by Stu Jones
Courtland felt a deep nagging and the unanswered call of purpose within him. The recurring visions had only served to enforce these desires. Things that bent the mind—visits of angels with instructions from God, visits from the Lord himself, or the one where the moon turned to blood and the stars fell from the sky and the earth dissolved into the belly of the fire worm.
But the vision that frequented him the most was the one about the serpent-man who commanded an evil army. It was he who would wield the dark power and bring death and suffering before him. He would call himself the champion of the darkness, and his name would be Malak. And in his vision, Courtland and the nameless warrior were to stand against him in the name of the King of Heaven.
The message was the same every time, as loud as the tolling of Heaven’s bells. Listen, trust, and obey. It was what he had to do when the time came. And he would do it.
DAY 36
BART AND DEBBIE’S HENDERSONVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA
Molly sat and smacked her lips in the light of the fire. She never in her wildest dreams would have thought that SPAM in the little metal container could taste so good. Kane had cooked it on the small propane stove that he found in the storage. The potted meat was the appetizer, and now canned beanie-weenies were cooking in a small pot on the burner. The aroma wafted up into her nostrils and activated her salivary glands.
She felt as though she hadn’t eaten in a month, and it had been about that long since she had eaten something worth eating. Kane looked at Molly over by the fire as she watched him cooking a few feet away on the stove. He had never seen someone so interested in food.
“Can I help you with something?” Kane asked
Molly gave an annoyed look and motioned for him to hurry it up.
“Okay, okay,” Kane said. “Soup’s on.”
He picked up the pot with the clamps and poured the beanie-weenie mixture into Molly’s outstretched cup, which she drew back and sat in front of her on the ground. She retrieved a small piece of paper with writing on it from her pocket, and handed it to Kane.
Kane filled his own cup and then read the note out loud. “Thank you, God, for this meal you have given to us, for the company you have blessed us with, and for your grace that saves us daily. Amen.”
Kane smiled as he finished Molly’s prayer.
Molly looked up and smiled as she began her meal. The two sat for a few moments, gulping down mouthfuls of beanie weenies, until they had eaten their fill. Kane packed up the stove and cleaned out the pot as well as he could with just a little water. He poured some more water into the pot and set about boiling it. Reaching into the new stash, he withdrew a .45 caliber Springfield Operator 1911 pistol. Kane looked the weapon over and worked the slide a few times to be sure it functioned, then disassembled the weapon and wiped the parts down with a rag he’d found. Dabbing his finger in a small bottle of motor oil, Kane methodically lubricated the friction areas of the handgun and reassembled it, wiping it down again with the cloth. He cycled the slide and checked the trigger pull, causing the hammer to snap forward. He then picked up a seven-round magazine and loaded the 230-grain jacketed hollowpoints into it and the two extra magazines he had. Molly watched from the other side of the fire.
“It helps me relax,” Kane said. “I used to be anal about my guns being clean, back when I was a cop.”
He dropped the magazines in his pocket and tucked the Springfield into his waistband. He also took the time to saw the barrel of the shotgun off to twelve inches and the stock down to a pistol grip, which he wrapped in duct tape. Satisfied with his craftsmanship, he set the converted shotgun down beside him.
“If you want,” he began, “you can come sit over here and help me decide what we want to pack to take with us to eat.”
Molly got to her feet and stepped around the fire with her blanket. After sitting next to Kane, she began picking out the canned goods she liked, stuffing them into the satchel.
Kane watched as she chose the cans she wanted, scrunching her nose in disgust from time to time at a can of mystery meat or other unknown substance. He liked her, but not in a romantic sense. He felt responsible for her. The warrior in him, the protector, felt responsible. Like a big brother charged with the care of his little sister, Kane took his charge seriously.
The pot was at full boil, and Kane turned the stove off and withdrew his prize from the stash: a safety razor and shaving cream.
“Okay, Molly, you’re about to find out what I look like without this beard. Are you ready?”
Molly nodded, smiling.
“Here it goes, but you’re going to have to be my mirror, and tell me if I missed any spots.”
Kane worked slowly and with short strokes, the razor tugging, pulling, and yanking at the coarse beard. It hurt, but the process of shaving felt wonderful, almost as if he could close his eyes and be in his bathroom at home. The careful work of a few minutes, with the corrections of his assistant on the missed spots, produced a clean shaven and less barbaric-looking man.
Molly gave him the thumbs up and mouthed, “Looks good.”
Kane set the razor aside, dumped the water, and then set some more water to heat for personal cleanup.
After taking turns cleaning up with the warm water, they found themselves sitting bundled up around the fire once again. Molly sat enjoying the warmth of the fire as Kane sketched something on a blank piece of paper.
He tried to not think about the things from normal life that he missed. Good coffee, a hot shower, the way a beam of sunlight felt when it soaked into him, his family all snuggled together on a sleepy Saturday morning. But they were great things, things worth thinking about. So Kane took a few minutes, closed his eyes, and pretended he still had them, and then he thanked God for allowing him to have had them at all.
After a few silent minutes, Molly drew out her pad and wrote a note, which she passed over to Kane. “Do you think that God is leading us to the radio control station for some reason?”
Kane read the note and thought for a minute, then said with a sigh, “I don’t know, other than that I feel led to this place. I can’t say exactly what it is that God wants me to do other than what he told me. He said listen, trust, and obey.”
Molly stared with a strange expression at Kane, then looked down and began writing furiously. She handed him the pad, which read, “Why did you use those words exactly?”
“Because that’s exactly what I heard when he spoke to me.”
Molly wrote again and handed the notebook to Kane. “Those words, exactly, are the last thing my father said to me before he passed.”
Kane paused staring at the fire. “No way we would have survived this long if God didn’t have a purpose for us. I think he will tell us what he wants us to do as soon as he knows we are ready to follow those three commands.”
The distant sound of a vehicle’s exhaust backfiring brought Kane to his feet with a sense of purpose. He motioned for Molly to remain seated as he moved out toward the trash-filled street. There he stopped and focused on the small pinpoints of light positioned on the I-26 overpass. He strained to make out the dark outline of a figure standing outside the vehicle, looking back at him from the top of the bridge. They both stood rooted in place for what seemed like minutes before the stranger turned and jumped back in the vehicle with a whoop as it peeled out down the broken highway. The vehicle turned and started down the on ramp. Kane turned and jogged back to the fire as the motor grew louder.
“Molly, someone is coming down here from the highway. For now, we have to assume we can’t trust whoever this is until they show us otherwise, okay?”
Molly nodded.
“Grab that shotgun and set it beside your leg, and pull the blanket up over you.”
Molly nodded again and did as Kane had said. Kane stepped back and allowed the fire to be between him and the street. He tucked his shirt up in the back over the Springfield and clicked the safety off. Kane had been a police officer for eleven years at the time of the attacks.
In that line of work, eleven years was more than enough time to ruin anyone’s noble ideas that people were naturally good. Kane knew, especially in a desperate situation such as theirs, the chances of meeting up with someone who had not devolved to some form of barbarism were scarce. He stood in a natural stance, knees slightly bent, with his weight just forward on his toes, and waited.
A dune buggy, rusted and beaten with a ram grate welded to the front, sped into the parking lot and screeched to a stop with its brakes locked. Human skulls with little bits of flesh still attached hung on the steel bars of the grate. Jumping from the vehicle, four men fanned out and into the light of the fire. Kane’s sixth sense was blaring and waving every red flag that he owned. These men had come to take something, maybe everything. Kane adjusted and began the diversion.
“Hey! What’s up, guys? I can’t believe it! We haven’t seen anyone in days. Where’d you guys come from? Are there other survivors there? Can you give us a ride?” Kane bumbled in the softest tone he could muster.
The front man shuffled up and into the firelight but said nothing as the others began boxing them in. Kane continued to blabber ridiculously as he analyzed the four men.
All four of them were dressed in a strange mix of clothing, except for the front man, who was in all black with a black leather jacket and a black ski mask over his head. The two on the left, closest to Molly had the look of wild uneasiness in their paint-covered faces. They were the new guys. The one on the far right, closest to Kane, had a purple mohawk, a lot of chains and spikes and was covered in war paint. Kane watched as the front man’s lips peeled back, revealing white teeth in a wicked smile that gleamed in sharp contrast with the black. These two were more seasoned. There was also a driver still in the buggy, covered in shadow. This was definitely some sort of gang, and they were not here to sing kum-ba-yah. Kane stopped babbling.
“Well,” he said as he lifted his hands up in a helpless gesture. “You’re, ah…welcome to share our fire with us if you want. We don’t have much food or—”
“Shut the fuck up!” spat the front man, the spittle clinging to the mask in a long string. “You squawk like a bitch,” he snarled, drawing out a black handgun. The other thugs brandished crude, barbaric weapons.
Kane shifted and allowed a look of visible fear to cross his face.
“Okay, um, I’m…I don’t know, can we help you with something?” his voice weak with the sound of frail emotion.
Kane watched the two on the left eyeing Molly with lust in their eyes. He clenched his hands, the sinewy muscles of his forearms binding against each other like steel cables.
Not yet.
“We’re here to take from you what you value most,” the front man said just above a whisper.
Kane’s voice cracked when he spoke. “But…we…we don’t have anything.”
“Oh, you have something. Everyone has something to offer,” he looked at Molly.
Molly remained motionless, a faint look of terror behind her steely eyes.
“Please, please, you…you don’t have to hurt us. We just…we’re…we just…” Kane whimpered.
The front man pointed the gun at Kane. “If I have to tell you to shut up one more time, I’m gonna spill your fucking guts in that fire while we take your girlfriend here for a little test drive.”
He paused, seesawing the gun back and forth as if thinking. “Actually, we’re just gonna do that anyway,” he said with a sinister smile, white like porcelin behind the fire.
The deception worked. In the midst of a series of pleading sobbs, Kane dropped to his right knee behind the fire and drew the Springfield. He fired three rounds at the front man.
The air shattered with human screams. Kane adjusted and drew down on the one with the mohawk as the crazed man came through the flames at him. With a crack, the .45-caliber round slammed into the goon’s upper right chest before the wild man sacked Kane and sent the gun sliding into the dark. Molly was groaning and thrashing on the other side of the fire, but he was unable to see her as he struggled madly with the vicious man who was now upon him.
Molly kicked hard at the skinny one’s groin but struck his thigh instead, pushing him back with both legs as she scrambled for the shotgun. The skinny thug lunged forward and smacked her in the side of the head hard with his forearm. Molly’s world reeled as the thug pinned her neck to the ground with his forearm. The other thug was on her now, tearing at her pants. Molly struggled and thrashed, but felt as though her head was going to pop from the pressure on her neck. The skinny one was suddenly up in her face as he shifted more weight onto her. His warm, stale breath washed over her face and smelled like festering rot.
“You’re not going to enjoy this,” he whispered in her ear. “But we will.”
Molly could feel the other one tugging at her, trying to loosen her pants. Her vision grew red and hazy as she bucked and gasped for air.
“Just cut her damn pants off already,” the skinny one was yelling.
Molly gave a final desperate, shuddering surge against her attackers as she flailed her limbs, gagging. The skinny thug leaned back and drove down, hitting her hard in the face with his free hand, bouncing her head against the pavement.
Light blazed in her mind from the impact, and she whimpered and became still as the energy continued to flow from her. With a far-off tearing sound, her pants came free and floated in hazy slow motion across her field of vision to land jumbled in a pile by the fire.
The jingling of a belt buckle and the sound of canvas pants sliding down became drowned in the thundering of her own heart. A single, lonely tear streamed out of her right eye as she lowered her hand beside her body in defeat—and felt her fingers touch the shotgun.
Kane and the thug rolled and rocked across the concrete as the mohawked man yelped and fought like a cornered, rabid dog. Kane braced the man’s right hand, which held a crude spiked mace that pressed down toward him.
“Tricky, tricky, getting Fagen like that! But a bullet won’t stop me!” Mohawk said in a crazy, high-pitched tone.
Mohawk broke free and came down with the medieval weapon, screaming like a wild man. Kane rolled to the side as the spikes dashed off the concrete. Mohawk swung again, but Kane blocked the blow with his left arm. He grabbed the wild man’s arm and struck it with the bony part of his forearm, knocking the club free.
A shotgun blast tore from the other side of the fire, followed by more wild screaming. Mohawk grabbed Kane’s shirt with both hands and dropped his forehead fast against the bridge of Kane’s nose with a crack. Kane’s eyes clouded and he could feel the blood run across his chin. Molly was crying.
“You diseased pigs better leave some for me,” Mohawk yelled across the fire.
Kane’s right hand clamped down behind the thug’s neck and pulled him in.
“You’re not going to make it to the party!” Kane hissed through bloody, clenched teeth.
Lashing out, Kane punched the gunshot wound and kicked the screaming man off of him. In a flash, he was on his feet, stepping in front of the man and grabbing a handful of his mohawk. Sweeping the man’s legs back, Kane drove the man off balance and headfirst into the coals of the fire. The wild man gave a girlish shriek and thrashed his hands deep into the burning coals as his head cooked. He pushed, writhing as Kane bared his teeth and shoved the man’s face further into the fiery embers. The man gurgled and relaxed. Releasing him, Kane was up and moving around the fire, drawing the Ka-Bar knife from his waist. To his right, the front man lay dead on the ground, a trio of holes in his chest. Beyond, the unmanned dune buggy sat rumbling. Kane moved to Molly and saw another groaning, dying thug, naked from the waist down, with a bloody shotgun pattern across his abdomen and genitalia.
A half-clothed Molly was scrambling and kicking at the skinny, painted thug who was raging and choking her.
“You think you’re a fighter, you little whore? You’re gonna die!”
The thug picked up the shotgun and moved to point it at her. In two steps
, Kane was there, stomping the thug’s gun hand against the brick wall next to him and twisting his boot to the sound of popping fingers. A frenzied scream shot from the man’s throat as he launched himself at Kane, his mangled hand clutched to his chest in the flickering light of the fire.
Body slamming against body, they hit the ground hard and rolled across the concrete, struggling with each other. Kane pulled the man hard against his own body, yanking his head to the side. Letting loose a fearsome cry, Kane drove the knife down behind the thug’s collar bone and worked it right to left, severing the carotid artery.
Terror and blood mixed in the air as Kane bore down and held on in desperation. The man shook and gasped, his eyes widening and then rolling back in his head as his frenzied movements slowed to a stop.
For an eternity, nothing moved in the flickering light of the scattered fire. After a tense moment of silence, Kane withdrew the knife with a spray of gore and rolled the body to the side. The dune buggy cranked up and squealed out in reverse with Kane’s duffel in the passenger seat. Kane jumped to his feet and ran out after the buggy, but it was gone, taillights disappearing into the night.
Balling his fists in the flickering light of the dying fire, Kane threw his head back and screamed, threatening the darkness that surrounded them as the blood of another man dripped from his chin. Chest heaving with uneven breaths, his weary eyes searched for unseen monsters, the knife dripping red splashes of color onto the concrete.
It had been a long time since he was forced to kill men like this. The gravity of what he had done began to soak into him, the weight of death and old feelings heavy on his shoulders. He felt weak, lightheaded.
It was one thing to kill at a distance, pulling the trigger on your target and watching him fall. It was something else entirely to kill a man in hand-to-hand combat. Up close, you could smell your enemy’s sweat, see the fear in his eyes, and feel him struggle as his life flowed from him. Those things never left a man, not for the rest of his days. Kane wrestled with his conscience as he tried to figure out if this level of violence, even if for noble reasons, was what God had wanted from him. In the darkness, he whispered a quiet prayer.