Variance - Book 1, Issue #16

   The survivors ascended the tunnel to Lake Street and were met by a marvelous orange glow.  Night hadn’t yet come.  They surely should have time.  At most, though, there would only be twenty minutes of sunlight, so the survivors quickened their pace.  

   The United Center was less than a mile away, but the Variants would soon be out in droves.  Daylight had always meant the absence of Variants.  At night the Variants moved in packs that were fantastically dense.  Now, however, they were testing the waters, feeling out the boundaries of dusk and dawn.

   Adaptation, Martin continued to wonder.  They must be adapting.

   They made it to the corner of Warner and Wood Street by 8:38pm.  Night was beginning to drown out the day.  The air was becoming dank and cool.

   Adjacent to where they stood, across a sprawling parking lot, was the United Center.  Behind them was William H. Brown Junior High School.  Its cracked brick and broken windows made it look like an abandoned insane asylum.  There were abandoned cars all around them, but the landscape was void of any military or relief vehicles. 

   “Don’t look like no FEMA camp to me,” Enrique said.

   “Where are all the people?” asked Annie.

   Her question was met with only silence.

   They could see a FEMA banner tied carelessly to the United Center’s marquee board.  The top corner, having pulled free, was now whipping back and forth against the concrete.  A series of metal barricades lined the stadium’s perimeter, though some of them were tipped on their sides or had crumbled to pieces, cast aside like old stones.

   A large, ancient-looking crow hopped down from the roof of the Center, swooped in front of the north entrance before perching on a downed power line.  It cawed and flapped its massive wings.  The sound swooped through the parking lot before disappearing into the empty city.

   “I don’t understand,” said Martin.

   “What do you mean: ‘you don’t understand?’  We got had, Martin.”  Captain Blake’s gruff voice was bordering on dejection.  “We’re as screwed as screwed can get out here.”

   “Well, this is just fuckin’ great!” Lara cried.

   “What do we do now?” Enrique asked.  “Sun’s goin’ down and we ain’t got too many options, ya know?”  He mindlessly rolled his St. Christopher necklace through his fingers.

   “Maybe there’s something inside the stadium,” Martin said.

   “Like what?” Lara challenged.

   “Like supplies.”

   “We don’t need supplies!  We need fucking help!  We need fucking answers!”

   “Either way, I reckon we get outta the dark.  And get outta the dark fast,” Captain Blake added surveying the night sky.

   Had they not stood around and argued for the next thirty seconds, things may have turned out differently for Enrique.  Maybe if they had agreed on where to go or what to do sooner, he may have avoided the bullet that ripped through his pectoral muscle, just below his collarbone, and exited his back with a “pffftt” of crackling bone and shredded tissue.  Sadly, though, that was not the case for Enrique Valenzuela on that muggy evening in Chicago.

   The bullet had barely made a sound.  By the time they made it to safety, Captain Blake estimated the bullet came from the barrel of a Barrett M82 sniper rifle somewhere on the roof of the United Center.

   “Either the M82 or the M107,” he would tell them.  “At that range though, either of ‘em could blow a man’s head into a flurry of brain paste.  So I guess it don’t really matter.”

   That goddamn bird, Lara would later realizee.  That goddamn crow swooped down cause some asshole climbed up on that roof and shot at us.  Goddamn bird…

   “Let’s just go inside.  If we can’t find anything, we’ll stay here for the night and head out in the morning,” Martin said.

   “I’m done taking orders from you.  It’s only led us to one dead end after another,” Lara shouted.  “Fucking miracle we’re still alive!” 

   “Lara, calm down,” said Captain Blake.

   “It’s true!  We’re better off on our own!”

   And that was the last of the argument.  

   There was a quick puff of air, sharp and quick.  They saw the blood next.  It sprayed across the asphalt in a fabulous mist. Enrique’s body went taut.  He looked like how a person does when they get jolted by a police taser.  Enrique stiffened and then fell forward into that misty blood cloud.  A second bullet flicked off the concrete just next to Lara’s feet.

   “Sniper!” Captain Blake yelled.

   What happened next was the perfect recipe of adrenaline, luck, and frantic lust for survival.  A teaspoon more of one or the other surely would have resulted in all of their deaths.  Martin crouched and grabbed hold of Enrique’s collar.  He felt the smooth rush of air lick his spine as a third bullet barely missed him.  Enrique cried out in agony as Martin dragged him behind an abandoned school bus haphazardly parked on Warren Boulevard.  A fourth bullet exploded through the bus’s rubber tire and shot a ghastly burst of old air into Martin’s face.

   Captain Blake grabbed Annie’s hand and spun her toward him.  The motion—had the tension not been so great—would have been considered a fancy dance move.  A fifth bullet skipped past their feet.  They rolled under the school bus and hugged the base of the curb.

   “Variants?” Annie screamed.

   “That ain’t Variants, sweeting,” Captain Blake said.  “That’s human.”

   Lara’s survival was nothing but luck.  She had stood flat-footed for most of the ordeal.  The whole scenario played out with such an inauthentic quality.  But when she saw Enrique’s blood careening its way down the sidewalk her mind finally assessed the situation.  She took an instinctual step backward as the sixth bullet exploded next to her feet.  There was no urgency in her movements, just wise, calculated steps.  A seventh bullet was a near millimeter miss.  Later, she would recall the scorching heat of that bullet as it tickled past her neck.  Lara took another step backward and did a half somersault over the curb and behind the front tire.  She found herself next to Enrique.  The blood was pooling around his head into a morbid sort of halo.

   He looked up at her, his skin colorless and his eyes glistening.  A tear rolled town his cheek and she wiped it away as quickly as it had fallen.

   “We can’t stay here!” Captain Blake shouted as another bullet blew out a second bus tire.

   “Let’s get him to the school!” Martin ordered.  He and Lara picked Enrique up and made their way to the front door.  The sniper bullets momentarily ceased.  Perhaps they were finding a better angle.  Perhaps they were out of bullets.  Perhaps they were just biding their time.

   Captain Blake shot the lock off the chain wrapped around the school’s front door and yanked it off in one swift motion.  The others raced into the school, Captain Blake following close behind.

   The last sound was the reverberating “ping” of the ninth sniper bullet splitting through the bus window and lodging into the school’s front door.  If one looked closely, a small indentation could be seen where the bullet had struck.  None of did, however, and the school’s recent renovation would go unnoticed. 

   The pain in Enrique’s voice shot out of him in a gurgling rage and wandered down the empty halls like a lost child.

   Lara was near tears as she watched Martin go to work.  Annie offered her a comforting shoulder, but Lara promptly brushed it aside and crossed to the other side of the room.  Annie watched her go, but made no move to follow.

   Martin and Captain Blake placed Enrique on one of the wooden benches, the kind with wide slats usually reserved for those waiting for the principal.  Blood dripped through the slats, collecting on the tile in a dense oval.  Enrique cried out in another fit of pain as Martin applied more pressure.

   “Break that and give it to me,” Martin said, referring to a moldy mop propped against one of the lockers.

   Captain Blake snapped the wooden handle over his knee and handed the smaller of the two halves to Martin. 

   “Open your mouth,” he instructed.

   Enrique did as he was told and Martin stuck the water-stained slab of wood between his teeth.  He bit down with such intensity Martin could hear the dry sound of wood particles grinding against the enamel.  He ripped open Enrique’s shirt and saw the blood loss was so severe, and the blood density was so great, it took Martin a moment to find the bullet’s point of entry.  

   Enrique’s breathing became strained and gurgled, the inhales and exhales painfully desperate.  He pointed at his neck as if to indicate he was choking.

   “What’s wrong with him?” Lara screamed.

   “His lung’s punctured,” Martin said.  “I need to alleviate the pressure.” 

   “How?” Lara asked, now on the verge of hysteria.

   “We have to get him to the United Center,” Martin said.  And he said it so quietly, at first he thought nobody had heard him.  Then he felt a gentle tugging at the back of his shirt.  He turned and found Lara, eyes harboring heavy pockets of tears, but cautiously calm.

   “Are you nuts?” she asked in a harsh whisper.  “I don’t know if you noticed, Doc, but a fucking sniper is raining caps down on us, and it’s another four hundred yards to the front entrance…At least!”

   “I know how far it is,” Martin said, grabbing hold of her wrist and lead her away from Enrique.

   Lara ripped her arm away and stepped as close as she could to him.  “Listen, if we go out there, then we’re all dead.  The sun’s down which means the Variants’ll be coming.  And if the Variants don’t get us, then that cheesedick with the rifle surely will.”  She wiped the tears from the shallows of her eyes.  “You’re just gonna have to fix him here.”

   “And I’m telling you, if we don’t get him out of here, then he’ll die.  I can’t fix him here.  That might not be a FEMA camp anymore, but it was at one time.  And that means they’ll have medical supplies, a lab, maybe even an operating facility.  I’m not asking for your opinion.  We’re going.  If you’d like to stay here, be my guest, but don’t expect any of us to come back for you.”  The icy contempt in his voice was staggering.  He turned his attention to Captain Blake.  “Captain, you think you can hot wire that bus out front?”

   “Ain’t a question of if I can, Doc, it’s a question of how fast I can.”

   Martin nodded his appreciation.  

   “Lara, c’m here,” Captain Blake instructed her. 

   She did without a moment’s protest.

   Martin opened his pack and removed a soft linen towel.  He placed the towel on Enrique’s wound, took Lara’s hand, and placed it on top.  “Apply this amount of pressure,” he said showing her with his touch.  Enrique groaned slightly.  “If he tries to move, or push you away, gently push him back on the other shoulder and increase the pressure.  Don’t lift the towel to check for saturation or even for your own curiosity, it’ll do more harm than good.  Do you understand?” 

   Lara nodded.

   The previous five minutes were hazy for Enrique.  It was a kaleidoscope of disconnected pictures skipping in his memory like a scratched vinyl record.  He remembered Captain Blake and Martin carrying him inside and setting him on an uncomfortable bench, a broom (or something like that), and the distant outline of Annie Walker as she disappeared down a hallway.  

   Nobody noticed her, Enrique thought.  Where was she going?

   “I know this place…” Enrique thought he heard her say.  “I know this place,” she had said again.  But nobody seemed to hear her except Enrique.

   His pain returned in a violent jolt, and the image of Annie Walker disappearing into the quiet dark of William H. Brown Junior High faded away like that last reel of a movie.