by Adams, Lucia
Walking back across the lodge, I paused to cover up Parker, who had fallen fast asleep. Tucking the blanket in around him, it struck me just how much he looked like Jenny. A lump formed in my throat that made swallowing difficult. I forced my tumultuous emotions down, swiped away stubborn tears, walked over to my work area, and powered on the computers. There was no Internet access up here, but my phone would serve as a Wi-Fi hotspot for as long as my cell phone company was operational. I would just need to make sure it stayed charged up.
I unrolled the charging pad and put my iPod, Parker’s iPod and DS on it, along with my phone. The iPad and my Kindle could be plugged into an outlet, so I did. I had found a small dorm room refrigerator in the office that the staff had used for their lunches, and wheeled it into the dining hall. This is where I put all my samples from Tate, Mindy, and my newly acquired ones from Vincent. Thinking of Vincent led to thoughts of Jack, and the tears that I had been fighting finally broke free. I laid my head down on my folded arms and surrendered.
I cried until my eyes felt like sandpaper, and my nose became stuffed. With my complexion, I was sure my face was covered with red blotches, but I didn’t care. I had shot the best friend I ever had, drove like a bat out of hell across the country, and killed a man that had been an ass most of the time I knew him, only to find out too late how good and kind he was. Misery and heartache piled on top of each other until I collapsed under their weight. My mind, having met its saturation point, shut down, and I slept.
CHAPTER 26
Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
Gerry
Screams pealed through the trees and froze me in my tracks. After a beat, I pointed south with my rifle. There was no turning back now; the first team had made contact somewhere near the beach. We’d split up into three units, and the first team had been discovered long before we thought they would… but it changed nothing. They were the diversion, and doing a fine job judging by the heightened activity inside the compound. With any luck they’d made it close enough to draw most of the fire.
I thumbed off my safety and nodded over my shoulder to my team; it was Go Time. Every nerve in my body vibrated and I’d never felt more alive. Fear clenched my gut in an icy fist, but purpose kept me moving. Once upon a time, a guidance counsellor told me I was best suited for, well, not much of anything more than saying ‘yessir’, but he was wrong. I was built for this shit. I was a vengeful scythe, tearing through blood and bone with steel and lead. God help the unlucky motherfuckers who made the mistake of crossing my path. I made a promise to those kids and I planned on keeping it.
My group was smallest, since we wouldn’t be engaging with the cultists unless discovered. We would sneak over the wall next to the poorly guarded north entrance, near the only brick building in the compound—what appeared to be a kitchen if my guess was right. With me were three of the older boys: Justin, Cory, and Simon, and one of the cops, Jenks. Most of the firepower had been distributed between the other two teams. We’d need to be quick and couldn’t afford to weigh ourselves down with too much gear. Hopefully we wouldn’t need guns for more than intimidation anyway.
Just then, a shimmer of movement to the west caught my eye. “Gimme your binoculars,” I whispered.
Justin handed them to me and poked his head up. “What? You see something?”
I hoped I was wrong, but when I focused on the tree line beyond the compound’s perimeter, it seemed as though the forest were alive and slouching toward the lights pooling at the western entrance to the camp.
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“Nothing, Squirt. We gotta boogie. I hope you brought your running shoes.”
Jenks had binoculars of his own, and was shaking his head as he took in the meandering dead. “Wait. We need to call this off. Those things down there will kill us all.”
“Not happening, Slick. We go. You wanna stay here, stay here, but give us your guns.”
“Look,” Jenks said, “I get it, really, but I count at least twenty-five of them, and that’s just the ones I can see from here. That’s more than enough to give us a bad day. I’m not afraid of dying, but not for nothing.”
“Don’t look at it like that, then. Think of those beasties out there as Team Four. Those Cultist pricks will be too busy beating back the dribblers on the west wall to pay attention to little old us.”
Jenks hoisted the binoculars to his eyes and studied the movement in the camp for a moment. Still facing away, he said, “You’re a real bastard, you know that?”
I nodded. “Time’s wasting. Let’s go.”
To the group, I said, “OK, everybody buddy up. It’s full-on run from here to the east wall. If you get separated from the group, head there and wait ’til it’s not safe to do so anymore. Do not—and I want to make sure you understand me, ’cause I’m dead fucking serious—do not fire your weapons unless you find yourself cornered. Nobody’s supposed to know we’re coming in this way. Our single goal is to find our missing friends. That means only engage if your life depends upon it. Got it?”
I was met by blank stares, all except for the cop, who knew we were in for a world of shit, and that everything I said was gonna go out the window as soon as we were hip-deep in crazies.
He said, “You take Justin and I’ll keep an eye on the other three.”
I knew what he was feeling because I felt it too. These were kids playing at being soldiers. But the sad reality was that there was no Option B. We all fought or we all died, simple as that.
I shrugged. “Fine. Watch your back.”
He gave a thumbs up and waved Simon and Cory to follow him. Before melting into the forest, he whispered, “See you on the other side.” Then they took off running.
“Justin.”
“Yeah, boss?”
“If we meet up with anything, you keep running and let me take care of it, OK?”
“Yeah, right.” He snorted, which sounded like it could have meant anything from ‘fuck you’ to ‘I’m bored’, and then he bolted for the trees. “Last one there eats farts.”
For a chubby kid, Justin was surprisingly fleet of foot. He almost lost me once. When I caught up, he was creeping along the shadows of the north gate’s overhang with his crossbow pointed at someone—or something—I couldn’t see. Then he froze.
“Justin,” I hissed.
He was a statue of concentration. He either didn’t hear me or chose not to.
“Justin! Wait for me.”
He loosed a bolt, and a shadowed form fell from a tree near the wall. “Gotcha, dickweed,” he said to the darkness. “Betcha didn’t think I knew you were there.” He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
I raised my gun and scanned the trees as I stalked over to where he stood at the now deserted gate. “Goddammit, Justin, I fucking told you to stay with me.”
He smiled innocently as he reloaded the crossbow. “You eat farts,” he said, then ducked through the gate into the compound.
I took a deep breath, and then followed. Once inside, I immediately understood why there’d been only one guard at this gate. The entire western wall was aflame and partially collapsed. The dead had breached the compound and even now poured through the cracks like water.
I whistled for Justin’s attention, then pointed to a brick building standing in the center of the compound, “Jenks says that’s the kitchen. That’s our destination.”
“Why?”
“Cause that’s where the radio tower is.” I pointed. “See the antenna? We take out their eyes and ears and they’re fucked.”
As I spoke, two green-robed figures appeared, running in the direction of the kitchen. One toted a long pole similar to a dog-catcher’s, and the other carried a weighted sack and a flashlight.
Justin looked up at me. “Now what?”
“Nothing changes. Wait ten seconds, then hustle your ass.”
Before he could stand, I grabbed Justin by the arm and slid the bowie knife from my belt. “Boy, if I see your
ass in front of me, I’m gonna drive this knife into your tubbiness, capiche?”
His eyes widened, but then he smiled and held an arm out for me to take the lead—like it was his to hand over in the first place, the little puke.
We covered the distance quickly while staying alert to anyone orthing that might come at us from the rear. For the time being, it seemed we’d gone unnoticed. The door through which the two figures had entered was nothing more than a blanket tacked over the opening. I parted the cloth and peered into the gloom. There were no windows in the main room, so the only light was the tiny amount that slipped past me as the blanket parted. Unless they’d clicked the flashlight off, the two we’d followed in were gone, possibly upstairs to the radio tower, or another room on the main floor. I held the cloth back and Justin entered. The smell that met me was rancid. Justin doubled over and vomited. My stomach lurched, and I swallowed several times in an effort to choke it back.
“It’s black as Satan’s heart in here. Stay with me for a sec while our eyes adjust.” “Not a problem, Boss. It stinks like a fucking abattoir in here. What if those two come back?”
I tapped his crossbow with the blade of my knife. “Follow my lead.”
“Is… is this where they, you know…?”
My body was racked by a momentary shiver, and my breath caught in my throat. “Yeah.” I didn’t feel the need to elaborate. The cops had filled us all in as to the local culinary habits.
Barely audible above our breathing and shuffled steps, there came a subtle scratch-scratch from what I guessed to be the floor.Rats, I thought. Given the nature of the activities carried out in this place, there was a strong possibility we were surrounded by them.
I peered into the darkness. My eyes had adjusted, but it was still impossible to see further than a few feet. “OK,” I said, “start edging forward ’til you hit a table. I think I saw one from the doorway when the light was shining in. I’ll watch your back.”
Justin took two steps forward, and then he disappeared as the ground beneath our feet collapsed. His arm shot up, and I caught him before the hole he’d slipped into took him. Through the gloom I could just make out the circumference of the hole.
Above the hoarse urgency of Justin’s whispered pleas to pull him out, a tortured moan tore through the silence. The ground at my feet crumbled, and I scrambled backward, dragging Justin’s flailing body with me.
He fell on me, then rolled away and immediately began to hyper-ventilate. “It didn’t get me it didn’t get me it didn’t get me… I’m OK I’m OK I’m—”
I hugged him close and clamped my hand over his mouth. “Shut the fuck up, kid. You’re safe. I got you.”
Then the two green-clad people walked into the room, their flashlight illuminating a point on the floor between them as they chatted quietly, oblivious to the two of us, standing not more than four feet from them. When the light reached our feet they stopped, and one raised the flashlight up to see our faces.
I stepped away from Justin and raised a hand, palm out. “We’re not here to make trouble. We just want our friends back.” I eased my other hand toward the small of my back, for a pistol.
The taller of the two turned in the direction they’d come, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled, “Micah!”
Justin lifted his arm and put a bolt through the man’s face, pinning him to the wall. Before the second could call out or run, I lunged forward and punched the robed figure in the general area of the head, but missed, connecting instead with their throat.
The cultist emitted a winded squeak and crumpled to the floor. I stepped over and grabbed a handful of robe with one hand, then slapped the other over the fallen figure’s mouth.
Justin retrieved the dropped flashlight and shined it on our captive. It was a woman.
I pulled her close enough that my lips grazed her ear. “You make a sound and I’ll cut your fucking nose off. Blink if you understand.”
Her body remained rigid, her countenance defiant, but she nodded, and blinked once.
From through the door and up a narrow set of stairs, a familiar voice wafted down, “What is it, child?”
Justin stepped past and shined the light on the opening at the top of the stairs. “Hey, man, that sounds like that dude.”
Barely checked rage coursed through me like lightning. I steadied myself, loosened my grip on the woman so I wouldn’t accidentally snap her neck, and said, “Yeah, it looks like we’ve found our host. Let’s go thank him for the invite.”
“What about her? We don’t have any rope or nothing.”
“No problem. I have a plan.”
I turned to the woman and placed the point of my knife under her chin. “You,” I said to her. “Strip.”
She flinched from the knife, but complied. She opened the robe and let it fall to the floor.
“Holy shit,” Justin said. “She’s buck-ass naked, dude.”
The woman’s venomous stare never left my face. Over my shoulder, I whispered, “Keep it in your pants, sport. She’d probably bite it off and toss it to that thing in the pit.”
I turned back to her, looked down, said, “Nice tits,” then head-butted her in the face. I didn’t miss this time. She fell unconscious to the floor.
The creature in the pit moaned, and the scratching returned, more furious than before—as though it planned to dig a tunnel to escape.
“Should I put an arrow in that thing?”
I shook my head. “We’ll get it on the way out, after we deal with that fuck upstairs.”
“Yeah? How we gonna do that, walk right up there and say hi?”
“Nope. I got something better in mind.”
I snagged up the woman’s robe and tossed it to him, then pulled the robe from the still-twitching corpse of her partner.
After donning the robe, I palmed my knife and nodded toward the ladder. “Let’s go see the preacher. I feel the need for a confession.”
“Are we gonna leave her like that, with her boobies hanging out and shit?”
“Kid, your sense of chivalry’s seriously fucked up. If it’ll make you feel better, we’ll cover her up on the way down, when we wax that walking bug farm.”
Without checking to see if he followed, I grabbed the railing and hoisted myself up the steep staircase. He bumped into my back when I stopped at the top to poke my head up for a look. The room had been set up for double-duty; a ham radio occupied most of a table pushed up against one wall, while the three remaining walls were open to the night. At each opening, a mounted gun rested. Two sat idle, while the third was manned by a similarly robed man. He swung the gun back and forth, sputtering out sound effects, but didn’t fire a shot.
After everything I’d witnessed over the past month, this man’s lunacy didn’t faze me.
Aside from the sound effect gunner, a spindly, ancient man hunched over a map spread out upon the small space left on the table.Micah. There was no doubt in my mind.
Justin popped his head past me to see, and I pointed to his chest, then to the old man at the table. “But don’t you dare kill him. I got plans for his ass and they don’t include a quick death.”
No sooner had the words left my mouth than Justin bolted past me and clocked Micah over the head with the butt-end of his crossbow.
Micah shrieked, and the gunner turned just as I reached him. I reared back with my knife hand, ready to plunge it into the man’s chest, but he grabbed my wrist and twisted my arm backwards. Then a fist the size of a Christmas ham struck me in the center of the chest, knocking the wind out of me. As I dropped to my knees, the stuttering gunner, who I thought was standing already, stood, his head brushing the ceiling.
The giant bellowed, palmed me out of the way, and rushed across the room, screaming, “You mussent! You mussent! You mussent hurt him!”
Justin must’ve been as surprised as me, because he squawked, dove sideways, and fired a panicked shot. The bolt sailed past and stuck in the floor between my feet. Justin swung the c
rossbow, but the man tore it from his hands and snatched him up in a bear hug.
Above Justin’s throaty wails and the screams and gunfire out in the compound, the giant chanted a run-on loop of, “You mussent! You mussent!”
I frantically tugged at the cord of the robe, freed a .45 from my waistband, and ran across the room. I put the gun to the bellowing freak’s head and yelled for him to let go. Instead of dropping Justin, he swung around and pushed Justin at me. We fell to the floor, but I kept my hold on the gun.
The big man lumbered forward, towering above us. In the instant before he dove, the light caught his face, and I realized why he’d been dry-shooting the gun at the window. He was mentally challenged. Fear and pity for this man welled and warred within me for an agonizing second. And then my eyes fell to his necklace. A string of fingers of all shapes, sizes, and varying states of decay jiggled as he flexed to pounce. Before I could lose my nerve or my mind, I aimed true and shot him between the eyes. When his body hit the floor, the room shook and plaster fell from the ceiling.
Justin sat up and kicked at the man’s leg. Then, as he rubbed his side, he said, “I got mine. Why couldn’t you get yours?”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding, and chuckled. Not because it was funny—this situation was anything but comic. I laughed because it was safer than crying. If I started crying, I’d likely never stop.
I picked up my knife and stepped in front of the unconscious preacher.
“He’s out. I clocked him a good one,” Justin said. “Which brings me back to my question: why didn’t you take your guy out before he tried to make me his girlfriend?”
“Fine,” I shot back. “Next time you take the giant retard and I’ll take the feeble old man. For now, why don’t you go down and tie up that woman, then watch the door while I ask the preacher a few questions.”
Justin blushed, but nodded. “Fair enough. But what if she wakes up?”
“Then you can swap phone numbers and see if she’ll add you on Facebook. Now get the fuck down there!”
I waited until Justin was at the bottom of the stairs, then patted Micah down for weapons. He had none. He was still alive—his chest stirred with each breath—but the kid must have done a pretty good number on him. I shook him and he slumped, so I loaded up and slapped him as hard as I could. His head rocked back and hit the radio, and his eyes shot open.