Aftermath

by Mark Lukens

  “Hey,” the man with the screwed-up nose snapped at her, giving her a little shake to make sure she was paying attention to him.

  She looked back at him, staring at his nose; it looked like part of it had been eaten away by cancer, or maybe an accident or a dog attack.

  “Are you okay, Brooke?” Kate asked without taking her eyes away from Messed-up Nose.

  Brooke didn’t answer.

  “Is that your name?” Baseball Cap asked in a sickeningly sweet voice. “Brooke? Is that your name, sweetheart?”

  Brooke wasn’t answering either of them.

  Kate needed to calm down and think things through. They had been ambushed in their sleep this morning by at least two men—there could be more of them outside or in the van parked outside the office. At least they weren’t rippers; if these men had been rippers she and Brooke would be dead by now. So at least they still had some kind of chance of surviving this. And these two men didn’t want to kill them just yet. No, there were other things they wanted to do. As much as it sickened Kate, it might give her a few minutes to think of a way out of this.

  “Look at you,” Messed-up Nose purred, staring at Kate with his cold, little eyes. “I can’t believe we found you.”

  Found us? What was that supposed to mean?

  “You don’t have to do this,” Kate said. She would try reasoning with the men first, even though she was pretty sure that reasoning wasn’t going to work. “We have a car outside. I’ve got the keys in my jacket pocket. We’ve got a little food in there. You can take the car and everything in it. Just let us go.”

  “We’ll come back for all of the shit in your car, don’t you worry about that,” Messed-up Nose said. “Right now, you’re going with us.”

  Kate began to panic. She stared at the symbol on the man’s forehead. It was the same symbol she’d seen painted on the lemonade stand in her dream, the same symbol that had been spray-painted on the front door of her house before she had left it, the same symbol painted on her neighbors’ front doors by the men in the camo clothing and pickup truck. “What’s that symbol mean?” Kate asked. “What’s AD mean?”

  “It’s DA,” Baseball Cap corrected like she had just offended him.

  “DA,” Kate said. “What does DA stand for? I’ve seen it before.”

  “We’re everywhere,” Baseball Cap said with a sneer.

  Kate looked at him. “Who are you guys?”

  Messed-up Nose shook Kate again, gaining her attention quickly. “Shut up.” He glanced at Baseball Cap. “Both of you.” He looked back at Kate. “We need to take you to see someone.”

  Someone? Kate knew right away who the man was talking about—he was talking about the shadowy man she’d seen in her dreams, the Evil One. She knew it didn’t make any sense, it shouldn’t make any sense, but she knew it was true with every fiber of her being.

  “Who?” she asked, still trying to stall, trying to think of a way out of this. But nothing was coming to her mind.

  “The Dragon,” Baseball Cap said.

  Messed-up Nose looked at the man in the lobby again, and the man shrank back like he knew he’d said too much now. He still had Brooke’s hand squeezed in his. “Take her to the van,” he growled at the man.

  Baseball Cap pulled Brooke to the glass door of the lobby, leading her outside toward the van parked thirty feet away. Brooke let out a soft mewling sound, but she didn’t resist too much. The shock was back in her big blue eyes again, the same shock Kate had seen when she’d first gone down into the tunnel. It had taken Brooke a long time to come out of the protective shell she’d built around herself, and now she’d climbed right back into it.

  Kate wanted to tell Brooke that she was sorry. She wished that Brooke had woken up before the men got in; she wished Brooke had escaped. But then what? How far would Brooke have gotten before these men found her? Or other men like them. Or rippers.

  “Come on, baby,” Messed-up Nose said. He backed up from Kate, moving around the counter. He pulled a handgun out of his inside jacket pocket and aimed it at her. “I can see those wheels turning in your mind. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Kate thought of the doorway to the back rooms. It was only a few feet away. If she could get to the back rooms, to the back door, she could get away. But she couldn’t leave Brooke. She had promised to help Brooke, to protect her. She had to find a way to do that.

  “No games now,” the man said. “You do what we say and we won’t hurt the little girl.”

  “Who is the Dragon?” Kate asked.

  “You’ll find out soon enough,” the man said. But he wasn’t smiling, and there was a flash of fear in his narrowed eyes.

  Kate still hesitated.

  “Move,” the man barked, backing up into the lobby, keeping his gun aimed at her.

  Kate didn’t know what else to do. She walked toward the man. He backed up to the lobby door and opened it, waiting for her. She found herself praying again as she walked to the door. And as she prayed, she heard her mother’s voice: Leave things in God’s hands. Kate couldn’t count the times in her childhood she’d heard her mother say not to worry and to leave things in God’s hands.

  What else could she do now but leave things in God’s hands? Or the cosmic roll of the dice, because it felt like God had turned His back on the whole world.

  But she prayed anyway. She prayed to God, to the universe, to those pair of cosmic dice. She prayed that Brooke made it out of this alive and whole. For Brooke . . . at least spare her what was coming.

  “We ain’t got all day,” the man snapped.

  Kate got to the door and brushed past him. The smell of the man was sickening. He followed her outside into the cold, wet morning air. It had rained off and on throughout the night, but a wall of gray clouds was coming like an ocean above the dull green woods.

  Brooke waited by the black van, the side door wide open. Kate didn’t see anyone else inside the van or in the front of it. She didn’t see anyone else in the parking lot. She didn’t hear any other noises except the scuffing of her sneakers on the wet pavement and Messed-up Nose’s heavy breathing. He seemed like he was excited, like something he’d been waiting a long time for was about to happen, a wish finally fulfilled.

  When Baseball Cap saw Kate and his partner coming toward the van, he grabbed Brooke’s arm and tried to shove her in through the sliding door. Kate had expected Brooke to just go along with everything, retreating somewhere into her mind, into the cocoon of safety she had mentally built up over the last week.

  But Brooke didn’t do that—she fought back.

  CHAPTER 26

  It was like Brooke had been acting lethargic and traumatized; it was like she had been waiting for the perfect moment to attack. It was like she had finally snapped awake and realized what was about to happen, what these men had planned.

  Baseball Cap tried to grab Brooke again, but she became a whirlwind of slaps and kicks, her high-pitched screams echoing across the parking lot, into the woods, and down the road.

  “Make her shut up!” Messed-up Nose yelled as he pushed Kate—a hard shove right in the middle of her back that almost pitched her too far forward.

  “I’m trying,” Baseball Cap said as he attempted to grab Brooke again. But she squealed and bit his hand, sinking her small teeth down into his flesh.

  He yelled and pushed her back into the side of the van, the back of her head thumping against the metal. But she had taken a piece of his skin with her when he had pushed her back, her chin spotted with blood now. She spit out the chunk of flesh and kept on screaming as loud as she could.

  Kate knew why the men were concerned about Brooke’s screams—they were going to alert any rippers nearby.

  And then Kate heard the distinct screeches and yells of the rippers. At least a dozen of them had cried out from the woods. How many were there? How close were they? Kate realized that if these men hadn’t have come when they had, the rippers might have gotten to them anyway.

  God wor
ks in mysterious ways, that’s what Kate’s mom would have said.

  Baseball Cap pushed Brooke back against the side of the van again, harder this time, the back of her head slamming into the metal. Kate was sure that Brooke was going to pass out, slide down to the pavement.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Messed-up Nose said, and Kate could hear the fear in his voice. He had stepped in front of Kate, his gun pointed down at the ground by his side, his full attention on his partner and what he was doing to Brooke.

  For just a second Kate thought the man was worried about his prize getting damaged, and the thought of it turned her stomach. But then she realized that the man was really afraid; there was something else to this. The man was afraid she and Brooke would be hurt too badly before they brought them to the Dragon.

  Was that what they called the Evil One? Did they work for him? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that these two men were going to take them to the Dragon, probably to the town Kate had seen in her dreams, the decimated town with the dead bodies everywhere, the hell town.

  She couldn’t go there. Maybe these two men weren’t allowed to seriously hurt her or Brooke, but when they got to the town things would be very different.

  In God’s hands, her mom’s voice echoed in her mind as she looked around at the ground all around them. The motel parking lot, like so many other places now, was littered with trash and debris. She spotted a heavy piece of wood that had been broken off a piece of furniture. Another one of her mom’s favorite sayings popped into her mind: God helps those who help themselves.

  The wood didn’t look heavy enough to knock Messed-up Nose out, but the piece of wood ended in a sharp point where it had been broken away from the rest of the furniture.

  Brooke was still conscious and still screaming. And now Baseball Cap was yelling, defending his actions and holding onto his injured hand. “Look what she did to me.”

  Messed-up Nose’s attention was still on his partner and Brooke, and for just a moment he seemed frozen, not sure what to do. He seemed a little slow, like his mind took a few seconds to run through his options.

  Kate used that time to grab the piece of wood from the ground.

  Messed-up Nose was beside his partner now, trying to calm him down, willing to team up to get the little hellion into their van.

  This was her chance. Kate ran at the men with the pointed piece of wood in her hand like it was a lance. Her mind went white with rage. Kate had been angry before in her life—everyone had—but nothing like this. Maybe she had been repressing her own rage and sadness this last week, her own rage at the unfairness of it all, and now, like Brooke, she was blowing a valve. It felt scary to lose control like this; she had always prided herself on being in control of her emotions, her body, her life. But that was all gone in these seconds, and she just let it all go.

  It felt like someone else was controlling her body for a moment when she stabbed the sharp end of the piece of wood into the side of Messed-up Nose’s neck. It felt like she was looking at someone else’s hands as they committed this act, like she had slipped into someone else’s body and was watching through their eyes as they murdered someone.

  Kate screamed as she drove the piece of sharp wood deeper into the man’s flesh. The wood sank in much easier than she had expected, so deep until it hit something hard like bone. Messed-up Nose screamed right along with Kate, right along with Brooke, who was still screaming. The man dropped his gun as he grabbed at the stick buried into his neck, the gun skittering along the pavement and then under the van somewhere.

  Kate had jumped onto the man’s back at some point, still holding onto the stick in the man’s neck, riding him like he was a bucking bull, spinning around, trying to grab at her. But it seemed like his arms weren’t working quite right.

  Baseball Cap still had a hold of Brooke, but his attention was now on his partner and Kate, his hand slipping away from Brooke.

  Brooke bolted away from the man, dropping to her hands and knees, crawling underneath the van to get away from him.

  “What do you want me to do?” Baseball Cap asked as he drew a hunting knife out from his belt.

  Messed-up Nose didn’t answer. He spun around, punching at Kate as she tried to hold on to her weapon protruding from the side of his neck, but the wood was slick from the man’s blood and she lost her grip, falling off of him and back down onto her feet.

  The man whirled around and pushed Kate back. She tried to keep her balance, but the shove was so forceful, that she stumbled and fell down hard onto her butt, looking up at the two men as they stared at her. Baseball Cap’s attention was on his partner, staring in shock at the piece of wood sticking out of the side of his neck, at the rivers of blood pouring down the front of his clothes, at the blood bubbling up where the sharpened stick had pierced his flesh.

  “Get the girl,” Messed-up Nose said as he took a step toward Kate. His eyes were still cold and narrowed. Maybe he was in shock, maybe not fully aware of how bad his injury was. Maybe he was even high on something, or running on adrenaline. But that adrenaline was pouring out of his body along with his blood.

  Kate, too, was in shock as the man stumbled toward her. How could he still be alive? He’d lost so much blood already. How could he even be conscious and walking?

  Baseball Cap followed orders, turning back to the van with his hunting knife in his hand. He had spotted Brooke underneath the van. He crouched down beside the van, ready to crawl under it after the girl.

  Kate’s eyes were on Messed-up Nose as he took another step toward her, his hands clenched in fists, but then she looked at the other man at the side of the van. Brooke was under there. And so was Messed-up Nose’s gun.

  Bam!

  Baseball Cap’s body was pitched back from the impact of the bullet. It was like he had been jerked back into a sitting position for just one second, and then his body went limp. No scream, no cries of rage, no curses. He just fell over onto his side, already dead.

  Kate’s own adrenaline took over. She scrambled back away from Messed-up Nose like a crab, backing away from him.

  So much blood . . . he couldn’t last much longer, could he?

  A ripper screeched from somewhere nearby, and others answered his call. It sounded like there were a lot of them. They had heard Brooke’s screams and the gunshot, the sounds of violence drawing them out of the woods.

  “Get to the car!” Kate yelled at Brooke. She didn’t know if Brooke was listening to her because she didn’t take her eyes off of the man stumbling toward her.

  Kate was up and on her feet when the man was only a few feet away from her. Kate was quicker than the man, out of his reach within seconds. The man turned and kept coming for Kate, like a zombie from a horror film, reaching for her with blood dripping down the front of his clothes, leaving big splotches on the pavement. He stumbled forward, oblivious to the rippers that were coming, oblivious to his dead partner, oblivious to Brooke, to his orders. His only concern now seemed to be killing Kate, killing the person who had hurt him.

  Kate ran, picking up speed as she darted around the man and to the back of the van. She saw Brooke at the back of the van, waiting. Brooke still had the gun clenched in her hand; it was like she didn’t even realize she was still holding it.

  “Go!” Kate screamed at Brooke, but then she realized that she had the car keys. She dug them out of her pocket and tossed them at Brooke—they landed on the wet pavement with a clink. “Get in the car!”

  Brooke picked up the keys. She never dropped the gun. She ran to the Toyota that was just visible from where they stood, the rear of it sticking out from the back of the motel office.

  A thud sounded from behind Kate. She turned and saw that the man had finally collapsed. He lay on his side, the piece of wood jutting out from the side of his neck. He was trembling, his hands shaking badly. He was dying.

  More rippers cried out. They were getting closer.

  Kate was about to run to the Toyota, but she stopped. She looked at the
back doors of the van. She lifted the handle on the door, expecting it to be locked, but the door opened easily. Inside there were cardboard boxes of food and supplies.

  No . . . don’t risk it. The rippers are too close.

  Before she had time to rationalize things, Kate grabbed the first box on top of the others. It was sealed shut with a few strips of tape, and she didn’t bother to look inside. It was something, hopefully some kind of food and water for her and Brooke—they had nothing left now.

  “He’ll get you,” Messed-up Nose said from the ground.

  Kate looked at the man as he lifted his head up, staring at her with a vacant look in his eyes. For just a moment she was afraid he had another gun, but if he had, he would have used it already.

  She knew who he was talking about, but she didn’t answer him. She took her cardboard box and ran as more rippers screamed in the morning air.

  CHAPTER 27

  It had begun to rain. Drizzling now, but Kate knew that a wall of rain was coming soon. The cardboard box she was carrying was getting wet.

  Why had she stopped to grab the box? It was weighing her down, slowing her down. Why had she been so greedy? Why couldn’t she make the right decisions?

  Messed-up Nose wasn’t dead yet, but he wasn’t moving either. He was still on the ground, calling out to her, cursing her, letting her know that the Dragon would never stop looking for her.

  Looking for me? Why me?

  But Kate didn’t have time to think about that right now. There would be time to ponder those mysteries if she lived long enough.

  Ditch the box.

  But Kate didn’t listen to the voice in her mind. This voice wasn’t her mother’s voice—this voice was her own voice, the stern taskmaster of her consciousness. No, if it had been her mother’s voice she would have told her to leave things in God’s hands, and that God helps those who help themselves.

  Well, I’m trying to help myself. And I’m trying to help Brooke.