by James Sperl
“Mom, the fires—”
Gunshots rang out in the opposite direction driving Catherine and Josh involuntarily to their knees. Three quick bursts followed by a distant chorus of raucous laughter. Catherine peered around the edge of a ragged shrub and looked in the direction of the gunfire while simultaneously pulling out her Magnum and flipping off the safety.
Shadowy figures drifted into view near Fifth Avenue, one of the main arteries into Coffee Lane. Whoever these men were—and it was clear to Catherine that’s exactly what they were: men—they made no attempt to conceal themselves, walking brazenly down the middle of the street for all to see.
Struggling through the blackness, Catherine could just make out four individuals. One suddenly stopped and shot out one of the few remaining plate glass windows of what had been a shoe store. The men laughed again as if this were the funniest thing they had ever seen.
“They’re easily entertained,” Josh said from over Catherine’s shoulder.
“I think we should gather everyone up and get as much distance between those trigger-happy fools and ourselves as soon as possible.” Catherine said. “I’m desperate for help, but not at the risk of putting any of you in danger.”
Josh nodded without hesitation. “I’ll get Tamara.”
“Thanks, kiddo,” Catherine whispered gratefully.
As Josh stood and flung the rifle onto his back, he suddenly became acutely aware of another presence. And when he heard footsteps, his worst fears confirmed, he turned suddenly to warn his mother.
“Mom, I hear—”
But his sternly whispered words dropped out of the air like a cannon ball when he saw the three men standing with Catherine, their guns pointed at her head.
7
Coffee Lane
“Ellwesa, ellwesa. Atwhasa oodosa eweesa avehasa erehesa?” said the man in front holding a revolver to Catherine’s temple and relieving her of her gun. Surprisingly well shaven with only a two or three day growth, his clothes were not as haggard as one would expect. While certainly dirty, they were a far cry from the tattered rags so often portrayed in film and television where apocalypse was concerned. Even in the darkness the man’s sparkling new Adidas could be seen.
“Oowhosa reasa ooyoosa?” he said, eyeing Josh but speaking to Catherine.
She could tell the gibberish he was spewing was a question of some sort based on the intonation and the lilting quality of the final word. But for the life of her she’d no idea what the hell was being said.
“Please, my name’s Catherine Hayesly and these are my children. Don’t hurt us. We just need some help. We’re looking for a car...or, or transportation of some sort so we can find—”
“Eesheesa eedsnesa asa arcasa!” a pudgy man with muttonchops blurted out from behind Catherine as he kept the barrel end of his rifle placed firmly at the base of her skull.
“Look,” Josh began, the first tingling of fear-induced nausea beginning to creep in, “we don’t want any trouble. We...we just need some help.”
The third man, a small but stocky guy with a shaved head, walked out from behind Catherine in a large arc as if he were keeping his distance from her and pointed a shotgun directly at Josh.
“Oh, please,” Catherine began to cry, “don’t hurt him. We don’t want any trouble. Please.”
The Stocky Man walked up to Josh, but kept his distance. “Utpusa owndosa ethesa ungussa,” he said firmly.
Josh stared at him, his eyes filling with tears. “I don’t understand what you’re—”
“Utpusa owndosa ethesa ungussa!” the Stocky Man screamed causing Josh to jump.
“I think he wants you to put your rifle down. Just do it, sweetheart,” she said, doing all she could to keep from flying into a maternal rage.
Josh looked from the Stocky Man to Adidas Man and held his hands, palm out, into the air in a gesture of peace. Slowly, with his right hand he loosed the rifle strap from his shoulder and set the freed weapon on the pavement taking a step backwards to verify he understood the “request”.
Stocky Man stepped forward and viciously kicked the rifle away into the inky blackness, smiling ominously at Josh. He then raised his shotgun at him, chest high.
Catherine screamed, “No! No, don’t do it! Please!”
“Mommy, what’s happening?” Tamara said from the darkness, her small voice cutting through the air like a hot knife through butter.
The Stocky Man’s head spun so fast in her direction Josh thought he might have given himself whiplash. “Omtosa, etgesa verosa erehesa,” he said calmly to Muttonchops who then briskly joined him and pointed his rifle in at Tamara and Abby who had just been jarred awake.
Abby shook the lingering heaviness of sleep from her head and quickly assessed the situation. She hopped to her feet, pulling Tamara behind her. “Mom, what’s going on?” she said shakily.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Everything’s gonna be all right,” Catherine stated, sounding not at all convinced of that outcome.
Muttonchops leaned over conspiratorially and whispered into Stocky Man’s ear. Stocky Man smiled at whatever was being said to him, then backpedaled over to Adidas Man and proceeded to speak at a low volume into his ear.
Catherine glanced into the eyes of her children, never in her wildest dreams imagining that she would find herself in a situation such as this. The look of fear on their faces would be emblazoned in her mind forever.
She couldn’t hear what was being said, but Catherine could see Adidas Man nodding agreeably out of the corner of her eye. When Muttonchops was finished, Adidas Man walked forward and stared in at Abby and Tamara, keeping his revolver trained on Catherine the entire time.
And as she witnessed the salivating stares directed toward her daughters by the men, a wave of fear washed over her so intensely she thought she might actually pass out.
“What do you want from us?” she managed to force out, pushing back the terror in her voice and distracting the men from their ogling.
Adidas Man walked back toward her, stepping closer than any of the men had thus far. He reached around with his free hand and freed Catherine’s hair from its tie, allowing her dark brown locks to fall seductively over her face and shoulders. He placed the barrel of his revolver under a wavy tress near her collarbone and flipped it with a flick of the gun onto her back. He looked at her closely, as if inspecting her from head to toe like a choice cut of meat he was considering. He sniffed her hair, then her neck.
Catherine wanted desperately to close her eyes and find a happy place, but didn’t want for even a second to take her eyes off the other men standing near her children. Adidas Man placed his hand gently on her breast filling Catherine immediately with revulsion. He leaned in close to her ear and said in the clearest English, “You’re all right, aren’t you?”
Catherine turned and looked sharply at him, confusion etched on her face.
“I’ll take this one,” Adidas Man said to the others loud and clear.
The men smiled wide as if this were the cue they had been waiting for. And before Josh could even make sense of what was about to happen, the Stocky Man took two purposeful steps toward him and slammed the butt of his rifle into the side of Josh’s skull, laying him out flat.
“NO!” Catherine screamed as she charged toward her son, but Adidas Man’s arm ensnared her waist, promptly withholding her. In a flash her focus shifted to her vulnerable daughters. She turned and screamed wildly at them, “Run!”
But the hiding place that had been chosen for its secluded nature had now become the prison cell from which no one could escape. Abby snatched Tamara’s hand and did an about-face seeking out an exit from the horrors just mere feet behind her. But two months of neglect had allowed the surrounding shrubbery to grow into an impassible wall and as Abby spun back around to face the only escape route possible, she was met with a grimy hand from Muttonchops over her mouth. His other hand clamped around her arm and yanked her from her sister.
“Mommy!” Tamara
cried, tears spilling from her eyes as Stocky Man strode for her and picked her up, throwing her over his shoulder like a Neanderthal.
“You leave them alone!” Catherine screamed, her voice cracking at the intensity of her own yell. “They’re just children!”
Abby swung wildly at Muttonchops, hitting him about the face with her free arm and drawing blood over an eye. Muttonchops grabbed her by the throat forcefully and shoved her to the ground.
“You ought not do that again. Am I clear?” Abby eyed him with the hatred of a swarm of angry wasps, but said nothing.
Tamara kicked and screamed over Stocky Man’s shoulder, flailing helplessly as she was carried away from the rest of the group, disappearing behind a small thicket of trees.
Catherine watched as Tamara dissolved into the darkness and for the first time in her life actually prayed for the death of another human being. So this is the way it was, she thought. Man, reduced back to our most primal, savage essence. For much of her life Catherine had believed that people were basically good at heart, ready, willing and able to do the right thing when a situation called for it. But now she was beginning to suspect that it was all pie-in-the-sky bullshit. That the true nature of man was basically violent, callous and opportunistic, eager to stomp on the fingers of another as they hung perilously from the cliff of life.
This was the way it was now. And it was up to Catherine to decide if she wanted to continue to hang from that proverbial cliff or pull herself up and do some stomping of her own. If she and her children were to die today it would be at her hands and of her doing, not at the hands of three molesters.
Her words conjuring hidden strength, Catherine raised her right leg and came down with all her might on the top of Adidas Man’s foot with the heel edge of her shoe. Unprepared for the assault, Adidas Man loosened his grip on Catherine’s waist. Taking advantage, Catherine spun, thrusting both her arms forward and catching him in the chest. The force of her push sent him careening backwards onto the pavement with a yell.
With a renewed sense of survival she charged like a wild lioness toward Muttonchops. Barely able to lift his head in time to see the fury that was Catherine Hayesly barreling towards him, Muttonchops feebly raised an outstretched hand to block the impending attack. But it may as well have been a stick with five twigs on the end. For as Catherine reached the vile lump of manshit that straddled her daughter, her speed and the pendulum-like momentum of her swinging leg in full arc smashed his own hand into his face so hard the fingers could be heard snapping like toothpicks.
Muttonchops flopped onto the sidewalk writhing in pain as he gripped his devastated hand; blood gushed from his now flattened nose and pooled in a black pond on the concrete.
Catherine spun, the adrenaline surge spiking uncontrollably in her as she saw Adidas Man climb uneasily to his feet. In a flash she snatched up Muttonchops’s rifle, raised and pointed it at Adidas man and without a second of hesitation pulled the trigger.
But nothing happened.
The empty click may as well have been a thunderclap but even so she would have had trouble distinguishing it from the sound of her own heart thumping in her ears. She fumbled over the rifle, realizing she was in no way familiar with the particular make or model. And now was not the time to acquaint herself.
Sensing the downward spiral of her actions, Catherine watched as Adidas Man climbed to his feet and began searching wildly around him for the gun that had been knocked from his grasp upon meeting pavement.
“I’m gonna fuckin’ gut you bitch!” he hissed, the menace in his voice completely effective.
Catherine whirled back around and yanked Abby to her feet. “Run,” she yelled. “Run and hide!” Abby nodded blankly through tear-filled eyes as she tore off into the darkest section of the park.
But Muttonchops still had some life in him and lurched out with his good hand, clasping Abby firmly around the ankle and upending her back onto the sidewalk.
“Mommy!” a terrified and distant voice screamed.
Tamara.
“I’m coming, baby!” Catherine shouted, meaning every word of it. “I’m coming!”
With another powerful kick, Catherine obliterated Muttonchops’s elbow and followed it by dropping all one hundred twenty-three pounds of her frame onto the damaged joint via precision placement of her left foot.
Muttonchops howled ferociously, immediately releasing Abby. Catherine didn’t have time to bark orders or issue instructions and placed Abby’s outcome in the hands of Fate, hoping the girl would have the instinctual common sense to run with all God gave her. It had already been far too long since Tamara had disappeared into the thicket over the shoulder of Stocky Man and she couldn’t waste another precious second.
Still clutching the rifle, Catherine surged forward into the trees. She took a brief glance backward for a status report on Adidas Man and discovered him getting back to his feet, having backed out of a messy shrub and holding a dark object in his hand.
He’d found his gun.
She accelerated around a once-sculpted hedge and searched maniacally for Tamara. But the darkness and the commotion confused her sense of direction.
“Tamara!” she screamed.
“Mommy!” Tamara replied, her voice extremely close and terrified sounding.
Catherine whirled and peered through the pitch black into a cluster of young birch trees. She stepped forward looking, listening, trying to glean any clue as to her daughter’s whereabouts.
“I’m coming for you, bitch!” Adidas Man’s threatening words echoed out from the other side of the hedge, the pounding of his footsteps drawing nearer.
Spinning back around, Catherine continued her search for Tamara. She was nearby. She could feel it. But the goddamned darkness had become the enemy now.
“Tamara, where are you?” Catherine screamed. “Call to me honey! Tell me where—”
Catherine neither heard nor saw Stocky Man approach from her left flank, but she certainly felt the force of his open palm as it rammed into her lower jaw, dropping her like a sack of flour.
Through the spinning haze, Catherine could make out what looked like two blurry sailboats bobbing lifelessly in a black sea. Odd that there should be boats here in the park, she mused. Especially when there was no water. But the kaleidoscopic mess that served as her vision cleared and the residue from the punch vanished slowly as she realized she was staring at Stocky Man’s Nike high-tops. A pair of shiny new Adidas skidded to a halt beside them.
It didn’t take much clarity to realize that her frontal assault had been a colossal failure. For all of its forced, option-less zeal, the result had been far less than satisfactory.
But the defeat had accomplished one thing. And when she felt the dainty hands of Tamara grab her shoulders she found some solace in her daughter’s temporary safety and the disturbing if accurate notion that at least they could die together.
“Mommy, mommy” she cried. “Mommy, get up!”
Adidas Man walked forward and pulled Tamara away, thrusting her towards Stocky Man who snatched her and held her uncomfortably close. Adidas Man knelt down in front of Catherine and put the barrel of his pistol firmly and painfully against her temple.
“You just made the biggest mistake of your short life,” he said, his words sounding muddled and distant.
Standing back up, Adidas Man handed his pistol to Stocky Man who promptly jammed it into his waistline. Adidas Man then began to unclasp his belt.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he taunted, the brass hasp of his belt clinking forebodingly as he loosened it, “you’re the prettiest one I’ve fucked yet.”
Stocky Man chortled like a fifth grade schoolboy as Adidas Man dropped his pants.
Catherine fought maddeningly to retrieve her wits, but the whirring sound in her brain wouldn’t decelerate. Her sight was passable but shaky and she constantly felt the need to close her eyes tightly as if this gesture would help to reset and stabilize her vision. The numbness in her
body was dissipating, the temporary paralysis allowing her to move her eyes only far enough to see just above Adidas Man’s knees. And when his jeans fell into a pile at his feet revealing hairy, pale legs, Catherine knew she couldn’t wait on her body to right itself.
“Mommy, please get up!” Tamara screamed, tears gushing from her eyes. “Mom—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Stocky Man blurted as he slammed a hand over her mouth.
“You see that?” Adidas Man started. “Your daughter is upsetting Mattias. What kind of manners did you teach your kids anyway?”
This time both Adidas Man and Mattias laughed like two Goodtime Charlies ruminating about the good ole days over ale down at the corner pub.
Catherine moved her right arm, tried to shift it underneath her body. She pushed up with all of her strength, managing to raise her chest off the long dead park lawn by a couple of inches. No, she would not go down without a fight. Sliding her left arm over for support she worked on straightening it and driving herself upright.
But all of the strength she had left in her body couldn’t overcome the countering effect of one Adidas tennis shoe placed squarely in the small of her back. And as it forced her back down to the earth, Catherine allowed her eyes to close and the world to fade away. This was it.
I’m sorry, Warren. I did my best.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” Adidas Man said. “Who knows, maybe your daughter will learn something.” He laughed again and Catherine could hear the skin-on-skin smack of what sounded like a high-five being exchanged.
“So how do you—”
Crack.
An immediate thud sounded directly in front of Catherine. She popped open her eyes, not entirely sure what she would find.
Filling her frame of vision was a body lying on the ground mere feet from her. Taking notice of the bare white ass and scrunch of denim around the ankles, Catherine quickly deduced it had to have been Adidas Man.
She pushed herself up, this time meeting no resistance. As she reached a sitting position she was immediately smacked in the chest with a weeping, emotionally wrecked little girl as she flung her arms tightly around Catherine’s neck. In a moment of panic and bizarre confusion, Catherine wondered how Tamara had managed to escape from the clutches of Mattias. But as she looked over and saw him standing motionless with both hands in the air, she assumed the assault rifle pointed at his head by the person in the black ski mask had to have something to do with it.
