“Mmmmm…your momma looks good too.”
The man’s accent was thick. Sabina guessed rightly he had been one of thousands of migrant workers who entered the United States legally or otherwise and made their way to ranches and farms throughout Eastern Washington in the hopes of finding work.
She glanced up at the small room’s ceiling and found the window above them open. That is how the man had gained entry. When the ATV hit the back of the RV he had managed to jump onto the ladder that hung down the vehicle’s backside, scrambled to the roof, opened the window, and then dropped down into the room where he found Mika cowering.
“Don’t you dare hurt her. I’ll kill you. I swear to god…”
The man’s eyes glimmered with the anticipation of having both mother and daughter together. The look made Sabina’s jaw clench tightly in barely controlled fury. She pointed the barrel of the hunting rifle directly at the man’s forehead.
“Let her go you piece of shit.”
A single tear made its way slowly down Mika’s right cheek as her body trembled in the man’s filthy grasp. He watched the tear with fascination and then pressed his mouth against the fourteen-year old girl’s face and ran his tongue up and down the entirety of her jaw line, relishing the salty innocence of her fear. He then stared back at Sabina, pursed his lips, and blew her a kiss.
The sound of the rifle going off crashed against the walls of the RV’s interior. Jackson flinched from his place behind the wheel, nearly causing the vehicle to careen off the road before he was able to regain control.
He glanced behind him and screamed out for his mother while fearing the worst.
“Mom! Mom, are you ok? Mika!”
Sabina emerged from the back room dragging a body behind her. Bosco whimpered and hid further underneath the dining table, sensing an unfamiliar darkness swirling from inside the woman who had raised him with such gentle affection since he was a pup.
“Just keep going, Jackson.”
Jackson glanced in the rearview mirror and watched as his mother struggled to pull the man’s body toward the RV’s door. Sabina gritted her teeth and grunted as she pulled the body inch by inch until finally she was able to lay it against the door’s interior.
“Mom, what happened? What are you doing?”
Sabina’s eyes widened to almost monstrous proportions as she snarled her command.
“I said drive! Shut up and drive!”
Jackson stared straight ahead, no longer wanting to see his mother’s image. He had seen enough already. Her hands trembled and her face was gaunt, as if the skin was suddenly too tight to fit over her cheeks and forehead.
Sabina opened the door and began kicking the body down the stairs. The wind howled from just outside as the sound of the RV tires moving across the pavement seemed to whisper its approval of what Sabina had done.
The top of the man’s head was a fractured mess of blood-drenched hair. His eyes remained open and unblinking, his face frozen in an expression of genuine shock that the mother of two had actually pulled the trigger and shot him dead. For weeks he had enjoyed the easy thrill of watching the white ranchers and farmers run from him and the other workers who had suddenly awoken to a world of few rules where things were simply taken by those who wanted them. They were many in number, had worked for too long for too little, and now it was finally time for them to get their fair share. He had raped, pillaged, and plundered and delighted in every moment those days had offered him – a debauched banquet of violence and bloodshed.
On this day though, he had attempted to take too much. He had dared challenge the surprising strength of a mother determined to protect her own.
It proved a fatal error.
Sabina continued to kick the body, growling and grunting to herself as she did so. The head dropped against the door, pushing it open further. Sabina grabbed the bottom of the man’s legs and pulled them upward, pushing his body into a tightly wound, stinking mess that almost caused her to vomit.
“Get out! Get out!”
Suddenly the man’s weight became lighter. Sabina looked to her left and saw Mika helping her to push. Her daughter’s face bore the same determined expression as Sabina’s. Mika had witnessed the frightening power within her mother up close. She had seen Sabina’s eyes glowering at the man who held a knife to her throat, watched her mother’s lips pull back to reveal her teeth, making her appear more animal than human at the same moment her finger pulled the trigger.
Mika felt the man’s head recoil from the impact and then his body grow limp as he fell to the floor. His blood splattered both the wall behind him and the side of Mika’s face. She looked at her mother’s mouth curl upward into a cruel smile as she put the rifle down and then grasped onto the man’s wrists and began dragging his body to the front of the RV.
It was at that moment Mika saw her mother fully for the first time. Sabina Markson was a widow and single mother, but also something much more. She was a thing of great strength far beyond what her appearance would suggest.
If need be, Mika’s mother was a killer - an untamed, wild thing whose protective instincts for her own children would never be denied their maternal determination and purpose.
As they worked together to finally push the man’s body out of the RV and watched as it struck the road with a loud thud and then bounced and rolled and then disappeared behind them, Mika had never understood or loved her mother more.
After Sabina stood up she found Mika hugging her tightly like she used to do when she was a little girl frightened by the sound of nighttime thunder. Mika’s mother hugged her back just as tightly, each one taking comfort in the other.
“I told you, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Mika hugged her mom with even more intensity.
“I know, Mom. I know.”
The Markson family was once again safe, though none of them knew for how long…
-------------------------
EPISODE SEVENTEEN:
Nine miles outside of Harrison, Arkansas…
I love this shit.
Ripper wasn’t lying to himself as he guided his custom chopper down the wide open road that was State Route 7. He was at the head of a motorcycle convoy, one that had grown significantly larger and louder since leaving Texas three days earlier.
He estimated their number to be nearly a hundred strong and had been told twice that number awaited him in Harrison. They were an army now – well armed, organized, and ready to fight and die to set things right in America once again.
Ripper smiled at the chorus of rumbles that surrounded him. His second-in-command, Slack rode a bike-length behind on Ripper’s right. Both men were enjoying their newfound power within the newly formed gang.
“They got a whole place to themselves up there, man! Ten acres, trailers, food, fuel, no cops, no rules…it’s a biker’s paradise!”
That was the excited description given to Ripper by a lone biker they came across yesterday named Merc. Merc had spent nearly two weeks in Cousin Johnny’s place in Harrison – an abandoned trailer park Johnny’s gang had quickly overtaken following the start of the Race Wars and called their own.
Cousin Johnny and Ripper shared family on each of their mothers’ side. They had known one another since childhood. Both had a long-established propensity toward trouble, and had done multiple stints in juvenile and adult prisons. Ripper had always intended to make his way back up to Johnny’s neck of the woods after getting out of Attwood, but did not expect to hear how his cousin was doing so well.
“How about you take us there, brother?”
Merc initially refused Ripper’s request.
“I’ve got people in Arizona I need to get to.”
Ripper’s smile resided under a glowering set of eyes that made clear he wasn’t about to take no for an answer.
“They’ll be there when you’re ready. I need you to show me where this trailer park is at. Cousin Johnny is my people, and I intend to pay him a visit.”
Merc was about to refuse for a second time but then saw Slack rest his right hand on the hilt of a twelve inch blade that hung from his belt.
“Yeah, I’ll take you there. It’s no more than another day’s ride.”
Ripper’s smile remained, as did the threatening storm that swirled in the dark vortex of his eyes.
“Much appreciated, brother.”
That was seven hours ago. Ripper and his crew had reached the outskirts of Harrison. He noted how they had not seen a single vehicle in the last fifty miles. It was as if the modern world had retreated beyond some invisible door while leaving behind the material pieces of its former self.
Slack pointed toward a mile marker and then looked back at Merc who nodded. They were getting close.
After rounding a gently curving bend in the road, Ripper saw two older pickup trucks parked sideways in each of the lanes forming a roadblock. Each truck had a man armed with a hunting rifle standing in the back of the truck-bed while two other similarly armed men stood leaning against their respective truck’s hood.
Ripper held up his left fist, signaling to the gang behind him they were to slow down. When all the bikes had come to a halt, Ripper motioned for Merc to pull up alongside him.
“Are they with Johnny?”
Merc’s eyes squinted at the armed men and then shrugged.
“Probably…it’s like I said, Johnny controls all this area around here. I don’t know why they’re blocking the road, though.”
Ripper leaned back in the well-worn, hard-leathered seat of his modified 1972 Harley Sportster chopper and then casually folded his arms across his chest while tipping his head toward the two trucks parked across the road.
“Slack, you and Merc ride on up there and tell them I’m here to see my cousin.”
Slack moved his bike slowly forward with both of his hands up in the air, keeping the chopper moving straight ahead by balancing it with his body weight. Merc rode on Slack’s right, silently hoping the men blocking the road were in fact part of Johnny’s quickly growing biker community.
“Stop right there! Get both your hands up!”
Both Merc and Slacker brought their bikes to a stop fifty yards from the four men and their parked trucks.
“Hey, it’s Merc! We’re here to see Johnny! I have his cousin Ripper with me. It’s a family thing, man!”
The largest of the four men began walking toward Slacker and Johnny. He was six-foot, with especially broad shoulders and an ample belly that hung over the wide leather belt that kept his faded blue jeans up. He wore a red t-shirt tucked into the jeans, and deeply scuffed, well-used black biker boots. Both his exposed forearms were covered in multi-colored tattoos. A pair of narrow blue eyes looked out from underneath a heavy brow that was framed by an overly fleshy set of jowls that quivered when he walked.
“That you, Merc? What the hell you doin’ back? I thought I heard you were off to the desert.”
Merc let out a grateful breath. He recognized the approaching man as Gabe, a somewhat simple-minded and unremarkable member of Johnny’s gang.
“I was and then I ran into these folks out of Texas. Their leader is named Ripper, and he says he’s Johnny’s cousin.”
Gabe looked past Merc and Slack to the larger gathering of bikers that remained waiting further down the road.
“Is that right? How many are there?”
Slack cleared his throat and then answered.
“About a hundred - we’ve been busy too.”
Gabe’s eyes widened slightly and then he nodded his head.
“Hey, you the ones who’ve been cleaning out the Mexican garbage down south? We heard about that! Well done, brother, well done!”
Gabe extended his right hand which Slack then took firmly into his own.
“Yeah, that’s us. So can we come on through?”
Gabe’s smile widened even further.
“Hell yeah, I’ll take you to see Johnny myself! We could use some more men! It’s war time around here. Word is the niggers are getting ready to fight back. That’s why we got road blocks set up. Nothing gets into or out of here without our approval.”
Slack glanced at Merc, noting the other man had failed to mention anything about an impending turf war.
“What niggers are you talking about?”
Gabe spat a glob of green-tinged mucous onto the paved road and then shook his head in disgust.
“Whole slew of ‘em out of Fayetteville, maybe as many as five hundred…maybe more. They got guns, too. Killed a couple bikers about thirty miles north of here just yesterday. Left a note that they were coming for us. We’re all a bit on edge now. Johnny says we’ll be ready, though – more than ready. Gonna be killing a lot of niggers soon enough.”
Merc cursed under his breath, his face appearing genuinely stunned at the prospect of any black people daring to fight back against Johnny’s gang. Slack turned around and motioned for Ripper to join them on their way to see Johnny. The bikes roared to life and soon they were doing just that.
Ten minutes later…
‘Well as I live and breathe ain’t you a sight for sore eyes, Cousin!”
Ripper grinned as he accepted the enthusiastic embrace of his fellow childhood hell-raiser.
“Nice to see you again too, Johnny. You’re lookin’ just as ornery even without the hair.”
Johnny smirked and then ran the heavily calloused fingers of his right hand over his smoothly shaved scalp. At forty-one he was a few years older than Ripper, but had always deferred to his younger and slightly taller cousin when they spent time together growing up. Johnny’s face wasn’t nearly so defined and angular as his cousin’s, though he shared the same hard gleam in a pair of equally dark eyes.
“So, Rip was that really you cleaning house of all those spics in Texas?”
Ripper smirked. He enjoyed having his exploits known well beyond the locations in which they actually took place.
“Yeah, my crew, we’re a hard, nasty bunch. So what’s this business about you and some niggers getting ready to rumble? I heard there might be as many as five hundred of them looking to take you out.”
Johnny snorted.
“Shit, we’re gonna blow their black asses away, man! Seriously, Cousin you have got to see what we have in store for them!”
Ripper followed Johnny past several campers. He glanced at the faces staring back at him – mostly men his own age with a few hard-worn women scattered amongst their number. He noted how every one of the men carried either a pistol, a rifle, or both.
Where’d Johnny get all these guns?
Ripper was about to find out.
Johnny led him to an older, fully enclosed, steel-sided horse trailer. Two armed men stood guard on either side of the trailer, their arms cradling a pair of brand new, military-grade AK-47s.
Johnny turned and winked at his cousin and then took out a key and unlocked the large padlock that kept the trailer’s gate secure.
“Check it out, Rip.”
Ripper considered what he was looking at to be quite possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Assault rifles were stacked one atop the other alongside boxes of ammunition. Several more boxes were filled with semi-automatic pistols and yet more ammunition as well.
“And that’s not even the best stuff. Wait here.”
Johnny made his way between the boxes and stacks of guns to the back of the trailer and then returned holding something that made Ripper’s eyes widen in stunned silence.
“This thing is brand new. I fired it once a couple days ago, blew a tree stump to hell. It’s legit big boom stuff, man.”
Like the AK-47s, the shoulder-held RPG-7 rocket launcher was brand new and had the firepower to take out an armored tank.
“We got two of these and twenty missiles to go with them! Let those niggers get a taste of this!”
Ripper gazed almost lovingly at the RPG-7 and then a question returned to him – one that he demanded to have answered.
“Johnny, h
ow in the hell did you get all this?”
Johnny moved himself back inside the trailer to return the rocket launcher to where it was being stored and then re-emerged next to where Ripper stood outside waiting for his cousin to respond.
Instead, Johnny locked the trailer, placed the key in the front pocket of his jeans and then motioned for Ripper to follow him.
“We can talk more in my camper.”
American Survivalist: RACE WARS OMNIBUS: Seasons 1-5 Of An American Survivalist Series... Page 21
