“Throw it! Toss—” Chief shouts, but it’s too late.
The grenade explodes in the biker’s hand. The ball of fire shreds his arm, turns his torso into confetti, blasts charred metal into the asphalt. “Stupid!” Chief growls, “don’t deserve the wake!”
The grenade’s explosion rocks Gloria, rattling the few windows that remain intact. Gerardo blinks fatigue away. He’s tired, even now, even with explosions and gunshots and whizzing arrows. His adrenaline isn’t rocketing his heart into the stratosphere anymore.
Anita finishes climbing into the door hole, crawling over Gerardo’s lap and dropping to sit between him and Edu.
In the trailer, Gabo’s cowering in a corner, holding his CD player in his hands like a prayer book. Marco’s lying on his back in a daze. Lorena swivels Gabo’s rifle between the firing slits. She fires at the hunters as they circle the trailer. The wheels of their bikes slide effortlessly like a figure skater’s blades on fresh ice. “They won’t stop coming! I need help!” Lorena shouts.
Pilar pushes the Tuk-Tuk closer to Gloria. She knows she won’t be able to keep it on a straight path, climb onto its roof, and hop onto Gloria all at the same time. It’s impossible. She’s not a stuntwoman, she’s not even an experienced Tuk-Tuk driver. She was a marketing director for God’s sake. Now here she is, behind the handlebars of a poor man’s taxi, dodging arrows and bullets fired from madmen who have a Lost Boys fetish.
A bike revs beside her. Two Reds balance on top of it. That was a strange term, wasn't it? 'Red,' only it stands for ‘Red Eye,’ not ‘communist’ or whatever she thinks it might mean in the States. Whatever. She’s fucked anyway. Why is she thinking about this now? One of them has a molotov cocktail in his hand. He tosses it and, of course, in the way the universe seems to align perfectly so it finds the perfect angle to fuck you in, it arcs in just the right way and shatters onto the Tuk-Tuk’s roof, exploding into a ball of blue-yellow fire.
The Tuk-Tuk begins to smolder, the flame finding the tarp and using it as food. Pilar growls, mostly in frustration, but at least part of that is pain too. She doesn’t know if the flames have licked her hair or whether she’s just imagining her hair singeing and her flesh bubbling. It doesn’t matter, the second she smells the smoke and feels the heat pressing down on her, she twists the handlebars and rams the bike into Gloria’s side skirt, erasing the distance between them.
“You’ve gotta jump!” Gerardo shouts at her, but Pilar’s already flying through the air. The back of her shirt’s on fire. Her limbs flail, one of her arms aflame and whipping wildly like it’s trying to crawl away from its torso. Gerardo dives forward, digging his foot into what’s left of the door frame to stop himself from plunging into the blurred asphalt below. He screams as he grabs Pilar’s flaming arm and pulls her in.
Pilar’s shirt crackles in Gerardo’s lap, clouding the windshield and the dash in thick smoke. Anita whips the flames off Pilar’s back with her huge flannel shirt, revealing the fact that she’s been wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon character under it this whole time. “Get her in the trailer!” Gerardo yells, practically shoving Pilar’s still-burning body into the hatch between both seats.
Gloria skids, narrowly avoiding a street light and clipping a trashcan instead, sending it flying, spilling garbage and biohazard bags like streamers. Left to its own devices, the Tuk-Tuk slams into a wall, blooming into a fire flower that’s as beautiful as it is distracting. Gerardo has to pull his eyes away from it to weave Gloria around a mound of burnt corpses.
Inside the police truck, Chief grabs the Red Eye sitting next to him and pushes him into the driver’s seat. He forces the dazed Red’s foot into the pedal, then climbs out of the driver’s side window. He moves with a strange grace, like the interpretive dance a drunk man might pull at a McDonald’s at four in the morning.
Chief balances onto his truck’s roof, his bare feet caked with enough grime and coagulated sweat to stick to the slick metal beneath him. Gloria and Chief’s truck shoot ahead, zooming deeper and deeper into the maze of red buildings. Several Red Eyes huddle together in the street, positioning a man carefully, like a group of kids assembling a snowman. The unfortunate man in question has a noose around his neck. Only, it isn’t an ordinary noose. It shines, twinkles in the sun like you’d expect grass slick with morning dew to do. The man’s balancing on a metal trashcan, craning his neck this way and that to avoid the barbs in the metal wire that’s been wound around his neck.
Gloria rattles next to the group, missing them narrowly. The blast of air as the enormous truck barrels past causes the man to teeter over the edge of the trashcan. But he manages to swing his legs back and stick his bare feet onto the can once more.
Then Chief’s truck slams into the Red Eyes around the hanging man. They shriek as wheels crush and limbs fly and stomachs pop like grizzly balloons. The man in the barbed wire noose gets hit in the legs by the grill of Chief’s truck. His legs snap back like those on a broken toy, sending the trashcan underneath them rolling down the street. As the truck shoots away, the man drops, the wire digging into his neck under his full body weight. It’s like a warm spigot’s been opened at his neck, several of them, one at each barb. He closes his eyes and welcomes the tingling cold that seeps into his limbs.
Gerardo looks out the driver’s side hole. Chief’s truck throws up red mist as it tears through the Red Eye bodies.
Chief digs into a grimy duffel bag. He rips out a metal rifle with a hefty metal wheel around it. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Gerardo thinks, ‘that’s a fucking grenade launcher.’ This is a nightmare, plain and simple. This is why he only entered Red Eye turf under the direst of circumstances. These fuckers had it all. He wouldn’t be surprised if they rounded a corner and one of the bastards was riding a tank.
Chief balances on the roof, making little muttering noises as he lines the gunsight up with Gloria’s speeding frame. He’s loving this. In his mind, he’s a cartoon character, complete with an upbeat jazz soundtrack and comical sound effects. Then he pulls the trigger. A red-hot puck shoots out of the barrel. It skids into the asphalt. In a blink, it quadruples in size, blossoming into a fireball.
The flame’s edge licks Gloria’s trailer. A drizzle of concrete chunks showers Gloria’s roof. The blast rocks the trailer doors. Gabo and Lorena are thrown back as the trailer bucks with the shock wave. Fire flashes through the rifle slits like blue-yellow tongues. When the flash of fire dies down, Lorena peeks out of the sizzling rifle hole…only to see Chief raise the launcher again.
Lorena grabs the rifle and sticks it out of the trailer, careful not to rest any of her exposed skin on the still-hot metal. She lines the iron sights directly with Chief’s head, and Chief aims right back at her. Then Lorena points her rifle a little lower. Chief’s mad smile fades. She shoots. The bullet smashes through Chief’s windshield and into the driver behind it.
The truck veers madly, its wheels twisting furiously. It slams into a wall, sending bricks flying and dust clouds rolling. The momentum launches Chief off the roof. As the truck flattens like an accordion, Chief’s body lands in the dirt.
Gerardo looks behind him as the truck disappears into a cloud of dust. He breathes a sigh of relief…but they’re not out of the woods yet.
Gloria speeds down the road. Up ahead, the path is blocked with hundreds of mattresses and bed frames, each graffitied angrily, as if their very existence is insulting.
A bike rams into Gloria. Gerardo recoils. He fidgets with the gun on his lap and somehow manages to shoot in the bike’s general direction. The bullets whiz past, hitting nothing but asphalt and red walls. The Red on the bike fires. He’s a much better shot: the bullet punches a hole in the driver’s seat right next to Gerardo’s head.
“Shoot him!” Edu shouts.
Gerardo’s free hand is having trouble holding the steering wheel. His tired fingers keep slipping off. He’s fighting to keep his eyes open, and when they are open what he sees is mostly blurry. His eyelids have become windshie
ld wipers, erasing the blurry film that the fatigue has slipped over his eyes with each blink. “Busy steering!” Gerardo lies.
The biker aims. His finger rests on the trigger. He smiles a yellowed, distorted grin. His gun barrel’s pointing right at Gerardo’s sweaty forehead. Anita pries Gerardo’s gun out of his hand. She lines the barrel perfectly with the biker’s head. Bang! The biker’s body slumps over the wheel. The bike flips, wiping the asphalt with the biker’s head before stabbing into a nearby wall.
“Wha-great-good-good shot! How’d you—” Gerardo stutters.
“Look around you. If I didn't know how to shoot a gun, I'd have died days ago,” Anita says. Gerardo regards Anita with some admiration. Then he looks back out the windshield and steels himself, putting his hand in front of Anita to shield her from the incoming crash.
Gloria slams into the makeshift wall. Mattresses and bed frames explode in every direction. The semi’s titanic grill punches through, ripping the mattresses to shreds or simply denting them out of the way.
In a few seconds, Gloria’s through. She shoots into a street where the buildings aren’t painted red, leaving the Red Eye turf in the dust as she zooms away into the distance.
FIFTEEN
Gloria’s parked on a grassy hill. The grass around her is scarred heavily by the truck’s colossal tires. Below her, the red-painted Red Eye turf spreads like a raw wound. There are fires here and there and patches of scorched and leveled blocks like black holes. Smack in the center of the turf is a cell tower slathered in red chunks and adorned with flailing, naked bodies.
Gloria’s trailer is completely battered, every square inch is scarred in some way: arrows and spears and bullet holes pock the surface, and there are black stains where fire licked metal around the dirty chrome.
The trailer door opens and Lorena, Marco, and Gabo lumber out, looking like they’ve just stepped out of a rollercoaster in a thunderstorm. Anita rushes to meet them, looking more like a kid in her cartoon t-shirt. She’s sweaty and pale and there are the beginnings of bags under her eyes. Anita hasn’t even really set out on her journey yet, and it’s already taken a toll on her. She already looks more like everyone around her, her bright light dimming a little because of the horrors on the road.
Anita looks into the open trailer. Only Pilar sits inside. The rest of it is empty save for a few sleeping bags (the irony of these isn’t lost on anyone) and a few boxes of provisions. Anita turns to Gerardo and Edu as they round Gloria. “Where’s Diana?” she asks.
Gerardo scans the trailer, then shoots Gabo a questioning look. Gabo doesn’t say anything, he just breaks down in half a second. His knees buckle and he drops to the ground. It’s like he’s reliving it all over again. He coughs up phlegm and snot, crying like a child because that’s mostly what he is. He’s eighteen, just a few months ago he was messing around with his friends without even a hint of a plan in life. Now here he is, surrounded by death on all sides, with his own being a statistical probability. “She-she didn’t make it,” Gabo says.
Anita charges at Gerardo, blinking back tears. She doesn’t think, doesn’t have to, just feels the hate and rage and hurt pour out of her like hot magma…and it has a target. “She told you from the start...why didn’t you listen? This is all your fault!” Anita screams, pulling Gerardo’s shirt, pushing his chest back like she wants to fight him.
Then she yanks his handgun out of her belt…and everyone’s eyes land on it, wide and horrified. When did she even get that? How did Gerardo and Edu not see her take it? Now it’s too late. But she doesn’t hold it up like she’s going to shoot him. Instead, she grabs it by the barrel and, flinging her arm back, she launches it at him. Gerardo’s gun hits him in the chest, then spirals to the ground, lading with a muffled thud.
Anita turns and runs up the hill, away from Gerardo and Gloria and all the others and toward the trees that cover the hilltop like a comforting blanket. Lorena chases after her without as much as a glance at Gerardo.
Gerardo stoops to pick his gun up. “Cover Gloria,” he says to Edu, “gotta clear my head.” Gerardo storms off. Edu does too, but toward Gloria, hanging his head low and muttering under his breath. With both of them gone, Gabo’s finally able to let his grief out for real. His sobs break into gasps for breath, like his grief isn’t only hollowing him out from the inside, but drowning him on the outside. He crumples to the ground, lying there as if he were dead himself.
◆◆◆
A stream gurgles as it wraps around the looming hill. It’s a welcome patch of nature on the outskirts of the city. The air here’s fresher than what they’ve seen for days, without the sour, sharp stench of piss or the rusty tang of blood. Here it’s nothing but the scent of grass and the cool breeze on your face. It’s exactly what they need. No walls to funnel them into horror-show mazes, no winding streets ending in mass graves or covered in swaying bodies.
Gerardo walks toward the stream. It’s not crystal clear by any stretch, piles of garbage stick out of the shallow water here and there and the water itself is a whitish brown. Some patches are clearer, however, and there are no pipes or concrete chutes dumping sewage into the stream.
Gerardo spots a couple of empty plastic bottles floating along the surface. As he reaches out for them, his arm rubs against his shirt pocket. Gerardo stops. He reaches into the pocket of his denim shirt and pulls out a folded paper rectangle.
“What?” Gerardo mumbles. He begins unfolding, the rectangle doubling in size every time he does so. He recognizes what he’s left with at the end immediately. It’s a sheet a paper with neat, cramped handwriting on it above a crude but legible map. Diana’s handwriting. A page from Diana’s notebook.
‘Gerardo,’ the paper reads, ‘I’m sorry I’m leaving you so close to the end of our trip, but I’ve found a purpose greater than just keeping myself alive. I hope the Pill Haven is real and that they give you what they promised. If they don’t, here’s the way to the Sleeping Place. You’re all welcome there.
Can I ask you a favor? For old time’s sake? Once you make it to the Haven and you have your pills, can you go to the Sleeping Place and check on Anita for me? I want to make sure she’s safe. If the Sleeping Place doesn’t work the way she believed and I’m gone and she’s alone, I’m worried about what’ll happen to her. I don’t trust anyone else to keep their word and do this. You’re a good man, Gerry. You took care of her, even if you didn’t want to.
I bet you’re smiling, reading this. Diana the Faithful, planning in case science wins and faith fails. Haha. If that happens and you’re right, you’ve got a free ‘I told you so,’ even if I’m no longer there to hear it. Thank you, Gerardo. Stay safe. I have faith in you. If anyone can make the trip it’s you and if there’s anyone who can make it twice, well, you know.’
Gerardo folds the paper again, staring ahead blindly, calmly, as if he’s just found a receipt inside a shirt he was about to wash in the laundry. He shoves Diana’s letter back into his pocket and kneels into the stream, letting the water wash over his legs. The water’s cold enough to unravel some of the knots in his calves and to work some cracks into feet that feel like they’re made of stone. His face is a numb mask, not breaking even for an instant as some comfort seeps through his armor.
Gerardo grabs the bottles that are bobbing along with the slow current of the stream and picks them up. He recognizes some of them as the kind of electrolyte-filled energy concoctions that were so sugary they were almost syrup. He dips the plastic bottles into the water, unscrewing them and letting the cool liquid rush inside. He shakes them, breaking clumps of dirt and filth loose. He washes the bottles thoroughly, turning them around under the water and wiping away grimy chunks with his fingers. One of them held something like red soda. An almost cartoonish, garish, clot of color is congealed at the bottom. As the water touches it, it turns red. Stringy scarlet fibers drip out of the bottle and over Gerardo’s hands, painting his fingers and palms red.
He recoils as if something’s stung hi
m, only nothing has. “Goddamnit!” he shouts.
Gerardo grips the red-tinted bottle so hard it cracks, spilling more scarlet out onto his fingers, but he doesn't care. He pitches his arm back, and grunts, hurling the bottle with all his strength. It splashes into the stream. The clump at the bottom of it shakes free, spreading a crimson cloud into the water.
Gerardo collapses, dropping into the stream up to his chin. He punches the water, hitting the red clots that remain, trying desperately to splash them out of existence. It seems like the more he tries to hit the red away, the more obvious it becomes, and the more of it gets on his clothes.
Finally, he’s had enough, he just lies in the water, panting with the exertion. Tears finally cut their way out of his swollen eyelids. “I’m sorry...I’m so sorry Diana,” Gerardo sobs. He flips around in the water so that he lies on his back, the reddish liquid washing over him. He closes his eyes as the red clouds fade, the stream carrying the bottle away, leaving nothing behind but clear water.
◆◆◆
A body lies crumpled in the dirt. It’s covered in bruises and dust. It rises, straightening as its limbs and joints crack. It’s Chief, looking like a ghoul. There’s a bloody, sunken gash on one of his cheeks, one of his eyes is swollen shut and one of his shoulders is dislocated. A hunter lurches up to him. “Still awake?” he asks.
“Always,” Chief says.
“Awake always!” the hunter responds, like it’s a mantra that’s been burned into him.
Chief pats the dirt off himself. He runs a finger under his nose and pulls it back smeared in hot blood. He spits and a clot-like, phlegmy wad takes a tooth with it as it flies out.
“Giant still alive?” Chief asks. The hunter shrugs. “Radio the Multiplaza boys. If he is he’ll be there.” The hunter nods and runs off.
Chief scans the street: the smoldering wreck of a hunter’s bike, dead hunters splattered on the asphalt and there, in the middle of the street, a body lying on top of a bloody tire track...Diana. Chief steps over her body, walking in the direction Gerardo drove off in.
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