From Oblivion's Ashes

by Michael E. A. Nyman

  What saved him was the hidden room at the back of the shop. Like his brothers, Luca possessed certain items that, were the police ever to nose around the premises, he would have trouble explaining. A hidden, 10x10 room behind a sliding panel next to the paint room kept him safe.

  By the time Marshal had found him, Luca had been close to losing his sanity. Hunger and thirst had taken their toll, and hearing the sounds of his men being eaten alive hadn’t helped matters. He had indeed caught, skinned, and eaten a rat, but had vomited it up almost immediately. The water cooler had been smashed, leaving only the drinks he recovered later from the catering truck. Once they’d run out, he’d been forced to drink, albeit sparingly, out of puddles in the yard, left behind after the rains.

  He hadn’t expected to survive, and if he did, he’d imagined some government helicopter, flying over the city, looking for scattered survivors. He hadn’t imagined, not in his wildest fantasies, that his best friend and a twelve-year old girl would be the instruments of his salvation. His overwrought reaction – “of which we will never again speak, capeesh?” – was less a joyous welcome than it was a cry for redemption.

  Luca was a criminal, likely a killer, and probably even a hit man. He’d broken strong men’s bones with nothing more than a leisurely squeeze and put the enforcers of other gangs in the hospital, without showing a hint of remorse. His temper was the stuff of legend, and there were few things in this world more terrifying than Luca in full rage. Once he was in its grip, the only people who’d ever been able to talk him down were his brothers, his parents, and of course, Marshal. But for those first five minutes, holding his best friend to his chest in relief, Luca had cried like a baby.

  Ten minutes after that, of course, he was back to his old self.

  “Marshal?” Angie addressed him without looking up from the screen, which was experiencing a lull in the action.

  “Yeah?”

  “Uncle Luca was Frank’s brother right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Does that mean that Luca owns your apartment now, since Frank was the original owner in the first place?”

  “No. The lease agreement guarantees…” Marshal answered without thinking, before a second thought made him pause. Did it? Did a lease even matter during an apocalypse? Probably not.

  “You still don’t get it,” said the ghost of Duster, smirking in the corner. “These are the end times. Civilization is dead, man, and it’s every asshole for himself.”

  “We share everything,” Ted added miserably.

  Marshal’s eyes flickered over to Angie, still oblivious as another wand duel broke out. She was halfway turned upside down as she reclined on the couch.

  “Excuse me, honey,” Marshal said. “I have to go have a talk with Uncle Luca. Why don’t you turn up the volume.”

  Without a word or even a glance upwards, Angie turned up the volume.

  He reached down to the small table at the end of the couch. Out of sheer exhaustion, he’d dropped his gun there when they’d gotten back from the excursion. He could almost hear Duster’s laughter when he picked it up and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans in the small of his back.

  Luca was already in the kitchen, preparing an enormous meal of linguini and singing loudly in Italian. He wore a bathrobe, which seemed ludicrously small on him, but still managed to cover up the ugly bits. The water was boiling, and he was in the process of converting cans of crushed tomatoes, pesto, spices, and various other ingredients into pasta sauce. Nearby, a pan of ground beef was sizzling on the stove, and he would turn from time to time to give it a stir. A bag of onions in the pantry had yielded up one of its population, which Luca was in the process of dicing up now.

  ‘…Buongiorno Italia

  buongiorno Maria

  con gli occhi pieni di malinconia

  buongiorno Dio

  lo sai che ci sono anch’io… Hey, Marshal? We gotta make a stop at my condo so I can get some of my clothes. If I gotta live through the apocalypse, then I want to be the best dressed survivor in the wasteland. And also, if we get the chance, I’d like to hit up Ricci’s. They’re the only store for blocks that carries anything in my size, and they got these shoes I’ve been keepin’ an eye on. Supposed to made outta some kind of treated Yak leather, only I didn’t want to fork over $900 for something that weird and then find out that they were crap, you know what I mean?”

  “Sure, Luca,” Marshal said, folding his arms and leaning backwards against a counter. The handgun dug into the small of his back, forcing him to adjust his posture. “You sure you want to risk traveling in Crapmobile again? You didn’t seem to like it the first time.”

  For a second, as Marshal shifted to compensate for the gun, Luca’s eyes seemed to widen. His hands fumbled as he scooped up the diced onion and dumped it in the sauce. Just as quickly, his expression went neutral.

  “Ah, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Luca said, his eyes looking down as he continued his chopping. “We’re gonna fix it up, right? We’re gonna have to take a few more trips in your shitty model in order to do that anyway, so what’s the difference?”

  “None,” Marshal said distractedly, “that I can think of.”

  For a moment, neither spoke. In the silence between them, the big chopping knife flashed as Luca expertly finished dicing up the onion.

  “You’re breaking my heart, Marshal,” Luca said in a hoarse voice, shaking his head as he stared down at his work.

  “What?”

  “I’m going to chalk it up to a bad couple of weeks,” Luca continued, scooping up the last of the diced onion and adding it to the sauce, “for both of us. But that don’t mean it don’t hurt just as bad.”

  “What are you talking about?” Marshal said, startled.

  Luca stabbed out with the knife, driving it into the wooden surface in front of him. His eyes came up and Marshal could see the pain and anger in them.

  “You think I can’t tell when somebody’s got a piece jammed into his belt?” he said, pointing towards Marshal’s hip. “Same gun I saw you put down in the living room when we got back. Means you picked it up before you came to talk to me, and there’s only one reason you’d want to do that.”

  Marshal’s stomach flipped over, and he found he couldn’t meet Luca’s angry gaze. Numbly, he pulled the gun out, holding it in both hands, looking down at it in a whirl of emotion. Out in the living room, oblivious to what was going on in the kitchen, Angie could be heard laughing at the movie.

  Why had he picked the gun up? Criminal or not, there wasn’t a person in the world he trusted more than Luca. What in the hell was wrong with him? All through his life, his mother and father, his extended family from Europe, they’d all let him down, left him alone. But Luca had always been there. Even in the cradle, Luca’s crib had been only a few feet away.

  He looked up at his oldest friend, straight into his expression of accusation and betrayal, and saw Duster leering back at him, waving that big knife. For an instant, the cold, clinical haze settled over his eyes, and the urge to shoot rose up in him.

  And then it was Luca again, and he was filled with shame.

  He put the gun on the counter, and slid it over.

  “Here,” he said. “Take it.”

  Luca caught the gun, picked it up and looked at it, then slid it back to Marshal.

  “I… I murdered two people, Luc,” Marshal said. He made a gun with the fingers of his right hand. “Took ‘em down, just like that. Pow, pow! Dead. And now, they won’t leave me alone.”

  “Figured it was something like that,” Luca grunted. He opened a cupboard and reached for a pair of glasses. Leaning across the counter, he found that he could just reach the nearest bottle from the bar, which constituted the same counter from the other side. Fishing the bottle out of its shelf, he pulled it over and looked at it.

  “Jim Beam. Yeah, that’ll do.” He poured a couple of glasses, glanced over at the living room area to see that Angie was still engrossed with her m
ovie, and passed one over to Marshal.

  “Moment I saw you with that gun,” Luca said, downing his drink in one splash and pouring himself another, “I knew that something had happened. When the girl spilled the beans, just like that… and you clammed up, I kinda guessed that I hadn’t heard the last of it. Twelve-year olds, hunh? They’re able to talk about shit like this as if it doesn’t matter. They got the TV don’t they? There was a time when you couldn’t find a prime time show where some guy wasn’t getting his brains splattered all over the floor by a bullet. But it ain’t a television show when you do the splattering.”

  Marshal didn’t answer. A part of him felt irritated at the question, and he took a deep pull of his drink.

  “So let’s hear it,” Luca said, topping him up. “What happened? Get it off your chest. Tell me everything.”

  “Two men,” Marshal said, his eyes lost in the memory. “Two men called Duster and Ted. We met them at the pharmacy, and… and they tried to rape Angie. I shot them both through the head. I killed them.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Luca said, waving this away. “That’s the abridged version. Tell me the whole story, and start from the beginning. We got a half an hour before food’s ready anyway. Word for word, I want to know everything.”

  Marshal nodded, took a deep drink, and slowly at first, then with the force and fury of a dam bursting, he related to Luca the events leading up to and including the shooting at the pharmacy.

  A half hour and most of the bottle of bourban later, he’d finished.

  “Diabetes, eh?” Luca shook his head. “Poor kid. Seems we got our work cut out for us, keepin’ her alive. We’ll have to figure out something, sooner or later. Maybe cut up a cow or something. Can you get insulin from rats?”

  Marshal said goodbye to his Jim Beam and drained his glass.

  “Calves,” he said, feeling slightly drunk. “Baby cows. That’s what they did before they learned how to synthesize it.”

  “Your mom was a diabetic, wasn’t she?”

  Marshal answered by waving his glass in the direction of Luca’s new bottle.

  “We just ran outta the Jim Beam. Say hello to Kraken rum,” Luca chortled, pouring him a glass, “and goodbye to your fucking brain.”

  “It was the kid,” Marshal said, as the black stuff slowly filled up his glass.

  “’Scuse me?” Luca asked. Then he glanced around wildly. “AW SHIT!”

  He jumped up and ran over to the stovetop, frantically stirring the pots and pans like a man trying to put out a fire. Spices were added. Fluids were poured. For a few moments, Luca was a four hundred pound dancer, gracefully manipulating the wheels and levers of his kitchen.

  And then he was back.

  “Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, sitting down again. “Motherfucker almost got away from me. You were saying?”

  “Duster, now,” Marshal said, as if Luca had never left. “I don’t think I minded putting him down so much. I mean, I don’t think I had much choice where he was concerned. The man had ex-con written all over him, you know? Out of the prison, but still in the yard, you know what I mean? Head-fucked, evil son of a bitch, just looking for the next person he could exploit, twist, use… whatever.”

  He took a deep sip of Kraken rum.

  “I’ve known a lot of ex-cons,” Luca said judiciously, “and they come in all shapes and sizes. Most of them deserve a second chance, but yeah… I know the kind you mean.”

  “But the kid. Ted.” Marshal went on, staring back through time. “Poor kid still had his Rothman’s nametag on his shirt. He was seventeen, maybe eighteen years old. I mean, could you have stood up to a Duster when you were his age? Well. Maybe you could, Luca. I’m not sure I could have.”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself,” Luca said. “I think, if nothin’ else, what this has shown is that you’ve got some fuckin’ steel in your spine, or something.”

  “But I keep picturing this kid,” Marshal continued, staring into the black murk of his drink with watery eyes. “First job. Probably still living at home with his mom and dad. You should have seen him, Luca… fat, awkward, unsure of himself… and then a zombie apocalypse… and along comes Duster. It was obvious that he’d been abusing the poor kid. I don’t even want to imagine how. And here’s Ted, just trying to do whatever he can to please the man who’s victimizing him, whatever it takes to make the man happy in order to survive.”

  “You’re reading too much into this, Marshal,” Luca said.

  “Don’t you get it? He wasn’t the monster. He was the victim! And instead of trying to help him, I put a couple of bullets in his head.”

  We’re going to rebuild humanity, Ted murmured.

  “Would you fucking shut up!” Marshal shouted.

  His eyes gazing on accusatively, Ted faded from view.

  He looked around, and saw that Luca was staring at him. Even more alarming, he glanced over at the living room and saw that Angie was too.

  “Sorry, honey,” Marshal said drunkenly. “I… Uncle Luca and I were having an argument, and I got a little carried away, that’s all. Just go back to watching your movie, okay? Dinner will be ready soon.”

  With a suspicious glare at Luca, Angie went back to the television.

  “Sorry, Luc,” Marshal said, emptying his glass. “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Luca said with a shrug. “I’ve been where you are. But here’s the thing. Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

  Marshal shrugged. “Go ahead.”

  “How did you feel when you were killing Duster and Ted?”

  Marshal hissed like a snake in a sudden intake of breath.

  “That’s the worst part about it, Luca,” he said. “I didn’t feel a thing. It was like… all of a sudden, every part of me that wasn’t involved in the killing just shut down, and… and I felt sort of… robotic. You know what I mean? I didn’t hesitate or fumble or… or… the adrenalin kicked in and I killed them. It was casual, and focused, and about as meaningful as brushing my teeth. I could have hit them blindfolded.”

  Luca nodded. “And this… all this second-guessing, moralizing shit you’re going through now… would it stop you from doing it again?”

  The question startled Marshal. He remembered the fight in the chop shop, where the same cool, focused mood had taken over. He’d been about to shoot Luca, was being urged to shoot Luca by Angie, but as the truth dawned on him, he was able to make the cool, controlled decision to lower the gun.

  “It sort of just happens,” he admitted. “Like I said. Robotic. There was no panic, no mistakes, no confusion… just…”

  “You did what you had to do,” Luca said firmly. He shook his head. “Do you know how many soldiers wish they had your level head? Most of basic training is all about trying to teach guys what you seem to be able to do naturally. When things went hairy in that pharmacy, you were clear, sharp, and competent. Don’t think I don’t remember our days at the shooting range! I know you hit what you aim at! What you learned in the pharmacy was that you don’t aim at things without thinking, and that’s just about the best anyone could pray for in a situation like that.”

  “Yeah but, I shouldn’t have killed them, Luca,” Marshal insisted, even as his mind tried to digest what Luca was getting at. “Or… maybe, once I got the gun in my hand, I should have tried to negotiate. Humanity’s going extinct. I didn’t agree with Duster’s vision of survival - and I still don’t. But a part of what he said was true. If we’re going to survive, we have to try to rebuild. Somehow.”

  “Maybe that’s true, now,” Luca said, “but you didn’t know that then. All you knew was that that little girl…”

  He pointed at Angie, sprawled out on the couch.

  “… was gonna get raped by a fuckin’ evil son of a bitch, and a guy who didn’t have the character, morality, or balls to choose any different. Maybe in the future, you can take something back from all of this. Maybe not. But stop for a moment, and think about what life wou
ld have been like if you hadn’t made those shots when you needed to. And while you’re chewing on that, think on this. Most people wouldn’t have had the talent or the focus to do what you did.”

  Marshal was silent.

  “Now that I think of it,” Luca said, his eyes wide as he continued traveling down ‘What If’ Boulevard, “I’m alive because you made those shots. Who knows how many people will owe their lives to the fact that you did what you had to do? We survived. You gotta figure there could be hundreds of people out there who need saving that can help you clean your conscience. And if you’re still messed up over this… this Ted kid, then light a fucking candle, and be glad that you’re still alive to maybe save the next one. Because, make no mistake, Marshal. The world is full of Teds, and they’re just waiting for someone like you or Duster to come and give them direction.”

  Luca’s eyes flashed, and like an action hero, he leaped from his stool and dove back into the kitchen.

  “Hold on a sec,” he shouted. “We’re at zero fuckin’ hour for this pasta, and so help me Marshal, after two fuckin’ weeks, best friend or not, if your conscience costs me this meal, I’ll fuckin’ strangle you with my own hands!”

  But Marshal didn’t hear him. A mixture of alcohol and revelation held him in limbo, and the ghosts that lived there were speaking to him. In his mind’s eye, he could see Ted looking at him, his face still frozen in that surprised look, the blood oozing from his forehead.

  Duster made me do things. He did things to me. Mom and dad… they... all I ever wanted was to be a good boy.

  “I’m sorry,” Marshal said.

  We weren’t rebuilding humanity. We were just dying out loud. There was no happy ending that didn’t end with a gun.

  “I’m sorry I killed you.”

  Dead Ted shrugged. It doesn’t matter. I forgive you. It’s a softer grave.

  In Marshal’s drunken haze, Ted began to fade from view. Like a Cheshire cat from a bad dream, Ted’s eyes held on the longest as he disappeared.

  “What was that?” Luca shouted, elbow deep in linguini.