Lucky's Girl (39 page)

***

Kenny stood atop Jerry’s desk, a barricade in front of the glass door. He peered over the shit-people pressing against the glass. “I can see they’ve got a bonfire going, a big one, right in the middle of the street, but this….
whatever
this is… it’s making everything dark, it’s just a flicker in the distance.”

He glanced at Jerry, who was staring at the floor, completely withdrawn. He was sitting on the metal folding chair, in the same spot it had always been in all these years.

He then glanced over to Errol standing in the open cell door, looking like he felt: terrible. How he’d blithely used Jerry for so long was lost to him now. He’d made a secret
fortune
stabbing Jerry in the back, never thinking twice about it. Now the full impact of that truth had come to light while they were being surrounded by Darkness and Silence and the things inside it.

Kenny squinted into the pitch black outside. “If you look closely, right at the edge of the darkness, you can see that those shit-fuckers have us surrounded, holding hands, playing ring-around-the-fucking-rosy.”

CRASH.

The glass of the front door exploded, barely held together by the plastic sheath inside it. Shards wrapped around Kenny, knocking him backwards as a big male wolf landed on him and ran at the open door of the cell. Two more followed, screaming promises of evisceration.

The first one was hit by a grand total of two rounds out of thirty from Errol’s gun, killed even before landing at Errol’s feet. The next wolf hit him square in the chest, lifting him off his feet and launching him against the back of the cell. The wolf went for exposed flesh, fangs sinking into the white gauze bandage covering the spot where Jenny had sunk her teeth. He shrieked as skin and meat sloughed from bone, like an over-ripe tomato yielding to a knife.

The second wolf was on Jerry. He wasn’t wearing Kevlar. Fangs found the flabby skin of his right breast, and pulled it off in a sound of growling and tearing meat. Jerry screamed and screamed, then finally reached his holster. He emptied six through the chest of the wolf but its jaws were still clamped to the ragged kite of flesh ripped from his upper torso.

Frankie saved Errol from losing his entire arm. He held the Krinkov one-handed and pulled the trigger, the first shot hitting the wolf while the rest arced up, ventilating the ceiling. He reloaded, this time taking a two-handed stance, gently lifting himself up to sit atop the bench at the back of the cell. He wasn’t going to get caught again lying on the floor, despite the agony of broken ribs from Torgeson’s gunshot.

As the ringing in their ears subsided, the throbbing, stabbing agony of their injuries began. Kenny was the least damaged. He’d been smart enough to strap on a Kevlar vest, and was merely stunned. He freed himself from his sheath of broken glass and ran back to the cell, past the writhing and bleeding forms of Jerry and Errol.

“Jake! Jake! Are you okay?”

Jake looked out at him, wide-eyed and bewildered. He nodded.

Kenny’s hand reached to touch his boy’s head. “Stay here, Son!”

He ran over to Jerry, one hand pointing his AK at the door, the other stretching down for his friend. He grabbed the back of his shirt and bodily dragged him, leaving a long crimson smear. Kenny was inadequate in many ways in life, but he was strong.

After he’d gotten Jerry to the cell he ran back, kneeling behind the desk and barricading the front door while pointing his gun out at the line of figures holding hands in a giant circle around the station. He pulled the trigger and emptied the magazine, raking back and forth. He slapped another magazine in place just as soon as the first one had emptied, holding down the trigger to empty it out into the darkness. He peered into the night and was satisfied with seeing several feral townsfolk lying in the little penumbra of light from the bonfire.

He’d just shot people.

There was no going back now, but maybe there never had been.

He has my daughter, and he had my son.

He spat a continuous stream of inchoate rage out into the night.

His ears slowly returned to normal after the barrage of gunfire, the wall of Silence hitting him again. He clicked the flashlight on the smoking barrel of his gun, sliding another magazine into place.

From out of the darkness a voice boomed;

“We have been given a ministry which far surpasses that of those who serve under the old laws, for he is the one who guarantees for us a better covenant with God, based on better promises. If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. But God himself found fault with the old one when he said: “The day will come when I will make a new covenant with the people of Elton Township.”

The voice paused, then as if whispering, laid down a challenge to be proven wrong, to deny a marker that none could truly deny.

“I ask of you all, have we not seen miracles? Can you say that you have not been relieved of the bonds which have held you a prisoner in your flesh and in your mind?”

From out of the dark a collective sigh of contentment and bliss.

Ket-mat-na-roz, keh-pi-uh, ja-quey, tae-lae, bas-nef-tek.

Ket-mat-na-roz, keh-pi-uh, ja-quey, tae-lae, bas-nef-tek.

Ket-mat-na-roz, keh-pi-uh, ja-quey, tae-lae, bas-nef-tek.

It was a sonorous chant, deep and pious, filled with knowing and sincerity. The Faithful truly meant it. There was no way to question their conviction. The terrible burdens of the human condition had been lifted, and they really had seen the miraculous.

The voice then asked, “Did you come into the Covenant of your own free will? Did you shed the shackles of the System of your own accord?”

The Faithful answered once again.

Wen-ta-cho! Wen-ta-cho! Wen-ta-cho!

The voice responded; “Because you are all gathered here freely in fulfillment of the Covenant, I ask your leave to wed Jenny, born of the System, daughter of the Traitor, who came to us wearing the same bonds which had held you all in captivity. Like you all, she yearned to be free, and gave away her ideas, her vanity, her family, to become one with the Faithful. She turned her back on the System and the Traitor.”

The faithful intoned their reply.

Wen-ta-cho! Wen-ta-cho! Wen-ta-cho!

“Of the Faithless, I ask that you come to us and embrace us as brothers. None of us were without sin, without flaw, but I say to you: as surely as night follows day you can turn your back on the life you’ve lived.”

He paused and let the words sink in before continuing. “Because the lives you’ve lived really weren’t living. They were dying in slow motion. Suicide on the installation plan. Oh, believe me, I know…”

He paused once more. “I’ve seen you, and in your own small ways you did your best. You tried, but failed. You played the game but lost, just like everybody else has. Your strengths became weaknesses, your flaws became fatal, and you didn’t even know you were being battered and toyed with. No one wins the game against the System. Not Pigs, like you, Jerry, not Sheep, like you, Kenny.”

Kenny screamed out into the night. “Why don’t you come and see what happens to wolves, Lucky?”

And Lucky answered without pause. “Oh, Tonto, I’ve missed you buddy. You always were a quick one. But in the end, you sided against me. I’d always hoped and dreamed of the day that you’d come to find me but you never did. What sights I would have shown you, what sheer majesty of life!”

Kenny answered back, his voice unnaturally loud in the Silence.

“You steal what you have, Lucky. None of these people made a choice.”

Lucky wasn’t seeing it that way. “Do you think what they’ve been given isn’t a fair deal? What were they living for? For that matter, what are
you
living for?”

Kenny barked back, “My family, you fuck!”

The very night could see Lucky’s smile. “And what happened, Tonto? I sincerely want to know. You did your best, you followed the script, but in the end you weren’t adequate.”

Kenny let out a long moaning cry.

“Kenny, Tonto, my brother, it was the System. You worked to provide the things the System said you needed. It took you away from your family and they came to harm – a life that you got because the System said you were supposed to have it.”

He breathed deep and exhaled sadly. “And yet, you go on about choice. You chose the cross you bear while they chose to put theirs down.”

Kenny thumbed off the safety and screamed as he unloaded into the empty Darkness.

Lucky sighed loudly. “Kenny, you should be proud. Despite everything, you have brought a beautiful daughter into the world. She’s shared everything with me. Well, not everything, because she’s not my wife yet. But she told me what you went through, everything that’s happened, and I promise you, I’ll give her a better life than you were able to.”

Kenny was sobbing now. It was all that could be heard in the void of Silence. A giant continual sound of a man breaking, the sound of a man’s grief somehow filling the entire town. It was sad, it was pathetic, but more than anything you just wanted that man to stop.
Give up
. Where there should be empathy and sympathy there was simply nails on a chalkboard.

“Tonto, brother. I only wish I could have been there. I only wish that we had been together. But you never gave me a chance, you believed what the Pigs fed you, and now look at you. You can still join us. Come. Give away your daughter to me. Stop fighting, give up on carrying the water for the System. Walk away from those Pigs and join a real family.”

Kenny took the strap of the Krinkov from his shoulder and laid it on the desk. A splattering of tears fell onto the fake wood. He ran his fingertips through them, smearing the liquid into the surface. It was dirty, dirty. His wife would’ve had an aneurism over a desk that dirty. He smiled. She’d been really funny like that. When he’d come home from the rigs, sometimes she’d made him hose off in the backyard.

Jake put his hand on Kenny’s forearm, breaking his reverie.

“Daddy, don’t do it. Grampa says the Corps doesn’t leave men behind. You need to get Jenny and get us out of here.”

Kenny smiled and laughed. His son Jake had called him daddy.

“Jake, your grampa can be a real cocksmoker, but he’s got a point”

And he laughed. It was a big laugh, but it didn’t fill the night air like the sounds of suffering had. But it was enough for him, even if it was only for him.

He smiled and knelt down to his son.

“Daddy, what’s a cocksmoker?”

“Son…” And he laughed again. And it felt as if it was his very first time.

“Jake, we’re gonna just have to leave that one for another day.”

Kenny paused, took his son’s hand and walked him back to the cell full of injured men. “Jake, I’m never going to leave you, but right now I’ve gotta go get Jenny. They’re gonna come, and they’re gonna try to scare you, but they’re not gonna hurt you because they need you alive.”

He bent down and kissed his son on the cheek. “I love you, Jake.”

Then he closed the cell door, locking them all inside. He handed the Krinkov to Jake through the bars. He reached through them and pulled a flare pistol out of Errol’s getaway bag, sticking it down the back of his pants.

He picked up the empty whiskey bottle, walked over to the coffee maker and filled it by a quarter, then filled the rest with water. He took a swig, vaulted the desk, and disappeared into the night.

CHAPTER 19

Jake sank back against the concrete wall, forcing back the tears. He was his mom’s little big man and he wasn’t gonna cry. He’d shot two wolves today when these dipsticks hadn’t been able to take care of themselves. They were crying and wheezing like fat kids with asthma. Nothing made Jake angrier then crybaby fat kids with asthma.

But they were hurt, real bad. There was blood everywhere. The one who’d gotten shot by the policeman was trying to bandage them up. The one that Jenny had bitten was worst off. All the meat on his forearm had gotten eaten by the dead wolf on the cell floor. The other policeman, the one who smelled like cigarettes and diarrhea, had all the skin bitten off his chest. The one who’d gotten shot was the least badly off, but he wasn’t in good shape either. He was spitting blood. Grampa said if you’re spitting blood you’re a goner.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Clang! Thud!

Then came the sound like a cat makes when it’s tearing up the screen door, except it came from up above.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

And a lot more scratching from all over the roof. Metal clinking and tinking as it flexed and bent under the weight of several something’s. They weren’t people because their steps weren’t the regular one-two of people and they weren’t wolves because wolves walk on four feet the whole time. These did both, getting up on two and going back down to four.

Then they’d start talking to each other. It wasn’t wolf talk, all yips and barks, and it wasn’t people talk with words either, but something in between. But really not like either. There were a lot of squawks, deep gurgles, and yak-yak-yak noises like the hyenas on the Discovery Channel, followed by deep chesty noises singing up to high whistles like whales and dolphins. But sometimes, words, people words, cut through the jumble;