by D. Gideon
“I’m tellin’ you bro, if there’s more stuff in here like that, we could pawn that shit,” a young man’s voice said. “It’ll be easier than trying to sell a whole Porsche.”
I stopped short, and behind me the other three stopped too.
“What about that nigger we saw?” another voice said.
“That’s what we’ve got this for,” the first voice said.
I couldn’t tell where they were. Clouds had moved in, making it so that I couldn’t see more than ten feet in front of me despite the dirty skylights. My hands were full and my flashlight was in my pocket.
I turned and jerked my head to the side, trying to warn the others to hide. I didn’t even know if they could see what I was doing, but I couldn’t risk saying anything. There was nothing nearby for me to hide behind; I’d passed into the section where the sides of the aisles were lined with low pallets of house windows stood up onto their sides. I started moving quickly forward and to the side of the aisle, hoping there’d be something taller ahead.
There was a loud clang and a curse, and then a flashlight beam came on, aimed straight at me. It flashed away and then back, and I froze.
“Holy shit! Look what I found! Don’t you move, bitch. Don’t you fuckin’ move,” the second voice said.
There was a wolf whistle. “Looks like the nigger’s got himself a white ho,” the first voice said. “Chuck, go push that door up so we can see. Don’t want that ape sneakin’ around us while we’re getting friendly with his woman.” There was a scuffling of footsteps and then the big rolling door we’d left cracked open went flying up on its rollers, bathing that end of the warehouse in light. I could see two people standing in the aisle, and one more running back from the door.
“I don’t make it a habit of getting friendly with people that call my friend a nigger,” I said. They were about thirty feet away, and not moving…probably wanted to figure out where Corey was first.
“Yeah? Well I’ve got a shotgun here that says you’ll get as friendly as I want you to,” the first voice said. All I could see was his silhouette, and I couldn’t tell if he was bluffing. “So like he said, don’t fuckin’ move. I don’t even have to aim with this thing to put a hurtin’ on you. Where’s your boyfriend?”
I resisted the urge to turn around and look. If they couldn’t see Corey, maybe that meant that he, Mel, and Marco had been able to hide.
“He went outside to put stuff in the truck,” I said. “He’ll be walking up behind you any second now, and then it’ll be really bad for you. You should leave.”
“Lyin’ bitch,” the second voice said. “We saw your man drop all that shit and come back in here. Where’s he at?”
“Call your boyfriend in here and let’s get him taken care of,” the first voice said.
“What do you mean ‘taken care of’?” I said. “You’re the ones that are gonna get taken care of.” I started forward, trying to either call their bluff or make them think I had something they couldn’t see.
There was the unmistakable sound of a bolt racking a round, and I froze again.
“Call him!” the first voice demanded. “Trust me bitch, I ain’t playin’!”
I didn’t want to say Corey’s name; didn’t want to give them any more information than they already had.
I whistled as loud as I could, waited a second, and yelled. “We got company out here!”
“You ain’t really gonna shoot him, are you?” I heard a squeaky third voice say. That must’ve been Chuck. “I came out here to get a Porsche, Woody. I didn’t sign up for killin’ nobody.”
“I won’t have to kill nobody if he cooperates,” Woody, the owner of the first voice, said. “We’ll just tie him up and have some fun with his woman here. You want some free snatch with your car, don’t you?”
After hearing Chuck’s voice, I took a stab in the dark. “If you think I’m gonna let a couple of teenage virgins anywhere near this, think again. I’m a vet. I cut balls off for a living.”
“I ain’t no virgin!” Chuck squeaked.
“Well you ain’t out of puberty yet,” I shot back. If I could get one of them pissed off enough, maybe he’d break off from the other two and come at me. If Marco and Corey were waiting for an opening, that might be enough. I had my bushcrafting knife on my hip, and I knew I could drop what I was holding and get it out of the sheath by the time Chuck made it to me.
“She nailed you, bro,” the second voice said, snickering.
“Shut the fuck up, Jake,” Chuck snarled, but he didn’t move. “Like you’ve got room to talk.”
“Doesn’t sound like your balls have dropped too far either, Jake,” I said, putting a sneer into my voice.
Jake started sputtering and Woody yelled for everyone to shut up. The other two quieted, but kept muttering under their breath.
“Your man must be afraid,” Woody said. “That, or he don’t like you too much. Call him again.”
I couldn’t think of another way to split them up, and trying to piss them off didn’t seem to be working. At least, not yet. Maybe if they thought they’d get caught, they’d run. Knowing Corey wouldn’t take the bait, I looked around like I was starting to get scared.
“Help!” I yelled. “Help!” I whistled again as loud as I could. “I need help in here!”
By the light of the rolling door, I saw a low shadow creep around the edge of a pallet behind them.
Chapter 9
Tuesday, September 4th
Easton, Maryland
“I didn’t say yell for help, bitch. I said call your man!” Woody stepped forward, into Jake’s flashlight beam, and I could finally see more than his silhouette. He couldn’t have been eighteen yet, even though his voice had sounded older. He was pale and pock-marked, dressed in a style that said he was trying hard to be ‘gangsta’ even though he lived in a small city in the middle of soybean fields. His shotgun was a beauty, all wood furniture and carved details that said it wasn’t anything he could afford on his own. He’d probably swiped it from his father’s truck. He held it at his hip, one hand on the barrel and his other hand wrapped around the stock with his finger through the trigger. People who held shotguns like that had only fired them in video games, not in real life. Real fear blossomed from my middle. This idiot could fire at me without even realizing he’d done it.
“Make me,” I said, faking disdain. “This ain’t Overwatch and you ain’t Road Hog. Take your finger off the trigger before you blow your foot off,” I sneered.
“Bro! She’s a gamer!” Chuck said.
“Screw Road Hog. I’m fuckin’ Reaper, bitch. You wanna see?” He jabbed the shotgun at me. “You got ten seconds to get your boy out here or I’m filling you full of lead.”
“The only thing you’re gonna fill is your shorts,” I said. “You ain’t got the balls to touch me, much less shoot me.”
“I’ve got a gun and you’re gettin’ froggy with me? You got something to prove? Hop on up here, then,” Woody said, stepping forward again.
Behind them, the low shadow moved closer. Corey could never get that low with his long legs. It had to be Marco, getting ready to spring.
Come just a little closer, I thought. Move away from your buddies…
I dropped my stuff on the floor and put my arms out in challenge. “I’ll prove you’re a pussy that’s all mouth and no balls. Why haven’t you come and got some yet? You afraid of a girl? Yeah. You know I’m gonna kick your a-”
“Shut the fuck up!” Woody yelled, lunging forward and raising the shotgun.
The shadow behind him moved like lightning, flying forward between the other two boys and striking Woody’s leg. Woody screamed and jerked, and a blossom of fire burst from the shotgun barrel with a roar.
Lead shot tore into my right side and I dropped to the ground, trying to make a smaller target. The shotgun boomed again and then I could hear screaming, feet pounding the concrete, and angry, vicious growling.
“Get it off! Get it off! It’s fucking
eating me!” Woody screamed. I scrabbled around, turning on my stomach. Blood poured into my right eye. I wiped at it and blinked hard, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Jake’s flashlight lay on the ground, dropped when the boy took off. Woody lay in front of it on his stomach, screaming and writhing like a bug pinned to a board. A black shadow tore at his leg. I saw King’s head come up, pulling strings of flesh and muscle free before snapping down again.
Marco darted from the side, grabbing up the shotgun. In one smooth motion he shouldered the gun and aimed the barrel at Woody’s head. Corey came from the other side of the aisle, skidding to a stop and backing up a step when he saw King.
“King! Enough! King!” Marco yelled, but the big dog kept mauling. Woody screamed in agony.
“Ripley! I cannot get a clean shot!” Marco called out.
I pushed myself to my knees and winced. My right shoulder was on fire. “Don’t shoot him! King! King! Stop!”
King let go immediately. He backed off of Woody and stood there, lips pulled back and growling, huge teeth covered in blood.
“Don’t shoot him,” I said again. Mel slid to her knees beside me and her face went grey.
“Oh shit, Rip,” she said. “This ain’t good.”
“I’m not going to shoot him,” Marco said. “Call him. Get him out of the way.”
“I mean the kid,” I said, wiping at my eye again. The blood just kept coming. My face burned all down my right side. I could feel blood dripping off of my chin. “Don’t shoot him.”
“What?” Marco and Corey said together, and I pushed myself up. My foot slid a little, and I looked down to see a smear of blood on the floor. My blood.
“Rip you might wanna…” Mel started, and she fluttered her hands around my arm. I looked over and blinked.
“Shit,” I said, seeing all the holes in my shirt and the wet lines dribbling down from them. No wonder my shoulder was on fire. “I got shot.”
“No shit you got shot,” Mel said, voice rising. “Your face is…and your hair…”
I frowned at her and she reached up and grabbed a handful of my hair, then let go and thrust her hand in front of my face.
“Your hair is fucking red, Ripley,” she said. Her hand was covered in blood.
I pushed my hand through the warm, sticky mess that was my hair. I felt a bump on my skull and stopped. I felt around some more. Another, and another. More. There were pellets under my skin. Scalp wounds bled like crazy, and those pellets would need to come out. I pushed at one of the holes in my shirt and hissed. Another one there. I touched another on my shoulder. There, too.
“Shiiiiit,” I said again.
“Don’t shoot me! Please don’t shoot me! I wasn’t gonna do nothin’, I swear!” Woody whined, arms bent at the elbows and hands waving over his head. “I was just playin’!”
“You were going to rape her,” Marco said, and the tone of his voice made me look up.
“No man, no, I swear. We was just playin’…I need help, man. I need an ambulance. It hurts so fuckin’ bad-”
“You were going to rape her,” Marco said again. “And if you’ll rape one, you’ll rape more.”
“No no no no no,” Woody said, voice rising. “We came to get some cars. That’s all. We saw a guy come out of here with some stuff and thought we’d take a look. That’s it man, I swear! Please don’t shoot me. Please.”
“You shot her,” Corey said. “Why the hell shouldn’t we do the same to you?”
“Let him go,” I said. “It’s not like he can come after us anyway. Look at his leg. He’ll be lucky to walk again, and that’s if he gets help soon enough.”
“Yeah, bro, I swear I ain’t gonna follow you,” Woody said. “I need an ambulance-”
“Melanie, take Ripley outside,” Marco said. “She needs light so she can see her wounds.”
I looked at Corey, but he just gave me a grim nod and then bent to pick up the flashlight. He walked around Woody to stand with Marco, and wouldn’t look back at me.
“C’mon,” Mel said, moving around me and taking my left arm. “Let’s get your Band-Aids and shit.”
I pulled away from her and walked up beside Marco, keeping my hand pressed on my shoulder to slow the bleeding.
“I’ve killed enough people today, Marco,” I said.
“Oh god oh god oh god,” Woody said. He broke into full-out sobbing, begging for us not to kill him. King, evidently satisfied that the threat had been neutralized, trotted to the door and lay down in the sun.
“His buddies will come back for him. They’ll patch up his leg. And the next time they find a woman alone, they’ll do this again,” Marco said. He pulled his face away from the shotgun’s stock and gave me a hard look.
“Will you let another woman be brutalized, perhaps even murdered, because you would not do what needed to be done?”
“I won’t. I swear I won’t. Oh god please I’ll never even look at a woman again I swear please,” Woody babbled.
I held Marco’s gaze without flinching. “Look at him, Marco. He’s just a kid. He’s so scared he probably won’t ever leave his house again.”
“He shot you, Ripley. He was going to rape you. He was going to take turns raping you with his friends,” Marco said. The skin around his eyes were tight, his voice low. “He…hurt…you. He will do the same to..someone’s sister.”
That’s what this was about. Not me, but Marco’s sister. He wasn’t going to let this kid go.
“Marco, I’m not your sister. I’m okay. I’m standing right here,” I said.
“Go outside, Ripley,” he said.
“I’m not leaving so you can kill him. He’s a ki-”
The shotgun roared, making all of us jump. All of us, except Marco. He never looked away from me.
We stood frozen, speechless. The only sound was the ringing in our ears from the blast, and King’s panting in the mid-day heat.
Marco let the stock fall from his shoulder and looked at each of us.
“Everyone, get your things. We need to get somewhere safe and tend to Ripley’s wounds. We leave in two minutes.” He stepped around us and walked back up the main aisle.
I couldn’t move. I was afraid to look down and see what was left of Woody. Marco had just…executed him.
Corey glanced down and looked away. “You two go on out. I’ll get your things,” he said.
“Yeah,” Mel said, her voice just a whisper. “C’mon, girl. Let’s get in the truck.”
She took my arm and pulled again.
This time, I let her lead me away.
Chapter 10
Tuesday, September 4th
Easton, Maryland
I sat in the passenger seat holding a towel to my face while Corey navigated the truck through Easton, both trying to go fast enough to discourage anyone from trying to stop us, and slow enough that we could see what was going on. It didn’t help that the truck sounded like it was going to stall anytime we slowed down.
We were looking for some place that might have antibiotics. We knew the dedicated pharmacy stores like CVS and Rite-Aid would already be cleaned out, and driving past one had confirmed that. Our next option was hoping the in-store pharmacies of grocery stores and mega-stores like Target or Wal-Mart hadn’t been hit, but after our experience at Target, I didn’t have much hope for that, either.
I had Corey’s ICOE booklet in my lap, directing him where to turn. We swung into an Acme parking lot on Marlboro Drive, the truck sputtering and coughing.
“This one’s out, Rip. Look at that,” Corey said.
It had become a familiar sight. Doors and windows busted in, packaging and debris strewn all around the entrance. The inside of the store gaped dark and forbidding, and there weren’t even people going in anymore.
“Try Harris Teeter,” I said. “A little further up Marlboro on the left.”
“What happens if you don’t get antibiotics?”
“I might not need them. It’s insurance. But the p
ellets might have taken little fibers of my shirt into the wounds that we won’t be able to get out.”
“And they’ll get infected,” Corey said.
“Probably, yeah,” I nodded. My face ached. It hurt to talk. My right shoulder felt as if it had been hit by a sledgehammer. I needed to stop and get these pellets out, but if we could find antibiotics, it was worth waiting another ten minutes.
Harris Teeter was out, too. Not only did it look like it had been picked clean, but we could see patches of fire inside. We pulled up close to the store and just stared at the destruction.
“What the hell happened? Why is it like someone just flipped a switch and everyone went bat-shit crazy?” Corey asked. “You can tell this all went down this morning. Those fires haven’t even had time to spread.”
I traced a finger on the ICOE map and sighed. “One last try; go over there and across the road. There’s a Target and a Petsmart. If Target’s cleaned out-”
“You know it will be,” Corey interrupted.
“Then I’ll go in Petsmart and get fish antibiotics,” I said. “Most people don’t even know they’re the same thing people use, and everyone’s fish are probably dead by now, so there’s no reason to steal them.”
“We need to just get you cleaned up,” Corey said, turning the wheel and heading towards the parking lot exit. “Those stores are going to look just like all these others.”
“It might be okay,” I said. “Nobody hit the Petsmart last night by the hotel.”
The Petsmart sat between a Target and a Famous Footwear that were both gutted. Unlike the one across the bridge, this Petsmart hadn’t been left alone. The same destruction we’d seen at the other stores had swept through here, too, and as we pulled closer, a small group of people came running out. They were whooping and cheering, with bandanas tied over the lower half of their faces. They ran straight from the Petsmart towards the Famous Footwear store, where they split up. Some stayed out on the sidewalk, the others disappeared inside.