Final Awakening (Book 1): Dawn

by J. Thorn

  “This ain’t no way to leave someone you love. But it’s the best I can do right now, hon.”

  On his way out, Dax took up the framed photograph of Gabby and the kids. He broke the glass, grabbed the photo and shoved it into his pocket before heading out the door.

  23

  The sun had slid beneath the horizon, and the floodwater had risen as high as the first porch step. The neighbors had gone inside, hiding from the gangs who would be coming out to prowl the dark streets.

  Dax patted the Glock on his hip and then the clip in his pocket as he scanned the neighborhood before he turned around to shut the door to Gabby’s house. Dax grabbed a 2 x 4 and a handful of nails from the corner of the porch and a hammer off the step. He used the 2 x 4 to nail the door shut.

  Enough of tending to the dead. Time to save the living.

  Dax headed back the way he’d come, cutting through the French Quarter. He considered taking back roads or alleys but decided against it. With the city filling like a bathtub, he thought the main roads would more likely be clear.

  Two men stood at the top of the stairs leading into a restaurant. Both appeared to be white despite the grime covering their faces. The man on the left stood about five feet tall and wore a trucker hat. The man on the right had long, greasy brown hair down his back with bangs in the front. They watched Dax as he trudged through the water and past the building.

  “Hey.”

  Dax continued down the street, avoiding the men’s gazes.

  “Can you not hear us, you fucking pig?”

  Dax glanced at them but kept moving.

  “You deaf or something, copper?” Trucker Hat asked.

  “I ain’t no fucking cop.”

  “Nah, you ain’t,” Long Hair said. “Ain’t like we’d let a nigger cop live.”

  Dax stopped and put his hand on his gun. He took a deep breath.

  Stay focused. Get back to Chloe.

  “You see that, Glen? I think I hurt the monkey’s feelings.”

  The two men laughed.

  Dax bit his bottom lip hard enough to nearly draw blood.

  “I think we pissed him off,” Trucker Hat said, smiling. He picked up a wooden baseball bat while Long Hair drew a Bowie knife from his side.

  Long Hair said, “I’m gonna carve you up and peel that brown skin right off.”

  Dax turned around and came back, stopping in front of the steps, grimacing and balling his hands into fists. He spread his feet shoulder-width apart and got up on the balls of his feet.

  Trucker Hat reared back, swinging the baseball bat in a downward arc at Dax even as he hopped back, dodging the blow while also keeping his balance.

  Long Hair lunged with the knife. Dax grabbed the man’s wrists and threw him backward and into the water.

  Trucker Hat swung again, this time with both hands on the bat. Dax ducked, and the guy’s own momentum spun him all the way around. Dax threw a punch into the man’s kidney. Trucker Hat dropped the bat and clutched his back. Dax picked up the bat and drove the top of it into Trucker Hat’s other kidney. The man collapsed into the water, moaning and writhing.

  Dax turned as Long Hair came at him again, the knife still in his hand. He swung the bat, striking the man in the hand and forcing him to drop the knife into the water.

  Dax swung again, this time hitting Long Hair in the jaw. Blood sprayed from the man’s face as he fell backward, landing in the water. He didn’t move again.

  Trucker Hat had the knife in his hand and drove it straight down into Dax’s thigh.

  Dax screamed and dropped the bat, trying to yank the knife from his leg. Trucker Hat punched him in the face, sending Dax toppling off the steps and into the water. He landed on the knife, jamming it deeper into his thigh. Dax tried to stand, but Trucker Hat grabbed him by the back of his shirt and dunked his head under the water.

  The toxic water stung his eyes and burned his face. Dax swung his arms, trying to fight his way to the surface, but the man held him down. Dax’s vision began to fade, and his lungs felt as though he was breathing fire.

  Dax reached down to his thigh. At first, his hand slid off the hilt. But he tried again, this time pulling the blade out. He silenced a scream as the toxic water poured into the open wound. Dax swung the knife backward, feeling it lodge into flesh. He heard the muffled cry, and the man’s grip loosened. Dax stood up, barely able to put weight on his leg. He looked over to see his knife sticking out of Trucker Hat’s neck.

  Dax grabbed the man by the hair and dunked him under the water. Trucker Hat thrashed and kicked, but after about thirty seconds, he stopped moving. Dax held him under for another thirty seconds before letting go. The man’s arms went out, and his lifeless body floated down the street, the blade still sticking out of his neck.

  Dax limped up the stairs, falling over onto his side and grimacing as he held his hands over the open knife wound. He pulled off the blue police shirt, tore the sleeve off at the shoulder and wrapped it around the wound to stop the bleeding. He then bundled up the rest of the shirt and pressed it over the makeshift bandage.

  A gunshot rang out, and somebody screamed. Several more shots followed.

  Dax grabbed the railing and pulled himself up on his good leg. He pushed on the restaurant’s door, and it swung open. Dax stumbled inside, turned around and locked the door. Pressing his back against the wall, he waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness inside.

  He moved past the hostess stand and crossed the threshold into the dining room. Most of the tables had been flipped over, the chairs scattered. One table nearby stood upright with a burning candle on top. Dax saw three bottles of water and an open bag of almonds next to it. He stepped around two sleeping bags, knocking empty beer bottles across the floor. The room smelled of old fryer grease, stale beer, and chewed tobacco.

  Dax unscrewed the cap off the full bottle of water and chugged half. He then grabbed a chair from the floor and flipped it upright with one hand before sitting down. Dax moved the candle to the edge of the table and pulled his shirt away from the wound. The makeshift bandage had helped to stop the bleeding, but he still had to worry about infection. He emptied the contents of another water bottle over the wound. Dax grimaced and realized he really would have to wash it out with soap if there was any to be found.

  After several minutes, the pain lost its edge, and Dax stood up again. He was able to put enough weight on his injured leg that he didn’t have to use the wall for support. He grabbed the candle and marched straight through the middle of the dining room and into the kitchen.

  The back of the place had been thoroughly ransacked. Dozens of open cans lay on the countertops. The refrigerator had been left ajar, a stink like dead fish now wafting throughout the entire space.

  Dax knew he was unlikely to find any edible food. His main goal was to find a medicine cabinet so he could properly treat his wound. On the other side of the kitchen, he found a cabinet labeled First-Aid. He opened it. As with the rest of the restaurant, someone had rummaged through this cabinet. He saw the familiar brown plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide, though, and grabbed it and headed back toward the dining room to escape the rank odor and hopefully have more light.

  He walked back through the dining room, this time spotting a bottle of whiskey on the floor, capped and half full. Dax grabbed it before sitting down at the same table where he’d found the water bottles. He unscrewed the cap off of the hydrogen peroxide bottle and pulled the shirt away from his wound again. Dax grimaced as he looked at the brown bottle, anticipating the burn. He set it down on the table.

  Dax grabbed the whiskey bottle. It felt cool in his hand, and Dax knew the whiskey would feel differently going down his throat and warming his chest. He took a long drink and followed it with another.

  “Fuck it.”

  Dax grabbed the bottle of hydrogen peroxide, pouring the disinfectant over the wound. He screamed every four-letter obscenity he knew. He fell out of the chair and landed on one of the sleeping bags. Da
x reached up and grabbed the whiskey bottle, taking another swig and trying to keep his mind off of his leg.

  Finally, Dax closed his eyes and passed out, letting the whiskey and pain take over.

  24

  Dax woke to the sound of a scream. He sat up, reaching for his Glock in the process. The sudden jolt reminded him of the injury to his leg. He grimaced. When the immediacy of the pain subsided, he noticed the makeshift bandage hadn’t darkened any further, which meant the wound had finally stopped bleeding.

  Another scream.

  He used a chair to pull himself to his feet.

  Dax hobbled to the window. The candles had all gone out, and it seemed darker inside the restaurant than out on the streets. He scanned left to right but saw nobody out there, no one on the street or at the door.

  He opened the front door and slid through, standing at the top of the steps. The water had risen, now covering one more of the steps leading up to the restaurant.

  Someone screamed for the third time, and Dax knew it had come from the adjacent building. He bent down and tried to keep his body in the corner of the exterior wall as he looked at the windows in the building next door. No light came from within, and Dax was about to turn away when a fleeting shadow caught his eye.

  Leave it be. You got a big fucking hole in your leg.

  What he heard next made the hairs on his arms stand up. At first, Dax thought someone was killing a cat. The high-pitched shriek could have been an animal, too, but it sounded deeper and louder. A scream, like a human.

  Dax looked at the water and then to his thigh. He could hobble through it and be back to the restaurant before the water rose high enough to contaminate his wound. The last thing he wanted to do was clean it out. Again. He hobbled down the steps, into the water and toward the building next door—the whole time keeping his eyes on the windows. He came to a door on the side of the building that stood open, left slightly ajar. Dax grabbed it, pulled it open and stepped into the darkness.

  The aroma of tomato sauce and fried dough mixed with spoiled milk and wet garbage. Dax gagged as he took another step inside the Italian eatery. Like the restaurant he’d been in before, the eatery had been ransacked. Tables lay on their sides, and someone had built a mound of chairs in one corner of the room. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw more destruction. Signs had been thrown on the ground, and dozens of round, aluminum pizza trays covered the floor toward the back wall. A weak, soft glow came from a back dining room, and it caught his attention. Dax limped toward it, his gun firmly in his grasp. The subtle illumination flashed on and off and as he moved closer to the source. Then he heard a gentle whimper.

  The flashing light came through a square window set inside of a swinging door. Dax looked through it and could see the faint outlines of people standing in the corner.

  Leave. Get out of here right now.

  Four men stood in a semi-circle, facing another man who they had pinned against the wall. The light was too dim for Dax to see their faces.

  A sixth man approached the group. He carried a candle which helped to illuminate the scene. The man against the wall stood with his arms straight out, like Jesus on the cross. He continued to whimper as the others stood before him—silent.

  “Please, let me go,” the trapped man said.

  The man with the candle moved closer. He stood before the hostage and Dax could see nothing but the back of his head. But the candle lit the crucified man’s face from beneath. At first, Dax thought the prisoner was wearing a Halloween mask, a rubbery face stretched into a horrified frown. But then he spoke again, and Dax could hear the tremble in his voice.

  “Oh, God, please stop. Please.”

  The figure holding the candle nodded and the others shifted until they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in front of their prisoner.

  “No! Stop!”

  The man holding the candle blew it out, and darkness dropped into the room like a heavy cloak. And then Dax saw it.

  What the fuck is that?

  The trapped man’s face remained hidden by the blackness, but Dax could see the faces of the assailants—well, not their faces exactly. Their eyes.

  They had a subtle, yet mesmerizing glow to them—like a cat’s eyes but in the shape of humans’. Dax looked away, thinking that it had to be a trick of the light in the room. Or the lack of it. But when he glanced back, he saw them again and knew that what he saw was no optical illusion. Their eyes glowed.

  He ducked and stepped away from the swinging door, careful not to bump or nudge it into motion. Dax’s adrenaline kicked in, and he forgot about the stab wound in his leg as he hurried through the Italian eatery, and then across the alley and back up the steps into the restaurant. He stepped inside and closed the door, locking it.

  Dax sat in the dark, clutching his gun with sweat pouring down his face. He had been breathing heavily, and he closed his eyes, trying to calm his fluttering heart. Dax counted to twenty and opened his eyes before lowering the gun.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  25

  Nobody cared about the poor. He wasn’t being cold or callous. Neil knew it was how things were, especially in New Orleans. Years ago, during Katrina, he had overheard countless conversations about what was happening to the Lower Ninth Ward. He had seen security cam footage from inside the Superdome. But most of the concern was for the Crescent City’s property and its reputation, not its citizens.

  He couldn’t afford to lose his job. That would put him out on the streets and then he’d be another one of the poor sons of bitches the government cared about only when the lights of the news media were shining on them.

  As lead engineer, he had signed off on Diversion Plan, Section 4.3. He had approved the measure to protect New Orleans’ greatest assets—the French Quarter and all of the tourist dollars it drew to the city. Neil had put his signature at the bottom of the document without too much thought. If he hadn’t, some other guy in the engineering office would have. It was procedure. Policy.

  When the main station pumps red-lined, Neil had authorized a diversion of power to those serving the French Quarter and the surrounding streets. This would route power away from New Orleans’ most populated, and poorest, neighborhoods.

  “They’re mostly drug dealers and prostitutes anyways,” he had said to himself at the time. “What good have they ever done for New Orleans?”

  Also, he’d added a clause to Section 4.3 which said that if the situation became so dire that the backup diesel generators ran low on fuel, the pumps protecting the French Quarter would be refueled first.

  And then the unthinkable happened again. Although it wasn’t a hurricane this time, the city officials ordered an evacuation after The Blackout had dropped the grid and all essential services associated with it.

  This new, unidentified threat frightened Neil as he walked down Rampart Street and then through the French Quarter, watching as Cadillac SUVs and sleek BMWs clogged the streets. Gone were the street performers and tourists. The wealthy residents had fled the chaos while the poor had been left behind to fight for whatever was left on the supermarket shelves.

  Neil didn’t know if that was the ultimate irony. The very people he had chosen to save would be long gone by the time everything went to hell. But then again, city leadership was about saving the city of New Orleans, not the residents of New Orleans.

  “Watch where you walking, white boy.”

  The insult jarred Neil from his thoughts. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and stepped to the side, allowing two black men and a shopping cart full of smartphones to pass by. Neil glanced up at the street sign and saw he that he was now in the 2500 block of Poydras Street.

  He looked to his right where some children drew chalk shapes on the sidewalk. Sirens blared along with the sound of breaking glass, and yet these kids kept playing. They looked so... innocent. Neil hated the cliché, but it was true.

  “Hey, mister,” one of them called out. “Wanna draw with us?”

&
nbsp; Gunshots erupted from across the street, followed by screams.

  “Aren’t you afraid? You should be inside where it’s safe.”

  “We’re waiting here for my momma and aunt. They coming for us.”

  Neil looked around, and he felt a pit forming in his stomach. Based on the rioting and looting he had seen, he didn’t think anyone was coming for these kids.

  “You’ll all die here.”

  “Huh?”

  Neil smiled at the little girl looking up at him, not realizing he had said that out loud.

  “Nothing.” Neil counted seven kids, none older than eight. “Your momma would probably want me to make sure you were safe for when she gets back, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Then I think we need to go inside.”

  Neil looked around and spotted the Love n’ Play Day Care Center at 2085 Poydras.

  “Let’s go, everyone. I’m sure they have toys and games in the day care center.”

  A prepubescent girl smirked, and two younger boys pushed her from behind.

  “C’mon, Monica. Let’s go with the white man.”

  “You know you don’t go with strangers, boys. Especially you, Darius. You’re supposed to be more ‘sponsible.”

  Neil saw another fistfight break out on the corner and he felt compelled to get these children inside and away from the chaos. He ushered them in the opposite direction of the fight, using his arms to keep them in a tight group.

  He hadn’t felt guilt since his days as a Catholic altar boy, and Neil hated that the feeling had chosen to return now. He had been doing his job. He wasn’t responsible for these people. But they were kids, and he knew they’d die when the pumps stopped and he wasn’t sure he could handle that on his conscience.

  “Let’s go inside.”

  The boys ran inside, and Monica looked at Neil.

  “We ain’t supposed to trust strangers.”