by Schow, Ryan
One of them pulls a gun, and that’s when I hear Xavier.
“Put it away and live, or try to be a hero and take a bullet. It’s your call.”
The guy put his gun away, lifted his hands half way up in surrender, then backed up and said, “We don’t want any trouble.”
Ice comes walking my way with a duffel bag full of gear. Xavier joins us. I fire up the car, ease out of there, my eyes on the side and rear view mirrors. Fortunately we have no problems getting out of there.
“How’d it go?”
“The guys were flying high. A few warning shots and they told us all we needed to know. How’s your tampon, Sunshine?”
“Salty and in sideways,” I say. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to get back home to my family.”
“We’re your family too, big bro,” Ice says, patting me on the leg.
“I know.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Draven woke up, checked on Orlando and the girls, then learned that Fire, Ice and Xavier left to do…whatever it was they were going to do.
He didn’t get mad about being left out, but he did get pissed thinking about the three boys he asked to come over the night before. He understood that the woman he talked to might not want to be a part of anything. She was an adult. Prepared in life enough to make her own decisions.
But the boys?
He crossed the street, knocked on their front door, waited.
“What do you want?” a voice on the other side of the door said.
“I want you to open the door on your own so I don’t have to kick it open myself,” he said casually.
“You gonna hurt us?” the young voice said. It sounded like Ross, the middle boy. Draven put him about ten years old.
“I invited you over for dinner, moron. Of course I’m not going to hurt you!”
The door unlocked and slowly opened up. He saw three faces, all of them looking back at him wondering what he wanted.
“You don’t get it, do you?” he asked.
“Get what?” Chase said. He was the oldest. In his hand, Chase was holding the knife he’d used to stab the guy who took Phillip. There was still blood on it.
“This whole thing about safety in numbers. This is not just your house, and that just isn’t my house across the way. These are our houses in our neighborhood. It means when they attacked us, they attacked you and vice versa. So when I invite you over for dinner it’s not because we’re just dying to have three little turds eat our extra food, it’s so we can figure out what’s what and start to form a strategy. Unless you want what happened last time to happen again, but worse.”
“We ran them out, killed them,” Ross said.
“Yeah,” Phillip agreed.
“They’re not coming back unless they want to get more from us,” Chase said.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Draven said. “If I can take your weapons and get you tied up in your living room in less than five minutes without a cut, scrape or bruise on me, will you come to dinner tonight?”
The three boys looked at each other, then Chase said, “What time?”
“Same as last time. Near sunset. And bring something to eat because we’re running low on food.”
“Fine,” Chase says.
“Good,” Ross says.
He left the boys, then went over to the woman he’d talked to yesterday. He knocked on her door. She was slow to answer. When she did, she seemed less apprehensive than she did the day before.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hello.”
“Why didn’t you come to dinner yesterday?” he asked.
“I prefer my own company to others,” she said. By the look of her, she’d been crying. “Plus, if my kids come home, I don’t want them to think I’m not here.”
“How long have they been gone?” he asked, his tone more congenial. She blinked several times, her eyes becoming reflective, shinny. “Ah, man…I’m sorry.”
She wiped her eyes, nodding, trying to say “It’s okay,” but it wasn’t.
“I feel like I should give you a hug, but…”
She looked up at him and said, “That would be nice.”
He stepped inside, slowly moved into her arms, held her for what felt like forever. He could feel her sobbing on his shoulder, emptying out that well of emotion that was clearly overflowing. Draven started to move, but she tightened her hold enough to let him know to stay. So he stayed.
She then let go, wiped her eyes and said, “Next time you invite me to dinner, I will come.”
“Funny you should say that,” he said with a grin.
“Again?”
“Yeah, tonight. There will be a bunch of us. Mostly it’ll be social, but there will be discussion of the incident that took place. There are a lot of people that fled downtown and are migrating through this area either looting, looking for shelter, or just plain leaving the city and outlying areas. I don’t want any of us to get hurt, but we also need to have a plan in case this happens again. No sense in being caught flat-footed.”
“Okay, then. What time?”
“Just before sunset. And bring something to eat. It doesn’t have to be much, but we’re light enough on food we can’t do all the heavy lifting.”
“No worries. I’m sort of in a green beans and potatoes phase right now.”
“Aren’t we all,” he said. “What’s your name by the way? Mine’s Draven.”
“Morgan,” she said.
“I like that name,” he replied, giving her a pleasant once over. Then: “It fits you.”
When he said good-bye to the older, curvy blonde, when he was sure Chase, Ross and Phillip were coming over, he made the last stop, the one he had been avoiding.
The gamer/tweeker/TBD kid.
He’d seen the kid leave his own home yesterday. Draven had been keeping watch over the neighborhood when this idiot stumbled out of the house with a blanket and his pillow. He broke into the house across the street from him and, as far as he could tell, the kid was still squatting there.
Draven knocked on the door, firm.
No one answered.
“My name is Draven,” he said loud enough for the kid to hear. “I’m a half-dozen doors down, in the house with the old lady. I’m also one of the guys who defended our neighborhood the other night when we were nearly overrun. I come in peace.”
Shaking his head in dismay, he thought, I come in peace?
The door opened up a crack, the kid popping his head out. His face was pale, his eyes red but with dark circles under them. Even though Draven felt cool air coming from inside the house, this little tweeker was sweating.
“You’re not and alien, are you?” he asked, his voice rough and tired sounding.
He laughed and said, “No.”
“You’re not going to ask me to take you to my leader either, right?”
“Cute.”
“What do you want?”
This kid was in his late teens, early twenties. His hair was black and too long, his beard the kind of patchy thing guys who can’t really grow beards grow because it makes them look older and less nerdy. At least, that’s the look he seems to want to give off. That kind that says, I’ll game for thirty hours straight, but I won’t leave my mom’s basement unless it’s absolutely necessary.
“We’re all on the same block here, and I was thinking—”
The kid shut the door in his face and locked it. Chewing on his molars, Draven knocked again. This time no one answered.
“Little prick,” he muttered to himself as he walked around the back of the house.
The back gate was broken and hanging open. He walked into the yard, past a rusty old swing set and to the back door where he examined the broken lock.
He turned the handle and the door opened right up.
He snuck inside and found the kid on the couch, his eyes shut. Was he really asleep? There was drug paraphernalia on the coffee table. A big baggie of crack, a dirty needle just chillin’, a spoon that looked like it spen
t the better part of its life over an open flame. No way he was asleep. He was tripping.
The kid just laid there, unmoving, his breathing getting deeper by the minute. Draven leaned down, slapped him damn near senseless.
His eye flashed open.
“Bro, what the hell?” he asked, reeling on the couch, high, scared and angry. He had that look on his face that said “How dare you?” and “Are you going to kill me?” at the same time.
Draven pointed to his gear and said, “Are you trying to kill yourself or escape?”
“Escape,” he said, his back pressed against the couch, his body moving into a seated position as slowly and as cautiously as a cat.
“Why are you still alive?” Draven asked.
“I didn’t blow up.”
“But your roomie practically did.” He looked away. “That bother you?”
“Not really.”
“Why?”
“He was—” and he makes some flittering, waving motion to say he wasn’t present, like his buddy’s brain was gone.
“I want to show you something,” Draven said.
“Who are you?”
“Draven. Your neighbor. I already told you this.”
“When?”
“Get up, man.”
“Maybe later,” he said, pulling his legs up, wrapping his arms around his shins. Draven grabbed him by his arm, dragged him off the couch, shoved him through the front door and outside to where his friend’s body was now just a smattering of ashes.
“Look at him!” Draven said.
The kid refused, so Draven kicked out the backs of his legs, collapsing him to his knees. He cried out, but Draven didn’t care.
He had no sympathy for addicts
“You and your friend could have burned down the whole neighborhood. You two idiots nearly killed us!”
“We didn’t mean to,” he said, something in his throat, maybe a saliva bubble.
“Yet it almost happened,” Draven barked. “Look at him. Look at what’s left of him.” He still wouldn’t look so Draven slapped the back of his head and said, “Look at him!”
The kid was stubborn as hell, so Draven shoved his head down and pushed his nose in his friend’s ashes like he was a dog who crapped on the carpet and was being taught a lesson.
“This is where you’re headed you little rodent, and though I don’t care what you do with your body, you’re in our neighborhood and there are people living here! Now get up. GET YOUR ASS UP!”
Pissed off and defensive, but cursing under his breath, the tweeker climbed to his feet. Draven dragged him halfway back to his house before smacking the back of his head again and saying, “You’re not that wasted!”
The kid straightened up.
When they got inside, Draven said, “Everything you have, all your rigs, all your product, it’s going.”
“Bro,” he said, “I can’t do that.”
“I’m not your bro.”
When the kid didn’t move, Draven grabbed him from behind, hooked an arm around his neck and squeezed just right. The kid fought him at first, but then he slowly sat him down, the angle putting more and more pressure on his head, closing off the carotid artery. When the kid’s body went limp, Draven hoisted him over his shoulder, then walked out front, down the street, and into the vacant house next door to the Dimas’s place.
The downstairs bathroom seemed the best alternative.
Using the shoelaces off a pair of work boots he found in the closet, he wrapped the kid’s wrists as tight as he could, but left his hands in front of his body. He used a telephone chord to wrap his ankles. Draven was opening a can of lima beans when the kid came around. It took him a moment to get his bearings.
Draven handed him a spoon, set some water beside him. “Eat,” he said. The kid started to eat. “How long have you been using?”
“Where am I?”
“In a house up the street.”
“We just started cooking when those things attacked us,” he said, bean smear in his mouth.
“How long?”
“A few months, I guess? Can you hand me the water?”
“Well I won’t lie, this is going to suck for you,” Draven said. “I’m going to help you detox. Because if you try this on your own, you’ll probably do something stupid.”
“You can’t just leave me here,” he said.
“Watch me.”
Before leaving him there, though, he needed to secure him for the night. When he went back in the bathroom again, the kid was eating and crying. Draven almost laughed. He managed to keep his composure, which he needed.
“One more scoop of beans and make it a good one.”
“These things are disgusting,” he said, pushing the can of beans away.” Then, panic slipping into his eyes, he said, “What’s with the plastic bag and the shoelaces?”
“Don’t worry about it. Take one last bite of beans and a swallow of water.” Reluctantly the kid did as he was told. After that Draven said, “I’m going to put this bag over your head.”
“No man, please don’t do that!”
“Stop talking or I’ll hit you and make you stop.”
He stopped talking, but the whimpering started up. He held up a hand and said, “I’m going to put this bag over your head, but I made a hole for you to breathe. The shoestring will be tied around your neck to hold the bag in place.”
“You can’t do this to me!” he started wailing.
“Actually, I can do whatever the hell I want to you, but what I’m doing now, it will be the most humane,” Draven said, calmly. “Ask me what happens if I come here in the morning and the bag is off or your wrists or ankles are untied.”
“I don’t want to,” he cried. His eyes were bubbling over, he wore the ugly cry face well, and his hands were shaking.
“If your wrists are untied, I will handcuff them together tomorrow. If the bag is off, I will duct tape your entire face leaving only a slit for you to breathe through your mouth.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because we’re going to need you and not like this.”
“I can stop bro, I’m not a junkie.”
“The stuff on your coffee table tells another story,” he said to the kid. “Now I’m not holding that against you, I just think we’ll all fare better without a crackhead in the neighborhood. Plus you’ll feel better when you dry out.”
“Have you ever dried out man?”
“I’ve never used.”
“Well good for you, Mr. Perfect!” he screamed.
This was going nowhere. Without another word, he slipped the bag over the kid’s head. He hoped the kid would keep it together, instead he freaked out.
Draven slapped the back of his head, then said, “We can do this the hard way if you want.”
“Will you stop hitting my head!” he screamed.
“This is on you.”
Enraged, but finally taking Draven serious, he stopped fidgeting and brought the tantrum to a level two. When the bag was securely over his head, Draven pulled it down then tied the shoelace around the kid’s neck, just about causing the tweeker to hyperventilate.
“I’m going to give you enough room to breathe easy,” Draven said. He secured the back, but he also kept his word about the shoelaces. “Are you okay? You can breathe fine?”
“Do I look okay to you?” he wailed.
“Remember what I said about those wrists and ankles,” Draven warned.
“What if I have to go to the bathroom?” he said.
“Do it in your pants.”
With that, he shut the door, tied a rope around the nearby banister railing, then knotting it around the door handle and gave it a tug. It was tight enough to walk across. Perfect. When he walked out the front door, he saw Morgan looking at the pile of ashes.
“Did you just push that kid’s face in this?” she asked.
“I did.”
“Why?” she said.
“Because he and his crispy friend here
could have killed us. They were cooking meth. I don’t like meth heads. I especially don’t like meth heads when they blow up houses on our block.”
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” she said.
She stood there, frumpy but out of her house, weariness pulling at her eyes. By the look of her, she was once pretty. She wasn’t in the best shape ever and she was older, but he still thought she was kind of pretty.
“I think we have a tough road ahead,” he admitted. “But that’s just the diplomatic way of agreeing with you. We’re pretty much screwed.”
“I think my kids are dead.”
She started to cry.
He went to her, took her hand and said, “Have you tried to look for them?”
She nodded her head.
“And?”
“I—I…I think I found them. I mean, I tried thinking it wasn’t them, but…but I know it was. It is.”
“Where were they?”
She let go of his hand, then: “Out playing.”
“Was it them?” he asked, his face dead serious. “Because if it wasn’t, I’ll help you look for them.”
Her eyes started to bubble and she turned away, nodding her head.
It was them.
“Are you married?” he asked.
She shook her head, then wiped her eyes and said, “I used to think about something like this happening. You know, with The Walking Dead on and all those prepper shows.”
“Yeah?” he said.
Turning around, her hand to her mouth, she said, “I knew I wouldn’t survive it. Now that I’m in it, now that I’ve survived this long alone, I realize that as bad as I thought it might be, this is worse. You can’t prepare for your whole family to be gone.”
There was something sad and beautiful in her eyes. She locked in on his gaze and neither seemed able to let go of the other.
“Do you have anyone left?” Draven asked. “Extended family I mean?”
“Not anyone I care about,” she said.
“You’re with that crazy lady in the wheelchair, right? With the white hair and the shotgun?”
“She’s my grandmother.”
“I saw her shoot at those guys,” she said, her eyes shiny and dull at the same time. “That was awesome.”
“Yeah, well those same guys came and nearly killed her. They nearly killed both of us.”
