“Here you go,” she said, sliding the envelope towards me.
I let the shotgun drop down on the sling to free up my hands, and I folded the envelope carefully and tucked it into my pocket.
“Thanks,” I told her, “I… It’s just that…”
“There’s no apologies needed. You’ve always been difficult. A good man, but difficult. Rough around the edges. My Jerry would have loved to have had you as a friend.”
That hurt. Her husband had been one of Chicago’s finest. Gunned down at a traffic stop. Salina’s office had been peppered with pictures of him, a reminder of what she’d lost, way back before the lights had gone out. Now, she had her son and a weird sort of lifestyle going on. It worked for her, just like my subterranean existence worked for me.
“Doc, my arm…” a man said, pain filling his voice.
I stepped back and a man with an apparently broken arm was approaching. Jerome was already getting a folding chair out for the man while Salina got a bag out from behind them.
“Tell that precious girl and boy that they are welcome to come with me. I’ll give them a home,” she told me and made a shooing gesture with one hand.
“I’ll pass it along. Again.”
I turned and headed back toward the exit. More and more lately, it seemed that people were coming here. It was a safe space. A place where they could find their essentials without worrying too much about being preyed upon by the roving gangs that had taken over parts of the city. Carving out their own fiefdoms. Luis was talking with some new folks and I had to wait for them to finish, so I could squeeze out. He saw me and held up a hand, motioning for me to wait. I did and he pointed out who had some tools for sale to the new guys. When he was done, I stepped through.
“Hold up,” Luis’s voice was loud. Commanding.
I turned to see him red in the face.
“If I hear of you harassing anybody in here again, I’m going to throw your ass out!” He was all but screaming.
It was one of probably a dozen outbursts like this he had to make in a day I was sure, but I hadn’t…
When he grabbed me, his left hand worked its way under the sling for the shotgun. My first instinct was to have broken his grip, then his wrists, but it was Luis and he was one of the good guys. I felt something lodge under the sling, and he pushed me back.
“Sorry, man. Won’t happen again,” I said confused.
“Make sure it doesn’t.”
“It was a misunderstanding,” I told him though I was the one who didn’t know what the hell was going on.
“Then get the hell out of here.”
I left and when I was ten feet away, I pulled out a small piece of cardboard he’d tucked under the sling. ‘4th and Elms’, the slip said. I smiled. The girl from earlier or her husband had slipped this to Luis.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive,” I muttered to myself and hurried west, instead of towards the nearest entrance to my home.
2
It didn’t take me long to figure out where the hastily scratched note had led me to. I could hear the party going on long before I could see it. Half a dozen men were shouting, laughing and passing bottles of dark amber booze around, and the other half were just standing or sitting on the concrete, taking their turns with the bottle. Probably whiskey, bourbon or… I shook my head. I couldn’t allow myself to obsess over the booze, just like I couldn’t obsess over the pills, or the crank or the…
Instead, I focused on where they were at, from a safe distance. I used my binoculars to figure things out.
An old Ford pickup truck was parked in front of a small branch bank. On the sidewalk out front, a barrel was lit, and the fire made the light around the laughing figures dance. They were having a party. I recognized one of them, a white hood rat I’d let live the last time he’d taken up with some bad dudes. I’d given him a shot, but apparently he’d taken up with some new losers. His loss. Literally it would cost him his life someday. He looked down and jerked his foot, and that’s when I saw them.
The woman was my age, maybe a little younger. Early forties. The form next to her could have been a teen or a young woman, it was hard to tell. Both had their wrists and ankles zip tied together. They’d been laying down flat on the ground and with the coming darkness, I’d missed seeing them. I considered the range, and even thought about reloading the KSG with slugs, but the distance was too great.
I’d have to move in closer. Once they sold the women, it would be almost impossible to save them. The only way I’d been able to make a difference before, was catching them when it was just the small gangs like this. Hopefully, the worst hadn’t happened to them yet. See, that's the other thing that had surprised the hell out of me, even though I'd seen it happen in other countries. Women and children suddenly became property or play toys for the sick games played by twisted people who didn't have to worry about the cops anymore.
The shithead I’d let go before was named Curt or Curtis. He knelt down and grabbed the wrists of the women, jerking them both to their feet roughly, and called out to someone. Another man took a hard swallow on a bottle of booze and walked over, looking the women over from head to toe. A second man joined him. I was not about to watch these women be raped right in front of me, so I started moving quickly in the shadows, closing the distance.
I stopped when, instead of pushing them towards the building, the men pushed them towards the pickup truck. Curtis stopped, cupping a hand on the woman’s stomach, and moving it up to cop a feel. I was sickened by the fucker and vowed he’d die. It was worse than mugging people for a can of food. He’d gone beyond the pale in my opinion.
The raven-haired woman spat at him, jerking her head back. She hit Curtis in the nose with a double fist, and he shoved her forward, almost bending her in half as her stomach hit the tailgate. With one hand cupping his nose, he used his free hand to push her into the bed of the truck. One of the men crawled back there with her, a long gun resting securely in his hands. I could hear the jeers and wolf-whistles from the other men - and then I got a good look at the younger lady.
I knew how old she was. She was fourteen, going on fifteen. I’d seen that face after every deployment, and although she’d grown while I was off fighting in a war somewhere, I’d have recognized her anywhere. Maggie, my daughter. I almost broke into a run. I’d been certain she was gone, long gone away in Arkansas with her mother and grandparents. Why was she here?
I was sickened as one of the three men came up behind her, pulling his body close to her backside and started feeling the curves of her body. My blood boiled, but like the woman she’d been traveling with, she tried to fight back. This guy was a lot faster than Curtis and laughed as he ducked back. Then, he scooped her up and put her in the bed of the truck, closing the tailgate. She spat at him, and he slugged her in the face. She fell backward, out of sight, and he climbed in and held the gun out towards the raven-haired woman.
“I’m going to fucking kill you, too,” I cussed, moving faster.
I had already done a mental tally; there were a dozen people in plain view. All were armed, as far as I could tell. As it was just me, I knew had to plan this carefully and pray that my daughter wasn’t seriously hurt. But I had to stop that truck before it got out of sight. The third man got into the driver’s seat. After shaking a handkerchief out of his pocket and holding it to his nose, Curtis got into the passenger seat. The truck fired up, and the headlights cut through the darkness.
“Oh, shit,” I said to myself and slid into an alleyway between two stalled cars.
The motor noise rose as they gave it gas and then the tires slipped as the genius working the clutch gave the old stick shift truck too much gas. They’d probably stolen the truck, probably had never driven a stick before. Still, an old vehicle that worked was priceless, as most of them had been commandeered by people who’d claimed to be law enforcement a month back. I shrank into the shadows as the truck shot past. I hurried now and broke i
nto a dead run, my heart laboring with the possibility that I didn’t have enough time to stop them before I lost Maggie…
The truck slowed down at an intersection where the cars that had stalled during the EMP had been abandoned. I heard the motor cut out after the truck lurched sickeningly. They’d stalled it. I heard the faintest of laughs and jeers from the group behind me, having fun at their expense. It was almost lost to the sound of my boots slapping the pavement. I was so close…
The truck fired up again, and I pulled out my target pistol, a small Beretta .22 and started firing. Sparks flew up from the pavement, and the rear tire blew out just as the men got the truck moving. The four shots I’d taken sounded sharp, and I would have to move fast. They had to have heard it, as evidenced by the wide-eyed look of the man in the back of the truck. He started swinging his gun out behind him, taking his eyes off the raven-haired woman. I holstered the .22 and ran harder.
Time, space and distance seemed to slow, and I knew I was getting tunnel vision. My entire focus was the back of the truck. I was aware of the shouts behind me, but they were too far away, I had too much of a head start. If I was quick and clever, I had a good couple minutes before they realized that I had been the shooter and not them. It was all I needed, along with a healthy dose of luck… Which was delivered by the raven-haired woman using both feet, ankles still zip-tied together, to kick the man in the bed right over the tailgate and onto the pavement.
I slowed enough to take a snapshot with the KSG. It had materialized in my hands without me even thinking; my old training was kicking in. The buckshot tore into the back of the man’s neck and shoulder even as he was hitting the ground. The driver’s side door opened, and the weasel-dicked motherfucker got out. He was already bringing to bear a pistol. I shot him in the chest as I ran closer.
“Curtis,” I screamed, racking another shell.
The shouts I’d heard behind me had gotten louder, but they hadn’t gotten any closer. I put a shot into the other rear tire as I skidded to a halt, ten feet behind the pickup’s bed. A high feminine scream came from somewhere, the bed of the truck probably. I’d been careful with my shot, though, the rear tire blew out, and Curtis’s bloody figure jerked to a stop. He’d been trying to slide from the passenger’s side to the driver’s side. I heard the starter on the truck kick in, it must have stalled it when I’d started shooting… so I started moving forward again, putting a shot into the front passenger side tire.
Five shots so far. I wasn’t worried. I had enough left and with the tires being blown out, the truck stalled again as Curtis or Curt put his hands up. It barely lurched when it stalled, but he got out of the truck slowly.
“Curtis,” I said looking into the bed of the truck. The woman had quit screaming but was sobbing uncontrollably, shaking my daughter.
“Don’t… I… Oh shit. I promise, man, I promise…” I wasn’t paying attention to his words so much as watching his hand that had snaked behind his back.
He pulled the revolver out, almost in slow motion, and my gun went off. Most of the pellets hit the gun and his hand, and he screamed as if I’d just doused him with fire. I chanced a look behind me, and in the now twilight, I could see figures running. None were in too good a shape by the looks of things, and many of them were huffing already. I had to move fast.
“How’s Maggie?” I asked the raven-haired woman.
“What?” She asked, her sobs coming to a stop. She wiped her nose with her sleeve and looked at me, “They hit her, knocked her out. I hope she isn’t…”
“Curtis. Where were you taking the women?” I asked him.
He just screamed and held out his hand. His thumb and first two fingers were mostly gone, his middle finger hanging on by a mangled thread. The ground was turning scarlet underneath him.
“Curtis, where were you taking my daughter?” I screamed at him.
I’d found her, she was safe for another ten seconds, but I wanted to know where the drop off point was. Where the main gang was hiding out.
“Fuuu… fuck… fuck you,” He spat.
I shot him in the kneecap at close range and turned my back on him as he started screaming in agony. I let the shotgun drop, the sling taking its weight and letting it settle on the front of my chest. I reached in and scooped up Maggie, pulling her from the screaming woman’s arms.
“Don’t,” I yelled at her, “We need to leave now. They’re coming.”
“What are you doing?” she sobbed, but she started moving.
I readjusted Maggie to hang halfway over my shoulder, the one that didn’t have the shotgun and pulled out a knife I had clipped in my pocket, flicking it open. The woman flinched backwards.
“You can’t run if you’re still tied up. I don’t have time. If you don’t hurry your ass, I’m going to leave you here. I won’t let them get my daughter.”
The woman looked at me in horror, but shaking and crying, she moved towards the side. I sawed through the bindings on her wrists and handed her the knife. She cut her ankles free and handed the knife back to me. I folded it and stored it and held out a hand for her to hold onto. She climbed out of the truck, still crying, half in shock, half numb and wobbly on her feet.
“I need you to keep up with me,” I told her, “If you can keep up with me, I promise you, I can get you away from these people.”
“Please, don’t hurt us,” she begged, but she moved.
“I promise, I have no intention of hurting you,” I told her, starting to move towards a darkened street.
The men had gotten to the truck about two minutes later than they should’ve. Apparently, they hadn’t been on the same survival diet as everyone else. That, or they were poor physical specimens. The half mile jog had taken them too long. I watched them take in the carnage and look around right before I closed the back door to the old theater, being careful not to bang Maggie’s head on the jam. I’d sent the woman ahead of me. I barred the door and walked slowly.
Maggie was breathing easier, and she was starting to move. Hopefully, the blow to the head hadn’t given her a serious concussion. I didn’t have much time to check now, but I knew she was alive. I could feel her chest contracting with every breath, her body warm against my shoulder and back.
“Are we safe here?” the woman asked, the tears drying up.
“No, this is a doorway,” I told her.
“A doorway to where?” she asked, giving me a wide-eyed look.
“It’s one of the ways down. I don’t use this place much, but I think the noise above will have my people waiting. You’ll be safe,” I assured her and walked towards the back, snapping on a penlight with my free hand.
Behind the screen was a storage room. I pushed the door open and the woman followed me, closing it behind us. The room was full of cleaning materials and a hundred years of detritus. I walked towards the back and knelt down to pull a ring in the floor. The trapdoor went down.
“Oh, my God, we can’t hide here,” the woman said, “There're rats and…”
“This is just one way in,” I told her. “We have to hurry.”
The gangs had tried to burn me out of old buildings on more than one occasion. They didn’t know that I knew the underground as well as anyone left alive could. I’d spent a couple of years working for the Chicago Transit Authority during my divorce. Underneath here was a way to the deeps, between forty and a hundred feet below the streets above.
“Oh God, what is that?” the woman asked, as my light hit a metal square door, hanging somewhat ajar. It had been rusting in place silently for over a century now.
“Coal chute,” I told her, sweating heavily now. “Follow me.”
Maggie's weight was starting to get to me. Lack of good food, lack of exercise and letting my PT go lax were the biggest causes of it, but now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I was feeling drained and weak. I gave the woman one last look, and she shuddered, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at the door.
“Is it… Will I fall?”
she asked.
“No, it’s like a slide. Use your feet to the sides as soon as you get in to slow yourself. I don’t have a rope in this one. It’s mostly a quick escape.”
“An escape from what?” she asked me, the tears forming again.
Voices and a banging sound from somewhere nearby startled her, and I motioned her to go first.
“Them. I’ve got Maggie, you go. When you get down there, get out of the opening, so I don’t bump into you. You’ll be safe down there. My people are nearby.”
“Did they go in here?” a loud voice yelled from somewhere else.
With a jolt, the woman went towards the opening. I gave her my penlight, and she crawled in. I hoped she didn’t startle and scream when she felt how slick the chute was. She went in, her clothing making a soft whooshing sound as she disappeared. I pulled my daughter off my shoulder and felt her face in the darkness. I could feel a lump forming on her temple, and I only wished I could have hurt the man who’d punched her worse. All things considered, dead was dead, and Curtis had quit screaming half a minute ago.
I held her in front of me like a small child, like the last time I had held her before I’d deployed to Afghanistan, and before things had gone south with her mother, Mary. I crawled in, after waiting a moment, listening for the others, and then I went down. I used my boots against the sides of the wall to slow my descent. The chutes had been made to both haul coal and dispose of ash in the buildings they serviced. It kept the topside neat and clean, freed up traffic, and was a quick way to move supplies about the city, back in the day. Most of this was now forgotten, and it was my ticket out.
After what seemed like an eternity, I felt her stir and she whimpered.
“It hurts,” she said.
“Shhhh,” I told her. “It’s ok, Maggie. I got you. I don’t know how you got here, but I got you.” She gasped and in the darkness, a foot lashed out, hitting me in a tender spot. I forgot about keeping my pace slow, and we slid down into the blackness at a breakneck speed. She struggled against me and I tried to keep her head down, so she wouldn’t hit the roof of the chute. I felt it the moment I came off the end because I was airborne, falling the last six feet and landing hard on the dirt-packed ground. All the air was pushed out at once and my daughter pushed herself away from me. I rolled over, taking long breaths when my chest quit contracting, and then a pen light snapped on.
Devil Dog: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (Out Of The Dark Book 1) Page 2