Desolate The Complete Trilogy

18



Lilly was crying. I tried to call out to Gina to take care of it, but for some reason I couldn’t make my mouth work. Drunk again. Man, was I going to hear about it. Screw it. I’d make it up to them tomorrow. Just need to sleep it off…

Lilly cried out again and called my name. A man’s gruff voice told her to shut up. I opened my eyes but my vision was blurred. It was Emily. Emily was calling out my name, not Lilly. I was on my back, being dragged by one foot. I tasted blood.

My shirt was practically up around my neck as the asphalt scraped the bare skin on my back. I reached out with my hands, trying to pull myself up, but my fingers only brushed the street. I couldn’t seem to make any muscle in my body cooperate.

I suddenly stopped moving and my heel hit the pavement. Somebody slapped my cheek twice and hissed, “Git up!”

“Christ, mon,” a different voice spat. “You could’ve killed ’eem. I tol’ you I want answers first!”

A kick to my leg.

“Sit up, mon! I know you can hear me.”

I slowly reached for my face and gingerly touched my nose. Spots still danced in my vision as I tried to pull the ceiling into focus.

“I said, sit up!”

One of the attackers grabbed my shirt with both hands, pulled me up, and slammed me against the wall. I banged the back of my head on the wall and cried out. Emily started to wail.

“And you keep your damn mouth shut!”

The homeless guy from the day before was sitting next to Emily on a crate, rocking back and forth slightly, eyeing me with a demented grin on his face. Another man paced nervously around the garage we were in. He was tall and menacing, with shoulder-length dreads and a scruffy goatee. He wore only shorts and shoes. His lean and muscular upper body was covered in scars and tattoos. He held a large black revolver that he flailed around as he paced.

“What do you tink you’re doing with this girl here, mon?” he shouted at me. He continued to pace back and forth in front of me.

“She belongs to us now,” said homeless guy.

“Shut up, Stick!” the pacer yelled at homeless guy. “I do the talking!” Homeless guy flinched and cowered like a dog being reprimanded.

“You see out dere?” the pacer asked me. He pointed his revolver toward the open garage door. “Dis town belongs to me now. No cop. No politician.” He tapped the tip of the revolver on his chest. “Nowan but me.”

“Nowan but Ketch,” added homeless guy.

“Shut up, Stick!”

The pacer walked over to a table and pulled what looked like a few crystals out of a plastic bag. He smashed them a couple of times with the butt of his revolver, leaned over, and snorted the powder. He let out a primal scream at the ceiling and jumped up and down a few times. I had a feeling he was just now hitting his stride and had no plans on mellowing out anytime soon. When he turned back to me his eyes looked even more insane.

“You know what I tink?” he asked me. “I tink de white mon did this to my town. De white mon like you!” He emphasized his point by jabbing the gun in my direction. I did my best not to flinch but I’m sure I still looked scared shitless.

He stopped pacing and squatted in front on me. “Tell me, white boy. What are you doing in my town, ah? Why aren’t you at de coast drinking Red Stripe and staring at titties on the beach?”

“I’m lost,” I managed to say. “Just trying to find help.”

“Cha!” he screamed and punched the wall next to my head. He pulled his hand away and it was covered in blood and plaster dust. He was so tweaked it didn’t even faze him. He jammed the muzzle of the revolver into my forehead and pushed my head back against wall. Bright white pain erupted through my head, and for a second I actually thought he pulled the trigger.

“Tell me de truth or I split your head in two!” He pushed the muzzle harder into my skin and cocked the gun. “What killed my people? What do you know?”

Emily started crying again. Homeless guy smacked her on the head and told her to shut up. The pacer pulled the revolver from my face and redirected his rage at his partner. He hopped up and got in homeless guy’s face. “What de f*ck, mon? Who tol’ you to clap dat girl?”

“S-sorry, Ketch. Just trying to keep her quiet, know?”

“Her mudda was one of me best customers. Nobody lays a hand on dat girl but me, seen?”

Homeless guy cowered and raised his hands in front of his face. “Sorry, Ketch. Jus’ feeling uneasy.” He glanced at the table with the drugs. “How ’bout a lil taste of that ice, mon? We hadda deal, no?”

The pacer eyed homeless guy for a moment and nodded at the table. Homeless guy slowly rose from the crate and uneasily walked over to the bag on the table. He gave one last look at the pacer and leaned over to snort the dust.

The pacer was on homeless guy in seconds and smashed his face into the table. Homeless guy collapsed to the floor. The pacer straddled homeless guy and started pummeling him in the face with the butt of his revolver. While homeless guy tried to scream in pain, pacer bellowed with insane rage as he delivered blow after blow. Homeless guy quickly fell quiet as his face turned to mush and his blood splattered all over his assailant.

Emily jumped up from the crate and ran over to me. I wrapped my arms around her as tight as I could and she buried her face in my neck for the second time that day. While the pacer was distracted, I fished for the scalpel in my back pocket. It caught on the material and wouldn’t come free.

The pacer finally stopped beating and rose, breathing heavily and moaning like a madman. He snorted another hit off the table and frantically rubbed his nose with the back of his bloody hand. He strolled past us as if we weren’t even there and stood in the doorway of the garage, staring out into the street.

I clutched Emily and exhaled, realizing I’d been holding my breath for longer than I could remember. I finally pulled the scalpel free and slowly looked down at it. The blade had broken off. It was useless.

Without warning, he spun around and fired all six shots from his revolver into homeless guy’s body. Emily shrieked and I closed my eyes, waiting for him to do the same to us, not having an answer for how to prevent it.

My ears were ringing from the gunfire but I had no problem hearing his bellowing.

“Ya!” he shouted at me. “Did you see that, mon? F*cking head exploded like a melon! That’s some wicked mad shit!”

He opened the cylinder and held his revolver upright. The empty shell casings fell from the gun and bounced around on the concrete floor. Pacer glared at me with mad eyes while he dug in his pockets for more bullets.

“You mus tink I’m pretty daft, no?” he asked me. “I see everyting. You an’ Stick tought you could juss take my glass?” He loaded the revolver while frantically nodding. He slapped the cylinder shut and start pacing again.

“Dis town is my territory! Nobody steals from Ketch. Not this trash,” he pointed his gun at the mangled corpse on the floor, “and no white boy from are-can-saw.” He pointed the gun at me.

I cleared my throat and held up my hand. “Look, I’m not trying to steal anything from you,” I said as calmly as possible. “I’m just trying to get out of town. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

He cocked his head to the side and grinned. His teeth were pitted and brown. “Oh, I don’t know what you are talking about,” he mocked in his best Midwestern accent. He took a step forward, leveled the gun at my head, and reached for Emily.

“Come, child,” he cooed. Emily whined and held on to me tighter. He grabbed her arm and pulled her from me. “Shhhh, dat’s enuf now. It’s time to go.”

He pulled Emily close and kept the gun pointed at me. He took a step back and looked down at Emily. “Close your eyes, child. I need to make de bad man go ’way.”

“Hey, come on,” I stammered. “You don’t have to do this.” I held my palm out at the gun, as if that could somehow stop what was coming. “Just…just let me go. You don’t have any problems with me. Let me out of here and you’ll never see me again.”

For once he wasn’t pacing and agitated. He stared at me with cold eyes, watching me squirm and enjoying it.

“The girl,” I pointed at Emily. “I helped her. I kept her safe and gave her food. If you really care for her, you’ll appreciate that!”

The mention of Emily must have angered him and he lurched forward, jamming the muzzle into my forehead once again.

I don’t know where that whole “life flashed before my eyes” crap started because that doesn’t happen. It didn’t for me anyway. I fully expected to die at that moment and the only thing going through my mind was this simple question: Would my brain register the sound of the gunshot in the millisecond before it turned into jelly on the wall? Adrenaline pumped through my veins and the primal instinct of fight or flight screamed through my psyche. I wasn’t able to do either.

The sound of tires rolling on the pavement outside almost didn’t register at first. Ketch backed off with the gun and we both turned to see a pickup truck drive past the open garage door. Tires shrieked as it skidded to a stop.

“There!” somebody shouted. “Back, back, back!”

The truck slammed into reverse and drove backward into view again. Two men crouching in the bed of truck trained rifles on us. Ketch aimed at them and opened fire.