by Jack Hunt
“What’s your name?” Ella asked.
“Jimmy Faro. And yours?”
“Ella Talbot.”
“Well, nice to meet you. What were you taking here?”
“I don’t go to this campus. I’m in the police academy in Flushing.”
His eyebrows shot up. “That’s what I’m hoping to do. I’m just taking this security job to get some experience, so I don’t look like an idiot when I sit down in the interview and they ask me have you ever been in a stressful situation.”
“Well, you can’t get more stressful than this. At least you’ll have one hell of a tale.”
CHAPTER 20
He wasn’t sure at what point he dozed off but he was snapped awake by the blunt force of a gun stock to the side of his face. Dazed, confused and struggling to get his bearings, Frank didn’t even have time to remember if he had been holding a gun or where he was before he became the attention of a full-scale assault by two individuals. He did what anyone would have done in that situation and curled himself into a ball, protected his head and hoped to God that it would be over.
Then, when he heard a familiar male voice, he knew instantly what had happened.
“That’s enough, boys, go load up the truck.”
On the ground he could see the man’s boots closing in on him. It was still dark. The man crouched down beside him and placed a hand on Frank’s back.
“Should have given me the gas, my friend.” He let out a chuckle “At least that way you could have kept your vehicle, your gear and well… your weapons. Can’t say I didn’t give you the opportunity to be neighborly but no, guys like you aren’t like that, are you? Tell me, what are you, ex-military?”
Frank didn’t respond. He raised his head from beneath him the way a tortoise might extend its neck out of a shell and he went to look at up at him.
“Now what do I do with you? My cousin Bobby thinks I should kill you. I mean, it wouldn’t be much different than gutting a hog. You might squeal a little but it would soon be over.” He paused. “But, that’s messy and I think that you made an honest mistake, right?”
Again Frank said nothing.
“I’m a fair man, so I’m going to give you the opportunity to make it right. So here’s what I’m gonna do. You’re going to apologize to me in front of my cousins. Because you know how embarrassing it is to get knocked on your ass?”
Frank didn’t reply.
The guy snorted. “Okay, well come on, let’s get you up.”
He grabbed hold of Frank’s coat and yanked him upward. Pain shot through his body as his muscles cried out from the beating that the other two had given him. Frank caught sight of Sal over by the truck. He was down on his hands and knees spitting up blood. The man’s cousins were taking everything from the truck, like the gas, the bags and personal items that belonged to both of them. One of them was in the cab throwing out papers, only to emerge with Sal’s packet of unopened cigarettes.
“Those are mine,” the guy beside Frank hollered. He dumped Frank near the fire and told his cousin Bobby to bring over Sal. Sal groaned as they grabbed him by the hair and neck and hauled him across the dirt floor. Frank’s eyes drifted around to see how many of them there were. There had to have been at least six of them. They had obviously gone and got a few buddies, or perhaps the other three were in a vehicle further down the line. Either way they were outnumbered, unarmed and at the mercy of a guy who he’d not only pissed off but humiliated.
“I was just telling… What’s your name?” The man asked Frank.
Frank stared at him without replying until Bobby beat him over the head. “The man asked you a question. Answer.”
“Settle down now, Bobby. The guy is still in shock. Now, what’s your name?”
“Frank,” he muttered looking at them with disgust.
“Frank. I’m Chester. Now we’re acquainted, here’s what you’re going to do. You go ahead and apologize and we’ll be on our way.”
Frank snorted.
“Something amusing?”
Frank cleared his throat as he looked up at him from on his knees. “You got what you want. Just go.”
“Well no, Frank. I didn’t. You see I couldn’t care less about your property. In fact, I’m going to leave you with the truck. That’s right. Of course, I’ll take the rest but you get to keep your truck. Now how’s that sound?”
“Peachy,” Frank muttered.
He laughed at him. Chester waved his fat finger in front of Frank. “I think under other circumstances, I think I’d like you, Frank. Oh well. So go ahead, put things right. Be a man.”
Frank looked at him. He felt a trickle of blood ran down the side of his face from a cut at the top of his forehead. “Fuck you!”
Chester grinned. “Now that’s the spirit! Yes sir, I like that. But that’s the wrong answer.”
With that said, he walked over to the fire and moved his finger around in front of the branches that were tucked into the middle of it. He reached for one and pulled it out. In the darkness, the end glowed a bright orange. He blew against the tip and it got brighter.
“Bobby, keep a handle on Frank.”
Bobby gripped the back of his collar and placed a gun against his head while Chester went over to Sal and told one of his other fellas to haul him up to his knees. He made a nod to the guy behind him and the guy placed his hand over Sal’s mouth. Then without any hesitation he went to place the hot wood against the side of his face. Sal screamed from behind the hand. A muffled cry filled the air and Frank shouted, “Stop!”
Chester stopped an inch away from Sal’s face.
“Pardon?” Chester cupped a hand to his ear.
“I’m sorry,” Frank said.
“Um. I don’t think I heard you.”
“I’m sorry,” Frank repeated himself.
He stared at him for a second “Ah, man, and I was just about to have some fun.”
“Look, I apologize.”
Chester tossed the wood back into the fire pit. “I accept your apology. Glad we could iron things out, so to speak.” He glanced back at Sal who looked as if he had pissed himself. A dark patch had formed on the front of his light brown pants.
“Uh, that’s a mess. Well we should get going. I must say it’s been a pleasure meeting you two. And Frank, I admire a man who looks out for his friends. Maybe you aren’t that bad. Let’s go, boys!”
Bobby tossed Frank back down and they began walking back to their trucks. Chester stopped and looked back at Frank. “You know what, Frank. I said I would leave you the truck, and I will but I’m going to go the extra mile for you. Just to demonstrate what a real neighbor is, I’m going to leave you some gas, something to help you on your way. Bobby!” He put his hand out and kept his eyes on Frank who was sneering back at him. Bobby handed him one of the gasoline canisters, he undid the top and walked over to Frank’s truck and began shaking the contents out all over the top of the truck and inside the cab until gas trickled to the ground. The smell of it filled the air. He then returned to the fire pit, pulled out the stick he’d thrown in and returned to the vehicle. He touched the inside of the truck, all the while staring at Frank with a smirk on his face. The instant it touched, the insides of the truck went up in flames. He then tossed the stick in the back and it caught fire too. Flames licked up the sides, and Chester walked away.
“Y’all have a good night.” Chester let out a laugh as he joined his pals.
And just like that, they got into their trucks and began reversing out. Frank balled his fists, ground his teeth and looked on as the only thing that could get him to his daughter went up in flames.
Once they were gone he moved over to Sal and wrapped an arm around him. “You okay?”
He nodded, but said nothing, no doubt embarrassed at the fact of pissing his pants. Frank didn’t give it a second thought as his anger was building and pushing out every other sensible thought he had. He remained there on his knees until dawn broke, at which point the fire had died down
and all that remained was a smoldering mess with black smoke rising in the air. A few vehicles passed by and drivers asked if they were okay but Frank was at a loss for words.
The first thing he did once the sun began to rise was return to the spot where he had hidden the rifles and the bag full of basic items. The face of Chester burned in his mind as he walked back to the campsite and told Sal to get up. They didn’t have a phone on them, or money; they had taken everything except the little he had stowed away in the brush, behind some rocks, hidden out of sight.
“Where we going?”
“Queens.”
“After this?” Sal stammered.
“Nothing’s changed.”
“Frank, look around you. We have nothing.”
“We have enough. We’ll hitch a ride.”
“Have you seen your face?”
He touched it and winced at the pain. They had given him one hell of a beating and a few shots in the face with their boots had connected. His skin was cut and bruised, and one half of his face was caked in dry blood. That morning before they hiked out of there they found a stream, washed their faces and used the first-aid kit to patch up what they could.
“You know one good thing that’s come out of this?”
“What?” Frank replied while applying a plaster to a gash at the side of his face.
“You haven’t sanitized your hands since last night.”
Frank paused and looked him square in the eyes. He was right. In all the pain and anger he hadn’t stopped to think about bacteria.
Almost immediately after, he reached for the sanitizer but Sal put his hand on it. “You don’t need it, Frank.”
It was a ritual, and one that seemed to be connected to where his mind was in any given moment. If it was clouded by pain, that became his world. Even though Sal didn’t want him to do it, he did it anyway. It gave him a sense of control. A false sense but something and that’s what he needed right now after the turn of events.
Once they were ready to move out, Frank looked back at the scorched wreck that had meant a lot to him. It wasn’t the fact they had destroyed his property, though it burned him. It was that they might have cost him his daughter’s life.
“You think we’ll come across them again?”
Frank hesitated before he replied. “God, I hope so.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
THOUGH IT WAS hard to be isolated, being with the others gave Ella some sense of comfort. It was early morning when they saw a change in Jason. He was the only one who hadn’t got up to have some breakfast. They had given them each a cup of coffee, and a pathetic-looking buttered bagel. The previous evening, they hadn’t had anything to eat and so she downed it without complaint.
It was one of the soldiers that noticed Jason. He’d been fine last night, and yet here he was just like Tyrell’s roommate, showing symptoms. He coughed, and sneezed, and though to them it didn’t look extreme, it concerned the soldier enough to return with a team who took him out of his bubble compartment. That’s what they had come to call them, as it was like being inside a huge plastic bubble.
“Get off, where are you taking me?” Jason protested as two men with FEMA on the back of their pandemic suits dragged him kicking and hollering. He put up one hell of a fight and at one point he managed to get free. He rushed towards where Gabriel was locked in and shouted at him.
“This is your fault!”
He left a mark all down the outside that looked like phlegm. Someone came in after they removed him and cleaned it. The same person along with two others removed the cot from his room, and sanitized the inside of it for what seemed like an hour before it was sealed off and a large red X sticker was placed over the front.
“What is that?” Ella asked.
Gabriel looked over to it. “There are search codes used by FEMA. They did the same thing in Katrina on the front of houses. They create a circle with an X in the middle to divide it into four quadrants. The number in the left represents the code of the team that cleaned it up, the bit at the top indicates the date and time, the one on the right represents the type of infection and the lower code represents if they were alive or dead.”
Hayley placed her hands over her face. “We need to get out of here. Who’s to say that we won’t get this virus just by being in here?”
“I second that,” Tyrell muttered.
“Well best of luck to you,” Gabriel said slumping down on his cot, raising his hands above his head to stretch out his limbs. Ella had barely slept last night. None of them really got any sleep except a few hours. The ever-present thought that they were infected or going to be dragged out and hauled off to some FEMA camp as Tyrell had said, stuck in her mind. She only hope she had left was that her mother had got her message about what was happening, and that her dad was still on his way.
She fully expected it to take him a while if the roads were blocked or full of traffic but what if he had arrived and they wouldn’t let him in? What if he got infected? She churned over anxious thoughts in her mind unable to stop them.
Tyrell paced back and forth. He was like a ticking time bomb about to go off at any minute. Zach, the one that looked like an MMA fighter with tattoos all over him, was the only one that had remained silent throughout the night. Ella had heard Hayley crying and Gabriel trying to keep her calm.
How much longer were they going to keep them in here? They felt like prisoners.
Frustration took over. “I want to speak to whoever is in charge. My mother works for the CDC. Get me someone who’s in charge.”
The one soldier looked at her.
“Tell them I want to speak to Kate Talbot.”
Now whether that name rang a bell with the soldier or he was just tired of hearing them bellyache all night, but he strolled out of the tent. Five minutes later he returned with a tall man, with slicked-back hair. He approached her and squinted as if trying to see the resemblance or determining the risk factor.
“Unzip the tent, bring her out.”
CHAPTER 21
Sal smelled like rancid piss. Frank winced and tried his best not to make the poor guy feel any worse, as it wasn’t his fault. All their clothes had burned up in the fire, and even though he washed his pants in the stream it still hadn’t got rid of the odor entirely.
They had been hiking for the past hour and hoping to hitch a ride to the next town but no one would stop. Perhaps it was the sight of two men looking like they had been dragged through a bush backwards or just simply the fact that with rifles strapped to their backs they looked like trouble. He didn’t blame people for not stopping. He wouldn’t have stopped, that’s for sure.
The road they had been on the previous evening had somewhat cleared. There was no longer a traffic jam but it was still busy for a small back road.
“I can’t believe I didn’t stow my wallet away with the rest of the goods.”
Frank shook his head and sighed. He’d been berating himself ever since leaving.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Frank, at least we have some of the basics. I wouldn’t have thought to hide any of it. Anyway, once we get to the next town, I’ll phone Gloria and get her to wire some money.”
“And how are you going to phone her without any money?”
Sal tossed him a sideways smirk. “Oh ye of little faith.”
“Oh dear, you aren’t going to go religious on me, are you?”
“Me? I haven’t darkened a church building since I was a kid. But it raises a question. Do you have faith, Frank?”
Frank was in no mood to be preached at and certainly not by someone who treated faith like a weekend hobby.
“I have faith that I will find Ella, bring her home and outlast this shit storm if that’s what you’re asking,” he muttered as he continued to walk backwards and thumb for a ride. Dark clouds had formed overnight threatening rain. Sal pulled out the map again, and tried to pinpoint where they were.
“Remind me to
never go on a road trip with you,” Sal muttered as he gazed at the map.
“Remind me to pack adult diapers next time,” Frank replied in jest but it didn’t go over too well. Sal went red in the cheeks and Frank apologized. “Sorry, man, just trying to make light of the situation.”
There was silence between them for a few minutes before Sal spoke. “I really thought he was going to kill me.”
“No, if he had wanted to kill you, he would have done it without the theatrics.”
“Perhaps he enjoys instilling fear in those he kills. Hunters don’t give a shit about what they put a bullet in.”
Frank chuckled. “C’mon, you don’t think that about all hunters, do you? Most do it for sport. That doesn’t make all of them cold-blooded killers.”
Two cars shot past and some little kid in the back of one flipped him the bird. Frank returned the gesture and then broke into a smile. Although they had been stripped of their belongings, minus a few that they had hidden, the whole experience reminded him of his army days — lugging a bag across miles of territory, legs aching and a friend droning on about how shit or unfair life was.
“Anyone who sits in a tree for hours covered in deer piss needs their head examined.”
“I’ll remember to tell them that when we see them.”
Sal shot him a glance and looked around nervously as if Frank had spotted them.
“Calm down, Sal, they are probably long gone by now.”
Right then a truck went past and its rear taillights came on. It swerved to the side and Frank tapped Sal’s arm. “Let’s go.” They hurried over to the truck and Frank hopped up.
“Hey, I really appreciate this.”
The guy was your typical long-distance trucker.
“What the hell happened to you two?”
“Ah long story, we got into an argument with a bear and it won.”
The guy laughed and extended his hand. “The name’s Al.”
“Al, nice to meet you. I’m Frank and this is Sal.”
As Sal slipped in beside Frank, a waft of his piss-smelling pants filled the cab and Al looked like he regretted stopping. The brakes hissed and he pulled out.
