by J. Thorn
“Fuck you.”
Dax pulled back harder on Chuck’s arm. He jerked it one more time before throwing Chuck to the ground. The man hit the floor with a thump, the side of his head bouncing off the wall. Chuck’s gang went to move toward him, but he yelled at them to back off.
“Give me your keys,” Dax said.
Chuck nodded at his men. “Someone get the keys out of my pocket. I can’t reach’em.”
The man handed the keys to Dax as Isaac kept the gun trained on the thugs.
“Now sit down and shut up. You got two minutes before I start shooting. Move it.”
Dax kicked one of the men in the ass as he dropped down to sit on the floor.
“We’re gonna get you motherfuckers,” Leo said.
Isaac lowered his weapon as the last man sat down. He shook his head and turned to Dax.
“They’re gonna get out when the rest of their crew comes back.”
“Yeah, but their crew might be out all night. That'll buy us some time.”
Dax shut the door, used Chuck’s key to lock it, and then tucked the ring into his pocket.
Muffled chuckling came from the other side. One of the thugs had come right up against the door to say something to Dax.
Chuck.
“You’re dead. You fuckers are all dead.”
14
The group found an abandoned office building several blocks away from the compound where they’d been imprisoned. Isaac and Dax went through every room and did their best to secure the doors and windows so everyone could try and rest for the night. Neil and Chloe had been talking about Dax and whether or not he could be trusted given that he had been lying about being a cop.
Isaac wasn’t even close to falling asleep, though. He kept replaying the events of the day, his mind showing him the scuffle with Dax over and over again. He had landed several good shots on that lying asshole, and it had felt good. If outsmarting thugs by beating the shit out of Dax was the answer, Isaac hoped the universe would ask the question more often.
As others slept on the hard, thin carpeting of the office floor, Isaac stood and walked to the front of the building. He carefully stepped over arms and outstretched legs to get a look out of the window and into the street. Dawn was breaking behind the towering structures of steel and glass. The light reflected in a kaleidoscope of color as it passed through windows and accentuated the sun’s morning rays. But as his eyes continued down to the street level, the scene felt much less inspiring.
Isaac saw fires burning inside of cars. The empty storefronts stared back at him with broken windows that looked like black eyes. Garbage, ash, and junk of all kinds littered the sidewalks among bloated corpses. Some lay face down where they’d died, but others had been dragged off to the side like common road kill. The odor of burning plastic failed to mask the smell of death which Isaac could detect even with the window closed.
A man ran down the sidewalk screaming, only inches from where Isaac stood behind the window, but Isaac couldn’t see who or what the man was running from. He backed away from the window, hoping to fade into the darkness that still held in the deep recesses of the building. The man’s cry faded as he continued running down the street. Isaac’s racing heart slowed.
“Mr. Isaac?”
His heart skipped another beat at the sound of the young boy’s voice behind him. He turned around, noticing that his own gasp had startled the boy in return. Darius’ mother hadn’t returned for him after the city had fallen.
“You scared me.”
“I’m sorry.”
Isaac sighed, winking at the young boy. “It’s all right.”
He sat down on the ground and patted a stain on the carpet. Darius sat cross-legged next to Isaac.
“What are you doing here?”
“Looking outside, making sure nobody’s going to try and hurt us. Why aren’t you sleeping?”
Darius shook his head. “I couldn’t sleep much.”
“You too, huh?”
“I want my bed. I want to go home.”
“We’re going to get you home, little man. I promise.”
Isaac’s stomach turned—possibly from making a promise to the boy he knew he couldn’t keep—and he took a sip from his water. Luckily he still had a quarter of a bottle left from a package they had found in one of the offices. Isaac smiled at Darius and handed the water bottle to him. Darius took a swig and handed it back to Isaac.
“Drink it. You can have the rest.”
Darius’ eyes widened, and he chugged the rest of the water, his eyes on Isaac as he drank.
“Thank you.”
Isaac patted his head, lightly placing a hand on his shoulder. “You’re welcome.”
“What are we gonna do now?”
“I don’t know.” Isaac ran his hand through his hair. “I guess we’ll try to find somewhere safe to stay, far away from those bad men. Then, we’ll come up with a plan to get you kids home.”
Darius sat next to Isaac for a few hours, occasionally drifting into a shallow sleep. Isaac felt the boy startle several times, moaning and calling for his mother. When Darius woke up for good, the two sat in silence.
The floor cracked. Isaac and Darius looked toward the hallway as Neil entered.
“The others are waking up.”
Isaac looked to Darius, who smiled back at him. He offered the boy his hand, which he accepted. Together, they stood up and followed Neil into the other room where the rest of the group was talking.
15
They left the office building that morning as the sun rose. Dax led the group down the street, moving silently around the burnt-out shells of cars and rotting bodies. Chloe brought up the rear, hobbling along.
She thought about the way Dax had protected her. He’d fought with an efficient savagery that had kept the situation from getting out of hand—and kept him in control. They wouldn’t last long now without Dax, and she wasn’t sure it mattered whether he was a cop or a convict. The world had changed. And men like Dax were the ones who would survive in it.
Chuck had captured her—twice, and she’d seen what he did to anyone who threatened his new black market dealings. He wasn’t going to let them simply walk away. He’d even said so and, in her mind, she replayed him saying it... “You’re all dead.”
There were only so many places to hide out, and finding a safe haven from the insanity was becoming more difficult. And what if things never went back to normal? What if this was the new normal? Chloe believed that Chuck had an extensive crew, a network of gangs spread across the city who delivered workers to his warehouse. He’d produce the meth when the grid came back up, and if it didn’t, he’d always have the young women he’d captured.
Chloe tried to push the thoughts out of her head as she kept pace with the rest of the group, taking in the broken city around her. Until now, Katrina had been the most devastating event New Orleans had ever seen. Whatever had blacked out the city must have been something huge. Catastrophic. With Katrina, FEMA had rushed into the city faster than the media had portrayed it. The National Guard and relief trailers had been on the streets within days of the waters receding. But lately, nobody came to help. No police officers in riot gear, no National Guardsman or helicopters flying over. The government had simply ceased to exist, leaving the street urchins to crawl from the sewers and do what they wanted to their fellow citizens.
Chloe hadn’t heard many rumors about what had caused The Blackout or if the city could be saved. Based on what she saw, however, Chloe wouldn’t have been surprised if this apocalyptic event was happening across the entire country, or maybe even the whole world. If the grid couldn’t be restored, they might never even know what had started it all.
“How’re you doing?”
Neil’s question shook Chloe from her thoughts. She gave him a smile like one gives an old friend at another’s funeral.
“I’m all right.”
“No. I mean, how are you really doing?”
Chloe star
ed into his eyes and shook her head.
“I don’t know. The last few days have been nothing but hell. And I’m worried sick that Chuck’s gang is going to catch up with us. If that happens...”
Neil sighed as if there wasn’t anything they could do about Chuck catching up to them. He gestured toward the front of the group. Toward Dax.
“How well do you know him?”
Chloe hesitated, not initially sure how to answer the question. She stared up the road as she shook her head. “I’m not too sure anymore.”
Neil sighed. “I guess the most important question I have is: can we trust him?”
“I’m not sure we have much of a choice. How are we supposed to survive without him? He’s so much stronger and more skilled than the rest of us. He might be the only thing keeping us alive.”
“That gang isn’t going to stop until they find him. They might forget about us if we ditch him.”
Chloe laughed. “Those guys aren’t going to stop until they find all of us. I can promise you that, I mean, they came back to the day care center for me. They want to use us for slave labor. And it’s personal now. Sure, they could find others. Possibly even a group weaker than ours. But they’ll want us now. I’m sure of it.”
Neil paused and then looked to the ground. “I don’t know if I can trust Dax.”
“Why not?”
“He lied about being a cop. That’s a pretty big secret.”
“He was trying to survive. If you were an escaped convict, what would you have done? We would’ve turned him away. Besides, he saved me from that place, to begin with.”
“Do you know what he did?”
Chloe paused, unsure of how much she wanted to tell Neil about Dax. She had heard from others that Dax had murdered someone during Katrina. She also knew he’d been running with gangs after high school, and well into his thirties. She’d assumed the two things were related but had never heard the motives behind exactly why Dax had done what he’d done. The Dax, or Jackson, she’d known in high school had never seemed capable of such crimes. She’d hoped to have the chance to ask him about it sometime soon. And without knowing more about what he’d done after they separated, she wasn’t comfortable getting into it with Neil.
“I don’t know,” Chloe said.
“Eventually, the others are going to want to know.”
“Eventually isn’t now. They need to learn to trust him like I’m having to do again.”
“So you’re on the fence, too?”
Chloe nodded. “But I don’t see much choice. He can help us.”
Neil didn’t respond.
He’d been walking next to her for some time when his mouth suddenly turned down into a grimace. He winced and then stopped.
“Hold up,” Chloe said to the others in the group.
Neil rubbed his left calf, waving the group on. “Don’t wait up for me. Just a little cramp, that’s all.”
Everyone stared, and he gestured again.
“Really, I’m fine. Chloe and I will catch up. Keep moving.”
“Let’s go, guys,” Isaac said from up ahead, and the group continued on.
Chloe’s eyes tightened, and she lowered her voice. “You all right?”
Neil stood straight up and nodded.
“I’m fine,” he said, whispering. “I need to tell you something, and I didn’t want anyone else to hear.” He started walking again, urging her to remain beside him.
Chloe swallowed. “What is it?”
“I wasn’t a security guard at the pump station. I was an engineer.”
“What?”
When Isaac and a couple of the kids turned around, Neil reached down to grab his leg again, still faking a cramp.
“We’re okay,” he said to the group. “Keep going.”
When they turned around again, Neil barked at Chloe with a harsh whisper.
“Keep it down.”
“Why did you lie about that?” Neil’s lie didn’t seem to be of the same magnitude as Dax’s, and yet she felt her face flushing and her pulse quickening. She shook her head back and forth, resisting the urge to scream at Neil for the apparent hypocrisy.
“Look, all you need to know is that bad things are coming, Chloe. This city can only remain without power for so long.”
Chloe furrowed her brow. “What are you talking about? Neil, you’re scaring me.”
“You should be scared. We all should.”
“Neil, you have to tell me—”
“You know what? I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”
He sped up, catching the rest of the group and leaving Chloe behind as she called his name. But she knew. Everyone who lived in New Orleans knew, and perhaps just hadn’t been thinking about it.
The pumps.
The backup systems.
They’d fail, submerging the city under water in a matter of hours.
16
Dax led the group to a house on the outskirts of town, in a district known for its drug deals and street shootings. The violence that had plagued many of the disadvantaged neighborhoods in New Orleans before The Blackout was commonplace now. Bodies were piled up on the sidewalks of Bourbon Street, as they had on Paris Road in the crime-ridden neighborhood of Little Woods.
He stopped in front of a single-story, blue house with white shudders and boards nailed over one of the windows.
“We’re not stopping here,” Neil said. “What if someone lives here?”
“They don’t,” Dax said. “My cousin used to own this house. Been vacant for months.”
Dax crept through the tall weeds and pushed the chain-link gate open. It squealed louder than he’d expected. Dax looked around, but it didn’t appear as though anyone else was hiding in the houses on this street. He put a foot on the first step, and the old wood creaked beneath his weight. Dax stepped over a gaping hole on the deck to the left of the door, grateful that it wasn’t dark. He placed his fingers on the handle and slowly turned it, feeling no resistance from a lock or a deadbolt. Dax pushed the door open.
Gripping his holstered sidearm, he entered the house.
Ceiling tiles lay on the floor, and the walls had been covered with graffiti. The living room smelled of stale beer and urine. A rat scurried past his feet and into the kitchen. Dax noticed that the appliances had been stolen, leaving nothing but ghostly halos of dust and grime where they’d once stood.
Dax moved through the two bedrooms and bathroom of the tiny, cramped house. The closet doors had all been torn off or stood open. The house had been stripped of everything, even the copper pipe torn from the laundry room walls—and that was probably before the world had gone to shit. Dax took a deep breath after making sure nobody was hiding in one of the rooms. He walked back to the living room to talk to the group from the front porch. They had gathered in the yard, but nobody was coming up the front steps.
“It’s vacant. It stinks, and it’s not pretty, but it’ll be a roof over our heads.”
The group looked around at the other houses on the street, and a few of them grumbled beneath their breath. But no one challenged Dax’s decision to bring them here. Kevin and Darius made their way up the steps, followed by Monica.
“Watch your step,” Dax said.
Isaac placed a foot on the step as if he expected a grenade to be hidden beneath it. When he stood on the porch, he stopped.
“Yeah, Dax. We’re gonna be watching everything.”
Dax smiled and bowed like a butler inviting the master’s guests inside.
None of them trust you. But at least the boy has a set of balls.
Neil came up behind Isaac. He flashed a look back at Chloe, who was the last person to come through the gate. When Dax looked at her, he noticed the frown.
“Thanks for bringing us here,” Neil said. “I’m still not sure I can trust you, but I appreciate what you did in getting us out of that hellhole.”
He entered the house before Dax could respond.
Dax held a hand out to C
hloe as she came up the stairs, but she waved him off. She was hopping toward the door when Dax reached out and grabbed her by the arm.
“Is everything all right?”
“It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Now please, let me go inside.”
Dax let go of her arm, and Chloe slid by, hobbling into the house. He took one last look down the street to see if anybody had seen them before ducking inside the house and shutting the door.
Everyone stood in the living room when Dax entered the house. Isaac and Monica hissed and waved their hands at the rat droppings and dark stains on the carpet. The children held their noses and leaned against the wall.
Chloe looked to Dax. “So what’s the plan?”
“We stay here and look for some food and water. The street looks empty. I’m assuming that most people who lived here have gone into the city and are seeing what kind of trouble they can stir up. As y’all mentioned, this isn’t the friendliest neighborhood. There’s probably a few old people left, and maybe another few stragglers who didn’t want to get caught up in the mess, but that’s it.”
Neil turned and looked at the group while speaking to Dax. “This place is only going to work for so long before we have to find higher ground.”
Dax narrowed his eyes, and he glanced at Chloe, who lowered her head in turn and then averted her eyes to the wall, away from the group.
“What do you mean?” Isaac asked. “Why would we need to find higher ground? The government took care of all that after Katrina.”
Neil shook his head. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have even brought it up.”
The room burst into a whirlwind of chatter as Neil’s face turned white. Everyone was asking him questions at once.
“The pumps have backup power. The Army Core of Engineers fixed that shit after Katrina.” Dax kept trying to convince himself that he could continue to ignore the inevitable. “They rebuilt the levees. So tell us, Neil. Why would we need to find higher ground?”