The zing accompanied by the heat of one of the shots in my direction almost throws me off balance. A step to the right and I’d be sporting a fresh bullet hole in my throat, lying right next to Claud.
Inside the back, I army crawl toward the stacked crates. Shots riddle the metal, dinging. Each one is just inches away from me. Dying sunlight streams through the holes. I slide one of the racks the assault rifles hang on between me and them. The rack thunders against my side whenever a stray bullet catches it. The pain in my ribs causes me to suck in sharp breaths through my gritted teeth, but it beats the hell out of getting shot.
Once I reach the crates, I wait for a lull in the gunfire before I even attempt to grab a handful of grenades. I mean, it has to stop sometime, right? They have to reload. No endless clips in this wasteland.
Sure enough, the moment comes. I strike the open box fast. Splinters dig into my flesh, but it beats the hell out of bullets digging into me. I grab a grenade then dive back to the metal floor, landing with a bone-jolting crash. On my way out, I don’t take my time. I’m practically sprinting on my hands and knees—if that’s at all possible.
As soon as I fall out of the back, I hear a snippet of conversation over the gunfire from one of the men, “—never make it,” he says.
I drop to the grass and slide around the side, squatting next to them by the U-Haul’s large tires. “Never make it?” I bring one of the grenades up to eye level and pull the pin. This isn’t the first time I’ve handled grenades—there was a time in Washington DC I had to pull the pin on one of these suckers to get out of a sticky situation.
They all look at me with sheer and complete terror, as if I just cut the wrong wire while disarming some sort of bomb.
I stand up, not afraid to get shot. The sudden urge to get rid of this thing in my hand is overwhelming. So I do.
For what seems like a long moment—but can’t be any more than a second—the shooting stops. All is quiet on this farm, the zombies are not even snarling or dragging their dead limbs behind them like the trains of wedding dresses.
Then—
An explosion that I’ve not heard in a long time. The truck rocks with the force of it. For a second, I think it’s going to fall over. Men scream only to have their yells cut short by fire and rage. The heat of the blast singes me through my pant legs, at my exposed ankles near the space beneath the U-Haul.
Then—
All is quiet again except for the ringing in our ears. I am struck by the horror of what could’ve occurred had Doc Klein been successful and carried out Central’s plan. On a much, much larger scale.
“Nice throw,” Lilly is saying, her voice muted.
“Thanks.”
The aftermath of the explosion comes after my reply. The weary and pained voices of Bandit’s guards, the sounds of jaws working and teeth gnashing into flesh, the greedy slurps, lapping tongues.
“Okay,” I say to the rest of the group, but they don’t look like they’re hearing me. They look lost in their own horror, the battle-shocked faces of soldiers. “Let’s clean this place up.”
I roll off the truck and am not surprised to see both Lilly and the leader of the freed people on my right and left.
Smoke hangs low over the front yard and the porch, which has caved in, one pillar completely blown away. It came down on two or three of the guards. All that is visible of them are their boots, like three Wicked Witches crushed beneath Dorothy’s house in Munchkin Country. Other guards were ripped apart by the explosion. Here, is a man huddled in the fetal position, a large wooden stake sticking through his gut and out his back. There, is a younger man face-down on the charred walkway, his body ripped in half, the intestines and vital organs hanging below his ripped and burned shirt like blood-red hoses, his legs are elsewhere, by the low bushes beneath what’s left of the porch, which are currently burning. Two zombies have a tug-of-war with these legs for a moment as Lilly, the woman, and I are dumbstruck with terror and disgust, then they decide to just dig in, each ripping away the flesh as easily as if the skin were made of wrapping paper.
Lilly has a hand over her mouth. I don’t know if she is about to scream or vomit.
At the end of the walk is Paul’s body. Four zombies are feasting on him. They have ripped a large cavernous hole in his midsection. One of these zombies is currently on fire, not giving a shit about it, not feeling any pain. The other zombies are soaked in his blood.
I didn’t like Paul and had even killed him, but no man deserves this fate. I raise the rifle and let off four shots. Each one takes a zombie in the head. The burning one falls back and smolders in the grass after a moment.
Lilly jumps at the sounds of the shots.
Of course, there are other zombies feasting as well. It seems there are more than there was in the barn, like they’ve been drawn to the farm by the chaos and sounds of war.
The woman turns to me and says, “They’ll be more men inside. Bandit doesn’t fight unless he has to.”
“For a guy named Bandit, he sounds like a pussy,” Lilly says.
The woman nods. “Of the worst sorts.”
“I’m Lilly, by the way.” She sticks her hand out to the woman. For a moment, the woman just stares at it as if she doesn’t know what the hell Lilly is doing, like handshaking is some alien concept.
Finally, she takes the hand and shakes it. It’s awkward. “I’m Suzanna. My friends used to call me Suze. Now, no one calls me anything. It seems I have almost forgotten my birth name.”
“Jack,” I say, then it’s my turn to shake her hand. And yes, it’s quite awkward, like holding a deboned fish. “I don’t mean to sound like a dick—”
Lilly cuts me off. “Not an easy feat for you.”
Real funny, Lilly, but I’m not in a joking mood. Haven’t been for two years. I glare at her and continue. “But I think it’s better if we get to know each other after we clear this place full of rotters and District guards.”
Suzanna nods and turns forward to face the battlefield. The others, I see, are sheepishly sticking their heads out from around the truck, their own guns held high. I hope none of their fingers are on the triggers because the slightest thing seems like it’ll make them jump. Getting a bullet in my ass is not at the top of my priority list at this moment. Or ever.
I don’t lead the way so much as the other women are keeping pace with me. At the foot of the steps, in the burning bushes, a weak voice begs for death. “Kill me. Kill meeee.” His face is a bloody mess, teardrops of red run down his cheeks.
I give this man what he wants, pulling the trigger and ending his suffering. Better than what he deserves.
Lilly and Suzanna break off. Lilly takes out the shambling zombies with a few pops of her rifle, shots I hardly hear or notice anymore; while Suzanna and the others club those zombies who are feasting on the dead.
We regroup at the steps. I nod toward the house and direct Suzanna and the others to surround it. Suzanna nods, bloodlust in her eyes. She wants this man named Bandit to suffer. I don’t blame her. After directing the men and women to their spots, she comes up behind me.
“I’m coming in,” she says.
I shake my head. “It’s not safe.”
“Don’t tell me what’s safe and what isn’t. This man and his followers have tortured me—us—for longer than I know. I will see his blood spilt if it’s the last thing I do.” Once she stops talking, her breathing revs up in intensity, nostrils flaring, chest rising and falling rapidly. She means business. I can see this in her eyes just as well as I can see the bloodlust. Who am I to deny her of this? Something tells me she wouldn’t listen regardless.
I step aside and sweep my hand out. “I’ll be honored to follow you,” I say as I reach into my cloak and pull out a fresh clip, ejecting the nearly empty one. I put this one in my pocket now. You never know when you’ll need more bullets—just one can separate you from life and death. This is not a Norm-ism as you might think it is; this is something I’ve picked up on my own
journeys, from my own experience.
She nods and heads up the steps. The porch creaks beneath our weight. For a moment, I think it’s going to cave inward and the road will end here. We’ll be buried beneath the hot rubble like the soldiers to my right. And would that be so bad? Certainly better than going out by way of zombie. It doesn’t happen, though. We keep going.
Inside of the house, it is fairly normal once you get past the stars of glass on the rug and the few limbs that have made their way through these broken windows.
“Split up,” I say, pointing Lilly to the left, Suzanna to the right, and me up the stairs.
As I take the bottom step, I hear Lilly scream. A gun goes off and my heart freezes in my chest upon hearing it. Luckily, nothing else freezes. I spin around and see a large, hulking man—who would put both my old friends Herb and Kevin (the professional bodybuilder) to shame—run over Lilly like a running back. She takes most of the hit on the shoulder. It spins her in a circle before she crashes to the carpet, glass crunching beneath her body. This angers me more than I care to admit. My own bloodlust burns in my eyes. I feel it smoldering. I raise my gun and let a burst of shots loose, but the man known as Bandit is too fast. He disappears through the doorway, not bothering to throw it open. Instead, he goes through the wood. Shards spray in all directions. A cloud of saw dust masks his escape.
Clamoring outside. Shouting, screaming, then…shooting. One shot goes off and then another. The screams replace it. I don’t let the sound of battle hold me back. I rush toward the unhinged door and just as I’m about to go through, I hear something else, something I never thought I’d hear again.
A voice, but not just any voice.
“Bandit? You there, Bandit? FF4356, come in. I repeat, come in, FF4356.” I would know this woman's voice even if I was deaf. I stop and turn to the sound. It is coming from the room Lilly had gone into, the room where Bandit had rushed from. Lilly is on the floor. Absentmindedly, I reach down and help her up. Her eyes burrow into me, but I hardly notice.
That voice.
“Abby?” I say.
But there’s no way. She’s been gone for two years. Is it like the way I’ve heard Darlene and Junior’s voice? My own hallucination?
For a second, I think I’ve gone insane, really insane. A shot blasts through what’s left of the front parlor window, causing Lilly to scream in surprise. I don’t flinch, not even as I feel the rain of glass at my back.
That voice. That impossible voice.
“Jack, get down!” Lilly is saying.
Stray bullets are flying in all directions, thudding into the house’s siding, eviscerating the wooden door even more than Bandit has. Suzanna has left us. I didn’t see her go, but I no longer sense her presence.
“Jack!”
A hand clutches around my ankle. It’s death-gripping my pants. I’m moving to the sound of that voice, pulling away from Lilly.
“Jack, what the hell are you doing?” Lilly yells. I am at the bottom of a pool, barely aware of her speaking to me at the surface.
“FF4356, what’s your status? I repeat, what is your status?”
It’s Abby’s voice. It has to be. I would recognize that flair, that bite, in her tone anywhere.
Now I’m running, running away from the screams and the fresh sounds of gunfire outside. I cross the room. A grand piano to my left. A fireplace to my right. A doorway in front of me. Through this doorway I go.
No longer do I hear the voice; now, I hear a crackling—the feedback of a long-distance radio. It reminds me of walkie talkies, only amplified.
“FF4356, come in!”
There it is, the radio. It is a large gray box with angry red lights blinking on its face. Next to these lights are thick dials. Curly rubber wires hang from each side of it. Three longer wires hang from the back and plug into a power strip in the wall.
It takes everything I have to move my foot forward. Each step is conscious, deliberate. On top of the radio sits a headset. I pick it up, slide it over my messy head. The speakers don’t work because the voice is played aloud, but the microphone does. It has to. Why else would it be plugged in?
“Abby?” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
No voice answers.
Maybe I am crazy.
A long moment passes. It feels like eternity to me, like the blurring days after Darlene and Junior were murdered.
“He’s getting away!” one of the women with Suzanna yells outside, voice muffled.
I can’t stand here and wait. I have to go out there and help. So turning around, ready to run back out to the battle and forget the phantom voice I heard—
“Jack?”
No, I think. No, this is impossible.
But it’s not. That voice right there is Abby’s voice, thick with pain and confusion.
“Abby?” I whisper. Then, gaining more power, “Abby!”
On the other end of this radio line comes more static. It’s like someone is wrestling over the controls with her.
No. No way. It’s really Abby, but someone is onto her. Just my luck. My head spins. Heart thumps my sternum. I feel sick, dizzy, all of the above.
“Jack, Chicago. We’re in the Black Towers,” Abby says, and I still can’t believe what’s going on. My stomach clenches with excitement and nausea and fear. I might throw up or I might run to the rooftops and scream at the top of my lungs.
“The Black Towers?” I ask, my voice getting stronger still. Living in Chicago for a few years before this all happened, I have never heard of the Black Towers.
“I don’t have much time, Jack. Come to the Black Towers.”
“Abby?”
No answer.
The line goes dead. I stand there for a moment clicking buttons and tweaking knobs. Feedback screams in my ears. My back prickles with sweat, my palms are slick.
“Abby? Please answer me. Let me know I’m not crazy,” I’m saying, because that is what this feels like, some kind of crazy dream.
Again, there’s no answer. I try to rationalize what has happened, what I heard, but I can’t. Nor do I have the time to because the yelling outside hits me like a tidal wave. The gunshots, too.
“Jack?” Lilly says behind me. Her voice causes me to jump. If my finger had been on the trigger of my rifle, I would’ve sprayed a few bullets into the nice lacquer floors.
I turn around. I must look pretty fucked up, judging by the crooked way Lilly is looking at me.
“I—”
“The Black Towers,” she says almost dreamily.
“You heard that?”
She ignores me. “Jack, Bandit’s getting away. We need to help.” Her eyes have gotten bigger; the dreamy quality to her voice is gone.
I nod. Time to worry about this later, I think, still not totally believing what has happened.
Pushing past Lilly, I go out the front door. There, lies one of the men I freed. He is no older than me, as skinny as a rail, as gaunt as a zombie. A fresh red hole is in his throat and his eyes are closed. The sight makes me sick and angry. I scan the front yard, looking for the man they call Bandit. Before I can locate him, the sound of a revving engine gives him away.
Shit. He’s in the Lincoln and he’s flooring it, tearing through the grass and the gravel and the zombie corpses. One tire bounces over a dead body—I can’t tell if it’s zombie or human—and it leaves a bright crimson streak on the driveway.
“Suzanna!” Lilly shouts.
The crazy woman has jumped in front of the careening vehicle, her rifle raised. She pumps off a few shots, but the car keeps coming. Sparks fly and glass cracks as the bullets register home.
Dread invades me as I see she has no intention to jump out of the way. For her, right now it’s kill or be killed, and the odds are definitely leaning toward be killed.
I don’t think about what I have to do. I just do it. That’s how it works in this wasteland. If you hesitate, if you think too long or too hard, you make a mistake, and mistakes will now literally cost yo
u an arm or a leg…or your life.
The rifle rests on my shoulder. I suck in a deep breath and hold it. No clean shot in the driver’s side window, so I aim for the back tire.
The rifle barks twice.
Both shots hit the mark and the sound the rubber makes as it explodes seems to rival the sound the grenade made earlier.
Bandit is going fast, but he’s not going fast enough for the car to flip out of control—thank God, because that’s my ticket to the Black Towers. Instead, he fishtails, swerving out of the way of Suzanna, just missing her by a few feet.
Turns out, she jumps at the last possible millisecond.
“Nice shot!” Lilly says in my ear.
Not over yet, I’m thinking as I rush to the still moving car. He’s jerking the wheel. Rubber shrieks and burns, clumps of grass and dirt fly. A cloud of gray smoke fills the air.
I stop in my tracks when I see where the Lincoln is heading—right for the small duck pond at the foot of the windmill.
No. Please no.
Spinning, the car comes to a rest right on the edge of it, sending whatever birds were floating there lazily up into the darkening sky. The front passenger’s tire nearly touches the water.
Too close. My heart begins beating again and I rush to the scene.
Suzanna and the Hispanic man beat me there, just as Bandit opens the door to make a break for it. He has a chrome pistol in his hand, it catches the light and sends it back at us like its own form of deadly projectiles.
Before he raises it, Suzanna’s gun goes off.
The sound of a gun is enough to make me stop in my tracks, almost always is. You wonder if you’re getting shot at or if you’ve been shot…or if you’re dead.
None of those things happen to me.
The first bullet takes Bandit in the chest. He’s a big guy, so he barely jerks with the movement. Then the next shot—whether it comes from Suzanna or her friend, I don’t know—hits him in the stomach, sprays blood. He drops to his knees groaning.
I almost want to tell them to stop. I need to question this man, need to find out more about the one-eyed leader of the District and the Black Towers, but I see in their stony faces that they have no intention of stopping until Bandit has suffered as much as he has made them suffer.
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