Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King

by Blackmore, Keith C.

  Red carpet covered the floor. A little pill bottle lay underneath the table, barely noticeable from where he stood. Damned thing looked like a shotgun shell at a glance. He was just about to pick it up (and maybe the magazine) when he noticed fingertips sticking out from underneath the bed.

  Four withered fingers, the skin gray and loathsome in the meager light.

  The sight stopped him faster than a plank to the face.

  He stood there, blinking at those wasted digits, aware of his racing heart. The tip of the thumb was there, too, just visible. Someone was under the bed. Someone had come into the motel room, crawled underneath to escape the monsters, and that’s where they’d stayed. That’s where they stayed until—and this wasn’t a long stretch of the imagination—the vodka helped that poor bastard onboard the sleeping pill expressway all the way home. And that was that. It wasn’t the first tomb Gus had violated, but it certainly was the most recent, and seeing those fingers splayed out against the carpet disturbed him. He’d almost missed the corpse completely, and if he had missed it, he thought he might’ve just sat down upon that bed in one great big squawk of springs. Heedless of the body underneath.

  If it was indeed a body.

  ‘Course it’s a body, his mind scolded. Y’fuckin’ idiot. So get down there and check it out.

  His bad foot was starting to buzz, as if imprisoned in a boot-sized iron maiden, and the needles inside were hooked up to a generator. The light from the open doorway touched the tips of the fingers, and that just made the whole picture worse somehow. He wasn’t about to get down there and check things out. Fuck that noise. That was when things grabbed dipshits about the face and held on, held on until blood flowed. That wasn’t going to happen, obviously, not in Gus’s mind, but he wasn’t going to tempt fate.

  And he sure as hell wasn’t going to be stupid.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally whispered, and stepped on the fingers.

  Bones crackled, as brittle as eggshell, and just as noisy. He didn’t know what was worse, the sound, or that disconnected sensation of flattening a sausage. Gus pulled back and inspected the fingers, saw how a dull, gray matter had squeezed from cracks that weren’t there before. There was no blood, just an oozing jelly that might’ve been raw meat, and that was enough for him.

  Yup. You’re dead. Whoever the fuck you are.

  He left the unit and pulled the door shut behind him.

  There he stood, one hand on the knob, shoulders hunched as if deciding whether to puke or not. Cory and Bruno were still aboard their truck, leaning forward as if readying questions. Gus fired off a rapid head shake, signaling them to stand down.

  Which they did.

  “You okay?” Collie asked from the far end of the lot, her voice goosing him. She stood before a darkened doorway. Her third, considering the two doors left open in her wake.

  Oh yeah, Gus nodded, wincing a smile. As soon as she turned away, he sighed, righted himself, and again shook his head at Bruno and Cory, warning them not to say shit. He vowed to ensure that they took their turn checking things out. No reason not to share the fun.

  His foot fully charged now and radiating an accordion’s tune of discomfort, Gus headed to the next door.

  *

  While Gus and Collie continued their search, Bruno and Cory sat in their truck, the motor switched off. Cory had pushed back his jacket sleeves and Bruno was admiring the considerable artwork upon the man’s arms. Artwork that extended up both wrists to the mid-forearm and probably beyond.

  That reminded him.

  “Been meaning to ask you,” Bruno started. “Where you get all those tattoos?”

  Cory’s sunglasses remained pointed at the motel. “Here and there.”

  “They hurt?”

  “Not much.”

  “Must’ve hurt a little.”

  “You get a little addicted to it, to tell the truth.”

  “To what? The pain?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’d rather be addicted to the ladies.”

  Cory shrugged.

  Bruno looked ahead. “There was this rumor going around. That you were a bit of a hard case, right? Responsible for a few break-ins. Not that it matters now, of course. Not in this day and age.”

  Cory squirmed just a touch uncomfortably. “Yeah, that was me.”

  Bruno balked. “That was you?”

  The other man nodded.

  “Wanna share? Y’know… some details?”

  Cory huffed. “Should’ve known better,” he muttered in an unimpressed tone. “I know who told you. I only told one person. The one lady.”

  “Unless she told someone else. Who might’ve told someone else. Before I heard it. We’re from a small town now. Things get boring during the winter.”

  “Well, who’d you hear it from?”

  “Hey.” Bruno held up a hand. “I don’t reveal my sources. All I can say is it’s a small town and all that. But, seriously. You should’ve known better bringing that stuff up. That’s serious shit.”

  “Was serious shit,” Cory mumbled and thought things over. He cleared his throat and shook his head as if taking a snort of glue. “Well, like you said, doesn’t matter now. Yeah, I did a little of that. I was a little prick. A shit disturber. Only seventeen and looking out for myself. Only took cash and small stuff. Anything I could pawn off. Quick cash, you understand. Nothing big. And not for drugs or anything. I was smart enough to stay away from that garbage. Just spent it on games. Clothes and food and shit.” He flexed an arm. “Tattoos. As stupid as I was, I tried to be smart about it. Stayed small. They catch you with the big shit and you do time. Really do time if you’re a repeat offender.”

  “You don’t do that now?” Bruno asked.

  “No,” he drew out. “‘Course not. Well, I mean, people were dead. Things were different when the world stopped, right? It was about survival then. For real.”

  Bruno couldn’t fault him for that. “I guess so. Same for a lot of people, then. Me included.”

  Cory regarded him, waiting for the backstory.

  “Oh, you better believe it,” Bruno said. “I foraged what I could, going from house to house. I was holed up in a mobile home for months until I hooked up with this crowd. And I was lucky when I did. Still, you learn some things. Realize you have to make do. So, eventually, I went back out into the wild on my own. Looked around. Made contact here and there. Not with everyone, mind you. You can spot the savages easy enough. It was like they were hoarding Road Warrior costumes in their closet or some shit.”

  “I heard that,” Cory agreed.

  “Then there were the straight-up whack-jobs. The nail bags. Every bit as dangerous. Maybe even more.”

  “Met a few myself.”

  “Man oh man.” Bruno took a deep breath, lost in thought. “So how much time you do?” he finally asked.

  The brow above the sunglasses furrowed. “Time?”

  “Yeah, time. When you got caught.”

  “Who says I got caught?” Cory asked with a smile.

  A second later, Bruno smiled back.

  *

  A few minutes later, after regrouping with Cory and Bruno, Collie decreed that the motel was secure.

  “We’ll stay here,” she announced. “Follow me.”

  She led them through the motel lobby, which was mostly intact. A short hall led them past the main office and a janitorial room stocked full of supplies. Pictures hung on the wall—color prints of nearby lakes, smiling tourists, and early photos of the town. Gus glanced at a few before Collie led them all into a sizeable gym, which was behind the motel units.

  “Whoa,” Bruno whispered.

  Natural light flowed into the room through a bank of windows along the left wall. A dozen treadmills were lined up before the window, which looked out onto a parking lot. A separate entrance was located near the reception desk, where a stack of dusty towels sat upon a front desk.

  “Nice,” Cory added.

  “They got everything,” Co
llie said. “Free weights. Machines. Stretching mats. Treadmills over there.”

  Gus wasn’t overly impressed. He wasn’t into exercising.

  “This way,” Collie said, and she led them to another door.

  “What is it?” Bruno asked. “They got a pool?”

  “Nope. Better.”

  “Better than a pool?”

  Collie nodded. “The Mercers were diversified, God love them.” She stopped and regarded the guys behind her. “Take a look at this.”

  She swung the door open.

  Gus groaned.

  The Mercers, goddamn them, had a dojo next to their gym.

  “Kosugi Kenpo,” Collie said. A thick checkerboard of red and blue training mats, arranged in a square, covered the floor. Open lockers adorned the nearest wall, and all manner of sparring gear—headgear, gloves, chest protectors and shin pads—were discarded there. About six kicking pads were positioned at the far end, resembling oversized joysticks.

  “We don’t have much light left,” Collie said, “so I figured we settle in and go for a roll. Get some training in. Practice what you know.”

  Cory was nodding.

  Bruno was nodding.

  Gus was cringing.

  “I know that face,” Collie scolded. “This is for the best. You need to know how to defend yourself.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m serious. If you were alone—”

  Gus raised his hand, remembering her spiel from before. Around mid-August, Collie, Vick, and Amy had decided to teach introductory martial arts on the island. Mostly self-defense moves that, true to their name, needed a sparring partner to work. They had no proper training mats to speak of, so their dojo was the front lawn of an abandoned house. Collie had ordered Gus to take part, and for the first thirty minutes, they practiced one of the basics.

  Learning to fall.

  They practiced spreading out their arms before their backs crashed into the ground, over and over until their asses were too sore to continue. Already on in years, Gus didn’t appreciate the drill. He only fell a few times before he’d had enough.

  Then came the first of the self-defense moves.

  The thumb lock.

  He actually didn’t mind that one, admired how such little effort could completely immobilize an attacker. Other joint locks followed, crippling twist ties of flesh that trapped an attacker’s hands or limbs, whereupon the follow-up blow was usually the edge of a hand or a fist to the balls. A lot of the follow-up moves ended with a fist to the balls. There were so many fists to the balls, in fact, Gus wondered aloud what was with all the fists to the balls. It seemed like a crash course in dirty fighting, dispensing entirely with the notion of the honorable martial artist.

  Amy had provided an explanation for all the fists to the balls. On the streets, she’d said, there was no such thing as honor. Not if you wanted to live.

  Made sense, as cliché as it sounded.

  So, Gus essentially—reluctantly—learned how to fuck people up… mostly by punching them in the balls.

  Collie stepped up to the edge of the shiny training mat, offered a curt bow, and stepped onto the pliable surface.

  “Oh yeah. This is perfect. Perfect. Get your asses over here. All of you. And don’t forget to bow before you step into the training area.”

  The three men hesitated. Bruno even checked on what the others were going to do.

  “Collie,” Gus started to explain. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Get on this mat, gentlemen. We’re going to do hip tosses. You’ll barely feel the landing on this thing.”

  To drive the point home, Collie stamped her boot into the mat.

  Gus winced. Cory and Bruno didn’t move so quick, either.

  “Either you step onto the mat,” Collie started, “or I come over there and judo-toss your asses onto the mat. Five, four, three—”

  Gus bowed and stepped onto the mat.

  The boys were a second behind him.

  “Excellent,” Collie said with approval. “Now, pair up, we’ll go over what you know. Starting with thumb locks…”

  4

  After the short training session, the four settled in for the evening. Collie secured the perimeter with a makeshift alarm system, setting up several tripwires consisting of glass bottles, aluminum cans and a roll of fishing line.

  When she set up the last tripwire, she straightened and inspected her work laid out around the area like one-half of an octagon.

  “That’ll do, pig,” she said, hands on her hips. “That’ll do.”

  “You don’t think anyone will see that?” Gus asked behind her, indicating her traps.

  “Not in the dead of night.”

  He examined the tripwires, the trucks, and the distance to the two units they chose for the night. “That all we gonna do?”

  “‘Course not, silly,” Collie said. “How do you feel about keeping watch for the night? Just a shift.”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “Good. We’ll all take a shift. Just a precaution, you understand. Methinks this place is done like dinner.”

  “Truly done.”

  “But we don’t lower our guard, all the same,” Collie said. “Just in case. The town might be tits up, but the world isn’t. Honestly, we’ll see them before they see us.”

  Gus nodded.

  “You’re easy to get along with,” Collie said.

  “You’re the professional. What you say is good with me.”

  “Well, I’m all ears if you have any other ideas.”

  “How about getting something to eat?”

  They settled into two motel units that had a single connecting door. Bruno and Cory had brought in the supplies too valuable to be left in the trucks, and then laid out supper on the motel room’s dresser top. The group had supplies and rations enough for a week-long journey, not that they would need that much. Collie, however, decided to pack away as much as they could just in case. One never knew who or what they would encounter on the road.

  The men laid out bottles of preserved meats and vegetables along with a loaf of bread and a jar of sliced beets. Just as Gus’s stomach rumbled a message of hurry up, Cory cobbled together a set of magnificent sandwiches with gobs of butter and sandwich spread. Gus had to admit, considering the day and age, they still ate pretty damn well. And clean. Scott had hooked up with a group of people who did things the old-fashioned way. Everything was either grown, hunted, or fished. Even more surprising, what they ate tasted good. Real good. Art, the short order cook, was endeavoring to do greater things with what he had. The guy had even conceived the first pizza on the island, much to the surprise of all. It wasn’t a meat lover’s special or anything, but it had deer salami and pepperoni, garlic, goat cheese (which wasn’t bad in the least), tomato sauce, onion, red and green peppers, and mushrooms. Everything except the deer was produced from local gardens, and Art informed them that if it wasn’t on the pizza, it either wasn’t in season or they were all out.

  After a day of digging graves and driving through some pretty depressing countryside, the sandwiches laid out before them looked like a banquet. As good as the food was, Gus actually looked forward to the jar of beets. They possessed an earthy taste but were sweetened with natural sugars. He quickly grew to like it. Even crave it. Juice included.

  They ate by candlelight, drank water from jugs, and talked in between bites, while Collie, with one hand on her hi-tech German assault rifle, parked herself by the window. The silence pressing down from the outside made their eating seem very loud indeed, and they found themselves talking in low tones despite the emptiness of the world.

  “So, Collie,” Cory asked after supper. “You say you got down to Ottawa once or twice?”

  Holding her rifle close to her chest, Collie pressed one shoulder to the wall and peeked out at the parking lot. “Before or during meatbag season?”

  “During.”

  “Yeah, we got down there. Checked on things.”

  �
��How was it?”

  Bruno looked across the table at Gus, wondering if the questions were sensitive. Gus didn’t rightly know himself.

  “Messy,” she answered simply. “Very messy. I was part of a team sent down that way. We were tasked with finding a dozen operators who’d been dispatched to the city about five or six months prior. To recon the area. We found them—what was left of them—inside a courthouse. Now, this courthouse was built in the early 1800s. I mean, big brother to a brick shithouse. Stone walls. Bars on windows. A small fortress, really. With modern-day upgrades. Anyway, despite all that, the place had been overrun by dead fuckers. We couldn’t count the bodies, there were so many. Too many. It was the Moe version of the Alamo. We thought that the place was surrounded by corpses. Nope. Turns out there was a moat surrounding the place. An honest-to-God moat. All around the entire outer wall. The missing operators had filled it with the dead. Filled it to the brim. And the unliving had walked across it. They crawled up the walls, where they were shot dead for the final time. And there they piled up. There were… ramps of them. Spilling over into the courtyard and filling that up as well—all the way up to the second-floor windows, where there weren’t any iron bars. There were plenty of leftovers walking around when we got there, so we engaged when we had to, to get clear of them. On our way back from that clusterfuck we got mixed up in a running gun battle with a pack of road crazies. Maybe one or two hundred psychotics in all, and every one of them very much interested in where we got our weapons. They chased us into Canada’s Wonderland, where we decided to end it. Only me and Wallace walked away from that one.”

  A grim smile spread across her features. “We widened some assholes that day. Anyway, from that time on, we stayed away from cities. Learned our lesson. We kept to the smaller towns and such. It was safer. No trips into Toronto, either. The radiation would turn you green seconds before you melted down to the ankles.”

  That quieted the men. Bruno and Cory shifted uncomfortably.

  Gus cleared his throat. “You guys know if toilet paper goes bad?”

  Heads swung in his direction.