The Long Way To Reno

by Mix, Michelle

  “Oh my gosh!” I exclaimed in a breathless rush, feeling absolutely humiliated by my own density. In my memory, Harley went from that quiet dorky guy in Folkensin’s class to the cashier that did always smile at me to my coworker that tried to run me over when picking became intense. What made things worse was that there were years between us knowing each other visually.

  “Well…now that – now, I think I know why you never noticed me,” he said, a little sullen about it. I gaped at him, unsure of how I’d freaking missed this huge thing.

  I could barely hear him over the rush of blood to the head, feeling the absolute need to be swallowed up by the earth just because I’m so damn cruel and tunnel sighted. Now that I was made clear of the situation, I saw each memory of him clearly – always looking tired and overworked, doing too much for little pay and me walking all over him and calling him an ‘inbreeder’ just because he lived in Cold Springs.

  “Hey, I’m still talking, here.”

  “I can’t believe how fucking dense I am,” I muttered.

  “Well, it’s like – you weren’t always a dick towards me, Edith. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “I thought I just met you at work!” I continued on, feeling absolutely horrid that I’d given it no real thought that I’d seen him working at Whole Foods the same day we went to work that First Night.

  Now it made sense. Some of the comments he’d made about me and my parents, the way he behaved so familiarly with me. God, Reno was such a small town if two people like us kept running into each other the way we did.

  “I couldn’t really speak to you because you never paid attention, and when you did, it was like you weren’t even seeing me, so…but when you did, you always said something that made me laugh, or get annoyed, but it was a good annoyance because it took my mind off things, trying to figure you out, and…I don’t know. That’s why…that’s why it was so weird when you turned out to be the only one that survived on your own at work.”

  When I’d dropped the flashlight, I remember, seeing him. The look he gave me when he realized it was me.

  He trailed off, looking at the darkness near the door. I thought he’d seen or heard something, but instead he added, “So I knew it meant something. Thousands of people, and I kept running into you. It meant something.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. I’m not sure about things like fate and destiny and all that, but I’m pretty sure this was how he was seeing things between us. I guess I had to agree with him on that because…it was exactly all this that had us sitting here together, surviving together. Yuck, it sounded so corny, but the more I thought back on it, the more it fit.

  I was still disgusted at myself. “You have no standards,” I said on a heavy, exasperated whisper.

  It was the first look of defeat I'd seen on his face so far. “Obviously.”

  We both sat in silence, thinking our own things, and I felt completely terrible for judging him shallowly. I tilted my head up, and watched him try to figure things out within his own thoughts. Probably regretting everything now that he had me completely to himself. But…but this was something different for me. My exes had always blasted me for doing stupid stuff, for using and dumping them – despite all my shit, Harley was here with me today.

  And that was fucking significant for me. The entirety of it was monumental. I’d messed this guy up so many times in the past, and yet he was the only one here for me. It was more flattering than anything any guy had ever done for me. It was beyond money, beyond status, it was beyond all the standards I’d had in a man. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to accept it, or even appreciate it.

  Slowly, I leaned my head onto his shoulder – tensed and waited for him to push me away, but he didn’t. “Well…I see you now, Harley Troy.”

  “Funny how it took the world ending for you to do so,” he muttered.

  “Maybe if you’d gained twenty pounds and bulked up, I would have noticed sooner.”

  “Get off me, you're not romantic at all.”

  I laughed loudly as he pulled completely away from me, uncaring that my laughter carried out throughout the emptiness.

  “Let’s get some sleep, you bitter witch. I really don’t know why I keep letting you push my buttons all the time,” he muttered, yanking at the blankets nearby, my makeshift bed heavily laden with various sheets, blankets, comforters and duvets. We’d be totally warm underneath them, safe from the cold.

  “You have your gun?” I then asked, kicking my boots off and laying them aside. I unwrapped my jacket, sweater, vest and hoodie from me – having no idea I’d been wearing these things in the first place – and crawled under the blankets without waiting for an answer.

  “Yeah. A loaded handgun for now. Everything else is over there. Turn off the flashlight.”

  After we’d settled underneath the blankets and things returned to being awkward again, I looked up at the ceiling and imagined seeing the night sky from our room. I thought about what had just transpired, and still felt that hot ball of shame in my chest for having never noticed that he’d been so close to me all this time.

  He exhaled heavily, back to me, and I turned my head to look in his direction. Couldn’t really see him without the lights, but I didn’t need to know what he looked like now.

  Jesus, this guy had no taste in women. There was definitely something wrong with him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The next morning, outside the casino doors, he tightened the strap of his rucksack so that it fit me properly, and I almost fell backward with the weight. I’d whined and complained that I wasn’t being helpful, so his way of making me shut up was to make me the carrier mule. I started regretting my complaints and helpfulness immediately. The thing had to be over forty pounds.

  I collapsed to my knees at the weight. “Oh my God, what is in here?”

  Despite his angry self, he did a double take as I struggled to stand. “Ammo. Supplies. Are you okay? It’s not that heavy.”

  ‘Not that heavy?’ I couldn’t even get back up with it on. He pulled it off me as he handed me the rifle to hold, and tossed the pack on like it was nothing. I tried really hard not to be impressed because he made it look so easy – I rose to my feet and struggled with the rifle, unsure of how to carry it. My nose wrinkled as I tried to find an appropriate way to safely hold the thing while not looking like a total idiot. He watched me for a few moments as he adjusted the rucksack's straps, then looked at the sky for help.

  “Jesus isn’t going to help you,” I snapped.

  He tried not to laugh, but it came out as this stupid snort as he took the rifle back. “Right, right.”

  He then lifted it, peering through the scope as he scanned the parking lot. He straightened, pointed off to where the Spaghetti Bowl had been. “Deer. How awesome is that, they’re coming in this close. Maybe I can bag one before we get to Prater.”

  “I’m not carrying that,” I said, looking in that direction and being unable to see anything. “How can anyone carry a deer? They’re, like, two hundred pounds.”

  “Less when they’re gutted.”

  The image was very unpleasant. “Ew.”

  “Have you had venison? I doubt it. You look like the type that would freak if you knew what hot dogs are made of,” he commented, walking ahead.

  “I know what they’re made of, and I eat them anyway!” I exclaimed. I tried to hurry after him, but the sidewalk was icy and I hit the sidewalk with an awkward noise and cursed as I struggled back to my feet.

  He tried not to laugh, but he let it slip out anyway. I know he got off on my torture, that asshole. “As fast as we walk, it’ll be quick work to get there and settle in. Then I can go hunting with the others.”

  “I’d prefer watching you eat Bambi than actually partake in it,” I said, adjusting my Sailor Moon backpack.

  I reached out and grabbed him, yanking him back because this icy area was dangerous to me. I let him go when this awful liquid warmth splattered me across the face,
causing me to choke in the middle of my words. I thought I’d just been splattered by a bird, looking up as he fell, a cracking sound penetrating the silence.

  I touched my face, absolutely grossed out and stilled at the sight of blood on my fingers. Connecting the dots, I realized that the sound I’d heard was a gunshot, and it was Harley that was hit. I couldn’t move, looking down at him as I hysterically wondered if I were truly alone, now. But he had his hands pressed to his ear, and there was blood everywhere and I finally began moving, utterly relieved that he was still alive.

  Something cracked into the cement stairs behind us, pinged off the railing, and I knew we were still under fire. I had no idea where it was coming from, so I didn’t know where to go. I grabbed his rucksack to move him, and both of us were confused and unsure of things that were happening around us. I yanked the heavy pack from him, and he managed to get to his feet, bleeding from some head wound I couldn’t see.

  He stumbled, shouting aloud about things, but we managed to make it into the broken glass doors. More glass shattered, metal pinged – we crawled hastily towards the bar area, hearing the sounds of the gunshots echo throughout the silence.

  “Let me see!” I demanded, having my flashlight out and aiming it at his head, having to yank at one of his hands to do so.

  “Is it still there? Is it – I can’t hear out of it, I think I lost it!” he exclaimed shrilly, a man caught in hysterics by near death. It was bleeding tremendously, head wounds do, but when he managed to pull his hand far enough away for me to see, I saw his ear was hanging in his hair by a thin strip of skin.

  I wanted to shriek with disgust, but I somehow didn’t. I clapped my hand over that area to help him stifle the blood, and dropped the flashlight to yank the blanket I’d packed in my messenger bag out. I had to release him to rip off a strip, both of us talking over each other in panic.

  I folded the piece of material as best as I could, thick so that the bleeding would catch within it. Looking at the injury, at the grotesque sight of his ear hanging by a literal thread of skin, I wanted to barf. But at the same time, tremendously relieved that this was our only injury. The man could have been shot dead if I hadn’t moved, hadn’t pulled him to me.

  “They might be coming, now,” I realized out loud, my hands shaking as he struggled to catch his breath, struggled to be calm. His eyes were as wild and as terrified as mine were. Both of us looked at each other, and at that moment, I knew what I had to do.

  “Teach me how to reload,” I said hastily, digging out a gun from my backpack, revealing it to be the .44 Harley had been appreciating the other morning. “Just teach me how to reload it.”

  He showed me, both of us whispering hastily and noisily in the silence, and my hands shook horribly, dropping bullets as I struggled to follow his instructions and tried to think of a plan to get us through this.

  I rose from my crouched position, listening for anything out of place, and said, “Look for a place up top to maybe snipe at them!”

  “You’re not going out there by yourself – you don’t even know where they’re shooting from!” he snarled, grabbing my jacket, but I yanked away and ran for the doors before he could even stop me. Now he had to do as I said.

  I saw a trio of them advancing to the building from the parking lot below, and one of them was carrying a long-barreled sniper rifle that had to have been the culprit. I briefly wondered if they were the soldiers from the other day. They caught sight of me, and I dashed to the left of the building, away from the stairway. Without really aiming, I fired the .44 in their direction, and almost dropped it at the forceful exhalation. They ducked in reaction, hiding behind abandoned vehicles, and I sprinted through the snow towards a set of cars lined for the exit near Glendale.

  Metal shrieked in protest, plastic spitting outward as they fired back, and I knew hiding behind cars was not going to save me for long. Bullets ate through metal like a hot knife through butter, and glass shattered over my head. I kept low, crouch-running along the car line and then peering over a Mazda truck to fire in their direction once more. They were getting closer to me, shouting to each other. I fired the gun once more, ear ringing, and ducked as they fired back, advancing on me like a horde.

  I turned, ducked underneath the truck, crawled out to the other side of the line where I caught sight of one of them firing his rifle at me with a hasty shout. I barely had time to retreat underneath the truck, rolling to my feet and making a mad dash through the line of cars. Glass shattered, metal screeched, and I covered my head with both hands, hoping that I was still close enough for Harley to shoot at them and yet far enough away from them to miss.

  I flung myself over the hood of one Mustang, fell onto the snowy asphalt below. Then I fired in their direction without looking, breathing heavily and wishing I had better aim. I reloaded, dropping bullets as I did so, trying to listen for them. At the sight of one of them popping out from behind a nearby Ford, I fired in that direction, catching him in the knee. He shouted aloud, dropping to the ground, bringing his gun up and around to fire at me.

  Both of us ducked out of the other’s sight, and I was crawling again, looking for an escape to the parking lot near the go-cart racing tracks. I shot to my feet, dropping the gun at the same time – I saw another soldier leaping out from the back of a raised Dodge, shouting for my attention. He got it, but I started running, hoping that I could outrun his bullets somehow as he lifted the assault rifle and moved to fire.

  Only his forehead exploded outward, and his body did a jerky stumble forward, clearly shot from behind. I looked over him, towards the freeway, where I did see movement – I was bewildered, Harley wasn’t in that direction. There was no way he’d gotten that far that fast. I went back for the gun, bypassing the assault rifle when the final soldier leapt out from behind the Mustang and tackled me hard to the ground. I kicked, and shrieked bloody murder in order to escape, scratching his exposed face with my nails and generally made it difficult for him to get a firm grasp on me.

  He was shouting, I was screaming, and he jerked me to my feet with his gun to my head, making me realize that we weren’t alone. It was Diego with his SPAS 12 that was shouting back at him, and he was obviously exerted and sweaty from a mad dash. I had no idea where he’d come from, but I was so entirely grateful that we had help. They were screaming at each other to drop their guns, everything happening so fast and so quickly that I stumbled as the soldier – just years younger than me – forced me to walk backward, back towards the nearby raceway. His voice cracked and his hold on my hair was desperate and my neck ached as I looked at Diego for more help, but with his own advancement, he was just barely keeping the kid from shooting me.

  I saw movement from the corner of my eye, a racing figure in camo, figured it was Chuck – I stilled at that moment, and the soldier holding onto me automatically stilled as well. Liquid warmth and goo splattered over me and my jacket, and the force of the shot, combined with the bulk of his body sent me crashing to the ground. I crawled away with haste, half-shrieking in disgust over being coated with someone’s insides – Diego helped me to my feet with a solid jerk of one hand, scanning the area.

  “Clear!” he bellowed, voice ringing out, and he looked me over with some amusement. “You good, you’re not hurt.”

  I heaved, swiping at bits and pieces of hard skull, of slimy substance that made me retch. I ripped off my jacket and threw it away from me, but it was still in my hair. I vomited onto the snow and Diego laughed merrily, gun lowered. I hit the surface on my knees and heaved for breath, staring down at what I’d been struggling to digest.

  I heard a couple of protests and two gunshots, looking up just in time to see Diego shoot the wounded soldier with a handgun of his own. He then hurried off, scanning the long line of abandoned cars for more threats and I shakily climbed to my feet. I stared at the dead soldier as I fought to catch my breath – nobody was taking prisoners in this urban war.

  Chuck appeared moments later, looking winded
, carrying his Remington MSR. He must’ve been the one to shoot the first soldier from afar – he definitely looked his age at this point, his dark hair glittering with grey in the afternoon sun and his face furrowed with deep lines. I shot to my feet, wiping vomit from my chin and then booking it back towards the casino while he yelled after me. I didn’t hear what he said, panicked and upset over the entire thing.

  I stumbled up the stairs to the casino, hearing the two men moving after me – in what remained of the glass in the doors, I could see them scanning the area for more threats, Diego speaking rapidly into a hand held radio. Once I made it into the dark casino, I headed for the stairway to the second floor, running blind into the darkness. I found Harley halfway up, and we both hollered and panicked over the blood that covered us both. I fumbled with the First Aid Kit and spilled it everywhere, and we were both snatching and grabbing at things in order to apply aid.

  The sight of his injury, combined with the fact that he was thisclose to having his head shot off just terrified the hell out of me.