“Where’s your stuff?” Lila said.
“This way,” Warren told her, nodding toward the dining room. He led Lila into the kitchen, Scott right behind her as Warren passed by the hallway and a hollow thumping sound drifted up from it. Scott froze as Lila slipped her gun free of its holster. She edged her way into the hallway, Scott following as Warren bolted for the dining room and Lila whirled around. “Stop him!” she shouted, and Scott turned and ran, rounding the corner just in time to see Warren dive headlong through the billowing curtains as another round of violent thumping erupted from deep inside the narrow mouth of the dark hallway.
Chapter Six
Scott hurried to the window and Lila ran past the table to the front of the house, across the room to a row of open windows. The thumping continued as she drew back the curtains. “Fuck! You see him?”
“Huh uh.”
“I knew he’d pull some kind of shit, sooner or later.”
Scott stuck his head out the open window, pulled it back in and said, “He’s gone.”
Lila, who had jumped off the couch, moved back into the dining room.
“What is that shit?” Scott said.
“I don’t know, but we’ve gotta check it out.”
Scott felt kind of bad about letting Lila take the lead, but he did it just the same. He wasn’t Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson. He wasn’t a hero. Just a freaked out guy with a shotgun that didn’t even belong to him. His hands were shaking, his pulse racing wildly as they went quietly down the hallway, guns drawn, locked and loaded and ready to cut loose at the drop of a hat. The noise grew louder as they passed an open doorway, and Lila followed her pointed gun into the room. A moment later she reappeared, nodding toward the end of the house. But now there was more than thumping; a muffled keening accompanied the noise, which seemed to be coming from one of the closed doors at the end of the line.
When they could go no further, Lila nodded at the door on the right side of the passageway, and Scott leveled his weapon at the door. She waited a moment before pushing into the other room, the one the noise was not coming from, the room Warren the Rat Boy had obviously turned into his own private storage facility. Cans of food of various sizes littered the floor: Spam and beef stew and an assortment of various fruits and vegetables—pork and beans and chili. Cases of the stuff were stacked against the far wall, along with jugs of water, cans, bottles of beer and wine and liquor. Most importantly of all, though: no people. No one standing in the open doorway of the closet, waiting to blow them apart. Lila got down on a knee, aiming her pistol as she peered under the bed, the thumping next door not as pronounced now, the keening not as loud.
She got up and returned to Scott, who stood rigid in the hallway, still pointing his weapon at the bedroom door. His eyes wide, his face a taut mask of barely repressed anxiety.
Lila pushed the door open and gasped.
A naked child lay face down on a piss-stained mattress, tethered by all fours to the bedposts by thick strands of plastic twine, the high-pitched keening barely audible through a red-and-white polka dot kerchief that had been tied in a knot at the back of his head. He was kicking his feet and wrenching his fists back and forth, the headboard bouncing weakly off the wall with every thrusting movement he made. A series of angry red welts crisscrossed his back, his buttocks and legs, and that made Scott angry.
“Good God,” Scott said, and the child stopped thrashing. He looked over his shoulder at Lila and Scott, and let his face fall to the mattress.
“Guess we know why he ran, now, huh?” Lila said, and to the boy, “You alone in here?”
His head bobbed up and down, and Lila said, “Hold on a minute.” She holstered her weapon and sat down beside him, drew the hunting knife from her backpack, unsheathed it and went to work on his bindings. First his feet and then his hands. Then she untied the gag, tugging at the knot until it gave way, and the fabric dropped against the child’s neck.
Scott felt an incredible feeling of vulnerability hovering about him, as if he were standing in the middle of a glass fishbowl and any second now a giant hand might snatch him away, or he would feel the weight of a booted foot crush him beneath it. He looked up the hallway, and then back at the storage room. When he turned his attention to Lila, the kid was standing beside the bed, fastening the button on a pair of tan shorts he’d stepped into. His hair was the color of straw. His eyes, sunk deep into his skull like two pebbles in a snowfield, were blue. He looked to be no older than thirteen. Or maybe he seemed so young because he was so frail-looking. Who could know when he had last eaten, or what or how much had been drained from him at the hands of that deranged midget. He sat beside Lila and began loosening the cords of twine still biting into his ankles, plucking them away one by one and dropping them to the floor. After doing the same with each of his wrists, he bent over and rubbed a hand across the deep indentation above his right ankle.
Scott said, “What happened here?”
“I was out hunting for food and I ran into the midget. He said he had plenty… he seemed nice enough. Next thing I know I’m tied to the bed and he’s beating me like there’s no tomorrow.”
“So you don’t live here?”
“Nobody lives anywhere anymore, not people like me, anyway. You roam around and try to keep from getting got, and hope you can make it another day.”
“Where’re your parents?” Lila asked him.
“Gone.”
“Gone where?” Scott said.
“Just gone. I came home one day and nobody was there. Nobody ever showed up.” The kid started to rub his other ankle, and Lila asked his name.
“Davey.”
“How old are you, Davey?”
“Fourteen.” He leaned forward and grabbed a faded, light blue t-shirt off the floor, pulled it over his head and down over his chest. On the front was a cartoon rooster riding a skateboard across the side of a high-rise building, holding a disproportionately large hand high above his head. His blown-back cheeks rippled like flags in a windstorm while a pair of fingers extending from each end of his white-gloved fist pointed toward a billboard sign. Faded multicolored letters adorning the sign spelled out Go For It!
Davey turned to Lila, and said, “I gotta have something to drink.”
“No shit,” said Scott, his stomach growling as the thought of food and drink drifted over him like a slowly settling mist.
Lila sheathed her knife and returned it to her pack. Then she stood up and the three of them made their way across the hall and into the bedroom. Scott propped the shotgun against the bed, and fell down on his knees in front of a gallon jug of water like a lost soul at the Holy Altar of God himself, and when that lukewarm water slid down his throat, it felt like a religious experience of the highest order.
“God, I’m so hungry,” he said, and then guzzled another mouthful of water.
Davey, who had taken a seat at the foot of the bed, snatched a can opener off the floor. “Pick yer poison,” he said, waving a hand at the jumbled mess littering the bedroom floor.
“Beef stew. Beef fucking stew,” Scott said, his voice full of whimsy as he shook his head at a measly can of stew, that not so long ago would’ve looked like dog food, yet now seemed like manna dropped straight down from Heaven. “God damn, I’m hungry!”
“How about you…?” Davey said. “You never told me your name.”
“Lila, and that’s Scott. And I’ll just have some Spam.” She laughed. “Boy,” she said. “Never thought I’d hear myself say that!”
“I never thought a lot of stuff,” Davey said as he fastened the rusty old utensil onto the narrow edge of Scott’s beef stew and began twisting the handle. “Never thought I’d never see my parents again, or my brothers and sisters or any of my friends. Never thought I’d be scavenging around dumpsters to keep myself from starving, or sleeping under houses or run into somebody roasting somebody else over a flaming pit, much less eating—”
“My God,” said Lila. “I’m so sorry you had to s
ee something like that.” She stroked a hand across his head, and Davey pulled away. He handed over Scott’s meal, staring out at the billowing curtains as if he were watching past misfortunes play out through the side window. “Saw that and a whole lot more.”
Scott watched Davey pick up a container of Spam and go about the business of opening it. He really felt for the kid, and felt a certain kinship to him. Davey, a lost and lonely boy who may never see his family again, was not much different than Scott, who at that moment was just as lost and lonely as anyone anywhere on the face of this godforsaken planet. And make no mistake about it; God had forsaken him, him and Davey and everyone else. An absentee landlord who had allowed his house to fall to ruin, while he did what? What was he doing when those clouds raced across the sky? Babbling a bunch of nonsensical bullshit across the airwaves?
And now here was Scott, lost and alone and wondering if he would ever see his wife again. Wondering if he even wanted to see her again, because if she was still here, what must she have gone through to stay alive these last few weeks?
To keep from ending up on the spit.
Scott put the can to his open mouth, tipped it up and slippery chunks of beef tumbled across his lips. The greasy juice spilling into his throat as he chewed was like heavenly nectar from the gods. He knew that somewhere, in another time—a much happier time—he had experienced better than this, but knowing it took nothing away from the tremendous feeling of satisfaction that started in his belly and spread outward like ripples from a stone cast upon still waters. Like a starving dog, he chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed and tapped a finger against the can—another mouthful fell across his lips and he slurped that down as well. Finished with that, he dragged two fingers around the can, scooping most of the remainder out and into his mouth while Davey laughed and said, “Here, man.”
Scott looked up to see the kid holding out a white plastic fork. “Fuck that,” he said. He began to lick his fingers dry, but stopped himself, because even though he was starving, he was not a bum, and he would not behave like one. He wiped his fingers on his sweatpants and accepted the fork, held the can to his lips and shoveled the last few bits into his mouth. Finished, he grabbed his bottle of water and guzzled down a mouthful. Davey handed Scott another opened can of beef stew and he quickly consumed it. Then it was a can of peaches and some fruit cocktail, Davey laughing and tossing the empty cans out the open side window as Scott finished them off.
Lila, who had polished off a tin of Spam and a container of fruit cocktail, now sat cross-legged beside Scott. She patted him gently on the shoulder, smiling as she said, “How does it feel, eating something after being out for so long?”
“Great,” Scott said, patting his belly and leaning back against the bed. “I never knew dog food could taste so good.”
Laughing, Lila picked up a half-full container of Gatorade and drank from it. She held the bottle in her lap, sighed and said, “How long have you been here, Davey?”
“About a week.”
“And all this stuff?”
“It was already here. Warren said he’d been hauling stuff around for a couple of weeks. Said we were far enough out of the way we didn’t have to worry about anybody looting the place.” Davey picked up a bottle of beer, twisted the cap off and said, “He was pretty much right. Other than an occasional motorcycle racing down the road, nobody’s even come close to this place. Until you guys showed up.”
“Beer?” Scott said, and Davey shrugged his shoulders.
“Aren’t you a little young for that?”
“A little young? Yeah, I’m a little young. I’m a little young for a lot of stuff. Sure as hell didn’t keep it from happening to me though, did it? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Scott, but it’s a new world out there, a new world with new rules—or better yet, no rules, and until my mom walks through here and says different, I’m gonna do whatever the hell I wanta do. If that’s all right with you, I mean. I wouldn’t want to do anything to upset you.”
Davey took a drink of beer, and Scott said nothing. He looked at Lila, who gave her shoulders a disinterested shrug. Davey was right: it was a new world out there, and who was Scott or Lila or anybody else to pass judgment on the kid? With his hollow eyes and the deep welts crisscrossing his back and legs, no telling what he’d been through these past weeks, or what the coming days might bring his way.
Scott said, “How’d you end up tied to the bed?”
“We got along pretty good the first couple of days. He took me off with him scavenging for stuff. Told me which streets to avoid and showed me a couple of places I could hide out if somebody was after me. But one night we got to drinking and teasing each other. You know—busting balls, as Tony Soprano used to say. One thing led to another and the next thing I know the fucker’s kicking the shit out of me. Ties me face down on the bed and… ” Davey paused. He gulped a mouthful of beer and looked out at the open window, and this time Scot figured he was reliving some past atrocity. He looked back at Scott and Lila, and said, “Then he grabbed some of that plastic rope and beat the ever-livin’ shit out of me.”
“Well,” Lila said. “You’re all right, now.”
“Thanks to you guys.”
“So, how are you, Scott?” said Lila. “Full?”
“Man, I feel great. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”
“How long since you ate something?” Davey asked him.
“Scott woke up in a rehabilitation center this afternoon. Somebody shot him in the head the day this all started, and he’s been in a coma ever since.”
“No shit? But… how could that be? Who was even around to tend to him?”
Scott sighed as he brushed a hand through his straight brown hair, stopping long enough to finger the indented patch where nothing would ever grow again. “I’ve been wondering about that myself.”
“What happened to you?”
“Well, it’s like this…”
Davey took another drink of beer and Lila uncrossed her legs and stretched them out before her. All eyes were on Scott as he began his tale behind the wheel of a car on a blazing hot afternoon, and ended it at the side door of the house they were all sitting in.
“So you see, I don’t know how I stayed alive, how I could have stayed alive. It doesn’t make any sense. None of it does.”
Lila, who had drawn her knees up in front of her, and was now hugging them to her bosom, said, “I think we should celebrate. Because you are alive, somehow you did survive, and maybe, just maybe that means somewhere behind all this miserable shit we’ve all been dragged through, fate is involved. After all, you made it through something no one could have. By all accounts you should be dead, but you aren’t. And you, Davey. You’re the first child I’ve seen since this whole thing started. Maybe there’re more scattered throughout the world, hiding and waiting for everything to get better. Maybe things will get better.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Davey said. And he did. He lifted his bottle in toast and brought it to his lips, tipped it up and guzzled down the mouthful of warm beer that remained. He stood up and walked to the window, tossed the empty bottle into the yard and turned. Lila, who had stood and was making her way across the room, knelt by a pile of liquor bottles and began rummaging through them. Moments later, having fished out a fifth of Jack Daniels, she stood up.
“Let’s have a drink together. To a new beginning.”
Scott stood up, and he and Davey joined Lila in the center of the room, Davey smiling like he couldn’t believe somebody was actually going to hand him a bottle of whiskey. Lila uncapped the bottle, smiled and said, “To a new beginning.” She put the bottle to her lips, tipped it up and drank from it; pulled the bottle away and passed it over to Scott, who echoed her toast and took a drink of his own. Then it was Davey’s turn. He took the bottle from Scott, wincing as he sniffed the narrow opening passing beneath his nose. He looked from Lila to Scott, then back at Lila, and for the first time since Scott had met him, the hollow look
was gone from his deep-set blue eyes.
“To a new beginning,” he said. He put the bottle to his lips, tipped it up and took a drink and quickly held it out to Scott, hacking and coughing and beating his chest while his new-found friends howled with laughter.
Chapter Seven
Dub and his crew passed through a parking lot full of Harleys and pick-up trucks, old abandoned automobiles and brand spanking new SUV’s, all buried beneath a thin sheen of dusty, grey ash. They pulled up in front of the jailhouse, a few yards down from a tanker truck loaded to the brim with gasoline. A group of men carrying the same kind of spiked bats Bert and Ernie had left back at the pit watched over the tractor-trailer rig, one with a bat and one with a hand-held communications device linking them to a team of armed bikers. The men, with their gaunt features and deep-set hollow eyes, were not gang members, but grunt-labor forced into servitude by The Devil’s Own, worker bees charged with keeping the hive operational, some of whose very own wives and daughters had been taken from them and now toiled within and without the complex. Months ago this foreboding structure had housed the dregs of society, criminals led to their new accommodations in leg-irons and chains. Now the shackles were gone and the inmates walked freely about the asylum, spreading a healthy dose of misery everywhere they went.
The tanker truck, part of a fleet commandeered soon after the thunder rolled and the fire fell from the sky, provided the precious resource that fueled four industrial-sized generators sitting in pairs at the back of the jail; plenty enough to supply the first floor with ample amounts of energy to keep the lights burning and the coffee percolating, the water running and the refrigerators filled with ice-cold beer. Here was the headquarters of The Devil’s Own, where injustice was handed down to any poor bastard unlucky enough to have been dragged kicking and screaming up the concrete stairs. Here was the property room where a steady supply of drugs was disbursed, and the Armory, which kept Dub and his band of brutes armed to the teeth with all manner of weaponry: shotguns and assault rifles, and an assortment of handguns: Glocks and Berettas, Colts and Sig Sauers, all topped off by enough ammunition to sink The Bismarck. Many an evening Dub and the boys had spent passing a sniper rifle back and forth, guzzling Jack Daniels and picking off the night crawlers and alley dwellers—five points for a head shot, two for a body; an extra point if the second body-shot dropped them, forfeiture of the weapon if it didn’t.
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