by J. D. Palmer
Fuck.
They come for us.
Chapter 21
Four cars appear behind us as we stand just inside the small city of Mojave. LED lights mounted on a jeep seem to turn the night to day. They slow as they get closer to town, one truck peeling off down a side street.
The rest head towards us. Beryl and I stand, transfixed, as the cars get closer. How did they know?
How did they know?
We trip over ourselves trying to get off the road, stumbling over parking blocks to crouch behind a car stuck forever in the drive-thru of a McDonalds.
The three remaining vehicles slow down as they get close to town. One car roars ahead, its lights flashing along our hiding spot as it heads to the far side of town. The jeep leads the way, the hard top removed and men piled into the back and standing to hang onto the roll bars. They yell and hoot as if this is a merry chase, an impromptu scavenger hunt with god knows what prize at the end.
And through all the noise, the rumble of engines and the gibbers of men, I hear Don issuing orders.
“He can’t have taken her far. Head out, guns ready. You know what to do.”
A question, too muffled for me to make out is asked. Something about not finding us.
“Ain’t but one way to flush out big game. Ya gotta get rid of the forest. We got everything we need from here.”
There is laughter and a small cheer, as if his words were a novel idea, one they should have thought of long ago. Men leap down from the jeep and pass out rifles and large cylindrical containers, the laughs dying down as they get serious.
We shuffle backwards, doing our best to blend in with the night. Beryl has her hood up, her hands hidden in her sleeves. I do my best to copy her. We flit from shadow to shadow, dodging around cars and around bushes until we get to a side street.
Then we run, desperate to put some distance between us.
It’s short-lived. A pair of high-beams light the intersection ahead of us, forcing us to veer off the road and into the small yard of a ramshackle house. We lie on the dead grass and hold still, barely breathing as the car turns down our road and slowly drives by.
We wait for it to turn down another street, wait for the lights to fade. There is a rustling in the bushes in the house next to us. Branches creak and we both tense. A dark shape slinks along the wall and drops down on the other side. I hear the scrabbling of tiny claws in the house behind us.
The town has been reclaimed by creatures large and small. And every sound sets our nerves on end. Every movement could be the end of the chase. As scary as it is to be caught by the beams of light from one of the cars, it’s far more terrifying knowing there are men out in the pitch black of night with guns, just waiting to catch a glimpse of us.
Of me.
They can’t possibly want to hurt Beryl. For now.
There is a change in the air. A smell. A heavy, acrid odor that settles on us like a blanket.
Smoke.
I sit up. There is a dull orange glow back the way we came.
“What the fuck?”
I say it, and I cringe, knowing it came out louder than I wanted. Beryl doesn’t so much pull me back to the ground as cuff me upside the head.
How could they…? To catch us they will burn the town down. Even if we weren’t inside of it. But we are. We are and we have to get out.
We crawl back out into the street and slink like animals to the corner.
All clear.
Or so it seems. And no time to waste waiting to see.
We run across, hustling into the thickest mass of shadows we can find.
The fire gains traction. The glow behind us spreads horizontally, a new sun on the horizon that, instead of rising, spews twisting black clouds of ash and smoke to cover the stars and instill fear in the hearts of the hunted.
We shuffle along, always too slow, but still far too reckless. The cars move in a pattern, zig-zagging in a moving pattern ahead of us. They’re easy to avoid.
But there is fire at our backs and the men who set it, and we are running out of town. We have to get ahead of them. Or around them.
We veer at a diagonal, cutting east. We move with more abandon now. Desperate. Lungs burning from exertion and smoke.
A car moves ahead of us. We jump a stone wall and huddle behind it, waiting for it to move past.
It doesn’t. It sits at the edge of town, twin beams pointed west towards the heart of the small city.
There is the sound of a pebble bouncing along the road.
Beryl grabs me, pulling me down as we huddle against our minuscule barrier.
“You hear that?”
A worried voice, one I can’t recognize. Silence as the men freeze. As we freeze. As the world burns around us and different lights hunt the area around us and four statues at the heart of it.
“You’re hearing shit.”
Another voice, just as worried. I guess it would be frightening for them, also. Too many shadows, too many unknowns. Each of us avoiding the boogeyman. Or, for them, hoping someone else will kill it.
“He hurt her, I’ll kill him myself.”
Two men walk along the side walk, a small clank following one of the men’s steps.
“Like you would. This one?”
“Let’s go farther down.”
“I’m tired of carrying this fuckin’ thing.”
“One every block. It’s the way he wanted it.”
A grumble and the sound of receding footsteps. I peek over the wall after a minute. One of the men is sloshing liquid on a small building, the other scanning the street with his gun.
The car still sits in the intersection, content to shut off this point of escape.
“Back.”
Beryl is pointing back the way we came. Back through the fire and smoke.
“Yup.”
We trot back towards the glow of the fire. Shadows diminish and we find ourselves more out in the open. But no one has stuck around to witness the effects of their arson. Houses share their flame with their neighbor, fire stretching and leaping to engulf whole histories of families. Of families and loners and young adults just barely out on their own.
Other houses aren’t touched. A weird crossword of light and dark, capricious winds and unknown building materials make a mishmash of the inferno that pulses with the same foul stink.
We walk a sidewalk of untouched houses. On the other side is a row of roaring pyres. The houses gushing smoke and flame, the glass in windows and doors long exploded to litter the streets with reflective shards.
The heat is unbearable. The smoke is even worse. But at least the crackle of flames, the collapse of stone and brick and wood mask our coughing.
We trudge on. Faces covered. Eyes slits that sting too much to open. We walk this tightrope with fire because it is a better death than back the other way.
Golden arches. We are almost back to where we started. Beryl points across the main drag towards the railroad tracks.
Good idea.
A truck is parked at this end of town, headlights pointing towards the interior. We skirt around it, picking our way through a gas station and around a liquor store. Then we are two shadows crossing the road.
Or so we hope.
There is no sign that we are seen. We wait a minute.
Two.
Watching the truck and waiting to see if it moves. Waiting for men to step out. To yell. To point their guns.
Nothing.
We move along the tracks, the air only slightly cooler, moving in the same direction as the voracious fire.
They weren’t bluffing. The whole town is ablaze. I wonder what will happen when they don’t find us. What will Don say? Something he said earlier floats to the surface.
“He can’t have taken her far.”
What did he tell them?
The tracks follow the same course as the road. North. Until the road splits. Straight ahead is highway 58. The 14 veers to the right.
We need to be on the
14.
At least, if we want to go where I need to go.
There is no sign of the men. The fire is behind us now, though no less significant.
“We need to cross.”
I can’t tell if Beryl nods. I can’t tell if she does anything because suddenly everything is bright. The jeep, sitting dormant, now flares to life just down the street.
Blinding us. Cornering us.
A cacophony of sounds as the engine revs and men yell and the fire roars like an apathetic audience in attendance to a private show.
Beryl yanks on my sweatshirt and we run down the side of the road and past the fork where the highway splits. The jeep is joined by the lights of another truck as it pursues us down the road.
“Fuck. C’mon!”
We ditch the road to head out due east across the sand. There is a yell and the honk of a horn. A roman candle is set off, fireworks exploding in the air above us illuminate the desert. Another firework is set off, reds and blues and yellow sparks swirl in the air above us, a cruel mockery of Independence Day as they signal the sighting of their prey.
I hear the sound of tires as they leave the road, rubber crunching across gravel and detritus, the bucking of shocks as they hit uneven ground. We are slow moving across the sand. Too slow. They’re so close now.
I stumble as I hit pavement. A thin strip of asphalt stretches ahead of us and we take advantage of it, running at a sprint. I see the outline of an airplane and I pull Beryl towards it. We duck beneath it and hide behind the tires. I glance around. Airplanes are everywhere, haphazardly parked at odd angles. They are surrounded by spare parts; wings and cockpits and landing gear. Fuselages and seats and tires are strewn about, as if we stumbled into the sandbox of some giant and temperamental toddler.
I grab Beryl’s hand and we race among them.
Headlights hit us and we veer around the nose of a plane. Past barrels and a pair of giant turbines. Car doors slam. We go to run north and a SUV swerves to block the route.
We crouch behind a small plane. Beryl clutches my arm, her fingernails digging deep as we desperately look for a way out. Oil is everywhere, the smell mixed with the rubber of tires. Headlights flood the area with light, smaller flashlights bobbing around us on all sides, and some few carry makeshift torches. Torches that slowly form a circle. I hear muttered voices, anger and excitement and dark laughs. A gun cocks. Don’s smug voice carries across the pavement.
“It’s okay Beryl. It’s okay now, we are here for you.”
Beryl and I look at each other, confused. What is he up to? I think of how Don would play this back at the camp. He’d say she was shy, but happy to be safe. He’d say I was jealous, perhaps, and I tried to kidnap her.
They’re on a rescue mission.
That motherfucker.
He continues. “Harlan, just give yourself up. There’s no need to hurt anybody.”
I know I should say something. Try to explain myself. Anything I say now will sound guilty, though. I look at Beryl. She is staring at me, dark eyes filled with the resignation of defeat. Whatever we do seems to end up the same way. Are we destined for these roles? Did the universe conspire to make us slaves in this new world?
“Fuck you.” I say it against my better judgment. I’m a bitter loser.
I grab Beryl’s arm. “You have to stay strong,” I hiss. “It will not always be like this.”
She is already gone, eyes glazed as she sinks into the dark recesses to hide with her voice. She barely nods. I hear the patter of footsteps as the men spread out. I hear them chuckling as my name is bandied about. They are drunk.
They want blood.
Don keeps going with his hero voice. “Just let the girl go, there’s no need to fight anymore.”
“I didn’t think I was fighting in the first place.”
I don’t know what to do. I feel like I have failed her. Again. I don’t know why they don’t rush in and take us. We don’t have any guns.
“There is no need to hurt the girl, Harlan. Just let her go.”
Don’t hurt her? I see… He is playing this out to the end. I’m the jealous man who stole the woman against her will. Even now I bet no one here knows that she can’t speak. They think I have a hand over her mouth. They think I’ll kill her to prevent them from having her. If she could say something right now, anything, I might have a chance.
“Honey, you okay?” That fucker.
“We will come out.” I don’t look at her. I feel like a coward. I should try to fight. Find a way to break free, sneak to one of the cars and take it. I should do something brave. I’m just trying to find a way in which I don’t die.
“First, I want to know what will happen to us.” Best to make this public.
I peek around the edge of the tire. Don stands in the center of a group of men. I see him glance at the others, they grin as he shakes his head ruefully. I see Chris is standing next to him, Alderman whispering something in his ear.
“Well. She will come with us. Her family. You on the other hand,” he spreads his hands, “you attacked one of our members. You have kidnapped the one person who could save the daughter of our leader. You are a threat.”
The fucker knows what he is doing. The men smile and nod and finger their guns.
“So that means I don’t get to go back. I’m fine with that.” I put a hand on Beryl’s shoulder. I would come back for her and I hope she knows it. I could never leave her alone with this man, let alone the group. But I can do nothing as a corpse.
Don grimaces. “Well, it’s not that simple. My men can’t be looking over their shoulders for the rest of their lives. This is a problem, as my papa used to say, best nipped in the bud.”
Silence. They wait. I don’t have any choices and they know it. They want me to make a dash, or fight them, anything to make it easier for them to pull the trigger.
“Come out boy,” Don croons, “we’ll make it quick. No need to cause more hurt than you already have.”
Headlights appear on the road and swerve towards us. The men turn, curious, as a truck crawls down the ditch and towards the group. It stops twenty feet away. I can’t see who gets out but I hear John’s voice.
“You found them.”
He states a fact. I had wondered, at the back of my mind, if he was the one who gave us away. Could he have told them that we were leaving? Would he?
I think if he had he would have been in the first group. Besides, Don seems less than pleased to see him. He gives a curt nod. “We did.”
John takes in the scene. “I think we can put the guns down, they are unarmed, right?”
Don shakes his head. “He took her against her will. He’s unstable.”
John laughs. “Yeah, he is unstable. But he didn’t take her.” I hear Wing saying a vehement defense that is hushed by John. I see Steven standing next to his brother. I love these men.
John walks forward and joins Don in center stage. “So what’s the plan?”
Don is wary. This is not how he wanted this to go. “We are taking her back.”
“And Harlan?”
Don shakes his head. There is silence. Don uses it to make a play. “I understand that he was your friend. Companion. You went through some hardships together. But you embraced us, and he tried to destroy us. You have to see that. We are trying to rebuild civilization and he would tear it down.”
John glances back in the direction of the burning town, then back at Don. No words need to be said. I see his mind working, he has his lawyer face on. “You’re right. We need to rebuild.”
Don’s face creases. He tries to figure out the lawyer’s tactic.
John continues. “Harlan is unstable. We saw the fight the other day. But,” he pauses dramatically, “we don’t know all the facts here. We don’t know why he and Beryl are out here.”
Muttering from the men. Someone laughs derisively.
“He deserves a trial,” John continues calmly. “A chance to tell his side of the story.”
; Don scoffs, throws his arms open as he kicks the asphalt. “What side of the story? You have almost twenty witnesses,” he splutters.
John looks him in the face and smiles. “But you said we are rebuilding civilization. It’s not civilized to execute a man. Or…” he looks at me. “To allow a man to kill just because he has a grudge.”
In the end we step out and Beryl holds my hand and the men are confused by this. They thought they were rescuing her. Don takes Beryl to his car and they sit, idling, as men drag me to a SUV and throw me in the back. They are angrier than before. They came out for violence and are pissed at the anticlimactic ending. Soot blackened faces twisted with anger and unsated blood lust. So they hiss threats and are rough with me and do all they can to provoke me and somehow salvage their evening.
The drive back is short, the distance we traveled pathetic. Just a quick flash of the fire and then back into the blue-black of the desert night.
We pull into Camelot and I am drug out of the car and across the grass with unshakeable déjà vu. The men confer with Don before he gently guides Beryl back to the condo. I wonder what Jimmy will say. I wonder if he will plead ignorance to our escape.
Rough arms take me across the street and through the sands towards the clubhouse. I am tossed into a utility shed and chains are drawn across the door. There is a click of a padlock. A crunch of footsteps outside and I hear Wing, his voice high, telling them he needs to talk to me. He is told to fuck off and, eventually, he does. I’m thankful. He probably would ask me why I left without telling him. Without asking him to come with. I don’t have an answer prepared.
The night is long and though I’m tired I don’t sleep. I pace the small room, fingers outstretched until I find the corners, and try to marshal my thoughts. It’s an impossible task. I sink to the floor and sit with head in hands as each desperate plan hatches a billion rebuttals.
I think of Beryl. Of the brothers and whether or not they’re still accepted by the other men after defending me. I think of my child. I wonder if it will be a boy or a girl, if it will have my hair or hers. God, I was so scared to be a father. As if I had somehow derailed my life, a life I had hitherto done nothing with. How silly that seems now. I was scared that people would judge my parenting, the fact that I didn’t have a job that would provide well for a growing family. Fear held so much sway in my life. And now… I would tell my child that all you can do is your best to smile, to savor your shout into the wind. Fuck what other people think.
