by Tom Abrahams
“I’ve seen a lot,” said Taskar, his voice quavering. “I’ve never seen anything like that. There was so much blood.”
Marcus stepped close to Taskar and put his hand on his cold, damp shoulder. Behind him, Norma gasped. Taskar’s eyes fluttered and looked at Marcus’s hand.
“You’re touching me?” he asked.
Marcus squeezed Taskar’s shoulder. “I figure if it’s my time, it’s my time,” he said. “I survived the Scourge. If I’m meant to survive this new thing, I will. If I’m not, then God actually likes me.”
Marcus smiled. Taskar’s eyes twitched and the vertical lines that ran between his eyebrows above his nose deepened with confusion.
“C’mon,” Marcus said. “We need to get you dressed.”
* * *
Taskar was wearing an oversized Dallas Cowboys T-shirt and a pair of loose-fitting Dickies. The shirt, faded and bleached free of its original blue color, hung below his elbows and low around his neck. The pants were rolled over at his ankles. He held them up at the waist with one of his hands as he stepped from the jail and stood on the low stoop facing the street.
Inside, Marcus stood opposite Lou. She was against a wall, one foot flat on the floor and the other crossed in front at her ankle.
“Why can’t I go with you?” she asked. “You know as well as I do you’d be dead five times over if it weren’t for me.”
“I’d suggest poor marksmanship is more likely the reason I’m alive,” Marcus said with a wry smile. “If any of those men could shoot, I’d be buried in our version of Boot Hill.”
Lou searched Marcus’s eyes. He could tell she wanted to tell him something that would change his mind. They were both certain there was nothing she could say.
“You really think you and that weird chauffeur dude can stop some big army up there?” she asked with a tone that suggested she knew he couldn’t. “Really, Marcus? You’re not Superman.”
“Superman, huh?”
“There was a comics section in the library,” she said.
“Not a Wonder Woman fan?”
“She’s okay,” said Lou. “But her whole origin story doesn’t match with the history of the real Amazons. I couldn’t buy into it.”
“But an alien from a pretend planet is believable?”
“You’re trying to change the subject.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re going to die, you know.”
Marcus sucked in a deep breath. He was her mirror image against the wall and he looked her in the eyes. “I’ve been dead a long time,” he said. “Lola tried to resurrect me and I suppose it worked for a little while. But like Frankenstein, all I tend to do is cause havoc. I bring death with me. I’m selfish in that pursuit too.”
“Marcus, you—”
“Let me finish.”
Lou tightened the fold of her arms across her chest.
“In trying to save my own hide, I’ve seen too many others risk their own lives,” he said. “You included. Rudy, Norma. It’s as plain as day. Everybody here is better off without me.”
Lou opened her mouth to speak. Marcus raised an eyebrow. She scowled.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “A man knows when it’s time, when he’s reached the place where he lets go. I’ve been holding on too long.”
They stood there in silence for a moment. “Go ahead,” said Marcus. “Your turn.”
“First of all,” she said, “I wish we still had Google, because I’d type in that speech of yours word for word to find out what lousy movie you stole it from. And second, Frankenstein was the scientist not the monster.”
“What?”
“You said you were like Frankenstein. You’re not. You’re like the monster. Frankenstein’s monster. I read the book. Mary Shelley wrote it.”
Marcus smirked. “Al Pacino isn’t anywhere in it, is he?”
Lou raised a snarky eyebrow and smirked. “Who?”
“Never mind. Bottom line is, I’m leaving. Once I stop the people who want to rain down a plague on us, I’ll send word I’m okay. If you don’t hear from me…”
Lou uncrossed her ankles and looked at her feet. “You’re leaving me here, then,” she said. “I don’t get a choice.”
“You’ve got too much to live for. Besides, Rudy can’t be sheriff without you.”
Lou walked away from Marcus, her hand trailing along the wide wooden door frame as she stepped out into the sunlight.
Marcus followed. Taskar was standing on the stoop outside the open door. Marcus brushed past him, patting him on the back, and eyed the twenty-five people now standing in a loose semicircle on the opposite side of the road. Along with Norma, Rudy, Lou, and Dallas, nearby residents had come out of hiding to survey the carnage on their Main Street. Marcus recognized every one of them. They stood as if waiting for the preacher to take the pulpit.
He scanned the crowd, pausing on those closest to him. Lou was standing beside Fifty, her eyes narrowed. She was fidgeting with her hair, adjusting her ball cap.
“Here’s the long and short of it,” Marcus said to the group. “I’m leaving.”
Murmurs of discontent rumbled through the assembly, though Marcus noticed Norma didn’t react. Lou lowered her hands to her knives, rubbing her thumbs along the grips.
“Taskar here tells me they’re sending more sick people this way,” he said. “They want to thin the herd, so to speak, and make the land ripe for the taking. I’m going to stop them.”
“How do you know he’s telling you the truth?” asked Dallas.
“Same reason I figured you were,” said Marcus. “Anyone who comes here with bad intentions tends to let that be known straight up.”
He nodded toward the still-smoldering heaps of debris several blocks east, the acrid smell of which had drifted westward with the breeze. The gathered crowd followed his eyes toward the thinning, upward trails of smoke then drifted back to him.
“They want to kill us,” said Marcus. “They want our land, our resources. We can’t let that happen.”
The crowd grumbled again. Husbands and wives exchanged concerns. Children clung to their mothers’ legs. Teenagers cussed.
“Taskar’s going with me,” said Marcus, silencing the group. “He knows the ins-and-outs. He’s got the fuel. We’ve got explosives we didn’t use. We’ve got the radios. Only thing we need is a vehicle that works. Can’t take the hearse.”
“Are you coming back?” asked an American Gothic-looking man wearing overalls and a straw hat. His hands were dipped into deep pockets at his hips. He wore snakeskin boots that narrowed into points at the toes. Marcus couldn’t remember his name. Jim? Tim? Tom?
He glanced at Lou. “No,” he said. “It’s a one-way trip for me. If it all works out, Taskar here will likely head back. If nothing else, he’ll tell you what’s what.”
JimTimTom leaned back on his boot heels. “If you’re not coming back, then I got a Ford F-150 you can take. Should run okay. I got it from a man who smuggled it from north of the wall two years ago.”
“Thank you,” said Marcus.
“No need to thank me,” said JimTimTom. “If you taking the truck means you take your violence with you and don’t come back, it’s a more than even trade.”
“Sounds fair to me.”
Lou laughed and muttered something under her breath.
“You got something to say?” asked JimTimTom.
Lou shrugged. “Yeah.” She pointed toward Marcus. “That man over there kept you safe for more than a year. He ended the Cartel. He—”
“He nearly got all of us killed today,” said the farmer. “And last week. And the month before that.” He stepped from the crowd and then faced them. “We only asked him to be sheriff ’cause we were afraid of what might be coming. We should have been afraid of him. If he leaves, the never-ending rot in my gut leaves with him. I’d give him ten trucks if it meant he didn’t come back.”
Rudy stepped forward, letting go of Norma’s hand. “That’s a bit much,
Harold,” he said, getting the man’s name right. “Marcus saved my wife. That’s why I wanted him here. He’s a man who won’t stop until the bad men are dead and gone.”
“Really?” asked Harold.
“Really.”
“Who’s to say he’s not a bad man?”
Rudy tightened his hands into fists. “Marcus Battle is a good man,” he said through his teeth. “Not a one of you people got kidnapped or robbed or killed while he ran this town. Not a one.”
“Not a one of us could sleep sound neither,” Harold countered.
Rudy started to step aggressively toward Harold, but Norma caught his arm and stopped him. He looked back at her and she seemed to calm him with her eyes. Rudy’s shoulders relaxed, his hands unwound.
Norma looked across the street at Marcus. “I don’t know what we’re fighting about,” she said. “Marcus is leaving. Harold is giving him his truck. It’s been decided. I think Marcus knows his value here, and he knows his value elsewhere. Don’t you, Marcus?”
In that moment, Marcus knew the choice to leave wasn’t really his. Even if he’d chosen to stay, to fight the next threat and the one after that, the people of Baird wouldn’t have wanted it. He’d told Lou he was a walking plague, a man whose worth was measured by the number of graves he dug and the bodies he dumped into them. He hadn’t stopped to consider that everyone else felt that same way.
Lou had agreed with him, except to correct his literary reference. Rudy had defended his choice to invite Marcus into town, he hadn’t defended Marcus. And Norma, the woman who he’d left alone that morning with nothing more than a handgun and a radio transceiver, the woman who had reluctantly agreed to be the backstop, the emergency failsafe should everything go wrong, was looking at him with eyes that told him he was loved but no longer welcome.
He looked at Lou and smiled. “At least everybody is on the same page. We best get that truck and head out. Who knows how long it’ll be until they send the virus south again?”
* * *
The sun was low on the horizon, casting varying shades of orange and deep reds that colored the thin clouds building in the west. It looked like the sky was on fire.
Marcus studied the palette and tried to freeze the memory in his mind. A gentle breeze brushed past him and he blinked. It was time to go. The truck was fueled up, and there were extra tanks strapped to the roof. They had food, water, and plenty of ammunition for their rifles.
He stood between the door and driver’s seat, one foot on the running board, the other in the dirt driveway in front of Harold’s ranch-style farmhouse. The window was down and Lou had her fingers curled over the door frame. Rudy was beside her and Norma beside him. Fifty was sitting patiently behind the trio. The dog yawned and licked its chops.
“You’re driving?” asked Lou.
“At first,” said Marcus. “Taskar needs some sleep.”
“You know where you’re going?” she asked.
“Roughly.”
“We’ll take good care of her,” Rudy said. “She’ll be okay.”
Marcus chuckled. “She’s more likely to take care of you.”
“Thanks for everything,” said Rudy. “I mean that.”
“I know,” said Marcus.
Norma stepped forward and put her hand on Marcus’s. She rubbed it with her thumb. “I do owe my life to you. You know that.”
Marcus nodded.
“You were right,” she said.
Marcus tilted his head to one side. “How so?”
“Rudy is the best man for the job,” she said. “Lou will help him. Dallas too.”
“Good,” said Marcus. “At least somebody listens to me.”
Norma slid her hand from his and led Rudy away from the truck. “You need a moment,” she said.
Lou adjusted her ball cap then took it off. She scratched her head, raked her fingers from the front to the back of her tangled mop, and puffed her cheeks. Her saucer eyes blinked a couple of times. They were glossy.
She held the cap in her hand, bending the brim into a curve. It was stained with sweat, dirt, and blood that had faded to brown.
Marcus pushed himself from the door and eased around to stand in front of Lou. She looked up at him, thin pools of tears welling above her lower eyelids. She let the air out from her cheeks with a popping sound.
“I was going to give you the hat,” she said, her voice soft and unsure. “Something…to remember me by.”
“You don’t have to do that,” said Marcus.
Lou smiled through her tears. “Oh, I’m not.”
Marcus smiled. He fought hard against the thick knot swelling in his throat. Lou twirled strands of hair around her index finger.
“My hair’s too much to handle,” she said. “Plus, the hat was my dad’s. He loved baseball. Loved the Astros. Hated the designated hitter, whatever that was. Thought artificial turf was blasphemous.”
“I don’t like goodbyes,” said Marcus. “I’m not good at them.”
Lou shrugged. “I think anyone who is good at them is a raging jerk.”
Marcus stuffed his hands into his pockets. “I should be good at them, then. I’m not the—”
“Stop. Enough with the ‘woe is me’ baloney. We all know you’re mentally disturbed. We all know deep down you like killing people to settle some score. It’s okay, Marcus. I love you for who you are.”
Marcus bit the inside of his cheek. He tried swallowing past the lump but couldn’t. His eyes burned and the tears came streaming down his cheeks. He pulled his hands from his pockets, stepped forward, and wrapped his arms around Lou. He squeezed her into his chest and put a hand on the back of her head, his fingers spread wide.
“I love you too, Lou,” he said, his voice cracking.
With the hat still in one hand, Lou reached around Marcus’s back and hugged him. He could feel her quietly sobbing through the rise and fall of her back. They stood there for what felt simultaneously forever and not long enough.
Marcus pulled back and slid his hands to her shoulders. “Be good.” He winked. “Do good. Start every day with those two goals and you’ll be set.”
Lou wiped her nose and then her eyes with the backs of her hands. She put the hat on her head and straightened it, reached into her waistband, and pulled out one of her knives. She balanced it in her palm and then spun it around to hold the blade between her thumb and fingers.
“Here,” she said. “Take it.”
Marcus shook his head. “No. Those knives mean everything to you.”
Lou extended her hand, jabbing him in the chest with the butt of the grip. “Take it,” she insisted.
Marcus gently wrapped his fingers around the grip and took it from Lou’s grasp. He tried forcing a smile, but it felt awkward on his face.
Lou tipped her cap. She walked away from Battle, her boots crunching on the thin, uneven layer of crushed granite that mixed with the dirt. Fifty shifted his weight from one paw to the other then bounded toward Lou. He eased alongside her as she walked, herding her toward the paved road at the end of the driveway.
She turned onto the street and then disappeared behind a barn that blocked Marcus’s view. He slid into the driver’s seat of the Ford and placed the knife in the center console beside him.
“That was uncomfortable,” said Taskar. He was reclining in the passenger’s seat. The oversized shirt was bunched around his waist underneath the seatbelt he’d already pulled across his chest. He had one eye closed. The other looked warily at Marcus.
“For you and me both,” said Marcus. He pushed the ignition and the engine whined. He slipped the truck into gear and eased it along the driveway, adjusting the side-view mirror. When he reached the end of the drive, he slowed and turned left onto the street. He accelerated onto the pavement and fought the urge to look in the rearview mirror.
It was many miles to Atlanta. With luck they’d be there by nightfall the next day.
CHAPTER 21
FEBRUARY 11, 2044, 8:45 PM
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Gwendolyn Sharp pressed her face against the cold glass of a floor-to-ceiling window in what used to pass as a conference room on the third floor. The lights were off, and she was alone. For the first time in weeks, it was raining. The drops were large and slapped against the glass. Strobes of lightning flickered in the distance, momentarily lighting the thick, dark clouds.
From her vantage point, the remains of the city spread out toward the horizon. There were clusters of streetlights marking the areas where people lived and worked. There were the pockets of black where others, the undesirables with little skill or ingenuity, huddled in ramshackle leftovers devoid of basic creature comforts.
Sometimes, when she stood with her face or hands touching the smooth pane, the orange flicker of barrel fires or outdoor pits glowed where the “less-thans” cooked their food or boiled their water.
She imagined those dark patches as the whole of the area south of the wall, the place once called Texas. Despite her husband’s job on the wall, she’d never been south, not since the Scourge.
Her husband had taken her once to a Department of Defense conference in Dallas. They’d visited the spot where President Kennedy had been assassinated. She’d stood on the knoll, looking up at a sixth-floor window in the old book repository. She’d wondered how a conspiracy so vast could work, how the many moving parts all had to work together, like one gear grinding into the teeth of the next and the next.
Wide-eyed, wiry-haired theorists had stood on the corners outside the repository, spouting their versions of the events that had changed the course of the nation. Some had believed the government was behind it. Others had proclaimed it was the Russians. Still more had blamed the mob. One of them had proudly displayed color photographs of the dead president’s flayed scalp, which he’d insisted was proof of more than one shooter.
Of course, she now knew, all of them were right. And none of them were. Conspiracies were everything and nothing all at once. They were complicated webs more than machines, she’d come to learn. She rolled her cheek on the glass and caught another flash of lightning. A bolt forked from the clouds and shot toward the ground along the horizon. She waited for the distant roll of the thunder across the sky and then felt it vibrate the glass against her cheek and it rumbled.