Apocalypse Atlanta (33 page)

“Cops man.” Needles said, looking at the headlights.

“Okay, okay.” Darryl said, though he felt like cursing as well.  As fucked up as things were today, he had a black man’s instinctive distrust of getting a fair shake.  And, to be fair, they were stealing; but it wasn’t like they were taking things from people.  Wal-Mart could afford the loss, especially since they weren’t likely to be doing much selling with everything effectively shut down until, if, things got better. 

“They probably going to try and arrest y’all.  Just play it cool, don’t do nothing stupid, let me and Low handle it.”  Darryl said just above a whisper, as the headlights came closer.  “We gonna try to get the drop on ‘em.  Y’all dive for cover when we start up, unless they decide to leave you alone.”  Darryl put his hand on the grip of his Glock and drew it out of the holster, then gave Low a significant look.  The biker looked at him with wide eyes for a moment, then nodded and drew his brand new Taurus pistol.

Sporting goods super stores weren’t well known for it, but they often had rather excellent selections of both ammunition and guns.  So far as ‘typical’ pistols and hunting shotguns and rifles were concerned anyways.  And the stores weren’t as armored, alarmed, and as likely to be staked out by the owners as actual gun stores.

Darryl had made it his first stop, where they’d basically cleaned out the aisle of ammunition, along with two carts of long guns and pistols, until he finally called it off when the Silverado started sagging rather low on its shocks.  In fact, he was pretty sure they’d probably done some sort of damage to the truck by loading it down so heavily, but there was time to worry about that later.

Now each Dog in his group was packing a pistol and at least one extra magazine.  Darryl hadn’t let them spend the time necessary to dig through the haul, wanting instead to get back out and bring in more supplies.  There’d be time enough for fine tuning armaments later, he’d reasoned, but he was now glad he’d told each of them to unbox a pistol and bring it.

He heard the engine of the cop car become very noticeable as it pulled up next to the van, then heard a door open.  “Hands, hands now.” a commanding male voice said.  Darryl watched as Burnout and Needles raised their hands up above their heads.  “You, step out of the doorway.”  Joker ducked beneath the door’s dividing bar, moving slowly with his hands outstretched, and then stood waiting.

“What’re you guys up to?” a different voice asked, sounding tired and amused.

“What it look like.” Darryl heard EZ reply.  “Fucking world ending.  We getting ready.”

“Looting?”  Darryl heard the second voice said dryly.  “Getting started a little early aren’t you?”

“Look man, we know there ain’t no talking our way outta this, so why don’t you just go ahead and take us in.” Burnout said from the back of the truck.  “Probably safer in jail anyhow.  Shit getting bad out here.”

“Yeah, yeah.  Alright, up against the side of the truck.”  Darryl heard footsteps, then more as his brothers moved around to the far side of the truck.  He saw Low, out of the corner of his eye, heft the Taurus questioningly, and Darryl made a wait motion with his left hand.  He waited, listening, feeling his heart beating rapidly in his chest, and regripped the Glock carefully to ensure he had it comfortably in his hand.

Darryl had suffered his share of run-ins with cops over the years, few black men in Atlanta, and especially black bikers, could really avoid them, but he was effectively a clean cut citizen.  He’d gone to college.  True, he’d barely graduated, and had only gone hoping to make it onto the basketball team, but he had a degree.  Athletic training; useless at actually getting him a job, but then he’d never really planned on using it.  It did come in handy when he was at the gym doing his own workouts, but that was about the end of it.

But despite his intimidating looks and tough hobby and macho job, he was not the stereotypical biker you saw on television or in the movies, always ready to throw down, always in the middle of running drugs or guns or something else equally illegal.  Darryl was, as a mother might say, a good boy.

So now, as he waited for his chance to bail himself and his brother bikers out of this mess, he was nervous.  But he believed Bobo was right, and nothing he’d seen so far had convinced him that was the wrong estimate to make.

Deep down, Darryl was still sort of hoping things would even back out and return to some semblance of normality.  Even though he might be on the hook for the stuff he’d done so far today if things calmed down, he figured a jail stint wouldn’t be such a bad thing compared to what Bobo thought was going to happen.

But he knew one thing; until he saw rather substantial proof that things were getting back to normal, he was going to do whatever it took to stay in a good position to live through it.  That meant they had to deal with the cops.  It meant the usual rules were off. 

“You guys know the position.” he heard the first voice say.  “Come on, hands on your heads, spread your legs.”

“Unit 477, change that Code 54 to a 42, we’re 10-95 with four at the moment, need some more transport here when available.” Darryl heard.  A moment later, a tinny voice squawked back on the cops’ radios.  Darryl bent down, not quite kneeling, then carefully peered around the edge of the broken door.  He saw the four bikers standing against the far side of the truck, but the cops weren’t visible.  He thought he saw a way to sort this out, and pulled back for a moment as he thought.

Turning his head, Darryl caught Low’s gaze, pointed to himself, then mimed walking with his fingers, finishing up by putting a finger to his lips to signal for quiet.  Low nodded after a moment.  Darryl then pointed at Low, then pointed at the ground with a finger he jabbed downward twice urgently as he held up his pistol and pointed it out the window.  He waited, while Low tried to interpret his meaning.  After a few seconds, the biker lifted the Taurus, pointed to himself, then at the ground as he mimed shooting out the door.  Darryl nodded, and Low did as well.

Hoping Low truly did understand what he wanted, Darryl shifted his weight carefully as he peered back outside again.  He still didn’t see either cop, so he dropped down as low as he could and duck walked carefully through the lower half of the broken door, being careful to place his boots only on asphalt and not atop any of the remaining glass shards.

Moving cautiously, he went right, breathing a silent sigh of relief when he had the van between himself and the cop car he could hear idling on the far side.   He paused and looked beneath the van, and saw two pairs of uniformed feet wearing shined shoes, one of them between the van and the cop car, the other set up closer to the front of the van.

Quietly, he crept down the side of the van, then looked under the corner of the rear bumper again.  Both cops looked like they were facing the four Dogz they had lined up next to the truck.  Darryl raised himself to a bent over crouch, drew a deep breath, then straightened up and stepped around the van’s back corner.  The Glock came up in both hands as he took in the two cops, both with their backs to him, one in front of the cruiser, the other standing just past the open driver’s door.

Darryl had a moment to consider, but he’d already decided he wanted to take out the furthest cop first.  If he took the closer one, the second might have the chance to duck down behind the car, and then it would get messy.  He put his sights on the far cop, telling himself it was just like being at the range, and took another moment to make sure his aim was steady.  The familiar trio of glowing sight dots slid into view, aligning together to scribe a straight line from pistol to target.  Darryl waited a moment, just a moment, to ensure his hands were steady, then squeezed the trigger back.

The Glock kicked in his hand, and the cop’s head exploded.  Darryl blinked at the gout of gore as the cop started falling forward, then mentally kicked himself and tracked left.  The second cop had raised his gun, but was looking at his partner rather than turning to face the threat behind him.  Darryl put the sights on the man’s back and squeezed off a pair of shots.  He had time to register both had hit, and the cop stumbled forward, falling to his knees.

Darryl heard footsteps running, but kept his attention on the second cop.  The man was still moving, and Darryl remembered bullet proof vests covered backs as well as fronts.  He squeezed off two more shots, missing with the second, but knocking the cop down on his face.  Darryl heard the man gasping for breath, and shot him in the ass just because that was the most convenient target.  Blood spurted, and the man emitted a wheezing yell of pain.

Another gun opened up, and Darryl flinched before he realized it was one of his brothers.  He saw rounds striking on and around the down cop, and shifted back to be almost entirely behind the van.  He didn’t think the asphalt would give really great ricochets, but didn’t want to find out the hard way he was wrong about that either.  As he got himself back behind the van’s bulk, peering cautiously around the corner, he saw one round hit the cop in the head, and there was another sickening display of what a bullet did when it went through a skull.

It was way worse than the movies.

“They dead.  It me.” Darryl said loudly, not quite shouting, but trying to make sure his voice carried.

“You cool.” he heard EZ say, sounding almost casual.  Darryl stepped out from behind the van and walked up the side, edging around the pooling blood coming from the second cop’s shattered head.  He saw EZ standing there with a smoking pistol in his hand, looking grimly satisfied.  The other three were looking a little shocked, and when Darryl glanced that way, he saw Low standing behind the broken door with his gun sort of pointed vaguely up.

“Damn DJ, you stone cold.” EZ said as he flicked something on the pistol and shoved it back into the holster on the back of his belt.

“Y’all okay?” Darryl asked, lowering his gun quickly.  His hands were shaking, badly, and he could feel his heart hammering in his chest.  He looked at the first cop he’d shot, thinking to double check the man was dead and not able to bother them anymore.  That was a mistake, he realized almost immediately.  Just before he felt a wave of nausea roil within him.

Clamping his jaws together, Darryl looked away.  The blood was everywhere.  It was still leaking out of the shattered ruin of the man’s head. The nine millimeter bullet had done a real number on him.  It was not something Darryl wanted to see again, and he took a deep breath as he felt his insides lurch again.  It would completely trash his cred if he threw up, but that’s exactly what he felt like doing.

“Yeah.  Sure.  Fuck.” he heard from the brothers, but it was EZ who spoke up in a tone that wasn’t startled or touched at all with fear.

“They done called for backup.  We gotta hustle.”

Darryl jammed the Glock back into his holster, then remembered the radio call they’d made before he’d taken them out.  “Yeah, we out of here.”  He was breathing through his nose, making himself do it slowly.  He still wasn’t sure if he was going to vomit or not.  Breathe in.  Hold it, count to three.  Breathe out.

“But grab all that shit we already got first.”  He added when he was sure he could speak without spraying his stomach contents everywhere.  His finger hit the magazine release on his pistol, dropping the nearly empty one into his left hand.  He tucked it into his pocket and slipped the other flush magazine in to reload.  His Glock was nice and small, but the flush magazines were low capacity as a result.

“Fuck man, more coming.” Low whined.

Darryl shook his head sharply.  “Stop bitching and start throwing shit in the damn cars.”  He went over to the door, motioned Low out of the way, then pulled the closest cart out through the broken door.  As he started heaving stuff into the van as fast as he could, not caring if some of it broke or not, the others moved to help him.  All except EZ, who instead hopped into the driver’s seat of the van and reached back into the open cargo area to rummage around in the stuff already there.

“What you doing?” Darryl asked as he continued to throw things out of the cart.

“Cleaning up them cops.  Don’t worry, I got it.” EZ said as he grabbed what looked like a towel.

Darryl finished emptying the cart, then shrugged and kicked it out of the way and turned to the door.  “Low, stop fucking standing there, get them carts!  And make damn sure you safe that gun.” he snapped.  The biker blinked at him for a moment, then fumbled his pistol in the equally new holster before starting to wrestle another of the full carts through the door.

Darryl heard cloth tearing as he started emptying another cart, but couldn’t see what EZ was doing.  They were down to one cart to empty out when EZ reappeared, at the side of the Chevy as he scanned through the stuff in the bed.

“Where that lighter fluid I saw.” he asked when Darryl straightened to glance at him.

“What?” Burnout said, but Needles jumped up on the back bumper of the truck and dug beneath the pile of stuff, looking a lot more nervous than he normally did.

“Here.” the jittery biker said, holding up a can.

EZ grabbed it out of his hand, and Darryl looked at what was left.  Low and Joker were shoving the last cart of stuff into the back of the van, so he walked past the open back doors of the boxy vehicle to see what EZ was doing.

The man had opened the driver’s side rear door of the cop car up, and was squirting lighter fluid liberally across the interior and side of the car.  There was also a long strip of towel dangling from the cruiser’s gas tank, long enough to curl its loose end on the pavement next to the car.