“You mind if I...” Ruiz is holding his hand out.
“Oh, no, go ahead.” I remove the cross from my neck and drop it into his palm. “What is it?”
“Watch closely.”
Bethany leans across my lap, digging her elbows into my thighs to get a better look.
He pulls down on either arm of the cross, using the thumb and index finger of his left hand, while pulling the top up with his right. There is a tiny click, barely discernible above the guttural roar of the diesel engine. Ruiz slides the bottom half of the cross away, unveiling a USB drive.
“Whoa, cool.” Bethany smiles and reaches hesitantly to touch it, as if it may sprout teeth and chomp into her fingers.
“I'll be damned, a USB drive. That's it? That's what we almost got ourselves killed over?”
“It's not just a USB drive. We think this little piece of plastic has the answer to all this shit. The way they been chasing it, it's something big.”
“Big like...they're behind it somehow?”
Ruiz shrugs, slipping the bottom half of the cross back into place. “Could be, if our guy was right, then they're not just behind it, they're the sole proprietors. We'll know soon enough.”
“Your guy?”
“Yeah, we’ve got some guys on the inside, I guess you could say.”
“Really? What’d you do before all this?”
“I was in the military, Special Forces.”
“Wow, must come in handy.”
“It has its perks.”
“So, who’s the guy that gave me the damn thing?”
Ruiz shrugs. “Let’s just call him a...mutual friend.”
“Yeah, well, our mutual friend is dead.”
Ruiz nods. “Yeah, I know.”
“So, how the hell did you find us? Dead contact. No idea who he handed the drive off to. Seems to me you’d be screwed.”
“We followed the guys that were tracking you, pretty simple really.”
“The guys that were tracking us?”
Katia nods. “Yep, those guys have been on you for about a week now. If they’d taken much longer to pin you down, you’d have been fucked, lemme tell ya. We were close to breaking off and heading back to base. Our food was gone. Water was low.”
“Well, I’m glad you stuck around.”
“So are we. Saved some asses and got this bad boy.”
“So I’m assuming those were the General’s men that tried to kill us?”
“Ah, so you've met the General?”
“Yeah, I'm going to kill the General.”
Katia laughs. “You got big dreams, Tim.”
“No way you're getting near the General, especially just you two with your water pistols, no way.”
“We almost killed him once,” Bethany says.
Ruiz placates us with a half-smile. “No ma'am, he almost killed you once. You got away. Count yourselves lucky ducks.”
“Whatever, he's got Momma, we're getting her back. Maybe we'll kill the bastard, maybe we won't. Can't hit if we don't swing.”
“True, he does have her.” When Ruiz is sure he has our attention, he continues. “She's alive and well.”
The urge to pull the Ruger and jam it against his temple to extract information surges through me. “You saw her? How long ago?”
“Our scouts saw her. They were pulling up camp, loading her into one of their trucks.”
“So are they gone? They left the city with her?” I want to strangle the details out of him. This one sentence at a time ticker tape feed bullshit way of conveying information is frying every last nerve in my body.
“Left the city? Tim, these guys aren't leaving the city, not while the resistance still thrives.”
“Resistance, how many of you are there?”
“A lot,” Katia chimes.
Ruiz looks sideways at her and rolls his eyes. “There's enough. We're still outmanned and outgunned, but, we've got the muscle to make them think twice.”
“So, let's go get Momma.” Bethany scoots in next to me, ignoring Ruiz, looking to me for the lead.
“You've got the men. You’ve got the guns. Help me get her back, please?” I don't know why I suddenly feel as if this Ruiz guy is my only option. Yesterday it was just me, Bethany, and a couple of handguns. I had hope then. We were just going to pull it out of our ass. The plan we had to find a couple of rifles in redneck country, and to come charging back into the city on our white horses, seemed like a good one. There was fire behind it.
Now, it just seems silly.
Impossible.
A suicide run.
Especially sitting here with Ruiz.
Ruiz and his army. I need them. I'm desperate. I'm trying not to show my hand.
He lowers his eyes and shakes his head. “No can do right now.”
“Bullshit, you've got the resources.”
“Yeah, and we're not going to be reckless with them,” Katia huffs.
“Fine, give us some guns and we'll do it ourselves,” Bethany snaps back.
“Yeah, if you're not going to help us, give us a few guns and some food and we'll be on our way.” I sit back and fold my arms.
Ruiz is still shaking his head as he turns back around in his seat. “No can do. Like Katia said, we can't part with resources, especially to fund suicide missions.”
I punch the back of his headrest, snapping his neck forward.
Hard.
Harder than I’d intended. “What the hell did you rescue us for?”
Ruiz swings around. In one swift motion, he comes up to his knees and is bent across the back of his seat. His right hand holds the pistol from his tactical vest. It's planted directly against my forehead.
Bethany draws her P-32 and jams it into the side of Ruiz's neck. “Take that gun off my brother!”
Katia slows the truck to a crawl. “Everyone calm down.”
“Keep those hands on the wheel or I'll put one in your brother’s neck. Don't let me see you reaching for those swords,” Bethany growls.
Katia bites her tongue, glancing at Bethany in the mirror, weighing her chances.
I raise my hands, placing them flat against the roof. “Just calm down, dude, calm down.” His lips are trembling with rage; the muzzle of his gun buries itself deeper into the shallow flesh at the front of my skull.
“We didn't rescue you and we didn't rescue her. We came for the USB. For the information on the USB. That's it. You were just porters. A source of transportation. We decided to help you. To bring you along with us. To give you two a secure place to bed down and get a hot meal. But, if that's not good enough for you, well, we're happy to drop you off here. What's it gonna be?”
Bethany's fingers are turning white against the pistol grip and her index finger is dancing precariously close to the surface of the trigger. But, it's the look on Katia’s face that scares me the most. If she can get to a sword, something tells me, Bethany is finished.
I can see the scene playing out in my head.
Bethany shoots Ruiz in the neck.
I catch one in the skull.
Bethany gets decapitated.
Katia is left distraught and alone.
“Okay, we're cool, I apologize. I was out of line. Let's just...start over.” I hold my breath. My words hang there.
Thick.
The tension of it all, palpable.
Christ, he might pull the trigger.
His face is a wrecking ball of emotion.
A smile suddenly cracks the darkness. He cocks his wrist and swings the muzzle towards the roof. “I probably overreacted.” He lowers the gun and pulls it back around the seat, tucking it away in his vest. “Could you have your sister do the same?”
“Bethany, ease up, it's over, sis.” I grab her arm and pull it down, slowly, not wanting her finger to jerk against the trigger.
She wavers for a moment before dropping the pistol onto the seat. “Bullshit,” she mutters, tucking her knees up beneath her chin and retreating into the corner.
/>
Ruiz turns back around and exhales loudly. “Shit, man that was crazy. I think this whole thing has us all on edge.”
Some more than others, apparently.
Katia's attention is back on the road.
“Listen, Tim, is it okay if I call you Tim?”
“Yeah, it's whatever.” I'm too busy trying to rub the muzzle indent out of my forehead to care about what he calls me.
“We need to find out what's on this drive. If it's something we can use to help us with our fight, we need to know, could be the difference between winning and losing this deal. And who knows, it could be something that helps us reunite ya’ll with your Ma. Let’s see what the information is and then we’ll go from there, sound fair?”
I look to Bethany for some sign of solidarity. She's still staring out the window. Still too worked up to hear or speak. “Yeah, sounds fine.”
Silence fills the air around us as Katia maneuvers the truck up the steep incline of the Dallas Tollway overpass, giving us a bird's eye view of the breadth of the destruction around us. The city of Dallas is to our South. Skyscrapers, once the pillars of commerce and the American Dream, lie crumbling in the chilled morning air like pieces of aged parchment paper.
I lean in between them. “Can I ask, where are we going exactly?”
“We have a little...what would you call it, Katia?”
“Community.”
“Yeah, we have a little, community, set up in Plano, you'll like it.”
“Neighbors are real quiet.” Katia grins.
“Ah, and might I also ask, why the swords?”
“I ask her that same question all the time.”
Katia considers both of us. She arches her eyebrows and sighs. “I'll answer like I've always answered. The ammo is going to run out and those of us that know how to kick ass without it, like me, are going to continue to thrive. The rest of ya'll bitches are going to get eaten.”
I nod. “Fair enough.”
Katia looks to me. “Let me ask you, why the hat?” She lifts it off my head, twirls it on one finger, and then drops it back in place.
I wink at her and tip the brim. “Why not?”
6
The community is a large apartment complex situated across the street from a neighborhood of post-modern style mansions. The mansions are all straight lines, with floor to ceiling windows and black on white paint jobs. They're partially concealed by a ten-foot high brick wall.
“That wall didn't do jackshit for them when it really mattered,” Ruiz says, clicking his tongue.
The apartment complex has a front gate, a back gate, and a main office. The back gate is on the other side of the property. A single man propped up against a cement support column, a shotgun resting next to his right leg, guards the office. He waves at us as we drive up. Two burly types with backwards caps and big guns resting across their bellies similarly guard the front gate. A third man comes walking out of a first floor apartment on the other side of the gate. He gives us a lazy two-finger salute, grabs a rusty chain from the ground, and slowly begins tugging the gate back on its track. He leans hard in the other direction, his face distorting with the effort, the veins on his arms showing through like garden hoses. This is his job. His routine. It's evident in the way his comrades sit back, chatting and smoking cigarettes, paying no mind to his plight.
Everyone has their role.
He works the gate.
“What if the General and his men come bursting in here with body armor and troop transports? They'll run straight through your guys and the gate.”
Katia drapes her head back towards me. “We got that covered. You just relax.”
“Covered how?”
“Snipers and RPG's.” Ruiz points his finger up, as if I can somehow see them through the truck’s roof. “They'll have a bad time, a real bad time.”
Katia winks at me in the mirror. “Like I said, we got it covered.”
Beyond the gate, the complex is bustling with life.
Life!
Faces of the living.
I'm used to death. Rotting flesh. Putrid gray matter. Scrounging in the dark.
I imagine I feel much like a man being led from solitary back to general population. Crossing that gap between the buildings. Granted a moment with the sun on my face.
I smile. I can't help but smile. I look at Bethany and she's smiling too.
The complex rises around us. It's made up of three-story red brick buildings with identical rectangle balconies extending out over the parking lot, backed up by floor to ceiling sliding doors. The balconies are a grab bag of suburban luxury with lounge chairs, metal tables, and pots of empty soil to fill out the mix. There's even a hammock, slung between two poles, browning from exposure, occupied by a man lazily rocking in the midday sun, his rifle slung across his belly.
People walk past us on either side of the truck carrying bags of rice and beans across their shoulders and boxes of bottled water stacked two and three high against their chest. Some nod and wave, others just stare curiously, at us, the fresh faces in the backseat.
“Supply run: food, water, gasoline for the generators. We try to do one every week or so. Sometimes we get lucky, sometimes we have to scrap a little. We got lucky this time,” Ruiz says, addressing the looks of wonderment on our faces.
“Yeah, I'd say so.”
“This place isn't quite home. But, we're doing our best.”
“Looks like you're doing a damn fine job.”
“This is awesome.” Bethany is thrilled. She throws her hands across her mouth to try to contain it. All of the hostility seems to have faded for the moment.
Looks like we're all starting from square one.
Fine by me. I could get used to this place.
Katia parks the truck sideways, effortlessly overtaking three spaces parallel to the black gate shielding the complex. Giant bushes, running wild with growth, twist in and out of the gaps in the gate, reaching for us, desperate.
“Leave the bag, our men will unload it and stick it in your room,” Ruiz says before hopping down from the truck. Bethany and I follow suit. “Casey, Tyrell, clear the bed. The duffel goes in 1210,” Ruiz calls to two men across the parking lot. They’re dressed in greasy coveralls. They nod and make for the truck, effortlessly scaling the large rear tires and hoisting themselves up, over, and into the bed.
As Ruiz leads us towards a building labeled with a boxy black 9, the two other guys from the storage facility come tearing into the parking lot with the Humvees, honking their horns, waving and cheesing for the meager throng.
“Pendejo! These two again.” Ruiz breaks off from us, flapping his hands wildly above his head, trying to grab their attention. “Hey assholes, we still got Deadheads runnin' around out there.”
Both vehicles come to a halt, the two men ducking behind the steering wheels wearing ear-to-ear grins.
“These guys, man, they act like we're playing make believe or something, ya know?” He's not looking for a response, simply venting. “We had a guy ripped apart over near the South gate just...what was it, two, three days ago?”
“Three days ago, don't remind me, I had to help clean the mess,” Katia says as we resume our march towards building 9.
“Wasn't no joke then, ain't no joke now. Stupid asses aren't gonna get real till they're getting gnawed on; it'll be too late then.”
At the bottom of the stairs, Ruiz stands aside to let the girls pass, courteous hand extended. “Ladies first.”
Katia ushers Bethany in front of her. “Third floor, first door on the right.”
“Go ahead, Timmy.” Ruiz squeezes me in behind Katia.
I can feel Ruiz behind me, his gaze boring into my back as I try to avert my eyes from Katia's hips, jumping to-and-fro, inches from my face, a patterned thong peeking from the top of her pants, the tattoo from her stomach spiraling up and around her back. As we round the first landing, she turns to face me and I jerk my head towards the ceiling, taking a sudden interest in t
he cobwebs and dirt that have accumulated in the corners overhead.
“Welcome to the heart beat and the most secure part of our little village.” Ruiz introduces us to a door labeled 933, two men stand guard on either side, and they clutch automatic rifles across their chests. They look us over as Ruiz turns the gold plated knob and lets the rest of us in ahead of him.
The living room opens up before us. There’s no furniture aside from a blue metal table with a white nylon cloth running end to end. Atop it are dual computer monitors, lined up side-by-side, same size, their backs to us, their screens casting a warm glow that lights the room around us. A cord runs from the CPU humming away beneath the table. It snakes across the carpet, through a crack in the balcony door, and hooks into a generator humming away outside.
“You've got internet?”
Ruiz jolts with a laughter. “Hell no, at least, not yet. I mean, the bastards couldn’t even keep the infrastructure alive in New Orleans after Katrina. Now we have this meltdown, nationwide. Nah, man, forget it about it. It’s gonna take some doing before we get there, but, make no mistake, we’ll get there.” Ruiz leans around the corner, looking into the kitchen. “All this shit you see here, it belongs to our token nerd. Bytes, where the hell you at?”
“Bytes, that's clever,” I chuckle.
“Not our doing. He won't tell us his real name.” Katia is standing by the balcony door, looking out over the parking lot.
“He only wants to be addressed by his net handle.” Ruiz pounds on the wall. “Bytes, get your ass out here.”
The bedroom door opens up and a man comes stumbling out wearing pajama pants and a night robe. He rubs his eyes and sets a pair of narrow spectacles across his nose. “Jesus man, can I sleep? Late night last night.”
“Gaming again? All night hack 'n' slash session? Poor Bytes.” Katia pouts and rubs invisible tears from her cheeks.
“No,” he mutters, tightening his robe a bit more, “that's not all I was doing. I balanced our stock as well.”
“We just got a new shipment in. We'll send you the counts when we have them ready,” Ruiz says.
“Looking forward to it.” Bytes grants Bethany and I a disinterested once over. “I see you brought guests.”
The Rabid: Rise Page 3
