by Hunt, James
James chuckled, the laughter rolling out of him in waves that made him even more light-headed than before, and then slouched lazily in his chair.
The reaction caught Zi off guard. “I’m not making this up, James. I heard them talk about it while you were gone.”
James waved his hand and then rubbed his calloused palm against his cheek, already starting to feel the rough grain of his beard creeping in. It grew quickly. Mary used to complain he would get a five o’clock shadow at nine o’clock in the morning. “I believe you. It’s just…” James lowered his hand to his lap. “You try and do the right thing, give people the benefit of the doubt, and then they just end up burning you anyway.” He glanced back to the blood that had now filled a quarter of the jar.
“So what should we do?” Zi asked.
James smiled when he found Zi’s face. He liked how she was already speaking like they were a team. He adjusted himself in his seat, his eyelids starting to droop with fatigue. “We give them what they want. They don’t have to steal. So long as their requests are reasonable. But after they sleep on it, they might feel different.”
James was quiet for a moment, Zi’s voice becoming nothing but distorted echoes that took a while to travel into his mind. He scrunched up his face when he looked at her again. “What?”
“I asked if you wanted me to keep an eye on them until morning,” Zi said, repeating herself. “Are you all right, James?”
“Yeah. Fine.” James shut his eyes, no longer having the strength to keep them open. “Keep an eye on them. I don’t think they’ll do anything… But… Keep.. Eye… them.”
23
The blood still hadn’t dried. The hot night air had kept it slimy. The slice from the blade was clean and narrow across Xavier’s throat. His eyes still retained some of their golden amber, but they were lifeless.
Dillon Thompson adjusted his black gloves as he stared down at the fallen soldier. Dillon was taller than most of the fighters, thin and lean, his face covered with light brown scruff. His hair had receded, the hairline pushing back farther with every birthday, his baldness aging him well beyond his thirty-seven years.
Two fighters jogged up behind Dillon, both breathless from the journey. Both were decked out in tactical gear, covered in dust from the long trip. The shorter of the two stepped forward.
“We didn’t find him.” Emmanuel pulled down his bandana, exposing a patch beard of black and grey hairs that gave his face a rat quality to it. “There was a building, but it was abandoned.”
Dillon snarled. He had sent Emmanuel and Dante to the location where the doctor had told him to find Bowers, which he now understood was a ruse. A wild goose chase to bide time, and now that time had cost Dillon some of his men.
The town had been easy to take. But this was Dillon’s first taste of resistance, and it was a bitter medicine.
Dillon stood, leaving Xavier in the dirt. He would make sure the man had a hero’s burial. It was important for the other men to see that, to know that their sacrifice hadn’t been in vain.
One of the other fighters walked up to Dillon on his way to the bank, the pair weaving around the cars still lingering in the streets.
“Can we kill them?” Emmanuel smiled, exposing yellow, crooked teeth.
Like most fighters in their outfit, he had been pulled from the drug cartels in Central America. They were the easiest to transition to the makeshift army that had been constructed for their coordinated attack on the southern border.
“I want to question them first,” Dillon answered, his long strides causing Emmanuel to nearly break out into a jog as he walked alongside him. “If they don’t give me what I want to know, then you can have your fun.”
Closer to the bank, Dillon saw the bodies of those that had tried to escape. Limbs, torsos, and heads were all overlapping with one another.
Emmanuel and the others had asked if they should move the dead and start burning them before they started to stink, but Dillon had told them to hold off. He wanted the people who were still in the bank to see them. He wanted them to remember what they fought back.
The front of the bank was covered in bullet holes, and the windows had been shattered, bits of glass twinkling under the light of the lanterns that hung from the roof overhang.
The townspeople that had been too frightened to run were still huddled in the back of the bank, in the darkness. They shivered and whimpered, unsure of what kind of punishment awaited them. It was the uncertainty that frightened them.
Dillon remained in the street, staring at the blood and the bodies that had yet to be moved. The heat would increase the rate of decomposition. He plucked a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and bit one between his teeth as he pulled it from the pack.
The Marlboro bounced on his lips as he exchanged the pack of smokes for a lighter, then cupped his hand around the red Bic as he brought it to the tip.
The flame illuminated a pair of focused dark eyes that stared down at the fire as if it had come from his very soul.
With the cigarette lit, Dillon took a long drag, pocketed the lighter, and then pondered how he could use this to his advantage.
Dillon motioned for Emmanuel to come closer, and the fighter bid as he was told, waiting anxiously for his orders. Dillon knew that most of them wouldn’t be able to provide much insight, and he didn’t want to spend a lot of time with bullshit so he decided to speed things up a little bit.
“Bring me two of them,” Dillon said.
Emmanuel disappeared into the bank and returned with two unwilling volunteers, shoving both of them to the ground by Dillon’s feet. One was a man, middle-aged, trembling as he kept his head bowed, afraid to look up.
The second was a woman, but unlike her male counterpart, she lifted her eyes and stared at Dillon. She froze, unable to look anywhere but Dillon’s eyes, even when he knelt and moved close enough to see the cracks of her makeup.
Dillon took a drag from the cigarette and then blew the smoke in her face. “Who came here today?”
The woman opened her mouth, but instead of words there were only muted gasps of air, and then she finally bowed her head. “I don’t know.”
Dillon turned to the man, his head still bowed, still trembling like a child. “Do you know?”
“I-I-I don’t know either. I was just driving through for work when all of this happened.” The man scrunched his face up, snot running from his nose as he started to cry. “I don’t want to die. Please don’t kill me.”
Dillon stood, dropping the cigarette between the pair of sniveling cowards, and stepped on it with the toe of his boot. “Turn around. Both of you.”
Neither moved, and instead looked at each other.
“I don’t want to ask you again,” Dillon said.
Slowly, the man and the woman turned, and Dillon squatted between them and pointed into the bank. “You see those people inside? All the way in the back? Every single one of them was hoping that you’d be able to answer my questions. That way they’d be safe. But you couldn’t answer them, could you?”
“I don’t fucking live here, man!” Spittle flew from the man’s mouth as he clenched his fists at his side.
“No, you don’t.” Dillon stood, and then extended his hand to Emmanuel, who placed a pistol in his open palm. “But you’re going to die here.”
“NOO-”
The bullet sliced the top half of the man’s head off. The woman screamed, but it ended with another pull of the trigger.
The pair both collapsed forward on their stomachs, and the blood seeping from their wounds pooled together between them to form a large puddle of darkness. Pistol in hand, Dillon looked up from the bodies and at the crowd huddled in the darkness. He stepped over the bodies and methodically worked his way into the bank.
Dillon’s eyes adjusted quickly in the dark, and he saw all of the cowering faces huddled in the back.
“When I first came here, I told you that I didn’t want people to die,” Dillon said, taking his t
ime to fix each face he came across with a look that sized every person up, and Dillon was glad to find no heroes. “And in return, all I asked was for you to cooperate. To stay right here.” He pointed toward the floor.
“We did,” a woman said. She was crouched on the floor in the front row of the group. “We stayed. We didn’t run.”
“You didn’t run because there were people shooting the ones that did,” Dillon said, then pointed to the bodies near the door and out on the sidewalk. “But everyone dies. Death is the only reliable certainty in this world.” He walked across the old bank floors, the polish gone from them years ago, then stopped in front of the woman who had spoken. He knelt, narrowing his eyes as he examined her, and she covered herself with her arms even though she was still clothed. He reached for a lock of hair and rubbed the red and blonde streaks between his fingers. He could still smell the shampoo she had used this morning. “Death always wins.”
The woman shivered, looking away from Dillon, who only laughed in response. He stood, examining the rest of the group, and walked the empty space in front of their legs and shoes.
“I want to know who it was that came here,” Dillon said. “And I want to know why he came here, and I want to know where he went.”
“James Bowers!” The voice came from a man in the back. “He owns a ranch not far from here.”
“Why was he here?” Dillon asked.
“He took Nolan,” the man said, swallowing his fear.
Dillon tilted his head to the side, knowing that if this James Bowers had wanted the town doctor, then Bowers was in need of the doctor’s services.
Dillon knew that James Bowers could prove problematic. If he had a Humvee and weapons, then he had provisions, and provisions would attract people. And if he had enough guns, then he could arm those people and come back to retake the town.
“Come with me,” Dillon said, pointing to the man who spoke.
The man followed Dillon outside where his unit eagerly awaited their next move.
“There’s a ranch west of here,” Dillon said. “The man who gunned us down owns it.”
Emmanuel smiled, an excited energy running from him through the rest of the group.
Dillon gestured to the man who he’d brought out. “He will tell you how to find it. Kill who you want, but bring the doctor back alive.” Dillon had plans for the good doctor who had deceived him.
Emmanuel laughed and turned to his men, the group growing more excited as he relayed the orders in their native Portuguese, and then quickly dispersed.
Dillon reached for another smoke, letting this one dangle from his lips for a few minutes while he stared at the bodies of the fallen townspeople. He wondered how many piles of bodies were stacked in San Antonio, Dallas, New York, and Los Angeles. He imagined it was countless, more than he could have ever imagined.
Dillon flicked the lighter and brought the flame to the cigarette, knowing that there would be more piles added soon.
24
The house creaked despite Maya and Stevie’s careful steps. The wooden floors were just so old that it was impossible to remain completely silent, so they did their best to minimize the sound of their movements by staying in their socks and carrying their shoes until they made it outside into the early morning darkness.
“Maya,” Stevie said, his voice a harsh whisper. “C’mon!” He waved his hand forward, and his wife nodded as she descended the stairs quickly, sliding on the pack filled with food that they’d swiped from the kitchen.
Stevie wanted to put as much distance between themselves and the ranch as possible before daybreak broke and the others realized what they stole.
It was enough for them for a few days on the road. Because Stevie had a plan, and it was better than the fantasy that James and the others had bought into.
“Do you really think the police will help?” Maya asked, raising her voice as the house grew smaller behind them.
Stevie nodded, sticking to their path along the dirt road. “I don’t see how they couldn’t. It’s the best way for us to stay alive.”
Stevie adjusted the backpack of food and then glanced up at the night, grimacing at the stars and moon. When they reached the road, he was forced to stop.
“I think I got a fricking rock in there.” Stevie balanced on one foot while he dumped out the sediment he’d collected in his left shoe.
“It’s so quiet.” Maya watched the road ahead, a warm breeze brushing her hair back as she hugged herself. “I’ve never seen so much darkness before. I mean, it’s like there’s nothing out here.”
“Why do you think I wanted to leave?” Stevie worked his shoe back on and then quickly tied the laces. “It’s not safe for us out here.”
Maya frowned, continuing to scan the darkness. “I want to go back.”
Stevie straightened up, finished with his shoe. “What?”
Maya stepped closer to him, arms still squeezing herself tight. “It’s not too late. I don’t think anyone knows we left, what we did. People were still asleep.” She gestured to the bags of food and other supplies they’d taken. “We can put this stuff back before anyone wakes up.”
Stevie grabbed his wife’s shoulders and shook his head. “We can’t go back. I know this is scary, but we can’t live here like this.” He rubbed her arms in a reassuring gesture. “We’ll go to the police, and they’ll be able to help us.” He pointed back toward the ranch. “Those people aren’t the answer to our problems.”
Maya drew in a breath and then exhaled. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Good.” Stevie kissed her forehead, but when he pulled back, he saw something in the darkness. He frowned, unable to make out the shapes in the road. And by the time he realized what they were, the blades had already cut their throats.
The candle that had been lit on the kitchen table had burned halfway down, wax dripping down the sides, in messy, Jackson Pollock-like strokes.
James opened his eyes, his vision blurred with sleep, and saw the flickering candles that had been lit in the kitchen. He was still in the same chair where Zi had taken his blood. A bandage covered the needle’s puncture, and the jar that had collected his blood was gone.
James straightened up in his chair and saw the glass of water on the table. His fingers were numb and he struggled to bring the rim of the cup to his lips. He drank from it greedily, gulping half the glass before he took a break to come up for air. He rubbed his eyes, dry and filled with gunk as he squinted, struggling to keep them open.
No idea of the time, James finally managed to push himself up and out of the chair and stretched, his back popping with every twist of his waist.
The house was quiet, and James stepped carefully from the kitchen and into the living room, finding it empty and dark save for the moonlight that drifted through the front windows, the glow from the candle behind him in the kitchen causing his figure to silhouette.
James glanced down the hallway to his and Mary’s bedroom and saw the door was cracked open. The cramped and narrow space of the hall bothered him on his walk down, but he stopped just short of the door, staring at the crack, afraid to open it, afraid of knowing what was really on the other side.
James slowly placed his hand on the door knob, the brass warm. He quietly opened the door, then stepped inside and saw his son asleep in a chair next to his mother’s bed, who was also asleep. They were angelic, peaceful.
Like a ghost, James approached his family, kissing each of them, thankful that Mary was still alive.
With his back to the door, James didn’t hear Nolan approach and was startled when the old man touched his shoulder. Nolan pressed his finger to his lips and then motioned for James to follow him out of the room.
James nodded then scooped Jake from his chair and carried him to his room. He laid him down in his bed and then draped the bedsheets over his body.
With his son asleep, James found Nolan in the living room and then followed him to the front porch.
“I was able to get the bullet
out,” Nolan said, staring at the worn wooden floorboards in lieu of meeting James’s gaze. “From what I could see, the bullet didn’t strike any major organs, but I still have concerns.”
James swallowed, but his voice didn’t betray his nerves. “How bad?”
Nolan finally looked up at James. “Worst-case scenario is paralysis if the bullet damaged the spine, or one of her organs fails.” He held out his hands in a helpless gesture sort of way, his shoulders slumped as his body seemed to cave and collapse inwards. “I just can’t tell without any scan or x-ray. But I do know that the blood transfusion helped, along with the IV, and I think she has a good shot at recovery. She’s a fighter, James. Your whole family is.”
James should have felt better about Nolan’s prognosis, but it was the old man’s face that prevented James from the relief that his news brought. “What’s wrong?”
The frown lines along Nolan’s face deepened, and the old man looked one stiff wind from collapsing into nothing. He wiped the thin wisps of white hair back on his head, flattening them to his scalp, and took a deep breath that inflated his sloped shoulders and concave chest.
“If things go south, I won’t be able to save her, James,” Nolan said. “I know that’s pessimistic, but it’s the truth. I don’t have the expertise to deal with the complications from surgery. Lord knows what I might have done to her on the operating table. And we won’t know about the pregnancy until—”
“Pregnancy?” James frowned.
The moment Nolan looked at James, the old doctor realized he’d made a mistake. “I thought you knew.”
James glanced back to the house. “Mary’s pregnant?”
“She came to my office two weeks ago for a more official test,” Nolan said. “Everything looked fine, both parties were healthy. I gave her a prescription for prenatal vitamins. I think she was getting them filled in San Antonio when—”