One Man's Vengeance

by Nick Randall

  Chapter 4

  The looters had taken everything. The secret closet in the bedroom was picked bare, as was the stash of food and water in the garage. Some of it they'd eaten right there in the house, and Sam shuddered at the thought of those...monsters chowing down while his family bled to death just a few rooms away. All three firearms – the two nine-millimeters and the shotgun – had been carried away, including the boxes of ammo in the hidden closet cache. One of them had spray-painted a large, ugly patch of graffiti on the dining room wall, a splotchy blue circle with six lines shooting off from the center.

  Worst of all, though, Sam was weak. He stumbled into the bathroom with the lantern and nearly shocked himself into a faint when he looked in the mirror. His clothes were torn and caked with so much mud and blood he couldn't even read the lettering on the front of his shirt. His forehead was also smeared with dark red dirt, while a long, wide streak of blood had dried over his left cheek that had originated from an ugly gash on the side of his forehead. It was where the thug had bashed him with a crowbar, and he'd completely neglected that open wound while he was stiching himself up.

  The wounds on his stomach were angry and swollen, laced with thick sewing thread that looked like black teeth biting down into his skin. The strain of digging the grave had caused one to begin leaking bright crimson tears. Sam looked behind the bathroom mirror for the first aid kit he kept there and found that the looters had also taken that.

  What scared him most, though, were his eyes. They shone pale white through the mud and grime, both insane and forlorn, and completely, chillingly empty.

  Back downstairs, Sam limped over to where the two bodies filled up the entranceway to the kitchen and dragged them one by one into the living room. He shoved aside the furniture to clear a wide empty space in the middle of the room and laid the bodies side by side and began going through their pockets.

  Nothing. Either their so-called friends had scavenged the corpses or they hadn't had anything to begin with. No weapons, no identification. Sam flipped the body with the sun tattoo over onto his back and kicked him in the stomach.

  “Who are you?” he roared, desperate. “Why couldn't you just leave us alone?”

  The man just stared at the ceiling blankly.

  Sam kicked him again, and saw a tiny scrap of white dislodge from the man's breast pocket. Sam bent with a grunt and picked it up. It was an old receipt, the lettering faded and barely legible. He held it down to the lantern. Even though daylight had filled the world outside, the boarded windows kept the interior of the house in shadow, as if this house of horrors existed alone in an entirely different realm.

  The lantern light glinted off the shiny receipt paper, and Sam was able to make out the words at the top: Helios Tavern, 324 Mission Street.

  Mission Street hadn't been part of Sam's beat on the force, but he knew the location well enough. It was downtown, part of a seedy neighborhood the local cops called The Devil's Watering Hole. Sam wondered what had happened to a place like that with no police to hammer down their doors. He doubted it was pretty.

  But that was the only clue he had to go on if he wanted to find these guys. Well...not quite the only clue. Sam closed his eyes, forcing himself to remember the horrifying night. One of the men had been holding his arm like it hurt. He'd been stocky, maybe five-foot-nine, with a thick, wiry beard that ran all the way down his neck and something...something else...something that had glinted in the light. An earring? Sam shook his head. He couldn't remember.

  The second intruder was easier to picture, since he'd bent down directly over Sam. Muscular and tall, he'd had a shaved head and a bent, hawkish nose that looked like it'd been broken a time or three in the past. And the tattoo – at least two of the men had sported the same design. Concentric circles drawn in wavy lines with a small star at the center of the circle. On the outer edges, more lines radiated outward, like the rays of a sun. It was the same design as the graffiti on his dining room wall.

  As for the third killer, well, Sam had only seen a hulking shadow on the wall of the living room. He might as well be a ghost.

  It still wasn't a lot, and Sam doubted the guys would be heading back anywhere near the Helios Tavern. But again, it was all he had. Sam got to work.

  First he changed his clothes. As bloody as they were, he'd never blend in. He winced as he pulled a clean pair of jeans on, followed by a plain gray t-shirt. He didn't have any water to really clean himself up with, so he wiped at his face with a towel and hoped the stubble on his cheeks would hide the rest. Finally, he stuck a black beanie over his hair. He wanted to look inconspicuous, and the outfit did the job well enough.

  Next, he rounded up what few supplies he could still find in the ransacked house. The first aid kit and the sewing kit went into his pockets, along with the book of matches he'd dropped over by the wall. Into a mesh laundry sack he put a sweatshirt and two t-shirts – he might need to change clothes to throw off pursuers – and dumped a plastic sheet, a mostly-empty roll of duct tape, and a tangle of thin green paracord on top of them. He tied it over his shoulder so that it hung at his back.

  In the garage he found a small, rusted chopping hatchet with a wooden handle and a steel multitool that the looters had missed (or just not cared about, Sam thought). He'd have prefered a real knife. Hell, he'd have preferred a gun. But what seemed to be his mantra today just kept coming back: it was all he had. The multitool had a screwdriver, a corkscrew, and a three-inch knife that wouldn't do much good in a fight.

  “But it'll slit a throat,” Sam muttered to himself, stowing it in his jeans pocket. For the hatchet, he fashioned a duct tape loop that he tied around his belt. The hatchet swung against his waist, slapping his leg with every step, but it would be close at hand if he needed it quickly.

  He left the lantern with a twinge of regret, but it would only get in the way. He needed to move fast and blend in. Instead, he walked up the stairs to the one room he'd avoided – his and Linda's bedroom. The closet door was still open, the bookcase swung back on its hinges, and Sam crossed the room quickly to avoid looking at the bloodstains on the carpet. From the small vanity, he pulled out a gold necklace with a tiny rhinestone set in the middle of a gold heart. It was cheap, a costume necklace painted to look like gold, but he'd given it to Linda on their second date over twelve years earlier. He gripped it tightly in his fist for a second, then slipped it into his pocket. He crossed the hallway to Jeremy's room and quickly found what he was looking for: his son's prized possession, a bent and faded Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card. The cretins had ransacked this room, too, but seemed to have left without taking much. Sam slid the card into his pocket next to the cheap gold necklace.

  Finally, he shrugged into a light brown jacket that hid the laundry sack and the hatchet, and stood at the blown-in door of his house. He looked around the dim interior, letting the memories wash over him. He might never walk over this threshold again. The house itself wasn't important to him. If they'd had the money for it, he would have happily moved the family to a ranch upstate, some plot of land with acres to themselves. It was the memories he cherished. This was the house he and Linda had bought together. It was where Jeremy had been conceived, where the boy had grown up, where they'd fought and laughed and cried as a family. Leaving this house was leaving his life.

  Sam brushed a hand gently down the now-scarred doorjamb, then set his teeth and stepped out into the front yard. The sun was high in the sky, and he had a long way to go before it set.

  Chapter 5

  By mid afternoon, Sam had worked his way out of the suburbs and into the metropolitan area. So far he hadn't run into any serious trouble. A small raiding party had nearly surprised him outside a mini strip mall, but he'd manage to slip around the rear of the building before they spotted him. He'd seen more marauding gangs in the distance several times. Once, he'd hunkered behind a dumpster and watched, heart in his throat, as a large mob of angry men and women streamed by, shouting and firing weapons into the sky a
nd the surrounding buildings.

  While he was still surrounded by the grassy lawns of his suburban neighborhood, Sam had taken a moment to smear his clean clothes with a few handfuls of dirt, making it look like he'd been out on the streets for days. Hopefully, anyone who did spot him would think he was a bum, just an eyesore to be ignored, with nothing valuable worth taking. Still he wasn't taking any chances.

  On the outskirts of the city, Sam slipped into an alley and leaned against a brick wall to get control of his breathing. His lips were chapped, his head dizzy. His stomach was a tight, empty ball, and the sutured gunshot wounds in his abdomen were a constant ache that occasionally rose to screaming levels of pain if he accidentally twisted his torso the wrong way. He was hungry, but it was the onset of dehydration that scared Sam the most. If he didn't find water soon, he might as well be lying dead on his kitchen floor.

  Sam was increasingly awestruck by the level of destruction that had already descended on the area. In only a week, the city had been transformed into a wasteland. Buildings stood gutted along the roadways, some of them burned to soot-covered cinderblock shells. Vehicles lined the streets and driveways, most with the windows smashed in. While he and his family had been sequestered in the safety of their home, the city had been self-destructing.

  Sam took another deep breath and heaved himself off the wall, then flinched as the loud pock-pock-pock of a handgun sounded from the street next to him. It was answered by a rapid-fire ratatatat of an assault rifle. Sam peeked around the corner of the alley and saw a man staggering down the middle of the street shooting a handgun. A moment later, the assault rifle returned fire and the man shook violently, geysers of blood erupting from his back. He dropped in a pool of spreading blood, the handgun clattering away on the tarmac.

  Sam eyed the gun hungrily. He angled farther around the corner and spied six men in gray camouflage fatigues kneeling a block up the street. They stood and, at an unheard signal, moved as a single unit out of the open street and under the protection of a low store awning.

  The National Guard, Sam thought. Damn it. Two days earlier, he would have welcomed the sight. Now, the last thing he needed was something else in his way. The unit had paused for a breather with their backs against the storefront, rifles lowered but heads swiviling vigilantly to keep an eye on the street. Sam let his gaze drop back to the handgun on the street. A rivulet of blood from the dead man had reached it and was pooling around the grip.

  It was tantalizingly close, just twenty feet away. But there was no way to get it without the Guardsmen spotting him. Up the street, the six-man unit had left the awning and were milling up the street in his direction.

  Then, shouts. A crash. More shouts. Sam risked a look and saw two men and a woman in grime-soaked clothes emerge from a building practically face to face with the Guardsmen. The men were turned toward the newcomers, rifles again at the ready, shouting for them to put their hands up.

  Sam didn't hesitate. He hunched his shoulders and lowered his head and assumed a shambling gait. If anyone looked up, they'd just see an unassuming refugee trying to get across the street.

  Halfway there. The gun was practically in his hands. Five feet away.

  A shout.

  “Hey! You! Stop and get those hands in the air.”

  Shit. Sam kept moving. He pretended to stumble, just enough to bring his hand to the pavement...

  “He's going for the weapon! Open fire!”

  An assault rifle coughed, and a bullet ricocheted off the street. Ratatatat, more rounds zipped through the air around him. Sam launched into a sprint, forgetting the gun. Up the street, two Guardsmen were strafing and tracking Sam with their rifles. The other four were still occupied with the trio of looters. Sam shot into an alley on the opposite side of the street. Bullets striking the wall threw chips of brick into Sam's face. He kept running, wheeling into a cross alley, and crashed headlong into a body.

  Sam tumbled to the ground, rolled, came up in a crouch, already pulling the hatchet from his waist. The person he'd collided with spun twice and then regained their footing. It was a woman, her clothes tattered, her blonde-hair streaked almost black with oil and grit. She sank low and eyed Sam with a wild, feral look. Sam saw terror in her eyes, but no murder. Around the corner, footsteps echoed in the alley.

  “This way, he went this way,” one of the Guardsmen called out.

  Sam backed away from the woman slowly. Her eyes were locked on the hatchet in Sam's hand. She was just trying to survive, same as him.

  “Get out of here,” Sam whispered to her, lowering the hatchet. He turned and ran down the alley, away from the approaching Guardsmen.

  Sam finally allowed himself to slow when he was two blocks away. His side ached and his head was beginning to pound from thirst and exertion, but even so he kept up a brisk walking pace for three more blocks, sticking to alleys when he could and staying tight up against the brick building faces when he was forced to go out on an open city street. The sun was well below the tops of the tallest buildings, sending bright rays of light slicing in between block-wide puddles of shadow.

  The deeper he plunged into the city, the worse the conditions grew. Cars here weren't simply dented and smashed – many were burned-out husks, some of them still smoking. If a window wasn't smashed, it was heavily boarded and covered with hand-painted “Looters will be shot on sight” signs. Many of the storefronts with signs had been broken into regardless of the warning. Trash and debris littered the streets, and the roving gangs of marauders became more frequent. The deepening dusk made it easier to get out of side, but it also meant that Sam often couldn't see a group of looters until they were almost right on top of him.

  Occasional bursts of gunfire echoed out from nameless streets, giving Sam the eerie, unnerving feeling that he was smack-dab in the middle of a warzone. It was a bad place to be with just a knife and a rusty hatchet for company. What was it they said about bringing a knife to a gunfight...?

  Even though he was forced to wind his way through the city, taking advantage of cover wherever it presented itself, Sam had still been cutting a fairly direct path across the maze of city streets. Some roads and landmarks had changed since his time on the force – it happened in any city – but Sam was able to keep his bearings. In just a few more blocks he'd be in the Devil's Watering Hole. A couple more blocks after that would land him on Mission Street.

  Sam tried to bury the nagging worry that all this was for nought – that his trek into the city would culminate at a dead end, with Helios Tavern shuttered and abandoned in the riots. Surely someone in the area knew who those men were...but then, what were the odds anyone was still around? The thought dragged at his weary steps almost as much as his growing hunger and pressing thirst. He licked his lips, already chapped and stinging from a full day without water. More likely than not, he was simply wasting his energy when he should have been trying to find some supplies.

  But Linda and Jeremy called to him as clearly as if they'd been standing in front of him, beckoning him forward. He couldn't find peace until he brought their killers to justice. They couldn't find peace. Sam let his fingers slide over the gold necklace and the baseball card in his pocket and tried to imagine a happy memory, but his mind would only conjure images of their bodies lying in the upstairs bedroom. He tried to picture their smiling faces, but saw only Jeremy's blank eyes staring toward the door, saw only Linda's lips still twisted in a silent scream hours after the life had drained out of her.

  Despair and rage quickened Sam's steps, and before he knew it he was standing on the corner of Mission Street and 7th. Aside from the steely glow of the full moon, the city was draped in darkness now, and Sam paused on the corner in a shadowed doorway and peered down the street. It didn't take long to find what he was looking for.

  Chapter 6

  Helios Tavern was a wide, square building that commanded its own lot, some of which was paved with parking spaces. The rest of the lot was a weedy, crumbled expanse of cracked aspha
lt littered with pallets and empty liquor boxes. Seven cars were sitting in the tavern's parking lot, and if not for their smashed-in windows, it would have looked like Helios was enjoying a booming night of business.

  The street was entirely empty at first, but as Sam watched and waited, a cluster of seven men turned a corner way down the street and began walking in Sam's direction. Each was carrying a hefty trash bag filled to bursting, and they laughed and smoked cigarettes as they walked, like they didn't have a care in the world. Sam pressed himself farther back into the dark doorway, but the men didn't come anywhere near him – they turned and walked in the front door of Helios Tavern.

  “Now that's interesting,” Sam whispered. He hadn't recognized any of the men, but from the looks of it, the tavern was operating as some kind of looter hub. And the way those guys had walked up the street, without a care in the world...Sam would have bet his rusty hatchet those trash bags were filled with food and supplies, and still nobody had tried to fuck with them. That meant they were important, or at least protected by someone important. And people around here knew it.

  Sam found that he wasn't surprised one bit. When the normal chain of authority was severed, somebody was always ready to step into the vacuum and take charge for themselves. He wasn't even shocked that it had happened so quickly. Clearly, this area had been under the thumb of a particularly powerful gang, and Sam had learned early, way back when he was a beat cop, that gangs operated with ruthless efficiency. Once the ceiling had broken apart, they'd already had the root system to sprout up like a weed, taking total control of the neighborhood. All they had to do was kill anyone who got in their way.