-military guy, possibly psychotic, and his super sniper buddy trying to kill us all?” Kyle asks.
“Yeah, that’s about the size of it,” D-Day says, peeking back over the concrete barrier. “Oh, fuck me twice!”
“What!?” Kyle asks, getting frustrated he can’t see what’s going on.
“There’s four of them. The fourth one is Danielle, and sure as shit, she’s on the arm of Jesse Rios,” D-Day replies. “I guess the gang’s all here. Now we know that they know everything.”
“We can take them out right now and end this!” Marc says.
D-Day puts a hand on his shoulder and keeps him seated.
“No, Marc, we can’t. They gotta be a thousand yards out. We might get lucky on a shot and hit one of them, but we’re not taking them out at this distance with AR15s.”
“How are they getting so close to us, then?”
“They probably have a Remington .308 with a high power scope, or something comparable. Longer range, more power, better accuracy. But this distance is pushing it even for that. And those shots weren’t that close.”
I think we’ve seen enough for now,” Kyle says. “We got what we came for, anyway; we know Danielle is still alive, and more than that we know she’s working with the Montero’s.”
“Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” Carmen says. They all look at her quizzically.
“What?” she says. “Too soon?”
Kyle starts laughing, and soon all the others do too.
Twelve
“What’s up, Max?” Jesse asks.