“What do they want?”
Collie paused. “I don’t know, Gus. Hard to say. Some people just want to survive and pick up the pieces. I know we’re looking for people to carry on. To salvage what’s left of the knowledge pool. The skill pool. Not to mention the gene pool. But others? Others will see an opportunity.”
“To use dead things like that? To sic ‘em on people like dogs?”
She frowned. “More like shock troops. Think of it. Why waste your living soldiers when you have a corps of fearless, ass-munching gluebags at your disposal? The sight of that charging you is a scary thing. People would think it was the outbreak all over. Whoever was staring that down might very well decide to drop everything and run. For their homes or their rides. If it’s their homes, maybe those people get trapped in there and, well, it’s up to those leather dicks to get them out. Sorta like hounds chasing the fox into a hole.”
“And if those people get away?” Gus asked.
“Good question. Maybe they keep on hunting.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah,” Collie agreed. “Well, we got guards posted.”
“But where are they getting the gimps?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted sadly. “Maybe… maybe they’re people who refused to surrender? Or what happens to subordinates who fuck up? We’ve seen the dead rot away into nothing but heads, so these guys must have saved a specimen. You might very well be right about keeping a reanimated head or two around. They could sling that over a wall and wait out the craziness inside. A weaponized biohazard all over again. I tell you, the depths of insanity people can sink to? Fucking amazes me.”
“Christ almighty,” Gus whispered.
“We don’t have enough information, yet,” Collie said. “But I think we’re close on that. Our purpose is pretty clear-cut these days. You survive or you don’t. You rule or you follow. Any way you cut it, there’s always some sick puppy around to twist things to suit their own agenda.”
“But using zombies, Collie?”
“I know. It’s fucked up.”
A silence followed.
“One last thing,” Gus eventually said.
“Sure.”
“What was it you were going to say?” he asked. “Back on the trail?”
Collie faced him, her dark eyes twinkling despite the dark. “You really want to know?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s just a theory, but you’re really not going to like it. If I’m right, that is.”
“Collie…”
“I’m trying to say it’s pretty fucked up.”
“Collie.”
“Okay,” she relented. “Fair warning and all that bunk. And, remember, I have nothing to back this up, except for what I saw. We know the undead retain some of their senses, smell being perhaps the strongest. We were doused with some pretty strong shit, just before the meatbags came charging after us. I think that their handlers…”
“The leather douchebags.”
“Yes,” Collie smiled. “The leather douchebags. I think they figured out a way to direct the undead. The MBs came right for us, not the masked douchebags. Drawn to a scent that they can’t resist.”
Gus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Holy shit.”
Collie smiled again. “See. Told you.”
“That is fucked up.”
“Explains a couple of things. How the undead came running after us when there’s perfectly good meat right behind them.”
“Why urine?” Gus wanted to know. “I mean, why not blood?”
“Don’t know. Maybe blood goes bad. Maybe its not about quality but quantity. Everybody needs to take a leak sooner or later, so there you go. Blood is a little more troublesome to collect, harder to store, but urine? Everybody’s gotta take a whiz sooner or later. The only problem you got there is stockpiling the stuff. And no worries about it going bad, not if you only need it to stink, right? Probably stinks even more after a few days.”
“Easier to smell,” Gus added.
“Exactly.”
Gus turned over and peered up toward the warehouse ceiling. He was speechless.
“Feel like sleeping now?” Collie asked.
“Not right now, but give me a few seconds.”
“No problem.”
Gus turned to her, and she watched him, their faces less than a foot apart. “What have we gotten ourselves into here, Collie?”
She took her time in answering. “Not sure. But we’re here. We’re in it. And we’ll get clear of it.”
Gus didn’t say anything to that.
“Even if we have to break some balls to do so,” Collie finished.
22
Some time after midnight, Collie returned to bed after her shift of guard duty. Gus lay underneath the comforter, the thick edges pulled up to his ears. She watched him for a bit, as his snores softly buzz-sawed the vast cavern of the showroom. After several seconds, she placed her rifle upon the floor and sat down on the side of the bed. The mattress didn’t groan, but Gus’s head flinched.
“That you?” he whispered, half-asleep.
“Yeah.”
He dropped back onto the pillow.
Collie peeled the comforter back and slipped into the bed beside him. It was cold on her side, making the heat from his body all the more attractive.
“Busy night?” he asked.
“Nah,” she said, turning towards his back. “That guy Davis is on watch.”
“Black-eye Davis?”
“Yeah. That’s a good name for him.”
Gus shifted, burrowing deeper into the established warmth. The smell of sweat enveloped him, but she knew she smelled just as bad, so it didn’t bother her. The dry heat radiating from him, however, was another matter entirely. Unable to resist, Collie moved closer and slid an arm over his ribs, spooning him, pressing herself up against his frame as if she were hugging a furnace.
That woke Gus up just a little more, and he turned his head in a question.
“Just getting comfortable,” she murmured. “You’re so nice and warm.”
“Wish you didn’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“That.”
“You mean spooning? Didn’t think you would mind.”
“I don’t, but you’re waking up my dick.”
“Gotta feeling it doesn’t take much to wake him up,” Collie whispered. She pressed her chest into his back, hooked a leg over his, and held on even tighter. “He better settle down if he knows what’s good for him.”
They lay in bed that way, front-to-back, tighter than a wet knot.
“Collie?”
“Mm?”
“I, ah… have a problem.”
“Still got a chubby?”
“Actually, I do. Half a chub, anyway. But, something else.”
“Yeah, what?”
He released a long sigh. “Just so you know… I find myself… thinking about you a lot.”
That quieted her, and she frowned ever so slightly in the dark.
“A lot?”
“Yeah.”
She had to be careful about the next bit, not quite sure how he was going to react. “Well, that’s good. I think about you, too. A lot.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
Nothing then, for a few seconds, then Gus tried to turn over, but Collie wouldn’t let him.
“Not right now,” she said, pressing her head against the nape of his neck. “Let’s just sleep on this, okay? Why do you keep bringing this shit up when I’m ready to drop and cut some zees?”
“Sorry.”
“That’s all right,” she said, relaxing. “I’ll punish you in the morning.”
“That sounds nice.”
“Thought you’d like that.”
So they slept.
*
“Black-eye” Davis sat in an office chair facing the store’s front windows. He was
positioned some twenty meters back, behind a full bedroom display, with his arms resting on a hutch, his chin parked in the folds of his arms, and the rest of him out of sight. He had a clear view of Lazy Lou’s front doors and the forbidding parking lot outside—not that there was much to see beyond the glass. It had been only thirty minutes or so since he replaced Collie, but he was still exhausted from the past few days and regretted his decision to volunteer for the job. Still, he needed to do his part. Understood that they all had to do their part. Rich had completed his shift, the local sheriff that he was, but even he needed to rest at some point. Collie as well.
On that note, Davis rubbed his head, feeling the thickening grease coating his hair, before prodding his swollen eye with a knuckle. Christ almighty they’d worked him over. His body was covered in a collage of bruises. His captors had only given him one shot to the face, but they made it count. He could barely see out of the thing, and it watered for some unknown reason. Just up and started weeping whenever the mood took it, as if stuck in a mire of self-pity. Davis’s other eye was fine, however, working a little double-time to pick up the slack. Mentioning his eye might’ve gotten him out of guard duty, but he wouldn’t feel right about that. He just needed some time to relax, that was all. Like everyone, he supposed.
He sniffed, catching the faint pissy smell lingering off his ass, and marveling at its power. A bath was in his future. Next body of water he spied he was going in, even if he had to jump from a moving truck to do so. He focused on the windows again, looking past the lines and pointed corners of the bedroom sets, past the clear panes of glass, and the empty void beyond that. Davis had to admit, if it wasn’t for the occasional snores and grunts of the group spread out in the warehouse, he’d be feeling very much creeped out. For security, Trinidad had given him one of his many guns, the make unknown to him. It was a gun and that was enough for Davis, and it rested not five inches away from his right hand.
His eye started to ache. It did that every now and again. A dull, knife-edge ache that pulsed at the very back, all the way into his brain. As if someone had stuck a butter knife in there, left it, and flicked the goddamn thing whenever they felt like it. Just twanged it, like it was a balloon hanging off a door handle. Davis hoped that as the swelling went down, the discomfort would go away, but he wasn’t sure. He’d feel better if and when he could see the doctor Collie had mentioned. That would put his mind at ease, and he hoped things would work out so that he would have access to some honest-to-God medical attention. A real-life doctor. The idea seemed incredible in this day and age. Getting quality care from a trained professional and not having to look shit up in a book or guessing what wild herb did what would be a tremendous relief. Davis shook his head and smiled, remembering a time when he and his friend Barry argued over whether some mushrooms they’d discovered on the summer island were edible. They decided to test them for safety’s sake, and ended up being quite stoned for the better part of the day.
Funky times.
Davis’s mirth faded when he realized Barry hadn’t shown up after the onslaught earlier in the day. He’d been left behind on the island, probably dead… or worse.
The night sky would brighten in the next couple of hours, and the world beyond the glass would slink back into existence. Davis couldn’t believe how damn dark things got on a cloudy night, when there were no streetlamps or fires or anything. It was all so surreal, and more than just a touch eerie, which made him grateful he wasn’t on any of those medicinal mushrooms they’d found on the island. He wouldn’t mind a bottle of gin, however. Gin could armor a person to the bone.
He gazed at the glass and surrounding framework of the storefront. Something caught his attention, just to the left of the locked doors. Collie said to wake them if he saw anything. Rich had said the same but he wasn’t a soldier, just a gun nut trying to be the law. Davis wasn’t sure, however, if he was seeing something or just uneasy. He peered at that section of the glass, wondering what exactly had hooked his good eye.
Nothing was there, however.
“Well, dammit,” Davis whispered, listening to those peaceful snores in the background. He wavered, thinking on the next course of action, before picking up the gun. It was heavy in his hand, but he held it at arm’s length, by his thigh.
“Dammit, dammit,” he muttered. There was one main walkway splitting the front of the showroom in two, which led directly to the main doors. Davis crouched low, bent over at the waist, and quietly threaded his way through the assorted bedroom sets, using the furniture to conceal his approach.
He stopped halfway and squinted at the troubling spot in the glass. His danger sense was tingling, but damn if he wasn’t sure what the hell he was looking at. With a quick check on what lay before him, Davis edged closer, stopping just behind a high chest of drawers.
Was something moving out there? He couldn’t be sure, as it was as fine as a black thread floating atop an oil patch. An inky blot that teased him to come closer. Davis tapped the sidearm against his thigh, its weight comforting.
A whistle filled the still night air, and the frightening surge of an engine that just had its gas pedal stomped to the floor. Except Davis didn’t realize it was an engine until the headlights flared to life, the spellbinding glare freezing him in place.
Just as the front of the store exploded inwards with a clap of brick and glass and a gust of debris.
Davis leaped away and bounced off a mattress, where he tumbled onto the carpeted floor. His gun went off when he landed, sending a bullet through his right temple like a black thunderbolt that ended all thought.
*
That burst of shattering glass yanked Gus awake, and the crackle of fabricated wood fiber, metal, and ceramics ripping apart almost made him shit the bed. Cold air flooded the showroom, carrying a gritty puff of dust. People screamed. Collie was already out of the bed and arming herself, while Gus propped himself up at arm’s length, paralyzed by the smoking, hateful glare of headlights peeking out from behind a roadblock of smashed bedroom furniture.
“Move!” Collie yelled at him, hoisting her weapon to her shoulder.
Gus did, but he saw past the wreckage of the truck, saw the leather-clad figures storming through the breech, invading Lazy Lou’s showroom.
“Gus!” Collie shouted.
That unlocked him, and he kicked himself free of the comforter. Thankfully, he still had his boots on, and he met Collie behind the bed’s hutch, where she was already retreating deeper into the thicker patches of bedroom furnishings.
“This way,” Sarah Burton shouted, running through the showroom. Gus followed, still trying to comprehend what was happening. The screams behind him were fading now, but he could still hear a clatter of bodies banging into unseen end tables and flipping over low dressers. An invisible corner of an easy chair clipped Gus’s hip with all the force of a hammer. The momentum spun him sideways, where he landed on a bed. He rolled off and landed hard on his feet. He hobbled into a run, fixing on the islanders fleeing into the dark, scampering towards the rear of the building. One of the campers went down amongst the bed sets, as if a rug had been pulled out from underneath her. Monica squealed, and he thought he glimpsed both Bruno and Cory hustling her through the showroom maze. Collie fired off a short burst, lighting up the dark and pulling Gus’s attention toward her. She was threading her own retreat, skipping around low obstacles while hindering their pursuers.
In the jagged broken hole that was the main entrance, shapes invaded the interior and ducked out of sight, blending in almost perfectly with the dark surroundings.
Oh shit, Gus thought and, at that exact moment, clacked both knees on a block of solid wood. The impact was mind-freezing. Gus landed in a clump, his battered knees unsteady and hurting, both joints signaling that they’d been rudely hyperextended. He rolled and flexed, dealing with that wobbly wheel sensation while landing an arm across the very thing that had taken his legs out from under him.
“Goddamn night table!” he swore,
wanting to shoot the miserable block of wood.
“Move!” Collie shouted from behind.
Gus limped as fast as he could.
Collie appeared beside him, keeping pace. “You okay?”
“Almost broke my knees off.”
“Keep moving. This way.”
She grabbed his left shoulder and pulled him along, dodging pieces of furniture and whole mattresses as they materialized out of the dark. Harsh puffs of air sped by them, some ending with solid whacks.
Crossbows.
They reached a wall where Rich Trinidad waited with a gun in each hand. “Go that way. Follow the corridor. I’m right behind you.”
Collie took the lead and Gus shambled after her. His legs still ached but were firmer, and the hall wasn’t cluttered like the showroom floor.
Rich Trinidad started firing behind them, the gunshots like fat firecrackers going off in Gus’s ears.
Ahead, lights flared brightly, illuminating a huge storage area, just beyond an open doorway at the end of the hall. Headlights, Gus realized, flashing against a loading bay door.
Collie guided him into a sizeable loading area, where plastic-covered furniture shone wetly in the peripheral glare of the headlights. Huge rectangles of cardboard the size of garbage bins packaged and protected surplus furniture. The various blocks were stacked in towers against the walls on either side, resembling ancient ruins. Rising above it all were massive shelving units filled to capacity, creating a dusty pattern of straight beams and uneven blocks all the way to the ceiling.
Two pickups waited on the main floor. The islanders piled inside the idling machines, their heads and shoulders bouncing around the interior. Gus caught a lungful of exhaust, and that got his mind off his knees. The islanders had parked the vehicles inside Lou’s warehouse, but the sight of that paneled wall of the loading zone filled him with confusion. They might’ve had the time to manually crank the door open enough to get the trucks inside, but he doubted the crazies would wait for them to do it again.
Collie pushed Gus towards the nearest truck bed, and he rolled inside the box. She hauled herself in after him, flipping onto her chest and aiming for the doorway they’d just come through. Rich Trinidad was there, firing at unseen targets. Gus lifted his head, looked around, and was instantly mesmerized by the red warning light swirling atop a forklift. The machine rumbled towards the bay door, the forks already lowered. They slid into the lower end with a screech of steel. Hydraulics chuffed and wheezed and forced themselves upward with a clanking protest.
Mountain Man (Book 5): Make Me King Page 20