John Tom, Becky, Pete, and Abe were still bound. Their faces were swollen and puffy. Blood stains ran down the fronts of their shirts.
Ms. Fallings injected each of them with a syringe of yellow liquid. The four teens coughed back to life.
“Fuck,” John Tom muttered.
“P-please,” Abe said, “we…we didn’t do nothin’—”
“Shhhh, I know, I know,” Ms. Fallings soothed.
“Why? Why are you doin’ this to us?”
Mr. Dylon took a step forward. “Have Barber and Typermass tried to make contact?”
John Tom, Becky, Pete, and Abe slowly shook their heads.
Ms. Fallings kneeled to Becky. “I’ve listened to your confess tapes. I know you’re a good girl. You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”
Becky sniffed a line of blood into her nose.
“Yes. Yes, of course, you are. I think all of you are good kids, all of you are true Be Nice. Now, I want you to listen. Wallis and Janey were last seen in Arizona. And, from what we know, they murdered an innocent old woman and robbed her, and they also murdered a gas station attendant.”
John Tom traded a look with the others.
“Be Nice Phoenix was ordered to move in from the rear, while Be Nice Albuquerque is headed west. When they find them, they’ll bring them here to me. But what we need to know, what Mr. Dylon and I need to know, is when did they first approach you to join the terrorist organization, The Blue?”
John Tom squinted through his good right eye. “And what the eff is The Blue?”
“When did they first ask you to join them?”
“You…you crazy, lady…you damn crazy.”
“I’m only going to ask you one more time—”
“We Be Nice! Be Nice! And we know you lyin’ on our boy and girl! We know they didn’t do a got-damn thing!”
“But they did. They murdered our beloved Mr. Beams. And just so all of you understand, you are not Be Nice. Mr. Dylon and I, we are Be Nice. You, you’re children, children who are going to do exactly as they’re told.” She leaned over John Tom and turned to Pete. “What was that? I didn’t hear you. Did you just say, eff you, you bitch?”
Pete frantically shook his head.
“Mr. Dylon?”
“Ma’am?”
“I’m afraid this young man is not being respectful.”
Mr. Dylon unsnapped a collapsible baton from a leg holster.
Ms. Fallings aimed the digi-cam at Pete.
Pete screamed, “No! No, I didn’t say nothin’, I swear! I’m good! I’m good!”
Tyler worked on the undercarriage of the pickup by flash wand light. Wallis and Janey huddled by a small campfire.
Tyler grumbled, “Hope we don’t run into no more storms. Looks like the dome’s busted.”
“We’ll sleep in our tent,” Wallis said.
Tyler poked his head from under the pickup. “You got a tent?”
“Yep.”
“You might wanna rethink that. Things are kinda rough in these parts, as you can tell, and the bobcats and the coyotes, they pretty much hunt together in packs.”
“I saw pics of them on Pace this one time,” Janey said.
“Pics on Pace is one thing,” Tyler remarked, as he slid from under the truck. He lifted a gas can out of the bed and topped off the tank. He finished and sat by the fire. “Here. You might want to see this.” He tossed Janey a faded, pink selli. Janey caught it and looked at him. “Yeah, I know it’s pink.”
Janey clicked on the selli. She saw Bleep had a viddi posted.
A young, square-jawed news anchor came alive. A photo of the halted bullet train was featured to his right. “Be Nice officials stopped one of the field trip trains in Durango, Colorado, yesterday evening to question several known associates of Wallis Barber and Janey Typermass. They want to know if the venom of the terrorist organization, The Blue, has spread to our young men and women—”
Janey clicked off the selli. “Call me crazy, but I think they’re takin’ this shit way too far.”
“How close are they from here?” Wallis asked.
“Durango’s a few hours away,” Tyler said. “But that’s not what bugs me.” He used his finger to draw a map in the sand; Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. “Okay, we’re right here.” He pointed to northwestern Arizona. “Now you two were spotted over in Jamesville, so it’s a safe bet that Be Nice Phoenix is on its way.” He drew a line coming from under where they were, headed north. “Now Be Nice New Mex, specifically Albuquerque, it’s right about here.” He pointed to a spot to the right of where they were. “So we got Phoenix comin’ in from behind…and New Mex is comin’ in from the right. My guess, they’re gonna meet together and maybe try and box you in.”
Wallis studied the map.
Tyler tapped the dirt. “This is Durango. And if the Be Nice high ups’re on that b-train, they’re waitin’ for you. They’re close enough for the other Be Nice groups—”
“So how’re we supposed to raise hell?”
“What?”
“Joe Joe, he said we were supposed to raise hell. But it’s only me and Janey. So what does he want us to do?”
“What does he want you to do? Well, you been doing pretty good, so far, and you ain’t done a thing but stay a few steps ahead.”
“You, Joe Joe, the Natives…all of you, I think you’re usin’ us.”
“We’re what?”
“Me and Janey, we only want to find a safe place to live. Somewhere that—”
“You don’t get it, do you? You two being you, that’s raisin’ hell all by itself.”
“But we never wanted to raise no hell!”
“Then maybe you shoulda stayed by the ocean, surfed, and not killed anybody!”
“Look! Long as you keep us alive, the Natives, they get what they want! But what about me and Janey? What about us? What do we get?”
“You get eaten,” Tyler said, as he stumbled to the pickup truck. He came back carrying a twenty-two rifle and a forty-five sidearm. “There’s a bobcat. Here, handsome, take this.”
Wallis caught the rifle.
Janey opened the hog’s side pouch and pulled out a shock wand.
Tyler laughed. “Girl, that ain’t gonna help.” He turned to Wallis. “Okay, sporto, you take careful aim, keep your eye above the barrel and look straight down the sight line.”
Wallis operated the rifle like a blind man.
Tyler took it from him. He aimed the rifle and said, “Like this.” He handed the rifle back. Wallis grabbed it and, mimicking him, took aim.
A pair of glowing eyes came out of the darkness. A black outline of taut muscles skirted over the dry terrain.
“You kill the bobcat, and me and your little lady, we’ll take care of the three ki-yotes.”
Wallis gave him a look. “Three ki-yotes?”
Tyler winked at Janey. “Okay, sweetheart, here’s where I show you a little somethin’ somethin’.” He aimed his forty-five over the rear fender of the pickup.
The silhouettes of three coyotes advanced.
“Just like I told you,” Tyler said, “they teamed up, they hunt in packs now.”
The rifle steadied in Wallis’s hands as he fingered the trigger.
In a sudden whirl of dust and dirt, a bobcat raced toward him.
Tyler and Janey watched from the truck.
The bobcat charged into the light of the campfire. It was huge, starved, driven insane with hunger.
Wallis’s first shot missed its mark.
His second shot hit home.
The bobcat went limp.
“Nice!” Tyler said. He turned to Janey. He noticed her nipples were rock hard. “Oh, I guess, you liked that?”
“Yeah, right, like you’d know what to do with all this.”
The three coyotes charged them.
Tyler took aim. “Well, truth be told, girl, it has been a while since I—”
Janey punched her shock wand into his ribs and knocked him off his feet. She picked up his forty-five, aimed, and squeezed off three shots. Two coyotes slumped, and were still. The last coyote yelped and scurried away.
Janey placed the gun on Tyler’s chest. “No one touches me but my man.”
It was late afternoon when the desert begrudgingly came alive with sparse traces of plant life.
Tyler scratched his head as he drove. “Use you, not use you, why in Christ’s name do you give a shit?”
Wallis kicked the dashboard. “Because me and Janey, we make up our own minds! We think for ourselves! Now, look, we thanked the Natives, but when we get to New Mex, we do whatever the eff we want! If we wanna hide out and keep our heads down, that’s what we’re gonna do!”
Tyler slowed the pickup.
Up ahead, a makeshift wooden shack was on the side of the highway. A row of black and silver hogs filled the parking lot.
Tyler plucked a gauge on the dashboard and gritted his teeth.
Wallis noticed. “What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t count on all those repairs last night. We used up more water than I expected.” He steered to the side of the road. “Okay, you two better get out here.”
“What?”
“We need water. And that bar?” Tyler pointed to the wooden shack. “It’s best I go alone. Get out, hug the road tight, and keep your heads low.”
Wallis and Janey didn’t move.
“Go! Go on! I’ll be right back!”
Wallis unlocked the door. Hesitant, he and Janey got out.
“Wait,” Janey said. She went to the bed of the pickup and returned with two shock wands.
Tyler threw her his forty-five. “There’s a few shots left.”
Wallis eyed the row of hogs parked in front of the shack. “Whose hogs are those?”
Tyler leaned across the seat of the pickup and closed the door.
Janey shoved the forty-five in her waistline, under her shirt.
She and Wallis waited on the side of the highway.
Tyler drove to the shack. He hauled a water jug out of the bed of the truck, slipped around the line of black and silver hogs, and sauntered inside.
A second or two went by before he was tossed out the front window.
Wallis and Janey looked on in disbelief.
Tyler dived in his truck, started it, and raced back down the highway. Wallis and Janey hurried to the middle of the road. Tyler swerved around them and kept going.
“HEYYYY!” Wallis shouted.
Hog engines started.
Wallis and Janey turned to the shack.
The hogs, seven of them, had riders that raced in their direction.
Wallis took Janey by the hand. The hogs careened off the highway in pursuit. A band of shirtless white men soon had them surrounded; bearded men, bald men, muscular men, unwashed men.
Wallis and Janey positioned themselves back to back. They activated their shock wands and pulled their hunting knives.
The bikers rode closer, tightened the circle, and parked.
The smallest biker, Krank, smiled and jumped off his hog. He wore tight black leather shorts and a dirty, red bandanna. Swastikas were carved above each of his nipples.
Wallis and Janey waved their shock wands in front of them.
Krank and the bikers cracked up, laughing.
Krank pointed at Wallis. “And just who might you be?”
Wallis tightened the grip on his shock wand. “You better step the eff back!”
Krank threw his hands over his head. “Oh, lawdy, lawdy! Well, we def don’t want no trouble with you! You’s a scary white boy!”
The other bikers laughed.
One laughed so hard he fell off his hog.
“All right, talk to me, boy,” Krank said. “So why’d your Mex friend just leave you out here all alone in the dust?”
Wallis didn’t answer.
“Okay…me, I’m Krank…what do they call you?”
Wallis raised his hunting knife.
“All right, pay close…before you do something real stupid…”
Janey increased the voltage on her shock wand. “Eff you, you punk-ass bitch! Now back up!”
Krank shook his head and leaned on his bike. “You know somethin’, boy? Your nikky girl, she sure does got a big mouth on her.”
“No way! He called me the N-word?” Janey said. “What is with all the got-damn Klanny haters out here?”
Krank sneered at Wallis. “From one white man to another, son, out of respect…I suggest you shut that nikky’s suck hole.”
Wallis lurched forward, but Janey held him back.
“Fuck it. I tried. You heard me. I tried to be friendly. Okay, let’s take `em.”
Wallis rushed Krank. Taken by surprise, Krank tripped and rolled back to his bike. Wallis hit him with his shock wand and knocked him to the ground. Janey threw her shock wand. It struck a biker in the face and broke his nose.
Wires flashed through the air. Pins embedded in Janey’s chest and in Wallis’s arms.
One of the bikers pumped a hand taser and put them both to sleep.
The wording on the ad sign read BENGALI REAL ESTATE AND DEVELOPMENT CORP—directly under the wording was an artist’s rendering of a development of three thousand living pods.
A beer bottle hit the ad sign. Music swelled—pounding metallic punk.
A bonfire burned in the center of the planned community of living pod frameworks.
Gangs of white bikers; hordes of leather clad men and women, drank liquor and Dawg beer, smoked cigarettes and joints, and lustfully chased after one another.
Krank and his men arrived.
Wallis’s hands were tied. He was lashed to the seat of a hog. Janey was in handcuffs with a ball gag in her mouth. Krank had her wedged against his chest.
The bikers around the bonfire stopped partying and cheered.
Wallis and Janey were thrown to the dirt.
Krank stood over Janey. “Look, ya’ll! We done caught ourselves a nikky!”
The bikers hollered their approval.
Krank stood over Wallis. “And look right here…we also caught us…a dirty, white, nikky-fucker!”
The bikers booed their displeasure.
Krank went to Janey and pulled out her ball gag. “Okay, okay, so, tell me, ya’ll…now what is a little, nikky bitch good for?”
The bikers responded, “SUCKING WHITE COCKS!”
“Oh, you know it!” Krank pointed at Wallis. “And what is this white, nikky-fucker good for?”
The bikers answered, “NOT A GODDAMN THING!”
Wallis forced himself to his knees. “Listen! Listen to me! I got a deal for you!”
Krank and the bikers doubled over with laughter.
“Me and Janey, we used to be with Be Nice! But we left! We killed one of their big honchos and now they’re after us! And since Be Nice stomps haters, well, that makes us, like, almost friends, right?”
The bikers laughed even harder.
Janey yelled, “You’re crazy! Because when Be Nice comes out here with the Chinese, the India Indians, and everybody else, you’re gonna get stomp stomped—”
A female biker cursed at her and spat in her face.
Janey let the spittle run down her cheek. “The people in Jamesville, they gonna make the big green! They gonna be livin’ high on the top floor! But you people, you’re nothin’ but trash!”
Krank held Janey by her hair. “We gonna sell your black ass to the farms, girl, and your pretty, little white boy here, we gonna make him a pretty, little, white girl!”
A biker handed Krank a Bowie knife. He cut the b
onds on Wallis’s wrists and unlocked Janey’s handcuffs. “You hold your nikky’s hand, boy. I’m gonna let you watch.”
Wallis fought to stand, but the bikers pushed him to the ground.
“It’s okay, baby!” Janey said. “Here, just…just take my hand.”
Shaking with rage, Wallis hesitated, then grasped her hand.
Krank unzipped his fly. “And while she’s makin’ me happy, white girl, I want you to tell her how much you love her. If you don’t, I’ll cut her fuckin’ throat.”
Wallis screamed, “I AM GONNA KILL YOU!!!”
Janey leaned forward and put her lips inches from Krank’s crotch. “Baby, it’s okay! It’s okay!” Her right hand reached under her shirt and into her panties. She moaned as she vigorously fingered herself.
Krank yelled, “Well, goddamn!”
The bikers clapped and cheered their approval.
Janey suddenly withdrew her hand from her panties and pressed Tyler’s forty-five into Krank’s testicles.
His eyes as wide as dinner plates, Krank gasped.
Janey fingered the trigger. “He said there’s only a few shots left. Let’s find out.”
Bullets fired between Krank’s legs.
Wallis leaped to his feet as Janey turned and fired at the female biker who spat on her.
A shot rang out from the frameworks for the living pods. Then another, and another. Bikers were blasted to the ground.
Voices and shadows of movement as human spectres emerged from the darkness.
The bikers scrambled to their hogs.
Wallis and Janey watched as they escaped into the desert.
Tyler appeared from one of the living pods. “I know, I know! You guys’re pissed!” He waved his right hand over his head. “But I can explain!”
The human spectres approached, revealing themselves to be a group of men wearing white dress shirts. A mix of silver and gold crucifixes dangled around their necks.
One of them, a black man, stepped forward. He was in his mid-fifties; his hair was moon white and chaotically flowed over his scalp.
Tyler put his arm around him. “Wallis, Janey…I’d like you to meet the Honorable Reverend Joshua D. Brown and his Church of the Blessed Resurrection.”
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