Larry sat up. “No shit.” He couldn’t say he was terribly surprised, but there was something disturbing about hearing the other man say it nevertheless.
The man shook his head. “No shit is right. Found a broadcast on short wave radio that said there’s a place for survivors in Utah. That was the only signal I could find. I’m sure with time others will pop up here and there.”
“Utah!”
“I know it’s far, but I can drop you somewhere along the way, if you’d like.”
Larry eased back into his seat. Utah was a hell of a far ways off. Did it make sense to travel half way across the country? He pictured himself alone at Kenny’s cottage, fending off scavengers stumbling onto his land, looking to take what little he had. That was no way to live. Safety in numbers. That would be the mantra in this new world, he was certain of it. They’d make bumper stickers. He glanced up at the sky. Nor did this seem like the kind of thing that would just blow over. Deadly as it had been, Katrina was starting to look like an annoyance compared to what happened yesterday.
Larry sighed. “All right, I’ll stick with you for now.”
The man smiled. “We’ll need to look at that eye later. Don’t want it to get infected.”
“I’ll be fine,” Larry said, not wishing to relive what had caused the wound. “So what do I call you then?” He asked, trying to change the subject.
“Not sure,” the man replied, weaving between a station wagon and a minivan. “I did find some initials stitched into my boxer briefs. B. Hud.”
“How about Bud then?”
The man seemed to weigh the idea. “Bud sounds fine to me. At least until things start coming back to me.”
“Hit your head?”
Bud laughed, his Adam’s apple jumping up and down. “Nah, most of the head bumping happened after I woke up.”
There was a thin mark on Bud’s neck right below his right ear and even from where he was sitting, Larry thought it was too precise and carefully made to be anything but the incision from a scalpel.
“So, you a doctor?” Larry asked.
“Don’t think so, not that I can be sure, but I got this off a guy who was,” Bud said, indicating the oversized lab coat he was wearing.
Bud made a right-hand turn, and that’s when Larry noticed the tattoo on his wrist, just beneath his left palm. A series of eight numbers. Looked more like something out of Auschwitz than it did the kind of thing kids carved into their flesh nowadays. Larry wondered about the strange tattoo quite a bit as they made their way into the countryside, never bothering to ask, for the simple reason that Bud probably didn’t know what it was either.
Dana Hatfield
Bernal Heights, CA
Dana didn’t need to go far to find a chink in their armor. A few streets over, several cars were parked bumper to bumper, blocking the road, but no one was manning the checkpoint. Wasn’t a surprise either; because Bernal Heights was mostly laid out in a grid, almost all of it built after the great fire of 1906. Securing every street that led into the neighborhood would require an army. Dana left the Nissan around the corner and got out on foot. The family house was a quaint light-blue deal on the corner of Bocana and Holly Park. The sound of gunfire in the distance made her jump. She thought again about what the two at the checkpoint had said.
Jeffereys is going house to house as we speak.
Dana quickened her step, turning the corner, and found the front door to the family home ajar. Her pulse quickened. She unholstered the SIG and used it to nudge the door open.
“Dad, you here?”
No answer.
The house was a two-floor job, with an old leather sofa set in the living room and a brown carpet, a frayed path worn between the couch and the kitchen. Since Mom had passed, her father spent most of his time watching 24-hour cable news channels and occasionally taking walks in the park across the street.
She made her way toward the bedrooms. Three in total, one on either side of the hall and the third at the end.
“Holler if you’re here, Dad,” she called out again, but the only response was gloomy silence.
She reached the master bedroom. Things looked normal. Dad had a habit of using the floor as a hamper. She’d tried in vain to get him to pick up after himself. “I’m not your maid,” she’d say, but the old bugger was used to Mom cleaning up his mess. Dana was about to leave when she spotted the blood on the floor. Her heart fluttered like a snare drum. Blood wasn’t more than few drops. But part of it was smeared, as though Dad had taken a knock to the head and fallen down.
If those assholes hurt him ...
She stormed from the bedroom and gave the other rooms a cursory glance, without finding any other sign of him.
A new plan was forming in her head. Find Jeffereys and make him tell her what happened to her father. No more than a second later, a paralyzing fear gripped her. She hadn’t looked everywhere.
They had a small fish pond out back. Dad had built it after Mom passed. Took his mind off being all alone, he told her. Fish might die here and there, but not all at once. They’d never all leave him alone. The pond itself wasn’t much larger than two bathtubs laid out side by side and buried in the soft earth. It was visible from the kitchen window, and that’s exactly where Dana went, a heaviness to her step, as though her body didn’t want her to see what was there.
She glanced out, and the feeling in her belly was like free falling in one of those amusement rides. Her stomach rose up into her throat the minute she saw the body floating face down. Perhaps he’d been sprinkling food to the fish when the lights in the sky had come and wiped out every last bit of common sense. Wouldn’t have taken more than a slip to send him reeling into the pond. The fish were still alive, swimming around just like any other day.
Or had Jeffereys done this? Had he found her father in the backyard, babbling incoherently and thrown him into the water? The thought of giving him a proper burial somehow seemed less important than finding Jeffereys, looking into his eyes and finding the truth. She’d done the same to Alvarez, and a single word had come back in blinding white colors.
Murderer.
The tears and the proper burial would come after.
Dana was out the front door a second later, and that’s when she realized that finding Jeffereys wasn’t going to be necessary after all. He’d already found her.
“Drop the piece, missy, lest you want us to shred you on your own doorstep.”
Jeffereys’ narrow, pock-marked face and slicked-back hair made him look like an inmate of Folsom prison. Flanking him were Goatee and Head-banger. All three had automatic rifles at the ready.
Dana laid the SIG at her feet.
“I told you she’d go around,” Head-banger told Goatee. “Now pay up, you cheap bastard.”
Goatee sighed and pulled out a wad of bills, slapping them into the kid’s hand, as though paper money were still worth something.
Jeffereys’ eyes were scanning her up and down as though he’d just won himself a shiny new trophy. The black leather outfit he wore squeaked whenever he shifted. “Now give that pistol a nice kick in our direction.”
She complied, and Head-banger scurried forward to scoop up her weapon.
“Did you kill him?” she asked and the edge in her voice only made the men laugh.
The grin on Jeffereys’ face stretched from ear to ear. “Sweet darling, what do you take me for, some kind of murderer?”
Carole Cartright
Salt Lake City International Airport, UT
The sound of thumping was rhythmic and constant.
Boom ... boom ... boom ...
A stabbing pain in her head accompanied each beat, and as her eyes began to open, the source of the thumping soon became clear. It was the blood vessels around her brain, a liquid vice grip squeezing her tighter and tighter with every excruciating beat of her heart.
Carole looked about her. She was in a darkened airport gift shop, hanging from the ceiling, luggage straps attached to e
ach arm, cutting into her wrists. Holding her legs were more straps, which had been tied to aisles that once contained books and candy, but had since been stripped bare. Her shirt had been ripped open, exposing her breasts. She didn’t remember anything that had happened after she blacked out. But the pilot with the girl on the leash undoubtedly wasn’t too keen on having his balls crushed. She had expected a level of retribution, she had maybe even expected death. If she was lucky, it would be quick. With this group, however, it would more than likely be slow and incredibly painful. She could live with that, no pun intended. What she couldn’t have lived with was knowing she’d left Nikki behind to be tortured, raped, and who knows what else. Carole had found Nikki’s attempts to hunt through the security office for a gun amusing, but right about now she wished more than anything they had found one. If they had, she’d have dropped the pilot right out of the gate, and maybe then they’d all be safe.
From the other room came sounds that made Carole struggle against her constraints. The muffled cry of a girl calling out for help. Sounded like Nikki’s voice, but she couldn’t be sure because of the other sounds she was also hearing coming from that same room, grunts and groans, and the prospect of what they were doing to her sickened Carole. But more importantly it enraged her.
The power was still off, making it hard to see farther than a few feet in front of her. The knots in the luggage straps were crudely made, as though the person who’d tied her up was doing it for the first time. Crude or not, they weren’t nearly as tight as they should have been, and Carole could only assume they must have thought she was nearly dead. Which wasn’t terribly far off.
The back of her head was wet with blood. Must have happened when she was knocked unconscious.
The girl’s voice came again, this time accompanied by a nerve-shattering shriek; Carole began to rotate her wrists, trying to work her hand free, kissing her thumb and pinkie finger together as she did. The strap was moving; bit by bit she could feel her wrist slipping out from the knot. A shadow emerged out of the darkness. Wearing a ripped suit shirt and pants, he entered the store, hardly noticing her. He was rummaging through the shelves for food. The man’s hands fumbled onto a bag of potato chips, and he tore it open, cramming the contents into his mouth. Next to the now-empty chip rack was a showcase for cast-iron replicas of the Salt Lake Temple, the Mormons’ holiest of holies. Then Carole’s eyes flitted upon the T-shirt rack beside it, and an idea suddenly formed inside her head. She wouldn’t need a gun. Not if she could get free.
Her right hand nearly slipped out before she could grab hold of the loop with the edges of her fingers. Her body was being held by two opposing straps, connected from the ceiling, and to lose one would mean her body would start swinging to the left and maybe crash into something. That would alert Chip Eater to her presence, which was the last thing she wanted to do. The shop was dark, and he hadn’t seen her yet, his face smeared with crumbs, and that was how Carole wanted to keep things.
Chip Eater tossed away the empty bag and continued hunting for any scrap that hadn’t already been devoured. It hadn’t been more than maybe 24 hours since the disaster, but there were still hundreds of people in the airport, and many of them had probably been hunting for food since then.
Satisfied there was nothing left to pillage, Chip Eater moved on, picking at the crumbs around his face and shoving them into his mouth.
Carole had used that time to work her left hand free, and it was as she dropped to the floor as quietly as she could that she heard the girl in the other room begging the man to stop and knew then for sure that it was Nikki.
It was dark near the ground, and Carole swore as she struggled to untie the straps from her legs. Free within moments, she plucked a white I Heart Salt Lake City T-shirt off the hanger along with one of the bronze statues of the Mormon Temple.
Keeping to the inside wall, she made her way through debris left over from the earthquake and subsequent looting and toward the sounds of the young girl’s voice. She wrapped the T-shirt around the heavy statue and cupped the ends in a tight fist. The resulting weapon would act as a mace and would surely crush the skull of anyone stupid enough to get in its way.
The grunting was coming from behind the door facing her, and she pushed it open and right away felt something inside her break.
She had been right. It was Nikki, lying naked from the waist down, on a bed of newspapers; she was swinging wildly with both fists to fight off the figure that was trying to rape her. He was reaching down between his legs as though the plumbing wasn’t working so well, and right away, Carole knew it was the pilot whose balls she had crushed. He had intended to show them who was boss, but hadn’t counted on the lasting impact of Carole’s grip.
Without missing a step, she walked right up behind him and brought the homemade mace down on the top of the pilot’s head. The sound of his skull cracking open was clear and sickening, but what Carole hadn’t counted on was the scream that echoed from behind her. She turned just in time to see the pilot’s girlfriend charging. Carole made ready to swing her weapon when the woman’s neck snapped back and her legs kicked out from under her, sending her limp body crashing to the ground. Carole hadn’t done a thing. In the pilot’s mind, she was his property and as such, the bastard had chained her to the wall like a dog that had no idea how short its leash really was.
Nikki’s jeans were in the corner, and Carole grabbed them and brought them to her.
“I’m so sorry, Honey.”
Her daughter reached out and slid her arms around her mother, her body sobbing violently. She pulled away, and her face was spattered with the pilot’s blood.
“Get dressed, Nikki, we aren’t safe yet.”
The pilot wasn’t moving, but that wasn’t a big surprise, given that the back of his head was caved in. She winced at the sight, fighting the sudden urge to vomit.
Hold yourself together, Carole. If for nothing else, you have to stay strong for Nikki.
When her daughter was dressed, they entered the gift shop. Trying to be quiet and keep low, they saw two figures standing near the exit. The sound of their feet crunching the debris littering the floor, as well as Nikki’s continued whimpering, made stealth nearly impossible. They heard footsteps coming toward them, and Carole and Nikki stood. The sling with the cast-iron temple was still in her hand. She absolutely hated the idea of using any religious paraphernalia to attack another human being, but at the time she’d been a little short on options.
Nikki tapped her arm. “Mom, look behind you.”
Carole turned and saw the dull-red outline of a fire extinguisher. She pushed the bloodied sling into Nikki’s hands and pulled the extinguisher off the wall. The hose was attached to the body by a clip, and she yanked it free. The two men came out of the darkness, and Carole saw right away that one of them was the Chip Eater, his gaze on Nikki as though he wanted to make her his. Carole aimed the hose, squeezed the handle, and nothing happened. Panic rose up within her guts. She might have been lucky working those knots free and saving Nikki, but she didn’t think her luck was going to last much longer.
“The pin, pull the pin!”
Carole did, and when she squeezed this time, a white billowing plume shot out of the nozzle. Both men reeled back in shock, falling to the floor. Carole gave them another taste, screaming as she did.
“Back off, Assholes!”
They might not have understood her words, but the terrifying blast of high pressure sodium bicarbonate sent the men scrambling for safety.
“Hold on tight, Honey.”
They left the gift shop surrounded by a mob of disheveled figures. Carole knew these extinguishers didn’t have more than a few seconds of pressurized gas so she’d have to make every shot count. The sound of a discharge sent a shockwave through the crowd. Some ran away, others stayed, but everyone backed off, which was the intended goal. The two women, arm in arm, backed away from the crowd until they finally turned and ran.
PRIMAL SHIFT 3: Heart
of Darkness
Alvarez
Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, CA
The Golden Gate Bridge was positively gridlocked. Some of the cars were still running, many with their driver-side doors open, teasing Alvarez with how easy it would be to climb inside and drive away. But it was a tease and nothing more, because the road was jammed bumper to bumper. He would do better on foot until he reached the city. He’d opted not to take one of the boats, just in case he happened to cross paths with that bitch, Dana Hatfield. She’d left the keys on the table, seemingly out of reach. It had taken Alvarez all of an hour to strip down, tie the bits of his uniform end to end, in order to retrieve them. Was an act that reminded him of fishing, something Alvarez always wished he had the patience to enjoy. Who would have thought he’d be a natural at it?
Dana was also a bitch for locking all the weapons away. Perhaps she knew he’d get out, one way or another.
Alvarez glanced up at the sky. Pink, green, and yellow tracers fluttered around. It was quiet and peaceful as he weaved on foot through a veritable parking lot of abandoned cars.
No people. Exactly how he liked it. A world without people wouldn’t be a bad thing at all. Except for his wife, Anita, and their son, Javier. They were the only reason he even got out of bed in the morning. About the time when everyone else in their late teens and early 20s was getting ready to head off to college, Alvarez was heading off to rehab. Crack cocaine was his weapon of choice, and for a few years he had lost his life to it entirely. A rumor had been going around that shortly after he began dealing, a kid in his math class named Ricky Hildebrand had ratted him out to the police. Back then, at the height of consuming his own product, Alvarez hadn’t been thinking straight. The sheer terror he’d felt at the idea of going to prison was enough to make him do something foolish. He’d made Ricky disappear. The cops had swirled around him for months, but they couldn’t prove anything, and the sheer power of their scrutiny, like flies on shit, had kept Alvarez clean for the duration. When the smoke had cleared and he was finally thinking straight again, he checked himself into a rehab clinic, and that was where he had met Anita. She was six inches taller than him, but that never seemed to be an issue for her. My little Napoleon, that’s what she would call him in the raspy Latina accent he loved so much.
Primal Shift: Volume 1 (A Post Apocalyptic Thriller) Page 14