by Sean Platt
Now, following Boricio to his compound was another massive mistake, and Mary knew it. The man was clearly some sort of monster. Coming with him was like agreeing to load Paola into a Volkswagen Beetle, then drive it at 90 into a tall brick wall.
Boricio was obviously a man who hadn’t been truly loved a day in his life. All humans were capable of atrocity. It was simply a matter of falling into a sequence of events that would drive them from timidity to terror. When violent instincts weren’t properly channeled they easily erupted. Most violence was the result of a mind fooling itself into believing internal pain came from something, or someone, else — a someone or something that deserved to be punished. And typically, these people were able to cast anyone into the role of that someone who deserved their wrath.
Mary came up with this theory on Boricio while still standing in the ashes of The Sanctuary and deciding what to do and where to go. She should have listened to her whisper. She would have, too, except Luca had just aged what looked like a thousand years to save her and her children; and she couldn’t tell him no.
Luca insisted that Boricio was there to protect them, and that he would do what he was supposed to, whenever it was time to do it. Mary was used to the mystical I know what I know because I saw it in my dreams, science-fiction weirdness by now, but she didn’t buy the balderdash for Boricio, at least not enough to keep herself from sleeping fitfully through the night.
Mary could eventually forgive what Boricio had done to Desmond, and could even forgive that he had helped the crazy cultists holding them prisoner. If that was what Luca wanted, it was the least she could do. But even if she could forgive, Luca couldn’t ask her to forget what Boricio had done. Forgetting was impossible. Her Desmond was dead. How could she be expected to simply forget someone who had become so much of her light in such a bleak world?
Luca said the boy inside Boricio was broken, at least until Luca had fixed him. But she didn’t believe that Luca had “fixed” Boricio at all. Once broken, one could never truly be fixed, Mary believed.
When Mary pulled Luca aside to plead with him privately, and maybe convince him that he’d be better off going with her and Paola alone, the ancient child refused, insisting over and over that Boricio was no longer broken. He said it would take time for his healing to “show up.” Even if that were true, and Mary wasn’t convinced it was, Luca clearly didn’t seem to understand the danger Boricio posed until then.
“Luca, we’ll take care of you,” Mary said. “Boricio won’t.” She squeezed his hands. “And you’re in no shape to survive out there on your own. That man will leave you the second he thinks you’re slowing him down.” She held the old child’s eyes, begging him to believe her. “That won’t take long to happen in your condition, and we would never, ever do that to you. Please,” she said. “Come with me and Paola.”
Luca shook his head. “I can’t, Mary. I’m supposed to go with Boricio.” Then he repeated, “He will protect us. I know it.”
Mary looked into Luca’s sad, empty eyes, bleached from their blinking youth. “There’s nothing I can say to convince you, is there?”
Luca shook his head.
And that was that.
Mary could never let the 90-year-old boy who had saved her life ride into the sunset with a repugnant creature like Boricio by himself. But just because Mary had managed to avoid making the wrong decision didn’t mean she made the right one.
She hated how Boricio looked at her, with what seemed like a sour brew of perversion and hate. He hadn’t been much better when dealing with Paola. He wasn’t rude, exactly, nor had he ogled her. As foul as Boricio was, he was probably smart enough to understand that the wrong string of words, or perhaps the wrong look, would send Mary into a fury that was sure to end with one of them dead. But Boricio clearly didn’t want a kid around, and made no effort to shade his impatience.
Luca knew Mary was upset, and was trying to soothe her in the only way he knew how. On the ride to Boricio’s compound, Luca leaned into her ear with a whispered promise that everything would be okay. Mary was doing the right thing. Luca needed Boricio around, and that meant they all did. Something had happened inside The Hole, and whatever that something was, it had altered things between the two men, and led Luca to trust the monster with a line of reasoning that had nothing to do with logic.
Even if Luca weren’t anywhere near 8 years old — and Mary had to believe his mind was mostly stunted — he couldn’t possibly have the lifetime’s worth of experience one earned from decades’ worth of navigating the best and worst of humanity.
Mary had known plenty of raging assholes and con men, from the days before she went freelance with her cards, where everyone in the copywriting offices carried a penis and the asshole personality to prove it, to the marketing department, where no one ever spoke without seeming as though they were pulling a long con.
A large part of Mary felt as though Boricio was playing the long con on Luca, getting on his good side so he could somehow screw the ancient child somewhere down the road. She had no idea how or why, or what Luca could possibly offer a monster like that, but then again she had no idea what they had exchanged inside their minds.
Mary was here now, and there was no turning back. She couldn’t imagine getting a decent night’s sleep until they were finally far away from Boricio and again on their own. Even then, without Desmond, Mary didn’t imagine she’d ever find a peaceful night’s sleep again.
Resting well with one eye open was impossible, and there was no way in hell Mary trusted the predator not to sneak into her room, or her daughter’s, which was why she and Paola were sharing one room, and why Mary slept with a loaded gun under her pillow — just in case.
She glanced over at Paola, as she had every few minutes since she set her cheek to the pillow, and continued to do until finally falling asleep, probably sometime between 2 and 3 in the morning.
Mary woke up several hours later to an especially bright morning sun beating its way through the blinds. She rubbed her eyes, then looked over to the empty spot in her bed where Paola had been. Her heart instantly sank to the pit of her stomach as a flashback of the Drury Inn and all that happened there flooded her morning with acid.
Gun in hand and no shoes on her feet, Mary bolted outside to find her daughter.
Everyone but Mary was standing in a semicircle in back of the house. Paola and Luca were side by side, with Luca leaning on a cane, while Boricio stood by himself slightly to the side. Paola was holding a pistol and looking toward a row of bottles, lined on a precarious looking shelf that Mary imagined Boricio had set on the top of a wooden fence post, which neatly divided the spacious back yard from the forest beyond.
“Paola!” Mary screamed. “What in the world do you think you’re doing?”
The girl’s finger pulled the trigger, and thunder crashed through the early morning quiet, sending a flock of birds from distant trees. Mary looked again at the fence. Not a single bottle was broken, and she hadn’t woken to the sound of a shot, so Mary figured target practice had only just started.
Paola didn’t turn her head toward her mother, just pulled the trigger two more times, then wrinkled her nose at the trio of missed shots. Boricio ignored Mary as well. He turned to Paola and said, “You’re giving your shots way too much thought. Don’t blink and don’t think. Just squeeze that fucker like you were popping a zit.”
Boricio cackled. Mary was still walking from the house. “Don’t speak to my daughter like that,” she said, stopping just three feet from Boricio. “And she’s too young to be out here playing with guns.”
Boricio laughed again. “Are you kidding, Mary May I?” He looked at her like she was the one who was fat with crazy. “Did you already forget about the early Fourth of July show back at the Sanctu-Fairy Fuck-all? Because if you want your little lamb to go Bo-Peeping into battle seconds from good and dead, well then, by all means keep on batting your pretty, blind eyes.” He shrugged and said, “What’s one more corpse to m
e? And we’re not playing with guns — I’m teaching her, something your Desmond Do-Right might have thought to do before the figurative shit hit the literal fan.”
Mary shuddered, remembering the pair of bodies — one a mutated-looking thing that had been a man that Boricio had known and the other an apparent victim of said man they found in the house when they first returned to the compound, and how Boricio dragged them out back like they were soiled laundry waiting for the machine. She still had no idea where they went, or what Boricio had done with them.
Paola looked back at Boricio, her mouth hanging open in shock at Boricio’s ‘one more corpse’ comment. He grinned, then winked and shook his head with a light smile before turning back to her mother. “I prefer that all my compadres learn to be good, little commandoes, and since right now I don’t see anything else pressing on our agenda, I’m not really seeing any reason not to hold a little morning session of Blowing Fuckers Heads Off 101.”
“She’s my daughter,” Mary said. “And that means that I’m the one who gets to decide whether she’s old enough to handle a gun.”
Boricio shrugged. “You know what?” he said. “You’re right.” He walked over to Paola and held out his hand, nodding at her to hand over the gun. She did.
Boricio shoved the gun in his pants, then said with a grin, “Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your daughter grow? Like all the whores, on all their fours, lined all nice in a row.”
He stood a few inches from Mary, while she tried not to cower.
“Your daughter’s an awful pretty thing, Miss Mary,” Boricio continued. “You really want her out there without a gun? You think monsters are the only thing you’ve gotta worry about? Hell no,” Boricio shook his head, almost snarling, his voice settling somewhere between a growl and a hiss. “You’ve gotta worry about monsters like me, and worse than me, Miss Mary — men who didn’t even wait for the proverbial ‘grass on the field’ to ‘play ball,’ three weeks before Hallo-Fucking-Ween, and sure as the Great Pumpkin’s orange ball sack, ain’t gonna start caring now, ya dig?”
Boricio pulled the gun back out of his pants and offered it to Mary, holding it by the barrel. But Mary kept her hands at her side, ignoring the invitation.
Boricio said, “You sure you don’t want your baby girl to have this?” He raised his eyebrows. “Seems like you’d at least want to keep her armed against anything like me.”
“If you so much as look at my daughter with an impure thought, I won’t need a gun to fucking kill you,” Mary said, eyes boring into Boricio’s.
She grabbed the gun roughly from Boricio, then handed it gently to Paola.
Boricio smiled a big grin, ignoring her threat.
“Much better!” Boricio started clapping. “I need Team Boricio fit and ready for a fight if we expect to get our asses up and over to Mordor. Rip Van Creepy ain’t gonna do shit to help us, since unfortunately he’s used the last of his voodoo to bring you all back from Zombie Island, instead of Black Godzilla like I suggested, no offense to any of you estrogen carriers. I’m glad we can get started. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Boricio said, patting his stomach. “I’m gonna go inside so I can make my morning grunt sculpture.”
Luca looked confused and said, “Huh?”
Paola said, “He means he’s going inside to take a crap.”
Luca smiled, then lightly laughed.
Mary said, “Paola!”
Boricio grinned, then turned his back to the crew and headed inside, slamming the screen behind him.
Once Mary was certain Boricio was inside and halfway to the bathroom, she took Luca gently by the arm and turned him toward her. “Are you still sure about all of this, Luca?”
He nodded. “I already told you,” he said. “Going with Boricio is what we’re supposed to do. If you don’t believe me, you can do whatever you want. I’ll understand. But my answer isn’t going to change.” His voice was ancient, almost stoic. If you’d just met him, you’d never suspect an 8-year-old was speaking. Mary said nothing, as Luca continued. “I saw Boricio as a boy. Before he was like this — before his stepfather broke him.”
He turned to her with swollen eyes. Mary couldn’t tell if they were sad or tired. “But I fixed him, Mary. I promise.”
“Life doesn’t work like that, Luca,” Mary shook her head. “I understand how you can think you fixed Boricio, but trust me, you didn’t. People can’t be fixed that easily. Believe me, Luca. I’ve wasted a lot of my years, too many actually, trying to fix broken men. But unless a man wants to be fixed, Luca, there’s nothing you can do to change him. And trying is useless.”
Mary caught Paola from the corner of her eye, listening in and pretending that she didn’t know her mother was talking about her father.
“But that’s just it, Mary,” Luca said.
“What?”
“He did want to be fixed. And I fixed him.” Luca used the hand that wasn’t holding his cane to point at his head. “From the inside.”
Paola said, “Yeah, Mom, Boricio’s super-creepy. No doubt. But we’re better off with than without him. At least for now. I agree with Luca on that. Besides, I have to learn to defend myself.” She paused, then said, “And you.”
Mary looked surprised. Paola went on. “You’re gonna be like major pregnant soon, Mom. Who’s gonna defend you then?” Paola’s bottom lip started to tremble. She tried to say something else, but her voice cracked, and she seemed as though she could barely swallow. Finally, she shook her head and said, “I can’t stand the thought of not being able to protect you and the baby, Mom. And I shouldn’t have to think about it. There are plenty of guns; why can’t I learn to use them?”
“Because you’re a kid. Kids aren’t supposed to be learning how to use guns and defend their mothers. They’re supposed to be going to school, having crushes on boys, and fighting with their moms — like it used to be,” Mary went from Luca to Paola and pulled her daughter into an embrace.
“That world is gone, Mom. You’re being naive. I need to learn, and Boricio said he would teach me to shoot.”
“I can teach you to shoot,” Mary said
The screen door slammed, and Mary could hear Boricio heading back toward them.
“Well, that was fast,” Mary said.
Boricio laughed. “I’ve read that issue of Entertainment Weekly by the crapper 15,000 goddamned times, and I didn’t give a nugget of fuck about Breaking Bad or The Vampire Diaries or any of that other crap that got cancelled forever. Besides,” he smiled, “I’m what you might call a prolific shitter. One of the benefits to being full of shit, I guess.”
Mary hated herself for laughing, but she couldn’t help the small giggle that suddenly escaped from her mouth. Fortunately, surrendering to humor seemed to make everything better.
Boricio sidled up to her side and said, “Look, I’m sorry if I was stepping on those purty, little digits of yours, Miss Mary, but I swear on my fat sack and all the creamy fun inside it, I was just trying to help your little lamb. You and Luca, too.”
“You’re a pig, you know that?” Mary said.
Boricio grinned. “You’ve been living high on the hog, sister, but now it’s time to get down with the sows. When the apocalypse comes, you gotta be able to get in the mud.”
Mary held her hands in the air. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you’re lucky as fuck that you’ve managed to find yourself on Team Boricio.”
“Lucky?” Mary snorted. “Team Boricio had exactly one player when your last three players were drafted.”
Boricio cackled, probably appreciating a woman with balls. “Yeah, but when you’re the Michael Fucking Jordan of murder, it ain’t like you need a full roster.”
“And you’re right,” Mary said. “Paola should learn to shoot. But there’s no need to impose target practice on you, especially since you clearly have issues maintaining your patience. So, thank you very much for the offer, but I’d rather be the one to teach my daughter to shoot.”
/> Boricio laughed, then kept on laughing for a long minute, sucking for air as his eyes went red, slowly making Mary madder. Finally he said, “You’re gonna teach her?”
“You think I can’t shoot?”
Boricio answered with another round of laughter.
Mary marched up to Paola, gently pulled the gun from her hand, then aimed at the bottles and fired six shots, evenly spaced, missing the glass every time.
Boricio’s laughter roared louder than the gunshots as Mary handed the gun back to her daughter.
Suddenly, the wood beneath the shelf shrieked, then splintered and cracked before collapsing to the ground and spilling shattering glass to the ground.
Boricio stopped laughing, and a new breed of smile settled on his face. “Well, tickle my pickle, Miss Mary, that is some sharp-as-shit shooting.”
Mary said, “Desmond taught me well.”
Boricio said, “Well, well, it looks like old Desmond Do-Right got two things right then.” He winked and smiled at Mary.
She wanted to throw up in her mouth for thinking it was almost charming.
Twenty-Six
Teagan McLachlan
Teagan didn’t want to go back underground.
She had been beneath the earth since October, until a week ago when Ed finally decided it was safe for them to live above ground. She wasn’t sure why it hadn’t been safe before, and for all that time, but suspected it had something to do with the other Ed, who was now working with the Guardsmen on a secret mission.
Teagan had lived her entire life sheltered beneath her ultra-conservative parents, dreaming of escape from the trailer park. Then she’d spent the past five months so far underground that she thought she might never see sunlight again. For the first time in forever, Teagan finally felt like an adult. She had a relationship, a child, and most importantly, freedom. And for one glorious week, life felt amazing.
