Alive! Not Dead!

by R. M. Smith

The army stayed in the area for about four weeks.

  I asked Rosita “How come you didn’t just escape? You had keys.”

  “He would find me,” Rosita told us. “He’s found anyone who has ever tried to escape. It was something Johnny enjoyed. When he caught someone, he would hang them up from the street lights just to let people see what happened when someone escaped.”

  “He didn’t hang me up from a street light…” I said.

  “No,” Mindy said, “he cut off your cock.”

  “I sewed it back on though,” Rosita said, her fingers twiddling. “It should be good as new, I hope.” She smiled crookedly.

  Mindy leaned to me. “I know what you did, and why you did it, Dan. I’m not mad at you. I know you only did it to get back to me.”

  “Yes, that was the only reason why I did it,” I said. “I hated these people. It was the only thing I could…”

  “You don’t need to explain yourself, honey,” she said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too” I said, tears cracking in my voice.

  After a few minutes Rosita said “Johnny gave the people he considered trustworthy walkie-talkies. It was on Teeg’s walkie-talkie that I overheard Johnny tell Teeg to bring me to the jail. He said that I would need to be there to clean up the mess after he was done with you, Dan. Johnny was very pissed at you for what happened between you and Mel. He wanted to kill you badly. When Teeg came to get me at my nurse station at the school – I was the only person with medical training - I hid behind the door and surprised him by cutting his throat with some fishing line. He had been fiddling with it for several days at his desk. I used to stand right outside his office door and watch him. I knew it would be a good weapon to use on his fat neck.

  “With Teeg out of the way, I told Mindy to come with me. We drove Teeg’s nasty pickup truck over to the jail. I told Mindy to hide somewhere outside. Then Johnny and some of his boys carried you into the jail. You were unconscious.

  “Johnny tied you up and did his dirty work to you; much like he has done to many other men – and boys – who have come between him and his lady friends – or his chewing gum, for that matter. He even cut off his own son’s penis because he thought his son stole some of his gum. He hung his son up in the C-Mart at the edge of town, and he also shot his younger brother because he thought his younger brother was covering for his son.

  “After Johnny cut you, he stepped into the outer room of the jail. Mindy was standing there with me waiting for him. We had already taken out the two men who had come with him. Mindy really surprised Johnny. He was so surprised by her being there that he didn’t notice me slip behind him and loop his neck with Teeg’s fishing line. I sliced his neck back and forth with the fishing line.

  “As soon as he was on the floor, we went into your cell. You had already fainted. Mindy undid the belts around you and we slid you onto the bed. Mindy cried the whole time. She also brought your cut-off piece to me and asked me to sew it back on.

  “I am a nurse. Before any of this happened, I was studying to become a doctor at the University of Kansas. Concordia is my home.”

  Tears were flowing now. “Thank you, Rosita, for saving us.”

  She nodded. “You’re welcome.”

  She lowered her head.

  For a man, having your cock cut off; it really is not fun.

  As I think back about it, it was my payback for Rachel.

  It had to be.

  There ya go! I could hear Rachel whispering through her dripping rot-filled face. Next time ya wanna cheat on your wife you won’t be able to use your cock so well now, will ya? Kinda stubby, isn’t it? Huh? She laughed. You know - if ya get it sewed back on, it still ain’t gonna be as good as it used to be. It’ll kinda be like a spare tire there, buddy. It’ll get ya there, but it won’t feel quite the same when you’re trying to drive it home!

  Shame on me, I thought. I deserved what I got.

  Rosita told us she didn’t know why Johnny Phillipps had been allowed to come to power in Concordia. “Maybe it was because he was intimidating,” she said as she drove us to pick up our motorcycle. “He had this biker attitude. He threatened people with a shotgun. He told them it was going to be his way or the highway, and if they didn’t like it, they could get the fuck out. One time this guy mouthed off to him. Johnny shot him right in the face. I think Johnny’s first kill was what turned him around. He started laying down rules and appointing people to his army. He told me I was going to be the doctor of the town even though I was only a nurse. I tried to tell him this but he wouldn’t hear of it. All of the people he would injure would be brought to me. There were many I couldn’t help. He would string up the dead bodies on the light poles in town. ‘Look up there,’ he would tell me ‘that dead fucker hanging up there – it's your fault he’s up there. You should have saved him.’ Johnny blamed me for everyone’s death. He would say “if we had a good doctor around here, more people would be alive – but all we have is this fat Mexican bitch.’ I hated him. I wanted to kill him many times.”

  We pulled into a used car dealership. Rosita drove around the back. There were many cars back here as well as motorcycles.

  “This is where Johnny brought all the cars after he kidnapped people or killed them. I don’t know why he felt like he needed to hide them here. Your motorcycle is over there.”

  We drove over to it. Rosita said “You’re going to have pain in your groin for a while, Dan. Riding a motorcycle isn’t going to be easy on you. I brought some extra pain medication for you in case you need it down the line somewhere.”

  Mindy went to her as we all got out of the truck. She hugged her.

  “Thank you for everything.”

  Rosita nodded, smiling.

  I hugged her, too. “You saved our lives. Thank you.”

  She handed me one of Johnny’s pistols. “You might need this out there, too. You two be careful.”

  I got onto the bike. My groin screamed but we needed to get going. Mindy sat behind me, grabbing me by the hips.

  “You take care, Rosita,” Mindy said.

  “You too,” she said.

  We drove away. I had been locked up for 10 months.

  She needed to get away from them.

  They had stopped her. Told her he was looking for her and she needed to come with them.

  He was insane. He was out of his mind!

  She didn’t know how he managed to find her, but he had.

  She needed to get away. Fast!

  Her SUV was on the side of the road. She jumped in, sped away from the cops. In the rearview mirror, she saw some of them turning around. They had seen her get in the car. Why did they let her get in? Why did they let her leave? Maybe they didn’t know who she really was. Maybe they didn’t know about the connection she had with him.

  Maybe they were afraid of him.

  They probably didn’t know the magnitude of their connection.

  She sped away, eastward, out of Salt Lake City. Hopefully she’d get far enough away.

  She needed to get away.

  She had to.

  He’d kill her if she didn’t.

  He’d kill everyone if he had to.

  LESSONS

  Mindy started her period the day after we crossed into Oklahoma. Her attitude never really changed while she was on her period, but this time around she seemed to complain a lot more.

  Maybe it was me. Maybe it was the continuous dull ache in my groin. Maybe it was the countless hours of weaving in and out around stalled cars as we headed south on I-35. Maybe it was the lack of food, the lack of safety and never knowing what might be waiting around the next corner.

  In Oklahoma City we stopped. We had been driving for a long time. My crotch ached like a bitch and Mindy was tired. We pulled off the highway. We found a Holiday Inn Express hotel. We both went to sleep immediately on the dust covered bed.

  The next day we woke up tired and hungry. We didn’t get a very good night’s sleep. I hadn’t slept well sinc
e leaving Concordia.

  There wasn’t any food in the hotel that we would dare eat. Most of it was so covered in mold that it was unrecognizable. Kitchens always looked the same way: looted. No food. Empty boxes. Maybe a crumb in one or two. Nothing that would satiate the hunger. And no water. Empty bottles would line the shelves or would fill trash cans. Trash was everywhere.

  Mindy on her period made it worse. She would complain about cramps or being hungry or being too tired to go looking for food. I told her to stay in the hotel and I’d go looking for anything.

  She wanted to come. She didn’t want to be away from me. She was scared.

  We took a side street off the main drive, drove down a few houses, got off the bike and we headed into empty homes.

  They were small cracker box homes. Maybe a one or two bedroom house. No basements. Small yards, some with fences, some with yards overgrown with weeds. There were few trees. This was Oklahoma, after all. Not much here but dried wind and tumbleweeds.

  It was already starting to get hot. Late April. Maybe upper 80s already. The sun shined down on our shadows as we went from house to house. We found nothing. Emptiness.

  Days passed. Then weeks, over and over, the same thing. Looking through empty houses. Going through shopping centers. Going into empty grocery stores. It was solid emptiness. There was barely anything to eat. We were always so hungry.

  We finally found some food in the dark reaches of the Firehouse buffet in the WinStar World casino on the Oklahoma Texas border.

  It was Mindy’s idea to check it out. I really wanted to pass it by. I didn’t want to go into a place that would remind me of days past in a casino.

  The place was in shambles. It looked like it had once been a very beautiful place with different themed areas in the casino. One area resembled New York City. Another looked like Beijing. Now, everything was wrecked. Glass littered the carpets under our feet. Signs hung at odd angles on the walls. Statues lay broken across carpeted floors. It was dark in here. Our flashlights stabbed through the darkness as we looked around.

  We passed a few abandoned restaurants. Owners had locked the places down when the disaster hit. The doors were barricaded with heavy iron fences that came down from the ceiling. Windows were broken behind the fences.

  The Firehouse buffet was accessible. The only thing blocking the entrance was some booths and tables that someone had set up to keep the place blocked off. It had been broken through by…someone or something.

  Deep inside through some swinging doors we went into the kitchen area. Memories of the kitchen in the casino at Billings kept popping in my head as we walked over the dirty floors. Mindy kept trying to open doors throughout the kitchen area, but many were locked or jammed shut. Finally she opened one. Cold air ushered out. We stood there side by side looking into the darkness as cold air rushed past us.

  It was a freezer. Inside we found boxes full of wrapped pre-cut steaks, chicken and pork. The food had been prepared and wrapped well. It looked perfect.

  There was also a room stocked full of many different wines.

  We spent the next few hours going through the boxes of steaks. We would need a fire to cook them and somewhere to store it as we drove.

  On the outside of the casino, there was a large Conoco gas station across the highway. Inside the attached food store we found a large cooler sitting in the back room. The cooler was sealed. Inside there was only stale water which we dumped out. The cooler would be perfect to carry our food.

  I siphoned some gas from the vehicles around the store.

  I built a small fire behind the gas station. We cooked some of the steaks on tree branches that I whittled into small spears. Mindy drank wine while we worked. She said she was feeling a bit tipsy by the time we ate our first steaks.

  They were delicious.

  After we ate, we got back on the motorcycle and explored the area. Back on the other side of the highway on the rear side of the casino there was an 18 hole golf course. On the far side of the golf course there was a wooded area with a few nice homes. Beyond that there was a large fresh water lake. We drove our bike to the edge of the lake and got off.

  “I think we found a home,” I said to Mindy.

  She was smiling and nodding. “I think so too.”

  We spent the rest of the day and the next two days going from the casino kitchen back to one of the homes on the lakeside. We cut up a lot of the meat and chicken, and left it inside the freezer. We only took enough food out of the freezer to last us one day.

  The house was a nicely furnished 5 bedroom home. All of the food in the house had gone bad. We emptied the fridge and threw all of the bad food into a large dumpster on the other side of the casino.

  The weather was warm enough for us to bathe in the lake even though the water was still cool. We got used to it pretty fast. We would splash around in it together, giving each other baths, using shampoo from the convenience store. We didn’t wear bathing suits – why should we? This was our place. No one was around. We ran around naked by the lake. We made love on the shoreline. Mindy asked me every time if I still hurt, but I told her no. The pain was going away.

  It was as if we had the world to ourselves. I cooked steaks every night on the barbecue in the back yard. Mindy would watch me, slowly sipping wine from a glass, some days sitting nude in a reclining lawn chair, some days wearing a light blouse with shorts.

  The home was perfect. The weather was perfect. The food was perfect.

  We could have easily made a life there.

  But then, Mindy wanted to learn how to drive the motorcycle.

  I told her that she didn’t need to, but she wanted to learn so that I wouldn’t hurt my groin any more. I said that the pain had pretty much gone away. She still insisted.

  I drove her back to the casino. The main front parking lot was empty of cars. There was a pickup truck by the entrance and a few other cars further down to the south. The only real obstacles she would need to steer clear of would be the light poles sticking up here and there in the parking lot.

  The parking lot was large. There was a rounded drive that went right to the front doors of the casino. In the middle of the rounded drive there was a bricked garden area with assorted plants. They had overgrown with weeds. I told Mindy to drive around the circle and not go out into the parking lot very far. There were more cars stalled further out there. I didn’t want her to bump into one by accident.

  She got on the bike. I showed her how to operate the hand brake, clutch, accelerator. She said she understood how it all worked because she had been watching me for a long time.

  After buttoning on the helmet (which was loose by the way), she took off slowly, like I instructed her. She went around the big circle then stopped next to me. “See? I got it,” she said with a big smile on her face. I was standing near the front entrance of the casino.

  “Just be careful. Don’t get too cocky.”

  She gave me a smart-ass quirky grin then gunned the engine. The bike took off a little too quickly, but she got it back under control. She went around the big circle again, quicker this time. She swerved out into the parking lot, showing off really, and then came back to me. The second time around the circle she was driving with one hand. The third time around, she swerved out into the middle of the parking lot instead of coming back to me. I ran out to her, smiling, thinking to myself that she really had a good grip on driving the bike and I shouldn’t have been so worried. Then the bike tipped over.

  She was right next to a light pole when she turned. When the bike tipped, Mindy went to the left with it. The handlebars of the motorcycle missed the pole by bare inches. The light pole slammed her hard in the upper chest. Her hands were jarred off of the throttle. The forward momentum of the bike caused the light pole to slide up past her chest and smack her hard in the chin. Mindy’s head snapped backward from the impact of the pole. Luckily the pole didn’t hit her nose. The bike continued forward. Mindy was shoved off the back of the bike. She fell hard o
n her butt onto the cement. The bike went a few more yards then fell over and died with a sputter. Mindy lay motionless at the bottom of the pole. She was nearly wrapped around the base of it.

  I ran over to her. She was lying still. I thought she was dead.

  “Mindy!”

  She didn’t move. I leaned down to her. I got on my knees, my hands reaching for her but afraid to touch her because I didn’t know how badly she was hurt.

  “Mindy are you ok?”

  Slowly she shook her head no. Her face was covered in blood. Her forehead was gashed open. The helmet had cut her.

  I took off my shirt, gently wiping the blood from her face. For a second I thought it looked like her bottom two teeth had been knocked out, but it was only dirt mixed with the blood.

  “Can you move?” I asked her.

  She tried to move. She hollered in pain. “No!” Her breath was raspy.

  I was at a loss. I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know anything about medical procedures. I started to panic. I couldn’t yell for help because there was no one around to hear me. I kept asking Mindy if she was ok. She kept telling me no.

  I couldn’t call an ambulance. I couldn’t dial 911. It was just me here. There weren’t any emergency personnel.

  “Can I move you to the house?” I asked her.

  She didn’t answer.

  I stood there feeling so stupid because I didn’t have a clue what to do.

  I ran over to the pickup by the entrance of the casino. Maybe there were some medical supplies in the glove compartment. But who has medical supplies in their fucking glove compartment! I screamed at myself. Shaking my head, I saw keys dangling from the ignition. Quickly I ran around to the other side, got in, fired up the engine and drove over to Mindy. Gingerly, I tried to lift her up again but she screamed in pain. I didn’t know if she had broken bones or not.

  I couldn’t just leave her here on the cement. I sure as hell wasn’t going to leave her to go back to the house to get blankets.

  I lifted her into the back of the pickup. She screamed in pain. She begged me to put her down. I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave her here.