If the Light Escapes: A Braving the Light Novel

by Brenda Marie Smith

  At last, I trot painfully through these woods to the far back corner. If they come for me, there’s a warehouse past the woods. Maybe I could find cover there. I survey it with the binoculars. Looks like a basement stairwell on its back side, and also some outbuildings.

  With a route of retreat in mind, I settle in a clump of bushes under the tall trees, keeping my rifle at the ready as dawn arrives. My arm hurts like a motherfucker. Blood’s dripping off it, leaving a trail for the assholes to follow. I yank a bandana out of my pocket and wrap it around the place where a chunk of skin is missing.

  Daylight lasts thirteen, fourteen hours this time of year. I feel Alma crying in my bones. My whole family will be crying by the time I get home, if I ever get there.

  What have I done? I’ve stirred a hornet’s nest full of heavily armed asshole thugs. Not a militia, which might be bigger and more disciplined for a fight, but these guys, who are like a pack of wild dogs. The yards I ran through were full of scrap metal and garbage—no gardens, no kid toys, no farming tools except that spade. No flowers, no laundry hanging to dry, no storage tanks of water, which tells me no women and kids, unless they’re fighters, too.

  Ray and these other creeps must’ve been surviving on looting and hunting, but the animals are getting killed off, and there’s almost nothing left to loot. They’ve got to be hungry and thirsty.

  The creeps I shot at on patrol at home were stealing from families. I wonder if they’re organized about this. They could have plans to invade neighborhoods as a gang, and they would be lethal as fuck if they did.

  Wait, what am I thinking? They already know where we live. Ray was there, right? And the asshole I shot. Still, I don’t want them chasing me home, so I’d better stay here.

  CHAPTER 34

  Mosquitoes eat me for breakfast and lunch while I wait in these woods in the simmering heat. Any minute, I’m going to run screaming out of here before they suck me bloodless. Gnats already drank my eyeballs dry. Some even worm their way under my eyelids when I close them.

  I doze off for a while. A rabbit rustles leaves close by, and I think about killing it. I could eat the whole thing, but a fire would give me away and I’m not hungry enough for raw rabbit. I make the three biscuits I brought last for hours. Stale and dry as sand, but they keep my stomach from growling. I should’ve brought beans.

  I need to pee. But when I push off the ground with my hands to stand up, holy shit, my arm almost collapses. Goddamn, it hurts. I plop down and remove the bandana from my wound. The skin around it is bright red and hot to the touch. Oh man.

  I planned to wait until dark to go home, but I better go now so I can stop this infection from getting worse. I’ll have to go a mile south and sneak through the back sides of the stores and strip malls on Slaughter Lane to stay far enough away from these assholes.

  It’s an hour or so until dusk, and Alma’s on the patio cooking when I come through the back gate. I hurry across the yard, and she blows air in my face as I reach to hug her. She swats me with a potholder, surprising the shit out of me.

  “Where the hell were you? Do you know how worried I’ve been? How worried your whole family is?”

  “Shit, Alma, I’m sorry. I almost got shot!” I peel off my rucksack and drop it to the ground.

  “God, I knew it. I told you not to go!” She surveys me up and down. “There’s blood all over your arm. What did you do to it?”

  “I scraped a chunk off it. I think it’s getting infected. I was hoping you’d fix it up.”

  “Fix it yourself! I’m not your mother!” She darts inside and slams the door.

  “Damn it, Alma! I did this for you. Why don’t you get that?”

  Boiling inside, hunger and exhaustion pressing down on me, I drop into a chair and eject the chambered round from my rifle, then eject the clip.

  “Shit!” I hurl the clip across the yard, wrapping my arms around my head despite the pain, jiggling my legs, agitated as fuck.

  “’Bout time you came back!” Uncle Eddie hollers from across the street-side fence. He’s got his rifle. Going out to patrol, I guess. “I want to hear all about it, but…” He pats the rifle barrel. “You better apologize to Alma.”

  “I tried already.”

  He gives me a crooked smile. “Better try again. Take a breath and go do it.”

  I let out a deep sigh. “All right.” I go through the back door and stop just inside to let my eyes adjust to the dim indoor light, scanning around for Alma. There she is, in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, Alma. Please, can you forgive me?”

  Mazie lets out a screech from the backyard. I didn’t see her out there. I whirl around and rush outside as Mazie screams, “Let him go! You’re hurting him!”

  What is that? Something’s so wrong, I don’t understand what I’m seeing.

  It’s the whiskery asshole I shot and his bald, tatted sidekick. Whiskers has his arm hooked around Uncle Eddie’s neck. They’re on the sidewalk by the Mint’s fence. Tat Man’s pointing a pistol at Eddie’s head, and Mazie’s screaming.

  Alma bolts out the door and pulls Mazie into the house just as Whiskers sees me and grins the scariest grin I’ve ever seen.

  I need my rifle, but I threw away the clip like a fuckwad. Gulping for breath, I step forward and throw my hands in the air. Time stops still; my focus kicks into hyperdrive.

  “Been waiting for you,” Whiskers growls.

  Eddie’s eyes are bugging out of his head, but they soften when he looks at me.

  “So, I’m here now,” I say. “Take me!”

  Eddie shakes his head side to side so subtly it’s hard to see.

  Milo’s in the shadows on the corner across the street, aiming a rifle this way. I slide my eyes away from him, hoping these guys didn’t notice my surprise.

  “Let him go. You want me? Here I am.” I step closer.

  “No, no, no. That’s not how this works,” Whiskers says with an evil sneer.

  “Eddie, can you breathe?” I keep inching forward.

  “Yup,” Eddie says, but he sounds breathless to me.

  “When I saw your skinny ass with that black gunk on your face,” the whiskery fuck says, “I knew you were the one who shot me.”

  “Didn’t think you saw me then.”

  “Saw enough to figure it out.” He taps his head. “Used my brains. Figured you came to our place to get some—what do you call it? Retro…? Retro-Bution! So, what did you steal?”

  “Got a lump on my head where you hit me with that rebar,” Tat Man says, rubbing the back of his head. “Nasty little fuck.”

  “I didn’t steal. I wanted to know who you were. Maybe make some kind of trade deal.”

  I step forward again. I’m at the back gate, which is partway open, and I step through.

  “Stay the fuck back!” The tatted asshole presses his gun against Eddie’s temple. “We don’t need to make no deal. The way I see it, everything you’ve got is ours now.”

  Whiskers raises his voice like he’s got a megaphone. “Don’t get any ideas that these other folks can overpower us. I know what you’re thinking. There’s more of you than us. But if we don’t come back, our friends will be here to wipe you the fuck out.”

  Milo squats behind a hedge with his rifle. I don’t want these guys to see him, so I keep them talking. I’ve got to save Eddie. His face is beet red.

  “Loosen your grip on my uncle’s neck, and we’ll talk. We can give you food.”

  Slowly, I step into the street, still with my hands up, and these guys turn to face me. They’re backed up against the Mint’s fence. I’m trying to get them in the right position for Milo to shoot Tat Man. Whiskers has a pistol in a holster at his hip. When Milo shoots, I’m gonna grab that gun.

  “We want meat, and ammo, and water,” Tat Face says. He doesn’t have tats on his face, but he’s got them eve
rywhere else. “Got any Oxy?”

  “No.”

  “Come on. All these old fucks around here? Someone’s got Oxy.”

  “If they had it, they used it up long ago.”

  Uncle Eddie is gasping for breath and turning purple. Time is fast and also slow, like we’re in a time warp.

  “Loosen your grip on his neck! Please! Maybe I can find you some liquor.”

  “Now you’re getting the idea.” Whiskers lets go of Eddie’s neck for a split second, then regrips him—not loose enough, but the purple is leaving Eddie’s face.

  “I need me a woman,” Tat Face says. “I want that pregnant Mexican girl.”

  “No, man!” Whiskers barks to his partner. “She’s Ray’s girl.”

  Ray’s girl? Ray’s girl? Vomit shoots into my mouth, and I choke it back down. Milo raises his eyes and rifle above the hedge. Then, from the corner of my eye, I see a streak of movement across the fence behind these fucks. Metal glints, reflecting the sunset. Before I can turn—

  Thwack! Down comes Grandpa’s machete on Whiskers’s head, splitting his skull and face down the middle, brains and blood shooting everywhere. I lurch toward Tat Man, who’s screaming bloody murder while Eddie is wrestling himself free from the lock of Whiskers’s dead arms.

  Tat Man swings to aim his pistol at me. Eddie lunges to tackle him, and Tat Man swivels to fire a shot straight into Eddie’s forehead.

  “Nooo! ”

  Eddie’s eyes roll back in his head, the light inside them instantly gone.

  Milo shoots Tat Man’s brains out, but it’s too late. They all fall to the ground in pools of brains and blood and gore.

  And Uncle Eddie is deader than dead.

  “Grandpa, what the fuck did you do?” I vault the fence and yank the bloody machete to get it out of his hands. He tries to hang on to it, but I’m insane and I knock him to the ground, snatching the machete and waving it in his face. I want to chop him to pieces.

  “I was saving my son,” he yells at me, huffing for breath.

  “You got him killed! Might as well have shot him yourself!” I’m in a blind rage, and all I can see is that hole in Eddie’s head. “I should kill you for this!”

  Suddenly, I’m surrounded by men backing me away from Grandpa, wrenching my grip free of the machete, yanking me across the Mint’s yard and through the hedge, slamming me down on a patio chair at home and not letting go of me.

  Because I’m shrieking and screaming like a lunatic, “God damn it! God damn it! He’s dead! He’s fucking dead! ”

  Aunt Jeri and Mom rush toward Grandpa from different directions.

  “Do something for Eddie. Maybe he’s not dead! ”

  Jack says, “Keno, he’s—”

  “Shut up! Shut the fuck up! ” I close my eyes and am assaulted by flying brains and gushing blood. My eyes shoot open, but I’m still seeing it, like I’m on a poison drug trip. I slap at my head, but the brains and blood won’t fucking go away. And the hole, the dark empty hole.

  People surround me, but I don’t know who. My heart’s exploding. I’m sweating buckets but also freezing. Milo’s over there screaming, fenced in by other people. Mazie’s shrieking like a banshee, and Uncle Tom scoops her up and runs her into the Mint. Phil’s on the sidewalk above Eddie, kicking the shit out of the fence until the slats break free.

  “Oh God, Eddie. I’m so sorry! Godddd! ”

  I shoulda killed those guys when I had the chance. If I hadn’t fucked up my shot… If I hadn’t invaded their neighborhood and pissed them off… If I’d melted Grandpa’s machete into a puddle of molten steel… I should have stopped him!

  Men crowd around, firing questions at me, but I’m somewhere else, lost in replays of splattering brains, gleaming machetes, and that fucking hole in Eddie’s head. Alma latches on to me from behind, shaking like crazy, sobbing into my ear. I pull her around and into my lap, but I can’t feel her. I can’t feel my hurt arm. I can’t feel anything at all.

  “Snipers,” I mutter, and people turn to look—mostly men from our patrol team. “Snipers!” I shout, scooting Alma off my lap and rising to my feet. “I want a sniper on a roof on every corner of our neighborhood. Everyone else, go inside. We’ll have a meeting as soon as the sun’s all the way up. Eat breakfast first.”

  The men draw into a circle, sorting out who’s gonna be a sniper on what roof at what times. Jack says he can’t climb up to a roof, so he’ll take care of Eddie. Old Mr. Bellows offers to help him, and so do Kathy Zizzo and Doris Barnes.

  Alma tugs on my arm, saying, “Baby, you need to eat.”

  “Not now,” I say.

  “Then let me fix your arm.”

  “Not now, please!”

  Alma stares, and I run to Milo. My arm is numb, my brain is numb, and my heart has left town.

  I pull Milo to his feet, wrap my arm around him, and lead him to his dad at the Mint’s back door. I go out the gate to Eddie, but as soon as I step onto the sidewalk, I whirl away to puke into the storm drain.

  CHAPTER 35

  I’m in a nightmare, praying to wake up, while I scrape the brains of my pretty uncle off the sidewalk with a shovel and dump them into a bucket. Phil’s watching me in some sort of dead-eyed trance, curled up whimpering against the fence he broke.

  There’s no moon again tonight, which seems fitting. At least I can’t see what I’m cleaning up as vividly as I see it exploding in my mind. There are no northern lights, either, like the heavens have gone black to mourn my uncle.

  I hoist Eddie’s lifeless body with his sculpted muscles over my shoulder and lay him in a garden wagon with his legs draped over the end. Kathy Zizzo spreads a cloth over his face. There’s not much behind that face anymore.

  I think, He needs a pillow, and I squelch the knifing pain in my chest.

  Jack, Mr. Bellows, Kathy, and Doris lift Eddie’s dead killers into wheelbarrows. They’re going to bury them in the poisoned soil by the train tracks after daylight, when it’s safer. Can’t waste patches of good soil to bury murderers.

  We can’t have a funeral for Eddie tomorrow. We’ve got to prepare for an assault. Max comes up and asks how he can help.

  “Get two more shovels and a lantern,” I say, “and meet me at the little hill where we buried Tasha and Nana.”

  “Sure. Whatever you need.” Max races away.

  I start pulling Eddie’s pitiful funeral wagon down the street. “Come on, Phil, let’s bury our boy.”

  “God!” Phil cries out, punching the fence at his back, but he stands up and drags along behind me, stone-faced. Someone should play bagpipes or a violin, some sad-as-fuck funeral dirge, but we can’t make noise in case we’re being watched. So, we go silently around the corner and down our street, toward the little hill that’s become our family cemetery.

  Silas Barnes is standing on our roof with his rifle braced in front of him, running his eyes along our perimeter. Bobby Carlisle’s lying on his stomach on a roof at the next corner, his rifle propped on the roof crest. He takes off his hat and holds it over his heart. I have to choke back a sob.

  When we reach the hillock, Phil helps me get the wagon over the curb and Max trots down the hill to push it from behind. At the hilltop, I pace the ground. There’s not much room left up here to bury anyone. I use the shovel to draw a rectangle in the dirt.

  “It’ll have to be here.”

  It takes us hours before we have a deep enough grave in the hard, rocky ground. I stay in the hole while Max and Phil hand Eddie down to me. I give my favorite uncle the last hug I can ever give him, but he doesn’t hug me back.

  Cringing from the chill of his body, I lay Eddie down and arrange him as best I can.

  Doves are cooing while we fill the grave with dirt and smooth the top into a mound. The sky’s getting cloudy and blocking out starlight.

  Phil sink
s to his knees, holding his gut and sobbing. I put my hand on his shoulder and squeeze it, but I can’t cry. I’m some kind of robot, too full of sadness and pain and anger to feel it anymore. And my mind is a dark, whirring blur, trying to land on an idea to save us.

  When Phil shows no signs of slowing down on his crying, I clear my throat.

  “Phil, I need to get back. These guys are gonna come after us any minute. Do you want Max to stay with you? Or I could send someone else.”

  “No, go on,” Phil chokes out, latching on to my pant leg. “Make a plan to kill every last one of those fuckers. When I come back, hand me a gun and point me in the right direction. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  I lean down to hug Phil, who sobs harder. “Eddie was the love of my life,” he says.

  “I know, man. He felt the same way about you.”

  Phil flops to his back on the ground and covers his face, and we leave him there. I would say it’s the saddest thing I ever saw, but it’s just one in a mountain of them.

  Max and I go down to the street, and my mind suddenly hits on a way out.

  “Wait here,” I say to Max, and I run back up the hillock to Phil. “Come on, man. Let’s get some gasoline.”

  “Gasoline? Now?”

  “I’m pointing you in the right direction, Phil. Let’s go.”

  By the time we get back to our garage, we’ve still got a couple of hours until daylight. We load up the tank pump and other tools plus all the empty gas cans into the four wagons we have left. I get four rifles out of the house, and we head to the Mint.

  Once there, I unlock the garage and get Max and Phil started loading more empty gas cans, and then I slip into the house and tiptoe to the room that Milo sleeps in when he stays with his parents. He’s awake when I open his door.

  “Let’s go get some gas,” I whisper, and Milo’s already throwing on his shoes.

  We go straight to the convenience store on Menchaca where we got the gas before, and the tank seems to be at the same level we left it at months ago. I’ll bet other more noticeable gas stations are more cleaned out, but this little one’s been overlooked.