Beyond the flashback, p.3
Beyond the Flashback, page 3
“Oh, my God, Jamie. But—”
“Do it,” I said, feeling for my rifle, touching its wood stock. “We’ve got you covered.” I gripped the weapon and brought it around—slowly, non-threateningly—saw Sam and the others doing the same. To them I said: “Don’t fire unless I tell you to.”
Lazaro harrumphed, sneering. “What should we do, then, introduce ourselves?”
I looked at the allosaur: at its golden eyes, which were entirely free of the glow—"the Color,” as we often called it, the mysterious light by which we always knew an animal had been affected, been swayed, by them, by the Others—which seemed almost passive, meditative.
“Easy ... He’s not a threat.” I watched as Shawna went, cautiously, reluctantly—then motioned again to Gargantua.
Do not engage, I repeated, staring at its tinted windows. Hold your fire.
“This is ridiculous,” cursed Lazaro, and pumped his long gun—slowly, smoothly, with hardly a sound. “Are we going to leave it? What—so it can come after us the moment it starts to feel hungry? Are you kidding?”
But I’d already decided; the allosaur would be spared.
We weren’t going to butcher it—even if it meant facing it later, and increasing our risk. Because it was important, somehow—keeping it alive. It was ... I can’t explain it, not really—I couldn’t then and I can’t now. I just knew that we couldn’t kill it. That it—had a purpose, somehow. A mission. Just as we.
“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” I said, and patted Rusty’s shank, encouraging him forward. “Now let’s move.”
And we moved, trotting up the orangish-tan clay like Chieftains, like a posse, our rifles in one hand and the reins in the other (the allosaur closing its eyes and seeming to doze as Gargantua’s cannon hummed and realigned, following us as we went), Shawna watching safely from her window.
It was at once garish and sublime, hipster and gauche, a burnt-orange relic of a bygone era with a tip of the hat to Frank Lloyd Wright and a debt to Googie architecture—a thing as righteous as it was ridiculous, which sat amongst its desert like an outsider, an intruder, as out of place as the transplanted palms and piped-in water, as artificial as L.A. itself.
“They weren’t kidding when they called it the Lost Aztec Temple of Mars,” I said, as Rusty fidgeted and nickered, and shook flies from his ears. “But what’s with all the high fencing and concertina wire—only to leave the entire front-perimeter open? There’s just a hedgerow. No fence at all.”
Nigel sat up in his saddle and looked on, the sweat beading along his forehead. “Be damned if I know; it wasn’t like that before.” He looked around the area—skittishly, I thought. “Maybe he had it removed when they took out the road. He was like that, you know. All about the visual.” He pointed at the house itself. “Wouldn’t have been a problem, though, even if it were there—there’s a man door in the fence just beyond that breezeway.”
I held out my arm as everyone started to move. “I—hold up. I—ah, I don’t like this.”
I scanned the overgrown yard and the cosmetically-placed boulders (some of which were the size of moving vans); looking for traps, looking for threats. “It doesn’t feel right.”
Lazaro got off his horse and approached the hedgerow—then turned to face us, splaying his arms. “What? You heard Jamaica; dude was all about the visual. Probably figured there was no need—once the road was taken out. For a front fence, I mean.” He let his arms slap to his sides. “Now are we going to go check it out, or what? Or are you all just going to sit there all day?”
And there was a growling noise, a deep-throated snarl, which sounded from behind one of the rocks even as a shadow fell across the knee-high grass—at which a great cat padded out which was easily the size of a pickup, and hissed at us: its huge pallet showing pink and pale, its black lips stretching, its whiskers and curved fangs—which were like tusks—gleaming in the sun.
“Lazaro, don’t!”
But it was too late; he’d already drawn his pistol and squeezed off a few rounds—which went pop, pop, pop in the late afternoon sun and echoed along the hills; which reverberated across the valley like the sound of a car backfiring.
“Goddammit, man,” I cursed, even as my horse and everyone else’s leapt up in a panic and started to bolt; as Lazaro’s trotted into the scrub and didn’t look back, as the saber-toothed cat advanced several yards toward us—and stopped.
“You—you just let that entire army know we’re still here; and exactly where we’re at,” I snapped, having wrestled my horse back around along with everyone else (although Nigel was still struggling), and finally climbed off, tossing the reins into the scrub. I looked at the cat, the Smilodon, which paced back and forth furiously. “Now just back away, slowly. And hold your fire. It’s not advancing. Come on!”
But he didn’t; back away, that is—all least not right away; choosing instead to creep closer ... advancing several feet before pausing in front of the hedgerow and leaning forward—looking down.
“Yo, Jamie! You got to see this!” He turned to face us, his face lit up like a child’s. “Come on! It’s completely safe.”
I looked at Sam, who got off her horse and looked back at me—tentatively, hesitantly. And then we moved forward, Nigel having gained control of his steed and dismounted and quickly run up to join us.
“It’s a moat,” said Lazaro, “like the kind they have at Woodland Park. Check it out.”
I looked into its depths, amazed at its cleverness and ingenuity; at its ability to follow form with function.
“A perfect illusion,” I said, shaking my head, and added: “Leave it to a sci-fi writer, I guess. To come up with something like this.” I peered through the breezeway at the house, which seemed wide open to us now. “My friends ... it is time.”
I looked at the others and then to Sandahl—to Sam. “Let’s go check out the world’s most well-appointed basement, shall we?”
“It’s more than that,” she said, and beamed; our beautiful and only female (in the away team, that is, since we’d lost Joan); our very own Heather Locklear. “It’s home.”
And then there was a burst of gunfire and she fell—just slouched face-first into the dirt; and we all followed the sound to the Hollywood sign where an array of trucks had fanned out above and behind it—all along the ridge—trucks with blue and white flags flying from their beds.
After which we scooped Sam up by her armpits and scrambled for the nearest rock formation: where Nigel and Lazaro began shooting back while I leaned over Sam and the blood poured from her mouth and down her cheeks. Where it trickled into the orangish-tan clay even as she looked up at me—trying but failing to form words; trying to tell me something but wholly unable—and pooled around her head like dark, red wine.
“Jesus, Jamie, look.”
It was Nigel—catching his breath with his back to the rocks, peering beyond the hedgerow. I followed his gaze to where the cat had begun backing up—crouched low like a puma, swinging its hindquarters. Focused on us like a laser beam.
“Jesus, shoot it!” I snapped, cradling Sam’s head in my arms, unable to do it myself. “Hurry, before it—”
But it was too late—the Smilodon had already launched itself at the moat: clearing it but only barely, snatching the hedgerow in its forepaws, fighting its way up and over.
And then we were pinned: Nigel and Lazaro firing at the Tucker train as I cradled Sam and the Smilodon approached; as the Communications Center exploded and there was a tremendous fireball—which rose, curling, into the clear, blue sky—as the cat hunkered down yet again (as if to pounce) but was disrupted by a hiss and a snarl from behind me; from behind the rock formation, at which the black allosaur stalked out and crouched low—its foreclaws splayed, its eyes rolling back in its skull—and launched itself at the cat—like a cobra, almost, or a barracuda—the force of it spinning the tiger in the dust and pushing it onto its back, where it thrashed and snapped its teeth—but quickly rebounded.
I snatched up my radio and toggled it: “Gargantua One this is Mobile, do you copy?”
Sam stirred as I waited, reaching up and touching my face, trying desperately to speak, as guns crackled all around us.
“Gargantua, go ahead.”
“Listen up: We are pinned down at the bunker and are taking heavy fire. I need you to double-time it back to the gate and engage those targets. Engage them—and then move right up the road, all the way to the Communications Center. Use your smoke screen; it’ll disorient them. But you need you to hit ‘em with everything you got, understand? Gargantua. Do you copy?”
I heard it across the hills even before he acknowledged: the rapid-fire of Gargantua’s Gatling gun—tearing up targets, hopefully taking out the missile operator.
The radio hissed and squelched. “I heard it and I am already there, and engaging,” said Mr. Fantastic. “Stand by.”
I put my hand over Sam’s own and held it against my cheek, holding her as tight as I could, rocking her gently. “Hang in there, kiddo. We’re going to get you to that medical bay, you just wait and see. But you’ve got to hang in there.”
I watched as the animals spun around in a deathmatch, kicking up orange dust, causing clouds of it to overtake us, growling and gnashing their teeth.
“It’s no good, mon,” said Nigel. “I’m down to my last clip.”
“Here,” said Lazaro, and tossed him a fresh one. “I brought extra.”
But Nigel was right: We weren’t going to last, much less get Sam to a medical bay—not the one in Gargantua and not the one in the bunker. I just didn’t see it happening before—
Before—
And there was a sound, very faint at first but growing, intensifying, coming closer. Getting louder—and I mean exponentially. Chopping the air like a string of firecrackers, like a machete, seeming to eclipse everything as a shadow passed over the ground and I peered skyward—following the thing as it briefly blotted the sun, tracking it as it pounded toward the Hollywood sign.
A helicopter. An Apache. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen, before or since. Our own Roman Malone—Black Stringfellow Hawke, as he jokingly referred to himself (in deference to Mr. Fantastic and that old TV show, Airwolf). Our Eye in the Sky—who had gone into Fort Lewis and come out with a tiger in his pocket. Who had somehow managed the impossible and brought it all the way here—to save us in our most desperate hour; to save Sam before she bled out.
“Well hello down there,” came his familiar voice over the radio—followed by a loud burst of static, which crackled and popped. “Looks like you’ve made some friends here already ...”
I watched as he circled the mountain: being a good Eye in the Sky, taking in the lay of the land. “Is that something I might be of assistance with? We got rockets.”
“Hot-damn, that crazy bastard did it,” shouted Lazaro—gripping Nigel’s shoulder, giving it a shake. “Flyboy comes through again!” He howled at the sky.
“We’re the posse that can’t be stopped, man,” said Nigel, and gripped him back. “The Issaquah Five has struck again. Can you believe it, James? I mean, can you—”
But I wasn’t looking at him anymore, Sam’s hand having relaxed and slid slowly from my cheek, her head having slumped, heavily, it seemed, deeper into my arms.
“Is she—?” began Nigel, as Lazaro grimaced.
“Fuck no, man ...”
But she was gone, and there was nothing else to say.
Nothing else to do.
I lowered her to the dirt—slowly, gingerly—as small arms continued to rattle and pop. Nor did I notice the absence of combat from the animals—although, looking back, it must surely have been over. Nobody said anything for several moments.
At last my radio squelched. “Jamie, this is Gargantua—and the road has been cleared ... to within about a quarter mile of the Communications Center. I can see it from my location. Thing is, that Apache’s got them seriously spooked, and they seem to be heading out ... heading this way. What do you want me to do, over.”
But I just remained slumped over Sam, feeling responsible for it—all of it—feeling as though I’d failed her. Feeling as though I was to blame.
“Second that, Jamie,” came Roman, followed by another burst of static. “We got them in a pincer, a real kill box. This is your call.”
I looked at Nigel and Lazaro, my eyes brimming with tears.
“We’ll have to deal with them eventually, Jamie,” said Nigel—softly. “I think you know that as well as I do.”
I must have focused on Lazaro, who said, “Take it from someone who knows them. They’ll be back.”
At last I toggled the mic: “Sam is dead,” I said, and gave it a moment to sink in. “So here’s what we’re going to do. Mr. Fantastic, I want you to hold the line and prevent any of them from escaping, okay?” I waited for him to acknowledge. “But it’s going to fall on you, Roman, to neutralize them. Because they’re too dangerous to leave standing. Just ... use everything you have. There’s no children. There are, however, woman and young people. It—it’s a tribe, you understand Like ours. But—they’ve made it clear: we’re not welcome. Nobody is. Under penalty of execution. And they’ve claimed all of Hollywood.” I looked at Sandahl’s lithe, crumpled form. “And, well ... they killed Sam.”
I lowered the radio and stood, now that the firing had stopped, and looked at the ridge, where the Tucker trucks were evacuating. “This one’s for you, Sam.” Then I raised it again. “Play something for her, would you, Gargantua? The Randy Newman album. And pipe it over the loudspeakers so we can hear it. Otherwise ... fire when ready.”
And then we waited, watching the trucks with their billowing flags slowly move along the ridge, watching them go.
Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show / With some smart-ass New York Jew / The Jew laughed at Lester Maddox / And the audience laughed at Lester Maddox too ...
I heard gunshots—nothing major, just some idiot in the Tucker train shooting at the sky.
So I went to the park and I took some paper along / And that’s where I made this song ...
And then it started, the Apache firing two Hellfire missiles which hit a group of pickups at the start of the train and instantly blew them to pieces, glass and shrapnel flying, a body tumbling in the air.
We talk real funny down here / We drink too much, we laugh too loud / We’re too dumb to make it in no northern town ...
Two more missiles fired, this time at the other end of the train, blowing pickups and blue flags into the air, sending a cab higher than anything else—like the turrets of those Iraqi tanks in the first Gulf War—hurling a Rugged Terrain tire along the ridge, which eventually rolled down the hill.
We’re keeping the niggers down ...
More missiles, like scaled-up bottle rockets: hitting the column like hammers, making fireballs of King Cabs and beds of people; spitting from the chopper’s hardpoints like fireworks, like flairs, incinerating skin and catching hair on fire, I knew, and didn’t care, obliterating pennants and banners.
We’re rednecks, we’re rednecks / We don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground ...
Until he’d finally fired everything: Hellfires and Hydras, Stingers and Spikes, all of them hissing and screaming, finding their targets; all of them lighting the ridge up like the Fourth of July, or maybe the volcano at The Mirage, in Las Vegas, each making our world safer and saner and more secure—more righteous, more lost.
Each bringing smoke and silence and peace—like the lights in the sky themselves—to the war-torn hills of Earth.
By the time Roman had finished mopping up and landed the Apache, we’d covered Sam with a tarp from Gargantua (Mr. Fantastic had parked it next to the Hollywood sign) and I’d closed the allosaur’s eyes—having said a prayer for him first in appreciation of his sacrifice (for he’d surely saved us from the saber-toothed cat, which also lay dead) and even piled stones.
“I don’t know why he took to us like that,” said Lazaro, walking over to join me, “but I’m sure glad he did.”
We looked down at the beast as the sun continued to sink and everything took on a golden hue.
“You were right, you know. About not killing him.” He looked at me as the breeze tousled his hair. “And I’m sorry.”
I stared at the allosaur, which looked oddly at rest, oddly peaceful, and thought about Sam. “Yeah. Well. I was wrong about a lot of things too.”
I looked up to see Roman walking toward us across the scrub. “If that look means what I think it does you can knock it off, right now,” he said, and paused. “We all knew the danger; Sam perhaps most of all. She died doing what she believed.” He looked at the allosaur and then to me. “Don’t take that away from her.”
I rested my hand on his shoulder. “Nor you, Roman?”
He straightened suddenly and looked me in the eye. “Nor me. We both did exactly what we had to do.” He gripped my shoulder and shook it slightly. “It wasn’t the first time, as you’ll recall. And it won’t be ...”
I must have squinted at him. “What? What is it?”
But he only stared beyond me—toward the bunker, toward the breezeway, at which I turned around and saw an old man creeping toward us holding a shotgun: a man as bloated and pale, as unhealthy, as I had ever seen; a man in silk pajamas and a monogramed bathrobe, who’s dark hair was parted as if with a knife and who wore yellow-tinted glasses through which you could clearly see his eyes—a man I instantly recognized as Hugo Eagleton.
“Take off your weapons,” he said, continuing to approach, “All of you. Right now.”
But nobody did, only moved back slowly to give him space—holding their arms at their sides, ready for anything.
“I’ll fill you full of shot, don’t think I won’t. Now drop ‘em. Now.” He hurried toward me suddenly, I have no idea why, and stuck the shotgun in my chest. “Who’s in charge here? Huh? Is it you, you bespectacled little shit? Answer me!”
“It—it is,” I said, sensing everyone stirring, and added, “Everybody just chill, okay? I’m all right.”
