Transformation (33 page)

As their group closed the distance, the old white man looked up. The black dude was still staring off into space. Cullen waved.

§

Weed caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up to see a group of folks approaching in the distance. Weed immediately felt uneasy. It was normal to feel such a way these days.

“Ronnie.” Weed motioned to the group.

Ron turned to look. “I wonder who they are?”

As they drew closer and Weed could see them more clearly he turned and with a grin said. “Assholes.”

“What? You don’t even know . . . “

“Ronnie. Now I’ve spent my life around assholes, and I’m telling you these kids are grade A assholes. I can see it a mile away, even with my shitty eyes.”

“I just find it hard to believe you can tell that much about a person at a glance.”

“Well, it’s what I do Ron. What is it you see that no one else can?”

“I see crowns, veneers, implants . . . “

“So I would be a real dickhead to tell you any different if you said that fellow had fake teeth or some shit.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“OK. I have a lifetime of dealing with assholes. I know assholes. The biggest one of the bunch is that bearded fucker in the middle there. He’ll be the first to try some shit, then that feisty blond there. The other two look like the type to ball up or run. Mark my words and keep a sharp eye.”

“OK. You make a good argument. I’ll follow your lead.” Ron paused for a bit. “So I should’ve listened to Dale about you?”

“Before all this.” Weed gestured around him. “He would have been dead on right about me in most respects—as I’ve told you. But that was before all this happened and before our big adventure together. He was still playing by the old rules.”

“Did you do something to him?” Ron asked point blank. He locked eyes with Francis.

Before Weed could answer the youngsters were there.             

“Hello.” Cullen waved.

“Hello yourself young man,” Weed smiled.

Cullen looked up at the truck. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Yep.” Weed smiled. “It’s a shitload of parsley.”

Everybody had a laugh, well most everyone. Hope and Gerald were a bit too dense for humor that flew that high.

“Where you fellows headed?” Weed asked the picture of nonchalance.

Ron started to speak. “We have a . . . “ He was pointing at the structure. Weed cut him off.

“Yeah, we have a meet set with some fellows over that a way. Apparently
parsley
still has value in this world. And this is some really good parsley. You’re welcome to some if you like.”

“Thanks.” Cullen squinted his eyes. “OK then. We’ll just be on our way.”

The bearded fellow walked off with his crew in tow.

Weed smiled as he watched the four kids go around the backside of the truck. As soon as they cleared it, he bent down to watch their feet. Two of the four kids went up onto the side of the truck just as he expected them to. He motioned with two fingers for Ron to follow him. They rolled under the truck.

When Weed came out from under the truck on the other side, he saw the chubby girl looking up. She didn’t even seem to notice him. The fat pimply boy opened his mouth to scream but Weed had already jumped to his feet and punched the kid in the gut before he got off a shout. He grabbed the little chubby girl by the hair and put his knife to her throat.

One kid was on the ground gasping for air and Francis held a knife to the throat of another as Ron was just coming from under the truck.

“Hey you assholes! Come on down from there.”

Cullen and Dawn were at the top of the cargo. They turned and Cullen smiled, Dawn looked horrified. They came down quickly.

“Get your fucking hands off her,” Dawn yelled. She charged forward.

“Nah, uh.” Weed said and pressed the blade to Hope’s throat. She squealed as he pulled her hair.

“Fuck you,” Cullen sneered and walked closer to Weed. “You think I give a shit about her?”

Dawn’s jaw dropped in shock as if it was a complete surprised that Cullen could feel that way. Her face melted into the deepest sorrow when she looked at Hope.

Weed smiled. “No, but I know she does.” He addressed Dawn. “Ain’t that right, darling?”

Dawn just nodded, speechless and dry mouthed. “Please don’t hurt her.”

Weed nodded his head towards Cullen. “You’re not going to let her die because of him, are you?”

She shook her head emphatically. “Just let her go mister, please.”

“Of course. All I want is them weapons of yours.”

There were only two, Cullen’s rifle and Dawn’s shotgun.

Cullen un-shouldered his rifle and pointed it at Ron.

“Go ahead and kill her and I’ll . . . “

The boom of Dawn’s shotgun made everyone jump but Cullen, Dawn, and Weed. Cullen’s head was blown off his shoulders and across the expressway in a red spray. Weed was expecting the girl to make such a choice. He saw the shotgun pivot over to the back of the boys head. He was smiling before she pulled the trigger.

Weed held his hand out and Dawn gave him the gun. He let Hope go.

“That was a smart move young lady. Now you three git, go on.”

“With no weapons? I shot him for you.” Dawn said, flabbergasted.

“Yes, and I do appreciate it. That’s why your girl there is still breathing.”

Dawn frowned and looked Weed over in a manner that made even him feel uneasy. She grabbed Hope’s hand and walked off. Gerald followed still blubbering.

Ron waited until the kids were a little ways off before he spoke. “You were completely right about them. Completely.”

“Yep, I know assholes.” Weed watched the three kids walking away. “You have to ask, how did those kids, as you call them, survive out here? Why are they out here anyways?”

“Should we follow them?”

“Nah, they’ll be back.”

Weed cracked open the shotgun. A double barrel shotgun with only one spent shell in it. They had no more shells. The gun was useless. The rifle was missing parts, most importantly the firing pin. Weed kept an eye on the three kids as he checked the weapons. The thin blond turned and shot a glance back. He’d seen her kill in cold blood with no hesitation. He watched as she didn’t blink, didn’t give a second glance to the corpse of the boy at her feet. And he watched her do it all for that chubby girl.

“We ain’t seen the last of them Ronnie.”

45.

Ben drove the Bronco straight to the San Jose International Airport, or so he tried. He was hot to blaze a trail straight to point B and kick some ass, but he had some shit to do first. He got off at an exit that looked promising and was quickly lost in a maze of residential streets. He was hungry—people got to eat—and he wanted a drink. He was tired too.

At first he was frustrated at the lack of retail stores in the area, but then he slapped the wheel. He was driving by hundreds, thousands of the houses he used to dream about robbing but always he ended up with the safer, less profitable targets. These houses were all just stuffed with the shit he wanted like booze, drugs, and guns. He only needed to crack open a few.

He stopped the Bronco in the street and walked a bit in the silence of the day just to check things out. Not a soul in sight, not a corpse or body. There was absolutely no noise. If not for the sound of his own footfalls, Ben would have worried he had lost his hearing.

There was minimal evidence of an apocalypse. Bits of trash and a few errant weeds marked the absence of human attention. He quickly settled on a house when he realized he wouldn’t be able to stop at cracking open only one. He wanted to hit at least a few of them before dark. He spent a couple of hours opening doors and tearing the places apart.

At one house, as Ben was tearing through drawers and closets, he found a gun. It was a silver revolver with a black rubber handle. It felt good in his hand. It held only six bullets but there was a pretty big box of ammo next to it. The gun house, as he thought of it, also had plenty of booze and piles of pills in it. There was a crap load to eat. He decided to hole up there for the night.

He kicked back for the evening, got drunk and high on pills.

Ben must have puked in his sleep because he woke up next to a big pile of it. He grabbed a lot of what he came to get and filled the nearest car with it. He pulled out of the neighborhood all stocked up.

Ben pulled up to one of the two giant terminals at the San Jose International Airport. At the A terminal, he entered sliding doors that easily opened with a push. He wondered where all the people were living and dead. The entire city felt oddly empty since he drove into the southern end of it. The airport was a ghost town. All the doors that were shut opened so easily he wondered if this wasn’t a trap.

Ben smelled the slight odor of mold in the building. The air was surprisingly warm and stuffy and the deeper he went into the airport, the more stuffy the air became. It had reached an oppressive level by the time he was at security. He walked through the metal detectors and x-ray machines in near darkness, stopping to listen and watch the shadows. He was confused as to how the building stayed so intact and devoid of people. He couldn’t imagine where anybody might be living at the airport, as the guy Cooper said they were. But it was a big place so he kept walking.

When he hit the gates the long stretch of floor to ceiling windows bathed the place in sunlight, but the air was by contrast at its most oppressive. He felt as if he had a hot wet towel over his head. He was soaked in sweat within minutes.

Ben hit the end of one concourse and stopped to look and saw nothing whatsoever. Almost an hour later, Ben had walked through all the gates, poked his head in a few doors as he munched on crap and swilled down bottles of whatever he could find at the kiosks. He also stopped and pissed all over every twenty minutes. But still there was no sign of people in any condition.

Ben walked out into a day that was sunny and bright naked as the day he was born. He was dripping with sweat from head to toe and the breeze chilled him. He held a set of dry clothes from one of the many gift shops inside and as soon as he was dry enough he put them on. By the time the sun was low in the sky, Ben was standing on the top level of short term parking looking over the area before it was dark.

From the top of the garage he could see the tower, the runways, and lots of open space. He saw the highways running all around the area. There were a few abandoned vehicles about but nothing of note. The world was getting gray as the sun dropped and the shadows grew. Ben didn’t want to go back into the stuffy terminal. In the end, when the sun was almost gone, and he could barely see shit, he decided he could probably find a place inside to chill that had an open window. Just as the sun was about to slide to the other side of the planet he thought he saw something. People? There were people walking on the highway. Finally, something interesting, but no way he could get to them now. But if there were some people, there would be more.

A row of chairs was the best Ben could do for a bed. As the world outside cooled, so did the inside of the terminal but it was still stuffy and smelled like ass. He got drunk and high but still sleep eluded him. He dragged his ass along in the darkness, sliding his hand along the walls and got himself outside for some air. He stood in the dark, swaying on his feet and feeling vulnerable. He debated heading back inside to look for a better place to chill but knew there was nothing. He started walking back to the car past the pitch black terminal windows. He really hated the creepy fucking place.

In the deep black of the plate glass windows, a flicker of light caught his eye. As he watched, he saw the slight flash again. It moved in a low arc as if it was being carried by someone. Ben’s first thought was it was the guy he was hunting, Cooper. He walked quickly back to the nearest door so he could come up behind whoever it was. He moved silently on the thin carpet as he gained on the figure ahead of him.

Barely visible it moved on and Ben followed as closely as he dared. The figure never looked back, or from side to side from what he could tell. Suddenly it was gone. Ben slid up to the spot where he last saw it and listened carefully. There was a faint clink as if something tapped a metal handrail. He looked for the source of the sound and above him he saw the moon through the skylights. The moon cast a faint glow on a figure moving along the second level. It looked like a woman. Ben was highly motivated and climbed up to the walkway.

By the time he finished his climb, the woman was gone. But there weren’t many places to go and Ben quickly found an open door ahead. He peeked into the dark room. The windows on the far wall let in the light of the bright moon and he could clearly see that the room was empty.
Where’s the bitch?
He thought.

And just as it occurred to him that he may have walked into a trap, something hard pressed to the back of his head. It was surely a gun barrel.

“Don’t you move,” a stern female voice commanded.

“Not a problem sweetie,” Ben said with a smile. He liked dealing with women.

“The name’s Ben. What’s yours?”

“Fuck you.”

“Nice name,” he said. “You like to get high?”