by P. J. Post
“Jacked?” she asks.
I laugh. “Yeah, if he gets jacked, but see which way they take him. Shinji, if they get you, don’t freak out, the worst they’ll do is make you eat canned soup or something.” I grin to help sell the lie.
He and Hawk look up at me, still unconvinced.
I sigh, and hear the edge returning to my voice, “Just keep your mouth shut. We need to get to the other side of town as fast as we can, and if we’re not careful, they’ll separate us, do God knows what, probably try to help us to death, you know?”
Hawk nods, a grin sneaking out, exposing even white teeth.
Shinji is still freaking out.
Emily walks over, giving Shinji a suspicious once-over.
“And Shinji, if they do get you,” I say, taking him by the shoulder again, “Don’t worry, I’ll find you.”
“He’s pretty good at that,” Emily says as she hugs my arm.
“Yeah, well, if it’s all the same, don’t make me come get you,” I say, throwing an arm around Emily as Hawk watches.
Shinji takes a deep breath, psyching himself up. “Are you coming?” he asks me.
“Fuck, no,” I say, “I have to stay here and babysit. Go. But be quick, I’m about out of patience.”
He nods and Hawk takes him by the hand.
It’s sweet.
And sad.
“Hawk,” I call.
She turns and pauses.
“Remember what I said. Don’t be stupid.”
I can’t see her response; she’s just a silhouette against the lights of Freemont.
“Emily, give him Jem’s .22,” I say.
“Hey!” she calls, and jogs after them. She pulls the gun from her pocket and holds it out. “Know how to use it?”
The sky lights up again as he shakes his head.
She checks the safety, ejects the magazine, shoves it back in and then goes through it again for him. It’s so weird; she’s so little compared to Hawk and Shinji.
Emily watches as they disappear into the dark. “Jem’s my friend, that’s her gun, bring it back.”
§§§§§
“Lane, wake up.”
I jerk awake.
I didn’t mean to fall asleep, shit.
Allen is hovering over me. His dull brown eyes stare out from under a sandy-blond, mess of hair. He’s got more than his fair share of pimples, and he smells like he needs to retire that cardigan.
“What?” I ask, pushing him out of my face.
“It’s Jem,” he says.
I scramble to my knees, shove him out of the way and crawl over to her.
She’s sitting up; my little freckled-face kid is back.
“Jem?”
“Pixie?” she asks, looking around.
Pixie walks around Jem, from out of the darkness and sniffs, cautiously stepping closer before collapsing and laying her chin in Jem’s lap, those sad little puppy eyes staring up at her. She whimpers and gently paws at Jem’s leg as her tail slaps against the ground and blankets.
Jem grins and pats Pixie for a few minutes and rubs noses with her, giggling as Pixie gets playful. “I love you, Pixie, you’re the best,” she says holding each side of Pixie’s scruffy neck. And then, “Emily, she’s okay?” she asks with a way too serious, grownup voice. Her eyes are still far away; maybe she’s not quite back yet.
“She’s fine. How do you feel?” I ask.
“Okay. I had dreams. I got got didn’t I?”
I sigh, “Yeah, you got got. Does it hurt?”
“Some,” she says as she rubs her chest. She ignores the dried blood and inspects the hole in Harvey Dent’s head, and then pokes her fingers through her shirt and runs them along the healing scar.
“Weird dreams?” I ask.
“Uh-huh.” Now she holds her shirt out like a sail. It’s dark crimson. She looks up with curiosity. “How? Is it like my eyes…hair?”
“Yeah, Pixie medicine; can you walk?” I ask, sidestepping her question.
She shrugs.
“I’ll help her,” Emily says as she steps into the shelter of the maple tree.
Jem looks up as Emily kneels beside her. I don’t know what passes between them, but they hug for a long time and then Emily helps Jem fasten the bib of her overalls back together.
Emily seems to ignore the slice through the denim and helps Jem stand.
Kids playing at being grownups.
I push Jem’s shoulder, testing her legs, but she stands strong.
She glares at me for a second. “What?”
I shake my head and grin at her. That’s my little warrior.
And then her expression softens. “Where’s my gun?”
I walk out from under the tree, Pixie jumping up onto my leg as I go, chasing me. “Allen?” I call, looking around.
“Yeah,” he answers. He’s out by the street.
“Gun, give it back.”
“What?” he asks.
Jem and Emily follow me into the yard as Jem zips up her coat, her long white hair blowing in the breeze
“But she’s a little kid,” he whines.
“How many people have you saved in the last three days?” I ask.
I really don’t have time for this.
“What, I don’t know, I mean…”
“Look, Emily saved all of your asses back at the school, and Jem saved Emily, right, you saw her, took a fucking sword for her — dude, a fucking sword. Pretty tough for a little kid if you ask me, oh, and she’s waxed two more all by herself. Saved my life — twice. Can you say that?”
He holds the .38 in both hands and fidgets as his eyes dart back and forth between Jem and Emily, like he’s trying to think of something clever to say.
“That’s what I thought, give her the fucking gun,” I say.
Emily slides it out of his hands and gives it to Jem.
“Where’s my gun?” Jem asks as she takes the .38.
“The little shiny one?” Emily asks.
“Uh-huh.”
“Shinji has it,” Emily says. “He’ll bring it back. I warned him.”
“He better, Lane gave it to me,” she says tersely as she pockets the .38.
And then she suddenly begins to hop, like she did at the house a few days ago, splashing in the water. But she’s more serious now, stretching and swinging her arms around, like she’s testing them, testing her limits. She flinches at first, rubbing her chest before swinging them again.
Pixie dances around her feet, unsure of the game.
Jem reminds me of how I felt when I woke up at the grotto.
She looks good, strong.
Even in the dark, I can still see her blue eyes. I’d swear they’re glowing.
I have a feeling there’s more to Pixie than super healing.
Jem seems satisfied, and looks up to me and smiles one of her really big, little kid smiles. She walks over and hugs me. I hang on for as long as she’ll let me. The unbearable memories are piling up like a nightmare slideshow.
After a time, she pushes me away and sniffles as she wipes her nose and eyes.
I ruffle her hair.
I have to trust she’s okay, because we’re way past out of time.
The Fighting Falcons are about to take the field.
I keep forgetting that Jem knows Allen and all of these other kids; they were all together before the Cart People kidnapped them, before the tragedy at the tree, before their parents attacked our caravan, before I murdered most of their fathers…and brothers.
Fuck.
More lies.
More images for the slideshow.
Jem steps close to Allen. “Don’t worry, I got this shit.”
Emily giggles.
Someone rushes through the bushes along the side of the backyard.
“Don’t shoot!” I shout, trying to get their attention before someone smokes Hawk or Shinji. I don’t know who else might be hiding a gun besides Emily and Jem, and I’m too tired to worry about it.
Hawk run
s up to us. “They got him.”
“Shit.”
“Got who?” Jem asks.
“Shinji,” Hawk answers.
“Who got him?” I ask.
“The Red Cross, I think, like volunteers, Doctors maybe, not the army dudes. I think they thought he was a runaway, definitely on his own. They took him to the big tent near the gate, just like we planned. You’re going to get him, right?”
“I promised, didn’t I? We will, we will. Everyone, get your shit, don’t forget the blankets. We’re leaving. Shinji needs us.”
I stop and glare at Hawk. “What do you mean like you planned?”
She just grins.
§§§§§
We line up along the chain link fence one block over, and once again I’m staring down at Freemont.
The streets are dense with tents, all jammed together between the houses and buildings, but there’s not as many people running around as there were a couple of hours ago. It was packed down there, but now…under all of those lights — it looks deserted.
There seems to be a lot of activity near the center of town, down along the river. And gunshots are still echoing across the valley, but less than before. It sounds like a standoff, but I can see fires in the distance, raging, devouring the fringes of the old town.
It’s falling apart — again.
It’s the Cart People, it must be; a trail of their dead leads all of the way back to the school, a trail of Button Eyes too. The black-eyed plague is their doing, it follows wherever they go.
And I’m betting that Freemont hasn’t seen a Button Eye yet, they don’t know how to fight them, how to protect themselves.
I hope Cam figured it out and told everyone, told Sam, assuming he’s still alive — Emily said he didn’t get out, out of where?
Jesus.
“I could have sworn I said not to be stupid,” I say to Hawk.
She’s standing next to me. “They took him over there,” she says impatiently, pointing to a big white tent close to the fence. It’s just down from a wide rolling gate with an olive-green, World War Two looking truck parked in front of it. It’s got a big white star on the door, and canvas covering the back.
Beyond the border are businesses, their signs just visible in the reflected emergency lights of the city. A Starbucks is behind the Red Cross tent, next to other shops with smaller signs that I can’t make out.
A sad and forgotten Denny’s is a block or so over and down, and then more strip malls stretch across several blocks, lining the boulevards back toward downtown. What seems like miles of warehouses stretch along the shore of the lake. Maybe it’s not a lake; maybe it’s part of the river, connecting back upstream. There’s lots of docks and still some boats.
On the other side of the truck, behind a row of smoking, matching olive-green generators, is a medical looking building, but after that, it’s nothing but forest.
Shitloads of cable runs from the generators, snaking across the parking lot and streets, around the other equipment at the gate, the fencing and the Red Cross tent, before disappearing deep into Freemont.
I study the gate again. I’m not seeing any soldiers, yet.
A row of little faces stare at me, still scared, still traumatized, still needing to be told what to do. I don’t even know all of their names.
A little boy is standing at the end of the line, trying to be invisible as he almost, but not quite, manages to hide behind Allen, his braces must be new. He’s short, and he’s not just scared, he’s utterly lost. He’s wearing a long, cranberry grandma coat that looks more like an afghan, and what looks like corrective shoes and a fur lined aviator’s cap.
His glasses are dirty, one lens cracked down the middle.
If I don’t give him a name, he’s not my responsibility…yeah, right…he looks like one of those middle school, RPG, the-book-was-better nerds. I’m guessing this isn’t the apocalypse he was looking for.
He’s like the others, most of them anyway, they don’t really have a clue about what’s going on, they’re just doing what they’re told because they’re good kids — that’s how they were raised.
Good call on the hat, though.
“Should we stay here?” Emily asks.
I sigh. “No, no, we’re not leaving anyone behind. So keep up, got it?” I stare each kid in the eye in turn, challenging them. “And be quiet.”
“Should we tell them the rules?” Jem asks.
I grin at her.
“First rule,” she begins, “don’t shoot Lane…or me or Emily or Casey…or anyone. Shoot the Button Eyes — in the face.”
Allen whines from the back, “I would if I had a gun.”
“That’s good, Jem. Come here, everyone,” I say as I crouch down.
They gather around me in a half-circle, like I’m calling a play in a game of backyard football.
“The plan is to get inside the fence; we’ll get Shinji and then just kind of blend in with everyone else. If we get separated, stick to the shadows, hide if you have to, but we’ll meet at the big white church, the one with the tower sticking up over downtown, see it? By the river?”
They look down to Freemont and then nod their heads.
They all look scared shitless, well, not all of them.
Jem’s holding Pixie’s collar, scratching her neck and Emily’s blade catches a stray moonbeam. They’re both watching me intently.
“Jem, Emily, take Pixie and watch our asses,” I say, and then I open the gate.
§§§§§
Beyond the chain-link fence is a long, overgrown park, with lots of bushes and sad little trees dotting the slope down to an equally long and dilapidated shopping center parking lot, half-full of cars and apocalyptic shit I can’t even begin to explain. All of the glass along the storefronts has been shattered, leaving a sparkling stream of little cubes leading to the road, and the fence that encircles the center of Freemont.
We run from bush to tree to trash barrel, playing follow the leader on the off chance no one is paying attention down there, and stop behind a drive-thru menu board.
It’s a Dunks.
Emily tugs at my jacket. “Is that the one?”
I shrug and then motion for the kids to follow before jogging over to the drive-thru window. I glance inside. There’s enough light from town to see…it looks like a bomb went off, it’s a disaster, cleaned out and deserted. But there’s something…in the soot…
“I’ll be right back,” I say, and walk around to the front and step through the now glassless doorframe.
I carefully make my way through the scattered refuse and walk over to the front counter. The racks of coffee and discount crap are gone, but it’s not just blackened tile and wallpaper…
I grin.
My hand shakes as I pull my lighter.
A small hunting knife has been stabbed into the drywall below the cash register. It’s holding a postcard of a 1960s looking motel from some place out west, it says Del something at the top, a sticker covers the rest; it’s marked with a store name — Buds.
And in big letters, running the length of the front counter are two words, spray-painted in the brightest, neon day-glo yellow paint she could find: YOUR WHORE.
I rip the postcard free and hold my lighter near. Scribbled on the back in hurried and smeared ink is: Not this one, asshat, go to the church.
My throat tightens and I can feel the heat in my face.
I angle the flame to the floor, revealing her footprints, little sneaker memories. Kneeling, I run my fingers through the black residue, sniffing back the rising emotions.
She was here.
Right the fuck here.
I squeeze my Zippo for a moment, focusing on the heat. The pain steadies me. And then I shove it back in my pocket.
It doesn’t take long to retrace my steps back to the drive-thru window. Emily’s staring at me, all questions and concern.
I shake my head and she grimaces, sadness taking over before I get a chance to say anything.
>
“Hey, she was here. We just missed her.”
Her face brightens and she hugs me again, mumbling something about Sam. I kiss the top of her beanie and turn to my flock. They’re waiting for me, hiding along the back side of the Dunks. They look apprehensive. They look tired.
Jem is with Pixie, keeping watch near the back corner. I walk past the kids, and one by one they fall into line behind me, until we’re all bunched up around Jem — again.
“How are you doing?” I ask her.
She glances up. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Good,” I say, hugging her gently, “Ain’t that right, Pixie?”
Pixie jumps up onto my leg again, and Jem and me scratch her behind the ears. I swear she’s grinning at us.
Jem laughs.
It’s like music.
After a moment, I turn back to the others. “Come on, watch where you’re going, and be quiet,” I say, and cautiously move around to the back of the building, stepping over random shit like microwaves, clothes racks and mannequins as we move from dumpster to dumpster, hiding as we go.
The last dumpster backs up to a row of shabby evergreen-like hedges.
I spread a few branches and take a look.
The street is right here.
The fence is maybe another hundred feet or so away.
Off to the left is the gate.
And it’s all lit up like Christmas.
Shinji is in the tent in front of us, he should be anyway, thanks to his and Hawk’s plan to get him captured.
“We thought we’d get a better look if they caught him,” she whispers from behind me. “There’s four guards, not Red Cross — Crayton. He got a good look and signaled me.”
“How could you see from up on the hill?” I ask, turning.
She grins.
“You weren’t…fuck it,” I say and let it go.
I can’t say I’m surprised by Hawk, but I didn’t think Shinji had it in him — Hawk probably had something to do with that too.
Hopefully, he’s kept his mouth shut.
There’s still a handful of people wandering around, most of them keep glancing toward the fight on the other side of town. They’re fidgety. None of them have weapons as far as I can see. The guys right out in front of the tent look like they might be doctors or nurses, or volunteers or something, pretty much like Hawk said.
