Desolation

“You know these alleys?” Steve asked.

Just like that, they ducked down another alley and then into an even narrower walkway, barely wider than their handlebars. Steve pedaled with all he had to keep up, turning into the walkway just before Randall and one of his crew reached the alley. Steve focused on keeping his handlebars between the walls, knowing a bump and a loss of balance would have a deadly outcome. He looked up and saw Wilber’s back tire turning down another alley, back in the direction they had come from.

Steve felt his right handle lightly scrape the wall. With a jerk he corrected just as he came out of the walkway and turned into the alley, now about twenty feet from Wilber. They could hear their pursuer’s footsteps echoing in the other alley, and then they stopped. Randall’s voice floated to them. “You, go down there.” Then, the footfalls started up again.

Steve looked up and saw that he was about to come out of the alley back onto the street. Wilber was off his bike, pointed his gun one way down the street and then the other, and then mounted his bike again.

“Come on, we’re clear, for now.”

They raced to the highway.

12. The Great Escape

Rancho El Gordo

All the men were passed out from a full day of murder, rape, theft, booze, and drugs. Max too was exhausted, not from consumption of these evils, but from bearing witness to them every day, and doing almost nothing to stop them. When he could, he would carefully intervene to save one person at a time, never too much to cause the ire of El Gordo’s men. However, today’s activities had been too much: he couldn’t acquiesce any longer. All day long he repeated the same thing in his mind: time to get living or time to get dying.

All these days, he had acted beaten down and compliant to their demands; after a while, it was no longer an act. Worse, witnessing so much depravity infected his soul, like a virus that was consuming every bit of goodness that remained in him. If he stayed even a day longer, he feared he would pass the point of no return, literally becoming one of them. It had to be tonight.

“Time to get living or time to get dying,” he said as he grabbed his bag and left his room.

At this point, due to his submissiveness, he was largely ignored by the men. After grabbing his keys he walked silently to his Jeep. He had already fastened extra gas cans to the back, behind the spare tire. That would be enough gas to get back to Rocky Point. He added a few days’ worth of food, a five-gallon bottle of water, and an extra AK-47 with lots of ammo. Each had a folding stock and was loaded with one full magazine that had another taped to it in reverse, for easy loading during a firefight. Everything was tightly stowed in the back in anticipation of a hasty, bumpy getaway.

Satisfied with his cache of supplies and silent efficiency, he focused on setting up his diversion. After permanently disabling the other two vehicles, he wanted to ensure his exit wasn’t noticed. His goal was to put as much mileage between himself and El Gordo’s men as possible, as quickly as possible, and not get shot in the process. Engaging them in any sort of firefight would be suicide because of their sheer numbers. Yet, he also wanted to hurt them all for the evil they had inflicted on others.

This evening’s auroral lights were brighter, making it more difficult for him to remain covert. He had to hurry or risk being seen. Gas can in hand; he sneaked up to a shed on the far side of El Gordo’s developed property. The auroras turned the large shed into the head of a green giant with a bad complexion; an earthen roof was its hair, the two windows on each side were its ears, and the locked door its nose. The giant appeared asleep.

He stopped beside the giant’s right ear, looking and listening for anyone who may have seen him and might now be wondering why he was slinking around in the green darkness. Loneliness was his friend. The shed was one of many sprinkled around El Gordo’s vast grounds to hold various tools, supplies, guns, drugs, or simply as shelter from the endless sun. He wasn’t sure of this shed’s purpose, but he knew about the pile of flammable materials on the far side. It was a conglomeration of wood and other building supplies, all haphazardly tossed there, castoffs of endless projects. It was perfect, not only for its incendiary nature, but because the distance from all the occupied buildings and El Gordo’s house meant it would take them longer to investigate. All eyes would be trained in that direction while he left in the other. He sprinkled a little petrol from the one-gallon can onto some of the wood in the pile and parked the open can, still nearly full, underneath. The air around him was heavy with the gasoline’s acrid vapors. Striking a match, he tossed it into the pile and ran to his Jeep. The fire spread quickly.

~~~