by Alan Ryker
He talks to them for a moment, points back at me and says something. They don’t respond. He barks something and they nod.
I’ve slowed to a clomping jog, not eager to charge into whatever is being set up. But one of the young men takes keys from his pocket and opens the front door, holding it open and stepping aside as my quarry steps through. He lets it shut, drops the keys into his pocket and looks at me.
They all look at me. I pick up my pace.
Six sets of eyes watch me. I’m trying to control my breathing, to not seem as frazzled as I am.
“Where’s he going?” I ask.
No one speaks. I look directly at the one who let him in. He shrugs.
“Let me in, then.”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
A couple laugh. The two seated on a low concrete divider continue their game of pocket chess. The rest turn and begin to ignore me. Any interest they had in me was spurred by whatever the man I’m chasing said, and it’s worn off.
I take off around the huge building. It runs the full length of the short side of the block. There’s a door, and more young men and a couple of young women stand around. I don’t approach them, but shout, “Did a guy just come running through here?”
“Fuck off,” one says half-heartedly. One girl shrieks a sharp, short laugh, but the rest continue their conversation.
Deciding not to push my luck any further, I stand and wait for a moment to see if the man emerges, but I don’t think he will. If he ran through, he had a good lead on me and a much shorter path. If he has a place to hole up in there, there’s no way I’ll find him. The building probably contains a hundred small apartments. A concrete beehive. Though to an obnoxious interloper, more like a concrete hornets’ nest.
“What the fuck do you want?” The muscular young man stands and rolls his traps forward.
I’ve stood here for too long. They’d tolerate me passing through, but not hanging around.
“Nothing,” I say, hating myself for it, and for turning and going back the way I’d come.
* * *
I’m fully inside my head as I walk back to my car, oblivious to my surroundings, trying to put together these pieces I keep uncovering. It’s like a puzzle, but not a two-dimensional, flat puzzle. Not even a three-dimensional puzzle. It’s like trying to fit together pieces of tesseract, pieces that extend through time as well as space, an act the human brain simply isn’t made for. The harder I think, the less I see the world around me.
Until the doors to my car open, and the two kids step out.
“We watched your car for you, man. You left the keys in the ignition!”
I’m walking down the sidewalk and Mr. Smiles steps out of that door and he’s maybe fifteen feet away. He’s still smiling. I remember that smile from right before he convinced his friend to shoot me in the back, which at that moment seems like the worse crime for some reason. He’s also closest. His smile wavers as I say nothing but pick up my speed and step through a punch that would have broken my hand if it hadn’t landed on his very forgiving, now very broken jaw. His eyes go solid white and his legs go stiff instead of loose, he does the cartoon “Timberrrr!” fall and his head bounces off the concrete. He starts to spasm, his limbs shaking. I might have hit him too hard.
Little Mr. Gun had been headed around the car to meet me, probably expecting a reward for watching my car. Seeing that won’t be the case, he stumbles backwards, fumbling at the gun shoved in the back of his pants beneath his light jacket and I tackle him. He hits the ground with his right arm still behind his back and screams and I think I hear a pop. Sitting on his chest, I wrap my fists in the collar of his jacket and bounce his head off the asphalt a few times.
I stand, lifting him with his jacket as I go. He’s so light. I can’t believe this embryo of a human being killed me. He’s kicking at the ground, trying to get his feet beneath him and I’m going to shove him in the passenger seat of my car when I see the gun where it had lay beneath him. I drop him. He screams. I pick up the gun, shove it in my jacket pocket, then look to the kid. He’s rolling back and forth, clutching his right shoulder in his left hand, crying through squinted eyes and growling through a clenched jaw. In my mind, in memories that never happened but which I know are real, I hear him, as I lay dying, throw out a casual Dumbass.
I stomp little Mr. Gun in the stomach, really putting my weight in it and he curls up like a bug around my foot as an arch of vomit projects from his mouth, some of it splashing my pant leg, the rest settling on his face and chest.
I look over at Mr. Smiles. His seizure seems to have stopped. He’s not moving at all, possibly because he’s dead.
I have to get the hell out of here.
I open the passenger side door. Little Mr. Gun is covered in puke, so it’s with less enthusiasm that I lift him up this time and toss him in. He lays curled up in a ball, no fight left in him at all, if you can call the willingness to pull a gun “fight.”
I shut the door on him and circle the car. Mr. Smiles still isn’t moving. One of the most common ways to die in a fight is to hit the back of your head on the ground after a knockout. That’s why most people’s knees buckle when they lose consciousness, so they fall straight down. I don’t know why that doesn’t happen sometimes, why the whole body locks up instead. Mr. Smiles brain is swelling inside his skull right now, and even if someone were to find him right now he’d probably be dead soon.
I feel a little sick as I drop into my car through the open driver-side door. Then I feel a lot more sick as the smell of vomit hits me. Little Mr. Gun is still curled up in a ball groaning. The night air is brisk, but I roll the windows down. Then I reconsider, roll his back up, lock the doors and switch control of the locks to my panel before driving off.
I need to stop, assess the situation, deal with the kid, but I can’t keep my eyes off the rear view. If anybody’s going to come looking for me, they aren’t yet, but I can’t shake the feeling, can’t bring myself to stop no matter the blocks I put between myself and the dying or dead Mr. Smiles.
So I go where I know no one will follow. I’ve been skirting the Burnout. Now I turn into it.
* * *
I park on a dead corner where a building has collapsed across the sidewalk in a spill of brick and rubble. I don’t stop here for any particular reason. No place I’ve passed since entering the Burnout looks any better or worse.
I turn out the headlights. Except for the moon, the street is completely dark and the lights feel like a beacon, like a lamp the junkies will bumble toward like clumsy moths.
The moon is dead ahead, and its silver light pours through the windshield. The kid is looking at me, the play of light and shadow bringing out the youthful roundness of his face. I look at him and he averts his eyes. He’s maybe fifteen, but small for his age.
Except for the shoulder he’s still babying, he seems to have recovered from the beating. I can see him tensing, wonder what he’s going to do. He grabs the door handle and leans into the door. The door doesn’t move, and he gasps as his fucked shoulder absorbs the impact.
He looks at me then, tears in his eyes, “Why are you doing this? Just let me go.”
Why am I doing this? Why? Seriously? “Because you shot me.”
He shakes his head. His eyes widen. He thought he was just dealing with another sociopath. He’d seen enough violence. But now he thinks he’s dealing with someone delusional, and now he’s really scared.
“Who was that man?”
“I don’t know. Please let me go.”
“You don’t know? You know.”
“I’ve seen him around but he doesn’t talk to people like me.”
“Who is he?”
“He’s a Serpent.” Little Mr. Gun calms down a bit. He probably is getting the feeling that his abduction doesn’t have much to do with him, and that once I get what I want I might let him go alive. I see it in his eyes, his brain pulling back together its scattered pieces, thinking instead of panicking. “
We were just standing there and he came up to us, told us that you have the protection of the Serpent. That’s why we watched your car. Someone would have stolen it if we hadn’t been there, and you…” He stops himself. Looks down to hide whatever is in his eyes.
Protection of the Serpent? What the hell did that mean? They were threatening me, trying to scare me off. But it makes sense when I think about it. That guy stopped the kids from fucking with me. Did he remember the other time, too?
The kid is watching me think, and I can see the gears in his head turning, trying to figure out how to either kill me or get away from me.
“You were watching me when he came up to you. What were you going to do?”
“Nothing. I swear. We were just curious.”
Liar. Little sociopathic fucking liar. “You had a gun.” I take the little, snub-nosed revolver from my jacket pocket. “What were you going to do with this?”
“It’s for protection, man. You have to carry out there.”
“If you’re so scared then why weren’t you safe inside your house?”
He scowls at me, looks away. “I don’t go home until I have to.”
So, what? He wanted me to care about his sob story? What, his dad beat him? His mom’s boyfriend? I’ve read the papers, watched the news, seen the movies. Drugs, prostitution, abuse, whatever…I’m supposed to forgive the kid for shooting me because he has a rough life?
I drop the pistol into the door compartment.
“Tell me about the Serpent. What are they? A cult? A gang?”
“It sounded to me like you were one of them. Shouldn’t you know better than me?”
“Humor me.”
He looks at me askance, seems to be choosing his words carefully.
“They’re people you don’t want to fuck with. You see that snake, you turn the other way. Just about had a heart attack when that big, bald motherfucker walked right up on us. I would have run but I didn’t think he could possibly be coming at us, just passing by.”
“What do they do? Do they sell drugs? Guns? Run protection?” Growing up, my neighborhood wasn’t fancy, but it was safe. I’m trying not to let my ignorance show.
“They take people away. I don’t know what they do with them, or why they want them. They take the lowest people they can find, the ones you expect to see dead in a gutter in a week.”
“Where do they take them?”
“Here. Somewhere in the Burnout. Nobody knows for sure.” He groans and hugs his shoulder. “I think you broke something.”
I feel bad for the kid with his fucked up shoulder and his coating of puke. But he killed me. He didn’t kill me now, but he killed me sometime else. Does my mind recognize this reality as more real than the other, or am I just so damn soft that I’ll forgive being murdered?
He’s just a kid.
One who’ll grow up to be a killer. The world would be better off if I shot him in the head and dumped him on the sidewalk. No one would even ask any questions.
Who am I trying to fool?
“They have a mark. You know what it is?”
“Yeah.”
“And you’ve seen it around.”
“Yeah. They don’t try to hide it. It’s up with everyone else’s.”
I think about the walls of graffiti, know that it means something to people who pay attention, who don’t dismiss it immediately as visual noise. They hide their mark out in plain sight.
“So what places do they claim?”
“Alleys. Abandoned houses. Empty warehouses.”
“And do they live there?”
“Nobody knows. If you see the mark, you steer clear.”
“What do you think, though?”
He shrugs, winces. After a moment, “I think they claim some places to do what they need to do, but I think they live here.”
I look out at the Burnout. Catty-corner to the collapsed building I’m parked beside stands a lot that’s gone completely feral. Whatever building stood there is gone, leaving only a somewhat-less overgrown patch where a crumbling foundation must sit. Weeds stand tall, though, silver in the moonlight, rustling in the occasional night breeze. Who knows what creeps through the low tunnels of stalks.
“I need to find them,” I say.
“That’s crazy.”
“If you help me find them, I’ll let you go.”
He’s shaking his head, but not saying anything. His eyes dart to the lock and window control panel beneath my far elbow, then back to my face to see if I saw. His real hesitation is that he knows the Serpent is dangerous, but he’s not sure if I still am now that I’ve calmed down.
He’s searching my face for an answer.
I reach out, put a hand on his thin shoulder. He’s just a kid.
I shove hard, leaning across the car, mashing his broken shoulder into the door. He tries to shove away. I grab his throat, press his head against the glass. He claws at my wrist. I let him, then start to squeeze.
His neck is so thin, this neck of the kid who put two bullets in my back after stealing my wallet, phone and car to get a twenty dollar pay-as-you-go flip phone.
I fucking clamp down. He gasps, his eyes bugging out. He starts to kick, and his nails rake deep furrows in my forearm.
I let go. Sit back. Start the car. Flip on the lights. Am certain I see dark things scurry to chase the suddenly receding shadows.
I give him time to recover. He gasps, wheezes, coughs, and eventually begins to cry and mutter curses. He’s had enough time.
“Where?”
“I know about…” he croaks, then has a coughing fit. He turns red again, but gains control and clears his throat. “I know about one place, down in the flats, by the river.”
“Tell me where to go.” Putting the car in drive, I head toward the abandoned warehouse and industrial district down by the river.
Little Mr. Gun directs me once we get down to the flats. A few times I have to stop and backtrack, as the roads have crumbled to the point that I’m afraid to drive across the rubble.
Being situated low in the river valley, the flats are even darker than the rest of the Burnout. Crumbling warehouses and factories still stand precariously tall and patches of trees have taken up empty lots, all absorbing the moonlight that at night is all that illuminates an area without electricity.
Across the river, lights twinkle. The flats are on the edge of the Burnout, since across the river normal civilization continues. But the flats are central to the Burnout, because it was the collapse of this industrial center set up along the river for ease of transportation that started the rot that spread until the area around it eventually went completely necrotic.
Bad neighborhoods—those plagued with drugs and crime—skirted the Burnout the way the area around a dead, charred area of flesh inflamed, turning red and painful, taking its proximity to such misery out on the tissue around it.
The Burnout is a fourth degree burn, down all the way through the skin, through the muscle, to the bone and into the marrow. The Burnout had no living tissue, and no antibodies, and so only infection remains. Even bad neighborhoods were filled with families trying to get by and people trying to run honest businesses. The Burnout is gangrenous, supporting only bacteria which flares up, then drowns in its own waste.
And nowhere is this more clear than down in the flats, which started going downhill sixty years ago and where the last of industry fled thirty years before the complete collapse of the area. Nothing but vermin has resided here since. I’ve seen it from the highways that pass around and over, but being down in it is something else. It’s positively post-apocalyptic.
The kid guides me, but once we’re down by the river it’s a pretty straight shot. He says, “There, the cold storage place.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s marked—”
“Everything is marked.”
“Let me finish. And everybody heard about these development assholes who went in there, looking to try to reclaim the flats, turn it
into a shopping area, wanted to turn the cold storage building into yuppie condos. Went in there with people from the city. Nobody ever came back. Cops went in after. Cops didn’t come back.”
I pull into the gravel lot, and then realize as my headlights play over the ground that it isn’t gravel, but asphalt crumbled so badly that it resembles gravel half gone to grass. The building looms above, five stories of brick dissolving into red dust.
“Yeah, I do think I remember that,” I say.
“Sure you do. You’re real streetwise. Now let me the fuck out of this car.” He’s set his little jaw in a way that makes me want to crack it.
I’d been thinking I would make him come in with me, but I really do remember the story. When the officials and the developers disappeared, it was big news, but then you didn’t hear much about what happened afterward, and pretty soon it was like nothing had happened at all.
This is as far as the kid will be able to take me. I finally feel like I have a path to follow, and all it took was getting murdered.
I hit the locks. The kid scrabbles at the door handle, apparently afraid I’m going to change my mind. He hops out and starts running, doesn’t even bother to shut the door, leaving me feeling vulnerable in the illumination of the dome light.
I step out, grabbing and pocketing the kid’s revolver as I do, then walk around to the other side to shut the passenger side door. Clicking the lock button and the small warning beep it emits almost makes me laugh as I look at surroundings which are half jungle, half industrial nightmare.
“Hey!”
I turn. The kid stands halfway up the hill leading out of the river bottom, cradling his bad arm with his good.
“You’re fucked, man! They’re gonna do shit to you I wish I could watch!”
“Thanks for all your help! Go back to your corner at Grove and 15th!”
