Harbor

by Tom Abrahams

Krespan burst into the room, breathless. “Sir,” he said, “we found where they went.”

  Rickshaw eyed the woman again and winked. “I’ll be back.”

  He followed Krespan from the room, his revolver in his hand, calling to the guards, “You can let go of her. Keep an eye on her. I’ll be back.”

  He and Krespan wound their way back through the kitchen to an open door. It was narrow and taller than the other doors. As he approached, Rickshaw could see it led to a set of stairs that descended into a basement. Krespan led him down the steps and into a dimly lit space with low ceilings and the dank odor of mildew and red clay.

  They turned right and Krespan guided Rickshaw amongst boxes and discarded household goods. Rickshaw noticed they’d traveled too far to still be underneath the brownstone from which they’d descended.

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  “This leads to another house,” Krespan said. “There are stairs leading there. The other two guards are there.”

  “How far?”

  Krespan pointed ahead with the barrel of his rifle. “Up here. Almost there.”

  Krespan turned right and started bounding up the steps, taking them two at a time. Rickshaw followed his lead, his boots hammering on the stairs as he climbed toward this new house.

  He reached the top and entered the kitchen. It looked almost identical to the one from which he’d just come, but it was backwards, a mirror of the other house. This one had clearly been used.

  The faint scent of coffee and cooking oil permeated the space. Rickshaw looked around. Despite the evidence of people having been here, he didn’t see any people.

  “Where are they?” he asked with the same tone he’d used with Gladys.

  “Follow me,” said Krespan.

  They maneuvered their way through the house, racing along corridors and through large rooms until they reached an open door that led to a garage. The garage door was open. One of the guards was on the concrete floor, motionless, a pool of blood leaking from under his back.

  Rickshaw marched past the body, not checking to see if the guard was alive. He kicked away the rifle and sent it skittering across the floor. The other guard was standing in the short driveway, his rifle raised at an invisible target farther up the street.

  “What is this?” Rickshaw demanded. He stood with his boots shoulder width apart, his attention split between the guard on the driveway and Krespan.

  Krespan was kneeling next to the prone guard. “He’s dead.”

  “I don’t care about that,” said Rickshaw. “I care about the fugitives. What happened?”

  Krespan got to his feet and met Rickshaw in the driveway. There was dim light from the moon and the lone functioning streetlight on the block.

  “We found the door open,” said Krespan, “the one leading from the basement to this house. I sent the two guards ahead and came back to get you. So—”

  “Then stop talking,” said Rickshaw. He rounded on the other guard. “I need to hear from someone who knows what happened.”

  The guard lowered his rifle. He kept both hands on it and aimed the muzzle at the ground. “They were still here when we got into the kitchen. We could hear ’em. They were loading up into a truck.”

  Rickshaw tensed, one hand curling into a fist. With the other he adjusted his grip on the revolver.

  The guard swallowed hard. “We tried to stop ’em, sir. They got the drop on us. We both fired. I think I hit the truck, but there was—”

  “How many were there?”

  “Eight.”

  “Eight?”

  “Four adults, a couple of kids, and I’m pretty sure there were two babies.”

  Rickshaw loosened the fist and held up two fingers. “Two babies?”

  The guard nodded, his eyes darting between Rickshaw and Krespan.

  “What was the vehicle?”

  “A big silver truck,” said the guard. “Chevy, I think. Four door, big bed. It had a tarp over it held down by bungees. I—”

  “Which way did they go?”

  The guard pointed in the direction he’d been aiming his rifle. “They can’t be more than—”

  The bullet drilled through his skull and dropped him before he finished the sentence. Rickshaw held the revolver out for an extended moment. Then he lowered it and flipped open the cylinder. From his pocket he pulled out a handful of rounds and loaded them, one by one, into the weapon.

  He turned to a slack-jawed, wide-eyed Krespan. The soldier appeared frozen into place, the human model for a stone carving or wax figure.

  “Fifty-fifty shot,” Rickshaw said. “Pretty good odds. For me, not for him.”

  Krespan leveled his gaze at Rickshaw. “Why did you do that, sir?”

  “He let them get away. I don’t need somebody like that working for me. Plus, it felt good. It’s a release. You get it, Krespan?”

  He nodded, but Rickshaw knew the guard didn’t get it. Krespan followed orders, but he wasn’t cut from the same cloth.

  “C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get the woman and take her with us as we give chase.”

  Krespan’s brow wrinkled. “Give chase, sir?”

  Rickshaw chortled. “Yes. We’re not letting them get away.”

  The captain led his subordinate back through the house and down the stairs into the basement. He knew that in the big scheme of things, chasing a random group of newly proclaimed fugitives shouldn’t be a priority. Not on the surface, anyhow. But given that this group of men, women, and children had made a stop at the home of the purported ringleader of the railroad, there must be some value in them.

  If Gladys would risk her entire operation to save these people, two things were clear. One, she had a connection to them. And two, they were definitely headed toward the Harbor. He could feel it.

  Adrenaline surged through his body as he weaved his way across the basement toward the steps that led back to the first house. The big strong guard kept pace. Rickshaw felt Krespan on his hip. The heavy plunk of his military boots on the floor matched Rickshaw’s own gait.

  They climbed the steps with the same vigor and speed as before. Rickshaw led them through the kitchen. His revolver was holstered now. He dragged the fingers of his right hand along the dusty countertop, leaving clean streaks behind.

  His duster billowed behind him as he moved with purpose into the hallway. Then he stopped cold.

  Rickshaw held up his hand and stopped Rickshaw. The two stood in the hall. A gurgling sound came from the parlor. A rifle lay on the floor, half of it in the hallway. The front door to the house was open.

  The captain motioned for Krespan to move forward, and the two of them inched toward the parlor. Rickshaw unsnapped the strap on his holster and drew the revolver. He spun it in his hand and held it up, ready to fire.

  The gurgling sound grew louder as they approached. The closer they got, the more it sounded like a man choking.

  Rickshaw reached the wide opening that led from the hallway into the parlor and swung around with the revolver leveled waist high, sweeping the room.

  The woman was gone. Two men were on the floor. One of them stared blankly at the ceiling, his throat torn open. The other was on his side, his legs and arms twitching. His hand gripped a knife at the corner of his neck. It was driven to the hilt. He was the source of the gurgle, the choking sounds that sent chills up and down Rickshaw’s spine.

  “Check the door, Krespan. See what’s out there.”

  He moved to the dying man on the floor and crouched beside him. He held a finger to his lips and then put his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Shhh,” he said. “Stop fighting it. It’s over for you, brother. It’s over.”

  Then he twisted the knife and withdrew it from the man’s neck. It was over.

  Rickshaw wiped the blade on the guard’s uniform and studied it. It wasn’t a big knife, the blade no more than three inches. But it was serrated on one side and sharpened to a fine edge on the other. He folded it into its grip and stood, stuffing it into
his pocket.

  Krespan came back into the house and stood in the hall. He pursed his lips and shook his head. “She’s gone, sir,” he said. “I don’t see any trace of her.”

  CHAPTER 24

  APRIL 21, 2054, 9:30 PM

  SCOURGE +21 YEARS, 7 MONTHS

  ATLANTA, GEORGIA

  “Did you kill him?”

  The question lingered in the truck’s cab. It hung there amongst them, three in the front and four crammed into the back.

  Marcus took off his hat and put it on the dash in front of him. He leaned against the front passenger’s door, giving himself as much hip room as possible. Dallas was in the middle between Sally and him.

  “It was a clean shot,” said Marcus. “So the chances are good.”

  Sally gripped her hands on the wheel. “Good that he’s alive, or good that he’s dead?”

  Marcus scratched his neck. The stubble was irritating his skin. “Depends on your perspective, I guess.”

  “He did what he had to do,” said Lou. “If he hadn’t returned fire, they’d have caught us.”

  Marcus shifted in his seat. He didn’t like being this close to Dallas. Days without a shower hadn’t done him any favors.

  Sally checked the rearview mirror, presumably to glare at Lou. She twisted her hands on the wheel again, tightened her grip, and accelerated onto the highway. The truck bounced against a pothole the size of the Volkswagen from Gun Barrel City.

  David squealed in the back seat. Or it could have been Javier. Marcus wasn’t sure. They were in the middle, next to each other and between their mothers. Both women held their infants against their bodies.

  “I’m just saying,” said Sally, stealing glances at everyone in the truck, “that if they are dead, they’re all the more likely to come after us.”

  “I’m just saying,” mocked Lou, “that if we hadn’t gotten out of there, none of this would matter. What did you say your name was?”

  Sally changed lanes to avoid another pothole. She glanced in the mirror. “Sally. And you’re Lou?”

  “Why are you doing this?” asked Lou.

  “Doing what?”

  “Helping us?’

  “I’m a conductor,” said Sally. “It’s what I do.”

  That answer seemed to satisfy Lou, at least enough that she didn’t ask any more questions. She turned her attention to her newborn. Marcus heard the suckling sound of a newborn trying to learn the art of feeding.

  The truck bounced when the tires struck a wide divot in the road. It wasn’t really a pothole, it was more of a crease that spread from one side of the concrete to the other and was essentially unavoidable. Sally jerked the wheel. The bright white fan of the headlights shifted their illumination of the road ahead and settled again.

  Marcus was surprised at the state of disrepair of the roads here. The last time he was in Atlanta, more than a decade ago, it hadn’t been this bad. And technology had only improved, hadn’t it? Clearly, the government had other priorities.

  They were headed northeast. Marcus only knew that from the electronic compass on the dash. He adjusted his hips again and leaned on the door. His eyes settled on the zip of the fading white dashes separating the highway’s two lanes.

  He squinted, focusing on the lines appearing at the edge of the headlights’ reach and disappearing underneath the front of the truck. He smiled, remembering how, as a child, he would do this and pretend he was in a spaceship traveling at light speed.

  It was especially fun on newly paved asphalt, which was virtually black and gave the impression that he was surrounded by darkness. In his head he would make laser noises or maybe the sounds of explosions as his spaceship, an X-wing fighter from Star Wars or a Cylon Raider from Battlestar Galactica, fought off the enemy. Fighting the enemy in his head was so much more fun than doing it in real life. Nobody got hurt, and he was absent guilt or regret.

  He was lost in thought long enough that the women and kids in the back were asleep. Even the infants were snorting contentedly. That was a blessing.

  Only Sally and Dallas were awake.

  Dallas nudged him back to the moment. “Hey.”

  Marcus gave Dallas a side-eye, which he hoped would tell him he wasn’t interested in talking. It was either too dark in the cab for him to see it or Dallas ignored it.

  “You awake?” Dallas asked.

  Marcus knew that Dallas knew he was awake. This dude was a man-child. Marcus sighed, as would any exasperated parent. He regretted not having put his hat on his head and pulling it low over his eyes. He could have used the sleep, and it would have stopped a conversation he didn’t want to have. He hadn’t had the forethought, so he relented.

  “Yeah,” he said. “What’s up?”

  Dallas leaned in, eliminating the modicum of space between them, and lowered his voice. A waft of his rank odor wafted into Marcus’s nose. “I’ve gotta get something off my chest.”

  Marcus considered making a Lou-quality snarky comment, but thought better of it. He shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  “I know Lou wanted you here,” said Dallas, “and I—”

  Marcus sighed. “Are we doing this again?”

  Dallas put up a hand. “Just let me finish. I’m trying to be a man about this.”

  Marcus snorted then apologized. “Sorry.”

  Dallas flexed his jaw, likely restraining himself from saying something that would derail whatever his point was. He closed his eyes for a moment and then continued. “Back at the library, you really put my wife in danger.”

  Perhaps sensing the tension building in Marcus’s body, Dallas held up his hands and shook his head. “I’m not saying you meant to do it, I’m just asking you to remember why you’re here. You’re here to keep us alive. This is not a revenge mission. It’s not a rescue mission. It’s an escape.”

  Marcus relaxed. The kid had a point.

  “I love Lou more than anything in this world,” Dallas said. “I mean, I know you love her too, in your own way. She’s like a daughter to you. She looks at you like a father. You’re her hero. Really. And I don’t begrudge you that, Marcus. The two of you have been through so much together, a two person-wrecking crew.”

  “That was a long time ago,” said Marcus. “We—”

  “It was as recent as the library,” said Dallas. “And before that, she did it to herself in Gun Barrel City at the reservoir. I couldn’t stop her. She doesn’t listen to me like that. You know how strong-willed she is.”

  Marcus smiled. He knew.

  In the glow of the dash, Marcus noticed the glistening sheen in Dallas’s eyes. The kid’s voice was shaky.

  “But there was no need to have her take the door at the library,” said Dallas. “You could have done that. From here on out, until we get to the Harbor, I’m asking you to consider her safety first.” Tears rolled down Dallas’s cheeks. He wiped them away with the back of his hand and kept talking. “Please, she listens to you. She idolizes you. My world is Lou and our kids. Please.”

  Marcus studied Dallas’s face, as much as he could in the relative dark, and then stared out the front windshield at the white dashes disappearing underneath the truck. The fan of the headlights arced across the width of the highway.

  “You’re absolutely right,” he said. “I should have taken the door. In all truth, Lou should have been upstairs protecting Andrea and the kids.”

  Dallas rubbed his hands on his pants. He sniffed and wiped his nose.

  “When this is said and done, rest assured, I’ll head back to Virginia and you don’t have to worry about me.”

  Dallas huffed a sarcastic laugh. “Huh. For a minute there I was impressed. You listened to me.”

  “But what?” asked Marcus.

  “You had to take a nice sentiment and flip it. Now you’re being a martyr,” said Dallas. “That’s appropriate.”

  Marcus considered it. The kid was more intuitive than he’d understood. Maybe, despite his ripe body odor, he was good for Lou. He had, after all, take
n care of her all of these years. She loved him, he clearly loved her, and his anger at Marcus was born of that love, of his desire to protect her from hurt even if he knew that the only person Lou believed was capable of impenetrable protection was Mad Max.

  “That’s fair,” said Marcus. “I hear you. You’re right, I probably wallow too much. That comes from living by myself. You tend to be inside your own head a lot. I’ll work on it.”

  Dallas’s brow twitched and furrowed. He frowned, like he wasn’t sure what to make of Marcus’s admission.

  “I’m serious,” said Marcus. “I’ll do a better job. However long I’m with you. Okay?”

  Dallas’s face relaxed. He scratched his chin and rubbed his hands on his pants again. He sniffed, crinkling his nose. Finally, he nodded. “Deal.”

  “Hey, guys?” said Sally.

  Marcus had forgotten she was there, too focused on the conversation with Dallas. “Yeah?” he said, leaning forward to look past Dallas.

  “Are you done with your male bonding?”

  Marcus and Dallas exchanged glances. Neither of them said anything.

  “Because we need a plan,” she said. “There’s no way we’re getting to where we’re going without resistance.”

  Marcus grimaced. “I thought you had a plan.”

  “I do,” Sally said, “but we all need to be on the same page or it isn’t going to work.”

  “How about you tell us where we’re going?” asked Dallas. “That might be a good start.”

  “I shouldn’t say exactly where,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  “It puts too many others at risk,” said Sally. “The Harbor is home to a few hundred people. I don’t want to put them in danger. And if we don’t make it, it’s better that…”

  “Plausible deniability?” asked Marcus.

  Sally snapped her fingers and pointed at the road ahead. “That’s it. Plausible deniability. If you don’t know the exact location, you can’t tell anyone else where it is.”

  Marcus watched her for a moment. She continually twisted her hands on the wheel, leaned forward then back, shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

  “You don’t know where it is, do you?” he asked. “They didn’t tell you either.”