by Ryan Schow
“She knows how to spell, Stanton.”
We fall into one giant, collective brooding spell, one we might not be able to crawl out from. Stanton, sure—he seems to be coping fine. And Macy? She’s doing fine for now, too. But me? This is all just a little too much.
“What do we even know about this girl?” I hear myself ask.
“That she’s amazing,” Macy says.
“Why? Because she can shoot a bow and arrow and she reminds you of that Hunger Games girl?”
“Yeah,” Macy says. “Sort of.”
“Well this isn’t the movies and we’re really in trouble here. This isn’t a joke. It’s not a situation. And if you look around, I’m not really sure we’ll ever see a fix for this.”
There’s a low rolling smoke cloud covering the city. It’s dark and daunting and settling in like a wet fog. A patch that size is sure to cause more problems in the hours to come, if only in our burning throats and lungs. We have to find some place to stay, and fast.
When no one says anything, I say, “I’m going in.”
“No,” Stanton says.
“Macy’s right, as much as it pains me to say so. We can’t just sit out here when they could be dead inside, or bleeding to death.”
“I’ll go,” Stanton offers.
“You’re not a nurse.”
He falls quiet.
“Just be careful in there,” he says, “because if there’s any indication of trouble, me and Macy are coming after you, guns hot.”
“Roger that,” I say, starting across the street.
As I’m contemplating my next moves, as I’m assessing the situation with as much awareness and stealth as I can muster, in the back of my mind I’m telling myself that Rex is equipped for war, that he understands the intricacies of combat and things are Kosher inside. I’m also thinking about Indigo and feeling like it’s clear that she can handle herself, so really I’m just being some kind of a nervous Nelly.
As for yours truly, I can’t say anything other than if I die, it’ll probably be doing something stupid.
Something just like this.
9
From the muddy, juicy waters of unconsciousness came a pair of bee-sting pains that seemed to resonate from his shoulder and his arm. Things cleared, but not much. The only thing changing was the bee stings were starting to really burn. Plus, Rex was having a hard time making connections through the drag and pull he was feeling on his body.
His mind said gunshot wounds.
His mind said war.
From a long ways away, he heard the woman sobbing, and the girl fast talking, and then he heard the muffled sounds of shuffling and hitting and a soft yelping. His eyes cracked open, his eyelids heavy, swollen. Bright fluorescent light cut through to his brain making his head hurt. His mouth was making mumbling noises on its own, his body shifting from the pain. Then she was there, in his face: Indigo. There is red splatter on her cheek. Not her blood. Her eyes were wild, but calming for him.
“I thought I lost you for a second,” she said.
“Really?” he asked from like a million miles away.
“No,” she said, sarcastic. “You got shot in the arm. You passed out. Now here you are after all the hard work is done waking up like a newborn after his nap. Perhaps I should check your diapers.”
“They’re probably dirty.”
His head was clearing fast now, so he tried to sit up.
“And here I thought you were the professional.”
“I’m a terrible victim.”
“Aren’t we all,” she said, helping him sit up.
The pounding in his head subsided long enough for him to look down and see Indigo’s hostage wearing only a pair of panties. She wasn’t a pretty sight. The girl was slumped over sideways, but she was turned at the torso and sprawled face-down on the cold industrial floors.
“What did you do to her?” he asked.
The small room was cold, and it smelled of blood, gunpowder residue and cooked meat. In the corner was a small charcoal barbeque grill. There were bottles of water opened nearby and his arm felt stiff. Looking down he saw it was bandaged.
“She wasn’t as cooperative as she first led me to believe,” Indigo said.
“And the bruises?”
The hostage’s back was lined with them, a bunch of fist sized black and blue marks.
“She needed some help remembering some things.”
“How bad is it?” he asked.
“You or her?”
“Her. This situation. Whatever this is you got us messed up in.”
Indigo’s mouth was a flat line, her eyes devoid of any emotion. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail with more than a few loose strands hanging in her face, but she just was as dirty as everyone else.
“It’s bad. Worse than I thought.”
“Care to elaborate?” he asked, chewing on the pain and becoming irritated by how cryptic she was being. “I mean, I’d love to have some sort of valid justification for killing that guy, otherwise…”
“I get it. I can only tell you what she told me, and hopefully that is accurate. She says the Mission District has by far the most dangerous gangs, followed by SoMa.”
“SoMa?”
“South of Mission.”
“Go ahead,” he said, looking at the girl, who finally stopped sobbing and was instead reaching for something to cover herself with.
“No!” Indigo barked. The girl pulled back. Then, to Rex, she said, “You’ve heard of the MS-13, right?”
“Sure.”
“Worst gang in America before all this. Imagine a bunch of narcissistic mass murderers on power trips. They have no decency, no respect for life and no respect for age. When they pull you into the fold, you could be ten years old or thirty and it wouldn’t matter to them. Basically, from what this nasty bitch is telling me, they practically tear your soul from your body as payment.”
“Jesus.”
“Making matters worse, the MS-13 have basically aligned themselves with the Sureños, which is the southern California branch of the Mexican Mafia. They’re expanding their territory north, obviously.”
“So what does all that have to do with our girl and her dead friends, and the black snakes they have tattooed on their bodies?”
“Everything,” she said. “The MS-13 and the Sureños are basically rivals with the Norteños, which is the northern California faction of the Nuestra family. The violence that breaks out between these two warring factions is supposedly a thing of legend, although San Francisco seems to have a way of covering up all its piles of crap with pretty rugs.”
Waving off the commentary, he said, “So these gangs, they’re what…rivals for The Ophidian Horde?”
“No. The Ophidian Horde is a mop-up gang. The drone attack on the city wasn’t about skin color or age. The machines didn’t care about race or religion, about gang members or priests. A lot of people died in the attacks. A lot of them leaving their organizations weak and in disarray.”
“So this gang, they’re trying to organize?” he asked.
“According to this piece of white trash filth, they’re not pulling in the Sureños, the Norteños or the MS-13. Not just yet. They’re going after the low level gangs like the Knockout Gang, Eddy Rock, the Page Street Mob. They’re pulling them all into one organization and telling them they will be the ruling gang once the Sureños and the Norteños get done killing each other.”
“So how does any of this effect us directly?”
“They’re going to own you,” the girl moaned from the floor. She turned her face up to Rex and it was so badly beaten and so filled with rage it made him wince. “They’re going to own this town, but not before they kill off all the pendejos like you!”
“Is this true?” Rex asked, looking up at Indigo.
Seeing the girl’s face beaten so badly made him look at Indigo differently. It made him wonder what the hell really happened to her. If she was always so violent, so sullen, or if this was
merely a reaction to all the bad things that happened to her.
“According to her, yes. But under interrogation, people will sometimes say anything they think you want them to say. That’s why we’re going to tie her up and leave her here until we can verify her story.”
The outrage and the million-miles-an-hour cursing that spewed from this girl’s mouth was like nothing Rex had ever heard before. He could see blood vessels popping in the whites of her eyes as she screamed and it sort of scared him. All this after she’d been beaten.
Indigo went and cracked her so hard on the top of the skull the raging beast withered, covering her head where it began to bleed and whimpering to herself once more.
“Do you enjoy that?” Rex asked. “Hitting everyone over the head with your gun?”
“Actually, no. But desperate times, and all that,” she said. “Can you walk?”
“I can,” a voice said from behind them. They both turned, but Indigo had her gun aimed at the source of the noise.
Cincinnati.
She had her gun out, too. Cincinnati put both hands out and raised them before her. Indigo immediately lowered her gun and said, “That’s a great way to get an extra hole in your face.”
Looking down at the mauled and naked girl, she said, “Apparently so. Where are her clothes?”
“Somewhere over there,” Indigo said, not looking or motioning anywhere.
“Why are they not on her body?”
“Because if she’s telling us the truth, she gets to leave. But she was slow to talk, so I kept taking them away. When she walks, if she’s honest with us, the deal was she could leave with only the clothes on her body.”
“But she’ll freeze to death,” Cincinnati said.
“Not my problem.”
“What is your problem?” Cincinnati finally asked. Rex sensed the agitation in his sister and hoped that it coming out now, on Indigo, wouldn’t screw things up too badly.
“My problem is there’s about to be a massive turf war between the city’s most violent gangs in an attempt to concentrate power. If you think the destruction that’s been hitting us so far is bad, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.”
“I don’t understand.”
“This girl was just some low level skank for the MS-13, but now she’s a convert. Full blooded member of The Ophidian Horde, and from what she’s telling me, this war isn’t only going to spill over into the streets and onto normal people, it’s about claiming the streets, and enslaving the people. Imagine the mob, but with no police. Imagine no law. No one to stop the rapes and the murders; no one to stop men on a mission to control this city. If they get the upper hand, if they get that swing of power, then it’s over for us. Unless we can get out.”
“We’ve tried.”
“Everyone’s tried,” Indigo said.
“Perhaps it’s time to try again,” Rex added.
“Or perhaps this is our home and our city and we shouldn’t just sit around like a bunch of pansies talking about running.”
“What are you suggesting?” Rex asked Indigo.
“Yeah,” Cincinnati said. “What are you suggesting?”
Indigo looked at them both, as serious as Rex had ever seen her, and then she said, “I’m suggesting we stop them before they get started.”
There was a lot of silence and some fierce looks followed by the gravely, blood soaked laughter of their prisoner.
“You just go ahead and try,” she said, laughing her way into a small crying jag.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Rex said to Indigo, ignoring the hosatage. Indigo folded her arms and pursed her lips. “How big are your balls?”
Blowing out a sigh, but not once blinking or taking her eyes off him, she said, “Big enough to shoot hoops with. Now are we going to find you guys a place to live, or are you going to just sit there and bleed?”
Turning to Cincinnati, who looked like she couldn’t believe any of this was happening, he said, “Mark my words, big sis, one day I’m going to have this girl’s babies.”
Indigo punched him in the shoulder where he was first shot and said, “Not likely,” as he let out a yelp and chewed down on the sharp, stabbing pain.
Indigo then grabbed her hostage by the hair and dragged her kicking and screaming to a chair, not paying attention to the slew of death threats and howling erupting from the girl’s mouth.
“Don’t look at her tits,” Cincinnati said.
“Too late,” Rex replied.
“Help me tie her up,” Indigo said. Cincinnati handed her gun to Rex, then went to look at the woman’s injuries before helping secure her.
“Was this necessary?” she asked Indigo.
“I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”
Cincinnati was studying the blonde girl’s forehead, which was bumpy and blue. There were a few cuts on her brows as well, evidence that Indigo’s hostage had been punched repeatedly.
“And what about them?” she asked. “The two guys outside with their heads blown wide open? Was that necessary, too?”
“Save me your humanitarian gestures,” she said.
“You can’t just go around killing people,” Cincinnati said.
“Maybe you should have that conversation with your brother. He’s been shot again, by the way. Triceps. Passed out like he was new.”
His sister drew a deep breath, then let it out in a long exhale. She couldn’t even look at him. “Before today, he was new. To getting shot, that is.”
“Um…hello. I’m right here,” Rex said. “I can hear everything you’re saying.”
Without looking back at him, Cincinnati said, “Good, then get up and go get Stanton and Macy. Tell them to come in here.”
“Why?”
She spun and leveled him with big sister eyes. “To go shopping, Rex. We need supplies in case you forgot.”
“We need a house first,” Rex grumbled, getting himself off the table.
“I told you I’ve got you covered there,” Indigo said. She was binding the girl’s wrists behind her back with a length of rope, then wrapping that same rope around her throat. If she tried to struggle, it looked to Rex like the girl ran the risk of choking herself.
“Can’t we at least put a shirt on her?” Rex said.
“You don’t like my boobs?” the girl asked.
“Sure I do,” Rex said. “They look just like my grandma’s.”
Indigo stopped, shook her head, then went over to a supplies cabinet, pulled out grey duct tape, then came back and wrapped a length of tape across her breasts, covering her nipples. The girl protested mightily, but she only ended up nearly choking herself.
“See?”
Rex turned and left. He found both Stanton and Macy creeping in the front door. Stanton saw him, stood up straight and appeared to relax.
“You okay?”
“Not really,” Rex said. “Grab a cart, we’re going shopping. Oh, and watch out for the poop over there by the dead guy. I’m pretty sure it’s human.”
10
We’re rolling an old shopping cart packed to the hilt with stuff from Walgreen’s down this dirt alley Indigo says is really called Dirt Alley.
Apparently this is how you go house shopping in the apocalypse.
The cart’s jacked up wheels aren’t exactly quiet, but Indigo says she can both shoot arrows and show houses at the same time. It’s kind of nice to have a defender on our side. Already I’m feeling better about her. More optimistic.
On the up side, in the middle of a societal collapse, apparently this girl has no problem moonlighting as both savior and realtor.
So Indigo is pointing to this house and that, telling us about floor plans and lighting and which homes seem to have the nicest stuff. It’s crazy to think that less than an hour ago she killed some people and beat some pretty important information out of a member of the gang poised to take over the city now that it had no law or military presence.
“I want my own room,” Macy says.
“Naturally,” Indigo replies with a jovial smile.
“How do you know all about these houses?” Macy asks. “Were they the homes of friends of yours?”
Indigo doesn’t speak, she just bites her lip and keeps walking.
“She knows them because she’s looted them,” Stanton finally says. “Not that I blame her. She was just being resourceful, and in this world, what you do to survive seems to trump how bad you look and feel for robbing abandoned homes in a collapsed society.”
“It’s survival of the fittest,” Indigo says. “That one over there belonged to a friend of mine, so you can’t stay there. Watch the pile of ash. You’ll trip over the bones if you’re not careful.”
We make a wide berth around a huge ash pit full of bones and belt buckles and several skulls. My God, these are human bones! What the hell?
“Who’s pit is that?” I ask, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.
“Mine,” she says. “I made it.”
“What was it you burned in there?” I ask. “And why can’t we stay in your friend’s house?”
“The ash pit contains the first members of The Ophidian Horde when they came here and tried to kill me and my friend. And you can’t stay in my friend’s house because she’s still there.”
“What’s her name?” Macy asks.
“Dead.”
No one says anything. It gets terribly uncomfortable for a second.
“And she’s still there?” Stanton chimes in.
At a small detached garage, Indigo leans down and lifts the garage door. Inside is an old black and gold muscle car with a front end that’s seen better days.
There are also supplies.
And weapons.
“Take two cases of water and that bucket there”—she says pointing to the corner—“and you can pick that house there and there if you want to stay where I can keep an eye on you.” She’s now pointing to the houses on either side of her friend’s house. “Both homes are nice and there’s plenty of room for all of you.”
“Will I get my own room?” Macy asks.
“Yes. Plus both homes still have water in the water heaters. Conserve where you can though, because when we’re out, we’re going to be hauling in water from other houses, nearby water holes and eventually the bay. When we have to do that, the process by which to leech the salt out is slow and tedious and not anything I’m looking forward to.”