Final Awakening (Book 1): Dawn

by J. Thorn

  The man at the front of the group opened a door and pushed them inside, one by one. Neil stumbled over the threshold and into the basement. It smelled of Louisiana swamp—decomposing crawfish and algae. The men had duct-taped long, white dinner candles to the cinder block walls. The meager flames cast enough light in the room for Neil to notice three other people already in the basement.

  “Get comfortable.”

  The door slammed shut, leaving Neil, Isaac and the rest of people locked in the basement.

  “Wait,” Isaac said, running toward the door. He set his forehead on the door and slammed the dented steel with a fist. Isaac turned around and grimaced at Neil.

  “We’re not getting out of here. We should’ve spent our time looking for ways to secure the building, not sending our three best people out on a witch hunt for food. Maybe they could have helped fight these guys off.”

  Neil put his hands up. “Calm down, Isaac. You’re scaring the kids.”

  Monica pulled Darius and Kevin toward her.

  “Scaring the kids?” Isaac laughed. “They’re scared because we’re trapped in a damn basement, and they’re going to sell us like damn slaves.”

  “Not all of you.”

  The voice came from the corner. The man’s voice boomed in the tight quarters, his timbre rougher than sixty-grit sandpaper.

  Neil turned toward the man sitting in the darkness, his elbows propped up on his knees. In the low light, he looked like a set of floating eyes.

  “What do you mean?” Neil asked.

  “They’re trying to figure out a way to get power into this place. And when they do, they’re gonna force us to produce meth for them.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. That’s at least part of their plan. I’ve overheard them talking about prostitution, as well. Human trafficking.”

  Isaac turned to Neil and spoke, apparently not caring who heard what he was about to say. “We’re screwed. Chloe, Richard and Mark will never find us here.”

  Thinking back to how things could have played out at the day care center, Neil wondered if that would have perhaps been a better fate for him.

  7

  Dax woke as the sun rose. He rubbed his eyes, then covered his mouth and nose with one hand. The stench of burning plastic and piss hung in the air. Even after a few weeks, he still hadn’t gotten used to the smell.

  Chloe still slept, her head peacefully resting on some old towels they had found.

  They’d stayed the night in an old garage, falling asleep in the repair shop’s single office. The place had been closed down even before The Blackout. They’d found a bag of old aluminum cans and an overturned shopping cart, but otherwise, the place was empty. Dax was able to find an old first aid kit. Inside, he had found gauze and tape which he used to bandage his arm. He remembered getting a Tetanus shot in prison, but that wouldn’t prevent an infection.

  Dax sat up slowly, feeling a kink in his neck. The sunlight was coming through a greasy window which, to his surprise, hadn’t been broken. He looked out onto a side street where two cars had burned throughout the night, the interiors now charred and melted. Several people hollered and threw pieces of trash into the flames.

  Chloe’s leg twitched, and the ragged blanket slid off of her hip. Dax looked down.

  What happened to her?

  Dax remembered that Chloe had been named all-state in track, which had earned her a scholarship. She’d broken many of their high school’s records.

  Stirring as he watched, she stretched her arms before opening her eyes. Dax stood up and looked back to the street where a group of young boys was pulling one of the burning cars off the street and up onto the sidewalk.

  “Morning,” Dax said while the boys beat the burning car with baseball bats.

  “Hi.” She yawned and sat up, rubbing a hand through her long hair.

  “I would’ve made you coffee, but we’re out of cream. Café du Monde ain’t open.”

  Chloe raised an eyebrow. “Ha, ha.”

  Dax smiled. He moved away from the window and grabbed a wooden chair near the desk. Chloe pushed herself upright, leaning against the wall beside her.

  “Sleep all right?”

  “Yes, sir. Anything is better than that horrific place I was in.”

  “What was it? Why were you there?”

  Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but nothing more than a sigh came out.

  “It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about it.”

  “No, it’s all right. I need to.”

  Dax shifted in his chair, leaning in and fidgeting with his hands as Chloe talked.

  Chloe took a deep breath and stared at the wall across from her.

  “I think they were selling girls. I can’t say for sure because they kept us all locked up and didn’t tell us anything except when we were allowed to go to the bathroom.”

  “Damn.” Dax looked away, shaking his head. He forced himself to look back as she started talking again.

  “Before that, I’d been staying with a group of people at a place not too far away, an old day care center. It’s mainly old folks and children. We have a good thing there. It’s beyond the chaos here in the middle of the city, and looters have ignored us.

  “Anyway, we were worried about running out of food and not being able to find more. Neil, the guy who’s kinda in charge, was in the thick of things during Katrina. He was a security guard at a pump station back then. He’s been scared that all of the non-perishable food within a twenty-mile radius, maybe more, will be gone by the time we need it. So he sent a group of us out to find some.”

  “He sent a woman with one leg?”

  She glared at Dax. “I volunteered. I have a disability. I’m not useless.”

  “Sorry,” he said, feeling a rush of blood to his face. “You’re right. Go on.”

  “I was with two others from our group. We were supposed to be gone a few hours and come right back. Richard, one of our guys, swore he knew where he was going. He took us down a back alley, a shortcut, even though I told him it was a horrible idea. That’s when we ran into that gang. There were six of them and three of us. We had a couple of puny knives, but that was it. They had guns.

  “I thought they were going to shoot us right there. But the other guy with us, Mark, was a really big man. He was a lineman in college at UL Monroe and had a tryout with the Saints. I think the gang members saw him as a challenge, so they went at him with only bare fists—like they had to prove how tough they were. Mark took down three of the men before another thug came out of nowhere and took his knee out with a crowbar.”

  She swore under her breath and put a hand on her forehead. Dax sat back in the chair and waited for her to continue.

  “They beat that man to death right in front of us. By the time they were done, his face was unrecognizable.”

  Dax let out a long, slow sigh.

  “Richard, the other guy with me, fell to his knees and begged them to let him go. They laughed. Gave him a few more good shots before they dragged us both into the building where you found me. They took me to a room with other women and children, but they took Richard somewhere else. I haven’t seen him since; I’m not even sure he’s still alive.”

  “Shit.” Dax stood up and walked around the edge of the tight office.

  “That’s the story. They even took my damn prosthetic and then made fun of me about it. No telling where that went.”

  Dax wanted to ask Chloe about her missing leg but decided that now wasn’t the time. She looked emotionally drained, and they hadn’t even begun their day yet. He could save that question for later or wait until she brought it up.

  “So how do we get to your group?”

  Chloe fidgeted her fingers and looked at the old carpet on the floor. She licked her lips. “Um, I’m not totally sure.”

  How would she not know?

  Chloe was clutching her stomach. “We really need to find some food.”

  “I agree. Let’s get out of here
.”

  Dax offered his hands to Chloe and helped her up. She put her arm around him, and he guided her out of the office and through the old garage.

  “We’ve gotta find you a cane or a stick or something.”

  “Too heavy for you, Jackson?”

  Dax could’ve picked her up onto his shoulders and carried her across the Mississippi. But if they were being chased through the streets...

  “Dax,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I go by Dax now.”

  Chloe laughed. “What kind of name is ‘Dax’?”

  “I picked it up after high school. Jackson’s my middle name.”

  “I know, Dexter.” She smiled. “So you combined the two? That’s cute.”

  “Yeah, well, it stuck. And it’s what I prefer.”

  “That what they called you on the police force? Officer Dax?”

  Dax didn’t reply. He focused on keeping her upright and avoiding the debris on the garage floor.

  They reached the front of the building—the garage doors had been torn away long before the two of them had arrived the night before. The sun beat down on the pavement and Dax could feel the humidity creeping up. A dry tickle formed in the back of his throat. He tried to spit, but his mouth tasted like desert sand.

  People roamed Canal Street with weapons and armfuls of stolen electronics, but they didn’t bother Dax and Chloe. The casino sat at the southwest corner of the French Quarter, and the shops along Canal Street catered to wealthy tourists, so it was no surprise that people looted those places first. Surprisingly, few people bothered with the casino. The cash was most likely locked in vaults, and desperate people couldn’t eat poker chips.

  Dax had learned that the most dangerous looters came out at night—the ones who carried bats, crowbars, and firearms. The thugs used them on more than just windows and cars, too. During the day, the police uniform seemed more effective. People had stopped asking him for help, but they didn’t attack him either. It was as if the night brought the crazy with it.

  They’d walked about a half-mile down Canal when Chloe asked to duck into an alley and rest. Dax helped her to the ground and turned his attention to a nearby dumpster.

  “What’re you doing?” Chloe asked.

  Dax lifted the lid and reached inside. “Looking for food.”

  “You crazy if you think I’m eating food out of a dumpster.”

  “I think soon you’ll learn to eat food from anywhere.”

  Dax heard movement from the other side of the container. A man came lunging from behind it with a knife in his hand. Dax leaped back, but the man’s blade sliced through the flesh on Dax’s arm, only inches below the wound he had bandaged earlier.

  “Fuck,” Dax said, clutching his arm where the knife had cut him.

  Dax stood at least four inches taller than the man, but the attacker had muscles bulging through a tight t-shirt. He thrust the knife at Dax, this time stabbing instead of slashing. Dax side-stepped the blade, grabbing the guy’s wrist to bring him forward and punch him in the face. The man stumbled backward but didn’t drop the knife.

  “Leave us the fuck alone.”

  The man ignored Dax and slashed through the air with his knife. Dax ducked and came up with a punch to the man’s midsection. As Dax stepped in to drive his knee up to the man’s face, he swung the knife up and across Dax’s stomach, cutting through the thick fabric of his uniform.

  Dax stumbled, feeling the burn in his flesh. Although he didn’t have time to look, he could feel that the blade had only skimmed the surface of his skin.

  The man came at him again. Dax ducked and sprung back up with two jabs to the man’s face. He stumbled backward, and Dax followed to deliver an uppercut that caught the guy under the chin.

  He fell backward, landed on his back and rolled over onto his stomach. He reached for the knife he had dropped on the pavement. Dax stomped his heel down on the man’s hand, the delicate bones snapping like dry firewood.

  Dax lifted his foot and reached down to pull the guy’s arm back by the wrist.

  The man screamed. “Please don’t.”

  Dax gritted his teeth and yanked, his muscles bulging.

  The man’s arm snapped, and he screamed.

  Dax grabbed the knife and raised it over his head, then drove the blade into the back of the guy’s neck. The man quivered for several seconds as blood spewed from the wound. Dax twisted the knife until the man stopped moving.

  He turned around to see Chloe’s pale face, her empty eyes moving from Dax’s bloody hand to the dead man lying in the alley. She’d found an old iron pipe to use as a cane.

  Chloe shook her head and gripped the nearby brick wall with one hand, then turned and hobbled away down the alley to put as much distance as she could between herself and Dax.

  He raced after her.

  “Chloe, wait.”

  “Stay away from me.”

  Dax caught up to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “Come o—”

  Chloe turned around, her hand raised and her fingers wrapped around a hunk of broken glass.

  Dax raised his hands until the multiple wounds on his arm reminded him he was bleeding.

  “Chloe.” Dax grimaced and reached out with one hand.

  “Stay away from me, Jackson, or Dax, or whatever you want to be called.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m warning you. Leave me alone.”

  Dax lowered his hand and shook his head. He pointed down the alley and to the street where two teenagers had already begun to stop for a better look at the fight they had heard moments ago.

  “Fine,” he said. “Go. And good luck. Maybe you can break up that fight. Ain’t like you can help me find Gabby anyway.”

  Chloe wiped a tear from her face, then turned and moved away from him.

  8

  Dax ducked back into the alley. He sat on an overturned milk crate and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he looked down to see the body of the man he had killed. He leaned over and reached into the man’s pocket, feeling around until he felt a wallet.

  He opened the leather billfold. The man’s Louisiana driver’s license showed through a tiny window. His name was Thomas Shelby, a resident of Lake Charles. Dax tossed aside a couple of credit cards, business cards, and a Chili’s gift card. He found $30 in cash in the main sleeve and shoved it into his pocket before discarding the wallet next to the man’s body.

  Dax took a deep breath and tried to clear his head. Images of Chloe’s eyes ran through his mind. He huffed and swore to himself. What were the chances of him running into his high school sweetheart after all these years, in this situation?

  He spat and stood up, brushing dirt from his shirt. How could he have let her go on alone like that? What was he thinking?

  Dax closed his eyes and focused on nothing. He had taken a few lessons from a fellow prisoner who was a Buddhist. The man had tried teaching him how to meditate—to “think of nothing.” Dax had thought it was bullshit at the time, and now here he was, standing over a man he’d killed, trying to “think of nothing.” When enlightenment didn’t come, Dax walked out of the alley and onto Canal Street.

  At first glance, it looked somewhat normal. People walked along the sidewalk, some smoking and laughing like it was a typical morning. But things would change once the sun went down. Dax had seen his share of crazies on the streets at night. It was almost as if they were vampires, wreaking havoc at night when the moon was high and then retreating back into their lairs during the day to rest. Some believed people were innately good, but not Dax. He had seen the worst of humanity. He had been the worst of humanity.

  Dax wondered for how much longer it would make sense to wear the badge he had stolen. Some glanced at it on his chest while others looked right through him as if the old semblance of law and order had gone dark with The Blackout. And others, they’d be on the lookout for symbols of authority. They’d do their best to kill a cop just because they could. Being
black, Dax figured he’d have that going for him at least in a city of African-American majority. But even skin color meant little when food became scarce. Old allegiances and prejudices would dissipate, leaving nothing but hunger and violence in its wake.

  He kept walking but saw no sign of Chloe.

  I waited too damn long in that alley before going after her.

  A woman’s scream caught his attention. Two Hispanic guys were roughing up a black woman in her fifties, one finally tearing her purse from her grasp. The two men looked to Dax, waiting for him to do something. When he didn’t, they ran away.

  “Thanks a lot, asshole. Has everyone given up?”

  Dax ignored the woman’s insult and swallowed hard.

  Another scream snapped him out of the daze. A woman.

  Chloe.

  Dax ran to the corner and looked down the adjacent street. Across the road, three black guys had surrounded Chloe, pushing her back and forth and then laughing as she fell down.

  He thought about crossing the street and confronting the three men, but they were already stepping away from her. An older man in his fifties helped her up. Dax crept down the sidewalk and hid behind a newspaper stand, watching the whole thing. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but the young men who had been roughing up Chloe obeyed the older man, leaving her behind to look for their next mark.

  She appeared to be thanking the man, and he escorted her on for a moment before she politely waved him off. The man shrugged, then headed in the other direction.

  Dax moved out from behind the newspaper stand and headed down the sidewalk, keeping his eyes on Chloe but staying far enough behind her that she wouldn’t see him. To his surprise, people left her alone. Looters and gangs prowled Canal Street and the French Quarter, and he was surprised that a girl as pretty as Chloe could walk the streets in relative safety. Dax had seen other women being assaulted, and yet Chloe hopped along with a quiet intensity that seemed to ward off most thugs.

  Chloe stopped in front of a building. Dax hid behind a light pole. She looked around and then went inside.

  Dax waited to see if anyone would follow her, then crossed the street when no one did.