by Schow, Ryan
“And here I thought that thing couldn’t get any less janky than it already was,” Ice whispers to me.
Instead of the low profile wheels, it’s now got big beefy wheels on it with steel looking rims and metal guards over all the windows. It’s still bashed to all hell, and ugly as sin, but with what these guys did to it…I think I could drive it through a concrete wall and it’d be okay.
“These idiots watched a little too much Mad Max,” I lean over and tell Ice.
“You think?” he says back.
“They look tough though, don’t they? Our cars?”
Turning and looking at me with a frown, he says, “Every one of those cars were gas pigs to start with. It’s going to get worse with all that metal on them. But in a fight, with what they did, I’m thinking the odds will forever be in our favor.”
“What should we do?” I ask, just as unenthusiastic about the changes as my brother. “There are four of them and they look like they’ve been enjoying our food.”
“We’ll be lucky if there’s anything left.”
“Our best bet is to take out one or two of them outside the garage,” I say, getting back to the task at hand. “One of us needs to get in that garage unnoticed, then find a suitable weapon and put down whoever’s left.”
“That’s a terrible plan,” he says.
“No kidding,” I say, sarcastic. “On three, let’s get to the bus.”
Ice counts. I lead the silent charge. We’re able to keep the bus and the ‘Cuda between us and the hillbillies, concealing our approach.
Within moments, we’re in position.
By then, the third car is pulling out of the garage. It’s Draven’s Chevy Byzantine and it looks less pussified than before. Not manly by any stretch, and certainly not scary, but safer and more secure.
“How’s the rubber on that thing?” the big hillbilly near the edge of the garage asks. He must be six-five with far more muscle than fat.
“Fine,” the driver calls back.
The driver is a meek looking guy with all of his teeth, but bad hair, bad skin, and clothes that stink so bad not even the wind wants to blow over him.
“I know they’re fine!” the big guy barks after stepping back into the shop. “I want tread depth measurements. You got the gauge?”
The guy reaches into his back pocket, pulls out the device, then says, “Sure do.”
“Well then use it you idiot!”
Grumbling, the guy gets on his hands and knees in front of the wheel well of the Byzantine’s back tire. I step out from behind the bus, light on my feet, tip-toeing faster than I want but needing to cover the ground quickly and quietly. I don’t have a weapon so I’ll have to choke him out, but the way he’s positioned, there’s bound to be a struggle and two men struggling to survive means noise.
Before I can get there, he pulls his head out of the well and says, “5/32nd on the back tire!”
“I don’t need to know every one of them the second you get them,” the voice belts out, irritated. “Just get all four and make sure they’re even.”
That’s when I kick him in the back of the hip so hard he flops over on the ground in pain. Before he can cry out, I drop on top of him, forearm to the throat, center all my weight over the top of my offending arm. There’s spit and stink coming out of this guy’s mouth, a fluttering shard of dried booger in his right nostril and sheer terror in those beady, bloodshot eyes.
I press and press, hoping to put him out, but that’s when I hear someone say, “What the hell?”
The big man.
I look up in time to see something the size of a fist hit him square in the face. It’s not a fist though. Ice threw a rock, then rushed him. I stay on my guy, his eyelids flickering, then closing, then going all the way closed.
Ice is still on the big guy, punching him relentlessly. Right then, I realize something. Rather I see what I thought was a myth become a terrifying reality.
There is such thing as hillbilly strength.
The rock to the man’s face didn’t stop him. And Ice’s assault isn’t really slowing him down either. The beast just keeps squirming and grunting around until Ice grabs the rock and starts wailing on his forehead with it. My brother finally lines up the right shot, clubbing him across the temple with it.
Finally, his big ass head falls in the dirt as blood begins to drip. Ice rolls off him, but then looks up and scrambles to his feet in time to run. A shotgun blast tears up the side of the bus right behind him.
I scuttle to the back of the bus with my brother for cover.
Ice is on the ground, looking under the bus to get a sense of where the shooter is at. I make a run for the side yard. Another shotgun blast booms out, but by then I’ve run around the garage…just in time to get hammered right in the forehead by a swinging two-by-four.
“Gotchu bitch,” the warmish-squeal of a voice says.
I’m wobbling backwards and seeing stars. I’m seeing a freaking Tweety bird right now. Through hazy vision, my gaze seeks out the blurry, snickering rodent. I see him, and he’s swinging the two-by-four at my head again. I duck this time, but the quick movement has me staggering left, stumbling over my own two feet, the dizziness a real thing.
The wood strikes the side of the garage, vibrates all the way into my assailant’s arms, hard enough for him to drop the makeshift weapon.
I don’t trust time right now. Or my senses. Or even my depth perception. There’s no way I’ll stay on my feet with another shot like that. But it’s too late. His body crashes into mine and we both go to the ground, me landing hard on my back, him landing on top of me.
A fist is suddenly coming down at my face. Twisting sideways, most of my head deflects his blow. Most of it. But that flying fist—that angry light-speed fist—it slams into the ground causing the man to cry out.
Inside, I can’t help smiling.
Drawing up his hand, his knuckles are already bleeding. These aren’t skinned knuckles, or cut knuckles…they’re gashed knuckles, like he punched a rock or something.
With what strength I can muster (and it’s not a lot), I sit up inside his guard, grab his shirt at the shoulder, then yank his dumb ass down to the ground. Like I was trained, I pull his body to the edge of mine, force the shoulder roll away from me.
It works, which surprises me because that really was the rest of my strength.
Get moving!
Somehow I manage to take the mount. Shifting my weight on top of him, I use what’s left of my reserves to pin him. A second later, he tries bucking me. It’s only half-hearted because, frantically, his eyes keep darting to his injured hand. Now I see why he’s concerned. A shard of bone has popped out. This overzealous knuckle-dragger has a compound fracture.
Instead of trying to beat him to death, I grab that little bone and start to pull at it. The second his mouth opens into a howl, I drive my forearm in between his teeth, silencing him. Then I dig down and grip that bone shard like I’m going to snap it off and take it home with me.
A moment later, his body goes limp from the shock.
For good measure, I grab his hair on both the sides of his head and start bashing his skull onto the flat but hard-packed dirt surface of the ground. All I have in me is five, maybe six times, but it’s enough. I think maybe he’s dead. I don’t know, but I really don’t care either. At this point, I don’t know how much gas is left in the tank.
I’m no quitter, though, and Ice probably needs my help.
Get up!
I crawl to my feet, staggering this way and that. Before heading back into the fight, I pick up the two-by-four, but it’s split halfway up from hitting the side of the garage. Using my foot, I wiggle and work the broken piece loose, leaving a very sharp end on what is now a stabbing weapon as well as a swinging weapon.
Heading around the corner, I see two guys (including the big one who Ice beat with a rock), manhandling my now squirming brother.
My strength isn’t returning fast enough, but I have a
weapon.
With the element of surprise still intact, I lift the sharpened wood like a jousting lance and tip-toe my way into a run, finally driving the sharp end right into the kidney of biggest guy. He drops my brother and screams out in pain, his back arching, his hand swinging back to pull it out and make the pain stop.
On the attack—and this is because I’m still a bit cockeyed from getting hit in the face with the board—the second the sharp end of the two-by-four drove into the inbreeder, it also rammed into me.
I get stopped by the square end of it, my ribs glancing off the corner so hard I struggle to breathe.
And the guy I didn’t stab? Well, he turns and launches himself at me.
I drop down sideways and roll toward him; he flies over me, but not without incident. His knee clips the side of my thigh, giving me one of those super deep Charlie horses that makes your leg go numb for a second. So yeah, I won’t lie. That freaking hurt. Still, I crawl to my feet, try sucking in a breath, and make a hobbled run for the garage.
I need a weapon!
Everything hurts, but when you’re juiced with adrenaline, everything painful is cut in half and I have enough fear and reason in me to move.
There have to be tools here, I can’t stop thinking. And…there they are!
The first thing I find is one of those super long flathead screwdrivers. It must be more than a foot long—one of those sixteen inch screwdrivers. The second I grab it, I’m drilled from behind. Our bodies crash into the standing metal tool chest, both of us going down hard. I roll and somehow manage to come up with the screwdriver pointing north and shoved deep into this idiot who’s now draped over my side.
Wiggling and squirming out from beneath him, I see how panicked he is, but then again, the screwdriver is jammed in one side of his neck and sticking out the other.
This gives me a very pregnant pause.
His mouth is making fidgety movements and a small, rather odd sound. Should I take the screwdriver out? That might not be such a good idea. The minute I do that, the guy’s done for. He’s going to bleed out.
Panting, out of breath and hurting all over, I manage to work myself into a sitting position amongst the clutter. I know I need to get up, help Ice, but my body doesn’t give a crap what my brain thinks right now. All it knows is that it feels good not to have to duck or dodge a fist or run because I’m being chased.
I touch my forehead where I was hit and it’s a damn goose egg. I dab my nostrils, bring back spots of red.
Looking over at this moron who attacked me, he’s half sitting up, half slumped over. There’s a glazed look in his eyes. Like an animal nearly beaten to death. One so far gone, all he has is that traumatic look you get when you know things have gotten so bad you just want it over.
Something in his expression clears.
He tries to push himself all the way up, but stops. He reaches us, touches the edge of the screwdriver handle where it’s snug against his neck, then startles. He touches it again and he winces. His hand drops down in the dirt and slowly he turns his head my way.
“That’s right,” I say, victorious. “I stuck you.”
His eyes make a slow roll, the effort itself monumental. The second our eyes meet, I get a jarring, yet profound sense of the man behind the hillbilly. Just by the feel of him, I can tell he’s the kind of guy no one really ever liked.
That part is clear.
He probably smoked pot behind the high school by himself, missing third period, not learning Math or English or really anything important.
And the pot?
It wouldn’t be anything noteworthy. Not Black Gold, or Blue Sky Blonde. Nothing that potent. He’s the kind of guy who smokes Bammies but is too stupid to know that crap is one level up from burning bong resin.
But he wouldn’t care.
He’d say he was coping with his social inadequacies, that hopeless IQ, all the asshole kids, and that one special girl who would never be his because she’d never date a buffalo fart like him. Ever.
This is what I get from those eyes. Maybe I’m spot on. Then again, maybe I’m completely off base from the malnutrition and a head injury.
“What’s your name?” I ask him.
There’s a commotion going on outside the garage. Someone hitting someone, the sound of scuffling, grunting, knuckles socking flesh and bones. I ignore all of it because I can’t see getting up and being of any help this exact second.
“Robert,” he says, “but these guys call me Bob.”
Looking at the screwdriver driven through the soft part of his neck, I say, “You’ve been skewered, Bob.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to call you Shish Kabob, if that’s okay,” I say with a pathetic snicker.
He looks at me and now I really start laughing.
He doesn’t.
“Do you know what you and your moron brigade did when you stole our cars, Shish Kabob?” I ask, all the humor gone. “You took the medication we were using to keep our sick kids from dying.”
“Saw that,” he says. “Amoxicillin pills. Ibuprofen.”
“Yeah.”
“Howard crushed ‘em up and snorted ‘em,” he says matter-of-fact.
The ends of his lips start to curl as subtle hints of humor work their way into his expression. A smile breaks open revealing a row of neglected teeth, the right side of them coated with a red film. The internal bleeding has begun.
And then he starts laughing.
Looking at the screwdriver handle, it’s making little jumping motions due to his sudden bout of laughter. The sight of him gives me a shot of rage-induced adrenaline. I just told this guy he killed our kids and that’s what he finds humorous? That Howard snorted their medication?
I grab hold of the screwdriver at the blade sticking out of the back of his neck and yank it toward me so we’re almost eye to eye. He lets out a wild whoop and holler, but then stifles his cries, and instead goes into a hyperventilating, spitting fit as he tries to contain himself.
Thinking of Constanza, I grab the other side of the screwdriver—the handle—and rip it clean out.
“You get to die before my kids do you spineless puke,” I growl.
With all the laughter gone and red gushing from his neck on both sides, his face is pitched into panic. He tries staunching the blood flow with dirty hands. Rivers of red flood the crevices between his fingers, boiling up past his palms, drizzling down his neck.
It won’t be long now.
“Not so funny now, is it Shish Kabob?” I roar.
I rap a set of knuckles off his face to let him know I’m still here, then I shove his head away so hard, his half-seated body topples over onto the dirty floor. With his strength diminishing, the hand that once cupped his neck now settles into the dirt, his blood-drenched fingers moving ever so slightly, the open wounds now free to hemorrhage.
“Get up, Fiyero,” I say to myself.
I get up.
“Go get your brother,” I say again.
My legs start moving. But then they stop and my eyes see something they can’t unsee. I want to blink, but I’m too horrified to manage.
Deeper in the garage, I smell a familiar smell. I even hear the sounds of buzzing flies. On the floor about five feet away, another body is wrapped in a blue tarp, its shins and feet sticking out. There’s sunlight creeping in here and there, enough light to dust the body without fully spotlighting it.
On the tarped legs and feet, I see fields of shriveled black boils. Turning away, my stomach lurches. I swallow hard. A fierce sweat breaks out on the back of my neck, in my armpits. I steal another glance. Dear God, I regret it immediately.
Dread slinks into me, scurrying through me on a thousand tiny feet. I stand up, move through the clutter and the dim light, my eyes now on an old table not five feet away. There are six chairs, five plates and a little pellet-fired stove sitting in the middle. The plates are dirty, but I can’t tell with what.
My gaze jumps from the plate
s back to the tarped corpse. The smell is unreal. I plug my nose, swatting away a gathering of loudly buzzing flies.
Just outside, I hear the steady rumbling of what might be a gasoline powered generator. There’s an orange cord snaked out back. I follow the line of it to a freezer. Inside, I know I have to help Ice, but good God, what the hell is this?!
I pull open the fridge, stand back in utter revulsion.
There’s a child curled inside, his head split open in a massive pink gash that’s now frozen over and crusted with bits of ice. His eyes are half-open, his lips parted ever so slightly. He’s wearing brown corduroys, an orange and brown striped t-shirt and old tennis shoes. I shut the fridge, feel my expression narrow. These aren’t people who took our vehicles and did this. These are monsters.
Outside, I see two guys down, either dead or unconscious. None of them are Ice. I move to the end of the garage and find Ice tuning up a fifth man behind the bus. The guy finally collapses and Ice falls backwards on his ass, downright exhausted.
“Is that all of them?” I ask.
He nods his head, whipped. “I think so.”
I see a handgun on the ground, pick it up, then sit down beside Ice, both our bodies leaned up against the bus’s brand new steel brush guard.
“You alright?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I pull back the pistol’s slide, see a round. Dropping the mag, I thumb out two more rounds.
“That’s it?” Ice says, looking on. “Three rounds?”
“Better than empty,” I say as I repack the rounds. “Makes the bluff become something real.”
“They aren’t dead,” he says, grabbing hold of one of the steel bars and hauling himself up. “We have to finish this.”
“Let’s just take our stuff and go,” I say.
Part of me wants to get as far away from this place as humanly possible. The other part wants to slaughter these rodents for what they did to us, to the boy in the freezer. And what about the guy with the boils? Was he the one who pulled Constanza, Ross and Kamal out of the trailer? If so, it serves him right abusing sick kids like that.
