Everything is Broken

by John Shirley

  Drawn by the look of happiness on Pendra’s face. Russ walked up to them, Dale following, in time to see her hand over a pair of glasses.

  “My glasses!” Jill gasped, putting them on. “Oh, it’s my extra pair! How did you get them? You can’t even get through to that house!”

  “Brand found a way through! We had to climb a bunch of shit. There was a mean-ass dog running around too. Somebody’s pit bull. But we got in!”

  “Pendra—thank you!” Jill hugged Pendra and Brand. Lingering on Brand, it seemed to Russ. Then she stepped back, smiling, and said, “I was just going to make a cup of tea on your Coleman stove!”

  “That’d be good. There’s stuff I need to talk to somebody about. I mean somebody female.”

  “Good. It’d be such a relief to talk about anything but the mayor and FEMA and if we’re running out of toilet paper and food for stray dogs and getting to Deer Creek . . . ”

  “You’re not coming to the meeting, Jill?” Dale asked.

  “Sure, but you guys will natter around in circles for at least forty-five minutes. We’ll come soon enough.”

  Dale nodded. “We got a meeting, Brand,” he said, scratching his head. “You coming or are you going to drink tea with the ladies?”

  “Well, if you put it that way I’d better come.”

  Russ nodded and followed Brand and Dale toward the gym; Jill and Pendra went into the apartment. It bothered Russ that they’d be in there alone. With all that had happened. But the door locked, after all . . .

  “What are we going to do about that asshole Mario?” Liddy Grummon asked.

  They were posted all around the living room of Mario’s place. The men in their firemen’s coats, but the coats not buttoned up. Nella was down in the corner, sitting on her sleeping bag; the others were on the sofa, the easy chairs, Sten glaring out the window, on lookout, the narrow opening where the curtains weren’t pulled. Randle Grummon was standing in the door to the kitchen, keeping watch out toward the back door.

  Lon Ferrara was standing dourly by the fireplace, head bowed, shotgun in his arms. Nella knew he had come full circle in his mind. The state he’d been in, all that crazy talk about making the town stay and rebuild, the razor wire, all that had drained away. She could see that in his face. Now he was just stuck with what he’d done. And with what had happened with his brother . . .

  Cholo and Steve and were there too, sitting on the arms of the sofa like bookends. Chuckles and Lucas and Remo were out guarding the road east.

  It was twilight outside. Someone had gone on a run to suction gasoline from a car and the generator was running, the heater in the house going, but cold air wafted from the bullet-busted back door.

  Dickie was sitting in the easy chair across from the fireplace, toying with a revolver, not pointing it anywhere in particular, not looking directly at Lon. But Nella knew Dickie and she could tell he was watching Lon Ferrara closely out of the corner of his eyes.

  “He’s gonna go around, jabbering,” Sten said. “That Mario guy.”

  “That Mario guy,” Ferrara growled, suddenly, “is my goddamn brother. He thinks you killed his kid. That’s wrong information, you tell me, fine. But something he saw in that woods spooked him.” He looked coldly at Nella. “Your little bitch was there with him.”

  She thought, I shouldn’t tell what’s out there. But then maybe I should. Could be it’d start them killing each other.

  It was hard to think, with this fever. Her mouth was so dry, lips chapped. She should go and drink some water . . . but it didn’t seem important. She felt no thirst . . .

  “What about it, uh—” Ferrara paused, trying to remember her name. “Nella. What about it, Nella?”

  She licked her lips. “What about what?”

  Dickie sighed. “Oh, I’m tired of this. I think what we’re gonna do is, we’re gonna do what General Patton would’ve done. We’re not going to do any kind of money transfers. We’re gonna carry the fight to the enemy. We’re gonna go down there and just line ’em up and say, turn over your valuables and your keys and we’re gonna go through all their shit and all their houses and then we’re gonna load all the shit on a couple of big trucks and get the fuck out of Dodge. This contract stuff—it’s never gonna happen.”

  “Ha!” Sten said, grinning at him from the front window. “Now you’re talkin’, chief!”

  Lon Ferrara shook his head, slowly. “No, no, that’s not part of the plan. You can forget that. I really think we’re going to have to take down that wire and . . . I’ll just have to take my losses. I just need to know what went on out in that woods. My brother—I figure he was just freaking out about his kid. Can’t find Antony since the tsunami. Going nuts from worry. We got lucky—no one was hurt when he flipped out. So let’s let it go and tell him . . . ”

  He broke off, staring at Dickie. Who had his gun pointed at him.

  “I can see from here,” Dickie said, “the safety on your shotgun is on. Take you a second to get your thumb there, flick it off. So drop that shit, there. Drop that shotgun, Lon. And you give me your bank account information. Because I don’t believe you’re broke. You’ve got an account in Deer Creek.”

  Ferrara squinted at him, as if trying to see him better. The Grummons looked at each other and hooted.

  Sten said, “Ha!”

  “See,” Dickie said, cheerfully, “I was going to wait on this, use your local authority, but you don’t seem to have any, and you’re still telling me what I can’t do, what I’m supposed to do. So we need to get you done and over with.”

  Cholo chewed his lip, looking like he was trying to make up his mind. Steve was moving his right hand around behind him—he had a pistol stuck in the back of his belt.

  Ferrara swallowed. He stared at the revolver in Dickie’s hand.

  “That’s right,” Dickie said. “No safety on this one.”

  Cholo turned to Steve and shook his head. “Dickie’s right. Lon’s plan ain’t gonna work, bro. Fuck it. Let him go. We’ll roll with these boys. Me, I’m gonna, anyhow.”

  Steve looked at him . . . and at Ferrara. Hesitated.

  “Steve,” Ferrara said, “You fucking work for me.”

  Wrong thing to say.

  Steve snorted and dropped his hand from his gun. “Oh fuck you.”

  Dickie said, coldly and sharply, every word carefully enunciated, “Now—Lon?—drop the gun. We’re going to talk about your bank account.”

  Ferrara licked his lips. And dropped the shotgun. It made a surprisingly loud clunk on the floor. He kicked it away. Spread his hands. “Whatever.” His face blank. “There’s not much in that account.”

  Nella was disappointed. They weren’t killing each other.

  Dickie looked toward Randle Grummon. “You get some rope, or chain, from out the garage, and—”

  Then he caught the movement from the corner of his eye, Ferrara was reaching under his coat for the pistol Nella knew was in his pants pocket.

  The pistol was out in Ferrara’s hand and he managed to squeeze off a shot, an ear-aching sound, the bullet going through the front window before Dickie, hissing “Motherfucker!” fired, and Ferrara rocked a step back, dropped his pistol, slid down the side of the fireplace, to sit close beside it, looking startled, mouth open. Ferrara coughed, just once—hard—and spat blood, dark red drops making scarlet teardrop shapes on his shirtfront. Cholo and Steve jumped up from the couch, backed toward the front window. Looking nervously at Sten—who had turned his gun toward the room—and Dickie and the Grummons.

  “Goddammit, Ferrara, you fucked up my plan,” Dickie said, going to squat by him, shaking his head. Scooping up Ferrara’s pistol with his free hand. Looking at Ferrara’s dying like a small kid staring curiously at an anthill.

  Nella could see blood welling. The shot had crunched right through his breastbone.

  Ferrara’s respiration was slow and rough and wet and she realized she was hearing his last breaths. What was that like, knowing it was your last breaths
? When she’d been caught in the big wave and tossed around, she was scared it was going to kill her, but she never really knew for sure. She’d felt somewhere deep down her time hadn’t yet come.

  Now she looked at Ferrara in raw envy. His last breaths.

  Another breath came and went.

  Dickie said, “Ferrara—I know you got your bank card. What’s your PIN number? Not going to do you any good now. We’ll spare your brother if you tell me.”

  Another long slow wet breath. Blood at his mouth. Ferrara tried to speak and only choked.

  “Ferrara—you don’t want us to kill Mario, right?”

  Another breath. Ferrara looking at Dickie, as if his eyes wouldn’t focus.

  “Ferrara? What’s your PIN number?”

  Another breath. Just barely slipping out.

  “Ferrara?”

  Another breath.

  “Ferrara! Hey, bro, listen! Maybe we can fix you up here . . . But first . . . ”

  Silence. Ferrara’s chest stopped moving. His eyelids drooped. His head lolled.

  “Fuck,” Dickie said. He stood up. “Oh well. Probably didn’t have much in that account anyway. I think the prick hid a lot of cash from the IRS in some safe in his bar and that whole building’s under the ocean now.”

  “We could find that Mario, see what he knows about that cash,” Sten suggested. “Could be hidden somewhere else.”

  “That’s a thought. But Mario’s liable to make me kill him too.”

  “I got another thought,” Sten said, as the Grummon brothers dragged Lon Ferrara’s body outside, through the back door. Each taking one of the corpse’s arms. Out to the woods.

  “You see how red his blood is,” Randle Grummon was saying, as they dragged him out. “He took iron pills.” Sounded quite serious about it. “Told me so.”

  “Go on, Sten,” Dickie said. “What were you saying?”

  Nella was just sitting there on her sleeping bag in the corner, vaguely disappointed, smelling the gunsmoke in the room, and the blood, and watching Ferrara’s shoes disappear around the edge of the door as they dragged him out past her.

  “What I’m thinking is,” Sten said, “we could make them bring the good stuff to us, maybe.”

  Dickie pursed his lips, tilted his head thoughtfully. “If we take something they want back?”

  “Yeah. Maybe some kids. Maybe some . . . women.”

  “Those planner guys, that Brand—they always seem to keep that Pendra chick and that Jill around,” Cholo pointed out. “Like they’re real concerned about them.”

  Dickie looked at him. “I’m not so sure about you, Cholo. Seemed like you might’ve jumped the other way.”

  Cholo shook his head, without hesitation. “No. I’m in this now. I like the idea of getting what we can, take it out of town, sell it all somewhere. Jewelry, cash, drugs, maybe a couple real nice cars, whatever they’ve got. There’s a lot of people there and it didn’t all wash out to sea.”

  Sten gave Dickie a wry look, eyebrows raised. “Cholo here’s not grieving much for his ol’ pal Lon, is he?”

  They all had a good laugh at that. Except for Nella.

  She just waited, feeling the low fever go through her, in slow waves, like the sullen undulation of the sea.

  “All we can do,” said the big, white-haired, round-headed man standing by the gym bleachers—someone had said he was the high school principal—“is just wait. I mean they can see the ocean from up on that pass, if you try to get a boat down the coast, they’ll see and they’ll set up on those cliffs and take potshots at you.”

  We’re all just cowering in here, Russ thought.

  At least two hundred people were gathered in the dimming light of the gymnasium—no one had turned on the generator yet. Brand was standing by Dale and Russ on some bleachers to one side; most people were spread out, sitting and standing, on the wrestling mats they used for mattresses. Russ sat on the bleachers a little behind them, near Lucia, who was wearing her white nurse’s uniform because, she said, it got people to listen to her when she had to tell them what to do.

  Russ looked around for Pendra, didn’t see her. Probably still talking to Jill. The women seemed to be bonding. Enjoying their tea probably. But he kept uneasily glancing at the door, looking for Pendra, for either of them.

  The principal puffed his cheeks out, passed a hand over his thinning hair, and went on. “That’s the kind of people they are. Dickie and his bunch. I’ve known Dickie since he was a kid and he’s no good. I don’t suppose it’s all his fault. His folks . . . ” He shook his head sadly. “Mom in prison, his dad a crack addict. We tried to get him some guidance. I don’t know how many of you remember Leonard Courtland—it was some years ago, he was a school counselor—Courtland said the wrong thing to Dickie, that was the story from the other kids. And the guy just vanished. We never saw Lenny Courtland again.”

  “Hey, Norm,” someone said, from the back. “You don’t know Dickie Rockwell killed that guy.”

  The principal shrugged. “Practically bragged about it after. But no body was found. Courtland had no family, so . . . ”

  “What’s the relevance of all this?” Dr. Spuris asked.

  “The relevance is that Dickie is hopelessly damaged goods,” Brand said. “And people have disappeared around him since then. The relevance is that he’s a killer.”

  Norm the Principal nodded. “That’s the rumor.”

  “And,” Brand went on, “we have to be willing to accept he might do any damn thing to anyone. So we have to be willing to fight to protect ourselves. There’s also the VVs to think about. And who knows what else is out there?”

  “And Ferrara’s trying to extort this town,” Dale said. “I for one am not going to stand for that bullshit. I fought in the Gulf War. I didn’t serve my country so people could order me around just because they got a goddamn rifle in their hand.”

  There was a grumble of response across the room, agreement and uncertainty overlapping. Russ looked around for Pendra. Didn’t see her. Maybe he should go get her, bring her to the meeting.

  “Now north and south the highways are blocked,” Dale said. “Beaches end in cliffs, sheer cliffs. Dickie’s bunch, Ferrara, all those assholes, they’re watching the way east. So that leaves sending a boat out of here. Or trying to get through the hills again.”

  “We can climb the cliffs,” said a young man standing near the wall. “Head south along the highway to the next town that way.”

  “They’ll see you climb those cliffs,” said Lars. He was lying on his back on the floor near the bleachers, staring spacily at the ceiling. He waggled his bare feet, crossed over his ankles. “Shoot you off the cliffs, day or night. They got a man watching them.”

  “I think we should repair a boat and send somebody down the coast,” Brand said. “We could get it going in a day or two. I can sail. I’ll go with someone else. We’ll get the law in here. But here’s the bottom line. They murdered someone right in front of me. They threatened that same man before at their little roadblock up there. And they’re threatening us still. So we have to assume . . . ”

  “Maybe you provoked them,” said Norm the Principal, “what with going up there with your guns. They can argue that in court, that they were just camping, watching for looters. It’s your word against theirs who fired first. I mean, I believe you, but when it comes to a court . . . ”

  It went on like that, with more people on the wait and see side, and Russ thinking of speaking up and letting them know how he felt, that they needed to do something about his dad being shot down, but feeling kind of weak and sick and tired and just waiting till the moment came when he’d know for sure which way was north.

  He found himself listening to the prattle of three young teen boys, sitting nearby on the bleachers. Talking in low voices. The adults, apart from Russ, not listening. Russ knew the boys’ names from the gym, the food lines. They’d come here with Mrs. Patterson, who was talking to Reverend Lopez on the other side of the gym—
her husband had been killed in the tsunami. Drowned in his car. One of the kids was a squat, pimply, longhaired blond boy with a nose piercing and a faded old Marvel Comics sweatshirt. Wolverine. That was Mrs. Patterson’s son, Evan; the other two were neighbor kids staying with her because their house had fallen in. The tall boy, willowy, with a long neck, big Adam’s apple, his brown, black-streaked hair in something like a mullet, was Jeremy. He sat bent like a vulture over the other two. “This is actually better than bein’ at home,” Jeremy said. “So boring there.” He wore a black T-shirt with the image flaking off, a blood-splashed cartoony picture of the rapper Necro dressed in Dracula-style hat and cape, with shapely bikini-clad girls draped on his arms; Jeremy’s oversized jeans were low on his thin hips, half his boxers showing. On the bleacher below him, beside Evan, sat his half-brother Abe.

  “No fuckin’ nothin’ at home,” Abe said. His voice was distinctly nasal. He was not as tall as Jeremy, but equally gangly, with a beaklike nose and jug ears, slack mouth, red-brown hair in a faux hawk. He wore a gray hoody and droopy pants.

  “I still think we could bring a TV up here to the gym,” Evan said, “and my PlayStation. Use the generator power here . . . ”

  “We asked, they won’t let us, I don’t know why,” Abe said. “Sucks. So boring. Fucking PSP gone dead now.”

  “Those guys up on the hill, man,” Jeremy said, “they’re partying with the chronic up there and they’re gonna shoot people . . . ”

  “It’s so boring at home, can’t even text, no cells, no Web, no PlayStation, no way to charge my iPod . . . ”

  Evan said, “Tired of reading my old comics. We could play Beer Pong. If we had some beer. But we don’t. I’ve seen Beer Pong on YouTube. Always wanted to play it. But hey—we could, like, get electricity going, then we could get PlayStation going. We could scrounge a generator somewhere.”