Jason Morrow - Anywhere but Here

“Many apologies,” the raider says. “I didn’t know you were keeping our mutual leader… in the shadows.” He laughs at his own stupid joke. Paxton does not return the laugh.

“What do you want?” Paxton asks.

“Straight to the point. I like that. You have three people I want. They just got here a few days ago. I don’t know their names…I don’t care to know their names. Two boys and a young girl.”

“How young are we talking?”

“Oh come on now, Mayor,” the raider says, “we don’t have time for games. You and I both know this establishment is too small for the entrance of new people to go unnoticed. I’ll even bet you interview them all yourself, don’t you?”

He does.

“First of all,” Paxton says, “don’t call me Mayor. I don’t run this town alone. We have a group of elders.”

“Sure thing,” the raider says. “Whatever you want.”

“Second of all, how do you know if your prey has made their way here?”

“Found their SUV a little ways from here,” the raider says. “Abandoned.”

“What do you want with them?”

“That’s between me and Shadowface,” the raider says.

There is a long pause. I can tell Paxton is thinking about what he wants to say next, trying to be careful with his words. “Why were you tracking them in the first place?”

“They shot a few of my men. Killed them. Then they stole my SUV. Lucky for me, I left a tracker under the hood for such an occasion.”

“Did you provoke them?” Paxton asks.

“What’s it to you? They have something that’s mine.”

“You said they abandoned the SUV,” Paxton says. “Take it. It’s yours.”

“There was something very important in that SUV and it’s gone now,” the raider says. “That particular item is very important to our mutual benefactor.”

“Shadowface pays you?”

“Of course. Why else would I drop the name?”

“Why would Shadowface be working with marauders…thieves?”

“Oh, we’re much more than that. Think of me as more of a henchman. A person that likes to get his hands dirty. Sure I used to be a common raider — one of the best. But I graduated when I met Shadowface.”

“In person?”

“In the flesh.” I can almost hear the boastful smile come across the raider’s face, which, I’m sure makes Paxton look down at his desk in frustration as he plays this game of twenty-million questions.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Paxton says. “Before I do anything, I will have to get the okay from Shadowface.”

I can hear the raider shuffle and finally set something down on the desk in front of Paxton. “You recognize that number?”

Paxton says nothing, but I assume he nods.

“The phone is all yours, Mayor. Call Shadowface if you want. I don’t personally think it would be worth getting anyone angry, though. Such petty things like this are not meant for Shadowface’s approval. I’ve been instructed to get this item from those three punks you let in here by any way possible. If you don’t believe me, call. Go ahead, call…call!”

“That won’t be necessary.” Paxton lets out a deep sigh. “How much time do I have? I’m not going to do this publicly. I want them to get out of Crestwood first.”

“That’s fine,” the raider says. “There’s an old railway factory about ten miles north of here, you know it?”

“Yes. Secure Transportation.”

“That’s it.”

“You want us to drop them off there?”

“That’ll be fine,” the raider says.

“That’s a hot area,” Paxton says. “Lots of greyskins.”

“It will be all right.”

There is a long pause.

“You aren’t going to kill them are you?” Paxton asks.

“You don’t worry your little mayor head about that,” the raider says. “We’ll get what we need and be done with them. I’m sure they didn’t even know what they took.” The raider’s chair scrapes against the floor as he stands, his footsteps are heavy as they make their way to the door.

“Two days,” Paxton says. “Give me two days.”

“Two days,” the raider says. “In the evening.”

Paxton says nothing and the raider walks out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

The light shines on my tired eyes and I’m forced to blink them shut to shield them from the pain.

“Get up,” a familiar voice says to me. It’s Gabe.

“What do you want?” I say in the groggiest voice I can manage.

“It’s time for you to leave,” he says.

“I thought I was supposed to leave two days ago,” I reply, rolling over onto my side with my back to him. “You know, for a moment there I thought I would like imprisonment better than banishment, but I never knew I could get so bored.”

“I think that was the point in waiting,” Gabe says. “Come on. I’m supposed to take you out before the sunrise.”

It takes me a minute, but I finally turn and sit up. He leaves the room long enough for me to put on my shoes and splash water on my face. The cold wind hits me when we get outside. It’s dark and no one but a few guards seems to be awake. “What time is it?” I ask him. He lets me know it’s a quarter until six. I follow him near the gate and I half-expect the guards to open it and tell me good luck , but I’m surprised to see Gabe opening the passenger door of a truck for me. I get in and he walks around to the other side and sits in the driver’s seat. “Are you taking me somewhere?” I ask.

“I’m taking you out of here,” he answers.

Great. “Did you sign up for this job?”

He lets out a sigh and stares down at the steering wheel for a long moment. “I didn’t mean for things to turn out the way they did. I had no idea Paxton was going to claim you murdered Skip.”

“It didn’t come to your mind to say something when he mentioned it?”

“I didn’t know he was going to say that until just before the assembly,” Gabe says, looking up at me. He seems tired as if he hadn’t slept in days. Dark circles have formed under his eyes. He looks pale like he might be coming down with something.

Good, I think.

“So, you didn’t think it was a good idea to say something to the contrary?” I ask.

“What would you have done?”

“I would have been brave about it,” I tell him. “I would have manned up and let other people know that what Paxton said wasn’t how it happened.” I feel more anger toward Gabe than anyone right now…even more so than toward Paxton. I had thought the two of us were becoming friends but that must have gone out the window when he decided not to stand up for me.

“You don’t understand,” Gabe says.

“Enlighten me,” I say.

He puts the truck in gear and we start rolling forward. Soon, we’re driving past dead cars again, trees all around us, Crestwood a distant memory behind us. I can’t help but feel scared. I can feel myself getting into survival mode. It’s not a situation that I’m fond of.

I don’t like to admit when I’m scared. I never have. When I was little, sometimes there would be a big storm coming through and everyone in the school would have to go out into the hallways or under the concrete stairwells away from the windows. I could remember so many of my friends crying like it was the end of the world. Ironic that the end of the world was only a few years away. Now most of them are probably dead and it would have been better if a storm would have just washed them away forever. It makes me sick to think of how many of my classmates might still be out there, their skin rotting to an ash-grey color, with black, soulless eyes, and the lust for flesh.

I want to throw up.