Anyway, our neighbors weren’t real Satanists, but that’s what Juan started calling them. Then Taz and Ducky started using it. After a while, the name stuck.
Like I said, real Satanists didn’t kill people, or have orgies and black masses—but these fuckers did just about every night. In the beginning, Juan and a few of the others suggested we take them out—do unto them before they could do unto us. But they had the numbers and an attack would have been suicide. They were bad news, so we just tried to avoid them as much as possible.
We had set up shop in the ruins of the big Marriott Hotel in what used to be the Inner Harbor district. Many upper floors of the city’s skyscrapers were still above water, but most of the buildings were flooded inside. Miraculously, ours wasn’t one of them. Somehow, the hotel had escaped any broken windows or cracks in the walls. The bottom floors were underwater, but from fifteen to twenty, everything was relatively dry. We lived on the top two floors.
The Satanists lived downtown in what was left of the Baltimore Trade Center. I’m guessing that, like our building, it had escaped major damage. I don’t know how many of them there were, but while our numbers were shrinking, theirs seemed to be growing. They had enough people that they could afford to sacrifice someone every evening, at least.
We’d watched them from the rooftop a few times, through a telescope that Lee found in one of the hotel rooms, but none of us had the stomach to keep spying for long.
Not after what we saw.
The fire was the first indication that something wasn’t right with our neighbors. With no streetlights or electricity, the Trade Center was barely noticeable at night. Until they lit the bonfire, that is.
The rain never stops. Sure, it changes. It has patterns. Mist to downpour, gentle breeze to gale force winds. But it never stops. Still, every night, despite the rain and the winds, the Satanists lit a huge bonfire on their roof, right in the middle of the helicopter pad. You could see it with the naked eye, a small, orange pinprick in the dark. But when we looked through the telescope…
It was bad. Water-soaked wood that shouldn’t have been able to burn did so anyway. The rain didn’t put the fire out. Once it was going, they tied people to posts and roasted them alive. Others had their throats cut or were weighted down with cement blocks and then tossed over the side—sacrifices to whatever deepsea denizens the Satanists worshipped.
One night, Juan, Christian, Jimmy, and I took a boat out to investigate. It was against my better judgment and in hindsight a really stupid thing to do, but we had to know more. We got close enough to hear them chanting. The words weren’t English. Hell, I’m not even sure they were in a language. It was like something out of a cheesy horror movie and it freaked us out pretty bad, so we left.
The Satanists weren’t our only neighbors. There were other survivors scattered throughout the city, but they were loners or madmen and kept mostly to themselves. I’m sure some of them ended up captured and sacrificed in the rituals.
Early on, the Satanists tried to raid our building twice, but we’d repelled both attacks, and they took some heavy casualties. Since then, they’d left us alone, but we still kept a guard posted on the roof twenty-four hours a day. We weren’t stupid enough to believe they wouldn’t eventually return.
I kept a wary eye out for them while I paddled over the submerged highrises and office buildings, but the Satanists had vanished. The only living creatures I saw were a school of dolphins frolicking over the space where Camden Yards used to be, and flocks of seabirds soaring far overhead.
When I returned to the hotel, Jimmy’s head still securely tucked away in the backpack, it was Lee and Mike’s turn on watch. I saw them through the downpour, water dripping from their plastic-covered rifle barrels. I tossed them the rope and Lee tied me off.
“Jimmy’s not back yet,” he said, sounding scared. “And it’s getting late.”
I took a deep breath.
“What’s wrong, Kevin?” Mike asked.
I exhaled. “He’s not coming back.”
“What do you mean? What the hell happened out there?”
“Get everybody together and I’ll tell you. I don’t want to rehash it over and over. It…it hurts too bad.”
Like a Viking returning home, I grabbed the plunder and walked inside.
Mike and Lee called after me, but I couldn’t hear what they said. Their words were lost in the rain.
I still wanted to cry. I still couldn’t.
So I let the sky do it for me instead.
Each floor of the hotel had a small lobby located next to the elevator doors. We’d turned the lobby on nineteen into a common area. While I hung up my wet clothing and toweled off, Mike and Lee gathered the others together. When I came out, they were all waiting for me, lounging on the couches and chairs.
“Bring us back anything good?” Mindy asked.
I nodded. “Always do, don’t I?”
I gave the paperbacks to Lee, Christian, Mindy, Sarah, and Lori, since they were the readers in the group. Louis, Taz, Ducky, Lashawn, Juan, and Salty divided up the cigarettes. Nate got the flashlight since he didn’t have one in his room and had been relying on candles. The Jim Beam and vodka were passed around and practically everybody took a swig except for the kids and Mike. He said that he’d managed to stay sober and on the wagon for ten years, and would be damned if the weather was going to make him start again. Sarah and Anna did most of our cooking, so the food went to them for safekeeping. Finally, I gave the crayons to the kids, and the grins on their faces cheered me up momentarily—until I felt the bulge of Jimmy’s head, still inside the bag.
“I wish you could find some jazz or blues discs, Kevin,” Louis said. “All we’ve got around here is hiphop and classic rock.”
“That reminds me,” Lee chimed in, “we need more D batteries, too, if you find any. The boom box runs on them.”
“I could use some more vitamins,” Christian said.
“Fuck that, playa.” Ducky grinned. “What we need is some chronic.”
“Chronic?” Nate looked puzzled. “What’s that?”
“It’s street slang for weed,” Juan said, “and under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. Can’t believe I’m saying that.” He shook his head wistfully.
“All of you can fill out a shopping list,” I muttered, and sat down. “I’ll pick it up on my next trip outside.”
Lori handed me a warm can of soda and I sipped it gratefully. The carbonation soothed my upset stomach.
“So where’s Jimmy?” Mike asked.
I glanced at the kids.
Anna took the hint and herded them out of the lobby. “Come on, children. Let’s go color some pictures for everybody with those new crayons!” Anna had lost her family, including two grandchildren, and Danielle, James, and Malik had adopted her as their grandmother.
After they were gone, I cleared my throat. Everyone looked at me, waiting patiently. I guess they already suspected what I was going to say.
“Jimmy’s dead. I found him while I was on the supply run.”
They were silent, and then Juan spoke, saying aloud what they were all thinking. “The fucking Satanists.”
“I guess so. Who else could it be?”
“Where is he now?”
“In my bag. There’s not much left. He was…decapitated.”
They stirred.
“Show us.” Again, he wasn’t asking.
“I don’t want to see that,” Sarah protested. “Isn’t it bad enough—”
“Show us, Kevin.”
I paused, choosing my words carefully. I felt tired, and all I wanted to do was sleep. “Juan, where’s the sense in doing that? I mean, what, you don’t fucking believe me?”