Red Runs the River

by Tony Urban

  He pounded his fist against the wooden door, not to convey the anger which was brewing inside him, but because he knew from too much experience that the man and woman who lived in that house were almost certainly asleep and wouldn't hear him unless he made a racket.

  He hit the door again. Four hard raps. After which he gave up and tried the knob. It turned, and he pushed the door open, shaking his head. Solomon Baldwin, the man a sixteen-year-old Mitch had thought capable of taking over the world, was too damn lazy or stupid or drunk or all three to lock his front door.

  The garbage bags on the porch were a few grains of rice compared to the buffet of trash that littered the first floor of Saw's mansion. About a third of it was bagged up, but the other 67 percent was strewn across the floor, stacked on tables, piled atop furniture. Mitch hadn't been in the house in a month or more and thought it seemed a much more disgusting sight now than then.

  Fat flies buzzed and zoomed about, giddy over this goldmine they'd found to call home. One landed on Mitch's bicep and gave him a stinging bite before he could swat it away.

  "Fucker!" He smashed it against his skin smearing a red skid mark along his upper arm. A pink welt rose where the insect had left its mark and Mitch wished he'd have worn long sleeves.

  "Saw!" Mitch aimed the word at the staircase that split the first floor in half. "Mina!"

  Nothing.

  He knew he could ascend the twenty or so stairs that led to the second story before anyone was likely to respond, but as much as he thought Saw had grown sloppy and worthless over the last few years, he knew the man was always armed and if he was to go storming into his bedroom, the old bastard might be apt to blow his pretty head off without bothering to take a glance to see who had come a knocking.

  "Fucking assholes," he muttered. He shouldn't have wasted his time walking out here in hundred-degree heat. Now, instead of answers, all he had to look forward to was a half-mile walk back and an arm that was itching like poison oak from the fly's bite.

  He scanned the rooms, trying to find something that might lend credence to what Boyd had said. Baggies or needles or syringes. But in this jumble of garbage it was almost impossible to discern one bit of trash from the next. It was like Saw was going for the Guinness World Record of hoarding or something. And what was up with Mina? How could she let what had been one of the most beautiful homes Mitch had ever seen descend into this mess. He didn't expect Saw to have any pride but thought she might. Apparently, she was just as much of a pig as the man she'd shacked up with.

  Mitch retreated through the maze of mess, careful not to step on anything hazardous and had almost made it to the door when a soft, barely there voice broke through the buzzing of the flies.

  "Thought I heard your mouth. What do you want?"

  Mitch turned and saw Mina leaning against the handrail, half-way down the staircase. She was as skinny as ever, black flesh stretched taut against her bones. A breathing skeleton. Mitch had often thought, when looking at her, that you could stand her outside during Halloween and people'd think she was one hell of a creepy decoration.

  "Is Saw around?"

  Mina looked from Mitch to the top of the stairs, then back again. "Course he is."

  "Can he come down? I need to talk to him."

  "Sleeping now."

  Mitch thought she looked half-asleep too. Or half drunk, more likely. He was surprised she'd made it this far down the staircase without falling. "And you won't wake him?"

  The woman's tight, angular face twisted into something resembling a maniac's grin. "I won't. You're welcome to though."

  Mitch wasn't about to do that, and he knew she knew that too and that pissed him off all the more. "Fine. If he wakes up, you tell him I caught Boyd Yates dealing heroin."

  "Oh yeah?" There was no surprise in her voice, just flat matter of factness.

  "Yeah. And when he realized I was taking him to the pit, he couldn't stop his lips from moving."

  That brought some genuine emotion to her face. Not exactly shock or worry, but maybe curiosity. Mitch couldn't tell for certain, but he was glad to see there was something left inside her head that could still put two and two together.

  "He got anything interesting to say?"

  "Bits and pieces."

  Mina made it down the remaining stairs and came within a couple yards of Mitch. He could smell alcohol seeping from her pores.

  "I'm sure. He always tended to blather." She stared at Mitch who kept his face purposely blank. "Thing is, a man walking to his death don't got no reason to tell the truth."

  "I see it the other way."

  "How's that?"

  "I doubt a man with nothing to gain sees much use in lying."

  Mina pushed a bowl full of mold-covered pasta aside with her foot as she leaned against a wall. "You set it off yet, Mitch?"

  "Not yet. It's too damn hot out there. I'm waiting till dusk when it's cooler, so everyone can come and get a good look."

  She nodded.

  "You're invited. Saw too, of course. I think it would be good for the town actually, if you both showed up. It's been a while. More than a month by my count."

  Mina looked away from him. "Has it?"

  "It has."

  Mitch turned back to the door and was in the threshold when she spoke again.

  "You send someone out here to gather that garbage off the porch, Mitch. ‘less you want to do it yourself."

  Mitch didn't answer. He knew, if he did, she'd hear the anger in his voice and she'd know she'd got a rise out of him. He wasn't about to give her that small pleasure.

  Chapter Seven

  The sun had set half an hour ago, but it was still hot enough to work up a sweat without any great exertion. A mild breeze had kicked up which gave a slight reprieve from the baking hot temperatures, but it also kicked up the dry dirt which then hit Mitch's sweaty skin and formed a kind of paste. He thought, with grim irony, that rich people like his mother probably paid for such things before the civilized world had ended.

  "Well, when this gonna git happening?" A voice that sounded like rocks in a blender asked.

  Mitch turned toward Horace, a middle-aged drunk whose bulbous nose was the only thing of interest on his wide, pasty face. "Soon enough, Horace. You act like you got better things to do."

  Horace's hand went to a bulge in his pocket, a bulge that was shaped like a flask and Mitch saw him lick his narrow, pinched lips.

  "Go ahead and drink. No one's stopping you," Mitch said.

  Horace scanned the crowd, a rough bunch if there ever was, and decided to keep his stash hidden. Mitch thought it looked like two thirds of the town had come to watch Boyd's end. Among them were all the new arrivals from the last eight months because anyone in town less than that amount of time had never seen what happened in the pit. Mitch knew they'd heard stories. He'd spread plenty himself. But seeing it in person was another matter entirely and he aimed to give them a show they couldn't forget.

  Absent from onlookers, not that Mitch was surprised, were Saw and Mina. He knew the chance of Saw being drawn out of his trash mansion was slim, but he'd held onto a small sliver of hope. That was gone now and the murmurs in the crowd were transforming into annoyed grumbles.

  In Horace's words, it was time for the show to git happening.

  Mitch separated himself from the rest of the men and women, moving toward a truck trailer that stood at the far end of the pit. The tires at the rear end - the end facing the pit - had been flattened so the trailer sloped downward at a twenty-degree angle.

  As he grabbed hold of the latch to open the double doors, he took a look down at Boyd who stood at the far end, his body so tight against the earthen wall that he may as well have been glued to it.

  "You got anything to say for yourself?" Mitch shouted the words so Boyd and everyone else in attendance heard them.

  Boyd sneered at him. "Fuck yourself, Mitch!"

  "Is that all?"

  Boyd turned his gaze away from Mitch's face and tow
ard the trailer doors, waiting.

  "So be it then."

  "What about me?" The voice carried across the crowd. Mitch couldn't see the source, but he knew. The voice hadn't really said 'what'. He'd said, 'wot.'

  Everyone turned and gawked as Saw strolled toward the pit. The men and women separated, like some instinctual force had taken hold of them, to allow the man a clear path. With them out of the way, Mitch could watch Solomon Baldwin's grand entrance.

  The man, Mitch's onetime idol, had never been tall. He was five and a half feet at the most but wide as a linebacker and carried himself in a way that made him seem twice his actual size. His girth had diminished since Mitch last saw him. He wondered if the man even broke a buck fifty now. But the swagger, the aura, was as bright and bold as ever.

  Saw grinned, revealing the rotten teeth that made him look like he'd just chomped down a mouthful of shit, and Mitch wondered how those choppers hadn't fallen out. He wondered if teeth could somehow become petrified.

  The people who had come to watch Boyd Yates die greeted Saw like he was the world's biggest rock star. They clutched and grabbed at him as he passed through them, desperate to get a touch, a feel, of the man they considered their leader even though he'd never spoken so much as a single word to the majority of them.

  Mitch found Mina following Saw. No one paid her much attention, let alone gave her the superstar treatment, but she didn't seem to mind. She trailed behind Saw like his shadow, unnoticed by most but always there.

  "I didn't think you'd come," Mitch said.

  Saw didn't look at him. He looked at the crowd. At his people. "And miss the ado? Wot kind of arsehole do you take me for, Mitchy?

  One no better than an absentee landlord, Mitch thought but he kept his mouth shut as Saw reached the edge of the pit and came to him.

  Even in the half-light of dusk, Mitch thought Saw looked haggard, his skin so loose it quivered when he moved.

  "Looks like you've been doing a fine job of holding down the fort, Mitchy. Such a good lad, you are."

  When they first met, Mitch had looked up to Saw, physically and emotionally. Now he stood half a foot taller than the man and thought he looked almost insignificant in his current state.

  "Did ya get even bigger than before?" Saw asked.

  "Don't know. I don't make a habit of measuring myself."

  Saw grinned again and gave Mitch a jab in the crotch, hard enough to send a light wave of nausea into his belly. "That's aw right. I'll always be bigger where it counts."

  The hole in Saw's forehead, which had always wavered between being scabbed over and an oozing divot, was at the present open. The skin around it looked raw, like he'd been picking at the wound. A black fly landed on the hole and ducked inside, exploring the recesses of the interior of Saw's skull. That coupled with the ball-tap made Mitch feel like he might barf.

  Two things hadn't changed. Saw's eyes. They were as alert, as piercing, as ever and as he looked Mitch up and down, Mitch felt like he wasn't simply examining his face, but instead peering into his soul.

  Saw turned back to the crowd. "Ain't this just the dog's bollocks?" He raised his arms and the people cheered.

  Christ, Mitch thought, he could disappear for a year and they'd still worship him.

  "I see some familiar faces out there but a lot that I don't recognize just yet. That's aw right though. I'll learn your names soon enough and if you don't know mine, it's Solomon Baldwin but you can call me Saw. All me friends do."

  The crowd roared. And even though Mitch had heard variations of this a hundred times over the years, the man's perverse kind of charm was impossible to ignore.

  "We don't have a lot of rules here in Shard End. Drink what you want. Fuck who you want. Hell, you can even kill who you want if you got a right good reason to do so and no one's gonna bother you about it. But one rule we do have is no opiates. No heroin. You're all told that when you arrive and if you don't like it, won't be no one stopping you from leaving. There's a reason for that. Opiates slow a man down. Make him careless and weak. And someone who's careless and weak puts us all at risk."

  Saw stepped to the edge of the pit and looked down at Boyd who had come in for a closer look. Mitch realized the condemned man was smiling.

  "You got anything to say for yourself, you tosser?" Saw asked.

  Boyd's smile faltered. "Saw. I was only doing--"

  Mitch caught Saw's fist clenching. Boyd must have seen it too because the smile totally vanished, and his mouth sagged open and wordless.

  "What are you waffling on about?"

  Boyd looked at the ground. "Just get on with it."

  Saw turned his attention back to the crowd. "It don't matter anyway. Rules are rules. Mitchy, open 'er up."

  Mitch jerked the lever and the double doors at the rear of the trailer burst open. As they swung free, nine zombies spilled through the opening and tumbled downward, into the pit.

  Boyd raced to the opposite end, clawing at the walls with his hands. Kicking his feet into the dirt. Trying to find some way up and out. Once, he made it a few feet up before the earth gave way and he tumbled back to the bottom.

  Mitch heard Saw bark out a laugh at that and turned toward him. The man's face was lit up with glee. Behind him, Mina stared at the ground. Mitch wondered what life was like in that mansion, then realized he probably didn't want to know.

  The zombies were within arm's reach of Boyd. One grabbed his stringy hair, snapping his head backward. Another caught his arm and pulled it to its mouth where it took a heaping bite. Boyd squealed, and the sound seemed to work the zombies into a frenzy. They'd been locked in that trailer for over four months with nothing to eat and they were ready to remedy that.

  They descended on the man, tearing away hunks of flesh, biting off fingers. One of the creatures went for his face and chomped off his nose in one bite. Boyd stared up, blood gushing from the hole in the center of his face, and Mitch realized he was looking at Saw. Saw looked back and smiled.

  The dying man opened his mouth to scream, and when he did one of the zombies reached out and grabbed, hooking its fingers into his mouth, pulling at his cheek. Another zombie took hold of him from the opposite side and together the two monsters stretched the skin as far as it would go, then it ripped into ragged tendrils of flesh that they shoved into their own mouths.

  Boyd deserved this, but now that Mitch knew some of the underlying story, he'd lost his bloodlust and he turned away from the carnage. What he couldn't block out were Boyd's miserable moans.

  As Mitch moved away from the pit, Saw grabbed his wrist. The man might have lost a third of his body weight, but he was still strong, and Mitch felt like his arm was trapped in a vise as Saw pulled him in close and spoke into his ear. His breath was hot and pungent.

  "Don't know what you heard, Mitchy, but it's probably true. Now take a good look around."

  Mitch did. The crowd was every bit as frenzied as the zombies.

  "The truth don't mean nothing to them. You don't mean nothing to them. All that matters 'round here is me."

  Mitch tried to pull his hand away but failed. That made Saw's smile even more avid.

  "We got ourselves a good deal here. This isn't my place. It's ours. So, you don't got no good reason to upset the applecart, okay?"

  Saw leaned in close, his moist, fetid breath assaulting Mitch's nostrils. Mitch turned his face away from it but that did nothing to deter the man who had control over him.

  "I know I've been missing in action of late, but I'm gonna be around a lot more from now on. I promise you that. And that's the best thing for the both of us."

  Saw released him and Mitch wasted no time in fleeing. Behind him, he heard Saw's voice even above the roaring crowd.

  "What do you fine people say? Do you think Boyd's suffered enough?"

  "No!" Came the immediate cry. It was joined by a chorus calling for the man to suffer. To die slowly. Mitch was disgusted but not surprised by their demands.

  What did sur
prise him was Saw's response.

  "You all are a bloodthirsty bunch. But I do believe Boyd's learned his lesson. Anything more is just pain for pain's sake."

  A gunshot echoed through the night air and that sound was immediately replaced by cheers. Mitch left it all behind.

  Mitch was tempted to duck into the Dry Snatch and grab a bottle of whatever would get him drunk the fastest, but he wanted to keep his head clear. That was also why he avoided his own home, a high-end RV that probably cost a few hundred grand before the plague, but was now nothing more than a glorified mobile home that wasn't moving so much as an inch unless a tornado happened along. Because in his home, there was cocaine. It had always been Mitch's drug of choice, even predating the Marsten Academy, but if he dared snort a line or two now, in this frame of mind, he'd be likely to do something foolish. And now was not the time to act the fool.

  Instead, he walked until he came to an Airstream trailer that was more rust red than sparkling silver. It was covered with dents and holes of various sizes and looked a little like a beer can someone had smashed then tried to pull back into shape again.

  He gave two quick taps against the door and only had to wait a moment before it opened.

  "Mitch! How's it going, handsome?"

  Sally Rose always called him handsome. From anyone else Mitch would have thought it an insult. A sarcastic quip at his expense. But he'd never seen a cruel bone in this woman's body and he'd been privy to almost every inch of it over the last few years.

  She'd come to Shard End with a man in a wilted Cowboy hat who was three or four decades her senior. If he'd ever offered up his name, Mitch had long forgotten it, but that didn't matter because he was only in town for a few weeks before he ended up getting snake bit.

  Sally Rose was there when it happened, and she was there when he turned into a zombie a few minutes later. The dead man tried to eat her, but one of the regulars drew his pistol and put a fast end to that. Sometimes Mitch wished he'd have been there, so he could have been the one to save her. He thought that might have changed things for the better for both of them. But he wasn’t, and those thoughts were nothing but unfulfilled daydreams and conjecture anyway.