San antonio, p.21
San Antonio, page 21
"Are you going to become my new mom?"
She'd forgotten just how direct he could be. The question nearly broke her. She didn't want to tell him that she would be a lousy replacement for his real mom, but she would do her best to try. Carla didn't respond, not with words. She simply hugged him, giving the boy the comfort and tenderness he'd been denied since the murder of his parents.
"Hey, everyone, I'm back!" she exclaimed.
Meredith descended the stairs, her usual frown dissolving as soon as she saw Jackson. "Hello!" she said with a smile. "Who's this?"
"This is Jackson, and he needs a family."
Joshua walked in, taking in the sight of the newcomer. "Whose kid is that?" he asked, his voice colder than normal.
"I brought him back from Lehigh," Carla said. "He's going to be living with us."
"I've got some toys he can have," Meredith remarked enthusiastically as she took the boy's hand and led him upstairs. Carla grinned. Meredith's childish nature would make her a perfect companion for Jackson. She’d always seemed to connect with children better than with adults.
"Lehigh." Joshua said in disgust. "So, we're just taking in strays now?" he asked, somewhat agitated.
"What's gotten into you?" Carla asked.
"What happened to me? Carla, you've been gone for over a week. It wasn't like I could call you and ask how you were doing! I had no idea if you were living or dead! Then you bring that kid home with you. We're already having difficulty feeding ourselves. We don't need another mouth to add to that."
"Quiet, Joshua!"
He kept talking, and she put her hand up. "Shut The Fuck Up!"
He shut up.
"I couldn't say no, Joshua. The mayor murdered his parents and then kinda adopted him, and honestly, if it wasn't for the boy, I would have never gotten away from there."
"Shit," Joshua mumbled, embarrassed by his callousness. "I'm truly sorry." Then self-preservation kicked in once more. "Wait, how do you know the mayor won't come after you and burn this place down?"
"He won't. Believe me." That didn't mean his guys wouldn't, but it wouldn't be the mayor.
"Carla, what exactly happened out there?" Joshua asked nervously. He also sensed that his friend, his crush, had changed. Something terrible had happened to her.
"It doesn't matter," Carla answered as she held up the bag with the drugs. "Just get these to Meredith and Maria."
"Jesus Christ!" exclaimed Joshua. "What exactly did you do? Rob a pharmacy?"
"Something like that," Carla responded, smiling at how right on the nose he was.
"Carla, I'm a bit concerned," Josh said. "How can you be sure the mayor won’t show up here looking for these drugs or the boy? Does he know it was you?"
"It’s not going to happen, Joshua," Carla said emphatically.
“How do you know, Carla? What would stop him from raining hellfire down on us?"
Anger flashed across her face, causing him to take a step back. "Because he's already dead!" Carla exploded.
Joshua turned white. "He's dead?"
Carla let out a sigh. "Yes.”
“You?” Josh asked softly.
She nodded. “He didn't take no for an answer, so I drove an axe through his skull."
Over the next few hours, she eventually told him everything that had happened over the previous week, everything she had witnessed.
Joshua was astounded. "Carla Garcia, please remind me never to piss you off!"
Chapter Forty
"So, what will you do with the rest of the medicines?" Joshua asked. "I'm sure those two won't need all of these."
"I'm not sure, I hadn’t actually thought that far, I was in a bit of a rush. Maybe give them to Betty so she can keep the clinic going a while longer,” Carla replied. She knew they needed way more than the stuff in that bag, but it was a start.
"And then what? What are you going to do when they run out next time?" Joshua asked.
"God, Josh, you are exhausting. Complaining or asking a bunch of questions is way easier than finding a solution.” She needed to think that her actions had resulted in some good and that things would improve, even if it was just temporary.
"So, how long is Jackson staying with us?" Joshua asked, his voice more subdued now.
His words this time were not unkind, but Carla saw through them just the same. "Us?"
"I mean…I mean, you guys. I know I'm just a guest."
"He will be here as long as he needs to be," Carla stated emphatically. "He needs to be with family."
"But Carla, you aren't his family."
"And you aren't ours, but we still love you, we still need your dumb-ass around. I may not be the boy's family, but he needs me to be."
Loud knocking on the door cut the discussion short. Carla rolled her eyes, wondering what Carson had done now.
But it wasn't Chelsea or Carson. Betty was there, but she was no less furious than Chelsea had been a week earlier.
"What have you done?" she screamed. Carla took a moment to register the woman was angry, with her.
"Come in," Carla offered, and Betty walked right past her. "What’s wrong? What has happened?" She looked at Joshua. "Please go get Betty some water."
"Betty, can you tell me what happened?" Carla asked as Joshua handed her the glass.
Betty took a hesitant sip and nodded. She was calmer, but her face was still red and puffy. "It began last night. It had been quiet since most of the patients are gone now, and I was sleeping in one of the treatment beds. Anyway, I had an awful dream. I guess it really shook me up ‘cause when I mentioned it to one of the other volunteers, you know, Nancy, the heavyset one, she said, ‘The skies will rain down on us, showing us a thousand horrors to come, the likes of which have only been seen in the land of demons.'"
Carla was certain that was one of Meredith's standard bits about one of her visions.
"You can't be this upset over a...a bad dream."
Betty shook her head, "It was just a precursor. There was the sound of engines, the old kind. Then a crash outside. We feared the clinic was being attacked. Then gunmen stormed the building."
Carla's stomach sank.
"They came for what few medical supplies we still had. Everything, from the alcohol to the bandages to the mattresses and blankets. They left us with nothing. Our last doctor attempted to stop them but was beaten senseless. He still hasn't regained consciousness. 'Blame Carla Garcia for this,' they yelled before leaving. ‘We'll kill her when we find her.' And just as quickly they were gone."
Carla was afraid she was going to get sick. She should’ve anticipated the far-reaching implications of her actions. Some of them knew she had helped out at the clinic. She should have known.
"What happened, Carla?" Betty asked. "What did you do to bring those thugs to our door? The clinic is gone now, completely."
Carla was at a loss for words. But she knew she couldn't keep it quiet for much longer. "I...I killed the mayor," she stuttered, like a parishioner going to confession. "I killed him and stole all the medicine I could find before returning here. I also set free a swarm of children he had kidnapped and was holding prisoner."
Carla was astounded by how cold it sounded. She was casually describing a murder of a man. One which had put their already feeble way of life in jeopardy.
This absence of emotion did not escape Joshua or Betty. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" Betty asked, her voice painfully weak. "Our last doctor quit because he didn't want to deal with those people ever again! Do you believe you've helped any of us? All you did was put a giant target on our backs!"
"Hold on," Joshua said. "Those men are beasts, Betty. You've heard about the mayor shutting down the clinics and hell, just about everything else just so he could be the one with the best toys at the end of the world. If they didn't screw us over today, they'd screw us over tomorrow. Carla has gone through a lot in the last few days. But she did it because she wanted all of us, including yourself, to have a future. Just like you, this woman has contributed to the survival of this community. She's had to make the hard decisions so that we don't have to."
Betty was still visibly upset, but she couldn't bring herself to curse Carla. She was weighing what the young woman had gone through in order to get some medication for her family and the clinic.
"So, what are we going to do now?" Betty asked.
"We fight…we live," Carla stated firmly. "That's all we have. There are those out there who rely on us. We must keep them going. I've got some things going that should help. I’m looking into establishing some regular trading. It won't fix everything, but hunger should be much less of a concern."
Carla waited for a response as she felt the world just squeezing in around her more and more. One thing after another.
Betty stayed silent, contemplating all of their predicament. She suddenly tensed as she sniffed the air. "Are you cooking something?"
"No," Joshua answered. The two exchanged glances in the direction of the backyard. There was a distinct odor of burning.
Carla ran to the kitchen to look outside. "Oh, no!" she yelled, sprinting out to the garden, Joshua close behind her.
A pillar of black smoke rose into the air from a massive fire. The storage shed was the source, and none other than Chelsea was maniacally dancing around it, carrying a fuel can, almost in a trance.
When she turned back, Carla and Joshua were staring at her in disbelief. Chelsea, on the other hand, smiled broadly at their reaction.
"Do you think you can take my man and avoid the consequences, bitch? So, what do you think? You are free to have him. However, I'm not sure what you're going to eat. Your entire family is going to go hungry now, just like mine. And there is nothing you can do about it."
Chapter Forty-One
Not only were the shed and the stored food being consumed by fire, but it seemed like many of Carla's hopes and dreams were going up in smoke as well.
Chelsea was on the ground thanks to Joshua. She battled him like a caged animal. She screamed and scratched, one of her long nails cutting deeply into his cheek.
"For God's sake, knock it off, woman!" Joshua yelled.
"Let her up."
"Huh?" Joshua looked at Carla. "Seriously?"
Carla nodded. Her fury was white-hot now. What this woman had done was searing through her body, and she needed the bitch to pay. If she were honest, Chelsea had always intimidated her, but now, Carla saw her for what she was. A psychotic manipulator…maybe even a psychopath. Shit, you had to take a number in this neighborhood to try and be the craziest.
Carson’s wife charged. Carla leaned out of her way, then drove her knee into Chelsea’s thigh while battering her face with an elbow strike at the same time. The woman let out a shriek of pain as blood sprayed from her nose.
Carla dropped on top of the larger woman and pushed a forearm into her neighbor's throat. In that moment, she wanted her dead, but she saw Jackson watching her and imagined Carson’s kids in the next yard. She released her grip and leaned over her prey. "You ever fuck with me or my family again, and I will end you, bitch. I will help Carson get his children as far away from your evil ass as I can."
Chelsea was ignoring her, so she grabbed her thick blonde hair on both sides and pulled her face close. "Are you fucking hearing me?"
The woman didn’t answer immediately, so Carla twisted the hair in her grip even tighter.
"Owww. Yes, yes. Now get the fuck off me," Chelsea whimpered, trying and failing to retain some level of victory.
Carla stood angrily and looked at the shed, now fully engulfed in flames. She wondered briefly if she could hurry inside the shed and save anything. They had nothing to put out the fire. What little water they got each day was too precious to waste.
She looked back down where Chelsea was wiping her bloodied face. Then Carla drew back and kicked her in the head. Chelsea was out…or dead. Carla didn’t care anymore. This was her own backyard. Not Lehigh or the downtown of San Antonio. Nobody had the right to fuck with her here. She felt the now familiar weight of the hatchet on her back. It was such a temptation, but she visibly pushed that hatred back down. Jackson, Maria, Carson’s kids, she couldn’t become more of a monster—not in front of them.
Meredith was the only one who seemed unaffected by the loss. Carla noticed the strangeness of her expression as her sister glanced down at Jackson. "I could see this happening," she remarked, talking to the young boy. "And so much more. Of course, no one believed me. They all felt I was insane and needed to be restrained and silenced. But if this doesn't persuade them, I'm not sure what will."
"For fuck's sake, Meredith!" Carla screamed, her patience with the craziness all but gone. She took a pill bottle from her pocket and hurled it at Meredith. "You're scaring Jackson! If you want to believe in this ridiculous nonsense, that's OK! But I'm not going to let you scare the boy! Take those pills and get the fuck over these damn hallucinations!"
"But they’re not hallucinations!" Meredith screamed back. "They’re premonitions! And you don’t really want them gone because you have a constant need to save me! Besides, I know down deep—you're just jealous!"
"Are you serious?" Carla asked in disbelief. "And is this the time for this discussion?"
"I'm aware that I've always been the black sheep. You are the golden child. They loved you best."
"Who?"
"Mom...Dad. You never did anything wrong! But I was always unwelcome. Mom wasn't ready to have another! I was just an accident!"
Carla could see Meredith was spiraling out of control. It wasn’t losing the supplies as much as coming to terms with her own self-worth.
"Even Maria hates me! She only wanted you when they died, not both of us."
"She's never hated you!" Carla spoke as she moved closer.
Meredith shook her head in denial. "You think I haven't seen how she looks at me? Maybe she's right, and I could have helped Mom and Dad. I tried though...I warned them. I've spent my entire life feeling like a fucking loser. I love you, but I know I’m just a burden. Carla, I'd like to do some good for once! But you won’t let me. You don't believe in me."
"Meredith, all of this is not about you. Take the pills and go lie down." Carla eyed Betty silently pleading for help.
"What's going on?" Carson yelled as he came running toward the fiery scene, seeing the condition of his battered wife, who had regained consciousness and was again being restrained by Joshua.
"Your idiot wife decided to kill us all!" Joshua yelled as he struggled to keep the insane woman under control. "She set the whole damn thing on fire!"
"Chelsea?" Carson asked, stunned, as she trembled in Joshua's clutches with animal violence. "What have you done?"
"They have been storing food in the shed!" Chelsea yelled, spitting out blood and saliva. She wormed a hand free just as Joshua subdued her again. "They had loads of supplies in there, while the rest of us were left out here begging for scraps!"
Carla suddenly felt every eye on her.
"Is this true?" Carson asked, obviously confused by the twisting realizations. “Who did this to her?”
"None of your business, Carson, no one else's business, and thanks to your crazy fucking bride, it no longer matters. And I did that to her face, and I may not be finished."
"So, it is true." Carson said in disbelief.
"I was...we were going to tell you about it," she says, "but…"
"Oh really…when? After we'd all gone hungry?" Carson's voice was also now filled with bitter anger.
Carla stomped over and slapped her ex-lover in the face. "For the love of God, Carson, cowboy the fuck up. Maybe we wouldn't be in this mess if you remembered where your balls were instead of tiptoeing around your lunatic wife." Carla moved off a step and rubbed her eyes. "I suggest you collect your kids and find someplace to start over. You all need to forget this treacherous pile of human misery.
“And yes, you’ve been eating some of that food as well as your kids. Where does she think the mysterious boxes were coming from, the food fairy?”
Carson's cheeks burned, more with shame than the slap. He opened his mouth to say something, but Chelsea's frantic struggles stopped him, and he stared down at the woman. Joshua had snatched an old piece of rope from somewhere and was now binding Chelsea's wrists.
"Get her out of my garden, or I am going to plant her beside the beans,” Carla growled.
Carson nodded and walked over to Chelsea, who appeared close to having a complete breakdown. "GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" she yelled as he forcefully drug her from the yard toward their own house.
Betty stood there, gaping at the spectacle. "I feel like I've just stepped into a soap opera."
"She’s just overreacting because Carla slept with her husband," Joshua said as he stood up, seemingly surprised he had just said that out loud. "Shit, sorry…" he grumbled as he moved back to try and contain the growing fire.
Betty eased up beside Carla and took her hand. "To summarize, you've got a dead mayor, angry militia after you, a burning shed full of food, and now your role as the concubine is catching up with you, and your sister is an oracle of the future. Is there anything else you want to tell me?"
Carla was at a loss for words. Her entire world seemed to be collapsing around her. She'd felt so good coming home with Jackson, like finally they had a chance, a fresh start for everyone, but optimism seemed to be nothing but a curse in a world that wants you dead. She smiled at the woman and nodded. "That's about it."
They heard a loud thump in the distance.
"Jesus, what next?" Carla groaned.
Chapter Forty-Two
Carla felt certain that everyone in the area had seen the fire and would be drawn to it like moths to a flame. And with Chelsea's shrill voice carrying so far, it wouldn't be long before everyone knew about the Garcia's secret stash. The sounds in the distance were getting closer.
"What is that?" Joshua asked.
Carla shook her head. "I'm not sure, but it can't be good."
