Chapter 28: The Way is Shut
The outside door was propped open with a metal folding chair, and through it wafted the aroma of barbecue. Inside the room, seated at cheery red tables, as many as a dozen men and women ate and talked and smiled. A few children chased one another around the tables.
My God, Victor thought, standing inside the door with the Colt in his hand. It all seemed so civilized, so normal.
The children nearly bumped into a man carrying a tray of barbecued meat. He smiled and nodded at their shamefaced apologies. It was the man, Reginald. But where was the woman?
The only exit was into the street. But to get that far, Victor would have to convince everyone in the room they were better off letting him go quietly. Oswald could shove his lunatic wishes where the sun didn’t shine. If he couldn’t live with his own God-given parents, he could kill them himself.
That was when someone shouted “Gun!” All the ordered neatness ended in the span of a few seconds. The folded napkins fell from laps; the glasses of iced tea were overturned, creating dark stains on the tablecloths. Before Victor could think to say a word, the barrel of a gun was pointed in his direction.
And Victor did what his trained instincts told him to do. He pivoted, shifting his body out of the way as he fired two shots, one after the other. The man with the gun tipped back, staggered into a chair, and then fell on a table, carrying it to the ground in a crash of glass.
There was another crash that came only half a second after the first. It was the crash of Reginald’s plate as he dropped it, swiveling to draw a gun from his waistband. Victor fired two more rounds, one of which passed through Reginald’s mouth and buried itself in the faux-brick wall behind him, leaving a scattering of teeth on the floor. Falling back, Reginald reached for his mouth as if to express the utter horror of it all.
Victor was already sidestepping toward the door. He waved the Colt at the seated figures, whose round and paralyzed eyes followed him in mute disbelief. But he was not just threatening them to stay seated. He was also searching for the woman. Where was she?
His back was at the open door when he heard an odd sound: the click of a heel on asphalt. He spun—it was just enough movement to keep the two-tined cooking fork from finding his neck. Instead the tines grazed his left shoulder cap, cutting up and over the shoulder.
Victor turned the gun, knowing he only had one bullet left, knowing he must make it count. As the woman, with teeth bared in a simian grimace, drew the fork back to strike a second time, Victor planted the gun above her hip and fired. It was a gut shot, and the woman did not immediately understand what had happened. The fork slacked in her hand; her eyes narrowed in something like consternation, something like the suspicion that someone has just run by the window or spat into your sandwich.
Then Victor shoved her aside. He was already sprinting for the sewer entrance when he heard her body hit the asphalt. The cover had been pulled aside—Oswald had done his part.
As Victor turned to lower himself to the ladder, pressing himself against it so that the backpack did not snag on the other side of the entrance, he glanced at the butcher’s shop to see a little girl standing there, the toes of her sandals on the precipice of the pool of blood flooding from the woman’s body. But it was not the blood that bothered Victor, nor even the girl’s proximity to such barbarity. It was the expression on her face.
She was staring at him like he was a monster.
_____
Victor’s eyes were still used to the dim interior of the butchery, so the darkness of the sewer was not as impenetrable as it had been the first time. Raw adrenaline was making laps through his veins. Dizziness flooded his head as he stepped off the ladder, forcing him to steady himself with his hands.
He heard no footsteps above, but they would be coming soon. And this time they would not wait for his body to freeze. For all he knew, the first thing they would do was cut his heart out and eat it raw.
As he pushed onward into the darkness, he tried to clarify the mental image of that diagram he had seen. If he could reach that blocked door and find a way through, he would live. If he took a wrong turn, or simply discovered the door was impossible to open…
His breathing was loud in the confines of the tunnel. Water splashed up against the walls, and soon he was beyond the scope of the light pushing down through the sewer entrance. He took one turn and the darkness was complete.
He paused, listening for sounds of pursuit. Nothing. But they would be coming—he felt certain of that much. They had made a living of hunting people. They weren’t going to let their prey just walk away, especially after losing three of their own.
It was the second turn that disoriented Victor most. Up to this point, he had felt certain he was still following the right path. But then he came upon an opening to his left that didn’t fit with the diagram in his head. Much as he wanted to continue forward, more worried about capture than getting lost, he knew he was a dead man if he wasn’t careful. They might make a frantic search at first, but after failing to find him, they would become systematic, careful, searching every foot of the tunnels for any sign of him. And they would have flashlights.
Why didn’t I think to ask Oswald for a flashlight? Damn it!
Oswald. What was he doing now, standing over the body of his mother as her blood drained into the street? The others would realize someone had given Victor a hand. If they learned he had been involved…
There might be two dishes for supper, then.
As he waited for clarity, he heard a distant splash in the darkness. Then came the drone of excited voices in rapid conversation. How many were there? Two? Three? All of them? Victor still had the Colt. Maybe he could fire it just to keep them at bay, give himself enough time to figure out what to do.
“Psst.”
Victor turned his head toward the sound.
“You want to get out of this place, or what?” It was Oswald. For the first time, Victor was actually glad to hear the sound of that voice.
“Do you have a flashlight?” he said. He had barely finished the sentence when a beam of light dazzled his eyes. He covered his face with an arm.
“You think I’m stupid?” Oswald said. “I know where you’re going. It’s a good idea, too. That door’s been blocked long as I remember, but maybe you can find a way through.”
“Alright,” Victor said quickly. “Let’s get moving.”
“First things first,” Oswald answered, holding the flashlight beneath his chin as if he was about to tell a ghost story. “That was good shooting, Tex. I’ll have to remember not to cross you.”
Victor wondered how Oswald had had time to witness the fight and then sneak into the sewers by another route. Maybe these tunnels were more home to Oswald than the town above.
“The point is they’re dead,” Victor said. “I did my part.”
Oswald let out a deep breath. “Right, right. Guess it’s time we beat this joint, then.”
Victor hesitated, wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible but hating the sound of we.
Oswald regarded him with a wide-eyed grin. “You didn’t think you were just going to ditch me, did you? With those crazies?” He chuckled. “No, you made a promise, remember? A solemn pact. God himself would strike you down if you broke it.”
“Whatever you say,” Victor answered, sensing the grains of sand slipping through the hourglass. “Let’s just get the hell out of here.”
_____
The door was just where Oswald thought it would be. He had led them forward with a kind of unhurried indifference, as if knowing their pursuers could never catch them, while Victor frequently glanced over his shoulder for the beam of a flashlight. So far, he had seen none.
The door was blocked by a mound of debris—trash, leaves, sticks, diapers. The smell might have been overwhelming if Victor hadn’t already been slogging through the sewer for fifteen minutes.
I guess Jenny didn’t go through this way, Victor thought. He could
only hope she had reached another exit and would not be caught by the cannibals he had provoked.
Oswald asked, “So what’s this big plan of yours, fella?”
Victor pulled a knife from his pocket.
“Whoa!” Oswald said, backing up. “You gonna do me dirty?”
“We dig,” Victor answered.
Fortunately, the door swung toward them. It was not the mound of trash that was blocking the door so much as the rust of the latch. Victor attacked the latch with his knife, chipping away the rust and jarring the door at the same time. After what seemed a long time, he was able to loosen the door enough to pull it toward them. There was still a heap of trash on the far side, but now they at least had room to get at it.
Victor stepped toward the door, but Oswald grabbed his backpack.
“Wait a minute,” Oswald said. “Do you think I’m an idiot or what?”
Victor turned. “Unless you want to swim through that filth, we’re going to have to knock it down. If you want to go first, by all means.” He held an open palm toward the door.
“Naw, changed my mind. I—” Oswald stopped. “What are you staring at?”
“They’re coming,” Victor said, staring at the flashlights playing on the tunnel walls far behind them. He slipped past the door. “Keep that flashlight in front of me so I can see what I’m doing,” he said.
With one hand against the filthy wall, Victor began kicking at the debris with his boot. The trash came free in sodden handfuls. A rat splashed in the water at his feet and began paddling away.
“Not to be an asshole,” Oswald said, “but would you freaking hurry?”
Victor did freaking hurry. Within a few minutes, there was just enough room for him to slither over the top of the refuse. He turned back to the door.
“Go on over!” Oswald said, glancing over his shoulder. His overbearing calm was finally cracking as the flashlights moved closer down the tunnel. “What are you waiting for?”
Victor grabbed the door and hauled it toward himself. The flashlight followed his movements as Oswald, wondering what Victor was doing, inadvertently helped him.
“Nice try, asswipe,” Oswald said. “It doesn’t lock. I checked.” He stopped, watching in disbelief as Victor withdrew from his pocket the padlock that had sealed him inside the freezer.
“No,” Oswald murmured. “No, no, no!” He reached for the door, but it was too late. Victor clicked the padlock and stepped back.
“Sorry,” he said. “Better luck next time.” As he began climbing over the heap of debris, the flashlight moved back and forth across his body like a pendulum.
“A pact is a pact!” Oswald shouted. “Remember that! I’ll find you!”
Chapter 29: Rendezvous
The grate covering the end of the storm drain had already been removed, so Victor had no difficulty leaving the tunnels behind. He found himself on the rock-strewn shore of a lake. He wondered whether Oswald had removed the cover to make it easier for him to travel as he pleased. How many nights had he been wandering the city while his parents thought he was sound asleep? Maybe he deserved whatever fate he had met at the hands of his “people.”
Still, it bothered Victor to consider how he had betrayed him. Was it so different from how he had nearly betrayed Jenny? It seemed there was only one person in all the world whom he could not betray: Dante, his brother, his own flesh and blood. Family above all else—that was his motto now. And protecting his family justified any cost.
It was difficult to tell how much time he had lost to Mother Max’s “detour.” It was a new sun drifting through the clouds overhead, meaning Victor had spent the night in the freezer and then in the tunnels. But to Victor, the sun looked as old as ever—a jaded thing eager to move on so it could stop watching what had become of the world. But maybe he was just projecting his own feelings. Maybe, cold and wet and needing a meal and a long sleep, he was just ready for a change.
After climbing the bank, he discovered the highway he had left was not far away, curling through tall pine forests on its way past the lake. The lake’s dam no longer penned the waters in, so instead of a blue expanse there was only a broad valley of cattails, alders, and shrubs—a swamp in the making. Whether his re-discovery of the highway was a stroke of luck, Victor could not decide. Maybe, like Oswald had said, life was just a big joke. After all, what chance was there the horsemen had not already passed this spot?
The sun was at its zenith. The clouds had broken sometime while he was below ground, and now the day was as bright and warm and full of birdsong as the middle of summer. Victor wished the day had kept its gloom. There were some deeds the sun should never witness.
There was a golf course beside the highway. The artificial turf still kept the weeds from encroaching, so Victor was able to find a hill with a clear view. He lay there with the rifle between his hands, thinking how far he was from any sense of familiarity. The gunshots still sounded in the distance, each one a reminder that, though humanity lived on, the rules of society did not. Maybe people were always looking for an opportunity to turn on each other. Maybe, underneath the surface, there was a monster in everyone—in Oswald, in Victor.
Once he was satisfied with his vantage point, he returned to the road and searched more carefully for signs of the horsemen. He found none. He hoped this was an indication he was ahead of them. There was no knowing for certain, though. If they were already past him, already headed deeper into the city…
He clenched his teeth because it was that thought, above all others, that stung him most. The thought that he might not be in control. The thought that he might never have been in control. Maybe he had just been deceiving himself all along into thinking he had power over his circumstances. What did all that amount to now? He was just a survivor, a man with a code, a brother who would die before he let his own flesh and blood be taken away.
He couldn’t think about that now. There was too little time.
_____
Victor’s head began to lower and he snapped it back up, opening his eyes wide. A single rider had emerged from the shadows of the trees alongside the road. He was sitting high in his saddle, surveying the lake like a manor lord out inspecting his crops. The others began appearing behind him. They were all there, every one he had seen at Jenny’s house—all except Sean.
Then he saw Dante. Dante’s arms were hunched forward, the hands bound to the horn of the saddle. The reins of his horse were being held in the hand of a large man with a dark beard. Victor could not see his brother’s face beneath the baseball cap, but he could read his brother’s posture clear as day. It was the posture of a man who has resigned himself to whatever fate has in store for him.
Victor had little time to consider this. All at once, the rider at the front of the group raised a fist and the others stopped. He sat silent in the saddle, staring down the middle of the road as if he saw something that should not have been there.
Victor adjusted the rifle against his shoulder, then closed his left eye and moved the right one behind the iron sights. He was at a 45 degree angle from the road, so there was no telling which way the horsemen might go when the shooting began. He hoped it would not matter.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He turned the rifle along the group of horsemen to the one at the back, who was swiveling his head side-to-side at the woods around him. Victor took another breath, released it halfway, and then fired.
He had aimed for the center of the rider’s chest, but instead it took him in the shoulder, nearly knocking him to the ground. The horse reared back as the echo of the shot rippled across the empty lake. The other horses tossed their heads, and the riders began drawing weapons.
They were wheeling around now, asking one another in hurried voices where the shot came from. While they were still disorganized, Victor picked a second target and fired. This shot flew true, hitting the man in the heart and knocking him flat on the rump of the horse. The horse bolted toward the forest, the body on its back flop
ping like a shutter in the wind.
It might have been the glint of metal or a wisp of smoke that betrayed him—Victor did not know. But moments after he fired, another gun cracked and he felt the thump of a bullet hit the ground nearby. The man with the beard was pointing at him now, gesturing for the others to turn their guns on him.
Victor crawled back as more bullets flew overhead. His arms brushed against tall weeds, causing them to sway above him. If they hadn’t known he was there before, they knew now.
He chambered another round and listened for the shooting to slacken. Within a few moments, the shooting stopped all at once.
Moving on elbows and knees, Victor crawled back to the breast of the hill. He lifted his head, hoping none of them were watching the hill with a scope, and saw the man with the beard gesturing down the road. Victor could not believe his eyes. Instead of hunting him down and avenging their own, they wanted to ride away.
Brothers (The Last Colony Book 1) Page 21