by Sikes, A. J.
The man stared at Sergeant G, Mahton, Reeve, and Jed in turn, like he was taking their measure or something. It wasn’t the eye-balling that Jed was used to on the block, but he knew when he was being sized up. The guy didn’t even try to hide it. Jed gave it back to him, but kept his attention open, watching for any movement movement among the group of people in the corner.
Something about the way they were sitting caught his eye. They were much better off than the couple, with no injuries he could see. But they still didn’t look that great. They were all hunched over. The men sat with their hands between their knees, like they were scared to even speak. Jed didn’t see any visible wounds on them, and was about to ask why they were on the cots. Then he saw they were zip-tied, wrists to ankles, and had more ties holding them to the cots.
“What the—They’re prisoners!”
☣
“We’re first responders,” one of the men said. He wore a set of pale green scrubs and looked young, maybe twenty years old if that. He had a narrow face, pale brown skin, and a strong Spanish accent. Back in school, he could have been one of Gallegos’ friends.
“You’re all firefighters?” she asked.
“Sí, chica. This was our house until these pinche culeros and their friends showed up and started giving orders.” He whipped his head in the direction of the couple sitting off to the side. “I sure hope you a different bunch of gun-crazies.”
“Cool it, Luce,” said another young man in the group. He wore a firefighter’s uniform. His skin was darker, and his English wasn’t accented. He sat in a relaxed pose, even with his hands tied to his ankles. “We’re EMTs, except for Luce,” he said, nodding at the man next to him. “He’s a phlebotomist.”
The young man looked back at him and pinched up his face. The other man half-whispered, “She’s not with them. I think we’re good here.”
“You think, Dom? You think? I know this girl is pointing a fucking gun at my face and yours. So—”
“Where are the others?” Gallegos demanded. She had to cut Luce off before he got on a roll. Mahton and Reeve both had their weapons back at the ready, but as soon as Luce started hollering, the men lifted their muzzles a bit, like they were going to draw a bead on his ass.
“Which others do you mean?” asked the firefighter named Dom.
“We know Tucker has at least two teams in here. One for each truck. The other truck is still outside,” she said, then motioned with her weapon at the injured couple. “These two have been laid up for a while, unless that sling is a fake. So where the fuck is the other team?”
“They all left,” said a woman at the back of the group.
“Jo, don’t say nothin,” Luce told her. “We don’t know who they’re with. Maybe they’re just—”
“You don’t give the orders, Luce,” Jo shot back. She and the other woman in the corner were older than the two Latinos. They were both white or mixed, Gallegos didn’t really care. What she needed to know was who could be trusted, and right now it was looking like the people on the cots really were prisoners, not col-labs playing possum, and that they weren’t lying when they said Tucker and his people had all left.
The two women in the corner were bound just like the men. The last man in their group was black. He sat up against the wall with his head drooped down over his chest. Gallegos thought he was dead at first, but she could see his chest rise and fall evenly, like he was asleep.
“They all left?” Reeve asked, letting out just enough of his frustration that Gallegos knew she had to get control of the situation and fast.
“Yeah, they left. All of them,” Jo said. “They do that sometimes, when they need supplies. We’re running low on food and water.”
“It was a chow run,” Reeve said. “Good thing they don’t know—”
“Shut it!” Gallegos ordered.
Over on the cots, the black man’s head jerked up and he took in the Marines with wide eyes. Reeve swallowed whatever he was planning to say, but Gallegos could see the damage was already done.
The old Reeve would never make a pog mistake like that. Dios, we’re all slipping. We’re all so beat down.
The wounded couple had their eyes locked on Reeve, and the man had shifted his injured arm to the side. Gallegos still didn’t see a weapon anywhere, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t holding. When the man shifted again, she trained her weapon on him.
“Mahton, back me up. Reeve, you watch the others.”
Mahton shifted his aim to cover the injured pair. Reeve brought his weapon up and ready to cover the people on the cots.
“What the fuck? We’re on your side you dumbshit,” said the woman next to Jo.
“How do we know that?” Gallegos asked, still sighting on the couple. “Maybe that sling is just a cover for a gat.”
“It’s not,” said the black man, as he leaned away from the wall. “His arm was broken in two places when they came in here. We set it as best we could and bandaged up the other wounds they had. She was the worst of them. I tried to convince them we should go to the hospital. It’s only a few blocks away. Tucker didn’t want to leave, and neither did they.” He tilted his head in the direction of the couple but kept his eyes on Gallegos.
She felt the M4’s weight dragging on her neck. The sling rubbed against her collar and pressed her vest tight against her shoulder.
Something doesn’t break soon, everybody here is getting capped.
The man with the busted arm shifted on his hip and made a jerking movement with his good arm. Mahton’s weapon cracked loud, echoing in the open bay.
Jed had the SAW up, but didn’t know where he should aim it. Mahton fired into the wall and the bandaged woman screamed. The man rolled away from her to his left, cradling his injured arm with his good one and turning to show his flank to the Marines. Mahton had only fired a warning shot, but it had done the trick. The guy with the bad arm whimpered and started sobbing.
“My ass is going numb on this floor. I had to move. I won’t move again. I promise.”
Jed roved his weapon back and forth, covering the couple as best he could. If either one of them made a fast move—
“Who’s in charge?” Sergeant G demanded.
“That’s me, chica,” Luce said.
“The hell you are,” Jo said to him. The other woman, Dom, and the black guy all shook their heads and eyed Luce like he was an idiot.
“Yo, Luce, is it?” Sergeant G asked him, bringing her muzzle around to aim at his chest. “You don’t call me chica because you don’t fucking know me, cabrón.”
“And you don’t fucking know me, so you don’t call me Luce. The name is Luciano, like my cousins who went to be with God on 9/11.”
For a little guy, Luce had plenty of fight packed inside. He stared down Sergeant G and Jed’s finger hovered over the trigger guard, ready to snap back. The room buzzed around him, and the tension threatened to drop him where he stood. Mahton and Reeve kept switching their aim from the couple to the group in the corner. Jed was sure he was about to witness another bloodbath until Sergeant G lowered the muzzle of her weapon, still holding it ready but no longer aiming right into anyone’s grill.
“Okay. Luciano. You like to talk, so talk. Tell me what’s up. I’m not an idiot. You’re not in charge, but who is? And are these two with Tucker, or were they hauled in as hostages?”
“We’re not with Nat Tucker or any of his people,” the bandaged woman said. “My husband and I were living upstairs from him when it all happened. He said he’d look out for us because we—”
She flicked a look at the firefighters on the cots and Jed caught her lingering on the black guy. Sergeant G must have noticed as well.
“So he’s that kind of pendejo?” Sergeant G asked.
“Uh-huh,” the black guy said. “If you wouldn’t mind cutting us loose, we could get the hell out of here. Or we could wait for them to come back and kill everyone they don’t need.”
“Need?” Mahton asked. “The fuck’s that
supposed to mean?”
Luciano answered him. “Means he’s only keeping us alive because he doesn’t know shit about first aid. Matty here knows how to set bones better than any of us. Tucker would have shot his black ass otherwise.”
Matty didn’t even flinch at Luciano’s words, except to crack a grin.
“It isn’t my black ass I’d be worried about, Luce,” he said. “You know that man has a hard-on for killing anyone in this city that doesn’t look like him. Dominic here is about as dark as it gets around the Barrio.”
Jed caught a flash of anger in Luce’s eyes. A wave of fear crossed Dominic’s face, but it passed just as fast and he was back to his casual self.
“Just cut us loose, please,” the woman named Jo said. “We’re on your side.”
The other woman added her voice, and pretty soon the whole group was hassling Sergeant G to cut them all loose. The injured couple stayed huddled close together, and quiet as church mice. Finally, Mahton lowered his weapon and reached for his bayonet. Sergeant G nodded at him and came over to Jed while Mahton went to cut the firefighters free.
“Welch, you and Reeve secure the hallway back there.”
“Rah, Sergeant,” he said and moved out. He posted at an oblique to the entrance, so he could catch anyone coming down the hall before they got close enough to shoot into the room. Reeve joined him a few seconds later, taking up position to watch the opposite side of the hallway.
Back in the corner, Sergeant G was talking to everyone, getting their names and asking what they were trained for. Jed heard things that made him feel better about their chances. They didn’t have Meg with them, but they did have a team of professional medics.
“We all have a common enemy,” Sergeant G finally said aloud to the group. “So who wants to show him what happens when you make an enemy out of people with friends?”
For the first time in a long time, Jed felt something he hadn’t known he was missing. The sense of having a mission again helped him get his legs, find a place to stand even if it was at the bottom of the totem pole. But Sergeant G’s words about having friends gave him something else.
He had a crew around him again, people who would look out for him just as he looked out for them.
And together they were going to put Tucker where he belonged: six-feet-the-fuck-underground.
While the firefighters rubbed circulation back into their limbs, and the injured couple took their places on the cots, Sergeant G made the introductions.
“Dominic Cardeñas, Emmanuel Luciano, meet Private Mahton. I’m Staff Sergeant Gallegos. Over there watching the door is PFC Reeve. Private Welch has the machine gun. Who else is with your crew?”
“I’m Matty Washington,” the black guy answered. “Technically I guess I’m highest rank. Jo King and Dom here drove an ambulance, but didn’t work in the station. Leigh Barton was here with us when the shit started. When’d you all get here?”
“We came in two days ago. You said your name was Washington? You’re highest rank?”
“That’s right, and call me Matty.”
“Matty then. Why’d Luce say he was in charge?”
“He likes to be on top,” Matty said with a chuckle.
Jed had to resist the urge to keep looking back at the group as they continued to chat and talk shit together. Sergeant G even laughed once, but Jed had to keep his eyes front and on mission. He hadn’t heard any echoes of a truck motor outside since they’d come into the building. Still, he knew better than to turn away from his post again. That’d be when the hit would come.
You never hear the one that gets you.
He remembered his platoon sergeant saying that once. That was the day they went out on patrol and Jed saw his first and last firefight. The day his platoon sergeant died.
“Yo, Welch,” Reeve said from his position opposite Jed.
“Yeah.”
“You’re spacing out, man. Back to earth.”
Jed focused again, eyes front, monitoring the hallway back to the corner.
“That’s enough bullshitting for now, rah?” Sergeant G said behind him. “We’re taking the second truck back to our location. Reeve found the keys hanging on a hook when he was upstairs.”
Reeve held them up and laughed. “Oh, dah-ling, the Lexus is a mess. I suppose we’ll take the Toyot-ah.”
“I said cut the shit, Reeve. Watch that hallway.”
“Errr,” he said, pocketing the keys again.
Jed refocused on his zone of fire. Weak light glowed from back down the hallway to the parking lot entrance. If anything came around that corner—
He sent a burst down the hallway when a heavy shadow broke the light.
“The fuck?” Reeve asked, tensing up. “What’d you see, Welch?”
“Something down there. There’s something around the corner.”
Sergeant G was ordering the firefighters to find shelter behind anything they could. Most of them crammed together around the pillars behind Jed and Reeve.
“Welch,” Sergeant G said. “What’s up?”
“Just a shadow, Sergeant,” he said. “But something’s moving in the hallway. Around the corner.”
She stepped up next to him. “Move to contact. Flash-bang in case it’s friendly. Be ready to light it up if it’s not.”
“Rah,” he said, already letting the SAW rest on its sling while he reached into his vest pouch for one of the grenades. He had it in his hand and was two steps from the hallway when another shadow split the light.
“Sergeant?”
“Throw the banger, Welch, then we move in with a purpose. We’re clearing rooms, just like in boot.”
Jed cupped the safety lever in his palm and yanked the pin, then shuffled toward the hallway entrance. He heard Sergeant G behind him, directing Reeve to keep an eye on their approach.
“You cover us, rah? The rest of us will—”
A loud shriek cut her off, and was followed by the sound of countless claws scraping across stone and brick. Hisses and howls filled the hallway as a mass of greasy pale white flesh poured along the ceiling, racing into the apparatus floor. Needle teeth and claws flooded Jed’s vision as the suckers dropped to the floor in front of him. A few smaller ones spread onto the walls.
The first few went down to shots from Reeve and Sergeant G. Jed fumbled the grenade and it rolled off to his left. He had the SAW in his hands and was ready to fire when the grenade exploded in a blinding glare and deafening thunderclap. Jed’s head swam with confusion. He couldn’t hear a fucking thing, and his eyes didn’t work. All he could see was a ball of white light that seemed to surround him as he felt his feet go out from under him. His ass hit the floor hard, sending a jolt up his spine.
Someone yanked on his neck and he felt a tapping or clicking that vibrated through his shoulders. Hot metal bounced against his face and seared his cheek over and over again. He screamed and felt the roar in his voice, but all he could hear was that constant tapping and clicking.
Jed blinked his eyes. The white light faded around the edges of his vision. An endless line of clawed hands and feet sat tangled in front of him, like he was looking into a mass grave and the dead were reaching out to him for release.
The yanking on his neck settled down. The clicking and tapping sound got louder then cut out suddenly. Jed blinked his eyes again. He could see better. The hands and feet in front of him were connected to arms and legs and mangled bodies peppered with holes that leaked blood. Angry monstrous faces stared at him from the pile of corpses. He reached a hand up to rub his eyes and felt another hand grab his collar.
A muffled shout from somewhere nearby made Jed worried that people were dying because he’d dropped the grenade. Then he remembered it was a banger, not a frag.
The monsters got in. But if I’m not dead, then . . .
Someone grabbed his hand, and another pair of hands lifted under his arms, hauling him up on his feet.
“You dropped the banger, Welch, but that saved us, man.”
“Who’d I save?” Jed asked. His vision cleared, and he finally blinked away the last of the shock from the grenade. Mahton was holding him up. Sergeant G and Reeve stood near the hallway entrance with their weapons up. A mass of dead monsters crowded the floor in front of the hallway, and a few more lay in the hall itself. They’d all been shot to pieces. Brass and belt links were scattered around Jed’s feet.
Smoke drifted away from the muzzle of his SAW.
Somebody went cyclic. Was it me?
“Mahton, get Welch squared away,” Sergeant G said over her shoulder. Jed lifted the SAW and spun around to take in the rest of the room. He wobbled on his feet and only got a hand out in time to stop himself from eating the floor. He rolled onto his back and felt a sharp pain in his hip. With a grunt, he got to his feet and steadied himself with a hand on the nearest pillar.
The firefighters and Luce were standing together around the back of the pillar. Over in the far corner, the injured man and woman were lying in a puddle of blood and gore, with three dead sucker faces nearby.
“Reeve and me got them, but not before they had dinner,” Mahton said.
Jed turned back to listen for Sergeant G’s command and nearly stumbled over his own feet as he shifted his weight.
“Yo, lay off the hard stuff this early in the morning, Welch,” Mahton said from nearby. Jed stayed still and just turned his head this time, looking for Mahton. The Marine stood a few feet away to Jed’s right, laughing to himself.
“What the fuck happened?” Jed asked.
“You dropped the banger, man. Sergeant G saw it coming. She turned away and covered her ears when it went off, so she was first to react. The sucker faces, man . . . You should have seen them. Like cockroaches on a cold morning. Sergeant G grabbed the SAW and sprayed them fuckers like bugs. Good ol’ M249. Best damn can of RAID you can find these days.”
