Shella (33 page)

Every day, it got dark quicker at the end. It started to get colder. I didn’t have a jacket with me, just what was in my duffel bag. When they searched me one day, before I went inside to be alone with the leader, they said why wasn’t I wearing a jacket. I told them it wasn’t that cold yet.

They must have a way the men outside could talk to the leader, because he asked me if I had a jacket. He said, if I didn’t, I could grab a ride into town with Rex and pick one up. I didn’t know who Rex was, but I figured out he meant the guy with the shoulder holster.

I never found out the name of the guy with the white shirt and the clipboard.

I told the leader I already had a jacket. He said I should start wearing it, otherwise I could catch a cold.

The next morning, I remembered what the leader said before they came over to get me. I went into Murray’s locker and got his black-and-white jacket. It was way too big for me when I put it on.

The men who searched me hadn’t seen the jacket before. They made me take it off. They went through it real careful, but there was nothing in it.

They kept my gun. I carried the jacket inside with me to be with the leader.

It was never going to get any better. I knew that. It wasn’t that I couldn’t wait—I can always wait. But it would never change, I could see that.

He was talking and talking. I moved around a little bit,
listening to him, always watching his face. He kicked back in his chair, put his feet on the desk. I never saw him do that before. I guessed there was a button he could push, bring the other men inside. Theres always a button like that in back rooms. He put his hands behind his head, the way Murray used to do. But there was no muscles bulging.

The way his hands and his feet were, he couldn’t push a button real fast.

I got up, started to walk around a bit. I did that before. It didn’t make him nervous anymore.

When his head tilted back, I saw the black dots pop out on his Adam’s apple. The place where you can tell the real men.

I walked just past his feet, so close I could smell him. My back was to him for a second. I planted my foot and spun around. His mouth came open. I hit him so hard in the throat he couldn’t make a sound even if he was alive. I pushed his face against the desk and held him there while I broke his neck from behind.

I didn’t have a plan to get out. I started choking him. He let go while I was still squeezing—I could smell it.

His daughter walked in. Just walked in, didn’t make a sound. She had a denim shift on, barefoot, a red scarf around her neck. Her belly was really big. She looked at me. I saw the blue marks high on her arms, where someone had grabbed her hard. I moved to her before she could get out the way she came in, but she just stood there.

She didn’t say anything. Then she moved her hand, just a little bit. I stepped next to her, put my hand on the back of her neck. I gave it a little squeeze. Not to hurt her, just to tell her.

When I took my hand away, she didn’t move.

I picked up Murray’s jacket and put it on, watching her.
Something told me, told me so I knew. If she screamed, it wouldn’t matter. Even if she screamed, the guards wouldn’t come in.

She turned around, away from me. Started moving out the way she came in. I was right behind her. It was a whole apartment in one big room. A kitchen against one wall. The ceiling was very high. There was a platform on the wall, with chains holding it, like a bed in an old jail. A ladder so you could climb up there, maybe to sleep. I could tell it was just for her—the leader didn’t live there.

I pushed her to a chair. She sat down without me having to do anything to her.

I looked out the window. It wasn’t far to the woods. I stayed close to her. The red scarf around her neck, I took it off her, tied it around my head.

I couldn’t take her out the window—she’d never make it up and through. I looked for something to tie her up with. She stood up quick, opened a door. There was a platform there, a little platform with steps to the ground. I saw a man with a baseball cap turn around when he heard the door open. I never saw him before. He had a machine gun on a sling over his shoulder.

“Come on,” the girl said, and started down the stairs.

I came right behind her. I had to get close to the man with the gun. He started coming toward us, but his hands were away from the gun. I had my hand just behind her, on her waist. Soon as he came near enough …

The woods were close. Real close.

The man stopped. Too far away. “What’s going on?” he said.

“He’s just taking me into town. In the truck. To buy some things,” she said.

“The leader didn’t say anything to me about that.”

“So what? You think I need his permission just to go into town?”

“Yeah, you do,” a man’s voice said. A voice from behind us.

I knew it then—I’d never see Shella.

“Get your hands up, boy! Fast!”

I raised my hands.

“Step away from her … move!”

I did that too. The man who’d been behind us stood to one side. He had a pistol, a big chrome one. Aimed right at me. The guy in the baseball cap, he had both hands on his gun too.

“He told me to watch out for you,” the guy with the pistol said. I could tell, the way he said it, he meant the girl.

“Let’s take them both back,” the man with the machine gun said. “Let the leader decide. You … let’s go,” pointing at me with his chin.

It didn’t matter, but the woods were so close I had to try. I stumbled a little so I could get next to him, but the guy stepped back and then I heard something like a real quiet motorcycle trying to start and both of them went down, blood and bone flying from their heads.

I ran for the woods.

I got over the fence in a flash. When I dropped down on the other side, there was nobody there. I ran away from the fence, hard as I could.

The Indian was there. Just standing there. I couldn’t see where he came from. He had a rifle in his hand, a long rifle with a tube over the barrel. He moved his hand, like in a wave, and I followed him.

There was a Jeep at the end of the trail we went down. A black Jeep. I got in the back with the Indian—there was two men in the front seat already. We took off.

The Indian picked up a phone, touched one button.

“We’re off,” he said. “It’s still quiet here. Check with the post, get back to me.”

The driver was going through the woods like it was a street.

The phone made a noise. The Indian picked it up. “Go,” he said. Then he listened.

“They found the bodies,” he said to the men in the front seat. “They can’t get a ring up in time. Sam’s team will give em something else to think about in a minute, but we gotta go through the roadblock on our own.”

The man in the passenger seat reached up over the windshield. He pulled something down, like a window shade. Only you could see it was metal. There was a thin slit in it. The driver leaned forward, looking through it. There was shades like that for the windows too, even the back window. I pulled mine down.

The Indian opened this case he had on the floor. I saw grenades, one of those little machine guns, some other
stuff. It made metal clicking sounds when the Indian snapped it all together.

“Get on the floor,” he told me. I did that and then there was this explosion. Like a bomb. From somewhere behind us.

“One more corner,” the man in the passenger seat said.

The Indian slid up his metal window shade and poked a gun out the open window.

I felt the Jeep slide around a long corner and then it was nothing but blasting. Bullets smacked into the Jeep but all I could hear was the guns. The Jeep kept moving. I felt it hit something, then we were through.

The Jeep came to a stop.

“Come on!” the Indian told me.

We got out. The Jeep was smoking, one tire was off. There were two cars at the roadblock and a lot of dead people.

We got into the woods again. The man who’d been in the passenger seat went first. Then the driver, then me, then the Indian.

We stopped after a bit. The driver was bleeding down one side of his face. He didn’t seem like he knew it. The Indian took a little box out of his pocket. He pushed a button on it and there was a booming sound. We started off again. Then there was a loud sound like a firebomb.

“Gas tank,” the Indian said to me. He took the phone out of the holster, pushed a button. “Six,” is all he said. Then he listened.

The others looked at him.

“They’re there,” the Indian said. Then he took the lead and we followed him.

Near the edge of the woods there was a big gray Ford. Me and the Indian got in the back seat. I saw the other two guys get in another car, a brown Chevy. There was another Jeep there too, a white one.

When we came onto the paved road, the white Jeep was in front and we followed.

The Indian lit a cigarette, offered me one.

“Nice jacket,” he said.

I touched Murray’s jacket with my fingers.

“They’ll remember it,” the Indian said. “We should of left it there.”

I didn’t say anything.

He waited, smoking his cigarette.

I leaned forward in the seat, took off Murray’s jacket, and handed it to him.