The Damned (5 page)

Up the alley they ran, Warren and Scott in front and Lila following, Warren’s short legs furiously pumping, as Lila said, “What happened?” and Warren panted out, “Fuck if I know. Something moved and he started blastin’. No way I was waiting around to... what? Get my ass shot off?”

They were away from the buildings and heading west, following
Warren
as he jumped a ditch and hauled ass across a field of scorched grass. Scott, his breath coming in short staccato blasts, began to fall further and further behind. Finally, he stopped, watching Lila chase the midget through the field and over to a chain-link fence.
Warren
leapt upon the fence and started to climb, but Lila grabbed his shoulder and ripped his clutching fingers away from the wire-work of the latticed fence. His feet hit the ground as he staggered backward and fell sprawling to the ground.

“What!” he shouted. “What, goddamnit!”

“Just wait a minute.”

“What’dya mean, wait a minute? For what?”

“We go over the fence together,” she said as Scott began walking toward them. “All three of us.”

Lila stood over at
Warren
,
both of them watching Scott make his way through the scorched grass. She brushed her long black hair over her shoulder, slipped the pistol into its holster, looked down at
Warren
, and said, “How much farther?”

“Couple of streets over and we’re there.”

“Just so you know: you lead us into a trap, anything happens that shouldn’t—anything at all—I’ll put a bullet in the back of your head.”

Warren
, still sitting on the ground, glanced up at Lila. “Look,” he said. “All I wanta do is get some grub and lay low for a while. In case you haven’t noticed, we came about a cunt hair away from twirling on a goddamn spit this afternoon. If it hadn’t been for Hero over there…”

“The
fuck were
you doing to him, anyway?”

“What do you think?”
Warren
said as he got to his knees. Brushing dirt off his rump, he stood up just as Scott reached them.

“Thanks for waiting,” Scott said, and Lila said, “No problem. Two’s better than one and a half.”

Scott chuckled, and
Warren
gave his head a disgusted shake. He looked up at Lila, baring his teeth, an obvious smirk of a parodied smile. The sight of those razor-sharp choppers sent a chill down Scott’s spine, as once again he pictured them clamping down and sucking on his wound, which is what Scott figured was about to happen when Lila showed up. What else
could’ve
happened, the way the rat-faced bastard ripped his bandage away and sank those fingers into his scalp?

“You okay?” Lila said, and Scott said, “Yeah.”

“What happened back there?”

“I don’t know. I heard a noise and freaked out. Next thing I know the gun’s going off and some poor bastard’s screaming bloody murder. He was probably as scared as I was, hiding out and hoping we wouldn’t see him, and I damn near killed him anyway.”

“Well,” Lila said, peering out across the field toward the warehouses they’d left behind, “doesn’t look like anybody followed us. Let’s get going before something else happens.”

“About time,”
Warren
said. He grabbed the chain-link fence and Lila grabbed him by the wrist.
“Me first, then you.
Then Scott.”

Warren
shrugged and took a backward step. “Whatever,” he said as Lila flung her knapsack to the other side. She hooked her fingers through the fence. Moments later she was up and over and scooping up her sack, hanging it around her shoulder while
Warren
scaled the barrier.

Then it was Scott’s turn. He stood before them, clutching his shotgun and looking at them through the fence.

“Toss it over,” Lila said.

Scott heaved the shotgun over the fence, into Lila’s waiting arms. A moment later, he carefully swung first one, and then the other leg over the sharp, upward pointing tines of the fence.

Once on the ground, Lila returned his weapon, and the three of them resumed their journey to Warren the Rat Boy’s stash house, and true to his word, a couple of back yards and a couple of streets over, Scott found himself following Warren and Lila into the yard of a yellow and beige trimmed building. A picnic table sat dead center behind the place, four or five yards from two windows set into the back wall of the house. Further into the yard was a swing set with a ladder and a slippery-slide attached to it. Curtains fluttered in the breeze blowing through the open windows, into the dark interior of the house. Scott wondered about the children. Where were the happy children who had once frolicked on those swings? What had become of the parents? But most importantly: what had become of the children? According to
Warren
, the Rapture had come and gone and all the good things had left with it. All the decent and law abiding people… gone.
The cats and dogs and birds and bees… all gone.
And the children.
Where had they gone? Heaven, if you believed
Warren
, but why would anybody believe that freaky-looking son of a bitch?

“This way,” said Warren, and Scott followed him and Lila around the side of the house, up a walkway of flat, round stones placed several inches apart. An arched doorway stood midway along the side of the house. A light layer of whatever had been swirling in the air covered the decorative aluminum awning hanging above the raised concrete platform that stood directly in front of the doorway.

Whatever had been swirling.

Scott suddenly realized that nothing
was
swirling through the air, that somewhere along the way it had simply stopped, like a dissipating snowstorm that had finally ground to a halt, so casual of a circumstance that no one had noted its stoppage.

Warren
gave the door a push and it creaked open. “This is it,” he said, and then led Lila into the dark, Scott hesitating as Lila called out, “Scott, c’mon! What’re you doing out there?”

Scott didn’t want to go inside, but Lila was right: what
was
he doing out here? What? Was he going to run off and end up back where he’d started, all alone in a fucked-up nightmare of a world with God only knew what waiting just around the corner? And then what, satisfy the gnawing feeling in his gut with a mouthful of dirt and ash? Fight off a bunch of crazies and bizarre freaks of nature until he ran out of ammo and they tore him apart? Or maybe they’d keep him alive long enough to lash him to a spit and spin him round and around over a raging fire like a human sausage, until his skin split open and his life’s blood ran sizzling into the flames.

Scott stepped inside to find himself in front of a bookcase loaded top to bottom with paperbacks and hard covers alike, the light filtering through windows at the opposite end of the room much too dim to allow him to make out the titles, or the author names decorating the spines. Beyond the bookcase was a kitchen, which led into another, larger room, which Scott presumed to be the dining room. Billowing curtains danced beyond the end of a rectangular table that stood in front of an open window in that room. One high-backed wooden chair sat askew at the end of the table, two more faced each other at the table’s middle. The mouth of a hallway stood dark and foreboding at the far edge of the kitchen. Next to Scott was the back side of a bar. Below that, a couch, and a coffee table on which sat a telephone, and a lamp with an off-kilter shade. On the opposite side of the room was a La-Z-Boy recliner with a lamp and table of its own. In front of the two open windows at the opposite end was a big screen television with free standing speakers on either side of it. A dead neon Coors beer sign decorated one wall while the opposite wall hosted pennants and flags of various sports franchises. Centered in the middle of a Miami Dolphins and an Atlanta Braves pennant was a basketball poster: LeBron James throwing down a two-handed jam over a cowering seven-footer Scott recognized, but whose name he could not recall.

“Where’s your stuff?” Lila said.

“This way,”
Warren
told her, nodding toward the dining room. He led Lila into the kitchen, Scott right behind her as
Warren
passed by the hallway and a hollow thumping sound drifted up from it. Scott froze as Lila slipped her gun free of its holster. She edged her way into the hallway, Scott following as
Warren
bolted for the dining room and Lila whirled around. “Stop him!” she shouted, and Scott turned and ran, rounding the corner just in time to see Warren dive headlong through the billowing curtains as another round of violent thumping erupted from deep inside the narrow mouth of the dark hallway.

Scott hurried to the window and Lila ran past the table to the front of the house, across the room to a row of open windows. The thumping continued as she drew back the curtains. “Fuck! You see him?”

“Huh uh.”

“I knew he’d pull some kind of shit, sooner or later.”

Scott stuck his head out the open window, pulled it back in and said, “He’s gone.”

Lila, who had jumped off the couch, moved back into the dining room.

“What
is
that shit?” Scott said.

“I don’t know, but we’ve gotta check it out.”

Scott felt kind of bad about letting Lila take the lead, but he did it just the same. He wasn’t Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson. He wasn’t a hero. Just a freaked out guy with a shotgun that didn’t even belong to him. His hands were shaking, his pulse racing wildly as they went quietly down the hallway, guns drawn, locked and loaded and ready to cut loose at the drop of a hat. The noise grew louder as they passed an open doorway, and Lila followed her pointed gun into the room. A moment later she reappeared, nodding toward the end of the house. But now there was more than thumping; a muffled keening accompanied the noise, which seemed to be coming from one of the closed doors at the end of the line.

When they could go no further, Lila nodded at the door on the right side of the passageway, and Scott leveled his weapon at the door. She waited a moment before pushing into the other room, the one the noise was not coming from, the room Warren the Rat Boy had obviously turned into his own private storage facility. Cans of food of various sizes littered the floor: Spam and beef stew and an assortment of various fruits and vegetables—pork and beans and chili. Cases of the stuff were stacked against the far wall, along with jugs of water, cans, bottles of beer and wine and liquor. Most importantly of all, though: no people. No one standing in the open doorway of the closet, waiting to blow them apart. Lila got down on a knee, aiming her pistol as she peered under the bed, the thumping next door not as pronounced now, the keening not as loud.

She got up and returned to Scott, who stood rigid in the hallway, still pointing his weapon at the bedroom door. His eyes wide, his face a taut mask of barely repressed anxiety.

Lila pushed the door open and gasped.

A naked child lay face down on a piss-stained mattress, tethered by all fours to the bedposts by thick strands of plastic twine, the high-pitched keening barely audible through a red-and-white polka dot kerchief that had been tied in a knot at the back of his head. He was kicking his feet and wrenching his fists back and forth, the headboard bouncing weakly off the wall with every thrusting movement he made. A series of angry red welts crisscrossed his back, his buttocks and legs, and that made
Scott
angry.

“Good God,” Scott said, and the child stopped thrashing. He looked over his shoulder at Lila and Scott, and let his face fall to the mattress.

“Guess we know why he ran, now, huh?” Lila said, and to the boy, “You alone in here?”

His head bobbed up and down, and Lila said, “Hold on a minute.” She holstered her weapon and sat down beside him, drew the hunting knife from her backpack, unsheathed it and went to work on his bindings. First his feet and then his hands. Then she untied the gag, tugging at the knot until it gave way, and the fabric dropped against the child’s neck.

Scott felt an incredible feeling of vulnerability hovering about him, as if he were standing in the middle of a glass fishbowl and any second now a giant hand might snatch him away, or he would feel the weight of a booted foot crush him beneath it. He looked up the hallway, and then back at the storage room. When he turned his attention to Lila, the kid was standing beside the bed, fastening the button on a pair of tan shorts he’d stepped into. His hair was the color of straw. His eyes, sunk deep into his skull like two pebbles in a snowfield, were blue. He looked to be no older than thirteen. Or maybe he seemed so young because he was so frail-looking. Who could know when he had last eaten, or what or how much had been drained from him at the hands of that deranged midget. He sat beside Lila and began loosening the cords of twine still biting into his ankles, plucking them away one by one and dropping them to the floor. After doing the same with each of his wrists, he bent over and rubbed a hand across the deep indentation above his right ankle.

Scott said, “What happened here?”

“I was out hunting for food and I ran into the midget. He said he had plenty… he seemed nice enough. Next thing I know I’m tied to the bed and he’s beating me like there’s no tomorrow.”

“So you don’t live here?”

“Nobody lives anywhere anymore, not people like me, anyway. You roam around and try to keep from getting got, and hope you can make it another day.”

“Where’re your parents?” Lila asked him.

“Gone.”

“Gone where?” Scott said.

“Just gone. I came home one day and nobody was there. Nobody ever showed up.” The kid started to rub his other ankle, and Lila asked his name.

“Davey.”

“How old are you, Davey?”

“Fourteen.” He leaned forward and grabbed a faded, light blue t-shirt off the floor, pulled it over his head and down over his chest. On the front was a cartoon rooster riding a skateboard across the side of a high-rise building, holding a disproportionately large hand high above his head. His blown-back cheeks rippled like flags in a windstorm while a pair of fingers extending from each end of his white-gloved fist pointed toward a billboard sign. Faded multicolored letters adorning the sign spelled out
Go For It!

Davey turned to Lila, and said, “I gotta have something to drink.”

“No shit,” said Scott, his stomach growling as the thought of food and drink drifted over him like a slowly settling mist.

Lila sheathed her knife and returned it to her pack. Then she stood up and the three of them made their way across the hall and into the bedroom. Scott propped the shotgun against the bed, and fell down on his knees in front of a gallon jug of water like a lost soul at the Holy Altar of God himself, and when that lukewarm water slid down his throat, it felt
like a religious experience of the highest order.

“God, I’m so hungry,” he said, and then guzzled another mouthful of water.

Davey, who had taken a seat at the foot of the bed, snatched a can opener off the floor. “Pick yer poison,” he said, waving a hand at the jumbled mess littering the bedroom floor.

“Beef stew. Beef fucking stew,” Scott said, his voice full of whimsy as he shook his head at a measly can of stew, that not so long ago would’ve looked like dog food, yet now seemed like manna dropped straight down from Heaven. “God damn, I’m hungry!”

“How about you…?” Davey said. “You never told me your name.”

“Lila, and that’s Scott. And I’ll just have some Spam.” She laughed. “Boy,” she said. “Never thought I’d hear myself say
that!
”

“I never thought a lot of stuff,” Davey said as he fastened the rusty old utensil onto the narrow edge of Scott’s beef stew and began twisting the handle. “Never thought I’d never see my parents again, or my brothers and sisters or any of my friends. Never thought I’d be scavenging around dumpsters to keep myself from starving, or sleeping under houses or run into somebody roasting somebody else over a flaming pit, much less eating—”

“My God,” said Lila. “I’m so sorry you had to see something like that.” She stroked a hand across his head, and Davey pulled away. He handed over Scott’s meal, staring out at the billowing curtains as if he were watching past misfortunes play out through the side window. “Saw that and a whole lot more.”

Scott watched Davey pick up a container of Spam and go about the business of opening it. He really felt for the kid, and felt a certain kinship to him. Davey, a lost and lonely boy who may never see his family again, was not much different than Scott, who at that moment was just as lost and lonely as anyone anywhere on the face of this godforsaken planet. And make no mistake about it; God had forsaken him, him and Davey and everyone else. An absentee landlord who had allowed his house to fall to ruin, while he did what? What was he doing when those clouds raced across the sky? Babbling a bunch of nonsensical bullshit across the airwaves?

And now here was Scott, lost and alone and wondering if he would ever see his wife again. Wondering if he even
wanted
to see her again, because if she was still here, what must she have gone through to stay alive these last few weeks?

To keep from ending up on the spit.

Scott put the can to his open mouth, tipped it up and slippery chunks of beef tumbled across his lips. The greasy juice spilling into his throat as he chewed was like heavenly nectar from the gods. He knew that somewhere, in another time—a much happier time—he had experienced better than this, but knowing it took nothing away from the tremendous feeling of satisfaction that started in his belly and spread outward like ripples from a stone cast upon still waters. Like a starving dog, he chewed and swallowed, chewed and swallowed and tapped a finger against the can—another mouthful fell across his lips and he slurped that down as well. Finished with that, he dragged two fingers around the can, scooping most of the remainder out and into his mouth while Davey laughed and said, “Here, man.”

Scott looked up to see the kid holding out a white plastic fork. “Fuck that,” he said. He began to lick his fingers dry, but stopped himself, because even though he was starving, he was not a bum, and he would not behave like one. He wiped his fingers on his sweatpants and accepted the fork, held the can to his lips and shoveled the last few bits into his mouth. Finished, he grabbed his bottle of water and guzzled down a mouthful. Davey handed Scott another opened can of beef stew and he quickly consumed it. Then it was a can of peaches and some fruit cocktail, Davey laughing and tossing the empty cans out the open side window as Scott finished them off.

Lila, who had polished off a tin of Spam and a container of fruit cocktail, now sat cross-legged beside Scott. She patted him gently on the shoulder, smiling as she said, “How does it feel, eating something after being out for so long?”

“Great,” Scott said, patting his belly and leaning back against the bed. “I never knew dog food could taste so good.”

Laughing, Lila picked up a half-full container of Gatorade and drank from it. She held the bottle in her lap, sighed and said, “How long have you been here, Davey?”

“About a week.”

“And all this stuff?”

“It was already here.
Warren
said he’d been hauling stuff around for a couple of weeks. Said we were far enough out of the way we didn’t have to worry about anybody looting the place.” Davey picked up a bottle of beer, twisted the cap off and said, “He was pretty much right. Other than an occasional motorcycle racing down the road, nobody’s even come close to this place. Until you guys showed up.”

“
Beer?
”
Scott said, and Davey shrugged his shoulders.

“Aren’t you a little young for that?”

“A little young?
Yeah, I’m a little young. I’m a little young for a lot of stuff. Sure as hell didn’t keep it from happening to me though, did it? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Scott, but it’s a new world out there, a new world with new rules—or better yet, no rules, and until my mom walks through here and says different, I’m gonna do whatever the hell I wanta do. If that’s all right with you, I mean. I wouldn’t want to do anything to upset
you
.”

Davey took a drink of beer, and Scott said nothing. He looked at Lila, who gave her shoulders a disinterested shrug. Davey was right: it
was
a new world out there, and who was Scott or Lila or anybody else to pass judgment on the kid? With his hollow eyes and the deep welts crisscrossing his back and legs, no telling what he’d been through these past weeks, or what the coming days might bring his way.

Scott said, “How’d you end up tied to the bed?”

“We got along pretty good the first couple of days. He took me off with him scavenging for stuff. Told me which streets to avoid and showed me a couple of places I could hide out if somebody was after me. But one night we got to drinking and teasing each other. You know—busting balls, as Tony Soprano used to say. One thing led to another and the next thing I know the fucker’s kicking the shit out of me. Ties me face down on the bed and… ” Davey paused. He gulped a mouthful of beer and looked out at the open window, and this time Scot figured he
was
reliving some past atrocity. He looked back at Scott and Lila, and said, “Then he grabbed some of that plastic rope and beat the ever-livin’ shit out of me.”

“Well,” Lila said. “You’re all right, now.”

“Thanks to you guys.”

“So, how are you, Scott?” said Lila. “Full?”

“Man, I feel great. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.”

“How long since you ate something?” Davey asked him.

“Scott woke up in a rehabilitation center this afternoon. Somebody shot him in the head the day this all started, and he’s been in a coma ever since.”

“No shit? But… how could that be? Who was even around to tend to him?”

Scott sighed as he brushed a hand through his straight brown hair, stopping long enough to finger the indented patch where nothing would ever grow again. “I’ve been wondering about that myself.”