Blood Day (17 page)

“What should we do?” said Mike.
 

“Mikey, I think we have to kill him.”

Mike shook his head. Even though he had the same thought, they couldn’t devolve into murderers. Not now. Not them.
 

“We’ll be just like them if we kill him,” said Mike. “It’s what we’re fighting here.”

“It’s self-preservation is what it is,” said Dez. He sat down hard on the bed. “Shit, man, what else can we do?”

“Lock him away,” said Mike. “Tie him up. Find out who he is, and if he is a threat to us.”

“Mike…”

“I know, but I just can’t,” said Mike.
 

“What about Flynn?” said Dez.

“Let him sort Chris out.”

Chris. That was the name.
 

“I don’t have any way to contact him,” said Mike. “It’s not like we have a Bat signal for him.”

There was a sharp rap at the door and Dez gave Mike a cold stare as the door swung open and Chris stepped in, smiling.
 

“Is this a private meeting?” he said, his eyes too sharp, too curious. Mike pursed his lips and looked away from Dez.
 

“Yeah, but we’re done,” said Mike. “What is it, kid?”

Dez stood up and walked past Chris, bumping him with his shoulder on the way out.

“What’s his problem?” said Chris, still smiling. He closed the door gently behind Dez and Mike sat up, suddenly sweating under his arms. He needed to be on his guard with this kid.
 

“Where you from, Chris?” Mike said.
 

He sat down on the bed, bouncing once or twice like he was trying it out. Mike gritted his teeth.

“Philly, same as everyone,” Chris said. He practically gleamed with those white teeth. Mike didn’t trust people who smiled all the time.

“How’d you know to come here?” Mike said, his voice soft.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Novak,” Chris said, smiling wider. “Don’t you trust me?”

There was a crash at the front of the house and Mike’s heart jumped in his chest. He stood up quickly, but Chris remained sitting on the bed. A girl screamed and there was more crashing, glass breaking, wood splintering, shouting. Chris stood then, slowly, still smiling, then, even more slowly, he eased himself down to his knees, hands in the air, and lay down on his stomach on the floor.
 

“What…?” Mike said, backing toward the door. He opened the door and looked out. Someone ran past, shrieking. There was a cacophony of screaming from the front room and Mike couldn’t breathe. He looked back at Chris, lying belly-first. The boy looked up at him.

“Time’s up, Mr. Novak,” he said. “Time to surrender.”

Mike couldn’t stop himself, he slammed the door and kicked the kid on his way to the window. He shoved the window open, paint chips raining down on him as he gave it a shove. Cold air blew in, smelling like snow. He looked back at the typewriter, then put his head out the opening.

“It doesn’t matter where you run,” Chris said behind him. “They’ll find you.”

The Mover vans surrounded the front of the house. He heard the heavy footsteps coming down the hall now, breaking down each door. He pushed himself out the window, toppling into the snow face-first, landing on a mixture of frozen potting soil and dirty snow. He crawled around the side of the house and almost lost his fingers to a set of tires. Mike looked up, his heart beating so fast he was sure this was where he was going to die. Then a familiar voice.

“Get on, you stupid git,” said Dez Paine, and Mike had never been happier to see the scruffy bastard.
 

“Can you drive a motorcycle in the snow?” said Mike, feeling stiff and old and awkward swinging a leg over the back, and wrapping his arms around his friend’s waist.

“We’re about to find out,” said Dez.
 

Mike was half-frozen by the time they got anywhere. No one followed them. Either the Movers hadn’t noticed the little bike peeling out off the side of the house or they didn’t care. The black vans stayed put and Mike and Dez rode off into the snowstorm.
 

The flakes were coming down thick and fat when Dez stopped at a lone clapboard house in the middle of a field. The paint was peeling, revealing a dingier shade of white underneath. Mike’s teeth were chattering.

“You shoulda worn a coat, mate,” said Dez, shrugging in his leather jacket. He was wearing gloves, too.
 

“How the hell did you have time to grab a coat and gloves?” Mike said, glaring at him.

“I knew that kid was no good,” said Dez. “Saw the vans pull up so I went out the back. I’ve had this baby stashed since we got here.”

“Just in case, huh?” said Mike.

“You’ve got a lot of brains, Mike, but you gotta look at the bigger picture. We’re outlaws, man. Outlaws from monsters. Be stupid not to have an escape plan. We’re essentially rubbing their faces in their failures with our little rags we’re putting out.”

“Where are we?” said Mike. The door opened and a woman came out to stand on the porch. She folded her arms across her chest. She was young, but not too young, and had a hardened look about her. She was not someone who had an easy life. Mike imagined that they all looked like that on the inside. But Dez lit up when he saw her.

“Hey, got room for us tonight?” he said, turning up the charm. He smiled, and Mike noticed that the corner of the woman’s mouth twitched.

“You better get the old guy inside,” she said, her voice just as hard as her face. “He’s going to freeze to death.”

“Old guy?” said Mike.
 

“Mikey, meet Delilah,” said Dez, affection in his voice.

“Stash your bike in the back,” she ordered. “Don’t want them nosing around here for you. That
is
why you’re here, isn’t it, British?”

“Aw, Lila,” Dez said. “You knew I’d come back.”

“Piss off,” she said and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke in his direction before turning and going into the house, kicking the screen door on her way.

“She’s real sweet once you get to know her,” said Dez.

“I bet she is,” said Mike.

“Just, er, don’t mention Flynn around her, okay? She’s a little touchy about the Revs.” Dez lowered his voice, even though they were alone. “They took her kid and two brothers after the Annex. In the Dark Days, yeah?”

“The Blackout, you mean?” said Mike.
 

“Blackout, Dark Days, doesn’t matter what you call it,” said Dez.

“The Blackout was hard on everyone,” said Mike. “And the rest of the days haven’t been kind, either.”

“And yet,” said Dez, “we’re still here.”

“That we are,” said Mike. “That we are.”

Mike spent the night on a dusty, scratchy orange sofa, but Lila gave him enough clean blankets to stay warm in the chilly house. Mike slept more soundly than he had in a month, even with Dez’s moans drifting through the door of Lila’s bedroom. In the morning Mike woke to sounds in the adjoining kitchen and found Lila making coffee in a percolator. She nodded at him when she saw him folding up his blankets.
 

“So you live out here all alone, Lila?” said Mike, conversationally. Lila stared at him and Mike wished he could take it back. Dez’s words floated through his foggy morning head and he cursed himself for being so thoughtless. Lila had lost a lot of family.

“It suits me,” she said coldly. “Revs don’t bother country folk too much. I can take in boarders if I need supplies. I’m not stupid, if that’s what you’re thinking. I sleep with a pistol under my pillow when strangers are in the house.” She raised an eyebrow at Mike and he smiled, embarrassed.

Lila put a steaming mug of coffee in front of him.

“No milk, you’ll have to drink it black,” she said.
 

“Thank you,” Mike said. “It’s been a long while since I’ve had a good cup of coffee.” He sat down at the scrubbed little kitchen table with mismatched chairs and Lila joined him. She wore a shabby cardigan over her dressing gown, the bottom of her nightgown wet from snow over her boots. She’d already been outside this morning. Her hair was down and fell around her shoulders in soft waves, her face prematurely lined, though it lessened when she didn’t know anyone was looking. Mike frowned. She must have been so beautiful before all this, he realized. The hardships they endured turned everyone thin and drawn.

“So what did you do?” Lila said.
 

“I beg your pardon?” said Mike, torn from his thoughts. “What makes you think I did something?”

She laughed, a light, pretty sound that didn’t match her Grapes of Wrath face.

“Mike, come on. No one comes here who isn’t running from Revs. So what happened?”

“I decided to tell the truth,” said Mike.

“Well, that wasn’t very smart,” she said, taking a sip. “Who’d you tell?”

“My editor.”

“Newspaper man? Should have pegged that from a mile away,” she said. “You’ve got that look. So you’re the guy who’s been putting out those little papers, huh?”

“You’ve seen them?” said Mike.

“Oh honey,” she said, surprised. “You don’t know?”

“Morning,” Dez said from the bedroom doorway, scratching his head. His hair stood on end.

“What don’t I know?” said Mike, ignoring Dez, who stumbled in and poured himself a cup of coffee like he owned the place.

“Everyone’s seen your papers,” Lila said, leaning back in her chair and surmising him. “Everyone in Philly and probably half the state. Maybe more. It’s all anyone talks about. You know, when the Revs aren’t around.”

“People are reading it?” said Mike. He looked at Dez, who shrugged and slumped into a chair drinking his coffee.

“More than reading it,” said Lila. “People are doing something about it. How do you not know?”

“I’ve been stuck in that house,” said Mike.

“Well, I tell you what,” said Lila, leaning forward again, conspiratorially. “The Revs are pissed.They put flyers out offering fifty grand for information about you. And anyone who works with you. That’s a lot of money, especially in times like these.” She looked at Dez and smiled. “Want some breakfast?”

Dez frowned and looked at Mike, then back at Lila.

“Oh goddammit,” Dez said. “You called them?”

Lila shrugged. “I had to. You know how it is.”

“How?” said Dez. “You don’t even have a phone.”

“Wore you out, and early this morning I went over to Henry Gotcher’s place. He’s got a phone.”

“What?” said Mike, confused. “You turned us in?”

Lila shrugged. “Girl’s got to get by. Nothing personal.”

Dez shrugged. “Guess I’d do the same.”
 

Mike stood up quickly, knocking the chair over. “What the hell is wrong with you people?” he said, his voice rising to a panic.

Dez looked at him mildly, then drained his cup. He stretched and stood up.

“It’s been fun, Lila,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.

“Dez, what the hell is going on?” said Mike.

“We’re going, that’s what’s going on, Mikey,” Dez said. “Lady needs the money. I know, I know, you’re outraged. But be outraged on the bike, okay?”

“There’s a spare coat in the mudroom,” Lila said.

Mike spun around to look at her. “I will take the coat, but under extreme protest,” he said.

Lila shrugged again. “Whatever you want, mister.”

Dez pulled him out by the arm, grabbing the puffy green coat on his way out. Mike shrugged into it as they went around the house for the bike.

“Can you believe this, can you goddamn believe this?” Mike said, his voice rising. “Basic human decency is gone, Dez.”

“Simmer down, Mikey,” said Dez. “She’s pregnant. Terrified they’re going to find out and take the baby. She needs the money to hide.”

Mike was panting, his breath a cloud.

“Get on, man,” Dez said. “There’s not much time.”

The motorcycle shook Mike down to his bones. Though he was far warmer this time round in the stolen coat, for which he was grateful, though he was torn about how he had acquired it. Dez pulled into an abandoned barn that looked on the verge of caving in.
 

“What are we doing?” said Mike.

“Waiting for the Movers to pass by,” said Dez, peering out through some missing boards in the side. The place smelled of rotting hay and animal feces turned to dirt again.
 

“How long did you know she was pregnant?” said Mike. He remembered Kyra, his wife, so happy when she knew she was expecting. Then the grief on her face when she started bleeding, the red soaking through her pretty white dress three months later. Mike pushed the memories away quickly. They hurt like a blow to the stomach. He couldn’t think of her now. He would lose his sanity if he thought of Kyra.

Dez shrugged, not looking at Mike.

“She told me last time I saw her,” he said, watching the road.

“You see her often?” said Mike.

“Often enough.”

“Is it yours? The baby?”

Dez looked at him then. “I didn’t think to ask.”

“You didn’t think to ask?” said Mike incredulously.
 

“Look, mate, I got bigger problems right now. We’re running from Revs right now. How the hell am I supposed to take care of a kid?”

“Did you ever stop to think,” said Mike slowly, “that Lila turned us in because you didn’t think to ask?”

Dez looked truly surprised. “No,” he said. “I guess that might make sense.”

“You selfish prick,” Mike said angrily.

“Mikey, calm down.”

“Have you ever stopped to think of anything but your own skin? That woman could be carrying your child and you just left her to fend for herself. In a world where children disappear in a fog of blood and terror. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Jesus Christ, man, keep your voice down.”

“You’re a coward, Dez,” said Mike, with finality. “Just a coward.”

Dez raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never denied that. Besides, don’t blame me for all this. Blame your shifty creep of a friend, Flynn. It would be easy for him to help us out here, but where is the bastard? Nowhere. Spooky asshole. We’re not going to make it, Mikey. We need money to survive here, not newspapers.”

They heard a rumbling and a moment later a line of black vans came into view, driving in a line like a funeral procession.