DeadEarth: Mr. 44 Magnum (5 page)

“You tell us,” Rikka seethed. “You’re the
ones living in our house.”

“Hey, this house was empty when we found it,”
one of the guys said. “There was food in the fridge, meat in the
barn, and not a soul to claim it. The world may be going to shit,
but we still have our morals, unlike some.”

“Morals?” Shade questioned, following her
sister’s lead. She craned her neck to look at the man who spoke. He
was younger than she expected—twenty or twenty-one—tall, and had a
runner’s body. His eyes were a soft brown, and his chin and cheeks
were littered with wisps of hair that only just started coming in.
The tattoo on his forearm was a hideous prison tattoo that read
MING, as if to pay homage to the Chinese basketball player he only
resembled in ethnicity. “I just saw him put a bullet through a
man’s eye. You call that moral?”

“I told you, doll,” the man with the magnum
said, “we don’t have the resources to deal with a gunshot wound.
Better his death be quick and painless than slow and painful. Just
remember, two of my guys would still be alive right now if all you
did was knock on the front door.”

“Are you going to kill us?” Rikka asked
bluntly.

Mr. .44 Magnum took the picture out of the
frame and handed it to her. She accepted it without taking her eyes
off him.

“No,” he said. “But I ain’t saving you
either. Jen and Daniel are going to escort you off the property.
We’ll give you your guns back, a bit of food and water, and send
you on your merry way. We’ll do the same if your mom, dad and
sister come looking for you, so I suggest you stay close. That
being said, if we ever see you on this property again, we will not
hesitate to kill you. For our safety. Understood?”

Rikka and Shade nodded.

“Jen,” Mr. .44 Magnum said, glancing at the
woman standing next to Daniel. From their similar features, it was
clear to Shade that they were mother and son. “Make these ladies a
pack so they can be on their way.”

She nodded and left.

Shade watched her go, then glanced at Rikka.
She searched the side of her face, wondering if she had a plan for
how they were going to get Lou out without revealing the stash of
food, medicine, and weapons just under their feet. They may have
secured their lives, but they weren’t out of trouble yet. They were
outgunned and outmanned. If they left the property without their
sister, it would take a hell of a whole lot of luck—and quite a few
dead bodies—to make it back. They had to act, and it was better to
do so while they had one less weapon trained on them.

Shifting her weight, Shade eased back so that
her hand was closer to the knife tucked inside her boot. If Rikka
made a move, she wanted to be ready.

But Rikka never moved, not even an inch. Mr.
.44 Magnum paced back and forth in front of her, his boots knocking
a steady tempo on the hardwood floor. Shade knew Rikka had a blade
tucked away somewhere. If she wanted to kill him, it would have
taken no more than a split second to do so.

Minutes passed. Shade found herself glancing
at her sister more and more as their window of opportunity shrank.
Did Rikka not know how difficult it would be to get Lou out once
they were out of the house? They had two guns and three magazines
between the both of them—and that was only if their captors didn’t
keep anything for themselves. The time to act was three minutes
ago.

Shade’s hand twitched as she readied herself
to draw her knife. If Rikka wasn’t going to make a move, she had
to, for Lou’s sake. She had the plan mapped out. She would go for
Daniel—the guy directly behind her—first. If she could take his
pistol and get behind him, it would be easy to eliminate the others
in four quick shots… assuming he had enough ammo. If he didn’t,
Rikka and Shade were as good as dead.

Shade was also assuming the five people who
revealed themselves were the entirety of the group. She cast a
cautious gaze at the man in charge. He was kind, dutiful, and not
afraid to get his hands dirty. But was he smart? Did he know not to
reveal all his cards even when he thought he had the upper
hand?

Jen strode out of the kitchen with her rifle
slung over her shoulder, successfully killing Shade’s plan. She
carried two book bags half filled with whatever the group could
spare. She tossed one to each of the sisters before unshouldering
her rifle.

“Your weapons are in the packs,” she said.
“Guns are dismantled, bullets are free, and your mags are in a
separate pocket. You even think about going for your weapons,
Daniel and I will have time to kill you twenty times over before
you can reassemble them. Don’t take our kindness for weakness. You
just go on about your business, and leave us to ours.”

They were smart, Shade thought.

“Yes ma’am,” Rikka said as she slowly climbed
to her feet. Shade followed her lead, making sure to keep her hands
visible so no movement was misinterpreted. It was too late for them
to fight back, and the last thing she wanted was to be killed when
she had every intention of leaving peacefully.

With two guns pointed at their backs, both
girls were escorted out into the front yard. It was dark. The air
was thick with moisture and the scent of ozone, making it difficult
to breathe. The sky was overcast with rumbling black clouds that
occasionally came to life with the flicker and crack of lightening.
Shade looked up at the coming storm, and then down when the dry,
coarse grass crunched underfoot. As she feared, the earth was still
dead, and the rain would bring no life to it.

“You know where to go,” Jen said. “So let’s
make this quick. Hands on your head and march.”

Shade and Rikka slung their back packs over
their shoulders and interlocked their fingers on top of their
heads. They started down the mile and a half long driveway that
emptied out onto a wooded side road that led into town. As they
made the trek in silence, Shade stared into the lifeless forest
that stretched the entire length of the driveway. Once upon a time,
it was alive with deer, rabbits, and chipmunks eating and
skittering about just on the other side of the tree line. The too
wit too woo of owls, the scurrying of squirrels, and the chirp of a
million different insects was once the pulse that the trees swayed
to.

Now it was utterly silent. Flatlined.

Gnarled and naked branches poked out from the
black and grey forest. Every now and again, when lightning
illuminated the world, Shade was able to see the extent of the vast
dead earth before her. It was like something out of a nightmare.
Something too terrifying to be true. But it was true. That fact was
accentuated with the crack and rustle of dead grass and leaves
every time she took a step.

“I don’t know where you two came from, but
when we get off the property, I suggest you travel east and stay
off the roads,” Jen offered. “West will take you into town, and
trust me when I say that’s the last place you want to end up.”

“Why,” Rikka asked. “What’s going on in
town?”

Jen took a deep breath before she pressed on.
“It’s chaos. Every supermarket is barren. People are starving and
turning to the only food source left—each other. There’s a pack of
wolves roaming around,” she shook her head, “and… there’s something
else out there.” She started to say more but swallowed her words
instead.

When it was clear she was going to let the
obvious question linger in the air unanswered, Rikka stopped
walking and turned to face her. Visibly startled by the sudden
maneuver, Jen and Daniel raised their weapons at both sisters. When
Shade turned around, she found herself staring down the barrel of a
gun for the second time in as many hours.

“We’re not going to try anything,” Rikka
said, her fingers still interlocked on top of her head. “But we
need to know what’s going on.”

Their captors glanced at each other before
cautiously lowering their weapons. “Fine. It’s only right,” Daniel
said. He slipped his gun into the waistband of his pants, and then
silently gestured for Jen to do the same. She was a bit more
hesitant—less trusting—but she followed her son’s lead
nonetheless.

As a show of good faith, Rikka carefully
removed her book bag and tossed it over to Daniel. Taking her cue,
Shade did the same.

“About two weeks before we found this place,”
Daniel began, “we were camping out in the woods, living off peanuts
and Slim Jims. It was rough, but we made do. We slept in rotation.
There were always at least three people awake, keeping an eye out.
But every so often, someone in our camp would just…” he shrugged,
“disappear.

“At first we thought they just snuck off,
thinking they’d fare better alone. But then another person
vanished. They didn’t take their belongings, there were no
footprints. No one even heard them leave. We lost three people
before we realized the pattern. Someone or something was taking a
member of our group every three days. It didn’t matter if we were
sleeping or keeping watch. Age, race, gender—” He shook his head.
“We were taken at random.

“We packed up camp and traveled deeper into
the woods. We had a guy—a professional tracker—circle back to make
sure we weren’t being followed. But like clockwork, the third day
came around and someone disappeared.

“With four people gone and the rest of us in
a panic, we moved camp again, set traps, and—when the third night
came—we sat in a circle and watched each other’s back.” Daniel
glanced at his mom who was staring at the forest floor in a
daze.

“Did you find out who was taking your
people?” Shade asked.

Daniel waited a long moment before shaking
his head. “My sister, Hannah…” He looked up at Shade and Rikka. “I
know this is going to sound crazy, but I swear to you, one second
she was there with over a dozen pair of eyes watching her, and the
next, she was gone.”

Rikka’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean
gone? Like she disappeared into thin air?”

“We were holding hands,” Jen said, her voice
barely a whisper. “And then we weren’t. I wouldn’t have believed it
if I hadn’t seen it. Felt it…”

“We started out with twenty-two people in our
group. Now we’re down to six. Every three days, someone disappears.
It doesn’t matter what we do. It doesn’t matter what we don’t do.
In eighteen days, the rest of us are going to be gone, and there’s
nothing anyone can do about it.”

Chapter 6: “To the deepest part of me, I
truly hate you.”

Jen and Daniel didn’t return the book bags
until they reached the end of the driveway. Still maintaining a
five foot buffer between the sisters, they tossed the bags to Shade
and Rikka and sent them on their way.

“If your mom, dad, and sister show up, I’ll
let them know you went east,” Jen offered. “Stay off main roads and
join up with a group if you can. Despite our situation, there is
safety in numbers.”

Daniel nodded in agreement. “Good luck.”

At those words, a sharp crack of thunder
filled the air, followed by a heavy downpour. Shade, Rikka, Jen,
and Daniel were soaked in an instant.

“Same to you,” Rikka yelled over the rain as
she slung the book bag’s strap over her shoulder and turned down
the road adjacent to the driveway.

Shade nodded her goodbyes as she wiped soggy
curls out of her eyes. In attempts to keep the grunt of the rain
from pelting her hair (which never cooperated when it was wet), she
lifted the book bag over her head to make a makeshift umbrella. It
didn’t work quite as well as she hoped. Her hair fell back into her
face, leaving her blind until she brushed it to the side again.

The rain seemed to grow heavier with each
step they took. Between the torrent and the thick darkness, it was
nearly impossible to see, even with the flashlight Rikka found in
her pack. It was also impossible to tell if Daniel and Jen were
following them to make sure they weren’t going to double back. So
they kept trudging forward, waiting for a sufficient amount of time
to pass before they could return for Lou.

Frustrated with the back and forth game she
played with her wet locks (that long ago earned the name The
Windshield Wiper Game) it took the better part of a half hour for
her to realize Rikka hadn’t so much as glanced in her general
direction.

To break the silence, Shade growled. “I’d
kill for a hair tie right now.”

Rikka looked at her and scowled. “If you had
any idea of what I wanted to do to you right now, a hair tie would
be the least of your worries.”

Shade huffed as she came to a halt. “Fine
then, Rikka,” she said. “Let’s hear it.”

Rikka responded with a venomous glare. “Fuck
off.”

“Fine, I’ll do it for you. ‘What the fuck
were you thinking, Shade? Are you trying to be stupid, or does it
come natural? We had a good thing going until you went and fucked
it up.’” Shade had heard those words from her sister all her life.
If it wasn’t Rikka’s idea, or if she didn’t do it Rikka’s way, it
was wrong, she was stupid, or she fucked up a good thing. It never
failed.

“We did have a good thing, Shade. Food.
Water. Protection. What more could you fucking want? We were safe,
and like all good things, you fucked that up. Bravo.” She clapped
mockingly.

“I wanted fresh air, Rikka. I wanted freedom.
I wanted to do something other than nothing. Your problem is you’ve
got your head shoved so far up your ass that you can’t see that
survival isn’t the endgame. Whether we die now or fifty years from
now, dead is still dead.”

“And being alive is still being alive. What
do you want me to do, Shade? Put on my cape and save the world?
Sorry, but this isn’t a Disney movie. Open your fucking eyes.”

Shade threw her hands up and turned away from
her sister. It was just like always—a fundamental difference
between them. And from now until she was dead and buried, that was
how it would always be. But she couldn’t live like that—holed up in
a bunker, counting down the days until they ran out of food.
Counting down the days until they turned on each other so that one
of them could live another day, another hour, another minute
longer.