Dark Days of the After (Book 5): Dark Days of the Purge

by Schow, Ryan

  “This one slow?” she asked, nodding to Sludge.

  “Naw, he’s just going through puberty,” Delmont said. “Trying to hump everything in sight. Like a dog with a hard on, you know? It’s embarrassing.”

  “He’s at least eighteen,” Felicity protested.

  Delmont snapped his fingers hard in Sludge’s face and said, “Get that look off yer face, boy! And put them eyes back in yer head!” Sludge didn’t seem to hear him so Delmont tucked the shotgun under his armpit and clapped his hands in the kid’s face. Sludge stirred, almost like he was startled back to awareness. “Mind yer manners, boy!”

  The kid licked his chapped lips, then wiped the corner of his mouth. If he’d been drooling, Skylar hadn’t seen it.

  “We need gas,” Felicity said. “We’d appreciate any you could spare.”

  “You want gas, you can eat a can a beans,” Sludge said, that needy, distant look touching his eyes again.

  Blane snickered to himself, but Delmont said nothing to his youngest son’s reply.

  “Not that kind of gas,” Clay said. He was mad-dogging the droopy-eyed kid. “We need gas for the trucks. Maybe a bit more, if you’ve got it.”

  “We don’t have gas,” Delmont said.

  Sludge turned to his father, put his hand over his mouth and whispered to Delmont, “We got lots of gas, Daddy.”

  “Shhh,” he hissed at his son.

  “He don’t know measurements and stuff,” Delmont said, holding the shotgun again. “Lots of gas to him is enough to run the mower. That’s what he thinks it is.”

  “No, Daddy—”

  “Shut it!” he roared.

  “Yeah, shut it,” Blane echoed.

  Skylar shook her head, thinking this was a bad idea. She said, “If I put all three of you degenerates down and search the Fick Family Dump, will I find more than a mower’s worth of gas?”

  A creeping smile slid up onto Delmont’s ugly face. “You got guns on you?” he asked.

  He had deep crow’s feet lines around his eyes, a balding head complete with age spots, a very light, very wispy comb-over, and flat brown eyes hooded by a piling of paper-thin eyelids. When he smiled, he looked psychotic, his teeth yellowed with neglect. He was missing an incisor, but apparently he wasn’t self-conscious about it.

  “I could kill your ugly ass before you jerk the trigger on that fire stick, old man,” Logan said, his eyes darting back and forth between the three of them. “But out of courtesy, we’re asking. If you want, we can start telling.”

  “What kinda guns you got?” Delmont asked, like he was considering a trade.

  “The good kind,” Felicity said.

  “Ammo, too?” Sludge asked. “Cause we could use some ammo.”

  Delmont walked over to Sludge, paused, then slapped him upside the head, causing the kid to cringe, a look that was not good on him considering his already unsightly features.

  “What’d I tell yer dumb ass ‘bout talkin’ outta line?” Delmont barked. Beside them, Blane still had the shotgun pointed at Logan’s head, eyes on the prize. One glance at Logan, and Skylar saw he was itching to give the kid a colonoscopy with that twelve gauge.

  “You said don’t do it,” Sludge mumbled, holding his head.

  “We’re negotiatin’ here!” Turning back to Skylar, Delmont said, “Let’s say I got some gas, and you got some ammo, what’re we talkin’ ‘bout here?”

  “You’re talking about a trade,” Skylar said, her patience growing thin.

  “Well, we got guns on you and you got yer dicks in yer hands,” Delmont said. “So maybe I’m being polite right now. ‘Cause maybe we’re thinking more than guns. And maybe this ain’t no negotiation.”

  “I know I am thinking about more than guns,” Blane murmured, his eyes back on Skylar. She glanced over at the boy and wondered what it was about beautiful, capable women that made some men turn into dogs.

  “Freaking incels,” Felicity hissed under her breath.

  “I ain’t no incel!” Blane barked. He racked his shotgun, shoved it at Harper and said, “I AIN’T NO INCEL!”

  “What’s an incel?” Ryker asked, low, hands out to try to diffuse the rapidly intensifying situation. Skylar knew why no one brought the guns out in the open, but that didn’t mean they should have them tucked away right then.

  Logan turned and looked at Blane. “Relax there, kid.” Then to Ryker he said, “It stands for involuntarily celibate.”

  “We can get laid all we want,” Sludge argued.

  “Shut up!” Delmont shouted. “Now you done insulted my boys. I can stand for a lot of things, but I won’t stand for that.”

  Blane said, “We all get a night with her—with them both—then you assholes can fill up your tanks. That alright, Daddy?”

  Disgusted, Clay said, “Really?”

  Delmont swallowed hard, thought about it for a moment, then said, “That’s not right, Blane. Apologize to the young lady. Both of them.” To Sludge, he said, “You, too.”

  Both boys said, “We’re sorry,” neither of them even remotely convincing.

  “So let’s talk turkey,” Delmont continued. “What have you got in the way of weapons to protect ourselves? Don’t be coy now. Let’s keep our back and forth above board.”

  Skylar looked back at Ryker who gave her a look. Finally Logan said, “We have a lot of Chicom hardware. The rest is personal protection, so we’re not talking about that.”

  Skylar knew they didn’t have much in the way of Chicom rifles and handguns. They had enough for them, but not enough to share before going into battle with not one army, but two.

  “Ask about the ammo, Daddy,” Sludge pressed. Delmont put his hand up to the boy and said, “My son makes a point. It might be the first time, so let’s not let this go unnoticed.”

  “We have plenty of ammo,” Ryker lied.

  “How much gas do you have?” Skylar asked.

  “How much are you thinking?” Delmont replied. His two front teeth crept over his lower lip, anxiousness turning the skin around a few flesh-colored scabs on his forehead red.

  “Enough to fill up a few tanks,” Clay said. “Not just these, but twenty-gallons and three more vehicles.”

  The three Ficks laughed, Sludge only laughing because the other two were. “You have got to be some kinda comedian,” Delmont said, cutting it short.

  Blane was looking at Felicity again; it was not a comfortable look.

  Delmont said, “With that kind of an insulting offer, you might as well throw in a girl. One or the other. We don’t care if it’s white meat or brown meat in this house.”

  “We get guns and her,” Sludge said, pointing his shotgun at Felicity, “and you get your gas.”

  Clay started to pull out his weapon, but the boys leveled their shotguns on him fast. Unnaturally fast. Delmont grinned, clearly pleased by the escalation of events.

  “Don’t make it like that, Scarface,” Delmont said, stepping toward the former soldier, but not so close that he’d catch that outside cone of pellets should Blane get a wild hair and pull the trigger.

  Clay looked like he was chewing through his molars, but the real giveaway was his twitching trigger finger.

  Felicity frowned hard. “Let’s go.” Then to the Fick boys, she said, “When I said incels, I wasn’t kidding. Because the only pussy you three will ever get in this wretched world is a dead cat, if you can find one and scrape it off the asphalt.”

  “Well the only gas you’ll ever get will come from a can of beans,” Sludge screamed at the top of his lungs like a lunatic. Then, much quieter, his voice gravely from the shouting, he said, “Toot-toot, turtle dicks.”

  “You done upset him again,” Delmont cautioned.

  Flicking the shotgun at them, Blane said, “Get to steppin’. And take that beaner skank with you. She ain’t our type anyway. We’re into white meat here, given the choice.”

  Felicity glared at them. Skylar saw she wanted to kill them right then and there. Would she do it t
hough? For being racist pricks, misogynistic Muppets, and flat out greedy, could Felicity actually take these degenerate’s lives? Looking at their dirty skin, their unwashed hair, their grimy teeth and those sick, leering eyes, Skylar thought, yeah, if given the chance, Felicity would gut every last one of them.

  “This is your chance to help us take back our country,” Skylar said.

  “We did our part blowing them up outside the flyport,” Sludge said. “Ain’t that enough for you people?”

  “When exactly did you do this?” Skylar asked.

  “When they had ‘em in the cages,” Sludge said. “You know…the cages at the flyport.”

  “Airport,” Felicity snarled.

  “Don’t correct him when he’s speaking to you,” Delmont said. “‘Specially you, girl.”

  “Do you like the Chicoms?” Ryker asked.

  “No,” Delmont said. “Hell no.”

  “We’re hunting Chicoms,” Logan said, “but we can’t do it on empty tanks, so give us the gas or get out of the way and we’ll take it ourselves.”

  “I get your war, but me and my boys already got skin in that game,” Delmont said. “They left some of it on the road, just like they said. What the hell have you done?”

  “More than you’ll ever know, you freaking goat humper,” Felicity said. Then: “Seriously guys, let’s go.”

  The five of them backed up to their vehicles, all three of the redneck’s shotguns trained on them. Delmont faked with his twelve gauge and his expression. Clay didn’t take the bait. None of them did.

  When they got in the Blazer, Felicity said, “Now you see why this town hates them? They’re nothing like the regular, good folks of Roseburg.”

  For a second, Logan put the vehicle in first gear, revving the engine. The Ficks seemed to welcome the challenge. Skylar knew what Logan was thinking—he was thinking about driving over all three of them, right through the house and out back, or wherever it was they stored their extra gas.

  “Not now,” Skylar said, putting a calming hand on his arm. “We’ll get them when they don’t see us coming.”

  When the five monkeys left, Delmont lowered his shotgun then turned to his sons and said, “They want what we got, but we can take what they have. I say we get them, ‘specially that beaner bitch.”

  Blane said, “That’s Felicity Espinoza.”

  “How d’you know that?”

  “Went to school with her, before Mamma…” he said. Delmont was about to crack him for mentioning her name, but Blane caught himself in time.

  “I was lying about the brown meat,” Sludge said.

  “I know, son,” Delmont said.

  Blane and Sludge looked at each other, bright eyes and grins between them. Sludge said, “So we can have her?”

  Delmont eyed his boys, both of them as ugly as their mother, the younger of the two a dreadful sight. He made a game of drawing out his answers. Like training a dog, this tactic bred patience in the boys. Plus it made them more obedient and extra attentive.

  “First off, you need to feed those two assholes,” Delmont said, nodding to the Rots, “and then whichever one of you packs the most grenades between now and tonight gets sloppy seconds on the brown meat.”

  “But them girls got three holes, Pop,” Blane said.

  Delmont’s grin became a frown. Stomping his foot hard, he yelled, “Get to work the both of you, ‘er you ain’t getting nothing at all!”

  Sludge and Blane exchanged conspiratorial looks, then turned and headed to the shed. Sludge filled up two bowls with old dog food, walked them out to the Rottweilers. He set the bowls down just out of reach of their leashes.

  “EAT!” he screamed.

  They both lunged at the bowls, but both of them came up an inch shy of the food, their chains jerking hard. The dogs struggled to get their food, but they were falling short and pissed off about it. Sludge couldn’t stop laughing at them.

  “Lookit you two dummies!” he screamed, clapping his hands and dancing around. “LOOK AT YOU TWO DUMMIES!”

  He stopped dancing when a rock struck him in the back.

  “Owwieee!” he cried, turning around, his back arched, his hand trying to get to the pain to make it stop.

  He saw his father standing there, another rock in hand. The old man called out to him. “Quit harassing them dogs, you moron!”

  Sludge turned and used a toe to nudge the bowls toward the dogs. The second their tongues hit the bowl, it was only a matter of seconds before the kibble disappeared.

  He walked back to the barn, his back still burning where the baseball-sized rock hit him. Once they were inside the work shed, gathering up their grenade parts, Blane said, “If we kill him before we get the girl, I can take the front and you can take the back. You like butts better anyway, right?”

  Sludge nodded, then said, “So you want to kill Daddy?”

  “Don’t you?” Blane asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, pressing his back up against a support beam and feeling better now that he could rub it.

  “So maybe we blow him up first, then like I said, I get the front of her and you get her butt. You good with that?”

  Sludge smiled, then said, “I’m not an incel either. We can get whatever women we want, we’re just picky.”

  “Damn right we are,” Blane said. “Now try not to screw up your grenades this time.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  They were sitting around the table at Felicity’s house when Logan said, “We’re getting that gas and we’re getting it tomorrow morning.”

  “Yeah, but did you see the looks in their eyes?” Ryker asked. “It’s like they were mentally jerking off.”

  Felicity shook her head and said, “Yeah, freaks.”

  Harper put her arms around Logan’s neck from behind. She leaned forward, kissed his neck and said, “It’s time for bed.”

  Clay yawned and Felicity looked at him. Logan wondered about them. He liked Clay, even though at first he wondered about the guy. Now he wasn’t wondering at all. There was something both peaceful and violent about him. Right now he was looking peaceful.

  When it was time for him and Harper to turn in, she asked if he wanted to “play,” but he said he was too pissed off thinking of the Ficks.

  “We need their gas, Harper,” he said.

  “We already settled this,” she countered. “Let me take the edge off.”

  He leaned over, kissed her and brushed her hair back, tucking it behind her ear. “Just because we decided we’re taking it doesn’t mean they won’t put up a fight. That little Hills Have Eyes looking creep, he had a look about him…I can’t get it out of my head.”

  “Yeah, he was gross.”

  “It wasn’t that,” Logan said, trying to understand it. “It was like looking at something wrong, like a brain warped by a darkness so deep and so wide it was suffocating.”

  “You think he doesn’t know wrong from right?” she asked.

  “I think he doesn’t care,” he answered.

  If Logan had a superpower, it would be his ability to discern things about people others couldn’t even come close to understanding. In his heart, he knew the kid’s look, saw all the signs, felt all the feels of a boy who had some serious mental issues.

  “Actually,” he said, “I think he likes wrong. I think he knows it, but he likes it anyway. Almost like being a deviant is his default.”

  It didn’t take long for him to drift off, despite the sick feeling swirling in his gut as he thought about Sludge. He slept only a short time, and most of it was fitful, enough that when he heard a small noise, he woke quickly. Lying there, alert, he listened in the darkness.

  He heard it again.

  Sitting up, he slipped out of bed and creeped across the house, to the back door. Slipping quietly onto the outside porch, he found Skylar on high alert. She raised her finger to her lips, shushing him. He nodded.

  She skulked into the forest; he followed her. They moved quickly and quietly, walking light
on their feet, keeping to the shadows as they made a wide berth around the house. They then cut across a slice of yard, sidled up against the house and steadied their breathing. Skylar peeked around the corner of the house and saw them. She turned, pulled him close and said, “Two men, both peeking in the windows.”

  She moved back in position, waited a moment, then turned to Logan and said, “Come here,” in an even lower voice. He scooted next to her. Putting her lips on his ears, almost causing him to shiver against the warmth of her mouth, she said, “Peeping Toms I think.”

  He pulled back. “Really?” he whispered. “Because it’s so late it’s early.”

  She thought about it then frowned.

  They sat quiet for a moment, waiting for the two creeps to move. Logan looked at Skylar. He couldn’t see more than her shadow, but he thought he could feel her and she felt as calm as a Hindu cow. He moved around her, quietly, stealing a look for himself. The two men got off their tippy-toes and started for the back of the house. They moved from window to window, finally heading around to the back porch. He and Skylar went after them. When they got around the side of the house, Logan heard them talking and knew exactly who it was: Sludge and Blane.

  “How do these two clowns know where we’re staying?” he harsh whispered into Skylar’s ear.

  The two boys heard them then took off, moving into the trees at about the same pace that he and Skylar had moved through the shadows.

  “You want to gut these two, take out the father, then gas up in the morning and leave?” Skylar asked.

  “We can’t just kill them,” Logan said.

  She turned around and frowned at him in the dark. At least that’s what it felt like.

  “Look at you,” she said. “Not quite there yet.” He could hear it in her voice, the heaping disappointment.

  “Human life still has value,” he said in the darkness.

  “Not theirs,” she argued.

  He understood, even though he wasn’t sure he could make the leap. Just then, the crack of a gunshot and the puff of soil a few feet beside them had them both jumping. They turned and ran, the sounds of riotous laughter and whistling not lost on Logan.