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Seeing them stare at the door, Kat started chattering
at Ramie. The man was retreating now, watching the door and holding something in
his ear. Ramie glanced at Kat and began to speak.
As the man moved back into a doorway, Jim slid up
along the door. Benny nodded, and Jim lay a hand on the knob, then froze. Benny
cocked an eye, but Jim went to the window, sliding it up under the cover of the
women talking, then out. Benny started to follow. Kat sat on him.
“Hey, lay off.”
“Now, kid, would you like your egg fried or raw?”
She held a fat brown egg over Benny. She was smiling, but her eyes were frost.
“Uh, fried, please?”
Kat patted Benny on the cheek and went to the kitchen
again chatting with Ramie, but this time she took down a pan to make an omelet
with the hot peppers and ham in the sack.
A few minutes later a window shattered. A man
screamed. Fists clenched, teeth nibbling her lower lip, Kat stared at the
screen, then looked away. Jim’s face appeared in the screen, and Kat rushed to
open the door. He was wet, shivering with the chill of the wind outside, and
bleeding from cuts.
“Go see if you know the creep,” he told Ramie. She
dashed out and down the hall.
Kat sat him in a chair and got mother-fussy over him,
washing the cuts and checking them.
His smile was automatic, with no humor. “It’s just
from glass, honey.”
“And how old was the glass?” Her eyes flashed a
hint of fire. “How much dirt was on it?”
With a sigh, he let her have her way.
“Just doing her thing, man,” Benny said when Jim
cast a hopeful eye at him. “‘Woman is born to life, man but to die.’ Like,
it’s in the genes, just like they make us act all macho and stuff.”
“Macho, right.” Kat gave a loud sniff. “We
wouldn’t be in this mess if not for the macho B.S. Hero types, bah.”
“Like Mom says, Woman wants a man, not a boy-toy.
For ten thousand generations Woman demanded men act like men, and this is what
you get. Now you want us to act like women?” His chin jutted at a worried
Ramie, who walked slowly into the room. “Bet she’d kill any ‘toy that hit
on her.”
“Huh? Yeah, I had a toy. It was gun made o’ wood.
When I got my own I give it to my li’l bro. To teethe on, you know?”
She glanced out the door, then went back to close it.
Kat scowled at the faint smirk on Jim’s face and the
broad one on Benny’s.
Ramie sank into a chair. Voice stark, she said, “You
can’t stay. Grampa’s coming with some folks, and this whole building’s
gonna be stripped.” She glanced again at the door. “Man was new. How in hell
they get a man on us so fast. And why?” Ramie turned her head to stare at
Benny with eyes that were wide and frightened.
She whispered, “Sweet, lovin’ Jesu.”
Doors rattled. Men and women poured into the building,
and the chatter of automatic tools roared over them.
Two men bearing a stretcher pushed through the door
while another man unhinged it and carried it away on a hand truck. Two more went
by hauling at a black body bag.
A snarl twisting his face Benny pushed himself up.
“I’m walking. Got it?”
He made a step and grabbed Jim’s shoulder. Jim tried
to scoop him up, but Benny raised a fist.
“OK, kid. All of yours.”
Hanging onto Jim and Kat, Benny shambled down the hall
to the stairs. A panel opened to show a zip tube, and he lowered himself into it.
He winked at Kat and slid out of sight. Jim held Kat back while Ramie followed
him. He helped her and went after them.
The basement was clean and dry but for a few stands of
bedding from the goats. Children were gathering them while others scattered dust
and rat droppings. A man stood to one side with a wire cage filled with
squealing rats. He gave Ramie a nod as she passed.
Benny let them help him to a small rusting iron door
behind the ruins of a furnace, and they moved into the darkness.
Benny heard it then, Sue whispering to him, pleading
for him to come and help, but at that moment he was beyond helping even himself.
Mike sat in a Fifties-style diner with his back to the
wall. A small car pulled in the parking lot.
He scowled at Creel. The man was stuffing his face
with pie, now. This was his third piece after a full meal. Where the pencil-thin
Creel put it was only his own business. It was the how that bothered Mike and
made him want to ram a rag in Creel’s wide mouth. The white napkin he stuffed
in his collar was stained red and blue, and the syrup dribbling from the corner
of his mouth was now a golden tan and flecked with red from a wedge of apple
pie.
Cindy was ready to explode, and so was he, but for
reasons other than what Cindy wanted. Where the hell was Terry Jo? Was she safe?
Happy? No, how could she be happy when the man she wanted, that friggin
stud-bull, Benny Grey, was far from her and in danger. The kid must carry a
curse. Even Cindy wasn’t immune.
“We’ve been here a damned hour,” Mike said, his
fingers tapping in time to some God-forsaken music called Tecneeque. He caught
himself tapping and only just refrained from grabbing the offending hand.
“Um-hm.” With a small frown, Creel choked down the
pie.
Mike stood. He drank the last bitter dredges of a cup
of decaffeinated coffee and almost spat it on the red checkered tablecloth.
Stepping away he dropped the cup in the table.
It rolled towards the edge, and Creel grabbed it but
lost the last piece of pie.
“Hey, man, what’s your hurry?”
“Work.” Mike stared at him for a minute, then at a
harried waitress that half ran to them.
“Can I get ya anything, sir?”
“I’m leaving.”
She fidgeted under the cold eyes. A timid smile moved
on her face, and Mike came close to smiling back. She was petite, pretty, and
Cindy would have a fit if he did what he wanted.
“Sorry, but your bill –”
Mike handed her a platinum credit card. Creel gaped at
it.
“Tell the boss the coffee was antique, the beef
tough, and the water tasted dirty.” As the woman wilted, almost gently, he
added, “But the service was excellent.”
“You bet!” She snorted, muttering a few words un
her breath. “That lazy creep, Bertie.” She ran off towards the door with the
card.
For Mike, it was enough the cook’s name was similar
to Benny to hate the man. Hand caressing the butt of the gun, he smiled.
Two men slid out of the car and walked up the ramp to
the doors. One opened the door, and the second jerked a ceramic rod from his
coat.
A line of electricity ripped through the air at the
waitress. She shrieked, and the reek of burning meat drifted in an oily, black
smoke towards the ceiling.
Mike spun towards her and fired once. The man
screamed, flying back against the second. The second man dived out the door, but
their car exploded. Pieces of burning plastic and shrapnel cracked the armored
glass of the picture windows and brought the cook out to see with a length of
two-by-four clutched in one dirty hand.
“Christ.” The cook threw his hands in the air.
“Another raid. Assholes.” Ignoring the moans of the woman, he stalked back
in the kitchen barking orders at the crew.
“Call 9-1-1,” Mike shouted, kneeling beside the
woman. A black car floated down near the wreckage of the explosion. Men in black
poured from it, racing around the fire and into the diner.
The corpses were grabbed from the floor before the
cleaning ‘bots were able to reach the blood. A pair of men started to drag the
woman out the door.
With a scream, she wrenched away from them to curl in
a ball. One man loomed over her with a billy club. Mike stepped to her.
“What the hell are you doing? She needs an
ambulance.”
Openly frightened, Creel caught at Mile’s
sleeve. He leaned close. “Harvesters,” he whispered.
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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