The Age of Embers {Book 3): The Age of Reprisal

by Schow, Ryan

  When he woke, it was to liquid being poured on him. The smell was gasoline. Above him were two men, both of them scary looking, both of them irate.

  “Warm him up,” one said to the other.

  “Burn him?”

  “Yep.”

  Both men looked at each other, almost as if the guy suggesting they burn Carver alive was serious. By the look in his eyes, he was.

  Raising his eyebrows and visibly contemplating the value of Carver’s life, this dumpster donkey finally grinned and said, “Yeah, alright.” He then fished something out of the pocket of a ragged looking pair of pajama bottoms. It looked like a matchbook.

  Carver laid there, beat to hell, but quickly regaining his senses. There was nothing like being doused with gasoline to get your systems back online. Fumes gathered in his nose and mouth, leaving him sick, and with a tickle at the back of his throat. The second his assailant tore a match from the matchbook, Carver focused his mind, mentally prepared himself.

  Timing is everything, he told himself.

  Timing and speed.

  The instant the match head touched the strike strip, Carver rolled out of the puddle, scrambled to his feet and ran.

  The huge whoosh! behind him had him moving double time, everything hurting, his heart taxed with the burden of both extreme fear and flight. Carver heard the guys whooping and hollering, and then he heard them yelling, “Lookit’ em go!”

  A few blocks down, when he couldn’t breathe anymore and he was sure they weren’t following him, he broke into a house, cleared it first, then began rifling through the kitchen and laundry room sinks.

  The gas fumes were making him nauseous. His head felt like someone was taking a jackhammer to it and his eyes were burning. And that was the upside. The downside was that he may have a concussion and Maria may have seen what happened.

  Oh, and his knife was gone.

  Carver managed to find a bottle of white vinegar in the first house along with an old flashlight, although the batteries were weak, which in turn made the light less than desirable.

  That wasn’t all he needed though, so he broke into a second house.

  In the kitchen he found a big bottle of vanilla extract, a large glass mixing bowl, a turkey baster and some AA batteries.

  He switched out the batteries in the flashlight, then went to the garage where he found a blue, two gallon plastic bucket with a sturdy handle.

  In the bathroom, Carver filled the bucket with toilet water, then he stripped off his clothes, got in the tub and unscrewed the lid to the vinegar.

  He couldn’t help but groan at the smell.

  “Just do it,” he said, working up the nerve.

  Taking a deep breath, he poured the vinegar over himself and began washing his hair, his face and his body.

  He scrubbed vigorously, making sure everywhere the gas had soused him got scrubbed clean. It stunk to all hell, but it needed to be done. When that was finished, he used the bucket of toilet water to rinse himself off. Dripping wet, only a hand towel at his disposal, Carver went to the second of three toilets, filled it with water, then returned to the tub. In the glass bowl, he mixed the vanilla extract with the water, bringing the mixture to a sweet, but not overpowering aroma.

  He prayed this would work, if anything, so he didn’t have to go around smelling like a freaking Shell gas station.

  After he’d meticulously coated himself with the vanilla extract, he let it soak in for a few minutes. Standing there shivering in the tub, his body looking too thin by his own measure, he waited until he couldn’t wait anymore. He finally dumped the bucket of cold toilet water over himself again.

  With one last step before he was done, he filled the bucket in the third toilet, then returned to the tub where there was a bar of Irish Spring soap, extra lather. He soaped his body like his life depended on it. When he was lathered as thick as he could get, he rinsed his body for the third and final time.

  Finally he felt clean.

  He ran his hands through his hair, felt none of the nasty residue the gas had left behind. He smelled his arms, his hands, his shoulders. The faint suggestion of the offensive stench still remained, but overwhelmingly, he was clean.

  Knowing he could do no better, Carver dried himself off with an already damp hand towel, then found his way to the master bedroom’s main closet. Apparently the owners survived the initial attack. The way the clothes and shoes were rifled through, it seemed they’d fled the city fast.

  He took a quick inventory of what was left. It wasn’t hard. More than half the wardrobe was gone and only few pairs of men’s shoes remained. The shoes fit, but the clothes felt a touch baggy. It didn’t matter. He’d make them work, because who in their right mind would take on the apocalypse in their birthday suit?

  “Not this handsome devil,” he mumbled.

  He started doing that lately. Talking to himself. If not for his own company, he’d have no one to talk to. And with no one to talk to, he might go truly, genuinely insane.

  When he laid down in the queen sized bed for the night, feeling comfy and extra clean, he didn’t expect to sleep like the dead.

  But he did.

  When he woke, he did so in a blind panic.

  Hustling out of bed, all but jogging back to the house Maria and the girl were staying in, he was relieved to find they were still there. Still catching his breath, chastising himself for having been so foolish, he headed back out front not knowing he’d already been seen.

  “Hey!” the man from across the way shouted.

  Carver looked up, saw Mr. Gasoline Man. From his stash out front of the house, he grabbed his binoculars and ran for it, the douchebag extraordinaire hot on his heels. Fortunately he was able to outrun the guy.

  The problem was, now they’d be on the lookout for him.

  Instead of returning to the home he’d bathed and slept in, he found a vacant two story house with a direct view of Maria and the girl’s home. If they ended up leaving through the front door, which was the same way they’d gone in, Carver would see them. But if they slipped out the back, they could leave at any time and he wouldn’t know it.

  The odds sucked, but he wasn’t sure what else to do with his would-be murderers so close by. He kept an eye on their house, too. Because he wasn’t sure what to do, and he couldn’t control all the elements, he spent the better part of the evening attached to the binoculars.

  Finally he fell asleep.

  He stirred from a restless slumber to the sounds of two men talking. Sitting up fast in spite of everything still aching, he rubbed his eyes and fought his way out of the fog of sleep. His senses attuned to the house, he heard the heavy sounds of boots pounding their way up the staircase.

  “I see him I get him first,” one of them called to the other. Listening closer, on his feet now and looking for a place to hide, he heard the other man answer from downstairs.

  Is this Mr. Gasoline Man and his friend?

  He tiptoed to the closet, quietly opened the door, then ducked behind a long faux-fur coat and a sequin dress. It wasn’t ideal. He did have a weapon, but he did find a half-full can of Raid brand ant spray. He all but held his breath as he heard the men going through the house.

  When the door to the bedroom he was in opened up, he head footsteps nearby.

  Breathing light, so shallow it was almost like not breathing at all, the seconds ticked away like hours as he prayed for the men to clear the house and move on.

  He heard the closet door open. Saw a flashlight beam cross the floor, then dance across the clothes.

  The intruder started pulling the longer garments aside.

  A sweat broke out on Carver’s forehead, along the back of his neck, in his armpits. The second the dress he was standing in front of was pulled aside, Carver hit the man’s face with a full stream of bug spray.

  The intruder screamed, the light dancing along the floor and walls like crazy. What light he had, however, was enough for him to see the man’s legs. To know they wer
e wide enough apart. To be able to target his balls.

  In that minute, with his life on the line, Carver went for a seventy yard field goal. He kicked those nuts so hard, he was sure one of them—or maybe both—broke open like a cracked walnut.

  Yep. Payback’s a bitch.

  Gunfire broke out from the open doorway. He dropped down, the walls behind him eating a handful of slugs. When the shooter’s weapon emptied out, Carver charged him. He struck the shooter with a body shot that drove him straight into the wooden stair railing. The sound of the fractured railing bowing in was boisterous in and of itself.

  He pushed off the gasping man, punched him twice in the balls, then scanned the upstairs hallway looking for other shooters. The light put off by the fallen flashlight was limited, but he saw no immediate threats.

  “What the hell’s going on up there?” someone shouted from below, startling him.

  Carver grabbed the flashlight, shined it on the guy he just hit. He was cocooned in the stair railing from what he could see. The failed shooter covered his eyes, the staircase creaking hard with the movement. Scared, he stopped moving. The whole thing could go at any time, sending this idiot tumbling down a rather steep staircase.

  When the both hit the railing, it was a wonder they both didn’t go over! What would the fall have cost him? A broken arm, a broken rib, a broken neck?

  Stupid, Carver! Really freaking stupid…

  Before the last of the railing gave way, Carver went and wrestled the gun away from him. Despite some rather colorful language, it was easy. Finding a spare mag, however, was not.

  He did find one, though.

  And he did get it.

  Slowly but most assuredly, the knuckle dragger was trying to push himself off the railing. He couldn’t believe it. Carver wondered if this guy knew how close he was to his own possible death. Instead of chancing it, Carver charged him one last time, driving the mother of all kicks into his groin. The kick was flush—this clown was now gender fluid. The gasping, wheezing, moaning sounds of a forced gender change were music to his ears. But this had been no quiet affair. Downstairs, he heard the voices chattering.

  “Who’s that shooting up there? What’s going on?”

  A flashlight was blazing its light up toward them now. They must have seen the sagging stair railing, their buddy in a most precarious position.

  Carver was ejecting the empty mag, sliding in the spare, slapping it home. He leaned over the edge of the railing and shot at the guy. He missed all four shots, then looked at the gun when it stopped firing. There were six more rounds left! He fired again to a dry click.

  “Janky ass piece of—”

  A barrage of return fire came his way, splintering the stair railing and slamming into the ceiling. Carver didn’t want to trade shots, so on the next shot he let out a giant ooof! then staggered backwards into the hallway, slamming into the wall before collapsing into in a heap on the hardwood floor. He started mewling, then he started to cry. It was scary how easy he could do this—mimic being shot. He only hoped the ruse worked.

  When he heard the man creeping up the stairs, Carver slipped into the bedroom, pulled the vanity chair next to the open doorway, then stood on it. The shooter would be looking for a wounded man on the floor; Carver would come at him high, right out of the top corner of the open doorway and not wounded at all.

  The instant he saw the man’s face, he fired a round.

  Bullseye.

  The tumbling body made a ruckus all the way down the stairs. Hurrying as fast as he could, Carver crossed the bedroom, opened the window, pushed out the screen and caught it before it fell below. The cold, morning air hit him in the face, the darkness a bottomless abyss below.

  It’s only two stories…

  He crawled out the window, slid onto the short roof then grabbed hold of the gutter and swung his body over, praying the whole time no one would see him. When he let go of the gutter, he landed hard, rolling his ankle, but not to any detriment.

  At least now the pain was spread from head to toe.

  Walking with his feet close to the earth, feeling for any hidden obstructions, he moved to the house, peeked in the nearest window, saw three men with flashlights. All three were looking out into the living room, their heads craned to see up the staircase.

  “Not there, nut bags,” he muttered.

  Squinting his eyes, trying to see as much of them as he could, one held a hatchet, one was packing a canister of mace, the third was sporting the pistol.

  Carver moved to the cracked open door (their breeching location) and slid it open to his advantage. He shot all three of them. Ducking back down, taking no chances, he moved in stealth around the house, entered again, this time through the broken front door.

  His initial entry point.

  Quietly he entered the house, cleared it smoothly and quickly. When he finished the last room, he took a deep breath, let himself relax. It wasn’t easy and his ankle felt swollen. Upstairs, the guy whose eyes he hit with bug spray was making a fair amount of noise.

  “Is it your eyes, or your balls?” Carver asked the man.

  “Both!” he spat, mad, ashamed, bested.

  Carver shined the light on them; he turned away. He looked like a vampire if vampires were known only for their bloodshot eyes, broken rocks and snowflake like disposition.

  “Is that snot bubbling up out of your nostrils?” Carver asked, not taunting him, but really asking.

  “Do what you’re going to do,” he said, his voice breaking.

  “What if I already did?”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  “Then get on with it,” he said, no longer pawing at his eyes, or holding his privates.

  “You soaked me in gasoline and tried to set me on fire. You and your friend. Do you remember how much you laughed?”

  “We was just funnin’ is all,” he said, half-blubbering, half-sniffling like a child.

  Carver stepped forward, pressed the barrel of his stolen gun to the man’s head. He started to cry. What a truly, awful sound, Carver thought. As he sat there bawling, pleading, speaking fast and slurrish, Carver didn’t know what to do and he couldn’t understand anything the man was saying.

  When Carver pulled the trigger, all he heard was a hollow click.

  He fired again.

  Nothing.

  Mr. Gasoline Man knew what was happening, the death he’d barely escaped. He fell into full scale hysterics right then. Carver tried to eject the round.

  He couldn’t.

  The first thing he thought of was the firing pin, but unless he broke the weapon down and took a look, he wouldn’t know for sure.

  Then again, he didn’t have another gun.

  Clearing the nightstand, he set the flashlight on it with the beam on the ceiling. The light wasn’t great, but it was enough to keep an eye on his prisoner and take down the weapon.

  After ejecting the mag, he racked the slide, checked for a jammed round, or any round. One jumped out. He dry fired the weapon, got the hollow click again. He took down the gun, discarding the frame, focused on field stripping the slide.

  After removing the spring and barrel, he went to the rear of the slide and carefully removed the rear plate. He didn’t want the extractor depressor plunger spring launching itself into his face.

  Next he removed the striker assembly, held it under the light. He saw the problem. The firing pin was freshly chipped.

  Great.

  Tossing aside the weapon, he pocketed the spare 9mm rounds, certain at some point he’d find another weapon. He was curious about the pistol on the dead guy downstairs. Hopefully it took 9mm ammo.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” he told Mr. Gasoline Man.

  “Where am I going to go?” he cried, wiping his eyes again. “I can’t even see five feet in front of me.”

  “That’s because it’s dark.”

  “It’s not that!” he screeched. “It’s my damn eyes!”

  Down in the kit
chen, Carver collected the dead man’s pistol and the hatchet. He saw the hatchet had dried blood on it, which gave him pause. He looked down at the guy who’d had it, felt relieved that he was dead. The pistol was another story. He was hoping it took 9mm rounds, but alas, he found it to be a .45. He checked the chamber, saw a round, relaxed. He ejected the mag found it empty.

  “All I need is one,” he said to himself as he headed back upstairs.

  Mr. Gasoline Man looked up, his eyes bloodshot, drizzle draping from his lips. Carver shined the flashlight on the hatchet and the gun. Shaking his head back and forth, holding up a hand, his hostage said, “Please man, I didn’t…I mean, I did, but we—I don’t want to die. Please don’t kill me.”

  “The hatchet or the gun?” Carver said.

  The guy stopped begging.

  “What?” he sobbed.

  “The hatchet,” Carver repeated, “or the gun? Today it’s your choice. For the record, I prefer the hatchet. Looks like it works just fine. See all that blood? I think there’s some hair in there, but I can’t tell.”

  In all honesty, Carver preferred not to use the hatchet. He wasn’t a psycho…

  “You don’t have to do this,” Mr. Gasoline Man said, the waterworks starting up again. He couldn’t take his eyes off the bloodstained camp axe.

  “Okay, the gun,” Carver said.

  He stepped forward, and with a single echoing shot, put the man out of his misery. The .45’s sled shot back, the last round having blown a hole through Mr. Gasoline Man’s dome.

  Carver stood back, looked at what he’d done.

  The man slumped forward, his head on his chin, dead. Carver ran a hand through his hair, then he sat down in front of the man and considered the circumstances that got him there.

  “You tried to set me on fire,” he said to the corpse, as if the violence demanded an explanation.

  Maybe he needed the explanation. Maybe he needed a reason not to feel like a monster. Carver looked at the body, watched a line of bloody saliva drizzle out of his mouth and land in his lap. He thunked the dead man’s forehead twice with the barrel of the gun, almost like he was trying to get his attention.