Chapter 3- Madison
They readied themselves for their journey in the mid morning, around 9 Madison guessed. Arturo fitted himself with a backpack. He showed it to Madison, it was full of many things. There were bullets, guns, an assortment of articles of clothing, canned foods, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
He handed Madison a Glock 19 with a full clip and a ball-peen hammer. When he handed the hammer to her, it nearly brought her into a state of shock with how similar it was to the one she used on Troy. Silently she laughed, maybe this was fate reminding her of her sins. Regardless, she brushed it off.
Arturo also gave her a new pair of clothes to wear. She was grateful, the clothes she had been wearing since they arrived in Tijuana to travel to the dam began to make her feel dirty, and when she awoke the previous night, they were soaking wet.
She now wore a green button down shirt with a pair of jeans that matched Arturo's, with the exception that the ones she was wearing were intended to be worn by a female. Were these his wife's clothes? Maybe a sister? Madison didn't intend on asking, she knew the memories would be painful if they indeed were the clothes of someone he had lost. The thought of someone wearing Travis' old clothes would have enraged her as well.
Before leaving, Arturo hugged his daughters. He spoke to them in Spanish before handing them another gun. Despite the language barrier, as a parent Madison knew what he was saying. He wanted them to keep quiet, not attract any attention, be smart, and if it came down to it, defend themselves without a second thought.
She looked away, she couldn't bear herself to see a touching moment between a parent and their children, it reminded her too much of her own. She hoped she would find them, and they would be safe.
If Nick survived the explosion, she thought, pausing with emotion clouding her thoughts, if Nick is okay, he will be fine here. He can survive on his own. Alicia is who I worry about.
It was true, Alicia never had a rebellious streak as a teenager. The closest thing was her quitting softball after Travis proposed to Madison. Madison remembered the hell that brought on, Nick ran to his drugs and his junkie friends and Alicia blew up. Alicia claimed Madison never loved her former husband, that she must have been confused, and while Madison and Stephen had their marital issues, Madison loved the man, despite how confusing that love was.
She pushed these irrelevant thoughts of the past to the back of her mind, being stuck in the past is an easy way to find yourself killed nowadays. She knew it. And I'm not going to let myself live in the old world, I'm going to have to adapt.
Out of the breast-pocket of his shirt, Arturo pulled a rosary out. He began to kneel and pray, moving each bead slowly though his hand. Madison watched him, wondering how someone can still believe in God, if that God chose for the dead to rise and eat the living.
When he finished his prayers, he handed the rosary to Madison. "Quieres, do you want?" He said, mixing English and Spanish together.
Madison shook her head, "God hasn't done much for me in these past few months.
He placed the rosary back into his pocket. He looked at Madison, slightly nodding. "I do not blame you. Sometimes I doubt whether or not God is watching over this world."
Madison returned the look, mentally trying to rationalize his point of view.
As the two left the house, the heat of the Mexican sun hit her. It was a dry heat, not humid like the summer months in Alabama had been. Los Angeles had these temperatures too, but the availability of air conditioning had made it quite a bit more bearable to the woman. She looked towards the man, he seemed not at all bothered by the heat. The stench of death however, seemed to face them both. Madison had adapted to it quite well, but it seemed Arturo still had his issues.
In the front of the house there was a large white terracotta wall with a painted metal gate, barbed wire sitting on top, seemingly placed hastily. A stone pathway led from the door to the gate. As they walked along, Madison noticed the neighboring houses which were placed directly next to the walls. The red house to the right was significantly taller. While Arturo's house was two stories, the one next to it seemed to be three. The windows were not boarded up or barred shut, which slightly worried Madison.
"Are you not worried that one of the walkers could fall through those windows?" She asked, pointing up towards the glass windows.
"No no," Arturo replied, now opening the gate with a key and stepping out, waiting for Madison to follow him, which she did. He then locked the gate and placed the key in his back pocket. "I do not worry. That family left a few weeks back, tried heading up to Los Angeles."
The mention of her home city brought Madison back memories. "Do you think they made it?"
Solemnly, Arturo responded by saying, "No. I found them lined up. Three shots in three heads." They began to walk the street, staying on the sidewalk. "Cartel, I think."
"Are the cartels still around? Do they still cause any trouble?" Madison asked.
Almost laughing, Arturo shook his head. "No no. You see Madison, the cartels were stupid. They waved their guns around, scared the people, killed them if they did not do what they wanted." A lone walker began to approach. Arturo stepped towards it, taking his machete and removing the walkers scalp, killing it. "Perdón, pero the cartels were stupid. Their power rested with the people they scared. And when there are not as many people to scare, you have no power." He pointed at the now dead walker with his machete, "And to los muertos, all humans are the same. Meat."
She chucked. "I guess you aren't wrong about that."
Together the two walked the streets, occasionally encountering a walker or two and taking them out with no issue. Abandoned cars and vendors' carts lined the streets, dust beginning to collect on the cars. Occasionally Madison was tempted to kill the walkers she found inside the cars, to put them out of her misery, but she refused. The sound of glass breaking was a risk she was not willing to take.
"So, where are we headed? My children could be anywhere in this city, where do you think they could be?" She asked.
She looked to him, sweat beading on his forehead, just as she felt sweat on her own brow. "I cannot promise we will find anything today, but we can start at the market. It is the biggest area of the living I can think of in the city."
"How big is it?" She asked. The idea of a market reminded her too much of El Bazar. The sin I saw there made Vegas look like a Mormon summer camp. And while Madison was quite in awe of a center of civilization being present in such a damaged world, it scared her. She was scared for Nick and Alicia if they were indeed there. She knew Nick had been experimenting with drugs again, and she didn't trust him alone.
Arturo stopped for a minute to think, "I would say it is massive. Maybe a thousand people a day, maybe more." He pointed north. "It was built in an amusement park. Mundo Divertido was the name. It had gates and walls and people began to go to it after the apocalypse. They sell everything you can imagine. Food, medicine, guns, clothes. Everything."
They began walking again, the streets looking almost deserted. In the distance the sights began to be altered by the heat. Madison guessed it had to have been over 85 degrees.
"Who runs it?" She asked.
"I have no idea, some say nobody runs it, that It's for the community." He shook his head, "I doubt that. The men with guns at the entrance don't do their jobs for free. Even after the dead rose to kill the living, nothing is free."
"Except what you take from others."
Arturo held his machete, examining it carefully. "That is a different price gringa, that price is your soul. Maybe you will live another day, but God will know what you did."
"Why do you still believe in God? The dead are coming back to kill the living, what merciful God would allow this?"
"My God." He replied, patting the rosary in his pocket. "God can give and God can take. God gave too much to the world. He gave us the land, the animals, the water. And what did we humans do." He pointed the machete at a decomposing body, bullet holes covering the skin. "We killed our fellow man, we burnt the ground and we slaughtered and abused the animals he gave to us. This is the way God plans to separate the righteous from the sinners. Those who are worthy of living will live, and those who are not will not."
This angered her. What of Travis, and Ofelia, and all the people who didn't deserve to die but did. "What about the good people who died? The people who died in unfortunate accidents."
"Then they get into heaven sooner than others, and they're lucky. Part of me is jealous."
This made sense to Madison. It intrigued her, she had never met someone who found solace in the apocalypse. Maybe peace is possible in this world.
Almost comically as she said this, a walker lurched out of an alleyway. It grabbed onto Arturo, pulling at his arms. "Madison, ayúdame!"
She pulled out the glock from her waistband, she held it out and pulled back the hammer. She took a deep breath in, trying to steady her shaking hands. She fired. BLAM. Blood splattered onto Arturo while the body fell to the ground.
"Pinche… We need to move, and fast. Every muerto in 5 kilometers heard that shot." He wiped the blood off of his face with his sleeve and readjusted his backpack. As they began to walk faster and faster, Arturo was proved right. Countless of the infected nearly poured out of the alleyways and buildings.
Madison had an idea. "Arturo! Stop!" She yelled. Reluctantly he stopped, looking back in confusion. As they were far enough away, Madison felt comfortable doing what she had learned from Nick. A stray walker approached, dressed in business attire and balding, Madison slammed her hammer into the side of its head, like she had done to Troy. "Give me your machete, now."
He held it out and she aggressively snatched it from him. Before gutting the walker, she looked towards the oncoming horde of infected that were pursuing them. She plunged the blade into the stomach of the walker, opening his intestines and began to rub the blood onto her skin and clothes. The idea was disgusting, this was further confirmed by the look on Arturo's face. His face contorted to form a look of confusion and horror.
"What are you doing? Are you crazy?"
"Arturo, this works, trust me. If we don't do this I don't think we can make it to the market."
He placed his hands out. Madison grabbed a handful of the blood, smearing it on his arms and hands. She motioned for him to drop down. When he did, she rubbed the blood on his brow and cheeks. His face contorted with the smell. Madison didn't blame him, she was shocked she didn't vomit.
As they stood up, Madison motioned for him to walk slowly. Not to rush or make sudden movements. As they did so, the horde slowly reached them.
At first her heart pounded, scared of one of them seeing through the disguise and tearing her to shreds. But they didn't. They stumbled past the pair, and with the exception of a rogue undead hand that brushed against Madison's, no walker took notice of the two.
Madison took notice of Arturo's mumbling. Listening in, she realized he was praying. All in Spanish, but she knew it had to be praying.
"God listened." She said, keeping her voice down just in case the horde decided to turn back.
He looked up, making sure it was safe. "God listens to those who deserve to speak with him."
They walked down the street, Arturo informed Madison that Mundo Divertido was only 3 miles away. Which eased Madison's fear, as much as she knew she would be fine, the idea of walking for hours in the heat with very little water in her system scared her. She had drunk a glass at the house but she didn't want to faint.
After about 10 minutes of walking, a question burned into her mind. "Arturo," he looked back, "How did you learn English so well? I know Tijuana is next to the border, but you have a wide vocabulary."
Arturo chuckled. "When I was a young man, I did many jobs." He began, rubbing a rag on his face to remove the walker blood. "Some legal, some not so legal. I transported guns, drugs, all sorts of things. Some years I worked on farms, others I worked in factories. The only thing consistent was the jumping between America and Mexico. Through this I picked up English, enough to navigate my way through my business. And then one day, I met a woman." This intrigued Madison, was this woman the previous owner of her clothes she was wearing? "She was a pretty girl, with blonde hair and a face shaped like a heart. She had a smile that could turn winter into summer. Every day at 4:30 I would see her walk out of her job at a café and everyday I'd try to talk to her, but I never could."
"Were you scared?" Madison interjected.
"No, I just never felt strange. I had never been nervous of a woman. If I wanted a woman I would have her, but Mariella was different. Eventually I talked to her, I asked her on a date. After disappearing for weeks every now and then, she finally cornered me and I told her the story. And right then and there she offered to marry me, to keep me in America so I didn't have to keep running."
"And why didn't you stay? A lot of people would give up a lot to have that opportunity."
"I could never live in America, it was too much for me. But she agreed to move to Mexico with me, she always wanted to travel. And so she came here and we had our daughters."
"And then this shit happened?"
"Si, and then this shit happened."
Madison debated on asking what happened to Mariella, after a few moments of this pondering, she asked, "And what happened to her? Is she the original owner of these clothes?"
"You're smart Madison." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "4 months ago when everything began, almost immediately she left for Los Angeles. She wanted to get her family and bring them down here. Then we leave and live away from everyone else." He paused, putting his open palm over his mouth, hiding the emotion on his face. "I have not heard from her since, but everyday I pray she returns home soon."
She didn't make it. Madison immediately thought. She would have been lucky to even make it across the border. Madison assumed as soon as the infection spread, the border was locked down completely. And if she did make it to LA… Madison remembered the bombs and the fire as her family left. Anyone would have been lucky to make it out of that city.
As she stepped over a corpse, Madison asked, "How are your daughters handling it? Do they think she's coming back."
Arturo looked at her, his face turning sour. Madison could tell that she had unintentionally hit a nerve. "Shit I'm-"
He put his hand up, "No it is okay. They want their mother to return home. They ask me everyday." He paused, "I tell them she's busy. But Andrea knows, but Elena has no idea."
"Maybe God kept her safe? I've seen stranger things happen in this world." Madison replied.
"Everyday I pray for that."
The rest of their walk was awkwardly silent. The pain of the conversation burning in both of their hearts. Madison was a mother, she understood the pain he felt. She knew how she felt when Travis and Chris left, how worried she was. Travis returned to me, so why can Mariella nor return to him?
After what felt like an hour, they arrived at the Amusement Park. The sight was like nothing she had seen. The sounds coming from the market was what alerted her that they were close to their destination. Loud music could be heard from at least 400 yards away. The sounds of civilization.
When she saw the base, her breath was taken away. A small, mostly knocked down fence sat at the first row. After that, abandoned cars were set up strategically in the parking lot, most likely for cover if they were attacked. The tires of the cars were either removed or had been deflated. After several rows of the cars, a collection of buildings stood. All the windows were boarded up, but the music remained, showing her that civilization was present.
As they got even closer, she saw signs. They read "Mercado" and "Factoría". The signs were hand painted with various colors on plywood. The signs were screwed onto the buildings, so they could not be removed easily.
A smell assaulted her and Arturo's noses. The trail of smoke that she had not noticed beckoned for her attention. As her eyes followed it, she noticed a pile of corpses, a fire consuming their flesh. As she breathed the smell in again, she first felt the sharp sulfury scent of the smoke, and then the death. She felt her stomach turn queasy. If she had the chance to eat anything, she would have thrown it up, but the lack of food caused her to dry heave.
Arturo patted her on the back, trying to get her to feel better, or more likely, get her to stop. As she was dry heaving, she heard laughter. She looked up and noticed two guards, one small man and one large man, posted at the entrance, wearing bandanas across their noses and mouths to avoid the horrific smell of the burning walkers. They wore matching blue shirts, with Mundo Divertido written in a cartoonish green font with a cartoon purple dinosaur to match. The contrast between the cartoon dinosaur and the assault rifles they held in their hands almost made Madison laugh if she had not been feeling like hell incarnate.
Madison managed to stand up and follow Arturo to the guards. They began to speak in very rapid Spanish, to which Madison did not understand much of. They sounded as if they were ridiculing Arturo. Arturo took this tone well and kept nodding. He then turned around and began to walk away.
As he swiftly walked away, Madison asked him, in a confused tone, "What the hell did they say? Where are you going?"
Annoyed, he replied, "They said we are too dirty to get into the market. We are covered in blood and dirt and we need to wash ourselves."
This confused Madison. The guards can burn a pile of bodies that emit a stench like death incarnate, but they refuse to allow them to enter.
As they left to walk to the nearby river, they saw multiple groups of people walking across the parking lot. One group was a mother and a small child, maybe around five or six. Another was a white man with his hand wrapped in bandages. One was a middle aged woman pulling a vendor's cart by herself, she was struggling but Madison did not have the time to assist her. All of the people walking up covered their mouths and noses by pulling the collars of their shirts up onto their faces.
Arturo's hands motioned for her to follow her. Many lone groups of people were walking the opposite ways of them. Some of them looked broken, lost, hurt. And some looked relaxed, as if going to the market was a daily occurrence, which it most likely was.
The now much more relaxed river met them at the end of the street. It had calmed greatly since she was rescued by Arturo's family. The color of the water still remained the dirt brown it had been, but the debris that Madison remembered had largely been cleaned out by now.
As they stood at the bank, Arturo began to remove his clothing. He placed his backpack on the concrete, and then his shirt and pants. Lastly his shoes and socks came off. "Adelante." He commanded, almost not noticing, or caring, that Madison was unlikely to do the same.
"I think I'll keep my clothes on."
He shrugged, now bringing the water up into his hair by cupping his hands together and letting it fall down his body.
Madison removed her boots and socks, but kept the rest of her clothing on. She stepped into the water, only slightly so as to not get swept away. Her skin fluttered at the first touch of the water on her skin. In contrast to the heat of the sun bearing down on them, the water was frigid. It reminded her of the feeling she would get in her pool when she was growing up in Alabama. During the dog days of the Southern summer she would jump into it all at once, letting her body grow accustomed to the temperature.
Her hands ran through the water. When she pulled them out, the blood slid off of her palms, becoming clean again. When she pulled her hands away, in the corner of her eye, she noticed a familiar figure. It was a taller man with tanned skin and the dark jean jacket. Travis?
She blinked again, and he was gone. A figment of her imagination at best. She had tried her best to not think about him after he had passed. The fact that most upset her is that they never found his body. She wished she could have gotten the slightest bit of confirmation of his fate.
"Are you okay Madison?" Arturo called out, slowly wading through the brown water to make sure she was okay.
She nodded her head, "Yeah." She paused for a second, taking another double take. In the spot where she thought she saw Travis, all that stood was a knocked over trashcan, with garbage bags sitting idly. "Yeah yeah, it was nothing."
She continued to wash herself. The blood came off from her body, making her feel clean again, a feeling she hadn't felt in weeks. Not since the ranch fell and they lost all access to showers. The water surrounding her turned red with the blood, but it faded as the river swept it away, mixing it with the newly endless supply of water.
After a few minutes of washing herself, she returned to the concrete bank and placed the socks and boots onto her feet again. She wished she had some soap, or maybe some shampoo and conditioner. She especially wished she had her coconut perfume she loved so dearly. But those memories felt like they were a lifetime ago. A life which she rarely tried to think about now.
The pair returned to the two guards. Between the two was a gate made of chain link fence. As she looked in, she saw a massive amount of people walking around inside, with it nearly looking like the hustle and bustle of some of the markets she had visited in Los Angeles.
Arturo showed them that the pair were now clean. They had a quick exchange in rapid Spanish, which culminated in Arturo allowing his backpack to be searched by the fat guard. The other guard's skinny counterpart reached out his hand to Madison. She looked at Arturo, confused.
"¿Armas?" He asked, his voice sounded remarkably like that of a teenager, with the uneven vocal range and shakiness that she had heard so often when she worked in the school.
"Do it, they will not let us enter if we do not give them away." Arturo instructed.
Madison followed as instructed and handed the boy her weapons. He took a plastic container out from near his feet, ripped a section of masking tape off, removed a marker from his pocket, and asked, "¿Nombres?"
"Arturo y Madison."
The boy began to write, placing the guns and melee weapons inside and setting the container back down to his feet next to other containers with various weapons as well. The fat man grabbed a key from his waist and unlocked the gate, motioning for them to enter.
The idea of a trading post set up in an old amusement park was not one that Madison expected to take her breath away, but it did. All around her, some form of attractions laid, begging for her attention. The streets (Madison struggled to call them streets, as they were more or less spaces where there were no vendors) were crowded with people. All types of people as well, she saw Mexicans, white people, black people, asians. As well as the diversity in the demographics she saw, the signs were in both Spanish and English. She saw signs for water salesmen, bars, restaurants, and in the very distance she noticed a makeshift mechanic shop. In fact, almost everything was makeshift. The buildings were very obviously not here before the apocalypse, they were constructed with sheet metal, wood, and various colors of tarps. The chaotic beauty of the trading post did remind her somewhat of El Bazar, there was a noticeable difference in the atmosphere. While El Bazar was obviously ran by a biker gang, this place seemed much more wholesome.
"Do you want water? It has been a long and hot day." Arturo asked, pointing towards a stand where a large mustached man sat with many glasses of water.
She snapped out of her trance, and nodded. As they walked to the water stand, Madison kept an eye out for any familiar faces. Ideally, the faces of Nick and Alicia. But at this point she would settle for anyone who had any clue where her children were.
She wanted to take them and she wanted to leave the border as soon as possible. She had thought about it a lot, she could take them back to the ranch. There's probably still some food there, if Alicia didn't mind the trauma she sustained from the bunker and Nick didn't mind the reminders of his dead friend and his father who he killed.
The man at the water stand was a larger man with a mustache. He wore a trucker hat, jeans and a button up shirt, the shirt not hiding his large gut. He sat on a bench, looking slightly depressed. Arturo walked up, speaking Spanish and motioning for 2 glasses. The man's face brightened and he very quickly grabbed the glasses and handed them to the pair. Arturo reached into his backpack and handed him a handful of bullets.
The two continued to talk for some time, as she waited Madison began sipping the water, still looking around at the passersby, but she recognized none of them, their faces all mixing together into one conglomerate of men and women, soon to die in any manner of horrific ways.
As they finished their conversation, Arturo returned to Madison's side. "You know him?" She asked, curious if Arturo was truly just that friendly.
"We've spoken before, I've bought from him many times." Arturo took a drink from his glass of water. "He says he's going out of business. Nobody buys the water anymore. The new river has made his business useless if anyone can get water. But he insists his water is more clean, more safe."
She felt a tinge of guilt. The vendor looked like a good man, sweet, hard working, and she had been one of the reasons behind him losing his livelihood. It's not his livelihood. She thought. Nobody has any sort of livelihood anymore. This thought reassured her.
As they finished their waters, they put the glasses back onto the wooden counter and walked off. "So what is the plan? Do you want to split up and search?"
"Yeah, that would be best, we'd be able to cover more ground. The market wraps around correct?" Arturo nodded. "Then I'll take the west side and you can take the east side. And we'll meet up at the very back."
"That is a good plan, but what do your children look like? There are many Americans here. I need a description."
She thought of the best way to describe her children. Nick was easier to describe than Alicia, he was quite a bit more noticeable in a crowd. "My son, Nick, he's a scraggly kid. Kinda mangy. He's a little taller than me, a little tan, skinny, he's got brown hair and it might be slicked back."
"And your daughter?" He said.
"My daughter is more plain. Her name's Alicia. She's got long brown hair." Madison pointed out where it lay on Alicia's shoulders on Madison's own. "She's got high cheekbones and she's about my height." Madison wished she had pictures of the two of them, but she lost those pictures when she lost her house in Los Angeles.
"I will try my best, but I cannot promise anything." Arturo said, a look saying 'forgive me if i can't do this' covered his face.
"Trying is better than nothing." Madison had her doubts, she doubted they could find her children in a makeshift market, she doubted that if they were here she could even find them in the crowd, she doubted if they… No. They made it. They're strong and smart.
As she walked down the streets, she made sure to keep an eye out for any familiar faces. She saw many people, some young, some old, some children. She saw men, women, couples, parents and their children. All coming to this one location for both safety and possibly leisure.
Behind her, a commotion was heard. "Alto! Stop! Thief!" As Madison looked back, she saw a man running, a full roasted chicken in his hands. The man was American, dirty blond hair, pale white skin, he looked like a fish out of water. As he ran past Madison, knocking a man to the ground, one of the guards who wore the blue shirts emerged out of an alleyway, she raised her assault rifle and fired a shot. With a scream the man fell to the ground, blood spewing out of a hole the backside of his leg.
Madison approached, trying to get a better look at the situation. As others had the same idea as her, she could not make it to the forefront of the situation, but she could slightly see. The man's face was read, blood vessels tense from his face. He had a soft face, clean shaven and young. As he screamed a torrent of racial slurs and hate, the guard coldly and callously took care of the situation. With one shot he quieted and blood began to pool around his head.
The guard ordered another guard who was approaching to take away the body, this time ordering it in English. The other guard picked his body up, carelessly throwing it over his shoulder, blood dripping onto his shirt.
Shaking that experience off, Madison kept walking down the street. Looking into an alleyway, a sight caught her eye. In the more dimly lit light, a small hole in the wall bar sat. In red, white, and blue text, it read "La Americana: American Bar and grill" with an American flag hanging and waving in the wind. The flag was oddly clean, almost as if the owners of the bar routinely made sure it wasn't tainted by the grit and grime of the apocalypse.
The door opened into the bar with the chime of a bell attached to the door. Inside a man sat behind the counter, various bottles of alcohol sat behind him.
He looked to be in his late 40s or early 50s. He oozed the aura of a conman, with brown hair, speckled greatly with gray, which fell to his shoulders. On his body he wore a dark gray jean jacket with a white undershirt and black pants He wore a pair of black aviators, which combined with his goatee gave Madison the impression that he was exactly what she had always expected out of Tijuana from what she heard over the news before the apocalypse.
Next to him a bald man stood, grilling a steak on a foreman propane grill, the smoke exiting from a hole in the ceiling. His head was complaining shaved bald, with a hardened look in his eyes. His skin was a darker brown, and he looked much more like a stereotypical Mexican than the other man behind the counter.
As the bartender noticed her, a smile crept onto his face. It was not a creepy smile, but it did not contain the warmth Madison would have liked to see.
"Hello my fellow American. What seems to bring you to my humble abode?" His words felt slippery, the grease nearly spilling out from them. He had the same suave charisma as Victor Strand had.
Victor. Alicia. Nick. Her thoughts spun around her briefly, attempting to take over the level headedness she was attempting to preserve.
She walked closer to the bar, "I'm an American, born and bread. When an American sees an American flag they flock to it, don't they?"
He chuckled, "You're smarter than most Americans around here ma'am." The man turned back and grabbed a glass and a white wine bottle, opening the bottle and pouring the liquid into the glass. He handed it towards her. "This one's on the house, think of it as a gift."
The stool she sat down at was hard, but despite that it relaxed her sore muscles. She took the glass with one hand and inspected it. She smelled the wine, admiring the unique aroma it contained. It brought back faint memories of a wine tasting with Stephen, before the dark hands of depression took control of him.
"You can call me Teller." He held out his hand to shake, which Madison obliged. She shook his hand firmly, as her father had taught her.
"Oh wow, a firm handshake. You must mean business Miss..?"
"Clark." She took a drink of the wine, feeling it slide down her throat. "Madison Clark."
"Well Madison Clark. What brings you to El Mundo Divertido?" He said, bringing emphasis onto the Spanish in his sentence. He stood up from the leaning position he had taken on the counter and placed the wine back onto the shelf. "Get lost on your way to Cancún?" He laughed to himself, it was a quick airy laugh.
"I guess you could say that." She responded coldly. She could feel a slight buzz from the wine she had drank. She had never been a heavy weight when it came to drinking, she found that out during her freshman year at USC, and she tended to only do it socially or when the kids were away. "I'm looking for my children."
As she described Nick and Alicia and their situation, Teller seemed to listen. A surprising fact to Madison who expected him to either make a sexual remark or not listen. He thought for a minute, rose and asked the other man at the grill, "Rico, have you seen her children around here?"
Rico shook his head, not saying a word and staying focused on his steak.
"That's Rico. He doesn't speak much." Teller's voice shrunk to a whisper, "Apparently the cartels cut his tongue off. He missed a payment on his loan and that was all it took." He paused for a second, and responded with a quick quip, "But he still understands English," He paused, only to resume by quipping, "and that's the important part isn't it?"
"So you haven't seen either of my children?"
"I'm sorry ma'am but no, we can try to keep an eye out for them. We see a lot of people come nighttime."
Despair filled her heart. She sighed a sigh of defeat, her heart breaking. She just wanted to find her children, to keep them safe. Keep them out of the dangers of this world.
Rico attempted to say something, but it came out as an inaudible sound, like it was mixed between a grunt and a cry. Deep down it alarmed Madison, but she said nothing.
Teller walked over as Rico slopped the steak onto the plate. The floorboards creaking with every step. Teller returned over to the counter and slid the plate to Madison. "Here, again it's on the house. You look like you need to eat. And sleep."
"I need to do a little bit of everything." And it was true, she did. She had masked the pain and exhaustion with her pure desire to find her children, but nonetheless it began to infest her body. Every muscle begging to rest.
Teller turned around, handing Madison a fork and a knife from a utensil holder. "Don't we all? I don't think anyone's gotten any good sleep since this shit storm began."
She took a bite of the steak. In her opinion it was slightly too well done for her, but in this world even asking for food to be made again was a joke at best, and a stupid mistake at worse.
Between her first bite and her second, she asked, "So tell me, you seem to know the area well. What do you know about the Proctors?"
Just from the way his face changed, she knew he knew that name. A look of shock covered his face. He took off his aviators, revealing scarring around his right eye. "Why the hell are you asking about them?" He said, sternly.
She gulped. Her voice quieted, not by her own means, almost as if her voice had a mind of its own. "They're after me."
Teller sighed. "How the… Jesus fuckin'" He put his hand onto his forehead, massaging his temples.
"I blew up the dam." She said callously, taking another drink, now finishing the white wine. "They wanted the dam, they wanted to establish it as a trading post." She paused, pushing her dishes away from her, as she had finished. "I stopped them."
Pacing around, Teller began, "I served The Proctors before the fall. They were the worst men you could think of. Abusers, rapists, murderers, thiefs. The worst of society's underbelly. They ran drugs, guns…" He stopped, as if he was remembering the past. "..everything."
"You served them?" Madison asked, now growing nervous that Teller was a ploy to find Madison and either capture or kill her. "How did you serve them? Are you still in connection with them?"
Teller shook his head. "Hell no. I served them at my bar here, in Tijuana. I agreed to give them free drinks if they kept me safe from the cartels." He hesitated, slightly shaking his head while looking down. "They took it too far. I thought- shit I prayed they were dead. And a man like me doesn't talk to God and vice versa."
This confirmed Madison's fears. The Proctors have connections in this world, they could find me at any corner. Any man, woman, or child could be looking for the blonde bitch who killed their dreams of owning Tijuana. I know not everything from the old world was lost… but I hoped the connections a gang would have had would have been abandoned.
"Fuck." Teller paced around, exasperation filling him. "Fuck, fuck, FUCK."
"What?" Madison questioned, timidly as to not upset the man.
His eyes looked furious. "Madison, don't you realize what this means?" He stopped for a minute, he pointed towards the direction the dam had stood in. "If they wanted to invade the dam and establish it as a trading post, this is their backup. The park is the biggest settlement in Tijuana, they're gonna come and fuck everything we have here up. Maybe not today, or tomorrow, but they're going to come."
"Calm down Teller, I don't even know if John survived. I don't even know if anyone survived…" Again, her damned thoughts wandered towards the negative assumption of the deaths of her children, her allies, her enemies.
Panic seemed to consume Teller, his breathing increased. "Look, you don't get it Madison. These are bad men. Bad men." He repeated 'Bad men' for effect, emphasizing it with his hands. "You better pray John's alive, because the men who work under him are even less civilized, John's the good egg out of the rotten bunch."
If John's the good one, then the other men must be truly barbaric. She thought. She knew that was the standard for this world, and even she knew she had adapted to it, deep down she prayed that good still survived, and Arturo was living proof of this.
The Mexican amazed her at both his devotion to faith, and his devotion to the good of humanity. He chose to save a woman from certain death, all for nothing. Madison could have killed him or his daughters, and he took that risk.
The bells rung, signaling the arrival of a new patron to the establishment. Instinctively Madison looked back, shock filled her, and she could only mutter one word to the arrival of an old ally.
"Luciana?"
