by Easton, BB
The car begins to bounce violently as another Bony, and then another, leap onto the hood, the roof, the trunk. The zombified King Burger twists his head from side to side, like a raptor studying its prey, before he takes a gun out of his hoodie pocket and presses the barrel to the glass.
I duck just before the concussion of bullets and splintering glass rings in my ears.
Ka-boom!
Ka-boom!
Ka-boom!
Ka—
Thud.
The car stops shaking.
The bullets stop flying.
And the sounds of downtown Atlanta fill the air again as Ramirez hops back inside and slams the door.
“Goddamn, I hate those motherfuckers!”
I sit back up to find King Burger slumped against the bulletproof glass, his lifeless eyes halfway open as blood trickles down his mask, filling every crack in the shattered windshield.
“That’s the third car we’ve fucked up this week! The chief is gonna be so pissed.”
“If he’d buy that damn helicopter, this wouldn’t keep happening!”
Officer Friendly turns to look out his side window. “’Bout fucking time.”
I follow his gaze and notice blue flashing lights reflecting in the broken shop windows on MLK Jr. Drive as a behemoth of a SWAT tank comes barreling into view. It’s two lanes wide, and it has a metal blade on the front that’s at least a foot thick. People on the street scatter like rats, jumping into their parked cars and trying to get the fuck out of the way before they get smashed.
Officer Friendly flips on the PA system and grabs the microphone. “Thanks a lot, good buddy,” he announces through the loudspeakers as the tank grinds past. Then, he throws the car in drive and turns left onto MLK once the intersection is clear, leaning all the way to the left to see around the shattered windshield and the dead body on the hood.
“Why don’t we ever get to drive the Scorpion?” Ramirez whines.
“Because we weren’t military, remember?”
“Hawthorne should at least let me shoot the cannon some time.”
Officer Friendly drives a few blocks and turns left onto Central Avenue where a huge crowd of people is gathered in a park.
“Oh shit! We got a dead man walkin’!”
The cop car slows to a crawl, and I do the stupidest thing I could possibly do.
I turn and look out my window.
The left and right sides of the park are lined with spectators, standing behind metal barricades and kept at bay by at least a dozen riot cops holding machine guns. On the far side of the plaza, a woman in a burlap jumpsuit is standing with her back to me. A row of freshly planted saplings stretches out to her left, and Governor Fuckface and a TV crew are standing to her right.
My guts twist.
No. No, no, no, no, no.
Keep driving!
But they don’t. They pull to a complete stop and watch as the woman’s head suddenly snaps backward. Her body jerks, her knees buckle, and the earth swallows her whole.
Stomach acid claws its way up my throat, but I swallow it down and squeeze my eyes shut. I tell myself that it’s not a bad way to go. It’s instant. Clean. There are way worse ways to die. Cancer is worse. Disembowelment, terrible. I could be burned at the stake or locked in an iron maiden. I could be—
Ramirez lets out a low whistle. “There goes Nora. What a waste of a good pair of tits.”
“Didn’t she bite you?”
“Fuck yeah, she did. Had to get a tetanus shot and everything. But you know I like ’em feisty.”
As Officer Friendly chuckles and shifts into drive, I take a deep breath and one last look at the place where Nora used to be.
And that’s when I see him.
The executioner.
Black mask.
Black police uniform.
Black fucking soul.
And when his head follows our car as it pulls into the police station across the street, I know he sees me too.
Wes
“Goddamn it, Riggins! That’s the third car this week!”
“It wasn’t my fault, sir! We got stuck in traffic, and the Bonys swarmed us!”
“I told him not to take Northside Drive, sir.”
“Shut up, Ramirez! Y’all are lucky you still have jobs, you know that?”
I drum my fingers against the molded plastic armrest of the 1970s-era chair I’m handcuffed to as Ramirez, Officer Friendly—who I guess is named Riggins—and their police chief argue about the dead Bony they rode in with. The lobby of the Fulton County Police Department feels like a DMV waiting room from 1975—other than the flat screen TV glowing on the wall. Reporter Michelle Ling is interviewing Governor Fuckface in Plaza Park right down the street. The sound is off—thank God. But even without being able to hear his pompous-ass voice, that jowly grin and puffed-out belly speak volumes. He’s as proud of his “duty to protect the laws of natural selection” as Michelle Ling is nauseated by the sight of him. I can see it on her face. Either she polished off a fifth of gin before this interview or this man makes her sick to her stomach.
Maybe both.
Probably both.
Just then, an officer breezes in through a side hallway with the swagger of a seasoned drag queen. He seems vaguely familiar, but it might just be because he looks like RuPaul with a little more meat on his bones and a lot less style.
“Miss me, bitches?” He sweeps a hand across the nearly empty room and then grimaces when his eyes land on the chief. “Sorry, Your Majesty.” He curtsies.
“Elliott,” the police chief snaps. “Deal with that until Hoyt and MacArthur get back.” He points directly at me and then goes back to ripping Riggins and Ramirez a pair of new assholes.
“Ugh. Processing?”
The chief cuts him a warning glance, and Elliott pouts pretty hard before coming over. But as he crosses the dingy tiled floor, his face morphs from annoyed to impressed.
“Well, helloooo, sailor. I’m loving the Hawaiian print.” He swirls a long index finger at me. “Very ’90s Leo.”
I lift an eyebrow, waiting for him to get to the point, and he lifts one right back as if he’s waiting for me to respond.
Finally, he huffs, “You don’t know who I am?”
Now, both of my eyebrows are raised. I shake my head a fraction of an inch, and his face falls.
“Really? Okay, maybe this will jog your memory.” He backs up about ten feet and walks toward me again, this time with a blank expression on his face and an invisible person on the crook of his arm.
Considering that I just saw a sneak preview of my own death a few minutes ago, I’m not really in the mood for fucking charades, but I decide to throw the guy a bone. Maybe because he’s the only person around here who isn’t acting like a ’roided-out douche bag.
“The bailiff? From the executions?” I tilt my head toward the glowing screen in the corner of the room.
“Ding-ding-ding!” He beams, clapping his hands with every ding. “You probably didn’t recognize me because I’m sooo butch on TV.” The sound of footsteps entering the lobby makes him snap his head toward the back hallway. “Aren’t I, Mac?”
“Aren’t you what?” the gruff, middle-aged guy walking in mutters back. He doesn’t even look at us. His gaze is fixed on the cubicle he’s walking over to, and his shoulders are rounded from carrying the weight of the world on them.
“Aren’t I so butch on TV? Our new suspect—” Elliott turns to me and asks, “What’s your name, handsome?”
“Wesson Parker,” I deadpan.
“Ooh, Wesson. Like the gun? I like that. Very Dirty Harry.”
Elliott turns back to the guy who is now sitting with his back to us at a computer screen. “Wesson here didn’t even recognize me! Can you believe that?”
“Nope,” he mutters. Then, he pulls the trash can out from under his desk and blows a snot rocket into it.
“That’s MacArthur. He’s a sourpuss, but he loves me. Don’t you, Mac?”
<
br /> “Hmmph,” the old guy grumbles, pecking at his yellowed keyboard with two stiff index fingers.
Just then a dude about as wide as the hallway he’s walking through comes lumbering into the station lobby.
“Oh, thank God! Hoyt! Hoyt, c’mere, sweetie!” Elliott waves at him like a damsel in distress.
About thirty slow-motion strides later, the slack-jawed, sleepy-eyed, shaggy-haired officer makes it over to us. He reminds me of a sheepdog, both in his appearance and general IQ, but sheepdogs probably smell better.
“Hoyt, the chief told me to tell you to process this fine young man as soon as you got back.” Elliott tosses me a wink that goes completely unnoticed by Officer Hoyt.
He simply nods and produces a key ring from his front pocket. Unlocking the metal bracelet attached to the armrest, he gestures for me to stand and secures my wrists behind my back again. Hoyt doesn’t make eye contact once. He simply takes me by the arm and shuffles me over to a cubicle next to MacArthur’s.
After he takes my fingerprints, name, and basic info—with as few words uttered as possible—Officer Hoyt uses a key card to escort me through a security door and into a dimly lit hallway. He stops at a metal cabinet, digs around inside for a minute, and pulls out a cup, a toothbrush, an orange jumpsuit, and a plastic bottle marked De-Licer.
“Sorry, man,” he mumbles, his head hanging even lower than before. “Gotta hose ya down.”
“Better you than the bailiff,” I deadpan.
Officer Hoyt opens the floor-to-ceiling cabinet door a little wider until it blocks the small black video camera attached to the ceiling behind it. Then, for the first time since we met, he lifts his head and looks me dead in the eye. The pity and remorse I see there hit me right in the fucking gut. He doesn’t look at me like I’m a suspect or a convict or “the accused.” He looks at me like I’m a man who just found out that he only has a few days left to live.
“For what it’s worth,” he whispers, blinking his red-rimmed eyes, “I really am sorry.”
I nod and press my lips together to keep my chin from wobbling like a little bitch.
I’m gonna fucking die here, I think as he escorts me to the showers.
“Dead man walkin’.”
May 6
Rain
I couldn’t sleep, so I came out to the front porch to get some fresh air and escape Jimbo’s snoring. He and Mrs. Renshaw dragged their king-size mattress over from next door and flopped it across my parents’ queen-size bedframe last night, and Carter tossed his mattress on the floor in our junk room. Now the whole house smells like smoke.
It smells like their house.
Because it is their house now.
The morning fog has settled in Old Man Crocker’s field across the street. It looks like a fallen cloud being pierced by orange and pink lasers as the sun rises behind the pine trees.
And that’s when I realize … I’m outside.
I haven’t been able to come outside without having a panic attack in weeks, but here I am. Not panicking.
Probably because there’s nothing left to fear.
I step off the porch and walk down the stairs where Wes and I sat just yesterday afternoon.
My feet carry me past my daddy’s rusted old truck—the one that Wes siphoned all the gas out of the day we met—and they don’t stop.
They take me down to the end of the driveway, where about six envelopes are scattered on the gravel. I pick them up one by one.
Franklin Springs Electric.
Franklin Springs Natural Gas.
Franklin Springs Water and Sewer.
First Bank of Georgia.
They’re all addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Williams.
I run my fingertips over their names, but I feel nothing. Just the slick surface of the clear plastic film covering them. Then, I fold the stack of unpaid bills in half and tuck it into my hoodie pocket.
I pick my fallen mailbox up next. The wooden post is broken off at the ground level, so I shove what’s left of it into the soft Georgia clay next to the driveway. It only sticks about two feet above the ground now, but I don’t care.
I don’t care about anything anymore.
“Welcome to Fucklin Springs!” the sign across the street greets me as I pass, not reading my mood.
I haven’t walked down the highway into town by myself in months. Not since the crime rate skyrocketed, the roads got clogged with wrecks and cars that had run out of gas, and the local cops stopped showing up for work. After that, I mostly kept to the trail that snaked through the woods. But I’m not worried about the bad guys getting me now.
In fact, I hope they do.
The birds seem to be singing louder than ever as I walk past the torched and dilapidated farmhouses that used to belong to my neighbors. Maybe it’s because I haven’t heard one in weeks. They’re damn-near deafening now.
I have to walk in the middle of the street because all the wreckage has been shoved to the sides of the highway. Thanks to Quint. When the world was busy going insane on April 23, he grabbed his little brother and his daddy’s bulldozer and figured out a way to get the hell out of town.
A lot of good that did. Quint almost died in a bulldozer explosion, and now Wes is going to be executed for saving his life. I wish we’d never followed them out of town.
The second I think it, I want to take it back. If we hadn’t followed them, if we hadn’t been there, Quint would have died. I picture him and Lamar, all alone with that evil bitch, Q, and her crazy gang of runaways, and I shake my head. She’s gonna eat them alive.
Maybe I can convince Carter to take the truck back to the mall and get them, too.
As the glowing Burger Palace billboard rises over the trees in the distance, King Burger appears to be galloping toward me with his French fry staff held high. In the place where it used to say, Apocasize it! above a photo of the King Burger combo meal, it now says, Natural selection is the king’s way! with a digital slideshow of all their combo selections below.
The sign disgusts me so much it makes my stomach turn. A wave of nausea brings me to a halt, and I barely manage to pull my hair away from my face before I buckle at the waist and puke on the side of the road. Once the last heave leaves me, I prop my forearm on the wrecked minivan next to me and drop my forehead onto it. As the hurricane in my stomach dies down, I open my eyes and glance at the woman reflected in the tinted glass.
“You’re pregnant,” she whispers to me again.
“I know that,” I snap back.
Pushing away from the burgundy van, I continue walking, but this time with a destination in mind.
The closer I get to Burger Palace, the louder the sounds of civilization become. Cars stretch down the street in the oncoming lane, waiting to pull in to the parking lot. Toddlers tantrum and mothers yell and grown men curse at each other from their driver’s seats as they jockey for position and cut each other off in line.
In front of Burger Palace, walking up and down the side of the highway, are street vendors pandering to the captive audience.
“AK-47 for sale! Perfect condition! Only fired once!”
“Spare change? I gotta feed my babies, y’all! Spare change?”
“Hydro! Oxy! Adderall! Viagra! No prescription necessary!”
“You fellas like to party? Fifty bucks each. Seventy-five if it’s at the same time.”
I flip my hood up and stick to the opposite side of the road. Cars and trucks and four-wheelers and even a few tractors pass me as they pull out of Burger Palace, but nobody stops.
They can tell I’ve got nothing left to offer.
I walk past the hollowed-out shell of the old library and inhale the scent of scorched books.
I walk past Shartwell Park, careful not to step on any used hypodermic needles.
And finally, once the sun has risen above the tree line and the sweat has begun to trickle down my back, I see it.
Fuckabee Foods.
The nausea returns full force as I
look across the nearly empty parking lot and remember what happened here just a few weeks ago. The three thugs who died right outside those sliding glass doors—one from overdosing on the pills Wes had given him to pay our way inside, the other two from a spray of bullets.
Fired by me.
Even though the few businesses that haven’t been looted or torched are up and running again, I knew better than to expect Huckabee Foods to be one of them. The redneck mafia of Franklin Springs would rather burn this place to the ground than relinquish control. Which is why I’m not at all surprised to see a new red-bandana-wearing, facial-tattoo-sporting, machine-gun-carrying asshole sitting in a lawn chair outside.
The sight of those guys used to make me want to turn and run in the opposite direction, but that was back when I still cared about what happened to me.
Now all I care about is getting what I need and getting the hell out of here.
I pull the gun out of the back of my jeans and approach the front door with it pointed toward the ground.
Captain No-Neck looks up from his cell phone and does a double take when he sees me.
“Daaaamn, girl. That sassy walk you got is makin’ my dick hard. Come on over here and give me some sugar.” He spreads his legs and rubs the crotch of his pants. “I’ll make it worth ya while.”
I feel my heart begin to race as I stop about fifty feet away. From here, I can see that the glass in the sliding door has been replaced with a blue tarp, and there’s still a red stain on the cement in front of it.
“Here’s how this is gonna work,” I say, trying to keep my voice as steady as possible. “You’re gonna go inside and get me all the prenatal vitamins you can find, plus some canned fruits and veggies and soup with meat in it. It’s gotta have meat. When you come back out, there’ll be a hundred-dollar bill tucked underneath the windshield wiper of that blue Toyota.” I tip my head in the direction of the car closest to him. “You take the money and leave the groceries, and nobody gets hurt.”
The guard snorts through his nose before erupting into full-blown laughter. “Homegirl, the only thing that’s gonna get hurt around here is yo’ pussy.”