“She’s okay,” said Riley. “I guess.”
“I knew her husband, Bobby. He was a fine man, a good Christian man.”
Riley continued, explaining how they had set out from New Harmony with the guide. She spoke of Krieger’s fate in the mountains. She hesitated at times, as she recounted their confrontations with the mutants and Thomas’ people. And she had to stop when she got to the point where she described the death of her brother.
“You think your friends made it?” Victor asked her.
She shook her head.
“What happened to this Thomas motherfucker?” Tris demanded.
“I killed him,” Riley said bluntly.
Bruce cocked a thumb and forefinger and leveled it at Kevin, who nodded approvingly.
“And she got away,” said Dee. “And you eventually found me, at the bomb, right?”
“That’s right. You saved my life.”
“Well, look at you,” Tris remarked to Dee. “Super-hero homeboy.”
“The bomb,” Carrie was awed, “that thing is still out there?”
“No one’s blown it up yet.” Kevin sounded equally amazed.
“And Dee,” Tris didn’t ask, “you said you saw them following her.”
“I did.”
“You counted how many, ten?”
“At least. Hard to tell. They were still a way off.”
“Well, they’d be stupid to try anything here.” Tris told Riley, “Our sentries are all on alert. If these people show up anywhere near here, we’ll take care of them.”
“We’ve seen mutants like you described,” noted Kevin. “Remember New Jersey? What was that place?”
“Budd Lake.” Bruce whistled. “Yeah, those were some nasty fuckers up there.”
Tris snickered. “They died real good though.”
“Yes they did.” Bruce shared a smile with Kevin and Tris.
“Is Mickey still alive?” asked Fred.
“He was when I left.”
“The plague. God almighty. To live that long with it. Even Job only faced boils and the death of his family.”
“Only?” The derision dripped off Tris’ tongue.
Riley pulled out the second photograph she carried, the picture crumpled and damp.
“Who’s that?” asked Victor.
“Me, my brother, Anthony, and our dad.”
“Let me see that.” Tris snatched the picture out of Riley’s hand none too gently. She studied the photograph and as she did so she shook her head. “This your father?”
“Yes.”
“Your biological?”
“No.”
“This shit just keeps getting weirder. I knew this motherfucker. His name is Steve, right?”
“You know my dad?”
“Sure I knew his punk-ass.” Fred Turner took the picture from Tris and looked it over as the black woman continued. “When people were leaving to go and fight and die, he was too scared to come along, the little bitch. Remember, Carrie? This motherfucker didn’t want to go with us to Eden.”
“Tris—” Dee tried, but she ignored him.
“Uh-huh. I can see you know what I’m talking about. Sound like your father?”
“He sure does look like Harris,” Fred marveled. “Your brother. You probably have a lot of questions for us.”
Riley did.
“What happened to Bear?”
“He was here one day,” Bruce held out one hand, then the other, “and the next he wasn’t.”
“What does that mean?”
“He up and left,” stated Dee.
“He must have known he was dying,” said Tris. “The cancer gets everybody eventually.”
“Except you, right Tris?” Bruce winked.
“Cancer won’t kill me,” the woman behind the scars promised.
“It wasn’t cancer.” Dee was shaking his head. “He was just gone one day.”
“Did he leave anything?” Riley pressed. “A note?”
“He left this…” Kevin reached over and picked up a notebook. He looked at Dee, who said, “Go ahead,” before he handed it to Riley.
“What is this?” She started to leaf through it.
“There was a warehouse we used to raid for supplies,” explained Fred. “Every time we went there, me or John—that was my boy—we would find Bear off by himself, in what used to be a little office. He’d be reading this. Whoever had written in it was a bunch of bones behind a desk by then.”
“So that’s where it came from…” Dee’s voice trailed off.
Riley read aloud from the notebook:
“We had to call them something, so we came up with a variety of names…” She looked up from the notebook. “You’ve all read this, I assume?”
“Yeah,” confirmed Dee, but when Tris snorted he amended, “Most of us.”
“And you’re really the black angel?” Riley shut the book.
“The black angel of death,” Tris corrected. She looked at Kevin and Bruce. “You hear how they’re shortening my name already? And I’m not even dead yet.”
“I don’t know, Tris…” Kevin commiserated.
“Yeah, Tris,” said Bruce. “Black angel sounds kind of bad ass enough.”
“Fuck that noise. Black angel my black ass. Let me ask you stupid white boys a question: when you think of angels, what you think of?”
Bruce and Kevin looked at one another.
“You think of little pudgy babies,” Tris told them. “That’s what you think of. You think of mercy and…and benevolence, and other bullshit. Cherubs. Add black to that and what do you get? Some warm and fuzzy multicultural watered-down pussy-assed bullshit. That’s what.”
Dee cocked his eyebrow. “Your point being?”
“My point, likkle dread bwoy, is that the black angel of death negates all that bullshit. Of death. Understand?”
“Were you Bear’s wife?” When Riley asked, Kevin and Bruce both sputtered while Dee groaned.
Tris looked angry. “Is that what they’re saying about me? Jesus H. Christ.”
“No, I just thought—”
“Don’t think, chicken.” Tris glared at Bruce. “And what are you laughing at?”
“Nothing, Tris.” Bruce had a hand to his mouth and was trying to control himself. “Nothing.”
“Better be nothing.”
“Woman, you’re getting meaner as you get older.”
“You’ll have to excuse Tris,” Kevin mentioned to Riley. “She hasn’t killed anything in about a week, so she’s feeling kind of irritable.”
“And you want me to go to Africa,” Tris muttered. “Fucking Africa. For what? Rescue a bunch of jungle bunnies?”
“Tris is mad at life.” There was sadness in Dee’s eyes as he said it. He wasn’t trying to be funny.
“You’re goddamn right. Because life’s a motherfucker.”
* * *
“All of us here,” Dee remarked to Riley, “you know what we got in common? He saved us. Bear saved us. Each one of us.”
“More than once, too,” added Kevin.
As Dee said the words he looked at Tris. “Even the ones who don’t like to admit it.”
“I should have died in New York City,” declared the disfigured woman.
“We went down—well, I mean we were up in New York State then,” Carrie offered by way of explanation. “We went down to the city twice. The first time, what I was telling you about in the tent, Bear left us.”
“That’s when they rescued Fred here,” said Victor, “and his cat.”
“Kate and Phil, Larry and Keara as well,” Fred added quietly. “There weren’t many of us left by then.”
“I don’t know how we got out of there that first time,” Carrie resumed. “The place was full of those things. It was, insane I guess is the best word.” She shook her head. “We got out of there because of you, Tris.”
Tris did not answer.
“The second time we went down, Bear was leading us,” Carrie resumed her story
. “And we went down there in force.”
“That’s when they met me,” said Dee.
Bruce grinned at the memory. “You were just a little nothin’ back then.”
“Took us six months to clear Manhattan Island alone,” Kevin remembered. “We lost a lot of good people. A lot of good people. I thought for sure Tris was dead on Fifth Avenue.”
“I should have been.” Tris nearly spat. “Here’s what you need to know about me,” she addressed Riley directly. “When this shit all started, my husband and kids, they got bit. They turned. I killed them.” As she spoke, a far-off look came to her eyes. “My husband tried to put up a fight. He was a tough man.”
“But he wasn’t tough enough,” Bruce pointed out. “Ain’t nobody as bomb as you, Tris.”
“I’m not a religious woman…” The distant look went out of Tris’ eyes, and she was back in the moment with them. She looked at Fred quickly as she spoke. “…but I’ve always hoped I’d see them again, the way they were. Be with them. That time in New York City—I thought that was the time.”
Riley noticed that as Tris spoke, she fingered the grenade hanging on her neck.
“We’d gotten cut off from everybody else, outside the library on Fifth Avenue. The street was thick with them, thousands and thousands of them. You ever seen that many of them? Ever had to smell that many of them? No, of course you haven’t…
“I climbed up on top of one of the two lion statues they had there, and I picked Zed off as he climbed up to get me. My people were dead. I was alone. A helicopter came in—one of those Apaches, AH-64. The pilot must have been a crazy flyboy to bring it down into that cavern, tight as it was. They unloaded on the dead—and I gotta admit—it was fun to watch those fuckers die like that. Fuck ‘em.”
“Fuck ‘em!” Kevin spit and accidentally hit Bruce’s boot.
“Hey!”
“Sorry.”
“Something happened,” Tris was telling her story, “…The pilot lost control, the helicopter bounced off a building, and the next thing you know it crashed in the street behind me and everything went up. It was like a wall of flame just, just washed over the street. All those zombies—” she snapped her fingers “—like that. And there I am, hanging on to that fucking lion in a sea of fire.”
“And Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire,” quoted Fred Turner. “…And if anyone’s name was not written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”
Tris was silent for a moment before she continued.
“I burned there. The flames were all over me. My clothes, my hair…” She reached from the grenade to her locks, but stopped her hand before touching them. “And still, there were thousands of them coming. Like an army of ants or something. I reached for this…” Her fingers brushed the grenade “…and my skin came off on it, I was burnt so bad.
“And that’s where I should have died, on top of that lion, on fire and overrun.” She looked Riley in the eye. “It would have been a righteous death, a worthy death.”
“But you didn’t,” Riley surmised.
“I didn’t. I don’t know where he came from. I don’t know how he got there. But the next thing I know, this big hand was wrapping around my wrist, pulling my hand off …” Tris moved her hand away from the grenade. “…and there he was, this mountain of a man, this…this monster. He pulled me clear of the flames. He came out of the fire and it was like…like the flames weren’t even touching him. And he was carrying this mini-gun, from the wreckage of the chopper.
“You have any idea what a mini-gun weighs?” Tris didn’t wait for an answer. “He shouldn’t have been able to lift that thing. He opened up on them, and all I saw was the fire comin’ out of the end of it. All I heard was the shell casings on the steps, the whir of its motor. And they were falling all over the place.”
“Bear was just mowing them down,” enthused Bruce.
“That’s where we came in,” added Kevin.
“The cavalry.” Bruce smiled.
“Tris was in bad shape.” Kevin’s tone was grave. “We didn’t think you were going to make it, Tris. Bear stopped long enough to tell us to get her some help, and then he went at it again.”
“And when the mini-gun was empty,” Bruce remembered, “he went at them with his bare hands.”
“That’s the type of motherfucker he was.” Tris licked her lip. “That motherfucker.”
“But he saved you.” Riley couldn’t comprehend the woman’s resentment.
“No, he cheated me!”
Bruce said, “Tris passed out from the shock,” and Tris immediately replied, “No, I didn’t pass out. I died.” The way she said it, all of them—even Riley—knew the matter wasn’t debatable.
Tris looked at Fred. “And I didn’t see shit. Just black. Nothing.” She looked away from Fred to Dee and Riley and the others. “Not my husband, not my kids. Not Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates or Lucifer at the other end. Because there’s nothing.” She said this to Fred, who merely smiled benevolently in return. “And the next thing I know, I’m on my back, and they’re bandaging me up and the pain—like you wouldn’t believe. And they wouldn’t let me fight.”
“We had to sedate her,” remarked Kevin.
“See, woman?” raspy-voiced Bruce smirked. “You’re so bad you escaped death.”
“Fuck death. And fuck that big one-eyed bald-headed bastard.”
“How can you talk about him like that?” Dee demanded.
“That son of a bitch…” Tris muttered almost to herself. “…Son of a bitch. I should have died…I was supposed to die then.”
“But how can you say that?” Riley was thinking of Anthony and how she would give anything for him to be alive, how she would switch places with him if she could. And here was this bitter, scarred woman who wanted to be dead. “What makes you say that? What makes you think you should have died then?”
“Look at me. I ain’t died since, right?”
“She’s got a point,” conceded Kevin.
“There was a time,” Carrie had crossed her arms and was holding her shoulders, “when I thought Zed was going to get us all.”
“Before Bear,” noted Victor.
“Zed can’t kill Tris.” Bruce sounded convinced.
“Death’s come knockin’ a thousand times, and a thousand times I’ve slammed the door in its face. ‘Cept that one time.”
“Death can’t catch you, Tris,” said Bruce. “One day you’ll surrender on your own terms.”
“You goddamn right. Twenty-five years. Twenty-five years I fought. And now what? This? I’m supposed to pack it up and bring my shit to Africa? Die there? Bullshit.”
“Come on, Tris…” Victor tried to soothe her.
“Don’t worry.” Tris fingered the grenade around her neck. “I know how I’m going out.”
“A righteous death?” Dee scoffed.
“That’s right.” Tris’ reply was curt. “And you just want to be sure you’re not too close when I pull the pin.”
“Tris is just angry that she never got a chance to throw down with Bear himself,” said Carrie. “Aren’t you, Tris?”
The black woman didn’t disagree. “He would have been a worthy opponent.” Tris looked at Riley. “But he’s gone.” She glanced towards Dee as she spoke. “I happen to think it was the cancer—that he knew what was about to go down. And like one of them big fucking elephants he went off, on his own, to do his thing.”
Before Dee could say something to the contrary, Tris addressed him. “There’s others think different on that.” Victor placed his hand on Dee’s shoulder. “All these years, Zed couldn’t kill me. I mean—maybe that one time they would have if Bear hadn’t…I think he could have. Killed me, that is.” The thought didn’t seem to concern her. “But he didn’t, and he wouldn’t.
“When it was his time—to die, or whatever the fuck some of you wishy-washy motherfuckers want to think—you know what he did?” She addressed this last part to Riley. “He w
ent off into the woods, into the wild. Alone. Without a word to anyone. He just disappeared. The same way he showed up.”
“Like he was delivered to us,” said Fred.
“He ain’t dead.” Dee didn’t sound convinced.
“Uh-huh. Sure he ain’t. And every once in awhile, D.L. goes off on his own, like the good son, a good little boy, looking for him.”
“I keep hoping,” admitted Dee, “that he’ll come back. So every year since he went away, I go out there, and I wait for him.”
“Kind of sad, you ask me.” Tris didn’t sound sad.
“Yeah, well, look who I found this time.”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways…” Fred smiled as Tris scowled at him.
“D.L. was the last one who saw Bear before he disappeared,” noted Victor.
“Oh, yeah?” Riley asked Dee. “What’d he say?”
“Dee doesn’t talk about that,” Victor replied.
Dee shrugged.
* * *
“For almost twenty years I was silent.” Fred was rubbing a stick back and forth in the dirt. “That is true.” He stopped with the stick and sat up straight. “I did not speak a word, because I was listening.”
“Listening?” Bruce looked at Kevin.
“That fuckin’ cat of yours talk to you?” shot Tris.
“Listening to Him,” replied Fred.
“And what’d he have to say?” goaded Tris.
“He didn’t say anything. But don’t you see? He said everything.”
“What’d he say?” Bruce croaked to Kevin.
“I saw my son, John, die,” Fred offered, unbidden. “And I saw him born. I was in the hospital with his mother. I was standing there by her side, next to the doctor, when she pushed and I saw the top of his…this little head.” The look on Fred’s face said he was seeing it all over again as clearly as when it’d happened. “And she pushed once more and there he was. He turned his head, and he looked at me…at me and the doctor, and I cried. Oh, how I cried. I’d never seen something so beautiful in all my life.
“And when he…when they killed him…Well, I’ve never seen anything so terrible.” No one said anything, not even Tris. “I was there when he came into this world. And I was there when he left it. I witnessed the entire arc of his being.”
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