Dallas Run

Chapter Eight

Once a teeming, thriving hub of commerce and industry, a vibrant metropolis throbbing with the pulsebeat of millions, Dallas now resembled the majority of decrepit, forsaken cities and towns dotting the postwar countryside. The hot breeze stirred the dust that caked the streets and buildings. Broken bits of glass lay under every window. Trash and debris littered the sidewalks and avenues. The rusted hulks of cars and trucks bore testimony to the American mania for owning private vehicles. Trash and garbage were piled in the alleys. Reeking waste matter provided a breeding ground for noxious insects. Feral dogs and cats prowled restlessly, and rats and other vile vermin skittered in the shadows.

“I wish I’d brought a clothespin,” Hickok mentioned.

“What for?” Blade asked.

“To pinch my nose shut. This place stinks worse than Geronimo’s farts.”

“Will you stop with the farts already,” Geronimo declared.

Blade held up his right hand, bringing them to a halt. From his right front pants pocket he extracted the map General Reese had given him. He opened the map and placed it on the cracked and pitted asphalt.

“Where the dickens are we?” Hickok inquired.

“I’ll know in a minute,” Blade said.

“Did you see that sign back there at that joint with the red roof?”

Hickok asked.

“What about it?” Geronimo interjected.

“What did that sign mean? What’s pizza? We’ve run into a lot of pizza signs in some of the other cities we’ve been to,” Hickok said.

“I can answer that,” Lieutenant Garber spoke up. “We still have pizza in the Civilized Zones. It’s usually a flat, circular pie or crust topped with cheese, pepperoni, hamburger, you name it. My favorite topping is anchovies.”

“What are anchovies?” Hickok asked.

“Little fish.”

Hickok snorted. “Fish pies. Give me apple or cherry any day.”

“Here we are,” Blade declared, tapping the map. “We’re at the junction of Highway 289 and Forest Lane. We’ll take a right on Forest Lane and work our way into the inner city.” He paused. “I’m surprised we haven’t run into the ones we’re after yet. Maybe they’re waiting for the right moment to strike.” He folded the map and replaced it in his pocket, then looked at Lieutenant Garber, who was still clearly upset over not being permitted to bury the two troopers. “Move out,” he said, motioning with his right arm.

They hiked west on Forest Lane, then turned south on Midway Road.

Blade felt disappointed by the lack of hostile activity. His plan to take a prisoner and vacate Dallas quickly was being thwarted by the refusal of those bearing the splotches to show themselves. They undoubtedly had a headquarters hidden somewhere in the city, and he racked his mind for a strategy that would lure them into exposing themselves.

An alley appeared on the right.

Blade stared at the heaps of refuse lining the alley entrance, an obvious indication that a large number of people were using the area on a regular basis, and frowned in disappointment. He took two more steps, then halted and whirled when a shuffling noise came from beyond the mounds of filth.

Footsteps pattered.

Blade pointed at Hickok, then the alley, and together they sprinted into its depths, skirting the fetid piles. The towering buildings on both sides obscured the high afternoon sun. He almost gagged at the stench, and to compensate he breathed shallowly as he ran.

Up ahead something moved.

Something on two legs.

“Stop!” Blade cried. He saw a frightened face glance at him, and the figure moved faster. “We won’t harm you!”

Whoever it was didn’t believe him. The figure ran recklessly, and that haste proved a mistake. Evidently the figure slipped on the garbage, because the next second there was a terrified squeal, a flapping of arms, and a loud crash as the runner went down, headfirst, into a rubbish heap less than six yards from a ten-foot-high wall.

Blade and Hickok slowed, covering their quarry.

“Don’t move!” Blade ordered.

The runner ignored the command, slipping and sliding in the mushy garbage while trying to rise.

Blade glimpsed long, stringy black hair and grimy feminine features, and he realized they had chased a young woman.

“Don’t kill me!” she wailed.

“We won’t hurt you,” Blade told her.

She twisted to confront them, her fear conveyed in the set of her countenance, her brown eyes wide. Her clothes were little better than rags, a green shirt and brown pants, both faded and torn in a dozen spots, both coated with bits of foul, slimy, clinging refuse. The only marks on her face were smudges of dirt.

“It’s just a blamed girl!” Hickok exclaimed.

“Who are you calling a girl?” she demanded, an incipient arrogance supplanting her fright.

“You,” Hickok responded, “although it’s hard to tell under all that gunk.”

She studied them for a moment, then looked down at herself and whined. “Look at what you made me do!”

“We didn’t make you do nothin’,” Hickok said. “It’s not our fault you’re a klutz.”

“I’m not a klutz, you meathead!” she snapped.

“You’re the one wearin’ garbage,” Hickok reminded her.

“Up yours!”

Hickok glanced at Blade and laughed. “Friendly wench, isn’t she?”

“I’m not a wench!” she declared. “Whatever that is.”

“A wench is a woman who doesn’t know she’s a lady,” Hickok said confidently.

“I’m a lady, you prick!” she informed them. “Who are you? Why the hell were you after me? You don’t look like you’re with the Chains or the Stompers, and you sure as hell ain’t one of the Chosen.”

“We’ll ask the questions,” Blade stated.

“And what if I don’t want to answer?”

Blade squatted and stared into her eyes. “I need information, and you’re the one who can supply it. You’ll tell us what we want to know, one way or the other.”

“You don’t scare me!” she said defiantly.

“What’s your name?” Blade inquired.

“Get stuffed.”

“Suit yourself,” Blade said, and looked at Hickok. “Shoot her in the leg.”

“The right or the left one?” the gunman responded.

“Take your pick.”

The woman glanced from one to the other in consternation. “You’re bluffing! You wouldn’t shoot me!”

Blade nodded. “You’re right. I wouldn’t shoot you.” He pointed at the gunfighter. “But he will.”

“The Henry would be a mite noisy in this alley,” Hickok commented, and slowly drew his right Python. “I’ll try to miss the bone,” he assured her, cocking the hammer. With deliberate care he aimed at her right leg.

She licked her full lips and swallowed hard. “Now hold on a second!”

“I just hope I don’t hit an artery or a vein,” Hickok mentioned. “If you lose a lot of blood you might get a tad dizzy.”

“Wait! Wait!” she shouted, holding her arms up. “Don’t do anything I’ll regret!”

“Sorry,” Hickok said, and shrugged. “Nothin’ personal.”

“Don’t shoot!” she cried, and glanced at Blade. “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! I think that son of a bitch would really plug me.”

Hickok smiled and twirled the Colt into its holster.

“What’s your name?” Blade repeated.

“Melanie Stevens.”

“How old are you?”

“What’s my age got to do with anything?” Melanie asked.

Blade sighed and gazed at the gunman. “It looks like you’ll have to shoot her after all.”

“Fine by me.”

Melanie shook her hands from side to side. “No! No! No! I’m nineteen! Nineteen!”

“How long have you lived in Dallas?” Blade questioned.

“In this city? About a year.”

“Where did you live before that?”

“I drifted around a lot,” Melanie said.

“Where’s your family?”

Melanie did a double take. “My what?”

“Your mother and father. Your brothers and sisters,” Blade said.

“My mom kicked the bucket when I was four and my dad was killed by a gang in Texarkana when I was twelve. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

Blade straightened and offered her his left hand.

Surprise flitted across her features and she hesitated before taking hold and allowing herself to be pulled erect. “Thanks, mister. It’s nice to know that at least one of you can be a gentleman when he wants to.”

“My name is Blade,” he disclosed. “This is Hickok.”

“Howdy, ma’am,” the gunfighter said.

“Ma’am?”

“Never mind him,” Blade directed her. “It sounds to me like you’ve spent your entire life in the Outlands.”

“Where else would I live?” Melanie responded, puzzled by the query.

“Why didn’t your family head north and live in the Civilized Zone? You’d be safer there than wandering around the Outlands,” Blade pointed out.

“The Civilized Zone?” Melanie said, and snorted. “My dad told me all about that place. They have guard posts everywhere, and if you try to sneak across their border the guards will shoot you.”

“They have sentry posts,” Blade admitted, “but the sentries don’t shoot travelers on sight. They detain those who want to enter the Civilized Zone until identities are established and physicals are administered, but they don’t shoot without provocation.”

“All I know is what my dad told me,” Melanie said. “And he told me they shoot on sight.”

Blade was about to refute her when he abruptly recalled a pertinent fact. “Wait a minute. Years ago a dictator by the name of Samuel the Second ruled the Civilized Zone, and he had thousands upon thousands slain in cold blood. But Samuel was killed about six years ago.”

“Oh, yeah? How do you know he’s really dead?”

“I killed him.”

Melanie blinked a few times, her brow creasing in bewilderment. “You took old Sammy out?”

Blade nodded.

“Hmmph. I guess the rumors I heard were true, but I wasn’t about to try and find out by waltzing up to a guard post and having my head shot off.”

“You’d prefer to live like an animal, wandering from town to town, never having enough to eat, never having a place you can call home?”

“Hey, I do whatever it takes to survive,” Melanie said defensively.

Blade absently stroked his chin, regarding her critically. “Okay. Tell me about Dallas.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything. You mentioned the Chains and the Stompers. Who are they?” Blade probed.

“They were the top gangs until the Chosen came along. The Chains claimed the northern half of the city as their turf, and the Stompers had the southern half.”

“The Chains and the Stompers are street gangs?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“Do they still control their… turf?” Blade asked.

“Nope. The Chosen have taken over the whole damn city. Oh, there are still Chains and Stompers left, but there are fewer and fewer every week.

In another year the Chosen will be the only ones in Dallas, which is how they want it,” Melanie explained.

“Who are the Chosen?”

Melanie shuddered and gazed around nervously. “The freakiest bunch you’d ever want to meet.”

“Freaky?”

“They have these green marks all over their bodies,” Melanie said.

Blade gripped her right shoulder. “Marks? Do you mean they have green splotches?”

“Marks. Splotches. What’s the difference? You’d best stay away from those suckers or your ass is grass.”

“They’re the ones we’re looking for,” Blade said, releasing her.

“Let me get this straight,” Melanie stated, sounding stunned. “You’re looking for the Chosen? You want to find them?”

“Yes.”

“You’re wacko.”

Blade glanced toward the mouth of the alley and spied Geronimo standing in the entrance, watching them. “I want you to take us to them.”

“Take you to the Chosen?” Melanie declared, her left hand rising to her throat.

“Right now.”

“No way.”

Blade shifted the M60 from his left hand to his right. “Why not?”

“Don’t you have ears? If the Chosen find you, you’re history. If you don’t have the Mark, then they’ll give it to you or waste your ass,” Melanie said.

“They can give the green marks to those who don’t have them?”

“So I’ve been told,” Melanie replied.

“The blasted disease must be contagious,” Hickok interjected.

“We knew the possibility existed before we came to Dallas,” Blade mentioned.

“Sherry will clobber me if I get green splotches all over my body,” Hickok groused. “She reckons I’m perfect the way I am.”

“Demented?”

“Now don’t you start, pard. I take enough insults from Geronimo.”

Blade motioned at the alley entrance. “You’re coming with us,” he informed Melanie.

“Where to?”

“To the Chosen.”

She retreated a step, shaking her head. “Not on your life. I’m not committing suicide for you or anyone else.”

“We’ll protect you,” Blade pledged.

“You racked Sammy so you must be hot stuff, but you don’t have any idea of what you’re up against here. There must be a hundred and fifty of the Chosen. The two of you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“There are others with us.”

“How many? Fifty? Sixty?”

“There are four more,” Blade said.

“Six against the Chosen?” Melanie stated, and snickered. “They’ll wipe you out, or worse.”

“What could be worse?” Blade questioned.

“They could convert you.”

“How do they con—” Blade checked his sentence when he heard a blast of gunfire erupt in the street. “We need her! Bring her!” he ordered the gunfighter, and raced for the alley entrance.