by Unknown
She had talked. She had talked about the things that scared her. She had been worried she would die in the night. He would feel it was the right thing to do. They had talked about it, but only briefly. He had shut the conversation down. He didn't want to believe it, and hearing it only forced him to believe it. He had been selfish. He had given in to his fear when he should have given in to her need to talk to him, tell him, and here he was. It was a real thing now. She would not have left if something had not made her leave. A real thing, he repeated to himself. He could see no other reason why she would have left.
The note had said next to nothing. Just, 'I'm Sorry... I love you.' At least it said that. At least, but why had she gone?
He took the stairs down to the lobby. The stairwell had been empty, but the lobby had not. The gangs had long before crashed in through the door and taken over the lobby. He had eased open the door to find two of them laying in the shadows sleeping. He stepped quietly out of the stairwell, shoved a piece of broken board into the fire door opening to keep it from closing and locking him out, and then walked quietly to where the two lay, a man and woman.
They stank of alcohol and unwashed flesh. Their chests rose and fell, but they did not move. Their eyes were partially slitted. It would be easy to believe that they really were harmless. Just two people sleeping in a place of safety, but his eyes took in their blood stained clothing, and then slipped to a stained pillow case nearby, partly open, the contents spilled onto the marble flooring of the lobby. Several fingers, still bearing rings. Coins, wallets. Things that held no value anymore, as far as Adam was concerned, yet they had murdered for them. They both slept with weapons close by. His own gun was in his hand. He had flicked off the safety before he had stepped out into the lobby. He walked up to the first one, turned slightly to take in the second one.
As soon as he shot the first one, the second would be up and on him. He looked from one to the other, lowered the gun and shot the first one in the head.
The woman screamed as he turned, a high piercing sound that distracted him for the briefest of seconds. She began to come up off the floor, her eyes wild, her hands fumbling with her pistol, and he nearly let her get him. He became so distracted that she was very close to having him before he finally pulled the trigger and shot her.
The first shot took her in the chest and flung her back like a rag doll. But that was all it did.
Body armor, Adam thought as he stepped back quickly. She was scrabbling for her gun where it had been flung from her hand as Adam stepped into her path and pushed the pistol into her head, squeezing the trigger as he did. She flew back this time and didn't rise again. She slid down the wall, her eyes seeming to accuse him as she did.
Adam stood for a second, his breaths coming in long, ragged pulls. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, then turned and went back to the stairwell. His concern was whether he should leave the door open or closed. Open and they might get in, closed and he would have to smash the handle set off himself when he got back so that he could get inside. And that made him wonder if he would be back. If he would find her, take care of her, and then make it back to here. He had no way to know.
A minute later he kicked the board from the propped open door, and stepped back into the lobby. It closed with a solid steel clunk. If he came back, he would have to bring an ax with him to break in. Better that than leave it open for the gangs if he didn't make it back before nightfall, or if they came looking in the daylight. It was the only safe place he had. He walked across the lobby and stepped out onto the cracked city sidewalk.
He walked a short distance north before he found a stalled delivery truck at the curb. The keys dangled from the switch. The shattered driver's side window and the blood smeared down the door told the story of what had happened to the driver. Scattered sheets, towels and uniforms had tumbled from the shelves and fallen into the aisle of the truck when the driver had driven it into the curb, but there was no one lurking in the back of the truck.
The battery was flat. He pushed the truck a few hundred yards before he came to a long slow downgrade. He jumped in, put the truck in second gear, and then popped the clutch out a few seconds later. The motor roared to life. The transmission whined, the truck jerking and bucking, throwing him against the dashboard. A second later he downshifted into first and began to wind his way around the traffic that clogged the intersection at the bottom of the short hill. He began looking for her, convinced that he would find her, be lead to her somehow.
Oswego NY: Mike and Candace
Late Morning
They spent the morning scouring the store for useful items. After they had loaded the Jeeps, they had left the abandoned shopping center and began to work their way through the seemingly empty city, when they reached the first bridge they were forced to stop.
The bridge was still standing, that was not the problem. The problem was that it was packed bumper to bumper with wrecked and burned out cars and trucks. A large city bus also sat within the wreckage. Dave and Mike scrambled over the cars to see what had caused the huge accident.
At first it seemed that the wreckage went on forever. But as they neared the second bridge the problem became apparent.
The bridge, or more properly put, the twisted steel girders and huge chunks of concrete that had been the bridge, lay at the bottom of a deep gorge, partially submerged in the water. Reluctantly they scrambled back over the cars to tell the others that were waiting.
“Think we could move them?” John asked, as Mike and Dave returned. “I saw a wrecker back up the highway a bit; we could go back and get it.”
“Wouldn't do any good,” Mike said his voice somber. “The second bridge is nearly gone. Even if it weren't, I don't see this one standing much longer either. We took a look at the underside from the other bridge, and a couple of the pilings are cracked pretty badly. I wouldn't trust it. There is another bridge though, looks like only a couple of blocks over. It's still up, but I can't tell from here whether it has traffic on it, the sides are enclosed.”
“Which way, Mike?” Bob asked.
“Looked like down a little way,” Mike said, pointing back the way they had come. “Take the next right, and it should be only a couple of blocks away.”
“Well,” Candace said, trying to sound positive, “let’s go find out.”
They piled back into the Jeeps, and after some careful maneuvering, managed to turn them around and head back the way they had come. Mike made the next right and started down the street, while Bob and John, as well as Candace, watched for a bridge on the side Streets that bisected the one they were on. Mike had just slowed to cross a set of rail road tracks, when Candace suddenly yelled out.
“There!” she shouted, pointing down the tracks.
Mike looked in the direction she had pointed, which happened to be down the tracks.
“Shit, that figures,” he said, “a rail road trestle.”
The trestle was a newer one, and the sides were enclosed steel with concrete reinforcements. Probably why I didn't realize it was a train trestle, he thought, and then said aloud. “Well that blows that, but there ought to be other bridges. This can't be the only one.”
“Actually,” Bob said, from behind him, “it ain't necessarily bad news.”
“What do you mean?” Mike said, staring back down the tracks at the bridge.
“Well, just what I said. It's still a bridge ain't it? It's not a rickety old wooden one either, solid steel and concrete, it'll hold us, and it does cross the river right?”
Mike looked at the bridge doubtfully. “I suppose so, but... You think we could fit across it?”
“I've seen cars and trucks both on trains,” Candace exclaimed, “they would have to fit, or else how could they carry them on the trains without smashing the hell out of them?”
“Good point,” Bob said, “how about you park this buggy, Mike, and we go take a look at the bridge.”
The other two Jeeps parked, and all of them walked o
ff down the tracks to look the bridge over.
The wooden ties, and the tracks that lay upon them, were well supported. Heavy steel girders ran the length of the bridge, and were supported by massive concrete pilings sunk into the river bed far below. Mike peered down through the ties at the concrete. It was cracked in a few places, but all the pilings seemed still to be firmly anchored in the river bed. “Do you really think it would hold us?” he asked.
“If it will hold a train, Mike, it will hold us,” Bob replied.
“I mean the cracks, wise ass,” Mike said. “The pilings are cracked. They seem to still be solid, but... I don't know,” he finished lamely.
“Tell you what. You drive one, and John and I will drive the other two. Everybody else can walk across. I'll go first even. If it looks the least bit shaky we call it off, and search for something else, okay?” Bob argued.
Mike thought for a moment before he replied. It might be a good idea after all. Where else were they likely to find a bridge that wasn't blocked off with traffic? The bridge did seem solid, and it couldn't hurt to try he supposed.
“Okay, but I'll start out. You watch, and you damn well better let me know real quick if she starts to go. I'll be pretty pissed if you dump me and my new truck in the river,” Mike finished, smiling widely.
“Wouldn't think of it,” Bob said, solemnly.
“See you on the other side,” Candace said, and before Mike could reply she quickly kissed him. “For luck,” she said, a bit breathless. She turned and along with the others started walking across the bridge.
Mike watched her go. The kiss had taken him by surprise.
“Ah, Mike,” Bob said grinning, “better close your mouth before the bugs start flying in.” Mike closed his mouth with a snap, and looking a bit embarrassed, walked off towards the Jeep.
John threw Bob a wink, and they both walked out onto the bridge to wait. Mike started the Jeep, backed around, and drove slowly over the ties towards the bridge, straddling the rails as he went, and he was still thinking of the kiss as he edged slowly out onto the bridge. He looked across and saw Candace waving from the other side. He waved back and then brought his attention back to the truck.
“How's she look, Bob,” he asked out the open window, as he inched cautiously out onto the trestle.
“You might scratch the paint a little, but the deck didn't budge a bit when you eased on to her,” Bob replied. “I don't think they brought too many auto-carriers across this deck though, more like freight cars. You only got a couple of inches on either side.”
“Well here goes nothing,” he muttered under his breath as he moved further out onto the bridge. “Still okay?” he asked.
“Good as gold,” Bob replied. Mike was not entirely blocking the bridge, and Bob and John squeezed by on one side of the truck. “We'll be behind you,” Bob said, as he paused at Mike's window. “I'll wait until you're off, and John will wait until I'm off.” Bob looked at both men as they nodded their heads.
“Let’s do it,” Mike said.
He eased off the gas and let the Jeep idle its way across the bridge. When he reached the other side he angled off the tracks, parked, and walked back to the bridge. He stood quietly beside Candace and watched until the other two Jeeps were across. As he stood next to her, he noticed how much more aware of her he was. Funny what a little kiss can do, he thought. In fact, he noticed, she seemed to be a little flushed, and with that thought, Mike began to wonder just exactly what the kiss had meant.
Harlem River: Tosh
Near Midnight
She opened her eyes. The moon was high in the sky. A silver, blue-tinged orb. A glow rose up to meet it, brighter than the moonlight. She lay quietly and watched it for some time, content to watch it move slowly across the sky - at least for the time being.
It occurred to her, after some time, that the man who had shot her - she recalled that now, lying here in the quiet night; one of the men had shot her when they were through with her... after they had raped her... he had bent over her and shot her... - but, the man that shot her must have done a bad job of it. Must have missed her completely, or skinned her, as they used to say when they were kids. Or a flesh wound. She had heard that used in countless movies on television.
“Bobby! ... Bobby, are you shot bad? Are you?”
“Naw, John. Naw. It's only a flesh wound. A flesh wound is all.”
Who hadn't heard that in a movie before, she asked herself. And she had grown up in the projects. She had seen people get shot and live through it, even get shot in the head and live through it. And she had not been shot in the head, she remembered that.
She tensed for the pain and then sat up all at once. Pain, but it wasn't so terrible that she couldn't handle it. The moonlight was bright, but at the street level she was laying in shadows. She gazed down at her chest. Her shirt was plastered to her chest with dried blood. She sucked in a breath and heard the whistle from the hole in her chest and the pain spiked higher. She groaned and went to one knee. She wondered if she could make it back to the apartment and Adam. Maybe... Maybe...
She watched as blood dribbled to the pavement from the hole in her chest. It baffled her because the blood on her shirt was dry, and no way could the blood be dry. Why... why the man had just shot her a few minuets ago. She had left the apartment and...
She couldn't make it all come back. She had left to keep Adam safe. To stop him from taking care of her, having to do that, maybe getting caught by the gangs as he did. It had seemed a crazy thought, but the longer she had thought of it, the less crazy it had seemed. The more it seemed to make sense to her.
They had come at her down by the river, three blocks... four blocks from the apartment. Surely it had been no more than that. Her heart had begun to skip and beat irregularly. She had hoped she could make the river. She thought if she could throw herself in, it might work, but it was clear she wasn't going to make it. She had stumbled into an alley, slumped against the wall, pulled the pistol Adam had gotten for her from her pocket, and slipped the barrel into her mouth.
The taste of the steel, and the coldness of the barrel had made her gag, and that had been her mistake. She had not seen them when she stumbled into the alley. As soon as the gun left her mouth, one of them, the same one who had ended up shooting her - shooting her with her own gun as a matter of fact - had stepped from the shadows and snatched the gun from her hands. The others had surged forward then. They had dragged her deeper into the shadows and taken her.
She stared up at the full bloated moon hanging directly overhead. Except it had been early evening, and now it was not early evening. The moon did not hang in the middle of the sky during the early evening. She touched her chest, felt across the swell of her breast and found the bullet hole.
A big bullet hole. A scary bullet hole. She tried to suck in a deeper breath and panicked when her vision started to dim. Not being able to breath was not possible. People could not live if they could not breath. The panic rose fast and hot, bright in her thoughts.
The hole was crusted with blood, but sticky wet towards the center. And she probed it even in her panic. Maybe despite her panic. Her baby finger slid right in up to the second joint. No good.
She struggled to her feet, fighting the pain, and staggered off down the street. Weaving, she saw. Not surprising, I'm dying.
She made her way to the water, and she had seen herself reflected back from the water of the harbor. Her hair was a ruined mass of black. Stringy, tangled, plastered to her head like a helmet in places, but it was her eyes that had caused her to stare the longest. They were cloudy marbles in the moonlight.
She rocked back and forth at the edge of the concrete, balanced precariously over the water.
The moonlight reflected off the trash strewn water. A drowned cat floated by and transfixed her. A second later she lost the fight and fell into the river. She watched the surface of the water recede as she slowly sank into the depths.
Leaving
Billy a
nd Beth: March 12th
To leave the city with nine people they were going to need a truck, and that was going to have to wait until they made their way out of the city and all the stalled and wrecked vehicles that clogged the main streets.
They had hoped to cross over the river on the Firestone Boulevard bridge, but after a three hour walk, most of which consisted of crawl-walking over the tops of stalled vehicles, they had been forced to turn back when they reached the beginning of the bridge. The bridge was gone, the pavement ending in a ragged drop into the water below, and the river seemed to be much deeper than usual, nearing the tops of the concrete side to side, and fast moving.
They had debated back tracking, and crossing the river to the west instead. Billy had pretty much let Beth decide. She was, after all, more familiar with the city, and he was not. In the end they had decided to continue south toward the freeway where they could hope for a better crossing. That had caused an argument between Billy and Jamie that had only ended because Billy had walked away from her.
“You want her, not me. Her... Why don't you just say it, Billy... Just say it.” She screamed the last as Billy picked up his pace walking faster still. There was nothing he could say. It was true after all, and the truth couldn't be hidden in these circumstances.
The light was fading from the day as he found a small shop, the glass covered by steel panels. The panels were dented, even punctured in a few places by something he assumed had been heavy and sharp, possibly an ax, but they had held. He rolled a cigarette and stood, one boot heel resting against the brick wall behind him, the other holding his weight on the cracked concrete. He watched Beth as she walked toward him.
She smiled. “Roll one for me?”
Billy rolled one and handed it to her. She fished a lighter from her own pocket and lit it.
