Arnie felt his heart racing in a way he never had before. He’d heard stories about the raiders pillaging towns, seen footage on screens, but he’d never seen one from the inside. They never hit places this big, so he supposed he always figured he was safe.
Rail saw Arnie's world crumbling expressed through the look in his eyes and went to the young man who he thought of as a son. He touched his shoulder and told him, “You’re a good kid. Find a good place, maybe a good woman. Have a good life. Stay out of this shit.”
“What about you?” Arnie asked. “You’ve still got plenty of years left.”
Rail laughed and nodded. “This body don’t,” he said patting his chest. “Doc said so last year. No,” he added, looking on toward the road the raiders were making their way down. They’d be along in a matter of minutes and he’d be ready. “No,” he repeated, “For me, it’s been a good run.” He looked back to Arnie and told him, “Now go on.”
The boy stood staring until Quey honked the horn and shouted, “Lets move.” Arnie looked up at Quey. They exchanged a look and in it Quey let him know there was nothing left to do here.
Arnie started for the passenger’s side of the truck, the skip stripped from his step, and climbed into the cab as the rig’s engine turned over and roared to life.
“What’s he doing?” Arnie asked, his voice empty.
“Dying on his own terms.” Quey nodded, waved to Rail for the last time, and shifted the rig out of park.
Rail watched Quey pull away and sighed. Then he went inside and got his guns out of the storage closet in his office. Sitting at his desk, loading a shotgun, he looked at a picture of himself standing in front of the place with his wife and daughter beside him. He smiled, nostalgic for a moment, then cocked the weapon. If it was time for him to go out, it’d be with a hell of a fight.
Killing didn’t bother Reggie much when the men he was killing were the sort he was facing today. These weren’t men trying to do better by their families, mothers and fathers hoping for a future for their kids. These were parasites feeding on the previous sort, firm in their intent to take as they pleased and murder on a whim. The sort of men who ought to be dealt with on a large scale but were left because the men in charge couldn’t figure a way to churn a profit off it.
Reggie saw a raider up the street holding a rifle to a little girl’s head. The poor thing was crying, pleading for her mother and father who watched terrified as they unloaded their valuables from their house into this sackless fuck’s car. The bandit gave no notice to the engine rolling up the street, and why should he, it was reasonable to assume it was another of his brood come to laugh at the misfortune of these folks.
Know what they say about assholes who assume…
Reggie squeezed the trigger once as he drove by.
…they end up wearing their brains on their shirt.
The bandit collapsed as Reggie turned wide and started down Sandbar Lane. He could take that to Coastal View and then on to the Nails and Tails. He had to hurry, if there were cars down here that meant the raid was coming in full force any moment.
“Where we heading?” Arnie asked as Quey stopped the rig at a four way, watching the people cautiously hurrying from here to there in every direction.
“To get Dusty and Reggie.”
Arnie looked over at him, “You know where they’re at?”
Quey shook his head. “Hoping you might have a thought,” he said as he searched through the windows for anything that might point him true.
Arnie looked out his window and up the street where a stream of smoke was rising steadily into the sky. After a tick or two it stopped and then started up again. “What’s that?” Arnie asked when it happened again.
Quey leaned over and looked through the glass at the smoke signal and smiled. “Look at you. All ready useful.” He patted Arnie on the back once and shifted the truck into gear.
Reggie watched as a group of bandits a few blocks up the road stood staring at a smoke signal rising from a street three or four kilometers ahead. The bandits exchanged words then jumped into a car parked along the side of the road and started it. The big man thought about raising his gun and looking for a shot but he knew there wasn’t one to be had. The raiders were too far away and the car would give them cover. All he could hope to do was waste some shells in the trunk and draw attention to himself. He pressed down on the accelerator, speeding the car up to dangerous numbers on these thin roads. He couldn’t be sure but the smoke was near enough to The Rusty Nails and Fluffy Tails for him to suspect a friendly might just be responsible.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Rachel asked as she spotted a trio of bikes roaring toward them.
“I’m sure it’s an idea,” Dusty said as he stood next to the smoker opening and closing the lid in what he hoped was a signal for help.
She looked over her shoulder at him and he knew the look. This was no time for sarcasm.
“Trust me,” he trailed off and Rachel nodded solemnly.
“You think Quey’ll know what this means?”
Dusty smirked, “Yeah, that part I’m not worried about.” It was a story he told often, he just hoped Reggie and maybe Railen would remember, a funny bit about when he was twenty two and got himself trapped on a roof one night after having to abandon a young lady’s bed chamber. The dilemma was caused mostly when it came to his attention that she might not be as old as she claimed and the apartment they were in might not belong to her, but to her father, who might just be the large man coming through the front door.
He shifted his attention back to his signal as raiders began to gather on the road in front of Banners Grill.
The door to the roof banged loudly and Dusty looked over at it. He’d piled the spare cord of wood against it, a stack that stood three quarters of the way up. The bandits would eventually make it through but it would take a while.
Rachel was pacing and fidgeting with her hands. She couldn’t seem to stay still. Every time she tried her legs bounced and burned until she started moving again. She felt a strong need to do something but couldn’t settle on what that might be, so she paced. Below she could hear the engines roaring to a stop and then sputtering into silence as the raiders parked and convened. She could hear their voices discussing, but she couldn’t make the words.
An air horn blew twice and she looked up.
Dusty let the lid on the smoker fall closed and grinned. Rachel looked at him and he tried to quell her nerves with his excitement as he shot her a look then dashed toward the edge of the roof.
On the street were a cluster of three cars and half of a dozen motorbikes. Around them was a gang of raiders looking up the street at the approaching rig.
“Big truck like that, must be carryin somethin,” Dusty heard one of them say and a few of the others agreed. “Possibly even something we like.”
“Or, you know, it may be that’s him,” said another raider.
The first scratched his chin thoughtfully and asked, “Think we’d be that lucky? Find this asshole just waiting for us in the middle of the road of the first place we checked?”
“What are they talking about?” Rachel asked. Dusty looked at her but said nothing. Truth was, he didn’t know and what the bikers had said confused him. What, or maybe who, the fuck were they looking for?
“What now?” Arnie asked.
“Working on that,” Quey said.
The truck was reinforced to the point that none of the bandits guns would pierce the metal but the glass was just glass and he’d learned just a few days ago that it seemed the engine could take a hit from the front. There was also the issue of the tires if they had a powerful enough gun or fired enough bullets. Quey knew if these were problems Once Men could assess, then the bandits looking at him like a new prisoner with a pretty mouth were likely to catch on too.
A ball arched from between the buildings ahead and landed amidst the bandits. He watched as a few heads turned toward it and then the shouting began and final
ly the pushing and the mad scramble to get away. They tried to run but it was too late, the street exploded, blowing out the windows on the cars parked ahead, shattering the glass in the businesses and shaking the rig Arnie and Quey were sitting in. On the street itself, body parts flew violently away from each other and clothes caught fire and flesh cooked. A few of the men furthest from the blast were knocked to the ground with deep wounds, cracked bones and bleeding ears, lying in a street covered in their comrades’ gore. He saw one of them pick a hand off his chest and toss it aside.
“What the fuck?” Arnie asked as Reggie walked out from between two buildings and assessed the carnage his grenade had caused. He pumped a few rounds into a number of twitching bodies, just to be safe and sent rounds into a pair of survivors who stumbled and struggled to get away.
Quey slapped Arnie’s arm and laughed as the big man waved him forward. The rig lurched toward the building, rolling over bodies and parts of bodies in the road, and stopped before Banner’s Grill.
Reggie was looking up toward the roof when Quey stepped out of the truck, gun in hand, and moved toward the big man.
“Welcome to the party,” Reggie said, his voice eerily calm.
“See you brought your favors,” Quey remarked looking at the gun in the man’s hand.
“Betchyer ass.”
Movement inside the restaurant.
Quey and Reggie shifted their gaze just in time to see the two men inside take up position and open fire. Reggie dove to the left, Quey to the right and then rolled behind his truck.
Reggie, prone, fired back. The raiders had taken cover behind a few overturned tables that Reggie's shots cracked holes through and sent bits of splintering into the air.
Quey looked up at the roof and saw Dusty waving at him. “Can’t get down,” he shouted to Quey. Quey ducked as bullets ricocheted off his truck and then looked up at the top of his trailer. He looked back at Dusty and shrugged and Dusty knew.
“How are we going to-” Rachel started.
“We jump,” Dusty told her.
“Jump!”
He looked at her and shrugged in much the same way Quey had. “Sure. Just to the trailer.” Rachel looked over the edge of the roof. There was at least five feet of pavement between them and the truck. It looked, to her, like a gorge.
“You can’t be serious,” she said.
Dusty looked up the road toward the cliffs as the banging at the door behind him continued. He could see the vehicles making their way down into lower Fen Quada. “See that?” he pointed. Rachel looked and her face fell and went pale. “That’s a whole gang of ugly baring down on here right now. We don’t have time to figure a better way, it’s jump or stay trapped.”
Rachel’s eyes shimmered. Her hands trembled. She wanted to throw up.
Dusty took her face in his hands and held her eyes to his. “I love you darlin,” he told her. “You know that right?” She didn’t have to think, she closed her eyes and nodded fiercely. It was the first time she realized just how sure of that she was. “You know I wouldn’t consider this if I didn’t know you could do it right?”
She smiled at him while tears streamed down her cheeks.
“Don’t think about it baby, don’t even look at it, just watch me and follow after.”
She laughed nervously and tried to shake her head but he stopped her. “Listen darlin, I promise, you just do this, just make this one jump with me and we’ll get somewhere far away where nothing like this can find us again. Just do this one and you’ll never have to do another, alright?”
She looked into his eyes and nodded. Terrified, gunfire cracking and filling the morning air with the smell of spent rounds, Rachel followed Dusty to the edge of the roof and climbed onto the ledge. Hand in hand they jumped as the raiders made their way off the Costal Cliff Road and into Lower Fen Quada.
Some of the men who’d been in the raiding party intent on getting to the roof had come back down into the restaurant and were popping off rounds.
Reggie fired the rest of his clip into the restaurant, causing the broodlings to take cover as he rolled toward the truck, he didn’t notice Dusty and Rachel soaring through the air toward the rig’s trailer. He hit one of the bandits in the throat, spraying blood and toppling him forever to the floor. The others were either dead behind one of the holes he’d put in their cover or too heartbroken to continue shooting.
Dusty hit first and fell flat on his belly. Rachel landed and rolled to the edge where she balanced for a heartbeat. Frozen through every feature, her face was raw panic as her weight shifted the few centimeters it took to send her toppling over the side of the trailer. Dusty reached out and caught her sleeve in his hand but it wasn’t enough. Her hand scrambled against the edge of the truck, desperately seeking a grip where none was possible. She fell, her head leading her body on its way to the ground.
Dusty shouted.
Quey heard the clamor of bodies colliding with the trailer and knew something wasn’t right. He looked over just in time to see Rachel plummet from the edge, flailing. It happened too fast. He didn’t even have time to think before she smacked heavily against the pavement. His stomach tightened when he saw the side of her head bounce against the street with a thick whack, a hammer breaking a coconut.
Dusty dangled himself from the side of the trailer and then dropped to the street below. He and Quey hurried toward Rachel and began checking on her. They turned her head and found blood. Neither of them knew anything about being a doctor, but both had seen enough in their time to understand what might kill a person and what might just hamper them for a spell. Tears poured from Dusty’s eyes.
Quey checked her for a pulse and found one easy enough, found her breathing too, though a bit shallower than he’d have liked.
“Is she?” Dusty couldn’t finish the question.
“Alive,” Quey assured him.
Reggie ran over to them and said, “Gotta move.” It was the first time Quey noticed how loud the engines had gotten in lower Fen Quada. They’d finally made their way down, intent on clearing the place out.
“Think her neck-” Dusty began but Reggie interrupted.
“No time to worry on that now. I’m ‘unna load the guns in the truck, you two get her in.” Reggie ran down the alley between two buildings across the street to where he’d left his car one block over.
Dusty looked at Quey pathetically and Quey nodded. “He’s right. If she’s hurt too bad movin her won’t matter. Not like a doc’s gunna be on his way any tick now.”
People took to the streets, carrying what they could, throwing what they felt they couldn’t spare into the back seats of cars and trunks. They loaded loved ones in with it and nearly crashed into one another in their desperate frenzy to get away from town.
Quey and Dusty finished lying Rachel on the bed in the back of the rig’s cab and looked out at the chaos. Friends and neighbors screaming at each other, cutting each other off, ready and happy to leave the people they’ve lived with for years to die so long as they might make it out alive.
Gunshots boomed loud and bullets tore through cars and shattered glass both in the vehicles and the storefronts. The raid was close.
Reggie pulled his car beside the rig and loaded half the guns and ammo from his car into the truck and took a few pieces off the dead raiders as well.
“Arnie you’re with me,” Reggie shouted at the boy. Arnie, wide eyed and breathing heavy, looked from the caravan of vehicles rolling through the streets ahead firing wildly at anything moving, to him. “Now! Move!” he barked and Arnie climbed out of the cab. Nice thing about the carnage the grenade caused was that other people avoided that particular stretch of street. Hell, some of them probably thought Quey and his crew were part of the Angels of the Brood.
Somewhere in Fen Quada above there was a massive explosion and a cloud of black smoke mushroomed into the sky.
“Know where we’re going?” Reggie asked.
Quey nodded.
“Thought
you might. I’ll take the kid with me and follow ya’ll outta here.”
Quey nodded again. He had no words left.
“Come on,” Reggie said to Arnie and dashed to his car. “You drive,” he barked and the boy nodded. He knew it was drive or shoot at people and of the two driving was the one he was sure he could manage.
With everyone loaded and the chaos of the raid slowly pouring through the streets of Lower Fen Quada, the rig and the car revved their engines and rolled north toward the edge of town.
Rain and Stone
Sticklan Stone walked into Richter Crow’s office and sat down in the chair across from the desk. Crow was on his computer finishing something Sticklan could care less about. Sticklan waited patiently for the man to finish.
“Thanks for coming,” Richter said. His demeanor had changed over the last five years. He was calmer, more professional. Sticklan thought it might no longer be necessary to kill this man one day.
“Not a problem,” Stone replied.
“I have an assignment for you.”
Stone nodded and Richter passed him a sheet. Sticklan looked at it, looked at the girl in the picture. Her face was turned and her short dark hair fell across the little you could see, but the van parked along the street behind her was unmistakable. Worn down and faded blue. Sticklan glanced immediately up at Richter. “Really? She’s back?” he asked.
Richter nodded. “Viona tried to hide accounts from me and thought I didn’t know about them. No activity on them for years, I thought maybe they’d been forgotten after you caught up to them…” he trailed off for a moment. “Apparently ‘Rain,’” he said the name with a bit of disgust, “Just wasn’t desperate enough until now.”
Sticklan looked at the picture again, then glanced up at Richter. “You want me to kill her?”
Richter sighed. “I’d like to see her first if it can be arranged. All the things she’s done, I’d like to see her eyes before you,” he trailed off.
The Saffron Malformation Page 20
