by Blou Bryant
“We can fight for this,” Wyatt whispered to Trix, “but we don’t need to fight.”
When she let out a long sigh, he released her arm. “Thank you.”
She leaned in and whispered, “Don’t thank me yet, Gandhi. This ain’t over. Look behind you.”
The Watchers. Wyatt had briefly forgotten about them. He turned and saw there were eight of them approaching, Perce in the center.
“Remember our plan. Don’t let them push us to do anything stupid,” he said, with a glance at Trix to make sure she heard him. She made a face but didn’t follow when he moved to intercept the group. “Hey,” he said, forcing a smile onto his face despite a deep desire to punch the guy in his smug face.
“Your cop friends are history,” said Perce.
“Ours? I thought they were yours. About time they left.”
Perce gave him a quizzical look. “They were protecting you.”
“No, you.”
“But…”
“You’re right in the middle of our neighborhood. Have you counted?” Wyatt was enjoying himself. Gandhi indeed. He wondered how much the old guy had enjoyed pissing the British off, simply by being where he wasn’t welcome.
“Counted?”
“You guys watch us come and go. I’d love to know how many people live here. Do you guys have totals? There have to be a few hundred of us within blocks.”
Perce paused again, flummoxed. “You need to leave now.”
“No,” said Wyatt. “You.”
“Us?” asked Perce.
“You leave.”
“We’re not leaving, you are.”
“Are you sure?”
Perce stared at Wyatt as if he were crazy. “Yes, I’m sure. Are you going to fight us? You can’t take us.”
“No, we’re not going to fight.”
“Then… what?”
Wyatt stifled a giggle. He wondered if whatever drugs Jessica gave her Watchers made them dumb, or if they came that way. “We’re going back to the house. We’ll wait for lawyers and politicians to sort this out.”
Perce didn’t look pleased at this. “We’ve got guns.”
Rather than give in to the red rage he felt pressing inside him, Wyatt continued to torment the man. “We’ve got guns too, they’re very nice guns. We’ve got big ones, small ones, and silver ones too.”
There wasn’t a reply.
“And we’re not going to use them.”
“We will.”
“You will? How will Jessica like that? I bet she doesn’t need more bad publicity.”
“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said, but a worry line formed between his eyebrows. Wyatt had hit a nerve.
“Strange. You seemed to recognize her name earlier. Weren’t you supposed to admit to working for the ugly hag?”
“Don’t you talk about her…”
“I thought you didn’t know her…” Wyatt said, and stopped there. As much fun as he was having, he didn’t need to push the guy any further. “Anyhow, we’re not fighting, we’re not getting into a shoot-out.” He turned his back on Perce and returned to the group. “Come on guys, let’s order pizza or something and wait for Marylyn to arrive with lawyers.”
“I can pick it up,” Sandra said. Drivers weren’t allowed into the Zone, since officially nobody lived there and insurance didn’t cover anything that happened.
“Don’t need, we can have it delivered to the other side of the street.” Wyatt walked back to the stoop, the center of his back itchy in the knowledge that two armed groups were behind him. He didn’t turn, but was comforted that he couldn’t hear any arguing, and he could hear the footsteps of his friends. When he finally sat on the stoop, he breathed a long sigh of relief.
Ezzy sat next to him and patted him on the back. “Nice work, boss-man.”
“We aren’t done yet,” he said.
“Nobody hurt, no shooting, and the house is still standing; it feels like a win to me.”
She was a sweet woman who’d became a member of the Dogs after Wyatt had cured her of an immune disorder almost two years before. His power to heal by transmitting a virus he carried often had strange results, sometimes good and sometimes bad. She had neither. She’d simply got better. Wyatt didn’t know how the virus worked—or even why it worked. The only person who’d even came close to understanding it had died over three years before.
As everyone sat, he turned his attention to Perce, who was alternating between talking on the phone and yelling at the workers. Wyatt pulled his shirt up and wiped sweat off his brow. It couldn’t be later than nine in the morning in early December but felt more like noon in July. “Sandra, does Marylyn know what’s going on?”
Sandra sat next to him. “We called her office when we found out, but she’s not called back.”
“That’s not like her. We need political or legal muscle to make sure this doesn’t get out of hand. Call her again. Or Seymour, he’s got enough lawyers on retainer. Call them again.”
“What are they going to do?” asked Ezzy with a nod to the Watchers.
Perce had put his phone away and Wyatt shot to his feet at the sight of a gun. “Shit.”
Trix saw it as well. “Who’s packing?” she asked and received a round of replies. At least half her people were.
Sandra would have a gun as well. “No, guys, wait,” he said, but his heart wasn’t in it, he felt lost, unsure of himself or what to do. Perhaps he should take Olde’s advice and leave. He didn’t need to look at Trix to know she wouldn’t listen.
Perce wasn’t even looking at him though, he was still shouting at the construction workers. Every one of them had stood up, no longer relaxed. One was arguing with Perce, and the others started backing away. Wyatt wished he could hear the conversation, but could easily imagine it.
After a minute of this, the workers turned and ran. Wyatt held his breath for a moment, but even drugged, the Watchers weren’t dumb enough to open fire on construction workers. “Now what?” he whispered.
“What?” asked Ezzy.
When Perce pointed at the bulldozer and one of the Watchers got in, he got his answer. “Damn,” he said as the machine started moving towards the house.
“What now, Gandhi?” asked Trix.
“No violence.”
“If there’s violence, it’s on them, not us.”
“Boss-man, we gotta protect what’s ours,” said Ahmed.
I’m not the boss-man, Wyatt thought. But he was, like it or not. Eyes were all on him. This was his plan. “Did anyone answer?” he asked Sandra. She shook her head, no.
The machine rolled across the street towards the group. Wyatt still had no clue what to say. Trix walked forward, her people fanned out behind her, several with guns out. The Watchers followed the bulldozer closely, like soldiers behind a tank. Wyatt saw that they had guns out as well.
A car came up the street, slowed and then backed up quickly when one of the Watchers pointed a gun at it. Two people who’d been walking, hand in hand up the sidewalk, turned and ran in the opposite direction.
Wyatt took two tentative steps forward as the bulldozer reached the sidewalk. As he tried to come up with a plan, with something to stop the violence, Ezzy ran ahead of him, with her hands in the air.
“No,” she yelled. “I’m not armed, don’t shoot.”
Everyone on Wyatt’s side of the street lowered their guns. Ezzy turned, offering her back to the Watchers. “We have to be better than them…” she said, her voice raised so she could be heard over the bulldozer that was now coming straight for her.
As it closed in, Wyatt broke from his paralysis and ran for her, “Ezzy, no….” he yelled, but she didn’t move and the bulldozer kept coming.
Perhaps she knew it would hit her and accepted her fate, emboldened to sacrifice herself by his talk of non-violence. Perhaps she didn’t judge how fast it was moving. Later, Wyatt told himself that it was the first, that she’d sacrificed herself. In the moment, the ‘why’ didn’t mat
ter—the blade hit her in the shoulder and tossed her through the air towards him.
Wyatt saw nobody but her. There was gunfire, but he didn’t hear it. The next morning, someone told him that the Dogs and others from the Zone opened fire seconds after they saw the machine hit Ezzy. The Watchers had returned fire. He didn’t hear any of it, he didn’t see it. Wyatt covered the few feet between them and fell to the ground next to her. Her eyes were open, but were unfocused, and she wasn’t moving. Blood pooled under her.
Frantically Wyatt unwrapped the bandage that covered the wound on his left hand.
He pressed down hard on her chest and willed the virus to transmit, to revive and rescue her. There was nothing. No telltale tingling. No faint blue flickering light. No warmth, no sense of her responding.
Wyatt opened his eyes and stared down into hers. “Heal, Ezzy. Heal!” he pleaded. The virus had taken over his life, he’d lost any chance of normalcy because of it, and now it failed him? Damn it, heal her, he thought.
The bulldozer approached, but Wyatt ignored it, and focused on the hand he had pressed down on Ezzy. He reached down into himself and tried to picture the virus, to feel it as it coursed through his blood. He tried to direct it, order it to serve him.
Nothing.
“No,” he shouted and tried harder, willing his body to action.
Nothing.
“Please,” he begged. Was there a tingle?
Something.
The bulldozer sounded feet away now, but he was hardly conscious of it.
Warmth spread through him, but instead of the usual blue sparks from his hand, everything around him took on a red glow.
Is it working?
He pressed down even harder and heard—and felt—bones crack from the pressure. His wounded hand felt as if needles were piercing it, but that didn’t matter either.
“Heal, damn you,” he shouted. Nothing. The red intensified, and he pushed harder.
The bulldozer closed, feet away now, and he put his right hand up to ward off the approaching machine. As he did this, Wyatt felt something inside snap.
His left hand burned red, so bright his eyes hurt.
There was a whooshing sound, the air left his lungs, and he found himself surrounded by a bubble of cold red electricity.
It took a second—or less—for this all to happen, and then the bubble burst outward. The bulldozer’s engine, feet from him, exploded in flames.
As the air rushed back into the vacuum created by the bubble, it pummeled him from all sides and forced him to the ground. He struggled halfway to his knees, gasped for air once, twice, and then fell back down, his body burning.
Chapter 4
It might have been seconds, or perhaps it was minutes later when he slowly opened his eyes at the feel of a hand on his chest. Trix stared down at him with concern on her face. That, and confusion. She was blurry—everything was—and he gave his head a shake, something he immediately regretted.
“Wyatt,” she said. “Can you move?”
Unsure, he flexed his legs. His body ached and he was cold, sweaty, almost feverish. He sat up and leaned on her, using her strength to stand.
“What happened?” she asked.
He hardly remembered, not even sure now where he was or what he was doing, his mind addled. “Ezzy,” he said and scanned the lawn, spotting her yards away. He rubbed his eyes to clear his vision, but other than adding stars to the blur, nothing changed. Still, he saw well enough to note others standing and kneeling around her, some crying, the rest quiet. She wasn’t moving.
“She’s dead,” said Trix, her voice heavy with sadness. “You have to go.”
“Why?” he asked and looked across the street for the Watchers. He wanted them to pay, but they’d already fled. The bulldozer blocked the road, smoke coming from its engine, the seat empty.
He took a step towards the body—towards Ezzy—and stumbled. If Trix hadn’t been holding him by the arm, he would have fallen to the ground. As he straightened up, he saw two more bodies on the lawn, and one on the stoop.
“Ahmed,” Trix yelled. “Get your car over here.”
Wyatt tried to shake her off him, to go to Ezzy, to check on the others, but he was too weak, too disoriented. “No,” he protested.
“Marylyn called. She asked for you and said to meet her at Andy and Rich’s.”
That made little sense to Wyatt. He didn’t even think she knew them. “Why?”
Ahmed pulled up and Trix ushered Wyatt into the back seat. His knees almost buckled at every step, and finally he stopped arguing, half falling into the car.
She lifted him up, like a child, and ensured he was fully in. “I’m staying to take care of our people. Ahmed, take him to Andy’s, don’t stop for nothin. Got it?” With that, Trix slammed the door shut, tapped the roof, and walked away.
Ahmed immediately started driving.
Wyatt opened his mouth to ask questions, he had so many, but stopped when he noticed the weapon Ahmed had placed on the car dash and the way the man’s face was set, anger visible.
Closing his mouth, he let himself be driven. What had happened? he wondered to himself. Why couldn’t he heal her, and what was the explosion—had he really caused it? And… four bodies, how did it come to that so quickly?
Ahmed sped through the Zone, and as they neared the house he’d help rebuild, the car slowed. A glance out the front window showed why—there were people on the road, guns in hand. Two women with large weapons looked in and waved them on as Ahmed eased to the curb in front of their destination. How had they heard?
Wyatt took a moment to pull himself together. He was still dizzy and his vision blurred, but less so than it had been.
He stepped out of the car and with effort didn’t wobble or weave, waving Ahmed off, not wanting to look weak. “I got this, go back and help them…” with the bodies, he meant, but couldn’t bring himself to say it.
Out of the car, he took two steps and his knees nearly buckled. One step further and he stopped, not confident in his ability to continue without falling. As he the car pulled away, Hannah jogged down the steps towards him.
She reached him before he fell, and pulled his arm over her shoulder, moving him towards the house. “You’re dripping sweat,” she said, putting a hand to his head, “and burning up. What’s wrong?”
“Why are you here?”
“Marylyn called, she told me you’d need me, had me wait here. She arrived five minutes ago.”
“How?”
“What?”
Wyatt didn’t understand how she could be here already. “How… how’d she know?”
“Know what? What happened?” Hannah asked as they reached the porch.
There were several more armed bangers on the porch. Didn’t they know?
“They’re with Marylyn, her people, came with for protection, so she said.”
From what?
Sandra was there to meet him, but didn’t get to say a word before Marylyn burst through the front door. Only six months earlier, Wyatt had passed the virus to her, and she’d recovered from the cancer her doctors had declared to be terminal. While triple his age, she moved and lived with an energy he envied.
“What are you doing?” she groused at two men on the porch. “Help him in.”
Wyatt faintly protested as two young men helped him up the porch and into the house.
“Where to, ma’am?” one asked. Nobody was anything but respectful with Marylyn.
“I’ll take him from here. Hannah, come with us, he’ll need your healing touch. She said only you two, nobody else.”
“She?” asked Wyatt, following on weak legs as she walked through the living room to the back.
Marylyn pointed to a door that led to a main level bedroom. Several months earlier, he’d gutted the old lathe and plaster, installed new flooring, and had helped redo all the walls.
“I’ll let her tell you,” said Marylyn.
“Her, who her?” asked Wyatt and again didn’t
receive a reply.
“Just go on in. I got your messages about the demolition. How bad is it?”
Wyatt paused, his hand on the doorknob. She had the messages, nothing more—she didn’t know about the deaths. “Terrible. Ezzy… she’s… and others….”
Marylyn’s face fell as she read between the lines. “Go,” she said and turned back, leaving them alone.
Wyatt entered and Hannah followed. The small room was converted into a spare room for visitors, sparsely furnished with a single bed, a reupholstered chair, and a small TV. A slight figure draped his legs over the chair, a movie on a screen in front of him—a Star Wars sequel.
The figure in the chair wore a hoodie. He put up a hand—wait a moment—and leaned in to watch the end of a lightsaber fight. The battle over, he stood up and pulled his hood back—and Wyatt realized that he was a she.
Wyatt almost fell to the ground as he recognized her. She was older, three years older, but undeniably her, the girl he’d only known for a few days, years before.
“Teri,” he exclaimed and ran forward. He only managed two steps before his left knee buckled, sending him to the floor.
Hannah and Teri were by his side in seconds. They helped him first to his feet, and then to the bed. Not minding the help, he kept his eyes focused on her face. She’d healed, her eyes were both now open, and her lip was no longer twisted and malformed. Her hair was still thick with tight curls, long and unnaturally white.
Seated, he reached out and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her slight frame. Something in her, or perhaps in the short time they’d spent together, made him care in a way he didn’t for most. Never a people person, he thought of her as a younger sister. Three years apart hadn’t changed that. He’d understood why she’d been separated from the Dogs, but never liked it.
“It’s so good to see you,” he whispered. He’d been waiting years to see her again, and Sandra had promised months ago that they’d be reunited, but it’d never happened.
She returned the hug and they held each other for a time, happy at their reunion. In the background, rebels and stormtroopers fought, providing the only sound. Eventually, Teri released him and moved back, kneeling in front of him. “How are you?” she signed.
