The Last War Box Set_A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survivor Thriller

by Ryan Schow

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “Making matters worse, the MS-13 have basically aligned themselves with the Sureños, which is the southern California branch of the Mexican Mafia. Before this they were expanding their territory north at an alarming rate.”

  “So what does all that have to do with our girl and her dead friends, and the black snakes they have tattooed on their bodies?”

  “Everything,” she said. “The MS-13 and the Sureños are basically rivals with the Norteños, which is the northern California faction of the Nuestra family. The violence that breaks out between these two warring factions is supposedly a thing of legend, although San Francisco seems to have a way of covering up all its piles of crap with pretty rugs.”

  Waving off the commentary, he said, “So these gangs, they’re what…rivals for The Ophidian Horde?”

  “No. The Ophidian Horde is a mop-up gang. The drone attack on the city wasn’t about skin color or age. The machines didn’t care about race or religion, about gang members or priests. A lot of people died in the attacks. A lot of them leaving their organizations weak and in disarray.”

  “So this gang, they’re trying to organize…all the gangs?” he asked.

  “According to this piece of white trash filth, they’re not pulling in the Sureños, the Norteños or the MS-13. Not just yet. They’re going after the low level gangs like the Knockout Gang, Eddy Rock, the Page Street Mob. They’re pulling them all into one organization and telling them they will be the ruling gang once the Sureños and the Norteños get done killing each other.”

  “So how does any of this effect us directly?”

  “They’re going to own you,” the girl moaned from the floor. She turned her face up to Rex and it was so badly beaten and so filled with rage it made him wince. “They’re going to own this town, but not before they kill off all the pendejos like you!”

  “Is this true?” Rex asked, looking up at Indigo.

  Seeing the girl’s face beaten so badly made him look at Indigo differently. It made him wonder what the hell really happened to her that she should be like this. If she was always so violent, so sullen, or if this was merely a reaction to all the bad things that happened to her.

  “According to her, yes. But under interrogation, people will sometimes say anything they think you want them to say. That’s why we’re going to tie her up and leave her here until we can verify her story.”

  The outrage and the million-miles-an-hour cursing that spewed from this girl’s mouth was like nothing Rex had ever heard before. He could see blood vessels popping in the whites of her eyes as she screamed and it sort of scared him. All this after she’d been beaten.

  Indigo went and cracked her so hard on the top of the skull the raging beast withered, covering her head where it began to bleed and whimpering to herself once more.

  “Do you enjoy that?” Rex asked. “Clubbing people over the head with your gun?”

  “Actually, no. But desperate times, and all that,” she said. “Can you walk?”

  “I can,” a voice said from behind them. They both turned, but Indigo had her gun aimed at the source of the noise.

  Cincinnati.

  His sister was armed, too. Cincinnati put both hands out and raised them before her. Indigo immediately lowered her gun and said, “That’s a great way to get an extra hole in your face.”

  Looking down at the mauled and naked girl, she said, “Apparently so. Where are her clothes?”

  “Somewhere over there,” Indigo said, not looking or motioning anywhere.

  “Why are they not on her body?”

  “Because if she’s telling us the truth, she gets to leave. But she was slow to talk, so I kept taking them away. When she walks, if she’s honest with us, the deal was she could leave with only the clothes on her body.”

  “But she’ll freeze to death,” Cincinnati said.

  “Not my problem.”

  “What is your problem?” Cincinnati finally asked. Rex sensed the agitation in his sister and hoped that it wouldn’t screw things up too badly with Indigo.

  “My problem is there’s about to be a massive turf war between the city’s most violent gangs in an attempt to concentrate power. If you think the destruction that’s been hitting us so far is bad, it’s about to get a whole lot worse.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “This girl was just some low level skank for the MS-13 who decided to jump ship and try another gang. Now she’s a full blooded member of The Ophidian Horde, and from what she’s telling me, this war isn’t only going to spill over into the streets and onto normal people, it’s going to claim San Francisco as its territory while systematically enslaving the people. Imagine the mob, but with no police. Imagine no law. No one to stop the rapes and the murders; no one to stop men on a mission to control this city. If they get the upper hand, if they get that swing of power, then it’s over for us. Unless we can get out.”

  “We’ve tried.”

  “Everyone’s tried,” Indigo said.

  “Perhaps it’s time to try again,” Rex added.

  “Or perhaps this is our home and our city and we shouldn’t just sit around like a bunch of pansies talking about running.”

  “What are you suggesting?” Rex asked Indigo.

  “Yeah,” Cincinnati said. “What are you suggesting?”

  Indigo looked at them both, as serious as Rex had ever seen her, and then she said, “I’m suggesting we stop them before they get started.”

  There was a lot of silence and some consternating looks followed by the gravely, blood soaked laughter of their prisoner.

  “You just go ahead and try,” she said, laughing her way into a small crying jag.

  “Can I ask you a personal question?” Rex said to Indigo, ignoring the hostage. Indigo folded her arms and pursed her lips. “How big are your balls?”

  Blowing out a sigh, but not once blinking or taking her eyes off him, she said, “Big enough to shoot hoops with. Now are we going to find you guys a place to live, or are you going to just sit there and bleed?”

  Turning to Cincinnati, who looked like she couldn’t believe any of this was happening, he said, “Mark my words, big sis, one day I’m going to have this girl’s babies.”

  Indigo punched him in the shoulder where he was first shot and said, “Not likely,” as he let out a yelp and chewed down on the sharp, stabbing pain.

  Indigo then grabbed her hostage by the hair and dragged her kicking and screaming to a chair, not paying attention to the slew of death threats and howling erupting from the girl’s mouth.

  “Don’t look at her tits,” Cincinnati said.

  “Too late,” Rex replied.

  “Help me tie her up,” Indigo said. Cincinnati handed her gun to Rex, then went to look at the woman’s injuries before helping secure her.

  “Was all this necessary?” she asked Indigo.

  “I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”

  Cincinnati was studying the blonde girl’s forehead, which was bumpy and blue. There were a few cuts on her brows as well, evidence that Indigo’s hostage had been struck repeatedly.

  “And what about them?” she asked. “The two guys outside with their heads blown wide open? Was that necessary, too?”

  “Save me your humanitarian gestures,” she said.

  “You can’t just go around killing people,” Cincinnati said.

  “Maybe you should have that conversation with your brother. He’s been shot again, by the way. Triceps. Passed out like he was new.”

  His sister drew a deep breath, then let it out in a long exhale. She couldn’t even look at him. “Before today, he was new. To getting shot, that is.”

  “Um…hello. I’m right here,” Rex said. “I can hear everything you’re saying.”

  Without looking back at him, Cincinnati said, “Good, then get up and go get Stanton and Macy. Tell them to come in here.”

  “Why?”

  She spun and leveled him with big sis
ter eyes. “To go shopping, Rex. We need supplies in case you forgot.”

  “We need a house first,” Rex grumbled, getting himself off the table.

  “I told you I’ve got you covered there,” Indigo said. She was binding the girl’s wrists behind her back with a length of rope, then wrapping that same rope around her throat. If she tried to struggle, it looked to Rex like the girl ran the risk of choking herself.

  “Can’t we at least put a shirt on her?” Rex said.

  “You don’t like my boobs?” the girl asked, angry, unable to mop up her eyes.

  “Sure I do,” Rex said. “They look just like my grandma’s.”

  Indigo stopped, shook her head, then went over to a supplies cabinet, pulled out grey duct tape, then came back and wrapped a length of tape across her breasts, covering her nipples. The girl protested mightily, but she only ended up nearly choking herself.

  “See?”

  Rex turned and left. He found both Stanton and Macy creeping in the front door. Stanton saw him, stood up straight and appeared to relax.

  “You okay?”

  “Not really,” Rex said. “Grab a cart, we’re going shopping. Oh, and watch out for the poop over there by the dead guy. I’m pretty sure it’s human.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  We’re rolling an old shopping cart packed to the hilt with stuff from Walgreen’s down this dirt alley Indigo says is really called Dirt Alley.

  Apparently this is how you go house shopping in the apocalypse.

  The cart’s jacked up wheels aren’t exactly quiet, but Indigo says she can both shoot arrows and show houses at the same time. It’s kind of nice to have a defender on our side. Already I’m feeling better about her. More optimistic.

  So Indigo is pointing to this house and that, telling us about floor plans and lighting and which homes seem to have the nicest stuff. It’s crazy to think that less than an hour ago she killed some people and beat some pretty important information out of a member of the gang poised to take over the city now that it had no law or military presence.

  “I want my own room,” Macy says.

  “Naturally,” Indigo replies with a jovial smile.

  “How do you know all about these houses?” Macy asks. “Were they the homes of friends of yours?”

  Indigo doesn’t speak, she just bites her lip and keeps walking.

  “She knows them because she’s looted them,” Stanton finally says. “Not that I blame her. She was just being resourceful, and in this world, what you do to survive seems to trump how bad you look and feel for robbing abandoned homes in a collapsed society.”

  “It’s survival of the fittest,” Indigo says. “That one over there belonged to a friend of mine, so you can’t stay there. Watch the pile of ash. You’ll trip over the bones if you’re not careful.”

  We make a wide berth around a huge ash pit full of bones and belt buckles and several skulls. My God, these are human bones! What the hell?

  “Who’s pit is that?” I ask, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice.

  “Mine,” she says. “I made it.”

  “What was it you burned in there?” I ask. “And why can’t we stay in your friend’s house?”

  “The ash pit contains the first members of The Ophidian Horde when they came here and tried to kill me and my friend. And you can’t stay in my friend’s house because she’s still there.”

  “What’s her name?” Macy asks.

  “Dead.”

  No one says anything. It gets terribly uncomfortable for a second.

  “And she’s still there?” Stanton chimes in.

  At a small detached garage, Indigo leans down and lifts the garage door. Inside is an old black and gold muscle car with a front end that’s seen better days.

  There are also supplies.

  And weapons.

  “Take two cases of water and that bucket there”—she says pointing to the corner of the garage—“and you can pick that house there and there if you want to stay where I can keep an eye on you.” She’s now pointing to the houses on either side of her friend’s house. “Both homes are nice and there’s plenty of room for all of you.”

  “Will I get my own room?” Macy asks.

  “Yes. Plus both homes still have water in the water heaters. Conserve where you can though, because when we’re out, we’re going to be hauling in water from other houses, nearby water holes and eventually the bay. When we have to do that, the process by which to leech the salt out is slow and tedious and not anything I’m looking forward to.”

  “Why can’t we stay with you?” Rex asks.

  “Because I have company.”

  “A boyfriend?” Macy asks with a knowing grin.

  “Something like that. Besides, I figure we don’t even know each other, so it’s too soon to start sleeping together.”

  “I’m okay with it if you are,” Rex says, cradling his injured arm.

  “I’m not,” Indigo replies, not the least bit humored. Ignoring Rex’s antics, looking instead at me and Macy, she says, “At least not yet. It’s a trust thing, really. Plus some really bad things have happened and my guest was privy to them. She had a front row seat, unfortunately, and I’m not inclined to overwhelm her with company.”

  “Flashlight?” Stanton asks looking around.

  She hands him two flashlights and says, “I’ve got batteries when you run out, but as with everything…conserve.”

  “Sure thing,” Rex says.

  “You guys can settle in tonight and tomorrow, but the day after that we need to pow-wow and figure this thing out. There’s no freeloaders allowed in this new world,” Indigo says, now looking directly at Rex, “even if you’ve been shot. Twice. You have to pull your own weight and then some.”

  “We will,” I say.

  “You?” Indigo says, looking at me, “I don’t doubt. But him…”

  “You’re worried about me?” Rex asks.

  “Yes.”

  Nodding his head, shrugging off the comment, he says, “I’ll be fine. Thanks for the concern, though.”

  “I appreciate you having my back in there,” she grumbles.

  Smiling but moving gingerly, Rex says, “Let’s go guys. I’m in favor of the house on the right, all agreed say ‘I.’”

  “We’re going to the other house,” Macy says. Stanton and I agree. “It just looks cleaner.”

  “And bigger,” Indigo says. They all look at her one last time. Then: “In time perhaps I’ll invite you over, but for now—especially you, Rex—don’t get any funny ideas. Anyone who comes into my house without an invitation takes a round to the face.”

  Stanton, Macy and I turn to Rex who says, “I’m a fighter not a lover.”

  And that’s that.

  “Oh, before I forget,” Indigo says. She heads inside, then comes back out a few minutes later and hands me a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a suturing kit, complete with the needle and thirty six inches of absorbable suture. “The hydrogen peroxide is for Stanton’s head, but the stitches are for Rex’s mouth.” She says this and doesn’t smile. She just looks at Rex with even, no-nonsense eyes.

  “Thank you,” I tell her, deeply grateful, even if she is making us all a bit uncomfortable.

  We say good-bye to Indigo and head to the house Rex didn’t choose. If he complains, I’ll tell him he can stay there if he wants, but he doesn’t complain.

  As we’re heading back across the way, we make a wide berth around the pile of bones and head through a collapsed section of wood fence leading to the house adjacent to Indigo’s backyard.

  “Mom,” Macy says. “When I grow up I want to be like Indigo.”

  “Me, too,” I hear myself mumble

  “I don’t know about this,” Macy says. The house feels like a tomb. Cold, dark, empty. It’s a house though, and it doesn’t smell like death, rotten food or mold, so that’s a plus.

  “Should’ve gone with the other house,” Rex says.

  I head around and o
pen the windows, drenching the space in light. The hardwood floors are new, but covered in old rugs, the furniture old but polished to a light shine.

  “All it needed was some light,” I say.

  Sniffing around the first floor rooms gives me nothing of interest. Meaning no one’s died in here yet. There isn’t old food or dirty plates stacked in the sink, no spoiled milk in the fridge (yet) because it’s a bit barren in there, and the shopping list stuck to the fridge has lots of items on it which tells me this person was clean and responsible, but not rolling in the money.

  “They cared about their home,” Stanton says.

  “Yeah,” I hear myself say.

  Macy heads upstairs with Rex to find their respective bedrooms. I’m praying they realize that no matter what, Rex and I will be taking the master.

  Or maybe not.

  I’m just happy my boys are still alive, and I’m happy my husband and I are still together. That all of us are together.

  Looking out into the backyard, my eyes go to the half-kicked over fence, then to the yard itself, which is mostly dirt and some stacked up garbage along the fence line. It’s not the best view, but it isn’t terrible either.

  “It’s less nice than I thought,” Stanton says, “but with some grow boxes, some clean dirt and some seeds, we might be able to plant.”

  “That’s a bit optimistic,” I say, not meaning to be a buzzkill, but realizing I am anyway. Looking up I say, “Sorry. It’s just…there’s so much more that has to come before that.”

  “I know. No sense in being like you though.”

  I turn and pull him into an easy hug, burying my face in his neck and telling him how much I love him. He holds me for like forever, and I just want to stay here—in his arms—until our final days, may they not come too soon.

  “I miss you,” he says.

  “I miss you, too,” I tell him.