by Ryan Schow
Something in me feels reinvigorated. Like this wasn’t all for nothing.
I think of Stanton who said we were already dead, and I think of this world that’s trying with all its might to end us, and then I think that we’re finally leaving this war zone behind. It’s a good feeling that doesn’t last long. In the back of my mind, I can’t help thinking we’re also leaving our home, our jobs, the grand summation of our lives. Is this what going savage means? You can only care about the things you can reach out and touch?
“I’ll hold our ride!” I shout before picking up speed. “Don’t stop!”
Grabbing Macy’s hand, knowing Rex will make it even if he’s not moving at a hundred percent, the two of us fight to catch up to the driver. After all, he’s our ticket out of this place.
I let go of Macy’s hand because I can’t sprint at top speed like this. “Stay with me!” I shout over my shoulder.
My run becomes a full out sprint. If the three of them can’t keep up, I can at least get there fast enough to stall the helicopter, giving us enough time to board.
I’m fifty yards behind the driver when he jumps into the Huey. He puts a headset on, leans forward and says something to the pilot. A smile creeps on my face for a fraction of a second. Right now my lungs are burning. I have a stitch in my side and my limbs are protesting, but I’m going.
We’re going!
The ride out of this cesspool of death and destruction is going to be a new life for us. A fresh start. The driver then makes a circling sign to the pilot with his forefinger, the classic sign for, “Let’s go,” and my heart all but sinks. The big helicopter lifts out of the grass, sending sharp waves of dread coursing through me.
No, no, no, no, no!
My lungs are skewered with pain, but that doesn’t stop me from screaming, pleading and cursing. I pull to a stop directly under the helicopter, under the damp, churning winds and it’s still leaving.
Some kind of visceral moan for being left behind escapes me.
I drop my hands and just stare up at the belly of the thing, and that’s when four drones appear from where we’ve just come. There are two large ones armed with missiles accompanied by two light artillery drones. From inside the Huey come the boisterous sounds of heavy caliber automatic weapons’ fire. The two largest drones go down, but not before one of their missiles is loosed. Seconds later the Huey explodes, turning sideways in mid-air, then falling out of the sky and crashing onto someone’s home in a fiery wreck.
The whirring of the remaining drones ignites my nerves. I keep my eyes fastened to the two of them now knowing why the driver wanted to leave so quickly. The EMP had too short of range to catch all the drones and we couldn’t wait any longer to set it off before facing certain death.
And so we missed these ones.
Macy reaches me, but in the distance, Rex and Stanton slow to a walk. I’m screaming for Rex, telling him to look up. I’m pointing at the approaching drones.
Rex sees them, turns as best as he can and starts shooting despite his injury. With the shotgun, he hits the first one, wobbles it, then takes out the other, but not before going down hard in the field and disappearing in the tall grasses. A mortified whimper erupts from me.
“Rex!” I scream.
The wobbled drone is diving earthward though, heading toward Macy and me and now Stanton is running for us, screaming. Macy and I start backpedaling, then turn and run for our lives as the thing plows straight into the earth behind us. We’re both diving out of the way the minute it slams into the earth.
With the Sig Sauer and the last of my strength, I put two rounds into the downed drone, then drop the gun and pray to God I don’t go to pieces. But it’s happening. I can feel it. If Rex is dead…oh, Rex.
He has a plan for us, a voice inside me whispers.
“No He doesn’t,” I hear myself say, fresh tears standing in my eyes. “There’s no plan at all, unless death is God’s plan.”
Stanton reaches me in a hug. I barely even feel it. I’m about to run to Rex when Macy does something neither me nor Stanton have ever heard her do: she breaks into a wild, cursing fit of anger that soon becomes a brutal crying jag. All I can do right now is hold her and tell her everything is going to be alright, even though it won’t be.
“We’ll catch another one,” I say, composing myself for my daughter’s sake. “One that won’t blow up.”
“No we won’t,” she says through a fit of hiccups and sobbing.
“I have to see about Rex,” I hear myself saying. I’m moving out of Stanton’s arms, saying, “He could still be alive.”
“Are you kidding me?!” she cries, looking at me with sopping wet eyes. “He’s not alive! He’s dead like everyone else!”
“Macy,” Stanton says.
I try not to think of all that’s happened—of my injured husband, of Gunner and my now dead brother—and I try not to think about how I’m going to survive this world under these conditions, but I have to. Maybe not now, not in this moment, but I have to look ahead and create a way where there isn’t one.
Macy pushes off of me, her eyes still soaked, her chest shaking, the persistent sounds of her crying reminding me she may be fifteen, but she’s still a child.
Nearby, I hear the sounds of more drones.
“Run!” Stanton yells, pointing to a grove of trees nearby.
Beyond him, around the clearing, also taking cover from the drones are five men with guns. What the hell? I can only think one thing: the helicopter going down and the shooting must have attracted attention. But then I think something else. I wonder, are they here to help, or will they be a problem?
By the hard looks of them, I’m thinking they could be a problem.
Chapter Nineteen
Wasting no time, Macy, Stanton and I run for cover, which is really just a canopy of trees weighed down with the gunky residue left behind by the toxic rain. I don’t know if other drones will find us here, or if the men in the field will follow us. I hope not. We’re not exactly safe anywhere. At least we’re not out in the open though. Crouching down at the base of a tree, Stanton joining us, we wait in absolute silence. Seconds tick on.
Entire minutes pass.
“I think we might be okay,” Stanton whispers. His head wound has opened up again and is bleeding, but I’m not as concerned about the blood as I am the possibility of infection.
He really needs that thing clean and stitched up.
It’s in this brief moment of safety that I start to consider all the other dangers around us. If the drones don’t kill us and the bombs don’t kill us and the gangs don’t kill us, chances are pretty good—when enough people get hungry enough and desperate enough—that our own kind will set upon us as a last resort.
This is what we’ve feared most: the moment society turns on each other. I’m surprised it’s not worse than it’s been, but the truth is, it’s bound to get much worse before it gets better.
If other cities are enduring this the way we’re enduring this, then that begs the question: will we live long enough to see “better?”
If civilization has truly fallen, can we come back from this?
For all of our insecurity about our future, for all our fears, Rex has given us combat wisdom and Stanton has blessed us with his business acumen. Rex got us this far, but now that he’s gone, we need to rely on Stanton and Stanton seems to have the right idea about how to handle things.
Crouched down, waiting for a clearing, and a plan, I can’t stop thinking of something Stanton said a few days back. He said the apocalypse is proving to be a lot like the business world: if you’re not the hunter, then you’re bound to become the prey.
As I sit here feeling like prey, I realize our survival depends on me becoming the hunter. For whatever reason, maybe because Rex is gone and Stanton is injured, I find myself stepping up to the task. Standing up, I tell Macy and Stanton it’s time to go. I’m not exactly sure where we’re heading, only that doing something—even if it’s t
he wrong thing—is better than hiding here and doing nothing. We can always self-correct.
“Slow down!” Macy says as we trudge through the trees and meadow grass toward a clearing, and a neighborhood. “Wait!”
Stanton and I turn around and level her with raised eyebrows.
“Where are we going?” she asks, like she can’t grasp the reality of this situation.
“We’re going to circle around and see about Rex, and after that, I don’t know. There’s a hundred houses to choose from. Maybe a thousand. Basically we’re going to find some place where we can clean your father’s head wound before it gets infected and we have to amputate.”
Wait, holy crap. Did I just say that? Wow. Talk about terrible gallows humor! Even for me. Stanton and Macy just stare at me. I don’t blame them.
Then after that awkward pause, I make a proclamation. “We’re leaving this godforsaken city one way or another. I’m not sure how we’re going to do it, but mark my words, it’s happening.”
Macy looks up at me, then beyond me, and what my daughter can’t say in that moment is that we might not be going anywhere. Seeing her eyes shocked wide open, seeing myriad emotions cross her face in lightening quick progression, I turn and follow her gaze.
Not fifty feet away, tromping out of the same grove of trees are five creeps with guns and hard eyes all the sick signs of trouble. To relief, and my horror, they have Rex. He’s on foot and alive! But he’s being held at gunpoint and not looking terribly happy about it.
“This gringo piece of mierda here says he doesn’t know you people,” the guy holding him hostage says, “but the worried look on that cute little blonde’s face clearly says he does.”
This scumbag, this bald thug with a tattooed face and piercings and a criminal’s sense of fashion (white sneakers, grey slacks, white tank top), he clanks the barrel of the shotgun on Rex’s head one, two, three times.
“Yeah, I knew by the look,” he says to me, head turned sideways, chin jutted forward and pointing a finger at me, “I saw it in your eyes, you guys are lovers.”
Rex shakes his head and says, “That’s my sister, bro.”
“So that’s your niece then,” he says, the tone full of meaning.
Everyone starts to snicker, not boisterous, but like they’re in something that will be good for them, but not us. You don’t have to be a genius to know what any of these fools is thinking.
“Looks like it’s play time ese,” he says, his body saying yes to all the many things he’s thinking.
My blood is officially boiling.
I can’t stop the rage building inside me and I know right now I need to keep a cool head. But the way his predatory eyes are giving Macy the once over, it turns my stomach and ignites something in me, a violent protectiveness I can’t explain. To my sheer horror, looking back at all the times we’ve been confronted by men, their eyes always go to me, to Macy. Is this a symptom of the future? Will my daughter’s good looks always make us a target?
Refusing to show fear, I lock eyes with him, and only then do I become afraid. There is nothing in those eyes. No sense of right or wrong, not an ounce of benevolence or humanity, only an emptiness born of greed and the need to hold everything around him in a stranglehold of his own making.
He sees me seeing him, thinking this, and he laughs. It’s a sick, sanctimonious chuckle that tells me all I need to know: he has no soul.
We’re screwed.
Looking from Macy to me, and never really at Stanton, he says, “You two girls are going to clean up nicely. I can tell. You’re going to be the two prettiest princesses we’ve ever had. We’re going to pass you around over and over and over again (pointing to each of his boys as he says this) until your insides fall out from all the fun we’ve had with you. And then you won’t be pretty princesses any more. You’ll just be a couple of mutts we pulled in off street.”
Beside me I feel Stanton tense. I already know what he’s going to do, which is why I flash him a look.
Two or three of this asshole’s pals snicker, grabbing my attention. They’re all a bunch of soulless thugs, entertained only by the humiliation and tormenting of others.
In situations like these—unimaginable situations, downright terrifying situations—you can’t even find the words to say, much less utter a single intelligible sentence. This is why Stanton shot those boys back on The Exorcist stairway. Now that the roles are reversed, the choice becomes easy. I would shoot every single one of these men in the face.
But five on four? Not so much.
Instead of pulling my gun and going all Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I find myself tumbling through a flurry of horrifying possibilities. I’m looking at the men promising to rape me and my daughter into oblivion and I’m thinking of all the viciousness I’m going to unleash, but then I realize it’ll do no good because his friends are like him in that they like the fight, that they want the fight, and so whatever I have, I know it’s not enough.
It won’t ever be enough.
“Look at Daddy over there,” the scumbag teases, “looking like he’s wanting to come out of his skin. You want to watch pretty boy?”
“I think he wants to join,” someone else says with laughter in his voice.
I grab Stanton’s arm, knowing he’s being baited, wordlessly begging him not to take it. I feel his muscles relax the slightest little bit.
The torrent of possibilities ripping through me quickly becomes just one acceptable truth: whatever’s about to happen, it’s going to be bad. And if by some miracle we survive to see the other side of this thing, we won’t be the same people. We won’t even know who we were before all this.
“My God,” he says looking right at me, wonderment and humor in his expression. “You just rose up against me then fell into defeat right before my eyes. We haven’t even had an ounce of fun yet and already you’re beaten.” Turning those ugly, hooded eyes on Macy—not even bothering to mask his intentions—he says, “Let’s pray this little slice of heaven has more fight in her than her mother.”
“Come here, sweetheart,” he says, all eyes on Macy. Macy turns her scared eyes on me.
Frantic, a wicked frenzy building inside me, I turn to Stanton and he’s got that murderous look tucked away behind almost blank eyes.
“Stay put,” Stanton tells her.
I look at Rex and he’s looking defeated, although I pray that’s not the case and he’s just playing possum.
“Don’t look at her!” the guy holding Rex barks at Macy.
I look at Macy and her eyes are dancing with fear. Macy doesn’t move, but inside I’m preparing for war. No way this prick is taking my daughter.
“I got an idea,” he says, racking the shotgun and jamming it into Rex’s face, “you get you’re little titties over here or I swear to God almighty, I’m going to pull the trigger and make a meat sauce out of your uncle’s face.”
“Mom?” she asks.
“Do I have to count to three?” he snaps, impatient, irritated that none of us are complying. No one says anything and you can see how much this pisses him off. “Okay, fine. Let’s do it the hard way.”
Pause.
“One.”
I look away from Macy to Rex. He’s playing possum better than ever and this concerns me. Is this a ruse for him, or is he really afraid? Oh God, how hurt is he?
“Stanton?” I say.
His cheeks are trembling with rage and his eyes are obsidian stone. Is he getting ready for this? For the guy to just kill Rex before he makes a move?
“Two,” the creep says.
That’s when the cushy boom! in the sky draws our attention to the heavens. It’s different from the concussion bursts we’ve been hearing closer into the city—the sounds of missiles destroying buildings.
Then, all the way up Presidio Avenue, the bulbs in the overhead street lamps explode, the shattering glass tinkling all across the street.
In the distance, down the hill, transformers blow and fire runs dow
n the phone lines in showers of sparks.
That’s when the first arrow comes. The guy with the shotgun to Rex’s face, the one with the dirty mouth and a head full of sexual depravity, his skull is suddenly skewered. The arrow goes in the temple and exits just above the hinge of the jaw. Meat and drizzle drip off the razor sharp tip.
What the hell?
He staggers backwards a step. A knee buckles and he topples over into the weeds, but not before Rex can snatch the shotgun out of his hand. A second arrow sinks into a throat of a second man and Rex is already firing on the third. The shotgun blast has us all and jumping, but not before three new guns are drawn.
Of the five ruffians threatening us, three are down, leaving two. The quietest man is the one who surprises us most. He never said a word, never cut loose in laughter, never put his eyes on either me or Macy in a malicious way. But now he’s got two guns out, lightening quick: one on Rex, another on Stanton. He quickly positions himself in between Rex and Stanton, using Rex to shield himself from the incoming arrows.
Another arrow rips through the air, but the gunman now knows where they’re coming from so he inches to the right and arrow flies by. I go for my gun, but he says, “That gun comes out, this guy gets it in the face.”
With the pistol, he motions me over toward Stanton.
My hand comes away from my weapon; I move toward my husband, but only slightly. I keep waiting for Stanton to do something, or Rex, but moving on this guy means someone dies, so I understand why they haven’t moved, and how terrifying this is.
“Who’s your little friend?” he asks, turning his body sideways to keep both Stanton and Rex in sight while shielding himself from the mystery archer.
No one answers.
I’m on the edge of his vision, but apparently I’m no longer a threat. Is there a way I can draw on him? Catch him off guard?
“Either of you heroes decide to move on me, I don’t ask questions. I just shoot. Not to any of the adults though, I changed my mind. The first bullet gets the girl. Now everyone move in front me where I can see you.”
With the shotgun aimed at this guy, Rex says, “Stay put. He shoots me he’s done. You hear that? You have a bullet. I have pellets.”