by Steve Kuhn
Well, that explained the blood on the trunk and the dent in the Caddy. Seth and Nick had to be like hit men or some shit for Gino’s boys.
Gino continued, “I guess ol’ Dirtball caught a case of the ass when his li’l brother didn’t come back and paid us a visit. Problem is… your people killed him, too. Now the NGC is down two capos. They ain’t gonna let that shit slide. War is comin’, and we need to get ready for that shit. These guys are fuckin’ savages.”
Lilly chambered a round in her pistol and tucked it into her holster. It hung on her side, larger than life. She looked rough with her shaved head and her new stitches.
Gino took notice and said, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, kid. Shouldn’t you be playin’ with Barbies or totin’ around a teddy bear or somethin’?”
Lilly scowled at him and started to tell a story. “I had a stuffed dinosaur once. Some people took it from me.”
Gino knelt to speak to her face to face, saying, “That’s a shame, kid. I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Lilly shrugged and informed him matter-of-factly, “I’m not sorry. We killed them and took it back. And if you try and hurt my friends, I’ll kill you, too.”
Gino stood tall and spread his arms in mock surrender, exclaiming, “Oooooh, this kid! This fauckin’ kid! I love it! You got balls like a rhino, little girl.”
Lilly stood firm—expressionless.
Gino’s face sobered visibly as he came to the realization that Lilly was indeed not playing around. He told us all, “Look. The NGC ain’t gonna move on us for a few days at least. I’m nothin’ if not a gracious host, so I’ll have Seth and Nicky-Boy show you to your rooms, your whole crew. Get cleaned up. Get some sleep. Talk amongst your little group, and we’ll see if we can’t come to some sort of an arrangement in the morning, capiche?”
I’ve been hiding from Kylee for over an hour now in my room. It’s nice, though. I’ll explain the rest tomorrow, but right now I’m gonna have a shower and get some sleep in a real bed. Lilly’s gonna be okay. No bernies in sight. Gotta enjoy the little things.
Entry 139
Shoulda known I wouldn’t be able to escape Kylee’s wrath for long. I didn’t expect it from the others, though. My teeth clicked at the butt-crack of dawn, and I rolled over in my bed rubbing my head in an effort to make the stinging stop.
Through crusty eyes and the terrible stink of morning breath and sleep farts that hung in the room, I was able to make out the blurry forms of Kylee, Cutty, Boyd, Seth, and Nick. No clue where the others were, but this group was clean, well dressed, and ready to take on the day.
Kylee snapped, “Get up.”
I sat up and tried hard to get my shit together. I’d never been a morning person, and sleeping in a proper bed (not that dorm-room crap at the facility) made me want to lay there for the whole day. I prepared myself for the inevitable onslaught.
Kylee unloaded on me, growling, “Did you see that little girl? Did you see what you two idiots did?”
I tried to calm her down so I could explain, but I should have known better. It only pissed her off more. I also made the mistake of saying, “But, but… Seth and Nick said we’d be safe—”
She pointed at Seth and Nick, cutting me off with, “First of all! I don’t give a shit what these two said! You and Don both oughtta know better. You’re in a strange place, with strange people, and you decide to walk around with no protection. Fucking idiots! All of you! Now, that little girl almost lost her life yet again. And you know what else, Dext? She’s gonna have that scar as a constant reminder of the day you fucked up—the day you let her get hurt.”
Her voice dripped with venom.
Cutty added, “Baby girl ain’t talkin’ much. When she do be talkin’, she on some new shit, like she don’t care no mo’—like she wanna watch the world burn, nigga. I don’t know how we gon’ fix it this time. You know you ma Shouldah Nigga. Dat’s why we gon’ leave it at dat.”
Seth and Nick weren’t their usual selves. They didn’t crack a joke or bust balls or anything. Looking back on it, that’s what really clued me in on the weight of the situation. Isn’t that weird? The behavior of two guys we barely know already spoke volumes.
Nick told me, “Kylee and Cutty told us everything…”
I wasn’t sure what he meant exactly, but I knew it wasn’t gonna be good.
He continued, “Don, the doctor, the vaccine, this colonel asshole, this Thigpen guy, and Kilo… all of it. Shit, man, you guys might be the ones to really fix it.”
Seth picked up with, “There’s one major problem with all of this, though. Forget the NGC for a minute and think back to when you guys passed the checkpoint on the way in…” He looked directly at me. “I know you saw the footprints in the sand.”
I nodded and told him, “So many of the dead.”
Seth shook his head. “No. They weren’t from jerks. That was military passing through—army. They told us all that they were heading back to regroup, resupply, and replan everything. Told us to stay put and hold it down here since we were in decent shape. And guess where they were heading?”
I already knew the answer. They were heading for Fort Bragg. That meant that Fort Bragg was going to be flush with the colonel’s men—bad, bad, bad sauce.
I got up and started getting dressed as Nick explained further, “Gino’s got something up his sleeve. He says we got ‘common interests.’ Up north there’s an air force base—Nellis. Place was deserted after a massive group of jerks pushed through and the forces there were decimated. What was left of them retreated to God-knows-where. It’s got power, though, just like us. Hoover Dam still keeps us going. How long that will last is up for debate. Regardless, their communications systems are likely still running. I think you can make contact from there.”
Kylee put her hand on her hip and asked, “Contact with whom exactly?”
Seth scoffed impatiently at us for not putting two and two together. “Whoever you want! If you can figure out how to operate that shit, you can hit up your boy at the facility… the old guy, Murphy or whatever, or that Thigpen dude. Shit, if you wanted to, you could probably get the colonel himself on the horn.”
Cutty rubbed his chin thoughtfully before saying, “Dat sound a’ight. Wha’s da catch. Gotta be a catch…”
Nick rubbed his head nervously and answered with, “Gotta pass right through NGC territory to get to it, and they may have even taken the base for themselves.”
Well, shit.
Boyd finally spoke, asking, “So… we g-gotta pass through hostile t-t-territory, d-dodge hoards of d-dead people, possibly c-clear out an air force b-base, and hope we can g-get an old r-r-radio working? Then we g-gotta pray that s-someone is on the other s-side?”
Nick and Seth looked at each other, grinning at their own ridiculous plan, before simultaneously saying, “Pretty much.”
An unseen voice chimed in from the door behind us with obvious sarcasm. “And we gotta do it all while keeping a damaged little girl and the two hopes for humanity alive in the process. Do you hear how stupid you sound?”
Chavez stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, leaning against the jamb. “That sounds like one huge motherfucking catch to me, folks.”
Seth lit a cigarette and offered me one, which I accepted graciously. I sat on the side of the bed and took a long drag, blowing the smoke into the air above. I remember rubbing my temples in a feeble attempt to process all of it. As much as I hated Chavez, he was right. I asked Seth and Nick what Gino stood to gain through all this.
“Simple,” Seth said flatly. “He wants the NGC gone—exterminated.”
Cutty finished the thought for him, saying, “So, we not exactly passin’ through. We goin’ in lookin’ to make a mess of some people?”
Nick corrected him with, “Not people. The NGC aren’t people. They’re a plague, like the dead. They don’t know how to survive on their own. They don’t build or provide for themselves. They take, and they take by killing whoever has what they
want.” He glanced at Kylee for a brief moment before adding, “Except for the women. They almost always keep the women alive. I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination.”
Chavez attacked Nick, saying, “And all that didn’t stop you from fucking one of their girls, right? I smell bullshit. You better start makin’ some sense or I’m—”
Nick shot a look over his shoulder to Chavez and interrupted calmly with, “Ssssshhhh… Grown-ups are talking.”
Seth snickered.
I was shocked when Chavez rushed Nick and slammed into him. He tackled Nick into the nightstand next to the bed, shattering the lamp in the process. Nick took it like a champ and scrambled back to his feet to square up. It didn’t really matter, though, because Seth threw a nasty right cross, hitting Chavez squarely on the corner of his jaw. Chavez hunched over at the waist, but kept his feet.
It was chaos as Nick, now back up and balanced, dropped an elbow on Chavez, right to the back of his neck, which finally brought him down. They fucked him up. Kicks to the ribs from both Seth and Nick kept Chavez down and in check before Nick finally sat atop him. He pummeled Chavez repeatedly until Boyd and I were able to drag him off. Kylee managed to back Seth up by cheaply pushing him into the bed, where he lost his feet and tumbled across to the other side. He popped up and held out his hands like, ‘Ta-da!’
Cutty offered a hand to Chavez, but he batted it away and said angrily through bloody teeth, “Fuck this…” He left without another word, limping out and holding his side.
There was a long bit of awkward silence before Nick asked, “What’s with that fuckin’ guy, man?”
Seth joked, “You owe me twenty chips for that shit, faggot.”
Nick reached into his pocket and produced a single black-and-white chip. He flipped it end over end with his thumb to Seth, who caught it easily, and said, “I didn’t ask for help, but here’s a tip for your effort. You still punch like a girl, though. If I’d have hit him like that, he prolly woulda been snorin’ right now.” He gave Seth a smart-assed wink.
Seth smirked and quipped, “Fair enough. Next time I’ll let him kick your ass.”
Kylee told them both firmly, “Cut the shit. He’ll get over it. He needed that anyway. Let’s get back to business.”
They both nodded, with Nick asking, “So, you in or what?”
Kylee sucked her teeth thoughtfully before answering them with, “If there’s a chance to get my old man talking, I have to take it. Maybe I can talk some sense into him, Murphy, too. I’d like to hear if Kilo made it to them all right and how they’re doing with the work—not to mention poor Alyse. She deserves to know about her brother. I’m in, but Lilly is out. So is Don. They’re staying back. That leaves everyone you see here, assuming Boyd is going along, plus Chalmers.”
Seth replied, “Excellent. Fat Tony said if you were agreeable, he’d pull a bunch of people off the checkpoint for a few days to pull this thing off. It’s not like we’re all going in alone. We’re rollin’ deep. You guys get what you need, and Gino takes over the NGC territories—win-win.”
We agreed to reconvene around noon for a gear check, a head count, and a briefing. Gino and Fat Tony will spill everything they know about the NGC’s positions and capabilities. More importantly, Nick offered to meet up with his NGC girl this morning, and he thinks he can manipulate her into giving up even more sensitive info on their setup. Seth couldn’t help pointing out that Nick may not pull it off, though, because he tends to think with the wrong head when she’s around.
We’ll see.
Entry 140
The crowd assembled on the street, loudly and disorderly, until Gino raised his hands in the air to signify we were ready to begin. The rowdy bunch from the checkpoint still maintained a low murmur, but Fat Tony put an end to it, shouting, “All right, that’s enough! The next person interrupts Gino deals wit’ me, capiche?”
Silence.
Our crew stood together, minus Chavez. I assumed he was sitting in D-Prime, pouting over his ass beating. Whatever, though. He’d been warned more times than I could count about both his attitude and his mouth. It was my hope that he’d learned his lesson this time, but that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
We looked from person to person, sizing up our little army. They were ready to go and well equipped. Almost everyone had what I liked to call the “Trinity” with regards to their weapons. The Trinity was simple: a rifle or long gun of some sort for ranged fire, a pistol or shotgun for close-quarters gunfighting, and a melee weapon in case they ran out of ammo or had to stay quiet and bash some heads.
Many wore makeshift body armor, which lent a sort of Bad News Bears feel to our regiment—everything from baseball catcher’s gear, hockey and lacrosse equipment, football shoulder pads and shit, all the way to one guy wearing chain mail, probably stolen from some museum somewhere. Gino’s crew wasn’t fuckin’ around. They may not have looked like a professional fighting force, but they’d been at this since the beginning.
Seth whispered to me, “This is a good group—the best there is. Most of them have been here since we took over the South Strip. Of course, there were almost twice as many of us back then.”
Nick nodded as he seemed to remember the early days. He looked from face to face in the crowd, squinting his eyes slightly in the morning sun. “We cleared every one of these buildings, one by one. We drug out the dead, and the friends we lost in the process, with our bare hands—lined the streets with them. It was bad, man. Took us almost two weeks to clean everything up and to burn all the corpses, and that was working around the clock.”
Cutty whispered, “You don’t bury yo’ friends?”
Seth and Nick looked at Cutty, confused. They said simultaneously, “No,” with Nick adding, “We burn everything. Why?”
Cutty told them both, “Respect. Bury yo’ friends, and burn da rest. Dat’s da way we do it. Helps us remember ones we care about. Trust ol’ Cutty… Once you dig dat grave and lay dem on in there, you feel… closure.”
Nick and Seth stared at him blankly for a moment, but their features softened slightly. I think they understood. Whether or not they agreed was another matter altogether, but at least they understood.
Gino addressed the crowd loudly enough to be heard by everyone. “A’ight, so you know we been dealin’ wit’ these NGC fucks for too long. Last night, one of these assholes had the nerve to step into our territory and brutally assault a little girl—a little girl that I happen to have taken a likin’ to. We have one rule around here that stands above all else, a common-fuckin’-sense kinda rule. You can beef wit’ whoever you want. You can handle your business, once approved by me or Tony, in any way you see fit, but… no women and no kids. They’re untouchable. All of you have heard this before. We protect our women and children above all else. Am I right?”
The crowd had gasped at his revelation of Lilly’s assault, but cheered wildly in agreement with Gino’s sentiments regarding women and children.
He gestured to Lilly to step forward, and she complied without hesitation. Gino continued, “I want you all to see somethin’.”
He hoisted Lilly up and very gently tilted her head back to reveal her forty-plus stitches to the crowd. The anger roiled through the ranks of the nearly fifty people gathered. “You see this? This is the type of scumbags we’re dealin’ with here! You gonna stand for this in our territory? On our land?”
The crowd erupted into a frenzy with weapons raised to the sky and protested, “Noooo!”
Gino wrapped up his speech, saying, “Today, you’re gonna go up there and meet ’em head-on. Face to face, you’re gonna smash them in the fuckin’ mout’. Kill ’em all! So that you, me, and innocent kids like little Lilly here can trust that it’s safe here in our Las Vegas!”
Once more, the crowd erupted in cheers.
After Gino’s little motivational speech, he gently passed Lilly back into Kylee’s arms and faded into the background. Fat Tony stepped up and laid out the plan. I’ll spar
e you the details and simply say that we were told which hotels on the North Strip were their main ones, and we reviewed some of the sniper’s-nest positions. Nick smirked proudly as Fat Tony credited him with finding out where the leadership hung out most of the time. He suggested we might focus our efforts on reaching the fountains after clearing the sniper’s nests.
All this really means nothing now that the fight is over and I can tell you that shit didn’t go anything like we had planned it on the street this morning. I’ll also cut the crap and tell you that every single one of the people we stood with on the street this morning is dead—every single one.
Don fought with Kylee vehemently about splitting up the group. He completely refused to accept the idea of Kylee going and him staying with Lilly. His argument was a good one, too. He agreed that he shouldn’t go in the interest of the big picture, what with the possibility of a cure and such, and he agreed that Lilly needed to be kept out of harm’s way if at all possible. What he didn’t agree with was Kylee going. He felt she was just as important to the cure effort as he was. I suppose he was right about that, but Kylee begged him to understand that if there was a chance for contact with the colonel, she should be there to do the talking. It went on for some time and got heated, but in the end he caved.
We took only two vehicles, D-Prime and the Caddy. The rest marched. Like a fake-ass, Braveheart knock-off, the South Vegas Fifty, as they’ll be remembered, walked ahead of the vehicles. Boyd, Kylee, and I sat atop D-Prime’s trailer, with Cutty in the driver’s seat and Chalmers in the passenger spot. Seth and Nick were behind us in the Caddy, as expected.
The North Strip was eerily quiet, and as we approached the first suspected sniper’s nest. Kylee and Boyd watched the buildings closely for any signs of movement.
Nothing.
Boyd whispered to us, “S-s-something ain’t right. I c-can f-feel it.”
Kylee nodded her head, agreeing, but told him to shush and keep his eyes open.