Domino Falls

by Steven Barnes

  Terry shrugged. He’d kissed Kendra good night at her door, but he’d kept it quick because of the staring eyes of other campers. “Time never seems right.”

  “Won’t hurt my feelings if you get a new roommate.”

  Terry warmed himself with the idea of sharing a room with Kendra. Why not?

  Trucks rumbled from behind them. Two scav crews were on their way to the city, crammed with six men each. Terry didn’t see Cliff today or recognize the crews, but he and Piranha waved and called out good luck. The scavs waved back. The trucks blared music as they whizzed past. One of the newbies on the end looked scared to death.

  “Don’t do it, man,” Terry said, resuming last night’s argument. “We’ll be shooters like Darius and Dean. We shoot tin cans and freaks, fix fences. It’s nothing.”

  “Sounds great for you,” Piranha said. “Not me. I’m gonna stay with the scavs.”

  The memory of runners stampeding after the truck made Terry’s hands tremor, so he shoved them in his pockets. He’d loved having batteries to wave like thousand-dollar bills, but he’d never find Lisa if he died outside. He couldn’t look out for Kendra.

  “I don’t get it, P,” Terry said. “You weren’t scared?”

  “Yeah, I was,” Piranha said. “I couldn’t see, remember? That’s why I couldn’t drive the damned bus. And I’ll still be scared. But I learned a lesson out there, man: there’s no substitute for getting it yourself.”

  “What else do you need so bad?”

  “I’ll know it when I see it.”

  “No batteries are worth dying over.”

  “Unless they are,” Piranha said, and how could Terry argue? In the wrong time and place, light could mean survival. Terry hoped Piranha wasn’t trying to impress Sonia somehow; his efforts were being sorely wasted.

  “Don’t say nobody tried to stop you,” Terry said, repeating his words to him.

  Piranha sighed. “Scavs are free, man. They go get what they want.”

  They didn’t say anything for the rest of the walk.

  At the mechanic’s house, a dog tied in the backyard barked as they came up the walkway, but Hipshot didn’t answer. Hippy chose his conversations carefully in Threadville. No one was in sight. The windows were boarded, so Terry couldn’t see light inside to tell if the mechanic was up yet.

  It was early, but they knocked. Terry noticed a scuffed skateboard, and a red BMX racer that reminded him of his first childhood training bike. The sharp sting of his lost childhood assailed him; for once, the feeling didn’t seem to have anything to do with the freaks.

  After checking her peephole, the woman opened the door. Terry was glad she was already dressed and looked wide-awake, as if she’d been up for hours, but he didn’t like the frozen phoniness in her face. Bad news, he thought.

  She gave him the Beauty’s key. “Nothing’s been touched,” she said. “You can unload what you want. I’ll send Myles right out. We’re just finishing breakfast.”

  At the bus, the others celebrated like it was Christmas Day, rediscovering supplies they’d forgotten. Kendra and Ursalina would get half shares when it was time to divide up the supplies—they’d earned that much in firefights—but that didn’t matter yet. For now, it was a free-for-all.

  “Thank you, God—shampoo!” Sonia shrieked. They’d always had shampoo and soap from camp, but rarely anywhere to stop to wash.

  The others were gathering supplies by the armloads, loading up on flashlights that hadn’t worked in weeks and lamps from the camp they hadn’t been able to use at all. Access to batteries changed everything. Piranha had a point.

  “Don’t bring too much,” Terry said. “Nobody’s watching the rooms all day.”

  Ursalina held up a pocketknife. “And don’t forget small items for trade.”

  Kendra waited outside the bus, hugging herself, staring toward the house. Terry rubbed her shoulder before he climbed into the Beauty, his thigh complaining. Touching her made him remember Piranha’s offer to vanish that night.

  Broken glass littered the Beauty’s floor like tiles. The cracked green leather driver’s seat waited, still flat from the journey. It was already hard to believe they’d slept on these seats, but dammit, the bus felt like his only home.

  Terry sat and slipped the key into the ignition. “Come on, girl,” he whispered.

  He turned the key. Not even a click. The Beauty was so ghost silent that no one noticed the key’s turn except for Kendra, who watched sadly from the open doorway.

  Terry’s mind did acrobatics, sparked by Kendra’s paranoia. What if the Beauty had been sabotaged? What if Threadville didn’t want them to leave? He tried the key again.

  “Mechanic’s coming,” Kendra said in a dull voice.

  Behind her, the family was approaching, even the kid. They looked as grim as a medical team notifying the next of kin. Terry climbed out of the bus to meet Myles. The others leaned through the windows to hear his report.

  “Well,” Myles said, “the transmission is pretty much fried, and the suspension’s shot.” Terry had never taken auto shop, but that didn’t sound good.

  “English?” Terry said.

  “Means you’re stuck here. At least for a while. I don’t know how this vehicle got you over the state line.”

  “There’s no way to fix it?” Kendra said. She sounded as heartbroken as Terry felt.

  Myles shook his head. “Even if I could cannibalize every truck I have—and that’s stealing—I’m not sure I could get her moving.”

  “Would anyone sell us parts?” Terry said.

  Myles shook his head with a sour chuckle. “Parts she could use don’t come along every day. You’d be better off paying a scav to bring you some wheels. You have enough gas to grab one of the junkers along the road. Sometimes traders bring vehicles to sell, but it’s cheaper to train your own scavs.”

  Terry felt a sharp sadness, realizing that the pirates at the pass had cut the Beauty down. She’d gotten them to Domino Falls with her last gasps.

  Kendra had slipped her hand into his. “We can’t be stuck here. We can’t.”

  The earnestness in her voice made the mechanic’s wife cock her head to the side, studying Kendra. She even took a step toward her, as if to protect her. “You don’t like it here, sweetheart?” she said.

  “She’s not speaking for me!” Darius called. Sonia, Ursalina, and Dean agreed.

  The mechanic’s wife caught Kendra’s eye, a silent language between them. Terry squeezed Kendra’s hand to keep her quiet, but he was too late.

  “Do you know that guy, Brownie, who can’t find his daughter?” Kendra said.

  Myles’s face turned to stone. Their kid, Jason, moved closer to his mother, staring up at her with wide eyes, as if to ask: Well? What are you going to say?

  “We do some business with Brownie,” Myles said, his voice clipped. “Haven’t heard anything about his daughter.”

  The mechanic was lying! Alarm bells sounded in Terry’s head.

  “Kendra’s just excitable,” Terry said, trying not to show his concern.

  “More like psycho,” Darius muttered.

  Kendra stepped closer to the mechanic’s wife, speaking only to her. “I also heard there’s another girl missing …” she said. “A … Rianne?”

  Jason let out a small gasp. The mechanic’s wife seemed to go pale.

  Myles cursed. He glanced quickly toward the road, perhaps to see if they were being watched. “Come in the house,” he said. “We can’t talk out here.”

  The first thing Kendra noticed in the living room was a family photo on the mantel, perhaps five years old. Jason was shorter and younger, posing opposite a teenage girl who looked eerily like her. No wonder Deirdre had such a strong reaction to her!

  “Where’s your daughter?” Kendra said as soon as the front door was closed.

  Deirdre picked up the photo, hugging its face to her stomach. “Imani was in school. Cornell, upstate New York. We haven’t heard a peep in months.”
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  The others had stayed outside to loot the bus, but Terry had accompanied Kendra into the mechanic’s house. He was the only one who believed in her instincts—or he tried to, anyway. Mostly, Terry didn’t like letting her out of his sight, a kind of protectiveness she thought she had lost with her family.

  Deirdre pointed out a sofa, so they sat. The living room was surprisingly well decorated, Mexican and Southwestern art, and Kendra wondered how many of the furnishings had already been in the house when they arrived. One family out, another in.

  “You ask a lot of questions,” Myles said.

  “She gets excited,” Terry said. “She doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out what we’ve gotten ourselves into,” Kendra said. “I’m grateful to be here, but … are you from this town?”

  Myles glanced at his wife. “Past five years, but it’s changed … a lot. Most people are gone. After the worst was over and I thought Deirdre and Jason were safe, I fixed up some cars, formed a crew. All of us had folks east. We made it as far as Phoenix. But …” The cloud that passed across his face probably meant that some of his crew had died. Kendra couldn’t imagine crossing the country now.

  “He was gone a month,” Deirdre said, the memory bitter in her mouth. Jason stood close to his father, one arm hooked around him. Jason was tall enough to be thirteen, but he acted younger, just like she had with Grandpa Joe. The sudden memory of Grandpa Joe seemed to kick Kendra in the stomach.

  “I had to try,” Myles said. “Not knowing only makes it harder.”

  Terry made a sympathetic sound. At least I know what happened to my family, Kendra thought, although her knowledge felt more like a wound than a comfort. She would rather fantasize that they had survived.

  “What do you know about the missing girls?” Kendra said.

  “Rianne fell in with the Threadies, like Brownie’s Sissy,” Deirdre said. “About a month ago, she came and told us how excited she was because she’d been chosen for ‘special duties’ by Wales. But she wouldn’t say what. She was going to the ranch every day, staying long hours. One day, she never came home. When we ask, all they’ll say is that she’s in training, whatever that means. But we can’t talk to her.”

  “She lived here?” Terry said.

  Deirdre nodded sadly. “Ja …” She stopped herself. “One of the townspeople brought her from camp, thought she’d fit in with us. She was new, practically alone. Seventeen, but so sheltered.”

  Had she been about to name Jackie when she stopped herself? Innocent, Jackie had called Rianne. Jackie had felt fondness for Rianne, found her a safe place to live. Myles sighed. “It was almost like …”

  “… Imani was home,” Jason finished. “Rianne reminded us of her. A lot.”

  No one in the family had dry eyes, suddenly. Myles looked away.

  “Have you talked to the mayor?” Kendra said.

  “Van Peebles?” Myles said. “Just a figurehead. He can’t do nothing.”

  “So, wait,” Terry said. “This girl vanished at the ranch? And nobody will let you talk to her?” He looked at Kendra, the situation dawning on him.

  “Just like Brownie’s daughter,” Kendra said.

  “Brownie stood up in the dining hall and made a fuss,” Deirdre said.

  “Made accusations right to Wales’s face, so we hear,” Myles said, nodding. “Brownie’s got guts. When it comes to family, you do what you have to.”

  Their tones were casual, but there was nothing casual in their words. Kendra could almost feel the floor moving beneath her feet, like the time she’d felt the tremors of a six-point earthquake in L.A.

  Kendra had planned to do her best to talk Sonia and Ursalina out of their planned excursion to the ranch later. She had vowed not to set foot on the grounds. Never.

  Now, nothing could keep her away.

  Threadrunner Ranch

  The tyrant is only the slave turned inside out.

  —Egyptian proverb

  Sixteen

  4:30 p.m.

  A white van drew a crowd up at the Motel 6. Its side was painted with a glittering gold TR insignia: Threadrunner Ranch.

  The driver was a Gold Shirt … but more than a Gold Shirt. In addition to the customary garb, he wore glittery gold brushes on his shoulders and had a row of medals pinned across his breast like a four-star general. His black gold-rimmed Captain Hook hat was the crowning absurdity. Kendra expected him to break into song like an Oompa-Loompa. If she hadn’t been worried about the consequences, she might have burst out laughing as soon as he hopped out to open the van door.

  “Can you believe this?” Sonia whispered, charmed.

  “No, not really,” Ursalina murmured to Kendra, and giggled. Actually giggled. Kendra hadn’t been entirely certain Ursalina could even make sounds like that.

  Kendra hadn’t spent her night obsessing over what to wear, so she’d been stuck with the dowdy castoffs left on the beds. Better than jeans, anyway. She wore a black pleated skirt that almost reached her ankles and a lacy black blouse that was too big for her, so she had a tank top underneath. She hadn’t found any pumps or sandals, much less heels like Sonia’s, so she was still wearing her dirty sneakers. But the gathering crowd made her feel like a celebrity being picked up by a stretch Hummer. Someone whistled, probably at Sonia’s short dress or Ursalina’s firm calves.

  “Good afternoon, ladies,” the Gold Shirt said with a bow. “It will be my honor to drive you to the ranch.” Did he have an English accent? She was almost sure.

  No Dogs, said a sign in the van’s window, in bright red ink. That was a first.

  The van was spotless, with plush leather seats as soft as a baby’s cheek. As she boarded, Kendra thought about Rianne, wondering if the van had looked like a prince’s carriage when it came to fetch her at the mechanic’s boarded-up house.

  A DVD played a little too loudly from overhead: a collection of clips from Threadrunner movies, tanks and soldiers battling insects the size of Transformers. But she knew the DVD was a distraction. Kendra reminded herself to mentally map where they went, and how far.

  On the screen, Wales appeared in a fatherly turtleneck, sitting in front of a fireplace. He raised a steaming coffee mug and smiled. “Welcome to Threadrunner Ranch,” he said.

  “Where are we going—Universal Studios?” Ursalina whispered.

  “Where’s the shark?” Kendra said, but disguised her giggle as a cough, so convincingly that Sonia didn’t even notice, mesmerized by the TV screen above them.

  “Located just two miles outside of the gold rush town of Domino Falls, California, Threadrunner Ranch is my lifetime’s pride and joy after a film and television career spanning more than thirty years.” He blinked, expression somber. “But as we all know, those days are past. What we once knew as Hollywood is a burned-out freak zone. Gone are the frontier fantasies about gold twinkling in the hills. Our world has changed in the blink of an eye, and every one of us has suffered personal losses we never imagined our hearts could survive. Now, we only have each other—and the threads that bind us.”

  Despite the cheese factor, a tear came to Kendra’s eye. Tears were never far.

  “My home is now your home,” Wales went on, and Kendra’s guard was back up. Yeah. That also means your home is his home.

  “Our destiny hasn’t brought us together by accident. Soon you’ll understand, as I do now, that coincidences are only a myth. How do I know? I saw it in a dream.”

  His image dissolved, and suddenly the screen was filled with tiny red tendrils spiraling down from a black, blood-streaked sky.

  Kendra’s mouth dropped open.

  On the screen was Kendra’s dreams.

  A dream. For Sonia Petansu, that was the only word that fit. For the first time since Christmas morning when she was four, waking to a wonderland of gifts in her living room, she pinched her arm to make sure she was awake.

  It was as if Freak Day had never happened. Erased.

  She’d
found shampoo, so her hair smelled like hers again. She was wearing a black cocktail dress she would have bought—or at least swiped—from Macy’s. It fit her so well that she’d barely recognized herself in the Motel 6 mirror. And after being stripped of every aspiration, suddenly she was about to fulfill the fantasy she’d talked about with her friends at every ThreadieCon: their pilgrimage to the ranch. The ranch.

  And now they were here.

  Threadville Ranch was nestled in the hills east of Domino Falls, guarded by a twelve-foot gate that stretched like the Great Wall of China. The Threadrunner complex, which looked like about a hundred acres of vineyards and quaint colonial outbuildings, was surrounded by hundreds of acres of undeveloped land. Dozens of Gold Shirts patrolled the fenced perimeter, holding German shepherds by their leashes. Freaks lurched across the distant hillside like lost, hungry cattle, too many to count. They seemed a world away. The ranch was well guarded.

  They were hustled through a whirlwind of checkpoints where it seemed every uniform was fancier and more elaborate than the last—culminating with the Gold Coat who met them inside the house’s gleaming marble foyer. His coat hung past his knees in a princely fashion.

  “Like a fairy tale,” Sonia whispered to Kendra, who hadn’t said a word since the van ride, when she couldn’t stop staring at the DVD playing on the screen.

  The sprawling foyer was a museum, the walls covered with lighted display cases, movie posters, and enlarged book covers. A tattered gray raincoat in the nearest display case leaped out to Sonia on sight: Wales’s coat from Threadrunner Apocalypse, the one that had whipped around in slow-mo when he’d been attacked by the giant grasshopper with the human head. Sonia had skipped school to see the Threadrunner double feature with her friends, returning home to find she’d been ratted out by her little brother. Tears pooled in her eyes, pricked by deep nostalgia. The past seemed close enough to touch.

  “That’s from the shoot,” their guide said in a basso whisper. “He wore it.”

  “Cool.” Even Ursalina agreed.

  When Wales was suddenly in the room, Sonia’s weight seemed to vanish, as if she could float away on her dream.

  “There you are!” Wales was walking straight to her with a grin as if they had known each other for years. “I hoped you’d come today, Sonia. You and your friends. This is a good time to visit. We’re all very excited.”