Ruined Cities Read online

  Shorty looks at the place where his watch used to be one last time and asks his crew, “Are you feelin’ irie?”

  Mary won’t stick around long enough to find out what irie means, and the last Reggae-English dictionary in the world has probably been burned in the ritual campfire.

  Shorty lurches around the dying fire three times, a long way on stump pads. He sings a few low energy verses of a song about sexual violence. Every Marley Man had a mother. They had sisters and girlfriends before the world they knew broke in a million pieces. Maybe they’d remember later, after the ceremony was done and Mary’s body was fertilizer for Jack Horror. Maybe they’d be sorry later on when it is too late to do any good.

  Maybe Mary will make them sorry sooner.

  Shorty stands in front of her, a few inches taller because she’s sitting down.

  He tells her, “Ja want no more babies to be made.”

  Mary folds her legs underneath her the way she folds over the corners of library book pages to mark her place. This is a place in Mary’s life she’ll revisit later on — if things work according to plan. She’ll sit around her own campfire with guns and ammunition looted from Oklahoma City. Maybe she’ll have friends. Maybe even a tame, civilized boyfriend to entertain with stories about the time she fooled the Marley Men and narrowly escaped with her life.

  Without hurting anybody. At least without hurting anybody very much. She pretends to cringe while she works her toes into the soft fertile soil of the Garden of Eden.

  “Ja want all of us to die in our time.”

  Mary smiles and nods in agreement. Something this crowd has never seen a captured wild girl do. Their eyes stay on her face, away from her hands, while she stretches the rope until the last strands gave way. She holds the single sided razor blade between the thumb and middle finger of her right hand. Her index finger, poised on the protected edge like she is taking the pulse of the surgical grade stainless steel.

  “But Ja want some of us to suffer in the process.”

  Mary pushes herself up and forward, like a sprinter on an olden times track team. She rakes the edge of the razor blade across the side of Shorty’s face, not deep, just enough to lay open a wound that must be tended immediately.

  “Somebody find my ear,” he shouts, as Mary jumps the campfire and runs into the old overgrown botanical garden. She hadn’t meant to do that much damage, but maybe it will keep the Marleys busy.

  Three sets of footsteps follow her. Two fall away before she’s gone ten yards. But the remaining Marley Man is stronger, faster than the others. His footfalls grow louder, closer with each passing second. The pressure of his hatred fills the air between them with electricity that makes the tiny hairs along her spine stand up. His breath is deep and steady, like he’s used to running in spite of his smoke damaged lungs and his dope damaged coordination.

  Looking back would slow her down, so Mary sprints harder, desperate to pull ahead. Her pursuer is five yards back, maybe ten. She’ll be out of the park in another few seconds, over the berm that once spared visitors from street noise, but now makes her escape route blind. Waist high grass and creeper slows her down. The longer legged Marley Man gains a few critical feet. She feels his breath on her back as she reaches the top of the berm and jumps.

  Her left foot tangles in a creeper vine as she pushes off . Not enough to send her tumbling, but she pitches forward as she hits the pavement. She dives into a roll, so she can change direction, charge at her attacker and cut his throat before he figures out she’s not running anymore.

  Murdered by a girl. Will that make him an outcast in reggae Heaven? She tumbles twice, bounces to her feet — blade ready. But the Marley man is face down on the cracked concrete, an arrow protruding from his back.

  Mary drops to the ground. No one around that she can see, and there’s little cover outside of the park. A few abandoned cars. Some bus stop shelters with broken panels. The shooter must have taken aim from the top of the berm. He could get her any time he wanted, and he hadn’t.

  “Show yourself.” When that doesn’t happen, Mary walks slowly to the body. She’s never seen an arrow shaft like this one. Nothing any sporting goods store had ever carried. It’s wooden, with an uneven surface, as if it had been carved with a sharp edged tool. Imperfectly straightened, but obviously straight enough to kill.

  Fletched with real feathers glued into slots in the arrow shaft’s end with something that looks like dried blood. The arrow had penetrated between two ribs, pierced a lung, and probably a major artery or two.

  A fluid ounce of blood leaks out as Mary pulls the arrow free. Not a stainless steel razor arrowhead as she expected. This one is made of flint. Pressure flaked, thin with graceful lines, a deadly point and an edge sharp enough to cut hair. The kind of arrowhead Indians used to make back in the oldest olden times.

  She drops the arrow beside its victim. The archer hasn’t killed her yet. Maybe he doesn’t intend to. She wipes her single edged razor blade on her shirt, and slips it into her mouth. Shorty’s blood tastes sweeter than she had imagined.

  Now plan B is all Mary has, until she finds something better. Oklahoma City was full of guns and bullets in the olden times. More guns than people according to Raj, and he lived in Oklahoma City before the fall so he should know.

  Too bad Raj didn’t bring more guns and bullets with him when he escaped. When he saved Mary’s life on the last day of the olden times and the first day of the world as it is now. She crosses herself, like she always does when she thinks about Raj. So far it hasn’t done much good, but you never know when ghosts are watching.

  ***

  Styrofoam cups, rattle against cracked curbing. Faded happy meal boxes flop along the pavement. Plastic grocery bags fly in circular currents between buildings. The same trash has roamed Oklahoma City since the troubles.

  Mary stays in the middle of the streets as much as possible, away from the empty buildings with broken glass fronts and occasional mysterious noises in their dark interiors. Feral dogs and cats have taken up residence inside, staying close to home in case their people come back. How many generations will it take until they turn completely wild?

  Everything Mary needs to survive will be inside the legendary Bass Pro Shop somewhere along the Oklahoma River. Built by Oklahomans at the pinnacle of civilization when people believed the world would never end if they had enough guns, ammunition, and Meals-Ready-to-Eat.

  Beef Stroganoff, lentil soup, Thai red curry chicken, honey glazed ham, stored in aluminum foil packets that keep them fresh for years after the people who made them turned to dust. Food Mary doesn’t have to stalk and kill. Thoughts of a full belly crowd fear and curiosity out of her mind, even curiosity about old time Indian arrows sprouting between the ribs of a Marley killer.

  The wind stops and the city goes dead quiet, like the few seconds of peace that come before a thunder storm. Fragments of glass fall from a nearby building; they pick out a xylophone melody as they shatter on the pavement. Troubling sounds, almost hiding other sounds that are even more troubling, claws skittering across the pavement somewhere behind Mary.

  Three dogs, at least. Mary can’t be sure, because of all the cars giving them cover. They stop when Mary stops, waiting to catch her in an open space. The philosophy of the pack.

  Dogs can’t open car doors, and the ones in the street might be unlocked. Mary rode in a car a long time ago. Everyone did, once upon a time when there was gasoline. That had run out by the time she was three, according to Raj. There was still enough for motorcycles and Molotov Cocktails for a few years after that.

  The first door she tries is locked. No problem, the dogs hang back, in case Mary is bait in a complicated human trap. The second car is also locked, but the passenger side window is partially rolled down. Enough for Mary to put her hand inside and change her fate.

  She’s safe inside with the door pulled shut before the dogs can reach her. Well, not exactly safe. The heap of bones and rotted clothing behind the steeri
ng wheel is proof of that. Ants have stripped the flesh and tendons, probably the marrow too, but the indigestible minerals are still there. The skull with its empty eyes and permanent smile.

  Mary’s scream scares the dogs away, but not far enough to allow her out of the car. She opens the door and slams it shut again when the dogs come back. They don’t know about the Meals-Ready-to-Eat in foil pouches. All they know about is Mary-ready-to-eat inside a rusty car that will open of its own accord if they wait long enough.

  The pile of bones doesn’t look so scary after all. Friendly, once Mary is used to them. A lot more friendly than the dogs that circle the car, whining and scratching at the doors, like olden times pets who want to be taken for a ride. One of them jumps onto the hood. He lies down, panting, hungry, patient, no reason to be anywhere else.

  Is this how the previous occupant of the car died, waiting to be eaten by wild dogs. Mary doesn’t think so. The skull wears a plastic retainer with a silver wire around the front teeth. The pants are unisex, the shirt in tatters, but the shoes have heels and pointed uncomfortable looking toes. Women’s shoes. There’s a purse in the back seat. Some kind of simulated reptile hide. Everything was simulated before the world went to hell.

  Women carried guns in their purses sometimes. Mary dumps the contents on the seat, but there’s no gun. No weapon of any kind, just a cell phone, and some make up. There’s a wallet with credit cards, a driver’s license and a student ID. The dead girl’s name was Sharon Winslow.

  “What would you do?” Mary asks the picture on the driver’s license. “Just between us girls.”

  Mary can see what Sharon Winslow did. There’s a bullet hole in Sharon Winslow’s temple, barely large enough to let the soul escape. A gunshot wound inside a locked car. Suicide.

  Mary crosses herself and says, “In the name of the Father the Son and The Holy Ghost,” before she sorts through Sharon Winslow’s bones. She looks in the floorboard. She searches the space between the driver’s seat and the driver’s side door.

  There it is. Not much as weapons go. A twenty-two caliber revolver, what people called a Saturday night special back when days had names. A fine patina of rust covers the metal. The hammer makes a crunching noise as Mary pulls it back. She points the weapon at the dog on the hood, pulls the trigger and waits while the hammer doesn’t fall.

  The dog licks the windshield, smiles a friendly predator smile. In better times this dog would be Mary’s faithful companion, but now he wants to eat her. He’s willing to wait and he’s not afraid of the pistol.

  Maybe he shouldn’t be afraid, but Mary keeps it pointed at him anyway. She pounds the handle on the dashboard trying to shake the hammer loose so it will fall on the percussion cap and prove to this pack of dogs that girls are more dangerous than they look. The dog presses its nose against the safety glass, investigates how his next meal is spending her last hour.

  Mary pounds the pistol against the dashboard again and again, holding her finger on the trigger, until she hears a pop, like the last fluorescent light in the world just fell on the floor. Not nearly loud enough to be deadly but the safety glass breaks in a perfect black widow spider web pattern. The dog tumbles backward leaving a trail of red splatters behind him. He limps along the pavement away from the car for a few feet and falls onto his side. The other two members of the pack sniff at him and lap his blood off the pavement.

  Mary cocks the pistol. She steps out of the car and aims. The dogs flinch backward, but reconsider when the hammer doesn’t fall. They move toward her with their heads down.

  Back in the car. One dog down and two to go. Mary pounds the pistol grip on the dashboard again, but this time the hammer doesn’t move. Even suicide is out of the question.

  Inside Sharon Winslow’s car is an ice scraper, an owner’s manual, registration and insurance verification, an inexpensive handbag, a broken pistol, a pile of bones and Mary. The two wild dogs have forgotten how things didn’t work out for the first dog on the hood of the car. They take turns sniffing at the bullet hole in the windshield, picking up just enough scent to be sure Mary is terrified and edible.

  “Got any ideas, sister?” Mary holds Sharon Winslow’s skull up to the windshield so she can assess the situation. The dogs pull back, afraid of a dry skull even if they have no fear of the one Mary wears behind her face. Perhaps a pile of human bones can be useful after all.

  Mary picks through Sharon Winslow’s bones the way she’s seen coyotes do. The upper leg bone is the longest and the strongest. One end is shaped like a ball peen hammer. Not as scary as a skull, but more useful as a weapon.

  Femur, she remembers. Olden times people gave dead things names from a dead language. Femur sounds a little like female, and that’s what Mary is. She’ll show these wild Oklahoma City dogs how girls care of business.

  She opens the car door, bowls Sharon Winslow’s skull between the dogs and charges the bigger one. She swings the femur like an axe, strikes the dog square in the side of the head, sends it yipping and running for cover.

  Dog’s heads are a lot harder than Mary thought they’d be. The hip joint end of the leg bone separates with the impact. It leaves a sharp broken point behind that reminds Mary of the flint arrowhead she pulled out of the Marley Man.

  The second dog considers his options for a second, and then decides rats are a better dietary choice.

  Mary whispers a silent prayer of thanks to Sharon Winslow. She climbs into the dead girl’s automobile to retrieve the pistol. Looters can’t be choosers.

  Should she take Sharon Winslow’s keys, search her trunk for something useful? Should she confiscate Sharon Winslow’s other leg, in case the dogs come back? In case there are more predators waiting between Mary and better weapons? There are always more predators. Always something bigger than Mary waiting to ambush her. Waiting to eat her or worse. Sometimes not even waiting patiently.

  ***

  Footsteps stand out in a dead city. Four shuffling men, if Mary’s count is right, and one hard rubber wheel rolling along the pavement. She steps out of the car holding the gun at her side. Not a threat, exactly, but not friendly either.

  The Marley Men form a semi circle trapping her between them and Sharon Winslow’s car — four of them, all right, with Shorty riding in a wheelbarrow. They want the same thing from her as the dogs, but the Marley Men have guns.

  Shorty tells her, “Throw the pistol down, or we kill you now instead of later.” Not a trace of Jamaica in his voice, only hate and left over pain.

  Mary shows the Marley Men her rusty pistol with its hammer frozen back, useless, but they don’t know that yet. She tosses it toward Shorty, underhanded, the way girls pitched softballs in the olden times. The Marley men watch the rusty pistol spin through a graceful parabolic arch and strike the pavement. They continue watching while the hammer falls and the gun discharges with another deceptively ineffective pop. They look to Shorty for instructions now that the girl has been disarmed more easily than they expected, and only then do they realize the twenty-two bullet has pierced their leader’s throat.

  Mary crosses herself and thanks the ghost of Sharon Winslow again before she takes off running, because that bullet might have gone anywhere but it had gone exactly where she needed it. Like it was planned by a higher power who liked Mary but didn’t care much for Shorty.

  She runs between two buildings before the Marley Men remember they have guns and numbers on their side. She hears a shot fired as she turns a corner. They won’t expect her to double back, and they’ll be afraid of her, because it must look like St. Bob Marley is on Mary’s side. One more corner and she’s back, almost where she started.

  The Marley Men aren’t chasing her. They can’t. They’re lying in the street surrounding Shorty, all dead with arrows sprouting from their chests. As silent as the viruses that killed millions of riot survivors, as quick as the mass suicides that emptied cities.

  The archer steps out of an abandoned shop with broken picture windows and no door, a b
ronze skinned man with long black hair tied in a ponytail. Taller than Mary, but not by much. Better looking than Raj, and a whole lot younger. He carries a compound bow, and wears a quiver of homemade arrows on his shoulder.

  “Been watching you.” He moves to the nearest body and uses a hunting knife to dislodge his arrow. He moves to the next man and the next without a word, harvesting his arrows the way Marley Men gathered Jack Horror plants from their gardens. He adds the arrows to his quiver, and stands a dozen feet away from Mary, looking at her as if she were the eighth natural wonder of the olden times world.

  “Something special.” No emotion colors the archer’s words. No wasted words. No wasted energy.

  “You’re something special too.” Mary’s voice isn’t as calm as his, partly because her life had been at risk twice in the last ten minutes, but mostly because this is the first man since Raj who doesn’t want to kill her.

  Safe to stand close to him. Safe to talk to him. Safe to flirt with him. Mary smiles the way olden times girls smiled on posters advertising beer. She picks at his body with her eyes, one XY particle at a time, until she’s memorized every detail.

  Prettier than a switchblade knife. Prettier than a 9 mm pistol full of bullets. Prettier than a crate of Meals-Ready-to-Eat. A finders-keepers kind of man.

  FREAKS

  by

  STEVE RODGERS

  Barlin’s forehead bounced off his desk for the second time in five minutes, knocking the sleep gremlins backwards and shooting lights through his vision. He gritted his teeth, wondering how difficult it would be to hide a pillow at work. He was pretty sure it’d be invisible from behind, what with the spaghetti bowl of wires sprouting from his senso-ring. This thought began tap-dancing through his cranium, and his eyes had just started to drift shut again, when the image on vidsquare six jolted him awake.