Authors: J.V. Roberts
“Looks like there’s two of
em’. I got the second.” My breath rolls out in front of me and vanishes a few inches from my face like a wave hitting some invisible shore.
Tyrell and Ruiz land seconds apart. Not quite as graceful
as Katia, but a hell of a lot more nimble than my approach had been.
“What’s the word?” Ruiz asks. He takes up on the other side of me, props up on his elbows, and begins scanning
for targets.
“We were just debating about who gets what fire,” I say.
“Fire?”
“Yeah, see those two columns of smoke coming off the other side of the store? They’re definitely burning something. We figure it’s
gotta be a campfire or a barrel fire or some shit.”
“Yeah, probably,” Ruiz says with no small amount of disinterest in his vo
ice. “So have ya’ll seen anyone?”
“Not yet,” I say.
“Alright. Katia, you ready?”
“As ready as I’m ever
gonna be.”
“Okay, we’ve got you covered. Go for it.”
Katia nudges me. “A kiss for good luck, my prince?” She puckers her lips dramatically and closes her eyes.
I peck her lips quickly, painfully aware of Ruiz
lying next to me.
“We’r
e gonna have to work on that,” she says, kissing me on the cheek and rising to the balls of her feet. “Wish me luck, fellas.”
“You don’t need luck
, sis, we’ve got you covered. Just get in there and get it done. No screwing around.”
Katia breaks the brush line.
“That hugging and kissing and whispering sweet-nothings; it’s all well and good. But this, right here, right now, is where you show me how you feel about my sister. Keep your eye on that sight and your finger near the trigger.”
“Yeah definitely, totally understand.”
“Don’t tell me about it, just do it.”
Katia is across the road and hunkering near the du
mpster at the back of the store. She raises a thumb. A gesture Ruiz quickly returns to let her know the coast is clear. She pulls herself up onto the bottom rung of the ladder. Her thin jacket and cargo pants ripple in the breeze; she shakes back and forth, clinging to the flimsy metal.
“Don’t fall, don’t fall,” Ruiz is coaching her from behind the
red dot while panning back and forth for hostiles.
She regains her balance and
resumes her ascension, moving fast, taking the rungs two at a time.
“Slow down
, Katia. Jesus, I swear, she doesn’t listen.”
I have my sights set on the
rooftop. Guarding her entrance. Anyone that isn’t Katia has a bullet with their name on it.
“Where you
lookin’, Tim?”
“Rooftop, I’ve got her on the rooftop.”
“Good, keep her in your sights. I’m scanning the perimeter. Where you at, Tyrell?”
“I’m with you
, boss.”
“
Good.” Ruiz sounds like a proud father taking his boys out for their first hunt. “Call out what you see, fellas.”
“Yep.”
“Copy that.”
Katia comes down on the roof with the same cat like grace she’d used to come over the wall; knees slightly cocked, arms perched out to her side. Her body is still. Her ears and eyes are wide open. She removes her swords
slowly, careful not to make a sound. With one in each hand, she moves forward, low, keeping her head below the top of the HVAC unit. She stops at the corner, her back pressed against the metal housing.
“How’s she doing, Tim?”
“She’s...okay, I think.”
“
Goddamnit,” Ruiz swears. He comes up off the ground and moves right, towards the nearest tree. He takes a knee by the trunk and sets his sights on the rooftop. “I can’t see shit from here either. Come on Katia, tell us something.”
The seconds feel like hours. There’s nothing. Nothing but the wind directing the trees. Nothing but the two columns of black smoke rising over the gas station roof and dissipating in somersaults and cartwheels. Nothing but my shallow breathin
g and the rattling of my nerves against the cold steel resting in my palms. No sign of the foot soldiers or the snipers. No sign of Katia. Katia is quick. Efficient. I’ve seen her dispatch enough foes at this point that I know how she operates. She should be on the edge of that building right now clutching the rifle of her fallen enemy and waving us in for the attack.
Something is wrong.
Maybe she’s in trouble. Maybe we should move in and get her the hell out of there.
Just as the words are forming on my tongue
, there she is. Creeping and crawling around the side of the HVAC unit. She’s not holding any rifle. But that’s not what concerns me. She is frantic. Waving us in with a flurry of hand motions. Like a landing signal officer on speed. At any moment, she’s going to break the cover of silence and scream for us to pull her out.
Ruiz doesn’t waste any time. He doesn’t
bother ordering us to follow.
He’s already in the mi
ddle of the street before I can make it to my feet.
By the time we reach the back of the store
, Katia is on the last rung of the ladder. There’s no grace in her landing this time. She’s just happy to be off the roof and surrounded by the familiar.
“Sis, what the hell, what is it?” Ruiz isn’t whispering, exactly. It’s a terse hiss; the way a snake would sound if it could raise its voice.
She’s holding onto Ruiz and I for support and trying to catch her breath. “The...the...camp...or, whatever, there’s no one down there.”
“So,”
Ruiz sounds confused, “that’s a bad thing?”
She shakes her head, frustrated. “No, damn it. No, I mean they’re all dead.”
I turn to check my back. Nerves re-activated.
“Bodies? You saw bodies?”
“Yes. Well...no, not exactly...”
“So, no bodies? Rabid got them?” I pick up the line of questioning.
“No!” She stomps a foot. “Fuck! Just come look for yourself.”
I move towards the corner. Rifle up.
Tyrell has his back to me. He’s turning circles, scanning the rooftops of the buildings around us.
Ruiz hangs back with Katia, covering our advance.
I round the corner and gasp in disbelief. What I see in front of me stops me in my tracks. No wonder Katia couldn’t put it into words, God knows, I sure as hell can’t.
16
The heads are situated in a perfect circle behind a small wall of sandbags. The excess flesh at the bottom of the necks pancakes out against the pavement, all jagged and clumped together. Definitely not a one and done job. Someone hacked away, switching their aim with each swing. Some of the mouths hang open, their tongues flopping from between their lips like swollen purple slugs.
The pillars of black smoke rise from the
remnants of two military transport trucks. They’ve been blasted to smithereens. The canvas tops, the metal overlays, even the cab, appear to have been blown out and sucked back in, left to crackle and pop in a blackened heap beneath the hazy midmorning sky.
Even worse, there isn’t a gun or a box of ammunition in sight.
“What the fuck?” Ruiz moves past me, slowly lowering his rifle as he takes in the grisly scene.
“What’s that drawing supposed to be?” Katia asks, hesitantly, as if she fears the answer.
A crude piece of art bursts forth from the weather beaten blacktop. A five pointed star etched in white chalk. There’s a head sitting on each of the five points. The placement is damn near perfect, someone had taken their time. Coagulated blood weaves across the surface of the drawing as if some other artist had attempted to go over it with a gore soaked brush. It pools together at the center. It feels like some modern day attempt at a medieval ritual. Part of me expects the earth to open up or a beam of light to come spiraling down from the sky.
“Shit,
yo, that’s a pentagram, bruh.” Tyrell is circling the scene, shaking his head and jamming an accusatory finger at the macabre art project. “This is some satanic shit, man. We need to get our asses up outta here.”
“Where are the bodies?” Ruiz voices
the question running through all of our heads as he crouches beside the scene with his rifle propped across his knees, a mixture of fascination and disgust twisting his features.
Katia has drawn her swords
once more and now stands behind Ruiz. She’s bouncy, falling from the balls of her feet to her heels and back again. She looks like she wants to run, just sheath her swords and disappear back through the brush and over the wall.
Just like me.
“They definitely weren’t killed here,” Ruiz says, “not enough blood.”
“Yeah, well,” Katia is looking back over her
shoulder as if she’s expecting the headless corpses to appear behind her at any moment, “we’re not crime scene investigators, whoever killed them took everything, there’s nothing for us here. Let’s get out of here.”
Tyrell nods his head swiftly. “Took the words right out my mouth, girl. We
ain’t got no business stickin’ around here.”
There are
droplets of blood on the pavement. They lead away from the sandbags back towards the gas pumps. I follow them with the barrel of my rifle, stepping across and around the path of carnage as it changes frequency and direction.
“Tim, what are you doing?” Katia starts towards me, raising her swords, hunched down in that
fighter’s stance, a hell of a lot more antsy than she’d been when taking on that trio of biters by the pool.
“I think I’ve got something,” I
announce as I round the pumps.
“What is it?” Ruiz sta
nds, turning his back on the ring of heads. “You got the bodies?”
I halt
beside the first gas pump. I’ve found the end of my rainbow. There’s a stack of cinderblocks and a blood streaked paint bucket waiting for me.
Not exactly a pot of gold.
I scan the storefront. I’ve got that feeling. That feeling that something is watching me. Waiting for the opportunity to strike.
There’s nothing.
Just blackness and my broken reflection staring back at me via bullet riddled glass.
“
Not the bodies. But this is where the heads came off.”
“Oh, shit,” Katia pants in my ear.
Ruiz moves around the other side of the pumps and approaches the execution site. He toes at the bucket and peers in over the side. “They were intentional about this shit, huh? This is some Al Qaida type shit right here.”
Tyrell is still over by the sandbags, turning like a top. “
Yo, can we please get the hell outta here?”
“They didn’t go down without a fight. Glass is all shot up,” I
observe.
“Yeah, there are
a few track marks over here on this corner. Got a few shell casings on the ground too,” Ruiz says, shuffling his feet against the pavement, the high-pitched
ting
of expended brass kicking up from beneath his boot.
“Who did...”
There’s movement in the blackness. Four circles of white light kick on simultaneously. I stumble backwards against Katia, trying to regain my vision as I raise my rifle. She trips and goes back onto her ass, her blades slapping against the ground. Ruiz shields his eyes and ducks behind one of the pumps while Tyrell takes up a position behind the sandbags.
“Don’t any of you fuckers move!”
a voice echoes from the blackness.
I’m pretty sure there are guns attached to those flashlights. I mimic Ruiz, droppi
ng down behind the nearest pump and dragging Katia with me.
“Listen to me. Whoever you are, you got yourself a death wish. We’re well armed and well trained. So, what do you say you walk away, we’ll forget about this shit, and all move on with our day?”
Ruiz looks over to Katia and me, and nods, trying to reassure us that he’s got a handle on the situation.
“You think you’re dictating this scenario? We’ve got enough artillery in here to turn you inside out. Also, check the
roof; we’ve got your asses pinned down from an elevated position.”
I’m not sticking my head out to look.
When we turn towards Tyrell to see if he can give us the scoop, he’s already relinquishing his rifle to the pavement as a red laser bobs up and down on his forehead like a buoy on stormy seas.
Ruiz slams his head back against the pump.
They’d flanked us and gotten onto the roof.
Rookie mistake
on our part.
One of us should have taken up the rear. We’d gotten so wrapped up in the horror show that we’d blanked out on
the basics.
“If you’re having trouble making a decision
, I’ve got a few grenades in here that’d be happy to help the process along.”
Ruiz looks to
us, and nods. “Hey, it’ll be okay, put em’ down.”
“No, they’ll kill us anyway, look what they did to those guys.” Katia crawls off my lap and comes to her knees, holding her swords like ski poles.
“It gives us a chance. We’re not gonna win this fight.”
“But at least we’ll get the chance to fight. I’m not getting bent across a stack of
bricks and having my head dropped into a bucket, fuck that, they can shoot me!”
“Is that bitch going to decide your fate?
” The voice in the darkness sounds amused.
“Oh, you
sonofabitch!” Katia leaps to her feet, ready to rush the wall of flashlights and muzzles.
I wrap an arm around her waist her pull her back down. “Listen to me,” I press my lips to her ear, “your brother is right. It’ll be okay. If they were going to kill us right off
, they’d have done it.”
“They want us to surrender so they can chop our heads off.” She struggles against me.
I squeeze harder. “Stop it, just listen. We come out. We play nice. We wait for our opening and we take em’. We have a chance that way. This right here is a guaranteed loss.”
She stops fighting and collapses against me. Craning her neck back and resting her cheek against mine. “If my head goes into that goddamn bucket I’
m haunting your ass, believe that.” She kisses me and then drops the swords.
Ruiz and I both follow suit, tossing our guns
out from behind the gas pumps; our primary and secondary weapons.
“We’re coming out. Easy on the triggers
, fellas,” Ruiz says.
“Hands behind your heads, all of you. Line up in a straight line in front of the pumps. No chitchat, no sudden movements or me and the crew will light you up like fuckin’ firecrackers.”
The lights don’t move. They remain steady and strong. They watch us like some high tech monster as we line up like sheep...like flies beneath a giant swatter.
Tyrell is last to the party. He comes up beside me, hands locked behind his head. Giant rings of perspiration soak the armpits of his gray long sleeved shirt. “Told
ya’ll we shoulda gotten the fuck outta here. We’re screwed now, bruh. Bacon on the platter.”
“Shut
the fuck up, Tyrell!” Ruiz shouts down the line.
“I believe I told all of you to shut the fuck up.” The voice from the blackness is deep and firm
, a man in control.
We’ll see if his pitch changes when the guns are turned the other way.
The lights begin to shift as their owners move from cover and begin to emerge from the darkness. Four lights. Four guns. Four men.
Then
there is the fifth one, still covering us from the rooftop, tracing each of us with the red laser attached to his rifle; he doesn’t move.
“You folks wandered into the wrong part of town,” the man standing at the center of the group chimes with a baleful grin.
He’s the voice in the darkness.
He’s wearing a black silk peasant top unlaced around the neckline, blond sprigs of hair sprout from the opening like weeds.
A black bandanna covers his head and his eyes are encircled by thick black makeup.
“
Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt your Satanic mass,” Ruiz says flatly.
The man in the
ridiculous shirt breaks into a hearty bout of laughter. “The heads and the pentagram? No, that was Will.” He jabs a thumb at the man to his left. “Thought it’d be funny. This guy, lemme tell you about this guy. I caught him jerking it to gastric voyeurism once.”
Will just shrugs and grins like a fat baby, happy to sit in
his own shit.
Curiosity pries my lips apart. “Okay, I’ve
gotta ask, gastric voyeurism?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard?” The man in the ridiculous shirt takes a rather incredulous tone with me, as if I’m missing out on some piece of common knowledge, like the weekly top 40 or the theory of
relativity. His mouth droops open, revealing a single gold tooth at the center of the bottom row. “Gastric Voyeurism is this Korean shit. Well, I mean it started in Korea, right, Will?”
Will
nods. “Yeppers.”
Jesus Christ, he is a fat baby. A big fat dumb baby carrying a very big gun.
“So, yeah,” the man in the ridiculous shirt continues, “it started in Korea. It’s spread over here though, you know, bitches doing anything to make a buck. Basically, what you do is pay to watch some bitch eat. In Korea, it’s like rice and kimchi and shit like that. Here, it’s bitches chowing down on hoagies and hot dogs.”
“You sure do like using the word
bitch
a lot, rough home life? Mommy issues?” Katia sneers.
“You know,” the man approaches her slowly, looking her over from foot to forehead, “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Heath, like the candy bar, only sweeter.”
He props his rifle back over one shoulder and slowly extends a hand, licking his lips, that gold tooth winking at us.
Katia spits at his feet and raises her eyes defiantly, leaving her
fingers locked behind her head. “I left my hand sanitizer at home.”
“You mouthy...” Heath takes a swift
step towards her.
Ruiz charges
. “Back the fuck off, or I swear to God, I’ll...” Will plants the barrel of his rifle in the center of his chest, forcing him back.
“You’ll what? Huh?” Heath shakes dramatically, feigning intimidation. “What’re you
gonna do?”
Ruiz pushes against the barrel of Will’s rifle, burying it further in
to his chest. “I’ll rip your throat out. You better have your fat lackey pull that fucking trigger quick if you plan on taking another step towards my sister.”
“And I’ll be right there with him.” I should have learned something back when I got the shit kicked out of me by Pastor Waters’ crew for
smartin’ off at the mouth; don’t provoke men with guns.
“Oh, you’ll be right there with him?”
I see it coming, but I can’t do shit to stop it with my hands still locked behind my head. Heath sinks the butt of his rifle into my stomach, dropping me to my knees. He follows it up with a quick and nasty knee to the face. “Kind of like that?” He stands over me laughing. “Hey, you know what? Hit that sonofabitch in the face too.” Heath points to Ruiz.
“
Yessir.” Ruiz gets a jaw full of rifle butt from Will, the fat baby.
He goes down hard. Groaning and spitting blood.