The Altonevers (9 page)

“
You’re a chain smoker. How
are you not out of breath?”

“
I dunno, but I know we
have to get out of here?” he says.

“
Here? this street, or this
town?”

“
This Alto, and onto the
next.”

“
I haven’t been anywhere.
I’ve hardly seen anything yet, I didn’t even get a
scarf.”

“
I, am a wanted man. Wanted
by the InterAlto authorities and my boss. Particularly wanted here,
now, right now.”

“
I didn’t shoot anyone, and
neither did you, and what did that crazy succubus say about a
helping hand? how is killing a criminal cop helping you?” She
shouts flagrantly, in his face pointing with spittle
flying.

“
Hey you!” a harsh voice
yells, proceeding a sweeping flashlight followed by a burst of
gunfire”

“
Oh my God!”

“
Wanted alive or not, Anna,
now C'mon, follow me!” He says. She follows him unflinchingly, and
they slip to the sidewalk and down a long alleyway.

“
Up,” he says.

“
Up where?”

“
Up there,” he points,
leading her eye’s to the ladder of a fire escape.

“
I can't jump that high. I
can touch it, but I don’t think I can grab it,” she
says.

“
Stand here,” he says,
pulling her under the fire escape ladder, whose toe is ten feet
above her head.

“
On three, jump,
okay,”

“
Okay,” she agrees starting
to crouch to leap.

“
Okay now.”

“
What aah!” she yells, as
he grabs she her around her thighs and throws her straight up into
the air, and she grabs the ladder, dangling from it with on one
hand.

“
Good, now up, up Anna.
Quickly, quickly please,” he says trying to push up her flailing
feet. She struggle and manages to get a knee on the ladder’s last
step. He jumps and pulls himself up after her, they scale the side
of the building in seconds. The two stand at the ledge, looking
down to street level from the rooftop to the sirens and flashlights
sweeping and passing by down below, clueless to the two high above
the laundry lines.

“
Well that's that,” he
says.

“
What do we do
now?”

“
We gotta hang tight till
the flood of flashlights and badges washes away,” he says as it
starts raining, then pouring.

“
We're gonna stay on a
rooftop in the rain?” She asks, with arms folded and a curious
look. Lightning strikes a building on the other side of town,
flashing the night rain with a burst of yellow light that lingers
for seconds too long. Its brick and wood face erupts as a burst of
cinders floating through the air.

“
Over there then,” Anna
says, pointing to the corner of the roof. Already soaking wet, they
scurry under a rickety wooden water tower barely out of the
downpour. Laughing about it and settling in for the night,
uncomfortably sitting across from each other on the water towers
rotted support beams. Surrounded by the scene from the roof’s view,
of the gleaming wet town’s lights glistening with the change in
winds and jollies rolling through the rain.

“
We'll have to make for the
station when this dies down. At most at daybreak,” he
says.

“
At least it's not cold,”
she says.

“
That's the
humidity.”

“
Idiot,” she says, eyeing
him coldly.

“
What?”

“
What? anything you care to
explain? guy with gun.”

“
No, not really. You have
one too.”

“
How about that psycho
bitch with the hole in her head. The one who shot a crime boss
without anyone lifting a finger or anything?”

“
A few people raised their
glasses,” he says, though seeing his charm isn’t rubbing adds
shrugging, “that kinda thing happens a lot.”

“
To a weather chaser, who’s
on a wanted poster? She was a damn zombie.” Anna says, her
excitement is more from fear for her life then anger at
him.

“
She was just passing a
friendly word. She's a Raven, they'll follow me, us, as long as
you’re by my side. Wherever we go.”

“
And you, you’re
a...Raven?” she asks as she scowls at him and his dishonesty. He
replies with a look of being lost, and hangs his head. Hesitating,
hardly breathing for nearly a minute and holding his gaze to the
ground.

“
What exactly is a Raven?”
she asks, wanting him to say who he is.

“
Exactly?”

“
Yeah,”

“
Ravens are a group of
people, of all type of character, most are pawns, vermin, who work
for a guy.”

“
Acting sort of like a
criminal syndicate that controls territory in almost all the Alto’s
we can possibly go? and you’re one of them and their after you?”
She says.

“
Kinda, that’s a bit more
accurate,” he says.

“
Kinda what? just spit it
out,” she spits.

“
The Ravens are like a
syndicate, one that strives to gain power by any means, usually
deemed criminal, in whatever Alto they're sent to.

“
A criminal syndicate, for
what?”

“
Well they have to be
killers, and they all have to die, like I said before.”

“
So he is death, and the
Ravens his reapers?”

“
Not exactly. It’s just his
gig I guess, I mean he's not a bad guy. A bit unsettling to be
around but not bad, just from a different Alto is all. There's one
more thing.”

She says nothing. Only staring at him
intensely, thinking that her life is now intertwined with his in
the eyes of a person who he says isn’t entirely unlike the entity
she thinks of as death.

“
To be a Raven, as I am or
Rebecca is, one with free will. You have to take your own life so
you have your own soul to barter with.”

“
How does that
work.”

“
I think it’s if it's not
taken from you, you still possess it when you die, and since you've
died you cannot live. You have something to want and something to
barter with it to get it.”

“
For what?”

“
Life, to be alive,” he
says.

“
Your soul, bartered to
live in service of him,” she says.

“
Yes,” he nods “and he’s a
silk tongued demon when it comes to the art of the barter. The
price, the deal as we who have one call it, is unique to the
individual. You may live your deepest desires, your dreams he
promises, as long as your soul, your being is bound solely to
him.

“
So, what's your...deal?”
she asks. He knew she would inevitably ask, he dreads having to
tell her. The thought of her being scared of him, ashamed of him,
he's terrified she'll see him as a heartless monster.

“
And you? is it gambling?”
She asks. The cautious tone creeping from her lips is stinging to
him, he's thinking she’s already sees him as some sort of monster
or demon, like everyone else sees him, as one of them, merely a
Raven and nothing more. He only wants her to be near, to stay close
and smile and laugh with him, though knowing the price could be
that she will never smile and laugh again.

“
Not gambling, Carrots no.
I was, am a vault knocker, a robber of all things really. So sort
of in the same way a vampire needs blood, I need a piece of
whatever’s not nailed down. The gambling, does somethin’ but it
ain’t quite the feeling, I’m looking for.”

“
Why is that your dream to
live?” she asks. The searchlights and sirens, foot pursuits and
gunfights at street level simmer. The pitter patter of the rain
rises as background static to the story of his life, his prior
life.

“
I was born in Illinois,
1917, on a dusty farm far down a muddy back road. In something like
your Alto Anna, maybe even the same, but who knows. That's why I
went when I heard what would happen to it, I just had to see it, to
feel it” he says. She says nothing, only nodding and staring in
wait for more, “I came to be a young man during the
depression.”

“
The great depression,”
Anna asks.

“
Yeah I guess, and I got in
with a clique of bank robbers, just like I seen in the newspapers
back then. I was selling sacks of apples on the side of the road,
half of them were rotten, but those were the ones I could eat.
Hungry, stuck in a rut, and starving to feel alive. They were
passing through and asked me to guide them through the back roads
and around the fields. I squeezed in the front seat with another
guy, the first time I’d ever been in a auto. Good guys, they even
took me to the job with ‘em. Just gave me a handle, and told me I
can ride with them as long as I earn my place to sleep.

It went well, and was different than
anything I've ever done before. Exciting in a way I can’t explain.
A feeling I’ve spent my lifetime trying to get back to. We weren’t
murderers, more like Robin hoods, but mostly to ourselves of
course,” he laughs, “I was free for the first time in my life, from
my life of dirt and bare feet, of the farm and the fields, of
poverty and hunger. Just free, alive and flush with cash as
millions were starving, and we helped them, we threw bags of money
out windows as we fled. It was bliss, my own youthfully ignorant
bliss. It became the only feeling I ever wanted to know,” he
says.

“
What happened?” she
asks.

“
It went sour, real bad.
Things like that, Anna, living that way never stays good forever,
but I didn’t know that then. It was two men, a woman, one of the
guy's moll, and me, the kid. Apples they called me,”

“
You don't remember their
names?” she asks.

“
I thought I’d never forget
them, but since then I've been alive for I don't know how many
days, maybe forever, however long you think that is,” he says, then
sucking from his smoke. “We were on a roll for six years,
untouchable. The feds and locals, the papers, everybody knew us,
folk heroes to the poor and parasites to the robber Baron pariah.
We got away every time but once, it only takes once. We were
carrying the a celebration of the night before as we coasted into
this little lumber town. Thinking in our arrogance that we'll be
able to be in and out with the cash, and on our way. We didn’t
prepare, we just hit the bank at seven in the morning, the yellow
light hour we called it. The feds ambushed us as we rolled up to
it. It turned into a war zone, we had Thompson's, but so did the
pencil pusher's, and they couldn't handle them, spraying wildly,
worse than any of the gangsters I knew. A guy was hit, the brash
leader if you want, and his moll captured.

Me and the old timer made for the
timber at the edge of town. We ran all day and by nightfall we made
it deep into the bog, where the brush was densest. We thought we
were in the clear so we slowed our pace. We were making our way up
a steep hill when we seen the torches marching toward us through
the night blackened tree branches. The rabid barking of their
hounds lead their gunfire to shred the bark from the trees around
us. The old timer got hit in the leg, in falling he broke his ribs
on a rock I tried to drag him the rest of the way up, but he pushed
me away. He gave me his piece and his pocket change then told me to
run. He said he was done for, that at least I could get away. I
did, I left him to save myself, and I heard the wheeze of the dying
breath leaving his lungs louder than the shot that actually killed
him.”

“
But you lived?” she
asks.

“
For awhile, running like a
rabbit lost in the woods. Losing everything we've taken, everything
we had in that one day. I was filthy, dirt covering my face and in
my hair, sleeping curled up next to trees like any other animal in
the woods. Slowly starving, trying to eat leaves, snails and
insects, anything to stop the aching of my empty stomach. I came to
a freshwater stream, a god's send. I knelt down gulping gallons
from my dirty hands. Not knowing what else to do I followed the
stream for days, and nights. My shoe's and suit tattered away,
expensive stuff’s not really made for the wilderness. I was
barefoot on the forest floor, my feet became blistered, splintered,
sore with open wounds, every step was painful. A few days later I
came to the waterfall that was feeding the stream.

I climbed the rock wall and walked
along it until I came to the wood's edge. To the fringes of another
small town, this one a smoky skied from coal mining, with a new
town square of freshly placed stones and clean storefronts. I was
drooling at the sight of a breakfast cart, then my eye’s met the
bank. Three floors, pristine, standing gloriously in the sunlight.
I thought it was an oasis made just for me, to feed my appetite for
the job, and fill my water filled stomach with feasts. I had
absolutely nothing but the piece I was given, and the only thing I
know how to do was sitting like a duck in front of me. I was
desperate and naive, thinking it was my luck, good fortune to find,
either way it was my fate.”

“
What did you do?” she
asks.

“
I went for it, and it went
well. They were more horrified at my scruffy appearance then the
piece I was pointing at them. The clerk, a busy woman who seemed
not to be scared but just wanting to be done with it, quickly
handed over the money. On the way out from the easiest score of my
life I heard shouting. They were shouting my name, they knew I was
there. My first job alone, I panicked and held the whole place
hostage. After two hours they demanded I release the young and old.
I didn’t want any hostages, to do that to anyone, they were all
innocent to me, but that's what I was dealt. I was desperate and a
life of hard labor, cutting stones was not gonna to cut it as my
luck.