Free 600 Miles: A Post-Apocalyptic Adventure by G.P. Grewal

was or maybe they didn't care, because they just kept coming even as we took aim. Then we started blasting, them bullets ripping through flesh and bone and making them howl even more as they started dropping, Roy's Beretta still spitting bullets as I stopped to reload.
    Then Gitty shouted that there was more behind us, and as we turned even more was coming from the front, Roy and Gitty shooting away as I fumbled in my pockets yet again for more bullets. They were crazed for blood, and no matter how many went down they seemed ever more determined to reach us, except for a few who were finally smart enough to run.
    When it was over, weren't nothing left but the dead, except, that is, for the skull-faced man with the pipes who'd been the only one to hold back. He stood there glaring at us from a short ways away, close enough that I might have taken a shot. I held my fire, as did Roy, Gitty shaking as I eased down her gun.
    He came forward, unafraid, wielding them steel pipes, that skull face looking like death itself. Across his chest was a big black tattoo of what looked like an eagle with outstretched wings, or some other bird of prey. He stopped maybe twenty feet away, though we were all still too mesmerized to fire, none of us believing how brave, or how insanely stupid, he was. Then, slowly, he lifted up them pipes like he were up on the cross, his head tilting back, his eyes wide, those big white eyeballs fixed on us like it were some kind of warning, or challenge, or I don't know what. Then, with the three of us waiting to see what was going to happen next, he lowered his arms and turned away, going back the way he'd come.
    Gitty raised up her rifle and was going to shoot, her hands still trembling, but I stopped her. "No, Gitty," I said. Then he was gone, nothing but the dead left with us.
    "Oh my!" Gitty cried. "I thought we were dead! Oh, Elgin, we gotta get out of here!"
    "Relax. We's still living."
    " Relax? Damn it, this was a bad place to come!"
    "I don't think they'll be back anytime soon," Roy said, "if there are any more of them, that is. Let's just keep moving before it's dark."
    Gitty insisted there had to be more, and I reckon she might have been right, though I figured it would take a while for them to get brave again, what with all that shooting and all them that was laying dead on the ground. Mexicans, they looked like. By the time it was getting dark we'd gone quite a ways and it seemed we was the only ones around. There were lots of dark gutted out buildings we passed, though they weren't so big anymore, some of the walls covered with creepers and vines. A few of the places looked like they might be worth going into to have a look, though it would be a bad thing getting trapped inside if those Mexicans came back for us. It weren't too safe being on the street either though, Roy saying we should find a good place to hole up for the night.
    We ended up at a place that looked like it had once been a store that sold women's garments, because inside it were some creepy lady statues standing around, one of them still wearing a big feathered hat that even Gitty thought looked pretty dumb. They were so lifelike, them statues, or trying to be at least, that they even had these eerie-looking glass eyes that I swore might suddenly move to look at me as I went up to take a good look.
    I got a real hoot out of them fake ladies, though Gitty didn't think it too funny when I put my arm around one and asked it to dance. Were too bad for Gitty that there were nothing left of women's garments in there though, that dusty old place as empty as most every other place we might have found. In the back I did find a dead rat who'd been laying there so long that it didn't look like much more than a dried up clump of dirty hair and sharp little teeth, its long, nasty tail still attached. Gitty hated the sight of it and so I threw it where she couldn't see, at which point the three of us settled down nice and quiet in the back room