The Fall of Polite

by Sam Kench

  ‘I’ll trade you your desired information… for an hour with your downstairs parts.’

  Charli watched Marquis’s tongue slide across the backs of his remaining teeth.

  ‘No fuckin’ way.’ Maisey took a step forward. ‘Just tell us what-’

  Marquis slammed his fist down on the desktop, ‘I’m not talkin’ to you, honey!’ He waggled a finger at Maisey’s shaved head, scarred face and bandana-covered eye. ‘I’m talkin’ to the pretty one.... No offense, honey, but even in the dire times in which we live, any sane man would still consider you a mite unfuckable.’

  ‘You’re one to talk, you eroded, sleaze-ball cunt.’ Maisey barked back.

  Marquis shot forward in his seat. 'Skanky pirate bitch!'

  Maisey stepped closer. 'Slimy, syphilitic, fuck-stick!'

  ‘All right, that’s enough!’ Charli reached across the desk and grabbed Marquis by the collar. From behind her, a gunshot rang like a church bell, echoing in the tiny room. Smoke filled the air.

  Charli spun around as the sawed off shotgun clattered to the floor. The guard, a bullet having passed in one ear and out the other, fell into the corner of the room and left a dark red smear along the wall as he slid down to the thin carpet. His blood immediately soaked through to the concrete below. Charli swiveled her vision further to settle on Maisey with her arms still outstretched in the guard’s direction, the smoking gun clutched tightly between her trembling hands.

  Marquis tore his eyes from his dead associate and reached with both hands for Charli’s throat. Before he could get a good grip, Charli latched onto his wrist with her free hand and yanked down. With his thumb away from her throat, Charli wrapped her fingers around the back of his hand and twisted. He let out a groan and jerked to his side before taking a strike to the nose from the handle of Charli’s gun.

  Blood ran down his face and in through the storm drain he called his mouth. He coughed and tried to jerk his hand free, but Charli yanked back and dragged him onto the desktop. His head hung over the edge and dripped blood onto the carpet.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ A voice asked from behind the action. Bug stood, exasperated and hazy-eyed, in the doorway.

  Marquis shouted from the desk, unable to lift his head to meet bug’s gaze, ‘Help me, Bug!’

  Maisey swiveled her aim toward Bug. He threw his hands in the air above his head.

  ‘I ain’t on his side! Oh no, I ain’t on his side!’

  ‘Get these crazy bitches off of me, Bug!!’

  ‘I ain’t with him!’ Bug protested. ‘I swear!’

  Maisey kept her gun trained on him.

  ‘You do what you want to him!’ Bug opined.

  Charli kept the dealer pinned to the desk and put her gun against the back of his head. ’Where do we find the lady?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Marquis grunted.

  ‘Will she come back here?’ Maisey asked, turning her eyes to Marquis, but keeping her gun trained on Bug.

  ‘I don’t know the lady you’re after.’

  Charli punched the dealer hard in the side. She hit hard for someone her size, a result of two years’ worth of recreational MMA training that was brought to a sudden conclusion with the fall of polite. His ribs would be bruised, at least. ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  Charli punched him again in the same spot and felt one of his ribs crack.

  He let out a wail of pain. ‘I swear! I’m not lying! I don’t know her!’ He let out another wail of pain, then continued, ‘I was lying before when I said I did know her. I was lying when we were negotiating.’

  Charli punched him again in the same spot and felt the cracked rib break the rest of the way.

  He yelped. ‘I swear! That’s the truth!’

  Charli turned to Maisey. ‘You believe him?’

  Maisey gave it a think, then replied, ‘I do, unfortunately.’

  ‘Yeah. Me too.’ Charli raised her gun in the air and brought the handle down hard on the back of the dealer’s head. His body went limp. He made no protest, no noise. ‘Fuckin’ prick.’ She struck him again and the back of his head cracked open. The trickle of blood dripping from his nose was overpowered by the fast stream from his battered skull that splashed onto Charli’s shoes as it struck the already wet carpet.

  ‘Oh shit, did you kill him?’ Bug asked, halfway in the room.

  Charli turned her gun on him. ‘What is he to you?’

  ‘He’s just my dealer! That’s all.’

  ‘He knew your name.’

  ‘Is that weird? I come here a lot. I’m a friendly guy. It's- It's on my back!’ He did a spin and showed off the stenciled patch between his shoulder blades.

  ‘Step into the room.’ Charli said threateningly.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I should go.’ Bug pointed a thumb down the hallway as he stared down the two gun barrels pointed at him. He took one hand out of the air and rubbed at his glassy eyes.

  ‘Get in here!’ Maisey yelled, her adrenaline high.

  Bug entered the room, his hands raised beside his ears. ‘Really, I just buy my heroin from him, that’s all. He ain’t no friend of mine. He a real creep if you ask me.’

  ‘Do you buy drugs anywhere else?’

  ‘I guess I’ll have to now.’ Bug looked to Maisey who made it clear she still wanted her question answered. ‘I used to buy from another guy, then I heard-’ Bug pointed at the possibly dead drug dealer hanging over the edge of the desk, ‘He… was taking trades. And that was better for me since all my cash is stuck in the goddamned banks and I’m probably never gonna see any of it again.’

  ‘Where’s the other guy?’

  ‘Next town over.’

  Maisey repeated her description of the woman and Tommy to Bug.

  ‘I think I seen someone like that there. Don’t know about a kid, but the woman, maybe. I think so.’

  Maisey stepped up closer to him. ‘You’ll lead us there.’

  ‘What?’ Bug asked, bewildered.

  Charli shook her head. ‘Uh, Maisey, I don’t know if-’

  Bug lowered his hands. ‘I don’t want to go all the way back there. It’s dangerous as hell in between.’

  Charli cleared her throat. ‘Uh, Maisey-’

  Maisey motioned with her gun. ‘Do you get what’s happening here, Bug? I just fucking killed someone!’ Her heart beat like a horse's hooves rounding a bend on a racetrack.

  Bug’s hands reached into the air once again.

  Maisey’s brain was charging fast, a tremor ran through her hands. ‘Let’s keep it friendly, okay Bug? You’ll bring us there, and then, look on the bright side, you can come with us back to a big, safe place with food and armed guards and beds. Surely better than wherever you’ve been sleeping.’

  Charli stepped against Maisey and took her aside, being sure to keep themselves between Bug and the exit. ‘Maisey, I don’t know if I can keep doing this with you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I won’t try to dissuade you. I can see your mind’s set. And I’ll wish you luck.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about, Charli?’

  ‘I can’t be going all that way away. People need me back at the high school. I was meant to be back yesterday.’

  ‘Are you fucking kidding? People need you?! Who needs you more than a little fucking kid with a psycho meth head for a mom?!’

  Charli took a step back and cocked her head. ‘How about the firefighter who just had his leg amputated after he took a rusty shiv to the calf when he went out on his own to find supplies for the others? How about the 16-year-old girl who’s starving herself to death because she refuses to eat unless everyone else in the high school is fed first? How about my mom who I’m pretty sure has a lung infection?! My mom who gave up the doc’s attention when we found you with your eye cut in half and your hair full of blood?!’

  Maisey went quiet.

  Charli continued. ‘Do you think she needs me?! Do you think s
he needs me more than a kid I’ve never seen?! A kid you’re not even the mother of?!’

  Maisey sighed. ‘Okay, I get it. Sorry.’

  Bug wished the angry ladies had been standing a few feet to the left so he could have slipped out during all the yelling.

  Charli shook her head.

  Maisey’s arms hung limply by her side. ‘Go back to your mom. This is a bit of wild goose chase isn’t it?’

  Charli put a hand on Maisey’s shoulder. ‘I said I wouldn’t dissuade you. This trip isn’t for naught. A whole bunch of people from that parking garage have a better shot at surviving now. They wouldn’t have that shot without you.’

  ‘Oh, don’t try to pump me up. I don’t need that shit. You’re the one who got us up there and talked to all those people.’

  ‘But we never would’ve gone there without you.’

  Maisey shook her head hard enough for the wounds on her face to start hurting again.

  ‘Are you keeping forward?’ Charli asked softly.

  Maisey ran her tongue over the dental sutures in her mouth, almost dissolved, and gave it some thought. ‘Yeah… I am. That kid’s got no one looking out for him. I don’t think I could live with myself knowing that.’

  ‘You’re a good person, Maisey.’

  ‘Don’t give me that shit. I’ve never done anything worth-while in my whole fucking life. I’ve gotta try to do this right at least.’

  Charli patted her compatriot on the shoulder.

  BEFORE THEY PARTED WAYS, Maisey collected the guard’s shotgun and a revolver from the dealer’s desk. There were mountains of food and medicine, collected through trades, in the other desk drawers that she gave to Charli to bring back to the high school.

  Bug, with his hands still raised halfway, asked if he could hold onto the contents from the final drawer to “keep his head straight on the journey”.

  Maisey pulled open the bottom left drawer and gazed upon a bulging freezer bag full of smaller bags separating heroin, meth, and crack. She dumped the stash of drugs into her backpack to use later as leverage, whether it be over Bug or the dealer at the end of their journey.

  14. A SLEEPY LITTLE TOWN

  ROY ARTROW had found himself in a position of power for the first time in his life and it felt great. Men looked to him for guidance as a result of a skillset he previously had no idea he possessed. Roy had promised to do everything he could for the good of his people, and so far he had done a bang-up job. He had grown a humble force of five into a full-fledged militia of able bodied men. He had kept casualties low, he had gained complete control over the town of Brighton, and most importantly, he had kept everyone under him well-fed and warm when it could be helped.

  The gang had taken up residence at a booster station and a mountaintop lodge that neighbored both a water tower and a radio tower. The smartest of the gang worked day and night to get power to the radio tower but they made little progress. His men were fighters, not engineers.

  Their base was nestled in the hills above the town which they plundered. Every resident of the tiny town of Brighton had conscripted, fled, or otherwise been killed. Roy’s innate dispassion for human life was perhaps his finest trait as a leader in these difficult times. Pain and death were not matters of conflict for him, they were tools to be utilized liberally. Roy’s actions and his feelings towards his actions inspired his men to behave in a similar way. His complete lack of remorse made conquering the sleepy little town relatively easy all things considered, and made the prospect of expanding his territory and reach further extremely likely. The undiagnosed, mild sociopathy that hindered his daily life and made it near-impossible to hold down a job in the old world, was now his most valuable trait.

  Roy’s regular spot was at the top of the town’s water tower where he sat in a folding chair, balancing a sniper rifle against the railing, a thermos of fire-brewed coffee at his feet and a wool blanket over his lap. He felt as though he had aged several years in the months since the fall of polite, but in a way that gifted him with great experience and expertise, not in a way that slowed down his faculties. His brown hair was starting to gray even though he was only in his early 40s.

  He watched over the town through his scope. The magnification was high enough to spot targets and provide suppressing fire, but the caliber was not high enough to be lethally effective at such a range. The only movement he saw was that of a deer moving slowly up Main Street.

  It had been a couple of weeks since they recruited or killed and looted the last of the town center's residents who hadn’t gotten out of dodge while the getting was good. Days were slower now, and Roy was starting to grow bored of the routine. It was time to expand. He was sure of it now.

  The gang was in need of a name. Roy pondered possibilities while he moved his view from street to street. He considered “The Artrow Gang” but didn’t like the sound of it. “The Artrow Dozen”, nah, he thought. There had been more than a dozen of them for quite a while and he intended to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. He briefly considered “The Brighton Boys”, then shook his head in disgust at the notion. “The Artrow Army”?, “The Northern Militia”?

  Before he could give “The Brighton Bunch” the thought it deserved, he settled his scope on a human in the town below. He watched as they slowly entered the town on foot, carefully checking their surroundings.

  Roy picked the radio up out of his lap and pressed the talk button. He said over channel 1, ‘We got someone entering the town. East side, coming over the bridge.’

  A voice crackled back over the radio, ‘We’re on it.’

  ‘Yeah, head down there… but don’t engage if you don’t have to. Try to stay out of sight. It’s just a girl. No way she’s survived this long on her own.’

  ‘Okay, gotcha.’

  ‘Let’s try to get her to lead us back to wherever she lays her head. Catch her whole crew off guard.’

  Roy swiveled his gun away from the girl to find the pride and joy of their motor pool, loaded with five of his men, nearing the other side of town. ‘Go on foot from there. Don’t want the engine spooking her.’

  The armored vehicle stopped and four of the gang's members stepped out. The driver shut the engine off but remained at attention.

  Roy watched them enter the opposite side of the town. ‘Take it slow. I’ll tell you where she’s at.’

  Roy swiveled his gun back toward the girl. For a moment he couldn’t see her, then she stepped back into his field of vision between two buildings. ‘She’s on Princess Street.’

  ‘Copy.’

  ‘She’s got what looks like a double-barrel in her hands. Could be some kind of hunting rifle.’ It wasn’t snowing, which gave Roy a clear and unobstructed view of his territory. He watched the girl’s blond hair sway in the breeze beneath her black cap. She wore a backpack and a winter coat. He was too far to make much out of her face, but he reckoned she’d be awful pretty up close. Maybe that was just the assumption he made of all petite females. ‘She’s turning. Going down… What’s that… Le Fonte?’

  ‘Could it be Lee Ponte?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s it.’

  ‘Got it.’ The voice over the radio said confidently.

  Roy swung his view back to his men. They clustered closely together two blocks away from their prey. He swung back to the girl. ‘She’s going into the grocery. We already picked that place clean, right?’

  ‘Yeah we covered it good. Might have left something behind, but not a lot.’

  Several minutes later, the girl exited the shop and continued down the street. ‘She’s moving again.’ Roy said into the radio. ‘She’s going into-… Hey is Dick there?’

  ‘Yeah, you want him?’ The voice over the radio asked.

  ‘Put him on.’

  The voice on the radio switched to one far more gruff. ‘yeah?’

  ‘You remember the house where you and me killed those blacks?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘She’s going in there.’ Roy k
new they hadn’t scavenged that house. They hadn’t been in that house at all since the gang was only five men strong. He half expected the girl to turn around and come running back out at the sight of the decapitated family they had left in the foyer.

  45 MINUTES LATER the girl came back out the front door, her backpack bulging and a second small bag slung over her shoulder.

  ‘Well she got something worthwhile out of there.’ Roy said as he watched her head down the walkway and back into the street. She turned and Roy quickly swung his aim to his men and spoke into the radio. ‘She just turned your way.’ Roy looked over his men from his vantage point. ‘Go around the back of the gas station and there’s an alley that’ll put you behind her when she crosses the next block.’ Roy finished his thermos of coffee.

  Roy watched his men do exactly as instructed and stealthily tail the girl out of town. He smiled; they listened well. He enjoyed having people at his disposal. He enjoyed giving orders and having them followed to the letter. Not all of his men were as fine as the four down there, but he was proud of who he had scraped together.

  Roy wondered if his parents would finally be proud of him.

  15. THE GIRL WITH THE STAINED-GLASS COMPLEXION

  A MANGY DOG tore out the liver of the liar in the road. He wolfed it down, then dug his teeth back in through the open wound in her midsection.

  Maria stopped and watched from a distance. She had left the woman in the road as a warning; a threat to others like her. The dog tore out another chunk of the woman’s insides and choked on a piece of buckshot. The dog hacked and wheezed and walked off into the woods with the bloodied metal caught in his throat.

  Maria went in through the front door of the cottage and reconstructed the barricade behind her. Two heavy polyester chairs and a floral loveseat made up the barrier. The back door she kept blocked with a grandfather clock and an overturned bookcase. The windows she had boarded with wood that she chopped from the forest behind the house using a sturdy hatchet that had seen four decades of use from her dad and aunt.