by Black, D. S.
The men that brought her were filing in and taking their turns snorting a white powder. All the men were looking at her. She was the only captive that she saw. At least at this camp.
5
She was taken inside Cap's tent. It was a large green canopy. The smell of dirt and mildew infected the air. There was an army cot on the right, and on the left a table with a HAM radio. Two bug eyed brutes threw her onto the cot. Cap walked in and sat by the bed; he stared down at her. Earlier he'd taken possession of her revolver. He stood and laid it on the table beside the radio. He said nothing. He started to undress.
“I don't fucking think so, asshole!” She stood up and—
Cap punched her in the eye. She fell back onto the cot.
“Restrain her.”
Two brutes came over and took hold of an arm a piece. She fought against their grip, but whatever drug they were taking had them jacked. They held her easily.
“You know... my dad used to say 'son, this can go the easy way or the hard way.' If I fought against him, he'd beat the ever-living shit out of me, but if I just took my whipping like a man then it was normally over pretty darn fast.” He had his shirt off and his belt unbuckled. “What's it gonna be, Red? I really don't mind fucking a semiconscious girl with serious internal bleeding.”
She spat at him. It landed on his stomach with a wet flop and dripped down around his belly button. One of the brutes went upside her head with a closed fist. She saw stars and heard ringing bells. The world turned into pure white light for a moment.
When the white light disappeared, and the world came back into view, she saw them. Standing on either side of Cap, smiling bright beautiful smiles; her little girls stood in all their ghostly greatness.
Candy fought back a smile. She looked up at Cap, “Just get this over with.”
“Now that's the spirit Red. You know... you might just enjoy this.”
He dropped his pants and let it flop out. She had to give the man credit; he was hung like a bull.
But not for long.
The brutes had released her and stood back near the entrance to the tent. Cap looked at them. “Give us a little privacy, boys. I think she's ready to comply.”
They stepped out with a smile. The last smile they ever smiled.
Candy saw her girls, smiling and nodding. Cap hovered over her and held his girth to her lips. “Open wide Red, big daddy's coming home for a landing.”
She took his erect member into her mouth as he gripped her by the hair. “Oh, baby! Fuck yeah! Do it for dadd—”
The noise that came out of him as she bit down with all the force her jaws could muster was like an insane siren screaming for help. Then came the explosions, followed by gunfire and the shouts and screams of the soldiers outside.
“You fucking BITCH!” Cap fell backward and all though he didn't see them, the girls were dancing merrily around him, hand in hand.
Candy stood up; Cap’s dead cock dangled between her teeth; blood oozed out of her mouth. She spat the piece of meat out. It landed on Cap as blood gushed from his crotch. “YOU BITCH! YOU BIT MY GODDAMN COCK OFF! I'LL KILL Y—”
She kicked him square in the teeth, knocking out two in the front. Blood spilled out of his mouth. He lay on the tent floor screaming; blood pooled around him. She took her revolver off the table.
She pointed the huge barrel at Cap.
“You know what they say, Cap. Hell has no fury like a redhead scorned.” She thought about it for a moment. “Or you know, something like that.”
He looked at her with agonized fury. “You don't know the can of beans you just opened. When Columbia gets word—”
She pulled the trigger and the revolver gave a loud report. His head exploded like a blood bomb. Skull fragments, blood and bloody brain matter sprayed the sides of the tent. Candy thought it was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen. Her girls danced and danced, prancing in the grizzly horror like they were on a sidewalk in a peaceful neighborhood.
6
Candy stepped out of the tent, revolver at the ready. The gunfire was heavy. She could see the sparks of gunshots coming from the woods surrounding the camp. The forty or so soldiers had thinned considerably, their blood now soaking the earth. Then someone grabbed her elbow.
“Easy! Easy! My name is Pinky Satterfield! I'm here to help!”
Candy looked at the man. His face was dark with dirt and blood. He had a pink handkerchief around his neck. He held a large pistol in his right hand. “What do you say we get the hell out of here, uh? These days it’s not safe in these woods!” Pinky said.
Candy laughed. She could hear the screams of the Militia soldiers. They were being torn apart by bullets. They had been caught flat footed, and all the drugs in the world can't save a complacent soldier. Pinky's men, led by the former Marine Recon, Johnny Rainmaker were mowing through them.
Candy followed Pinky to the back of the camp where a hole had been cut out of the razor wire. They entered the woods and circled around to where Johnny was.
Beside Candy, her girls once again stood. Candy took out her revolver and joined in on the turkey shoot. It took less than thirty minutes. They killed every single one of them.
Not one soldier was left to warn Columbia.
7
Back at the farm, Candy found Jack unconscious but alive. An old man somewhere in his sixties met her with a warm handshake. “I'm Doctor Brown. Your brother is one lucky son of a bitch. Forgive my language, I grew up a Navy brat and my father cursed up a storm. I've put your brother on a series of antibiotics that should stop the infection. The fever has tapered off quite a bit. When they brought him in I wasn't sure I would be able to save him. But he's made of sterner stuff than he looks. He's been unconscious, but it’s not a coma. He'll wake up shortly. I'm quite sure of it.”
“Thank you, doctor. He shot himself. That's how he got the face.”
“Oh dear. This world can bring even the best of us to our knees. I don't know where you folks came from or what you've been through since all this started. Here at the farm, we are family. You'll be safe here.”
“I'm not sure anywhere is safe these days.”
“You might be surprised. Pinky and Johnny are phenomenal leaders.”
Behind them, Pinky walked in with a polite knock. “Candy? I'm hoping you might join us at dinner this evening. Everybody’s real curious about you. It’s been a while since we got a new face around here.”
Carla came in behind him carrying an arm full. “Doll, you look plum tuckered out. I dug you up some clean clothes. You look about my size, maybe a little smaller. I’ll try not to look jealous!”
Candy smiled, a little unnerved by the kindness.
“I also brought you a fresh towel. The shower is right down the hall here.”
Candy's unnerved smile turned into genuine pleasure. “Shower?”
“Oh, honey! Come with me.”
Candy looked down at Jack. He was breathing smoothly; she turned and followed Carla.
8
The hot shower was like a miracle from the gods. She hadn't had a real shower for nearly a year. In the swamp, they had a solar shower bag. The kind you fill with water and let heat all day. It had hung from a tree and didn't offer any pressure.
But the shower at the farm was like stepping back in time; back to the Old World. That’s when the tears started. She held her head under the hot warmth of the water. She thought of Jody, Papa, and her girls. The girls were still with her, yet they weren’t. Having ghost daughters is better than having none, but she could never feel their warmth again. Never brush their hair again. Never tuck them in at night. She and Jody used to do it every night. Jody would sing to them. His big dumb voice sang the girls to sleep. She used to rub Jody's big belly like he was a dog. He loved it when she did that, and she loved doing it. The doctor told her the farm was a family. But her family was all but gone.
The tears continued. She let them pour like the water flowing from the shower head. She didn't fight
them, she wanted them; she needed them. She let the memories flow through her, relishing each one. Her and Jody taking the girls to the beach, making sand castles. Burying Jody up to his neck. She saw his big goofy smile. She'd taken a photo of the girls sitting on their knees beside Jody. He was buried up to his neck, and sand was in his hair and on his face. The girls were smiling. That was a wonderful day, a day to never forget. She saw them walking down the boardwalk, eating ice cream, laughing; always laughing. She'd never realized what a happy family they were. A real piece of American pie. She let the girls compete in beauty pageants and you couldn't get much more American than that. She dressed them up and helped apply their makeup. Jody said he didn't like it. Said it was sexualizing them, but the girls didn't see it that way. They were just having fun, and Candy never saw any harm in it.
As the hot water rolled down her naked and pale skin; she remembered Jody's meatballs. He loved to cook. Plumbing was his job, but cooking was his passion. Meatballs were his specialty. They tasted of a special barbecue blend he put together. He would never share his recipe. Though Candy thought it was a mix of Sweet Baby Ray's, Craft Honey BBQ, whiskey and beer. Whatever he used, the meatballs melted in your mouth. His ribs were just as good. Cooking ribs isn't something a lot of backyard chefs do well. Good ribs take a patient cook. He wore a red apron she bought for him. On the front, in big yellow letters it said: GET IN MY BELLY!
Then she thought of Papa. What would they have done without him? He took them in when they had no one. Raised, and loved them. He was the most selfless man she'd ever known. He could be ornery at times, but his love was deep and sincere. He didn't want her to be a cop. He wanted her to go to college, but in the end he supported her decision.
She remembered her sister. She'd loved Carmen, she wanted to help her. Wanted to save her from that dumb fuck of a boyfriend. It’s probably why she became a cop. She wanted to deal with dick wads like Ricky. She might not be able to stop drugs from filling the streets but putting away dirtbags made her feel good. She didn't care that people smoked weed, didn’t even care if people sold weed, but the hard stuff? That was a different story. Heroin is serious business. The gold standard of drug addiction. Candy worked in the DARE program sometimes, going school to school. Jack called it indoctrination, Candy called it education. Jack was still alive, and that was something to be happy about. Something worth smiling over.
These memories washed over her along with the hot water. She'd been in the shower for nearly thirty minutes. The water started to turn cold. She turned off the water, stepped out, and dried off. Carla left her a pair of jeans, a plain white t-shirt, white socks, and a pair of underwear. In the Old World, she never would have worn another woman's panties, but these days it didn't matter. She put on the clothes and stepped into the hall, feeling better. Feeling hungry.
9
She sat at a long wooden table. Food was prepared and waiting for her. Pinky and Johnny were sitting. They hadn't started eating yet.
“You didn't have to wait on me,” Candy said.
“Nonsense. We still believe in breaking bread with new friends,” Rainmaker said as he beckoned her to sit down.
“We've got a lot to discuss after all,” Pinky said this as he scooped a spoon full of mashed potatoes out of a bowl. He then added gravy from another bowl, drooling it over his cream buttered potatoes.
Rainmaker was looking at Candy with interested eyes. “You have an old soul and a troubled spirit, and something follows you. A power! I can sense it. It’s not an evil power, though.”
Candy set down and began filling her plate. There were pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn and a large pitcher of tea.
After loading her plate and swallowing a mouthful of potato, she looked at Johnny Rainmaker. “My daughters. They are standing beside you right now.” They were; they stood on either side of Johnny Rainmaker. They looked content and proud. They glowed with a strange green translucence. “That's the power you sense, at least I guess that's what it is. I don't know what else it could be.”
“They watch after you. They guide you,” Johnny said with complete sincerity and surety. “The spirits of the dead, especially those that we love are powerful allies. Now more than ever. Your girls came to me in a dream. Pinky was visited by another spirit; a slave child. It’s how we knew to come for you.”
“Reality is stranger than fiction, wouldn't you say?” Pinky said.
Candy swallowed down some pork chop, then said. “Yep! That bout sums it up. They brought me to you. Told me to find a man named Pinky, but they couldn't tell me much more. I had a dream, though. About the Marlboro Man.”
“Spirits can't always see things the way we do. Sometimes they can't communicate in straightforward ways,” Johnny said.
“Tell me about this Militia,” Candy said. “Cap, their leader didn't look like the others. He looked sober.”
“Their captains and other high-ranking officers do not take the drugs,” Rainmaker said.
“It’s their way of keeping control,” Pinky said. “But we're going on the offensive soon. Straight to Columbia.”
“And we are hoping you will join us,” Johnny said.
“There are supposed to be others coming up, another group. That's what the slave girl told me,” Pinky said.
“I met another group, led by a man named Okona. Maybe that’s who you are talking about. He helped me get Jack out of a jam, feels like a million years ago now.”
They continued the conversation. They spoke a great deal. Candy told them about rescuing Jack from Duras's compound; they didn't know that Duras and Okona created an alliance. Candy's girls did know this, but as Johnny said; ghosts cannot always communicate with the straightforward information humans like to have.
And as they ate their food, they had no idea just how close Okona and Duras were to Columbia and the Militia's midland stronghold.
Kid Chaos 2
Larry’s hatred for others didn’t just lay with the black community. Women, Larry thought were over privileged whores, at least in the modern age of feminism. Larry could never get a girl, and figured they all fucked nasty niggers, so he thought they should all be forcedly shut up. He had truly looked forward to the day he’d walk into the stadium and blow every nigger loving whore straight to kingdom come. Larry’s obsession with black cocks stemmed from his hatred of blonde dim bats who shunned him on the few occasions he actually tried to speak to one.
Mary Rosenberg, a blonde Jew that lived down the street with her wealthy parents, was the last girl Larry tried with. It was two summers before the Fever, and Larry had decided (however short lived it proved to be) that he was going to give a normal existence the old college try. His breath came in short gasps as he walked up to the door. He’d seen her out at the community pool, wearing her tiny pink bikini. Her olive skin had shined with a lot of sun lotion and Larry was worried his dick might explode in his pants. The girl didn’t know Larry. In fact, very few people did know Larry. He’d never gone to public school; his mother allowed him to stay home and do the public home school program.
But Larry during that short stage, very much wanted normality. He wanted a girlfriend. Maybe then he would stop thinking about the big veiny black dongs. That’s what he hoped. So on that fateful summer eve, Larry forced his shaky legs up to Mary’s door. He’d never met her parents, but he had seen them in his mind’s eye as a middle aged couple. The father—wearing thick glasses and sporting a big Jew nose—and the mother an older version of Mary who wore conservative sun dresses. What Larry got when the door opened was nothing less than an explosive dose of culture shock. He rang the bell—DING DONG—and to Larry’s utter horror a large, middle aged black man opened the door. The man was over six feet, a dash of gray in his hair, and wore a tight white t-shirt that showed off bulging muscles. The man looked down at Larry with a bright, amiable smile.
“Can I help you, son?”
Larry’s mind whirled in a dizzying circle. A goddamn nigger! A nigger! A nig
ger just answered Mary’s door!
“You OK? You look like—”
Larry’s vomit erupted and spewed on the front of the man’s pants, Larry didn’t wait. He turned and ran, ran for his life. Larry had later learned from his mother, who had received a call from the black man, that he was Mary’s stepfather. The man had watched with pity as Larry ran down the street and back into his own yard. It was at that point Larry swore vengeance against all nigger lovers and all women (after all, all women were nigger lovers). Larry also had jacked off feverishly at the thought of big black stepdaddy having a go with his cute little Mary while he forced Little Larry to watch. The world would pay for his embarrassment. For his lack of sexual prowess. For every goddamn thing that has ever bothered him. Pay they would and he would make sure it was paid in blood and guts.
Larry’s only friend was Chaos. He’d been a fool to think otherwise. He had chastised himself for going against his predestined mission—his destiny as the Agent of Chaos. Never again, he had thought to himself as he sat panting in his lair. Never again would he stray. He had stayed up for the next forty-eight hours and planned the attack on the Gamecocks stadium. The only knot he couldn’t figure out was exactly how he would get his vest into the stadium in a post 9/11 world. Then again, he could wait till one of the coldest nights, wear his thickest coat, and walk right in. Was it that simple? Could he just walk right past security, have a seat, wait for the right moment when the idiot fans were at their most excited, and then just press the detonator? He reminded himself of the KISS principle—Keep It Simple Stupid. He had slept soundly after confirming in his mind that it would be that simple; that nothing elaborate was needed. The sand nigger rag heads had done it with box cutters, after all. The next day after a full night’s rest, Larry had started ordering the material he would need to show the world Chaos reigned supreme—no matter how hard they tried to believe in the thin veneer between their so called reality and the world of Chaos.