Read Republic of the Living (Novella): Vengeance for Free Online

turned
her head back to Chewy.  “We go right.”
    Chewy stopped.  “Hold on, sister.”
    She halted and rotated on her feet to face him.
    He raised his head to the sky and then back to the
street.  “I’m just warning you,” he said.  “There’s been rumors.”
    She raised her eyebrows.
    “ Yeah,” he continued.
 “Rumors about Oakland.”  She hitched her shoulders and gazed at him.
 “Slavers.”  He paused.  “I heard about it in Mendo.
 Slavers hitting all the little villages between here and San Jose.”
    “ Taking people?”
    He nodded.  “Seems like it.  Taking them
down to Fruitvale.  You know Fruitvale?”
    She nodded.  “I’ve been there.  Come
on.”  She pivoted and started walking fast down Twelfth Street. “It’s only
a few more blocks.”
    A row of shops with shattered windows and faded
signs in gold leaf lettering announced the border of Oakland’s old Chinatown.
 They came to a stockade made of rusted cars and plywood sheets.  Mai
disappeared into a dark doorway and he followed her to the back of the empty
shop and up a flight of stairs.  She pushed through an open window onto a
fire escape.  They climbed to the roof and hopped across the parapet onto
the roof of the next building.  She pushed open a thick door and they
descended to the ground floor of another shop.
    As she stepped toward the front door of the shop,
he dropped his hand to her shoulder and stopped her.  He lifted a finger
to his lips and pushed in front of her.  Pulling the long staff from its sling
on his pack, he peeked onto the street.  It was quiet and empty.  A
child’s shoe sat next to an open suitcase thrown against the curb.
 Farther down the street, an overturned cart blocked the far sidewalk.
 He stepped forward as Mai rushed past him, her machete held against her
thigh.  She took three or four quick steps and then halted.  Spinning
slowly in the middle of the street, her eyes raced across the building fronts.
    Chewy swept his gaze along the sidewalks as he
joined her.
    “ Wait here,” she whispered
and dashed into the building beyond the abandoned suitcase.
    He walked down the street and poked through the
clothing and boxes in the empty cart.  A few shiny tin cans rolled onto
the street and he scooped them up and stuffed them into his pack.  Mai
appeared at his side, flushed and breathless.
    “ Nobody
home,” she panted as she studied the debris in the cart bed.  
    She froze and leaned down to pull an emerald
t-shirt from the pile.  She squeezed it in her hand and tossed it back to
the ground.
    “ Let’s go,” she said, turning
down the street.
    They hurried between silent, well-kept buildings
until they reached another stockade.  A tall gate in the middle of the
barrier leaned inward.  She turned and led him to the thick oak doors of a
pale yellow building at the end of the stockade.  She planted a palm
against a door and it swung inward.  
    The pews of the church had been pushed away from
the entrance.  Wide rectangles of sunlight from the high windows glowed on
the stone floor.  Mai stalked up to the altar and paused next to a thick
red carpet laid across the raised platform.  She bent and dragged the
carpet aside.
    “ Help me,” she said, grasping
a handle recessed into the floor.
    He dropped his staff and helped her yank the trap
door open.  The slab of wood fell to the floor with a boom and she lowered
herself into the darkness below.  Chewy dropped to his knees and clicked
his flashlight on, aiming the beam downward.  Her black hair flashed
across the pool of light.  He arced the beam across the bare concrete
floor of the crawlspace and debated whether to follow her.
    He glanced to the right and found three pairs of
eyes glinting up at him.  Gasping in surprise, he rolled away from the
dark opening and sprawling onto his back. Mai’s face poked up from the floor.
 Her forehead was streaked with dust.
    “ Jesus, Chewy,” she
sputtered.  “Help