He would only have a second, if that.
Top Gun lunged toward the corpse, landing hard, metal and bone scrubbing pavement. He skinned out his unprotected elbow on the coarse surface and felt a moment’s terror when his right foot slipped and blew out behind him. But then he collapsed upon Jolly Jake and rolled over his dead leader. He got onto his chest and gave the corpse a quick pat down.
No keys.
Top Gun hoped to God that Jake had left them in his truck, because he wasn’t crawling back to his own ride. Without another thought, the part-time soldier slapped the AUG-20 down on Jake’s sunken ribcage. He screwed his face into the sights and scanned the distant crest.
Pickup truck.
Open door. On both sides.
No shooter, however. None that he could see.
A man stuck his head out from behind the door, moving around, staying low but being sloppy about it. No doubt thinking the dirty work had been done. Or that he was well out of range. The guy had a thick beard and wore a winter cap. Sunglasses shielded his eyes.
Top Gun centered the reticle upon the target’s face, intending to give back some pain. He forced himself to exhale and the bearded bastard ducked just as Top Gun squeezed the trigger.
Missed.
But the unmistakable blast and scream of the bullet had alerted the target. The guy dropped from sight. Furious, Top Gun panned right. There were no targets besides the obvious, so he made do with that. He fired, squeezing the trigger three times, the rifle softly bucking against his shoulder. Spidery holes appeared in the vehicle’s windshield with misty pops. The fourth shot punched the road’s shoulder, spraying crushed stone.
Baring his teeth, Top Gun adjusted his aim. The truck’s tires weren’t visible, but the engine block was.
So he placed six shots into the grill, the impacts sparkling.
“Take that, you piece of shit,” he snarled. “Take that.”
Satisfied, Top Gun yanked back his weapon and staggered into a run, thinking of escape. Jake’s ride was there, ready and waiting. He hurried to the driver’s side, whipped open the door, and scrambled aboard, shoving his weapon muzzle-first into the passenger side. Slamming the door, Top Gun located the key fob and jammed his thumb into the ignition button.
The pickup’s engine flared to life with a biodiesel roar.
“You want the cargo, bitches?” Top Gun asked, his voice laced with venom. “Then take ‘em.”
No merch was worth his life.
With that, he put the truck into gear and stomped on the gas. Cargo trailer still attached, Jolly Jake’s pickup surged forward, charging for the town of Timmins with a steel-belted scream of rubber.
10
“Jesus Christ,” Gus winced as he dove for cover after the first shell plugged the windshield. A destructive pattering followed, as more bullets blasted the truck’s face, popping glass and metal.
Then nothing.
Until a speck of a figure sprinted in the distance, keeping close to the pickup and trailer. Seconds later, the engine flared to life and the truck bolted towards the city.
“He’s getting away!” Gus shouted. “Collie, he’s getting away!”
“Roger that,” Collie replied. She’d set up shop some twenty feet away from the pickup. She lay on her chest, aiming a high-tech rifle, one of the few pillaged from the battleground that had been Whitecap. Her sunglasses were pushed up on her forehead, and when she looked away from her scope, she pulled them back over her eyes.
“No shot,” she said. She sighed when she saw the damage done to the pickup. “Well. Goddamn Jimmy Jesus.”
Gus rose to his knees. “We going after them?”
Collie sized up the distance. “No.”
“No?”
She shook her head.
Gus stood, his knees cracking as he did so. Steam drifted from the perforated engine block, and the sight prompted him to massage the back of his neck.
“Bastard shot our truck,” he muttered, at a loss for anything more.
Collie hurried to the driver’s side, tossing Gus the rifle as she passed him. The action surprised him, but he caught the weapon all the same.
“Nothing,” Collie said, leaning into the cab and attempting to start the motor. “Not a fucking gig. Well, shit. I mean, the engine’s made of metal.”
She reached down and popped the hood.
Gus looked off in the distance, watching the fleeing pickup and trailer fade into the distance. The sound of an approaching vehicle distracted him. Bruno and Cory stopped their truck beside him. Bruno lowered his window and grimaced at the sight of the crippled ride.
“Dead truck?” he asked.
“Dead truck,” Gus replied.
“Well, that sucks beaver hole.”
That nasty bit of expletive goodness stopped Gus for all of a heartbeat, but then he joined Collie at their mangled vehicle. The bullets had ripped through the thinner metals of the motor. Smoke wafted from different points. The bullet holes inside the cavity resembled hot splashes of chrome. Connecting rods were dented and twisted. Severed wires dangled. The battery had taken a round straight through the heart. Fluid from multiple tubes dribbled onto the pavement, and the smell of burning rubber and acid was strong enough to back Gus up a step.
“Anyone got any duct tape?” he asked in a defeated tone.
“Later,” Collie said, focusing on the abandoned pickup and cargo trailer left on the highway. “After we check on that trailer.”
Gus looked at the far-off truck.
“Let’s ride, amigos,” she shouted, then opened the rear door of Bruno’s cab.
“What about our gear?” Gus asked, going for the other side.
“We’ll come back for it after we check that thing out.”
Timmins stood tall in the distance, an angular patch of brooding towers and apartment boxes stamped against the skyline. Gus didn’t like the look of the city. Didn’t like the feeling of dread percolating in his guts. That feeling had started that very morning, when he was squatting over a hole dug in the ground with a little garden shovel. They'd gone off-road to avoid all the abandoned cars on the highway, and stopped at a clearing in the forest. It was around then when the shouting rudely interrupted Gus’s morning constitutional. The following gunshot got his bowels moving again, however, with explosive urgency. The far-off laughter that followed had creeped him out. If a skeleton could laugh, it probably sounded like that.
Thinking back, Gus realized that the last three days had been easy. Too damn easy, in fact. Sure, they’d had a few tense times—rolling through the smaller cities, crossing over the St. Lawrence, and skirting around Ottawa came to mind—but, ultimately, nothing had happened. They’d driven on through a dead landscape, through a world slowly being reclaimed by a greedy Mother Nature.
“Okay,” Collie said, sitting on the other side of two hockey bags of supplies. He could only see her profile—and the upper section of her assault rifle. “Right here, Cor’.”
Cory braked hard and stopped the truck alongside the trailer. He parked the machine with a hard shove of the stick.
“All of you stay aboard,” Collie ordered. “Get ready to leave fast if we have to.”
“You expecting trouble?” Bruno asked.
“I’m always expecting trouble,” she said and got out.
“God knows we’re finding it,” Gus muttered and got out on the other side.
And landed boots first in the gore spattering the pavement.
“Well fuck,” he groaned in distaste, eyeing the bloody mess.
“What?” Collie asked.
“I’m standing in fucking blood over here.”
She didn’t answer; instead she approached the deserted truck with her drawn sidearm. She didn’t take her rifle, and Gus knew it was because of her left arm, where she’d been shot through the bicep a few months back, during the firefight at Whitecap. Even though the wound had healed, the arm hadn’t regained its full strength, despite Maggie’s physical therapy
sessions. As a result, Collie could only carry and use her rifle for short periods of time.
She had no problem with her pistol, however.
Sig Saur aimed and ready, Collie approached the truck.
Gus hung back, having learned the hard way that she was bossy in tense situations. She’d reminded them repeatedly that she had a shitload of experience in these kinds of operations, but Gus suspected the operator was being extra protective of her civvie crew. Not that it offended him.
But it did make him feel about as useful as a dick stitched to an elbow.
Collie neared the driver’s window. She checked the interior, deemed it clear, and switched to the rear seat. Once satisfied, she moved to the trailer.
Collie scanned the long container, then peered underneath the carriage. She ran a hand along the exterior, stopped at the rear doors, then locked eyes on Gus. Before she could speak, she was interrupted by a rustling from inside the trailer.
Gus’s eyes narrowed. “The hell was that?”
“There’s people inside this thing,” Collie said. “Saw them through the air holes.”’
“Air holes?”
“Yeah. Air holes. But not too many. Can’t have the meat too uppity, right?” Collie shook her head. “Just stay back for a second.”
The sound of a power window lowering filled Gus’s ears.
“Hey Collie, there’s people inside that thing!” Bruno exclaimed.
The operator sighed at the egregious breach of silence. “Yeah, I know.”
“What’s going on?” Gus asked.
“We’re gonna find out.” She winked at him.
Gus had to admit, he felt some funky goodness when she did that. He followed her around the truck and nearly stepped on a corpse with the splayed-out hair of a hard rocker. Collie stepped over another dead man and patted down his sides. She reached inside the carcass’s pocket and pulled out a set of keys.
Voices reached Gus’s ears—muted somehow, as if gagged, like those poor bastards lying on the pavement with the hockey masks. One mask had been twisted aside, revealing half a face mashed into the asphalt, and what looked like a cord of leather lashed around his head. Gus looked away, feeling it was far too early in the day for such pictures.
“You gonna get them out?” Bruno asked from his passenger window.
“Yes, I’m gonna get them out,” Collie answered. “Just stay where you are for a minute, okay?”
Bruno nodded, but Gus wasn’t sure he believed him.
Collie focused on the trailer doors. “Relax in there,” she called. “We’re gonna get you out.”
The grunting intensified, and if Gus wasn’t mistaken, the grunting didn’t seem too keen on the idea.
Collie noticed it as well. She stepped back, her weapon lowered. She motioned Gus to come closer, and when he did, she handed him the keys.
“Open it up,” she said. She stepped back and took aim at the doors.
Gus rattled the chains locked around the two doors.
That plugged screaming went up several notches. The padlock in his hand, Gus shot Collie a questioning look.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Hold on a second.”
She went to the trailer sidewall and peeked into an air hole.
“Jesus Christ,” Bruno hissed. “You guys smell that?”
“I smell that,” Gus said and covered his mouth, knowing human waste when he smelled it.
“They’re bouncing all over the place in there,” Collie reported. “They’re real excited about something. Can’t see everything.”
“Jesus. Sounds like a dozen weightlifters in there blowing out their ass rings,” Gus said.
Collie winced at that.
Gus released the unlocked padlock, and the resulting clatter generated a second group scream from within the trailer. He flinched at the suppressed squeals of terror and backed up a step, trading looks with Collie. If the people inside were energetic before, they were going insane now. The trailer rocked on its chassis from an unseen barrage of physical contact, as if bodies were launching themselves at the walls. All that frantic motion seemed to lift the stink originating from the trailer and flap it in Gus’s direction.
“I gotta feeling I’m gonna see something I don’t wanna,” he said.
“Probably,” Collie agreed.
“Cleared to open this thing?”
“Wait.” She stepped in close to the trailer. “Relax in there, okay? We’re going to let you out.”
An excited outburst answered her, and it did not sound happy.
“Something’s wrong,” Gus muttered.
“Sure is,” Bruno said from the truck. “They’re trapped in a trailer of their own shit and God only knows what else. They heard gunfire, and they don’t know who we are, or what we’re gonna do to them.”
“Yeah, there’s that, but…” Gus rubbed his head. “There’s something more here.”
Sensing the same, Collie holstered her weapon and inspected the trailer doors, even as the rocking trailer threatened to fall off its own chassis.
“Wogs,” she said under her breath and examined the upper section of the frame. She leaned in and ran her fingers along the closure. A frown creased her features. When she reached the center of the door, she stopped. Her eyes went wide.
“Well, now,” she whispered. “Aren’t you the potential party shaker…”
“Find something?” Gus asked. “Collie?”
“Uh-huh?”
“You find something?”
“I did, dear.”
Gus knew when he was being fucked with, so he shut up. Until she extracted her boot knife, whereupon he gave her all the room she needed. Collie checked her footing and climbed onto the rear step of the trailer.
“Gus?” she asked.
“Yes dear?”
That stopped her. “Don’t you put a smile on my face. Not now.”
“Sorry.”
“Do me a favor? Tell the folks inside this meat locker to keep still for a few seconds. Okay?”
Orders received, Gus approached the sidewall, noting how shadows flittered beyond the air holes. The stink of the trailer swelled, becoming so bad, so wickedly foul, that he dreaded opening his mouth. “Hey! Hey!” he shouted. He cringed, absorbing that unspeakable cloud and feeling his tongue curl. “Keep it down in there. Okay? Keep it down. Relax, for Christ’s sake. I mean… oh goddamn… You guys assfuck a skunk in there or what?”
That settled matters down considerably. The trailer’s rocking subsided to a tentative wavering, as if there were a dozen people standing far too close to a bomb.
That last thought froze Gus on the spot. “Ah… Collie?”
“Yeah?” she asked, as she worked her knife into the door crack.
Gus cleared his throat. “Are we in danger here?”
“You want the truth?”
That stopped him. “Uh…Sure. Why not?”
And at that exact moment, she squeezed her eyes shut, grimaced, and gently plucked at something unseen in the door.
Gus froze.
Collie opened her eyes, saw that all was well, and smiled. She pulled her knife free.
“Nope,” she exhaled.
Gus looked back at Bruno, whose expression morphed from worry to shit-chugging relief.
A short time later, Collie stopped searching. “All right,” she announced to those inside. “I checked out the doors here… and found what I suspect might’ve been a trip wire for an explosive device. Is that correct?”
Energetic grunts answered her.
Gus felt his balls lift a notch.
“Okay then,” Collie continued. “You’ll be happy to know I’ve disabled the trip wire. At least I think I’ve disabled it. To the best of your knowledge, and scream if you know this, is there any other trap?”
The trailer became silent.
“All right then,” she said. She motioned for Gus to open the doors.
He picked up the padlock.
Collie immediately r
etreated about a dozen steps.
Gus questioned her with a look, to which she shrugged. He scowled and inserted the key and hesitated.
Fuck it, Gus thought, and turned the key.
11
If the smell was bad outside the trailer, the stink that wafted free of that opened box was a malevolent, life-stealing wave, redolent of diseased graves and oozing, gangrenous wounds. That colorless swell enveloped Gus, and he involuntarily turned away and covered his face.
“Oh,” was all he could manage.
That breath-snatching foulness struck Collie as well, and she visibly faltered as it rolled over her. Once the fresh air cleared that pent up bubble of filth, the operator steadied herself and approached the trailer.
Knowing he was going to have nightmares, Gus straightened and peered inside the trailer confines.
Dried excrement littered the corners of the trailer, particularly near the doors. There were five people in there, their hands behind their backs and hunched over by the low ceiling. They wore jeans, sweaters, and thick shirts, but no coats, and no shoes, wearing either socks or just barefoot. All five of them wore ball gags, the leather straps tight about their heads. All five were also chained about the ankles.
“You’re all right,” Collie gently informed them. “Just hold on for a minute more.”
Two men, two women, and a young girl, perhaps ten. All were filthy, as if they’d been dunked in a septic tank. Black smudges stained their faces, and they stared at their rescuers with wide, hopeful eyes, perhaps wondering if they’d just been saved or captured by someone much worse.
Gus swallowed thickly, muted by the sight. The little girl in particular seized his attention. She looked underfed and thirty pounds lighter because of it, with her brown hair long and filthy and sticking to her head in a flat sheen.
The sight broke his heart.
“Gus?” Collie asked.
“Yeah?” he whispered.
“Watch the roads. In case that bastard decides to come back with friends.”
Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King Page 10