Empty World

by Zach Bohannon

  “I’m serious. You didn’t want the two of us joining you in the first place. I had to practically beg you to let us come along. You won’t tell me a damn thing about where you’re headed, but it doesn’t seem anything is going to stop you from going. Why the hell should I follow you blindly to somewhere others are telling you not to go?”

  “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  “Yeah?” Shell stood up. “And how do you know that?”

  Again, Dylan gave her the silent treatment, responding only with a malevolent stare.

  “That’s what I thought,” Shell said.

  “Frankly, I don’t give a damn if you follow me or not. It’s not like that was ever the plan. I’ll be just fine on my own. Not sure I can say the same about you two.”

  “I did quite all right fending for myself before you came along. Besides, maybe me being with this group will keep me alive longer.”

  Dylan shook his head. “Not if this group plans to go and try to take your town back.”

  Shell’s nostrils flared. She formed a fist, clutching at her perspiring palms. A look at the boy briefly calmed her. She could see in his expression that he was scared, and she didn’t want to further that. She took a deep breath, ready to refute Dylan, when she heard a commotion outside. A horse neighed, and people spoke loudly. Shell looked out the window. Then she turned to Dylan, who was looking out the door and down the hall, toward the front of the building.

  “Come on,” Dylan said. “Stay close to me.”

  Shell took the boy’s hand without hesitating and followed Dylan out the door. They moved down the hallway, staying close to the wall. When he arrived at the corner, Dylan had a view to the lobby and stopped. He looked around the corner. Then he turned to Shell and gestured for her to join him.

  Standing beside Dylan, Shell glanced out towards the front of the building, about twenty yards from where they were. A group of around a dozen people, all on horseback, had arrived at the hotel.

  “We know there’s someone in there,” one of the men said. “We heard y’all. Now come on out, and it’ll make it easy on all of us.”

  “Should we go out there?” Shell asked.

  “No,” Dylan said sternly. “We’re staying right here.”

  “I’m counting to three,” the man said. “If someone doesn’t answer my call by then, then I can assure you things aren’t going to be pretty.”

  Shell wanted to go out there. Dylan could apparently sense her feelings, because he shook his head.

  “One,” the man said. “Two.”

  Three people appeared in the lobby and approached the door.

  “Oh, no,” Shell said.

  It was Brooke, Katrina, and Caleb. Brooke led the group, her hands raised to show she wasn’t armed. Neither Katrina nor Caleb had their hands up. Shell only hoped they hadn’t all decided to walk outside unarmed.

  “We can’t let them walk out there alone,” Shell said. “We’ve got to—”

  “We’ll stay here,” Dylan said, cutting her off.

  Shell exhaled, then took a deep breath. She wanted to be there for her new friends, especially with Paul and Keon off on a run.

  “Well, look at this, boys,” the leader said to the others in his group. “We’ve got a pregger, a beautiful black woman, and some dude who looks like a mechanic. Sounds like the start of a bad joke.”

  The group behind him laughed.

  “What is it that you want?” Brooke asked.

  “Whoa, you want to jump into the fun already?” The leader dismounted the horse.

  Shell bit her lip. “We can’t just stand here and do nothing.” She stepped forward, but Dylan grabbed her arm.

  “Let go of me!”

  Dylan yanked her around the corner and out of sight. He moved within inches of her face.

  “You’re not going to do a damn bit of good if you go marching out there. There’s too many of them. Brooke’s smart, and she’s pregnant. I doubt they’re going to hurt her. Let her handle them. We need to avoid a confrontation, not start a war.”

  Dylan let go of Shell, who breathed rapidly. He looked around the corner again, and once Shell was calm, she rejoined him.

  “For starters,” the leader said to Brooke, “we’re looking for some people.”

  Brooke shrugged. “No one’s come through here, so I’m not sure we’ll be too much help to you.”

  “That so? Well, maybe you should think about that a little harder. See, these people we’re looking for are murderers.”

  Shaking her head, Brooke said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve seen—”

  “There’s three of them. Well, two and a half. One of ‘em is a little boy. Then there’s a girl, either in her late teens or early twenties. And the star of the show is some long-haired, one-armed punk ass who thinks he’s some kinda fuckin’ cowboy or somethin’.”

  Caleb said, “Like the lady here said, we ain’t seen no one come through here. Especially not anyone with those descriptions. No little boy. No girl. No freak with one arm. Nothin’.”

  “That’s interesting, isn’t it, boys?” the leader said.

  “Sure is, Dean” one of the others said.

  Dean nodded at Brooke. “Then you wouldn’t mind if we had a look around, would you? See, there’s a big bounty on these three, and I’d like to collect it.”

  Shell jerked her head back. Dylan apparently saw the surprise in her face as he shrugged.

  “Word travels fast amongst some of these gangs,” he said.

  Then Shell watched as Katrina stepped in between the man and Brooke. “The hell with that.”

  “Katrina,” Brooke said, grabbing her friend’s shoulder. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? We aren’t gonna let these guys ride on in here and step all over our shit. This is our building. We found it. And just because they think we aren’t telling the truth, well, that’s their goddamn problem.”

  “Well, aren’t you the little firecracker?” Dean said, smiling. “I’ve been known to have me a little jungle fever. I bet you’re a wild animal in the sack. Maybe you and I oughta—”

  Katrina punched Dean in the face before he could finish. There was a gasp amongst everyone looking on as the man’s head turned to the side and he grabbed his cheek. When he looked back at Katrina, though, Dean laughed. She stood her ground, her shoulders squared.

  Dean wrapped his large hand around her throat. Caleb moved forward to stop him, but the man quickly raised a knife with his free hand and held it up.

  “Move any closer, and I’ll jam this into her fucking skull.”

  Some of the other bandits drew knives and bows, aiming them at Caleb and Brooke.

  Katrina gasped for air, trying to pry the man’s hands from her throat.

  Shell breathed rapidly. “We have to do something!”

  Dylan still didn’t move.

  Shell could see Dean’s lips moving as he said something to Katrina, but she was too far away to hear it. She wasn’t so far away, though, that she couldn’t see Katrina’s heavy gasps.

  “Please, stop it!” Brooke said to the man. “Let her go!”

  Katrina’s eyes closed slightly, and her hands started to go limp.

  “Goddamnit, stop!” Caleb said.

  Dean finally let go, dropping Katrina to the ground. He then bent over her and pointed his knife at her face.

  “You touch me again, I swear to Christ I’ll carve out those chocolate eyes and make you listen to me eat them. Do you understand me?”

  Katrina rolled onto her side as she held her throat. Dean kicked her in the ribs. She cried out and coughed, and the man went back to his horse.

  As he mounted the animal, Dean gestured toward Caleb. “What’s in that bag?”

  From her vantage point, Shell now noticed that Caleb was holding the backpack they’d put all their medical supplies in. It included all that Shell had given them for helping out with Dylan’s injuries, which was most of what she’d had left.


  “Nothing,” Caleb said.

  “Bullshit,” one of the men said.

  One corner of Dean’s mouth lifted into a smile. “Yeah, I smell bullshit, too.”

  “I don’t care what you think you smell,” Caleb said. “There ain’t nothing in here.”

  Dean shook his head. “Listen, killer, you don’t want me to have to get back off of this horse.”

  “Please,” Brooke said. “That’s got all our medical supplies in it. You can’t—”

  Dean steered his horse over to Brooke, who stepped back. He said, “I can’t what?”

  Brooke only stared up at him, shaking her head. Even from a distance, Shell could tell she was fighting back tears.

  “Take it,” Dean said to his men again.

  A guy with shaggy blonde hair dismounted his horse and approached Caleb. Caleb held the strap of the bag tight in his hand and scowled as the guy reached out for it.

  “Come on, asshole. Hand it over.”

  Caleb waited another moment before exhaling and offering the bag to the man. The blonde bandit snatched it away. He laughed as he opened it and searched through it.

  “There’s some good shit in here, boss.” He handed the bag to Dean.

  Brooke and Caleb checked on Katrina as Dean rummaged through the bag. When he’d finished, the leader tipped his hat to Brooke.

  “I must say, thank you for this. We won’t let it go to waste.”

  Dean kicked his horse and turned to leave. He’d only gone a few feet when he pulled back on the reins and turned around to look at her again.

  “Oh, and if I find out that you do in fact know those murderers,” he said, raising the knife and staring at the tip, “then I’ll be coming back here and you’ll be having a C-section. Ain’t nobody gonna be taking this bounty from me.”

  Dean kicked his horse again and took off, the other bandits in his group hollering as they sped away.

  30

  “The others are gonna be disappointed that we didn’t bring anything back,” Keon said.

  “It’ll be all right,” Paul answered. “There’s still a little bit of that deer left to hopefully tie everyone over for another day or so.”

  “We might want to at least think about going back and getting that cart. Not as many of those around anymore.”

  “We’ll make another sweep by that area tomorrow. Hopefully, the Demons will have cleared out by then.”

  Paul and Keon caught back up with the main road after staying low behind other buildings to escape from the horde of Demons. The King Edward towered into the sky only a couple of blocks away.

  Paul said, “We should try and get out early again tomorrow so we can—”

  He cut his sentence off when he heard the hooves of horses beating against the concrete, and men hollering. The sound grew louder with each passing moment.

  “What the hell is that?” Keon asked.

  Paul saw the first man on horseback swing around the corner up the road. He threw his arms around Keon, tackling him to the ground behind the remains of a pickup truck.

  Keon groaned. “Shit, man.”

  “Get on the other side of this truck. Quick!”

  They crawled to the side of the truck. Paul tucked his legs in to give himself a low profile and to be more out of sight from the men racing down the road.

  The road quaked as at least a dozen horses scampered down it. The men in the group sounded like a gang from an old Western film, hootin’ and hollerin’ as they raced by. The horses slowed to a walk only a couple of dozen yards away from where Paul and Keon were hiding.

  “No one fucks with us,” one of the men said.

  Another said, “You should have choked that bitch out, boss.”

  “Did you see the look on that pregnant one?” asked another.

  Paul’s eyes went wide. His heart dropped.

  Brooke.

  He started to stand, but Keon grabbed his arm. He pulled Paul back down.

  “Hold up, man. I hear them, but you gotta wait until they’re gone.”

  Paul bit his lip. He was torn between wanting to run back to his wife and wanting to chase after those bastards and rip every one of their hearts out.

  The horses sprinted again, and soon, the hollers and horses faded. Keon glanced around the back of the truck.

  “They’re gone.”

  It only took those two words for Paul to jump to his feet and take off towards the King Edward. Keon ran behind him without protest.

  When they arrived at the hotel, most of the almost twenty people who made up the group had collected outside, and more were coming out. They stood in a semi-circle, all looking down at the ground. Caleb glanced up to see Paul and Keon running towards them and others looked their way. Caleb walked to meet them.

  “What the hell happened?” Paul asked.

  “Everything’s all right,” Caleb said.

  Paul slowed down and tried looking between the people to see what they were looking at. His heart raced.

  “Where the hell is Brooke?”

  “She’s fine,” Caleb said.

  “Paul?” Brooke said from the center of the crowd.

  Paul hurried through, pushing people out of the way.

  Brooke was sitting next to Katrina, who lay flat on the ground. Both of them were crying, and Katrina had her hand on her neck as she breathed heavily.

  “Oh, shit,” Keon said. He rushed to his sister’s side.

  “She’s okay, Keon,” Brooke said.

  “What in the fuck happened?” Keon ran his hand over his sister’s forehead. “Trina, Jesus Christ.”

  “Give her a little room to breathe,” Brooke said. She turned around. “All of you.”

  “Come on,” Paul said to the others, directing them to back off.

  “Will someone tell me what the hell happened?” Keon asked.

  “Some men showed up here,” Brooke said.

  “All those guys on horses?” Paul asked.

  Brooke nodded. “They had weapons and numbers. They demanded we come out to talk or they were going to hurt us.” Brooke was crying harder now. Paul went to her, kneeling and wrapping his arm around her.

  “They were looking for three ‘murderers,’” Caleb said. “A child, a woman, and a scruffy drifter.”

  “I told them we hadn’t seen them and didn’t know who they were talking about,” Brooke said. “But the guy didn’t believe us. He threatened me. Katrina stepped in. She hit the guy and he nearly choked the life out of her.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Keon said. “I’m gonna fucking kill him.”

  Paul felt similarly. He clenched his jaw, furious. What kind of man threatened a pregnant woman and choked another?

  Keon drew his machete from his waist and turned the direction the men had run off. His shoulders moved up and down from his heavy breathing, and he took several steps away from the west of the group.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Caleb asked.

  “What the hell do you think? I’m gonna go after those motherfuckers.”

  “Calm down, Keon,” Paul said.

  “Don’t tell me to fucking calm down! That piece of shit put his hands on my sister’s throat, and now I’m gonna rip his out!”

  “Look, I’m pissed, too. He threatened my pregnant wife, for Christ’s sake.” Paul felt a migraine coming on and his body fumed with anger.

  “Who were those guys?” asked Amy, a sixty-year-old woman and one of the older members of the group.

  “They were looking for us.”

  Everyone turned and followed the female voice to the entrance of the hotel. Shell, Dylan, and the boy had stepped out through the front doorway and stood side by side.

  Paul stood. “We saw them when we were on our way back. Were they part of that group that took over Shell’s town?”

  Dylan shook his head. “There’s a bounty out on us now. That gang must’ve made it back to Shell’s and seen what I did to their men.”

  “Shit,” Paul said.
r />   “The gang waiting back in that town is easily triple that size.”

  “What the hell are we supposed to do, man?” Keon asked, standing. “They almost killed my sister, and they took off with all our food and supplies.”

  “You’ll cut your losses. Be thankful that your sister is alive, and find more food.”

  “No, see, I don’t think it’s that easy,” Paul said, stepping forward. “We aren’t just going to let some raiders come through here and threaten our people and take off with all our shit.”

  “Be glad that all they did was threaten them.”

  “You kidding me?” Keon pointed at his injured sister. “Look at what they did to her.”

  “She’s breathing. Be thankful.”

  “No, fuck that, man.” Keon moved towards Dylan, but Paul held him back.

  As he held his friend back, Paul stared down Dylan. He shook his head.

  “You’re nothing but a coward. That’s all.”

  “Call me what you will,” Dylan said, stepping forward. “But I’ll be breathing by the time all this is done, because I plan on getting as far away from this mess as possible.”

  Paul laughed and shook his head. “If that’s how you wanna live, then fine. But I’m not going to let those assholes get away with this. If you could take down a small group of them by yourself, then I’m sure we’ll do fine against the rest of them.” Paul looked past Dylan at Shell. “I wanna know where your town is. Let’s go talk so you can give me directions.”

  Shell stepped forward. “I don’t have to give you directions.” She looked at Dylan and said, “Because I’m going to take you there.”

  Dylan shook his head, staring back at her. “Then you’re as dumb as they are.”

  He turned around and walked back inside the hotel.

  31

  When the sun woke Paul the following morning, he sat up and rubbed his eyes. He’d barely caught a wink of sleep, having tossed and turned most of the night with too much on his mind to give it a chance to rest. He got up from the bed and slipped into his pants and shirt. He’d already packed his bag the previous night. There was nothing else to do now but wait.

  He sat in a chair across the room from the bed with his hands folded in his lap. He watched his wife. She lay on her side, her eyes closed as she slept peacefully. As he watched her sleep, he recalled some of his favorite memories involving her. When they’d met. The first time they’d kissed. Their wedding day, and how it had been a day of joy for everyone in the camp. A time for them, for at least one day, to forget about the fucked up world they lived in. Then he thought of the moment Brooke had told him he was going to be a father.