Purge of Babylon (Short Story): Mason's War Read online

  “Easy: You don’t have a choice,” the voice laughed.

  Mason didn’t say anything out loud. Instead, he concentrated on the road and the town around him as it began to brighten street by street, building by building. Windows were opening to his left and right, with a dozen or so civilians already congregating onto the sidewalks. Workdays always began early in the towns, and T10 was no different. The women, their bellies sticking out in front of them, were chatting and laughing. They sounded almost happy.

  “Has the regret set in yet?” the voice asked.

  Shut up; I’m thinking.

  “Should have done that last night.”

  Yeah, yeah.

  “How can you do that?” the girl was asking him. “You’re one of them.”

  He continued ignoring her, and eased his foot off the gas and let the old Nissan coast at five miles per hour as they reached the southern edge of town. North took them to the paved country road and was the more frequently traveled; it was a no-brainer to avoid as a result. He felt better about his chances of getting lost in all the civilian traffic on this end.

  “Hit and run, just like Bonnie and Clyde,” the voice said. “A barely-legal Bonnie and an over-the-hill Clyde, anyway. Remind me again how things worked out for them?”

  “Are you going to say anything?” the girl was asking him. Apparently his silence wasn’t enough to get her to drop it.

  “What do you want me to say?” Mason finally said.

  “Tell me why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why you’re helping me, after I tried to kill you. After I killed your friends.”

  “This girl’s full of good questions today,” the voice said. “So answer her, peckerhead. Why did you do it? Why did you screw everything up for someone who very recently tried to kill you?”

  “I told you, they weren’t my friends,” Mason said.

  “But you knew them,” Freckles said. “You knew that guy back at the donut shop, too.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You know what I mean. You’re one of them.”

  Barely, he wanted to tell her. The truth was, one of the benefits of his current position was that no one really paid a lot of attention to you. He knew of collaborators who had left their assigned towns, either during patrols or just sneaked off one morning and never came back. No one ever went looking for them; or at least, he never did back when he was in charge. Foot soldiers came and went all the time; they were a dime a dozen and there was always someone (sometimes, someones) waiting to replace them.

  He feigned playing with the sun visor when a technical drove past them and disappeared down the street. If the guy manning the machine gun in the back of the moving truck noticed the Nissan inching along behind him, in no hurry to go anywhere, he didn’t give them a second look.

  “Close, that was close,” the voice said. “More close encounters like that and we might shit our pants.”

  Our pants?

  “Okay, technically it’s your pants. You know what I mean.”

  The girl was keeping one eye on him and the other on the street. The Glock she’d taken off the dead guard was in her lap, and there was an AR-15 leaning against the front passenger door within easy reach. He had noticed how she had grabbed the rifle while he was busy tossing their previous owner into the crowded back of the cab. Alarm bells had gone off and the voice was not pleased, but he was still alive, so that meant she wasn’t planning on killing him.

  “Not yet, anyway,” the voice said.

  Mason added some extra gas to the Nissan and drove past a couple of women waiting at a curb to cross the street. He gave his side mirror one final look, saw no one—no vehicles or soldiers rushing to intercept him, and definitely no Paul screaming for his head—and drove out of town.

  Freckles turned around in her seat to check behind them. “God, I didn’t think you were ever going to get us out of there. What took you so long?”

  “Had to let the first patrol leave first,” Mason said. “If they’d spotted us on the road ahead of them, they would have asked questions. Everyone here’s on a strict schedule. Even without Jocelyn running things, everyone knows what they’re supposed to do, where they’re supposed to be.”

  “Except they’re not smart enough to put names on their uniforms,” the voice said.

  Except for that.

  “The woman back at the Sonic,” Freckles was saying. “She’s in charge?”

  “That’s her,” he nodded.

  “Where did she go?”

  “Houston.”

  “What’s happening in Houston?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “They didn’t tell you?”

  He shook his head. “They don’t tell me very much.”

  “Because you’re new.”

  Finally, she gets it, he thought, and nodded, “Exactly.”

  “That still doesn’t mean she won’t shoot you in the back of the head the first chance she gets,” the voice said.

  She hasn’t done it yet.

  “She’s still stuck in town. Once you’re out there…”

  We’ll see.

  “No, you won’t. I don’t think you’ll see the bullet coming at all.”

  The road started to get bumpy fast, but that was fine with Mason. An unpaved road meant less traffic to and from the town, and less chance they were going to run afoul of another patrol. He knew from memory the one that had passed them earlier would be going much farther out and in a completely different direction than the path he intended to take.

  “Where are we going?” Freckles asked after a few minutes of silent driving.

  Mason didn’t answer right away. He checked the mirrors again, but there were only civilians on foot, some of them covering their faces with handkerchiefs as his truck kicked up dust around them.

  So far, so good.

  “Congratulations, you stupid moron,” the voice said.

  Mason grunted.

  “What?” Freckles said. “Did you say something?”

  “No,” Mason said.

  He pushed down harder on the gas pedal. The faster he could put T10 in his rearview mirror, the better. If Paul came after him, he was going to have to find him first, and Mason had no plans of making that easy.

  “Like Bonnie and Clyde,” the voice said. “Only without all the cash to show for it.”

  THE BODY in the back was starting to smell twenty minutes into the drive, and Mason had to roll down his window. Freckles did the same, sticking her head out and sighing against the wind. The wounds along her cheeks and forehead were purple and red, and it was even more obvious in the bright sunlight just how exact Max had been with them. The girl looked like some kind of Native American covered in grisly war paint.

  They stayed silent for a long time, which was fine with Mason. Freckles didn’t ask any more questions, and even the voice had stopped with its constant nagging. They remained that way even after Mason pulled off the spur road and drove through an even rougher patch of ground. If the girl was uncomfortable, she didn’t make a peep.

  He didn’t really have an objective in mind, just that getting as far away from T10 was the priority, because once Paul discovered Max’s body, then realized he was missing one patrolman, they’d be after him. It wouldn’t take them very long to get a headcount and finger him as the culprit. Mason guessed that he had an hour, maybe less. That Paul guy wasn’t exactly a Mensa candidate as far as Mason could tell, but you didn’t have to be to put two and two together.

  “And four gets you dead,” the voice piped back up.

  Not if I can find a town where no one knows who I am and start all over. Shouldn’t be too hard. It’s still a big country…

  “Are you trying to convince yourself or me?”

  I am you.

  “And yet, you’re still trying to convince me. What does that say about you?”

  Mason knew exactly what that said about him. The word crazy came to mind.

&nbs
p; That or fucking crazy.

  “Either/or,” the voice laughed.

  “Are you like, spazzing or something?” Freckles said next to him.

  He shot her a quick glance. “What?”

  She was eyeing him again, trying to read his face. “You looked like you were spazzing out or something a minute ago.”

  “You mean spacing out?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “There’s a difference.”

  “So are you, or aren’t you?”

  “I was just thinking, that’s all.”

  “About what?”

  “This and that, and everything in between.”

  She squinted doubtfully at him. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a grownup thing. Hard to explain.”

  “Try anyway.”

  “Pass.”

  “Convenient,” she said, and turned back to look out her window.

  “She’s reading you like a book,” the voice said. “How sad is that?”

  Almost as sad as arguing with myself.

  “Okay, you win,” the voice laughed.

  Mason gave the gun in her lap a quick look. She hadn’t put it away, and he noticed how her forefinger stayed outside the trigger guard at all times.

  Someone’s taught her well.

  “Our old buddy Mercer, perhaps,” the voice said.

  I doubt if he does all the teaching himself.

  “Whoever taught her, she didn’t skip the class where they showed her how to murder guys in cold blood with a sniper rifle. Maybe you should tell her to put that gun away.”

  Mason thought about it, but he decided not to bring attention to it. The fact was, she could have shot him so many times since she got her hands on that gun, but she hadn’t. Not even after they had left T10 in their dust. He didn’t know why she hadn’t done it. Maybe, like him, she was playing it by ear, figuring things out as they came.

  “Bonnie and Clyde, clueless to the bitter end,” the voice chuckled.

  After another five minutes of driving through the wilderness, sticking to the tree lines and staying away from anything that even resembled a road, Mason finally said, “Where you wanna go?”

  “Go?” Freckles said.

  “I mean, where do you want me to take you?”

  She stared at him with a blank expression.

  “You don’t know?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I’ve never thought about it. I thought I was going to die in that town.”

  “I guess she didn’t count on Captain Stupid to save her,” the voice said. “Right, Captain Stupid?”

  Mason ignored the voice, said, “Okay, fair enough. Now that you’re out of there and in one piece” —(“Mostly”)—“where do you wanna go?”

  She seemed to think about it. He could tell by the look on her face that it was a question she hadn’t even given any thought to until now. He fully believed her when she said she hadn’t expected to survive T10.

  “Are there any other teams out there that you know about?” Mason asked.

  That brought a quick suspicious glance from her.

  He laughed. “What, you think this is some kind of elaborate trick? To get you to give up more information on your friends?”

  She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look away, either.

  “It’s not,” Mason said, and couldn’t help but smile. He didn’t know why, but the fact that she was so distrusting even after everything he had done for her made him like her all the more.

  He caught her sneaking a look into the back of the cab, at the body on the floor as if to make sure it was actually dead.

  “I don’t know,” she said finally, facing forward again.

  “No idea?”

  “We were supposed to kill as many of you guys as possible, then wait for further orders from Black Tide. But you told me they already recalled everyone.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I heard on the radio.”

  “So I don’t know who else is still out there. I could be the only one left.”

  “Black Tide. That’s this island of yours.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “And it’s the same order for everyone?” When she didn’t answer him fast enough, he added, “If this was a trick, why would I let you keep that loaded gun in your lap with the muzzle pointed at me? I know damn well you know how to use it. And that rifle.”

  That seemed to appease her, and she said, “Yeah, it’s the same for everyone.”

  “So you need a radio.”

  “Why would I need a radio?”

  “To get new orders from Black Tide. Or to confirm what I told you.”

  “Oh.” She nodded. “I guess I need a radio. Something that can reach Black Tide.”

  “Maybe there’s one in the truck. Look around.”

  She did, but came up empty about three minutes later. He stopped the truck in the middle of an empty field so they could check the back, but there was nothing there, either.

  They ended up staring at each other across the truck bed. It was chilly, like it always was in the mornings down here, but the bright sun above them helped. There was nothing around them but grass that came up to their knees, elm trees in the distances, and not a manmade road in sight. He wasn’t quite sure how far he’d driven from T10, but it felt as if he’d reached the other side of the world and they were the only two people still alive in it.

  “Works for me,” the voice said. “Unless, of course, she murders you.”

  There’s that…

  “You said you just wanted to get away from the town,” the girl said after a while. “What did you call it?”

  “T10.”

  “Yeah. T10. So where do we go from here?”

  “There’s that ‘we’ again,” the voice said.

  He looked around them. He had forgotten just how much nature was out here. That was both a good and a bad thing. The abundance of trees and woods, not to mention the emptiness, meant no collaborator threat. But it also meant he was in uncharted territory.

  “I don’t have any clue,” Mason finally said.

  “Well, I know one thing,” Freckle said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m starving.”

  “Shit,” Mason said. “So am I.”

  ELEVEN

  THERE WAS no food in the truck, and Mason hadn’t been forward-thinking enough to pack a lunch when he went out in search of Max last night. Of course, he hadn’t known what he was going to do (“You gonna stick to that story, Clyde?”), but that excuse was only going to hold up until the hunger became too much.

  His lack of preparation left them with two empty stomachs and a lot of nothing to fill them. It wasn’t like he could shoot something in the fields, either. Animals—or at least the ones big enough to hunt—didn’t last very long beyond the borders of the towns. Except for the crickets, they might as well be the only two living things out here, wherever “here” turned out to be.

  He’d seen a map of the area once, just for a brief ten or so seconds, but hadn’t paid enough attention because he hadn’t needed to. Rummy was the ramrod on their patrol, and maybe a part of Mason thought he wouldn’t be here long enough to need to familiarize himself with his new surroundings.

  “I guess you thought wrong, huh, sport?” the voice said. “No surprise. You’ve been thinking wrong a lot recently.”

  Fortunately the kid didn’t know how clueless he was about their location, so at least he was able to save some face. Of course that also meant driving aimlessly for the next few hours, always moving southeast. If she even suspected how lost he was, Freckles didn’t pipe up; if anything, she looked content to stick her head out the window and let the winds brush against her face. He wondered if that was to help with her wounds, and Mason debated whether to offer her some of the painkillers he had on him.

  “She’s fine,” the voice said. “Save the good stuff for yourself, Mr. Hero.”

  “Does it hurt?” Mason asked anyway. />
  “Ugh,” the voice said.

  “What?” the girl said, pulling her head back into the truck.

  “The cuts on your face. On your…other places.”

  “They tingle.”

  “Tingle?”

  “He didn’t cut deep. I think he was afraid I would bleed out too much.”

  “See? It doesn’t hurt,” the voice said. “Now stop being an idiot. You might need those painkillers later on.”

  “So it doesn’t hurt?” he asked anyway.

  “Why do I even bother?” the voice groaned.

  “It hurts,” she said, “but it’s not as bad as it looks.”

  “I heard you screaming all night.”

  “Because he wanted me to. If I hadn’t, he would have done worse. So I screamed as loud as I could every time he cut me. I was mostly afraid I was gonna go hoarse after a while and he would stop buying it.”

  Jesus Christ. She really is way smarter than I thought.

  What were the chances the girl might have managed to escape anyway if he hadn’t shown up at Max’s last night? Did he just sacrifice his entire future for nothing?

  “You’re just realizing that now, peckerhead?” the voice laughed.

  “You played him,” Mason said.

  “I guess. A little,” the girl said.

  “The things you told him…”

  “I told him, because it didn’t matter. They didn’t tell us very much about the overall plan, and I figured he already knew most of it anyway.”

  “Plausible deniability,” Mason said.

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means you can’t reveal what you don’t know.”

  “Oh. I guess that’s it.”

  He had to admit, she had been pretty convincing. Just listening to her screams last night had made him think Max was putting her through the Spanish Inquisition. Then later, when he reached the back room of the donut shop and she’d looked half-dead in that chair…

  Clever girl. Real clever girl.

  “Clever enough to fool Max,” the voice said. “And to fool you. Now do you still feel safe with that gun in her hand?”

  The question prompted Mason to sneak another look at the Glock, which she had holstered after taking the gun belt from the dead collaborator in the backseat. He’d considered dumping the body in one of the many fields they’d crossed, but didn’t want Paul to find anything that could even point in the direction they had gone.