The Age of Embers (Book 4): The Age of Exodus Read online

  Fortunately, by then, the two guys began moving on.

  Draven hoisted the bag over the fence, then lifted the wagon and pushed it over into Orlando’s hands as well. He then jumped the fence, dusting off his hands and the knees of his pants. Ahead of them was a large, vacant parking lot (save for a pair of downed drones), and across from that, a Walgreen’s food and drug store.

  “All that stuff you were talking about back there,” Orlando said as they crossed the parking lot, the wagon’s wheels making a bit of noise, “that was dark.”

  “Just you saying that means you won’t survive this.”

  “I have a better chance of surviving than you give me credit for,” Orlando said, starting to sound defensive.

  “Orlando, no offense, but your generation is the weakest, most pathetic generation of men this earth has ever known. You wear your skinny jeans, do your hair for girls and guys, you take sensitivity training and you watch your words and actions so as not to offend others around you. Your generation became polite, innocuous and virtuous. That’s no recipe for breeding hardened warriors. It’s a disaster of epic proportions.”

  “That’s not all of us,” he said pointedly.

  “I know, but as a whole, your generation is a bunch of soft-skinned pretty boys, metrosexuals and suit-and-tie-for-minimum-wage kids.”

  “Sorry to say this right now, Draven,” Orlando said, “but you’re fake news.”

  “Okay, I’ll concede,” Draven replied with a soft chuckle. “But nothing is absolute. And if you learn one thing from your father, learn to embrace his disgust for weakness because, by this society alone, you are weak, hesitant and vulnerable. And quite frankly—under these circumstances—most of you deserve to die.”

  “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” Orlando grumbled.

  “Sorry man, it’s just…I’m broken up about Eudora is all, and the more I talk about this, the more it’s pissing me off.”

  “So then why don’t you stop talking already?” Orlando snapped.

  To the left of them, Draven saw the four guys from earlier. All four of them had eyes on Draven and Orlando. In this city, he expected trouble to maintain a steady presence, and he expected they would get mixed up in their fair share of it, but was Orlando ready? Dammit. He should never have brought him.

  Orlando leaned over and said, “I think we have company.”

  “Just stay cool, let me do the talking,” Draven said, talking low and out of the side of his mouth. “And if it becomes go-time, then don’t hold back.”

  “Roger that.”

  Chapter Five

  This purple piece of crap is not going to get us to California. Not in its current state. Hell no. Studying the smashed front end, the gaping hole that once held a windshield and rear view mirror, the open window that was broken out when we were mobbed a few days ago, it’s a wonder this heap is still running.

  My brother and I leave the relatively quiet comfort of the Buhari’s neighborhood and take E. 47th St. heading to the Pick-n-Pull on W. 61st Pl. At first, we are heading down a four lane, tree lined street with no trouble in sight. We see the usual sights and encounter the predictable landscape: destroyed and abandoned cars, devastated buildings, some dead people sprawled out in the gutters, on the sidewalks, in their cars.

  It’s a sad, surreal sight. Honestly though, what makes it so much worse is that we’re getting used to it.

  In addition to this nightmarish world, we see a lot of people outside, alive and surviving, no one really thriving. Fortunately, no one bothers us. Granted, we get a lot of looks because there are no other running cars in the neighborhood, but by and large, we feel like the biggest challenge of today will be getting the parts we need for the car and not dealing with people and all the drama that might come from them.

  We come upon the beautiful St. Andrews Roman Catholic Church and it’s open and helping people, but we can’t cross S. Ellis Ave. because up ahead, what might have once been a ten or fifteen story apartment complex, is now obliterated, rubble cascading down into the street like some slow moving glacier of impassable debris. Someone is suddenly at Ice’s window, hands to herself, but bent over to look inside.

  “How is your car running after what happened?” the older looking woman asks.

  She’s as beaten down and sickly looking as the rest of us, but judging by her underlying features, I’m not sure if she was impoverished before all this began. Or maybe I’m wrong. Who can really say anymore what someone’s life was worth before all this? Does it really even matter?

  “The EMP didn’t affect it,” Ice says. “It’s too old.”

  “Where are you headed?” she asks, looking at both Ice and me. On her arm, there are several open cuts. Her shoulder looks like it was ravaged by a power sander.

  “I was headed straight, but not now. Not with that building lying in the street.”

  “Yeah. I lived there,” she says. “Fifteenth floor. They were assisted living apartments for low income seniors. I just got in, and then this happened.”

  “You were lucky you weren’t in there when it fell,” I tell her.

  “No, but my birds were,” she said, her eyes getting that same shine I’m now feeling looking at two men carrying a limp, lifeless body out of the debris.

  While Ice speaks to her, I can’t stop seeing what’s in front of me. There are people going through piles of grayish-brown rubble, like worker ants focused only on the tasks before them. On the road not twenty feet in front of us, there are scores of dusty bodies, lying on tarps, lifeless.

  I’ve been there, I think to myself. I’ve done that. And I sure as hell don’t want to ever do that again.

  The sight of three small children, all powdered gray, their little bodies crushed, does something unexpected inside me, something I can’t explain. Grief mixed with exhaustion mixed with fear is a brutal cocktail I’m having a hard time digesting.

  “We need to go, Ice,” I say, my pulse racing. I just want to stomp on the gas and get the hell out of here as fast as possible, for as much as I once loved this gorgeous, dysfunctional city, now I hate the sight of all the death and destruction it holds within its borders.

  “Can I come with you?” the woman asks.

  “No,” I say as I let off the brake, ease onto the gas and turn right on S. Ellis. We make our way around the debris, encounter more people, nearly hit a cat just sitting in the road, depressed.

  “You know it’s bad when even the cats look like they want to commit suicide,” Ice mumbles.

  We get back onto W. 47th and the second we cross Cottage Grove, four lanes becomes two. The residential component is now all but gone, as are many of the street side trees. They’re now replaced by brick buildings and loosely spaced commercial structures. It changes the entire feel of the road. Up ahead, it looks somewhat smoky, but not too bad.

  “Smells like barbecue,” Ice says.

  “I would do just about anything for a Porterhouse right now,” I hear myself say, smelling the cooked meat and almost salivating.

  We pass a Metro PCS, a taqueria, a family health center. We pass a beauty salon, a fish restaurant (that looks like a front for child trafficking) and a sandwich shop.

  Then, when we cross S. Champlain Ave., we see the barbecue. It’s in a large open lot next to a string of power poles and a brick, three story home. Ice starts to gag. I no longer want that Porterhouse.

  Stacked probably ten feet high is a mound of bodies. They are burning, with a few guys around squirting what looks like lighter fluid on the smoking pile. There’s an older woman sitting on a lawn chair nearby with an obedient dog sitting at her side. Without the windshield or the side window to protect us, the stench of cooking bodies washes over us, gets in our eyes, our nostrils, taints our very souls.

  “I guess it’s better than letting them lay in the gutter,” Ice mutters, his eyes as focused on the scene as mine. “Did you see that back there? That lady that was laid out and left behind?”

  �
��I did,” I say, recalling the woman he’s referring to. A woman in a blue housedress with death mottled skin.

  “She’s better off being burned like this.”

  “This is all so sad,” I hear myself saying, “my heart actually hurts.”

  “It’s like the grief hits in waves, and just when you think you can start to take it without getting railroaded again, you see someone whose life can never be measured right because they’re dead and unaccounted for.”

  “That’ll be us, brother.”

  I feel his head turn my way. “Don’t say that.”

  We sit in silence, putting the city blocks behind us, trying to unsee that which will forever be lodged in our memories.

  “It’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better,” I finally say, breaking the silence.

  “Best we don’t lament it.”

  There is little difference between my brother and me. Our height, weight and build are similar, our faces clearly from the same genepool, even our shared mannerisms. The difference between us—other than my beard and his scruff, and his green eyes being like my mother’s while my brown eyes are like my father’s—is the way we process emotion.

  Ice has always been a little cold, which is why his name is so fitting. Me? I’m like a gasoline fire. Quick to flash, but fast to burn out. When I burn out though, that’s when I start thinking about things at a deeper level. Ice keeps them at arm’s length. And Roque was the blessed mix of us both. More apt to let you break yourself upon him than for him to actually embrace you like I would, or flat out disappear on you like Ice did. Hence the nickname, Rock.

  Now I wish I had some of Isadoro’s cold detachment. Then again, he’s starting to sound a little like me, emotional, which means things are getting really, really bad.

  Not much changes in the scenery, only the bodies are different. Fortunately the railroad stop at W. 47th and S. Calumet Ave. didn’t collapse onto the street below—our street. That would have cost us valuable time and taken us God only knows where before we got back on track. I’m comfortable with W. 47th, just not the surrounding neighborhoods.

  The devil you know…

  Eventually we reach the freeway, cross over it, then make our way to S. Archer, but by then too much time has passed. Fortunately my emotions have leveled out, but now I’m just tired. No, I’m drained. I had plenty of sleep, but not once since this thing started have I relaxed. That in itself feels like the abuse that just won’t quit.

  S. Archer is no pretty picture, but at least it’s wide and commercial. We’ve had nothing but problems in the residential section of this extra long road. All the obstacles we’ve been navigating around, especially the collapsed apartment towers, have done nothing but eat up time and patience. In the commercial blocks, even when the buildings are destroyed, they’re just two story brick structures that either caved in on themselves or now stand skeletal. The worst we’ve seen is a bit of glass in the road, which is completely passable.

  S. Archer takes us to W. Archer, and that delivers us to Harlem Ave., which finally gets us to W. 61st Place—a heavy residential area. By the look of it, most of the homes here are destroyed. There are people everywhere, milling about, some overly animated and talking to themselves or others, some clearly downtrodden. And still there are others sleeping wherever—on the pavement, next to old cars, in sleeping bags on the sidewalks.

  In a huge parking lot of what looks like a veterinarian hospital are hundreds of tents. All along the sides of the street, heaps of trash are building up. We might’ve even seen a few rats scurrying around, but this is Chicago and we know rats. Next to one completely spectacular pile of refuse, some mangy looking guy is sawing logs on a small bag of garbage he’s using as a pillow. He isn’t wearing any socks and his feet are practically black.

  “Man, the blows just keep on coming,” I mumble to myself.

  We finally make our way to the back of W. 61st and see the sign for Pick-n-Pull. The gates are shut, but fortunately not locked. Ice opens them up and I drive into the auto parts yard, not sure what I’ll see, or what we’ll find.

  I have my gun at my side just in case. It’s not loaded, but it’s real.

  When we get inside, we see a guy under one of the cars. It looks like he’s cutting the fuel lines and draining out the gas. He’s got five gallon containers all around him.

  The lot is huge, the cars all lined up. We drive down one row, then park and grab a few tools from the trunk. I’m about to lock up when Ice walks around the front of the car and says, “Pop the hood.”

  I do as he asked, and he starts to loosen the bolt holding the positive cable to the battery terminal. In no time flat, he pulls the cable, leaves it hanging, then shuts the hood.

  “These cars are too easy to hotwire,” he says.

  The point is, if anyone tries, they’ll certainly be slowed down. For now, however, we go hunting.

  The day is long and hot, and we work our way through the cars, looking for something older, something similar, maybe even a Dodge Dart of the same model year. They share a windshield with the Barracuda, but the car gods have done nothing but show us their asses all day. We come up empty. We do, however, find a car with a windshield that measures close enough to ours to pass government muster. I start removing the windshield while Ice runs down some brackets he says we might be able to use to mount the glass. He’s back quickly, having found something he thinks will work. But now, with all the work we’re putting into getting this damn windshield out, we’re praying to the god of ransacked cars that it’ll work.

  With our shirts off because it’s roasting hot out here—which is still weird for Chicago this time a year—we pull off the windshield’s rubber surround, then Ice goes after the deeper seal with a flathead screwdriver.

  It takes forever, but we take turns and the task goes quicker.

  When that’s done, I get inside with a hammer and a thick putty knife and work to loosen the bottom seal of the windshield, which is just over the defrosting vents.

  As much as I want to hammer away, Ice warns me not to crack the glass. When that’s done, I push the windshield out through the front; Ice is on the hood to catch it. Together we walk our fragile find over to the Barracuda where we lean it against the passenger side door. Mopping up our brows, wiping our dirty hands on our pants, we bask in the heat.

  “Let’s find a window replacement for the passenger door and get the hell out of here,” Ice says.

  “If only it were that easy,” I say.

  Naturally, the car gods continue to smite us.

  When nothing is even coming close to fitting right, Ice says, “We need the right screws and brackets, and then we can just Jimmy rig it on, same as the windshield.”

  It’s a terrible plan that’s destined to fail, but it’s all we have so we embrace it. By the time we find a window, some brackets, a metal mounting rail and enough screws to maybe hold the glass in place, half the day is gone and we’re tired of the heat and dying for water.

  I’m carrying the window when we come out of one of the rows of cars and see two boys in the ‘Cuda playing.

  “Great,” Ice mumbles.

  “How many rounds do you have?” I ask.

  “Three,” he says. “You?”

  “I’m out.”

  Just outside the open car door is a dog on a leash with a human leg sitting in his bowl. He stands there looking at us, panting with bloody fur but looking sated. The leg looks mauled, half eaten.

  “Gonna need a round for the dog,” Ice says. “Looks like he’s on a leg diet.” Then, to the two boys, he shouts, “Get out of there!”

  The kids jump out of the car, but one of them scrambles up onto the hood of the purple nightmare and shows us his two middle fingers. He then turns and moons us.

  “Freaking turd,” Ice growls.

  I can’t help but laugh. Honestly, I think I needed this moment of levity. The kid hops off the hood, snaps at the dog to “Come!” then runs off, the dog running beside hi
m, barking.

  Ice kicks the dog bowl with the half eaten leg out of the way, groaning because there’s still a sock on the foot.

  “They’re going to ruin that mutt if they’re not careful,” Ice grumbles.

  “Tell me about it,” I say as I fight the glass. Sweating and cursing, I try sliding it into the back seat where it will be safe.

  After a bit of contemplation, we realize the only way to transport this windshield is to lodge it in the trunk and try to secure it enough that it won’t fall out or break on the way home.

  When we finally get the glass sufficiently lodged down, we pop our heads out of the tight space only to find we have company.

  The two mangy kids and their leg-eating mutt are now joined by two men and a woman. One of the guys looks like he’s in his forties while the other’s pushing sixty, easy. And the woman? Oh, boy. We’re talking big saggy breasts and a stained house shirt.

  Nasty is the first word that comes to mind.

  Stinky is the next word.

  To be clear here, I’m talking about the woman. Looking down, she’s barefoot with chipped toenails, a floppy belly with pudding-like consistency and most of her teeth.

  In all fairness, the guys aren’t much better.

  “You can’t just come ‘ere and take what ain’t yers,” the woman grumbles, a map of lines and creases etched on her face from the perpetual scowl of a hard life.

  “Times have changed, ma’am,” Ice says.

  She has that look like she started giving out handies at thirteen, started dancing at eighteen, started hooking at twenty and went downhill from there for about a hundred years. If I had to choose between beer farts and the woman’s breath, I’d opt to smell the beer farts first.

  Hell, I’d be first in line…

  “They ain’t changed that bad,” she says.

  “This whole world is one giant shopping center and the price is free,” I say, making a point.