by Jake Bible
Flesh from the dead giant’s hands is stuck to the barrel and Stanford frowns at the crispy skin.
“Oh, that is gross,” Cole says. More gunfire. “Shit. Come on.”
Then gunfire from the far left stops them before they can go more than a couple of steps. They look at each other and sigh.
“Right,” Cole stays and takes off running.
“I’ll take left then!” Stanford shouts after him. “Thanks for the choice, asshole!”
Stanford runs off in the opposite direction as Cole, muttering about how the outpost is his and he should be the one to choose which direction to go.
***
“I bet they could use our help,” Sister says to Val as the woman sits with her back up against a post, watching Val pace back and forth. “I’m done eating now. We don’t have to stay up here.”
“I have my orders,” Val says. “I’m watching you while DTA and DTB1 take care of business. They can handle it.”
Sister cocks her head as gunshot after gunshot after gunshot echoes through the night. She frowns and winces as someone screams.
“That was one of yours,” Sister says. “Breena? No, maybe Carlotta. Hold on.” She keeps her head cocked and waits. When there’s another scream she nods. “Breena Lang. Yep, That’s her. Took a bullet to the leg. Maybe even had her knee blown out.”
“How the fuck could you know that?” Val snaps. “There is no way you can know that.”
“I’ve been around,” Sister replies. “That woman needs our help. The closest Mate is a hundred yards away and is very busy fighting off three cannies. Diaz? No, Tiny D. Yep. Tiny D. Damn, she can fight.”
A third scream and Val winces.
“We have to stay here,” Val says.
“If you’re trying to convince yourself, you’re doing a shitty job,” Sister says, grinning. “You already have one foot towards the ladder.”
Val stops pacing and looks Sister square in the face.
“You’re staying here,” Val says. “And I’m tying you to that post.”
“I can help,” Sister responds, shrugging. “You need me.”
“You’re sick with radiation poisoning and you’re still wounded,” Val says. “Best to leave you up here. You die down there and Commander Lee will rip me a new one.”
“Nah, you’re her favorite,” Sister says. “And family. She has a soft spot for family.”
“Tell that to Ford,” Val says as she moves to tie Sister’s hands behind the post.
“Really?” Sister asks. “What if one of the cannies gets up here? I won’t be able to defend myself.”
“I highly fucking doubt that,” Val says. She stands and points at Sister. “Do not go anywhere. Stay right here. I’m only doing this to help Breena. I’ll already be in deep shit with Cole for leaving you. Do not make my life harder by getting yourself free.”
“Life is hard enough without me making it worse,” Sister says. “I promise not to go anywhere or get myself free.”
More screaming.
“Someone is hurting her,” Sister says and frowns. “Bad. Hurry.”
Val gives Sister one last look then scrambles to the closest ladder and drops from sight. Sister looks up at the night sky and sneers.
“What the fuck are you looking at, stars?” she says. “People are dying. Stop looking so smug.” A shooting star rockets by. “Ooh, pretty.”
***
Tiny D slams two heads together and the air is filled with the sound of skulls shattering.
She tosses the bodies away, one to either side of her, and grabs her 9mm from her hip, firing point blank into the face of a woman coming at her. The woman’s screaming face is obliterated into a thousand shards of teeth and bone, blood spraying everywhere.
Tiny D scowls as she wipes gore from her eyes. She doesn’t wipe fast enough to see the man coming at her. He tackles her from the side, knocking her to the ground and into one of the dead bodies. A small geyser of blood shoots into the air from the body, caused by Tiny D’s weight and the heavy man that has her pinned down, his hands trying to wrap around her thick neck.
“You picked the wrong fight, fucker!” Tiny D bellows as she boxes the man’s ears.
He growls and bares his sharpened teeth. Tiny D laughs and boxes him again and again until his hands on her neck loosen and he wobbles, wobbles, then falls over. She sends a hard elbow into the bridge of his nose and he screams as half his face caves in.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” she says as she gets up, retrieves her 9, and puts two bullets in his forehead and then one in his chest.
She spits on him for good measure.
There’s a noise above her and she looks up. Her eyes go wide as a woman leaps from one of the rope bridges, knives in both hands, teeth glinting in the night. Tiny D can’t get out of the way fast enough and she goes down hard as the woman slams into her. Pain radiates up from her belly and she barely gets a second to look down and see one knife sticking from her gut before the woman tries to slash at her face with the other.
The woman tries, but does not succeed as Tiny D blocks the attack and spins her arm around the woman’s, gaining enough leverage to snap the arm at the elbow. The woman shrieks in pain and Tiny D shuts her up fast with several hard punches to the jaw. The woman’s sharpened teeth tumble from her mouth and clatter on the old and broken pavement. Then Tiny D grabs the woman’s lower jaw and pulls hard, tearing it off in one yank.
“Jesus Christ, Tiny D,” Alastair says as he pulls the dying canny off the Mate and tosses her aside. He puts two rounds in the canny’s chest and one in her head with his M-4 before turning back to Tiny D. “Did you have to rip her jaw off? Oh…shit…”
He stares at the knife that Tiny D has clutched in her hands. The knife bobbing to Tiny D’s heartbeat as blood pulses around it, pouring from the wound in her gut.
“Fuck,” Alastair says and sets his M-4 aside. He pulls off his pack and digs inside for the med kit, his eyes darting from the pack to Tiny D’s belly. “Hold on, D. Just hold on.”
“What the fuck else you think I’m going to do?” Tiny D asks. “Go for a fucking morning jog?”
“Right. Yeah. Sorry,” Alastair says as he sets the med kit next to the large woman. He pulls out a small cylinder and a pad of bandages. “This is going to hurt. Bad.”
“Just do it, asshole,” Tiny D snaps and closes her eyes as Alastair looks at the knife.
He grabs the handle, says a quick prayer, then pulls it free. Instantly, dark red blood begins to flow everywhere. He pops open the cylinder, pours the black powder inside it onto the wound, then presses down with one of the bandages. He counts to ten, says another prayer, reaches into the med kit, pulls out a match, lights it, and places the flame to Tiny D’s wound.
Alastair cringes at the scream that Tiny D lets out. It is loud enough to break glass if there was any glass left intact nearby. There is not.
“Oh, you fucker,” Tiny D gasps, looking at her gut as Alastair packs it with bandages and then holds both hands on it. “I’m gonna make you pay for that.”
“Make me pay?” Alastair says. “What the hell? I’m saving your life.”
“Oh, you better hope so,” Tiny D says, her voice weakening. “You better fucking hope so.”
Her eyes roll up into her head as it falls back on the pavement. Alastair watches her chest rise and fall, rise and fall, showing she only passed out and didn’t die. He turns his head this way and that, looking for the attack he expects to happen at any second since he’s now completely helpless. He can defend himself or keep Tiny D alive. He can’t do both.
“Shit,” he whispers. “Shit, shit, shit.”
***
The shadow reaches the concrete column and scurries up it. Val slides to a stop, seeing the person’s feet just as they are lost from sight. Instead of heading to the rope ladder a yard away, she turns around and sprints back across the bridge to the platform the column juts out of. M-4 to her shoulder, she looks up towards the top
of the column.
And the flames that start growing higher from the pyre on top.
“Dammit,” Val says. “What the hell did the canny do that for?”
She watches as the flames continue to rise higher and higher, hoping for a clear shot of the canny. She really does not want to have to climb up after the son of a bitch. Then she stares in horror as burning logs are flung from the column, landing onto bridges and platforms. Bridges and platforms that are made of hemp rope and wood.
The flames spread quickly and Val opens fire, spraying the top of the column with bullets. She doubts she hit the person, and it’s too late anyway since the damage is already done, but she knows the gunfire will draw attention to her position and the flames that are already engulfing a quarter of the outpost.
“I got it,” Sister says from behind Val, making the Mate jump and almost turn her M-4 on the woman. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“What the hell?” Val snaps. “I told you to stay put!”
Sister shrugs and scrambles up the column and is lost from Val’s sight. She hears a man shout then a heavy thunk and thud. Shadows dance against the flames of the pyre, but they are warped and twisted, making it impossible for Val to tell who they belong to. There’s another shout, another set of thunks and thuds, and then a man goes flying out over the edge of the column, arms and legs pinwheeling as he falls into the flaming wreckage of the platform next to Val’s.
Sister climbs back down and stretches her side.
“Ow,” Sister says. “That canny had some skill. Probably would have hurt you bad if you’d gone up there. Good thing you didn’t.”
“You weren’t supposed to get free,” Val snarls. “And I can’t find Breena. That wasn’t her screaming, was it? Was that all just bullshit to get me to leave?”
“Maybe,” Sister laughs and walks away. “Come on, Little Baptiste, time to fetch the other Mates and get the hell out of here. This outpost is lost.”
“Hold up!” Val yells after her. “If DTA sees you without your restraints, they’ll open fire!”
“Don’t think so!” Sister calls back. “They’re all a little busy!”
***
The members of DTA and DTB1 stare as the outpost crumbles into ashes, the ropes and wooden structures lost in only a matter of minutes.
“Glad to see you aren’t dead,” Val says, turning from the outpost to face Lang.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Lang asks.
“Nothing,” Val says and glares over at Sister who is giving her a wide, shit-eating grin. “I just thought I heard you scream is all.”
“I did scream,” Lang replies. “Fucking canny nailed me in the knee with a baseball bat. Hurts like hell, but I’ll live.”
“And the canny?” Val asks.
“Two in the chest, one in the head,” Lang says. “He won’t be coming back.”
Everyone stares at the conflagration for a few moments then Cole steps forward.
“We sure we got them all?” Cole asks Stanford. “Did you see any get away?”
“I’m sure some did,” Stanford replies, shrugging. “But not my biggest problem right now.”
“Oh? What the hell is your biggest problem right now?” Cole asks.
“How the fuck to tell my mom that I let the outpost burn down,” Stanford replies.
“Not your fault, Ford,” Val says. “No way to know the cannies would use the pyre against us.”
“At least the others know we’re in deep shit,” Tommy Bombs says, hooking a finger over his shoulder. “Red pyres for as far as the eyes can see.”
The Teams turn and look at the far off flames that burn from the pyre stations set up throughout Denver. One by one they turn from orange to bright red, signaling to each consecutive pyre that trouble is going down.
“Fucking great,” Stanford says. “We’ll have at least one DTB coming to check things out. That means I have to tell either Holly Moore or Gary Hoffman that I couldn’t hack it as a TL.”
“Don’t worry about that, buddy,” Cole says, clapping Stanford on the shoulder. “Everyone already knew you couldn’t hack it. If it wasn’t for all of us, you’d have been Z food years ago.”
“I could shoot you now and blame the cannies,” Stanford grumbles.
“Too many witnesses,” Cole laughs.
“Damn witnesses,” Stanford mutters.
“We’ve got her secure,” Alastair says, grabbing onto the end of a makeshift stretcher. Diaz is on the other end and the two men lift Tiny D up slowly, careful not to jar her too much. “We going or what?”
“Yeah,” Cole says. “Val, you and Shep take—”
“I’ll take point,” Sister says, raising her hand. “Val and Shep can follow behind me. I’m better at point than them. They can’t see in the dark like I can.”
“You can see in the dark?” Stanford scoffs.
“No,” Sister replies. “It’s a figure of speech.”
“A figure of speech? By who?” Stanford asks.
“By people that can see in the dark,” Sister replies and winks. Then she is off, moving quickly ahead of the two Teams, her legs taking long, confident strides.
“I’m not cool with her leading us and definitely not cool with her not being restrained,” Stanford says.
“Not much we can do about it,” Cole says. “You heard what Val said.”
They watch Val and Shep fall in line behind Sister and the two TL’s glance at each other.
“Who’s in charge around here?” Stanford asks.
Stanford gives one last glance over his shoulder at the burning outpost then shakes his head and starts marching with the other members of the Teams.
Chapter Four- The Freaks Come Out At Night
The line of flaming pyres can be seen for miles. The red flames reaching high into the sky, alerting all of the Stronghold crews, whether Teams or reclamations, that danger is knocking on Denver’s door. There is no way to tell what the exact danger is, not without a Runner going from station to station with specific intel, but Denver Team Beta Two’s Team Leader, Holly Moore, doesn’t need specifics.
She only knows that shit is going to get fucked up if she doesn’t get Reclamation Crew Twelve out of their sector and back to the trolleys on the turnpike.
Light brown skin with almond-shaped eyes and blazing red hair, TL Moore shows her heritage of a mix between Scottish, Thai and Cherokee. Bordering on a little person, she is barely five feet tall, at least officially. Unofficially, she is a couple inches south of five feet.
Not that it makes much difference. Known throughout the Stronghold as a wicked hand-to-hand and melee fighter, Moore’s reputation as a TL leaves not just Mates, but many civilians shaking when she starts barking orders.
“I want this camp broken down and packed in five minutes!” Moore yells at the scared faces of the reclamation crew that her Team is assigned to protect as they strip a long forgotten storage warehouse on the northeastern edge of Denver’s downtown. Mainly looking for copper and other precious metals they can use to keep their pedal-powered electrical system going, the warehouse turned out to be a bonanza when first discovered by a scout team.
Row after row, crate after crate, box after box, of electronic equipment fills the warehouse, stacked nearly from floor to ceiling. Old BluRay players, stereos, TVs, audio speakers, video game systems, everything that Americana needed to fight the threat of boredom pre-Z, sits in the warehouse, waiting for years for someone to claim it.
Moore grumbles as she knows that the good luck of the reclamation crew is now for nothing due to their evacuation. Any rations bonuses, or possible leave time, she and her Team would have received could easily go to a new Team depending on who gets reassigned to protect the reclamation crew once the latest crisis is over.
To top it off, it’s bitter ass cold out and Moore hates the cold. She dreams of a day when someone says, “Hey, screw this Colorado winter shit, let’s move to Florida!” But she knows it’ll never happen.
>
For one thing, no one even knows if Florida exists anymore. Not like anyone that has ever been there is alive. She’s only seen it in books from the library and even she has serious doubts it was a real place. Too many smiling, leathery faces and bright colors.
For another thing, it’s hard enough just getting up and down the turnpike from the Stronghold to Denver and back using the interlinked trolley system, let alone trying to travel all the way across the continent to visit some dreamland that may or may not even be viable.
“TL?” Team Mate Billy Chase asks as he jogs up to the thoughtful woman that is busy staring out the warehouse bay doors at the pyres. “We have a problem with one of the foremen of the crew.”
“Why?” Moore asks, pulling her attention from the primitive, yet effective, warning system. “It’s your job to make sure we don’t have problems with foremen, Chase. Are you unable to do your job?”
“No, sir, I mean, yes, sir, I can do my job,” Billy replies. “But you’ll need to talk to this guy. He’s getting others on his side fast.”
“What side is that?” Moore asks.
“He wants to stay and lock down the warehouse until we get the all clear,” Billy says. “He thinks running in the night is foolish and will get us all killed.”
“You see that?” Moore asks, pointing out the bay door at the pyres. “That tells us that if we don’t run then we will get killed. Danger, Chase. Red means danger. And it’s red all the way up.”
“I know, sir,” Billy sighs. “That is what I have been trying to tell—”
“Who is it?” Moore interrupts.
“Cain Goss,” Billy says.
“Goss? Fuck that guy,” Moore says and pushes past Billy. “Where is he?”
“In the back,” Billy says. “He has almost the whole crew back there buying into his shit.”
Moore stops and looks around, realizing for the first time that her order to pack up has been completely ignored except by her people. She’s been so wrapped up in watching the pyres, and hating the cold, that the thought that she’d be ignored never entered her mind.