Free Republic of the Living (Novella): Vengeance by Taz Gallaher Page B

Chewy’s
thick body against the wall of sunlight behind him.  
    She moved from the center of the track to the edge
of the ties and the shuffle of her footsteps echoed dimly down the tunnel.
 The hulking train on her left dwarfed her and, except for a lighter shade
of darkness that betrayed a line of windows, she was blind.  She shortened
her steps and inched forward along the side of the last car.
    A shadow within the shadows popped out from
between the train cars.  She pulled her machete up and stumbled toward the
wall of the cavern.
    “ Bitch,” a deep voice growled
in the darkness.
    Something heavy slammed into her shoulder and her
head bounced against the rough stonework of tunnel.  She slipped and
pitched backward, bouncing on her backside and crashing against the ground.
 The machete rattled onto the ground and her eyes shuttered down as heavy
boots crunched past her.
    “ Mai,” Chewy shouted.
 “Mai.  What’s happening?”
    She shook her head and pushed her eyes open.
 The beam of the flashlight lit up the space between the dusty train and
the tunnel.  Light flowed around the silhouette of a wide, dark body.
 
    Something clicked loudly in the empty tunnel.
    “ Uh huh,” the voice said,
aimed away from her, back down the tracks.  “Keep the light on but point
it up.  I want to see you.”
    Her head throbbed with pain and she couldn’t move
her left arm.  She rolled onto her stomach and tried to crawl toward the
figure in front of her.  Digging her toes into the gravel, she pushed
herself forward.  Her head spun and she stopped, fighting against the
cloud that settled over her eyes.
    “ Well, holy shit on a hot tin
roof,” the deep voice rumbled along the tunnel.  “I know you.”
    She blinked and shimmied forward a foot or two.
    “ Lompoc.”  His laughter
was rough, like the sound of rocks tumbling down a hillside.  “Another
fucking jailbird.”  
    He choked off his laugh and his boots crunched
farther away from her.  “Ain’t that the way it just had to be.  A
regular ex-con reunion in the middle of this clusterfuck.”
    She heard Chewy mumble something.
  Taking a deep breath, she pulled herself to her knees, leaning
sideways and inching closer to the train.  The figure in front of her
seesawed and she crouched against the grimy wheel of the train.
    “ Yeah, whatever.”  The
man coughed and spat. “Your little girlfriend back there.  She murdered my
friend.”  The voice paused. “Parker. He wasn’t hardly more than a child
himself.  And the two of you killed the rest of my friends.  You and
those fucking savages.”
    Chewy spoke but she couldn’t understand the words.
 Another deep laugh rolled around the tunnel.
    “ Fuck you,” the man said.
 “It’s always been a world of shit. Should have learned that at Lompoc.”
    She tugged her head upward and willed her body to
follow.  The spinning stopped and she leaned her good shoulder against the
train.  A few feet beyond her, the machete blade glinted dully. Her hand
closed around the wooden handle when something exploded in the tunnel.
 She dropped back down to her knees and grasped the machete.
    “ Yeah,” the voice shouted.
 “Go on and crawl.  Just like a meatbag or one of them stupid
chinks.”
    She looked up.  The flashlight cast a fan of
light beneath the train car.  Chewy groaned.  She swallowed and dug
her toes into the earth.  Aiming for a spot between the train and the tunnel
wall, she launched herself forward.  She smelled him - - rank, sweaty,
sharp - - and swung the blade sideways.
    He screeched and staggered against the wall of the
tunnel.  The gun dropped onto the tracks.  She could see its dull
metal barrel in the slanted rays of the flashlight.  She remembered what
Chewy said about pissing them off.   She hurled the machete toward
him and stumbled as she turned away.
    “ Bitch.”  Pearly howled.
 “Motherfucking cunt.”
    She heard him scrabbling in the gravel at the