by Ryan Schow
“I get it,” he said. “I’m not you.”
“You’re right. I have decades of experience in this. You traded stocks in a building while wearing a suit and tie.”
Not even giving him a chance to reply, Rider jogged up the street in a light-footed run. Stanton followed on his heels, running up Ashbury as the volley of bullets continued.
Rider sprinted left on the corner of Hayes. Stanton kept up. The ex-spook made a beeline for a white and teal trimmed liquor store that sat next door to a barbershop. A set of painted white doors leading behind the liquor store with the words No Parking on them stood cracked open. Rider slipped through. As Stanton followed, he noticed a heavy lock sitting on the ground, broken and kicked aside.
The man was swift and resourceful.
Stanton followed Rider through the back of the liquor store, which was now just looted space with overturned shelves. They popped out a back door and under a canopy of trees where a pair of chairs, a table and an ashtray sat.
Rider hopped one of the fences about the time Stanton was trying to catch his breath. It was embarrassing being this winded. He grabbed the top of the fence, hoisted himself up, scampered over. His landing was less than graceful and not the least bit quiet. Rider turned and gave him the shush sign, but with a frown.
“One more fence,” Rider said. “Try not to wake the dead when you land.”
Stanton was still breathing heavy, so he said nothing. Rider crossed the yard they were in, then scaled the fence and dropped over the other side. Stanton followed, not as quiet as Rider, but not as loud as his last landing.
“When we get inside,” Rider whispered into Stanton’s ear, “we have a chance to end this, but you need to be ready to go.”
“I’m ready,” he said, his stomach in knots.
“You sure? Because you’re breathing like you just swam a mile in cold water.”
“I just need a second.”
“Seconds cost people lives, Stanton.”
“I’ll still need one, regardless of what you say,” he snapped.
“Fine, I get it,” he said. Then: “There are hostiles inside both these houses, this one and the next one over. They are numbers unknown. No less than five. Probably more. The darkness and their forward focus is on our side, but it won’t be for long if we mess this up. The lock’s busted on the back door and it may squeal on opening, we’ll see. Inside though? It’s best to assume it’s deep space in there. You won’t be able to see a thing. There could be five guys in there, or there could be twenty.”
“You said that already,” Stanton said.
“If you’re not shitting your pants right now,” Rider growled, “then you’re not ready. And if you’re not ready, then you’re a liability.”
“I said I’m ready.”
“Good. Judging by the gunfire from earlier, I think they’re split between the floors.”
He handed Stanton a hunting knife and said, “If we take them out quietly, we can get more. If we botch this, you’d best get right with God because we’re dead. Now you’ve got ten rounds in your Sig but don’t start shooting unless things get loud. If that happens, then kill everything you can as quickly as you can. Got it?”
“So you want me to just go stab whoever I see, and when we can’t do that, we shoot? Is that the plan?”
“Yes. When we get inside, don’t rush it unless you have to. See what you can see against the backdrop of the windows then divide the line of shooters in half. You go right, I’ll go left. Kill as quickly and as quietly as you can. Knives first, then guns if necessary.”
“So if there’s four, I take the two to the right and you take the two to the left?”
“Exactly.”
“And I should just stab them?”
“You can’t just stab them,” he said, gunfire erupting from inside. “You have to first slice their throat open. Do this,” he said sliding around the back of Stanton.
He made a sideways slicing motion over Stanton’s carotid artery with his finger, then he pulled him close and mocked the act of driving the blade deep into his throat.
“When you cut across the side of the neck, you need to go deep. At least an inch. They’re going to geyser out at that point, so it’s going to get messy. Don’t worry about it though. And don’t hesitate. You have less than a fraction of a second to bury that knife into their throats. That’s how this thing stays silent.”
“Okay,” he said, a sort of sick revulsion winding through him.
“Once your knife is in their throat, churn it around twice for maximum damage then drag it out and move on to the next person.”
“Basically I’m cutting their vocal chords.”
“They won’t be able to scream and they’ll bleed out inside of two minutes, maybe less. Like I said, it’s gonna be bloody, so do freak out, just move.”
“Yep,” he said.
“Just do what I told you to do as fast as possible. Oh, and don’t cut yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Once you cut them, once you hit that carotid artery, you’re going to have to hold them down while they squirm. It might be hard to get to the throat, and more than a few guys have cut themselves trying.”
“Okay.”
“Ready?” Rider asked. Stanton gave a nod. Then: “Good. Let’s go.”
He and Rider crept up to the back door. Rider slipped off his shoes and socks, motioned for Stanton to do the same. He did. With that, Rider opened the back door and stepped into a black hole filled with enemies unknown.
The two of them crept into a house and heard whispered voices. When they came to the mouth of the hallway, they saw into the living room. Five heads were silhouetted against the backdrop of three shattered windows.
Rider held up his hand, made a fist. Stanton stopped. Three fingers came up, then he pointed to himself. Then two fingers came up and he pointed right.
He would take three; Stanton needed to take two.
And with that, Stanton reached down into his own darkness, found that animal that could kill strangers without judge or jury, without any facts at all.
Both men went at once.
Rider hit his man first, catching him in the back of the spine with his blade. He jerked it out and arched it sideways into the next man. Then, without a second to spare, he stepped once and drove his knife into the opening mouth of the third man.
Three hit, but not three down.
The slicing began, as did the wet end of the wet works. When it was done, he looked over at Stanton who had done exactly what he was supposed to do. Stanton pushed off the second dead man and spit a couple of times. His mouth was full of blood. He wiped at his eyes and spit again. The man had taken a gusher in the face.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, still spitting. “Upstairs, right?”
“Right.”
Just then movement on the floor above stilled them both. They waited in perfect silence. Then a worried voice from the stairway above said, “¿Esteban? ¿Qué está pasando ahí abajo?” What’s going on down there?
When no one answered, the voice said, “¿Esteban?” A second later, they heard the booted feet of one of the shooters coming down the stairway toward them.
Chapter Seventy-Six
After Rider and Stanton returned for Hagan, Ballard and Atlanta, Indigo’s place felt empty. Rex glanced out the second-story window, stared down on Dirt Alley and felt so alone. He had Indigo, but they were still a brand new thing. His sister, his niece and his brother-in-law were more permanent fixtures in his life, and now that permanence felt miles away. A hand slid around his waist, and a body pressed up against him.
“You can feel the void they left behind, can’t you?” Indigo asked.
“Sadly, yes.”
“When I said you’ll come and go, like tourists, it was because I knew tourists would give this place life and purpose, and then you’d all leave and I’d have to suffer this gigantic void.”
He wanted to
suggest that they follow, that they could chase that life, but he knew Indigo well enough to know she wouldn’t forsake her father. She missed him. Loved him. Rex suddenly felt that stab of longing, how she clung for dear life to the possibility that her father would return.
What if he never comes back? What if he’s dead? Would she wait here until the end of time? He turned and pulled her body into his, kissing the top of her forehead.
With her face pressed sideways into his chest, and her arms locked around his waist, she almost seemed to read his mind.
“I really miss him,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“Sometimes I think…I don’t know what I think. I just wish I knew, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened to your parents?” she asked.
He was still for awhile. Lately he’d been thinking a lot about them, but mostly his father. He missed the old man, but he was thankful that he hadn’t lived long enough to see what the world had become.
“We had older parents,” Rex said, a hitch in his throat. “My mother died about ten years ago, my father last year.”
Tilting her chin up, she hit him with a pair of bottomless eyes, dark eyes full of sorrow and wonder. “How, like…I mean, did you…does it get any easier? I mean, I know they say it does, but…does it really?”
“When they die of old age, I think so, yes. But when they’re taken like this? Honestly? I don’t know.” She started to say something, but she sensed he wasn’t done so she held her tongue. “When I thought we were going to lose Macy…I think in my mind I felt myself going a little crazy. Not crazy with worry. More like insane.”
“I feel that all the time,” she admitted when he said nothing more.
“Even with your mother here?”
“My father is a far better person than she ever was,” Indigo said. “She won’t admit it, but she knows it’s true.”
Behind them a throat cleared and Rex’s heart skipped. He turned and found himself looking at the beautiful and elusive Margot Platt.
Indigo lowered her eyes, turned them on the woman. She saw the look on her face. Rex’s eyes dropped down to Indigo’s and what he saw was nothing.
“Do you really believe that?” Margot asked, the hurt bare in her voice.
She really was a striking woman, Rex thought. Even in the apocalypse.
“Yes, Margot,” Indigo said, detaching herself from Rex long enough to cross her arms and face her mother. “I love you, but you left us and that’s a fact.”
Nodding in silent agreement, unable to take the weight of this truth while burdened with so many other truths (like the fact that Tad was dead), she stood silent, yet managed to look uncertain, caught off guard. Then: “I’m going to head back to the college in the morning.”
“Of course you are,” Indigo said.
“And why wouldn’t I? Clearly I’m not wanted here.”
“You’d be leaving me for strangers, Mother. Isn’t that exactly what you did a couple of years ago? Just deserted those you once loved in favor of the shiny penny?”
Rex said, “I think that’s my cue to check the air quality outside.”
He left the house for a bit, grabbing a beer out of the patio planter outside. It was still cold from the night before. He popped the top, took a long swig. A second later he burped, then relaxed. Scanning the neighborhood, studying the houses as far as he could see, he tried to wrap his head around the fact that each of those homes sat empty, that they once held life, families, a rich history…
How did all this happen?
He drained the rest of the beer, stood and hurled the empty bottle across the street. He was aiming for the second story window of a lemon-crème colored house, but the bottle shattered on the garage door instead.
Just then two men with rifles at their sides appeared at the top of the street. He startled, but didn’t rush inside. They’d seen him. What shocked him most wasn’t the rifles, but that he’d gotten used to the neighborhood being empty. Which is to say, he hadn’t expected company.
“Evening,” he said.
Both men walked by, smiling empty smiles, tilting their heads, their eyes roving over all the details of him and the house.
“Just passing through?” he asked.
“Aren’t we all?” one of them said, not breaking stride. He was a muscular man with inquisitive eyes and clothes that hadn’t seen a washer or an iron in months. The other guy was skinny, but somehow more intimidating. Both carried big game hunting rifles.
Were humans the big game nowadays?
He cleared his throat, chastised himself. Only comfortable fools walked around unarmed, and tonight he was that fool. There was no law but the law of the gun. That law was simple: if you got caught flat-footed and ate a bullet, you were dead.
Inside the house, a pair of angry voices rose to yelling. Both women were going at it in rising tones. His face failed to betray him. Despite the squabble occurring inside, to the men, Rex bore a simple, almost empty expression.
The smaller of the two strangers took a longer glance up toward the house, but his poker face told no tales. Did he hear the shouting or was he just taking it all in?
Rex chastised himself once more for not having a weapon.
If those two turd blossoms wanted in the house, they could’ve taken him right then and there and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. They could have barged right in, had their way with the women and confiscated everything Indigo risked life and limb collecting and protecting.
In spite of the yelling going on inside, Rex went back inside the house, grabbed the gun off the table, then turned to head back out for another beer.
The yelling finally ceased.
Margot walked down the stairs, wiping at her eyes. She saw Rex, stopped and said, “I’m sorry you had to hear that.”
Rex didn’t think, he just went and pulled her into a hug and said, “She loves you, and she misses her father.”
“I was wrong, though,” she said, snuffling into his shirt.
Just then Indigo appeared at the top of the stairs and saw Rex hugging her mom. He looked up, met her eyes. He was suddenly terrified of how she’d react to him consoling the enemy. She smiled, though, mouthed the words, “Thank you.”
He gave her a relieved nod.
“You’re good for her,” Margot said, stepping back and straightening her blouse, which was neither clean nor pressed.
“Are you staying or going?” he asked.
“Part of me thinks I need to stay. But then I think about what my baby’s become, how strong and capable she is and I wonder if she’s no longer my daughter. Just someone I damaged, someone who no longer wants me.”
“This isn’t about you,” he said. “This is about her.”
“I know,” she admitted. “But if I’m here and her father’s not, then my presence is a constant reminder that he is gone and the unworthy one won’t go away. I abandoned her and her father because I was a selfish fool. Because I was mesmerized by a more glamorous lifestyle. She doesn’t need that. She doesn’t need me here reminding her of that.”
“You have to pay your penance, but it’s in paying that penance that you’ll be able to start anew. If you don’t do that, she’ll never forgive you.”
“I know,” she said.
“She does, too,” he replied. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Which do you think is harder for you, knowing she hated the decision you made and it hurt her, or the constant guilt of knowing you left your family behind and maybe it wasn’t the right decision? In other words, is it harder to be judged or to stew in your own judgement of yourself?”
“The latter.”
“I have some experience with that,” he said, thinking of his own collection of mistakes.
“Yes, but when she says she’s mad at me, that she doesn’t love me, she’s really convincing.”
“You cut her deep,” he said, taking her hand, “but if
ever there was a time to stay and work on repairing those wounds, it’s now.”
“You’re a good kid,” she said, even though he was in his mid-twenties. Stepping forward, leaning in on her tippy-toes, she kissed his cheek and said, “I’m so happy she has you.”
“Me, too,” he said, feeling the heat steal into his face.
“I’m going to turn in for the night,” she said.
The light was just about sucked out of the day. With no television to watch and no light but candlelight, there wasn’t really a reason to stay up late anymore. Still, he wanted that last beer, so he said good-night, went outside and let his mind unwind.
Outside, as he thought about these two women, how he was really into Indigo, but she was not without her own baggage, he tried to sort out a host of conflicting emotions. It was easy for him to get wrapped up in a woman, but for Rex it was just as easy to unwrap himself. Now that Indigo’s mother was relying on him to be with her daughter, and Indigo was alone in this world without help and now without Atlanta, he felt the responsibility to stay.
Didn’t he have responsibility to stay with his own family, though? Was he doing to his own family what Margot did to hers? Choosing strangers over kin?
As he struggled to comprehend the magnitude of his actions, his head began to ache. Behind him, the front door opened and Indigo walked out wrapped in a blanket. She sat beside him, didn’t say a thing.
He had a third beer in hand, and a fourth on deck. He popped the top of beer number three, offered it to her. She took it, sipped genially, then thanked him.
The temperature plummeted the second the sun dipped below the horizon. He felt the chill settling into his bones, which elicited an involuntary shudder. He thought twice about that last beer, then decided against it.
“That was really nice what you did for my mother,” Indigo finally said. Her hair was down, her eyes a little red on the edges, but lively.
“I was afraid you’d be mad,” he admitted.
She looked over at him and asked, “Why would I be mad?”
“Consorting with the enemy and all that.”