Remains (After The Purge: Vendetta, Book 3)

by Sam Sisavath

  A round, almost cherubic face appeared above him, blocking out the sun.

  For a second, Wash thought he was looking up at a baby. A round-faced baby. But no, it was just a girl, albeit one with a very dirty face, stringy blonde hair cascading down around her puffy cheeks. She might have even smiled at him when she said, “I think he’s alive.”

  “Of course he’s alive,” another voice said. This one was male but young-sounding. “I just popped him in the head.”

  Kids. I got suckered in and knocked out by kids.

  Great.

  “Could be worse,” the Old Man said.

  How?

  “They could have shot you instead of just smacking you in the head.”

  Good point.

  “Look at that,” the girl said, pointing at Wash. No, not at him, but closer to his side. “I’ve never seen a knife like that. Have you?”

  A second face appeared above Wash. It was probably the male speaker from earlier. He was older than the girl, but not by much. Sixteen, maybe seventeen, though he had a skinny neck and thin face with sharp features all around.

  “That’s a cool knife,” the boy said as he lowered himself toward Wash, then pulled back a few seconds later. Except now he was holding the kukri, the sunlight glinting off the sharp silver-coated blade as he turned it over in his hands. He looked as if he’d handled knives before.

  “That’s mine,” Wash said.

  The boy snorted. “Not anymore.”

  “Why’s he just laying like that?” the girl asked. She was hovering to Wash’s right, while the boy was on his left.

  “He can’t move,” the boy said.

  “How come?”

  “’Cause I clunked him good, that’s why.”

  “Clunked?” Wash thought.

  Then: I got clunked.

  “You got clunked, kid,” the Old Man said.

  I just said that.

  “Is he paralyzed?” the girl asked. She turned her head left and right as she talked, as if trying to get a better angle at Wash.

  “Nah, he’s just hurt,” the boy said. “I hit him hard, but it wasn’t that hard.” The boy put the kukri away and disappeared out of Wash’s peripheral vision again. He resurfaced with the Kahr in his hand a few seconds later. “Looks like he was hurt before he got here.” Then, directly at Wash, “You gonna die, dude?”

  “No,” Wash said.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes.”

  The boy chuckled. “Okay.”

  The girl turned to the boy. “What are we gonna do with him, Roy?”

  “I dunno,” the one named Roy said.

  Wash heard a click before a black snub-nosed revolver appeared in Roy’s hand as he pointed it down at Wash. The clicking sound was the pistol’s hammer being cocked back.

  “Are you gonna shoot him?” the girl asked. She sounded surprised and a little alarmed, and Wash thought, You and me both, kid. You and me both.

  “It’s too dangerous to just leave him walking around,” Roy said.

  “But you can’t just shoot him,” the girl said.

  “Why not?”

  “You just can’t.”

  “Listen to her,” Wash said.

  “Shut up,” Roy said. He glanced over at the girl. “He’s dangerous, June. Just like Phil and the others. Remember them?”

  June nodded, clearly reliving something terrible by the look on her face.

  “We have to do this,” Roy said, looking back at Wash. Then, possibly to Wash by way of explanation, “It’s the only way to be safe out here.”

  “But…” the girl said.

  “No buts. We have to.”

  “You don’t have to do anything,” Wash said.

  “Yeah, I do,” Roy said, but there was something in his eyes and in the way his gun hand moved slightly. Not too much, but just enough for Wash to notice.

  He’s not a killer.

  God, I hope he’s not a killer.

  “I’m hurt, and I’ll probably die tonight anyway,” Wash said. “You don’t have to kill me. Just leave me alone, and I’ll die soon on my own. You don’t need my blood on your hands, kid. Trust me. It’s not worth it.”

  Roy stared at him but didn’t say anything. He also didn’t stop pointing the small snub nose at Wash’s face. At this range, the revolver would put Wash out of his misery with just one bullet.

  But he couldn’t let the kid do that. He couldn’t just die. Not here, not now. He had things to do, creatures to kill.

  He imagined it out there, laughing at him, at all of Wash’s failures.

  “I’m no threat,” Wash said to Roy. “You got my gun. My knife. I don’t have anything anymore.”

  “You’re still you,” Roy said.

  Wash didn’t understand what that meant. Not right away, at least.

  Slowly, the realization that the kid was right came to him. Even if he wasn’t a slayer, he was still a man. He was still dangerous in the kid’s eyes, and the kid would be right. What would Wash do if he had to defend a young girl like June from the dangers of the world?

  He’s not wrong. I am dangerous to them.

  “Don’t tell him that,” the Old Man said.

  But he’s not wrong…

  “Just let me die out here,” Wash said. “You can go back into the RV and close the door and just watch me die. You can even shoot me if I try anything.”

  The kid didn’t move or look away, but his gun hand was moving more than before. Fortunately, the finger pushing against the trigger didn’t finish the pull.

  Stay that way, stay that way. I still have too much to do. If I die now, the bastard will win. And I can’t let that happen. I can’t let that happen.

  Then Roy blinked once—

  Please…

  —twice—

  God, I can’t die here. I can’t die here, not like this…

  —and pulled the revolver back.

  Wash breathed a sigh of relief.

  Roy didn’t take his eyes off Wash as he took one step back before looking over at June. “Go back inside. I’ll make sure he doesn’t try to get in.”

  Wash couldn’t see June anymore. He had been so focused on Roy—on that gun in his hand—that he hadn’t noticed when the girl disappeared. He could only hear her now when she answered, “But don’t shoot him. Okay, Roy?”

  “Okay, okay,” Roy said. “I won’t, if he doesn’t make me.”

  “Promise?”

  Roy sighed. “Yeah. I promise. Now git.”

  Wash lay back and breathed easier. Not by much, but noticeably easier. Maybe he wasn’t going to die here, at the hands of some skinny teenager, after all.

  “How many lives you got left now, kid?” the Old Man asked.

  Not enough, old timer. Not nearly enough.

  “Get going,” Roy was saying as he squinted down at Wash. “If you even turn around, I’ll shoot you dead.”

  Wash rolled over onto his stomach, then pushed himself up from the ground and onto his knees. It took a lot of effort. More than it should have, and he was out of breath by the time he managed it.

  He took a moment to compose himself, to regather his strength. He could feel Roy somewhere behind him, but all he could hear was the ticking of the automatic watch still strapped to his left wrist. At least Roy hadn’t taken that from him.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick.

  Tick-tick-tick-tick…

  “Get going,” Roy said from behind him.

  Wash sighed. “I’m trying, kid. This isn’t exactly easy as pie.”

  He forced himself up onto one foot, then the other. He was winded by the time he straightened both legs, and pain lanced up and down his body. Who knew just standing up could be so life-and-death?

  He took a breath.

  In and out.

  In and out…

  Then started walking.

  Or he got one foot forward, then followed up with a second foot, but as he reached back for the third, the ground came alive and was sudden
ly rushing up at him and—

  This is not good, Wash thought as his face slammed into the hard Texas soil and his world collapsed in from all around him.

  Four

  The girl’s cherubic face was hovering over him when he opened his eyes again. There was dirt on her cheeks and what looked like gray (or black) grease glistening off her long strands of hair, details that had escaped him earlier. Up close, she had very deep blue eyes and a squinty nose that made him think she’d jumped out of the pages of those comic books the Old Man introduced him to once in a town outside of Canton, Ohio.

  “Are you still alive?” she asked.

  Wash grunted and tried to work some saliva down his parched throat. “Yes,” he croaked out.

  “Roy says you were deader than you were alive.”

  “Roy is right.”

  “But you’re alive.”

  “Yes.” He paused. “I think I am.”

  June smiled. “You’re not sure?”

  He returned it. Or thought he did. “I’m alive.”

  “Good, ’cause it would suck if we had to bury you.”

  “Why would you bury me?”

  “So the monsters couldn’t get you.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know about the monsters, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is that what this’s for?” she asked, turning around slightly, then returning with his kukri. It was way too big—and sharp—for her tiny hands. “It looks dangerous.”

  “It is,” Wash said. “Be careful with it. Don’t cut yourself.”

  “I won’t.” She turned around again, this time returning with empty hands. “Roy will be back soon. He says not to let you loose if you wake up before he does.”

  Not to let me “loose?”

  It took a few seconds before he realized his hands were bound at the wrists with duct tape.

  Ah.

  It was the same with his ankles. He was lying on the floor inside the RV, between a desk to his left and a sofa to his right. June was sitting on the sofa and leaning over him.

  Wash didn’t bother testing the strength of the tape. It felt strong, and he didn’t have much energy to expend anyway. Besides, if Roy was going to kill him, the teenager would have done it already. Going through the hassle of dragging him in here, then binding him, meant the two kids were willing to keep him alive, for whatever reason.

  “You’re alive,” the Old Man said. “Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, kid.”

  Yeah, good idea.

  He stared up at the dirty ceiling and spent a few seconds regulating his breathing. Not moving helped ease his pains somewhat, but what he wouldn’t give for the spare bottle of painkillers in his supply bag. The same bag that was probably many miles—and getting longer—down the road by now. There was enough light in the vehicle, coming through the mud-caked windows, that he didn’t think he’d been unconscious for very long. At least not enough for night to have fallen outside while he was out.

  “Here,” the girl said.

  Wash looked over. She was holding a bottle of water toward him. There was about half left, and his mouth watered at the sight.

  He gave her an Are you sure? look, and she smiled.

  “I think that’s a yes,” the Old Man said. “Better drink it, before she changes her mind.”

  Wash raised his head slightly—grunting from the effort and grimacing away the stabs of pain coming from his side—as June let him have a taste. She might have allowed him to drink the whole thing, but Wash held back and took only what he needed to chase away the insects nesting in his throat.

  “Thanks,” he said, handing the bottle back to her and lying down again.

  “You’re welcome,” June said.

  She stashed the bottle into a beat-up pink and white backpack. There was a large animal with squinting eyes on the front. Some kind of cartoon kitty. Wash didn’t get a good look at what else she had in there, but it was apparently quite a lot, because the pack was bulging as she zipped it up.

  “Where did Roy go?” Wash asked.

  June shrugged. “I dunno. He didn’t say.”

  “How long has he been gone?”

  She glanced at her wristwatch. It was white with plastic bands, and Wash could just make out the slow and purposeful tick of each quartz-powered second counting down.

  “It’s been a while,” she said.

  “How long is ‘a while?’”

  “A while.”

  Wash smiled. He knew a lost cause when he saw one. He said instead, “Roy carried me up here?”

  “He dragged you up here mostly.” Then, off his surprised look, “He’s stronger than he looks.”

  I guess so, Wash thought, because the teenager had looked pretty skinny.

  He said, “What are you guys doing all the way out here by yourselves?”

  “We’ve always been out here by ourselves.”

  “Always?”

  She nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “How long is ‘pretty much?’”

  She seemed to think about it for a moment.

  Then, finally, “Pretty much.”

  Wash remembered something Roy had said earlier.

  “Who’s Phil?” he asked.

  “Some guys,” June said.

  “What happened to them?”

  “Roy took care of them.”

  How did he do that? Wash was going to ask, when the RV door creaked open behind him and the vehicle lowered slightly as someone came in.

  “What did you find?” June asked. She wasn’t talking to Wash.

  A black tactical pack landed on the sofa next to June. It looked familiar, because it was. Wash recognized it as one of the packs the Quarter Horse was carrying when it took off on him last night.

  “That’s mine,” Wash said.

  “Says you,” Roy said.

  The lanky teenager sat down on the sofa with a tired sigh. He unwrapped a handkerchief from the lower half of his face as puffs of dust fell from his well-worn pant legs and jacket.

  “That is mine,” Wash said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Roy said. “Finders keepers.”

  “I don’t think it works that way, kid.”

  “It does now. You been out there?”

  Wash couldn’t see the snub-nosed revolver on Roy’s person, but he assumed it was there, hidden. Not that he thought the kid was going to shoot him—especially after all the effort Roy had gone through to bring Wash into the recreational vehicle when he didn’t have to.

  Which led him to the same question he had been asking himself since he regained consciousness: Why had Roy saved his life? He was dealing with kids, sure, but even kids weren’t really kids these days. Not after The Purge. And Roy looked very much like he’d been around. Even June, all ten or eleven years of her, did. Wash recognized survivors when he saw one.

  “Where’d you find it?” Wash asked while watching June unzipping the bag and rifling through its contents.

  “Down the road,” Roy said.

  The teenager took out the same bottle of water Wash had drank from earlier and drained all of it. Wash was going to tell him, Whoa there, slow down, but figured Roy probably already knew there were two extra bottles of water in the pack he’d just “rescued” from the road. As soon as Wash thought that, June pulled out one of those containers now.

  “I saw the dead skinnies,” Roy said. Then, eyeing Wash, “That was you?”

  “Yeah,” Wash said.

  “You killed all seven of them?”

  “Yes.”

  Something flashed across Roy’s face that almost looked like newfound respect. Wash wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, though. Roy had already considered Wash dangerous before, and if he thought Wash was even more dangerous than initially assumed…

  “He already saved your life,” the Old Man said. “He’s not going to kill you now.”

  He could always change his mind.

  “Would you, in his shoes?”

&nbs
p; Maybe…

  But Roy didn’t immediately fish out his revolver to prove Wash right.

  Instead, the teenager said, “One of them was smaller. It wasn’t like the others.” He peered at Wash. “You know what I mean?”

  “Do you?” Wash asked.

  “I was born at night, but not last night.”

  Wash grinned.

  “I can tell by the bones,” Roy continued, sitting back. “It’s not as deformed as the others. And its back—” He reached over his shoulder and patted his own back. “It could stand straight. The others, they can’t.”

  Wash nodded and thought, He really has been out here. He knows more than most adults.

  “It was a Blue Eyes,” Wash said.

  “You killed a Blue Eyes,” Roy said. It sounded like a question, but Wash couldn’t be sure. And again, that look of almost-respect flashing across Roy’s face. “And the other six, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “You some kind of slayer?”

  “I am.”

  “That would explain the knife.” Roy picked up the kukri from the sofa. “Haven’t run across one of these before.”

  “It’s called a kukri,” Wash said.

  “You make this yourself?”

  “Someone I knew did.”

  “Who?”

  “The person who taught me how to be a slayer.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He died.”

  “Oh,” Roy said. The teenager stared at the sharp silver-coated metal for a moment, turning it slowly over in his hand.

  “What now?” Wash asked.

  Roy answered by cutting the tape from Wash’s ankles before doing the same to his wrists.

  “Add another life back to your inventory, kid,” the Old Man said.

  Wash sat up with a sigh and rubbed his hands together. A quick stab of pain from his old wounds told him he should probably lie right back down, but he ignored it.

  “I found this in your bag,” Roy said. He took a small plastic bottle out of a jacket pocket. The spare bottle of painkillers. He tossed it to Wash. “You probably need it more.”

  Wash nodded gratefully and popped open the cap. He shook out two small white pills and swallowed them.

  “Make that two lives,” the Old Man said.