Etna Station

by Mark Tufo

  “What the fuck is wrong with you? I used to look forward to getting Red Hots when my dad brought me to these places.”

  “Might be one of the reasons you’re so mad all the time. Maybe you’re suppressing some anger concerning your father exposing you to all those toxins.”

  “Look at me. Do I look like I was fed a steady diet of toxins?” he asked, flexing his muscles.

  “Fuck yeah it does! I watched Godzilla, like, a hundred times when I was a kid. That was exactly what happened to him.”

  “You are such an asshole.”

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  “You think we should stand guard?” he asked as I was heading over to the ladder.

  “Wouldn’t be the worst idea. I hate that there isn’t a direct way up here from inside, though.”

  “Get some sleep. I’ll take the first four hours,” he offered.

  I thanked him and went back in. Travis had busted open the very machine I had been talking about, only instead of peanuts, they were some M&M clones, though by the shape of them, it was clear they did not have the same type of manufacturing. Looked like candy-coated raisins, if I had to describe them. They were so stale they were simultaneously chewy yet dissolved upon hitting the tongue. I had a couple, but only because my son was happy he’d found something food-like and wanted to share. He brought some up to BT. Not sure how long he was up there, but the worry and running had taken its toll on me; I’d found some garage clean-up towels, rolled them into a pillow and dropped right off to sleep on the polished concrete floor. When BT woke me, I was truly surprised my shift was already up.

  “Damn. That sure didn’t feel like four hours.”

  “It wasn’t. You got a couple of hours. We got activity.”

  “Shit.” I grabbed my gear.

  We got onto the roof, could hear more than one engine running.

  “Patrols?” I asked.

  “Makes the most sense. Don’t know what they know, but that they’re close means that maybe some of our people are still around.”

  “Might be better if they’re still looking for us. I hope our people got away and that eventually, MJ will stumble upon our message.”

  “This is killing me, Talbot. I love these people. I mean maybe not Trip and Deneaux but yeah, the rest of them.”

  “Any one more than another?” I asked, fishing.

  “You’re pretty low down on the list, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “Oh, I meant a Talbot, alright? Just not me.” He didn’t answer; I took that as all the confirmation I needed.

  “What the hell is that?” BT pointed up into the sky. We both saw blinking green and red lights.

  “That an aircraft of some kind?” I asked.

  “You think?”

  “Don’t give me shit! We haven’t seen anything besides birds flying for months. Looks pretty far off.”

  “Or not.” He stood. “Fuck, Mike we need to take the message down.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a lot closer than you think. It’s a drone. They see your pipe insult, they’ll know where we’re at.”

  “We don’t have enough time to bring it all down.” I was grabbing pipe and tossing it off the roof, aiming at the overgrowth around us to soften the landings, still sounded like the brass section of a large traveling band had got into a bus accident with a truckload of cymbals.

  “Can probably hear this across state lines,” BT said as he heaved a handful.

  By this time, we had roused everyone in the store. Travis had scaled the ladder and was poking his head up at us.

  “Drone coming. Get everyone back in the store. Let’s go, BT,” I said, making a dash.

  “It’s not all gone.”

  “As good as it’s going to get,” I told him.

  Damn near ended up getting done in by BT, as he was faster down the ladder than I was. Felt like he was going to shove my head down into my chest as he hit me with his bulk. I shook it off as he dragged me around and in.

  “We should probably leave,” Tommy said, looking out the window. I saw what he meant; now there was an arc of galvanized metal piping all around us. We’d torn up the real words and left kind of an open suggestion to come and see what the hell that was all about. Heard the car before we saw or heard the drone; it was close, next street over.

  “They’re going to see this mess. They’ll have the rats back on us,” BT whined.

  I looked around; we were in no shape for another flight scenario. Meredith would try her best, but no chance she was going to be able to make an escape with any speed.

  “We need to take out that car,” I said. “BT, let’s go. The rest of you–if this goes south you’re going to need to get out of here in a hurry. We’ll meet back at the gas station. Got it?”

  I could tell Travis wasn’t all that thrilled with this plan. He’d already lost the majority of his family and now I was heading out. I gave them all a brief hug. We quickly crossed through a few yards and were on the front lawn of a ranch style house, looking over the roadway. A luxury sedan was slowly rolling down the road. I was afraid they were being cautious because we’d already been spotted. When they stopped, I figured my suspicions had been confirmed. Then I heard and caught sight of the drone. The passenger was leaning out the window, constantly looking at the display and controls he held in his hands and the small craft he was piloting.

  “Well we got a driver and a pilot, what are the odds they don’t have anyone in the backseat?” I asked.

  “Slim,” BT said.

  “Sure do wish you had more of those rockets.”

  “Me too,” he said. “Do you hear that?”

  “It’s music! Do those dipshits have the radio on? That…wait that’s Linda Rondstandt!”

  “How the fuck do you know that?” BT asked.

  “Ummm…my sister was a fan.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Sounds like ‘Baby You’re No Good.’”

  “It’s just ‘You’re No Good.’”

  “How the hell would you know that?”

  “Good music is just good music, and the woman can sing.”

  “True that,” I said. “I’ll take out the driver; you’re going to need to take out anyone in the back.”

  “The pilot?”

  “Last. I can’t imagine he’s operating a radio and holding a firearm as well.” I checked to make sure my suppressor was on tight and waited until the car got closer; figured I was going to have to take a shot at a slow-moving target. Not sure if I should have felt guilty when they stopped right across from us. There were two in the back as well. The pilot was sitting with his head buried in his console, making the driver a difficult shot. He was peering at that thing like he’d found gold, or us, I realized, when he looked up and then immediately over to our less than perfect spot. My bullet blazed through the side of his face and lodged deeply into the skull of the driver, whose head, of course, fell immediately on the horn.

  The pilot was screaming bloody murder as BT released a volley of shots into the back seat, saw bodies dancing around in a macabre way. The drone had pitched violently to the side and crash-landed in the next yard over. The pilot was leaning over the seat, I imagined going for the radio, when I placed a shot in his spine. He stopped moving, though I could hear him sobbing.

  “Let’s get the weapons,” I told BT.

  “Help me.” The pilot said when we got to the car.

  “I’ll help you if you tell me how many of you there are and who sent you,” I said.

  “Help, please.” Blood spewed from his mouth as he coughed and the death rattle in his chest began to vibrate.

  “Fucking tell me!” I’d gripped the front of his shirt.

  “He’s dead, man,” BT said as he lightly touched my shoulder.

  “Fuck.” I had spots of red in my vision, anger was welling in me, that this group was hounding us relentlessly and now I didn’t know where most of my family was. If BT hadn’t been there I think I
would have taken it out on their corpses.

  “Lot of weapons here. Let’s take them and go.”

  “You take them back, I need to hide this car so they don’t stumble across it.”

  “Makes sense, man, I just don’t like the look in your eyes.”

  “Grab the drone as well,” I said as I handed him the remote control.

  “Do I look like a pack mule?”

  “Just as ornery, I suppose.”

  “You’re coming right back?” he asked as he fumbled with one of the guns when he bent down to grab the drone.

  “Right back, man.” I had pushed the dead driver over and was ready to take off. I reached back and grabbed the radio before I did so.

  Drove about a mile when the radio came on. “Patrol seven, yo! Hey Haskell, you there man? You missed your fucking check-in again. You can’t keep doing that shit, drives Knox fucking nuts.”

  “Yeah, it’s all cool,” I said.

  “Haskell, you sound funny.”

  “Eating chicken wings,” I said making a slurping noise.

  “I’m not even gonna ask where you got them. Has Devon seen anything?”

  “Guy couldn’t find his dick with a magnifying glass,” I said.

  “Haskell, that’s weird, man, even for you. He is your brother.”

  “Tell Knox I’m coming for him.”

  “Who’s this?”

  I hate that cliché shit. I mean, do I say his “worst nightmare”? Because knowing Knox’s twisted up psyche, it’s probably something like circus elephants and how am I going to pull that off? “Just let him know it’s someone he’s met before who will be delighted to watch him bleed out.”

  “Where’s Haskell and Devon and the others?” The voice on the other end demanded.

  “Are you really that thick?” I asked. “You think maybe I was a stranded motorist on the side of the road and they offered to let me borrow their radio so I could call for help?”

  “Those were my friends, you sick fuck!”

  “That’s what happens when you cross us. Don’t worry, you’ll be with them soon enough.” I was about to click the radio off when a different voice came on.

  “Talbot, is that you?” The voice asked in almost a caring way. I could hear the insanity burning through the airwaves.

  “Miss me, Knox?” I asked.

  “Seems I did on a couple of occasions, unfortunately. I won’t let that happen again though, I promise. Took out one of my patrols, I see. You realize I have dozens just like them out looking; one actually turned up some interesting footage. Looks like one of your cars we’ve been chasing. They’re holed up right now, and I’m personally going to check it out. I’ll get back to you with what I find.”

  “I’m sure an idiot like you, Knox, has done your fair share of dim-witted shit over the span of your life, but you’ve gone into the big leagues of stupidity this time. And all your little toy soldiers aren’t going to mean a thing when I rip your heart from its casing and feed it to them.”

  “Hey Talbot? Fuck you. I’m going to go and do some stupid shit with some of the people you love. Talk later. Ciao.” And that was it, he signed off. I wanted to smash the radio into the head of the dead driver next to me until it was embedded deep into his broken skull. I had turned around and hid behind our building. About ripped the door off its hinges as I walked into the auto parts store.

  “You alright, dad? You look like that time Nicole had a party at the house and your baseball card collection got ruined.”

  “Mike?” BT asked.

  “Talked to Knox.” I held up the radio. “He says they found one of our cars and are moving to check it out.”

  “He could be lying,” Tommy offered. “Might be trying to get us to show ourselves.”

  “He’s too stupid to lie,” I said. “Anyway, he sounded way too smug for this to be a ploy.”

  “What do we do?” BT’s concern level was beginning to match my own.

  “What can we do?”

  “I’ve got the drone working.”

  That was something.

  “Effective range is maybe a quarter mile, but we get it high up enough, we could see for a couple of miles, anyway. We would definitely see some lights or something; they’re not moving around in the dark.”

  “Where’s Meredith?” I asked, looking around.

  “She’s on the roof. Didn’t you hear her?” Travis asked.

  I scowled, so lost in my impending grief, I must have missed her hail. We all went up to the roof, figured it would add some much-needed height.

  “You know how to fly that thing?” I asked as BT placed it on the roof and walked away.

  “Up, down, side to side. How hard can it be?” he replied.

  I was looking at a controller that any true gamer might have been intimidated by; I think the buttons had buttons on them.

  “All you,” I said shaking my head. I told the kids to keep an eye out for incoming and spread my arms out to move them back.

  It was a four-prop drone, though one of the props was noticeably moving much slower than the rest.

  “Don’t worry, it catches up,” BT said. It dipped to the side and came three feet in our direction before shooting straight up into the air.

  “Damn,” I said, as I struggled to keep it in my field of vision. We were all peering at the three by four-inch screen, looking for something, anything, as he made the drone spin around. He made a few slow rotations, then a red bar began to flash, signifying the battery was getting low. He brought it down, nearly missed the roof. I walked away; we had nothing. They were close but Knox had military walkie-talkies, they could have a range up to ten miles. We could get a car and drive around, but it was more than likely Knox would be expecting that, waiting for it, even. We neither heard nor saw anything the rest of the night; this I know because I stayed up on the roof the entire time, couldn’t have slept for more than an hour, and that in fitful segments. The sun, instead of bringing renewed hope, illuminated a huge storm heading our way.

  “We going out there?” BT asked, handing me a beef stick he must have dragged out from some hidden corner.

  “I don’t know what to do, BT. He’s got us separated, isolated, and we have no idea the whereabouts of any of them. Haven’t heard from Justin since yesterday.” I was hanging on, but just barely.

  “We’ll find them, Mike. We’ll find them all and we’ll make him pay for this.”

  “Dad!” Travis came up the ladder at practically a run. He had the radio in his hand. “It’s Deneaux!”

  “Fuck, of all the people I want to hear from she’s pretty low on the list,” I grumbled.

  “She’s on the list?” BT asked.

  “Only because she’s with some of our people.”

  “Hmmph,” BT grunted.

  “This is Mike,” I said.

  “Miss me?” Then she cackled.

  “Like I’d miss a raging case of herpes,” I said, though I had not depressed the send button. “Everyone alright?” I asked.

  “Everyone with me is fine,” she said.

  “And who would that be?”

  “I have that nerdy fellow–what’s he call himself? Mad something or other, and your brother and sister.”

  BT sighed in relief at that.

  “Oh, and your sister’s son, one of the boys you saved from the gas station, and your daughter and grandson.”

  It was not lost on me in the least that she did not call any one of them by name.

  “This is a bad business, Michael, this feud you have going on with this Knox character.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “You know my personal preferences for self-preservation, do you not?”

  “I’m well aware…we’re all well aware.”

  “He is very much in a position of power right now. I could secure some much-needed safety from him.”

  “Really? You’re ready to jump ship? You’d use all of those people as a bargaining chip to make sure your own ass is safe?�
� I asked the question but I already knew the answer, it would be like trying to reason with a lion out on the savannah that he should not eat the injured water buffalo at the cost of some meerkats it had looking out for it.

  “I don’t want to, I really don’t. Your tenacity to survive, to beat seemingly insurmountable odds is the only thing that has kept me from doing it.”

  “So, only the thought of my likelihood to survive and seek retribution has kept you from doing the unspeakable?”

  “It’s speakable. For me, at least.”

  “Get to the point, you didn’t call me to hang a threat over my head.” I wanted to reach across the airwaves and rip out the cigarette I knew she had in her mouth and bury the cherry deep into her eye.

  “I can save them, Michael. I can save them all,” her voice came over loud and clear on the radio.

  “What do you want, Deneaux?” I adjusted my grip so I didn’t crack the radio in my hand.

  “Just a promise—just one small promise and they’ll all be safe. You can do that Michael, can you not?”

  “Tell me what you want.” I was doing my best to contain my anger. It wasn’t working so well. I was pacing fast loops around the edge of the roof.

  “You will bite me.”

  I understood the implications of this. Deneaux the Immoral wanted to become Deneaux the Immortal. She could make Eliza look like a cartoon character by comparison. Now I had to weigh whether the lives of my friends and family were worth unleashing this creature onto the world, with her own set of twisted rules.

  “You’re taking an awfully long time to give me an answer. My window of opportunity won’t be open forever. Yes or no?”

  “You can’t possibly understand what you are asking of me, Deneaux. What you are asking of yourself. You realize what happens to your soul, don’t you?”

  “Soul?” She started laughing. “What am I going to do with that dirty, hole-ridden sheet?”

  I heard what I was sure was a distant scream come over the radio. It was someone in a great deal of pain or torment.

  “That was your beautiful wife, Michael. Do you want me to save her? Yes or no?”

  “FUCK!” I screamed. “Do it! Save her. Save them all!”

  “Promise me first.”