Cricket said, “Becca, I lost my father not long after the power went out. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Although Becca kept the face of a cold warrior, something in her eyes melted. Cricket saw the woman’s face beginning to soften. Becca spoke quietly.
“There was a knock at the door one night. My father answered it, and no one was there. For some reason I got up at the same time. My bedroom’s on the third floor. I heard chanting outside the house. I’m sure it was Latin.”
Elaine rose, saying, “I’ll find Sister and the girls.” The lines of her face deepened. She sure as hell didn’t need this discussion, Cricket observed. “They need a guide. There’s much to show them.”
Becca never acknowledged her mom, who quickly left. She continued her story.
“Angel later said it was some kind of invocation of spirits. Well, my dad was answering the doorbell a second time when I came down the stairs. I heard him scream and call my name. In the kitchen I saw what the Patriarchs had done—a huge knife was stuck in his chest. I did my best to lower him to the floor, but he was a big man and we both fell the last few feet. I was holding my father, listening to him take his last breaths, when the chanting began at some distance. It was horrible. It was as if they needed to still hurt him even as he died. My mom had drunk too much that night and never woke up with all the horror going on. Later, Angel woke her from a drunken sleep to tell her the awful news. There’s nothing my mom could have done. I know that. It’s just that she was totally absent, the way she’s been absent most of her life.”
Cricket rounded the table and hugged Becca, and the woman cried uncontrollably. Finally Angel came to Becca’s side, brushed her hair with the back of his hand, and whispered something to her. She grew quiet and her tears subsided.
7
The Patriarchs
The shredded gold light, the growing shadows, the ending of the day—all felt like the close of a century to Cricket. All of them had lost loved ones in the short space of a few months. Cricket included Angel, who had loss his brother to crime, along with the girls, who had lost both parents in a horrific attack by monsters who seemed to have ascended from some dark pit for a single terrible mission. Her husband had lost his father to a murderess from up north, and everyone had lost a young girl named Grace, a tragedy so great that winter might never lose its grip on the world.
“Who are the Patriarchs?” Fritz paced before the long picture window.
Angel, the diplomat, answered for Becca.
“The head of the city council, Raymond White, broke with every measure Becca and her leadership proposed. It was no accident that the day he quit the council was the day that Becca’s father was murdered.”
The two women hung on to each other, and Cricket saw again her father shot from the Ohio skies by marauders, finished off with bullets and fire after crashing.
“A Christian fundamentalist,” Angel asserted, eyes lowered, as though naming the worst disease that might befall a human being.
Cricket’s creep radar resumed. She wiped away the tears with the back of her hand, saying, “And he’s white?”
“Actually, Raymond White was African American, though the great majority of Patriarchs are of the white race. Thankfully, he dropped dead of a heart attack before Thanksgiving. A man, a sergeant named Wills, he’s the Patriarch’s leader.”
“Like Ray White, Officer Wills is also infected with whiteness,” Becca solemnly stated.
“What do you mean?” Fritz asked, and Cricket felt embarrassed for him. He was truly innocent of a lot regarding political correctness. Being tuned in to Rush Limbaugh through her dad’s love of the talk show host, Cricket had received an excellent lesson on American politics and history, and learned that folks were destroyed by simply being labeled racist, or an Uncle Tom if they were black, poisoned by whiteness, which underwrote all of the country’s sins.
In a bored voice, Becca said, “Whiteness includes all the phobias people harbor: homophobia, misogyny, and of course racism. If the words are too big, your wife can explain them better later on.”
“I don’t get it,” Fritz replied. “What did Raymond White or now this Wills guy do that was so awful?”
“The subjugation of women and children to their Old Testament laws. Severe punishment for those who stray. He and his followers saw the collapse of civilization as a way to make the world right through enslavement. They despised change.”
“Are they responsible for the Coyotes?”
“We think so,” Becca said. “They announce the crime committed, before the biting begins. It’s organized. Probably gang members who have exchanged their lust for drugs and money for Jesus and cruelty.” Cricket pulled out a chair for Becca, and she sat down next to her at the table. Their desserts remained untouched.
“Your police force—” Fritz started to say.
“The best.” Angel walked to the window. “We haven’t had need of the National Guard since July. But these are sly monsters we’re dealing with. And there’s much worse going on.” He looked to Becca before continuing. She blew her nose and nodded her okay.
“Their worst punishment is meted out by the Burners. These men kidnap and burn alive the citizens they feel are the most egregious in their behavior. We’ll do whatever we need to do to stop them.”
Becca stepped in. “There’s something we share with the Patriarchs. We both believe that mankind has committed grievous sins: they’ve sinned against their God, and many, like myself, believe we’ve sinned against Nature. It’s a shame that our first woman president would probably align with the Patriarchs. She’s more worried about displeasing God than helping people.”
Cricket glanced at Fritz; neither of them were interested in a political/religious debate on the values of a woman who had been in office for only a few months when the world went dark. Although Cricket believed President Michaels was well-suited to deal with this vast problem.
For the next few minutes, Becca outlined her belief that the world was dying because of overpopulation and overuse of the world’s natural resources. Cricket’s emotions cooled quickly, listening to ideas that the Brazilian—Cricket’s nemesis from up north—had flirted with in her own singular way. Becca and Angel promoted a political movement, unlike the Brazilian, a hedonist cougar who followed the stirrings of her own appetites. Becca governed a city that would serve as a practical model for the future.
All of Becca’s emotion for her dad dried up as she gave her analysis.
“We’ve been given a reprieve from the coming global warming disaster. Carbon dioxide levels are as low as nearly two centuries ago. Yet we know most citizens will relish the day when the lights come on and they’re driving their big cars again.” Becca sighed, eyeing Cricket for support. “Our current deprivation might seem like hell to the unschooled of this city, but when the power grids come back online, it’ll be way too soon for Mother Earth, the only true mother any of us will ever have.”
8
Howl
The Ford sedan pulled into the driveway, and the girls thanked the driver profusely for safely returning them home, adding that they’d be willing to take a road trip to California someday in the grand old sedan. Along the dark suburban street, lanterns and candles and even a Christmas tree illuminated a few homes. Most houses were dark and the drapes were pulled closed. Fritz was unlocking the door when a howl pierced the night air.
“Was that Boots?” Lily asked as Sister Marie ushered the girls inside and Cricket retrieved their guns. She also checked the rooms, windows, and back door before joining Fritz out front.
The howls were now many: Coyotes, the human variety. Those unable to yelp like a coyote attempted to howl; a few simply barked. The collage of sound seemed to come from several directions.
“Maybe more than one group,” Fritz said, Glock in hand and a second one holstered.
“That’s frightening.” Cricket aimed for the living room lantern, instinctively wanting to extinguish it.
“Let’s keep it lit,” Fritz said. “My gut tells me they’ll look for the darkest homes to attack, believing no one’s home, or sleeping, or frightened.” Cricket walked outside and confirmed her husband’s logic. Several of the homes nearby were lit up for safety and the season. Together, they signaled strength.
“Another good reason why I married you.” She reached for him, sliding her hand down his strong back. “And we can’t shoot unless our house comes directly under attack.”
“Agreed.”
A long scream pierced the night.
“Damn,” was all Fritz could say. She knew he wanted to help, but it would be suicidal to wade into dozens of Coyotes. And the exact location of the “animals” was still unclear. Besides, they couldn’t leave their precious cargo inside unguarded.
“I know something I can do.” Cricket turned to go inside, and Fritz stopped her.
“Cricket, you can’t go out there. This is worse than your Klingon adventure.” Early in the fall she had gone hunting one night for the killer of Ann Davies, Lawrence’s wife, murdered at the Holaday farm. She came across wannabe Klingons who cavalierly admitted to the murder. She destroyed them both.
“I’ve got the nightscope. I can keep my distance, see if I can help in some way.”
“You’ll bring them back here.”
“No way. You know I’ve kept to my running routine since the world went dark.” She ran several times a week and had great endurance, and believed the child in her womb benefited both in spirit and flesh.
She shot better, ran better, and flew the P-51 extremely well under pressure. In situations where they couldn’t stay together, they agreed to take the big chance of splitting up. “We know what happens in the movies when they split up,” he’d say. And she’d respond, “We’re a lot smarter than the movies.”
Inside, she talked briefly with Sister and the girls and dressed in her “Boots whites,” as Lee Ann had christened the camouflage jumpsuit she had seen that morning hanging up in the utility room. The suit, like the big cat’s, was predominantly white and disrupted by shadowy grays, browns, and blacks. Predator had recently found the winter jumpsuit on one of his excursions to rustle up some supplies. “Perfect on a snowy landscape with monsters afoot,” he’d said. The girls insisted that Cricket and Boots were now sisters for life. Cricket retrieved the Remington with the Orion nightscope and gave Fritz about thirty seconds to finish his closing argument.
“If you take out some of these monsters, they’ll be even hotter for more blood. Who knows what innocent folks might lie in their path? Cricket, you can’t kill them all.”
“Don’t plan on killing anyone at the moment.”
The next scream rattled them both, and Fritz in his frustration knew it was the right move.
“Go!” he said.
“I love you.”
“Love you too.”
Cricket kept the rifle shouldered and walked the sidewalk without hurry. Her senses were heightened—the cold against her face, the dreamlike landscape, another’s suffering. At the end of the block, the screams and Coyote cheers were no longer straight ahead, but off to her left. She followed the next street, and the houses were all dark; a few people stood outside with guns. Cricket waved and one man said, “You can’t get them all.” She nodded in agreement and kept walking.
The street dead-ended in a park. The sounds of hell were amplified by an empty pavilion. Rifle pointed at the dark, Cricket circled outside the open-sided structure used for picnics and crafts in a better time. She could see a few barbecue stands for community use, and one had been battered and leaned close to the ground. Off to her left she saw a baseball field, snow-covered and still. All the action lay ahead—a concert bowl? A summer amphitheater? The terrain fell off, and she saw the tops of trees and dark woods beyond and the top of a backstop for another baseball diamond.
Before reaching the rim of the bowl, she shouldered the rifle, got on her belly, and crawled, taking advantage of her snow whites to disappear.
The screams accelerated and so did Cricket. As the ground rapidly fell off, she caught dark shapes running across a baseball diamond. Home plate was partially illuminated by a human being in flames, tied spread-eagle to the backstop. You can’t kill them all, she thought. Dozens of savages danced and yelled in unison with the screaming victim, mocking the victim’s suffering.
Without another thought, she took aim and fired, the powerful bullet of the Remington ending the victim’s life. Like a switch had been thrown to the off position, the party hit a wall. Shouts, wails of anger, and then again silence as the devils tried to understand the downer they had been handed.
Cricket knew that she should have left a second earlier. “What the hell,” she muttered, and returned to the scope and picked off several savages in the light of the burning corpse, sending them to their final home.
On her feet, she ran toward the woods behind the first baseball diamond. She didn’t want the savages rampaging along the residential street off the park. She flew straight into this unknown pocket of woods. She entered the first line of trees as the savages broke into two groups, one for the residential street and the other on her heels.
As she held the rifle across her chest, the snow gave her enough illumination to see the trees, but thin branches were invisible until one slapped her face. Of the angry voices that followed, one bellowed above the others. Some alpha devil who had more air, more cruelty packed between his ribs than any of his fellow savages. And probably the fastest.
9
Mad Pedro
Ajax felt the locomotive energy of one of his favorites chasing down the beautiful Christian girl. He laughed to himself; he was clear-minded in this otherworld. The ordinary world’s fretting had disappeared. Here he enjoyed and supported the strong, destroyed the weak without any attachments clouding his decisions. He was a shark, unable to stop.
Yet as Mad Pedro closed in, he felt the loss of this woman with the long legs and beautiful hair. He wondered if he could change the outcome, for surely she was doomed. Was this a weakness?
10
The Chase
Cricket climbed a steep hill and decided to face her attacker at the crest. Maybe she could take out the alpha devil. Crazy. At the top she did look back, and the woods swarmed with shadows full of wrath.
Breathing hard, her body overheated and sweaty in her jumpsuit, she faced a choice: ahead the woods opened onto a street, and to her left the forest continued downhill to a ravine. She took the street and flew down its middle, hoping to keep the savages on her track and away from playing with the neighbors.
The end of the street was darker, perhaps with more trees, evergreens—and she was right. A number of houses in a row had towering arborvitaes that rose above the homes. But the alpha devil was closing in, cursing, with enough air to proclaim what he was going to do once he caught her. He didn’t sound out of breath and was able to deliver the litany of his future torments with force.
She heard him growl and knew that he had accelerated. His next tirade was cut short by several shots that left him screaming loudly before dying in the shadows. His followers screamed madly, and a moment later the screams melted into cries of despair as a barrage of gunfire erupted, the Red Sea closing in on Pharaoh and his men.
Cricket wouldn’t slow up or try to glance back at what had happened. The shots fired came almost exclusively from powerful handguns, .357s, .45s, and the boom of shotguns that followed. Cleanup.
“Stop and drop your weapon,” a voice commanded, off to her right.
She had just passed a car angled across the sidewalk and probably out of commission since the spring when the man repeated his command. She slowed, then stopped and struggled to express her thanks. But all that came out was, “I’m not dropping it in the snow.”
Silence, except for the occasional roar of a shotgun putting another savage to sleep forever.
“With both hands, raise the rifle above your head.”
“I’m on your
side,” Cricket said.
“We’ll determine that.”
“I did what I had to do,” she said, catching her breath.
“What did you do?”
The voice sounded like that of a man of reason, reminiscent of her father.
“I killed a person who was being burned alive.” Her voice shook. She awakened to the horror she had witnessed and cried, keeping her eyes wide open, the tears burning and soon cooling, then reaching the corners of her mouth. “I couldn’t kill them all. You know that.”
A man approached in a police uniform. He was black, wearing a stocking cap, his gun holstered.
He shined his flashlight up and down her and then turned it off.
“Young lady, any other weapons?”
“Lots. A few knives, too.”
Another police officer approached and informed the man that two pickup trucks were arriving shortly to take away the bodies.
“I did kill a few of the savages before running. Stupid.”
“Understandable. Go ahead and shoulder your rifle.”
All her muscles were cold and stiff.
“I’m Sergeant Terence Wills.” He extended his hand.
They shook. “I’m Emily Cricket Hastings.”
“Emily.”
“I prefer ‘Cricket.’”
He nodded. “I’m sorry we weren’t there to help. We had gotten word that they were going to be galloping through the neighborhoods. So we stood our ground right here. They like dark neighborhoods.”
Fritz had been right about keeping the lights on. She missed him terribly, and fear made her shiver. She had come close to losing both her life and her baby’s.
American Blackout (Book 3): Gangster Town Page 4