Thunderbird

by Chuck Wendig

  Her head slowly turns. Her gaze casts downward, sees the napkin in Miriam’s hand. Then her eyes drift farther down.

  “Huh,” she says, walking over, picking up the pills. “You drop something?”

  “I need those,” Miriam says, feeling her lip shake.

  “What are they?”

  Trying not to cry, Miriam says, “Dick pills. Keep boner strong like bull.”

  Ofelia laughs. “That’s good. Funny, bitch. Funny. These are, what, antibiotics? Somebody give these to you? Somebody here sneaking you pills, huh?” She rattles the pills in her palm.

  Miriam shuts her eyes. Shit.

  Ofelia walks over. Holds them out in her palm. “Here.”

  They’re right there.

  Two little pills.

  Miriam reaches over to take them—

  Ofelia tilts her hand so they slide back to the ground. Tick click.

  “Oops,” she says, then kicks them under the bed.

  “You fucking—”

  “Find your way out of hell, little birdie. Or the bad people gonna get you.”

  FIFTY

  BONE BROTH

  The spoon touches her mouth. It’s warm but not hot. The broth slides down her throat. “Bone broth,” Mary says, feeding Miriam. “Trendy now, I’m told. But this is old school right here. This is grandmother food. Boil bones until they break down. All the goodness of the animal— all of its barest components— here in this warm liquid. Now, let’s be clear: I’m not keeping you alive because I like you. Though I hear you snuck a couple pills— your fever is down, and maybe that’s why. We’re keeping you alive long enough to get to this last part. I’m moistening your throat so it’s easy to talk. Because soon, you’ll talk. If you want me to help you, then you have to help us.”

  She hates that the broth is good. Her every cell, every molecule, says: Spit it out. Blast it in the woman’s face. Blind her. Then claw at her— scratch her face off and make bone broth from the skull underneath. But her arms are weak. Her resolve: weaker. The broth is good. You need your strength, she tells herself. She makes a move too early, and it’s curtains for her.

  Miriam says after sipping another spoonful: “How long have I been here?”

  “Two weeks now.”

  The words come out of her before she means them to: “One week left.”

  “Hunh? One week till what, exactly?”

  “You know,” Miriam says, voice cold and steely.

  “Ohhh. I do know. The courthouse. Question is: how do you know?”

  “I’m in your head.”

  Mary squints. “No, that’s not it. That’s not how you work. You saw it in someone’s death.” She leans back. Puts the spoon back in the Tupperware container she’s holding. “Helping to dig people’s graves for them is all you’re doing with that power. Now,” Mary taunts in a singsongy voice, “if only you had a way to get rid of that curse. If only, if only . . .”

  “Why? Why the courthouse?”

  “The easy answer is that it’s the first domino. A match flung into a fireworks factory. The more complicated answer is that a trio of bad men will be there that day. A judge with no soft spot for the American patriots, who is always eager and willing to punish men like Ethan Key for standing up for one’s God-given Constitutional rights. A state senator with a song in his heart for helping immigrants at the same time he tries to rob the common man of his right to bear arms. And a state district attorney responsible for green-lighting a SWAT attack on the Cochise County militia two years ago in a botched raid that saw three children and two women get dead. Killing those three is a strong signal.”

  Miriam groans as she tries to sit up. “Bullshit. You don’t actually believe all that, do you? I don’t think you do and I don’t think you care. I think you’re a gun or a pair of scissors for hire.” She grunts, suppresses a cough. “Something else is going on here. Some other reason to jump in with these people.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I know how you die.”

  “You can’t. I know your power doesn’t work that way.”

  “Maybe you don’t know as much as you think, Stitch.”

  “Maybe not.” Composure returns to Mary’s face. She seems to chew on what Miriam has said the way you’d chew on a stubborn piece of jerky. “Maybe you do get me. I look at you and I think I was like you, once. Maybe had good ideas. Maybe thought about being a nice person. Help people fix the things broken inside of them instead of just breaking them down further.” Her face twists up, like a dog gone feral. “But eventually, I figured out who I really was, and then I just went with it. If you live through this, you’ll get there too.”

  “I already know who I am.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it to me. I can see the weakness in people, and I can see what it takes to cut that weakness out. And in you I see all these gaps and voids, like holes in Swiss cheese. And boy howdy, can I see them all. Stick my fingers in, wriggle them around. Louis. Gabby. Your ego warring with your self-hatred. You’re overconfident and yet never really sure. Then there’s your mother, what she did to you, what happened to her. The boy with the red balloon. And Wren. And Isaiah, too. Got a thing for children, do you?” She hmmphs. “I see all these threads you’ve tied to yourself. Suicide. Miscarriage. Death. And people. Other people. It’s them that make you weak. You’re tethered to them, like that string on that little boy’s balloon. The balloon bobs and you chase after it. This power makes you care about people. And you hate that, don’t you?”

  Miriam scowls her way to a grim rictus of a smile. She winks and says, “Hasn’t made me care about you any.”

  “I wonder if that’s true.” Mary nods. Stands. “You wanna know why the courthouse? For real? Ugly building. Quintero’s a cunt. I’m tired of having to show up there. I’m just tired.”

  “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I don’t have to do anything. That’s the freedom folks like you and I have. But it’s also a burden, too, isn’t it?” The woman’s face is haunted. By what, Miriam cannot know. The things she’s done, perhaps. The people she knew, or the people she hurt. Ghosts holding her own ropes and tethers. Mary stands up straight, suddenly, and sniffs real loud. “Well. This’ll all be over soon. Then I’ll have a surprise for you. A surprise that’ll have you doubling over and whistling ‘Saints Go Marching In’ right out of your cocky little ass, honey.”

  FIFTY-ONE

  SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS

  The taste of bone broth on her tongue, her brow slick with sweat, Miriam waits. Eyes shut. Hands clenched up. We’ll push on that one spot soon. She has to be ready. For what, she doesn’t know. But she can’t compromise. She has to thread the needle. Can’t crash against the rocks. Can’t get eaten by the monster.

  Evening settles in. The light of day receding from under the edges of the tent like the sea gone out to its consumptive tide.

  The tent flap moves back. She keeps her eyes closed. The squeak of an axle on a wheelchair. Footsteps crunching, thudding. More than one body. More than just Ethan. They keep coming.

  She shivers, and opens her eyes.

  “Is this my intervention?” she asks, weary. The crowd that has gathered stares on. Ethan. Mary. Ofelia. David. Karen, of course, her head tilted at a right angle, using her jagged shoulder as the world’s most uncomfortable pillow. Nobody else. No armed men. They feel safe. She’s sick and dying and handcuffed to a bed. What can she do? “I mean, I already quit smoking.”

  It occurs to her: she hasn’t had a nic-fit in weeks.

  A silver lining on the blackest cloud.

  Ethan steps forward. Wordlessly, he holds up a bottle of pills. He rattles it like she’s a cat or a baby and he’s trying to entice her. Then he holds out his hand and Ofelia passes over a knockoff iPad. With his arm lifted, Miriam sees the gun hanging at his hip: something shiny, nickel-plated.

  He keeps the screen pressed to his chest.

  Finally, he says, “It’s dark on the East Coast. It’
s about eight o’clock there. We found your friend. Louis. We have him.” Fear rips through her like barbed wire through a closing hand. Now Ethan turns the screen toward her. He flips through photos: what looks like the darkened interior of a townhome illuminated by bright flashlights. She sees the dark shadow of a rifle barrel, like something the military would carry. Each picture shows things that make her think of Louis but might not be his— a calendar hanging on a refrigerator showing a tractor-trailer, a set of big boots by the front door sitting below a big brown coat, a set of keys in a dish by the front door. A front door that’s broken open. Glass glittering on the ground. A picture of a living room where it looks like there was a struggle: a flatscreen television knocked off the wall, a coffee table tipped over. She thinks: I still don’t know that this is his place. They’re just messing with me. Like I messed with them.

  But then, the photos show the upstairs.

  A bed, empty. Sheets torn off. Pillows, too. Blood on the bed.

  Next to the bed, a photo.

  It’s Louis. And another woman. He’s got a full beard— soft and sandy, grown in from when she last saw him. Dark hair, big smile, bright eyes. Him wearing a big Hawaiian shirt, her with a loose white blouse— palm trees behind them. Could be Florida. They’re kissing. She’s his fiancée. Samantha, right?

  That’s them.

  Her blood goes slow and cold.

  Ethan rattles the pills again. “Last offer on the table before we jump this car off the cliff. This is a good offer, a kind offer, so please: open your fucking ears. Last chance to tell me where the boy is, Isaiah. And then two things happen— or, rather, don’t happen. First, you don’t die, because we start giving you these pills: gentamicin. Strong, horse-kick antibiotics. Second, your friend Louis doesn’t die. And his wife to boot.”

  “She’s not his wife,” Miriam says through quivering lip and gritted teeth.

  “Well, be that as it may—”

  “I want to talk to him.”

  “You aren’t in any position to make demands.”

  “You want me to give you the boy, I will. But I need to know Louis is all right, already. Okay? Okay? You gotta give me this.”

  Ethan scowls. “I don’t have to give you anything. I’ve already given you the sweetest offer, and it is the last. After this, it gets ugly. You need to have a little faith for once in your awful life, Miriam. That’s an unspoken part of this deal. Faith in that where you would tell me a lie, I am telling you the truth.”

  “Please,” she says.

  “Besides, Louis is hurting. See, the thing we did to you? Gunshot to the lung? We did that to him, too. He’s safe for now. But in a few hours, he won’t be, unless we get him to a hospital. So, him having a conversation right now is going to be tough. We’ve got him. And he’s on the clock—”

  “Lying.”

  That word, erupted from David’s mouth. His eyes go wide. His hands go to clamp over his mouth, but he’s closing the barn door after the horse already galloped away. Lying. Miriam’s heartbeat seems to stop in her chest—

  “I mean,” David says. “Wait—”

  Ethan draws his pistol— bang.

  A spray of blood out the back of David’s head. The body drops like a mannequin kicked off its mount.

  Miriam thinks:

  This is it.

  Ethan launches himself atop her. He’s on top of the bed, the gun pressed to the side of her head. Any mask of civility is gone: everything is wide with rage, an open conduit for the fury he’s feeling. He spits when he screams:

  “Tell me! Tell me where the boy is or so help me God, I will shoot—”

  She summons what strength she can and knees him in the crotch. He doubles over, his head dipping forward. She moves her hand underneath his wrist, launching it upward as the gun goes off right by her ear—

  Bang.

  A sharp shrill scream, his scream, and the screaming echo of the gunshot as his head gets close to hers, his eyes lit up like floodlights—

  She opens her mouth and bites.

  Teeth sink into the stubbled cheek. Teeth meet other teeth. Blood on her tongue. The strange, momentary taste of bitter cologne.

  Ethan screams. He pulls away, leaving a wad of his face-meat in her mouth. As he reels back, she gives a twist to her hand and pushes her thumb hard into the soft, tender flesh of his wrist—

  The gun drops. Half on the edge of the bed. She lets go of him as he backpedals, a spigot in his face pouring blood down his neck—

  She grabs the gun. Turns it toward the chain binding her hand to the bed. One shot, bang, and the chain breaks. Miriam rolls out of bed, the flats of her feet landing hard against the rug rolled out on the desert floor here in the tent—

  Everyone is already running. Ofelia is pulling Karen out, Karen whose mouth is now a gaping tunnel from which emits a terrible howl—

  Miriam’s legs almost go out from under her. Weak, wobbly, numb. Ethan darts for the door and she fires three shots from the pistol heavy in her grip, but she can barely hold it, barely aim— holes punch through the tent. Ethan escapes.

  In her head, a clock starts ticking.

  Her body is a fuse. Sizzling down. When it hits the bottom, she’s done— not an explosion but a fizzle, a dud, and she’ll drop like a rock. Hole in her chest. Weak body. Infection running through her like a California forest fire. No pills to contain it.

  They’ll come for her. Ethan may be escaping, but already she can be sure that his thugs and cronies will be on their way. Guns up. Ready to shoot.

  She has one choice.

  One word. Ringing like a crystal bell.

  Run.

  FIFTY-TWO

  MIRIAM RUNS

  She’s in a T-shirt. Shitty yoga pants that aren’t hers. Out in the warm evening air, she can smell herself: a musky, raw odor. Desperation and fear keep her moving. Her body is ragged. Barely even hers anymore.

  She wills her feet to move.

  Miriam runs. Not a real run, but an awkward, coltish trot—gravity keeps dragging her on, her head leading the way, her legs moving just fast enough to make sure that she never pitches forward, never hits the ground.

  The camp and compound around her. Little houses. Tents. Yelling behind her. Gunfire. Pop, pop, pop. Dust kicks up around her feet. Bullets vwip. She darts right, between a makeshift garage and a small trailer. Ahead: a small lot of cars. A few Jeeps. Hummers. A dusty white sedan. The van— her van, the no-longer-a-wizard van, the motherfucking magic van. She thinks: Yes, run, get a ride, drive. But then, voices ahead. Men stalking the spaces between the vehicles. Guns up.

  Miriam knows she should stop. Think. Consider her options. But that is, ironically, not an option: momentum is what she has. All she has. Can’t stop moving or she’ll collapse like a Jenga tower. She has no more fight in her— just movement, urging her ever forward, lightning loosed from its bottle.

  Run, run, run.

  She ducks left. Behind the garage. Between it and a corrugated tin shed. There: one of the greenhouses. Long, the Plexiglas dusty and smeary and cracked. Little cacti growing alongside. Her feet pound dirt. Pain through her heels— something cutting the flesh there. Jagged stoned, broken earth; she doesn’t know and she can’t pause to take a look, she can only bolt—

  Into the greenhouse. More gunfire. The Plexiglas wobbles and shakes as bullets punch through it— piff, piff, piff. A clay pot pops. Dirt everywhere. A tomato ruptures like a popped skull. Miriam keeps her head low, and then she almost does fall but catches herself on one of the long tables. There: a woman ahead, dark, Latina, old, holding up her hands and saying, Please, no, and Miriam can’t stop to reassure her, can’t stop to do shit except shoulder hard past her.

  Back out the end of the greenhouse.

  Ahead, a fence.

  Tall. Ten feet, easy. Chain link. Topped with barbed wire— not coils of it but, rather, angled out. Not meant to keep people in, not like at Carl Keener’s serial killer playground, but meant ge
nuinely to keep enemies out.

  The fence, too, isn’t perfect. They haven’t maintained it like they should.

  Warped areas in the fence leave it slack.

  It won’t be enough, she thinks.

  She cannot make this.

  But Miriam has no choice. And so she puts a little extra salt-and-pepper in her step and charges hard toward the fence, giving a hop as she nears it—

  Fingers out like talons. Hands catching the chain link. Feet doing the same. And then she’s clambering up the warped, wobbling fence to the top—

  Pop-pop-pop-pop. Automatic gunfire. Sparks dance off the fence. Bullets clip the post just a foot away. Her hands find barbed wire. It bites into the meat of her palm. She pulls. The barbs tear deeper. She drags herself over the top. Rusty teeth into the flat of her belly. Then up, over. Dropping down. Landing hard on her feet. Pain jars through to her knees. Her ankle twists.

  She forces the pain, or the recognition of it, back, back, back, urging it into the shadows with a mental cattle prod because she has no time for pain, no time for its distraction, and again, she does what she does best, what she has always done, what she has learned to do better:

  Miriam runs.

  FIFTY-THREE

  LONG WALK OF THE LIVING DEAD

  Sun up. Rough birth. It pulls its way up and over the horizon like a zombie clawing out of its grave.

  Miriam is still going. Like that fucking battery bunny.

  Walking, now, not running. No— not even walking. Shuffling. Her feet are cut to ribbons. Her middle is a stabbed-over wasteland, her belly looking like she got in between two house cats hell-bent on fighting and/or fucking.

  One thought goes through her head every couple of minutes:

  I needed those pills. But it’s too late. She fucked that up. Then he took them. . . .

  Her entire chest feels numb. Her whole body is leaking moisture— and yet she hasn’t pissed, can’t spit, can’t cry, can barely even bleed. Her mouth feels like a canyon full of ash. Her eyes feel like charcoal briquettes. Dried up. Bled out.