Cry Havoc

by A. American

  Christy went into her bathroom. “Let me grab one more thing.” Once in, she screamed. “They destroyed my makeup! What the F…, man!” In a whiney voice, she added. “Why’d they do that?” She came out with a few things and tossed them into the duffle. Looking at Daniel, she said, “Let’s go.” She sounded defeated. As they passed Teague and his captive, Christy kicked him in the ass. “Why’d you break my makeup, you sorry prick?” She kicked him again. “Asshole!”

  He flinched and she reached down and snatched the bandana from his face. “I know you! What are you doing here? You sick asshole! What’d you come here for?”

  He held his hands up. “I’m just looking for food! That’s all!”

  Teague kicked him. “In the apartment’s office and bedroom?” He looked at Daniel and Christy and told them to take off.

  They headed out and Daniel suggested they check her kitchen to see if there was any food they could use. But that turned out to be a useless endeavor, as it had all been cleaned out. Not even the spices remained. Teague watched as they headed for the door.

  Daniel paused as they stepped out and looked back. “You coming?”

  “Yeah, I’ll catch up in a minute. Just want to make sure this asshole doesn’t try anything.” Daniel nodded and he and Christy headed down the stairs.

  He looked down at the kid and asked, “What the fuck were you doing? Did you think you were going to break in here and try to take her ass? Is that what you thought?”

  Holding his hands up, the kid replied. “No, no. I was just looking for food.”

  Teague snarled. “You lying fuck!” He stood up and delivered several savage blows with the butt of the rifle to the kid’s head, leaving him unconscious. With his adrenaline pumping, Teague straightened up and looked around. Wiping sweat from his brow, he quickly headed for the door.

  Teague ran down the stairs, taking them in big leaps and landing on the sidewalk in moments. Bob was standing beside the van with the door open while scanning the area for trouble. As Teague passed him, Bob asked, “Everything okay up there?”

  Teague looked back over his shoulder. “Yeah, there was a guy in there, but he wasn’t any trouble.”

  Bob looked towards the apartment. “Where is he?”

  “Sleeping.” Teague answered as he climbed into the back of the van.

  “Where are we going now?” Christy asked.

  Bob climbed in the van, placing the butt of his rifle on the floor between his feet. He rubbed his temples in frustration. “I think after this we need to get the hell out of town.”

  “I agree,” Teague said.

  Christy looked at Daniel. “Don’t you need to go to your apartment?”

  He shrugged. “Not really. I mean, there’s lots of food there, but I don’t think it’s worth the risk. We’d have to go back north, and that’s just too dangerous in my opinion.”

  From the front seat, Bob asked, “What about you, Gene?”

  “I’d like to go by and get some tools. But there’s nothing there I can’t live without.” Gene answered.

  Christy looked at him. “What about clothes? You’re still wearing your work uniform.”

  Gene held up a bag. “I have others here.”

  “Work uniforms? Don’t you want something else to wear?”

  Gene laughed. “Sweetheart, I’ve been wearing a uniform of one kind or another for so long, it’s all I own. I don’t need other clothes.”

  Christy looked him up and down. She couldn’t understand why anyone would want to wear that sort of get-up. But the decision was made and they were getting out of the area as fast as possible.

  “Alright then. Let’s head to my house. It’s south of here and will be a good place to stay under the radar for a couple of days,” Bob said.

  Daniel started the van. “Alright, navigator. Which way?”

  Bob leaned back and thought about it. “My place is about thirty miles from here. I usually take I-85, but I’d rather not be on the interstate for this trip.”

  “Where is your place, exactly?” Daniel asked.

  Bob pointed off to the southeast. “It’s down southeast of the metro area, near the Chattahoochee River. Pretty rural out there.”

  Daniel drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. “That means we have to get through some densely populated areas of Atlanta.”

  “And we have to do that without getting on the interstate if we can avoid it.” Bob added.

  There was no good way. In the end, they started working their way south on surface streets. For the most part, they drove through sprawling bedroom communities of suburban Atlanta. The route took them through Druid Hills and down to Gresham Park. It was not an easy trip. Everywhere, people hustled about, bent on their own personal mission.

  But the real threat was the number of people they saw with guns. For something that was outlawed, there was certainly a proliferation of firearms on the street. Conversely, there was the obvious absence of any kind of law enforcement. They were simply gone. No APD, no National Guard, no LEOs of any kind. That vacuum had to be filled somehow. Both the good and the bad were doing their best to plug the breach.

  Residents of the nicer suburbs were doing what they could to keep riff raff out of their neighborhoods. Most of those neighborhoods had cars pulled up to their entrances, blocking the road. Armed men would watch the van with suspicion as it passed them by. Nothing says creeper louder than a van. Back in the day, there was the joke of “hey kid, you want some candy?” Or asking a child to help you find your pet to lure them into a van. The modern version of that is a creepy-ass van with ‘free Wi-Fi’ on the side of it. And with Gene’s modifications, it now resembled something out of a Mad Max fiction. The van naturally drew everyone’s attention.

  “How far away are we?” Christy asked as she watched a truck slowly roll past them on the other side of the street.

  “We’ve got a long way to go. Keep your eyes open,” Bob said.

  To stay away from the interstate, Bob was guiding Daniel down Moreland Avenue, a fairly large thoroughfare common to the US. Numerous streets intersected with it, and its sides were lined with small commercial centers and entrances to housing developments. This was urban sprawl. It’s what kept America growing for so long. But what it did was put resources farther and farther from the very people these areas were developed for.

  Farmers and ranchers were pushed farther and farther from the city center. Waterways were managed, a benign term for redirecting, damming, polluting or in many cases, removing them all together. In other places, they were artificially dug in locations water was never meant to stand, all in the name of progress of course. But it seems the modern vision of progress is to remove people as far away from any form of independence as possible. Progress is synonymous with dependence, dependence on the government, on the system, on others to fulfil your daily needs. And now, with the great system of progress brought to a grinding halt, people were left to fend for themselves.

  The whole modern idea of progress is that there will always be more progress. The idea that we, as a nation, should prepare ourselves for the day when not only do we stop progressing but actually to start to regress was simply unfathomable. How could that happen? We’re America, the land of perpetual opportunity! But all that opportunity was based on perpetual consumption. And when that stopped, the nation stopped.

  As they approached I-20, they came to the intersection with Memorial Drive. Gene started to chuckle and pointed out the window of the van. “Check those guys out.”

  Daniel looked out the window. A Valero gas station sat on the corner opposite a pay-day loan store. This neighborhood could be considered the other side of the tracks. The parking lot was crowded with armed men, some standing on the edge of the road. Those at the side of the road were waving at cars as they passed. The real s
hock was the military armored vehicles sitting in the parking lot.

  The two MRAPs filled most of the parking lot. The men swarming around them seemed excited. They were very animated as they whooped and shouted. Not only did they have the two trucks, they also had M4s and SAWs. They were shooting these wildly into the air. Not the best way to entice people in to buy gas.

  “What are they doing?” Christy asked.

  Bob looked at the station as they rolled over Memorial. “They’re selling gas. See that generator there? It has a small pump set up and they’re pumping gas out of the underground tanks. They obviously took over the station and are selling what’s now their fuel.”

  Christy took in the scene. “They commandeered the station,” She said. More of a statement than a question. She turned back to the front, looking out through the expanded metal that covered the windshield. “We need to get away from people.”

  “Amen, sister.” Bob replied.

  As they came abreast of the station, Daniel looked out at a young kid sitting in the turret of one of the MRAPs. He was sitting behind a SAW and had a bead on Daniel as they passed. Whether it was ignorance, stupidity or sheer bravery, he wasn’t afraid. It was as if he knew the kid wasn’t going to shoot. It was more of an intimidation move.

  “There’s your armory stash,” Teague said as he made his way up to the front of the van. “Do they look like the type of people that could take down a National Guard Armory?”

  Bob flicked a butt out the window. “Nope. And it’s scary that those kinds of people have that kind of hardware. But you have to wonder how they got it.”

  Gene snorted. “You know how they got it.”

  Christy looked at Gene. With genuine curiosity, she asked, “How?”

  Gene started to laugh. “The government gave it to them!”

  Confused, she asked, “Why would they do that?”

  “To cause chaos. Having people like that on the street will make normal folks scared. And scared people are much easier to control,” Bob said.

  Christy looked back towards the gas station. “How do you know? I mean, I don’t believe it.”

  Gene shrugged. “Can’t prove it. But how else do you think they got that stuff? There’s no way a bunch of hood rats stole that from an armory. It would take more force than they can muster.”

  On the south side of I-20, the neighborhood changed yet again. Ormewood and most of the land on this side of Atlanta once belonged to the Creek Nation, before they too were forced out in the name of progress. Now, fast food restaurants and check cashing stores were the dominant businesses. In normal times, the neighborhood had its share of crime. If you left an IPod on the seat of your car, you could expect someone to knock out a window and take it. Shades were kept drawn to prevent anyone from seeing the new flat screen. It was a place where residents had to be proactive. Not that it was a crime-ridden hell-hole, but vigilance was the word of the day.

  Now, things were different. Both the Shell and Citgo stations on this side were also being looted of their fuel. And from the numbers of cars lining up, cash was king and no one was asking any questions. Just as they passed Delia’s Chicken Sausage Stand, two men ran out in the road in front of them. Both had pistols and were firing back in the direction of the old Smooth Ahslar Grand Lodge.

  The old building was one of the original black Masonic lodges on this side of Atlanta. Now it sat defunct and graffiti-covered. Daniel slammed on the brakes as the two men, holding their pistols sideways and higher than their heads fired round after round back in the direction of the old lodge.

  “Oh shit!” Christy shouted. “What do we do?”

  Bob had his carbine up to his shoulder. “This ain’t our fight and we don’t know who’s who.”

  The two men continued to fire as they made for the other side of the street. One of the men suddenly collapsed onto the road. His fellow shooter looked down at his stricken comrade, turned and took off running around the side of the First Iconium Baptist Church. Three other men spilled onto the street. They approached the downed man, still alive but badly hurt. They circled around him, shouting and kicking him. After a moment, one of them raised a pistol and shot him in the face as he pleaded for his life.

  After the shot, the three continued to shout at the body. Then one of them noticed the van. Using his pistol, he swatted his partners and motioned at the van.

  “Oh shit.” Bob muttered.

  The three stood in the road, looking at the van and talking, though it was unintelligible. They appeared to come to a consensus and started to walk towards the van.

  “What do I do?” Daniel asked.

  “When they get a little closer, run their asses over,” Bob said.

  “Screw that!” Teague shouted from the rear of the van as the back door burst open. Teague jumped out and rounded the corner of the van with the Warhog to his shoulder. He stepped wide, to draw fire from the vehicle should they start shooting. But seeing Teague and the rifle evaporated their resolve, and all three took off at a dead run in the opposite direction.

  Teague glanced at the body in the road for a moment, then quickly got back in the van and slammed the rear doors. Bob turned in his seat and shouted. “Would you stop doing shit like that!”

  Teague looked at him quizzically. “Like what?”

  “Getting out of the van!”

  Teague looked down as he positioned the butt of his weapon between his feet. Looking up, he quietly asked. “What was your plan? How were you going to get us out of here?”

  Bob shook his head and pointed at Teague. “You’re reckless and you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  Daniel wasn’t waiting around. As far as he was concerned, this conversation could happen later. He floored the van, producing a cloud of black smoke, getting Bob’s attention again. When the old man looked over, Daniel asked, “Where we going Bob?”

  Bob fell back into his seat. “Turn around. Let’s get on I-20 west. We just don’t have any other good alternate at this point. It’ll just save time. We’ll only have to be on it for a short distance.”

  Daniel slowed and glanced over at Bob. “Thought you wanted to stay off the interstate. You said we shouldn’t be on it.”

  “I did say that. But we also just saw a man executed on the road in front of us. We’ve still got about twenty miles to get to my place.”

  Gene shouted. “Turn this thing around.”

  Daniel cranked the wheel around, causing Gene to lose his balance. He laughed as he fought to keep his seat and shouted. “Yee haw!”

  From his seat in the back of the van, Teague laughed manically. To him, this was all fun and games. He was already neck deep as it was. So he had no compunction about pointing a weapon at someone, or pulling the trigger for that matter.

  Daniel took the on-ramp, and headed west on I-20. There were other cars on the interstate, and all of them were driving fast, very fast.

  Christy leaned forward and looked between the seats. “This isn’t so bad. There’s other cars out here.” She looked at Bob. “I think you were wrong about the interstate, Bob.”

  Bob was watching the other cars, his eyes constantly scanning. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

  It wasn’t long before they were approaching the I-75 interchange just at the edge of Turner Field and the south side of downtown Atlanta. Considering their location, they were making really good time. While there was some traffic on the road, it was nothing like the normal daily rush-hour traffic. As they approached the interchange, Bob fidgeted. At the last moment, he shouted. “Take seventy-five south!” He had intended to take them on out I-20 to the I-285 west side perimeter and then turn south; but even though this route down I-75/85 would take them closer to the airport, it could be a better route, and might answer some questions.

  Daniel quickly changed l
anes, putting them on a southern track out of Atlanta. As Daniel was scanning the road, he was surprised just how easy it was to travel on the highway. Then that very thought struck him. Why wouldn’t it be? Sure, the downtown area was going to hell, but it wasn’t the end of the world. He started to relax as he raced down the right-hand lane of the interstate.

  Suddenly, Bob pointed to the right. “Take the ramp.”

  Daniel took the long sweeping ramp off the interstate onto the Arthur Langford Jr. Parkway, or the 166. Just as they got to the end of the off ramp from I-75 onto 166, Bob shouted for Daniel to pull over to the side and stop.

  “I think I spotted the edge of a military blockade just past the 166 interchange, where I-85 splits to the west side of the airport and I-75 to the east side. You guys hang tight here while I walk over to the other side of 166 so I can look beyond to see if I was right.” Bob exited the van and quickly ran over to the far side of the four-lane road, where he hid in the bushes while checking out the I-75/85 split beyond. “I’ll be damned. Those cock-sucking feds have both interstates blocked.” He could see people being handcuffed. And one guy with a gun that he didn’t want to give up, who started running. The turret gunner on one of the up-armored Humvees cut him to ribbons with his 50-cal. That was all Bob needed to see. He ran like a scalded cat back to the van. “Hit it, Daniel. I’ll explain as we drive; and I mean, drive fast!”

  Just as they pulled off, a pair of Apache Attack helicopters flew overhead, escorting a pair of Blackhawks towards downtown Atlanta. Everyone in the van was suddenly aware of just how close they had come to a most unpleasant end to their journey.

  After a few minutes of driving westward on 166, and everyone calming down a bit, Bob started explaining. “Guys, when I made that last minute decision to come down I-75 instead of continuing on I-20 to the perimeter, I was hoping we could safely sneak by the airport on the I-85 side, and on to the south side of the perimeter and then connect with South Fulton Parkway to get to my place. It wouldn’t have been any quicker than the route we’re now going to take, just the way I sometimes travel home as an alternate route and a change of scenery. To be completely honest, I guess I just needed to satisfy my curiosity as to what might be happening at the airport.