The man stepped back, an obscene flash of realization appearing in his eyes. “W…what?”
Drake thrust forward with an elbow, there was a sickening crack and like a sack of spuds the man crumpled to the floor. The screams and shrieking immediately followed. The Horseman wiped a speck of red from his forehead and had to raise his voice to be heard. “To the males present, yeah, you four over there with the bats and pipe, you have ten minutes to gather what personal effects I won’t want for myself. Don’t steal any valuables because you will be searched on the way out and if you’re caught with anything, you will be taken outside and shot.” It looked like he’d given this moment some thought. “If you work here, and I’m speaking to the housekeepers, gardeners, chefs and so forth, you may go or you may stay, as you wish. However, if you remain, you will pledge yourself into my service.” What the fuck had he been watching on Netflix? He stepped further into the vast lobby and it was obvious where this was going. “As for the rest of you,” he was looking at six young women huddling together, their bat-wielding males remaining close but not for long, “you will stay here until I say otherwise. No, wait,” he pointed to one who was clearly suffering from anorexia nervosa and another who had quite the opposite problem, “you two can fuck off now, but the rest of you,” he gestured simply with a finger to the four remaining women who were all under twenty-five, all passable, and grinned, “you have my protection until you displease me.”
“Pops?” One girl fled from the pack, it was the beautiful one who looked like her face had cost more money than Jeff had ever made, and she fell to her knees beside the man twitching and bleeding on the marble floor. “Pops?” She made an agonizing wail, stood and rushed at Drake, striking his chest with fists.
He laughed off her first few strikes but quickly tired of it and grabbed ahold of her wrists. “You’re a feisty one, you can share my bed tonight.” That had to be a joke, surely.
She struggled, was about to spit, but Drake was too quick and pushed her face aside, “I will never…”
He grabbed her jaw and brought her back to face him so that she recoiled at the bubbling flesh upon his face. “It’s either me or the rabble of approaching sex-starved virgins who’re on their way, and they won’t stop until they’ve all had a turn, so take your pick,” he said the last bit rhetorically, because apparently the girl had no choice in the matter, and he pushed her back toward her companions.
He ordered two of his men to search the house for stowaways, two to see Fat Bryant off the property and the other two to guard the former occupants, some of whom were still trickling into the lobby from various stairwells, doors and entrances. Drake strutted off to explore his new pile, ignoring Jeff who was left staring at a huddle of dispossessed and terrified people. Gunshots reported from somewhere outside.
It didn’t take long for one of the soldiers left on guard duty to commence leering at Bryant’s daughter. She was a rare looker with long glossy blonde highlights, nose job, plump elongated lips, reconstructed jawline, anti-acne laser surgery, fake tits and personally trained abdomen all beneath Gucci this and that. Her brother stepped nervously in front of the girl and was greeted with the leveling of two rifles.
“Put the fucking bat down,” he was told, which he did, “the rest of you as well,” there was the clattering of bats striking marble and then the soldier moved closer, pushed the biggest men back, pulled the girl out.
“Please…” she hissed, glancing for a half-second at Jeff.
Jeff turned away. He couldn’t get involved with this. Where had these people been when he needed them. “Getting her fucking nails done, is what.” He stepped further away and attempted to blot out the sounds that came from behind.
“No.”
“Come here, that’s right.” The soldier threw an arm around her ass and pulled her hard into his crotch, began rubbing, grinding, thrusting, dry humping whilst his comrade maintained a leveled rifle to ward off any heroes, laughing and further trying to incite the soldier.
“Hey, come on man,” what had to be her brother called out and received the butt across his face. It didn’t drop him but he staggered back with a mouthful of teeth spilling to the floor in a globule of red.
More people were now glaring imploringly at Jeff but he just stepped further away, looked out through the open door, where Bryant was being dragged along the ground, leaving behind a dark trail from his still bleeding nose. Beyond him, the community’s residents had been herded onto the road and were being guarded by several paramilitary members holding a ragtag assortment of firearms. A tree was blocking Jeff’s view so he stepped toward the threshold from when the clear line of sight revealed a flatbed truck and a ramp being set down for the people to enter. Something unintelligible was barked and then the first former residents of Presidio Heights began plodding up onto the back. “Where the fuck are they taking them?” Jeff muttered under his breath and then there was a scream.
“No, please not there…” the shriek came from Bryant’s daughter who was mostly obscured by the soldier who had his hand down the front of her jeans. From around the side of the offending arm, the girl was watching Jeff with pleading eyes. If history was anything to go by, it was bound to happen sooner or later. What could anyone do?
Jeff sighed and stepped toward the soldier. “Knock that off, would you?” He wasn’t sure why he intervened, indeed, he regretted it immediately, not because the soldier gave trouble, quite the opposite in fact as he skulked sheepishly away, but because now more of the women started beseeching him.
“Please, don’t let them take my husband,” what was obviously Bryant’s wife, very young with a Mediterranean look, grabbed ahold of Jeff’s arm. “Why are you people doing this to us?”
“Can’t you stop them hurting our neighbors?”
“Please make them stop.”
Jeff wrenched his arm away. “You bastards should have got out when you had the fucking chance.”
At that moment, Jeff hated these people more than just about anybody else, which was truly saying something. How dare they not see which way the tide was turning when it was so obvious for so long, how dare they ignore that same tide as it slowly rose and bubbled, how dare they still be here when the tide finally spilled over the edge to drown everybody and how dare they then expect the one man present whose eyes maybe possessed a dying ember of compassion to fight that fucking tide all on his own. How dare they put Jeff in such a position when the truth was, he knew, that he should have been laughing at every last single one of them, as those who’d spent their lives reigning above everybody else now found themselves right at the very bottom, and soon perhaps even lower than that, deep in the cold fucking ground.
He clenched his fists and stamped outside, only to be presented with the sight of a duo of black-clad antifa with rifles cosplaying as paramilitaries guarding a line of men kneeling on the street, hands clasped behind their necks. Yet more victims, were they really planning on cleansing the whole neighborhood? How many of these souls had built great companies, advanced human civilization and, as a consequence of being brilliant, had perhaps become wealthy. Now they were reduced to this, the best at the mercy of the worst, and it was hard to see how taking everything from them could possibly be interpreted as progress. By now the paramilitary was swarming all over the community in a rush to take what they never had the intellect or wherewithal to earn for themselves, dashing inside homes, sometimes kicking down doors, and leaving with the hair of the terrified dispossessed clutched in their hands. When the truck was filled it drove away, its passengers denied all belongings and keepsakes poking fingers through the struts for balance. As soon as it was out of sight another truck arrived to take its place.
“Suds, would you take a look at all this.” It was Drake who came striding out with a holdall. He set it down at Jeff’s feet, crouched and began presenting items for inspection; gold coins that filtered through his fingers, a gold Zippo, Rolex, other watches, wads and wads of $100 bills. “These ain’
t gonna be legal tender for long, fuck…” he scratched his head, “I regret busting that guy’s face now, he actually does have a fucking safe. If this is the shit he doesn’t bother keeping in there then just imagine what’s inside it.” He glanced about anxiously. “Where is the fat bastard?”
“You sent him away, remember?” Jeff said, unimpressed. “Looks like your men loaded him onto a truck and now he’s gone.” Jeff had to dig deep to keep his cool. “Have you any idea where…”
“Fuck!” His grip tightened about the holdall strap. “That dolly girl better know the combination.”
“About that,” Jeff moved closer, “are you really going to…”
There were more shouts from out front and Jeff just caught a glimpse of the back of the girl as she darted across the front lawn to disappear from view behind a perfectly manicured hedge. Two antifa in black hoodies noticed immediately and ran after her and the shouts turned to whoops when she was brought back, struggling and screaming, only to be quickly obscured by the randy mass of virgins, twenty of them at least. There was no helping her now, but there was little doubt there’d be orgies of retribution taking place all across California this day and beyond.
Jeff tasted the bile in his throat and couldn’t stop himself from grabbing ahold of his friend’s elbow. “This is what you fought for, is it? This is your beloved communism?”
Drake saw the sudden and unexpected change in the man. “Hey, relax, Suds.” He held up his hands and slowly brought them down to rest on Jeff’s shoulders. “You’ll feel better when you’ve taken a nice pad for yourself.” He jerked his chin at the palace over Jeff’s shoulder. “I’ll be damned before some skinny asswipe becomes my neighbor in your place. Let’s make a move…”
Jeff swiped Drake’s hands off him. “I don’t need no castle, got nobody to share it with, see? You know what I want.”
Drake raised up his palms in an effort to soothe Jeff. “You’re right, I know, and we’ll get there. But it’s a four-hour drive up to Redding, that’s if the roads aren’t jammed, which they likely will be. Might as well fill your boots whilst you can because an opportunity like this will never come again, and I can guarantee that those three fuckers will still be there next week, still destroying lives.” His voice changed to the one he always used when trying to persuade Jeff to accompany him to a Kabuli brothel. Back then, it usually always worked. “Look, Suds, we’re making history here, right now, making the world a better place. Please, you don’t want to miss this. And I want you here for it. Look, all I’m asking is for three days, to be a part of this, and then we’ll make the drive north together.” His hands were back on Jeff’s shoulders. “That’s a promise. We’ll take our men. Make sure nobody gets away, make sure everything’s right for you, and then you can do whatever the fuck you want.”
Judging by the screams, a number of gang rapes were underway in earnest, and would be all across this new country.
Drake reinforced, “three days, is all I ask.”
They took next door, which turned out to be a scaled-down version of the Château d’Ussé, which was apparently somewhere in France and was the inspiration for Sleeping Beauty. Obviously, it was a remarkable abode, at least from the outside, but the interior was largely undecorated and those rooms that were furnished had been done in exceptionally poor taste. Not that Jeff gave a shit about any of that, it was just one of those things that could not go unnoticed, such as the portraits of random cans of soup, whole canvasses of different shades of red or blue, dissected animals and strange sculptures of circus freaks.
Logically, they’d assumed the occupants, or former occupants, had been sensible and had earlier taken off for the United States along with anything that wasn’t complete garbage. That was until a shotgun had fired through one of the walls, which turned out to be a recently constructed plaster facade on the upper floor, behind which the entire family was hiding along with most of their worldly possessions.
It had been Jeff they’d attempted to snuff out and for a moment he’d stood, stunned after the close-range blast, whilst he checked himself for wounds that miraculously weren’t there. The wall had been ripped apart and Drake and Llewellyn had been quick to punch out the patriarch whilst he attempted to reload.
“Mother fucker,” Drake screamed as he kicked the man again and again. “This is precisely why we confiscated the fucking guns.” If the new regime was intending to go house to house, they were playing Russian roulette. Drake gave the man a few extra kicks to the ribs with his steel toe caps before stopping suddenly and squinting at the writhing lump on the ground. “Fuck, is that Sean Parker?”
Jeff was still checking himself for wounds and couldn’t believe there weren’t any. Finally some fucking luck. He knew who Sean Parker was, as did most people, and there was no mistaking that face and ginger beard. Jeff nodded and Drake gave the man another kick in the ribs.
There’s nothing quite like being shot at to motivate the intended victim in assisting with the would-be killer’s dispossession, and so on this occasion Jeff was happy to help carry Parker’s moaning and complaining form out to the waiting truck.
“You ever start a fuckin’ company from scratch, you fuckin’ cunts? You think you can just swoop in and take my shit and still be able to fuckin’ run it? We’ll see about that. What do any of you cunts know about fuckin’ venture funding, huh? I gave a quarter fuckin’ billion to cancer research. That’s money you won’t ever see again. Cunts! Oh, my fuckin’ ribs, you busted me good. Where you fuckin’ takin’ me?”
Drake’s face clenched as he had to deal with the horizontal man’s legs as they attempted to kick free. “Easy there, Sean, try concentrating on your breathing, it’s not nice busting a rib.”
“I think you punctured a fuckin’ lung. Hey, what about my family. My family?”
The back of the truck was almost filled by people protesting about their treatment and two paramilitaries had to level their weapons to ward against any potential escapees when they opened the cage to add one more. Jeff and Drake stepped up the ramp and managed to fling Parker almost as far as the back wall as the other occupants parted for his flailing form before he came to land on his ass. There were a few familiar faces crammed in, though none Jeff knew by name, and they were all spitting and cursing, asking where the fuck they were going and promising that revenge would be sought, they had the money, after all, and the present state of affairs could not be expected to last long, the economy would soon tank and then ordinary citizens would rise up and depose Weiner before coming begging to those few who knew how to get shit done. That was when the billionaires would have the upper hand and it wouldn’t take much to discover exactly who’d turfed them out of their own homes and spent the interim squatting in the same. All that was if the United States didn’t swoop on through in the next few days, which they almost certainly would, which meant they’d best not get too comfortable in the meantime, and could they please remember to feed the fucking goldfish. Finally, the gates closed and the truck rattled out the community but not before Sean Parker appeared at the back, clinging to the struts and shouting promises about remembering Jeff’s face and that one day he’d have his vengeance.
Drake waved and blew him a kiss. “Sure you will, buttercup, sure you will.”
If Jeff, in his innocence, had assumed it was merely the super rich being rounded up before being taken to some undisclosed location, the next day was soon to prove how wrong he was.
Drake pressed down on the gas and the Ferrari he’d since appropriated surged down California Street, pinning Jeff back against his seat. “Whoooooaaa,” Horseman yelled, in his element. They were heading what was probably the longest convoy of stolen luxury vehicles in the history of the West Coast, screeching around Frisco’s hairpin bends and generally treating the cars with the kind of respect that only someone with a low IQ could. Throughout history, whenever cities were sacked or towns looted, the majority of valuables were always lost through destructive orgies rather than by simpl
e theft. California possessed more low IQ people than just about anywhere else. It would burn.
Indeed, the drive downtown revealed the destruction that had begun the night before was only just getting started. There was barely a storefront without its windows and doors smashed in and the shelves all but completely empty of anything not nailed down. Several great palls of smoke rose above the city to merge into one dirty black cloud, the breeze carried the stench of fire that irritated the nostrils, cop cars lay abandoned, their doors left open and the gangs that roamed the streets were too numerous to count. Amidst it all, incredibly, street vendors were selling hotdogs, sauce and extra onion if requested. Talk about stoicism. Though whether or not they still owned their carts was up for debate.
Earlier, when checking his cell, Drake had also noted his final seven thousand dollars in savings had been reduced to fifteen hundred. “Didn’t take the fuckers long to start raiding the piggy banks.” He actually laughed at that but then, Drake knew, he happened to be sufficiently better placed in the new regime to see himself through whatever was coming in style. Not everybody would have that luxury.
Drake eased up on the gas as he drove past Pioneer Park because a small group of wetbacks were throwing a chain through the crack in the arm of the Christopher Columbus statue, the other end tied to the back of an SUV. If there was one man most wetbacks hated then it was Christopher Columbus, but there was no doubting this incident was merely the beginning of the rewriting of history, erasure of American cultural icons and the replacing of them with their own.
The Day After: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller Page 22