Allison Hewitt Is Trapped (30 page)

“Oh God, where are you hit?” I shout, keeping my head low as I unbuckle my seat belt and crawl into the back. The gunfire is relentless, peppering the back of the car, getting gradually softer and softer as we outrun them.

“Where am I going?” Renny shouts, the sedan careening wildly through the parking lot.

“Fucking anywhere, just get us out of here!”

I roll Ted onto his back and see that his shoulder is rapidly turning black, his sweatshirt soaking up the blood from his wound. I push Dapper away, who yelps, trying to nose his way beneath my arm. “Shit,” I mutter. “Shit, shit, Renny, he’s hit!”

“Hold on!”

I grab Ted around the shoulders and hold him tightly to me. The Cavalier hits a steep curb and rocks from side to side, the trunk flying open from the impact. Ted is shaking and wailing with pain into my neck and I can feel the wetness of his blood on my hands as I try to keep him still. I’m not qualified to handle this. Anything I know about treating a wound comes from bad TV and I know that’s only going to get us so far. I pull off my sweatshirt and ball it up, shoving it into Ted’s shoulder.

“Guh, fuck, what are you doing?” he pants.

“I’m … putting pressure on the wound! I’m putting pressure on the wound, okay?”

“Okay.”

Renny is driving like a maniac, swerving and laying on the gas and I’m worried the next speed bump will send Ted, Dapper and me flying through the air like a trio of drunk astronauts. Ted seems to have calmed down—that, or he’s about to pass out.

“I think we’re okay,” she says, out of breath. There certainly are fewer bumps now. Still holding onto the sweatshirt, I pop my head up and glance out the window; we’re passing beneath I-80, the enormous concrete beams on either side of us as we speed across the grass. I hold tight to Ted as Renny crashes through a chain-link fence and then drives up a shallow embankment. Through the hazy darkness I can make out a group of low buildings across the road in front of us. We’ve looped around, leaving the shopping center behind only to come upon another parking lot with some kind of mall.

“Renny,” I say, watching a cluster of lights bouncing toward us—a few are flashlight beams, a few are honest to God fire. “Renny, someone’s coming.”

She turns around in the driver’s seat and together we watch the flames getting closer and closer to the car. I roll down the window slowly and pull the pistol out of my waistband, aiming it at the closest flashlight. The torches are waving back and forth as if they’re trying to hail a plane.

“You had best be coming in peace,” I shout, tapping the butt of the gun on the edge of the glass. Dapper squishes his nose against the bottom of the glass, watching the strangers approach.

“Friends,” one of them says, a stout woman with curly brown hair, “don’t shoot, don’t shoot. We heard the gunfire, are you all right?”

“No,” I say, keeping the gun aimed at her face. “One of us is wounded.”

“You have nothing to fear from us,” she says, holding up her palms. The flashlight beam bounces off into the dark. “I take it you ran into the Territorials.”

“The who what?”

“The Territorials. They’re the militia around these parts,” she says, lowering her hands. “Look, I can tell you all about it, just please, lower your gun. We won’t hurt you.”

“Do it, Allison,” Renny says, cutting the engine.

“No, no,” the woman says. “Start up the car. Follow us back to camp.”

I put the gun away and Renny steers us around to the right, slowly following behind the group. They lead us about one hundred yards away to a cluster of makeshift tents set up between a concrete girder and a shabby, bullet-riddled brick building. It looks like some kind of maintenance shed, but there are other buildings a little ways off—a gutted gas station and what might have been a Starbucks. Fires have ruined most of the distinguishing features, leaving the buildings charred and faceless.

“Should we get out?” I ask. Renny looks at me and her eyes almost glow as she stares at Ted curled up on the floor.

“Maybe they can help,” she says, shrugging. “And we can’t just keep driving, not when he’s like that.”

“Then we agree. We stay here until Ted can manage, and then we keep going?”

“Yeah, but why are you asking me?”

“Because, if this is a colossal fuckup, I don’t want to be the only one responsible for it.”

“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Renny says, shrugging again. “He’s in bad shape.”

Renny gets out and comes around to help me with Ted. His eyelashes flutter on his cheeks as we carefully maneuver him out of the sedan. A low, pained groan streams from his lips, but he seems to have passed into unconsciousness. Dapper trots beside us, trying to lick Ted’s face, presumably to comfort him.

“Bring him over here,” the brunette woman says, lighting our way with her flashlight. There are two others with her, a tall man with a stained Stetson and a slim, lanky woman with a big mane of black hair. The cowboy disappears into the shadows for a second and then returns, wiping off a serious-looking hatchet on his jeans. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “The damn things just don’t quit.”

They keep the path lit up as Renny and I shoulder Ted along, trying to bump his shoulder as little as possible. I can see the stain has crawled down his shoulder and onto his elbow. I can’t think about it, I can’t think about the possibility of Ted bleeding out as we stand there watching, helpless.

The tents are crude, but sturdy enough. The woman, however, directs us into the maintenance shed where a pale, buzzing yellow light still works. I can’t help but stare in awe at the lightbulb. Maybe I’ll get a chance to charge up the laptop again.

“Emergency power,” she says, whispering it like a prayer. “We just hope it holds on.”

She and the other two disappear and return with a sleeping bag and some pillows and a trash bag. They lay out the bed for Ted and cover part of it with the plastic to keep him from soiling the sleeping bag. He grunts and trembles as we put him down, his face breaking out into a hard sweat.

“Thanks,” I say, extending my hand to the brunette. She shakes it, not even flinching at the fact that there’s blood all over my fingers.

“Nanette,” she says, nodding her head. Her nose is very narrow, a little crooked, and most of her features are pinched but still friendly. She’s wearing a stained plaid shirt with heavy-duty coveralls on top.

“Allison,” I reply. “And this is Renny, the dog is Dapper, and that poor bastard is Ted.”

Nanette introduces the others, who are Dobbs (with the hat) and Maria (with the black hair).

“I’m sorry you had to run into those fiends,” Nannette says with a grimace. “They’re just … Oh they’re just
unspeakable
, unspeakable people. The way they bully us, the way they just take—just take what they want, whatever they want! Despicable!”

Nanette speaks the way a dachshund must think, rapid-fire and with incredible nervous energy, her thoughts tripping and tumbling over each other as she speeds toward her point.

“Slow down,” I say, glancing nervously at Ted, who seems to be worsening in front of our eyes. “Who are those people?”

“The Territorials,” Dobbs says. “They think it’s their job to hold down the fort until the government gets here. But they don’t get it. The government ain’t coming. No one is coming. They just wanted what was ours.”

“Which was?” Renny asks.

“The Walmart,” he replies. “We had a pretty good thing going there—defensible, lots of supplies, guns and food and all that. Then the Territorials showed up and damn near killed us all. They said it belonged to them, that it was their duty to … to
appropriate
it. That’s what they said. Appropriate, my ass. They’re thieves—dirty, lying thieves.”

“That must be what we drove through,” Renny says.

“It’s a fortress now and they’ve got more guns than they know what to do with.”

“That sucks,” I say. “And I’m really sorry but … Look, we just need to get Ted patched up. Do any of you know a doctor? Do you have like a first aid kit or something? There were plenty of tents out there—anyone a nurse? Anything?”

“Well,” Dobbs says, shifting his eyes to the side, “we had a doctor.”

“Had?”

Fuck.

“Julian. That’s my … That’s his name. When those militia boys cleared us out they had their guns, sure, but they had explosives too, handmade shit, and Julian fell behind. They either blew him clear to hell or he’s stuck in there. I don’t think they’d kill ’im, no, the son of a bitch is too valuable.”

Nanette puts a hand on his shoulder, looking for all the world like her beloved dog just got steamrolled by a cement truck. Dobbs shakes her off, hiding his eyes with the brim of his hat.

“So then you don’t have a doctor and there’s nothing we can do?” Renny asks.

Dobbs and Nanette share a look, a very bad look. Even Dapper has the instinct to shrink back against my shins.

“Well…”

“No,” I say. “No way. You’re fucking crazy if you think we’re going in there to get him.”

“You have a gun,” Maria says, pointing.

“Your point being…? Didn’t you say they’re armed to the teeth? This pistol will do fuck-all when they’re shooting at us with rifles.”

“Maria knows that place inside and out. She could show you the way in,” Nanette suggests.

“No. Absolutely not.”

On the floor, Ted has begun to wake up, shaking from side to side, groaning. I can’t recall the details. I won’t.

“Allison,” Renny says, touching my elbow, “can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?”

We go outside, standing in the harsh, ugly glow of the emergency light. Dapper sits next to me, and out of habit I rest my hand on the top of his head. I can see Renny’s mouth trembling as she looks past me, out at the highway. “We’ve got two choices. We can either leave Ted here and go on our way, or we can try and get this doctor.”

“No, three. Three choices, Renny. We could forget the doctor and try and do it ourselves.”

“Surgery? I—
Us
?”

“I’m not leaving him here, Ren. I can’t. He’s been with me since the beginning. He doesn’t deserve that.”

“Did you
see
his fucking shoulder? It’s a mess!”

“I’m not a good shot, Renny. If Ned was here, or Collin … Look, it’s pointless to speculate. But I know that busting in there guns blazing is just about the worst idea in the world.”

Biting down on her lower lip, Renny glances over her shoulder, lowering her voice as she turns back to me. “Dobbs looks capable. It might not be so bad. Maybe there’s a back way in.”

“Yeah I’m sure he’s Jesse fucking James or whatever, but three of us won’t cut it, you know that.”

“Then what about just one of us,” she says, meeting my eyes with a stare that, God help me, makes my spine freeze. “If that person doesn’t make it out then the other one will do what they can for Ted.”

I really should give it more thought, mull it over for an hour or so, but there’s no time to waste, not now, not with Ted moving closer and closer to that light at the end of the tunnel.

“Best of three?”

Scissor beats Paper—Fuck!

Rock beats Scissors—Huzzah!

Paper beats Rock—Double fuck.

“Happy trails,” Renny says, smirking. “I’ll take good care of Dapper.”

“Don’t look so smug. At least I won’t have to be elbow deep in Ted’s scapula.”

Renny hugs me and we stay like that for a minute, letting the relief come and then the despair. We both sense the moment when another second might trigger tears and we pull apart.

“If I were into pussy, you’d be my first choice, baby,” I say.

“You should be so lucky,” she says, punching my shoulder.

“There’s a file on my computer, a document. It should be 103109 on the desktop. Just walk around outside for a bit tonight, maybe toward the Walmart, and see if you can find a signal and upload it. You’ll see the program, it’s minimized. There will be a place to upload the—”

“I’m not a total moron, you know. I
have
used a computer before.”

“Good. Thanks. Now get Maria out here. Tell her we’re leaving now. She doesn’t have to go inside, just as far as the door.”

I watch Renny go back inside. Immediately, Dapper begins licking my hand, sensing, as he always does, that something is the matter. I don’t know how he does that, how all dogs manage to inherit that talent, to know exactly when things have turned from bad to worse. I scratch him behind the ears, kneeling down to his level to let him lick at my face a few times. He whines at me. He’s hungry. We all are.

“Be good, boy,” I say, touching my cold nose to his. “And take care of Ted. He’ll need some cheering up when he comes to. And say hi to my mom when you see her. I think she’ll like you just fine.”

COMMENTS

Isaac says:

October 31, 2009 at 6:12 pm

Allison, I really don’t think this is a good idea, not a good idea at all. Halloween? Sounds like bad luck to me.

steveinchicago says:

October 31, 2009 at 7:04 pm

jesus, possession parts 1–3 all over again. come back out. don’t make me lose sleep again, allison.

Norway says:

October 31, 2009 at 7:27 pm

Cave! Cave! Run, don’t walk, to the nearest boat and get your ass over here. I don’t have a good feeling about this, Allison.

Isaac says:

October 31, 2009 at 8:34 pm

Too late, I think. She’s already gone.

November 1, 2009—Survival of the Sickest

“Careful,” I say in a whisper, putting a hand on Maria’s shoulder. “We can’t use the gun. Not yet.”

With only one gun between the two of us and stealth being the prime objective, Maria and I are forced to take out the undead by hand. She’s pretty handy with a hatchet and I’ve still got my ax, so we manage well enough. In the dark, without the aid of even a flashlight, it’s hard to see them coming. They tend to blend in with the dark, fading into the shadows and then coming at you with little to no warning. The slight crunch to the grass saves my ass more than once.

Maria shows me the back way through a low hedge of bastard plants that try to rip the flesh right off my bones, and under a few scrawny trees. There are dozens of semitrucks out back, slumbering giants still plugged into the store, ready to unload sporting goods or ladies underwear or cantaloupes. Whatever was stored inside is probably long gone by now, bartered or used by the Territorials. Maria and I take it slow, crouching behind shrubs and scrawny, barren trees. It’s not very good cover, but in the dark it’s enough to cloak us for a minute or two.