“Come on, I thought we already went over this.”
“I dunno, man, I guess we did. But I’m getting more, you know?”
“Just a little bit longer. Trust me, we’re going to enjoy it more the longer we wait.”
“How do I know that’s true? It’s just like something you’re saying over and over.”
“Look at it this way. When does a beer taste better? After you’ve already had seven that day, and you’re sipping your eighth. Or that first beer back at the bar, after six months locked up in the can?”
“After being locked up, of course,” said Bill. “Man, I remember my first one...”
“There you have it, man,” said Rod, cutting off Bill. “That’s what I’m saying. It’s the waiting that makes it better. The waiting and the wanting.”
“Yeah, OK, I get you, but I’ve waited long enough now.”
Rod was starting to think that Bill had a point. They had waited quite a while.
They’d tracked those women to the basement of a house on the end of a dead-end street. It was just a little stubby street that led away from the cul-de-sac. The women had gone from house to house, thinking all the while that they were hidden, that they were fooling their pursuers, not knowing all the while that Rod was clever and had been onto them practically from the beginning.
“Trust me, man. Just trust me. It’s going to be better the longer we wait.”
“I doubt I’ll even be able to get them in my sights if they do come outside,” muttered Bill. “It’s too dark. Way too dark. Hey, shit, did you see that?”
“What?”
“Look!”
Rod had gotten so worked up in trying to convince Bill, that he’d almost missed the main action.
The bulkhead door that led to the basement had burst open, the two metal doors banging against the ground.
A figure had emerged, heading quickly away from the house. It was one of the women.
But which one?
And where was the other? Was she staying in the basement?
“Come on, man,” hissed Bill. “We’re letting them get away.”
Rod really didn’t want to seem like he was all talk. But he also didn’t know what to do. He’d already had his favorite picked out, and now he couldn’t tell the difference between them in the dark.
Shit.
He had to make a decision fast.
Or she’d get away.
Well, if he couldn’t tell the difference now, maybe he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference later.
“I’m getting this one,” hissed Rod. “You stay for the one in the basement.”
“Fine by me.”
And with that, without even a second glance at his friend, Rod was off, running in the direction that he’d seen the woman disappear in.
It felt good to run. The night air was cool, and it felt good in his lungs. Good and clean. Wholesome, even. Refreshing.
It felt good to move his muscles. To stretch his legs.
It felt good to pump his arms at his sides.
The night was silent. He could only hear his heavy boots pounding on the uneven ground and his own ragged heavy breathing.
He was gaining on her.
He could see the outline of her figure up ahead, but not her features. Still, the outline was enough. She looked good. Maybe a little thin for his tastes. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.
After he caught her, he’d make sure she ate well. She’s put on some nice weight. Get chunky in just the right places, just the way he liked it. And she’d be appreciative too. It’d be hard not to when he’d literally brought her back from the point of near starvation, from the point of being almost stick thin.
Suddenly, a small amount of moonlight flashed in her eyes, and he realized that she’d turned her head around. Probably spotted him too.
But she didn’t increase her pace. So she must have spotted him before.
He wasn’t too far behind her.
He had his gun still secured in its holster. He didn’t want to shoot her after all.
He would if he had to. But he’d only maim her. He was a pretty good shot, after plenty of mornings spent working on a hangover at the range. He was pretty sure he could hit her in a place where she’d be sure to recover, but he didn’t want to risk it.
Ideally, he’d just chase her down. He had long legs after all. And probably more stamina. Not to mention the speed, which helped with endurance.
Then he’d pounce on her, pin her down.
Maybe cut her up a little with the knife. Just to show her who was boss.
Then he’d just let the night be his inspiration.
He was a sick guy. He knew that.
And society had known that instinctively. He’d seen the looks they’d given him.
But now there was no society. No culture. No rules. Nothing to hem in him. Nothing to hold him back.
Who was to say he was sick now?
No one, that’s who.
There were no psychologists, no doctors, no prison officials. Sure, those people still existed, possibly, if they’d managed to survive, but their jobs didn’t exist. People like Rod were now free, unfettered by those nosy “professionals” who’d built their careers around messing with the fun of people like him.
He wasn’t sick after all. He was just an animal. And honest about it. He wasn’t the sort of man that hid his own impulses from himself.
He wasn’t expecting much of a fight from the woman. But something. Some sort of fight. Some sort of struggle. To make it fun. To make it interesting.
Suddenly, up ahead, she disappeared.
Rod stopped dead in his tracks.
It was like some sort of magic trick. She was simply there one moment. And gone the next. No trace of her.
But Rod wasn’t some dummy. Magic wasn’t real. She was here somewhere.
She’d probably ducked down somewhere.
His brain felt a little funny from the speed. His thoughts were racing a little, going off-track a little too much. But he felt sharp. Sharp enough to solve the problem of where she’d gone.
She had to be ducking down for a reason. There was no way she could think that simply doing that would be enough to get away... and now she was stuck in one place.
Unless...
She was planning on attacking. Going on the offensive.
Rod’s racing mind found the answer just as the gunshot echoed out.
It was closer than he’d expected.
He felt the bullet whiz by him, right over his shoulder. He felt the air on his neck.
Extremely close. Too close.
His ears rang from the gunshot.
He threw himself to the ground, landing heavily on his stomach, knocking the breath out of his own lungs.
He lay there, head lifted up, stomach, crotch, and legs pressed into the cool ground, panting from the running.
His eyes were wide with surprise.
He hadn’t expected that she’d fight back like this.
He couldn’t see her now in the darkness. But he kept his eyes scanning, looking through the dark shapes for something, anything, that seemed out of place.
She was there somewhere.
As soon as she got up, he’d spot her.
But hopefully he’d find her before that.
He reached for his gun. Got it in his hand. It felt good. The safety was off. It always was. He’d never bothered with safeties much. Just slowed him down. Holsters were enough, he’d always said, provided you had a good one. He wasn’t one of those Hollywood types that went around with his gun just tucked into his waistband or stuffed into his pocket. As far as he was concerned, that was a good way to blow your testicles off. He’d heard of it happening, even if he hadn’t seen it.
He got the gun in front of him, his arms stretched outwards, his elbows bent just slightly.
Visibility was bad, but keeping his eyes moving helped. If there was movement, he’d see it.
She wasn’t going to have an e
asy time finding him, either. He was flush with the ground, making himself as small of a target as he could.
There was nothing but silence. Silence and darkness. And a little moonlight as the clouds shifted in the breezes up above. The minutes passed.
It was tempting to move. To get up and do something, take some action. A less patient man might have caved in to temptation and simply stood up, ready to take what was his, what he felt was owed to him. But Rod knew very well now that as soon as he stood up, he’d likely receive a bullet to the chest. He envisioned himself taking the hit, falling down, and bleeding out painfully on the ground. Maybe his heart would stop first, or maybe his lungs would do him in. It’d depend on what the bullet hit.
Rod wasn’t scared of dying. Not in the least bit. He’d already had plenty of near misses in his pre-EMP days. There’d been countless dangers in his life, from drug overdoses to accidents on his bike, to fist fights that had gotten too ugly too quick. He wasn’t a stranger to danger or physical harm. In fact, he’d learned to just sort of tune it all out, dialing down the mental noise of danger and death.
It wasn’t that he had a personal philosophy or years of experience that had turned into wisdom, or anything like that. It was really just that after countless encounters, he’d realized he simply “didn’t give a shit,” as he’d explained to his buddies, whether or not he died.
All he cared about was making the best of his time while he still had it. Having his fun, to put it another way.
The minutes were passing in complete silence. Rod wondered what had happened with Bill and the other woman. Rod had run some ways from the house, but not too far not to hear a loud scream, or a gunshot.
Maybe Bill was just waiting outside the basement? But why would he do that? He was anxious to head in. Had he turned into a coward all of a sudden? Was he standing there outside, quaking in his boots over the thought of attacking some woman who was cowering in a basement? No, that didn’t sound like Bill.
Well, there wasn’t any point in worrying about it. It was every man for himself, unless it behooved them to gang up together. That wasn’t the gang’s motto, but it was Rod’s newfound motto.
Slowly, an idea began to take form in Rod’s head. A sort of strategy. A way of approaching the problem. It was the result of his mind speeding along, chugging through thought after thought in the silent darkness. The idea came from thinking about Bill quaking in his boots, about to shit his pants due to fright. The thought was so funny that Rod actually almost laughed out loud, right there in the darkness. It would have potentially given away his position, so he suppressed the laugh, keeping his half-rotten teeth clenched tightly together.
The idea was this: fear.
Rod didn’t have to wait there doing nothing, and he didn’t have to give up his position either by standing up and shooting wildly into the darkness.
All he had to do was use fear to his advantage. All he had to do was scare that woman there in the woods. Scare her even more than she must have been already. Scare her past the point of making an irrational decision.
All he had to do was provoke her into some action. Then his own plan would unfold naturally after that.
Rod needed to think more clearly. His head was starting to feel a little cloudy. He’d had a brilliant idea and now he needed to just maintain that train of thought. His cloudiness was coming from the hint of fatigue he was starting to feel in his body.
He dug into the front right pocket of his jeans, looking for the little vial that he knew was there. He took it out, got it in front of him. Unscrewed the little lid.
He could still feel the speed pumping through his veins.
What he needed was something else. Something a little extra. A little spice to compliment the speed.
This was coke. The good stuff, too. Not that shit that had been trampled on a dozen times in the supply chain, until it was little more than talcum powder mixed with Lidocaine.
No, this was the real deal.
Placing his gun on the ground for a moment, Rod formed what was known as a “boxcar” with his index finger and thumb. Next, he dumped a good quantity of the cocaine onto his thumb’s fingernail, where it was held in place by the way his index finger wrapped around it. He put his nail to his nose and inhaled sharply.
It burned instantly, all the way up through his sinuses, as, paradoxically, his nostril started to feel numb around the opening.
He felt his heart rate increasing. He felt that classic rush of energy that seemed to come from deep within him. It complemented the speed nicely.
His thoughts were really starting to churn along now.
Wait, why had he been worried about making noise and giving his position away?
Noise was what he needed.
Noises in the dark were scary. And he wanted to terrify. Strange noises. And voices.
“Hey, pretty lady,” he suddenly shouted out, deciding to act on his plan right then and there. “Don’t you want to come out and play? Why are you hiding there in the darkness?”
No answer.
Not a sound.
The vial was back in his pocket, the little lid screwed on tightly. His gun was back in his hand.
There was a stick near his other hand. A short one. Dead wood. Kind of thick. Not too dried out. He seized it, felt its heft. It had some good weight to it.
He aimed well, lifting up his arm just right, his elbow tucked back, using a lot of wrist.
The stubby, thick stick whizzed through the air, collided with a tree off towards the woman, and made a good thick sound. That should rattle her a little bit. He wasn’t sure exactly how. The plan didn’t have to be exact. Not for his racing brain.
He felt good.
Good enough for some more taunts.
“That’s me coming to get you! You can’t see me out here, but I can see you. I’ve got some night vision goggles and shit are they sweet. Don’t worry. You don’t have to come for me. I’ll come to you. Just give me a minute or two... don’t worry. I’ll be there soon.”
The good feeling was in his chest. In his head. His sinuses were a little numb now. His heart was thumping crazily in his chest, like a wild racehorse. It only got like that when the stuff was good, and when the combo was just right.
He felt good. But he knew he could feel better.
He dug the little vial out of his pocket again. Held it up towards the light that wasn’t coming from the moon anymore, not with the cloud cover that had rolled in again.
He put the gun back down on the ground, got the little lid unscrewed. His fingers were a little fumbly, a little shaky, but he pushed past it. Got a big bump onto his thumbnail and hit it.
It felt good. The rush.
He went for another.
Then another.
Soon, his heart was really thudding along. Like the best racehorse ever to stomp down the tracks.
“Hey,” he cried out. “I’m coming for you.”
He wasn’t going to wait any longer.
What had he been thinking, waiting so long?
With the coke in his veins, with his sinuses burning, there was no way he could be stopped.
He felt invincible. Powerful. Incredibly strong. Incredibly fast.
His gun was in his hand as he launched himself up from the ground in what felt like a single motion.
Soon, he was dashing through the darkness, his arms pumping at his sides, his boots thudding through the night. He was going to find her.
She was going to be his.
17
Maddy
Maddy didn’t understand why her new friend had left. It made her feel too many emotions at the same time. She felt indignant. Indignant that Jessica didn’t understand Maddy or Maddy’s help.
She felt angry too. Angry for the very same reasons.
And she felt scared. Scared at being once again all alone.
She’d felt so confident on her own.
Now, after just a few brief moments with a friend at her side, she was
already used to not being alone. It annoyed her, this sudden uptick in fear.
She didn’t like feeling scared. She liked feeling confident and in control. She even liked feeling arrogant, not that she would have ever admitted that to anyone else.
Whatever. It didn’t matter that she felt scared. After all, she was strong. Mentally strong. Smarter than just about anyone else. She could decide if she was scared or not. She could control it. She had controlled so much in her life; why shouldn’t she be able to control her own emotions?
It’d be easy. She’d just think different thoughts. Nice thoughts. Thoughts of sunny days on the beach from her childhood. Seashells and sand. The sound of the lapping waves. Maybe a kid shouting in excitement somewhere off in the distance.
Was it working? She wanted it to work. She wanted it to work so badly.
But it didn’t.
She still felt the pinching sensation in her chest, as if her lungs might stop working at any moment.
She still felt her guts tightening, as if they were more a knot than anything else.
Her eyes darted around the basement. The flashlight wasn’t making anything better. It didn’t seem to banish the darkness so much as create intense, sharp, angular lines. Everything looked too intense, too real.
She was in the corner, her arms wrapped around herself. Somehow, the fear seemed to have made her cold. She could acutely feel how cold her feet were, as if they’d been dipped in ice water. Her nose, too, felt freezing, as if were stuck in a big block of ice.
There’d been no noise since Jessica had run away.
So the bikers had known where they were?
Did that mean that they’d both gone chasing Jessica? She didn’t know. She was sure there’d been two of them. Or pretty sure. Her memory didn’t seem to be working quite right. It was the fear, twisting things around.
Final Dread: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller (Surviving Book 3) Page 11