by Jim Heskett
“Oh,” Naomi said, “this is Alma Castillo. Alma, this is Logan Norris.”
Alma nodded, not looking at him. Logan took a little comfort in thinking that this girl seemed more nervous about the experience than he was.
“What’s the plan?” Naomi asked again.
“I figured we’d go on up 75 a bit, and then we can ditch the car and hoof it up by Mud creek. That should take us straight into Caney. I don’t know for sure if there’s a roadblock, but there won’t be anything by where the creek crosses.”
“You’re sure?” Naomi asked.
He wasn’t, but nodded anyway. “It’ll be a lot of walking. You got some sturdy boots on?”
Alma lifted up her leg, but he couldn’t see from where he was sitting in the truck. He assumed she meant to indicate her shoes. After exiting the vehicle, Logan shook Alma’s hand and took a peek at her shoes. Nothing fancy, just tennis shoes. Would have to do.
The girl still wouldn’t look at him, but with what they were about to attempt, he understood. “Naomi, what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go back home and wait for you, and think about what I can do to return the favor,” she said, adding a sly grin and a wink.
Logan could hardly believe what he was hearing. Naomi had barely acknowledged him for four years of high school, and now, she owed him something. All the porn website fantasies in the world paled in comparison to this moment.
He probably wouldn’t have been so excited if he’d known then that the cops would arrest her in Tulsa that night and that he’d never see her again.
Naomi and Alma embraced for quite some time. They whispered into each other’s ears. Tears from both of them spilled down their cheeks and collected on their shirts, mixing together in the wet mess of fabric. When they finally ceased, Naomi whirled away and ran to her car.
He caught a glimpse of her face as she fled, and something in her expression sent a jolt of unease through him. That was his first hint.
Now, Logan and Alma were alone, except for the clerk inside the convenience store, who was still eying them.
Logan motioned to the passenger side of the truck. She opened the door and hoisted herself up via the Nerf Bar. When he got into the driver’s seat, she was wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her t-shirt. “Thank you,” she said, in the most docile voice he’d ever heard.
“You’re welcome. But I think I need to tell you some stuff. I don’t do this for a living or anything like that. I’m trying to say that I’m not a professional. We’re going to drive, park, and then follow the creek. Once we’re over the state line, I’m going to say goodbye and go about my own business. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” she said. Eyes on the floor, taking in the sea of empty McDonald’s bags and dirty gym clothes. She could have been pretty, but with that butch haircut, it was hard to tell.
They left the Conoco and drove on Highway 75 for ten or fifteen minutes without speaking. Logan hadn’t turned on the radio when they first left, so it seemed like it would have been strange to flip it on, after they’d had that prolonged silence. So he stared at the yellow lines of the road illuminated by his headlights, flashing by in a blur.
Finally, he decided to strike up a conversation. “So, how do you know Naomi?”
She waited a few seconds before saying, “She said she would help me.”
Cryptic answer, but he decided to push a little further. “Seems like a pretty big favor to get someone into Kansas.”
“I’m trying to get to Canada,” she said.
Canada? Was this girl crazy?
“There’s not riots there,” she said. “There’s not guns there.”
The girl apparently hadn’t been watching the news and seen what had been happening in Vancouver and Montreal, but he let it slide. He understood what it was like to have a dream. “And Naomi offered to help you.”
“She…” she began, but then trailed off and he didn’t press further. Remembered their long embrace before parting. They were obviously close.
Passing a road sign that they were five miles from the border, he pulled the truck off the road and into a thicket of trees. He figured the cover was dense enough that there wouldn’t be any trouble for the few hours he was away from the car. To be sure, he took the registration from the glove box, unscrewed the license plates, and removed anything else he could think of that might have his name on it.
Alma waited patiently at the back of the truck, rubbing her hands together.
Once he was ready to go, he looked for a break in the trees, hoping to find the creek. He didn’t even have a flashlight, just a little flashlight app on his phone that barely illuminated fifteen feet in front of them. Might have three hours of battery life left on the phone, so he hoped the clouds would part and give them some good moonlight.
They walked away from the trees, toward where he imagined the creek would be. Took them a half hour to find it, but their path became relatively smooth after that. A straight shot into Kansas.
As they walked next to the creek, the silence of the night got to him, and Logan tried more conversation. “Why is Naomi helping you?”
“I am special to her,” she said. God, this girl had a strange way of phrasing stuff.
“Special, like…” hoping she would fill in the blank. Mushy tall grass folded underneath their feet as he waited for her to answer.
“I love her,” she said. “She gave up everything for me. She’s going to tell them I go down to Texas.”
Dawning realization spread through his brain. “She’s going to tell who?”
“Police,” she said. “They will be looking for me, because of my father. Naomi will tell them I am with him and we go to Texas.”
“Your father,” Logan said, not quite getting it.
“Yes, he will disappear too. But he went to Seattle to help those people who are like the ones in Colorado Springs. They will be looking for him, and for me too, so I have to go.”
“Colorado Springs? Your dad’s one of them?”
She shrugged. She couldn’t possibly have meant her dad was part of that group that had detonated bombs at the Air Force Academy last month.
But as he replayed her statement, all the pieces started to arrange themselves, even though Logan couldn't yet see the whole picture. Naomi’s flirtatious promise about waiting for him back in Tulsa had been a lie. That was for sure. Just like the tear-soaked goodbye that followed.
Then it clicked. The butch haircut. Naomi’s sacrifice.
“Naomi’s your girlfriend.” Stupid, stupid. He should have seen it.
Alma didn’t respond, but she didn’t have to. Dan, who had seen him talking to Naomi, was on probation for a curfew violation. He couldn’t be trusted. Also, the clerk at the Conoco had seen Alma with Naomi and then watched them get into the truck.
His dream girl had hosed him, and there had been at least one witness.
Logan stopped walking. Alma went on a few paces, then turned to him. “It’s okay,” she said. “Naomi knows what she’s doing. She wanted to do it.” Then she continued along the path, brushing aside grass that reached her waist.
He followed, now completely unsure of the next steps. He was out here alone, smuggling a Mexican girl across state lines while having consorted with a soon-to-be felon back in his hometown. No hope of getting laid with The Chosen One.
His immediate reaction was to run… but run to what?
They saw some lights up ahead, and Logan grabbed Alma and pulled her into a crouch. The clouds above parted, and some of the shine of the moon brightened their surroundings and gave him a better idea of their location. Along with the outline of the town, the distant shapes of buildings materialized in the dim light.
He had already broken the law. Already was on the run.
“Are we in Kansas?” she asked.
“That’s Caney, so we’re already across the border. Do you know what to do when you get there?”
She shrugged, with that same b
lank expression on her face. He sat, and she sat, and they stared at each other.
“You don’t know what you’re going to do when you get there?”
She shook her head and tugged at the hem of her shirt.
Logan ran his hands through his hair, and breathed a sigh so long and slow that he became lightheaded. “What am I supposed to do with you?”
The corner of her lip started to quiver. “Come with me?”
“You and your girlfriend tricked me into this, and now…” he looked back over the trees and grass toward Oklahoma, thinking about whatever was there for him. Not much, actually.
Alma started to cry. “I don’t want to do this by myself.”
Damn it.
Maybe if he’d known then that the investigators in Tulsa would buy Naomi’s story about the exodus down south, Logan would have allowed little Alma to fend for herself and walked back to his truck. He probably could have driven back to town with his head high and acted as if he had not a care in the world, and no one would have been the wiser. But right then, crouched by the creek in the foreign land of Kansas, the walls were closing in on him.
Alma’s father was a terrorist. Or soon to be a terrorist, depending on perspective. Logan had escorted the daughter of a terrorist across state lines, with the intent to smuggle her out of the country, if he stayed with her. What about his friends with their big guns and their bigger egos? He didn’t want to become like them. What about his next inevitable birthday, turning nineteen and his extension lapsing, which meant he would have to buy a gun and carry it on him at all times? Maybe even shoot one, or shoot somebody.
Meteor or not, the world was slipping into a sinkhole.
Logan took Alma by the arm, and they walked into Caney.
Chasing Rabbits
(AFTER THE FALL)
Sutter twisted the knob to kill the butane. The flame fizzled, then hushed, and he slipped on a leather glove to lift the spit. Squirrel. Another day of squirrel, no salt, no pepper.
Nestled in his spot somewhere around the second-and-a-half floor of the remains of the Marriott, Sutter had a good thing going. Everyone thought this building was too dangerous for squatting. No one bothered him, so he never worried about neighborhood locals pilfering his sleeping bag or stove.
But the seclusion also meant no company, and he had to leave by the back to avoid being seen. That involved crossing the lobby, which presented real danger every time he made that trek. Half of the floor had collapsed into the basement, and it creaked and moaned with every step across the remnants of the marble surface.
After breakfast, he decided to take a walk and see if he couldn’t find something else besides squirrel. The day before, he thought he’d seen a rabbit crossing the street. Probably a pipe dream, but if there was a chance, he had to check it out.
He exited the building, threw on his winter coat, and slipped a crowbar into his belt loop as a light snow began to fall. Most people didn’t go out when cold like this squeezed the city, but he loved seeing downtown Manhattan as desolate as some wild west town. Only the foolish and desperate wandered out when the sky went from blue to gray to white.
Near Times Square, he spotted a familiar face, so he walked toward his young friend, who was digging through a pile of ratty blankets. Sutter made sure to make plenty of noise on his approach, so as not to startle him.
“Zach Mettenberger. What the hell are you doing out here?” Sutter said.
Zach straightened up and cast a toothy smile at Sutter. “That old down thing I was using at my place finally disintegrated. Thought I’d do a little shopping. What are you doing out here?”
“Dunno. Chasing rabbits, I guess. Thought I saw one yesterday.”
Zach laughed. “You do that, Sutter. You keep chasing that dream, reaching for the stars, and all that other bullshit.”
“Stranger things have happened. How’s that little pretty blonde wife of yours?”
Zach’s face soured. “Fine. You hear about what happened in the subway last week?”
Sutter shook his head. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“I’m telling you, man, it’s pretty bad down there. I’ve seen a lot of nutty shit, especially right before the earth was supposed to blow up, but nothing as bad as this. Turf war between the Red Streets and the Eighteeners turned ugly. You can smell it coming out of the fourteenth street station.”
“Jeez.”
“Yeah,” Zach said, “not like you’d have much reason to go down there anyway.”
“Yeah. I sure-as-shit don’t want to go anywhere near where those two little clubs might be. So you wanna help me look for rabbits, or what?”
Zach went back to digging in the pile of blankets. “On a gorgeous day like this? I got better things to do, m’man.”
“Suit yourself.”
“So, how’s your apartment?”
Sutter grinned. Zach had been trying to find out where Sutter stayed for months, but Sutter wasn’t about to give up his private hotel. “Doing fine, thanks.”
Zach smiled too. “That’s what I figured. You’re going to be out here on Friday, right? For the big thing?”
“What big thing?”
Zach’s eyes jumped wide open. “Holy shit, you don’t know. The hanging in the Square on Friday. Well, not a hanging like they’re going to kill him, but more like a… whaddaya call it, an effigy, or something like that.”
“Who? Who’s getting hanged on Friday?”
“LaVey, you hermit. He’s dead already, so it’s not like we get to fry the bastard, but they’re going to string him up from the M in the McDonald’s.”
“You mean that senator? I didn’t even know he was dead.”
Zach stood up with a mostly intact fleece blanket in his hands. “Bingo. This oughtta do it.” He tucked the blanket under his arm. “Yeah, yeah, story goes that someone found him in an apartment in South Harlem, you know, the part where it’s not all gone to shit. Anyway, he was dead when they found him. Hanged himself. At least, that’s what some people are saying. A man who was pure evil like that, crazy to think he went out that way.”
“It’s hard to believe.”
“But I also heard he got into it with some former special forces guys and they tasered him to death, so who the fuck knows? Either way, on Friday at midday, they’re gonna string him up and have a big kind of party. Gonna be food and everything.”
“Food? You’re kidding me.”
“No, it’s the real deal.” Zach leaned closer to Sutter and checked behind his shoulder before continuing. “Word is—and you didn’t hear this from me—that they found some kind of conspiracy journal on him. Naming names, plans, how we got into this whole shit. And,” Zach said as he pointed a finger at Sutter’s shoulder to drive the point home, “they left it in his pocket, some kind of move-on-from-the-past bullshit.”
Sutter tried to keep his jaw from dropping. “Jesus Christ. That thing would be worth more than a satellite phone.”
“You bet your ass it would.”
“But that’s gotta be like some kind of urban legend, right? You’d think it’s too valuable for them to throw it away.”
Zach shrugged. “I’m just passing along what I heard.”
Sutter watched his friend, who was still holding his shoulders in a shrug, going on five seconds straight. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You got to think that if I know about it, plenty of other people know too. And, me personally, I’m not the kind of guy who’d try to snatch it. But you, Sutter… given what you used to do for a living before, it seems this kind of James Bond shit would be right up your alley. I’d just ask that whatever you end up trading it for, you don’t forget who your friends are.”
“You think I can do this, do you?”
“I dunno, man. Like I said, I’m passing along some information. Now I got to get back to my spot before I freeze my ass off.”
Sutter bid his friend goodbye and continued through Times Square. The McDonalds and the office b
uilding above it were mostly unharmed, and for a long time both had been popular squatting residences. Until the Red Streets had claimed the whole building as their personal residence.
If he wanted that journal, he’d have to go through them to get it.
***
Sutter spent the next two afternoons returning to the Square, watching the McDonalds and the office building above it. From a safe distance, obviously. Red Streets members came in and out of the McDonalds, always in twos, as that’s how they seemed to operate. You could spot them by their leather jackets and black bandanas.
He found a slim alley he could access from west 47th, and a way in through the back. There was a loading bay at the back of the building, big enough to park a truck. The bay door had a fat lock, but the crowbar should take care of that. What to do once he got inside, though, no way to know. He didn’t dare explore that area yet. On Friday, once everyone was distracted by the party outside, maybe he could get in unnoticed.
The big M hanging over the McDonalds in front was about twenty feet tall, stretching from above the doors at the ground-level entrance to the third floor of the office building. If they were going to hang him from the top, that meant they’d go through one of those windows on that floor.
Since this was the Red Streets’ building, they must have been the ones planning to string him up. He didn’t know if this knowledge helped or hurt his plan.
But why would the Red Streets provide food for the neighborhood? Everything about this party seemed strange.
On Thursday night, while eating a dinner of ramen noodles heated in an empty can of beans, Sutter finalized his plan. He diagrammed his approach with a dull pencil on the back of a pizza box. The steps felt solid, to the extent that anything this foolish could feel solid.
***
By Friday morning, the weather had improved. Snow hadn’t fallen since Wednesday. As Sutter poked his head out of the service entrance of the Marriott, slivers of sun broke through the clouds. Winters lasted as long as they did before the world died, but they sure felt longer these days. A little sun in February was as good as it got.