The Saffron Malformation

by Walker, Bryan

  “It’d be nice, to find a safe place. Settle in, you Arnie and Leone. Maybe make your jewelry. Spend the rest of your life not getting shot.”

  She chuckled, “Yeah, that would be nice.”

  “We’ll figure it out. It’ll happen.”

  Looking at him she could see he was serious and that he wanted it too. She also saw what he saw in her eyes, disbelief. It was never going to happen. Not to the likes of them.

  She nodded for him to follow and started toward the diner. His eyes drifted to the car where Rachel lingered behind the wheel. “I’ll be in in a minute,” he said and started toward the car as Rain continued on.

  Rachel sat behind the wheel with the clear glass bottle filled with Dusty’s ashes in her lap. He stopped by the door and watched her until she looked up at him, her eyes red and slathered in tears she didn’t bother wiping away. He opened the door and leaned against it. “Want something to eat?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  Quey could see the bandages poking out around the left side of her collar, cuff, and shoes. She was getting better but she’d always be scared. He took a long breath and felt his own emotions churning in his chest and deep in his belly. Scorched lovers.

  “He knew better,” she said and he looked down at her. “Knew better than to just run out a door like that, into a gunfight. He was worrying about me. Wasn’t thinking about,” she trailed off.

  “That ain’t the case,” he told her. “Case is that when bullets fly they hit something. Sometimes its shit that doesn’t matter. Other times it’s people you care about. I managed to survive a lot of ugly on account of him,” Quey told her. “Saved my life plenty.”

  “You saved his more,” she said absently.

  “Don’t know about that,” he said, kneeling down beside the open car door. “Isn’t really a score I care to keep because no matter what the number, it needed to be one higher.”

  She looked over at him and threw her arms around his neck. He moved closer to her and settled into a long embrace as she sobbed lightly on his shoulder and his own tears prickled his eyes then slid down his cheeks.

  Rachel said she was feeling tired and just wanted to nap in the back of the van for a while.

  “I’ll bring you something for later,” Quey told her and she thanked him before he headed into the diner and she climbed into the back of the van and closed the door.

  Quey saw the others sitting in a booth next to the window. Arnie and Reggie were at it again, joking about something that made them laugh heartily while Rain smiled and fought to keep her response down to a chuckle. Natalie was beside the big man and the kids were at the end of the booth, sitting across from one another. He took a breath, hoping to shake anything lingering from his talk with Rachel and went to them.

  The booth was full so he sat at a table adjacent to it.

  “Here,” Leone said. “I’m done,” then stood.

  “Me too,” Amber added and rose herself.

  “We’ll be right out front,” Leone told Rain who nodded once with a smile and the two of them took off for the door.

  Quey settled in next to Natalie and sighed as he leaned back against the booth.

  “Feeling okay?” Natalie asked him and he nodded.

  A waitress stepped up beside him and set a glass of water in front of him and asked, “You hungry hon?”

  He nodded, “Got anything meat, potatoes, and gravy like?”

  “Mmm,” Reggie said behind a mouthful and pointed to his plate. Fried potato cubes covered in white gravy with chunks of beef in it.

  “Perfect,” Quey said.

  “You want the beef or chicken?” the waitress asked.

  “One of each,” he said, then added, “And can I get ‘em both foots out the door?”

  “Sure thing,” she replied and headed off.

  “Rachel’s napping,” he told the others. “But she’ll want something later.”

  Rain was scraping the bottom of her bowl with her spoon and licking it clean. Leone had gotten her a vegetable stew and it was either the best stew in the world or she’d been hungrier than she could recall.

  “Got your apatite back,” Natalie noted.

  Rain snickered and said, “Seems so.”

  “That’s good.”

  Arnie slid his plate over to her and offered, “You can have the rest of mine if you want.”

  Rain looked at his gravy-slathered meat and potatoes and felt her stomach urge her to take it. “You sure?” she asked.

  He nodded, “I’m done.”

  She took his plate and dug into it.

  Natalie scanned the parking lot through the window. “Where do you suppose those two ran off to?” she asked.

  They all glanced through the glass and Reggie said, “Probably making out behind the diner.” Natalie shot him a look and he tossed his hands up, “What? You know how it is. Their age proximity’s all you need, don’t hurt they’re not bad lookin to boot.”

  Quey shook his head with a bit of a laugh. “I forgot how poetic you can be, Reggie, when you speak of love.”

  “Ain’t talking love,” he replied. “Lust maybe. Hormones maybe. Budding curiosity perhaps.”

  “Okay,” Rain said loudly past half a mouths worth of food.

  “Yes, that’s quite enough,” Natalie agreed then looked to the girl across from her and offered, “I’ll go check on them.”

  “Thanks,” she replied before eating a bit more.

  Quey shuffled out of the booth and let Natalie pass before settling back in beside the big man. “You know what I like about you,” Quey said to him. “It’s your tact.”

  Arnie laughed and Rain smiled and snickered past potatoes and gravy.

  “What?” Reggie threw up his hands in a shrug. “I’m the only one who’s noticed the two of them playing grabby ass any chance they get.”

  Arnie shook his head.

  “Amazingly,” Rain said and finished swallowing a chunk of meat and potato. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

  “Alright,” Reggie said as the waitress returned and set a pair of covered plastic bowls down in front of Quey.

  “That all hun?” she asked as she set some plastic flatware down.

  Out front Natalie shouted something and they all looked to the window. Quey saw she’d found Leone and Amber and the three of them were staring off down the road.

  Quey dug into his pocket and pulled some large bills from a stack. He handed them to the waitress and said, “Stick to we were never here for as long as you can.”

  She looked at the bills and they were enough that she didn’t care that she didn’t understand. She simply nodded.

  Natalie found the kids standing by the road talking. She watched them briefly from the front of the van, watched them touch each other’s hands and arms from time to time. Leone pretended there was something in her hair and brushed his fingers through the long red strands. That was when she noticed the bikes rolling down the road in the distance and shouted for them.

  The brood had been active on every major road, sending scouting parties out by the dozens with promises that whoever found the moonshiner and his crew would get a massive bonus. Render was pissed and it was a sure bet that whoever found these people wouldn’t just be rewarded with money but with his good graces as well. That’s why when the four men on the motorbikes happened upon Gary’s Grubhouse and spotted the set of vehicles in the parking lot they felt very lucky. They noticed a woman and two teenagers take notice of them and turn away. The leader of this small pack throttled his bike, knowing they needed to get the drop on these people as they’d proven to be quite dangerous.

  The broodling rolling in the back hit the wolf’s head on his wrist device and sent out a howl to the rest of the brood, alerting them to their location and letting them know that they’d found the shiner and his crew.

  The group stopped their bikes beside the van and drew handguns as they took a moment to scan the parking lot.

  The van door slid op
en and a shot bellowed from inside. This time she didn’t have to think of them as cans of beans. In fact, she preferred to see them as what they were, Angels of the Brood.

  The bullet shattered the first biker’s skull and sent him tumbling to the ground. The second tore through the neck of the man beside him, shattering his top two vertebrae and dropping him gurgling to the pavement. The third found the eye of the man who’d been riding behind him, splattering it like jello before tearing through his brain and crashing violently out of the back of his skull. Thick gore sprayed across the pavement and Rachel didn’t even blink. The fourth man she simply aimed at as she stepped from the van. He sat on his bike, unmoving, a pistol in his hand resting at his side.

  “Toss it,” Rachel said. Her eyes were a mixture of steel and hate. The broodling tossed the gun. She stood in front of him for a moment, looking him over. He was what you expected a broodling to look like after encountering them as often as she had, a scraggly beard and skin that was worn to leather. His clothes were faded and he was covered in a thin layer of grime. She nodded. “Get off the bike.”

  The man swallowed hard and stepped his leg over his motorcycle and stood before her. He towered over her, six two at least, but she didn’t care. She stepped forward and sent her foot hammering into his balls with a grimace of rage. The man doubled over and collapsed onto his belly. She stepped to him, standing over him and stomped on him, her foot slamming into his shoulder and then the side of his gut. He rolled onto his back and saw something coming down toward his face.

  Rachel drove the butt of the rifle into his face. His nose exploded and blood sprayed then drooled across his cheeks and from his nostrils. As she reared back and brought the gun down a second time he cried out and the weapon cracked against his teeth. Looking down at him she saw his face coated red, blood spewing into his mouth from his split upper lip and the void between his canines. She stepped back as he spit his front teeth onto the pavement beside him and whimpered.

  The others, led by Quey, came around the van and looked over the carnage.

  Rachel glanced back at them then turned her attention to the broodling at her feet. She raised her rifle and took aim.

  “Rachel,” Quey said calmly.

  The gun went off and a bullet tore into the man’s guts. “That’s for Rain,” she said calmly then aimed again.

  “Please,” he begged, gurgling on his own blood.

  She fired again. This time the shell shattered his shoulder socket. He cried out and she waited for his screams to descend into agonized breathing and whimpers before she informed him, “That one’s Quey.”

  Quey stepped up beside her as she aimed for his head.

  Looking down at the man writhing on the pavement in a steadily expanding puddle of blood she took a long breath then lowered her weapon and stepped toward the man. She knelt beside him then jammed her finger into the hole in his shoulder and he cried out.

  Reggie stepped to Quey and informed him quietly, “They’ll have alerted the others already.” Quey nodded.

  “That’s the trouble with rifles,” Rachel snarled at the man writhing on the ground. “Bullets went clean through. It’s a shame.” She pulled her finger from the hole in his shoulder and jammed it into the one in his gut. “Shame we can’t pull them out of you. Funny thing,” she continued as she dug into the man’s wound. “Think they hurt more coming out. Ain’t that right Rain?” she asked and when she looked over at the girl, standing beside Arnie and Leone, she noted the horror on the girls face and it gave her a brief moment of reflection. She looked down at the man, a bloody mess and stood.

  “Put him down Rach,” Quey said softly and she looked at him, tears shimmering on her eyes. “Or let someone else.”

  “You’re all dead,” the broodling spat. “Render’s not far. You got given up a ways back and you’ll get given up here too.”

  Rachel rested the barrel of the gun against his chest, just above his heart and fired. The Broodling fell still.

  When the echo of the shot faded, long before the scent of expended shells would, Quey announced, “We have to move.”

  In the scramble he went to Natalie and told her, “I want you driving the car.” Natalie nodded and hurried to get set.

  Rachel leaned against the van, her hands shaking and covered in blood. Rain approached her and she looked up at the girl and was met by a reassuring smile. “I don’t know who that was,” Rachel said dully. “I’ve never… that isn’t me.” Rain nodded, put an arm around her and helped her into the back of the van where she could clean up.

  “She’ll ride in here,” Rain told Quey who nodded.

  “Amber come with me,” Natalie barked. After a long sigh the girl followed.

  “Arnie I need you driving the van,” Quey said and was answered with a nod.

  Leone was staring at Natalie and Amber climbing into the car. Rain gave him a sideways look and said, “You can ride with them if Natalie doesn’t mind.”

  He swallowed hard, choking something down as he stared at the car with terrified eyes. Finally he shook his head, “No.”

  She understood. They’d covered the back seat with a thick blanket but underneath it was still there. Her blood, soaked deep in the fabric and dark, a constant reminder of what had happened the last time he’d been in that car.

  They finished loading up, Leone climbing into the passenger’s seat of the van and Rain closing the door to the back. Quey was behind the wheel of the truck and the big man settled in beside him. Engines turned over one at a time and then they were off, away from the diner and toward the edge of the livable world. Every kilometer that ticked by meant it grew a little browner beyond the windows and then that brown gave way to grey. Then, finally, before they knew it they were into the wasteland. That’s how it was, a slow decent into lifelessness and that’s why no one noticed as it creped across the entire world.

  Rachel was sitting on the mattress in the back of the van trembling slightly and staring at the Broodling’s blood, slowly vanishing as Rain wiped it away with a wet cloth that came with their ‘to go’ orders. Rain sat silently across from her watching the woman stare at her palm and fingers as if they were a puzzle to be solved.

  Her first reaction to Rachel had been fear, when she saw her standing over that man in the parking lot in the grip of a frenzy she hadn’t seen in a person since her father gave her mother to Sticklan Stone. It reflected across her face and through her body, radiating off her intensely. Now as she looked at her she saw something else and it caused her to smile reassurance to her. When her hand was clean she settled in beside the woman and rested against her. Rachel looked at her with confused eyes but Rain simply smiled again.

  The woman sighed and rested her head on Rain’s shoulder. Rain draped her arm around her and noticed more blood so she took up the cloth and began to work at scrubbing it from her hand.

  Rachel watched the last bits, in and around her nails mostly, slowly vanish and felt Rain gently run her fingers through her hair. She felt tears trickle from her eyes but the bit of weeping she did was silent. When her hand was clean Rain let her settle on her lap and gently stroked her long brown hair.

  Finally she spoke. “I don’t know what happened,” Rachel said and looked up at her and then hugged her and added, “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  She sat up and said, “Yes you did.” Rachel smiled at her. “You did a lot, given how scary that must have been. I don’t know what happened. I just… lost it.”

  “I understand,” Rain replied.

  Rachel smiled, “You’re a good mom.”

  After a moment she replied. “I’m not really a mom.”

  Rachel gripped her tight with both arms. “Sorry if I scared you guys,” she finished and sat back. “I never was a violent person.”

  Rain shook her head but couldn’t look at Rachel. Her face hinted toward an inner distress as she said soft enough so it stayed between the two of them, “That didn’t scare me. What
scared me is… if they had gotten Leone,” she shook her head. “I don’t think I’d care anymore. I wouldn’t stop until I killed them all.”

  Rachel touched her cheek and looked at her. “You wouldn’t be at it alone.”

  Rain chuckled and felt a bit of pain shoot through her left side. “I can just see a tiny thing like me and a pregnant lady taking on the entire brood.” A moment passed and Rain said, “I’d sneak off.” Rachel looked at her, surprised. “You’re going to be a mother. I wouldn’t be able to live with that.”

  “I wouldn’t let you go,” Rachel added and Rain peered at her. “You’d die too and then he’d win. Your father,” she clarified. “I don’t think you want that.” Rain was overwhelmed as she imagined that scenario, where Leone had been killed and there was nothing she could do. Rachel touched her shoulder and added, “Besides I’m going to need you around. I mean I’ve never even changed a diaper.”

  The weight lifted from Rain’s expression and Rachel was glad.

  Rain cocked her head and looked at her. “Shut up,” she said with a touch of the animation she was famous for. The first bit of herself she’d shown since being shot.

  “It’s true,” Rachel said with a shake of her head. “I was the youngest in my family and I just never really was left in charge of a baby.”

  “Hmm,” Rain said, her face flaring with pretend thought. “Not sure where to begin. I suppose, the thing about diapers is that they go on the bottom.”

  Rachel laughed.

  Rain smiled and continued. “No, really, you remember that and you’re pretty much set.” Rain shifted a bit to her right putting her snug against the vans back doors and motioned for Rachel to come to her. They sat as far back as they could get huddled together like teenagers only instead of talking about boys Rachel listened as Rain told her stories about Leone from when he was a baby.

  After a half dozen Rachel shook her head and looked toward the front of the van where Leone was sitting in the passenger’s seat. “Must be so weird,” she said. “Seeing him go from that tiny to… well he’s practically bigger than you now.”