by M. D. Massey
Once we got in, I saw that Gabby had made our guest comfortable by stringing him up from the roof by his wrists with paracord. How she’d managed to do that by herself was beyond me—little shit must be stronger than she was letting on. The ropes looked pretty tight. I couldn’t give a damn at this point, since he’d been a pain in my ass for way too long now.
Earlier we’d made sure that the place was blacked out so no light could escape. As dark as it was at night without electricity, even a single peephole leaking light to the outside would shine like a beacon to all and sundry. Truth be told, I didn’t really need light for what I was about to do, nor did Gabby and Bobby, but I wanted our captive to see our faces so he’d know who he was dealing with. I pulled my LED light out of my bag and flipped the switch.
Pancho blinked several times as the world around him brightened into focus. He looked around, saw Gabby’s face first, and his eyes brightened a little. Then he took in Bobby, and lastly me. That’s when his face got serious; I could see the skin around his eyes tighten, and his expression went flat. He recognized me. I killed his brother and cousin, after all; it didn’t surprise me in the least that he did.
I stepped up closer and stopped about two feet from his face. “You remember me. Yeah, I figured you might, considering what went down the last few times we met.” I detected a slight facial tick at that last remark. So, I was right. I pulled out my tomahawk and used the spike to hook a corner of his gag. “Now, I have some questions for you, and I want to know if I can trust you to cooperate.” His eyes narrowed. “No? Well then, let me be clear: I am not the biggest threat to you in this room.”
His eyes darted to Gabby, and I could hear him chuckle through his gag. “Nope, not her, although she is wicked good with a knife, and I’m sure she’d carve you up like a ham if I let her.” He glanced over at Bobby and rolled his eyes.
I smiled. “Bobby, shift.”
I tried to keep a straight face as Bobby took off his shirt and shorts in front of us. Gabby blushed and turned her head; I hadn’t thought about the kid needing to undress before I spoke. That’s what I got for ad-libbing, I suppose. I flicked my eyes back to Pancho’s face, and heard a distinct series of pops and ripping noises behind me. I didn’t need to see Bobby shift to know we had Pancho scared shitless. He immediately started squirming and twisting, trying his damnedest to get as far away from the kid as he could.
Bobby, to his credit, knew how to make an impression. He dropped to all fours and stalked over to where Pancho was hanging, sniffed once at him, then placed his clawed hands on Pancho’s chest and growled right in his face. Pancho screwed his eyes shut and turned his head away. It was obvious he was scared shitless. His heart was beating out of his chest and his breathing was rapid and shallow. He actually whimpered, and at that I nodded for Bobby to back off. With one last growl he did as I asked, winking at me as he slunk away. Show off.
I turned to Pancho and crossed my arms. “Now, do we have an understanding?” He nodded vigorously, greasy hair flopping in loose sweaty strands up and down and in his face. I sheathed my tomahawk and reached up with a single finger and thumb to remove his gag. Time to play good cop.
Pancho heaved a short breath out and his chest shuddered like a child who’d been crying too long. He may have actually been on the verge of tears, but he was already composing himself, or making a decent enough show of it. “Shit, man, you didn’t have to call your dog on me.” Bobby growled and lunged at him, and Gabby made a show of holding him back. Nice one, kid.
Pancho cringed and whispered, “Hey, man, I didn’t mean nuthin’ by it, honest! It’s just that I seen what these things can do to a man, and I’m not ready to go down that way. Uh-uh.” He turned his head away from the wall, still wincing after Bobby’s lunge. “You ain’t gonna let him eat me, are you? I mean, if I cooperate?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, Pancho. He hasn’t eaten much in a few days. I’d try to avoid offending him.”
Pancho’s eyes grew wide. “I’ll talk! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you whatever, man, just don’t let him eat me, please. Shoot me if you have to, but don’t let him eat me alive.” His voice trailed off and his head slumped to his chest. Softly, he continued. “Please.”
Yep, that broke him all right, big man or no. I sent Bobby and Gabby to the other side of the attic and started asking questions. We’d need to be out of here an hour before dawn, and I didn’t think there was much time left to get the info I needed. Without further discourse, I let Pancho spill the beans.
Once Pancho started talking, it was hard to shut him up. Turns out him and a bunch of sorry-ass punters were working for the Corridor pack, bringing them slaves to work on some compound they had in North Austin. This explained why he’d been loaded with silver-tipped rounds when he shot Gabby; you’d have to be a fool to be within ten miles of a ‘thrope and not be carrying silver rounds. It also corroborated what Bobby had told me about the compound he remembered visiting. I had a suspicion Pancho could lead me to the settlers and Kara, so I squeezed him for all the details I could. He explained that the wolves were working with at least one vamp on a secret project in some lab. Pancho mentioned a college campus, which had me curious.
“Are they at the community college?”
He shook his head. “No, man, someplace that was owned by the university. Piece of shit tea-sippers, who knows what they were doing there before the War. Probably some communist shit.” I had to stifle a laugh; Pancho must’ve been an Aggie football fan before the War. No one else referred to students at the state university as tea-sippers. It wasn’t like any of that mattered now, though. I tuned in to what he was saying as he continued. “I can show you on a map if you got one, but you’ll have to cut me down.”
I tilted my head. “You know it goes without saying that if you make one wrong move, the wolf is going to rip your guts out and eat them slowly while you watch and scream.”
Pancho shook his head. “No, man, no way, no how—I ain’t gonna give you no trouble. Just please cut me down, I can’t feel my hands at all.”
I did as he asked, and dumped him on the floor. He sat there rubbing his hands together, which looked pretty funny since they weren’t doing anything he was asking of them. I reached into my ruck and pulled out a laminated map of Austin, unfolding it and laying it out on the floor in front of the LED light.
Pancho crawled over and started looking over the map, focusing on an area that was just north of the intersection of Highway 183 and the MoPac Expressway. “It’s somewhere right near that fancy shopping center they put in a few years before the bombs fell.” He pointed with his deadened fingers to a spot on the map. “There, at that Pickle place.”
I looked at where he pointed. It was the old research campus for the state university. Great, right in deader central, I reflected. There had been a lot of people living in that area before the War, so it was full of apartment complexes with a mix of light industrial office buildings and shopping centers to boot. We’d be in for a helluva trip just getting there.
Pancho continued. “They have that whole place fenced off, and they’re using some apartments over here to house all the slave workers.” He pointed at a spot just north of the research campus. “The entire area is pretty much fenced or walled off from deaders. Pretty sweet setup, actually. Good place to get laid, if you know what I mean.” I cocked an eye at him, so he elaborated. “Slave girls—they’ll do anything not to get fed to the wolves.” He snickered until he saw the look on my face, and then clammed up fast.
It was all I could do not to deck him, but I had to keep it cool so I could get more intel. I stuffed my disgust down deep where it could fester, and pointed to an area across the expressway. “What about this area? Any wolf activity there?”
He shook his head. “Nope, nuthin’. Just a bunch of old office buildings that are full of deaders. Plus, I’m pretty sure there are some vamps that live in the upper floors. I think they pull security or somethin’ around the p
lace. That pretty boy vamp they got working in that lab orders them around, I think.”
I thumbed the stubble on my chin. “Hmmm… tell me about him.”
Pancho sat back on his haunches and rubbed his hands, which flopped around like day-old hot dogs. He shrugged. “Don’t know much about him. ‘Cept he ain’t like no vamp I ever seen before. For one, he looks like you and me, only pretty, like a Hollywood actor or sumthin’. You know, like that James Bond guy.”
“You mean Daniel Craig?”
“No, not that guy, the other one. Kind of wimpy and skinny.”
I nodded. “Ah, Pierce Brosnan.”
Pancho nodded vigorously and gesticulated with his limp hot dog fingers. “Yeah, that’s the one! He’s like that, kind of pretty and just too damn good-lookin’—I mean, if you were into guys. I’m not, but if you were.”
I just stared at him.
“Because, you know, I’m not queer or anything.” He paused with a worried look on his face. “You ain’t queer, is ya? Cuz’, there’s nuthin’ wrong with that, man! I mean, I get it, it’s a free country, I mean free-er than it’s ever been. Do your thing, ya know?”
I decided to ignore his prattling and move on. “So what’s this vamp’s role at the lab? Do you know why he’s there?”
Pancho paused, and his brow furrowed. “Well, let’s see. I can’t think of anything in particular that anyone said—’course they don’t let us in on much, so long as we deliver the goods to them.” He raised a finger, which immediately wilted to half-mast. “But I can tell you this, he helps keep the slaves under control. I seen him put the hoodoo on some of the slaves, more than once.”
That reminded me of something Bernie and Marge had told me about a vamp that helped abduct the settlers from the Canyon Lake outpost. “Go on.”
Pancho wiped his brow. “Well, he does this thing with his eyes, sort of like a snake charmer, or some voodoo or somethin’. I cain’t describe it, it’s just that when he does it, whoever he does it to just does whatever he says.”
That could be a problem. As if we didn’t have enough problems with the Pack. “Alright, so he hypnotizes people. What else can you tell me about him? Is he like a nos’, fast and strong?”
Pancho shook his head. “Never seen him fight. All I know is, the wolves all steer clear of him, ‘cept that main wolf, Van.”
So, the wolves deferred to the vamp. Interesting. “Tell me about this Van character.”
Pancho let out a low whistle. “He’s heavy duty, man, and not someone to be lightly screwed with, if you know what I mean. I seen him behead another wolf who challenged him, with just one swipe of his claws. He always deals fair with us though, and pays exactly what he promises.”
I squinted at him and tapped my fingers on my ‘hawk. “Which would be…?”
Pancho hemmed and hawed. “Oh, you know. Ammo. Girls. Booze. Whatever. He, um, well…he pays good for slaves, alright? I know you don’t approve, but it’s a different world now, and folks gotta do what they can to survive.”
I shook my head. “They don’t have to prey on innocent people, Pancho.” He seemed unfazed by my statement, and I was quickly losing my patience for this piece of sewer scum. I decided to continue before I lost it completely. “Tell me about how you get through the city without pulling an army of undead down on you. North Austin has to be full of deaders. How do you get to the compound without getting eaten?”
He chuckled. “Aw, man, that’s easy. Wolves got safe houses and relay points set up all through the city. So long as you travel under the sun and hit the safe houses on time, you can walk right through town with a dozen slaves in tow and never see a deader, not one.”
It sounded like a trap, but it was also the only thing that made sense. Since he’d told me where the compound was I’d been wondering how they got slaves safely through one of the most dangerous areas in the Corridor. I looked Pancho in the eye. “I need those maps.”
He laughed. “Well, obviously I ain’t got ‘em. They’s in my bag back where you snatched me. Good luck getting them, too. Even with that wolf you’re outnumbered and outgunned.”
I thought about it, and damn it if Pancho wasn’t right. However, I knew a way to take care of those punters and get the maps at the same time. “Pancho, I need you to tell me honest, and your life may just depend on this information. Are there any slaves in your group?”
He shook his head. “No, none. We came up empty-handed this trip. Slaves are getting harder to find this close to the Corridor. We was planning on crossing over and starting to hunt east of 35 for the next few weeks.”
I nodded once. “Good to know.” I leaned forward to gag him once more.
Pancho protested with his hands up in the air. “Hey, wait a minute now, what’re you going to do with me? You ain’t going to leave me for dead here, are you?”
“Nope. You’re coming with us to the Corridor as insurance.”
Pancho started cussing and spitting at me, so I leaned in again to gag him. He lifted his hands in protest one more time. “Wait, wait, wait, one more question afore you gag me again… why you keep calling me Pancho?”
EIGHT
MANSLAUGHTER
MY PLAN WAS SIMPLE; we’d follow the punters until they made camp again and then I’d arrange for a late night visit from the local wildlife, the same way I did when I rescued Bobby. The only difference now was I should be able to go in afterward and take what we needed without suffering the same fate. “Should” being the operative word.
An hour before dawn we had trussed Pancho from the waist up and had him trailing us by a length of rope tied to Donkey’s saddle. I knew he wouldn’t be able to hop on Donkey and ride off, nor would he be able to get close enough to the animal in order to untie himself from the saddle; Donkey wouldn’t allow it. He’d slow us down a bit, but not by much since about half the punters were traveling on foot as well.
I took the group off to the west, away from the Corridor but close enough so that Bobby and Gabby could take turns tracking them. Since we were more or less moving in the same direction, I wasn’t concerned about losing the group; I was only concerned about them picking up our trail and closing in on us. Bobby stayed behind and watched the punters from a distance, making note of their direction of movement and reporting back to me once they’d hit the trail. We followed about a half-mile behind them, out of sight and earshot, but close enough to track them until nightfall.
A few hours before dark, they stopped and set up for the night in an old YMCA along Hwy 290. We found a pawn shop with an enclosed yard still intact not too far from the punters’ location, and quietly cleared it of deaders before moving Donkey and our gear inside. The front of the shop was enclosed with a sliding security bar system, but it had long ago been sacked by looters who had apparently broke in through a rear window, which was our point of ingress as well.
Even though it’d been looted, we searched the place thoroughly just the same. Initially we turned up little more than a few half-empty boxes of shotgun shells, some loose .45 caliber and .22 rounds, and an old discarded hunting knife. I had about given up on searching the place when I came across a nice little find on top of a storage shelf in back. It was in what looked like a pool cue case, covered in black faux leather with rusting chrome latches and hinges keeping it shut. I dusted it off and popped the latches; inside was an old WWII Japanese NCO’s katana, still in the original scabbard, kept clean and dry in a silk bag that had apparently been made specifically for that purpose.
Many of these swords were junk, churned out in factories toward the middle and end of the war from substandard steel, and were nothing like the traditional tamahagane blades that Japanese sword smiths had crafted centuries before. However, every once in a while you’d come across an actual hand-smithed blade that had been cut down and refitted to a military-issue handle and guard, presumably so a descendant of some obscure samurai clan could carry his ancestor’s blade into battle against the gaijin. It was a damned
shame really, to butcher an antique blade like that, but I could understand the utility of it—if not the aesthetics.
As it turned out, the blade in the scabbard was definitely folded steel, probably dating from the 17th century. Strangely enough, it had been fitted in the metal guard and hilt of an NCO’s sword, rather than in a custom hilt as would be the case with an officer’s sword. Beyond that I couldn’t tell much about it, not without taking it apart and looking up the bladesmith’s marks in a reference book that likely no longer existed. But it had been well-cared for and was in very good condition. I tested the blade’s edge with my thumbnail; it was just as sharp as the day they’d pawned it.
It’d been years since I’d done gumdo, the Korean version of Japanese iaijutsu and kenjutsu, but I still remembered the basic drills and forms. As soon as we had time, I intended to dust them off. I walked out to the front of the shop with my booty, tucking it alongside my ruck and bedroll. Bobby strode up to check it out as soon as he saw what I’d found.
“Ooooh, Afro Samurai. Cool.” He looked at me, then looked over at Pancho across the shop. “You think we should feed him?”
I pursed my lips and screwed my mouth sideways with mock indecision. “I suppose, although I’d just as soon starve him to death. Give him some jerky and trail bread, and make sure he gets some water too. It’ll be a damn sight better than he treated the slaves they captured, and better treatment than he deserves.”
Bobby nodded. “Agreed, but we do need to keep him healthy so he can keep up once we get closer to downtown.” He paused and sniffed in very canine manner. “You think he’ll lead us into a trap?”
“Maybe, but that’s a risk we’ll have to take. Once we get his maps, though, it’ll be a lot harder for him to do us dirty. Which is why we need to get them tonight.”
Bobby was about to enquire further when we were interrupted by Gabby emerging from the back rooms of the pawn shop. She was carrying a fairly serviceable sharpening stone and a lawn mower blade in her hands, with a look on her face that dared anyone to challenge her.