Fireside

by Brian Parker

  “I sorry, Traxx. I never want to hurt people.”

  Aeric nodded to Tyler who wrapped one hand firmly around the youth’s chest and the other at the top of his head, pulling it backwards to expose his throat. “You brought this on yourself, kid. May God have mercy on your soul.”

  The blood sprayed from the teenager’s throat like water from a fire hydrant when firefighters used to open them to let off the pressure. The initial burst of arterial blood covered Aeric and then bubbled down his chest, over Tyler’s arm, pooling in the gravel around the big man’s pants. Once the muscle contractions stopped, Tyler gently lowered the Vulture to the ground and reached up for Aeric’s hand to pull himself up.

  “Did you have to do that,” he asked sadly.

  Aeric stared hard up into his friend’s eyes. “Do you want Kayla and Anna to survive? These people are the reason our city is burning down. They don’t care about anyone except for themselves. We have to wipe them off the face of the earth. Otherwise, they’re just going to continue attacking us until we’re all dead.”

  Tyler nodded. He didn’t have to like it, Aeric thought; he just had to do it. For their families’ safety, this nest of Vultures had to be cleared out. They were exceptionally dangerous to the city’s residents because they lived here and were known by everyone. They could easily infiltrate a group of defenders or refugees in Tennyson and murder every one of them while they slept.

  It didn’t take long for them to find two more of the Vultures in the Barrio. A woman’s screams directed Aeric and Tyler towards the shadows less than a block from the gate where they brutalized her. Tyler’s inhibitions at killing the teenagers disappeared as he swung his old baseball bat into the back of one of their heads, caving it inwards several inches as the skull shattered and drove the sharp fragments into his brain. Aeric had to break their silent approach and shoot the second when he pulled his own rifle up to his shoulder.

  “Three,” Tyler stated quietly as he watched the naked woman run towards the supermarket where she probably lived.

  Luckily, the sounds of gunfire all around the city drowned out the sound of Aeric’s rifle and no one came to investigate the disturbance. Neither of them liked being out in the open as they planned out their next steps but they had no choice. It didn’t make any sense to search the entire compound. They didn’t have much time to get to Huerta before the city would be completely overrun by the Vultures and their families’ escape route to Tennyson was cut off. If he released those damned brocs, it would be a bloodbath.

  “Let’s go,” Aeric muttered as more screams filled the night.

  They found numbers four and five giving the same woman a hard time outside of the supermarket. She fought to pull herself away from one of them as the other held a pistol at his side, laughing at his fellow gang member’s struggle.

  “Fuck! What is it with these assholes?” Tyler whispered.

  “They target people who can’t fight back,” Aeric stated calmly as he centered the crosshairs of his rifle on the head of the thug holding the pistol. “The Barrio hoodrats are weak, pathetic creatures who prey on those who are weaker than them.”

  He stopped talking and squeezed the trigger. The side of the supermarket became painted in a mixture of red, white and pink as blood, skull fragments and brain matter splattered against the dingy walls. The one holding the woman released her and began screaming in unison with the woman as he watched his friend’s insides ooze down the wall. The Vulture turned to run back inside and Aeric took him low in the back then chambered another round.

  “Come on. They know we’re here now.”

  Tyler chased after Aeric as fast as he could, but even crossing the old parking lot was too much exertion for him, causing him to fall behind. Aeric glanced backwards and waved his friend forward.

  The pain in his back and the overall exhaustion that he’d felt for the past several days—years, honestly—melted away. His body’s endorphins had kicked in, giving him a short-term rush of energy that caused the aches and pains of his everyday life to dull. He had to wipe these people out, expunge them from San Angelo’s record.

  He slowed as he got nearer to the front door. The teen that he’d shot in the back clawed his way towards the entrance, both of his legs dragging uselessly behind him in a trail of blood and viscera. He’d hit the thug’s spine. Aeric slammed the butt of his rifle into the base of his skull, causing his forehead to hit the cement and bounce back up comically. The blood that began to ooze slowly from his ear canal told Aeric that he’d successfully incapacitated the youth.

  He flattened against the wall near the wailing woman and Tyler came huffing up. “Get out of here,” Aeric ordered. “It’s not safe.”

  “My babies are inside,” she cried.

  He stood rooted in indecision for a moment and then said, “Do you want to see your children again?”

  She didn’t answer so he asked again, louder. Terrorizing some poor woman wasn’t how he wanted to be remembered, so he held up his hands to calm her down. “Look, I’m sorry this happened to you. We need to get inside if we’re going to stop Huerta before he does anything else to sabotage the city. Can you get us past the door?”

  “Huh?” she asked dumbly.

  “Inside. We need to get inside. Edward Huerta is the cause of all of this. He’s the leader of all these gangs. They started the fires.”

  “Huerta?”

  “Geez… We’re gonna go in and get those gang members. I need you to be our decoy.” She stared blankly at him and finally, he said, “We’re going to save your children. I need you to take us inside.”

  The mention of her children spurred her mind from wherever it had taken flight and she nodded her head roughly. “We’ll follow behind you and stay off to the side until you clear the doorway. Do you understand?”

  “What about my children?”

  “Miss… I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

  “Megan. Megan West,” she replied.

  “Megan, as soon as the other Vultures dismiss you as a non-threat, go to them. I don’t care what you do after that.” He amended his harsh tone once again, “Sorry. I don’t mean that. Once we get inside, there’s going to be shooting. You need to get to your family and keep them safe. Then, when you can, you need to leave the city, Megan. Go to our back up location in Tennyson. San Angelo has fallen and it’s Huerta’s fault.”

  Megan accepted his apology and steeled herself to walk into the supermarket. Aeric rested the heavier 30.06 rifle on the side of the building and unslung the compact M-4 that was designed for fighting in an enclosed space. Tyler followed his lead and slid the baseball bat into the converted arrow quiver on his back in exchange for a pistol. He’d been out of the game so long because of his illness that he didn’t even have a rifle anymore; those had all gone to the defenders on the wall.

  Aeric was amazed to see the way Megan was able to calmly walk to the building, open the door and then quickly cover her private areas. Smoke flowed in through the doorway and they used it to help disguise their entrance behind her.

  Rough-sounding words came from the mouths of the young gang members inside. Smoky torches burned along the top of several of the aisle-dividing, shelving units causing the Vultures to be silhouetted against the light, further helping to disguise Aeric and Tyler’s movements. They quickly crouched behind one of the old cash register stations near the doorway and listened to the exchange between the woman and the boys who’d doomed his city.

  “Hey, bitch. Rat and Poncho done with you already?”

  “Yeah, they finished quickly,” Megan replied, her voice shaky. “They said they had to get ready for a fight or something.”

  “We can have a turn, den.”

  “I have to take a shit,” she countered.

  “Eww. You nasty,” a different young voice stated.

  “Sorry, gang rape does that to me.” Aeric grinned at her choice of words. She was a feisty one. Maybe he’d been wrong about her being a victim. Maybe she p
ut on whatever mask helped to keep her and her family alive.

  “Go on. Get outta here, gross-ass bitch.”

  He saw her shadow march resolutely across the wall behind him and risked a quick peek around the conveyor belt. He counted four boys, all holding rifles, sitting in old folding chairs facing the door. They’d exchanged their homemade spears somewhere along the line for the rifles—either they’d had them all along and kept them hidden or they’d taken them off of dead defenders at the walls.

  There wasn’t a sign of the fifth Vulture, but Aeric decided to risk it. They’d be unlikely to get a juicier target than four of them all together, not paying attention. He whispered to Tyler the setup of the boys and told him that he had the responsibility of taking out the one on the far left and he’d deal with the other three since he had the semi-automatic rifle.

  Aeric held up three fingers and said, “On the count of three. One… Two… THREE!”

  They both stood and began firing. The pop of Tyler’s 9-millimeter pistol sounded loud in the confined space compared to the relatively quiet M-4. Two of the boys went down without ever knowing what happened. Aeric nailed the third as he lay on the ground where he’d dived, not quite making it behind a pile of wood that sat near an old grill.

  There wasn’t any sign of the fourth Vulture who’d been there a moment before. After a brief pause, a squeaky voice yelled out that he surrendered, trying to make himself heard over the terrified screams of the other supermarket residents.

  “Come on out—and keep your hands where I can see them,” Aeric ordered.

  A pair of grubby hands extended from behind the wood pile followed by the body of a thirteen year-old boy. Aeric squinted in the dim light and recognized him as the gang member that he’d punched when he came to see Maria for the first time.

  “Nice and easy, Flame,” Aeric said.

  The boy flinched and said, “Mr. Traxx? That you?”

  “Yeah. How many of you are there, Flame? How many of you became Vultures?”

  He thought about it for a minute and replied, “Ten. Plus, Mr. Edward. He always been Vulture.”

  “Shit,” Aeric muttered. He’d always been a Vulture. “Do you know where your other friend is? You, your friend and Huerta are all that’s left.”

  The boy’s shoulders slumped. He hadn’t expected to hear that everyone else was dead. “Claw with Mr. Edward in tunnels,” Flame replied.

  “Claw? I thought he died,” Aeric asked in confusion.

  “No. He okay. No dick, but he alive.”

  “The entrance to the tunnels are in the back of the store, right? Are there any secret traps or anything?”

  “Why should I tell you, Traxx?”

  “Because if you tell me the truth, I’ll forgive you for getting mixed up with the Vultures.”

  The boy’s shadow nodded and he said, “No traps. Tunnels start in big metal box floor.”

  “There’s a trap door or something?” Tyler asked.

  “Uh, sure. Door in floor.” He laughed nervously at his own choice of rhyming words.

  “Anything else we should know?”

  “No. I told you everything. You let me go now?”

  Aeric shifted his feet, brought his M-4 up rapidly like he’d been taught. He fired two quick rounds into Flame’s chest and followed the boy’s falling body with the muzzle until he was sure he was dead. The screams that had quieted down to a collective whimper erupted once again and several people ran towards the storeroom in the back. It was going to be a lot more difficult to find Huerta and Claw if they were intermingled with a bunch of supermarket residents.

  Tyler glanced over at him with his one good eye and said accusingly, “You told that boy you’d forgive him for what he’d done if he told you the truth.”

  “What?” Aeric shrugged. “I forgave him… I forgave him for condemning thousands of people to their death. I can’t let someone like that stay alive, though. Imagine if he made it to Tennyson and people knew that he’d been one of the people to blow up the wall and start the fires.”

  “You’ve lost your way, Aeric,” Tyler accused. He gestured vaguely towards the eastern border of the city where the Vultures had attacked. “Somewhere along this journey, you’ve become one of them.”

  “Ty, that’s not—”

  “No. I don’t want to hear it, Aeric. You’ve lost it, man. You’ve done things in the heat of the moment before that I was able to look past or make excuses for. Remember that Wal-Mart where you shot that man in the back and then we walked by his family like nothing was wrong? Or what about Sterling City and that music hall?”

  “I did those things to survive. The guy at the Wal-Mart was to protect you, Tyler.”

  The big man nodded his head. “We’ve both done some fucked up shit, Aeric. And I acknowledge that fact, but you murdered that boy in cold blood.” Tyler paused, making Aeric think that he was organizing his thoughts. “When this is over, if we survive, I’m going to the council. You’re not fit to lead this city anymore. You’ve become just like the Vultures. We’re through after this.”

  His words hit Aeric harder than any punch he’d ever taken. They felt worse than when Justin had tortured him and paraded around with Kate on his arm. The sting of his words hurt more than when she’d died and even more than Judd’s information about his stepson’s hatred of him. The feeling of emptiness welled up inside him and threatened to overtake him.

  Like Veronica, Tyler had been with him from the beginning. He’d been his roommate and teammate in college before the war and had been with him every step of the way since then, with the exception of his assassination attempt in Austin a week ago. The man had been there for the birth of all of his and Veronica’s children, even several of his grandchildren; he never thought it would come to this. Sure, their relationship had deteriorated slightly over time as Tyler and Aeric became more involved with their own families, but they’d always been there for each other.

  “Okay, Ty. If that’s how you feel, then so be it,” Aeric conceded. He swallowed hard and continued, “I viewed Flame as a legitimate threat to the safety of this community and was in a position to put an end to that threat. I took that opportunity and I’d do it again if it meant keeping my wife and kids—and your family—safe for another day.”

  Tyler sighed heavily and ejected the magazine on his pistol. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out a few more bullets and crammed them on top of the others in the magazine until it reached capacity. He pushed it back into place and mumbled, “Let’s just get this over with and put an end to Huerta.”

  Aeric followed his lead and swapped out magazines as well before walking towards the back of the store where the entrance to the demonbroc breeding tunnels were supposedly located. He’d just started down one of the aisles when Megan appeared, clothed, and thanked them for helping her. She gave each of them a hug and promised that she’d see them in Tennyson as she herded two little kids towards the exit.

  They continued once she was gone and had to step over cowering residents, while also avoiding those who ran, screaming at the sight of their weapons. Aeric eased his way through the door when they arrived at the back of the store. It was dark and there were heaps and heaps of clothing and pilfered goods piled haphazardly. It didn’t help that they had no idea what Claw looked like, but either he or Huerta could have easily been hiding behind any one of the piles.

  “Now we know where all the stolen goods are going,” Aeric muttered, which Tyler ignored as he scanned the room.

  Screams of panic and fear echoed around the storeroom. They were muffled and didn’t sound like they were on the same level of the building. “Those must be coming from the tunnels,” Aeric surmised.

  “This way,” Tyler answered, walking rapidly towards an old cardboard crushing machine. The sounds seemed to be coming from inside.

  “Big metal box,” Aeric shrugged and indicated a door in the side of the machine with his chin. “Kid wasn’t lying.”

  They found th
e door’s release lever and it swung outward to reveal an enclosed, vacant space inside the crusher where the banded cardboard used to sit, ready to be sent to the recycling center in the old days. Centered in the floor of the storage area, a wooden door fit roughly over what appeared to be a hand-hewn hole in the cement floor.

  “I’ll move the door, you cover the hole,” Tyler stated.

  “Okay. I’m ready,” he replied as he bent his knees slightly and aimed his weapon at the hole.

  The moment Tyler pulled the cover away all hell broke loose. People, covered in gashes and bleeding profusely, tumbled up the stairs. Several held long, glistening ropes of intestines in their hands, uselessly trying to keep them from dragging on the ground or getting trampled by the crush of bodies behind them. Aeric was practically bowled over by the press of bodies and he slid up against the side of the cage as they rushed out.

  Below, a strange mixture of mewling and harsh, angry growls floated through the opening. As the flow of humanity ebbed, the screams coming from the tunnel had stopped, replaced by grunts of pain and the wet, sickening sound of tearing flesh.

  “Cover it up! Cover it up!” he shouted to Tyler, who stared dumbly at the bloody mass of fleeing residents making their way out of the storeroom.

  “Huh? Oh, the door.” He bent and picked up the heavy wooden slab, and slid it back into place. A dark gray paw thrust through the opening right before it closed. Three six-inch, razor-sharp claws unsheathed and the paw batted uselessly at empty space until the wood crushed its leg. What sounded like the screech of a banshee in some campy horror movie reverberated through the small space inside the crusher.

  The door started to move slightly as it was hit from underneath. Something was clearly trying to get out. “We need to move, now!” Aeric ordered before racing out of the machine. He slammed the locks into place the moment Tyler cleared the doorway.