A Town Called America

by Andrew Alexander

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Billy said.

  The four made their way down the hill toward the town. Moving closer, approximately two hundred feet from the first building, they stopped and stared at a single person who looked like she was out taking a leisurely stroll.

  “What’s your business?” the tall, slender woman in tattered jeans and a T-shirt asked.

  “We’re not here to cause problems. We’re just passing through,” Chris replied.

  “No problem. You’re welcome to do your business here before you get on your way,” the woman said with a smile. “I’m Conner, Pamela Conner.”

  “What the hell is this?” Rick whispered to Chris. “The Stepford Wives?”

  “What’s The Stepford Wives?” Chris asked.

  “OK. Thank you, Ms. Conner,” Rick said, ignoring Chris’s question.

  Walking on the main street after passing a few shops, they met an older man who called himself Brian. He had gray hair and was of average height but very thin; he had the appearance of someone who was in charge. “I’m the sheriff here in Brockton,” he said, “and I have some serious issues with your being here. I need you to move quickly. Don’t talk. Just follow me so you won’t be seen on the streets.”

  All four moved quickly, following Brian to a building they’d seen some of the townspeople entering from the hilltop. It was a single-story wooden structure that looked as if it had been a church at one time. It had large double doors and white paint that was aged and peeling.

  Inside, a small crowd of people stood silently as they entered the room. Everyone was staring at them but not in an intimidating or vicious manner; they seemed more curious than anything. Perhaps they hadn’t seen outsiders in a while.

  They walked past the crowd, and the people stepped out of their way. At the far end of the room, Brian stepped onto a stage, as Rick, Chris, Billy, and Robbie sat down in chairs a few of the townspeople had placed for them.

  “All right,” Brian said, “I’ve told you all who these four people are, and you know we have an obligation to help them. An enemy of our enemy is our friend.”

  Confused, the four friends sat trying to figure out what exactly Brian was talking about.

  “These folks are being hunted like animals, and we’re not about to let them be caught, are we? We need to do everything we can to support them in their cause. Their cause is our cause now! Now who has questions or concerns?”

  A woman near the middle of the room spoke up. “I don’t like it. It’s too dangerous.” She turned to look at Rick and his friends. “Do you all know what kind of trouble you’ve brought here?”

  “Ma’am, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rick told her. “I also don’t know who you think is after us.”

  The rest of the room spoke up and became more vocal and abrasive.

  “Brian, we all trust your judgment, but this is too much,” one man said. “Hell, they don’t even have any idea how much trouble they’re in. Either that or they’re just stupid. I say we get them the hell out of here.”

  “OK, enough,” Billy said, standing up and looking at the roomful of people. Chris, Rick, and Robbie stood as well.

  “No more bullshit, talking in circles, or any of this garbage,” Chris said with a serious attitude.

  “Let’s go,” Billy said to his three companions, and they all started to make their way to the door.

  “Wait. You want answers? Come with me,” Brian pleaded. “I can help you.”

  “Move it!” Billy shouted when people weren’t stepping out of his way. Angry and frustrated, he pushed his way passed them. Rick initially followed Billy but stopped walking to listen to Brian, who was directly behind him.

  “Wait, Billy. You too, Chris and Robbie.” They all stopped walking, turned around, and looked back at Rick.

  “Just give him a couple of minutes, and then we’ll go. Brian you need to start talking now!” The intensity in Rick’s voice intimidated Brian, who nervously gestured for Rick and his friends to follow him as he disappeared around a corner.

  Robbie pushed his way past the crowd that was now exiting the building so he could catch up with Rick and Brian.

  THIRTY TWO

  The hallway Brian had stepped into was short, perhaps only ten feet long, with a curtain at the end hanging over a doorway. Rick, Chris, and Robbie followed Brian through the hallway and into a room just beyond the curtain.

  It was small and dim, with only one black-painted window. The wooden floor was worn, with many spots that looked to be bowing from water damage. The floor was unlevel to the point that all three had noticed its deficiencies before anything else in the room. In fact the entire room was dilapidated, including the molding around the ceiling, which was peeling and drooping. Small specks of yellowish paint dotted the floor along the edges near the walls.

  At the far end of the room stood a small wooden desk with a chair behind it. The desk, covered in miscellaneous papers, appeared to be in no real order, which gave the impression that the office’s occupant was a disorganized person. On the left of the desk was a thin computer monitor covered in sticky notes that were fading to a brownish color. The only other things in the room were a file cabinet with two broken drawers, a broken chair lying against it, and a small wooden cross hanging by a single nail on the wall above the desk.

  “Is this your office, Brian? Work in here much, do you”? Rick asked sarcastically.

  “As a matter of fact, it is. And yes, I do a lot of work in here daily.”

  “Well, Brian…” Rick said, as he pulled his Colt 1911 from his waist and pointed it at him. “Well, tell me then, if you work so hard in this office, why’s there an inch of dust on the desk and not a single finger-print? You’d better have a good answer.”

  “Hold on now. You can put that away.” Brian pushed aside the file cabinet to reveal a four-by-four-foot square opening in the floor.

  He went down first, followed by Chris, Robbie, and finally Rick. They descended a steep ladder into another room the same size as the one above. It wasn’t until they were in that room that they noticed Billy wasn’t with them.

  “Where the hell is Billy?” Robbie asked.

  Rick was once more pointing his Colt at Brian’s head.

  “I swear…I don’t know where your friend is, but I assure you he’s fine, and neither I nor any of the folks upstairs has done anything to him. Give me five minutes to explain…please.”

  Billy was agitated, as he’d never a people person. He had walked outside to smoke a cigarette and was near the end of the street, across from the town’s entrance. Sitting on a tree stump that was the perfect size for a chair, he removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. Trying to release the tension he felt, he looked down at the smooth surface of the stump. His first thought was that a great number of people must have sat in this very spot for it to have that fine of a finish.

  The stump was in a small patch of brown, overgrown grass that looked as if it hadn’t seen water in a long time. As he sat, he began to feel a vibration—almost like an earthquake that gradually picked up in intensity. Then the sound reminded him of the vehicles that had passed the gas station.

  First it was a low roar with a slight rumble. Then it grew louder, as it apparently was moving closer. It took a few seconds for the sound to register in his mind, but when it did, Billy knew they were in serious trouble. The sound was indeed that of a huge number of vehicles, most assuredly the same ones from the M.M.

  As quickly as he could, he climbed a ladder that was leaning against a nearby school bus. Looking out over the vast landscape with the hilltop on his right, Billy saw at least thirty vehicles moving extremely fast. The stretch of road appeared to be about two or three miles long, and he knew they had only a few minutes before the vehicles would be upon them like a swarm of locusts.

  Not bothering with the ladder. Billy jumped to the ground, landing perfectly on his feet. The first thing he noticed as he stood up was that no
one appeared bothered by the sound of the vehicles.

  That’s not a good sign, he thought.

  Billy moved quickly to the building where he had left his friends. People on the streets stopped in place and watched him as he closed in on the town hall where he had last seen his friends.

  Billy stopped just short of running into a man in a suit who had stepped directly in front of him before he could reach the door. “I thought he needed to be with the other three when this went down,” the man said to a shorter man standing next to him.

  “When what goes down?” Billy asked.

  “The M.M.,” the man in the suit said in a smug tone. “We’re going to get our money and protection for your dumb asses. All we have to do is give them your heads.”

  The man in the suit looked to be in his thirties and gave Billy the impression that he thought he was much more intelligent than he actually was.

  Billy looked at him thinking, Anyone who wears a suit during an apocalypse is a snob and an idiot. He also didn’t have to look down to know the man was pointing a gun at him.

  Billy didn’t waste time; in a split second, he slapped the pistol so hard and fast that the upper receiver flew off the weapon. A second later the man in the suit realized he was now pointing only the lower half of his gun at Billy. Billy pulled out his two revolvers, one in each hand, and shot the man twice in the stomach.

  “What the hell?” the other man yelled, as he stumbled backward, trying not to lose his footing.

  Billy shot him directly in the chest with his revolver. As soon as the shots rang out, the townspeople, in a panic, scattered in every direction.

  For Billy time froze for a moment as he pointed his revolver at a random townsperson then aimed and fired. This time he shot a woman in the back. She had long brown hair, looked to be in her mid to late twenties, and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

  After the screaming stopped, Billy saw people peering out at him through windows in the various buildings. He had just taken the lives of three people in less than a few seconds, and he didn’t feel the least bit remorseful. Actually he felt a calming sensation as he took their lives. He knew it was a small price to pay in order to accomplish his goal. Moreover, as far as he was concerned, the town had sold them out. It was one of the few times Billy had taken pleasure in killing someone. To him the end would justify the means.

  Across the street he ran over to the woman he’d just shot. He reached down, grabbed her shoulders, and pulled her across the street to the steps, where he placed her next to the other two bodies.

  Inside the town hall, Billy ran down the hallway, passing the curtain and coming to a dead halt in the small office. What the hell? he thought, as he couldn’t understand where his friends had disappeared to.

  In the room just below Billy, and unbeknownst to him, all three of his friends were listening as Brian explained who the M.M. really were, how they had formed, and why they were after Billy and Chris in particular.

  Brian explained that the M.M. had been at the stables and the farm not by chance but by design. They had tracked them to the gas station and now to the town of Brockton.

  “How the hell do you know so much about the M.M.?” Rick asked him.

  “This is bullshit,” Chris interrupted. “None of this makes any sense. You don’t know Billy or me. You don’t know who I am or anything about him. You’re full of shit. Rick, just shoot him in the head, and let’s get going.”

  Rick shrugged. “Gladly.”

  “No! Wait, wait, wait…”

  Rick pointed his pistol at Brian’s head, with the barrel against his temple. “I have one question, and if you don’t answer it right, it’s lights out,” he said boldly. “Why would an army like the M.M.—if you can call it an army—want anything to do with Billy and Chris?”

  “Well, actually they want you all dead, but it’s Billy and Chris they’ve been after since the beginning. You each have a price on your head now. What? You thought you could kill all those soldiers and torch their hotel, and they’d just let you walk away?”

  Brian started to smile until Rick pushed the pistol harder against his temple.

  “Easy easy…” Brian said. “Chris, your foster father told you a man named Ryan Chase was your real father, but that was a lie.”

  “What?” Chris asked, looking confused. “I don’t care who my father is or isn’t.”

  “Don’t you want to know?” Brian asked.

  “OK, I’ll play your game. Who is he?”

  “Billy’s your father.”

  “Whatever,” Chris said, half laughing. “You have to be kidding. Rick, will you just shoot this guy in the head?”

  “Wait!” Brian pleaded. “I can explain. When you were two years old, your mother put you up for adoption. Her name was Christiana, just like you. How would I know that if I weren’t telling the truth? She never allowed Billy to see you. Your mother was from a wealthy family, and they gave her an ultimatum: lose Billy, or they’d cut her off from any inheritance. That included you; they didn’t want her brining home any baggage that had anything to do with Billy. My God, did you really think Billy just showed up out of the blue to save you the day you and Rick met him in that jail?”

  “How the hell do you know about the jail?”

  “Darling, Billy found out where you were a long time before you met. He tracked you down, and…Rick, you can put your pistol down now.”

  “So why’s the M.M. after him?” Rick, asked as Chris grew very quiet, trying to put everything together in her head.

  Rick lowered his pistol slightly as Brian stated the most difficult thing for either of them to comprehend. “Chris, Billy is—or I should say was—M.M. He was very involved until he found out they’d captured you. Rick, have you ever heard of the Ghost Assembly of the M.M.? What about you, Chris?”

  “Of course I have,” Rick said. “We both have. What does that prove? Everyone knows those stories. Wait, wait…are you telling me that Billy is a Ghost? That he’s an assassin? That he hunts down and murders women and children? Please.”

  “No,” Brian replied. “The M.M. will tell you he was a bounty hunter, and his job was to hunt down and kill runaway slaves and deserters. Truth is…Billy’s job was to hunt and kill vampires. He was so damn good at it that the M.M. used him as their poster boy to prevent soldiers from deserting. ‘They will find you, and they will kill you. It’s only a matter of time.’ They scared their men into not deserting by telling stories about the Ghosts, when in reality the Ghosts were hunting vampires. It was a win-win for them.”

  “Vampires? Is that the best you can come up with?” Rick said, shaking his head.

  “Billy, for all intents and purposes, was used as rhetoric by the M.M. Hell, all those stories you’ve heard—they told those stories because they wanted people to fear the Ghosts as a means of control. You ever hear the stories about the four Ghosts? They’re the bounty hunters for the M.M. Billy was by far the best and most ruthless of any of any of them. He was—and is—a cold, precise, deadly killer. The M.M. genetically altered him to be that way.”

  “When he walked away from the M.M.,” Brian continued, “he took something from them. He took something very valuable that could seriously hurt the organization. Many people are trying to shut down the M.M. New insurgent groups are popping up every day; they just lack leadership and weapons. Nevertheless their numbers are increasing with new volunteers. People are tired of the M.M. running through their towns and stealing their resources. The M.M. couldn’t just let Billy walk away, so that’s where you came in, Chris. They were looking for you for leverage to use against Billy.”

  After Brian was finished speaking, everyone silently turned and went up the ladder. They were all confused and angry. Once they’d gone through the curtain, down the hall, and through the main door outside, they could hardly believe what they saw. Dead bodies were lying on the ground in front of the town hall—two men and a woman to be exact—and all had been shot.

  It did
n’t take them long to figure out Billy had done it.

  Looking off into the distance, they saw Billy walking down the main street, away from town. Walking next to him were four men in black jumpsuits. No guns were pointed at him, and Billy was walking freely next to them, never turning his head to look back.

  The sound of vehicles again rattled the buildings just before the engines faded into the distance, while Rick, Chris, and Robbie stood standing on the street in disbelief.

  “He’s a traitor,” Robbie said to Rick.

  “No, that doesn’t make sense,” Chris said. “If he’s my father, then he’s the only reason we’re still alive. I have to believe that. Billy had to have told the M.M. we were dead; otherwise they wouldn’t have left.”

  Brian came outside and joined them. “Billy and I go a long way back,” he said. “He and I set it up over a year ago to lead the M.M. here. I had my men, on the inside of the M.M. hunt down, capture and place that vampire in the cell knowing Billy would come after it. Once we were in contact we devised this plan. We did this so we could convince them you were all dead. The only problem was that the M.M. got here too damn fast, so he adjusted the plans. We had three bodies waiting to be set in the street when they arrived. That’s why these three people are dead now. Billy apparently didn’t have time to get to the bodies we already had. However, there’s good news. The M.M. now thinks these three are you. The bad news is that Billy just gave his life up for you, Chris, whether you believe me or not. They’re going to kill him, you know.”

  When Brian finished speaking, everyone stood silently. There was nothing more anyone needed to say. They had lost the support of their friend and mentor. Billy was gone, and they all knew things never would be the same again.

  THIRTY THREE

  Another year passed—another year during which they searched, scavenged, and traveled. Although Brian had set the three of them up with horses and supplies before they left, per Billy’s request, Chris refused to talk about Billy with Rick, Robbie, or anyone for that matter. She had made it very clear that the subject of Billy was off limits.