Fire Birds

by Shane Gregory

  The front door of the house opened again. Andrew, Dan, and Laney came out on the porch and stopped there.

  “I don’t hold no grudge on you,” Andrew said, wiping his nose. “We’re goin’ to help you today, but after that, I’m afraid we’re goin’ to have to go our separate ways.”

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  “You need to show some respect,” Laney said. “The pastor is trying to do right by you. He’s turning the other cheek.”

  I got in the car, started it, then rolled down the window.

  “You coming?” I said to Somerville.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be along directly. I’ll drive my truck and meet you at the courthouse. I need to talk with these people a bit.”

  “Whatever,” I said

  I was on autopilot. I don’t remember the drive into town. I just kept replaying everything in my head. I came in from South 6th Street and had to stop at Water Street. Pastor Andrew’s assessment of the town’s condition had been grossly optimistic. Downtown Clayfield was hollow and black. There was not a single blade of grass, not a single pane of glass. The buildings that had survived the fire looked like empty shells. The dead lay in charred, bony heaps in the streets. I armed myself and got out of my car.

  It was even hotter here. The area had retained some of the heat from the fire. The bricks and asphalt and metal were still warm, and some of it still smoked. A cool breeze moved between the buildings and brushed my skin. The contrast between this and the actual temperature was noticeable and out-of-place. Ash fluttered and danced over the ground. I walked over charred bones on my way up 6th toward Broadway. The wall of cars was ahead. The courthouse was to my left. There were four zombies on Broadway near the Hill Hotel. They’d been burned too. They were black and blistery, but somehow they had “survived.” They were the only ones. It was as if the creatures knew what had happened here and were staying away.

  I broke open the .410 to double-check it. Both barrels were loaded. I snapped it shut and pulled the pistol on my hip to check the magazine. I had extra ammunition in my pockets. I was as ready as I could be.

  My first stop would be the county jail, which was adjacent to the courthouse. If Grant had been shut up in there by Bruce, then maybe there would be some clue in there as to where I could find him and Sara. Then I detected the sound of an alarm far away. Because of the buildings, I couldn’t get a fix on the direction from which it was coming. I stood still and listened. I looked over to the creatures by the old hotel. They didn’t act interested.

  I tried my best not to make any noise. It was difficult to be quiet when the ground was littered with brittle bones that crunched and snapped under my boots. The breeze picked up and the ash took to the air and swirled like snow. To my left was the fire truck that had been left there by Nathan Camp’s people. It was as black as everything else.

  Then I heard laughter. I stopped and stood still again, holding my breath. I was standing on the corner of 6th and Broadway on what had once been the sidewalk around the courthouse lawn. Over on 7th Street I saw the source of the laughter. Two men came out of the old shoe store–Andrew’s selected building. They were both carrying pry bars, and they were talking. I couldn’t make out their words. They looked my direction, but didn’t react. One of them said something, the other laughed again, and they headed north toward the hotel. I suppose they thought I was a zombie. I moved toward Andrew’s wall of cars that were lined up on the other side of the road. I tried to put some odd movements in my gate so they wouldn’t suspect I was a healthy man. Of course, if they looked closely enough and thought about it, they would have noticed my clothing, mask, and guns.

  I made it to the line of cars and stopped. All that remained of the vehicles was the metal. Everything else had been burned away. I put my hand on the hood of the car beside me. It was still uncomfortably hot, and I couldn’t stand to touch it for more than a few seconds.

  The men ignored me. They were approached by the four creatures. They put the zombies down quickly using the pry bars. The ash moved around more, and the stiff breeze felt good against my face. Above us, the dark clouds piled up from the west.

  I watched them bludgeon the things, and tried to decide what to do. It would be naïve for me to think they were only armed with pry bars. Surely they had hidden firearms or maybe friends somewhere out-of-sight watching out for them. Still, they were my only lead. If there was a chance they knew where Sara was, I had to get the information from them. I stumbled toward them, doing my best to mimic the stride of the undead.

  Then, behind me, I heard a vehicle approaching from East Broadway. I presumed it was Somerville coming to join me in my search, and I cursed at his bad timing. I turned and looked east. As it got closer, I realized it wasn’t him. It was the yellow Firebird decorated with human heads. I started to lift the lupara when I noticed something that caused me to utter a gasp of shock and caused my whole body to close down for a moment.

  Front and center, mounted like a hood ornament, was Sara’s severed head.

  CHAPTER 42

  At first I couldn’t breathe. Then the breaths came quick and loud as if I was vomiting air. I couldn’t move, yet the car kept coming. In fact, it sped up and steered toward me. I continued to stare at Sara’s vacant, pallid face. Her eyes were closed, and her forehead was dark and scabby. A sound came out of me over which I had no control. It was something like a whine, something like a groan. A second before the car hit, I found my legs and jumped onto the hood of the burned car that was nearest me.

  The yellow hotrod scraped along where I had been standing, taking out the fender. The jolt against my vehicle combined with my own momentum sent me tumbling over the car to the sidewalk on the other side. The muscle car rolled over bones and bodies, then turned the corner onto 7th Street and was blocked from view by the abandoned fire truck on the courthouse lawn.

  I stood and pulled my pistol.

  I heard the rumble of the Firebird as it idled there for a moment, then the engine shut off. A door opened and closed. I still didn’t have a line of sight. I looked to my right. The men moved toward the car. I felt dizzy with shock and grief over what I’d seen. I couldn’t think. I listened to my own breath.

  “Why would you do that?” I said.

  “Hey, asshole,” Bruce Lee yelled. “I let you live, and how do you repay me, huh? You killed Leia, and you stole my Romulan Warbird! You stole my damn Warbird!”

  He finally came into view. The motherfucker was still dressed like a Klingon. He had a bulging messenger bag over his right shoulder. The katana sword was in one hand, and the AA-12 in the other.

  His eyes found mine and locked there. He was expressionless. I lifted the .410, but I was so overcome by rage and grief that I fired wild. He didn’t move. He didn’t even flinch. Then briefly, an almost undetectable smug grin crossed his lips then vanished. But I saw it. I saw it, and it pushed me into a further state of passion. I wailed and fired again. I missed by a mile.

  “What is that?” he said in a friendly tone. “Is that a snake gun?”

  The two men ran in from the hotel, pulling pistols from their waistbands.

  “I got this,” Bruce said.

  The men looked back and forth between us as if trying to make up their minds.

  “Hang back! I got this!” Bruce ordered. They nodded and put their guns away.

  “Why the hell would you bring a little, two-shot snake gun?”

  Two creatures came in behind him from the courthouse. He saw them and turned to face them.

  “Hell yeah!” he shouted. “Come on, then!” His blade sliced through the air and lopped off the head of the closest creature. The other came near. Bruce pivoted and lashed out with a beautiful roundhouse kick and tagged the thing on its rotting ear. I was surprised at Bruce’s agility and balance, considering his size. He surprised me again by dropping low and sweeping the creature’s legs with another deft kick. The zombie landed on its side and immediately lost its head to the downward arc o
f the katana.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Bruce laughed.

  I was so dumbfounded by the whole situation that I hadn’t noticed how closely the things were gathering in around me from the bank. The female behind me was right at arm’s length. I dropped the now-empty .410 and pulled my pistol. It was just in time. The barrel pushed into her eye socket, and I blew the back of her head out. I put down another one then I turned my pistol toward Bruce again. He saw what I was doing and pulled a creature in front of him like a shield. The bloated thing stumbled in between us just as I fired, and a yellowish fluid spewed from its back. The two men pointed their guns at me.

  Bruce yelled at me, “You’re about to get your ass kicked if you don’t stop shooting at me! And you two, I said I got this!”

  I bellowed with rage and frustration, then leapt, sliding over the hood of the burned car like a 1970s TV action star. I was out of my mind. He shoved his shield aside and met me in the street. I lifted my pistol once more, and he slapped me in the head with the flat side of his sword. I lost my weapon and went to my knees. I heard the two men laughing.

  “We were supposed to be friends,” he said. “You lied to me, you stole my stuff, and you insulted me.”

  I clutched the side of my head, and tried to see through blurry eyes. My senses swarmed in at me again with a roar.

  “You killed her.”

  “Why do you have such a burr up your ass?” he said. “Is this about that cunt Sara? You said you didn’t know her. Why should you care? She got what was coming to her.”

  I roared and scrambled to my feet. I tried to hit him, but my arms flailed in a windmill. I fell again, sobbing. He got a big laugh out of it.

  “I’m going to kill you,” I said.

  “You are not,” he said. “You’re just being a pussy. Okay, boys, hold him for me.”

  He turned his back to me and slashed a zombie in half at the waist. The two men moved in, each grabbing one of my arms, and lifted me to my feet. Bruce returned his attention to me and sniffed.

  “I don’t know, brother. I don’t think the two of us can be friends anymore if you’re going to keep acting like this.”

  Thunder rumbled. The sky was taking on a yellowish-green cast.

  “I saw you with that group at the shopping center,” he said. “I noticed you got a woman. Where is she? Do you have other women I don’t know about?”

  “There are no women,” I said.

  One of the men punched me in the kidney.

  “I can make him tell us where she is,” he said.

  “Shut the fuck up, Brad!” Bruce yelled. “Nobody asked you…Brad!”

  Bruce stepped back and extended the sword so that the tip of it touched the tip of my nose. The stench of the juices dripping from the blade was sickening.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll put the katana away, and the two of us can settle this like gentlemen. If you win, you can keep the Warbird. If I win, you have to return it, and I’m going to want an apology.”

  “What about the women?” the other man said. “You said there was women here.”

  “For the love of God,” Bruce yelled. “I’ve got this!”

  A gust of wind pushed through and whipped at our clothes and hair.

  He walked over to the fire truck on the courthouse lawn and put his sword on the hood. Then he did the same with the AA-12.

  “Let him go,” he said, bobbing from side to side and hopping in place. “Then watch me work.”

  The men stepped away. Bruce and I were about twenty feet apart. I didn’t know how to fight, not like him. I knew enough from watching TV that I should not make the first move. Those martial arts classes were for self-defense. He’d be trained to counter my attack. Maybe he wasn’t as skilled at offence. Maybe I would grab his leg when he kicked and push him down. Maybe I could see it coming and dodge. I wondered if martial arts training even mattered in a real fight. It was probably just something that looked pretty in the movies.

  It mattered.

  I saw a blur coming at my face. When I moved to protect it, he punched me in the crotch. I went straight to my knees. Then I saw stars when his fist connected to my jaw. The toe of his boot found my solar plexus, and the pain was blinding. I lay there on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse in the bones and ash trying to catch my breath, and Bruce seemed completely relaxed.

  “What happened here?” he said. “Why’d you burn the town?”

  The wind threw ash in my face and eyes.

  “What’s up with all the cars?” he said, standing over me and looking around. “Why are you lining them up like that?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “You trying to copy me?” he grinned. “You know, I was lining my yellow cars up for a reason. They were vamp bait.”

  I rolled onto my back, gasped for air, then rolled over again and tried to crawl away through the bones and charred bodies.

  “Stay put,” he said and kicked me in the side.

  He took a few steps away from me and kicked an approaching zombie in the face. Then he looked at the line of cars again.

  “Why don’t you just go away?” I said, feeling empty inside. “You got what you came for. You got your revenge. Sara’s dead.”

  “She is that.”

  I rolled onto my back and kicked out at him. He laughed when I missed.

  “You are such a pussy,” he grinned. “What about my Warbird? Where is it?”

  I tried to kick him again, and he dodged, then stomped me in the crotch. I curled up in a ball as the pain crept into my belly.

  “If you get me the Warbird, I won’t let Brad and Oz anywhere near your woman. How’s that for a deal?”

  I took a breath. Bruce looked to the east and stepped away from me. I rolled onto my side. Nicholas Somerville had pulled up in his truck next to the remains of the drugstore. Then there was gunfire.

  “Pull the truck around!” Bruce yelled.

  Then the first fat drop of rain hit me in the face.

  CHAPTER 43

  Another drop of rain fell and hit the ground in front of me, then another. I watched Somerville get out of his truck and take a shot at Bruce. Then he ran for cover behind a partial wall of one of the collapsed buildings. The sky flickered and thunder rumbled again. The rain got a little harder. It dotted the ground and punched small holes in areas of deeper ash, causing a hiss when it touched the hot embers beneath.

  Near my head, not more than a foot away, the water streaked through the ash on a warped, metal plate that had once been a historical marker. The wooden base to which it had been attached was burned up, but the plaque itself remained, partially covered by a human ribcage. The words were difficult to read, but I didn’t need to read them. I knew what it said. I knew where I was.

  On that very spot where I lay, there had once been a tree. On and around that tree, more than two hundred men and women had lost their lives. During the Civil War, executions of Confederate soldiers and Confederate sympathizers took place there daily for more than a month after Union soldiers took the town. Some of the killings were hangings, others were from gunfire, but they all died in or around that tree. After the war, executions, both legal capital punishment and illegal lynchings, were not unheard of. The tree had been cut down before I was born, but whenever I visited the spot, I could feel it there. The space felt heavy as if the ghosts of all those tortured souls remained.

  I thought I could feel them there then. They were waiting for me to join them. I would haunt this spot with those spirits that had died violent, fear-filled deaths. In that moment, I felt that it was fitting that I should die there. It seemed poetic. Jen was gone. Sara was gone. Everything that gave me hope was gone. There was something freeing about that moment. I didn’t feel the need to struggle anymore.

  Then I was yanked from my musings by the rapid blasts of the AA-12.

  I didn’t see Mr. Somerville, but the automatic shotgun chiseled away at his cover. I rolled and looked toward the fire
truck. Bruce strode toward the rubble on 6th Street firing the weapon with one hand. The empty shell casings flew out of the side of it in a red blur. He stopped a moment and changed out the magazine canister.

  “You can’t hide from this thing, my brother!” he yelled.

  Then the sky opened up with wind and water. It got dark. The temperature dropped ten degrees. The AA-12 came to life again. Slowly, I got to my feet and looked around.

  There was the Klingon with his war machine. Over there were five walking corpses disoriented by the noise and heavy downpour. I noticed a charred, leafless tree waving its blackened branches. To my right, where Mr. Somerville hid, were flying chips of brick and stone. Behind me, stumbling up the street, was another corpse, and behind it, another. None of it seemed to have anything to do with me.

  My eyes found the yellow Firebird. I got a shiver. I moved toward it, marching into the wind and driving rain. Bruce paused and looked over at me.

  “Where are you going?” he yelled.

  I ignored him. Somerville took the opportunity to slip his gun over the wall and fire off two rounds. Thunder crashed. Somerville fired again. Then Bruce, with an annoyed look on his face, resumed his volley. I plodded forward toward the Firebird. The sounds of the gunfire and weather faded from my awareness. The cold rain stung my face and soaked my clothes. A tattered piece of cloth, perhaps the remnants of an awning from one of the local businesses, caught up in the wind, sailed by. I crossed the courthouse lawn and onto 7th Street.

  I stepped in front of the Firebird and looked down into Sara’s face. Her wet hair was plastered to her forehead and cheeks. Rain dripped from the end of her nose. Her eyes were shut, and her lips were parted. She looked like she was asleep. Beneath the soaked hair, I noticed scratches in her forehead. Hesitantly, I reached out and pushed the hair aside. The scratches were actually a word that had been carved there.

  My mouth formed the word, but I couldn’t speak.