The Saffron Malformation

by Walker, Bryan

  An engine revved and he stopped, reaching out to Rachel and taking her hand, pulling her close to him. They were at the main street, Coast View, and the Nails and Tails was still a few hundred meters away. People, some on their own—most in small groups of a handful—hurried this way and that, fear and panic mixed with uncertainty and drenched their eyes in a certain primal look. Dusty had seen this look before and knew it’d lead them to do things they never thought themselves capable. In this state, ordinary people were made into dangerous animals.

  Dusty knelt low and peeked out from the alley, glancing briefly up the wide main street lined with shops on either side. There was a man on a bike sitting in the middle of the next intersection up the road. He was waving in more members of the raiding party. Angels of the Brood. Dusty recognized the patchwork from an encounter he and Quey had with them in the way back when.

  “What is it?” Rachel asked between hard breaths.

  “Slow and deep,” Dusty told her and she looked at him strangely. “Breathe slow and deep, you recover better.”

  Rachel took in a set of long breaths and then asked again, “What is it?”

  Dusty looked up at her there was something hard in his eyes—and ignored her question for the moment. He looked out again and saw two more bikes had joined the first, and they were discussing something among themselves. The guy on the first bike had a shaggy face and long straggly hair. His clothes were tattered and patched in places and he was pointing up and down the streets. The other two nodded and revved their engines.

  “We have about ten minutes,” Dusty said, feeling his heart racing in his chest, knowing most of its speed hadn’t come from the jog.

  “Then what?”

  He’d almost forgotten Rachel was there and didn’t know he’d spoken loud enough for her to hear. He looked up at her and watched her large brown eyes shimmering with the same look the scampering citizens of Fen Quada had. Wind whipped strands of her golden brown hair across her face and she didn’t seem to notice, she was waiting for him to tell her what would happen next and he did. “Then the raiders get here.”

  “The raiders… but… Who are they?” she asked, indicating the men on bikes with a tremble in her voice. She started to look out onto the street.

  Dusty grabbed her arm and pulled her back and down beside him. “They’re scouts. They’re here to test the town, see what kind of resistance there might be.”

  Rachel watched him with a collage of emotion. Part of it was fear of the raiders, the engines rumbling through the streets and the gunshots erupting now only a block away, and the screams that followed. Another part was awe. When she looked at Dusty she didn’t see the same fear in his eyes that she felt in her own. She knew about his past, the years he’d spent with Quey on the road as a petty thief and the time after, when they’d met Cal, she knew he’d seen this type of stuff before and that he could stay focused was no surprise. What was a surprise was what she saw and felt under the surface. It was exhilaration. There was a part of him that was enjoying this, a part that reveled in the action.

  She’d been close to terrible things once, a small part of a movement that led to guns and violence and fighting but she hated it and abandoned the cause and the people that took her there. She’d never seen it close up, even then, but now that she had she couldn’t imagine ever liking it.

  “Come on,” he said, looking up the street at a bandit firing an assault rifle into the face of a storefront. He took Rachel’s hand and she allowed him to lead her across Costal View and in between a set of eateries, one was a delicatessen and the other served mostly tacos, burritos, and the like.

  “Wait,” Dusty told her and stooped to one knee five feet back from the narrow entrance. “Duck down and cover your head with your arms,” he told her. Out in the street the motorbike revved and then roared closer. The rider screamed but his words were lost in the chaos.

  Rachel knelt behind him. When he looked over his shoulder and saw her eyes wide and watching the road he shouted, “Cover up!” She tucked her arms in around her head. “Close your eyes hon,” he told her, suddenly very calm. She did. She didn’t want to see, especially not his part in it.

  Dusty glared out at the street with steel eyes. He judged about how tall the bike was and how much higher than that the rider would be. He kept his aim on the low side because it was better to shoot handlebars than air. The bike rumbled, vibrating the air as it approached, and then the front tire came into view. Dusty moved his finger to the trigger of his pistol and took a deep breath. His heart thudded rapidly in his chest but his hand was steady. A black leather boot came into his view, as did handle bars and he took in a bit more air. His eyes narrowed into unblinking slits as he tracked the sight at the end of the barrel. The barrel of the assault rifle came past the wall and his finger almost jerked the trigger but he stopped himself. He had to wait, had to be patient. Had to wait for the right-

  A scruffy chin, long wind whipped hair and deep brown eyes looking right at him inched out from the other side of the delicatessen’s wall. The man on the bike had his rifle aimed to fire, but he was aiming for a pair of people running away. Dusty was low to the ground and right there in front of him. Dusty exhaled slowly as the biker’s eyes changed from searchful to startled. The biker jerked his trigger and a bullet tore through the air a good three feet over Dusty’s head. It was a sloppy impulse that came with the realization that an ambush had been set for him. Dusty squeezed the trigger of his pistol slowly and the man’s throat exploded. The bike wavered violently left then right then collapsed and slid on its side until it struck the door to the Mexican eatery. The rider rolled a half dozen times with his hand to his throat and then landed flat on his back, wheezing and gurgling his last breaths.

  Rachel felt tears in her eyes as she heard the man dying in the street. Dusty took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “I have to pee,” she told him absently, her knees shaking under her weight.

  “Later,” he told her sharply and when she looked at him she almost didn’t recognize him. His hand seemed to absorb hers and she let him lead her away.

  The gunshots were getting closer to Quey and the Nails and Tails. Arnie was looking out at him from the bar’s back door, panic set deep in his eyes. “What are we gunna do?” Arnie asked.

  “How long?” Quey asked Arnie briskly, ignoring the young man’s question.

  Arnie checked the time and replied, “Ten minutes, there abouts.”

  Quey nodded. He listened to the gunshots. There were plenty who’d taken up arms both in Fen Quada above and below. The town was on the verge of becoming one big shootout and people were likely to be desperate. They’d see a vehicle such as Quey’s rig as their ticket to survival and that was a dilemma he didn’t feel like dealing with. It was going to be hard enough fighting off the bandits; he didn’t want to fight off townsfolk as well.

  “Come on,” Quey chided Dusty aloud, wherever he was.

  “What’s that?” Arnie asked, he hadn’t heard Quey's words clearly, just his agitated voice.

  “Tell me when it’s been fifteen,” Quey hollered. Fifteen minutes was a long time for Dusty to take but he wanted to be sure that it was necessary to go looking for him before he did.

  Quey checked his gun again. It was still loaded, still had a round in the chamber and the safety was still off.

  The bandit was rolling through the streets at a leisurely pace, the barrel of his rifle propped on his handle bars, looking for something fun to shoot at, when he noticed an orange cat flying toward him, its ears tucked back, its eyes wide with fright and its claws scraping the air ahead. Reggie had found the feline in the alley and it was either someone’s pet or had been fed by enough people to trust them because the big man was able to catch it easy enough.

  “Raauuuwwww,” the cat shrieked as it hurtled through the air and finally connected with the bandit’s face.

  “Aaaahhhh!” the bandit screamed as the cat smacked him square in the nose and dug its claws in
to his cheeks. Its hind legs kicked wildly and cut deep into his neck as he felt the bike wobble under him. He tried to fight the cat and gravity at the same time and lost on both fronts. First the bike toppled onto its side, sending him skidding across the street and into the curb where he felt his hip crack as he rolled onto the sidewalk. Then the cat carved through his cheeks as it flew from his face and rolled across the pavement and into a trashcan.

  The cat dashed away as Reggie stopped over the bandit smiling.

  “Fuck,” the guy said.

  “Too bad you don’t have as many lives as that cat,” Reggie told him and fired. The bandit didn’t hear the shot.

  It was a long walk from upper Fen Quada to his place in the lower section but it was a short ride and he made it with a grin on his face and a rifle over his shoulder. He’d tucked the shirt full of ammo into the saddlebag and rode home under the constant overlapping rhythm of multiple gunfights.

  Part of him hoped to come across a few more bandits along the way but he lived on the outskirts and raiders tended toward the populated areas. He parked the bike in his front yard and hurried past his small blue car into the shed out back where he’d stashed a collection of weapons he’d accumulated over the years. Some might have called it paranoia left over from the war, but then those people probably weren’t in Fen Quada that day, because if they were, Reggie felt confident they’d have called it good thinking.

  Inside the shed he loaded a pair of duffle bags with four assault rifles, a set of pistols, five revolvers, two shotguns, and a rocket launcher. The bags went into the trunk of his car along with a set of ammo crates full of spare rounds for everything but the launcher. He only had the one rocket, but he did have about a dozen grenades he loaded into a smaller bag and packed next to the ammo.

  The car started as soon as his thumb touched the print plate next to the wheel and he pulled out of the driveway and headed toward town, the bandit’s rifle resting across his lap with the spare ammo tied in the red shirt on the seat beside him.

  Ahead, Reggie saw a man on a motorcycle take notice of him and rev his engine twice before starting toward him. The big man smiled and jammed his knee against the steering wheel to keep it strait while he raised his rifle and took aim. He saw the biker’s eyes gape and his hand rush to lift his own weapon but it was too late. Reggie squeezed off a round that tore through the biker’s chest and sent him tumbling from his bike.

  The motorcycle rolled on a while with no one aboard before wavering and toppling to the pavement. The bandit lay in the street writhing as blood pooled around him.

  Rachel was crying and Dusty couldn’t keep them back much longer. They’d spotted the couple coming out of an alley a few hundred meters or so from Nails and Tails and opened fire. A pair of raiders with assault rifles and a hard on for killing, it seemed. Dusty had pulled Rachel back into the alley and then through a side door that led to Banner’s Grill—they served the best grilled fish sandwich you could get anywhere. Banner’s claim to fame was his ability to cook the fish exactly as long as was needed to kill the microbe in the fish without over cooking it. Dusty had hated seafood until he found Banner’s, everything else had tasted like rubber.

  Now he was hunkered down with his fiancé in the kitchen popping off shots at the pair of bandits whenever they grew bold enough to try and enter. He was leaning over the window where the cooks would set the plates for the wait staff, watching the front and side doors. The bandits fired wildly into the restaurant and Dusty stood still, watching. There was no danger of them hitting anything so he let them waste ammo until they grew bold enough to step inside. That was when he’d send a few rounds their way, coming dangerously close and chasing them back out the doors and the cycle would repeat.

  It was working fine save the fact that he was running out of ammo fast. “We need a way out,” Dusty shouted to Rachel. “See if you can find another door.”

  Rachel hurried around the kitchen, searching the walls until-

  “Found one!” she shouted.

  Dusty popped off a pair of shots, one for each bandit and looked over at her. She was smiling and on the verge of laughter. He went to her as the bandits continued to waste rounds in the walls and décor of Banner’s Grill. Rachel tried the door as he approached but it was locked. She looked back at him, heartbroken, and he nodded slightly and waved for her to step aside. When she was clear he fired at the door and four rounds later it opened.

  Dusty took Rachel’s hand and rushed through the door and…

  And into a stairwell that led up. His heart sank and Rachel screamed frustration. Tears trickled down her cheeks and she shouted, “Why?”

  Dusty took her in his arms and kissed her forehead. “Come on baby, I need you to stay with me just a little longer. It’ll all be fine soon, okay?” he said, touching her cheek with his hand and looking into her eyes. “You and me babe, nothing can hurt us, alright.”

  She nodded and they raced up the stairs. At the top was another door, the sort with a bar across the middle that locked from the outside, a one way trip. They ran through it and onto the roof.

  Below the bandits were still firing into the restaurant but he knew that wouldn’t last much longer. Soon they’d grow bold again and this time when they came through the door they’d find the room clear. After that they’d search for bodies, thinking they’d hit something with their willy-nilly gunfire, and then they’d come searching for survivors. All in all Dusty reckoned they had no more than a handful of minutes.

  Dusty felt the brisk rush of panic tickle through him as he searched frantically for anything he might use. It was three stories to the pavement below and there wasn’t a fire escape or even a ladder but there was something on the roof that made him grin. The roof, apparently, was where good old Banner did his meat smoking.

  Quey checked the time again. It had been too long. Something had happened to Dusty.

  Frustrated, he sighed, “Fuck,” heavily and looked down the street, both ways, then up at the cliffs toward Fen Quada above where gunfire echoed continuously and more than a dozen explosions had boomed. The raiders would make their way to him soon enough. They’d see his rig and they’d be sure to want, not only what was inside, but the vehicle itself.

  “Arnie,” Quey shouted. The boy popped his head out from inside the building.

  “We’re going.”

  Arnie nodded fiercely for a moment and said, “One second.”

  “You really think you’re going to get that thing out of here,” he heard an old gravelly voice ask from up the street behind him. Quey turned and saw Railen approaching slowly, favoring one leg and clearing something thick from his throat before spitting it to the ground with a thick splat. He’d woken with a bit of soreness in his knee, one of age’s ailments, and a pounding in his head, that complaint came from too much shine.

  Quey looked at the old man. “We were coming for you too.”

  Rail held up his hand. “A fools errand. You know there’s no room in that thing for the likes of me.”

  “Sure there is,” Quey insisted, forcing a slight smile. “Plenty of room.”

  “Bullshit. Besides, if you think I’m cuddlin up with you bastards in the sleeper of that rig all night you’ve got another thing comin.”

  “We can fit-”

  Rail cut him off. “Been comin’ down the pike for a while now, this raid. They’ve been moving further out, growing in number, getting braver. I got myself a little stash of food and guns in a nook that locks from the inside. So long as they get bored in a week or two I can outlast em.”

  Quey nodded slightly and stepped toward Rail. “You sure about this?”

  Rail looked over at his bar and nodded slowly. “This is where I belong. World took everything else I managed to get myself, I’ll be damned if its gunna chase me out of my home as well.”

  “What about Natalie?” Arnie asked.

  Rail nodded. “You see her,” he said to Quey. “You tell her I stayed with her mother. She won’t want
to hear it, anything about me really. Didn’t tell you about that, bit of a falling out a few years back. You see her, you tell her I’m sorry. That I love her. That I should have turned to her and not the bottle when…” he trailed off. Quey knew the rest.

  “Northshire,” Quey said. “She’s a teacher.”

  Rail shook his head. “Don’t know for sure. Not anymore.” Tears shimmered in his eyes. “Just what it says on the signal.” He looked down, shameful for a tick, then added, “Her pages are private and I never mustered what I needed to friend her. I miss her. I miss that little girl too.” He looked up at the sky, cloudless and yet still full of thunder-like booms, and said, “Amber. Guess she’ll be a young lady by now.” He looked at Quey, a hard look, the kind a man gives when he means what he says and needs the peace of mind it’ll bring. “I’m sorry. I love her. I was wrong.”

  Quey nodded.

  There was a moment when he almost tried to convince the man to come with him, but that look said it all. He meant to stay. “Then I guess I’ll see you around old friend.”

  Rail nodded, solemn. It was a lie—they both knew it. This would be the end of Fen Quada and even if Rail survived it was unlikely they’d ever run across one another again. Quey gave the old man a hug and when they separated he looked him in the eye. Gunfire erupted from just down the street. Someone screamed.

  “Go on now. Don’t need to worry on me anymore,” Rail said and Quey nodded then ran and jumped into his truck.

  Arnie emerged from Rusty Nails and Fluffy Tails with a bag slung over his shoulder. “Come on,” he yelped at Rail who simply shook his head. Arnie stopped and stared at the man. He could see everything in Rail’s eyes.

  He shook his head as tears came and flowed.