Evil Origins: A Horror & Dark Fantasy Collection (72 page)

“Jay’s still asleep,” Sally said. Someone keep an eye on
him, would ya?”

They all nodded and returned to the storeroom in a noble
attempt at giving Jana maximum privacy.

Sally shut the bathroom door. She lit a candle and set it on
top of the toilet.

“He didn’t, did he?”

Jana shook her head and wiped tears from her eyes.

“Oh honey, thank God! Let me help you.”

Sally pulled a pair of jeans and sweatshirt from a blue
Giant Eagle bag ripe with the odor of raw onions. Jana dropped the blanket to
the ground and took off her shoes in order to climb into the new jeans. Sally
stared at Jana’s fit body, then snapped her head around with a shameful glance.

“Where ya from?” asked Sally, trying hard to get Jana’s mind
off the recent attack and on to things more mundane.

“Pittsburgh,” Jana replied.

“Oh gross! Please tell me you don’t root for the Steelers?”

Jana managed to build a moderate smile and nodded up and
down.

“Wait. I think I might have a Browns jersey in this bag
somewhere.”

Sally pretended to flip through her bag in search of the orange
and brown garment.

“Thanks. Thanks for helping me.”

“If we don’t help each other now, there’s no hope for the
future.”

Chapter
23

John woke with a heavy haze of alcohol fogging his thoughts.
Remnants of the nightmare mixed with images of the bar in the early morning. A
few feet away, Alex rolled onto his back and rubbed his face. John looked at
Alex, then up at the bar. The silence felt menacing, and neither man fully
possessed his bearings. John attempted to stand, but staggered into the back of
the bar. An empty beer mug slid off the edge of the cooler, shattering on the
grimy floor. The sound echoed off the glass block, jabbing deep into their
hangovers.

“Shit,” was all John could muster.

He kicked at pieces of glass and closed his eyes. The room
shifted under his feet, but at least it wasn’t spinning like it had hours
before.

“Did you sleep?” asked Alex.

“I think so. Had a nasty dream.”

“Me too. Rather not discuss it.”

Alex stood on wobbly knees. He turned the faucet on behind
the bar, but all that issued was two lonesome drops of rust-colored liquid. He
turned it off, as if not to waste any precious, brown water. Alex opened the
sliding top of one cooler and lucked upon a case of bottled water. He ripped
one from the plastic and, making eye contact, tossed it to John, who mishandled
the toss and chased the bouncing plastic container across the floor. Alex
grabbed one for himself.

John stood.

“Where are the bikers?”

“Gotta be here somewhere.”

Alex followed John around the pool table and toward the stage,
neither man noticing the dead generator. Dozens of empty beer bottles littered
the floor. John kicked them, but regretted it immediately as he sent a
cacophony of chimes through the dead air. A random bra sat perched atop an
empty bar stool, with its owner nowhere in sight. They continued toward the
stage. The old Marshall amp sat there, along with an empty guitar stand. Alex
stuck his head into the dark backstage area and fanned away an oppressive whiff
of pot, body odor, and piss. He dry heaved and fought the bitter taste rising
into his mouth.

“They’re gone,” he said, dumbfounded, to nobody in
particular.

“Can’t be,” Alex said. “We would have heard the bikes firing
up.”

“I’m telling you, they’re gone.”

Alex opened the back door that swung out into the alley. Cardboard
boxes stood in a shaky monument against the dumpster. Slimy, black leaves of
lettuce stuck to the pavement, testimony to a deceased hamburger platter. John
pushed Alex aside and stepped into the empty alley where the Keepers had parked
their bikes. The unusually bright November sun drove a headache deep into his
skull. Like a vampire set afire by the rays, John stumbled past Alex with a
moan.

“Now what?” John groaned.

“I don’t see what this changes. We’re still hoping to find
our loved ones and then get the hell out of Cleveland.”

“Really, is that what we said? I honestly don’t know what
the fuck I’m doing. I’ve gotta find Jana, but beyond that, I have no clue.”

“C’mon, man. Let’s get back in before we get noticed.”

Alex kicked a bottle cap into the alley and turned to go
inside. John stood there for another moment before following him, pulling the
door shut as quietly as possible.

Alex turned left and walked through the back of the stage. A
milk crate sat between two machine guns propped against the wall and two white
boxes on the floor. A piece of cardboard ripped haphazardly from an old box of
frozen French fries sat on top of it. Alex picked up the cardboard and angled
it toward the front of the bar so he could use the ambient light to read a
message scrawled on it.

Alex took a full thirty seconds and scanned the note, his
eyebrows bunching up in exaggerated surprise.

“Listen to this. ‘Brothers. We enjoyed partying with you
last night and regret ditching you this morning. Please accept these weapons as
a token of our friendship. Right now, we can’t have nonmembers riding with us. You’re
too much of a liability. But, we will hook up again. Stay at the ‘Saw for as
long as you like, but know those Holy bastards will be getting a bead on this
place sooner or later. Ride on, motherfuckers!’ Whadda
you make of that?”

John curled his fingers in a rapid motion, asking to see the
cardboard himself without using words. Alex handed it over with a disgruntled
look.

“You think this is from Sully?”

“Probably,” John responded.

“Do you know how to use those things?”

Alex pointed toward their newfound weapons cache.

“Pull the trigger, the bad guy dies. You expect a fucking
manual?”

Alex began laughing in spite of their predicament, holding
his side. John caught the vibe and hitched with a growing giggle.

When the moment passed, John picked up an assault rifle and
loaded a clip. The weapon responded with a delightful click.

“Just like in the movies,” he said to Alex. “Maybe guns
aren’t so bad after all.”

“This is nothing like the movies.”

They left the assault rifles standing in a corner and
rounded up a bag of chips and half a cinnamon roll. Calling it breakfast, they
downed another bottled water and put three more in their packs. John used a
flashlight to find provisions: a pair of buck knives, a pack of cigarettes, a
lighter, and two syringes. Alex walked behind John, and they kept their backs
to the cold cinder block of the businesses, moving closer to the Humvee. John
maneuvered to the passenger side and Alex jumped into the driver’s seat. It sat
just as they’d left it the night before.

John stuck his head out of the shattered passenger-side
window. The chill of the encroaching winter slid off of Lake Erie and
penetrated his clothes. He shivered and drew his shoulders back into his chest.
Lonely sea gulls circled high above the buildings.

“Where to?” Alex asked, shaking John from his silent
meditation.

“I hate to say this, but I think we need to head back to the
east side. The ‘Sons of Liberty’ turned out to be a bust. I can’t imagine any
other groups organizing a resistance. There are probably a few fucking idiots,
like us, trying to track down wives or children. I’m not holding my breath for
a rebellion.”

“Yeah, where is Che when you need him?”

Alex smiled at the Guevara reference.

“I don’t think we can get back using the highway. Even if we
could bust through our own roadblock, they’ll know who we are by now. They’ll
fire at us from hundreds of yards away.”

“Back roads, maybe going through town?” John asked.

“It’s as good a plan as any. At least now we have
protection.”

John gripped his machine gun and tapped it on the
windshield.

“Go.”

Alex drove through Parma using residential back roads. The Humvee
devoured gas, but they guessed it had enough to get them back on the east side.
The neighborhoods of the west side looked exactly like the ones on the east. The
Covenant had plastered The Sign on many houses. On every block, a tangled mess
of vehicles sat on the curb or up on the sidewalk. Blood stains on the streets
had begun to fade into obscurity.

The vehicle turned on to Superior Avenue. The sound of the Humvee’s
powerful engine reverberated off the canyon of office buildings. Alex crawled
to a stop at Superior and East Ninth, three blocks south of the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. He nodded at the street sign attached to a light post that read
“E. 9
^th
, Rock and Roll Boulevard”.

“Shit. That place must piss off the holy rollers.”

John smirked and leaned toward Alex to catch a glimpse out
of the driver’s side window.

Alex turned the vehicle left on to East Ninth and slammed on
the brakes. The steel-blue water of Lake Erie cut a sharp line into the early
winter sky, as lonely birds circled high above the wind-whipped whitetops. Drawing
back from the lake, a smoldering pile of ruins stood where the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame used to be. Barren fingers reached high into the sky, twisted by
explosion and heat. An oversized guitar sculpture stood upright in front of the
wreckage, the only recognizable part of the building. Fire had seared it black,
but had not been hot enough to melt the guitar like other structures nearby. Smoke
chased the birds high into the sky, originating from dozens of pockets of
smoldering ruin below.

“Holy fuck,” said John.

“When do you think this happened?”

“Don’t know. Does it matter?”

“I think it does. What if the Holy Covenant has plans to
start demolishing parts of the city? I would think this place would be one of
the first targets, followed by maybe the strip clubs and banks downtown.”

“Yeah, the root of all evil; titties.”

John winked at Alex.

“Well, I don’t see what we can do about.”

“Uh huh. If they have the entire US military at their
disposal, we’d better be prepared to bend over….”

Alex inched the Humvee down East Ninth. Both men had their
machine-gun muzzles out the windows, but neither found a suitable target. Loose
dogs and a pig ran through the desolate streets. They would not have been
surprised to see gorillas from the zoo swinging from the power lines.

He stopped the vehicle between Superior and Rockwell on East
Ninth.

“Something’s not right,” Alex said.

“No kidding.”

“No, I mean, I think we’re being watched.”

“I haven’t seen anybody since we left the ‘Saw.”

“That doesn’t mean they don’t see you.”

“How do you know, Doc? They give you survivalist lessons in
veterinary school?”

“No asshole, but they do teach it in USMC Basic Training.”

John sat with his mouth open.

“You were a fucking Marine?”

“Semper Fi, bitch.”

Before John could respond, two Humvees appeared from an
alley and sped toward them. The remaining glass on their Humvee shattered as
muzzle flashes exploded from the back of both vehicles.

“Get your head down!” Alex screamed.

He shoved the Humvee into reverse and slammed the
accelerator to the floor. The wheels bit into the asphalt, lurching the vehicle
backward. John could feel the impact of bullets hitting the outside of the Humvee.
Alex ducked his head below the dash and did his best to keep the wheel
straight.

The back of the Humvee smashed into a pizza shop. Daylight
vanished as the vehicle plunged deep into the dining room. It crashed into the
brick oven and came to a halt.

“Get out, hurry,” John yelled.

Alex sported a rising welt on his forehead and a bloody
nose. He stumbled from the vehicle and dropped to one knee. John hooked him
under the armpit and pulled Alex to his feet.

They climbed through the remnants of brick and drywall. John
grabbed his bag and tossed it over one shoulder. He did the same for Alex, who stumbled
like a heavyweight boxer after nine rounds. John placed Alex’s gun in his hand.
The front of both Humvees appeared on the street outside. They stopped. Combat
boots slapped the hard surface as the soldiers sprinted toward them.

John pushed past a tire that came loose and found its way
into the kitchen. He climbed over it and past a stainless-steel prep table. Alex
stumbled behind him. John reached a door in the back of the restaurant and
stood in virtual darkness. John threw all of his weight into the steel push
bar. Blinding sunlight exploded when the door burst open into the alley. John
reached back and yanked Alex over the threshold. Alex stopped and bent over. He
vomited and covered his eyes while they adjusted.

“Over here. Help me block the door.”

John motioned for Alex to grab the other end of the
dumpster, overflowing with ripe garbage. The old, rusted wheels resisted at
first, but gave away under the men’s muscle. A split second before the troops
could fly through the door, John and Alex positioned the dumpster against the
wall. They heard shouts of frustration and pounding, but the stubborn dumpster
did not budge.

“This way,” John said.

Alex grabbed his gear and gun and followed John down the end
of the alley. They ran past open bags of garbage, stacks of milk crates, and
other dumpsters, until the alley opened up on to East 12
^th
Street.

Bullets sliced the air just above their heads. John waved
his hand at them like annoying insects. Soldiers crouched and attacked from
Superior. John spun and returned fire. His spray of bullets crawled up the office
building behind the soldiers, shattering windows as it climbed. The powerful
gun rattled his teeth and shook his bones. Alex appeared next to John. He had
his rifle tucked inside his shoulder and his right eye over the sight. When he
fired, his bullets followed a trajectory toward the target. Two soldiers
dropped like ragdolls to the pavement. The others took cover behind their vehicle,
which was parked in the middle of Superior.