by JD Dutra
Suddenly Barry was rushed and he staggered back on trembling legs, until his spine slammed against the bedroom door, and the blade sank in again, deeper this time. He felt his organs begin to burn inside of him. Pain jolted his body as the blade slid out then buried itself again into his stomach once more. Blood began to spread over his shirt and hands, making the task of controlling Lamar’s grip on the blade impossible. On the third blow, Lamar sank the blade down to its hilt. Barry felt the taste of blood in his mouth. He felt more of his own blood, warm and wet run over his skin and soak more of his clothes. He thought of his wife and children, how his own personal thirst for power blinded him and caused their deaths. Now he was going to die, not knowing exactly what had happened to his family.
Barry began to cough blood and shake uncontrollably with his back against the bedroom door. Lamar watched Barry slowly reach and fumble with the door handle, smearing blood on the white door and on the golden knob, as if he were trying to open it. The dying man narrowed his eyes and tried to keep on breathing, as if trying to concentrate his efforts into maybe getting out of the room.
Lamar let go of the hilt of the dagger, leaving it buried in the pit of his sacrifice’s stomach. He pulled back from the door where Barry leaned in the last moments of his life, turned to his god and bowed his head.
“Only ten more blows, master, but this weak man is almost dead after the third —”
In a rush of motion, Barry pulled the dagger out of his own stomach with both hands, took a step forward and brought it down towards Lamar’s head. Lamar turned, startled by the noise and movement behind him and before he could do anything, the flash of a blood stained dark blade coming down into one of his eyes lasted only half a second, before everything around him disappeared.
The man who called himself the god of this world stopped chanting, and began to scream in a mixture of hatred and fury, as Lamar fell hard with the blade of the dagger planted deep in his head, the hilt sticking out of one of his eyes. Barry fell down alongside him, his weak legs slipping in his own blood.
The shrieking howl that came from the elongated skull man was so terrifying, so filled with rage and anger, Barry looked away, towards the door of his bedroom, he couldn’t believe the amount of his own blood that was on it. Black spots danced before his eyes when the door suddenly flew open. All of a sudden, several armed men wearing tactical black began flooding the room. It was after making sure that what he was seeing was real, that Barry finally let go and descended into darkness.
Chapter 46
Fresno, California
Friday, July 18th, 2003
11: 00 A.M.
The face that stared back at Oneita on the mirror was that of a young teenage girl. She recognized the antique piece of furniture and the smell of home cooked grits and gravy that hung in the air. There was a skillful pair of hands brushing a thick white paste onto her hair.
“Mamma Rosie, what you got in my hair this time, its burning bad!” Said Oneita.
“It’s a relaxer for your hair girl, so you just leave it on. It’s a home-made recipe your cousin La’Trina got from the world wide internets.”
“I don’t like it, it’s itchy! It’s starting to sting Mamma Rosie!”
“Calm down, girl, you’ve only had it on for five minutes and you is supposed to leave it on for 20. I need you to look good honey, you gonna take me out to lunch.”
“It burns!” Said Oneita again as Mamma Rosie stood behind her to look at her head.
She was just starting to comb Oneita’s hair from one side to another, smiling at her, when suddenly someone knocked on the door.
Mamma Rosie began walking towards it, Oneita got up quietly and went to the kitchen sink to run cool water on her hair. Her scalp felt good and the water was soothing. She ran her hands on her scalp slowly to remove the white cream, her hair felt as frizzy as it ever did, just the way she liked it. She looked up at Mama Rosie while her head was still under the running water in the kitchen sink, and saw her talking to a well-dressed white man at the door. He gave her something that made Mamma Rosie just laugh with happiness. Oneita smiled, knowing it could only mean one thing.
“Oh, girl what are you doing? I just mixed that batch! You ruined it!” Said Mamma Rosie, trying to sound more upset than she really was.
“Sorry, Mamma, it was burning too much. Did you get another check?” Asked Oneita.
“Oh yes I did girl!”
“Mamma, how do you get checks every month?”
“Well, you are getting old enough now, so today I’m going to show you. We just play a little part, have a little fun, and the checks come. You’ll see.”
Oneita thought her grandmother was an actress of some sort. The way she talked and moved, her laugh was so mesmerizing and contagious, she could make anyone smile and hold their attention for hours.
A blink of an eye passed, and Oneita was now wearing a ponytail and a boyband’s t-shirt as she pushed Mamma Rosie in a wheelchair, heading down the street to the bus stop. She was heavy, but Oneita did her best to push her.
“You’re too skinny girl, you gotta eat some more, eating makes you strong,” said Mamma Rosie.
“Why don’t you walk outside like you do inside the apartment? Why do you use this chair outside all the time? If you walked out here it would be so much easier —”
“Oneita!” Her grandmother interrupted her sternly. “Don’t ask that question again outside the home, you understand?”
“Sorry, Mamma…”
“We are just playing a little part, having a little fun remember? Be in the moment.”
“I see, like an actress Mamma Rosie?”
“Yes, dear, like actresses, you and I.”
The bus arrived and the driver came out to help her grandmother get on the bus with the lift, she sat on her wheelchair the entire time. It took a while to get her on, but she played her part just right.
“Where are we going Grandma?”
“We are going to eat somewhere, are you hungry?”
“Not really,” said Oneita.
“Well, you will be as soon as you smell the deliciousness from where we’re going girl, I promise you!”
The bus stopped, the driver took the time to get Mamma Rosie out of the bus. Oneita wheeled her grandmother across the street, it was deserted and there weren’t any cars coming. Oneita kept pushing the heavy chair across the parking lot until they came to the door.
“I guess this is it,” said Mamma Rosie.
“This place doesn’t look like it has anything good. It actually looks abandoned. Is this even a restaurant, Mamma Rosie?”
The building in front of them had overgrown weeds, part of the stucco was coming off and there were years of tags peeling off the walls from the local gangs.
“Well… My friend who brought me the check said this is it,” Mamma Rosie said while double checking the address. “The food is delicious he said. Let’s see if you can wheel me up that ramp over there.”
Oneita wheeled her grandmother to the edge of the handicapped access ramp.
“Push, Honey!”
“I’m trying! You are too heavy!”
“Oneita, keep on trying…”
“Grandma, you can just get —”
“Oneita! Keep pushing!”
“I can’t, it’s too heavy, and the ramp is too steep!”
All of a sudden, Mamma Rosie lost her balance and fell forward out of the chair, making a loud crashing sound and panicking her granddaughter.
“Mamma Rosie! Are you alright?” Screamed Oneita, who stepped around the chair and reached down to help her grandmother stand. “Get up Mamma!”
“Oneita… Go inside,” Mamma Rosie said, her voice weak with pain. “Call the manager of the restaurant, I… I’m hurting… I need some help!”
“Get up Mamma Rosie, just get up!”
“Now Oneita, go inside now!”
Oneita left her grandmother lying face first on the ground, she was dragging herself acros
s the sidewalk towards the shade and crying loudly. Oneita felt her eyes burn with tears when she went inside.
“Somebody please help me, my grandma fell from her chair and she won’t get up!”
Some rough looking men started walking towards her. They all came outside and, Oneita walked over to her grandmother’s side, trying to help pull her up.
“Help… Please,” said Mamma Rosie to the men, who between them lifted her up back onto her chair.
Mamma Rosie regained her breath and said, “I came to eat at your restaurant, but your facility isn’t friendly to the handicapped!”
The men looked amused.
“Sorry ma’am, I think you will have to find somewhere else to eat,” said one of them with an accent so thick and slurred, later on Oneita would learn it was Russian.
“Do not disrespect me, young man!” Said Mamma Rosie. “I demand to be treated with fairness and equality! That’s the law! Are you being racist?”
“Just go somewhere else who is friendly to the handicapped, they’ll be glad to take your money and give you some food,” one of them said and the men began laughing and speaking in a language Oneita didn’t understand. They turned around, went inside and slammed the door shut.
“Oh no, this ain’t right, I ain’t gonna be disrespected like this,” said Mamma Rosie, who wheeled herself up to the door and began pounding her fist on the door.
“Hey! Open up! You can’t treat me like this, my attorney will hear all about how you’re treating me!”
“Mamma Rosie, let’s go somewhere else, please…” Said Oneita.
“I’m calling my attorney right now!” Her grandmother screamed.
“Please, Mamma, let’s go!”
“Shoosh child! Remember what I said honey, you play a little part, have a little fun. You’re what we’ll call, a witness —”
Suddenly the door opened violently.
“I knew it!” Said one of the men through clenched teeth, his breathing heavy with fury.
Oneita saw a white, tattooed hand with golden rings come out of the shadows like a viper and grip Mamma Rosie’s hair, and pull her out of the chair and into the darkness of the abandoned restaurant.
“Run, Oneita, run!” Her grandmother screamed, her voice twisted with pain. Oneita tried to run as fast as she could but as soon as she turned, she felt powerful arms wrapping around her and lifting her off the ground. She kicked and screamed as the man turned her towards the restaurant’s door and began to walk. Someone was pulling Mamma Rosie’s wheelchair into the building.
Oneita felt a man’s lips on the back of her neck for the first time. He moaned,”Hmm… You smell good,” and when the images of what happened next invaded her mind, she woke up, gasping with terror.
*
Oneita felt gravel under her hands. The air smelled of decomposing flesh and burnt rubber and the sun seemed brighter than usual. She felt something weighing on her chest. She tried to move, but every muscle on her body ached with pain, her face, arms and legs. Her eyes were hurting and were swollen almost completely shut, she could barely see, then she remembered the Asian lady’s fists hitting her on the face over and over again, then nothing.
She tried to push whatever was on top of her. It was heavy, stiff, clammy and wet, she realized it was a man’s body. Oneita pushed him off, felt her clothes soaking wet and sticky with blood. She tried to force her swollen eyes open, and when she looked at her hands, she realized they too were covered in blood. She looked down, and saw Baby Ray’s body lying motionless where she had pushed him, a deep red gash across his throat. Oneita began wailing with desperation.
Fear and terror immediately gripped her and as she managed to look around through the small slits in her eyes she saw that all cars were gone. Jimmy’s crew’s rides were covered with bullets holes and one of them was on fire. At the edge of the conveyor belt of the car shredder which was now silent, a large metal container was washed in blood, overflowing with small pieces of metal, rubber, flesh and bone.
Chapter 47
Phoenix, Arizona
Monday, October 26th, 2020
9:39 A.M
Daniel watched Ivan’s men remove the last plywood board from the front door of a fancy looking gas station and convenience store. There were over a dozen of his men, some were preparing the cars and jerry cans to fill them with gas, others were walking into the store. One of them turned on the lights, others were calmly picking things off the shelf, as if they were shopping on a regular day. They were getting close to the city, the smell of the dead was faint but present in the air.
He looked back to see Mei Lin inside one of the cars, she was looking directly at him. When their eyes met in the distance, she smiled at him then winked at him quickly before she looked down at her computer. Daniel smiled briefly. Ivan was next to her, speaking more with his hands than his mouth.
If I were lucky enough to have met a woman like her years ago, things would’ve been so different.
Both Mei Lin and Ivan were talking but not looking at each other, they were probably on the speaker phone with someone.
Daniel took a deep breath then looked at his wrist watch. The sun was bright and warm and it was only 9:42 A.M. of the most draining day of his life. He wandered over to the convenience store, Ivan’s men nodded at him as he walked in. He went to the restroom, washed his hands and face, then walked straight to the drink cooler to get himself a beer. They were all room temperature, but he didn’t care.
He opened one, walked to the cashier counter, picked a candy bar off a tray and tore it open. He sat on the counter and began to eat and drink, watching Ivan’s men stock up and joke around with each other in Russian. He brought the chocolate to his mouth, took a bite, and noticed a few small droplets of dried blood on his hand that he had missed during his wash, but he didn’t care. All he had in his mind were his children and how he wished they were still alive. Their loss was a wound that would never heal, just like the pain of losing his wife. The thought of it all made him feel hopelessly alone.
He noticed a phone on the other side of the counter and when he picked it up, he was surprised it still worked. He wished he could call his parents, but he had grown up in several different foster homes and he’d never met them before. He didn’t even have his brother to call, he had died fighting in Iraq in 2004. Now that his kids were gone, he was truly alone in the world.
From memory he dialed Isabella’s cell phone but either the battery was dead or it wasn’t working.
He tried again a few more times, still nothing. He hoped she was still alive. He knew he’d miss her sense of humor and their intimacy, but if she’d survived she was probably better off with Nathan, especially now with the world turned upside down by this pandemic. He remembered the first time him and Isabella met for coffee, they hit if off right away and in the dozen or so encounters that followed their bodies did most of the communication. When it came down to it, she was right, they hardly knew one another at a deeper level, it was all mostly physical.
He dialed Jennifer’s number and the phone rang until her voicemail picked up but it was full and not accepting any more messages. Their first meeting at a bar led to both of them talking all night and well into the morning, it was as if they had known each other all their lives. After breakfast, they shared a soft kiss and promises of seeing each other again. That was two days before he was thrown into jail.
He put the phone back on its base and wondered what he’d do with his life, what would be of his future. An old man’s accented voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Is it not too early to drink beer?” Asked Grisha, the oldest man in Ivan’s crew. He’d always worn dirty overalls whenever Daniel went to visit the pick and pull, but today he had military boots, black tactical pants and a dark gray shirt that showed off his old muscles and fading tattoos.
“It’s never too early,” said Daniel with a forced smile.
Grisha smiled warmly at him and said, “Have you killed someone before today
my friend?”
“I have tried…”
“Trying is not the same… I was surprised when you cut that man’s throat and let him bleed to death on top of his own woman,” the old man said before chuckling.
“I should’ve tossed him into the shredder with the others, after what he put me and my family through. I’m regretting it now.”
Grisha laughed, “The world has turned and there will be many more men to kill very soon, don’t worry my friend.”
“I’ve been your landscaper for so many years, I visited your shop for so long, I never had any idea that you guys were more than a place for old car parts. I had absolutely no idea.”
“Well, it’s not my place to talk about it, but Ivan likes you. He’ll talk to you.”
“Can you at least tell me what you guys are going to do next?”
“We’ll head south. That’s what we’ll do.”
Daniel nodded and smiled as Grisha suddenly realized there were bottles of vodka in a nearby box. The sight immediately jolted the old man with life, he cut the box open to inspect the contents.
“Daniel. Can we talk?”
It was Ivan’s voice, he was standing by the door and Mei Lin was beside him with a warm smile on her full lips. Daniel didn’t know what to expect, Mei Lin was a public figure, he and Ivan were closer than clients and vendors were supposed to be, but all that was before.
“Let’s take a walk, we need to ask you something,” said Ivan, and the three of them started to walk across the gas station parking lot, away from the men who were either filling cars up with gas or calmly stocking them with whatever they wanted out of the convenience store. There was no one on the streets but them.
They stopped in the middle of the parking lot, and Ivan spoke, “Before I say anything, let me tell you how sorry I am about Summer and Nick. I hope those bastards felt a lot of pain before they died.”
