Black Box 86ed (21 page)

“One is coming up here,” I whisper to Grace

“O God, what do we do!” she pleads.

“Hide. G
et in the closet.”

Grabbing what clothes she can I open the closet door handing her a gun as she rushing inside. Immediately
I’m hit by a light from my left.

A police officer stares at me down the sight of his pistol, looking half surprised half scared.

“Don’t do anything foolish son.” I just need to see your star and we can get you to a safe place.”

I slowly shut the door on Grace he eyes pleading through the dark as I close her in. “What, to a FEMA camp? Or worse?” I ask gripping the handle of my gun tighter holding it to my thigh.
      

“Son there is no need to escalate this we can take you in. Everyone knows this will all blow over.”

“I know what goes on there. I’m just as safe out here as I am in there.
” My hand shakes as a helicopter flies over its spot light illuminating the room for an instant.

“Well if you ask me son you have three options. Surrender and take you chance in the camps, run and I’ll have to shoot you in the back, or I suppose you can always kill me.
But you don’t look like the murdering type. Plus I don’t think you’ll get far and when you get caught with my blood on your hands you’re not
gona get the softest mattress. Now I would appreciate if y
ou would make my job a little easier for m…”

A shot rings out catching the end of his sentence in the middle of his throat. Then immediately another his head caving as he falls to the ground. I spin to face where the shot came from ready to fire back when I see G
race standing there, tears streaming down her face with arms shaking as she holds the gun I gave her. Running to her she collapses in my arms.

“You did what you had to. Don’t think of it any other way.
”

Limp and trembling, “I shouldn’t of…” she whispers
.

“We have to go now he was not alone and he probably heard that shot we’ll meet up with Roger and Over.”

Grabbing her hand we walk to the top of the steps, looking down into the pitch-black stairway.

“I need you to be really strong for me ok?”

She just stares, “those boxes...”
Static springs out form the cop’s radio.

“George, George you ok?
George you there?”
Footsteps rising from the basement.

“George you there?”
A sudden flash of light hitting the bottom of the stair case. I duck back into the room. We freeze behind the doorframe. Silence fills the house, only the distant sound of helicopters.

“George you there?” I look to Grace putting a finger to my lips. Her eyes glazed, almost as if she’s left herself. I kneel next to the policeman. At least what’s left of the poor man, lying in a sizable pool of blood. Almost unrecognizable his head mostly inside out like a pair of jeans you try to take off with your shoes still on. God please forgive me, I pray as I pick the man up. Finally getting a complete understanding of dead weight I lift. H
is frame seems smaller now I think as I try to simultaneously hold him on his feet and not let his blood ruin my shoes. Leaning him on the doorframe his most fatal wounds facing me. A light flashes and this time stays at the bottom of the stairs.

“George, George are you alright” I hear his partner whisper. Taking to the first step on the stairway. My heart and head freeze. My God please God please let this work. His light traveling up the stair hitting George’s back. “Hey, what the hell are you doing?” The cop asks as he hits the second step pausing slightly.
His light tight on
George’s back.
Holding by his waste and shirt collar, I curl my fingers as far into my palms as possible
, trying to avoid the light.

His partner continues traveling up the stairs. “George?” He asks once more resting on the fifth
step. I release, letting what’s left of George’s former home wean backwards, the abstract pottery that was once his head hitting the opposite wall with a mushed thud. Turning the corner firing directly into the flashlight, my hand going numb as the third round exits the barrel. I pull the trigger until there is nothing but a soft click.

Silence, sweet, sweet
silence. I turn to the
stairs; the now red light shines across the fifth step showing a dead man. I exhale, melting my insides. We had to. God, do you believe me? Can I be forgiven? I had to. I… You made me. You could have stopped this. You should have. Why in the hell… How the fuck, do you let this happen. If you think you can judge… I didn’t want to, I didn’t need to for me. I… I did
this for her. I look down to G
race her head buried in her hands. If you’re as all knowing as I’ve been told you cannot hold this against me, not when you’ve given me a life to protect.

Sitting down next to Grace. “Hey, hey we need to go
.
We just have to go.
I know this is hard and really fucked up, but we have to go
.
”

I stare into her eyes almost able to see the tumor of pain and confusion growing behind them. Standing I pull her off the ground. She leans against the wall as I wrap my arms around her keeping her on her feet.

“We’ll get Roger and Over and we will get out of Chicago tonight.
I’ll make sure of it.”

It’s like I’m not there, her eyes transfixed on the pool of blood on the floor. “Grace… Grace!” I yell. “We will beat this!
This will be behind us in just a few hours. We’ll go to Canada, Mexico anywhere you want but I need you here, I can’t do this alone.
I need you.” I see her coming back. The fire in her eyes slowly warming.

“Ok.”

CHAPTER…

“We cross the, for now barren street, the wreckage of the mini nursing home laying still in the middle of the street.

Walking into the house a huddled mass under a blanket lays on
the couch. “You
mother fuckers
!”

“What?!” Roger bolts up buck ass naked. Grabbing a pillow covering himself, as Over screams in surprise.

“Ssshhhh
do you want the whole city on us?” Roger scolds.

“You’re gona watch the house huh?! Well Grace and I almost got taken away while you two were busy finger popping each other’s ass holes!”

“What? We were just taking a break, w
hat happened?”

“We are going.”

“No it’s too…”

“I’m not asking Roger. Grace and I are going if you want to come it’s your choice.
”
The house shakes and briefly lit by the light of a helicopter.

“God, wait.”
Grabbing his pants he jumps into them.

CHAPTER…

We walk in silence.

“I’m sorry Will, really we are” Over says almost pleading. “Roger watched for two
hours and we didn’t see anyone except the helicopters.” I shrug off his apologies
and continue walking.

We get two blocks down when we’
re spotted.
A
light form above strikes us. Like those alien abduction movies I always hated, the light never wavering. “Pr
esent your star and stay where you are,” a voice barrels down at us over the noise of the helicopter blades
.

“Fuck that,
” Roger yells as he turns and runs.

We follow in pursuit to the nearest alleyway. Nerve wrecked by the gunfire sure to follow. “Just keep running, just keep running,” the words screamed in my head as they reverberate off the walls of my
skull
. The only thing I can think as it repeats over and over. Roger making it to the alley with Grace and Over not far behind. I’m the slowest and as I just about make it to them, something jumps
up and bites me in the ass. Yelling
as I hit the ground holding what’s left of my right cheek. I scream and look to see blood streaming out of my back pocket. Roger is the first to notice my cries of terror and pain as he turns sprinting towards
me;
grabbing my shirt collar he drags me into the alley. O god if I die from an ass wound I’m going to be so pissed. I
look at Roger who’
s petrified.

“Pressure! Put pressure on it!” He takes his shirt off using it as a bandage to try and stop the bleeding.

“What does it look like?
Am I’m going to die?”

“It looks like it’s slowing down, here Grace I’m going to look at it then you take over.
” He removes the impromptu bandage and immediately puts it back.

“What’s wrong, is it bad?” I ask him.

“No, I don’t think you’ll die, it’s just an ass wound. We have to get the bullet out but you’ll be alright
.
The thing is, I don’t know
how we are getting out of here!
You can’t walk and the army is literally on top of us!
They’ll see we don’t have stars or God
forbid they find that cop.
We’re fucked we’re really fucked. And we won’t just get executed or jail time they are gona torture us.”

“What no not the U.S army, that’s something the Chinese would do.
” I argue trying to convince myself just as much as everyone else.

“Are you fucking kidding me man we know they blew up the train, and those fucking boxes of dead people.
And I didn’t tell you guys this but I met a guy at union station.
Was a guard at one of the camps till he AWOLED. Shits fucked in those camps. People stripped naked chained to fences in the sun
for hours no food or water.
They are literally baking people for any info they can get.
”

The helicopter hovers over us but the buildings are too close together for them to get another shot off.

“What about the sewer?” Grace asks. “There’s a manhole cover right there, we could get a few blocks away maybe, at least in the movies it works.”

“That is the shittiest Idea I have ever heard,” Over interjects. “But I think we don’t have a choice
. You still got the crow bar
Roger?
We could pry it open, take a look.”

Over and Roger run to the manhole cover and get to work on removing it. My ass is throbbing but it has for the most part stopped bleeding.

“This is probably one of the worst first bases I have ever gotten.”
Grace says the words shaking out of her mouth as she tries to rise above the situation. I try to laugh but it comes out halfhearted.

Dear G
od please... please get us out of here. I know I haven’t been any sort of good person but please let us make it out I pray.

“What’s going happen to us?” Grace asks. I see her slowly breaking down. “I killed a cop I know something is going to happen
. You can’t just kill a god dam cop and get away with it.” Tears cascading down her face as she starts to shake.

“We’ll find a way.” I say the words not really making any sense.

“Shitters open,” Roger says as he and Over run back and helps
me to my feet.

“God I’m going to get an infection,
” I moan.

“Better than your ass baking in the sun all day,” Over tells me as he takes my arm over his shoulder. “Grace you go first, tell us what it looks like down there.”

“You have to be fucking kidding me,
” she says as she stoups down to take a look. “It’s not very big and smells like shit what did you expect?”

“Well shit or not we need to get our asses in there,
” Roger orders.

“Jesus, just drop me in,” I tell them.

“Wait I’ll go first and catch you.”
Over says as he sits down, swinging his legs into the manhole. He drops down with a slightly larger then what I wanted splash and yells the all clear.

“Ok lower me down.”

My arms around Roger and Grace they slowly start to lower me in. A sudden flash of light hits us from the end of the alley.

CHAPTER…

“Hold it right there!” A voice bellows at us. The light making it impossible to see who or how many people there are.

“Present your stars and lay face down on the ground or we will fire on you.”

Terrified Grace cries, “what do we do, what do we do!”

“Stay hidden,
” I tell Over as Grace and Roger lift me out of the sewer.

“How many bullets you got left?” Roger asks.

“I got a full clip n Grace’s got bout half of one. But that don’t matter we are fucked man we can’t get out of this.”

“I think we are gona have to surrender and hope for the best. Not one word about that cop.”

“Present your stars immediately and lay face down on the ground or we will fire on you,” the light repeats.

“Just lay me down and we’ll see what happens. Grace you need to throw that gun into the sewer right now.” She drops it behind me, Over catching it and slinks out of sight. Roger and Grace put me down and lay next to me.

“Do not move,” the light tells us as it slowly gets
bigger and more blinding. It comes to a stop just a few feet in front of us.

“Well, well look what we got here, couple Americanos not a spine in em.” The voice from the light says, carrying with it a heavy southern drawl. “You know what the government is gona do to you in those camps?”
      

“What are you talking about, you guys aren’t military?” I ask.

“No sir, now Imma
have to ask you to take off your stars and roll over as to get a better look at cha.”

“We don’t have any stars, we are just trying to get out of Chicago man, please just let us be.”