Everyone Dies in the End #24

Artemis

But the white Bronco didn’t think so.

It slid around the corner all squealing, smoking tires and noise. The toughs swung their assault rifles toward the dirty white SUV, but didn’t fire, didn’t know what to do, and that hesitation saved Arty and Susan. They dove to the hard, white concrete patio that marked the entrance to the dorm. Bullets zipped overhead, harbingers of death sent from the gangers in the lobby. Artemis lifted his 9mm and blindly fired a couple of rounds through the open window, their usefulness doubtful, and the Bronco skidded to a stop not two feet from their faces, and the passenger door opened, and the driver screamed.

“Get in!” And they did, they dove into the Bronco with its driver, a guy named Todd.

They weren’t in the clear yet. No, not by a long shot, thought Artemis. This wasn’t a car chase movie in which vehicles magically parted as the heroes’ car sped away from their pursuers, or a video game that let the player to save his progress, breathe a sight of relief, and pop a cold one. This was Charlotte, two months into the apocalypse, and a street cluttered with burnt out vehicles, looting litter, and an occasional piece of crumbled building. The Bronco was better than walking; in fact the Bronco was better than running, but only just. The car went faster than a sprint, zigging and zagging through the debris cluttering the road, the early morning sun glittering the road’s shattered glass, the ever-present wisps of smoke drifting in the distance like hapless spirits. Behind them, guns popped, their sound seemingly insignificant, the bullets that whined by Artemis’s open window much less so. He looked behind. There were at least ten men in the street, shouting, running, firing weapons. A pair of skinny, long-haired types jumped on motorcycles. That wasn’t good, really wasn’t good. Motorcycles were faster than Broncos. Then Todd turned off the street and, their line of sight blocked, the bullets stopped.

So for the first time in the last ten minutes, Arty wasn’t in immediate danger of dying. Oh yeah, those motorcycles were gonna come, and they were gonna come quick, or quickly, depending on your modifying preference, but no one was pointing a gun at him right, freaking, now, and that was a bit of a vacation. Enough of a vacation to let him gather his wits and speak, speak the first thing that came to his mind. And that brought him back to Todd

“Where the hell were you?”

All three of them were crammed into the front seat. Neither Susan nor Todd acknowledged his words.

“I’ll get in the back,” Susan said. “They’re gonna come. I’ll slow them down.”

She didn’t wait for answer, sliding over the back of the front seat. Todd continued to concentrate on picking his way down the street. If anything, this street was even more chaotic than the one that they had just exited. It was four lanes, two on each side, but bordered by stores, Best Buy, K-Mart, etc. The refuse of capitalism cluttered the gray asphalt, and the going was slow. Todd concentrated on that going.

“Hey asshole, did you hear me?”

Todd glanced at Arty, his eyes unreadable. “Yeah, I heard you. Do you want to talk, or do you want to get out this alive? A pause, then Todd shrugged. “I heard them coming. I knew we couldn’t fight through them. I went to get the Bronco. That’s about it.”

“About it?” Artemis stared at Todd in disbelief. “About it, you…”

“Here they come,” Susan interrupted.

Sure enough, the two motorcycles were in hot pursuit, making much better time than the Bronco. As he watched, six or seven more gangers, mounted on bicycles, came into view. If their intent hadn’t been deadly, the sight would have been comical—muscular, heavily tattooed and lethally-armed gangsters, peddling for all their life on brightly colored college kid bicycles. But the intent was lethal and the sight was not comical. Both the motorcycles and the bicycles were gaining on them. Susan fired, once, twice, and again. It was as if she hadn’t. There was simply no effect. And now the remaining gangers, the gangers that were on foot, rounded the corner. The motorcyclists, indeed the bicyclists, were too busy with their machines to fire at the Bronco, but not the men on foot. No sooner had the first man rounded the corner than he dropped to one knee and loosed a flurry of shots. He was joined by another and two rounds smacked the back of the Bronco, damaging nothing, hurting no one, but it was only a matter of time.

And then they were dying. Not Susan, who would rather heal than kill. Not Artemis, who would rather play his video games than kill, and not Todd, who was finding out that he liked killing just fine. It was the gangers. As Artemis watched, tracers streamed from the building to his right, and with a sound like ripping paper, the motorcycle riders were pitched from their rides to the rubble strewn asphalt, their blood painting it red, their lives gone. Real gone.