by Mark Tufo
“Not really, sir. The General has us on radio silence.”
“The better to hide his complicity.” I had a slow fury building for him.
“Sir?”
“Nothing. What’s ahead of them?”
“Los Angeles.”
“Get me there.”
***
“Sir, are you sure about this?” the pilot asked as I was stepping out.
“I bet you’re wondering what one man can do against so many.”
“I am, sir.”
“The fight has nothing to do with it. You married?”
“Engaged, sir.”
“And if she were in danger?”
He nodded. “I’d do anything in my power to help her.”
I dipped my head.
“Good luck, sir.”
“Gonna need a little bit more than that, but thank you.” I stepped off the shuttle and into the rubble that was East L.A. I turned and shielded my eyes as the shuttle took off. I watched it for a minute as it quickly retreated. I was sorry to see it go--if I found Tracy that would have been a nice getaway vehicle. I got my pack on my shoulders and was on my way to see if I could find where and if Tracy had set up her last defensive line.
The city had suffered some serious hammer blows from the Progerians. Nothing much above three stories or so had survived. Broken glass, bricks, cement chunks and the twisted hulks of cars and trucks were strewn all over the place, making my initial trek difficult and slow to say the least. It was my fourth or fifth street over, tough to tell where one block ended and the next began, when I began to see signs of life. Much like game trails in the woods, someone had cleared paths for people to walk quicker through the city. Although, why anyone would desire to stay here ranked right up there with owning a cat. Sorry, sorry, I’ll lay off the cats. Maybe I should have said something like, ranked right up there with seeing clowns at the circus, or how about ranked right up there with desiring a zombie apocalypse. Choose any of those as substitutes.
I should have seen it sooner but it honestly just didn’t register, as there was so much assailing the senses. The charred bodies, the devastation, the debris fields, it was so alien in itself to see a city so vastly laid to waste. I guess it can’t really be held against me that I missed the gang signs. I think I should have known the fresh graffiti for what it was, though. It was movement in a window across the street that got my attention. The second floor to Eggroll Emporium was still virtually intact, the only reason I was even looking over there was because a damn eggroll sounded delicious about now. I had been wondering if there was a possibility of some having been left behind.
“Long ways from home aren’t you, Army boy?” The question was laced with malice. I couldn’t hone in on it.
“Marines.”
“All the same to me.”
“Yeah, it really makes a big difference when you’re in. There’s the pride associated with your branch...”
“I don’t give a shit! That’s a nice gun you have there.”
“This old thing?” I meant to pull it up as if to show him what he was asking about, when all I really wanted to do was get it into a firing position. If I hadn’t been so fixated on food maybe it already would have been.
“Hold on there, we don’t want this to get messy.”
“Yeah, I’d hate for you to have to wipe my blood off of it before you could use it,” I answered.
“That’s funny.”
I was trying my best to turn my head and get some sort of fix on what kind of pile I’d stepped in this time. Even with only a modicum of success in looking around I saw at least four armed gunmen. I had to figure there was at least that many to my back. They had the numbers and the position. It wasn’t going to be Genogerians that did me in but the rather pedestrian gang-bangers.
“Yeah, the rest of my unit thinks that too. They’ll really miss me when I don’t show up for tonight’s show.”
I think I gave him something to think about. They had me outnumbered but if my mythical unit did show up he could potentially be in as deep as I was now. He didn’t need to know I was slightly exaggerating and that, as of yet, I had not found my unit.
“Flats, you see any sign of this man’s unit?” my mystery voice called out.
“Flats?” I mumbled. That didn’t seem like a really good nickname to strike fear into the hearts of an opponent.
Flats must have been close enough to shake his head in negation to the question, as I did not hear him respond.
“Doesn’t really sound like you have any back up there, Army man,” the man who I figured to be the leader said.
“Marines. And you trust this Flats to have the best recon available to him? How far can he really see from his vantage point? You willing to wage an all-out firefight on his limited field of vision?”
“I trust Flats more than I trust you.”
“Well, I’m not sure if that’s really a fair assessment. I mean it seems like you’ve probably known this Flats character longer than me. Once you got to know me we could become pretty good friends, besties maybe.”
“Doubtful, but I sure do hate to kill such a funny cracker. What are you doing down here by yourself, Army man?”
“Marines.”
“I’m getting weary of this and that rifle would make a good addition to my arsenal. We’re going to start at the beginning and you’re going to assume that we know you got off that shuttle by yourself.”
“Saw that did you?”
“Let’s just kill him and get this over with!” another from behind shouted out.
“Just wait. I’m curious. It’s not like we have anything else going on right now. So do you have a good enough story to save your life, Army man?”
“Marines.”
“I told you, I don’t give a fuck!” he rumbled.
“Fine. I didn’t come here with my unit but I am trying to hook up with them and I have reason to believe that they are in this city somewhere.”
“And what would be your reasoning behind that assumption?”
This is insane, apparently I’ve run into a Yale educated gang member, must have dropped out of law school, I thought. What I chose to say was much different. “They’re trying to stop an invasion from the Genogerians before they can destroy the fighter facility north of here.”
“Flats?” the man asked.
“There is no one else on the whole east side,” he answered.
I didn’t know if I should feel despair or elation that she wasn’t here waiting to get mowed down by these thugs or by the Genos.
“What about the Allees?” the man asked.
“Allees? Sounds like a pretty blonde’s name.” I threw my two cents in, which right now was worth about half a penny.
“The fucking crocs, man, we’re talking about those ugly scaly bastards.” I think it was Flats that spoke.
“I know what you’re talking about; I just never heard them called that.”
“No Allees,” Flats answered the original question posed.
“Listen, whatever your name is. I have no reason to lie at this point. When I was in that shuttle I saw them. Raised a dust cloud that went to the stratosphere, which is not an exaggeration. My guess is there’s close to a quarter of a million of them heading this way.”
“He’s lying!” someone else shouted.
“Listen, you can have the fucking gun, I don’t care. Just let me live. My wife is leading a resistance force against them and I either want to rescue her or die with her. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Can’t really ask for anything right now, can you?” Flats said sarcastically.
“Shut up, Flats,” the leader replied.
“You can’t let him go—he’ll bring his friends back here,” someone else piped in.
“Listen, in the grand scheme of things how important do you think East L.A. is to me or anyone in the military? Most likely everyone in that battalion that survived Twenty-Nine Palms is going to be wiped away, and pretty soon. It’s not me you have
to worry about—it’s the Genos heading your way. From what I’ve been hearing they don’t let much stand in their path.”
“Your wife a pretty special lady?” the leader asked.
I thought that a strange question in our particular version of détente, but it was a crack and I wanted to exploit it. “Yeah, she’s saved my worthless ass a couple of times.”
“Are you Michael Talbot?”
That question I was not prepared for. There were some gasps and ‘no ways’ from around me. I didn’t answer. Didn’t matter, the leader did.
“Your wife—she’s the one that rescued you in France, right? You were fighting the Allee champ. Sorry to say it, man, I think he would have killed you. I wanted to bet all my money on him but no bookie would take the action, the odds were that bad against you.”
“Oh yeah, he definitely would have killed me. And if I had any money, I would have bet it on him as well.”
“This whitey ain’t Michael Talbot, that guy’s like 6’5”, two hundred fifty pounds, used to play pro football or some shit.”
“You’re probably thinking of Durgan,” I said.
“He don’t look like no living legend,” someone else said.
“Listen, I’m not. I’m just a regular guy with some irregular shit going on around me. I’ve been lucky, maybe a little too lucky. Plus, I have some incredible people around me, including that big green guy that wanted to kill me, Drababan.”
“You are friends with that thing? I thought that was all a publicity thing or something,” Flats said.
“No, we are most definitely friends. In fact, you might not believe this, but he’s watching my kid while I’m off trying to save the little one’s mom.”
“Bringing a tear to my eye.” It was that same asshole behind me spouting off. If anyone needed to get shot today it was him. If I could neutralize that one’s mouth I might get out of this.
“I’m going to move real slow and take this gun off. Then I’m going to put it on the ground and leave, hopefully to never return again. Are those acceptable terms?”
No answer. I slowly began to move the gun over my head and was about eye level with the barrel when a shot ricocheted by me feet. It would have been difficult to squirt out any more adrenaline than was coursing through me at that moment. My instincts screamed to dive, roll and come up firing. Some higher level of reasoning told me this would be my undoing. No matter what the leader thought, he would have to kill me if only to defend his role or potentially his life.
“Annie Oakley you aren’t,” I said as I bent over and put the gun on the ground.
“Fuck man, he didn’t even flinch!” Flats yelled out.
“We good?” I stood back up, hands above my head.
“Strings, go get the gun,” the leader shouted out.
“Why me, man?”
“Well, you shot at him and you apparently want him dead. Go make it happen. Tre, get Strings’ gun first, though.”
“Come on man, that’s not right,” Strings entreated.
“Come on Strings, you beat the Earth Champion you’ll be a legend,” Flats said.
What the hell was going on here? I was at the mercy of this gang and I was losing precious time while they played cat to my mouse. “If you beat me, how many people are going to want to try and kill the man that killed the Earth Champion? It’ll be a vicious cycle you’re starting.”
“I’m keeping my knife! And I’m going to give him a Nigerian necktie!”
“I thought it was Colombian?” I answered.
“Go.” I think Tre was ushering Strings along.
I turned when I heard the crunch of glass underfoot. Strings was not much like his namesake, sort of like when a fat man is called Slim. I’m thinking he got the nickname when he was a gangly youth and had sprouted up faster than his body could keep up with. I think a more fitting name would have been Straps. He was bigger and stronger, doubtful that he was meaner than me, though. I was still coming off the after-effects of the alien meds although I had been eating vitamins like candy since I’d left the hospital in an effort to combat those ill effects. Speed was my best option. I could only hope that the gut ache I had from force-feeding supplements had been worth it. I looked down to my gun as casually as I could.
“Don’t even think about it,” the leader said.
“How the hell can I not?”
“Valid point. Don’t act on your impulse.”
“Okay, that’s fair.”
“I’m going to cut you.” Strings was building up his nerve.
I tried to act as nonchalant as possible. “Oh, is that why you’re carrying that knife? Do you think maybe we could do couples therapy? See if maybe we can work through some of our issues? You know, try and salvage what’s left of our relationship?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Strings was advancing, albeit slowly and warily.
“The doctors used a lot of fancy medical terms but when I asked them to use layman terms, the word ‘nuts’ came up a bunch followed almost immediately by ‘crazy’. I think ‘psychotic’ made an appearance or two, I can’t remember. By then the lithium had kicked in and I was drooling pretty heavily.”
“Shut up, man!” Strings had the knife out in front of him. He looked like he knew how to use it.
“I’m going to fuck you up, Strings,” I said menacingly and for his ears only when he was in range. I got down into a fighting stance and awaited his lunge.
He looked around, probably wondering if he could get away.
“Just me and you champ, isn’t this what you wanted?” I asked him. I think he would have taken a hot coffee enema over this right about now.
“Gut him Strings! Cut him up!” Things along those lines rained down from the peanut gallery. Surprisingly, I heard little from their leader.
Strings swiped with the knife. I moved back and almost fell over a brick when I put my foot down wrong. If I hadn’t been wearing boots I would have rolled my ankle. As it was the stumble gave Strings a false sense of superiority, and he followed quickly. I regained my balance and gave him a kick to the shin that had him swearing up a storm as he stepped back.
“There’s no kicking! What are you, a girl?” he asked. I think he was debating if it would be safe for him to lean over and rub the smarting area.
“You have a knife. I seriously doubt you’re a chef.”
“I don’t need this!”
“Then get rid of it.” He didn’t. A boy can dream, can’t he?
This time I moved towards him, he backed up.
“Come on Strings, twist it in his stomach. Make him bleed!”
“Yeah, Strings, stick it in my stomach. Not going to be able to do that if you keep going that way.”
“He’s fucking crazy, someone just shoot him!” Strings begged.
“Anyone shoots him, I’ll shoot them,” the leader rang out.
Strings looked pretty pissed.
“So much for back-up, Champ.”
“The name is Strings.”
“Don’t need names where you’re going.”
He swiped again, slicing the sleeve of my jacket open. That was a little closer than I would have liked.
“Got you, motherfucker!” he shrieked.
“Yeah, you destroyed my military-issued clothing. No worries, they’ll get me another.”
Strings came in again, I pivoted my body, both of my hands wrapping around his knife wielding hand and quickly rolling his forearm across my abdomen. I managed some upward torque as I planted my right elbow on his forearm. The snap of his bones made a resounding crack. The knife fell to the ground but I didn’t hear it as Strings screams of pain dominated all.
Strings was leaning up against a wall cradling his arm, pathetic moaning coming from him. I reached down and grabbed the knife. “I think your dog is out of the fight…can I go now?” There was silence, I mean except for String’s sniveling. “Oh yeah, I’ve decided I’m taking my rifle as well just in case there are more assholes like you.”
>
Well, this is it, Talbot, I thought as I strode towards my weapon. I’m either free or dead. Although, there is a lot of freedom in death so that’s not really as bad as it sounds.
“Hold on!” the leader yelled.
I was halfway bent over, my fingers tantalizingly close. I stood back up. “Oh, for the love of...” And then he came out a doorway, not more than ten feet away. “Holy shit,” I mumbled out loud. The only human I’d seen as big as the man that came out of the building was Durgan. “Oh well, the bigger they are the harder they fall. I’m not sure how that’s supposed to be a comforting saying to the opponent. I mean, really it’s just bolstering up the bigger guy because it’s saying it’s going to be tougher to take them down.”
“I believe it refers to the part where someone bigger will make a larger impact when they hit the ground.”
“Well shit, now that makes much more sense.”
“My name is BT.” His hand was extended.
“This a trick?”
He stepped closer. I was beginning to feel slightly cooler as he blocked out the light from the sun.
“Shake my hand or it’s going to look bad.”
“Must be a bitch finding clothes that fit.”
He ignored my taunt. I shook hands with the giant; it was like a kid shaking hands with his dad. I kept expecting him to squeeze harder and prove dominance or maybe just bear hug me to death.
“I wanted to say thank you.”
“You’re thanking me? You’ve got to realize how fucking strange this is from my point of view, right?”
“Naw, man. I’m talking about sticking it to the Allees like you did. You saved us, man, you saved us all.”
“Not sure if you’re going to have that same sentiment later tonight.”
“I think we can help.”
“PT?”
“BT.”
“Is that short for Bad Tempered? Forget it, sorry. You realize I just broke one of your men’s arms, right?”
“He’s an asshole, he needed a lesson.”
“What if he’d killed me?”
“Well then, I guess I would have known you really had gotten lucky in all your travails.”
“You really know how to lay on the comfort.”
“Do you want my help or not?”