Next Stop by Benjamin Resnick

Author:Benjamin Resnick
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Avid Reader Press
Published: 2024-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

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KYLE BENTON MET THEM JUST outside the park, the shirt of his gray uniform untucked and his sidearm hanging haphazardly off his hip. He was sitting on top of a large boulder—common in the northern part of the city where the bedrock was exposed—and when he saw them he waved and shouted something they could not quite make out. After hopping off the rock, he sauntered down a small hill and into a narrow corrugated-steel vestibule that had been set up near the entrance to the Northlands. Then he opened up a tablet and, with swift fingers, redirected the drone that was monitoring them from just above the trees. The three of them watched as it buzzed out over the park and landed softly in a field about a block south.

Kyle turned back. He had a soft, doughy face, with a rough beard that was beginning to go gray. As Ethan and Moti walked forward, Kyle stepped out of the vestibule, slid his baton from his belt, and raised it above his head.

“What the fuck do you hymies think you’re doing? You know the park is restricted this week.”

“Come on, Kyle,” Moti said. “I’m not in the mood right now.”

Kyle brought the baton down hard, missing Ethan’s arm by a few inches and sending little pieces of gravel flying. Ethan jumped. Kyle laughed and adjusted the holster of his pistol.

“You’re an asshole,” Ethan said.

“I thought you Jews loved assholes,” Kyle said, making a hole with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and sliding the index finger of his right hand in and out.

“Fuck off, Kyle,” Moti said, and Kyle, suddenly no longer smiling, said, “Careful, kike. You never know what a big goy like me is capable of.”

“I’ve got a pretty good sense,” Moti said. “Look, you said to be here on time. We’re going to be late now.”

“It’s always business with you people, isn’t it? Let me give you a piece of advice. There is value in the human touch.”

“That’s what you have?” Ethan asked. “The human touch?”

“Absolutely. Ask Abby. She’s a Jewess who comes to see me here in the mansion.” He smiled and pointed toward the vestibule. “In exchange for smartphone cases. She sells them on the street.”

“You’re disgusting,” Moti said, handing him a fifty-dollar bill. “Come on, let’s get to the station.”

The three men went along a paved road and then turned left into the Northlands—a lush, heavily wooded section of the park that stood opposite the Pale to the east. The Northlands had an almost tropical quality at the height of summer and they walked on a hiking path next to a narrow stream.

“It’s quickest this way,” Kyle said. “And it minimizes the chances that we’ll be picked up by any drones.”

“You know,” Ethan said, “if the goal is for us all to go down through the anomalies maybe you should just open the park all the fucking time.”

Kyle laughed. “You’re in the Pale as much for your protection as ours. That’s why the park is restricted.

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