by Ryan Schow
“It’s your choice,” he said, undeterred.
“I don’t know anything about her.”
“You know what she looks like. How old she is. If she was with someone or by herself.”
“She was with people. A guy. Several. Two men, a boy, a woman and a girl. The girl was shot.”
“Describe them to me,” he said.
“Go to hell,” she said without much force behind her words.
She was dying. Bleeding out. He popped his thumb out of the wound causing her to yelp; he switched the gun from one hand to the other, then jammed his other thumb into the wound on her other leg.
This seemed to do the trick.
The woman began describing the girl and her group in harsh, high tones. As she spoke, Gunderson formed a mental image of his targets. She then told Gunderson that the girl drove up in a black and gold car, something with two doors and a big motor.
“You sure it was a car?”
“Yes,” she cried, weaker now than ever, fading away. Swallowing painfully, almost like the lump in her throat was desert dry and gigantic, she said, “After the power went out, and cars stopped working, I thought everything electronic was dead. But her car wasn’t.”
“It was old,” he said.
She nodded.
“Anything else?” he asked, knowing whatever information he could pull from her at this point was probably the last of what she had to offer.
He snuck his thumb out of her leg, which barely even caused a reaction in her, then he holstered his weapon and cleaned his bloody thumbs on her shirt. She was but a fading memory at this point.
“Do you want me to do it, or do you want to do it yourself?” he asked.
“Can’t feel my legs,” she replied, looking down at them as if they were alien limbs rather than her own. She tried to raise her arms, but they were too heavy. He followed her eyes down to her legs. Blood was seeping everywhere. She was so skinny. Barely even human by the look of her. “Can’t lift my hands.”
“If you want me to spare you this pain, simply say the word.”
She sat there for a long time, a new shine coming on her eyes. Slowly, she slid those same haunted eyes up his shirt and over his chin where she barely managed to snag his gaze. In that look, he felt her: everything she had been, all that she’d lost, the struggle and how it had finally overcome her. He was sad for her. Sad that she’d lost everything, especially her kids.
“Yes,” she finally said, her eyes heavy, her tear-stained cheeks losing color by the minute.
“Did you do everything you wanted to do in this life?” he asked.
“No.”
“Did you love your kids?”
“Still love them.”
“Did they love you back?” he asked, thinking about his own children and how in the end, they were taken from him the same as this woman’s were taken from her.
Her face crinkled into the most incredible look of lost love and desperation.
“Then you were a luckier parent than me.”
He unholstered his weapon, put it to her forehead and said, “My the Lord bless and protect you, and may you have a rich and wonderful hereafter with those you love, and those who love you.”
She smiled, her eyes growing dim.
“Are you sure?”
She closed her eyes, gave the subtlest of nods.
He pulled the trigger, causing her head to buck and fall sideways, resting forever upon her shoulder.
He stood, picked up her shotgun, then rifled through the kitchen drawers until he found a box of shells. With the ammunition in his pockets, he stood over her, looking down at what he’d done, at what this world had left behind and it hit him for the first time deep in his chest. Wiping a finger under his eyelid, he turned and walked away.
If he’d gained anything from this, it was perhaps a speck of humanity, and the information he would need to find the girl.
Indigo.
He met up with the boys an hour later. He’d been at the Humvee for twenty minutes, reflecting on the woman, on the old man, on how his life had gone so very, very wrong. If he wanted, he could take this life of his, do something with it. The times had changed. It was possible. Hell, he realized this just might be his first chance at real freedom.
A cool breeze with the tiniest of burnt edges glided over him. The sun glowed through the smoky haze, warming his face. Up the street, a small pack of dogs were tearing at a corpse and some old lady was yelling at them. He pulled a cigarette out of the pack he kept in the Humvee, lit it, then drew a deep breath and exhaled the smoke in a long stream.
It was nice outside, peaceful even.
Slowly each of his men returned, none with any news, none asking him if he had any news for them. By the time they got back, he was on his third cigarette.
“What now?” one of them asked, looking at the two stomped on cigarette butts beside his boot.
“We cross the park,” Gunderson answered. “I think we’ll find what we’re looking for there, or at least that’s what I’ve been told.”
All eyes zeroed in on him like he was holding out. He was. And he could. They worked for him, and he could end any single one of them the way the hitman had ended the enforcers before him.
“What else were you told?” Frank asked.
“That Indigo is not a gang, but a girl. Early twenties maybe, could still be in her teens.”
“You’re telling us a teenager did this?”
“I say we find out,” he said, tapping away the stump of ash on his last, nearly smoked cigarette.
“If they’re from across the park,” Jorge said, “then we can cross at the nearest road over.”
“That’s back on Fulton,” Gunderson said, flicking the butt into the street where it smoldered it thin tendrils of smoke.
They got in the Humvee. Gunderson started it up and took off. When they got to Fulton, they could go either left or right. He stopped, looked both ways. The last crossover point on Fulton, the last one they passed on the way into Balboa Hollow, was Arguello Blvd. Technically it could be called 1st Street, but some genius decided on Arguello Blvd.
“What’s right?” he asked no one in particular.
“Go right,” Jorge said. “You can cross over on 8th, or even 10th, but both those roads lead to John F. Kennedy Drive, which is the scenic route. If you want to get over, the fastest way is to take Park Presidio to Crossover Drive, and that will put you out on Lincoln and 19th. That’s right near the Walgreen’s on 22nd and Irving.”
“What the hell do I care about a Walgreen’s for?”
“It’s the Lincoln branch of The Ophidian Horde. They’re setting up all these little outposts outside the city so they can cordon off sections to control.”
“If it’s the Lincoln branch, shouldn’t be on Lincoln?” Gunderson asked with a fair amount of sarcasm. “Perhaps it should be the Irving branch. I don’t know, just a thought…”
“These things aren’t very well organized,” Mario admitted as Gunderson turned right and made his way past 12th Avenue and on to Park Presidio Drive.
Even though there were people milling about, no one really bothered them, other than to stop and stare at the truck. A couple of grimy looking kids chased after them, screaming and waving their hands, but they weren’t scared or flagging them down as much as they were playing.
Two golden Labradors, a Chihuahua and a skinny wiener dog barked and took chase. He buried the accelerator and motored on, watching far enough ahead not to plow into wrecked or abandoned cars, or whatever other obstacles might be out.
The park was clean looking, with the exception of some overgrowth of the normally well kept lawn and gardens. There was very little of the debris he’d seen in destroyed neighborhoods and the inner city. The drones didn’t target nature. They didn’t care about low populations of people, trees or grass.
“Merge onto Crossover,” Jorge said.
He merged.
“How do you know about the Lincoln branch
?” Gunderson asked.
“My cousin wanted to head it up,” Jorge said. “The meth ate holes in his brain, but the idea of him being on the outskirts of everything just meant he wasn’t close enough to screw things up. He’s kind of a moron, but he’s handy with a gun.”
“You guys sound tight,” Gunderson quipped, even though he wasn’t even close to feeling so lighthearted.
“Everyone’s got that one family member they’d off if no one was looking. He’s mine. Up ahead, cross Lincoln then turn right on Irving. From there it’s a few blocks up on the right.”
Gunderson did as instructed, then parked in front of a run-down Walgreen’s.
“Charming,” he said.
“My cousin seemed to think a hellhole like this was good cover.”
The four of them walked inside, fully armed, not sure who or what they’d run into. They didn’t realize they’d be walking into a massacre. There were three dead people, all of them a horror show in their own ways. Back in the break room Gunderson found a fat girl with duct tape over her boobs and lips so chapped and dry looking they were split down two or three layers deep.
She was either asleep or dead. “Gross,” someone said, causing the fat girl to stir.
Her lids double-blinked, then fluttered open. Wide eyed, sleep crust making it difficult to focus, she licked her lips and said, “Need water.”
Gunderson watched a dried cut in her lip open back up and start to bleed.
“Get her some water,” Gunderson said with the tilt of a head. To the girl, he asked, “Who did this to you?”
“Skinny little bitch and her boyfriend,” she managed to say.
“Did she have a name?”
“Maybe,” she said, her wobbly eyes watching one of his guys bringing a bottle of water to her. “Oh thank God,” she said.
Looking at her mouth, he said, “Open.”
She opened.
He poured the water in her mouth, turning away because she was sitting in her own filth and a thick cloud of her own body odor.
“You need a shower,” he replied, nauseous.
She gulped the last of her water, much of it drizzling down her chin, then said, “Are you the observant one?”
“Do you remember this girl’s name?”
“Get me out of here and I’ll tell you whatever you want,” she said, clarity flittering through her ugly, bloodshot eyes.
He looked her over, his gaze pausing momentarily on the duct tape wrapped around her chest. The skin around the tape looked raw.
“It’s going to hurt,” he said.
“I’ve already crapped and pissed myself. I’ve been beaten up, starved and left for dead. I think I can take a little more pain. Just get it off.”
He caught the pong of her excrement once more, blanched. “Jesus Christ,” he said, turning away, his stomach lurching.
“You get used to it,” she said rather sheepishly.
He held his nose, moved closer. Working a fingernail under the silver duct tape, he tested the strip. Pulling it back, he gave it a slight tug.
“This is really going to hurt,” he told her.
“Just don’t rip off my nipples,” she said, eyes turned up to meet his, her expression absolute seriousness.
“I can’t make you any promises,” he replied. “Other than it’s not going to be quick and you’re going to scream a lot. And bleed. You’re definitely going to bleed.”
“Just do it,” she said, mentally preparing herself.
When he was able to get an edge, he slowly pulled it off the skin, gauging how bad it was going to be. He cocked an eyebrow, frowned.
“On three, okay?” he said. Already in pain, she paused, then gave a firm nod. “One, two…” and then he ripped with all his might, tearing it halfway around her torso and across one breast. Lines of skin started to bleed. A part of the nipple ripped up as well. The screaming was her tearing a hole in this world and the next, and the cursing that followed became a veritable storm of foul-mouthed litany.
“What about three?” she barked, tears streaming down her face.
“Just don’t look until I’m done,” he said.
Gunderson yanked on the tape again and the glass windows on the other side of the store damn near broke from the howling. He worked his way around her sides and back, mercilessly tearing it all away as she sat there hyperventilating and dripping blood and cussing. It was so bad spit was flying out of her mouth and she cracked a bad tooth from biting down so hard. But she told him to finish. Actually, she insisted on it.
“All done,” he finally said, holding up the ribbons of duct tape with small strips of skin attached.
It took her a good fifteen minutes to get herself composed. The guys got her a shirt, but her skin was so raw and angry, even the air upon it brought her immeasurable pain.
“Her name was Indigo, I think,” the girl finally said. “And Rex. That was the idiot boyfriend.”
“And?”
“I think they were the ones who killed half our crew. They burned them on Dirt Alley, two blocks from here, on Judah, then came back here and did this.”
“What were they looking for?”
“Us, you, me. The Horde. The girl wanted to know about The Ophidian Horde.”
“And did you tell her?”
“Look at my face, man. Look at my body! Of course I told her.”
Gunderson stewed on this a bit, wondered what De La Fuente would have done. He would have killed her already.
“Why would this girl come after you?”
“I overheard them saying she stopped the crew from…whatever they were doing?”
“What were they doing?”
“Knowing them, they were probably stealing something, or killing something, or trying to rape something. It was probably one of the three, or all of the three.”
Gunderson looked at Jorge, who gave him a look like he knew exactly where Judah was.
“You going to be okay on your own?” Gunderson asked.
“If I was prettier, would you just leave me here to die?” she asked with red, swollen eyes.
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation.
“You gay?”
“No, just focused,” he said, not offended. “Thanks for your help.”
“You MS-13?” she asked as he was leaving. “I mean, before all this?”
Gunderson turned and looked at her.
“Thought so,” she said, tapping at the tattoo on her neck. “I was, too. Well as much as I could be. Most of them now, they’re dead. Betrayed by the Sureños and a few vigilante cops we killed.”
“What happened then?”
“The putas took off man, went south or something. You going south?”
“No.”
“Staying with The Horde?”
“Mind your own business,” he said. “And get something on those cuts.”
With that he turned and left her there, sitting and sobbing in her own filth but with her freedom and a few bottles of water.
After a bit of driving around, they found the mouth of Dirt Alley. It was a one lane, broken concrete drive. By the look of it, the dirt road cut through the middle of a city block. The Humvee might fit, but only barely. There were two concrete obelisks flanking the narrow road leading in. Each stood about three feet tall. One was painted white, the other mushroom. On closer inspection, he was afraid the Humvee wouldn’t fit, but even if it did, there was no way he was going to barrel down such a tight street making his presence known.
“I need a scout,” he said. Frank volunteered. “Good, we’re going together.”
“I can go alone,” Frank said.
“I personally need eyes on the targets,” Gunderson replied. Then to his compadres: “Watch our six, shoot anything suspicious.”
With affirmative nods, Gunderson and Frank got out of the truck and started down the alley on foot. Before long, it opened up to backyard fences and ramshackle driveways.
“This is unusual for the city,” Frank
said.
He meant a dirt alley cutting through the city block. It was unusual, and gross. Then he saw it up ahead: the pile of ash. When they came upon it, Gunderson toed the powdery dust, unearthing a bone. This must be the bodies of the men from the Lincoln branch.
Looking around, his eyes roving from residence to residence, checking windows and doors and blinds, he said, “We need to come here under the cover of night.”
“Agreed.”
“Time to report in, get the cavalry.”
“And then?”
“Then we burn this neighborhood to the ground and shoot the rats as they scurry out.”
Chapter Thirteen
Everything in the chopper just went dead. The control panel went dark, the engines fell silent, all they could hear were the blades beating as they began to slow.
“What the hell?” Jagger rumbled. He turned to the CJCS and said, “What is this?”
“It was the only way!”
“What was the only way?” Camila demanded.
“I already told you. High altitude nuclear EMPs. President’s orders.”
“EMP’s? Did you say EMP’s, as in plural?” Camila asked, her timid voice sitting high in her throat. The CJCS looked over at her, his eyes wild with fear. “How many, Goddard?”
“Two,” he said, gripping the arms of his seat. “One over Chicago, one over St. Louis.”
“Christ on a crutch,” Jagger swore, his mind scrambling. They were just outside Sacramento. The sun would be setting soon, but not before they crashed.
And they were going to crash.
“It was the only way to stop them,” Goddard repeated.
“Surely there were other alternatives,” he growled, fighting to control the descending craft.
“They controlled everything plugged in. The entire national grid. Maybe more. Are we going to die? You do know how to crash this thing, right?”
Jagger had never crashed before. He’d been through crash school, of course, but he wasn’t used to the Valor like he was used to the Huey. He was trying not to panic, but panic was bubbling up from his gut, clenching his organs, making him sweat.
“Autorotation?” Camila asked. She’d been to crash school, too.