by Sam Sisavath
He came here to assassinate Chuck…
Then, just as quickly, Or me.
Because this was her room, not Chuck’s. They had come to her apartment with a silenced weapon.
Ana shivered, wondering if this was how it felt when someone was walking over your grave.
I should have stayed on the road with the Tennessee Walker. God, why did I get in that truck? All of this is happening because I got in that damn truck.
It was too late to change any of that now, and she took a second to get a better look at the second body. Unlike the first, the dead man had dropped his pistol and lay crumpled awkwardly on his stomach. He had short red hair, and freckles covered one exposed cheek.
Bullet casings surrounded both men, and one had rolled out into the hallway.
Chuck. Where’s—
Oh, God.
Ana hurried past Gabriel and toward the window where she had last seen Chuck. He was still there, except now he was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, his head lolled so far to the one side that it was amazing he hadn’t completely toppled over.
“Chuck,” Ana said, not that he could have answered her.
He was dead. She knew that even before she kneeled next to him. There was no way he couldn’t be dead, given how much he was bleeding. They’d shot him three times, once in the belly, once in the right thigh, and once in the right shoulder. There was blood on the wall behind him, and bullet casings littered the space around his splayed legs.
“How is he?” Gabriel asked from behind her.
She shook her head but couldn’t bring herself to look away from Chuck. The slayer had a strangely peaceful expression on his face as he sat there. She didn’t dare touch him for fear he’d tip over. He was still holding his gun in his right hand, and when she looked at the wall behind him, she saw four bullets embedded in the wallpaper.
She glanced back at the two other bodies in the room.
You got them right back, Chuck. You got them right back…
Ana stood up and returned to Gabriel. He was turning one of the dead men’s heads—the redhead—to get a better look at the face.
“You know him,” Ana said, reading Gabriel’s expression.
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, standing up. “I know both of them.” He pointed at the redhead. “That’s Stark.” Then, indicating the large man with black hair, “That’s Aaron.”
“Who were they?”
Gabriel shook his head. “Guys. Just guys.”
“‘Just guys?’ What does that mean?”
“It means they were just guys. No different than any other guy in town.”
Somehow I find that hard to believe, Ana thought, but bit her tongue.
Gabriel was glancing around at the apartment. “I don’t know what they were doing up here. Or what led to this…”
“I think it’s pretty obvious what led to this,” Ana said. “They were at the campsite. They came here to kill Chuck because of it.”
Or me. Or maybe they came here to kill me…
“You don’t know that,” Gabriel said.
“Don’t I?”
“You’re guessing.”
“But I’m right.”
He shook his head but didn’t say anything.
“I’m right,” Ana said again.
She could see the conflict on his face as he struggled to find something to argue with her. Instead, Gabriel holstered his pistol and unclipped his radio.
He pressed the transmit lever and said into it, “Kelloway. Come in.”
The radio squawked before they heard a woman’s voice. “Kelloway here.”
“Where are you now?”
“On our way back from the campsite.”
“What did you find out there?”
“The slayers were telling the truth. Four dead. Two men and two women.”
“Anyone we know?”
“No. Looks like they were just passing through.”
“How did they die?”
“It was an execution, Gabriel. They were shot in the back of the head.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Joe tracked six horses leading to that ambush with the slayers. After that… You’re not gonna like this.”
Gabriel gritted his teeth. “Tell me anyway.”
“Joe thinks the killers came from Mayfield.” Kelloway paused before continuing. “They’re one of us, Gabriel.”
You were right, Chuck, Ana thought, looking back at the dead slayer.
“There’s a very good chance they’re among us right now,” the man had said only a few minutes ago.
And that was all it had taken. A few minutes, and Chuck was dead.
I should have stayed out of the truck…
“All right,” Gabriel was saying into the radio. “Get back here as soon as you can.”
“See you when I see you,” Kelloway said through the radio.
People were finally appearing in the hallway outside the room and looking in. Gabriel walked over and closed the door on them.
“Well?” Ana said. “What happens now?”
“Now I find out who’s responsible,” Gabriel said. “For that campsite, for the ambush on you earlier. And for this.”
“What happens then?”
“We’ll deal with them.”
“Deal with them how?”
“Look around you, Ana. This is Mayfield. Nowhere, Oklahoma, remember? The only law here—the only justice you’re going to find—is the one we come up with ourselves. So how do you think we’ll deal with them?”
Good, Ana thought, looking back at Chuck’s peaceful and unmoving body. Good…
Nine
“So Chuck’s dead?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit,” Randall said.
“Shit’s right,” Shelby said from where he was standing, next to the window. “Shit’s left, too. Shit’s all around, folks.”
Kid’s got a way with words, Ana thought, looking from the youngest slayer to Randall, lying on a cot in Mayfield’s hospital—really, a one-story building that used to be a dental clinic somewhere in the middle of town. They were in a private back room, where Randall had been getting treatment.
It was dark outside the window next to Shelby and had been for the last hour or so. Unlike most places Ana had gone through since The Walk Out, Mayfield’s buildings didn’t have rebars over their windows or anything that looked like extra security. But then again, she had to remind herself of the town’s location, and it made sense why there were no real fears of ghouls—beyond the occasional strays, anyway.
An LED bulb provided plenty of light for the small room, enough for Ana to see that Randall looked a lot better than he had this afternoon. His wound was properly treated, and he was wearing a white hospital gown as he sat propped up against a pillow.
“So they’re here,” Randall was saying. He sounded pretty strong for a man who had just been shot only a few hours ago.
Ana nodded. “Chuck thought so. Looks like he was right.”
“So what’s the town doing about it?”
“The guy in charge is looking into it.”
“Looking into it how?”
“He’s gathering evidence, searching for the other four.”
“Two down, four to go,” Shelby said. He had put his palm down on his holstered semiautomatic and left it there since Ana entered the room. “Better than six to go. Two less. Amirite?”
“Sounds about right,” Ana said.
“Does he know who they are?” Randall asked. “The others?”
“Not yet.”
“You think he will?”
“He strikes me as very capable. Besides, it’s a small world. Even smaller town. You can’t hide your affiliations forever.”
“He better find them,” Randall said, “or we will.”
“Damn straight,” Shelby said.
“You can’t even stand,” Ana said to Randall.
“Yeah, well, I’m not gonna be in this bed forever,”
Randall said. He clenched his teeth. “They’re not getting away with killing one of us. No fucking way.”
“Got that right, homeboy,” Shelby said.
Homeboy? Ana thought, but let the two of them have their moment. Right now, anger wasn’t going to help the situation, but she didn’t think she was in any position—or had the right—to tell them to calm down.
She said instead, “Let’s see how Gabriel handles it first. It’s his town and his people. We should give him first crack at this.”
“Then it’s our turn,” Randall said.
Ana nodded. “Then it’ll be our turn.”
“Our” turn? Since when did you become a part of their “our?”
I guess when you climbed into that truck…
Damn that truck.
“You still armed?” Randall was asking her.
“The gun Chuck gave me,” Ana said.
“Maybe you should replace it with something bigger.”
“Like what, a shotgun? Your Ol’ Pumpy?”
Randall grinned. “Why not?” He reached over for the pump-action shotgun leaning against the wall next to him. Shelby had brought it over an hour ago after they heard about what had happened to Chuck. “The SIG’s a good gun, but it’s no Pumpy.”
“I’ll make do,” Ana said.
“You should think about it.”
“I have.”
“Some more, I mean.”
“I will.”
“Let me know when you change your mind; we have plenty to spare,” Shelby said.
If I need a bigger gun, that just means we’re already in deep shit, guys, Ana thought, but she smiled and said instead, “Yeah, I’ll do that, Shelby.”
“What’s Gabriel telling you?” Shelby asked.
“Just what I’ve told you guys so far.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“Hunh.”
“What’s on your mind, Shelby?”
The young slayer shrugged. “Maybe you should work your magic a little harder on him. Know what I mean?”
“No. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Oh, I think you know what I mean. Know what I mean?” He grinned and did a “nudging” motion with his elbow, while adding, “Nudge nudge, wink wink.”
Ana sighed, and thought, This is going to be a long night…
“How’re your guys?” Gabriel asked.
My “guys?” Ana thought. When did they become my “guys?”
But she said, “They’re angry.”
“I don’t blame them. I would be, too, in their shoes.”
“Where are you in the investigation?”
“You’re not gonna like this…”
“That bad?”
He shrugged. “I guess it depends on how you look at it.”
“Meaning?”
Gabriel didn’t answer right away, and they continued walking down the sidewalk. The streets were empty except for the two of them, and if not for the lights, she might have been shivering more than just from the cold. Even so, she found the quiet around them unsettling, but Gabriel’s unhurried (and unworried) stride next to her helped to calm her nerves.
“Stark and Aaron, the two guys in your room,” Gabriel said, “have common friends. We tried looking for them, but…”
“‘Tried?’”
“Four of them are missing.”
“Four?”
“Yeah. Four.”
Four plus two makes six.
Shit, Chuck, you were right.
“How do you define ‘missing?’” she asked.
“As in, we can’t find them, and eight horses are unaccounted for from the stables,” Gabriel said.
“Eight horses?”
“We think they took an extra four horses with them.”
Ana wasn’t sure if she was angry or…relieved. Was she relieved? Maybe. After what had happened to Chuck, the last thing she wanted was to get caught up in a gunfight with four stone-cold killers. Four men who were just as bad as Mathison and his crew. She’d had Wash to help her deal with Mathison, but Wash wasn’t here right now.
Damn you, Wash. Why did you have to run off like that?
“But you know who they are,” Ana said. It wasn’t a question.
Gabriel nodded. “Keenan, Patrick, Bates, and Sullivan.”
“Anything special about them?”
“Like Stark and Aaron, they were just guys in town. They did their share of the work, like everyone else.”
“And they apparently moonlight as murderers.”
“Yeah, apparently that, too.”
“Why would they do that? Kill those campers so close to town?”
“The campsite was ten miles away. Not exactly close.”
“But close enough that someone else besides us could have stumbled across the bodies.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I don’t know what to tell you, Ana. We’re still trying to wrap our heads around this. Why would anyone do something like that? I don’t know. Why would anyone do any of the things they do these days?”
Ana thought about Mathison again, about Mark...
Because they can. That’s why. Because they can…
They stopped underneath the Lucy’s Cafeteria sign and next to a lamppost. She felt better having light around her. The kitchen was empty behind them, the dinner having finished up a while ago. Ana looked across the street at the apartment building, up at the second floor and the window where she had been inside earlier today. Chuck’s body was gone, along with his killers, but there was no way she was going back to sleep in that room.
“We’ll go after them tomorrow,” Gabriel was saying. “Put together an old-fashioned posse and chase them as far as we can.”
“And how far is that?”
“As far as we can, until we can’t go any farther.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“We can’t exactly chase them to the ends of the Earth, Ana. It’s a big world out there.”
“So they’re going to get away with it. Killing those campers, and Chuck…”
“We can only do what we can do. Mayfield is our primary concern. Everything else…” He paused, before continuing. “We’ll do the best we can.”
Ana wasn’t really angry with him, and that surprised her. He was telling the truth without sugarcoating it, and maybe that was one of the reasons why she accepted his answer so readily. That, and the fact that she knew he was right. It was a big world out there, with a lot of places to run to and hide. How do you track four men on horseback if they didn’t want to be found?
“You haven’t eaten,” Gabriel said.
“Haven’t exactly had time,” Ana said.
He turned around. “Come on.”
“Where we going?”
“Late dinner,” Gabriel said, and pushed open the unlocked doors into Lucy’s Cafeteria.
“You guys don’t lock your doors at night?” Ana asked as she followed him inside.
“Crime isn’t a big concern in Mayfield.” Then, with a wry look, “Or, at least, it didn’t use to be.”
“Times change. Even now.”
“Unfortunately.”
Gabriel led her through the building, passing rows of cafeteria-style benches and turning on battery-powered LED lamps along the way. The place brightened up enough for her to see just how empty Lucy’s was and how many people it would have taken to fill up all the spaces at a normal dinnertime.
She glanced at her watch. 9:19 p.m., and most of Mayfield was already asleep except for the two of them. There was Shelby and Randall in the clinic and a half dozen or so residents they’d walked past as they were heading indoors earlier, but the town was a shadow of its former daytime self.
“Did you eat?” she asked him.
“I grabbed a couple of bites.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Unless you’d prefer to eat alone?”
“I never say no to company.”
“Happy to hear that.”
&nbs
p; “So, is there a Mrs. Gabriel?”
He chuckled. “Not for a while. What about you?”
There’s a guy who fled to Texas, Ana thought, but she said, “Not for a while.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Eh, it’ll happen when it happens. You never know.”
He gave her a smile over another shoulder. “No, you never do.”
Gabriel pushed his way through two double doors at the back and into the kitchen, turning on another couple of lanterns along the way. He seemed to know his way around the place, and Ana watched him going through the pantries, taking out cutlery, plates, and utensils before grabbing a basket with a single loaf of bread still inside from one of the shelves and putting it on the counter. He shrugged off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, making a show of it, before starting to cut the bread into thin slices.
“You’ve done this before,” Ana said.
“You mean cook dinner for a beautiful woman?” he said. “Why, yes, I have.”
Ana smiled. She guessed she wasn’t going to have to do that much work with Gabriel. Then again, most men were pretty easy—
Something caught her eye. It was Gabriel’s right arm.
Or, more specifically, the section between his wrist and elbow. There were three very long red marks, like jagged lines, that shouldn’t have been there. The one in the middle was particularly deep. Even though he’d treated all three lines with ointment, it only took her a few seconds to recognize the marks for what they were, and another five seconds to recall one of the dead women back at the campsite. Or her fingers, to be more precise.
“She got a piece of them,” Ana had said.
“Yeah, at least one,” Chuck had replied. “I guess she didn’t get enough.”
If Gabriel noticed her staring at his arm, he didn’t stop cutting the bread. He had already gone through half of the loaf and was still talking.
“You know where that old saying ‘best thing since sliced bread’ came from? 1928. A guy named Otto invented a machine that could cut perfect slices of bread. The ads hyping it at the time actually went along the lines of, ‘The greatest forward step since bread was wrapped,’ or something like that. It somehow morphed into ‘The best thing since sliced bread.’ How funny is that?”