The Age of Embers (Book 4): The Age of Exodus
Page 31
“I know whatcher doin’ ya big faker,” he said, his voice not all the way sure. His hesitation was apparent, and enough for Ice to stay the course.
When the guy flipped Ice’s body over he stayed limp. Ice had pissed his pants several times over the last few days, stinking up the ground, himself and the air around him.
The guy turned his head away and said, “My God, boy. You reek!”
“Hey Melvin!” one of the other numbskulls called out. Ice kept his eyes closed, tried to stay as still as possible.
One slight twitch of his eyelid and he was done for. He’d rubbed piss soaked dirt on the sides of his neck, hoping the soot from the bus fire and the dirt would hide movement from his Carotid artery. You can play dead, but the blood pounding through your neck was a dead giveaway that you were still alive. It wasn’t the best plan ever, playing dead, but these guys were simpletons and it was all he had.
“Melvin!” the guy from somewhere up top hollered out again.
Melvin turned and kicked Ice as hard as he could. The pain flared bright and violent inside him but he did not move. Not one scintilla.
The jack ass kicked him again, then snickered and said, “Consider yourself tenderized.”
He waited a few more eternally long moments before grabbing Ice, hauling him up and throwing him over his shoulder like a sack of dry concrete. He climbed the ladder, each step a strain not only on his hammered ribs, but on the ladder itself. He prayed it wouldn’t break under the weight.
It didn’t.
Melvin walked Ice through what amounted to a dirt yard in front of the house. It was about as trashy as any squatter’s pot he’d ever seen. There were several closed grates sitting ground level. Dirt pits, like his. There were also several dog cages. When the voice in one of the pits yelled out, “Melvin!” again, he leaned over and said, “Yuh, watchu want?”
“Got another dead one,” he said, shifting Ice’s weight on his shoulder. “Help me gitem out?”
“One of the fresh batch expired, too,” Melvin said, referring to Ice. “Taking ‘im inside.”
When he didn’t get a response from his pal below, Melvin shook his head and made for the house. That’s when Ice saw the rest of the yard. They were on a large clearing of desert land that was marked by all kinds of cars, both old and new. They were cars of every sort. Most of the ones he saw, however, were older. EMP proof cars.
He knew right away what had happened. These guys were raiders, hijacking folks on the highway. They’d even taken a police cruiser.
A pair of dogs on a leash staked to the ground by a chicken coop started barking. He looked at them and they looked at him. The chickens looked like they were doing alright, but the dogs were skinny and pissed off, the two of them unrelenting.
“SHUT UP DAMMIT!” he screamed and the dogs stopped.
These guys had to know their racket would end sometime. Then again, no one really knew what was happening. Not if they didn’t know about EMPs, or how permanent the damage to the electrical grid was. Maybe they were figuring it out. Maybe they already had and now they were eating what they could, who they could.
That’s when he smelled…what he smelled.
He knew the smell of burnt human flesh from his time with the cartel. The cannibalism didn’t surprise him. It didn’t enrage him either. He’d been in tough spots before. None this bad, but bad nevertheless.
When they passed another dog cage, he saw Orlando tucked in there, miserable, bone thin and staring at him with big, sad eyes. Hanging over this guy’s back like old laundry, Ice winked at him and he perked up.
It was the kind of wink that said, “I’m still alive and I’m out, so hold fast.”
He didn’t want to be overconfident, especially feeling like he was running on fumes, but he assumed he was the first one of them to get a shot at freeing everyone and that was something.
Perhaps it was enough.
When they entered the dilapidated house, Ice smelled the aroma of cooked meat and tried not to get sick. It was an awful smell mixed with other awful smells.
“This one gave up,” Melvin said about Ice to someone in the kitchen.
“Put ‘im with the girl.”
The guy walked him through a dim house with old furniture and creaky floors. He then flung Ice over his shoulder onto the floor. The second Ice felt his head hit, it was lights out.
He woke sometime later with a splitting headache. Ice didn’t open his eyes though. Not right away. Instead, he listened for a good minute before easing one of his eyelids open. He crept the other open as well.
He was in a bathroom, laid out on the cold tile floor.
He slowly sat up, his head throbbing, his vision drawing in and out for a second. He sat up right in front of a toilet with the lid open. He put his arm on the lid for stability, then caught a glimpse of stale yellow water and a half disintegrated turd. He felt his body lurch a bit, his stomach squirming.
Looking over at the tub, he saw someone in there. He smelled the body first, then he dared to look, terrified of who he would see.
When he saw Veronica, his steadily beating heart jumped to life. She’d had her clothes torn off from the waist down and one of her legs was gone at the kneecap. The meat was carved around the thigh bone, her privates a mess from being violated.
Sitting there, emotionally hitting bottom, his head hurt and he was certain he was now officially in the worst situation of his life. He looked at this poor, beaten girl and he started to cry. He cried knowing that if someone heard him or walked in on him he’d be dead. He cried though, because what she must have endured before dying was something he would wish on no one.
When he wiped his eyes and got ahold of himself, he found her leg and foot bones. They were tucked on the side of her. He leaned over the corpse, grabbed the bare foot, pushed it aside. The tibia and fibula bones had been picked dry and were pulled apart.
He grabbed the thin bone, the fibula, turned it over in his hands, even as a surge of revulsion hit him. He swallowed his stomach, supercharged his rage, then laid the whole bone on the edge of the tub and leaned his weight on it until it snapped near the medial head.
Turning it over in his hands, he eyed the sharp end with red crowding his vision.
Standing, he gathered his strength, then slowly opened the door and went to the first room. He found no one in there. He eased the door shut then crept to the next room.
No one was there either.
He slowly, quietly walked into the living room, eyes catching every corner. When the coast was clear, he made his way up the stairs, stepping at the very edges to avoid any creaks that might give him away.
When he got upstairs, there were two bedrooms. The first was empty; the second was not. Laying in bed was a big man with a snowy white beard and yellowed nails. He wore faded overalls, and a filthy white shirt. He’d taken off his shoes and was laying in black socks that had thinned out over time and now had several holes in them.
The guy was snoring up a storm.
Slowly, Ice snuck up on him, getting to the side of the bed. He looked down at this cretin with such disdain, his hate became immeasurable. Without a second thought, he drove the jagged edge of the bone up into the man’s throat. The second his eyes and mouth shot open, Ice cupped his mouth shut and leaned over him to keep him from belting out a sound. The man’s eyes flashed open with pain, his eyeballs trembling. Fear set in as Ice swirled the bone in a small circle.
“Did you rape her?” Ice growled low.
The man tried to shake his head, but the bone Ice still had in his throat made it impossible. Ice tore it out, then rammed it in there one more time until the man lay permanently still.
Searching the room, he found some shotgun shells. He checked the load. It looked like they were bean bag rounds.
Perhaps they got them from the police cruiser they’d jacked.
Stuffing them in his pocket, he searched the entire upper floor for a shotgun, but alas, he had no such luck.
When he got downstairs, he checked the hallway, saw the doors he’d closed were still closed. He slipped into the kitchen, found one of the guys stirring a big pot of stew over the stove.
This was the stinking meat.
Somewhere there were big piles of bones. Heads with animated faces of horror, their last seconds of life permanently fixed to their faces. Then again, these were the kinds of people who would feed the bones of the dead to the dogs for the marrow.
Outside, he heard the faraway sound of an engine. The guy over the stove was humming a tune, listening to the soup boil, stirring intermittently.
If he hears the engine, Ice thought to himself with a jolt of panic, he may turn around. If he tuned around, Ice would definitely be seen.
Time to go…
He moved quickly, plunging the bone into the man’s kidney with brute force. Wasting no time, he ripped it out when the guy howled out and arched his back. Ice immediately shoved it into the side of his stomach next, causing all kinds of pain. Before he could retaliate, and while Ice still had the advantage, he drove the man’s head into the boiling stew and held it there until the fight was gone.
Turning off the stove, Ice shoved him aside. He crumpled on the floor, toppling over on his side. Ice stared down at him, at his melted face, and he felt nothing but victorious.
That’s when he heard the ruckus behind him.
Ice turned and saw the man who hauled him in from the pit. Melvin. Seeing the blood, he charged Ice. He got the bone up fast, fearing it was already too late. Melvin ran right into it, the sharp end driving in just below his sternum. The impact drove Ice backward, the rounded end of the bone striking his sternum. It hurt like hell, but he didn’t have time for pain.
He pushed Melvin off the bone then stabbed him in the neck. With no time to savor the mortified look on his abductor’s face, he shoved the dying man aside. When Melvin collapsed to the floor, Ice fished the set of keys from him and hurried to the front door where he pulled it open a hair and peeked outside.
The engine was getting louder by the minute, but he still had time.
He bolted from the house with minutes to spare, maybe less. The first place he went was Orlando’s cage. It was closest to him. Orlando was like an anxious dog about to be let out of his cage. He tossed the keys in and said, “Open the lock, but wait for my signal.”
Over the manic barking of the dogs, Orlando nodded his head and said, “Got it.”
Ice ran to the nearest open pit, kicked the padlock into the hole, then slipped down in it and pulled the grate shut. He stood on a ladder propped to the side of the dirt wall, looking out of the hole as the paddy wagon that brought them here drove in.
A cloud of dust rolled over them when they came to a stop and the engine died. Three guys piled out and that’s when he heard a huff of air below, then someone squeaking out his name. He turned and found two dead bodies stacked on top of what looked like his brother.
Scrambling down the ladder, he pushed the bodies off Fire, then stopped at the sight of his blood stained face and clothes.
“You alive?” he asked.
“Barely,” Fire said.
Looking at the blood all over his face and mouth, he said, “Eating between meals?”
“Had to.”
“No matter, bro,” he said, waving it off. “You’re alive and we have an edge.”
“What happened?” Fire asked, slow to get up and long to stretch.
“We have to go,” Ice said. Outside the dogs were still barking up a storm. “How’s your strength?”
“Not good, but I have a knife.”
He looked down at the blade, then said, “It’s a start.”
“SHUT UP!” one of the pinheads outside yelled at the dog before heading in the house.
Ice crawled up the ladder, peeked outside, saw Orlando getting out of the cage. Dammit! The dogs started barking again, but Orlando paid them no mind.
“Give me that knife, Fire,” he turned and said. His brother was below him, looking up. He handed Ice the knife, which he took before crawling out. “Stay here.”
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
“Then keep up!”
The three guys were inside now, surely seeing the mess Ice made of things. Pushing through the metal grate, the edges of it scraping over dried skin and protruding bones, he crawled out then broke into a run following Orlando.
His nephew was now on the porch at the side of front door. Ice hurried up and handed him the knife. He still had the bone.
“Is Veronica in there?” he whispered, frantic. “They took her in, but never brought her back out.”
“Shhh,” Ice said. “Be ready.”
A second later the front door was yanked open with force and one of the three guys got the bone in the throat. Ice ripped it out and caught the man, easing him to the ground.
“Meet me around back,” he told Orlando.
They both ran around opposite sides of the house. When they met at the back door, Orlando slipped in despite him telling his nephew to wait.
Pissed off, scared for him, Ice broke his own protocol and hurried in after him. Orlando was sprinting across the living room floor on bare feet with his knife raised up. He was going after the man at the opened front door.
He’d seen his dead friends in the kitchen and another one now on the porch. He was backing up, right into Orlando. At just the right moment, he turned and took the business end of Orlando’s blade right in the throat. Orlando tore the man apart with it, then rolled away and said, “I got him, Uncle Ice!”
That’s when the shotgun blast made red ribbons of the boy’s face. His head snapped back, blood spraying everywhere.
At that very moment, Fire appeared in the front door and saw it all.
Screaming like he was in an insane asylum, he burst into the house and charged the shooter. The shotgun boomed a second time, but Ice saw what went down after that, causing him to stand back in abject horror.
Somehow, his brother managed to get under the funnel of buck shot and roll back up into the man’s personal space. He latched on to the man’s cheek with his mouth before getting control of the shotgun. The minute he had a grip on the stock, Fire ripped it loose, head butted him on the bridge of the nose, then stood back and fired on the man.
The weapon made a clicking sound.
It was empty.
The shooter with the broken nose and the torn open cheek wobbled around in shock, completely rattled and standing on gummy knees. The second the weapon dry fired, Fire lanced the shooter’s face with the end of the barrel, then spun it around and began to hammer his face with the butt until he fell down.
Ice watched as Fire kept going.
The man was dead or near death inside of seconds, but Fire kept at him, hitting his skull harder and harder with the shotgun until it cracked, until it broke open, until it began to mush.
And he still kept hitting.
He was growling and crying and erasing any last defining features on this man’s face until there was nothing but a pulped mess. Then he started stomping on it, kicking it, pounding the man’s brain into a flat oatmeal constitution.
Ice couldn’t look on anymore. He turned away. Found Orlando. He knew Fire needed this, but he couldn’t watch. Then again, his heart broke in half at the sight of his dead nephew, so he chose the lesser of two difficult sights.
Turning back to his brother, he watched as the last of the rage left him. He then fell to his knees, convulsing several times before vomiting up dry air and a hunk of meat.
Ice went to him, his own eyes wet. He got down on his knees beside his brother and held him while he sobbed.
He knew this feeling. How it was to have someone in your family die. His entire family was slaughtered. He’d killed hi
s own father. Now he felt for his brother, who let himself be held as he sobbed and wailed into a near coma.
Ice went and opened the pits for everyone else, releasing them. He broke the news to Draven, Eliana, Carolina, Bianca and Phillip, while Fire told Adeline and Brooklyn. Ice had offered to tell them the bad news, because he didn’t want Fire to have to do that, but his brother managed to pull himself together and said he’d take care of it. That’s when he realized, everyone was accounted for except for Chase.
After looking through the house, he and Eliana walked out back. There was another cage in back with two Rottweilers. They were both in pens. The dogs had eaten most of Chase. They were nasty looking dogs, not clean or groomed like most Rots.
Eliana turned into Ice, mortified. She pulled him into a hug and stood there shaking inside. He couldn’t remember ever seeing this woman cry, and she wasn’t crying now, but there was a tenderness to her that had been scraped over. Her heart was showing. She’d come to love these people as much as he did, and for that reason, her impenetrable outer shell had fractured, just as his had.
He was devastated about Orlando, hardly able to breathe. Now Chase. As he’d watched his brother eviscerate the man that killed his son, flashes of his nephew’s head snapping back flickered in and out, haunting him, unnerving him, filling him with such a debilitating sadness it not only rattled him, it had him thinking of his own family and how he felt when they’d been taken from him.
He wrapped Eliana in his arms, pulling her in tight, and then he said, “I love you, Eliana. I think I’ve known that for awhile, but now I’m sure of it.”
“These ails of life will bind us,” she said into his chest. “They already have. There will be good times, too, Isadoro.” Then, looking up, she said, “I love you, too.”
Draven joined them, saw what was left of Chase’s feasted upon body and turned away fast, his body dry heaving as he put a hand on the side of the house.
“Jesus God,” he said, for the first time showing something as well.
A sob racked his body and Eliana went to him. She took his arm, pulled him gently around, saw the heavy tears in his eyes, and the anguish in his face. She folded him into her arms and in that moment, she cracked and the group’s most ferocious warriors let their emotions go.