The Empty Ones

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Authors: Robert Brockway
have a second.
    I pulled out my battle-scarred bumblebee Zippo, said a silent prayer to the lighter gods— grant me fluid, though I have sinned and not bought any for weeks —and flicked it open. I hit the wheel, and a teardrop of flame hovered there.
    I made a mental note to come back down here after all this was over and see if I could find her again. You don’t leave a good soldier behind.
    I wrapped one arm around Meryll’s waist and whipped the Zippo up toward the tar man’s face. I dug my heels in. I heard the rumbling inhalation, felt the tar man’s hand slacken, and pushed us away. We rolled to the side just as the fucker went up like a tenement building.
    Don’t look at her. It’s not that bad. Just get her moving. Don’t look.
    I was dragging Meryll toward the stairwell. The tar man still burned, and by his light I could see the others, turning in slow motion, regarding us with those glinting gears.
    I’m an idiot. I looked.
    The burns looked more like they’d come from acid than flame. Raw, cauterized networks of pulp cut into her skin in the shape of a massive handprint. They were deep. The thumb crossed the artery in her neck on one side, sealing it shut. The pointer crossed the other.
    Don’t think about what that means. Just move.
    We were out of the gravel, but moving slow. The burning tar man had gone out. I couldn’t see the others, but I knew they were there. We made it to the raised concrete platform. Just a few feet from the door now. Every inch of black in that dark tunnel reaching for us. I crossed the threshold backwards, dragging Meryll in front of me.
    Okay, at least your ass is safe.
    I had her almost entirely in the stairwell. Just her ankles left out there—all right, those are in; now just get enough room for Randall to swing the door shut. Please don’t let there be a big black hand reaching in here at the last second like some goddamned B-movie horror—
    And we’re through.
    Randall slammed the door and slid to the floor beside me. We both let out deep breaths we didn’t know we’d been holding.
    Â â€¦
    â€œShit,” he said.
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œDo tar men know how to work doors?”

 
    SEVEN
    2013. Highway 57, Mexico. Kaitlyn.
    I flexed my sixth finger. I curled it into my palm as tightly as I could. I contorted it. I wiggled it. I could not get it to hurt. It’s not like I missed the pain, but it had always been there for me. A constant. Something that would never leave me.
    My apartment was gone.
    I didn’t own it or anything. By now the landlords would have rented it out again. Somebody else would be in my bedroom, sleeping where I slept and never thinking about the life I’d lived there. They would put the couch in a stupid place, and everything would face the TV, and they’d put plants on the sidewalk out front, and it would not be my home anymore.
    All my stuff was gone.
    It’s not like we had time to pack a U-Haul. We left most of my things behind when we ran. My bed. My glorious, massive bed—so disproportionately huge that it literally filled every inch of the bedroom. You opened the door and had no choice but to crawl right into it. It was made entirely of foam, so it bent, but only under extreme duress. Jackie helped me move it in there. It took us two hours of wrestling. Toward the end, that got literal: Jackie slipped the last corner past the doorjamb with a flying elbow. We collapsed on the floor, laughing and covered in sweat.
    I bet they threw it away. Those new tenants. Those invaders.
    They probably chopped it up into little pieces to get it out, shoved it alongside the Dumpster with the broken box fans and old TVs.
    My job was gone.
    Fuck that job, anyway. It was just waiting tables, mostly for wannabe or has-been Hollywood types who tipped really well, but always made sure everybody at the table knew it. I wouldn’t miss the job itself, but

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