Damn idiots. Stop, drop, and roll mother fuckers. Stop, drop, and roll.
He noticed a group of men clustered together on the sidewalk, watching all the carnage go down. They were all dressed in desert camos with boonie hats flopping on the top of their heads, mirrored shades reflecting the light of the fires so that it almost seemed as if flames were burning somewhere deep within their skulls. Not military: their equipment had the look of surplus, of hand-me-down goods from an older brother they hated with a passion. One of the militias then.
Another strolled up the sidewalk to join the group and he raised his fist at a ninety-degree angle and mouthed the words freedom or death. The others repeated this display and Richard felt the urge to laugh.
How sweet. They had a secret handshake for their little club.
Richard began backtracking, slaughtering his way in reverse so to speak, the blade of the machete singing through the air like the voice of the angel of judgment. There. Over behind the parked car. The one that, miraculously, hadn't been firebombed yet. He thought he'd seen it out of the corner of his eye, but now he knew for certain.
Oh man, was this going to be great....
The members of The Sons of Eternal Freedom stood beneath the awning where they would be safe from any incendiaries lobbed from above. They watched the people on the street as knives flashed, as Saturday Night Specials spit deadly little peas into eye sockets and ears, and money changed hands back and forth.
“I got twenty on the little fella in the football helmet.”
“Put me down for fifty on the chick with the mohawk.”
And, as often as the cash was passed back and forth, so was the bottle of Vodka one had pulled from his rucksack. They'd expected to see more action, actually. But once things really went to hell in a hand basket, the military had pulled back for some reason. At first they huddled in stores, believing that a bombing run surely had to be on the way. But the sky was never parted with the shrieks of jets and the only explosions rocking these streets were homegrown ones: IDEs, cars crashing into the sides of buildings, gas stations in the distance giving up their precious oil to the fury of the uprising. It was actually better than they could have even planned themselves but required little intervention on their part.
“Shit,” one of them drawled, “wonder where the hell Machete Guy done run off to? Dropped two-Gs on that mother fucker. Never figured him for a coward.”
The street wars were like their own personal Ultimate Fighting Championships. However, the losers of these matches paid the supreme cost; none of them would be coming back within a few weeks to have another go at the title.
“Anyone know exactly what they hell they're fighting about anyway?”
No one did. But occasionally one of the brawlers would get a bit too close. Or maybe they'd be foolish enough to point the barrel of a gun at the spectators. Either way, this display of unsportsmanlike conduct was dealt with swiftly and decisively: it was a proven fact, time and time again, that even the thickest human skull was no match for a Mark XIX Desert Eagle with a fluted barrel.
One of their members came shambling along the sidewalk, the brim of his hat pulled down low and sunglasses gleaming in the fading light of the fires. Before long they'd have to remove the shades or they'd be running blind in a night fight... which wasn't something any of them wanted to experience. Not on this scale, at least.
“That Roy? I think that's Roy. Where in tarnation has he been? Done missed all the best parts.”
The newcomer stood in front of them and raised his fist in salute.
“Freedom or Death.”
The others raised their hands in return and were mouthing the slogan when it began to dawn on them. Something wasn't right. That didn't really sound like Roy at all and the pants were a bit too short weren't they? Besides, Roy always wore white tube socks not those pansy argyle sons of bitches.
But by then it was too late. In a fluid movement, Richard ripped the machete from the duct tape that had held it to his back and began his dance of death all over again. He concentrated on the raised hands first, lopping them off at the wrists so they wouldn't be able to slide the pistols from the holsters slung at the men's sides. As the so-called freedom fighters struggled to remove weapons with their weaker hands, they were cut down one by one with a blade that had learned to like the taste of blood and only craved more.
Richard stooped and started grabbing the wads of cash the men had been gambling with; all this action had made his leg flare up again, so he took a look tug on the vodka, enjoying the burning trail it left down his throat.
And then it hit him.
That bitch Polly. She was out here somewhere. And he'd wasted precious time playing with these bozos. She never would've come this way. She would have tried to stay out of sight, would have followed the path of least resistance.
He had to double back.
He had to find her.
It was a matter of principal now.
The sweetest blood he could ever taste on this, the night of his greatest glory, belonged to that blond haired slut.
And he aimed to drink deeply from that crimson well long before the sun gathered enough courage to peek over the horizon.
CHAPTER TEN
The man smelled like cabbage which made Polly want to gag as waves of revulsion crashed over her body. The smell brought back memories of childhood, memories that she would have rather kept buried in the depths of her subconscious. It was all too easy to imagine that the man was her grandfather, slinking through the shadows of her bedroom while the rest of the house was still and quiet. He'd smelled like cabbage, too. She'd had to taste that rancid stink every time the old man shoved his tongue down her throat, every time he whispered in her ear that if she ever, ever told anyone that he would kill her little brother. He'd make it look like an accident, he said. And nobody would believe the word of a little girl who'd developed a reputation for spinning tall tales since her parents had died; they would all think she was lying, that she was simply trying to get back at him for not buying her the doll house she wanted or that pretty yellow dress. No, who would believe a little girl over him? She'd just better be a nice little girl and do exactly what he told her if she knew what was good for her....
So night after night he'd slip into her room and hurt her in ways a little girl should never be hurt. All the while telling her how beautiful she looked, how sexy she was, and how he knew she wanted this as much as he did by the way she stared at him when he was chopping wood. She would bite her bottom lip to keep from screaming, would squeeze her eyes shut so tightly the tears were forced out like water from a sponge, would pray that her father would somehow burst through the door to save her, that everything could go back to how it used to be, before the car crash. But no one ever came. Night after night, year after year... even when she'd tried smearing chicken blood inside her panties to make him think she was having her period. Even when she really did have her period. And each time there was the smell of cabbage souring the air around her, suffocating her in its stink....
But she didn't need that bastard haunting her. Not now. Not with so much at stake. She had to bring her attention back to the present, to remember that it was her life she was trying to protect this time.
Focus.
The man was whistling again and he drug the pipe behind him, allowing the metal to grate across the floor with a scraping that set her teeth on edge. And he just kept circling her: never moving away, never drawing too near. It was almost as if he had some sort of onboard radar that let him know she was close... so very close... without ever giving away her actual position.
She wasn't sure how long she could keep this still and quiet. The muscles in her legs were beginning to ache, her arms and shoulders becoming sore. She tried willing individual muscles to flex slightly, just enough to keep the shakes from setting in; but it required so much concentration she was afraid something else might suffer. That she might exhale a little too loudly. That her bladder might g
ive way and mark her location with a pungent puddle. There were so many little things that could go wrong.
Maybe this wasn't such a bright idea after all.
And the cabbage... it had to be cabbage, didn't it? Her stomach acids churned and she felt them threatening to shoot up her esophagus, to flood her mouth with the bitterness and sting of bile. But even the smallest hitch, even the slightest wretch, and it would all be over.
She could hear the man muttering under his breath now. So very close.
“Where you at girlie-girlie-girl? I know you're around here somewhere. Come to Daddy. Come on now.”
He retraced the same path he'd been traveling for the last ten minutes: through the circular clothing racks, past the mannequins in their slinky black teddies and baby doll nighties. As he passed each one, the fucking perv trailed his free hand over their cold, plastic breasts.
“Damn it, I'm tired of this bullshit!”
His yell made her eardrums feel as if they were trembling and was so sudden and unexpected that she was surprised she didn't jump. Or at least gasp. But no, she'd somehow managed to remain as still as the dead; maybe she had more control than she'd ever given herself credit for. Maybe she was really as strong, after all, as her t-shirt slogans lead the world to believe.
“You come out now and I'll make it quick. Hell, I might even let ya live. But I definitely won't make you suffer. Not if you just come out right now.”
He was standing in front of a mannequin dressed in a rather plain set of bra and panties, scanning the darkness with a slow swivel of his head.
“Shit, bitch,” he mumbled, “you're gonna suffer so bad you'll wish I had killed ya.”
He reached out as he peered into the gloom and gave the dummy's left tit a little squeeze. The breast flexed slightly beneath his fingers like a balloon filled with warm water.
“What the.... ”
The mannequin's raised arm swooped downward and for a fraction of a second the man who smelled of cabbage screamed. His yells echoed through the empty department store as if mocking the searing pain that had exploded through his skull; but then he fell silent as blood oozed from his ear and coated the yellow handled screwdriver that had somehow sprouted from the side of his head.
Polly let go of the tool and the man immediately fell to the ground as if her grip had been the only thing keeping him aloft. He laid there, twitching and jerking, as a crimson halo blossomed around his head. His eyes were still moving so he was still alive... technically. Not really much of a life, though. How much could you actually function with a six inch screwdriver embedded into the soft tissue of your brain? Judging from the smell of shit wafting from the rear of his trousers and the dark stain spreading across the front, not a whole hell of a lot.
Polly bent over and picked up the pipe that lay beside the man's convulsing body. It was heavier than it looked; lead probably judging from how solid it felt in her hands. She took a practice swing and frowned at the amount of strength it took just to control the pipe's arc. But it would have to do. Unless something better came along, that was.
She stood in front of the man's body and the image of a golf pro lining up a shot sprang to mind. She began by touching the pipe gently against the end of the screwdriver and then pulled back slowly as if for a swing. She held the position, both hands gripping one end of the pipe, the other held over her head and almost horizontal with the floor; she watched him spasm, watched his eyes dart from the business end of the metal rod to her grip on it. No doubt thinking about how far a single swing would drive the screwdriver into his head. If, that was, he was still capable of thinking at all.
None of the emotions raging within Polly were betrayed by her expression. She stared down at him with all the blankness of the mannequin she had pretended to be: the rage, the years of frustration that had been shoved down so deeply within her, the humiliation and pain. All of this barely touched her face as she watched this twitching, pathetic worm of a man.
She took a deep breath and swung the pipe.
It whistled through the air in a deadly arc and the man's pupils widened as his eyes seemed to bug out from his head; but the end of the pipe passed harmlessly above him, the breeze from its passing doing nothing more than rustling his hair.
“I don't think so, prick.”
Polly knelt next to him and closed her eyes for a moment. In the darkness of her mind she saw a blond haired girl: dressed in a white nightgown spotted with golden princess crowns, the child was solemn and silent; she, too, was kneeling and before this little girl was the crumpled body of a man with sparse gray hair and a milky cataract filmed over his right eye. He was frail and wasted, nothing more than a skeleton hiding beneath skin as thin and wrinkled as tissue paper.
This was the girl's grandfather from years later: after she'd put on all the weight during her teen years, the cancer had ravaged his body as thoroughly as he had her own. She'd never visited him in the hospital and everyone had assumed that it was simply because she couldn't bear to see him in that state. That she wanted to remember him as he always had been, not as this zombie-like shell of a man. But still they urged her to pay her respects, to wish him a final goodbye. She would regret it later if she didn't, they said. But she secretly knew that the only regret she would ever have is that she hadn't killed the old bastard herself.
The little girl placed her lips close to his ear and prayed that he could actually hear her, that he could comprehend the whispered words coming out of her mouth. But when she spoke, the voice was that of an adult woman and fantasy overlapped with reality.
“You're gonna suffer so bad you'll wish you were dead. Mother fucker.”
Polly stood, tucked the pipe beneath one arm as if it were a parasol, and left the man lying on the floor with the screwdriver burrowed into his head, as helpless and scared as an abandoned baby. And with him, she also left something else: a part of her that had always hidden beneath those loose baggy clothes, a part which she had tried for so long to forget had ever actually existed. As she walked away, tears trickled from the corners of her eyes and her steps felt as if she'd just removed twenty pound weights that had been strapped to her ankles for decades. She cried and she smiled... after all this time, the little girl was finally free.
She dressed quickly, slipping into the jeans and t-shirt without ceremony. As an afterthought, she picked out a good pair of track shoes, black as well, and some nice dark socks. That ought to do.
She then picked her way through the department store, slipped out the window through which she'd initially entered, and was back on the street.
She'd keep heading north, see if she could make it out of town. Surely this type of thing couldn't be happening everywhere. She understood from the news that all of the major cities were entirely embroiled in chaos; but there had to be small town, little villages and hamlets, where life went on as it always had. Places where all the violence and killing were nothing more than pictures on the television, something to worry about and discuss over dinner... but not something that really effected your life. That had to be out there somewhere, didn't it? It had to be.
So she kept moving forward. Whenever possible she crept through long rows of hedges and shadow, laying flat and still in the dirt when she'd hear the sputtering of a motorcycle or the wild whoops of savages on the rampage. She'd become quite adept now at holding her breath, at taking only the minimum amount of air necessary for consciousness. Her experience in the department store had showed her exactly what she was capable of and the lengths to which she would go to simply survive. She knew that she lacked the physical strength to take on every threat that crossed her path. But as far as she could tell, these were more like rabid animals than human beings. They seemed to attack with little to no reason. Sometimes the victorious looted the bodies of the fallen as if it were nothing more than a mugging taken to the extreme. But, more often than not, it seemed as if they were killing simply for the sake of the act itself.
The two men in the parking
lot of Tateman's Funeral Home, for example. As she hid behind a dumpster, she'd seen them charge one another, each brandishing a baseball bat like a samurai sword and running like shogun locked into mortal combat. Their yells quivered in their throats, breaking and straining as they sprinted full force with the bats raised above their heads.
At the last possible second, both men swung and there was a sharp crack as the wooden weapons smacked into one another. From that point on it was a viscous attack of swings and dodges, blocks and misses, neither man showing mercy as he struggled for dominance.
The larger one, whom she'd begun to think of as Curly, took these shuffling side-steps backward, fending off a particular furious barrage of swings from the smaller man, whom she'd dubbed Moe due to his dark, bowl-cut hair. Maybe she'd moved slightly or perhaps it was something else; but for a split second Curly was distracted and he stumbled over one of those oblong concrete dividers that keep cars from backing into one another. He fell on his rear but Moe showed no quarter, swinging his bat instead with a renewed sense of urgency.
Curly held his own bat by both ends, slightly over his head, and blocked the swings of his attacker again and again as he tried to scoot across the parking lot on his ass. Each time the bats connected there was a loud pop, sharper than the one proceeding it, and Moe's nostrils had begun to flare wide as his face pulled back into a rigor of unadulterated fury. Again and again he brought the bat down as cracks began splitting his opponent's weapon lengthwise until, finally, Curly's bat splintered in half.
Moe seemed to see this as his coup de tat: he shook his Slugger over his head like an angry gorilla and prepared to bring it down with one final sweep. At the same time, however, Curly had tossed the fat end of his bat aside and held the remaining piece by the grip-taped handle. As the little one made his swing, Curly thrust the sharp shards of broken wood upward; his weapon sank into his opponent's chest at the same time Moe's bat cracked open his skull. The two men collapsed upon each other, neither one emerging as the victor, both dying as their blood mingled on the asphalt.
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