by Lee Hayton
Robert almost relented. Then a hailstorm of gunshots sounded in the distance. His testosterone surged. “No. I don’t want you out there alone. Any of you.” He pointed at the teenagers just in case they hadn’t caught his drift.
Annie pushed him away from the back door, the bulge of the holstered Remington disturbing the line of her sweatshirt. “Now’s not the time to be sexist,” she said, clicking off the lock on the back door. “I can defend myself as well as you can.” She turned and looked him up and down. “Old man,” she added, shouldering open the door.
Frankie and Becca giggled and followed Annie outside. “Why don’t we just all go together?” Robert muttered under his breath. The beat of his heart was ramping up.
Outside, the light was fading from the sky, thick clouds forming an opaque barrier between them and the sun. Midday. The worst day of his life, so far.
He cupped his hands together and crouched, letting Annie place her foot in the cup before boosting her over the fence. Apparently, sexism stopped being objectionable when it came in handy. After Frankie and Becca had followed, Robert’s back gave a painful twinge.
He placed his hands on the top of the rough wood and jumped up. One elbow hooked over the top, Robert started to slide back down. Becca jumped on the crossbeam and grabbed him under the arms. She held him until he could swing his leg over. The skin of his cheeks warmed.
Old man.
Annie knocked at the door then stood back, shuffling her feet. When Robert joined her on the stoop, gun out, she frowned.
“I don’t want to scare Lisa. We’re just asking for a loan of her car.”
Robert retreated two steps, moving his arm to hide the pistol behind his leg. “Better safe than sorry.”
Annie’s mouth opened to respond, then the back door pulled open. A woman swayed in the doorway, her hands cradling her head.
“Lisa—”
Before Annie could get further, Lisa staggered out one step. Two. Her right arm stretched out toward them.
Robert grabbed at Annie, aiming for her shoulder but ending with a fistful of fabric instead. “Get back, she’s ill.”
Annie turned to him, one hand reaching for her neighbor, the other lost inside her pulled sleeve. “She needs help.”
Lisa shrieked and lunged. Robert stepped forward and pushed her away from Annie with his shoulder, shoving at Lisa like a bull, until she was back inside her house. Slamming the door closed, he held onto the door handle. After a moment, he could feel it turning in his hand.
“Get back,” he shouted. His palms were slippery with sweat. He leaned back, letting his weight do the work of keeping the door pulled shut, squeezing to keep his grip.
Frankie jumped the fence first, followed quickly by Becca. Annie backed toward the wall, her forehead creased, her mouth open.
The handle slid beneath his slick hands. The door inched open before slamming shut again. “Get back. I can’t hold it,” he shouted, and Annie turned and ran. Stepping on the crossbeam of the fence, she boosted herself over and disappeared.
His palms slipped, and Robert staggered back a step, throwing out his arms for balance. The door swung open, and Lisa stared at him, her face contorting into a Halloween mask.
As Robert gained his balance, he turned on his heel and fled. He banged against the fence, expecting Lisa to grab hold of his back, his leg, his ankle, as he leaped up and tumbled over.
On the other side, while the girls softened his landing, Annie jumped up on tiptoes to peer over the wall. Her hand snaked under her open sweatshirt to rest atop her holstered weapon.
She jumped, craning her neck. Then she turned and extended a hand to help Robert to his feet. “She’s gone back inside.”
Robert groaned as he stood upright. His knees were too old for this excitement.
“Now what?” asked Frankie.
#
Robert led them down the street, choosing houses with short fences so they could go around the back, out of sight. After winding himself once, Robert wanted to avoid it again. But he preferred the back yards to the pavement out front. The suburbs were unnaturally quiet—until the next burst of gunfire shattered the peace.
Despite Annie’s earlier protests of sexism, in the last few minutes, he felt they’d placed on him the mantle of leader. This being the role he’d so recently abandoned in the workplace, the cloak fitted him quite well. Even if it was unwanted.
When he thought of Annabelle grimly vacuuming the last time he’d seen her, Robert’s heart cried out for his wife. Rather than risk the assistance of another neighbor, another stranger, he opted to lead them back to the car he owned.
The car would easily fit the four of them. Annie wanted to track her husband and son, and her call of first dibs was fair enough. But once they’d tried that, Annabelle was next, and Frankie’s home would be their last port of call.
A vehicle engine revved out on the road, and Robert gestured at a whispering Frankie and Becca for quiet. Keeping in the shade of the current property’s house, he crept closer to the street. Once past the front rooms, he used the beautiful rosebushes for their scant cover.
The sound of the engine revved and faded, revved and faded. The vehicle was apparently parked. What on earth were they doing?
Wishing he could shove a fitter and younger man in front of him, Robert moved into the dubious cover offered by a white picket fence. From here, the cover ended as the trim lawn stretched down to the curb.
The engine belonged to a wide red convertible. Robert had been out of touch with muscle cars for long enough, he couldn’t be sure of the model.
A man in the back seat gave a whooping cry and jumped out of the car, leaving the door closed. His friend stayed in the front, foot stomping the accelerator like the foot pedal on a piano, the engine its one-note song.
The first man grasped a machete in one hand, the glinting blade a foot long. In his other hand, he held a revolver, barrel pointing to the ground. He leaned back against the vehicle, head moving side to side as he scanned the nearby houses.
Intricate wheel rims decorated the tires backed with a gleaming double-wide exhaust. Robert saw a curtain twitch in the house opposite. Another neighbor checking out the scene.
The man whooped again and ran up the path to the front door. When he found it locked tight, he shot at the handle—one, two, three—then switched his gun to his jeans pocket so he could reach his hand through the newly created gap to pop the lock.
The door banged up against a security chain, so he pushed his shoulder into the wood and propped his leg against the doorjamb for leverage. When the thin metal split, he staggered inside a step before regaining his balance. Another whoop and he disappeared inside.
“What’s happening?”
Robert put a finger to his lips and motioned Frankie to fall back a step, behind him. “Just some pumped-up guys in a car. They’ll probably move on soon.”
She craned her neck to see around him, and he duckwalked back a step to block her view. Not that anything was happening.
The sun appeared from behind clouds, and the car basked in the afternoon rays. With the driver’s hair slicked back, sunglasses shielding half his face, he looked like a rebel without a cause.
Robert’s stomach tightened. The muscles in his thighs twanged with adrenaline. One of the driver’s arms stretched along the seat back of the convertible, hand clutching a pistol. The other lay on the bottom curve of the steering wheel—far away from the ten and two Robert’s father had drilled into him as a young driver.
A muffled blast made Robert flinch, soon followed by another. With a whoop, the first man ran back out of the house. He dragged the curtain-twitching occupant in his wake.
What was left of her.
He dumped the remains in front of the car and dropped his weapons long enough to slather his arms with her blood.
“Listen up, people!” he shouted. The man still in the car revved the engine for attention. “This here is our street. You’ve seen the news
; you know the shit that’s happening. Well, we don’t want that same trouble going down here. If you’re sick, you tell Barry,” he waved at the driver, “and he’ll take care of you. The rest, if you don’t want any trouble, you bring your weapons out now and leave them in a neat little pile. Comprende?”
The engine revved and faded, revved and faded.
A door opened in the house next door. Out walked a middle-aged woman, arms bundling knives and a rifle in a hastily gathered pile. Two yards back from the car, she dropped them onto the ground then backed away, turning to run when she was nearer her door than the vehicle.
“See, that’s the spirit. It’s for your own good, folks. Once we know you’re not going to go crazy shooting at us, we can keep you all safe.”
Another neighbor edged out his door, holding a holster and a supermarket bag heavy with ammunition. When Machete Man gave another enthusiastic whoop, the man threw his collection as hard as he could. The thin plastic bag split, boxes skidding in all directions. The holster landed squarely on the chest of the dead woman and stayed there, stuck with drying blood.
“Keep ’em coming, people. We’re not going anywhere.” The engine revved again in agreement.
Robert duckwalked back into Frankie, then gestured up the driveway to where the others waited. Rejoining them, he pointed to the last fence they’d vaulted. As he helped Becca over, Robert heard the man whooping again, followed by a scream. Someone was not toeing the line.
“We need to find another way out of here,” he whispered. “What’s at the back there?”
Becca and Annie, both locals, looked at each other and shrugged. “It’ll be near Main Street,” Annie ventured. “Other than that, I don’t know. I’m not good with directions.”
Robert felt the weight of their lives in his hands. He didn’t want to be a leader. When he’d built up his company, it was fun, right up to the point where he hired his first employee and was responsible for someone’s livelihood. After that . . .
But the decision had to be made. “Right, we’ll try it anyway. Those guys may be stationary for now, but they’ll start going door to door soon. We need to be out of here before that happens.”
They nodded and walked where he pointed. Robert could only hope he led them the right way.
Frankie
Frankie jumped into immediate alertness when Robert laid a hand on her arm. Although earlier she’d been sure sleep would never happen, at some point, she’d dozed off.
The four of them were crammed into a small fort in a suburban park. When their passage became too treacherous, they’d decided to wait it out until nightfall. The darkness might not stop the sick people marauding with guns, but it should offer an added layer of cover during any further gang encounters.
She shifted from buttock to buttock, each one numb. The stiffness in her neck departed with a loud crack as she stretched out her spine.
Annie and Robert jumped down into the bark of the playground, Becca following quickly behind. Frankie’s mouth split open into a yawn as she swung down the stepladder. An echo of defending a similar fort as a child drifted through her mind. I’m king of the castle, you’re a dirty rascal.
The stars above her twinkled with bright light, too many to count. Far more than usual.
When they emerged onto the road, Frankie saw why. The streetlights were out. With the light pollution evaporated, the night sky came into its own. She stared upward, openmouthed until Becca gave her a light shove.
Earlier, when Robert had pushed her back from the spectacle in the street, Frankie had briefly frozen. While the others plotted an escape plan, the individual muscles in her body tightened into knots that wouldn’t let go.
The same thing had happened back at the school. Frankie’s thighs had been tensed, ready to spring forward and slide the gate across. Next thing she knew, Becca had run past her, performing the task Frankie had assigned to herself. Her friend’s momentum broke her paralysis. She'd followed Becca and manhandled the grate into the position, but for a moment, her mind had been completely absent, her body a statue.
No one noticed the second time. Only Frankie was aware of what happened, her senses at a heightened stage because of what had gone before. By the time Robert called the decision, and the group headed off, her mind had rejoined her body and thawed it into motion.
The darkened streets held a variety of vehicles looming out of the dark night. Windows shot out, drivers killed—Frankie was glad she couldn’t look too closely.
Able to move at speed now, the group quickly arrived at the junior high school. Here, occasional lights shone out from the darkness—solar energy panels full from the day’s sunshine.
A clang sounded from the fire escape ladder. Frankie’s head whipped around, eyes squinting in the darkness to try to see. A box alongside the school wall scraped along for a second. The sound of snuffling. Her heart started to beat again. Just a raccoon or a possum.
Becca touched her elbow, and Frankie grasped her hand lightly to give it a squeeze. Her shoulders relaxed, and her feet found their rhythm again as they continued onward, side by side.
“Not long now,” Robert called back down the line.
Ahead of her, Annie stumbled and cursed. A mommy curse—dammit—not the swear word that would have issued from Frankie’s mouth. Becca giggled. She always did that, her empathy letting loose a string of merriment that offered no comfort to the recipient. In the wrong company, it could earn her a punch.
The wind picked up, spinning some loose leaves or rubbish around her feet. The jacket Frankie’s mother always insisted she wore, the one she’d left hanging on the hook by the front door, would be welcome right about now. Instead, she shivered, her only defense against the cooling night.
Becca slowed her steps, and Frankie matched her stride.
“It’s here,” Robert called out. Frankie stepped forward to lay her palm flat on the smooth, cold metal of the rear door, relieved the car wasn’t an illusion. She tapped her fingernail against the glass window, waiting impatiently as he patted himself down to locate the keys.
Part of her wanted to wrest control, elbow Robert aside and take over. Then Frankie’s stomach knotted, acid refluxing in a burning gush up her throat, and she pushed that instinct for leadership down.
She’d led a group already today, and look how that turned out. If Becca hadn’t been so fat and Frankie hadn’t inhaled half a ceiling full of dust, they’d be dead now, too.
The car beeped and unlocked, the sound and the flash of lights strumming discordantly on Frankie’s overstrung nerves. The adults took the front seats while she and Becca slid into the back.
A makeshift family.
In the overhead light, Frankie could see the strain on everyone’s faces. Annie’s eyes were swollen and red. The side of Robert’s face was streaked with mud. Or blood. Becca had a raw scratch down her cheek where she’d crossed paths with a tree and come off worse.
Robert inserted the key in the ignition and turned it. The passengers released a collective breath as the engine started and he eased the car into drive.
“Over to you, Annie. Where do I need to go?”
Chapter Six
Annie
Greg’s work was in midtown. Annie guided Robert through emptied streets, navigating via landmarks rather than direction. With street lighting missing and vehicles piled up in obstructions, it left Annie second-guessing herself at every turn until they closed in on their target.
“I’ll go in alone,” she announced as they pulled up outside—an echo of Robert.
Frankie snorted. “Fuck that. I’m not sitting in the car waiting to be attacked.” She was already out the door. Becca awkwardly scooted across the back seat, following her.
“Fine. We can all go.”
Annie pulled at the lanyard and lifted the ID tag out from her blouse. The automatic doors to the front of the building were closed tight, but she walked to one side and located a keypad that she entered his bank PIN into. Greg’s memo
ry for numbers was about as good as hers for directions.
The side door released with a dull clang and Annie led the way inside. A green button to the side of the inner doors let them through into the reception area, and Greg’s pilfered swipe card gained them access to the main floor.
Annie’s heart beat harder as she walked into the dim clutch of cubicles, head swiveling from left to right in search anything familiar. The emergency lighting on the walls and exit signs was all the illumination available.
Becca’s sharp eyes saw it first. She gave a low call, pointing to a pinned photo of Annie and Greg on the beach. A photograph from six years ago, both of them relaxed. Each wore a broad, suntanned smile and little else.
Before their marriage. Before Mikey.
The last vacation they’d taken together, away from home.
The overhead fluorescents flickered on, finally catching up to their presence. In their harsh glare, Annie took a seat at her husband’s desk and booted up his computer.
“What is this place?” Frankie leaned her pointed chin on the partition boards, a disembodied head peering around with curiosity.
“Homeland Security.”
At a gasp, Annie turned to Robert and shook her head. “It’s nothing like you’re thinking. Greg’s an accountant. They balance out the budget, nothing more.”
“Don’t mind if I check it out?”
“Knock yourselves out. There’ll be food in the kitchenette if you’re hungry.” She smiled. “Just avoid the stuff with names written on it. It’s labeled for a reason.”
Becca stared at her, a frown lining her forehead with future wrinkles. Then she leaned forward and snorted, the sound inappropriately loud. Loud and contagious. Frankie’s face relaxed into a smile. Robert managed the ghost of a grin. It was a brief respite from the relentless anxiety of the day.
