It felt like I was there for hours. I tried shaking him, hitting his head against the concrete floor as many times as I could to knock him out, but, even when blood started pooling beneath him, he still hadn’t died. I just held on, trying to end it as quickly as I could.
I was so distracted by his suffering that I noticed the gun too late. He had finally gripped it and now held it against my forehead. The last thing I felt before he pulled the trigger was my grip starting to slip away.
But his gun was empty.
I pulled my hands off his throat, leaving him gasping through his crushed windpipe. He pointed the gun at me, frantically pulling the trigger, trying to kill me over and over and over.
He was in pain. He was in so much pain. He finally dropped the gun as a mix of blood and glowing fluid started filling his mouth. Instinctively, I flipped him on his side, pouring out the contents of his mouth, and sobbing like a baby the entire time.
I put him on his back. His eyes were half closed now. He didn’t look like he was in pain anymore; Tex just looked sleepy. I kept crying and crying for my friend.
“Goddammit.” All I had wanted was to make it quick, but I’d only made things worse.
I did the last thing I could. A sickening cold shiver ran up my spine as my hands inched closer to him.
My fingers fit perfectly into the grooves in his throat. I squeezed as hard as I could, until his hands stopped twitching, and then I kept squeezing. I squeezed out more air. I squeezed out more blood and bile. I squeezed out every bit of life, so that there was nothing more to take from him. No one could ever take satisfaction from killing him. The President wouldn’t have it. Byrd wouldn’t have it. No one would have it.
When my fingers started to turn purple, I let go. I had to stop and catch my breath, and I realized just how quickly my heart was beating.
I arranged him into a respectful position after taking a moment to get back into a normal a state of mind; at least, as normal a state of mind as I could possibly be in. After putting his pistol into my holster, I laid him out on his back; eyes closed and hands at his sides. It was how a man should lay when he was burned or buried, but Tex would be lucky if he got a funeral at all.
I cried even more. Every bad deed I had ever done had culminated into this moment. This was my punishment for the slaughtering the Truands, for hurting Jed, for all the fear and hatred… but it didn’t matter. My problems didn’t matter. I needed to move forward.
The kid wasn’t hard to find. I opened up the closet and pulled back the coats he was tucked under.
“Is he dead?”
I hesitated, but answered honestly. “Yeah.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Yeah.”
He let me lift him and I covered his eyes as we walked past the body and out the door. He ran to his aunt as soon as I let him down.
The police stormed into the tiny building, but there wasn’t anything to find. As far as I know, they just left the body there. I guess they didn’t want to waste the energy dragging him all the way back to civilization and giving him a proper funeral.
I walked back to the Gray District, constantly repeating to myself that I had done the right thing. As I walked past the civilians, they now had a new reason to fear me. Tex’s blood red tears had fanned out from my left shoulder, resembling the twisting, gnarled roots of a strange fruit tree. They dripped across my back and chest, and down my sleeve; the same sleeve that was still burned from the first time I had put down a friend.
They were afraid, but, honestly, I didn’t care. I felt empty and hopeless. All that mattered was moving forward, and Byrd’s sick joke wouldn’t change that.
Chapter 57 - Rae Johnson
“Durango? It’s me.”
After all thirteen locks had been undone, the door finally swung open.
“Morning, Princess. Ready to see my new art project?”
He started to lead me up the stairs, but I stopped him. “I can’t stay. I’m leaving.”
“Then why did you bother coming?”
“I’m leaving forever. All of us are. The Black Jackets, everyone in the Gray District and probably the Presidential District, eventually.”
He was taken aback. “Wait, that’s really happening?”
“Yes, right now, and I want you to come.” I handed him the thing I had come all this way to deliver; Tex’s old jacket. “You can be one of us.”
“Who says I want to leave? Maybe I like anarchy I can take care of myself.”
He sat down on the stairs and started cleaning his gun. Mouse came hopping out and snuggled against my foot.
“Hey, little guy.”
I scratched behind his eyes and he made little coos of approval.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “We have a map that says there is something east of here. It’s in the middle of the Badlands, far outside the forest.”
“A city?”
“Maybe. We’re not sure.”
“So, you’re not even sure where you're going? You want me to pack up everything I own and go on a long journey with you and your friends, for the chance to live in a strange city?”
“I want you to do it for me.” I put the jacket in his lap and kissed him on the forehead. “Please save yourself.”
As I walked to the exit, Mouse looking at me as if he wanted to follow, I silently prayed that I would see the two of them again.
Chapter 58 - Paige Wilson
“Admit it, you never thought this day would come.”
I downed another glass. “Of course not. I hope those ungrateful punks starve.”
“And what if they don’t? What if they succeed? What if they start an even better city?”
“They won’t. Jamestown, my city, is the only city.”
“What do you think they’ll name it? Vale-topia? Scott’s Town? Or maybe, Jamestownsucks-opolis.”
I poured out more Bourbon. I had been keeping it close all day. “They won’t last. And once I’ve got Jamestown in my pocket again, I’ll never let them back inside these walls. You’ll see. Everyone will see.”
“Whatever you say, Madam President. Whatever you say.”
Chapter 59 - Hartler Smith
I shivered even though it wasn’t all that cold. We had built the fires for protection, not heat. Six people had already gone missing, and, even though we hadn’t seen it happen, we could only assume it was due to the feral monsters hiding in the forest.
Even our fervent “protectors” seemed scared, not that they would ever admit it. Just like us, the Black Jackets were more afraid of their leader, than of the ferals. He was gone now, hunting with some of the others. We just hoped he would bring something back this time. We’d been eating dry pasta and potatoes since we left, three days ago.
My wife and I huddled together, scared that something would jump out of the woods at any minute. I didn’t mind my own misery and fear, but my beloved didn’t deserve this. I was the one who told her leaving was a good idea; that Scott Vale knew what he was doing. This was all my fault. If I hadn’t been so stupid, we would be sitting in our house, safe and sound, while everyone else made this miserable trek.
I gently tapped her shoulder, trying to get her attention. She lifted her head and looked up at me, her eyes cold and blank.
“Come with me.” We stayed low so we wouldn’t be seen by the guards, but it didn’t work.
“What are you two doing?”
“Going to the bathroom.”
“Together? Get back to the camp!”
I grabbed her hand and we sprinted into the woods. The guard shouted once, but didn’t give chase or shoot at us with his automatic.
The full moon gave us light enough to see one another, but not much else.
“We’re going to die out here. The ferals will kill us.”
“They won’t get the pleasure.” I reached into my jacket and pulled out my revolver, passed down to me from my grandfather. “We can do this our
selves.”
We could hear them around us. The ferals were everywhere; rustling in the bushes and whispering in the dark.
“We shouldn’t waste time. Let’s get this over with,” my wife said, now thoroughly unnerved.
“It has two bullets,” I told her. “I just need to figure out which chambers they’re loaded in.” I turned the cylinder until I thought the bullets were in place, but the darkness made it hard to see.
I lifted the gun. The lowest moment of my life came while holding it against my wife’s forehead. Her eyes had no life left in them. It was all my fault for wanting this. I looked away and pulled the trigger.
It didn’t fire. The fucking chamber was empty.
All the tension suddenly released from my body. I went limp, unable to move for a second. I fell over on my hands and knees, until I felt a hand on my shoulder. “It’s ok. Just try again.”
I listened to her and started to raise the gun again, until I saw something… something beautiful.
Everything around us became covered in a neon blaze, and, as the warm glow embraced us, a figure approached, wrapped in light from head to toe.
“Do not be afraid. I am here to help you.” He pulled something out of his pocket. When he held it in the light we saw that it was a pair of candy bars.
My wife and I tore the wrappers off in moments, and quickly wolfed them down. After days of bland food, they tasted like heaven.
“I know things seem bleak right now, but you need to stay with the group.”
“We can’t,” she told the strange figure. “We’re hungry, tired and people keep disappearing. If we stay with the Black Jackets, we’ll be torn apart by ferals or die of starvation. At least here, we can die on our own terms.”
“Fear not; I promise that you will be safe, and no one else will die.”
“How can you promise that?”
“Because I know all. I shall guide you and keep you safe, and all I ask in return, is that you do as I say.”
“We’ll do whatever you want.”
“Anything.”
“Good. Now, you must go back and wait for my command. There are others who will side with you, when the time comes.”
“Side with us? What do you mean?”
“You’ll find out soon. Come with me.”
He took us both by the hand and guided us back to the camp. Once we could see it in the distance, he left, but we could see his neon glow walking far away in the distance.
My wife looked at me. “Should we trust him?”
As much as I didn’t want to return, the idea of having to hold a gun to either of our heads again was too much for me to bear. “Let’s go back.”
For the first time in days, she looked at me with hope in her eyes. The deadness was gone, and she now looked like she really wanted to live. We held hands as we entered the camp once again. The guard who had tried to stop us didn’t get angry. He simply said, “I’m glad you two are ok.”
The rest of the guards had come back from hunting, and they had brought a dead feral with them. I had to look twice when I saw it for myself. The monster was smaller than I had imagined, but still looked fearsome. It was about three feet tall at the shoulder, with powerful jaws and hair covering its whole body. It pretty much looked like a big wolf, only very lanky and with strange coloring.
“What are you going to do with it?” someone asked.
Their leader, Scott Vale, turned to face us. His cold eyes reminded me of how my wife’s were, before she was given hope. Dark lines stretched out into the skin surrounding them, and his irises had started to turn gray.
He looked back to the body of the feral, and his men continued gutting it while building a huge stack of firewood.
“I once lived in a house with a horrible rat problem. We could hear them squeaking and running all the time, and they crawled into our beds and bit us while we slept. We lived with them for months, until, one day, my mother turned on the stove to make breakfast, not knowing one of those things had crawled inside. The smell permeated every inch of the house, but we never saw another rat.”
The Black Jackets finished shoving a spit through the creature, and hoisted it up over the firewood. Vale poured the contents of a bottle over the wood and lit the fire, filling the air first with the smell of burning alcohol, then wood, and then flesh.
When it was done cooking, we all went and had our first taste. Even though some thought it was borderline cannibalism, since according to Jamestown's history the ferals had been human a few dozen generations ago, we were all too hungry to complain. The meat was grisly and tough, and I noticed that the Black Jackets seemed to be the only ones tearing into it wholeheartedly. Everyone else turned it over in their mouths, like they wished they were eating something else.
It didn’t taste good, but the meat helped us gain our strength back, and over the next few days we found three of the people who had gone missing. Everyone was ecstatic to see them again, except for the Black Jackets, who were never happy. They only seemed suspicious.
We started to find arrows made of glowing neon rods pressed into the ground, which caused word to spread about the man in the forest; how he was guiding us to our home and dressed like a neon angel. Vale and his loyalists smashed the lights every chance they got, but we managed to save quite a few, stuffing them into our bags or wrapping them in blankets.
Then, only two days later, we reached the edge of the forest. Before us lay nothing but fields of endless black grass that came up to our ankles, and above us, the sky was dark orange and cloudy. Many of us turned to one another, asking if the Man of the Forest would want us to enter this foreign place, but, in the distance, we saw our answer. Flashing lights blinked on the horizon in every color imaginable. When we saw them, our hearts filled with joy. Our spirits were lifted knowing that someone was protecting us.
Chapter 60 - Julia Munford
"Mom, are we there yet?"
"No, Ben. It'll just be a little bit longer."
"I'm tired."
"So am I, honey."
“Alright, everybody,” one of the Black Jackets said, from the front of the group. “We’re going to stop here for the night.”
Everyone simultaneously collapsed. Lucky for us, the grass was soft.
The Black Jackets continued to patrol the campsite all night. It was much colder here than in the forest, but, since we couldn’t build fires for fear of igniting the grass, we all just huddled under as many layers as we could get our hands on. I wrapped both the kids up in every blanket we had, and did my best to stay warm with just my wind breaker.
I couldn't see the moon or the stars, just the faint orange glow that seemed to hang above the clouds, and that made me wonder whether or not I had done the right thing by bringing my children on this journey. This place was so different; so strange. I suppose we didn't have much of a choice but to come here, since without the Black Jackets there would have been no food, but as I shivered on the ground, lying in a foreign land while my old home stood empty, I looked back upon my old memories with nostalgia, even the time spent eating at the slop shops and treating my husband's addiction. At least my Cindy, Ben and I had had a warm place to sleep.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, and looked up to see a dark figure standing above me.
“Here, take this,” he said, handing me a wool blanket.
I gladly accepted, and pulled it around my shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Is there anything else you need?” he asked.
“No. I think we’ll be ok. Who are you?”
“I’m Scott.”
A chill went up my spine. Was this man, who just given me a blanket, the same Scott who had thrown one of his own soldiers off a railing, and then executed him? Was this the same Scott who had slaughtered over a hundred helpless Truands with only fourteen bullets and a club? I could now see the red stain on his jacket, glowing faintly in the darkness. He was definitely the one I had heard so many stories about.
“Boss,” said a
female Black Jacket that walked up behind him. “Things are still quiet.”
“Good to hear.”
While he stood there, speaking to the female, I slowly and carefully slid the blanket off my shoulders and used it to cover my children, hoping it would keep them hidden from him.
Another Black Jacket came by, shining his flashlight on their faces.
“Everything looks clear, sir.”
“Mark, put the flashlight away,” Scott told him. “People are trying to sleep.”
“Sorry, sir.”
However, for just the briefest second the beam of the flashlight lit up the face of the female Black Jacket. What I saw left me with my jaw hanging open.
“You’re… you’re….,” I stuttered, pointing a finger at her.
Before I could put together a cohesive sentence, he put a hand over my mouth and one finger over his, telling me to shush. Both of them sat down in front of me, and, when I had finally calmed down, he removed his hand so that I could ask, “How are you here? You're a Sapien.”
“Vera was a Truand, but she's also a founding member of the Black Jackets and she was already living with us in the Gray District when… when the Truands showed up. She’s family.”
“That’s creepy,” she said, jerking her arm away from him. It was only then that I realized they had been holding hands. It was hard to distinguish anything in the dark. "You like sleeping with your family?"
“You know what I meant.”
“But, didn’t you kill them all?” I asked, not realizing how blunt my question was until I had already said it.
“It was an accident,” he said, in a shaky voice. “They wanted to come inside, but we didn’t know if they were infected. When they rushed the barricades… we just reacted.”
It occurred to me that I had never actually heard his side of the story. I guess I’d been too caught up in rumors.
“And the Black Jacket you threw over the railing?”
Black Light: The Deplorable Savior Page 22
