Will McIntosh - Soft Apocalypse

“I’m coming with,” Ange said.

“No,” I said. “You’ll be bored.”

“Of course I’ll be bored. I’ll also be bored if I stay here.” She shrugged on her pack. I tried to think of a better reason why she couldn’t come, but drew a blank.

“Ready?”Ange asked. Cortez handed me a pistol. I couldn’t get over how much the guy had changed since I’d first met him. Back then he’d been one of those guys who had an exaggerated tough-guy walk that he’d clearly rehearsed in his bedroom mirror. Now he seemed so comfortable in his own skin, and in this world.

As soon as we were out of hearing distance of the others, I turned to Ange and said, “I’m not really going to look for herbs.”

“I kind of sensed that. So where are we going?”

“We passed a farm on the way in, about a mile back down the tracks. I want to try to steal some food.”

I looked at Ange, gauging her reaction. She nodded tightly. “Okay.”

“I don’t like stealing,” I said.

“I know you don’t. You just realized that the rules have to change if we’re going to stay alive. The rest of us need to get our heads out of our asses and realize that, too.”

And that was that. Ange and I moved quickly. She had a knack for finding the path of least resistance through the bamboo. Once we hit the railroad tracks we made better time.

The farm was just a few acres of cleared land, a house, silo, a few animal pens, all surrounded by a rhizome barrier. There were a couple of dogs asleep in the shade of the house.

I handed Ange the pistol. “We’re less likely to get caught if there’s just one of us. I’ll be right back.” My heart racing, I sprinted through a clearing before Ange could argue. I stopped behind the silo, scanned the yard for signs of people, then went around to the front of the silo and ducked inside.

It was empty.

I’d been picturing it filled with grain of some sort—I had a shopping bag in my pack that I’d been planning to fill. I didn’t know anything about farms, about where the food might be.

Outside, a pig screeched.

I snuck back around behind the silo and eyed the animal pens. Crap, I didn’t want to kill a little pig or a chicken. But what else was there that wasn’t actually in the house itself?

“Put your hands in the air.” The first thing I saw was the rifle. The guy holding it was about twenty. He was a big guy—big calves, big neck, had a big guy’s swagger as he came out of a pecan grove. I put my hands up.

“I’m sick of you thieves.” The tone in his voice, the disdain, was so familiar. I was a gypsy again.

“I’m sorry, we’re just very hungry,” I said.

“That doesn’t mean you can steal from people!”

“I know. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” I said.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. He wiped his mouth with one hand. It was shaking badly. “If there were police, we’d let them take care of you, but the way things stand we shoot looters on sight.”

He lifted the rifle and pointed it at me.

“No!” I threw out my hands as if I could ward off the bullet, clenched my eyes shut as if I could hide. I shrieked as the gun fired once, twice. I was gone for a moment, my ears buzzing, the world spinning away.

I opened my eyes, looked down at my chest. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t on the ground, why there was no blood.

The guy with the gun was on the ground.

Shouts rose from the house. People came running out. They had more guns.

“Run!” Ange said. I was grateful for any guidance, given how confused I was. We broke into the bamboo. It was hard to run—the stalks pounded me in the face, yanked at my arms.

Voices shouted behind us. I heard a hiss of labored breathing, glanced back to see three men close behind. I ran harder, but that only made things worse.

Heavy hands ripped at my shoulders, yanked me to the ground. I landed ear first, felt a knee dig into my back.

“She shot Danny! She shot my Danny!” a woman shrieked. “My Danny’s dead. Oh, Jesus, my Danny’s dead.”

“Gun! Gun!” the man on my back shouted.

“Here!” another guy said.

The muzzle of a pistol pressed into my neck. I was yanked to my feet. The guy holding the gun on me was in his sixties, with a silver goatee and beady blue eyes.

“Get her!” a white-haired woman shouted. She had both of her hands on top of her head. I followed her gaze.

Ange was still running, clutching the gun. A guy was right behind her; he jumped at her and they both went down in a tumble of dust.

The guy dragged Ange toward us by one foot. Danny’s mom ran at her; she kicked at Ange’s head, screaming incomprehensible curses as Ange wrapped her arms around her head to ward off the blows while kicking her foot to try to break free.

“He was going to shoot me!” I said. “I wasn’t resisting and he was going to shoot me.”

“What did you expect?” the man pinning me said. “An invitation to supper?”

“I’m sorry—” Ange said.

“Shut up !” Danny’s mom screeched, kicking at Ange frantically until Ange shut up. She was an ugly woman, with a hound dog’s droopy face and deep ragged creases in her forehead. Breathless, she tottered back to Danny, knelt, slid her hand under his head. Danny’s tongue was poking from between his lips.

Jesus, we were in bad trouble.

“I say we find a good crackling spot,” the dad said.

“That’ll fix them,” an acne-stricken teen said, probably Danny’s brother. His voice was filled with grief.

They dragged Ange to her feet.

“Danny was gonna—”

“Shut up!” The father hit me in the side of the head with the pistol. “Don’t say nothing, either of you!”

It was quiet then, except for the mother’s crying, and the crunch of dead bamboo leaves underfoot. My ears buzzed, and I had a terrible headache. I wanted to look in Ange’s eyes. I don’t know why, just to have contact, or to thank her for saving my life, but Ange was ahead of me. I had a wild, irrational moment of hoping someone in our tribe had followed us and would save us, but I knew it was just wishful thinking. I felt a wet dribble of blood down my neck. They were going to kill us—that had to be what was going to happen.

“Quiet,” the dad said. Everyone stopped. I didn’t hear anything, except the rustling of bamboo leaves in the breeze. “That way.” He pointed. They moved us on, faster. I didn’t want to go, didn’t want to know where they were taking us. Something bad was going to happen, and not knowing what it was made it a thousand times worse. Every time we paused I thought they were going to line us up and shoot us, or throw a rope over a branch. Only they didn’t have a rope with them.

We reached a clearing with only a few scattered patches of bamboo.

The crack and snap of new growth lit the air.

“This looks like the place,” one of the brothers said.

“Over there,” the father said, pointing. The two older brothers dragged Ange into the clearing while the rest of us remained at the edge. Ange began to struggle harder, so they grabbed her arms and legs and carried her to the spot their father was pointing to. They put her on her back, pinned her arms and legs. Ange twisted and bucked.

I thought they were going to rape her, right in front of their parents, but they just held her down. I didn’t understand what was happening—they were just pressing her to the ground.

And then I realized what they were doing.

“No!” I screamed. I lunged, broke free of the father’s grip, took two steps before being slammed to the ground. I clawed blindly at his face, trying to find an eye, a lip to tear off. Something hard hit me in the face. I knew instantly that my nose was broken—I’d never felt such pain before. Again, at the same spot, I heard a crunching. Again. Again. Finally it stopped. “Turn him over, he’s gonna watch this.” They rolled me over. Someone pulled my hair so my head lifted.