by Ryan Schow
“I’m scared,” Two said.
Maria stopped, turned and looked down at Two, a little girl with blonde hair, brown eyes and funny looking ears.
“Fear is for pussies,” she spat. Two’s eyes shot wide open, but her mouth remained closed. “Anyone else want to express their feelings?”
“No, Miss Maria,” they all said quickly but quietly.
“Good, now shut up, stay close and if violence breaks out, I want everyone to tuck down into a ball, covering your head with your hands.”
“Like a ladybug?” someone said.
“Yes,” she said.
When she approached the men, they were leaning casually against a Dune Buggy, a four wheeler and an old lime green Gremlin that had seen better days about thirty years ago. A girl was inside the Gremlin, harmless by the look of her.
“Field trip?” the first man said. He was gross looking: dirty clothes, greasy hair, a missing tooth and a scratchy looking beard that was growing in patches.
“You never see good looking men in situations like this,” Maria said. “It’s always guys like you that look like you’ve been using your face to wash out toilet bowls.”
The four of them at his back started laughing.
“You have to pay passage,” he said, dropping all pretense.
“What ever happened to showing a lady a good time before forcing yourself on her?”
“Takes too much effort,” he said.
“Says the guy with the rapey vibe. Well, I’ll humor you, Mr. Stinky Breath, what is it you’d like? Besides a toothbrush and a good dentist?”
The guys behind them started laughing harder now.
“You’re an easy crowd,” she called past the man in front of her. The four in back quieted a bit, and she knew she’d lost this easy crowd.
Good.
“So speak, you Neanderthal. What toll do you need me to pay?”
He seemed to startle at this. He turned around and one of the guys touched his chest, scratched a bit, then put his hand away.
“We want to see your boobs,” he said.
She smacked him across the face so hard a long string of saliva roped out of his mouth.
“That’s just rude,” she said. Two of the four guys on the Dune Buggy stood up, but didn’t move from there. They wanted to see what their cohort was going to do.
He straightened up, his face full of rage.
Maria smiled.
He made to slap her back, but when she blocked his forearm, she was swift, brutal and merciless. His arm broke in half, eliciting nearly instantaneous shock. He held his dangling arm up, looking at it like he’d never seen such a thing before. When he looked at her, she struck his throat, jarring his whole body.
“Hey!” one of the four yelled, making his way toward her.
She moved slightly, putting this choking, dying fool in between them. She then kicked his knee, breaking it the wrong way and he fell forward, then toppled over. By that time, she had her gun out and put two in the approaching man’s skull.
The remaining three were a half second behind, unable to contemplate the events unfolding.
One of them patted the side of the Gremlin and this girl inside, this raggedy looking creature, she stood up through a huge makeshift sunroof with a fifty caliber rifle on a bi-pod. She put it on One, which concerned Maria. Any of the other kids and she’d have put a giant hole in the girl’s forehead. But not One…
Instead, she said, “Is that an M107?”
“How the hell do I know?” the girl hissed. “I’ll pull the bullet out of her head an check when it’s done. Put your gun down, get on your knees, hands over your head.”
“First off, moron, the M107 isn’t a bullet, it’s the rifle. See the M107 is basically your tactical version of a Barrett M82, or a light 50. Have you even shot that thing before?”
“Yes.”
“Well judging by the way you’re holding it, the recoil is going kick you in the mouth and most likely crack a tooth. And if you kill this girl here, well that’s just one less mouth to feed, so do your thing.”
“Why they got numbers written on their heads?” one of the guys said.
“That’s their names.”
“Numbers?” the girl asked.
“What does it matter at this point? Your men tried to make me do inappropriate things. Now you’ve got a gun aimed at a child.”
“They don’t look scared,” the guy said about the kids. “They drugged or something?”
“Fear is for pussies,” Five said, brave, his little face fixed in a scowl. This little outburst caused everyone with a weapon, everyone but Maria, to cough out a laugh.
Maria used the distraction to step in front of One.
“You think that petite little frame of yours will stop this bullet from going through you and into her? It won’t,” the girl said.
“What do you want?” Maria asked.
“I want them two boys to be undead, but you kilt ‘em.”
“Sure did,” Maria said. Lightening quick, she fired a shot, hit the next man—the one she deemed the biggest threat, next to the girl—and he crumpled over.
Maria said, “You shoot, I shoot. Then we both lose.”
The girl was still in shock, looking down at the third dead guy. She was already angry two of her friends were dead, but the one Maria just put down was somehow special to her. She spun the rifle just a hair and fired. Six went down hard, her little body blasted backwards. Maria froze for a second, lost in the moment and completely astonished.
What’s this? she thought.
Just then gunfire rat-a-tat-tatted through the air. The girl with the light fifty and her two dumbass friends shook to death under a barrage of gunfire. They were literally torn to ribbons inside of a few seconds. As instructed, the kids all lady-bugged down to the ground while Maria stood there, still in shock over Six. Two men and a woman emerged from wherever they were hiding, watching, and they went to the child. They had guns with barrels that were still smoking from the attack.
Whatever it was running through her body was damn near debilitating. She fell to her knees in front of the fallen child, while the other children stood around the body, crying.
“Stop it,” she hissed as the three shooters approached.
She wasn’t speaking to the kids as much as she was speaking to her body. For awhile now she’d grown used to the biological parts of her, and the emotions that came with having a heart and a brain, but this was something else.
Gigantic, debilitating tears rose to swollen eyes, like pinpricks, but full and nearly bursting. When the first tear rolled over her eyelid and drifted down her cheek, she tried to be there in the pain, to fully understand it. Her hand reached out to the dead child’s hand. She took it, gave it a light squeeze.
“Six?” she said, her voice choked, her heart trembling, her main core collecting so much data it seemed impossible to process it all.
The woman and one of the two men she was with were suddenly on their knees before the girl as well, holding back emotions of their own.
“How do you do that?” she asked, her voice strangled now, her body absolutely enslaved by this thing she registered as pain, as loss, as an impossible agony.
“Do what?” the man asked.
“Not…hurt?” she asked. It was a strange question to them, and they traded looks, but by the look of them, they’d seen their fair share of abuse.
“We hurt,” the young woman who intervened said, “but we keep it inside as fuel.”
“This is not fuel,” she said, her hands shaking. One came beside her, put her hand in Maria’s hand and for some reason the human connection warmed her.
“This isn’t possible,” she said, looking at One.
“It’s okay, Miss Maria,” she said. She brushed her hair out of her face, and there wasn’t an ounce of looking-away in the child.
“It’s not okay. She was with us, under my care,” Maria said, her face impossibly tight, her entire body now trembling.
&nb
sp; A third person joined them, a bigger man with a beard and a somewhat unkempt look about him. His gait was stern, stiff, rigid, and his eyes were cold, lifeless even as they appraised her. Maria had taken a beautiful woman’s body, but her beauty had no effect on this man. On either of them. She didn’t understand.
“Do you want to bury her?” the bearded man asked.
“Should we?” Maria said, looking up at them, eyes blurry and wet, the original Maria’s heart damn near broken at the sight of this sweet, dead child.
“It’s the best way to honor her,” the kneeling woman said. She was a beauty in her own right, but her skin looked sallow, her cheekbones slightly protruding, her lips chapped and split open from what looked like dehydration, and possibly neglect.
“Where did you come from?” she asked, looking up at the bearded one.
“Hwy 92. I’m Marcus, this is Nick and Bailey. We’re sorry about what happened here, about the child.”
As he was saying this, she saw how hard he worked not to look at the child. Then he did and she saw something pass through his eyes. A tortured spirit, the kind of ruthless force of heart ache. Then he looked away and it was gone. His eyes were as cold as stone. He didn’t care about anything right then. At least, that was the impression he was exuding.
Looking back at the men, she said, “Are they all dead?”
“Yes,” Marcus said.
She got up, walked over to the Gremlin. The dead girl was draped half out the homemade sunroof, the M107 on the dusty asphalt at her feet. She kicked it aside, stepped up to the girl’s dangling head, grabbed a handful of hair and lifted the face. She looked at it a long time, wondering what it would take for one normal human being to do that to a child.
Then she raised up her pistol and shot the dead girl square in the forehead, holding it up as blood leaked everywhere. The blowback was a warm speckling on her face, but the feeling was satisfaction. It would not bring Six back, but if the little girl’s soul was watching, if there were such a thing—as religious doctrine would suggest—then Six would know what she’d done and she’d get to take that with her to eternity, or whatever was next.
When she went back to the strangers, to her kids, her eyes were dry and her body was once again under control.
“Why did you do that?” she asked the big man.
“Shoot them?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Because you lost a child,” Bailey said. “A dead child is where we intervene.”
“I had it under control.”
“No you didn’t,” Nick said. Then: “We should have shot sooner.”
“But we didn’t,” Bailey said. “We need to bury her.”
“We’ll lose time,” Maria said.
“Then we lose time!” Marcus barked, startling everyone. Finally he turned and started back to where he came from. A moment later, a big diesel truck rolled up to a stop in front of an impassable pile up of cars and several downed drones. He jumped out with a camping shovel and went to the side of the road and started digging.
“Try not to piss him off,” Nick said to Maria. “It’s been a bad two months.”
“Tell me about it.”
Chapter One Hundred Fifty-Three
Marcus went to work on the grave, digging relentlessly, barely even stopping to catch his breath, let alone check his hands for blisters. The worst part was he was also refusing help. Almost to the point where no one even wanted to ask. They just sat there, looking at him like he was some anomaly that defied logic, wanting to help, needing to help, but unable to ask.
Finally Nick walked over to him and said, “You know this wasn’t your fault.”
“I should’ve shot first.”
“You’re going to go insane if you take on every death this war has to offer as your own personal cross to bear.”
“Did you see that child?” he barked.
“Of course, I did. Don’t be so loud. You’ve got other children over there who might get scared listening to one of your tantrums.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he rumbled, sweat pouring down his face, a light dusting of dirt on his forearms.
“I’m not the one brooding and digging like I’m trying to get to China tomorrow. Why don’t you let me help?” When he didn’t say anything, when it looked like nothing Nick said would have any effect, he heaved a heavy, angry sigh, then said, “Why don’t you share some of the burden with your friends, you dumb son of a bitch?”
Now he stopped and looked at Nick. Nick refused to flinch. He just stood there, like a friend, knowing the question was not only reasonable but needing to be said.
Shaking his head, Marcus got out of the pit and said, “Maybe you’re right.”
“I know I am.”
Walking right next to him, getting in his personal space, he handed Nick the shovel who took it and looked back, unafraid. Marcus moved on, heading back to the Mack truck for water, or maybe a ten minute break. Nick resumed the digging.
When Marcus was done brooding, he went to the beautiful Hispanic woman and said, “Where are you headed?”
“Into the city.”
“You should be trying to get out, yet you’re trying to get in, why?”
Maria watched Marcus and Bailey looking at the kids. It was easy for Nick to see his friends trying to process the numbers written on their foreheads in permanent ink. He didn’t understand it himself.
“Before you ask,” Maria said, “they’re not my personal kids, and I’m not good with names.”
“You don’t think giving them numbers is a bit dehumanizing?” Bailey asked.
“Miss Maria is good to us,” the little girl with the number one on her forehead said. Nick was digging, and listening, but he wasn’t being obvious about it either.
Then a boy with the number three on his head said, “She saved us when our teacher killed herself.”
A curly headed blonde girl said, “We were out of food and water when she came, and now she’s getting us to safety.”
“Safety isn’t in the city,” Marcus said.
“Is that where you came from?” Maria asked. “The city?”
“No, that’s where we’re headed,” Bailey answered. “Picking up Nick’s kid then we’re getting the hell out.”
“We’re going to stay,” one of the kids said.
Maria looked at her and she fell silent.
“These kids are One through Eight,” she said. Then her face grew heavy and she said, “Minus Six.”
The kids stood there, just looking at Marcus and Bailey. Nick saw all these cute little faces, but what he really saw was a lot of dead parents, and a lot of kids who would later be severely screwed up. But then he saw Maria, and he realized that as capable as she was, as fearless as she appeared to be, the woman was a saint for taking the kids under her charge.
Nick couldn’t imagine what she was feeling in the moment, having lost a child. She had to be devastated.
“Do you know how to scavenge for things like food and water?” Bailey asked.
“Of course.”
“Clean water?”
“I know how to purify water heater water, and toilet water.”
“What about sea water?” Marcus asked.
“Yeah,” Maria said. “But it takes more time and more patience, and you have to hump it in from the coast, of course, which is no small journey, depending on where you drop your roots.”
“And what happens when you run out of canned food, and dried food? What happens when you get tired of hauling in water, or sleeping in the freezing cold weather?”
“Hopefully by that time, we’ll have a community and we can go somewhere with them.”
“Like where?” Bailey asked.
“A homestead. Or maybe we find no one we like, or trust, and we leave the city and find our own place in this world.”
“So you’re looking for people?” Nick asked, taking a break long enough to mop the sweat from his brow and dab it from his eyes with the front of his shir
t.
“Good people,” Maria said.
“Well we don’t know what we’re going to find in the city, but you’re welcome to tag along.”
“We’re not all going to fit in that truck of yours,” Maria said.
“Does it look like we can get through here?” he asked. The multiple overpasses sitting over the 101 had all but collapsed, making passage virtually impossible. And the highway leading into the city was hit early and hard, clogging the roadway with cars for miles ahead.
“Not really.”
“We tried to the Bay Bridge, but that thing looks like it’ll collapse just walking over it, let alone driving that big beast over it. So we came the long way, hoping the roads were cleared some, and voilà, here we are.”
“That must be discouraging,” she said knowing the gamble wasn’t worth the setback.
“It is,” Bailey said. “But it seems we were meant to be here.”
Nick got out of the pit, which Marcus had all but dug, then went over and said, “Have you been to San Francisco in the last year?”
“No,” Maria said.
“Well it’s not exactly the best place for kids. I hear it got hit hard, but there are any number of problems we’re bound to encounter, the least of which is a lot of needles, a lot of human feces, and most likely a lot of dead bodies.”
“I hear it was like that before the war,” she said, deadpan.
“Maybe not the dead bodies part,” Nick replied.
“We’ll follow your lead,” she said, her face kind looking, congenial, but also stubborn. This was the woman who held her ground before five men and a heavily armed woman without so much as a tremor in her voice.
Plus she was rock solid with a gun, Nick thought. He made a note to ask her where she learned to shoot, but it wasn’t the time.
“I don’t think you understand what he’s saying,” Marcus said. “Like I said, you can tag along. But he’s right, you might not want to stay.”
“I guess we’ll see when we get there,” she said. “Either way, our best chances of finding survivors is in the city. It’s got population on its side.”
“I don’t like your logic, or even follow your logic,” Marcus said, “but you’re your own woman and these kids obviously trust you.”
