by Willow Rose
"How are you so happy?" Tyler asked. "In the middle of all this?"
The man laughed. It was a hearty laugh. It brought forth warmth and a feeling of comfort.
"Why wouldn't I be happy?"
Tyler looked at him, shaking his head. The man spoke with an accent and Tyler couldn't determine where it came from. "Because of this. This place, this misery we're surrounded by."
"Aha. But is happiness determined by your surroundings?"
Tyler lifted an eyebrow. He shook his head at the man. He was nothing but a lunatic. Flocks of people were passing him now and soon he wasn't going to be able to get a spot by the truck. Not even a bad one.
"I better go," he said.
As he turned to walk away, the man reached up and grabbed his hand. Tyler turned to look at him.
"They're gonna burn it down," he said. He was still smiling as he spoke, which made the message even odder.
Tyler pulled his hand away from the man's. "Burn what down?"
"Everything," he said.
Tyler stared at the man. He spotted a bottle of rum next to him, then scoffed, not without wondering for a few seconds how he had gotten a bottle of rum in a place like this, before he said, "You're drunk, old man."
Tyler turned to walk away when the man yelled after him, "The rats will tell you. The rats will let you know where to go."
"Go sleep it off," he yelled back, laughing. "Silly old drunk."
He hurried towards the gates where the truck had now entered, and people were throwing themselves at it, desperate to get food. He managed to grab a bag of rice and a loaf of bread in the air and started to walk back when he spotted a woman in the street, sitting by the curb, her head hanging between her shoulders, two children sitting next to her looking up at her with hungry eyes. She was crying and her hands were empty.
Tyler broke off a piece of the bread and kept it for himself, then gave the rest to the woman.
Chapter 38
He was dreaming of Jetta when he heard them come. As usual, Tyler was sleeping outside in his spot under the starry sky. He opened his eyes just in time to see them let the trucks and cars inside the ghetto. Every vehicle was packed with soldiers, who jumped out, gasoline containers in their hands, whose contents they started to pour out on the ground. Windows were broken, and gas poured inside the buildings, then lit on fire.
Tyler watched it happen, heart pounding in his chest. He jumped to his feet, looking around for an escape, but not finding any. The few that had made it out of the burning buildings in time and ran to the checkpoint were shot on the spot.
"They're burning the whole thing down," he mumbled. "Just like the old drunk said."
A woman screamed from above him, her head poking out of the window. Tyler's heart stopped.
"Help!"
"Lower yourself down," he yelled. "Legs first. I'll try and catch you."
The woman crawled out and grabbed onto the window, her legs dangling in the air above Tyler from the second floor. He stared at her, holding out his arms. She let herself slide down the wall, screaming, and Tyler caught her in his arms, getting knocked to the pavement by her weight.
The woman scrambled to her feet.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She didn't even answer. She ran into the street while screaming and was gone within seconds. Tyler had hurt his back and stood bent forward, staring at the inferno of flames and people running into the streets, their bodies on fire, people screaming, then falling to the ground. Windows popped, shots were fired, and then followed the most terrifying sound of them all. The sound of people jumping from the windows and landing on the asphalt. All around him, they were dropping, dying as they landed on the hard ground. Tyler was weeping, crying desperately as he saw the many dead faces, falling to his knees in fear.
That was when he saw the rats.
They were running across the courtyard, out of the buildings by the thousands.
"The rats will tell you where to go," he mumbled, repeating the man's words. Words he had counted for nothing at the time, but now cherished more than ever. Especially when he saw where they were going. There was a manhole and they were sliding through a small crack in it, flocking into the hole.
Tyler jumped up and ran to the manhole, then pulled it aside. There were bars blocking him from entering it. Of course, there were. Otherwise, people would have been able to escape that way.
Of course.
Tyler sank to his knees and looked into the hole. The warmth of the burning buildings behind him made him sweat. Inside the hole was running water. It was a sewer. It was while staring into the water below him that he suddenly saw the face. The face of the drumming man in the red pants, and it was approaching him, climbing up the walls toward him. The man was still grinning from ear to ear, the bottle of rum stuck into his red pants in the back. He grabbed the bars and bent them like they were made of wet clay.
"Come," he said.
Tyler didn't hesitate, even given the strangeness of it all, and jumped inside the hole, just in time for an entire building’s side to fall down on where he had been sitting. Bricks fell into the hole and plunged into the water around him and, as he looked up, he saw the hole was completely blocked, not letting anyone else escape this way.
Chapter 39
Jetta woke up, bathed in sweat, gasping for air, stuck in a scream.
"TYLER!!"
She had dreamt about him. She had been inside of him, watching it with his eyes while they had set the entire ghetto on fire. Flames had licked the buildings, people had jumped out the windows, falling to the street, while others had been burning. She had felt what he felt, the desperation, the terror of seeing people die and, for the first time in her life, she suddenly understood the tragedy of death, the feeling people—ordinary people—had inside when seeing someone die. She understood and she felt it too. Never had she been struck by such horror. And that was when she had woken up. She knew it wasn't a dream. She knew what she had been watching was reality.
"Tyler," she repeated over and over again. "Tyler."
Lo entered the room, fully dressed. She walked to the bed. "What's going on?"
"Tyler. Tyler. He's in trouble. I have to help him."
Lo hugged her and rocked her back and forth. "Shh, shhh, child. It was just a dream."
Jetta shook her head. "It was no dream, and you know it. I don't dream ordinary dreams, not like normal people. You're the one who told me, remember?"
It was dark in the room, yet Jetta could see Lo perfectly, see her every feature. There was something about her mother that filled her with such deep rage from time to time. She wondered if it was the fact that she had felt so abandoned her entire life. While her younger brothers were allowed to stay here.
"You said you placed me with those people, my mom and dad, because you needed to protect me. From what exactly?" Jetta asked.
Lo didn't answer. She pulled her closer and stroked her head. Jetta didn't want her to act like a mom now. It didn't feel right.
"Is it from my dad?"
Lo smiled compassionately. Then she nodded.
"Is he dangerous?"
"Very," Lo said. "I had to hide you from him. I am sorry it had to be that way. I really am."
Jetta nodded. "That was why you wouldn't tell me about him, right?"
Lo smiled again. "Yes, dear child. Yes."
"So, what am I? I mean, I am definitely not like anyone else I have ever met. All those things, the dead people I see, the way I can smell if someone is going to die, what am I? What is this place?"
Lo threw out her hands. "Whoa, that is a lot of questions all of a sudden. How about we talk about it tomorrow, when we have slept, huh? You'll feel a lot better when you are rested."
Jetta nodded. She wiped a tear from her eye. "I think Tyler is in trouble. I need to help him."
"You seem to care an awful lot about this Tyler, why is that?"
Jetta shrugged. "He's my friend. He helped me when I was in trouble."
Lo nodded, her glassy blue eyes glowing in the darkness. "If he dies, you'll see him again," she said.
"Why is that?" Jetta asked. "Why do they come to me when they die?"
"Because they belong to you."
"Why is that?"
The door opened to Jetta's room before Lo could answer and Jetta's grandmother stuck her head inside.
"Surma is here."
"Surma? Who's Surma?" Jetta asked.
"He's our…supply guy," Lo said as she got up from Jetta's bed and approached the door. "We'll talk tomorrow," Lo said, then faced the old grandmother.
"A huge shipment," Grandma Tu-Tu said while closing the door behind them.
Chapter 40
Tyler was walking through the tunnels in the deep murky water, following the man in the red pants. He could still hear the screaming above them but tried to block it all out.
You can't save them. You can't save them.
The thought was devastating. Even the woman he had helped get out of the window probably wouldn't make it. There was no escape from a place like that. It was a deathtrap.
Tyler panted and pushed forward, the thousands of rats swimming in the water next to him, or running on the walls, trying to escape just like him. With every corner he reached inside the sewer, he found the man in the red pants standing there urging him to follow him, and soon he reached the end of the sewer, where he was washed out into a river, a river of thousands of squeaking rats trying to survive.
As he pulled himself up on the shore, he couldn't see the man in the red pants anymore. He lay in the mud for a long time, panting, trying to block out the images in his mind. When he looked up towards the sky, he thought it had begun to snow.
Snow? In New Orleans?
But it wasn't snow, he soon realized as it landed on his clothes, hair, and hands. It was ashes. Ashes from the burning ghetto. He looked up. It was everywhere in the sky.
He wanted to throw up but had nothing in his stomach. He felt sick, got up on his feet, and wandered off into the night. He realized he was far away from the ghetto, but still in white territory, even though he was outside of town. If they saw him, they'd kill him.
He found some trees in what used to be a rest area but had been abandoned long ago and was now overgrown. He hid there for a few hours, catching his breath, getting his strength back, when he heard a low rumble coming from the road. He looked out between the trees and spotted the man in the red pants. He was sitting, his back leaned against the wall of the gas station, or what used to be one, drumming.
"What the heck…?"
Tyler rushed to him. "What are you doing? You'll lead them straight to us. Stop that infernal drumming."
The man looked up and laughed. "I'm sorry. I just can't help myself."
He stopped the drumming, reached into his pants and grabbed the bottle of rum, then drank from it. He sighed, satisfied, as the bottle left his lips.
"Here," he said and handed Tyler the bottle. "You look like you need it. It's good stuff. The best."
Tyler stared at the bottle, then at the man. It had been years since he last had a drink of alcohol.
"Oh, what the h…" he grabbed it and drank from it, gulping it down. The man in the red pants looked a little concerned at the amount Tyler was drinking. The alcohol kicked in immediately and he sat next to the man in the red pants and drank some more before he spoke, "Thanks for saving me back there."
"No problem, my friend, now can I…?" he signaled that he wanted the bottle back.
"Of course." Tyler handed it back.
The man in the red pants grabbed it greedily like he had been afraid he would never see it again and then drank some more.
"Yes, that's the stuff," he said with a sigh. "Now, my wife tries to get me to stop, but…" he drank again.
Tyler chuckled. He reached out his hand. "Tyler."
The man nodded and shook his hand eagerly, still clinging on to his bottle with the other, then said, "Shango."
Chapter 41
They were busy the next day and Jetta didn't see her mother or her grandparents all day. Instead, she was stuck with her nine brothers inside the house, her nine brothers who never seemed to relax for even just a few seconds. It was exhausting to Jetta and soon she found herself searching for a quiet spot in the house.
She found one in the kitchen by the table, where she sat down not knowing what else to do. Tyler was constantly on her mind and she wanted to talk to her mother about him, but she hadn't seen her all day.
As soon as she sat down, the woman who usually served them appeared as if out of nowhere by the stove.
She looked at her as if asking if she needed anything to eat.
Jetta shook her head. She wasn't hungry or thirsty. She really wanted to talk to someone and, somehow, this strange woman, who was nothing but a ghost for all Jetta knew, didn't quite seem enough. She missed her grandmother, her real grandmother and Kevin and Mr. Richards and wondered why they hadn't come, why she hadn't seen them for so long.
Had they stayed behind at the abandoned restaurant? They usually followed her everywhere, even into the swamps.
Rattling and clanking, the woman grabbed a pot from the cabinet and started to make a soup anyway. She was wearing an apron with a picture of Gordon Ramsay on it. Jetta wondered if she had been a cook in her real life or if she had done something bad to deserve such a fate after her death, to have to cook for others for eternity.
"Do you know where my mom is?" she asked.
The woman nodded her head. It sounded like when Nanna had lost her pick inside her guitar and had to shake it to get it out.
Boy, how she missed her.
The woman pointed at a door marked FITNESS ROOM.
Jetta got up from her chair and walked across the floor. Lo had promised she would talk to her today and tell her more about who she was and answer all her thousands of questions, and now it was about time.
Jetta grabbed the handle to the door and pulled it open. She walked inside and stood for a few seconds, mouth agape, while the door slammed shut behind her.
The room opening in front of her was massive. Like a dungeon carved into a huge mountainside. It kept going forever. And beneath her, it was packed with people. Literally packed. An ocean of faces as far as her eye could see. But they weren't people. There was no breath in them. The smell of rain was overwhelming. They stood completely still, not moving a muscle like they were waiting for something.
"What is this place?"
"Jetta!"
The voice belonged to Lo. She approached Jetta, not touching the ground beneath her.
"What are you doing here?"
"I…I…what is this?"
"These? They are the new arrivals."
Jetta shook her head. "I don't understand."
Lo sighed. "There's a war going on, Jetta. People die and then they come to us."
"But…why?"
"It's what we do," she said.
"This is the family business?"
Lo nodded. "Yes. It's been great business for centuries now. Been growing for years. Lots of people dying these days. And they're young too, strong."
"I don't get it."
Lo laughed and put her arm around her. "You don't have to understand it. You're so young. But, eventually, you will. I will teach you everything you need to know."
Lo grabbed Jetta by the shoulder and had her turned around, then opened the door to the kitchen again.
"What I don't understand is why is everyone in there white?"
Lo looked surprised. "Oh, I guess I can understand why you would wonder about that, given where you come from, but the thing is, we only take the whites. The blacks go somewhere else."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
"But you must know."
"I don't. Now, let's get something to eat, shall we?"
She signaled the woman in the kitchen to whip up something. "Maybe you want to try the beer today, huh?"
"No. I
don't want to try any beer or have any food. I want to know what happened to Tyler and Kevin and Nanna and Mr. Richards. I especially want to know what happened to Tyler. You said he would come to me when he died. But he is not here. None of them are here anymore."
"Sweetie, they don't belong here. They belong somewhere else. You're with us now. This is your home. This is your family. This is you."
Her mother grabbed her by the chin and caressed her white cheek.
Jetta took a step backward. "But it's not all of me." Jetta turned around and walked away.
"Where are you going?"
"Away from here. I have to get back to find out what happened to Tyler. I made him a promise once and I intend to keep it. Besides, I can't let the others down either. Kevin needs to find his family and figure out if they're all right. I can't just leave them like this."
"But these people are not your family," Lo said.
Jetta nodded. "Actually, they are."
She turned to walk away again, but her mother let out a loud roar, then bolted in front of her, the earth shaking as she spoke.
"NO!"
She put a hand on Jetta's chest to stop her, the coldness of her touch causing Jetta to shiver.
"I forbid you to leave."
"You forbid me? You can't do that."
"I am your mother."
Jetta scoffed. "It's a little late for that, don't you think?"
Lo grinned. "You're not going anywhere."
Jetta crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Says you and what army?"
As she spoke, an army of maybe a hundred dead appeared through the fog behind Lo.
Jetta sank.
"Me and that army," Lo said.
Chapter 42
Jetta was placed in her room, her door guarded while her mother disappeared without a word of explanation. Jetta kicked the door in frustration, yelled at them to unlock it, but no matter how angry she was, it didn't help. She then threw herself on the bed, crying. When no one came for her, she finally fell asleep on top of the bed.