by G. M. Ford
I knew right away he was dead. Something changes in that instant when the spark of life leaves a person. A person suddenly becomes little more than a rented vehicle, a bag of bones having little or nothing to do with the person you knew in life.
He lay in a twisted heap, about fifty feet from where I was being held up by the elbows. Somewhere along the line, during one of the rolls, something had very nearly torn his head off. I stifled a gag reflex and looked away and knew, in that instant, that the image of him lying there in the dust would be etched on my optic nerves for the rest of my days.
On the other side of the truck, they’d manhandled Gabe out of the cab. I shrugged off the guys on my elbows and started for Gabe in the instant before a rifle butt tenderized the side of my head and separated me from my remaining consciousness.
At first I thought I was blindfolded. Took me a while to realize that my eyes were okay and that the room was deep-space dark. Right after that spasm of lucidity, something about the way the air caresses a naked body told me I was also naked.
“Hey,” I said to the darkness.
“What?” Gabe said from some distance away.
“You naked?” I asked.
“Yeah . . . I think so.”
“Can you move?”
“Not much.”
I curled my fingers up toward my wrists and discovered the plastic zip ties that were holding me to the chair. I silently cursed. Only way to get out of a properly attached zip tie was to chew off your hand like a friggin’ coyote.
“Can you move the chair?” Gabe asked.
The best I could manage was to lift the front legs off the ground by getting up on my toes. Then I added scrunching my ass forward while holding the front legs off the floor. The chair moved about two inches forward and then dropped back down.
“A bit,” I said.
“Let’s see if we can’t get next to each other,” Gabe said.
Twenty minutes of grunting, groaning, and sliding got us knees to knees. My eyes had partially adjusted to the lack of light. I could just make out Gabe’s sweaty silhouette about three feet in front of me. That’s when the lights snapped on and somebody began to throw latches and levers on the door.
I cracked my eyes several times, getting them used to the light. We were in a shipping container. Gabe and I and two old-fashioned wooden chairs. That was it. That and the overwhelming smell of dampness and mold. Half of Gabe’s face was a giant purple bruise. One eye was completely closed. A trickle of dried blood ran from the hairline until it disappeared into the ear canal.
The door on the left groaned open. Then the other one. A blast of cool air washed over my naked body like an avalanche. I shuddered twice and then looked up.
They’d brought out the taxi squad for this one. The whole gang was here. Didn’t recognize the first guy through the door, but all the rest of them were familiar faces.
Bickford, Blondie, Curly Hair, Phil Hardaway, our orientation guy, and a pair of glowering Blackshirts.
Blondie stepped right up in my face. She bent down and put her face in mine. I could smell her breath mints.
“I’m tellin’ ya . . . that’s him,” she said. She straightened up and pointed at my face. “Same guy Scooter carved up. Him and that . . . that freak over there, they come in the store earlier today. Grew all that faggot hair since Scooter cut him, but that’s him for sure.”
Curly-haired Scooter dropped to one knee in front of me and squinted at my chest.
“Oughta be some scars here,” he said. “I don’t see shit,” he declared.
“Maybe he got it fixed,” Bickford said from over by the door. “Phil, what about you? You’ve seen him before.”
Hardaway walked over and stood about six feet in front of me. He was silent for a few seconds. “Not sure,” he said finally. “It was a long time ago. He’s about the same height, maybe.” He grabbed me by the chin and pulled my head up. “Not sure,” he said finally and walked back out of view.
“I was given to understand you’d met the guy,” the new voice whined.
“Long time ago.”
“Is this or is this not the fellow your father-in-law tried to hire to look into that boy’s death?”
“I took care of that,” Hardaway protested. “I gave that nosy old asshole what he had coming. What does it matter if this is the guy?”
He thought it over. “Well . . . you know, you’re probably right. It doesn’t really matter, now does it?” the new guy said. I might not have recognized him, but I recognized the voice. It was the guy running his mouth over the loudspeakers. The one spouting the white supremacy shit. Gabe knew it too. I could tell.
“Apparently these people are not who they claimed to be. That’s sufficient to assume they are not part of our glorious cause.”
Somebody cocked a weapon. The snick of a metal slide sent me squirming in the seat. Felt like something with hot breath was breathing down my neck.
The Voice held up a restraining hand. “No,” he said. “First we must ascertain what they know and to who else they might have told what they know.” He looked to his left. “Mr. Allison,” he said. “If I recall correctly, you have a particular talent for extracting information from the unwilling.”
Curly Hair leered. “Sorta a hobby of mine. Got me a little ‘truth kit’ back in my car.”
“Go get it,” the Voice said. “Then we’ll begin the interrogation.”
The Voice pinched his nose and made a prissy little face. “Interested parties can wait outside until you return. It stinks in here.”
Everybody headed for the door. Scooter stayed for dessert. He walked over and stood between Gabe and me. Looked my way. “Gonna cut your cock off, boy,” he said, then pointed at Gabe. “Gonna cut off whatever the fuck that freak’s got down there too. Then I’m gonna make you eat both of them.”
He stood there for a moment, letting the horror sink in, before letting himself out the door, leaving us sitting there staring at one another in the darkness.
Nothing needed to be said. We’d fucked up royally. Severely underestimating the enemy had been stupid, and we were about to pay the price. My frustration boiled over. I began to struggle. To pull on my bonds for all I was worth. Grunting and sweating, trying to break a zip tie I knew perfectly well was unbreakable.
When I had to stop to catch my breath, I watched as Gabe turned purple trying to break loose. When Gabe ran out of gas and stopped struggling, I started trying again. The force broke the skin. Blood was rolling down over my fingers when I heard a sharp crack and felt something give.
My first thought was that I’d broken my wrist, but I’ve broken quite a few bones in my time and knew this didn’t hurt enough for a broken bone, so I gave it another go, this time twisting my wrist on the wooden arm of the chair as I tried to pop the zip tie.
The arm came apart with a crack. I stopped and sat still. Waiting for the doors to open. Nothing happened. My brain was screaming at me, “The chair . . . the chair . . . the weak point’s the fucking chair.”
I shifted my weight and then threw myself sideways, sending the chair toppling over onto the remaining arm. The force broke the arm loose from the chair bottom.
I slid the zip tie down and pushed it over the end of the arm support. With both hands loose, I channeled my suppressed anger and quite literally tore the remains of the chair to pieces.
I started for Gabe, had a better idea, and picked up one of my chair’s arm supports from the floor. I stuck the skinny milled end in between Gabe’s right wrist and the arm of the chair. “This is gonna hurt,” I whispered.
Gabe nodded and smiled. I began to twist the piece of chair wood. One time around and Gabe was breathing like a locomotive, huge bulging veins rising from the wide forehead.
Took everything I had left to turn it another complete revolution. Gabe was groaning now. Eyes rolled all the way back, teeth starting to gnash together, when the tie snapped. The chair tipped over on its own. Without shoes it hurt like hell, bu
t I stomped Gabe’s chair to kindling.
A moment later we were standing side by side, shattered chair arms dangling from wrists, ankles festooned with splintered chair legs. We looked like a pair of giant naked wind chimes. Gabe winked and gave me a bloody-toothed smile.
The bolts and latches on the door began to snap and slide. Gabe and I painted ourselves to the front wall on either side of the doors. The door on my side swung slowly open. First thing over the threshold was the business end of an assault rifle. I grabbed it in both hands and twisted with all my might. I heard his trigger finger snap like a Popsicle stick as I wrenched the weapon from his grip. The door started to close.
I lowered my shoulder and tried to run right through the metal door. I felt the impact drive whoever was on the other side to the ground.
I came out of the container with the assault rifle spewing rounds like a garden hose, not much caring who was still out there, just wanting them dead. As far as I was concerned, anybody whose idea of a good time included watching that Scooter asshole work somebody over with his “truth kit”—anybody like that, the planet could do without.
Turned out only four of them had stuck around for the show. Pity was that none of them was the little guy on the loudspeakers. Scooter wasn’t back with his torture bag yet, and Phil Hardaway had somehow disappeared into the ozone.
Bickford, Blondie, Throat Tattoo—whose gun I’d appropriated—and our very own orientation guy, baby-blue overalls and all, lay strewn around the forest floor like broken flowers. They’d all taken multiple rounds and had hated their last. Throat Tattoo was the only one still moving. He slow-motion spasmed on the ground like a dog running in his dreams. Gabe hustled over, pulled Bickford’s sidearm from his belt holster, and shot Tattoo right between the eyes. The squirming stopped. The forest got quiet. I stood up and looked around. Nothing. You could hear leaves falling to the ground.
I got down on one knee and started to go through Bickford’s pockets, looking for the list of which groups were going where to do what, when out of the blue, I remembered I was stark naked. Real game changer that.
Suddenly the fact that we were surrounded, out in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of heavily armed maniacs bent on murdering us didn’t matter nearly as much as finding a way to cover my ass. Go figure.
I undid Bickford’s belt, rolling him back and forth on the ground as I wiggled his trousers down his rubbery legs and over his engineer boots, finally swinging them loose into the air.
He was way smaller boned than I was; it was a tight fit, but I got them on. I was doing the same thing with his stinky camo jacket when I noticed Gabe standing there.
I looked over. “The blue overalls are about your size,” I said.
The suggestion got me a big, bloody-toothed grin. “Why the hell not,” Gabe said and started that way.
I got to my feet and stuck my hand into the right-hand pants pocket and found a cell phone. I button pushed my way to recent calls. Mostly the Everett area code. Looked like business mostly. Except for half a dozen or so calls to and fro with somebody named Thomas Henry Mitchell, who I was betting was the guy on the loudspeakers.
The phone began to buzz. I pushed a button and brought it to my ear.
“Bickford,” the voice bleated. “It’s Scooter. What in hell is going on down there? What’s all the shooting?”
I didn’t say anything. I wanted to tell him I was coming for him, that he better never close those nasty little pig eyes of his again, ’cause I was gonna be somewhere out there in the darkness waiting for him. But I bit my tongue instead.
“Bickford . . . you there . . . what’s . . . Bickford!”
He broke the connection. I looked Gabe’s way.
“A vision of loveliness,” I said as I watched Gabe borrowing orientation guy’s shirt and then letting out the overall’s suspenders.
“We got four stiffs lying here,” Gabe said. “One more ain’t much gonna matter.”
I got the message and started going through the rest of Bickford’s pockets. I found what I was looking for in the back pocket of the pants. Unfolded it. Yep, there it was. I refolded the list and returned it to where I’d found it.
I shuffled over and searched Throat Tattoo. Poor bastard looked like he had three eyes. Like I figured, I found two extra magazines for the assault rifle in his backpack. A good thug never goes out without being properly prepared.
Gabe, who was doing the same thing to the others, had come up with three more handguns from the Cadaver City residents and had stashed them in the various overall pockets, usually intended for tools. I particularly admired the black revolver dangling from the loop which generally housed a hammer. Nice touch there.
Gabe looked my way. “Not to belabor the obvious, but we better get the fuck out of here.”
I nodded. “I hate leavin’ Ben’s body here with these assholes,” I said.
“Yeah . . . I know whatcha mean.” Gabe shrugged. “You got any ideas, I’m listening, but the way I see it, tryin’ to get him outta here is strictly a suicide mission.”
“I’m not ready to go yet,” I said.
“Me neither.”
“Let’s roll.”
Even from beneath the thick canopy of trees, the slanting remnants of late-afternoon sun made it easy to tell which way was west. Instead of following the dying of the light, we headed back the other way. Due east. Toward the miles and miles of farms we’d passed on the way in. That was the plan at least.
The Job Corps’s old road system was big-time serpentine. Seemed like it must have had more to do with keeping the inmates busy than it did with creating a viable infrastructure, so we kept coming across sudden sections of roadway that didn’t seem to lead anywhere but required that we scuttle silently across them whenever we came upon another loop. On several occasions we had to throw ourselves to the ground and cower in the bushes when trucks full of Blackshirts thundered by. What mostly kept us from being spotted was that these were the kind of guys who like their truck exhausts throaty and muscular. You know, a manly exhaust throb you could hear coming from quite a distance.
By the time the sun disappeared altogether, we’d made so many veers and zigs and zags, crossing roads and forest clearings and avoiding passing vehicles, we were pretty much traveling blind. Any real sense of direction had disappeared with the light.
Gabe and I were sitting on a fallen fir tree, catching our collective breaths and trying to figure out which way was up. Gabe pulled a cell phone from a jacket pocket and held it tight to the baby-blue overalls so’s the light wouldn’t give our position away. Checking for cell service. A disgusted shake of the head told me all I needed to know.
“No service,” Gabe announced.
I got up and started walking in the general direction we’d been going before. You know things have pretty much gone to shit when falling in a ditch is the best thing that happens to you all damn day. The brush had thinned and tall grass was now underfoot. One second I was picking my way through the chest-high prairie grass, and the next I was hurtling downward like a Holstein cow in an elevator shaft.
The landing was surprisingly soft. Wet and muddy, with enough collected debris in the bottom to cushion the fall. When I looked up, Gabe was standing at the edge of the forest looking out over my head, with the biggest grin I’d ever seen on that face. I stood up and looked in that direction.
The road. The beloved road. I had to stifle a cheer. Gabe slid down the side of the ditch, then boosted me up the other side. I set the assault rifle on the pavement, lay down, and put out both hands. Gabe grabbed ahold, and half a heavy-breathing minute later, we were panting, side by side, facedown on the two-lane blacktop.
Took us a minute to glue ourselves back together before we struggled to our feet. I hung the assault rifle back around my neck and looked around. We’d made it to the road all right, but the question immediately became, where on the road? Which way was civilization? We were too beat up to go marching off in the wrong direction
again.
Gabe pointed. “See the glow,” Gabe said.
Fuzzy in the onshore fog, but I saw it. A dull, muted glow coloring the underside of the clouds.
“That’s gotta be Conway,” Gabe said.
“Nothin’ else out here.”
We started off in that direction. Half a mile later, the moon broke through the cloud cover for a minute or so. Long enough for me to get a glimpse of our shadows following us down the road. All we were missing was a fife and drum.
Mercifully, only one car used that desolate stretch of road in the forty minutes or so we were staggering along the shoulder. We saw the lights coming from a long way out and repaired back into the ditch. Took us three tries to get out. We decided we’d either have to tough the next one out or spend the night in the ditch.
We still hadn’t sorted it out when something ahead in the darkness pulled my eye in that direction. A few more steps and a streetlight peeped out from the foliage. Yet a few more steps and a road sign showed its face. Green and white in the half light. CONWAY. Underneath, POPULATION 73. Musta been an old sign.
“I was our Aryan brothers and I was lookin’ for us, I’d have people waitin’ for us in town. Lots of ’em,” Gabe offered.
“Let’s go in down the far end,” I said. “Real low profile. Maybe come in behind the post office.”
So we did just that. Walked an extra mile or so, then cut back into the trees and looped around behind Main Street until we were peeping out of the trees about forty yards behind the 76 station.
Not one truckful of Blackshirts, but two. Four guys to a truck. Two in the cab, two in the truck bed. One stationed at each end of town. Lights off. Every once in a while somebody inside the trucks would sweep the area with the truck’s spotlight. Looked like a prison break was going on.
No way were we going any farther. No way could we stay where we were either. About the time it got light out we were gonna be a whole lot easier to find.