Diana checks the Tuk Tuk’s wheels, trying not to look as Gabo checks the trailer’s. They’re not just in different groups, in different vehicles, going different directions…they’re betting that different solutions will save their lives.
Marco carries a large backpack, looking like a clueless backpacker taking his exotic and dangerous, temporary surroundings. But a handgun sticks out of it, betraying the fact that he isn’t a backpacker, he’s a guerrilla soldier. Like everyone else around him.
Gloria’s engine roars. Gerardo and Edu sit in the cabin. Gabo peeks out of a rifle slit. Everything and everyone’s set, in place, ready to go on one last journey toward their salvation.
“Wait!” Anita bursts out of the Tuk-Tuk’s flaps, running toward Gloria. Gerardo cuts the semi’s engine.
“What?” Gerardo asks, leaning out of the driver’s side hole with an exasperated look…but there’s something beneath that. Relief. Like he doesn’t want to go. Like he’s intrigued by Anita and wants to see if she’ll make it, if she’s right about the Sleeping Place. But that look is fleeting, gone in an instant, replaced by the mask of a ruthless survivor, one closed off from anything even remotely in the same neighborhood as emotion.
“I convinced myself that I didn’t want to say goodbye to you, but I changed my mind,” Anita says, looking at her feet like she’s ashamed.
Gerardo follows her eye line and sees, for the first time, that she’s wearing oversized hiking boots that have been hastily repaired with duct tape. Has she been wearing them for this long? He can’t remember. He realizes suddenly that he’s never really looked at her for more than a few seconds. Looking at her now, at her wise eyes and her scratched-up, pixieish face, he’s struck by how young she looks. If you just hear her voice, if you just see her walk around like a tiny empress, you might forget that she’s not even a teenager.
“Anita,” Gerardo starts, softening his voice, “don’t be scared. You’ll be safe. Diana’s gonna look after you.”
“I'm not scared for me,” Anita says, evidently picking up on the change in Gerardo’s tone, and not liking it one bit. “I’ll be fine. I'm scared for you.” A moment of silence hangs between them. Anita sniffles. Tears twinkle in her angry eyes. Her cheeks flush and she turns around, trying to hide the fact that she’s crying from Gerardo. She speaks to him with her back turned. “I don’t want you to die.”
Gerardo hops out of the driver’s seat. He kneels in front of Anita, putting his hands on her shoulders and turning her around. She narrows her eyes, willing the tears to evaporate. Gerardo wipes the few stray tears that have infiltrated enemy lines and gotten to her cheeks. “I’m not going to die. I promise. Now, you gotta go back to being your badass, tough-girl self, okay? Cus we both have places we’ve gotta be.”
“Yeah. Goodbye.”
Anita climbs into the Tuk-Tuk. Just as Gerardo hops into the driver’s side, Diana walks up to him. She looks at Gerardo, regarding him with contempt. Then she brings her hand up and grips his. They shake. Gerardo gives her a small, regretful smile.
Gabo runs out from the trailer and toward Diana. He hugs her so hard he almost tackles her. Diana stifles a quiet laugh. She wraps her arms around Gabo. “Stay strong. Listen to your music, it’ll get you there fine.”
“Yeah, you too. You look after these guys, and let us know if it works up there. We might be able to turn around!” Gabo sniffles, smiles, and walks back to the trailer a little too fast. He can feel the tears coming again, and he’ll deal with them in the darkness of the trailer, where he doesn't have to lose face in front of Diana.
Before she walks back to the Faithful, Diana looks beyond Gerardo and spots Edu in the passenger seat. His sunglasses are on, and he’s reclined the seat as far back as it’ll go. He’s either resting or pretending to. Either way, he’s awake, and he knows exactly what’s going on. Diana shakes her head and turns around.
Pilar starts the Tuk-Tuk, letting it inch forward lazily before revving the accelerator on the handlebar. Marco and Lorena walk behind it, both of them hold their handguns out in front of them. Diana runs up to join them, removing her own handgun from her belt.
Gloria peels out around a corner. The Tuk-Tuk and the runners behind it go in the opposite direction. They’re two expeditions, two life or death gambles, two different kinds of faith. And they’re off.
A Red Eye spotter sits on the edge of a rooftop, letting his gnarled bare feet hang as if he were sitting on the edge of a pool. He smiles, his binoculars dangling from his skinny neck. One of his lid-less eyes is so dry it’s sunken in, shriveled away completely. He reaches for the radio on his police vest.
◆◆◆
Gerardo yawns, he forces his eyes open. It’s like he’s been driving for hours in the dead of night, with no radio and no conversation to keep his mind walking a straight line. He scans the horizon, hoping he’ll spot something that’ll drive some emotion, some adrenaline into his system. Maybe he’ll catch a Lazy who found an interesting way to kill himself, or maybe he’ll see a soldier strung up with a warning about pill rations around his neck.
Gloria’s brakes shriek.
Gerardo’s eyes are wide. He and Edu stare out of the windshield. “No…” Gerardo says.
Gloria sits around a tangle of small office buildings that have been painted red. All the windows are shattered. Bodies lie in clumps on the asphalt. Ropes drape from the arch above the Sacred Heart Church’s double doors. Charred, headless torsos hang from them. One wears a cassock. It sways quietly with the wind.
Gerardo vomits out of the hole in the driver’s side. He sobs, grabbing the steering wheel like he’s choking the life out of it. “FUCK! God-fucking-DAMNIT!” He beats the steering wheel, producing moan-like honks all the way. He doesn’t stop until his knuckles are red and raw. Gerardo mutters his mantra, staring into space with dazed, lost eyes, “Toluca Street, Pan-American Highway, El Salvador Highway, Mixco Overpass. The Pill Haven.”
The silence that remains is heavy and suffocating. A soft wind blows, making the cassock flap with it. Edu stares out of his window. He lets the silence wash over him and Gerardo before he speaks. “Sorry. Know you and Father Jaime were close. But we gotta move.”
Gerardo clears his throat, readjusts the sunglasses over his swollen, leaking eyes. “The Red Eyes are going in Diana’s direction. We have to warn them,” he says.
“Again?” Edu says, “we already saved that girl’s ass more times than she fucking deserves! I can’t stay awake much longer, Gerry! I really can’t! I’m losing my shit here!”
Gabo opens the hatch between the cabin and the trailer. He crawls through it to crouch between Edu and Gerardo and puts his hand on Edu’s shoulder. “Please, Edu. Let’s at least make sure they’re safe.”
“You gotta grow the fuck up! You wanna die from fatigue?”
“We can’t just leave them open to a blind ambush,” Gerardo mumbles, dropping the sun visor on the roof of the cabin so it covers the hanging bodies entirely. “Listen to me, Edu. Gabo was right. I’m not the same person anymore...after what I did. But I can change that, today, if you let me. I’m asking you, as a friend...give me the chance to prove I’m still myself.”
Edu grabs his bottle and takes a deep drink. “Gerardo, the big bad Butcher of Santa Tecla, being an idiot and getting all sappy,” he says, “never thought I’d see the day.” Gabo gives Gerardo a sad look. “And me. Going along with him,” Edu finishes. Gabo smiles. Gerardo chuckles, patting Edu on the back. “Just to save their asses, yeah?” Edu says, “Promise me that after we warn them we go to the Haven. No more fucking around."
“I promise,” Gerardo says, “I owe you a trip to the Haven. All of you.”
◆◆◆
The Tuk-Tuk rattles through a sidewalk as Marco, Lorena, and Diana jog behind it. The road next to it is a clogged artery, overturned and charred cars cling together like tumors.
Anita sits in its claustrophobic cabin. It’s almost as short and thin as she is, like a red, metal
lic bubble that seems to be shrinking under the dictatorial Salvadoran sun. Pilar works the handlebars like a pro, maneuvering the mutant bike around black and bloated corpses and knocked-over telephone poles.
There’s something about traveling with someone other than Gerardo that’s uncomfortable to Anita. Sure, Gerardo was irresponsible, violent, and wanted her gone like a malignant growth, but something about him made her feel safe. Maybe it was Gloria and the rest of his crew and not the fact that he was behind the wheel…but she doesn't think so. Pilar's a good woman, a strong woman, as strong and fit for this world as Gerardo, Diana, and Lorena. But it was the fact that she's good that's the problem.
The Faithful had taken care of Anita, sheltered her, protected her in the same way you would a precious stone: by hiding it. She’d believed they not only had her own best interests at heart, but those of the rest of humanity as well. Without people like her, humanity had no hope of surviving, had no realistic long-term solution. She knew this and understood that, in addition to protecting her unconditionally, the Faithful were a fundamentally Christian group. They didn’t kill unless it meant protecting their own lives or a Sleeper's. They didn’t steal, resorting instead to taking things from the dead (who couldn’t use them anyway). Sure, they had people who hadn’t been particularly good people before (like Santi and most of the other guards), but they weren’t like Gerardo. Not at all.
In her short time with Gerardo, Anita had seen how the other half lived. When you didn’t believe in God (like she was sure Gerardo didn’t) or didn’t let that belief limit you as much (like Diana), you could walk down in the muck without minding if you got any on you. You lived for yourself, stole and killed and ignored those in need to keep yourself alive…and it worked. It fucking worked, as Gerardo or Edu might say. They’re riding on the mother of all trucks, blasting through the streets on their way to what they’re convinced is their salvation. Only it isn’t. And living that way must not work after all, because they're giving their lives away for something that will, at best, keep them alive for a few weeks...and they’d left her. They’d left her to die.
There’s no way this Tuk-Tuk is going to get them up that mountain. The fact that they’re even trying is a testament to how reckless Lorena has become. Lorena had, at one point, seemed to Anita to be the strongest, wisest, and kindest soul on the planet. Now she’s grasping at straws, wild-eyed and gasping like those who were destined to become Lazies. She’d even let Pilar drive when she’d said she’d do it herself.
Anita leans forward, looking over Pilar’s shoulder to see that, outside of the Tuk-Tuk’s plastic windshield, every building is painted blood red. Red Eye country. They weren’t due to hit it so soon. They must’ve expanded. Yeah. They’d left her to die.
Pilar revs the Tuk-Tuk, shooting it forward and into the open red maw of the block ahead. Marco, Lorena, and Diana graze a scarlet wall as they run after it. Anita slumps in the back seat, hiding behind Pilar’s back, and closing her eyes. She holds her breath, feeling the rumbling as the sidewalk below her grinds against the bottom of the bike. She waits for a prayer to form in her mind, or on her lips. It doesn’t. Why? She’s scared, more than she has been since she first climbed into Gloria. So why? Why doesn’t she reach out to God now?
Bang. A shotgun blast echoes through the air, not from the red buildings ahead of the Tuk-Tuk, but from behind it, from the gray and blue and white buildings in the direction that Gerardo and Gloria drove off toward.
A hunting party of six Red Eyes on rusty bikes circles a police pickup. The hood’s slathered with blood. A grinning red horse skull sits atop the grill.
Pilar revs the engine, but it’s too late. Way too late. They should have left at the crack of dawn, before then...yesterday, last week. Now they’re fucked.
Chief’s blood-painted face pops out of the truck’s window. His scarlet eyes dart to the window on the back of the Tuk-Tuk’s cabin. Anita’s head peeks out through it for just a second.
“Ah, there she is!” Chief says, smiling with his voice and his body and everything else except his mouth.
The Tuk-Tuk rockets away as Diana, Lorena, and Marco run after it. Diana stops, turns and raises her handgun.
Chief revs his truck’s monstrous engine, hunter bikes buzz past it.
Diana fires, hitting one of the bikers in the chest. The bike wobbles for a second, wheels losing their way on the asphalt. Then the biker’s hands find the handlebars again and he straightens them. He’s spilling blood all over the front of the bike, but he doesn’t care.
Diana raises the gun again. Maybe she should have kept running. No. She’s standing her ground. If anything, she might be able to buy Anita time if the Reds on the bikes focus on her.
A giant engine roars. An elephant-sized horn honks. Gloria blasts onto the other side of the road as Gerardo floors it, peeling out from behind the red buildings that mark the Red Eye territory.
A pair of Red Eyes on a single bike shoot past Diana and ride up next to the Tuk-Tuk. One steadies the handles. The other jumps off the seat. He crosses the distance between the bike and the Tuk-Tuk’s roof in a split second, scrambling over the tarp roof like an animal.
Below him, Anita sits tall. She doesn’t look up. She doesn’t whimper or cower. She looks forward with the focus of a Tibetan monk, surrendering herself to whatever comes next.
Diana sprints toward her, debating between thrusting her legs forward and getting closer to Anita and stopping and putting the man above Anita in her gunsights.
The man takes something out from what remains of his police vest. It’s a knife, the military kind with a serrated edge on one side and a gnarly curve on the other. He brings it down and slashes at the tarp he’s hunched over, cutting a hole the size of a basketball in the middle of the fabric. He raises the knife, not minding the bumps and hops as the bike hits every crack in the pavement, apparently trying to buck him off. He prepares to stab downward, right at Anita’s head. Anita closes her eyes. Pilar swerves. The man’s knife hits the tarp inches above Anita. A bullet rips through the man’s chest. He tumbles off the roof and smacks into the asphalt.
Diana lowers her gun and keeps running. Behind her, Chief’s truck blasts forward, demonic honks sounding off from inside its dented, stained hood.
The Tuk-Tuk speeds up as Gloria’s brakes screech. Both vehicles are now next to each other as Chief and the bikes speed closer and closer. Gerardo turns the steering wheel, moving Gloria in a sweeping arch.
“It’s gonna be tight!” Gerardo shouts at Anita out of the door hole, “we can’t stop! You’re gonna have to jump!”
Anita sticks her head out through the hole on the tarp roof, gripping the sides of the metal frame as the bike swerves and Gloria finishes her wide arch. Gerardo leans out of his seat. “Jump! Now!” he shouts.
Anita pulls herself out through the basketball-sized hole. She moves slowly, wind blasting her as the bike accelerates to match Gloria, who is now lumbering forward at a slower pace. Anita’s oversized boots balance on the tarp roof. Arrows and bullets whizz past her, taking the odd clump of shirt here or strand of hair there.
Gerardo steadies the steering wheel with one hand as he leans out of the door hole, reaching as far as he can with the other.
Anita hesitates, more arrows and bullets zipping past her like deadly bugs in all shapes and sizes.
“Ju—” Gerardo begins, but he doesn’t have to finish.
Anita jumps. Her massive hiking boots soar over the asphalt that whooshes past below her. Her hand reaches out. Gerardo lunges. His sweaty fingers clamping shut around her tiny wrist.
The runners behind the Tuk-Tuk jog up to Gloria’s trailer. Gabo opens the door. Lorena throws herself inside. Marco hops in behind her.
Diana limps up to the door. She staggers. She’s exhausted. Blood’s beginning to drip out of her badly bandaged leg. Bikes buzz past her.
A horn blares.
Diana turns around. Chief’s truck is right behind her. The engine scr
eams as it’s put in a higher gear. Diana turns to look at Gloria just as Gerardo pulls Anita in, seeing Anita climb into the truck. Safe. Diana smiles. She closes her eyes. Chief’s truck shoots forwards. Its grill crushes Diana. She’s gone.
Gabo collapses against the trailer’s open door. “No! Oh, GOD! PLEASE NO!” he sobs. His body goes limp. He drops his rifle, falling to the floor. His body bucks as he cries, gasping for air again and again in between moans of pain, unable to stop.
Lorena walks around Gabo, her head hung low. She stoops and picks up the dropped rifle. She grits her teeth, narrows her eyes until the tears in them pull her irises into focus…and fires. Her shots smack against Chief’s windshield. He doesn’t flinch once. His bloody eyes don’t blink.
The bikes buzz forward, swarming Gloria’s trailer in a mad, circling dance. One hunter twists the accelerator, laughing as the bike below him zips forward like a mad horse, and rams his bike into the trailer in front of him. The bike folds, sending him skidding underneath the wheels that hold up the truck’s bed, which crunch and shoot up a red mist.
Another Red Eye biker reaches into a backpack. He pulls out a grenade and flashes a yellowed, cracked, incomplete set of teeth.
Edu points at the mirror next to his open window. “Fuck! Grenade! Look out!”
The Red Eye turns the grenade around in his hand like he’s examining an apple for imperfections. He seems to have forgotten what it is.
“Pull the pin!” Chief hollers at him from his truck.
The biker finds the ring of metal wire and pulls it. He holds the pin up to his eyes, genuinely curious, not even realizing that his fingers have drifted off the dead man’s lever.
Awake Page 14