Memphis Run

Chapter Thirteen

Once they were “man’s best friend.” Once. Before the terrible devastation of World War Three. Before hundreds of thousands were abandoned and forced to forage for their food as their ancestors had done.

Before the limited amount of game put their ever-burgeoning numbers into direct competition with their former masters. Before the primal survival of the fittest became, once again and perhaps for all time, the unwritten law of the land. Once they were cute and cuddly and pampered with prepared food from cans or boxes, and even clothed in attire reflective of their masters’ warped tastes in fashion. Once.

But not now.

Now dog packs numbered well over a million canines, roaming the polluted and untainted landscape alike, constantly seeking prey to appease their ever-present hunger. Other than the bestial mutants, dog packs were the primary danger to travelers everywhere.

Blade knew this danger well; he had battled dogs on several occasions, and the prospect of another such struggle was singularly unappealing. Up until the moment Hickok kicked in the door. Blade had hoped to avoid a full-fledged engagement. At that instant, with the baying of the savage band as it closed in from both sides, his hopes were dashed on the brutal rocks of reality.

Chastity screamed for her life.

Clyde and Bonnie took the brunt of the attack from the dogs in the hallway, Clyde trying to beat them with the bazooka and Bonnie swinging her AR-15 as a club.

The dogs in the alley surged forward in unison, closing on the giant, their teeth snapping and slashing, trying to overpower the human by sheer force of numbers.

Towering above the five raging canines, his bulging muscles rippling with every skillful move. Blade ripped into them with his Bowies. The razor edges of his big knives sliced eyeballs, hacked off ears, chopped tongues, and slit flesh and hair with gory ease. Two of the dogs were dead in as many seconds, and the remaining three severely injured before they could retreat beyond the range of the Warrior’s lethal weapons.

While Blade held off the five in the alley, his companions were not faring as well. A Rottweiler clamped its viselike jaws on Clyde’s right leg below the knee, wrenching and twisting its head ferociously. Clyde cried out and doubled over, exposing his head and neck to the other dogs in the corridor. Out of the pack hurtled a Pit Bull, its pointed teeth chomping on Clyde’s throat. He shrieked as blood sprayed from his severed vessels.

“Clyde!” Bonnie wailed, letting down her own guard and reaching for her brother.

A Husky pounced on her left arm. and she released the AR-15.

The hallway was a mass of barking, howling, bloodthirsty canines.

“Daddy!” Chastity shouted, clinging to the gunman’s neck. “Do something!”

Stuck in the middle, screened by the others. Chastity in his left arm, a Python in his right hand, Hickok had obeyed Blade’s injunction to avoid gunfire. But the sight of Clyde being torn to shreds, of Bonnie cursing as the husky chewed on her, and the terrified cry of his adopted daughter all conspired to rouse the gunfighter to action. He lowered Chastity quickly to the ground, placing her between Blade and himself, and then drew his left Colt. He faced the dogs in the corridor, his countenance seemingly chiseled in stone.

Clyde’s neck resembled shredded venison.

Bonnie was striving to wrest her arm from the Husky.

The gray and black mongrel from the window sprang at the gunman.

Hickok snot the mongrel between the eyes with his right Python, the revolver blasting and bucking in his hand.

Catapulted backwards by the impact of the slug, the mongrel flipped onto the hall floor.

The gunfighter advanced on the dog pack, each step slow and deliberate, firing twice with every stride. His next pair of shots downed the Rottweiler and the Pit Bull: the two after that killed the Husky and a charging Collie. He moved past Bonnie, who was on her knees, her left arm pressed to her stomach, and thumbed back the hammers.

Panicked by the abrupt deaths of five of their number and the thundering of the Magnums, the canines were endeavoring to flee.

Hickok wasn’t about to let them off so easy. He continued to walk forward, firing each Python once more, and yet again. With each shot a dog fell, four of them thrashing and whining as they died in pools of their spurting blood.

The rest of the dogs were clawing over one another in their frenzy to escape. Barking and baying, they fled through a door at the far end of the corridor. In seconds they were gone.

Hickok watched the last dog hightail it. He reloaded quickly, holstered the Colts, unslung the M-16, and turned, prepared to lend aid to Blade, but his friend had already dispatched the dogs in the alley and was staring at Clyde, frowning.

Chastity was leaning against the wall, sniffling.

A crimson river flowed from Clyde’s neck. He was on his right side, his eyes glassy, his spectacles lying in the spreading crimson spring. Beside him, her knees immersed in his blood, oblivious to her own wound, crying softly, was Bonnie.

The gunman walked to her and squatted. “Bonnie?”

“Leave me alone,” she said, her words scarcely perceptible.

“We can’t stay here. The shots will bring the Hounds.”

“Go on.”

Chastity ran to the gunfighter, skirting Bonnie and flinging her slim arms around his neck. “Daddy! You’re okay!”

“Fit as a fiddle,” Hickok assured her.

Blade came over. “Bonnie, Hickok’s right. We must get out of here.”

“Go.”

“You’re coming with us,” Blade said, wiping the Bowies on his pants.

“I’m not leaving my brother,” Bonnie stated huskily.

“There’s nothing we can do for him,” Blade noted, his tone reflecting his sympathy.

“I’m not leaving,” Bonnie insisted.

Blade slid the Bowies into their sheaths, then crouched. “The Hounds will catch you and kill you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Let me see that arm.”

“It’s fine.”

“Let me see,” Blade said, reaching out and taking her left arm in his right hand. The husky had made a mess of the flesh near her elbow but, fortunately, had not torn open a vein or artery. “This must hurt,” he commented.

Bonnie looked at her brother, her eyes streaming tears. “He didn’t want to do this. He only came because of me.”

“He loved you very much,” Blade said.

She merely nodded and moaned.

“He wouldn’t want you to waste your life,” Blade mentioned.

“It’s too late to turn over a new leaf,” Bonnie responded in abject misery.

“We can’t leave you,” Blade said.

“I want to bury him.”

“There’s no time,” Blade replied.

“You go on. I’ll bury him and catch up when I can,” Bonnie proposed.

“There’s no time,” Blade stressed.

Bonnie finally took her eyes from her brother and gazed at the giant.

“Get the hell out of here!”

Blade sighed and frowned. “I’m truly sorry for what I’m about to do.”

“What?”

Leaning forward, Blade scooped her into his massive arms before she could resist. He stood and nodded for Hickok to proceed down the hallway.

“Put me down, damn you!” Bonnie protested, kicking her legs.

Blade ignored her and strode after the gunman.

“Put me down!”

“You’re coming with us,” Blade declared brusquely.

“You bastard!”

“There are some who would agree with you,” Blade quipped.

“Please!”

“No.”

Bonnie glanced over his broad right shoulder at her brother’s body, then sobbed. “Oh, Clyde.” She buried her face in Blade’s neck and wept uncontrollably.

The Warrior let her vent her emotions. He followed Hickok through the door at the end of the corridor, finding another hall leading to the right.

They took the hall to a large room caked with dust and filled with broken furniture. A broken picture window fronted a narrow, deserted street.

“The mutts are long gone,” Hickok remarked.

“Good,” Chastity said.

A front door hung by one hinge, its paint chipped, its wood warped.

Hickok barreled out the door and stopped on the sidewalk. “Which way pard?”

Blade scanned the filthy street. “We need a place to hole up,” he said, nodding to the right.

Hickok moved off, carrying Chastity.

“Blade?” Bonnie whispered as the Warrior hastened on the heels of the gunman.

“You don’t need to say anything,” he told her.

Bonnie raised her head. Glistening moisture covered her cheeks and chin. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her nose was running. “Yes, I do.”

Blade scrutinized the buildings they were passing.

“I killed my brother,” Bonnie declared.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“He came along because of me,” Bonnie said, and closed her eyes. “I’m responsible.”

“Clyde was a grown man. He was responsible for his own actions.”

“But I—” Bonnie began.

“Clyde came because he loved you,” Blade said, cutting her off, his voice unusually stern. “The choice was his to make, and the consequences are his alone.” He paused. “We all have decisions to make, dozens every day.

Sometimes we make the right decisions, and sometimes we don’t. Every action brings a reaction, and we must learn to bear the responsibility for the reactions our actions cause, for the consequences of our decisions. We can’t blame others for our failures, and we can’t blame ourselves for theirs.

A man isn’t a man, a woman isn’t a woman, until they learn to bear the responsibility for their own decisions. Until then, they’re no more than overgrown children.” He paused again. “Your brother was not a child.”

Bonnie gazed at him quizzically for a moment. “There’s more to you than meets the eye.”

“Can you walk now? I want my hands free in case we’re attacked again.”

“Oh, sure,” Bonnie said self-consciously. “Sorry. You can put me down.”

Blade gently lowered her to the asphalt. “You can manage? Are you positive?”

“No problem.”

The Warrior unslung the AR-15 and extended the rifle. “Here.”

“What’s this for?”

“You left yours in the alley,” Blade reminded her. “Take this.”

She obeyed. “Thanks.”

Blade resumed looking for a hiding place. “As soon as we stop, we’ll tend to your wound.”

“There’s very little blood,” Bonnie commented while inspecting her left arm. “I doubt there’ll be an infection.”

“You never know. Better safe than sorry.”

They came to an intersection and trailed Hickok to the left.

“What happens after you find your friend?” Bonnie inquired.

“We’re heading for our Home in Minnesota,” Blade said.

“Is that far?”

“Do you know where Minnesota is located?”

“No,” Bonnie replied sheepishly.

“Well, it’s far enough,” Blade stated. “Even with a jeep, and what with all the mutants and whatnot we’ll run into along the way, we won’t reach our Home for at least a week.”

“You sound anxious to get back.”

“Lady, you don’t know the half of it.”

“Is there someone there waiting for you?”

Blade nodded and smiled. “My Family.”

“You have a woman?”

“A wife and a son,” Blade said. “Jenny and Gabe.”

Bonnie deliberately glanced to the right so he wouldn’t notice her frown.

“Hickok is married too,” Blade added. “You probably won’t believe this, but he’s a first-class husband and father.”

She looked at the giant, her expression blank. “I believe you. Hickok impresses me as being the kind of man a woman can rely on.”

“Oh?”

“I knew he was reliable when he threatened to—how did he put it?—ventilate my noggin.”

Blade stared at her, clearly puzzled.

“I knew he was serious. I recognized that he’s a man of his word. The honest type.”

“Feminine logic never ceases to amaze me.”

“I feel the same way about men,” Bonnie confessed.

Blade checked to the rear, ensuring no one was pursuing them. “Since we’re being so honest, maybe you would like to tell the truth about something else?”

“Like what?”

“Like the real reason you hate the Hounds?”

“I told you. One of them has the hots for me, and they wouldn’t let Clyde…”

Blade held up his right hand. “Save your breath. I want to hear the truth.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“And don’t insult my intelligence.”

Bonnie gazed at the giant. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve seen the hatred in your eyes when you mention the Hounds, and I know there must be a deeper reason than you’ve let on.”

Her shoulders slumped and she stared absently at the tall structures marking the downtown Memphis skyline. “Your wife is a lucky woman.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Oh, no deep reason,” Bonnie said, mustering a feeble smile. “You’re right. There is another reason I hate the Hounds.”

“Care to talk about it?”

Hickok and Chastity turned right at the next intersection.

“It’s very personal,” Bonnie said.

“I understand,” Blade responded.

They covered another yard, and had about seven more to go to reach the intersection.

“What do you know about the leader of the Hounds, about the King?”

Bonnie inquired.

“Next to nothing,” Blade admitted.

“Did you know he likes to rape his sexual partners?”

“Do you have this on reliable authority?”

Bonnie snickered. “The best. The son of a bitch raped me.”

Stunned by the revelation. Blade gaped at her, seeing the distress etching her attractive features, feeling his heart go out to her, and comprehending her motivation for wanting to inflict as much damage as she could on the Hounds. “I didn’t know,” he blurted out, and he was still gawking at her as they rounded the corner. He saw her eyes widen in alarm and glanced straight ahead.

There were Hickok and Chastity, standing not ten feet away.

And 20 feet beyond them, strung across the street, armed to the teeth, was a six-man Hound patrol.