Blood Money

A Story by brian_navarro

The first in the Blood Money series.

Charlie awoke suddenly drenched in sweat and coughing, flames creeping across the walls like monsters in the night ready to pick him apart.

“What the"” screamed Charlie before having his voice deadened by the sounds of wailing from across the hall. Judith!

Charlie quickly tossed off the tattered covers only to then hesitate stepping off. Still, ear piercing screams roused some courage in him, and he leapt off without pause toward the door where flaming bits of wood streaked across a swollen sky like meteors.

Once inside the flame engulfed nursery, walls crumbling all around him, Charlie moved barefoot across the splintering floorboards and snatched the infant out of the crib before wrapping her up in his sweatshirt. When he turned to leave, however, a wall of flames sharply rose up to barr their exit.

Shuffling backwards in haste with Judith tucked away in his arms, Charlie saw no choice but to go out the window. Charlie hurried through it one"handed after clearing the glass, ending up on the fire escape just in time. Feels shaky, he then noticed hearing it creak as soon as he popped open the ladder with his foot.

“Ok. baby girl, just a little further,” Charlie said, climbing down from the fourth floor with one hand around her and one hand on the rung above.

From the pavement below Charlie looked up and saw the building had become engulfed in red, topped only by whiffs of black streaking across the starry night sky overhead. Damn it, I can’t believe all of that . . . just gone. Charlie wept knowing the city could care less about much of anything beyond the Wall, least of all an abandoned building.

Still, he wasn’t keen on sticking around because cops would still arrest anyone nearby. This left him with little choice but go further downtown. Goddamn it, so close to getting out this hell hold . . . a month, maybe two, and I could have paid our way across the Wall. Charlie then glanced briefly to the monstrosity at the end of the block; a Skyscraper high wall of metal, mortar, and junk that stretched miles with only a single gate to cross.

Exiting the dark alleyway, Charlie suddenly remembered he’d left his gun in the nightstand. “Fu"” he said before hearing Judith cooing in his arms. “I mean, frack,” he corrected himself, looking back to the remnants of a battered building that glowed now a mix of red and blue as New York’s finest rolled up.

And away from the blue and into the black of night Charlie led them, looking from street to street for a place to hold up, preferably one to burn out the chill of the night, but found nothing more than silent barrels amidst the smell of death. Deeper into hell . . . damn!

“I’ll find something, I promise baby girl,” Charlie whispered to his daughter, turning sharply away afterwards to hide the shame that colored his fair skin.

Come mid morning, they’d ran across a block of rooms stretching out across the space, stacked low with a walkway around them with some vacancy still. “Ten,” Charlie muttered, weary of the place given its tattered sign and loose women lingering nearby, marketing their goods to old and young alike. Motel 6 . . . maybe at one point, but not now.

He found the office in the back of the lot, away from its guests. A tiny shack, better looking than most of the place, but still rundown.

“How many?” asked the clerk, a nappy haired man with grays sprouting off his head like weeds. His disheveled appearance certainly stood out in the rather clean looking office as tiny as it was and given how it looked from the outside.

“Just me and my daughter,” answered Charlie, cradling baby Judith in his arms with her fast asleep. The man nodded.

“That’s two vials then,” said the clerk.

“Two?? How the fu"I mean hell is that two?” Charlie argued, nostrils flaring.

The man swept his hands across his hair, pulling back the wild strands. “You want the room or not?” Not caring for Charlie’s attitude in the least, he swiftly made known he was packing by slamming a revolver on the counter, behind six inches of protective glass.

The boom shook the counter and woke Judith, who then started to cry. The clerk scowled.

“If you don’t quiet down that thing, it’s going to be three,” the clerk grunted. “And then you’ll really be up a creek, won’t you now?”

Charlie turned away to calm down Judith who slowly settled back into her nap a few moments later. When he turned back, Charlie grudgingly agreed to the man’s terms.

“Here then,” Charlie said, shoving his arm across the counter and through the slit in the glass. The man loudly scoffed in disgust.

“Not here man, the machine,” cried the clerk, pointing him to the battered box in the corner with a screen and keypad in front and a circular insert at the side of it, like an old blood pressure cuff. “F****n’ dumbshit.” The clerk then returned to flipping through his savers magazine before Charlie even left his sight.

Charlie placed Judith to the left of the machine on a small bench barely wide enough for a kid. Luckily Judith was an infant and rested comfortably in his sweatshirt after he laid her down.

Goddamn two . . . how the hell am I going to do that. I doubt I can do one, Charlie groaned, rubbing the bags under his eyes. Still, he stepped up to the machine and tapped number two, which sent the cuff spinning, wheezing and whirling until replaced by a creepy digital voice. “Please insert your right arm,” it said. Charlie sat down on the bench, and put his arm in. A moment later after the cuff shrunk, he felt a slight pinch at the front of the elbow, followed by the voice instructing him, “Please hold still while two vials of blood are withdrawn for payment.”