Soft Apocalypse (28 page)

“Ready?”Ange asked. Cortez handed me a pistol. I couldn’t get over how much the guy had changed since I’d first met him. Back then he’d been one of those guys who had an exaggerated tough-guy walk that he’d clearly rehearsed in his bedroom mirror. Now he seemed so comfortable in his own skin, and in this world.

As soon as we were out of hearing distance of the others, I turned to Ange and said, “I’m not really going to look for herbs.”

“I kind of sensed that. So where are we going?”

“We passed a farm on the way in, about a mile back down the tracks. I want to try to steal some food.”

I looked at Ange, gauging her reaction. She nodded tightly. “Okay.”

“I don’t like stealing,” I said.

“I know you don’t. You just realized that the rules have to change if we’re going to stay alive. The rest of us need to get our heads out of our asses and realize that, too.”

And that was that. Ange and I moved quickly. She had a knack for finding the path of least resistance through the bamboo. Once we hit the railroad tracks we made better time.

The farm was just a few acres of cleared land, a house, silo, a few animal pens, all surrounded by a rhizome barrier. There were a couple of dogs asleep in the shade of the house.

I handed Ange the pistol. “We’re less likely to get caught if there’s just one of us. I’ll be right back.” My heart racing, I sprinted through a clearing before Ange could argue. I stopped behind the silo, scanned the yard for signs of people, then went around to the front of the silo and ducked inside.

It was empty.

I’d been picturing it filled with grain of some sort—I had a shopping bag in my pack that I’d been planning to fill. I didn’t know anything about farms, about where the food might be.

Outside, a pig screeched.

I snuck back around behind the silo and eyed the animal pens. Crap, I didn’t want to kill a little pig or a chicken. But what else was there that wasn’t actually in the house itself?

“Put your hands in the air.” The first thing I saw was the rifle. The guy holding it was about twenty. He was a big guy—big calves, big neck, had a big guy’s swagger as he came out of a pecan grove. I put my hands up.

“I’m sick of you thieves.” The tone in his voice, the disdain, was so familiar. I was a gypsy again.

“I’m sorry, we’re just very hungry,” I said.

“That doesn’t mean you can steal from people!”

“I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” I said.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. He wiped his mouth with one hand. It was shaking badly. “If there were police, we’d let them take care of you, but the way things stand we shoot looters on sight.”

He lifted the rifle and pointed it at me.

“No!” I threw out my hands as if I could ward off the bullet, clenched my eyes shut as if I could hide. I shrieked as the gun fired once, twice. I was gone for a moment, my ears buzzing, the world spinning away.

I opened my eyes, looked down at my chest. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t on the ground, why there was no blood.

The guy with the gun was on the ground.

Shouts rose from the house. People came running out. They had more guns.

“Run!” Ange said. I was grateful for any guidance, given how confused I was. We broke into the bamboo. It was hard to run—the stalks pounded me in the face, yanked at my arms.

Voices shouted behind us. I heard a hiss of labored breathing, glanced back to see three men close behind. I ran harder, but that only made things worse.

Heavy hands ripped at my shoulders, yanked me to the ground. I landed ear first, felt a knee dig into my back.

“She shot Danny! She shot my Danny!” a woman shrieked. “My Danny’s dead. Oh, Jesus, my Danny’s dead.”

“Gun! Gun!” the man on my back shouted.

“Here!” another guy said.

The muzzle of a pistol pressed into my neck. I was yanked to my feet. The guy holding the gun on me was in his sixties, with a silver goatee and beady blue eyes.

“Get her!” a white-haired woman shouted. She had both of her hands on top of her head. I followed her gaze.

Ange was still running, clutching the gun. A guy was right behind her; he jumped at her and they both went down in a tumble of dust.

The guy dragged Ange toward us by one foot. Danny’s mom ran at her; she kicked at Ange’s head, screaming incomprehensible curses as Ange wrapped her arms around her head to ward off the blows while kicking her foot to try to break free.

“He was going to shoot me!” I said. “I wasn’t resisting and he was going to shoot me.”

“What did you expect?” the man pinning me said. “An invitation to supper?”

“I’m sorry—” Ange said.

“Shut
up
!” Danny’s mom screeched, kicking at Ange frantically until Ange shut up. She was an ugly woman, with a hound dog’s droopy face and deep ragged creases in her forehead. Breathless, she tottered back to Danny, knelt, slid her hand under his head. Danny’s tongue was poking from between his lips.

Jesus, we were in bad trouble.

“I say we find a good crackling spot,” the dad said.

“That’ll fix them,” an acne-stricken teen said, probably Danny’s brother. His voice was filled with grief.

They dragged Ange to her feet.

“Danny was gonna—”

“Shut up!” The father hit me in the side of the head with the pistol. “Don’t say nothing, either of you!”

It was quiet then, except for the mother’s crying, and the crunch of dead bamboo leaves underfoot. My ears buzzed, and I had a terrible headache. I wanted to look in Ange’s eyes. I don’t know why, just to have contact, or to thank her for saving my life, but Ange was ahead of me. I had a wild, irrational moment of hoping someone in our tribe had followed us and would save us, but I knew it was just wishful thinking. I felt a wet dribble of blood down my neck. They were going to kill us—that had to be what was going to happen.

“Quiet,” the dad said. Everyone stopped. I didn’t hear anything, except the rustling of bamboo leaves in the breeze. “That way.” He pointed. They moved us on, faster. I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to know where they were taking us. Something bad was going to happen, and not knowing what it was made it a thousand times worse. Every time we paused I thought they were going to line us up and shoot us, or throw a rope over a branch. Only they didn’t have a rope with them.

We reached a clearing with only a few scattered patches of bamboo.

The crack and snap of new growth lit the air.

“This looks like the place,” one of the brothers said.

“Over there,” the father said, pointing. The two older brothers dragged Ange into the clearing while the rest of us remained at the edge. Ange began to struggle harder, so they grabbed her arms and legs and carried her to the spot their father was pointing to. They put her on her back, pinned her arms and legs. Ange twisted and bucked.

I thought they were going to rape her, right in front of their parents, but they just held her down. I didn’t understand what was happening—they were just pressing her to the ground.

And then I realized what they were doing.

“No!” I screamed. I lunged, broke free of the father’s grip, took two steps before being slammed to the ground. I clawed blindly at his face, trying to find an eye, a lip to tear off. Something hard hit me in the face. I knew instantly that my nose was broken—I’d never felt such pain before. Again, at the same spot, I heard a crunching. Again. Again. Finally it stopped. “Turn him over, he’s gonna watch this.” They rolled me over. Someone pulled my hair so my head lifted.

Ange was still twisting and thrashing.

“Help them,” the father said, waving a finger toward the clearing. A third brother ran over and pressed Ange’s hips to the ground.

It was a bluff. It had to be. They were going to scare her, then let us go. That had to be it; they couldn’t really mean to do this.

Ange screamed, thrashing her head back and forth.

“Please don’t,” I said. I could only see out of one eye.

Ange’s eyes clenched shut, and the pitch of her scream changed. It went on and on, broken only long enough for her to take quick breaths, drowning out the crackling of the bamboo, and my screams.

Could this really kill her? Could a bamboo shoot really grow right through her, or did it just hurt badly because it was ramming against her back? Surely that was it. Later I’d give her some antimicrobial Goldenseal and she’d stay put for a while and heal.

Ange stopped screaming abruptly. A bird sang brightly nearby. Ange looked at one of the brothers hunched over her.

I couldn’t seem to string my thoughts together; the blows to my face had left me disoriented, my head literally spinning.

“Please get it out of me,” Ange said. “Please.” He looked off into the distance, one of his fists closed over her wrist, the other on her breast. “I’m really sorry. Please let me up.”

There was a fluttering under her shirt, as if a moth were trapped there. A green shoot poked out near her collar bone.

“Can I have a drink of water?” Ange said.

One of the brothers slid a hand under Ange’s shirt. He squeezed her breast, stared at his hand beneath her shirt, mesmerized, his mouth hanging open.

“Let me get her a drink of water,” I said.

The father hit me on the side of the head with the gun.

I couldn’t see the green shoot grow, but every time I looked at Ange lying there, the shoot seemed bigger. Soon it was jutting a foot over her, pointing straight at the sky. Ange groaned, and cried.

“I’m so sorry, Ange,” I cried. “It’s my fault. I’m so sorry.”

“Shut up!” The butt of the gun slammed into my cheek, whipping my head sideways.

“It’s not your fault,” Ange said.

“Yes. It is.”

I was hit again, harder. “Every time you open your mouth, you’re gonna get hit,” the father warned.

“I love you, Ange.” Another blow landed; I heard a crunch. One of my back teeth had been knocked out. I felt it sitting against my tongue and tried to spit it out.

“I love you too,” Ange murmured. She made a strangled choking sound, and didn’t speak again after that.

When it was over, three fledgling stalks trembled over her, streaked pink, their bright new leaves still tucked.

The brothers stood; one brushed the knees of his jeans.

The father got off me, pushed the pistol back into my neck. He gripped me by my collar and shook me hard. “Are you next? Huh? You gonna be next?” My head swung back and forth; the ground spun in a sick blur.

“No, please,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for your loss.”

He held me still for a long moment.

“Go on,” he said, shoving me. The youngest brother started to protest, but the dad cut him off. “Tell your friends what happened. Tell them we’ll do the same to anyone who tries to steal from us.”

“Go on,” he said, motioning toward the bamboo forest. “Before I change my mind.”

I ran, my face wet with tears and sticky with dried blood, leaves whipping my face, until I tripped on a fallen tree and tumbled to the ground.

One day I was going to go there and kill every single one of them. But what did it matter? Ange was dead. I would never wake up beside her again.

I crawled to my feet and walked on. “She was shot,” I said aloud, sniffing, wiping my runny nose. I winced as my hand touched my face. “Ange was shot. They shot her. She died right away.” That’s what I would tell the others. That’s how I wanted to remember it, if I could convince myself. I didn’t want to remember the truth; I wanted it gone, stripped from my mind.

Cortez was on the porch. He leapt up as soon as he saw my face. “What happened? Where’s Ange?”

“Ange is dead,” I said.

Cortez covered his face and sobbed.

“What happened?” It was Jean Paul, standing in the doorway. “What happened?” I only shook my head.

The screen door squealed and Colin appeared. “Oh, jeez,” he said. He raced out, grabbed me by the elbow to help me inside.

“Ange is dead,” I said. Colin froze, his expression melting from concern to despair.

“What happened?” Jean Paul repeated.

I told the story as it had happened, except I told them that they shot Ange in the clearing.

Cortez disappeared upstairs, reappeared a moment later armed to the hilt—gun, knives. No Eskrima sticks. “Where is this farm?” he asked me.

“No,” Sophia said, grasping Cortez’s arm. “Let it go. They’re all armed. We don’t need anyone else dying today.”

“She’s right,” Colin said. “We need you here, we can’t afford to lose you.” Colin glanced at me. I didn’t care. I wanted to be unconscious.

Cortez stuck the gun into his belt. “They murdered Ange, and we’re just going to walk away?”

“Yes!” Sophia said. “We just walk away. Killing them isn’t going to bring her back.”

Cortez turned and stormed out. As the screen door slammed, I was already on the stairs, weaving like a drunk, heading to my bed.

Chapter 9:
Gunslinger

Fall, 2033 (Three months later)

T
he faded purple neon sign by the road read “Paradise Motel,” and “No Vacancy.” There was an empty pool in front, between the highway and the parking lot, surrounded by a cyclone fence choked with kudzu. The roofs on the last four units had collapsed, but the others looked to be in decent shape—a few even had glass in the windows. An ice machine was tucked between two support poles, a toppled and partially crushed snack machine next to it.

“I hope they have plenty of ice,” Colin said, “I could use a cold one.” Baby Joel, his head lolling, was asleep in the makeshift carrier on Colin’s back.

“It feels strange not having the bamboo around. I feel exposed,” Sophia said, hugging her elbows. The bamboo had tapered off just past Midville, though we knew it was just a patch—an area the scientists and eco-terrorists hadn’t bothered to target. The bamboo would make it here eventually.

“We got dibs on this one,” Colin called, peering into a room with his hand on the door knob. “There’s even a mattress, sort of.”

I opened the door to the next room down.

A woman was standing inside, a machete raised over her head. I cried out in surprise.

“I don’t have any food,” she said. “I don’t have anything of value. Just leave me alone.”