Damascus Road

by Charlie Cole

  “It means that there’s rotating sheets of rain around this tornado,” she said, looking frantically out the windows. “It means this thing could be right in front of us and we’d never see it until it’s too late.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that at all.

  “Stay or go, Grace,” I said. “You have to call it. Stay or go.”

  I could hear the wind howling, shaking the car. Trees bent nearly in half under the force of the winds.

  “I don’t like what we’re seeing here, Grace,” Erik said over the radio. “Or perhaps more importantly, what we’re not seeing.”

  “I don’t like this, man…” Duff said.

  “Go, Jim,” she said at last. “Go, get us out of here.”

  I stomped the gas and lowered my head. The car was struggling to stay on the road under the harsh weather conditions. I saw a farm coming up and considered if it would hold any shelter for us. The house, the barn, the silos, none of them would be safe. I saw the propane tank that sat just off the side of the road. Then, beyond that, I saw the Land Rover that had passed me before.

  I didn’t have time to put it together until it was too late. The propane tank exploded in a fireball just after we passed it in the Cuda. The thin skin of the tank blew apart in a thousand shards of shrapnel.

  My eyes flicked to the rearview mirror, in time to see the fireball bloom and the shrapnel hit the side of the pickup truck. The tires exploded with a horrific whine, and the wheels dug into the blacktop. The forward momentum was too much, and I watched helplessly as the Suburban with Erik Balfour flipped over. It tumbled onto its side with a horrendous crunch. In the pickup truck, Bud must have reflexively pressed the transmit button on his walkie-talkie when he saw the crash, because his voice boomed over the transmitter.

  "Look out! Look out! We're gonna--"

  He didn’t finish the sentence before their vehicle slammed into the Suburban, too close to stop.

  "What was that?" Grace shouted.

  "It was a roadside bomb," I said grimly. "He’s here. Tom’s here."

  I spun the Cuda in a tight 180 and sped back the way we had come. The Suburban was laying on its roof, the pickup truck piled into the side of it, pushing it down the road until they finally ground to a stop.

  I stopped hard and jumped out, immediately assaulted by the wind and biting rain, pelting my face. I had to turn my head to take a deep breath. Grace was by my side as we arrived at the Suburban.

  “Check them!” I said, pointing to the pickup truck.

  “But Erik…” she started.

  “Grace, don’t argue,” I said. “Please!”

  She relented and ran to the side of the pickup truck. I took the opportunity to crouch and look for Erik. As I suspected, he was unconscious inside the Suburban. The airbag had deployed and hit him at full speed, knocking him out. His cheeks were abraded from the impact. He hung suspended by his seatbelt.

  I grabbed my knife from my pocket and whipped it open to expose the blade. The blade sliced through the restraining belt with hardly any pressure and Erik slid down onto the roof of the vehicle. I reversed the process and the blade disappeared back into my pocket. I grabbed Erik by his wrists and pulled him out of the car. His face became clear then and I saw that the right side of it was awash with blood. The wound was not life threatening from what I could see. The rain was quickly washing the wound site and I tried to help it along. The wound was shallow, and he didn’t have any debris of shrapnel in the wound.

  “Erik!” Grace was back, but the worst was already over.

  “He’s going to be okay,” I said, but she paid no attention to me.

  I looked for Duff and Bud and found them rummaging through the pickup truck, trying to salvage their equipment. I noticed that while one of them was reaching into the pickup, the other was scanning the area for any signs of the tornado.

  The wind was whipping at us relentlessly and the rain pounded, and I almost didn’t hear the footsteps until it was too late. I heard the slap-slap-slap of boots hitting mud from behind me. I spun away from it and felt Tom’s fist graze the back of my skull. I recovered and came up ready to fight, only to realize that it wasn’t me he was after. It was Grace.

  Tom had a knife in his hand and swung it toward Grace’s head. She jerked back when she saw him, and I hit him with a flying tackle. He rolled with it and came up, ready to fight. I saw the knife and realized that it was identical to my own balisong blade. Ellis must have bought one for Tom as well. I’d never thought of it, but it only made sense. What I couldn’t decipher was that Tom’s blade was closed.

  He was baiting me, trying to draw me out. The rain fell on us, as we circled one another, looking for an opening. Bud appeared at Tom’s elbow, ready to jump on him. My eyes flicked to him only to realize that I had inadvertently given him away. Turning quickly, Tom threw a hook kick that collided with Bud's jaw. Bud dropped like a stone into a puddle, and Duff rushed to his side.

  “I told you that you couldn’t protect them,” Tom growled. “And look at what you’ve done.”

  He was right, and I knew it. I pushed the thought from my mind.

  “You know I’m never going to stop,” Tom said.

  I flipped open the balisong knife and raised my guard.

  “I know.”

  “This isn’t going to stop until one of us is dead,” he grinned, rain slicking his hair back, running down his nose.

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said.

  I feinted an attack with my blade and punched him with the other hand. He stumbled backward. I pressed my advantage and kicked him across the back. He put his hand on the truck to stop himself from falling. I threw a roundhouse kick at his head, but he ducked at the last second, and I shattered the passenger side window.

  Tom ducked behind me and hammered me with a one-two punch to the kidney, followed by a surface level slice from his knife across the back of my shoulder. I cried out in pain, but I knew it wasn’t deep. He danced away, light on his feet, even in the sloppy weather. I knew that time wasn’t on my side. My people were hurt, and the storm was out there ready to devastate everything in sight.

  I tore my jacket off and cast it aside. I flipped the knife, open, then closed, then back. I reversed my grip and held the blade protruding from the bottom of my fist.

  “That’s the Jimmy I remember,” Tom said, a vicious edge to his voice.

  I didn’t smile or smirk. I didn’t make a smart comment or engage with him. Instead, I got quiet.

  “Jim?”

  It was Grace…

  …I pushed her out of my mind.

  I snapped a jab at Tom’s face that snapped his head back, followed by a cross that sent him stumbling. I moved closer without rushing into his attack. He came at me with his knife aimed for my throat. I blocked his attack, pushing it to the side and hitting him with my elbow.

  “Stop playing and get to it,” Tom spat.

  He flashed the blade of his knife at me, eager to draw blood. I knew what it would take then to get him away from everyone, to give them time to escape.

  I came at him with the knife, and his counterattack was perfectly timed. Our blades clashed against each other again and again. To say that we were cut, would miss the point. We couldn’t not be cut.

  We clashed in flurries of punches and blocks, the blades slicing as we went. My forearms and the back on my hands began to burn with every nick and scratch. I kicked Tom hard, and he lost his footing on the muddy grass.

  “Get them inside!” I had to scream at Grace to be heard over the storm.

  Some part of me feared that this storm system would drop on us at any moment and none of this would matter. But it did matter. It mattered to me. This wasn’t some jail cell brawl where I was begging to see my recently deceased father, begging for death in whatever venue it would come.

  I was defending Grace. I was protecting her friends, and as much as I hated it then, as much as I railed against wanting any of it, I cared. It made me
more vulnerable and yet stronger all at the same time.

  Tom was watching me, but his eyes were looking up, over my shoulder, and I knew that Grace and the others were moving, struggling through the rain to get into the farmhouse.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  His eyes snapped back to me, and I whipped a roundhouse kick at his head. It shook him, and although he rolled with much of the force, it still drove him to his knees.

  “You remember what Dad said, Tommy?”

  “What?” he snapped.

  “Always watch your own yard,” I said.

  There was more to it, but it went unsaid. We had heard the story at our father’s knee. Watch your own yard. But when something or someone comes into your space and threatens what is yours, you take their fucking head off.

  “You’re in my yard,” I growled.

  He grinned, and it was more evil than anything I had ever dared to imagine.

  We circled each other. I flicked the balisong knife closed, then back open in a blur. Tom began to do the same. Rain sprayed from the stainless steel blade and handles. My eyes narrowed. He was about to make his move.

  Tom snapped his knife open and cocked back his arm. He was going to throw it. His target wouldn’t be me or Erik or the boys. He was going for Grace. I didn’t have time to reach him or to close my own blade to throw. I threw my blade open, blade and the two pieces of the handle spinning in a three pronged makeshift throwing star.

  Tom whipped his hand forward and the blade left his grasp, just as my knife reached him. Our blades tangled with a loud metallic ring and sprawled on the ground.

  He was angry at being thwarted. I was white hot furious. I screamed a battle cry and ran for him, hitting him in the chest with a flying tackle. We fell to the ground together, sliding through the muck.

  “Jim!” It was Grace.

  “Get in the house!” I yelled, unable to look in her direction.

  “Come on boy,” Tom taunted. “Show me what you learned.”

  I’d heard those words before, too, also from my father. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t the best parental judgment for Ellis Marlowe, our father, to train his boys in all the black arts of special warfare, intelligence collecting and adapting to your environment since we were kids. But if there was one thing I had learned, it’s that you can’t change the past.

  I came at him in a straight blast, raining punches at him. He parried and sidestepped, moving back. I kicked for his knee, and he skipped away. He was leading me somewhere, and he didn’t care that I knew it. The barn.

  “I don’t want Grace to watch how this ends,” I said, my voice a little lower.

  “Likewise,” he said and turned and ran for the barn.

  I took off after him, but slipped and fell. Getting back to my feet, I saw him duck inside. He would be waiting for me there. I stole a glace back and saw that everyone was inside. The vehicles were as they left them, and the remains of the propane tank still burned and billowed smoke.

  At the entrance to the barn, I stole a glance inside and saw nothing. I ducked inside. The barn was dark, with tools hanging on the wall. Hay was strewn across the floor. Tom was nowhere to be seen.

  “If you’re gonna kill me, Tommy, at least tell me why.”

  “Because you’re the prodigal son…” His voice was ethereal, without a body. It echoed in the open space of the barn, and I couldn’t pinpoint where it came from.

  “But the prodigal son was welcomed back,” I said.

  “Not by his brother…” Tom said. “I was the good son.”

  I saw him them emerging from the darkness of the back corner of the barn. He held a scythe in his hands, holding onto the pegs.

  “I stayed by his side,” Tom said. “I enlisted so that I could serve under the great Ellis Marlowe.”

  “That’s what he wanted,” I said. “I thought that was what you wanted too.”

  Tom shook his head slowly, sadly.

  “That’s what he wanted for you,” he said. “And the fact that it wasn’t what you wanted, only made him want you to be there even more.”

  Tom swung the scythe in a figure eight, an elegant and looping path to the blade, then back to where he started. He weighed the weapon and seemed completely comfortable with it.

  “What’s your plan?” I asked. “I never had any part in that. It wasn’t my fault that Ellis was the way that he was.”

  “You wasted everything that was given to you!” Tom barked. “Everything! From the education he gave you, to the woman you married.”

  “Don’t do that… don’t do that…you don’t know her,” I said.

  “Neither do you, Jimmy,” he sneered. “Listen, when I’m through with you, I’ll put her down quick, because that’s what she deserves. To be put out of her misery.”

  “You’re not going anywhere near her.”

  “And when I’m done with her…” he continued. “I’m going to take away your future, just like you took away mine.”

  “What does that mean?” I said.

  Tom’s smile crept across his face. Without warning he came at me with the scythe. The blade came down in a wide arc, and I ducked under it. He swung it in a backhand sweep toward my stomach, and I kicked the handle as hard as I could. The impact jarred me to the bone, but stopped the blade. I hit him with a left hook, driving him back.

  I tried to rush him, but he recovered too fast, and hit me with the end of the scythe’s handle. I stumbled back and dumped over onto my back. Tom held the scythe high over his head and brought it down with all the force he could muster. I spread my leg and the blade buried itself into the floor. I booted Tom in the face, and he tumbled over backwards. I jumped to my feet and jerked the blade free.

  For whatever reason, I had no compunction about killing my brother if it meant saving my wife’s life, but doing so with a farm implement seemed ludicrously barbaric. I threw the scythe into the hay loft and turned back to Tom. He was getting to his feet.

  “You never could take a punch,” I lied.

  “But I always had a little more foresight than you did,” Tom said.

  From his pocket he produced an oblong black box the size of a cigarette lighter. He flipped open a red safety and put his thumb on the switch beneath. I was no expert in demolitions, but I recognized it for what it was.

  “Say goodbye, Jim,” he said. “I’ll give my regards to Robert.”

  “Bobby? I said, my voice breaking. He was referring to my son. Our son. “No, wait—“

  Tom flipped the switch and an explosion ripped through the yard outside of the house. The side of the barn blew in, scattering boards and debris, blowing me backwards, sending me crashing into the side of a tractor. I don’t remember losing consciousness. When I opened my eyes, it was with a jolt.

  I sat up fast, looking for Tom, my hands up to fend off an attack that never came. I got to my feet and rubbed my head. I had a lump, but nothing critical. There was a hole in the side of the barn. He had gone that way. I knew it without question. It was imminently obvious to me, beyond question.

  Through the same hole, I followed, wanting to see what he saw. The hulk of the Land Rover was on fire. The roof was peeled back in a ghastly autopsy of the vehicle. It became clear to me then. Tom had been watching us, waiting to make his move. Once we got out on the road, he simply passed us and found a suitable location to use a propane tank as an improvised roadside bomb.

  The explosion took out two of our vehicles and gave Tom the opportunity to close in and attack. The bomb in the Land Rover had been his failsafe. He could use it for escape or to kill as many people as possible.

  I looked around but didn’t see anyone outside. Tom was gone. I was left standing alone in the pounding rain. I walked to the house and knocked on the door. There was no answer so I knocked again, harder. It was still dead silent. I was becoming impatient when I remembered that there was probably a storm cellar.

  I circled the house, searching for it. It didn’t take me long. I pulled on the d
oor, but found it locked from the inside.

  “Open up, please,” I shouted over the wind. “It’s me, Jim.”

  I waited a full minute, then two. At last the bolt slid back and the door lifted. I saw a face that I did not recognize. It was a man wearing a baseball cap over a weathered face. His eyes were tired, but his jaw was firm.

  “I hope you’re not here to blow anything else up,” the man said.

  “No, sir,” I replied. “Not today.”

  I saw a woman who appeared to be the man’s wife behind him. She looked competent to mend a shirt or mend a fence. An exceptionally capable woman, I was sure.

  “Come in out of that storm, young man,” she said in her motherly way.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “Is Grace in there?”

  Grace stepped forward, her expression grim.

  “Is everyone in there?” I asked.

  “Everyone but you,” she replied coldly.

  Something about the way she said it, set me back on my heels. Despite the rain and what felt like the beginning of hail, despite the wind and the very real possibility that my heartless brother was roaming the countryside, I didn’t want to go it.

  “I’m… I’m going to get the car off the road,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “No, no, come on in…” the man said.

  “Jim…” Grace’s voice hit me like a warning and as much as I wanted to come in, I couldn’t force myself to do it.

  “Be right back,” I said.

  I turned and walked away, walking for the pickup. I heard the cellar door squeak and the running footsteps and spun, fist cocked, ready to take him down. But it wasn’t Tom, it was Grace.

  “That was rude,” she said.

  “Which part?” I asked. “The part where I offered to get our cars off the only main road for miles or the part where the farmer’s house nearly blew up?”

  Grace grabbed my arm and pulled me back to face her.