by John Shirley
She was aware that Jill had edged away, gotten her knees under her. Seemed to working to get as much slack in her chain as possible. Maybe to keep as far back as possible from Liddy. Saying nothing. Doing nothing, really.
She’s just going to sit there and watch while he rapes me . . .
Then Liddy was kneeling on Pendra’s ankles and the weight hurt. She yelled and spat at him and he laughed and clawed under her paisley frock and tore her underwear like tissue, and then he took his limp purplish little member in one hand and flopped on her, knocking the breath out of her, spraying her face with halitosis, licking her right ear. Trying to jam his limp dick in her. But it wasn’t working because he was on speed and most people, if they took enough, she’d heard, it made them impotent, and that was one thing, anyway. But then again, she thought, trying to get a breath, maybe it’s bad because he’ll get frustrated and start beating me instead; might end up killing me.
“Bitch!” he snarled, “rub up on me, show me them tits, you’re like a fucking rag, now open up . . . ”
The rage boiled up in her and overwhelmed her fear and she was shouting, “You can’t get it up because you’re a fucking meth head, a smelly, ugly—”
The rest of it was cut short as he gripped her throat with the long calloused fingers of his right hand and started to squeeze—
Then there was a sickening thunk. And he yelped like a whipped cur. And then another thunk, with a bit of a wet crunch at the end of it. Then another. Then two more quick. Each one wetter than the last. Blood streamed off him onto her face . . .
She heard Jill growling and grunting, and she pushed from beneath Liddy—and together they rolled his twitching body off her, so he was wedged on his left side, on the concrete floor. Staring, mouth open, between her and Jill.
Pendra turned and, panting, her neck aching, stared at Jill—who had a gun in her hand, a big automatic pistol held by the barrel. She’d reversed it, and there was blood and bits of bone and hair all over the gun butt. And some other gray stuff—maybe brains.
“Jesus, Jill!”
“I saw earlier, when he looked in on us—he had this sticking out of a back pocket. He had it in there when he laid down on you and . . . ” She held up her arms to show what she’d done. Wincing with the pain of the motion.
Then Pendra saw that a lot of skin was pared off of Jill’s left arm and it was bleeding badly. She’d forced it between tight lengths of chain to reach the gun.
“Oh God! You have guts!”
“I was afraid if I shot him the bullet might hit you too. So . . . .” Jill put the gun down on her lap, easing her chains back a bit on her wounded arms, sucking air between her clenched teeth. “Shit. Ow.”
“Oh God,” Pendra muttered, looking at Liddy. One of his eyes was open, the other closed; bloody drool dripped from his slack mouth. He wasn’t even twitching now. Dead. “I feel like I need to take three baths. He was so . . . I feel sick.”
“First thing is, how are we going to get these chains off? I’m sort of afraid of that thing you see in movies where you shoot a lock. I don’t think that works in real life . . . I mean, the ricochets—one of us could get killed trying it. It might not even work.”
“Uh—he said no one’s here. We can pull on the pipes, not worry about the noise. Wait . . . maybe he has the keys to these stupid padlocks . . . ”
They had to pull his body up closer between them to search it. Hard to do with so little slack. They managed, getting his blood all over them and not caring.
Pendra, feeling in his pockets, felt something metallic. “There’s something . . . not keys. Shit. Oh. It’s a big old pocket knife. That’s a pretty big knife. We could use the butt of the gun, slam the knife between the links, hammer it and pry it apart . . . ”
“Good idea. We have to pick the right links . . . ”
“Wipe the blood off that gun, Jill. Anybody comes in before we’re done, I am so totally shooting them right in the fucking balls.”
All the men were wearing their firemen’s coats, unbuttoned, and carrying guns. Dickie had a pistol and a 10-gauge shotgun that had belonged to Mario. Steven had an AR-15 rifle, but only fixed for semiautomatic—also rustled from Mario’s gun rack.
Nella looked the place over, as the Sand Scouts walked up, hoping the people weren’t home. But there was a generator running somewhere behind the house and an older silvery Jaguar in the driveway, so probably they were there. It was a three-story split-level redwood house, built down the hillside, with a pool in its backyard, covered over with a tarp. Driftwood and rosebushes decorated a professionally-gardened front yard edged with crushed seashells; an expensive-looking wrought iron mailbox out front. The blinds were all pulled. The gray lid of the sky seemed to suck color from everything. A little rain drizzled; a cold breeze made her skin bumpy.
“What the fuck we gonna do here?” Jeremy asked, his jaws making a couple of extra clacks at the end of the question, because of the meth. His eyes were big, his hands shaky. Abe and Evan looked even more nervous, dancing from foot to foot, looking around like foxes cornered by hounds. But Jeremy seemed ready to leap into anything.
“Shit, look at those two,” Randle jeered. “Look like they’re gonna piss their pants! What’s a matter, I thought you were gonna join us?”
“We are!” Jeremy said.
“Um—well—” Evan said.
Cholo and Steve and Dickie were standing between him and any place he could run to. Dickie was bringing out a pint bottle. “You see what this is? This is tequila. It says bourbon on the label here but I keep tequila in it. We found a shitload of this in Mario’s rec room. Now you’re gonna drink some of this, take the edge off the speed. Puke if you have to. And then in we go . . . ”
“In?” Abe asked, almost hyperventilating. “In where? In this place? Are the people there? They got a generator, I see a gen, a gen, a generator. We could steal the generator, if they’re not home.”
“Here—take a few hits.” Dickie handed him the pint bottle.
“Sure. I’ve had tequila. Not like we haven’t had tequila.”
“Stole it from your folks?”
“Hells—yeah!”
The men laughed. The boys drank. Nella waited in the background, hoping they’d forget about her so she wouldn’t have to do anything. Vaguely thinking maybe she should, after all, get away now, if they were distracted in the house.
But she followed them up to it like a plastic bag in the slipstream of a truck, as they strode up to the house, Dickie leading the way, the boys just behind him; the other men and Nella bringing up the rear.
“I saw somebody peek out the window upstairs,” Cholo said.
“Peekaboo in there!” Randle said. “Peek-uh-boo-ooooh!”
“Shut up, Randle,” Dickie said blandly.
“We’re not seeing any visitors!” shouted a reedy voice from the other side of the front door. “No visitors at all! We don’t have any supplies! We don’t have any medical stuff! We’ve been telling people that for days!”
“Fucking lying to them too!” Dickie said, laughing, pumping the shotgun. And he fired the 10-gauge through the middle of the walnut door. A fist-sized chunk of door vanished inward.
There was a pealing scream from inside, wavering up and down in pitch.
“Whoa!” Evan said.
“Tight!” Jeremy said.
“Fuck!” Abe said.
Dickie looked at them and chuckled fondly. “You kids. Adorable.” He tried the door. “Still locked though.”
“Let me get this,” Cholo said.
Dickie and the boys stepped aside, Cholo rushed the door, slammed it where the lock connected to the frame, and it popped inward.
Looking past them, Nella could just make out someone crawling up carpeted stairs in a high-ceilinged front hallway, trying to get to the second floor. An old man, looked like, leaving a trail of blood. Groaning.
Nella backed away—but Dickie seemed to sense it, and turned, gave her a look made ou
t of chilled metal. “Get over here. Now. I can feel you sneaking away. Don’t even fucking think about that.”
She walked automatically forward into the foyer, suddenly feeling the pain at her crotch again, and walked past the shattered door, waited by the red smear on the floor as the men and the three boys came in.
The old man, dressed in tan slacks and loafers and a yellow golf shirt, was almost to the second floor. He was face down, climbing, they couldn’t see the wound. A woman appeared on the stairs, a white-haired, pasty-faced woman with a wobbling head. Her thin hair was dyed blond; she wore a fuzzy yellow bathrobe and slippers. “Oh God. Morris. Oh no. Where are the police, where are the police?”
“Oh well, the police!” Dickie said, strolling around the bloody smear. “Now they want the police! Our ol’ pal Mayor Ferrara got rid of them! And, you know he got rid of anything connected with ‘big government,’ so that means no one’s here helping, which means, guess what—real freedom in Freedom! You people are free! We’re free! You’re free to defend your shit and we’re free to take your shit! It’s like the pioneer days when they crossed a fucking mountain range and found some people living on the other side and they killed them dead and took their shit away! Now we get to do that! We came over the mountain—so, we can just take your shit! It’s the inspiration of history! Breathtakin’ as the Grand Canyon! Ain’t freedom grand?”
Jeremy laughed. Abe snorted. Evan groaned. Definitely, Nella figured, having second thoughts.
“Steve,” Dickie said, “drag that old prick down here and the biddy too. Cholo, have a look around, see if anybody else is here, see what looks good.”
Steve climbed the stairs, looking a bit stiff and mechanical, his face drawn; Cholo went industriously to the living room, down another set of stairs, searching through the house . . .
A fleshy thumping, anguished sobs—Steve pulling the old man down the stairs by his ankles.
“Sorry, old dude,” he said, with a trace of real regret. “May as well get this bullshit over with.” Another trail of blood down the stairs. The old woman vanished at the top of the stairs, wailing.
Steve ran up the stairs after her. There was a crashing sound, breaking crockery.
“Hey, she’s throwin’ shit at him!” Jeremy crowed.
Dickie laughed. “Sounds like it.”
The elderly man lay groaning on the tile floor of the foyer. Then Steven appeared at the head of the stairs, shoving the old woman ahead of him. She came staggering down the stairs, blood seeping from a split in a swelling below her left eye.
Nella heard a muffled roaring, coming from somewhere between her ears and her brain. Demons, roaring. Her mother hissing.
Judgment, you servant of the great whore . . .
Cholo got there as the woman was pushed to her knees in front of Dickie. “Nobody here,” Cholo said. “Just them. And there’s some good stuff. Nice wine, cheeses, medical shit, extra gasoline. They’ve been holing up good here.”
“Selfish old fuckers, aren’t they?” Dickie said. “I can’t fucking abide people who don’t share.”
“You’re cowards!” the woman sobbed. “Shooting people through closed doors! Pushing old women around!”
“No, lady—we’re just free!” Randle said with exaggerated innocence. “The mayor said so!”
The men laughed and Dickie took a gun and handed it to Evan.
“You shoot that old lady in the head, kid, and you are thereby initiated. Go on—right in the head. Get ’er done.”
The kid looked at the big revolver in his hand and then at the shocked old woman.
“Mister,” the woman said, her voice tremulous, “don’t do that to that boy. Don’t make him do it. Do it yourself. But don’t force that boy to do it.”
“Got to! He’s got to initiate hisself! Go on, kid! Shoot her! Then you get first pick of her stuff!”
Evan looked at the shotgun in Dickie’s hand. Pointed at no one in particular. Then he looked at the old lady. Nella could imagine him thinking: What if I refuse?
He lifted the pistol, pointed it at the old woman’s head . . . his hand shaking . . . the gun wavering . . .
He licked his lips . . . and lowered the gun. “I can’t,” he said. “I don’t want to.”
“Then drop the gun on the floor,” Dickie said.
He dropped the gun, with a clatter. Dickie turned to Jeremy, who was following all this with snake fascination. “Pick up the gun, kid.”
Jeremy nodded, picked up the gun. Held it just like he’d seen in movies and videogames.
“Now point it at Evan’s head.”
“Evan?”
“Yeah.” And he pointed the shotgun at Jeremy. “Or I shoot you.”
Jeremy hesitated, and then he shrugged, and—the words coming between excited gasps—said, “This is kind of a cool situation. Like in a John Woo movie.” He pointed the gun at Evan’s head. “You ever see John Woo movies, Evan?”
Evan didn’t answer.
Dickie propped the shotgun on one hip, held it pointed with his right hand at Jeremy, with his left took a buck knife from his pocket. Opened it with the fingers of his left hand with a single, practiced motion, never looking at it. “Now . . . Evan—take this knife.”
Evan mutely took it.
“Jeezus, Evan,” Abe said.
“Evan,” Dickie went on, “Just stick it in her neck. That ought to be easier than a gun. You do that and Jeremy doesn’t have to shoot you.”
“I can’t,” Evan said, his voice breaking. Lips quivering.
“ ‘I can’t!’ ” Randle said, in a little girl voice.
Steve and Cholo didn’t laugh. They just glanced at each other. And watched. Nella realized they didn’t like this either. But they were scared of Dickie. And greedy for things. They weren’t going to do anything to stop it from happening.
“Jeremy, if he doesn’t stab her, count to three and then shoot him in the head.”
“Whoa, dude!” Abe said.
Jeremy had the gun pointed right at Evan’s head from the side, about six inches away. “Uh, okay, um—Evan? Better stab her.”
“I can’t.”
“Whatever, dude. One . . . Two . . . ”
“I can’t!”
“Three—”
Evan dropped the knife and ran for the farther door into the back of the house.
“Well, shoot him, you dumbass!” Dickie bellowed.
Jeremy squeezed the trigger, the barrel jerked, the roar of the gun echoed in the foyer, but the shot went way wide of Evan. Dickie swung the shotgun around and fired after the boy but he was already through the door—part of the frame vanished in buckshot.
“Go on!” Dickie shouted. “You too—what’s your name?—Abe! Go get him! He’ll tell the cops what you been part of! Go! Chase him down! Kill him!”
Still clumsily carrying the gun, Jeremy ran after Evan. Abe came after him, yelling, “Wait! Let me shoot it! You missed him! It’s my turn!”
There was a gunshot from the farther room, and then some confused yelling. “I think he got outside!” Jeremy yelled, from back there.
Dickie shook his head and sighed. “Fuckwads.”
“Good for you, kid!” the old lady said hoarsely. “You get away! You tell someone! You—”
Dickie turned the shotgun and blew the upper half of her head back onto her marble floor tiles. It took a moment for her body to flop back, follow her head. Then he shot the old man in the back, and Nella could tell Dickie wasn’t thinking about it as he killed the guy, his mind already on something else.
Dickie lowered the shotgun and turned to Steve. “You got a watch. What time is it?”
Steve stared at him, swallowed—then looked at his watch. “Oh—shit! It’s fifteen to noon! Didn’t we say noon for the delivery of our shit at that other house?”
“Yeah, we sure as fuck did. Dammit, we gotta get back there.” He pumped a round into the shotgun’s chamber as Jeremy and Abe returned. Gawping at the remains of the dead woma
n. Dickie snorted in disgust. “You little shits lost him. Didn’t you?”
“The back gate wasn’t completely closed,” Abe explained. “Jeremy shot at him but he missed. He wouldn’t let me shoot!”
“Shut up, Abe, Christ,” Jeremy said. “I know where he lives . . . ”
“No time for that bullshit,” Dickie said. “Toss that gun over.”
He pointed the shotgun at them. From five feet away.
“Jeremy,” Abe said, softly. “Don’t do that . . . Don’t give up the gun.”
“We have to. It’ll be okay. He’s gonna figure out we’re cool and shit.”
Jeremy tossed the gun on the floor. Dickie said, “Fun’s over. You seen too much and you ain’t coming with us.”
Nella turned away. She didn’t want to watch as Dickie shot the two boys. She walked out the front door. But she heard the gunshots—and heard them scream.
It took four shots in all.
She was partway back to the street Mario’s place was on when Dickie and Cholo and Steve and Randle caught up with her.
“Where you going?” Dickie asked, grabbing her arm and spinning her around.
“Nowhere. Home. Whatever you call it. Where we stay.”
He stared at her, breathing hard, eyes dilated. “Go on. But not Mario’s. We’re going to the other house.”
The house with the brass Jesus. “ ’Kay.”
She walked down the street and after a moment they followed, surprisingly quiet. Except after awhile, Randle started babbling about the old people’s house, maybe it should be their new headquarters, they could clean it up, it was a really cool place, it even had a pool.
“We have to fucking leave town, you retard,” Dickie said, “Once we get the stuff.”
“Yeah,” Steve said. Sounding a bit shaken. “Sooner or later the National Guard—they’ll be here. Someone anyway.”
“I’m not a retard, Dickie,” Randle said in a flat voice.
Dickie chuckled. “Sure as fuck are. You and your brother. When cousins marry.”
