His mind was a hurricane. It was as if he could see his wife, but only her backs — her face and identity were like water slipping through his fingers, her silhouette looking altered and smoky every time he tried to catch the details. Maybe he was using the wrong strategy? Instead of trying to force the memories, it would be wiser to try to deduce the information by using the evidence at hand.
He knew he was a cop, an MP. He could think of at least a dozen articles he had infringed upon entering that house, and he also understood about guns and how to use them properly. He didn’t remember anything about day-to-day work or training, but he knew he’d done the COEsp — a brutal course of six months where only a handful of officers could go through to the end — and he was familiarized to fight.
And those things, those monsters that he had come across… He couldn’t tell what they really were, but he knew a few things they were capable of. After all, how did he know that they could smell his scent and the gas would hide him? If he knew that, it was because that wasn’t his first meeting with those things.
This was the kind of information he had withheld. These victories over amnesia were almost insignificant, but still enough to give him a small sense of triumph — somewhere inside his head was hidden his real identity. What else? What else could be right in front of him and he just had to pay more attention?
The book.
He fumbled in his pockets until he found the novel of I, Robot. He took a look at the story and didn’t have to read much to know that he wasn’t a fan of science fiction. That only added more questions to his long list. He put the book away and stared at the ring on his finger for a long time before closing his eyes.
I have a family, he said to himself. Somewhere, I have a wife and children. I know this, I can feel it...
He dozed off.
And then the noise of gunfire nearby — Asimov opened his eyes, rolled off the bed and grabbed the rifle in a flash.
Those were shots? Yes. He could hear the noise, again. Gunshots, very close to where he was. The fragments of a past life screamed at him to hide and stay in his shelter. However, curiosity soon prevailed over prudence. After all, gunfire meant people, and these people could carry some of the most urgent responses he was pursuing.
Like, for instance, what the fuck is happening here.
With the caution of a wolf, he left the house and headed toward the gunfire.
AN UNDESIRABLE COMMITMENT
A very tight curve to the left and the rear of the old sedan was against the railing with a noisy scrape and a shower of sparks. The tires shrieked in protest at every sharp turn, the car leaning heavily off the road, the chassis sinking over the springs.
The jeeps were behind, going better in the treacherous curves. Two men in the front jeep had long-range rifles and fired incessantly — it was almost impossible to take a shot, but here and there one more hole appeared in the sedan’s hulk.
Olivia Arraes kept her hands clenched tightly around the wheel, her foot crushing the accelerator pedal, her movements being ruled by terror. She didn’t know who these men are, but she knew what they are, and what they would do if they got her and the boy.
A burst of bullets shattered her window and Olivia only registered the impact on the shoulder when she was thrown forward, almost losing control of the car. The vehicle skidded for a moment with the sudden movement of the wheel — the boy wasn’t wearing the seat belt and he smacked his head hard against the glove compartment, throwing out a bunch of swearing in English.
“Are you okay?” Olivia practically shouted, not taking her eyes off the road. The boy had a hand covering his bleeding forehead. He looked at her and saw the wound on her shoulder.
“They shoot you,” Thomas said.
“I’m fine, I’m fine—” She shrank when one more bullet hit the car. The pressure on her shoulder was brutal, and Olivia growled low. “I’m fine,” she repeated since there was nothing she could do about it, “Get down, down!”
The boy obeyed, biting his lower lip nervously and hugging his leather backpack, on which lays their salvation. It was Olivia’s duty to keep him safe, an undesirable commitment imposed by the equally Machiavellian work of fate.
Olivia was the maid of Thomas’s family — some gringos who occasionally visited the country. The work was good, considering the owners only appeared about five times a year and in the other 360 days it was Olivia who enjoyed the house. Yeah, it was a good life, with good work and good money — until the moment she saw Mrs. Sarah being torn into pieces by her neighbors. After that, her life became a blur of rush and blood. Olivia wasn’t made for this — she worked as a maid to pay her college tuition, for God’s sake! —, and it was sheer luck that she and the boy survived the last weeks.
And now, just when they had a chance to get out of the Brazil alive, destiny decided to throw another bucket of cold water at them. Olivia almost cried at the thought of injustice. Every person she and the boy once knew was dead now. They had lost everything except themselves, but it seemed that, to God, it wasn’t enough — they had to die, too.
“Well, fuck you!” she shouted, out of nowhere. “We aren’t going to die here!”
If God was listening to her, He didn’t seem to care.
A few meters ahead she saw the first signs of civilization. They left the mountain range behind and reached the city of Caraguatatuba. Olivia gritted her teeth. Cities represented a death assurance, infested with monsters — she couldn’t go there, but... Where else would she go? The road just went forward, and coming back was impossible. Making a small prayer, she slammed on the gas.
It was difficult to navigate through the town streets with so many disposed cars blocking the way, but she had no choice but to try. She didn’t know even where she was going while trying to evade her pursuers.
The sports car was hit by a new blast of bullets, the noise of the guns suppressing everything else, and Olivia felt the rear tires blowing up, shaking the vehicle. She struggled against the steering wheel, not realizing that her desperation to maintain control made it possible for one of the jeeps to approach.
The two vehicles stood almost side-by-side on a sharp curve, and then the jeep’s driver decided to smash his vehicle against the tiny car. The impact was overwhelming. The sedan spun around and skidded for a good ten meters before stopping abruptly, crashing against a lamppost.
The jeep came to a halt in the middle of the street, a few feet from the sedan, and three individuals jumped out of the vehicle even before it stopped rolling entirely. They were all men, wearing gas masks and firearms. Despite the heat, they wore hooded jackets and leather and wool gloves. The second jeep parked a few meters behind and two more men jumped into the street, both holding rifles.
Despite all the military apparatus they carried, none of them were or had served the military. Some used to be criminals, psychopaths or people who had trouble following the law even before the world went down in the shit. One or two might even have been good people, model citizens, so to speak, but all this was in the past now — they were all together now, with a single master, doing what was necessary to save their own skins.
One of them lowered the gas mask, revealing a face covered with tattoos. “Jesus, it’s too hot,” he hissed, looking up at the sky. “Hey, but it looks like it’s going to rain.”
“You crazy?” someone said, “Put your mask back.”
“Fuck off!” the tattooed guy answered, then pointed his rifle at the sedan and shouted, “Get out of the car now!” Nobody got out of the car. The tattooed guy exchanged a glance with the others. “Shit, do you think they’re dead?”
“Don’t even play with it, man!” said the leader. “Come on.”
They both ran toward the sports car, while the others watched over the surroundings. They needed to be quick. The white armband they all had on their right arms wouldn’t protect them there, especially if they crossed paths with a rival horde. Hell, that piece of dirty cloth barely protected them from the
horde they served.
They approached the car and saw, to their relief, that the woman and boy were still alive — though visibly stunned by the accident. Fate would have been more merciful if they had died there and now — considering those men wouldn’t be.
They couldn’t risk being merciful, otherwise they would be torn apart by the Crimson Prince. That animal would only leave them alive as long as they gave women and children to him. It was a high price, but one that those men were willing to pay to survive.
“Help me get them out,” the leader said, trying to open the driver’s door while the tattooed man turned around to get the boy. Blood covered the kid’s face, and if it weren’t for his chest rising and falling as he breathed, he might as well be dead.
“What about that bag?” the tattooed man asked, removing the backpack from the boy’s lap. “Is there food?”
“Man, for God’s sake!” the leader replied, pulling the woman out of the car, “Take everything and leave the questions to when we are far away from here…”
As if to attach importance to his words, they all heard a series of roars echoing in the vicinity. The comrades shouted at them, urging them to hurry. The tattoo guy only grunted in response and pulled the boy out of the passenger seat, while the leader dragged the woman toward the jeep. She was a young black woman, no older than twenty, and he couldn’t help but notice the generous hips and firm breasts that her clothes could barely hide. The face wasn’t very attractive, but for those who hadn’t been with a woman for so long...
Maybe on the way back, he thought as he dragged her, and at that moment Olivia opened her eyes. Noticing what was happening, she began to fight and kick, her nails sinking into the flesh of his arms. The man cursed and punched her in the face, so strong that for a moment he thought he had indeed killed her.
“Son of a bitch!” he said, giving her another punch. Olivia’s vision blanched as her mouth filled with blood. Still, she fought. More punches came, and when she was too dizzy to show any violent reaction, more hands grabbed her arms and legs and lifted her off the ground.
“No!” she shouted as they carried her to the jeep. “No, please!”
“Somebody shut her mouth!”
They gave her another blow, and she almost lost her senses. After that, she was put into the back seat of the jeep without any struggle. She had given up, defeated both physically and mentally. She had endured too much in the last 72 hours and now it was the end of everything. There would be no miracle, and no one could help her. Between the monsters and the men, death was inevitable.
What about the boy? With difficulty, she turned her head to the right, seeing the boy’s limp body lying on the opposite seat of the jeep with his eyes closed.
“Thomas?” she called quietly, between cracked lips. There was no comeback from the boy, and Olivia suddenly felt a chill — until the boy stirred slightly. She felt relief, and then fear took hold of her, rising up her spine — she knew what would happen with them.
“Thomas…” Olivia called again, and then one of the men hit her on the back of her neck., making her arch back. She bent over in pain, expecting other blows.
“Shut up,” the man said, and then turned to his companions. “Faster! They’re coming!
In fact, she could already hear the roar of the monsters nearby. The last of the men got into the jeep and the driver stepped on the gas, running a tight U-turn and accelerating back the same way they came.
They drove for three minutes — until a bullet struck the driver’s neck, a rush of red mist rising into the air. A second later, Olivia heard the sound of the shot, as the jeep, out of control, flew against the back of a taxi.
It was a single noise of steel being twisted and people shouting — and also the second car accident Olivia had suffered in less than five minutes; only that this one was much worse. Half the front passenger’s body went through the windshield, piling on the hood; the driver was thrown clear and went flying through the air until meeting face-first the asphalt.
This time Olivia didn’t lose consciousness, which didn’t mean that she was unharmed — it was only because they were in the back seats that she and the boy didn’t fly like the others. Next, she heard the other jeep’s tires squealing and men yelling at each other. Then the shots came. They were slow, methodical, and although she didn’t understand anything about guns, she knew that whoever was shooting was far away.
“Olivia,” the boy muttered, slowly regaining consciousness.
Olivia pulled him close to her and whispered in his ear. “Stay here.”
She glanced at the driver’s seat, empty. The opportunity had arisen, and perhaps she could escape from there. She got up and jumped into the front seat. There was blood everywhere, but she didn’t care at that point.
Gunshots.
Olivia looked back, seeing the men lying on the ground, dead or dying. The other jeep was turned almost sideways on the street and three men were crouched at the front end, using the engine block as cover. One of them shot blindly over the hood while the other turned his head and looked in a straight line at her.
It was the tattoo guy. For a moment they just stared at each other. And then the man raised his rifle and shouted, “Fuck you!”
Olivia actually saw the flames coming out of the barrel of the gun. Then she felt the bullets running close to her head, hitting the jeep’s bodywork and smashing the rearview mirror. Shrinking into the driver’s seat, Olivia closed one hand on the key and tried to start the engine. The engine made a choking noise but didn’t fire up. She tried again and again, with always the same outcome, as bullets ripped through the jeep’s body.
“Die, you bitch!” the tattoo guy shouted. And then his face disappeared in a spray of bones and blood, plucked from a round fired a hundred and fifty yards away. Upon witnessing this, the last two men fled. One managed to escape, but the other didn’t get far before a barrage of shots pierced his chest. He fell to the ground, one hand firmly against the pavement, preventing him from kissing the asphalt.
Another shot and there was no face to kiss the ground anymore.
THE KIND OF THING THAT HEROES DID
Olivia left the jeep slowly, at the same time as a figure dressed in black approached the massacre. He wore dark combat trousers, half cinnamon boots, a social gray shirt and a black jacket. He had a rifle on his back, no gas mask, and his face was fixed on the dead, not on Olivia.
As the stranger walked toward her, one of her almost abductors moaned at his feet, wide-eyed and panting. He was the leader of the pack, with an ugly wound on his belly. Without stopping or showing any disturbance, the man in black pulled his sidearm and shot the other in the forehead. Olivia couldn’t hold a yell at the sudden execution, her eyes like the ones of a cornered animal.
“That’s close enough!” she shouted, her tongue nailed to the top of her mouth. For a moment the man in black didn’t seem to hear what she had said, but then he stopped walking with nothing less than ten steps between them both.
The stranger stared at her for a moment, seeing her wounds. If Asimov had come a few more seconds late — he didn’t even want to think about it. As soon as he saw those men attacking that girl and the boy, Asimov knew he had to do something.
And he did.
Killing those men was dreadfully easier than he’d imagined. Asimov enjoyed the advantage of the distance and the lack of coordination of the bandits. These idiots were cluttered, undisciplined, and nervous. Plus, adding to their amateurism was the amount of abandoned vehicles and other junk on the street that he could use as cover.
It was all so fast in the end — changing position two or three times in rapid succession, rising and firing in one instant, knocking one down, shifting position again and killing another. By the time the men finally figured out from which direction the shots were coming, more than half of them were on the ground.
But, as he pulled the trigger, something unexpected happened: Asimov felt a horrifying thirst for blood, a hunger i
nconceivable for any rational man, such sadistic behavior blinding and bewitching him. Reason was clouded as he watched blood squirm in the air whenever he shot dead one of the bandits — and he always did, always. He found that there was something offensively beautiful on that murder.
The sensation was so strong that, when it was over, Asimov had to stop and allow himself a moment to let madness leave his system, startled by what he felt. He looked again ahead. He had killed almost all the bandits. One had managed to escape, fleeing early in the shooting, but it didn’t matter — with that wound on his leg, he didn’t think the guy would go far.
Now he was staring at the girl he had decided to rescue, without seeing any ounce of gratitude in her eyes — only fear. She seemed dead tired, too; a young woman, who might have been talking to her friends in high school last week, now resembled some sort of war refugee. Asimov opened his mouth to introduce himself, to try to say something nice, but the words stuck in his mouth. She probably was thinking that he was as dangerous as those men were. And she wouldn’t be wrong, would she?
“Stay away from us,” Olivia growled, and suddenly she had a gun in her hand. It wasn’t big deal, a small revolver she’d just found in the jeep’s glove compartment, probably a .38 caliber. It only had two bullets in the barrel, but it was still more than enough if she hit the right spot.
She pointed the revolver at the stranger. The weapon trembled in her hand, and the man stepped back. He doubted that the girl was capable of killing him — intentionally, that is; a stray bullet was another story.
“Thanks for the help, but now you can go away,” Olivia said, almost pleading, “You can go now...”
The stranger didn’t move, looking at her from head to toe. The girl’s reaction had been unexpected, and now he was trying to find something to say, but suddenly everything seemed so vague, or rather stupid.
I’m here to help, so why don’t you come with me? What do you think of us getting together? He thought about these phrases and the kind of thing that heroes did to increase the cast and get hold of the audience. With the exception of the fact that he wasn’t any Brad Pitt and she definitely wasn’t Angelina Jolie.
The War Within #1: Victims Page 4
