by Jack Kilborn
A twig snapped on her left. Georgia jerked her head toward the sound, and in the moonlight spotted a man-shaped figure leaning against a tree. It was too dark to make out any details beyond a shadow, but he looked thin and very tall, about the size of a pro basketball player.
Definitely no one from the Center.
Georgia wondered what to do. If the man intended to harm her, he was too big to stop. There was nowhere to run, and if she tried he would easily catch her. Hiding might be an option, if she could get back into the woods, but the trees were a good twenty feet away.
She filled her lungs with cool air and stood as straight as possible.
“What do you want?” she said, making her voice strong.
The figure didn’t answer. One arm hung limply at his side. The other seemed to be holding something.
“You deaf?” Georgia forced herself to take a step toward the man. “I’m asking you a question.”
A light flashed, followed by a familiar clicking sound.
He just took my picture.
Georgia stopped cold. She could feel her heart thumping, and her palms getting wet while her mouth went dry.
“Who are you!” Georgia screamed at him.
Instead of answering, the man began to walk to her. Slow, languid, with long, easy strides. Georgia stood her ground, having to crane her neck upward as he got within an arm’s reach. He had to be close to seven feet tall. Thin, but with thick wrists and a broad chest.
The moon was bright enough for Georgia to make out his features. He was white, and his face had a lot of sharp angles. High cheekbones, a long pointed nose, a chin that jutted out in a V. He wore denim overalls, like a farmer, and a dark sweater. A smiley face button was pinned to a bib strap.
“Lester,” he said, his voice soft and pitched too high for such a big man. He took her picture again, causing her to startle at the flash.
Georgia never wanted to run away so badly before. She had to clench to keep from pissing herself.
“That’s rude, Lester,” she managed to say without stuttering. “You should ask permission before you take someone’s picture.”
Lester cocked his head to the side, like a confused dog.
“Lester takes what Lester wants.”
“Not from me, he doesn’t. If you snap my picture again I’m going to shove that camera up your ass.”
Lester leaned down, close enough for Georgia to smell his breath. It smelled like a dog’s.
“Isn’t the girl afraid of Lester?” he purred.
Georgia’s knees knocked together. “N…no,” she stammered. “I’m not afraid of you.”
Lester smiled. Instead of flat teeth, his had all been filed to sharp points.
“The girl will be.”
Meadow counted four men dragging him off, two holding his arms, and two gripping his legs. They worked silently, in unison, binding his limbs to two long poles, then carrying him on their shoulders. They navigated the trees and underbrush at a quick clip. Meadow struggled like crazy, wore himself out, and eventually went limp, the nail gag in his mouth forcing him to twist his head sideways so the blood didn’t run down his throat. He began to shiver, from the cold, and from fear.
It was dark, real dark, but every few hundred yards a space opened up in the tree canopy, letting in the moonlight, and Meadow caught glimpses of his abductors.
They looked like cavemen, with long hair, beards, rags and furs for clothes, dirt smeared on their faces. And they stank of piss and sweat and blood. They were also hella strong, Meadow knew, from experience, how hard it was to carry somebody, even with three other guys helping. But these dudes didn’t stop to rest or change positions. They didn’t talk, neither. That scared Meadows most of all. Brothers talked when they threw down. If they were gonna pop a cap, they let you know why, let you know how they felt about it. Meadow had no idea what these men wanted, and he wasn’t able to ask. Not knowing was worse than the pain.
After five minutes of running, they stopped and dropped Meadow onto the ground, causing instant agony in both his tail bone and his mouth. He tried to tug at his bonds, but his arms and shoulders didn’t want to follow orders—they’d been stretched out for too long.
Meadow managed to roll onto his side. Strangely, the dirt seemed warm. In fact, this entire area seemed a lot warmer than the run through the woods. It seemed brighter, too, but he couldn’t tell where the light was coming from. He craned his neck, trying to see beyond a thick patch of bushes, when an old lady came out of nowhere and knelt down in front of him.
She was rail thin, and her white hair was scraggly and all knotted up. She wore a tattered sweater with more holes in it than threads. The lady grinned insanely at Meadow. He tried to say, “help me,” but it came out as more of a moan.
Then the crazy bitch stabbed him in the arm with something.
Meadow howled, trying to twist away. She pulled her weapon back, then held it in front of her face.
It’s a fork.
Meadow watched a line of spit snake down her chin, then she stuck out a drooly tongue and licked the blood off the tines. Just as she was raising the fork for seconds, one of the men batted her across the side of the head, knocking her over.
“Dinner… not… ready… yet.”
He reached for Meadow, who flinched away. The man, and a partner, grabbed the poles and dragged Meadow uphill, around the bushes.
Meadow now understood the source of the fire and the light. In a small clearing, they’d covered the ground with a bed of white-hot coals. On top of them was some kind of metal cage, big enough for a person.
“Grid… iron,” the man said.
Meadow, a devout atheist, prayed for the first time in his life. He prayed for forgiveness for all of his sins, prayed that there was an afterlife, and most of all prayed with all his might that these crazy fuckers would kill him before they put him on the fire.
His prayers were not answered.
Sara didn’t think, she reacted, thrusting Jack into her husband’s arms and lunging after Laneesha as the girl disappeared into the woods.
Sara had always wanted to have children, a desire that eclipsed all others in her life, compounded because she and Martin had such a hard time getting pregnant. When they founded the Center, the kids they cared for became Sara’s surrogate children, each one as dear to her as Jack. Losing them was the hardest part of the job.
In some cases, the losses were happy ones, with the teens being released back into society, the majority of them going on to live fulfilling, productive lives. But several—the runaways—proved particularly painful for Sara. Like Martin, Sara felt like she failed those children, and grieved for the loss, both hers and theirs.
So having Laneesha snatched away right under her nose was something Sara just couldn’t allow, even if she had to fight to the death to prevent it.
Sara was no stranger to fights.
Following the sounds of Laneesha’s cries, Sara navigated through the trees and underbrush, moving faster than safety allowed. Laneesha wasn’t a tiny girl, and whoever grabbed her was obviously struggling to carry her off, because in only a few dozen steps Sara saw the bouncing yellow beam of the Maglite. Sara poured on the speed, bursting through an elderberry bush into a small, rocky clearing, and found herself facing Laneesha’s abductors.
At first Sara thought they were homeless people, like she was used to seeing on the streets of Detroit; dirty and hairy with tattered clothes. But their snarls, and the crude tree clubs they brandished, made them look more like savages; some crazed prehistoric tribe of headhunters from an epoch long passed. Both of them were thin, bare arms rippled with muscles, wearing insane, malevolent expressions, and it took Sara a moment to realize one of them was a woman—the only way to distinguish her from her partner was the lack of facial hair.
The man snarled, spit flecking his filthy lips, and then charged.
He kept his arm high, ready to bring down his weapon in a clubbing motion. Textbook attack, even if he w
asn’t a textbook assailant. Sara went in under the arc of his arm, pivoted her body while grabbing him, and flipped him over her hip, hard, using leverage and momentum to her advantage. She turned on him quickly, kneeling on his ribcage, and cocked her hand back.
She’d thrown the killing blow a thousand times in judo practice, but always pulled the punch. This time she didn’t, giving it all she had, her fist connecting with his bulging Adam’s apple. She both felt and heard something crack beneath her knuckles.
Without pausing to reflect on what she’d just done, Sara whirled on the second attacker, who now stood behind Laneesha, a rusty kitchen knife pressed to the teen’s throat.
“Instep!” Sara yelled.
A small spark of recognition registered in Laneesha’s eyes, the intended result of the many self-defense classes Sara taught at the Center, and she lifted up her right foot and ground the heel down onto the woman’s.
The woman howled, stumbling backwards, and then limped off into the night. Sara didn’t pursue her, instead running to Laneesha for an embrace.
“Are you okay” and “I was so scared” came out at the same time, and then Laneesha began to cry. Sara held the girl, but it didn’t take long for her to calm down. Laneesha was made of strong stuff.
“I thought…I thought I was dead.”
“I know.”
“Why’d they grab me? What’d they want?”
“I don’t know.”
First they went for Martin, and now Laneesha. What the hell was going on?
Sara turned and looked at the man. He was still on his back, hands clawing at his throat. Sara knew she’d broken his trachea, cut off his airway. There was nothing she could do to help him. Sara watched him struggle, even though it was excruciating to see someone suffer so. Mercifully, he stopped moving after a very long minute, and the weight of her actions pressed on Sara like a crate of falling bricks.
I took a human life. I’m a murderer.
“He dead?”
Sara watched his chest, didn’t notice it moving. “Yes.”
She patted the girl’s back, then took a step toward the dead man. Laneesha grabbed her wrist.
“Whatchoo doin’?”
Part of Sara wanted, needed, to touch him, just so she could persuade herself this was all real, that she’d really done what she knew she’d done. Since high school Sara had been involved in the martial arts and self-defense—a textbook case of empowerment and a way to gain mastery over her many fears. Every teacher she ever had, and even Sara herself when she began to teach, repeated time and again the importance of not holding back when in a real fight.
But none of her instructors told her how it actually felt to hurt—to kill—another human being. Part of Sara was exhilarated that she survived. But a larger part, the part that recognized how every human life was precious, made her feel like she’d just committed an unpardonable sin.
“I need to search him,” Sara heard herself say, “try to figure out who he is. I have to call the authorities, tell them what I did.”
“You saved me.”
Sara’s veneer cracked even further. “I… I just killed a man, Laneesha.”
“It was self-defense. You save my life.”
Sara managed a nod, then tried to pull away. Laneesha held her tight.
“Don’t go over there.”
“I have to check him for ID. This man might have a family somewhere.”
“Look at him, Sara. Any family he got won’t give a shit he’s dead.”
Sara stared hard at the corpse, his open mouth exposing a jungle of missing and rotten teeth, eyes bloodshot and staring into infinity. The shoes on his feet were battered old Nikes with the toes exposed, and his pants were held up with a length of rope. Even in death he looked fearsome. But still, he was someone’s son, and maybe someone’s brother, husband, father. Sara often felt she was put on this earth to help those in need, and here she’d just murdered one of them.
“You have to let go of my arm, Laneesha.”
“I’m afraid you go over there, he gonna jump up and grab you.”
“That isn’t going to happen.”
“I seen the movies. He gonna jump up.”
Sara tugged her arm away, a move both sudden and angry. “He’s not going to jump up! He’s not going to do anything ever again except rot! I killed him, Laneesha!”
Then the trembling started, and the tears came. Sara stood there for a moment, feeling alone and impotent and dangerous, and then she felt Laneesha hugging her, giving her comfort, and Sara regained control.
“There…” Sara cleared her throat, “there may be more of them, out there. Let me check the body and then we’ll get back to Martin, and the camp. Cell phones don’t work out here, but we have that radio the captain gave us. We can call for help.”
Laneesha released her. Sara approached the body reverently, kneeling next to it and placing two fingers on its neck to feel for a pulse she knew wouldn’t be there. She jerked her hand back when she felt the broken windpipe beneath the skin.
Stay focused, get this over with.
Sara crinkled her nose against his odor and began to pat him down. His pockets were empty except for a rusty fork and a length of balled up twine.
The poor bastard.
She was putting the twine into her pocket when the man jerked up into a sitting position and lunged at her.
Tyrone wasn’t sure how they’d gone from being friends to holding hands, but he didn’t mind. He’d been with girls before, but never anything more than a quick lay at the club house. To bangers, girls were like liquor and drugs; a way to have some fun and kill some time. While Tyrone indulged, he was never really okay with the whole hooking-up thing. Not just because of diseases and babies and stuff like that, but because two of the people he respected most in the world were his moms and grams, and if they deserved respect then other women did too.
So Tyrone never actually had what he could call a girlfriend. For him, joining a gang was a financial opportunity, a better way to make some cash than some dead-end fast food job. His family needed money, and Tyrone took on that responsibility. He lived the thug life, but didn’t breathe it like some of the other dogs in the club, and certainly wasn’t going to do it forever. Getting arrested for hitting a liquor store was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. It gave him a chance to reevaluate things.
Holding Cindy’s hand, simple act that it was, felt better and more real than anything he’d done while rolling with the People’s Nation. It didn’t matter that Cindy was white, or a drug addict. She radiated an inner strength, and had plans for what she’d do when she was released. Cindy was going to get a job waiting tables and save up money to go back to school. A simple ambition, but Tyrone had been without ambition for so long it made him realize the simple things in life were the ones worth doing. He’d always been good at math. Maybe he should try to do something with it. Become an accountant, or some shit like that.
“We should check on Tom,” Cindy glanced at the tent. “He shouldn’t be in there.”
“I think he’s lookin’ for his meds. Sara didn’t give him none tonight.”
“Still, he could be messing things up. Or stealing stuff.”
“True that, but we know what Tommy Boy is like when he’s off his pills. You wanna have to deal with him running around, trippin’ out on everything, ‘specially when things are falling apart?”
Cindy shook her head. Tyrone gently rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. Too many people would rather fight to the death to defend their bullheaded positions. Tyrone was impressed whenever someone changed their mind. It meant acting on reason, and with reason came self-improvement, as Sara often said.
“Where do you think everyone else is?” Cindy asked.
“Dunno.”
“What happened to Meadow?”
“Dunno. Sounded like someone dragged him off.”
“How about Sara and Laneesha? And Georgia? And what about Martin?”
> “Don’t do no good to speculate on what we don’t know. They either all okay, or they ain’t. We find out when we find out.”
“Wassup, bitches?”
Tyrone turned toward Sara’s tent, and saw Tom posing there. What Tom was holding made Tyrone’s neck muscles bunch up.
Where did he get a gun?
The first time Tyrone ever held a piece was at age thirteen. An old Saturday night special, thirty-eight caliber, with a history going back dozens of crimes. It was put in his hands by Stony, a cold-as-ice muthafucker who ran the local club like it was the Marines. To Stony, guns weren’t toys to play with or bling to flash. They were tools. Like any tool, it was only as good as the person who held it.
Tyrone learned to shoot in a slumhouse basement, plinking empty soda cans propped onto a stacked pile of dead sod from fifty feet away. There wasn’t no gangsta-style double gun shooting, and certainly no holding a weapon sideways, like Tom was doing now.
Aiming right at Tyrone.
“You never point a weapon at somethin’ you don’ intend to kill,” Tyrone said, keeping his voice even.
Tom laughed. “What’s wrong, brutha? Making you nervous?”
“Tom! Put that down!”
“You gonna make me, skank?”
Tyrone gave Cindy’s hand a tight squeeze, told her under his breath to be cool, then gave her a little shove to the side and took a step toward Tom. Tom switched his aim to Cindy, which wasn’t Tyrone’s intent. He wanted Cindy out of the line of fire.
“Tommy boy, put that shit down before you hurt yourself.”
Tom swung back to Tyrone. “You think you’re so badass, Tyrone. You and Meadow. Bangin’ and jackin’ and doin’ drive-bys and shit. Don’t look so tough now.”
Tyrone took another step forward. Tom’s aim was twitching back and forth. That sideways grip looked cool in the movies, but unless you were point blank it was real tough to hit anything. It was tough enough to hit anything with both hands on the weapon and a steady target. Aiming a gun was a lot harder than it looked. Tyrone had been in one firefight, him and a brother named Maurice against two boppers from a rival outfit. It went down in an alley, and they were twenty yards away from each other with no cover. Sixteen shots fired, no one hitting anything except for bricks and asphalt before both cliques ran off.
