Five Suns Saga I

by Jim Heskett

  Sutter jumped up and grabbed a handful of Zach’s shirt. “Get up, now. We’re dead if you don’t get up.”

  Zach heaved and moaned, but made it to his feet. As they crossed the street, both of them limping, Sutter looked back to the TKTS building and saw the four Red Streets standing at the top, watching them leave. Apparently, they weren’t worth the effort.

  Two blocks down 7th Ave, they stopped. Sutter thought his heart might explode. Zach groaned, placing both of his hands on his back.

  “Goddamn it. Why the fuck did you do that?”

  Sutter cocked his head. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why did I do that? Why did I just save you from being sold to someone in Chicago for… for whatever they hell they do with people up there?”

  “I don’t know what you think it is, but it’s not so bad, really. I hear they feed you, give you a warm place to sleep in South Chicago, with electricity, running water.”

  Sutter’s jaw dropped. “You wanted to go with them?”

  Zach eased into a seat on the curb, wincing and trying to stretch his back. “I got nothing here, Sutter. This city is dead. It’s time we all admitted it. We’re no better off than Detroit or New Orleans, or any of those places that are now nothing but holes in the ground.”

  “What about Yvonne?”

  Zach grimaced and wiped at his eyes. “That’s a bit of a long story, but the short version is that she left me. Told me she was going upstate. I had a good thing and I fucked it up.”

  Sutter’s mind raced. “So all that about the hanging and the journal, did you make that up so I’d come with you?”

  Zach’s eyes grew wide, and he held his hands out in front of his face. “No, you gotta believe me. When I told you that, I thought it was true. But then yesterday, I was at Tommy’s bar, looking for scraps or maybe a stray bottle or two, when two of the Red Streets guys came in through the front door. After I shit my pants, I hid in the bathroom and was waiting for them to leave. Took forever, because they sucked each other off first. I might have puked if I wasn’t so scared.”

  Sutter crossed his arms and glared at Zach.

  “After they finished, they started talking. They laid out the whole plan, all about the buyer out there, what it would be like, all that shit.”

  Sutter narrowed his eyes.

  Zach gulped. “You believe me, right?”

  “So, knowing all that, you still let me come down here and almost get myself killed?”

  Zach threw his arms into the air. “I don’t know where you live, damn it! I would have told you, but there’s no way to find you. How was I supposed to warn you?”

  Sutter cast his eyes to the ground. Zach was right. “It’s the Marriott. That’s where I’ve been staying.”

  “What, the one downtown? You’re kidding me, right? That place is all shot to hell.”

  Sutter shook his head. “It’s fine, if you’re careful.”

  “No shit? I would have never guessed.”

  Sutter looked Zach in the eye. “I’m sorry I messed up your chance to get out.”

  Zach drew in a deep breath, then let it out. As he did, he winced again and put a hand on his lower back. “Aw, forget it. Who knows, all that stuff about warm meals and running water might have been a big crock of shit.”

  “Still, I’m sorry.”

  “I appreciate you trying to save my ass, though. That was some thrilling shit.”

  Sutter didn’t know what else to say. He reached into his pocket and took out the stun gun, and handed it to Zach.

  “For me?”

  Sutter nodded and shook his friend’s hand. Then he flipped up the hood on his coat, stuck his hands in his pockets, and headed for home.

  Not Monsters

  (BEFORE THE FALL)

  Farrah took a deep breath and struggled against the unforgiving narrowness of the armrests. She’d needed to use the bathroom for the last twenty minutes, but the omnipotent illuminated seatbelt sign kept her fixed in her cloth-covered bucket chair. Two hundred other passengers on the plane also waited for something to change.

  The flight should have left O’Hare an hour ago.

  The tall man with the red tie–the one who’d been complaining for twenty straight minutes–gripped the back of the seat in front of him, pressing his thumbs against the tiny video monitor. The LCD bowed under the weight of his swarthy digits. A seatbelt still held him down, but he strained against it, threatening to stand up.

  “Miss,” he said, “we need an update.”

  The flight attendant in her form-fitting uniform stood a few rows in front of him, smiling. “Shouldn’t be much longer now. I’m sure the tower will clear us at any second.”

  “This is bullshit,” said the man with the red tie, his balding head shiny with sweat. “This airline runs, what… only one, two flights a week to New York now? If I’m not at JFK by 11, I’m going to miss my London flight. If I miss that, I miss my flight to Moscow. If I miss that…”

  His speech ended in clenched teeth and a grunt.

  The flight attendant seemed to be pretending she could no longer hear the man, but she was also not budging from her authoritative perch between 13C and 13D. She was a watchdog; someone with power. The tight bun of her hair tugged at her eyebrows, making them arch across her forehead like the wings of a bird.

  “Miss,” came a meek voice from behind, somewhere in the twenties. “Are we going to get an update from the captain soon?”

  Farrah swiveled in her seat to locate the owner of the voice, but it was hard to tell. Dozens of heads poked above the chairs like prairie dogs, mouths open and urgent.

  The flight attendant cleared her throat and spread a cautious smile. “Ladies and gentlemen…”

  Red Tie took off his seatbelt and stood up. The tendons on his neck tightened against his skin. “Do you have any idea how much this flight is costing me? We all know it’s not like it used to be, but if I miss my connection, I can’t get that money back.”

  “Please, sir,” the flight attendant said. “I do need you to remain seated at this time. While we acknowledge that slight delays such as the one we are experiencing at this time are unfortunate, the airline is fully prepared to assist anyone who needs a connecting flight once we arrive at our destination.”

  Red Tie made no attempt to comply. He implored at the passengers behind him, eyes darting from face to face. “How long are we going to put up with this kind of treatment?”

  “Sit your ass down,” said an annoyed voice from First Class.

  “You’re all a bunch of fucking sheep,” Red Tie said. “How do we even know that this fuel crunch nonsense isn’t simple propaganda? Huh? How do we know?”

  The flight attendant took a step forward. “Sir, I’m not going to ask you again.”

  Red Tie shrugged. “Or what? I happen to know for a fact that there’s no Marshall on this plane. There’s nothing to stop me from walking up to the cockpit right now and punching that asshole captain right in his stupid face.”

  Farrah unbuckled her seatbelt and lifted the armrest out of her way. Was no one else going to do anything about this guy?

  The flight attendant stepped within one row of Red Tie, stifled a frown, and clasped her hands in front of her chest. “If you don’t sit down right now, I’ll have no choice but to restrain you.”

  “I’d like to see you try, you smug bitch.”

  Farrah stood up, a little dizzy after sitting dormant for so long. “That’s enough. This isn’t her fault and there’s no reason to act like such a bully just because you’re not getting your way. You can at least have a little bit of common courtesy.”

  “Please ma'am,” said the flight attendant, raising a hand toward Farrah. “Return to your seat and fasten your safety belt. This situation is under control.”

  Despite the friendly warning, Farrah sensed desperation in the woman’s eyes. Her pupils were tiny and jittery.

  Red Tie grinned at Farrah, flashing a gold tooth. “And what do you think you
’re gonna do about it, fatty? Sit on me?”

  The fat joke barely registered. “Why don’t you stop causing problems for everybody? Sit down and wait for them to announce that it’s clear for us to take off. You’re not special just because you have a tight connection, you know. A lot of us here are in the same boat.”

  “Boat? Boat?” Red Tie said, waving his arms in a sweeping arc over the nearby seats. “If we were on a fucking boat, we could have left by now.” He dimmed his eyes. “You probably believed in all the meteor bullshit when it was all over the news, didn’t you?”

  An elderly woman drew in a sharp breath. A child whimpered and sobbed. Everyone knew what he meant, but no one liked to talk about it. Three days since the press conference about the meteor hoax, and no one knew how to feel about it yet.

  “Listen to me,” Farrah said. “That’s beside the point. Whatever else is going on, you have no reason to act this way toward another person. That woman you’re berating, she has feelings too.”

  Red Tie stepped out into the aisle as his seat belt clanged against the side of the chair.

  The flight attendant moved to intercept him, holding out her arms.

  Red Tie whipped a hand toward her, striking her across the cheek loud enough that the sound echoed along the slim corridor of the plane.

  The woman yelped as she spun, then crashed into seat 12D. The man in that seat tried to push her back up, but she fell to the floor.

  Farrah leaped forward, jamming her thumbs underneath Red Tie’s shoulder blades and giving him a violent push to knock him to the floor. The bully’s elbow cracked the covering of an armrest on his way down. Splintered pieces of beige plastic fell on him.

  Two more flight attendants came rushing along the aisle, one from the front and one from the back. One of them helped the battered and sobbing flight attendant to her feet and pulled her a few rows forward, away from Red Tie.

  Farrah steadied herself in the slim space between 14C and 14D. She raised her fists and had to flatten a smile when it occurred to her that she hadn’t punched someone since high school.

  The other inhabitants of the plane rumbled, and Farrah heard the crowd spit phrases such as, “throw his ass off the plane,” and “why don’t all of you sit down,” and “teach that shit-bird a lesson, lady!”

  Farrah stood over the bully, chest heaving. No idea what she would do if the man decided to get up. “I don’t want this to go any further. Nobody wanted any of this mess you’ve brought. All you had to do was sit down.”

  The flight attendants on either side spoke in excited tones, but their words merged into the escalating noise pollution of the plane’s passengers. One of them ran toward the front of the aircraft, grabbed a red phone hanging next to the cockpit, and babbled into it while her wide eyes scanned up and down the aisles.

  More passengers had taken off their seat belts and were now standing to watch the scene.

  Red Tie rose and braced himself against a seat, wiping a hand over a trickle of blood seeping down his lower lip. “This is all a bunch of bullshit! All these new travel restrictions and fees, all that propaganda about buying duct tape and water bottles, all of this consumerist fear-mongering bullshit… it’s all some kind of 9/11-repeat paranoia to keep us distracted from the real truth about what’s going on in the Middle East.”

  A gray and wizened woman five rows ahead stood up and looked Farrah straight in the eye. “Please make this awful man stop talking. He’s scaring my granddaughter.”

  Farrah glanced at dozens of pairs of eyes waiting for her to take some action. Babies with tears dribbling down their faces. Adults with worry etched into their foreheads. Everyone wanted a resolution to the situation, but none of them were willing to commit and put themselves at risk.

  “Maybe you should leave,” Farrah said, hoping for a way to talk sense into Red Tie. “Just get off the plane.”

  “He can’t leave,” one of the flight attendants said. “The airplane doors have been shut and I’m not allowed to open them. Really, it should only be a few more minutes until we’re allowed to enter the queue and then everything will be back to normal.”

  A voice from the back of the plane: “Screw that. Throw his ass off the plane!”

  Red Tie bared his teeth. “I’m not going anywhere. We’re going to take off and land at JFK, then I’m going to make my god damn flight to London.”

  The overhead intercom crackled. “Ladies and gentleman, this is the pilot speaking. I understand there are some questions from the passengers, but I’m afraid I don’t have an update at this time. Our destination airport is experiencing some long delays, so we’re going to have to hold for now. We expect this to last only a few minutes, so please sit tight.”

  Red Tie pointed at the intercom, his forehead as red as an apple. “You hear that? You hear those lies coming out of his mouth?”

  A passenger near the front stood up. “Someone shut that asshole up!”

  “Yeah, hit him again,” said someone else.

  A dot of sweat slid from Farrah’s neck onto her blouse.

  Red Tie pushed out his chest. “Are you going to listen to them, fatty? I’d like to see you try something like that again.”

  “No,” Farrah said, addressing the other passengers. “Listen to yourselves. This is crazy. Our flight is only delayed a little bit. There’s no reason for us to act like this.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Red Tie. “You’re not going to do shit.”

  “Screw this,” said the burly man from 12C. He stood up and swung a laptop at the back of Red Tie’s head. The blow caught Red Tie off guard and sent him stumbling into his seat, as bits of plastic and metal sprayed the surrounding area.

  12C followed that by grabbing Red Tie and thrusting an elbow into his back, driving him face-first into the man seated at 13D.

  The crowd rumbled again, but this time they weren’t spewing cries of confusion and fear. They were encouraging 12C to keep going. Even the flight attendants were no longer trying to control the situation, and had instead moved out of the way.

  “Grind that jerk into dust!”

  Farrah felt paralyzed as 12C threw Red Tie into the aisle and kicked him in the ribs four times, five times, six. As if the violence would never stop. Spittle flew from 12C’s mouth as he brutalized the man, who now didn’t seem to be conscious. He raised his foot and positioned it over Red Tie’s head, then grabbed the seats on either side for leverage.

  Farrah found her courage. “Stop!”

  12C halted, wheezing, and smoothed his hair against his scalp while he looked at Farrah. “What? This guy needs to pay.”

  The world spun. “No, he doesn’t,” she said. “What are you going to do? Kill him?”

  “Why not?” shouted a deep voice from the back.

  “Don’t let him get off scott-free,” said someone else.

  12C narrowed his eyes at Farrah, his expression some mix of determination and hesitation, waiting for approval to continue.

  Farrah shook her head. “We’re not monsters.”

  The intercom crackled again. Everyone looked up, but no announcement followed this time. Then the cockpit door opened, and the pilot and co-pilot entered the aisle, adjusting their ties and walking toward the disturbance. They said nothing and didn’t meet the eyes of any of the passengers. They stopped at row 10, the emergency exit row.

  The pilot leaned over the seated passengers, twisted a lever, and lifted the emergency hatch. A rush of air flew across Farrah’s face, making her bat her eyes. The sun momentarily blinded her.

  The copilot leaned out and pulled another lever. Something hissed as a yellow raft-like device sprouted from below the hatch door. At first, it spread outward, then descended as it became longer. A slide.

  When the slide had fully inflated, the pilot cast a blank look around the cabin, then threw himself out the window. The copilot followed.

  Several passengers gasped, but no one moved. A few craned their necks to spy out their windows. />
  Farrah scrambled toward the open hatch and looked outside. The pilot and copilot slid to the ground, straightened their hats, and walked away from the plane.

  Then Farrah noticed a half dozen other planes on the tarmac also with emergency slides extended like drooping yellow tongues licking the ground, and other airline pilots marching toward the O’Hare terminal.

  Radio Free Vancouver

  (AFTER THE FALL)

  TRANSCRIPT: 24 APRIL, 19:00 PDT

  Good evening out there, you’re listening to Annabelle on Radio Free Vancouver. Whether you’re hearing me for the first time or you’re a long-time listener, first off tonight, let me say right on for having electricity.

  Going to be a short broadcast this evening as the genny is about out of juice and I’m not too sure when I’ll be able to locate a filler-up. But have heart, brave listeners, tune in every evening at this time, and if we can go, we’ll go.

  So what’s new in the world these last few days since I broadcasted? Not much in the way of hard facts, just rumor mill fodder. The word is that our lovely dear P.M. has been spotted on a boat off the coast of Nova Scotia, but I’d have to place that one squarely in the category of not too likely.

  Our neighbors to the south have been having a rough go of it lately, with militia groups sprouting up in clusters all over. I’m hearing a lot about a group in Chicago that’s getting pretty big, though.

  Missile strikes launched from Utah leveled wide swaths of Northern California, and the space needle in nearby Seattle finally took a tumble, thanks to what some sources are calling a “unified blast of ex-military RPGs.” While I don’t find it hard to believe that the needle fell, I find the RPG claim a little iffy.

  And finally, nothing new on the big five: Edward LaVey, Peter Anders, Hector Castillo, George Grant, and Beth Fortner. While plenty of sources claim LaVey is dead, I won’t personally buy it until I see his face. But his partner in crime Peter Anders has been spotted everywhere from Manitoba to Mexico and all points in between.