by Lee Bradford
Buck quickly racked the shotgun, bringing it into a firing position. All four men did the same, including Paul, and suddenly it looked like things were rapidly getting out of hand.
“Folks who show up to help don’t start waving guns around,” Buck said. “I’ve been around the block before. I know a group of gangbangers when I see ’em.”
“Who are you calling gangbangers, Santa Claus?” the older one said, his pistol aimed at Buck’s head. He turned to Paul. “Your friend is a real redneck, you know that?”
Paul tilted his head in agreement.
“Whose side are you on?” Buck barked. “Listen, gentleman, we don’t need your help, so why don’t you just get back in your car and drive away?”
“We stop to help you gringos and this is the way we’re treated? We should leave the two of you here to rot.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Paul stammered. “We don’t really think you’re gang members. Look, we’ve been through a lot in the last twenty-four hours. My wife and daughter are in danger….”
The older Hispanic man’s eyes narrowed, his lips curling down into a thoughtful expression. “Do I know you?”
Paul was positive he’d never met any of these men before. “Not unless you boys are from Greenwood, Nebraska.”
The older man continued to stare until his eyes lit up. “You aren’t Paul Edwards, the lead singer from The Wanderers, are you?” he asked.
The gun in Paul’s hand sagged. Even Buck glanced over in surprise.
“Hey, you’re right, it looks just like him,” the guy with the baseball bat said.
“I loved your music, man,” the older one said. “I just wanted you to know you inspired me years ago to quit my deadbeat job and start my own band.”
“I did?” Paul replied, stupefied.
“Yes. This is them,” he said, waving his hand toward the other three men. “Please allow me to introduce you to El Niño, the best mariachi band north of the Mexican border.” The men then threw their weapons into the car and fished out four guitars, launching into an impromptu mariachi version of That’s Amore.
For once, even Buck was speechless.
Once they’d finished, they proceeded to introduce themselves. The older one with the acoustic guitar was Jose. Playing the five-string was Vicente, on base was Salvador and on rhythm was Cuco.
“I did love your hit Take Me All the Way,” Jose told him. “But for me The Wanderers were about so much more. Alice, Drop Your Keys and Don’t Deny My Love. Those songs were where the real magic happened.”
“I wrote those,” Paul said, still feeling numb from the neck down. “Sam Watson wrote Take Me All the Way on the back of a cocktail napkin at a bar one night. And it seemed that every day after the release, that was all anyone wanted to hear. I got so sick of the crowds begging for it everywhere we went.” For a moment, Paul forgot he was standing in the stifling summer heat along a highway hundreds of miles from home.
“Would you do us a great honor,” Jose said, “and play Alice, Drop Your Keys?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Paul said, feeling bashful. “I mean, I do own a music store in Nebraska, but it’s been a while since anyone asked for—”
A nudge from Buck. “Play the damned song.”
Cuco handed him a guitar and Paul reluctantly took it, pulling the strap over his head. He spent a moment tuning it before he started to play. The four mariachi men stood transfixed, even as a truck sped by and drowned out Paul’s singing for a second. They clapped when he finished, all except for Buck.
“I never understood why the band broke up,” Jose said.
“He finally got his head screwed on straight,” Buck cut in.
“We had a creative difference of opinion, I guess you could say. Sort of like Buck and I. They wanted to make fast food and I wanted to make something a little deeper, even if it didn’t sell nearly as well.” Paul rubbed his hands together. “So, about that gas.”
Chapter 32
The station Jose brought them to was pumping gas from underground storage tanks using a long hose and a nozzle which acted as a vacuum pump when the handle was squeezed. The only bad part was that it cost them every penny of that stack of bills they’d found in the back of the Hummer. After the Hummer was filled up, the two groups said their goodbyes and wished each other well. Jose and his band were heading east toward Jackson, Tennessee to meet up with their families.
When they were twenty miles from Atlanta, Paul’s Blackberry chimed, indicating there was a voice message. That was the first sign he had of a signal. What it also meant was that someone had tried to call him. He quickly dialed Susan’s number and felt a moment of despair as it was picked up by the answering machine. He pulled the cellphone away from his ear and stared at it for a moment, as though waiting for it to tell him what to do next.
He dialed in to check his own missed messages. Each of them was from Susan and they spanned the moment the nukes had detonated to sometime last night. The sound of her soft voice brought tears to his eyes. With each message she’d left, her fear had become more and more visceral. In her last message, she wondered out loud if he was still even alive and for some reason that weighed on his heart most of all.
“Anything?” Buck asked.
Paul shook his head. “What’s left of the cell infrastructure is under so much pressure that we’ve been playing the world’s most soul-crushing version of phone tag.”
That was when the traffic, which had been light, began to thicken. Soon, just like their approach to Kansas City, things began to slow down.
“I would think people would be rushing to leave the city,” Paul said with surprise.
Buck glanced over to the other side of the interstate. The cars heading out of Atlanta were stacked more heavily than those going in.
“We could be looking at people from the country moving in to get relatives stuck in the suburbs and downtown core,” Buck suggested.
It was only as they drew closer that they realized the highway leading into Atlanta was blockaded by a row of military Humvees. What looked like National Guardsmen in yellow hazmat suits were diverting the oncoming traffic south onto highway 285.
Buck stopped next to one, who was waving an orange LED traffic baton.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the soldier said, not a day over eighteen years of age. “But no one’s allowed in the city.”
“But my daughter’s all alone.”
He shook his head. Surely this wasn’t the first time he’d heard such an excuse. “There’s nothing I can do. Now please move along.”
Buck merged back into traffic, following the flow as it was diverted onto highway 285.
Already, Paul was leafing through the map book, looking for alternative routes into Atlanta. “If we can get on to the 166 heading east, we might be able to skirt around these roadblocks.”
They drove for another twenty minutes, bumper-to-bumper, as the mass of vehicles made its way south. At last they saw the exit to Highway 166 East.
“There she is,” Paul shouted, pointing. But he was no sooner done than he caught sight of more troops.
Buck shook his head with disgust. “We’ve come too far to turn around now.”
Paul watched the exit pass them by, his heart gripped with the sinking feeling that he might never see his wife and daughter again.
A moment later, Buck moved into the right-hand lane and then veered off the road completely through a narrow section with no guard rail. The Hummer bounced up and down violently. Up ahead, Paul could see where the 166 intersected with the highway they’d just left. If they couldn’t make the exit, they’d create their own. One more reason why keeping the gas-guzzling Hummer had been a good idea.
Soon, Paul suggested they exit the 166 altogether and travel via Campbellton Road, which would bring them into the city while bypassing the main arteries.
Mile by mile they drew closer. But so too were Finch’s men and they were not to be underestimated. It was coming down to the wire, and Paul could only pray t
hat their luck would hold out.
Chapter 33
By the time Finch and his men pulled up on the corner of Edgewood and Piedmont Avenue, the streets were nearly empty.
Finch had been in the lead vehicle with Jax. Behind them were Sweets and PJ. The journey into Atlanta had involved a complex game of cat-and-mouse with the military, who seemed eager to keep them out. Finch wasn’t so much worried about the radiation suits he’d seen them wearing. Hell, everyone was going to die at some point. His real concern had been about being recognized. A couple years back his case had been all over the airwaves. Air Force instructor convicted of raping young female cadets—they’d slapped his face on the front page of every newspaper across the country. But there was one thing working in Finch’s favor, something working in the favor of men just like Finch all over the country. And that thing was hysteria.
It had a funny way of laying a glaze over people’s minds, disconnecting them from less subtle concerns, such as: “Where have I seen that man’s face before?”
Finch leaned forward and glared with his one good eye—he wore a leather patch over the other—at the apartment building across the street. It was a modern-looking red-brick structure perfectly in line with Atlanta’s growing reputation as a modern city. This wasn’t the Old South anymore. They’d come a long way since General Sherman’s infamous march to the sea where he’d burned Atlanta to the ground.
Finch turned to Jax, who was watching him intently.
“Any word from Daryl and Huck?” Finch asked, adjusting the leather eye patch.
There was genuine concern on Jax’s face as he shook his head. In his lap was the walkie-talkie. For more than twelve hours now, they hadn’t heard so much as a peep from their companions.
“Don’t you worry, we’ll find them.” Finch’s fatherly tone consoled him despite the fact that Jax was fifteen years his senior. “You sure this is it?”
Jax fumbled out what was now little more than a crumpled and torn scrap of paper. “160 Edgewood, apartment 603.” He squinted as he searched the front of the building for the address. “Yup, that’s her all right.”
They exited their vehicles, all four of them, tucking pistols away from view. In spite of the sea of cars angling to get in and out of the city, the streets of the downtown core were ghostly quiet. Anyone with any sense had either already left or was hiding in a basement somewhere. Let the piglets hoard, Finch thought, closing the door behind him and locking it out of habit. That way when our supplies run low, we can play the big bad wolf and huff and puff until I blow their houses down.
In his mind, people who stockpiled were like a bank account he could draw upon whenever the need arose.
They crossed the street and headed for the apartment building. The recessed front entrance was glass and Finch’s heart jumped into his throat. Someone had already shattered it. A plywood board had been put in its place.
“How cute,” Finch said, waving Sweets forward.
The three-hundred-pound black man stuffed a Baby Ruth in his pocket as he ambled up to the entrance and smacked the plywood board with the palm of his giant hand, sending it crashing to the ground.
The elevators wouldn’t be working. Now the real huffing and puffing would begin.
PJ and Finch were fine. But Jax, who’d smoked like a house fire from the age of twelve, and Sweets, who hadn’t exercised in about as long, were having a rough time.
By the second-floor landing, both men were wheezing like demons.
“Don’t you die on me, Sweets,” Finch told the fat man.
“No… sir.”
They reached the sixth floor and came to a long hallway with apartment units on either side. Finch checked the numbers as he hurried on, Sweets and Jax several meters in the rear. At last he saw what he was looking for. Apartment 603. The door frame was already cracked in places. It was starting to look as though someone else had had the same idea.
“I hope we haven’t arrived too late,” Finch said to PJ, who nodded with concern.
“You broke me out of Leavenworth and I owe you for that,” PJ told Finch. “But once you have your fun, I head to Gainesville.”
“These men crossed me, PJ. I’m not sure if you fully understand that. You’ll leave when I tell you you can leave.” An eerie look settled over Finch’s face, the one that normally signalled a psychotic shift.
PJ’s hands rose in a defensive gesture. “Sarge, I was just saying.”
Finch turned to Sweets and Jax, who had just caught up.
“Should we knock?” PJ asked, trying to change the subject.
“Sweets will do the knocking, won’t you?” Finch said.
The others stepped aside as Sweets moved into position.
That was when the door behind them opened and an older woman in a robe appeared.
“Oh,” she said, surprised, holding the fabric of her robe together with one hand. “I thought you were the National Guard again.”
“Do we look like the National Guard, lady?” Finch said, moving toward her.
The woman recoiled and hurried to slam the door, but not before Finch’s foot stopped it cold.
“Tie her up,” he told Jax and PJ. “And grab anything she has of value.”
PJ hesitated for a moment before Finch gave him a look. PJ disappeared inside to the sounds of muffled screams, evidence that Jax was already busy carrying out the boss’s orders.
Once their uninvited guest was taken care of, Sweets waddled back into position and took a deep breath before he gave the apartment door a powerful kick. The sound of splintering wood was followed by a muted crash as the door went crashing to the ground.
On the heels of that came another boom, this one from a shotgun inside the apartment. The blast caught Sweets directly in the chest and threw him back against the frame behind him. He reached into the brim of his baggy sweat pants, withdrew his pistol and managed to get off three wild shots before a second blast silenced him.
Numb with shock, Finch staggered away, reaching for his own pistol in the process. That was when the big guy with the white beard and the baseball cap stepped into the hallway.
Chapter 34
Only minutes before Finch and his men reached the sixth floor, before Sweets’ chest was turned into hamburger meat by Buck’s shotgun, Paul dashed down the hallway of Autumn’s apartment, heading for the trash room. He’d been told to stay there until he heard the shooting start. Then he was to burst out from his hiding place, pistol in hand, to catch them in a crossfire.
Due in part to Paul’s lack of firearms training, Buck would be the one to use the shotgun and then switch to his old AR-15 they’d reclaimed from the back of the Hummer. Susan and Autumn, the only ones Finch expected to find at the apartment, would stay hidden in the bedroom with Buck’s pistol until the shooting stopped.
Paul was breathing heavily now, sucking in the sickly sweet smell of rotting trash as it wafted up the chute, still elated as he recalled the moment barely six minutes before when he and Buck had arrived. With the Hummer parked on a side street, they’d charged up the emergency stairwell, terrified of what they might find. Would it be the bodies of his wife and daughter sprawled on the floor? Or maybe something far worse.
But thankfully that hadn’t been the case. Susan had swung the door open after spotting them through the peephole and jumped into Paul’s arms, tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked exhausted and a touch thinner, if that was possible. Autumn had run into his arms next and Paul had squeezed her so tight she begged him to stop. Even Buck joined in on the festivities momentarily.
Susan’s fingers had found the crusted blood at Paul’s temple where the bullet had grazed him. “What happened?”
“Never mind that now,” Buck had scolded them. “Leave your things. We need to get out of here right away.”
Paul, Susan, and Autumn didn’t need to be told twice and were heading for the hallway when Buck called them back. He was standing by the window in the apartment, staring at the street be
low.
“They’re already here.”
“What?” Paul replied in disbelief.
“Who’s here?” Susan asked.
A muffled sound from downstairs told them the piece of plywood over the front entrance had just been knocked in.
“There’s no time,” Buck barked. He removed the pistol he kept tucked under his belt and handed it to Susan. “Take Autumn into the bedroom and don’t come out unless you hear one of us call you.”
Susan looked at Paul and hesitated.
“Do what he says,” Paul told her. And the lie that followed flowed off his tongue so easily he almost believed it himself. “Buck and I will be fine.”
When the signal came, Paul felt all the moisture in his mouth evaporate. Two deafening blasts rang out and with that he charged from his hiding place, holding the pistol with both hands as Buck had showed him.
The scene which greeted his eyes was one of pure chaos. On the ground near Autumn’s apartment was the body of a large black man, his chest a mess of blood and bone. Standing over him was Buck, kicking the gun from the dead man’s fingers.
Between them was Finch, a thick leather patch covering the spot where Buck’s pocketknife had torn open his eye. Paul fired at once and puffs of drywall exploded around his target. Finch did the same and Paul closed his eyes, anticipating the searing bullet that never came.
Now it was Buck’s turn and he began to level his shotgun. From out of the apartment behind him came Jax with a silver pistol and Paul barely had time to shout a warning. Buck spun and both he and Jax pulled their triggers at the exact same time. Jax’s face melted away in a spray of blood and bone. Buck was also hit and collapsed onto the ground, the shotgun sliding away from him and pinning the AR-15 under his body as he fell.
Paul was only a few feet away from Finch now when he looked down in horror. The slide of his Beretta had pulled back. Out of ammo, he was only feet away from Finch and there was nothing he could do.