The Crow (Part 6)

Chapter 6

i

They drug him out. James Stone, one of the soldiers of the New City militia, came screaming out of the warehouse. His face was pouring down rivers of sweat and his eyes had a wild and frantic look in them. A hunted look in them.

“Please! I’ll join your side! I swear! I swear!” James howled as he was led to the foot of the cross. The cross was ten feet tall and, in front of it, a hole just big enough to hold the butt end of the cross. A man wearing a suit and tie came out of the warehouse with a suitcase as if he was about to do a heavy job of dealing drugs; but not in this case. In this case (pun intended), he was about to deal some nails—nine inch nails.

The men holding James down tripped him, making him fall squarely on top of his crosstree.

“N0. N0! NO!” yelled/screamed/shrieked James. His head was lashing to and fro, foaming at the mouth, while his body was writhing and shaking under the men’s hold. The man in the suit stood at the side while two men ran to help the holders after one of James' arms slipped out of the men’s grasp. They finally pinned the arm to the arm of his cross. The suited man set his suitcase down and knelt beside it with a grimace in his expression while his knees popped with machine gunshot sounds.

“Yes, right there, hold him still while I staple him. Won’t take a minute.” The man (his name is unknown) pulled out a dead blow hammer (fitting name) and three nails. The nails were crooked and bent and had sharp ridges around it.

“I’m gettin’ too old for this shit,” the suited man grumbled under his breath. For some reason, out of all the chat and chitter, James heard him.

“Then don’t do it!” James pleaded with eyes as round and big as the full moon. “Don’t!”

The suited man looked at him with sour amusement as if he were looking at a cute dog who pissed on his carpet. “It’s my job,” he said and slammed the hammer on the ground next to James’s struggling hands.

The effect was incredible. James screamed even though nothing happened yet. The suited man chuckled. “Alright,” the suited man said; he looked at his men. “Ready?” The men nodded. The suited man placed one of the crude mails on one of James’s struggling hands, and James screamed as if he had just been branded. The suited man drove the nail in hard while putting his back into it with a hmph! and a grin. A two-foot stream of blood jetted out of the hand, and James went berserk.

The suited man finished and wrapped James’s wrist with barbed wire. He did the other hand while taking longer because he was purely fucking evil and practically bathed in James’s screams of pain and terror. The grinding of metal scaring through bone . . . excited him. Yes, it turned an old shit like him on. The suited man was just insane. . . purely fucking insane. He wrapped the last wrist to the arm of the cross with more barbed wire, and crawled to the foot of the cross, gesturing to the man who held James down to follow.

The men pinned his feet to the leg of the crosstree, and the suited man just stabbed the foot with the nail. No preliminaries this time. James’s screams could have shattered glass if there was glass to shatter (mostly just metal), and when the nail was in the foot, all of them lifted the cross into the hole, grunting with effort.

“OH MY GOD! IT HURTS! OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD GOD GOD!!!” James screamed from up above them.

“How long do you think ‘till he dies?” one of the suited man’s men asked.

“I don’t know.”

They waited. James died in seven hours.

ii

“Just look at it!” Kelly exclaimed with a pleased sigh. “It’s beautiful!”

I nodded and smiled. We were looking at a stream that gurgled water while fish splashed in and out of the stream. It was beautiful. Kelly and I spread a quilted blanket on the dewy grass; the sky cleared from its misty burden, and we sat down on the blanket. For lunch, we brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, a variety of cheeses, a 1968 Bordeaux wine bottle, and a cherry cheesecake for dessert.

“So,” I said through a mouthful of bread and cheese. “Randy offered me a spot for General. I took a swallow of wine. Kelly raised her eyebrow in a very “Dwayne Johnson” style. “Really?” I nodded and took another bite. She asked, “And are you up for it?” I swallowed and said, “I don’t know exactly. I mean, I’m flattered, don’t get me wrong, but . . .” I trailed off.

“What?”

“I just don’t want to. More wine?”

She nodded, knowing I wanted to change the subject. “So, how was training today?”

“It was fine. Same as usual, I guess. How was your day?”

“Hmm,” she said, tapping her chin. “I did a lot of cleaning. The cafeteria is a mess, and I—”

“RYAN!!!”

I whipped around. Randy was running towards us. He had a box the size to hold a basketball with him. I jumped up.

“What’s the problem? What got you so worked up like this?” I asked.

Randy had been crying which I could see. His eyes were red. Randy cried out, “We should have seen it! We should have!”

“What?”

“Here!” Randy thrust the box at me and attached to it was a note. “Those fucking bastards!”

I was afraid to open the box. I didn’t know what was inside it, and I didn’t want to know. I read the note first.

It read:

Dear New City,

In regards to our last battle, we have taken prisoner one of your own. Your town is next. Enjoy the surprise!

The Tribe

(ps. It took a week to clean up.)

I didn’t have any appeal to open the box, but it was clear no one was going to tell me what was in it.

I lifted the brown cardboard flaps and peered inside.

iii

“What the fuck!” I screamed and, like an asshole, dropped the box. The head came tumbling out. The lifeless gray eyes of the decapitated head seemed to stare at us sightlessly.

Thank God Kelly decided to leave when Randy ran toward us.

“What do we do?” I asked.

Randy gave a defeated shrug. “What can we do? We don’t have enough to fight them again. What can we do?”

I shook my head. “Keep training? Leave? Where would we go?”

“I don’t care, I’m gettin’ outta here. You would be wise if you did, too.”

“This was your idea, Randy! You can’t be a coward now!”

“I don’t give a shit,” Randy almost screamed. “Not anymore,” and with that, he turned and left without looking back.

“YOU CHICKENSHIT!” I yelled after him, but did I have the right to?

v

“We’re leaving town,” I told Kelly.

“Why? I like it here.”

I took out a suitcase. “Yeah, well if we don’t this place will most likely end up as rubble.”

“What do you mean?” Kelly asked with worried China blue eyes.

“The Tribe, that’s what they call themselves, cu-decapitated . . . James Stone—”

Kelly put a hand to her mouth.

“—and have declared that we are next. The town. We’re having a meeting right now.”

“Wh-where do we go?” she asked.

And I answered with a wistful grin, “Wherever you want to go, babe.”

She answered my grin with a sad smile and grasped my hand with a gentle little squeeze.

We looked out the window of the Rosa Casa.

vi

“Okay, if you would all just settle down—settle down, everyone!”

We were all in the courthouse, and the room was packed. The air was hot and stuffy around us (which didn’t help the mood), and we were all panting for air.

Well, at least the ones who weren’t caterwauling.

“We have all thought of this place as our home,” Randy continued. “But those rebels threatened us badly, and I think it’s safe to say, this place will be the end of us all.”

Randy paused, staring at the crowd. “I think it’s best if we leave.”

Protests rose above the crowd.

“What do you mean, ‘It’s best if we leave’? This is our home!”

“Yeah!”

“We can’t run away!”

“We ain’t no cowards!”

“SILENCE!” General Eizik bellowed at the top of his lungs.

The room quieted to a silent murmur.

“We all need to separate,” Randy said with a grateful glance at the general. “We are not safe here.”

That was an understatement.

“We will survive if we were on our home, if we could out run and out pace our adversaries.”

He paused, then took a deep, long breath.

“Why did this have to happen?” he asked himself.

The day was falling into night.

vii

On the Road Again.

A good song by Willie Nelson, and was definitely apt for us.

This song kept playing in my mind as I drove, Kelly looking out the window at the passing scenery.

We were on our way to the center of Louisiana.

“On the road again,” I hummed. “I just can’t wait to ge—”

Bang!

We bumped suddenly, and I stopped the car (a Tahoe).

Kelly, who was nodding off, jumped and cried, “Whafuck?”

“Stay in the car,” I said, and went out to take a look.

The front left tire was blown out and was sitting on a flat. It looked like a big nail the size of a railroad spike was stuck in the rubber.

“And I have no spare,” I muttered. “Great.”

“Ryan?”

“Yeah?”

“Someone is coming.”

I started. “What?”

“Yeah, on the road up ahead.”

A man in a pair of overalls was running up to us, a shotgun waving in his hand. He wore a buckwheat hat (at least that’s what it looks like), leather boots, and a pair of sunglasses.

I looked around. Kelly was beside me with her pistol drawn. I drew my own.

“Stop!” I yelled, raising my .380. “I will shoot!”

The farmer looking dude stopped, dropping his 12 Gauge (yes, I had enough time to analyze what it was), and threw his hands in the air.

“Don’t shoot!” the man yelled. “I mean no harm!”

Kelly and I exchanged a glance and shrugged simultaneously.

The man went on hysterically as we holstered our weapons: “I heard y'all from all the way down from the road where I live. My name’s Sean Bently—”

I thought for a moment: Bently? Isn’t that a type of car?

“—and I just ‘bout jumped outta my skin, I was so surprised!” The farmer Sean said mah for my.

“Hi,” I greeted. “I’m Ryan Wallace, and—” I gestured to Kelly, “—this is my girlfriend, Kelly Morgan. Do you know of anywhere that has some tires?”

Sean nodded frantically. “Shoot, sure we have some tires! O’Reilly outta do you just fine.”

“I’m sorry, who?”

“O’Reilly. You know, the auto-parts?”

Understanding dawned on me. “Oh.” Oh-oh-oh-O’Reilly’s, auto-parts.

Ow.

“Then let’s go!” Sean said and with that, he lumbered off. That was how we met Sean Bently—not the car—that day.

viii

“Pass me the lug nut, please.”

Sean handed it to me.

I screwed the lug nut in place, and started on the four that were left.

After the last one was screwed into place, I went to the hood of the car, and popped it open. “Do you have a rag?” I asked Sean.

“Yeah. You sweatin’?

I shook my head. “No, I’m just gonna check the dipstick.”

Kelly looked at me with a mischievous glint in her eyes, and said, teasingly, “You are a dipstick.”

“Haha.”

Sean handed me a white cotton cloth with one single blue strip in the middle, and I took the dipstick out. It was just below the line.

“Of course it is,” I mumbled. I put the dipstick back in and started to hunt for some lubricant.

“Are you goin’ to to tell me,” I yelled to no one in particular, “That in this whole fuckin’ auto-parts store, there is not one single can of FUCKIN’ LUBE!?”

“Sorry,” Sean grumbled.

I turned to him, guiltily. “I wasn’t yelling at you man,” I reassured. “It’s not your fault.”

Sean still looked somber, then brightened visibly. “There’s another auto-parts store! It’s called AutoZone!”

He lumbered off, again.

We couldn’t do anything but follow him.

ix

“I’ve got a farm,” Sean Bently said matter-factly. “If y’all need a place to stay, I’d be happy to have y’all.”

We were all three at an abandoned KFC, and the freezer was stocked full of frozen chicken (surprisingly), and so I cooked dinner. I didn’t make anything fancy, just made some fried chicken and reheated some macaroni.

I learned I wasn’t good at cooking.

No one but Kelly seemed to notice (she made a grimace when she bit into the white meat, and gave me “the look”, which I got almost all of the time I cooked something), and when we were a third of the way through of our miniature feast, Sean asked if we could stay.

“Also,” Sean continued. “I could use some company and some help. I cain’t move all ‘em cows all by m’self. Them cows are mean.”

Kelly and I exchanged a quick glance. It seemed we both had the same idea.

“We’d be glad,” Kelly answered.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “And we’d love to help you, as well.”

Seans’ eyes shone. “Really?” This showed the extent of his loneliness. “Great!”

Sean got up and got some more chicken. “This is good! What did you put in it, Ryan?”

Kelly and I exchanged an amused glance.

“Chicken and pepper.”

“Though he could have not gone overboard on the pepper,” Kelly said with a smirk.

“Don’t make fun of my cooking.”

“I’m not! It was amazing. Is that better?” Laughter sparkled in her beautiful blue eyes.

Sean said, a little defensively, “It was!”

Kelly and I looked at eachother, then laughed.

Sean looked on, confused.

It was good to be alive.

x

The horses neighed.

The cows moo’d.

Basically it was everything in that old nursery rhyme, “Old McDonald Had a Farm”.

E-I-E-I-O.

We fed all the cattle and horses, and when we got all the horses back in the paddock, the sun had already sunk below the horizon.

“Well,” Sean said with a yawn, “I’m off to bed. The guest rooms are down the first hall. It’s the last room.” Looking at Kelly, “Or if you prefer, there’s another room across it.”

Kelly shook her head. “No, we’re good here.”

“‘Night, then.” And with that, Sean walked off.

We followed pursuit.

The house was a comfy looking cottage, big, but not too big. It had a cherry wood frame, laid about with bricks to give some detail.

The guest room we went to had the same sort of layout, but it had a red carpet. The bed was a king size, and looked so comfortable.

When we fell onto bed, I immediately fell asleep, encased in the cloud-like blanket.

xi

BOOOOM!!!

The whole house shook, and the window was now filled with a blinding white light.

“What the fuck!?!” I yelled and shot out of bed. Stomping came from down the hall, and shouting that followed from Sean: “What was that?”

Kelly pulled the sheets over her breasts as Sean came bursting in, his shotgun in his big hands.

I pulled the curtain open and gasped at what I saw.

The sky had reddened eventually to the south, and what was there . . .

Oh, God! I thought. We could’ve still been there!

What was in the red-filled sky to the south of us was a mushroom cloud.

xii

“Someone justa nuked somebody,” Sean said in his Texan drawl.

“Yep,” I replied.

Kelly, Sean and I were in the kitchen, listening to the coffee drip in a thermos, all of us being silent. It was 3:26 a.m.

We (as in Kelly and I) told Sean everything about our old town New City, and our feud with The Tribe.

“So y’all think that Tribe just nuked the place you say?” Sean asked.

“Sure of it,” I answered. I was pretty sure that everyone that stayed behind ended up as fried as the chicken we ate yesterday. I was sad, of course, but they had to have known this would happen. Those Tribe people made it clear they were targeting us.

“Not to mention, that fight,” Kelly added. “We won, but they took someone from our group hostage. We think they . . . they might have . . . nailed him up.”

Sean threw a look of horror at her. “Like Jesus?”

She nodded.

“Dear, Lord,” Sean whispered.

Kelly looked like she couldn’t go on, so I finished for her. “They cut his head off—”

Sean began to look sick.

“—and sent it back to our town.” I continued. “There was a note with it.”

Sean looked like he might throw up for a minute, then straightened up. “At least y’all are alive! If y’all need a place to stay, shoot, here could be your home.”

I thought about it. If we left, we’d be away from The Tribe and not have to deal with them.

That was our main worry.

The Tribe.

What if they got another one of those dirty A-bombs?

Why did we have to deal with them?

We didn’t have to. We were away from them, but was that enough?

“Sean, I think we might have to turn down that offer, man. We need to get far away from them.”

Sean looked crestfallen, and I was about to plead to him to understand, but then he asked: “Would it be okay if I went with y’all?”

Kelly and I nodded.

Sean jumped up and yelled, “Yes!”

And so it was decided.