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Anna huddled before a hidden fire. Smoke seeped from the cracks in
the stove. She moved her coat up to stop from sneezing.
“You the Light Woman from up no’th?”
The speaker was a small, dark man. He was only a little older than
Anna, but the years weighed heavily on his skinny frame.
She glanced at the shotgun. He shrugged. “Means a
sacred-person.”
“I am.”
The skinny man smiled. “What the word?”
She glanced up again, and the shotgun said, “Preach a sermon,
dama.” He brushed a hank of reddish blond hair from his face and squatted with
the crowd of people. “Teach us.”
Anna hesitated. The skinny man said, “Ain’t no snitch. Not
here. This be the Zone o’ the living dead. We eats them.”
An older woman whispered, “Go on, girl.”
Smiling, Anna raised her hands, and the people followed suit.
“Sing, my children. Sing softly, little doves of war.”
In a fully human form, Carl dozed in a corner of the room with
cold winter sunlight playing over the slack features. In one corner the corpse
was buried in a cache of trash and broken bricks. The breath slowed, and one eye
cracked open. Faint scratches came to his ear. The ear turned in that direction.
Not a rat.
He tensed. Pieces of brick lay scattered through the room. A
broken broom handle was rusted to the floor.
An eye peered around the side of the door. Low whispers drifted to
Carl’s ears. He forced the ears to lay flat on his head.
A woman stepped into the room holding a bow. The arrow was tipped
with glass, and Carl’s heart still. Head down, pretending to sleep, Carl waited
for the next person. Attack now or not?
The demon shrieked.
Nay, nay! We are too
vulnerable.
Two children followed the woman. Both were armed, one with a
spring-loaded zip gun made from some ancient child’s toy.
The woman spoke in low, angry words. “Safe-Sider, who are you
and what you doing in my house?”
Carl remained still.
“He’s dead.”
“Boy,” the woman said, her voice harsh with fear and anger.
“Get you back here.”
“I just checking.”
The voice was soft, but held a note of defiance. The boy’s feet
dragged back, away from Carl.
An arrow buried itself in the wall next to Carl. Moldy plaster
dust made his nose itch. He sought out the right nerve and stopped an explosion
of sneezes.
A woman and two kids. Where was the man? Any woman alone in the
world was a target. He listened but heard only the soft breathing of the three
and sharp thumps of their hearts. A lone woman with two little kids. No man. She
would be a tiger.
“He dead,” the boy said, his voice growing insistent. The boy
walked towards Carl. The mother and sister made small noises of protest, but he
ignored it, and Carl was given a hard shake. “See? Done told you, Mama–“
Carl jerked the boy down and across him as a shield.
“If I ain’t, are you going to kill me?" Eyes burning at
the woman, Carl’s head remained down, his hands gripping the struggling boy.
“Chill, kid, before you get hurt.”
Face hard, the woman said, “Son, be still so I can get a
shot.”
“I’ll break him in two.”
The bowstring creaked. Carl threw himself to the floor and over
the boy. As the arrow shattered on the wall, the woman leaped forward slashing
down with the bow. Carl spun, and the woman stumbled, the bow missing the boy.
Carl came up with a forearm wrapped about the boy’s throat.
The boy dug black-rimmed fingernails into Carl’s arm. Sleeping
within Carl, the shon:gili shivered
and whined at the stirring of war.
“Cool it, brat.” To the woman, Carl said, "A trade. You
let me live; I don’t kill all of you.”
The woman barked a short, harsh laugh.
“Three to one? Cop, you crazy.”
“All I want is you to let me be. I ain’t hurting nobody, and I
ain’t a cop.”
In the midst of his dreams of Carl, the shon:gili growled at that. Carl gave him a mental pat.
Good boy. Be a nice puppy,
Chicken.
The shon:gili dreamed of
Carl. He slobbered and yapped at the pat. The demon gagged, so the shon:gili
dreamed of the demon feeling a lot of black hellfire pain, and the demon
screamed, writhing at the ends of live wires, his teeth spitting sparked.
Carl smiled. The woman shrank from him. He pushed the boy at her
and sank to his haunches. She grabbed the boy, and the sister aimed an arrow at
Carl.
“I had a rough night,” he said. “I need my beauty sleep. Go
away and let me rest.”
Eyeing hard the torn uniform and the black, damp spots of blood, she
pushed the children out ahead of her.
“You makes us trouble, mister, I send you to hell.”
“Lady,” Carl drawled, fighting a yawn. “I been there.
Ain’t no kind o’ place to take lightly, you know? Now, beat it.”
©2004 StoriesByEmail.com
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