Роберт Уилсон - Days Since... - Thomas - Day 758

“Hands!” Thomas screamed.

She struggled to free them. Reluctant. Her hips shifted. A black handgun. Crack! Crack!Thomas raised the rifle and responded with a quick shot to the woman’s chest. His rifle expelled the brass as he worked the action then slammed another round into the chamber.

Thomas turned toward where James had been, but he was now sprawled across the ground several feet back. His initial thought was to go for him, to see if he was alive, but the woman’s hand was trembling, lifting the pistol forward to finish the job. Another press of his trigger and the woman’s head jolted, never to be recognized again.

Thomas visually cleared the boxcar then rushed to James. His body lay still—his head bent awkwardly within the gravel. The eyes. Closed. The pulse. Thomas only felt his own. The pounding of footsteps startled him. “Where’s he shot?” one of the Guards asked.

“I don’t know.” Thomas managed to get the words out before he was pushed aside. “Are you a medic?” The man nodded while he tended to him, placing his hands against James’s chest. Come on, man. Where are you shot?

The medic worked over James’s bunched up clothing—covered in dust, hiding his injury. He balled his fist and rubbed along the sternum with the ridge of his knuckles to wake James from his bit of unconsciousness. “You hit or did you fall?”

James’s eyes began to flutter. His hand swatted the medic away, and then he grunted—the pain present in the stress of his response. He began to raise his back from the ground, but the medic laid his hand against his chest to keep him down. James gave in. “It burns,” he said, motioning toward his shoulder. His sleeve was straightened out, and a noticeable amount of the fabric by his shoulder was frayed—a bright red barely visible in the rut of the cloth. James hissed from the pain.

“You’re fine, man, just hang in there,” Thomas urged while hovering over the process. The medic maneuvered his fingers through the tear and ripped the sleeve away from the wound. A grazing.

“This is nothing.” The medic pressed lightly around the wound, causing James to wince. “It’s not even bleeding.” He took a small bottle of moonshine and gauze from his side bag and doused the wound with the alcohol.

“Damn!” James sucked air between his clenched teeth and turned away from the discomfort. “That shit stings.”

“You’ll just need to keep this thing clean.” He dabbed at the wound with a cloth. “Almost done.” He reached inside his bag again, removed a bandage, and placed it over James’s wound. “It’ll probably be sore— maybe. You’re lucky that’s all you got.”

James shook his head. “What the hell just happened? Trying to help her and she flips out like that. That lady lost her damn mind.” He attempted to gather his feet below him.

The medic kept him in place. “You need to take a second and relax.”

James exhaled, drawing it out to make his point, closing his eyes in protest, but ultimately agreeing. “Okay.” He pulled his knees in toward his body then lay back into the gravel, letting out another sigh. “Make sure that bitch is dead.”

Thomas and Eric approached the red boxcar. The pool of blood spread far beyond the corpse—her blonde hair matted with blood and wrapped violently around her face. How long had he been keeping her in here?

It didn’t appear to be too long. A nest of clothing in the corner. Two cinder blocks lined up as chairs— a wooden music box at the foot of another. An undercooked squirrel on a plate. Thomas leapt inside the boxcar. “Let’s take a look.”

“I’ll check her,” Eric said, as he followed.

Thomas rummaged through their belongings, and Eric moved over to the body, rolling her over. Her face…

“In here! In here! In here!”

“Hot damn! Where the hell’d they come from?”

“Just get in one of these apartments.”

“This one! James! Here!”

“We lucked out. Should take them awhile to find us.”

“Quiet… Something’s bleeding.”

“What?”

“Look. Blood here and some over there. Heads down this way.”

“Stay close!”

“Not a lot is it?”

“Tommy!”

“What?” … “It’s okay, sweetie.”

“It’s Almawt! Don’t you dare touch her!”

“We don’t know that.”

“She’s coughing up blood. Of course it’s Almawt.”

“James! She’s just a little girl. She’s not gonna make it here. She can’t…”

“They’re here damn it! She’s not gonna make it.”

“Then we got to get her out of here.”

“She’s not coming with us.”

“I’m not leaving her!”

“Listen! They aren’t gonna knock on that door and ask us to come out—they’re gonna take it down! We don’t have time to debate this. We have to go!”

“Come here… please, come here.”

“We don’t have time for this shit! We’ll never get outta here.”

“Then hold them off. I’m not leaving her, damn it. Please… Just come here, we’ll get you out. I want to take you someplace safe.”

“She doesn’t understand you.”

“Please come here!”

“Tommy! We gotta go, man. None of these people are going to make it. It’s us or them!”

“We can’t just leave a kid! They don’t deserve this.”

“It’s not our place to save these people anymore. We have to save ourselves. Hell, their own government abandoned them—did this to them. It’s over! It’s fucking over for them, not us!”

“That doesn’t mean we have to do the same. We’re better than this!”

“Put her down!”

“She’s coming with us.”

“Damn it, Tommy! You’re gonna get us killed.”

“Shut it! You’re the one that got us separated. Don’t blame me for this!”

“Shit! Alright, back hallway! Let’s go! Hurry!”

“Hold here like this sweetie… Lock your hands around my neck like this. There we go.”

“Now or never, Tommy!”

“Alright.”

“Through here! This one!”

Bang! Bang! Boom!

“Shit! They’re coming in!”

Crack! Crack!

“Get the fuck down!”

“Behind you!”

Crack! Crack! Crack!

Crack!

“In here!”

“Back window!”

Crash!

“Cover me! Through here, sweetie. Careful!”

Crack!

“Got ‘em!”

“Call it in! Damn it!”

“Radio’s fucking gone, man.”

Crack! Crack!

Crack! Crack! Crack!

“Tommy, drop her, damn it! Leave her!”

Crack! Crack! Crack!

“No! Move! Move! Go! Come on!”

“Hey Thomas, take a look at this.” Eric tossed a thin gold necklace with a locket to his feet. It stopped just beyond reach. “Ricard!”

“Huh…? Yeah. What?”

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“Take a look at that.” Eric pointed to the coiled necklace.

Thomas bent down, pinched it from the floor, and opened the oval piece. Two photos—one with the two dead souls in full embrace in their younger days—the next, a family photo. It was a sham. He was just trying to protect his wife. Why do people still insist on going it alone? We have everything to offer. He rolled the edge of the locket between his thumb and forefinger.