by Joseph Souza
I stepped down onto the street and tried to help Dar off the roof, but even with child, she refused my assistance. A few ruffians approached us as we made our way towards the front door of the condo. I wrapped an arm around Devin’s shoulder as I guided him along. My knees felt weak contemplating the horrors my wife and son must have encountered when the worst of the crisis occurred.
A large muscular man with a bald, tattooed head met us at the front door. He smiled, revealing a row of crooked teeth. Tattoos covered his entire body. His breath reeked, and his eyes were two different shades. He addressed us in an Eastern European accent. Inside the condo, gangster rap blared.
“This is my house, and you’re here illegally,” I said. “Gather up all your people and get the hell out.”
The man laughed hysterically, slapping his thigh. “Crazy, muthafucka? Things different now, buddy. World go to shit, and everything up for grabs. So get outta here and fuck off, buddy, before you get hurt.”
“Where’s my wife and son?”
“That bitch was your wife? Oh shit, buddy, that ho a nice piece of ass! You a lucky man.” He smiled and licked his oily, fat lips. “Trust me, buddy, you don’t want to know what happened to that bitch. Wanted more loving than I could give her. One day I got tired of the same bitch, so I kicked her ass to the curb. Used goods, you know.”
Tears streaked down my face. I was so angry, I couldn’t see straight. All I wanted to do was watch this piece of shit suffer in torment. But I was so filled with despair and remorse I couldn’t move.
Dar pushed past me and stood face to face with the man, staring into his eyes.
“A little freak-bitch like you think you can scare old Victor?” He made a deep-throated laugh. “I’m a Serb. I seen things in my country make your fucking blood boil.”
“Bet you haven’t seen the dead come back to life,” Dar said.
“Huh?”
“The dead come back to life and then eat human flesh.” She smiled. “Well, I did.”
Dar whipped out the hunting knife and in one motion plunged it deep into his throat. It hit the carotid artery and shot forth a stream of blood that arced out towards the sidewalk. Devin and I jumped to the side so as to avoid getting hosed by the warm spray. Dar grabbed the man by his collar and tossed him into the bushes, where he lay gurgling, his tattooed hands trying to staunch the flow.
She sprinted inside, and Thorn followed behind her. When I looked inside my old home, I saw Dar spraying the living room with gunfire and killing every occupant lying about. From the top of the staircase, I noticed a group of men running down the steps, knives and sticks in hand. I waited until the last second and then mowed them down. They tumbled to the bottom, bleeding profusely and crying out in agony. I climbed the stairs and ran into every room looking for any sign of Margaret or Stephen, shooting anyone who crossed my path. I did it methodically and calmly, like one of those high school killers. I felt no remorse for my actions nor did I care about their lives anymore. Thorn came up behind me and patted me on the back. Then he clambered up to the third floor. I followed him upstairs, but found it empty. I pointed the rifle up towards the stairway, which led to the roof door, and we ran up.
The bulkhead would not open. We pushed with all our might until the door broke open and we were able to climb onto the roof. One of the thugs approached us with nunchucks in hand and was about to strike when Thorn raised his rifle and shot him in the head. The man fell lifelessly onto the gravel-covered roof. Upon seeing our rifles, the others backed away, but there was nowhere for them to go. Upon looking down, I noticed that Devin was standing below me. Thorn went in one direction and Devin and I in the other. I counted seven men backing towards the edge of the building. Once they were standing on the precipice, I addressed them.
“My wife and son were here. Any of you know where they went?”
The men stared at me, shaking their heads.
“You can choose to either jump or take your chances with the gun if you don’t tell me what I need to know.”
“We jump, we die,” one of them complained.
“Not true. There’s a small chance you’ll survive, although you might need a wheelchair afterwards,” I said. “On the other hand, if I shoot you, then you’ll most certainly die.”
I aimed the gun, pictured the first thug bent over my wife, and waited to see what he would do. I felt a tapping at my leg, and when I looked down saw Devin staring up at me.
“If I’m going to be useful, Thom, then I’ll have to kill someone eventually.”
“You’re too young for that, Devin.”
“Maybe so, but they killed your family. And I’m not too young to die, Thom, am I?”
“He’s all yours, kid.”
I put my rifle down and allowed him to step forward. He offered the first victim the chance to jump, and when he chose not to, Devin shot him once in the head. The thug went toppling over the side and landed with a sick thud on the brick pavers far below.
“I’ll ask again,” I said. “Where did my wife and child go?”
“They leave with big group of others,” a fat man with a heavy Eastern European accent said. “They make big walk somewhere out of Boston. I don’t know where they go, I swear.”
“Why didn’t you help them when they needed it?”
“Victor crazy muthafucka. He take woman for himself. Kill anyone who disagree with him.”
“Go for it, Devin.”
One by one, Devin went down the line and shot those who refused to jump. Some did, while most others took the bullet. The kid was an excellent shot. In a matter of minutes, he’d managed to clean the entire rooftop of those soulless thugs.
“Are you okay, Devin?”
“I’m fine, Thom. It’s just like shooting trap.”
“They’re real human beings, Devin. Don’t forget that.”
“I know that, Thom.”
“But in this case, it had to be done.”
“Those scumbags had it coming for how they treated your family.”
We went back downstairs and met up with the rest of the crew.
“Bring in all the supplies from the truck,” Dar ordered. “Watch our backs, Devin. Any of these guys try and get in our way, don’t hesitate to shoot them.”
“I ain’t afraid to kill anybody, Dar. Just ask your dad.”
“He’s not my dad anymore. Got that!” she said, shouting in his face. “He means nothing to me!”
“Sorry,” Devin said, backing away in fear.
We carried in the food, supplies, and rolled in the barrels of gas. Dar directed Thorn to park the truck in the locked garage behind our home, accessible only by a narrow alley that bisected the brick buildings. She ordered Devin to go with Thorn and watch his back while he parked it. I glanced out the front window, noticing that there were no police patrolling the streets, nor any signs of a military presence. Devin and Thorn sprinted out the front door and disappeared from sight. Fifteen minutes later, they were back in the condo, setting about to work.
“This little dude has some major skills with a rifle. He shot two dudes who tried to sneak up on us in the garage. Right through the cabeza,” Thorn said, making a gun out of his fingers and pointing it at Devin’s head.
“What’s a cabeza?” Devin asked.
“Spanish for your head,” Dar said, jabbing a long, dirty nail into his temple. “Looks like you’re going to fit in nicely with us, Devin.”
“Sorry again about biting you, Dar.”
“No worries. Where I came from, a bite meant death. No, a fate worse than death. But the past is all history now. I have no past, only the here and now, and you’re part of it, Devin,” Dar said.
“Cool.”
“Now let’s board this place up before nightfall. We’ll chill here for a while before we make our next move.”
We set immediately to work. I tried to help, but discovered that I just couldn’t do it. An overwhelming sense of sadness and mental exhaustion came over me. I collapsed o
n one of the tattered sofas and grieved for my missing wife and son, and for the daughter I once knew. But I held out hope that they were still alive somewhere, someplace. And I knew that I would spend the rest of my life trying to find them.
Dar shouted at me to get up off the couch, but I couldn’t do it. Like a cut that would not stop bleeding, my tears flowed unabated. At some point, I fell into a long, dark sleep. Not a thought or dream came to me in this state of unconsciousness. When I woke up, it felt as if someone had put my brain in a blender and set it to liquefy. I felt lethargic, drugged, spaced out.
I sat up on the couch, not knowing what time of day it was or where the others were. My first thought was not one of sadness, but curiosity. What the hell had just happened? My depression had passed, and I felt renewed and ready. What I needed was to come up with a plan. But how would I go about finding my wife and son? And where had they gone? The guy on the roof claimed they had joined up with a group making their way out of the city.
As I raised my head off the couch, I noticed that it was pitch black inside the condo except for a few lit candles. Someone had boarded over the front door and all the windows while I’d been asleep. In the adjoining room, I could hear Kate playing with the two girls, keeping them busy. I got up off the couch and climbed the stairs to the third floor, where light poured into the oversized rooms. Plastic wrap had been taped over the broken, cracked windowpanes.
“Well, well, look who finally awakened from the dead,” Dar said, lounging on the couch with her feet up on a stack of pillows. Her tummy appeared more swelled than ever. On the opposite side sat Thorn, sprawled out with his legs hanging over the arms of the couch. “Would you be needing some fresh brains sent to your room?” The two of them laughed.
I sat down next to Dar, ignoring her attempt at humor. “Do you even care what happened to your mother and brother, Dar?”
“What don’t you get? I have no past now. I have no future. This life you see is all I have,” she said, fingering her palm. “Besides, you can’t miss what you never had.”
“What the hell happened to you? You used to be so kind and caring.”
“Kind? That’ll never happen again. As for caring, I never cared about anything in my life. But then again, you never really tried to understand how I felt about my life, or the things I cared about.” A tear rolled down her cheek.
“Of course I cared about how you felt. I lived for my family.”
“You lived for writing and the fame that came with it. As long as everything was done the way you wanted, you pretended like you cared about us. But everything’s different now, Tommy-boy. Now we do things my way.”
“Yeah, asshole, we do it Dar’s way or the highway,” Thorn said, laughing as if he were high.
“Besides, there’s nothing we can do for anyone right now. That radiation cloud is heading this way. We need to make sure this place is tight as a drum before we even think about our next move.”
“What will you two do afterwards?” I asked.
“Once the baby arrives, me and Thorn will hit the road and seek out new challenges.”
“Where will you go?”
“No idea, but we’ll kill lots of fuckers and make many happy family memories along the way. Maybe we’ll go to Disneyland,” she quipped. “I’m going to teach Styx the proper way to live.”
“You’re still sure you’re having a boy?”
“I’m convinced of it, and his name will be Styx. The souls of the dead will have to cross over him before they make their way into the realm of the living. I’m going to teach Styx how to kill and how to take care of himself in these dangerous new times. Forget about all that bullshit you wasted my time with.”
“I’m sorry, Dar, I didn’t know you felt that way.”
“Bullshit! I told you every single day how much I hated my life and all the crap you put me through. But you didn’t want to listen. Your idea was to send me from one shrink to another when you got tired of listening to me.”
“I tried to do the best I could. Your mother and I were only trying to help you.”
She leaned towards me and whispered, “And when I needed your help the most, in that parking lot, you failed big time.”
I glanced over at Thorn, who wasn’t paying attention to our conversation.
“Those men were restraining me, Dar,” I whispered. “They wouldn’t let me go, or I would have helped you fight off that monster.”
“There. You’ve done it again. You’ve broken your promise to me and proved me right. Remember what I asked of you? You promised that no matter what happened you’d never bring that subject up again,” she said, pointing her arm towards the door. “Now get the hell out of here!”
Chapter 25
I HELPED KATE WITH THE KIDS in the difficult days that followed. The weather changed, and it became excruciatingly hot and humid inside the condo, and there was little relief seeing that we couldn’t go outside because of the roving mobs terrorizing everyone on the streets. Thorn and Dar stayed on the third floor and rarely came down. But they had access to the roof, and up there they could get fresh air and space to move around, and stare down upon the masses and the ruined city. The poor, wretched mobs outside our condo stirred in agitation, but mostly they left us alone.
We hauled out the dead bodies and piled them up at the very end of the alley located behind the condo. After all the dead gang members had been removed, we cleaned up the blood and human debris in order to make the place as livable as possible. Devin disposed of all the trash the squatters had left behind, making the condo less chaotic and cluttered. All the wires and copper pipes had been yanked out from behind the wallboard. The fine art that Margaret and I had collected over the years had been ripped from the walls and most likely used as kindling. There were holes in everything. Human waste was piled off in the corner of the room, and Devin and I scooped it up and deposited it in the back alley. The condo retained none of its former elegance and class. We moved all the broken wood and furniture and piled it into one corner of the room, designating it for firewood in case it got cold at night or we needed to cook. Devin worked feverishly sweeping up all the dust and dirt, and emptying it in the back alley. I cleaned the couches and the mattresses so that we could sleep at night, though it was difficult on account of the humidity. The kitchen, utterly destroyed, served little purpose. Nothing worked, and the power had long ago been shut off. We had no running water. What food we ate was the canned and powdered supplies we had brought with us. I estimated that we had roughly one month before our supplies ran out.
All I could think about was finding my wife and son. For some reason I believed that they were still alive somewhere and waiting for me to rescue them. If only I knew where they had gone. My goal now was to search the ends of the earth in order to find them. I would obliterate every creature and obstacle standing in my way. But where would I start looking? And how would I get anywhere with gas being so scant?
The biggest worry I had at the moment was the cloud of radiation headed our way. All communications had been cut off, and we had no way of knowing which direction the wind was blowing. But once it arrived, I knew the misery outside would increase tenfold.
I had little knowledge of radiation and its debilitating effects. My only knowledge came from Hiroshima, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Would we feel the radiation once it descended upon us? I realized that I needed a plan if we were going to survive this next phase in the crisis.
Then I remembered something that startled me. It was a long shot, but it was my only hope of locating them. Margaret and I had a secret hiding place in the house, which we used to keep things from the kids or on occasion put something in a safe place until one of us came home. But more often than not we would play a little game with each other whereby one of us would leave a note for the other to read. If it was for me, I would reply back and put the note back in the hiding place, and then Margaret would do the same. Sometimes these notes contained explicit sexual content. Other tim
es they were humorous expressions of our love. Once I left her a custom-made sapphire ring as an anniversary present. Another time we used it to hide Disney tickets for the kids.
I sprinted to the bedroom and knelt down on the floor. The once-impeccable hardwood had been scratched and water-damaged beyond repair, but it was still in place. I knelt down on my hands and knees and felt around the dirt-covered floor for the loose board. Once I found it, my heart skipped a beat. I slipped my hand along the base of the wall and gently pried loose the six-inch plank, praying that she had somehow left me a clue as to where she and Stephen had gone. I closed my eyes, and when I put my hand inside, I felt a folded piece of paper. My heart rejoiced. I retrieved the crumpled wad then opened it and read what it said.
Terrible things have happened, Thomas. Many people around here have been killed or cast out of their homes. There is no order left, no decency. If we somehow manage to escape this hell, Stephen and I are leaving for Washington State with a few others. Rumor has it that a free community has sprung up and that there are laws, food and government protection. There is nothing left here for us, my dear, and at this point we have no idea if you and Dar are even alive. There are rumors about terrible things happening up north. Dreadful, awful things concerning cannibals and riots. But I think these lies are being spread as part of the propaganda to scare us. If you are alive—and I pray every day that you and Dar are alive—I am leaving this note for you with the hope that you will receive it. Hopefully when things calm down, you may be able to journey out there and find us. Everything has changed, Thomas. I love and miss you and Dar with all my heart. Please tell Dar that I love and miss her too.