The Path of Ashes [Omnibus Edition]

by Parker, Brian

  “I’m with you, man. I’ve lived in fear of bullies my whole life. Afraid of what they’d say about my orientation, afraid that they would call me names or do something to my family’s home because I’m gay. Even with my size, I couldn’t escape living in fear that something would happen. I’m done with that. It’s no way to live.”

  Aeric stopped and placed a hand on his friend’s arm. “Well, that world is gone, too. Let’s survive this night and then we’ll face tomorrow.”

  “Okay. So, do we take out the riflemen first or the others?”

  He considered it for a moment. It made sense to take out the guys with rifles first. Really, though, it came down to opportunity. If he’d relied on what he learned from the movies, he would have assumed that the pistols were more dangerous in a close fight. But he’d been around guns his entire life and knew how easy it was to miss with a hand gun, especially when adrenaline and nerves played into it. Rifles forced the user to add an extra level of stability with their second hand and at close range. The extra stability was usually enough of an advantage to hit the target.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ve obviously never been in a gun fight, but I think that the rifles are the biggest threat. Plus, we know that they have rifles and only assume that they have pistols, so we have to take out the riflemen first, right?”

  Tyler pushed past him without saying anything. Aeric sighed and trailed after his friend.

  They reached the bottom floor and pulled the upholstered chair away from the door that they’d blocked. The small atrium that opened to the street was still silent so they crept out into the darkness.

  “You ready?” Aeric asked.

  It was too dark in the tiny hallway to see more than shadows, but he saw the baseball bat rise up and then slap down on Tyler’s open palm with an audible thump. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

  Aeric moved down the foyer to the glass doors and peered out. The body sat by itself in the middle of the parking lot while three of the men stood close together, less than twenty feet from the doorway where Aeric and Tyler watched. None of the other thugs seemed to be present.

  “What are they doing?” Tyler asked.

  “It looks like those guys are on lookout. No idea about the other four. Maybe they’re in one of the stores stealing shit.”

  “Probably the best opportunity that we’re gonna get,” Tyler said quietly.

  “So, are we really going to kill them?”

  Tyler didn’t answer his question directly, instead he replied, “I’ll get the two on the left, you take care of the one on the far right.”

  Just as the big man didn’t answer Aeric’s question, he didn’t say that he was going. Once again, he pushed past Aeric and went through the door. He had to rush out to keep pace with him. For a large man, Tyler moved with incredible silence. Then everything happened in slow motion.

  He watched as the aluminum baseball bat glinted slightly in the light coming from apartment windows and then impacted into the back of a man’s head with a distinct crunch of skull bones. The bat reversed and Tyler hit his second target in the face. Then, Aeric’s own feet carried him to the man that he was supposed to kill.

  The molded plastic of the kitchen knife felt strange in his hand as he stepped in close behind the man and wrapped an arm around the thug’s neck. Aeric pulled him in tight to his chest, locking his strong muscles in an unbreakable grip. He thrust the blade forward into the man’s right kidney and he let out a gurgled scream. The knife resisted for a moment as he pulled it out, caught on some type of tissue or clothing. It came free and he wrapped his knife arm completely around the front of the man to his left side and stabbed towards himself into the man’s stomach. The soft tissue there was no match for the sharp point and the knife sliced open muscle and intestines. He stabbed several times and then slid the blade between the thug’s ribs, hitting something hard. The man’s body relented to Aeric’s powerful thrust and the knife continued up over the bone into the lungs. He pulled it out again and stabbed into the lower back once again.

  The man began to spasm and Aeric had a difficult time holding him, so he slid him to the ground and stepped heavily onto the side of his head. He almost lost his balance as the oblong object under his shoe rolled slightly and the man’s cheek was pressed into the pavement. The thug beat weakly against Aeric’s calf muscle as he bent down and pushed the knife through the side of his throat with the serrated edge facing outwards.

  Aeric pushed hard against the handle and pulled up viciously like he was slitting the throat of a deer to put it out of its misery and then stepped quickly away. Another thump behind him announced that Tyler was still dispatching his man. He’d taken the life of another human being in less time than it took the big man to beat the other.

  “Grab their weapons,” Tyler ordered. “We’ll shoot those mother fuckers when they come out.”

  “Got it,” Aeric answered in a daze. Had he really stabbed a man to death?

  He picked the rifle up from the ground where it had fallen. It was a simple lever action 30-30. He held it up into the tiny bit of light from the apartments and cocked the lever slightly. The bright brass of a round in the chamber contrasted against the black metal and wood of the rifle. There was at least one round and he prayed for more.

  “Here,” Tyler said as he handed a pistol to Aeric. “Both of my guys had a pistol and each of ‘em has a pretty full magazine.”

  “Thanks. How are you feeling?”

  “Let’s just finish this and then we can talk about our feelings.”

  Aeric stopped talking and followed Tyler back towards the building. It was clear to him after the events of the day—and especially after the last few minutes—that their relationship had evolved. The big man didn’t want to make decisions and was totally fine following Aeric’s directions, but once those decisions had been made, he would carry them out and Aeric would be the follower.

  Flashlights inside the small smoke shop gave away the location of the other thugs. As Aeric and Tyler walked quietly towards the doors, they could see the men stuffing fine cigars and packages of the e-cigarettes that were so popular on campus into plastic bags. Aeric grimaced at what they were stealing. An hour ago, he’d done the exact same thing at the convenience store when he’d taken all of the cigarettes for currency. Was he just like the murderers in the smoke shop?

  Then the thought that he might be worse crossed his mind. Only one of the men had killed Veronica’s neighbor while he and Tyler had both killed people now. It was a sobering thought that he may be considered the bad guy. They weren’t the bad guys, were they?

  “Same as last time,” Ty’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “I’ll take the two on the left. You take the two on the right.”

  He nodded and pulled the hammer back on the rifle. The 30-30 was a simple design that he’d used before. It would only fire with the hammer cocked when he pulled the trigger.

  “Are we going inside or shooting through the glass?” Aeric asked.

  “Does it matter?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “Then fuck it. We can stand outside and shoot them on the inside before they notice us.”

  “Got it.”

  They stopped less than five feet from the shop’s glass windows, completely draped in the shadow of the awning above the door. He pulled the rifle hard against the pocket of his shoulder where his chest muscles connected with his deltoid. It was a practiced motion that years of going to the rifle range, and hunting with his father, had instilled in him.

  He heard the rustle of fabric as Tyler raised his arm and said, “One… Two… Three!”

  They both fired through the glass simultaneously and then Aeric worked the lever action to eject the spent cartridge and chamber another. The things that his mind noticed were strange to him. He noticed the glass flying inwards towards the lighter case and he heard the brass casing tinkle as it hit the concrete, disguising the screams of the men inside as they dove for cover.
>
  He brought his gun up and squeezed the trigger once again at his second target. The man’s momentum carried him behind a counter. Aeric was certain that he clipped the man in the shoulder, but hadn’t killed him.

  “You get yours?” Tyler asked casually as he slid over behind the decorative concrete pillar on his side of the door.

  Aeric followed suit and moved behind the pillar on his side. “Head shot on the first one. I think I hit the second dude in the shoulder. Pretty sure that he’s still alive, though. What about you?”

  “Both of mine are down.”

  A heavily accented voice yelled out from inside the store, “I’ll kill you, motherfuckers!” Gunfire erupted and chips of concrete flew in all directions as the man inside the smoke shop began firing his pistol towards Aeric.

  He felt a cold, empty certainty in the pit of his stomach that the man inside was going to kill him. He’d been a fool playing the part of a vigilante and now that he’d encountered an actual criminal, the man would murder him just like Aeric had murdered his companions. The teenager wondered about his mom and dad in Missouri. Would things ever settle down enough so that they’d eventually find out what happened to their idiot son?

  A loud curse drifted from the store and over the ringing in his ears, he heard the clicking of the pistol’s hammer falling on an empty chamber. Aeric started to ask Tyler what he wanted to do, but the big man was already moving. He charged through the shattered glass with a quickness that belied his size and fired two rounds over the counter into the man behind it.

  Aeric risked a glance around and saw Tyler bend over to pick up one of the flashlights. Before he could question his friend, the man was walking around shining the flashlight in the faces of their enemies. “Making sure that they’re dead. Grab their bags and weapons. We need to get back up to Veronica’s apartment. We made a lot of noise and people are probably going to start looking out their windows soon.”

  Aeric accepted Tyler’s directions, and grabbed the men’s backpacks, and scooped up pistols while his friend rifled through the pockets of the dead. The world around them had changed so much in only a few days. He wondered for the hundredth time if Austin was alone in the madness or if it had spread across the entire United States. Surely what Veronica had said about the Army coming soon was the truth. He wanted to believe that. He had to believe that.

  They went back into the building through the vestibule and into the stairwell. The chair slid easily back into place behind the door and they took the stairs quickly to the seventh floor. Veronica called out to them as the door from the stairwell opened, “Aeric, Tyler… Is that you?”

  “Yes!” Aeric replied as they rushed down the hallway. “I thought we told you not to open the door until we asked you to!”

  “I was worried that you got hurt. After all the shooting stopped, I didn’t know what happened.”

  “Let’s get inside,” Tyler said.

  “Oh, okay,” she said and led them back into her apartment.

  Once the door was locked, Aeric allowed the backpacks and the rifle to fall to the floor and then rushed past Veronica to the bathroom. He hunched over quickly and vomited into the toilet. The memories of the blood flowing freely from his victims almost overwhelmed him. He’d killed two men tonight, one of them like a dog. His clothing was covered in the blood of his first victim and the white porcelain of Veronica’s toilet was smeared with it where he’d grasped the sides.

  He gagged a few more times, choking out the remaining contents of his stomach and then sat back against the wall. His mind kept replaying the screams of his victim as he stabbed him repeatedly and then slit his throat like he would if he were field dressing an animal on a hunting trip. The way the man’s body had been so tense against his, and then gone slack against him as his life began to flee, made Aeric’s skin crawl.

  Then, he thought of his second victim. It didn’t impact him nearly as bad as the first since he’d shot him from a distance, but it was still a horrible feeling to know that he’d ended the man’s life. The men had been part of an earlier evil, but he had no way of knowing who’d done what. For all he knew, both of them could have been volunteers at a children’s hospital and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Who was he to decide who was allowed to live and who would die?

  The questioning and second guessing of his actions was maddening and he didn’t hear the soft knocks on the bathroom door. The flickering candle on the counter threw wild and crazy shadows across the walls, adding more boogeymen to those that his mind already struggled to deal with. He stared blankly at the drying blood that coated both of his hands and gathered in dark lines along the crevasses of his palms and around the edges of his fingernails. He was dimly aware of someone walking into the room and the soft scent of lilac as Veronica slid down the wall beside him.

  “Ty went to the apartment across the hall to see if that guy is there or if…or if it was him in the parking lot,” she opened.

  He ignored her, not interested in what she had to say. “He was about the same size as you. Played high school football or lacrosse, I can’t remember which. Ty’s going to get you some new clothes.”

  The idea of cleaning away that poor man’s body fluids sounded appealing, but Aeric couldn’t bring himself to say anything. “There’s still hot water in the apartment’s hot water heater and the water pressure is still holding up in the building. You should shower.”

  She sighed and slapped her hand on her knees. “Aeric, you’re probably thinking about what you did. You need to stop. Those men were evil and you did the right thing. I know that you’re a good person. Otherwise, this wouldn’t be affecting you so much. It had to be done.”

  She shifted and he saw her look directly at the side of his face. “Fine. You’re getting in that shower. You stink and you’ve got blood all over you. You’re ruining my stuff. If you’re not going to do it yourself, then I’m putting your ass in there.”

  Veronica didn’t wait for him to not answer her once again. Instead, she stood up and bent over him. He saw her darkened form untie his shoe and pull it off, then the other. It felt strange to have someone taking off his shoes. He felt totally removed from the situation and was simply a casual observer of the actions occurring to his own body.

  Her fingernails scraped lightly against the skin above his beltline as she grasped the hem of his shirt on both sides and slid it up over his torso. The collar got stuck around his chin as she tugged it gently up over his head, and then pulled the shirt the rest of the way off of him and down his arms. He was starting to come around and let out a little yelp when her fingers plunged inside his pants.

  “Oh knock it off, you big baby. I have to unbutton your jeans.”

  Finally, he spoke. “I… I can do it.”

  “Then stand up.”

  “I just need a minute.”

  “Well, I gave that to you,” she countered. “Now the minute’s up and you’re ruining my bathroom. Stand up.”

  “Please. I just feel… I don’t know. I feel terrible.”

  Her fingers dove back inside his waistband on either side of the fastener and then twisted as she unbuttoned his jeans. “A shower will make you feel better,” she said and unzipped the zipper, spreading the fly to widen the waist.

  She reached around and grasped the top of his jeans and jerked them downward as he breathed in her scent. It reminded him of walking through his mom’s flower garden after it rained.

  “Lift your ass,” Veronica ordered.

  “You smell nice,” he mumbled while he followed her directions.

  “You don’t.” She worked the jeans back and forth over his thighs, past his calves and then down around his ankles. She wadded up his pants and threw them into the corner and then stood up.

  Veronica turned away from him and the splash of the water in the bathtub filled the small room. Aeric allowed himself a moment to imagine that none of this was happening, that it was all a crazy dream and that he heard his roommate in
the bathroom turning the shower on.

  Then the sound of the toilet flushing away the contents of his stomach reminded him that the events of the past few days had really happened. He was homeless, didn’t own anything and had killed two men. The city was rapidly descending into chaos and thousands of people were dead.

  “Either you stand up and get in the bath or I’m gonna force you up.”

  “Yeah, okay. Fine. I’m getting up. Can I have some privacy, please?”

  “No.”

  He quickly glanced at her and said, “Huh?”

  “I’m not leaving until you’re up and in the shower. Now come on, I want to be able to have a hot shower, too. It might be the last one I ever get and my hot water heater isn’t very large. Get in there before all of it’s gone.”

  Aeric felt bad enough about everything that had happened. He didn’t want to ruin what could potentially be her last hot shower, but she wasn’t going to get in until he’d cleaned himself up. He shifted his weight and then used the counter to help pull himself up. “Okay, I’m up, Veronica. I’ll get in the shower.”

  “I’m not leaving until you get in.”

  Now he was beginning to get irritated. “Oh, come on! I’m a grown man, I can get in the shower myself.”

  “You’re wasting my hot water.”

  “Please, give me some privacy.”

  “You don’t have anything that I haven’t seen a million times—wait, I don’t mean a million. Less than a hundred times total, with only a couple of guys.” She grinned at him, “Don’t know why I told you that. I just wanted to clarify that I haven’t seen that many penises… Um, never mind. I’ll turn around while you take off your underwear, but I’m not leaving until you actually get into the shower.”

  He sighed and then rolled his finger in a circle to indicate that she should turn around. Once she’d turned her back on him, he pulled his underwear off, stepped into the shower and closed the curtain.

  Veronica had been right. The shower made him feel much better. By the time he was finished washing the blood away, he felt a million times better. He smiled that his mind had chosen to use the word million because of Veronica’s embarrassment at her own use of the word only minutes before.