by Dalton Wolf
As the Hedgehog crossed the intersection, the gray pavement next to the Humvee exploded and the wide car lurched onto its side and skidded several feet. Being the only one onboard who hadn’t latched his safety buckles, and sitting as he was in the rear troop chairs, Calvin was thrown to the other side of the vehicle with great force. It took every bit of athletic prowess he possessed to keep from being dashed into oblivion against the barely cushioned seats opposite his own, though the padded armor certainly helped
“What the fuck!” Trip cursed, unbuckling his seat belt and standing upright on the side window and bringing his M-16 up to bear. .
Calvin wanted to take a minute to orient himself and check for broken bones, realizing instantly, or so he thought, that he was a bit dazed and bruised from the impact and would have a sizeable bump on his head for the next few days. He would have loved nothing better than to take a few moments to re-orient himself, but circumstances dictated other actions.
“It’s guys with guns!” Boomer shouted followed by several unintelligible grunts. He was still in his turret, lying on his side and trying to spin the barrel up to face the incoming attackers. “Real people, I mean,” he grunted in explanation. “They got a fucking rocket launcher, man!”
“Holy Shit! What do you want me to do?” Gus asked from a block behind, where he had quickly retreated to as soon as he’d seen the street explode.
“Mgfplph,” Calvin replied as he tried to unwind from the tangle of safety belts into which he had become snared. Sparing a moment for a glance back through the thick, dust encrusted back window to where Gus waited. “Just stay back out of sight, Gus,” Calvin finally mumbled, fairly certain he sounded coherent.
“The Hedgehog looks intact. I could come up and ram you to get you back on your wheels and we can get the hell out of here before it’s too late.”
“No! Just…hold up. Nobody do anything stupid yet.”
“You mean like trying to defend ourselves?” Tripper demanded angrily.
“What? Trip…no, I mean, if they wanted to finish us, they would be firing right now. They’re clearly waiting for a response.”
“Or they think we’re dead and don’t want to waste ammo,” Scaggs suggested.
“Oh…right. I guess I’m not thinking too clearly. Is everyone ok?”
“Other than being blown up, I’m fine,” Tripper retorted in mild annoyance. “How are you?” he added.
“I’m fine,” Felicia replied.
“I’m good,” Boomer said.
“Yup.” Said Joel succinctly.
“You should have been buckled in, Scooter,” Brick enlightened him haughtily from the comfort of the passenger seat.
“Shut up, Brick. Everyone, get ready to defend yourselves,” Calvin ordered.
While Felicia, Brick and Trip were un-clicking their belts and flipping the safeties of their guns and loosening weapons in their scabbards, Calvin jumped over a seat to kneel behind Brick, using his overturned seat as gun rest—damn, this thing is seriously tall on the inside, his dazed mind noted casually.
Wiping his eyes with one of his unused goo rags, he took careful aim on an approaching Latino woman, knowing full well that if he were to actually fire, the bullet would never penetrate the reinforced windshield and would likely ricochet back and hit one of his friends. He simply wanted those outside to see someone inside aiming back.
“What the hell!” The approaching girl shouted uncertainly. “They ain’t military.”
“What? That’s a military issue Humvee if I’ve ever seen one,” an afro-topped, light-skinned teenager in Chiefs red and blue jeans replied confidently, brandishing an Uzi in the direction of the flipped vehicle.
“Well, then, you ain’t ever seen one, jackass,” the rough female voice snapped.
“Sweets is right. They ain’t wearing no damn uniforms,” a young dark-skinned man wearing both red and blue informed the rest. “Looks like they wearin’ armor.”
“Soldiers wear armor,” someone out of sight replied.
“Not military vests. I mean real armor, I mean like…like King Arthur shit.”
“What the…Hey! You inside the truck,” yelled a bald, crotchety old black man in a voice ravaged by age, Hennessy and smoking.
“Jesus, it’s Scatman Crothers,” Tripper breathed in wonder over Calvin’s shoulder, the two having practically shoved Brick into the back of the vehicle and out of their way.
‘Scatman’ approached cautiously with his hands up. Wearing washed out camouflaged pants and a black shirt with some faded Asian words on it, he also had an M-16 casually slung over his shoulder as if it were a towel and he were on a beach in the Caribbean.
Trip and Scooter glanced at each other with expressions ranging between curiosity and confusion.
Trip shrugged.
Calvin grabbed the PA mic.
“Yes?” he asked calmly, as if they weren’t in a vehicle lying on its side surrounded by two dozen machine gun-toting gang-bangers.
There was a pause, presumably due to the man not knowing exactly what to say.
“Well…just who in the hell are you?”
“I’m Calvin.”
“What branch you with, Mr. Calvin?”
“Branch?”
“Yeah. Military or government, Mr. Calvin?”
“No. I’m not Mr. Calvin. I’m just Calvin, sir. Calvin Hobbes. I’m…we’re not with the military—or any other government institution, for that matter,” he explained, to hopefully save himself the time of answering no to a dozen agencies.
“You ain’t with the National Guard, Secret Service, DOD, maybe Homeland?”
Oh well, it was worth a try, Calvin thought. “No, sir. We’re just people, like you.”
“People like us don’t own vehicles like that or the other one hiding up the street.”
“Oh, they’re not ours. They were loaned to us by a friend who likes to be prepared. We’re just trying to help our friends and family.”
The man examined them a bit longer, then lowered his head and shook it slowly.
“Aw, shit. We done blew up regular folks.”
‘Scatman’ slung his rifle on the opposite shoulder and gestured for the others to do the same. “Wasted a good rocket, too,” he complained bitterly.
“If it helps…I think we’re alright,” Scooter told them. “Our friend built this. It’s pretty rugged. If we could get back on our wheels, maybe we can still drive.”
“Hold tight. We’ll see if we can flip you back.”
He and Trip shared another shrug.
“Um, ok. Thanks.”
A dozen men rushed out, several talking as if they were already deep in the middle of a conversation about whether to help the group or not. “Like I said, why don’t we take what they have? We might need it later,” one man suggested.
“I’m for that,” another agreed.
“Shut up, fools,” the older man shouted them down.
“We need to be ready to shoot back!” Brick breathed into his mic.
“We are,” Calvin hissed. “Calm down. Don’t do anything unless I tell you to.”
“Whatever.”
“Just shut up and grab a spot to lift,” Sweets, the pretty Latina with broad shoulders and hard dark eyes muttered to several of the men outside. “Stop talking as if you’re smart enough to make decisions. These are our neighbors. We’ll need to help each other out to beat this shit.”
“Sweets is right. And they’re armed too,” the ‘Scatman’ cautioned the younger men quietly. “They’d kill half of us and we wouldn’t have gained a damned thing compared to the lives we’d lose. These folks are just doing what we’re doing, looking out for their own. Tryin to get a handle on what the fuck is going down with this city. Might come a time for your kind of survivin’, but it ain’t on day one, fool. Not in Kansas City. No sir. And when it does come, I better be long gone or I’m probably gonna tan some hides. Now grab that bumper and let’s get these nice people out of here if we can. Least
we can do after damn near blowing them all to hell.”
Three men climbed up onto the side of the vehicle and leaned, using their weight as leverage to pull the Hedgehog over. The heavy vehicle flipped rather easily considering its bulk and as everyone jumped back and away as it bounced three or four times before coming to rest on all four intact wheels. Felicia climbed back into the driver’s seat and shifted into gear, rolling forwards and then back to make sure it would do that, at least.
‘Scatman’ motioned his people back. “Get back, boys,” he then said for those who didn’t seem to understand basic hand gestures. The lovely Latina stayed by his side.
Boomer and Joel kept their guns trained on the two largest groups. Most of those gathered wore matching bandanas, hats and or tattoos and were clearly young street thugs and gang members, but they remained under the orders of the old man without question, for now at least. The day before they had been real badasses. When faced with zombies, however, many of them had been unable to cope on their own and went looking for help from more experienced people. Yesterday they would have probably laughed him down and passed his war stories of death, murder, blood and fire off as crazy talk from a stupid, crazy old man who’d probably spent the entire war in the clerk’s office. They would have been wrong. This was a war. It was a war for their very survival against dead guys who ate people. It was dirty and disgusting and scary and few understood what was going on. Oddly enough, that’s just the kind of war this old guy new how to fight.
I bet it only took his first kill to show most of these guys this old man knows his way around the paddies of Southeast Asia, Calvin thought.
Stepping out of the Hedgehog with his rifle slung safely over his shoulder, along with all three axes, he sized up his counterpart. For his part, the old man returned his appraising gaze for an uncomfortably long time, evaluating him as he undoubtedly had many a new officer back in the jungle: Friend or Frag?
“So…Calvin Hobbes? Like the crazy kid with the tiger?” the old man asked.
“My mom was a fan,” he replied with a nod. “She called him imaginative.”
“Well, Mr. Calvin Hobbes. Armor, axes and a machine gun…yes, sir…” he turned his head and shouted behind at one of the retreating backs. “And you fools wanted to try and take their stuff?”
He turned back to Calvin and extended an aging hand, which Calvin took in one armored fist and shook firmly.
“My name is Rufus Dawes Stevens,” he emphasized every name as if it were the most important. “And this here,” he indicated the pretty Latina at his side who was currently glaring at them and fondly fingering the stock of her AK-47. “This is Beulah Eunice Sweeting—”
“—Sweets,” the girl growled quickly.
“Poor girl. Orphaned in South America and adopted by missionaries. Hates her own name, can you believe that?” he seemed to run out of things to say at that point and paused with one hand in the air pointing at the girl. He lowered the hand and looked at Calvin with tired, bloodshot eyes.
“Look. I’m real sorry we shot you with a rocket.” He said simply.
“My ears are still ringing,” Calvin complained, talking to keep the conversation going. They might need coordinated allies and this group seemed ahead of the curve.
“If G-dog hadn’t aimed so well and hit right next to you,” the old man explained with a laugh. “It would be more than your ears that would be ringing, Mr. Calvin. Your whole head would be ringing as it rolled around the inside that big jeep.”
“Yeah. That was too close. I’d hate to get killed by good, live people when there are so many dead guys running around trying to take us out.”
A very large African-American in beige khakis and a leather Chiefs Jacket stepped forward, hanging his head. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Calvin,” he mumbled.
“Oh we all sorry,” Rufus added, finding some of his earlier energy, eyes lighting up again. “Hell, we all jus’ sorry as hell. But we all trying to survive this…this…whatever the hell this is. What the hell happened? This was s’posed to be the best day in Kansas City history out there today. And now we all running ‘round talkin’ ‘bout shootin’ other folk and takin’ what they got so we can dig in somewhere ‘til the government comes in to help out or burns us all to hell. We sorry, but what the hell is going down?” The burning inquiry in the man’s eyes asked better than any words ever could, but he seemed to have done a pretty good job in Calvin’s mind.
“That’s ok. I get it,” Scooter shrugged off the assault as if it had merely been some random, mistaken hand-waving incident or a wrong number butt-dial.
“We just wanted to take a few official prisoners to find out what the hell is going on. TV’s blank. Nothin’ on the radios but pre-recorded music or dead air. It’s like nobody is payin’ attention no more but we in just the place that needs the most attention.”
“I agree. I have no idea what’s happening outside the city. And I only know what’s going on here because we’ve been out in it all day.”
“All day? Once that first sick man tried to take a bite out of me, I went and hid out in my house with Lucinda here,” he pointed to the rifle slung over his shoulder. “I was tryin’ to make some kind of sense out of the way things had gone down. But then these fools began runnin’ around shootin’ things up, so I went outside and spent a few hours explainin’ to the boys how we gonna do it.”
“I didn’t have that kind of time, sir. I’ve been running around collecting people from the start. My friends were spread out all over downtown. We’re still doing that.”
“You were outside when it started?”
“Yes. I was at the Ren Fest, though.”
“Whazzat now?”
“The Rennaissance Festival.”
“Is that so? Always wanted to check that out. But ain’t that over the border?”
“Yes, sir,” Calvin answered.
“What’d you come down here for, then? Things were getting’ outta control.”
“Some of our friends were stuck down here, and we were in a unique position, having adequate resources to rescue them.”
“Would that unique position and adequate resources be old-time armor and swords just fifteen minutes from downtown?”
“Rufus, you seem to know how to get right to the center of an issue.”
“Cept this issue, Mr. Calvin. This one’s a head-scratcher and that’s for damn sure. Like it was brought down on a bolt of lightning, only there weren’t no lightning, except maybe in just how fast this thing takes. Less than a minute in most cases. And we ain’t got no idea how the hell it started or how to put it to end.”
“Well, sir. I can help a bit with that,” Calvin said hesitantly, trying to carefully choose what he told the man. But they needed to know. “The first part, anyway.”
“Is that so?” Rufus asked, tilting his head back and waiting.
“We’re wasting time here,” Brick mumbled over the mic.
“Yes, sir. We know that it might have been started by a virus,” Calvin explained.
“Is that so?” Rufus asked, tilting his head to the side.
“This stupid old bastard doesn’t need to know anything,” Brick whispered.
“Jesus, why don’t you just call him a nigger and be done with it, Brick?” Boomer whispered.
“I’m just saying he doesn’t need to know our business,” Brick shot back. “Don’t turn everything into a God damned race war.”
“Just shut up, Brick,” Tripper snapped so Calvin wouldn’t have to.
“It was brought in on a plane,” Calvin continued unfazed. “But it mixed with something here in town, apparently. They don’t know how it progressed so quickly.”
“We-ell, seems like you know a lot, Mr. Calvin,” Rufus tilted his head to the other side. ”I’m curious who this they is you talking about.”
“Friend of mine was right there when it started. Government plane crash with doctors and guards and the like. One of the doctors told him how it happened.”
“Your friend still alive?” Rufus asked.
“Yeah. That’s him right there,” he pointed at Tripper on the other side of the hood.
Tripper waved and sent the old man a broad smile.
“Well ‘nuff to be wearin’ armor and sportin’ a rifle,” Rufus scratched his chin.
“And the other one?”
“The doctor seemed fine too.”
“Why don’t you give him our address and the security codes to the building, too,” Brick hissed. “Hey. Let’s bring them some fried chicken and watermelon and have ourselves a block party.”
“God damnit. Shut the fuck up, Brick,” Boomer hissed.
“Now that was racist,” Brick replied nastily. “You see the difference?”
“Hmm. Affects some people, but not a doctor who was right there? Seems like he already had a cure for it for himself,” Rufus noted thoughtfully.
“Maybe, but he seemed pretty scared…according to my friend,” Calvin lied. Give them too much information and old Rufus might decide they should take everything after all, and maybe force the group to take them to the doctor.
“Ooh, yes, you know an aw-ful lot, Mr. Calvin,” the man eyed him with a growing suspicion.
“Let’s get out of here, Scooter,” Brick demanded.
“I’m not saying it again, Brick! Shut the fuck up!” Tripper hissed, trying not to move his lips too much.
“Gonna have to shoot them all eventually,” Brick added.
Trip looked into the sky and shook his head in resignation. Turning quickly, he rounded the Hummer, ripped open the passenger door and stuck his rifle in Brick’s face. Brick could see that the safety was off and a shaking finger was already on the trigger. He decided shutting up might be the best option for now.
“We get around,” Scooter explained casually, looking back and frowning at the vehicle, wondering why Trip had disappeared and wishing Brick would shut the hell up.