“Why do you have bad dreams at night?” Mouse said, “You pretend to be so mean, but you get bad dreams and cry sometimes when you’re sleeping.”
“I don’t…” but I stopped because all the kids were nodding in agreement with her.
“I don’t know if I can talk about that,” I said after a few moments.
“You always said that talking about it helps,” Jeremy said.
“For conquering your fears, yes,” I told him, “If I tell everything, I might just scare the little ones,” I said, hoping he’d drop it.
“What if you tell the parts that aren’t scary?” Mel asked.
Now what the hell was going on?
“I don’t know how to separate out the good and the bad,” I said after a minute.
“What did you used to do for a living?” Danielle asked, “You weren’t no preacher, that’s for sure.”
Chuckles broke out around the room. Every single one of them had known violence of some sort. I’d had to deal a ton of it out to secure their freedom. Sometimes, it caused loss of life. Sometimes, I’d had to send a message. Nobody here was truly innocent anymore. Even little Mouse, who was so scared of men that she preferred living underground with our misfit family.
“Well,” I said considering my words, “I was an active duty Marine for twenty-two years, a Devil Dog— “
“Like a mean junkyard dog, like you said before?” Sarah asked the nine-year-old who’d joined us a week before.
“No, I was a soldier. Devil Dog’s a nickname for a Marine,” I told her, “I was in every sandbox and hellhole in the world, but the worst was in Fallujah. After I got a medical discharge, I worked for the Transit Authority.”
“What’s that?” Pauly asked.
“Yeah, what’s that?” Mouse piped up.
“Well, I was like a railroad cop,” I told them, hoping to skip the discharge conversation entirely.
“Oh, did you have to arrest the trains?” she asked me.
I grinned at that, it was too cute. “No, mostly I kept an eye on the tunnels and kept kids from… well, doing what we’re doing. Living down here.”
“How come?” Seth asked. He was about twelve if I could remember correctly.
“Well, it’s dangerous,” I said immediately.
“Then why are we down here?” Jamie asked me, arching an eyebrow, a smile tugging the corner of her mouth.
“Because it’s more dangerous topside right now, especially for women and children,” I said, changing the subject. “You two aren’t from around here. Your accent is a little different.”
“Change the subject much?” Mel asked, but she wasn’t upset, just wise to what I was doing.
“Ok, a little bit, but what about you two? I know almost nothing about you.”
“Well,” Jamie said, after exchanging glances with her daughter, “We’re on our way home.”
“Oh, where’s that?” I asked them.
“Near Lincoln, Nebraska,” Mel answered for her mom.
“Oh wow, you got stuck a long way away, huh?”
“Yeah, we’ve been traveling for about a month now,” Jamie said, “Got stupid, tried to cut through the city here. My husband warned me this would happen someday and to avoid the big cities, but I wouldn’t listen to him.” Jamie had started crying softly, tears running down one side of her face.
She must have been holding it back for a long while, but her composure had cracked completely and she started sobbing. Mel put her arm around her mom and leaned in with her head resting on her mom’s arm. Mouse, on the other hand, coughed hard, then gave her bowl to her brother and got up and walked over, plopping herself down in Jamie’s lap. Jamie let out a surprised squeak, and Mouse produced a hairbrush. Like magic, Jamie took the brush and started combing the young girl’s hair, and the crying dried up.
“She’s a smart kid,” Jeremy said.
“Think she rehearsed that?” Danielle asked.
“She does it to Dick all the time,” he answered her.
“I never noticed,” Danielle told him back, letting him go and walking back to her spot and sat down.
“Yeah,” I admitted, “It’s her evil superpower. She stops tears and gets her hair brushed at the same time.”
“It’s a perfect superpower,” Mouse said, “Plus it feels good,” she leaned back into Jamie’s arms, making her stop brushing the back, so she moved to the front and sides.
“So, everyone down here,” Mel asked, “Did Dick rescue all of you?”
Everyone fell silent, the usual hum and buzz cut off.
“One way or another,” Jeremy said, “More than half of us were taken from the gangs, a couple of us were sick. Um… I found my way down here after watching Dick come and go, never seeming to get skinnier. I was hungry and…”
“I almost knifed him when I found him following me,” I told them, “Then up close, I realized he was just a kid. We talked, and he came down here to help me keep an eye on things. Run the partial trap line like Danielle does,” I said, motioning with my spoon to her. “Not everyone stays. Folks leave more than they stay.”
“So, why is it that they hate you topside so much? This gang?” Mel asked, and her mother nodded as well, as if to congratulate her on the question.
“I don’t know much about the gang. There’s always too many to keep one alive long enough to question him. I know the smaller gangs snatch people. Mostly women and kids. We know what happens to at least some of those taken…” My words trailed off, as I imagined what the creep was planning to do to Maggie… Mel. I rubbed my temples. “And whenever I find them, I do what I need to do.”
“You kill them?” Jamie asked.
“Yeah, sometimes, when there’s no other choice.”
“You just mow them down, like Mom said you did to the three guys who took us?” Mel asked, rubbing at her own temples now.
“If there’s no sneaky way of getting you free. But I’m not about to let something happen to anybody because it was dangerous to me. These two,” I said pointing out Danielle and Jeremy, “run things down here.”
“You started this family,” Danielle said, smirking.
“It just sort of happened. I helped people. That’s what I’ve got left in me. It’s what I can do,” I told them.
“What about your daughter, Maggie?” Jamie asked.
I winced. What about her? Did Mary and Maggie make it to her parents’ farm? A thousand questions ran through my mind, and I didn’t know what the real answer was.
“She should be ok. I’m going to head out some time to find her, but there’s so much to do here…” I stopped.
Mouse got up and pulled her brush out, and when she plopped in my lap she almost crushed the delicate parts of me, and I grimaced for a second before taking the brush.
“He’s good at it,” Mouse told the group of us and the kids laughed knowingly.
I brushed her hair slowly.
“You know,” Jeremy said, “Nobody here would blame you for wanting to go find your own family. I think it might help you, you know? Every time we believe that you're about ready to head out, you bring someone else back,” he said, and most of the little ones nodded.
“We’d miss you, though. Even if you do talk in your sleep,” Danielle said.
“And make stinky farts,” Pauly piped up, and we all grinned at that.
“I wasn’t the one who ate a whole can of beans and had to sit on the bucket half the day, Mr. Pauly,” I told him grinning.
“Beans, beans, the musical fruit…” came from my lap and I smiled again.
I remembered who I was, where I was, and what I was doing. I’d saved two people today, stopping some bad stuff from happening. Mel took our bowls and Jamie handed me a blanket. I looked at her, puzzled. She pointed down. Somewhere in my thoughts, I’d kept brushing Mouse’s hair, but the little girl had fallen asleep. I lifted her off my lap carefully and put her on the blanket, tucking her in.
“Is there a bathroom around here?” Mela
nie asked, looking at me uncomfortably.
“Yeah, come on, I’ll show you two where it is. We have to douse most of these lights soon. The kids are going to drift off.”
“Ok,” Jamie said standing, “Hey, where is your little girl at?”
“Outside Fayetteville, Arkansas,” I said.
“That’s on the way,” Mel said, “To where we’re going.”
I stopped walking and in the gloom, one of them walked right into my back.
“You really shouldn’t leave yet. Give it a week or so,” I told her after starting to walk again.
“You really miss Maggie, don’t you?” Mel asked.
“I do, I see her everywhere. Every girl her age reminds me of her,” I admitted.
“I miss my Dad. I can’t wait to finally get home to see him.”
“Just give it a week or so, for those topside to let things die down. Even the little market is going to be too hot for me to go to for a while,” I told them.
“Market?” They both asked.
“There’s a lot to fill you in on,” I said, pausing by a curtain which covered up the end of the tunnel.
“There’s a toilet seat on a bucket. Liquids in one bucket, solids in another. Cover the solids with some sawdust that’s in the last bucket. I can leave the light here, or I can wait. It’s up to you two.”
“We can manage if you’ll leave us a light,” Jamie said.
“Yeah, my mom doesn’t want you to hear her poop.”
“Girls don’t poop,” both Jamie and I chorused and then laughed.
Mel made a face at me, took the light and stormed into the curtained-off portion. I took that as my cue to leave and I waved to Jamie and strode back to the mez, where I would wait in my hammock for sleep, or nightmares. One or the other.
4
I woke up in agony. My lower back was killing me. I had to piss something fierce, but I couldn’t straighten out enough to swing my legs over the side of the hammock. I groaned loudly, my body breaking out into a sweat as the pain kicked in.
“What’s wrong, Uncle Dick?” Mouse asked, walking up timidly.
It didn’t matter how early or late she went to bed, she would always be the first one up, and ninety-nine percent of the time, she’d be cheerful. This didn’t look like one of those times. Her eyes were dark and hollow looking. I know what that haunted look meant. I’d seen it in the mirror enough times myself. Nightmares, ones that scare you awake, and haunt you until the sunlight burns the horrors away. It sucked because there was no sunlight here.
“Back,” I gasped.
“Well, let me get your feet,” she said, pulling.
I gasped and I saw Jeremy startle awake. His spot was close to mine, near the entrance to the small chamber. He stood up, stretching. I could hear his joints pop and crackle.
“You ok?” He asked.
“Back hurts,” I told him. “Help me up.”
He did and it was agonizing, and when I made it to my feet, I was hunched over. It took me almost a minute to stand up straight. Like him, several sections of my back popped, but a hot ball of pain was still centered in the middle of it. I kneaded it and wandered down the tunnel to do my business.
When I got back, almost everyone was getting up or waking up. Those who were up were taking the sleeping pads and sleeping mats we’d fashioned from a school’s rubber wrestling mats, and stacking them on one side. The kids, young and old, folded or rolled up their blankets. Everyone knew which ones were theirs.
“What’s wrong with you?” Danielle asked, after eyeballing me from across the room and joining me as I stretched by the mez.
“Don’t know, pulled something in my back,” I told her.
“Want me to get Jeremy to crack it?” she asked me.
“Yeah, that's great,” I told her and watched the young lady walk casually across the small room to kneel and talk to him.
She whispered to him and I could see her motion with her head. Still, I kept stretching, knowing he was coming. I’d had it happen before, and it had taken me a couple of days of stretches and exercise to feel like I could breathe without it hurting. But this was worse, much worse.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Jamie said coming over.
Not far behind her, Melanie followed, her hair still smashed on one side of her head from sleep, and a bruise had formed overnight where she’d taken the blow. I probably should have checked her for a concussion, kept waking her up to check on her, but I’d screwed up. I was worried about getting them here and about having another… episode? It had been bad after the divorce, but it had gotten much, much worse after the power went out as a nation. Everywhere I looked, I saw my daughter. Everywhere I went, I was reminded of some place or some time, and I wished I was back with Mary and Maggie, running from my dreams.
“Mouse was right,” Mel said, “You cry and talk in your sleep.”
That felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head.
“What?” I asked her.
“Not that much,” Jamie explained, “It’s just a new place, it’s hard to sleep. Plus, it kind of stinks down here. What’s going on with you, you look like you’re in pain?”
“Back is acting up,” I told her, feeling like the old man I must look like.
“I’m sorry, that’s my fault,” Mel said, “If you hadn’t had to have carried me most of the way…”
“It could have been the fall too,” I told her, “Besides, you wouldn’t want to be stuck with those guys topside. That’s for damn sure.”
“Do you have any pain medicine? I’ve got a few Tylenol 3s with codeine?” Jamie offered, digging in a pocket.
My mouth went dry, and I nodded. I did want those, even if there were only a few. A few would be enough to fix up my back, and help me regain my focus. Maybe I wouldn’t have such horrible dreams at night and—
“Don’t,” Jeremy said, putting his hand over Jamie’s, who had found the bottle and was taking the cap off.
“Huh? Why? He’s hurt,” Mel asked, a confused look on her face.
“He’s got… He can’t have booze or anything that’ll act as a painkiller, except Tylenol, Motrin, Ibuprofen. He’s been clean a long time now.”
And fate had kept me that way. My God, I almost had caved in again!
“Oh, yeah, I can’t have codeine,” I told Jamie, who had started putting away the bottle.
“Allergies?” Jamie asked.
“Addiction,” I told her, hating the way it sounded.
I won’t tell you that I wasn’t surprised to see the shocked looks on the newcomers’ faces, but there it was. Admit to being a junkie, suddenly your IQ lowers and everything you do is viewed through a lens of suspicion.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn't know. How long?” Jamie asked.
“It’s been over a month for him since he's had anything,” Danielle said. “He got dinged in the side by one of the topside gangs and his doctor friend had to give him a shot for the pain, so she could dig the bullet out. It couldn’t be helped… No booze, no meds like that unless it’s life endangering. After that shot of morphine, he almost lost it again.”
“Turn around,” Jeremy said. “Hold your arms in front of you, hands under chin, elbows together.
I did and I knew it was going to hurt, so while Danielle explained my shortcomings to Jamie and Mel, Jeremy came up behind me, wrapped his arms around me in a bear hug, locking his wrists together and leaned back. His young body supported my weight, but what was interesting was, as my feet left the floor, my own body weight pulled down on my spine, and I felt and heard several pops, one of which was in the area of the worst pain. Immediately, it felt like a dam had burst.
So, it hadn’t been a muscle strain, entirely. I was betting the fall had done that to me. The pop must have been loud enough to hear because the three ladies stopped and looked at me in sympathy. Jeremy lowered me to the floor, and I turned to see him grinning.
“How’s that?” he asked, getting an appreciative smile fr
om Danielle.
“Good,” I told him. “Hurts, but I think you got it. I’m going to lay flat on my back for a minute,” I said to him, lying on a dry section of concrete.
Mel knelt down, ignoring Jamie, Danielle, and Jeremy, who had wandered away to talk.
“Do you really think we should wait a bit before we go back up?” she asked me.
“Yeah,” I told her, “Those guys will be hunting all over the city for us. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this to them.”
“Why do they do it?” Mel asked suddenly.
“What are we exactly talking about?” I asked her, not comfortable with where I thought the conversation was going.
“Why do they kidnap women and kids?”
In the darkened room, I could make out her features perfectly. She was horror-stricken and afraid. Of whom, I wasn’t sure. The situation? The men above, or how easily and quickly society had fallen apart? Her question, though, was hard for me to answer.
“To some people, having control is more of a drug than any booze or meds are. Think about all the power-hungry men in the world that you’ve heard about in school. They lust to control things they can’t have or shouldn't have. Before we grew as a society of laws, the bad people like that were usually put down when they were found… or they recognized that what they wanted wasn’t going to fly with the people they were around and they changed. With the collapse of the nation, everyone got a free pass. They went crazy with booze, looting, rioting, drugs and immoral acts.”
“I’m guessing you were pretty safe down here when it all went down?” she asked, sitting on the edge of the mez by the concrete I was laying on.
It put her comfortably in my view, so I didn’t have to strain to look at her. Thoughtful kid.
“I’ll admit, I got all the booze and junk I could, and had my own pity party. An end of the world party to end all parties. I lived through it, though. That wasn’t my intention.” The words slipped out before I could take them back, but she nodded.
“We ran into many people like that on our way across the country,” she said.
The conversation with the others had broken off, and Jeremy was set to go out and check all of the snares. Danielle would be firing up the cook stove and she’d get the never ending soup going again, getting the kids fed before they would break up into groups and practice their reading. All of this had been explained to Jamie as I was talking to Mel, and I’d only paid half attention to their explanations because I’d done it and lived its reality for a long time now.
The Devil Dog Trilogy: Out Of The Dark Page 4