The Damned (19 page)

Scott, holding the shotgun before him, knew that Davey had fired it last night. He knew it needed to be cocked, and he was ready to do it, willing and able to take out as many as he could. He stopped at the property line where hedge met road, so close he could reach out and touch the cold metal barrel against the creep’s neck. On the porch,
Warren
was being held spread-eagled against the doorframe, surrounded by a bunch of laughing and cursing bikers. The leader, Dub, held a hammer in his hand; his other hand clutched a nail. Like a carpenter toiling lazily away on his jobsite, Dub poked the nail into Warren’s child-like palm, eliciting a series of high-pitched groveling from the midget, who struggled vainly against the men holding him in place—back to the closed front door, he stared down at Scott, who stared back, strangely fascinated as he stood watching and waiting to see what would happen to the despicable little prick who surely would have left him dead on the side of the road had Lila not happened along.

Warren
nodded toward the street. He opened his mouth to speak and the hammer came down, drawing from him a blood-curdling scream that rose higher and higher as the hammer pounded him again and again, until both hands were nailed and Warren the Rat Boy hung suspended from the doorframe, wide rivulets of blood streaming down his short forearms as his legs kicked and his heels bounced off the front door, and Scott—Scott, who had noticed a key in the ignition of the chromed-out Harley the behemoth stood beside, jacked the handle, touched the barrel to the guy’s neck and pulled the trigger; bloody chunks of raw-red meat splattering and spraying as the shotgun boomed and guy’s head flopped sideways against the outer portion of his right shoulder, held in place by taffy-thin strings of bloody tendon while he collapsed to the ground like a human Pez dispenser, blood pumping from the ragged stump of his neck as the bike roared to life and Dub and his crew ran screaming and yelling from the porch, far too late to catch Scott, though, who laid down a smoking patch of rubber as he shot off like a rocket away from the bloody mess he’d made.

Down the street and through the neighborhood he went, the backpack hanging from his shoulder as he straddled the shotgun which lay beneath him, the stock under his rump, the barrel snug against the gas tank… a right and a left and then another, running stop signs as if they weren’t even there. And why not? It wasn’t like any traffic was out, other than the pissed-off bikers who were sure to chase after him. But Scott didn’t care—this was
his
town, twelve years and running, and once he got to the familiar downtown streets, he knew they would never catch him. Then it was on to the freeway, leaving Dub and his boys chasing their tails and wondering how some skinny little prick had gotten the drop on them.
Maybe they’ll go back and take it out on
Warren
.
Scott smiled at the thought. Then he thought of Lila lying dead on the sofa, and wished he had burned the place to the ground and left before they’d arrived. No telling what they would do to her, what kind of perversions or desecrations they would inflict upon her corpse—Scott wouldn’t put anything past them.

On the Interstate now, he left all that behind him, and turned his thoughts to Sandi.

A cold beer and a hot shower, and one of Sandi’s home cooked meals.

Sandi.

Scott had to know what had become of her. He
had
to know. He could no more leave this town without seeking her out than he could stop himself from breathing.

He roared down the highway, still straddling the shotgun.

Heading for home.

Heading for Sandi.

Scott found himself traveling down the same stretch of highway that had kicked this whole sordid affair into gear. As he passed the exit ramp he’d taken on that sweltering hot day, he thought about the guy who had shot him, and what might have become of him. He wondered if the police had tracked him down and tossed him in jail. Or maybe he hadn’t run at all. Maybe he felt justified in the action he’d taken. After all, Scott had beaten him senseless. Mostly he thought of everything he’d been through: waking up next to that bloated corpse back in town, the carnage of the pit, Lila and Davey and the thump thump thump that had precluded Rat-boy
Warren
’s headlong drive through the open window.

Warren
…

Scott fully intended on swinging back by that house, just to see if he was still hanging in the doorway—he hoped like hell he was. He wanted him to be alive so he could see the pained expression on his face as he squirmed like a moth whose wings had been pinned to a specimen board. He sure looked surprised when he saw Scott slipping up behind that biker, couldn’t wait to give his position away, couldn’t get the words out fast enough. Fortunately for Scott, he didn’t get those words out at all—that split second may have been the only thing between Scott riding down the expressway with the wind in his face and being pinned to the wall next to the pint-sized prick.

He thought of Lila and Davey, the old black guy back in the ally and what his story might have been. Nothing good, judging by what Scott had so far seen and heard.

Then there was The Devil’s Own. Who in the hell were they? Scott had never heard of them before, but then again, why would he? They didn’t exactly travel in the same circles. Scott went to work and came home, occasionally stopping off for beers and burgers with a friend or two in some upscale bar and grill. Who knew what kind of hell hole those thugs hung out at? Certainly nowhere Scott had ever been, nor anywhere he would ever want to go. Now he wondered if there was anywhere in the city he could venture
without
running into them.

He turned onto an exit ramp and left the freeway behind him. Soon he would be home. Would Sandi be waiting for him there? Could it be possible that she had been hiding out in the house for seven long weeks, an emaciated survivor living on water and canned food, and now he would just waltz right in like some kind of celluloid-hero and make everything all right? If only this were a dream, or some kind of movie script. He could wake up, roll over and kiss his wife and get up and go to work, jump out of bed and go happily to the job he had so recently detested. But this wasn’t a dream, and no matter how hard he wished the nightmare away, he was stuck in it with no way out and nothing to do but go forward and hope for the best.

Down the road he went, past the drug store and the McDonalds, the grocery store and the video rental place he and Sandi had spent many a Saturday afternoon browsing through on their way to yet another fun-filled night at the Freeman household. He entered the subdivision with a smile on his face—he couldn’t help it. After everything he had been through in this upside-down world of murder and madness, he was home, and whatever waited for him had to be better than what he had experienced yesterday.

A curtain in the window of a house fluttered shut when he turned into his cul-de-sac, a brief illusion-like flicker of movement that caught the corner of his eye. He saw it, he was sure of it, someone drawn to the window by the roar of the motorcycle the same way he had gone to the window last night. He wondered how many people had heard him and ducked out of sight on his way past the drug store and the fast food joint. There had to be people out here in the world, people who did not want to be caught up in the violence and were hiding out in their homes, waiting for order to be restored. Or for the dreaded fist on the door that would herald the end of their miserable existence.

Maybe Sandi was one of them.

He sure hoped so.

Scott pulled up to his house, cut the engine and balanced the bike on its kickstand. Then he dismounted and carried the shotgun up the walkway to the front door. He paused for a moment. He didn’t know what lay beyond that threshold. If the past eighteen or so hours had taught him anything, it was to err on the side of caution. He would not go running into the house, he couldn’t chance it. So he stood in front of the door, listening for some telltale noise: laughter or voices, footsteps. But heard nothing other than his own breathing. Then again, he wouldn’t hear anything, would he? Anyone inside would have been alerted by the rumbling of the Harley, and now would be hiding somewhere being as quiet as possible. He looked over his shoulder, up and down the street, and then back at the door. Finally, when he could take no more, he reached down and grabbed the doorknob. It didn’t surprise him when it twisted free and easy in his hand, but it did disappoint him, because he didn’t think his wife would leave the door unlocked if she was hiding somewhere within the house.

He stepped inside, dropped the backpack to the floor and closed the door behind him. No one was in the living room and no one was in the dining room. No one was in the kitchen, either, or the hall bathroom. He checked the spare bedroom and found it to be empty, too. An icy ball of dread formed in his gut as he made his way to the master bedroom. Common sense told him she wasn’t there, that she had left long ago, or maybe she’d disappeared like all those people
Warren
had talked about, vanished off the face of the earth in the blink of an eye. But the knot in his stomach told him she just as easily could be in that room, like Lila, murdered and left to bleed out, a victim of a couple of scumbags like Rat-boy Warren and his puny sidekick. He opened the door, relieved to find the bed undisturbed, the covers unsoiled and the room empty. She wasn’t here, and that meant there was a chance she could be alive somewhere else.

He was home, safe and sound and alone in his house—
his
house—miles from Rat-boy Warren and those psychotic bikers. He laid the shotgun on the bed and walked into the adjoining bathroom, stood in front of the mirror and tried the handle on the sink. “My God,” he said when the water splashed down. He cupped a handful and slapped it onto his face. It was cold, and it felt wonderful, and he cupped another handful and drank it down. He slid back the plastic ivory curtain and turned the shower on full blast. Scott was downright giddy when he came back into the bedroom and opened up his closet. He pulled out a pair of jeans and a dark blue shirt and tossed them onto the bed, slipped out of the shoulder harness and dropped it and Lila’s gun to the floor. Then he stripped off his clothes and went back into the bathroom, took a deep breath and stepped into the shower. The water that soaked him was frigid, but he didn’t care. He closed his eyes and was transported back to a day in his not too distant past. The electricity had gone off in the middle of the night and he had to shower and get his ass to work. He dressed and kissed his wife and hurried out the door, grabbed a biscuit and an orange juice at Mickey D’s and made his way to the office. It was an inconvenience, nothing more, and he would treat it as such now. Only now, it was not an inconvenience. Water—hot or cold—was a luxury, a majestic and magnificent blanket of pure unadulterated pleasure that carried him away from this dreary and bleak environment, back to a world he had shared with Sandi before a stupid decision on a sweltering hot August afternoon had taken it all away from him.

He opened his eyes and grabbed a bottle of shampoo off a rack at the rear of the shower stall. Sandi’s stuff was on the rack, too: her razor and shampoo, conditioner and moisturizers and the round plastic scrubber she had always told Scott he should use but he never bothered trying.
Sandi, where in God’s name are you?
he wondered as he worked the shampoo into his scalp, lathered it up and began spreading it over the rest of his body. He could feel the scum washing off him—it felt great. He couldn’t wait to get into some clean clothes, some fresh socks and his own comfortable running shoes. The water washed over him as he stood under the shower nozzle. It wasn’t cold now—like a kid in a pool on a hot summer’s day, he had gotten used to it. It felt great and he didn’t want to get out. He smiled and closed his eyes.

The
snick-snack
of a shotgun jerked his head around.

The vague shape he saw through the downpour turned his knees to jelly.

“I’ll be damned.”

It was his neighbor, Dennis, who said these words. He was standing in the doorway, pointing a shotgun directly at him. Scott turned the water off and Dennis lowered the weapon. He grabbed a towel, tossed it to Scott, and said, “Christ, I thought you were dead.”

“Jesus, Dennis, you scared the shit out of me.”

“
You?
Hell, I heard that motorcycle and thought those pricks were back.”

“What pricks?”

“C’mon. Dry off and throw some clothes on, get dressed and we’ll talk.”

“Dennis… where’s Sandi?”

“Dry off, man.”

Dennis left the room and Scott dried himself. Then he wrapped the towel around his waist and went into the bedroom. He expected Dennis to be there, but he wasn’t, so he undraped himself and climbed into his jeans—the jeans hung loose on his narrow frame, but they were his, and it felt good to wear something that actually belonged to him. He slipped on his shirt and a fresh pair of socks, put on his old reliable Reebok running shoes and went back to the bathroom. He stood in front of the mirror, running a brush through his hair. Then he got out his razor and shaved, brushed his teeth with his own toothbrush and turned off the water, stroked on some deodorant and left the bathroom. The shotgun was on the bed, the pistol on the floor. Scott grabbed the holstered weapon and carried it with him to the living room. Dennis was sitting on the couch with his
shotgun leaning against his knee. He smiled when Scott entered the room, shook his head and said, “Man, I didn’t think I’d ever see
you
again.”

Scott took a seat across from Dennis, coiled the harness around the pistol and laid it in his lap. He stared at his neighbor for a long moment. He looked different, smaller. He’d dropped some weight, slimmed down considerably from his former robust self. But it wasn’t
all
good. He had a boozer’s bloodshot eyes and red nose, a nervous twitch of the hands. His blonde hair hung over the collar of his shirt, and he had a beard now. He was smiling, but there was something in those eyes of his, the same hollow look he’d seen in Lila and Davey;
Warren
, too. The same look he knew was floating around his own eyes, one of someone who had lost a part of themselves and had no idea of how to get it back. He wondered if Dennis’ wife and kids were waiting for him back at his house, (somehow Scott didn’t think they were) what he had seen these last seven weeks and if it could possibly be as bad as what Scott had witnessed since waking up in that godforsaken place yesterday afternoon. Mostly, though, he wondered about…

“Sandi, Dennis… where is she?”

“She’s gone, Scott. One day she was out in the yard and these four ugly fuckers rode up on Harleys, just like the one you rode in on. Snatched her up and hauled her outa here. About four weeks ago.”

“You saw them?”

Dennis gave his shoulders a shrug. “Heard the bikes and looked out the window. She never had a chance. They came roaring up the street, next thing you know they’ve got her and, well, she’s gone.”

“Describe them.”

“Why? You gonna track ‘em down?
You?
”

“Just tell me what they looked like.”

“Some kinda gang. You know, like one of those old seventies Hells Angels flicks. Some guy with jet-black hair slicked back over his shoulders looked like he was in charge—had one of those sleeveless black leather jackets on, tattoos up and down his arms, some kind of skull and crossbones on the back of his jacket. The others had denim jackets with the same shit on
their
backs. Huge motherfuckers, they were. But the other dude, he was in charge. He was running the show.”

“Yeah, I think I’ve seen him before.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, pretty sure I have.”

“Listen, Scott…”

“You saw them take her.”

Dennis looked down at the floor. “Yeah,” he said.

“You watched them take her, stood in your window and just—”

“Just what? Yeah, I watched it happen. The fuck you think I should’a done, took on four Hells Angels and got myself killed in the process? I’m a computer programmer, not a
cop
. And where the fuck were you, anyway?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you, ya brain dead fucker. You don’t think I know what happened with you? Ain’t my fault you were in some goddamn old folks home instead of here protecting your wife, laid up in a coma ‘cause you went road rage crazy on some poor bastard and he put a bullet in your head. You got yourself shot and you’re pissed at
me?
”

“You’re right. I never should have put myself in that situation.” Scott sighed and shook his head. “It just happened so… fast.”

“Yeah, fast, like those guys riding up on their bikes. Hell, they had her, by the time I looked out the window they were all over her. There wasn’t anything I could—”

“I know, man. I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“I know. I’m sorry, too. Believe me, there’s not a day goes by I don’t see the look on her face as they hauled her away. And I just stood there and watched her go.”

Scott
was
sorry, sorry for losing his cool on the Interstate, sorry for attacking that guy—the
wrong
guy. If he could’ve taken it back he would have. He would have slowed down, cranked up the music and flowed along with the traffic. He could have taken his problems home to his wife instead of taking them out on some poor bastard who hadn’t done a thing to him. He would have been home with Sandi when whatever happened, happened, instead of lying in a hospital bed, dead to whatever was going on around him.

“Dennis, what happened after I got shot?”

“What do you remember?”

“The weirdo on the radio, the black clouds racing across the sky, lightning and the gun in the guy’s hand; darkness and freaky dreams I couldn’t wake up from. Until I finally did wake up—yesterday, in a dark room with a bloated corpse in the bed next to me.”

Dennis’ eyes grew wide. “You woke up in bed with a corpse?”

“No, dipshit. It was in the bed next to mine.”

“Damn, man. That’s fucked-up. But that’s the way things are now, the way they’ve been for a long time… I was at the office when that crazy-looking fucker appeared on my monitor, ranting and raving about the clouds and the lightning and the end of the world. But you already know about him, don’t you?”

Scott nodded his answer, and Dennis continued, “I thought because he was on all the monitors it was some kind of whacked-out hacker attacking the network. But it wasn’t a hacker, and what he said came true. The lightning came and so did the fire. I stood at my window and watched the whole thing, lightning, striking people like God was up there hurling darts at them, fire raining down from the sky, just like that fucker said it would. Driverless cars rolling to a stop in the middle of the street. Mayhem, madness, people turning on each other like rabid dogs.

“It was horrible, but it didn’t last long—thirty, forty-five minutes. Just long enough to fuck up the whole world. I called the house but
Charlotte
wasn’t there. I figured she’d gone to the school to get the girls, but I didn’t know for sure so I went there myself. Know what I found?”

Scott said nothing. He sat there, waiting for the punch line, which, he was pretty sure, he already knew.

“A shit-load of frantic teachers and angry parents running around trying to figure out what happened to half the goddamn children around there. Janie and Jennie weren’t there,
Charlotte
wasn’t, either. Sandi’s gone, Scott. So are my wife and daughters. I don’t know what we did to get left behind—well, I know what you did. You beat some poor bastard senseless for no reason at all. But what did I do? What did I do that was so bad my girls had to be taken from me?”

Scott said nothing, because he didn’t know what to say. He had been asking himself that very question since coming to over at Park West. He didn’t have the answer, and doubted if anyone else did, either. Like his neighbor, stuck here without his loved ones, wondering what had happened to them and if he would ever see them again, Scott wondered if he would ever see Sandi again. But unlike Dennis who had no idea where his family had gone, or even if they still walked this earth, Scott knew his wife hadn’t disappeared, and that meant there was a chance—however slim it may have been—that he could find her and get her back. And that was what he intended to do. He would find Sandi and bring her back home, or die trying.

“I’ve met a few people since I came out of my coma, one of them a circus freak who told me about some of what’s been going on since I got shot, said he was in the middle of a performance and half the audience just up and disappeared, vanished right in front of him. I thought he was okay until he tried to kill me. He said the day it happened the lights winked out and all the good people went away, all the animals, too.”

“Well, not exactly. I mean, the power finally did go out, but that was three weeks into it. And there’s plenty of good people left, they’re just laying low, riding it out until the Cavalry shows up. And they will, eventually. It’s not the end of the world… yet. Animals? How would he know? Hell, we’re in the city. Ain’t like you’re gonna see a herd of cattle around here.”

“A woman I met said she was on a bus and half the passengers disappeared, said it was some kind of biblical event. She thought she was left behind because she was evil, but she wasn’t. She was a good person. Sure, she probably made some mistakes in her life, hell, who hasn’t? But she wasn’t evil, neither am I, or you, for that matter. We’re just regular people. We don’t deserve this shit.”

“We don’t, huh? I said I didn’t know why my family was taken from me, but deep down inside I do know. When all this first started, the dark clouds and the lightning zapping people like it was targeting them, I thought we were being attacked by aliens. I really did. I thought the mother ship was blotting out the sun or something, and first contact was gonna be our last. But when I took off down the hallway and Edie Ryker told me old man Collins had disappeared right in front of her, I figured, well, there goes
that
bullshit theory. When I found out what happened at the school, I knew for sure it was bullshit. And now we’re in deep trouble, my friend... you, me, and everybody else left walking the planet.”

Scott sighed. “Jesus,” he said.

“Jesus, exactly! Let me ask you something, Scott. You ever go to church? You know your Bible? Do you have a personal relationship with the man whose name just crossed your lips? Are you a believer, Scott?”

“Well, let’s see now: One—off and on when I was a kid. Two: No, not really. Ditto with the personal relationship thing, and, last but not least? I never really thought enough about it to even consider the idea.”

“Which is why you and I are here and my little girls aren’t.”

“Come on, Dennis.”

“Unfortunately for us, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Unless you can explain damn near half the earth’s population vanishing in the blink of an eye. Look, my father was a preacher, a good old fire and brimstone tossing prick who made sure my ass was in the pew every Sunday morning and each and every Wednesday night. I know
my
scripture, and now I know I made a huge mistake rebelling against him and his beliefs. That’s all we had to do, Scott, believe, commit ourselves to Him and live our lives according to His teachings. You know, love one another and all that shit, tolerance and forgiveness? Some pretty good ideals there. We’ve been told all our lives there would be a day of reckoning, but we didn’t listen. We went our own way, and now here we are.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Yeah, I believe it. I can
feel
it. My girls are gone to Christ and I’m sitting here with a shotgun and an empty house and a cellar full of survival gear. The only thing left now is to try and prepare ourselves for what comes next, and you do know what’s coming, don’t you, Scott? Something darker than those clouds and bleaker than anything you’ve ever been through, anything you’ve ever imagined. And no matter which way you go, which way you turn, you’ll not escape it. Seven years of trials and tribulations and all out hell. The believers have been swept up to Heaven and the world has turned to shit, and we’re right in the middle of it.

“The signs they talk about in scripture were all around us, and now that it’s happened we’re surprised. War, famine, death and destruction. People living as if God didn’t exist, ridiculing his very existence—I can’t tell you how many times I saw people on the Internet comparing Christ to Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, as if He were some kind of legend made up by a bunch of shepherds to scare the rest of the world straight. I didn’t believe in Him, but I do, now. I believe it all, now. What good it’ll do me, I don’t know, but it’s the only hope I have of ever seeing my girls again.”

Scott sat forward. He was tired, stressed out by his neighbor’s dire predictions. He didn’t want to believe what Dennis said was true. But he was right about one thing: the world had gone to hell, and here they were stuck right in the middle of it.

“That’s a lot to bite off, Dennis. I mean, I don’t know what happened. A biblical Rapture? Well, I didn’t see it for myself, so it’s kind of hard to…”

“I’m tired, Scott. Dead tired. I’m gonna go home and stretch out for a while. But before I do, I’m going to tell you what to look out for, so when you see it you’ll know I was right. The world has collapsed, the economy’s down the drain, no police, no electricity, no one to bail us out when the wolves come pounding on the door. That won’t last long. Pretty soon some guy’s going to show up with all the answers. Miracles will ensue and the world will come together with peace and prosperity, sunshine and rainbows and yummy-yummy lollipops.”