The last storm, p.9
The Last Storm, page 9
The fire crackled as it fingered its way into the cab, and windows cracked and popped. He could still hear the low rumble of the pump… and then the sudden growl of spinning tyres spraying stones.
He aimed at the rear of the wagon just as the car powered out from behind. His first shot ricocheted from metal as the car skimmed right, its wing scraping around the back of the wagon and severing the hose. Water sprayed and splashed across the BMW’s windshield. As the wipers flipped on, Jimi aimed at them and squeezed off a second shot. He saw it spark from the car’s roof as its nose dipped, dropping with a loud crunch from the road and down onto the edge of the reservoir’s dried, cracked bed. As its wheels gripped and the vehicle accelerated right at him, Jimi realised he only had three, maybe four seconds in which to act. Its rear end shimmied as the tyres skidded on loose dust and hard-baked ground. He squeezed off another shot that starred the windshield high up, then another that shattered the glass. A fist punched through.
Jimi rolled left, squeezing the trigger at the same time and hoping for a lucky shot. He kept rolling, trying to see the car, hearing it bearing down on him. He heard the grind of brakes, then a sickening crunch as it passed over the dead deer.
He went up on one elbow and tried to bring the rifle to bear, but the car was too close now, skidding sidelong towards him. The passenger door opened, and though Jimi flinched to one side, its leading edge caught him across the right shoulder. He grunted and dropped the rifle, flipping over onto his back and landing heavily. Shock pulsed through him, stealing all sensation. Gritty dust pricked at his eyes and coated his mouth, and when he inhaled it filled his throat, a ragged cough pulling him over onto his side. Pain screamed in, scorching his shoulder and arm.
“Get the fuck up,” a voice said. Male. Gruff. And familiar.
Jimi wiped his eyes with his good hand.
“Get the fuck—”
“He’s hurt,” another voice cut in. A woman. “But watch him.”
Jimi pushed himself up into a sitting position, still wiping at his eyes. Dust burned. He coughed. His shoulder ached, pain scorching in when he moved, but he could still make a fist with his right hand.
“Son of a bitch,” the man said. Jimi tensed, ready for a punch or kick, but none came.
“Who…?” he asked.
“Forgotten us already?” the woman asked. “Take our money, poison our kids, then forget us?”
Mosey, he thought. That’s where I know them from.
“Alison,” he said. He looked up at them standing beside the BMW and towering over him. She held a metal pipe in both hands. The man’s two heavy fists were clasped at his sides like clubs. “Josh.”
“We’ve been looking for you,” Josh said.
“You tried to run me over.”
“No,” Josh said. “If she’d wanted to do that, you’d look like the deer.”
Jimi glanced at the deer’s mangled remains.
“So, what?” Jimi asked.
“You sold us dirty water,” Alison said.
“No. I always treat it.”
“You going to treat the shit you’re pumping up from here too?” Josh asked. “It’s stagnant. Rancid.”
“Good enough for the deer,” Jimi said. “And yes, I’m loading up first, but it’s always treated in the wagon, and filtered when it’s drawn out.” He looked past them and their car at the wagon. The truck was ablaze now, the scarred paintwork on the water wagon blistering and bubbling. The big batteries contained down behind the engine would probably blow soon. They were far enough away to avoid any acid burns, he hoped. But he wasn’t sure that meant he’d survive the day.
“Half the town has been sick,” Josh said. “We lost three people.”
“People die,” Jimi said. “It’s a sign of the times.”
Josh swung one of those big club-like fists. It slammed into Jimi’s head and he fell away, trying to ease the blow.
“Maggie McCourt,” Alison said. “She was an actress back in the day, then a farmer, and had two kids. She was my friend.”
Jimi didn’t remember the name.
“Kevin Boone,” she continued. “Used to be a paramedic, helped rescue thirty kids from a bus during the LA ’quake. He was my friend, too.”
“Old people’s names,” Jimi said. “Old people die from heat, hunger, thirst, the blight. Our world’s full of stuff that’ll kill old people.”
“Jenny Pearce. She didn’t have a job because she was eleven years old.”
Jimi sat up, vision swimming. “I’m sorry. I treat the water. It’s filtered. I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
“Yeah, so you told us,” Josh said. “And on your own for a long time, too, since no other Soakers will work with you. We’ve been tracking you. Following.” He knelt so that they were face to face, and Jimi saw fury in the man’s eyes. It scared him. Very little scared him nowadays.
“You’re a cruel piece of shit,” Josh said.
“I provide water.”
“They said you were callous,” Alison said. “Brutal. Lots of Soakers started doing what they do to help people, bypass efforts by the authorities to buy water where there is none. They make money from it, but they bring the good stuff. The convoy of Soakers we caught up with know you—and know your ways.”
“Why should you listen to them?” Jimi asked.
“We sure as hell didn’t come to listen to you,” Josh said, and then it came, the fists and the pipe and the hate, and there wasn’t a single fucking thing Jimi could do about it.
* * *
Afterwards, senses as pummelled and confused as his body, Jimi heard Alison’s heavy breathing and smelled her sweat. The tang of blood was thick in his mouth, gritty with the sharpness of a shattered tooth. Every breath was a knife in his side; he’d broken ribs before and guessed at least two were fractured. Blood pulsed behind his closed eyes, his heartbeat boomed in his head, irregular and uncertain.
Somewhere, sometime during the beating, he’d heard a deep thump, felt it through the ground. He smelled burning, acidic and rich on the still air. He heard glass cracking and the screech of metal warping. A satisfied grunt from Josh told him that they’d done what they came here to do. Jimi was still alive, but there was small comfort there. His truck was burning, water boiling in the wagon, wheels melting. Not only had they taken his livelihood, they had destroyed his home.
Groaning, Jimi risked opening his eyes. He was lying on his back, and the afternoon sun strived to melt them into the back of his skull.
“Motherfucker,” Alison said. She was leaning against the BMW, breathing hard, metal pipe still in her hand. It glinted with Jimi’s blood.
“Come on,” Josh said. “We can go home now.”
“Maybe I haven’t finished yet.”
“Ali.”
She stared at Jimi.
“You’re not a murderer, Ali.”
“It wouldn’t be murder,” she said. “It’d be mercy.”
Josh walked into Jimi’s field of vision and held Alison’s arm. “We’ve a long way to go home. And we’ve gotta find a new windshield first.”
Jimi averted his eyes when they looked down at him. It was a strange feeling, being stared at by someone who wanted him dead. Unsettling. Thrilling. The rifle, he thought. I dropped it, they don’t have it, if I can—
“One more thing,” she said. She moved, and Josh braced himself for another impact from the bar. Perhaps this would be directly into his skull rather than his arm, his hip, his torso. He’d seen his father die. He’d heard his screams, witnessed his agony. At least this will be faster, he thought.
But Alison did not strike him again. Instead, she disappeared behind him, and he heard something being dragged across the dry ground. At first, when the wet thing landed across his face, he thought she was dropping the ripped remains of the deer onto him, one final indignity before leaving him to fend for himself. Then she knelt and forced his mouth open. He cried out at the pain from battered jaw and broken teeth—and hated the fact that he made any noise at all—then felt thick, slick water flowing into his mouth.
“Drink,” she said.
Jimi retched. It was warm and dirty, sandy with sediment, and as the water dribbled from the hose she’d sliced through, he felt a sense of unfairness. He tried not to swallow. I was going to sterilise it! He retched again, but his throat worked and he took the water down. I always clean it! He spat and bucked, and finally she let him onto his side, spitting, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. Blood and filthy water smeared his face.
He usually dropped a kilo of steriliser into the wagon. Eight, maybe ten kilos would have made the water safe. But it cost money, and he was never one to linger once he’d pumped water into the buyers’ tanks and containers.
He guessed he’d been lucky up to now.
He looked around for his rifle and found it propped against their car, barrel stomped and bent. They must have done that after they’d beaten him, while his senses were still reeling.
“Fuck him,” Josh said. “Come on, Ali.”
“Yeah. Fuck him. His kind’s extinct anyway, now there’s a Rainmaker.”
Ali glanced at Josh, who pulled an amused face. Eh?
Jimi froze on his side, drooling and seeping pain from every pore.
Rainmaker?
Josh slumped into the car, exhausted.
“See you again, I’ll kill you,” Alison said. She glanced at the blazing truck, then sank into the BMW’s driver’s seat.
Rainmaker! Jimi thought, and something coursed through him, a strength that seemed to lessen his pain and reinvigorate his battered muscles. He went to stand, swaying, wobbling, but upright.
The BMW was already heading slowly back towards the road, at an angle towards the dam that avoided the burning truck.
Jimi took a single step towards the flames, then broke into a run. Every part of him screamed to stop—pounding head, torn muscles, stabbing ribs, the pains and agonies planted in him by the beating he’d just undergone. But he moved with one purpose, and with one word at the forefront of his mind: Rainmaker.
After his father’s murder, Jimi had gone searching, but the Rainmaker had melted away into the shadows. He became more of a rumour than ever—awed whispers within groups of believers, amused jokes among those who doubted. Jimi believed, but not with awe. His belief was born of hatred.
The heat from the burning truck increased in intensity with every step, but he wasn’t heading that way. It was the rear of the wagon that held what he sought, an insurance policy he’d almost forgotten about. Once he was behind the water wagon, its bulk hid him from some of the fire. He plunged his hand past the various faucets and spigots at the massive tank’s rear, delving around until he found what he was seeking. His hand curled around the pistol’s handle and he tugged. It didn’t shift. Two years? he wondered. Three, since I even looked at it? He could feel the grease and filth around the gun, and doubted it would work even if he could release it; but when he leaned to his left and saw the BMW, that gave him the kick he needed to pull harder.
They must have seen him running for his burning truck. They’d stopped, watching to see what he did. He was pretty sure he could hear Alison laughing, even past the noise of the blaze.
His battered shoulder screamed as he gave one final hard tug, and then the gun was in his hand. He stepped out from behind the wagon and fired two shots, startled that the gun still worked. He ran directly at them and fired three more. He saw Josh’s head flip back and blood splash inside the car, and he aimed lower at the front tyres, firing three more times as he drew close. The tyres didn’t deflate but it didn’t matter. Alison was driving nowhere.
Standing beside the car, Jimi tried to catch his breath as he looked at what he had done. He’d seen people killed before—had witnessed his father hacking someone apart with an axe when he was eleven, his father’s people shooting three thieves, and he’d watched his Papa die—but he had only ever killed one other person himself.
He’d often dreamed about killing. Not these people, but they were a start.
It didn’t feel bad. It felt good. Seemed to Jimi that his father had been right. After the first, it got a whole lot easier.
Alison was pressed back in her seat, one hand clasped hard against the side of her face. Blood pissed through her fingers and down her arm, and her eyes were wide and white against their wet red background. Jimi leaned into the car and pressed the gun beneath Alison’s chin as he looked across at Josh. He’d caught a bullet in his neck, ripping out most of his throat. He still quivered as he bled out, but Jimi thought he was probably already dead.
“Rainmaker,” Jimi said. “Tell me about him.”
Alison frowned, and blood beaded in the creases across her forehead. Jimi thought she didn’t have very long left.
“Just… stupid rumour… don’t really believe—”
“Tell me about him!”
“Not him,” Alison said, eyes wide. Maybe she thought telling the truth might save her life, but she was dying anyway. Jimi could see that.
“Not him what?” he asked, confused. He lifted Alison’s chin with the pistol’s barrel.
“Not him. Her.”
KARINA
She hadn’t seen him for years, but Karina could still tell when Jesse was nervous. He blinked faster than usual and stroked the left side of his face, running his thumb along the jawline that had been shattered by a bullet and then rebuilt with half a dozen surgeries performed by inexperienced backstreet surgeons.
“Roebuck Road’s flooded,” Jenny said. She took a sip of beer and glanced at Karina for the hundredth time. “Your Land Rover might get through, but I wouldn’t lay odds on it.”
“What about Baxter’s?” Jesse asked.
“You really wanna go through there? After last time?” She laughed and rolled her eyes. Karina couldn’t help liking the woman.
“What happened last time?” Karina asked.
Jenny leant forward over the table. The bar was bustling and buzzing with the sort of manic excitement and borderline hysteria that came with disruptive events like this storm.
“Baxter’s farm.” Jenny smiled and pointed at Jesse with her bottle. “He and Baxter are friends. Weird, ’cos Baster’s a contrary old bastard with odd ideas of civility. So, even though he and Jesse are friends, he still charges a toll for crossing his land. Fair enough, I say. He owns a lot of land round here and he farms it as well as he can, got some serious irrigation infrastructure going on, government paid for some of it back in the day, but he’s extended and experimented and… well, whatever. He charges to cross his land, even his friends.” She pointed at Jesse with her bottle again. “And even when his friends claim not to have crossed at all.”
“He says I owe him a hundred bucks,” Jesse said. “He saw a Land Rover take out some of his crops and reckons it was me, but it wasn’t.”
“A hundred bucks?” Karina asked.
“From four months ago,” Jenny said.
“Friends that fall out over a hundred bucks can’t be friends at all,” Karina said.
“Right,” Jenny said. “Right! Kyle, three more beers over here!”
“Not for us,” Karina said. “We’ve got to move.”
“In this?” Jenny had asked that before, and Jesse had told her who Karina was, and that it was important. He hadn’t mentioned Ash. “Well, I guess you could ask Baxter. He and his people will be all over their water collecting systems, making the most of this.”
“It’s set to continue for a day at least,” Jesse said. “They’ll be busy trying to divert floods rather than save water.”
“Feast or famine,” Jenny said. Her cheery demeanour dropped for a moment and Karina caught a glimpse of what she thought was probably the true Jenny, a sadder, older woman doing her best to make her way through this tougher world. Karina reckoned she was seventy, maybe older, so she’d have good, rich memories of how things had been before everything had gone to hell. Karina’s memories of that time were vaguer, caught up in young childhood and adolescence. When the 2029 hurricane season devastated the Gulf of Mexico and much of the eastern seaboard, Karina was dealing with her first relationship and finding her way in the wider world. She remembered the events as background news, even though the hurricanes had signalled the start of the First Great Drought, which had seared much of the USA and set in the seed of decline that led to where they were today. Jenny had seen and lived through all of that in her middle years, and had probably been touched by it personally. Karina guessed she had many stories to tell.
“We’ll be fine,” Jesse said. “I know those roads.”
“You do? Since when? When’s the last time you drove anywhere more than a few miles from Hillside or Blueton?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jesse said, rubbing his jaw again. “So you’ll look after the place for me?”
“Sure I will. Might even make some improvements. Plenty of ideas to make it a bit more homely.”
“I’ve told you before, no curtains.”
“No curtains.” She smiled at Karina again. “He always had so little taste?”
“Always,” Karina said. She wondered what Jesse had told Jenny about her, and found that she didn’t care. Over the years she had been searching for Ash, she’d stopped giving a flying fuck about what anyone thought of her. She couldn’t afford the headspace, and she was rarely anywhere long enough for it to matter.
“You sure you need to take Rocky with you?” Jenny asked. At mention of her name, the dog whined a little from where she was lying beneath the table.
“Yeah,” Jesse said. “Sorry, I know how much you love my girl.”
“I’m thinking about how much the poor mutt loves me.”
“She’ll survive.”
“Will you?” Jenny asked. It threw an awkward pause into their stilted conversation, almost as if she’d forgotten Karina was there.
“I’ll be fine,” Jesse said. “You know I will.”
Jenny nodded, raised her bottle in a silent salute, then drained it in one gulp. As she did so she looked at Karina and her eyes sought a dozen promises. Look after him was the first and foremost. There was suspicion too, and doubt. However much Karina found herself liking this woman, she didn’t have time for any of it.
