by Ryan Schow
“Same place. Back on the island.”
“You just left him there?”
“We can bury him, if you want,” he said, like I was somehow acting like tomorrow would be normal and we could hold a nice service.
“It’s not that.”
“Well then, what is it? Because I’m gathering Bailey is gone, too.”
“It’s just…somehow this has become a world that’s going to have a lot of dead people just left to rot in the streets, in their cars, in their homes.”
“Yeah? Well welcome to hell.”
The next morning Tyler and I head into town to look for Bailey while Marcus heads back to the island to round up more food and supplies. “Food and supplies for two and a half,” Marcus says, looking down at the brown haired little guy who now only has us for protection.
Tyler doesn’t smile.
Marcus just looks at him, not a single emotion crossing his face.
“You’re dead inside, aren’t you?” I say.
It just comes out. I don’t even mean it like that, it’s just…how can he act like he feels nothing? Two of our friends are gone. One murdered, one kidnapped.
“This is war, Nick. In war, if you let yourself feel, it’s like taking off your armor. If there’s one piece of advice I can give you, it’s that you must lose yourself. Act like you’re dead anyway because odds are, we’ll all be dead before this thing is over.”
“I don’t buy that.”
“It’s the lie you tell yourself to save yourself.”
“That’s sad.”
“It’s a condition of war. Which I’m sure you’ve never had to fight. So from the mouth of a solider who’s weathered the highs and lows of a living battlefield, trust me when I tell you to kill yourself inside before the battle.”
With a few bottles of water, the shotgun I left behind that Marcus collected and Tyler, I set out to look for Bailey. I don’t know how I hope to find her. Going door to door somewhere between Aloha Drive and Pacific Coast Highway seems the most logical approach. Then again, even in the midst of total genius, logic runs the chance of failing. Will it fail me now?
Not to sound too much like a pessimist, but probably.
We leave the island on foot, walk up Bayside the way we came yesterday, navigate around the pileup with all the burnt drivers. Tyler says nothing. His face is starting to look red, but maybe it was red from sitting out in the sun yesterday and I’m just beginning to notice it.
“You alright?” I ask.
He nods, his hair hanging in his face.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” I tell him. When he says nothing, I say, “I’m sorry about all of this.”
He still says nothing.
Closer to Aloha, a chop-top, mid-century Cadillac full of four guys cruises past us, all of them looking like surfers with deep tans, long hair and the wild eyes of adrenaline junkies. They’re all Caucasian, but the car has that distinct Cuban flavor, one I’d imagine is extremely popular in today’s beach scene. When I hear the brakes shriek and the car turn around, I realize we should be running right now. I have a shotgun though, and a kid, so maybe they’ll have brains enough to steer clear of me.
Sadly, they don’t.
Pulling up beside me the driver says, “Whatcha doin?”
I look up at him, think of the hell we’ve just survived, the hell that’s still written on my face in the form of cuts, scraped skin and bruising, and I honestly can’t decide if these guys are making me nervous or starting to piss me off.
“Out for a stroll,” I say, keeping my pace. Tyler sidles up next to me, matching my pace as well.
“It’s not safe out here,” the one in the back driver’s-side seat says. They all have that sneering look like they’re going to be nice right up to the time they decide they’re not going to be nice.
The driver says, “You heard him tell you it wasn’t safe, but we didn’t hear you say thank you.”
“Drones killed this kid’s parents yesterday,” I say leveling with him, although I’m still not sure if drones did that or if it was just an unfortunate smashup. “And my friend was kidnapped by some fat guy in a panel van who thought beating her over the head with a gun was cute in a forced compliance kind of way. That was just before he shot my other friend twice in the chest. So if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate you guys just be on your way and let me go about my business.”
“That thing got any shells in it?” the driver asks, looking down at the shotgun. I see the front seat passenger give the subtlest of nods to his friend in the back seat who then starts to reach around to the small of his back.
Already dead…
I swing the rifle around, smash the butt of it into the driver’s forehead with all my might. His head snaps back, a hearty gash opening up. Swinging the rifle around, I then aim it at the guy in the backseat who has his own weapon out. But the weapon he has is mace and he’s now spraying a stream of it in my face.
Everything happens so fast from there.
The burn that lights my eyes and skin on fire is beyond incapacitating. The beating that follows is nothing compared to the mace in my eyes. I feel feet kicking me, fists punching me, boots stomping on me. For whatever reason, I can take this. Maybe it’s punishment for losing Bailey. I should be punished. Then I hear the kid screaming and suddenly something submissive in me startles awake.
“Shut him up,” someone growls.
There’s a scuffle, the sound of someone getting popped, then the kid stops screaming and suddenly the sunlight beating down upon me becomes a stillness of gathering shadows.
Frustrated, in pain, I want to roar out all this frenzied emotion because, dammit, this is the worst thing I’ve ever felt! But I don’t. I can’t. Not with all four of them standing over me.
“The world is on its ass, you pretty boy bitch. There’s no more civility. No laws or cops. No judges or juries. The judge is everyone, the jury is a gun, and I now have your gun. Which is to say, it’s judgement time. How do you feel about that?”
“Splendid,” I growl, the pain on my face damn near catastrophic.
Truthfully, I only care about what happened to Tyler. I can’t see him, but I can’t see much of anything since the pepper spray made a fiery inferno of my eyes. The barrel of the gun is suddenly pressed to my temple, pushing me back down, driving it into the dry, gritty pavement.
“The days of the solitary hero are over, bro. Mob mentality is the new rule. Got that?”
“Got it,” I say.
“I should shoot you in the leg as a reminder,” the driver says. “Kneecap you for hitting me the way you did.” The guy speaking, now I know he’s the driver, the one I hit with the gun in the first place.
“I’d rather you shoot me in the face,” I tell him.
“Would you?”
“Times like this?” I say, coughing, my hands like claws against the nearly unbearable stinging in my face. “You’d be doing me a solid.”
“Well you won’t be so lucky. But I will give you a freebie. I won’t shoot you today, but if I see you here tomorrow or the next day, or really ever again, I’ll put two rounds in your dome just because I can. It’s judge and jury, son. Judge and jury.”
I lay back down as the shadows of the four surfers part ways.
Sitting up, my eyes and my skin won’t stop burning. The four idiots are gone, though, and at this point all I want is to make sure Tyler is alive. I’m sure he is. If they won’t kill me, they sure as hell won’t kill a kid.
“Tyler?”
I hear sniffling. A small shadow is now over me. I can’t open my eyes into the sun, but I shade them, try to pry back my stinging lids and see about the child. Bad idea. The sting is still there, worse than ever.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“They hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“You got any bones broken, any cuts, anything like that?”
“No.”
“Then you’re not hur
t.”
He waits a long time, then: “Okay.”
I lay back down, my face shaking with pain, my teeth clenched to the point of cracking. All of this in the hope that the burn will subside. It doesn’t. Tyler sits down beside me in the road, quiet but vigilant. A few cars go by, none stopping. Families leaving the island, I’m sure. One guy rolls down his window and says to Tyler, “Is he dead?”
“No.”
“Well then get out of the road!” he says before roaring off.
What a genuine freaking sweetheart.
After an hour or so, I get up, manage to get half my wits about me, then start walking toward the highway. The way I figure, if it burns, it’ll burn whether I go back to the yacht or look for Bailey. So we look for Bailey.
We get to Harbor Island Drive and start there. We fall into a routine. Knock on the front door, see if anyone’s home. If not, go around the back, kick in the closest door, search the garage for the panel van.
That works for awhile, but then someone opens the door. A younger woman. A girl just a few years older than Indigo.
She tries to shut the door when she sees me, but I stuff my foot in the doorjamb at the last minute, stopping it from closing. She starts to protest, so I speak quickly before things turn bad.
“My friend was kidnapped by a man with a white van. She’s not much older than you. Her name is Bailey James. This van has no windows on the side and two fresh bullet holes in the back.”
The door doesn’t open back up, but she’s now intrigued.
“Why would this person take your friend?” she asks.
“I don’t know. All I know is he looks like he’s mid-thirties maybe, thinning hair, somewhat overweight. And he’s not afraid to be violent. He killed my other friend. Shot him in the street and left him for dead.”
“Jesus,” she says.
“Like I said, he’s driving a white panel van.”
“Panel van?” she says.
“Yeah,” I reply, thinking this is going nowhere, “no windows. Just the front ones and two in the rear.”
“There’s a guy who drives one, but he lives on the island.”
“Which island?”
“Harbor Island. It’s accessible just up the street. I think he’s with the Nautical Detention Facility.”
“The what?”
“My dad says that’s where they hold pirates. Not real pirates, but you know…sea criminals, or whatever.”
“Sea criminals,” I say, suspicious.
“Yeah. It’s the seventh or eighth house on the left once you cross over onto the island. Just follow the road up here and it’ll take you there.”
“And it’s a house?”
“It’s the only house that doesn’t look like a house. Plus there’s a shingle on it that says Nautical Detention Facility, but it’s not big.”
“Thanks,” I say, removing my foot. The door closes fast, followed by the throwing of a deadbolt.
Smart girl.
Tyler and I walk to the island. Once we get there, a few houses up, I say, “You have to stay here. If I’m not back in the next half hour, you know how to get back to that lady’s house? The one we just talked to?”
He nods his head.
“You sure?”
“I ride my bike here all the time.”
“Okay then,” I say.
He just looks at me, waiting.
The driveway leading onto the island is narrow, the concrete charcoal colored and stamped in eight inch squares with drainage grates in the middle of the streets. The houses are close to each other, older and ornate. Like old money if old money didn’t care about zero lot lines and a distinct lack of privacy.
I continue on, unarmed, disadvantaged in my sight but determined to find Bailey. I see the facility before I see the paved foot paths going either right and left. The facility is a home that looks nothing like the homes here. This is newer but built to look older. It isn’t quite right.
Government projects.
Alongside the detention facility is a tall, two-car carport and in the second stall I see the van. On closer inspection, I see the two bullet holes.
My heart is officially galloping.
Heading to the front door, knowing this man has not seen my face, I knock and wait. There’s no answer. I knock again to a silent response. For a good five minutes I wait before heading around back. At the rear of the house is the harbor, complete with docks and sailboats and the familiar breeze of a port city.
There is nothing special about the back of the house, except two healthy peach trees and its relative starkness. It does not have a dock or a slip, and the backside is very utilitarian. I try the back door, but it looks solid, like reinforced steel.
Heading back to the front of the house, I’m prepared to kick in the front door, but instead I knock again. Just as I’m about give up, I hear the sound of a shotgun racking its load behind me.
“What do you want?” the husky voice asks.
“Can I turn around?”
“No.”
“I’ve been beat up and mugged. I’m hurt and in need of medical attention. If I turn around right now, I couldn’t really see you that good anyway since I’ve been pepper sprayed in the face by a pack of Barney’s intent on teaching me a lesson.”
“What lesson is that?” he asks, some of the tension melting from his voice.
“Not really sure, to be honest with you.”
He laughs, then says, “C’mon inside. I got something for the burn.”
He walks around me, opens the door and I can see from the back of him that this is the guy who took Bailey. He’s big though, and alert. I feel weakened by my ordeal and desperate. Some small voice inside me says this is how guys like me end up with their heads chopped off.
“I appreciate your help,” I say.
Before letting me in, he looks at my face and it’s him. I’m absolutely certain of it.
“Man, you got the crap kicked out of you,” he says. “Not joking or nothin’, but damn, they got you good. Plus your eyes. Damn, bro. They’re like cherries.”
Just act natural, I tell myself, even though nothing about anything warrants me acting natural.
We head inside and it’s a government facility through and through. Stark white floors, practical walls, stairs leading to the second floor where there’s a jailhouse door at the top.
“What is this place?” I ask.
“A reason for the government to seize what was once a park. It’s pretty messed up if you think about it. Most valuable real estate on the west coast and Uncle Sam claims Imminent Domain, or something like that. So now it’s a fake house in a real paradise and I get to live here for free and get paid to do it.”
“What is it you do here?” I ask, casual.
“Holdover facility for those who commit crimes at sea. The cops here, they’re beach cops at best. Not real men. Bunch of sissies who live in shit neighborhoods inland but want to make sure decent folks like us are obeying laws they themselves probably break.”
“You from here?”
“Yep. Up the street. Soon as I heard this place was coming up, had my mother place a call to the Mayor. She said only a resident should run a place like this. So here I am. Been two years now. Best job I ever had.”
“What do you do?”
“Nothing.”
“And you get paid for this?”
He laughs and says, “Pretty much. But I’m good at it.”
I look down and see the food bowl. The name FIDO. Real original, I know.
“You named your dog FIDO?”
“No. They didn’t have one named Demogorgon, so I took FIDO instead.”
“That’s an interesting name.”
“I’m just kidding. The dog died last month, but his name was Chuckie. The FIDO bowl was on sale, so I figured…anyway, you want me to show you around?”
I shrug my shoulders then say, “Sure. But didn’t you say you had something that could take a bit of the sting away?”
“I did. I mean, I do. Follow me, and don’t touch your eyes or skin.”
“Too late.”
We head to his kitchen and he clears a few dishes out of the sink. He then hands me a clean towel to wash my face with water.
“You need to flush the eyes first. Blink a lot and try not to rub them at all.”
I do that as I hear him rooting around in the refrigerator. This whole time I’m thinking this is the monster that killed Quentin. He killed Quentin and he took Bailey. So many terrible things are going on in my mind right now, like what he did to Bailey, whether or not she’s even alive, if he still has her on site. But here I am, in his house with my back to him and my face stinging so bad I can hardly stand it. Good God, this is the worst rescue attempt in history!
When I’m done, my eyes still sting, specifically my eyelids and the surrounding skin. I turn around and he has a bowl of milk and a wet rag.
“Let me get you a chair,” he says, his skin slick and pale, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead. He grabs me a chair, says, “Sit down and lean your head back.”
I try not to panic as I sit down. I look at the rag with the milk, then his dirty fingernails, and then I look at the tufts of hair on his scratched up, meaty forearms and think to myself, if I act like I’m scared, he’ll sense something. But if I do exactly as he wants, he could slice my throat right open—I’d be giving it to him!
Naturally I sit down, lean back, let him put the rag over my face and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t seem to help.
“How’s that feel?” he asks.
“Like heaven,” I say, the soaked rag muffling my words, but not so bad that I can’t carry on a conversation with this behemoth.
“Where’d you say you were from?” he asks.
“San Francisco. My wife and I, we’re staying with friends. We thought a nice trip to the beach would be great, but then we got hit by those things.”
“The drones?”
“Yeah.”
“You got hit personally?”
“Wife died, friends died. I don’t know where I am, or where I’m going, and then I get pepper sprayed and robbed, then you come along and you’re so nice. Thank you for your hospitality and your care.”
Am I overdoing it? Actually, I think I’m doing quite—