This Burning Man (Future Arizona Book 1)

by Kris Holt

  'You must be imagining things. I ain't moving,' I said, though I was, just slower than before. My muscles tingled with the hit from the Candy Jack. One-on-one, hand-to-hand, I could give him a fair fight now. What I wanted to do and couldn't do was just fire into the darkness, because who knows who I'd hit? Damn, Cassie, where are you?

  'Gonna get this over with quickly,' Jensen said, 'cause I'm supposing that I'm wasting my time, but I thought I'd try, on my honor as a soldier. If you surrender now, I give you my word that I'll take you and your friends back into town alive. No-one has to die tonight. But if you insist on making a nuisance of yourselves, I'll see you all in body bags before dawn.'

  'Fuck you,' came a disembodied, gasping response to my side. Oh, Cass, thank you.

  There was a crackle of radio static, the thunder of voices, and then Jensen replied, 'Okay, move in now.'

  I fired my laser again, missing everyone by yards but earning enough light to see my way across the floor. Jensen's rifle went off; I stumbled but didn't see where the bullet went. Cassie was already there ahead of me, and the last thing I saw as the light died was her bringing her foot up like a pickaxe handle into Jensen's crotch. He folded into me as my muscles swelled. I pushed him up against the wall and ripped the night-vision goggles off his face, hoping as I did so that I was adding to his impressive collection of battle scars.

  'Cass,' I said, 'get downstairs and get the door.'

  'Too late,' Jensen said. I banged his head on the wall and brought his day to a premature close.

  Girl wasn't wasting any time, vaulting away through the hole that I'd smashed in the floor earlier. I pulled Jensen's goggles over my eyes, squinting at the new world before me. Then, I was back to the stairs we'd come down by and rushing over to the corner of the roof as Jensen's forces advanced on the rear side of the barber shop.

  My arms felt strangely heavy as I lifted them upwards. One of Jessie's grenades nestled in each hand. For a second, I could have sworn I had wings.

  I flicked those pins out and let go real quick.

  Sometimes a straight road ain't so straight after all. I know that there was someone watching over the scene as that rolling door clattered open two stories down and the alleyway on either side erupted in flames. I know that there was holy and unholy eyes on me as I slid down that grapple line in a hail of gunfire, just in time to land on the back of Rat's trike as it skimmed through the open doorway, crested the debris on the sodden floor within and disappeared through the crumbling walls on the other side, leaving a trail of burning bodies and useless T-shaped pistols in its wake.

  I could hear the humming of the trike engines as they moved from dirt tracks to sand and opened throttle. People were shouting, but this was Hole Town, and that was the sort of thing that happened. Someone lifted the goggles gently off my face. I stared up at the sky, keen to see the stars again. I couldn't really hear the voices. Rat took a hard right out of nowhere, shifting with the desert. The trike felt slick beneath me.

  'We were the last ones to leave,' I said. I was feeling so tired all of a sudden. This Candy Jack had worn off quick.

  'Phoenix, don't talk.' Jayci, suddenly above me, leaning on my stomach. That girl, always telling me off.

  'That's how it should be,' I said. 'Get out last, be the hero.'

  Rat was normally so focused but she kept glancing back at me, and then I saw her face was smeared with tears.

  'Is he gonna be okay?' she asked.

  'I'm fine,' I said, and then when I tried to sit upright, pain lanced from my stomach to my everywhere. I gasped and reached down with my hands to steady myself just as my arms gave way, pitching me back onto the bloody floor of the trike.

  Jayci again, her face my world, her hands pressing down on firmly on my stomach. Talking through her own tears.

  'Phoe-phoe, you have a rifle round in your gut. Stay still for me, darlin', you hear? Stay still, and stay with me. We're gonna get you help.'

  Sometimes a straight road ain't so straight after all.

  Chapter 27 – This Mournful Day

  After the shock there was pain, but that quickly soothed itself away, like cramp in a muscle. You'd think there'd be a thing or ten to worry about, what with the whole dying and all, but like jobs on a list when the sun comes out, sometimes you just gotta put everything behind you.

  And move on.

  I'd never really wondered what death would be like. I was a young man, and even in this poor world, it still came to many without a flash and a bang. Much more common to come in the length of days in a place where the sun has risen and set a hundred thousand times and never once given thought to the desires of man.

  A white cotton sheet; a cold wooden altar. I stared down, expecting that some of my blood might have leaked through onto it, but evidently I'd all bled out before then. The tops of my feet were poking out the far end. My skin looked paper-thin and blue.

  Looking around, I was in a building I recognized but couldn't quite place. The roof was high up and ridged, and desert light was shining through a single high window. I couldn't tip my head to see behind me, but the white walls were a giveaway.

  'I've been here,' I said to myself out loud. ' Jayci destroyed this place.'

  'Nothing of godly preserve can ever be truly destroyed.' I was momentarily silent until the face of Padre Reyes came into view. The elderly priest pushed a narrow wad of cloth underneath my head and then flicked holy water over me, splashing it onto my face. I waited for him to finish giving me the rites in Latin.

  'Plenty of godly things have been destroyed,' I said. I half-expected him to chastise me for speaking ill in front of the dead. I guess maybe you got a free pass when you actually were the deceased.

  'And yet you know of them, and so these are things that live on within us,' the Padre said.

  I watched him walk across the room and open a cupboard. He tugged out a pile of vestments and began to slowly fold them.

  'Am I...am I living on within you right now?' I asked.

  'This was a bad time for you to fall. Hole Town needs its virtuous sons now more than ever,' Padre Reyes said sadly. 'Right this moment, Nate Di Vio's men are pulling down the Fallen Cross.'

  'What? Why?' I was genuinely shocked by that.

  'They're planning to repurpose it, use the metal to build some horrific effigy that will be the star of their little circus. They said no-one will mind as it was falling over anyway. It's an affront to the town, a blasphemy. But who's going to stop them? I'm an old man, it's not in my power. All I can do is pray for all our souls.'

  I lay there, feeling like I'd let the father down. The old man just carried on folding his clothes, trembling with every movement. Somewhere out in the cosmos, If Gregor had been right, the sun was looping closer to Earth with every turn, soon set to scorch everything on the surface. Some part of me felt maybe it was best to be out of that. Get to heaven now, avoid the rush.

  'Padre,' I said, 'I've been a believer all my life. I worked hard and I glorified God. Is my reward going to be eternal life?'

  He waited for a long time before he replied. 'How are your Bible verses, Phineas?'

  'Good. I mean, I think so. It's been a while.'

  The old man busied himself with more menial tasks. 'Luke 24:5.'

  'Um...wait, I know it. In their fright, the women bowed down with their faces to the ground and the men said to them, "Why are you looking for the living among the dead?"'

  The old man's face remained inscrutable. He gave me no hint as to whether my answer was correct.

  'I am the resurrection and the life,' he said. 'The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.'

  I took a deep breath and then stopped, amazed that I'd breathed. When I tried again, nothing happened. My chest was still and empty beneath the shroud.

  'Concentrate, Phineas.'

  'Phoenix, Padre. How many times? My name is Phoenix.' When the father glanced at me disapprovingly, I added, 'It has to be Phoenix. I don't even know why. I onl
y know that it's important.'

  'I am the resurrection and the life.'

  'John 11:25,' I said.

  Padre Reyes finished his busywork and paused, as though listening to something in the distance. A small smile appeared on his lips. 'We might make a Bible scholar of you yet,' he said, before disappearing out of sight behind my head.

  I felt tired then, and rested a while. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. And then, just when it seemed that there might be never be anything else that mattered again, I felt warmth on my cheek. I opened my eyes and found myself lying in a shallow plot of warm sand. A few feet away, Piano Man was sitting in his usual seat, fingers blurring tunefully across the ivories.

  'Is this the Sands?' I said.

  He replied without looking round. 'Everywhere you know is the Sands. And this is everywhere. And nowhere, all at once.'

  'Stands to reason that I'd see you after the priest.'

  'I thought I'd do the decent thing and let them go first.'

  'Very civil of you.'

  The wind was warm, and it wafted across me as I lay in the sand. Small drifts built up against my limbs, and I waited there, as though time was a thing and it was going to give me back my strength.

  Piano Man seemed irritated by my presence. 'Are you just gonna lay there forever?'

  I was up then in one movement, a fist knotted around the collar of his impeccable concert shirt and jacket. 'On the subject of forever, I shouldn't be here. I paid my money and I followed your instructions to the letter. I had the choice of left and right and I went straight ahead. Ergo, I should not be dead.'

  He shrugged, apparently unconcerned. 'Clearly some part of you still exists to throw your weight around. Did you have somewhere else you needed to be? Perhaps you have a luncheon appointment with the President or something?'

  I pulled him fully upright, completely out of his seat, and even now, one hand stayed in place, picking out an insane tune on the keys. 'If I'm dead, I don't have any reason to fear you. So you might want to give me one reason why I shouldn't beat several shades of shit out of you right here and now.'

  Piano Man leaned away and pointed downwards just as the sudden unfamiliarity of my own movements shocked me.

  'Thanks to me, you've arisen! As if from the dead.'

  I let go of him to stare at my own fist. No longer was it shriveled and blue, like something dead. It was tan, weathered, looking every bit like the hands I knew. Piano Man began to laugh, and in the silence all around us it was a sick, sick noise. It sounded like a dying man struggling for breath.

  'You didn't do that,' I said. 'You didn't do nothing.'

  'Before I was here, you hadn't moved a muscle. One minute in my company, you're on your feet and threatening people with indiscriminate violence.' He paused to wipe away an imaginary tear. 'I'm not sure I've ever been more proud.'

  I flexed my fist a couple more times, savoring the movement. 'I ain't giving you a chit. Just so we know that from the off.'

  He leaned towards me. 'I'll let you in on a secret. Everything here is all happening in your own head. And I can hardly charge you rent there, right?'

  'If you're in my head, does that mean you know what I'm thinking?' A hundred insults jostled for room, fighting for the place at the head of the queue.

  'I know what you're thinking before you do, but that ain't nothing to do with me being in your head,' Piano Man replied. 'And anyway, you got more than your head to worry about. Remember what happened yet?'

  As soon as he put the questions to me, my stomach began to ache. I doubled over, reached my hands down under my shirt, felt the bandages that had been applied to a wound there. They were yellow and oozing. That couldn't be good. My skin was tender to the touch, so I forced myself to stand upright and pull my shirt down once again.

  Piano Man played Yankee-Doodle Dandy one last time, at a much slower tempo than before.

  'This Southern boy knows only life and that's what makes him brave, there's a fire there that burns so bright, it could save him from a grave...'

  I closed my eyes, concentrated on overcoming the pain. As I did so, the music faded away. 'I don't want to die,' I said.

  When I opened them again, Piano Man was gone. The pain in my belly remained and my muscles felt heavy, like I was carrying them rather than the other way round.

  There was nothing where he'd been sitting to suggest that he'd ever been there. Not a movement in the air, or an imprint in the sand. He'd said that this was all happening in my own head. I wondered if this was it - if a Hunter's version of heaven or hell is the place they stalked in their lifetime. The yellow sky above me was clear, familiar, but the sand was ceaseless. If I was haunting here forever, forever was gonna be a long, long time.

  With nowhere else to go, I crested the closest dune to find a bumpy desert road beneath me, all compressed dirt and yellow camber. I looked at it for a moment or two, wracking my memory, trying to remember if this was a significant place somehow, but nothing came to me. It was only when I stepped onto the side of the road itself that I heard a humming begin in the distance. A small cloud of dust preceded a motorbike as it approached.

  I stood and watched, passive, as the bike pulled alongside, slowed, stopped. The person who got off was the same size and build as me. She even had the same eyes. She was older than I remembered - heck, isn't everyone? - but she had a beautiful face, beautiful to me, one that no amount of time was going to change. She also had a drawn-out rhythmic voice, something that I remembered only right at that moment.

  She said, 'Phoenix? Is that you?'

  'Hi Mom,' I said. It was about all I could manage.

  I think I cried. I say I think because I know I don't know for certain, because nothing that's there could surely be happening for real. And yet it felt so much like it that if she'd asked in that moment, I would have stayed forever.

  'Phoenix. My boy,' she said, pressing her calloused palm to my cheek. Her touch reminded me of something, though not something that seemed important at that moment.

  I struggled for words. What am I saying, I was struggling for everything. 'I been looking for you,' I said, after a while.

  She hugged me then, pulled me so close that I could smell the leather of her coat. 'Ssshhh. It's okay. I know you have. And yet, I've been right here all along.'

  'Where is here exactly?'

  'Oh, come on, now. I think you know.'

  I sniffed, wiped a dirty hand under my wet eyes and nose. 'I think I just made this all up because I need something. Like, if I don't do it, I might just float away. And yet, it still don't seem like it means anything. I came from where I came from, and ended where I ended. Everything inbetween just seems like...a dream.' The last word came out kinda lame, because this felt like a dream too. I couldn't explain it, but I was doing my best. Tying myself in knots.

  My mom's face was so kind. You'd never have believed that she could knock out a six-foot man with one punch. 'There was nothing wrong with where you started out,' she said.

  'So it's just since you left that it all went wrong? 'Cos it feels that way. And it's not just me that's been looking. I have a sister too. She's a few years younger, been living out in the Sands, where they saw you last. You never once said.'

  Now it was her turn to cry. 'I'm so sorry. I wanted to tell you. I wanted us all to be together. But there wasn't anywhere we could just be, and I felt so messed up that I just couldn't think straight.'

  Tears dry quick under sun that hot. We sat in silence for a minute or two after we were done, and then we both looked down at her empty holster at the same moment. It felt like a sign.

  'You still have your gun?' she said.

  'It's your gun,' I said. 'I was going to give it back when I found you.'

  She smiled. 'It was always meant as a gift to you, just like the locket was a gift for Rat. I'm sure you're both making me proud. Did Padre Reyes treat you well?'

  'Uh, yeah. He was kind. He even gave me the last rites a little while ago.'


  'See, you can't complain. I never got those.'

  It felt like the silliest conversation, especially here and now, but it cleared a few things up for me.

  'So are you definitely dead then?' I asked. It was looking like something else we had in common.

  'Phoenix,' my mother sighed, leaning into her motorbike. 'I know you want answers. But you gotta ask yourself what you're really trying to find. You had your last rites from the Padre, yet here you are. And here I am. Sometimes the answers are inside ourselves all along.'

  'It just don't feel like I found anything worth having in my whole damn life,' I said, despondent.