The Scourge

by R. Tilden Smith

  “Saw who?”

  “I mean, I never saw nothing like that,” Bruce said, his stare as blank as a mannequin, “Reggie and Jamal were staring back up at me, their eyes all wide and their mouths open like they were screaming. But there was nothing I could do Blaze, I mean it man, nothing I could do. They were already dead. One of them had a piece of the tree sticking through his stomach. The other one was at the bottom of the pool behind a bunch of big branches. The tree had trapped him down there like a rat in a cage. Blaze, I'm telling you the truth man, I ain't no punk but that shit scared the shit out of me. I ain't never seen nothing like that. Their faces…” His voice trailed off.

  Reggie. Jamal. Dead. Darryl couldn't believe it. His head was pounding in time with pain in his shoulder. He tried to stay calm but his next words came out in a rush. “What about Queen and Hazel? Were they…?

  “No, no I don't think so. I didn't see anybody else in the pool. But to tell you the truth man, I didn't look that hard. That shit spooked me. I didn't want to take the chance of running into any more dead bodies, it’s way too dark out there for that shit, you know what I mean? So I just came back to the house and waited for you to wake up. “

  “They gotta be out there somewhere. You got your phone? We need to call 911.”

  “Yeah I got it, but I ain't got no service. Not even roaming.”

  “We gotta get out of here and go find some help. I agree we shouldn't walk around in the dark, no telling what's in these woods. Let's take the Jeep and drive out to the main road. With all this shit going down this neighborhood should be crawling with police. Grab that first aid kit and help me get up.”

  Bruce took off his bathrobe and used it as a makeshift bag to carry the first aid kit, several bottled waters from the refrigerator, and the four cans of tuna Darryl had in the pantry. “Ok let's go,” he said. They picked their way through the maze of debris in the kitchen and headed out to the carriage house.

  “Damn Brute, you right,” Darryl said, “it's dark as a motherfucker. Look at all those damn stars.”

  Bruce said nothing, he was concentrating on the narrow beam of light the small flashlight punched into the surrounding darkness. I don't need to see no more dead shit, he thought.

  Darryl's Jeep was parked outside the main carriage house entrance, the only vehicle on the tennis court sized driveway. “See, my car is the only one left. I bet Hazel and Queen drove out of here.”

  “Maybe,” Bruce said, “but it doesn't make any sense if they did. Why would they leave us behind?”

  “Like you said, maybe Queen was hurt. Maybe Hazel saw Reggie and Jamal floating in the pool just like you did and when she saw us unconscious in the house she figured we were dead too. So she threw Queen in a car and took her to the hospital.”

  “I hope you're right.”

  “I gotta be, right? I mean, because they ain't here. Where else they gonna go?”

  “They could've went that way,” Bruce said, splashing the flashlight beam against the broken fence that once separated the breezeway from the backyard. There were several planks missing, making a hole big enough for someone to squeeze through. The darkness that filled the hole in the fence swallowed the flashlight beam; they couldn’t see anything beyond it.

  “Well, let's hope they had more common sense than that.”

  Bruce rubbed his swollen jaw. “Yeah, I hope so. Well, if we hurry up maybe we can catch up with them. You got the keys to the Jeep?”

  “The valet should have left them by the side entrance to the garage. They should be on a table right next to the door.”

  Darryl watched Bruce disappear into the garage, the cocoon of light around him made him easy to spot from his vantage point next to the Jeep's passenger door. After a few seconds he re-emerged through the door with a set of keys dangling from his fingers.

  “Hey Blaze,” Bruce said as he walked over to the driver's side of the vehicle, “I saw three more sets of car keys in there.”

  “Really? Then where are the other cars?”

  “I don't know. Maybe they're parked further down the driveway.”

  Darryl's heart sank. “Damn, then Hazel and Queen didn't take a car. They had to have walked. Maybe that means they're both ok.”

  Or maybe it means they're both dead, Bruce almost said aloud but managed to swallow it. He tossed the bathrobe full of supplies into the backseat. “You better let me drive homie,” he said, focusing the flashlight on his shoulder, “you're starting to bleed through your bandages. The Jeep's rough ride is going to make it worse.”

  “Yeah,” Darryl said as he hoisted himself into the Jeep's passenger seat, “I'm not looking forward to this ride. Just drive slow and steady.”

  “Don't worry Blaze,” Bruce said as he climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine, “I'm gonna take it easy. That fire didn't look as if it was too far from here, no more than a mile. It shouldn't take us long to get there.” He flipped on the Jeep's high beams, put it in gear, and made a tight 180 degree turn, then slowly drove down the driveway.

  “Turn on the radio,” Bruce said, “Let's find out if we missed the rapture.”

  Darryl smirked. “Jesus ain't letting either one of us anywhere near his motherfucking house.” He flipped on the radio and ran through the FM station presets. They were all static. “Odds are looking good for rapture. All the urban and jazz stations are off the air.”

  “Try AM, that's where Satan hangs out.”

  Darryl managed a smile then toggled the radio to AM and pressed the scan button. The display scanned through the frequencies for several seconds before coming to a stop. “Looks like we got something.”

  “...chaos out there folks. Officials have not confirmed the cause of the explosion that has rocked central Houston. There are conflicting reports that it may have been caused by a meteor breaking up in our atmosphere. But our sources believe it was the detonation of a small nuke by radical Islamic terrorists. Right now the government either doesn't know or isn't telling us. Friends of this station who have shortwave radio—and thank God there are a lot of you—are our best source for accurate information. What we do know is the blast wave has caused widespread property damage and knocked out all power and communications in Harris, Waller, Fort Bend, Brazoria, Montgomery, and Galveston counties. Emergency crews are struggling to get the numerous fires under control and to come to the aid of as many of the trapped and injured as possible. The vagrants are out in force, looting, rioting, and engaging in all sorts of criminal activity. The governor has declared a state of emergency and has deployed the Texas National Guard to help restore order and to enforce a mandatory dusk to dawn curfew. We here at the radio station are hunkered down in our basement studio. We have fortified our position and are prepared to defend it. We implore our listeners to do the same. Patriots, it's time to stand up and be counted! We did not ask for this fight but the enemy has brought the fight to our shores. Arm and prepare yourselves. Do what you have been training all these years to do. Protect your home and your loved ones. To conserve the limited amount of fuel for our backup generators so that we may stay on the air for as long possible, we will limit our broadcasts to 30 minutes every two hours. Stay vigilant my brothers and sisters and pray for peace, but prepare for war.” The station went off air. A soft static replaced the survivalist rhetoric.

  Darryl turned off the radio then let out a low whistle, “Wow, shit just got real.”

  “You got that right,” Bruce said.

  They had driven only a couple of hundred feet, slowly traversing the first bend of the winding drive, when Bruce brought the Jeep to a sudden stop.

  “Shit!” Darryl said, banging his fist on the dashboard then instantly regretting it as his shoulder responded with a fresh burst of intense pain.

  “Shit is right,” Bruce repeated.

  One half of the tree canopy covering the driveway had collapsed. Several tree trunks crisscrossed the driveway, making it impossible to drive through.

  “We’re g
onna have to walk,” Bruce said.

  “Looks like it,” muttered Darryl. He opened the glove compartment and removed the gate access card. He tapped Bruce's arm as he exited the vehicle. “Leave the high beams on so we can see what's what. And grab my piece from underneath the driver's seat.”

  Bruce climbed out of the jeep then rummaged blindly beneath the seat until his hand landed on a familiar shape. He retrieved the pistol from its hiding place and examined it under the vehicle's headlights. “Ain't it kinda risky for black man to be riding around with a loaded gun?”

  “Shit, not in Texas it ain't. Around here motherfucker's look at you weird if you ain't packing heat.”

  “Hmm, that's good to know.” Bruce stuck the gun in the waistband of his pants and grabbed the bathrobe full of provisions from the backseat. “Here,” he said while tossing the flashlight to Darryl, “you carry the flashlight. With that bad shoulder you might shoot me instead of the bad guys.”

  “You just make sure you hit what I point at,” Darryl said, shaking the flashlight in his left hand.

  “As scared as I am right now, I'm gonna pop a cap in any shit that moves, whether you shine a light on it or not.”

  “Then you walk in front of me,” Darryl said, half jokingly.

  “Don’t worry Blaze, I got you, just like old times.”

  The men followed the driveway, staying within the jeep's halogen light cone, only venturing out to pick their way over and around uprooted tree trunks and knotted branches, their elongated shadows conjuring fleeting poltergeists in the tangled underbrush, made both the men jumpy. The light from the headlights dimmed quickly as the distance between them and the jeep grew. Darryl flicked on the flashlight and aimed it to Bruce's right. “Over there, I see the gate.”

  Bruce looked around warily, the jeep’s headlights, about one hundred yards distant, stared back at him like a hungry beast crouching in the dark, waiting for the opportune time to take him for a meal. “What we gonna do now? There's no power. You think we can climb over?”

  “Watching your fat ass try to climb this eight foot fence would be funny as shit, but I got a better idea. Here, hold the flashlight.” Darryl handed Bruce the flashlight then dug into his pocket and produced the key card. He walked over to the proximity reader and waved the card. The LED on the reader flashed green and the gate swung open with a soft hum. He pointed at the plastic-encased motor housing. “Gate runs on solar power and batteries.”

  “That’s cool, but you know I could've climbed this fence if I had to, right?”

  “Come on man,” Darryl said as he gestured for the flashlight, “we ain't got time for jokes. We gotta catch up to Queen and Hazel and I gotta make sure Moji is alright.”

  Bruce shrugged and jogged ahead of Darryl, being sure to leave plenty of room between him and the semicircle of blackness held back by the light of the flashlight. “Make sure you keep that out in front of me, ok? If something busts out of these woods I want to see it coming.”

  “What you so scared of Brute? You the one with the gun.”

  “You never seen that movie, the one with Vin Diesel?”

  “You mean fast and furious?”

  “Nah man, I'm talking about the one where he's on this planet with these man eating creatures that only come out at night. Light was the only thing that held those motherfucker's back.”

  “We ain't on Vin Diesel's planet, we not even in the hood. We in one of the richest, whitest communities in Houston. The only thing that's gonna bite you out here is somebody's lost chihuahua.”

  “Well, I ain't taking any chances. Anything could pop out of these damn woods.” Bruce walked cautiously, straddling the road’s center line. Darryl followed in single file, sweeping the flashlight's narrow beam across the immense oaks that stood as silent sentinels to the unknown that lurked beyond the tree line. He didn't want to admit it, but he was nervous too.

  “Blaze,” Bruce said without turning his head or slowing his pace, “don't you think it's strange that nobody else is on this road? I mean, that explosion blew the shit outta your house and set another one on fire. I would’ve thought there'd be more people walking around by now.”

  “Yeah, I thought this neighborhood would be crawling with cops. Maybe it's because of the curfew we heard about on the radio. They said things are fucked up all over the city. Police probably busy busting heads down in the ghetto.”

  “Yeah, if it's this dark everywhere brothers are definitely out shopping for that new 60 inch flat screen.”

  Darryl laughed at the image Bruce's statement conjured in his mind. There was a time that I would have been out there shopping too, he thought. They maintained a steady march in the direction of the house fire. As they got closer, the smoke grew thicker and more pungent. Through the trees they could see the faint amber glow of the flames. Darryl's mind flashed back to the crack house fire of his youth. He remembered how the strobe lights on the fire trucks lit up the area. It was like a million flashbulbs going off at once. I remember it gave me a headache, he thought. So where are the strobe lights for this fire? We should able to see them from here. Their absence made him uneasy. He was just about to say something to Bruce when a burst of light appeared in the road behind them.

  “What's that, a police car?” Bruce asked.

  “Too big,” Darryl answered, “It's some sort of truck or SUV.”

  The vehicle was approaching fast. The single glob of light quickly separated into flashing strobes, high intensity halogens, and what Darryl guessed were roof mounted fog lights. There was no siren but the loud hum of the tires against the asphalt and the expanding circle of light bouncing off the closed tree canopy made him imagine they were trapped in a tunnel with an oncoming locomotive.

  “I don't think they see us,” Darryl said, “we better get out the way before they run our asses over.” He and Bruce hurried to the side of the road. Darryl aimed the flashlight at the ground where they were headed, a small clearing between two trees, about ten feet from the road’s edge. He noticed the far side of the tree line bordered a meadow. He tilted the flashlight up and exposed about twenty feet of fresh cut grass before the flashlight's beam was swallowed up by a hedge of overgrown weeds and tangled brush. The approaching vehicle came to a sudden stop about ten feet away, its flashing strobes and blinding headlights lights obscuring the identity of the vehicle and its occupants. Darryl saw Bruce drop the bathrobe sack and run to take cover behind a tree. “What the hell are you doing!” he said.

  “Man, get behind the tree over there!” Bruce said, “We don't know who these motherfucker's are!”

  The hair on the back of Darryl's neck stood on end when he saw Bruce slide his hand into his waistband. Oh shit! he thought. He flicked off the flashlight and quickly found shelter behind a tree about twenty feet from Bruce's position.

  Suddenly, the click and electric hum of a megaphone pierced the air. The sound of a male voice blared at high volume, “STEP AWAY FROM THE TREE, GET ON YOUR KNEES, AND PUT YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD,” the voice demanded, “DO IT NOW OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE.”

  “Who the hell are you to be giving orders?” Bruce shouted.

  A large floodlight mounted on top of the vehicle suddenly illuminated and was turned in the direction of Bruce's voice. Rapid bursts of gunfire erupted from the far side of the wall of light. The bullets tore into the tree where Bruce was hiding, ripping off big chunks of bark and wood pulp.

  “Holy shit!” Darryl said and cowered low to the ground, away from the direction of fire. After a few seconds the gunfire ceased. He raised his head and looked over to see Bruce standing up with his back against the base of the tree. He had the gun in both hands and had squeezed his elbows together in front of his chest in an attempt to make himself a smaller target.

  “Blaze! Blaze!” Bruce said, trying to keep his voice low, “Man, run, get outta here! I'll keep these motherfuckers busy.”

  Darryl stared across the gap that separated them and shook his head no. He would not leav
e his friend.

  The megaphone buzzed. “STEP AWAY FROM THE TREE AND COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD. THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING.”

  Bruce nodded his head in Darryl's direction then raised his gun to eye level. “Ok, ok, I'm coming out,” Bruce said at the top of his voice, “don’t shoot.”

  No! Darryl thought, but it was too late. He watched helplessly as Bruce spun away from the tree and began to fire at the vehicle. He heard panicked voices as bullets ricocheted off metal. The floodlight on the vehicle swung wildly, sweeping past his hiding place and illuminating a large swath of the area in front of him. There was another stand of trees, about one hundred and fifty yards straight ahead, with nothing in between him and escape except a rolling meadow of ankle high grass. Run now! he thought, but shame and fear froze him in place. Suddenly, there was a loud pop and the floodlight was extinguished, surrounding him in near darkness again. He heard the pop, pop, pop of his pistol and instinctively knew that Bruce had expended the last of his rounds. He’s a sitting duck now. The vehicle's engine revved and it reoriented itself and was now perpendicular to the roadway, it's headlights drenching the tree line in a bright, blue neon glow. With its profile facing him, Darryl recognized the vehicle's make. That's a military style Humvee. He saw Bruce, bathed in light, crouched behind a tree that was not much wider than he was. Run brother, run! As if he heard his plea, Bruce jumped up and lumbered into the open, heading away from Darryl, toward a much wider tree.

  In quick succession, another salvo of gunfire echoed across the meadow. Darryl watched, horrified, as Bruce stopped abruptly and dropped to his knees, his arms hanging limp by his sides. Three more shots broke the silence and a dark cloud of mist exploded from the side Bruce's head. He fell forward, face first, into the grass.

  You fucking bastards! Darryl’s mind wailed, you fucking cold-blooded bastards! He stumbled forward and fell to his knees, sobbing. He heard the creak of a car door then slow, heavy footsteps on the pavement. A rough man shape materialized out of the haze. It looked like a big rubberized robot. Darryl had seen something like that before, in the movies. It was a person dressed in a hazmat suit. They slowly approached Bruce's body, cautiously, as if they were afraid of it. Darryl's mind was on overload, desperately looking for answers that made sense of what was happening. Curiosity forced him to inch closer for a better look when three more people spilled out of the vehicle. These were combat ready soldiers, equipped with assault rifles, backpack, and a device clipped to their helmets that Darryl had also seen plenty of times in action movies; night vision goggles. And instead of hazmat suits, these soldiers wore gas masks. Something's wrong, he thought, shit shouldn't be going down like this.