Dead Tide

by Stephen A. North

  “That be Torenz and Janicea behind the truck, Bronte,” says Tracks, the bass rumble of his voice loud in the room.

  “I thought so too, Tracks. They must want something pretty bad that’s heading this way. Nothing good is about to happen.”

  Tracks looks around. The boy is there beside him. “Hide in the last aisle, Daric. If one of us calls your name, come running.”

  Bronte almost smiles. Tracks can speak normally if he wants to. Hard to say why he doesn’t all the time. Maybe it’s a way to trick people into underestimating him? But why do it in front of me, then?

  “I say we wait right here to see what happens. We really don’t know what’s going on. Either way, we can do some good. We can definitely ruin Janice’s day if we want to.”

  “Yeah,” says Tracks with a ghostly little smile that barely raises the edge of his lips. “I’m all about that.”

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  F OR A MOMENT OR TWO, she actually kneels with both knees on the pavement near the front of the truck, but her jeans don’t have any padding. She leans against the big tire with first just her shoulder, but then she shifts and sits down with her butt on the pavement and back to the tire.

  No one is paying any attention to her. Torenz is standing near the back of the truck, peering around its bulk and still talking to someone on the walkie-talkie. The others are all crouching or hunched over with their weapons held ready. How can they look so sure, so certain of what they are doing? I didn’t order this. I wanted us to march downtown to the Trop.

  She looks down at the gun in her lap, a silvery piece of metal. Each part of it has a purpose. Take one piece away and it will fail when needed. Will I fail when needed? This is it. I’m going to kill some whiteys. Somehow the idea doesn’t sound as appealing as it once did.

  She has an unobstructed view across a parking lot and of a small convenience store. No lights on. The sign in the door says: Closed. There’s a pick-up truck parked alongside of the building near the entrance.

  Somewhere, distant but getting closer, the sound of diesel engines. She closes her eyes, letting her memory drift back to the night by the lake with Bronte…

  The anger is like a drug, and her hate is almost a living thing. Something about the gun pushed her past reason, past good sense. She leapt toward the guy with the gun, and managed to grab his arm, digging in with two inch nails. His face twisted into a pained snarl and suddenly a shot rang out. Benji fell forward with a bright arc of blood jetting from his neck, face down next to the fire. “Dumb bitch, why did ‘cha wreck our scam?” the guy with the jug ears screams. He raises his free hand, and backhands her. “I’m killing the bitch Lionel!”

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  Lionel says, “No,” but then Bronte is there. He takes the gun right out of Jug Head’s hand, and punches him with a closed fist, then he spins toward Lionel in what she recognized as a rehearsed karate move. His elbow connects with Lionel’s jaw. Both men drop to the ground. Bronte stands over them, and turns toward her. His eyes were bright, shining with something… hate maybe?

  “Last time Janice. That’s the last time I compromise myself for something stupid you’ve done.” Lionel moans, but doesn’t move. Bronte looks around briefly, but not at her, then…

  “Wake up Janice!” Someone is kicking her. “What’s wrong with you bitch?”

  Torenz.

  She looks up, brushes her hair from her eyes with her free hand.

  “Get up and get ready. They are almost here.” The grin is still there on his face. Like a mask. She wonders for a moment if she ever really knew him. “Be strong woman, and we will right some wrongs. We’ll get a little crazy this time.”

  She smiles and extends her free hand toward him. “Help me up, won’t you?”

  He takes her hand and for once in a long time his smile falters. Without seeming effort he pulls her up. “For a while there, I thought you were losing your nerve baby,” he says.

  “Like you said, they are coming,” she replies and winces as someone blows a long blast on a horn. She takes a step or two forward and looks around the front of the towering engine compartment above her.

  “Run,” she says, somehow overcoming her own paralysis. The horn blares again, long and loud. A dump truck is hurtling toward the deuceand-a-half truck that blockades the road. She trips on the curb while behind her there is a loud rending of metal on metal as the two large trucks collide and merge into a shrieking metal mass that slides past the bridge and into the canal.

  Torenz is running past her, gun in hand. His mouth is open and he might be shouting, but she can’t hear. She gets to her feet. Two or three people are on the ground near her. Something zips past her ear. A shot? She looks around. Yes. There is an elderly white man leaning out of the passenger door of a Toyota pick-up. Bastard!

  Just like that the anger returns. She runs toward the truck, holding her own gun in both hands, getting closer.

  The man takes aim, and she is close enough to see him close one eye and squint the other as he aims over the sight, leaning his arm on

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  the open door. He has a bulbous forehead and a receding hairline. Each thinning hair is swept back and greased down. She stops two or three feet from him and looks down the barrel of his gun. Her chest is heaving and she is trying to suck in as much air as she can through her nose and mouth. Why doesn’t he shoot?

  He licks his lips. He has a large mole above his left eyebrow. Maybe he can’t shoot a woman? She raises her own gun, still clenched in both fists, and takes aim. She hears a series of clicks—Maybe four or five? He is pulling the trigger but his revolver is empty.

  She centers her sight on his forehead and peripherally she sees him drop his own gun and start to raise both hands.

  Just a little squeeze. His head jerks up. A loud noise. The smelltaste combo of gunpowder thick in her nose and mouth as the recoil throws the barrel skyward. The guy is gone, vanished behind the door, or fallen back behind the truck’s dashboard.

  She runs around the door. The guy is dead. More shots nearby. Someone grunts. She feels light-headed. That wasn’t so bad. More shots rattle off the metal hide of the truck. She sprints forward, feeling keyed up. The next vehicle in the convoy in front of her is a city bus. The engine is still on, but the door near the driver’s seat is open. She pops in and there is the bus driver, another white guy, this one fat and fortyish, still dressed in his bus driver’s uniform. He sees her gun and goes for a shotgun at his feet.

  “Fuck you, bastard!” she screams and shoots him three times. A woman in the bus further back screams and the driver slowly slides down in his seat, dead with his eyes open and a cigarette dangling from his mouth…

  She steps further into the bus, gun in her left hand and the other already reaching for the shotgun. She sees movement near her and she turns, points and fires her last bullet, feeling like a killer, feeling unstoppable. A small brown-skinned body stands in the bus aisle, swaying for a moment then topples to the floor—A child!

  No, it can’t be.

  At least thirty people, mostly kids, are cowering in their seats. Janicea lowers her head. A middle-aged black woman wearing a head scarf and a knee length blue dress rushes forward, too late, screaming at her, calling her names. The woman cradles the child. “How could you?!” the woman asks.

  Something in the woman’s voice makes her look up. “It was easy. I wanted to kill people. I still do.”

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  “Children?” The look on the woman’s face is full of incredulity. “Not children, no. White people.”

  “Well goddamn you bitch, you fucked up. Get out of here. Leave us

  alone.”

  “Is the boy dead?” she asks.

  More adults are making their way down the aisle. A couple of them

  are white women. “Listen,” says Janicea, “take the shotgun and I will make sure no one else gets hurt, okay?” She makes as if to hand the weapon over, but the woman hisses, “Fuck you! Get away from us. We don’t need your nast
y hating kind. Go!”

  She puts the shotgun on the floor, and with the empty revolver still in hand, backs out of the bus. She draws even with the bus driver’s corpse and something, some intuition makes her look at him. A glance at her watch. How long since she killed the guy? Will he turn into one of them? His face certainly has gone ashen, and his head is leaning against the window and his cap is now covering his eyes. The unshaved pad of fat below his chin reminds her of a hog’s hide, bristling with coarse gray hair. Just to the right of a large bloodstain a name tag on his shirt says, ‘Greg Simpson.’

  Do I dare grab his feet and drag him out? If not, what happens to the kids trapped in here? With that thought she leans over and grabs one ankle with her free hand, gives a yank.

  The body doesn’t move. His cap still covers his eyes. What if they are still open?

  I don’t have the guts to look. Instead she shoves the pistol into the top of her pants and grabs each ankle. Someone groans.

  Oh shit. She looks up. His cap has fallen off revealing that indeed his eyes are still open, only they are rolled up in his head. Did he make the noise, she wonders.

  She tugs his ankles and his eyes, the iris that is, roll back into view. His mouth opens and she lets go. He grabs the seat behind him and sits up, watching her as she backs down the stairs and out the door. She thinks he’s about to lunge out the door after her, when someone screams in the back of the bus. The people in the bus are closer to him. Does he know they are trapped? He lunges down the aisle deeper into the bus and the resulting terrified screams is too much to bear.

  Oh God! I just killed those people.

  Somebody runs past her. One of her group, another woman. “Run Janicea! Those things are everywhere!” she screams and disappears behind the bus.

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  Reluctantly, Janicea looks around. Groups of people are all over the place around her pulling people down or already… feasting on them. There is no sign of Torenz. How could things go so wrong? I’ve got to get out of here! Maybe if I hide in the convenience store?

  She runs.

  HE PAUSES FOR A MOMENT at the next intersection, throws a glance over his shoulder. I’ve found people all right. More dead ones. He performs a quick count and comes up with ten now, shuffling along behind him at various speeds.

  A spate of painful coughing seizes his chest and rib cage. His throat feels raw from the smoke. God knows what things are burning and combining in here. His choices have narrowed down considerably. To the left is a short arm of the mall with about seven or eight stores on either side and a Dillard’s at the end. In front of him is a children’s play area and behind it a JC Penney’s. A right turn will take him down an even shorter arm or branch, which has maybe three stores on either side before reaching an exit.

  His agreed-upon path is straight out through Penny’s. The sprinklers are only working sporadically here, but the water is at least two inches deep everywhere. Scattered bodies and floating trash litter the tiled expanse. No cheerleader outfits yet. From the direction of Dillard’s more shambling shapes emerge from behind the falling water.

  He takes a closer look at Penney’s and notices the doors are closed. Did someone lock up? This certainly changes the plan. Even with the axe, he worries that it will take too long to break a door down. And then he will have compromised the safety of everyone hiding there. He walks over to the doors, hoping to see someone looking through the glass.

  Nobody is there, but there is some blood on the doors and four or five corpses piled near a door. He starts to turn when something grabs his shoulder. He lets out a scream and the sudden burst of adrenaline propels his body free and toward a bench against Penney’s wall to the right of the doors.

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  A corpse is coming for him, a young guy with one good arm and another that looks chewed. Others are within ten feet or so, lurching closer, their ghastly faces intent and focused. Oh God, I’ve grown too careless! They are hemming him in against the wall. “You won’t take me so easily you bastards!” he yells and he whirls the axe two-handed above his head and into a swing that connects with the young guy’s throat and rips it away. On the back swing he catches a middle-aged guy across the face. Each impact is jarring on his exhausted arms and hands. They are closing in too tightly now. Soon sheer numbers will take him down.

  This may be it. Time to die.

  He hunches over, leaning forward, takes a quick step or two and hits a woman with his shoulder and plows his way into an open space between people at a dead sprint. His only worry is a slip or trip as he caroms off people while trying to keep his footing. Boots splashing and his own belabored breathing are loud in his ears. Arms, hands and occasional objects flail at him. Somehow he controls his sprint for about ten yards while they try to get a grip on his slick bunker gear.

  Almost free, just a little further.

  Something hits him square in the back and penetrates his gear. He goes down screaming beneath at least two of the creatures and loses the axe. It slides away from him as he hits the floor and he slides a bit himself. Just for a moment he is too stunned to react and suddenly there is a ripping, tearing pain coming from his back and a bestial snarl from whoever or whatever is pinning him down. He flips over with relative ease and shrugs a woman off his back. Vision blurred by streaming water, he catches a glimpse of blonde hair and some sort of miniskirted uniform. He pulls the pistol from the front pocket of his jacket and hopes it will fire. Right in front of him, the blond is back, face full of hunger and rage. Aim quick and fire. A lucky hit between the eyes jerks her head sideways and she crumples. She is wearing a cheerleader’s uniform. Oh no, Liz, I found you…

  His mind reaches its limit, even as he regains his feet. Too much. Far too much.

  The mob closes back in, but behind him fifty or so feet away are the exit doors.

  He runs, terrified now beyond consoling, but still the urge to run, to find someplace to hide. One thought between the tearing pain from his back and the terror, matching him stride for stride: She bit me. She bit me.

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  THERE REALLY IS NO TIME TO HESITATE. He steps around the back of the car and the girl comes for him, clumsily, off balance but determined. “Come on bitch,” he says. “I don’t care if you are a woman. You picked the wrong guy to fuck with.”

  She doesn’t reply. Like talking to a hungry shark. She appears to have one thing on her mind: some kind of crazy urge to bite him. After a few minutes, he loses patience and grabs one of her extended arms as she reaches for him. He begins to spin on his good leg and she either doesn’t have the presence of mind to resist or he is just too strong. He gradually pulls her into a spin that lifts her off her feet and then he flings her away from him. A hundred some-odd pound woman is nothing next to the strength of a three hundred pound ex-lineman.

  “Now that was sort of refreshing,” he says to himself. “Bitch-tossing!” The woman flies an impressive distance and lands with no grace. Does she have any self-protective urge? If anything, she seemed to radiate hate and rage. Oh God, get me away from here. He abandons the idea of taking the car and strikes off toward the park, limping, but still walking faster than any of the people lurching after him. He takes a step up from the street to the curb, feels light-headed and quite without intending it, he staggers to his right a step or two. Sweat breaks out on his scalp, but feels cool in the hot humid air.

  I never got my blood pressure pill: Pressure’s probably sky high. A white sign is in the grass. He’s in the shade now of towering oak trees. Probably says ‘Don’t walk on the grass’ or something, he thinks, but does a double take. The sign actually reads, “Proceed with caution and listen for voice commands. You are being watched.” What the hell is that shit?

  As if to offer proof, bodies are scattered in the grass starting roughly fifteen feet from the sign. He shrugs. It’s either proceed forward and maybe get shot, or go back and probably be eaten. “Don’t shoot!” he yells and walks past the sign. “I’m on your side!”
r />   104

  Nobody answers. The grass needs to be mowed. Those Y-shaped sprouts are waving in the slight breeze. He passes three gray-haired corpses; one man and two women. What if someone killed them for the hell of it? Where did that thought come from? No one is safe if that’s what happened. Maybe I am dead and I’m in Hell?

  “Okay big boy, that’s far enough,” says a voice from the trees, hard to say where, but nearby. I made it about three steps further than the corpses. “You been bit? If you have, and don’t tell us, we will make you suffer.”

  “Nope, no bites. Just banged up a little,” he answers. “And I don’t know what’s going on, but other than that…”

  “Alrighty then, we’re going to let you through. My friend, Riker, is going to be watching you through a scope. He will split your head open like a ripe tomato if you try anything funny. Just do what I say, and you are going to be safe, capeshe?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Good. Just walk straight ahead for about half a block. You’ll see a restaurant at the corner, just before the entrance to the Pier. Know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yeah, I ate there with my ex-wife once.” Graham takes a step or two and sees who is talking: a guy in an Army jungle uniform. He’s sitting behind a tree trunk, holding an M-16 rifle. The leg of the soldier’s partner is just visible about six or seven feet up the tree.

  The soldier realizes he’s been seen and gives Graham a two finger salute with his right hand. “Wait outside the door when you get there and someone will come get you.”

  “I got it, and thanks.”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Big. We may need more guys your size real quick. I hope you can fight.”

  Graham doesn’t answer. He’s already walking toward the restaurant, favoring his right knee and thinking about cold beer and painkillers. Probably just a pipe dream.

  105

  HE IS LOOKING AT HIS WATCH, listening to fading and more infrequent gunfire when Tracks says, “Here she come, Bronte. She running from the bus.”