by D. J. Molles
“Where are we going?” Tria asked.
“This ain’t Pecan Avenue,” Virgil griped, righting himself in his seat, only to be undone again by a vicious pothole that made a sound like a mine had exploded under the truck.
“Jesus Christ!” Tria gasped.
“Hit the field,” Walter said, pulling himself with significant effort so that he occupied the space between the two front seats. He thrust an arm out across Tria’s body pointing to the left. “Cut along those trees right there.”
Tria didn’t hesitate.
The truck lurched left. It departed gravel and went into soft dirt. The sound of hydroponics lines being ripped apart beneath their chassis was a steady thump-thump-thump as the truck pulverized them in its path.
“Do I just keep going?”
“Hold on,” Walter blurted, trying to peer through the darkness, trying to magically create some better nightvision for himself through sheer focus.
Tria slowed.
“No, keep going!”
“You said ‘hold on’!”
Walter pumped his hand in a forward direction. “Go that way!” Then he turned to Virgil. “Get ready to run. We’re gonna have to carry Getty, okay?”
“Where are we?” Virgil looked concerned.
“We’re not far from Pecan. There’s a cut through the woods. We can be there in a little bit.”
Virgil nodded vigorously. “Okay. Ready.”
“Tria, bury this shit in the trees.”
“What?”
“Pull it hard into the trees and bury it in. Don’t let up.”
“Ah, shit,” she cringed. “Hold on back there!”
She pulled the wheel to the left and the truck bounded obediently out of the field and into the woods. The green branches enveloped them and for a wonderful moment it seemed like nothing was going to obliterate them.
Then something slammed-scraped the side of the truck and a half a second later they rammed into a tree.
Walter flew forward, but his legs in the backseat kept him from flying violently out of the windshield. His hips hit the center console with a vicious jab, and his face hit the dashboard with a dull crunch. He felt Getty’s body tumble down onto him and a moment later, Getty’s voice trying very hard to hold back a scream. And Virgil’s voice along with him, alternately cursing up a storm and gently telling Getty that he was going to be okay.
His hips and his guts still aching from the blow, Walter pushed himself up and shoved open the passenger door. It caught on something—some brambles or a small sapling—but he managed to get it open enough that he could tumble his way out. He stood in the dark forest and he listened for the sound of the guntrucks, but all he could hear was the ticking of the engine and something sizzling that sounded like bacon in a pan.
He let the rifle hang loose against his chest and he reached back in to grab Getty.
Chapter 18
Why am I the one telling them what to do?
This was the question that kept circling around in Walter’s head as they hauled Getty through the woods, the man hanging between Walter and Virgil, limping along and holding onto consciousness with some apparent effort.
Perhaps he was expecting too much from them. It shouldn’t be a shock that they didn’t know the backwoods of 8089 like Walter did.
Maybe it was a mark in their favor that they were willing to stand down and let him take control in the name of expediency.
But despite his reasoning, he found himself resenting Virgil, and even Tria by proxy. Tria’s only defense was that she seemed to be shitty towards everyone. But Virgil had acted as though Walter was a drain, a drag, a leech.
Hadn’t even trusted him enough to give him a weapon.
And now, when his ass was to the fire, he was suddenly more willing to respect Walter.
And it made Walter wonder if perhaps he hadn’t been deserving of that respect the whole time.
Up ahead of them, Walter could see the twinkle of a light through the trees. He slowed, and Virgil slowed with him, and then Tria, who was a few paces ahead, stopped and looked back at them.
“What is it?” Tria whispered through her heavy breathing.
Walter pointed skyward. “Virgil, you got the scanner?”
Virgil nodded, adjusted his grip on Getty, and fished around for the scanner. He pulled out the monocular. Gave the sky a good look up above them. Then all around. He brought the scanner down and shook his head. “Nothing that I can see.”
Walter nodded his head toward the lights beyond the woods. “I think that’s Merl’s house. You guys stay here. Don’t move until I tell you the coast is clear, got it?”
Virgil and Tria both nodded. They accepted it.
“I’ll whistle,” he said, and turned away from them.
He pushed through the woods, to the edge of it.
The house began to materialize. The light wasn’t from the house itself. The light was from the pale glow of the lamp that hung on the power line that fed the house from the street, which was almost a quarter mile away. It cast a hazy, bone-white palor over everything, and a cloud of moths and gnats hovered madly around it, wanting something they would never get.
He stood at the edge of the woods for a few minutes, staring at the house.
He wondered if it really was Merl’s house. He had been to Merl’s house before. He knew what it looked like. But he’d never looked at it from the woods. Never looked at it like this, in the dark, sleeping and quiet. It felt disorienting and dreamlike.
He also looked all around him. Tried to see if there was anything, maybe even just a sound, that was out of place. He didn’t put it past the CoAx or the Fed to know who Walter Baucom was, and who he knew on this stretch of highway. They knew everything. That was their power.
It was just a question of whether they could connect the dots faster than Walter could take advantage of them and bounce to the next.
In the disorienting, cold-sweat stillness of the night, Walter wasn’t sure how long he sat there. He felt like it had suddenly been too long, and then felt that maybe he was just impatient and it had only been thirty seconds or so.
He floated out of the woodline. That’s what it felt like for a few moments. It took him about five steps to actually start feeling his feet again. He knew that the battlerifle was still strapped to his chest. He considered ditching it, but then thought, What if there’s an ambush? So he clung to it and tried to shake the exhaustion out of himself.
New Breeds didn’t get exhausted.
The could be on their heels right now, tracking them relentlessly. Like machines.
They could be in the woods right now, slitting Virgil and Tria and Getty’s throats.
He took a wary glance over his shoulder, back into the woods, but it was just quiet blackness beyond the dimly-gilt shimmer of leaves.
He went to the back door of the house.
He hesitated at the door, feeling a nonsensical feeling of It’s so late and I’m going to knock on his door, but this was beyond convenience and general manners. This was life and death.
He knocked.
There was silence.
He could almost picture Merl inside, leaning up in bed, frowning, wondering, Did some asshole really just knock on my door?
Walter glanced around him again. Then he knocked a second time, louder than the first.
This time there was a noise from inside. A rustle. A grumble. A few curses.
Walter turned his body slightly, looked back towards the woods. Still nothing. Just…nothing. He pictured Virgil and Tria and Getty, lying on the forest floor, throats cut, or perhaps a neat incision at the base of their skull—yes, that would be quieter then all the gurgling…
He shook his head, took a breath and felt his dry mouth.
He needed water.
He heard footsteps from inside.
A light came on.
“The hell is this?” Merl’s voice said from inside.
Walter turned to face the door.
He slowly opened the door.
“Merl,” Walter said, quietly.
“Walt?” Merl seemed like he still couldn’t believe it. He looked down at the rifle that was strapped to Walter’s chest. Still just confused. No surprise just yet. He frowned at it. “Why do you have a gun, Walter?”
Walter leaned forward just slightly, looked at his partner earnestly. “Merl, is there anyone in your household that might sympathize with the Fed or CoAx?”
Merl blinked several times, then rubbed the corner of his eye were sleep had crusted. “Fuck no, man.”
Walter nodded. “I need help, Merl. I’m in a bad spot. I have a friend that’s been shot.”
“You have a friend that’s been…?” Merl shook his head rapidly. “Take him to a hospital, Walt!”
“We can’t go to a hospital,” Walter said urgently. “Do you even know what’s going on out there, Merl?”
Merl’s face was slack, but the eyes were starting to show some recognizance. They were starting to pull back the blanket of warm, hazy sleep and the mind was reacquainting itself with the chill of reality.
“They have the District closed off, Merl. No way in, no way out. We’re being hunted down. I need Ann to help my friend, Merl. Can she do that? Can you help?”
“Oh, Walter…shit…” Merl whispered, flummoxed.
Then a woman’s voice spoke up from behind Merl.
“I can help.”
Walter looked past Merl, and Merl turned slightly, surprised.
Ann stood in the entryway, just a pace or two behind her husband. She was wearing a tank-top and a pair of sweat-shorts. Her blonde hair was a frizz of nighttime mess, barely strangled into a ponytail that hung haphazardly off to the side. Her worn, tired face looked at Walter, and her eyes, though bloodshot and weary, were very clear.
“I’ll help,” she said again. “Bring him in.”
***
They brought Getty into the house and pulled him into the kitchen.
Walter was relieved just to see the three of them alive. He’d feared for a moment when he’d whistled back that nothing would respond to him except perhaps a barrage of bullets from a squad of New Breeds in the darkness. But then he’d seen them stumbling along, Tria’s small frame struggling to keep up with Virgil, and Virgil plowing thoughtlessly forward, and for a very brief moment he forgot that he had been angry with them.
In the kitchen, Ann hovered her way behind Getty and told them to bring him to the kitchen counter. Breathing and huffing, Tria and Virgil complied. They didn’t say anything else. There was no introduction between anybody.
Ann touched Getty on the shoulder and got his eye contact. “Can you sit up straight?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I can sit up.”
“You feel faint?”
“A little.”
“If you feel like you’re going to faint, let me know.”
“Okay.”
Ann nodded to Tria and Virgil. “Help him up onto the counter. Let’s check out that leg.”
Walter stepped in to try and help Tria but she shouldered him out of the way. Her white-blond hair fell into her face as she gave him a irritable sidelong look. But she was gassed. Pride or no pride, she’d given what she had to give physically and she struggled to help Getty up onto the countertop.
Even Virgil’s big, well-muscled bulk was slouched, sweat-stained, chest heaving.
Ann tapped Virgil’s shoulder. “Watch him,” she said, indicating Getty, and then she was gone in a flash.
Merl was standing there, out of the way of all the movement, frowning at Virgil. After a moment or two of silence, Virgil realized he was being stared at, and he looked up at Merl with a questioning glance.
“Aren’t you the sheriff?” Merl asked. “Sheriff Honeycutt?”
Virgil shifted his weight, sucked a few breaths as he prepared his answer. “Probably not anymore.”
Merl ran a hand over his head, through his short, gray-brown hair. For the first time shock was showing itself on his features. His eyes were widening a bit at this stark new reality. He made a gentle, bewildered raspberry noise. Then his eyes found Walter. And then they hardened a bit.
“Can I speak with you?” he said, stiffly.
Walter didn’t really say yes or no.
Merl crossed the kitchen and caught Walter by the arm and half-dragged, half-guided him out of the kitchen and back into the entryway of the back door.
The back entryway was also the laundry room and mudroom. The smell of clean laundry battled with the swampy smell of muddy workboots.
“What the fuck, man?” Merl said, shakily.
Walter stood there, then slouched himself against the wall.
Behind Merl, he saw Ann trot back into the kitchen, this time carrying a big red case with a white cross on the side of it. Her field medic kit. Hopefully it would be enough to fix the wound.
What then?
Where did they go from here?
“Hey!” Merl snapped his fingers in front of Walter’s face. “Are you even listening?”
Walter blinked a few times. He looked around like he wasn’t sure where he was. “What time is it?”
“It’s two in the morning, jackass!” Merl hissed. “And you drag me into this shit? I got kids. They’re sleeping in the other room…”
A small voice from further in the house. “Mommy? Daddy?”
Merl grabbed his head like it ached. “Oh, Jesus Christ…”
The small voice was joined by another one, and they crowed and cooed like little chicks in a nest wanting the worm, two voices, and Walter could tell that one was a boy and one was a girl, but then again he knew Merl’s kids, so it wasn’t hard to pick their voices out.
“Mommy? Daddy?”
“What’s going on?”
“Is everything okay?”
Merl shook his hands furiously in the air, a silent fit of rage, and then he stepped out of the mudroom. From the kitchen, Walter heard Ann raising her voice: “Merl, I’m a little tied up here, you mind taking care of that?”
Merl ignored the spouse request—he was already kneeling down to address his children. “Hey, guys,” he said gently, kindly. “It’s nothing. Everything’s okay. Mommy and Daddy are just having some friends over, okay?”
Then an adult voice, thick with sleep and bluster. “What the hell is all this?”
That would be Merl’s brother, George.
Walter sank back against the wall again. He blinked. It seemed that his eyes stayed closed for longer than he’d intended.
He heard Merl’s voice: “Watch your mouth in front of the kids.”
“What’s going on? Who are these people?”
The children whimpered, disturbed by the concern in their uncle’s voice.
“George,” Merl said sternly. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and get these kids back into bed. Everything is fine. Thanks. It’s all just fine and dandy. Hey, you kids go with Uncle George, okay? He’s gonna tuck you in nice and tight. We’re just having a little party out here, okay? Everything’s just fine. Okay. I love you. Go to bed.”
He came back around the corner and into the mudroom. He was very awake now. He put a finger up into Walter’s face. “Tell me what’s going on here,” he hissed.
“They have the District closed off,” Walter said again, but that wasn’t what he was thinking. That wasn’t the thing that was burning a hole in his brain like molten metal going through thin plastic.
Merl stared at him, like he knew that there was something else Walter wasn’t saying.
Walter stared back, and he watched Merl’s face warp into a watery mirage.
He felt his chest hitch. His throat tighten.
“They took Carolyn,” he choked
out suddenly. “They disappeared her and I don’t know why.”
“Oh, shit,” Merl mumbled.
“I don’t know why.”
“Oh, shit, man.”
Merl suddenly grabbed him. Pulled him in. Hugged him.
It was ridiculous. Walter didn’t need it. He didn’t need any of this. But then he felt himself falling apart.
He threw his arms around Merl. Buried his face in the other man’s shoulder, smelled his night-sweat, his sleep, like a father figure, like a friend. He gasped for air, but it wouldn’t come. Like someone had punched him in the gut. He tried to speak, but he couldn’t. All that calm, all that logic, all that Let’s figure out the next step evaporated like dry ice in a flame.
When his breath did finally come to him, he let out a horrible noise into Merl’s shoulder, but it was quiet. In the kitchen he could still hear Ann talking fluidly with Getty, as though this was a normal thing, to treat a gunshot wound in the middle of the night. Just as normal as anything else.
Walter pulled back from Merl, suddenly ashamed of himself.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said, not thinking much, just opening his mouth and the words seemed to already be there.
“I don’t understand,” Merl said, shaking his head, still holding Walter by the shoulders. “They took Carolyn. But what happened? What happened to you? Who is that guy and why is he shot in the leg?”
“I think it was because of me that they took Carolyn,” Walter said, his face wet and red, but otherwise suddenly slack of expression. “I’d worked with them. The people in there.” A glance at Merl. “With the resistance.”
“Holy Jesus, Walt!” Merl hissed. He released Walter and rubbed his face with both hands. “I mean…shit…I don’t know what I mean. I can’t fault the resistance. But shit. I didn’t know. I had no idea.”
“That’s kind of the point,” Walter said bitterly. “But somebody knew.”
“And they took Carolyn and left you?”
“They took her before I got home. She was gone when I got there. I don’t know.”
“How do you know she got disappeared?” Merl asked.