From his position he was able to see as they went through the construction site land at full speed followed by a shock when the Toyota hit the first fence and went over it and then into the Rugby field, a couple of seconds later he felt yet a second shock when they went through the second fence. Behind them was coming the Suzuki having some difficulty with the field and its fences, he could see how sparks came from below the car when passing over the fences, but he could see the mad but confident look on Cristobal's face just behind the wheel, leave it to him to drive a car as low as that one over such a bad terrain, behind him were both Wagoneers closing in to the Suzuki, most of the people hanging on the sides had fallen down, but in a flash of light he saw that both police officers were sticking out of the windows of one of the SUVs with their weapons in hand.
As soon as they got out of the faculty, Roberto and Cristobal went on separate ways, the Wagoneer with the police officers gave chase to them while the other one chased Cristobal. The Toyota wobbled from one side to the other constantly every time Roberto dodged an obstacle along the way to the point that Guillem thought they were going to tip over, he could see how Maria was about to vomit with all the movement. The way was full of burned cars, piles of rubbish and burned tires everywhere. Both police officers started firing at them, Guillem could hear the metallic sound every time those bullets impacted the car and everyone of the people they picked up in the faculty started crying and screaming. After a few seconds there was a small explosion as the right back tire exploded and the car fell on that corner. The Toyota slowed down and shook violently, but Roberto managed to keep it under control, happily the Wagoneer was not able to close in due to the many obstacles plus its poorer handling and lower speed. A few minutes later they managed to leave behind the Wagoneer. Once the excitement began to cool off he noticed a very strong odour, it smelled of concentrated pee and noticed that the floor of the cargo area was wet, a lot of of the other passengers were still crying.
They were about to reach the Los Ilustres avenue, everything looked so different, usually the street would be very busy and full of life, but now there were only burned cars, fires and piles of rubbish everywhere. Roberto drove out of the avenue and into other minor streets, on the way he saw multiple houses with their entries destroyed and probably their contents stolen, some of them had the behind of a car sticking out of them. He did not notice at the beginning, but there were many human bodies laying around, he was hoping they were just drunk and not dead.
“If anyone wants to get down of the car at any time please let me know, we are going to the POTGC building in Los Chaguaramos, there is someone we must meet there.” Roberto said in a loud voice tone.
Nobody said anything, a few were just looking through the windows scared at what they were seeing, those that were not able to see through the windows were just crying.
On the way they went pass some small groups of troublemakers, most of them carrying fire torches, but more than a few were carrying televisions, tables, fridges and other stolen things. Most of them did not paid any attention to the Toyota, but sometimes they could hear insults and some even threw bottles and rocks toward them which bounced harmlessly off the car body. They could hear a few random gun shots as well, but nothing else, just darkness and silence.
They arrived to POTGC and in the petrol station just in front of the main gate was Cristobal's Suzuki parked in the parking lot. Cristobal, Edward and Lucio were waiting outside of the car. Roberto parked the Toyota next to the Suzuki and everyone stepped down of it. The place was a very small petrol station with a variety shop and a car wash that was usually attended by multiple employees. The place was deserted and the shop had its doors destroyed, there was graffiti all over the place.
“We have been waiting for you for too long! Always driving like an old woman, eh Roberto!” Cristobal said, but Roberto only mumbled something.
Roberto went straight to the flat tire to check it up. Meanwhile the rest of his friends got together with Cristobal' group. Some of the other passengers asked for a mobile phone which his friends lent them and after making a quick call they started leaving the place by foot in different directions. Lissette went straight to Guillem and asked him for his address then she hugged him and left.
“Uy, not everything was so bad eh? Guillem has a new girlfriend! Maybe she will finally take your eternal summer from down there away eh?” Said Cristobal pointing toward his crotch. “What is going to say your satanic cult now little boy? Are you allowed to have a girlfriend? Can she be someone from outside of the cult or does she has to believe in the devil as well?”
“It is not a satanic cult and she is not my girlfriend. Grow up Cristobal.” Said Guillem angrily while walking toward Roberto. “How do you see the damage?” He asked Roberto.
“I will have to change the tire, the car suffered a lot of damage, but it is a strong vehicle, it will hold just fine.” Answered Roberto. “Please, keep an eye for anyone that might approach this place. Tom, can you help me change the tire?.”
“Off course buddy!” Said Tom.
The others sat down close to the cars and looked into the darkness that surrounded them. Everyone was very quiet, just thinking and keeping to themselves.
Occasionally they saw some drunken people or speeding cars. They could hear as well a few laughs and female screams in the night. But nothing that would threaten then directly at least.
“I have never noticed how dark it gets. And quiet. It feels so weird this situation, I feel so vulnerable now.” Said Guillem. “You know what? I am going to the shop to see if I can find something to drink, do you guys want something?” Said Guillem.
“Let's see if we can find something for everyone. I will go with you,” said Cristobal “you need an adult to take care of you anyway.”
“You know I am not a child, right?”
“Not to me little buddy, not to me.”
Both of them got up laughing and went to the shop, but Cristobal went running first to the Suzuki to pick up the sledgehammer.
“I like it.” He said with a smile. “It might be useful in there if we have to break something or someone.”
“You are just a big child, did you know that?” Said Guillem.
The door had been pulled out of its frame and was resting on a side, the interior was very dark. Guillem found the switch for the lights on the right of the door frame and turned them on, some of the lights were broken, but still most of them worked and illuminated the place well enough. There were many shelves, but all of them were laying on the floor, as well as the food and magazines which were mostly destroyed and finally the cashing machine which had been emptied of all money.
As soon as they turned on the lights they heard a light knock at the other side of a door located at the back of the shop.
“Maicol? Mate are you there? Did you bring the gang? Here I have the POTGC bitches. Vohemia really helped us, that bitch really brought us some really nice asses here.” Guillem and Cristobal ran and hid behind the remains of one of the shelves. Whoever he was, he was drunk.
“Maicol? God damned, who is there? Stay here my little bitches, I will come back soon. Vohemia is that you? Do you or your sisters want more fun?” The door opened and a teenager of average height, very thin, tall and dirty came out, he was dressed with large clothes, including a blue jeans and a black shirt, his clothes were very deteriorated and stained in what seemed like blood. As soon as he opened the door a very intense odour came out, it smelled like sweat, blood and alcohol. In his right hand he had a pistol.
“Hey you!” The guy yelled at Cristobal as he fired his pistol and a roar of pain filled the shop.
Guillem ran to the guy and tried wrestling the weapon away from him, but the guy kept throwing him around as if Guillem was weightless. While the guy was trying to get free from Guillem's hold, Cristobal took his sledgehammer and with a maniacal look in his eyes hit the drunk on the side fracturing a few ribs and knocking down both the guy and Guillem, the guy fel
l unconscious from the impact.
Guillem came out from below the bloodied drunk's body and saw Cristobal sitting in one of the shelves covering his chest with a look of extreme pain in his eyes, his eyes reminded him of those of a hurt dog, they looked innocent, in a lot of pain and in need of attention. The others came running by the door, but calmed down when they saw that Guillem and Cristobal were fine. After doing a quick search on the body, Guillem took the pistol the drunk teenager had with him.
“Come with me to the back of the shop, this idiot came from there.” Said Guillem talking to the whole group as he got up and started walking to the back door.
He opened the door slightly and looked inside, what he saw broke his heart, there were multiple men and women laying in multiple places in the room, they were not moving at all and were mostly naked with multiple wounds over their bodies. There was a strong odour to blood and semen in the place. He came out again and closed the door, then ran to a corner and vomited.
Edward approached the door to open it, but Guillem stopped him before he did it.
“No! You do not want to see what is in there. Do not open that door.” Edward stepped away as suggested by Guillem, so did the others.
“Pick up whatever you need and let's get out of here, this place is disgusting and reeks of dead.” Said Guillem.
“Hey, shut up!” Whispered Maria as she turned off the lights. “We have company outside.”
Guillem approached the entrance and saw two older Toyota Land Cruisers from the seventies of the kind that is used in Caracas' bad neighbourhoods to transport people, they were parked just outside next to their cars. A group came down of them, it was a gang of about 12 people in total, one of them was middle aged woman with chinese face features and short black hair, she seemed to be the leader and could not be older than 40, but had all the signs of a person that drinks and consumes all sorts of drugs. They all had red shirts.
“Hey Marta, what do you think about these cars? They are cool, I like the Suzuki. But, they were not here last time when we came. Shall we take them? What do you say? The egg heads that left them here do not deserve to have them.” Said one of the gang members.
“Idiot, the owners should be still around, maybe they are in the shop. You and you, stand guard here, the rest, follow me!” They went to their cars and armed themselves.
Cristobal went to the switch and destroyed it with the sledgehammer.
“If these idiots do something to my Suzuki I will kill them. Anyway, now if they come they will not be able to turn on the lights.”
“You and you, get in there and check!” Marta told two of the gang members.
Both guys approached the shop cautiously with a gun in hand each of them. Roberto whispered to the group.
“Hide, let them get in and then we attack all at the same time!”
Guillem hid behind one of the lying shelves and took out the pistol he just picked. He saw as both gang members came into the shop, they had just walked a couple meters into the shop when one of them quickly turned toward the place Cristobal tried to hide and fired his weapon at him, almost instantaneously Guillem aimed his weapon and fired at the intruders as well. The others jumped from their hiding places and were trying to grapple, immobilise and disarm them.
Guillem tried to immobilise the guy that shot at Cristobal, but he was extremely wiry and quick so kept escaping once and again not only from his efforts to hold him down, but from those of Cristobal and Edward as well. Guillem could hear and smell gun shots, but was unable to check how the others were doing. It was finally Edward who managed to immobilise the guy long enough to give them the opportunity to punch him until leaving him unconscious.
After disabling his opponent Guillem looked to see how his friends were doing with the other guy. Roberto was wrestling him, but was covered in blood and about to faint, the guy had shot him repeated times in his right leg and sides, the others were trying to help him, but he and the guy were rolling around very violently. Guillem, Edward and Cristobal closed in to help and between all of them finally managed to knock the intruder out.
As soon as the intruders were disabled Roberto sat over a pile of rubbish and leaned against a wall, he was breathing with difficulty and had a few gun wounds and bruises all over his body, particularly one rather large in the right leg.
“Get away from him, let him breathe” Said Guillem while approaching Roberto and kneeling next to him. “This is going to hurt buddy, so hold on tight.”
“What will you do? What do you know about medicine?” Whispered Roberto just before falling unconscious.
“Cristobal help me here. I need your help.” Cristobal placed his sledgehammer next to Roberto and proceeded to help Guillem tear Roberto's clothes around the wounds, with the pieces of broken clothes Guillem made a few strips of cloth and bandaged the wounds after cleaning them with some drinkable water he found lying in the shop. “I hope he wakes up soon, his wounds are big, but nothing that should be immediately dangerous.”
Meanwhile Xavier approached the entrance to look what the rest of the gang was doing outside and Lucio and Maria were both picking up the intruders pistols.
“The crazy bitch that looks like the group leader is looking for something in their Toyota. She is opening a rather heavy briefcase. FUCK! She has one of those big machine guns you see in the movies! FUCK! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT CRAZY BITCH DOING WITH THAT?” Xavier was describing from the entrance. “I think that we might be better off leaving this place, and now! Maybe this place has a back exit? All of the gang members are with her so if we find another exit there will be nobody looking over it.” He said as he began running to the back door.
“FANATICS OF THE EMPIRE! BETRAYERS OF THE COUNTRY! THE PEOPLE IS NOW IN POWER AND WILL STAY THERE! HERE IS A GIFT FROM THE COMMANDANT FOR TRASH LIKE YOU!” Marta yelled from the outside.
Cristobal lifted Roberto's unconscious body as quickly as possible trying not to damage the improvised bandages Guillem placed, Guillem picked up Cristobal's sledgehammer and all of them ran as quickly as possible to the back door where Guillem had seen the dead bodies.
Guillem saw as everyone except Cristobal and him passed through the back door, they were the slowest of the bunch because of Roberto's dead weight. They were about to make it to the door when he heard dozens of shots coming from the outside, so many that it seemed like just one continuous sound, almost instantaneously he heard a lot of glass breaking and felt a very sharp sting pain on the right side of his hip as well as a muffled groan of pain coming from Cristobal, but both of them managed to go through the door and throw themselves to the floor.
There were many bodies carefully laid in the floor between the shelves and boxes, they were barely visible due to some light that was coming in through a tiny window close to the roof. The bodies were almost completely naked, both women and men and all of them had blood flowing from between their legs. The stink of blood, sweat, alcohol and semen was so strong that all of them had to cover their mouth and noses, Xavier was not able to withstand it and had to run to a box and vomit in there for a few seconds.
“There is a door.” Said Guillem while he was trying to help Xavier stand up. “That must be an exit.”
Tom tried opening the door but it was locked, he stayed there trying to forced it open but without success.
“We are fucked! It is locked and the key is not anywhere that I can see! Quickly, check all the bodies with an uniform, someone must have a copy of the key for this door!” Tom said.
Cristobal placed Roberto's body carefully against a wall and taking his sledgehammer away from Guillem proceeded to hit repeatedly the exit door while the rest was searching the bodies for a key.
After a short search Lucio found the key in a pocket in the uniform of a girl's body and opened the door. The group went out of the shop and into a narrow alley between two restaurants located behind the petrol station and finishing in another main street. The floor was made of protruding black stained rocks, the walls on
each side had been painted white long time ago, but were now completely covered in mold and had many rubbish bins leaning against them.
“Now what?” Cristobal asked, he was carrying Roberto's body once again and had his sledgehammer secured to his back. “This guy is not light, did you know?”
“We cannot go back to our cars, we should look for refuge in a nearby place, maybe the POTGC building.” Said Guillem while helping Xavier walk.
“Yes, but the POTGC building is on the other side of those dammed idiots,” said Maria “besides they will start checking everything back here very soon.”
“I am sorry Xavi,” said Guillem talking to Xavier “because I know it is disgusting. But what about going down there?” He said to everyone while pointing to an access point to the city drain.
“If that is the only option.” Said Tom. “Help me remove the lid.”
Tom with Lucio and Edward's help managed to remove the lid and push it aside. A very strong odour to faeces and humidity came rushing from the hole and enveloped the group.
Guillem and Lucio in particular could not stop a disgusted grin from showing in their faces when they smelled the odour, both of them got very pale.
Leaving Xavier standing by himself, Guillem was the first to approach the opening with the intention of going into it.
“Since this is my idea it is fair that I go in first.” He said while proceeding to descend using some steps carved into the sides of the hatch, he could not hide how sick the odour made him feel as he was descending. “It is very dark down here! And a bit slippery too! Do any of you by any chance has a flashlight?”
“My mobile has a flashlight function, I am coming down!” Tom said. “Do not take long, there have been no more gun shots, they must be about to get into the shop and search for us.” He said to the rest of the group. “First Cristobal, I will help you with Roberto and then we help Xavier come down as well.”
Everybody descended slowly as soon as Roberto and Xavier were down in the drain tunnel. It was a very narrow corridor with a low ceiling, leaving just space for one person to go bending over through it. It was just made more difficult for Cristobal and Tom because both of them were carrying Roberto's body, the walls were covered with irregular blocks and they could see some corridors on the sides every few meters.
Religious Fangs, a novel Page 4