by William Oday
Which, of course, they had. But now they looked the part.
A red Ford F150 parked at the next intersection had all its windows bashed out. Only narrow perimeters of jagged shards remained. It sat low to the ground because all four wheels were missing. The passenger side mirror hung limply from a black cable. The hood looked like a boulder had fallen on it. The driver side door was open, but nobody was around.
Bob scanned the street as far as the crest of the hill that concealed the other half of town.
Not a single person could be seen.
People were still walking around the first few days.
Not anymore.
There was an eerie menace in the air as they hugged storefronts and darted through the open spaces. Glass crunched underfoot as they passed the broken window of the local Starbucks. Someone had done a number on the interior.
And not in a home renovation kind of way.
Bob had never liked that charred beans acid water, so it wasn’t a big loss as far as he was concerned.
Rome stopped at the edge of the building and peeked around the corner.
Bob stopped behind him. “So what are you going to do with whatever is in that bag?
Rome looked over his shoulder with a gleam in his eye. “I’m going to get as many guns and bullets as I can.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to kill the bastard that murdered my mother. Come on!” He broke into a jog across the street.
Bob did his best to keep up.
And by best, that simply meant stumbling behind while not passing out from dizziness and chest pain.
“Hey!” a voice shouted down the street.
Rome and Bob both turned toward the sound and stumbled to a stop.
Two men carrying rifles jogged across the street a half a block away.
“Don’t move!” one shouted.
Rome took off.
Bob followed right behind.
They made it past the cover of the building on the opposite side before their pursuers could react.
Rome ducked to the side to avoid a bent door frame hanging out over the sidewalk. He cleared it.
But his duffel bag didn’t.
The broken and twisted door frame caught the bag, ripped it open, and bricks of wrapped cellophane tumbled out onto the pavement.
Bob accidentally kicked one before skidding to a stop himself. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand.
Beneath numerous layers of tightly stretched plastic, dark green marijuana showed.
“You’re carrying drugs?”
Rome was already on his knees scooping up the half dozen bricks that had fallen out.
This kid was an absolute idiot.
Who carried a duffel bag full of weed around town six days after the apocalypse?
Did he think this was a Hollywood movie or something?
This was how you got yourself killed.
And worse, this was how you got the old guy that came with you killed.
17
“Leave it!” Bob shouted as he tried to pull Rome to his feet.
The vastly larger boy shrugged him off as he snatched up another brick.
“It’s not worth dying for!” Bob grabbed him again, but it was no use.
Rome shoved the last few bricks back into the bag. He yanked the one out of Bob’s hand and was about to stuff it into the bag when a voice shouted.
“Don’t you move another inch!”
Bob slowly turned his head and saw the two men with their rifles raised and ready to fire. He glanced back at Rome and saw the kid looking toward nearby alley. “Don’t do it. They’ll shoot you down.”
CRACK!
A bullet snapped by Bob’s head, inches away.
“I said don’t move!”
Bob froze and was relieved to see Rome did too.
The two men sauntered up and stopped next to Rome. Both had a hollow emptiness to their eyes and a mouthful of rotten teeth.
Bob had seen their kind plenty of times before. They were always cruising Hollywood Boulevard, looking for the next fix or looking for something to steal to pay for it.
The smaller one wearing a camo jacket and camo rain pants reached out for the brick of weed in Rome’s hand. “What do we have here?” he said as he yanked it free. He started laughing as he flipped it over and over in his hand. “Otis, we done caught ourselves a drug dealer!”
The taller man with a long, frizzy goatee hanging off his chin whooped with joy.
The camo’d guy let his rifle hang by the sling and drew a knife from a sheath at his hip. He sliced open the plastic wrap and took a deep breath. “Whoa! This is some tasty nugs, man!”
The taller man pointed his rifle at Rome. “Open the bag.”
Rome didn’t move.
The man’s finger curled inside the trigger guard. “I won’t ask again.”
“Do it!” Bob said. “Open the stupid bag!”
Rome cursed under his breath, but pulled back the zipper. The contents of the stuffed bag spilled out.
A dozen hard bricks tumbled around like oversized dominoes.
“Holy crap, Otis! We hit the jackpot!” the camo’d man started jumping around like he’d won the lottery.
“Ricky! Gather it all up before anyone sees!”
“Oh, yeah!” He started scooping up the bricks while the taller man moved the muzzle back and forth between Rome and Bob.
From the corner of his eye, Bob saw Rome’s hand easing toward the hem of his jacket.
“We gonna be high as planets!”
“Yeah, and I’m gonna be the moon!”
The taller man shook his head. “The moon ain’t a planet. And plus, planets are way higher than the moon. Did you learn nuthin in school?”
The camo’d man cackled like a maniac as he continued gathering the bricks. “I learned how to smoke weed!”
The taller man held the rifle with one hand and pulled a metal flask out of his pocket with the other. “This deserves a toast.” He spun the cap off as he continued. “Whiskey begins and makes best friends and we’ll see what happens when the whiskey ends.”
Rome’s fingers pulled up the hem revealing a black holster underneath.
Bob had to stop him!
The kid was going to get them both killed.
This wasn’t the wild west and he wasn’t Doc Holliday, the fastest gun in the west. This was Kodiak, Alaska and the guy pointing a rifle at them would shoot them both before Rome’s pistol cleared the holster.
Bob turned back to the rifle. A high-powered hunting rifle only a few feet away and pointing at their chests. Exactly what kind of rifle was beyond Bob’s comprehension or concern. All he knew or cared about was that the barrel looked huge and that dark tunnel at the end scared him like nothing else he’d ever experienced.
Bob tried to think of something, anything to stop the inevitable from happening, but he was too late.
Rome went for his pistol.
He yanked it from the holster, but it got tangled in his jacket, binding his hand for precious seconds.
The taller man shoved the end of his rifle into Rome’s forehead. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The camo’d man spotted the pistol and yanked it away. He held it up to his partner. “Look what we got here.”
The taller man growled. “I was thinking of letting you live. Not anymore!”
“Kill this fatty!” the shorter man screamed. “Splatter his brains on the sidewalk!”
The taller man nodded.
Something sparked in Bob’s mind.
A lightning bolt of recognition blazed through his brain.
“Wait! What did you say a minute ago?”
The taller man cast him a sideward glance.
The memory sizzled through Bob’s mind.
That line.
That line!
That joke!
He’d written it over thirty years ago. He thought it would be a throwaway laugh but something about it ca
ught people. It had become a running gag between two of the main characters on Barflies, the owner and bartender.
And the man about to shoot Rome had said the first half. The set up.
Bob knew the second half, the punch line, like he knew his own name. “Until the whiskey ends!”
The taller man’s eyes narrowed. “What did you say?”
“Until the whiskey ends! That’s the rest of it. Whiskey begins and whiskey best friends. Don’t talk to the wife until the whiskey ends!”
His eyes widened. “You like classic TV series?”
Bob’s mouth talked so fast his brain could hardly keep up. “Like them? I made them. I wrote that joke. It’s funny because it shows the new bartender, Jimmie, has a lot to learn from the owner and old pro, Don.”
“We’re talking Barflies, right?” the taller man asked.
“Yes, Barflies! That’s my show. I created it!”
The camo’d man shook his head. “He’s lying. That’s ridiculous!”
A cloud of uncertainty passed over the taller’s man gaze.
“It’s true. I promise you.”
“What’s your name?” the taller man said.
“Bob Randy. Executive Producer. You must’ve seen it in the credit roll at the beginning of the show.” He better have because Bob had fought tooth and nail to get that placement at that size. A viewer would’ve had to been blind not to see it.
The taller man’s eyes opened wide as the end of the rifle lowered. “He’s for real. I remember seeing that name because Grampy always made fun of it. He always wondered what kind of Hollywood jackass had two first names for a name.”
“Yes! That’s me!” Bob said. And the fact that he’d just been insulted didn’t cross his mind.
Mostly didn’t cross his mind.
The taller man let the rifle point to the pavement. He extended his hand toward Bob.
Bob shook it, wondering if this was merely a brief pause in their imminent execution.
“I want to thank you,” the man said as his eyes started to glisten. “Grampy and I watched your show every night the last year of his life.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Shut up, Ricky! You idiot! You don’t remember because you were too young. All you cared about was eating your boogers and pulling the legs off of crickets!”
“Yeah, I was a pretty cool kid.”
“You were an idiot and you still are!”
The camo’d man frowned and continued gathering the blocks.
“Anyhow, we watched that show every night until the cancer finally got him.” He wiped at a tear forming on the inside corner of his eye. “The drugs had him in a stupor the last couple of months. But on his last day, there it was. Your show came on and it was like he came back for a few minutes. He was himself again while the show lasted. Then it ended. And not long after, so did he.”
Bob had no clue what to say to that. Anything that kept them from getting shot sounded right. He went with something safe. “I’m sorry he suffered so much.”
The taller man bit his lip. “Me too.”
The camo’d man punched him in the shoulder. “Look at you! You’re crying like a little girl. Wait ’til mama hears about this!”
The taller man grabbed him by the collar and wrenched the material to the side until it tightened around his neck.
The camo’d guy’s face turned red and a vein on his forehead bulged below the skin.
“You ain’t gonna say nothing to nobody. You get me?”
The choking man nodded as the vein threatened to pop through the skin.
The taller man released him and then turned back to Bob. “Look, for what you did for my grandpa, I’m not gonna kill you two.”
Bob was thanking him before he finished the sentence.
“This is a one time deal. We’re square now.”
“Got it,” Bob said as he glanced at Rome.
He had a snarl on his face, but his mouth stayed shut.
Good.
The last thing they needed was for him to blow it with some smart ass comment.
The taller man waved them away with his rifle. “Get going.”
Bob started walking, but Rome stayed put. Bob turned back as the rifle pivoted to Rome. Not raised. Still pointing toward the pavement. But in the neighborhood now.
Rome pointed at his pistol. “Can I have my gun back?”
The taller man shook his head. “The weed and pistol are mine.” He looked over at Bob. “Word of friendly advice. You and the kid get out of town. CB owns this place now and he don’t do kind gestures. You stay and you’re going get yourselves killed.”
Bob grabbed Rome’s elbow and pulled him away. “Thank you. We’ll do that.”
He managed to pull Rome across the street, back toward the apartment.
They made it a few more yards and then Rome pulled away.
“They stole my gun and my weed! And you let them!”
“Let them? They were gonna kill us. I’m the reason we’re still alive!”
“What? I’m supposed to be grateful or something?”
Bob sighed.
Teenagers.
He was way too old for this crap.
18
MARCO pulled the collar of his jacket up to keep the gusting wind out. The afternoon sun hid behind a brown gauze that would’ve looked right at home in the sky above Beijing.
But not here in Kodiak.
A town of six thousand didn’t have enough tailpipes to create smog.
No. The sky had changed since the nukes dropped. The sun no longer brought warmth and energy. Now, it glowed weak and pale behind a blanket of thick dust.
Not that his neck was cold. On the contrary, it was toasty warm due to the little bundle of heat curled over his shoulders and softly snoring inches from his ear.
Marco and Stuckey had circled back to the hospital after the gang had left. Oscar had been furious when Marco opened the door and the two reunited. Marco had felt bad because he knew the feeling all too well. Abandoned by his ex. And now by Emily.
His hiking boots thudded on the pavement as he lengthened his stride to keep up with Chief Stuckey. They’d just left a pizza joint and successfully recruited its owner to come to the meeting set for that night.
The resistance.
With the police decimated and Marco a deputy with less than a day’s experience, the two of them weren’t a match for the gang that had nearly killed them at the hospital.
They needed more people.
Citizens who cared about the town and had the back bone to do something about it.
They were walking down Mill Bay Road, keeping a low profile, checking every business as they went. All were closed and locked up, but some still had people inside that came out when they saw Stuckey banging on the door.
They crossed the street, hurried through the exposed intersection, and headed toward the Gas & Go on the opposite corner. Stuckey approached the front door and peered inside.
The glass of the store front was still intact. That was something. A third or more of the stores looked like they’d been hit by mini-tornadoes.
The chief tried the handle, but it was locked. He banged on the glass and again peered into the dark interior.
A voice shouted from above. “Get away from my door!”
Marco looked up and saw a man standing on the roof, looking down with a shotgun aimed at them.
SHUCK SHUCK.
“I’m giving you five seconds to beat it. One—“
Oscar’s claws scratched Marco’s neck as he scurried onto one shoulder, staring up and hissing.
Chief Stuckey held his hands up as he backed away. “Easy, Henry! It’s me. Stuckey.”
The man standing on the roof tilted his head and squinted. “Chief! What are you doing creeping around? I almost blew your head off!”
“I’m walking around in broad daylight. That’s not creeping!”
Henry trained the shotgun on Marco. “Who’s that?”
Chief Stuckey stepped in front of Marco, notably with his hands still in the air. “Name’s Marco. He’s with me.”
Marco waved. “Hi there.”
“Is he aware he’s got a rat perched on his shoulder?”
“It’s a weasel,” Marco said as Oscar screeched.
The man cast him a scornful look. “If you say so,” he said as he lowered the shotgun.
“Did you hear about what happened to the police station?” Stuckey asked.
The man nodded. “A gas explosion or something blew it to smithereens. That right?”
“N0. Not gas. A bomb. Two of them. Killed everyone at the station but me.”
“That so?”
“Henry, there’s a madman trying to take over Kodiak. He busted out a bunch of criminals in lock up. I think he’s building his own personal army.”
“You mean that gang that’s been running around acting like they own the place?”
“When did you see them?”
“Earlier this morning. They came tearing through here in a convoy of old trucks. Hollering and throwing beer bottles through storefronts as they went. I kept my head down because there were too many.”
“More than a dozen?” Stuckey asked.
“Think so. Fifteen or twenty, I’d say.”
Stuckey muttered something under his breath. “Well, if we don’t do something and do it quick, this town is lost. Will you help us?”
Henry leaned the shotgun on the rim of the roof and dug into the front pocket of his overalls. He tugged out a packet and dipped his fingers inside. He pinched out a wad of chew and stuffed it into his mouth.
Marco waited and watched, the same as Stuckey did.
Like it was some kind of ritual that had to be observed before a decision could be made.
He worked the chaw a bit and then spat onto the roof. With the tobacco apparently settled in, he picked up the gun and looked down at them with a nod. “I reckon you can count me in.”
“Chief Stuckey!” a voice called from across the street.
Marco, the chief, and Henry above all pivoted with their guns trained in the direction of the voice.
A woman appeared from a narrow alley between two buildings. She was about to run across the street, but Stuckey stopped her.
