Hamsikker 3 (21 page)

“We’re on our own,” said Dakota. “There’s no one else left.”

Jonas stared at Javier. “There were others, but they didn’t make it. Julie, and a young man named Lukas. They should be here, but thanks to you, they’re dead. Julie was ripped apart by your little game at the border. Lukas died back in Thunder Bay when we were trying to get here. They’re not coming back any more than Quinn, Erik, or anyone else you’ve murdered.”

Javier looked at Jonas. He was telling the truth. “I was curious about that. I set it up very much on the spur of the moment. Those trenches at the road works just seemed like too good an opportunity to resist. I wish I could’ve been there to see the look on your face. So you and Dakota didn’t fall in?”

“I did. I got out thanks to Julie.”

“Then I guess she got what was coming to her.”

Jonas saw her being torn apart all over again and shuddered. “I knew it was you when I saw that message you left for me on the sign.”

“Clever, huh? I wasn’t sure you would pick up on it. I wasn’t sure you would even fall into my little trap, much less so, even get that far.”

“Why, Javier? You just said so yourself you didn’t even know we would be coming. You left us for dead, remember?”

“That’s true. It was more Quinn to be honest. She kept telling me that you would come; that somehow you would find a way. I guess on some level she got through to me. Besides, even if it hadn’t been you, it would’ve been someone else.”

“You’re insane, Javier. You’ve lost it. I’m not sure that you ever had it. People are dead because of you. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“It never did, so why would it now? Nothing’s changed. I haven’t changed. And your problem is that
you
haven’t changed. You still think the world is a nice place; that one day the army is going to come marching over the hill to save the world. You still think the shops are going to re-open, and you can go for brunch while the kids watch cartoons. America is a very different place to the one little Jonas Hamsikker grew up in. The streets aren’t safe anymore. You can’t hide anywhere. They
will
find you eventually, Hamsikker. Why can’t you see that? Why don’t you give up? Accept the way it is now. The Wild West is back, and this time it’s a mean son of a bitch. You think I’m responsible for this. You want to blame me for Julie, and Quinn, and Pippa, and everyone else who died. But all I did was use the tools at my disposal to survive. That is what your America has taught me. You’ve finally lost, Hamsikker. You couldn’t protect them because you were too wrapped up with your own lies. You couldn’t see the truth even when it was standing in front of you with a semi-automatic about to blow you and yours away. That’s on you, Hamsikker.”

“On me? Maybe a little. I’m not perfect, I have my own demons, and maybe sometimes I lose sight of the bigger picture. But I try. I try to be a man, and that’s more than you will ever be. A man doesn’t think of other people as things he can use for his own end. A man doesn’t leave his woman behind in the dirt full of bullets. A man doesn’t hold a gun to another man’s wife. That’s what a
coward
does, and I refuse to accept that there is nothing left to believe in. I still believe that there are people out there on the right side, who still think that America can grow again.”

Jonas looked at Dakota. Her nose had stopped bleeding, but she looked like she was giving up. She couldn’t fight back, and she knew that no matter what Jonas said, Javier was the one with the gun. He still had control. Jonas was supposed to protect her, but it was Javier that was forcing them into this position.

“I don’t have the faith that my wife does. She’s stronger than you think. I do know one thing, Javier. You’re going to rot in Hell for what you’ve done.”

“Oh yes, Hell. I’m fairly certain that we’re there already, so it doesn’t quite have the same threat as it used to. As for your America, well, what a tragedy. You still talk to me as if I have no feelings, as if I didn’t care about anything. Let me remind you, I’m here to find my brother. He’s here somewhere. I just wanted to get some local information about the area, and about where he could be holed up. I’m not the one in the way here, you are. You’re interfering in my plans, Hamsikker. I’m here for my brother. I’m not a robot.”

“Not a robot? What about that psycho, Rose? Don’t make me laugh. You didn’t give a fuck about her. You left her on the ground to be eaten.”

Jonas could see Javier bristle when he brought up Rose’s name. Jonas wanted to push the man’s buttons. He needed to get a reaction, to get this over with. He had to get Javier out of the way so he could free Dakota and find Janey and her children. “I heard them dismantling her body, you know,” said Jonas, lying. “They pulled her head off her shoulders first. Scooped out her brains before they began on the rest of her.”

Javier clenched his teeth and then sighed, annoyed. “All right, Hamsikker, let’s just—”

“They ripped open her stomach and stuck their greedy mouths right into her. By the end there was nothing left of her. I watched them devour Rose, and I was glad. I enjoyed it. I wish you had been there to see it, Javier. I’ve never seen them enjoy a meal as much as they did Rose.”

“Enough!” shouted Javier. “I know what you’re doing, but it’s not going to work. You think I’m going to crack? You think that you can get me to cry like a little girl? Telling me about Rose doesn’t change a thing. You can dream of revenge, Hamsikker, but you’re a long way off.”

“I’m past revenge, Javier. I just want to see you dead,” said Jonas. It was his time to smile. “I’m sure that’s not too far away now.”

Javier tapped the gun on the wooden table three times, recomposed himself, and then pointed the gun across the table, all the while keeping one hand firmly on Dakota’s back. “I could just shoot you, you realize? Then you’ll never know what happened to Freya, or Janey, or those three precious nephews of yours. How about I put one between your eyes right now, Hamsikker?”

“Go ahead. I know you better than that, Javier. You’re not going to shoot me.”

“Maybe not.” Javier exhaled slowly and stepped back into the shadows. “But I can shoot her.”

With Javier off her back, Dakota felt the weight lift, and she looked up into Jonas’s eyes. She reached out her hands, and Jonas took them in his. A cold shiver rippled through her, and the hairs on her arms stood up on end. “Jonas?”

The gunshot echoed loudly around the small kitchen, and Dakota’s body convulsed. Fresh warm blood splattered Jonas’s face, and he watched as Dakota’s face disintegrated. The bullet entered the back of her head and buried itself in the table beneath, sending sharp splinters flying through the air. Dakota’s body slumped forward onto the table, and Jonas jumped up, his chair scraping against the floor as it flew backwards. He leant over the table, frantically pulling Dakota toward him. Jonas turned her head over. The back of her skull had been blown wide open, and as he looked at her face, he saw where the bullet had left through her forehead. Her eyes were still wide open, a mixture of confusion, fear, and love. Javier had finally killed the last thing Jonas loved. His child was dead. His wife was dead.

“No.” Jonas felt his eyes stinging, and he buried his face into Dakota’s neck. There was still warmth there, but no movement, no pulse. He couldn’t believe she was gone.

Dakota was dead.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jonas kissed his wife’s cold cheek, and then rocked back in his chair. This sort of thing happened to other people. Dakota wasn’t supposed to die like this. She was going to raise their child with him, and death was not on the agenda, not for a long time. They had a future. Despite everything, they still had a future to plan, to live together; was it all supposed to end so suddenly, so violently?

“Are you going to listen to me now, Hamsikker? Can you still not see it?”

Jonas stood up, and grabbed the poker. He calmly began to walk around the table to Javier.

“Step back, Hamsikker,” said Javier pointing the gun at him. “Take a moment, and…”

Jonas ignored Javier. It was easy now. The rantings of a madman paled into insignificance now that Dakota was dead. It was as if he couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t hear anything. All Jonas thought about was Dakota, how her future had been so crudely ripped away from her. Javier may as well have been waving a comic in front of him instead of a gun. He raised the poker to strike, when Javier suddenly shoved the gun into a back pocket, and rushed him.

Jonas was knocked back as Javier crashed into him, and the two men scuffled around the table. The poker went rolling away under the table, and Javier shoved Jonas to the floor. He was much stronger, and Jonas was weak. He tried to throw punches at Javier, but there was no power behind them, and Javier easily repelled him. Jonas tried kicking out at him from the floor, but Javier just dodged his kicks like a boxer dancing around the ring. Soon Javier was able to retaliate, and began kicking Jonas. He booted Jonas all over, wherever he could, striking Jonas’s head, sides, arms, and legs.

As he lay on the floor taking a beating from Javier again, Jonas felt no pain. All he could think about was Dakota. He still pictured her full of life, still laughing and smiling as she used to do before the world changed irrevocably. His body was so used to being beaten that it had stopped bothering sending messages to his brain that he was suffering. No amount of pain could top the anguish he felt when he thought about a future without Dakota. The tears he shed were not from pain, but the realization he had lost his child and the woman he loved.

As he accepted his suffering, the cold hard floor offered up a chance. Beneath the table lay the poker, silent and unassuming. Jonas stretched out a hand, and wrapped his fingers around it. With his right hand he brought it swiftly out from underneath the table, and jammed it horizontally through Javier’s standing leg, just above the ankle. Javier roared with pain, and Jonas pulled it back out, this time stabbing it downward through Javier’s foot, embedding it into the floor beneath. Blood spurted from Javier’s boot, and Jonas scrambled to his feet. He hoped to bundle Javier over, to pulverize him out of existence, but as Jonas got up, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.

“You’d better move real slow, Hamsikker,” said Javier through gritted teeth, “or you’re going to be joining Dakota sooner than you think. Maybe you should start to think about your sister and your nephews before you make any more rash moves.”

Jonas stood up straight, and looked Javier in the eye. “Where are they?” Without Dakota or his child, he only had Janey and his three little nephews left. If they were gone, what was there? He had to know. He had to find a reason to keep going. He had to make sure Javier hadn’t killed them, too, or worse still, have them locked up somewhere.

“You know why I’m here? You think you know me?” Javier bent down and pulled the poker from his foot. He grimaced with pain as it slid up through his foot, scraping along the bone as he took it out. “Fuck. I’ve got to say that really does sting.” Javier threw the poker aside, and shoved Jonas toward the dining room. “Put your hands on your head, and get in there. Move it.”

Jonas slowly raised his hands, and placed them on his head. He took a look at Dakota’s lifeless body, and then turned and walked into the next room. Erik’s body was still where he had left it. Everywhere he looked there was death. He couldn’t block it out anymore. Dakota wasn’t coming back. She wasn’t going to smile at him, kiss him, hold him, or fight with him ever again. He would rather she hated him and be alive than be cold and dead.

Javier shoved the gun into Jonas’s back. “Across the room you’ll find a staircase. We’re going to meet your sister.”

With the gun at his back, Jonas crossed the room and found the stairs. Was Janey really up there? Had Javier killed her like he had Erik? Had he tied her up just so he could kill her in front of Jonas? The steps were covered in a thin, worn brown carpet, and the staircase creaked as he ascended. Reaching the upper floor, Jonas began to detect a change in the air. It was cloying, thicker, and just smelt wrong. It wasn’t just the dampness. A powerful smell permeated the air infusing the house with a heavy atmosphere that was both sweet and sickly at the same time. It was then that Jonas knew Janey was dead. Javier wasn’t bringing him up here to be reunited with her. Javier wanted to show him, to destroy any last semblance of hope that Jonas still clung to.

“In there.” Javier pushed open a door, and Jonas stepped inside.

Instantly they were hit by the smell. Lazy flies, idling in the still air, buzzed around the corpse’s head, and Jonas put a hand over his mouth.

Janey’s hands were still wrapped around the shotgun. On the floor, her body was slumped against a wall, her legs spread-eagled, and behind where her head should be just the splattered remnants of her brain. Hair and bone decorated the wall, and the blood splatter reached up to the ceiling. The white bedspread had soaked in much of the spray, and Jonas didn’t need to examine the body to know it was her. The photographs around the room told him he was in the right place. It was a woman’s room, and her clothes were still piled on a chair, a dress hanging on a lonely hanger above the drapes. There was a picture on the bedside table of her with Jonas and Erik when they were younger. All three of them were smiling, and the sun was shining. Jonas could still remember when his mother had taken that photo. He could still remember when they were happy, but it was a long time ago. At least his mother hadn’t lived to see Janey like this.

Jonas had never felt more wretched. In the space of five minutes he had lost his wife, his child, and his sister. There was a part of him that couldn’t process it all, that refused to accept what he was seeing; yet he knew it was all too real, and that he had not only been too slow to save Dakota, but too late to save Janey. He had failed them all. He had come here to start again. It was supposed to be a new start for him and Dakota. He thought they would be safe here, but he was wrong. Javier was right. The world he thought he knew was long gone. It wasn’t just America, nor Canada, but everything, and every person; God had truly abandoned his children.

“I can’t claim credit for her,” said Javier. “She was like that before I came along.”

For once Javier was telling the truth. Jonas could tell Janey had been dead a long time. Several weeks, probably, if not months. A cobweb stretched from the tip of the shotgun to Janey’s chest where a thin legged spider fed on a bluebottle it had recently captured.

How long had she held out? How long had she thought about killing herself? What was so bad that she had felt compelled to end it instead of taking her chances? Jonas wanted to pick her up, to tell her it was okay, and that he would never leave her again. He wanted so much to tell her that their father was dead, and that he was here for her now. He wanted her to meet Dakota and tell her that he was finally going to be a father.

But he couldn’t say a word. Jonas could only stare at his dead sister and wonder how it had come to this. Where was the girl he grew up with who used to pull his hair? Where was the awkward teenager who used to flirt with Erik? Where was the beautiful girl who had become a mother and raised three sons.

The children.

Jonas turned around and faced Javier. “Where are they? Have you seen them?”

“I assume you’re talking about the boys from the photographs? They were Janey’s then?”

“Yes. Look, just tell me where they are. You can do what you like with me, I don’t care anymore, Javier. You’re right. I can’t fight you. I can’t win. But please,
please
, just let me get my three nephews out of here. Christ, how have they survived on their own?”

Javier stood clear of the doorway and hurried Jonas through, back to the top of the staircase. He had known grief, and could see Hamsikker was hurting. That was just how he needed him: weak and vulnerable. “They’re outside. Go back down through the kitchen and skirt around the house to the left. You’ll find them in the garden.” His foot was still bleeding, and Javier was in pain. He knew Hamsikker wasn’t about to run off. “I’ll catch up with you.”

Jonas saw that Javier had lowered his gun. He could use this opportunity to fight back. He could ambush Javier and get some payback for everything that he’d done.

Heading down the steps, Jonas decided that Javier would wait. He needed to make things right first. This little red house had not been the safe haven he had hoped it would be. It harbored death and disease in every room. What had Ritchie, Mike, and Chester gone through? How had they coped with their mother gone?

Heading back through the kitchen, Jonas couldn’t help but glance at Dakota. She was exactly as he had left her, still slumped over the table. He would bury her before the day was over. She deserved at least that.

Back outside, the air was cool and fresh. The sky was cloudy, and still the rain fell softly, turning the soaked ground into a swamp. Jonas looked across at the park. A couple of zombies were heading through it toward the house. It didn’t matter. The barbwire would soon stop them; even if they found a way through, there were only two of them and could be easily dealt with. Jonas looked at Lake Superior, its vastness imposing, its natural power making him feel less than insignificant. Maybe this was the way it should be. Maybe once everyone had gone, the world could start again, but this time without people to interfere with it. Jonas shook his head. No, that wasn’t right. Dakota had taught him that he shouldn’t lose his faith; should never give up. He had fought for her, killed for her; to give up now would be to throw that all away. Had Lukas died for nothing? Had Erik and Tyler died for nothing? Mrs. Danick, Julie, Quinn? Jonas was going to carry on. He couldn’t afford to waver now, not when he still had a chance. Not while his three nephews still needed him.

Turning around the corner of the house, Jonas came upon a small garden area bordered by a low picket fence. There were shrubs and flowers surrounding it, and a large spade and fork leaning against a huge mound of dirt. The jetty lay just ahead of him, down a curved mossy path that led down to the lake. The small rowboat that he had seen earlier was still anchored up, and it moved slightly on the water. Closer to the house, Jonas recognized the combi van parked around the back. It was the same van that they had travelled in with Javier; the same one that Javier had left him and Dakota for dead in. Javier had positioned it carefully, making sure it wasn’t visible from the road. Jonas looked for his nephews, but there was no sign of them. He tried to see if Javier had them tied up, either in the garden or in the van, but both looked deserted. Jonas looked closer at the garden, specifically around the large pile of mud. Taking a deep breath, he walked slowly up to three smaller mounds of dirt. Each one was about two feet across, and three or four feet long. At the head of each mound were crudely made crosses held together with twine, and upon each separate pile of raised dirt were mementos. On the first grave was a toy truck, its red paint glistening and wet. On the second was a book, its pages swollen with water, its cover faded into obscurity, and on the third Jonas saw a teddy. Its smiling face seemed at odds with where it was. Each was held in place with a small garden stake.

Jonas sank to his knees and clawed at the ground. He felt utterly empty, devoid of emotion, unable to cry or scream or do anything but stare morosely at the three small graves that held his nephews. His fingers gouged out narrow lines in the ground as his frustration grew. He had been too slow. He had left it too long. Janey had promised she would wait for him, and she had. How long had she waited while her three boys were dead and cold in the ground? How long had he made her wait with that unbearable grief and guilt weighing on her? How long had she tormented herself waiting for Jonas to come, only to finally give in and take her own life with the shotgun upstairs? Jonas kept seeing them all in his mind, seeing them laughing and smiling. He imagined Dakota was still with him, stood by his side as he introduced them all. This was supposed to be a family reunion, not a wake.

The soft patter of rain on the ground hid Javier’s approach, not that Jonas held any fear of him now. He had nothing left to offer, nothing more he could tease Jonas with. It was over. Everything had been in vain.

“We both came here looking for something; looking for answers.” Javier walked up beside Jonas. “I guess you found yours. It might not be what you want, but it’s the way it is. If it counts for anything, I’m sorry. Those three little boys never had a chance. I can understand why Janey killed herself. She was responsible for them, and she let them down.”

“Shut your God damn mouth,” said Jonas. He ran his fingers through the dirt of the third grave until he found the teddy. He plucked out the stake holding it in place and looked at it. Was this Ritchie’s, Andy’s, or Chester’s? Jonas wished he knew. He wished he could be holding his nephews instead of a soggy teddy bear.