by Hunt, Jack
“About getting out of here. You know a way?” Alex asked.
Thomas’ eyed widened as he nodded.
“After you then!”
22
California
It was a massacre. Police, nurses, civilians, all of them were caught up in the spray of bullets. There was so much blood. Elisha and Liam assisted the wounded as best as they could by taking them into the medical area but it was overwhelming. They weren’t geared up for this level of violence. Without a hospital or power, they were reliant on diesel generators and the shelter had minimal equipment.
It was no surprise that several succumbed to their wounds.
It didn’t take long for rumors to circle. Gangs. Terrorists. Looters.
Elisha helped a girl who was no older than ten to a cot where a nurse took over. She’d been shot in the leg. It was swollen and bloodied, and the color in her face had all but washed out. Elisha stepped back soaking in the sights and sounds of people crying, others wailing in agony.
Shock was setting in.
Anger even more so.
Officer Garcia stumbled in, the bloodied arm of a woman around his neck as he dragged her to a bed. He spoke with a doctor then turned to head out. He stopped momentarily to check on their well-being. “You guys okay?”
“Yeah. Who did this?” Elisha asked.
“Gangs.”
Liam frowned. “In Petaluma?”
He nodded looking back at the wounded. “They’ve been here a while. This was retaliation.”
“For what?”
“I don’t have time to go into it but just know we are doing our best to track these individuals down.”
“Hey, you think you can give us a ride back to the base?” Liam asked. “It’s over on Tomales Road.”
“I know where it is. I’m afraid it’s not there anymore.”
“What?”
“It was destroyed in the fires.”
“Did anyone survive?”
“Kid, right now, you are looking at the survivors. Now I’m sure there are many more out there like you, buried beneath rubble, but even with all this volunteer help, we can’t get to everyone. Some of the fires and damage to the roads are preventing us from reaching certain areas.” He put his hand on his duty belt and looked at Elisha. “You have anywhere else to stay?”
“No. This is it.”
He looked around and then leaned in. “Obviously this place isn’t safe. Until we catch those responsible it’s probably best you stay somewhere else.”
“We could go to my mother’s house,” Liam said. “If it’s there, that is.”
“Where is it?”
“North end of the city. Leisure Lake Mobile Home Park.”
Garcia jerked his head toward the exit. “Come on then. I need to make a stop at the station along the way but I’ll take you there after that.”
As they went out, Elisha passed an old man who was dripping blood everywhere. He looked as if he was already dead or passed out. She’d never seen this level of violence. Garcia hurried, and said something to one of his colleagues over a portable radio as they made their way to his cruiser. Elisha fell in step. “Why are you helping us?”
“It’s my job.”
“No. You’ve helped us already.”
“Sophie would want me to help.”
She screwed up her face. “My mother? But you only met her once when she had that break-in.” Then the penny dropped.
He opened up the back door on the cruiser and told Liam to jump in but warned him that it would be a tight squeeze as he was escorting someone over to the jail. They could hear cursing from inside. Liam ducked his head and was hesitant to get in but Garcia reassured him that the guy was in cuffs. Reluctantly he slipped in.
He then put Elisha in the front with him. “So, you’re telling me you’ve been dating my mother?”
“Would you have a problem if I was?” he asked as he rounded the front of the cruiser.
“No but…”
He tapped the top of the cruiser with his knuckle. “Look, I want to help but you’ll have to save these questions for the journey. I’ve got to get moving.” He slid into the driver’s side and Elisha looked back at the shelter. She felt bad to leave as she wanted to help but Garcia seemed pretty certain that this wouldn’t be the last time an attack would happen.
As she got in, she thought back to her interactions with her mom, the final days before she left for Florida. Elisha had her suspicions. The urgency to get the papers signed. The nights she couldn’t get hold of her. How long had she been seeing him? And had that factored into her decision to divorce her father? As the cruiser peeled away she continued her line of questioning.
“How long you been seeing her?”
“Not long. A couple of months. Mostly for lunch.”
“So, you’re dating?”
“You can call it that. But we’re just friends, that’s all.”
“Really?”
He kept glancing in his rearview mirror as they sped through the streets. “Look, your mother is a good woman. I met her when she had the break-in. We had coffee and we talked and found we had a lot in common.”
“Like?”
He snorted. “She said you would probably be against it.”
“Well, maybe that’s because she’s not divorced.”
He frowned. “She said it was over. The papers had been signed.”
“Signed, but finalized — no.”
The convict with a bandage on his leg in the back started laughing. “Oh homie you are so dead. I warned you. Carlos isn’t going to stop until he gets me back.”
“Yeah, well let him come.”
“Did this asshole have something to do with the shooting back there?” Liam asked.
The guy laughed. “Damn right. Tell them, Garcia. Tell them what you brought down on this town.”
Both Liam and Elisha were looking at Garcia expecting him to fill in the blanks. “Shut the hell up.”
The guy continued. “My brother is going to cut you up. You should have left us alone, homie.”
“What is he talking about?” Liam asked.
“Doesn’t matter. Don’t listen to him.”
“Oh, don’t listen to me. You think this town is burning now. You just wait.”
Garcia slammed the brakes on and jumped out. He went to the rear and opened the door and slammed his fist into the guy’s jaw, knocking him clean out. Then without missing a beat, he closed the door and got back in and drove on leaving the two of them speechless.
23
North Carolina
The house was ablaze. Alex stopped for a brief moment and looked back at the inferno. While the police distracted Cowboy, they’d managed to escape out the rear and sprinted into the cover of a heavily wooded area. Their timing couldn’t have been better. Prior to leaving, one of Cowboy’s cohorts had decided to lob a Molotov cocktail through a side window and torch the place. Damn thing was like dry wood, it went up so fast that had they still been upstairs when it was thrown they would have been dead for sure.
The crackle of wood, and the aroma spread as a hard wind blew it through the trees.
“Where are you taking us?” Alex asked.
“I know a guy.”
“Is he anything like Cowboy? Because if he is, I don’t want to go,” Ryan said.
“Cowboy was a mistake.”
“Coming here was a mistake,” Alex added glaring at Ryan. “I’m not wasting any more time. I need to circle back and get the SUV.”
“Forget it,” Thomas said as he led the way. “You’ll be dead before you reach it.”
Alex caught up with him and put a meaty hand on his collar. “You got wheels?”
“No.”
“Does this guy you know have a vehicle?”
“No.”
“Then we’re heading back.”
“All right. But we need to wait until daybreak. Cowboy will be keeping an eye on that place. He’s like a dog on a bone. Once he gets
his teeth in you he doesn’t let go until he’s satisfied.”
“Well then maybe we should feed you to him,” Ryan said. “Would be sweet karma.”
“You know — fuck you, Ryan. What I did, you would have done. And besides, you’re out now. So how about you stop bellyaching and whining like a bitch?”
Ryan went for him but Alex shoved him back. “Are we going to have this the rest of the way? Because if we are I’m leaving both of you here.”
“Alex,” Sophie said. He glanced over his shoulder and she motioned to him. He held back as the other two walked on grumbling and taking verbal jabs at one another. “We are all running on empty and could use a little sleep. Maybe Thomas is right. We come back in the morning.”
“Elisha?”
“Right now we don’t even know if she’s alive. I know you want to get there and so do I but if we don’t get some sleep, specifically you and Ryan, we won’t make it back. We’ll make mistakes and right now we are all we’ve got. Like it or leave it.”
Sophie was right. He was exhausted and snapping, everyone was. They continued on, cutting through rear yards to an eastside neighborhood that covered a broad, hilly area west of French Broad River and south of Interstate 240.
“Cranberry Apartments?” Ryan said. “Fancy name. More like shithole apartments.”
Alex had to admit it was a run-down neighborhood that was akin to some of the poorer areas of Elizabeth City. Cops and children’s services were often seen there dealing with drug addicts and child neglect.
“Who’s this friend of yours? Do I know him?” Ryan asked.
“No. She’s my ex.”
“Oh I have got to see this.”
Thomas raised his hands. “She can be a little skittish so… just follow my lead.”
“We intend to,” Alex replied as they reached a three-story apartment building that had a number of its windows boarded up.
It was a sketchy little abode that crouched at the corner of an intersection, one of the roads ended at a dead end and the other fed into the downtown. Thomas pulled hard on a rusty door that hadn’t seen a lick of oil on the hinges since they’d installed it. Inside, they were greeted by the aroma of piss and weed, and someone at the bottom of the stairwell. One by one they stepped over the body unsure if the person was dead or asleep.
“Crack addict,” Thomas said. “You find them here all the time.”
“Pleasant,” Sophie replied.
They climbed two flights of steps before he knocked on an unfinished wood door. “Hey Raven. It’s me, Thomas.”
“Go away!”
“Look, I’m in trouble. I need a place to put my head down for the night.”
They heard someone shuffle behind the door, and a faint light illuminated at the bottom. “Who are the others?”
“You remember Ryan?”
Thomas grabbed Ryan and placed him in front of the door.
“I thought he was in jail,” Raven replied.
“They gave him a Get Out of Jail Free card. Listen, Raven. Open up.”
It sounded like Fort Knox was being unlocked. Several latches, chains and bolts were pulled on and then the door cracked open. Thomas shouldered his way in before she could ask any more questions. “Hey, you mind?”
“Very much so. I like what you’ve done with the place,” Thomas said as they followed him in. The girl was dressed in black, wearing huge boots that went up to her knees. She had black hair, a nose ring that made her look like a pig and dark mascara. She was holding a flashlight.
One glance around the room and it was clear there was definitely a goth thing going on. There wasn’t a hint of color to the apartment walls but it was jam-packed with more shit than Best Buy. TVs, computers, boxes of iPhones, all manner of tech equipment, and at the heart of it was a gamer’s wet dream — a top-of-the-line chair in front of three computer screens. “Um, I could use one of those,” Thomas said picking up a box only to have it swiped out of his hand.
“Don’t touch the merchandise!” She set it back down and put her hands on her hips, her eyes bouncing between them. “Heard Cowboy’s looking for you.”
“Yeah, he found me at my new address. Well, old address as he burned it to the ground.” He slumped down and reached for a bag of weed, and a bong on the table. She didn’t stop him from touching that. He broke off a piece of green and stuck it in the bowl and lit it with a lighter. Then he took a huge hit filling the room with a white cloud.
“You can’t stay here, Thomas.”
“Why not?”
She stared back at him then shot Ryan a look. “You might have screwed up your relationship with him but I depend on this. I’m not having you fuck it up.”
Sophie and Alex observed, looking around the room, feeling out of place.
The walls were covered in Japanese anime art and posters for bands like The Cult, and The Cure. “You wouldn’t have any of this if it wasn’t for me. Besides, all we need is a place for the night. We’ll be gone in the morning,” Thomas said.
“That leaves a large window open for him to show up and you know he will.”
“Has he been here?” Alex asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then he won’t come back tonight,” Thomas said, turning the bong in his hands and admiring the water sloshing around in the bottom.
“So self-assured.”
“That’s why you love me.”
“More like that’s why I kicked your ass out.”
She went to take the bong from him and he pulled it away. “Chill. I just need something to take the edge off. Already had to deal with two problems tonight,” he said looking at Ryan.
Raven brushed past him and stared Ryan up and down. “Heard they put you away.”
“Yep. Locked the cell door and threw away the key.”
“Why you out?”
“Because of my good looks,” he shot back. She smirked and walked into the kitchen.
“Hey Raven, you think you can whip us up some food and drinks?”
“Do I look like your maid?” she said poking her head out of the kitchen.
Thomas snorted and shot back, “I’ll take my sandwich with a little mustard.”
She tossed him the bird and Thomas laughed, offering Ryan the bong. He went to take it and Alex took it from him. “Yeah, I think not.”
“Man, your parents have you on a tight leash.”
“They’re not my parents,” he said. “And I’m thinking of getting reassigned.”
Sophie narrowed her eyes.
“I meant him,” he said pointing to Alex.
Sophie removed a few items from a chair and took a seat at a table. “This is going to be a long night.”
24
California
Petaluma Police Department was a one-story modern building at the crossroads of Sycamore Lane and Petaluma Boulevard. Apparently Lucchesi Park wasn’t the only place the community were taking up residence. Some had chosen to erect tents in the parking lot across the road, and some even out front. The damn street looked like Skid Row; boxes, tents, people were using anything for shelter.
“Can’t you put some of these people up in homes, or businesses?” Elisha asked.
“Sure we can. Arranging it is another thing entirely. Back in 2017, when we had those wildfires, we used the park and local churches, all arranged by the city’s Emergency Operations Center.”
“In English,” Liam said.
“They have emergency protocols to follow, plans and a response that deals with this kind of thing but nothing to this magnitude. We’re spending more time chasing our tails and digging people out of the ground right now.” He swerved barely missing a few folks who were walking aimlessly and not looking where they were going. Garcia honked his horn and they looked apologetic. “Anyway, as I was saying. With something like this we would evacuate people to a different city but we’re not the only ones suffering. If the reports are true, this has occurred all across the United States.” Garcia flipped on his li
ghts and siren for a second then turned them off and yelled out the window. “You can’t put your tents there.”
“Where else can we go? The parking lot is full.”
“Lucchesi Park.”
“But that’s miles away. We came here so we can feel safe.”
He shook his head. “MOVE!”
A father got his teenage kids to help pull a tent out of the way so Garcia could get through and bring the vehicle up to the side of the building. “Who’s the guy?” Liam asked looking at the unconscious Latino beside him.
“Benny Zonaras.”
“He’s a gang member?”
“Yup! But he’s more bark than bite.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about. What was that about his brother?”
“Don’t worry about him. Just hang tight while I get him processed.”
“There’s cops inside?”
“Just over a hundred of us, but around sixty-five officers. However, not all of them showed up for work. They must be dead or buried because you can be sure they would be here.”
“That’s what you think,” Liam said.
Garcia got out and went around and opened the door, then leaned in and patted Benny on the face. “Hey asshole. Wake up!”
Benny let out a groan. A trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth dropped to the seat. “Come on!” Garcia sighed. “What’s your name again?”
“Liam.”
“Liam, give me a hand getting him inside please.”
Liam glanced at Elisha as he got out and went around. They dragged Benny out and took him in while she waited in the cruiser. With nothing else to do but sit there observing, people in nearby tents walked over hoping she knew a little more than they did. One disheveled woman with a full head of gray hair knocked on her window. Elisha brought it down just a crack.
