Scavenger Hunt

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Elena must have finally caught onto his terror, and something inside her must have warned that Solomon wasn’t exagerrating, because she suddenly looked just as terrified as he was. She began shoveling the money into the backpack even faster. Some bills fluttered to the ground and Clint made as if to grab them, but Noelle stopped him.

  Then Solomon heard a sound that froze him and everyone else in the room. The screech of a car pulling up in front of the house. The sound of a car door slamming.

  “He’s here,” said Solomon, and now the words were a moan. He wasn’t ashamed of it either. Not at all.

  An image filled his head. Early on – he was Big Wise already, but hadn’t been that for long, and was still getting used to his role as a lower-rung member of the 52s. SFD had brought him to a crack house on eighth. Big Wise knew the place by sight, but had never been inside. He expected it to be trashed – places like that weren’t famous for hygiene – but hadn’t expected the smell.

  Piss and shit were the first smells that hit him. But they weren’t the worst. The worst ones were the smell of rotting meat and, below it, a tangy odor that Big Wise recognized but couldn’t quite place. Not until he’d seen what SFD had brought him to see.

  “You in now, little brother. Be sure you don’t make no stupid mistakes.”

  Big Wise stared at the body on the floor, and knew that the acrid odor under it all was the blood that had run thick and deep from the man’s body. Big Wise thought it was a man, at least. He couldn’t be totally sure, since every one of the body’s limbs was so bent and broken it was impossible to tell whether they had been muscular, flabby, thin, or much of anything else. The chest didn’t reveal much, neither, since it had been flattened to a grotesque point, probably by heavy blows from the crowbar that still lay across the body.

  The face itself was gone. Just a thick mix of bone and blood.

  Man? Woman? For some reason it bothered Big Wise less to think of it as a dude. But it could have been either, and that was the truth.

  On the wall nearest the body, in long letters that must have been red but had faded and dried to sickly browns and blacks, was the simple message: “Tr8r.”

  “Two-Teeth made you a brother,” said SFD. “Make sure you don’t do nothing that’ll bring your family down. Two-Teeth don’t like it.”

  Big Wise wanted to laugh. He had no intention of doing anything to bring the 52s down. But no laughter was possible when looking at this. “Two-Teeth do this?” he said.

  “Does it matter? It happened. That shit’s enough,” said SFD. But something in his eyes screamed the answer. Two-Teeth had done this. And something else in SFD’s eyes told Big Wise that Two-Teeth had enjoyed it.

  Tr8r, he thought now. That’s me.

  Two-Teeth made traitors suffer. And Two-Teeth was here.

  Elena had finished packing the last of the money. She walked toward the door to the hall, but stopped when she heard the front door open.

  The house filled with silence, so heavy it made Solomon want to claw at the air. It felt like he was drowning.

  “Someone in here?” came Two-Teeth’s voice.

  Noelle clapped a hand over her mouth.

  A moment later, Solomon heard the heavy clomp of someone huge walking up the stairs. He smelled the tangy scent of his memory, and cringed, already feeling the blows raining down.

  Elena took a step toward the door. But that was no good, was it? No way to get out – the stairs were the only way down from the second floor, and that was where Two-Teeth was. Between them and the door.

  13

  Solomon did the only thing he could think to do: he ran. Not for the stairs, but for the other end of the hall. He didn’t look to see if the others followed. They either would or they wouldn’t. They would either make noise or they wouldn’t. Two-Teeth would hear them or…

  His mind stalled at that thought. He knew they had maybe two seconds to get out of sight before Two-Teeth got close enough to see over the low wall that separated the stairs from the hall; to see him.

  He flitted down the hall, trying to step as light as he could. The final door was just ahead. He grabbed it, opened it, then slid inside.

  The rest of the group was behind him. He hadn’t heard them, which was good since it meant that Two-Teeth –

  Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!

  – wouldn’t have heard them either. But it was almost their undoing, too, since when Solomon turned once he got out of the hall, he almost slammed into Noelle, who was so close behind him he should have felt her breath on his neck. She collided with him, and they almost fell.

  Two-Teeth would have heard that. He would have had to.

  But a hand darted out. Chong. The big dude’s arm corded with thick muscle, and he let out a small whoof of air as he struggled to keep either Solomon or Noelle from falling.

  Clomp.

  Then Solomon was upright. Moving aside to let Clint and Elena join them in the tiny space. It was a bathroom, dingy and reeking of long-unwashed surfaces. The sink was a chipped mockery of itself, the mirror above it broken out to reveal the mildewed wall behind. It was a close fit for one person, let alone five.

  It would have to do.

  Elena had barely entered before Solomon pushed the door shut, stopping at the last second to keep the latch from clicking. He turned the knob slowly, edging the door home.

  He had to do it slow, because he had to do it quiet… because there was no more sound coming from the stairs. Two-Teeth was in the hall.

  A few more thuds. Lighter, these, the sounds of someone walking carelessly toward a place he expected to find silent and closed. Then there was a roar. A shriek.

  Noelle yanked a hand free of her pockets long enough to clap it over her mouth, to silence the cry that Solomon could see struggling to free itself from within her.

  “We have to go,” whispered Elena, even as there was another roar, and a heavy noise that Solomon figured was what it sounded like when a beast of a dude grabbed a bed and flipped it over one-handed.

  “We can’t go, you dumb –” began Chong in a harsh whisper. But he didn’t finish the thought, because he saw Elena pointing at her watch.

  Solomon looked, too.

  0:42…

  0:41…

  Elena took half a step toward the door. Solomon grabbed the handle to the door, covering it with his big hand. He shook his head. “We go, we’re worse than dead,” he whispered. But he looked at his watch again.

  0:39…

  Two-Teeth started screaming over and over, a wordless rant that Solomon thought was probably the last thing that nameless, faceless body had heard before the pain began.

  Footsteps sounded as Two-Teeth ran into the hall. Coming closer.

  Solomon still held the doorknob in his hands. So he felt the tiny tremor as it was gripped by a hand on the other side. He thought about holding onto it, trying to stop Two-Teeth from turning it. But what would that accomplish?

  The knob turned under his palm.

  Then, outside the door, a cell phone rang, sounding the opening scratches and beats of N.W.A’s “Gangsta Gangsta.” The sounds ended as Two-Teeth apparently picked up and shouted, “What is it?” A moment of silence, then, “What. The. FUCK?”

  More footsteps sounded, this time moving away as Two-Teeth ran down the hall. Down the stairs, sounding like he was taking them two at a time.

  Clint reached for the doorknob. Solomon grabbed his hand and shook his head. Clint looked at his watch. “We aren’t going to get out in time.”

  Solomon hesitated. He didn’t want to get his head blown off. But Two-Teeth… if he found them here, that would be infinitely worse.

  So he waited. Waited.

  Below them, they heard more crashing as Two-Teeth upended more furniture on his way out of the house. Solomon nodded. Waited for another crash.

  When it came, he turned the knob and led the others out. Not downstairs – if Two-Teeth spotted them before he left, they’d all be dead, one way or another. Eithe
r Mr. Do-Good would kill them or, if they weren’t lucky, then Two-Teeth would.

  No, Solomon and the others had to wait until he was gone, and even then couldn’t leave by the front door, which was easily visible for at least a block up and down the street. Two-Teeth had the attention and instinct of any apex predator, and might easily spot movement at the house, even in his rearview mirror.

  So he didn’t go for the stairs. He led them, instead, back to Two-Teeth’s room.

  14

  They all followed him, moving silently as possible. Even after the front door opened and shut, they still moved on cat’s feet. Noelle was the only one who broke the silence.

  “Fifteen seconds! We won’t make it!”

  Solomon ignored her, leading a concerted rush to the window in Two-Teeth’s room. They had to swerve around the remains of the table that had held the cash, and the bed that looked like it had been flipped as easily as a piece of paper.

  Clint ran to the window and began yanking on it, trying to open it as Noelle said, “Ten seconds!”

  “Move, dammit,” shouted Chong.

  Outside, they heard the squeal of tires as Two-Teeth burned rubber down the street. That was what Solomon had been waiting for. He had known that the window wouldn’t open, but hadn’t wanted to risk what came next. It was the side of the house, and from the sound of the car he figured it was on the back of the place from Two-Teeth’s perspective. Even so, he’d waited until the last possible second.

  Do-Good’s message just said they had to leave the house before the five minutes was up, not that they had to leave the property, so Solomon hoped they’d have time.

  “Four!” Noelle had abandoned silence in favor of a panicked screaming.

  Solomon grabbed the table off the floor. It was a lightweight, rickety thing, and even as he swung it, the leg he’d been holding separated from the rest of it. That was fine. Better, even.

  He swung the leg at the window, smashing it out, then quickly running the leg around the edges to clear away the dangerously jagged shards of glass that remained.

  Then he was over and out, pitching himself through the now-open window, rolling onto the eave that circled the house, rolling away barely in time to miss being crushed yet again by Chong’s weight as the big dude tossed himself out as well.

  An oof! as Noelle followed, landing on top of Chong. Then Clint. Then Elena.

  “Did we make it?” she was screaming even as she landed. “Are we out? Did it count?”

  The watches everyone wore beeped. Solomon went rigid, his jaw locking as though if he clenched it hard enough he might block the collar’s impending blast. Might save his head from splashing all over the eave.

  The blast didn’t come.

  Chong levered himself out from under the people who’d followed him out the window. He jerked his way free, sending Elena tumbling to the side. She almost rolled right off the eave, saved only by Clint snagging her with a viper-quick grab.

  Chong didn’t notice or care. He was still crawling, moving toward Solomon as he growled, “Why’d you wait? You coulda killed us!”

  Before Solomon could answer – could explain why he’d waited, and exactly what Two-Teeth could have and would have done to them if they were seen – Chong threw himself forward. Solomon felt the big man hit him, and felt a few shingles slide loose of their moorings below him at the same time. Then he felt nothing at all – no weight, no sense of self. Just the air rushing past as Chong and he both went right over the side of the eave.

  He vaguely heard the sounds of the others making their way down, but only as a dim, faraway recognition. The rest of his attention was taken up by pain as his body hit the hard-packed dirt below the eave.

  He heard Chong groan beside him.

  Good. Maybe he’s dead.

  But he wasn’t dead. Far from it. In fact, Solomon realized that the big man had fallen partly on him, which probably shielded him from some of the pain of falling on the brick-hard ground. That was why Chong was up first. Hands and knees, then standing, then he was down again as he threw himself on top of Solomon.

  Solomon was a good fighter – a dirty fighter. He was tall and wiry and he knew from experience that he was much stronger than he looked. But Chong was less hurt by the fall, and had at least twenty pounds on him, not to mention the advantage of gravity since he started the fight on top of Solomon.

  Solomon punched automatically, and felt his right hand connect with Chong’s head. The swing was wild, though, so instead of hitting the bigger man in the temple or jaw – either of which would have rocked him away and maybe knocked him cold – he hit the man in the back of the head. Chong grunted and reeled back, but only a bit. Only the shortest moment of dizziness and then he was back on the attack – and Solomon was pretty sure he’d broken a couple of fingers. That wasn’t unusual in a fight, he knew – just as he knew that he could still make a fist and use it in a pinch – but it hurt like hell, and cut the force of all his attacks on that side in half.

  Chong rocked back forward. Solomon tried to meet him with a left jab to the nose, but turned out the other man had a bit of fight experience, too. He didn’t try to lean away from the punch, which would have been useless considering Solomon’s reach. He just bunched up his shoulders around his ears, slid to his left, ducking the blow.

  Chong peppered Solomon back with a quick one-two combination. The blows didn’t hurt him much, but they sent the back of his head pounding into the dirt.

  That seemed to give Chong an idea, and he switched away from punching. He grabbed Solomon’s shirt in one hand, his hair in the other, and raised the upper half of Solomon’s body, then slammed it backward.

  Solomon’s vision simultaneously clouded and slid to the side as the back of his head slammed into the dirt. He barely had time to gasp in pain before Chong repeated the action, and Solomon could see – barely – bloodlust creating a kind of insanity in the other man’s eyes.

  This fight wouldn’t end in defeat. It would end in Solomon’s death unless he did something fast.

  His left hand scrabbled, trying to find something. Anything. He came on a rounded form, cold and hard, that his body recognized must be one of the lawn ornaments that lay scattered about the outside of the house. They’d been there forever, remnants of the last owner of the place before the Five-Deuce moved in, and which the gang had never bothered to remove.

  He lifted the thing, and his heart plummeted. It was so light – obviously hollow. Even hitting Chong on the side of the head with it wouldn’t make a difference. It might cut him, might make him dizzy, but wouldn’t stop him.

  Chong rocked backward, then forward again, and again Solomon’s head impacted the unforgiving ground. He couldn’t take much more of this.

  “Stop! Don’t do this,” shouted Elena.

  Something about her scream penetrated the mist of rage and pain that had all but destroyed his rational thought.

  What am I doing? How does this help anything – help me?

  Chong actually paused with Solomon’s upper body held at a forty-five degree angle, preparatory to the blow that would signal the end to any resistance and then the end of his life.

  Solomon used the moment. Acting seemingly of its own accord, his wrist flicked to the side. There was a strangely bright-sounding crackle of breaking clay. He felt blood in his hand – he must have cut himself – but didn’t even feel the pain. He just clenched his fist around the same jagged shard that had cut him, then sent it sideways.

  Chong shouted as the shard went into his side, just under his ribs. More wetness on Solomon’s hand as blood gushed. Chong rolled away, tumbling back to the ground as pain and the shock that sometimes accompanied sudden blood loss drove the strength from his body.

  Solomon followed him over, rolling with him. The shard was gone from his hand – must have fallen out after he sliced Chong with it – but he swept up another one and when he rolled over on top of Chong, he jammed it against the other man’s throat. Didn’t sli
ce him open, though a part of him –

  (The Big Wise part.)

  – screamed that he should do just that.

  He pushed hard enough to break the skin. A red line down the side of Chong’s neck.

  Chong froze, and didn’t move even when Solomon leaned in close enough to whisper in his ear, “If Two-Teeth had found us… believe me, getting our heads blown off would have been a mercy.”

  He waited. Chong glared at him with hatred and fear, the two so intense they melted into each other.

  Their watches beeped. He heard Do-Good speak from them, his strange, shaky-giddy voice warbling out, “Do-Good says, PHEW! That was close. Next challenge: go to 1089 Heart Street. Time: 20 minutes.”

  “Where’s Heart Street?” said Noelle.

  “Knowing Do-Good, it’s probably two or three miles away,” said Elena, her voice a mix of weariness and disgust.

  Solomon glanced at them, then looked back at Chong. “We done?”

  Chong nodded, slowly since the shard still bit lightly into his neck. “For now,” he said.

  Solomon considered this. He nodded, then gave Chong one last jab with the shard. A bit more blood welled. “All good,” said Chong.

  Solomon stood. He kept holding the shard in his hand. Glanced at it and saw it was a curved piece of a lawn gnome’s head, shattered into pieces.

  Just like our heads are gonna be.

  He turned to the others in the group as Chong huffed his way to his feet. “Twenty minutes.” said Solomon. “Lotta time.”

  “You know the place?” asked Elena.

  Solomon nodded. “Yeah. First break we’ve had: it’s only a mile away, so twenty minutes’ll be easy.”

  He gestured for everyone else to leave, a bit worried that he’d have more trouble with Chong and not wanting the rest of them to get any ideas about jumping in to help one or the other of them if it happened. He was pretty sure everyone hated Chong, but not at all sure what they felt of him. Normally he didn’t care about such things –