by Trevor Zaple
“Whoever you end up torturing and raping after I finally turn you out of here,” she spat. He leaped up and screamed, waving his hands in the air.
“YOU CAN’T TURN ME OUT, I’M YOUR FUCKING BROTHER!”. He felt as though he were blacking out from rage. Sarah regarded him coolly.
“Some brother. Drugs me, cuts me up, then fucks me god knows how many times. I’d be better off with you as a corpse”.
“Please don’t,” he blubbered, holding his arms out. It was entirely predictable; he would scream his head off and then be reduced to tears in a manner of minutes. She had him tuned like a violin, and could produce notes upon command. He hated her, violently hated her, and wanted nothing more than to see her head mounted on the wall, maggots crawling busily out of her eyes. He held onto this vision like a cherished friend for a moment, and then surrendered himself into crying. It was the quickest way to finding some peace and quiet. Sarah rolled her sunken eyes and lit up another cigarette.
“Whatever, I’m not going to put you out on the street,” she said, sounding bored with the entire situation. “Stop wailing like a little baby and have a smoke. Be a man, for fuck’s sake, and maybe people will respect you more”.
He snuffled, hating himself just as much in that instant. He found himself hoping that the rumors were true, that Taggert would be opening a major offensive against the Mayor’s territory shortly. There had already been gunbattles—skirmishes, really—already, and it was said that soon everyone under Taggert’s command would be marching east. If there was a large influx of people soon, he might be able to kill Sarah safely in all of the confusion. It would be easy, he told himself. Maybe while she’s whoring herself out he sneered, and then dismissed the thought. It would be too dangerous. He would just end up getting himself exiled or killed. He stewed miserably, his mind going (as it always did in stressful situations) to memories of his angel. He could feel her, somewhere nearby. She was close, and he would find her, somehow. He clutched at this idea much as a small child would clutch at a treasured stuffed animal, hoping to glean warmth and security in the darkest, most terror-ridden parts of the night.
Mark got dressed slowly in the corner. He could feel Olivia’s eyes boring into the back of his head, her face set in anger as she nursed Victoria. He took his time with his clothes, trying to delay having to say goodbye to her. He was going to have to, very soon, and there was the everpresent possibility that it would be their last. It was a possibility that was growing larger with every day that passed. He buttoned his blue dress shirt, put on his Kevlar armor. He laced his black boots and ran a hand through his hair. He could feel it thinning, along with everything else. Swallowing hard, he turned around.
Olivia’s eyes were large, dark, and rimmed with tears. Her face had thinned recently, and her cheekbones were starting to show an uncomfortable amount. Victoria was sleeping on her shoulder; Mark wondered how much she was really getting to eat these days. He had only been eating half of his rations, giving the other half to Olivia to supplement her own meager allowance. He didn’t think it was enough, regardless of how they split it, but it was all that they had. It would be even less, soon enough.
He opened his mouth, and then looked down at his feet. The words didn’t want to come. He fought himself wildly.
“I love you, goodbye,” was what he meant to say; “we need to leave this place,” is what actually came out. He cringed from the words as soon as they left his mouth, but they were out there, alive and ready to breed. Olivia’s sudden feral hope hurt him deeply, and he pushed his brain rapidly. There had to be a way to follow that up. There was a way out of this, somewhere. He shook his head.
“I have to go now,” he said quickly, and he darted out of the room to escape the sudden crushing collapse of her expression, and the tears that were sure to follow. Coward he cursed himself sullenly. Can’t even face your own wife and child. He reeled and fell into the cold wall, unable to stop the wracking sorrow that washed through him. He wept like the damned, and through his sobs he heard people passing him by, going to and from various strategic positions on the floor. None of them stopped to see to him, nor did he expect them to. Finally his weeping tapered off into a dark silence. It was then that he felt a hand at his shoulder. He got to his feet and saw Northdancer’s grim, gaunt face regarding him gravely.
“Come on, Mark,” he said simply, and held out his wiry hand. Mark took it, gripping it tightly. A smile crossed Northdancer’s face like a spring breeze, and then it was gone.
They approached the gun nest that was directly down the hall from Mark and Olivia’s living quarters. It was the nest that kept them up at night, rattling fire throughout the darkest hours. It was quiet this morning, but that situation was likely to change at any moment. Taggert’s men were of the habit of being unpredictable; the police and their associates were constantly on edge, even in their skittish sleep. They stopped to grab riot-gear helmets from the rack set up beside the entrance to the nest, a former private-occupant room whose exterior wall had been partially knocked out to provide a wider area of fire coverage. A solid steel table was rammed against that knocked-out hole, largely to provide cover for those unlucky enough to find themselves on duty there. There were a pair of men in there, crouched down below the table.
Mark and Northdancer crawled in and relieved them of duty. They watched the two now-off-duty men crawl away and then checked their rifles to ensure readiness. They played rock-paper-scissors to see who would go first, and Mark lost. Slamming the visor down on his helmet, he leapt up and aimed his rifle down into the street. There was no movement anywhere that he could see. He counted to twenty, making himself go slow and sure. He realized around eleven that he was holding his breath, and by the time he collapsed back below the turned-over table his heart was ready to erupt. Northdancer went next, sweeping the street with a sure, confident gesture, but he came down without firing a shot.
“Seems pretty quiet,” he said. Mark nodded wordlessly. They spent the entire morning in this fashion, taking turns eyeing the street while spending a great deal of time in cover behind the table. Once or twice they heard gunfire from another part of the hospital, but their vicinity was silent. After a while Northdancer produced a wine-tipped cigar that he had stashed away somewhere. He lit it and they passed it back and forth in silence, enjoying it despite the harsh staleness of it. He coughed a couple of times but Northdancer did not make mention of it. Mark worried briefly about the smoke giving their position away but the streets remained quiet.
Eventually Northdancer stubbed the cigar out and they descended into quiet waiting once again. They listened to the winter wind blow cold and cruel outside of the window, shivering as it cut through their all-too-thin protection. Sporadic gunfire echoed from far-off. Mark made himself breathe evenly and told himself that it was no problem, that he would easily make it through another day and see Olivia and Victoria at the end of it. He lost himself in a daydream of walking back in as though the day had been no big deal. He imagined himself talking to Olivia in an off-hand fashion about his day, as though he had just come home from the rush-hour commute after another boring day at the store. It was a good daydream, a warm daydream, and just as he was winding up to the really good part (where Victoria slept and he and Olivia started getting intimate) when a bullet whined off of the brickwork next to their position. Both he and Northdancer came instantly awake.
They turned over and crouched down, ready to pop up and unleash rifle fire into the street. Northdancer went first, and this time his gun rattled off several shots. He came down cursing, however.
“Didn’t get a single fucking one of them,” he swore. “They’re in the coffee shop and there’s at least a dozen of them in the street. They’ve gotten the drop on us”. Mark stared at him wide-eyed, unable to comprehend the situation. He swallowed hard and popped up above the table, his rifle clutched in white-knuckled hands that shook slightly.
He saw what Northdancer was talking about instantly. Several of the w
indows flashed muzzle-fire as soon as he went over the table, although none of the rounds expended made their way to him. The street had over a dozen people in it, all of them brandishing weapons. Several looked up at him and began firing. He made it below the table only milliseconds before bullets flew through the window and punched into the ceiling above their heads. He looked to Northdancer, his breath panting in and out.
“What do we do?” he asked, nearing panic. There seemed to be no way out except to abandon their post, and he knew the penalty for that. He also knew that if he were to go back into firing position he would be shot four times before he could even get off a round. He thought of Olivia’s thin, despairing face and held it to himself like a fond wish. I’m sorry he found himself telling that face. We should have gotten out a long time ago, and now it’s too late.Several more bullets punched into the ceiling, as if to underscore this thought. He closed his eyes and started counting, trying to get his thoughts under control. The mosquito-whine sound of gunfire chipping off the brickwork continued on the other side of the wall. He saw with unease that Northdancer was gripping and then loosening his grip on his rifle stock. His eyes were staring off a thousand miles into the distance.
“Albert?” Mark asked, feeling shock settle down over him. Nothing was right here, and for the usually calm and collected man to his left to be reacting like this was just icing on a very rotten cake. “Albert,” he hissed, nudging him with some force. Northdancer blinked rapidly.
“I used to work for the Toronto Sun,” he said dreamily. “Did I ever mention that?”
“No, can’t say that you ever did,” Mark replied, a nervous, overly giddy laugh coming out as he did so. He felt reality begin to slip.
“Well, I did,” he continued. “Advertising sales. I took orders from all over the province”. He smiled bitterly, his eyes still worlds away from their current situation. “And here I am. Never thought I would end up like this, you know?” That sour smile never wavered.
“I guess,” Mark replied. It was the only thing that he could think of to say. Northdancer did not seem to notice that he had said anything.
“We used to make fun of the gun control nuts, you know?” he continued, more to himself than to Mark. “They’d see the police getting more guns, or people fighting to get the right to buy and keep guns, and they’d freak out. We called them all sorts of names, nasty things, but they seemed like lunatics at the time. Now, though…” He laughed, and the laugh sounded as bleak and chilled as the wind howling outside. “Now, I kind of wish they’d gotten their way. It’s funny how things can change, just like that. One minute, you’re fighting for people’s rights and the next minute you’re getting shot at. It figures”.
He laughed some more, until Mark wanted to cover his ears to block it out. It sounded hideous. Outside, the sound of gunfire seemed very loud; the hospital’s defenders were beginning to fire back. He realized that one of them was going to have to join in the defense if either of them was to live through the night. He looked at Northdancer and knew that there was no way that the man was going to get up and return fire any time soon. For now, Albert Northdancer was lost to the world. He gripped his rifle, fought back his tears, and went up over the table once more.
The door to the building that Jason thought of as his “shop” opened and a walking legend came in. Paul Taggert himself, looking oddly normal for all of the stories that surrounded him, came walking in and stopped just inside the entrance. He looked around, and the expression on his mongrel face was definitely unimpressed. A taller, broader black man walked in after him and immediately wrinkled his nose. Jason wanted nothing more than to punch the second man directly in the face—Implying that anywhere else in this forsaken city smells any better he seethed—but he forced himself to plaster a smile on his resentful facial muscles. It was the Boss walking in, after all.
“Welcome to my place of business,” he greeted them smoothly, rising from the seat he occupied behind his desk. “May I offer you some refreshments, or…”
“Stow it,” Taggert cut him off brusquely, and Jason was stung. He felt a swipe of the old, comfortable hate rise up in him and quelled it forcefully. Now was not the time for an outburst, deserved or not. He simply stood with his hands at his side, that shit-eating grin slapped across his face from ear to ear. It was painful, but it was all that he could think of to do. Taggert looked around the interior some more. There was little to look at, and Jason thought that it looked more as though he were wasting time than anything else.
“It smells like rancid feet in here,” the black man remarked, his voice disdainful.
“Yes, and rotted milk,” Taggert opined.
“I’ll never understand how they can come in here”
“They say she’s pretty good at what she does,” Taggert replied jovially, “and that it beats me taking it out of their pay”. Taggert focused his blazing, dark eyes upon Jason. “Instead, friend, they’re paying you. Now how do you suppose that makes me feel?”
Jason swallowed and heard an audible click. His smile slipped ever so slightly.
“Well, ah, you see sir, the thing about that is…” he paused. The thing about that is what? he thought wildly. You’re not the only game in town? I deserve a profit too, despite being sworn to work for you? Is there an answer that I can give here that doesn’t result in my having a hole in my head? In a way, he hoped that the answer to his last question was no. He was no longer so enamored with life that he was willing to fight and scrap to keep it. He realized that his mouth was hanging open, and that Taggert was staring at him expectantly. When he saw that Jason didn’t have an answer, he nodded as though he had expected this all along.
“Well then,” he muttered. He turned to the black man. “What do you think, Michael, should we make the whore an offer?”
“It’s what we came for,” Michael said, his tone bored. Taggert grimaced.
“You have the soul of an accountant,” Taggert griped. Michael shrugged.
“I was an accountant, so I guess I come by it naturally”.
A grin broke across Taggert’s face. “Whore!” he yelled, and Jason fell into his seat, the pleasant customer-service smile vanished from his face. The only thing that was left in its wake was an expression of fear and doubt.
“Whore!” Taggert yelled again, and the door to the back of the shop opened with a slow, agonizing metal scrape. Sarah came out, fully covered in her silk bathrobe, her face neutral but obviously nervous.
“Can I help you?” she asked briskly, all business. Jason tried to catch her eye but she refused to look at him. He gave up and slumped in his chair.
“That you can,” Taggert replied, rubbing his hands together and continuing to grin. “It seems that my men have been eschewing my own services in favor of yours. To put it bluntly, girl, you’re taking the bread out of my mouth. Now what do you suppose we should do about that?”
Sarah stood in the doorway languidly, her face unchanging.
“You want a tumble?” she asked finally, her voice diffident. Taggert laughed as if this were the funniest thing that he’d ever heard.
“Lord no, girl,” he replied, wiping at his eyes. “Why would I want some skinny junkie when I have a bevy of meatier girls I can have at any time? No, darling, a roll in the sack with a two-bit whore is not why I’m here”.
“Why are you here, then?” she asked casually, ducking into the back room to retrieve and light a cigarette. The smoke curled around her shadowed face, obscuring her features.
“I’m here to offer you employment, you dense skank,” Taggert shouted. “Work for me and I’ll see that you get a bit more meat back on your bones. Don’t, and I’ll see that you don’t live out the week”.
Sarah inhaled, seeming to think this proposition over. She flicked ash off of the burning end of the cigarette.
“Way I’ve heard it is you don’t even have enough food to keep your own men fed,” she replied easily, as though she were passing simple gossip to friends. Jason
goggled at her, however, sure that Taggert would respond by simply pulling out a revolver and blowing her acidic little head off. Instead, however, he chuckled ruefully.
“Aye, girl, I suppose as things stand it would be difficult for me to continue to feed everyone”. He gestured with his hand towards the east, towards the hospital. Jason had heard continuous gunfire from that direction for the past three days, until it had become a din that faded into the background.
“However, once we take that goddamned hospital, everything changes,” he continued. “That fucking sorry excuse for a walk-in clinic is all that stands between us and the Mayor’s own food vaults. After we take it, it’ll be an easy walk from here to Nathan Philips Square, and then everyone eats from here on out”.
Sarah nodded slowly. “Well, I’d rather live than die,” he noted, almost to herself. She ran a finger down the front of her silk robe and it parted, showing off her blemished skin, the skin that still bore the mute scars of Jason’s time as keeper and drug-administrator of her. “Are you sure we can’t work out some other deal?” she cooed seductively.
Taggert pulled out a massive-looking handgun in one quick sweep and pointed it directly at Sarah’s face. Sarah went white and put her hands up, her robe falling completely open as she did so. Jason screwed his eyes shut and waited for the room-filling explosion to fill his ears, and for the ragged stump of Sarah’s neck to begin spraying high-pressure blood over everything around her. Instead, he heard the sound of Taggert laughing once again. He opened his eyes and Taggert was reholstering the pistol. The black man, Michael, still looked bored. Jason realized that the whole thing had been an act.
“You’re a likely lass, aren’t you?” Taggert leered at her, his eyes running over her exposed, deflated breasts and down the inward curve of her sunken stomach to the still-ripe mound of her vulva. “A little meat on there and you’d be one of my best girls, I’ve no doubt”. He turned his eyes to Michael. “How about some nigger dick in you, eh? Have you ever felt a black man up, I wonder?” Michael looked at him blankly, but Jason thought that he detected a barely-concealed rage there. So. Not everyone thought that Taggert was a king on high, it seemed.